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welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me
00:01:48
as always is a man that knows that the greatest battle of Life can sometimes be on the 4in playing field between your
00:01:55
ears here is the captain my head is so big I believe it's a 5 in Playing Field it's good to be seen and good to see you
00:02:03
thanks for listening thanks for telling a [Music] friend this week we are featuring pulp
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friction by the micro Brewery out of brenon Florida that's called Motorworks Brewing this is a refreshing IPA with
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garage grade three and 3/4 bottle caps out of five and here's some high fives to our friends that filled up the fridge
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for us this week first up a big cheers to Gustaf barreras in Parts Unknown and a big we like your jib to Jason in atena
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Georgia and here we go to one of my favorite cities in the entire world to give a cheers to Haley and Dallas Texas
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everybody we just mentioned they went to True Crim garage.com and helped us out with this week's beer fund and for that
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we thank you yeah BWW R you in beer Ron if you need more True Crime garage for your earballs check us out on Stitcher
00:03:16
our show called off the record it is for the nasty people across the world and that's
00:03:24
enough of the business all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true
00:03:37
crime me this is the end anybody love me anybody love me this is the end anybody love
00:03:54
me don't Don't This is the End don't don't don't [Music] anybody in Lee County Florida at the
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start of the New Year the local papers were releasing a special report about murders in the area
00:04:17
from the previous year 1995 the title of the article murderers mainly strangers and it says Lee County sees 23
00:04:29
people slain in 1995 the article I'm referencing was in the January 2nd Fort Meyers News
00:04:38
Press throughout the article the newspaper will site statistics sourced from the FBI Lee County Sheriff's Office
00:04:47
Fort Meyers police and Cape Coral PD one such statistic cited states that nationally in
00:04:56
1995 about 8 to 10 people were murdered mured for every 100,000 people Lee County's population in '95 was about
00:05:06
377,000 people Lee County saw 23 murders in 1995 which put them well below the national average the article reads in
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part to be a victim of murder in Lee County last year was in many cases to fall prey to someone who had set out to
00:05:25
commit a robbery burglary or some other crime of the 23 people who died at the hands
00:05:32
of others at least 10 were killed by thieves or drug dealers who stepped over a deadly line nationally only about 177%
00:05:44
of murders are committed during other felonies in Lee County while the number of murders fell well below the national
00:05:53
average they were well above the stranger on Stranger murder rate where someone committing some other type of
00:06:01
felony offense kills a stranger in the process for instance a young man lost his life trying to fend off a robber who
00:06:12
broke into his duplex the renter was stabbed to death with a kitchen knife the man who broke
00:06:19
into the home killed the young man and made off with his television later trading the TV for $20 worth of cracked
00:06:28
cocaine but more traditionally murder is a crime of passion committed by a jealous lover or
00:06:36
angry friend that close connection between victim and attacker makes murder one of
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the simpler crimes to solve and one of the least preventable some of the homicides in Lee County in 1995 did not
00:06:51
fit that mold some law enforcement officials were saying quote each year we get further
00:06:58
and further away from the old homicide adage where it used to be the nearest and dearest said Lieutenant Jeff Taylor
00:07:07
commander of the Lee County Sheriff's Office Major Crimes unit but homicides like that of the Breakin the kitchen
00:07:15
knife murder reflected a national Trend that began about 3 years prior to 1995 and officials were saying that the
00:07:24
relationship between victim and killer were starting to become more anonymous Nationwide
00:07:33
23,35 people were murdered in 1994 among the killings in which the victim killer relationship was
00:07:42
reported 53% of the murderers Were Strangers or the police had not proven a link to the victim according to Alfred
00:07:51
bloomstein a professor at the Hines School of public policy and management at Carnegie melon University in Pitts
00:07:59
Berg he says that is due to the growing rate of homicides committed by young people who are more likely to kill
00:08:07
someone they didn't know these statements are true based on the numbers and statistics listed
00:08:14
throughout the article Lee County was smart while the murder rate there was low they still did not lose sight of the
00:08:22
fact that the Killer and victim relationship was changing nationally and changing even more so per capita
00:08:30
in Lee County good on them to keep an eye on crime statistics and Trends and the
00:08:36
jurisdiction that they are sworn to protect and serve it may or may not come as a surprise to you but not all law
00:08:44
enforcement agencies care this much about crime statistics in fact I'm sure that several may just chalk it up to a
00:08:51
bad year or bad luck not taking the time to examine the situation and better understand the situation ation one must
00:09:00
first identify the problem and understand it before you can come up with a solution the article we cited
00:09:08
came out on January 2nd 1996 and what the Sheriff's Office did not know is that murder Trend would
00:09:16
continue not just for Lee County but some of the surrounding counties as well and it would not be the youths of the
00:09:24
area that they would need to be so concerned about because in the count IES of Lee Charlotte and Sarasota Florida
00:09:33
someone was picking up strangers torturing and killing them and leaving their mutilated bodies in the
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woods this is true crime garage and this is the hog Trail [Music] murders anybody
00:09:57
me this is the end one day before that newspaper article ran a very strange an unusual incident
00:10:09
was reported in Northport Northport is actually in Sarasota County Florida this week we will be talking a lot about
00:10:17
three different counties all in the Southwest District of Florida those Three Counties going from north to south
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are Sarasota County Charlotte and Lee County on New Year's Day a nice family in Northport were horrified when their
00:10:35
dog trotted up the lawn to their house with a human skull in the dog's mouth this is a much more quiet neighborhood
00:10:43
this is not a high crime area or really even a hi traic area at all the dog regularly went into the woods back
00:10:52
behind the family's backyard of course this is nothing that anyone would even expect that their dog would find and
00:11:02
find so near to their home I might add and then bring it to the family's backyard this is a complete shock and a
00:11:10
very disturbing surprise to this good family so they phone it into police the police come out to take a look see
00:11:19
what's going on take a report the usual police business but put on your boots fellas
00:11:25
and bring a forensic team with you cuz it looks like you're going to be body hunting in the woods today oh goody now
00:11:33
almost as unnerving as the dog with the skull incident the family tells police that that same dog had been
00:11:43
bringing bones to the family for about a month now but they thought that these bones had come from some kind of dead
00:11:52
animal or dead animals in the area that makes sense detectives scour the area now now we don't get a lot of
00:12:01
information about the discovery that day but here are what little details that are revealed by law enforcement at the
00:12:12
scene police do not find any items personal or otherwise that would help to identify who it was in the woods in fact
00:12:22
they do not find any clothing either however police eventually pieced together much of a skeleton a skeleton
00:12:31
belonging to one individual later it was determined that the body was that of a male and because
00:12:38
of how and where the remains were found they were going to work this as a homicide unless they found evidence to
00:12:47
suggest that it was not a homicide right so now we have a John Doe homicide or at
00:12:53
least a suspicious death of a John Doe with an investigation to follow now this is interesting because about 2
00:13:02
years earlier one County over in the Port Charlotte area just on the other side of the county line on
00:13:11
February 1st 1994 a mutilated corpse was discovered this is when a construction worker
00:13:18
stumbled upon a partially decomposed body of a male who was naked and lying on his back unfortunately there was not
00:13:27
much at the scene to help police with an identification in that case either do we
00:13:32
know if the body was mutilated before it was buried or was it mutilated afterwards possibly by animals from my
00:13:42
understanding in these two situations we don't have a burial at all from my understanding both are thought
00:13:50
to have just been lying on the ground the victim that is right and of course with the dog situation we know that we
00:13:56
do have the animals scattering the bones but with this February 1st 1994 case I don't know so much about the
00:14:09
the activity the animal activity that that came with that one we do know that this corpse was mutilated and it was
00:14:18
found not buried it was a male victim found naked lying on his back by this construction worker we have one body
00:14:26
that's found by the dog the dog brings a skeleton back to its owners and that's in
00:14:31
1996 and then a county away they find this other unburied but mutilated body in 1994 yes and I know we said one County
00:14:40
over but this is really just a matter of a handful of miles away it's not really
00:14:44
a great distance at all right and this 1994 John do and this 96 John do this is all a very similar situation minus the
00:14:54
dog however now at the scene of the 94 case police do not find any personal items that would identify who it was
00:15:04
that they found in the woods they do not find any clothing either just like in the 96 case they do conclude a few
00:15:11
pieces of information though one the body had been outside for about a month two they find rope burns on the skin and
00:15:22
three the genitalia had been removed and discarded so the victim was tortured the
00:15:28
identified male victim was tortured and killed likely right where he was found where he was later found yeah disgusting
00:15:37
now because this victim was found first he is later referred to as John Doe number one the victim found almost two
00:15:46
years later becomes John Doe number two but keep in mind at this time we don't know that
00:15:54
they that these cases are in fact related okay so to recap here before we move on
00:16:02
because this could get a little confusing we have an unidentified male victim found February 1st 1994 and then
00:16:09
another unidentified male victim found a few miles away almost 2 years later on January 1st
00:16:18
1996 also we can deduce from the family story of the dog bringing bones for almost daily for up to a month that at
00:16:27
the very least our John Doe number two was likely dead for a month if not two prior to the
00:16:36
report that was given once the skull was brought to the family on New Year's Day
00:16:41
1996 well I believe both bodies were pretty badly decomposed that's right and I've heard one expert say that in
00:16:49
Florida based off of the humidity the rate of decomposition is increased and therefore you could put
00:16:58
somebody in the woods put a body in the woods and then later within a matter of weeks you could have a skeleton if not a
00:17:06
month so it the the rate is certainly enhanced and increased in this area we're heading to Florida police much
00:17:14
later will say that in all likelihood these homicides are connected so we have John do 1 and John do number two again
00:17:21
to be perfectly clear in all reality we actually sit here 20 years well over 20 years later and we cannot say with 100%
00:17:32
certainty that these two cases are directly related but like the late great Bruce Lee said be as water my friends so
00:17:41
we shall stay water live in the moment as we go through this timeline after all this is a very fluid situation don't
00:17:49
know if that's what Bruce Lee meant by that so we will take it one case at a time but unfortunately that also means
00:17:55
one body at a time because two months after the discovery of John do number two a third man's mutilated body was
00:18:04
discovered in Northport on March 7th 1996 in this case police through their forensics analysis and autopsy
00:18:14
information they determined that this unidentified male victim was murdered but he had been killed only 10 days
00:18:21
earlier so only approximately 10 days before the discovery of the body the male victim would quickly have to assume
00:18:29
the name of John Doe number three now pardon the expression but because this body was quite a bit more fresh than the
00:18:38
other two that old saying dead men tell no Tales well [ __ ] hey now while they may not be able to reveal all
00:18:45
secrets the body of John Doe number three told a tale of a truly and deeply disturbing death there were ligature
00:18:54
marks on both the chest and legs of John do number three's body yeah meaning that
00:19:00
the victim was bound the victim's genitals had been amputated several sources have stated this is believed to
00:19:08
have occurred after death now of course the detectives noting the similarities that they are seeing at the crime scenes
00:19:17
and on the victims as well one detail they noticed at the joho number three crime scene was ligature marks on a tree
00:19:27
near the body one glaring difference that they noticed with John Doe number three were cuts on
00:19:35
the bottoms of his feet this suggests that the victim had likely ran through the forest sans's
00:19:43
shoes detectives had to wonder why and who was chasing this man through the woods did this man almost get away and
00:19:52
what kind of killer would be out there so ruthlessly and determinedly pursuing the victim it makes you question was the
00:20:00
victim bound before they're taken out to the woods or were they bound after they
00:20:04
were caught did they play a game of cat and mouse right you can almost see this playing out like some kind of horror
00:20:11
flick right with the the killer chasing down the victim at night in these woods and then mutilating the body in that
00:20:19
despicable manner before he himself flees the area now let's back up just a little bit here captain at the John Doe
00:20:27
number three crime scene detectives took special interest in those leature marks
00:20:32
found on the tree that we briefly discussed well and here's why so after making that Discovery they decide to go
00:20:41
back to the other two crime scenes and when returning to the crime scene of John Doe number one detectives
00:20:50
discovered similar damage to a tree near where the body had been found over 2 years prior yeah you got to applaud law
00:20:57
enforcement and Detective on this one this was a very smart idea then detectives took another trip this time
00:21:03
out to the donut shop this time out to reexamine the area where John Doe number two was found right there they observed
00:21:11
comparable marks on a tree near the spot where the body was found because of the very specific
00:21:18
mutilation done to at least two of the victims possibly all three again we don't have a lot of information in some
00:21:25
of these and as the captain pointed out we have a great deal of decomposition that's taking place but this specific
00:21:33
type of Mutilation we should note this would be a signature this will indicate to a
00:21:39
seasoned and experienced detective that they are very likely looking for one killer in all three cases or at least
00:21:48
the same set of killers well similar dumping grounds but like you said they're miles away but these this is a
00:21:55
signature now if you have a body that's not fully decomposed then you can see the bound marks obviously a body that's
00:22:04
very badly decomposed you can't but sometimes there is evidence uh when they do the autopsy that they can see that
00:22:12
the the victim was bound even if there's no skin left on that victim well and more so you have the mutilation of the
00:22:19
body itself with the amputation of the genitals so a signature found at a crime scene a murder scene is an act that is
00:22:29
not required in order to commit the crime rather it serves the emotional or psychological needs of the offender
00:22:37
right the signature comes from within the psyche of the offender and it reflects a deep fantasy need that the
00:22:45
killer has about his victims well I'm sure they did some tests because obviously these victims are found in
00:22:52
these wooded areas and they're they're susceptible to having animals come upon them but there's a big difference
00:22:58
between between a body being mutilated by animals and a body being mutilated by a
00:23:14
killer end this show is sponsored by better help do you look forward to the holiday
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00:25:25
hosers cheers captain Che so the local authorities in Charlotte County and Sarasota County are
00:25:33
armed and equipped with a good deal of information at least enough at this point that they believe that they are
00:25:40
not harbored or hindered by linkage blindness they are seeing and finding details telling them that they are most
00:25:49
likely looking for a Serial offender or serial killer but one very troubling fact of their case and investigation at
00:25:57
this this time was they were still unable to identify any of these victims they did not know who these victims were
00:26:08
and therefore how these victims could be possibly related how did they all end up
00:26:15
where they did and how did each one of them cross paths with the Killer and of course it's homicide
00:26:23
investigation 101 all of our listeners know this but you start with the victim you start with their Inner Circle and
00:26:30
you fan out from there on your investigation the problem here you don't know who the victim is not in just one
00:26:38
case but all three cases well when you go back to the signatures obviously the victim's being bound but I think the the
00:26:45
big red flag to connect these is is the markings on on the tree yes and and of course you know we we should continue to
00:26:54
go back to that actual mutilation as well that's not something that's right common in any homicide I've been trying
00:27:00
to forget about that ination you're right we I probably should have wiped it from my mind as well I will do the best
00:27:06
that I can to achieve that after Today's Show oh good luck now what's interesting
00:27:12
to me here Captain though is the investigators seem to be hip to the idea that these cases could all be related
00:27:23
but the public was not blind to this either there was now talk and rumors of a local serial killer being on the hunt
00:27:32
in the area this talk was being bandied about at this time in our timeline so while the police were still trying to
00:27:42
identify and sort out just who each one of these one two three John Doe were well then just one month in 10 days
00:27:52
later the following happened this would be another disturbing f that occurred in a wooded isolated area
00:28:01
this in Charlotte County Florida the following takes place on April 17th 1996 this is when two storm utility
00:28:10
Engineers Thomas Ree and Michael Tish are out working in a heavy wooded and secluded area off of Highway
00:28:19
41 in fact this is very very close to where the body of John Doe was found I'm sorry John John Doe number one was found
00:28:30
like you said this is in the area of John Doe number one if I'm law enforcement if I'm the detective and I
00:28:35
get my detective voice on I'm going to be running Cav dogs all through this area but the problem is this victim
00:28:43
wasn't dead yet yes so this victim is discovered we have these two workers that discovered a human skull in the
00:28:51
woods on April 17th 1996 of course they called the Charlotte County Police dep Department patrolman detectives and the
00:29:00
forensic team arrive on the scene they secure the location and they start working now they are looking for your
00:29:09
typical items right clothing weapons or anything else that would help them to identify the victim or would help them
00:29:17
in their case their investigation they find a single pink fiber on a tree near where the skull was
00:29:26
found then just a few feet from the skull they find a decomposed torso and part of a pelvis the body had been
00:29:35
dismembered and was listed as John Doe number four but unfortunately that's not it a further
00:29:44
coming of the area provided a severely haunting spectacle this is when one of the detectives spotted a still hand
00:29:52
sticking up amongst the grass and the debris of the Woods this hand belonged to another body the body hand attached
00:30:01
was found wrapped up in a carpet padding lying at the foot of a tree the victim found in the carpet will be John Doe
00:30:11
number five I mean this is a a vicious level of killer it seems as if he's there's evidence that he's
00:30:20
chasing his victims there's evidence that he's bounding his victims up and torturing them and then dismembering
00:30:28
them and then mutilating parts of their body I mean this this is a psycho yeah this is about as as weird and evil as it
00:30:38
gets you know if one were to create a scale of such horrific things but we're talking about a situation where you can
00:30:46
look at this and view this and and view what's happened to these unfortunately what's happened to these people either
00:30:53
you know pre or postmortem regardless what we have here is a situation where the Killer is spending a good deal of
00:31:02
time with the victims this is not something where he abducts somebody or uses some
00:31:11
type of ruse and 45 minutes later they're dead and he's gone hitting the highway right this is all things that
00:31:17
are going to take a good amount of time all of these really disgusting and horrific activities that are taking
00:31:25
place and we have no clue how long he has them at a different location whether that location is a house or a workshop
00:31:35
somewhere or even just in a in a van right we're talking it could be as short as minutes it could be days and again
00:31:45
the the problem really goes back to the core of your investigation at this time is that you don't know who any of these
00:31:52
victims are yeah so you can't determine the the length of time time that they spent captive or under the control of
00:32:02
the killer it's all it's just all complete speculation with no basis at this point until you can identify any of
00:32:11
these victims now they see this hand the body still attached wrapped up in carpet
00:32:18
padding lying near the foot of the tree they would of course label this victim as John Doe number five we don't know at
00:32:27
this point in their investigation they have these suspicions based off of what they're seeing we review this and we
00:32:33
have it it seems very clear and cut and dried for us right that it's John Doe 1 through five well at the time they're
00:32:40
likely just finding another John Doe and maybe for clarification purposes later applying numbers to them based off of
00:32:47
when they were found well every time you say cut and dry keep grabbing my twig and berries the state of this body of
00:32:55
John do number five was very much like the previous four it was devastating of course the victim in this case was naked
00:33:03
lying on his back with signs of ligature marks around his neck chest and legs and
00:33:08
his genitals too had been removed the detectives found rope marks on a tree near the body so this is all lining up
00:33:17
with what they found at the other scenes so this find was about 50 yard from where the John do number four skull and
00:33:28
body were found so not a very far distance from the fourth victim this fifth victim and I apologize
00:33:37
there's no nice way of saying a lot of these things this fifth victim had a head and had likely been killed based
00:33:43
off of what they're seeing at the crime scene in the state of the body had likely been killed within a few days
00:33:50
prior to the Grim Discovery maybe even less time had gone by than that right and like you said because of the Florida
00:33:56
Heat Heat and the humidity they're going to be able to you know deduce a time frame they also find a tiny paint chip
00:34:05
that was found on the body and rope fibers were found on the ground and a tree this information quickly hits the
00:34:13
streets and the news so where there was once talk and rumors of an active serial
00:34:18
killer in the area these were sort of Whispers from the bushes at that time now with this new news to more bodies
00:34:27
being found two more male victims both unidentified still even after police were done searching the area where the
00:34:34
bodies were located now Captain speculation became rampant about a serial killer and how quickly the media
00:34:44
dubbed the murders the hog Trail killings so we have five victims five John do and
00:34:52
obviously based off science we're trying to identify these individuals but there's no wallet found but we do have
00:35:04
we have this carpet padding found we have some rope and we said we have some paint chips kind of makes you think that
00:35:11
we should be looking for somebody maybe in the construction field yeah the um media as said quickly dubbed the murders
00:35:20
the hog Trail killings name so for the wooded areas in which the bodies of the victims were found at least one source
00:35:28
that I found Captain said that this general area was a popular spot where people would discard Pig and hog
00:35:36
carcasses which I'm not sure how right that sounds I was unaware that there was such a need for the discarding of pig
00:35:43
and hog carcasses that there would be quote a place popular for this sort of activity or that there would even be one
00:35:50
place more popular than another for that sort of activity I also read that this area was an area where one would expect
00:35:59
to see quite a bit of wildlife activity likely an abundance of Wild Hogs so that
00:36:07
seems the reason that might make a little more sense why we're calling it The Hog Trail murders well also it could
00:36:15
be that there were hog tied now we will get back to the news covered of these last two bodies that were found here in
00:36:24
a minute but I do have some brief but intriguing information that was discovered during the autopsy process so
00:36:31
I'd like to get to all of that first well I'll make it fast the autopsy from the male victim found in the carpet was
00:36:39
determined to be that of a white male victim in his 20s they found that he was strangled to death with rope they found
00:36:47
several ligature marks on the body that included two ligature marks on the front
00:36:53
of his neck two horizontal marks on the right side of his chest AR braided grooves around his wrist the victim's
00:37:02
genitals had been removed with a very sharp knife or scalpel now all of the leature marks and a braided grooves were
00:37:11
of similar width but these marks didn't extend to the victim's back this was telling the marks were found on the body
00:37:20
and equally as important were where they were not found on the body this was consistent with marks that
00:37:29
would be left on an individual that had been tied to a tree they figured the man
00:37:35
had been dead for a little more than 24 hours before being found they will be able to fingerprint this victim because
00:37:44
he's not been there very long they fingerprinted the victim and ran the prince through the system it was
00:37:52
then discovered this victim who was dubbed John Doe number five was rather quickly and positively ided as
00:38:01
21-year-old Richard Montgomery so we have one identification of five victims this young Richard Montgomery had been
00:38:10
arrested at one point in his life and when he was arrested they took his fingerprints and thus he was in the
00:38:16
system and now identified as a murder victim in a seemingly string of possibly connected murders and you're saying
00:38:25
based off of these Mar s on his body this would indicate that he was tied to a tree correct if you if you think about
00:38:33
where I said all of the marks were on the body right they're all on the front of the body none of them are on the back
00:38:41
and then we also have similar markings that are found on nearby trees so you put two and two together and it would
00:38:49
appear that not only were the victim tied to this tree but he would be tied facing out his back is up against the
00:38:58
the trunk of the tree right so unfortunately two more bodies found is bringing us to five possibly
00:39:07
connected victims but the big break here is at least we have identified one of them yeah I'm guessing at this point law
00:39:15
enforcement is leaning heavily towards the idea that these John do are connected and that these murders are
00:39:21
connected and possibly done by one individual so one male victim found in February of
00:39:27
1994 one male victim recovered in January of 96 in March another male victim recovered and then in April again of
00:39:37
1996 two more male victims found so five victims in total found in three different locations in four separate
00:39:47
discoveries John Do's 1 through four unidentified John Doe number five identified as 21-year-old Richard
00:39:54
Montgomery and we've unfortunately have covered other cases where there's dumping grounds like Gilgo Beach and
00:40:02
West Mesa body pit but normally when they found one victim they're finding the other victims you know back to back
00:40:09
but this is almost even scarier because they're finding a victim later they're finding another victim and then they're
00:40:15
finding victims that are only been deceased a couple weeks or maybe less than a week yeah we've we've reviewed
00:40:23
some cases where a body is found and then months or even a year or so later they return to the scene because they're
00:40:32
kind of they're sitting there with an unsolved case and they want to go back to square one they go back to square one
00:40:38
they find another body and in those cases it's it's quite alarming and really disturbing that you learn that oh that
00:40:47
body had been there the whole time it you know when they found the first victim right this body was already there
00:40:53
here in this situation it's much different John Doe was was found in in an area very near John Doe's number four
00:41:00
and five or number five who is later identified as Richard Montgomery but John Doe number four and Richard
00:41:09
Montgomery they were able to determine they were not dead at the time that they found John Doe number one right but
00:41:16
think about that so this killer has to know that law enforcement is finding these bodies or we should assume that
00:41:23
they might know and they don't really change their Strate y they don't change their Killing Fields they don't change
00:41:30
their dumping grounds yes like you said there's multiple locations but they're not that far apart it's a you know if
00:41:38
you drew a circle around all the three locations it's a what 10 mile radius maybe um it's it's difficult to say I'm
00:41:46
looking at it here on the map the um John do number two was found considerably closer to joho's 1 four and
00:41:54
five uh 1 14 and five again they were all like kind of within walking distance but that's what I'm saying one another
00:42:00
but yeah you're right this guy is he is tying his victims up to trees he is cutting off their genitals he is
00:42:07
torturing them he's chasing them he's you know mutilating the bodies probably postmortem also and he's going hey I
00:42:17
like this area this is my spot and I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing and uh good luck trying to catch me well
00:42:24
yeah and it makes you wonder not only to the psychology of the killer but also what has happened throughout the course
00:42:33
of this case right you've you've only identified one of the five right doesn't that make you worry that oh John Doe
00:42:40
number one may have been there for consider even even longer than we had originally anticipated and the killer
00:42:46
was happy to place another body there because John Doe number one went undiscovered for so long well no and you
00:42:55
also I would be doing searches on trees because let's say we found 10 trees that
00:43:00
have these similar markings well there might be five other victims that we haven't found that maybe were buried
00:43:08
deeper or weren't buried at all and they were completely dis um uh they were completely
00:43:17
dismembered uh by animals and de and decomposed completely where we'll never find them but maybe we'd find evidence
00:43:26
uh of these tree markings on other trees so as said police get their first big break this is with the identification of
00:43:34
John Doe number five as being that of 21-year-old Richard Montgomery and as we said identifying him was easy due to the
00:43:45
fingerprints the dismembered body found near vicm Richard Montgomery which it was determined had been there for
00:43:54
several weeks might prove to to be a little more difficult but not as difficult as the first three John Doe's
00:44:02
this is because of an identifier found on John Doe number Four's body detectives found a tattoo on the
00:44:11
shoulder of this victim and hope that this would help to identify this person so on the Nightly
00:44:19
News they tell the public what they had discovered on those hog trails they showed a picture of what I was hoping to
00:44:29
find a a description of this tattoo and could not but they showed a picture of what they were calling a unique tattoo
00:44:39
on the Nightly News in hopes that someone could identify this person well they get their second break here because
00:44:47
after showing this picture on the Nightly News a woman called in and said my brother 25-year-old Kenny Smith had
00:44:57
that same tattoo on his shoulder So based off of this information and some information that they collect from the
00:45:04
Smith family and with the help of dental records they would later confirm that it was him John do number
00:45:12
four was Kenneth L Smith age 25 from nearby Naples Florida now we've covered so many cases I mean this is what
00:45:22
episode number 600 oh past the goalie I boom didn't even make the uh what an accomplishment we should have celebrated
00:45:31
better only two more episodes to go and then I quit right I told you from the beginning don't worry America I'll do
00:45:38
the last nine by myself no but I we've covered so many cases but it's hard to get
00:45:46
over how sick this individual is and I and Brazen it's almost like I am going to torture I'm going to kill these
00:45:55
people and by the way you can't stop me and I'm going to keep coming back to this area it seems as if
00:46:02
these this is not just the Killing Fields or Gilgo Beach this is just not dumping grounds this is
00:46:10
also his torture chamber well and I want to let's hit on something right here so
00:46:17
we can move past it going forward right because it would be silly to sit here and constantly say possibly related
00:46:24
victims possibly related crimes as you pointed out Captain law enforcement in this area are actively treating this as
00:46:32
these crimes are in fact connected again to be fair we cannot sit here even 20 years later and say with 100% certainty
00:46:42
that they are but let's go off of law enforcement's assessment of these crimes they're working it as it's all connected
00:46:51
so we're going to treat it the same and you're right you're really hitting in on
00:46:56
something here that I think is kind of lost in this overall story it gets it gets lost in the shuffle here you either
00:47:05
have two very extremely scary situations one if they're not connected then you have two individuals in your area doing
00:47:16
very similar horrific crimes that involve mutilation and torture and killing people and leaving them in the
00:47:22
woods that's terrifying right forget about one person doing it if you had two or more
00:47:29
horrific however it is Florida however going off of what law enforcement's assessment is that these
00:47:36
are in fact connected and they're working it as such you can still sit here and go my
00:47:44
God how scary is this where you have one individual doing this and as you point out so Brazen that oh you found one of
00:47:53
my bodies you found two or three three of my victims here's another one not terribly
00:47:59
far from where I left the first one right oh here's another one here's here's an individual that cannot stop
00:48:07
doing this even now that the threat of getting caught the risk level for his activities has increased significantly
00:48:16
with the finding of the first second and third body he is still active still hunting prey in this area now without
00:48:26
getting too far into the psychology of this particular killer now we've said it before and we'll say it again in the
00:48:35
captain's last two episodes and my last 11 that on these cases especially the serial offender cases you can build a
00:48:43
profile of your killer or Killers but you don't just profile the offender no in this
00:48:49
case you're going to profile the offender the victims the locations and the situation and good old-fashioned
00:48:58
detective work and your profile are going to tell you we got someone hunting in this area praying on vulnerable men
00:49:07
that are either transient or homeless this is based off of the identification of two of your victims right the
00:49:13
perpetrator was torturing and killing his victims after tying them to trees and out of the way wooded areas he
00:49:22
mutilates and leaves the victims where they are killed and then they go undiscovered for some time the bodies
00:49:30
that are found relatively quick show a great deal of trauma and degradation done to the body right Florida
00:49:39
authorities were looking for one sick [Music] bastard This Is the End [Music] me thank you so much for listening
00:50:03
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[Music] litter is it possible to predict the unpredictable can 3D printed life-size
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