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[Music] [Music] % [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for
00:01:45
listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always as a man that says Today's show starts in T-minus whenever it feels
00:01:52
right here is the captain yeah and it always feels right it's good to be seen good to see you thanks for listen
00:01:59
listening thanks for telling a [Music] friend you know what does feel right how about a pastry Stout today we are very
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happy to be featuring th's co- company this is an imperial stout with coconut vanilla beans milk sugar and oat milk
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this is a triple collaboration from the brewery microphone breu and moxa Brewing
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garage grade 4 and A4 bottle caps out of five and you know who else's good good company our friends right here first up
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a cheers to Laura in Salem orgon and a big shout out to Jeff and Danville Indiana next we have a cheers to Ashley
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their dog mommy Alison from asbo Mass and a big we like your JY to Tracy from Lort Texas and let's stay in the great
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state of Texas and give a shout out to Michelle in Austin and last but certainly not least we have a shout out
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to Gemma all the way over in East ridding of Yorkshire United Kingdom everyone we just mentioned they helped
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us fill up the garage fridge for this week's shows and for that we thank you yeah b r in Bean for everything True
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Crime Check out True Crime garage.com while you're there sign up on the mailing list hey also give a festar
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review also check out the store Page and also donate to that beer fun and that is
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enough of the business all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true
00:03:56
[Music] cry yeah yeah yeah yeah I want you to stay yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah I want you to
00:04:19
[Music] stay a young mother Tracy sism goes missing seemingly Vanishing Into Thin Air later
00:04:39
her vehicle turns up under mysterious circumstances this case is not without Witnesses nor
00:04:48
evidence in fact some of the items found in Tracy's vehicle provide much concern
00:04:53
but could also provide some answers a strange mystery couple is linked to this cas case but are
00:05:01
overshadowed by a violent man then a body is found by pure happen stance in rural
00:05:09
Indiana The Remains are unidentifiable so decomposed that detectives cannot determine the gender of the
00:05:16
remains but detectives were convinced they were dealing with a homicide the body was wrapped in a quilt
00:05:24
and tossed into a wooded Ravine someone discarded this individual out there in the Woods like garbage who
00:05:32
could do such a thing and why now it's 17 years later and this case is still unsolved this is true crime garage and
00:05:44
this is the case of Tracy [Music] cisem yeah I want you to St yeah yeah yeah yeah
00:06:05
yeah yeah [Music] I let's go back to Thursday October 7th 2004 this week's True Crime Story takes
00:06:22
us to a rural area of the great hoer state Indiana today we will be starting off in Brown County Indiana near the
00:06:31
Bartholomew County Line Brown County is in the southern portion of Indiana but Brown County is pretty much in the
00:06:38
center of the state on this Thursday we have a man named Pete Jones driving on Nelson Ridge Road East of the town of
00:06:47
nbone that's an ominous sounding Town name it was nighttime and it was dark suddenly his heart jumped as a deer
00:06:55
leapt into the road he slammed on his brakes his time Screech as the brakes locked up but it was too late deer
00:07:03
versus truck is never good for the vehicle or the deer the two collided with a loud crash the truck came to a
00:07:11
stop and the deer somehow managed to run off Pete was shaken and stirred cautiously he drove off glancing around
00:07:20
to make sure there were no more oncoming bambies when he got home he got out of his truck and he realized that one of
00:07:27
his running lights was missing of course it must have come off in the Collision he decided mainly because these lights
00:07:35
are $75 a piece he would be going back during daylight hours in hopes that he could recover the missing running light
00:07:44
and that it would be in working order when he locates it so the very next day Friday October 8th Pete drove back to
00:07:53
the area where he thought he had hit the deer looking for the car part so he could possibly have it reattached
00:07:59
matched he parked so he could get out on foot and look around for this missing piece but just as soon as he got out of
00:08:07
his truck he noticed a foul odor and his first thought was that of the deer but quickly he thought to himself that
00:08:16
smells like Decay and a deer could not have decayed that quickly now here's one of those heart stopping life-changing
00:08:24
moments Pete saw something unusual lying in the Ravine next to the road and it was not his truck light that he was
00:08:32
hoping to find this was something large wrapped up in some kind of blanket when he opened it to take a look and wished
00:08:40
that he had not he saw death because unfortunately it was a very badly decomposed body rolled up in a quilt and
00:08:49
tossed into the wooded area along the roadside the authorities were called in immediately because the call came in
00:08:57
from a location so close to the the county line officers from both Brown and Bartholomew counties arrived on the
00:09:04
scene and worked the scene together yeah I think I would have just called law enforcement I don't think I would have
00:09:10
had the guts to open up the blanket what we have here is basically an unidentifiable murder victim the county
00:09:19
officers know that immediately this person did not kill themselves then roll themselves up in a quilt and get to that
00:09:25
wooded area but what happens here Captain is that the remains are so badly decomposed in such a advanced stage of
00:09:34
decomp that the detectives from the sheriff's department can't make out the gender of the victim or an age so not
00:09:43
much really to go on as far as the initial investigation goes the body was removed and taken off to the Brown
00:09:51
County morg the scene was roped off and secured and again officers from both jurisdictions blocked off the road and
00:09:59
and scour the scene for any possible evidence that they could find now I'm playing devil's advocate here Captain
00:10:06
when I say this but I've seen some photographs of this location where they recovered the body from and this is an
00:10:14
ideal location to dump a body this is as country road as it gets Brown County only has about 15,000 residents for the
00:10:23
entirety of the county which is 216 square miles well you're saying this body is very badly
00:10:31
decomposed what makes you think that they think it's a homicide because it could be like an accidental death or
00:10:37
maybe even a overdose where somebody then takes the body and dumps it out into the woods those are all certainly
00:10:45
possibilities but what everything that is going to point to for the detectives is they know somebody else knows
00:10:52
something mhm somebody out there placed this body in this location how the person person died
00:10:59
could be a mystery and is a mystery at this point in our timeline but we know somebody put them there now baralu
00:11:07
county is much more populated with about 72,000 residents back in 2004 for 49 square miles but that is still not a lot
00:11:18
of people so you have this area where there's not really anybody living in the immediate area and not a whole lot of
00:11:24
people that live in either County but this Nelson Ridge Road is as said very country I'm talking no
00:11:32
street lights no signage there's Woods on both sides of the road so if you needed to dispose of something or wish
00:11:41
that you could do it under the cover of Darkness that sort of thing could easily
00:11:46
be achieved at this location the other part of it too Captain is that one might expect something to sit there and go
00:11:53
undetected for a good amount of time as well is this a road that people would travel often or is this some place that
00:12:01
maybe only locals would know this is a road that's kind of by the wayside that you wouldn't you wouldn't need to travel
00:12:09
this road if you were just passing through the area right the other thing you can jump off the interstate and it
00:12:15
hit real quickly correct and the other thing too is there's no reason there's nothing on this road in this location
00:12:23
that would make anybody want to stop there right there's not even a stop sign placing something here
00:12:29
is good for the offender or for whoever needs to dump this body because a if you
00:12:37
were doing this at night time you could see headlights off in the distance right
00:12:42
you would have minutes notice not seconds minutes notice that somebody will be coming your way soon and so you
00:12:49
could stop what you're doing or move on and again there's no reason to stop in this location so if you're looking for
00:12:57
something to go unfound this is where you put it you lose it right here and hope nobody ever
00:13:03
finds it m now we said that the body was taken to the Brown County morg but the autopsy was actually performed at the
00:13:11
University of Indiana's School of Medicine forensic pathology division in Indianapolis try saying that three times
00:13:19
fast now here is what they were able to determine our victim is a female victim between the ages of 25 and 30 5 and
00:13:29
remained unidentified after the autopsy detectives released that the victim had a tattoo of a chain with a flower
00:13:37
located toward the back of the victim's ankle adding that they were looking at all of the missing person files
00:13:43
throughout the entire United States but so far have not been able to determine the identity for a second I thought
00:13:50
you're going to say the victim had a tattoo of a chainsaw I thinking that's a pretty badass tattoo chainsaw tattoo two
00:13:58
sales just went way up way up they were asking law enforcement was asking if the
00:14:03
public you know if they knew anything about this case or know someone with a similar tattoo that they could call the
00:14:11
Indiana State Police they included the following statement in the request for information from the public that because
00:14:18
of the manner in which the body was found detectives believe the woman was killed somewhere else and dumped at this
00:14:25
location prosecutor Jim Oliver said quote in most murder investigations detectives work really hard in the first
00:14:33
36 hours to solve the crime our investigators are frustrated with not having many leads to follow up at this
00:14:41
point end quote that statement was made to the Brown County Democrat newspaper editor Linda marginson 5 days after the
00:14:50
body was found so as we already knew but the prosecutor confirming the detectives
00:14:56
would work around the clock trying to get evidence and leads for the first 36 hours of their
00:15:05
investigation but here we have five days into this homicide and because of the nature of the case it sounds like we
00:15:13
have some evidence but no leads to move on and have an unidentified female homicide victim yeah all the evidence
00:15:21
they have is coming from the autopsy or coming from the scene in which they found the body now for us Captain we
00:15:28
don't have the autopsy report and frustratingly authorities have never released the cause of death here in this
00:15:35
case the body in the blanket was that of a young woman but she could not be identified we don't know how long the
00:15:42
Emy believed her to have been dead but based on the advanced level of deom we would say probably quite a while and
00:15:51
investigators were not certain how long the body had been lying in the wooded area where it was found although one AP
00:16:00
Associated Press article citing Brown County prosecutor Jim Oliver said that it had been there for up to8 weeks okay
00:16:09
so we know that she was found on October 8th and been there for possibly up to8 weeks as the prosecutors saying in this
00:16:17
article which would mean roughly August 14th 2014 so these remains wrapped in a blanket were placed
00:16:26
there as early as August 14th 2004 well like you said this is a tough scenario for law enforcement because they don't
00:16:34
have a lot to go on it's not like there's been a missing girl in the area for years and they go oh this is
00:16:41
probably her they don't have a lot to go off of and even after you find the body
00:16:46
Captain you know that whomever placed the victim there now has had some time to cover their own tracks you've not
00:16:55
been able to identify the victim you can't check on the victim's Inner Circle can't find out where the victim came
00:17:02
from obviously you find your victim in Brown County if you don't have anybody that matches a vague description missing
00:17:10
from your county you know you're going outside of of your box there immediately and and like you said there's if they
00:17:19
had any leads they're drying up real quick based off of the victim not being able to be identified as well as the
00:17:26
prosecutor saying the the victim could have been at this site for up to8 weeks well but they also did leave something
00:17:34
behind that is identifiable the blanket there could be some fibers or some DNA left or even pet hair so
00:17:47
that is a mistake that maybe the killer did make I'm wondering if this individual or the people that place the
00:17:55
victim there I'm guessing that they thought that the body would remain there for quite some time before somebody
00:18:01
found it yeah now this would have been late fall we've said this on the show plenty of times because it's just one of
00:18:10
the hardcore facts of True Crime that spring is typically when bodies are found in wooded areas this is because
00:18:20
Hunters go out after the winter The Long Winter short winter whatever kind of winter you have and that's when they
00:18:27
start going out walking these country areas and that's usually typically when something's found so had this guy not
00:18:35
hit this deer and lost a light there's a chance in my mind anyway that they wouldn't have found this body for
00:18:44
several more months well he also becomes a suspect that's true for a short period
00:18:49
of time I I would assume that they would start with him and go well was he just telling us this as a ruse so now let's
00:18:57
go figure out where he was what's his Alibi yeah at the very least show me some damage to your truck yeah because
00:19:05
you're you're right Captain that's that's the first thing you got to hone in on as an investigator you're going
00:19:10
okay well this guy has he found the body so he put himself at the dump scene why
00:19:15
was he there yeah nobody again this is a spot where nobody really has a reason to
00:19:20
be in this location so why was he there I'm sure he would have been looked at what we do know about the cause of death
00:19:29
which as we have said has never been addressed publicly well we know that this case was treated as a homicide very
00:19:36
quickly and right after the medical examiner viewed the body now per the Northwest Indiana Times Brown County
00:19:44
prosecutor Jim Oliver said investigators were treating the case as a homicide although the body had not been
00:19:50
identified at that point quote I don't think there's much doubt Foul Play was involved here end quote that's what
00:19:58
Oliver said okay so it was evident to someone presumably the medical examiner that this woman was murdered that she
00:20:09
was a murder victim and even though the cause of death has never been released and Insider in the case told us that the
00:20:17
cause of death is listed on the death certificate as strangulation so the ways that this
00:20:24
could be evident on a badly decomposed corpse is if there was some kind of ligature still on the body or marks in
00:20:33
the flesh from a ligature or if the hyoid bone was broken which usually results from a violent choking but like
00:20:40
you said the body is so badly decomposed how did they go about trying to identify
00:20:45
her right because that's your number one concern that's your first objective here
00:20:50
to hopefully get an ID on the victim now Brown County authorities looked into missing persons reports within the
00:20:57
county but no missing person's report had been filed in the county that matched the
00:21:02
description of this female victim that they found so they reached out to other nearby
00:21:08
jurisdictions they provided a description of the body as a young white female with dark hair in a tattoo still
00:21:16
visible despite the deom and as we stated earlier the prosecutor described that tattoo as a chain around the right
00:21:24
ankle with a rose or some kind of flower on the back of the ankle the other interesting thing though here captain
00:21:31
and this is something that we just don't see law enforcement do very often but something you brought up which is an
00:21:37
interesting angle and one that I'm curious as to why th this angle is not pursued more often you mentioned that
00:21:45
one thing that should be more easily identifiable if it crosses the right person's eyes would be that quilt right
00:21:54
they keep describing this thing as a quilt not a blanket quilt to me is like handmade passed down throughout the
00:22:01
years maybe grandma made it maybe your favorite aunt made it usually these are family type items yeah sometimes made
00:22:09
from articles of clothing that the family owned the captain is quite the quilt maker everyone should know that
00:22:17
but again we don't see law enforcement do that very often do we where they let's take a picture of this quilt and
00:22:24
there there's probably reasons why we just don't know what they are are but I question that from time to time when you
00:22:31
seem to be so desperate to to ID this body you think you'd be pulling out all the stops here and and post pictures of
00:22:40
that uh put it on the news in the newspapers and what have you well we had a handmade curtains that they found at
00:22:49
the scene of Amy mic's death they didn't release that information for years yeah
00:22:55
almost felt like a lifetime between the time that she was found and when they showed us pictures of the curtain mhm
00:23:03
well finally captain on October 15th a missing person's report came into the Indiana State Police or ISP for short
00:23:12
this report came from the police department in Indianapolis a woman named Tracy sandin storm sism was reported
00:23:22
missing in Indianapolis the missing woman fit the description of the body found in Brown County Tracy's dental
00:23:30
records were obtained from her family and sent over to the Indiana State Police it's not at all clear why it took
00:23:40
such a long time to definitively ID the body because eventually that's what happens we we are going to ID the body
00:23:48
as this Tracy system but it was not until December 17th that an announcement was made by
00:23:55
the Indiana State Police this is the lead invest investigator on the case Chris fears that indeed the body they
00:24:01
recovered from the woods was Tracy sism Tracy was just 33 years old when she was
00:24:07
killed detective fears learned that Tracy had last been seen on September 20th in
00:24:14
Indianapolis so this fits the timeline of the body that had been there for up to 8 weeks but September 20th is the
00:24:24
last day that she was seen and I have other information that we will we will go into as we go along here and based on
00:24:34
that information I believe she was killed on or very near the date of the last time that she was seen September
00:24:42
20th is a little more recent than I had expected based off of the quote up to 8 weeks comment now back to something real
00:24:51
quick before we move on the missing person's report was sent by the Indianapolis Police Department to to the
00:24:58
Indiana State Police on October 15th it turned out per the Indiana Star newspaper that Tracy's family reported
00:25:07
her missing the day after she was last seen so September 21st so this missing person's report
00:25:14
wasn't really connecting to anything until nearly a month later but for some unknown reason her missing person's
00:25:21
report was not connected to the body found on October 8th until at least a week after it was found part of that
00:25:30
could be though Captain it seems like the the hard push to release some information in this case and to tell the
00:25:38
world that we found a body that we cannot ID didn't really come about until about 5 days after they found the body
00:25:46
so that would account for some of that time but again it was not proven to be Tracy for another two months there's
00:25:52
clearly a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes here that we just don't know about and a lot of time was wasted due
00:26:00
to delays and lack of communication in this [Music] case yeah yeah [Music] I this show is sponsored by better help
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[Music] 2023 from the east coast to the West Coast cheers everybody and cheers to you the
00:28:33
crispiest cheers to you Captain cheers to the people in the back I have a quick announcement here I have an event coming
00:28:41
up raising some money for the Ohio history connection and for the porch light project as well Thursday August
00:28:49
26th is the date the event is called uncovering Ohio cold cases a conversation with myself and James rener
00:28:56
this is a webinar so an online event so wherever you are and whoever can attend simply by purchasing a ticket and you
00:29:05
can purchase a ticket at ohiooh his.org again that is Thursday August 26 and ticket information is at ohiooh his.org
00:29:16
so be there or B Square b square and be there we don't care mhm all right Captain this case takes place in 2004
00:29:26
the Tracy system case and as we said it takes quite a while for them to even identify the victim I will say that I'm
00:29:34
a little surprised at the how recently she had last been seen right the body's discovered on October 8th and she's
00:29:42
reported missing on the 21st of September as having been seen the day before September 20th and I'm just
00:29:50
basing this off of the prosecutor statement of well the body could have been there up to 8 weeks that makes me
00:29:57
think that the me or or on that day when the body is discovered when they are first looking at the body in the scene
00:30:06
they're going okay well we're seeing a level of decomposition here that shows us probably that the victim's been dead
00:30:13
for 6 weeks maybe up to eight and really we have a situation here where it was just a few weeks between the last time
00:30:21
that she was seen that she was alive and well and then later found dead in this wooded area
00:30:27
you wonder if the body was stored or kept somewhere for some period of time that may have
00:30:35
increased the decomposition on the body or I didn't get a chance to check into this or look it up maybe it was a
00:30:43
particularly hot few weeks there late that summer going into fall and that could have increased it as well there
00:30:50
could be any number of factors there but uh it's it's curious to me but once they
00:30:55
have the identification of the body and they know it's Tracy Cas just sits there
00:31:00
for about 2 years yeah this is going to bring us to about 2006 on our timeline here and I'm sure that there well I
00:31:08
shouldn't say that I'm sure I know that there was a lot of stuff going on behind
00:31:12
the scenes just nothing that made the news so no real news coming out for about 2 years this until the Indiana
00:31:20
star reported that family members have many unanswered questions but they are not getting many answers from the
00:31:27
Indiana State Police investigators are closely guarding many of the clues detectives did not tell the family how
00:31:35
Tracy sism died but insisted that the death was in fact a homicide not even the family was told
00:31:42
the official cause of death of the young woman in the quilt according to the article this is I mean not only did you
00:31:49
lose a loved one but you you naturally have so many questions when somebody dies or in this cases
00:31:58
murdered at such a young age but now you have a situation where you've not only lost that person and you have that giant
00:32:07
hole in your heart but hell you got kind of a hole in your head too because you got no answers to go along with what
00:32:13
happened to to your daughter or your sister yeah it makes you wonder if because she was found like in a
00:32:19
different location if law enforcement's just not taking it as serious as they should I think they were I think this
00:32:27
probably a situation where it's just it might be complicated right it might be a
00:32:32
complicated investigation yeah I'm just saying as the family you're you're sitting there going and and we don't
00:32:37
know what kind of communication law enforcement is having with the family how because in some of these cases like
00:32:43
Deli it seems like they're very open and letting the family in a little bit as far as what investigation tactics
00:32:52
they're using so we don't know what kind of communications happening between law
00:32:57
enforcement and the family this is true and in this case we have the Indiana State Police as well that we're talking
00:33:04
about in Tracy systems case so let's go and get to know our victim a little better shall we because that's the first
00:33:11
step in trying to get a lead on this thing so who was Tracy Tracy Sandlin storm sism was born on December 27th
00:33:22
1970 she was a lifelong native of Indianapolis a city that you and I have been to many
00:33:29
times Captain a great City Tracy graduated from how high school in 1989 when she died she left behind her
00:33:37
parents Rebecca and John her sister Shelly and her brother John Jr she also left behind an ex-husband and an
00:33:45
estranged husband and three children all of whom lived in Indianapolis according
00:33:51
to her obituary Tracy was a member of Holy Spirit Catholic Church and owned and operated Sugar Creek Rottweilers
00:34:01
where she bred and cared for her show dogs Tracy had a great love of animals obviously and worked with several
00:34:08
veterinarians throughout her life Tracy got married when she was young and had two girls in quick succession her
00:34:16
husband Richard storm filed for a divorce in October of 2000 and the divorce was granted in
00:34:23
December of 2001 Richard and Tracy were awarded joint custody of their girls by the
00:34:31
Hancock Circuit Court meanwhile during the whole divorce proceedings Tracy got married again
00:34:40
getting hitched to a Michael system on January 25th 2003 then she gave birth to their son
00:34:48
Shane so at this point we have Tracy Michael her new husband baby Shane and Tracy's two girls sharing a house this
00:34:58
is the house that Tracy got in the divorce settlement from her first husband from that first marriage but
00:35:05
that living situation didn't last long by the time Tracy was reported missing in September of
00:35:12
2004 Michael and Tracy had split up and had been split up for quite some time and were estranged from one another all
00:35:21
right let's get into Tracy's disappearance there is minimal reporting about her appearance but what little
00:35:29
there is all says the same thing so this is all confirmed Tracy was last seen September 20th at 30th Street and Post
00:35:38
Road in the Far East Side neighborhood of Indianapolis this was an apartment complex where Tracy was living at the
00:35:46
time but she was in the process of moving out so she is there on this day September 20th to retrieve her
00:35:54
belongings because she is now moving in with her mother who also lived in Indianapolis on this day Tracy called
00:36:03
her mom around 7 p.m. and told her that she was gathering the last of her things
00:36:09
and that she would be home soon I've not been able to determine Captain if this call came from a landline or a cell
00:36:16
phone right she said that she would be home soon but she never arrived at the time Tracy was using her
00:36:24
father's 1995 Chevy blade to help her move her things the vehicle was also missing so when they noticed
00:36:34
that Tracy is missing they noticed that the vehicle is missing as well the vehicle is not found at Tracy's
00:36:41
apartment like you said she's moving away from her husband well she lived in the apartment by herself they had
00:36:48
already been separated for quite some time by this point mhm and she's moving back in with her mother now we have zero
00:36:55
information whatsoever on how and when Tracy's family discovered her missing status and noted that the Blazer was
00:37:03
also missing so we know that she spoke with her mom on the 20th and we know that the following day a missing
00:37:10
person's report was placed was made by her family right so sometime after 700 p.m. on that night and sometime the next
00:37:20
morning they probably decide hey she should have been here by now it's been overnight we're not only missing her
00:37:26
we're also missing the vehicle that was lent to her to help her move her things you also have to wonder too if they went
00:37:34
out there and presumably they did outso Tracy's apartment to look for her and the vehicle if they were able to access
00:37:42
the apartment maybe they're seeing things in there that's causing concern as well maybe you know when you hear
00:37:47
your loved one tell you hey I'm gathering up the last of my items and I'll be home soon well you could open up
00:37:54
that front door to the apartment and in the apartment tell you a different a different story yeah and it's a good
00:38:00
thing that they didn't hesitate to report her missing so that's the best that we can narrow down the actual time
00:38:07
of her going missing we know that she made that phone call on at 700 p.m. on the 20th we can't say for certain if
00:38:15
anyone in her family went to the apartment to look for her I presume that they did that's just natural reaction
00:38:21
that's what most people would do so you have to wonder if they did this Captain did they find the front door locked
00:38:28
unlocked uh did they find things still inside the apartment was there any sign of a confrontation or struggle those
00:38:36
answers to those questions we just don't have any any idea we do know that someone in her family reported her
00:38:43
missing on the day after she was last seen this again the 21st we also have no information on Tracy's cell phone or if
00:38:50
in fact she even had one it was 2004 so it seems likely that she would have had one if so and if the police were able to
00:39:00
obtain any helpful information on the cell phone we don't have any idea this is information that's not been released
00:39:07
to the public but all of the reporting on the story discusses where Tracy was last known to be so that is not a
00:39:15
question in this case we know that she was last reported to be at her apartment this information came from her mother
00:39:23
who said that Tracy called her from there if there was a cell phone and it showed that she was at some other
00:39:29
location after that time you'd think the family would have said so publicly when
00:39:34
they have spoken out about this case yeah I wonder what the family's feelings are about the ex-husband because that
00:39:41
obviously is the I think even though they were separated for a time period before this like you said she moved into
00:39:48
apartment by herself and now she's moving back home with her parents you go well I mean that's the number one person
00:39:56
you look at right and just with identifying the body identifying The Remains how quickly we see from there
00:40:03
being no leads to now all of a sudden here in the garage we can see these suspects start to emerge right they they
00:40:10
step out of the shadows and present themselves a little bit we have her first husband that she's been divorced
00:40:16
from for some time MH but there could be some kind of you got issue you got to look in that direction you have the most
00:40:24
recent husband who she was in the process of splitting up with and moving on in her life and then once you get to
00:40:31
know the victim and the victim's Inner Circle that may present some other options as far as suspects or Persons of
00:40:39
Interest go and then as you pointed out earlier you always have to consider the person who quote unquote found the body
00:40:47
yeah or the possibilities that Tracy was working on husband number three and who
00:40:52
would that individual be so right away Captain when she goes missing when Tracy goes missing there's no sign really no
00:41:01
clue as to where she could be for about two weeks but then we get the missing Chevy Blazer that she had borrowed turns
00:41:11
up on October 4th in the vicinity of lale and Michigan Avenues so this is before the
00:41:20
unidentified body that we later learned would be Tracy's remains is found this is a few days before before her body is
00:41:27
recovered so a deputy pulled the vehicle over or although it's not clear whether
00:41:33
he was actually on the lookout for it you know did we know she's reported missing we can assume that they reported
00:41:40
the vehicle missing as well but we're police actively looking for this vehicle we can't say that for certain so the way
00:41:49
this story goes is that this officer a deputy was going to pull over this Chevy Blazer
00:41:57
or attempting to pull over the vehicle anyway is what we should say here because per the Indiana
00:42:03
star a Maran County Sheriff's deputy spotted two unidentified people in the Blazer on the city's East Side the maale
00:42:14
driver made several abrupt turns and Lane changes before he and a female passenger ditched the vehicle in the 500
00:42:23
block of North Oakland Avenue and ran away so an unknown couple a man and a woman
00:42:29
are in this Chevy Blazer right the one that Tracy was baring from her father correct she's missing and the vehicle's
00:42:37
missing until this point and the maale is driving but before they could successfully pull over the
00:42:46
driver and and pull over the vehicle the driver makes some smooth Maneuvers and they're able to flee the vehicle before
00:42:53
the deputy could catch up to them now a partial box of ammunition was found on the back seat of the vehicle
00:43:02
this is according to the report says no fingerprints or other evidence were found in the vehicle said an Indiana
00:43:10
State Police spokesman but since we don't know the cause of death I mean this is great evidence to have once
00:43:17
you're doing the autopsy because if there is if she was killed by gunshot then the these were possibly uh the ammo
00:43:25
that was used well and that's not what you want to hear Too a partial box of am ammunition you want to hear a full box
00:43:33
of ammunition yeah just bottom still in the cellophan the Blazer was abandoned by a couple about 8 and 1 half miles
00:43:42
from Tracy's apartment and this is just one of those really weird things no one knows who the people in the Blazer were
00:43:49
or at least if Indiana State Police does know who they are they've never said that they we've identified these people
00:43:57
or we spoke to these people or we know who they are right another thing that was reported on but that we know very
00:44:04
little about according to the Indiana Channel I keep saying Indiana every time I see the word Indie so according to the
00:44:12
Indie Channel State Police Sergeant Jeff Deckard said one of the Sis's neighbors
00:44:19
reported seeing a suspicious vehicle this is interesting a neighbor reported seeing a dark SUV
00:44:26
or the sergeant just clarifying here or they thought it was an SUV we've not narrowed it down to a specific SUV or
00:44:36
even eliminated a pickup truck or even eliminated a pickup truck with a camper shell said Decker but again if anything
00:44:44
came of this we don't know so the old creepy camper yeah think about this Captain we this is what we know here we
00:44:52
know that leading up to finding Tracy's remains they spot the Chevy blazes who are being driven by two
00:45:00
unknown individuals who are able to successfully get away from the cops long enough to park and flee on
00:45:09
foot we don't know if they've ever identified those people and then we have this statement of well on the last day
00:45:18
that she was seen neighbors I want to it says a neighbor but I've seen some reports that
00:45:26
are similar to this and I wonder if it was more than one person because in other reports it says
00:45:32
neighbors uh reported seeing a suspicious vehicle and in describing it as a possibly a dark
00:45:40
SUV so it looks like someone either intercepted her after she left her apartment that night
00:45:49
with all of her things or somebody got a hold of her at the apartment yeah and we're not getting reports like you said
00:45:56
from the family to let us know that all her apartment was filled with her her belongings and so when they abducted her
00:46:04
or like you said intercepted her and the vehicle because you're also stating in the vehicle it's not like we're seeing
00:46:11
piles and piles of her belongings right but that doesn't mean that they didn't intercept her in a different location
00:46:17
and just dump all those materials somewhere the vibe I'm getting though with that ammunition that part box of
00:46:26
ammunition that's found on the back seat is that the family is probably telling law enforcement that that did not belong
00:46:34
to Tracy right cuz the way that they state that and we know how closely they've held information in this case
00:46:41
and what they've chosen to release and it's been very little but they chose to release that information well and you're
00:46:49
also because she's barring the vehicle you go well that ammunition didn't belong to Tracy and didn't belong to
00:46:55
Tracy his father correct and now you have to wonder okay well could we trace this ammunition back to a person because
00:47:04
if we could somehow create a paper trail to trace it back to a person that person
00:47:08
might be the one that's responsible for her death again I believe I firmly believe that she was killed either that
00:47:16
night or very soon uh after she went missing on the 20th this vehicle is not found until
00:47:23
October 4th so we have a situation here Captain where we have this weird unknown couple
00:47:30
driving it but also enough time has gone by that you could say there's a good chance that somebody
00:47:36
else may have been in possession of this vehicle at one point especially right after the
00:47:42
murder you have to wonder too would the killer have been Brazen enough to use the victim's
00:47:51
vehicle to move the body no he can use the term brazing or you could use the term stupid let's let's create a word
00:47:59
that's both um yeah you have to wonder but it doesn't seem like again it's a situation where the words that they're
00:48:07
choosing to tell us in this case make it sound like that might not be a suspicion
00:48:13
by investigators they they may have tried that angle and came up with nothing there's also been reports that
00:48:22
are similar to this that state that there were that that a little more in depth about the the fingerprints
00:48:29
remember we said the ammunition was found but there's no fingerprints found in or on this ammunition or in the
00:48:36
Blazer that they called into concern so was it wiped down was the vehicle wiped down or was it just whoever drove the
00:48:45
vehicle or moved the vehicle wasn't in it long enough to leave behind a whole lot of evidence you would expect to find
00:48:52
some evidence of Tracy having been in the vehicle at some point maybe that muddies the waters a little bit on
00:48:59
whether the body was moved in that vehicle but I'm just getting the I'm getting the vibe here captain that
00:49:04
that's probably not what happened in this case let's sum up that timeline a little bit so the listeners aren't
00:49:10
confused yeah cuz we were playing detective along the way as we were telling this
00:49:16
story Captain the way that this thing breaks down is just like this Tracy goes missing on September 20th that's the
00:49:24
last time that her family speaks with her that's the last time they know that she is safe and where she
00:49:31
should be the following day they make the police report they they filed the missing person's report it's 14 days
00:49:40
after Tracy was last scene that this Blazer that she was borrowing the Chevy Blazer is located 8 and 1 half miles
00:49:48
from Tracy's apartment Tracy sism her body is then located 4 days later her remains were found 70 mes from her
00:49:58
apartment and as we know she had been dead for long enough to be decomposed to the point that dental records were
00:50:05
required to ID her and that someone else was driving that Blazer after her [Music]
00:50:23
death like always we want to hear from you so make sure you go to True Crim garage.com and check out the blog on
00:50:31
this week's episode also if you need more True Crime garage check out our bonus show called off the Record it's on
00:50:39
Stitcher premium and you can also find a link to that at true Crim garage.com and
00:50:45
join us back here in the garage until then be good be kind and don't litter [Music]
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