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around, grab a chair, grab a beer, let's talk some true crime. >> [music] [music]
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>> With a Cseneth [music] Ducat missing and then found dead and murdered, we have a lot of eyewitnesses,
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[music] we have a composite sketch. We're going to have all hands on deck with this case to get answers for this
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murdered 8-year-old. There are many eyewitnesses, so there are many suspects, but we're going to go over
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the most likely suspects here today. And you nailed it, Captain. This is a situation where we have everybody that's
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coming out of the woodwork wanting to help, wanting to assist, wanting to find justice for this little girl and for
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the girl's family. And the thing is we've said this a dozen times on this show and it rings true. It rings true
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when you review these cases, no matter what year that they are from. When somebody kills a child, abducts a child
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and kills them, it is not just a crime against that victim, the victim's family, it is ultimately a crime against
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an entire community. And that's exactly what you see here, people that just want
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to try to help in any shape or form that they can, small or large. So, we're going to have a lot of eyewitnesses.
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We're going to have a lot of people come forward with some suspicions. And as you
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know, Captain, when they release a composite sketch to the public, that's going to drum up even more tips and more
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theories that will come about. We're going to see hundreds of people interviewed. We're going to see dozens
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of people be rumored to be suspects. But at the end of the day, there's only a couple of good suspects. And we will
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start with the ones of note, the more prominent ones, the ones that were mentioned in the newspapers, and we'll
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work our way from the outside in, let's say. So, a name that will be familiar to
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a lot of our long-time listeners is Robert Buell. Robert Buell was a child killer. He was a rapist. He was a
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torturer. He was a horrible, despicable individual. Now, he's arrested in 1983. So, he's out and he's up to no good
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during the time frame that Acina Ducat is killed in 1980. Kelly Anne Prosser is another name that our long-time
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listeners might recognize. Kelly Anne Prosser was another 8-year-old girl who was abducted and killed 2 years later
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after Acina Ducat. That case remained unsolved for a long time. That case is interesting to
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Acina's case because it took place 2 years after, but just a short distance away.
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Acina Ducat was killed in Upper Arlington, Ohio, and Kelly Anne Prosser was abducted from
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her neighborhood, which was near the OSU campus in Columbus, Ohio. So, for a long time,
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there were people that thought maybe these two cases could be connected because Acina's is still unsolved to
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this day, and Kelly Anne Prosser's case took a long time to solve. And in fact, Robert
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Buell was highly suspected in Kelly Anne Prosser's case. In fact, so much so that they he was considered
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by many to be the prime suspect. Now, we told you in our episodes, which we titled When the Demons Came Out, it was
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a four-part series that we did in January of 2021. Episodes 459 through 462. We cover Kelly Ann Prosser's case as
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well as the cases against Robert Buell. Robert Buell didn't have anything to do with Kelly Ann Prosser. And in fact,
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Columbus PD and the individuals investigating Robert Buell and his crimes said that they could find no
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connection, nothing linking Robert Buell to Columbus, Ohio for 1982 or 1980 when
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Kelly Ann and Asenath were killed. We now know all of these years later that it was in fact Harold Warren Jr. who
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killed Kelly Ann Prosser. And that was announced in June of 2020. Again, if you want more information on those cases, go
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back and listen to when the demons came out. This was the first person that was known to have killed somebody
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and be mentioned in the paper and be We're being told, the public, this guy's being looked at in this case and this
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other case. He's now being looked at in Columbus cases after they apprehend him in 1983.
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Of course, we know that they move on from Robert Buell in these two cases. They can't move on from him in other
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cases that took place in Northeast Ohio though cuz he was too busy up there to be down
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here. If you check out that four-part series, you're going to find out that this guy is a absolute monster. And
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anytime that you have a similar type of victim, he's going to be brought up, especially if the crime happened early
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'80s in Ohio. Yes, instead of looking at somebody so far away, let's look at somebody closer to the crime scene,
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closer to where all of this went down. And we're going to use that based off of a
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profile that is put together of Asenath's killer. Now, this is directly from a website called
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longwalkhomeua.com. And I recommend that you go there and check out what they've done on Acenas'
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case because we are only going to be able to cover a fraction of what they cover on their website. They've been
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looking at this case for a very long time, putting together very good work on this case. And rather than reinvent the
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wheel here, I will read a portion of their website now. This is under chapter four titled a brutal rapist and killer
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in Upper Arlington. And it says, "Almost immediately the UAPD believed Acenas' killer was local to Upper Arlington.
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He, the killer, is very familiar with the area. If he's not a local, he lives very close
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to the area. This is based off of statements given by the Upper Arlington police chief in June of 1980 to the
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newspaper." Just think about how eerily similar that sounds to the words from Doug Carter in the Delphi case. This
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belief was bolstered by two psychological profiles the police received in July of 1980. The profiles
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described a young man 17 to 19 years old who lives within 2 miles of the scene of
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the slaying. This is based off of a retired New York City homicide detective who prepared one
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of these profiles. The thing here is additionally, Captain, it did not take long for the Upper
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Arlington Police Department to believe that Acenas' murder was the same man who attacked the 9-year-old girl on May 7th,
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1980, that other attack that we've referenced a couple of times. And police and the media noted the following
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similarities between the two crimes. Acenath Ducat was an 8-year-old girl with brown hair. The victim in the May
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7th attack was a 9-year-old girl with brown hair. Both crimes happened at similar times of the day when both girls
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were walking home from school. The crimes occurred just slightly more than 2 miles from each other. According to
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one account, both crimes occurred within a half mile of Route 33 in forested areas. Similarly, another account stated
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both crimes happened in large open areas sheltered from view and less than a half
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block from Route 33. Route 33 is also that Riverside Drive. Both girls were choked or strangled. A red 10-speed
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bicycle was seen in the vicinity of both crimes. Both girls were near their homes
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when the crimes occurred. Police believe both girls were attacked near the street
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and then moved to a location several hundred feet away. Both attacks were sexually motivated. An
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unsuccessful attempt was made to assault the May 7th victim, and Asenath was raped.
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The description and sketch of Asenath Dukat's murder was similar to the sketch from the May 7th attack. Because of
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these similarities, the chief of police said the best suspect police have in Asenath's slaying
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is an unknown man who is also being sought for the assault May 7th of a 10-year-old girl who was attacked when
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she returned home from Tremont Elementary School. >> This murder is going to disrupt the
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local landscape, and we're going to get other departments involved. One of them being the FBI, and
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we're going to be able to get a profile of who they think the killer is. >> Yeah, there's several done over the
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years. We have the FBI with probably the most definitive profile, which is received by Upper Arlington police in
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1990. According to this profile, Asenath's killer was a loner in his early 20s with few
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friends, was from a family with a strict, abusive father and protective mother, had one or more sisters who were more
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successful and received more recognition from their parents. Failed in school or work because he was
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not accepted by fellow students and employees. May have sought treatment for depression. Has attacked others but not
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necessarily killed them. Is physically strong and tends to choke or hit his victims. What makes the most sense to me
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and I don't know if you agree with this Colonel, but to put together both of these profiles. So we look for some of
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these characteristics in this individual, but also local law enforcement believes this person is
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local within 2 miles of the murder scene. >> Yeah, and I'm going to go just beyond
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that 2 miles there, but keep in mind we also have if in fact the Aciena's killer
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and the attacker from the May 7th attack are one in the same, then we actually have crime scenes that are a couple
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miles apart anyway. So that we have to create a radius around both of those crime scenes, which will
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balloon us out a little bit further than just that straight-up 2-mile radius from
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Aciena's murder scene. What we have here, what we just reviewed is to me, you know, we've been told this
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by John Douglas. When you go into profile a killer, really the best way to do that is you
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have to profile everything. You have to profile the killer, you profile the victim, you profile the area and the
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situation. Well, here when I review those profiles, I'm seeing two different things.
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One where we have somebody profiling the actual crimes. The the crimes that took place and
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coming up with an assessment and a hypothesis based off of what they see from the known facts of those crimes.
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The other what we have is a psychological makeup of what our killer is or who our killer is and his
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background. And so we want to look for somebody that fits that psychological profile, but
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also fits the physical proximity profile that was put together in the other cases. So, to do that, unfortunately, we
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have to bring up a disgusting individual that we've never I don't believe we talked about him before on this show.
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Yeah, I don't want to keep making fun of Bob Ruff publicly. And that would be child killer David Elliott Penton.
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Now, David Elliott Penton is a serial child killer. And unfortunately, his address at the time when Asenath
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Dukat was killed was roughly 4 to 5 mi from the crime scene. Now, this individual, if in fact he did
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kill Asenath, it likely would be his first murder because his murders all took place
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later. Now, the thing that scares the hell out of me about the date of the attack on Asenath
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is around this same time, David Elliott Penton, who was in the military, was shipped off to
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Korea. Well, why does that scare me? It scares me for two reasons. One, it could take him completely out of the
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area and he's not here. He did not have the physical ability to be here to commit the crime. So, then he's not a
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suspect. The flip side of that coin is a very dangerous sick individual knew he was going away to a place far away for a
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long period of time and likely fantasized about these types of crimes for a long period of his life before he
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started committing them and may have seen an opportunity to, "Hey, I can act on some of these fantasies, and guess
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what? Within days, I'm out of dodge, baby. I'm on the other side of the planet." Now, I could not confirm the
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exact date of when he was transferred overseas. That would be very important. Now, his physical makeup, his
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psychological makeup, I should say, does fit with the psychological profile of a
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scene of Ducat's killer. Penton was a loner. Penton did live in a situation where his
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sister was more successful than he was. In fact, he was held back a grade and decided, "I'm going to drop out of high
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school because it would be embarrassing if I'm in the same grade as my younger sister."
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He was raised by a mother and a stepfather. And again, they were just very close to this area.
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But unfortunately, we can't pinpoint exactly when he was transferred. His crimes
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are almost identical to one another, his future crimes. He would abduct a child in his vehicle, take them to another
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location where they would be killed. So, if I'm picking up what you're putting down, what you're saying is if he is
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responsible for this murder, for Ducat's murder, this would actually be his first
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murder based on his known criminal activity. That's correct. The thing is, I believe that this method
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that he used he used it time and time again, and probably every single time. And a large
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portion of that statement is true based off of his known criminal activity. We know it to be
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fact. Where I have a problem with him being a suspect is I see some movements of the real
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suspect, of of of what I think the suspect and who I think the suspect is. And the movements of the victim
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don't really ring true with David Penton's other crimes and murders. Because I've said this here before,
00:17:07
Captain, and I'll say it again. I have never seen a sexually motivated child abduction and
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murder where the perpetrator comes into an area, removes the victim, and kills them or brings them back and
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then kills them and leaves them in the same area where they're abducted from. We can go based off of witness
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statements and the scent dog that traced her movements that day, that she was roughly
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killed in very close proximity to where the abduction took place. Right. It wouldn't make any sense
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for David Penton to come into this area, abduct her, and then bring her right back.
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He would have taken her elsewhere and dumped her in an area where there was nobody out there, where he couldn't
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be seen, his vehicle couldn't be identified. Well, this location where she's found, it it's very strange
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anyways because it it's very close to a major road when just a block away, if this person was
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local and and knew the area well, lived within 2 miles, within a couple blocks is a little bit
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of a wooded area. You'd think you'd think if they're going to leave her body somewhere, maybe that's where
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they would leave it. >> Yeah, again, it doesn't make any sense to me for anyone, including David
00:18:30
Elliott Penton, to have a vehicle and be able to abduct someone and then take them with him
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only to return them later. It just it just doesn't ring true. That's not typically how these crimes are
00:18:46
committed. Now, I know I said the same statement in our Lynn Harper episodes and someone said, "Well,
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what about the Lindbergh baby?" Well, that's not a sexually motivated abduction. That was a money motivated
00:19:01
abduction, where the killers were idiots and dropped the baby off of the ladder.
00:19:09
So, it's not anywhere in the same neighborhood of the same type of crime. David Elliott Penton's
00:19:15
crimes are in the same neighborhood, but he is not from the same neighborhood and
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would never have returned a victim back to the neighborhood in which he took the
00:19:24
victim. So, I think we have to look at some individuals that A are closer in proximity to
00:19:32
Jacina Ducat and the crime scene. And also individuals or an individual that may have not had the same means,
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may not have had a vehicle to transport the victim. And that is why she is found so close to
00:19:50
where the abduction took place. >> [music] [music] >> All right, we're back. Clap at the base. Cheers, Captain. You
00:20:27
guys want to do me a solid, do me a big solid, go to Spotify and look up our show True Crime Garage. You can listen
00:20:35
to the podcast on Spotify, but you can also follow our music as well. So, you can go and follow our profile. Just go
00:20:44
to Spotify and search True Crime Garage and it'll pop up as a podcast or artist.
00:20:50
Go to the artist page and click follow. That would be lovely. And smoochy. Smoochy. You can jam the garage music at
00:21:00
the gym or in your car. How about that? All right, back to the case here, Captain. We're going to move rather
00:21:08
quickly cuz we got a lot of ground to cover here in the second half of today's show. And that is because we're going to
00:21:14
get into some very good suspects. Now, why are they very good suspects? Because they fit some of the physical evidence
00:21:23
that we know to be in this murder case. Now, the first individual, his name is Brett Strutner. And I've heard it
00:21:32
pronounced Strutner or Strootner. I say potato, you say potato. For the For the sake of argument, let's
00:21:39
continue with Strutner. I say potato. So, Brett Strutner, he gets onto police radar because of a tip, actually a
00:21:49
couple tips that come in that say, "Hey, you might want to look at this guy. He's
00:21:53
been behaving very strange since the murder took place." Now, interestingly enough, at the time of the murder, he
00:22:02
lives about a mile and a half from the corner of Waltham and Hillside. So, he's very close in proximity. He fits the
00:22:11
proximity of the first profile and he fits the profile, the the psychological profile that we see as well. And this is
00:22:19
how he gets onto the radar of police. The night of the murder, Brett is at a bar with some of his friends. This bar
00:22:28
is near the Ohio State University campus. And at the bar, he's seen crying or weeping. And he told other people at the
00:22:38
bar that he was afraid to go back to his apartment, that he could not go home because they are after me.
00:22:46
And when he is finally returned to his home via a friend's vehicle, he says he does not want to enter his
00:22:54
apartment because, again, they are after me. So, we have an anonymous phone call
00:23:00
that makes its way to the Upper Arlington Police Department that is telling them about this suspect's
00:23:07
behavior on that night. Why is this guy acting so weird, so strange, so paranoid
00:23:14
the night after a murder takes place in the area. Keep in mind this is a safe area where they don't have they don't
00:23:21
commonly have murders taking place. Like you said he lives within the vicinity of
00:23:26
what the profile says that this killer possibly could live in. Once this guy's on the radar, we have
00:23:32
eyewitnesses coming forward saying he could have been there as early as 2:00 p.m. Yeah, in the direct area of the
00:23:39
crime scene. And keep in mind here when we talk about crime scene, there are multiple crime scenes in an abduction
00:23:46
and murder case, right? So we have the crime scene of where the abduction took place. We know that there was some type
00:23:53
of sexual assault in this case. So we have a location, another crime scene, where that assault took place. And then
00:24:01
later we have the scene of where the body is located. So we have multiple crime scenes that we're dealing with,
00:24:08
but we also have witnesses that are saying this guy could have been as close as the corner in which I believe that
00:24:16
she was later abducted on the same day that she was abducted. So now we got this guy who's behaving
00:24:24
oddly, and we can put him in the area with some different witnesses, but we also learn another interesting fact
00:24:32
about this individual. He owns a red 10-speed bicycle, and it's reported that at some point in the
00:24:39
summer of 1980 he decides to quit riding it. He doesn't want to ride it anymore according to some of his friends'
00:24:47
statements that are later given to police. Which is similar to the idea that a killer will change their
00:24:53
appearance. Maybe they shave their beard, maybe they grow a beard. Maybe or if a vehicle is involved in a crime,
00:25:01
hey, they stop driving that vehicle, they sell it, they get a new one. They get a paint job is pretty common as
00:25:07
well. Right. Our suspect, Brett Streutker, on June 5th, 1980, so this is 2 days after the homicide,
00:25:17
he is out with some friends and he's again dropping these strange lines of are the cops coming after me? If these
00:25:25
cops don't quit harassing me, I'm going to kill them. And then he goes home to his home, his
00:25:31
parents' home, actually, that same night and he takes his parents' vehicle and then he flees the area driving north
00:25:40
toward Cleveland. The following morning at 7:45 a.m. police find him stranded on
00:25:47
the side of the road in this vehicle in Willoughby, Ohio. >> He is losing his mind. He is telling
00:25:53
people, hey, people are after me. He takes his parents' car, he heads north to Willoughby. That's a good 2 and
00:26:02
1/2 hours away. If that's not suspicious, I don't know what is. When we reviewed Ed Kemper and
00:26:10
when we reviewed BTK, both of them said the same thing about their early murders. That when they first committed
00:26:18
them, they thought just within minutes the police would be on their way. That they would hear sirens, that everybody
00:26:24
knew exactly what they did, who was guilty, and that they were going to be on their way to lock them up as quickly
00:26:31
as possible. And in both cases, we know that didn't happen. In fact, Ed Kemper called the police after he killed his
00:26:38
grandparents. This behavior is not unlike that, where this guy was involved in something and
00:26:44
he's saying to everybody that's willing to listen, I think the cops are after me. I think the police are harassing me.
00:26:49
They are going to get me. I can't go back to my house." Flees the area to get out of dodge.
00:26:56
When the police find him, and I'll read from the description of what went down here
00:27:02
in Willoughby, Ohio, because you can't make this stuff up. The truth is stranger than fiction, my friends.
00:27:10
So, the report from the Long Walk Home reads as follows: On the morning of June 6th at approximately 7:40 a.m., police
00:27:18
received a call from a nearby Sunoco station that a car was in a ditch on the Saint Clair exit between Lost Nation and
00:27:26
Erie Road. Upon arrival, the first patrolman discovered a 1979 Cadillac in a ditch with Brett Sutnar
00:27:35
lying across the front seat. After he wakes up the subject, I guess this is from knocking on the window,
00:27:45
he then asked Brett to open up the door or the window to the vehicle. Brett would not open either. In fact, he
00:27:52
tries to flee again. He's trying to start the vehicle so he can get out of this location, get away from this police
00:27:59
officer. At this time, the police officer's vehicle was in a position that would block any type of escape from
00:28:06
Brett as he's in the vehicle. Now, we have the patrolman who's trying to get the
00:28:12
vehicle unlocked so he can get to Brett, the driver. At this time, the suspect produced a hypo syringe
00:28:22
or hypodermic needle, I guess, and took out his testicles and began stabbing the
00:28:27
syringe into them. Sounds like a delightful afternoon. At this time, we have another patrolman who's trying to
00:28:32
break the window of the vehicle with his nightstick, and he eventually is successful.
00:28:39
Now, we have our suspect Brett who begins screaming and fighting with the officers.
00:28:44
It takes about four officers to bring this guy in, right? They spray him with mace that has no effect at all.
00:28:52
Eventually, after a real brouhaha, they're on the side of the road, they eventually apprehend Brett Shotner and
00:28:59
they take him into their custody and they're going to have a whole list of charges to hit this guy with, right?
00:29:06
He's assaulted basically all four of these police officers and he's also in possession of
00:29:12
this hypodermic needle. There's all kinds of things going on here. And he assaulted his testicles. Now, what we
00:29:19
have happen is the Upper Arlington Police Department they're going to send two of their
00:29:28
detectives up to interview Brett Shotner who is sitting at the Lake County Sheriff's Office. He's probably
00:29:36
not sitting too comfortably. >> This, mind you, is after a statement from one of the correction officers at the
00:29:44
jail that says that he overheard Shotner say, quote, I killed an 8-year-old girl.
00:29:51
So, we have the Upper Arlington Police Department, they're asking questions to Brett. And during the course of the
00:29:59
questioning, the detectives tell him we are simply trying to figure out where you were on June 3rd, 1980.
00:30:08
To which his response is, I didn't hurt anyone. Okay, they're not asking him about the
00:30:13
murder. They've not told him that they are there investigating a murder or an abduction. They're simply asking him
00:30:20
where he was on that day and his response is, I did not hurt anyone. This suspect is what I like to call a
00:30:27
whack-a-doo, but if we took the time to go through every crazy statement he made
00:30:34
we'd have to do like a six-part series on this. I mean, this guy is a real whack-a-doo. Yeah, and if you review his
00:30:43
statement and his interview with police, we learn a few things. He admits to owning a red bicycle.
00:30:51
He also admits that he knows where Frankenstein's cave is located. In fact, he says that he had been there on
00:30:57
multiple occasions. And without giving a pinpointed time here, he basically admits to being in the
00:31:07
general area of where the crime took place on June 3rd, 1980. So, we have a guy that's behaving oddly. He puts
00:31:17
himself near or at the crime scene on the day that the crime took place. This is a good suspect, and he doesn't look
00:31:26
unlike the sketch, the composite that they've already released to the public. We also have eyewitnesses that say they
00:31:32
see somebody matching his description in this area around the time that Asenath went missing.
00:31:39
So, this guy's a good suspect. Now, we need to go back to the timeline. We talked about the timeline that was put
00:31:48
together by Detective Time. Let's expand that timeline out days, rather than just the minute-by-minute
00:31:56
that Detective Time gave us. So, let's go to September 27th, 1980. This is just a couple months after the
00:32:05
murder. On this date, we have another attack, an abduction attempt, that takes place at Olentangy Commons apartment
00:32:13
complex, which is not terribly far from the Asenath Ducat crime scene. In this situation, we have a victim who
00:32:21
is pulled from her bike. The suspect attempted to drag her toward a secluded field,
00:32:28
but the suspect dropped the victim and ran away when a passerby saw the abduction and screamed for help.
00:32:34
The victim assisted the police by having a sketch made of the suspect. The sketch
00:32:40
was very similar to the sketch provided by the witness to the Acina Ducat suspect.
00:32:48
Okay. We have to then back up to the first attack, the May 7th, 1980 attack that took place just 1 month
00:32:57
before Acina's attack. On this date, an unidentified victim took the bus from Tremont Elementary School
00:33:07
at the end of her school day. After exiting the bus on Canterbury Lane, she started on her walk home with another
00:33:14
female friend. A boy or a young man riding a red bicycle passed by them back and forth a few times.
00:33:22
When the female friend eventually had to start walking in a different direction to her own home,
00:33:27
the 11-year-old girl was suddenly attacked and strangled into unconsciousness. However,
00:33:35
she was never raped. When she regained consciousness, the suspect was gone. It is believed that the suspect was
00:33:42
scared off by the victim's friend or someone else. I've also seen reports that state he may have been scared off
00:33:49
by a neighbor dog. >> It's uh pretty scary to imagine to know that there's this horrible people out
00:33:56
there. Correct. So, one of these attacks takes place before Acina's attack, and the other takes place afterward. And in
00:34:04
both situations, police have reason to believe that the attacker was scared off. Now, in the September 27th
00:34:12
attack, an individual named Robert Chris Winchester was convicted of the attempted kidnapping. Robert Chris
00:34:20
Winchester was sentenced to 3 to 10 years at Mansfield Prison in order to undergo psychiatric evaluation.
00:34:29
Let's go back to the May 7th, 1980 attack. That crime went unsolved, but the victim
00:34:37
of that crime picked out Robert Chris Winchester from a lineup related to the September 27th, 1980 abduction case.
00:34:46
Winchester was never charged or prosecuted for that case. However, we must note that the victim picks him out of a
00:34:55
lineup. So, we have this Robert Chris Winchester who is convicted of a very similar crime
00:35:06
that takes place just months after Asenath's murder. And also the number one prime suspect in
00:35:12
a crime that took place in a very similar crime that took place in a similar location
00:35:20
just 1 month before Asenath's attack. >> Maybe we could get Strutner to take a syringe to this guy's testicles as well.
00:35:28
So, here's what the problem ends up being, Captain. You hear the old statement from the old football coaches
00:35:34
that say, "When you have two quarterbacks, you have zero quarterbacks." Right. Well, this is a
00:35:39
similar situation, but the flip side of that. Where in June, we have one suspect
00:35:44
that they like a lot, this Brett Strutner. Well, now in September of 1980, we have another suspect that they
00:35:51
like a lot, this Robert Chris Winchester. And oh, as it turns out, he too owns a
00:35:58
red bicycle. He too matches the description of a man or men in their 20s, early 20s, seen in the area of the
00:36:08
Asenath Ducot crime scene on June 3rd, 1980. So, now we have two really good suspects. The thing here is that doesn't
00:36:17
mean that they cancel each other out or that one should cancel out the other because what is later learned is that
00:36:25
these two went to school together. They grew up together. They lived on the same
00:36:29
street. They were neighbors. It's not out of bounds to make the assumption that these two were friends.
00:36:35
We know that they knew each other. Is there a chance that the two of them were up to no good
00:36:41
together on the day that Asenath was abducted? They both match the description. They both have a criminal history.
00:36:50
Winchester's crimes almost mirror the Ducat abduction. And they're both were believed to
00:36:57
possibly be in the area. So, one of these suspects is deranged. The other suspect is a pedophile.
00:37:05
It's very possible because these two individuals live close together that they would hang out together at some
00:37:11
point. Not only that, we have Winchester who's convicted of a very similar crime.
00:37:16
And prime suspect in another crime that almost mirrors Asenath's abduction. Now,
00:37:22
we have Strutner who is blabbing to everybody that he at least believes that he is guilty of
00:37:29
something. He's telling everybody that the police are after him. He says when he's in lockup that he
00:37:34
killed an 8-year-old girl. So, I'm starting to see something that maybe the police didn't fully see. I
00:37:44
think that they did eventually, but maybe not in 1980. I think some of the confusion and some of the
00:37:51
problems with this case and with this investigation is that it just wasn't so simple. It
00:37:57
wasn't as simple as man abducts girl, kills girl, flees the area. I think that we have a situation where
00:38:05
we may have more than one individual involved. And because they won't rat on each other, or because that they may
00:38:13
even help each other in some form or fashion on these uh on covering up this crime, that it's
00:38:18
not so easy to detect what exactly happened that day. Both of these suspects are good suspects. Both live
00:38:27
close to the crime scene. Both fit the profile in different ways and both not cooperative with police.
00:38:35
The other problem here too, Captain, is we have Brett who seems to have been in the area based off of eyewitness
00:38:42
accounts and he puts himself in the area at the time of the crime. And then the flip of that is we have Winchester who
00:38:51
again not cooperative but is coming up with potential alibis for his whereabouts that day and
00:38:58
none of them check out. So, he's lying about his whereabouts on that day. Well, why would he do that? Clearly he's got
00:39:06
something to cover up. One of the things that you were talking about earlier is the eyewitnesses seeing the red bike.
00:39:12
So, then police have this one suspect and they go, "Well, he has a red bike." And then this other suspect, he has a
00:39:17
red bike. Well, at some point in my life when I was a child, I had probably two bikes. One was probably a older bike
00:39:25
that maybe I outgrew and then the kind of mountain bike or something like that. But, red isn't a uncommon color
00:39:32
for a bicycle. So, I'll start to try to paint a picture of what I think possibly
00:39:37
happened on that afternoon within that 4-hour time window that we started off with on yesterday's episode. I want to
00:39:45
be clear here. I'm not the first to come up with a theory that is similar to this. There
00:39:51
have been a lot of good people that have done gangbusters work on this case. Most
00:39:55
of them, the people from the Long Walk Home website. This is a theory, my theory is similar
00:40:02
to theirs and to other theories that have been recently suggested. And when you look at the crime scenes
00:40:11
along with the physical evidence that we have, you will see that theory carries some
00:40:18
weight. First off, let's go back to Sini's route that she was taking home. When she got onto Waltham
00:40:28
Road, she would have simply made a right to travel north up Malvern and go directly to her home. However, when the
00:40:35
scent dog tried to retrace Sini's footsteps, the dog went south instead of turning right onto Malvern,
00:40:46
made a left and went south of Waltham. Now, even more south of that later, some of Sini's
00:40:56
papers from school and her umbrella were found were found in this general area. This is a concealed area,
00:41:04
a wooded area, forest area forested area. I believe that they found her belongings
00:41:10
there because instead of making a right onto Malvern, something made her change her direction.
00:41:18
And I believe that's when they tried to grab her. Somebody tried to grab her or started to approach her. She didn't like
00:41:24
the situation and she turned and she started to head south away from her home simply to get away from whoever this
00:41:32
was. She's out by herself. I think that at some point she gets chased down and where she is apprehended
00:41:40
by these individuals is where we find some of her belongings later. I think that we probably are dealing with more
00:41:47
than one abductor. And I don't think that our abductor had a vehicle. He [snorts] may have had a
00:41:54
bicycle. His partner in crime may have had a bicycle as well. One could have been on foot.
00:42:05
It's hard to say, but we have several witnesses that see a red bicycle near this crime scene.
00:42:11
Now, the reason why I don't think that the abductor had a vehicle is because if they did, they simply would have taken
00:42:17
her, put her in the vehicle, and drove to a location that would provide whatever
00:42:23
privacy that they wanted for whatever they intended to do. That would make sense if we would find
00:42:29
her body later at a location far from her neighborhood. Yeah, I agree. But what we do know takes place is that
00:42:38
within that 4-hour window at the end of it, her body is found in her neighborhood.
00:42:43
And actually, just about 100 ft, maybe a football field away from where I believe she was abducted.
00:42:52
Well, why would anybody place her there? We know that she was killed at that location where she was found based off
00:42:59
of all of the police reports and the police findings. But what I think happened here, Captain,
00:43:06
there were always rumors, there were always stories, there were always theories that maybe she was attacked
00:43:14
in that forested area, in that wooded area. Maybe she was attacked on the other side
00:43:21
of 33, of Riverside Drive. The problem with that, with those theories, is that if she was attacked in
00:43:30
those areas and assaulted in those areas, the individual who decided to kill her
00:43:37
would have just killed her and simply left her there. There would be no need to transport
00:43:42
the victim anywhere. It's only adding to the risk level of the criminal's behavior.
00:43:48
>> Yeah, I agree because once you go to move that victim, more eyewitnesses could see you. But what we do have is
00:43:56
witnesses that say that we see or may have seen a male white carrying an unconscious girl or an injured girl.
00:44:06
Or an injured little kid. I think what we have here is a situation where she was
00:44:12
she was attacked and grabbed and transported to a secluded area, but that secluded area was either a home or
00:44:21
someone's backyard. And I believe that it was probably a home very close to where she was abducted from. The reason
00:44:29
why somebody would then transport her body later is because she is attacked in an area
00:44:36
assaulted in an area where they needed to get her out of there. We've talked about on this show so many times what a
00:44:43
big problem it is for the criminal to have an abducted victim alive or otherwise in
00:44:49
their vehicle. That's a big problem for the criminal. It's also a big problem to have an
00:44:55
individual abducted alive or otherwise in their home or in their backyard. And so when the search started going
00:45:03
down for Cini and people started looking for her, somebody or somebody's knew, I
00:45:09
have to get this out of here and get this away from my property or from this area that I
00:45:18
took her to or the property that I took her to. Why? Because all roads lead back
00:45:23
to me or my helper. And I think unfortunately what happened here, Captain, is I don't think
00:45:32
that the police were wrong. It's so obvious that unfortunately she was killed where she was found.
00:45:38
>> I agree. But we've also covered this plenty of times on this show. And we've reviewed the comments and the
00:45:44
statements of victims who survived an attempted murder as well as murderers who say, "You know what? It's more
00:45:54
difficult to strangle someone to death than you realize." Or I have attempted to strangle somebody
00:46:02
and then eventually they came to. I think wherever she was assaulted, someone strangled her and believed that
00:46:11
they had successfully killed her. She was then moved away from that person's property or their friend's
00:46:18
property with the attempt to conceal her body by removing it from that location to try to
00:46:25
put her place her inside that culvert to conceal the body. When she was placed on the rocks before
00:46:34
they could move her in there, she wakes up. She comes to. They weren't successful strangling her.
00:46:41
And it was in that moment that one individual picked up that rock and unfortunately they killed this
00:46:49
little girl. >> Yeah, animals. >> The crime scene suggests a couple of things. One, we would learn that there is
00:46:57
scientific physical evidence that proves that Stutler was involved. That he had contact with the victim on
00:47:10
the day that she was killed. That places him with the victim. That places him at the crime scene. Now,
00:47:17
there were footprints that were found in this area. These footprints do not eliminate our other suspect,
00:47:28
Winchester, from being at the crime scene, at the murder scene. However, that would probably leave us
00:47:36
with a potential third or fourth perpetrator. If these two guys did this together,
00:47:43
they had to take her somewhere nearby. And they had to take her somewhere that they would want to not leave her there.
00:47:51
And therefore, the most sensible, reasonable answer, the most logical answer would be that they took
00:47:59
her to someone's home, to someone's property nearby. And probably rather close to where she
00:48:07
was ultimately found just before 7:30 p.m. So your thought is that is at least these two individuals, maybe possibly
00:48:15
one more individual involved in this crime. With the way that the movements of the victim and her belongings where
00:48:25
they're found and then some of the physical evidence that we know to be true in this case, yes, that's what I
00:48:31
see here as being the most likely scenario to play out. Again, I think where the problem was is that
00:48:39
we have a crime scene that the police just did not understand. They didn't understand that we might be looking for
00:48:45
two perpetrators or more. We didn't understand that she may have been moved to a other to another location. They
00:48:52
understood that. That's their own words. So we believe that she was moved elsewhere. Right. But again, why would
00:48:58
you move to a vehicle? If you move to a vehicle, you're simply going to be parked on the side of the road somewhere
00:49:03
in this neighborhood. I feel like that's awfully difficult to happen. And I also
00:49:08
feel like the best suspects per the newspaper reports of 1980 and even after that, both of these guys
00:49:17
are on bicycles. And so didn't have the means to be using a vehicle. We also have statements from
00:49:24
other witnesses later that would come forward saying things like what one of the suspects that we named,
00:49:32
his bike was seen in a garage in a home that was within walking distance of where
00:49:41
the body was found. Yeah, and when you look at it on a map, you're like, "Wow, that's
00:49:47
extremely close." There are witnesses that came forward that said that one of these suspects, if
00:49:53
not both of them, were hanging out with somebody that lived very close to where the body was found. So, when you compile
00:50:00
all of this information and you look at the totality of it, all put together, it starts to you start to see a picture
00:50:08
and you start to see how this thing could have played out. And it's a rather simple answer. And again, I'm not the
00:50:15
first one to come up with this and I know that my theory is not exactly spot-on with some others that have been
00:50:21
released. But, that's why you'll want to review some more information at the longwalkhomeua.com
00:50:28
and form your own opinion. Take a look at the maps. Take a look at the physical evidence.
00:50:33
>> Or just listen and believe everything we say. That works, too. With all this time, with all this evidence, with all
00:50:40
these eyewitnesses, with all this demand for answers, why don't we have somebody locked up and
00:50:50
held responsible for these crimes? >> This case gets complicated and I know that there are people out there that
00:50:57
say, "Hey, the cops really screwed this one up." That was even the title of a newspaper article that said, "Experts
00:51:05
say police bungled this case." And maybe they did. Maybe they did. I can only tell you what I have seen. What I see is
00:51:12
a rather complicated case where there were several people involved that it would be
00:51:17
difficult to it would be difficult to figure out that there were multiple people involved.
00:51:22
It's kind it reminds me a lot of the Martha Moxley case where you had all of these years go by,
00:51:29
decades go by. This girl's killed in her own neighborhood. There were multiple people that were suspected. And in the
00:51:37
end, when you really put the pieces together, it's a much simpler case than you would think. Right.
00:51:45
When you look at Seena's case, I feel it's the same thing. Once you know all of the pieces and the moving parts, it's
00:51:53
actually a much more simple case than it would appear on June 3rd, 1980, and June
00:51:58
4th, 1980, and June 5th, 1980. There going to be things that the officers that the detectives saw at this
00:52:06
location, at the crime scene, that just didn't make sense. And it made it hard for them to put
00:52:12
together the complete story. Why didn't they make sense? Well, because there were more people involved
00:52:18
than they thought. And once you put it together, now it seems like it's it's pretty clear.
00:52:25
But let's add to the fact some other complexities that take place in this case. You have one of the main suspects,
00:52:34
Brett Swartner, who committed suicide 4 years after the Ducat murder. And yes, he was in and out of jail for
00:52:45
some time. He continued to have problems. But ultimately, he jumps out of a window. I believe it was the sixth floor
00:52:54
at the YMCA building downtown Columbus. Not high enough. In 1984, they find the door to his room
00:53:04
locked, the window wide open, and his body outside on the ground. They don't find anything of importance
00:53:13
to this case. You know, when when they're responding to this, when law enforcement are responding to this call,
00:53:19
you know they're hoping that he wrote out a written confession before he jumped out the window. Right. Or find
00:53:26
evidence of the victim or that crime or other crimes in his room. That didn't happen.
00:53:33
Well, then the problem then becomes that one of your prime suspects is now gone.
00:53:40
He wasn't cooperating before, but now you're going to get zero cooperation out of this individual.
00:53:46
>> more ball stabbing. >> Winchester ended up serving time for that September 1980 attack.
00:53:53
And he did over a year, I believe about 2 years or so on that attack. Obviously, he's not cooperated as well.
00:54:04
And there may be another individual or two out there that played a role in this.
00:54:10
And we just don't have all the facts from them, either. It's really truly a sad case
00:54:16
for the neighborhood, for the Ducat family. There has been no justice in this case.
00:54:23
And I wouldn't go so far to blame police. Had a monster not taken this girl's life
00:54:30
or monsters, we would never have this discussion to begin with. I think that there were some
00:54:38
people that worked very hard on this case and cared a lot about Asenath and her family and tried and did everything
00:54:45
they possibly could. I don't see a situation where the police put on blinders. They called in the FBI. They
00:54:53
sent physical evidence to the FBI. They asked for people with better resources for their help.
00:55:01
And unfortunately, I think it's just one of those cases that I I'm not very confident that this
00:55:09
thing gets solved or solved the right way. Anytime there's a crime where we think there's multiple people involved,
00:55:17
it's more likely that somebody's going to talk or we're going to hear rumors, rumblings.
00:55:22
But in this case, we have one of the suspects, he's dead. One of the suspects is incarcerated.
00:55:28
If there's another individual, then what happened to them? But I I because of those reasons is probably why we
00:55:37
haven't heard more rumors about these people being connected. As you heard in these episodes, the Ducats, the family,
00:55:45
are wonderful people. They're some of the kindest, bravest people that I have seen, specially based off of Alexander
00:55:52
Ducat's statements in the months after his little daughter was killed. There's been no justice for the Ducats.
00:56:00
There's been no justice for the people of this neighborhood. And it's something that I hope changes. And we can only
00:56:07
hope and pray that something happens, that there is a break in this case to lead to some form of justice. I know
00:56:15
that I, along with many other people, think of Asenath this time of year, every year, as we're
00:56:23
letting out school, getting ready for the summer break. We think about her, we think about her
00:56:28
case, and we think about the things that could have been done differently in this
00:56:32
investigation. We also think about the suspects and people that are capable of this type of horrific crime.
00:56:40
Seenie is not to be forgotten. The Ducats are not to be forgotten. This crime is not to be forgotten. This is
00:56:46
something that I hope stays with everybody until this thing can be solved. And one day, somebody can be
00:56:55
locked up and put away for what they did a long time ago. >> [music] >> I want to thank you guys so much for the
00:57:15
support [music] in keeping the lights on. I love you like I love Hank Mardukas. Colonel, do we have any recommended
00:57:23
reading? We do, Captain. This week we are recommending that everybody go to the longwalkhomeua.com
00:57:30
website. It's a website dedicated to the case that we covered this week and show
00:57:36
your support. Read what they have there. They have more than we could cover on this case this week. And also, support
00:57:43
the Asenath Ducat project. And you can find that information at longwalkhomeua.com.
00:57:50
And we will have that listed on our recommended page at truecrimegarage.com. >> And until next week, be good, be kind,
00:57:58
and [music] don't litter.