00:00:10
[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] thank you welcome to True Crime garage wherever
00:00:48
you are whatever you are doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a guy that's number
00:00:54
two in your programs and in our batting order but of course number one in your hearts he is the captain also known as
00:01:01
the second best in the garage thank you thank you thank you it's good to be seen
00:01:06
it's good to see you [Music] I'm excited about this beer here Captain look at me I'm I'm chair dancing yeah
00:01:19
that's kind of embarrassing you know most of the time we pick a beer because it's from the area of the story that
00:01:25
we're covering other times we pick a beer because you know maybe the name is clever maybe there's a clever play on
00:01:31
words in there and then sometimes as is the case today we select a beer that frankly we just really want to drink it
00:01:37
so today we are excited to be trying we don't need no stinking Coast by the hard-working people at Sixth Sense
00:01:44
Brewing Company in the Cozy town of Jackson Ohio Garage grade four out of five bottle caps we don't need no
00:01:50
stinking Coast is a super hazy double IPA brewed in that East Coast style and it's got a low hop High Citrus thing
00:01:58
going on and this delicious beer from The Sixth Sense Brewing Company was brought to us by these hard-working
00:02:04
Citizens First up we have to thank Andrew and Janice from well I'm guessing from Jackson County Ohio because they
00:02:11
are the ones that sent us the Sixth Sense beer so a big thank you to Andrew and Janice
00:02:17
next we have to thank all the beautiful ladies of Rachel's Cakes that's Melissa Jody Tina and of course Rachel thank you
00:02:25
ladies we like your cakes next we have Tiffany and Guam she's sending us a thank you because she was binge
00:02:32
listening to True Crime garage during her 20 hours of travel from Guam to Thailand well he could have came and
00:02:39
visited us but I guess you don't like us that much in a big we like a jib to Kathy in
00:02:45
Rockwell Iowa and a big big thank you to two loyal and long time listeners we have Rick and Monica and San Antonio
00:02:52
Texas yeah and we have a big shout out to Jessica from Hereford what kind of what kind of name is that I
00:03:01
was there for now I'm Hereford Arizona we like Yoji and last but not least down in holy Springs North Carolina a shout
00:03:10
out to Elizabeth so thank you to everybody for filling up the fridge this week and if you want to buy us a round
00:03:15
for next week's show go to True Crime garage.com and click on the Donate button if you'd like to follow us on
00:03:21
social media Facebook Snapchat Twitter all that stuff you can follow us at True Crime garage all right that's enough of
00:03:28
the business everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime
00:03:34
foreign [Music] garage and this is the case of the fifth nail [Music] we couldn't tell you this story without
00:04:13
first telling you about a website the fifth Nail website for the fifthnail.blogspot.com
00:04:21
the site is an online web log that feels and reads much like a personal Journal a
00:04:27
personal journal from the blog's Creator the name the fifth nail comes from According to the site's Creator an old
00:04:34
myth a myth about the crucifixion of Christ States gypsies crafted five nails for
00:04:42
the crucifixion of Jesus Christ but only four were used by the Romans the fifth nail was intended to pierce the heart of
00:04:49
Christ but the gypsies hid the nail from the Romans depending on which story you follow from
00:04:55
the blog the gypsies were either rewarded or punished for having done this rewarded for trying to protect Christ
00:05:11
and having gone against the Romans were punished for causing the already very painful death to last longer than
00:05:18
necessary Other Stories on the blog would say the fit nail is a sacred artifact A Relic that holds great power
00:05:28
but once you get past the crafty name within the journal entries the writer has made it obvious this is a one-person
00:05:36
protest site one person voicing their opinions against the registration laws of sex offenders
00:05:43
stating that punishments for having committed crimes only lead to more crimes the fifth nail blog was created in
00:05:51
January of 2004. on this Blog the writer spoke of past crimes they had committed
00:05:58
about their daily life and about wanting to change the penal system and also wanting to have a closer
00:06:04
relationship with God in one of the first posts the writer states this site can be a voice for
00:06:11
repressed criminals the site nor the Blogger condones criminal Acts or behavior but rather
00:06:18
this is a reminder that the criminal too just like the rest of us is a human being
00:06:25
and other posts the author says the Blogger is not a pedophile and if you review the post regarding past crimes
00:06:32
committed it is obvious they believe these were simply crimes committed by a confused young person
00:06:38
who was acting out because of abuse they had suffered this tone rings throughout other posts
00:06:44
suggesting simply that criminals are victims too furthermore it is the belief of the
00:06:50
fifth nail that the cure for Crime criminals and criminal activity is love much like Christ taught people to love
00:06:58
their enemies the Blogger also States they knew all about abuse from every angle from the
00:07:04
perspective of not only the abuser but the victim as well and they were recommending lighter and
00:07:10
less strict punishments for offenders saying offenders should be offered counseling and treatment programs rather
00:07:17
than jail time in April of 2005 the readers of the fifth nail would notice an obvious
00:07:26
change into the tone and mindset of the author by now the author was clearly depressed
00:07:31
and most likely suicidal the blog post making reference to what the author calls the demons
00:07:48
saying things like the demons are stronger than ever I am alone and only God can save me
00:07:55
I might be the only one who can understand the nature of the Demons I'm very afraid because if the demons
00:08:02
win a lot of people are going to get hurt very badly hurt I continue to pray that God will help me
00:08:10
please pray for me because I don't know if the right choice is even an option now
00:08:17
on Wednesday May 11th there was a post submitted titled the demons have taken over
00:08:23
and it stated it's too late too late for God to take care of the Demons because the demons have locked up
00:08:31
the happy person in the same dungeon where the demons had once been locked up and now with the happy person locked up
00:08:40
the demons are loose and now I am very very afraid the demons have caused me to question my
00:08:48
faith to God and I am Losing My Religion and that is how they got the key and got
00:08:55
out of the dungeon and locked me up not only am I afraid but I am also very very angry
00:09:03
angry with Society I'd like to kill myself but I don't know if I can I would like to hurt society as much as
00:09:12
possible and then die as for the happy person I once was well the happy person was just a dream
00:09:20
and as it turns out the happy person never really existed at all turns out the demons were alive and well
00:09:27
long before the dream of the happy person two days later on Friday the 13th the author made the last blog post
00:09:37
it was a lengthy post but the gist of it the author wrote is taking people with me right or wrong
00:09:45
and does it really matter a million years from now will there even be people will any of this matter
00:09:54
I have a disease I have contracted from society I hope I will be able to finish my
00:10:00
online journals before dying which I hope will be soon or maybe with some help I could turn
00:10:08
myself in that might still be a possibility but the problem with that is the demons are in control
00:10:17
and not the happy person [Music] just two days after the final blog post on the fifthnail.com website on May 15
00:10:42
2005 our story takes us to a place called cordeline Idaho for those of you not familiar that's about 30 miles east
00:10:51
of Seattle and the population back then would have been roughly about 40 000 people well our story will take place
00:10:58
just outside of there near Lake Cordy Lane Robert Hollingsworth hired a neighbor
00:11:04
boy to mow his grass he hired 13 year old Slade groney Slade was your typical American young teenage boy his family
00:11:13
did not have much money so he was helping out doing some work for his neighbor Mr Hollingsworth you know to
00:11:19
earn some walking around money the arrangement the two had made was that Robert Hollingsworth would get the
00:11:25
exact amount of money that they had agreed on and paid the boy the following day
00:11:30
so on May 15th when the work was done Slade groney returned to his home across the street where he lived with his
00:11:37
mother and his mother's long-term boyfriend now we said that Slade had finished the
00:11:42
work for the day over at the Hollingsworth property and returned home well the next day on May 16th in the
00:11:48
evening Robert Hollingsworth goes over to the neighbor's house to pay the boy for his hard work
00:11:54
on his walk over he can see the family is likely home as the two vehicles that they own were parked in the driveway in
00:12:03
their normal spots and as he gets closer he notices that both the vehicles have several of the
00:12:10
doors sitting open he walks past the vehicles ducking down to look inside and he continues on walking towards the
00:12:18
front door the car doors are open but both in both cars but nothing seems to be out of the ordinary as Hollingsworth
00:12:26
approaches the front door he's going to notice some blood on the wall yeah he's going to see what what appears to be
00:12:32
quite a bit of blood as he takes another step he can see that there's there's blood on the actual door and on the
00:12:39
porch steps as well so we have it on the walls the door and the steps well this frightens Hollingsworth and and of
00:12:46
course he runs back to his house and he goes for the phone he calls 9-1-1 and he
00:12:52
reports that when he went to his neighbor's house uh he thinks that he saw a lot of blood on the front porch in
00:12:58
the door you know so please send the police in an ambulance as quickly as possible
00:13:03
members of the sheriff's department arrive at the scene they knock on the doors and they receive no answer but of
00:13:11
course the blood on the door in the front porch will give the officers probable cause to enter the home
00:13:18
they quickly find a side door to the home unlocked and they enter according to the officers the first thing they
00:13:25
notice is that there's blood everywhere they see two bodies lying dead in an area between the kitchen and the living
00:13:33
room around each body there is a large pool of blood both victims had been bound
00:13:39
with duct tape and zip ties both had been hit many times in the head and face one of the victims appeared to have been
00:13:47
shot in the head possibly at close range this was the body of 13 year old Slade he was face down in a puddle of blood
00:13:57
there was quite a good amount of duct tape wrapped around his head and around his wrist as well and laying next to
00:14:03
Slade will be his mother in her own pool of blood this is Brenda groney she too is face down in Blood and it appeared
00:14:11
that the blood had been coming from her head her wrists were bound behind her back and her feet bound with zip ties in
00:14:19
the living room there was another obvious sign of violent death and this is similar to what the sheriffs had just
00:14:26
seen a man later identified as Mark McKenzie lay in blood wristbound with duct tape and feet with zip ties this
00:14:34
would be the long-term boyfriend correct he's actually the owner of the home officers surmise that he too had been
00:14:42
killed by either a gunshot or blunt force trauma to the Head Robert Hollingsworth also tells the sheriffs
00:14:49
that less than 24 hours before the bodies were discovered that he had called the sheriff's department to
00:14:55
report a suspicious truck he found on his property the crime scene was so bloody and
00:15:01
horrific that many of the deputies nearly got sick after a thorough search of the home
00:15:07
deputies noted that they found a lot of blood now this was all over the inside of the home and this included Footprints
00:15:15
hand prints blood smears there was spatter on the walls and floor as well as droplets on the floor so the police
00:15:22
find three victims we have two adults and we have one teenage boy but they don't find any other victims on the
00:15:30
property or in the home now this is late Monday night and by the time they go through the crime scene now we're close
00:15:37
to early Tuesday right and the sheriff's department they start notifying family members regarding the murders of their
00:15:45
loved ones one family member uh one family member of Brenda's is notified that three murder victims were found in
00:15:52
the home and the the lady she then tells them well you must be mistaken there should be five victims there not three
00:16:00
okay so the the sheriff's department immediately are like what's going on why would this this person that we're
00:16:06
notifying tell us tell us that we should be seeing five victims here uh so when pressed again she says the same thing
00:16:14
you know there should be five victims here not three this is not the last the sheriff's department would hear of this
00:16:22
and after confirming the suspicion the sheriff's department realizes that they have a whole new set of problems on
00:16:29
their hands they not only have three murdered victims a killer or killers on the loose but now they have two missing
00:16:36
children to look for as well yeah we have nine-year-old Dylan and we have eight-year-old Shasta yeah because see
00:16:43
at the time of the crime you know that particular night there were five people in that house there's Mark McKenzie he's
00:16:50
37 years old he's the long-term boyfriend and the owner of the home as we had stated there's Brenda groney uh
00:16:57
the mother uh she's she's the mother of of 5 kids but three of her kids lived there so we have 13 year old Slade who
00:17:06
we had mentioned who was found dead in the home but we also have nine-year-old Dylan that the captain captain mentioned
00:17:12
as well as the little sister Shasta who's eight Oh Captain so uh Brenda had two older kids that did not live at the
00:17:20
house and her ex-husband who was very active in his children's lives had his own place and saw the children on a
00:17:27
regular basis so now the sheriff's department law enforcement are wondering where is Dylan and where is Shasta
00:17:35
now of course there was a thorough search conducted at both the grony property and then at the Hollingsworth
00:17:42
property as well and at the discovery of the murders they conducted these searches but again as
00:17:49
once the suspicion was confirmed that we have missing children well they're going
00:17:53
to search again so we've just combined those two searches and listed what the sheriff's department noted as of
00:17:59
importance uh together we already talked about all the blood at the groaning McKenzie house
00:18:06
and we talked about Mark and Brenda being bound with duct tape and zip ties uh tape on the wrist and zip ties
00:18:12
binding the feet Slade was only bound with duct tape around his wrist and some on his head as well but no zip ties on
00:18:20
his ankles there was a second structure on the property on the Mackenzie groaning
00:18:26
property this is is like a large shed um and I should point out before we get too far into this that these these
00:18:34
properties that we're discussing they're very they're large properties you know we're talking about uh large front yards
00:18:41
large backyards so so about maybe a acre and a half two acres yeah yeah they're they're of substantial size
00:18:49
so in this structure they find they find of additional Vehicles now these were family vehicles okay so this is more
00:18:58
like a pole barn or something correct correct and not a little shed a big a big uh pole barn like you said they find
00:19:04
some extra vehicles on the groaning property as well one including a camper I believe all of these vehicles end up
00:19:10
belonging to the grony or McKenzie family now on Mr Hollingsworth property they found a 1988 silver Ford pickup
00:19:20
truck with Idaho plates now this is registered to Lisa and Daniel Miller this is the vehicle this is the
00:19:28
quote-unquote abandoned truck that Mr Hollingsworth had reported as suspicious earlier to the Sheriff's Department okay
00:19:35
now he says that he first saw it on the on the McKenzie groaning property around
00:19:42
8 P.M on Sunday May 15th he says that he then saw it again the next day this would be very early about 6 30 in the
00:19:51
morning but this time the the truck was on his property so before these events had before these
00:19:59
events he had never seen this truck before uh the truck is still on his property at the time of the search in
00:20:05
the bed of the truck the sheriff's department they find a roll of duct tape and they also find a ball of wadded up
00:20:12
duct tape as well this is duct tape obvious obviously matching tape that was used at the murder scene yeah winner
00:20:19
winner chicken dinner yeah so the truck is their first major lead law enforcement stated quote nothing
00:20:25
appeared to be stolen from the crime scene except for the kids there was an amber alert that was issued for The
00:20:33
Disappearance of nine-year-old Dylan groeny and his little sister eight-year-old Shasta groney search
00:20:39
parties were sent out to search the wooded areas surrounding the family's homes and then extending out from there
00:20:46
they conducted searches with both tracking and cadaver dogs both on foot and on Horseback because one would hope
00:20:55
that maybe why these attacks happen on three individuals that maybe they somehow got
00:21:01
away and uh or possibly that they were killed and their bodies were moved somewhere
00:21:07
and as I like to say you're exactly right captain that the the first of what you said was exactly their suspicion
00:21:13
they they were hopeful and thought yeah yeah maybe these kids got away and they're hiding in the woods somewhere
00:21:18
and they're just afraid to come out because they're they're terrified of what they had seen or heard yeah so what
00:21:22
the sheriff's department is going to do is they're going to divide into two teams one is going to take on the triple
00:21:27
homicide and the other team is going to be searching for the two missing children yes and on Tuesday May 17th the
00:21:35
sheriff's department they announced that after interviewing friends and family of
00:21:39
the victims uh that they have a person of interest a person of interest has emerged from this group all right and
00:21:46
this is Robert Roy lutner uh he's age 33 he's a large guy he's about six foot three 230 240 pounds right uh he's
00:21:56
nicknamed concrete Bob he's also a friend of the family he is someone in that visited the home a couple of times
00:22:04
just days before the murders and it's believed that he even visited the home on Sunday evening maybe just hours
00:22:11
before the slangs were committed so a friend of the longtime boyfriend um yeah I got the vibe that it was a
00:22:19
friend of both of them um and but this is concrete Bob right right so concrete Bob is the number one
00:22:25
suspect at this time and how he emerges as a suspect is is like this okay so remember we said that Brenda groney had
00:22:33
two older children that did not live at the home yeah well one of these children
00:22:37
this is Jesse groney um he tells the sheriff's department that concrete Bob owed his mother and
00:22:44
his mother's boyfriend about two thousand dollars okay Jesse also explained that even though concrete Bob
00:22:51
owed the family money there did not seem to be any bad blood regarding this loan
00:22:57
or any bad blood between the family and concrete Bob about there's that psychological thing that if you if you'd
00:23:05
lend somebody money they instantly start resenting you even though you'd lent them money well the thing here is you
00:23:13
know he he states that even though the family didn't have much money at all he didn't see he didn't see his mother and
00:23:21
her boyfriend pressuring concrete Bob to repay this money at any time soon right
00:23:26
but when the sheriff's department is talking to other family members about concrete Bob they're they're stayed in
00:23:32
look um he you know maybe has a little bit of a criminal has but he's he's not somebody that we would suspect of being
00:23:40
able to do this yes what was his criminal past uh he had some drug possession charges he also had domestic
00:23:48
battery uh this was for fighting with a girlfriend outside of a bar I guess this
00:23:53
domestic battery charge ended up being reduced to just disturbing the peace he also had two counts of fraud on his
00:24:01
record as well now here's the suspicious thing though Captain concrete Bob took a
00:24:07
trip to Boise the day after the bodies were found he drove a truck that matched the truck found on the Hollingsworth
00:24:17
property but we we know that that was registered to some other people so there's a little confusion there but
00:24:23
still interest the sheriff's department they are looking for this concrete Bob who as we said conveniently took a trip
00:24:31
the day after the murders well they don't have to look very long or very hard because
00:24:36
about a day after they announced that he was a person of interest concrete Bob comes forward and he talks with the
00:24:43
sheriff's department they interview him for 16 hours wow they gave him a polygraph test and as what was reported
00:24:52
was that concrete Bob passed the polygraph test with flying colors mainly gray though so after all of this
00:24:59
concrete Bob was cleared and he's no longer a suspect the thing here is though Captain we have the autopsies to
00:25:05
discuss now remember when the bodies were found we have the situation where it was believed that the victims could
00:25:14
have either been shot in the head or they were killed by blunt force trauma to the Head the autopsies revealed that
00:25:20
it was not gunshots but it was in fact blunt force trauma to the head and did they have the weapon
00:25:27
um they they had their suspicions but they were not going to announce that to the public what they found regarding the
00:25:34
injuries were brain contusion and skull fractures the sheriff's department as we
00:25:40
said was not announcing the weapon they believed used in the attack however a local paper was saying that a claw
00:25:48
hammer was used on the victims well it's actually surprising that the sheriff's department talked to concrete Bob for as
00:25:55
long as they did and they didn't you know give him every piece of the you know evidence of what happened and get
00:26:01
him to falsely confess oh like we've seen very recently on this show do you know if the sheriff's department has a
00:26:08
time of death well what they find out is that this is based off of the body temperatures it was determined that the
00:26:14
three had died either in the late Sunday evening hours or early Monday morning hours so that doesn't doesn't tell us
00:26:22
much we both could have guessed that well they weren't found until Monday evening so it only it only really closes
00:26:29
the window a little bit but it still leaves us a decent sized window to work with there
00:26:35
now when they when they conduct the toxicology reports uh the two on the on the adults revealed the presence of THC
00:26:46
and methamphetamine in both Brenda and Mark all right so they're smoking some pot yeah they're they're doing a little
00:26:53
bit of recreational drugs it it looks like um and there is there is no definitive
00:27:00
proof wait so is meth considered recreational uh I I guess all drugs might be considered recreational I've
00:27:09
seen that Recreation but regardless the toxicology report reveals the presence of both THC and methamphetamine now even
00:27:18
though there's no definitive proof of this the sheriff's department was going to go with the theory that because five
00:27:26
victims were controlled and at least three of them were bound there there was a strong possibility that they were
00:27:33
looking for more than one perpetrator yeah also they could not find any sign of forced entry so this of course was
00:27:42
suggesting a strong possibility that the victims knew the perpetrators the the other strange thing here is that the
00:27:50
Mackenzie and groanie household well it had plenty of firearms in the home you know hunting is very is very popular in
00:27:58
that area and that's something that some of the family members participated in right uh that not only were there
00:28:04
Firearms scattered kind of throughout in different parts of the home several of these were loaded and they you know
00:28:12
stashed loaded throughout the home found by the sheriff's department but none of
00:28:16
them were found near where the victims lay um so it didn't appear that any of the
00:28:22
victims had tried to go for these weapons in any form of defense well they're high on meth one thing that the
00:28:29
sheriff's department was wondering about was maybe The Killers watched the house
00:28:34
and may have been able to pull off some kind of surprise attack in the middle of
00:28:38
the night this would also be evidence why these guns were not used for defense but of course the sheriff's department
00:28:46
is working with the expectation that the two missing children Dylan and Shasta are still alive I'll get right back to
00:28:53
the case of the fifth nail right after this quick beer break [Music] [Music] all right we're back cheers everybody
00:29:17
cheers so we were going through some of the Sheriff's Department's thoughts and feelings early on in this investigation
00:29:24
some things that they had noticed at the crime scene what that was leading them to believe and Theory rise regarding the
00:29:31
the perpetrators that they were looking for now I do want to point out here that
00:29:35
the sheriff's department made sure to tell the media and the community that this home this home was not a drug house
00:29:43
the sheriff's department found no evidence to suggest that the house was used to manufacture store or sell drugs
00:29:51
and actually I don't believe that they found any actual drugs in the house at all so everything here is is simply just
00:29:59
pointing to the drugs being found in the in the system of the adults of Brenda and Mark right so the show sheriff's
00:30:07
department at this point is just basically stating that recreational drug use has nothing to do with the actual
00:30:15
crimes or the possible abductions of the two um children yeah that's that's what the
00:30:20
evidence is pointing towards now shortly into this investigation uh we had already discussed one lead that went
00:30:27
that went nowhere you know they're able to clear concrete Bob but the sheriff's department is going to catch a break uh
00:30:35
this is when a white van was spotted uh this white fan was from Washington had Washington plates on it and was reported
00:30:44
to the sheriff's department now the vehicle was spotted about 70 miles north of Coeur d'Alene this would be near the
00:30:52
Montana and Canada borders at a store that caters for hunters and outdoor enthusiasts the vehicle was
00:31:01
reported because a man was at the store with two children that got out of the vehicle
00:31:08
they didn't buy anything they didn't actually even shop at all the Man simply asked for directions he asked for
00:31:16
directions to a place called Libby Montana so the the police are very interested in
00:31:22
this because we have this man here and he's got two children that are of the same age as Shasta and Dylan in this
00:31:30
vehicle heading out of the state well they search and search and search for this vehicle
00:31:38
and it doesn't turn up they're they're not able to locate the van that's with the Washington plates one it could be
00:31:44
anybody I mean there's a lot of people traveling with two kids but those kids are two kids of their own yeah and the
00:31:51
thing is here Captain we would have a lot of similar sightings to this uh over the course of some time because you know
00:31:59
the sheriff's department really was doing everything they could to try to find these these two children there were
00:32:05
there were Billboards going up with both of their pictures very you know big beautiful pictures of the two kids on
00:32:11
there so that everybody could see their faces you could get a sense of their height and their weight know where
00:32:17
they're missing from and and there were people looking for these kids all over the area so of course we're going to
00:32:22
have some different quote-unquote sightings from time to time right and the sheriff's department has already
00:32:27
looked into a close friend the concrete Bob but also we just assumed that they'd
00:32:32
have to look into family members especially because there are three murders and two abductions
00:32:38
and the the children's father uh this is Stephen grooney of course he came under
00:32:43
suspicion um and and I say of course just because you know we know that that's a typical
00:32:49
normal part of any investigative process when you're investigating the murder and
00:32:55
deaths of family members wow you're going to be questioned you guys should be questioned yeah you got to look at
00:33:01
the ex-husband or if there's an ex-wife or somebody anybody inside that inner circle
00:33:06
um but the but furthermore he became Under Suspicion a little bit more than normal because of of some of the
00:33:14
statements that he had made uh to the public into the media now on several occasions the father Stephen groney now
00:33:22
he he was pleing to the killers of the family and to the abductors of the two children on these you know press
00:33:31
conferences and interviews any chance that he got he was he was speaking directly to the abductors
00:33:38
and the one thing that the sheriff's department they found strange was that Stephen groney kept saying he said this
00:33:45
multiple times the that the abductor should drop the children off at a location of his choosing and anonymously
00:33:53
phone in where he had dropped them off and that that they should please do not kill these kids because they had nothing
00:34:03
to do with this and he would often say that the kids had nothing to do with this and that's the statement that that
00:34:11
caused the sheriff's department to to have some uneasy feelings about Stephen Groening because their their whole thing
00:34:18
was they could not they could not establish or determine a motive for the crime that took place
00:34:25
right and now we have somebody on the inner circle saying that the children have nothing to do with this right
00:34:31
almost like assuming he knows what the motive was and also I think it's very suspicious on the idea of hey just uh
00:34:39
pick a place drop them off and call in Anonymous it's almost like he's setting up a scenario for him to be able to drop
00:34:46
off the kids somewhere yeah yeah you're right or or that someone that he knows of could just drop them somewhere and
00:34:54
not not be seen not be caught especially if the kids aren't going to reveal who dropped them off or who's been holding
00:35:00
them um yeah then the issue becomes what's his Alibi for Sunday and Monday and the
00:35:08
other thing too is I think he's pretty upfront and in the public eye quite a bit during this this investigation it's
00:35:15
not like he's he's hiding behind closed doors and he's phoning these things in he's he's at the Forefront of this well
00:35:22
and the other thing too is yeah maybe you see a motive or or anger or revenge or something against the ex-wife with
00:35:30
the new boyfriend but him killing his own teenage boy you know I don't doesn't seem it doesn't seem extremely
00:35:40
likely right uh the other thing here though Captain is you know during questioning and things like that with
00:35:46
the father of the children of Stephen grooney now the the other thing they were concerned about was that they
00:35:53
stated that he had failed parts of his polygraph test not they weren't saying he failed the polygraph test they were
00:36:02
saying it appears he was deceptive at portions of this test but of course they would not go on to to inform us as to
00:36:10
what these portions of the test were that that they believed him right but that could be nerves or anything I I'd
00:36:16
really be interested in taking one myself just to see what kind of scenario that is and and the effects of that
00:36:24
mm-hmm well and the thing too here is Captain you know a lot of that's based off of you know your your what's going
00:36:30
on with you internally at the time right so you've you have this horrible situation where your ex-wife has been
00:36:38
killed and your son has been killed and now you have a daughter and son who are missing well you have a lot you got a
00:36:46
lot of emotions in you at this probably a lot of anxiety running through you and
00:36:51
anger sadness all kinds of stuff and look I mean I think the important thing is you know especially somebody that had
00:37:00
kids with this with the lady that was murdered you know it's not just his ex-wife it's the mother of his children
00:37:06
so and now you have two missing children yourself and I think that's why you know
00:37:11
this is this is one reason why these tests aren't something that they use in the court of law because there there is
00:37:18
errors and on top of that a lot of the let's say determining whether somebody's deceptive or not is coming from an
00:37:26
expert's opinion right where you might be able to show this to another quote-unquote expert and they say I'm
00:37:32
not seeing any signs of deception here yeah but I think it's a good barometer you know I still think it's something
00:37:39
that they could use during the investigation to give the the police some kind of lead yes I think I think it
00:37:46
can be helpful when conducted by experienced uh investigators when you have people that that have conducted
00:37:52
these tests time and time again and have experience as far as many years investigating these crimes because I'm a
00:38:00
big believer in that old gut feeling and I think that that comes with experience
00:38:06
the thing here is Captain the the national Center for missing and exploited children got involved we
00:38:12
talked about the Billboards that were set up um and and you know this is one of our
00:38:16
favorite organizations uh they set up my only my only issue is we donated money and now we get like an email every day
00:38:24
to asking for more money well we've donated a few times but uh yeah yeah you're right there they remind us that
00:38:30
uh hey we're still here hey yeah we know we talk about you every other week on the show
00:38:36
um anyway the uh they sent out notifications Nationwide regarding the two missing children uh and they
00:38:43
distributed over 100 000 Flyers um throughout the Western American states now uh this this was interesting
00:38:54
the way that they did this they were contacting businesses and so if you had a gas station or a restaurant or
00:39:01
something like that they would they would send out a fax or an email to these different businesses and they
00:39:07
would also send out flyers wherever they could so they're trying to get the the pictures of these children in front of
00:39:14
people that might you know if someone stops for gas if someone goes into a store to shop or to to buy food you know
00:39:22
whoever took these kids you would assume is somewhat on the run if the kids are still alive and the sheriff's department
00:39:30
is working with the expectation that the kids may still be on still be alive yeah
00:39:36
I think it's I I think it'd be silly to just assume they're on the run I mean we've seen a lot of times where somebody
00:39:42
is abducted and then they're taken back to the person's Lair or whatever so that
00:39:48
that's a big possibility they need to be looking into as well so if somebody refers to their home as their Lair we
00:39:54
should just assume they're guilty of horrible things well just well don't don't go over there for a barbecue is
00:40:00
what I'm saying uh the the crime and the missing children were also featured on America's Most Wanted they featured the
00:40:08
story twice and I believe that they ran it on two Saturdays in a row these would
00:40:14
be the two Saturdays following the when the crime actually took place so nationally everybody is looking for
00:40:22
these kids and meanwhile the investigators are still analyzing evidence that they've collected from the
00:40:28
crime scene but on a sad note they're also they're searching the local landfills because they're wondering if
00:40:37
maybe the kids were dumped somewhere right um you know these these are all things
00:40:44
that are necessary to do but one terrible thing that was really working against those fighting for a good
00:40:51
outcome well there was a a bit of a delay in getting the Amber Alert out for these
00:40:57
two children so once that Amber Alert goes out uh it would hit the emergency broadcast system uh the state Lottery
00:41:06
Commission all the news and media Outlets as well as the notification boards along the highways in Idaho parts
00:41:13
of Montana Washington and Oregon now part of the delay was because at first they didn't even know that the kids were
00:41:22
missing you know they didn't know that they had kids involved in this crime until notifying the family about the
00:41:27
three murders seems like something that you should be able to figure out within you know a half an hour well then there
00:41:35
was further delay because of a bunch of bureaucratic [ __ ] basically so so the the family is killed and the two the
00:41:43
kids were taken either on late on May the 15th or early in the morning on May the 16th according to the body
00:41:51
temperatures right um so the bodies are not discovered until late on the 16th they became aware
00:41:58
of the missing children early on the 17th and the Amber Alert does not go out into the morning of the 18th
00:42:05
so that's just that's ridiculous yeah so by the time the Amber Alert goes out we
00:42:11
have about 48 to 60 hours that have passed based on depending how you you shake it or depending on the actual time
00:42:19
of yeah there's a nine and a eight year old that their lives are depending on this stuff you don't mess it up yeah and
00:42:27
the the really aggravating thing here is I I mentioned bureaucratic [ __ ] well a lot of that was Jesus dropping the
00:42:35
s-bombs all over the place a lot of that was that at the time there there were people involved that said that they
00:42:42
didn't know that this particular crime or these two missing kids actually fit the criteria for an amber alert yeah it
00:42:53
should be this simple there's children missing issue an amber alert that's it thank you you know that's it eight and
00:42:59
nine year old yes and the thing here that we got to keep in mind too that we have we have a additional problems in
00:43:07
this crime right because we we all know how this we know how unlikely a good outcome is in a child slash stranger
00:43:16
abduction especially after 48 Hours has expired well and look we've covered how many cases now you know I don't know
00:43:27
I realized I didn't give a number there when you asked me well yeah I don't know
00:43:30
either because think about all the cases that we haven't released because we never recorded them because we're just
00:43:36
sitting around the garage that doesn't count drunk um we should have recorded all that
00:43:42
stuff because then then when we needed a week off but the thing here now to me looking at this case as it's developing
00:43:50
okay at first you start thinking yeah maybe this Revenge Type killing you know maybe it's the ex-husband maybe it's a
00:43:58
friend that they you know lent money to where's the motive but now that you have
00:44:03
an eight and nine year old missing to me the motive becomes more Sinister it becomes
00:44:11
um the motive starts leaning itself towards this idea that I had to kill the I had to kill the the parents and the
00:44:21
teenager because my Victim of choice is under let's say 10 or so and so now to me it's now
00:44:30
I I think you're gonna your fear is that these kids are going to die but my initial fear is what kind of torture are
00:44:39
they going to have to go through before that death occurs right and to me then this motive becomes uh sexual
00:44:48
yeah and and you're right you're exactly right we have a crime where they can't figure out the motive but
00:44:54
the other thing that the investigators are saying at the time is that this they're not releasing what they believe
00:45:01
the motive to be however they're stating that you know this is a crime for which
00:45:05
there's no profile for this type of crime there's nothing that they were taught coming up that would teach them
00:45:12
about this exact type of crime and I think you can kind of figure out exactly what motive they believe they're working
00:45:19
with because what did they State very early on into the investigation the sheriff's department said that the
00:45:26
only thing that appeared to have been stolen from the crime scene was the kids right so not only are we playing behind
00:45:33
the eight ball because because of the delay in the amber alert but also think about this you know we don't have a
00:45:42
suspect name we do not have a suspect vehicle description or a direction of travel for this vehicle and plus keep in
00:45:51
mind in Idaho you can be in in another state in minutes almost heck you could you could jump the Canadian border
00:45:59
rather quickly from right but with every state depending on where you're at in the state you can be out of the state
00:46:05
within minutes no I get that but they were in northern Idaho and if you picture the the outline of Idaho that
00:46:10
puts in several States very quickly um you know and we stated that 48 hours is kind of the the the mark there that
00:46:17
you've got to be concerned about because 74 of kidnapped children that were that
00:46:22
are killed they are killed within three hours of the abduction Jesus and that's why we donate our money of
00:46:32
course and the thing here is you know for everybody out there listening that has pitched into the beer fund you know
00:46:38
cheers to you because you are the reason that we donated money to the the national Center for missing and
00:46:46
exploited children on several occasions because you know once the fridge is full
00:46:49
would just be greedy at that point if we're if we're not passing that along and trying to do some good with it and
00:46:55
it's one hell of an organization it's it really is it's it's been uh the the recovery rate has increased uh for
00:47:03
finding these kids and returning them home safely has increased since the organization and Foundation has been
00:47:09
created so it really truly is a good thing yeah and we're not trying to Pat ourselves on the back we are kind of
00:47:14
greedy bastards because we do fill up two fridges but we're also trying to Pat Pat everybody else on the back at the
00:47:21
same time all right my hand is getting tired all right so we have concrete Bob and and he's ruled out correct and we
00:47:28
have the ex-husband yes um and and I think I think with the ex-husband here Captain jabroni I think
00:47:36
um no Stephen grooney yeah Steven jabroni uh I think that we have a situation here where there might be some
00:47:44
speculation and some suspicion a little bit but I don't think that it's like something that they're really putting a
00:47:50
ton of weight into the guy is obviously been horribly affected by the crime uh and he's like I said he's on the front
00:47:59
line of this investigation he's out there with his time he's pleading to the abductor he's speaking to the killers
00:48:07
and asking for the children back right but so so he's kind of on the sideline we're gonna keep looking at him but
00:48:14
what's next in the investigation okay so let's let's fast forward a little bit here right because those are all jump
00:48:21
into the DeLorean those are all things that were taking place within the first week or two of of the investigation and
00:48:28
before we moved on from that I wanted to bring up the problem with the Amber Alert because it is a good system when
00:48:33
you when you put it in the ACT into action immediately right that's the whole point of it so anyway
00:48:39
three weeks into the investigation now hope is actually it's starting to fade by this point the sheriff's department
00:48:46
they they don't know who the killer or killers are nor do they know the whereabouts of Shasta and Dylan by this
00:48:55
time they had interviewed 700 people they had received and chased 1700 tips and leads and they had nothing new to
00:49:06
announce to the media in the community at this point three weeks into the investigation no new information to
00:49:12
present anybody and of course they they have to have some information that they hold back right we know that well
00:49:22
one one investigator did offer up his opinion though regarding the crimes stating that the murders had to have
00:49:30
been premeditated because whoever perpetrated the murders brought the necessary materials with them to bind
00:49:39
the victims as well as bringing the murder instrument as well stating it was an extremely violent scene and in his
00:49:49
experience a violent crime scene usually means the motivation is one of three things for him it's either money drugs
00:49:57
or love stating that this is the type of crime scene that he would expect to see
00:50:04
involvement from like a Columbia drug lord or something like that but he also pointed out you know that Brenda groney
00:50:10
and Mark McKenzie they were not dealing with large sums of money at any point right they were also not dealing with
00:50:19
large sums of drugs and they themselves didn't show any signs of having drug issues they found drugs in their system
00:50:27
but they couldn't find any reason to point out that the that the adults had drug problems well that is ridiculous
00:50:34
because here look I I don't think so go ahead okay well I I understand that people use drugs Recreation
00:50:42
recreationally I understand that people drink some beers maybe smoke a little pot
00:50:48
oh once you start doing something like math it's a it's a whole different ball game
00:50:54
so so the idea that they don't have drug issues that's to me that's just that's me
00:51:01
that's my opinion I get what you're saying I do get what you're saying because to me you're right
00:51:06
you would think that they're if you had to put out all the drugs on the line and
00:51:10
make and make a line draw a line in the sand that says okay these are for recreational use and everything on this
00:51:17
side would suggest that you have some kind of drug issue or problem I'm with you I would probably I would put
00:51:23
methamphetamine in the side of you got a drug problem right um you know but but this is the sheriff's department stating
00:51:30
this and I think that some doesn't mean they're correct it doesn't mean that they're correct but the reason why I
00:51:37
agree with their side on this one is that for the simple fact that they the the the the parents both held down
00:51:45
jobs okay they were they were listed they were said to be hard-working family-oriented people but everybody
00:51:52
also said the people that knew them closely they said they were hard-working people family oriented people but they
00:51:57
like to party a little bit right and they like to cut loose a little bit but like I said according to this on a
00:52:02
Sunday night before work on Monday okay I do when there's uh no I do when there's NFL football on but uh yeah
00:52:09
that's called drinking some beers uh you know that's not called uh methamphetamine right but the thing here
00:52:16
is like like I said they they did not find any uh proof that there was a manufacturing going on the house that
00:52:24
they were storing drugs selling drugs and furthermore like I stated they didn't state that they even found any
00:52:30
drugs at all it actually looks like they did not find any drugs in the possession
00:52:34
of the home because they took them all and on top of that here here's here's where I really side with them okay
00:52:42
is it they loaned a friend two thousand dollars and what I mean by that is I think that
00:52:48
people that have drug problems probably have money problems and they're not really in a position to be loaning out
00:52:57
money to to friends and family that's okay sure so I mean you look at every rock star
00:53:03
that has a bunch of money they they didn't have this family did not have a bunch of them right but what I'm stating
00:53:09
is your your thought process is well because they had two thousand dollars to loan out that they didn't have a drug
00:53:15
problem that is what I just said yes right and what I'm saying that would be like saying well like Ray Charles he
00:53:22
didn't have a heroin problem because he didn't have a money problem no he had a heroin problem I that's all I'm saying I
00:53:28
think I see what you're saying but we I think we should agree that Ray Charles was in a much different situation than
00:53:33
Brenda groney and Mark McKenzie right I understand that but what what I'm stating is to me uh the type of drug
00:53:42
they're using to me is a sign of that that's something that's a serious recreational drug so so the the
00:53:50
sheriff's department stating that this one member stating that he would have expected this to be the result of of
00:53:59
money drugs or love and he also stated that you know they they looked into that drug angle and they didn't believe that
00:54:07
was the cause of this crime they also looked into the love angle as well and this turned up nothing
00:54:14
and they you know the money in the drug issues all kind of the same thing there so they're going nowhere with this this
00:54:21
is like they had said there's this is a crime for which there was no profile for
00:54:26
now in 2005 Father's Day fell on Sunday June 19th and on Father's Day Stephen grooney told reporters it was his
00:54:37
Father's Day wish that his two children Shasta and Dylan would safely return home but of course he had prepared
00:54:46
himself for the worse he also told them that he was losing hope as well stating that he was very
00:54:54
optimistic the first couple of weeks that they were missing and he thought that the kids would be home soon but as
00:55:02
the week struck on he was no longer optimistic yeah and I couldn't imagine uh what a parent or
00:55:10
family member would be going through at that moment you know as the days drag on
00:55:15
they'd probably have to feel like the longest days in the world well a couple of weeks after Father's
00:55:21
Day this would bring us to July 2nd 2005 now um at 1 40 a.m We have two guys that are
00:55:30
outside of a 24-hour Denny's restaurant they're outside smoking cigarettes when they see I love me some Denny's though
00:55:38
when they see a red Jeep Cherokee this has Missouri license plates on it okay the vehicle pulls into the parking lot
00:55:46
and out jumps a middle-aged man and a little girl the guys smoking quickly recognized the
00:55:53
little girl to be Shasta the one that they had seen on billboards and missing Flyers uh all over all over the area
00:56:01
right uh one of the guys he texts his girlfriend uh the girlfriend is sitting inside she's you know inside eating as
00:56:09
he's outside smoking a cigarette he texts her to fill her in on what's going on you know I'm I'm seeing this guy and
00:56:17
I'm seeing this girl that's she looks exactly like Shasta um here's what I'm going to do I'm going
00:56:23
to call the police the the guys decide that the two of them are not going to let this guy and girl
00:56:32
leave the restaurant they're not going to tip them off right that they've spotted them but they're not going to
00:56:37
let them leave the restaurant until the police have a chance to speak with the both of them I I guarantee you these
00:56:43
these two gentlemen that were smoking they got the fight Jitters yeah I mean like they're probably all like riled up
00:56:50
at this point like okay we just gotta keep an eye on him without tipping our hand but we can't let this individual
00:56:56
get anywhere and at the same time though they're a little concerned that they might be uh mistaken because they don't
00:57:05
see a little boy right in this situation it's just the little girl in the in the
00:57:10
strange man so they're going to contact the police but kind of interesting twist
00:57:14
here though is that uh the manager of the Denny's contacts the police as well yeah so the way that this story works is
00:57:22
this the man and the girl they go into the restaurant and now the restaurant has some missing persons posters they're
00:57:29
you know posted in the in the vestibule or near the entrance right um shortly after the man walks in the the
00:57:38
girl of the poster the poster of the girl I'm sorry right is is removed it suddenly disappears uh from the wall why
00:57:47
from maybe from the guy okay yeah he take he takes down the poster okay so they are seated and the man orders
00:57:55
drinks uh and meals for both him and the girl the waitress then recognizes the girl to be Shasta as well she notifies
00:58:04
her manager about the situation by now we're at about 1 41 a.m both the manager and as the captain had stated one of the
00:58:13
guys outside smoking had called 9-1-1 shortly after the call a police officer responding to the call pulls into the
00:58:23
parking lot now they suspect that this man must have seen the cop because he quickly asked the waitress for his bill
00:58:32
he then got up and he took the girl with him and he headed toward the restrooms now two more police cars pulled into the
00:58:41
parking lot during this time of course all three cars were they were quiet you know none of them had their lights on or
00:58:48
their sirens on as they did not want to alert the man that that uh you know that
00:58:54
he and the girl had been cited they've been reported to Authority but he knows well
00:58:59
when the man and the girl return to their Booth where they were seated the man leaned over across the table to the
00:59:08
little girl he whispers something to her um no one really knows what what is said
00:59:13
no one heard what the man said to her now by this time the officers are inside the restaurant and they approached the
00:59:21
man and they told him they would like to speak with him outside now the the man he he goes with them without incident
00:59:30
once outside he spoke with the officers briefly and then they put him in the back of one of their cars
00:59:37
now the little girl at this point once she's alone she looks at the waitress and she tells her that her name is
00:59:45
Shasta groney and that she she wants to see her daddy even though the little girl appeared to
00:59:53
be fine she she didn't appear to have any you know noticeable injuries on her she appeared to be healthy
01:00:01
um she was quickly taken to the air an area hospital as this is standard procedure and she remained in the
01:00:09
hospital for a couple of days now shasta's father Stephen grooney uh he was notified and uh he would he had
01:00:19
actually gone to Seattle uh on a short trip to visit his sister uh shortly after arriving in Seattle he gets a
01:00:28
phone call that they found his daughter and so he's going to have to travel back
01:00:33
from Seattle to to to Coeur d'Alene now now keep in mind here's the strange thing here captain
01:00:38
this Denny's restaurant is is located near relatively near where the crime scene
01:00:45
took place where this girl was abducted from okay okay so the man who is apprehended uh he
01:00:52
sat in jail and all the while everyone is wondering what happened to Dylan yeah that's the question here I mean one
01:01:01
we need to figure out if they were you know were they witnesses to the murders where there's more than one
01:01:09
um perpetrator perpetrator uh is there maybe a group of people working what is the motive
01:01:16
um what trauma has she gone through where was she kept or where was she held during this time right like I said I you
01:01:22
know again people assuming that they're on the run I don't think is you know you
01:01:27
should never assume but also where is Dylan and who is this man that they have in custody then that's what we'll get
01:01:34
into next episode yes we're gonna have a lot of answers for you more on this case more on this
01:01:40
story tomorrow thanks to everybody for joining us in the garage for another beer and until tomorrow if you need any
01:01:47
True Crime garage go to truecrimegarage.com and thank you Nick thank you Captain thank you though thank
01:01:54
you everybody be good be kind and don't litter foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music]