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subject to credit approval C store or ashley.com for [Music] [Applause] details [Music]
00:01:43
welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and
00:01:49
with me as always is a guy that thinks my existence is a Nuance he is the captain I'm the host with the mostest
00:01:57
it's good to be seen and it's good to see you thanks for listening and thanks for telling your
00:02:04
[Music] mother this week in the fridge we have sah Stout by our good friends over at
00:02:14
the Columbus Brewing Company I was drinking some great Columbus Brewing Company beers at the Clippers baseball
00:02:20
game so we had to put them back on the show garage grade four and a quar bottle caps out of five and today we are
00:02:27
drinking with our good friends first up a raise of the glass to Mandy in Peach Tree City Georgia and a big shout out to
00:02:34
Nash in Chicago here's one to Mandy and Saskatoon Saskatchewan she's asking if the captain could send her one of his
00:02:43
hoodies I'm guessing it's still cold up there I would send one but my hoodies smell like tears in desperation and a
00:02:50
big we like your jib to Sally and Bluebell Pennsylvania here's a big cheers to dorine in Belgium she told me
00:02:58
to roll the r I'd like to go to Belgium I think I would be welcomed there and last but not least a shout to Caitlyn in
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tton Rhode Island thanks to everybody for helping us out with this week's shows if you want to help us out with
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next weeks go to True Crim garage.com and click on the Donate button and we restocked a lot of stuff in the website
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store so go to True Crim garage.com click on the store Page and check out the new stuff and I should be launching
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we have some stickers launching hopefully this week so I've seen the stickers and they are Fant fantastic we
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got a couple more designs coming in the next couple weeks as well so that's enough of the business all right
00:03:36
everybody gather around grab a chare grab a beer let's talk some true [Music] crime
00:04:00
[Music] the website Ohio attorney general.gov contains many resources one resource on there that
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both saddens me and angers me is a list of Cold Case homicides all taking place in my home state the great state of
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Ohio you can browse this list by searching a specific name or do as I have many times start at the beginning
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and go in chronological order through the years many cases on there have caught my eye several of them
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I have personally looked into hunting down old newspaper articles sifting through online message boards looking
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for not only information but theories and suspects after all this is my home state
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where my family and friends live and according to this list killers are walking amongst
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us one of the cases that caught my eye was that of a young woman killed at home alone in her
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apartment the case was initially of interest to me because I noticed that I once lived in the neighborhood in which
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she was killed on the government website this is case number 17 the victim's name Amy
00:05:33
Hooper this was just one of many cases that for me stopped being just a number on some list and became a name on a file
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folder however I am slightly ashamed to say that the file ended up on a shelf in
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my office collecting dust later through conversations I learned of an even closer connection I
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had had to the unsolved murder case my mother and Amy's mother taught at the same school and my father
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followed the case in the papers and on TV not too long ago I was busy cleaning out the old office and sifting through
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some old Case Files some that we have covered here on True Crime garage and others that we
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hope to I found Amy's folder flip through it and looked at her photo the sadness and anger
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returned and so I decided to revisit this case Amy was only 20 years old when some
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Savage took her life she was very close with her family and had many friends the motive for this cold-blooded
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killing is not obvious and the killer remains hiding in the shadows this week we take a look at just one of
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Ohio's many Cold Case homicides this is the case of Amy [Music] [Music] [Applause]
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[Music] Hooper Amy Joy Hooper was one of three daughters born to parents joy and Hollis
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Hooper when Amy was born on November 2nd 1971 her sisters were quite a bit older
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Holly was 8 and Sandy was 10 so Amy was the baby of the family Joy Hooper said that Amy was spoiled from all of the
00:07:51
mothering and that her sisters treated her like a little baby doll they actually took care of baby Amy when
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their mother was ill ill for a time and was unable to do so Amy was blonde with curly ringlets and hazel eyes and as an
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adult she was on the smaller side she was maybe 5' 3 in tall the website that we discussed lists her at 103 lbs but
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according to her family she was quote about 90 lb soaking wet the hoopers lived in Columbus and Amy attended
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wesland high school for a time but Amy's sisters Holly and Sandy tell us that Amy
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and her mother Joy clashed a little when Amy was a teenager this from my understanding seems to be fairly normal
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for teenage girls according to the family some of this clashing had to do with a boyfriend whom the parents have
00:08:43
viewed as abusive and Amy's mother Joy was very concerned because Amy actually had been hit on two separate occasions
00:08:51
by this boyfriend also this boy's mother worked in the school cafeteria and it sounds
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like she may have harassed Amy after Amy tried to break up with her son yeah and
00:09:03
after Amy's sophomore year at Westland High School her parents are going to try to move her to get away from this
00:09:10
douchebag well after being given a choice of where to live she was offered the choice of living with either her
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aunt or her sister Amy decided to go out to California to live with her sister Sandy and Sandy moved out there in 1982
00:09:24
the two sisters were very close despite the 10-year age difference between the two
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Amy did her junior year at High School in California and hung out with Sandy and sy's boyfriend Reay but after her
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junior year Amy moved back to Ohio and went to live with her aunt in a nearby town and graduated from a different High
00:09:43
School this would have been in 1989 after graduating from high school Amy moved back to Columbus and moved in
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with her mom Hollis and joy had very recently gone through a divorce and although this was not acrimonious it was
00:09:58
a tough time for everyone Amy wanted to save money so she could return to California to go to college she loved
00:10:06
fashion and she looked for a job that would allow her to work in that industry she got a job as a manager at a Wilson's
00:10:13
Leather store in the wesland mall which many media reports refer to as burman's leather because burman's was bought out
00:10:23
by Wilson's Leather at some point well she worked there for about 6 months a job that she reportedly loved
00:10:30
and she was very responsible never showing up late never missing a day of work she also occasionally designed
00:10:38
display windows for the Lazarus department store she rode the bus so she didn't have to spend money on a car one
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thing to note about Amy is that she loved animals and had a soft spot for anything furry at the time of her death
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she had two cats that she had taken in articles about Amy state that she was very social had a lot of friends and was
00:11:02
known to frequent a Westside bar called coconuts she also it has been reported dated black men almost
00:11:11
exclusively like the abusive boyfriend from wesland high school this fact will become significant later also her family
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describes her as very trusting friendly and although she was stubborn she would stand her ground when she needed to yeah
00:11:27
now Amy's 20 and she's is going to rent her own apartment this starts on February 17th 1992 renting an apartment
00:11:35
at 4942 Medfield way in Lincoln Village in Columbus now even though this was an apartment it wasn't a big high-rise type
00:11:44
building Amy's ground floor apartment door opened into a grassy open area outside punctuated by a spiderweb of
00:11:53
walkways leading between the various apartments and the street so to get to Amy's front door all someone had to do
00:12:01
is walk up to it there were no entranceways Gates outer doors or security measures
00:12:07
whatsoever these buildings were not equipped with security cameras Amy leased this apartment on her
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own but allowed a friend to move in with her rentree this is a woman whose name we don't know but we do know that she
00:12:22
had a small child mhm the family isn't certain how Amy knew this roommate but her sister s
00:12:29
says Amy told them that she was going to let them live there really cuz she's just taking them in to help them Amy had
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a kind heart and and the woman and her baby really had nowhere to go who cares how they became friends it's simply
00:12:44
here's Amy she has a place here's a single mother hey come stay with me for a while let's get you on your feet it
00:12:51
sounds like that maybe Amy tried to move this girl into her mom's house when she
00:12:56
was still living there but after a few days her mother was like no we're not having Outsiders come and freeload off
00:13:04
of our family and just stay here you know this woman apparently didn't have a job at the time or at least that the
00:13:11
family knew of so Amy rented the new apartment and let her friend and the baby move in with her Amy and this
00:13:17
roommate were really still getting settled at the time even Amy's mother had not visited the apartment yet
00:13:24
because the women were still getting the place together and they were actually lacking in the way of furniture at this
00:13:31
time Amy's sister Holly was also living in Columbus but she was in a serious relationship with someone in Cleveland
00:13:39
now on Friday March 6th Holly planned to travel up to Cleveland to see her boyfriend MH so she and Amy made some
00:13:48
kind of arrangement where Amy would borrow Holly's car and take care of Holly's dog for the weekend it turns out
00:13:56
that Amy wanted the car so that she could go up to see her boyfriend who was going to Bowling Green at the time this
00:14:03
was a young guy whose name we we won't use Holly did not want Amy driving her vehicle all the way up to Bowling Green
00:14:12
so what happened is Amy borrowed her mother's car instead and left her sister's car with her mother for the
00:14:19
weekend now everybody has a car to use Amy did not tell her mother that she was planning on going to Bowling Green and
00:14:26
it seems that Joy did not know about this boyfriend she never met him MH she only heard about him after Amy's death
00:14:35
okay now I'm going to bring up the fact that it's early 90s so it's not like you
00:14:40
have a lot of internet dating or a lot of ways of communication with some of these people it could be somebody she
00:14:47
went to high school with that went to Bowling Green for college or moved there with their family who knows on Monday
00:14:53
March 9th Amy's sister Holly returned to town from her weekend in Cleveland and she went straight to work Amy actually
00:15:01
returned the night before from her weekend and went out with some unnamed friends the night before the plan Amy
00:15:09
was supposed to meet Holly on Holly's lunch hour that day to return her car now when Amy failed to show up Holly
00:15:17
called her apartment numerous times to no avail we don't know whether she also called Amy's work but she told us that
00:15:25
she couldn't find Amy that day it was later reported that by 1:00 p.m. Amy's friends and co-workers started call each
00:15:33
other looking for Amy meanwhile Holly called her father and he gave her a ride to Amy's new apartment Holly had a key
00:15:43
to her car and was hoping to be able to retrieve the vehicle she and her father knocked repeatedly on Amy's apartment
00:15:49
door but there was no response yeah but they were able to find her car yeah Holly's car was in fact still there and
00:15:56
because she had the key she was able to open the car door and then drive the vehicle back to her work mhm Hollis also
00:16:05
left at this time likely figuring that there had been some kind of mixup one thing we have no information
00:16:14
on is whether the police ever took a look at Holly's car which we know Amy drove that morning so we don't know if
00:16:23
it was ever dusted for prints or examined for signs of a struggle or even things out of place now at this point
00:16:31
Holly called her mom joy to see if she knew where Amy was she had a really bad feeling when she was able to locate her
00:16:39
car at Amy's apartment but Amy was nowhere to be found joy was a teacher and she was in the classroom all day
00:16:47
long so it was hard for her to talk on the phone but eventually around 3:30 Joy was gathering mail at the school where
00:16:54
she worked and people from Amy's work started to contact her because Joy was listed as Amy's emergency contact person
00:17:04
Amy failed to show up for work then when Joy was finally able to call Holly Joy told Holly that Amy had been to her
00:17:13
house in Grove City around 6:30 that morning and returned her car and took Holly's car the two chatted while Joy
00:17:21
put on her makeup getting ready for work Amy told her mother at that time that there was a manager's meeting that was
00:17:29
scheduled for work that day later that morning and she was supposed to be a part of this meeting from what I could
00:17:35
tell from what I could find the manager's meeting was to be around noon or at least that's what some Reports say
00:17:44
Joy said Amy seemed normal at this time when they were talking that morning and very happy that morning so just a quick
00:17:52
summarized version of that timeline because there's a lot of moving pieces and parts here okay so the the General
00:17:58
timeline is this Amy returns to Columbus Sunday night we don't know what time she
00:18:05
goes out with some friends early Monday morning at 6:30 a.m. she's at her mother's house remember they have to
00:18:11
switch out the vehicles and so at 6:30 she talks to her mother every everything seems normal and happy and good at that
00:18:19
time there's nothing strange going on with Amy she takes her sister's car and presumably goes straight to her
00:18:26
apartment now where we are now is we have multiple people who have reached out to Amy's mother trying to get a hold
00:18:34
of her because they're like we haven't seen Amy we have Amy's sister Holly who I found my vehicle at Amy's apartment
00:18:42
but no Amy and now we have her work calling Joy because she is the emergency contact listed on her information
00:18:51
because they've not seen Amy either she's supposed to have been at a manager's meeting that day and mind you
00:18:57
she's worked there for for over 6 months and never missed a day of work so this is Raising all kinds of
00:19:04
alarms the you know the red flags are going up especially For Joy well sometimes mothers just know well she's
00:19:11
already heard from one daughter and she's heard from Amy's work and she's saying as soon as this went down she
00:19:17
knew right away that something bad had happened right so Joy Amy's mother asked Holly the sister to meet her at Amy's
00:19:25
apartment they wanted to go to the rental office and ask if they had seen anything trying they're still trying to
00:19:31
find Amy and they called Amy's father to meet them there as well so once they arrive Hollis her father tries the door
00:19:39
to Amy's apartment and found it locked they decided to go to the supers office and ask them to open up the door now Joy
00:19:47
the mother had to be present in order for the super to open up the apartment door he had to receive permission from a
00:19:54
person listed on Amy's lease documentation as a person who could actually authorize entry into Amy
00:20:01
Hooper's apartment so around 400 p.m. Amy's dad and the super entered the apartment Holly and joy stayed outside
00:20:11
thank thank God this is what Hollis and the super found according to the newspaper reports
00:20:18
upon entering the apartment they would find Amy lying naked and bound face up on the hardwood
00:20:25
floor of an upstairs room in her apartment she had been beaten over the head suffering a cracked skull which one
00:20:34
early story in The Columbus Dispatch described as a split and that she was stabbed in the
00:20:41
neck and heart her hands were bound behind her with a nylon cord dangling from a unique pendant tucked into her
00:20:49
hands and the police stated that they were unsure whether this belonged to Amy or if it was brought into the apartment
00:20:57
by the Killer right this was a wood and leather Medallion a heart-shaped painted
00:21:03
with colors of red yellow and green glued to a black Wood Circle was there any sign of uh sexual
00:21:11
assault there was according to the newspapers that is unclear yeah now regarding this Medallion itself the the
00:21:21
newspapers asked if this could mean something even asking if the killer was making some kind of statement because
00:21:27
Amy was dating an African-American man or was this just something that was lying around right but what does a
00:21:34
medallion have to do with an africanamerican man well mind you the colors that were on there we have red
00:21:41
yellow green mhm so we have colors of the African flag I would believe the uh right or is it somebody that saw a white
00:21:51
woman with a black man and I wanted to make her pay for that correct you I mean is that what you're saying that's what
00:21:58
the papers were saying I want to be very clear about that that's what the newspapers in 1992 were saying not what
00:22:05
the konal is saying in 2019 right I'm simply reporting what was reported so the question here regarding this this
00:22:15
Medallion this necklace whatever you want to call it is did this actually mean something did the killer bring this
00:22:21
to the apartment with them or was it just something that was lying around that was found in Amy's apartment that
00:22:28
the killer used to tie her up newspapers even suggested that this might be the key to the
00:22:36
case police told the media that Amy may have been rendered helpless with her hands tied and then struck on the back
00:22:43
of the head the family has stated that the blow to the head is what in fact killed Amy the stab wounds were all
00:22:51
postmortem and the family say that they were told that there were 13 or 14 stab wounds and all well see to me that
00:23:01
seems like an act of passion rage so more likely somebody she knew well that's that's pretty spoton there by you
00:23:11
Captain good job out of you because according to the detectives what they told the papers was whoever did this to
00:23:18
Amy was harboring some kind of rage against her now the knife that was used was found at the scene oh that's always
00:23:27
nice when they leave that behind for you but the puzzling thing is the weapon that was used to bludgeon Amy on the
00:23:34
head the blow that killed her was never found mhm so real quick before we move on regarding the
00:23:42
knife we know that it's found at the scene although we've never been told no one could tell us if this was something
00:23:50
that the killer brought to the scene or something that the killer found already in the apartment we don't know if this
00:23:56
knife belonged to Amy or even the roommate right but they believe those stab wounds were postmortem so where is
00:24:03
this object that hit her on the head to split the skull well they didn't find that at the scene you know unlike the
00:24:10
knife they did not find this weapon and in fact they according to investigators they weren't really even certain what
00:24:17
type of weapon it was the only thing that they told the media was that they all they know is it was a sharp heavy
00:24:25
object so almost immediately after finding Amy's body investigators they're searching alleys dumpsters garbage bins
00:24:34
in the area they're looking for of course not only Clues but mainly looking for the sharp heavy object that killed
00:24:41
her right but they found nothing well even though that they found nothing around her apartment do we have anything
00:24:49
else that we know more information about the scene of the crime we do have some more detailed information here regarding
00:24:55
the murder scene we know that Hollis the father discovered the horrifying traumatic sight of his daughter lying
00:25:03
dead on the floor the Franklin County Sheriff's Department they were called in to investigate they were the lead on
00:25:10
this murder case the 911 call came from Amy's family at 4:21 p.m. that day detectives were very quick to close off
00:25:19
the scene and they started their investigation immediately now the apartment door windows or really
00:25:26
anything otherwise showed absolutely no signs of forced entry there was also very little sign of a struggle in the
00:25:35
apartment there was a phone cord now this was found to be ripped out of the wall police from what they could see at
00:25:44
the scene surmised that Amy had taken a shower that morning well and this kind of gives us some kind of a window of
00:25:52
when the time of death would be mhm yeah and this is actually very important it to our investigation here because what
00:25:59
we have here Captain is we know that around 4:00 is when her father enters the apartment by 4:21 we have detectives on
00:26:08
the scene they've already blocked everything off so regarding the time of death we have a couple of indicators to
00:26:16
tell us what that could be we know she was at her mother's house at 6:30 and then she returned we're presuming that
00:26:24
she came straight to her apartment maybe she stopped off along the way but what we do in fact know that once she
00:26:30
returned to her apartment she did take a shower and we'll get into the details of
00:26:35
this more why we know this to be absolute fact this is not something where anybody needs to let us go she
00:26:42
could have taken a shower the night before or before she went to go pick up the car no we have details that point
00:26:47
out that matter of fact she took a shower after returning to her home so what I'm getting at here with the window
00:26:54
of time of of the frame of time that we need to be concerned with to find this offender is to narrow the C narrow the
00:27:02
time of death down to this she returns home sometime after the shower and before the time that she had to be at
00:27:10
work that day somebody killed Amy [Applause] [Music] Hooper this show is sponsored by better
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to you Captain so regarding the time of death this has never been publicly stated what the actual time was police
00:29:36
publicly would only say that Amy had apparently been dead for several hours by the time she was found what other
00:29:43
information do we have from the scene of the crime well there there were things at the scene captain that would give the
00:29:49
appearance that she may have been getting ready to go to work at the time when this attack went down right okay so
00:29:56
she had a plastic pink carry all that held her makeup and hair brushes this was found lying open on the bedroom
00:30:04
floor you know ready for use right the uh she had an electric blanket on a pullout sofa remember we said that they
00:30:12
had just moved in and they were kind of lacking in the area of actual Furniture everybody knows this when you go out
00:30:20
move out of mom and dad's house for the first time you realize I don't own anything maybe the fourth or fifth time
00:30:28
yeah I don't own anything so she was actually using a pullout sofa at the time as her bed so the pull out s sofa
00:30:36
is still set up for for her bed and she had an electric blanket on that which was still plugged in at this time her
00:30:44
hair dryer was plugged in as well so here this paints a picture of this young woman who had returned home we might
00:30:54
even guess that she may have taken a nap maybe went back to sleep for a little bit of time possible but there are
00:31:00
people that just leave things plugged in all the time so that is a possibility and then decides to get up and start
00:31:07
getting ready for work and then somehow this attack happens right so we know that she was found in the nude There is
00:31:16
some question was she did was she surprised you know was was she coming out of the
00:31:23
shower when she was attacked or did the killer strip her you know the the shower part and the
00:31:30
makeup part makes me seem to me makes it seem like she's getting ready for work and also then it goes back to the idea
00:31:38
that somebody knows her schedule because they would know when she would have to go to work mhm or somebody watched her
00:31:45
go into her apartment alone right is another possibility so regarding this this whole situation of her getting
00:31:53
ready for work what we do know is this that this was not in the newspapers but detectives specifically told her family
00:32:02
that they believe that Amy may have opened the door and was in her robe at the time that she opened the door and we
00:32:10
don't know or have details as to why they would come to this conclusion or tell the family that what we do know is
00:32:17
we have no signs of a forced entry so that has to be a consideration did somebody simply knock on the door ring
00:32:24
the doorbell and she lets them in or opens the door and they force their way in now the other thing that I wonder
00:32:33
about regarding this situation of telling the family that we believe she opened up the door and was in her robe
00:32:40
at that time we know that she was found dead upstairs did they find the robe downstairs near the front door you know
00:32:49
those are the questions that that you wonder how they came to that conclusion or at least why they were telling the
00:32:55
family that yeah now regarding the scene itself we have Chris Floyd he was one of
00:33:02
the Deputy sheriffs who was uh he was actually the first officer on the scene and he noted the position of Amy's body
00:33:10
and he says that he found it to be quite bizarre he said quote she was displayed
00:33:16
it wasn't as if she fell that way my first thought was this was to make a statement it's hard to know what the
00:33:23
reason why he believes this cuz we obviously didn't see how she was displayed so but I'm guessing there's
00:33:31
there's some kind of Reason well use the using just his words I think what we can
00:33:39
we can deduce from that is he is of the opinion that she was displayed that she didn't fall like that someone positioned
00:33:46
her in that manner in his opinion right but we also have possible postmortem wounds and does that come into a play of
00:33:54
where she i' assume that comes into the play of where she's going to be laying if you're attacking the body
00:34:00
after she's already dead well let's talk about that medallion for a while because
00:34:05
so much has been made in the newspapers about that Medallion if you look up this
00:34:12
case unfortunately there's not a lot of news coverage on this case there's there's a handful of of good newspaper
00:34:21
articles I'll say that uh that word good newspaper articles they're not great in
00:34:27
a sense that some of the lengthier ones while they make for a good type of murder mystery if it were to be
00:34:35
fictional this is a true story and the truth of some of this stuff seems to be left out of the papers now in their
00:34:43
defense this may be information that they just don't know okay so this Medallion if you look up The Columbus
00:34:52
Dispatch news stories regarding this case and I'm I'm I'm sure that there was probably one or two that made their way
00:34:59
through the Associated Press but they time and time again ask the question is this Medallion is this necklace the key
00:35:09
to the case because they're they're asking the obvious question here was this something that the killer brought
00:35:16
to the scene with them used it to tie her up and then either forgot about it was startled and had to leave the scene
00:35:24
earlier than they wanted to right or you know left it there for any number of reasons the truth about that Medallion
00:35:32
is it's very likely not the key to this case at all because we know this this is
00:35:37
one thing that we know to be fact her sister Sandy her older sister remember that she lived with for a time in
00:35:43
California oh Sandy says to us that that Medallion was not only not only did it belong to Amy but I know that it
00:35:54
belonged to her because I purchased this for for her right Sandy says that she bought the uh what she called a rosarian
00:36:02
themed medallion for Amy when the two attended a Reay festival in San Diego when Amy was out in California with
00:36:11
Sandy and then further more Sandy went on to tell me that not only did she purchase this for her little sister but
00:36:19
she knew that Amy would often keep necklaces hanging on a this is how it was described to me anyway
00:36:27
hanging on a from a lamp that was near her bed I think this was up on a desk or table of some
00:36:34
sort and that all of them just kind of hung from this lamp well we know that Amy was found in an upstairs
00:36:42
bedroom my thought is that this turns out to just be something handy that was already at the scene we know this per
00:36:49
her sister Sandy and that the killer grabbed it and used it to tie Amy up and then never felt the need to take it with
00:36:57
them because it wasn't theirs in the first place it had likely had no connection to the killer at all well the
00:37:04
fact that her sister's story is so detailed hey I know where I bought this for my sister right um and then also it
00:37:13
makes the idea of what the police are saying they think that she answers the door in a robe or something like that
00:37:20
when she's getting ready to go to work because maybe she had this in her hand or in the pocket of the RO or whatever
00:37:28
when she's getting ready because she was going to put it on well and in the defense of the reporters I think that
00:37:34
this is really just a detail that has gotten lost somewhere along the way that's gotten lost between the
00:37:40
investigation and the reporting of the murder and the investigation because Sandy was not questioned or spoken to
00:37:49
until about two days after Amy was actually killed remember she's still out in California so she has to fly back she
00:37:56
wants to be with with her family and during that time is when she spoke with the investigators so my guess is the way
00:38:02
that this thing went down is that very early on the newspapers are given some details regarding the crime and the
00:38:10
crime scene right which includes this Medallion or necklace whatever you want to call it and they kind of ran with
00:38:17
this idea I don't know that this information ever got to them that that is not the case that they don't have to
00:38:24
question this Medallion and being in the apartment anymore because it was supposed to be there right and a lot of
00:38:31
times when people cover a story again they just read an article and then repeat a lot of that stuff and then then
00:38:37
you have another paper saying hey this Medallion might have something to do with the connection you know I I buy
00:38:45
more of her sister's story that she bought it for her sister well I'm I'm stating it as fact I have no reason to
00:38:53
believe that anything other than exactly what she said happen so I was actually talking to a
00:38:59
friend of mine regarding this case cuz this is a bit of a pet case of mine you know you talk about red light cases this
00:39:05
is this is one for me and we were talking about this this Medallion this necklace thing and they asked me well
00:39:13
why would the detectives on the case still continue to let the newspapers believe that this Medallion might be a
00:39:20
big key to solving the case and my answer is simply this one the detectives don't owe that information to the
00:39:29
newspapers they may be wanting to hold that information back but then on top of that as detectives they're just happy
00:39:36
that somebody's reporting about this case because we talk about so many times that you need the Public's help and if
00:39:42
this case can stay somewhat in the public eye even though it has not you know that's probably their hopes there
00:39:50
and I do want to point out something regarding this case as well that there have been a couple detectives over the
00:39:55
years that have worked this case and I've not questioned their efforts and I don't think anybody should I from the
00:40:03
detectives that I've spoke to and from retired individuals that I've spoke to there there has been a lot of effort
00:40:11
made on this case this case is not cold for because of lack of effort on the investigation yeah but let's be honest I
00:40:19
mean the end of the ' 80s early 90s was a different time than now and there there was definitely more prejudice and
00:40:26
more racism going on and and more people being vocal about that and so to have a
00:40:33
20-year-old white girl dating you know pretty much all black guys there could be some police officers
00:40:41
on the case that are prejudiced or racist but it really doesn't seem that way in this case it really seems like
00:40:49
they were trying their best to solve this case for this family well speaking of investig ators there was a Franklin
00:40:58
County Sheriff's detective Clark he has been the one that is often cited in the newspapers when talking about Amy
00:41:06
Hooper's case and one thing one statement that he has made is that quote there are a couple of significant things
00:41:13
that only the killer would know end quote so one of these things might be the actual murder weapon because
00:41:22
although the cops have told the Press repeatedly right and even as recently as 2011 that they didn't know what the
00:41:29
bludgeoning weapon was they did tell the family Amy Hooper's family at the time of the murder at first that it might
00:41:38
have been a hammer now we don't know if they're just guessing here that it could
00:41:43
be a hammer or if in fact they did find the actual weapon and they're holding that information back right because a
00:41:50
lot of times when they're doing the autopsy they will go okay here is the here's the wound here's maybe a punctual
00:41:58
wound what are we looking for what kind of object and and they might have a broad Strokes of what that object is but
00:42:07
like you said the hammer could just be a guess yeah and then they told the family
00:42:11
that it looked like to them that Amy had run to her landline phone okay so this is kind of the full story of what
00:42:20
investigators are working with the what the evidence is showing them is that this is some this is how this might have
00:42:27
went down right that she answered the door in her robe and then the killer either is
00:42:34
welcomed into the home or forces their way into the apartment and then at some point Amy
00:42:42
made a move for the landline phone possibly to call for help they believe that the killer then grabbed the phone
00:42:51
and hit her over the head with the actual phone according to one family member they were told that blood was
00:42:59
found on the phone itself now that doesn't have to mean that she was hit with the phone we do know that
00:43:07
the only really true sign of struggle that was shown inside that apartment was the phone cord being ripped out of the
00:43:15
wall right and the fact that she dated a guy that was abusive to to her you know
00:43:21
one where's his whereabouts this day is is he around um I think that's something they
00:43:29
need to look into and also the men that she was dating was there any history of abuse with them maybe not that she
00:43:37
reported to the family or friends but do they have any arrest by being abusive to
00:43:45
somebody else that they dated mhm and so now you have those kind of suspects and
00:43:51
then it we have her wanting to go to bulling green right to hang out with a friend she she came back the day before
00:43:58
yeah right and so does she have somebody at home that she's seeing that would be
00:44:04
jealous of the fact that she went to go hang out with somebody in Bowling Green so you're saying we should get to some
00:44:11
possible suspects here Captain yeah that's what I'm saying well um and I'm starting with the
00:44:18
high school douchebag okay you know not in high school anymore but the guy that she
00:44:24
dated in high school well me finish up with the crime scene stuff first and then we'll get to possible suspects so
00:44:30
one thing the in the investigators are keeping mum on and won't even discuss with the family is whether Amy was
00:44:39
sexually assaulted or not now later all these years later we do know that DNA was found at the scene we do know that
00:44:47
that DNA does not belong to Amy this has been publicly stated we do not know the
00:44:52
source of that DNA but do we know if it's male or female well sounds like we don't know [ __ ] well
00:45:02
here's here's where I'm going to go with this okay they've they've never said this publicly okay so we're we're we're
00:45:08
basing our story off of what has been stated publicly throughout this the course of this very long
00:45:16
investigation but what we can do for you is we can pick apart the pieces of this
00:45:21
investigation and really tell you kind of what's going on with it based off of their actions and we do this often when
00:45:28
we look at these investigations how do we know that DNA was found at the scene well we know that
00:45:33
because they've public publicly stated that they have cleared possible suspects when testing DNA right okay the
00:45:44
only suspects that they have publicly stated have been cleared by DNA testing are
00:45:51
males so where I'm going with this is I believe believe that they have knowledge
00:45:58
that the DNA found at the scene that was not Amy is that of a male that our offender is in fact a man right because
00:46:09
there there could have been females that you would you would test right yeah yeah
00:46:14
so they must know that this DNA belongs to a man and they have tested several individuals and cleared them based off
00:46:23
of their DNA evidence well can you start with the X the abusive far eating jerk store yeah so earlier we mentioned Amy's
00:46:32
abusive boyfriend from when they attended wesland high school together well get this the the family says that
00:46:39
they have reason to believe that this guy actually tried to follow Amy to California remember her parents suggest
00:46:48
hey you got to get away from this guy you can go move with your aunt who lives in another part of Ohio or you could go
00:46:55
live with your your adult sister out in California she chooses California what I've been told the family says we have
00:47:03
reason to believe that this dude tried to follow her out to California but from what we can recall for whatever reason
00:47:09
he failed to do so meaning he never caught up with Amy while she was in California so then you wonder was he
00:47:18
waiting for her when she returned to Ohio yeah or did he hear about her returning and go oh she's back time time
00:47:26
to go back to be in The Jerk store as far as the family is aware of Amy Hooper's family they say that they are
00:47:36
not certain they have no reason to believe that the two actually ever saw each other ever again after Amy moved
00:47:43
out to California even when she moved back right but it certainly seems though that he was a good candidate for a
00:47:51
suspect to be the murderer given that he was violent and vindictive but according
00:47:58
to one of Amy's family members it seems that he has been ruled out okay I've been told by her family that this
00:48:07
individual was not only ruled out but he was cleared using uh DNA testing okay so
00:48:13
maybe they went and talked to him he said I had nothing to do with it here's my DNA clear me yeah I've not seen her
00:48:20
in God knows how long um I will cooperate with your investigation so where do they go to next the more recent
00:48:29
boyfriend well yeah that is the obvious place to go they probably may even went there before any other anybody else so
00:48:37
police honed in on her current boyfriend remember this is somebody that the family was unaware of he's a student at
00:48:45
Bowling Green State University at the time and Amy spent the weekend with this boyfriend in Bowling Green what we end
00:48:53
up learning here is that he does speak to police and he's very Cooperative he tells police that hey I gave her a small
00:49:02
diamond ring that very weekend the last weekend that I saw her and in fact it was still on her left hand when she died
00:49:11
when police found her that's sad but as we said Amy's mom didn't know about this
00:49:16
boyfriend and Amy didn't show her that diamond ring when she came over that Monday morning the morning that she was
00:49:22
killed yeah sometimes it's you know sometimes that's sensitive with your your parents you don't want to
00:49:29
tell them you're jumping into something too serious you know give them a little time well and I do want to I want to
00:49:35
remind you about something too is Amy's intentions so Amy was very much wanting to be in the fashion industry that's why
00:49:44
she took that job she she applied for that manager's job at the leather store right and she was working towards that
00:49:51
she was saving up for college her intention was to move back to to California and attend school there so I
00:49:59
can totally see a situation where maybe this wasn't as serious for Amy as it was
00:50:05
for the current boyfriend or maybe this is not something that you want to discuss with mom knowing that she plans
00:50:12
to move out of state soon right you know how it is you don't want to get in one of these long conversations with with
00:50:17
one of your parents regarding what you're doing and how the order that you're choosing to do them in I I prefer
00:50:23
to never talk to my parents about relationships sex or anything I mean or that I'm even
00:50:28
alive so the family does not know about the boyfriend they didn't know about the
00:50:32
ring at the time later they did find out that he was uh not only a good student at Bowling Green but he was also a
00:50:39
football player uh regarding this boyfriend though he was cleared now as far as public knowledge goes what I
00:50:49
could find in the newspapers we don't know why or how that was never stated public publicly other than he was
00:50:57
cleared so much so that police have gone on and stated that he's not a suspect they publicly said he's not a suspect
00:51:06
this is happening Monday morning correct so wouldn't he be at school yes I mean they would have some record if he went
00:51:14
to class and so he'd have a lot of aliis cuz if he was in a class of 30 then he has 30 aliis mhm and plus that's a it's
00:51:24
a hefty drive it's a 2 and 1/ half hour drive roughly so that's 5 hours you're going to be on the road mhm so I don't
00:51:32
know well and we got seem like he would be easy to clear yes well 100% it's it's
00:51:38
it would easy be easy to either put clear him or put him right on the suspect list MH and so what I think we
00:51:46
have here is it's early on in the investigation where they are stating they being law enforcement stating that
00:51:52
he the current boyfriend is not a suspect and my guess is that you're probably spot on here captain that there
00:51:58
are many people who are able to account for his whereabouts during that window of time and really that window of time
00:52:07
only has to be from 6:30 a.m. until 400 p.m. that day right so less than a full day and if he's at school all day long
00:52:17
well then he's not a good candidate for a suspect and what I've been told here is that
00:52:25
it's believed that even at a later date I I want to point something out here it's not like they find Amy's body and
00:52:34
then they're immediately plucking suspects and testing DNA and clearing people this isn't happening rapidly this
00:52:42
is happening slowly over a long period of time and we have him who very quickly is named as not a suspect from my
00:52:53
understanding that even at a later date even much later after being named as not a suspect he provided DNA and
00:53:02
they were able to clear him in that way so there's absolutely no question in regards to the boyfriend that's doing
00:53:09
your due diligence right there when you go okay we have aliis we have cleared him we don't think there's any way
00:53:15
possible that he was even in Columbus at the time but we're still going to go back now that we have DNA and make this
00:53:23
mother sucker take a DNA test well and that's why I stated earlier that I don't believe that this has not been solved
00:53:31
because of a lack of effort this is really them circling the wagons here and stating you know what we're going to
00:53:37
double check everything we're going to double triple check everything until we get this thing
00:53:43
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