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welcome to the first episode of True Crime garage off the record this is your captain speaking in this episode we talk
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a lot about the case of Amy mihalovic if you haven't listened to that episode it's episode number 22. all of our old
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episodes are available through the Stitcher app for free why because Stitcher is freaking awesome this
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conversation happened after the recording of the Kendrick Johnson case the Beards were flowing and I got about
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two hours of this conversation so this conversation will come out in about four parts hope you enjoy cheers mates
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foreign [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] well I gotta tell you about this Captain
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because here's the thing you know when you and I covered the Amy maholovic Cold Case probably our best show
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I'm not I'm not actually on that episode but hey and maybe that's why it's our best show
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well not to to be honest well I got to thinking about this last week because I drove up to the Cleveland area and I was
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having lunch with our good friend James Renner and bro date the thing about it was I as I was driving up there a couple
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things occurred to me one I realized that you know back then we were only doing one episode we we rarely
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would we cover a case for more than one episode Back Then and those were the Glory Days well you know what at the
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time maybe it felt maybe it felt right you know I think looking back I I would have said back then Amy's only one
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episode well I started digging into her case again because that's that's one of my
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you call them red light cases that's one of my red light cases that I've been dragging around with me for years and
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it's always with me but everybody's calling it red light cases now I started a thing
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I mean just just so you know I mean I think I was watching Nancy Grace the other day
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and she was like my red light case my red light case now is so I'm just saying everybody's using this
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jump on board well I am I'm fully on board so you're driving to Cleveland just takes 71. well I kind of got to
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start start back a little bit okay I'm gonna tell me how you showered and yeah so but no I knew I was going up there in
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advance so I started I I had some free time and I started I couldn't help myself I started looking into Amy's case
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again and I got more angry and more Angry as I do when I look into this case for many
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reasons and uh you know I'll go through those later but I really should talk to somebody though about your anger issues
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no well knowing that I was going up to okay so Renner calls me and he says look can you come up I want to to ask you
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some questions about podcasting and I said okay no problem I'm like um first off I'm like I don't I don't
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think he's contacted the right guy he really should have contacted the captain but yeah but you know it's it's so funny
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though because oh I mean the amount I still get a ridiculous amount of either hate mail or
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crap on our blog or iTunes and it's like I mean we should just put a disclaimer like the the show is
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produced by the dumb guy right do you want me to agree with you here because I feel like I'd be
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confirming you're the dumb guy if I'm like yeah you're right yeah I'm I'm good at all the other stuff other than
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talking right so I disagree okay but okay so so Runner called you he wanted to talk
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about podcasting and and you know me I always have an agenda I'm like this is perfect I have a couple I have a couple
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of Amy mihalovic questions that I want to ask him once I get there face to face he won't be able to get out and I will I
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will he'll be forced to talk to me right so I drive up there wait hold on it's my
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favorite thing is I win Runner when Runner came all the way from Cleveland uh so we're in the studio in Columbus
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excuse me and uh first of all he gets out of his car he's looking at both of us like wow this is
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one crazy multi-league crew right and then we're in the studio this super nice Studio Sonic Lounge Studios check
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them out online but uh we're in this super nice studio and Renard's looking at you funny
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and then at some point you say to him yeah I've been to see you speak before oh oh really then all of a sudden he
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goes he looks at you and he goes oh yeah you followed me out to the park to my car
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you followed me all the way out to the parking lot yeah hey I bought a book that day and I and
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you know what I was very polite I there was a long line of people that wanted to
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buy his book at that particular I've actually spoke to him at multiple things before we started doing this right but
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that one particular incident yes I did follow him out to um to the street there he was too smart
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to like walk to his car he just walked to an open area and kind of stood there anyway but I was very polite because I
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purposely I could have been the first one in line to buy the book and I said I I'm going to be I'm going to put myself
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last in line because I have a couple questions to ask this guy that way I don't hold up anybody else's time and he
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sells a book to all these people I was being polite to him polite to them I'm a superhero okay maybe maybe in your eyes
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but the way I view that is that you're actually being extra creepy because you're thinking I'm gonna
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utilize a lot of this guy's time and I'm gonna be pretty creepy doing it no that I mean you had uh preconceived
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creepy Notions well at these things okay so I've been to a bunch of these with different authors and the way that it
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always goes down is this so an author if it's if it's a true crime presentation they give more of a
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presentation where they'll kind of go through the [ __ ] they'll go through the crime they might go through some public
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theories some other people's theories and usually they will go into their Theory a bit but not too much because
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they want to sell you the book and then afterwards they'll kind of open it up to a q a and then there's followed
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by a session where the author will will typically sit down at a desk or a table somewhere
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and they will you can form a line with the intent of you know the intention is that you're going to buy a book and the
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author will then write you know autograph the book maybe write a little funny note to you or something in the
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book and take a shower but during that time you you are you're allowed to ask questions you know you're allowed to to
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present a question to them and um okay so you aren't being no well if if I were going to ask him a
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question this was the place to do it right okay so but okay so back to the story so you're going up to Cleveland so
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you know that he's going to be he's going to be stuck with you going out to lunch yeah he said do you want to
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grab a bite to eat and I said okay okay so where did you eat uh I don't I don't remember
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there was some so it was just some like lunch place like I don't know like that narrows it down officer no I think
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he I think he picked he he Moose Head Saloon or something like that so it's like it was like good yeah and it was
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they had good food and I'm sure they had great beer but I wasn't gonna it was like 11 o'clock in the morning I wasn't
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drinking a beer it sounds a lot better than moose knuckle so anyway I go up and don't quote me I don't remember if
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that's the exact name so I'm I'm filming you right now but the thing is so driving up there
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so leaving Columbus heading up 71 to get all the way toward Cleveland okay it's like a two and a half hour drive yeah to
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this restaurant I think it took me 210 to get there mind you I'm on the north side of Columbus and this was actually
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like Lakewood something like that but when you're driving up there one thing that that occurred to me and this
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has occurred to me multiple times when I take that trip up to that area is that somewhere
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uh a little less than a little less than a little more than halfway there for me
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anyway uh when you get past the the 1181 area that's a a route 1181. it always occurs to me that somewhere
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between here and where my final destination is for the day there's very likely a
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60 to 70 year old child killer that's living in this area that's something that always comes
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across my mind when when making that Journey well might be still living might have moved
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is what you're saying though right or do you think they're still there I just get a feeling I just get a
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feeling that that the person's probably I get some strange feeling when I start getting toward that area and driving
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along it I get angry about it and I start looking at sheds and and things as I pass them giving you know turning
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strange eye to them right but this this crime took place a long time ago 1989. so I mean one it's
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possible that this suspect would be dead or possibly has moved you know to Florida or something
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but but you're saying your gut feeling is still there still around that's just the feeling I get but one
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thing that occurred to me earlier in the week before I left was that I had never
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discussed this with you or with with James and we didn't talk about this on the show was there is a um okay there's
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a book out there called whoever fights monsters which came out I believe in 92 and it's by Robert K wrestler famous
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FBI agent and it's fantastic book I highly recommend everybody pick it up but now there's about four or five pages
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in that book where Robert Ressler talks about the Amy mihalovic case and I at this time it's it's in a
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chapter titled um what plus y equals who now Amy was abducted in October of 1989
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and at this time Robert Ressler is near retirement well he gives a profile regarding who he
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thinks took Amy and he prepared this profile with another agent this is a local agent to the Cleveland office John
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Dunn and they were also working with a man named dick warns okay so while he's there he he actually
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I think he the way that the story goes is that that wrestler had to be in town for something else and I think it was
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like hey I'll just kind of drop by I'm I think he's from the area maybe it was just have lunch I mean just like you and
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Rena yeah yeah I think he was given some kind of seminar or he was taking a seminar anyway
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he's there and he decides he's going to sit down with the local agents and they're going to put together a profile
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on who they believe took Amy and the profile they come up with and I'll give you kind of the the
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um nuts and bolts of it it's this it's a white man late 20s or early 30s introverted a loner relatively
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unsuccessful unmarried not overly educated but not stupid no military service and a propensity for
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spending a lot of time with kids so as they're preparing this profile the local agents inform wrestler that
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guess what we we have a guy that is already a suspect and he fits that profile so this guy his name is Billy streuneck
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so who is Billy strunek he's he's a lot of what the profile says he's a white guy in his late 20s or early 30s
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he's an introverted loner relatively unsuccessful he works at a um not a grocery store but like a
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kind of like a Sam's Club or something like that where you have people buy in bulk right yeah he's kind of a stock guy
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doing doing things like that he's unmarried right and not to you know put my thoughts on this too much but as
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far as like the unsuccessful you know late 20s unsuccessful right when they're profiling these individuals to me this
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has always meant you know it could be a school teacher could be a banker could be somebody with actually like a nice
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job could be a college professor but I I think the unsuccessful part would probably be you know the overall
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umbrella of their lives you know not married no kids not a lot of friends does that make any sense well no you're
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right and the thing is one thing that people have to to keep in mind is when you're looking at these profiles
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so what they will typically do is they will come up with reasons to back up other thoughts that they have about the
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criminal so meaning okay a guy this late in in life late 20s early 30s he's unmarried
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well what what is one reason why he might be unmarried because he's he's not successful yeah or he's so handsome and
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has a successful podcast that he's kind of picky well these are just these are just
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they're probabilities they're not they're not certainties you know and and keep in mind they're only putting
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together a profile with the information that they have at the time at any time if they're given more information or new
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information or better information their profile can change right and you know that they're not always spot on with all
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these things this is just this is just a few FBI agents sitting down without a suspect in mind going
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from our experience who is the type that would typically abduct a 10 year old girl
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now keep in mind at this time she's been gone for a while so they're probably they're working on the probability that
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she's been she's been either Kept For What would be a long-term criminal plan or she's she's dead by this point she's
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been murdered so they're they're just coming up with this profile off of what they've studied
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off of what they've seen in the past right so Billy strewnack William strunek um
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he lived in Parma Heights he he did have some kind of Prior with the he had some
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kind of Prior police record and it's a little unclear about what his prior conviction was for this is according to
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the Cuyahoga County's website it says he was found guilty of disseminating material harmful to children
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now from my my readings that typically means that pornography right however on the website it doesn't give a clear
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account of the offense it doesn't give the specificity or the the details of that offense it could be like nudie mags
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um that's also it's kind of a broad it's kind of a broad charge too to be really
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to be fully honest with you that that's um it's usually not clear-cut it's not like
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B and E where like all right well we know this guy broke in to somebody's home unlawfully or broke into a business
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unlawfully anyway this dude is a bit of a thief he has a history of stealing from employers
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um you know small petty crime uh he's five foot six inches tall 155 pounds and at five six yeah and and this
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is in the 80s so I mean five six is I mean this this is a short gentleman I'm not maybe I shouldn't call him
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gentleman but short guy yeah five six would be a short guy and most in most decades yeah
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um at this time he was living in the Fairview Park Apartments uh he was living in an efficiency there now he
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alone or this guy did have a girlfriend um I think his girlfriend may have had a
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child a small child uh well you see that you know all like single mothers should
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be like careful because there are guys that will pray on single mothers to to be close to their children
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and and have them become victims yeah and there's some there's some people who wonder if this was a real girlfriend or
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not um you know I mean was she plastic which is made out of plastic no there's there's a chance he was probably just
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telling people that they had a relationship and they had no relationship maybe she's just somebody
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that was nice to him um he so he worked at the BJ's Wholesale Club and the interesting thing about him is
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after they're going through this profile and they're doing this profile well the
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local agents are like hey you know Bob we got a guy that that matches your profile and by the way he's already one
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of our top five Suspects and really the point of the profile is not really to tell you who to to give
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you a name of who did the crime right it's more to to have the investigators hone in on
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if you have to prioritize if you have to maximize your time and the efficiency of
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your investigation well then you should look at this group of people before you look at that group of people
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[Music] so this strewnac guy at the time Billy Billy strunek yeah so William struneki Goes by Billy he's the guy that
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we talked about sometimes when you're telling me about these guys you you switch between their first names and
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their last names and so sometimes it's hard to keep track of who you're talking about well the
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suspect yeah and one one thing I don't think that we talked about when we covered Amy's case and it's been so long
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so it's hard to remember but they actually had what they referred to as the Amy Center and I believe this was
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set up at City Hall and it was basically a room where investigators and volunteers could go that could help in
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the search for Amy because keep in mind she she was gone for months before they found her body
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so they were actively looking for her or looking for her abductor her mother Margaret would often go to
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this this Amy Center and she was kind of one of the people that was one of the leaders of this group
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well one of the volunteers there was this Billy strewnack he he had volunteered his time to help in the
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search for Amy now he did a couple of things there that that called his character into question by the police
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and I believe that this was first by Margaret well let me I'm just trying to follow you here so you're saying Billy
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the suspect worked at the Amy Center yes as a volunteer as a volunteer to try to find her right now I I think this
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guy I think you guys might have brought this guy up before but uh when during the interview with
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you and and Renner not 100 sure but but go on I'm just trying I want to just make sure I'm following everything
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correctly well and if anybody's going well that doesn't make any sense that a suspect is working as a volunteer he
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became a suspect after having volunteered his time at the Amy Center yeah but you see a lot I mean how many
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cases have we covered where it's like guys that want to get involved with cases or they they find out later that they
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were on their radar you know in the beginning and then it was three years later they they caught them so I I don't
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think that's too uh far-fetched well no they in in most cold cases I forget the percentage but
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in most cold cases they find that the the the offender that they find out years later committed the crime was
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already spoke to by police or was already questioned now in this situation a little bit different to the fact that
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sometimes these guys inject themselves into the investigation or into the search for the victim and the reason
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being that that um John Douglas would tell you this and and wrestler would tell you this as well
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most of the time it's not anything where they're like hey I gotta I want to be close to this investigation I want to I
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want to uh be a part of it it's nothing like that they believe that most of the time it's so that they can figure out
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how close the investigators are to making an arrest being that if they if they get wind that the investigators are
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close to their guy or on to them right then they know to get the hell out of town
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and to take off right yeah I wonder how many of them like I don't know if get off is the right
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word but how many of them get off if they're close to an investigation and then they start hearing cops talk
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about a suspect that's not them you know what I mean and so it's like you know this Billy guy sitting around
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they're like hey man we're really close to catching somebody he's like oh [ __ ]
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they might be catching me and then they're like hey this guy uh uh Tommy two finger right
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I don't know how much anybody at the Amy Center would really know much about the investigation the way
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that I think that you know this is not like the that they set up a task force there and they're working with the
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public to solve the crime it's more or less it's a group of volunteers and from time to time police officers and
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detectives probably walk over and check in and just say did any leads anything strange have we heard anything that kind
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of thing right but think about this in the in this manner right you're working this Amy Center
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cop comes in just to show face right show the presence of police force there more
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support than to actually work the case when you go up and you start asking questions
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doesn't seem that odd right right and so like you said I mean maybe they don't really know tons about the case but
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if you are involved somehow you can't just go into the police department and go hey
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guys uh so I'm kind of interested in this Amy case and uh any word you know what I
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mean right so it's like you do that to take your chances and maybe you don't hear stuff from time you know uh every
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day but you'd hear some stuff from time to time uh which would you know be some kind of
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I I would assume and this is maybe just me being you know assuming and making an
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ass out of you and and you but um I I I wonder how much of these individuals why they're if they're
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injecting themselves into the cases how much thrilled they get from even just hearing
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people talk about the case and just hearing a phrase like well we have real no solid lead or we have no solid
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suspects I mean uh there there's probably some uh and I'm sure the FBI has done some work on what kind of
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psychological rush I would think that would be they'd probably get some kind of high off of it you know oh yeah
00:25:51
almost like they watch the news they clip the the newspaper articles out yeah that sort of thing
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but strange though man so but the reason why this guy came on to their radar and
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became a suspect was I believe it was Margaret Amy's mother that tells the police hey
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this guy is he's a volunteer but he's he's strange and he had at one time gave gave Margaret a hug that she said was
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awkward that he maybe held on to her too long that he had also sent he had mailed
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he licked her ear something to Margaret in the mail that it was a I believe it was a card along with two
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pins like a decorative pin or something that he mailed to her and he mailed her two of them and one was for her and one
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was for Amy when she returned home hmm so he and he he also offered to help the mahalovics out in any way and one
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suggestion he had for her was that he could come in uh uh clean their home so yeah that's
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that's a little odd I mean okay so so this guy bill so he could just be a very nice guy
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that actually means well but he's just very he's very bad in social situations but you but you would assume again
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making an ass out of you and you um but you assume that an individual that was bad at social situations would not
00:27:47
put himself into social situations you know what I mean um that that that I think you just made an ass out of you
00:27:59
because that's assuming that someone bad at social situations is aware that they're bad at social situations no no I
00:28:06
get that most people that are bad in social situations have no clue that's true that they're bad in these
00:28:13
situations but if you have this introvert right I mean that's that's where that's
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where he becomes more suspicious to me he got this introvert this guy that doesn't have doesn't seem like he has a
00:28:25
lot of friends he's spending a bunch of his time at this Amy Center he goes out of his way to give uh send send gifts to
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their house and they're just small pins or whatever but then on top of that you say I could help your family out
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if you need to well the weird hug with him Lick in her ear possibly with whispering
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in her ear he didn't listen he didn't lick her here he didn't whisper but I find
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I find the chore that he claims he could help out with to be odd oh yeah because if it's hey I can mow
00:29:01
your grass that's typical hey I'll take some weight off your uh your husband's shoulders mow the grass I
00:29:10
can show up and that's the thing that you don't have to be there for I can just show up Mo and leave and and
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if he offered that to me not so weird I want to clean your house what the [ __ ]
00:29:23
what room do you want to go through what are you trying to find this is where my
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mind is going well yeah yeah of course and that's why that's why he because he gets on to the police radar had he not
00:29:35
done any of these things he would not have if he was just another volunteer he wouldn't have been on their radar at all
00:29:41
right [Music] [Applause] thanks for listening thanks for telling a friend and make sure you check out
00:29:58
True Crime garage.com be good be kind and don't litter