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everything Insurance should be [Music] thank you foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music]
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garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks for listening I'm your host
00:01:50
Nick and with me as always is a man that studied at the Miyagi no Karate Dojo he
00:01:56
is the captain hey must look I always look I it's good to be seen and it's good to
00:02:02
see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a friend today we are drinking grinder punch by
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the good people at sound Growler Brewing Company in Tinley Park Illinois garage grade A Solid 4 out of five bottle caps
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Captain it was brought to my attention that I have been had easy to do each week very generous people go to True
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Crime garage.com and they donate to the Beer fund and we are very very thankful for that and those funds we do more than
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just purchase beer the show has some overhead costs and we use you know if there's a little extra left over we
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donate money to the National Center for missing and exploited children so the beer fund is very near and dear to my
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heart because it shows the power of our garage group and so each week we give a shout out a sign of our gratitude for
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all of you out there and we read off names and I do my best to read off the cities from all around the world but a
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great listener out there has informed me that I was played because someone had donated to our beer fund and left a name
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that is actually some kind of white supremacy code or reference or something that I was unaware
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so the I'm I want to address this because I was unaware that we were going to have to police the beer fund and we
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will do that because I'm pretty upset about this Captain because the garage is not just a talk show we have always said
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that it is a community it's a headspace it's an Escape a place where all who are
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good all who are kind and all that don't Litter are welcomed and can feel welcomed and know that they belong here
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in Antics like what we are talking about do not allow everyone to feel welcome or
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feel as though they belong so we will not tolerate any of that crap here so now the other part about it too though
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look I don't care if someone gets on a blog or our Facebook page and says Nick's an idiot or I think your show is
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dumb you know I don't like the cut of his jib because that comes with the territory you know we have a show it's
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open to the public and not everyone is going to like me or the captain or the show and that's fine but a lot of haters
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but the the big issue here for me personally is that when someone pulls a prank like this something like this this
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could severely damage or completely destroy relationships in my life my family and my friends so I wanted to
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just to take a moment here captain and apologize to everyone everybody minus one person right so donate to the Beer
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fun don't let her and don't be a piece of [ __ ] there you go we will get back to the Beer shout outs tomorrow and
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for now thank you and cheers to all of the True Crime garage Army and the Beautiful People of Parts Unknown now
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everyone gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime [Music]
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[Music] thank you [Music] police say a gunman shot and killed five women in a robbery at a women's clothing
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store late Saturday morning the incident happened at this Lane Riot southwest of
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Chicago the store is at a strip mall called the Brookside Marketplace authorities say the store was open when
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the incident happened when police arrived they found the victims in the back of the store Defender is described
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as a medium-skinned male black five foot nine 230 to 260 pounds he was wearing a black waist length
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winter coat a black knit cat and dark jeans authorities haven't identified the victims but say they range in age from
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22 to 37. they say four were from suburban Chicago and one was from South Bend Indiana when resident says crime is
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a growing problem in the area and security needs to be beefed up and this could have been us and I just feel
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really sorry for the people's family and the victims because you know this could
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have been this could have been prevented police brought in a helicopter and dogs
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to search for the gunman but found no sign of him there was no security camera inside the Lane Bryant store but police
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say they're trying to determine if the suspect was recorded by any cameras at neighboring stores
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[Music] our true crime story this week is from a lovely place called Tinley Park Tinley
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Park is a village located in Cook County Illinois it is one of the fastest growing suburbs south of Chicago this
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horrific crime took place in 2008 but to give you a general idea of the location
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Tinley Park Illinois in 2007 had no murders and only 15 robberies were reported in this Village the population
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was just over 56 000 at the 2010 census and in 2009 Tinley Park was selected by businessweek a very good magazine as the
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best place to raise a family in America so the single best place in all of America Captain oh that sounds pretty
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lovely in 2017 Tinley Park was listed as one of the 50 safest cities in America did you know that um the garage was
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voted number one place to do a podcast and the world and Parts Unknown was number two desired
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place to live for the very low taxes we pay you to live there yeah so while I feel very good about those assessments
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being quite accurate you know that this is a safe place great place to raise a family this crime may make you feel
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different but it is crimes like this that remind all of us that unfortunately these sort of things while they can be
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rare they can happen anywhere anywhere Lane Bryant is at the center of this case and it's going to be a Lane Bryant
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store in Tinley Park Lane Bryant is a store for the ladies uh according to their website Lane Bryant is the most
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recognized name in plus size clothing and their emphasis is on fashion and fit not merely size well I just want to
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point out the fact that and the Lululemon case they didn't sell to plus size and now Lane Bryant they're known
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for plus sizes I don't think they sell to the petite ladies there's a lot of discrimination going on
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in selling both ways um but they Lane Bryant will tell you that their emphasis on fashion and fit
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is what makes them a style leader so a quick and interesting story history here for uh Lane Bryant the company was
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founded way back in 1904 by Lena Bryant uh she made maternity clothing mainly dresses I think Lena rented a storefront
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on Fifth Avenue the name Lane Bryant well the company got that name because a bank officer misspelled Lena's name on
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the paperwork the business opened its first Branch store in Chicago in 1915 so Lane Bryant has been deep rooted in the
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Chicago area for a long time as of 2013 the chain consisted of 812 stores in 46 U.S states only Alaska Hawaii Montana
00:10:19
and Wyoming at that time didn't not have Lane Bryant stores in 2010 Lane Bryant accused Fox and ABC of censoring their
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30-second ad spot during commercial breaks for the Dancing with the Stars in American Idol TV shows the ads featured
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plus size model Ashley Graham in their line of lingerie Lane Bryant accused the networks of discrimination because
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stating that the networks had no problem airing Victoria's Secret advertisements
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with similar similarly clad models right in the same time slots I'm a lover of all women of all sizes just putting that
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out there hey I'm a lover of Ashley Graham um so all right Lane Bryant stored this
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particular Lane Bryant store that we are discussing today is located in the Great
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Village of Tinley Park at the Brookside Marketplace which was built in 2005. Lane Bryant there were there were
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probably what about six or seven Lane Bryant stores in the Greater Columbus area
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around us somewhere I don't know I never go shopping but it's pretty much like a
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big box store right yeah so smaller than a Target but still a decent sized store
00:11:35
yeah you normally find them in a mall or a strip mall so this particular one is a
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23 000 square foot store now back in 2008 Brookside Marketplace included some store fronts that were not open yet this
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making the Lane Bryant store more ice isolated the strip mall skirts a major section of Interstate 80. uh the belt of
00:12:01
America and it also has a Holiday Inn and a Sleep Inn nearby so hotels nearby hotel motel Holiday Inn no houses are in
00:12:12
immediate in the immediate area and a few apartment buildings are about a half a mile away okay so this brings us
00:12:19
Captain to Saturday February February 2nd 2008 which was a very cold day the ground was frozen and snow covered yeah
00:12:28
it was actually the day before the Super Bowl yes it was Captain we have uh 42 year old Rhoda McFarland she went to
00:12:36
work on this Saturday but she was not scheduled to work uh she was the store manager at the Lane Bryant store now she
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knew that her employees would be stretched on that Saturday after the corporate office mailed customers Flyers
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promoting a big 9.99 clearance sale now I'm not I don't know much about the Lane Bryant store
00:12:58
but from what I understand it's some of the items can be more expensive and so this is a pretty good deal for everybody
00:13:05
this will draw in the customers on a on a busy Saturday everybody's going to line up to get some good deals did you
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say 9.99 that's right so rather than she's a she's a team player uh this store manager wrote a she rather than
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force her have to go It Alone she decides to pitch in and go in that day now the Lane Bryant store opened its
00:13:27
doors for business at 10 A.M the crime began to unfold shortly after at 1008 a man entered the store and engaged the
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clerk asking her questions about a delivery he carried with him some type of papers that he stated were related to
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the delivery that he was attempting to make at this store now this man was wearing a dark colored below the waist
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length winter coat as he entered the Lane Bryant store it is reported that he looked toward the
00:14:01
ceiling and this is believed that he was looking for cameras he chatted briefly with Rhoda McFarland
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the store manager he also talked to another person that we will refer to as the witness we don't use her real name
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we don't know her real name but she is called Martha and we're not using our name because the police don't use her
00:14:22
name right she's only referred to as Martha so that's what we we will have to call her here so the man spoke to both
00:14:29
of these ladies regarding this delivery well this this was a ruse um he was not there to make some kind of
00:14:37
delivery this was used to engage somebody with inside the store I'm a little confused why he would use this as some
00:14:46
kind of tactic but we're gonna see where it goes from there okay so Rhoda the manager she decides to try to help out
00:14:54
so she calls another store location to see if there was some kind of mix-up with the delivery because she's telling
00:15:00
the guy we don't have any delivery scheduled right so maybe this delivery was supposed to go to another store
00:15:07
anyway during this time two customers entered the store it is at this time the police would later say that the man then
00:15:16
pulled out a gun and announced a hold up he forced the four women into the back room this was a small employee break
00:15:25
room he forced the women to tape each other's hands and then he bound the remaining
00:15:32
women or woman himself after binding them he told them to lay face down on the floor then two more
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women who who later entered the store they were also taken to the back room they were bound and placed next to the
00:15:49
others now the order so we have four customers at this time right everybody's been taken hostage the order of which
00:15:56
the customers came in is unknown it is known that Connie woolfork uh was a fighter and at some point during this
00:16:05
hold up she had a physical altercation with the suspect she was struck in the face with what is believed to have been
00:16:14
the butt of the gun that the man had brought with him she also had blood under her fingernails
00:16:20
which is believed to have come from the suspect so she fought this guy at some point right this man also took some of
00:16:27
the store's clothing and placed it over the heads of some of the women now I want to be clear here on this statement
00:16:33
because I've this has been reported multiple ways from multiple sources and several of the sources suggest that all
00:16:43
of the women had their heads covered with with clothing items some suggest that it was just a few of the women
00:16:49
um and also one report a couple reports state that women's panties were used to cover their heads now while this might
00:16:58
not seem important I think that it is somewhat important because we're going to be relying on some
00:17:05
witness statements to have conclusions and thoughts about this suspect and we will have to use our own opinions to
00:17:15
determine how much weight to apply to those witness statements later so apparently one of the victims
00:17:23
um one of the ladies that was bound was the was a target of sexual advances by the suspect during the time that he had
00:17:30
them taken hostage it is stated that she was fondled there was that's not sexual advances
00:17:37
that's that's assault right sexual assault I I apologize I'm reporting it as it as it was whoever reported it as a
00:17:45
tool bag um there there were no further sexual content or contact from suspect to any
00:17:52
of the other victims beyond that point now store manager Rhoda McFarland somehow she managed to call 9-1-1 she
00:18:01
had her cell phone Bluetooth yeah she calls 9-1-1 at 10 44 a.m and I want everybody to kind of Mark that time in
00:18:10
their in their heads here because remember we're saying that the man entered the store at approximately 1008
00:18:16
so he's been in the store for quite some time all right 1008 he enters at 10 44 there's a 9-1-1 call and he's
00:18:26
still on the store at this time now Rhoda she managed to to make this call while the gunman was distracted uh even
00:18:33
though she was bound with tape on the call which is posted on the Tinley Park Police website
00:18:41
um so very very brave Rhoda McFarland calls to notify 9-1-1 of the robbery in progress the the 911 dispatcher picks up
00:18:51
and at this point Rhoda says Lane Bryant she Whispers it to the uh dispatcher and
00:18:57
the dispatcher asked where at and she states Tinley Park please hurry let's take a listen to that 9-1-1 call 9-1-1
00:19:05
emergency on the line stay on the line let me get you to Tinley Park don't hang up
00:19:16
It is believed that the suspect heard the dispatcher's voice over Rhoda McFarland's Bluetooth
00:19:23
the police were dispatched a Tinley Park police officer was in an adjacent parking lot at the time of the 9-1-1
00:19:31
call it is approximated that he was about 20 I'm sorry 200 yards away so police arrived on the scene very
00:19:40
quickly and it is reported that the first officer arrived only about two minutes after the short 9-1-1 call now
00:19:47
the the witness that we are calling Martha she has stated that she believes she heard police sirens before the
00:19:55
shooting started so this is at approximately 10 46 A.M so all six women at this point at 10 46
00:20:04
a.m were shot execution Style Rhoda McFarland was the only one shot in the forehead the rest in the back of
00:20:13
their heads the man then walked out the front door and disappeared five of the ladies were dead when police
00:20:20
arrived and as we said only a couple minutes from the beginning of McFarland's 9-1-1 call one woman
00:20:28
survived this is who we are we are calling Martha right she too had been shot and left for dead but she tricked
00:20:37
the Killer by moving her head at the last second causing a severe graze in her neck she then pretended to be dead
00:20:45
until police arrived a black SUV as well as a black sedan were seen on video leaving the Lane Bryant parking lot at
00:20:55
approximately 10 48 A.M so all of this happened within a time span of about 40 minutes the suspect
00:21:03
arrives at the Lane Bryant store at approximately 1008 the call to 9-1-1 is placed at 10 44. shots are fired at
00:21:11
approximately 10 46 and the suspect left the scene at approximately 10 48. [Music]
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rosettastone.com garage today rosettastone.com garage [Music] all right we're back newspapers went to
00:26:24
the doorsteps and newsstands the following morning the Sunday Chicago Tribune LED with the headline five women
00:26:31
slain in store police hunt gunman in shooting at Tinley Park Mall the article reads A gunman LED women into the back
00:26:40
of a clothing store Saturday morning killed them then walked out the front door and disappeared police said there
00:26:47
were no survivors at the Lane Bryant store in a Suburban strip mall along interstate highway 80. and what they are
00:26:54
calling a botched robbery still with little information made public conflicting reports and rumors about
00:27:01
motives and Witnesses swirled throughout the day officers from at least eight local departments quickly descended on
00:27:09
the shopping center some went from door to door combing stores for Clues others hunted in a nearby subdivision for a
00:27:17
stocky man described by one witness while helicopters hovered in the sky one Helicopter Armed with an infrared camera
00:27:25
scanned snow-covered open land and forest preserves police pleaded for help from anyone with information on the
00:27:34
killing spree as night fell the gunman remained on the loose Tinley Park police chief Michael O'Connell tried to calm
00:27:44
fear saying we are very confident that the offender is out of the area but earlier in the day an officer at the
00:27:51
scene admitted we have no idea who he is the gunman was still at large late Saturday do they have any evidence of
00:28:00
what he took or did he take anything let's get into that but I want to kind of clarify some things I found that that
00:28:06
article to be very interesting this is what the the locals are hearing these are the reports they're hearing and
00:28:12
reading just the day after and I thought we should comb through that because there's one very important detail here
00:28:20
and that is that the the police are stating that there were no survivors that five women were taken hostage they
00:28:28
were all shot and killed before the man left the store the reason for this this is not any
00:28:35
confusion on anyone's part this is simply to protect the living witness they did not want the offender to be
00:28:44
aware that there was a Survivor right they didn't want this person to know that there is still a person alive from
00:28:52
the scene that could identify them and that he might I mean we have to keep this in mind
00:28:58
whether he went into the store with intending to kill anyone at all we don't know right but at the end of the day
00:29:04
what he did do what this person did do is murder five people very capable of looking for this woman finding her and
00:29:14
killing her we wouldn't even know at this point in the investigation if he would have known who she was yeah I mean
00:29:21
there could be ties from the suspect to one or more of the victims or I mean is she being kept in a hospital for
00:29:29
observation for days right on end you know we've we've all seen the the mob movies where there's somebody that
00:29:35
survives something and they're a living witness and they gotta put the police officers by their door because we could
00:29:41
get some mobster dude right coming in the middle of the night and take this person out but on the other side of
00:29:46
things you could say there was a Survivor and if this was just a robbery that went bad and this person snapped
00:29:55
that could force the hand of this individual to turn himself in um like oh somebody survived I'm gonna
00:30:01
get caught let me turn myself in well let's take a look real quick captain at the key players in this whole crime
00:30:08
let's talk about some let's talk about the victims as well as what they may know about the suspect so there were
00:30:15
five women killed one wounded uh she was treated that you know the wounded one would go on to be known as Martha she
00:30:23
would be treated at St James hospital in Olympia Fields and she was released on Sunday so she was in the hospital for
00:30:31
approximately 24 hours right uh currently it's my understanding that this living witness is living out of the
00:30:40
area now um but she stays in close phone contact with police investigators and she's been
00:30:47
extremely cooperative and she is there for them whenever they need to ask questions of her so one of the victims
00:30:55
that we've already mentioned by name was Rhoda McFarland age 42 she was the manager of the Lane Bryant store in
00:31:04
Tinley Park she had been there for two years she was a U.S Air Force veteran she worked as a nurse at Andrews Air
00:31:12
Force Base Rhoda served as an associate pastor at Embassy Christian Center she began
00:31:20
working at Lane Bryant after her Crest Hill Church had closed she started a program at her church called Princess
00:31:27
this program teaches girls proper etiquette and guides them to help them grow to be young productive women
00:31:36
she was planning on expanding this program and expanding it to other churches in the areas in other areas as
00:31:44
well right she went to work that Saturday was but was not scheduled to work as we had
00:31:49
already said now Rhoda was engaged over the holidays of 2007 to a man named Stuart Gibbs she continued to answer her
00:31:59
Christian calling at the Lane Bryant store often often using her employee discount to buy clothes for people who
00:32:06
are less fortunate she is the only victim that was shot in the forehead this is believed that the
00:32:13
Killer caught her on the phone talking to 9-1-1 and when he confronted her that's when he shot her in the forehead
00:32:20
and another one of the victims is Jenny Lynn Bishop yeah Jenny was 34 at the time of this crime she was from South
00:32:26
Bend and she was a customer at the Lane Bryant she was married to Brian Bishop and they had three young children she
00:32:35
graduated from Indiana University with a Bachelor of Science in nursing in 1996.
00:32:40
she had been employed by Memorial hospital since 1995. she worked in the Intensive Care Unit fellow nurses
00:32:48
described her as a compassionate caring knowledgeable and efficient worker well she's a nurse so you know she was a
00:32:56
badass relatives of Jenny Bishop believe that she may have gone to the Lynn Bryant store that day to cash in a
00:33:04
birthday gift card yeah the Lane Bryant yeah she had sell celebrated her 34th birthday just five days prior to the
00:33:12
crime her husband was in the area for business and she was out while he was working our next victim is Sarah
00:33:21
zafranski she's 22 years old at the time of the crime from Oak Forest she was a customer as well the future looked
00:33:29
promising for Sarah because in May of 2007 she had graduated from Northern Illinois University with a degree in
00:33:36
finance and had a job already lined up at CNA Financial Corps and this is in Chicago
00:33:43
she went to the Lane Bryant store that day because she needed work clothes for her first post-college job right now
00:33:50
later after life a a park bench in Oak Forest Bears her name she was the youngest of the five murdered victims
00:33:59
just 22 years old now scholarships were also awarded in her name Connie woolfork
00:34:06
uh was one that we had mentioned by name as well she was 37 at the time of Flossmoor she was a customer as well at
00:34:14
the store that day she was a single mother of two sons ages 16 and 10. her youngest child suffers from spina bifida
00:34:22
and requires much of his mother's time and attention for seven years she served the village of Park Forest in a variety
00:34:30
of positions working in the finance and Community Development departments she left her job with the village in
00:34:37
December of 2006 this to pursue a Family Mortgage business with her mother Connie
00:34:44
worked as a mortgage lender lived with her mother and two sons to help make ends meet in the troubled housing market
00:34:52
she took a second job stocking shelves overnight at the Super Target in the same Tinley Park Shopping Center
00:35:00
she was treating herself to a manicure and pedicure on that Saturday and some shopping at Lane Bryant to buy a new
00:35:07
outfit when she didn't show up for a scheduled meeting with a client at 2PM her family grew increasingly worried her
00:35:16
family said that she was a fighter and would not have gone along without a fight it is reported that she had
00:35:22
bruising and blood under her fingernails that might have been from the suspect the bruising as we said is thought to be
00:35:30
from being struck in the head with the gun we also have Carrie chusu she's 33 years
00:35:38
old of Frankfurt she was a customer Carrie was a social worker at her school um Homewood Flossmoor High School that
00:35:47
my friends social worker at a high school is an extremely tough and difficult job I don't know this
00:35:54
particular high school but I know two ladies that work in these very same capacities and let me tell you friends
00:36:00
that is no walk in the park now Carrie and her husband married a year and a half before the murders her husband was
00:36:08
waiting for her to return home from a quick shopping trip to the Lane Bryant clothing store when he saw the news
00:36:15
reports on TV and he actually recognized her car parked in front of the store on
00:36:21
the news coverage you want to talk about sick feeling yeah after Tony saw his wife's car in the news reports he left
00:36:28
their home and he went to the Tinley Park police station there he was what he was suspecting was confirmed
00:36:37
that she was one of the victims now the day after Carrie died her brother's wife
00:36:42
went into labor they had a little girl who they named they named her Carrie Carrie's current and former students
00:36:51
packed into the what ended up being a seven hour wake for Carrie in in Memorial of her life
00:36:59
Martha as we said not her real name she was the surviving victim she was 30 she was 33 years old at the time a part-time
00:37:09
employee at the Lane Bryant store she was shot along with the rest but the bullet went into her neck missing vital
00:37:17
organs she was enrolled in nursing school and working two jobs to make ends meet recently divorced she stated that
00:37:26
she had heard the police sirens prior to the shooting started so what do we know
00:37:31
about the suspect well the killer was not wearing a mask or disguise he was described as six foot tall and I do want
00:37:39
to kind of add to that though a little bit because I've read and watched news reports yeah that will state that he
00:37:48
could have been as short as I believe five nine yeah um male or he could have been as tall as
00:37:58
six two now I want to throw this in there though the overwhelming majority of these stories
00:38:05
say that the man was six foot tall that he was approximately six foot tall yeah but don't they also say he was stocky
00:38:12
yeah so he it's an he's an African-American male of average weight um he the police have described him as
00:38:20
stocky but also average weight see that doesn't make any sense to me well they state that they believe he's between 2
00:38:27
and 220 pounds all right but at six foot tall I wouldn't call somebody stocky he's also described as a medium to dark
00:38:37
skin tone with braided hair with three to five poofy cornrows pulled toward the back of his head one braid hung down the
00:38:47
right cheek and had four light green beads on the end this man is believed to have been between the ages of 25 and 35
00:38:57
years old at the time of the murders now the suspect this is where we might have
00:39:03
a little issue with his weight Captain the suspect was wearing a dark colored waist length jacket or coat right now we
00:39:11
did say it was very cold that day the ground was frozen snow covered depending on the the the poofiness or the bulk of
00:39:17
this coat that could change the perception of his weight yeah my jacket makes me look a little fluffy there are
00:39:24
some reports out there that state that he was seen having a roll of duct tape in one of the pockets of this coat
00:39:33
the suspect was also wearing black jeans with an embroidery on the back pocket similar to a cursive G now one
00:39:42
possibility here Captain is that he was wearing G-Unit clothing the G-Unit clothing company was established in 2003
00:39:49
this is because of 50 Cent and you know he teamed up with Mark Echo to create this line of clothing and accessories
00:39:57
inspired by 50 Cent and fellow G Unit members these genes have a cursive G on the pocket right so possibly wearing
00:40:09
this line of clothing now the suspect was also wearing a charcoal gray or dark ski skull cap on his head a couple of
00:40:19
websites mentioned that he had possibly left behind a baseball hat at the scene of the crime
00:40:26
the Survivor said the killer may have had professionally manicured fingernails this is only mentioned once so you know
00:40:34
I I actually hesitated to even put this in the report but on airing on the side of full disclosure throw it in there and
00:40:43
and let people make what they want of it now police have released a composite sketch based on the witness's
00:40:50
description the weapon that he used is a Smith and Wesson Glock the gunman took a few hundred dollars
00:40:59
according to police there were two vehicles seen leaving the area shortly after the shooting this was a black SUV
00:41:07
and a black sedan now police have said that they have fingernail clippings remember we said
00:41:15
that one of the victims had it's believed that she had blood underneath her fingernails
00:41:21
remember we also stated that the man came in with papers that are supposed to be part of this delivery that he was
00:41:28
making maybe instructions or some type of invoice something like that it's believed that the police had these
00:41:36
papers that he left them at the scene of the Cross possibly touched DNA on those
00:41:41
correct correct so that's what we know for certain on the suspect do you think this is just a robbery turned murder
00:41:50
well that seems to be the strongest Theory or motive that's out there because this is a very strange crime
00:41:59
Captain when you when you really think of this implicity of it yeah where you have so many people being killed so many
00:42:05
murdered victims and yet you have almost a robbery situation that doesn't make a
00:42:11
lot of sense when you look at it and I know that there are probably details of this crime that have just not been made
00:42:17
public and therefore we are only working with part of the story sorry but yes I would say that probably the strongest or
00:42:25
most popular Theory regarding this crime out there is that the thought is it was
00:42:30
a simple robbery that turned violent um so a botched robbery in which the offender made off with very little cash
00:42:38
in the course of the robbery he figures out that one of the ladies had called 9-1-1 and he panics and shoots all of
00:42:45
them yeah within a couple minutes yeah so and what I mean I understand that this is the
00:42:52
most likely Theory but you're robbing a store at the beginning of the work day the store
00:43:00
opens at 10 o'clock you enter the store at 80 or 1008 sorry you know you're out of the store within
00:43:08
45 minutes you take a couple hundred dollars I mean you're going to rob a store where most
00:43:16
people understand that there's a night drop done for all these stores and a lot of these stores especially like Elaine
00:43:23
Bryant these are credit card based stores and and now most stores don't carry a lot of
00:43:28
cash on them so so you see what I'm saying like no no I follow you and that's why I feel like
00:43:34
this is a crime that doesn't make a lot of sense right and and and here's where I go with that my thought is that I what
00:43:42
I can see from what we know from the living Witnesses statements right is that we are probably working and talking
00:43:48
about a very unorganized offender here and I see where this guy may have had some type of plan whether whether it all
00:43:58
makes sense to us may not be the case right we don't know what kind of Rhyme or Reason this dude's
00:44:05
working with first of all and then second of all it appears to me like he lost control of the situation fairly
00:44:12
quickly and when things weren't going his way he's not intelligent enough to work
00:44:19
through the problem to problem solve on the spot in the end his only result the only thing he can come up with is to
00:44:26
kill everybody and leave um so so let's let's go through this first Theory here okay because you bring
00:44:33
up some good points so if this was to be a robbery why would somebody choose a store like Lane Bryant or any kind of
00:44:41
clothing store at all to Rob Early on a Saturday right so I get my first thought
00:44:48
there would be that we have a guy that is looking for what he would perceive to be a soft target an easy target yeah
00:44:57
chances are the employees are going to be female chance chances are the customers are going to be female and by
00:45:04
choosing early morning hours you may have less people in the store to have to deal with yeah because we as we
00:45:11
mentioned this is a 23 000 square foot store it could be tough it could be tough to Corral everybody and manage the
00:45:19
scene just given the space of this place I mean people can hide fairly easily in
00:45:24
a 23 000 square foot building but that also might be to your point that this suspect is not thinking things clearly
00:45:32
and so he's going to rob a place that one is not going to have a lot of cash on it and it's a big building
00:45:39
now when we say that a soft target that that potential victims or people being in the store would all be female or most
00:45:47
likely to be female let's be clear here we're using we're trying to use the criminals thought process here trying to
00:45:54
use the suspect's thought process here and we don't know that for certainty but the guess would be that that may have
00:46:01
put some kind of put him at ease in some way that there was a reason for picking
00:46:06
this particular store that is really the only thing that stands out to me or is could it be that this man believes
00:46:16
that okay they're they're not selling low-lying stuff right you know maybe there's some more money in this store
00:46:23
than would be in some of the other stores because they're you know more expensive items right so a soft target
00:46:31
too should be secluded in some way um from from busy areas and we know the Lane Bryant store was away from the rest
00:46:40
of the businesses and it's in a strip mall that was not fully rented out at the time yeah also an easy target should
00:46:49
have an easy Escape Route the Lane Bryant is just minutes from Interstate 80. this is a huge uh freeway that that
00:46:57
starts in New Jersey and ends in California we had mentioned that the timing is a little weird
00:47:04
um but for the sake of wanting an easy target the timing is great so he walks into the store that just
00:47:11
opened its doors eight minutes prior less likely to encounter a large number of customers but if it's the money that
00:47:17
you're after Why not pick a bank or a gas station right yeah well we have the the
00:47:24
surviving Witnesses account the killer according to her the killer walked in and was looking up at the ceiling and
00:47:31
it's believed he was possibly looking for cameras now my thought here is that this man knows that Banks and gas
00:47:38
stations because of their high probability of getting robbed will be outfitted with cameras yeah multiple
00:47:44
cameras so when he went into the store he has he's technically committed zero infractions against the law at this
00:47:52
point right so if he walks in and he's never been in the store before and he's looking up and he sees cameras he can
00:47:59
simply just turn around and walk out and go pick another Target at this well he is wearing G-Unit pants so I think that
00:48:06
is a crime um there's there are some drawbacks to this Theory and you've mentioned a
00:48:12
couple of them Captain but I kind of want to go through my laundry list here so we don't leave any out as long as it
00:48:17
doesn't include any G Unit pants I'm okay with your laundry list so as you mentioned how much money would there be
00:48:24
in a register that that's you know they just opened up the store eight minutes prior
00:48:29
okay um I don't know well here's the other thing too and a couple of accounts they state that the
00:48:38
guy may have robbed the women too so most of the material out there does not State this but this could
00:48:47
this could be possible maybe even likely you know he had the ladies bound and if
00:48:52
he felt in control of the situation he gets the cash from the register and from the office and finds out it's not that
00:48:59
much money he decides to rob the ladies as well I mean as well yes it's it's it's reminiscent of that conversation in
00:49:09
the diner scene in Pulp Fiction when the couple is getting ready to rob the diner
00:49:13
and they're talking about what their plan is and their last Heist and they say that they both agree that it was a
00:49:19
good idea that they robbed both the business and the customers in the last Heist because they they doubled their
00:49:26
take yeah but again not very well thought out because how many people are carrying cash well
00:49:34
I'm just stating this could be a possibility After he finds out he's not got much money at this point I agree so
00:49:42
and keep in mind the killer was in the store for approximately 40 minutes this gives him enough time to rob the ladies
00:49:49
as well now I do Wonder here one thing that I one thing that I wish that we had here
00:49:56
is a lot more information I think there was probably a lot of stuff that went down in that store over the course of
00:50:02
the 40 minutes what at what time did he draw his gun is a big question for me I would love to know what time the store
00:50:10
manager called the other store to inquire about the delivery that he was pretending to do
00:50:16
so let's say that this theory is right that this is correct this would lead me to believe and I'm
00:50:23
sure that the police have looked into this and I if not I don't understand why they wouldn't have but um then we need
00:50:29
to get new police officers yeah my thought would be just food for thought here Captain potentially this guy might
00:50:37
have some experience in doing this and what I mean by this is maybe the plan doesn't seem so bad
00:50:43
when you work it over the course of many different stores I mean it only didn't work out in this situation is what I'm
00:50:50
getting at because here's the thought the suspect may have hit what he perceives to be soft targets before and
00:50:57
he's hitting them early in the morning for a good reason maybe he's only looking to get a few hundred dollars
00:51:04
let's say 200 whatever's in the register right now why would he do this the thought is that he would bring he brings
00:51:11
a gun into the store with him but probably most of the time he never even needs to draw the weapon to make the
00:51:19
threat he just goes up threatens the person at the register or speaks to somebody in the store tells them it's
00:51:26
going to be a robbery and he makes off with two hundred dollars now keep in mind if he doesn't pull a gun a 200
00:51:33
unarmed robbery will go away pretty fast in most police jurisdictions well and if you did this at the bank
00:51:43
it's a federal offense second of all if you if you mention that there's a gun then his arm robbery so it doesn't
00:51:51
matter if you show your gun or not right an implied threat of a firearm is the same as having right but chances are
00:51:57
that these registers are not going to have bait money or die packs that's what a bank would have you know the die packs
00:52:05
are normally within like a football field or so they just blow up and they turn everything blue
00:52:11
I Smurf your ass um so yes I agree that this plan doesn't seem so dumb except for the fact that you're
00:52:23
going into a store showing your face and yes less likely that there's going to be there's going to be less cameras
00:52:32
than a bank but they're still going to be cameras but now you have all these eyewitnesses that see your face
00:52:38
so I still think it's a really horrible plan but I I think that he manages to get out of the store and there are no
00:52:45
cameras to take footage of him well we have cameras seeing cars leave right those are from another store right so
00:52:53
all right let's get into let's go to the theory two real quick all right this is
00:52:58
a very similar theory in the sense that it's robbery but possibly an inside job meaning our offender the killer had
00:53:04
inside help maybe an assistant manager or former manager or former employee correct right so I'll break this down
00:53:12
real quick Inside Job meaning that this robbery was set up with the help of a current
00:53:17
employee or former employee of this particular Lane Bryant store or maybe even another Lane Bryant store these
00:53:25
would be the only so one thing that I'm curious about here with the money we know that a few I'll
00:53:32
call you whiskers a few hundred dollars was taken in this robbery I would love to know did this come from the safe did
00:53:39
it come from the register did it come from a combination of both also robbing the the uh
00:53:45
customers as well where did this money come from because one thing here is that current managers
00:53:52
current assistant managers or previous managers and assistant managers are likely to be the only people with the
00:53:59
safe combination so if money was taken from the safe he accessed that safe in some form or fashion whether it be
00:54:07
through the employees that were at the Lane Bryant that day or he walked in there with prior knowledge of this store
00:54:14
right now where I worked before there was a safe but all it had was the two drawers that we used so there was no
00:54:23
extra funds it was just whatever's in those drawers so again even if you just got the one
00:54:30
drawer and then you open up the safe so I can get the next drawer I wouldn't want to assume that he would get more
00:54:36
than a few hundred dollars if he could get to both drawers so again that would be information that
00:54:43
I don't know if it would help the investigation but again I mean this crime is now 10 years old I think at
00:54:50
some point try to get the public involved I mean that's one of the reasons why we're
00:54:54
covering the case to shine some light on it and get people talking about this so if this in fact were the correct
00:55:01
Theory here uh the correct motive this is kind of how I see it it playing out okay so the inside person the accomplice
00:55:13
that this man had that this killer had failed to show up to the store for whatever reason that day you know the
00:55:19
inside accomplice got cold feet or whatever decided not to show this leaving the suspect stuck with six women
00:55:27
who he thought could identify him he walks in there without any type of Disguise maybe he doesn't he doesn't
00:55:34
Discover that his helper that his accomplice is not there until after he's drawn the gun and already told everybody
00:55:41
that there's going to be a hold up so as the suspect is is waiting he had to control the workers and the customers
00:55:49
and as time went on at the scene he starts to lose control of the scene and once he hears the 911 operator on
00:55:58
McFarland's phone he knew that the robbery was a total bust except for the register money and then the suspect
00:56:05
hears the sirens in the distance and in a moment of anger or Panic or both he killed the women and fled the scene
00:56:13
I I think this could be a strong Theory the only reason why I I really question the weight of this theory is like what
00:56:22
you for what you just said 10 years has passed okay and this theory is easily investigated and we know from detectives
00:56:31
that we know here in Columbus and in the Greater Columbus area that this is often
00:56:36
the theory that they look at first when they start looking into these crimes can
00:56:41
we tie anybody that's working there previous employees to this criminal act whether it just be the theft robbery or
00:56:48
what went down here so in exploring this possibility here's some more information and this is
00:56:55
what I was able to gather from an assistant manager of a Lane Bryant store and it is a stating this person told me
00:57:03
that it is store policy it was then and is currently store policy to have a manager or an assistant manager open the
00:57:12
store along with a regular employee right which we kind of learned from the Lululemon case it is also a policy to
00:57:19
drop off the previous day's proceeds at the bank in the morning before the store
00:57:26
opened so this has been one thing that's highly contested so all I can go off of is what
00:57:33
this person told me I've never worked a day in my life at Lane Bryant I don't work today in your life I filled out two
00:57:39
applications they didn't even call me for an interview or anything for Lane Bryant yeah oh I'm just because
00:57:44
I'm joking oh I was gonna say it's because you have a fascination with their spokes models so just to be clear
00:57:52
on that all the money taken in the day before is then counted the next morning and dropped off at the bank before they
00:58:01
open for business on that day pretty clear yeah so if you get there early enough
00:58:08
you get the drop according to this person the assistant manager and the manager are the only two that had the
00:58:16
safe combination so if like you said if this person could have got to the store before they opened
00:58:24
their doors there's a chance at that time the safe would have been open money is out and being counted by each
00:58:30
employee um and during this time once the money's counted they sign off on it and here's
00:58:38
my thought any chance this guy didn't do much homework and thought the store was
00:58:43
opening at 11. because that's where that's where you start to wonder about the delivery he seems to have a ruse to
00:58:51
want to get in the store now you don't need a ruse to get into the store and assess the situation when the doors are
00:58:58
open anybody can just walk you just go in and act like you're shopping yeah yeah but this guy had uh what he a fake
00:59:05
delivery that he was planning on doing yeah but I think to me the the fake delivery is more of a setup to for him
00:59:15
to get into the building and for him to be looking around and the kind of case casing the joint with this ruse and also
00:59:24
I think with this Insider job idea right that it's an Insider job I also think that there's a lot of there's High
00:59:33
turnover rate in these retail stores and you're talking about normally a lot of different ages you know when I worked at
00:59:41
PacSun there was a lot of people uh in their late teens early 20s and then you had other people in their mid-30s so you
00:59:49
got this pretty decent range and it could have just been somebody drinking at a party
00:59:55
saying when I used to work there and blah blah blah you see what I'm saying right I get you and telling about the
01:00:00
workings of of the store right you or this guy dated some girl that worked at Lane Bryant two years ago I mean he
01:00:08
could have some kind of Insider knowledge on some different level well where the this is where I have a big
01:00:15
issue with this whole story is that we have if if he in fact had Insider knowledge of the intricate workings of
01:00:23
the Lane Bryant store or if he was working with an accomplice remember we were stating that according to this
01:00:29
person that we spoke to that the money is counted in the morning and then taken to the bank that day
01:00:36
and this is done by an assistant manager or a manager and the store is opened by
01:00:42
a manager or assistant manager and another employee right the the thing that I have a big question mark on here
01:00:49
is and it makes this whole thing very curious to me is that Rhoda McFarland the store manager
01:00:57
she was not it's general knowledge that she was not scheduled to work that day and according to newspaper accounts she
01:01:03
was ends up being the only manager that we can get the name of of being in the store that day right so what could have
01:01:10
happened though is that a manager gets sick System Manager somebody gets sick something happens
01:01:18
they have to call off work and she had to come in of course no I understand how that works I'm saying what makes it
01:01:25
weird is that either that's just a coincidence or this happened on this day for a reason right and so the questions
01:01:34
here are some some questions that were likely asked by the investigators and hopefully they receive satisfactory
01:01:41
answers to help clear suspects or potential suspects in this case so one was there an assistant manager
01:01:50
scheduled to work on the morning of February 2nd 2008 and if so where was he or she and what was the reason for them
01:01:59
not being at the store two did the money from the previous day get dropped at the bank on the day of
01:02:07
the shooting if so did the bank have any cameras that they could see if the people making the
01:02:15
money drop were followed to or from the bank yeah number three could an ex-employee or an assistant manager have
01:02:22
promised a large payout from a safe and then change their mind and failed to show up to assist this offender and
01:02:31
yeah next question I would have would be have Lane Bryant employees or ex-employees from other locations been
01:02:37
investigated thought here too a little bit going deeper into this going back a little bit
01:02:43
the Lane Bryant store was open this particular store was open prior to Rhoda McFarland having taken over as a manager
01:02:51
so who was the prior manager and was the combination to the safe changed when management changed yeah sometimes those
01:03:00
safes just change randomly yeah and who and who's in charge of save changing the
01:03:06
safe combination is that something that they send somebody in from corporate to do that or is that just going making a
01:03:12
phone call and stating well now you have to change the combination here's the old
01:03:15
one um you know is that left up to that particular store what's the protocol on that and then here's another question
01:03:23
that I would have regarding the safe combination are the safe combinations different per location or are they
01:03:29
similar enough to figure out a different stores combination now that seems like a
01:03:36
weird question right no there most of these but it doesn't does it when people who have worked retail or worked where
01:03:42
there are safes especially in franchises or chains they understand that that question is not that strange of a
01:03:50
thought right I think it's strange the reason why is because most of those people hire security companies to help
01:03:56
them do this stuff so the security companies are not going to have branches in similar locations to have
01:04:03
combinations that are even remotely close that's my guess I mean and that's just from my experience with Banking and
01:04:10
how many times we had to change combinations to everything to the main Vault to the teller Vault to individual
01:04:17
vaults on our teller stations and in the back room and so I'm guessing that Lane
01:04:24
Bryant being such a big store what do you say 800 in some stores yeah 800 some stores as of 2013 they're going to have
01:04:31
some security company that's kind of monitoring all that stuff they're going to pay somebody to to monitor that I
01:04:38
agree I could be wrong I agree but let me throw this at you and and I know you're speaking on experience but you're
01:04:44
speaking from your experience having worked in a bank now I know you worked retail at some point as well I don't
01:04:50
know if you had any Insider knowledge of how they did the the safes there well I
01:04:56
was telling you at the well I think it was just a key but I was telling you during the break I believe
01:05:02
our safe uh at PacSun he could have just picked up and walked out with like it wasn't like I don't even think it was
01:05:08
attached to a wall or anything because but that's a strong person could carry it out of the store yeah and this would
01:05:13
have been 2001 when I worked there so we're talking about a long time ago there was there was barely any cash ever
01:05:22
in that store if somebody wanted came in to Rob us it's like here's your couple hundred bucks have a nice day I worked
01:05:30
retail very briefly and I was such a low-level employee I had no knowledge of anything I went in there and worked for
01:05:36
fun twice a week basically um I worked for fun well I mean they paid me but it was just kind of a fun
01:05:43
job that I took but however I did work as a manager at a gas station and a manager at a pizza shop now we had
01:05:52
pretty at both places we had pretty loosey-goosey rules as far as how we conducted business I will say this at
01:06:00
the yeah but this was what 1976. no no no it would have been like 99 2000. so I will say this the one the gas station
01:06:11
that I worked for is a major chain I'm not going to say what what the brand is because I don't want people to know this
01:06:17
well we don't want people looking down on that brand for hiring you at the location that I worked
01:06:23
we had a four digit combination to the safe and the reason why I posed this question of could an employee of another
01:06:32
store have some general knowledge of how this store works and I don't think that's far-fetched even as much so as a
01:06:39
possible combination idea for the safe and I bring this up because of my experience there so ours we had a store
01:06:46
number a four digit store number which is not easily known to the general public it had nothing to do with our
01:06:53
street address it wasn't posted anywhere on the outside of the store on the inside of the store it was something
01:07:01
that usually only the managers would know most of the employees were unaware of our store number however
01:07:09
I will say this and and I only know this and maybe it didn't work this way at every location but at the time that I
01:07:16
worked at this gas station our combination our four digit combination to our safe was the store number
01:07:24
well that's stupid well no it is stupid it is it's very stupid but it's also not it's
01:07:33
not crazy it's not out of the realm of possibility that this type of thing was going on on other places
01:07:40
um but again all we have to know is how much money did he get and I'm sure that the law enforcement is well aware of
01:07:50
where he got the money from oh we got the money from so this is a question that they could obviously answer Captain
01:07:57
before we move on to I have a bit of an outside the box Theory here but before we move out of talking about robbery
01:08:05
that turned into a got turned violent and turned into murder right there's another theory out there that's that I
01:08:12
find to be very interesting and the theory is to simplify fi is an out of town offender meets an out of town
01:08:22
murdered witness and what I mean by that is remember we mentioned earlier that Jenny Bishop she was from out of town
01:08:30
she was in town with her husband that was there on work and Jenny was going shopping while her husband was out
01:08:38
working that day [Music] is there is there a chance and this is just food for thought that the offender
01:08:46
that the the man that went in to rob the Lane Bryant store could he have been staying at one of those local hotels
01:08:53
where she was staying and they they had seen each other prior to the robbery he gets in in there in the back room and
01:09:04
now he's got a customer that he recognizes her face he doesn't know her name but if he recognizes her as having
01:09:12
stayed at the same hotel as he had the night before he would probably assume that she might be able to say hey that
01:09:19
guy that took off with the money out of here he was staying at the blah blah blah hotel last night possibly I I do
01:09:26
believe that the suspect was triggered by the 9-1-1 call because once that call happened you know five murders within
01:09:33
minutes yeah that's when the shooting starts so I I find this Theory intriguing and and I find it to be very
01:09:42
interesting and it makes me kind of think about other possibilities here I would believe that that a lot of
01:09:50
time was spent investigating those local hotels you know most of the time people
01:09:55
they keep records of license plates Vehicles they normally need a credit card to rent credit card ID all those
01:10:04
sort of things not that this individual couldn't have stolen you know couldn't have put together materials to travel
01:10:12
and use somebody else's funds or vehicle for that one of the theories here is that this was not a robbery at all that
01:10:22
this was kind of is kind of staged to be a robbery but and since there was there
01:10:27
was a murder that was actually going to happen and the thought on this is Rhoda McFarland
01:10:35
she would be at the center of this Theory because for several years Rhoda had been deeply involved with the
01:10:40
embassy Christian Center which is a now defunct Church in Crest Hill Illinois she began as an administrative assistant
01:10:49
to the pastor George Ajay Jr and soon became one of his most trusted colleagues she was ordained as a
01:10:59
minister and had become an associate pastor at the church and she was even counseling girls remember we said she
01:11:06
set up that Princess program at some point Rota began to feel uncomfortable with some of ajay's
01:11:13
financial decisions it's unclear of what if any wrongdoing transpired and whether
01:11:19
Rhoda's discomfort was solely over finances or if it included something more personal that she had uncovered so
01:11:28
a bad relationship happens between these two now around this same time the church's membership
01:11:37
went from 1 000 people to 75 by the time of 2006 and this is when Rhoda decides to leave yes just looking looking on the
01:11:49
outside in when you see drastic numbers like that drop you assume you kind of assumed something weird is
01:11:56
going on there right yeah well it sounds to me that he was making some weird decisions this got out to uh his the the
01:12:04
members of the church most of the members of the church probably thought it was shady or or not a part of their
01:12:12
belief systems and they left well ajai he moved with his family and several church members to Austin Texas and this
01:12:21
was to start a new church Embassy Nation Network which now appears to be closed as well well the only
01:12:28
problem with this theory for me is that Rona wasn't scheduled to work that day yeah no I I get what you're saying but I
01:12:36
want to kind of go into this in a little more depth here because this was something that the police investigated
01:12:42
and even though they've been very tight-lipped about it one intriguing clue that the investigators uncovered is
01:12:49
a 20-minute phone call placed by a former Embassy member now this took place about an hour before the murders
01:12:56
and it was routed through the tower the cell phone tower nearest the Lane Bryant
01:13:02
store apparently this was enough to Peak the task force interest because in Late July
01:13:08
of the year of the murders nearly a dozen detectives from the major crimes task force traveled to Texas to
01:13:16
interview former church members and Associates of Rhoda including ajai and now apparently at this time he was living in
01:13:26
some big mansion up in the hills and uh somewhere in Texas when they tracked him
01:13:31
down now all right so you go from a thousand members to 75 and then you go to Texas and you close
01:13:39
down another church but you're still living in a mansion hmm well interesting how that works ajai has
01:13:47
publicly and forcefully rejected any notion that his church is linked to the homicides and investigators have
01:13:54
continually said that um currently that they have no suspects so but but it's an intriguing connection the
01:14:04
Texas connect connection for several reasons and one is the day before the murders
01:14:10
there was a San Antonio news site this is w-o-a-i.com ran a story about a sex scandal involving a pastor named Rick
01:14:20
Hawkins Hawkins is alleged to have used church funds to silence women either because he had had affairs with them or
01:14:28
he has sexually harassed them now a poster on that site using the name for what's right left the following comment
01:14:39
under the Hawkins story for what's right February 1st 2008 posted well someone should check out George Ajay in Austin
01:14:48
Texas formerly of Illinois he has ties with Hawkins and has been suspected of doing the same thing the name of his
01:14:57
church is Embassy Nation Church formerly Embassy Christian Center records show for what's right registered on that day
01:15:05
and posted on that day and never commented again there are some out there that believe
01:15:11
that this for what's right could actually have been Rhoda McFarland so I here's the thing Captain that's an
01:15:19
interesting Theory it's an interesting thought very interesting one that we shouldn't completely rule out here that
01:15:26
that maybe somebody was sent to kill Rhoda or one of these other people now regarding this particular Theory there
01:15:35
is the cell phone tower information but really nothing much else right um so while it sounds like a very juicy lead
01:15:44
impossible Theory keep in mind the police did investigate this and currently today they are stating that
01:15:52
while through the course of 10 years they have had what they thought to be many good suspects as we sit here today
01:15:58
they are telling us they have no suspects so having investigated this telling us they have no suspects it
01:16:05
seems like it's been thoroughly investigated and possibly no connection but I do want to mention this before we
01:16:11
conclude today another possible Texas connection is that America's Most Wanted are the great TV show right they covered
01:16:20
this case when it was fresh well after doing a segment on the Lane Bryant click case
01:16:28
They concluded that the killer sounded like he had some type of southern accent [Music]
01:16:41
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