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Welcome to True Crime Garage. Wherever you are, whatever you were doing, thanks for listening. I'm your host Nick and
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with me as always is a man who likes a top five countdown more than Newman loves Drake's coffee cake. Here is our
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captain. Yeah, that's your big boy. It's good to be seen and it's good to see you. Thanks
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for listening. Thanks for telling a friend. Today we are drinking one of our favorite holiday treats. That's right,
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it's that time of year. Time for Christmas ale by the good folks over at Great Lakes Brewing Company. They call
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this a winter ale. I call it Christmas ale because it's just too damn special to be called a winter ale. I like mine
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ice cold in a frosty mug. This beer has a bright and uplifting taste with hints of fresh honey, cinnamon, and ginger.
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Garage grade four and a half bottle caps out of five. And here's a cheers to some
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bright and uplifting garage guys and gals. First up, a Christmas cheers to Jenny O
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in Monrovia, California. Yeah, Jenny O, we like you dear. And a big shout out to
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Jill in Hall, Iowa. Here's a big thank you to Denise in Loveland, Colorado. Denise, we like your gym. And a big
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shout out to Chris in Bloomington, Indiana. Here we go, Captain. We have a cheers
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for Allison in Vallejo, California. And last but certainly not least, we have Catherine Q in Glen Burnie, Maryland.
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Thank you to everyone who contributed to this week's beer fund. Thank you to everyone who contributed to this beer
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fund for the entire year. We thank all of you. Yeah, b e e r r u n beer run. Thank you for the support.
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Thank you for listening. 2020 was tough on everybody, but you guys made it a lot
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easier on us. So, much love to you. And that is enough for the last time of 2020
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of the business. All right, everybody gather around, grab a chair, grab a beer. Let's talk some
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true crime. All right, today we are talking about the best of all time. That's right, the
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best of all time for True Crime Garage, the Captain's favorite shows, the Colonel's favorite shows. Hopefully,
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they're your favorite shows as well. We're going to have a little a little party. So, let the drinks flow, my
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friends. Let the good times roll, they say. Yeah, a little bonus show for everybody for the Christmas and holiday
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break. But, I wanted to say something real quick before we get to the party. I just something that irritated me just
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a little bit. And I just thought, "What's this world coming to?" And then it kind of corrected itself. And all So,
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here here it is. Time Life magazine put uh Biden and Harris as the person of the
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year. Again, this is not a political statement, so don't get this twisted. That's fine if you think they're the
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person of the year. And but this bothered me because in this time of this pandemic, there's been so many other
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people that have been very important to this pandemic and what everybody's been going through and
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dealing with in 2020. But when I went to go rant about this, I went to Time Life magazine and and if
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you go to the readers poll, the readers said that they would have voted for essential workers, nurses, doctors,
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delivery people, grocery store employees. Those have been the real heroes of 2020. And I'll go a little
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step further. Anybody that's had to work from home, that had to struggle with that, anybody that had to work from home
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and had to also step up and be the teacher for your parent for your kids, all the small
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business owners that have been suffering through this time and some people have lost their business.
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Those all those people that I just named have been the real heroes of 2020 and that give me hope
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in 2021. So that's my little rant. Not to bring down the party. Now it's time to party, but to all those people I
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cheers you and we see you. Here in the garage, we see you and we love you. See you. Rant over. Cracking of the beer
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sounds delicious. All right, we are here to talk about our top five each. The Colonel's top five,
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the Captain's top five for all time True Crime Garage shows. I'm going to throw out a couple of honorable mentions, ones
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that certainly crossed my mind basically because of one very simple fact. Is that
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several cases that we've covered over the years, we've actually been asked by law enforcement, "Hey, would you take a
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look at this case? Would you cover it on your show because we know that the garage reaches a lot of ears and we need
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some help." So, a couple of shout-outs on some of those cases. They were cases as follows. The Invisible Man, we were
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asked by the Sheriff's Department in Indiana to help them locate an individual that they believed to have
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been committed several crimes and been on the run stealing identities and such. Sharice Bingham Walker, murdered wife
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who was murdered in a park and the Indiana State Police asked us if we would cover that case. Taylor Robinson
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from Northeast Ohio. Tyler Davis. Now, we weren't necessarily asked by law enforcement to cover that
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case. Tyler Davis went missing from the greater Columbus area and what happened was the Captain jumped into action and
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reached out to his wife who was with him the night that he went missing and said,
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"Hey, would you would you talk to me on the phone or would you want to do an interview for the show?" And then he
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covered his bases by checking with local law enforcement, talking to them about the night that Tyler went missing and
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and saying, "Hey, should I do this?" And of course law enforcement said, "Yes, we we want to
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hear what she has to say." And then of course the Barbara Blatnik case which was one that we covered in
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July of 2019. That one is on my honorable mentions simply because it's a case that the
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porch light project helped uh to solve and I I had said when we started this little garage adventure
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over 5 years ago that, you know what? One day I hope to solve a case and and I and I
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heard some chuckles in the room when I said that and I understand it was maybe something cheesy or just wishful
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thinking, but in a way the garage has helped several cases. We've been We've been lucky because
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we've covered some cases that were unsolved at the time and later were solved, some soon after, and the captain
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and I both believe that if you throw some good energy out into the universe, sometimes it boomerangs back and and
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good things happen. So In all fairness, we're chuckling at you cuz you're naked running around in the
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garage, sweating, saying, "I'm going to solve every case." And so that's why we were chuckling. We weren't chuckling at
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you solving cases, we're chuckling at your pee-pee. None None of that is true. Or maybe it is. Okay.
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know. Captain had a Colonel had a rant. Who goes first, Captain? You or I? You go first. Okay, I I just want to
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start off by saying I had to redo my list. This is the second list I did because
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I went back to the beginning and I think because of like nostalgia and stuff my top five was like
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all the cases were like within our first 100 episodes. And then I thought well, I hear every
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day that our show gets better and better. So that probably means some of the shows
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from back in the day were awful. Which is totally fine. But I think it was like a nostalgia
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thing that I was like, "Oh, I remember that. I remember the good times." So, I had those on the list and then
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eventually I was like, "Wait, all these are within the first 100 shows. I need to
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This can't be right." So, then I went back and did the list correctly. So, mine is the
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best list of all time. Yours, yeah, it's all right. Your list is all right. Well,
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one of my favorite things, one of my favorite emails that we get is from people that say, "Hey, I've been
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listening since the very beginning." So, those people I love. I just want to wrap them up with both arms and give
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them a a a big bear hug, sit down and drink a couple beers with them and talk some true crime. But,
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the thing that they always say, "You guys have come a long way." You I I enjoyed you in the beginning. I've been
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there since the beginning, but you guys have gotten much better at what you do. So, we appreciate the the um
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the pat on the back and the kind words and the encouragement. It's because of all of you out there, all of our awesome
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garage army friends that that keep the show going. So, Wait, but the funny thing is long time listeners, it's been
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so long since they heard those early episodes, they kind of forgot. It's the ones that go, "I just found your show a
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month ago. I love it and now I'm going back to the beginning." And I go, "Please don't. You might not make it
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back." Cherry pick. not Cherry pick along the way. Maybe cherry pick using our suggestions from
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this show right here, from our little countdown. So, my number five, Captain, I went with
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the Colonial Parkway murders. We covered this case in July of 2018 in episodes 226 and 227.
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This made my top five for a multitude of reasons. One, that the case itself is a
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fascinating case. It's It's one of my one of my favorite uh cases as far as unsolved serial cases go. It's one that
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you would deem a red light case. You know, the captain came up with red light cases. Cases that pop into your mind
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randomly or if you pull up and you get stopped in traffic and you're you're sitting at a red light, a case that pops
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up in your mind. Well, the Colonial Parkway murders certainly is a red light case for me. And it's one that that is
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so fitting to be a red light case because it's the slayings of at least eight people by a serial killer or
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killers along the Colonial Parkway in in Virginia. I found this on the web that I
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serial killer wrote to us. Jeez. There's There's my assistant right there. Yeah, there you go. Hey.
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Yeah. Nobody asked you. Yeah. Why don't you shut your mouth when you're talking to me?
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So, these cases go back to 1986 and went through 1989. And again, I think these cases are very
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solvable and that's part of the reason that the mystery intrigues me so much. But,
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what was interesting in putting together these cases and putting together the shows was I got
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the opportunity to speak with Bill Thomas, who is the brother of one of the victims, Kathy Thomas. She's one of the
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first victims of of the eight. And it was intriguing to speak with him and to hear all of the behind-the-scenes
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information that he has learned over the years. He's worked with local law enforcement. He's worked with with the
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FBI. His family and the other families have been very, very involved in these cases.
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And again, I think that they are solvable. In fact, Bill and I set out to do a interview show
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and he and I hit it off so well. We spoke for about 4 hours and just going round and round about all
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kinds of different cases, but mainly the Colonial Parkway murders. And by the end
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of it, I told the captain, I said, "Unfortunately, it was a brilliant conversation.
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So fascinating. Bill's such an interesting guy. And he knows so much about the case." I
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said, "We can't use this for an interview show because several times he said, 'You You can't
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You can't say this on the show. You can't tell anybody this. This is information we're not allowed to release
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to the public.'" And there were things along the way I was telling him, "Bill, this is stuff that uh
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you know, what I'm about to tell you, I'm not supposed to be telling, you know, I can't use it on the show
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either." And by the end of it, I thought I got so turned around I couldn't figure
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out what we were allowed to use and what we could not or what we could use. So, Bill is a fascinating guy. He continues
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to work on this case. The case is fascinating itself. The Colonial Parkway murders. Again,
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I think it could be solved. I think it could be solved very soon. And it's a case that we covered in episodes 226 and
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227. Well, and like you said, you're talking to Bill, not just the brother of a victim, but
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a lot of the family members of victims become experts in the case themselves. So, that's really been an honor in the
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last five or six years of doing the show, how many family members we've met from cases and how knowledgeable they
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have been and also how supportive they've been of the true crime podcast world and really supportive on
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what we're trying to do to shed light on the cases that's been such an honor to be a part of the last
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few years. Well, and in this case in particular, Bill is is what I would call the expert
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in the Colonial Parkway murders because because the murders happened in in several different jurisdictions,
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there were three or four different agencies that were involved in the investigation of these crimes. And I say
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three or four because there are a couple of other murders that are suspected to be linked, but have never been 100%
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confirmed to be linked to these other murders. So, because you have different investigating agencies,
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Bill Thomas has become the expert. He almost knows more than law enforcement because he has a good working knowledge
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of all of the cases where the agencies that have worked uh this Colonial Parkway case, they've only walked worked
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their specific case, not all of them. So, Bill is is the encyclopedia for the Colonial Parkway murders. And and
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regardless, you know, he's still heartbroken over the death of his sister, and he's heartbroken that he
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couldn't get answers for his parents in that regard, but but also Bill's a fascinating, brilliant
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person in his in his own right away from the case. So, it was like you said, it's
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um it's been an honor to meet a lot of these people along the way. Number five from the captain.
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Amy Mihaljevic episode number 22. And how this episode went down was we had James Renner,
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true crime author, come down. We went to a studio that I used to work at I used to intern at a music studio.
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We decided to do the interview there. We started off by doing an interview and a
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round table discussion about Maura Murray's case. And then you and James continued to have
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an interview about Amy Mihaljevic's case. I went into the next room. We turned down once we knew you guys
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were working. Um we just hit record, turned the volume down. I caught up with my old boss and
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other interns I worked with cuz I knew I had to edit the episode later. So then they send me the file.
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I edit the episode, but during the editing process, I thought, "Wow, this is a Wow, this is a powerful episode. So much
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so that once I was done editing it and I uploaded it to our podcast feed, I went and hit play on my
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podcast app and listened to the whole thing again um in its, you know, obviously better
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edited form. It was really fascinating to me and I think it really showed the I think the passion you had for true
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crime in general, but but the passion that you had for the Amy Mihaljevic case and also Renner's passion for true crime
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and Renner's passion for the Amy Mihaljevic case and I and I remember thinking that that's important
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because when we started doing this, we didn't know where it was going to go or, you know, how how involved I would be in
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the actual show or would I just be sitting on the sideline hitting record. But I think this was a kind of a wake-up
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moment early on where I said, "Look, people are very passionate about these cases and I need to take
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uh the production side just as serious, the making of the music just as serious and and and also the research just as
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serious as any other individual would. I would like to give a shout-out to our buddy Joe who who is the owner of that
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recording studio. One It's a It's a wonderful studio. They are doing gangbusters work over there. But while
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we were recording in between breaks, I got to see Joe and I hadn't seen him in years. And of course
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the captain is is good friends with Joe. And Joe was forgive me if I'm speaking out of turn here, but I would say
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one of your mentors back in the day or at least someone who taught you some of the old industry tricks that he has
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experienced and and learned along the way. But yeah, he never taught me tricks, but he kept me alive for several
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years by feeding me. So yeah, Joe Viers' studio, it's in a little town outside of Columbus called
00:20:07
Grove City. The studio was called Sonic Lounge. He's produced people like Boba Flex, 21 Pilots,
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and many other bands. He's a amazing engineer and producer. So if you're looking for somebody to work with, check
00:20:25
out Sonic Lounge and producer Joe Viers. Tell him the captain sent you. Now, a shout-out to Joe that I wanted to say
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here is um during the break, I had mentioned to him I said, "Joe, you know, growing up in the area back in
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the the late '90s, one of my favorite local bands was the band that Joe was in, Digital Black.
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And I was just, you know, throwing an old by the way, here's an attaboy for you. Joe, I I loved your band Digital
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Black during the day. Back in the day, me and my buddies would go up to the Alrosa or to Polaris Amphitheater,
00:21:02
different places, and we saw Joe's band play several times. And the next time I saw the captain
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Joe had gave a couple of digital black CDs for for Nick and I jammed it out rocked
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it out in my car for for several weeks. So big shout out to Joe. CDs and I said what are these?
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Like how are how is he going to play these? What do you do with this? How does this go into your phone?
00:21:33
So yeah, that was not my number five. Well, that's a perfect segue because my number four is the Amy Mihaljevic case
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as well and as you pointed out we covered that in episode 22 where I sat down with James Renner who wrote the
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only book that I'm aware of for Amy's case Amy my search for her killer by James Renner. That was episode 22. We
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did that in March of 2016. It's been a it's been a minute as they say but we also covered her case in episode 308 309
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and then again in 345 and 346. Really what you get with the 308 and 309 episodes is a much more extended version
00:22:17
of the interview we did with James Renner. It tells it fills in a lot of the blanks that we just didn't have time
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to get to in episode 22. And then episodes 345 and 346 we go through some of the suspects and by name
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and why they are suspects and how they became how they got onto the radar in Amy
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Mihaljevic's case. I think we went through five suspects in those two episodes and there are certainly some
00:22:45
others that we can get to and maybe we'll get back to Amy's case at some point. For those of you who are not aware she
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was a 10-year-old victim who was abducted from the Bay Village Square Shopping Plaza back in 1989 and she was
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missing for a couple of months before her body was found about 50 miles away. I think the FBI website says 48.7
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miles away from the shopping plaza. But she was found in a field in Ashland County, Ohio. And the case remains
00:23:20
unsolved to this day. It's one that we've said all along we think it it is solvable. We think that they will solve
00:23:28
it someday. It's just a matter of Yeah, but in fairness, you say that about every case.
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I don't know. I don't know that I say that about every case. I her You said it a lot.
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is depressing to me because there are certainly days and certainly time periods where I've gone in and out of
00:23:44
this case and walked away at times going, "I don't think they'll ever solve it." So, it's one that I hope and pray
00:23:50
that they do, but yeah, it's a very interesting case. It's unique for several reasons and it's
00:23:58
one that's I feel like it's really grown in popularity as far as the true crime community goes
00:24:04
over the last few years. It was certainly on the national level back in '89 and '90 when the case first broke,
00:24:12
partly because it's it's always kind of been tied to the Jacob Wetterling case just because those two victims both went
00:24:20
missing within a week of one another from two different states and at the time people thought, "Is there any
00:24:26
chance that these are connected?" cuz they were roughly the same age. But yeah, Amy Mihaljevic, I I share your
00:24:34
feelings there, Captain. I I think we did really good stuff on the on the Amy episodes. All right, number four coming
00:24:41
at you from the Captain. Miss Elizabeth, um BTK. Mhm. This would be a series that we
00:24:51
did. Episode 204 to episode 207. And I really just think as far as like serial killer profiles, it was very
00:25:00
extensive. This is one as far as research goes, you know, I listened to several other shows. I
00:25:08
watched some documentaries. I even I think it one book, maybe two books. But what was fascinating to me as we
00:25:17
were creating the episodes for everybody was after all that research and thinking,
00:25:23
I'm I'm an expert on this case. I learned something every episode. And so I I really that's a tip of the
00:25:32
hat to you where I went, okay, well, the colonel beat me again. But uh I thought
00:25:37
it was fascinating profile of really a a monster of an individual. Well, I never look at it as a a
00:25:45
competition because I would come up short every time. The music you do every week is
00:25:51
That's what she said. Yeah, that's right. That is what she said. And and reminds me every day. But um the music
00:25:57
that you do for each and every episode is fantastic. So, of course I would come up short. But yeah, BTK was was
00:26:05
fascinating stuff. Really good episodes and I thought we did a great job of laying everything out and really telling
00:26:13
the full story, as much of it as we possibly could. And it was I'm not going to lie. It was a little heavy.
00:26:21
A little heavy on the heart, a little heavy on the emotions to live in BTK world for a week or two. Yeah, two
00:26:27
weeks. Yeah, it's something that we've always looked into throughout the years, even before we
00:26:33
started the show. I mean, you BTK is he's you know, like Jeffrey Dahmer, Charles Manson, Ted Bundy. There's these
00:26:40
there's these names, there's these P O S's that um are just known to everybody. So, of course we we knew a
00:26:49
good deal about him, but it was it was interesting to dive into BTK world for a couple
00:26:55
weeks, but it was also heavy on the heart, heavy on the mind. All right, we're back to the parte.
00:27:32
Little bonus episode for everybody coming at you, changing your mind. That's right.
00:27:37
That's right. Best of all time. Cheers to the people up front, cheers to the people in the back. Big shoutout to
00:27:44
the people What's funny about this list is we we we also took a look at other true crime shows and we we're going to
00:27:52
let their episodes, you know, be a part of this best of all time podcast, but what we found was we were better than
00:27:58
everybody. And so we wanted all the trophies. It's basically like we're giving ourselves
00:28:05
uh like a award show, like the Oscars or the Grammys, but only we get to win and
00:28:10
we get to give the speeches every time. Thank you. I would like to thank my mother and my father and
00:28:17
so many other people. And then the music starts playing. Right. All right, so I think we're to
00:28:23
number three. Number three on my list here, Captain, I have the Delphi murders. This is the unsolved
00:28:33
homicide of Abigail Williams and Liberty German from February 14th of 2017. This was an interesting undertaking for
00:28:46
the garage, for the Captain and myself, because this was one of the cases and one of the first times that we decided
00:28:52
to tackle a case that was relatively new. You know, this case uh unfortunately went down in February,
00:29:00
mid-February of 2017, and here we were in the garage, I think the the first week of May,
00:29:08
covering it for the first time. A lot of people had not covered the case, had not
00:29:12
touched it, and if you saw anything on this case, it was not more than a 9- or 10-minute clip regarding what little
00:29:20
information was out there at the time, and still to this day, little information out there because the
00:29:26
police, the law enforcement, are holding so much back. But, we had said we first
00:29:31
covered this in May of 2017 in episodes 110 and 111, but we revisited this case several times throughout the years. Um
00:29:41
in July of 2019, in episodes 320 all the way through 323, we did four episodes in a row in 2019,
00:29:53
and then we had our discussion show, episode 395. So, this is a case that is always on the garage radar. It's It's
00:30:03
always on the radar for our listeners, for our garage army out there, and it's certainly
00:30:09
on the radar of the captain and the colonel. This is a case that there's probably, I would say, 10 or 12 cases,
00:30:16
captain, that we seem to talk about a lot off mic, and this is a case that's crept onto our other show, Off the
00:30:24
Record, several times. And I think that this is a case until it's solved, I Here's what I look forward to. I can't
00:30:31
wait for the day that we can let's get a 12-pack really ice cold and and do a great show
00:30:40
on the when they solve it. When they think of the 12 pack is going to help with that great show.
00:30:46
When when they solve this case, I want you and I to be sitting in the garage talking about it and and telling all the
00:30:54
details that hopefully will come out once they finally solve this case. And to to tell you what this case means to
00:31:02
me, a little peek behind the curtain here, I am a subscriber to the Carroll County's weekly newspaper. I have it
00:31:12
delivered all the way to my house here in Ohio. Every week I get their newspaper because I'm looking at the
00:31:18
pictures in that newspaper looking for bridge guy every week from the garage hoping to find this POS. No, but yeah,
00:31:27
no, it's a good one because it's at the time people weren't really talking about it,
00:31:32
but I remember the NFL was put in a billboards all over the country and so we kind of felt like
00:31:38
well, it's our duty to do a show. Not that we're we're going to cover it the best,
00:31:45
but we can cover it the best we can and we can get people talking about it. And I had I ended up meeting several
00:31:51
people that worked the case and they were saying from the little coverage that they're getting through
00:31:57
the news and by us covering it and the NFL's work by getting these billboards put up that they were able to arrest
00:32:06
over 200 pedophiles that weren't registered. And so that made me feel like our our show
00:32:13
was doing something positive in the world. So, my number three is Brandon Lawson 911 tape
00:32:23
episode 85 and 86. And it's simply everybody when you look at the case, the 911 call is very important. So, I think
00:32:32
one, other people covered this case and we thought, how can we do it Okay, well, we can break down this call.
00:32:39
And I know that several people that have and several crime experts that have started to look into the case
00:32:47
have reached out and said, "Hey, I've listened to your episode why when you guys are dissecting
00:32:53
when you guys are dissecting the 911 call and they've used it because they didn't have the tool to slow down things
00:32:59
or to uh speed them up or to to try to clean up any of the 911 calls. So, they've
00:33:06
been able to use our episodes almost as a investigative tool for them as they start looking into this case.
00:33:14
For those unfamiliar with that case, this is another case where at the time very little information out there. So,
00:33:21
when we talk about Brandon going missing and the events leading up to the time that he went missing,
00:33:29
we're talking about that for just 15-20 minutes of an episode and then we spend an hour and 45 minutes or so just
00:33:37
dissecting Brandon's 911 call because he calls into 911 that night and he's hurried. He's out of breath. It's hard
00:33:46
to decipher what he is saying at times and so many people have looked at that case
00:33:53
and said, "If we could just figure out what Brandon was saying, we might be able to
00:33:59
figure out what happened to this young man." And so, yes, it was it was an interesting undertaking and an
00:34:06
interesting angle to take with that case. We had heard so many people say that. We said, "You know what? Let's
00:34:12
turn on the mics. Let's lock ourselves in the garage and let's just dissect this 911 call and see if we can figure
00:34:18
out what it is that Brandon was saying and maybe they can figure out what happened to this young
00:34:24
Well, I think like I said, the idea too is is bringing something new and different to
00:34:30
the investigation or to the true crime world itself. I I wish um I wish more people would do stuff like
00:34:39
that and instead of just you know, knowing that a case has been covered 500 times by other shows, you know, are
00:34:48
you bringing something extra to the table or something different to the table? Um
00:34:54
and I think if we if we viewed cases like that more often, um and and and your opinion can be something new, but I
00:35:02
think if people did that more often, we might be further along in some of the investigations of these cases. Number
00:35:08
two for me, Captain, is and I've been told by many people that this is some of our best work. It's the
00:35:16
boys on the tracks, which was a four-part series that we did back in March and April of 2017,
00:35:23
episodes 93, 94, 95, and 96. And the way that this came about was originally, we were thinking we would just do two
00:35:35
episodes on this case. And once we started getting into it, once we got eyeballs deep into the case itself,
00:35:43
we quickly determined this has got to be four parts. There's just too much to tell. There's too much to this story.
00:35:50
There's so much beneath the surface. And it kind of came about by I read a book by Mara Leveritt. Mara Leveritt is
00:35:59
one of, in my opinion, the most underrated true crime author of our time. She wrote um
00:36:07
The Devil's Knot, which is about the West Memphis Three case, and she wrote The Boys on the Tracks. She's not She
00:36:15
does not have an extensive catalog of true crime books, and that might be why she's
00:36:20
not so well heard of or or well known or and is underrated in my opinion. She's been a long-time writer for
00:36:28
Arkansas magazine, and I believe that that takes up most of her time. But, if you get a chance, read any of her true
00:36:36
crime books. Both of the two that we just mentioned are fantastic, really fascinating deep dives into both cases.
00:36:44
But, when I first started reading the book, The Boys on the Tracks, I thought, where do I know this? Cuz I kind of just
00:36:52
randomly picked up the book. I I knew her work from The Devil's Knot, and I thought, I want to read everything she
00:36:58
she's wrote about. I pick it up, I'm reading it, and I'm like, where have I This case seems
00:37:04
familiar. And then I remembered it was covered back in the day, a long time ago, on
00:37:11
Unsolved Mysteries, in a episode that they titled Friends Till the End. And this is the still
00:37:19
unsolved, and it's When you listen to these episodes, if you haven't already, you're going to go, how the hell is this
00:37:27
thing not solved? But, it's the unsolved murders of Don Henry and Kevin Ives from
00:37:33
back in the day, 1987, in Bryant, Arkansas. And, as I said, I was very proud of the work that we did
00:37:43
on these episodes, and it's still it still brings a big smile to the old colonel's face
00:37:50
today when when I still I still hear or still get emails from people saying, I tell everybody I know about your show.
00:37:59
I do what the captain says. I listen and I tell a friend. And I always tell my friends, start with
00:38:06
Boys on the Tracks. There it's a There's a really good theme song. That's right. Pat myself on the back.
00:38:12
Thank you for giving me the Grammy for Boys on the Tracks theme song. I appreciate it. I'd like to thank
00:38:21
your mother. And I'd like to thank Frank and I'd like to thank um alcohol. Yeah, we don't thank alcohol enough on
00:38:35
the show. Okay. So yeah, um Wait, did I tell you that's my number two, too? You just did.
00:38:44
Okay, there we go. I I Well, you blabbed on for so long that I thought I I already said oh yeah,
00:38:52
yeah, that's my number two, too, so we can just move on to number one. I'll keep it I'll keep it brief
00:38:58
going forward. Yeah, we only have we only have one left. Uh yeah, so number one. Number one of all
00:39:08
time. before I get to my number one, I'll do a quick little recap of my top five so
00:39:14
far. So for my best of all time True Crime Garage, number five, the Colonial Parkway Murders. Number
00:39:22
four, Amy Mihaljevic case episodes. Number three, the Delphi double homicide. And number two, the legendary,
00:39:31
as I'm told that it's legendary stuff, the boys on the tracks. So, for my number one, Captain,
00:39:40
I went with an oldie but a goodie. This is the Austin Yogurt Shop Murders. We covered this in February of 2017
00:39:53
in episodes 81 and 82, and they are two jam-packed episodes. I loved one, the work that we did on it,
00:40:04
but two, the the suspects that we covered very thoroughly in those episodes. For me, it's one of the
00:40:13
the biggest homicide unsolved mysteries. It's it's a red light case for me, that's for
00:40:19
certain, 100%. It's a fascinating case and I I actually think that it's a case that could not
00:40:26
get too much coverage. I think that there you could we probably could have done four or six episodes on the case
00:40:34
itself. It's that big, it's that extensive. The The Las Cruces Bowling Alley Massacre actually reminds me a lot of
00:40:43
of the Yogurt Shop case as well. They share some similarities. There have been people throughout the years that thought
00:40:48
that maybe there's some link between the two, but we went through a very interesting scenario
00:40:55
in our coverage of Yogurt Shop where we weren't able to really tell you the names of the people that we believe
00:41:04
that did it, but we were able to kind of tell you through eyewitness accounts the who of it. Uh again, not the names,
00:41:12
but the individuals we believe to be most likely to be responsible for the the homicides themselves. The two
00:41:20
guys that were seen at the Yogurt Shop that night. I won't go into it too much. If If you want to dive into that, I
00:41:27
highly highly recommend it. Go back and check out the Yogurt Shop Murders from February of 2017,
00:41:35
episodes 81 and 82 on your True Crime Garage dial. Yeah, see, I wonder if a little bit of it nostalgia,
00:41:43
but I know that is a case that you're very fascinated in and and the truth is, if you ask me
00:41:49
tomorrow to name my top five, it might be completely different. So, um or at least
00:41:58
rearranged a little bit. But, uh my number five is Amy Mihaljevic, which was also on your list,
00:42:07
episode 22. Number four, BTK series, that's episodes 204 to 207. Number three is Brandon Lawson 911 tape.
00:42:19
And that is episodes 85 and 86. Number two is the series, the four-part series, episodes 93 and 96, The Boys on
00:42:29
the Tracks. And number one, number one of all time for me, uh so far, I guess, is uh the JonBenét
00:42:39
Ramsey series we did, episodes 355 to 360. And when we're putting together these
00:42:49
lists, I started trying to think about you know, what is it about this case? And
00:42:56
and my brain kind of pop something up into my head. Because we went over the best of
00:43:04
2020, 2000, and then uh 2020, and then of all time. And a lot of these cases, like you take
00:43:13
the Delphi murder case, that has really rocked that area. And really changes the lives of of the locals,
00:43:27
right? And you look at a case like Amy Mihaljevic, and we've talked about it so many times, and
00:43:35
so then we get feedback, I you know, I used to know Amy, uh I grew up with her, or I I knew her brother, or I knew her
00:43:42
mother. And they tell you how much it affected their community. And then, same thing with like
00:43:49
Brandon Lawson, same thing with when you're talking to Maura Murray's family, they tell you how
00:43:55
much you know, her going missing has uh affected their lives and their livelihoods and
00:44:04
and what they've been what they might have not taken on in life because they've spent time looking
00:44:11
for a loved one. So, I think with all these cases, you see how much it affects the community and then the
00:44:21
family members and the friends. But, I think the interesting thing about JonBenét Ramsey is because it was
00:44:29
covered in the manner in which it was covered by so many media outlets. I actually feel like it was a case
00:44:38
that wasn't happening in Colorado. It was happening in everybody's backyard. If that makes any sense.
00:44:49
Because it was so highly covered and very similar to like the Casey Anthony case, it was so highly
00:44:56
publicized that it didn't feel like it was happening in Florida. It felt like it was happening in your own backyard.
00:45:04
And therefore, so many more people were affected. And it wasn't just um a case that maybe
00:45:14
changed the local community, but it was a a case that maybe changed the whole landscape of
00:45:21
of America. Yeah, that was a case that we received a lot of praise of. We covered it in six
00:45:27
episodes and we here we are, December 2020. It was a year ago. We were we were just
00:45:34
putting the final bow on those episodes. And again, a lot of a lot of praise for
00:45:42
our work that we did on that. But, the case itself was extremely difficult to put together
00:45:50
episodes for. And a lot of that was because of such widespread coverage. Like you said, Captain, it's a case that
00:45:58
was covered so widely that it almost feels like it happened in everyone's community. And
00:46:06
the the problem with putting together the the JonBenét episodes was there were so many times where an incident or an
00:46:14
event or something was reported five different times five different ways. There was a lot of irresponsible
00:46:22
reporting going on in that case from the time it started all the way up until the
00:46:28
day that we covered it. And so it was a lot of sifting through things and trying
00:46:34
for the captain and I to try to go to look at everything through all the different angles and go, "Okay, well,
00:46:40
what's the truth here? What What in this particular event on the timeline, how did it
00:46:48
actually go down? What is the What is the right thing to say here? What is the right thing to tell the listeners here
00:46:54
in regards to this particular thing? Because there are so many things with that case
00:47:01
that you can slap a question mark on and say, "Okay, this is something that happened before
00:47:07
she was killed. This was something that happened after she was killed. Does it have relevancy to the case
00:47:14
itself? It does it help point us in the direction of who did this and who's responsible for killing this little
00:47:21
girl?" So it was a it was an interesting case to put together. It's still a case that
00:47:26
that obviously, I mean, fascinates me amongst everybody else as well still to this day. As much as I always wanted to
00:47:34
dive in and learn more about the case and we probably could have made it 30 some episodes cuz you could have went
00:47:40
down every single rabbit hole. And I also love the spirited debate that people will have about that case
00:47:48
even with us now. I appreciate it cuz I don't have an answer or I don't have a definitive solution to to that crime.
00:47:57
It's just a very difficult case. Once we started diving in, it was like, "Oh, yeah, we're finally covering this."
00:48:03
And it was exciting, and then uh then you remember what you're covering. And and the the darkness of the case.
00:48:11
The darkness and um So, yeah, that I That's something that I think will live with me for a very long time.
00:48:21
Well, and I think with that case in particular with JonBenét, that it's been covered so much and so often
00:48:28
that it almost starts to take on a bit of fantasy, where it almost feels like a movie or a TV show that you
00:48:36
watched one time. More so than than a real-life case. I mean, it's it's a despicable, horrible
00:48:42
murder of a child. And and you're right, when we jumped into it, when we dove into it, there was a a
00:48:49
certain level of excitement of going, "Okay, well, we're finally We're finally getting to this We're We're covering a
00:48:55
case that we said we never would." And so, there was a level of excitement of excitement there, but then once you get
00:49:02
into it and it's it's just a heavy, dark, depressing subject. Now, the cases the case itself and the
00:49:10
the way that we were able to present the information to everyone, I thought was real interesting, too, because
00:49:19
we did it in six parts. And so, we were really able to take different aspects of
00:49:24
the case and really put a micro put them under the microscope for the entirety of an episode. You know,
00:49:34
everybody in their cousin out there have done 45 minutes on the JonBenét case. It's just It's just been done a million
00:49:41
times. But, we were able to look at it, I think, in a in a bit of a different way and present it in a bit of a
00:49:48
different way and really tear through the minutia of that case and the rumors and such and really get down to to the
00:49:58
the nuts and bolts of of the thing and and look at different aspects of the case
00:50:04
in in our different different episodes. Well, another reason why I think people look at the case and it
00:50:12
almost seems like it's a movie or something is because of the pictures of the family
00:50:17
they had so many pose type pictures with actual like professional photographers and so many pose type pictures of
00:50:27
JonBenét so many like glamour shots where like a case like Amy Mihaljevic or whatever you're
00:50:35
getting a couple home pictures or maybe a a home movie and a school photo. With with JonBenét Ramsey you're getting
00:50:46
hundreds of professional photos because of the the beauty pageants and stuff that they entered so I think that's also
00:50:54
a part of why it becomes more movie-like and it wasn't released I don't even know if it was released
00:51:03
when we covered the case but the actual what they what they believe is the last picture of
00:51:10
little JonBenét Ramsey and it's just her looking up at her dad and he he took the picture because
00:51:16
well, it's his daughter and he thought she looked cute but he also just was saying how like tired she looked and how
00:51:24
worn out she looked from Christmas. But that it was a kind of a proud moment as a parent like we must have done such
00:51:31
a good job because she is exhausted and it's now time to go home and and that was the last picture and she doesn't
00:51:39
have a bunch of makeup on and she doesn't look like a little Katy Perry or something. She she
00:51:46
just looks like a little 6-year-old kid that is wore out because of Christmas. JonBenét Ramsey She was strangled with a
00:51:57
cord. Little Miss Colorado 6-year-old murder victim JonBenét Ramsey unknown intruder
00:52:07
her brother JonBenét Ramsey They still have not interviewed the parents. I didn't do it.
00:52:24
John Ramsey didn't do it, and we didn't have a clue of anybody who did this. My life has been hell
00:52:34
from that day forward. And I want nothing more than to find out who was responsible for this.
00:52:42
How does your list stack up with ours? If you agree, disagree, head over to the blog, head over to our website True
00:52:50
Crime Garage. Again, this is the last episode of 2020. So glad to see this year go, but thank
00:52:59
you so much for the support and the love. We love you and can't thank you enough. That's right. If you want more
00:53:06
True Crime Garage during the break, make sure you get Stitcher Premium and check
00:53:11
out our show that everybody loves. They're saying it's the next biggest show on the planet. It's called Off The
00:53:17
Record. Check it out. You're going to love it. We love all of you. Until next time, be good, be kind, and don't
00:53:25
litter. Hey.