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thank you [Music] [Music] thank you foreign garage wherever you are whatever you're
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doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man who
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has only cried twice in his life once when he was seven when he was hit by a bus and then again when he heard that
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little Sebastian had passed ladies and gentlemen the captain yeah little Sebastian your Ten Thousand Candles in
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the wind it's good to be seen and good to see you dry your eyes thanks for listening thanks for telling my friends
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[Music] today we are drinking Shiner Tex hex bruja's Brew IPA by the good Folks at
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Shiner I'm told bruja means which so this is the Tex hex which is brew and this is one deliciously refreshing IPA
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with cactus water feel the healing powers of the cacti my friends ABV 7 garage grade four and a half bottle caps
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out of five now let's give some praise and thank yous to our good friends that helped us out with this week's show
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out at truecrime garage.com and Colonel that's enough of the business all right everybody gather around grab a chair
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grab a beer let's talk some true crime thank you foreign [Music] I have guilt feeling the thing that I
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think most about is not being there to help Keith uh if something happened to him and
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if he did pull this car over here um and he went with someone or whatever not being there to help him
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you don't know how much guilt I have not being able to help him um as far as them polygraphing me or doing whatever
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they need to do no I don't have a problem with it at all my motto is to find him I need to find him I'm I'm
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almost 65 years old I've got health problems I want to find my son and I want to find it before I pass from
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this Earth so no I don't have a problem with him whatever they want to do these new
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polygraphs are different than what I took before uh you're hooked up different they've used a uh like a
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computer like a laptop I think is what it was and then put something under your feet I don't
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remember doing that on the first one I took but they asked they he just detective Laughlin the first one I took
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they asked a lot of questions yes or no's and this last one's the same way yes or no but there was all five
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questions that they asked us so he doesn't get into what I did on the first one but
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these five questions they ask you if you I think that if you have something to do
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with this disappearance or know something it's going to show my name is John Laughlin I'm a detective
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with the Wichita Falls Police Department crimes against persons unit I'm currently assigned to the Cold Case
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position which is how I got to know Keith's case and his family and while we're talking today I've been with uh
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Wichita Falls this is my 26th year I've been in the crimes against persons unit this is my 14th year in this unit so
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it's uh felony crimes against persons so Robbery Homicide sexual assault drive-by
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shooting unattended deaths things of those nature uh those those kinds of cases are what
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we investigate um I am the only Cold Case Investigator that our agency has and I am uh
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still required or part of my duties is to pull a week of on-call in the Capers unit so whatever comes up then uh
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capital murder or anything uh it kind of takes away of course the time needed to
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work on these cold cases and uh this is a pretty voluminous case Keith's case has been ongoing since the original
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report was made [Music] thank you there you heard it we have Keith's father Greg talking about the guilt that
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he has experienced over the years after the loss of his son followed up by the current detective who is active on this
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still unsolved case but again a very active not a cold case that is detective Laughlin with the Wichita Falls Police
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Department explaining what it is that he does in the very difficult job that he has on the Cold Case squad for me here
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Captain what I look at when I see this case and after the details that we've gone through it really boils down to two
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points for me two points of interest for the colonel one being do we look at Chris and Michelle two people that we
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know that were with Keith that night before he went missing maybe even one of the last people that seen him before he
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went missing or do we look toward this quote unquote Meetup or this meeting that he had at some point that night
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because what we have here sitting in front of us is the cold hard fact that we know that Keith did hang out
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with Chris and Michelle that night we know that they went somewhere we know this because a we have Keith telling his
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fiancee on the phone after work that he was meeting up with some friends he was going out with some friends
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follow that up by we have the surveillance footage that shows the three of them at the gas station Keith
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purchasing snacks using the fiance's Fina credit card Chris purchasing beer for the three of them and then later we
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have Chris and Michelle's statements to police saying we dropped Keith off in front of his apartment in the parking
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lot at approximately 11 45 p.m on that night we did not see him enter his apartment but we saw him walking up the
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stairs to his apartment apparently at some point during that evening Keith told Chris and Michelle
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that he was meeting up with someone that he had to meet someone at 12 15 a.m on May 11th and that is why he needed to
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get home at a decent time so we have two points here of interest for me Captain either a we should be
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looking in the direction of Chris and Michelle maybe they made up the meeting or B
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whoever he was meeting that night wherever they were meeting that night whatever they were meeting about is
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responsible for Keith's disappearance I know Keith is a younger guy but to me this is a very odd time to be meeting
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somebody up at 12 15. so when we take a look at the situation after we know Keith to be missing
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there are some other points that are very interesting to me here as well one the vehicle his vehicle that that he was
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driving that night which was later found in the church parking lot near his family's home his parents home
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approximately a mile away from his apartment that's a very interesting angle to this case the other interesting
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angle is his apartment and we said that the apartment was found locked by Carrie
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the following day according to the notes I have Captain the deadbolt was locked so somebody would have had to use a key
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from the outside of the apartment to lock that door we also found the beer cans on the countertop
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there were clothes on the bathroom floor the bed had not been slept in this all according to the police reports we did
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ask the detective about that area specifically and his answer was this that the apartment complex this was not
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a high crime area back in 1997 and still is not a high crime area to this day so
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they do not believe that anything happened to Keith in the parking lot going into his apartment or coming out
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of his apartment that night police seem to be really honing in on the idea that whatever happened to Keith is directly
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that there is a direct connection from Keith to somebody that he knew I agree with law enforcement because one of his
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friends dropping him off didn't see anything or see anybody that was suspicious it's a safe area
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but also the car being moved into a different location is it clear whether or not his friends
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saw the car parked at his apartment before they left that's a really good question and that is one
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that that's what I'm here for right that's one that we spoke to the detective about and they they did not
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recall seeing the vehicle however the thing that's weird about that is it sounds to me like that was not a
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question that was asked of them right now this case is 25 years old and they've been interviewed several times
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over this time period so if that question wasn't asked back then it gets really dicey on them having memory of
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seeing the vehicle that night or not later when they're interviewed years later well again it becomes more tricky
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too because if you drop me off at my house you know what my vehicle is when he's driving multiple vehicles from
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the dealership that you might not even they might not even known what vehicle to look for correct and the other thing
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here too is I gotta believe that Chris probably knew what kind of vehicle that Keith was
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driving just because I could see that naturally coming up in conversation because they both worked at the
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dealership you know he comes to pick him up in a Nissan Pathfinder from from the
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dealership Keith was driving the Mustang that may have come up in conversation at
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some point during the evening but again you're hitting on something there I I have a feeling that that vehicle must
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have been in that parking lot when Keith returned because where I'm kind of left
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sitting is trying to figure out did Keith drive that vehicle and place it in that
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parking lot near his parents home or did something happen to Keith and somebody else drove it and left it there
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what's really tricky here for me is there would be a limited number of people that would know that Keith would
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use that parking space so that right there would already shrink your suspect pull a bit
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but what doesn't make a lot of sense to me is if I did something terrible to Keith
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clearly I'm trying to cover that up his body and remains have been so well concealed that nobody has found him for
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25 years why would I place the vehicle in a place that I know that's going to be found and associated
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with Keith unless I'm hoping that somebody locks onto the idea that maybe Keith moved it there
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himself and that has a direct relation to this meeting that was going to take place
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or possibly he's meeting some bad dudes and he doesn't want them knowing where he lives so hey I'll meet you at this
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church and I think you might have something there Captain because his parents seem to feel the same way that
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either somebody that knew he used to park there placed it there in a in some weird way to try to throw the
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investigation off or like you said maybe Keith drove the vehicle there himself he doesn't want
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these people to know where he lives for one reason or another and gets into their vehicle goes off
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with them whatever happened to Keith happens later away from the vehicle but maybe he leaves it there as some
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kind of signal to Mom and Dad that hey I I place this vehicle here and I went off
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to do something and you need to come looking for me we should also touch on one thing before we move too far along
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here today Captain one is that the all the things and facts that we know about after Keith disappeared so he goes
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missing on that Sunday and it's all agreed upon by law enforcement and all involved that he's missing sometime
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between 11 45 p.m on that Saturday night and before 6 a.m when his vehicle is first spotted in that parking lot on
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Sunday morning later we would learn that Keith left approximately 100 in his savings account
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and he did have paychecks coming from the vehicles that he sold leading up to the time of his disappearance so he had
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money coming in those paychecks were never picked up we also know that he used his fiance's Fina credit card at
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the gas station when he was with his friends during the evening before his disappearance but there has never been
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any unaccounted for transactions on her account with that card since that night does that make you speculate that maybe
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he was having some kind of money issues if he's using his girlfriend's credit card for a purchase he very well could
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have had some money issues and that's something that we spoke to his parents and law enforcement about
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and we kind of get a mixed bag of of answers here so the general thought is this he did have money coming in he was
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having success selling vehicles at work but we have the idea that he didn't have
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any cash on hand because he asked for a gasoline voucher and it's believed that he used that voucher to fill up the
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Mustang's gas tank on that Saturday evening we know that he used the fina gas card to purchase some snacks
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and a gas station that Saturday evening but he had money coming in the thing here though too is we say money problems
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but Keith didn't have a whole lot of bills he didn't have a whole lot of obligations he didn't have a vehicle
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that he had to pay for right because he's using the vehicles from the dealership his biggest expense was his
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new apartment which was approximately about five hundred dollars a month so not a super Hefty rent
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on his apartment and he doesn't really have any other bills remember he went to school on a
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scholarship so while he might have had limited amount of money coming in he also had a
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very limited amount of money going out and I don't know how his pay worked maybe it was one of those situations
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where he's getting a very low dollar an hour wage and then Commission on top or maybe
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he's just commissioning those things you know maybe only and those types of jobs sometimes only
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pay out the commission once a month uh who knows so yeah money's coming in right now
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so yeah he has a job and he's making money but when he's is he actually going to receive that money again I keep going
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back to this very basic idea you got to cut these things down to the most simplest ideas sometimes and here I am
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left with the idea that he hung out with Chris and Michelle and they said that he was meeting
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someone at 12 15 so either one of two things happened in my mind here either Chris and Michelle made up this meeting
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and they are responsible for his disappearance or they dropped him off exactly like they said that night at 11
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45 pm Keith had some kind of mysterious meeting with who we don't know where that's a good question what's the
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meeting about an even better question we don't know the answers to that if in fact Chris and Michelle are telling the
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truth then we have to believe that this meeting is probably responsible for the reason why Keith vanished so we wanted
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to know from detective Laughlin if the people that Wichita Falls Police Department have interviewed over the
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years if they have been Cooperative with the investigation here's his answer yes
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and that's a yes and no of course uh this is because it's such a voluminous list
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um there's going to be there's lots and lots of people that have been Cooperative from the beginning the last
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two people that were with Keith have been Cooperative from the jump uh they were interviewed separately without
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hesitation uh took past the polygraph exam they didn't have anything to do with his disappearance or know where he
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might be which is of course that's where everybody's going to look is uh who are
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the last people to see him um but just because they may have been the last persons to see him or report to
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the police that they saw him obviously if something nefarious happened to Keith then then technically they were not the
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last people to see him whoever did something to Keith was the last person or persons to see him
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so there have been uh more persons on this long list of people to go back over and talk to that have been
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uh cooperative within the limitation of memory you know it's just something that um at that time
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in their life or even now wasn't as significant incident or issue they'll tell you everything that they can
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remember about it but there's just only so far that they could go but they're still willing to cooperate and then
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there have been others that have not um they've either feigned cooperation that said yeah absolutely I want to help
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you and then didn't follow through or follow up um so there's still more people to talk
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to and there's still more work to be done I I do believe there are people um that were within this North Texas
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community at the time that teeth that Keith went missing that know something um and it's just a matter of time before
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we identify them and identify what if any knowledge they have or involvement they have so you think that Chris and
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Michelle have been truthful but has there been anybody that can confirm their story about that night yes they
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have been uh truthful and Cooperative from the beginning as I said um they would have been first persons at
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the initial investigators talked with um and Then followed up with a polygraph exam which they uh agreed and um Chris
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took one and once he took his and passed his he was Michelle was Chris's girlfriend and so she she knew Keith
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because because Chris knew him and Chris would hang out they were co-workers they
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worked together Chris and and Keith and so she would have known him through through that Arrangement and been around
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him whenever he was around visiting with Chris so once Chris had passed his polygraph um and with the the reported
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activity of them all three being together they they didn't even um ask or get Michelle to take a
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polygraph it's not as if she wouldn't or she didn't it's just they didn't see a need once uh Chris had agreed taking his
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and passed it they were able to cooperate what they said based on their timeline of activity of course
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um just to make a quick rundown on I'm not sure how much of it will be covered in in your presentation but Chris and
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Keith worked together at the Ford dealership that day I had previously I think I when I had spoken to you before
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I may have even given you an incorrect timeline there that he'd worked from 9 A.M to 9 p.m he actually worked from 9
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A.M to 6 p.m um and when he got off work at six he took this demo 96 red Ford Mustang home
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to his apartment he only lived in that apartment it for less than a month he moved in in April so it's just a little
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over a month hey had he been in that apartment and Chris took home this Nissan Pathfinder
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as a demo and came over with Michelle to Keith's apartment and it would have been
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around 9 30 9 40ish in the evening when they came over and it was a plan to get together they're going to go riding
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around they're going to go uh stop by a few different parties and just hang out with you know young
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people do this all the time again two colleges in our town It's Not Unusual at all for college kids or even uh
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seniors in high school to run around and hang out hang out at different people's
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places for different parties on the weekend so they stopped by a convenience store
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and visional investigators found the charge receipt receipt that uh Keith had used there to make a purchase and they
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found the video recording that he was there to make that purchase they bought some beer and they went riding around
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when they took him back to his apartment they made the quick stop at a car wash to hose off all the mud that had been on
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their uh their Pathfinder they went off-roading by the lake after they stopped by a party
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they were hosing the mud off and at some point Keith makes mention to them during the evening that uh he
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needed to be home because he was expecting to meet up with somebody later on and so
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they took him back to the apartment uh they dropped him in the parking lot they saw him go up the stairs but they didn't
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watch him go into his apartment and they left um later on when Carrie keeps girlfriend
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at the time got to Wichita Falls and got to the apartment the next morning or next
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afternoon uh she had found some beers on the counter just as Chris and Michelle had said Hey whenever we dropped him off
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he took one that he was already had open and he took a couple more for later on she found those there in the apartment
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um they she found clothing that had mud on it where he had gotten out of the truck
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to help wash it off and gotten some mud onto his pants and stuff she found that there in the apartment and she noted
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that the bed had not been slept in so the sheets the bed was made hadn't been pulled down there had been no
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Impressions that somebody had laid in that bed or slept there and that's kind of where the whole thing
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started once Carrie found that on the afternoon of uh Sunday May the 11th that's when she
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started calling around and checking with friends and and talking to he's father and stepmother
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and even you know even they at the time thought well he might have tied one on and slept it
00:25:02
off at somebody else's place whoever he met up with um you know it could have just been he
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went out partying with somebody else and he had too much to drink so he stayed at
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wherever he was at and they they checked at a few places they thought he might be
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and didn't didn't find anybody that had seen him and didn't find him and it wasn't until
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um the following morning which would have been Monday the 13th that it's like okay
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you know Keith would have at least checked in by now he's got to be at work today
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um we're concerned and that's when the police got notified [Music] thank you [Music]
00:26:03
[Music] all right we are back thank you for the support make sure you subscribe to the
00:26:24
podcast and cheers to everybody and make sure that you join us back here in the garage next week because we are going to
00:26:30
have a very special and exciting announcement on next week's show so you will not want to miss that trust me
00:26:37
and before we draw any of our own conclusions here in the garage we wanted to present to you some more answers from
00:26:44
the active detective on Keith's case and a follow-up question to the previous question was that we know according to
00:26:51
law enforcement that Chris Michelle and Carrie his fiancee as well as Keith's family have all been Cooperative with
00:27:01
the investigation as far as law enforcement is concerned we wanted to know if there were other people other
00:27:07
friends other acquaintances that were involved in his life around the time of his disappearance if they were in fact
00:27:15
Cooperative with police and their investigation this would include anybody that would be in the Wichita Falls area
00:27:22
that was a friend or acquaintance of Keith's also former High School buddies of his yeah though yeah when the ranger
00:27:30
when DPS got involved they uh they were able to locate a good chunk of all the different folks that know him even since
00:27:39
I've had it as a follow-up case I've I've talked to some of his friends um yeah there hasn't again there's
00:27:45
there's been a handful of people that are either difficult to track down or locate doesn't mean they're
00:27:50
uncooperative we're just having a hard time finding them there's been others that we have located that are no longer
00:27:57
cooperating um so there there are folks from Keith's past that whether they know something
00:28:06
and they're just not sharing it or they had some kind of involvement in it it's still yet to be determined and still be
00:28:13
an investigated there's a couple key pieces of information that are kind of hidden in those answers a little bit and
00:28:21
we'll make them clear right here so when they're doing their investigation when Wichita Falls Police Department are
00:28:27
digging through Keith's life and the timeline leading up to his disappearance one thing we learned in one of those
00:28:34
answers is that the timeline that's been available to the public might be different
00:28:40
than the actual timeline of the events that we know that went down or that law enforcement knows that went down the big
00:28:47
difference being that it's always been reported in the public forum that Keith was at work from 9am to 9 00 pm on that
00:28:56
Saturday and then he goes missing after he hangs out with his friends what the detective said there which changes that
00:29:03
big time is that he is saying their information shows that Keith was at work from 9am to 6 p.m so we now have an
00:29:12
additional three hours of that evening that we don't know exactly what was going on we don't have answers to fill
00:29:20
in the blanks of what was happening between that time period of 6 pm and 9 30 p.m when he was picked up by Chris
00:29:29
and Michelle there are a couple of things that we do know that occurred that day but it's hard to feel confident
00:29:37
about the time the time the times when these events occurred on that day knowing that our
00:29:44
times have shifted already on that day so we know that after work that he gassed up the Mustang and we also know
00:29:51
that he spoke with his fiancee at some point via a telephone call so we know those two things happen it just gets
00:29:59
very difficult Captain to put a Time marker on both of those items when we now have an additional three hours to
00:30:06
fill in that timeline on that Saturday what we have to remember about Keith is that he went away for college but now
00:30:13
he's back so he's back at his old stomping grounds four years of high school there playing sports doing well
00:30:22
pretty popular guy so now that Circle of individuals that we have to look at is getting even bigger and we know that
00:30:30
when he was back in town he was hanging out with guys he used to hang out with in high school yeah and that's really
00:30:36
interesting to me here Captain because again it sounds like law enforcement believe Chris and Michelle's version of
00:30:43
the events and that's that they dropped him off and he had a meeting with somebody after they dropped him off who
00:30:49
could that person be we don't know but now that we know that police have these other people that they are aware that he
00:30:57
was hanging out with that he was probably going out with in the evenings that now they have people that they can
00:31:03
look at to see who he possibly was meeting with that night and again I still think that this boils down to
00:31:10
either a Chris and Michelle know what happened to Keith or the person or persons that he was meeting after
00:31:18
they dropped him off know what happened to Keith well let's throw a little wrench into this whole scenario though
00:31:25
this could be a big Wrench It depends on who you talk to well yes I agree so the rumor was that Keith was starting
00:31:35
to gamble it's not really clear with who correct that's a really tricky thing here
00:31:41
because what we are told is that his parents this is something that they were not aware of they didn't know that Keith
00:31:47
was gambling on basketball that's the detail that they're able to fill in that Keith was gambling on basketball around
00:31:56
the same time that he went missing you brought up a good point we don't know with who was this going on with people
00:32:03
he knew from the car dealership at Ron Roberts Ford was this going on with his friends that he's hanging out with in in
00:32:10
the evenings after work or is it going on with both groups it wouldn't be unheard of for a young
00:32:17
man to be gambling on sports with his friends or gambling with his co-workers on Sports especially when we're talking
00:32:24
about a car dealership or sales people that's kind of it's a bit of a gamble itself that occupation when you're
00:32:32
living off of a commission check do we have any speculation on how much money he was betting well one thing that's
00:32:39
really interesting to me when when we're trying to figure out the details of this
00:32:42
idea because now you bring in to a whole separate mix of people that he could have been meeting with
00:32:50
that night after Chris and Michelle dropped him off could this meeting have to do simply with his gambling could it
00:32:56
have been a friend of a friend or somebody that he didn't really know or a bookie somebody that he was going
00:33:02
through to make these bets we know that it's been reported that he was betting on basketball and again his
00:33:11
parents didn't learn this until quite some time after he went missing the police found this during the course of
00:33:17
their investigation and interviewing people that knew Keith one thing that we do know that took
00:33:24
place is that at some point Keith tells his fiancee that he had made a wager on on some basketball
00:33:34
bats or a basketball bet he had placed a wager or Wagers and that he was going if he won he would have
00:33:44
enough money to pay their rent for a couple or a few months it's a little unclear 25 years later what his exact
00:33:52
words were that could be a lot of cheddar this brings up the obvious question of how well do we think that
00:34:00
the people that worked with Keith at Ron Roberts Ford were interviewed and vetted
00:34:06
at the time when this investigation first kicked off we do know from law enforcement that they really took a good
00:34:12
hard look at these individuals in 1997 and then in 2002 when the state got involved in the investigation as well we
00:34:22
wanted to hear it from the detective how well were these individuals at Ron Roberts Ford interviewed early in this
00:34:29
investigation yeah I trust uh implicitly that the investigators that worked before me I do not question any of their
00:34:36
work and and what they did with their interviews and the people that did take and pass polygraphs back then and how
00:34:43
they vetted that I I'm confident in in what in their work um but I will do just as I as I was
00:34:50
telling Mike I'm going to go back over this list again and if there's anybody on there even if they've already spoken
00:34:55
to someone I'd like to hear it myself and I'd like to go back over it to make sure that I'm not missing anything
00:35:02
and we do have something new that's going to help us in our investigation as the 25-year anniversary of the day that
00:35:10
Keith went missing is approaching can you fill us in on that detective I have met with our Crime Stoppers coordinator
00:35:18
and he met with the board of directors for our Crime Stoppers and they have agreed to raise the reward for
00:35:24
information leading to the whereabouts of teeth as confirmed through DNA analysis to twenty five thousand dollars
00:35:31
I mean this is a very difficult missing person case because we have timeline that's altered we have
00:35:38
individual stories that are incomplete at best you know we hung out with this guy all night he was supposed to meet
00:35:45
somebody after we dropped him off who was this person he was supposed to meet I don't know I don't remember you have
00:35:53
the new job you have the new fiance you have the new apartment you have him driving different Vehicles again that
00:36:02
that makes it a lot more just the fact that he drove multiple Vehicles makes it that much more
00:36:09
difficult of a case to figure out I think chances are if you're meeting somebody that late at night
00:36:16
it's not for the best of reasons and if what his fiance is saying is true and he could have won a bunch of money
00:36:24
that meant he bet a bunch of money it didn't seem like he had it in his own pocket at the time
00:36:30
so then does he become collateral damage because he can't pay up well I'd like to say captain that
00:36:38
you hit the nail on the head I can't though because the problem here in this case and it's something you're pointing
00:36:43
out right there very astutely there's too many damn Nails in this case when you look at somebody who goes missing or
00:36:50
they are a victim of a homicide you first want to take a look at what is going on in their life that may be
00:36:57
different from when everything was peaches and cream right and you hit a lot of those Nails on the head the new
00:37:04
apartment the fiance moving in the new job he's running around with some of his old friends from high school and he's
00:37:13
gambling on basketball these are all things that were relatively new in Keith's life that were new leading up to
00:37:21
the point of his disappearance we know that because all of these things took place after he moved back home from
00:37:28
college in January so five months earlier within the last five months all of these things are new
00:37:35
there's a lot of moving pieces and parts in Keith's life and it gets really difficult to narrow
00:37:41
down on what direction we should be looking at so I look at this case and I see just what you said captain could
00:37:48
this this has to do with one of those pieces in my opinion it has to do with either the new job the new apartment the
00:37:56
gambling hanging out with the old crew now let's go to the gambling for a little bit because lucky for all of us
00:38:06
here in the garage we have somebody that's pretty well has has a good experience doing that on
00:38:14
both a legal and illegal front and if law enforcement is listening trust me I have gambled on uh Sports illegally but
00:38:26
it was so long ago that the statute of limitations would never hold up all the charges have expired it was back in
00:38:32
1907. that's correct I lost a fortune now basically they're the the reason why Sports gambling in a casino is so much
00:38:43
better than going through a bookie is because in a casino it all happens the same way you don't have to guess what
00:38:50
the guy is up to how his system is what your costs are what your fees are it's all laid out there for you black and
00:38:58
white you can look at the numbers you can read the newspaper you can find the numbers online and you know exactly what
00:39:04
you're going to pay you know exactly what you're going to win it's very easy you go in you place your bet there's no
00:39:11
problems you go back and you cash in your ticket or you throw it away depending on the outcome of the game and
00:39:16
the outcome of your wager if you are going through a bookie now they all have a slightly different
00:39:22
system but the usual system in the usual way that this works is you're basically
00:39:28
doing a double or nothing gamble every single time so to break it down and make it simple to those that have never
00:39:36
experienced this let's say you were to gamble on a basketball game this afternoon and you liked the Chicago
00:39:43
Bulls Alright you're going to give up some points if you go through a bookie if you go to a casino you can bet the
00:39:50
money line which no points are involved or you could get the points involved that's neither here nor there what we're
00:39:56
going to focus on is the illegal aspect of it because of what law enforcement and his family are saying he was
00:40:03
gambling illegally Sports gambling in 1997 was not legal in the state of Texas so going through a bookie you're
00:40:11
basically going double or nothing so if you were to wager 100 dollars you risk losing all 100
00:40:21
for the chance at winning two hundred dollars now if you lose you have to pay juice
00:40:28
and juice is typically 10 to 15 percent 10 percent being the majority of the time ninety percent of the time you're
00:40:36
gonna pay ten percent juice so you can make a 100 wager with the hope to win two hundred dollars or you can lose your
00:40:45
100 and have to pay an additional ten dollar fee for placing the bet with the bookie makes sense pretty simple right I
00:40:53
am picking up what you're putting down let's go back to Keith's words because when we look at this and and we say all
00:40:59
right maybe this gambling is what caused his disappearance I'm not going to rule
00:41:05
that out completely but I'm just trying to add a little more information to that angle his words to his fiance
00:41:13
was that if I win this bet I'll win enough money to cover the rent for a few months
00:41:22
right she never says what dollar amount he thinks that he's going to win but his words were that I could pay the
00:41:29
rent we won't have to worry about the rent for a few months we know from his family that he was
00:41:33
paying approximately 500 a month for rent so let's use his words we won't have to
00:41:38
pay the rent for a few months three months four months that's fifteen hundred dollars to two
00:41:44
thousand dollars at best that means that his wager with a bookie would have been
00:41:48
for 750 cash or one thousand dollars cash double or nothing plus the juice if he loses what I'm getting at here to me
00:41:58
that does not seem like the amount of money to take someone's life usually these individuals are dead set on
00:42:07
collecting the money it gets really difficult for them to collect the money from you if they kill you
00:42:14
and you don't have that money on your person Keith had money coming in from his job and he was doing good at his job
00:42:21
so my thought goes to maybe the reverse maybe it's not a situation where he was losing this wager and someone came to
00:42:32
collect but what about the reverse where the money is doubled he won and he won and he went to collect and all of a
00:42:40
sudden somebody's not such a good bookie and they don't want to pay him maybe an
00:42:45
altercation breaks out I guess the same would be true on the reverse of that as well but we
00:42:51
should also look at this at the idea of maybe he won that wager I have a difficult time believing that this had
00:42:57
much to do with a basketball bet because it was May 10th when he went missing easy enough for us there's not a whole
00:43:06
lot of basketball that's being played on May 10th it's the NBA playoffs and that's it there's no college basketball
00:43:14
there's no regular season games on May 10th it's all playoff basketball well on that day on Saturday the Bulls
00:43:24
played the Hawks at noon the Jazz played the Lakers at 2 30 P.M this is all Wichita Falls Texas time
00:43:33
one thing that we do know that happened that day again we can't put a Time marker on it because our timeline has
00:43:39
altered based off of the detective's words he called his fiancee spoke with her via telephone after he was off work
00:43:48
on that Saturday that could have been as early as 6 PM could as could have been as late as 9 30
00:43:54
p.m before Chris and Michelle picked him up the problem with that phone call then
00:44:00
becomes this if his words are if we win I can cover the rent for a few months the problem with that statement
00:44:08
regardless of what time we put that phone call at six o'clock at the earliest or 9 30
00:44:14
p.m at the latest both of those games are over for the day so he must have been talking about a
00:44:21
wager that he was going to make on Sunday which doesn't make any sense that it would have anything to do with him
00:44:26
going missing because he went missing Saturday night so the gambling thing certainly throws a
00:44:33
wrench into it but I wonder if it's just a red herring that has nothing to do with why we don't know where he is right
00:44:40
one also makes it again more difficult because it's not like we have somebody coming out and saying we know for a fact
00:44:46
that he was meeting with his bookie or meeting with somebody that was involved in this gambling
00:44:53
and because he went to high school there he has a bunch of old friends that he could have met up with
00:44:59
a bunch of old acquaintances he could have met up with and who's to say he didn't meet up with
00:45:05
a female that night you really have to leave everything on the table here in this case until you can start Crossing
00:45:12
some of them off and that's why I wanted to try to and I know that I didn't completely but try to cross off maybe
00:45:18
this gambling the thing that's difficult though here too captain and I trust detective Laughlin he's got a stellar
00:45:26
record he's a Cold Case detective who has cleared four cases which I don't know that the general public know how
00:45:34
difficult clearing cold cases are but this man and his unit have cleared four and we say unit and he says you know
00:45:42
I've done this with the help of my fellow men and women that I work with but at the same time you hear him say in
00:45:49
his introduction I'm really the only one in this unit so he's done a damn good job over the years clearing these cold
00:45:57
cases but one thing that I have a difficult time with is when I hear that Wichita Falls Falls has cleared
00:46:05
that's kind of his words that we've moved on past Chris and Michelle who we know that he was
00:46:12
seen with that night the reason why I can't move on from Chris and Michelle is the fact that we are told that Chris
00:46:20
took a polygraph test and passed and he's been Cooperative Michelle has been Cooperative but she was never asked to
00:46:26
take a polygraph test don't email me and tell me what big batch of [ __ ] polygraph tests are I understand what
00:46:34
they are what I'm saying is if you are using them to eliminate people then we need to look at it as such one took one
00:46:41
one was not asked to take one the problem with that is if you are going to believe the one that took one
00:46:48
that both of their stories are right based off of that polygraph and their cooperativeness
00:46:54
well then the other person should have taken one too who's to say that this Chris fella that he worked with at Ron
00:47:00
Roberts is in some kind of closeted psychopath that has the ability to untruthfully answer these questions and
00:47:10
pass the polygraph test and the reason why I Circle back to that is because the only people
00:47:17
that say the only people in Keith's entire life that say that he was meeting anyone at all that night was Chris and
00:47:26
Michelle we need to figure out how truthful that item is because if that is truthful then
00:47:32
that means Chris and Michelle had nothing to do with it and whoever Keith was meeting had something to do with his
00:47:38
disappearance now Chris and Michelle would have had the ability to Stage his apartment to make
00:47:45
it look like he had returned that night again it's only Chris and Michelle's word that they dropped off Keith and
00:47:52
that he was walking up to his apartment but we never saw him go in they say he had the meeting they say
00:47:58
they dropped him off the evidence at the room at his apartment makes it appear like Keith came back to the apartment
00:48:04
that night but the problem with that becomes what is the evidence that the door was
00:48:11
locked that there were beers on the counter that there were clothes there were clothes on the bathroom floor the
00:48:17
bed wasn't slept in uh me and the captain could lock that door Place beers on the counter and put
00:48:22
clothing on the bathroom floor or on top of that because there's two of them hey
00:48:28
uh meet me down at the church let's move his vehicle and we have his parents who
00:48:33
said that Chris would have known that Keith parked Vehicles there at that spot now I want to be clear not trying to
00:48:41
point a big giant finger at Chris and Michelle I'm just simply saying that I don't think that we can move on from
00:48:48
either of them yet I think that a good follow-up would be to keep them on the possible list because until until both
00:48:58
have been polygraphed if that's going to be your method of clearing people then we need to polygraph both of these
00:49:04
individuals again I do feel confident in what the detective is telling us so I don't want to stay on this too much the
00:49:11
other outside Factor here is what was going on at Ron Roberts Ford we know that he had worked there for about about
00:49:19
eight weeks before he went missing and there have been rumors about this dealership
00:49:28
throughout Wichita Falls for 25 years for the entirety time for the entire time that Keith has been missing
00:49:37
some of these rumors include that some of the individuals working there were involved in Narcotics were involved in
00:49:44
the movement of drugs maybe even using those vehicles to transport drugs there's even been rumors that when they
00:49:53
built or renovated the place that Keith might be buried at the location these things throw a whole nother big
00:50:01
wrench into this story could it be as simple as Keith took the wrong car that somebody had stashed a
00:50:08
bunch of something in that trunk of that car and Keith signed it out not knowing that
00:50:15
he had taken someone's stash or moved something that he wasn't supposed to move or something that somebody needed
00:50:20
access to right away it's a very difficult case and again there's too many nails to hit the right
00:50:27
one on the head the thing that I can't get over is the movement of the car I'm supposed to meet somebody up again not
00:50:34
clear if it was supposed to be at his new apartment or if he's going somewhere to meet them up but to me oh I'll meet
00:50:42
you at the parking lot of the church that well that's a good place for you to pay me my money or for me to pay you the
00:50:49
money but I don't think he had money he was working at this job for not a long time
00:50:54
these are commission-based jobs or at least a portion of your pay is commission based and so it seems like he
00:51:01
was in some need to get some fast money and whether that was to do a job of moving
00:51:10
drugs or that was through this gambling but I think the movement of the car is really important and because there
00:51:18
are so many different avenues that this investigation could take that is why Wichita Falls Police Department needs
00:51:25
your help that is why more importantly Keith Mann's family you heard his father and his stepmother you heard the emotion
00:51:32
the Heartbreak in their voices that is why his family Keith's family needs your help
00:51:38
because law enforcement is convinced and I am as well and so is the captain that
00:51:43
it's been 25 years and that somebody whoever is responsible for what happened to Keith on that night
00:51:51
they've probably told somebody and there are other people that weren't responsible for what happened to Keith
00:51:57
that know what happened to Keith that they've heard rumors or been told stories and for whatever reason
00:52:05
they've not felt comfortable coming forward with that information Now's the Time it's 25 years later give
00:52:15
the family some hope allowed this father to bring his son home after all of these
00:52:20
years make a phone call or submit your tip online the reward has been increased to
00:52:27
twenty five thousand dollars simply for the location of Keith's remains they don't even have to bring charges
00:52:35
against somebody to pay out that reward they just want to bring Keith home and before we close out
00:52:43
we'll have detective Laughlin tell you the best place to send your information okay straight to me is my my phone
00:52:51
number is 940-761 7762 and that's to the CIS secretaries and then they will transfer the call to
00:53:01
me they can email me my email address Mike you we've exchanged emails so you have
00:53:08
that just john.laughlin wfpd.net and then if they want to remain anonymous uh there's two things they can do they
00:53:17
can call our Crime Stoppers um which is three two two nine eight eight eight or if they're calling uh long distance
00:53:27
the toll-free number I think is uh 1-800-322-9888 we also have a Crime Stoppers website that is WF
00:53:39
crime.com it's always good when we can talk to individuals involved in the cases whether it's law enforcement or
00:53:47
family members so we want to give both of them thanks in this case somebody saw something somebody knows something
00:53:54
somebody heard something please come forward with information [Music] thank you so much for joining us here on
00:54:16
the garage and thank you for being quiet during the taping of the show so everybody else can hear us out there
00:54:22
if you need more True Crime garage for your earballs check out our bonus show it's called off the Record
00:54:28
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00:54:44
some extra goodness but Colonel do we have any recommended reading for this week uh yes we do
00:54:51
Captain this week we got some recommended listening please listen to the criminology podcast we did this last
00:54:57
year Captain when we teamed up with the missing persons pod when in the same week to bring as much awareness to a
00:55:05
case as we possibly could well we here at the garage and the missing persons pod both covered the page coffee missing
00:55:15
persons case out of the Greater Cleveland area unfortunately Paige is still missing and we still very much
00:55:21
need the Public's help in that one this week check out the criminology podcast hosted by the two mics good friend of
00:55:30
the show of our show Mike Morford he's the Zodiac the man that knows all things zodiac they will be releasing an
00:55:39
in-depth look at the case that we just covered the Keith Mann missing persons case so please please check that out
00:55:46
check out out our friends at the criminology podcast you can find that recommendation and many more on our
00:55:52
recommended page at truecrime garage.com thank you so much for listening make sure you subscribe and until next week
00:56:01
be good be kind and don't live [Music] foreign