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[Music] thank you [Music] [Music] thank you welcome to True Crime garage wherever
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you are whatever you are doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man who just
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stepped out of a Six-Day Darkness Retreat and straight into the darkness of the garage here is the captain and I
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got a little poo on my shoe it's good to be seen and good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling my friend
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[Music] thank you this week we are very excited to be featuring Hunter's harvest blood orange
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blonde from the creative Brewers over at second Crossing Brew Company this is a wonderful blonde ale and the good Folks
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at second Crossing added some delightful blood orange to Jazz it up a bit garage
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grade I might be a little high on this one but I love blood orange so I'm going to go with four and a quarter bottle
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caps out of five and let's give some praise and thanks to our friends that helped us out this week first up a big
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cheers and thank you to Sandy in Rockford Ohio and a big we like your jib too Kelsey and Johnston Rhode Island and
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last but certainly not least we have Leslie and Hopkinton Massachusetts everyone we just mentioned went to True
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Crime garage.com and helped us fill up the fridge for this week's show and for that we thank you yeah b w e w r u n
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the store Page Colonel that's enough of the biz all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's
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talk some true crime foreign [Music] forever [Music] the pain never goes away for the family
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of those that reported as last seen here are last seen by who posters have become synonymous with the
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missing missing posters or missing Flyers no one needs a definition or clarification
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you can close your eyes and envision the template when you are out and about on occasion you may see a poster or flyer
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and you stop and you look and you make a mental note of some of the information listed
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the poster flyer headline missing last scene seeking information and have you seen me
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[Music] today's case Denise flum is a case that is easily remembered for many reasons
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but one of those is for The Unique last name spelled p f l u m the missing posters show us what she
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looks like they contain all the pertinent information that might help someone to identify her
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like Denise's missing poster on missingkids.org reads missing since March 28 1986.
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missing from Connersville Indiana date of birth January 14 1968. age now 55. if she's still alive
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a Caucasian female missing since she was just 18 years old with brown hair brown eyes and she is
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listed as five foot six inches tall and weighing about 135 pounds this poster is complete with two photos
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of Denise it looked like they were taken some time during her senior year of high school
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if we achieve nothing else in covering this story this spans several decades and has several suspects
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we hope that at the very least we can tell you what the posters cannot Denise flum was last seen leaving her
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parents home in Connersville Indiana it was Good Friday just about a half past noon
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she was going back to an area where she attended a party the night before she was going to look for her purse
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almost 37 years later and Denise has not come home like most cold cases there have been
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plenty of tips theories and rumors some claim to know what happened to Denise some claim to know where she is buried
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detectives have talked to prisoners they say they know who was responsible but also like many cold cases
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this case faces a key problem time the Indiana State Police and the Fayette County Sheriff's Department have some
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physical evidence they have some witness statements and incriminating statements made by
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suspects but everyone stopped expecting Denise to return long ago sadly they have been reserved to looking
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for her remains Judy flum Denise's mother said nine years ago that it is likely that someone killed
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Denise but Judy still clings to some tiny amount of hope that Denise is alive somewhere
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Judy says quote the pain never goes away you learn to wall it off and you go about your daily
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business you don't think you're going to lose your mind like we did back then like we said detectives have some
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physical evidence they have some witness statements and incriminating statements
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made by suspects but what will it take to finally catch a break in this case well that likely will come in one of two
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forms either getting a confession or finding her remains this True Crime garage and this is the case
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of Denise flum right away [Music] missing since March 28 1986 Denise flum was just 18 years old
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when she vanished and that's what this story really is to me the first thing that jumps off the page here Captain is
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that she simply poof seems to disappear Into Thin Air very few traces of this young woman this is one of those stories
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you hear them time and time again one bad night one bad day and it turns into a lifetime of Torment for a family an
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endless heartache for a pack of friends portions of today's trailer leading into
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this case description and timeline came from a 2014 Indianapolis Star article by
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Christine Guerrera and in 1986 Palladium Item article by Harold Wiley now what those missing posters cannot tell you is
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that Denise flum was fun she was likable she had a bunch of friends and all of her life's intermediate goals she had
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them all planned out she had worked very hard to lay the foundation of the path that stood in front of her what likely
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would seem like a future that was just footsteps ahead of her it was Denise's senior year at Connersville High School
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in the Hoosier State of Indiana Denise was 18 and all set to graduate with the end of the school year just months away
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she was sixth in her class and one teacher referred to Denise as a perfectionist like you said she was six
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in her class but she also played three Sports yeah beyond the typical high school curriculum she played softball
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basketball volleyball and she was a long time member of the science club but more
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importantly at Connersville High School Denise ran track and she was hoping to secure a track scholarship
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after graduation the plan was to go off to the neighboring state of Ohio and attend Miami University in the fall she
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planned to study microbiology March 27 1986 was a Thursday and on that Thursday night Denise and Friends attended a
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local high school party she went to the party with one of her closest friends her name is Kim this was
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that time that time of year that time in most people's lives and a time that most
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of us have been fortunate enough to experience you've already put in all of the hard work High School graduation was
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imminent it was that short little window of time that goes by so fast but it is a time
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that one can focus on socializing and creating some last minute memories with high school friends both new and old
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before shipping oneself off into the uncharted waters of a college that may be far away but as we already said in
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Denise's case Miami University it was just about 30 miles or so away from home just far enough that one could spread
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their wings a bit but close enough to keep tight with family this party here is a great place to start off our
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timeline leading up to Denise going missing this party was on a Thursday and it was going to be hopping yeah the
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party was going to be hopping you nerds now it's spring break this week and the kids were ready to gather and
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throw down from my understanding Captain a lot of the locals traveled out of town
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and out of state for a big spring break getaway but not Denise she had track to attend to she had school and other
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things that she was concerned with and so she was going to do a bit of a staycation if you will and hang out with
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some friends Denise attended the party that night as did about 100 or so other students now this is curious to me
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because I've reviewed many reports on the timeline of Denise going missing the number of persons attending this
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party seems to be up for debate I've seen it reported as few as 100 people or 200 people maybe even as many
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as a few hundred people which seems a bit exaggerated to me it sounds like the fish that I caught when I was on
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vacation that keeps getting bigger and bigger every time I tell the story there are only so many people that attended
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Connersville High School this was not a huge town this is a small town back then
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I believe the population was about 17 000 people and with some of them out traveling for
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spring break I question how much of a quote high school party this was how many adults do we have attending this
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big party but it was a typical party where they'd have a bonfire in those scenarios you have a lot of people
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coming and going maybe staying for a beer and then leaving on the way to the party Kim and Denise stopped off at a
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place called the Greenwood Inn this was to buy beer to take with them to the party now her purse becomes a big
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portion of this story and I want to go ahead and throw out there that I have a lot of questions about this purse
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situation so we're going to jump in and out of the purse situation from time to time throughout our timeline here but
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for our story the way that this is typically reported is that she left her purse at this party
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and then would need to go and retrieve it the following day I found it interesting that once you dive a little
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bit deeper into the story that she actually misplaced the purse at the party and was aware of that situation
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before leaving that night that she was seen and there are several people that have stated that they saw her or spoke
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with her and she was actively looking for her purse at the party with all those other reports the shorter versions
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I just made the Assumption as it was reported that she had left her purse there like so many of us do leave your
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phone somewhere leave something else and then have to retrieve it later that evening or the following day
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but no her purse was misplaced sometime during the party and she was actively looking for it and at some point she
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leaves the party and goes home so other than missing her purse losing her purse at the party everything seems pretty
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normal on this Thursday evening and night so March 27th is the party she wakes up on the 28th and obviously she's
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concerned because she doesn't have her driver's license she doesn't have any money so she wants to head back to where
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the party was and now that it's daylight maybe she'll be able to find her purse that's correct so she decides to venture
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out around 12 30 p.m Denise left her home to retrieve her purse and as the captain pointed out she's leaving the
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home with simply her car keys and her vehicle and she has no money she has no identification or driver's license
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because those items are in her purse that she lost the night before and her family is aware that she's going to be
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heading back to the party site to try to look for her purse now the party site is
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only about 15 minutes away from her home the interesting thing here is it's obvious to everyone that Denise for
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whatever reason did not want to go alone to go looking for this purse we know this because she called a few of
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her friends two of them in fact that we have names for that she asked hey can you go with
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me back to where the party was I need to find my purse both of her friends that she spoke to were unable to go with her
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now there's some question as to what this could mean here it could be just as simple as a teenager that doesn't want
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to miss out on hanging out with some friends hey could you join me for this errand that I need to run or was there
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something else going on here where she did not want to go alone back to that location of the party to retrieve her
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purse Denise's house was about seven miles outside of Connersville and so this party location it's pretty remote
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so I could see somebody going there's nothing out there there's nobody out there I'd like for somebody to come with
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me and we know the time that she left for two factors one her younger sister was at home at the time and again this
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is around 12 30 pm and on her way out Denise stopped and briefly had a conversation with one of
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her neighbors the conversation with her neighbor is believed to be and reported to be the last confirmed sighting of
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Denise now fast forward to later that evening when Denise doesn't return home that
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night her parents of course they begin to worry this is not like they're very responsible daughter to not return home
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well she was also known to check in a lot so her mom starts calling the house I think at round two So within an hour
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and a half her mom's going there's there's something wrong because she hasn't come home yet
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and like I said it's not that far of a drive out to to the party site and you're exactly right mom got a very
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uneasy feeling very early on in this case now her parents they're nervous they don't know why Denise is not
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returned so of course they go to local law enforcement and they report their daughter is missing they try to
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inform the police and ask for their help however it's 1986 the person we're talking about
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is only 18 years old and of course the cops are telling Mom and Dad don't worry about it she probably took off with some
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friends she'll be back late tonight she'll be back in the morning it's spring break who knows what's going on
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she'll return don't worry about it yeah but I have a big problem with this with law enforcement your job is to Serve and
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Protect this is maybe a 15-minute drive out to the party site from their location maybe
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20 at tops send a cruiser out there just to check on her yeah this is something I've always had an issue with
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and we've talked about this plenty of times here in the garage and you can understand it's one of those debatable
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items one of those one of those arguments where you can sympathize with the police department and say well they
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you know you get these reports of these teenagers and then 99 of the time they turn up no harm no foul other than they
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weren't where they were supposed to be they've done upset mom and dad and it's as simple as that now on the other side
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of that argument is where you empathize with the parents and with the loved ones
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in the family and you say my God man help us out here we we are coming to you we we put a lot of thought
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into coming to you we didn't just show up willy-nilly this is about eight hours after she was last seen our daughter
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sixth in her class this isn't like her she's not someone that runs the streets she's not someone that's out all hours
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of the night and as you said Captain she's somebody that regularly checks in with Mom or Dad
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so this is incredibly out of character the other argument that I have here is when we talk about these smaller towns
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this seems more strange to me in these smaller towns now I know 1986 a lot of things have changed since then a lot of
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police departments and law enforcement agencies have changed their protocol for looking for missing persons much earlier
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than they would have in the 70s and the 80s but when you have these smaller towns
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forgive me small towns but part of me goes what else you got going on out there nothing and that's the problem
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because uh object at rest stays at rest and I think that's what happens is they go well we're not doing anything right
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now so instead of getting off our getting off of our ass and looking for somebody we're gonna stay in lazy mode
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and that's just the thing man you signed up for this job likely not to be a hero but as the
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captain pointed out to Serve and Protect and you find yourself when you work as a
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first responder you find yourself in a situation where you could end up being the hero and this case needed a hero
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other than her parents and some people that come along much later in this investigation I don't see a whole lot of
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Heroes here in this case well I don't even know if this case needs a hero as much as it just needs somebody to do
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their job that they signed up for they took an oath like I said 15 to 20 minute drive out there and look if something
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bad happened to her at that location maybe there would be something that the officer would come across maybe another
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vehicle maybe another person out there you talk to detectives we talk to detectives all the time and one of the
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things that we hear about in these cold cases time and time again is had we just spoke to the right person
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early enough in the investigation had we just found this one piece of evidence that we know was covered up or discarded
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of later if we would have found that earlier in our investigation this would be a solved case this would be a
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completely different situation you and I captain here might not be sitting here 30 some years later discussing Denise
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flum still being missing now what could have happened is the officer could have said sure give
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me the description of Denise heck he or she may have even known the flums this was not a large town give us a
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description of her car that's even more important because cops are very good at finding Vehicles now they don't go out
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looking that does not stop her parents that does not stop her family from calling people they know they're calling
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hospitals and businesses calling friends asking where Denise could be they're rounding up people and they're going out
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and they're doing their own search an unorganized one but they are conducting their own search starting that night as
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soon as they are turned away for a lack of a better word from law enforcement they start actively searching for their
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daughter they were doing so before they showed up to law enforcement but they continued the search that night and then
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on to the next day it would be quite some time before law enforcement would get involved in the search for and nice
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flaw the following day we are now at March 29th Denise's car is found parked near a farm the car was
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parked alongside Tower Road this is a gravel small Gravel Lane or road that is east
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of Glenwood and the car is parked near a barn yeah technically the road is Fielding road but all the locals call it
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Tower Road the landowner would later tell police that the vehicle hasn't left that spot where it was found
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since he says about 12 30 pm to approximately 1 15 p.m the day before this is interesting because this lines
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up with our timeline we know that she left her home at approximately 12 30 PM the day before and as the captain
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pointed out we're talking about a 15-minute drive to get to where she needed to go to look for this purse
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and so it would appear that if Denise took off or if something bad happened to her that this vehicle was placed there
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by someone or Denise herself a relatively short time after she left her home yeah and this this road Tower
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Road like the locals call it is only four miles from the party site but it's still strange because if you're looking
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for your purse you're not gonna find it four miles away right right unless that purse grew legs you're not finding it
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four miles away now the interesting thing here Captain points out four miles away I've seen one report that says it's
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approximately a six minute drive from the general Party location from the night before the point here is that
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according to multiple reports there was no reason for Denise to be in that area where her car was found so at
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this point they're not able to find Denise but like the colonel said they found her vehicle the vehicle is a white
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or cream-colored Buick Regal 1981 when the vehicles found the doors are locked and the keys are gone
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and as said no one could come up with a reason for the vehicle to be in that location the family also believes that
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the car seat was in the position that Denise would normally have it in when she was driving and there seemed like
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there was no crime scene or no sign of a struggle inside that vehicle so there's
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pretty much no evidence around the vehicle also it's a rural area no Footprints were found around the vehicle
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yeah very interesting and keep in mind that at the time when her Vehicles found it's found when the family and friends
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are out searching for Denise police have not joined in the search effort at this
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time now they once they find the vehicle they report this to police and now the police are getting involved the police
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look it over and they determined that there's no sign of a struggle there's no sign of Foul Play as far as they can see
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regarding the vehicle the condition of the vehicle and the seat is in that normal position the normal position that
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Denise would have left it in this is according to her parents and Denise as we said is five foot six
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inches tall and we've seen in some cases where the seat position can be rather important
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because we may have a very short woman who owns the vehicle and the seat is found all the way extended away from the
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steering wheel indicating a much taller person may have driven the vehicle here we have a situation where it's hard for
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me to tell given the description by the police and the pictures that I've seen and the statements from her parents I
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think one could make a strong argument that Denise may have placed this vehicle there herself
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or if somebody else did they left little evidence behind to indicate that someone
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else moved this vehicle after a rather quick assessment of Denise's car the cars returned to Denise's parents and
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unlike the vehicle Denise never comes home [Music] all right away foreign [Music]
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all right we are back cheers mates thanks for joining us here in the garage cheers to you captain now this should be
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a homicide case not a missing person's case Denise had a lot of plans in place she was excited for the future she had a
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good home life she was vocal and openly expressing to those she knew how excited
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she was for some of the upcoming events in her life and we're talking about things like prom graduation going off to
00:28:08
school and mind you she had an opportunity to go with friends on a trip out of town for spring break and chose
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not to because she wanted to stay and focus on her schooling which the main reason was track track was starting up
00:28:25
and was Act active at that time that week and she wanted to stay involved with track it was one of her passions
00:28:32
well this is my problem with law enforcement they do this a lot in missing person cases where they tell the
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family well look she probably ran away and there's zero evidence that she ran away we don't know if she ever found her
00:28:45
purse so as far as we know she has no money she has no identification like you said there's evidence that she
00:28:52
stayed in town to keep pursuing her goals and then on top of that law enforcement
00:28:58
didn't even really search her car that well and didn't search her house so it's not like they went back to her house and
00:29:06
found Journal upon Journal of her wanting to escape her life or something we've seen a bunch of these cases where
00:29:14
it appears that we may have a missing person and then the missing person's case turns into a homicide investigation
00:29:22
and we've seen multiple times where a vehicle is found and it's returned to the family
00:29:29
heck we covered one case very recently gave the Bowman where I believe that the police returned the vehicle to the prime
00:29:36
suspect the vehicle is not processed properly and there is a lost opportunity there for evidence that could lead you
00:29:44
to what actually happened to Denise flump well I just think it's a common misstep by law enforcement it needs to
00:29:51
stop happening unless you have some evidence that they wanted to start a new life or
00:29:57
they wanted to run away with somebody I mean it's not even like she had a relationship with somebody that was from
00:30:03
out of town there was there's just no reason that she would want to take off the other thing too is I never
00:30:09
understand why especially in this case when you have an 18 year old daughter why the police aren't saying to Mom and
00:30:18
Dad hey it's probably nothing we still think that there's an opportunity that she may return
00:30:26
but would you mind if we hold this vehicle in a secured location for x amount of days and in case this turns
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into something else right you could have lost evidence in this case especially if
00:30:40
this vehicle was moved by the person responsible for her disappearance yeah finding a fingerprint in that vehicle
00:30:47
could be a a big deal there's no doubt in my mind Mom and Dad say yes please hold on to this car and here's the other
00:30:55
thing too you find a person's vehicle a missing person's vehicle you look it over and you go I don't see a sign of
00:31:03
struggle I don't see any signs obvious evidence of Foul Play the vehicle itself being parked in a strange location with
00:31:11
no person with no owner to be found is in itself evidence of Foul Play in my mind yes I agree and the other problem
00:31:21
that I keep going back to is why is this vehicle four miles away from the party site
00:31:28
correct she went to the party site to look for her purse it would make sense if you found her car at the party site
00:31:36
but we don't we find it four miles away on this Gravel Road basically one of the most
00:31:42
heartbreaking parts of this story is Denise's parents they I watched a bunch of interviews with them these short
00:31:53
little news clips from 1986. where they keep saying like we don't believe she had any reason to
00:32:03
run away she was not that type but we're hoping and praying that she ran away right and you have her father on
00:32:14
camera saying me and her mother are questioning everything right did we not show enough affection did we not tell
00:32:21
her that we loved her enough we could have said it more I guess we should have said it more and it's this heartbreaking
00:32:28
thing where you're constantly telling law enforcement and the media please take this seriously because my daughter
00:32:35
she's not the type she would not run away but oh I'm praying and hoping that she did well I think that's coming from
00:32:42
law enforcement I mean the the lead detective Ted mcquinley was also related to the father
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he was the cousin he was David's cousin yeah so I think then that becomes a does
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a conflict of interest anyways you probably shouldn't be the lead detective if you are related to the
00:33:03
father because look like I said it shouldn't be viewed as a missing person case it should be viewed as a homicide
00:33:10
assume the worst thank you and then and then work backwards and if evidence uh leads you to another path fine but at
00:33:18
least you're doing your due diligence from the word go but again object at rest stays at rest and to me this is
00:33:26
just it's just constant laziness by law enforcement I like what you're saying here Captain so we easily agree this is
00:33:34
most likely a homicide case and since we have run out of breadcrumbs for our general timeline I think going forward
00:33:41
we pursue this and discuss it as we would a homicide case so typically we would talk about some of the persons
00:33:48
that may be responsible for Denise to go missing let's talk about evidence or some things
00:33:54
that could be evidence in this case before we get into some suspects since this is a missing case
00:34:02
let's start off by talking about what exactly is missing simply put we have Denise
00:34:09
her clothing that she was wearing that day and her car keys that's it that's what is missing in this
00:34:17
case what is not missing is her car as we know it was found four miles from the party site right
00:34:24
and strangely enough the other item that's not missing is her purse her purse was returned to her family
00:34:33
the same day that Denise goes missing so the persons returned to her family but what items do we find in that purse
00:34:41
that's very that's a very good question here and that's one of the big big problems that I have with this case I
00:34:50
believe there are so many things that are missing from this timeline I believe that there are witnesses that have
00:34:55
statements that are missing and I believe that there's a lot of evidence that could clue us into what may have
00:35:03
happened or give us a bigger picture a bigger better picture of what happened and we simply don't have a lot of that
00:35:10
stuff and I think it's because and I hate to do this two weeks in a row but I just see a poor investigation
00:35:19
from Jump Street in this case well and I'm just gonna piggyback off that for a little bit I I agree this this
00:35:26
investigation is horseshit for one but there are a couple things working against law enforcement
00:35:33
like you said a hundred plus people at this party and anybody that's been to a bonfire knows that there could be crowds
00:35:42
of people around the fire and you might go to that bonfire you might be there for an hour you might have a couple
00:35:47
drinks but you're not in a well-lit area where you see everybody so there could have
00:35:54
been I've gone to bonfires before where one of my buddies was at the bonfire I just
00:35:59
never saw them so I think one to identify all the individuals that were at this party
00:36:06
there's also rumors that she was making out with some guy John that night that person John I I don't know if if he's
00:36:14
ever been fully identified and then I think the other issue for law enforcement is this happens during
00:36:20
spring break so you have a bunch of kids out of town and then the kids that you have in town
00:36:28
there's no school that day it's Good Friday so now all those individuals normally if a girl went missing let's
00:36:36
say on a Friday at noon or 12 30 the majority of the people that you would want to question their Alibi would be
00:36:44
school they would be in school but because they're not in school now every person that you interview you
00:36:52
have to figure out what their Alibi is and then you have to follow up on that lead to make sure that the Alibi is
00:36:59
correct well and you're right with so many people potentially at this party what we should have here is one of your
00:37:05
favorite words Captain a plethora a plethora a plethora of witness statements of people that saw her that
00:37:12
night spoke with her that night or guess what's also important the ones that didn't speak to her and didn't see her
00:37:17
that night what else did they see what else did they hear while they were there now we talked about how big could this
00:37:23
party be well we know that she went with her friend Kim and from one report that I've seen is
00:37:31
that her senior class had 348 students in this class now that could mean that 300 of those 348
00:37:41
went to that party like one report States most Reports say a hundred to maybe 200 kids
00:37:49
but what's interesting to me here is that based off the report that I'm looking at in front of me right now we
00:37:57
gain some information not a lot but the information here is that Kim Gilbert and
00:38:03
Melissa Cook both seniors at Connorsville High School were good friends with Denise flum
00:38:12
these were two of the persons that she called on that day before she left her home to
00:38:20
go look for her purse these are two of the people that she called to ask if they would go with her neither was able
00:38:26
to they were unable to go so now she heads out on her own and then what we are told later is she
00:38:34
goes out looking for this purse she vanishes poof disappears Into Thin Air as it would appear
00:38:41
never returns home they find her vehicle and her purse made its way home and I've seen two reports one report
00:38:51
says that it was returned to the flum's house about an hour and a half after Denise left to go looking for it and the
00:39:01
person that brought the purse to them from my understanding was somebody that was
00:39:06
pretty to fairly well known to the family this wasn't any kind of mystery person to them the person has remained
00:39:14
unidentified they're not listed by name in any of the reports that I've seen but what's crazy is this purse makes its
00:39:23
way back home Denise does not now that leads me to what is missing from this case as we say to Denise her
00:39:34
clothing and her car keys all missing but what also is missing from this case is background statements for that party
00:39:42
background a background story on the purse itself witness statements here's the thing
00:39:51
when she drove out there to retrieve her purse who was she hoping to meet was she
00:39:57
hoping to meet up with somebody once there was she hoping to speak with somebody once there help me find my
00:40:04
purse or now that nobody's here everybody's left from last night did you happen to see my purse well that's
00:40:10
another thing that's not clear to everybody at this bonfire leave or did some people just crash in their car
00:40:17
or did people set up some tents I mean I've been to bonfires before where at the end of the night a couple people
00:40:23
just set up some tents and just stay the night and so was it found by a person that
00:40:28
went back out to the party or was it somebody that woke up at the party or did they find her purse last night
00:40:36
these are questions that should be easily answered and they should have been easily found out this information
00:40:42
should have been easily found out by detectives in law enforcement you know it sounds like we are a couple
00:40:48
vultures circling around one small item here but here's where my head is Captain
00:40:54
I don't think we're circling around one item I think there's a bunch of things that we're a little pissed off about I
00:41:00
feel like this my gut feeling is that this party and her disappearance could have a lot to do with one another
00:41:07
yeah duh what happened at that party and the thing too with the statement of there's a statement out there in
00:41:14
multiple reports that says she did not want to go alone to retrieve her purse okay well what does that mean did she
00:41:21
was she just simply a busy body that liked to be hanging out with people all the time and didn't want
00:41:27
to really do anything by yourself or is there a reason why she didn't want to go alone was she afraid did something
00:41:33
happen the night before at the party that made her uncomfortable made her uncomfortable to go alone to retrieve
00:41:41
her purse and what's the back story on the purse itself it could be just as simple as she
00:41:46
set it down somewhere misplaced it or is there something more nefarious going on here did somebody take it from
00:41:54
her as a prank did she set it down and somebody took it on purpose when it was returned what items were in
00:42:02
the purse we talked about her having no money and no identification because those items were in her purse when she
00:42:09
left on that Friday was there money in her purse when it was returned to the family yeah my gut feeling is just one
00:42:16
it's a royal area so maybe she just wanted somebody to go with her because she wouldn't feel safe out there by
00:42:22
herself and also if you bring somebody it's probably quicker to find the purse with two people looking
00:42:30
yeah I would love to hear some background statements for the party itself yeah who's this John guy yeah
00:42:37
who's the John guy the other thing too we talk about the things she was looking forward to in her life
00:42:44
one of them being prom another being graduation then of course going off to college
00:42:50
in the fall but one of the Persons of Interest here in this case will be her ex-boyfriend
00:43:00
and it's reported that her and her ex-boyfriend broke up about a month before Denise went missing
00:43:09
well what would be interesting to know too is if her and her boyfriend his name is
00:43:14
Sean McClung if they were broken up who was she going to go to prom with because what you have
00:43:20
here all these years later is people saying Sean McClung was not looked at good enough early on in this
00:43:27
investigation and I agree with those statements one thousand percent however who was she going to go to prom
00:43:35
with who was she in a current relationship with or hoping to have a relationship with
00:43:41
was she just going by herself just going with friends that's not uncommon is it possible that she was still in contact
00:43:47
with her ex-boyfriend and that maybe they were going to go together because they were together for three
00:43:53
years which is that's a long time that's a very long term relationship for somebody so young
00:44:01
and Lieutenant Ted mcquinley as we said he was the lead investigator on this case early on back in 1986.
00:44:11
and when he is asked years later about the ex-boyfriend Sean McClung he simply says yeah I spoke with him
00:44:20
he had an alibi for that time period he was out fishing with some friends but it doesn't seem like there was a
00:44:28
whole lot of follow-up on Sean why I don't think he ever confirmed The Alibi correct so law enforcement comes to me
00:44:38
and goes what were you doing that day while I was uh fishing with a Jim and Steve well if you don't ever go ask Jim
00:44:44
and Steve then that's not an alibi that's just a story that I've told you and my issue too with him again stepped
00:44:51
down become don't be the lead detective if you're related to the family because look in these cases especially
00:45:01
the 18 year old you gotta start with the Inner Circle well that inner circle is your cousin
00:45:09
your cousin's wife now you have to what about the sister okay now we gotta look at relationships current relationships
00:45:18
and past relationships and one thing that I failed to put my notes Here Captain is that I do not know if Ted
00:45:25
mcquinley was with the local police department or with the sheriff's department at the time which I think
00:45:32
could have some important meaning to it because I would imagine a town of 16 to 17
00:45:39
000 probably does not have a very large Connersville Police Department he may have been the only investigator that's
00:45:49
true but at the time but we we do have or at least I heard that Indiana State Police did offer assistance so even if
00:45:58
you stay on as the lead why aren't you getting some assistance from them that look I I get so tired of these cases you
00:46:07
you don't have to be the smartest guy in the room you just have to know the smartest guy in the room and and you
00:46:13
become the smartest guy in the room when you place smart individuals that are qualified around you
00:46:20
and Ted Lieutenant mcquinley here seems to have really bought into this idea of and I'm sure he
00:46:32
he may have had other people than just Sean McClung telling him this but he seemed to have moved on rather
00:46:39
quickly from Sean McClung yeah you're moving on pretty quickly when you're not following up to see if
00:46:46
his Alibi is actually legit he simply seems to do this because he believes The Narrative of
00:46:54
they were still friends that it was a mutual breakup that they were still friendly that nobody was mad at one
00:47:00
another and again this could this is very likely backed up by other students other people but still you double check
00:47:08
these alibis and you look at this guy one thing if you you want to talk about spinning your
00:47:14
tires here and going completely in the wrong direction it sounds to me like they spent more time looking into
00:47:22
Denise's father than they did Sean McClung back in the day because one thing they State emphatically is that
00:47:29
David Denise's father was Miles Away with multiple people that were interacting and hanging out with him
00:47:36
that day that that Friday leading up to the point where he becomes aware that she's missing so I I just have a hard
00:47:44
time understanding why they went and verified those Alibis right but not Sean mcclung's well they did that with the
00:47:51
father but they also do that with the mother so that they're able to make the statement to the public that we have
00:47:57
cleared these individuals which that's great okay but we're still talking about the Inner Circle
00:48:04
close friends family members current or past boyfriends or current or past relationships however
00:48:12
you want to look at it and it just seemed like they did the first couple steps of the
00:48:18
Inner Circle and then they just again we'll just get lazy and the my other issue too is
00:48:25
this this dumbass doesn't take any notes so when you ask him about this stuff he
00:48:33
can't even refer back to his notes uh how are you investigating this oh it's just it's up in it's up in my Noggin
00:48:42
again him being the lead investigator might be more of a seniority situation more of a he he rose to that
00:48:54
rank because of attrition rather than being a great investigator or detective you gotta take a lot of notes you gotta
00:49:02
write everything down because you do not know two weeks from now three weeks from now
00:49:07
what seems to be insignificant today could become very significant to your investigation well and the notes aren't
00:49:16
necessarily for you because you take these notes because if this case doesn't get solved and you get
00:49:25
moved to a different department then when you have new detectives coming in and you have no notes
00:49:31
then they're basically starting at square one and hoping that you remember anything and I know that you know that
00:49:40
you know there's a really good documentary about this case and I know when they were asking him it's you know
00:49:44
30 some years later so he's not going to remember anything but again you could refer back to your
00:49:51
notes yeah that documentary is called small town secrets and it is available currently available on vicetv.com it's a
00:50:01
three-parter it's a very good very well put together documentary on this case it's one of the best true crime
00:50:08
documentaries I've seen in the last few years and a cheers to Nicole berserk Moore and Gianna tabani for that
00:50:16
wonderful documentary I hope I pronounce their last names correctly kudos to you and for doing a gangbusters
00:50:25
job on that documentary small town Secrets now we want to talk about notes somebody not taking notes well here's
00:50:35
some notes that become important and it's not brought into the light until a good deal a time later we talk about
00:50:42
Sean McClung not being looked at his Alibi is not being checked but it seems like old Ted mcquinley moved on from him
00:50:51
because everybody's saying well they stayed friends and it seemed like a mutual breakup yeah
00:50:57
it's almost like Ted took the time out to talk to Sean and then just bought everything that Sean was selling the
00:51:05
notes that I'm talking about come from one of Denise's friends who had moved away and they stayed close and they
00:51:12
became pen pals because of the distance between them so she's writing letters to her friend
00:51:18
and she's telling her friend leading to the breakup with her current boyfriend Sean that you know what I recently made
00:51:27
what she refers to in the letter as a life or death mistake I made a fatal mistake I mean it
00:51:37
says in the letter life or death now we don't have that complete letter to clue us into what she means by that statement
00:51:48
what she's talking about though is she's telling her friend I cheated on my boyfriend and I'm
00:51:57
getting ready to tell him I'm going to tell him I'm going to confess she's an honest person she's not going to try to
00:52:04
hide this secret she's going to tell Sean this is what I've done and and take it from there
00:52:12
so she tells Sean and I don't know that this immediately led to their breakup but from my
00:52:20
understanding he was incredibly disappointed he was hurt he appreciated her honesty
00:52:27
and they broke up sometime after that the notes I have state that she dated that letter to her friend March 3rd
00:52:38
and we know that she would go missing before the end of March and we have the other two friends statements saying that
00:52:45
they broke up roughly a month before she went missing so we know that the date of
00:52:50
the letter but we don't know exactly the date that she had this conversation with
00:52:54
Sean but it seems based on what Sean is saying based on other people that they broke up March 6. so like you said
00:53:04
about a month before she went missing yeah that all lines up with the timeline I have in front of me as well
00:53:11
but again if you're law enforcement it's who's this individual that she slept with and that's somebody that you would
00:53:18
at least want to question did she continue to have a relationship with that person or did she cut that off when
00:53:25
she cut off the relationship with Sean and was this person looked at and cleared was this person looked at even
00:53:32
more finely than you looked at Sean McClung was this person John who she may or may not have been making out with at
00:53:40
the party the night before was this person the same person she may be attending prom with or was John the person she was
00:53:47
attending prom with these are the things that you need to know if you're going to
00:53:50
look at if I'm I'm just a little confused why they didn't look at Sean McClung more closely
00:53:57
early on in this investigation part of me I'm I'm a blue backer here right I I do
00:54:05
my best to stand with the the women in Men In Blue but you got to call it like you see it and from what's been reported
00:54:13
it doesn't look like there was a great job that was going on early in this investigation part of me wants to
00:54:20
believe captain that that was because they had other people that they were looking at that they were more
00:54:25
interested in at that time and could it have been whoever she was in a current relationship with
00:54:31
but it's this simple if you're able to confirm his Alibi for that Friday Sean's done right you never have to go
00:54:41
back to him right you can now ask him questions about her character and maybe other rumors now he becomes
00:54:50
somebody that is an ally for law enforcement now there's a couple things about Sean that that I kind of dismiss
00:54:58
when people say well Sean didn't help with the search ever or he never made contact
00:55:05
with her family I don't find that to be that strange he's he's Young he's towards the end of his
00:55:15
High School career so he's going to be heading off into the real world they did break up a month ago which
00:55:24
might not seem that long but when you're in high school a month is a very long time
00:55:30
he claims he was already seeing some other girls so maybe he was seeing somebody and he
00:55:36
didn't feel comfortable making contact so I don't find that to be as strange as some other people do
00:55:43
what I keep going back to that is strange is you didn't confirm his Alibi exactly and the thing too is we talk
00:55:51
about him not participating in searches those are keep in mind they're not organized searches yes this is the
00:55:57
family and friends conducting their own search and again even if the breakup was Mutual
00:56:03
even if they stayed friends it's widely reported by multiple people that the two of them
00:56:12
were living very different Lifestyles leading up to the breakup so they're together for like three years sure they
00:56:18
probably shared a lot of common interest early in that relationship but by that senior year they were both going down
00:56:25
two very different paths and very likely had very different Social Circles by that point Denise was very honed in on
00:56:34
her schoolwork and all of her extra curricular activities like playing Sports volleyball basketball running
00:56:41
track she was building her future she had plans to go off to college and then on the flip side of that you have Sean
00:56:48
McClung who was very much into the party lifestyle at that time and had a bunch of party party or friends at that time
00:56:58
his senior year the thing that that I cannot Shake here shake and bake is where is the report from the person or
00:57:08
persons that hosted that party right because we talk about the last and I said I purposely said that is believed
00:57:16
to be the last confirmed sighting well it is so far the last confirmed sighting of Denise but we know at least one other
00:57:24
person saw her after the neighbor that she spoke to on her way out that day where is the statements from police
00:57:32
from the person or persons that hosted the party the night before I it could be something as simple as
00:57:39
we know she went her intention was to go and find her purse that Friday afternoon around 12 30 1
00:57:48
o'clock 1 30 did she did you see her did you interact with her did she ask about her purse
00:57:55
and then where is the statement from the person that Returns the purse where did
00:57:59
they find it who did they get it from when did they obtain it these things I think are very key to
00:58:05
this case and very interesting to me because again you go back to the the land owner who says her vehicle that you
00:58:13
find the following day yeah it's been there since about 12 30 to 1 30 yesterday that's not too long after she left her
00:58:21
house [Music] all right we want to thank everybody for joining us here in the garage so much
00:58:45
more to get to thank you and for everything True Crime Check out true crime garage.com and until tomorrow be
00:58:53
good be kind and don't litter thank you [Music]