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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 that
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knows that Steve McQueen ain't got nothing on him here is the captain yeah it's good to be seen and good to see you
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thanks for listening thanks for telling a friend [Music] this week we round out the great summer
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month of August in my running theme of clutch 1995 album references and this unfortunately will be our last brewery
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beer for a while but we are going out on a high note my friends today we are very
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excited to be featuring sweet Magnolias by the good folks over at the brewery the one I had came in an absolutely
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beautiful 12.7 ounce bottle this is an imperial style aged in Bourbon barrels with bananas
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Madagascar vanilla beans and Nilla wafers added garage grade sound the trumpets please a Solid 5 out of 5
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bottle caps and let's sound the trumpets for our friends that helped us out with
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this week's beer fund first up it cheers to Alex in Orlando Florida and a big shout out to Eric in Lodi California
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here's a cheers to Hayden and Knightdale North Carolina and a big shout out to Taylor an old Waterloo
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yeah Waterloo Iowa and last but certainly not least today we have Haley and Tempe Arizona everyone we just
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mentioned they went to True Crime garage.com and helped us out with this week's beer fun yeah that's what they
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did because they're awesome why aren't you doing it are you lazy you got your lazy pants on take your lazy pants off
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and go to True Crime garage donate to the Beer fun for our weekly bwe double r-u-n beer run and that is
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enough of the business all right everybody gather round grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime
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[Music] with you [Music] [Music] we're already foreign [Music] [Music] Warner lived with her parents in the remote
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Iron Range area of northern Minnesota this entire area has been mined for iron for decades
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and there are miles of abandoned ore mines pits and lakes created by mining the area has mountains of iron ore
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tailings in miles and miles of undisturbed forest it has been described by people from the
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area as a vast and endless area of nothingness the town of Chisholm was founded as a
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mining settlement in this area the Chippewa called rough Earth it's about three hours north of
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Minneapolis lyanna lived in the town of Chisholm Minnesota a small town of about 5 300 people the
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Warner family home was a gray stucco duplex located in a friendly neighborhood with
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tree-lined blocks of houses and the developed residential area near the iron mines
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the neighborhood bordered a lake long year Lake which was a recreation spot for those who lived in the town
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according to everyone who lived there even in 2003 Chisholm was sort of a throwback
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it was a small community where kids played freely outside neighbors were friendly and bad stuff
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just didn't happen Leanna Warner who was five years old with brown hair and brown eyes
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was known as [ __ ] to almost everyone the story is that her parents nicknamed her [ __ ] because when she was born she
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reminded them of a little bean pod the name stuck and family friends and neighbors all called her by this
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nickname she was three feet two inches tall and weighed 48 pounds Leanna had a mole on her left leg just
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above her ankle lyanna was described as an outgoing loving little girl who adored dolls
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Rugrats Barbies and babies there's video footage taken by her parents available online
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she was an adorable normal five-year-old little Leanna went missing on a warm mid-summer Saturday afternoon
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from an area in a neighborhood where bad stuff did not happen the date was June 14 2003.
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little Leanna walked down the street to play with her friend and is never seen again
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for 18 years her family has held out hope but not a trace of her has ever been found
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how does a child disappear Into Thin Air seemingly Vanishing in an instant off of
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the face of the Earth this is true crime garage and this is the case of Leanna Warner
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[Music] [Music] [Music] Saturday June 14 2003 Leanna and her mom Kalyn had hit some yard sales where Leanna bought a
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heart-shaped pillow then they spent the rest of the summer day enjoying the lake in early
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interviews Leanna's mom said that they went to the lake swam and played with friends and relatives and returned home
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around 4 30 pm after the day at Longyear Lake lyanna like most five-year-olds would be
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well she was tired from running around in the Sun and fell asleep in the car on the way home
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when they got to their house located at 19 Southwest 2nd Street Leanna woke up while her mom was busy unloading the
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stuff they had bought from the yard sales from the car and making trips in and out of the house Leanna asked if she
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could walk around the corner to their neighbor's house this is The Quirk family their little girls Janine age
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four and Melissa Age 3 were great friends of Leanna's apparently lyanna hung out with Janine and Melissa almost
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every day so even though lyanna's mom would have preferred that little [ __ ] come inside and rest for a bit Kalyn
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said yes go ahead it was totally standard procedure for Leanna to walk over to the quirks to play Kalyn did
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tell the media later that she told Leanna to come back home in a half an hour although how a five-year-old would
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have any concept of half of an hour is questionable Katie Quirk Janine and Melissa's mother said that Lee Indiana
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was a daily visitor to The Quirk house in fact Leanna was over at their home the night before on June 13th she had
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come over by herself around 7 15 p.m and watched a movie with the family in any event on this Saturday Lana got out of
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the car and walked down the block and around the corner when her mom last saw her she was wearing a dark blue
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sleeveless denim dress with a belt orange Hanes undies and a flower petal earring with a red garnet in the middle
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in her pierced right ear the reports say that she was not wearing any shoes which would be in line with a
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little girl who just got back from a day of swimming but the shoes will come up again later
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now the quirks lived just a few houses away maybe a block to the South lyanna would have to cross an alley to
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get there and it was around the corner one article said that it would take an average adult walking at a normal Pace
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no more than two minutes to get from the Warners to the quirks as short as the walk was though lyanna was not in the
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sight line of her mother for the entirety of the walk and no one is really sure how long it was before
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anyone noticed that she was gone so Leanna walks off Barefoot and Kailyn goes inside the Warner's home after she
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says watching Leanna as she walked down their street toward her friend's home until she went around the corner two
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neighbors report seeing Leanna walking that day the information that one of them gave
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police tells us something important lyanna did not go inside the quirk's house this neighbor who was either
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outside doing something or looking out the window told police that lyanna climbed the steps to the quirk's home
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knocked on the door she knocked a few times but no one answered it was later confirmed that the
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quirks were not home that afternoon the neighbor reports that after no one answered the door lyanna turned around
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and started to walk back toward her home but at this point the neighbor stopped watching presumably there was nothing
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remarkable about this scene since we know that lyanna was often seen walking to and from the quirk's home we know
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that kids were all over the neighborhood and it seems that children were allowed
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to walk around unsupervised the Chisholm Mayor John Champa lived in the neighborhood about a block
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from the Warners and said that lyanna quote liked to run around the neighborhood but never went far
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so apparently lyanna was known to wander around and clearly the Warners allowed this
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the neighbor was in the midst of doing something while observing the door knocking and lyanna not getting admitted
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into the quirk's house and the neighbor turned away and didn't watch anymore which is such an incredible tragedy
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if only the neighbor had watched lyanna continue on her walk she may have never vanished with this case being said in
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2003 if it was set in today's time we'd have ring cameras and and so many more houses have security cameras that face
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the street so we would have a better picture or a better surveillance of what happened to Leanne and unfortunately if
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an abduction did take place it may have ended up on one of those ring video footage cameras or Simply Safe video
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cameras video camera footage yeah some news reports say that lyanna was seen in the area around 6 PM walking West others
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say more specifically that she was seen walking West on Southwest second or third streets and there were also
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reports that one neighbor actually spoke with Leanna and one article says she was
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seen petting a dog but not all the reports contain all of this information and as we've seen the
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timeline on all of this is fuzzy police said later that their investigation was hampered by all of the wiggle room in
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the timeline Kalin reported initially that she started to wonder where Leanna was around 6 pm
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we know that lyanna's Dad Chris Warner went out on an ambulance run at 6 21 pm he was a volunteer with the Chisholm
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Ambulance Service and it seems that at that time he did not know that his daughter was missing
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so it seems likely that Kalin actually noticed lyanna being gone later than this we're gonna throw a few questions
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and wrenches into this timeline as we go because I think it's right to do so the
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first question that's probably spinning around in everybody's mind is why are you letting a child this young walk to a
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neighbor's house right that's the first thing I question as well and it seemed odd to me that Kailyn originally says
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when they get back to their home her daughter Leanna wants to go down to their friend's house and then she tells
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originally she tells her no right but then the kid does some convincing and she says yes but be back in in a half an
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hour which seems to me like a why even bother kind of situation but I really started thinking back to when I was it
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would have been six or seven years old I maybe not five I can't remember but I can remember the distance that we're
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talking about traveling here I can remember walking by myself or with a with a brother or with a friend no
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parent no supervision from adults from my house down to my friend's house on the corner Tim and Vince and regularly
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making that trip and it was literally passing like three houses and so I think what we have here Captain
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is a situation where I think it's right to question it the little girl is five years old but we have her mom her father
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and the quirk's family the adults of that home saying this was an everyday thing this was you know as normal as
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could be because it's different to allow your child to walk down there but just step outside visually see them make it
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into the house if you're a parent and you drove your kid to their friend's house you wouldn't just go hey honey
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thanks get out of the car and once they leave the car you don't speed away you you wait until you see them enter the
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house right I'm just saying that you could have done the same thing here agreed but in this situation we have
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Kalyn who says she watched Leanna walk down the street until she could no longer see her because she has to make a
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turn and again I question this too but then I'd have to question my own parents because I know I was doing about the
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same thing I think what we have here too Captain is a situation where a lot of kids in the neighborhood are going about
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their business and having fun unsupervised it seemed to be a pretty normal thing and then you top that off
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with a town of only 5 000 people I think a small town sometimes is plays a bad role in some of these cases I think
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sometimes the small town provides a false sense of security to parents and to children into everyone involved and
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like I tried to tell other people you know that they say oh so you live in a bad neighborhood or this area is
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terrible and yes that's true you do have higher crime rates in bad areas quote unquote bad areas but again look at
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Sandy Hook that was considered one of the nicest safest neighborhoods in America right not in the state not in
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that county in America and if something bad is going to happen if there's a bad person out there it can
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happen anywhere it can only happen in America unlike you're stating Kailyn was saying you can be gone but for just a
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little while and so once she noticed that she hasn't come back in a little while
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she starts getting a little concerned yeah her first reaction as soon as she notices Leanna is not home you know
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didn't return home as she should have Kalyn walks down to the quirk's home herself but then that's when she finds
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out that no one is home right so according to Kalin she started canvassing the neighborhood assuming
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that Leanna had just wandered to someone else's yard or home and again this kind
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of plays into what even the mayor of Chisholm was saying that he would often see the little girl hanging out you know
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going about the neighborhood looking for friends looking for people to talk to and hang out and play with I also
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wondered if it's a possibility that she got turned around and when she came back
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got a little confused on which house was actually hers yeah it's weird when kids
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have kind of the run of the neighborhood is what I see in this situation again thinking back to my childhood I lived on
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a court when in my younger years and I felt like I don't know remember what the rules were laid down by my parents but I
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know the way I behaved was kind of like well as long as I'm still somewhere in this court
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I won't get in any trouble you know so I would walk freely between front yards backyards and there was even a wooded
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area that I would often go into without permission so that's I just kind of see a very similar situation here this is
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not just a small community but this is a tight-knit neighborhood itself Chris Warner joined his wife in the search for
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Leanna when he got home from his ambulance run this is said to be around 7 40 p.m he said that they were walking
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around the neighborhood calling for her and they started to get scared Kailyn returned to the quirk's home looking for
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Leanna again at 8 30 p.m this time finding them home but they had not seen lyanna at this
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whole point right the 9-1-1 call from Kailyn Warner came in at 8 48 p.m by this point Leanna was missing for more
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than three hours the official search for lyanna began extremely promptly and I think a lot of
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this has to do with the age of the child the St Louis County Rescue Squad set up
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a command center and organized searches within about an hour of receiving that 9-1-1 call by late Saturday night police
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sent out a helicopter that was equipped with an infrared tracing system that could pinpoint body heat in the night
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neighbors also pitched in the quirks reported that they all went out to help look for lyanna around 9pm
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by Sunday morning a major search was underway that day over 300 people joined in the search for lyanna including Town
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residents neighbors and Friends of the little girl the search started at the Warner home
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and worked its way outward looking in all the places a child could hide or get stuck or trapped this would be sheds
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boat houses boats yards sewers Barns and vacant houses searches were also done of some of the
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mine pits swamps Wells and other hazards in the Iron Range topography do you know
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if they hadn't sent dogs on scene they did Bloodhounds were sent in relatively quickly I believe that they arrived
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either that night or the the very next morning I had that in my notes I promise we'll get to that Captain we did have a
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Statewide alert that was issued on Sunday Morning by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal apprehension a BCA is their
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acronym we'll reference them later and the Minnesota Crime Alert Network faxed information about lyanna to over 8 000
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businesses and law enforcement agencies however no Amber Alert was issued and this is because
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uh Chisholm police chief Scott Erickson stated Amber Alerts were appropriate when there was evidence of an abduction
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and there wasn't here and we've seen that in other cases they have a recommended criteria for when States
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should use the Amber Alert System they don't tell you you know they don't they don't box you in and say this is the
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only time you should use it they give you recommendations for the state and one of the recommendations is that you
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have a suspect or vehicle description and unfortunately in lyanna's case we have people who see her knocking on the
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door of her friend's house we have people that see her walking away from her friend's house and then we never see
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anything after that we don't have a situation where we have a screaming little girl being pulled into a vehicle
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or somebody snatching her up and somebody's seeing it we just don't have that we have no ear Witnesses or
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eyewitnesses to what happen to this little girl after she's seen walking away from her friend's house yeah and I
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don't know what else they would call it but I think in this situation when you have a missing child whether they're
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abducted or not how can it hurt to send these alerts out to have people on the lookout for even if it's just simply the
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age hair color the gender that's it it couldn't hurt well I agree but I mean they did send
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out these alerts it's just what title are you tagging this thing right they I mean they issued a Statewide alert by
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the Bureau of Criminal apprehension and they issued a Crime Alert the Minnesota Crime Alert Network
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issued an alert as well I mean it this went out Statewide they just didn't call it an amber alert because it didn't meet
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the criteria for technical name like the amber alert requires it seems that at least early in the
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situation police knew that lyanna's reputation was as a Wanderer you know as they said and assumed that Leanna had
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just kind of wandered off or gotten lost or stuck or maybe had some accident befall her Erickson said that on Sunday
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this is the chief that there was nothing indicating Foul Play Chief Erickson held a press conference
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on Sunday night and described lyanna as an energetic outgoing little girl you asked about dogs captain dogs were used
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in the search and they tracked lyanna sent to the edge of a road at Longyear Lake about two blocks from her house but
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then they tracked back to the Warner home they did not track to the quirk's house
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police found a partial footprint Lakeside that could have been lyanna's but we know that Leanna was at the lake
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that day and that she had ridden her two-wheel bike to the lake in the past later reports this is bizarre to me
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later Reports say police decided that the footprint was in fact from a different day I'm not sure how they can
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tell this footprint was old or that it could be it was a different shoe and that they knew which shoe she was
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wearing that day yeah I they describe it as a footprint um oh not a shoe print yeah I mean it
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could have been a shoe print this is one of those things that they seem to have come to a lot of decisions and made up
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you know they seem to have a good understanding of what it is that they were seeing or what they found but they
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don't offer a great description to the rest of the world about it it do you find it a little odd that there was no
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scent towards her friend's house I do and I don't right because here's the problem with the with the dogs the dogs
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are one only as good as they have been trained and their understanding of what their job is we forgot to tell you that
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their Handler showed up drunk well and I was going to say they're also only as good as the Handler so you're already
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throwing a lot of variables in there I think they're very helpful in some cases and in other cases can be a little
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tricky I mean the here's the problem with the dogs in this situation do I find it odd that
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they didn't go to the quirk's house 100 percent one thousand percent but we have
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two eyewitnesses that saw the girl there so we know she was there so the in my opinion the dogs are just
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not accurate in this situation the other thing too in regards to the footprint or shoe print or what have you
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yes maybe there could be it rained the day before or you know given the weather outside how hot it is and such that
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would help you determine how old the footprint or shoe print is but the other issue I take with that Captain
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is this Lake as we referenced in the trailer this Lake was frequented by everybody in that
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neighborhood this was a Saturday in the summertime if anybody's out there thinking that
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that lyanna and her mom and her sister were the only three people at that Lake that day
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well you're you can tune into another show because you don't belong here in the garage there were probably dozens if
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not more people at the lake that very day on Sunday Searchers waited up to their waist in the murky Lake to no
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avail the search continued on Monday with large groups of volunteers and lyanna's parents made a televised plea
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for her to come home her father Chris said quote please [ __ ] come home we miss you we're never going to stop
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looking for you end quote St Louis County Sheriff Ross Littman said there was no reason to believe
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acquaintances or family members would have taken the girl he cited a trouble-free home and no evidence of a
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stranger abduction but law enforcement was acutely aware that the small town of friendly residents had also been the
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site of two events that brought Out of Towners to Chisholm on that very weekend in June first we have the rock the range
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Music Festival that had brought in lots of people and there was also the United Way ride the range motorcycle fundraiser
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reports state that these events could have brought more than one thousand people into this small town so think
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about that population increase just for that weekend the weekend that this little girl goes missing 5 300 residents
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in the town of Chisholm that weekend it's estimated that there were 6 300 and so people in the area
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Festival goers were permitted to camp at the old Glen mine site it would be impossible to track down everyone who
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attended these events law enforcement did what they could do to track down people that may have attended these
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events they use Motel gas station and Campground records to get names of people who attended these events and
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questioned them well now we see this all the time and other missing cases look at
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like the Joey Le Bute case guy goes missing when there's a huge the Arnold Classic is in town so again
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when you have those outer counters it's really hard to vet every single person that was there
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and if anybody was still in the area that came in for these events the police asked to check their RVs and their
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campsites obviously looking for lyanna or any sign of her police also started looking into known sex offenders in the
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area on Tuesday authorities were still treating lyanna's case as a search rather than a rescue or recovery
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although they hadn't ruled out abduction Sheriff Littman said he felt it was unlikely that lyanna was in the lake and
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he believed lyanna could have survived 72 hours in the woods on the Iron Range she was known to be pretty adventurous
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her grandfather Butch Warner said that if necessary she would very likely drink from mud puddles if she had to and she
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had been known to eat army worms I don't know if that was off of a dare or if this is just one really hungry kid that
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girl likes worms it's been raining for days here in Columbus and it smells like worms outside the search radius
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here's the other thing too is you know my thought goes instantly when you have a situation where she's she's seen close
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to the home you start then questioning the parents right and now my issue with the investigation is and look we're
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going to argue with people to the death about polygraph but to me you bring them in for
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questioning and you have them take a polygraph test just to see where it stands they didn't do that here and I
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know that they weren't suspect but it's like I think you just do it to you know you
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know cross your teeth and Dot your eyes well and the other thing Captain is that's your best opportunity right if
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you're hoping to catch somebody even if it is the parents that you suspect you get really one shot at that you know
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the the investigation is only in the early stages at one point in the investigation and to me I would think
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that that's when whomever you sit down across the table from and who you are asking them the tough questions that's
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what I think they would be the most nervous be it parents relative neighborhood person any type of
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suspect I would think that fresh and early that's when they're going to be the most nervous and that's when they
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are going to show those physical signs of deception or at least anxiety of not wanting to speak with you so I'm I'm
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right with you there Captain I feel like that could have been while I'm not very
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suspicious of the parents here I feel like that was kind of a missed opportunity we've said this in the past
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even if you're not suspicious let's go ahead and cross one more thing off of our list if we can't figure out who did
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this let's figure out who did not do this and maybe we find who did this along the way
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foreign [Music] we're back filthy animals cheers to everybody out there cheers to all the post workers
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cheers to all the school bus drivers that are going to be bringing the kids back to school yeah cheers to all the
00:31:31
people in the back tall cans in the air now regards to in regards to lyanna's shoes because that's a weird part of
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this story and frankly I don't know what to make of it so we're going to lay it out here for all of you and you can
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decide for yourself but one or two articles address the shoes being found on the
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stoop at the quirk's house and Kalyn Warner her mother stated to the media that lyanna's shoes were in
00:32:00
fact found there and no one could explain that or why well there's eyewitnesses that solar Barefoot right
00:32:08
correct it's the shoes thing is a whole weird thing to me we don't know when these
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shoes were supposedly found all the reports say that lyanna had walked away from her house Barefoot it would
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certainly be strange if somehow her shoes had been placed there by someone else obviously I think it's more likely
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that she probably just carried them with her when she got out of the car and her
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mother didn't notice that she was carrying her shoes right and then maybe Leanna forgot them when she turned away
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from the house I mean she's five she if she set them down by herself and if in fact that's where they were found and
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I don't have any reason to believe that that's not the case I just I don't know why the child would set her shoes yeah
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let's walk through this real quick she would well yeah but she'd put her shoes down so she could ring the doorbell or
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knock on the door nobody answers when she turns back around to leave then she forgets
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that she may have simply forgot them right by Wednesday with no sign of Leanna Hope was beginning to fade for
00:33:15
the first time members of the public began to seriously consider the abduction Theory a local daycare center
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owner said that in a newspaper article that she hired an extra person to help watch the kids in her care
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and should like police to publicize the names of local registered sex offenders police said that they had checked all of
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the known local sex offenders by this point in their search for the little girl again I hate to bring this up but
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like you said there's an event that's bringing all these people and there's a percentage of those people that are
00:33:48
petos well and this timeline is going to keep getting adjusted especially during
00:33:53
this first week which a timeline is very crucial to not only the search for this
00:33:59
girl but any type of investigation you're not just investigating if a CR when you know that a crime has happened
00:34:05
here you're investigating if a crime occurred right and so the timeline is going to be crucial I mean that is your
00:34:15
Bible at this point in the case when you have no evidence and you don't really have any leads on what could have
00:34:21
happened to this girl as an investigator that timeline is your Bible now police interviews in canvas missing the
00:34:29
neighborhood did bring some new information to light to their search the timeline was adjusted to indicate that
00:34:36
lyanna had left home closer to 5 30 on Saturday and you say well earlier you said 4 30. now the investigators are
00:34:46
saying 5 30. again they said at the very beginning of this case that the wiggle room in the timeline has always hampered
00:34:54
their investigation as we heard someone in the neighborhood said that they had seen her walking West at close to 6 p.m
00:35:02
authorities requested that everyone in the area checked their own properties to make sure the little girl was not at
00:35:10
their property the family made a public statement thanking all of the Searchers saying they were iron Rangers a strong
00:35:17
compassionate resourceful people who know the meaning of Faith presumably this means that they were drawing on
00:35:24
their strength and not giving up hope lyanna's grandfather talked to the media describing his granddaughter as an
00:35:31
inquisitive child who is not afraid of anything he said her outgoing nature and free spirit could have gotten her into
00:35:39
trouble the implication was that lyanna was trusting and friendly and might innocently be lured by the wrong person
00:35:46
the parents of other children in the neighborhood the grandfather they're all describing the same personality when I
00:35:53
review this case here Captain a little girl that is is very friendly and very talkative and not afraid of
00:36:02
anything and I think the grandfather's words here are very interesting to me saying that her free spirit and her
00:36:10
outgoing nature may have gotten her into some kind of trouble I wonder if we are
00:36:14
looking at an abduction here do we have a situation where she may have approached her would-be abductor
00:36:22
not knowing that oh this this person may not be a great person this person might
00:36:27
not be you know had she befriended the would-be abductor at some point earlier on before this day you know weeks prior
00:36:35
right investigators announced that they were further expanding the search this would include roadways and ditches
00:36:43
throughout Chisholm and flybys over the local lakes and mine pits they plan to retrace their steps and research all of
00:36:52
the areas that they had already covered there were fundraisers that were held to
00:36:56
raise money for the search efforts and hotlines were set up to field calls about any tips and potential leads but
00:37:05
just when we think that there's nothing to go on other than probably a few tips here and
00:37:12
there we we have a decent break in the case an interesting turn in the case because
00:37:18
this is late Thursday so now lyanna has been missing for six days and the tone of the news reports and information
00:37:26
released by investigators is clearly changing in my mind here Captain we have police chief Erickson who directly asked
00:37:34
the public to contact his Department if anyone had any information on a faded light blue
00:37:41
mid-sized car with an antenna mounted in the middle of the trunk there was no make model or license plate that was
00:37:50
available Erickson said he did not know whether this vehicle was actually significant but it was a lead that they
00:37:59
were following up on and chief Erickson said that areas around the block where the Warner's home was located had been
00:38:07
searched anywhere from two to five times each including homes in the vicinity it
00:38:13
seems that most are all neighbor allowed the police to actually access and search
00:38:19
their houses Erickson was confident that they had the area 98 percent covered so
00:38:26
this is going to be like Erickson's legit press conference after we've had several days of searching and have had
00:38:33
no luck looking for the girl the thing that I like here Captain while it's not extremely specific on the details you
00:38:40
know no make model or license plate of this vehicle it's a pretty detailed description of a
00:38:47
very I don't want to say very unique but it is a unique description of a car right this light blue faded light blue
00:38:55
so very descriptive on the color midsize car with an antenna mounted in the middle of the trunk that's not something
00:39:02
you see on most Vehicles yeah it sounds like something you'd see in this late 70s 80s yeah it seems a little out of
00:39:10
its time period and the news reports once again addressed an adjustment to the timeline now Leanna was believed to
00:39:17
have left her home at 4 35 PM not 5 or 5 30. two independent Witnesses saw her walking across Lawns and knocking on the
00:39:27
quirk's door at 5 15 and she was reported missing at 8 48 p.m now back to the sex offenders in the area as you
00:39:36
know Captain one of my favorite Parts in any child abduction case or suspected child abduction case is the old pervert
00:39:43
Roundup get ready for the Pervert Roundup a spokesman for the Chisholm PD said that
00:39:51
there were roughly 20 to 25 classified sex offenders in Chisholm but none that were level three we've talked about this
00:39:58
in the past and I've come under Fire for this and I don't know why I suspect that
00:40:02
I came under Fire from probably a level three sex offender but uh the level three sex offenders have the highest
00:40:10
recidivism rates out of any sex offender that's why they are considered the most
00:40:14
dangerous that's why they received the longest prison sentences and that's why nobody wants to let them out back on the
00:40:19
street the police are saying here in this area we had zero level three offenders so we just have level one
00:40:26
level ones and level twos dirty pervys so no level threes this is why their names and addresses were not required to
00:40:34
be released to the public 30 investigators from various agencies including the FBI were looking at each
00:40:41
one of these guys as well as all of the other tips and leads and so far had not been able to tie any of these perverts
00:40:49
to lyanna's case one thing that has been noticed since Leanna's disappearance 18
00:40:55
years ago is that her case didn't receive the level of national attention immediately in this case
00:41:02
such as some other cases like poly class or another big case from Minnesota Jacob
00:41:08
wetterling this may be because it seems that for almost the first week no one including lyanna's parents really
00:41:17
thought that she had been abducted and both the poly class case and the Jacob wetterling case there were witnesses to
00:41:25
these abductions so we knew immediately in both of those cases this child has been abducted
00:41:32
lyanna on the other hand just vanished a spokeswoman for the missing children Minnesota organization said that the
00:41:39
delay in treating these cases as abductions early on is quote the disbelief Factor no one wants to believe
00:41:46
the worst can happen in their backyard also there's a fear of pointing the finger at an innocent person especially
00:41:55
in a area where one you have a lake so that is going to cause a lot of issues as far as searching also a lot of
00:42:03
issues as far as a big Hazard for a child that is wandering on their own and like they said the wooded area I'd say
00:42:13
that's an equal problem now it's middle of June right so there's you don't have to worry about the
00:42:22
elements as far as it's knowing or being too cold but you have to worry about the
00:42:27
elements of being in the woods as a small child right and speaking of own backyards this is when we're told in
00:42:37
our timeline here that eight square miles around the Warner home had been searched by this point the national
00:42:44
Center for missing and exploited children was called in to join in the investigation on Friday June 20th and
00:42:51
spokesman Patrick Farrell said in my own personal experience I haven't had a case
00:42:57
where a child has disappeared so completely now Chief Erickson remained optimistic
00:43:04
saying anything is possible but unfortunately we've found nothing so far yeah and he was holding out hope they
00:43:11
were still going to find this girl but on Saturday June 21st the Warner family was notified that the organized official
00:43:20
searches for lyanna were coming to an end investigators felt that they had exhaustively covered any ground where
00:43:26
she could have re where she could realistically be the family thanked all the Searchers and asked that people not
00:43:32
give up hope and said that they themselves were still hoping for the best and I think that's obvious when
00:43:40
they point out that very quickly they are putting up ten thousand dollars a ten thousand dollar reward for
00:43:46
information about their daughter this was publicized just a couple days later like you said she was at the lake before
00:43:52
but there's a possibility that she got back to the lake where they searching the lake at all
00:43:58
they searched the lake big time um they they were in the water searching for her they were flying over the water
00:44:05
searching for her the lake was a big focal point of their investigation especially that second day that Sunday
00:44:13
morning and they again as the sheriff stated at some point after a few days of searching and we've covered all this
00:44:22
area in the beginning you're looking and you're realistically going okay how far
00:44:26
if she got lost we're treating this as she wandered off she got lost maybe an accident something happened to her right
00:44:32
how far could a five-year-old get on their own given the time frame that she's been gone and so you're using that
00:44:39
to really focus and hone in on where you should be searching and prioritizing those areas so the lake would have been
00:44:46
high priority on that because this is a place that Not only was she there earlier that day not only was this a
00:44:54
place that most everybody in the neighborhood went too frequently we know that she's rode her bike there at least
00:45:01
one time on her own so this is a place that there's nowhere in this neighborhood or down to that Lake
00:45:08
to me that I can see that this girl would not have been comfortable going to by herself I think the other issue like
00:45:15
you said is they they do a eight mile radius from the house that is a very large distance yeah eight square miles
00:45:23
from uh the Warner home now once that search happens and and they not it's not just that they don't they don't find her
00:45:32
it's the fact that they find nothing and they don't find a sock they don't find a footprint they don't there's
00:45:39
nothing well and we needed to get the word out here right about this missing girl we already said that they were
00:45:45
Statewide alerts that went out immediately when she was discovered to be missing but it was the missing
00:45:52
children Minnesota and the national Center for missing and exploited children organizations that highly
00:45:59
encouraged the Warners to go National with their daughter's case and so they went on several national televised TV
00:46:07
shows and they were publicizing the case and a website that they created find beaner.org and accompanying them on
00:46:17
these trips and on these appearances was Chief Erickson so they are in close contact with one another they're working
00:46:26
arm and arm in this investigation not just to search and find the child but also to publicize the case and make
00:46:35
everybody aware that hey this little girl is missing and we're looking for here's where things get a little
00:46:40
interesting to me Captain on June 24th a timeline of what authorities believe happened that night on June 14th so 10
00:46:50
days later appeared in the Minneapolis Star Tribune so this will be known as the quote unquote official timeline here
00:46:58
in this case and it's as follows at 4 35 p.m Leanna leaves to walk to the quirk's home mom
00:47:06
tells her to be back in a half an hour at 5 15 two neighbors see lyanna knocking on the door of the quirk's home
00:47:14
but no one is home and she turns around 5 30 p.m Kalyn notices that Leanna isn't
00:47:21
home yet she sends Leanna's older sister over to the quirks but she returns and reports that they are not home
00:47:28
6 to 6 30 p.m Kalyn and lyanna's sister start walking around the neighborhood looking for Leanna
00:47:36
at 6 21 we know that Chris Warner leaves on an ambulance run to Hibbing Minnesota
00:47:41
he does not seem to know that lyanna is missing at this point at 7 30 more people joined Kalin in the search of the
00:47:50
neighborhood as 747 Chris Warner's ambulance run ends and he returns home he immediately joins the search for his
00:47:58
daughter at 8 48 Kailyn Warner places the 911 missing 9 pm 12 minutes later Chisholm
00:48:08
police arrive and start searching the neighborhood 10 15 p.m Rescue Squad personnel and Bloodhounds so the dogs
00:48:14
are there at 10 15 PM arriving on the scene 4 a.m Sunday a state patrol helicopter
00:48:21
is out searching for lyanna by air they moved very quickly we gotta give props where props are due
00:48:29
and I think to see the actions and the efforts put forward immediately in this case is
00:48:36
encouraging to me because we've we've seen this in other cases well we've not seen this in other cases I think is the
00:48:43
best way to state that this timeline though to me Captain brings up some questions if Leanna
00:48:49
really left the Warner's home at 4 35 pm and neighbors saw her knocking on The Quirk store at 5 15. where was she for
00:48:58
that 40 minutes yeah we said that it would take the average adult it was time they did they did you know this is all
00:49:04
science here baby they figured out that it would take the average adult two minutes to make it
00:49:10
from the Warner's home to the quirk's home so again that's one of those things yes if you want a question letting your
00:49:16
five-year-old walk down there go ahead I don't blame you for questioning that keep in mind it's like a two minute walk
00:49:22
and it's a walk that she's done a hundred times I question it myself not gonna lie but be that as it may this is
00:49:29
the situation so let's say it takes a little girl double that time five minutes to walk down there that still
00:49:36
leaves 35 minutes of what's going on and you know little kids get distracted easily heck me in the
00:49:42
captain get distracted easily who knows Hey look it's cool we don't have anybody
00:49:46
that's saying that well I saw her go here or saw her go there at this time we have the witness statement of her
00:49:55
mother saying I saw her walking away from the house I watched her until she had to go around the corner and then we
00:50:01
have these two witnesses I like that we have two independent Witnesses saying that they saw her at the quirk's
00:50:08
doorstep and they believed the time to be 5 15 p.m well I only know with eyewitness statements that sometimes
00:50:14
they're not lying they're just misremembering but I don't like her mother's statement
00:50:22
if there's a gap that large of a gap to me it seems like she headed in a different direction before she headed to
00:50:30
her friend's house that's also what the scent dogs are telling us as well because they're not following her sent
00:50:36
to her friend's house so I just wonder if it's one of those scenes where your kid's missing and now
00:50:43
um again you should have watched her all the way you could have walked her all the way to
00:50:49
your house people are going to be questioning this and so then you make the statement that you watched her walk
00:50:56
towards the house and walk out of sight and maybe that's not true at all and maybe it was she's you know putting
00:51:03
groceries away and she goes I'm going to walk down to my friend's house and she goes okay back be back in 20 minutes and
00:51:08
never saw her leave I would fault her for not being honest but I could also see a situation we've seen these
00:51:16
situations turn against the parents very quickly and they be there becomes a wood
00:51:24
there becomes a Witch Hunt against parents because they made a let's say a moment of not the best
00:51:32
judgment oh yeah they Unfortunately they live with that every day yeah for 18 years I mean that is do you want to know
00:51:41
what hell is that's what hell is now in regards to the dogs here's the problem again with the dogs you have to
00:51:48
either throw out the dog information or the eyewitness information that said that they saw the girl knocking on the
00:51:55
door of the quirk's home you can't have both right because the dogs never go to the
00:52:01
quirk's house they go and hit on a cent at the lake they say that they trace lyanna's scent to the edge of a Road
00:52:11
near the lake we've discussed this in other cases Captain usually when they trace
00:52:16
Ascent to an edge of the road it indicates that that person got into some kind of vehicle because their scent is
00:52:23
then gone right the dogs then trace the scent back to lyanna Warner's home again they're only
00:52:31
as good as the Handler but you can't have a situation where the what the dogs are telling you is that Leanna did not
00:52:39
go to the Cork's home what the eyewitnesses are telling you is that she did so you have to choose which one are
00:52:46
you going to accept as something you want to put in your investigation and something that you're going to have to
00:52:53
toss out because you might be getting bad information from someone now here's the thing if the dogs never go to
00:53:00
the quirk's home and you trust the dogs now you need to know why people would say that she went to the quirk's home
00:53:07
and she didn't you see what I mean it works both ways no I agree and like I said back to the
00:53:14
eyewitnesses we just we know for a fact that eyewitnesses are not always completely accurate so it's not calling
00:53:21
them Liars it's just saying that maybe you're misremembering right I the thing that I believe here and look this is
00:53:31
I yes I'm I'm choosing I'm I'm picking one over the other I'm choosing these eyewitnesses here because what what we
00:53:38
do know given the timeline regardless of the shift and the change in the wiggle room in the timeline what we do know is
00:53:45
very quickly after this girl went missing the mother the daughter and neighbors are out searching for lyanna very
00:53:56
quickly let's say within I think we can agree Within a half an hour to an hour and a half
00:54:02
somewhere in that time range we have we start seeing people from the neighborhood and joining in on this
00:54:08
search so what I'm the reason why I'm choosing to believe the eyewitnesses here is simply that they can speak and
00:54:15
the dogs can't because we have eyewitnesses that are going this is all going to be fresh in their memory it's
00:54:20
not like you're asking somebody five days later if you saw Leanna on Saturday or Friday or Sunday you're asking them
00:54:28
did you see her an hour ago yeah yeah I did well a couple things one if you if you eat enough Edibles dogs
00:54:37
will talk to you and you'll be able to understand them um and normally I always pick dogs over humans right
00:54:45
because dogs are just better but I agree with you here I I think you have to go with the eyewitness report I
00:54:52
just I I just don't understand why there's a a gap in time between the eyewitnesses and Leanne's mother so I'm
00:55:02
totally with you here and I here's what I think may be a possibility I think that maybe this little girl was
00:55:10
excited about seeing her friends hanging out with her two friends we know that they hung out almost daily
00:55:17
I think that there's a chance that they're seeing these Witnesses might be seeing her later than the time that it
00:55:24
would take her to walk from her home to the quirk's home because I think there's
00:55:29
a chance that when she knocked on the door the first time and no one answered she might have gone looking for them
00:55:36
and it could be as simple as she went around to the backyard to see if they were out back maybe she started to make
00:55:41
her way toward the lake or to somebody else's home that they frequented I think there's a chance that she may
00:55:48
have tried that front door more than once and gone looking for them in the meantime uh looking for her friends
00:55:57
again well no that's a great point because if you were to bike even if it's not that far you'd you knock on the door
00:56:05
right nobody answers you might do the old step back look at the windows see if there's any lights on he might do the
00:56:12
old let me walk around the house maybe they're playing out back maybe there's a swing set that we haven't talked about
00:56:18
or a play area in the backyard that she went to go see if they're there oh they're not there okay now I'm coming
00:56:25
back around and and having a second pass and heck there could even been a third pass and and just think about how silly
00:56:33
we are when we're all kids right when you when you ask hey can I go hang out with can I go hang out with my friends
00:56:39
you're five six years old hey can I go hang out with my friends and you're granted permission to do so that becomes
00:56:45
the most important thing in your little Universe for that next half an hour or an hour
00:56:52
right seeing your friends and your buddies and as you pointed out I'm again thinking back to my own childhood I've
00:56:58
referenced friends Tim and Vince earlier and being about that same age and I can
00:57:03
I can recall similar situations granted permission go to their home nobody answers uh where would I go next well
00:57:11
there was a fort that we built two yards away that would be my next stop they're
00:57:16
probably at the Fort if they weren't there sometimes they were at Sean's house and you would see their bikes in
00:57:21
the driveway and you could tell you could walk a few more yards and see if the bikes were in the driveway or not
00:57:26
and so I worry that we have a situation here Captain where Leanna's playing detective herself trying to figure out
00:57:33
where her friends are and now she's wandering about and maybe as said the witnesses the eyewitnesses
00:57:39
are getting this 5 15 time from a second attempt at knocking on the door after she's gone out looking the
00:57:49
neighborhood for her friends one thing that's also difficult and troubling here I mean this is good for the parents and
00:57:57
the people searching for lyanna that night but also might be bad because she could be wondering further and further
00:58:04
away from home is June 14th is close to one of the longest days of the year so it would remain light out much longer on
00:58:15
this day than most days of the year sunset in Chisholm Minnesota on June 14th of this year of 2021 was 9 14 P.M
00:58:26
so it's one of those situations where you go okay lots of daylight hours between the time
00:58:32
of when she goes missing or when it's presumed that she she goes missing why don't we have more eyewitnesses
00:58:40
if something happened to her it seemed to me like it it happened in a relatively quick
00:58:45
and a relatively short period of time like you said to go back in time to think about how this would play out in
00:58:52
your own childhood but you know normally when I'd ask my parents like hey can I go play
00:58:58
with my friends they would just turn and go oh honey you don't have any friends on July 3rd so weeks after lyanna went
00:59:09
missing investigators had looked into an estimated 1 000 leads or tips investigators spoke with 130 sex
00:59:18
offenders who lived in northern Minnesota calling some Persons of Interest on July 9th investigators asked
00:59:26
for the Public's help in finding three men who may have information that would be helpful to this investigation
00:59:34
they were looking for a Sean Raymond burtick of Hibbing Jason Wayne Smith of Hibbing and Justin Michael Jenkins of
00:59:43
Chisholm the Sheriff's Office also asked for the Public's help in finding an unidentified white man in his mid-30s
00:59:51
about five foot ten inches tall and 155 pounds with bleach blonde hair feathered
00:59:57
over his ears and a dark tattoo of a star or a sun on his right arm wearing blue jeans and a white T-shirt this man
01:00:07
was supposedly seen on foot in the Warner's neighborhood on June 14th the day in question they also said that they
01:00:16
were looking for a navy blue two-door Cadillac driven by a black male in his 20s or 30s that was either bald or had a
01:00:25
shaven head in an older Rusty brown pickup truck with a Topper driven by a white man with curly black hair the
01:00:34
Sheriff's Department Department would not say why they were seeking these people but we can presume that persons
01:00:40
in the neighborhood reported seeing them in the area and an interesting statement
01:00:45
though Sheriff Littman said he believed despite public events in the area at the
01:00:50
time of lyanna's disappearance that the person who was responsible for lyanna going missing was likely from Chisholm
01:00:59
at the same time authorities said there was no truth to Media reports that identified a 23 year old convicted sex
01:01:07
offender as a suspect in the case they denied that there was a suspect and stated that this man was in custody on
01:01:15
unrelated charges now we're really seeing the scale of this investigation here aren't we
01:01:22
Captain this is something that we've seen in other cases specifically the Delphi case where you start seeing the
01:01:29
the long arms of the law are reaching out and they are casting a wide net on known offenders suspects people seen in
01:01:39
the area questionable behavior all of that stuff that's what's going on here that's what's going down at this point
01:01:47
and we saw at the Delphi case how many search warrants and how many arrest warrants were the arrest warrants were
01:01:55
carried out there was like 40 50 60 carried out within days because now all of a sudden
01:02:01
the priority level jumps big time to start finding people the the bad guys start rounding up the bad guys at this
01:02:10
point and that's what we're seeing an amped up not only just amped up but here to the point where they're saying to the
01:02:18
public hey we're looking for these people by name we're looking for people that were described to be looking like
01:02:25
this we're not saying any of them are suspects any of them could have useful information to this investigation
01:02:32
well like you said there's a bunch of people visiting this town during that time period
01:02:38
so now as this is going out more regionally you have people coming forward and saying hey I know that this
01:02:44
dirt bag in my family was visiting there at the time he's capable of abducting a
01:02:50
child so now they've got to find that individual which might be living a criminal life and then that Criminal
01:02:58
or that that Dirtbag now has to explain to the place where who's at and where you know what's his alibi
01:03:07
and sometimes they're not as Cooperative with police police because their Alibi is that they're actually
01:03:16
doing some other kind of criminal activity well and even if they weren't getting reports that people that were
01:03:22
named specifically were in the area at that time because we're kind of guessing here but you also have to wonder is that
01:03:29
simply that these no these known individuals the ones that they're referencing by name are these people
01:03:35
that have outstanding warrants or are sex offenders I don't know that they are but
01:03:43
we weren't able to find them when we started doing our Roundup or we started looking for bad guys to talk to or
01:03:50
serving these arrest warrants these are people that we could not find and we want to know why we couldn't find them
01:03:56
and then the people that were that you're asking the public for and you're simply giving a description of them well
01:04:02
that's very interesting too because obviously these are not people that are they're being told their names so if
01:04:10
people saw them in the neighborhood you have the the neighborhood person telling
01:04:14
police here's a description of the person why is that interesting to me why am I bringing it up to you Mr Lawman uh
01:04:21
that's because I'd never seen this person in the neighborhood before but I saw them on that day and that's the day
01:04:27
that we're talking about and so now as an investigator going okay I want to find bleach blonde hair guy I want to
01:04:35
find the African-American male with the shaved head I want to find the guy driving the creepy camper pickup truck
01:04:42
why because I want to ask them what you were doing there that day and if I can clear you or if I can immediately tell
01:04:50
that there's little reason to suspect you of any wrongdoing based off of the information you're able to prove to me
01:04:57
and tell me that day then I'll I also want to talk to you not just to clear you or check you off my list I
01:05:05
want to ask you did you see anything that day did you hear anything that day maybe you're the
01:05:11
witness that we've been looking for that can give us the clue that's going to lead us to this little girl
01:05:17
[Music] see you [Music] so much more to get to please join us here for episode two and until tomorrow
01:05:47
be good be kind and don't litter [Music] foreign [Music]