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subject to credit approval see store or ashley.com for details [Music] [Music] welcome to True Crime garage Wherever
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You Are whatever you're doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me
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as always is a man who has only cried twice in his life once when he was seven when he was hit by a bus and then again
00:01:40
when he heard that little Sebastian had passed ladies and gentlemen the captain yeah little Sebastian you're 10,000
00:01:47
candles in the wind it's good to be seen and good to see you dry your eyes thanks
00:01:53
for listening thanks for telling the [Music] friend today we are drinking Shiner texx Brea's
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Brew IPA by the good Folks at Shiner I'm told bruha means witch so this is the Tex heex witches brew and this is one
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deliciously refreshing IPA with cactus water feel the healing powers of the cacti my friends ABV 7% garage grade 4
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and A2 bottle caps out of five and let's give some praise and thank yous to our good friends that helped us out with
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this week's show first up a cheers to sue in Smithfield Utah and a big we like your jib goes to Linda and Eastman
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and Mississippi everybody we just mentioned went to True Crim garage.com and they clicked on the Donate button
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gals and everything in between so check that out at true Crim garage.com and Colonel that's enough of the business
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all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true [Music]
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crime [Music] for myself I have guilt feeling uh the thing that I think most about is not
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being there to help Keith uh if something happened to him and if he did pull this car over here
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um and he went with someone or whatever not being there to help him you don't know how much guilt I have not being
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able to help him um as far as uh them polygraphing me or doing whatever they need to do no I don't have a problem
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with it at all my motto is to find him I need to find him I'm I'm I'm almost 65 years old I've got health problems um I
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want to find my son and I want to find him before I pass from this Earth so no I don't have a problem with him whatever
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they want to do these new polygraphs are different than what I took before uh you're hooked up different they've use a
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uh like a computer uh like a laptop I think is what it was and then put something under
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your feet I don't remember doing that on the first one I took but they asked they
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he just detective Laughlin the first one I took to ask a lot of questions yes or
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Nos and this last one's the same way yes or no but there was all five questions that they ask us so uh he doesn't get
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into what I did on the first one but uh these five questions they ask you if you
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I think that if you have something to do with his disappearance or know something
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it's going to show my name is John Laughlin I'm a detective with the witto Falls Police Department
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crimes against persons unit I'm currently assigned to the Cold Case position uh which is how I got to know
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Keith's case and his family and why we're talking today I've been with uh witw Falls this is my 26th year I've
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been in the crimes against persons unit this is my 14th year in this unit so it's uh felony crimes against persons so
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Robbery Homicide sexual assault drive by shoes unattended deaths things of those nature
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uh those those kinds of cases are what we investigate um I am the only Cold Case Investigator that our agency has
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and I am uh still required or part of my duties is to pull a week of on call in the Capers unit so whatever comes up
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then uh capital murder or anything uh it kind of takes away of course the time needed to work on these cold cases
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and uh this is a pretty volumous case Keith's case has been ongoing since the original report was
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[Music] made there you heard it we have Keith's father Greg talking about the guilt that
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he has experienced over the years after the loss of his son followed up by the current detective who is active on this
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still unsolved case but again a very active not a cold case that is detective Laughlin with the Witchita Falls Police
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Department explaining what it is that he does in the very difficult job that he has on the Cold Case squad for me here
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Captain what I look at when I see this case and after the details that we've gone through it really boils down to two
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points for me two points of interest for the colonel one being do we look at Chris and Michelle two people that we
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know that were with Keith that night before he went missing maybe even one of the last people that seen him before he
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went missing or do we look toward this quote unquote Meetup or this meeting that he had at some point that night
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because what we have here sitting in front of us is the cold hard fact that we know that Keith did hang out with
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Chris and Michelle that night we know that they went somewhere we know this because a we have Keith telling his
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fiance on the phone after work that he was meeting up with some friends he was going out with some friends follow that
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up by we have the surveillance footage that shows the three of them at the gas station Keith purchasing snacks using
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the fiance's Fina credit card Chris purchasing beer for the three of them and then later we have Chris and
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Michelle statements to police saying we dropped Keith off in front of his apartment in the parking lot at
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approximately 11:45 p.m. on that night we did not see him enter his apartment but we saw him walking up the stairs to
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his apartment apparently at some point during that evening Keith told Chris and Michelle that he was meeting up with
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someone that he had to meet someone at 12:15 a.m. on May 11th and that is why he needed to
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get home at a decent time so we have two points here of interest for me Captain either a we should be looking in the
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direction of Chris and Michelle maybe they made up the meeting or B whoever he was meeting that night wherever they
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were meeting that night whatever they were meeting about is responsible for Keith's disappearance I know Keith is a
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younger guy but to me this is a very odd time to be meeting somebody up at 12:15 so when we take a look at the
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situation after we know Keith to be missing there are some other points that are very interesting to me here as well
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one the vehicle his vehicle that that he was driving that night which was later found in the church parking lot near his
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family's home his parents' home approximately a mile away from his apartment that's a very interesting Ang
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Le to this case the other interesting angle is his apartment and we said that the apartment was found locked by Carrie
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the following day according to the notes I have Captain the deadbolt was locked so somebody would have had to use a key
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from the outside of the apartment to lock that door we also found the beer cans on the countertop there were
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clothes on the bathroom floor the bed had not been slept in this all according to the police reports we did ask the
00:11:01
detective about that area specifically and his answer was this that the apartment complex this was not a high
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crime area back in 1997 and still is not a high crime area to this day so they do
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not believe that anything happened to Keith in the parking lot going into his apartment or coming out of his apartment
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that night police seem to be really honing in on the idea that whatever happened to Keith is
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directly that there is a direct connection from Keith to somebody that he knew I agree with law enforcement
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because one of his friends dropping him off didn't see anything or see anybody that was
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suspicious it's a safe area but also the car being moved into a different location is it clear whether or not his
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friends saw the car parked at his apartment before they left that's a really good question question
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and that is one that we that's what I'm here for right that's one that we spoke to the detective about and they they did
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not recall seeing the vehicle however the thing that's weird about that is it sounds to me like that was not a
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question that was asked of them right now this case is 25 years old and they've been interviewed several times
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over this time period so if that question wasn't asked back then it gets really dicey on them having memory of
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seeing the vehicle that night or not later when they're interviewed years later well again it becomes more tricky
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too because if you drop me off at my house you know what my vehicle is when he's driving multiple vehicles from the
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dealership that you might not even they might not even known what vehicle to look for correct and the
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other thing here too is I got to believe that Chris probably knew what kind of vehicle that Keith was driving just
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because I could see that naturally coming up in conversation because they both worked at the dealership you know
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he comes to pick him up in a Nissan Pathfinder from from the dealership Keith was driving the Mustang that may
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have come up in conversation at some point during the evening but again you're hitting on something there I I
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have a feeling that that vehicle must have been in that parking lot when Keith returned because where I'm kind of left
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sitting is trying to figure out did Keith drive that vehicle and place it in that parking lot near his parents home
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or did something happen to Keith and somebody else drove it and left it there what's really tricky here for me is
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there would be a limited number of people that would know that Keith would use that parking space so that right
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there would already shrink your suspect pull a bit but what doesn't make a lot of sense
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to me is if I did something terrible to Keith clearly I'm trying to cover that that up his body and remains have been
00:14:02
so well concealed that nobody has found him for 25 years why would I place the vehicle in a
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place that I know that's going to be found and associated with Keith unless I'm hoping that somebody locks on
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to the idea that maybe Keith moved it there himself and that has a direct relation
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to this meeting that was going to take place or possibly he's meeting some bad dudes and he doesn't want them knowing
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where he lives so hey I'll meet you at this church and I think you might have something there Captain because his
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parents seem to feel the same way that either somebody that knew he used to park there placed it there in a in some
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weird way to try to throw the investigation off or like you said maybe Keith drove the
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vehicle there himself he doesn't want these people to know where he lives for one reason or another and gets into
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their vehicle goes off with them whatever happened to Keith happens later away from the vehicle but maybe he
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leaves it there as some kind of signal to Mom and Dad that hey I I plac this vehicle here and I went off to do
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something and you need to come looking for me we should also touch on one thing before we move Mo too far along here
00:15:30
today Captain one is that the all the things and facts that we know about after Keith disappeared so he
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goes missing on that Sunday and it's all agreed upon by law enforcement and all involved that he's missing sometime
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between 11:45 p.m. on that Saturday night and before 6:00 a.m. when his vehicle is first spotted in that parking
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lot on Sunday morning later we would learn that Keith left approximately $100 in his savings
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account and he did have paychecks coming from the vehicles that he sold leading up to the time of his disappearance so
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he had money coming in those paychecks were never picked up we also know that he used his fiance's Fina credit card at
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the gas station when he was with his friends during the evening before his disappearance but there has never been
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any unaccounted for transactions on her account with that card since that night does that make you speculate that maybe
00:16:36
he was having some kind of money issues if he's using his girlfriend's credit card for a purchase he very well could
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have had some money issues and that's something that we spoke to his parents and law enforcement about and we kind of
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get a mixed bag of of answers here so the general thought is this he did have money coming in he was having success
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selling vehicles at work but we have the idea that he didn't have any cash on hand because he asked for a gasoline
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voucher and it's believed that he used that voucher to fill up the Mustangs gas tank on that Saturday evening we know
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that he used the fina gas card to purchase some snacks at a gas station that Saturday
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evening but he had money coming in the thing here though too is we say money problems but Keith didn't
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have a whole lot of bills he didn't have a whole lot of obligations he didn't have a vehicle that he had to pay for
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right cuz he's using the vehicles from the dealership his biggest expense was his new apartment which was
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approximately about $500 a month so not a super Hefty rent on his apartment and he doesn't really have any other bills
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remember he went to school on a scholarship so while he might have had a limited amount of money coming in he
00:18:04
also had a very limited amount of money going out and I don't know how his pay worked maybe it was one of those
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situations where he's getting a very low dollar an hour wage and then Commission
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on top or maybe he's just commission and those things you know maybe only and those types of jobs sometimes only pay
00:18:25
out the commission once a month uh who knows so yeah money's coming in right now so yeah
00:18:32
he has a job and he's making money but when he's is he actually going to receive that money again I keep going
00:18:39
back to this very basic idea you got to cut these things down to the most simplest idea sometimes and here I am
00:18:46
left with the idea that he hung out with Chris and Michelle and they said that he was
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meeting someone at 12:15 so either one of two things happened in my mind here either Chris and sh made up this meeting
00:19:00
and they are responsible for his disappearance or they dropped him off exactly like they said that night at
00:19:09
11:45 p.m. Keith had some kind of mysterious meeting with who we don't know where that's a good question what's
00:19:18
the meeting about an even better question we don't know the answers to that if in fact Chris and Michelle are
00:19:25
telling the truth then we have to believe that this meeting is probably responsible for the reason why Keith
00:19:33
vanished so we wanted to know from detective Laughlin if the people that witch Falls Police Department have
00:19:40
interviewed over the years if they have been Cooperative with the investigation here's his answer a yes and that's a yes
00:19:48
and no of course uh this because it's such a volumous list um there's going to be there's lots and lots of people that
00:19:54
have been Cooperative from the beginning the last two people that that were with
00:19:58
Keith have been Cooperative from the jump uh they were interviewed separately without hesitation uh took pass passed a
00:20:05
polygraph exam they didn't have anything to do with his disappearance or know where he might be which is of course
00:20:12
that's where everybody's going to look is uh who are the last people to see him um but just because they may have been
00:20:18
the last persons to see him or report to the police that they saw him obviously if something nefarious happened to Keith
00:20:25
then then technically they were not the last people to see him whoever did something to Keith was the last person
00:20:31
or persons to see him so there have been uh more persons on this long list of people to go back over and talk to that
00:20:42
have been uh Cooperative within the limitation of memory you know it's just something that
00:20:48
um at that time in their life or even now um wasn't a significant incident or issue they'll tell you everything that
00:20:56
they can remember about it but there's just only so far that they could go but they're still willing to cooperate and
00:21:02
there have been others that have not um they've either feigned cooperation that said yeah absolutely I want to help you
00:21:08
and then didn't follow through or follow up um so there's still more people to talk to and there's still more work to
00:21:16
be done I I do believe there are people um that were within this North Texas community at the time that teith
00:21:23
that Keith went missing that know something um and it's just matter of time before we identify them and
00:21:30
identify what if any knowledge they have or involvement they have so you think that Chris and Michelle have been
00:21:36
truthful but has there been anybody that can confirm their story about that night
00:21:42
yes they have been uh truthful and Cooperative from the beginning as I said um they would have been first persons
00:21:48
that the initial investigators talked with um and Then followed up with a polygraph exam which they uh agreed and
00:21:56
um Chris took one and once he took his and passed his he was Michelle was Chris's girlfriend and so she she knew
00:22:05
Keith because because Chris knew him and Chris would hang out they were co-workers they worked together Chris
00:22:11
and and Keith and so she would have known him through through that Arrangement and been around him whenever
00:22:16
he was around visiting with Chris so once Chris had passed his polygraph um and with this the the reported activity
00:22:24
of them all three being together they they didn't even um ask or get Michelle to take a polygraph it's not as if she
00:22:31
wouldn't or she didn't it's just they didn't see a need once uh Chris had agreed taken his and passed it they were
00:22:38
able to cooperate what they said based on their timeline of activity of course um just to make a quick rundown on I'm
00:22:45
not sure how much of it'll be covered in in your presentation but Chris and Keith
00:22:50
worked together at the Ford dealership that day I had previously I think I when I'd spoken to you before I may have even
00:22:57
given you an incorrect timeline there that he had worked from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. he actually worked from 9:00
00:23:02
a.m. to 6:00 p.m. um and when he got off work at 6 he took this demo 96 red Ford
00:23:08
Mustang home to his apartment he' only lived in that apartment for less than a month he moved in in April so it's just
00:23:15
just a little over a month had he been in that apartment and Chris took home this uh Nissan
00:23:22
Pathfinder as a demo and came over with Michelle to Keith's apartment and it would have been around 9:30 9:40 is in
00:23:31
the evening when they came over and and it was a plan to get together they're going to go riding around they're going
00:23:35
to go uh stop by a few different parties and just hang out with you know young people do this all the time again I we
00:23:42
get two colleges in our town It's Not Unusual at all for college kids or even uh seniors in high school to run around
00:23:49
and hang hang out at different people's places for different parties on the weekend so they stopped by a convenience
00:23:56
store and visional investigators found the charge rece receipt that uh Keith had used there to make a purchase and
00:24:02
they found the video recording that he was there to make that purchase they bought some beer and they went riding
00:24:08
around um when they took him back to his apartment uh they made a quick stop at a
00:24:14
car wash um to M to hose off all the mud that had been on their their Pathfinder
00:24:19
they went off-roading by the lake after they stopped by a party they were hosing
00:24:23
the mud off and at some point Keith makes mention to them during the evening that uh he needed to be home cuz he was
00:24:30
expecting to meet up with somebody later on and so they took him back to the apartment
00:24:37
uh they dropped him in the parking lot they saw him go up the stairs but they didn't watch him go into his apartment
00:24:41
and they left um later on um when Carrie Keith's girlfriend at the time got to witto Falls and got to the apartment the
00:24:51
next morning or next afternoon uh she had found some beers on the counter just as Chris and Michelle had said hey when
00:24:59
we dropped him off he he took one that he was already had open and he took a couple more for later on um she found
00:25:05
those there in the apartment um they she found clothing that had mud on it he had
00:25:11
gotten out of the truck to help wash it off and gotten some mud onto his pants and stuff she found that there in the
00:25:17
apartment and she noted that the bed had not been slept in so the sheets the bed
00:25:22
was made hadn't been pulled down there had been no Impressions that somebody had laid in that bed or slept there
00:25:28
and that's kind of where the whole thing started once Carrie found that on the afternoon of uh Sunday May the 11th
00:25:36
that's when she started calling around and checking with friends and and talking to he's father and stepmother
00:25:43
and even you know even they at the time thought well he might have tied one on and slept it off at somebody else's
00:25:50
place whoever he met up with um you know it could have just been he went out partying with somebody else and he had
00:25:57
too much to drink so he stayed at wherever he was at and they they checked at a few places they thought he might be
00:26:04
and didn't didn't find anybody that had seen him and didn't find him and it wasn't until um the following morning
00:26:11
which would have been Monday the 13th that it's like okay you know Keith would have at least checked in by now he's got
00:26:19
to be at work today um we concerned and that's when the police got notified [Music]
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00:28:49
support make sure you subscribe to the podcast and cheers to everybody and make sure that you join us back here in the
00:28:56
garage next week because we are going to have a very special and exciting announcement on next week's show so you
00:29:03
will not want to miss that trust me and before we draw any of our own conclusions here in the garage we wanted
00:29:10
to present to you some more answers from the active detective on Keith's case and
00:29:16
a follow-up question to the previous question was that we know according to law enforcement that Chris Michelle and
00:29:24
Carrie his fiance as well as Keith's family have all been Cooperative with the investigation as far as law
00:29:32
enforcement is concerned we wanted to know if there were other people other friends other acquaintances that were
00:29:38
involved in his life around the time of his disappearance if they were in fact Cooperative with police and their
00:29:46
investigation this would include anybody that would be in the witch Falls area that was a friend or acquaintance of
00:29:52
Keith's also former High School buddies of his yeah yeah when the uh Ranger uh when DPS got involved they uh they were
00:30:02
able to locate uh a good chunk of all the different folks that know him even since I've had it as a follow-up case
00:30:09
I've I've talked to some of his friends um yeah there hasn't again there's there's been a handful of people that
00:30:16
are either difficult to track down or locate um doesn't mean they're uncooperative we're just having a hard
00:30:20
time finding them there's been others that uh we have located that are uh no longer cooperating
00:30:27
um so there there are folks um from Keith's past that whether they know something and they're just not sharing
00:30:37
it or they had some kind of involvement in it it's still yet to be determined and still being investigated there's a
00:30:43
couple key pieces of information that are kind of hidden in those answers a little bit and we'll make them clear
00:30:50
right here so when they're doing their investigation when Witchita Falls Police Department are digging through through
00:30:57
Keith's life and the timeline leading up to his disappearance one thing we learned in one of those answers is that
00:31:04
the timeline that's been available to the public might be different than the actual timeline of the events that we
00:31:11
know that went down or that law enforcement knows that went down the big difference being that it's always been
00:31:17
reported in the public forum that Keith was at work from 9:00 a.m. to 900 p.m. on that Saturday and then he goes
00:31:26
missing at after he hangs out with his friends what the detective said there which changes that big time is that he
00:31:34
is saying their information shows that Keith was at work from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. so we now have an additional 3
00:31:42
hours of that evening that we don't know exactly what was going on we don't have
00:31:48
answers to fill in the blanks of what was happening between that time period of 6:00 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. when he was
00:31:56
picked Up by Chris and Michelle there are a couple of things that we do know that occurred that day but it's hard to
00:32:05
feel confident about the time the time uh the times when these events occurred on that day knowing that our times have
00:32:13
shifted already on that day so we know that after work that he gassed up the Mustang and we also know that he spoke
00:32:20
with his fiance at some point via a telephone call so we know those two things happen it just gets very
00:32:28
difficult Captain to put a Time marker on both of those items when we now have an additional 3 hours to fill in that
00:32:36
timeline on that Saturday what we have to remember about Keith is that he went away for college but now he's back so
00:32:43
he's back at his old stomping grounds four years of high school there playing sports doing well pretty popular guy so
00:32:53
now that Circle of individuals that we have to look at is getting even bigger and we know that when he was back in
00:32:59
town he was hanging out with guys he used to hang out with in high school yeah and that's really interesting to me
00:33:05
here Captain because again it sounds like law enforcement believe Chris and Michelle's version of the events and
00:33:13
that's that they dropped him off and he had a meeting with somebody after they dropped him off who could that person be
00:33:20
we don't know but now that we know that police have these other people that they
00:33:25
are aware that he was hanging out with with that he was probably going out with in the evenings that now they have
00:33:31
people that they can look at to see who he possibly was meeting with that night and again I still think that this boils
00:33:38
down to either a Chris and Michelle know what happened to Keith or the person or
00:33:44
persons that he was meeting after they dropped him off know what happened to Keith well let's throw a little wrench
00:33:52
into this whole scenario though this could be a big Wrench It depends on who you talk to
00:33:57
well yes I agree so the rumor was that Keith was starting to gamble it's not really clear with who correct that's a
00:34:08
really tricky thing here because what we are told is that his parents this is something that they were not aware of
00:34:15
they didn't know that Keith was gambling on basketball that's the detail that they're able to fill in that Keith was
00:34:23
gambling on basketball around the same time that he went missing you brought up a good point we don't know with who was
00:34:30
this going on with people he knew from the car dealership at Ron Roberts Ford was this going on with his friends that
00:34:37
he's hanging out with in the in the evenings after work or is it going on with both groups it wouldn't be unheard
00:34:45
of for a young man to be gambling on sports with his friends or gambling with his co-workers on Sports especially when
00:34:52
we're talking about a car dealership or salese that's kind of it's a bit of a gamble itself that occupation when
00:35:01
you're living off of a commission check do we have any speculation on how much money he was betting well one thing
00:35:07
that's really interesting to me when when we're trying to figure out the details of this idea because now you
00:35:13
bring in to a whole separate mix of people that he could have been meeting with that night after Chris and Michelle
00:35:20
dropped him off could this meeting have to do simply with his gambling could it have been a friend of a friend or
00:35:27
somebody that he didn't really know or a bookie somebody that he was going through to make these
00:35:33
bets we know that it's been reported that he was betting on basketball and again his parents didn't learn this
00:35:41
until quite some time after he went missing the police found this during the course of their investigation and
00:35:48
interviewing people that knew Keith one thing that we do know that took place is
00:35:54
that at some point Keith tells his fiance that he had made a wager on a on some basketball bats or a basketball bet
00:36:06
he had placed a wager or Wagers and that he was going if he won he would have enough money to pay their rent for a
00:36:16
couple or a few months it's a little unclear 25 years later what his exact words were that could be a lot of
00:36:23
cheddar this brings up the obvious question of how well do we think that the people that worked with Keith at Ron
00:36:32
Roberts Ford were interviewed and vetted at the time when this investigation first kicked off we do know from law
00:36:39
enforcement that they really took a good hard look at these individuals in 1997 and then in 2002 when the state got
00:36:48
involved in the investigation as well we wanted to hear from the detective how well were these individuals at Ron
00:36:55
Roberts Ford interviewed early in this investigation yeah I trust uh implicitly that the investigators that work before
00:37:03
me I do not question any of their work and um what they did with their interviews and the people that did take
00:37:09
and past polygraphs back then and how they vetted that I I'm confident in in what in their work um but I will do just
00:37:18
as I just as I was telling Mike I'm going to go back over this list again and if there's anybody on there even if
00:37:23
they've already spoken to someone I'd like to hear it myself and I'd like to go back over it to make
00:37:28
sure that I'm not missing anything and we do have something new that's going to help us in our investigation as the
00:37:36
25-year anniversary of the day that Keith went missing is approaching can you fill us in on that detective I have
00:37:44
met with uh our Crim Stoppers coordinator and he met with the board of directors for our crimes Stoppers and
00:37:50
they have agreed to raise the reward for information leading to the whereabouts of Keith um as confirmed through DNA
00:37:57
analysis to $25,000 I mean this is a very difficult missing person case because we have a
00:38:05
timeline that's altered we have individual stories that are incomplete at best you know we hung out with this
00:38:12
guy all night he was supposed to meet somebody after we dropped him off who was this person he was supposed to meet
00:38:19
I don't know I don't remember you have the new job you have the new fiance you have the new apartment you have him
00:38:28
driving different Vehicles again that that makes it a lot more just the fact that he drove multiple Vehicles makes it
00:38:37
that much more difficult of a case to figure out I think chances are if you're meeting somebody that late at night it's
00:38:45
not for the best of reasons and if what his fiance is saying is true and he could have won a bunch of
00:38:53
money that me he bet a bunch of money it didn't seem like he had it in his own pocket at the time so then does he
00:39:01
become collateral damaged cuz he can't pay up well I'd like to say captain that you hit the nail on the head I can't
00:39:09
though because the problem here in this case and it's something you're pointing out right there very astutely there's
00:39:14
too many damn Nails in this case when you look at somebody who goes missing or they are a victim of a homicide you
00:39:22
first want to take a look at what is going on in their life that may be different from when everything was
00:39:28
peaches and cream right and you hit a lot of those Nails on the head the new apartment the fiance moving in the new
00:39:36
job he's running around with some of his old friends from high school and he's gambling on basketball these are all
00:39:44
things that were relatively new in Keith's life that were new leading up to the point of his disappearance we know
00:39:52
that because all of these things took place after he moved back home from college in January so 5 months earlier
00:40:00
within the last 5 months all of these things are new there's a lot of moving pieces and parts in Keith's life and it
00:40:08
gets really difficult to narrow down on what direction we should be looking at so I look at this case and I see just
00:40:15
what you said captain could this this has to do with one of those pieces in my opinion it has to do with either the new
00:40:22
job the new apartment the gambling hanging out with the old crew now let's go to the gambling for a little bit
00:40:30
because lucky for all of us here in the garage we have somebody that's pretty well has has good experience doing that
00:40:42
on both a legal and illegal front and if law enforcement is listening trust me I
00:40:50
have gambled on uh Sports illegally but it was so long ago that this statute of limitations would never hold up all the
00:40:59
charges have expired yeah it was back in 1907 that's correct I lost a fortune now basically there the the reason why
00:41:09
Sports gambling in a casino is so much better than going through a bookie is because in a casino it all happens the
00:41:16
same way you don't have to guess what the guy is up to how his system is what your costs are what your fees are it's
00:41:25
all laid out there for you black and white you can look at the numbers you can read the newspaper you can find the
00:41:30
numbers online and you know exactly what you're going to pay you know exactly what you're going to win it's very easy
00:41:37
you go in you place your bet there's no problems you go back and you cash in your ticket or you throw it away
00:41:43
depending on the outcome of the game and the outcome of your wager if you are going through a bookie now they all have
00:41:50
a slightly different system but the usual system and the usual way that this works is your basically doing a double
00:41:57
or nothing gamble every single time so to break it down and make it simple to those that have never experienced this
00:42:06
let's say you were to gamble on a basketball game this afternoon and you liked the Chicago Bulls all right you're
00:42:14
going to give up some points if you go through a bookie if you go to a casino you can bet the money line which no
00:42:20
points are involved or you could get the points involved that's neither here nor
00:42:24
there what we're going to focus on is the illegal aspect of it because of what law enforcement and his family are
00:42:31
saying he was gambling illegally Sports gambling in 1997 was not legal in the state of Texas so going through a bookie
00:42:40
you're basically going double or nothing so if you were to wager $100 you risk losing all 100 for the
00:42:51
chance at winning $200 now if you lose you have to pay juice and juice is typically 10 to 15%
00:43:01
10% being the majority of the time 90% of the time you're going to pay 10% juice so you can make a $100 wager with
00:43:09
the hope to win $200 or you can lose your $100 and have to pay an additional $10 fee for placing the bet with the
00:43:19
bookie make sense pretty simple right I am picking up what you're putting down let's go back to Keith's words cuz when
00:43:26
we look at this and and we say all right maybe this gambling is what caused his disappearance I'm not going to rule that
00:43:34
out completely but I'm just trying to add a little more information to that angle his words to his Fon was that if I
00:43:43
win this bet I'll win enough money to cover the rent for a few months right she never
00:43:52
says what dollar amount he thinks that he's going to win but his words were that I could pay the rent we won't have
00:43:58
to worry about the rent for a few months we know from his family that he was paying approximately $500 a month for
00:44:04
rent so let's use his words we won't have to pay the rent for a few months 3 months four months that's $1,500 to
00:44:12
$2,000 at best that means that his wager with a bookie would have been for $750 cash or $11,000 cash double or
00:44:22
nothing plus the juice if he loses what I'm getting at here to me that does not seem like the amount of money to take
00:44:31
someone's life usually these individuals are dead set on collecting the money it
00:44:37
gets really difficult for them to collect the money from you if they kill you and you don't have that money on
00:44:44
your person Keith had money coming in from his job and he was doing good at his job so my thought goes to maybe the
00:44:54
reverse Maybe it's not a situation where he was losing this wager and someone came to collect but what about the
00:45:03
reverse where the money is doubled he won and he won and he went to collect and all of a sudden somebody's not such
00:45:10
a good bookie and they don't want to pay him maybe an altercation breaks out I guess the same would be true on the
00:45:18
reverse of that as well but we should also look at this at the idea of maybe he won that wager I have a difficult
00:45:24
time believing that this had much to do with a basketball bet because it was May 10th when he went
00:45:32
missing easy enough for us there's not a whole lot of basketball that's being played on May 10th it's the NBA playoffs
00:45:40
and that's it there's no college basketball there's no regular season games on May 10th it's all playoff
00:45:48
basketball well on that day on Saturday the Bulls played the Hawks at noon the Jazz played the Lakers at 2:30 p.m. this
00:45:58
is all Witchita Falls Texas time one thing that we do know that happened that day again we can't put a
00:46:06
Time marker on it because our timeline has altered based off of the detective's words he called his fiance spoke with
00:46:13
her via telephone after he was off work on that Saturday that could have been as
00:46:19
early as 600 p.m. could has could have been as late as 9:30 p.m. before Chris and Michelle picked him up the problem
00:46:27
with that phone call then becomes this if his words are if we win I can cover the rent for a few months the problem
00:46:36
with that statement regardless of what time we put that phone call at 6:00 at the earliest or 9:30 p.m. at the latest
00:46:45
both of those games are over for the day so he must have been talking about a wager that he was going to make on
00:46:51
Sunday which doesn't make any sense that it would have anything to do with him going missing because he went missing
00:46:58
Saturday night so the gambling thing certainly throws a wrench into it but I wonder if it's just a red herring that
00:47:04
has nothing to do with why we don't know where he is right well it also makes it
00:47:10
again more difficult cuz it's not like we have somebody coming out and saying we know for a fact that he was meeting
00:47:16
with his bookie or meeting with somebody that was involved in this gambling and because he went to high
00:47:23
school there he has a bunch of old friends that he could have met up with bunch of old acquaintances he could have
00:47:30
met up with and who's to say he didn't meet up with a female that night you really have to leave everything on the
00:47:38
table here in this case until you can start Crossing some of them off and that's why I wanted to try to and I know
00:47:44
that I didn't completely but try to cross off maybe this gambling the thing that's difficult though here too captain
00:47:51
and I trust detective Laughlin he's got a stellar record he's a Cold Case detective who has cleared four cases
00:48:00
which I don't know that the general public know how difficult clearing cold cases are but this man in his unit have
00:48:07
cleared four and we say unit and he says you know I've done this with the help of
00:48:13
my fellow men and women that I work with but at the same time you hear him say in
00:48:18
his introduction I'm really the only one in this unit so he's done a damn good job over the years clearing these cold
00:48:25
cases but one thing that I have a difficult time with is when I hear that witch Falls has
00:48:33
cleared that's kind of his words that we've moved on past Chris and Michelle who we know that he
00:48:40
was seen with that night the reason why I can't move on from Chris and Michelle is the fact that we are told
00:48:48
that Chris took a polygraph test in passed and he's been Cooperative Michelle has been Cooperative but she
00:48:54
was never asked to take a polygraph test don't email me and tell me what big batch of [ __ ] polygraph tests are I
00:49:02
understand what they are what I'm saying is if you are using them to eliminate people then we need to look at it as
00:49:08
such one took one one was not asked to take one the problem with that is if you are going to believe the one that took
00:49:16
one that both of their stories are right based off of that polygraph and their cooperativeness well then the other
00:49:24
person should have taken one to who's to say that this Chris fella that he worked with at Ron Roberts is in some
00:49:30
kind of closeted psychopath that has the ability to untruthfully answer these questions and
00:49:39
pass the polygraph test and the reason why I Circle back to that is because the only
00:49:45
people that say the only people in Keith's entire life that say that he was meeting anyone at all that night was
00:49:54
Chris and Michelle we need to figure out how truthful that item is because if that is truthful then
00:50:01
that means Chris and Michelle had nothing to do with it and whoever Keith was meeting had something to do with his
00:50:07
disappearance now Chris and Michelle would have had the ability to Stage his apartment to
00:50:13
make it look like he had returned that night again it's only Chris and Michelle's word that they dropped off
00:50:20
Keith and that he was walking up to his apartment but we never saw him go in they say he had the meeting they say
00:50:27
they dropped him off the evidence at the room at his apartment makes it appear like Keith came back to the apartment
00:50:33
that night but the problem with that becomes what is the evidence that the door was locked that there were beers on
00:50:41
the counter that there were cloth there were clothes on the bathroom floor the bed wasn't slept
00:50:47
in uh me and the captain could lock that door Place beers on the counter and put
00:50:51
clothing on the bathroom floor well and on top of that because there's two of them hey uh meet me down at the church
00:50:59
let's move his vehicle and we have his parents who said that Chris would have known that Keith parked Vehicles there
00:51:06
at that spot now I I want to be clear not trying to point a big giant finger at Chris and Michelle I'm just simply
00:51:14
saying that I don't think that we can move on from either of them yet I think that a good followup would be to keep
00:51:22
them on the possible list because until until both have been polygraphed if that's going to be your method of
00:51:29
clearing people then we need to polygraph both of these individuals again I do feel confident in what the
00:51:35
detective is telling us so I don't want to stay on this too much the other outside Factor here is what was going on
00:51:43
at Ron Roberts Ford we know that he had worked there for about 8 weeks before he went missing and there have
00:51:54
been rumors about about this dealership throughout wit all falls for 25 years for the entirety time for the
00:52:03
entire time that Keith has been missing some of these rumors include that some of the individuals working there were
00:52:10
involved in Narcotics were involved in the movement of drugs maybe even using those vehicles to transport
00:52:18
drugs there's even been rumors that when they built or renovated the place that Keith might be buried
00:52:25
at the location these things throw a whole another big wrench into this story could it be as simple as Keith
00:52:35
took the wrong car that somebody had stashed a bunch of something in that trunk of that car and Keith signed it
00:52:42
out not knowing that he had taken someone's stash or moved something that he wasn't supposed to move or something
00:52:48
that somebody needed access to right away it's a very difficult case and again there's too many nails to hit the
00:52:55
right one on the head the thing that I can't get over is the movement of the car I'm supposed to meet somebody up
00:53:02
again not clear if it was supposed to be at his new apartment or if he's going somewhere to meet them up but to me oh
00:53:10
I'll meet you at the parking lot of the church that well that's a good place for
00:53:15
you to pay me my money or for me to pay you the money but I don't think he had money he was working at this job for not
00:53:22
a long time these are commission-based jobs or at least a portion of your pay is commission based and so it seems like
00:53:29
he was in some need to get some fast money and whether that was to do a job of moving drugs or that was through this
00:53:40
gambling but I think the movement of the car is really important and because there are so many different avenues that
00:53:48
this investigation could take that is why Witchita Falls Police Department needs your help that is why more
00:53:55
importantly Keith Man's family you heard his father and his stepmother you heard
00:54:00
the emotion the Heartbreak in their voices that is why his family Keith's family needs your help because law
00:54:08
enforcement is convinced and I am as well and so is the captain that it's been 25 years and that somebody whoever
00:54:16
is responsible for what happened to Keith on that night they've probably told somebody and there are other people
00:54:23
that weren't responsible for what happened to Keith that know what happened to Keith that they've heard
00:54:29
rumors or been told stories and for whatever reason they've not felt comfortable
00:54:36
coming forward with that information Now's the Time it's 25 years later give the family some hope allow this father
00:54:46
to bring his son home after all of these years make a phone call or submit your tip online the reward has been increased
00:54:56
to $25,000 simply for the location of Keith's remains they don't even have to bring
00:55:03
charges against somebody to pay out that reward they just want to bring Keith home and before we close out we'll have
00:55:12
detective Laughlin tell you the best place to send your information okay straight to me is my my phone number is
00:55:20
940 761 7762 and that's to the CIS secretaries and then they will transfer the call to
00:55:31
me they can email me my email address Mike you we've exchanged emails so you have that just john. Laughlin wfpd
00:55:40
doet and then if they want to remain anonymous uh there's two things they can do they can call our Crim
00:55:47
Stoppers um which is 322 9888 or if they're call calling uh long distance the toll-free number I think is
00:55:59
uh 1 800 322 9888 we also have a Crimestoppers website it is WF crime.com it's always good when we can
00:56:11
talk to individuals involved in the cases whether it's law enforcement or family members so we want to give both
00:56:18
of them thanks in this case somebody saw something somebody knows something somebody heard something please come
00:56:25
forward with [Music] information thank you so much for joining us here in the garage and thank
00:56:45
you for being quiet during the taping of the show so everybody else can hear us out there if you need more True Crime
00:56:52
garage for your earballs check out our bonus show it's called off the Record LeBron James gives it two thumbs
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00:57:06
nice compliment get that bonus show on Stitcher premium $5 a month people and you get some extra goodness but Colonel
00:57:16
do we have any recommended reading for this week uh yes we do Captain this week we got some recommended listening please
00:57:22
listen to the criminology podcast asked we did this last year Captain when we teamed up with the missing persons pod
00:57:30
when in the same week to bring as much awareness to a case as we possibly could well we here at the garage and the
00:57:39
missing person's pod both covered the Paige coffee missing person's case out of the Greater Cleveland area
00:57:47
unfortunately Paige is still missing and we still very much need the Public's help in that one this week check out the
00:57:55
criminology podcast hosted by the two miks good friend of the show of our show Mike Morford he's the Zodiac the man
00:58:04
that knows all things zodiac they will be releasing an indepth look at the case that we just covered the Keith man
00:58:11
missing person's case so please please check that out check out our friends at the criminology podcast you can find
00:58:18
that recommendation and many more on our recommended page at true Crim garage.com thank you so much for
00:58:26
listening make sure you subscribe and until next week be good be kind and don't [Music]
00:58:53
l [Music] is it possible to predict the unpredictable can 3D printed life-size organ models help to map out complex
00:59:16
surgeries ahead of time is it possible it already is right here Mayo Clinic you know where to go