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[Music] Welcome to True Crime Garage. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, thanks
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for listening. I'm your host, Nick, and with me as always is a man who is mentally spicy. Here is the captain.
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>> My hot sauce flavor would be the bomb. It's good to be seen and good to see you. Thanks for listening. Thanks for
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telling a friend. >> Today we are drinking Little Heaven by the hardworking folks at Two Roads
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Brewing Company. Lil Heaven is a session IPA, meaning it has the typical great boldness of a traditional IPA, but a
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lower ABV. Lil Heaven is made with three exotic hop varieties, and they added in
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tastes of passion fruit, grapefruit, and apricot. making for one hell of a good heavenly brew. ABV 4.8% garage grade
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three and three/4er bottle caps out of five. And let's give some thanks and praise to our good friends for helping
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us fill up the old garage fridge for this week. First up, a long-distance cheers to Cat in Hungary who was kind
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enough not to ask us to read the city name because I would struggle mightily, my friends. And a big we like to jib
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goes to Andrew from West Hartford, Connecticut. >> Next, we have a shout out to Angela
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Hudgens in Western Montana. >> And a big tall cans in the air to Morgan from Albany, New York. And here we go,
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Captain. Here's a cheers to Megan and Glenshaw, Pennsylvania. And last, but certainly not least, we have Kelly from
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September. If you're still considering going and you want to get tickets, use our code TCG. Save yourself a little
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cash. And thanks to everybody who contributed to the beer fund. >> Yeah, bw. Beer run. Check out trueg.com.
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While you're there, sign up on the mailing list. And Colonel, that's enough. The B is the
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>> All right, everybody. Gather around, grab a chair, grab a beer. Let's talk some true crime.
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[Music] Evan Lache Ross was 11 years old. Friends and family called her Sheay andor Sha Shay. She was described as a
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friendly and obedient child. Several sites and online posters say that Sheay was a sweet girl who adored her father
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and was known as the peacekeeper in the family. On Tuesday, August 19th, 2003, what would become a stormy morning, Shay
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Shay set out solo on foot, walking to the morning pickup bus stop. She never arrived.
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Something happened between home and the bus stop, and it seems she was intercepted and removed quickly from the
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area. A very small window of just a few minutes remains. is the time frame in question.
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A few minutes that turned into years and then decades of wondering what happened
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to Heaven Lache Ross. This is True Crime Garage. Heaven Lache Ross was born June 11,
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1992. We talked a bit about Sheay, her personality, and good nature during the trailer for this week's true crime
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story. known as Shay or Shay Shay to family and friends. She loved bike riding, swimming, basketball, and her
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favorite restaurant was Red Lobster. And she was a hugger. A big hugger. >> I love those Red Lobster rolls.
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>> Mom, her name is Beth Lowry or Beth Thompson. She remarried at some point. And she says of Sheay that she was
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spoiled in a good way as she was the baby of the family. One of Shea's teachers talking about the little girl
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wrote, "I had the amazing privilege of knowing your daughter. She touched my heart with her sweet spirit and hugs. It
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always made my day to get a hug from her." End quote. So, for this week's true crime story here, Captain, we are
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going down to Northport, which is a city in Tuscaloosa County in western central
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Alabama. This is located on the Black Warrior River across from downtown Tuscaloosa. The 2020 census tells us
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that we have a little over 31,000 people living there. But more importantly, where our story starts off and our
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timeline starts off, we have considerably less than that with about 21,000 people. That's because we are
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going to go back way back to 2003, 22 years ago. In August of 2003, little Sha Shay is living with her mother Beth
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Lowry. Kevin Thompson, her stepdad, who she considered to be her dad, both due to their closeness and the long-term
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nature of Kevin and Beth's relationship. They had been together for years, and Sheay was only 11 at this time. Also in
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the home is Shea's older sister, Alex. Now, some articles refer to her as Jaime. As I understand it, Jaime is her
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first name, but back then, 20 years ago, she went by Alex, an abbreviation of her
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middle name. They lived at the Willow Brook Trailer Park, which is an all ages manufactured home community located at
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2823 Hunter Creek Road in Northport. They are lot number 25. Sheay is in the sixth grade attending Collins Riverside
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Middle School located at 14003rd Street in Northport, Alabama. Let's start our timeline off in the
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early morning hours of Tuesday, August 19th, 2003. This was Sha's first few days as a sixth
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grader at Collins Riverside Middle School. It would become a stormy morning after she set off for the bus stop down
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the street from the family's mobile home in Willowbrook trailer park. Starting at
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6:00 a.m. at the 6:00 a.m. hour, the stepdad Kevin says that the girls and everyone in the house slept normal and
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through the night. As we said, August 19th was a Tuesday, a school day. So, starting between 6:00 and 6:30, Kevin
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wakes up the girls. They each have their own rooms. The girls start getting ready
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for school. Kevin then lays back down in bed with Beth, who is still asleep. Now,
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I won't pretend to know the family's typical routines, but what I do know per the family's words, two things. One, it
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was not abnormal for Kevin to get the kids up and off to school in the morning. And two, Beth had been working
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a lot lately. This is like several long shifts in a row, many days in a row. And
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because of that, on this morning, Kevin agreed to step up to the plate, get the girls up and off for the day.
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>> Yeah. One of the things I I was wondering when looking at this case, was the mother working overtime because they
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were tight on money, or was it a situation where she worked at a job that if they told you you had mandatory
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overtime that you had to work? the overtime. >> When you have two kids, you're always
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tight on money. So, that's probably part of the equation. But, I believe this she
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started a new job recently and she had had one or two previous jobs. I wonder if there was some overlap between
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starting the new job and still being committed to the old jobs, right? As you transition out, sometimes you give two
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weeks notice if you're responsible, if you care about your resume. I've even given several months notice before uh
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for people that I've worked for very long for and and had a great relationship with. So, I think that it's
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a matter of she's kind of transitioning into this new position. I think she took
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this new job just a couple weeks before our timeline starts. It might even be as
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much as a month before. You can find a bunch of different versions of this morning timeline in old newspaper
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articles and online. And I'm not I don't say this to be overly critical of the reporting on this case, but I cannot
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stand how brief and vague these reports are. You will often hear me sending out kudos to the different news outlets when
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they have great coverage. This case thankfully did receive a lot of media attention. Something that we can only
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hope for for every case out there, God forbid. But I think a more detailed timeline of that morning could have
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helped to eliminate a lot of the confusion and the misconceptions from the public about this case. If we
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can do only one thing here today, Captain, I hope that it is to have us clearing up some of the information and
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us cleaning up any of the confusion and those misconceptions about this story. Most of the cases that we cover here,
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the timeline is absolutely crucial. That's typical. It's a no-brainer. But here, it is the most important part of
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this case. So, please listen up and pay attention. Digging in here, the girls are up and
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getting ready. At 6:50 a.m., Alex, the older sister, she's 13 years old at this time. She leaves the house to walk down
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to the bus stop. The two girls share the same bus stop, and they share this bus stop with several other kids that live
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in the neighborhood as well. >> Right. Most articles say 6:50 a.m. I believe that it would be most
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appropriate to adjust that to 6:50 to 6:55 a.m. that Alex leaves the home. And my adjustment will make more sense as we
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go through the information. Most reports states that Sheay then left the home after Alex with Sheay leaving at 6:55
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a.m. I question that time stamp. The key here is absolutely 100% we know that Alex left first, then minutes later
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Sheay leaves. That's not in question. It's just the time stamps that are in question. On this morning, Captain Sheay
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is wearing hot pink shorts and shirt, blue shoes, and she's carrying her yellow and gray book bag. Now, mom says
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that her book bag, Sha's book bag, contains Shaya's math and science books and a folder for her schoolwork. And mom
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says she knows this because the night before her and Sheay were cleaning out and organizing that book bag
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>> and the bus stop is roughly 50 yards or so from their house. >> That is every report says 50 yards.
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Kevin, the stepdad later says that that Tuesday morning, Sheay was in a cheerful
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mood. The last thing that she said before leaving for the day was, quote, "I love you, Daddy. I'll see you in a
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little while." Now, as the story is often told, at 6:55 a.m., Sheay left home that morning to
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make that short walk to the bus stop, as the captain pointed out, 50 yards roughly. Then a storm erupted a few
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minutes later and at 7:01 a.m. Kevin after hearing the storm roll in, he leaves the trailer. He
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went to go pick the girls up from the bus stop because of the weather. >> Anybody that was a kid that had a bus
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stop knows this all too well. If your bus is supposed to get there at 7:00, it might be 5 minutes early. It might be
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10, 15 minutes late. So, you could be out in that thunderstorm for 10 or 15 minutes waiting for the bus to come.
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>> Yeah. And this is one of those thunderstorms where you can hear it from inside your home, right? You you know
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that there's trouble a brewing because you can hear it rolling in just like Kevin said. And I did a little checking
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on this trailer park, this neighborhood in particular, and it was prone to flooding. There were many people that
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would say that it would flood once or twice a year just because of the landscape kind of the layout. So if you
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get this big storm rolling in it double trouble for you if you live in this neighborhood. So as said she left the
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house about let's say about 7 a.m. and we'll find out that that seems to be more accurate. Her older sister Alex 13
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had left earlier. That's not in question. The bus stop is on Hunter Creek Road in front of their trailer
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park. Just after Shay left the house, a large clap of thunder bmed overhead and Kevin sprung into action. He decided on
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the spot to drive Sheay and the older sister, Alex, who was already at the bus stop to school instead.
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When Kevin drives up to this bus stop, he finds Alex there, but discovers that Sheay for some reason had not shown up
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and is nowhere in sight. >> Yeah. So, my first question was, did Sheay even leave the house? But it seems
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like we have eyewitnesses that spot her going to the bus stop. Yes, I struggled with those eyewitnesses for a good deal
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of time when examining this. >> Why was that? >> It it'll be it'll be more clear as we go
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through. The point here is based off of these timelines that are often put out, she seemingly vanished during a span of
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just 6 minutes. Now, that seems like pure insanity, but keep in mind when we covered the
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Amber Hagermanerman case, that was reported as what, Captain? 8 to 9 minutes time that she vanished
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>> or the Mara Murray case, that's very short time period. The Brian Shaver case, a very short time period. While it
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may seem on the surface to be pure insanity and could not be accurate at all, we're here to tell you this is not
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the first time that we've experienced such a small window of time that is in question. Yeah, but you know what's
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extra bonker butts is not just a 6-minute time period, but the distance. It's 50 yards.
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That's not that far of a distance. It's not like, well, my sister left to go to the bus stop and it's a half a mile away
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and and then the dad leaves to go pick them up in his car and I'm guessing he headed down the same path that Shay
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should have went down. So, that's just extra bonkers. >> Yeah. So, if you look up the trailer
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park on a map and where the bus stop is located is on Hunter Creek Road. So, Hunter Creek Road comes in off of Hunter
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Creek Road comes in off of McFarland Boulevard. And another road there that would be of importance is Watermelon
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Road. So going off of memory here, Captain, the Hunter Creek Road, where the bus stop is located, runs from
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McFarland to Watermelon, and I believe it continues on. But the key here is trying
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to paint a picture for all the listeners out there. Hunter Creek Road, off of Hunter Creek
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Road to go into any of the lots, the parking lots if you want to call it, for the trailer park. Each one of these
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lots, it's one way in and one way out. All roads leading to Hunter Creek Road. So, it only stands to reason that Kevin
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Thompson, unless he hopped in his monster truck and decided to drive over top of several trailers, he went
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straight down the same path that the girls walked to get to that bus stop. So, that's how the story has been told.
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And it is, some may say, very accurate. I say that it is fairly accurate. Time and distance is everything in this case.
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It's absolutely everything. Now, back to the story. Her stepfather, Kevin Thompson, he's 32 back then. And again,
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he said he went outside to drive the girls to school because of the oncoming storm. He says that when he couldn't
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find Shay, he went inside the house back home. He shook Beth awake and said something to the effect of, "Baby, did
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she come back in the house?" "No," the mother says. Why? And Kevin says, "I can't find her." Then
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the three of them, Kevin, Beth, and Alex, they all drive to the school off to Collins Riverside Middle School
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together. Once there, Beth says that she runs up to bus number three. This is Sha's bus. The driver said she never saw
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Shay that morning at all. So Sheay's not on the bus. Driver never saw her. Mom says, Beth says that as soon as Kevin
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woke her up, said that he couldn't find Shay. She just just something in her gut
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told her that something was terribly wrong. >> Right. >> So there mom is in full on panic mode
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right here. Mother intuition stepping in saying there's something serious going on here. She's desperately trying to
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find her little daughter right out of the gate. Well, and I think one of the problems too is if you think that the
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the father, the stepfather had something to do with this or that the mother had something to do with this, you have to
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remember that the older sister, there was even if you take that 6 minute gap and turn it into 10 minutes, that's not
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a lot of time for the stepfather or the mom to do something and hide the child and and basically cover up all your
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tracks so nobody else in the family is suspicious. So if you think that one of the parents is involved, you almost have
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to think that both of the parents in are involved and also the sister is involved.
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>> Yeah. So let's throw another wrinkle into all of that as well. So once at the
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school after they talked to the bus driver, Beth calls the Northport Police Department. She reported that there was
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a problem and that her little girl was missing. This next part is reported two different ways. One, police met the
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parents at the school and then followed them home back to the trailer park. Two,
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police told the parents to return home and they will meet them there and did so. It's hard for us to say going off of
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simple reporting which is more accurate. Regardless of which is the true statement, police are back at the home
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with the parents very quickly. I actually believe the more logical sequence of events here is that the
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police tell them go back home and we will meet you there. And I say that because of of several things. One, the
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two most likely places that this 11year-old girl would be is school or the bus. The bus is at the school. She's
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neither at the school nor the bus. Bus driver never saw her. We law enforcement are going to want to go to your home and
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talk to you there, get the information there and search your home. >> Right. Because it's a possible crime
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scene. >> Exactly. So, what I would be telling the parents if I'm the one taking the call
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or the responding officer, I'm telling them, look, and I think it's like three miles between the distance of the home
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and the school. So, I would be telling the parents, "Look, I think you guys should return home because if she, let's
00:22:06
say she decided to, you know what, I'm going to fart around. I I'll go play with some kids or I'll go check
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something out or go exploring, whatever, and she happens to miss the bus. She's she's going to go back home and either
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enter the home if it's unlocked or if she has a key or she's going to be sitting on the front porch hopefully
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somewhere sheltered out of the rain waiting for somebody to take her to school or let her into the home.
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>> I agree. >> So naturally, you should go home anyway if you've already covered your bases at
00:22:35
the school. So we will meet you at the home and I want to search their home. So that seems the most logical
00:22:43
of the two options here. So with that in mind, the parents return home very quickly. The the trailer park will be
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swarming with law enforcement officers from the Northport Police Department. What we're told here is that police
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spoke to various residents at the mobile home park. They learned, like the captain had said, that a few neighbors
00:23:07
had seen Sheay that morning walking by herself toward the bus stop. No one reported seeing her with anyone, nor did
00:23:17
anyone report seeing her get into a vehicle. The other part of this that is very problematic is you have mom and
00:23:26
stepdad who are adamant when talking with police that she would not get into a stranger's car willingly. She wouldn't
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go with anybody unless she knew them. They even say she wouldn't get in someone's vehicle unless she knew them
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very well. So, police are combing through Sha's room. This is in the back of the mobile home, looking for clues,
00:23:50
leads, or anything. You're also looking for the little girl. Kids hide, right? Sometimes there's been several missing
00:23:58
kid cases where police show up and they find the kid in a closet, hiding in the basement, or at a friend's house. This
00:24:06
is all very common stuff. Unfortunately, none of this was the case here. And as I
00:24:12
understand it, they didn't find any clues or leads as to where she may have gone or why she was gone to begin with
00:24:21
when she did not return home by the time that school was over for the day. Now, a
00:24:27
full-scale investigation was launched. And some people point at this as a big misstep. And and look, it this is not a
00:24:36
perfect investigation. I'm not going to tell you that. Very few of them are. I will tell you that. But here with this
00:24:44
case, what I think that we're looking at is police are probably while they are actively working the case looking for
00:24:52
the little girl. There's also a thought by, well, we're not going to call in every resource that we have because if
00:25:00
this kid decided to just skip school, it would be natural for her to return by the end of school to her home because
00:25:10
all she pulled the wool over mom and dad's eyes and went out and did whatever for the day. But at some point, she has
00:25:17
to be home. So, if she wants to try to sell it to mom and dad that she went to school that day, she's going to return
00:25:23
home after school. She does not. I really wish that she would have, but she did not. And then a fullscale
00:25:30
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00:28:59
Colonel. >> Cheers to you and cheers to everybody out there. Cheers to the folks that are
00:29:03
going to Crime Con this year. It is inching its way here and I'm very much looking forward to it and to seeing
00:29:09
everybody. Heaven Lache Ross at the time of her disappearance was 4 feet 6 in tall, weighing approximately 100 lb,
00:29:17
brown eyes, red hair. She was wearing a hot pink shirt with Bratz that some people may remember the Bratz brand. So
00:29:26
the Bratz were on the front of this shirt. She's also wearing hot pink shorts and a light blue canvas shoes and
00:29:33
carrying a book bag. At first, Northport police were treating Shea's disappearance as a missing person's case
00:29:41
rather than an abduction. The department also decided against issuing an Amber Alert as Shea's disappearance did not
00:29:48
meet the criteria for an Amber Alert to be issued at the time. Very quickly, authorities from both local police
00:29:57
agencies were involved. To recap, on August 19th, 2003, Heaven Lache Ross, an 11-year-old girl, disappears from the
00:30:05
Willowbrook trailer park in Northport, Alabama while on her way to the school bus stop. Later that day, a large-scale
00:30:13
search effort is launched by police, but it is initially yields few leads, if any. They were going door to door. A
00:30:21
little knock and talk action here. Near the bus stop, there was a business within view of the bus stop. This is
00:30:28
Steve's Grill and Billiards. So, police naturally go there. They collected all the video from Steve's hoping maybe to
00:30:36
pick up something from one of the outdoor cameras, but ultimately found nothing related to Shay. That was
00:30:43
Tuesday. By Thursday the 21st, now we have some road blocks set up in the area. We're stopping drivers. We're
00:30:51
asking questions, showing pictures of the little girl, hopefully searching cars. The local businesses jumped in in
00:30:58
a big way. In a very big way here, Captain the Wind Dixie donated yellow ribbons, you know, the return home
00:31:04
ribbons that teams of searchers pinned to their shirts. We had all kinds of volunteers show up to help search for
00:31:12
Shay. >> Well, this was a huge case in in that town. This is this is a pivotal moment.
00:31:18
Buddy's Food Mart immediately offered a $5,000 reward. The Olive Garden, the local Olive Garden, sent food for the
00:31:28
volunteers, for the searchers, for the families, even for the media people that were starting to gather. Kmart sent
00:31:34
snacks. Kinko's and Office Max and Quick Copy. They ran off tens of thousands of
00:31:42
missing flyers. And as said, several agencies including the Northport and Tuscaloosa police departments were
00:31:49
involved. After a couple of days, we get the FBI involved. We also get the Alabama Bureau of Investigation and the
00:31:56
Tuscaloosa County Sheriff's Department join forces in the search efforts for Sheay. Ultimately, none of this all of
00:32:04
this work led to finding the little girl. They never found her. And in fact, they didn't really find any trace of
00:32:14
where she had gone or any explanation as to thoughts of where she might be, even
00:32:20
speculation. There was a command center that was set up at the Northport Police Headquarters. I think they called it
00:32:26
Heaven's Team, something with her her first name, which was which was very smart. Members of the
00:32:33
local and the Birmingham and the national media were involved with some even camping out with family and friends
00:32:41
under tents at the trailer park waiting for any kind of update there. I can't remember what company, what box store it
00:32:50
was that donated these tents so that people could they would have a place to set up shop, so to speak, at the trailer
00:32:58
park, but be shielded from the August heat and sun a little bit, standing out there working together, trying to
00:33:07
formulate a plan as to where to search and who to call and all of these things that you're doing out of desperation in
00:33:14
these frantic moments. Do you know if they ever called in scent dogs? >> I would hope that they did
00:33:20
>> cuz I didn't see any report of that. >> There was. You're correct. I didn't see
00:33:25
any report of that either. Uh we also have that thunderstorm that rolled in very quickly. The scent dog thing is a
00:33:32
little difficult here and and I'm basing that off of what I think happened in this case. How h how much fruit would
00:33:42
that have bared? I don't know. I I I I don't know it would have not saying that you don't go to the effort. You always
00:33:50
go to every effort in the investigation, but I don't know how much it would have
00:33:55
panned out as far as leads go. And again, I'm I'm simply basing that off of what I believe happened here. And I
00:34:04
could be completely wrong. Even with what I think happened here, it could have it could have told you everything.
00:34:08
Talking about leads, you have the Tuscaloosa County Sheriff's Office. The division chief Lloyd Baker goes on
00:34:16
record very quickly saying, "We checked out every lead." You never know if someone is giving you a good lead under
00:34:22
a guise because they don't want to incriminate themselves or someone else. What he's referring to here, Captain, is
00:34:29
there were a lot of these reported possible sightings of Heaven Lachché Ross that were phoned into police. There
00:34:36
were a lot of tips that were being called in. Many of them were very strange and bizarre. I don't even care
00:34:42
to go down the road to tell you some of the the weirdness that I encountered when going through some of these tips
00:34:50
that were phoned in. But that's what he's referring to. He's like he's like, even if it's something crazy, we check
00:34:56
out the lead because we want to know. Of course, your number one goal is to find
00:35:02
the kid. Goal number two, when anybody's phoning in leads is, I want to know why
00:35:06
that person is calling. Did they just simply are they trying to be helpful and they may have seen something that could
00:35:11
be helpful to the investigation or are they connected to the missing person's case in some shape or fashion?
00:35:19
>> Right now, let's jump ahead just a couple weeks. So, let's get into September of 2003. We get a couple of
00:35:26
potentially positive things that happened for our investigation. The story is covered on America's Most
00:35:31
Wanted. The FBI had a member of the behavioral science unit sent to Northport working on the case. But we
00:35:38
also have some other situations play out in September as well that are not so good for our investigation. Actually, I
00:35:47
would say three important things that take place. This is from a.com and it reads, "The relationship between
00:35:55
the family and volunteers disintegrated as the case dragged on without a resolution." They say Lowry, but we'll
00:36:02
use her first name to keep things simple. Beth accused the head of the volunteer group of stealing $500 donated
00:36:10
by a church. And police were called to the volunteer center to resolve a shouting match that erupted between
00:36:18
family members of Shaes and the volunteers. Another thing that happened here is there was a fire, a house fire
00:36:28
that started in Shea's room a month after she disappears. >> Bizarre. >> The fire starts in her room. And the
00:36:36
report is that it destroyed furniture in most of Shea's belongings, >> which some people speculate online that
00:36:43
maybe this fire was started on purpose to get rid of evidence. It could be a complete accident, coincidence. I think
00:36:53
that it was as you said or as people online are saying that it that it likely was started to destroy potential
00:37:00
evidence or or to or to cause confusion and chaos within the investigation. And if that's what someone's goal was, well,
00:37:10
they were successful because all around the same time, what do we have here? We have family fighting with volunteers. A
00:37:18
strange fire that starts in Shea's room, destroys a bunch of the belongings and the things that were in Shea's bedroom.
00:37:24
One would think that if you're going to find a connection to what happened to this girl, you might be able to find
00:37:29
some kind of clue in her room. And you also have members of law enforcement. You have volunteers and members of the
00:37:38
general public that are openly speculating out loud. >> Yeah. that you know what as this thing
00:37:47
drags on we're really starting to think that Sha's parents know a lot more than what they are telling us. Maybe Kevin's
00:37:56
to blame. Maybe Kevin and Beth are to blame. Maybe something was going on inside that house that that we should
00:38:02
know about but we don't know about. And so this really to me throws a big wrench
00:38:08
in the whole investigation for a multitude of reasons. But it what it also does is many of the volunteers are
00:38:16
going to withdraw their support, right? They're no longer going to volunteer their time. People are going to stop
00:38:21
volunteering and donating their money. Things are going to really start to fall apart at at the ground level, at least
00:38:27
for the family in this investigation. And we're sitting here just at most 6 weeks after the little kid disappears.
00:38:36
>> Were they able to figure out if it was arson or was it an accidental fire? So,
00:38:42
I'll jump ahead here because it the fire took place September 26th, 2003. I have I don't have it in my notes here,
00:38:51
Captain, but going off of memory, I believe that the fire was phoned in at about 2 in the morning. So, they show
00:38:58
up, responders show up, they put out the fire, they figure out that the fire started in the missing girl's bedroom.
00:39:06
So, let's jump forward here to early in the next year of 2004. This is when it was announced to the public that the
00:39:15
fire was ruled suspicious. I think what happens here, I don't love this. I think this circles back to what
00:39:27
we were talking about prior where some of local law enforcement were really starting to believe that you know what,
00:39:33
these parents, they likely know more than what they're letting on. Maybe one of them's responsible. Maybe one of them
00:39:39
knows who did this. I don't like this because I think that what the general public natural reaction to this, oh, the
00:39:49
authorities ruled this fire suspicious. These parents, this stepdad, don't like them. Don't like them.
00:39:57
They're up to no good. I'm on to you now. >> Yeah, I'm the stepdad. Could I be any
00:40:02
more suspicious? >> The problem with that is it's such a generic sentence. So, let's take it
00:40:08
apart and analyze it for what it is. The fire was ruled suspicious. It's not ruled in arson, right? It wasn't.
00:40:17
They're not coming out and saying this is absolutely not an accident and we can scientifically prove it. They're saying
00:40:23
the fire is suspicious. I think that was to maybe turn up the heat, no pun intended, on the family, probably the
00:40:31
stepdad. But even if that's your intention, your generic statement is still true that it could mean something
00:40:37
entirely different. the fire was suspicious means it we that to me tells me that you're you're dancing around the
00:40:45
idea that it was arson, >> right? >> You're leaving the door open as to who could have set the fire. Just because a
00:40:52
fire is suspicious doesn't mean that it was set by a family member. It could have been set by anybody.
00:40:58
>> Yeah. And just because somebody wants to destroy potential evidence or physical
00:41:03
evidence that may be used at a later time doesn't necessarily have to mean that it came from one of the parents or
00:41:10
somebody inside the home. So while the statement I believe is true, I think that most of the herd of the public very
00:41:19
quickly turned an eye to one of one or both of the parents when really you should you should be looking at anybody
00:41:27
who had the means of setting that fire. I think the other problem with this case, short time period, short distance.
00:41:36
So, you start leaning towards this idea that maybe it's somebody in the family, but because of the neighborhood and that
00:41:44
it's a trailer park, it's a condensed, congested area. And so, it's possible that somebody could have grabbed her
00:41:52
really quick and took her into the into the trailer. And there are some eyewitnesses that claim that they saw
00:42:00
her. I don't know how legitimate these eyewitnesses are because I think a lot of times when you have kids in the
00:42:08
neighborhood, if you don't know the kid personally, you're like, "All these kids
00:42:12
look the same." The thing here is that I want to circle back to Captain is right
00:42:19
around the same time. Okay, we got the fire going on. We talked about some of the arguments and the falling out
00:42:26
between the volunteers and the family and I praise them for this because they are on the edge
00:42:35
and they don't deny like they don't claim to be above any of this. Beth and Alex I I would think this would carry
00:42:45
over to Kevin too but I couldn't see any direct statements from him. I I do know
00:42:50
there are two articles that I could not find that were cited in other articles where he seems to be uh being directly
00:42:58
interviewed which I would have loved to have reviewed those but they say that uh
00:43:03
the internet never forgets well they managed to forget at least one of these articles but I know for a fact by
00:43:10
reading the words and hearing the words Beth and Alex mom and daughter duo separately and together were both very
00:43:18
open about their family and about what was going on in the community after Sheay went missing. Beth said at the
00:43:25
time that the scrutiny of her family was likely because she and Kevin Thompson were a interracial couple and because
00:43:32
they lived in a trailer park. Alex, God bless her, says that kids were very mean
00:43:38
to her after her sister went missing. I also think that she probably struggled with the idea that her sister went
00:43:47
missing and may have been abducted between their home and the bus stop. I mean, what are you going to do? You
00:43:53
going to stand out there and wait for the bus every day after your sibling goes potentially got abducted?
00:43:58
>> Not me. >> No. So, she's starting to have problems with kids picking on her, teasing her,
00:44:05
and probably telling her like, "Hey, your stepdad's a killer. Hey, your mom's a a bee." All this. I guarantee you she
00:44:11
heard every bit of it. And so Beth, God bless her, she goes and gets a a certificate so that she can homeschool
00:44:18
Alex. Okay. Now, if you think that that they're closing doors, that they are banding together, you could look at it
00:44:27
that way, that the family's closing off everybody outside of the family, and they definitely have something to hide.
00:44:34
But I think, Captain, it was even as early as November of 2003. Alex is now, from my understanding,
00:44:41
being homeschooled. That fire was in September, late September of 2003. So, even before it was publicly
00:44:50
announced that the authorities believed that the fire was air quotes suspicious,
00:44:56
we're going to jump ahead quite a bit here. We're going to go to August of 2006. So, this would be just before just
00:45:04
days before the three-year anniversary. Heaven Lache Ross is still missing at this time. The
00:45:13
police come out and they're talking with the papers and they say that Heaven Lache Ross' disappearance may be linked
00:45:20
to two other abductions from trailer parks. And I hate this. I hate this because the summary of all of these
00:45:26
reports are like two other abductions from trailer parks in the same area. These are not the same area. I would not
00:45:32
I don't know who who came up with that general term other than they probably listed it this way so somebody would
00:45:38
read the article. It goes on to say that which occurred two years apart and within one week of August information
00:45:46
adds that the the girls look the same. Right? So there's there is a bunch of similarities. I'm not going to argue
00:45:54
that. Right. Trailer parks the the girls that were listed here were about all the
00:46:00
same age. Some have said that they they look very similar, but I also find that this to be a a very odd point in our
00:46:09
timeline here, Captain, because some of these connections were made right from Jump Street. So, one was
00:46:17
this. This is from an August 2003 article from from three years prior, right when Sheay was missing just for
00:46:25
about a week. and it reads, "A possible link between Sha's case and that of a Nashville girl who'd been missing since
00:46:31
April 29th." Her name was Tabitha Tutor. She was 13 years old. She also disappeared on her way to the school bus
00:46:39
uh to the bus stop. So, you can see the similarities there. However, she lived in Nashville. She lived in a different
00:46:46
state, hundreds of miles away. >> Yeah, it doesn't make a lot of sense. Should we go through any of these cases
00:46:52
or should we and I'm asking you your opinion here. Should we go through any of these cases even just kind of on the
00:47:00
surface level here or go right to what happens next in our timeline? Let's go to the next stop on our timeline. We can
00:47:08
circle back. Okay, because this is December 19th, 2006. This is when Heaven Lache Ross' skeletal
00:47:16
remains were found in an abandoned house located in Hol, Alabama. So, this is approximately eight miles from her home.
00:47:26
>> The story told No, the story is told several different ways that a man was out collecting cans. He was out walking
00:47:32
his dog. What is not in question is a dog was present, so he could have been doing both. So, in in mid December of
00:47:39
2006, 3 years and about 3 months from the day that she disappeared, her remains are found. This man is
00:47:50
walking in the area of on a dirt road off of 44th Court near Hol, Alabama, when his dog runs into the
00:48:02
house's crawl space. The man follows his dog and then notices inside this crawl space there's a bright
00:48:10
pink shirt. Some articles say that he saw the Bratz doll logo and a backpack. What all the articles state is that he
00:48:21
could see visibly see human skeletal remains. So he calls the police. Police arrive on the scene and this is really
00:48:28
sad. One of the detectives, he said as soon as he stuck his head into the crawl space, he knew even before they went and
00:48:37
did the scientific positive identification, he knew that it was Shay because he says, "I saw that backpack." He goes,
00:48:48
"I've been looking for that backpack for three years." He goes, "You believe me,
00:48:52
I I know what that backpack looked like. It was it was tattooed on my brain." They find the little girl in this crawl
00:49:00
space. She's wearing the same clothing that Sheay was wearing when she left her house on that morning of her
00:49:07
disappearance. And as we said, they found the backpack as well. Every article with this case and with the
00:49:14
other cases, okay, the other cases, some reference two cases. I've found enough information out there that they've that
00:49:24
when talking about Shea's case, they've mentioned up to four other child cases. Okay. Now, to be fair to the authors
00:49:37
that penned those articles or typed them up online, all these cases are still unsolved.
00:49:44
And and as we've always said, they're unsolved for a reason. We don't know everything. We clearly don't know
00:49:50
everything in all these cases and in one of the ca at least one of the cases the
00:49:54
remains have never been found. So there's a whole lot of mystery. So I think that you can say grain of salt
00:50:01
there's a chance that they're connected. I think it's highly unlikely that all of
00:50:05
them are connected. I actually think it's highly unlikely in my humble my humble garage opinion that any of them
00:50:13
are connected at all. One thing that I don't like is we are told what is found at the scene. General description. We're
00:50:22
not told what was missing from the scene. I I believe there's a high probability that
00:50:29
there was something some piece of a personal item that was with her when she left for
00:50:35
school that day or woke up that morning. Whatever. I think that there was something that's missing from that
00:50:40
scene. Police aren't going to tell us that. What they're also not going to tell us is the exact cause of death.
00:50:48
They did rule the death a homicide. So, it went from a missing person's case to a homicide investigation. And I'm not
00:50:58
trying to muck up anybody's investigation here, Captain, but I also think that as where some people are
00:51:04
giving the police kudos for not releasing the the cause of death, the exact cause of death. I look, they
00:51:12
deserve it for that. You have to have some holdback information. We know that. But we've also been doing this long
00:51:17
enough that I can tell you if she if she laid there for 3 years, they may not they may not know themselves. Also, the
00:51:23
difficult thing is because she wasn't sitting at this bus stop for a while with her sister, she was running late.
00:51:31
How much time did she spend with her stepfather in in that morning? Obviously, her mom was asleep laying
00:51:38
down. Back to your point of was there something missing? They might not be able to state every item that she left
00:51:47
the house with. >> Correct. Correct. There's, and I don't want to go down too far down this road
00:51:52
because she's a child. There's a couple of items that I think we can all assume she would have left the house with, and
00:51:59
if those items weren't found at the scene, that would be of of particular interest to me, especially when I'm
00:52:04
trying to figure out the suspects here. Now, the this house, as we said, where she was
00:52:11
eventually found is an abandoned house. The other thing that is it's reported two different ways that either they
00:52:17
couldn't conclude if she was killed where she was found or they didn't know. One of the other items here captain is
00:52:24
it sounds like they are saying openly saying they being the authorities that they were unable to determine if she was
00:52:33
killed where she was found or if had she been killed elsewhere and then placed there at another time.
00:52:42
As we said, this home was abandoned. It's run down is all get out. There's broken glass. There's trash. There's
00:52:51
stained carpets. the part of the It's a shame, too, because the pictures I saw, it looks like at one time it was a nice
00:52:59
home, but the front porch had kind of collapsed in and they were saying it was even dangerous to walk on some of the
00:53:06
flooring inside of the home when they're in there trying to collect items and debris. So, a rough place to find, but
00:53:16
this was also, it's been reported that this was kind of a known area for transients, for homeless, for drug
00:53:24
activity, maybe even criminal activity. So, if she was there the entire 3 years or any extended period of time, which I
00:53:34
think just based off of the general descriptions, we have to believe that she was there for an extended period of
00:53:40
time. if it was in fact being frequented by people. I have a hard time believing
00:53:44
that nobody else ever saw the bright pink outfit that came along with this finding.
00:53:51
>> I agree. >> I do want to point something out here, too. Several news articles go way out of
00:53:56
their way to report, and I think this is just good reporting. I'm not being critical. In fact, this comes from a a
00:54:03
woman named Stephanie Taylor for the Tuscaloosa News. She reports, "Hey, by the way, she's mother and stepfather at
00:54:12
one time lived in Hol, Alabama." Also, not completely crazy. It's 8 miles away. It's it it's not crazy to think that at
00:54:19
some point they didn't live in this general area. She does also point out though that it has been told to her. I I
00:54:29
don't know if this is coming from police or if this is coming from the family, but the reporter states that both Sha's
00:54:37
mother and stepfather took polygraph examinations. Police administered polygraph test and that
00:54:44
they passed them as well. talking about accidental fires, suspicious fires, whatever. The house where she was found
00:54:55
eventually was destroyed because of a fire. And I think that one may have been ruled an accident. Very strange though,
00:55:03
right? Very strange. She goes missing. Some point her room catches on fire. Then three and years and three months
00:55:10
later she's found at this location and then that location is burned as well. Seems like it's too much of a
00:55:17
coincidence. >> Let's get back to these eyewitnesses cuz dude, I'm not going to lie. I struggled
00:55:23
mightily with this case for three days and I talking migraine headache for three days because usually when we
00:55:32
review a case and we spend enough time on it, I can't usually tell you who's responsible, but I usually walk and and
00:55:40
I'm not saying I'm right. I want to be clear here because I think people get crazy with thinking that I I'm some kind
00:55:46
of know-it-all. I'm not saying I'm right. What I'm saying is that when we review a case for long enough, I can
00:55:51
usually walk away feeling confident that I have a general understanding of what happened here. I had that migraine
00:56:00
headache because I had I sat there and go, "This doesn't make sense. There's something missing." And I've bumped up
00:56:07
against this a few times during our garage experience. And anytime there's something missing,
00:56:14
there's one of two I'm usually left with one of two conclusions, >> right? >> Either a
00:56:21
somebody that is crucial to the timeline and to the a relationship with the victim is
00:56:30
lying and that's what's mucking everything up. or there's such big gaps and holes in the information that's been
00:56:38
reported or even that made its way to police that it's hard to kind of tie everything up and make it nice and neat
00:56:46
to have a conclusion or a general understanding of what probably happened. So, I'm going to give a big kudos here.
00:56:54
We'll get into these eyewitnesses because I questioned deeply the eyewitnesses. I had a problem with the
00:57:00
eyewitnesses and you touched on this a bit earlier here today. We had three people
00:57:08
that were potential eyewitnesses, right? One one is a person that's sitting by a
00:57:13
window. I think they had um like a computer or TV by their window so that it's natural things catch your eye. That
00:57:20
person said told police, "Yeah, I saw Shay walk by this morning. looked like she was heading in the direction of the
00:57:27
bus stop. One person tells police, "Yeah, I saw Shay this morning and even described the
00:57:36
outfit that she was wearing." So, this sounds like a very legit eyewitness account.
00:57:42
>> Yeah. >> Where I had problems with these eyewitness accounts was this was the
00:57:46
second week of school. And remember what we had said earlier that the police Yeah. They're they're working the case.
00:57:53
They're looking for the little girl, but they don't seem to really step it up until after the school day is over. The
00:58:01
older I get, the more I sympathize with this, and the more I understand it to be
00:58:06
true. If you ask me at 7 o'clock tonight if I saw some little kid in a pink shirt
00:58:11
walk past my front window at any time today, I am not immune to confusing it with
00:58:20
seeing that same little girl in a pink shirt walking by my front window two days ago, three days ago.
00:58:28
>> Yeah. But I think that's most people. >> Yes. And and and I think the older we
00:58:32
get, it's to me that's been my experience. The older I get, the softer the brain is getting, my friend.
00:58:40
>> Squishy. So squishy at this point. >> The more >> the beer is not helping. >> Squishy. Squishy.
00:58:45
>> But here's the reason why I kind of questioned that for a while. Is one thing is what if this was her favorite
00:58:54
outfit? It's not crazy to believe that maybe she wore it on that Friday morning to school
00:59:00
and then wore it again on Tuesday morning, >> right? >> You know how kids are. I there are some
00:59:04
kids that you're like, man, that kid is always wearing the same shirt. And so you think like maybe their parents are
00:59:11
lazy, they don't do laundry, maybe they can't afford a bunch of clothes, and no,
00:59:15
you you once you get to know the kid a little more, you figure out very quickly that's his favorite shirt. And you have
00:59:21
to fight him every day so that he doesn't wear that shirt every minute of every day.
00:59:27
>> So that's why I question that. And I just felt like >> I think it's a interesting thought.
00:59:33
>> I think that I just felt like there's something missing. And so back to the 50
00:59:38
yards, right? I went out, marked 50 yards and walked it three times. And I get it. I'm I'm 6'1. I'm I'm a grown
00:59:47
man. Maybe I'm moving a little faster than Sheay would have moved in her 11year-old body. I walked it three
00:59:53
times. And on all three occasions, my time with the stopwatch ranged from 38 1/2 seconds
01:00:03
to less than 44 seconds. And the reason why that was so important to me is we talk about the timeline, but it's also
01:00:12
the distance. Timing is more important than the timeline. distance is more important than the timeline because
01:00:19
every article, every regurgitation of this story has always been it was six minutes between the time she left the
01:00:25
trailer and the time that dad went outside and couldn't find her. So, she disappeared within 6 minutes or dad did
01:00:33
something to her and now we we've been looking at an abduction case all these years and it's
01:00:41
not an abduction. I say, "No, it's not the six minutes that are in question." And we'll go back to
01:00:48
>> we'll go back to that timeline because that timeline's off. It's a skew. It's
01:00:54
the 38 1/2 seconds to 44 seconds that it takes to walk from the trailer to the bus stop because it's a straight shot.
01:01:02
Guess what didn't happen? Sister doesn't see Shay walking to the bus stop. sister
01:01:09
doesn't see Shay arrive at the bus stop. We have these other eyewitnesses, but the sister who is a distance of 50 yards
01:01:18
from the trailer doesn't see. And if we're to believe the dad's story, he goes out of the trailer and between his
01:01:25
route of the trailer to the bus stop, he doesn't see Shay as well. So, it's really just those 44 and 1/2 seconds.
01:01:34
And so this migraine headache of mine was only relieved by a gentleman that we've met a few times. His name Derek
01:01:43
Lavasser from detective perspective. He had the opportunity, we've met him at Crime Con a few times, great guy, smart
01:01:51
guy. He had the opportunity to speak with Alex and Beth. They filled in a lot of the blanks here
01:02:01
because I gotta tell you, Captain, where my suspicions were that Kevin did something in the middle of the
01:02:12
night and got rid of the evidence in the body before the bus stop story even starts.
01:02:21
>> Right. And that's why I was saying like did the sister actually see the other
01:02:27
sister in the morning? >> We know that she did. So because the where I was with this for a while was
01:02:34
that there the timing was so short, right? Remember police meet them back at the mobile home, meet them at their
01:02:41
trailer shortly after they call it in. And so there's no time to get rid of the body if something happened after she
01:02:52
left that morning to walk down to the bus stop. And thank God Derrick spoke with Alex and Beth. And this should
01:02:58
clear up. I think that people have looked at Kevin and Beth the wrong way all of these years. And that's why I was
01:03:04
critical at the top of the show saying that I think that if had this been reported differently had it not had the
01:03:10
reporting not been so brief, not been so vague that these poor people wouldn't have had to deal with people looking at
01:03:17
them with a suspicious eye for all of these years. Because Alex says this of that morning we got up, our dad woke us
01:03:25
up and I was helping Sheay get ready that morning. And she does say, "Yes, I left the house before, Shay." But that
01:03:34
was common. I would typically, she's a couple years older. She would usually leave a little bit earlier.
01:03:40
>> The other information that she filled in was fantastic because she says, "Look,
01:03:44
my sister, while she was not interested in boys at the very least, but she had friends, she was outgoing. and she would
01:03:52
typically her and a boy would typically walk down to the bus stop together and she would pass that kid's trailer on the
01:04:00
way to her bus stop. So most mornings they would pair up and walk down to the bus stop. They kind of hung out. She
01:04:06
says on that morning, yes, I left early as usual, walked down to the bus stop. No, I never saw my sister after that,
01:04:13
but she absolutely woke up that morning and absolutely was getting ready for school because and she remembers
01:04:19
something very specific. She asked me to borrow some colored pencils, so I gave them to her. Furthermore, look, so one
01:04:27
thing I learned prior to Derek's information was that unfortunately the parents have divorced. They actually
01:04:36
separated about 10 years after Sheay went missing, 7 years or so after her her body was found. But you know,
01:04:45
>> very common when you when a couple loes a child, >> even if it's an even if it's an
01:04:50
accident, >> right, >> that it's very common for the parents to split up. Very difficult to stick
01:04:56
together after >> a medical issue. Well, and the thing too is the relationship wasn't Disney World
01:05:08
prior to Shay going missing. And and that's what I give Beth the a world of credit for. She says, "Look, I get it.
01:05:16
We lived in a trailer park. We're an interracial couple. We got in arguments a couple times where police showed up."
01:05:23
She goes, "But we're not bad people. He's not a bad guy. These kids love this dude." And Alex says many years later,
01:05:30
she's like, "The guy wasn't perfect, but he was a great dad. Filled the role of father wonderfully. He never did
01:05:37
anything weird to the kids." Uh, anyway, to further fill out the timeline, Beth too says that she saw Shay that morning.
01:05:46
She says, "While I was laying in bed, half asleep, whatever, she says, "I specifically remember how good this
01:05:54
little kid was. What a sweet little soul she was. She popped her head into the bedroom to say goodbye to her mom or say
01:06:01
good morning to her mom, something to that effect that morning. And Beth says, "I I looked over at her, said something
01:06:06
nice to her, and I happened to look at the clock before I laid my head back to the on the pillow and fell fell back
01:06:13
asleep." She says, "It was 7:03." She goes, "I last saw my daughter at 7:03 that morning." So that's why I moved
01:06:21
that marker of 650 to 650 to 655 because the story always said that Sheay left the home at 655 and then it was at 7:01
01:06:31
that dad realized that she was missing. No, that can't be. She left the home shortly after 7 and then a few minutes
01:06:38
after that Kevin realized that she was missing. Those statements by both Alex and Beth to me tells me that that
01:06:46
eyewitness statement of seeing that little girl walking in her pink shirt that morning is accurate. And so then
01:06:53
what we are left with here, Captain, is this. If you can figure out how in the hell
01:07:00
somebody got her out of that trailer park, you can really start to hone in on who is responsible. Dude, there's one
01:07:07
way in, there's one way out. There's a there's even with her little legs, there's a 50 second walk from trailer to
01:07:16
bus stop. 50 seconds somebody took her. And guess what? I don't think I'm going back, circling back to what parents
01:07:23
said. They were adamant she would not get into somebody's car that she didn't know. And I don't think she got into
01:07:28
anybody's car at all. I don't think that she got into anybody's car at all. Because had somebody snatched her in a
01:07:35
vehicle between the trailer and between the bus stop, I think it puts a high probability that somebody sees her in a
01:07:40
car leaving that area. Even though you could get to two pretty welltraveled thoroughares rather quickly that um
01:07:50
McFarland Boulevard is also State Route 6 and Interstate 82. So, I mean, you could you could get
01:07:58
out of dodge real quick, but but there's no reason for us to think that the killer got out of dodge. The body's
01:08:04
found eight miles away. She did not walk to the bus stop with her little friend that morning. Many questions. One, if
01:08:13
she was abducted, was she abducted by somebody in a car or was she abducted in the sense of somebody took her back to
01:08:22
their trailer? And the other question would be was it common for her to was it common for her
01:08:31
to walk with different individuals and is it possibility before going to the bus stop she stopped at one of these
01:08:38
individuals houses? If she had people that she walked to the bus stop with did we question their parents? Did we
01:08:46
question their stepparents? And then also with this time passing and with really lack of information, where
01:08:54
does this investigation go? >> I'll tell you where it goes. Again, I think that the the probability of her
01:09:01
being spotted in a vehicle would be extremely high if somebody was trying to tear out of there with a little girl in
01:09:07
their car. I just don't think that happened. If you look at this on a map, there is no way that you don't encounter
01:09:13
people seeing you try to pull her into a vehicle or her being spotted through one
01:09:19
of the windows of your vehicle as you're driving out past the kids at the bus stop. It just it cannot happen. Again,
01:09:26
unless you have a monster truck and you tear over top of a bunch of trailers, it
01:09:30
ain't happening. And what we do know based off of those eyewitness accounts is two things. These folks lived on lot
01:09:38
number 25. So she would walk out of their trailer on lot 25, make her straight shot all the way down to walk
01:09:46
down to Hunter Creek Road where the bus would pick her up at the bus stop that she shared with a bunch of other kids.
01:09:54
The eyewitness that spots her in the pink shirt that morning. One of these eyewitnesses
01:10:01
lives in a trailer on lot 18. The boy that she would walk that meet up with and walk the rest of the way to the bus
01:10:10
stop lived in a trailer on lot 10. He and his family says she didn't show up that morning. So, he walked alone.
01:10:19
Somebody that lives between lot 18 and lot 10 took that girl. I think they convinced her to go into their trailer
01:10:28
and something happened inside that trailer. I think it was somebody that she knew from the neighborhood or
01:10:33
somebody that maybe even knew her family fairly well and she was tricked and trusted and went into that trailer. I
01:10:41
think she was probably moved to that abandoned home fairly quickly, probably that Wednesday, maybe the the by the
01:10:48
weekend. I think she was there for a long time. I think there were several people that probably saw her there and
01:10:52
didn't know exactly what they were seeing or they were too drugged out to know or to give a [ __ ] And as far as I
01:11:00
I know we're getting kind of in the thick of it here, and I did want to touch on some of these other cases real
01:11:05
quick. One of the other cases that has been mentioned in the same coverage as Sha's case is Shannon Nicole Pulk. She
01:11:13
was 11 as well. She was snatched from her Candlestick Park neighborhood in Prattville. Out of all the cases that
01:11:20
are listed and talked about with Heaven Lache Ross's case, you also have Teresa Melissa Dean
01:11:26
of Georgia near Mon Georgia. Actually, you also have the case of another girl who went missing from a bus stop, Maria
01:11:35
Solless, but she was 16 and that case took place in Houston. One interesting part here though is she was catching a
01:11:42
bus on March in March of 2003. So, it's the same year. Her remains were found months later. She wasn't identified
01:11:50
until February of 2005. If you want to try to link that case to anything, I would be looking at the Texas Killing
01:11:56
Fields cases who multiple perpetrators, but that one could be tied to that if you want to look at it tied to any other
01:12:03
case. Shannon Pulk's case. We covered Shannon Pulk's case pretty extensively in a single episode and we did that in
01:12:14
episode 780, August of 2024. So, a little less than a year ago. If you before you start to go down the
01:12:26
rabbit hole of these cases being connected, I would say go listen to that episode because we point out several
01:12:32
good suspects that lived in Shannon Pulk's trailer park back in 2001 in Prattville, Alabama
01:12:41
2001. And as far as proximity goes, that's the closest case to Heaven Lach Ross' case. And unless you can tell me
01:12:52
and prove to me that one of those suspects that we mentioned or somebody that was living in that trailer park in
01:12:58
2001 also lived in Sha's trailer park in 2003. They're not connected. Somebody in
01:13:07
in one of those trailer parks respectively for each victim pulled or snatched up the girl or brought or
01:13:13
tricked her into their their trailer. Absolutely convinced of it. And while I cannot tell you who is responsible, you
01:13:19
look at suspect types, right? I don't want to go down this whole I don't want to do a whole profiling thing here, but
01:13:25
I would look to similar types as to that of Joseph Condro, who we talked about with John Douglas and a serial killer
01:13:35
that we never mentioned. Well, I shouldn't say never mentioned. I'm sure we mentioned him, but we've never
01:13:39
covered him. And his name is David Elliot Penton. He killed girls in Ohio and in Texas. And while I don't think he
01:13:47
had anything to do with this particular case, in fact, he would he would have been locked up years prior, it's those
01:13:53
types of killers that you're looking for. Somebody that knew the girls, knew the girls families. And I think the
01:14:03
exact same thing happened here in this case. I really think that someone that lived between lots 10 and 18 convinced
01:14:13
this little girl to go into their trailer and probably had been planning this. And I'm
01:14:20
not trying to do any survivors guilt here, but she may have been one of two targets. She may may have been one of
01:14:26
many targets that lived in the neighborhood, but she also her and her older sister both could have been a
01:14:31
target, especially if they were walking alone on these mornings. >> I agree. It's a very sad case and and I
01:14:37
hate I sit here and I'm while I think that we have a better understanding of what may have happened. While I'm I feel
01:14:45
some relief that we don't have to keep pointing a finger at Kevin or Beth, I hope whatever happened to this poor
01:14:52
little girl that it was quick. It's it's such a sad sad story and such a sad sad
01:14:59
case and I just her mom has been through hell and and I won't get into the events
01:15:05
of her life since but I can tell you she's been through hell and I I hope she gets some relief, some form of healing.
01:15:13
And again, that can only come if if we can figure out who is responsible for this. If I were detectives, I would be
01:15:19
looking at somebody that lived between lots 18 and 10 back in 2003 in that trailer park. Those of you, anybody
01:15:30
out there with any information at all or information on people that lived in that
01:15:34
area at the time uh regarding Heaven Lache Ross' case are urged to call the Tuscaloosa Violent Crimes Unit or you
01:15:43
can call the local Crimes Stoppers at 205-7527867. That's 205752. Stop. >> Want to thank everybody for joining us
01:16:09
here in the garage. Make sure you subscribe. Tell your mother, tell your brother, and check out Off the Record. A
01:16:18
bunch of interesting episodes have been released in the last 3 months. And if you're not listening, you're missing
01:16:24
out. Don't forget about the Shannon Pulk episode. That is True Crime Garage episode 780 from August of last year.
01:16:32
And >> until next week, be good, be kind, and don't [Music]