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a& crime and investigation event the pursuit returns with a new unprecedented season of 60 days in this time we're
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crime and investigation event only on A&E n [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 the man who has the script for the 2024 NBA Finals here is the captain surprise surprise Michael Jordan
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and guess what you get hugs kisses and please and thank yous and that's enough of the business all right everybody
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gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] 17-year-old Belinda van lith has been
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missing now for almost 50 years Belinda was a smart outgoing young lady with blonde hair and blue eyes she and her
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family were well known in their neighborhood but the neighborhood where the van lths lived was very likely quite
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different from the city streets or suburbs where most of us grew up a lot of us spent time during the
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summer months hanging out at the community pool in Belinda's neighborhood it was the lake that kept everyone busy
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back in 1974 Belinda van lith vanished from her neighborhood in Eagle Lake Minnesota this is in Wright County
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unable to account for some of the minutes and hours in the timeline have added to the complex nature of this case
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there have been several suspects over the years but there is one who has managed to find him self a top of that
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list this is a sexual predator who was living about one football fields distance from Belinda's last known
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whereabouts this is the still unsolved missing persons case of 17-year-old Belinda van lith and this is true crime
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garage [Music] this week Captain we head out to the great state of Minnesota and once again
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we are brought to task with another who done it but this one has a different kind of twist to it as you will see as
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we go through this week's True Crime Story now at the center of our story we have 17-year-old Belinda van lith
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Belinda has been missing for almost 50 years now in fact it will be 50 years this weekend Belinda lived with her
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family a large family with a gaggle of siblings in Wright County Minnesota Belinda was born in
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1957 she was an active outgoing and social teenager at the time of her disappearance at that time she was
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described as 5 fo 5 in tall about 110 PBS with blonde hair and blue eyes now depending on the source Belinda was last
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seen at 8:00 p.m. on Friday June 14th but other sources state that her last known whereabouts were from the morning
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of Saturday June 15th and we will go through all of the minutia of that weekend and try to sort those details
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out as we go but what is not in question is her whereabouts when she was last known to be safe and sound so Belinda
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was at little Eagle Lake in Wright County Minnesota Belinda was house sitting for a neighbor at the time also
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not in dispute is most of the activities of that weekend while Belinda was housesitting her family is preparing to
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host an outdoor going away party at their home on June 15th 1974 there were seven vanlith children
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and the way that their childhood and where they grew up sounds amazing with the very big exception obviously of
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Belinda having vanished they grew up in a lake house during the summertime the children had use of the lake and the
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Beautiful Park SL camp like setting on occasion the kids would even ride horses to their friends homes to visit their
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friends now this little Eagle Lake setting is very different from most childhood neighborhoods here we have a
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setup where some of the cabin owners are only present during the warm months for
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a decent portion of the cabin owners there these were often their vacation homes where they left the cabins
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buttoned up for the cold winter months and then would return in the summer or the warmer months to enjoy this
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beautiful setting and to enjoy the lake it was very common for teens to babysit for Neighbors neighbors and it was
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common for persons to house it for Neighbors as well I won't go so far to say that it was common for someone as
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young as Belinda to be housesitting she's 17 and in fact had just recently turned 17 but that is the situation she
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is house sitting for a neighbor well that sounds like a dream childhood for some personally I I would not want to
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have that many siblings think about all the hamme downs and then the problem with horse it's a horse [ __ ]
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well sounds like they were horse people it sounds amazing to be like can you imagine being on the phone with a friend
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and saying yeah I'll be over in a little bit I I just you might see me pull up in
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the horse yeah but if you have if you have six other siblings you're not going to get a chance to be on the phone
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that's true one of the big events for that weekend was going to be a going away party we will say it was a big
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event for the van lith family Belinda's older sister was packing her bags and heading to the great state of Texas this
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because she had joined the Air Force so the family was going to celebrate together that weekend with friends
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invited over and some of these friends are persons living in cabins near the lake so we have I would imagine this
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would involve some adult friends of their parents but this should be including some of the
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the child friends as well right the cabin that Belinda was house sitting this is why this is one of those
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situations right Captain where you look at it and I think when you look at it from
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2024 eyes it seems strange that someone who you know less than a year from being
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18 but also still a minor would be house sitting for someone else so you can look
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at that and go that seems strange we don't know the details of what her responsibilities were to house it it
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could just be simply that she went over twice a day it was it's not like she had
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to stay there well actually she she was staying the night at the for for several
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nights at the the home great I'm wrong again some of the details are a little murky all of these years later we don't
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know if she had any actual task or job duties to perform other than simply watching the house and let's say PR ing
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the house and we'll get into that here in a minute when you look at this maybe from 1974 eyes it might not seem as
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strange as it would today and let's talk about and not forget about the setting right so this cabin that Belinda was
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housesitting was just a quarter of a mile down the road from the van lith house and anytime you have these
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communities where people leave for Seasons at a time yeah you do have a lot of people keeping their eye on their
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neighbors properties that's pretty common in these types of setups so she's house sitting for a man named Dwayne
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Cornwell Dwayne was a musician who was going to be away on a work trip with his band they were visiting Nashville
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Tennessee Dwayne Cornwell had this this is where the part I think makes it seem a little more unusual Dwayne Cornwell
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by every resource that I could find and in fact the van lith family the siblings
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today sadly the parents have passed away as you know time drag gone in this case
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her siblings said the weird thing about this was that Dwayne Cornwell had no real connections with the vanlith family
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that they are aware of right aside from living down the road he didn't associate
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with any of the van children or other vanith children or the parents so today when they look back retrospectively on
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their sister's case they wonder how it came to be that she took this job housesitting for this man that as stated
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the family did not know very well yeah like you said it was a different time in the in the 70s once you graduated from
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high school is Common Place hey go to college or get a job start your life and the thing here too is keep in mind the
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distance right these are this is a tight community and mom or dad with with a quick phone call Mom or Dad could be
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could arrive at the house that she's sitting on foot within three four minutes you know if she needed to she
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could walk or run home and be home in no time at all so I think the distance plays a part in the decision making here
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I am a little unclear on how many days it was arranged that she was going to be staying and watching the place it was
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several nights we do know that to be fact but I am yet to see anywhere where it says she was due to start staying
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there on this date and expected to be done with the job on this other date what we're going to hone in on here
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Captain though is the known events for Belinda on June 13th 14th and 15th and we can Circle back to Dwayne Cornwell
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The the owner of the home where she's house sitting here in a little bit now we do know on these nights well at least
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on the 13th and 14th Belinda did stay the night there and from what I gather and the way that some of the reports
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read it sounds like she had already been there prior right may have stayed there
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the 11th and the 12th but that's neither here nor there because what I think is most important in this case are the
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events of the 13th 14th and 15th so let's go back to June 13th 1974 on this day belenda calls her father she tells
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him that she's concerned because she was hearing some noises some noises at night
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that were unsettling to her right but she tells her father that she thought that maybe a fuse had gone out according
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to the police file which was later released to the family Belinda's father Clifford van lith he went to check on
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Belinda that night after getting this phone call he says that while there he didn't notice anything out of the
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ordinary he says his daughter didn't say that she was frightened didn't seem like
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anything strange was going on he did say he checked and the fuse did need to be repaired as confirmed by dad and the
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what he's telling the police later but he says that that night he didn't have the tools that the job required so he
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told Belinda that he would be back the next day and he followed through on that he did come back the next day and he
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fixed the fuse however the next day so we're at the 14th Belinda wasn't there at this
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time right he goes on to tell the authorities that that this did not concern him it's summertime at the lake
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during the day she was likely just out and about she had a bunch of friends you know she grew up and lived here she
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wasn't one of these people that left for the winter so she had friends and according to the police file which was
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released to the vanlith family many years after Belinda went missing when interviewed after The Disappearance her
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father and family told police that they just assumed Med on the day that Dad went and fixed the fuse that Belinda was
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either out with friends or went down to the lake at some point that day or possibly both as we will see going
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through this timeline well do we have anybody coming forward saying that they hung out with her that day cuz it's
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possible that she could have just visited the lake on her own yeah we have some of her words as she had
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conversations with some friends that took place that day and the reason why I think that there's there's a little bit
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of uh of a little bit of a disconnect here on exactly when she went missing is her her actual movements on the 14th and
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the fifth 15th so one of the biggest pieces and parts to this case is that police report the the police file that
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was released to the family now we do need to point out this was not released to the family until many years in fact
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we should say many decades later right so the family then shares this police file with inum so check out inforum.com
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inform not only did gangbusters work on writing up a long form investigative journalism story on this
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case and they've done it with many other stories as well obviously but they did a
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seven-part podcast dedicated to this missing person case and that will be our recommendation to all of you this week I
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believe captain that Trisha Turan asz not only did the writeup and a great job on the writeup 4 in form and she hosted
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the podcast but I truly think that she has helped to actually greatly further this investigation with her work that
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she's done in recent times right so this is from inform who again can base all of
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their information on what they read straight from the police file we have Belinda's friend her name is Diane
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schleff who later told investigators this is during a 2008 interview though right we're we're talking about a long
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period of time that has gone by during a 2008 interview she tells investigators that she spoke to to Belinda that Friday
00:18:00
night so that would have been June 14th 1974 chalif didn't recall anything bizarre about that night or anything
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strange about their conversation right there was nothing that that told her oh I should be worried about my friend
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however she said in this interview decades later that Belinda did mention to her that she had gone swimming in the
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lake that day with a boy from the neighborhood now the question mark here will always
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be did Belinda ever name this boy did she know the boy's name right and if she did did she con did she tell the name to
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her friend and the friend just forgot over the years what we do know though Captain is that I am yet to hear or see
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a name put to this boy that her friend recall decades later that Belinda told her she was swimming with at the lake
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well I think the community and the setting the lake setting makes this case more difficult today they say the
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population is just a little over 3,000 so what's the population back in the 70s I'm
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guessing at least a thousand or so less than that but also what do we know about
00:19:25
Lake communities it's not just hey I have a lake house house and I'm the only one that uses it in the summer if you
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have a lake house some people use that as a almost like a bartering system like hey why don't you go up to my lake house
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for the week or hey why don't you take your family to to my lakeh house for the weekend so the amount of people that
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don't live in that community that could be in that community at any set time makes things difficult oh she was
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swimming with a boy was it a boy that lived there was it a boy that the family had a summer house is it a boy that was
00:20:02
just visiting somebody else's summer house with his family it it becomes a little more complex it is quite complex
00:20:10
and I think though based off of and again this is an interview that's taking place decades
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later but the detail in there is her friend telling the authorities that she went swimming with a boy or was swimming
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in the lake that day with a boy from the neighborhood and we do know that Belinda
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grew up in this neighborhood this community so again it's weird because the complexity of It is Well it why
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didn't she if it was somebody that she knew why didn't she say his name or maybe it was just not important at the
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time you know how conversations flow maybe it just wasn't something that she expressed and wasn't asked of of her oh
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who what boy was it you know that maybe that question just never came up but the
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detail there would be that her words of that it was a boy from the neighborhood I can only think back to like our days
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like we weren't lucky enough to grow up right by a lake in a Lake Community but we were lucky enough to go down to Lake
00:21:18
Cumberland several times and it was like you were constantly saying hello to people because that was a vacation type
00:21:26
setting right that was like more what you were describing of people coming and staying for a week or for a long weekend
00:21:33
and I just remember constantly like saying hello to people having chitchat conversations with people and I don't
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ever remember asking anybody anybody's name you might swim with somebody for a while you might hang out with them on
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the playground or in the barbecue area and you might have a lengthy conversation with somebody and never
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exchange names but think about what she said a boy from the neighborhood that doesn't necessarily imply that it's a
00:22:02
boy that lives there all year round just like she does a boy from the neighborhood could be a a a family that
00:22:10
visits every summer and she's just accustomed to him being there in the summertime yeah that could exactly be
00:22:17
the the situation what we do know though in comparison is she's not saying a boy
00:22:22
from Michigan or a boy from Wisconsin or giving or providing a city and if she did her friend is not recalling that
00:22:30
information all the years later now also from this police file but wait hold on on top of that though he could have been
00:22:40
uh AO has a great personality but he's a little little on the fugly side and so she doesn't want to tell her friend that
00:22:48
she's hanging out with Ugo MC fugo you know what I mean and then so she just omits the name also from the police file
00:22:56
following Belinda's disappearance another friend told investigators that they spoke on the phone the following morning
00:23:04
on June 15th that morning Belinda's friend her name is Debbie H house called Belinda the two made plans to meet up
00:23:14
for a brief meeting later that day so this to me this statement is very interesting to me okay so not only is it
00:23:24
a person who's saying I spoke with her on the morning of June 15th right while we don't have anybody
00:23:32
saying that I hung out with Belinda that day we don't have anybody saying that she came to my house or I saw her
00:23:38
walking around what we do have is this person Debbie her friend who says I called her I spoke to her on June 15th
00:23:46
so this means a that Belinda was alive and well and of course had not vanished by this time on
00:23:57
the morning of June 15 right so whatever happened to Belinda whether she took off and that was some
00:24:04
police speculation at one point or whether there was Foul Play involved whatever
00:24:11
happened with Belinda took place obviously after this phone call and this is also a situation where this person
00:24:19
Debbie she's saying the same as what Belinda's father Clifford had said about his interaction with his daughter on the
00:24:29
the the night of the 13th saying that you know that didn't seem anything to be out of the ordinary Belinda seemed fine
00:24:39
she didn't seem worried about anything same situation with Debbie so a it tells us she's alive and well and hadn't
00:24:46
vanished by the morning of June 15th but this is interesting to me too because it
00:24:50
also tells us something else it tells us B that this is proof positive of something that I was wondering about
00:24:56
from the very beginning of looking at this case the call to Belinda from her friend remember Belinda's house sitting
00:25:05
she's at DNE Cornwell's house this tells us that other persons outside of Belinda's family were aware that she was
00:25:16
staying there at Cornwell's house right that's going to be key here and here's the thing too I'm assuming I would make
00:25:24
the Assumption here I don't like to assume but I would make the assumption here that with other persons knowing
00:25:31
that she's staying at Cornwell's house that she's house sitting that they likely very likely knew that she was
00:25:37
staying there alone and that's where this whole thing could get into some big trouble for this young lady yeah she's a
00:25:46
young attractive lady on her own like you said people not just her family but friends and then who did they talk to
00:25:54
how many people know that she's there by herself my only problem with this phone
00:26:00
call is do we have any indicators that would make it definitive that her friend knew it was the 15th the
00:26:09
morning of the 15th and not the the 13th or 14th other than this person's word no
00:26:16
right I'm just saying there's sometimes that people get confused and you you talk to somebody a couple weeks later
00:26:22
and they go yeah remember I I called you last Thursday and you go no actually that was Wednesday right the reason why
00:26:28
I feel very confident in this statement is twofold one this is not an interview that took place a year or two or decades
00:26:38
later this is from the police file from somebody that they spoke to on the 17th or 18th so this is relatively quick
00:26:46
turnaround on getting this information to the authorities the other reason why I believe this to be some pretty solid
00:26:54
information is remember the detail in there they had made plans to see each other to meet up later that day so it's
00:27:04
not just a hey a check-in or hey how you doing it's a we're we're also we made some plans now what is missing from this
00:27:12
report is the two actually connecting and meeting up for that day right so they make plans to do so via a phone
00:27:21
call that morning but whatever happened I think with with all the mystery that's left in this case I think
00:27:30
we have to start making some little leaps here ourselves to fill in some of these blanks if we make plans to hang
00:27:39
out and then later someone doesn't show up whatever happened to Belinda I think happened at some point between that
00:27:47
phone call and when that Meetup was supposed to take place [Music] Simply Safe has been named in US News in
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[Music] all right we are back you filthy filthy animals cheers to you talk hands in the
00:32:36
air cheers to everybody out there and cheers to everybody that stopped by our booth there was so many of you it was
00:32:43
wonderful meeting every single one of you but Nashville was great crime conon was great and thank you to everybody who
00:32:50
stopped by our booth to say hello stop by for a picture and everybody that picked up uh some true crime garage
00:32:58
merchandise from the store there it was wonderful to see all of you and that's we kind of look at that as an
00:33:04
opportunity for us to shake hands give a hug take a picture and say thanks to you
00:33:10
for listening to us and putting up with us some of you for years now so thanks to everybody where we left off here
00:33:18
captain we're now at Saturday June 15th remember we had that phone call earlier that day we have a Meetup that doesn't
00:33:27
take place between Belinda and the person that she had the phone call with right Debbie the other important part of
00:33:36
Saturday June 15th this this is an important date because this is the day of the going away party it was to be
00:33:44
that evening and everyone was expecting Belinda to be at the going away party and why wouldn't they well anytime we
00:33:53
have a missing person case it's these these major points okay you make some arrangements to hang out with your
00:34:01
friend and you don't show up H that might be a little bit of a red flag but not the end of the world but this going
00:34:08
away party big deal so when she doesn't show up I think this is when everybody really starts going what's going on here
00:34:18
exactly and this is we're we're kind of left with some varying opinions on her not appearing at the going away party
00:34:27
and part of that I believe Captain is due to just the situation like we said she's been missing now for almost 50
00:34:37
years a lot of time has passed her parents are no longer with us and so what we have today in the reports and
00:34:45
interviews that are taking place in current day it's some of her siblings relaying information or relaying their
00:34:55
thoughts and opinions of what Belinda's parents may have been experiencing or thinking at the time they're not here to
00:35:06
tell us exactly but again everyone was expecting Belinda to be at the party she doesn't show up for the going away party
00:35:14
this does raise the alarm and at some point the Sheriff's Office was called in now I have some varying information on
00:35:25
that some sources say that the sheriff's apartment was called the following morning on the 16th and some reports
00:35:32
state that it was the 17th it seems to be and the thing here is while inform.com has access to the very large
00:35:44
case File and while the family does have access to that very large case File as well I don't have anything in front of
00:35:53
me telling me what date that report was taken the other other thing too and we've seen this time and time again
00:36:00
especially when you go back to the 70s and we're talking 1974 here is often times there's a situation of a call is
00:36:08
made okay we'll send out an officer and there's a brief conversation officer drives around does some looking maybe
00:36:15
goes and checks on the cabin talks to a couple people and it's a we got to wait 24 hours to file an official report or
00:36:25
to make it official that she's missing and so right so basically there could be a call on the 16th and then law
00:36:31
enforcement says if she doesn't turn up by tomorrow give us a call again yes this could be a 24-hour process and that
00:36:40
but what what we do know to be fact based off of everything the family has said and this you know that they're
00:36:48
missing their daughter I would guess they're probably a little upset with her on Saturday evening you didn't show up
00:36:55
for your sister's going away party maybe you ch up to just oh she's a teenager maybe she ran off with some friends got
00:37:01
busy and she's being kind of disrespectful here nobody thought that of her personality so I think there were
00:37:08
plenty of people that were concerned that night but what we do know is at the very least at the earliest the morning
00:37:14
of the 16th the alarm was raised because we have her father and family they're out looking for actively searching for
00:37:27
Linda on the 16th so before we get to that in our timeline let's cover a few other bases here so let's go back to the
00:37:40
15th that same day the report that I have in front of me is that Dwayne Cornwell the owner of the house where
00:37:49
Belinda was house sitting returns from his trip from Nashville Tennessee also included in this information it states
00:38:00
that before he arrives to his place even before the time that he was expected to
00:38:07
arrive his mother showed up at the house right so she shows up I don't know if she was going to be waiting on her son
00:38:15
to return or what that situation was but the report states that his mother arrived at the home before he
00:38:24
did she says and this is going to be important because if something happened at that at that cabin or Lakehouse she
00:38:33
likely may have first eyes on the scene so she says that when she arrived her son wasn't there Belinda
00:38:44
wasn't there and she says that she found the door open I always want more description when
00:38:52
we get into any of these details right does that mean it was it was just look like somebody had let it close behind
00:38:59
them and it didn't close all the way or was it was it fully a jar or some people
00:39:05
will even refer to an unlocked door as an open door but the report is she says she found the door open but Belinda was
00:39:15
nowhere to be found and is it the type of door that when you shut if you don't lock it it could be blown open by the
00:39:22
wind or or whatever now it sounds like according to all the reports that they found the home other than the door and
00:39:32
no Belinda again for for Cornwell's Mom showing up or even Cornwell arriving back to his own place not to see Belinda
00:39:40
there probably wouldn't raise any concern we know that her job isn't to be at the house 247 EXA thank you exactly
00:39:49
but then you fall into a situation where time goes by she doesn't return and oh there are belongings of hers still here
00:40:00
the house appears to be as it was left by Dwayne other than finding some of Belinda's belongings there right I it
00:40:10
did take some time because I think this is one of those situations that once the
00:40:15
police are there that they they take a look around there's nothing that's obvious they're asking the homeowner is
00:40:22
there anything out of the ordinary is there anything missing from your home I don't know if it was was reported to
00:40:28
them there on that the first day that they are in Cornwell's home or if it was a day or two later but at some point
00:40:37
Dwayne Cornwell reports that the only item belonging to him that he believes to have been missing from his cabin was
00:40:46
a pink blanket like like one that you would spread out on a bed so I don't have a um a size to report here but it
00:40:56
sounds like it's a fairly lar blanket it's one that he noticed to be missing now we sit here 50 years later and we
00:41:04
know that Belinda has never returned to this cabin we know that people were still looking for her now those
00:41:11
belongings of Belinda that were left behind seem so much more important than they likely seem that first hour or two
00:41:20
right one of those items was her her driver's license so from my understanding Captain she did not own a
00:41:28
vehicle did not possess a vehicle but did have a a driver's license SL identification card and her wallet was
00:41:35
left behind as well I will say this in the 70s especially the you know this is 74 so one could make the argument that
00:41:44
this is the early '70s police are looking at this scene and they don't see any obvious signs of Foul Play they do
00:41:52
find that at the rear of the home a screen and for my understanding this is a screen that goes to a window not like a
00:42:01
screen in porch or anything but a screen to one of the windows was missing a roughly let's say a 12 in by 12 in
00:42:10
square that had been cut do we have any comment by the homeowner about this well
00:42:15
thank you I I'm assuming based off of The Limited information in the report that Dwayne is saying yeah that wasn't
00:42:24
like that before I left right that that's an that's a easy yes and no answer or easy yes and no question for
00:42:31
police well then I think the other question becomes is this damage that could have been done by animal or done
00:42:40
in some other way other than a a human making this damage to this screen well you you want to you want a description
00:42:49
but when I hear the short description is 12 by 12 that sounds like a pretty clean
00:42:53
cut to me um the the thing here though that really complicates matters is included in their notes about that
00:43:04
screen being cut they say that the window was not accessed I don't know how there's no Rhyme or Reason as to how
00:43:14
they arrived at that conclusion right we've seen some some cases where they're like oh there's
00:43:21
cobwebs that were never Disturbed right um we've seen other cases where there's windows that are paint painted shut that
00:43:28
even if someone were to have cut or removed a screen they wouldn't be able to open it or nailed shut what seems
00:43:35
pretty definitive is their their understanding that when they observed this they wrote the detail in included
00:43:44
the detail in on this that the window was not accessed they go on to say that this the door being open whether it was
00:43:53
locked or sorry unlocked a jar or what have you that they're looking at a scene and they're going
00:44:04
well we can kind of there's no obvious signs of Foul Play to us here we can see a likely scenario again this is the cop
00:44:13
saying this a likely scenario of someone came over and she left with somebody or
00:44:21
she decided to leave and I get it it's You could argue it's the early '70s remember
00:44:27
like every movie that that takes place in the 60s almost especially the late 60s almost always has some teenager 17
00:44:36
18 19y old that's what are you doing we're we're heading out to California far out man you know what I mean like
00:44:43
that's that was a thing in this country at the time and maybe they just chalk it
00:44:48
up to here's a uh young 17-year-old blond hair blue eyes good-look girl very very popular with
00:44:57
lots of friends maybe she she and somebody else just chose to take off and again they are making these notes in the
00:45:05
moment right right so we looking back on it retrospectively we have to stay water
00:45:11
we have to understand that they this is something that they decided to include in the police file then that day now
00:45:19
what they what it doesn't say is you can't ask that person in the same moment to include in your notes hey if she
00:45:26
doesn't come back and F 5 days or 2 weeks or 3 weeks would you change your whole opinion of the scene or your
00:45:32
thoughts or theories on to where she is or what happened to her because when I look at it it's easy for us to go
00:45:38
retrospectively and go I don't think she's leaving her wallet or her driver's license behind the other thing too is
00:45:48
she only took this job to get paid right she only took this job to make some cash
00:45:56
if she was in intending to or wanted to leave for any reason at all with anybody
00:46:01
it would stand to reason that she would have stayed the extra couple of hours to
00:46:07
collect from the homeowner that she had been housesitting for yeah this gets complicated did she invite somebody over
00:46:14
did she leave with that person did the person that she invite over have a weapon and force her to leave the
00:46:21
property or did she simply go hey I'm going to go to the lake and go sunbathing something happened there or
00:46:28
I'm going to go to the lake and I'm going to go swimming and something happened there what we do know and this
00:46:33
just makes a very mysterious and sad story even all that more sad was her her father
00:46:41
Clifford was upset with his daughter that she hadn't shown up the night prior to wish her older sister well to you
00:46:49
know have a celebration before we send her along her way now that year Captain just as it shall be this year Father's
00:46:57
day was Sunday June 16th so poor Clifford this poor man had to spend Father's Day searching for his daughter
00:47:06
and he's doing that with other family members and and likely other persons of this community as well they're all
00:47:13
looking for this young woman they're not seeing any signs obvious signs of Foul Play again as as a armchair detective I
00:47:24
think maybe I always expect the worst has happened uh and that's pretty easy for us to do giving the number of cases
00:47:32
that we've looked at and we're only obviously looking at the bad ones right we're not covering cases where
00:47:37
somebody's reported missing and then they turn up alive and well 36 hours later and it's just a misunderstanding
00:47:44
people don't tune in for those shows but This Woman's been missing for almost 50
00:47:50
years now and what we're going to see here is a change in opinion of the authorities it's going to take a while
00:47:59
it's going to take several months in fact but at some point they're going to go back and say not so fast maybe there
00:48:06
was Foul Play involved here and that that will slowly matriculate into we do strongly believe that there is Foul Play
00:48:15
here and we we have some people that we are concerned about and you first have to look at the homeowner Dwayne Cornwell
00:48:26
so he's gone on this trip now one thing that is great for his Alibi as said he's
00:48:31
traveling with friends with with people other musicians and he is states away he's
00:48:41
he's in Nashville Tennessee our case is taking place in Wright County Minnesota so they check into his Alibi and of
00:48:49
course they have his mother to interview as well she's confirming yes I arrived at the the house beforehand they want to
00:48:56
know why he's having somebody bother to house sit at all right why don't just lock up the place and go on your trip it
00:49:03
wasn't for my understanding this wasn't he was going to be gone for months this was he was going to be gone for a
00:49:09
handful of days maybe a week at the most but he did have some concerns so he's he's telling police look it's common
00:49:17
here in this area for people to to house sit of course Belinda's family's backing
00:49:21
up that information with law enforcement but he says look I have I have chickens
00:49:25
that need to be taken care of so that's one explanation again he's a musician so
00:49:31
he's saying look I own a lot of expensive instruments and I have other items that are of value expensive items
00:49:41
in my home and I was more so having her house sit to to keep an eye on my belongings not necessarily the house
00:49:50
itself this stands to some reason right I mean these cabins are they're out there and some people are some of them
00:49:58
are are owned but not completely occupied every day of the year if you were looking to steal some stuff from a
00:50:06
house this would be easy pickings in my opinion the report though is that none of these items other than this pink
00:50:12
blanket are missing from the house so it doesn't seem like somebody went there with the intent of stealing any of his
00:50:18
belongings and then turned out to to be in a situation where Belinda's there it appears like whatever happened to
00:50:25
Belinda either happened without a whole lot of force or a whole lot of struggle in his home or that she was elsewhere
00:50:35
when whatever happened to her took place the we'll expand on this a little bit though so from my understanding too uh
00:50:43
Dwayne Cornwell had been married a couple times and he unloads the detail on the police that like Not only was I
00:50:50
worried that somebody might take or steal some of my expensive instruments or or valuables from my home while I was
00:50:59
gone he was specifically worried that one of his exes may come to the house to either do something to the house or to
00:51:07
steal something so it sounds like whatever relationships he had with these you know with woman a woman b or
00:51:15
whomever I've not seen their names it sounds like it was a pretty messy breakup and that he had some concerns
00:51:23
yeah his relationship with Tammy 1 and Tammy who were toxic now this might be a captain obvious question here but I'm
00:51:32
guessing when law enforcement the family people in the community are searching for her around the lake that they never
00:51:39
found this missing pink blanket you're exactly right and in fact there's a little bit of a hangup with the items
00:51:47
that we should be looking for right so we're looking for Belinda we're looking for the pink blanket we do know that
00:51:54
some of her belongings in and what we just described for you earlier is probably a shorter list of of the list
00:52:01
of items that they have that she left behind or that were left behind before she vanished but one item that they
00:52:09
never found that she was never without is a troll necklace and in fact there are some pictures online of her you know
00:52:18
with friends or hanging out what have you and you can see her wearing the troll necklace in some of these pictures
00:52:25
so right away police say like we're looking for Belinda we're looking for the pink blanket and we're looking for
00:52:32
this troll necklace because if we can't find Belinda the pink blanket in the necklace are are probably some of the
00:52:39
best leads we could get when looking for her they're not going to find any of this stuff it's 50 years later they
00:52:46
don't find the blanket they don't find the the troll necklace what they do find in their
00:52:53
investigation and this is going this is very problematic IC for Dwayne Cornwell they go to check on his Alibi again he's
00:53:01
traveling with other people he's staying in a hotel they get the name of the hotel from him where were you staying
00:53:08
and he says you know we were staying there the whole time and I think he said that we don't know the route that that
00:53:16
they would have taken so I I don't know if this was a straight shot or not but he said it was about 14 hours to travel
00:53:23
from Nashville back home okay again there's other people on this trip the problem here becomes when they
00:53:32
go to check on the hotel reservations and the hotel stay he's not staying alone there's at least one person that's
00:53:40
rooming with him they confirm that he did stay at the hotel however he's returning a a day or a night later
00:53:51
than when the hotel says that he checked out so even with the arri even with the
00:53:58
return now we have this window of time where his story doesn't match up I won't go so far as to say that he was
00:54:05
unaccounted for because we do know that he wasn't traveling alone but the question becomes when did he drop off
00:54:11
that other person and what is this time Gap that he has because if he has a Time
00:54:17
Gap it's very possible he comes back home he does something he does something to Belinda and then discards her body
00:54:26
yes this this missing time would in my opinion and and everyone else's should mean that this allows for time for him
00:54:34
to have been involved in her disappearance to be responsible for her disappearance now the thing though is
00:54:43
here Captain for whatever reason the police even though they tracked down this lead and they were looking at it
00:54:51
they were looking at him it seems like it seems like they were able to move on from that because again this is a
00:55:01
50-year-old investigation we have different agencies that have investigated this over the years we have
00:55:07
different detectives that have have reviewed this case and worked this case over the years so we don't have detailed
00:55:14
information as to how they came to this conclusion but at some point they move off of him in fact it's there's a note
00:55:21
in the police file that says that Dwayne Cornwell was cleared and this is within
00:55:27
days of her having gone missing is this just as simple as they spoke to multiple
00:55:32
people that could confirm that hey I was with him from the time that we left whatever time that they that hotel said
00:55:39
we checked out or date that we checked out not a big deal I was with him the entire time or the overwhelming majority
00:55:48
of the time it could be as simple as we took a detour and then we we stayed in the van or or when he went to drop me
00:55:54
off he stayed at my house for a little but I don't think we know exactly what it was that made the cops move off of
00:56:01
him no and it it would seem to me like it's got to be something very solid because isn't he your obvious lead he's
00:56:08
your obvious suspect right out the gate especially when you confirm that oh his his story is not 100% spoton we we we
00:56:17
check the facts of his story they don't line up with what he's telling us now that could just be in the moment he was
00:56:24
shocked he was surprised he gave bad information he does we do know that he tells police
00:56:29
it was roughly like a 40 sorry roughly a 14 hour travel time from point A to point B I can tell you this it's a quick
00:56:38
map search tells me that it's roughly 13 and a half hour so he's he's very close
00:56:44
on on his time timing with that but it I'm I'm again paron me for making a leap I'm not saying we trying to stay water
00:56:54
and looking at this retrospectively that we collectively look back and say oh yeah move off of Dwayne completely but
00:57:01
I'm saying looking at their investigation and the notes that were included that's been released to the
00:57:07
public the information states that the police moved on from him so again here making the leap that there must have
00:57:15
been something solid for them to move off of Dwayne and then now they're back at the idea of she probably left or she
00:57:25
left in whatever happened to her didn't take place at the cabin and Dwayne's not
00:57:31
involved yeah because even though we have some of her items left behind we don't have any signs of a struggle no
00:57:38
signs of a struggle and the problem here though is the the notes in that case File indicate that the police that the
00:57:47
investigators at the time believed that there was not much of a case to work here that there was no real crime
00:57:55
committed that she took off on her own and I think that all of us can agree that look some people do they yeah they
00:58:05
go off and they live a whole new life and they never come back they never make they never reach out or make
00:58:10
communication with with anyone so that's always going to be a possibility right but I would put that in the one or
00:58:20
two% chance because I with all this time that has expired and all of of the information that will come out later in
00:58:29
this investigation it's starting to see it's starting to seem very highly unlikely that she just took off in fact
00:58:37
as said the police at some point will change their opinion and they will say look we now believe that there is Foul
00:58:44
Play involved [Music] so much more to get to in this case join us back in the garage and until then be
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