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[Music] thank you [Music] [Music] thank you foreign garage wherever you are whatever you are
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doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man that
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has the nanny cam set up to keep an eye on that sneaky little elf on his shelf here is the captain it's could be seen
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and good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a friend [Music] today in the garage we got a big beer on
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tap that Beer's name is Bill Brasky from the good folks over at The Peddler Brewery in beautiful Huntington West
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Virginia Bill Brasky is a New England style hazy IPA and one of my favorite SNL characters big on Aroma and flavor
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just like the legend Bill Brasky himself ABV 6.6 garage grade 4 out of five bottle caps and let's give some thanks
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and holiday cheers to some of our good friends that helped us out with this week's beer run first up a big cheers to
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Philip Malloy in El Monte California and also in Cali we have Holly Jackson in Upland California and a big We Like Her
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with this week's beer fund and for that we thank you yeah BW Double R U Win Beer
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list and if you haven't already subscribe to our Channel on YouTube at True Crime garage TV and that's enough
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of the business all right everybody gather round grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime
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[Music] thank you [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] it never seems to get any easier does it
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doesn't get any easier telling these stories nor does it get any easier to hear them
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we listen and we ask ourselves so many questions along the way questions like why her or why him
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what would I have done in this situation and of course could this have been avoided
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sometimes the why her or him is answered in the story the what would I have done part
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well that's up to you and could this have been avoided I'll fill you in the answer
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is almost always yes the overwhelming majority of these cases simply boils down to
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very bad and horrible person does something very wrong and horribly bad to a good person
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but even with answers doesn't get any easier for seven years we have been researching writing and
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telling these true crime stories and all of us have certainly learned some very profound things along the way
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but often we still can't make any sense out of this violence wherever get over the Innocence Lost
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since lost is really the most honest way to summarize this week's True Crime Story
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the victim was a 21 year old college girl a young woman that was well liked hard-working
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and just straight up a very good person almost too innocent to be 21 years of age
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she didn't seek trouble and she didn't start trouble she was close with her family and
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friends she got good grades and even though she was a young independent woman she still checked in with Mom and Dad
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she looked to her older sister for guidance after leaving her parents home and going off to college
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she regularly told her parents her sibling and friends what she was up to where she was going
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and with whom she'd be going with no problems here right you would think that would be the case
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but we've been doing this long enough to know that the wolf is always at the door
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today's True Crime Story is about a young woman who should have had the world at her
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feet she was packing up and preparing to head home for the holidays until she became lost and stolen away
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forever Innocence Lost and it doesn't get any easier this is a tragic Cold Case story of Leah
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Hickman and this is True Crime garage [Music] 21-year-old Leah Hickman was a journalism student at Marshall
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University Marshall is located in Huntington West Virginia and in 2020 had more than 11
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000 students now this week's True Crime Story however takes place back in 2007. our first real true sign of
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trouble here Captain is when Leah Hickman goes missing in December of 2007. now at the time Leah shared an
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apartment located on 8th Avenue in Huntington with her older half-sister Jessica Vickers Jessica was Aaliyah's
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mother's daughter from her first marriage when our story kicks off in 2007 Leah's father Ron or Ronnie was
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separated from Leah's mother Leah was close with her half-sister as they not only lived together but also spent a lot
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of time together as we will see E when we get into the timeline leading up to The Disappearance but she was also close
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with her father and close with her mother as well Leah is described as a pretty regular
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college student but I thought she was much more impressive than just a regular college student who tries hard
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Leah was outgoing she had a lot of friends she was studious cared greatly about her grades and education she was
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driven and focused she worked hard both at work and at school Leah worked at the
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Dress Barn the thing here Captain the thing that makes this case to me a real shocker is just how truly innocent Leah
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was like we said in the trailer she didn't look for trouble she didn't get into trouble she didn't party a lot like many
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of the 20 and 21 year old college students Not only was she close with her half-sister Jessica she was close with
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her father and her mother as well 21 year old Marshall University student Leah Hickman
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Leah Hickman was reported missing on December 16 2007. and this is a pretty thorough
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report when the missing persons report is filed in this case considering that we have four persons present when the
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report is filed present we have Leah's mother Sherry Russell Leah's half-sister Jessica Vickers Leah's best friend
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Caitlin Starkey and another friend who is not named in the reports she's reported missing to the Huntington
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Police Department on Sunday December 16 2007. being reported on this day however
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the alarm was actually raised the previous day on the 15th this when her half-sister and roommate Jessica Vickers
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went to the apartment that the two shared looking for her sister this is going to be leading into the winter
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break leading into the winter break for Marshall University and its students but
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also we have Leah's half-sister and roommate Jessica Vickers who was planning to go and stay with her
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boyfriend for what is an indeterminate amount of time I don't know how many nights she was intending to stay there
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there was some talk that Jessica may be going home for the holidays as well so while we have this these two living
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together in this apartment in Huntington West Virginia we also have the fact that both of them are getting
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ready to leave and take a break not just from school for Leah but also take a break from their apartment for a period
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of time as well and like we said Leah was reported missing on the 16th but alarms were already raised on the 15th
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and like Nick was saying we have four individuals that end up making this phone call so they they did their due
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diligence to try to track her down themselves and were unsuccessful yeah the trouble Starts Here captain on the
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15th when Jessica vicker's roommate half-sister Julia is sent to the apartment looking for her sister and she
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sent there at the request of their mother now there once she gets there Jessica has already gone and stayed the previous
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night at her boyfriend's home when she gets to the apartment that they shared there she finds Leah's car parked
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out front of the apartment this is typical behavior from my understanding and I'm going to do my best as we go
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through this story to describe the apartment the layout and how it's situated on the street
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because I believe that that is very important to this case so you have street parking
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right in front and on the side of this apartment the apartment building itself is located on a corner and it's on 8th
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Avenue she parked right in front of the apartment on the street however there is a small parking area
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that is designated for the apartment's occupants and residents right behind the building itself
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but from my understanding that it is that Leah typically would park on the street in front of the apartment and
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this seems to be her preferred parking space so when Jessica Vickers gets to the apartment on that Saturday looking
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for her sister the first thing she's going to notice is Leah's bright yellow Chevy Cavalier parked in street parking
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right in front of the apartment she gets into the apartment quickly discovers Leah's purse and car keys inside of the
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apartment the back door there's a back door to this apartment which leads to a stairwell so this just doesn't go out
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and exit the building it's a back door from the apartment that goes to a stairwell a two-story stairwell well I
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guess it would be a three-story stairwell I apologize it's a common space that anybody that has an apartment
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inside this building can access that door from their apartment to the stairwell Jessica says that she found this door to
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be unlocked and in fact many of the reports out there say that the door was slightly open again let me describe this
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apartment a little bit more thoroughly here Captain because this is the key I believe to understanding this week's
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case I believe that damn near everything about the apartment also would tell us that our suspect pool
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in this case is probably not that large right with this case in all cases we cover we'll be posting some of the
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pictures so you can see this apartment building more in detail on social media it's a all brick apartment with multiple
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apartment units in this building the address was 403 8th Avenue Huntington West Virginia and as we said it's
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located at an intersection this is 8th Avenue and 4th Street like the captain said it's a red brick building it's
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brick from head to toe out front where Leah would typically Park facing 8th Avenue you have a two-story open porch
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and if you're looking from the street there you can see a door once you go up a few steps you can see a
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door and you can see a big large window for each one of the four apartment units so this building
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has four apartment units in it you have two on the second floor two on the ground level floor two on the right two
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on the left it looks to be rather spacious for apartments now from my understanding
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and from what I've been told because there are no pictures available online that I could find of the interior of the
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layout anyway of this building so that door that you would see from 8th Avenue if you go in that door there is a shared
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space where you would then go and access your front door to your apartment then remember at the very back of the
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building we also have four doors from each one of the four apartments that goes into that enclosed stairwell
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which again is another common space why do we need this these two different ins and outs to each apartment well
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you have this really nice front porch area if you're on the second floor you have a balcony that oversees that front
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porch and then once you're inside you you access that common area you can go into your your front door from there
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your back door to your apartment goes to that stairwell that stairwell's key because that stairwell will lead to the
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basement and in the basement level you have a shared space with washers and dryers so
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that's the laundry area for the four apartments in this building now this is not
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from my understanding Captain it's not part of a larger apartment complex this is simply a one building unit
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I'm sorry this is simply one building with four apartment units inside of it the other thing that's key to this case
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too is the other residents because at the time there's practically nobody else living
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in this building you have Leah and her sister are living in one unit you have the man that owns the building itself he
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lives in one unit and the other two units were unoccupied at the time and from some Reports most reports it's a
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little confusing because some reports state that there was repairs going on inside the building other reports state
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that there were Renovations going on in the two empty units but both can be true
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one could be described as repairs where it's the same thing that's going on and they're actually renovating those other
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units from my understanding Captain the man that owned the building he's the only other resident that shares
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a unit in this building with Leah and her sister but he's out of town he's in Florida or someplace warm and sunny for
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the winter and so much so that we have the police on record stating that yes we checked this other dude out that lived
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there that owned the building and he was gone had been gone for days and had a rock solid Alibi he was many many miles
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away in another state well I'm glad you bring that up because since the owner lives part-time in another state he has
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maintenance workers and there was maintenance being done on the apartment during that time period that Leo went
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missing yes I've seen reports that state that his brother was in charge of overseeing things while
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he was gone I don't know if that meant that the brother was living there staying nights there my guess is
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probably not but also that doesn't mean that his brother was responsible for actually doing the repairs it might just
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be hey if you get a call you need to call one of my maintenance workers yes my understanding the way that it's
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described is that he was overseeing the building and that this was a regular thing he would oversee the building when
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his brother would be gone for these extensive periods of time and he operated as
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you know a property manager mostly when his brother was gone and like you said yes there are reports of repairs reports
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of Renovations maintenance so there were other people that would be in and out of
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this apartment building around this same time let's dive into a detailed timeline
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of Leah's disappearance let's start with Sunday December 9th so roughly about a week before she goes missing we have
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Leah Hickman's final week of school which started off routinely okay this is this is a routine thing for her and her
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sister we have Leah and her sister Jessica they would go I found this to be very
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interesting and I think that it pointed out to me how close these two likely were which makes the set this story even
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more heartbreaking but not only do they live together they have a weekly breakfast that they regularly did
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together at Bob Evans and this takes place on that Sunday December 9th they would typically go and drink hot
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chocolate Leah would usually order pie while they were there and she had some of her favorites maybe get a cheesecake
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or A Slice of Cheesecake while she was there so on that Sunday business as usual the Two Sisters go out for a nice
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breakfast together at Bob Evans the next day December 10th we have classes that resumed at Marshall University and the
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students were in the process of taking finals this week let's fast forward a little bit to December 13th this is that
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Thursday that day was a trip for Leah to go visit her mother Sherry Russell she went to visit her mom as she would
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regularly but I guess this was somewhat of a a less routine visit because it was
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for her to check up on her mother I guess her mother had some health tests recently and they were all kind of
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worried about what the results of those tests would be on this Thursday Leah also spoke with her best friend Caitlyn
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Starkey they discussed making plans for Friday night that leads us to Friday December 14th according to Jessica
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Vickers Leah's half-sister she says that she woke Leah up on that Friday morning this in
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preparation for a trip together to the Huntington Mall the sisters ate breakfast and then
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headed out for Christmas shopping they were going to do some Christmas shopping together
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the sister Jessica she reports that they arrived at the the mall promptly around
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9 00 A.M about two hours later around 11 A.M they left the mall and returned back to their
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apartment Jessica said that the trip back was special as she would go on to describe for the
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papers a recent email that Leah had sent Jessica praised her sister for improvements in her writing skills so
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they're having this moment they went Christmas shopping together and they're having a bit of a bonding moment she
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says or recalls on the way home from the mall that Friday morning that will take
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us up to 1 30 p.m this is when Leah calls her mother her mother is busy cleaning at the time they did speak
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briefly Leah spoke to her mom about coming home that evening even though she had scheduled work the following day
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her mother convinces her to meet her at the Huntington Mall later that evening now around 3 P.M Leah calls her father
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Ron Hickman he's at work and he would later describe the phone call this conversation as Leah checking in
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unfortunately this would be their last telephone conversation at 3 30 Jessica returned home for lunch
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she packs up a few things for a weekend stay at her boyfriend's she said that when she's there at the apartment she
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sees Leah Leah is in the kitchen washing dishes she said that they spoke briefly
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Leah seemed excited about her grades that she was getting good grades at the time and so she was excited about
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putting in the hard work getting good grades she was looking forward to the holiday season they also discussed their
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upcoming Sunday morning breakfast at Bob Evans and then Jessica leaves this is when we really need to start focusing in
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on the timeline here because the alarm is raised on that Saturday and Leah is reported missing on that Sunday it's
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really at this time when we start backing into events and known events of Leah it's around this time that we're
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going to see that she likely whatever happened to Leah went down that evening and she was probably
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actually missing starting Friday evening Friday night so let's start with 5 30 P.M
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this is when Leah goes to a local McDonald's it's my understanding captain that this
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McDonald's is a six minute round trip so roughly three minutes there three minutes back to go pick up some fast
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food for a quick dinner that night yeah there's actually a map of this and it's it's very close a couple blocks away
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I've also been told that this McDonald's is no longer in existence so if you are
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trolling on a map or if you're driving in the area looking for the closest McDonald's to
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this 403 8th Avenue Apartment the one that we are discussing right now is no longer there I could be wrong but I
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believe that the building is still there but it's not a McDonald's obviously so Leah talked to her friend and it's
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always just reported as friend I believe that this is Caitlyn Starkey that they're talking about and I think that
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I've seen this in one of the reports that it was in fact Caitlyn Starkey who we've already brought up
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so she talks to her friend via her cell phone so Leah has her own cell phone she's talking to her friend about
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cleaning supplies and plans that she she planned to spend some time cleaning that
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evening and this would be the last conversation between Leah and her friend yeah what a
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sad situation around this same time we have Leah's mother and her stepson who arrived at the
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Huntington Mall remember Leah is supposed to be meeting them at this mall the plan was for Leah to call when she
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arrived at the mall but unfortunately the stepson forgot his cell phone in the car Leah had her mother's phone because
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of a bad battery Leah never arrived at the mall so between 6 30 pm and 7 P.M that night
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the mother stepson Duo they leave the mall and this is when mother decides to call
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her daughter from the car because she's concerned that her daughter didn't show up
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and the call goes straight to voicemail so the mother continued to call Leah Hickman over and over again through the
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11 p.m hour but gets the same result each time going to voicemail every single time and she said that she just
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initially feared that Leah was mad that maybe Leah had made the trip to the mall
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gets there tries to call but because the cell phone is left in the car doesn't get a hold of anybody and thinks that oh
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they got their wires crossed or she got stood up or whatever happened and people
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weren't where they were supposed to be and maybe Leah got upset that she had to make the trip
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for nothing yeah I'm not going to fault her for not understanding technology but
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the technology at the time she would have been able to see if Leah called just to be clear they get back to the
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car Leah's mom is using her son's cell phone to call technically her own cell phone this part is very tricky about the
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story here Captain because this is the only report that says that Leah has her mom's cell phone
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other reports state that Leah had her own cell phone but I guess both reports can be right she could have her cell
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phone and she could have her mother herself I'm gonna just go out on a limb here if she tried to call her own cell
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phone let's say Leah was borrowing that cell phone she tried to call goes straight to voicemail that's a red flag
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we don't know if she showed up to the mall so that's a red flag now we're calling it's going straight to voicemail
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she probably tried calling Leah's phone as well and if there's a battery issue obviously that would go to voicemail as
00:28:09
well but as a parent I would think that this is bread flag after red flag and I'd be getting pretty worried there are
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some people online who have stated they don't understand why the mother didn't drive out to the apartment that night I
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don't know I don't get the vibe that we're frantically calling over and over and over again I get the vibe that it's
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more of I'll give her a call here here at seven I'll give her a call at eight uh maybe nine nine thirty a handful of
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times she is a grown woman she's 21 years of age and we also don't know their relationship
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could it be a situation where we have mom who says I just figured she was mad that could be something that's fairly
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normal maybe they've had plans that got busted up before and and Leah didn't take it too well but what we do know to
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happen is is the phone calls take place but also that same night Captain we have
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Leah Hickman who has plans they're kind of loose plans loosey-goosey plans here with her friend
00:29:16
Caitlyn Starkey right and Leah does not arrive for those plans as well from my understanding on that Thursday the day
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earlier when Starkey and Leah Hickman spoke Caitlin Starkey works at a local nightclub Leah had said hey on Friday
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night you know I'm gonna I'm gonna be doing some cleaning I'm gonna be packing up
00:29:39
some clothes to go home for the winter break but I'm probably not coming home until or not going home until the
00:29:47
following day so regardless of what I got going on this Friday I'll swing by where you work and drop in and see you
00:29:56
briefly Friday night that doesn't happen and so the friend Caitlyn tries reaching
00:30:02
out to Leah as well and of course she's getting the same result she's getting Leah Hickman's voicemail
00:30:11
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[Music] all right we are back ladies and gents cheers everybody cheers to you captain
00:32:21
and happy holidays to everybody out there when we left off we have family and friends who are
00:32:28
trying to get in touch with Leah Hickman they are unsuccessful trying to get in touch with her now we do have Leah
00:32:37
Hickman who is on social media at the time she was on the old MySpace back in 2007 and it is
00:32:46
reported that Leah Hickman last logged on to her Myspace page sometime on that Friday unfortunately for these
00:32:57
reports no specific time is given I do want to Circle back to the McDonald's visit because there's a couple things
00:33:04
here we had pointed out that it's about a three minute drive to McDonald's and a
00:33:09
three minute drive coming back one of the reports out there and I think that this is probably the more likely report
00:33:16
because it's a similar report it's just a little more detailed it says at 5 40 pm
00:33:22
Leah's on the phone with her friend on a cell phone call to her friend saying that she is going to McDonald's to get
00:33:29
some food get some dinner for that night this is the last phone call that is made
00:33:34
from Leah's phone and what what again is difficult is we have the report of well
00:33:40
she was borrowing her mother's phone so is this the last it's reported as this is the last made call from her phone her
00:33:48
phone not her mom's phone so the mom's phone thing is all very weird to me now what's interesting though is we do know
00:33:57
that Leah made it to the McDonald's and she made it home successfully from the McDonald's because later police would
00:34:06
find the McDonald's bag food consumed and the receipt for the purchase and the receipt time is 5 40 PM
00:34:16
so that goes along with the idea that she's on the phone with her friend at that same time while she's going through
00:34:22
the drive-through we know that she makes it home and she was home at least a long
00:34:28
enough period of time to consume the food and throw it away but to me this is the most important time period because
00:34:35
let's say a little bit before six is when I think whatever happened happened and that's when you need to start
00:34:45
looking at the Inner Circle their Alibis for around that time period I'd say around that time period to an hour to a
00:34:54
two hour window and look at the Inner Circle and then start looking at her Outer Circle of
00:35:01
Friends the difficult thing here for law enforcement is always going to be one the neighborhood
00:35:07
you know Act of random violence and also that she went to college and so her interactions with how many students were
00:35:16
she was she in class with how many students did she have interaction with on a weekly basis well
00:35:23
and it looks to me Captain that from her Eighth Avenue apartment to the Huntington Mall
00:35:31
we're talking about an 18 to 20 minute drive and pay attention to our timeline here we're saying 5 40 she's got a
00:35:39
receipt time stamp from the McDonald's restaurant that is three a three minutes drive from her apartment the timeline
00:35:46
states that between 6 30 and 7 P.M her mom and Stepbrother are leaving the mall they've left the mall and
00:35:58
they've started to call Leah at this time to figure out what happened you know did we oh we're sorry we screwed
00:36:05
things up we left the phone in the car where are you that sort of thing those calls are going to voicemail you have to
00:36:12
believe given the time frame it would take her to get to the mall she likely was going to be leaving her apartment
00:36:18
rather soon right to make it to the ball in time to meet up with her mother yeah
00:36:24
she she returned home but if everything had gone as planned it would stand a reason that she would have left the
00:36:31
apartment so I think you have to be right here that something happened between 5 40 p.m you know you would say
00:36:38
6 30 7 o'clock when they start to call Leah but you could probably push that back to 6 10 6 15. we have a really
00:36:45
short window of time where something happened something went down that stopped and prevented Leah from going
00:36:52
about her business yeah and and real quick and I don't know if you can answer this
00:36:56
off the top of your head or if you can find in your notes real quick but so we roughly have this a little bit before
00:37:03
six o'clock a little bit after six o'clock that's the time window of when we think something happened when is it
00:37:10
that her half-sister gets to the apartment it's the following day right that's correct that's correct and it's
00:37:17
like early late morning early afternoon we don't have an exact time for it but we we can narrow it down to that part so
00:37:25
without sounding too suspicious of family members here right because that's a that's a tightrope that I do not enjoy
00:37:34
balancing on but I've always wanted to know more about that I'm using air quotes here
00:37:41
that phone call or those phone calls going from mother to daughter from stepbrother to step sister the calls
00:37:50
trying to get in touch with Leah I'm not saying that they didn't happen but what
00:37:55
I'm saying is with this being such a crucial part in our timeline I am very curious I was very curious to see what
00:38:03
cell phone information and Technology the Huntington Police Department accessed in this case to verify
00:38:11
statements given to the police you could easily check to see if those phone calls
00:38:17
were made if those phone calls weren't made we got a whole different set of circumstances here well one also could
00:38:24
argue that were still in the infant stages of social media 2007 we were definitely in
00:38:32
the beginning stages so I wouldn't put it past law enforcement to not check that information because a
00:38:41
lot of people at that time that were on MySpace were using that as a text message device
00:38:49
so is it possible that she was communicating with somebody through Myspace and not through her her cell phone or
00:38:59
through her mother's cell phone and listen to what goes on that day so on the Saturday December 15th we have the
00:39:05
sister who comes back to the apartment looking for Leah we don't have an exact time of when she arrives there again
00:39:12
it's reported as the morning time she arrives at the apartment this is when she finds her sister's purse and keys
00:39:19
and car are all where she would expect them to be however her sister is nowhere to be found at the apartment and then
00:39:27
she finds this back door unlocked in a jar that goes to the stairwell at 101 PM Jessica the half-sister post a
00:39:39
message on Leah's Myspace page that reads Oh Sister where are you triple question mark whatever time she arrives
00:39:48
there that morning she has enough time to investigate the situation the apartment and such and then have enough
00:39:54
time to sit stew and worry and then make this post onto her Myspace page that says Oh Sister where are you I know that
00:40:02
sometimes it's uncomfortable for people to take a look at the family I don't think so I think that's out of respect
00:40:10
for their loved one that they have lost if somebody in my family was murdered or
00:40:18
missing look at us look at the family first rule Us in or out and then you can move on with the
00:40:26
investigation and I would hope that my family members would be as Cooperative as they could be with law enforcement so
00:40:33
they could start looking in the correct direction I find this post to be kind of silly and suspicious oh sister
00:40:46
can you can you read it again so we have it for verbatim again oh sister where are you triple question mark this seems
00:40:54
a little strange to me where you could just put hey we're looking for you or hey answer
00:41:03
your phone or something like that but this oh sister seems a little bizarre to me again if she's
00:41:10
extremely concerned if she's panicking she's probably not really worried about choice of words here right the other
00:41:20
thing too when I read it it almost sounds like frustration like oh I've looked high and low for the last couple
00:41:25
of hours for my sister this doesn't make any sense it almost sounds a little frustrated I think the big red flag here
00:41:33
goes down at five or goes up if you will at 5 p.m on that Saturday this is when she does not show up when Leah does not
00:41:42
show up for her scheduled work shift at the dress bar right she was only supposed to be
00:41:48
working about four or five hours that night now keep in mind this is middle of December going into the holiday you know
00:41:56
approaching Christmas holiday shopping is a priority for most people at this time
00:42:02
so this would be a busy shift this would be a busy store she doesn't arrive for this shift and she's worked there for
00:42:10
five or six months at this point later supervisors and managers went on record saying it was completely out of the norm
00:42:20
for Leah to not show up for work number one number two she would call if she was
00:42:27
just going to be a minute or two late right so when she doesn't show up and there's no communication at all this is
00:42:34
the big major red flag here and I'm sure that this was for the family as well because look if you return to the
00:42:40
apartment there's a high probability that there's been many times that sister returns to the apartment and the other
00:42:48
sister is not there there's probably been even a one or two times that maybe she gets back to the apartment and her
00:42:54
sister's car is there but her sister is not there right and so you look around you're trying to call everything's going
00:43:00
to voicemail again it may just be frustration oh well she's she's probably with one of her friends somebody
00:43:06
probably picked her up and damn it she left this back door unlocked I wish she would pick up her phone so we could
00:43:13
figure it out but then boom she doesn't go to work and now you're starting to go
00:43:16
well she's probably not with a friend she's probably not just out doing something now it appears that she's
00:43:22
missing yeah it's probably time for the family to hit the panic button well and during the course of this time period
00:43:28
this is going to take us into that Sunday now what we do know that happens is that Leah's mother Sherry Russell
00:43:35
attempted to place a missing person's Report with the West Virginia State Police they encouraged her to to make
00:43:45
the report with on the more local level in Huntington so it's on that Sunday where we have mom sister and two friends
00:43:54
all present when the missing persons report is filed this is what you want to happen right in these cases we see so
00:44:01
many times where there's a huge delay in reporting that somebody's missing or there's a
00:44:07
not much of a we give a damn factor from the police but this is this is about as close as
00:44:14
you can get it I would prefer that she had been officially reported missing that Saturday night but it takes place
00:44:19
that Sunday so again it's relatively quickly the police clearly they care they're in there taking the report and
00:44:26
to top that off you have four individuals that are rather close to our missing person that are there to answer
00:44:33
questions and flesh out a timeline for police right there when the report is being taken absolutely over the course
00:44:41
of the next few days we're going to have police doing everything that we would expect them to be doing they're going to
00:44:46
be interviewing people closest to Leah they're going to be canvassing the area around the apartment probably checking
00:44:54
in even with the university and with Leah's work at the Dress Barn talking to all persons involved we do
00:45:04
get the Dress Barn that announces a ten thousand dollar reward for information about Leah Hickman's whereabouts this
00:45:10
comes out on that Wednesday so things are getting Bleak right things are getting dark where they were once
00:45:16
concerned for a missing person now they're starting to fear the worst has happened unfortunately it looks like
00:45:23
a lot of those suspicions were confirmed on Friday December 21st and this is when
00:45:31
the Huntington Police find the body of a white female in the laundry room area of
00:45:38
Leah Hickman's apartment building of course the authorities at the time at this discovery believe that it is in
00:45:45
fact Leah's body but until she is conclusively identified they are not making that announcement to the public
00:45:54
yeah this kind of upsets me a little bit about law enforcement and and hear me out on this
00:46:01
what I've learned and again I'm not even the second smartest guy in this room but what we've learned through
00:46:09
these cases look at the JonBenet Ramsey case you show up it's a missing person report you check that house thoroughly
00:46:17
and they could have done that and they they would I think they would have had a little more information
00:46:24
and could have been more on top of this situation if they would have found her body on December 16th I can understand
00:46:31
anyway why it went down the way that it did but it's very disappointing because it's
00:46:39
obvious that she was killed in that building somewhere right to me the concealing the body inside the
00:46:48
building itself is whoever killed her had a big problem and that big problem was hiding the body hiding the body was
00:46:55
a big problem because you got to get it out of the building you got to transport
00:46:59
it for whatever reason whoever is responsible decided that their best bet or the
00:47:05
safest way for them to try to conceal this crime is to conceal the body inside the building itself so this makes it
00:47:14
sound like right when you when you first hear this statement that I just read to
00:47:18
you it makes it sound like wow the cops and the family and and the friends they didn't do a very good job her body's
00:47:25
found in the laundry room well it's a little more I shouldn't even say a little it's quite more complicated than
00:47:32
that yes yes and and this is where I give them a little bit of a pass but again like I said I think if I'm law
00:47:40
enforcement and I'm showing up just knowing what I know from doing this podcast I am searching high and low
00:47:48
in that residence so I've received a very good description of this basement because I think that this is one of the
00:47:57
keys to this case so in the basement you have a crawl space which this crawl space is located in the
00:48:06
front portion of that basement so the portion that is closest to 8th Avenue then in the larger portion which is open
00:48:14
it's an open area accessible to all that live in the apartment building for washing machines and dryers so
00:48:22
people can do their laundry there in the basement this crawl space is accessed through a door so there's these
00:48:32
doors on this front wall of the basement one of the doors is a crawl space and now this again I already pointed out
00:48:40
that this is a spacious this is a big building that these apartments appear to be quite
00:48:45
spacious the information I have Captain is that the crawl space was about one third of that basement area
00:48:52
and two-thirds of the basement was that laundry area so we're talking about a good amount of
00:48:59
space as far as a crawl space goes but the crawl space is in the front towards 8th Avenue and there it's about the door
00:49:08
itself is about 40 to 48 inches above the basement floor we have an opening that's only about 28 inches by 36 inches
00:49:19
so not not a very big opening but also you have it goes back for several feet I've been told that it goes back
00:49:29
anywhere from 15 to 30 feet from that little door so what what is on record is that they open that door and looked in
00:49:39
those doors that were at the front of that basement at least one or two times before she was
00:49:45
eventually discovered in one of the crawl spaces everyone's saying the same thing if you opened up the door and you
00:49:52
looked in you would not have been able to see her from the door in fact the the space
00:49:58
itself probably looked like it was empty and it was not until after a week's time pass from the Friday
00:50:07
that they start worrying about Leah that her body is discovered because somebody eventually got into the space
00:50:15
and went back in and crawled to it somebody whoever placed her in that crawl space Not only placed her there to
00:50:21
hide her but she was wrapped up in plastic and then concealed all the way to the very front
00:50:28
of that crawl space closest to the 8th Avenue but furthest from the crawl space door right and basically
00:50:37
everything I've heard is they weren't able to see her until they actually lit up that crawl space and so
00:50:45
in their defense you know you go in that room and you look around and even look into the crawl space you're not going to
00:50:51
see her until you you're able to shine some light onto that area but this creates for an interesting aspect of the
00:51:00
crime itself right one it's been said by many people that you wouldn't know that that space even
00:51:09
exists unless you had some good information extensive information and knowledge about the building itself what
00:51:16
we have here Captain is you you sit there and we've told so many of these stories we've reviewed so many of these
00:51:22
cases my mind first went to where I'm sure your mind went to she went to McDonald's some creep solar decided to
00:51:30
follow her figured out how to get in the apartment and then did something terrible and and then fled the scene
00:51:36
however you factor in the aspect of well she's concealed in an area where everybody's saying that you had to have
00:51:43
extensive knowledge of the building to to know to even put her there that a more random
00:51:51
suspect and random attack seems much less likely yeah I I think it seems less likely but it's not out of the realm of
00:51:59
possibility that somebody goes into her apartment murders her in her apartment and then
00:52:06
freaks out and says well now I got to do something to conceal the body which makes not a lot of sense to me no
00:52:15
if it's a random person because why wouldn't you just leave the body there yeah they would just leave yeah and so
00:52:21
unless the attack took place in the laundry area which is a possibility because like you said she's coming home
00:52:27
she's gonna eat her food maybe she's going to toss something in the dryer real quick or maybe she's going to do a
00:52:33
load of laundry real quick that that's one of the things I'd like to know did they find any of her laundry in the
00:52:39
laundry room well and that's the problem with this case there's been very little
00:52:42
information that's been put out and and it's now unfortunately coming up on 15 years the 15-year anniversary of this
00:52:51
sad day of when she was noticed to be missing is coming up this week here's a couple things a couple details that we
00:52:58
know one she told her friend she told at least one other person that she would be
00:53:04
doing laundry that evening right two when the apartment is found empty the following day she already has one bag
00:53:14
one piece of luggage that is packed up so she was going to return home leave the apartment visit mom and dad and keep
00:53:21
in mind they live separate so she's probably making more than one stop and she's going to be gone for several
00:53:27
days several nights was the original idea and I know that when I'm going away on a trip or a vacation or anything like
00:53:36
that I'm usually the day before I leave I'm busy doing some laundry because I need to get clothes together for the
00:53:43
upcoming days or week that's ahead and so we know that she said she was going to be doing some laundry
00:53:49
there's a chance that she was given that the back door was found unlocked and and
00:53:54
ajar and later the sister Jessica she's telling police and and family and friends look it was not uncommon for us
00:54:03
because it's cumbersome right you're trying to take baskets of laundry down two flights of stairs to the basement to
00:54:09
do your laundry there and she said it was very common for us to leave the door unlocked but also leave it so it's just
00:54:17
open enough that you could kick it open with your foot when you're coming back up the steps with all of your clothes
00:54:23
right so there's everything's in place to be setting the table for her to be doing laundry that evening one thing
00:54:32
that's a little weird to me though it seems like okay maybe she threw some clothes in before she went to McDonald's
00:54:37
and that's why she had to come back and didn't just eat on the way to the mall that she needed to change her clothes or
00:54:43
needed to get something out of the dryer when she returned to the apartment so maybe she she gets back and boom she's
00:54:49
in the law laundry room rather quickly but the other thing that's interesting here is that's such a small window of
00:54:54
time for when she was supposed to be to the mall so if everybody's telling us the
00:54:59
truth and if everything was supposed to play out the way that it didn't play out
00:55:02
right she she should have been leaving her apartment relatively soon after she got back from that visit to the
00:55:09
McDonald's and but it's difficult because she's 21 years old and is it possible I've done this before hey I'm
00:55:16
going to see my family tomorrow or in a couple days or whenever I'm going to go spend some time with him I don't need to
00:55:22
go on this mall trip or I've changed my mind I don't want to go right but but again makes a lot of sense then you're
00:55:30
attacked in the laundry room and then that laundry room is connected to this other room that has the crawl space and
00:55:36
that's where you're ultimately placed but what do we know from when they found her I mean she's wrapped in this plastic
00:55:43
and and she is strangled to death right well and that's another thing that's interesting to this
00:55:51
investigation as well is later the police would be telling us that we we being law enforcement they
00:55:58
are pretty convinced they know who is responsible or the the person's responsible in this case
00:56:07
and so they even though this was a case that was getting some national attention
00:56:13
this case was getting some some national attention in the time frame that she was
00:56:18
missing when she was still missing even though they had the the national attention you know missing school girl
00:56:25
college girl goes missing and it's certainly a big story in West Virginia because they thought that they
00:56:33
knew who was responsible or and I think this is probably the the better thing to
00:56:38
say here because this is where my suspicions go I think that they had narrowed it down to a very small suspect
00:56:46
pool right and I think the apartment tells us and dictates why that is and we'll get into that in just a second but
00:56:53
they actually refused to give any information they did confirm that it was the body of Leah Hickman that they had
00:57:01
found but they didn't give any information for several days I don't think it was until the second week or
00:57:08
middle of January the following month that they tell that they come out and hold a press conference and say look she
00:57:14
was strangled to death and there was no sexual assault that took place in this case that she was strangled to death and
00:57:23
somebody tried to conceal her body I think that they probably kept that out of the papers in the beginning hoping
00:57:30
that because of the situation like we you and I just discussed some creep following her home from McDonald's
00:57:36
or some creep accessing the apartment somehow and and finding Leah there and it being a random attack I think they
00:57:44
wanted to leave some of those details to themselves in case they had someone coming out of the woodwork that really
00:57:51
had nothing to do with it somebody that comes off the streets and says yeah I killed that college girl yeah I agree
00:57:56
and disagree with you on the the Crux of this case lies in that laundry room I agree on one level because I think what
00:58:08
this layout of the laundry room and the layout of this apartment tells us is that this person would have to have a
00:58:15
certain level of physicality to take a body wrap it in plastic one if I'm law enforcement where the F did this
00:58:25
plastic come from right they come from in the building did it come from out of the building to me that you know points
00:58:32
just you know maybe a maintenance worker I mean if you Google student killed and
00:58:37
then Google gives you some suggestions one of the things is it'll say uh student strangled by roommate okay if
00:58:45
I'm law enforcement I'm looking into that angle student murdered by a maintenance worker looking
00:58:51
into that angle student murdered by homeless man looking into that angle and then the other one that becomes a little
00:58:59
more difficult is student killed by stalker and like I said when you're on campus you have a lot of interactions
00:59:06
with multiple people and is there somebody that was just you know infatuated with Leah that we just don't
00:59:14
know about the other thing that we don't know about and this is not throwing shade at Leah at all
00:59:19
but she's home alone and she knows that her she knows that her half-sister is going to be spending the night with the
00:59:26
boyfriend and is there somebody that she was having a relationship with that was kind
00:59:33
of on the on the DL and that's why I want to know what the communication was through Myspace it could be as simple as
00:59:42
some guy she was talking to online says hey yeah we should hang out while I'm going to be going home soon hey well why
00:59:48
don't you swing by you know because nobody's home and and I don't really have plans that would make sense on some
00:59:54
level of why I should break plans with her mother and why she would break plans to go see her friend that night well and
01:00:01
that is exactly right Captain the devil is in the details the devil is hiding in
01:00:07
those details or maybe now as far as the Myspace thing goes it could simply have
01:00:13
been to log on and just check her page again without us having a time stamp for that and here's the concern I have I'm
01:00:20
not gonna lie I wonder if we're not being provided a timestamp because maybe they don't know and I'll get into my
01:00:28
questions about the investigation here in a minute but it could just be she logged in that morning that Friday
01:00:34
morning and and the MySpace login has nothing to do with anything but that's also why I think law enforcement says a
01:00:41
suspect or possible Suspects because again the physicality you have to then if this attack even if it took place in
01:00:52
the laundry room you have to then move that body to a separate room and then you have to lift that body up into a
01:00:59
crawl space and then you have to be able to push that body back far enough that people aren't going to be able to
01:01:06
see it unless it's illuminated yes there's lots of difficulties with putting the body where it was later discovered
01:01:14
there's a lot and that's why I wanted to get detailed information about that the
01:01:19
opening to the crawl space the crawl space itself and the basement because we review her missing persons poster
01:01:27
and they have Leah listed at five two to five three 120 to 130 pounds so to lift that weight
01:01:41
40 to 48 inches and that's an approximate [Music] I spoke to several people that's the
01:01:50
approximation that I was given on the distance between the basement floor and the opening for that crawl space now the
01:01:57
people I spoke with they agreed that 40 inches some people in that group thought it
01:02:04
could have been higher that the opening would have been higher up off of the floor right 40 inches is the very
01:02:11
minimum amount that I was given many believe that it was at least 48 inches from the floor to possibly even
01:02:20
five feet from the floor I I could also see a reason for somebody other than the sister being responsible
01:02:28
and placing the body where it was later found you're you may just simply be hoping to create a period of time where
01:02:37
nobody has found her yet you're really just trying to add a buffer at getting as much between you and the
01:02:44
investigation as possible and so the thing that's tricky about this case and I'm glad that you brought up the
01:02:53
half sister because when you really start to look at the case and look at the words that the the detectives are
01:03:00
saying here in this case again very little information coming out but what they're choosing to tell the
01:03:07
public makes it sound like they've really narrowed it to a small suspect pull so it says here this is the exact
01:03:14
words verbatim investigators believe Hickman died in a targeted attack carried out by someone familiar with the
01:03:22
layout of her 8th Avenue Apartment they have a working theory about the person's
01:03:27
identity but they lack evidence needed to prove guilt Beyond A Reasonable Doubt so they have said we have physical
01:03:36
evidence forensic physical evidence in this case that one day we believe will lead to an
01:03:44
arrest and a conviction however we need technology to catch up to what we have in this case to help us
01:03:51
put away the person that we believe or persons that we believe are responsible somebody that had that was familiar with
01:04:00
her apartment building is one thing to say there are other reports that they have said that the person would have had
01:04:06
to had extensive knowledge of that building to have carried this out in the manner that it was carried out well
01:04:13
think about that immediately that takes us to only a small amount of people brain we have the half-sister we have
01:04:21
the man that owns the building we have his brother or whoever was overseeing the property for him in his absence we
01:04:29
have the renovations or maintenance or work that was being performed in the building itself so those individuals I
01:04:36
would believe even if they just were new on the job that week or the week before
01:04:40
would probably have some extensive knowledge about the building itself and the workings of the building because
01:04:46
they are there to repair things or renovate fate things they very likely would have been aware of this crawl
01:04:52
space and then you have anybody that had previously lived there or visited there
01:04:57
a lot and here's the thing when you go visit somebody at their apartment rarely do you find yourself in the basement
01:05:02
laundry room poking around and know about this this crawl space so one thing that's weird here Captain is we have a
01:05:12
previous boyfriend now I've been told by several people that Leah at the time was not dating
01:05:19
anybody and she wasn't known to have any types of serious relationships and I think that that is why unless there was
01:05:27
some kind of secret rendezvous that we don't know about that police are pretty firm in their belief that the building
01:05:33
the apartment building itself is what connects the attacker to the victim here now one potential person that we haven't
01:05:42
discussed yet is an ex-boyfriend of Leah's half-sister Jessica this ex-boyfriend lived with Jessica at one
01:05:50
point in the apartment for this report says two years now I did a little checking on
01:05:58
this individual and I'm going to leave his name out of it for now but I did a little checking on this individual and
01:06:05
he actually lived in that building prior to seeing and dating Jessica so he lived in this apartment he's older
01:06:15
Jessica is older than Leah by a few years right and this ex-boyfriend of Jessica's was older than Jessica and he
01:06:22
had lived in this apartment building for years before the two of them end up in a
01:06:27
relationship so that guy had years worth of knowledge about the building itself now how does he factor into it here well
01:06:37
he was shipped off overseas to serve this country he comes back and from my understanding
01:06:45
the breakup between Jessica and him took place while he was overseas after he had
01:06:51
been shipped out he still had some personal belongings that were being kept at that apartment
01:06:57
the way that it's reported is as such that these personal belongings were boxed up and they were placed in that
01:07:04
common area in the laundry room area of the building for him to pick them up and
01:07:09
retrieve these items it's also been reported that he did not get along with Leah because she did not
01:07:17
approve of the way that he treated her sister and it's believed that she was really the one pushing Jessica to end
01:07:26
the relationship with this guy now regarding his personal property the reports are varied and they get a little
01:07:35
weird and it was too difficult for me to decipher which one is true so I'll give
01:07:41
it to you they're a little wonky donkey yeah a little little cattywampus as they
01:07:45
say In The Biz many reports state that these items were eventually thrown out that they were placed in this common
01:07:53
space and when work started going on in the building that when Leah was asked she said hey he hasn't picked up this
01:08:00
stuff yet just go ahead and throw it out and that the workers may have thrown thrown out these items the other report
01:08:07
is that those items were still there and they were boxed up in that laundry room
01:08:12
area but again all all reports state that it's believed that this guy and Leah did not get along it's also
01:08:19
reported that he still had keys to the apartment so there are people out there that have
01:08:26
posed this Theory and I think it's one that we should discuss not just discuss I'm sure it's one that hopefully the
01:08:33
Huntington Police looked into it but the theory has been maybe this dude shows up
01:08:38
to retrieve his items and he interacts with Leah because Jessica's not there the two already
01:08:47
don't get along does she go oh well we put your stuff down in the laundry room let's go down there and see if we can
01:08:54
find it and then boom it's not there and it's oh I told the guys they could throw
01:08:57
it out you never came to pick it up and then they get into some kind of fight or
01:09:01
again I mean the other thing too is it takes a lot normally for somebody to say I don't
01:09:08
like your boyfriend I don't approve of your boyfriend I don't approve of the way he's treating you so to me again we
01:09:15
have no evidence of this but you know a boyfriend being too controlling maybe being verbally abusive maybe physically
01:09:23
abusive where I think her half-sister could help this investigation I'm sure she's talked
01:09:30
to police about this individual but what was his interaction with her and what were the things that her sister didn't
01:09:39
approve of the the direction of your investigation needs to be this one we need background checks on anybody that
01:09:47
would have been working in that building two we need to confirm if the possibility of of ex-boyfriend Jessica's
01:09:55
ex-boyfriend still having keys to the apartment if that is in fact true you know check with the building owner check
01:10:01
with anybody that's in charge of running the apartments did he ever turn in Keys to to the owner
01:10:10
or to the landlord do we have the sister or anybody else saying that he turned in
01:10:15
Keys how how factual is that statement that this guy still had access to the apartment building well I agree with
01:10:22
that but I also would state if you are Leah and this guy shows up and knocks on your door you know he's
01:10:31
been gone for a while he comes back he's going to retrieve his stuff he knocks on
01:10:35
the door I don't see any reason why she wouldn't let him in and then they would go through the the
01:10:42
back door so they can go to the laundry room to retrieve his items and then where did the attack take place so I did
01:10:48
reach out to the Huntington Police Department and the detective Bureau and I was armed with a few questions that I
01:10:56
had about the evidence and about the investigation itself unfortunately nobody has returned my call so I don't
01:11:05
have any answers for those questions and I'm going to State this and usually I'm
01:11:10
backing the women and men in blue here and I'm not saying that they've done anything wrong I reached out to them
01:11:16
last week and for all I know we could turn off the microphones and my phone rings right away and it's HPD calling to
01:11:25
to ask me why I called about the Leah Hickman well I might take them over a week to find the message well let's hope
01:11:31
that's not the case if they're in charge of solving homicides but the statement that they've released to the public says
01:11:38
the Huntington Police Department wants to ensure Leah's family and the community as a whole that the
01:11:44
investigation into the events surrounding her death in the person or persons responsible remains active this
01:11:52
case also has been reviewed extensively during the past 14 years by various detectives in an attempt to allow a
01:11:59
fresh set of eyes to review the facts and and evidence that has been obtained any tip or lead received on this case
01:12:07
always have been and always will be pursued vigilantly that is a statement directly from the Huntington Police
01:12:14
Department and before I get into any more of my thoughts and feelings on the case I do want to make sure that we
01:12:20
point out that police ask anyone with information about the case to call the Huntington Police Department at
01:12:28
304-696-4420 we will include that number in today's show notes and you can also submit a tip anonymously through their
01:12:36
tip line at 304-696-444 we'll include that number as well so here's the questions that I have
01:12:44
Captain we talked about all the stuff that were found in the apartment we talked about her her it was a beautiful
01:12:49
bright yellow Chevy Cavalier that was parked out front of the apartment building we talked
01:12:57
about the items that were found in the apartment but there were a couple of items that have been reported it's been
01:13:01
reported that these items were missing one Leah's cell phone which we already know how complicated that is because
01:13:07
there's talk about her borrowing her mom's phone but the reports are that Leah's cell phone is missing I've never
01:13:15
seen a description anywhere of what kind of cell phone it is what kind of brand it is nothing like that I did a little
01:13:22
bit of snooping around boots on the ground type investigation and I found one statement that it was a flip phone
01:13:30
that's the best description I've received on her phone the other item that has been reported as missing was a
01:13:38
brown jacket or coat of Leah's that had a fur collar these items again according
01:13:45
to the newspapers are missing I wanted to learn more about these items I wanted to learn more about the plastic like you
01:13:52
pointed out earlier and those were going to be my primary questions for the detective now again they've been very
01:13:59
hush hush in this case so who knows if they would have answered any of them at all again it does appear to be a very
01:14:06
active case so maybe they're not going to answer those questions but I also I also wanted to know a few things about
01:14:12
cell phone technology right I mentioned earlier I wanted to know how factual were those phone calls those supposed
01:14:20
phone calls from The Stepbrother and from mother from their visit to the mall that night to Leah's phone did those did
01:14:28
those call goals actually happen you pointed out something very obvious but also very key if Leah had attempted to
01:14:35
call her stepbrother there would have been indication on her phone on his phone that she tried to call them and
01:14:43
then the other thing is I wanted to know did they ping her cell phone Leah's cell
01:14:47
phone at all because if whoever is responsible for her murder and I'm with you given where her body was found I
01:14:56
think it would have taken two people to put her there number one so at least one
01:15:01
other person knows what happened but did anybody bother to Ping her cell phone if
01:15:06
it was truly missing since the time that she's been one she's been missing herself and two even after
01:15:14
they found the body we know sometimes these guys you look at a case like Long Island serial killer we know that that
01:15:21
person was accessing a victim's phone well after the fact could this creep have been calling and listened to
01:15:28
listening to her outgoing message could this creep have been calling and checking her voicemail and listening to
01:15:34
the messages that were left for Leah while these people were looking for her did this cell phone ping anywhere of
01:15:40
interest because you would look very guilty if you were in possession of that phone or did this individual make a huge
01:15:46
mistake and and give that coat to somebody as a gift I think given the attack no sexual assault the
01:15:56
strangulation I think given the attack it looks to me and again this is just my assessment
01:16:03
from 30 000 feet you know over an overview of everything here but it would look to me like this is
01:16:10
probably something that might have been spontaneous unplanned something happened something
01:16:15
went down that that caused a fight between Leah and somebody else and in a fit of rage somebody strangled her and
01:16:23
then may have had to reach out to somebody else to come and help them clean up a messy situation later there
01:16:30
are reports out there that not only do they have physical evidence you know we've already kind of covered that and
01:16:36
and they've not gone into great detail about this but they have physical forensic evidence that they say that
01:16:43
they believe will solve this case one day once technology catches up to it the other question I had for the police
01:16:50
department is well where was that physical evidence collected from was it collected from the crawl space from the
01:16:57
plastic from the laundry room or from her apartment because you're right Captain if the attack and the murder
01:17:03
went down in the apartment now getting her to where she was placed is even more cumbersome and even more difficult now
01:17:12
we got flights of stare errors involved and we also have to lift up 40 to 48 inches maybe even as high as 60 inches
01:17:20
off of the basement floor and then push all the way back to the front of this crawl space yeah and as far as law
01:17:27
enforcement goes it's like look if if their hand is strong and they're just waiting to get certain tests done
01:17:36
because you got a feel for this family for a while she's missing there's hope that they're going to find her then they
01:17:42
find her in the crawl space of her apartment building and it with law enforcement it drives me insane because
01:17:51
the longer this goes even though we're getting new technology all the time to me
01:17:57
the family loses hope and if you say that this case isn't cold then unless your hand is so strong that you
01:18:08
know that one day you're going to definitively solve this case and you're not so worried about it then maybe don't
01:18:13
share so much information but after 14 years it's like come on maybe maybe share a little bit to get
01:18:22
you closer to help you build a stronger case well and that's one thing that I found to be rather frustrating and
01:18:29
frankly I think almost unacceptable in this case because what we have here is we have they have
01:18:41
quite a bit of more information they're unwilling to share any of that information and a big part of my phone
01:18:48
conversation was going to be it's been 15 years if there was a time to come up off of some detailed information to give
01:18:57
to the public you reminder you're asking the public for help your your you're actively asking the public for help if
01:19:05
there was some bit of information that were to change based off of the known facts by law enforcement
01:19:12
in this case or if there was a detail in that information that they could release
01:19:17
think about all the people that we've mentioned that they've already interviewed that they were working with
01:19:23
very closely that first week when she was missing and then unfortunately the next week after she's found and now we
01:19:29
know we're dealing with a murder you could have one person or many people within that group of people that goes
01:19:36
wait a second that detail that you just informed us about well now that doesn't jibe with all this stuff that that I had
01:19:44
been told by person a or person A and B right and now there's a problem with somebody's story
01:19:52
there's a problem with somebody's timeline and you can hone in even more and more closer to the actual suspect if
01:19:59
her cell phone truly was missing if this jacket or coat truly was missing you find somebody in possession of one or
01:20:06
both of those items well they just went to the top of your suspect list right and it's who knows what information you
01:20:14
could come into that could lead you to executing a search warrant later well I hate to admit it but I agree with you
01:20:21
well and in their defense we don't know how sensitive the information that they have is right and it could be something
01:20:31
where you don't want to upset the apple cart and law enforcement knows that hey this this evidence these suspicions that
01:20:38
we have and the things that we have collected that have led us to this one person or this group of people
01:20:45
it's it's sensitive and it's fragile and we are waiting to get the Smoking Gun so to speak
01:20:55
to really put this person away or to tear to tear down this group of people so what we do have is we know that there
01:21:03
were developments that were made in this case in 2008 the Huntington Police were
01:21:10
on record saying quote there is an individual that we believe was involved meaning somebody that they've already
01:21:17
talked to they think is responsible for this and they go on to say that they had
01:21:22
interviewed dozens of people trying to find answers to Leah Hickman's murder but this one name keeps popping up quote
01:21:31
it is an individual that we have contacted and spoken to however this individual keeps coming to
01:21:39
the Forefront of someone we're particularly interested in now the police clearly
01:21:47
are not going to be releasing this individual's name or the name of the person or Persons of Interest in this
01:21:54
case or what I would deem to be suspects at this point they did say that they have DNA evidence
01:21:59
in this case that was sent and tested at an FBI lab in Arizona uh is something that they are going to
01:22:08
have to hold on to for future testing says that they police are on the record saying that they believe that results of
01:22:17
testing could either lead to an arrest or could clear the name of the person of interest altogether so that that makes
01:22:25
it a little bit more clear why this could be sensitive fragile evidence that they have here right when you give
01:22:32
the statement of the evidence that we have once we get the results of the testing of this evidence it could either
01:22:40
lead to an arrest of this person or it could clear the person that we think we've we've narrowed it down to
01:22:48
yeah like you said I think their wording definitely makes it seem like they narrowed down to one individual and I do
01:22:56
think out of so many cases that we've covered this year this case one is 100 solvable and I do believe it will be
01:23:06
solved in the near future and again Captain I think that the wording used in the choice of words here is very
01:23:12
interesting in Leah's case and these are the words again of the Huntington Police
01:23:16
Department saying there are three things that help solve cases confessions Witnesses and physical evidence no one
01:23:25
has confessed and there are no known witnesses to this crime and the police clearly have not and will not release
01:23:33
the names of any suspects or Persons of Interest in this case but did confirm that the police believe the suspect to
01:23:40
be someone with quote close knowledge of the victim end quote and then they go on
01:23:46
to say that we would have hoped for a resolution a lot sooner than we have but the case being as it is it just hasn't
01:23:55
come like we wanted it to and it eventually will very key here though the police go on
01:24:03
record saying analysts say that DNA evidence collected will last up to 40 years for testing so
01:24:11
that evidence that they have it's safe it's secured it's preserved and they believe that it's that evidence that
01:24:19
will lead them to an arrest and a conviction hopefully sooner than later [Music]
01:24:34
foreign [Music] thank everybody for joining us here in the garage make sure you sign up on our
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01:25:01
don't litter thank you [Music] foreign