00:00:00
On Mind of a Monster, The Hollywood Ripper, uncover the life and crimes of serial killer Michael Gargiulo, who
00:00:06
stalks and kills his neighbors in Los Angeles throughout the 2000s. Across six episodes, hear from friends and
00:00:12
acquaintances of Gargiulo, along with investigators and experts close to the case as they recount what happened, how
00:00:18
he was caught, and where his trial stands today. Listen to Mind of a Monster, The Hollywood Ripper, wherever
00:00:24
you get your podcasts. Courage, I learned it from my adoptive mom. Hold my hand. You hold my hand.
00:00:32
Learn about adopting a teen from foster care at adoptuskids.org. You can't imagine the reward.
00:00:37
>> Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the US Department of Health and Human Services,
00:00:40
and the Ad Council. >> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Welcome to True Crime Garage. Wherever
00:01:22
you are, whatever you're doing, thanks for listening. I'm your host, Nick, and with me as always is America's number
00:01:29
one free agent on the market, ladies and gentlemen, the Captain. >> Yeah, I'm hoping to get that a $150
00:01:35
[music] million 4-year contract. I don't care what team. It's good to be seen and good to see
00:01:42
you. Thanks for listening. Thanks [music] for telling a friend. O M Guinness, we gots to do it. That's
00:01:51
right. This week the old garage fridge is filled with Guinness Draught, the iconic Irish dry stout known for its
00:01:59
rich, dark color, creamy white head, and silky smooth velvety texture created by
00:02:05
that nitro carbon dioxide mix, all fortified by that wickedly talented little widget thing.
00:02:13
I love this beer. Five bottle caps. The Captain loves this beer. Our father loves it. And to all of the good people
00:02:21
all around the globe, I say it is a good day for a Guinness. Cheers and happy St. Patrick's Day. And cheers
00:02:31
to all of our good garage friends like Sherry Pate in Wauseon, Ohio. >> And a big we like you chip goes out to
00:02:39
Lexus Griffith from Lincolnton, North Carolina. >> And here's a cheers to Katie Knapp in De
00:02:47
Pere, [music] Wisconsin. And say it with me, tall cans in the air, goes out to Robin Jennings from Morrisville, [music]
00:02:56
Pennsylvania. >> a cheers to Dalton Durbin in Elfos, Ohio. Say that three times fast. And last but
00:03:03
certainly not least, we have a very big Ron Swanson [music] please and thank you
00:03:09
to Leslie in Milford, Michigan. Thank you, Leslie, for all of your help with the porch light project over the last
00:03:16
two years. Everyone we just mentioned, they went to truecrimegarage.com and helped us out with this week's beer
00:03:23
fund, which filled up the old garage fridge for this week. And for that, we thank you. Yeah, B W W R U N beer run, I
00:03:32
get emails almost every week, what's the best way to support the garage? Well, I
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think the best way is to sign up on Patreon or Apple podcast subscription cuz you get support us directly and get
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some more true crime for your eyeballs. And Colonel, that's [music] enough of the business.
00:03:50
>> All right, everybody gather around, grab a chair, grab a beer. Let's talk some
00:03:55
true crime. A young mother and working professional, Leeah Marten, goes missing after
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receiving threatening calls. Ms. Marten was on her way to work, but then suddenly
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she vanished. Her family and co-workers report that they have no idea where she could be.
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Her vehicle and purse are quickly recovered and fresh blood is found nearby. What hidden information was in [music]
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these threatening phone calls? Where is Leeah Marten? This is True Crime Garage.
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>> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> We are once again headed to Texas to examine another Texas true crime story.
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This is the story of a young mother who vanished under incredibly suspicious circumstances with some possible
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traceable evidence to help the investigation. The young woman is Leeah Marten. She is a 22-year-old
00:05:41
mother who vanished on May 29th, 2015. The location is Graham, Texas. Now, when I went looking for Graham, Texas, I
00:05:52
found some fancy descriptions of how to describe where Graham is located. Like 55 miles south of Wichita Falls or 65
00:06:02
air miles northwest of Fort Worth, Texas. And that Graham is located in the western cross timbers area of North
00:06:10
Texas. Locally, this is known as the western portion of the Palo Pinto Mountains. Now, my guess is that most
00:06:18
people outside of the great state of Texas, we do not have much of an idea as to
00:06:25
what any of that means. So, some garage geography here, folks. When looking at your favorite map app or just
00:06:32
visualizing Texas, go to the very center of Texas and go a little bit north. Once you are
00:06:39
there in you will find Graham. And once you're in Graham, you're just about a 90-minute drive northbound to get to the
00:06:48
Texas-Oklahoma state line. So, now that we know where we are here, Captain, Graham, Texas, it
00:06:54
is about a 6-square-mile in area and a little less than 9,000 people are living there. It's a
00:07:01
beautiful community that boast having a very cool old-school still in operation drive-in theater. And according to a
00:07:10
mural on the courthouse depicting the arrival of the Graham brothers, of course, the city's namesake
00:07:18
there, the town square is physically the largest of any in the country. Now, let's talk about Leeah. Leeah Marten,
00:07:27
she is 22 years old. She's a 22-year-old mother who vanished on May 29th, 2015. Her vehicle
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was found abandoned at her workplace the next day in Graham, Texas. Leeah was last known to be wearing a teal blue
00:07:47
peasant blouse with cream-colored lace on a 3/4 sleeve cuff with denim capri pants and sandals.
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Leeah's parents are Billy and Stasney Marten. Leeah grew up in a quiet town in Young County, Texas.
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During her senior year of high school, she and her on-again, off-again boyfriend, his name
00:08:13
is Aaron Blair, had a baby daughter. Her name is Avery. After high school, Leeah found employment as a receptionist
00:08:22
at a local business called EC's Auto Repair. >> This is a pretty big staple in this
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small community. Yeah, you've seen pictures of it. I've seen pictures of it. It is a uh
00:08:35
fairly decent size outfit there with this auto repair EC's Auto Repair. It's located in Graham on Highway 380
00:08:45
near the bypass. The auto repair shop, which has several employees, is owned by EC Blair, full name Elton Carroll Blair.
00:08:55
He is the shop's owner and chief operator. You'll notice, if you have not already, I'm going to
00:09:01
point it out, the EC shares the same last name as Leeah's on-again, off-again boyfriend, baby daddy, Aaron Blair.
00:09:11
Well, that's because EC is also the father of Aaron Blair. Aaron is EC's adopted son. Now, this
00:09:21
on-again, off-again relationship by early 2015, well, it appears to me that it was off again and in a major way. The
00:09:28
two had split. This time maybe for good, I don't know. This the the dynamics of this relationship are a
00:09:35
little fuzzy for me here, Captain. Yeah, a little wonky donkey. What I do know is
00:09:40
that they're not living together and they had agreed to having shared custody of their daughter, Avery. We have some
00:09:50
pretty well-documented information regarding Leeah's movements before she vanishes.
00:09:56
And let's get into those movements. So, on the date of May 29th, 2015, that's a Friday.
00:10:05
And on that day, Lia Martin attended her cousin's graduation, and she was also making plans for the remainder of the
00:10:12
day. Prior to the 29th, Lia's father, Billy, he had had surgery on his eye. So, after this graduation, the gathering
00:10:23
that was involved, Lia, being the good daughter that she is, she texts her father.
00:10:28
She says she's planning to go to the local Walmart, and she's going to pick up her father's
00:10:34
medication for him. It's probably probably difficult growing up with a father that's a cyclops. In that text,
00:10:42
she says, quote, she was going to stop by her work and pick up a few things, and then she was going to go to the
00:10:50
local Walmart to pick up my medication. That's a quote from her father, Billy. The item or items that she wants to
00:10:57
retrieve from her work has been noted. I don't know if her father knew the exact
00:11:02
items at the time, but the items she was going to collect became clear at some point.
00:11:09
Because we know that she was she had some shoes there, and she had a few personal,
00:11:15
possibly clothing items there that she wanted to retrieve. Sadly, and mysteriously, Lia didn't come home
00:11:23
that night. Billy says it was about 4:00 a.m. the next morning when he's checking
00:11:30
in on Lia in her room. Goes to her room, he finds her not there, much to his surprise.
00:11:38
Now, she's an adult. Keep in mind, she's 22 years old. So, she had not come home
00:11:42
late that night, either. Like, even after Billy had gone to bed, she never came home. Do we know where her kid is?
00:11:49
Yes, we do. And And that is why at 4:00 a.m. when he was concerned, it wasn't alarming concern. Because he says he
00:11:58
first assumed that she ended up staying the night over at Aaron Blair's place. Right, at
00:12:05
her boyfriend's house. However, when morning turned into afternoon, he's texting, calling his daughter, he gets
00:12:13
no response to the text, no res- return calls. So, later that day, he decides to
00:12:20
step out and look for Lia. He knew that one of Lia's last stops was going to be dropping off her daughter, Avery, to
00:12:29
Aaron Blair's place, and that's probably why he thought she might just have stayed over there. So, he started there.
00:12:35
Billy starts there. He talks to Aaron Blair. The 2-year-old baby, Avery, fine, perfectly fine, but Aaron Blair told
00:12:42
Billy Martin that he hadn't seen Lia Martin since she dropped off their daughter, and this was before
00:12:50
the intent was to drop off the daughter and then go run these errands. Right. That's not good.
00:12:57
Billy Martin also knew that his daughter intended to go to her place of work. Again, that's EC's Auto Shop. So, then
00:13:05
Billy visited the automotive shop, where he is talking with the owner, EC Blair.
00:13:12
And EC Blair tells Dad that he has no idea, no great ideas, anyway, of where Lia could be. No ideas as to Lia's
00:13:22
whereabouts. In fact, EC reported having the same issue. He said he had placed multiple
00:13:29
unanswered calls to Lia that same day. Right. Now, immediately, Billy noticed his daughter's vehicle
00:13:41
parked outside. So, her vehicle is in the lot in a spot that would be typical for her to park
00:13:50
for work. But we have no Lia, and we have no one with any answers, nor clue where she could be. So, cops
00:13:58
called, report filed, missing person, Lia Martin. So, she starts off by dropping her child off to
00:14:05
her boyfriend, then she goes to this graduation, then she's going to stop by her work, and
00:14:11
then she's going to go to the Walmart to pick up the medication from her father.
00:14:15
So, if that all remains true, then and we know she dropped off her child, we know she went to the graduation, so she
00:14:24
goes to the work, and then she disappears from work, that seems bizarre. Yes, that would be the
00:14:32
indicator with her vehicle being found there. And furthermore, inside the shop, a pair of Lia's shoes were at her desk.
00:14:41
This is believed to be one of the items she intended to retrieve. It's also reported that the items that she was the
00:14:48
other items that she was believed to be retrieving were found at the office or at some location inside the shop, as
00:14:55
well. So, her vehicle made it there. Her reasoning for being there, these collection of these items, Right. that
00:15:06
didn't happen. That action didn't happen, but the vehicle arrived there. So, her personal items are at the shop,
00:15:12
her truck is parked outside, to which Billy discovers Lia's purse inside of the truck.
00:15:18
>> Not a good sign. But his daughter, 22-year-old Lia Martin, is missing. From the Graham Police
00:15:27
Department, a statement that they would later release, quote, we checked inside the business,
00:15:33
and there was a pair of shoes at the desk where Lia worked. Billy had told us that she was supposed to pick up
00:15:42
those shoes, is what they're referencing, that night. So, everybody's surprised to find these shoes,
00:15:49
and especially the vehicle out there. After this discovery, we are going to have some
00:15:54
hyper-vigilant activity here, Captain. So, it's an all-hands-on-deck situation, obviously, with many hands involved in
00:16:03
the investigation, the looking for Lia, all kind of heading in a lot of different directions all at the same
00:16:11
time. Speaking of time, Captain, this is a flurry of activity, which will pretty
00:16:17
much works our timeline into a bit of a tizzy here. Right. And like you said, this is a very small town. I mean, a
00:16:24
population under 10,000. But then I'm assuming that there's a lot of rural areas.
00:16:31
So, Yeah. as an investigator, you're going, okay, so she makes it to work to pick up these items, but these items are
00:16:38
untouched. So, did she park her vehicle and get into somebody else's vehicle? And where could she be? Is she running
00:16:48
away from her responsibilities? Look, it's not out of the realm of possibilities, cuz like you said, she's
00:16:54
22, and she seems to be kind of a free-spirited person. She has this on-again, off-again relationship with
00:17:02
her boyfriend, so that's somebody that you have to be concerned about. But is it possible that she, during one of
00:17:10
their, you know, we're on a break, we're not on a break, is there a possibility that during one of those breaks that she
00:17:17
ends up having a relationship with somebody else? Well, and to be clear here, because we've not provided time
00:17:23
stamp markers for the events and the actions that we've already discussed, but to clue everybody in on to what's
00:17:30
going on in the rough time markers for those movements, it's understood that she's going to her place
00:17:39
of work after the normal operating hours. Right. And it Keep in mind, I think one thing
00:17:47
that's key here, and I think that it's key in a lot of the cases that we cover, is what day of the week that is, and
00:17:54
this is a Friday. Okay, so ultimately, what do we have here at this point? We have a lot of questions, we have some
00:18:00
answers, right? Lia's truck is located, Lia's purse is located. This whole time, daughter Avery,
00:18:08
2-year-old Avery, God bless her, she's safe and sound with her father. But we also have a lot of
00:18:15
leads to look at. Right? Where is Lia's cell phone? Can we track it? Outside of that, what digital forensic evidence can
00:18:23
we find? Lia's dad is providing information, some that may lead to a suspect, and
00:18:30
we'll get to that in the appropriate time in our timeline here. We have Lia's place of work. Yeah, we
00:18:37
got cameras? We know that law enforcement searched there and found the same findings that they were told by
00:18:43
Lia's father that they might find. Right. >> But because those items were found there, that needs to be of concern, as
00:18:51
we've already pointed out, that that is where she was heading, that is where her truck is found, but no one
00:18:56
there seems to have a clue. And of course, anytime you have an ex, he is easily identified. This
00:19:05
This, of course, is Aaron Blair. So, we got to talk to him. Right. That was one of my big questions is cuz they're
00:19:12
on-again, off-again, hey, we're on a break. Were they on a break at the time? So,
00:19:18
you're saying, yes, this is he is an ex. He's described as an ex, but keep in mind, the father her father's first
00:19:27
assumption when she wasn't home was that she had stayed the night over there. So,
00:19:31
that to me is very touch-and-go, and I hesitate to dip my water in my toe into the waters of understanding exactly what
00:19:38
their relationship was, even at this exact moment in time. Yeah, I think on Facebook, you would put relationship
00:19:46
status complicated. I'm yet to see one that is. That isn't, [laughter] I should say.
00:19:52
Yeah. So, let's tackle this it sort of in the reverse order of what we just how we just brought these items up. First,
00:20:00
the ex. Let's clear this hurdle if we can. From everything that I gather, he is actually very quickly of very little
00:20:09
concern to the investigators. Why? Well, we know the little 2-year-old daughter is with him all night, so that drop-off
00:20:17
that was planned, it did happen. Who else was with Aaron that night? Because I have to guess here, Captain, based off
00:20:25
of the information that we were able to gather and what information is missing is that
00:20:32
they moved off of Aaron, the ex, rather quickly for twofold. One, rock-solid alibi, would be my guess.
00:20:42
Two, information and evidence is telling them to look elsewhere. So, if you figure out very quickly she
00:20:50
made the drop-off, dropped off the kid, and there were a lot of other people with this guy all night long,
00:20:56
and you have some information that might be pointing you in other directions, you
00:21:00
got to move off of this guy real quick. We said Leah's dad might have information, maybe a lead,
00:21:07
and he does. He tells police that Leah had been receiving threatening phone calls. Now,
00:21:14
here's what we know. Okay. Leah had received threatening phone calls. Billy, her father, says he had heard he had
00:21:21
actually heard one of them. And he tells police, he said, "I They said something like we're going to get
00:21:26
your ass or we're going to get you." He tells police that he believed, based off of what he could hear at in an
00:21:34
earshot, that the caller, the threatening phone calls, or at least that one in particular, came from a female. The
00:21:41
caller ID on these calls is not available. So, it's coming from a blocked number or a
00:21:49
a scrambled number. Somehow, whoever's making this call and threatening her, we know of one that her father had heard.
00:21:57
He says he believes there were multiple calls. Now, to kind of confirm this or take it in another direction, E.C.
00:22:05
Blair, Leah's boss, says that yep, Leah was receiving threatening calls at work as well, but beyond that he had little
00:22:15
information to offer. >> Right. But that's that's scary, right? You know, she's getting these threatening
00:22:22
calls from some female. Again, like I said, is there some kind of relationship going on
00:22:29
when she's been not with her child's father. It's an avenue, though. It's a It's a lead. Maybe it's a pathway
00:22:36
to finding her. So, police check phone records, and they get the cell phone ping information for Leah's cell phone,
00:22:45
which, keep in mind, they don't have the physical cell phone. Phone records trace
00:22:50
the last call on her phone. What I don't have here, to be clear, Captain, I don't
00:22:55
know if you found this, but I don't have whether this was a call she received or
00:23:01
a call that she had sent. The I have the simple statement of the phone records traced the last call to
00:23:07
Wichita Falls, which is not terribly far away. A subpoena was requested to identify the number's owner. That's
00:23:15
going to take some time. A geo a geolocation ping [clears throat] showed Leah's phone, its last location
00:23:24
that they could trace, was at her work, at the shop. So, the phone is turned off
00:23:31
or possibly broken at that location. R- Right, correct. After which all activity
00:23:37
ceased, suggesting, as you said, disabled or turned off. So, now we know that we don't we can't say for certain
00:23:45
that Leah ever arrived at the shop at this point. What we have is we know her truck ended up there, her purse arrived
00:23:53
there, and we do know now that her phone at some point arrived there. It's gone,
00:23:58
and so is Leah. >> [music] [music] >> Security usually means extra steps [music] and complications, but with
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intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Thy ticket, Lady Jennifer of Coolidge. Well, many thanks,
00:25:20
good sir. Here's my Discover card. >> [laughter] >> They accept Discover at Renaissance
00:25:26
Fairs? Yeah, they do here. Discover's accepted at the places I love to shop. Get it with the times. With the times?
00:25:34
You're playing the lute. Yeah, and it sounds pretty good, right? Discover is accepted at 99% of places
00:25:41
that take credit cards nationwide, based [music] on a February 2025 Nelson report.
00:25:46
>> Courage. I learned it from my adoptive mom. Hold my hand? You hold my hand. Learn about adopting a teen from foster
00:25:53
care at adoptuskids.org. You can't imagine the reward. Brought to you by adoptuskids, the U.S. Department
00:25:59
of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. >> [music] [music] >> All right, we are back. Talking heads in
00:26:13
the air. Cheers to you, Colonel. Cheers to you, Captain. Cheers to everybody out there. Happy St. Patrick's
00:26:20
Day. Please Please party responsibly, as you know the Colonel always does. All right, so during the same time, this
00:26:31
is what I was getting at with our timeline here being in a bit of a tizzy, because you have really, truly, you have
00:26:38
multiple investigations, if you will, going on, right? You have the family looking for Leah, you have the police
00:26:45
who are looking for Leah, also looking for clues as to what happened to her, the Texas Rangers get involved fairly
00:26:51
quickly. I don't know how early in the investigation they get involved, and then you have people that she works with
00:26:59
and friends and such who are keeping an eye out and actively looking for Leah. And what we're going to get, Captain, is
00:27:08
some information from all these different avenues all at the same time. So, during the same time of all the
00:27:16
events that we just discussed, family and friends are searching the area extensively
00:27:22
for their lost friend and family member. They're looking in alleyways, they're looking in dumpsters, culverts, bri-
00:27:29
under bridges. During this search, they encountered a decent amount of fresh-looking blood at a specific
00:27:37
location. So, this was on Sunday. Remember, she was last her last known whereabouts is that Friday. Two days
00:27:44
after she went missing, after Leah went missing, Billy, her father, finds blood on the
00:27:52
Lindy Street Bridge. It's He says it looks fresh to him. Police are going to get called to this area, out to the
00:28:00
site, and they're going to do their investigation. To make Let's make a long story short, uh because We have never
00:28:06
been able to make a long story short. Yeah, we We're the kings of making a short story long. Well, we we'll sprint
00:28:14
through this detail instead of crawling through it, but what the police quickly figure out is, "Look, this is a good
00:28:20
call. You got to investigate this." But they very quickly figure out that there were kids fishing in the area, and those
00:28:27
kids admitted to killing a snake on that bridge. Lock them up. One of them had caught a snake or encountered a
00:28:35
snake, and they they killed it. And so, the blood was determined to be, just as those kids had said, from a
00:28:41
snake and not from a human. So, this was a lead, but it goes nowhere. Leah's whereabouts still unknown.
00:28:52
Meanwhile, the phone and the vehicle, her vehicle, are keeping law enforcement busy as well with working on leads
00:29:00
regarding the auto shop, her place of work. Right. Here we go. I You know that uh sometimes
00:29:07
I I never know how this is going to shake out, but we got a good news, bad news situation. Good news, E.C. Shop,
00:29:13
it has security cameras. Bad news, >> Ooh. bad news, the cameras had failed the night in question. So, yeah, but
00:29:21
hold on. Here I think it's evidence, right? And maybe [clears throat] it's not hardcore evidence, but it's like,
00:29:28
"Okay, we don't know if she took her car there. We But we have her car there, we have
00:29:34
her phone being there. So, we can assume that she made it there, but something stopped her from gathering these items
00:29:41
and leaving. And now these cameras just happened to not be working at the time that she was
00:29:48
there. To me, that's fishy. Well, and speaking of fishy, we stay water, right? You want to stay
00:29:56
water in your investigation. You want it to be very much a fluid situation. What
00:30:02
you have here is you cannot say that she never arrived there. You cannot say 100% that she did in fact arrive at
00:30:11
work. But what you do have when you look at everything is you have far more details suggesting that she did arrive
00:30:20
at that work. Absolutely. >> Rather rather than not having arrived. And then you have this
00:30:26
like you said, "Oh, it's it's it magically the cameras weren't working at the time that it was most important
00:30:33
for them to." Doesn't seem doesn't seem like a coincidence to me. Yeah, I'd be walking around that
00:30:41
place going It smells like fish sticks in here. Something's fishy. Investigators,
00:30:48
they obtained surveillance footage from the business directly across the street.
00:30:56
Boom. It's going to be grainy, you know, hard to see due to the distance. Always is.
00:31:02
>> here's what law enforcement believe that they are seeing on this footage captured from across the
00:31:09
street. So, they say that the video showed an SUV type vehicle at the auto shop.
00:31:18
A person gets out of that SUV, walks up to a garage bay door, opens that door, and then enters. This This is
00:31:28
what's interesting. It doesn't matter if you have a completely clear picture here, because I
00:31:33
think you're going to be able to discern certain things. Then what they they simply say Leah's vehicle then arrived a
00:31:40
little bit later. So, she drives a truck. It looks different than this SUV. You know where You know where you found
00:31:47
her truck. If you see a truck that matches that, even a vague description of that,
00:31:52
pulling and parking that same spot, that's Leah's vehicle. So, this SUV arrives, a person gets out,
00:31:59
they can't identify the person or the SUV, goes to a garage bay door, opens it, enters the building, the workplace,
00:32:05
Leah's workplace. Leah's vehicle then arrives later, and a person gets out of Leah's truck. They believe that it was
00:32:12
Leah. They couldn't confirm that it was Leah, but they believe that the image of
00:32:17
the person they are seeing is Leah getting out of her truck who enters the same garage bay door. And
00:32:24
then what they are saying they see on this video is that at some point the SUV leaves, but Leah's vehicle never leaves.
00:32:35
Right. And again, like you were saying, this is all happening when the shop isn't open to the public. Correct. So,
00:32:43
this would be after hours. I think that it's not [snorts] terribly long after they
00:32:48
close on Friday, but from the footage I saw, it appears that it was dark or getting dark
00:32:55
around this time. Now, this just to be for the sake of clarity in case I completely jumbled up the
00:33:02
description of what they said they were seeing. This is from the Graham Police Department. And it's a simple statement
00:33:08
that states in the video, a figure was observed getting out of an SUV and opening one of the multiple garage bay
00:33:16
doors before walking into the building. Another vehicle, presumably Leah Martins, pulled into the parking lot a
00:33:23
short time later, and that person entered the auto shop through the same bay door, but never came out. The
00:33:31
lieutenant, this is the Lieutenant Toby Catlin of the Texas Rangers, said, quote, "We believed
00:33:38
that whatever happened to Leah happened at that garage." End quote. Okay. So, that means
00:33:46
this individual's there. She was either planning to meet this individual there or wasn't planning to meet this
00:33:53
individual there, and then [clears throat] this individual leaves, and because we have no person, we have
00:34:00
no body, we have no Leah at the shop, that this individual then took her away, whether she was alive or not alive.
00:34:11
Yeah, and think about this. You I'm glad that you said at the top of the show to
00:34:16
point out that this is a large building. This is a large outfit. We We've seen pictures of this and footage of this.
00:34:23
There's a lot of different garage doors. There's a front of the house, as you would anticipate with an auto shop,
00:34:29
where you walk in and it's like a It's like a lobby with a receptionist desk, and then behind that you're going to
00:34:35
have the the bays where everybody's working on the vehicles. And also keep in mind though the way that
00:34:43
those types of businesses operate, right? So, I what I think we have here, Captain, is with it being a larger
00:34:49
outfit and a lot of employees, it wouldn't be so strange for there to be multiple people in and out even after
00:34:56
hours. I'm uncertain if she had keys to the building, but she's also an interesting employee for the for the
00:35:07
outfit, right? Because even though her title So, the title is just pretty simple. She's the receptionist. But
00:35:14
she's a front of the house person. When you think about it, like the owner operator and the receptionist are the
00:35:21
only two people in the entire business that I would 100% expect to have interactions with
00:35:29
everybody that works there. She's sort of the head of the outfit, right? You can You can be
00:35:35
You can be like me, just a man working in a garage who all I care about is >> I only care about the the work that you
00:35:42
put in front of me. I don't need to to bother myself with with every of the other goings-on here. Captain, I know
00:35:49
you come to the garage for the beer, but you stay for the salacious details, right?
00:35:55
>> Yeah. Well, it's >> Of course. All right, so here we go. Three days into this investigation,
00:36:01
detectives learned that Leah at some point, this is I don't think that this wasn't going on at the time of
00:36:10
her disappearance, but this went on during her time working at EC's Auto Shop. So, detectives learned that Leah had had
00:36:18
an affair. Well, that's naughty. This will expand the suspect pool, of course. Mhm.
00:36:25
[clears throat] Leah's boyfriend, or on-again, off-again boyfriend, Aaron Blair, said that she had had an affair
00:36:32
with Rafael Winder. He's an employee at EC's Auto Shop. Rafael ended this relationship and then later
00:36:44
married a woman named Samantha. So, possibly maybe Samantha's the one making the threatening phone calls. Could be.
00:36:51
The what was stated to police by Rafael and Aaron is that Rafael ending this relationship and
00:37:00
going off and marrying Samantha, this upset Leah. That's the general consensus here, that this upset Leah, and then
00:37:08
we know that Leah and Samantha had a major argument that took place in front of other people at the shop at some
00:37:15
point. Rafael said to police that Leah had vandalized some of his belongings that were
00:37:23
at the shop. They're really looking at this guy pretty good three days into the investigation.
00:37:29
>> Yeah, does he have a SUV or access to SUV? The other problem, too, is it's a it's a car shop, so then you go
00:37:38
these are car people, so they possibly would have access to any vehicle they needed. Are you going to create a shirt
00:37:44
that is half person, half car? Because when I said horse people, that was the result. Yes.
00:37:50
>> [laughter] >> Old horse people. >> Car people versus horse people. >> Car. Car will win most of the time. Rafael
00:37:57
stated that he had worked on Friday. It was a typical work day for him, and he worked up until about 5:30 p.m. He
00:38:05
says after work, he then went with his wife, Samantha, to Wichita Falls. So, he goes
00:38:13
out to another city. They go to Wichita Falls, they have dinner at the Texas Roadhouse. #not a sponsor. And to do
00:38:21
some shopping at Walmart. Also not a sponsor. Although I think they were at some point.
00:38:28
Surveillance footage from these locations, the Walmart, Texas Roadhouse, confirmed Rafael and Samantha being at
00:38:38
both of these places. So, they are there. Their presence is is noted on surveillance footage. Right. Time
00:38:45
stamped, and the times are lining up with what both of them are telling police. So, this providing Rafael and an alibi.
00:38:55
Yeah, I normally don't like alibis that involve the other person's partner, but if there's camera footage involved, then
00:39:03
those are the alibis I like, but >> [laughter] >> when you say there's time stamps, how
00:39:09
many surveillance footage have the clocks been wrong? >> The thing I like here, and the thing
00:39:14
that the police clearly liked, is he is where he said he was, according to all the evidence they could
00:39:20
find. His wife is where she said she was. Their stories line up. They are where they said they were
00:39:28
during the time in question. So, we have receipts plus surveillance footage from
00:39:33
the businesses tell police that that my man, Rafael, was where he says he was. Thus, Rafael was cleared as a suspect.
00:39:42
And when I say my man that the I watched the police interview with this man. I I don't know what I just kind of
00:39:52
dug his attitude. Like he he was he told the police he's like, "Yes, you know, Leah had vandalized some of my stuff."
00:39:59
And he's like, "People other people were telling me to like get back at her, maybe vandalize some of
00:40:06
her stuff." And they're like, "Did you do that?" He's like, "No, why would I do that?" He's like, He's just just kind of
00:40:11
like a "Yeah, we had a problem, but it but I'm not going to let it bother me. I'm not going to I'm not going to
00:40:16
I'm not going to do something." He just has the character to me of live and let live kind of attitude. And then to back
00:40:24
it up, he was where he says he was. So, Captain, they are finding leads, they're running
00:40:29
them down, and unfortunately not finding the person or persons responsible. I was going to say they are all dead
00:40:36
ends, but not so, right? Because what the investigators are doing here and doing successfully in a pretty quick
00:40:44
amount of time is checking boxes. Because it looks like law enforcement firmly believes, and they should,
00:40:52
that they have the where the where in this mystery. So, you're looking for the who. Who is responsible
00:41:00
has got to be tied in some manner, some capacity to the where, the location. So, what you have
00:41:08
to do is look at everyone. Everyone who let's who's tied to the where and then eliminate them as a suspect and they and
00:41:19
moving along at a great pace, right? We've checked some boxes. We've already cleared a few
00:41:24
suspects and and several of them have a tie to the where. Well, yeah, and if I'm
00:41:32
a detective on this case, I'm I'm asking the owner, "Well, who would have the access to stop
00:41:39
the cameras?" And then also like >> Or interfere with them. Yeah, correct. >> Right. Because also like there could be
00:41:46
a situation where an individual shows up, but then if we do not see that on video footage, how were they able to
00:41:54
disrupt that footage? So, you see what I'm saying? Cuz like if I know how to turn them off, well, you'd
00:42:01
see me going into the shop. So, once the camera stopped working, you would assume
00:42:06
that I'm the one that stopped the cameras. But is somebody stopping the cameras or did they erase some footage?
00:42:13
And then who would have the access and who would have the know-how to do that? >> So, you found the where, you've
00:42:18
eliminated Aaron Blair, Raphael Winder, and Samantha Winder from your equation. And in your time doing so, you end up
00:42:29
catching a break. So, the first big break in the case, here we go, Captain. Leah Martin's
00:42:35
mother, Stasney Martin, accessed her daughter's email account hoping to find this is after she went
00:42:44
missing hoping to find some answers. And at the least, maybe get a lead or something from the email, some
00:42:53
interaction with somebody. So, she learns about a secret relationship. Leah Martin at one time
00:43:03
was in a {quote} romantic relationship with E.C. Blair. What the [ __ ] >> Is this a sticky situation, right? E.C.
00:43:16
Blair is her boss, the father of her boyfriend/ex-boyfriend, Aaron Blair, and the grandfather of
00:43:23
Leah's daughter. So, >> [laughter] >> this is less than ideal, tongue in planted firmly in cheek. Right, but he's
00:43:31
the adopted father, right? He's not the biological father of her boyfriend. >> This is Look, I'm I know we have a
00:43:37
victim here. Come on, this is just not a good situation for anybody. >> Yeah, but okay, first of all, she's
00:43:43
young. She now has these responsibilities that she didn't have a couple years ago.
00:43:50
Mhm. She has this on-again, off-again situation, but it kind of reminds me of the detectives talking about the Tipp
00:43:56
City murder where they go, "Well, the victim in that case was living a a life and a lifestyle
00:44:04
a low-risk lifestyle." And I'd say in this case, because of these relationships that Leah
00:44:12
was having, this puts her in the possibility of high-risk lifestyle. Yes, and you're absolutely right. I mean,
00:44:20
she's young. That's um We've all made stupid mistakes. I plan on making two later today.
00:44:27
From her mother from Leah's mother, {quote} He was a married man and he was messing around with a 22-year-old girl
00:44:35
and leading her on. It takes a very sick, twisted human being to even think of getting involved
00:44:42
with your son's girlfriend. {end quote} Yeah, it's bizarre. And then also, too, again, she's young and she's in a
00:44:50
situation like she got this job and most of the jobs we get are from our social networks, right? So, she gets this job
00:45:00
from her boyfriend's father. And you wonder, did she get this job uh before or after the affair? And how long was
00:45:08
this affair going on? But you could he is the guy that writes your checks. He He is
00:45:15
in a position of power. He's in a position where he can manipulate her. And I you know, I feel for any young
00:45:23
parent, whether you have a partner that's helping you out or not, that sometimes when you're young and naive,
00:45:31
you think that money will solve a lot of your problems. It won't solve them all, but
00:45:36
it will solve your money problems. So, this doesn't put her in a great situation, and people can sit there and
00:45:43
go, "Well, she's 22, she's an adult." Yeah, but adults can be manipulated, too. Well, and I also feel for Aaron
00:45:50
Blair, right? I mean, he has an alibi, he's not considered a suspect at this point. But for his part,
00:45:57
he says {quote} I've already had bad things with my dad before. This is what he tells investigators. He
00:46:04
says he's done it to me before is a quote. Oh, great. >> So, that can only lead I mean, if he
00:46:10
says he's done it to me before, that I mean, that's suggestive that he's had some kind of
00:46:16
that he had a relationship with [ __ ] Yeah. With somebody else that that was supposed to be with Aaron or
00:46:22
had been with Aaron at some point. Yeah, and you're you're supposed to be the individual that teaches this young man
00:46:27
how to be a man, and you're doing nothing but uh [ __ ] on him. And he's married,
00:46:33
too. E.C. Blair is married as well. So, >> Yeah. So, speaking of E.C. Blair, he [snorts]
00:46:40
Yeah, he talks to the dad, he talks to the police when they first show up. But once this is kind of uncovered, he then
00:46:47
refuses to cooperate with investigators. So, the investigators are like, "You know what? We we
00:46:54
He might be a a brick wall for us right now, but guess who we might have on our side?
00:47:01
E.C. Blair's wife, right? Oh, yeah. >> scorned. So, they go and they decide to focus on Lisa Blair. We want to see what
00:47:09
she knows. Couple things. She could be a suspect. She could have more information
00:47:14
about the affair. She'd have access to the location, the shop. Would she have any knowledge about the cameras? And
00:47:21
then obviously, she would have motive because if she knew about the affair, correct.
00:47:26
>> Exactly. And so, but also, does she because mom The only person they're finding about out about this affair is
00:47:32
coming from Leah's mom, who doesn't know any more about it other than what she was able to retrieve from emails. So,
00:47:39
you you got to figure out a couple things with Lisa. Is she an accomplice? Is she a suspect? Does she have more
00:47:44
information about this affair? Could she have information about the disappearance? Right. Or is she just a
00:47:50
victim also in this situation? Could she have information that she doesn't know that is important to the
00:47:57
investigation? So, Lisa talks with police. She says, "Yep, unfortunately, I did know about
00:48:06
the affair. I found out about it when I went through my husband's phone." And she says, "Look, I figured this out
00:48:15
before Lisa went missing we Sorry, before Leah went missing. I apologize. It sounds like what she's telling police
00:48:23
is that her and E.C. had worked it out for the most part, but I don't know that it's completely worked out because
00:48:30
she says that she, Lisa, the wife, E.C.'s wife, wanted Leah, the missing girl, fired.
00:48:38
So, I guess some confirmation that it would be over over, never happen again, if you if you're able to separate these
00:48:46
two. But we know that Leah's still working there when she goes missing. What I think we got to get back to
00:48:53
though here in this case is you're finding out this new information, but you also have the fact that remains.
00:49:04
You have everything telling you that Leah arrived at her work, and we don't know what happened to her
00:49:11
there. We have police saying we think whatever happened to Leah happened at that shop. So, of course,
00:49:18
you've started the process, but you need to be firmly neck deep in the process of
00:49:24
interviewing every single person that works there, every single person that is in and out of that shop. So, other auto
00:49:32
shop employees are going to be of a heightened interest to your investigation and specifically
00:49:40
the police and the Rangers decide to hone in on two of them. Their names [music]
00:49:45
Ross Hellums and Billy Minkley. >> [music] [music] [music] >> Want to thank everybody for joining us
00:50:03
here in the garage each and every week. Thanks for telling your mother. Thanks for telling your brother. For everything
00:50:09
true crime check out truecrimegarage.com. So much more to get to in this case. So
00:50:14
join us back here in the garage and until then >> [music] >> be good, be kind, and don't litter.
00:50:28
>> [music] [music] [music] >> Courage. I learned it from my adoptive mom. Hold my hand. You hold my hand.
00:51:01
Learn about adopting a teen from foster care at adoptuskids.org. >> You can't imagine the reward. Brought to
00:51:07
you by AdoptUSKids, the US Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council.