00:00:05
[Music] welcome to true crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
00:00:45
for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man that goes over the top like Sylvester Stallone he
00:00:52
is the captain I also ride a bike Annika bull like urban cowboy it's good to be seen and good to see you thanks for
00:01:00
listening thanks photographer [Music] this week we are very happy to be featuring killer cupcake Panda by the
00:01:12
creative minds over at the flying monkeys craft brewery killer cupcake Panda is a luscious
00:01:18
and crushes double IPA doused with pandan leaves citrus custard and vanilla cupcake aromas garage grade 4 and 3/4
00:01:28
bottle caps out of 5 and this week our fridge is full thanks to Marley and Roy Utah I wonder if it's a Wizard of Oz
00:01:37
reference the flying monkeys a big we like your jib to Monique and Creedmoor Texas and a big we like your jibby to
00:01:45
Haley and Lexington Kentucky and Kelly from my hometown of dumb ersten Vermont next up we have Jacqueline and parts
00:01:55
unknown she says we are the best part of her Tuesday and last but not least we have Suzanne and Duluth Georgia
00:02:02
everybody that we just mentioned went to true crime garage calm and they helped out with this week's beer fun and for
00:02:10
that we thank you not only did they go support the show but they waited a really long time cuz
00:02:17
we're way backed up so be patient we will shout you out at some point it's more exciting that way it's a surprise
00:02:26
anyways thanks for supporting the show make sure you check us out on the stitcher app for all of our old episodes
00:02:32
and check out us on the stitcher premium for our bonus weekly show called off the
00:02:38
record we're talking about the confession of the Steven Avery case this week so check that out and that is
00:02:45
enough of the bails now all right everybody gather round grab a chair grab a beer
00:02:49
let's talk some true crime [Music] [Music] Black Forest Colorado about 20 miles northwest of Colorado Springs the church
00:03:37
family lived in a single-family home with four bedrooms the smaller bedroom was used as a family den the house was
00:03:48
nice and it was rather secluded which was just what parents Mike and Diane church wanted they had over five acres
00:03:58
on Easton ville Road this was a family of six Mike and Diane church and their four kids
00:04:07
Heather Kris gunner and sage Mike and Diane were college sweethearts and they worked very hard to build a nice and
00:04:18
happy home for their family this was their dream house and Diane said it was the perfect place to raise children but
00:04:28
things were not always perfect in fact by early 1991 Mike had moved out Diane filed for divorce
00:04:38
Mike was living in an apartment in town closer to his work and Diane stayed in the home with the four children everyone
00:04:49
was working through this tough time Diane sought some counseling Mike had regular visitation an equal time with
00:04:59
the kids and their oldest child Heather dawn church was excelling in school Heather played the violin and even at an
00:05:10
early age she was telling her parents she was going to be an astronaut when she grew up
00:05:17
her parents played along even though they thought it was just a phase and sent Heather to one of those summer
00:05:24
space camps when she returned she was even more excited about becoming an astronaut and told her folks she was the
00:05:34
only kid that did not throw up when in the shuttle simulator as the finalising of the impending divorce drew near Mike
00:05:44
and Diane put the house on the market but Diane and the kids would stay there until it's sold the school year started
00:05:53
up in September of 1991 and the kids were back to being busy on Tuesday September 17th this was to be just
00:06:05
another ordinary day at 6:30 a.m. thirteen-year-old heather dawn church and her younger brothers got on the
00:06:16
school bus they lived out in the sticks so the bus ride was as long as an hour some days
00:06:26
Heather was in the eighth grade at Falcon middle school after school Diane prepared dinner for the kids she
00:06:37
and two of her boys had some commitments at their local church the two middle boys Kris and gunner were involved with
00:06:45
the Cub Scouts they had a meeting on this evening the church was just 15 miles down the road
00:06:55
while the two boys were at Cub Scouts Diane was going to attend a home making class heather explained if she and
00:07:05
five-year-old saige tagged along they would have nothing to do Heather offered to stay home babysit and tidy up the
00:07:14
house this would work out nicely because sage could keep his normal bedtime of about eight o'clock before leaving
00:07:25
Heather and Diane discussed several things two of the most important sage had a flu shot earlier that day and
00:07:34
Heather should look out for adverse reactions and Heather told her mother about a school dance that would be that
00:07:42
Friday she was asking for permission to go Diane agreed as long as Heather went with a group of friends before leaving
00:07:52
Diane checked the doors and made sure they were all locked she hurried Chris and Gunnar into the
00:07:59
back seat of their vehicle and she pulled out of the driveway while leaving the property she noticed that one of the
00:08:07
bedroom windows was slightly open just about five inches she planned to call Heather later on anyway to check in on
00:08:17
Sage so Diane made a mental note to ask Heather to close the window during that call
00:08:27
at 8:30 Diane called home Heather picked up the phone Diane wanted to know if sage was in bed Heather says
00:08:37
no she let him stay up to watch the TV show home improvement they were watching together in the family room after the
00:08:47
show he was going to bed Diane told Heather that she loved her and she and the two boys would be home by 10 p.m.
00:09:00
Dyanne pulled into the driveway just before 10:15 she noticed that the outside house lights were not on her and
00:09:10
the boys got out of the vehicle and made their way up to the house they went to the patio sliding door which was pretty
00:09:18
common Diane found the door unlocked so she did not need to use her key the door
00:09:27
being unlocked was also common the church family had two cats and they would typically let the cats outside for
00:09:36
the night and Diane says the kids were always forgetting to lock the door after doing so inside the house was dark
00:09:46
Diane turned on some lights and told the two boys to go to bed all three boys shared a room and Diane went and checked
00:09:55
on little sage finding him asleep in his bed wrapped up in the blankets like a burrito Diane went to the family room to
00:10:05
talk to Heather she expected to find her sitting in the dark watching TV as usual
00:10:11
however Heather was not in the family room she was not in her bedroom Diane searched the house it could not
00:10:20
find Heather at all she went outside and walked the property around the house shouting Heather's name
00:10:27
in the dark still nothing no Heather Diane was worried and afraid she called her husband Mike she asked him if he had
00:10:39
Heather was she with him Mike said no he asked if she called Heather's friends or
00:10:48
the neighbors then he asked Diane does it look like someone came in the house before Diane could answer Mike said call
00:11:00
911 [Music] we start off captain by jumping right into the search for 13 year-old Heather
00:11:21
dawn Church now we must keep in mind how large the church family's property is now that guy that we just heard said it
00:11:32
was over five acres there are two really good books on this week's case and we will have those as this week's
00:11:39
recommended reading and maybe next week as well one source says the property was
00:11:45
six acres and the other lists the plot of land at 5.8 acres so both probably very accurate but that's what size of
00:11:55
property we are dealing with now because of the remoteness of where they lived Diane Heather's mother she was thinking
00:12:05
that Heather must have gone outside maybe in search of one of the cats and walked too far maybe she fell twisted an
00:12:13
ankle or busted her knee couldn't walk back to the home that sort of thing on the other hand we have Heather's father
00:12:22
Mike he had a completely different feeling that night Mike said immediately after the phone call with Diane where he
00:12:32
tells her to call 9-1-1 he jumped into his pickup truck racing like a jet to get to his family's home later he would
00:12:41
say he knew right away that someone took his daughter yeah and they have the extra stress already by their families
00:12:49
separating Diane did exactly as Mike said he she called 911 to the El Paso County Colorado Sheriff's Department it
00:13:01
was not customary for this Sheriff's Department to take a missing report until the person in question was gone
00:13:08
for more than 24 hours sadly this included teenagers as well Diane requested that a deputy at the
00:13:17
very least come out to the house this request was denied Diane was told by the deputy on the
00:13:24
phone that she should be calling Heather's friends because 99% of the time missing kids are with a friend or
00:13:33
at a party Diane asked her what about the other 1% because the Sheriff's Office would not send a deputy Diane
00:13:43
started calling her friends and family asking if anyone would come to the house and help look for Heather by the time
00:13:52
Mike arrived others were already there looking for the missing 13 year old after several more calls to 911 was
00:14:03
finally dispatched to the house arriving just before midnight yeah we don't like
00:14:08
how they handled it initially but at least they sent on a cop yeah regardless of how the 9-1-1 calls
00:14:14
were handled the deputy that was dispatched to go to the house the churches have and had nothing but good
00:14:21
things to say about this officer we are talking about sheriff's deputy les Milligan les was very young and very
00:14:29
green officer Milligan went right into action as soon as he arrived on the scene he he took control of the scene
00:14:37
and ordered the El Paso search-and-rescue team to come out to the property ASAP unfortunately they
00:14:47
never found Heather that night in fact they did not even find any clues as to where she may be or what could have
00:14:54
happened Diane later said it was like the girl just vanished into thin air the next morning the questions started the
00:15:05
officers wanted to know everything everything about Heather the house their marriage the divorce everything so they
00:15:13
were looking around the house they're calling friends and family they can't find her now they want to know is it
00:15:18
possible that should want to run away for any reasons yeah law enforcement they're speculating here captain they
00:15:24
want to know could the 13 year old be upset about the divorce yeah so from which from my understanding this was
00:15:33
going to be final the divorce was going to be final just before Thanksgiving so it was coming
00:15:38
soon could she have been upset about the whole situation and maybe she took off Diane believed no that could not be what
00:15:47
happened here she tells the officers that Mike moved out of the house months before and Heather did not seem upset or
00:15:55
to be having any difficulty with the situation at all so she's explaining here this isn't anything new this didn't
00:16:02
just happened this week or last month this has been going on for months and me as a parent and my my husband living
00:16:10
elsewhere us as parents we've not seen any indication from her that she's struggling with this in fact she's
00:16:17
excelling in school mm-hmm Diane told the daily Sentinel many reasons why her daughter Heather why her life was great
00:16:25
and why she would not run away citing that Heather was a very reasonable kid she got really good grades she was
00:16:33
recently accepted into the gifted and talented program at school she asked about going to the school dance on that
00:16:41
Friday right we talked about usually when people were making plans they don't have these underlining plans to
00:16:49
disappear well I understand that law enforcement has to look at all these different angles but it's sad that you
00:16:56
see in so many cases that parents or loved ones have to try to convince law enforcement of what they believe yeah
00:17:06
yeah and she also pointed out back to the dance she said you know I've not only did I give her permission to do
00:17:13
this thing so it's not like we got in some kind of argument she wanted to do something and I said no right I gave her
00:17:19
permission to go to the dance to which we have Heather telling her mother great I have a new outfit I'm going to save
00:17:28
that outfit to wear it to the dance yeah it seems like something that she was looking forward to seems like something
00:17:34
that she was making a big deal to herself and she recently applied for the school yearbook staff as well now
00:17:43
obviously we don't know all that was said to investigators or exactly how they arrived at this
00:17:49
conclusion but I will say that very early on the Sheriff's Office said publicly and to the media and this is an
00:17:58
exact quote it's unlikely the girl ran away in fact very quickly in the investigation the Sheriff's Department
00:18:07
brought in the FBI to investigate this as a likely abduction but it was that morning that next morning where things
00:18:17
would start to get a little weird so it's during this questioning that Diane remembers the open window this is the
00:18:26
window to the master bedroom she opened it and forgot to close it before she left and thence all it open when pulling
00:18:34
out of the driveway rain like you stated before she went around locking all the doors making sure that her kids were
00:18:41
safe when she's pulling out of the driveway she notices this window but the fact that you're hearing this the next
00:18:48
day I think it would raise a little bit of alarm I agree I agree she tells law enforcement that she meant to tell
00:18:58
Heather about the open window when she called home at 8:30 p.m. the night before but states that she forgot to she
00:19:07
told them that all of the doors were locked when she left the house but when she came home the sliding glass door to
00:19:13
the patio was unlocked she added that other than a couple of items nothing was out of place no signs of a struggle no
00:19:22
forced entry and in fact five year-old sage was asleep and perfectly fine when she arrived home at 10:15 p.m. now I
00:19:30
don't think we know this information like you said one room one site reports 5.8 acres one reports six acres but I
00:19:40
wonder how far away from the road the house actually was I don't know the exact distance but the description that
00:19:50
I've seen a few times is that it's it's a long driveway that we're talking about
00:19:54
right that there's a decent amount of distance between the house and in the yard so if you're an investigator I
00:20:02
think I get what their what they're thinking about I mean you're looking at this
00:20:07
thing like well is this even a crime scene there there's no clues here no evidence and I'm guessing but I would
00:20:14
bet some of the detectives were probably wondering if Heather went with someone willingly or opened the door willingly
00:20:23
for her then abduct her right because it could be a friend that she went with possibly a boyfriend or a a male friend
00:20:32
that she maybe hasn't told the family about yeah we do know about the dance now the thing about this master bedroom
00:20:41
window when Diane went to show them show law enforcement exactly which window she
00:20:47
was talking about she found the window was now closed she told them she did not close the window and they asked everyone
00:20:56
who was there that night looking for Heather if any of them had closed the window and everyone says no so they are
00:21:06
dusting the window in other areas of the home for fingerprints upon further examination they found that the screen
00:21:14
to the window was askew so they take the screen off and quickly notice it was actually in the track but it was
00:21:22
backwards a technician inspected the metal frame all in all windows and the screen the
00:21:29
tech found three possible fingerprints and so remove these fingerprints or the latent fingerprints these were submitted
00:21:39
to the automated fingerprint identification system or a ffice for short in hopes that a match would be
00:21:46
found in the national databases but no such match was found the investigators did not like that the church is called
00:21:56
so many friends that night people who walked through the house and property possibly disturbing the crime scene but
00:22:04
I mean what are you gonna do if you call the Sheriff's Office and they offer no help yeah at first you're going to call
00:22:11
your friends relatives and such for help sounds like a bunch of malarkey and but Johor sh-shit i mean like you said
00:22:20
it it's very similar to Jon Benet Ramsey case where they had a lot of people inside the crime scene basically but
00:22:29
like you said when you're calling for help and nobody shows up what what what else are you supposed to do so the
00:22:36
morning after the disappearance after questioning Diane says she got tired of doing nothing so everybody is out that
00:22:43
night and all the next morning looking for Heather meanwhile Diane is supposed to just kind of sit tight inside the
00:22:52
home she I mean as a parent you got to be going freaking crazy here she says she got tired of doing nothing while
00:23:00
everybody else was out looking for Heather so she decided to calm herself by cleaning the house she started off by
00:23:07
doing some dishes and then she turned on the vacuum cleaner she's vacuuming the carpet when one of the investigators
00:23:14
standing outside he's just outside the house right he heard the vacuum he heard the noise he went running into the house
00:23:21
and he yelled at Diane wanting to know what she was doing why are you doing this we need to process the scene well
00:23:29
in the days after Heather vanished lieutenant Bill Mastretta of the El Paso Sheriff's Department kept the media and
00:23:39
the public informed he said the FBI was brought in and the FBI was conducting interviews at Heather's middle school
00:23:46
the Sheriff's Department in the FBI together were questioning classmates teachers counselors friends neighbors
00:23:53
and church associates but ground and aerial searches turned up nothing lieutenant Mastretta said the case was
00:24:02
taking no positive direction and we are just continuing at it with no new leads [Music]
00:24:18
when it comes to me quality matters and butcher box believes everyone deserves high-quality humanely
00:24:26
sourced meat we both me and Nick we love our butcher box we love when it shows up
00:24:34
to our door and let me tell you it is the best bacon I have ever tasted I love butcher box so much when people
00:24:41
ask me to list my hobbies I say butcher box it's one of my hobbies because I love to grill I love to cook and I love
00:24:49
this box showing up every month and here's what I do I go online I go to their website and I make selections each
00:24:56
month so I don't have the same things showing up month after month and the quality is superb I had the
00:25:02
captain and a bunch of friends over to watch Ohio State beat up on Nebraska and the menu st. louis-style ribs and
00:25:10
chicken wings all from butcher box if you're ordering for the first time here's a recommendation from the extra
00:25:17
crispy kernel i recommend their pork chops fantastic like the captain said their bacon is amazing and they have
00:25:24
really really good ribeye steaks every month butcher box ships a curated selection of high quality meat right to
00:25:32
your home each box has nine to eleven pounds of meat that is free of antibiotics and added hormones and it's
00:25:39
all packed fresh shipped frozen and vacuum sealed so it stays that way options include 100% grass-fed and
00:25:47
finished beef free-range organic chicken heritage pork Wildcat Alaskan salmon and sugar and nitrate-free bacon they
00:25:57
even have free shipping in the continental US right now butcher box is offering new
00:26:03
members ground beef for life that's two pounds of ground beef in every box for the life of their subscription plus $20
00:26:11
off your first box but your box is amazing for yourself but it's also amazing to give as a gift check them out
00:26:18
today just go to butcher box.com slash garage or enter promo code garage at checkout that's butcher box.com slash
00:26:26
garage and use our promo code garage that checkout we can't recommend them enough butcher
00:26:33
box.com slash garage on average a burglary happens every 23 seconds in the United States but only one in five homes
00:26:42
have home security probably because most companies don't make it easy they don't make it simple but not simply
00:26:50
safe simply safe makes it easy on you with no contract hidden fees or fine print simply safe protects every door
00:26:58
window and room with 24/7 professional monitoring for jes $15 a month it's one of tunnel wards from CNET to New York
00:27:09
Times wire cutter one thing that makes simply safe stayin out is their video verification technology when other home
00:27:17
security systems are triggered police often assume it's a false alarm and the call goes to the bottom of the list but
00:27:24
not what's simply safe using their video verification technology they can visually confirm that the break-in is
00:27:31
happening allow them please to get to the scene 3.5 times faster with simply safe you are not only protecting your
00:27:39
home and loved ones from intruders you are also protecting them from fires water damage and medical emergencies and
00:27:47
much much more I have a monitored home because I have two dogs and when I'm not home if there were to be a fire they're
00:27:55
trapped inside so I keep my house monitored and I love simply safe visit simply safe dot-com / garage and you'll
00:28:04
get free shipping and a 60-day risk-free trial you've got nothing to lose go now and be sure you go to simply safe
00:28:12
calm / garage so they know our show sent you that's simply safe calm / garage protect yourself protect your family
00:28:20
check out Sibley safe calm / garage today [Music] all right we're back cheers Mimi teachers kept in now let's
00:28:40
talk about one lead that did come in so first we need to understand that with a lot of these missing kid cases the
00:28:48
community really comes together we're talking missing fliers everywhere pictures of Heather seen all over town
00:28:56
they were not just posting missing flyers at local businesses far and wide middle school kids made big signs with
00:29:04
poster board in small wooden handles standing in crowds and on the sides of streets holding the signs high as cars
00:29:13
drove by asking everyone have you seen this girl there was also a command center of sorts
00:29:21
set up this place was for volunteers to meet and man the phone lines there were phones set up with a tip
00:29:30
number that people could call on Monday October 13th in the morning less than one month after Heather disappeared a
00:29:38
call came in the caller an anonymous female caller said there is a body at the Fox Run of Regional Park area this
00:29:48
is in Black Forest this sent the Sheriff's Department 30 members of the El Paso search and rescue team to
00:29:56
tracking dogs and two helicopters on an all-day search that covered 400 acres but turned up nothing
00:30:04
well afterward the Sheriff's Office publicly urged the caller to call again but this time with more details because
00:30:14
of the size of the park right they would get another call this time another anonymous female caller sending them on
00:30:23
another fruitless search later information provided by several and law enforcement would state that both calls
00:30:30
were believed to be hoaxes even before the searches were conducted but they had to follow up on all tips and leads well
00:30:38
it's amazing how sick individuals are it's it's very strange that that stuff even happened
00:30:45
and it's unclear if law enforcement believes that both calls came from the same person but they have stated it's
00:30:54
believed both calls came from a teenaged girl from a teenage sounding girl it says strange that somebody would be
00:31:01
sitting there watching the case unfold and and want to make something up to waste law-enforcement time what's the
00:31:10
motive yeah it it just doesn't make any sense but to this day captain the caller
00:31:16
or callers have not been identified well they have been identified as real piece
00:31:22
of [ __ ] that's singer you're a real [ __ ] stain yeah so we talked about the community coming together but then we
00:31:30
also talked about these asshats of society with these harmful and hurtful fake calls which destroy the parents and
00:31:38
loved ones of Heather and compromised search efforts and the investigation itself yeah but I much rather prefer to
00:31:46
talk about people coming together in helping one another one of many instances was when we see this case this
00:31:54
is the the Matthews family they reached out offering friendship to Mike and Diane Church Jim and Gloria Matthews
00:32:05
were able to offer the churches their sympathies and they were two people that can truly understand and empathize just
00:32:13
exactly what the churches were going through seven years before Heather Church went missing and the believed
00:32:21
abduction of Heather Church 12 year old Janelle Matthews was believed to have been abducted from her home this is in
00:32:30
Greenlee Colorado about a two-hour drive north of Black Forest Colorado Janelle was dropped off at the family's home
00:32:37
after she attended a Christmas choir concert she was last seen walking into her empty home by her friend and her
00:32:46
friend's father when they dropped her off at the house later Janelle's parents found the house empty but Janelle's
00:32:53
shoes placed neatly in the family room near a space heater with TV on there was no sign of a struggle or
00:33:03
forced entry but police said they believe the 12 year old was abducted from the home her case remains unsolved
00:33:11
to this day now over 34 years later and recent developments her body was finally
00:33:18
located just a little over two months ago in July of this year the body was found by oil field workers about 20
00:33:26
miles from her home I believe they are putting in a pipeline in that area and that's how they found the remains police
00:33:34
have named Idaho resident and 2-time candidate for governor 68 year-old Steve panky as a person of interest and
00:33:42
continued to investigate this case I would expect further movement in this case and that could and hopefully come
00:33:50
very soon so what we know here captain with as the police say we're working this case with really no leads really no
00:34:00
clues we're working it we need it to take some kind of direction all we really know at this point is that
00:34:07
something happened to Heather Dawn Church on September 17 1991 between the hours of 8:30 p.m. when her mother
00:34:16
called home and talked to Heather Heather was just fine and 10:15 when her mother arrived at the house yeah at
00:34:23
least were pointed in that direction I think law enforcement is going okay based off what her parents are saying
00:34:30
based off what people are saying around the community we don't think that she took off on her own there's some
00:34:36
evidence to suggest that somebody came through the house so so if she is alive she is in danger the search and the
00:34:47
investigation was huge is rather big and I think lieutenant ken hilt of the Investigations Division of the El Paso
00:34:57
County Sheriff's Office summed up the search best in his summary for the case where he states a detailed crime scene
00:35:07
search was conducted of the church home search and rescue teams coupled with search dogs
00:35:12
scoured the area fingerprints were recovered and forwarded to both the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the
00:35:20
Colorado Bureau of Investigation both local and national media took part in the quote where's Heather
00:35:28
missing-persons campaign as the El Paso County Sheriff's Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation combined efforts
00:35:36
to solve the case in the years that followed detectives continue to pursue hundreds of leads which came in from all
00:35:44
parts of the country in addition to being featured in national publications and television shows the FBI's
00:35:51
behavioral science unit produced a suspect profile the suspect profile that was released to the media was a
00:35:59
summarized version of the profile and it is as follows the unknown subject is a male in his early to late 20s shy
00:36:09
introverted and a loner subject is unable to achieve sexually whatever he wants with women and has difficulty with
00:36:18
women in general the subject would probably have knowledge of the victim and her family after the crime the
00:36:27
subject would have behavioral changes which would be noticeable by associates persons close to the offender would
00:36:35
notice changes which include an increase in alcohol or drug use a deterioration and personal appearance sleeping
00:36:43
disorder a desire to be alone possibly failed to show up for work after the abduction I'm wondering since
00:36:51
we have little to no clues how they're given this possible age range of the purpose I think that they're basing a
00:37:00
lot of this off of previous crimes that they have a similar similar victimology and maybe even a similar modus operandi
00:37:10
where somebody's coming into an actual home that's very rare and abducting a child from inside the home the victim is
00:37:18
13 years old what we are also seeing here what is what is released it's interesting on a few different levels
00:37:26
because one we are getting a summarized version they're getting there they're going okay this version we're going to
00:37:32
release to the media so that they share it with the public because we do need the public's help
00:37:38
but there's another version of this profile that would have been given to law enforcement to two agencies actually
00:37:47
working the case yeah now I don't know how much they would vary I imagine in some cases they vary greatly but this
00:37:56
specific case we don't know what we do see here is typical things of what we see in other profiles it's it's all kind
00:38:04
of vague stuff but they're saying to the public with this profile we're looking for somebody that has changed this is a
00:38:13
dramatic change for this person this person committed an abduction this would be a dramatic change therefore their
00:38:20
appearance their behavior their mannerisms their their routine their drinking or drug use all of that is
00:38:29
going to be affected and change as well right because of this big change so if you've noticed a big change in your
00:38:35
cousin your your uncle your your brother your husband boyfriend whomever right that might be somebody that we might
00:38:45
want to talk to this is also trying to ring bells with employers do you have somebody that showed up and they were
00:38:50
missing work and when they return to work are they are they cover you know covered in scratches or do they look
00:38:57
like they've been in a fight or something like that I feel like some of the things we see
00:39:03
here captain are kind of repetitive from other profiles the the age of late 20s is one that we typically see with the
00:39:15
victim of this age and I think that they come up with that age now profilers will
00:39:21
tell you that age is by far the hardest thing to come up with but typically when
00:39:28
we see a victim in their early teens female victim early teens I often see that late 20s is kind of where they put
00:39:36
that that number for age yeah I also if that has an effect I mean if you look at Heather and the pictures I've seen
00:39:44
she looks like a young 13 yeah and so I wonder if they take that into account as
00:39:52
well I think the thought with with being late 20s is is simply this it's it's one
00:40:00
they're old enough to show some some form of sophistication some form of not being so impulsive and also they're old
00:40:13
enough to have committed more petty type crimes but similar nature where they may
00:40:18
not have been locked up they these may have been things where they made a pass at a young girl maybe it's a relative
00:40:27
maybe it's somebody close to the offender but maybe it was never reported usually those types of crimes we need
00:40:36
those to occur for something like this to take place usually there's escalation going on yeah that the the offender will
00:40:43
escalate into abduction and then I mean I'm sorry to say up a possible murder so
00:40:50
that's why I think we have the age of 29 plus it it's you wonder why they don't go higher than that but you also wonder
00:40:58
does that factor in that that this there is some impulsiveness because of the risk level of going into somebody else's
00:41:05
home yeah I would also lean towards the idea though as law enforcement I mean this is not something I would want to
00:41:11
share with the family but the way she's abducted the lack of clues we have no sightings it seems like we
00:41:20
have no leads coming in and and she's been gone for quite a while at some point you have to start leaning towards
00:41:29
the idea that that she might not be alive anymore yeah and and then that that doesn't really change the profile
00:41:37
much but I think as far as drinking and all those things those will get even more escalated because of a murder the
00:41:46
really weird thing the strange things to me that stand out one there's no blood no evidence of any type of struggle
00:41:55
inside their home and then on top of that if she wasn't abducted from inside the home removed from the home the the
00:42:04
little boy was sleeping right I mean he didn't wake up and hear screams or see anybody strange in their home this was
00:42:12
all if she's removed from inside that home this all went down very stealth like now the case as mentioned was
00:42:20
featured on several different TV shows Diane Church she was really the one she was the face of this investigation she
00:42:30
did countless interviews she handled the newspapers and TV interviews on a national level she was on several
00:42:38
programs including but not limited to the Oprah Winfrey Show and the Jerry Springer Show
00:42:46
The Oprah Winfrey Show captain am i showing my age here it wasn't it recent more recently just called Oprah did when
00:42:53
did it make the change from The Oprah Winfrey Show to just Oprah I don't know I'm not the head of the thing I feel
00:42:59
like when I was a kid it was the the Oprah Winfrey Show well the national spotlight and the huge focus on this
00:43:07
case even just at the local level sparks what this week's recommended readings author would call the usual confusion
00:43:16
and lunacy this next part is from the book The Devil's right-hand man callers reported Heather look-alikes at a credit
00:43:26
union in Pueblo at a Taco Bell in Colorado Springs and at a mall in Aurora Diane would remember her missing
00:43:35
daughter once was cited in four states in one day and as far away as Israel investigators checked out a white van a
00:43:45
blue truck an old green barn where satanic rituals allegedly were held they even went so far as to research
00:43:54
important dates for practitioners of witchcraft and Satanism and rode around El Paso County for hours with a mental
00:44:02
patient who claimed to have information about the crime psychics pop one offer to Diane an eerily exact
00:44:11
description of the last meal she prepared for Heather and the boys saying quote you cooked hot dogs because you
00:44:18
were in a hurry and the boys liked them but Heather didn't like hot dogs and she
00:44:23
told you she would fix a peanut butter sandwich for herself the woman was able to offer Diane a little more other than
00:44:31
to say she thought Heather was dead another psychic Dorothy Allison of New Jersey told members of Diane's support
00:44:41
group that she saw a property with lots of trees a building with a triangular roof a tan pickup truck and a man named
00:44:50
Brown except there was something unusual about the spelling on September 13th 1993 almost two years to the day when
00:45:01
Heather vanished an unkempt scruffy drifter named Timothy belbek walked into the Colorado State Police Station and he
00:45:10
had a story to tell four days earlier he found quote a body off of rampart Range Road the officer
00:45:21
Tim spoke with told him that's not our jurisdiction you're going to need to go to the El Paso County sheriff's office
00:45:28
and so he did right there he told a deputy that down a deep ravine that four days earlier he found a body and an old
00:45:39
rusted-out beat-up 1960s Chevy the front door to the vehicle was open and the car
00:45:45
was filled with dirt from likely a mudslide near the vehicle amongst some larger rocks
00:45:53
Tim spotted what he later determined to be a human skull he freaked out and ran back up to the top and left the area
00:46:02
the deputy listened to Tim's story and then told him to take his information to the state police vehicle death would be
00:46:10
their investigation so Tim did so there he met officer Quinn tana after being turned away twice finally
00:46:21
someone wanted to talk with him Quint Anna and Tim got in the officers state trooper vehicle and made their way back
00:46:29
out to rampart Range Road there the two slowly worked their way down to the vehicle just as Tim had said sure enough
00:46:40
there was this old rusted-out blue-and-white 1961 Chevy Impala with the door open in the car full of dirt
00:46:50
the officer looked around and thought that a body it should be easy to find right I want everybody to to note that
00:47:00
when Tim is reporting this information all three times he's saying that he found a body but it turns out that there
00:47:11
was just a skull there he had it only in fact found a skull right after more searching they did find a small pile of
00:47:19
bones now the officer bagged up the skull bagged up the bones and took all of this all of Timothy's information and
00:47:28
his full story and how and why he found the skull officer Quinn Tana then with the skull went to the El Paso Sheriff's
00:47:37
Department again where he too was told that it sounded like a car fatality so it was his the it was the state police's
00:47:47
investigation the state police's case officer Quinn Tana put the bags in his work car and drove to meet his family
00:47:57
eventually he's going to take Polaroids of the skull and he believed that that maybe the the body didn't have anything
00:48:09
to do with the victim at all he thought maybe it was left there from decades and
00:48:17
decades and decades ago that it could have even been like a Native American or anything of that nature right at this
00:48:26
time so now he's got these these polaroid pictures of the skull in his work car and he goes to meet his family
00:48:34
and I they were meeting either to like go shopping or or go out to eat something
00:48:40
of that nature he's meeting them there now keep in mind this is almost two years to the day when Heather
00:48:48
disappeared and still at this point in our timeline there have been ribbons put up all over the neighborhoods to to you
00:48:59
know cheer on the return of this girl there were missing posters put up there Heather's picture all over town so his
00:49:11
daughter officer Quint Anna his daughter gets into his vehicle and she's rummaging around she finds the Polaroids
00:49:21
of the skull and she's looking at them and in and unfortunately officer Quinn tana once he realized that his daughter
00:49:29
was in the car he realized he had some things in there he didn't want her to see she's looking at these pictures and
00:49:36
he's trying to tell her you know hey I think this is what was going on that's this is why dad has these pictures it's
00:49:44
his daughter that says you found Heather you found Heather Don Church she recognized the
00:49:54
layout of the teeth so the the picture of the skull there is no lower jaw just the upper teeth there right and she
00:50:04
recognized the two large incisors flanked by two crooked laterals this matched up with a lot of the pictures
00:50:12
that they had posted around town of Heather know it's very distinct look yeah so on the second anniversary of
00:50:22
Heather's disappearance the State Police announced that they had recovered the body of missing 13 year-old Heather Don
00:50:28
Church investigators were quite skeptical about Timothy Bell Beck's story how did he find the skull so well
00:50:37
hidden this was not a spot where people go this isn't you know there's no traffic in this area he had to climb
00:50:44
down into this ravine to find this skull why did he tell police he found a body when he said he only saw a skull right
00:50:56
why would he call a skull body why did he wait four days before reporting what he found Tim's story is pretty
00:51:09
complicated let's say okay what we know is he's he's a drifter he is somebody that is may just be passing through the
00:51:19
area right he states that he was staying when he had money he would stay at the Pink Panther motel but on a night about
00:51:30
five days before he led Quinn Tana to the skull he says he was forced to camp in his truck because he didn't have
00:51:39
enough money for the motel so he's trying to sleep in his truck he's sitting in there drinking whiskey for
00:51:49
his camping trip and he's he said that he saw like I don't know if they were teenagers or
00:51:55
just young adults that parked some distance away and they were they were partying as well and throughout the
00:52:04
night they were kind of tossing rocks down into this ravine and when the rocks would land down below he could hear them
00:52:11
bouncing off of what he thought was metal now we do know that there was a vehicle down in that ravine right this
00:52:20
dude does not have much money he's a drifter his he's thinking there's metal down there I can turn that metal into
00:52:27
money so the next day he decides to climb down into the ravine looking to pull all that scrap metal out of the
00:52:36
ravine and turn it into walking around money he finds the car down there that's a good sign
00:52:41
he said he saw a washing machine down there as well this is a place that people were dumping large sized
00:52:48
throwaway objects probably for a very long time it's when he's down there conducting the search for scrap metal
00:52:56
that he says he saw the skull amongst some of the rocks near the vehicle these rocks were you know bigger bigger
00:53:06
rocks almost bowling ball-sized but he said what stood out for him was the color of the skull was significantly
00:53:13
different than the color of the rocks so he went to investigate when he saw that
00:53:18
it was a skull he did in fact freak out when he returned you know gathered his thoughts got back to to normal he
00:53:27
thought well if it's a vehicle fatality right because it's right by this vehicle
00:53:35
mm-hmm he's thinking he should report it because the family of this missing person should know what happened to
00:53:44
their loved ones exactly he tells one of his drinking buddies hey I'm going this
00:53:50
is what I found and I'm going to report it the drinking buddy quickly points out
00:53:54
if it's not a vehicle fatality if it was foul play they might think you did something so that kind of talks him out
00:54:05
of reporting a couple days go by and Timothy starts thinking well maybe there would be a reward involved even if it
00:54:15
was a vehicle accident it's a missing person or if there was foul play Timothy thinks well maybe I should report it due
00:54:23
to there being a possible reward so his whole story is complicated and I'm sure the investigators when they find out
00:54:32
that this was a missing 13 year old girl you found her skull your story is strange you didn't report it for a few
00:54:41
days they you're a drifter yeah yeah they don't like this guy they're they're looking at him is okay not only did we
00:54:49
find her but we now may possibly have for the first time a suspect in this whole case mm-hmm they walked around him
00:54:57
and then Tara Gatien room going trying to smell if he's a piece of [ __ ] or not
00:55:06
yeah in the end though captain they ended up believing Timothy story they were probably able to
00:55:14
back up some of the things that he was telling them right so the other thing too with him being a drifter I don't
00:55:21
know how they ruled him out but I know they ruled him out fairly quickly they may have been able to figure out that he
00:55:28
wasn't even in the area when Heather went missing right so now we have recovered the body but really that did
00:55:36
nothing for the investigation other than rule out a runaway scenario now they knew she was abducted and killed but
00:55:44
they still didn't know by who and why [Music] simply safe makes home security easy
00:55:59
with no contract hidden fees or fine print for just fifteen dollars a month you get 24/7 professional monitoring
00:56:07
throughout your home and simply safe uses their revolutionary video verification technology to visually
00:56:14
confirm that break-ins are happening allowing police to get to you three point five times faster visit simply
00:56:21
safecom slash garage and you get free shipping in a sixty day risk-free trial that simply safecom slash garage simply
00:56:30
safecom slash garage for everything true crime go to true crime garage comm and join us back here tomorrow for more on
00:56:38
this case until then be good be kind and don't litter [Music]