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thank you [Music] [Music] thank you foreign garage wherever you are whatever you're
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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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is here to sprinkle a little magic dust on the situation here is the captain this magic does has my allergies growing
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nuts it's good to be seen and good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling my friend
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[Music] this week we are very excited to be featuring instant Snowman from the good
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folks over at Fort Creek Brewery in Defiance Ohio instant snowman is a New England style hazy IPA with insanely
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juicy notes of pineapple papaya guava and a little lactose and as the name suggests it's a great way to instantly
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cool down on a hot day instant snowman garage grade 4 out of five bottle caps and we have some cheers to our good
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friends for helping us out with this week's shows first up a cheers to Christina from the greatest small town
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ever Chapel Hill Texas and a big shout out to Christy in Bucksport Maine and last but certainly not least we throw
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our tall cans in the air for Megan and Cleveland that's believeland Ohio everybody we just mentioned went to True
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Crime garage.com and clicked on the Donate button yeah bwr-u-n beer run if you need more True
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Crime garage in your ear balls check out our bonus show called off of the record
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it's on Stitcher premium and you can find that link at truecrime garage.com Colonel that is Enough Of The B isn't it
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all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime
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[Music] foreign [Music] these kinds of stories from time to time and it never gets any easier
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stories that involve the senseless murder of children last week we told the True Crime tale of
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an innocent little child walking to church no less taken off the streets just a couple of
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blocks from her home and then executed her body discovered just a few hours later in a Ravine and a forest preserve
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what kind of monster could shoot a little girl in the head then just one day later and two states
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away two girls walking home one of them is grabbed stolen in the night just four houses away from her own
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she met a similar fate as the first girl was found just a short drive from where
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she was abducted what kind of monster could kidnap one sister in front of the other and in
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plain view of so many houses only to leave her body and the cold dark woods the answer in both cases
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is the kind of monster who was left to walk around a free man while early on it seems investigators
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were looking for a connection between the two murders but after a few days they failed to find
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one so the two homicide investigations parted and went their separate ways police in Chicago landed on the theory
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that a local man who likely committed several similar crimes was probably responsible for the murder of the little
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girl who never made it to church that Saturday morning in Ohio the sheriff and the people of the Tiny
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Town of Paulding could never quite agree was it a local man or someone driving through who spotted two sisters walking
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in the dark and then forever took one away the individuals responsible for these
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heinous acts never paid for these crimes not these crimes anyway now today we continue to look for these
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monsters because even if they themselves are dead Justice still has not been served
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on that terrible weekend back in November of 1960 [Music] evil one twice this is true crime garage
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[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] last week we told you about the horrifying abduction and murder of two
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girls Gloria kowalowitz in Chicago who was just nine years old and also Nancy eagleson a 14 year old from Paulding
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Ohio early on the two murder investigations shared the same suspect this was 17 year old Robert Lee Stovall
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who was questioned about both murders extensively this after he was arrested in Indiana found by police there
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sleeping in a stolen car the car he was found in was reported stolen from the Chicago area police
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wondered if Robert had stolen the car and killed the girl in Chicago before leaving the state and while traveling
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through Ohio spotted Nancy and was also responsible for her murder all before turning around and heading back to
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Illinois police determined that Robert Stouffville lived in Jacksonville Illinois and was recently released from
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the State Mental Hospital there this of course did not go along with Robert Lee stovall's Story who first told officers
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that he lived in Montrose Michigan and was a mechanic for the General Motors Corporation
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when he was arrested for the stolen vehicle the state trooper discovered blood stains on the inside of stovall's
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coat and on his trousers and that is how he found himself involved in not one but
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two homicide investigations Robert Lee Stovall had a lot of miles on him for a 17 year old he looked a little too
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rugged and too dirty for 17 and frankly probably could have passed for 23 or 24 years of age
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he was described as a goateeed beatnik type and he told officers what they called fantastic stories about his
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whereabouts that weekend he told police that the car was not stolen and in fact he had borrowed it from his sister or
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maybe it was his sister's boyfriend but of course it wasn't his sister or even her boyfriend's vehicle the car was in
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fact a stolen car he told police that his clothing became blood-stained in a Tavern brawl in Detroit
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investigators took note of Stovall having been a patient at the mental hospital and described him as a
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psychopathic liar stovall's clothing was sent to the Chicago crime laboratory for examination
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Robert Lee stouville was charged with Otto larceny but he quickly and quietly Fades from the newspapers and both
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murder investigations without the public being told exactly why but we can look at these cases and arrive at some
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possible conclusions last week here in the garage the intention was to solely focus on and
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explore the Nancy eagleson murder the Ohio case in just two episodes however Gloria's case is a part of the
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story and again still unsolved so that warranted further examination to tell a more complete story we decided to go to
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four episodes and take a really good look at both cases this week we will really be focusing in on Nancy
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eagleson's case so why would the authorities move on from Robert Lee stovel and both murder
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investigations well consider the evidence Stovall is arrested about five miles east of LaPorte Indiana so
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proximity doesn't really put him up front and center on either murder or does it but the car he was found
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sleeping in was reported stolen from Chicago so the car puts him at the center of Gloria's case correct but in
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Gloria's case they also have a decent amount of evidence remember that they have a finger and or palm print we say
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either because it was reported both ways from all that I have reviewed I believe
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that it's likely that they had both a fingerprint and a partial palm print this was found on the victim's purse
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there was a tire track found at the scene where Gloria's body was recovered we know the blood-stained clothes were
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being examined and stovall's shoes were sent off for analysis as well they were checking mud from the shoes law
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enforcement knows he's from Illinois and now he's saying he got on this bar fight
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in Detroit well he would have to go through Ohio to get to Detroit exactly so with this evidence they would have
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ways of not necessarily clearing stoval but they may have ways of moving on from
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him from Gloria's murder because of the evidence now one real troubling thing about
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Stovall being a good suspect in Nancy eagleson's case is the timing of everything the captain just pointed out
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that the car was stolen in Illinois and then he says he was up in Detroit he would have had to go through Ohio at
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some point and unfortunately Northwest Ohio is where he would need to travel through and Nancy eagleson was murdered
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in northwest Ohio but the troubling thing for him to be a good suspect in Nancy's case again is
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the timing the reports are not really clear here on what time Robert Lee Stovall was picked up by police in
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Indiana just that it was Sunday night well we know that Nancy was abducted at approximately 740 to 7 50 p.m that
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Sunday right I'm not really wondering about what time he was arrested there because the port
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is not terribly far from Paulding but time and distance alone could potentially eliminate stove from having
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committed the Nancy eagleson homicide to give a little more perspective depending
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on current day routes from Paulding to five miles east of Laporte where he was picked up
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it's about a two hour and 30 minute to closer to three hours drive so if he's picked up 30 minutes one hour or 90
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minutes after Nancy was abducted it makes it very difficult in a impossible for Stovall to be responsible
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for Nancy's murder the other thing too is he tells the story of being involved in a bar fight in Detroit Michigan
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and I know they are calling him a liar and he's been telling these air quotes fantastic stories but is there a chance
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that upon further checking law enforcement is able to determine that yes he was in a bar fight in Michigan
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why or whatever the cause police in both cases moved on from Robert Lee Stovall well just because he's a known
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Psychopathic liar doesn't mean that he's a psychopathic killer why or whatever the cause police in both cases moved on
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from Robert Lee Stovall so will we as well so the next item on our Nancy eagleson
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investigation timeline is a strange one Captain this is when it is reported that
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quote authorities admitted their investigation of the slaying of Nancy eagleson was pretty well at a standstill
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note the date of this statement this is on November 16th Nancy was killed on the
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13th the body was found in small hours of the 14th how are we already at a standstill right
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is this the sheriff telling us less than 72 hours into the investigation that the
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cases already gone cold or maybe he's telling us that he's incompetent you have to wonder is this comment more in
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direct relationship to connecting the two cases that we've already discussed well that's a good point the koalowitz
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case in Chicago and the Paulding case of Nancy eagleson and then the suspect Robert Lee Stovall altogether because
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he's in the news quite a bit for those first two days he Fades from the news and it's at this same time that
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we have the sheriff this is Sheriff Keeler in Paulding Ohio saying the case is pretty much at a standstill well even
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if this is where you're at because look you know there's that show you just brought it up off air the show The First
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48 The First 48 being the most important well yeah I guess they're really important in this case
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but even if you came to a standstill after a couple days you don't need to address this to the media yeah this is
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something that you write in your notes to not say yeah to the newspaper reporters and what's funny do not tell
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them we don't know what we're doing we got nothing in our investigation and what's interesting too is the Articles
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themselves are quite short so there's no room for explanation as to what that statement means what it's in direct
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relationship to and I'm sure that's the trouble right when you when you speak to
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somebody else and you're talking about an investigation or you're talking about something as important as this you are
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then relying on them to understand that information correctly and then deliver it properly to the
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audience and who knows Sheriff Keeler may have gone into great description and great detail about what
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he meant and what he was talking about and those words just failed to make it to the Articles right so we got to look
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at it and say well maybe Keeler did know what he was doing maybe the person that
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wrote the article painted him in a poor light or didn't know what they were doing all right Captain so should we do
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a review of the timeline simply because it's been a few days since most people have listened to Nancy's case or should
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we do a review of The Evidence first I'm going with what's behind door number one
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let's start with the timeline I like it I like it I'll tell you what why don't we do kind of both at the same time
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considering that we just pointed out not too long ago how the timeline can be evidence itself well that wasn't the
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options you gave me right so Captain approved Dude abides let's move on whatever you want the timeline is as
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such November 13th 19 1960 around 2PM Nancy and her sister leave home to see a movie after this movie the girl stopped
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for a soft drink and then went to the bowling alley before heading home on foot this is in the 7 PM hour closer to
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8 P.M the two girls noticed a car is following them the car stops to ask them if they would like a ride and we know
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that Nancy the older sister who's 14 explains to the driver no we are getting close to our home we are only a few
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houses away between 7 40 pm and approximately 7 50 p.m Nancy is abducted by the man driving
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the car right in front of her sister Cheryl Cheryl is very little at this time she's
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only five years old she says that the man threw Nancy into the back seat of his car
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let's examine this this is very bizarre to me we know from covering so many of these cases that the perpetrator
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especially in an abduction what they want to do is control their victim this man does not want Nancy to escape
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this man wants to control her yet according to our surviving Witness the man threw her into the back seat of
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the car and of course he's going to have to drive the car from the front seat this complicating the situation of
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trying to control her as he's fleeing from the abduction scene well it's possible that there's somebody in the
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back seat that she didn't see that is one thing that I always thought there could there be somebody that was maybe
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lying down or concealing themselves in some Manner and helping and assisting and this wasn't just a single
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perpetrator that there was more than one person involved the other thing too that
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we also have to consider is this is a lot of things happening very quickly Cheryl explained to us
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us two garage guys here that she was already afraid when she felt the presence of the vehicle following them
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and so maybe the memory is not spot on maybe it's not 100 percent that is her story that's what she stuck
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to for all of these years so we just have to believe it but she was five she was five years old and again terrified
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at the situation yeah and you can't blame her if her memory isn't correct if she doesn't remember every detail my my
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thought would be is this a two-door car or a four-door car the witness Cheryl she says that it was a four-door vehicle
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because that makes more sense on tossing her in the in the back because it'd be easier to actually do that
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anybody with a two-door car knows that you'd have to lift up the seat and you know move things around just to get into
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the back seat and maybe has he set up this situation so that his cars kind of rigged like a police car where if you
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put somebody in the back seat they can't open the doors anyway right I mean we know that other perpetrators other
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Killers have outfitted their vehicles or rigged them up so that the passenger or
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the victim or the abducted person is at a significant disadvantage once they are
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inside the vehicle Ted Bundy altered his vehicles in many different ways right Edmund Kemper did something as simple as
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taking a little chapstick a little you know one of the little chapstick things and wedging it down in
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the door handle so when you try to pull open the door using the handle it wouldn't go all the way you couldn't
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pull it open all the way and get you know allowing the vehicle door to open and maybe this killer had a destination
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spot because like we know she's found not that far from where she was abducted so was it let me put her in the back
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seat I'll drive as fast I can to that spot and then I get out of the car to controller so after midnight on the 14th
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this is around 2 A.M Nancy's body is found by hunters now let's pause and hone in on this for a minute right the
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abduction location was in a housing area of State Route 111. the spot where Nancy
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was taken from was well lit she was abducted in full view of seven houses the state route runs between the Indiana
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state line and the City of Defiance Ohio most of this route is a rural two-lane Highway and passes through both farmland
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and Residential Properties the body recovery location is a rural wooded area near Junction
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Ohio so Nancy's body was found by hunters approximately 100 feet off of Paulding County Road
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176. this is just seven miles from Nancy's home and the abduction location right and as we explained last week
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this road takes a couple of Curves but it's pretty much a straight shot if you stayed on Route 111 and just didn't turn
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left to continue on to Route 111 because it cuts there and it goes left if you just went straight ahead
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you're now on Paulding County Road 176. so it's essentially the same road now what is weird here captain
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is I walked the abduction scene with Cheryl and she explained everything as she remembered
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it from that horrible night back in 1960 right then afterward she got her car I got mine and I followed her to where the
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body was recovered and I had a friend riding shotgun with me and we had two very different opinions on the distance
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between the two locations I thought that it was a very quick drive I was like shockingly surprised at how quick it
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seemed like we went from abduction site to where the body was later recovered right so so quick in such a short
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distance that I was really surprised that somebody that was committing such a horrible crime and that would want to
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get away with it would would not have driven further or to a more this is a secluded location but again
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because you're essentially on the exact same road it doesn't feel so secluded the person that was riding shotgun with
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me thought that it seemed like a very long drive so two very different perspectives and
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my friend said that they were just picturing themselves being in the back seat of this criminal
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this murderer's car and being scared being terrified and they felt that the minutes
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felt like much more real question for you were you talking to your friend as you did this drive
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because briefly I was more looking around and trying to make some observations I was
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gonna say maybe your story was a little long-winded and they're like oh man this
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this is a long trip but it was as we got close like I was unsure of the exact location of where they recovered the
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body right and when I saw the brake lights come on and I saw Cheryl her vehicle stop in front of me and parked
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to the side of the road that's that's when it occurred to me I was like oh snap we're there already this is that
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was incredibly fast and I had seen it and reviewed it prior on a map right so I knew we weren't
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going a great distance but it just seemed like a like a two-minute drive and according to Cheryl's statement when
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the guy took off with Nancy in the back seat he speeds off so this dude was likely traveling much faster than I was
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again I was a little shocked that that the perpetrator didn't go further but again as you pointed out last week
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Captain there could be another crime scene that we are unaware of he could have in fact taken her to another
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location and then brought her and and disposed of her in the area where she was found
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looking at the scene and and being told what I was told from the family as far as what they found back in 1960 it looks
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to me like my gut feeling says no that he abducted Nancy rushed off to that spot that spot may have been
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predetermined may not have been predetermined by our killer but the way that they described the what
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would have been probably tire tracks and they found paint on a tree stump that was located near her body
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they believed at the time that the paint may have come from the perpetrator's vehicle that he didn't see the tree
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stump we're talking there are no lights out there even today right let alone 1960.
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and that he likely didn't see the tree stump and either hit it with his vehicle brushed up against it somehow leaving
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paint from his vehicle to the tree stump one thing that's a pisser here though my
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friend is nobody seems to be able to recall what color paint it was I was told it might be this color it might be
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that color I'm choosing to leave out both of those colors because nobody seems to be certain
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as to what color it could have been we have our witness Cheryl who said that it she
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believed it was either a black car or a dark green car now neither of those colors match up with the color of paint
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that people thought it could have been back in 1960. it definitely seems like a possible misstep in this investigation
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but if it's seven miles away in this murderer's driving high speeds it's going to take him less than seven
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minutes to get there so I would go with you on the idea that it's a that's a shorter ride but again we don't know if
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they went somewhere else let's go back to we're throwing the victim in the car we don't know if there's anybody in the
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car to control her is it possible that she started fighting him off and he had to pull over very likely that
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he lost control of the victim and he had to pull over to straighten out the situation and again that would mean that
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this was a location that he didn't determine in advance we know that criminals are typically
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you know nobody likes when I say this I don't know why but uh I I find that the majority of criminals typically are
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rather dumb and who knows this could have been an impulsive act he sees two girls walking
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alone he's not really planned anything out grabs one of them drives off with the
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intention of going to a specific location but as you said she starts to fight him off he starts to lose control
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of the situation and says oh I gotta stop the car right here this is one of those crimes where you
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review it and you can argue five six seven points of reason that say this was a premeditated well thought out
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crime and then on the very flip of all those items that you just list there you could say well that points to an
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impulsive crime a crime that wasn't really planned out of love [Music] [Music] [Applause]
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all right we are back mates cheers to the people in the front to the back side he's back I'm back people are laying on
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the ground in the air pants on the ground pants on the ground looking like a fool
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are looking very cool that's what I thought or maybe you should be arrested if your Panther I was looking very cool
00:28:37
with my on the ground ground let's continue on this uh timeline and the set of evidence
00:28:44
while we're going through this evidence in this timeline I want to make sure that we take a little bit of a stop here
00:28:51
to kind of hone in on what Cheryl's description was of the man now one thing that I did not appreciate
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in my research of this case the sheriff Keeler he's a weird dude because I've asked a lot of people about Sheriff
00:29:08
Keeler and remember he is the main investigator here he's he's leading the investigation he was out searching for
00:29:16
Nancy that night that she was abducted and it's a mixed bag man half the people you talk to tell you that sheriff Keeler
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was the greatest man that ever lived and that the the town of Paulding and the county of Paulding are better for
00:29:31
having a sheriff like him and then there's other people that you talk to and they say it's a bit of a
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weasel yeah squeeze in the juice a bit of a guy that you might not trust so I think it will be fair even though
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keeler's not here to present his side of the argument I think it will be fair to
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examine some of his actions throughout this investigation because we are sitting here 62 years later with an
00:29:55
unsolved case one thing I did not appreciate that Keeler did was the following he said to the papers
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at the time this is just days after the abduction and the murder of Nancy eagleson the newspapers say
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that Cheryl's description of the suspect is limited though he may have been wearing glasses
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in fact a quote attributed to the sheriff at the time says quote we only know two things for sure it was a man
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and he drove an automobile I do not appreciate this because one thing that we do have is Cheryl claiming that the
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suspect wore glasses and she's not she's not willy-nilly about this this is something she told the sheriff that
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night when Nancy was abducted this is something she told her parents and everyone willing to listen
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and 62 years later she still says the man was wearing glasses one and not to be silly or nitpicky here but this is
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also at dusk so this kidnapper would not be wearing sunglasses that she would be
00:31:03
mistaken you know she is saying glasses exactly somebody that's driving with glasses
00:31:11
to me means some of that probably needs glasses 24 7. very likely and so I don't really
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appreciate him taking away that one detail I mean that's a that's a pretty vital detail if you ask me when we say
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hey we're worried about the description we're getting from our eyewitness we know one thing for sure Cheryl knows one
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thing for sure 100 this man that night was wearing glasses now she did tell me she said
00:31:39
Nick there's a chance that he had disguised himself maybe he was wearing them just because he knew he was going
00:31:46
out looking to take somebody and that's a good point but let's not steer away from the fact
00:31:53
that the man was wearing glasses that night yeah it could be Again part of a disguise
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we're gonna wear glasses this will throw them off the scent but this sketch I'm will post it on Instagram and Facebook
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and Twitter this sketch is to me the eyes hit you right away very dead eyes doesn't put me in the mind
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frame of a younger perpetrator 17 to 20. this puts me to me late 20s mid-30s yeah you know we have
00:32:29
that old joke that we referenced from time to time here in the garage that back in the 1960s men either looked like
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two men either they look like the Zodiac or they looked like Charles Manson yeah
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this is this is much more zodiac yep short hair uh shorter hair in the sketch we're holding in front of us has glasses
00:32:51
on one sketch no glasses on the other sketch but this man is wearing a suit and tie
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dressed almost in his Sunday's best uh short hair he looks like a like an ugly version of Pee Wee Herman to me
00:33:05
kind of an older uglier Pee-wee Herman Mr Herman and we'll put these suspect composite
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sketches that to my knowledge have never been released to the public which again
00:33:18
is a bit of a misstep of making sense they may have obviously you know with the case being 62 years old we can only
00:33:25
review so much or or can only get our hands on certain things as some things are just certainly lost to time but
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everything I've reviewed everything the captain's reviewed we've not seen these being released to
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the public anywhere so it's a little if if they have not been released it's long
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overdue because you were looking for this guy Cheryl says this is the guy you are looking for now in the profile
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picture the man looks a little more distinguished a little more proper the hair might be a
00:33:56
little bit longer than expected when you look at the front view of the suspect but again we will post these on
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Instagram and Twitter so that you can put your own eyeballs on them and see what Cheryl says that she saw yeah to me
00:34:14
they they look like two different people I agree I agree like when I see the front view and then I flip to the
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profile I that's not exactly it's not completely off but it's not exactly what I was picturing the profile to look like
00:34:28
after seeing the front view there was some evidence in last week we kind of complained about the lack of finding
00:34:35
tire tracks both situations the abduction scene and where Nancy's body was recovered from one would think that
00:34:43
there would be tire tracks and we know law enforcement are very good at looking for cars they are very good at looking
00:34:50
for cars and very knowledgeable about Vehicles tires uh vehicle lights and things of that nature so I think that
00:34:58
was a misstep if if in fact they failed to collect those nowhere in the file does it say that they had any tire
00:35:05
tracks or collected them again we know that the scene where they found the body there were a lot of people in and out of
00:35:13
that scene they really didn't secure the scene but some things that were collected
00:35:18
in this case were two pieces of a dress and a jacket with blood on them these were Nancy's they found a scarf
00:35:27
her purse shoes her bra her under clothes garter belt a necklace they found some of her hair on a low
00:35:39
hanging tree branch and here's the things that are kind of missing though some things that you would expect to
00:35:48
find or have as your evidence we know that a very thorough autopsy was conducted
00:35:55
however nowhere in the list of evidence do they say anything about fingernail clippings Captain just brought up the
00:36:02
fact that our victim was probably fighting this man in the vehicle probably fighting him at
00:36:08
the scene the final scene and fighting him during the course of the sexual assault
00:36:16
we could have very good suspect evidence underneath her fingernails now just because there's no mention of these on
00:36:25
any evidence list doesn't mean that they never existed but from what we can say and see today
00:36:32
it looks like the finger fingernails were never collected yeah another misstep the other thing too is we are
00:36:39
told time and time again that this was a rape and a murder well there's no mention of semen samples
00:36:46
which we know in 2022 would solve this case right away yeah it'd be uh a very quick got him
00:36:55
moment one thing that we did have is that they believe that the type of weapon used to kill Nancy was a 22
00:37:03
caliber gun this based off of some evidence that we find in the autopsy where it says quote
00:37:11
around the base of the brain is found a fragment of a lead jacketed bullet it goes into some measurements there and
00:37:18
it says it is roughly Arrowhead in shape and appears to be about 22 caliber so yeah she is abducted on the 13th
00:37:28
just three days later on the 16th law enforcement and saying hey we're at stand still which look look there's not
00:37:36
a lot of witnesses to this crime but you'd think in this neighborhood more people would have seen this vehicle
00:37:44
and maybe they could have followed more of those leads but maybe they worked every lead that they had and once they
00:37:50
made these announcements to the public maybe they thought well come 14th and 15th we're going to get a ton of leads
00:37:56
and they just didn't I don't like their statements I don't think I would have put that out to the public but maybe
00:38:02
they thought if we put that out to the public somebody's going to come forward to help us maybe if we show a little
00:38:08
desperation right it will light a fire and people come forward and help us out I agree that it who knows what the
00:38:15
strategy was if there was a strategy in that statement again we don't know what the sheriff told the reporter and what
00:38:22
what didn't make it into the newspaper article one big question of course when we talk
00:38:28
about a village this small a County with a very low population is people wanted to know did Nancy potentially
00:38:37
know who her killer was was the murder simply a way to cover up the abduction and the rape
00:38:47
was the killer from outside of Paulding Ohio outside of the community or was the killer somebody known to Nancy known
00:38:55
to the area was the killer is this the Killer's first or last murder these things we don't know so when we
00:39:03
investigate and we look at these pieces of evidence we have to question do they suggest that this is a man from outside
00:39:11
of the area or a local man now one thing that was told to us from the family are two things in my opinion
00:39:20
that would strongly strongly suggest that this was in fact a local man that abducted and killed Nancy
00:39:31
the family says that on the night of the Abduction the phone lines were cut at the eagleson home now I've
00:39:39
not seen this reported in any newspaper I've not seen it in the police file I've
00:39:43
not seen it reported anywhere else but the family has said to me that on that night the phone lines were cut that
00:39:52
would suggest that this was a premeditated abduction and somebody already had start to set things into
00:39:59
motion before Nancy was even abducted the second and this is one that is you know I want to be clear here I'm not
00:40:09
questioning what the Eagles and family is saying and sitting here going well do do I believe them or do I not believe
00:40:15
them I I have no reason to not believe them but this second portion seems even more
00:40:24
credible because this is said by several different people more than one source says that Cheryl
00:40:32
the eyewitness who witnessed her sister being abducted was almost taken in what they believe to be a botched
00:40:41
abduction attempt that took place about three weeks after Nancy's death according to the Eagles and family
00:40:50
someone tried to come in the back door of their home and grab the little girl the lock
00:40:59
was jimmied or the door was jammed open with a screwdriver there was visible physical damage to
00:41:09
the door what a scary scene now Cheryl thankfully was not abducted and not taken right
00:41:18
but that would strongly suggest that hey I've got to shut up this person the one
00:41:23
person that saw me do this the one person that knows who did this that could identify me that could pick me out
00:41:29
of a lineup is still alive and oh by the way I'm a local person I know where she lives I'm
00:41:35
going to go and shut her up yeah or what if we're out in public and she sees me can she identify me or
00:41:43
is he connected to the family somehow and knows that hey at a family party she's going to see me or hear me or
00:41:52
something might trigger heard of scream bloody murder and maybe Sheriff Keeler was a Sly dog
00:41:59
maybe he was a little wiser than we're giving him credit for maybe he was hurting too okay maybe he was playing
00:42:06
Coy right maybe he was just posturing for the papers and as we said maybe he's acting desperate so that the
00:42:14
public will come and help his investigation because you take that statement and then you look behind the
00:42:21
scenes and you see that no this case was far from a standstill and in fact they wanted to see if they could extract more
00:42:29
information from their eyewitness Cheryl would be the key to finding this killer
00:42:34
if she could tell you things like the license plate if she could tell you give you a very good description of the
00:42:41
vehicle or a better description of the perpetrator now one thing that they did in an attempt to extract this
00:42:48
information and help her to remember better is they subjected Cheryl to several hypnosis sessions
00:42:58
and I've taken some notes from those sessions and these were conducted within weeks of the murder
00:43:06
and from her statements while under hypnosis we learn that this is what she's remembering the suspect's vehicle
00:43:13
was facing the same way that the girls were traveling one person was in the vehicle she says
00:43:20
the suspect was alone from what she could see the suspect was wearing a white shirt wearing black clothes and
00:43:27
black glasses he was skinny with black hair and when asked to give an age she doesn't provide an age for the suspect
00:43:38
but she does say that he appeared to be older than my dad older than my father and he she also says that the man was
00:43:45
not wearing a hat the vehicle was all one color and she describes it as both black but
00:43:53
also said that she thinks that it could be green a dark green the lights were off
00:43:59
as she remembers and she says that it was a new or newer car it was a four-door vehicle the black
00:44:07
clothing that the suspect was wearing she says is black pants and a short coat black shoes she says not boots black
00:44:16
shoes and that the man had to walk around the car she actually says that he walked around the front of the car and
00:44:24
then after the abduction in the hypnosis sessions she's saying that after the abduction he
00:44:30
drove toward town so there's some conflicting stories just within Cheryl's story itself
00:44:37
and some versions of her story she says that the man pulls up abducts Nancy and then drives off continuing going the
00:44:44
direction that the girls were walking which would be heading out of Paulding heading away from Paulding under
00:44:50
hypnosis in one of the sessions she says that the man actually pulled up said something to the girls went away drove
00:44:58
away from Paulding then turns around comes back and then that's when he abducts Nancy now his vehicle's facing
00:45:07
the opposite direction and when he speeds off with Nancy he is heading back into town so that part's a little
00:45:13
unclear but again we're getting one statement from her when she is awake and other statements when she's under
00:45:22
hypnosis but this leads to our timeline of law enforcement getting a new suspect
00:45:27
in December this is a weird story this almost sounds like something out of an old movie
00:45:34
where we have a man his name is Virgil Johnson and in fact we kind of know a little bit about Virgil Johnson already
00:45:42
remember we said that Nancy and her little sister stopped off at a restaurant a locally owned restaurant to
00:45:49
grab some sodas sitting there in the restaurant chatting with people sipping sodas before they
00:45:55
walk off to the bowling alley well the owner of that restaurant that they stopped off to have these sodas is
00:46:01
Virgil Johnson so Virgil Johnson becomes a suspect if you will in the minds of the public
00:46:09
right maybe not so much in the minds of the sheriff or law enforcement but the way that this story goes is that he
00:46:17
Virgil Johnson is hearing rumors that they have a suspect and the suspect is a local businessman
00:46:26
well what he does not realize for a couple of days anyway is that that suspect is him he is the local
00:46:33
businessman that the public are talking about as being the killer of Nancy eagleson right but any of the places
00:46:41
that they stopped on their walk home people are going to say we should look into those those individuals of course
00:46:47
but again we have people in town openly discussing Virgil Johnson as the man who killed Nancy eagleson maybe he
00:46:56
was a little bit of odd duck well part of this may have come from a statement that says that Virgil's wife
00:47:05
said that she found blood on his clothing and that he explained that so there was
00:47:13
blood found in the back of his vehicle and there was blood found on his clothing according to this statement
00:47:21
now the blood in the back of his car is very questionable right because we talked about this last week where some
00:47:30
people have suggested that Nancy was not killed where she was found some people suggest and believe that
00:47:38
there is evidence that may point to her actually being killed in the vehicle that
00:47:44
abducted her right and then the body transported 100 feet off of the road and laid in the water if
00:47:52
that's true that we would see a lot of blood in that vehicle from my understanding Virgil Johnson says well
00:47:58
of course there's blood in my vehicle I own a restaurant and I'm regularly picking up beef
00:48:05
you know a big side of beef you know items from the butcher shop that is miles away and driving them to
00:48:13
my restaurant and the blood found on my clothing is from unloading these items from the car
00:48:20
now that seems somewhat reasonable given that it's 1960 and that he is in fact the restaurant owner we don't know if
00:48:28
this Blood was ever tested or even collected to be tested it sounds to me or at least the way that the story goes
00:48:37
is that the vehicle was cleaned up by the time he becomes a suspect right the other interesting thing though is
00:48:43
remember he's hearing these rumors because people were openly talking about him being the person that killed Nancy
00:48:49
eagleson for several days and then he realizes oh they're talking about me right I better do something about this
00:48:56
but if they're not looking into him until a week later you can't say it's suspicious that his car is clean because
00:49:03
some people that's their weekly routine especially back then well this is early December so we've we have a minimum of
00:49:11
two weeks that have passed by this time and we don't have an exact day I did have I did I do know what the day is I
00:49:19
failed to put it in my notes but I put it down as early December because what's weird here Captain is step into my
00:49:26
office because you're fired again he does not appear to be a suspect per law enforcement this is a local suspect this
00:49:34
is the public thinking this dude did it he goes to the sheriff and says everybody in town saying that I killed
00:49:40
Nancy eagleson and so the sheriff decides he starts hearing rumors that the townspeople have decided that
00:49:47
Virgil Johnson did it and they're going to go get Justice them damn selves they're going to go find Virgil Johnson
00:49:53
and they're going to Lynch him up in the center of town so Sheriff Keeler decides you know what
00:49:59
I'm going to have to put your butt in jail not because I think you did anything just so that these people don't
00:50:05
come in here and kill you so he throws Virgil Johnson in jail and then he comes out and tells the
00:50:14
village of Paulding and all of Paulding County I Sheriff Keeler I've checked into Virgil Johnson he's not the guy we
00:50:22
we subjected him to a lie detector test he passed the poly and therefore he is not a suspect do not
00:50:31
harm this man and they publicly announced that Virgil Johnson is cleared as being the killer of
00:50:39
Nancy eagleson he's innocent yeah and if he's hearing these rumors then you know
00:50:43
law enforcement is and then once you start hearing these other rumors of let's take him to the middle of the town
00:50:48
and and hang him well he better start doing the due diligence very quickly and and so yeah uh I I wish they'd do
00:50:58
that more in cases I mean look at the Delphi case I think there's a lot of suspects that have been
00:51:05
identified publicly that they could have came out and and ruled out or in you know by late December of 1960 the reward
00:51:13
fund for information about Nancy's murder was increased to 6595 dollars that would be the
00:51:21
equivalent of approximately 65 000 today that's a lot of money for a small town this reward money was raised by
00:51:29
businesses businessmen and other community leaders and in hopes of solving the Nancy eagleson murder in
00:51:38
January of 1961. this is where we start to see the case kind of drag on you know
00:51:44
we talk so much about how the first 48 are so important to any murder investigation well also the first two
00:51:51
weeks the first two months now we're getting outside of that world and we're getting beyond that because in January
00:51:58
of 1961 Sheriff Keeler is trading and swapping information with a town up in Michigan that
00:52:06
experienced a similar murder right so this is where we need to make sure that we give Sheriff Keeler some
00:52:14
well-deserved Kudos give him an old attaboy right because this is one thing that most law enforcement agencies did
00:52:23
not do in nineteen even in 1980 or 1970 let alone 1960 this guy's reaching out to
00:52:31
other agencies other law enforcement agencies and comparing notes and saying hey what happened there we had something
00:52:39
that happened here that's similar let's discuss let's see if we're talking about
00:52:43
the same perpetrator or is there things in your case in your investigation that you got right or got wrong and we can
00:52:50
learn from that here and apply that to what we are doing in Paulding Ohio so we got to give him some credit for reaching
00:52:57
out and discussing this with other agencies and other jurisdictions because again that is stuff that just did not
00:53:03
happen back in that day well reaching out to other jurisdictions other departments to locking this guy up
00:53:10
clearing people all this hoopla that's going to bring us to another suspect yes this is a grown man his name is Thomas
00:53:18
ball and the reason that he becomes on the police radar and this is to be clear a law enforcement suspect not a public
00:53:26
suspect he gets on to sheriff keeler's radar because in 1961 in February Thomas ball is
00:53:36
charged with the rape of Janet Bergstrom in Defiance County Ohio now they're looking at him he's charged
00:53:45
with this rape with this assault he's about 30 31 years of age at this time and so they start looking at him at in
00:53:56
the Nancy case because they see some similarities in their cases now where I will
00:54:04
say that I don't think Keeler did a great job on this case is that we will see again here he questions Thomas ball
00:54:14
about the Nancy eagleson case he subjects Thomas ball to a lie detector test and ball according to
00:54:22
Keeler passes the poly and he is publicly cleared the sheriff comes forward and tells everybody this man was not
00:54:31
involved in Nancy eagleson's case the problem with this is this really seems to be their only one of their few
00:54:41
options back then in 1960 especially when they didn't feel like they had a great evidence in Nancy's case
00:54:48
so they're using polygraph examinations to determine whether they should continue to investigate an individual
00:54:55
for her murder or if they should move on from the individual in Nancy's case and so they are publicly clearing People
00:55:05
based off of the results of these polygraph tests which we still do in some jurisdictions
00:55:13
they still do to this day and the captain and I don't like it now we don't like it back in 1960 either because
00:55:21
experts would tell you that the individual that was capable the type of individual capable of abducting
00:55:29
raping and executing a child very likely could feel no remorse very likely would not be nervous at all about
00:55:37
your questions and very likely could look you in the eyes and tell you whatever it is that you
00:55:43
want to hear tell you whatever story will get them out of the room from you and their heartbeat their heart rate
00:55:53
won't budge at all well I like giving somebody a polygraph test to see like it's a
00:56:00
barometer really are they telling us the truth on anything are they being are they telling tall tales about everything
00:56:08
or just a few things does it give a barometer of where this person is but in no way shape or forms should you be
00:56:15
clearing anybody of the murders because of these tests especially somebody like Thomas ball so the the charges for the
00:56:24
rape and the assault that took place in Defiance County Ohio were eventually dismissed right and that is what gets
00:56:31
him on to the police radar in Paulding County right they look at him for Nancy eagleson's murder they give him the
00:56:37
polygraph test he passes it and Sheriff Keeler says cleared and we move on but here's why you don't move on from
00:56:45
somebody like Thomas ball because in 1963 in September he lured a 19 year old girl into his hotel room in Detroit
00:56:55
Michigan and then stabbed and killed that 19 year old and so in 1964 he's convicted of that
00:57:02
murder yeah this guy's a psychopath he's capable of anything really he gets sentenced to 20 to 40 years in prison
00:57:10
and then in 1976 after serving 12 years he's moved to a psych facility in Detroit which he escapes from
00:57:21
and then he moves down to Tennessee where he remains there undercover undetected
00:57:30
until 2006. he's living under the name of Thomas fry down in Tennessee and one day police
00:57:42
hello show up knocking on his door down in Tennessee and arrest him and say this
00:57:46
is Thomas ball who escaped from Michigan back in 1976 so they find him 30 years later right he's eventually paroled in
00:57:54
2007 in Michigan but for me Captain he remains and should remain a suspect to Nancy eagleson's murder
00:58:04
[Music] [Applause] so much more to get to in part four join us back here in the garage tomorrow
00:58:17
until then be good be kind and don't litter [Music] foreign