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n [Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
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for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man who knows that refrigerator Perry wasn't even his
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real name here is the captain that's right it's good to be seen and good to see you thanks for listening thanks for
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everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime [Music]
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what attributes make a victim the right kind of victim one who will elicit public sympathy and be worthy of a
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rigorous thorough police investigation into their brutal murder who is deserving of empathy and compassion from
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our society shouldn't that be freely granted to to anyone who has suffered such an
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atrocity well that may not have been the case in regard to the August 1972 murder
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of 25-year-old Vicky Lin harell or at least that was the concern of one particular
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columnist a concern that he wrote so passionately about on several occasions a concern that maybe she didn't make a
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good victim one worthy of the Public's unwavering compassion his concern was warranted no
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matter how real or unreal his assessment of the Public's interest in the case and
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the victim he was trying to advance the investigation his attempts to stir the pot are
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welcomed especially to us here in the garage as we the captain and I attempt to do the exact same thing each and
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every week when we cover a new unsolved and Cold Case homicide the columnist clearly was
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disturbed by the lack of tips from the general public tips or information that never made their way to the detectives
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working the case could it be that the public simply Shrugged their shoulders and shielded
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not just their eyes but their hearts from a ruthless slanging of one of their own Maybe
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or maybe for some undefinable reason Bloomington Indiana had already turned a cold heart to real life horror and
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mountainous levels of Heartache but if there's no information and if we don't have eyewitnesses and or
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ear Witnesses well then the lack of tips does not equal how people feel emotionally about a
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victim it is simply a rare occurrence of no news is actually bad news we have reviewed this case deeply
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and I think the public cared dearly I know the victim's family certainly did those who knew Vicki still have
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never healed not even to this very day decades later on that sad day we lost a good one
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a real good one a dearly loved daughter sister and a really good mother this is the True Crime Story of a
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loved dearly missed and never forgotten woman 25-year-old Vicky Lyn Harold and this is true crime garage
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[Music] [Applause] [Music] Lawrence and Janice Harold gave birth to their first child a daughter that they
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named Vicky Lynn this was August of 1946 at the time the young family was living
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in crane Indiana this is a town about 30 m west of Bedford but they would soon move to the more rural area of schwick
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after Vicky's sister Kathy is born this is just a few years later this is very cool here Captain the intention behind
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this move was so that the children could grow up on their maternal grandparents Farm then after the move another Sister
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Laura is born completing the heral family of five by all accounts Vicky and her sisters enjoyed a happy childhood
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filled with all of the implements that life on a rural Farm entails the children helped around the property with
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animals and chores and Vicky quickly gains the reputation of being a true perfectionist family members say she
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took way too long to complete task because the task were never up to her own personal satisfaction some of these
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tasks she took so long that she was often excused from certain chores but her level of perfectionism did not stop
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there she was meticulously precise in all of her Endeavors from arranging her hair her sisters say her hair had to be
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perfect all of the time to completing her homework it is said that this caused minor issues at school as she's turning
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in these absolutely perfect papers and projects and homework but regularly taking to long to do so at school and
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elsewhere Vicki is outgoing and is known for her friendliness especially to those
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who were new in town or new to the school she was one of those types that would always extend a welcoming hand or
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hello to the new kid at school Vicki attended Bedford High School for several years before transferring to schwick
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high school from which she graduated from in 1965 after graduation Vicki was eager to
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begin the adult portion of her life she moved moved out of mom and dad's house on the farm around
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1967 she lands in the college town of Bloomington Indiana home to the flagship Campus of Indiana University along with
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the famed campus btown is some call it this area is quickly becoming known as a premier destination to enjoy Live
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musical performances by rock bands and artists at its many bars taverns and clubs VI was drawn to the nightlife of
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course along with the live entertainment these establishments feature plenty of drinking socializing and generally
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Carefree youth oriented lifestyle no doubt due to its proximity to the university these businesses will Thrive
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and a lot of youngsters young adults will attend these various bars taverns and other locations Vicki was known to
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be socialable and she enjoyed live music so of course she's going to fit in she's
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going to fit right in at this new location she somewhat quickly establishes herself at Several of these
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watering holes where she becomes somewhat of a regular she simply loves a lot of the local rock bands that were
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performing at these different establishments at this time in the summer of 1968 Vicki became pregnant little is
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known about the father of the child and there does not seem to be any confirmation that she and this man ever
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married though some articles report that she was a divorce but most articles label her as a single mother or an unwed
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Mother by the way I can't stand the term unwed mother it it seems like stupid yeah if you're a mother you have to be
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married or or you should be married where what if you always wanted to have a child but the man wasn't the right guy
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for you you know there's a lot of dudes that are not the right guy most of the time they're not the right guy yeah so
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now we're going to fast forward Captain to March of 1969 this is when Vicky's daughter
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Samantha is born Vicky appears to dial back her lifestyle a bit so she's not going out as much she's busy working
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which she was always working and had always worked since moving out of her parents' home but she's really starting
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to shape and mold her life out nicely at this time she's providing a nice home for her daughter and Vicki enrolls in
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evening classes in 1971 in hopes of securing better work opportunities in the future so she can raise her daughter
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so we're at 1971 on our timeline here captain at this time Vicky is working at the Eastside Kmart store now for our
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younger listeners Kmart was a fantastic store there was one one near our neighborhood growing up it was so
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fantastic they're they're no longer in existence yeah Kmart was the kind of store that you could you could buy
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pretty much anything right there were I loved it yeah they had clothing they had
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a good kids toy section they sold uh cassettes and CDs when we were kids I think you could even buy tires at some
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of the locations and they usually had like a big outdoor gardening Lawn Care Kmart was Walmart before wal walart was
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Walmart yes a smaller version I would say of of a Walmart but this was a very popular store in the state of Ohio so I
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imagine it was rather po popular in the neighboring state of Indiana so she works at this Eastside Kmart store this
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is near the college mall on East thir Street this is a pretty busy side of the city by early July she finds her Niche
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she is one of the person in charge of helping to run the men's and the boys clothing Departments of this store she
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works with and reports to a manager his name is Charles he goes by Chuck Chuck Holdman Vicky at some point during her
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time working there she confides in Chuck that she's having a tough time securing
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housing she tells Chuck that most apartment managers were unwilling to rent to an unwed mother
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so it's the early 70s this is really just a sign of the times my friend again I'm going to use the words stupid it's
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dumb I mean really as a apartment manager or a landlord all you care about is does the person pay the rent or they
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are they clean are they tidy do they keep the noise down yeah my first question would be do you have a job yes
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the answer is yes and then I go do you have the money yes cool she has a l work history and she's having no trouble
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raising her daughter without the presence of a guy but after some time this is a bit of good news Vicki finally
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finds an apartment that will rent to a single mother she and another young woman this is Joanne Heigel she is a
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work colleague they decide to move in together so they can split the rent they move into apartment number
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41e at the Heritage apartments I believe that this is located at 1600 East Hillside drive this sounds like a good
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arrangement to me because both of these young ladies each have a child of their own so a good setup she doesn't have to
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live alone she's got somebody to split the rent with and maybe we can even help each other babysit from time to time on
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August 10th 1972 the rear window of Vicky's 1965 blue Plymouth Valiant four-door vehicle is smashed
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so somebody smashed out her rear window this is while the vehicle was parked on the street near a bar called The Still
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The Still Tavern is a local night spot located on North College Avenue that Vicki was known to frequent let's Jump
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Ahead two days to August 12th which is a Saturday after Vicky's roommate agrees to babysit Vicky's daughter Vicki's
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daughter's name is Samantha she's 3 years old at this time so Vicky leaves her apartment her daughter is going to
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stay with her roommate and her roommates kid as well the purpose of her leaving that evening is going to be to go to the
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Kmart store where she works so she's going to be returning a comforter that she purchased at the Kmart she mentions
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to the roommate that she's also going to go and stop and make a payment at a nearby Airway there she has an item on
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layaway again for the younger listeners this is something that I wasn't very familiar with growing up but there was
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layaway back in the day where you could go and you're simply making payments periodically on an item that you want to
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buy usually these are more expensive items and they hold the item for you and you go and make the payments and then
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once you've once you've completed the payments you've completed the purchase and you can leave with the item so I I
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want to be very clear about this because I think unfortunately Vicki not going to
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return home that night from running these two errands but I want to paint a clear picture for the listeners here
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regarding this case and her movements that evening so she lived let's say and this is
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figuring it conservatively she lived about 10 minutes a quick 10-minute drive from her apartment to the Kmart the
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Kmart if you were to look this up on an old map it's next to this Bloomington mallplaza
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they practically share a large parking lot if you want to look at it that way like she could drive her car from the
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Kmart to this Airway store and never really have to hit any roads if that makes sense I'm trying to
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paint the picture as to how close these two businesses were to one another back then and like you were saying her
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roommate is watching her daughter but because it's such a quick trip it's not like the roommate was planning on
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watching the daughter all night long right I mean it's a quick drive to and from the two businesses her two stops
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are very close to one another now sometimes when you're returning an item that can take a little longer than one
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might plan for and I don't know I've never made a layaway payment on anything so I don't know how long that typically
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would take but this sounds to me Captain like a very quick trip hey could you watch Samantha for a little bit I'll be
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back as soon as possible well she also works at the Kmart so it's not like she needs to stroll around and and and
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browse and see what see what's in stock because she already knows yeah so unfortunately as said Vicki's not going
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to return home that night now we do know that she made it to Kmart with no problems so she made the return so she
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returns the comforter we know this because a fellow Kmart employee is on record telling authorities
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later that this person I don't know if was a female or male worker but they tell the police I witnessed Vicki in the
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store and I saw her leaving the store and the last time I saw her she was walking toward her vehicle well we
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should know if she made it to the other store because did she make the layaway payment or not that's tricky that is a
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bit of information that is not found when reviewing this case so Vicki is last seen according to all reports out
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there she's last seen alive getting into her dark blue 1965 Plymouth Valiant which was a four-door vehicle and she's
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getting into her vehicle at the Kmart parking lot on the east side of Bloomington Indiana
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00:21:17
mates talk hands in the air much love to the people in the back and a big shout out and we like your jib and we love you
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to everybody in Florida yeah every body out there regardless of where you are stay safe the weather has been crazy and
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Mother Nature has been taking few prisoners lately so it's been uh it's been hard times for a lot of people our
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thoughts and prayers are with all of you out there when we left off Captain we know that Vicky made it to the Kmart
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store and we know that she left there so yes here here's my thoughts on the matter give it to me we can kind of read
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between the lines a little bit here right if she's returning a comforter they're going to hand this
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1972 they're going to hand her cash so I imagine she's like I'm going to return this comforter that I decided for
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whatever reason I don't want or don't need they're going to hand me cash and since I have cash in hand I'm going to
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drive over to the airway which is very close and probably use a portion of that cash or all of it to make a payment on
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this other item that I have on layaway you brought up a a great question and one that that needs to be answered
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something that that the information is lacking here did she make it to the airway because as you said there would
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be a paper trail of that it would be easy to know if she made it in there and if she made it out safely because this
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is our window of concern this is our time in question here on our timeline what the hell happened to Vicki that
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night because we know she doesn't come home she doesn't return to the apartment with her roommate and the two kids there
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that night and when she doesn't return later that evening Joanne the roommate she begins calling around reaching out
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to friends to see you know has anyone seen Vicky look when when a mother has a good
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friend who's another mother and and the mother doesn't come home Moms come home to their kids right and Vicky yes she
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had this period in her life where she liked to go out a lot and she loved rock bands but she doesn't strike me as she's
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a responsible mother she doesn't strike me as the kind of person that's going to
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be like hey Joanne could you watch my kid I'm going to run a quick errand and and then just decides to stay out all
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night yeah most mothers come home to their child my my mother went out for a pack of cigarettes in 1983 and I haven't
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seen her since but at first if you're the roommate you're going to be getting a little annoyed right hey I said I'm
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going to watch your kid this is supposed to be a quick trip what the heck is going on and then after that frustration
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then you start worrying what the heck you know this is not like her something bad could have happened and it's also
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the time period that we don't have cell phones so it's not like she could text real quick or call real quick and say oh
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I have to run another Aaron or something came up or emergency came up so that very evening remember Vicky's last
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spotted in the parking lot of the Kmart her roommate Joanne notifies police and reports her 25 old roommate Vicky Lynn
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Harold missing and I hate that we always have to bring this up but when it's in the report we have to according to
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several accounts or opinions however you want to shake it the information here is
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that it's the opinion that the police didn't seem to take the report very seriously Vicky is a is an adult and as
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far as the police are concerned she can come and go as she pleases yeah but on top of that I mean look if you have a
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quote unquote unwed mother that is having difficulty finding a place to rent when she has a stable job and she's
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a stable individual do you really think law enforcement is going to take this case as serious as other cases so if
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look and I'm not trying to put myself the sign of the times my friend I'm not trying to put myself above anyone here
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but when I if I show up and and I'm the one taking the report and I see see the little three-year-old kid her daughter
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there at the apartment and this other young woman who's responsible in raising her child
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as well does Vicky have a job yes how long has she worked there so I I'm learning very quickly that she's
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responsible because of the kid I'm I'm going to take that to another level and the other thing you know I say it a
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hundred times on this show but I'll continue to say it whether you want to take it seriously or not of course
00:25:56
adults are allowed to come and go as they please but this is Bloomington Indiana
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1972 this is not a crime ridden area it's not a there might not be a whole lot going on that night and it doesn't
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hurt to drive around and look for Vicki and you're out there anyway man you're out there patrolling anyway just tell
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your tell your co-workers hey if anybody sees a a young lady that looks like this
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or sees a vehicle that looks like this go up and talk to the person it seems pretty easy to me pretty easy well not
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to not to defend law enforcement but there's some cases hey some college kids called on a Saturday morning and their
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roommate went out to a party last night and hasn't come home yet maybe that's a situation where you go hey guys if he
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doesn't come home in the next few hours give me a call because there's reason to
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believe well if you went to a party maybe he went home with somebody maybe he stayed at the party that makes sense
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but we have a situation where like you said single mother roommate's going to watch her child for just a little bit
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while she runs these quick errands she should have been back within an hour maybe within 2 hours tops so after that
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time period of her not showing up maybe take it a little more serious you're patrolling anyway so it doesn't seem
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like any extra work at all so he said she's reported missing we know that she's last spotted at the Kmart the
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police are notified her car is missing though right car is missing as well because she took her vehicle with her to
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run these errands so now we're going to skip ahead to two days after this so the
00:27:42
14th yeah now it's Monday August 14th and it's around 1:30 in the afternoon we have a Owen County highway department
00:27:52
worker who stumbles upon an appalling site while looking for a secluded place so he he's out working in the this area
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and he's supposed to be out working in this area early in the afternoon he decides I got to find a secluded place
00:28:08
to relieve myself take a leak take a leak yeah I was just trying to make a joke but he's really going to take a
00:28:15
peek well people who work outside um sometimes they have to do this right um yeah so he go he goes over to this large
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pile of rocks and this is where he discovers the nude strangled body of a deceased woman
00:28:33
so the woman he finds is lying face down in a ditch this ditch is filled with water from recent
00:28:41
rainstorms this is on a access road to a place called mccormix Creek State Park so this is 3 miles east of Spencer
00:28:55
Indiana and just off of conquered Road 1 mile North of Indiana 46 horrified terrified the highway
00:29:03
department employee contacts the authorities immediately the Owen County sheriff's deputies soon descend upon the
00:29:11
scene upon reaching the scene we have Sheriff Robert Mason who immediately makes the connection to two days prior
00:29:21
of the missing persons report so almost instantly Sheriff Robert Mason is uneasy
00:29:29
and suspicious as to the identity of the victim believing that it might be it very well could be this missing young
00:29:36
woman who was reported missing just two days prior and if you're law enforcement
00:29:41
and you would have took this serious you would have no regret if you take a missing person report seriously and they
00:29:48
show up the next day no big deal well it exactly if if you find the individual now dead well and again it's it's
00:29:58
alarming too because her her roommate Joanna is no dummy she's going to tell the the officer that that's taking the
00:30:04
report like I called a bunch of her friends nobody's seen her you I did I did some of the the work trying to track
00:30:11
her down myself nobody's seen her something might be up here so the sheriff and his workers are already
00:30:20
under the belief even before the identification process starts that they may know who the victim is now of course
00:30:28
later she is identified as Vicky Lyn Harold and the victim has been strangled with a rope or a similar type of item
00:30:40
according to authorities now one thing that has been a big part of this case is that when the authorities turn the body
00:30:51
over so remember the body's lying face down in this ditch nude when they turn the body
00:30:58
over in preparation to transport for the autopsy they discover that and it's always reported as initials but the
00:31:09
report is they discover the initials k n the letters K and the letter n as in Nick have been crudely carved into the
00:31:18
victim's upper abdomen or lower chest area don't you find that stupid though this is a murder victim not a painting
00:31:27
not something that it's not a paycheck something you're going to sign your name to we we have no clue if this is
00:31:34
initials or if this is a start of a word or or what I I just think it's a stupid
00:31:41
term I yeah I too do not like that it's always reported as initials KNN if you go to the police the Indiana State
00:31:51
Police if you go to their website on cold cases I believe that they have it correctly they're saying simply letters
00:32:00
the letters K and N are were carved into the victim here but you you heard my conversation with Dr Scott Bond no I
00:32:10
never listened to which I missed that episode we talked about Will Graham the Nemesis of Hannibal Lecter and when he's
00:32:18
looking at the crime scenes he's supposed to be like the super detective when he's looking at crime scenes the
00:32:22
first thing he says to himself is he's trying to put himself in the mind of the Killer says this is my design yes it's
00:32:30
it's something that's very dumb here to call it initials it's it's strange that that anybody would take the time to
00:32:36
crudely carve letters into a victim's chest area but this was done for a purpose done for a reason and sometimes
00:32:45
if you can find and figure out why that was that might get you one step closer to finding and identifying the
00:32:53
perpetrator of this horrific murder the reports here Captain are that there appears to have been no sign of a
00:33:00
struggle in this area or nearby signifying that the victim may have been killed elsewhere and the body dumped in
00:33:09
Owen County neither the Rope used to strangle the victim or whatever was used to strangle the victim nor the tool used
00:33:18
to carve the initials or the letters into the victim none of this is found at the scene right the reports too are that
00:33:26
there are no tire tracks near nearby and no sign of the clothing that the victim
00:33:31
had been wearing the as far as we can tell the the clothing had never been found now one thing that I was so all we
00:33:40
have here is is a victim all the other items were either discarded somewhere else or kept by the killer the other
00:33:48
information in the reports are that despite the body being faced down in the water there are twigs and leaves stuck
00:33:56
to the victim's back and her bare feet are caked in mud so this could indicate that she was walking at some point after
00:34:03
her shoes were removed but according to an article this is 1975 newspaper article by Larry
00:34:13
incollingo and I hope that I got his last name right because we'll reference him more than once in the telling of
00:34:19
this true crime story but according to the article by this Larry in Kingo the only footprints that were
00:34:26
found at the crime scene are those of the highway worker who discovered the remains in all I think this is one I
00:34:36
think this will show the level of severity that the police and the authorities have of this case when they
00:34:45
when they catch it when they discover the victim because in all four separate agencies would be assigned or would
00:34:52
assign investigators to this case and those agencies were the Owen County Sheriff's Office the row County
00:34:58
Sheriff's Office the Indiana State Police which included detectives from both the Bloomington Post and the
00:35:05
putnamville post so one thing that they agree on here Captain all four of these agencies is that despite her remains
00:35:13
being discovered where they were on this access road to this state park they firmly believe that VI Vicky met her
00:35:23
tragic fate in some other place this is going to sound strange but I have a body
00:35:28
finding Pro tip for you if you are in the unfortunate circumstance where you happen to find a body yeah when leaving
00:35:39
to notify the authorities walk backwards it's an old it's an old detective trick when they walk out they
00:35:47
Unfortunately they have to approach a crime scene and walk out to the victim where the victim was placed or or left
00:35:56
and that's an old Det detective trick is that they walk backwards stepping on their own
00:36:02
Footprints backing out of the scene as to not further disturb the scene Footprints shoe prints would could have
00:36:11
been a big deal in this case because really what we have here Captain is the victim with some evidence that we can
00:36:20
glean from from the victim herself but the crime scene isn't really telling us much so the pro tip is walk backwards on
00:36:29
your own Footprints yes don't pull a Nick Miller and do the moonwalk that same day shortly after the discovery of
00:36:39
the body in Owen County Vicky's 1965 Plymouth valant is found parked in a lot behind the college mall shopping center
00:36:48
okay this is why you take the missing person's report seriously the vi the vehicle is situated between the airway
00:36:55
department store to the South and Cinemas one and two to the north if you take the report from the roommate and
00:37:04
she says yeah she was going to go to the Kmart and to the airway if you just would have drove by
00:37:10
there unless the killer or Vicky or or somehow the the vehicle was moving around it looks to me and I am of the
00:37:19
firm belief that that that that vehicle she parked it near the airway Department store and something happened
00:37:29
to her in that parking lot I don't know if it was prior to going into the store or after coming out of the store that is
00:37:36
my belief that something happened to her in that parking lot you would find a patrol officer would find her vehicle
00:37:44
right where you think one might think it would be if you had just gone and looked
00:37:49
for her that night it's a 10-minute drive from the apartment it would have taken you all of 10 to 12 minutes to
00:37:57
locate this missing woman's vehicle couple questions because you talked about her
00:38:02
back window being busted out M I'm guessing that she wasn't able to get this fixed before she went on this trip
00:38:11
this aon's trip that is you're exactly right and that's why I pointed out the the short turnaround between the the day
00:38:19
on that Thursday when the window was smashed out and the Saturday when she goes missing the first thing they notice
00:38:26
is that the the window had been smashed out yeah and if you're a perpetrator you're looking for
00:38:32
a victim you see her go into that Kmart store you could probably easily reach your hand in unlock the door maybe even
00:38:42
being in the back seat waiting for her yeah that that's why I that's why I always check the back seat before I get
00:38:49
in my car this smashed out rear window would provide an opportunity for somebody who's out looking for a victim
00:38:59
like you said you could figure out a way to get into the vehicle and Ambush her when she comes back to her vehicle the
00:39:06
other thing is it might if you're not setting up an ambush it could give you an opportunity to approach her with
00:39:15
a conversation oh I noticed your windows smashed out I work for a body Shopper blah blah blah now you're in close
00:39:22
proximity of this person and the reason why and we don't have to go too far down
00:39:28
this road because we don't know for certain that right it sounds like we're giving out a lot of information here
00:39:35
about this case but really they the hold back information on this case I suspect there's a lot so there
00:39:44
are some sources that indicate that there was damage to the driver side door and that the left rear door window was
00:39:50
missing remember it's a four-door vehicle but if that's true it's not clear number one and
00:39:58
number two there's never been any clear information to come out about the vehicle now what we do know is the
00:40:04
following day authorities tow the vehicle to the city's service center lot to dust for fingerprints and and process
00:40:11
the vehicle the results in the information that they get from the vehicle has never been released to the
00:40:16
public but but there's a couple things that that my mind jumps to immediately one I believe that I'm looking for a
00:40:23
person with a vehicle the killer I think had their own vehicle and I think that was the method that they used to
00:40:29
transport Vicki to how many locations we don't know right but I say that because
00:40:35
look nobody wants to get caught you'd have to be a you'd have to be an insane person to be fine with getting arrested
00:40:41
for a horrible crime like this you're not going to drive around with a victim alive or otherwise in a vehicle where
00:40:48
the the rear window's smashed out you're going to give the police an excuse to pull you over that's a you're going to
00:40:54
stick out like a sore thumb but the other the other thing my mind jumps to here too Captain is I want to know like
00:41:00
we know the the clothing was never recovered but what about her purse I have to believe she's carrying a purse
00:41:08
with her she went to return an item she's going to go pay for another item at a different location I would believe
00:41:14
she's carrying a purse and likely a driver's license with her did they recover her driver's license we know and
00:41:21
the reason why I'm going down this road is the the the letters carved into the chest it to me it's
00:41:29
suggestive that this person may be a Serial offender I I'm sure that it has happened
00:41:37
in plenty of cases Standalone cases one-offs but letters words written on the victim left with the victim carved
00:41:46
into the victim that to me screams serial killer and I hate that my brain goes there all the time but the the
00:41:53
other thing I go back to the purse where are the contents of the purse where are
00:41:56
the purse where they found in the vehicle did it look like the person was attempting to take money from the purse
00:42:02
or was the purse simply never found if the purse was located was the driver's license removed we know that some of
00:42:08
these guys like to build up a little collection of driver's license of different victims well again if they
00:42:16
would have took the missing person report seriously and they would have found her car quickly then you have a
00:42:22
better chance at getting good eyewitness statements did somebody see a creepy van
00:42:28
#b the vanan but we only have eyewitnesses claiming that they saw her getting into her car the autopsy reveals
00:42:36
bruises to her mouth and left forehead the pathologist maintains that she had most likely been sexually
00:42:46
assaulted again I think that's part of the hold back information they they don't go into any kind of detail with
00:42:51
that or even confirm the sexual assault if if this was a blitz attack by the perpetrator the the bruises to the left
00:43:02
forehead might be an indicator that our perpetrator is right-handed so I mean if you're if
00:43:09
you're trying to really build this investigation on some pretty simplistic terms here you would think you're
00:43:18
looking for a right-handed man who owns a vehicle that might have the initials K
00:43:23
and N if you really want to start somewhere and based off of the information or the lack of information
00:43:30
that's provided in the sources out there we don't know what else they would have
00:43:35
to go on at the time now of course the letters or the initials whatever you want to label these have become a topic
00:43:42
of much speculation for not only investigators but for the general public over the
00:43:49
years now maybe we should address our own speculation here with these letters I was thinking of you know they keep
00:43:58
saying initials and and most people that's their immediate reaction they're like well look for somebody with the
00:44:04
first name that starts with k and the last name that starts with N right some of the some of the information that's
00:44:12
come out over the years have said that and this sounds like an opinion of an investigator but have said that well
00:44:21
we're not absolutely sure that it's a k and an n look if they're capital letters it would seem pretty easy to
00:44:30
know if it's a k and an N if they're lowercase I think the N might be more difficult but the it's not easy to carve
00:44:39
I don't know this from personal experience but it can't be easy to carve and cut letters into skin I would
00:44:45
imagine it's somewhat similar to I know I know a tree bark is much much more of a solid and hard item compared to to
00:44:55
skin but you know you know when you try to carve letters into anything it never they never turn out the way that you
00:45:02
envision them right so it's always very easy to make straight lines to create your letters so a capital K and a
00:45:12
capital N would seem the most likely here I know that there's that speculation out there that says we're
00:45:18
the one guy's opinion of well we're not exactly sure that it was a k and an N but it sounds like the guys that the
00:45:28
detectives that work this case the most it sounds like they are it's General consensus amongst them that that
00:45:37
it was a k and an N again I guess I guess if if the letters never come out the way that one intended when you're
00:45:45
trying to carve them into something maybe the K could be the straight line to the left of the K could be it was
00:45:53
intended to be an i or an l and the other is is maybe a c or something that happened to just get too close to that
00:46:00
line I don't know but what we do know Captain is these letters mean anything the the K and the N have never led to an
00:46:08
arrest or a conviction in this case so I I think it's fair to speculate and the other thing too is from The Limited
00:46:16
experience I have with reviewing cases where somebody has written on the victim or carve something into the victim
00:46:24
because it's rather rare but we covered a case where it's believed that the person carved the word fat into the
00:46:32
victim and there's a a famous there's famous cases out there there was a serial killer in California a long time
00:46:39
ago that was using lipstick to write BDA on victims and the BDA we would learn later learn what BDA likely stood
00:46:50
for because this killer while never apprehended never identified communicated with either police or media
00:46:59
I can't remember who it was but but what did the BDA stand for Black Dalia Avenger is what the letter
00:47:08
said the the letter sent to police or the media or both that's what the the author of those letters said BDA stood
00:47:16
for Black Dalia Avenger so in both of those scenarios Black Dalia Avenger and the
00:47:24
word fat which is a completely different case a more recent case think about that
00:47:29
for a second the the killer is not necessarily identifying themselves even though the killer May identify as the
00:47:36
Black Dalia Avenger but they're not saying like so KN andn could stand for anything and if you want if you want to
00:47:48
go really into some fictional movie type stuff KN andn could be could have been a previous victim the
00:47:57
initials of a previous victim and the and the killer trying to tell police like yeah I did that one now now I'm
00:48:02
doing this one I don't think there's never any mention of this so I don't think that it happened with BDA and and
00:48:10
BTK and a lot of these other uh Killers When when they do leave these little letters or or
00:48:18
information they often communicate with the police or the media at some point and that doesn't seem to be the case
00:48:25
here if it is they've either NE they've either never connected that communication to this
00:48:34
murder or they've never released it to the public well and if you're law enforcement like you said very very very
00:48:42
rare to have this situation happen but knowing what we know and like you said they they a lot of times communicate
00:48:51
with law enforcement maybe this is some of the reasons why they didn't hold back this
00:48:56
information cuz they go well let's put it out there it could be a K and N we don't
00:49:03
know maybe the killer will reach out to us to tell us what it means well and I couldn't find another podcast that was
00:49:10
dedicated to the case of Vicky ly harell I did see some that were featuring the case of Pamela Millum so September 16th
00:49:20
1972 we're going to go out about 55 miles away from Spencer Indiana where which is nearby where the our victim
00:49:29
Vicki was found so we're going to terao Indiana keep in mind this is a month and
00:49:35
a day or a month and two days after Vicki's killed we have the body of Indiana State University co-ed Pamela
00:49:42
Millum is discovered in the trunk of her vehicle the student had last been spotted at a sorority event the prior
00:49:49
night on campus she failed to appear for a planned visit home her father and instigates a search of the campus and he
00:50:00
he's out searching for his daughter he and another family member spot the vehicle at a campus parking lot and he's
00:50:08
the one that unfortunately goes through the vehicle and checks the trunk opens up the trunk and makes the Grim
00:50:14
discovery of his daughter's body she's found bound gagged and stuffed into the trunk of her own car she was 19 years
00:50:22
old she was a sophomore at the University she had been strangled with a rope so there's some interesting things
00:50:30
here you might have some stuff that's connecting right you have the vehicle situation with both victims it's only
00:50:37
about a month or so apart in time and 55 miles away it's somewhat nearby and but but again the We Believe
00:50:47
or at least it's been reported that Vicki was strangled with an item they believe possibly a rope or something
00:50:52
similar and then they discover this victim Pamela Millum as having been strangled with a rope yeah Pamela's case
00:51:00
is very scary because she's at a she's at a sorority Gathering she takes a box of decorations out to her
00:51:10
car and she's supposed to just take it out to her car and come right back and then they're going to I believe order
00:51:15
food or eat they just kind of sit around waiting wondering why she hasn't returned yeah
00:51:23
she never comes back now her case will take a long time to solved but Pamela's case is solved so in
00:51:30
2019 police identified the killer as Jeffrey Lynn hand and this is this the guy that looks
00:51:39
like a rejected Justin Bieber that might be pretty polite uh but they use DNA testing to they have DNA suspect DNA
00:51:50
that they collected at the time so Good by them to do that back in 1972 you hope they did it in Vicki's
00:51:57
case there's no mention of it but with the sexual assault if they did a rape kit on the
00:52:03
victim and whatever other physical evidence that they have still to this day could lead to the perpetrator of Vicky's
00:52:14
homicide just like it did in Pamela's case I I have a tendency to believe that if they have said physical evidence that
00:52:23
could connect them to a perpetrator then that would mean that Jeffrey lyand is not the killer of
00:52:30
Vicky Lyn Harold if they don't have that physical evidence you can't rule him out well in
00:52:36
the Pam case I think they have some more evidence because they had I believe they
00:52:42
had her her clothes and so in the Vicki case there's no there's no clothes found
00:52:49
there's no items found so what are you going to hold back and because we didn't have the tech technology then but if you
00:52:58
don't have evidence to hold back to let technology catch up what are you going to be testing well and if you're a
00:53:08
detective and you're arriving to a to view a homicide victim or at a murder scene you would much rather find the
00:53:17
victim in the trunk of a car rather than lying face down in a puddle outside in the elements because being in the trunk
00:53:25
of that vehicle is going to preserve physical evidence for your investigation now one thing that I hate that they did
00:53:33
but it's 1972 this was common practice back then they do clear like 30 suspects is the report they cleared some 30
00:53:42
suspects in Vicki's case but this was simply clearing them via polygraph so you pass the polygraph they move on to a
00:53:50
different person so they had some suspects or at least people that they thought they should be looking at I
00:53:54
would imagine this is a lot of the uh Kmart people that she worked with and and other people in her Social Circle at
00:54:01
the time you go back in these old cases and that's how they cleared people pretty regular but we know that a true
00:54:08
psychopath will be able to sit across from you at a table look you directly in the eye and lie lie lie and not have a
00:54:17
beat of sweat not not show any signs of stress no elevated heart rate nothing yeah I would really want to look into to
00:54:28
her co-workers I i' would like to know if there was a a guy there that was trying to court her maybe he was trying
00:54:37
to get her attention and she didn't want anything to do with him well you'd also
00:54:43
want to figure out does does the smashed out window have any is there any linkage
00:54:48
there right did it was somebody like you said following her around did she get into it with somebody or was that just a
00:54:55
random Act of well my other thing though too is this K N I know this might sound
00:55:02
like a leap and I hope you're going to the leap that I was going to say go ahead and say it I hope you're you're
00:55:07
going to make the same leap maybe they're trying to write Kmart that's exactly what I was going to say as well
00:55:13
look some of these perpetrators we know will even give nicknames to their victim
00:55:20
was this just hey watched her coming out of the Kmart followed her over to this other parking lot struck up a
00:55:26
conversation or figured out how to get into her vehicle and ambushed her when she came out of the other place I was
00:55:32
trying to write Kmart it got a little difficult so I just kind of gave up dumped the body or even if they're just
00:55:38
trying to write km yeah that's not that far of a stretch to go well I'm the Killer and that that that equals Kmart
00:55:47
to me km so a little more about the investigation here is one of the detectives that worked the case for a
00:55:55
long time his name is Lieutenant Ralph Shoemaker and he's openly frustrated to the public about this case saying that
00:56:04
you know there was really a lack of leads in this case we didn't have a whole lot of evidence to work off of one
00:56:10
thing and I won't go too far down this road and in too much detail here but there was a gag order that was put in
00:56:17
place and I believe this came from the courts that that they went to the courts and the courts put a gag order on the
00:56:25
department investigating this case saying that they you know they can't they've already released too much
00:56:31
information to the public you can't release any more information so that's M makes me suspicious of what they're
00:56:37
holding back and and look this case is from 1972 I don't think it's going to hurt your case now if you tell us some
00:56:44
more information today about this case from all these years it you've had the case forever you've not been able to
00:56:50
solve it now it might not be the the the fault of the police for not being able a
00:56:56
to solve it because the some of the investigators say that they believe that the the young mother Vicky Harold was
00:57:05
likely killed by a complete stranger one thing that they point to there's a 1973
00:57:10
article where Lieutenant Shoemaker reveals that he believes that the young mother was killed by a transient someone
00:57:16
not familiar with the area further he divulges that detectives are looking into other similar murders that occurred
00:57:23
in 1969 1970 and 7 one and he says that these murders occurred along Interstate 70 in Pennsylvania and the state of
00:57:33
Maryland so of course I went looking and digging to try to find these other cases in these
00:57:41
instances the victims were all young women from college towns who were murdered and this article
00:57:50
says that they had initials or letters carved into their abdomen however I'm pretty good at looking for stuff and
00:57:57
finding it and I could find hide nor hair of these other murder victims that might be
00:58:04
linked to Vicki's case doesn't mean that they don't exist right but there could be cases where law enforcement decided
00:58:13
to hold back the information that there was any letters carved onto the victims exactly
00:58:21
the other thing too is the reporting could be bad right I'm looking in specific areas Pennsylvania Maryland 69
00:58:28
70 71 we've almost done 800 episodes of bad reporting if if those dates are off or
00:58:36
the locations are off of course I'm not going to find them right now one of the multiple agencies investigating this
00:58:44
case said that they had a guy they think that they think they knew who who did this to Vicki who killed Vicki but it's
00:58:52
described in a couple of Articles the situation is described as this authorities had isolated a prime suspect
00:59:01
in Vicki's murder but the man was quote Untouchable due to his being currently housed at a mental institution out of
00:59:08
state okay so the way that this works is if this individual was in a mental institution in another state at that
00:59:18
time the reporting states that this was really like a a true firewall that they couldn't get Beyond they they couldn't
00:59:27
even get into interview or interrogate this man because not just because of the being institutionalized
00:59:35
but I think a large part of it had to do with he was institutionalized in another
00:59:38
state so what ever happened to this guy well I have a little more speculation or
00:59:45
information on who this person could be but I want to continue with some of these newspaper articles
00:59:50
because some of these articles were were quite interesting to review this this one's from 1974 and I won't go through
00:59:58
the whole thing here but this is again this Larry inklingo he's definitely got a bee in his Bonnet about this Vicky
01:00:04
case because he keeps writing about it and bless him for doing so he kept it in the newspaper now I say bless him to do
01:00:12
so that keeps a little pressure on the police and it reminds the public that this case is unsolved so that's good
01:00:18
where it's where it's not so great is the the family her family was grieving and private and they've never of course
01:00:26
they've never gotten over the loss of their daughter or sister but one of their sisters is on record saying every
01:00:33
time one of these articles came out it was like it happened all over again for the family so there's good and bad with
01:00:39
this but in this particular article in 1974 he is talking about in addition to Vicki's killing he's recounting some
01:00:48
similar brutal murders or abductions of women that took place all within roughly
01:00:54
the same area of the state of Indiana and at the time of 1974 all of these cases were
01:01:02
unresolved so there were a lot of victims that he was listing here and I don't think he was necessarily trying to
01:01:09
say that any of the cases were connected he's just saying look there's these cases out there these horrible cases
01:01:16
where young women and girls are getting abducted and murdered and they're not the cases are not being solved he does
01:01:23
acknowledge the multiple agencies involved in this investigation their obvious commitment and passion to
01:01:29
solving or attempting to solve this case but chalks up their inability to solve the murder to several reasons one for
01:01:37
one this is something we've talked about in in a couple of other cases and this was true unfortunately for a lot of
01:01:43
states and counties back in the 50s 60s and 70s and you even see this in some cases in the 80s and a little bit in the
01:01:51
90s but today thankfully much of this has been corrected so one of the reasons why he
01:01:59
points to the inability to solve this case is the lack of a true medical examiner system in Owen County back in
01:02:09
1972 so back then the coroner typically was not a doctor and typically wasn't someone that had any
01:02:19
crime scene or forensics knowledge at all or training yeah there weren't at all yeah they weren't specialized most of
01:02:28
the time they were morticians so they would give their best opinion of to how the person was
01:02:38
killed and then they would start the process of the funeral the memorial Serv hey that's better than uh what FY Malik
01:02:48
did yeah # fill Andy yeah he he he said that um uh let's let's not even go down that road
01:02:57
secondly oldy mik it's mentioned that there may have been even though we had multiple agencies working this so you
01:03:05
have a lot of resources but it's 1972 how great were they communicating with one another was there anything
01:03:12
getting lost in communication or Lost in Translation regarding the details and the evidence about this case well also
01:03:21
the lack of evidence that left at the scene all we have is a murdered victim and nothing else now
01:03:29
this article Captain is much more recent so 12 years ago the times mail News interviewed 86-year-old retired
01:03:38
detective Harold Jackson who was one of the investigators that worked this case and I think this guy retired with
01:03:48
only two unsolved cases that he had worked over the years and unfortunately Vicky Harold's case is one of them
01:03:56
and I'll just read a portion of this article because this guy gives us a lot more information and this was somebody
01:04:02
extremely close to the case as said he worked it and it was one of only two unsolved cases that that he had during
01:04:08
his career the article says murders were uncommon back then Jackson said Vicky's
01:04:16
case added a sour tone to the tale of his long distinguished career Jackson remembers Vicky Harold and the
01:04:23
investigation into her murder for weeks he worked 15-hour shifts Gathering leads
01:04:28
on the case time ran out but Jackson felt he had the case solved before his retirement detectives had tracked down a
01:04:36
prescription drug salesman a man in his mid-40s who had circled Southern Illinois and Missouri around the dates
01:04:46
of nearly a dozen murders all young women this is what's interesting to me all those other sources were always
01:04:56
referencing if it were connected to other murders the states Maryland and Pennsylvania this detective is saying
01:05:04
Illinois and Missouri this detective Harold Jackson says he can put this man in Bloomington
01:05:11
Indiana on the night that Harold disappear Vicky disappeared so he says the piece is fit
01:05:18
for him but the end result was they don't come up with an arrest now that you're going to hear
01:05:24
something very similar here to something we've discussed already he says their time ran out when the Man's
01:05:31
family stepped in moving him to a Kentucky mental hospital Jackson's investigation came to the end of its
01:05:38
Road it's haunted him for years the file remains open and they fill that file with new leads on
01:05:46
suspects over the years so further detail here Captain it sounds like this man who may
01:05:55
have been responsible for multiple murders yeah he's kind of swept under the rug and kept in a safe house
01:06:04
essentially which is this mental hospital in Kentucky his family placed him there and it's said in some of the
01:06:12
sources that his family a lot of them may have been attorneys or lawyers and that
01:06:20
further shielded and guarded him from investigators for the gag order if you're his family I guess you could
01:06:30
understand why that makes sense to them if they know if they knew he was a killer or
01:06:37
possibly a serial killer and they also thought he was mentally unstable and he was in a facility that he wasn't going
01:06:46
to get out of maybe they thought well that's enough and so they're protecting Society because he won't be
01:06:54
out on the street but they're also protecting their family name and reputation at the same time yeah and
01:07:01
protecting him from the punishment that he so strongly deserves that so if this detective's hunch is right here knowing
01:07:11
who this man is and interrogating him and and building a case on him could clear and close several other cases at
01:07:21
the same time I do want to point out before we close here today captain that the the daughter Vicki's daughter
01:07:27
Samantha she grew up in her aunt and uncle's home Vicki's sister raised her today she is successful and living a
01:07:35
happy and normal life but her mother's murder has never been solved anyone with information concerning this case please
01:07:43
contact the Indiana State Police District investigative Commander at the Bloomington Indiana post the best phone
01:07:52
number is 1 1800 423 [Music] 1286 want to thank everybody for joining us here in the garage each and every
01:08:15
week the flying garage ship thanks for telling your mother thanks for telling your brother Colonel do we have any
01:08:22
recommended reading for the beautiful listeners this week Captain we have some recommended listening for everybody out
01:08:29
there it's a fantastic True Crime podcast called Empire on blood Empire on blood goes deep inside a case like few
01:08:37
other podcasts the reporter spent seven years getting to the bottom of this true
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crime story and it has it all a guy in prison for two murders that he says he didn't commit a prosecutor that people
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call Turtleman a detective who gets an amazing amount of confessions and a drug dealer who is supposedly practicing
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black magic Empire on blood was number one when it was released and now it's back with new bonus episodes so if you
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have checked out Empire on blood go back and listen to the new bonus episodes Empire on blood is available on Apple
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and wherever you are listening to this podcast you don't have to write that recommendation down now because Empire
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on blood is listed along with many other great recommendations at truecrime garage.com
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go and check out the recommended page and while you are on our website make sure you sign up on our mailing list yes
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for everything True Crime Check out True Crime garage.com until next week be good be
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kind and don't litter [Music]