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subject to credit approval see store or ashley.com for details [Music] [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever
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you are whatever you are doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man that knows
00:01:48
that April showers bring May flowers and May Flowers bring pilgrims here is the C
00:01:54
but you don't want to have a April Shower in your pants it's good to be seen and good to see you thanks for
00:01:59
listening thanks for telling a [Music] friend today here in the garage fridge we still have some swinging bruise left
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right there on the top shelf swinging is an 88.5% ABV pineapple upside down cake
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Imperial Shandy that will make you sweet enough to take home it's Rich warm and filled with sugar and spice this Shandy
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might just be your dream coming true garage grade four out of five bottle caps and here's some of our dreams come
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true filled by our good friends first up a shout out to Steve bombarder in Montreal Quebec Canada and a big we like
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a DP to Susan from Calver County Maryland and last but certainly not least Captain we have a shout out that
00:02:50
goes to Liz from Plymouth Massachusetts America's Hometown everyone we just mentioned they went to our website they
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helped us fill up the fridge for this week's show and for that we thank you yeah BW R and beer run if you haven't
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picked up Nick's first book you need to do so check out true Crim garage.com for
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all the details and you can order that on Amazon or wherever you like to get your books it's also available on
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Audible and that's enough of the business all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's
00:03:25
talk some true crime [Music] want back with [Music] me on April 15th 1986 36-year-old Linda
00:03:50
Moore was home alone while her husband was at work at around 2:00 p.m. that afternoon she was seen in the yard by
00:03:58
someone passing by the Home approximately an hour to an hour and 15 minutes later her husband found her dead
00:04:08
in their living room in the entrance way between the kitchen and the living room
00:04:14
the autopsy would tell us that she was stabbed more than two dozen times it's believed that 25 times approximately is
00:04:23
how many blade bladed weapon injuries she suffered evidence at the scene indicated that she was engaged in a very
00:04:34
violent struggle with her as salant and to go further against her husband step Moore in the suspicion that was kind of
00:04:43
piling on him in the early hours into the investigation was that police could find
00:04:50
no signs of forced entry into the home or that nothing was stolen from the home there was no ransacking that took place
00:04:58
within the houses itself initially detectives thought that the Linda Moore case would be solved relatively quickly
00:05:07
that was 1986 here we sit in the garage Captain 2023 and this case has still not been
00:05:15
solved and one of the things that you brought up or or multiple things that you brought up on yesterday's episode
00:05:22
was the actions of the husband seemed a little suspicious to law enforcement MH but one of the actions that I don't
00:05:32
think is that suspicious is he's at a work site his house isn't that far away a few miles he has to get a check to pay
00:05:42
this dump truck driver so the dump truck driver can take it back to the landfill
00:05:47
to pay them but he could have simply if he knew that his wife was murdered or if
00:05:53
he knew that he murdered his wife he could have simply drove back to the house got the checkbook and came back
00:06:01
but he brings somebody to the scene with him or he could have conveniently sent the driver without going
00:06:08
himself as well and let the driver discover his wife in the home making it look less suspicious on Steven Moore
00:06:16
because as you pointed out and as we all know police are usually suspicious of the person that finds the body they're
00:06:22
suspicious of the husband and here you have that person as one and the same there were and remained to this day a
00:06:30
lot of people in that area the local area there that believe that Stephen Moore is and should be the prime suspect
00:06:39
in his wife's murder in fact there was a rumor that because given his job and the
00:06:46
nature of his job as somebody that owns a home remodeling business that he would have discarded of
00:06:55
the murder weapon possibly at one of his construction sites buried it somewhere somewhere very difficult for the
00:07:03
authorities to find well wasn't he also putting in a pool correct I don't I could not figure out if that was on
00:07:10
their property or if it was at another property yeah looking into this everybody that I talked to that
00:07:19
knew anything about this case said well it's most likely that if the husband did
00:07:24
it he took he took the murder weapon and he buried it where he was going to build
00:07:30
a pool but like you said it's very unclear was he going to build the pool on their property or was that for a
00:07:37
client and a lot of people have said throughout the years that his wife was outside sunning uh sunbathing and it
00:07:45
when I picture that I immediately think somebody sitting by the pool this is Vermont April 15th yes it was a warm
00:07:53
sunny day that day but I don't know how warm it could have been uh but we do know that she was seen outside sunning I
00:08:00
don't know if that involved a pool or not but what's key here Captain is that the murder weapon is not found at the
00:08:07
scene not found at the more household and you would think with police being on the scene so quickly that they are
00:08:15
actively looking for that knife for that murder weapon upon their arrival and when they are going through the scene we
00:08:24
know that the kids were sent away that day and we know that Steven stayed behind and sat down at the table at the
00:08:32
kitchen table with detectives and answered all of their questions again they thought that he was
00:08:39
emotionalist uh but a lot of people would come forward and tell detectives later that that's just kind of how the
00:08:46
guy was wired right that he he was not the type to show a lot of emotion he was a very controlled very
00:08:56
restraint type of person and so this would go along with his personality the other thing that we need to be clear on
00:09:06
here is regardless of what the rumors say and unfortunately if anyone's wife is ever murdered or girlfriend is killed
00:09:15
the boyfriend and husband is always going to be rumored to be a suspect even if he's the the best guy in the world
00:09:22
it's always going to be a rumor plain and simple well if you're law enforcement I think okay he's he doesn't
00:09:30
seem all choked up he's not crying about this we can note that but that doesn't that doesn't mean anything necessarily
00:09:38
because we've seen on the other hand where people are calling 911 they're hysterical they're creating a big scene
00:09:46
when they're being questioned and they're actually the ones that are responsible for the murder and he
00:09:51
doesn't lawyer up and he cooperates fully from what I could see with the police in their
00:09:57
investigation he asked he's asked to take a lie detector test he takes it he passes no signs of deception at all in
00:10:06
the lie detector test he's asked to take give a blood sample right they take his
00:10:13
clothing in as evidence the only blood that they find on his clothing belongs to his wife they
00:10:21
don't find any of his blood or anybody else's blood on his clothing just his wife's blood and he did say that he
00:10:28
moved her and that he checked for a pulse before calling for the ambulance and we know that he had blood on him
00:10:34
because he left Blood on the receiver to the phone when he called the ambulance when he was gone comes back to his house
00:10:40
and then goes to get a sandwich or whatever that goes back to the work site nobody's saying that he changed
00:10:48
clothes so you start you start tightening this window of possibilities of of him being able to even be
00:10:58
responsible for this crime well and keep in mind too he is in full view of the authorities of the detectives within
00:11:07
minutes not an hour within 30 minutes roughly of finding his wife and they do not notice any cuts on
00:11:16
him he doesn't look like he's been in any type of struggle we're talking about minimum 25 stab wounds or cuts to the
00:11:24
victim we've said this a dozen times and we'll say it a dozen more given the nature of this attack one would expect
00:11:34
the killer to likely have cut himself or receive some type of injury during the during the struggle what's crazy is the
00:11:43
viciousness of this attack and the blitz C style of the attack so the medical examiner in
00:11:52
Vermont would tell us that Linda Moore while she had all of these injuries and this was a very vicious attack it was a
00:12:01
very rapid and very quick attack they believed that the attack only took approximately 45 to 60
00:12:13
seconds from start to finish wow and police were were thrown off by the scene because given
00:12:26
the given the nature and the brutality of this attack there was not like there wasn't Furniture knocked
00:12:32
over there wasn't obvious signs of a struggle other than our victim on the floor and I think what happened here
00:12:41
Captain is probably from the time that the A salent and the victim engaged one another it probably took place right
00:12:50
where she was found and being told being told by the medical examiner that the attack probably lasted a minute or less
00:12:59
it's not inconceivable that the attack took place very quickly in this very isolated spot in the entryway between
00:13:07
the kitchen and the living room and thus because it didn't expand beyond that space in the home that none
00:13:15
of these other items were Disturbed Steven Moore was very Cooperative with police and so regardless of what the
00:13:22
rooms rumors are here that have lasted all of these years there's a couple things that we need to point out
00:13:29
and this is when I I would wish and I know that police don't get in the habit of clearing anybody publicly right but I
00:13:37
feel like this is one of those situations where I see so much more evidence to suggest that this guy just
00:13:43
didn't do it he did not have enough time to arrive home before the dump truck driver kill his wife even though it took
00:13:52
place very quickly and then discarded the murder weapon all before telling his worker to come come in calling the
00:14:00
ambulance and then calling the police and everybody arriving on scene he just didn't have time to cover it all up had
00:14:07
he killed her right when he got home that day then the problem go ahead and I wonder if this report is accurate or if
00:14:15
they're going here we have this full picture if the husband is responsible the attack would have had to happen very
00:14:23
quickly so we're going to surmise that it did to keep him as a suspect well and keep in mind we know his timeline for
00:14:32
that day he's with his workers we know that he talked to his wife so and we know that she's seen
00:14:40
Alive by other eyewitnesses that don't have a dog in the fight at 2 p.m. at 2 p.m. he's either on the at the work site
00:14:51
or he goes to a local store to pick up a quick sandwich obies we got the meats and that happens all before all prior to
00:14:59
2 p.m. so his only opportunity to attack and kill his wife would be when he arrived home shortly after or right
00:15:07
around 3:00 that day when his worker pulls in just minutes behind him the other problem with that too is what the
00:15:15
experts would tell us so the medical examiner is going to tell us that Linda Moore was killed between the hours of
00:15:22
noon and 300 p.m. that afternoon the ambulance driver who arrived lives on scene said to police she has been dead
00:15:34
for a minimum of 30 minutes probably more than an hour if she had been dead less than 30 minutes I would have
00:15:44
transported her in the ambulance to the hospital trying to save her life trying to bring her back right he says when he
00:15:53
arrives on the scene he quickly recognizes and understands that she's been dead for quite some time
00:15:59
she's be Beyond any opportunity of saving her and now it's a crime scene as you pointed out yesterday the the EMT
00:16:08
was very careful to not contaminate the crime scene the detective when he arrives he's
00:16:15
on scene approximately 30 minutes maybe 25 minutes after Steph Moore arrives on scene and he says the same thing it's
00:16:25
not his first rodeo he assesses the situation and says to himself This Woman's been dead for a couple of hours
00:16:32
right so you have multiple people telling us and the medical examiner saying that she was killed
00:16:39
between noon and 3: well it would appear by what the detective in the EMT is saying that she was killed closer to the
00:16:45
noon hour than the 3:00 hour and she's seen alive at 2: p.m. according to eyewitnesses or close to 2
00:16:56
p.m. so that in my opinion Captain makes it practically impossible that Steven Moore is the killer so the Moore's house
00:17:06
was uh was basically a landmark mhm when it comes to this country road and again
00:17:15
the town pretty small very small population but this is a town that people pass through to get to busier
00:17:24
towns so there was a lot of people that saw her out sunbathing that day yes this
00:17:29
is Route 121 it's heavily trafficked and what police did was they set up roadblocks as well as putting out
00:17:38
requests for help and for information on the news and through the newspapers saying everybody that drove past the
00:17:46
Moors home anybody traveling on 121 on that day April 15th 1986 that Tuesday especially in the afternoon call
00:17:56
us tell us if you saw anything did you see Linda Moore outside did you see any Vehicles parked at the home right things
00:18:02
of that nature and again they set up roadblocks for on two different occasions for two days and asked
00:18:11
everybody that they stopped do you typically drive through here were you passing through here on April 15th if so
00:18:18
did you see anything and what what they end up getting is they get at least 15 different stories I don't want to say 15
00:18:27
I eyewitnesses because I think that some of these statements were given and they were
00:18:35
multiple eyewitnesses saw the same thing on a couple of the these cases so there
00:18:40
were 15 different things of interest that the police learned from either people calling in and telling them what
00:18:48
they saw or people they spoke to at the roadblocks well let's dive into these 15
00:18:54
items that law enforcement found yes because these are going to be 15 different things that were reported by
00:19:01
different eyewitnesses that you need to check off you need to vet and you need to figure
00:19:08
out why person a person B person C was in the area spotted in the area on the afternoon that Linda Moore was
00:19:17
killed and what happens I'll give you the short version of it Captain because there was a bunch of reports of oh I saw
00:19:25
a car and a man walking he was parked on the Street not at the moous but uh a vehicle of this description and a man
00:19:32
walking nearby and a person reported uh no vehicle but somebody walking more than one person reported
00:19:42
somebody with a napsack which I I I wish that we'd get a better description of the individual with the napsack uh it
00:19:51
was a man with cheap glasses and a napsack how would you know that the glass glasses were
00:19:59
cheap that that's a good question uh reported reportedly uh that's what the witness statements are it's weird too
00:20:08
what witnesses will add to a statement right the the necessary information is I saw a guy well describe him he was uh a
00:20:17
white male wearing glasses had a backpack or a knapsack uh but it's weird what witnesses will add in clearly
00:20:25
somebody added in look like cheap glasses yeah um I'm a glasses connoisseur I can spot a good pair of
00:20:33
glasses from from a good distance away I mean I I would have to take the glasses
00:20:38
and put them in my mouth and swish them around to know for sure if they're cheap
00:20:43
glasses there was also a report of men two men jogging in the area now after 4 days this is key here after four days
00:20:53
after the murder of Linda Moore police had Tracked Down 13 of the 15 items that they wanted to check off
00:21:05
their box witness statements that they needed to vet so 13 of these items they had Tracked Down the
00:21:17
person found out who it was that was in the area vetted their story and then checked their aliis and checked their
00:21:25
timelines for the day and everything checks off off so after 4 days the only two things that they had left that they
00:21:33
couldn't verify or figure out or confirm who these people were were the two men that were seen jogging in the
00:21:40
area and the man that was by himself with the glasses and the napsack well In fairness the guy with the cheap glasses
00:21:49
didn't want to come forward because he didn't want everybody in town to know that he had cheap glasses what's
00:21:56
interesting though here Captain is none of this information is public at this time 4 days into it right on day five
00:22:04
this is when I think we see a big shift in the public awareness of the investigation or something that the
00:22:12
public should have picked up on because in the Linda Moore investigation the detective is saying to the newspapers on
00:22:19
day five unless we catch a big break I'm not so confident that this is going to be solved soon right those words should
00:22:28
tell us that we've checked out the husband we're kind of moving on from that angle at this point even though
00:22:37
they've never publicly cleared him right but that's what that statement should tell you because the detectives say when
00:22:44
they arrive on the scene when they interview the husband when they look at the scene the first thing that
00:22:48
everything that tells them in their experience this is a domestic situation we will be able to arrest somebody
00:22:54
rather quickly in this investigation because it's it's likely the husband and here on day five we hear a different
00:23:02
story unless we catch a big break soon we're not confident that we're going to solve this
00:23:08
thing relatively quickly well think about it if you're law enforcement the husband was off the work
00:23:15
site for a time period okay did he change his clothes no the husband's time line is very tight
00:23:24
don't know if he would have had a opportunity do to do so the husband could have sent the dump
00:23:31
truck driver back to the house by himself or he could have just got the checkbook and came back nobody needs to
00:23:38
go to the house but he invites him to the house oh the the husband calls his lawyer well it's his business lawyer but
00:23:46
also his best friend the the husband is being cooperative the husband takes a lie
00:23:51
detector the husband passes that light detector so even though maybe some of his actions initially seemed a little
00:24:00
strange the the further they went down that rabbit hole the more he looks like an innocent
00:24:11
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00:27:04
the people in the back people in the front to the left and the right and most of all cheers to you Colonel cheers to
00:27:11
the people that are up front in Center a written description of this man that zezy top would have described as
00:27:21
wearing a pair of cheap sunglasses right uh these are actually eyeglasses but a written description of this man was
00:27:27
released to the general public about a week or so after Linda Moore's murder now
00:27:35
unfortunately as the case sits as of March of 1987 so a little less than 11 months later police are releasing a
00:27:44
composite sketch of this individual they're not calling him a suspect they're calling him a person of interest
00:27:49
somebody that they would like to talk to a possible witness that may have information that could help further
00:27:55
their investigation and this is is coming from the Vermont state police but the the the general description is
00:28:02
rather vague but it tells us that they are looking for someone that was spotted by several
00:28:11
reputable Witnesses in the area of the mo Hol on the day of the murder in fact uh this person is
00:28:22
believed to have been spotted close to what is believed to be the possible time of death so this
00:28:30
newspaper article that comes out in 1987 they cite the time of death between 12:30 and 3 p.m. that
00:28:39
afternoon and they're stating that this person was seen in the noon hour so about 12:40 p.m. is one of the
00:28:49
statements so early that afternoon near the mo home the description is a man described as being a a white male 5' 8
00:28:58
in to 5' 10 in tall aged 20 to 25 years old again a white male with dark hair eyeglasses and a dark or blue
00:29:12
napsack remember we had talked about two men that were seen jogging in the area as well one thing that police quickly
00:29:19
figured out and this was on day six or seven that the two men spotted in the area jogging they were
00:29:28
not of immediate concern because they were spotted in the area in the early morning hours right in
00:29:37
the time that they knew Linda Moore was still alive again it's not one again it's one of those details in a case that
00:29:44
are it's not clear when they say two men are spotted jogging are they jogging together or are they separate in this
00:29:52
case we know that they were jogging together based off of eyewitness reports and what's really cool here in this
00:29:59
situation Captain is the eyewitness reports of the two men jogging were so good that they were actually able to
00:30:05
track down these two men so we have all of this movement and all of these people
00:30:12
based off of eyewitness statements that police need to track down and after four
00:30:17
or five days into their investigation they had checked off 13 of 15 boxes the only two boxes that remained unchecked
00:30:25
was the man that we just described with the napsack and the glasses and the two joggers several days later they identifi
00:30:35
the two joggers now the joggers again were seen around 9:00 at the latest in the morning we know Linda Moore was
00:30:42
still alive at that time so that's not of great concern the odd thing though is these
00:30:48
two men were seen again later that afternoon this was after Linda Moore was already found so again not of great
00:30:55
concern but now you have two people that you know to be jogging in the area right even though
00:31:03
you know that they're seen when she's still alive and then later seen after she has been killed and
00:31:11
found you want to talk to them because what did they see while they were out jogging if it was somebody that was
00:31:18
watching the house how long had they have been watching the house for the key thing here though is out of
00:31:26
all of those eyewitness that come forward what's the number one thing that's missing from this
00:31:33
equation no one ever see says that they see Steven Moore's vehicle at the home right during the
00:31:42
time in question nobody says that they see Stephen Moore coming in and out of the home during the time in
00:31:49
question so they track down these two joggers and what's interesting to me here captain is
00:31:57
unfortunately one of these joggers had left the area so the joggers turned out to be two
00:32:03
brothers who lived in the area can't trust those Brothers nope and the reason why they were able to identify the
00:32:12
brothers is the one man was wearing a shirt that after they started talking to some locals law enforcement they figured
00:32:24
out that the shirt was some kind of reference to the Navy either a naval ship or a navy base something of that
00:32:32
nature well they track down a an individual that says a relative of mine my young
00:32:40
relative he just left for the Navy right he was out with his brother and his brother tells him the full story that
00:32:49
day they would go jogging together on occasion they were out jogging that morning and then they went out jogging
00:32:55
again that afternoon the male in the navy shirt he had already gone overseas to be
00:33:04
stationed at Subic Bay well we've heard that name before sbtc at the training facility in Subic
00:33:14
Bay this individual is of particular interest to me in this case so this is a young man he was approximately 19 years
00:33:23
of age at the time of Linda Moore's murder so it'd be capable of a vicious attack
00:33:30
and an attack to happen very quickly here's why he's of particular interest to me he does not have a great Alibi for
00:33:41
that early afternoon that Linda Moore was killed the brother tells law enforcement we went out jogging together
00:33:47
we came back home all right we went out for a nice long jog had a great time right my brother wanted to go back
00:33:54
out so we went back out on a second jog then that morning I got tired I decided to turn around he continued
00:34:02
on the police reach out to this individual after he's identified and talk to him at the training facility the
00:34:11
naval training base and he backs up some of his brother's story but again his brother
00:34:18
can't account for his brother after he left the Jog and returned home so he tells authorities that after
00:34:27
his brother left him he continued on his jog he went back to his old high school
00:34:32
where he visited with some people for a period of time he went to a friend's house where he stayed for a couple of
00:34:41
hours just relaxing his friend was gone at work for approximately 2 and a half to 3 hours and before his friend came
00:34:50
back he decided to leave and he went to his friend's house another friend's home this was a former
00:34:58
teacher of his who happened to live very near Linda Moore's home and some stories they say
00:35:07
across the street I've looked up her home it looks like it would be impossible for this home to be across
00:35:11
the street right but this would be very nearby and this is after Linda Moore was
00:35:17
discovered the friend of this man who who will remain anonymous says that when he was there
00:35:26
she brings up to him there was a murder today across the the street one of my neighbors was killed she's reacting to
00:35:36
this news he is going on and on and talking about well he's getting ready to go overseas how excited he is for to go
00:35:45
into the Navy she says the odd thing was that she could understand he was excited
00:35:51
to leave and excited to go into the Navy and go overseas he had never been overseas before
00:35:57
but she's trying to bring up her concern about this murder that just took place in close proximity to her home she lives
00:36:04
by herself right and he doesn't seem to it seems lost on him he doesn't seem to notice her concern nor want to talk
00:36:14
about it with her which is very odd behavior a little bit so then he leaves for the Navy he's not identified as one
00:36:21
of the joggers until after he's already sent overseas to Subic Bay before he is identified he has a phone call with that
00:36:30
same lady that lives near Linda Moore's home and one of the first thing he says to her on the phone is hey whatever
00:36:37
happened with that murder case that that murder investigation near your home right and so she tells police she's kind
00:36:45
of weirded out because face Toof face in person the afternoon that it happened he
00:36:50
seemed to not care not give two Winks about it two shits two shits couple days later
00:36:59
several shits are given about this piles of [ __ ] he's very interested in the homicide investigation did they ever
00:37:06
catch that guy do they have any leads do they know who did it what are the police
00:37:10
saying so that's a very different reaction than what he was giving a couple days earlier I'd love to be able
00:37:18
to question some of the other individuals he was claiming to be with during that day when the authorities
00:37:26
talk to his supervisors at the Navy at the training center MH they tell him that he arrived with very few belongings
00:37:35
as one would when they go into the military but of those belongings he arrives there with a dark colored
00:37:43
knapsack and clothing and glasses that are not terribly unlike the description given by eyewitnesses of the man that
00:37:51
they still never identified so out of 15 boxes to check off now after identifying
00:37:57
both of these joggers they've checked off 14 of 15 but not the 15th box who is this mysterious guy that we give the
00:38:06
description of 5' 8 in to 5' 10 in tall Caucasian male wearing glasses aged 20 to 25 so these Witnesses are spotting a
00:38:15
younger man the man that we're talking about is 19 years of age when he enters the
00:38:23
Navy and I sit here captain and I tell you I have to wonder given that this guy has no alibi no solid Alibi for that
00:38:37
afternoon and we and we know he was in the area we know he was in the area by his own account and by his brother's
00:38:44
admission and by eyewitness statements as being a jogger that morning and then later that
00:38:50
day where was he in between there well I was at the school visiting friends then
00:38:54
I went to my friend's house and watched TV laid down relaxed for a little bit no
00:38:59
my friend wasn't there he was at work then I went and visited a former teacher who lives nearby she's concerned about
00:39:04
the murder he doesn't seem to care goes off to the Navy now all of a sudden it's
00:39:08
a big deal but also has a similar outfit to what one eyewitness saw that day you have to
00:39:18
wonder and there were several people that came forward and said you know what Linda Moore was a was ATT TR acve woman
00:39:28
it did not go unnoticed when she would be outside sunbathing at this property that W was in full view of the
00:39:36
road you have to wonder was he out there jogging and then he goes out there his brother turns around and now something
00:39:43
else has piqued his interest he sees something else they never find the hunting knife
00:39:51
that they believe that killed Linda Moore and they have the Navy issue a lie detector test to this individual
00:40:01
the Navy says that he fails badly okay they're not they're not even trying to or protect him the Navy does disagree
00:40:12
with the police of of the items that arrived with this man uh they say yes they are similar they are not terribly
00:40:21
unlike what your eyewitnesses are saying but they're saying that there's slight variations you know different difference
00:40:27
of color and things of that nature uh the glasses that he arrived with were not cheap glasses but again I don't
00:40:35
think that means you can't factor that into your eyewitness statement in my opinion I we sit here all of these years
00:40:43
later I still think this is the best possible lead in this case this 19-year-old
00:40:49
man that happened to leave and and it's not happened to leave the area after the murder he knew
00:40:57
he was leaving and he knew he was going a great distance away for a long period of time
00:41:05
yeah so if he was struggling with any kind of urges to or any kind of fantasies to
00:41:13
commit some crime he would know hey I have this window where if I commit a crime I'll be
00:41:20
gone in a couple days and they'll be none the wiser and I know that you can't use the
00:41:26
lie detector in the court of law but I think it's a good barometer and I think they need to dive more into this
00:41:34
individual one individual that we talked about at length when we covered the Connecticut River Valley killer
00:41:41
case was Michael Nicola and he was an individual that burst onto the scene as a possible
00:41:50
suspect because years later he goes down to Florida and he kill kills his wife and then kills
00:41:58
himself and his previous wife before that was missing for a period of time he lived in this general area during the
00:42:08
times of the river valley cases so he becomes poly he becomes a suspect in the river valley cases he
00:42:19
does not look unlike the description that was given of the man seen the unidentified man seen near Linda Moore's
00:42:25
home on the day in question however one thing I was shocked to learn Captain is in further digging
00:42:35
of the Linda Moore case it appears that Michael Nicola didn't just burst onto the scene like we thought and like the
00:42:42
story as the story is generally told after killing himself after killing his wife years later it sounds like he was
00:42:50
being looked at by police not for the Linda Moore case but for some of some of the other River Valley cases right I sit
00:43:00
here 2023 I can't say with absolute certainty this case and the reason why we chose to cover it separately is it
00:43:07
felt very different and there was a lot more information about this case than there are the other unsolved cases in
00:43:14
the river valley cases and that simply because of the evidence the nature of this homicide is different it took place
00:43:22
within a home she's found relatively quickly we don't lose evidence due to time or to the
00:43:29
location and so this case felt very different and I know that people say that you have to talk about them at the
00:43:37
same time you can't talk about one case without talking about the other I think we probably have a situation where the
00:43:44
Linda Moore case is not tied to the others I think that some of those other cases are probably connected to one
00:43:49
another that were committed by the same individual maybe not all of them but a lot of them s share similarities
00:43:59
beyond the believed injuries beyond the belief of the way that the victim was killed but a lot of
00:44:09
these individuals too were last seen in the early afternoon hours of the day they disappear they were
00:44:16
hitchhiking or a vehicle broke down or had some kind of vehicle trouble those victims I believe ended up
00:44:24
in a car or a vehicle or a truck with the Killer and he at some point turned on them and attacked them and killed them
00:44:33
in an isolated area took them to an isolated area where they were killed and later
00:44:39
found well and you were saying that a lot of these victims because they were found later there was decomposition
00:44:46
which would make the stab patterns and the attack patterns a little bit harder to identify so to say that the Linda
00:44:55
Moore case is connected to them because of the stab patterns I I just don't know
00:45:01
if that makes a lot of sense and one individual that we talked about too that's always kind of been linked to the
00:45:07
river valley cases is a man by the name of Delbert Tolman well Delbert Tolman is linked to
00:45:16
the river valley cases because he was a suspect in a case that oddly enough is not believed to be a victim of the river
00:45:23
valley killer Heidi mark in 1984 May 21st her body was found behind the Heartland Elementary
00:45:34
School she was stabbed four times eventually Delbert Tolman confesses to being at the scene and witnessing the
00:45:45
murder that he sees the bad guy kill her in the woods he approaches the body afterwards to see if he could help by
00:45:52
that point she's already dead and once police get on to him they arrest him and that story then changes from him being
00:46:00
there and witnessing it to he did it himself Delbert Tolman faced a lot of mental challenges right a lot a lot of
00:46:10
challenges and I believe there's a chance that police encouraged him to expand on his
00:46:19
story and change his story and they probably rightfully so right isn't it difficult to sit across from a guy and
00:46:25
to tell you that yeah I was there but I didn't do it I didn't kill her I witnessed it don't know who did it I
00:46:32
approached her after the bad guy left but he's acquitted he's he goes to trial for this case that's
00:46:41
never 100% connected to the river valley cases and he's acquitted and the problem
00:46:49
with Delbert tman being the river valley killer is he's arrested I believe it's hours or the
00:46:57
next day after they find her body and he's held in jail for over a year until his trial takes place to
00:47:07
which he's acquitted well one of our victims Ellen Ruth freed she's abducted July 22nd
00:47:21
1984 Heidi Martin's body was found May 21st 19 84 Delbert Tolman is locked up in
00:47:30
jail shortly thereafter and he's in jail at the time of Ellen Ruth Freed's abduction who is
00:47:38
believed to be one of the river valley Killer's victims so he doesn't fit great into this whole equation of being the
00:47:45
possible River Valley killer and I also don't believe that the person that killed Linda Moore is
00:47:52
responsible for many of those other murders what I see here is I think we have a younger as salent a younger
00:48:00
killer that behaved and acted impulsively on something that he saw he saw an opportunity and he took it he
00:48:07
probably watched Linda Moore outside that day the phone rings a couple of times she goes inside comes back out he
00:48:16
Witnesses this on more than one occasion and decides the next time she goes in she's probably alone there's probably
00:48:23
nobody home he decides to follow her in and then the attack takes place and he fle and I think the guy that that was
00:48:33
looked at and that they should revisit even all of these years later is the guy that was thousands of miles away being
00:48:42
trained at a naval [Music] base [Music] all right we want to thank everybody for
00:49:00
joining us here in the garage make sure you check out our website TR garage.com and sign up on the mailing list Colonel
00:49:08
do we have any recommended reading for these beautiful beautiful listeners yes we do Captain this week we are
00:49:14
recommending the shadow of death the hunt for the Connecticut River Valley Killer by Philip
00:49:21
Ginsburg this is available on all formats you're going to want to check this one out this is the most
00:49:28
Complete Book put together on this serial killer that is still unidentified and still unknown check out
00:49:36
the shadow of death you'll find that great title and many more wonderful recommendations on our website True
00:49:43
Crime garage on the recommended page and until next week be good be kind and don't
00:49:54
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