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GameChanger [Music] e welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
00:01:42
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our website and that's enough of the business all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's
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talk some true [Music] crime [Applause] [Music] in 1979 17-year-old Holly Brenan was
00:03:40
killed and murdered inside her home now throughout the years Captain there are still four very prominent theories
00:03:48
regarding this case and I think we should take this time now to go through some of these now while some of them are
00:03:54
very general in thought they may lead us to some more specific theories with inside each one I've listed these in
00:04:02
order of what I consider to be least probable to most probable okay the first theory is a mob
00:04:11
hit related to her father's work now this one I put as least probable because I absolutely find that it to be a very
00:04:21
ridiculous Theory I can't find reason for this to have even occurred mhm to even be probable at all I think the
00:04:28
reason why this comes up is that we have a man that's doing pretty well for himself doing well for his family so
00:04:35
there's a thought that there's money there money involved and his company that he works for is based out of the
00:04:42
New Jersey area so I think what we have here Captain is just some creative minds
00:04:48
uh or either maybe lazy Minds coming up with a theory that doesn't really seem to hold any weight well not so fast
00:04:57
because he's in concrete correct so leading to the idea that he's involved and and this is a industry
00:05:08
construction hugely connected to organized crime and so possibly what they're thinking is Holly called to see
00:05:17
if her dad was available so possibly somebody that was there to see her father mhm then takes her out and then
00:05:26
the the supposed accident with the brother mhm that could be mob related and then where was that power washer
00:05:36
this guy is Poison the guy that owns the power washer poison so if you connect them all mhm you could put them all
00:05:44
under the umbrella of some kind of mob hit it just seems to when I specifically look at the situation with Holly it just
00:05:53
seems to me to be a very strange quote unquote hit to show up hang out in the house for a while
00:06:01
presumably not bring a murder weapon with you and then hang out for a while after the murder leaving the house it's
00:06:10
it's it's interesting because the thought of cleaning up the scene afterwards would go to that of somebody
00:06:17
with experience the problem I have with it is it seems to me that this person that the killer spent um an
00:06:25
extraordinary amount of time inside the home during the committing of this murder and afterwards M and that to me
00:06:33
doesn't seem to be very quote unquote professional as is using a weapon found inside the home again maybe the
00:06:41
perpetrator was trying to wait for the brother to come back home well and then that's that's a good leading Captain to
00:06:49
to the second theory that's often discussed and that is that sha branagan the brother was the Killer and the thing
00:06:58
about this one I put this more towards the end of not as probable why for so many reasons that we discussed yesterday
00:07:05
but a few things that we didn't talk about were this one plain and simple I couldn't find anything to suggest that
00:07:13
Shawn was not a good guy that he was not a decent guy uh he and Holly's mom as we
00:07:19
stated had passed away from leukemia just three years prior to Holly's death and it was one of those unfortunate
00:07:26
things that actually brought the rest of the family close together mhm everyone said no one ever
00:07:34
says that he didn't love his sister okay everyone says he loved his sister and we
00:07:39
we have no signs of him being violent towards anybody else no no and and furthermore the whole the whole motive
00:07:47
for him being a suspect this is all I could find was that Shawn that the police saw Shawn as a guy who was kind
00:07:56
of going nowhere in his life yes he attended Le High University but was more or less just kind of going through the
00:08:03
motions he didn't really it didn't seem like he really cared about attending the
00:08:07
university well seems like he was a car guy yes his real passion was fixing and building cars and he was more content
00:08:15
working with his hands as a mechanic than going to school the other thing here too maybe to kind of point to how
00:08:23
uh lacad isical he was about his education Lehi University is a lit right next to Freedom High School which is
00:08:32
where Shawn graduated from so it's kind of like all right well I'm done with this school going to high school number
00:08:38
two dad says I need to go to further my education all right I'll go to this one um now but he has a lot more going for
00:08:45
him than than a lot of people in this world and he had a passion he had passion for automobiles and so maybe
00:08:53
some people didn't see that but I think that is that's the first step in going somewhere successful and while that
00:08:59
might have been looked differently in the 70s late '70s early ' 80s what's crazy is the talk of today is to go into
00:09:08
a trade you know people are being advised to go into a trade learn a skill that most people don't have and guess
00:09:15
what there's so many people with Co College educations these days so many people with degrees these days that some
00:09:21
of these Tradesmen And Trades women are standing out from the crowd and they're able to make very good money and have
00:09:27
very good careers yeah I have I have huge respect for that so it seems like jealousy was what the police thought
00:09:35
Shawn's motive would be to kill his sister uh being Holly was bright she was a young girl she was going to graduate
00:09:42
soon and she was going to move on to better and bigger things in her life she's going to attend Penn State
00:09:46
University well let's just back that for a little bit so basically the cops are saying this individual doesn't really
00:09:54
give a [ __ ] about higher education but he's so jealous of his sister because she is smart that he's going to
00:10:01
kill her that just seems very in all fairness they don't outwardly say what a suspect's motives would be this is what
00:10:10
has been put put together and pieced together by others um there was nowhere anywhere to say that there was anything
00:10:17
weird about their relationship that there there was no motive for him to kill his sister that's what I'm getting
00:10:23
at and so to to Peg it as jealousy being the motive it's super flimsy I mean it it it holds no water for me it holds it
00:10:34
it has no legs to stand on this thought and this Theory and furthermore like we said we have multiple people that can
00:10:41
account for his aware for his whereabouts the night that it's believed that she was killed right and then we
00:10:48
also have a situation where he could have had a deathbed confession and still could you imagine you're burnt all over
00:10:55
your body and they're still asking you questions MH about about your sister this is this is how you're going to
00:11:02
leave this earth well and I think two things on that one I think it does point out to
00:11:10
how much the police might have thought of him to be a suspect because when he arrives at the hospital I believe they
00:11:20
only gave him like a 20% chance of living MH and so the police and this is not an uncommon tactic this is not an
00:11:27
unpracticed tactic this happens a lot when you have somebody that you consider to be a
00:11:33
suspect or maybe he at least has some information that before this accident he wasn't willing to give you right and so
00:11:41
you show up and you question the guy and he has nothing to say there he has nothing to provide you with he didn't
00:11:47
kill his sister and he doesn't know who did all right so the first theory is possibly some kind of mob hit the third
00:11:54
Theory would be possibly that Shawn was the murderer so what is theory number number three those first two are a
00:12:00
little more specific than these next two but we can get into this further as we go so the next Theory would be that an
00:12:08
unknown attacker was Holly's killer and this Theory I do think is possible although there was no forced entry so
00:12:18
maybe the the murderer posed as somebody that she would open the door for maybe a
00:12:24
utility worker or a police officer or as a friend of her father Fathers as you pointed out right there weren't any
00:12:32
reports of any Vehicles spotted in the area at the time of the murder when Holly called her dad's office she was
00:12:40
not panicked or concerned according to his secretary so did someone pretend to be invited there by her father right you
00:12:50
know hey I'm here to see your father like you suggested and oh he's not here well I'm going to have to call him okay
00:12:57
go ahead and call him right or I'm here to do work on something um and then she would say I I
00:13:04
need to call my father to see if this is okay but I think that was a ruse on on some level that's the only reason why
00:13:12
the the phone call makes sense mhm you know or again it's a guy that she is seeing on the side that nobody knows
00:13:21
about and she's calling the dad to kind of get his whereabouts is he leaving straight from work or is he coming home
00:13:28
home I'm not very for sure you know I'm not sure so now we have uh you know this
00:13:34
boy that I'm seeing Little Tommy he's over and I need to check out to make sure my dad's not going to come home and
00:13:40
interrupt us mhm well that would that would be the next Theory but sticking to this one for a second here the thing
00:13:47
that I have to wonder about is so Richard's co-workers would know likely know that he would be out of town that
00:13:56
night M they may not know about Shawn being gone or even know that Shawn exists we don't know but what I'm
00:14:03
getting at is well you would assume that that maybe they would know because we just had a death in the family mhm and
00:14:10
normally when there's the death in the family then people start talking oh it's so sad now now this guy has to raise his
00:14:17
his daughter and his son oh he has two kids oh that's sad but I that makes me wonder if Richard's co-workers were
00:14:25
investigated or at least looked at to get a uh a time you know where you were at this time of day because under this
00:14:33
situation then you have to wonder did somebody gain entry into the home she led into the home for whatever reason at
00:14:41
all and at some point once she realized that there was some form of a threat or if she was in some type of danger did
00:14:49
she in fact run to the kitchen and grab the kitchen knife we have to keep in mind she was she was stabbed in the
00:14:56
kitchen she was found in the kitchen mm whatever went down went down in the kitchen and so did she in fact run and
00:15:04
grab the knife and then the knife was used against her was pulled from her by her then attacker right the other thing
00:15:12
though that makes me wonder about is what would be the motive for that to me there's only really two reasons to break
00:15:19
into that home or to want to be in that home one would be for rape or sexual assault of the victim and there was none
00:15:27
and there was none found to be by the corner or to you know some form of robbery which it doesn't appear that
00:15:35
that was what went down and again I think what we're going to find here is some loose evidence to suggest that the
00:15:45
killer may have remained in the home for a portion of time meaning he didn't kill
00:15:50
her and flee the scene why we know that right away because of the fingerprints being wiped away mhm being wiped away
00:15:58
way and so that's but anybody at that time that read any murder mystery or knew anything about crimes at all might wipe
00:16:09
down the the weapon correct I I get that but at the same time Captain what I'm getting at is if if she was were to be
00:16:20
if this was an unplanned murder that went down during the course of the attempt of committing another crime mhm
00:16:27
often often we see a very high probability that the individual fle the scene quickly after the attack on the on
00:16:35
the victim right the other one uh which is also very possible is known attacker okay and this does not necessarily mean
00:16:44
that she knew the attacker extremely well or had been intimate with this person um but I think what this goes to
00:16:53
and where this leads to be maybe the most probable is the fact that there is no sign of forced entry into the home
00:17:00
one and two when she goes back to the phone and tells her friend hey you know somebody's here I'm going to have to
00:17:07
call you back she doesn't seem to be threatened by this person one and two she doesn't seem to not know you know
00:17:15
what I mean it it seems I think there would be different words that would be had if she did not know this person
00:17:22
right I mean just look look and it has nothing to do with True Crime it has nothing to do with True Crime garage but
00:17:28
if I'm in a conversation too long with somebody that was standing at my front door it's it's a little strange I find
00:17:36
it a little odd you're a talker though okay but regardless it it seems to me if if somebody's there there there's a
00:17:43
reason for them to be there there's a reason why we are engaged in that conversation and nine times out of 10 it
00:17:49
can either go down it should go down very quickly so let's get into this a little
00:17:56
bit because there are some people that have become suspects over the years okay we've already gone through her brother
00:18:06
and I don't think there's any reason to discuss him anymore yes there are questions about his death was it an
00:18:14
accident was he murdered it looks to be an accident but there were some individuals that were investigated
00:18:21
throughout the years well the okay I'm just I want to bring this up about the about Sha's death mhm is it's as simple
00:18:29
as a faulty uh switch on a power washer now I don't know much about these investigations but I'm assuming that
00:18:40
technology has advanced a lot further mhm now in investigating arson or any type of fire that we would know for sure
00:18:51
if that faulty um switch had anything to do with the fire we know that now but back then
00:18:59
I just wonder as they're doing the investigation they figure out there's a faulty switch on this power washer but
00:19:05
that might not have had anything to do with the fire just that information could change the whole perspective on
00:19:14
Sea's death for me right so sticking to the thought and theory of the murderer being someone that was known to Holly
00:19:23
right was all right let's get into this it's a little more specific here okay there is a thought and there has been an
00:19:31
existing rumor that Holly was supposedly into older men as well as guys her own age now some believe that she was
00:19:40
possibly seeing an older man his name being George Wilson so this is how this story goes after Holly's murder
00:19:49
detectives went through her diary trying to find anything of relevance they kept finding mention of
00:19:56
someone listed as simply 30 the number 30 30 so someone listed under the possible code name of 30 some of Holly's
00:20:06
friends told police that 30 was George Wilson a local guy who was 30 years old at that time this put him on the suspect
00:20:16
list so was George married okay my notes Here don't indicate that he was I seem to recall seeing something that he was
00:20:25
married but again in all honesty I don't have that information here or either it
00:20:30
wasn't provided okay but here's what I want to be very clear about regarding George
00:20:37
Wilson we don't know what the extent of any possible relationship being the relationship is completely unknown this
00:20:48
was a code name taken from a girl's diary her friends could have the code name wrong you know so we don't even
00:20:56
know if in fact they could but it's highly unlikely I I believe I mean if she's saying hey I'm if she's writing about
00:21:05
this guy multiple times in a journal she's calling him 30 you ask multiple friends who's this
00:21:12
30 they say it's George I get that no I totally get what you're saying but I I want to make sure that we include that
00:21:19
in all fairness to George Wilson right okay first of all we don't know for certain that 30 meant George Wilson all
00:21:28
have to go off of is a couple girls that were friends of her saying that could have meant George Wilson or that did
00:21:34
mean George Wilson well we also don't know the details of the journal either that's what I'm saying as far as the
00:21:41
public goes we we don't know the details of the journal and we don't know the details of the relationship with this
00:21:47
person referred to as 30 as far as we know Captain it could be as something as innocent as she liked this guy and he
00:21:57
didn't return He he didn't have the same feelings right you know maybe she flirted with him on several occasions
00:22:02
and mentioned that in her diary but he never he never pursued a relationship with her or had no interest in it and or
00:22:11
it could be the exact opposite it could be a fullon relationship between her and
00:22:16
this person named 30 the thing that I could find though and I don't have the full details of this information but it
00:22:23
seems that The Alibi for Mr Wilson was confirmed that that information was vetted and it checks out plus we also
00:22:33
have to keep in mind there does not seem to be any physical evidence tying him to
00:22:39
the murder scene well the father would have this journal so it's like I think if you're trying to get answers
00:22:46
especially this many years later he could release some of the P passages in this journal mhm so we can get clearer
00:22:55
vision of what was going on in in her life at the time unless once he provided that to police they have kept the
00:23:03
journal all of these years true and but if they did have a relationship then you
00:23:08
also have to look at anybody else George was in a relationship with and would this be a murder over jealousy or hey
00:23:15
you need to stop seeing my husband you know that's a possibility too just I mean hypothetically his wife comes over
00:23:24
knocks on the door to tell this girl hey leave my husband alone conversation escalates maybe you know Holly's saying
00:23:34
I'm not going to leave him alone and then there's attack cuz I mean this is a this is definitely a crime of passion I
00:23:42
believe 100% we'll get back to this case right after this quick beer [Music] [Applause]
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[Music] today all right cheers cheers to you captain now staying on the thought that the
00:26:04
possibility of the murder being known to our victim Holly branagan we have to go
00:26:10
into a slightly different Theory okay this is someone still known to her but somebody much different than George
00:26:17
Wilson and for this we need to introduce a guy named David eldringham okay he was a little bit
00:26:24
older than Holly everything I could find it seems like Dave was the same age as her older brother Shawn and that the two
00:26:31
of them had actually been friends or at least friendly with one another okay and
00:26:36
I've also been told that the eltringham family was friends with the Brans or at least again knew each other and were
00:26:45
friendly right so Sydney eltringham is David's father he was a professor at Northampton college so a professional
00:26:54
man but a guy with a bad reput a nonetheless and we'll get into that now according to
00:27:02
police Holly was sexually active 3 days prior to her murder the autopsy showed this I'm not really sure how they come
00:27:11
up with that um that she was sexually active 3 days prior to her murder but that's the information that I've found
00:27:19
out there all right so where are you going with this well under this theory in the days before her murder Holly had
00:27:26
told a few people that she was pregnant now the autopsy showed that she was not pregnant but right we have a couple of
00:27:34
different situations here one she could have just been saying that or two she may have had sex with somebody and
00:27:42
thought that there was a possibility that she was pregnant or going to be pregnant right and let's keep in check
00:27:49
that she's a she's a junior in high school so word of this under this Theory word of this started getting around and
00:27:57
and it seems that she was sleeping with David eldringham okay right wait this is
00:28:04
the David's the same age as her brother right a little bit older than her and may have been friends with her brother
00:28:11
Shawn at one point they may not have been officially dating but according to this Theory the two of them had some
00:28:19
type of relationship together the following is a mix of facts police Theory and testimony from the people
00:28:27
Holly had spoken to before her murder and I'm going to kind of take you through how this Theory works out minute
00:28:33
by minute on the night that she was killed Holly and her friends plan to go get pizza that's a fact we know that
00:28:40
that was going to happen at 600 p.m. Holly is on the phone with a friend between 4:30 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. during
00:28:48
this call the doorbell rings Holly then implicates to her friend who is at the door and tells her she'll be back she'll
00:28:57
call back by that what I mean is one of the following either Holly literally says the name of the person she thinks
00:29:07
is at the door or is at the door right or says something along the lines of it's him or there's a man at the door
00:29:17
right this could either imply that it was someone she was expecting or imply that Holly knew who it was from
00:29:25
something as simple as recognizing a car possibly outside of her home law enforcement has never announced publicly
00:29:34
who she said or who she believed was at the door however there are statements Captain out there that law enforcement
00:29:44
seems to believe that there was that she said something that implicated that there was a man at the door that the the
00:29:50
person at the door was male right so the initial report that we said was when she's on the phone with her friend she
00:29:56
said someone's at at the door but but we have reason to believe that there was more information given correct what
00:30:02
you're saying correct that there was one statement that was given to the public and another statement that was given or
00:30:08
kept by police and law enforcement right that would make sense though because if
00:30:12
that's a very strong lead then you don't want to show your hand right so continuing on Holly hangs up the phone
00:30:20
and goes to answer the door M the theory says that it's Sydney at the door David's father
00:30:28
I've straight up asked this question because I've wondered why the police seem to think it's Sydney more so than
00:30:35
David it seems to me almost like David would have more reason to be there than Sydney correct and what I've been told
00:30:42
is that something that Holly said to her friend or something that was later witnessed has led law enforcement to
00:30:52
believe that it was in fact Sydney at the home and not his son David very interesting apparently under this Theory
00:31:00
Sydney is there and he's confronting her about her being pregnant or the possibility of her being pregnant right
00:31:07
right cuz cuz if she's pregnant his son's life is over well it's it's at least going to change and in his mind it
00:31:15
might be over right that's what I mean and so he's confronting her about being pregnant and the thought is that he's
00:31:22
trying to talk her into getting an abortion mhm he is worried that dve is going to drop out of college because of
00:31:29
this pregnancy mhm so during her talk with Sydney Holly decides to call her father's office but is told by the
00:31:38
receptionist that her father already left for his meeting in Atlantic City so okay so maybe he's like call your father
00:31:48
I want to talk to your father right possibly okay well but two things could happen under this situation yeah so one
00:31:56
let's say the information that we saw is correct and the families did know each other okay once he's talking to Holly
00:32:04
and he's not getting he's not talking any sense into her let's say from what he wants to have happen then he's like
00:32:12
okay well maybe we should get your father here and continue this conversation with your father so she
00:32:16
makes the phone call or you have the other thing of maybe this guy's a little bit of an angry dude and he's a Loose
00:32:25
Cannon and he's starting to show signs that he getting angry he's raising his voice the conversation's not going the
00:32:30
way he wants to so Holly decides to call her father can we can we dive into this
00:32:37
guy's character a little bit more yes so we we will let let let me cycle Circle back to that okay CU I mean you'd think
00:32:43
like if it's a respectable father that they're just going to come in and maybe they just have questions hey I heard
00:32:49
there's this rumor that you're you're pregnant is that true is there anything we can do to help you know what I mean
00:32:56
like when you think of a a normal caring father what they possibly would do right
00:33:04
100% that may be why Holly let him inside to the home to have that conversation and as I mentioned this guy
00:33:12
is a professor at a college so he's a professional man and even though we're going to see that he does have a
00:33:19
reputation the thing is for to be a professor regardless of your reputation regardless of who you actually are
00:33:27
to be a professor professor excuse me you have to at least be able to carry yourself in a certain way for a certain
00:33:35
number of hours each day day after day after day right it's not that many though okay I'm just going to bring this
00:33:41
point up because it would be a lot easier for you to be an alcoholic Professor than it would be for you to be
00:33:49
an alcoholic third grade teacher because you know a third grade teacher is going
00:33:53
to get there in the morning and they're there from let's say 8 to three or whatever where a professor is going to
00:33:59
have constantly has a lot of different hours and then the hours that they're not teaching they're in their office but
00:34:07
it's a lot less hours than most teaching professions does that no I get what you're saying I'm saying this is a guy
00:34:14
that's been able to hold a professional job um where he would be scrutinized by supervisors and and other people uh his
00:34:23
peers throughout the years well I'm just basing the off of I had a professor that
00:34:30
was a cokehead and it took I don't know over 10 years over 15 years for them to find reason to fire him MH that
00:34:41
that's all I'm saying at some point during this conversation between Holly and Sydney it gets increasingly heated
00:34:49
this was a man with a short fuse there's there's a door that leads outside in the
00:34:55
kitchen and it's theorized that that's where Holly either tells this person to leave who then picks up a kitchen knife
00:35:03
or she is attempting to leave through this door and he picks up a kitchen knife and stabs her um out of rage and
00:35:12
as we know it was truly a be a brutal attack with the edge of the knife snapping off in Holly's back she
00:35:20
stabbed 15 to 18 times they're deep fatal cuts and she has a few other injuries that are considered to be
00:35:29
defensive wounds or mind you this if she's attacked attacked 100% from behind and Falls hard to the ground to the
00:35:37
floor those what might be thought of as defensive wounds could be her falling to
00:35:43
the floor at this point Holly would be dead and Sydney is a family friend let's say he knows their mom has passed away
00:35:53
and from the phone call he may know that the father is in another city MH that he's already
00:36:00
out of town so this may lead him to believe or have reason to believe that he has ample time to clean up the scene
00:36:09
to wipe off his fingerprints and to pick up any evidence that he may have left at
00:36:14
this scene and he does so well and if somebody comes in on him he could just be like I found her MH I stopped by for
00:36:23
whatever reason I found her you I mean if you're a family friend right but you're you're still G to have a lot of
00:36:29
questions to answer if you're there alone with a murdered girl no I understand that I'm just saying that
00:36:35
that would be a plausible explanation somebody has to find her let's go through this because this part is pretty
00:36:42
interesting here so the same friend same friend that had uh was on the phone before tries to call back and is
00:36:51
receiving the Busy Signal okay mhm the house phone stays off the hook until is discovered the next day so anybody
00:37:00
calling during that time is going to get a busy signal I actually think that there there's some people that theorize
00:37:07
that the phone remained off the hook the entire time that remember she was on the
00:37:13
phone in her her bedroom and then she ends up picking up the kitchen phone to say hey I'm going to have to call you
00:37:19
back and for some reason she failed to ever return to her bedroom and hang up that phone there's nothing released
00:37:27
publicly from law enforcement to suggest that the that her bedroom phone remained
00:37:33
off the hook the reason why you're getting the busy signal is because we do know from the crime scene report that
00:37:40
the kitchen phone was off of the hook right there's a chance that she was attacked and killed in the kitchen and
00:37:47
then the killer decided for whatever reason maybe to have her body go undetected for a
00:37:55
further amount of time I'll just take the phone off the hook people people might call and think oh
00:38:01
well she's home or somebody's home everything must be fine because somebody's talking on the phone right or
00:38:07
or just didn't think about it and took off so then remember we have the friend that shows up her friend Sally goes to
00:38:14
pick her up to go out for pizza around 6 maybe as late as 6:30 but they believe it to be about 6:00 she goes no one
00:38:23
answers the door so she decides to go around to the back of the house and try the kitchen door but gets a quote weird
00:38:30
feeling endquote and leaves without going up the stairs or going and knocking on the back door mhm so while
00:38:38
publicly the publicly known statement of Sally having a magical weird feeling has
00:38:44
been told that kept her away from the house there's a chance that that is not true that there was no magical weird
00:38:54
feeling there's a chance under this Theory and what this Theory believes is that she saw something something that
00:39:02
made her want to leave the house now some say that she could have seen a car in front of the house and some people
00:39:10
say that maybe once she went to the back of the house that she saw a person moving inside of the home so the car
00:39:19
under this Theory would have to belong to the eltringham so she could have thought one of two things either the car
00:39:27
was there because David who has some kind of relationship with Holly is inside and she doesn't want to disrupt
00:39:34
anything you know her her friends in there with her guy right or a little Oinky boinky or she sees the eltringham
00:39:44
car in the front of the house goes around to the back and the person that she sees through the window is not David
00:39:52
mhm she may not even recognize this person she may just say it was an older man right so basically the police have
00:40:00
two witnesses an eyewitness possible eyewitness and an earwitness and the thought of this theory is that those two
00:40:09
between those two at least one of them or both of them can put Sydney there that day around the time that Holly was
00:40:17
killed so there's possibly some evidence that puts Sydney at the crime scene but
00:40:22
is there anything other than that would that would make us believe he's even capable of a crime like this me he is a
00:40:29
college professor to be perfectly honest with you there's no strong indicators that would say this guy is likely to
00:40:37
commit murder or to have been involved in Holly's murder other than just that kind of mixmash of what I just gave you
00:40:45
of facts and Theory police theory that does include some testimony uh regarding Sydney in that whole Theory now earlier
00:40:54
you asked about his background while I couldn't find anything 100% definitive as far as his police records
00:41:02
go I could find stories to indicate that he was had some run-ins with the law let's say Okay um one of these sto
00:41:13
stories refers to multiple times that the police were called to their home over the years and it's beli that these
00:41:21
were for calls of domestic disturbance now what the specifics of that would be is not known okay yeah this is also
00:41:29
before the days of police showing up to houses and if there is any sign of injury that they take somebody away
00:41:36
right this is back in the day where if somebody's not going to press charges they're not going to do anything correct
00:41:41
now we do have one instance of Sydney who was arrested for assaulting a police officer by running into him with his car
00:41:51
and the way that this story works is this the police showed up to the elram home and when he arrived there the
00:42:00
police officer arrived there he parked his car behind Sydney's car in the driveway he goes out and he's trying to
00:42:08
confront cydney who does not want to speak to the officer Sydney tells the officer repeatedly to move his vehicle
00:42:15
so he can leave the property and his vehicle MH the officer refuses to do so because he wants to speak with him right
00:42:23
Sydney gets in his car and decid Ides to go through his yard to get out of you know out onto the street and drive off
00:42:33
when this happens is when he runs into the officer with his car I'm assuming here captain that it's one of those
00:42:41
situations where as soon as the officer realizes what Sydney's doing he thought I could jump in front of the vehicle and
00:42:48
and this is a sane man this is a college professor this is someone that would stop their vehicle and apparently no
00:42:56
that's that's not who this guy was at least in that moment according to this story he said oh smart move copper
00:43:04
you're going to beat my car yeah really the the here's a very weird story and this is that Sydney attended the
00:43:12
American detective School in Bethlehem to get a private investigator's license apparently he was working to solve
00:43:22
Holly's murder and going around town questioning people trying to collect information M so very weird stuff here
00:43:30
it's not that weird I mean um let's just let's just for a second assume he's innocent and he's never been convicted
00:43:37
of this murder you know so we we we got to air on we should assume that he's right you're you're right I'm sorry but
00:43:44
if you're in a small town this girl that you know family friend let's just assume
00:43:50
that's correct but a lot of people are pointing the finger at you and a lot of the suspicion is being pointed pointed
00:43:56
at you the best way to if you're an innocent person to get that suspicion off of you is to solve that case right
00:44:05
maybe he thought he was smart enough to do so and I want to be 100% clear when we you know when people think about this
00:44:13
Sydney individual does he look like a good suspect yes if you can believe in that theory first of all second of all
00:44:22
what makes him a good suspect is that it is hearsay it is 100% hearsay right these two witnesses the girl on the
00:44:30
phone and the girl that showed up at Holly's house saw something or were told something that indicate that Sydney was
00:44:38
the man at the home around the time of her murder right and what I mean by here say it's things that police within the
00:44:46
last handful of years so not not guys that worked the crime the day that it happened not guys that worked the murder
00:44:54
case and investigation Within months of the murder these are a lot of Cold Case detectives these are a lot of
00:45:00
individuals that were able to review the case File they have told individuals that they believe Sydney is the guy or
00:45:10
that it's tied to Sydney and some fashion now we do know this though Sydney eltringham was brought in front
00:45:17
of a grand jury several times over the years and as recently as 2010 and it seems that they law
00:45:26
enforcement have people to place him there but very little physical evidence and thus were unable to bring him to an
00:45:34
actual trial Sydney was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and it spread rapidly he knew he was dying the lead
00:45:43
investigator at the time Tom Galloway went to visit Sydney at the hospital many times but Sydney and his wife
00:45:52
refused to let him in on all occasions Sydney died on February 12th 2016 his son David eldringham does not
00:46:02
want to talk about holl's murder case and some to this day say that it's just a well-kept family secret now Captain I
00:46:11
tell you what chicken butt the cases we cover here always remind me of one very important thing and that is to enjoy
00:46:20
life and enjoy it with the family and friends that you have in love this story this case especially points out that we
00:46:29
should always appreciate the time spent with loved ones because you never know when they will be gone researching this
00:46:37
case several times I found my mind slipping away and trying to put myself in the shoes of Richard branagan a man
00:46:44
who had to go out on the road often leaving his family at home for sometimes several days at a time but working very
00:46:53
hard to provide for his family and then in the period of just three years they are all gone between 1976 and 1979
00:47:04
Richard lost his wife from illness his daughter from murder and his son in a tragic accident so from a family of four
00:47:13
to just one solo voice One Voice looking for justice Richard branagan remarried and shared in the lives of his new
00:47:22
wife's children and grandchildren Richard lived in the house where his daughter was killed until he was well
00:47:29
into his '90s and then relocated to an assisted living facility as of this day Captain it is very sad that her father
00:47:38
is dead and there is no one left in her family to push this investigation [Music]
00:47:52
further all right thanks for listening make sure you tell your friends make sure you tell your mother if you want to
00:48:00
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00:48:31
off the Record and on this week's episode we covered the updates of the Molly Tippets case so you want to check
00:48:37
that out thank you Captain everybody out there have a good holiday you too as well captain and be good be kind and
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