00:00:41
Welcome to True Crime Garage. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, thanks for listening. I'm your host Nick and
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with me as always is a man whose baloney has a first name, it's O S C A R. He is
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the Captain. Yeah, your baloney has a first name, it's T U R D. Thanks for listening,
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And that is enough of the business. All right, everybody gather around, grab a chair, grab a beer.
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Let's talk some true crime. K C R G T V 9's Jillian Petrus joins us now. Jillian, you were in Evansdale for
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today's news conference. Not a lot of new information that came out for today, but the main theme going into Monday is
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that this case is now being treated as an abduction. It is, Chris. And authorities say they have hard, strong
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evidence and gives them reason to believe that the girls were taken and that they are still alive. But the FBI
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cannot say much more beyond that information. What the FBI is saying is every little detail counts. That's why
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investigators are asking for anyone who visited Myers Lake on Friday the 13th before 3:00 in the afternoon to contact
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police. Even if you think you didn't see anything, what you think you don't know
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might end up bringing these girls home. Investigators say they need to know everything that happened near Myers Lake
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before 3:00 p.m. on Friday the 13th. Even if you think that you don't have any information that's important to this
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case, investigators want to talk to you. Federal authorities tell us a man recently told them he caught a glimpse
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of the girls' bikes while jogging around the lake. He didn't see the girls, but the information helped narrow down a
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timeline for their disappearance. He was able to pinpoint the time of the day that he saw the bikes. Small details
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of the like this are really important to the investigation. We're told authorities don't want people to feel
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like they're bothering investigators. They tell us they are well equipped to handle the search.
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There is enough manpower to cover all the the tips which may lead to good leads or good information. The tip lines
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are reportedly receiving several calls an hour about the missing girls. Investigators say they need the phones
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to keep ringing. Someone may have been out there taking pictures of, you know, bird watching or something and they may
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not think that's relevant, but we just ask for them to call and and we can talk to them. As for specific details
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surrounding the investigation, I can't answer that. I can't comment. answer that.
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I can't answer that. Right. And I I can't answer that. All authorities can tell us is they feel
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confident the girls are alive and to not give up hope for a safe return. Some of the details the investigators
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could not tell us involved questions surrounding the families, whether or not they have any suspects, or if any search
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warrants have been issued. And of course, they could not share with us what information is leading them to
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believe these girls are still alive. All of this, authorities say, might hurt their investigation.
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In the summer of 2012, Elizabeth Collins lived with her parents and siblings in Evansdale, Iowa. This is a small
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Midwestern town of 4,700 residents that is a suburb of the much larger Waterloo-Cedar Falls metropolitan area.
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Evansdale is a blue-collar town. Many residents are involved in agriculture production in some manner. Elizabeth
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attended Pointer Elementary and was described by her mother as a bubbly little person who was always active and
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busy. She was 8 years old and loved girly stuff, like having her nails done, but
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also playing softball and hockey and riding her bike. One of her best friends was her cousin,
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Lyric Cook, aged 10, who lived just minutes away in Waterloo. Lyric went to Kingsley Elementary and
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also was a very active, outgoing girl who loved bowling, cheerleading, gymnastics, and just being outside in
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general. Well, it's great when one of your best friends can be a family member as well,
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and their mothers are sisters. That's correct. We have Lyric and Elizabeth's mothers are Misty Cook and Heather
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Collins. And Heather and her husband Drew Collins, they seem to be like your very
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typical American family. They're hard-working people, religious. Their parents just raising a bunch of
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children, really. And Heather had her hands full as they had several young kids, but she also had
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some undisclosed health issues around this time as well. So, her mother Wilma would come over for about 4 or 5 hours
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almost daily to help out around the house and help with the children. Heather's sister Misty was also married
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to a man named Dan Morrissey, but in 2012, Misty and Dan were estranged and had been separated for years. In fact,
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Dan was out on bail pending trial for four separate criminal cases this from 2011
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which included assaulting Misty and significant drug charges including manufacturing meth. Yeah, he's a real
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winner winner chicken dinner. He's Yeah. Well, he went into the meth manufacturing industry.
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Now, Misty back in 2003, she got into trouble as well. This for drug charges to which she pled guilty
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and was released in 2006. In July of 2012, when our story takes place, she was still on federal
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supervised release at that time. Misty and Dan's daughter Lyric lived with Misty and Heather's mom, Wilma
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Cook. So, Wilma Cook, grandma, is helping out quite a bit uh with both families.
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Lyric lived in Waterloo at Wilma's house. And Wilma had permanent custody of Lyric. Lyric and her cousin Elizabeth
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played together nearly every day. Now, keep in mind, because she's living with grandmother, grandmother's going over to
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help out at her cousin's house almost daily, she brings her along, the cousins all play together. Right, but it's also
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a way to help her out. Yeah. So, on Friday the 13th, this is July 13th, 2012, Misty Cook-Morrissey
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was staying with her mom, Wilma, and her daughter, Lyric, in Waterloo. She left for work that day at 8:30 a.m. This was
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a new job at a gas station/convenience store called Casey's. And it sounds to me, Captain, like
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Casey's was a popular chain with several locations. Misty worked at one which was about 2
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miles away from the Collins's house in Evansdale. So, keep in mind, she's not very far away when we're talking about
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being gone at work. Now, after Misty left, Wilma took Lyric over to the Collins's house. Both Heather and Drew
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Collins were going to be gone for the day, so Grandma Wilma was going to be watching the kids and brought Lyric with
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her as usual. Lyric and Elizabeth set off around 11:30 a.m. for a bike ride. Now, this was something that they
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typically did. I mean, this was very routine stuff here. And the girls were expected to stay within a short distance
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of the house. They're unsupervised, but they're not to be venturing off very far
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from the home. Right. Although it does not seem that there were any like real specific rules, it's just kind of these
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understood rules from Grandma to to the grandkids. They always stayed, according to Grandma
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and the parents, the kids always stayed within yelling distance and would check in about every 15 minutes or so.
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People are probably thinking back to their neighborhoods growing up. I remember I thought it was neat One of my
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neighbors growing up, they had like what I would call a dinner bell, but you know, they didn't use it just
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for dinner, but anytime the kids were out playing, they wouldn't shout for them. They would ring the bell and the
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kids would come in. Mhm. This situation, Lyric and Elizabeth, if grandma or mom or dad came outside, they're out on
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their bikes, keep in mind, they're supposed to be within yelling distance. You shout their
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names, boom, they come riding right back to the house. Often Elizabeth's older brother, his name is Kelly. He was 12 at
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this time. He would typically go with them, but not on this day. And at some point, Heather returned to
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the house. The exact timing of this is in dispute. In some interviews, Heather says it was around noon, but Wilma has
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said that Heather came home closer to 12:30. So, a discrepancy in time, but they're not
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they're not off big time there. So, almost an hour after the girls left. Correct. It has been reported
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consistently that Wilma told police that she saw the girls zipping by on their bikes around
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12:15, and that Heather was not home at this time or had not returned to the house at
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that time. So, by this timeline, the girls were last seen by a family member at 12:15,
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and Heather arrived home shortly after that. The girls were to be back at the house
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shortly after Heather had returned. So, for argument's sake, Captain, we're going to say
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like 12:30 to 1:00 p.m.-ish is when the girls were were to return to the house. Mhm.
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So, at 1:00 p.m.-ish, Heather set out with her older son, remember this is Kelly, the 12-year-old,
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to scout the area. They were looking for the girls to tell them, "Hey, it's time
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to come home." But he returned home reporting that he could not find them anywhere.
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And at this point, Drew stopped home, the the father, which he often did during his work day.
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You know, he would come home maybe for lunch. Mhm. Heather told him that she was going out to look for the girls.
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And she got in her car, this is at 1:20 p.m. and started driving around the neighborhood.
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By 2:00 p.m., we have five adult family members all out looking for these two girls.
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So, very quick to react. Misty, Lyric's mother, says Wilma called her at work around 2:00 p.m. to tell her
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that they could not find the two girls. Misty called her ex, Dan Morrissey, who was living in Waterloo. Dan and his
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mother and his 15-year-old son, they all drove to Evansdale to help look for the
00:14:24
girls. So, now we got a small army of people looking for the girls. Misty left work and went over to her
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sister's house. Remember, it's just a short distance away. By 2:30, all of these adults and some children
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are all out driving all over Evansdale looking for the two girls. At some point, somehow, they ended up at
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this place called Myers Lake. This was around 2:45. They started asking people whether they
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had seen two little girls on bikes. One man walking on the trail told them he did see two little girls on bikes
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going west on the bike trail. But, the time was unclear. He, you know, I saw them. I don't know
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exactly what time I saw them. Meanwhile, Heather went to the Evansdale Police Department. Most reports have the time
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of her in-person visit to the Evansdale Police Department at 2:48 p.m. According to the Waterloo-Cedar
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Falls Courier, which we relied on extensively for research on this case, quote, "Within
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minutes of authorities learning of the disappearance of Lyric Cook Morrissey and Elizabeth Collins, three Evansdale
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squad cars were scouring the area and checking the home. Within half an hour, the search
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mushroomed with four Black Hawk Sheriff's deputies and Evansdale firefighters joining in on the efforts."
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And now, you might have noticed in there that they said "checking the home." And
00:16:01
that might sound weird to some people, but you would be shocked how often a child is reported missing and then they
00:16:08
find the kid inside the home. Mhm. You know, the kid is hiding, the kid fell asleep somewhere, and you just you
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thought they were outside and overlooked them. It can be embarrassing, but obviously,
00:16:20
that's what you want to happen when you call and you're begging for help because
00:16:23
you can't find your children. You want some stupid answer to be the solution to the problem. That is not the case here.
00:16:30
Well, sometimes kids want to hide to scare their family. Oh, we'll we'll hide and we'll be in the closet and then when
00:16:37
they call for us, oh, just don't come. Well, there's some bad news here, Captain, because around 4:00 p.m.,
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a firefighter found the girls' bikes. They This is a bad sign, lying on the Evansdale Nature Trail at Myers Lake.
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Mhm. The bikes were lying on the paved bike trail at the far southeastern corner of the lake. Now, Myers Lake
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covers 27 acres with water and is about 25 ft deep at its deepest parts. The lake is a major recreation area for
00:17:16
the people of Evansdale. It is stocked with fish. It has a boat ramp. There's bathrooms there, a playground, picnic
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areas, grills, that paved bike path that we talked about. The paved bike bike path
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winds its way around 3/4 of the way around the lake. So, this is a fairly big bike path, right?
00:17:39
A little bit of a discussion about geography, I think is in order here. The Collinses lived at 166
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Braven Boulevard in Evansdale. The distance from the Collinses' house on on Braven Boulevard to Myers Lake is
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only 1.5 miles. The Evansdale Nature Trail, on which the girls' bikes were found, starts at
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Lafayette Road in downtown Evansdale. This is just a block away from the Collinses' house.
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Right. The trail then runs south, past the skate park, and crosses Arbutus Avenue.
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Then the trail turns west through a short wooded area and leads to Myers Lake. The trail follows the southern shore of
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the lake, and as said, runs 3/4 of a of the way around the lake. So, on a map, this portion of the trail would look
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like a like a sideways U. Ending at Elmer Avenue on the lake's north side. There is an offshoot of the trail that
00:18:50
goes straight north and then connects with Gilbert Avenue right near the Advance Automotive Store. The the trail
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then runs back east along Gilbert Drive and reconnects up with the north/south portion of the trail through downtown.
00:19:05
I know that sounds all very confusing to listen to and kind of go through. There
00:19:10
are maps that are regularly available on if you a simple Google search use with our two victims names and if you just
00:19:20
type in map with that it will bring it up and it will also the maps that I saw clearly indicate where
00:19:28
their home is as well as where the bikes were found. Just like we pointed out in the Delphi
00:19:35
case because of where those bodies were found the Monon High Bridge area the recreation area. I think it's very
00:19:43
important if you want to have a clear understanding of this case and maybe the possible theories
00:19:49
or outcomes that that you take a look at these at this map. But what you're saying is that this path goes through
00:19:58
town. It's not secluded from town. Right. So most of the locations of this trail
00:20:06
you would expect to see other people there. You know, Myers Lake is heavily trafficked. There's lots of people in
00:20:12
and out of there all the time. It's a big recreational area. The trail as you just said Captain does go through town.
00:20:19
I did want to point out how close one portion of the trail is to the Collins's home.
00:20:25
Because the argument here is where the bikes were found is a distance away from the home that
00:20:33
the parents said they they would have never the girls would have never have gone there. They never had known them to
00:20:38
go there to travel that far or to even travel to Myers Lake. Now could they have? Every day these kids are getting
00:20:45
older they get a little more adventurous. Certainly. But the parents really questioned
00:20:50
why and how the bikes were found in this area. So there are a few areas along the trail
00:20:57
where a vehicle could park close to the trail. There are some areas that are wooded. So there are a couple of
00:21:05
secluded spots along the way. The girls' bikes were found on Evansdale on the nature trail right at the
00:21:12
southeastern tip of the lake along a line of chain-link fence. This portion of the trail runs near I-380.
00:21:23
So, this is a major roadway. Mhm. But, from my understanding and in the way that it appears to me on the map,
00:21:29
Captain, it would be difficult for somebody to park alongside I-380, venture up to
00:21:36
where the bikes were found, snatch the girls, and then bring them back to their vehicle. That would be very difficult.
00:21:43
There was a hole in this chain-link fence. You don't have to get out of the car.
00:21:48
You just have You have to get the victims to come closer to the car. That would That would be true. I don't know
00:21:55
why the girls would venture beyond that chain-link fence down to a major roadway. It just doesn't seem like it
00:22:01
I'm not saying it couldn't happen. It doesn't seem like a likely scenario. We also don't have anybody coming forward
00:22:07
saying, "Hey, I saw a vehicle parked on the side of I-380." Mhm. What is interesting though, this area where the
00:22:14
bikes were found is right by a maintenance gate that leads to a water outlet on the lake. This gate is not a
00:22:23
locked gate. Photos show that this area of the paved nature trail is straight with the fence
00:22:30
on both sides, and the trees are overhead. It has like almost like a a tunnel appearance.
00:22:36
According to the girls' family, the bikes were about 12 ft from the edge of the water on the trail. And
00:22:44
investigators also found Elizabeth's purple purse and cell phone. Now, note this phone did not have service. It was
00:22:51
just It was a real cell phone, but she just used it for like games and to play on.
00:22:56
Right. The purse and cell phone were thrown over the fence onto the lakeside. Now, here's how it was described on
00:23:06
Nancy Grace's show by her reporter Jim Spellman. He says, "It's a densely wooded area
00:23:13
with freeway on one side, a fence, which he says is a pretty tall fence, then the bike path, then another fence,
00:23:22
and then the water. The girls' bikes were found on the bike path between the two fences, and the purse was found on
00:23:30
the lakeside of the trail between the fence and the shoreline." Mhm. So, that's where the big question is,
00:23:37
what were the girls' bikes doing by Myers Lake, anyway? As we pointed out, this is not exactly
00:23:44
close to their home. Well, the big cause for concern for me is we got you got these missing girls,
00:23:49
but it's not just the bikes. If we have the bikes somewhere, you go, "Okay, well, maybe they ran into somebody,
00:23:55
somebody stole the bikes, or maybe they left the bikes behind, they went somewhere else."
00:24:00
But right when you see that purse and that cell phone, even though, like you said, it's not a working cell phone, you
00:24:05
go, "Okay, that's that's cause for alarm." Yeah, this is this is not something that
00:24:10
the girls would have ditched, even if they would have ditched their bikes for some reason, which would be strange. But
00:24:15
to get rid of the purse in the this cell phone Mhm. seems not likely at all. Now, this lake is not a swimming lake. I
00:24:25
do want to point that out because there the first suspicion by law enforcement and by firefighters
00:24:32
was because of where the bikes were found, maybe these girls drowned in the lake.
00:24:38
The parents were quick to point out, "Look, both of them can swim and swim very well." Right.
00:24:43
They agreed that, of course, yeah, we got to we got to check this out, but they kept pointing out they didn't seem
00:24:49
to think that that would be very likely. And then you take that a step further, if there was some type of accident and
00:24:55
one of them drowned, that's one person. We we we have two missing children here.
00:25:00
So, there's no sign of the girls. There's no sign of the clothing that they were wearing at the time including
00:25:08
their shoes. All of this is missing. So, that's the another thing that the family points out that they would expect
00:25:14
to see the shoes of these girls near the shoreline had they chose to get in the water for some reason. Well, I'm back to
00:25:21
the purse though. If if you were meeting up with somebody you knew or got into a
00:25:27
car with somebody you knew, you would take your purse. True. And the other thing that that
00:25:32
really scares me is the it always scares me with the leaving of the bikes because
00:25:37
I just think back to my childhood, that's not something that I would have done. I was always worried somebody was going
00:25:43
to take my bike. So, I I feel like if you're out and about and your kids most of the time you're going to use that
00:25:49
bike to get yourself around. When you have a My Little Pony bike that's mint, I mean you're going to be
00:25:55
nervous that somebody's going to steal it. This is all stuff that was reported in the newspaper. So, other than the
00:26:02
bikes, the purse, and the phone that was all found at this location, if anything else was located there by
00:26:09
police or firefighters it has never been disclosed to the public. The following timeline was provided to
00:26:15
the media by Kent Smock who at the time was the police chief of Evansdale. He says by 4:40 p.m. on Friday the 13th
00:26:24
emergency calls went out to Evansdale residents to notify them of the missing girls.
00:26:30
Officers began canvassing the lake neighborhoods and the media was notified by 5:30 p.m.
00:26:39
Boats were put into the water on Myers Lake to begin scanning the surface and divers with a local search and rescue
00:26:45
organization were called in to search the lake. Surrounding city police and firefighters, Black Hawk County
00:26:53
Sheriff's deputies, and Iowa State police joined Evansdale PD in searching wooded areas.
00:27:00
A plane with special infrared was brought into search from the air, and the National Center for Missing and
00:27:07
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for $10 off. All right, we're back. Cheers. Cheers to you, Mr. Captain. Mhm. The National
00:30:07
Center for Missing and Exploited Children had a representative on the ground in Evansville by the next
00:30:15
morning. This person began emailing and faxing photos of the girls to businesses, truck stops, and retail
00:30:22
locations within a 100 mile radius. The Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, DCI,
00:30:31
and FBI both arrived and began interviewing people as well as looking into registered sex offenders in the
00:30:38
area. 30 FBI agents and 15 DCI agents joined this search. The FBI's Child Abduction
00:30:48
Response Team was also on site. A nearby creek, surrounding woods, and a city campground were all searched in the
00:30:58
coming days. These 12-mi radius large-scale searches included cornfields and farmland, rivers, ponds, abandoned
00:31:07
buildings, wooded areas, and other public places. Cars were stopped at police checkpoints
00:31:14
in the days after the disappearance, searching car trunks and asking drivers to be on the lookout for the girls.
00:31:22
All dumpsters were searched and the Black Hawk County Landfill was instructed to set aside trash collected
00:31:30
from Evansdale for two full weeks. For a full week, the nearly round-the-clock searches, interviews,
00:31:39
evidence collection, and information gathering proceeded full steam ahead. This is a large
00:31:47
effort. And it appears to be a well-oiled machine. Everybody acting in unison looking for these girls. Well, they did
00:31:57
a lot of extensive searches on the actual lake. Yes, they did. Uh in fact, just within hours of the
00:32:05
girls' bikes being found, the order was given to drag the lake. And after 2 days of dragging, nothing
00:32:11
was found, but investigators decided it was in their best interest to actually drain the lake to be sure that they
00:32:18
weren't missing anything. Yeah, they didn't drain it completely, but they drained it enough to help the search,
00:32:25
but nothing was found. And unfortunately, the families, both families, very early on
00:32:31
believed that the girls had been abducted. On the 17th, FBI bloodhounds were brought in to track
00:32:39
the girls' scent. Police refused to comment on the dogs' findings, but a family member said on
00:32:46
Nancy Grace, quote, I watched the bloodhounds continue on into this dense forest area, which is
00:32:54
about 400 yards. I watched them go into that area, and they positively identified both girls
00:33:02
were at that location. If you continue on down the bike trail east, there is about approximately 400 acres of forest,
00:33:11
dense forest to the left side. And that is where the dogs continued on to and picked up the the girls' scents.
00:33:21
And that's kind of where it went cold for the dogs. That is where the investigators stopped, according to this
00:33:29
family member. Well, again, that doesn't make a lot of sense to me because if you have these two children, let's
00:33:35
just say they're going to put their bikes down and go into the woods, why wouldn't you take your purse with
00:33:40
you? You think that you think that'd be something that the girls would take with
00:33:45
them. It's very difficult because both of the these locations, one where the bike is
00:33:51
found, and two two where the the scent is found, located of both girls, or believed to be anyway,
00:33:59
these aren't ideal locations for grabbing a child and pulling them into your vehicle.
00:34:05
Mhm. They're just They're just not. And so, it's difficult. And, you know, I've jokingly said this several times before,
00:34:11
but unfortunately, the dogs can't talk, so we don't know exactly what it is that
00:34:15
they believe they were hitting on. Now, we did see I saw video footage of them having them sniff the the girls' shoes,
00:34:25
some other pairs of the girls' shoes. So, that's what they were trying to trace, but Right. we obviously can't
00:34:30
confirm that that's what was actually going on because it seems it seems to be a weird location.
00:34:36
Right? Like you remove if you're the abductor, you remove them from their bikes or they get
00:34:41
off their bikes on their own and then they go out into the middle of this wooded area and then they just vanish
00:34:46
into thin air? Right. So, an FBI spokeswoman said that the dogs' detection of the girls scents
00:34:54
indicated a strong possibility. That was her exact words, strong possibility that
00:34:59
the girls had been there, meaning that it was likely that the girls had been on the scene at the lake rather than their
00:35:07
bikes and possessions being planted there by their abductor. The bikes were processed for prints and
00:35:13
other evidence, but police will not say if anything was found. Police quickly started
00:35:21
the time-consuming task of interviewing all of the family members. The family was initially completely cooperative
00:35:28
with police. Investigators were granted permission by both families to search any of the
00:35:35
houses that they were living in or had lived in without having to obtain a search
00:35:40
warrant. But we have two different families basically. We have one family that seems to be
00:35:47
doing the right thing and and upstanding citizens and and and then the other family that seems to be
00:35:54
getting into a lot of trouble. Two Two of the parents on the one side, yes, struggling with some drug issues. Yeah.
00:36:01
They did take some of their computers. Their cell phones were searched, but as police dug deeper, they could not ignore
00:36:09
the criminal past of both Misty and Dan. Remember Dan was a big-time meth manufacturer and dealer.
00:36:18
Yeah. And that puts him around cast of characters that they could be harmful to his family. If he owes
00:36:26
somebody money, if he sold bad drugs to them, this could put his uh family into danger. Yes, and this is seeming like a
00:36:36
likely scenario to police. Remember, he's out on bail when the girls went missing. Well, he's a real
00:36:43
piece of [ __ ] On the day before the girls disappeared, Dan appeared in court, and instead of taking a plea, I I
00:36:50
believe that everybody assumed he was going to be taking a plea at that time. But instead, Dan opted to proceed with
00:36:57
an actual trial. Dan and Misty put on a united front at this time, holding hands and even
00:37:04
staying together in a motel rather than going to their respective homes. This is also believed to
00:37:13
be to avoid the media. This, despite the restraining order Misty had against Dan,
00:37:20
and the fact that they had been separated for years. The two went along with the
00:37:25
investigation for the first few days, but then things changed. It seems that Evansville police
00:37:31
suspected that Dan was either capable of harming his daughter and niece, or at the very least, he might know who was
00:37:40
responsible. Mhm. In fact, according to his sister-in-law, Tammy, who spoke with
00:37:45
ABC News, she says, quote, "They have accused him. They told him they had proof that he did it." End quote.
00:37:53
There was also a report that Dan abruptly ended a police polygraph session after investigators accused him
00:38:00
of injuring the girls and knowing where they were. After this debacle, Dan and Misty hired
00:38:07
an attorney, and this attorney advised them to stop talking to police or the media. Yeah, but think about how shady
00:38:14
that is. Uh we're asking you a bunch of questions. We're doing a polygraph. One of the questions are going to be,
00:38:22
did you hurt these girls or do you know who hurt the girls? And you then stop the test. You knew
00:38:29
these questions were coming. And you then stop the test. All this is [ __ ] You're going to ask me
00:38:35
questions like this? I mean that that just comes off as very shady to me. It does come off as shady. It's also I mean
00:38:43
it's just difficult with what these people are going through and then you feel like you're being accused. Some
00:38:49
people it is a natural reaction to kind of fly off the handle and react to that.
00:38:55
It's difficult, man. This this whole thing is just difficult all the way difficult, but it's it's the parents
00:39:00
that say or people involved in missing person cases that say, "Look, I understand that because I was close to
00:39:08
this individual, I am going to be looked at. Look at me as hard and fast as you want to get to
00:39:16
other actual options. Because I know I didn't do anything. You know what I mean? So I I understand it's
00:39:24
difficult, but if you really want to help the situation, but I think you're going to see time and time again that
00:39:32
this individual is is about himself, preserving himself. Well, what you are a level-headed person and what you're
00:39:41
talking about is Don't make fun of my head. is a thought out good decision. What we have here is
00:39:48
a man who has shown a history of making bad decisions. So Well, he also claims that once that she went missing, he
00:39:56
started hitting he took back to meth pretty hard during this time. On Tuesday, the 17th, Chief Deputy Rick
00:40:05
Abben of the Black Hawk County Sheriff's Office held a press conference saying that authorities had been grasping for
00:40:12
straws in their search for the girls. But it was as if they had just disappeared into thin air. He said,
00:40:20
quote, "It wouldn't be proper for me to stand here and tell you we have a theory
00:40:24
because we don't." He goes on to say, "We have two missing girls and we have no idea why."
00:40:30
He stated, "We have no reason to believe there was any foul play at this time." And he also said, "Everyone is a suspect
00:40:38
until we find something." Now Now, what's your thought on press conferences like this? Because sometimes
00:40:45
they come out and they tell people, "We know nothing. We have no theory." And it's almost like a plea for help.
00:40:53
And then sometimes I think even when they don't have anything, they come out and they come out a little more
00:40:58
confident. If you're leading an investigation like this, what do you think your tactic would be?
00:41:04
Well, I would be Look, I I believe you need to strategize really with your delivery of anything to the public,
00:41:11
especially if you have things that you're working on, if you have leads in this investigation or suspicions.
00:41:18
If you don't have leads or suspicions, then I would go the route of being as candid as possible and telling the
00:41:25
public, "We don't know anything." I don't think it's it's any kind of downfall. I actually think that it's a
00:41:30
it's a good, smart move to say, "Hey, we don't know anything." because we've seen
00:41:35
this. Look, we're we're 4 days into the search for these girls now. We've seen how the rumor mill starts to go where
00:41:42
people people sitting in bars or sitting at work or or talking to one another in
00:41:46
town or saying, "Oh, yeah, that I heard they found those girls." Or "Oh, yeah, and you start getting all this bad
00:41:53
information that swirls around in the community and they need the public to know we don't
00:41:59
know where they are and we don't have a lead. So, if you know something or even if you just think you saw anything at
00:42:06
all that you question and it has nothing to do with the girls, let us know. We're
00:42:10
grasping at straws. Let's talk about the last known sightings of the girls, this on Friday the 13th.
00:42:18
Remember the girls' grandmother, Wilma Cook, last saw the girls riding their bikes behind Linderman's Big and Tall.
00:42:26
This is located at 3524 Lafayette Road at about 12:15 p.m. The rear of the Collinses' house looked
00:42:35
out through a gap in the buildings on the block behind. So, she would have been able to see the girls riding their
00:42:43
bikes on Lafayette Road from the Collinses' backyard. Surveillance camera footage from a
00:42:49
business called Cornbelt Auctions, this is located at 3520 Lafayette Road, captured the two on their bikes riding
00:42:57
at 12:11 p.m. But, we're and I I hate to chuckle during this, but the business owner said that the cameras
00:43:06
were about 8 minutes behind, making the sighting more likely being at 12:19 p.m. Look, I I just admire the
00:43:15
business owner coming forward and saying, "We know that they're behind. We monitor it with the understanding that
00:43:20
they're 8 minutes behind." But, still they're 8 minutes behind, why don't you fix them?
00:43:26
Still, we've been we've been doing this for 5 years in the garage, Captain, and we are yet to have a surveillance camera
00:43:33
footage that has the right time. Right. It will never happen. And now makes me question every footage I've ever seen
00:43:39
because even like with the now with the Brian Shafer footage, a lot of people believe that was the correct time.
00:43:46
But, now it makes me question that. Yeah, to this point, I need proof. You got to prove to me that it was the
00:43:52
correct time often it is not. Yeah, but and then they're going to take this tactic because now, hey, we got
00:43:59
video footage of the girls and we have other businesses that we can check. Well, what's cool about this is if you
00:44:06
suspect anything going on from the grandmother or if anything weird may have happened at the house, you can
00:44:12
verify that a portion of her story is absolutely correct. Right. You know, I last saw them roughly
00:44:18
at this time. You can spin it a minute two a minute or two forward or backwards,
00:44:24
but all about that time is is happening what she said is happening. We have video proof of that. Now,
00:44:31
this location is just a block it's less than a block from the Collins' home. The
00:44:36
girls were biking in a direction away from the lake at this time that the footage was shot. Right. According to
00:44:44
Iowa coldcases.org, the girls were next seen at 12:23 p.m. on Brovan Boulevard and then again
00:44:51
sometime between 12:30 and 1:00 p.m. on Gilbert Drive not far from Myers Lake. Right, but but they're
00:44:59
both times heading towards the direction of the lake. On these accounts they may
00:45:05
have been, but on the with on the video footage they're heading in the direction away from the
00:45:10
lake. Mhm. But I also want to be clear about this because we cannot confirm we cannot
00:45:17
verify any of these last two sightings. And it does not seem to be in other reports about the case.
00:45:27
So, I want to just make sure everybody knows that going forward. What we do have though is a man named
00:45:33
Robert Carpenter. He's an Evansdale resident who lived about two blocks from Myers Lake. He came forward and told
00:45:40
police he saw the girls while he was out watering his yard. They biked by him sometime between noon
00:45:47
and 1:00 p.m. This is according to an ABC article. Carpenter lives at 1020 Lake Avenue. If
00:45:55
this is really was the girls riding by, they were close to the area where the bikes were eventually found. Right.
00:46:04
Another witness, Ted Gammeldinger, I apologize to Ted, but I that's how his name is spelled in my notes. I'll
00:46:12
apologize to his family. The The Gammeldingers are are great people. Mhm. The outstanding citizens of
00:46:19
Iowa. You have to be with a name like that. Well, Ted G was what we're going to go
00:46:23
with. He is living in Waterloo. He's a cyclist who often rode the Evansdale Nature Trail.
00:46:30
He is a good guy. He goes to police and he says, this is when they're searching the woods along the trail.
00:46:39
He told them that he saw two kids' bikes on the trail on Friday the 13th, but no
00:46:46
sign of the girls. So, he sees the bikes, but does not see the girls. Right. He said, quote, "I saw the bikes
00:46:51
lying on the path and had to swerve to miss them." He placed this time that he saw the
00:46:57
bikes at approximately 12:20 based on a phone call he made to his daughter soon after at 12:27.
00:47:07
So, of course, Gammeldinger's sighting and the surveillance footage from the auction house cannot both have the times
00:47:14
correct, but we know that both could be askew a bit, right? Right. The girls could not have been on
00:47:21
Braden Boulevard at 12:19 and then already have been abducted on the trail and bikes left there at 12:20 p.m. It's
00:47:29
just not physically possible. Now, this next part has to be taken with a grain of salt
00:47:35
because it involves both Facebook post and unverified sightings of the girls. One person posted that her son, a
00:47:43
cashier at the Fairway store on South Evans Road, he was questioned by police twice. This
00:47:51
was because he told police he gave the girls directions to Myers Lake that day. His statements were supposedly backed up
00:47:59
by a co-worker. The Evansdale Nature Trail commences literally right next to this grocery store on Lafayette Road and
00:48:08
runs directly south to the lake. So, this seems like a very likely possibility. Mhm.
00:48:15
If this was the two girls we're looking for, it makes sense that it would be that they would be right at the at the
00:48:22
Fairway just a block and half from home, but it is perplexing that they would be
00:48:28
asking for directions to the lake. They're so close to the lake. They Right. Be- because of a couple things.
00:48:35
They're young, so I believe that they may have needed or required directions to get to the lake if that's where they
00:48:41
wanted to go. But, again, we still have grandma and mom and dad, the responsible
00:48:48
ones, pointing out that the kids were not allowed to go there. It was too far from the house.
00:48:52
Now, you said that she had a cell phone. The thing that I couldn't find, which maybe you found,
00:48:59
was any activity of the kids being involved with any social media because or or any uh contacts as far as
00:49:10
like were they able to text people? And the reason why I bring this up is cuz I I really question
00:49:17
when the parents and the grandparents are saying, "Hey, this is not This is too far. They wouldn't have gone that
00:49:23
far cuz they only stayed within a distance that they would be able to hear us yell." Well, the lake is too far from
00:49:30
there. They're not going to be able to hear their their grandma yell. Right. So, why
00:49:36
is there a reason they're going there? Was there somebody that they're going to meet up?
00:49:41
And and and so, but I haven't heard anything of that. I mean, when you look at like the
00:49:49
Delphi case or or Brian Shaffer case or or any missing person case, we normally have some kind of record,
00:49:57
but they're normally older individuals. Well, I'm glad you bring that up because
00:50:01
some stuff on WebSleuths, uh which is quite interesting, there's several sleuthers on there that have
00:50:07
theorized that Lyric, so she's the older of the two, right? Right. She was hanging out with an older cousin
00:50:15
the week before and seems to that they got in trouble for coming home late. So, now the sleuthers are taking that a step
00:50:23
further and saying, could she being the older one, maybe she's more adventurous by this time, is she the one pushing for
00:50:31
the trip to the lake? Maybe they're not meeting anybody there, but maybe she thinks she's going to get her, you know,
00:50:36
I went there last week with my older cousin, now I'm going to be the older cousin and take my younger cousin there
00:50:43
for a quick trip to the lake. That's a good idea, though. I mean, that's that's a plausible theory. It is, and the thing
00:50:50
is, too, we don't have anybody, any friends coming forward saying, "Hey, I did I was going to meet them at the
00:50:57
lake." Which I I think we would have, considering that that they need all the help they can get looking for these two
00:51:04
girls. No, what I'm saying is like a online predator, somebody that's luring them out.
00:51:10
Yeah, you know, hey, uh oh yeah, you seem like a nice person you meet in a chat room or something. Oh, I
00:51:16
I know that lake, let's meet by that lake. I like to meet you sometime. Yeah, and if the girls didn't fully know or
00:51:23
understand how far away the lake was, there's a good chance they thought maybe they could go there and make it back in
00:51:30
time and not get into trouble with with mom and dad. Right. The other thing you have to
00:51:35
consider, and I know we've been kind of dancing around this a little bit, but But we like to dance.
00:51:40
The Right. The The truth of it is, look, whether or not the girls actually even made it to the lake depends on how
00:51:48
much faith you put in the tracking dogs. Right. And we know that the bikes, the purse,
00:51:54
and the phone were found there, but again, looking at it on a map, it to me it seems like a strange place to abduct the
00:52:04
children. Like what I can't shake, Captain, is the feeling is this were the bikes and the purse planted
00:52:11
there? Mhm. Or is this the site of the abduction? Again, it could be not far off. They
00:52:18
could have been abducted a a couple blocks over, and and then this is where the the person decided to dump the
00:52:25
bikes. Right. So, 6 days after the girls were last seen, police were still not calling the
00:52:32
disappearance an abduction. The day after the girls went missing, Evansdale Police Chief Kent Smock told
00:52:39
the media that the case was being treated as a suspicious disappearance. Media outlets theorized that a double
00:52:46
abduction, one in which two girls were taken at once, would be very unlikely. You and I have been doing this long
00:52:53
enough, we know that to be the case. And Police Chief Smock told the media that this is so rare for an abductor to
00:53:01
take two children at a time. They weren't really working under that abduction theory by this point. But a
00:53:08
week out, on the 20th, Chief Smock, his notes indicate, quote, "Focus turns fully to abduction as other
00:53:17
causes were eliminated." Mhm. I think this also has a lot to do with the lake. You were talking about
00:53:23
the lake being searched, dragged, drained, so on and so forth. I think that that they wanted to fully eliminate
00:53:29
that before they went into full abduction. Yeah, I mean, FBI sends out special divers.
00:53:37
They they clear the lake. At that point, I think all roads point to something bad happened. Other other than
00:53:46
a bad accident in the lake. And this is where things get sad because now we have
00:53:51
a big shift in gears where we have the sheriff's office are saying some evidence has been found. We don't
00:53:58
know what that is, you and I captain, we don't know what that is. But this these
00:54:02
items that they're calling evidence were sent to the DCI crime lab for analysis.
00:54:09
They go on to say if they, meaning the girls, were lost in that area, they would have been found by
00:54:16
now. So, they've ruled out the lake, they've ruled out being lost in the area, and the the officer goes on to reiterate
00:54:24
that they had not cleared anyone. Everyone is a suspect until we find these young girls, he said.
00:54:30
And he announced that a $50,000 reward was being offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of
00:54:38
anyone involved with the abduction of the girls. But once they, like you said, they're kind of rolling out some stuff
00:54:44
and that leads to the idea that they're these girls are probably abducted. Okay,
00:54:49
that's fair enough. But they're also stating that we believe that they're alive. And so, even though time is
00:54:56
passing and days are passing, it seems like law enforcement is like, we're not And I don't know if they were just
00:55:06
trying to be safe by that, but it seems like they had some kind of evidence that these girls were still alive. That
00:55:14
they were still alive or or maybe that's really interesting that you bring that up because I don't know what would give
00:55:22
them the indication that the girls would still be alive because we have the FBI spokeswoman saying this
00:55:30
on Friday the 20th. So, a week later. Right. My my thought goes to they have no evidence that they're dead.
00:55:39
So, we're going to we're going to stay on this road of they're still alive. Now, I don't know I didn't come across
00:55:46
this in this investigation, but I've seen it in other investigations of abductions of adults and children,
00:55:53
especially children. And especially when you get younger children, that law enforcement will come out and
00:56:00
say we believe them to still be alive and then they will show the grieving parents crying on TV and
00:56:07
saying, "Just drop them off at some public place and drive away." Right. And so, maybe this is part of a plea to
00:56:16
get somebody not to do something stupid. Often, you you want to be reminding the
00:56:20
offender, "Yes, you may have abducted these two girls, but it doesn't have to get worse than this."
00:56:27
Yeah, but what's the likelihood? I mean, isn't more likely that a child would be
00:56:31
abducted and within 48 hours they're probably dead? Unfortunately, the statistics tell us that within 2 hours
00:56:38
most of them are are dead if they're abducted by a stranger. And that's what I want to know. Why is law enforcement a
00:56:44
week later saying and then the FBI is saying a week later, they have something. They had some information.
00:56:51
have something. They could have something, but I I have often heard law enforcement officials say, "Until we
00:56:58
have proof that that the person is dead, then we're we're sticking with we are searching for a a live person." On the
00:57:06
23rd of July, so we are 10 days after the girls vanished, BCSO Captain Rick Abbin said that the
00:57:18
couple's refusal, meaning Dan and Misty, refusal to talk to police has been problematic. He goes on to say, quote,
00:57:25
"It's a distraction for us, and why they wish to do that, I don't know." Abbin said, "We're asking for 100%
00:57:34
cooperation. Why they don't want to do that, I have no idea. What is going on here?" According to CNN, both Misty and
00:57:44
Dan passed polygraph exams, and police cleared them based on this and their alibis. Misty was at work, and Dan was
00:57:52
at home with his son, and this is backed up by his mother. It seems that police might have had a
00:57:59
working theory that we've kind of talked about a bit, that the dis- the abduction
00:58:04
of the girls was somehow related to Dan's drug connections. Right. The aunt of the girls, Tammy, this is
00:58:12
the sister-in-law, said, "The quote, the children weren't exposed to those people. They were pretty much, for the
00:58:19
most part, kept away from there." End quote. But, that didn't stop the rumors from flying that maybe the girls
00:58:25
were taken by someone connected to Dan, someone involved in his shady drug underworld. As you pointed out, maybe
00:58:33
it's somebody that he wronged, that he owes money to. The Daily Mail said that the girls could
00:58:40
have been abducted by drug dealers as payback for Dan's snitching. Remember, it was believed that he was going to
00:58:47
work out a plea deal on all those drug charges for that trial that was going on right around the same time that the
00:58:54
girls went missing. Right. The Mail article said that Wilma told them, "It's possible her son-in-law made an
00:59:02
enemy through his cooperation with police." Many were wondering about Dan suddenly deciding to go forward with a
00:59:09
trial where he's going to face many years in prison rather than taking the plea deal. The day before the girls
00:59:17
were taken, this could be seen as suspicious. Black Hawk County Sheriff Tony Thompson said, "Quote, we're not
00:59:25
ruling anything out with regard to the investigation, to include Daniel Morrissey's criminal history, his known
00:59:32
associates, any prior or future criminal activities." Now, although Dan himself was not
00:59:40
considered a suspect, and this was the police's very words, not considered a suspect,
00:59:46
it seems to many at the time, just 10 days into the disappearance of these girls,
00:59:53
that it might have been easier to believe that there was a known suspect or reason that the girls had
01:00:00
been taken, rather than to believe the alternative, that the girls were kidnapped at random
01:00:06
by a stranger. Want to thank you guys so much, and remember, if you want to be a part of
01:00:29
Parts Unknown, get your pre-order in today at truecrimegarage.com. Join us back here in the garage
01:00:36
tomorrow. Until then, be good, be kind, and don't litter.