00:00:00
The psychological thriller Criminal Minds: Evolution is back, and the hunt is on. This season, the criminal
00:00:07
profilers from the behavioral analysis unit are tracking a network of serial killers connected by something far more
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dangerous than anyone expected. It's the kind of highstakes investigation that will keep you guessing and make you
00:00:18
question who's really pulling the strings. With Edgeofyour Seeat storytelling, this is the season to
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watch. Catch the new season of Criminal Minds Evolution, now streaming exclusively on Paramount
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Plus. In 1932, one man opened a two- room business school above a nondescript storefront in downtown Manchester, New
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Hampshire. How did it become one of the largest universities in the country? Okay, this case isn't exactly a mystery.
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Southern New Hampshire University offers over 200 degrees you can earn from your
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couch. And with low online tuition, Southern New Hampshire University makes earning your degree affordable, too.
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Find your degree at snhu.edu/g. That's snhu.edu/g. [Music] Welcome to True Crime. garage, wherever
00:01:52
you are, whatever you're doing. Thanks for listening. I'm your host, Nick, and with me as always is a man who at the
00:01:58
end of today's show will be performing a tick tock dance. Here is the captain. And it's going to blow your freaking
00:02:05
mind. It's good to be seen and good to see you. Thanks for listening. Thanks for telling, friend.
00:02:13
[Music] This week we are delighted to be featuring Lawn Mower Yard Logger by the
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fine folks at Church Hill Brewing Company. This is an American light beer by style, but it's made up in Canada, so
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it has a little extra oomph to it. It's crisp and not watered down like some light beers. ABV 4.3% garage grade,
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three and a half bottle caps out of five. And let's give some thanks and praise to our good friends for helping
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us fill up the old garage fridge. First up, a big shout out to Melissa from White House, Tennessee. And a big we
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like your jib goes out to Nikki from Rockton, Illinois. Here's a cheers to Ally in Sumpter, South Carolina. And a
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big tall cans in the air to Christine and Indianapolis. And last, but certainly not least, Captain, we have a
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double fisted cheers that goes out to Shannon and her sister Kelly from West Sacramento, California. Everyone, we
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just mentioned they helped us out with this week's beer run. And for that, we thank you. Yeah, BW, are you in beer
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run? I'm adding old off therecords to YouTube. So, make sure you go to our YouTube channel, True Crime Garage TV,
00:03:27
and subscribe. And that's enough of the business. All right, everybody. Gather around, grab a chair, grab a beer. Let's
00:03:34
talk some true crime. It defies belief. Yet, it seems to happen time and time again. In a state of despair, a
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vulnerable victim just happens to come across someone. Someone who pretends to come to
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her aid, to help her out, to be a friend. But that good Samaritan is far from that. He is a monster.
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What are the chances that as 14-year-old Lorie Anne Hill was walking home alone,
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crying on a cool night in a small town, someone unknown to her abducted her, savaged her, and then left her body to
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be found by hunters. The chances are slim, but it does happen. Instead, police suspected that the
00:04:47
killer was someone Lori knew, a statistically sound theory, and eventually someone she knew well was
00:04:57
arrested, charged, and tried for her murder. But that is not where Lor's tragic story
00:05:04
ends. And it may be just the beginning. This is the case of Lorie Anne Hill. And this is True Crime
00:05:16
[Music] [Music] Garage. Laurianne Hill was born on November 9th, 1970 in Miami, Florida.
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Her parents are Roger and Die Hill. The family moved from Florida to a home on Berky Southern Road located in Swanton,
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Ohio. Now, Swanton is a small town in northwest Ohio. Back then, when they moved here, it was about 3,500 people
00:05:57
and small in size as well. It's only 3 and a half square miles. This is where our story starts. This is 1985.
00:06:06
Lori is the youngest of four kids. And by this time, Lori has an older sister, Joy, who is living in Dallas, and an
00:06:14
older brother, Sergeant Chris Hill, in the Marines at Camp Lugene. She has one sister, Rachel, who
00:06:22
is still living at home. But again, Rachel is older than Lori, who is the youngest. Lori is a sophomore at Swanton
00:06:32
High School and was described as friendly and popular. Her school principal described Lori as an average
00:06:39
student with lots of friends, adding that Lori was a wonderful person and had a very sunny personality and strong
00:06:48
family bonds. Lori was a horse person. We love horse people. Lori was often seen outside of her home working with
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her horse. She was in many ways a typical teen with big 80s hair and a mouthful of braces. She also had some
00:07:05
drama going on in her love life, which was quite active considering she was only 14 years old with some facets of
00:07:14
her dating life being kept from her parents. However, 14-year-old Lorianne Hill will go missing sometime during a
00:07:23
night out with friends. Lor's parents reported her missing to Fulton County authorities around 2:00 a.m. on the
00:07:30
morning of October 26th, 1985. Her sister Rachel got home while her parents were on the phone with the sheriff's
00:07:39
office. She said her heart sank when she heard that Lori had not come home and was missing because, as a rule, her
00:07:46
younger sister did not come home past her curfew. She never broke curfew. The whole family was very scared. Her mom
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started calling everyone she could think of. And Rachel and her father, they jump
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in the car and they start driving around looking for Lori. Rachel knew Lori had gone to a party earlier that evening.
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But a visit to that house, the home of the party, showed that the place was quiet and no one had seen Lori in
00:08:14
several hours. Rachel called all of the local radio stations and alerted them to Lori being
00:08:21
missing, saying, "Lori, if you are hearing this, please come home." Now, we need to point out here, Captain, that
00:08:28
Lori had just started dating a guy named Craig Rup, who at age 18, of course, he's a lot older than Lori. The timeline
00:08:38
for the evening of October 25th, the evening in question, is as follows. At 6:30 p.m., Craig picked up Lori at her
00:08:47
home. They go to McDonald's for dinner. They went to an area pond for some, air quotes private time, but according to
00:08:57
Craig, they never had sex, and that night was no exception. Then they went to a Halloween party on South Mson Road
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around 8:00 p.m. So, this would be the house where later her older sister and father would drop by, check to see if
00:09:14
Lori was still there. The party's over by that time, and Lori, of course, not there. Now, when she was at the party
00:09:21
here, Captain Lori was drinking and the reports are that she was drinking to the
00:09:27
point where she appeared to be drunk to other attendees of this party. And it's noted by Craig and several other people
00:09:35
that were there that she and Craig got into an argument. It was a very obvious argument. This was apparently about the
00:09:42
fact that she was wearing Craig's class ring as well as a ring from a previous boyfriend. So that's that's typically a
00:09:49
big no no. You're if you're going to wear the ring of a boyfriend, uh it should just be the one. According to
00:09:56
partygoers, Lori left the party upset at 9:30 and was given a ride downtown by a
00:10:03
friend. So this is downtown Swanton. The friend is Steve Wakowski. Craig says he never saw Lori
00:10:13
again. So she leaves Craig at the party, ditches him after this argument, hops in
00:10:18
a car with this Steve guy, and Steve drives her. And according to Steve, on the night that Lori
00:10:26
disappeared, he says, "Look, I was at the same party. I left without Lori, but later saw Lori walking this." She she
00:10:35
hadn't made it very far. And so he stops to talk to her. He wanted to find out what was going on, make sure she was
00:10:41
okay. He offers to give her a ride home. She accepts, but she's very angry and upset at this time about this argument
00:10:49
with Craig. Right. So, she gets in the vehicle, accepts the ride home. However, Steve says, quote, "She was very
00:10:57
distraught, crying. She had been crying very, very hard. Her face was red. She just wasn't herself. The whole thing was
00:11:05
over a ring. She was very upset about the fight. You couldn't reason with her." end quote. Right. Steve said Lori
00:11:13
had that argument with Craig about the ring thing. Steve said Lori got out of his car at some point. He says they just
00:11:22
drove a block and a half or so when she saw some headlights behind them and seemed to think that it was the
00:11:29
headlights of her boyfriend, which I I want to circle that word boyfriend because that could mean multiple things
00:11:38
here. But according to the guy that gives her the ride, Steve, he says, quote, "She just went crazy after that.
00:11:45
Wanted out of the car. She was going to get out of the car whether I stopped or not." So, yeah. But we've all been
00:11:52
there. I mean, when you're young and you're drinking, uh, you're inexperienced, so sometimes
00:11:58
you drink too much too quickly and get angry about stuff that maybe wouldn't bother you or or a disagreement gets
00:12:07
blown way out of proportion, right? So, he stops. He lets her out. Steve says that the last he saw of Lori, she was
00:12:17
walking toward a place called Mr. G's Pizza. This definitely holds up his statement
00:12:24
here because this Mr. G's Pizza, as I understand it, was a popular hangout at the time for teens. He goes on to say
00:12:31
that I proceeded to go home. I didn't think anything of it at the time. We can confirm his statement because Lori is
00:12:39
later seen by several people at this Mr. G's Pizza without Steve. All right. So,
00:12:45
at Mr. G's, Lori was seen making a phone call. But the question mark here, Captain, is to this very day, the
00:12:54
identity of the person she spoke with has never been established, never definitively been established. And it's
00:13:03
a question mark to me as well if police even know this because there's a chance that maybe they have an idea of who she
00:13:10
spoke with. I would have to believe that this is a pay phone call and that maybe they are just not
00:13:18
saying who who she spoke with. Yeah. Because you could assume that maybe she's calling the guy she got in a fight
00:13:24
with or she's calling the guy the other guy that she was wearing a ring from or maybe she was calling a parent or
00:13:33
somebody to come pick her up or maybe she's calling a friend to either come pick her up or uh to discuss, hey, this
00:13:41
this went down at this party and I I need to discuss it with somebody. So many possibilities. Many possibilities.
00:13:48
That's right. Outside of Mr. 's Lorie's friend Rhonda Whitman says that she spoke with
00:13:55
Lori briefly. So, this would have been just before 1000 p.m. and she asked Lori if she wanted a ride. I like something
00:14:05
you said there in the possibilities of who this phone call was for. I believe after reviewing all of the
00:14:14
information here that that the most probable scenarios of this phone call was either a she's calling somebody for
00:14:23
a ride or b she's calling to meet up with somebody that that may also involve a ride somewhere. And I say that because
00:14:30
what we're going to see here by the following statements that as the night progresses after she's at Mr. G's.
00:14:38
Remember, she hops out of the car, Steve's car, goes to Mr. G's. Now, we're going to see her continually turning
00:14:45
down rides, which is suggestive to me that she's meeting someone. She doesn't want to go home, and that she's either
00:14:52
meeting someone or she's waiting on a ride from from someone else. So, this Rhonda Whitman friend asks Lori if she
00:14:59
wants a ride. Her response, someone was going to be picking her up. She doesn't say who. Rhonda did say Lori at this
00:15:08
time was acting normal even though she knew that Lori had been crying previous to this time. Now, the next witness to
00:15:16
see Lori was a neighbor of hers. I I like these witnesses because many times we're reviewing cases and it's people
00:15:25
that don't know the person in question. These are all people that have previous histories with Lori. They went to school
00:15:33
with her. They were friends with her. This person is a neighbor. So, her neighbor, Deborah
00:15:38
Ronin, says that she saw Lori walking toward her home. This is after 10 p.m., so it falls right into the timeline
00:15:47
perfectly. Deborah stops asking Lori if she wanted a ride, but Lori says no. And
00:15:55
then we get this information as well. This is uh again neighbors of the Hill family, of Lorie's family. and it's a
00:16:04
married couple, the Bettingers. They're driving home from that night's football game. They says this, they say this
00:16:11
would be around 10:30 p.m. They say that they came across three teenagers who were walking northbound on State Route
00:16:20
295. This would be rather close to Lori Anne Hills home. And the Bettingers say that they remember this specifically
00:16:28
because the teens were walking into the middle of the road, so they had to slow down and kind of idle past them. And
00:16:37
shortly after Lorie Hills disappearance, Mr. Bettinger called the Swanton Police Department reporting this
00:16:47
incident. He stated that the individual in the center was a tall girl with blonde hair. He said to her right was a
00:16:55
boy who was taller than the girl who had dark shoulderlength hair. To the left of
00:17:00
the girl was a shorter heavy set person who Bettinger said he could have been a boy or a girl. He didn't
00:17:08
know. And he says that as they came upon the teens, the boy to the right of the girl stepped further into the road and
00:17:16
turned around to face their car. The girl in the middle turned partially around and then the teen stepped to the
00:17:25
side. The beddingers went past them. He told the police chief that that when the
00:17:31
report came over the evening news that Lorianne Hill was missing, he and his wife realized that the girl that they
00:17:38
had seen walking in the road was in fact Lorie Anne Hill. He he said that he could back this up and he was pretty
00:17:46
positive about this identification because Laurian Hill had been to their house a few times. She was friends or
00:17:54
acquaintances with their son. Well, let's back up for just a minute. With any of these eyewitness reports,
00:18:00
especially the ones that see her at the pizza shop, do we have any clue of what her state is? Because like we said,
00:18:10
Steve, the guy that gives her a ride, is like, "Well, she's clearly intoxicated and then clearly upset." But
00:18:17
do these people see her as being upset or see her her as being intoxicated? Cuz like I said, it's just, and I'm not
00:18:25
blaming her here. We've all been there. I could tell you some crazy stories of my inexperienced drinking
00:18:32
days, but you'd think maybe within this time frame that she, you know, she's not
00:18:38
continuing to drink. So, you would think she would start sobering up and obviously start making more sense to
00:18:45
these eyewitnesses. I think you're spot on there because I I don't think that none of the other people that interact
00:18:51
with her after the party mention anything about her being drunk or intoxicated. They do
00:18:59
reference several of them other than the Bettingers because they just had this brief moment in time where they passed
00:19:05
somebody that they believed was Lorian Hill. But the only people to report that she was drunk or intoxicated were people
00:19:13
that were in attendance at the party with her. To what state of intoxic intoxication? It's difficult for anyone
00:19:20
to say. Your body's going to if she only consumed a beer, beer and a half or whatever, wine coolers, who knows? I I
00:19:27
don't have a great description of of the goings on at the party outside of the argument, right? Everybody knows that
00:19:34
there was the argument. People report afterwards they knew that she had been upset. She continued to be upset for a
00:19:40
period of time, but nobody else reports this her being intoxicated. Now, the last sighting of her, let's say
00:19:47
potential sighting, because I want to throw this one in the questionable basket for a couple reasons. This one's
00:19:55
really difficult for me to sort out because I don't know how much credence the police gave to this last tip. the
00:20:00
the Bettingers out of all the people that night, they're the only ones to say that they saw Lori in a group of people
00:20:08
with two other people. If she was in fact with two other people, those persons have not been identified.
00:20:14
However, I will say this. When Mr. Bettinger spoke with the police chief, he did give a description of what he
00:20:21
thought that the girl was wearing or what he recalled her to be wearing when when he spotted her. And he says that
00:20:28
the girl in the middle middle of the pack who he thought was Lori was wearing a blue jean jacket and blue jeans and a
00:20:37
white shirt. Now this is consistent with what she was wearing that night. So that last tip, that last bit of
00:20:46
information is difficult to sort out because that information puts her one much much closer to her home than any of
00:20:55
the other sightings that that all the other sightings seem very credible. It puts her with two people that have not
00:21:02
been identified. Right. The Swanton police and the Lucas County Sheriff's Office categorized the case as a missing
00:21:09
runaway, but then they did do immediately a largecale search for Lori. They didn't they didn't wait and rather
00:21:18
quickly they are interviewing her friends, family, her new boyfriend Craig, who she had the argument with,
00:21:24
and the kids at the party. Now, I had mentioned earlier to circle that word boyfriend, right? Because Steve's
00:21:34
statement to police is, well, she was going to get out of the car no matter what. And she seemed to get more upset
00:21:40
when there were headlights behind us and she said something to the effect that it
00:21:44
might be her boyfriend's car. So that could mean Craig, who she was at the party with that she had just gotten in
00:21:51
the argument with, but it alos also could mean a guy that she had recently broke up with. Remember, she's wearing
00:21:58
two class rings from two different guys at that party. So, when she says boyfriend, does she mean boyfriend or
00:22:05
ex-boyfriend? Let's also not dismiss the the option that it could just have been
00:22:10
a car that didn't belong to either of them. That she's just in the moment. She's upset. She might be still
00:22:18
intoxicated at this time and just being irrational and saying, "You know what? I
00:22:22
I got to get out of the car." I think she was going to get out of the car no matter what, just like Steve said,
00:22:27
regardless of who was in the vehicle behind them. And I'm not not trying to throw shade at Steve, but if you're a
00:22:34
little intoxicated and haven't been before, is he saying anything to her that's creeping her out and she wants to
00:22:42
get out of the vehicle? Yeah. I I mean, I don't know. I He There's There's reports of her being drinking to the
00:22:50
point of drunkenness. There's no reports of of Steve, you know, that we do know.
00:22:55
But what we do know is police spoke with the partygoers very quickly in the heat of the moment here.
00:23:03
And as said, we we have searchers going door to door. We have people looking at this Swanton Memorial Park trying to
00:23:12
witness trying to locate witnesses or Lori. They searched fields, vacant buildings. A dive team was brought in
00:23:22
rather quickly. Even the Air National Guard assisted in some of the the searches. So they moved into action
00:23:30
rather quickly and they were they were searching for her high and low. Now they also investigated a college party that
00:23:40
was somewhat in the area that night. A female employee of a place called El Matador. This is a
00:23:48
restaurant. This employee attended the University of Toledo. So Swanton is west of Toledo. I think
00:23:57
it's about a 35 45minut drive. So this is a Halloween party and investigators considered that the party may have
00:24:05
brought outsiders to town. But the thing is they couldn't find anybody to say that Lori ever ended up at that party
00:24:13
that night. Nor would there be a whole lot of reason to think that she did unless it was random. But we should
00:24:19
point out she's 14, but often in the company of high school students, but they're they're technically men. I mean,
00:24:26
they're 18-year-old boys. On October 30th, there was news, and it's not the good kind. This is around 3:30 p.m., so
00:24:36
this is Tuesday afternoon. A deer hunter in northwest Pike Township found a body
00:24:43
off of Fulton County Road M, the letter M, halfway between State Routes 12 and 13. This is 10 mi northeast of Wassion
00:24:54
and 10 miles west of Toledo. This was 13 miles from Lor's home. So again, if that
00:25:02
last if the bed hanging sighting of the person they thought was Lori is correct,
00:25:07
this is 13 miles from where she was last seen. This got the L the Lucas County Sheriff's Office involved in the case as
00:25:16
well as Fulton County officials because she was found in Lucas County from Fulton, but it's not clear where she had
00:25:25
been killed. Now, we have to say it it's unclear to me exactly where they found her body because some reports say she
00:25:36
was found in a wooded area and some say she was found in a corn field. Yeah. I actually think what it is
00:25:42
is, you know, anytime you're driving on these rural routes that you'll have, you
00:25:48
know, soy bean fields or corn fields or whatever, but they're kind of outlined by little patches of woods. So, I'm
00:25:58
guessing it's kind of both. You know, she's found maybe in a small patch of woods that was connected to a cornfield.
00:26:08
Looking at Google Maps, it appears that County Road M has a lot more corn fields
00:26:13
than wooded areas. And then, of course, the family receives this the horrible news. Roger Hill, her father, Lorie's
00:26:22
father, had to walk into his house and tell his wife Die and his daughter Rachel that Lori was dead. Doy started
00:26:33
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[Music] medications. All right, we are back. Cheers, mates, to the windows, to the
00:32:08
walls. Cheers to you, Colonel. Cheers to you, Captain. And cheers to the people in the back. Yeah. I mean, this is a a
00:32:16
tough case. Like you said, just a few days after, you know, she went missing. Nobody's heard from her. They find her
00:32:24
naked body and she's badly beaten and obviously deceased. And they only find what? Her jean jacket in a in a sock.
00:32:35
Yeah, that's correct. And then it makes you wonder, did whoever did this to her,
00:32:40
did they keep items or did they drop these items off and these were somehow um whether whether it was because of the
00:32:49
weather or animals or whatever. Is there a reason why the other clothes are missing? Well, initial reports about
00:32:57
Lor's cause of death and as I had referenced before the break, the crime scene were misleading. Now, we do know
00:33:07
it was a homicide. That was obvious from the beginning. In fact, the Fulton County Medical Examiner reported as
00:33:15
such, ruled it as such. Initial reports by Fulton County officials were that Lori had been shot at least once in the
00:33:22
head. This was assumed by the deputies who found her after the the hunter notified them of the body. This is
00:33:29
because she had a hole in the middle of her forehead. But October 31st, the Fulton County Coroner stated that this
00:33:38
was inaccurate. She wasn't shot at all. Lauria died from, like the captain said,
00:33:43
blunt force trauma to the head inflicted by multiple blows. From the record, the
00:33:49
cause of death was multiple blunt force and sharp injuries. In particular, her skull was fractured and she had numerous
00:33:57
bruises, abrasions, and lacerations over her body. The coroner opined that the skull fractures were likely caused by an
00:34:08
iron instrument such as a pryar, crowbar or pipe. But that so that information while we know
00:34:18
it today, the pryar, crowbar, pipe speculation, that information wasn't made public at the time. All the
00:34:28
authorities would say was that they were following up on several clues and they did say that at that time
00:34:36
they did not have a suspect. It was difficult really for anybody to say 100% how long Lori had been lying out there
00:34:47
before she was found. We do have Dr. Reed, who goes on the record saying that that it's believed that Lori was killed
00:34:57
late Friday night or or early Saturday morning. So, in other words, this would have been within hours of her going
00:35:07
missing. Yeah. Obviously, if you're in law enforcement, you're going to look into this fight with her quote unquote
00:35:14
boyfriend, but he remains at the party, so you'd think there was enough eyewitnesses there that would give him a
00:35:20
pretty solid alibi. Officials clarified later that Lori was found lying 67 ft from the road and she had been left in
00:35:30
plain sight with no attempt to obscure the body. She was nude but for one sock. Her other sock and jean jacket lay
00:35:39
nearby but no none of her other items of clothing were found. This next bit was not released at the time either. But
00:35:48
what we do know today is Seaman was identified on vaginal swabs taken at the autopsy. The pathologist did not make a
00:35:59
ruling as to whether the victim had been raped. Uh there was no evidence of trauma to the genital area. There's also
00:36:10
no reference or report of had she possibly engaged in consensual sex, which of course at the age of 14, she
00:36:19
can't really consent anyway by per the law. The the town was shaken up, needless to say, by the murder. It was I
00:36:27
mean technically she could consent with another minor, right? I don't I don't I not a lawyer. Um but I don't know how I
00:36:37
don't know how this works. But what we do know is she was at a party. We have nobody saying that she was sneaking off
00:36:44
into the room with anybody. She leaves the party. This guy Steve, there's no physical or intimate connection there.
00:36:52
She's seen at the pizza shop, so she's not obviously having sex with anybody at the pizza shop. And then she's last seen
00:36:59
walking down a road. So I, you know, I would I would assume um we could almost assume that this is
00:37:09
not consensual, right? Well, no. I I mean, in what terms? I I mean, then the legal term, I I went out of my way to
00:37:19
say it that way because of of a few different things. if if the individual I I don't want to I don't want to try to
00:37:28
uh dance through the the raindrops of you know if if if she was 14 and with another 14year-old what's the what's the
00:37:35
law there but what I'm pointing out here is if if she were picked up by somebody
00:37:40
uh if it was a person who a male who was 16 18 19 what have you the the look there's information in and throughout
00:37:51
this story that she was very likely sexually active at the age of 14. And there's also the statement by her
00:38:01
current boyfriend, Craig Rup. His statement to police is that they went to a pond area to quote spend some time
00:38:09
together. But he says that in their relationship they had never had sex and that that evening was no exception. We
00:38:18
we gloss over some of the information here purposely because it it it I don't know that it furthers the investigation
00:38:25
to go into how potentially violent this murder was. To say that the town was shaken up would be an understatement.
00:38:34
The the students at Lor's high school were incredibly disturbed by the news. And remember the principal said this was
00:38:42
a girl that had a lot of friends and we can see by her activities that night she
00:38:47
had a lot of friends. A lot of people liked her. People stopping to offer her a ride. Many sought counseling. Some of
00:38:52
the students had to go to counseling or started going to church after this event. Now the community did pull
00:39:00
together to raise some money for a Crimestoppers reward. It wasn't until November 15th. Uh, but this is the first
00:39:08
time we see a local paper advertising a $1,000 reward for information in the case. That reward very quickly doubled.
00:39:17
Meanwhile, area law enforcement authorities wanted to solve this murder very quickly. The Fulton County
00:39:24
Sheriff's Office made sure that all items of physical evidence, which was not a list was not provided to the
00:39:34
public. But what we do know is Fulton County Sheriff's Office is stating, "We sent the physical evidence immediately
00:39:42
to the FBI labs for analysis." Later, what we would learn here, Captain, in some reports is that blue paint chips
00:39:51
were recovered from Lor's jean jacket. Now, this was an all hands on deck case. We have Fulton County Sheriff's Office,
00:40:03
Lucas County Sheriff's Office, and Swanton Police Department all hands on deck to solve this very quickly. The
00:40:11
Swanton police chief, Tom Bates, who was also a reverend, he led the funeral service for Lori on November 2nd at
00:40:21
Woodlon Cemetery in Swan, Ohio. On November 7th, the public received word that the authorities uh they were they
00:40:31
were seeking the public's help for locating the potential murder weapon in the case. It was obvious and also
00:40:40
pointed out that that they they had no reason to believe that Lori was killed where she was found. It was simply a a a
00:40:50
dumping ground. She had been killed elsewhere and they were telling the public this would be a location that we
00:40:59
would expect to find a lot of blood. Wherever she was killed, we expect to find a lot of blood. Well, yeah, because
00:41:06
there's blunt force trauma to the head and the head is an area that likes to bleed out. They also went out of their
00:41:15
way to say that they don't think that there is a mass murderer running loose in the county. They don't think that
00:41:24
there is some maniac out there that would, you know, no evidence to suggest that there's a maniac out there seeking
00:41:31
to murder young people. They did say that it was their belief that whoever was responsible for this very likely was
00:41:41
someone who knew Lori. It was a person therefore that that was not considered to be a danger to others. It was Lori
00:41:48
that this individual wanted to kill whether it be premeditated or in the moment. Yeah. To me that seems I mean
00:41:55
you have the argument, you have the current boyfriend, you have the ex-boyfriend.
00:41:59
So, I guess you would have some people that have motive, but because her whereabouts changed. She was initially
00:42:07
at a party. I don't know if it if do we have any information that she was supposed to stay at the party or was she
00:42:14
supposed to go back home? But either way, her movements changed throughout the day. So, to me, if I'm law
00:42:20
enforcement, I'm going I think this is more random. See, that's where my I'm with you because no, the way the night
00:42:28
was supposed to go is go to McDonald's. Of course, she's not going to tell her parents that she's going to a pond for a
00:42:36
for a brief stop off with her boyfriend, but it's the plan was go to McDonald's,
00:42:41
go to this Halloween party where there's a bunch of friends her age, uh, a bunch
00:42:47
of high school kids, and then go home. her her her boyfriend Craig Rep would be dropping her off at home. And we do have
00:42:55
her sister saying, "Look, she never broke curfew." Now, of course, she's 14 and sometimes those teenage years get
00:43:02
weird and the older you get, you might start breaking rules all of a sudden. But it it appears to me that her being
00:43:10
out past curfew, her being out on her own is just as you said, it's a matter of what was going on in the moment. She
00:43:19
was she she was distraught. She decided to stomp off and leave the party. And that was never the plan for that night.
00:43:27
And I'm with you. Who's to say that she wasn't out walking a county road by herself and and exactly what the police
00:43:35
and prosecutors said to not be worried about? Maybe there was somebody out there seeking to snatch a woman or a
00:43:44
young lady and and sexually assault them. And if it leads to death, it leads to death. So I I I look, I think that
00:43:53
maybe what they were seeing and who they were talking to, maybe that is suggestive to them that that wasn't the
00:44:00
case that it was some the statistics would say that it that it would likely be somebody that knew her. But I I
00:44:08
wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the idea that this was somebody that saw an opportunity, saw a person who was
00:44:14
vulnerable and took advantage of that situation. And and she again, if that were the case, she didn't have to
00:44:22
willingly get into a vehicle for for this to be the result. Unfortunately, her meaning that she was forced in,
00:44:31
right? Well, yeah. Yeah. Unfortunately, her case goes cold rather quickly. We do
00:44:38
know that Crimestoppers continued to run ads in newspapers with reward information throughout 1986, the
00:44:45
following year. No answers or tips forthcoming. In June of 86, uh, her parents, tired of the of the
00:44:54
quiet surrounding the case, offered up their own reward of $10,000 leading for information to the that would lead to
00:45:02
the identity of her killer. Lor's father, Roger, goes on record saying that he wanted his daughter's killer to
00:45:10
face the death penalty. Quote, "There is definitely a revenge factor." He said, "I want an eye for an eye." In November
00:45:19
of 1986, a Fulton County grand jury was convened to consider Lorie's case. Now, we got to clarify for some of the
00:45:29
listeners out there why and what this scenario actually entails. So, sometimes investigators do this, prosecutors do
00:45:37
this to employ the subpoena power and sworn testimony of that investigative body, right? to force people to testify
00:45:48
telling the truth. The proceedings are typically secret. All we know about this one is that teenagers and police
00:45:58
officers testified during this grand jury. The grand jury failed to hand down an indictment, although it is unknown
00:46:06
whether one was sought. They may have convened, they may have brought this to a grand jury without actually seeking an
00:46:14
indictment. Sometimes it's just to further the investigation when you have the subpoena power and testimony power.
00:46:23
We do know that one angle that was explored by the grand jury was three guys, three individuals. This
00:46:34
is James and William Little and Richard Najacowski. So, a witness claimed to have seen James
00:46:45
Little in the possession of a gold watch, which was believed to belong to Lori. This witness testified to the
00:46:54
grand jury, but admitted later that she lied because she was influenced by others to try to connect this watch to
00:47:06
the the James and William Little brothers. Now, other witnesses also tried to tie the Littles to the crime,
00:47:13
but were revealed to have ulterior motives to see the Littles in prison and imprisoned. And the physical evidence
00:47:22
did not support these stories either. So, no indictment comes down and certainly no indictment came down
00:47:28
against either James or William Little. We're going to peel back the curtain here a little bit and look at something
00:47:35
that was known behind the scenes for a long period of time, but but not known to the public for for many years. So
00:47:43
many years later, the public would learn what happened. Remember, we talked about
00:47:49
the sheriff's office sending off the physical evidence to the FBI laboratories for testing.
00:47:57
And years later, we will learn that, quote, "In 1985, the items of evidence collected from the victim's body
00:48:04
included oral, rectal, and vaginal smears and swabs that were placed on slides and in separate vials. On October
00:48:13
31st, 1985, the Fulton County Sheriff's Department submitted those items to the FBI laboratory in Washington, DC for
00:48:22
analysis. On February 14th of 1986, the FBI laboratory submitted its report to the sheriff's
00:48:32
office regarding the results of the evidence subi was submitted. They did say blood was found on the oral smear
00:48:40
and swab. Semen was found only on the vaginal swab. In addition, no spermic cells were found on any of the samples.
00:48:49
The testing that was conducted, however, required the consumption of the entire sample. The testing found semen on the
00:48:58
swab but failed to detect sperm and the vaginal swab sample was used up. It wasn't clear if there were other
00:49:06
samples, right? It wasn't clear if the sheriff's office was holding on to additional evidence that wasn't sent off
00:49:14
for testing that could that could be used later, right? So look, that's bad news in the moment.
00:49:22
That's bad news in 1985. And actually, well, when they received the results in February of 86,
00:49:29
look at look how long it took to receive the the the results back then. I mean, it's 4 months. But it's also bad news
00:49:38
for the case at large where it's we're seeing time and time again cases being solved 10 20 30 40 years
00:49:49
later because this kind of evidence still this physical evidence still exists. Nothing seems
00:49:57
to have really nothing of consequence happened in the case until 1988. So that year, that same evidence, right? The the
00:50:07
same swabs and slides that we've already discussed, right? These items, you know,
00:50:13
you talk about the the further of of technology there, these swabs and slides were submitted to the Ohio Bureau of
00:50:22
Criminal Investigation and identification for potential DNA testing. Now upon examination of of these samples uh what
00:50:31
the forensic scientists came back with was that there was not sufficient quality or quantity of material to
00:50:39
undergo the DNA testing. So they didn't actually get to the point of testing it because of the poor quality and lack of
00:50:46
quantity of the samples submitted. So then BCI, Ohio BCI then returns the physical evidence, those swabs and
00:50:59
slides back to the Fulton County Sheriff's Department. Over the next two decades, Captain Lor's family pushed
00:51:07
hard for the case to receive attention. They made the rounds of talk shows and whatnot and even raised
00:51:16
[Music] $50,000 toward reward money. But it wouldn't be until 2008 until this case would take a
00:51:28
turn. So, let's fast forward here. Zoom forward. We're now 2008. We have more than two decades have
00:51:37
gone by since the the brutal murder of Lorian Anne Hill in Northwest Ohio. In 2008, there was a renewed
00:51:47
push to finally solve the case. Rachel Hill, Lor's sister, now well into adulthood herself, demanded an
00:51:57
accounting of the status of the case. And the answer was it was pretty much dead in the water. But then the sheriff
00:52:09
learned that the Toledo Police Department had funding for a cold case unit via a National Institute of Justice
00:52:18
grant that the police department had received. They had in fact successfully resolved some cold cases because of that
00:52:25
grant and because investigators, cold case investigators were active on these old
00:52:33
investigations. Now, Lorie's case was the only unsolved murder on the books for the Fulton County Sheriff's Office
00:52:42
during that sheriff's 25 years in office. The sheriff requested the help of this cold case unit and the cold case
00:52:51
investigators. The Fulton County Sheriff's Office and the Fulton County Prosecutor's Office started quickly and
00:52:57
quietly working together on the 20 plus year old case. This would lead to about 8 months of hardcore investigating on
00:53:09
the old case, which definitely unearthed some information in the form of tips. This is enough for the Fulton County
00:53:17
Grand Jury to act on. So in July, now we move to July of 2009. So this is the following year after the the cold case
00:53:27
detectives take over the case. There's news coming out that the grand jury had indicted a man for for two counts, one
00:53:36
of aggravated murder and one of murder. So, the grand jury indicted 42year-old Walter E.
00:53:46
Zic on those two counts of murder. So, who is this guy? Ex-boyfriend. The captain's been talking a lot for an
00:53:54
hour. I've been listening quietly. Who is this guy? You've not told us about Walter Zimpic yet. So, Walter Zimpic was
00:54:01
Lor's boyfriend prior. So, this is the the boyfriend before she started dating Craig Rup,
00:54:09
right? Lory's boyfriend for a period of time before her death. And see, here's here's what I wonder, though,
00:54:17
because he's Walter is not at the party. No eyewitnesses put Walter at the pizza
00:54:24
shop. Correct. So, is it possible that this is the individual that Lori called at the pizza shop? I think it's highly
00:54:33
likely that either she called him or was attempting to get in touch with. Right.
00:54:39
So, we need to point out obviously since she's she had moved on to Craig Rup that
00:54:44
she was not dating this guy Walter at the time that she was killed. The mo most of the reports state that they
00:54:53
dated for several months, some saying that it was like 18 months. Yeah. But a couple months when
00:55:00
you're 14, one is is a decent percentage of your life. But that's a that could be
00:55:06
a big deal when you're 14. A lot of the reports are that they started dating at near the end of her eighth grade year
00:55:13
and continued dating until the summer before her sophomore year, sounds like, or just when school was starting up her
00:55:20
sophomore year. So, this would be lengthy for for her age and even for Walter's age at the time. But what we do
00:55:28
know is she moves on to this Craig Rup guy. Her and Craig get in an argument at that party. She's still wearing Walter
00:55:36
Zimpik's ring, class ring. When she's at that party, she's got two class rings on. That was the genesis of that
00:55:43
argument, that disagreement. It was noted that at the time of the murder, Walter Zmpic lived not very far from
00:55:54
the where Lorie's body was found. Right. And so there's a possibility or at least
00:56:01
law enforcement is thinking there's either a possibility that Walter picked her up, took her back to his his house,
00:56:08
or did she make it all the way to his house? And then some kind of confrontation happens and then her, like
00:56:16
you said, her body is discovered not far from where he lived. Well, and and as we
00:56:21
said earlier, this was all hands on deck. This was big news when she went missing and there was a large search for
00:56:29
her while she was still missing. And in fact, Walter Zmpic was interviewed, right? He's on camera. He spoke to
00:56:40
WNW News cameras during a search for Laurianne Hill and his he says on camera, quote, "I am very worried this
00:56:50
isn't something that she wouldn't do at all. I just don't know what to say." When the Fulton County Sheriff's Office
00:56:57
and the Toledo Police Department started investigating this case, a new right in
00:57:03
2008, we have Toledo Police Sergeant Steve Forester. He said his department received close to 100 tips after the
00:57:15
public push for information. He told the Fulton County Expositor, "Some of the calls have
00:57:22
proven to be very helpful. I am very happy with the information we have gotten so far. He said they were looking
00:57:28
to build a case, but they were still looking for the name of the person Lori called from Mr. G's. Quote, "She
00:57:37
definitely talked to someone in there and we'd like to know who." End quote. They were working on building a case
00:57:45
just like he said. Part of that too that was helpful part one of the things that
00:57:49
was helpful was a tip that came in from Zmpik's aranged wife there in the middle. Walter Zmpic and his his wife
00:57:59
were involved in this custody battle around the same time. It's it's weird, man, how these things like line up and
00:58:08
almost a coincidence, right? There's all of a sudden there's this cold case investigation that kicks off because the
00:58:13
sister, you know, gets angry and reminds the sheriff's office that that her sister's murder is still unsolved and
00:58:20
and the cold case unit recently kicked into gear about a year or two before. And then all at the same time, this
00:58:27
separation with a custody battle and then Zmpik's strange arange wife calls in a tip with his name and says, you
00:58:37
know, he he dated her back then. you might want to take a look at him. He was from the area. So, the cold case unit,
00:58:43
they go and they review Zimpik was interviewed a couple of times back in 1985 and they were aware, law
00:58:53
enforcement was aware that there was a a previous relationship between the two and that it may have been extensive. So,
00:59:00
they wanted to talk to this guy quite a bit. They talked to Craig a lot. They talked to Steve a lot. Now, we're going
00:59:04
to talk to this Walter Zimpic. When they go back and they review the interviews from 1985, the cold case unit finds that
00:59:13
Zmpic had given conflicting information during the course of several interviews. And part of this was is
00:59:21
difficult, right? Because we said all hands on deck. Sometimes you have what we say in the captain intro last week,
00:59:28
too many cooks spoil the soup. Well, it's unclear to me if they were aware in 1985 that he had gi given conflicting
00:59:39
information because on some of these occasions he's being interviewed by the Fulton County
00:59:44
Sheriff's Office and on other occasions he's being interviewed by the Lucas County Sheriff's Office. according to
00:59:51
his alibi or whatever you want to call it, his activities or his whereabouts for the night in question were
01:00:00
conflicting in those those different statements. So here here's what we do know though. So according to the record,
01:00:07
Lori dated Walter Zimpik from the time she was in 8th grade for about 18 months. And like Craig Rup, Zimick was
01:00:17
significantly older than Lori. He was like Craig, 18 at the time that Lori was killed. We have Lucas County
01:00:27
detectives Lor and Damascow last names interviewing Zmpic on November 1st, 1985. So this this
01:00:38
would be after her body was located. It sounds like they're treating him as a possible suspect right away because of
01:00:45
his history with Lori. Zmpic said that Lori had moved on from him to date this Craig Rup, but the two were still
01:00:54
friendly. They spoke on the phone nearly every day. But he said in his statement
01:01:00
that he had actually not seen her in approximately two weeks time leading up to the night that she went missing. at
01:01:07
the time 1985. The investigators asked Walter Zimpik for his alibi. And let's go through let's go through Zimpik's
01:01:16
alibis. Yes, that that wasn't a mistake by the old colonel. That was plural on purpose because these alibis were all
01:01:23
over the place in my humble opinion. One story he told was that he worked as a buser at El Matador. Right. This is the
01:01:31
same restaurant we mentioned earlier where another employee had a party on the night that Lori was believed to have
01:01:37
been killed. But he didn't actually work that night. He was scheduled to work, but he says there was there was a friend
01:01:43
coming into town and there was an offer to go and hang out with some friends and
01:01:49
he he made arrangements to get his shift covered and he didn't have to go in that
01:01:55
night. So, in this version of his alibi, he says that he hung out with his friend
01:02:01
Denny Miller along with some other guys named Mark, Ken, and Denny's brother, who is unnamed in the statement or or at
01:02:10
least as far as what made it made to the public. He says he hung out with these guys until about 7:00 p.m. and then he
01:02:17
went home to so he lives at the Garden Road Apartments in Mommy, Ohio, where he lives with his mom and his
01:02:29
stepdad. And he says he was there for the rest of the night. Didn't see or talk to Lori at all. Walter Zmpic was
01:02:36
interviewed again several days later. This is on November 5th, so four days later, he sits down with Fulton County
01:02:43
Sheriff's Warkey and Albbright. So, please note, he's talking to a different agency and he's talking to two different
01:02:52
detectives 4 days later. This time, he said that he and Lori had been talking about getting back together leading up
01:03:00
to her death and that she planned on dumping Craig to get back with him. Walter Zmpic says in this statement he
01:03:07
met up with his buddies around 400 p.m. But this time he said that he went that they went to the Southwick Mall. There
01:03:15
he ran into another buddy. This is a co-orker of his named Bob. He said he also met a girl at the mall for the
01:03:25
first time. This is the first time he he had met her. Her name was Sandy. He says
01:03:29
that after meeting Sandy that they agreed to go back to Walter's mom's apartment. He snuck her in through the
01:03:38
bedroom window and they quote spent time together until she left around 2:00 a.m.
01:03:44
He says after Sandy left, the phone rang and the caller was Rob. So, this is a a
01:03:51
neighbor who was also a Lucas County deputy telling him that Lori was missing. So, these two investigators
01:04:01
from Fulton County Sheriff's Department in this interview, they specifically asked
01:04:09
Walter Zmpic whether it was he that Lori called from Mr. G's Pizza Place that night. He says no. And remember, he says
01:04:20
he not only did he not see her that night in the statement, he also says he did not speak with her at all that
01:04:37
night. A lot more to get to in this crime story. Join us back here in the garage. Same back time, same back
01:04:44
channel. And until then, be good, be kind, and don't litter. Heat. Heat. [Music]
01:04:59
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