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thank you welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for
00:02:02
listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man whose baloney has a last name it's
00:02:08
m-a-y-e-r he is the captain yeah my baloney brings all the girls to the yard and they're like it's better than yours
00:02:16
it's good to be seen and it's good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a friend
00:02:27
all right Hop Heads today we are sipping on easy Eddie from Big Grove Brewery featuring Mosaic and Simcoe hops this
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beer Championship Gold Medal winner garage grade four and a quarter bottle caps out of five and gold medals go out
00:02:54
to our Great Garage supporters first up cheers to Jenna in Vancouver British Columbia and a big shout out to Sandra
00:03:03
in Demorest Georgia next up we have Robin in Greenville Indiana and believe it or not Michelle from Greenville
00:03:11
Tennessee and we have Ann and Chris from Brecksville Ohio and last but certainly
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not least we have Avery from Springdale Arkansas Avery and his father are long time listeners of TCG
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it makes sense too because we have covered many Arkansas cases so cheers to Avery and his father and cheers to
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everyone for putting some beer in the fridge for us this week and this week instead of beer fund money we are asking
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enough of the be his knees all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime
00:05:07
long time listeners of this fine program will know that one of the tactics I would certainly use in any of these
00:05:16
investigations is what I like to call the old pervert Roundup and that is exactly what law enforcement did
00:05:24
investigators Tracked Down approximately 10 registered sex offenders living in Evansdale and all were cleared by police
00:05:32
but according to CNN there were two 200 registered sex offenders in a 10 mile radius
00:05:40
this is scary stuff the town of Waterloo has wait did you make sure that there wasn't a prison I I did the town of
00:05:49
Waterloo has one registered sex offender for every 236 residents for comparison purposes Evansdale has a registered sex
00:05:59
offender for every 484 residents overall the DCI says it looked into over 300 sex offenders to date
00:06:11
throughout the investigation investigators had a hard time figuring out exactly how the girls were abducted
00:06:18
where the bikes were left was quite far from their house and was not in an area cars could travel on further the girls
00:06:28
sense had seemed to lead into the woods how had a predator or Predators managed to get control of two girls
00:06:37
silently and sight unseen in broad daylight yeah but we've talked about this many times normally
00:06:44
I'm going to guess that it's by threat of violence I show you a gun I show you a knife you're a little kid it's not
00:06:52
going to be that hard for me to you know most little kids are not going to think
00:06:57
hey I could take off running right now or maybe I can scream or I could do something you're gonna see that gun and
00:07:04
once that threat is made now that perpetrators in control yeah and what you have to wonder about too is do you
00:07:13
take that a step further and say were they lured to a vehicle perhaps by someone they knew and trusted and there
00:07:19
was no reason for them to scream or run away right I think that's your second option the other thought too had they
00:07:25
been grabbed from another location perhaps along a road alongside a road which would make sense and then the
00:07:30
bikes left by their abductor on the trail and the dogs are just mistaken or confused well we've talked about this a
00:07:39
little off the Record was the idea that what if the perpetrator had a truck or had a truck with maybe a cap on it where
00:07:49
he got the girls got control of the girls they're now in his vehicle he has the their bikes but now he's afraid that
00:07:56
once he takes off that maybe somebody sees the bikes in the back of his truck here's the other thing to consider as
00:08:04
well staying along the idea that it was a stranger abduction could we have a situation where they
00:08:10
were somewhat targeted meaning had someone been watching the two girls as we said this bike ride was pretty
00:08:17
routine they were out riding together often and I would imagine it would be roughly
00:08:22
about the same time of day so did somebody put together a you know a carefully planned attack a snatch and
00:08:29
grab of these two girls especially if they were following him and then followed them all the way to the lake
00:08:36
that might have presented the opportunity the perpetrator was looking for there were a rash of child abduction
00:08:45
attempts throughout Iowa in 2012. the following reports appeared in various media Publications and I'll kind of go
00:08:53
through these one at a time captain and you just kind of jump in where you see fit May 19 2012 authorities say they
00:09:01
were looking for a man suspected in the attempted abduction of three girls on the west side of Perry Iowa Perry police
00:09:10
say the man stopped his car about 8 PM Friday and asked the girls ages 8 and 9 for directions to a convenience store he
00:09:20
then tried to get the girls into the car asking for them to show him the way show
00:09:25
him the directions police say the girls ran to a neighbor's house thankfully on June 6th of that same year Metro Police
00:09:34
are teaming up with following a string of attempted child abductions in the Des Moines Iowa area note this is like 125
00:09:44
miles away from Evansdale but I I want to go through some of these as we as we can here the most recent of
00:09:52
these attempts happened in Pleasant Hill on May 23rd of that year police say a man in a SUV tried to lure a young girl
00:10:02
into his vehicle in the same article they're talking about Waukee police we're investigating an incident that
00:10:09
happened around the same date there were two girls they say they were followed by
00:10:14
an SUV in June parents in Forest City Iowa were notified of two abduction attempts and one of them the driver of a
00:10:23
tan panel work style van stopped three children on bicycles on North 8th Street and told them he was going to get them
00:10:32
the children ran away and the driver drove off it seems like we need another stranger danger
00:10:40
campaigned through this country I mean with all these creeps and all these pieces of [ __ ] to teach these kids one
00:10:46
stay away run away run to the nearest house yell for help well what I always find interesting in these situations is
00:10:54
when you do have some a child or children who actually go missing and then the thought is abduction you'll see
00:11:01
these little stories in the newspapers in the local newspaper papers and they are just that they are little tiny
00:11:08
stories because they don't know much about the offender they don't really fully know
00:11:13
what the offender was attempting to do the actual crimes they were attempting to carry out but it's scary stuff and
00:11:21
they're really just delivering a little short warning to the community and to the parents in the area what happens
00:11:27
once you have a child who actually goes missing these stories all start to cycle back
00:11:33
through the news because now you have people making connections and you're going all right there's a shark in the
00:11:40
water and he's over here swimming around in this area and look you try to get somebody here and try to get somebody
00:11:46
there in the same article Captain they are going all the way back to March of that year where they say the police
00:11:53
department investigated a possible attempt to abduct a 10 year old boy the boy who was in front of his home said he
00:12:00
was approached by an Asian male approximately 50 years old with a thin face the suspect was driving an older
00:12:07
gray van possibly with Iowa license plates the man reportedly tried to lure the boy into his van after asking for
00:12:16
directions to a church whether these attempts could have been the same person who took Elizabeth and lyric is
00:12:26
almost certainly something that police in Evansdale would have been considering at the time
00:12:33
on the four-month anniversary of The Disappearance a letter appeared in the newspaper and
00:12:41
it read to whom it may concern we would use your name but we don't know who you are or maybe we do
00:12:49
maybe you are someone who knows the girls maybe you're someone who just acted upon
00:12:55
impulse maybe you had planned to take them we don't know because we don't know who you
00:13:02
are but we can sort of imagine that you must not have had the things you needed to grow up feeling safe and loved
00:13:10
because only someone who hurts inside would hurt another person in their family we've all heard the saying hurt people
00:13:19
hurt people we believe this to be true we are so sorry for what happened to you when you were
00:13:28
growing up certainly all children do not receive all the love and care they deserve
00:13:34
some are even abused by those who are supposed to have taken care of them when that happens it is very wrong
00:13:42
taking the girls from us has caused much pain pain for them pain for us and our families
00:13:50
since the time you took them maybe you've wondered more than a few times how you could ever make it right
00:13:57
how to be a hero not a monster things probably look pretty hopeless for a good outcome
00:14:05
we want you to know that we are praying for you to do the right thing by releasing the girls everyone wins
00:14:13
even you the person who took them imagine how it will feel to have everyone remember that you were the one
00:14:22
person and all the missing children cases the one person who cared enough to let the girls go
00:14:30
you will not be remembered as the one who took the girls but as the one who let them come home
00:14:37
our lives have not been the same since July 13th please let our girls come home to us do the right thing be a hero
00:14:46
sincerely and it's signed by both of the families well and then we're going to learn that that's not an option anymore
00:14:52
to return the girls because the girls would be found yeah this takes place on December 5th of
00:14:59
that same year 2012. the family they get the phone call that they were really hoping not to get
00:15:07
the family was told that two bodies had been found and at that time they believed them to be the girls three
00:15:15
Hunters found two small corpses in Seven Bridges Wildlife Park in Bremer County north of Evansdale this was a totally
00:15:24
Off the Grid 166 acre Wildlife Area about 22 miles from Myers Lake 22 miles from where the
00:15:34
bikes were found the area was not one that someone would just stumble upon it was frequented
00:15:41
mostly by hunters ATV riders fishermen you know outdoor people yeah this wasn't uh the type of Park that you would just
00:15:50
take your kids for a hike this was like you said more for hunters and fishermen ATV riders and to kind of clue everybody
00:15:58
in that's not from that area when I see these types of statements it really it really puts it into perspective for me
00:16:06
what kind of place what kind of area we're talking about this is also an area where people would drive
00:16:12
and dump appliances you know how you see things that that are just dumped that are on one wanted that they have no
00:16:19
other idea of how to get rid of them right they just dump these appliances out in the middle of nowhere so and this
00:16:25
is also a place that pretty much only in the locals know about you want to know about it if you weren't from that area I
00:16:32
mean you could find it on a map but as said it's it's very much like you just described it's only going to be
00:16:39
frequented by people that are specifically intending to go to that area for the purpose of hunting or
00:16:46
fishing now some locals used to use the area as a party spot so if you were local you
00:16:52
were aware particularly high school kids you know kids out looking for a place to
00:16:57
drink some beers the bodies were found by hunters making their way through the brush near a river the hunters nearly
00:17:05
stepped on one of the corpses the two corpses were lying about 20 yards apart from one another Blackhawk County
00:17:14
Sheriff Tony Thompson said even the hunters you know in describing this area he says even these Hunters if they had
00:17:22
just gone five feet in either direction they would have never found those bodies
00:17:27
the area where the bodies lay was accessible only by one road this is 270th Street this road had a dirt road
00:17:36
off of it that went a short distance to a dirt parking area and a turnout near the riverbank
00:17:44
the bodies were found about 150 feet from this turnout in the woods the whole place is incredibly desolate
00:17:53
the kind of place where you could go and know that you're not going to see any other human beings the Iowa State
00:18:00
medical examiner's office confirmed after autopsies that the remains were in fact that of Lyric and Elizabeth the
00:18:08
medical examiner was able to determine a cause of death but this has never been released by law enforcement law
00:18:17
enforcement made statements to the effect that details surrounding the cause of death would be known only to
00:18:24
the Killer and Evansdale police chief Kent smock said investigators had an idea of how
00:18:31
much time passed between the girl's disappearance and when they were killed however he would not release that detail
00:18:39
to the public investigators have also never addressed whether they have suspect DNA in this
00:18:45
case although given that the bodies were exposed to the elements for what could be close to five months DNA recovery
00:18:54
could be difficult Drew Collins has stated that he was never informed whether DNA of anyone
00:19:02
other than the girls was found in the family chose not to learn how the girls were killed I think the important
00:19:10
information that they're putting out there is we know roughly when they were abducted and we roughly know when they
00:19:17
were killed yes yes very much so and then one of the more famous leads in this case Captain this comes about on
00:19:26
July 24 2013 and there's some different parts to this lead um I actually think they had a good
00:19:34
amount of this information in advance but this is when we become aware of it this is almost a year
00:19:41
to the date of when the two girls were abducted the authorities announced that they received information from three
00:19:47
Witnesses who saw a vehicle that could be important to the case all three Witnesses reported seeing a large and
00:19:56
clunky white SUV an older model likely a Chevy Suburban or Ford Bronco parked on
00:20:05
arbitus Avenue on Friday July 13th arbitus Avenue is crossed by the Evansdale nature trail and is the road
00:20:15
that is closest to the part of the trail where the girl's bikes were found two of these Witnesses said that they
00:20:22
saw the white SUV parked between two bike trail signs and the other witness told police they saw the vehicle park
00:20:30
near the woods on the east side of the lake a few hundred feet from where the girls bikes were found right but that
00:20:37
that would be where the scent dogs took investigators yeah roughly the same area
00:20:42
what made these witness statements so intriguing was that all three Witnesses said they seen the SUV sometime between
00:20:50
11 30 a.m and 12 30 P.M on the day the girls went missing and if you recall the cyclist my boy Ted G told
00:21:02
police he had seen the bikes on the trail sometime between sometime around 12 20. so this whole time period is all
00:21:10
really fitting together two of the witnesses made their statements as part of the original
00:21:16
police canvassing the third came forward months later having assumed that someone
00:21:21
had already reported it this third report caused police to go back and re-examine the other two statements
00:21:28
about the SUV and decide that it was likely very important to the case but it's unknown whether the public
00:21:36
release of this information regarding the white SUV dredged up any further helpful tips
00:21:45
in 2013 the year after Lyric and Elizabeth were murdered Iowa investigators were alerted to
00:21:53
another double Abduction of two girls on May 20th twelve-year-old Desiree Hughes
00:22:00
and her 15 year old friend Kathleen Shepard were abducted while walking home from school this is around 4 pm in the
00:22:09
afternoon in Dayton Iowa they got into a vehicle with a man who offered to pay them to mow Lawns but he
00:22:19
just keeps driving with them and eventually taking control of the two girls by waving a gun
00:22:26
while they're in the vehicle this item was actually described as a gun to be a gun but later we would learn that this
00:22:35
instrument was actually used to euthanize livestock their abductor Michael klunder drove
00:22:44
around for about 90 minutes and then took the two to a hog processing facility where he worked at
00:22:52
the time he zip tied their hands he then left one of the girls in his truck and he dragged the other girl off into
00:23:01
place is unknown right the girl in the truck she bravely escaped the vehicle and hid
00:23:10
out in the woods before approaching a nearby home and then asking them to call for help around 8 pm
00:23:18
police located klunder's truck at a nearby property where they found that klunder had hung
00:23:26
himself yeah I believe that he wasn't that far from his truck and I think at some point he came back to check on the
00:23:34
other girl and she was gone and that's when he knew oh game's up you know I got to do whatever I'm gonna
00:23:42
do plus I gotta take my own life yeah Desiree was the girl who bravely escaped and unfortunately when police
00:23:50
when they find klunder who had hung himself Kathleen Shepard is nowhere to be seen
00:23:56
no there was a significant amount of blood which they believed to be hers that was found on his truck
00:24:03
her body was found uh sometime later by fishermen about 15 to 20 miles down the Des Moines River
00:24:13
she had been stabbed and beaten to death by a sharp instrument Michael klonder who was a six foot six
00:24:22
inch tall 42 year old farm hand he had already served time in prison from 1992 to 2011. this was half of the
00:24:32
sentence that he received for the 1991 kidnapping and assault of a young woman he grabbed her hit her and pulled her
00:24:42
into his car in an unrelated case klunder abducted two three-year-old twin girls this is
00:24:50
like the strange one of the strangest stories I've ever heard who were later found in a trash receptacle
00:24:56
these were the daughters they were alive thank God these were the daughters of a
00:25:01
female acquaintance clander said he was angry with one of the little girls so he
00:25:06
kidnapped them drove 50 miles with them in his trunk and then left them in the garbage
00:25:14
one of the girls did show signs of possibly having been choked klunder completed a sex offender
00:25:21
treatment program in prison and registered as a sex offender upon his release yeah but he said he's serving
00:25:27
half your sentence you should always be a little more than that or let's make the sentences a little bit longer if
00:25:34
you're only going to have to serve half of them yeah there should be like no good behavior for this man yeah I mean
00:25:40
the show nothing but bad behavior this guy gets out a year before this and he starts committing crimes like this this
00:25:47
is a monster this is a very dangerous individual and police in Evansdale and Dayton
00:25:53
Iowa thought that the clunder case could be connected because of obviously the similarities between the
00:26:01
two abductions two girls taken in daylight from a public place klunder spent some time in Bremer County
00:26:09
where Seven Bridges was located in the 90s so he may have been familiar with that Seven Bridges location well look we
00:26:17
have evidence that this individual likes to drive commit crimes and drive so you
00:26:22
know when he takes capture of these two girls 90 minute drive you say and then the other one we have uh 50 miles right
00:26:32
so this is an individuals not afraid to commit a crime and then drive to different locations look I said it when
00:26:39
we covered Ted Bundy you know a long time ago I I reiterated that when we covered Ed Kemper these serial killer
00:26:48
types and we don't know if numbers actually would put klunder into the serial killer category but it seems like
00:26:58
he was going that direction he he kidnapped two girls that day we know he's guilty of that he killed one of
00:27:04
them but these serial killer types their vehicle is one of their weapons and maybe one of their most important
00:27:11
weapons a lot of these guys do a lot of driving a lot of trolling a lot of hunting I I just think this guy is a
00:27:19
very good suspect I do too um now they claim that he's not a good suspect anymore
00:27:28
yeah and here's the thing when you see a suspect that that feels this good feels
00:27:34
like a possible connection I want a little bit more of a reason why he's not well and and I know they don't owe me
00:27:43
that but I'm I'm selfish Well here here's my problem with their findings is is and again we don't we only know so
00:27:51
much we don't even know if there's DNA that they matched or didn't match and that's how they ruled them in or out
00:27:57
what what the statements they have given to the public or what I've heard is if you look at these crimes yes there's a
00:28:04
lot of similarities but there's a lot of difference and that's why we ruled him out and my argument for that would be he
00:28:11
takes one girl away to isolate her he comes back this is again what I believe he comes back and finds that the other
00:28:18
victim is gone okay now everything has to be sped up now did he kill the other girl before this happened or after I'm
00:28:27
not for sure but again these things were sped up and then he kills himself so I I don't think you can look at the
00:28:35
actual murder or the manner in which it was done and compare the two and say it was it was
00:28:41
similar or different so what your referencing Captain is on May 14 2014 where DCI said they were and
00:28:51
this is this is their words here they were pretty confident Michael klunder was no longer a person of interest in
00:28:59
the Evansdale case right so here's what they're citing in this they said that he did have an alibi for
00:29:08
the day that the girls went missing that he was at home in Stratford and I don't
00:29:12
know how many people are there at this home or what puts him there that they're that they sound this confident in this
00:29:20
alibi now one thing we should note though Stratford is about a hundred miles away
00:29:26
from Evansdale yeah that's not that far though no hour and a half not with how much this guy
00:29:32
seems to like to drive and then as you pointed out they stated there were forensic differences between the two
00:29:39
cases that's an interesting choice of words because with all the information that they're holding back in the
00:29:46
Evansdale case they can't clearly come out and tell us exactly what those forensic differences are because that
00:29:53
could be showing their hand in the Evansdale case so where we don't know if we have DNA
00:29:59
suspect DNA in the Evansdale case if they do and they compared it to clunders DNA and they don't get a match
00:30:08
well that technically would be a forensic difference but you don't want to say that out to
00:30:14
the public and let them know that you have DNA remember they're holding back just as much in this Evansdale case as
00:30:21
they are in the Delphi case and other cases that are similar to this if you're looking for more True Crime
00:30:36
garage Go download the Stitcher app it is free and you can listen to all of our old episodes on the Stitcher app you can
00:30:45
go all the way back to the beginning hell we have almost 400 episodes you can choose from and if that's not enough
00:30:52
check out our bonus show called off the Record that's exclusively on Stitcher premium
00:31:04
oh time all right we're back this case I mean this you know I've heard of it before
00:31:18
but to spend the time and dive into it it's it's very complex and and it's very confusing well and it's
00:31:27
one of those cases where we have enough information to lead us to more questions
00:31:33
and we're sitting here now spinning our tires trying to answer some of those questions but it's an intriguing case
00:31:40
it's one that I'm very confident that they're still very active with and we'll get into to some of that as we go and
00:31:47
before we leave you today we will give you the tip number if anybody should have any information or thoughts that
00:31:54
they want to pass along to the proper authorities on August 21st 2014 more than two years
00:32:02
after Lyric and Elizabeth were killed Evansdale police held a press conference announcing a new website dedicated to
00:32:11
the girls case and I used some of that for my note-taking when doing research for this case
00:32:18
part of this website Captain discusses the likely characteristics of the Killer because law enforcement developed a
00:32:27
profile of sorts with the help of the FBI's behavioral analysis unit who believed that the killer was a single
00:32:35
individual stating he was familiar with both Myers Lake and Evansdale and Seven Bridges Wildlife Area in Bremer County
00:32:45
he likely selected Seven Bridges as a Dumping Ground because he was familiar with the area and knew it was secluded
00:32:52
according to the profile the offender Blends in with the community at large and may be a resident of black hawk or
00:33:00
Bremer counties he likely used quiet coercion to subdue the girls and coerce them into leaving
00:33:09
with him using a ruse or threats of violence like you pointed out the cousins were possibly the victims of
00:33:17
opportunity seized by someone who had expressed interest in underage girls and possibly had attempted abductions in the
00:33:25
past finally the suspect likely altered his appearance and or cleaned painted or
00:33:32
disposed of his vehicle after the abduction right but this this profile matches plunder
00:33:41
right they just described Michael klunder yeah so I I just really am interested to know
00:33:48
what they had that that that points away from him I agree with you Captain I cannot shake this suspect I can't I
00:33:57
can't get him off of my list because he just seems too good he seems to fit too well with what we believe
00:34:04
we're looking for very violent yeah History of Violence also the same victimology
00:34:12
that we would see in both cases he doesn't look a lot of offenders are looking for that
00:34:20
opportunity to find a vulnerable a person that's in a vulnerable position and alone a lot of offenders will be
00:34:29
turned off when they cannot find a potential victim by themselves he seems to have to to be able to
00:34:36
overstep that obstacle we know that for a fact because he took two girls who are
00:34:42
walking home from school it might be a part of his Mo and he used quiet coercion right just like they described
00:34:50
in the profile and that's really what these offenders and these perpetrators want to do when
00:34:56
they're trying to get somebody in their vehicle be it an adult or a child you don't want screaming you don't want a
00:35:04
violent altercation to have to go down because what does that create it creates ear Witnesses and eyewitnesses and
00:35:11
that's bad for your business his business is getting the victim into his vehicle
00:35:16
sight unseen and that can be done by offering to pay them for mowing lawns or as you said waving a gun in the face
00:35:27
with threatening you know with threatening violence toward them we do have some you know just when this
00:35:35
case can't get any more strange we did get two confessions over the years people who allege that they were
00:35:41
responsible for killing the girls but here's what we should start doing from now on if you confess to a crime that
00:35:48
you didn't commit we just put you in jail you get 30 days just for fun no no no you you get whatever that crime would
00:35:56
entail so if if it's murder and you confess to it and we know you're lying you still get 30 years just lock you up
00:36:04
because because it makes zero sense I don't understand well but the problem with that is it often it's somebody with
00:36:12
some pretty severe mental issues okay right right to come forward you could put them in a hospital
00:36:18
usually these people need some kind of treatment that they're in a bad place and they're confessing to something that
00:36:24
they they weren't even capable of doing and I mean that from on many different levels well and that's them these are
00:36:31
not bad people they're not evil people they're just they're confused because of of their illness right but the the
00:36:37
that's where law enforcement holding things close to the vest is important because when these
00:36:44
individuals come forward then they they can match certain things up and if your story doesn't line up or or the evidence
00:36:53
doesn't match your story we know that you're you're lying right and unfortunately hundreds of years ago we
00:36:59
would have just hung the person or a lesser Police Department would have went ahead and put this person in jail or
00:37:06
taking them to trial well but some sometimes with these crimes just look at like JonBenet Ramsey we've had so many
00:37:12
people come forward and confess well there's so much information out there it's really hard to okay they got this
00:37:19
wrong or they got this wrong well what if they only got a couple things wrong you go well did they just misremember
00:37:25
that or or are they really not the Killer be common especially when you have a case that's like famous on the state
00:37:34
level I mean Amy mihalovic that we've covered several times there were multiple people
00:37:40
that confessed to to her murder and we have every reason to believe that none of them actually killed her one of the
00:37:46
guys confessed in the middle of church he got up on a Sunday morning and started marching up and down the the
00:37:53
aisles confessing to the whole congregation that he had killed Amy Mahal now that's a weird
00:38:00
that's a weird Church experience right there beyond weird right put a few extra bucks in the collection plate for the
00:38:07
theatrics for that day now let's get into another good suspect now that we're past the two confessions that that don't
00:38:17
go anywhere there's no validity to those guys and when you go over the suspect it's almost like you're making this up
00:38:26
Jeff Altmeyer yeah yeah so in late 2016 Iowa authorities received a report of an
00:38:34
attempted abduction a man pretending to be an undercover police officer try to lure a young girl into his car
00:38:44
this is one of the more bright spots in this whole story and let me go through this in in good detail here so the girl
00:38:52
tells her parents and police uh that okay so she's she's going through the this bag right what's that this [ __ ] bag
00:39:03
yes yes so so she tells her parents about this attempted abduction right her neighbor
00:39:12
and some brothers run out and they can still see the guy's vehicle she gave a description of the vehicle to to her
00:39:21
parents into these these guys yeah he was still in the neighborhood he was just leaving the neighborhood so they
00:39:27
get in a vehicle and they start chasing after him and there's a really good article about this in the Des Moines
00:39:34
Register that that I recommend but what what it ends up being here Captain is this pervert was 58 year old married
00:39:42
father of two Jeff Altmeyer he was arrested and charged with enticing a minor and impersonating a public
00:39:49
official yeah but what's interesting is he has a little tiny Ford Focus so they easily catch up with him right and then
00:39:58
they're yelling at him and then this guy is threatening them saying he's law enforcement
00:40:04
and you better you know leave me alone the the coolest thing of this is and I don't have the guy's name in front of me
00:40:11
but the kind of the leader of the of the group of guys chasing after this man after the Pervert man in the silver
00:40:18
little Ford Focus I go [ __ ] this is a younger dude like he looks to me like he's like 18 or 19 years old and he's
00:40:26
not put off by any of the things that this Jeff Altmeyer is saying to him because they pull up window to window
00:40:33
yeah and he's not like you know pardon me do you have any gray Poupon he's like did you try to kidnap a girl
00:40:40
yeah and sick [ __ ] and the guy's like he's like no I didn't and I'm an undercover cop and thinking that that's
00:40:48
just going to end this situation yeah to which he then Altmeyer says to to this guy that's chasing him
00:40:58
if you don't leave me alone I'm gonna beat you up so he then says okay get out of your car
00:41:04
yeah and Altmeyer is like nope I don't I don't want to get out of my car to which
00:41:09
he then says again I'm undercover police trying to scare these guys off the guys just think if you could get
00:41:16
your hands on somebody like that he'd beat his ass the guy says to Altmeyer he says um that's fine one of my relatives
00:41:25
is in law enforcement and they're on their way and we've called the cops and we're going to we're all going to sit
00:41:32
here and in a few minutes we're all going to find out the truth yeah so what this leads to is Jeff Altmeyer
00:41:39
obviously being arrested and charged with enticing a minor impersonating a public official
00:41:46
once police had Altmeyer in custody they started to connect other abductions and
00:41:51
attempted abductions to him it turned out that Altmeyer had been trying to lure kids into his vehicle for months if
00:41:59
not possibly longer his modus operandi was to entice children by offering them 100 dollars
00:42:08
to get in his van or his vehicle I'm sorry once they did he would molest them or attempt to he
00:42:15
eventually succeeded in sexually abusing at least two girls yeah but what was his
00:42:21
job didn't he have a a job where he traveled around that's the scary thing he was a traveling he worked as a
00:42:28
traveling automobile damage field inspector which means he spent a lot of time in his vehicle or what might be his
00:42:36
work vehicle which could have been a vein right so driving around this is I it sounds to me the captain like he
00:42:42
drove around in multiple States now I wonder if he's always used in his own vehicle or if there's a company
00:42:48
vehicle but what you're saying is that two cars get in an accident the insurance companies called at some
00:42:56
point his job is to go out there and look at the damage go out and assess the situation so he make a ruling right but
00:43:03
insurance are normally just uh the laws only apply to that state like if you even if you live on the border you know
00:43:11
like that's true so he probably only works in Iowa but he probably works all over Iowa well but the the information I
00:43:18
have says driving around areas of the Midwest which makes me yeah so maybe believe it might be multiple States
00:43:25
but all in all regardless of where he's driving police were able to link Altmeyer to 19. that's one nine one
00:43:34
short of 20. such incidents in nine different counties as stated in the Des Moines Register
00:43:41
between May 31st 2016 and November 16 2016 Altmeyer is suspected of trying to entice at least 19 children he sexually
00:43:52
abused two of them his victims were all girls with the average age we talked about victimology here with the average
00:43:59
age of 10. but he went after kids as young as six and as old as 13. and but these are the ones we know of
00:44:09
I mean there could be way more that that we don't know of well there's one possible
00:44:16
case that that was unsuccessful for Altmeyer thank God where he's he's trying to get somebody into the vehicle
00:44:23
uh child enticement case from Cedar Falls which was only about 12 miles from Evansdale so if you want to try to link
00:44:33
him as close as you can to our case that's about as close as we can we can place him or suspect him to be
00:44:40
a man reportedly approached three young girls in that situation at a park in Cedar Falls and offered them money to
00:44:48
get into his car he's not been charged in that actual enticement case because he can't prove that it was actually him
00:44:54
but they suspect that it is to investigate this guy right and what I'm saying is there could be a another
00:45:01
hundred cases of this creep yeah one of the things after his arrest that they showed in some of the newspaper coverage
00:45:10
of his arrest was these 100 bills you know he's he's that is his Mo offering children 100 cash
00:45:21
he they they showed a picture of like I don't know 15 20 100 bills he must have been keeping them on him on him at all
00:45:29
times so that when he saw an opportunity he had the cash on him to to try to that
00:45:36
ruse on these these poor kids and I'm assuming he's working five days a week but he's so he's traveling five days a
00:45:42
week and and way different parts of the state that we we're not aware of he'd have to go back through his the cases
00:45:51
that he was assigned to but also just the surrounding areas because how how easy would it be for him to say well I
00:45:59
got a flat tire or uh I actually took the wrong route or I was at the scene longer than I thought it would be
00:46:08
well he was actually just driving around as a sick predator and I think that people would be quick to point out like
00:46:15
look he's he's got all these other cases and it seems like he's let the kids go all the time we don't know could
00:46:23
something else have gone down something unexpected and knee-jerk reaction he killed one of the
00:46:29
two girls and then had to kill the second one you know it doesn't it doesn't always have to fit you know
00:46:36
there are these one-off cases there are murders that take place when people are really just trying to cover up other bad
00:46:43
behavior and one thing that made him very interesting to law enforcement and to to
00:46:49
me into US garage guys here as well we touched upon in the first episode how how rare it is to try to abduct multiple
00:47:01
children at a time well we know of several cases where that is in fact what Altmeyer was trying to
00:47:10
do so again he's already stepped over that obstacle that potential obstacle in February of 2018 Jeff Altmeyer was
00:47:21
sentenced to first degree sentence four first degree kidnapping second-degree sexual abuse
00:47:28
and two counts of enticing a minor in Jasper County he got life in prison and his wife of several decades has divorced
00:47:37
him since he's gone away to prison well that's what I meant by this guy to me when I was reading about this case I go
00:47:45
this guy seems BTK like guy that was married oh yes seems like a normal guy and always thinking and planning these
00:47:57
things out in advance yeah or well actually putting yourself in that position I mean it could have been the
00:48:02
reason why he took the job without getting too much into it because there's a lot a lot of little details there but
00:48:10
I want to Circle back to the family we were talking about Dan Morrissey and his legal troubles and remember he was still
00:48:18
facing a trial at the time that his daughter went missing eventually he ends up getting 90 years in prison for his
00:48:26
charges so he's that's where he is to this day and Misty his wife she continued for a
00:48:35
little bit of time to be in and out of trouble look the the drug angle of the Lyric and
00:48:42
Elizabeth investigation does not appear to have led anywhere apparently it's a still a working theory
00:48:50
in the case personally I feel Captain like I have a little bit of an issue with this Theory
00:48:56
and part of that being I see the efforts put forward and how many different agencies were working together on this
00:49:03
case I kind of feel like if that were what was going on here I kind of feel like it would have been
00:49:11
solved by now that that would have been an easy that would have been an easy thing to
00:49:17
investigate for them because it's it the circle and the possibilities of suspects
00:49:22
is much smaller than what we are probably facing in my opinion what what appears to me to be more of a stranger
00:49:30
abduction right but that's because it's easier to investigate doesn't mean it's easier to prove and that to bring
00:49:39
charges against somebody that you have to be able to prove that they could that they did this now many people are
00:49:46
probably recognizing that this case has a lot of similarities to another case that we've covered on True Crime
00:49:54
garage with numerous episodes and that being the Delphi double murder case that took
00:50:00
place in February of 2017. it's very difficult to do internet searches and be looking around snooping
00:50:09
around on either one of these cases without bumping into to the other now some of the the possible
00:50:17
similarities or things that I believe seem similar and some of these just seem a little too much to be
00:50:25
coincidental but so we have two cases that involve the abduction and murder of two young girls in Midwest Towns now the
00:50:36
towns are 400 miles apart both cases occurred on or near recreational Trails but also in areas
00:50:45
where the girls were not supposed to be or not known to frequent both cases occurred in the middle of the
00:50:54
day in broad daylight both cases occurred on the 13th of the month Delphi was on a Monday and Evansdale was
00:51:02
on a Friday the dates are palindromes too which I never would have picked up on that but
00:51:09
my friend just pointed that out to me them being the same backwards and forwards
00:51:14
to 13 17 and 7 13 12 21317-71312 in both cases the bodies were found in remote areas that
00:51:26
investigators believe required someone to be familiar with that part of the area
00:51:33
with those specific areas both sets of investigators stopped short of declaring the offender to definitely
00:51:40
be a local in both cases a close family member had ties to the drug world and rumors flew
00:51:47
that drug connections were responsible well in both cases very very small towns very low populations
00:51:56
yeah neither case is the cause has the cause and manner of death of the victims been known to the
00:52:04
public nor is it known whether there was sexual assault so we can't really compare some of the
00:52:11
more important aspects of the Killer's Mo in these two cases and of course there are significant differences
00:52:18
between the cases as well we do have authorities on the record stating that they do not believe that the two are
00:52:28
related yeah I think they're too far apart for one um we also in this case in the Evansdale case the victims were
00:52:40
moved or Taken maybe brought to a different location and and then 22 miles away from where
00:52:48
the body from the distance between the bodies and the bikes we don't know if somebody
00:52:54
took them somewhere else before that uh Delphi it's really tough because the new research that I've come across and
00:53:05
we've talked about this is there's now a debate if they were murdered in that spot and left in that spot or if those
00:53:11
bodies were moved but they weren't moved 22 miles I've heard plenty of law enforcement statements in in regards to
00:53:20
Delphi that the two girls were killed where they were found and then when we go and we take a look
00:53:27
at the Evansdale case we really have no clue how many different locations they could
00:53:33
have been before they were found at Seven Bridges and as you pointed out how long they may have been kept by whoever
00:53:41
took them we do have some thoughts by the family members now keep in mind the family has
00:53:50
chosen not to know how the girls were killed but we have at least one family member who is on record saying
00:53:59
it's of their belief that the girls were alive when they were when they were brought to Seven Bridges and then killed
00:54:07
in that location I don't think that there's a lot that they're basing this off of other than them knowing the area
00:54:15
having been to the area and really just their suspicions my guess would be that it's it's an area that's not easily
00:54:22
traveled on foot from where you would have to leave a vehicle thus just making it difficult to
00:54:29
transport one body let alone two bodies in 2017 authorities had interviewed over
00:54:37
1 000 people in lyric in Elizabeth's case nonetheless the murders remain unsolved the deaths of the girls wreaked
00:54:46
havoc on their families and people in Evansdale say the town has never been the same Drew Collins said in an
00:54:54
interview that the deaths of the girls devastated the town Drew continues to assist in cases of missing children even
00:55:03
having reached out to Mike and Becky Patty in the Delphi case to let them know he was there if they needed
00:55:10
anything also similar to Delphi Evansdale has turned a small island at Myers Lake into a dedicated memorial
00:55:19
called Angels Park Memorial Island it features memorials to the girls and other female victims of violence in Iowa
00:55:28
as well as gazebos Memorial brick walkways murals and decorative Landscaping this was an expansion of the
00:55:37
2013 announcement that the trail and park at Myers Lake would be renamed to honor the memory of Lyric and Elizabeth
00:55:46
the trail that runs around the lake is now known locally as the trail of angels there is a substantial reward for
00:55:57
information leading to a conviction in this case and tips can be submitted by calling
00:56:03
855 300 tips that's one eight five five three hundred eight four seven seven on the seventh anniversary of the girls
00:56:14
abduction authorities reminded us that there are still several agencies that are actively working this case the
00:56:22
Evansdale Police Department the Blackhawk County and Bremer County Sheriff's offices and the FBI saying
00:56:29
they get together regularly to review information and evidence and evaluate new information Drew Collins tells
00:56:37
interviewers that he remains confident that the investigators are working hard on his daughter's case and that
00:56:43
eventually they will catch the guy who did it let's hope he is right foreign hey I want to thank everybody for
00:56:59
joining us in the garage but I want to thank everybody that's been sharing our show with their friends on social media
00:57:06
especially on Instagram stories thank you guys so much thank you Captain we also want to say check out the new book
00:57:12
murder in Macomb this case started when the body of 12 year old Tina Marie Andrews was found underneath a discarded
00:57:20
sofa in the woods outside of Macomb Mississippi she was last seen accepting a ride at a local teenage Hangout to
00:57:28
this day the case is unsolved Trent Brown's book murder and Macomb is the only comprehensive examination of this
00:57:36
case you don't have to write that title down just go to truecrime garage.com and
00:57:41
click on the recommended page and until next week be good be kind and don't litter
00:58:01
thank you