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[Music] [Music] details [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for
00:01:15
listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man that pond the mysteries of the universe asking himself
00:01:22
are we human or are we dancer ladies and gentlemen here is the captain yeah dancing my way into your hearts it's
00:01:29
good to be seeing and good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a [Music]
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friend today we are sipping on this fine logger from unplugged Brewing Company Muny lot logger it's a smooth clean and
00:01:47
delicious logger with some malt and a little caramel ABV 5% garage grade four out of five bottle caps and you know who
00:01:55
else is smooth and clean while our garage friends right here first up a nice Southern cheers to melody in
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Pensacola Florida and a big we like your jib to Casey in Sunnyville Texas here's
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a double cheers to Rudy and Adrien and beautiful Rancho Cordova California and a big shout to Lindsay in Seattle
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Washington next up here's a cheers to Kelly in Mechanicsville Virginia and let's give a cheers to Kelsey and Keller
00:02:20
Texas and last but certainly not least Captain we have Cheyenne and Jacob in witch Kansas big ups and big thank you
00:02:28
to everyone who contributed to this week's beer fund tall cans in the air yeah BW areu in beer run and be patient
00:02:37
folks cuz you beer fun we're behind Lighty years behind but announcement for everybody in parts Unknown make sure you
00:02:47
get your Halloween posters they are on sale now and a limited number of those are available so that's enough of the
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business all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true
00:03:13
crime got you I got [Music] you at the time of Kathy name is murder October of 2002 local authorities and
00:03:33
officials were already aware of the embezzlement scandal going down at the fire department one of the fire
00:03:41
department's employees as of that same month had already been charged in the embezzlement Scandal this was Matthew
00:03:48
Becker who was the former fire department executive board Treasurer he was fired from the fire department after
00:03:56
he admitted to police in an August 2002 interview interview that he had embezzled at least
00:04:02
$3,500 from the fire department's account the criminal complaint stated Becker stated that he did this because
00:04:10
he needed the money and felt that the town of Elo owed him the money because of the [ __ ] he put up with Becker faced
00:04:17
charges of felony theft misconduct in public office and possession of drug paraphenalia
00:04:24
eventually he pled no contest to felony misconduct in public office was sentenced to 4 months in jail the Wasa
00:04:33
heral reported on October 17th quote rumors have spread throughout this small town that the problems at the fire
00:04:41
department and neth's death I wish they would put neth's murder may have been connected in some way but police say
00:04:49
they have so far found no link Sheriff Dave stagger admitted that anything was possible and said that investigators
00:04:58
were weighing the embezzlement lead equally with other unrelated leads but others downplayed the likelihood
00:05:07
dismissing any connection as local gossip ELO Town chairman Richard ellson said to the newspaper quote my answer to
00:05:18
that is that's extremely unlikely why would somebody get killed over a lousy few thousand my personal feeling has
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been all along that she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time a random act of violence
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in no way connected to the political situation in Elo everything about this whole thing is strange none of it makes
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any sense which is even more unsettling to the locals we are like any other small town things like this don't happen
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end quote Yeah but why would anybody risk their job for a measly few thousand I mean people have been killed for for
00:05:59
Less now David nameth Kathy's husband was charged in the embezzlement case and later David was fired for this situation
00:06:08
just three months after Kathy's murder ultimately David was facing seven criminal charges some of them felonies
00:06:16
basically David was illicitly paying himself out of the fire department's account writing himself checks during
00:06:24
the time period of 1999 to 2001 and then he lied about it to the embezzlement investigator David pled no
00:06:34
contest to theft disorderly conduct and obstruction in May of 2004 so David was on the take stealing
00:06:43
money from the fire department fund over at least a three-year time period now it's not clear how much he took but the
00:06:51
complaint states that in 2 2001 he paid himself amounts in excess of that authorized B law in other words he paid
00:07:01
himself more than his salary allowed when the whole thing came out in late2 early 2003 he was fired as fire chief as
00:07:11
well as criminally prosecuted despite David being charged it does not seem that investigators were able to connect
00:07:19
the embezzlement and Kathy's murder they reached out to the FBI for assistance in
00:07:26
the case and took suggestions on how to proceed with the investigation but nothing was resolved and authorities
00:07:34
were frustrated that they couldn't figure out or solve this murder but there was something else here captain in
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this case now we have Lieutenant Baker who told the Wasau heral one very important thing Katherine namoth was a
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subject of the investigation as well but Lieutenant Baker declined to speculate on whether
00:07:55
she too would have been charged and he pointed out that while the embezzlement connection to Cathy's murder has always
00:08:02
been rumored no connection had ever been identified publicly according to the Herold okay so Kathy our murder victim
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not just her husband David was being investigated as possibly involved in the embezzlement Scandal as well which is
00:08:19
more than fair because as we're going to see as I'm about to tell you here she was in fact involved that's right she
00:08:26
alongside of her husband was taking money from the ELO fire department we foed the complaint against David namoth
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and as we just laid it out for you it alleges that he overpaid himself for three years and then lied about it Liar
00:08:42
Liar fireman's pants on fire who else received excessive funds from the fire department that's right it was Kathy
00:08:49
nameth as well so Kathy and David co-signed a check written on the ELO fire department's account on November
00:08:58
15th of 1999 in the amount of $1,500 payable to Kathy namoth but that's not all the complaint alleges
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that in 2000 and in 2001 David not only overpaid himself from the fund but he was overpaying his wife as well I guess
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there's a chance that maybe she was unaware of any of this but to me it doesn't seem very likely it seems much
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more likely that she was simply involved in the whole situation well and he could
00:09:31
have started doing this and maybe she's in charge of the family's checkbook or maybe she went into the bank account was
00:09:37
like well we have a little bit more money than we should or wow David made a little bit more money than he normally
00:09:44
does and started questioning him and then he goes well yeah I'm taking a little bit on the side but hey I'll give
00:09:50
you some as well yeah I'm not going to speculate on how she became involved or or what went down and look it wasn't
00:09:57
just the two of them it's it's clear that there were several people that were not only aware of what was going on but
00:10:04
were involved and in on the take as well well at least they're equipped to put out their pants on fire so Kathy herself
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was being investigated in connection with the embezzlement Scandal and literally two days before she was
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supposed to talk to police she gets murdered I'm not a big conspiracy theorist but you just play one on TV I
00:10:28
don't usually like conspiracies in these types of situations cuz most of the time
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the the simplest explanation is usually correct but this is just too big of a coincidence to to dance around it right
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it's too big of a coincidence to not take a look at it and throw it under the microscope and say okay are these things
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related and then one thing that's very difficult to believe is that Kathy just happened to be killed less than 48 hours
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before the me meeting where she was supposed to go and tell police what was going on when she was being investigated
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Captain she told police look I I will cooperate and I will tell you everything that I know right now that could have
00:11:14
just been saving face or that could have just been making herself look good in the course of that investigation we
00:11:19
don't know because she never got the chance to speak with them to tell them whatever she was intending to tell them
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she was killed instead well and they haven't been transparent and her involvement like you said and the
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embezzlement we don't know cuz she was not charged so there is a possibility your husband is the chief if he says hey
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come into my office I I have this check and I need you to sign it oh what's it for and he gives her some Hook Line and
00:11:49
Sinker and she buys it and then he cashes the check she might not have been like you said we we don't know what her
00:11:58
level of invol M was or how much she knew and maybe she had a bunch of questions herself and once she's now
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going to trial or going to this meeting to say hey this is what I know and this is what I've seen going on this could be
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the nail in her husband's cofin and other people's coffin and there would be reason for somebody to not want her to
00:12:20
talk and again when people say well it's just a few thousand dollar no you possibly could go to prison and on top
00:12:28
of that you're losing your job which is your livelihood right and the thing that
00:12:33
I think that is difficult here though when we when we analyze the murder or how however this went down whoever is
00:12:40
responsible or why it happened to begin with you you weigh that against the other things that are going on right
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especially when you have this embezzlement thing that's so close to the murder investigation but it's one of
00:12:54
those things that I I kind of lean a little bit more toward what the local chairman was saying as well that it's
00:13:00
not a ton of money it's just a couple of thousand dollar she seems to have been involved herself the charges themselves
00:13:09
don't carry with them lengthy prison sentences we're talking about months in jail and fines that would be paid of
00:13:16
course any of these things are uncomfortable and things that nobody wants and consequences that probably
00:13:22
nobody wants to face but it seems awfully risky to me to jump from what would be felony charges that are
00:13:30
ultimately reduced to misdemeanor charges and and misdemeanor type consequences to something as
00:13:37
premeditated murder and so I I tend to share some of the same feelings that the the chairman was stating there now that
00:13:46
doesn't mean that they're not connected in some form or fashion they absolutely could be there's also some rumor that
00:13:54
possibly Drug Money may have been involved now this could be this could push this to a heightened level here so
00:14:02
this might get a little complicated here so I am going to ask that you bear with
00:14:06
me there was okay fine we will there's a local drug dealer in the langl county named Daniel J Zan all right in March of
00:14:18
1999 the county authorities received an anonymous tip that a large drug transaction was about to go down at the
00:14:26
kempster in Tavern police staked out the area and pulled over a drunk driver her
00:14:33
name was Denise ardson who proved to have marijuana on her person she had gotten it she said from a David Zan whom
00:14:42
she met earlier at that kempster in Tavern according to Denise zh told her that he had at least a pound of
00:14:50
marijuana in his possession and he had been dealing in the area for over a year she had seen large amounts of pot at his
00:14:58
house and purchased from him in the past this was enough for the county deputies
00:15:04
to get a search warrant for Zan's house where they found a bunch of pot they arrested Zan now Zan would not give up
00:15:12
his sources meaning the persons who sold him the bulk amounts of marijuana that he turned around and then sold to
00:15:19
private individuals in smaller transactions he pled guilty to possession with intent to distribute
00:15:25
before too long it became apparent who Z sources were Zan had been getting his Supply from two Milwaukee based dealers
00:15:35
these are Partners named Donald castelli and Brian snarski Al snarski he admitted
00:15:41
this in a court well in this area Captain there's going to be a lot of skis ski ski he admitted this in a court
00:15:48
proceeding on July 31st 2003 castelli and snarski operated out of Milwaukee but also had a local
00:15:58
apartment that was the Hub of their Lang lad County distribution Network Police put
00:16:05
together a case against celski for being the supplier for the 1999 deal that had
00:16:12
resulted in Zan's arrest in March of 2005 a criminal complaint was filed against castelli
00:16:20
charging him with possession with intent to deliver eventually he pled out to recklessly endangering Public Safety and
00:16:28
January of 2008 all he got for this was 2 years probation okay so what would this have to do with Kathy nameth and
00:16:37
her murder as said it's a little complicated but Keli would end up facing more charges and they were related to
00:16:48
Kathy's case so let's back up and explain a little bit to try to get to the bottom of whether Kathy's case and
00:16:54
the embezzlement case were related investigators held a series of closed secret hearings we've discussed this in
00:17:02
some other cases that we've covered it's a pretty rare thing here but it does go
00:17:07
down and these are called John Doe hearings the wsaw news7 says that these hearings quote they're typically used
00:17:17
when an investigation is being thwarted or impeded and can be used to force witnesses to testify in a secret hearing
00:17:26
it helps us get testimony or information from people who may not be willing to come forward closed door hearings on
00:17:35
Kathy's homicide case were held by the district attorney starting on January 24th 2008 but the purpose scope and
00:17:46
outcome of these hearings has never been made public there was clearly some connection being explored between
00:17:54
Kathy's case and the drug dealing going on in the area the FBI and the Wisconsin
00:18:00
Department of Justice and division of criminal investigation were all cited in these matters so some bigger agencies
00:18:09
being involved and somewhat Loosely tied to Kathy namus case we were able to find
00:18:15
out about these closed door hearings only by Foya request and this was based off of criminal perjury charges that
00:18:25
stemmed from one of the drug deal Donald castelli lying under oath at these hearings a drug dealer and a liar
00:18:35
imagine that wow I only trust a truthful honest drug dealer I only get my drugs from honest drug dealers and with the
00:18:43
with the current state of marijuana and pot and all that it it almost like these
00:18:48
things almost seem a little silly to go back and kind of circle around them like
00:18:53
vultures but but it's important to this case so castelli the dishonest drug dealer uh was called to testify as an
00:19:03
unwilling witness and he is fresh off of his 2008 conviction that reckless endangerment conviction that we spoke of
00:19:12
and he lied his ass off on the stand we don't have transcripts as they are all under seal and we certainly don't know
00:19:21
most of what was testified to but we do know that on the stand celski was asked about whether he had ever hunted in
00:19:31
langid County okay so the Department of Natural Resources records showed that he
00:19:37
had yeah you can't handle the truth they also wanted to know if he owned a gun and whether he had ever sold drugs to
00:19:43
Danon and on the stand castelli was asked if he had ever sold drugs to Matthew Becker remember that name he was
00:19:50
the guy that was already being charged in the embezzlement scandal at the same time that Kathy namoth was murdered Mur
00:19:58
yeah SK SK so Matthew Becker was the first employee of the ELO fire department to be charged in the
00:20:05
embezzlement scandal in 2002 he was a co-worker of Kathy and David namus castelli denied selling drugs to Becker
00:20:13
but authorities had plenty of witnesses including Becker's wife who said that this in fact did happen got him so
00:20:21
Becker was getting his drugs from the same person Daniel Zan was getting his Supply from Donald C Ki why were this
00:20:30
prolific local drug dealer Donald castelli and his partner Brian snarski called to testify at hearings trying to
00:20:38
get to the bottom of Kathy namus murder well we know that Kathy was on the verge
00:20:44
of talking to investigators about the whole embezzlement ring and Matthew Becker her coworker was involved in that
00:20:52
along with her and was also connected to the drug dealers but there's more celski
00:20:59
and snarski were also connected to David namoth her husband this is from the same
00:21:06
news outlet that we've cited all day and all day yesterday and their report says
00:21:12
Deputy John Shunk says investigators have looked at the case every which way possible they even took advantage of a
00:21:19
court proceeding known as John Doe hearings during the secretive proceedings prosecutors found that two
00:21:26
men who they asked to testify and who knew David nameth were not being truthful investigators believe they know
00:21:35
more than they are letting on Kathy may have known these people obviously we can't completely confirm that Shunk said
00:21:43
the pair were buddies of Matthew Beckers and police say had knowledge of the ELO
00:21:50
area having spent time there hunting police say they have a theory as to why Cathy was murdered but without enough
00:21:59
evidence to charge anyone with her murder they won't say what their theory is yeah that's pretty good that news
00:22:06
release to me Captain is incredibly interesting because what were they saying before all of these Court
00:22:13
proceedings was that we're not sure who murdered her or why yeah but then after these Court proceedings and after they
00:22:21
become aware of these two drug dealers that were known to hunt in this area and then later lied about
00:22:28
any knowledge of the area being in the area hunting in the area owning guns got them guns son now police are saying we
00:22:36
have a theory but without any evidence without enough evidence to charge someone we're not comfortable with
00:22:43
presenting what our theory is as to why and how Kathy namoth was [Music] murdered
00:22:58
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hp.com garage [Music] you I got you cheers to you Wisconsin cheers to everybody in the
00:24:18
back and the front and everybody around the campfire cheers so this newer information tells us that authorities
00:24:28
seem to believe that there was in fact some connection between David Kathy Matthew Becker and the drug dealers
00:24:38
these guys the drug dealers had guns and frequented the area and are in fact sketchy
00:24:44
criminals but we have no idea what if anything was uncovered because the information has never been made public
00:24:52
we don't know the relationship between these men and David and we don't know whether they knew Kathy or she knew them
00:24:59
well it seems to me like this embezzlement was a little more indepth than just oh I took some money here and
00:25:07
there slap on the wrist there there could have been more involved there's been whole police departments that are
00:25:14
stealing drugs stealing evidence when they arrest somebody if there's money on that person they just take the money and
00:25:21
then use that money to have drug houses so where it seems like it's just a simple oh I'm overpaying myself here and
00:25:29
there it could be way more complex than that possibly but what I see when I look
00:25:34
at this thing is a situation where it very likely could simply be that David and Kathy were embezzling money so the
00:25:43
tie between the the two drug dealers and Becker is this middleman zhan who is a much lower level drug dealer so you have
00:25:54
this situation where multiple people are bezeling money and are aware of what everybody's
00:26:02
doing but you may have some people in that Circle I believe it was a total of five people that they were investigating
00:26:09
for the embezzlement Kathy included but you may have two of them David and Kathy who
00:26:15
were just simply paying themselves a little extra taking a little off the top where this Becker character may have
00:26:22
been involved in some other situations outside of that his tie to the nameth is that he's involved in
00:26:31
this embezzlement Scandal as well right now what we do know is that castelli and
00:26:37
snarski were both prosecuted for perjury after those John Doe hearings they both
00:26:43
lied on the stand and the da knew that they were lying and ended up proving it well snarski is a known liar so celski
00:26:52
was prosecuted for perjury a felony and convicted in September of 2010 after agreeing to a plea agreement for 2 years
00:27:00
probation pursuant to the plea agreement per wsaw news a judge ordered him to tell
00:27:08
the truth to investigators or risk going to prison there was a new sheriff that took over in that county and this is
00:27:16
Sheriff Greening who says that he doesn't know exactly how celski may have been involved in Kathy neus murder but
00:27:24
he does think that he has information so the new sheriff not necessarily saying that this castelli character right
00:27:32
committed the murder MH but the sheriff is on record as stating he's pretty confident that castelli knows something
00:27:40
has some kind of information that the sheriff's department does not have now your buddy Captain Brian
00:27:48
snarski was prosecuted as well and you were right he he is a liar and the court of law says so right
00:27:56
he was found guilty of perjury after a jury trial and as a condition of his probation was required to give a DNA
00:28:04
sample again this all ties back to the Kathy Amoth murder right now I couldn't find this is what I wanted to figure out
00:28:13
was castelli the other liar pants on fire was he was a part of his conditions of
00:28:21
the plea agreement to give a DNA sample as well I'm guessing so I would think so
00:28:27
and that makes sense in this case because what we learn in Kathy Amos murder investigation relatively quickly
00:28:37
after this or about the same time is that they do confirm we suspected it at the beginning of the investigation but
00:28:44
it was later confirmed that in fact they did have suspect DNA in her murder this
00:28:51
comes from a February 2007 news report that stated that Wisconsin state crime lab was able to isolate a male DNA
00:29:00
profile from evidence found at the Kathy nameth murder scene now whether this was
00:29:06
DNA on the knife remember they recovered the knife uh the knife handle yeah or this or on her person because she put up
00:29:14
a fight that's right or blood you know maybe they found some blood that they could confirm was not Cathy's at the
00:29:21
scene as you said put up a fight maybe there's maybe perhaps DNA under her fingernail well in this case if I'm law
00:29:29
enforcement right I'm looking at this case I go look how many people are going to know where her parents cabin is
00:29:36
located right that's that's the first now we we have people saying look nobody knew she was going to go out there that
00:29:43
night and then we have this embezzlement thing that's connected with her husband
00:29:48
look if this guy's willing to steal a little bit of money from his work and because he he thinks he he earned it
00:29:58
or whatever reason if he's willing to steal and lie maybe he's willing to cheat on his wife who knows but if I'm
00:30:07
law enforcement and I'm coming into this case I have all those questions right away okay now we have a victim that
00:30:15
struggled with her attacker with her murderer and we have physical evidence first person I'm testing is her husband
00:30:23
and what we have here Captain is the new sheriff Bill Green told the media in late February of 2007
00:30:31
that the sheriff's department had already conducted 12 samples or I'm sorry had already collected 12 samples
00:30:37
from quote Persons of Interest for comparison to the suspect DNA sample that they had Now by March of
00:30:46
2008 so about one year later they go on record the sheriff's department goes on record saying that 24 persons had been
00:30:56
compared to the suspect sample with no luck so we've we've tested 24 people collected their DNA and tested it
00:31:04
against what we have the suspect DNA and we've not been able to make a match yet
00:31:10
now the sheriff did say that that 24 the 24 samples that they had included some Persons of Interest but did also include
00:31:20
some emergency Personnel who were responding to the scene right you got to do your due diligence and make sure you
00:31:27
clear them so that you're actually testing and comparing for suspect DNA yeah makes sense and as you said Captain
00:31:37
look we have David namoth and I don't have every bit of information on where he was what he was up to but it seems to
00:31:45
me he must have an ironclad Alibi because we know that Kathy radioed about a scruffy looking man who she didn't
00:31:54
know who it was and then later David is responding to the scene with their son they must know where he was and feel
00:32:04
confident about where he was prior to him arriving at the murder scene yeah but just to do your due diligence I
00:32:11
think you would test him as well 100 he he's there before emergency workers are there so if you're going to test them
00:32:20
why not test him as well correct I'm not suggesting you don't I'm I'm just saying
00:32:25
that they I think we could com presume that yes they have that they have tested I agree I agree then let's Circle back
00:32:33
to the drug dealers because this is going to kind of come full circle well we wish that it would go full circle
00:32:40
maybe we' have some answers but in 2008 there was a tip in February of 2008 Dan zon the drug dealer from the 1999 deal
00:32:51
contacted the sheriff's office with a tip Dan Zan told officials that he had information about the Kathy nameth
00:32:59
murder and who was involved so they set up a meeting to talk in person on February
00:33:06
22nd unfortunately zh died before this meeting according to all the reports that we could find Zan passed away from
00:33:15
quote unquote natural causes at the age of 42 on February 20th perhaps he was Ill someone posted on a message board
00:33:25
that he had cancer and might have wanted to clear his conscience before passing but then pass
00:33:31
before he could do so the timing is really interesting to me I mean you think he could have wrote
00:33:38
it down or something well not only that like why not meet with him as soon as possible right I mean right I I'm not I
00:33:47
don't want to question anybody or what they were doing and maybe they didn't take him serious who knows maybe he
00:33:52
didn't have good information we don't know because he was unable to deliver the information but it's just weird to
00:33:59
me that that these things seem to be that something like this happened and this thing whatever information he was
00:34:08
going to give to them could have broke this case wide open now the Sheriff's Office did do their due diligence by
00:34:16
going out and getting a search warrant and seizing his computer his camera and other items from his home the day after
00:34:24
he died if they found anything on of interest it's not been released to the public so just to sum
00:34:33
that up Dan Z the drug dealer connected to the other drug dealers connected to the Nam through an unknown relationship
00:34:42
but through this Becker guy that they worked with basically through the embezzlement he said he had information
00:34:49
about Cathy's death but Di but died before he could relay it so anyone's guess is a good guess as to what what
00:34:57
information he was going to give to authorities but but doesn't this kind of prove it in your mind that her death is
00:35:04
connected to this embezzlement I feel like I I don't know that the embezzlement is the Catalyst for her
00:35:12
murder I think it's probably just one more thing that's involved in in something else that we may not be
00:35:19
entirely aware of that somebody in this circle is involved in now not to throw a
00:35:28
big fat wrench into the whole thing but I found this to be an interesting angle here Captain we'll try to throw a
00:35:36
mediumsized wrench someone posted on a Wisconsin website and this is this is uh what they posted it says Kathy neth
00:35:46
murder investigation wasn't conducted properly and is being Revisited the hardest part of the investigation
00:35:54
includes tracking down the people who were partying up at one of the cabins on Lon Lake that
00:36:00
weekend they were never questioned to begin with so tracking down who they were has been incredibly difficult so
00:36:10
this makes it sound like one of the cabins up at Lon Lake that weekend if this Anonymous tipster or poster is
00:36:18
correct and being truthful and has good information mhm that there was some kind
00:36:22
of party going on at one of those cabins and this person seems to have reason to
00:36:29
believe that these people were not investigated not questioned right away after the murder and so now that the
00:36:38
case is being Revisited remember we do have a new sheriff in town that tracking down anybody that
00:36:44
could have been there that night or in that general area is incredibly difficult because this is years after
00:36:51
the fact and not to go like too far off base but this kind of reminds me of of something maybe like Bundy would do and
00:37:01
the sense of like oh if I'm going to go up and hang out with my buddies and we're going to party here I'm now around
00:37:07
this small Lake that has all these other occupants I mean it's pretty farfetch I'm just
00:37:14
saying that's basically what it seems like this internet poster is or this internet sluther is
00:37:24
um presenting is that somebody at the party is responsible for her murder yes somebody at one of these parties or and
00:37:33
then you got to wonder like okay if you can tie these drug dealers to that area which it sounds like the prosecutor did
00:37:39
that's how they got the perjury convictions is it crazy to think that they weren't there for a multitude of
00:37:47
reasons right that they're there because of Kathy or they're there because of this party and and didn't really know
00:37:53
Kathy at all I mean it gets it's a very confusing murky situation and it's it's a situation where they've not released a
00:38:02
lot of information so it makes it very difficult to to really kind of grab a hold of a theory and run with it like I
00:38:10
think there's a lot of good theories out there the husband could have been involved you always got to consider that
00:38:16
and then you you put the icing on the cake with the husband that he's involved in illegal activity anyway with the
00:38:22
embezzlement Scandal but then again I I keep going back to it's not a ton of money Kathy's involved another guy the
00:38:30
investigation was already like very active so much so that another dude was already charged right so it almost seems
00:38:38
to me like if you were looking to cover up the embezzlement thing to begin with OR to silence Kathy Amoth that you would
00:38:46
have done it well before this day that it seems a little late in that ball game to be taking her out to shut her up well
00:38:54
what's interesting in this case to me is that that they tested all these individuals for the DNA and I and I
00:39:00
think it's very responsible to go hey we're going to test the emergency responders so we know that okay we know
00:39:07
whose DNA is on her so I think law enforcement has to be sit in Pretty in going hey we have DNA that we believe is
00:39:15
100% the killer of Miss namoth so if they have that why not start testing that DNA and and put it through the
00:39:25
systems and and maybe you find you know a relative of somebody or well that wouldn't be putting it through the
00:39:31
system but I hear you yeah that I would guess that by this point they've already
00:39:35
put it through codus and that would be the system so that would be connecting it to any known
00:39:41
offender DNA that you already have on file so put it through that system which we don't have any statement you're right
00:39:47
Captain we don't have any statement that says in fact that they did that I'm guessing that they would have once
00:39:52
they've already started testing EMT workers and people that were responded to the scene and then Persons of
00:39:58
Interest but you're right this if you do think that she was targeted I keep circling back to the idea that there
00:40:05
wouldn't have been a ton of people that would have known that she would have been there at that time on that day so
00:40:12
your suspect list cannot be that long if you're really locked in on that theory and now you have at least 24 people that
00:40:21
you've cleared as far as not being a match to the DNA well but if I'm law enforcement this this case is
00:40:30
frustrating cuz there's not a ton of information I mean you know maybe there's way more behind closed doors
00:40:36
that we don't know about this has gone on for so long and it's pretty popular case at least in that area known around
00:40:46
Lon Lake test the DNA well and we are sitting here recording this episode in the garage exactly 19 years to the day
00:40:58
that she was murdered so 19 years have gone by and I don't know that we're any closer to this than we were at the
00:41:07
initial stages of the investigation the thing that I think is a real big kick in
00:41:12
the in the pants here is that this Dan Zan passed away and apparently he had some kind of information that he felt
00:41:21
was necessary to pass along to police literally literally 19 years and Perkins the thing with this
00:41:31
case Captain was I was excited to look into this one because I was suspicious of the husband because I was aware of
00:41:38
the embezzlement Scandal on the surface I was aware that he was involved and then quickly learning that she was
00:41:45
involved as well made that angle of it not so of such great importance to me I really thought that what we would be
00:41:54
able to see here is take a look at him and his son responding to the scene what her words were on that radio
00:42:02
transmission and basing that off of look if you're responding to the scene and you you killed her or you had someone
00:42:10
kill her it's not ideal that she's still alive once First Responders are showing
00:42:17
up and may be able to give up the goose right and so I wanted to be able to look
00:42:21
at that situation and that portion of this case and be able to rule him in or out but it looks like even with the
00:42:30
information that we've talked about for the past hour or so I'm nowhere closer to knowing whether he was involved or
00:42:38
not like you said back in the last episode I think his Alibi is probably pretty solid and then also by him taking
00:42:47
his son to me that leans more towards innocent because you have the possibility if you were involved somehow
00:42:58
or she recognized the person and that person was connected back to him that she if she was still alive she would be
00:43:07
she would have the capability of giving that information to her son and it's really unclear about the information
00:43:14
that she was able to tell her husband or not tell her husband you know what I mean we have to sit here and go well
00:43:21
were the authorities just kind of taking his word for it that he arrives on the scene and she says I I don't know who
00:43:27
the guy was I didn't you know I didn't recognize him I don't know who my attacker was or did she say hey I
00:43:34
recognize who the person was and her husband knows that he's connected Loosely to this embezzlement that and
00:43:42
that ties him together with this person and so he doesn't say anything to protect himself the other thing too is
00:43:49
we have the statement of police saying that it appears to them that or they have evidence it's not that that it
00:43:55
appears to us we have evidence that she was running from her attacker and that put up a big fight and tried to get away
00:44:04
from him doing everything she could you know it sounds to me like things were Disturbed in the area that would give
00:44:12
them evidence that she was fleeing this guy and I know that when you look at Footprints and compare Footprints you
00:44:18
can tell when somebody's running rather than walking and the other thing you would have is you would have his
00:44:26
Footprints running after her to kind of confirm that what we don't have is we have very bad reporting on and this is
00:44:35
no one's fault because it's not the police's job to distribute this information to everyone but we don't
00:44:42
have great reporting about the crime scene itself right it's the reporter's fault we're
00:44:47
told yeah but they what information are they going to get if the police won't tell them anything what what we have
00:44:53
here is we have the statement of well we don't think think she made it into the cabin we don't think that the cabin was
00:44:59
burglarized we think that she fled the attacker that there was some kind of Chase involved but we have really no
00:45:06
information when it comes down to the crime scene itself that's what I really wanted to get my hands on in this
00:45:12
situation I wanted to know about her vehicle when she sees this weird dude we know that there was something
00:45:18
off-putting about him or his actions or his look or whatever that was alarming enough to her that she felt the need to
00:45:26
radio out to everyone but why not jump in your vehicle and flee the scene why not try
00:45:32
to barricade yourself inside the cabin or hide behind the chainsaws why did those things not happen maybe she
00:45:38
attempted to do one or both of those in the course of being attacked it's again we just don't have enough information
00:45:46
about the murder scene to really come to any type of strong conclusions in this case it's it's really a sad case and I
00:45:56
what I'm hoping is that the sheriff the current sheriff is correct and right that DNA
00:46:03
will solve this case and thank God that they do seem to have suspect DNA in this
00:46:08
case because it might be the only thing that they do have you know I'm hoping that this case does not go cold there's
00:46:14
not been a ton of movement on it in the recent years and regardless of the embezzlement or whatever look none of us
00:46:21
are perfect angels but whatever happened to Kathy was hor horrible and Despicable and
00:46:28
whether it was random or targeted it's very sad there likely is a very bad man on the loose that's capable of stabbing
00:46:36
someone to [Music] death got you got [Music] you want to thank you guys so much for
00:46:58
joining us here in the garage and joining us every week make sure you subscribe to the podcast and make sure
00:47:05
you check out our website True Crime garage for everything true crime Colonel do we have any recommended reading how
00:47:12
about a little recommended listening Captain look we were off a couple of weeks ago and I got several emails from
00:47:18
some of our beautiful weekly listeners that said Hey where's this week's episode True Crime garage is my favorite
00:47:24
podcast and I don't have anything to listen to and my reply was the same each time sent them the following questions
00:47:31
are you subscribed to our other show the show that is sweeping the nation off the
00:47:36
Record next week we are releasing off the Record episode number 14040 episodes so not only do you get a
00:47:45
new off- the record episode every other week but you'll also have a back catalog
00:47:50
of well over 100 episodes to listen to make sure you check out off the record you can can find that by going to True
00:47:57
Crim garage.com click on the off- the record link and start listening today thanks to everyone for joining us this
00:48:05
week here in the garage cheers to you Captain cheers to all the wonderful listeners out there make sure you join
00:48:10
us back here next week for a new case until then be good be kind and don't [Music]
00:48:24
live [Music]