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subject to credit approval C store or ashley.com for [Music] details [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever
00:01:48
you are whatever you are doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man that is
00:01:53
credited with building the world's only flying garage ship yeah that's a real thing you can look that up sitting at at
00:02:00
the controls he is the captain thank you thank you thank you good to see you and
00:02:05
it's good to be [Music] seen it's good to see you Captain cuz this week we are happily drinking Lake
00:02:14
Eerie Monster by the very fine and beautiful people at the Great Lakes Brewing Company garage grade about 3 and
00:02:21
3/4 bottle caps out of five lake eie monster is an IPA but it's got over 9% alcohol on it so make sure that you
00:02:29
drink it in your garage and not somebody else's I give it a 10 give it a 10 and do you know who else is very fine and
00:02:36
beautiful people it's the good people that filled up the fridge for us this week we have Marius who is buying the
00:02:43
booze for the after show according to her email uh and I'm going to try this one out Captain she is from stoked
00:02:50
Markus Norway oh we like your jib in Norway I hope that I got that at least somewhat close we also have Angela in
00:02:58
Nashville Tennessee David in Columbia Maryland who would like to remind everyone not to litter thank you David
00:03:05
and Pamela who says go Dayton Flyers we also have sindle who recommends that we try Allagash Kuru saying that it's super
00:03:14
yummy yeah I don't know if that's right in there but she says it's super yummy so thank you to all of you and if you
00:03:19
want to help us out next week it's really simple you just go to True Crime garage.com and click on the Donate
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button thanks for supporting the show we like your jib now you so for everything
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true crime go to True Crim garage.com and also follow us at Facebook Twitter Instagram Snapchat at@ True Crime garage
00:03:38
that's enough of the business Captain everybody gather around grab a chair the garage door's closing grab a beer let's
00:03:45
talk some true [Music] cry this is true crime garage and this is the serial killer
00:04:05
[Music] Apprentice July 17th 1982 11-year-old Christa Harrison is abducted and 6 days
00:04:32
later her body is found in October of 1983 a 28-year-old woman flees the home of Robert
00:04:41
bule she tells police she was kidnapped raped and tortured police arrest 43-year-old
00:04:50
Robert bule for the kidnapping and raping of two women but he is quickly connected to the murder of Christa
00:04:57
Harris and two other young girls bule admits to the rapes in fact he pled no contest and was sentenced to 121
00:05:12
years in prison but maintains he is innocent in the deaths of the young girls in 2000 as his execution day nears
00:05:22
Robert bule a man who has never previously granted a media interview wants to talk
00:05:33
like a caged animal buol Paces back and forth in handcuffs and leg irons shaking
00:05:38
documents from a murder trial 17 years earlier he points to a witness that was never called to testify who told police
00:05:49
he saw a vehicle that looked like the killers at the time when bule was at work bu claims to have found murders of
00:06:00
girls in Ohio and western Pennsylvania that he has identified six more cases of strangulation and molestation similar to
00:06:07
christe Harrison's proving that a killer is still out there of those six police have
00:06:18
considered bule as a suspect in two of them but never charging him on September 24th 2002 62-year-old Robert bule was
00:06:27
executed for the strangulation death of 11-year-old Christa Harrison his final meal a single black unpitted
00:06:35
[Music] olive his final words Jerry and Shirley I didn't kill your daughter the prosecutor knows that
00:06:50
and they left the real killer out there on the street to kill again and again and
00:06:54
again so that some good may come of this I ask that you Contin continue to pursue
00:07:00
this to the end don't let the prosecutor continue to spin this out of focus and force them to find out who really killed
00:07:07
your daughter that's all I have to [Music] [Applause] [Music] say [Music] well we have a strange and weird case to
00:07:38
talk about this week don't we Captain MH we have a case of a serial rapist a suspected serial killer uh from the
00:07:46
state of Ohio um and we had to bring in one of our friends James rener true crime author James rener to help us with
00:07:55
this this story because it's not an open and shut case and for those of you listening to the show for quite some
00:08:03
time you know that James rener has helped us out before we talked about the mara Murray Cas well he might be your
00:08:09
friend but I mean he's a journalist so he's the enemy he well he helped us out with the
00:08:15
mar Murray case right he's the enemy and he wrote and you're right he wrote a book called True Crime addict involving
00:08:20
that case he's the enemy and he is the captain's enemy and uh no he's a very nice guy
00:08:27
writes very interesting books and he also wrote about the Amy mahalic case um and we discussed that on our show as
00:08:34
well you can find that one in iTunes at the iTunes Store yeah that to me that's one of our most interesting podcasts
00:08:41
that we have ever done one because I'm not on it and two uh I didn't actually listen to the interview when we recorded
00:08:49
it so it was the first time I ever heard it and uh that's a very fascinating case
00:08:53
if you haven't checked that out that's uh iTunes like you mentioned and in the website store that's right and um you
00:09:00
know you can pick up his either of those books as well um you know he has covered
00:09:05
many cases from the Cleveland acran area and this one is out of the akran area uh
00:09:10
the one that we're talking about today um so like I said it's not a open and shut case um and he knows intimate
00:09:18
details of why there is suspicion on this case so but before we get to James rener a little background regarding this
00:09:27
case and this starts way back in Thursday of October 29th 1981 12-year-old Tina Harmon was trying
00:09:35
to get to the Union 76 Truck Stop in loie mhm now this is just a few miles away from where she is from she's from a
00:09:43
small town in Ohio called Creston and so at that time the only real entertainment
00:09:50
the only really cool thing to do in town was the truck stop they had a game room
00:09:54
there and you know they probably had a few arcade games and maybe a pool table well this is where some of the young
00:10:00
teenage kids would go and hang out MH Tina's first stop is to a convenience store she got a ride from her father's
00:10:08
girlfriend and at the convenience store she hung out with a small group of friends after getting another ride she
00:10:16
event eventually makes it to loie where she is met there's several people that see her there okay and they had reported
00:10:26
seeing her there with an unshaven man wearing a jean jacket a unshaven so he has a beard he just has long hair all
00:10:35
over his body okay so this is 81 so this is coming right out of the 70s so beards
00:10:40
were popular long hair was popular for guys yeah I I'm joking I don't know if he actually had long hair the only
00:10:46
description they give of the man was he was not a clean shaved man he was he was
00:10:50
didn't he was sporting some kind of beard or some kind of you know 5:00 shadow that's what real men do so there
00:10:57
you go so he's wearing a jean jacket and he looked to be in his early 20s now this is the last that Tina Harmon has
00:11:05
seen his nickname was Teen Wolf her body is found several days later this is about 40 mil from her home it was
00:11:13
determined that she had been sexually assaulted and that she had been strangled now all of this they
00:11:19
determined occurred shortly after her abduction when she was found she had been found fully clothed and her body
00:11:26
had been neatly laid out her body was placed in an area that was used frequently and persons working in the
00:11:33
area the day before they didn't see the body so we know that she was not placed there terribly long before her body was
00:11:40
discovered on her clothes the coroner found dog hairs in several fibers now this would come into play later in our
00:11:49
story now we have another disappearance this is on July 27th 1982 so less than a year later this was
00:11:59
a Saturday 11-year-old Christa Harrison she's at the park with her friend and schoolmate 12-year-old Roy Wilson
00:12:07
they're picking up aluminum cans they're collecting these cans and you know putting them in a trash bag and
00:12:13
collecting them for later uh around 5:00 p.m. they see a maroon van with you remember those old bubble windows that
00:12:21
you see on some of the older bigger vans that popular in the 70s yeah so this was
00:12:26
a maroon van with bubble Windows they see this van enter the park and the van swung around so that it would face the
00:12:36
road now the door opens and a white skinny man with dark brown curly hair a long mustache and a big nose he gets out
00:12:45
of the van and he goes over to the bleachers and he sits down now this is near where Christa Harrison has parked
00:12:52
her bike now these Vans were really popular and cool back in the 70s it was a thing but the these types of Vans then
00:13:00
became known as The Creeper van yeah they became a very creepy van because people were using them for terrible
00:13:07
things I think you could kind of outfit the inside of the van right you could take chairs out or you could take the
00:13:12
bench seat out I think you could kind of customize the inside a little bit some people would turn them into almost like
00:13:18
a little limo type thing so this van enters the park around 5 p.m and uh swings around so that it's facing the
00:13:26
road and and we get a pretty good description of the man that gets out of the van here we we we hear he's he's
00:13:32
white he's a skinny man with dark brown curly hair he's got a long mustache a big nose and he went over and he sat
00:13:39
down next to where Christa's bike is this is on the bleachers now Roy her her classmate and friend he sees Christa
00:13:48
eventually go over and talk to the man and this is where it gets super yeah which I wonder if he's um motioning to
00:13:55
her at all what would make her go over and talk to him yeah I Roy does not say he he I don't know I mean Roy might not
00:14:03
have seen that action exactly and he but he does see her talking to the man and exactly he notices the man reaches
00:14:14
inside of Christa's blouse and the Man actually did this like three or four times and each time
00:14:20
the girl like swats his hand away yeah now CHR appropriate very inappropriate Christa starts to get on her bike I'm
00:14:29
presuming to leave the situation this weird situation uh this is when the man he gets up and he whispers something in
00:14:36
Christa's ear now Roy could not hear what was said to the young girl right hence the whisper but Christa then
00:14:44
starts to cry and after she starts to cry she gets off of her bike and she walks over and gets into the van now she
00:14:53
gets into the van via the driver's side door and she sits on the floor between the bucket seats yeah the man gets into
00:15:02
the van and he shouts out the window by Roy and then he drives off Roy hops on Christa's bike and he rides to Christa's
00:15:12
parents' home and he tells them what he had seen tells them about the van and about the the creepy man yeah and that
00:15:20
is when they notify the police that their daughter has been abducted that's probably the fastest he ever rode you
00:15:26
know now 6 days later Chris body is found in a remote area an autopsy reveals that she had been viciously
00:15:34
sexually assaulted and that she had been strangled to death her feet were bound with a large piece of plastic tape and
00:15:42
her hair and her clothing showed the presence of orange carpet fibers which would possibly be from the
00:15:49
van because a lot of them would be lined with the carpet yeah and some of them even had that longer carpet that just
00:15:55
seemed to shed and get on everything that's called Shag so we're seeing here with the first two girls we have two
00:16:02
girls that have gone missing they're both found about five or six days after their last scene and we're talking about
00:16:10
similar situations we're seeing a sexual assault with a strangulation both of them are last seen in the presence of a
00:16:18
of a strange man um and this man is actually described by Roy as somebody that would have been in his Pro probably
00:16:29
about 25 to 35 years of age so not terribly far off from the multiple witnesses that had seen Tina Harmon with
00:16:38
a man that looked to be in his early 20s right so we had the first case took place in late 1981 and then we had a
00:16:47
case mid 1982 took place in July and then now we're at 11 months later in June of
00:16:55
1983 again this was a 10-year-old girl girl who disappeared from a street fair in masselin Ohio now the very strange
00:17:03
strange part about this case here Captain is that later that day Debbie Smith who had disappeared she called
00:17:10
home uh and she it's reported that she did sound upset but she wouldn't say where she was she wouldn't say what was
00:17:19
going on and this would be the last time that anybody would hear from Young Debbie Smith uh a canist uh this was
00:17:29
just several days later August 6th 1983 a canist found Debb's body on the banks of the Tuscarora River uh she had been
00:17:39
raped and she most likely had been stabbed although the body also showed signs of blunt force trauma right they
00:17:47
did find melted wax it was found on her body itself and the candles which the wax had come from they were found near
00:17:56
the dump site they were recovered as well well and there was no there was no wax found on the first two victims uh
00:18:03
there was not any listed on the autopsy or coroner reports um I the thing here is we would have the most information
00:18:13
regarding The Disappearance and the murder of 11-year-old Christa Harrison that it being a crime that went to court
00:18:21
and we we had somebody that was convicted of this of this case so we would have well so then that becomes
00:18:27
closed and then they open it up to the public and that's probably why we have more information about it yeah you would
00:18:33
have more public knowledge about that case and and in that case there is nothing that specifically says or
00:18:39
references wax or candle wax in the Christa Harrison case now again we do have it in this most recent case taking
00:18:46
place in 1983 and I wonder if there's any possibility of like that being postmortem and that's probably a very
00:18:53
difficult thing to figure out after the fact but I mean they found the wax right
00:18:57
by where her body was dumped so I I just wonder if that's a a possibility and one
00:19:03
thing that's not clear here with this third case is you know where we've seen signs in the first two cases where the
00:19:12
police and the authorities are saying well this girl was missing for a period of days mhm and she was not found until
00:19:21
five or six days later and we we know of a situation where we had people in the area and we can confirm that she was
00:19:30
dumped relatively soon before being found uh she was dumped within probably within 24 hours of of her body being
00:19:38
found which is similar to the other two this case being lying on the bank of the
00:19:43
Tuscarora River we just don't know how long she was there we don't know how long that body was there until she was
00:19:49
discovered MH and it's very strange to me too that somebody would dump the candles right Captain like I mean yeah
00:19:56
yeah you you use them on the body and maybe you're a little worried that that you use the wax on the body and you
00:20:03
could connect it to the candle somehow but I do find it a little strange that the candles were dumped nearby the body
00:20:10
and we're talking about a different situation in my opinion we're seeing here um some ACT some activity that we
00:20:16
didn't see with the first two situations we're seeing a stabbing and some signs of blunt force trauma where in the other
00:20:23
two cases very obviously it was it strangulation right so possibly not a connection to the other two I don't know
00:20:32
that that police were uh starting to link these together at the time I got to believe that they were though because
00:20:39
this is not something that happens all that frequently we're talking about girls of a similar age um they're all
00:20:46
from roughly the same area you know there's there is miles of distance between the three of them but we're
00:20:52
talking about three girls one is 10 one is 11 and one is 12 and within um what two and a half year time period a little
00:21:00
over two and a half years yeah well the police are now looking for the boogeyman
00:21:04
right we have somebody in North Ohio no they're looking for the unshaven man with the big nose who is killing young
00:21:12
girls he's abducting and killing young girls and actually in the the case of Christa Harrison we have a very good
00:21:20
description we have the actual abduction is witnessed by her friend where in other situations we just have a man that
00:21:27
was with the girl and we can't confirm that that's actually who had taken her but we
00:21:33
we have multiple people saying that that's who had seen was seen last with the girl excuse me and we have a we have
00:21:38
a description of the vehicle possibly too and then in the third case we have a girl that disappeared from a street fair
00:21:45
in masselin which who knows how many people were there um and obviously there's there's no no description of a
00:21:52
of an abductor there and some people might be actually familiar with masselin right because there was that documentary
00:21:58
about the masin Tigers which is a very we are the tigers I think is the name of it yeah so anybody's seen that you'd
00:22:04
have an idea of the the area and it's not a true crime dock it's a it's a high school football dock so yeah because
00:22:11
they're they're kind of an uh what a high school football team that's somewhat on the national Spotlight from
00:22:16
time to time they're well known especially this area right but if you ever seen that youd kind of know the lay
00:22:21
of the land a little bit and just before we chat with James rener I do want to read a little quick excerpt from his
00:22:27
book this serial Killer's Apprentice mhm these murders were still on the minds of
00:22:32
police and area residents 2 months later when Franklin Township Police received a
00:22:38
chilling call from a doy toown resident there was a shaved naked woman with a handcuff attached to one wrist standing
00:22:47
in her kitchen the caller said the woman had shown up at her doorstep claiming that she had been held captive in a
00:22:55
house across the street which was a little little ranch house owned by Robert bu before we join up with James
00:23:02
rener and learn more about Robert bule serial rapist and potential serial killer and we're also going to talk
00:23:10
about James's second killer theory that he titles the serial killer Apprentice but before that how about a quick this
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to the sponsors now here's Nick and James rener okay so James who is Robert bu Robert bule was uh a an employ
00:25:57
employee of the city of akan back in the early 80s um uh by all all reports uh a really fun
00:26:07
guy to hang out with a very affable um Joker in the office uh one of those guys you don't think about twice um and also
00:26:17
a serial rapist and murderer uh and and when you say serial rapist and murder he was suspected or known to have
00:26:28
abducted adult females so yeah let me let me tell you how he he got caught because everything kind of comes off of
00:26:36
there okay um at the time bule was working for the city of akan this is we're talking early ' 80s ' 82
00:26:43
83 um he was living in a ranch house in Doylestown um a suburb you know a little
00:26:50
ways outside of akan okay a little quiet little suburb in this ranch house for our International listeners akan is
00:26:58
where LeBron James is from yeah there you go yeah right you know bule gets in his in his car goes to
00:27:05
work about half an hour after he leaves um a woman comes running out of his out of his house um
00:27:15
naked with a handcuff dangling from her wrist and she runs to the neighbor's house and says oh my god I've been kept
00:27:23
prisoner in that house that guy is going to he he rap me he's going to try and kill me um so now the police descend on
00:27:32
this house in Doylestown found out find out that Robert bu lived there and they quickly link him to a series of Unsolved
00:27:40
abductions and and rapes of um of adult women and uh of which this this woman was lucky enough to to have been the
00:27:49
last um and they all kind of fit the same description um you know they're in their 20s early 30s um into yeah into
00:27:58
their 30s and uh um you know he would uh abduct them in his van he had a a big brown van uh creepy looking van and he'd
00:28:09
pull up and sometimes find them at gas stations or in shopping malls he'd force them into the van um sometimes he'd have
00:28:17
sex with them there sometimes he'd bring them back to the house in Doylestown keep them for a day or two um and then
00:28:23
drive them back and drop them off and release them and release them and when takes these girls these women he he he
00:28:30
just jumps out of the van and and forcibly takes them you know gunpoint or yeah sometimes he would use a gun and
00:28:37
point a gun at them and say get in the van um and uh so yeah adult women and he would always let them go now when when
00:28:45
when these women are at his home though he you I mean you say rape but this I mean I've read descriptions of it's the
00:28:51
most horrible this guy did and it's it's it's rape and torture it's torture it's
00:28:57
he's uh the word is sadistic um and and it's uh I mean we're talking the worst things you can imagine we're talking
00:29:05
like electrocution we're talking you know he'd shave their heads he would chain them to a workbench he would um
00:29:12
put clamps on them and then uh electrocute them and then when when he was done getting his kicks after a
00:29:18
couple days he would he would then drop them off um and blindfold them you know coming in and out of the place and his
00:29:25
house and uh they quickly linked him to all these rapes they processed his house
00:29:31
during the time as they were processing the house they they started finding evidence um fibers and cat hair and um
00:29:42
paraffin wax okay that were important pieces of evidence in a series of unsolved murders what is paraffin wax
00:29:50
it's this uh it's like um back in the day you used to get these uh pieces of wax they almost look like bars of of
00:29:57
soap and you would use them to seal letters you would or seal things um there are people that get sexual
00:30:04
gratification out of um burning the the wax so that it drips hot wax on your skin and and that's probably what he was
00:30:12
using it for uh because these um the the reason that the wax was an important piece of evidence is um
00:30:21
around this area they uh a bunch of girls bodies had turned up girls were being abducted by somebody um and you
00:30:29
say girls these are not women these are not the same age as the women that he was taking raping torturing and
00:30:36
releasing these are 10-year-old girls um 10 11 12y old girls uh prepubescent um they were abducted um sexually assaulted
00:30:44
and murdered and uh police found wax on their bodies that matched the paraffin wax in bu's house they found cat hair on
00:30:54
um some of these and I'm sorry dog hair they found dog hair on um these girls bodies that matched the dog hair found
00:31:02
uh all over bule's house um they found paint um on one of the girls uh bodies that matched the paint in in one of the
00:31:11
rooms um they found fibers from a rug that uh were on these girls bodies that they found uh definitively matched
00:31:20
fibers from a carpet that was rolled up behind bu's couch so they're like oh my gosh we've hit the Honeypot is the
00:31:28
Boogeyman not only is he responsible for rapes of of these grown women but murders of these These Girls uh and the
00:31:37
girls were let's name them Christa Harrison Tina Harmon and Deborah K Smith okay and they find this this mountain of
00:31:45
physical evidence at his home now take us let's talk about his uh living arrangements so to
00:31:55
speak um other you mean people that lived with him yeah yeah he he he was uh not living alone this entire time living
00:32:04
with them alone um and and if you don't mind let me skip forward just a little bit because eventually what happens is
00:32:12
bule pleads guilty to the rapes of these grown women okay steadfastly denies any involvement
00:32:21
he's already going to jail for life um steadfastly denies any involvement in the girl murders in
00:32:30
Christa Harrison Tina Harman or Deborah K Smith's murder they try him for Christa Harmon uh I'm sorry Christa
00:32:37
Harrison's murder he's he's put on trial he goes to trial he's found guilty I mean after all he's got all this
00:32:43
evidence against him right um they find him guilty sentence him he is sentenced to death he is executed in
00:32:51
2002 okay his last uh meal request was a single unpitted Olive MH uh because because he had in mind that an olive
00:32:59
tree would grow from his remains and he would have eternal life he's probably right um so did you did you witness that
00:33:08
execution or did you know you were a journalist at the time I've spoken to people that were there okay um you know
00:33:14
one of the last things he said was I did not you know M Mr Mrs Harmon I did not kill your daughter okay um and he left
00:33:21
behind a box of notes um and evidence uh and police reports um and he begun to S
00:33:27
suggest that somebody else was responsible for the crime um but he wouldn't really ever say who um and that
00:33:36
box uh by the way it's a creepy you when I say like a cardboard box you're probably picturing you know with the
00:33:43
flaps like a cigar box is what I picture well okay that's interesting too but this was a very peculiar box um it it to
00:33:52
me it looked like almost like a kid's coffin it was it was a long very sturdy cardboard box and the lid slipped onto
00:34:01
it like a sarcophagus lid not like it not like flaps it was a lid that kind of lifted off and and when placed on it it
00:34:08
almost feels like it it forms a seal once it gets to its end point exactly you know like like where they found the
00:34:14
Arc of the Covenant you know and Raiders of the Lost Arc and this box eventually
00:34:18
ends up at the office of Cleveland Scene um where I'm a um a you know a rookie reporter and I find it and I'm like
00:34:28
what's this oh well this is a story that you know nobody's been able to tell that's you know guy that murdered very
00:34:35
obviously you know killed these girls and always denied it and the somewhere in this box is evidence that he didn't
00:34:41
do it and Cleveland Scene gets this box how um I believe it comes from was it a religious leader or preer comes from a
00:34:50
um like a priest or a reverend who um was helping U bule out in the days leading up to his execution you know
00:34:59
being there for him as a as a counselor or something of that yeah so bu left this box to him and then that he
00:35:05
eventually gives it to scene and that's where I get it and I start going through
00:35:09
it and it slow it well not slowly it quickly Dawns on me that there is another suspect here um and uh I had my
00:35:18
hunches already okay and I but what I did next was uh I contacted the um Wayne County prosecutor's office they're the
00:35:29
ones that tried bule for Christa Harrison's murder I said hey I'd like to take a look at your old files on on the
00:35:34
Harrison case they're like Harrison that's a closed case what are you looking at I'm like doesn't matter I
00:35:40
said can I look it can I see the files I and by the way as a reporter I hate it when like you ask for a report and they
00:35:47
ask you why you need it like that's that's illegal by the way like in the state of Ohio under Sunshine laws
00:35:53
they're not allowed to ask you that question they ask it all the time right um so anyways I get down there one day
00:35:59
and I drive down and I end up in this uh creepy basement microfilm room and uh I get all these old files
00:36:09
that they've that they've put on microfilm from bu's um first case and I pull up the film and as soon as I see it
00:36:17
I know what it is it's the grand jury report and grand jury reports are sealed nobody's allowed to see them certainly
00:36:26
not reporters um it's illegal for us to obtain them but they made a mistake they
00:36:32
gave it to me so I'm go through these grand jury reports and the first thing I see is that the prosecutor their star
00:36:40
witness is a guy named Ralph Ross Jr and these this is testimony the prosecutor's
00:36:46
questioning him and and the prosecutor says hey he's trying to get information about bule linking them to these murders
00:36:53
hey um do you think your uncle killed these girls well yeah uh you know let me tell you
00:37:00
what happened um I was you know Ralph Ross Jr said that he was living with his uncle bule self- admitted self admitted
00:37:09
yeah he was living at that R Ranch House um and he said yeah my uncle I used to get in the van with him and we'd go
00:37:17
cruising for women man and Prosecutor's like what do you mean he's like well we used to drive around and bu would tell
00:37:23
me you know how we go looking for women to abduct and he would tell me how he was going to get this woman in the van
00:37:31
and take her back home and we'd take turns and um he's like but um but I thought it was all talk well and bule
00:37:39
was such he was such a prick that he he he even says like to to Ralph you know every woman has a a a rape fantasy or an
00:37:49
abduction rape fantasy right right that's how he justified it you know let's let's let them fulfill their
00:37:55
fantasy now um Ralph on the stand says you know I was you know it comes out that he was suggesting girls and you's
00:38:04
like oh come on let's you know let's not cross that line you know I've got I've got standards man and uh um so we've got
00:38:12
Ralph Ross Jr suggesting let's you know let's go after girls and bu doesn't want
00:38:17
any part of it um if you go digging in Christa Harrison's the police reports um you find that bule was spotted at a
00:38:25
baseball game game that she attended uh that she played at um she was abducted from that baseball field uh about a week
00:38:35
after her game um and she was abducted by a man in a van that matched the description of bu's Van um there was an
00:38:43
eyewitness there was an eyewitness yeah uh a young boy who was playing with Christa um sees this van pull up and a
00:38:51
guy forc her into the van um and but if you read the police report you find out that at that baseball game that bule
00:38:59
attended where Christa played there was another guy with him um the guy was holding a camera um and uh at the time
00:39:07
of the abduction you know um they showed uh later on after bu was arrested they went to the witness and
00:39:13
they're like hey you know we found that guy with the van uh you know here's his picture and the kid took a look at it
00:39:20
he's like no that's not the guy that came out of the van and took Christa um looked kind of like him but
00:39:27
that wasn't him right um and Ralph Frost Jr looks uh so much like bule in some ways which is crazy they're they're not
00:39:35
actually related no they're not but when you see pictures of them side by side you you would believe them to be related
00:39:41
almost very similar yeah they have similar features dark hair and yeah and uh in fact they look so much alike that
00:39:47
Ralph Ross sometimes used bu's license um to get uh into bars okay so um you know they they'd swap license so so long
00:39:57
story short Ralph Frost Jr was was living in the apart the the house in doy toown um and I find out that he's living
00:40:06
there when Christa Harrison is abducted in fact he's living there until they her body was dumped several days
00:40:14
after her abduction um and uh after that he quits his job in akan and moves back home to
00:40:22
Marietta uh near Marietta um and uh there there's a description in the reports where um he shows up to work
00:40:32
with his arm all bandaged uh the day after um Christa's body was found uh and uh he actually calls off the day that
00:40:42
Christa Christa's body was dumped bule has an alibi by the way uh for the day that you know because there's a witness
00:40:50
that saw um uh the guy dumping Christ's Christa's body um so we know when that happened bule has an alibi he was out
00:40:59
shopping by a buying a dryer okay um Ralph Ross called off work that day he does not have an alibi the next day he
00:41:08
shows up with what he says is a broken arm he's got it in a sling he's all kind of messed up um and then he moves out of
00:41:15
bu's house so he's there the whole time that even the prosecution is saying bule
00:41:21
has Christa and we know um from the adult women that were definitively raped by bule uh he kept them at the house so
00:41:31
if it's bule doing this he's got Christa at the house you know so at the very least at the very least Ralph Ross Jr
00:41:41
had to have been present for that if he's not complicit if he didn't participate if he didn't do the killing
00:41:49
um guy was living there when Christa was in that house um and all that evidence the fibers the carpet um you know the
00:41:59
plastic that they found around her all that that came from the house Ralph Ross Junior had access to that too and what
00:42:06
about the van that she was abducted from that had to have been bu's van well guess what bu did for his nephew he
00:42:13
Tracked Down the same make and model van and got it for his nephew they drove the
00:42:20
same van and they had rigged these uh um these metal hooks in the back the van they took out a seat um you know
00:42:30
so that they had a place to to chain the girls to hold somebody to hold somebody
00:42:34
yeah um so all that evidence that ties be to the crime also ties Ralph uh Ralph Ross Jr um and so this suddenly became
00:42:44
very interesting to me yeah and I track I track Ralph Ross Jr down and he's living living um near uh Stubenville
00:42:53
area actually uh when I finally finally get him he's still still he's never been
00:42:57
convicted he's still free and um I find that he's living um where like an eighth
00:43:04
of a mile like right around the corner from where Barbara Barnes was last seen it's a cold case from Stubenville area
00:43:14
uh young girl about the same age as Christa Harrison was um abducted uh her body was found on the
00:43:20
side of a river uh months later um Ralph Ross Jr's uh when I tracked them down was working for a cable company
00:43:29
installing cable boxes in people's homes um after I wrote about them and linked them to these these crimes um at least
00:43:38
uh to the point where he had to have known about Christa Harrison um they fired uh they fired him from the cable
00:43:44
company the FBI came in and processed the van that he was using I don't know that they found anything I know they
00:43:49
were very interested taking a look at it and uh um last I heard uh every once a while somebody will give me an update on
00:43:57
him CU he's still free he's still down there never really been questioned um uh he's now working for UPS you know he
00:44:06
loves any sort of job that gets you in near people's homes um so it's a it's a messed up it's a messed up case very
00:44:16
convoluted very very interesting um the other the other girl of course uh you know bule was only tried and executed
00:44:24
for Harrison and and I once asked the detective I said why didn't you guys try him for Tina Haron um we know the
00:44:31
evidence links them why didn't you try him for Deborah K Smith and the detective said you well we only need to
00:44:37
kill him once you know we we got the conviction on Christo why would we go after it
00:44:43
so I get together with Tina harman's family this was uh probably about five or six years ago and uh her Tina
00:44:51
Harmon's case had never been closed and I said well um you know what what do you
00:44:55
think Happ Happ and they're like well we don't think it was bule uh they won't never close the case and I went to the
00:45:01
prosecutor and I said uh you know why haven't you contacted the family you know you didn't even call them to tell
00:45:07
them that you believe it was bule so you're not investigating the case anymore and so it went back and forth
00:45:12
and eventually I started working with the Harmon family as a uh victim's Advocate um sort of thing and and uh as
00:45:20
a liaison between them and the press and we held a press conference and we demanded that the prose U test the
00:45:27
evidence in the Tina Harman case to to definitively link it U to bule if they could um my thought was maybe it'll link
00:45:36
to Ralph Ross Jr you know we haven't tested the evidence let's see um so uh the prosecutor came back and said no it
00:45:46
you know where are we going to find the funds you know to test this evidence that's 30 years old said well how much
00:45:53
is it going to cost he's like it's well man it's going to be at least $300 H I said I'll give you $300 you know let's
00:46:01
test this thing he's like no that's not how how it's done so we ran another article and it said prosecutor won't
00:46:07
spend $300 to close a three you know 30-year-old Cold Case it embarrassed him enough that they actually did the test
00:46:14
um and the test came back a couple weeks later that they had bu's DNA on Tina Harmon's pants so they were able to say
00:46:23
well there you go uh it was bu after all we're going to close the case now um I still have my doubts you know I have my
00:46:31
doubts about the way the evidence was tested um I have uh I have my doubts that it was bule working alone you know
00:46:42
I think I I'm I know I know Ralph Ross Jr at least had to have have been compli complicit in some way in Christa
00:46:54
Harrison's murder um at least had knowledge that it happened before anybody else did so it
00:47:01
would it would uh I would assume that that would be true also for Tina Harmon um and Deborah K
00:47:08
Smith so bule he the girl that gets the woman that gets away she flees to the neighbor's home
00:47:17
that's how police they they get into bu's home and they that starts the ball roll they come up with this all this
00:47:24
evidence does she say at any point she doesn't give any indication that there was more than one abductor
00:47:32
though no no um and and by then Ralph Ross Jr had had moved away had moved out because your suspicions might have been
00:47:41
he moved away because of the the the death of that young girl it's too much of a coincidence that you know he calls
00:47:48
off the day that her body was dumped that bule has an alibi for the time that the body was dumped that Ralph Russ J
00:47:55
shows up to work the next day with his arm in a sling and then quits his job and moves back home I think he thought
00:48:04
that the police were coming for both of them I mean the acts that bule did anyway are strange in nature by far and
00:48:11
you know heinous crimes that he committed but uh regardless if he killed the girls or not but the you know the
00:48:19
the things he did to these women are despicable yeah but the thing that's odd to me is
00:48:26
do we I I don't know do we see people graduate from murder to releasing victims I mean no absolutely not in fact
00:48:36
I spoke to a couple profilers on this I believe I spoke to John Douglas directly
00:48:40
again um on this case to get that opinion and you talk to criminal profilers that that do this for a living
00:48:49
and they will tell you no in in the history in the history of Serial killing you don't have a serial killer that
00:48:57
gruesomely murders girls who also just abducts and releases grown women right those are two different MOS those are
00:49:06
two different monsters you know um you don't go from killing to backing off and and doing Catch and Release so the the
00:49:15
schools of thought here would be either bule did do these things that he was convicted of and and ultimately
00:49:21
sentenced to death for or with the assistance of his not really his nephew but his nephew
00:49:28
through marriage yeah uh you know that the two of them did these crimes together you know or that Ralph Ross Jr
00:49:36
did these by himself and and got lucky because he happened to live with a seral rapist right um and I don't know the
00:49:46
answer to that question I do know this um it's not the only time that Ralph Ross Jr and Robert bule um
00:49:56
were working together in a sexual nature um a woman came forward and spoke to me
00:50:02
that I was able to confirm had a a relationship with Robert bule and she uh you know in in a grownup
00:50:12
kind of ashamed way told me about how um what bu like to do is is have three sums
00:50:19
with women and his nephew Ralph Ross Jr and so he'd get and and these were admittedly at least started consensual
00:50:28
um and she'd go over and and uh you know bule would have her have sex with Ralph
00:50:34
Ross Jr so they were they were in the thick of it together now if if you know you're you're living at my home and and
00:50:43
and it how do I not know if if you're killing children right killing girls and you live in my home with me how do I not
00:50:51
know that if I'm Robert bule of course of course how do I not know that you know that you I mean if if he's got the
00:50:58
girl in the house you see it you see it happen you see the things that he's doing and maybe it scares you so much
00:51:04
that you run away you know so there's there's answers to this case there's a guy running around with with
00:51:13
answers and and the prosecutor what made me so mad was you read through these grand jury transcripts Ralph Ross Jr's
00:51:19
on the stand he's very much making himself a suspect in the case M but the prosecutor knew that was invaluable as a
00:51:28
witness he was the case against bule he was the first witness that the prosecution called and he's the one that
00:51:35
um essentially convicted his uncle bule um and what's bule going to say no no no
00:51:41
you know yeah my nephew did it you know he did it too he knew he knew the evidence against him and you obviously
00:51:49
this this case is featured in your true crime book serial Killer's Apprentice but it also kind of bleeds into one of
00:51:57
your fictional Works do you want to touch on that just real quick well um yeah I've written a couple novels the
00:52:05
first one is the man from Primrose Lane and the man from Primrose Lane there it was definitely inspired by my work as a
00:52:12
true crime journalist for the Cleveland Scene and free times um and yeah there's
00:52:17
uh some similarities between some of the um the pieces of this case the serial Killer's Apprentice um there's also some
00:52:26
similarities to you know um you know a a bizarre case out of East Lake where a guy committed suicide and the police
00:52:35
went to contact next of Ken and they find out that uh oh you know they they're like we've got some bad news
00:52:42
about your brother he committed suicide they reached this woman she's like what you know my brother died in 1948 what
00:52:48
are you talking about and that's how they they learned that this this guy in East Lake had been living under a fake
00:52:53
name in Cleveland for 30 years mhm so yeah there's there's bits and pieces that definitely inspired Primrose Lane
00:52:59
Primrose Lane though is uh you know uh it's sci-fi you know there's time travel involved and um you know so it's a very
00:53:06
different story too I found that story to be fascinating Captain I tell you I found out about
00:53:13
this oh probably about three or four years ago now I had already knew about the Robert bule case and I knew about
00:53:21
the uh the the girl that he was convicted of killing right as well as having been suspected of two
00:53:28
other girls right and I knew that they had found the um you know the the the one woman had uh got out of his house as
00:53:35
he left for work and got away from him and that's what started the ball rolling on all this I knew about this but I
00:53:41
always just assumed you know that Robert bule that that he was just proclaiming his innocence because he was going to be
00:53:48
sentenced to death I didn't know that there was anything behind there there's kind of a story behind the story here
00:53:55
right and we didn't see this until we're able to talk to somebody like James rener who
00:54:00
had some additional access to some of this information because of his job because of where he worked and people
00:54:06
that he interacted with I mean he he worked very closely with a journalist that spent a lot of time with Robert
00:54:13
bule before his execution it seems like uh Robert bule also he wasn't just saying hey I didn't do this he also
00:54:21
tried to point you in the the correct direction or what he felt was the the correct direction and so a little bit of
00:54:27
an armchair detective well he it he was kind of cryptic about that though I don't know that he ever outright said
00:54:34
that this this so-called nephew of his would have been involved in anything but what he kept reminding everybody of was
00:54:41
that there's still a killer out there and he actually pointed to some crimes that took place in Ohio and western
00:54:48
Pennsylvania of girls roughly the same age now one of the cities of the girl of one of these girls was Stubenville and
00:54:57
you heard James rener talk about that that is where his his uh nephew by marriage would eventually end up living
00:55:05
right uh so that kind of points a finger at him uh one of the cases too that he talks about was the Amy mahalic case
00:55:12
which is actually quite similar to to the uh Tina Haron case that we talked about today there are some Sim
00:55:19
similarities there however yeah both both were found with uh dog hairs and fibers on them correct and there and
00:55:26
there was a situation with the with the stabbing and possible um uh blunt force trauma so there's some interesting
00:55:33
connections there um I think my in my opinion is it possible that that his nephew was involved I definitely think
00:55:41
so I think that there is there's something weird going on here because there's no way and but I don't believe
00:55:48
bule completely cuz bule wants to make it sound like yeah I raped some women you know yeah I I tortured and here's
00:55:55
the thing when he says I raped some women when you dive into the case you figure out he didn't just rape these
00:56:01
women he held them captive for days and he tortured them I mean he did horrible things to these women it was as close as
00:56:08
you can to killing somebody so what I'm getting at here though is there's no way
00:56:13
that these two men live together and they weren't in this thing together somehow because I I just don't see how
00:56:21
one could not know what the other one was up to there's no way that bu is cap is holding women captive raping them and
00:56:29
unbeknownst to his his nephew well his roommate yeah yeah and then on the other hand there's no way that the nephew is
00:56:36
abducting young girls and killing them and here's the thing too I kept looking at this thinking because we talked about
00:56:43
bule had one of those big Vans right and so did his nephew his nephew had a very
00:56:48
similar van well here's the problem with that they're like creepy van buddies and
00:56:52
I kept thinking I'm like well maybe maybe the nephew kept the girls in his in the van you know but we're talking
00:56:59
about several days go by it's certainly a possibility however there are things in the house that linked the house to
00:57:08
the girls so either those items were were in the van with the girls at the time or the girls were in the house
00:57:15
which I think is the most likely situation or the the items would be transferred I mean like as far as carpet
00:57:21
fibers and dog hairs and stuff like that maybe a dog never goes into your van but
00:57:25
there is transfer and the nephew actually kind of fingers himself a little bit because he he's talking about
00:57:32
in the grand jury when the grand jury is trying to to decide if they're going to
00:57:37
indict Robert bule uh the the nephew is then giving his account of things that he knew of that might have been going on
00:57:45
in the house or things that he saw when when he lived there and he kind of puts himself he kind of throws his hat in the
00:57:53
ring so to speak as being potentially involved in this situation well yeah I mean he definitely throws himself
00:57:59
underneath the creepy van and I don't think you know Robert bu I don't think he wanted to exactly point the finger at
00:58:07
his nephew because if you do that and and you and you go out and you seek out this man and
00:58:14
you bring him to Justice it all just kind of circles back to you doesn't it I mean it doesn't really clear you of
00:58:21
anything it just points out that maybe you this was a tag team effort uh on on some occasions yeah definitely that I
00:58:29
mean yeah and who knows I mean he could just be lying about the whole thing in general and we we do have to keep in
00:58:35
mind though that after the nephew moved out bule continued to commit crimes and that's when he was raping these grown
00:58:42
women and and holding them captive so we do need we should point that out before
00:58:48
you know keep that in mind when you're considering this other person as a suspect keep in mind the the person that
00:58:55
we have to look at in his character and what we know he is 100% capable of while
00:59:01
we're looking at this other guy so it's always great to have uh James rener aka the enemy on the show The Frenemy yeah
00:59:10
and make sure that you pick up I mean he he has a lot of interesting books you have seral Apprentice the serial killer
00:59:17
Apprentice serial killers Apprentice you have the Amy mahalic story Y and then you have the True Crime addict and which
00:59:25
which is a is a very fascinating read and you hear him talk about uh one of his fiction books there uh the man from
00:59:31
Primrose Lane uh he and he also has the great forgetting so there's plenty of good uh books our recommended reading is
00:59:39
well just buy something from bu James rener no the the man from Primrose Lane is actually one of my favorite fiction
00:59:45
books of all time but we are of course recommending this week that you check out the serial killer Apprentice by
00:59:52
James rener this obviously featur featuring the case that we just discussed and many many more including
00:59:58
The Disappearance of Ray gar the unsolved murder of Joseph cup uh both of these cases are cases that listeners
01:00:07
have asked us to cover they are listener request and both of them are featured in
01:00:12
this serial Killer's apprentice and another case that James covered is now the very famous case which is that of
01:00:19
The Disappearance of Amanda Barry and Gina De Jesus which of course were later solved and thank God they found those
01:00:27
girls that was the case where the three girls had been living captive which included Michelle Knight all three were
01:00:35
abducted by Ariel Castro and during their time in captivity Castro even fathered a child or two with with one or
01:00:43
one of the girls or more than one of the girls uh when James wrote about this when he wrote the serial Killer's
01:00:49
apprentice and and it covered this case that case was unsolved at the time and in fact no one had really linked the
01:00:57
disappearances to that of Michelle Knight now I do like to go back and read about a solved case before it was solved
01:01:05
uh so pick up the serial Killer's Apprentice true stories of Cleveland's most intriguing unsolved crimes do that
01:01:12
at our website uh recommended books are listed on the recommended page yeah let's go a true crime garage.com and
01:01:20
yeah I mean once you listen to our show and then you read this book by James rener you're never going to want to
01:01:25
visit Ohio ever again but uh yeah it's a it's a very good read yeah so go to True
01:01:31
Crim garage.com click on the Amazon banner and type in the name of the book that you are looking for or really any
01:01:37
other item that you want to pick up uh because if that you're in need of because every little bit helps the show
01:01:44
yeah I just bought 63 yo-yos off of Amazon got a good deal bulk I buy bulk he's a yo-yo collector hey know you got
01:01:53
to do some things Yo Yo Ma cheers my beautiful friends have fun this weekend and till next time be good be kind and
01:02:02
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