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thank you [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] Dior Coons was not quite three years old
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when he vanished there was a short version telling of this true crime case that someone titled
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little man lost that was and Still Remains a perfect title for the start of this True Crime Story
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Dior Coons was a little boy that at times carried himself like a man in a tiny little body
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picture a little boy walking around in cowboy boots much too big for his little feet
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even his facial expressions would at times remind you of that of an older child something in his eyes
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telling you he was wise for his years People magazine called this story Without a Trace
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that would sum up the evidence at the scene nicely but there is more more that has been uncovered in the
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investigation and more that will be revealed in our follow-up episodes this week here in the garage
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two-year-old Dior Coons disappeared on a camping trip in the remote Idaho mountains
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well that was the story we were told that was the story delivered to 9-1-1 emergency service Personnel back in 2015
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from Little dior's Mom and Dad they both told the same story they were out there camping with a small group and
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sometime after breakfast Dior went missing but there were holes in their story and
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questions that they could not seem to provide clear answers to the suspicion was heavy
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but things weren't so clear there were in fact two other people on that trip two others up there that day
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we first covered this case back in 2019 in episodes 305 and 306. at that time the facts of the case were
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as follows Dior was missing from Lim High County Idaho it was reported to law enforcement that
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Dior was last seen on Friday July 10 2015. on that day Dr J Coons Jr just two years
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old was with his parents Jessica Mitchell and vernal Dior Coons senior at the time the two were engaged to be
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married with little Dior and his mom and dad we had the great grandfather Bob Walton
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and Bob's longtime friend Isaac renwald the group was camping at Timber Creek Campground
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this is in a remote area filled with Mountains close to lidor Idaho at approximately 2 30 p.m that day
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dior's mother Jessica called 9-1-1 because her son had disappeared she said she left the little boy with
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his great grandfather and then went to walk around the campground with her fiancee
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and when they got back to Camp just a short time later Dior was gone everyone in the group looked for Dior
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for several minutes before it was decided that they needed to call 9-1-1 the parents told search and rescue and
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the sheriff's department the Dior never went anywhere without his blanket or his
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toy monkey and yet these items were found at the group's camping spot the search that day turned up little to
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no clues as to the toddler's whereabouts Crews searched until about 4 AM on July 11th Searchers looked on
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Horseback and ATVs they focused on a two and a half mile radius around the campground
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one area of concern was a creek just about 15 yards away from the campsite Sunday July 12th
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they had nearly 200 volunteers show up to assist in the search efforts Monday July 13th
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there was an official interview with the media this is when dior's parents Vernal and
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Jessica explained what happened the previous Friday afternoon during that interview they said that
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they no longer believed that Dior was lost but think that someone may have abducted their son
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that evening there was a candlelight vigil over the course of the next six days search efforts continued near the
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campground dive Crews focused on the stone Reservoir dior's parents remained camped out near
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the site the Bonneville County Sheriff's dive team was called in to help divers used a
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sonar robot to search the reservoir on July 19th it had been 10 days since Dior was last seen
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and through all of the efforts no evidence has been found to suggest where the two-year-old boy may be
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at the time the Dior was reported missing he was said to be wearing a camouflage jacket blue pajama pants
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green and black checkered socks and brown cowboy boots with brown camouflage print
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in the summer of 2015 Dior was three foot tall and about 30 pounds Caucasian with blonde hair brown eyes
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and a birthmark on the back of his neck dior's nickname is little man [Music] our little dior's parents hiding
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something and if so what why did this little boy simply disappear Without a Trace
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this is True Crime garage [Music] all right joining us in the garage today we have Philip Klein from Klein
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investigations who has been keeping an eye and actively working the continued investigation of missing little boy Dior
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Coons Jr and Philip is here to set the record straight on a couple of items we covered this case way back in 2019 so
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there's been some things to come out and there's been some things that have been
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uncovered by client investigations and Philip is here to bring us up to speed as to where the case stands today in
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2023. Philip go ahead and introduce yourself to the listeners and tell us a little bit about your background or at
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least the investigations background sure sure I uh have been an investigator since 1982 uh worked with a company
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called Prudential Equifax I'm sure you guys have heard of those two companies uh and I work my way all the way up to
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senior investigator for Prudential Equifax I went away uh for about a year on a political campaign and I came back
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um to Southeast Texas and I decided to hang my own shingle back in 1994. uh we specialize in missing persons cases
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around the world um we started off with our first big case which was back in I guess it was
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1995 when a high school teacher ran off with a student and ended up in Centauri Island Greece on a cruise ship not as a
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passenger but as an employee two employees and we were able to work with the United States government
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on that and bring them back in extra should write them back to the United States so that was our first big case
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and then everything just kind of fell from there we've uh We've brought back both dead and alive we've brought back
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probably over 1800 uh cases uh in my career um I am the team leader so I'm the guy
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at the top that takes all the hits and we really have worked hard to uh along with the missing persons division up at
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uh the Department of State uh in the United States federal government and as well we have worked very very hard uh to
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work with state federal and uh local law enforcement around the United States because you know Believe It or Not guys
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there are police departments that don't have the resources some police departments we've worked with have never
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seen a homicide some people some some of the officers that we've worked with have
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never worked a missing person's case or a homicide it's been kind of a love relationship that we've had with the
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private security world and or were commonly called government contractors the government itself to work together
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as a team to bring Solace and peace to some of these families out there that have missing persons little Dior Coons
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Junior was two years old going on three back in 2015 and his parents Vernal Coons and Jessica Mitchell were due to
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be married or were engaged from my understanding at that time in 2015 they go out on a camping trip the three of
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them along with Jessica Mitchell's grandfather Bob Walton and his one-time neighbor turned friend Isaac
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on this camping trip and unfortunately at some point Dior Coons goes missing or at least
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that's the narrative that we've been fed for a long period of time and when does
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Klein investigations come into play in this missing person's case so so we came into the case uh what we call cold when
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the family first contacted us we had just brought back uh a uh a toddler that we found alive as a matter of fact in
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Michigan so it played real hard in the media up uh on the Northern side of the United States and so they called us they
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wanted to talk to us some of the alterior family members not Jessica not Vernal but some of the ulterior family
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members called us and said look we've read about you guys can you can we consult so we got him on the conference
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call and we listened to what they had to say it was presented to us that the four
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people being Bob Isaac renwall Jessica and vernal went up on a camping trip now depend upon who you talk to in this case
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of those four their stories just never matched to uh there were some people that had said yeah uh we we at this time
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we stopped by Walmart so of course you know all the police FBI us everybody gets over to the Walmart and they say no
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we don't have that on camera and that was the first kind of red flag we went okay maybe maybe the the the camera time
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is wrong maybe the employees are wrong maybe Walmart security is wrong you know it happens right so people make mistakes
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there's there's breakdowns of equipment that sort of thing so what we did next was we said well okay let's do this
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let's take a look uh on the actual fact witnesses that were there that day so we
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interviewed them just before we even took the case we interviewed them and they were saying no we don't remember
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them coming in we don't remember any of this so we kind of raised our eyebrows a
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little bit thinking okay there's more to this story so so we talked to the family
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and the family said we don't have we don't have the money and we said well we're pretty big company and we have a
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little internal Foundation inside our group what we will do is we will pay for the employees to come up if you guys pay
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for the expense to fly the dogs in if necessary expense to fly in the interviewers if necessary and the
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expense to fly the base team in to uh Idaho Falls Idaho and we'll base out of there because that's where you all live
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and we'll we'll start this case and so that's how it all got started we flew up there they raised money they did I guess
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uh what pancake lunches they did pies they did dinners they people a couple of benefactors up there put the money into
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the trust account and so what we did at that point was we had enough money to get started they eventually finished it
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up within about a month of paying the full retainer we've already talked about the retainer in the to the general
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public it was twenty thousand dollars some people go wow that's a lot of money well yes it is but coming from Texas
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bringing dogs and people and putting them up and feeding them you know that gets to be a little bit expensive
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people say well you never gave a good accounting well we did we gave a great accounting the judge looked at it after
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we were sued we'll get to that and he said no that's reasonable and there's the receipts and everything's good and
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we were like we don't just run around take people's money because that's going to kill our company if we ever got
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caught doing that so long story short we got up there and we got started well the
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first thing we did was we interviewed the family and each one of the people up on the mountain
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out of all the interviews that we did and we did not just one interview we did multiple interviews with them the only
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one that had the same story every time and I'm talking down to the minute I'm talking down to the hour I'm talking
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down to to the date of to how it all got started why they were going up there everything has been Isaac Renoir his
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stories never changed once I think the FBI and the local police we met with them after five days of
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interviews of people we sat down with them in a room and then we ended up at a Mexican
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restaurant because none of us have eaten for four days we sat down in a room with
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them and said okay here's what they've told us and they just stood there with their
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mouths open and we said what did did we say something wrong did we you know what's going on
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they said hold on a minute then they wanted to focus on uh they wanted to focus on the parents at first
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uh Vernal didn't tell them 50 percent of what he told us that's natural sometimes because there's
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shock and Trauma when you when you lose somebody is there's little things you forget okay so we we gave room for that
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okay we were like hey it might have been a little bit upset but here's the story
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he told the story Bernal Coons told us was this they got up to and there was a bunch of
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you know hey we we left Idaho Falls it's a two and a half hour trip we were had a axle
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problem we had they here's where he told us the story that he never told anybody
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else he said well we got to a restaurant uh in the city on the night they arrived
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which was I believe a Thursday night they arrived and um there was a place where we all wanted
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to eat so we stopped at this bar restaurant and up there I'm sure as you all know
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um the the sun doesn't go down until what 11 12 at night sometimes uh during the during the summer time during that
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period correct and so they come up to the door and the restaurant owner says uh we're closed go away well we're
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closed go away we're not feeding anybody so they all load back up in their cars and they go up the mountain okay to the
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um the little camping area that is of subject of this case they say they Park all the cars in a semi-circle
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we're like okay they parked in the semi-circle once they Park in a semi-circle they start unloading
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everything get the chairs out get the food get the coolers out get all this stuff out of these cars and little Dior
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is running around uh in the in the campfire area they light a campfire it's a pretty big campfire
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so after they get everything unloaded and kind of get settled and they start you
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know having snacks because they haven't eaten any dinner and this is now at this
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point it's about 10 or 11 at night um it's getting dark and somebody turns around and goes
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where's Dr Vernal says well I don't know let me go look around he says daddy daddy over
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here so Vernal tells us this story that and I'm paraphrasing he says I went over and I found little Dior with his
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hands in the tailpipe he's black head to toe because he's wiped the soot off of the tailpipe all
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over his face uh on his arms he's just being a kid right this is how it's it's portrayed to us we're like well kids do
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that and then he says um well I he there was a lug nut missing from the back tire
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and he says look daddy no lug nut and I don't know what kids say that but maybe they do we got to take it at face
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value then he says well Daddy um uh look look over here and he goes over to the trailer that was
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um The Grandfather's and he points to a lug nut and so we're like okay what does
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this all have to do with your son going missing well I'm just telling you the story
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for the timeline oh okay so we sit there and immediately one of the police officers had given us the
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initial written statements from from Vernal he doesn't mention any of that and then they give us a forensics
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sheet that shows us hey the tire he's pointing to there was blood found a blood pathogen found on the uh interior
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rim and also blood pathogen found traces a blood pathogen found on the bumper in
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the same place that they're talking about well that kind of raised all of our eyebrows like okay did we get a
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match well we don't have anything to match it to no DNA okay is it human yeah we believe it's human but we're not
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a hundred percent sure we're about 50 percent that's what they tell us we're like okay
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so it's just another you know remember investigators like us what we do is we put things together like a puzzle okay
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and we put the puzzle together one piece at a time so that's just a piece of the
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puzzle when we played that original interview for the police they were just shocked because not only was that
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mentioned but the police had interviewed the people at the at the I guess you call it a bar restaurant right we ate
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there it was good food uh but they at the bar restaurant they uh they said no that's that's not true that never
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happened so the story is what I'm trying to get to a long way around it is the stories didn't match from the witnesses
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to Coons and the rest of the family and you know Jessica goes into a big thing how she got Dior out of the back seat
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and brought Dior around to the front of the restaurant and the restaurant people
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said no she never did that she stayed in the truck the whole time right so we were all like okay somebody just tell us
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the truth here but again remember guys when you get involved in these investigations as long as I've been
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doing them for 40 years I can tell you that things the work what's the what's the old saying the worst uh the worst
00:22:41
witness is the eyewitness right because you know oh yeah I remember this now oh yeah I remember that now uh video works
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Wonder wonders right and but but eyewitnesses sometimes forget things so we just chalked it up as that you know
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maybe they're just maybe everybody's just not on the same page on this so we interviewed Jessica Jessica was at
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best evasive the person that handled that um that part of the interview was MJ Holmes
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and she is an investigator out of Georgia and she maybe is one of the best interviewers that I have ever watched
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and according to a lot of the cops that watched the interview that she did with him uh they say that she's one of the
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best interviewers they've worked with in a long time so she was very evasive with
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us we all kind of got a shot at her Caroline gear in our office got a shot at her and she just kind of she wouldn't
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look at it she'd look away she you know did the the funny haha thing knocked her
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Coke over I mean there was she was nervous as nervous can be and I get that you got cameras on you you got four
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seasons investigators shooting questions at you we get it but we finally got her
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at ease and she started to flow she didn't know the story about the getting head to toe soot on the child she didn't
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know anything about lug nut she didn't so now we have someone that's there that's the parent going I don't know any
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of this who's told you this and we said well it you know that's the story Vernal
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gate well he never told me that and we're like oh that's interesting so we have a breakdown in the story and it's a
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pretty good story I mean I don't know if I'm a mommy and I'm out there camping how am I going to clean my kid up before
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we go to bed at night right you're not are you going to let a kid have a bunch of soot and grime and dirt all over them
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right you know not happening right so the story goes to and I'm just giving you highlights The Story Goes to the
00:24:42
next morning Jessica and vernal sleep in the back of the Suburban right or the back of the
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there's a Suburban up there which is Bob's suburban and they sleep in the back of the Suburban and we ask well
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where does where does Dior sleep and they say oh he sleeps in the front seat we bundled them up in the front
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seat and he's laying down in the front seat and he he goes to sleep well they say at about
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8 30 in their stories match there's a wrap on their window and vernal gets up and goes what and it's Isaac and Isaac
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goes wakey wakey eggs and baking so they kind of look out there and there's Bob and Isaac and they're making breakfast
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so Vernal says he gets a Jessica says she gets the baby up and they go wandering around for breakfast well
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during our interview with Isaac Isaac says I never saw the kid that day right and we're like What He Goes not every
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song I I mean I I might have saw him one time but I never really placed my eyes on him
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and we asked uh the dad um and he uh the grandpa and the grandpa tell us he says well I I don't know I
00:26:04
might have seen him might not have seen it I mean it's a very telling interview and then he goes he kind of looks over
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at Holmes and he goes but you know what I got to tell you all this what's done is done
00:26:20
and we're like what what's what's done is done and we're like slow down dude what are you
00:26:30
trying to tell us and he says I'm telling you what's done is done they can they can they can go have sex and have
00:26:39
another baby and it and I was so infuriated if you if we ever release the interview to which
00:26:48
we will uh I was so infuriated I got a laptop and I threw it against a wall and I got in his face and I said let me tell
00:26:56
you something are you telling us that that baby's dead because you better start speaking up right now I'm just
00:27:02
telling you what's done is done that's what he told us it's right on camera we got the audio we got the video and uh
00:27:09
and so he says I've got I I gotta I've got to take a break I said you take a break get your head together and then
00:27:15
get back in here and then let's let's discuss this [Music] [Music] all right welcome back cheers mates
00:27:45
some fascinating stuff coming out of this investigation from Klein investigations and we're talking to
00:27:52
Philip Philip is ramping up the investigation again into missing child Dior Jay Coons
00:28:00
Jr dior's been missing since July 10th of 2015. so we happen to speak with Philip
00:28:09
Klein this week and oddly enough Captain we are coming up on eight years now that
00:28:16
the little two-year-old has been missing he was about two and a half years old at
00:28:20
the time that he goes missing on this supposed camping trip now Philip is able to fill in a lot of the
00:28:28
blanks and and add to add some evidence to the speculation that has been and has remained in this
00:28:36
case during that eight year time period all right Colonel let's get back to our interview with Philip
00:28:43
well Philip one of the big questions that most people have in the True Crime Community is was there evidence that
00:28:50
Dior was actually at the campsite uh that well we'll get to that yeah well yeah I you know
00:29:00
yeah is the answer we believe he was there and I'll tell you why uh here in just a second it sounds like from those
00:29:07
stories that that Dior may have been there the night before well that's the theory
00:29:14
we've always run with we have never looked at this as a as a homicide right we've never looked at this as a homicide
00:29:21
we've oh and I think I've said this in public before we've always looked at this
00:29:27
as an accidental death and a cover-up and that's what the FBI and I don't speak for them and I'm not
00:29:35
speaking for the sheriff I'm telling you that's the way all of us have looked at
00:29:41
this because on that first meeting when we presented everything that we had they
00:29:45
went yeah you we have run with Vernal may have been trying to move the the the the truck or
00:29:53
the Suburban that's where the blood came from and he ran over his son and they hid the body and they uh they went and
00:30:00
buried the body or took care of the body and I'll tell you how we think the whole
00:30:05
thing went down bottom line is this when when the Grandfather said that he came back in the room and and and one of
00:30:14
the interviewers looked at I think it was Holmes looked at where he was sitting he had peed all over the chair
00:30:20
the floor uh and uh wait wait who who peed all over the chair on the floor the the grandfather okay and he he was in
00:30:30
poor health he was elderly at the time but if he were to protect somebody he would have a vested interest obviously
00:30:36
in protecting his granddaughter Jessica be out of out of you know love for his granddaughter but also she is kind of
00:30:43
his caretaker at the time yep you're right on it so um so we just kind of you know I I moved
00:30:51
the chair I said I have a dry chair for you we went and got some towels and sat down I said listen if I owe you an
00:30:56
apology for yelling at you before we start the cameras back up I I apologize but I kind of get in the feeling do you
00:31:05
know more and that's where we're going with it and he just shook his head like yes
00:31:12
I said okay let's turn the cameras back on and so it's kind of what Frank built went through that was the first Pi uh
00:31:21
frankville was the first one to uh how do I want to say um that we contacted that was former law
00:31:29
enforcement U.S Marshal and we have a great relationship with the marshals so you know and he kind of done some taking
00:31:34
on us and so he knew who we were and and and vilt had offered to put up a reward
00:31:40
of his own money twenty five thousand dollars and the parents wouldn't let him the parents wouldn't let him
00:31:46
and he said at that point he just bowed out and said no I don't want any part of
00:31:52
this he had the sense he's smart enough to know he had the sense to get up get away from it as fast as he could so long
00:32:00
story short we we finished the interviews up we interviewed everybody there was everybody had everybody was
00:32:06
ever just every different direction it was horrible absolutely horrible and so again we met with law enforcement we met
00:32:15
with the FBI we all sat in a room we went over our notes the smarter people than me because there are smart a lot
00:32:23
smarter people than me uh homes and gear and all these other guys they were talking on the level psychologically uh
00:32:31
and and it came to the conclusion okay we're in this thing we're not getting out
00:32:37
oh boy the parents are an issue so the sheriff the first sheriff said um okay what uh we need to do is client
00:32:46
keep doing your thing we'll keep doing our thing and we'll all get back together in about six weeks and we'll
00:32:51
we'll discuss where we all are so that's kind of the opening to the case that's how it got started that's
00:32:59
our first trip up there that's our first interview up there that we had with anybody uh as you guys know it's always
00:33:07
smart for an investigator to come in cold uh and we did we went in cold and uh you know the the only the thing that
00:33:16
kind of broke it broke it open for us uh was uh uh was Bob uh in his statements and and what he said in the family
00:33:25
generational tree we were able to build of of who the players were or who would protect who if they necessary needed to
00:33:33
uh you know and we were able to put that information together into a a a great opportunity for all of this the
00:33:42
psychological people um to get started on this case both in uh Quantico Virginia uh in our office
00:33:49
and of course up there um so that's how it started where did the investigation lead you so
00:33:57
now you're sitting there you have some information from Bob what's what's really interesting too is now you're
00:34:04
you're meeting with law enforcement and the Jessica and vernal the parents have told
00:34:12
one story to law enforcement and it doesn't sound like they're telling you a different story they're telling you an
00:34:18
expanded version of what they what they conveniently may have left out when talking to law enforcement so you're
00:34:26
like right and then what they did was law enforcement was very very smart what they did was
00:34:33
um they gave them a written statement now you guys know about handwriting analysis I've heard y'all talk about it
00:34:39
before right um they got vernals and just excuse me Vernal and Jessica's handwriting uh on
00:34:48
their initial statement and then the 9-1-1 call they compared it to that and we were talking about that and Jane said
00:34:56
uh that's MJ Holmes said well look I've got a contact with Georgia Bureau of Investigation give me their handwriting
00:35:02
analysis give me their handwriting and we'll send it over for handwriting analysis and everybody that's in the
00:35:07
business knows the state of Georgia has the best handwriting analysis team in the United States even better than the
00:35:15
FBI I'd say and these five guys that deal with that got these handwriting analysis and they were like those are
00:35:23
two Liars they're just lying they're just flat out lying so we send send up the 9-1-1 calls to them and they listen
00:35:30
to the 9-1-1 calls compared to Vernal statement and compared to Jessica's statement and they said oh no no no no
00:35:37
no these these guys are lying bad tell us about the case and that's kind of that's kind of when we kind of jumped
00:35:45
off the ship of Jessica and vernal and and and and what they said there are a couple different times that we have
00:35:52
listed for when this call comes in the 9-1-1 call is placed by mother Jessica Mitchell and in the reports we have here
00:36:02
Captain the times vary from 2 25 PM all the way to 2 36 p.m now that seems like a minor discrepancy in only a matter of
00:36:13
about 11 minutes but there is some importance to that because we have statements from both parents
00:36:21
that Vernal the father was attempting to get a signal so he drops Jessica Mitchell off because she has one bar
00:36:33
for service on her phone she wants to call 9-1-1 as quickly as possible Vernal says that he decides he's going to
00:36:41
continue on down the road to a spot where he knows his phone will have service he was worried that his phone
00:36:48
would cut off halfway and so you can see why the the times of these are important
00:36:55
because what we have here is two things one you can hear something in the background we cannot determine who that
00:37:04
is speaking in the background of Jessica Mitchell's cell phone call to 9-1-1 but what we do have on the 9-1-1 call at
00:37:14
some point the operator the Emergency Services Personnel asked Jessica is that your husband calling in on another line
00:37:24
and to which she agrees and the reason why this will be important you will see later from Philip Klein's statements
00:37:31
about what they uncovered in their investigation is that this is where there are obvious signs of Lies coming
00:37:40
from Vernal and Jessica Mitchell what's the address of your emergency um I'm sadly camping in ledwards
00:37:50
goes outside of my door uh-huh um my two-year-old son um we can't find them how long has he
00:37:58
been missing about an hour yeah are you by water yes do you know which Campground you're in uh it's Stone
00:38:08
Reservoir Timber Creek Stone Reservoir yeah for Timber Creek hold on we make chicken rescue Jessica
00:38:20
yeah what's your son's name okay what is he wearing he was wearing cowboy boots a blue
00:38:32
um like pajama pants and a camel jacket and he's got Shaggy blonde hair is your husband calling too
00:38:41
like all down where we were camping at and we can't find a medal okay we need you to stay within cell service we've
00:38:50
got people going on on the way thank you so between the discrepancies and the 9-1-1 call and their stories and this
00:38:59
handwriting analysis that shows that they're being not truthful you guys feel like your investigation is
00:39:08
on to something we we knew at that point we had something we were getting somewhere and
00:39:15
we were moving the case forward and that's when we flew up the team the second time for the second uh we we came
00:39:24
up I think it was like five weeks later and we came up for the second time and this time we spent oh my goodness
00:39:30
oh we spent I think 10 days up there um and we started interviewing everyone the whole team was up there we spread
00:39:41
everyone out from point A to point B and I think they started getting nervous because they knew we went to the crown
00:39:50
bar and that's the name of the place we interviewed the folks over at the bar and they said out there in LED it's
00:39:58
pronounced lead door every time I every time I uh every time I say it everybody always corrects me no it's not a door
00:40:05
it's lead door and so um we had the dogs out there Trace Sergeant who is probably one of the best
00:40:12
Dog Handlers out of the United States Homeland Security slash uh there's a county up there she does uh she bases
00:40:19
her licenses with and she brought her dog and we were able to Garner hits and I'll talk about that in just a minute
00:40:29
um but anyway we got to the bar where they said you know where they first said well we went in and they told us to
00:40:36
leave and we were inside and we had to go to the bathroom we had to do all that well the people that owned the the bar
00:40:41
went no that never happened and we said okay then they told us the story during the second set of interviews they told
00:40:49
us the story of how they had to go get diesel fuel for their pickup truck and so and she needed to go down to the
00:40:58
stage stop and get some feminine products we were like well okay so what do good investigators do we go check out
00:41:06
their story well we knew the bar was BS right we knew we got over to the stage Stop and met with them and they said do
00:41:16
you all want their receipts and we were like huh like receipts like plural we were told
00:41:23
they went into the stage Stop and they they bought feminine products and they bought
00:41:30
um what do you call it uh it was like a little Gummy Worms or I forget what it is but anyway uh for the baby and they
00:41:39
they they bought a bunch of stuff and they spent about 50 bucks well there were two visits to the stage Stop the
00:41:47
first visit was just gum and candy and that's it and then about an hour later there was a second visit a second visit
00:41:57
to the stage Stop and that's where the tampons came in and and that sort of thing so we said well we asked Vernon
00:42:05
again how many times you go to the stage Stop once you didn't go twice no didn't go twice
00:42:13
who went in oh that was me I went in we all went in and we said okay well according to what
00:42:22
the witnesses we visited with it was Jessica both times Vernal never came in and there was no sign of Dior you know
00:42:31
Dior goes into this big thing about the the little baby and how the little baby was running around inside the store and
00:42:39
everybody was like oh how cute and it was very busy because there's campers everywhere and he tells this long
00:42:45
drawn-out story about being a trucker and how the beer truck got there and he wanted to take the baby over to go see
00:42:54
the the beer truck and of course we hunt down the beer truck and the beer truck guy goes what are you talking about and
00:43:01
no guy ever came up to me with it and I never let anybody sit up in my truck and
00:43:05
I never I never saw that and then an 18-wheeler and he gave us the name of the 18-wheeler company and when he gave
00:43:14
us the name of the 18-wheeler company we found out that that company had been defunct for three years number one but
00:43:19
number two um there was there was we found a driver of an 18-wheeler that was there in the
00:43:27
same four-hour period right because we got that from last license plate recognition and he says nobody's ever
00:43:35
done that so that's part of the story falls apart so now the whole Stage Stop story that the parents had put out is
00:43:43
nothing but misinformation a lie and we're like okay well wait what's going on here and so I'll move it
00:43:53
forward without taking up a bunch of your time because I know you guys will have a bunch of questions
00:43:58
um we uh we called a family meeting and we told the family hey we got problems and they're like what
00:44:06
are you talking about we have problems your story does not match what the Witnesses are telling us
00:44:15
oh you're just trying to say we did it no that's not what I'm saying well I'm going to hire a lawyer you need to hire
00:44:23
a lawyer that's the reason we're here there was like eight family members in my team sitting at a table
00:44:29
and we've got it recorded where we said you need to go hire a lawyer you need to
00:44:34
get your story straight because I'm telling you we know and we're sharing with law enforcement because that's our
00:44:40
agreement with them and you know we're moving the case forward we've got to get this timeline
00:44:47
laid out we've got to figure this thing out because the timeline you give us and
00:44:52
the timeline we've developed through witnesses that you gave us doesn't even come close to matching
00:45:00
and that's when one of my uh investigators kind of kept you know trying to hint me something was going on
00:45:08
and I kind of looked around this restaurant and I was like what and she goes that guy right there and there's a
00:45:13
guy sitting above the tables and and it was the law it was the now famous lawyer
00:45:20
uh and uh he uh he's walking around and he's trying to hear the conversation it was really kind of embarrassing uh uh
00:45:30
his name was Alan Browning and it was just kind of embarrassing what he was doing and I said good you got a lawyer I
00:45:37
was very positive about it and he could the lawyer comes down starts screaming and
00:45:43
yelling at me and you know and I'm like dude calm down we're trying to help this
00:45:48
family we've been up here three times now we're trying to help this family if there's a case
00:45:56
where an accident happened because that's what it looks like oh you don't know what you're talking about so Jill
00:46:03
uh uh Coons who is the ante to uh to uh Vernal uh hires pays fifteen hundred dollars and hires this lawyer and that's
00:46:15
when you know he fires us and he gets the father all spun up and we're like well there you go and then to end this
00:46:25
part of it because I think you guys will have questions at this point uh after the attorney was hired we started
00:46:32
getting threatening letters uh and the threatening letters were really really ugly
00:46:38
um you know they fired us but once they fired us another family member called us
00:46:42
immediately and says I'm sending you x amount of dollars uh to help for the cause you're hired again I'm going to be
00:46:50
the client keep going and so we said okay and so we did so that gives you the 4-1-1
00:46:56
something we should reiterate here captain for the listeners for those who may not be so familiar with this case
00:47:04
Vernal the father also goes by the name Dior so that can make the story a little
00:47:11
confusing at times you hear investigator Philip Klein there he does reference Vernal as Dior in that last portion of
00:47:22
the story now back to the interview Philip let's hone in on one thing real quick here
00:47:28
because I find this to be very intriguing and probably the centerpiece of your investigation
00:47:35
this story that Vernal gives you regarding the blood on his truck the blood on the inside of the tire let's
00:47:44
hone in on that now we do not know to be perfectly clear we do not know if in fact that is human
00:47:51
blood or even Dior Junior's blood because that is evidence that is in the custody of law enforcement but
00:48:00
regardless this is a story that Vernal is telling you that they did not tell to the Sheriff's Office and very likely
00:48:10
because they know that the sheriff's office has that blood evidence it's it's a little tricky here but let's hone in
00:48:18
on that for a minute please right the the the the the part of the tire according to Vernal this is the story he
00:48:25
gave us and the the tire that was facing the fire you know remember they set up a
00:48:30
campfire Etc but he says that there was a lug nut missing from that tire that interested
00:48:37
the baby the baby got back there started putting his hands in tailpipes and one of my questions was and you can see it
00:48:43
when we release it well wait a minute now if you guys had just gotten there the tailpipes got to be what
00:48:49
200 degrees or coming down from you know running all that time between Idaho Falls and up the mountain it's got to be
00:48:58
hotter than a pistol was there any burns on his hands just to ask him was there Burns and oh
00:49:05
no no no no no it was it was cooled off he just had soot he had soot soot from the tailpipes and there's double tail
00:49:13
pipes he put his arms in the tailpipes once they got the samples and this is the other thing that kind of bothered us
00:49:21
once they got samples of the blood in the wheel well and on the bumper uh they got home they left and they went
00:49:30
home and vernal sold that truck and to a scrap yard and it was scrapped then we because when that's the first
00:49:38
question we asked well where's the truck well how old what how old was the truck
00:49:42
do you know no I think you know to hear him talk about it it was it was old to hear Witnesses talk about
00:49:50
it and look at the title it was at that point this is back in what 16. it was an
00:49:55
11 or a 10. that was a was it a dually a black yeah yeah it was a black black dually and so
00:50:02
he he Vernal doesn't tell you about the blood right this is oh no tell me anything yeah he tells you the story the
00:50:12
lug nut story and then you go and you're talking with law enforcement a lot of enforcement it's like well he never told
00:50:17
us the story the lug nut story this is interesting to us because oh by the way private investigators we found what we
00:50:24
believe is blood on portions of that truck yep on the table on a napkin and of course everybody that's going to
00:50:33
listen to this they're scratching their heads going well Philip in in law enforcement and FBI everybody involved
00:50:38
what what's the what's up with that blood and I think we need to point out here that's that is if it is evidence of
00:50:46
anything that is evidence that is in someone else's custody that's law enforcement's custody something that you
00:50:52
don't have access to and it seems like uh a step a big step in the right direction would be to determine if it
00:51:00
was human blood and look I I get it that he's young two two and a half years old
00:51:05
roughly Dior Coons and we may not have his DNA or something like that on file but there should be some kind of record
00:51:13
from his birth of the blood type they did and they and they and and let me tell you the other part of the story so
00:51:21
when the FBI sees the truck and went down to the warehouse and got all the samples uh they did get some bleach
00:51:29
samples uh whereas uh there was an attempt to clean up the wheel well and clean up the bumper now according to
00:51:39
Vernal oh I wash my truck all the time I keep it in clean Immaculate condition um okay well hold on if you clean your
00:51:48
truck all the time and it's an Immaculate condition why are you scrapping your truck there you go
00:51:55
now you're thinking like us everything that comes out of this guy's mouth is is just
00:52:03
that of of of of what the reality was maybe in his mind he kept it super clean I don't know but I don't think so I mean
00:52:13
it just doesn't make sense why wouldn't you tell why wouldn't he tell the cops on the initial interview why wouldn't he
00:52:21
put in his uh on on his third interview why didn't he put that in his written statement why didn't he say well the
00:52:29
night before I mean that's important that's very important uh because I don't know about you you know they said okay
00:52:38
tell us the story from the time you got up there to the time you guys left and went back home without the baby and he
00:52:45
mentions nothing to it nothing nothing zero I mean it's crazy now what he did we did
00:52:53
talk to him and I think this is important because this has always been something that some of these
00:52:57
Internationals always point to they say well a big bird or a big animal be a bear or
00:53:06
a mountain lion or something could have gotten the kid while he was walking around the campsite right we're like
00:53:13
yeah that could have happened so the first thing in law enforcement especially those guys up there that deal
00:53:20
with that all the time right they're not like inner city cops in Chicago that deal with homicide all the time but they
00:53:26
do deal with animals and rabbit animals and they deal with that crap all the time they um so according to every
00:53:35
zoologist that we spoke with I even went over to the city of Houston Zoo this is
00:53:41
not a joke I went over City of Houston Zoo and went over and talked to the the the the the uh I forget the name of
00:53:49
their God I should go back to college uh the the lions and tigers and bears and all
00:53:55
these guys over there and I talked to him said look I got a case I need to know and each one of them said oh no no
00:54:01
no here's what would have happened number one the child would have screamed because that animal is going to bite
00:54:08
down on them and shake them and blood's gonna go everywhere our guts are going to go everywhere everything's
00:54:15
going to go everywhere and they're going to put their paws on top of that animal
00:54:19
because that's what they do watch and see what some of these Wild Kingdom shows put up he said and that's what
00:54:26
they told me go watch this stuff and I was like I'm I'm not interested but I will go watch it a bear does the same
00:54:34
thing but the bear uses his claws right to kill the animal first and then to start eating on it there would have been
00:54:43
blood guts shoes because remember Vernal goes through this big long story about oh he put boots on that didn't fit him
00:54:52
that's what he wore around the campground yeah well we would have had boots we would have thousands of things and
00:55:00
and none of that happened now to go back to your question about why we think he was there for a period of time there's a
00:55:09
thing called the diaper tree um I don't know how familiar you guys are with it but there was a thing called
00:55:16
a diaper tree so what they do is when a child pees or poops in the diaper what they do is they put it in a trash bag
00:55:24
and they raise it up on a rope up onto a tree so that it does not attract animals
00:55:31
it will attract animals but the animals won't come in and tear it up and you know being raccoons because the animals
00:55:38
would dig through the trash if you just put it in the trash so all the trees up in the a chance which is the dog that we
00:55:45
brought up there which is a dog that's fought still to this day is finding uh turn of the century skeletons in fields
00:55:56
up in Virginia and West Virginia you know where all the where the wars happened up there uh he's still finding
00:56:03
bodies up there so that's how good this dog is and so he hit right there now why
00:56:08
is that important well not only did are is that particular dog trained on blood but it's also trained on urine feces you
00:56:18
know those sort of things because remember when you die you lose your bowels you lose your your urine that's
00:56:25
what happens you just you lose it all and so there was no sign of that but equally interesting the dog did not hit
00:56:34
anywhere in the campground just the diaper tree so what does that tell us as investigators okay it didn't happen here
00:56:43
that we know of Okay so we took the dog down the hill um from the campsite you know where
00:56:54
Vernal says oh I I've went a mile and a half away and used the phone well we went a mile and a half away and there's
00:57:01
no cell service there none zero done at all okay it's blocked by the mountains but we did go down to where he slipped
00:57:08
at one point and mentioned the cattle guard and we sent the dog uh a down the hill from the cattle guard thinking okay
00:57:17
if somebody's going to dispose of a body what they do is they go down the hill from the cattle guard maybe dig a hole
00:57:22
bury it cover it up none of the search of the Searchers just missed it while they were up there
00:57:28
Etc the dog starts hitting all over down the bottom of this hill then the dog stops
00:57:36
and we look and there's like a little Ravine kind of like a little stream area that goes down that way uh from the top
00:57:44
of the hill the dog's ears perk up and that dog takes off and goes to the top of the hill and goes and sits down on
00:57:52
this um big area up there uh of of uh it's it's kind of loose dirt and Etc and he's
00:58:01
going nuts he's like oh so we call in the sheriff and the sheriff gets up there um Lem High County gets up there
00:58:10
everybody gets up there and we do a dig and nobody knows about this dig this is the first time I'm telling people about
00:58:16
it right we do a dig and we dig down and we don't find anything other than loose
00:58:22
dirt it's all loose very very very loose but the dog's still going nuts the dog is like no no no keep going there's
00:58:29
something there and we keep digging and digging and we we couldn't find anything
00:58:35
so then we all start sitting on the back of pickup trucks and we drinking our little Kool-Aid they were or whatever
00:58:41
we're drinking to keep our water up and we start talking and somebody says you know what's the inventory on the truck
00:58:49
was there anything missing on in by the campers and we go back to what Bob Walton told us which was well yeah we
00:59:00
got all of our coolers back but one he was trying to deflect from was there anything missing right was there any
00:59:10
was there any shovels missing was there any anything missing and yes there was a
00:59:15
shovel missing so we're like huh wait a minute how big was that cooler and he starts telling us how big that
00:59:22
cooler was we go over and measure it out and guess what the measurements match where we were digging
00:59:29
so we're now we're like okay if you're gonna dispose of a body how are you going to do it you're going to
00:59:36
you know you could put it in a cooler and then you could bury it and then when everybody gets up there uh and you know
00:59:42
the dogs aren't going to hit on it because the dogs are scent dogs they're not death dogs they're scent dogs
00:59:48
there's two different types of scent dogs there's death and and alive right and they can find a trail they know the
00:59:56
dogs they never brought the dogs over to that area and cars were parked all over
00:59:59
the place fire trucks everything was parked all over the place and I guess they didn't just search that area I
01:00:05
asked if they searched that area and couple the rescue guys were like you know I can't say we did and so now we're
01:00:12
like okay now we're putting a theory together okay now the evidence is giving us a theory and so that that explains
01:00:20
the the uh the cooler missing that explains the lack of ascent and there was no blood there was no nothing so now
01:00:29
we know okay big bad bird or big bad animals didn't get it okay then we go to the kidnapping part
01:00:37
you know guys I just got to tell you I according to the the the wardens down there you know you have to sign up and
01:00:47
get a pass to go up there nobody signed up and get a pass but that doesn't mean anything because people go up there all
01:00:52
the damn time right and so we start going back through about okay guys did you hear any cars did you hear any to
01:01:02
see any headlights did you see any in what did you see oh no no no no no because we brought the baby down to go
01:01:10
to the stage Stop and to go get diesel fuel and we went huh let's go find the diesel
01:01:19
fuel guy so we found the diesel fuel guy and he said yeah I remember them I remember them coming in I remember
01:01:24
pumping their gas because I gave them I guess what's it called Green diesel or red diesel he had to give him red diesel
01:01:30
I think it was because that's all he had and it's not a convenience store it's a
01:01:36
it's a feed store and these guys been around forever up there they know everybody and they you know there's a
01:01:40
lot of ranching that goes on up here and so he says uh yeah I remember him I said
01:01:46
do you remember seeing a car seat he goes yeah I remember seeing a car seat I said okay was the baby in the car seat
01:01:51
he goes there's no baby in the car seat the car seat was empty behind the mother's seat
01:01:56
the passenger seat so you didn't see a baby no didn't see a baby you saw no baby no how many gallons of gas you give
01:02:04
them he said only about 20 bucks which is about eight gallons of gas well listening to Vernal talk about it his
01:02:10
his meter was broken and he didn't know how much gas he had in there he he had no idea how much gas he had in there so
01:02:18
he liked to keep it topped off and that kind of got us all going oh boy you know that makes no sense either
01:02:26
so and of course he said it took him two hours to find the place for the Deep for
01:02:32
the diesel and that was his explanation away of the two receipts at the sage stop
01:02:39
but again nobody saw him in the sage stop they saw her right but they didn't see a baby they didn't see Swedish fish
01:02:48
that's what the kid liked Swedish Fish and that's those little gummy bear things and um
01:02:55
again all we got is more stories more lies more you know more everything so that leads us back to that meeting again
01:03:05
and we were fired rehired and then we went into stage three and four and five of the case so there you go
01:03:12
foreign [Music] so much more to get to join us back here in the garage tomorrow same bat time and
01:03:30
same bat Channel until then be good be kind and don't litter [Music] [Applause] thank you