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GameChanger [Music] [Music] n welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for
00:01:43
listening I'm your host Nick and with me is always there a man that knows that fishing ain't what it used to be here is
00:01:50
the captain yeah ever since that SOB stole my boat it's good to be seing it's good to see you thanks for listening
00:01:57
thanks for telling a friend [Music] today we are featuring sweet Magnolia done right by our friends at the brewery
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came looking for a killer and we brought the Nilla garage grade a solid five out
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of five bottle caps and let's give some praise and thank you to our friends for helping us out here in the garage for
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first up a cheers to Jerry in Memphis Tennessee a shout out to Tony in San Antonio Texas and a long distance cheers
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big Southern cheers that we're sending to Julie and Leander Texas and last but certainly not least we have Jake
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listening in Los Angeles California we want to thank everybody that helped us out with this week's beer fund because
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without all of you we would just be two thirsty guys sitting in a garage that's right we would be super
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thirsty so thanks for helping out with the BW R beer run and if you need more True Crime garage and I know you do I
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know you're looking for it underneath your bed underneath your closet underneath that pile of dirty clothes
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pick those up and do some laundry cuz you stink my friend you need to get off the record on Stitcher premium and if
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you don't we can't be friends I can't drink any more of your mother's lemonade and that is enough of the business all
00:03:37
right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime just let me save
00:03:52
[Music] you rning just we sa [Music] you when we were wrapping up yesterday's episode Captain we started talking about
00:04:16
possible Persons of Interest or at least people that the police told the public they were looking for people that they
00:04:22
wanted to interview and this came in the form of some names as well as descriptions of unknown individuals
00:04:30
we need to start diving into some of these people that they were talking about at the top of today's show one of
00:04:37
the individuals that they were looking for was a 23-year-old convicted sex offender who later would be known as a
00:04:45
person of interest in this case and his name is Lee Allen woo 23 years old convicted sex offender now they have not
00:04:56
specifically announced or addressed any direct connection between this Lee Allen
00:05:03
woo and Lanna Warner however they said that he became a person of interest one because of his
00:05:09
criminal background and two because he stole a vehicle on the same day that lean disappeared and operated that
00:05:17
vehicle with a expired license or invalid license at the time of course when you have somebody with a criminal
00:05:26
background and it is a sex offense you have a little girl who goes missing a guy that's known to be in the area and
00:05:34
he steals a vehicle on that day and chooses to break other laws you want to know as an investigator why why on this
00:05:43
day did you feel the need to steal a vehicle and operate illegally operate a vehicle authorities also asked for help
00:05:50
in locating John Bartell who they said was not a suspect all we know about him is that police said that he was known to
00:05:58
travel between Chisum in the Twin Cities they were also looking for a Bruce William Christensen of Hibbing Minnesota
00:06:06
he was not a suspect but could have Vital Information in the case Bruce Christensen had 17 criminal cases filed
00:06:15
against him between the years of 1997 and 2006 so a busy guy he eventually went to prison for robbery where he beat
00:06:24
a fellow inmate to death with a piece of railing that he broke off in order to use as a weapon he was sentenced to an
00:06:32
additional 30 years for that murder an article about his sentencing says that in September of 2003 he pled guilty to
00:06:43
making terrorist threats against kaln Warner very interesting sounds like a piece of [ __ ] 2003 September he pled
00:06:51
guilty to making terrorist threats against the mother of lyanna Warner Christensen apparently blamed kin for
00:06:58
the police interest in him in lyanna's case and threatened to shoot her SC back we don't know if there was any direct
00:07:06
connection between kin Warner and this guy but he attempted to attack a prosecutor in court and was subject to
00:07:14
several mental health evaluations around the same time yeah a real piece of [ __ ]
00:07:19
so it sounds to me Captain like when police ask you that horrible question that that nobody wants to be asked do
00:07:27
you know anybody that would want to harm your family or hurt your child or would
00:07:32
have any reason to uh do something against your family I don't know this to be the case but I'm wondering if this
00:07:39
man for whatever reason was somebody that was named by the family MH because it seems like he wanted revenge or to
00:07:46
retaliate against the Warner Family specifically kin uh for the police interest in him yeah but it shows you
00:07:54
the reason why they're looking at you because you go on to threaten the mother it's like look if you had nothing to do
00:08:00
with it it's like look I'm I'm willing to cooperate I'm willing to answer your questions I had nothing to do with this
00:08:07
yeah he's definitely a violent man at the end of the day no doubt about that sea bertek who we referenced in
00:08:14
yesterday's episode was arrested on July 10th bertek was arrested on outstanding
00:08:19
warrants rather than anything to do with lyanna Warner's case but he was one of the individuals that they named at that
00:08:26
press conference as having an interest in speaking with but while police did confirm that bertek was a convicted sex
00:08:34
offender they said that after interviewing him he was being considered more of a witness than a suspect we see
00:08:41
that in a lot of cases when somebody goes missing or there's possibly a crime within the area they do the old pedo
00:08:51
Roundup they realize some of these guys are not registered correctly some of these guys have warrants and they make
00:08:58
arrest and so there's a lot of arrests that are that have nothing to do with The Disappearance but that's just a
00:09:05
byproduct of of this girl going missing right on these are issuing and um carrying out outstanding warrants on
00:09:12
this guy and then after you speak with him you you can tell that he was in the area and you could probably back up what
00:09:20
he was doing and his whereabouts during that time so he like anybody else in that neighborhood or that that general
00:09:27
area would be now witness status of course in any missing child case investigators would not be doing their
00:09:35
job if they did not take a hard look at those with the easiest access to the missing child and of course we're
00:09:42
talking about the family authorities said fairly quickly that they were comfortable with what the family was
00:09:48
telling them that lyanna disappeared while away from home and they had nothing to do with it in fact they don't
00:09:55
seem to have suspected the parents at all or if they did it was very brief in behind the scenes reports indicate that
00:10:02
the Warners were not asked to take polygraphs as you pointed out Captain but the fact is kin Warner was one of
00:10:09
the last people to see lyanna lyanna could have returned home after finding that the quirks were out putting her
00:10:16
home by 520 or so if that were the case then what happened her mother didn't call police until 848 p.m. and we know
00:10:24
that based off of the phone records and everybody else involved in this case so what do we know about the Warners the
00:10:31
media covering the case revealed that kayin and Chris had been married before and there was some indication of turmoil
00:10:38
in at least one of their relationships the year before lyanna was born in 1998 Chris Warner and his ex-wife got into a
00:10:47
violent confrontation involving blows both sought Mutual restraining orders and Chris's ex maintaining that he had
00:10:54
an uncontrollable temper Chris's petition for a restraining order order stated that his ex-wife had threatened
00:11:02
kayn and her two daughters from a her previous marriage authorities looked at the situation but said that the incident
00:11:10
with the ex-wife quote didn't raise any red flags now we don't know how thoroughly they looked into the ex-wife
00:11:18
but we have I would say that raises some Flags yeah and you should look into it but again if she has a solid Alibi then
00:11:26
maybe that's why they moved on well and it sounds like a lot of this a lot of these issues between him and his ex by
00:11:33
then they may have buried the hatchet right because the the the confrontation the violent confrontation between the
00:11:39
two occurred in 1998 uh lyanna Warner didn't go missing until 2003 Chris Warner was a heavy equipment
00:11:48
mechanic at a nearby employer as well as a volunteer for the ambulance service he
00:11:56
shared a son Anthony Warner with with his ex-wife kin was a manager at easy stop a convenience store in Chisum there
00:12:05
is another weird story involving lyanna and the Warners that came out and again investigators dismissed it as amounting
00:12:14
to nothing but it is a little strange according to the Warners and this is the Warners telling us this story someone
00:12:22
reported to Social Services that lyanna had been tied up the Warners told the social worker investigating the
00:12:29
complaint that lyanna was playing with neighborhood kids and they had been playing mapole and had used lyanna as
00:12:36
the mapole while they wrapped a jump rope around her it's hard to know whether Social Services dismissed this
00:12:43
as a simple child's game or Child's Play or whether there was a file opened on the Warners this is one of those
00:12:52
situations where it's like you can understand if there was a misunderstanding but you also go okay
00:12:58
well it's hard to to believe that somebody would bother to report this incident if they didn't feel that there
00:13:02
was really something here it also seems captain that we're sitting here 18 years
00:13:09
later and if this was a red flag if this was something that we should really question call into question MH the
00:13:17
people investigating The Disappearance and and the possible suspects are are not dummies this is not something that
00:13:24
slips past the goalie here this is something that would be at the top of the stack as far far as information goes
00:13:29
on the parents and something they would have looked at and something they would have questioned both Chris and kayn
00:13:35
about all right so we have this issue of question some of the behavior question letting the child go off on her own I
00:13:45
think that's all fair game so you have to wonder could the parents have some responsibility here do they know what
00:13:52
happened to their daughter is one guilty and not the other all kinds of questions
00:13:57
immediately pop up when you see these types of cases I feel pretty confident but it's just a guess and it's just a
00:14:05
gut feeling that I don't see the parents having any involvement in The Disappearance of this little girl MH the
00:14:14
only involvement I see is people that were desperate to find her and went to every effort that they possibly could if
00:14:22
somebody told them that they here's something that could help your case or help you find your daughter they did it
00:14:27
they didn't hold back well and also with Christopher being a volunteer EMT worker
00:14:33
volunteer EMT worker that if there was some accident they wouldn't try to cover it up they would call call a squad and
00:14:43
and try to get her help immediately here's a couple things that I want to point out to people too and it doesn't
00:14:48
seem like the general public consider the parents to be suspects either and I think that anybody that really takes a
00:14:55
good hard look at this case what you're going to see is a couple things it looks
00:14:59
to me that Chris was gone during the time in question and an ambulance run at 6:20
00:15:07
p.m. that's a pretty Ironclad Alibi as far as I'm concerned there's going to be other individuals there there's going to
00:15:13
be documentation of this so on and so forth that's pretty straightforward to me now we can call into question kin's
00:15:22
decision making as a parent we can call into question the wiggle room in the timeline that the sheriff referen the
00:15:30
other thing too you know we're quick to point out hey eyewitnesses are not always great about giving you an exact
00:15:36
time on something because they're not sitting there noting everything that happened that day and noting what time
00:15:42
that they witnessed something right so with her having this moving time of when lyanna left her sight it could be just
00:15:51
that exact same situation she said that we just got back from the lake I was busy unloading the car bringing Inu
00:15:58
stuff that we purchased at these garage sales and the kids badgering me about wanting to go to her friend's house I
00:16:04
really didn't want her to go there and I told her she could go well what time was that well I don't know it
00:16:10
was after we got home from the lake right well that's when that's when sometimes you can arrive at the wrong
00:16:17
time by the encouragement of law enforcement because encour they're encouraging you because they're telling
00:16:24
you look I understand you weren't looking at the clock I need you to B Park this thing for me or at least give
00:16:30
me a guess I need something a starting point and she may have given a bad time we we're talking about a mother who's
00:16:40
busy the reason why I think that law enforcement did not consider them suspects and didn't consider them
00:16:46
suspects early on is the window of time to do something to this little girl dispose and conceal that crime takes
00:16:57
time and effort and I think that when they really broke down the timeline and the people that were seeing the parents
00:17:03
interacting with the parents and the what the eyewitness statements were that saw the little girl at 5:15 mhm did not
00:17:09
give a a window of time that anybody could have done anything and covered it up and we don't know what kind of
00:17:17
searches that law enforcement did on their vehicles and so if if you have kadaver dogs sniff the vehicles if you
00:17:26
run some tests on the vehicles you're going to go well we we don't believe she was transported well and nine times out
00:17:33
of 10 hopefully it should be 10 out of 10 this is pretty standard police protocol but if you are responding to a
00:17:40
call about a missing child the first thing you ask the parents of course you want to know what were they wearing when
00:17:46
did you last see them da da d da da but one of the first actions that you actually take Beyond asking questions of
00:17:52
the parents or any person uh that may have seen the child is ma'am we understand that your daughter's
00:18:00
missing we're going to search the neighborhood we're going to ask you know we're going to search the area we need
00:18:05
to search your home first and that happens in in every case that I've ever reviewed that is the first action that
00:18:11
seems to be taken when police are responding to that type of call and I have no reason to believe that that did
00:18:17
not happen here and that also could be backing the thoughts of law enforcement that these people didn't have anything
00:18:24
to do with it I also want to point out one big problem with the parents being guilty of anything or or or uh kin being
00:18:32
guilty of having done anything they weren't the kin wasn't the only person home that day remember her the daughter
00:18:39
the other daughter was with them for the entirety of that day she was 10 years old at that time now she's not an adult
00:18:46
obviously but she's also not a little kid if something bad happened she could tell us about that and the 10-year-old
00:18:54
daughter was active in the neighborhood search for lyanna almost immediately yeah it'd be hard to one convince her
00:19:01
that you have you have to lie for Mommy and two that she would be able have the capability to put on a a great acting
00:19:10
show for the public right and the other thing too is both kayn the daughter that
00:19:15
was 10 years old at the time and Chris Warner have remained active in front of the media on this case for 18 years so
00:19:24
this 10-year-old daughter is now an adult and she continues to do interviews about this case so it again there
00:19:33
doesn't seem to be time for anything to happen involving kin well two kind of creepy things and
00:19:41
like you said when they when they when law enforcement shows up at the scene they go hey let's search the house but
00:19:48
they also start asking the parents like did anything weird happen in the last month or so has there been a vehicle
00:19:57
that's been seen in in the neighborhood have have you seen some uh creepy character walking around one of
00:20:05
the things that they said was well she one night when we went into Leanne's room she was sleeping in her closet cuz
00:20:14
she was afraid that the monsters outside her window were going to get her yeah that's a very curious situation to this
00:20:22
whole story and unfortunately this happens daily where it child is afraid of something and we don't know exactly
00:20:31
what it is as a parent and most of the time it's almost always it's nothing here it's something we really call into
00:20:39
question because of the state of this case where we have a a little girl who disappears and we can't find any trace
00:20:47
of her but like you said a child being afraid of the monsters under her bed or monsters under a closet you hear that
00:20:54
more than you hear monsters outside my window right and in this situation you do have
00:21:02
the parents who would be later telling us that they thought that lyanna was behaving
00:21:09
oddly in the days or maybe even weeks leading up to her disappearance which is very interesting to me and we'll dive
00:21:18
into that some more but while we're still talking about the parents you know I don't want to get accused of leaving
00:21:25
anything out here because we do have a situation where a few months this was uh October after their daughter went
00:21:34
missing we do have a violent altercation between the two parents uh kayn and Chris where apparently kayin attempted
00:21:45
to run Chris over with their vehicle Lord Almighty they had apparently they had some kind of
00:21:51
disagreement earlier that day or earlier that night to which police responded to
00:21:57
their home home and settled the matter whatever it was at the time and then within an hour or so this argument is
00:22:07
now taking place in their vehicle as they're driving to which a very frustrated Chris Warner gets out of the
00:22:14
vehicle and says that he would be walking the rest of the way home I'm sure he probably said it in in a
00:22:19
different manner but uh kayn uh hit the gas pedal and and took off after him in the vehicle and he jumped out of the way
00:22:29
he received some scrapes maybe a couple bruises but uh what happened was kin ended up being charged with a a
00:22:37
misdemeanor in that case but the police have been extremely vocal about that situation saying look we spoke with the
00:22:45
couple before this happened and we spoke with them obviously afterwards and we have kayn who she says that the gears
00:22:53
got jammed up and and that she kind of lost control of the vehicle so she denies the saying that you know she
00:23:01
denies that she attempted to hit her husband with the vehicle regardless of what actually happened we have the
00:23:08
police saying this matter and lyanna's disappearance are not connected they are two completely separate matters the
00:23:15
couple was fighting they were arguing but they were not arguing about lyanna or anything about the
00:23:22
case and look I'm not going to lie to you Captain this seemed very troubling to me because what it shows is
00:23:29
angry impulsive behavior especially on kayn's behalf which we know that behal her own word well she's the one that if
00:23:39
if if she's lying if the gears didn't get stuck if she didn't lose control of the car and she did try to hit her
00:23:45
husband with the car that's the violence getting out of a vehicle and saying I'm
00:23:49
going to walk home is not a violent act at all but what we have here is we have a person who is admittedly the last
00:23:57
person the last family member to see lyanna so that really made me call a lot of things into
00:24:04
question but then I found this little tidbit here that made me feel completely different and go back to what my gut was
00:24:13
telling me in the beginning that kin and the family has nothing to do with this this comes from Patty wling whose son
00:24:20
Jacob disappeared in 1989 and when at the time when she is quoted in this article this is 2003 so
00:24:30
keep in mind Jacob disappeared in 1989 and by this point in the article he had never been found they didn't know what
00:24:36
happened to him they knew he was abducted she says in this article that she's would like to
00:24:43
discourage anyone from making a judgment about the Warners because of this particular incident she says quote
00:24:51
nobody knows what it's like to have your child missing for this long people always ask me did it bring us closer
00:24:59
together and I say no it's just the opposite Jerry who is her husband Jerry and I went through some very hard times
00:25:08
with so much anger frustration and anxiety it's absolutely the biggest test you ever go through as a couple it's a
00:25:16
nightmare now we know that the wetterlings have nothing to do with what happened to their son Jacob they were
00:25:22
victimized just like everybody else in that situation and I think that what what we have Patty
00:25:31
wling telling us here is very interesting to me because this is the way that I've always kind of seen these
00:25:38
types of situations right if in the wetterling case it was the father that decided yeah you guys
00:25:48
can ride your bikes down to the video store and pick up a video this was after Mom said no you can't you cannot tell me
00:25:56
that there are not argu arents between Mom and Dad over who's responsible who wasn't a good parent who didn't do their
00:26:04
job if he was in my care this would never have happened because you get sad your your heart breaks and then you get
00:26:10
angry those are natural feelings and I have to believe in lyanna's case something very similar
00:26:18
very likely happened where you get in a disagreement about this that or the other thing but your heart is broken and
00:26:24
you're hurting and you want somebody to lash out to and it might be easy to go you know what Mom you told her she could
00:26:31
walk down there why the hell would you let a 5-year-old walk down there by herself if she were with me that day
00:26:38
this would never have happened and you can't tell me that that woman's not going to defend her self as a mother so
00:26:46
I can see this playing out exactly how it did and have nothing to do with the case and not suggest that they are
00:26:53
guilty of anything other than being grieving parents that are hurting and heartbroken all right just to put a bow
00:27:00
on this here Captain regarding this situation we need to point out that Chris Warner stood by his wife telling
00:27:06
the media that kin was on edge and had reached a breaking point he blamed this on a Montel Williams show that the two
00:27:14
recently taped but it had not aired yet at this point now on the show the psychic Sylvia Brown told the Warners
00:27:23
that lyanna was murdered and buried in a shallow grave not far from their home Chris Warner says they
00:27:31
didn't know that that's what was going to happen during the taping of the show they didn't know that somebody was going
00:27:36
to tell them that they thought she was murdered and buried near their home remember at this point we're just months
00:27:42
into the case and they're still holding out hope that their daughter is alive and I think they felt like they were
00:27:48
blindsided by this and they said that they left the taping feeling used and upset by The Montel Williams show and
00:27:57
that this was was something that that created an issue between the two of the parents and it was it was just not good
00:28:04
I mean this was they kind of felt like we're down and you're going to kick us while we're down so I think one can see
00:28:12
quickly how these types of things can happen this show is sponsored by better help do
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2023 all right you Knuckleheads hey front and the back front and the back to the
00:30:44
windows to the wall cheers everybody cheers everybody on September 15 2003 this is three
00:30:53
months after lyanna disappeared news reports began to surface about an interesting development a man named
00:31:00
Matthew James Curtis aged 24 had been questioned multiple times in connection with lyanna's case police talked to him
00:31:09
the day after lyanna vanished and again 4 days later questions included police asking about his whereabouts and when
00:31:18
lyanna was last seen Curtis lived at a house near the Warners in the neighborhood in fact just
00:31:27
a couple of houses down at the time that lyanna went missing according to a news
00:31:32
article in the Virginia MN paper police spoke with Curtis in the course of the investigation into lyanna presumably
00:31:42
because he was such a close neighbor whatever they learned during these interviews was enough for them to get a
00:31:48
warrant to search his home and when they went out to carry out this search warrant there they found Kitty porn on
00:31:57
his computer so Curtis was arrested charged and released on bail on September 17th Curtis was found dead of an
00:32:07
apparent suicide three men were practicing archery in a gravel pit area on National Forest land and found
00:32:16
Curtis's body this is about 8 miles from his home right he was found with a plastic bag tied over his head and the
00:32:23
cause of death after an autopsy was declared to be self-inflicted asphixiation the sheriff's department
00:32:32
said it was investigating to see whether there was any connection between the two
00:32:37
cases and said that Curtis had never been declared an official suspect but had never been cleared either on the day
00:32:44
Curtis's body was found he was out on bail and was scheduled to appear in court for that child porn charge but he
00:32:51
failed to appear he killed himself before the court appointment the Sheriff's Department searched the Gravel
00:32:58
Pit in Curtis's home twice but found no signs of lyanna what we don't know is what turned police onto Curtis in the
00:33:05
first place what was the basis for that search warrant well at the time that lyanna went missing there was a man that
00:33:14
some people say maybe was in his 30s was walking around the neighborhood uh described as
00:33:21
approximately 510 to 6 foot and had some kind of dark tattoo so I always wondered
00:33:30
there was like I said people in the area saying that there was this suspicious guy walk in the
00:33:35
neighborhood did they connect that back to Curtis I guess that could be a possibility but that statement from
00:33:44
police when they're looking for the person of that description comes it's made public after the suicide no after
00:33:52
they requested the search warrant for his home so what's difficult here is we know based off of what the police are
00:34:00
telling us that they spoke with this Curtis character the day after lyanna went missing and then again four days
00:34:06
later okay so some so we can just assume that something within that questioning made him go something's not right here
00:34:14
that's what I'm thinking Captain I agree with that something during the course of
00:34:18
them stepping foot into his home or standing on his front doorstep and asking him questions told them this guy
00:34:26
his home is of interest to us specifically in this lyanna case and that could be something as simple as
00:34:34
this guy seemed extremely nervous when we were asking him that day after that she was missing right or he couldn't
00:34:42
tell us where he was or had no alibi or he was sweating profusely or he told us something on day one and then told us
00:34:50
something different on day four it could really be any number of things but the thing that's crazy here is that when
00:34:58
they do get that search warrant they search his home they file child pornography on his computer well that
00:35:04
doesn't look very good especially when this dude lives just a few doors down from the Warners yeah I never like it
00:35:11
when there's a suicide no in the sense of we don't have answers then and my gut always goes
00:35:21
towards this suspect you commit suicide you're you're so DED brought about what you did you can't even live with
00:35:30
yourself and suicide is not a obvious sign of guilt doesn't necessarily mean that he felt guilty or or did something
00:35:38
to lyanna I mean really he could have killed himself for any number of reasons and he's not around to tell us why he
00:35:45
did so we do have the Warners lyanna's parents who say Hey you know we saw this guy around the neighborhood but never
00:35:52
saw uh lyanna interacting with him and we didn't personally know him I do know that police continue to look into Curtis
00:36:02
postmortem they did admit shamefully admitted that it would have been desirable for them to have talked to him
00:36:09
some more which possibly they they were going to do that after he was charged or
00:36:14
convicted we don't know but of course now they will never get the chance to do so we do know that the Minnesota BCA
00:36:24
confiscated Matthew James Curtis's truck after he killed himself and processed it
00:36:31
for forensic evidence of lyanna's presence to see if you know they could find any proof that she had ever been
00:36:37
inside his vehicle right uh this did include DNA and fingerprints and fibers and hairs they couldn't find any trace
00:36:44
of lyanna having ever been in that truck but we do need to point out this was after Matthew James Curtis's death which
00:36:52
took place in September Leanne Warner went missing the 14th of June so there would have been plenty of time for one
00:37:01
to clean this vehicle if one needed to do so well like I was saying to me when there's a suicide in a case you know
00:37:09
take like the Amy mahalic case when there's a suspect that takes their own life my gut points to that that suspect
00:37:17
but here is a different case because he's found because when they're investigating
00:37:25
this missing girl case they find this individual we don't know what led them I'm guessing like we were talking about
00:37:33
before when they're interviewing him he says something not correctly or maybe just acts strangely and then when they
00:37:42
when they do get the search warrant they find child pornography and that could be
00:37:48
enough for this individual to say hey look my life's not going right I maybe have this I'm a sick individual for
00:37:54
looking at this stuff I have these urges that I'm trying to control and and that's why he took his life so there are
00:38:02
types out there that have these fantasies urges whatever you want to call them desires and they never act on them
00:38:12
I mean we just don't know again it's a situation I'm with you Captain it's you hate the suicides one uh for any you
00:38:20
know you hate the suicide for a million different reasons but one of the big reasons especially in this case is is
00:38:26
that it creates another mystery in this case it creates one less person to talk to and in my opinion this guy in in the
00:38:37
humble goat garage opinion here Captain this Matthew James Curtis guy I would put him in the top three of suspects in
00:38:45
this case now that's going to lead us to another top three suspect and this is an
00:38:52
individual that I despise one one of the most hated men on the planet as far as my mind goes that's
00:39:00
not a nice way to talk about me this is a guy that we've spoke about several times here in the garage and I never
00:39:06
enjoy talking about him I'm talking about Joseph Edward Duncan III so we're going to jump ahead two years in this
00:39:14
case to July of 2005 now of course lyanna's case is continuing to be worked at this time but
00:39:22
meanwhile in cordelane Idaho investigators captured suspected murder in sex offender Joseph E Duncan he was
00:39:30
charged with the Abduction of 8-year-old Shasta grony and suspected of murdering
00:39:35
shasta's 13-year-old brother Mother boyfriend and missing 9-year-old brother Dylan now you may remember for the long
00:39:46
time listeners joining us here in the garage today you may recall that we covered this case in our fifth nail
00:39:53
episodes the fifth nail was a Blog basically an online rant written by Joseph Duncan in which he published his
00:40:01
rambling fantasies and dark thoughts he also talked about his love for computers
00:40:07
you may also recall that Duncan served time in prison for the rape of a 14-year-old Tacoma Washington boy when
00:40:14
Duncan was just 16 years old himself he was released in 2000 so how does Duncan's case possibly tie into lyanna's
00:40:22
case Chief Erikson said that Federal investigators were tracing Joseph Duncan's movements over the past few
00:40:30
years because of a posting on his fifth nail blog that appeared on January 4th 2004 in fact this post was the first of
00:40:40
the fifth nail blog Duncan wrote that learning about lyanna's case was quote the proverbial last straw that led him
00:40:49
to start his blog to rant about the stigma of being a convicted sex offender yeah because that's what we want to hear
00:40:56
about he does not mention lyanna by name and it seems that he felt the need to construct an alibi for the time that
00:41:05
lyanna went missing the exact words of the post were quote just found out that a 5-year-old girl went missing from
00:41:12
Chisum Minnesota on June 14 2003 I did not even know until today this happened so I have tried to figure out what I was
00:41:22
doing that day since I'm always afraid of getting accused when something like this happens end quote the post said
00:41:29
that Duncan wanted to be sure that he figured out his whereabouts in June of 2003 when lyanna vanished so that he
00:41:35
wouldn't be accused of being the one that abducted her he says he was doing this for his own safety and wrote I
00:41:43
figure it is just a matter of time before I am falsely accused of some crime or another well yes you will be
00:41:51
accused I don't know if it will be falsely in several different cases we you know Captain just to for the people
00:41:58
that didn't listen to the fifth nail he was convicted of all those crimes he was
00:42:02
accused of or thought to have done this guy has a dirt bag he's an animal he basically murdered a whole family so he
00:42:08
could abduct the two youngest children and he had those kids with him for a long period of time where he tormented
00:42:17
and tortured the kids yeah thankfully one of them was found alive and is still alive and doing well to this day all
00:42:25
these years years later another thing to be thankful about is they were able to tie Joseph Duncan to some other
00:42:32
homicides and I suspect he's probably done others that we are unaware of Duncan was not the type to admit to any
00:42:40
of his crimes he was the type that one he would like to play games mind games and torment and tease the police and the
00:42:49
public and the media and I think that was a big part of the reason why he created his blog so he could do that
00:42:55
from behind prison walls the other thing too is that when you did finally convict
00:43:01
him of something he would go out of his way to explain to the public that the victims were not so innocent themselves
00:43:09
that they had some blame in this and he blamed some of the victims that he killed for their own deaths which is
00:43:17
just completely bizarre and demonic behavior in my opinion thankfully we can sit here in the garage today and raise a
00:43:25
glass real high because Joseph Duncan passed away last year and I hope he enjoyed every minute of it now Chief
00:43:33
Ericson stated in this case that there was nothing specific tying Duncan to lyanna but did say it's very suspicious
00:43:40
that he brought the case up on his blog in fact if we are to believe Joseph Duncan he says that the case is what
00:43:48
started the whole blog to begin with blog more like clog I again Duncan's a hard guy to get to put your finger on I
00:43:57
don't know if he would do this as something just simply to taunt I'm never putting my finger on him police or
00:44:04
lyanna's family I also don't think that he's above enjoying being suspected of crimes
00:44:11
he didn't commit yeah it's an attention seeking device yeah you're exactly well looks like you just put your finger on
00:44:17
him well I'm not told you I'm not going to touch that son of a [ __ ] Duncan says
00:44:22
that he according to his records that he was able to figure out what he claims to
00:44:28
have been doing that day was watching some co-workers parachute and that he did some shopping but could not find any
00:44:35
receipts which makes sense he's locked up anyway Duncan did live in Fargo North Dakota and was when he was arrested on
00:44:44
the grony case but he was wanted on child molestation charges stemming from an incident in Detroit Lakes Minnesota
00:44:52
in 2004 now Fargo North Dakota is much closer to Detroit Lakes Minnesota than it is to Chisum Minnesota and in fact
00:45:01
much closer to Detroit Lakes than Detroit Lakes is to Chisum Minnesota if that makes sense uh Duncan was arrested
00:45:08
for molesting a six-year-old boy on a playground in Detroit Lakes which is about a three-hour drive from Chisum
00:45:17
Minnesota now I do want to point out the other crimes that he did he would have had to drive a long distance to do so so
00:45:26
I can't I cannot completely just go all right he he says he was doing this on that day and the distance between him
00:45:34
and where this disappearance took place I don't think any of that rules him out in fact there was uh one person who's
00:45:42
done some good Gang Busters work here an online an online sleuther that posted that a treasure hunt winner found a
00:45:52
treasure hunt winner log of a camping and scuba trip putting Joseph Duncan in Crosby Minnesota in August of 2003 so
00:46:04
this is interesting it's it's not you know it would be weeks away from The Disappearance but it puts him much
00:46:10
closer in proximity to Chisum Minnesota and it list jet Duncan on this treasure hunt winter log
00:46:21
Joseph Duncan called himself jet Duncan he won a snorkel mask and defogger in that
00:46:29
contest by July 21st of 2005 investigators stated publicly that they had cleared Duncan of any possible
00:46:38
involvement in lyanna's disappearance I have no idea how or why they reached this conclusion the best that I can
00:46:46
think of Captain they we know that investigators seized video footage that Duncan took the day of his coworker
00:46:54
skydiving so there that's not in question he he was there and witnessed these people skydiving at some point the
00:47:02
timestamp shows that they were diving in the afternoon the airport where the dive
00:47:07
took place is about a 4-Hour drive from Chisum I would like to see that exact Tim stamp I would like to interview
00:47:16
those people his co-workers can we determine 100% that he was where he was when that Tim stamp says could he have
00:47:24
altered that time stamp in any manner right those are just the the questions that I have again he's such a a horrible
00:47:31
and despicable person I think if he's talking about a case and he's putting himself on your radar you cannot remove
00:47:41
him from your radar until you need definitive proof yeah cuz this like we said this guy's a animal he's very
00:47:50
capable of abducting a child that would that's actually low on his list of what he's capable of you almost need the word
00:47:58
of God to tell you that he did not do this for for me to remove him he's MH I I'd like to move on from him now because
00:48:05
I I'm just sick of thinking about him if that's okay with you Captain well you're
00:48:08
the goat because this is going to bring us to another bad story and probably the
00:48:14
strangest portion of this case in my mind this this actually gives me nightmares in
00:48:22
2006 some more information came to life and this was not news to the family this
00:48:31
news is going to come from the family because they say this is actually something that they discussed with
00:48:36
investigators but the investigators didn't seem to agree with them that this was an interesting Avenue to investigate
00:48:45
the family decided at some point well you know what we're just going to tell the public about this we've told
00:48:49
investigators about this no you know I don't know if they have done stuff the investigator I don't
00:48:55
know if they did anything with this information or not they've never referenced it but the parents say that
00:49:00
the investigators did not seem interested in this information so now we're going to put it out to the public
00:49:06
and tell the world Chris and kayn Warner went on the Mory pich show this is October of
00:49:14
2006 and they decided that this information was worth disclosing after 3 years of it being largely ignored or
00:49:21
given no Credence by police lyanna they said one day came home with a case filled with Barbie dolls and clothing
00:49:31
for the Barbie dolls but would only tell her parents that she that she had got them from a little old lady furthermore
00:49:41
a week before she vanished their little daughter had packed up a suitcase and said she was going to go live with her
00:49:48
new family at her new family's house this was around the same time that she started sleeping in the closet telling
00:49:55
her father father that there were monsters outside of her window yeah to come home and see your daughter playing
00:50:02
with maybe a a doll right and saying somebody gave it to her okay maybe a garage sale in the
00:50:14
neighborhood maybe she was playing with a doll at her friend's house parents said hey just take this but when there's
00:50:21
a doll and there's a case filled with dolls and clothes multiple items and all she can say is it came from a little old
00:50:31
lady that's it's pretty creepy well yeah and let's go back to you know we referenced an online
00:50:40
sleuther putting up some information about uh Duncan and his possible whereabouts you know in August of
00:50:49
2003 there was a person a woman who posted on tapa talks website under the lyanna Warner discussion group that says
00:50:58
that she was about 12 years old at the time when lyanna went missing and was a sitter a regular sitter for lyanna she
00:51:08
tells a story that once at the park with Lianna that lyanna had told her she was
00:51:14
going on a trip without her parents now again this is something that somebody's posting online I can't verify that this
00:51:22
person was an actual babysitter for lyanna I can't verify that this story took place it does seem to line up with
00:51:30
some information that lyanna's parents are saying that they said in 2006 so I found that to be incredibly
00:51:38
interesting the thing that this really reminds me of here Captain is is a case that we've discussed here in the garage
00:51:46
the Asia degree case out of North Carolina this is where Asia seems to have taken off on foot in the middle of
00:51:55
the the night we don't know where she was going or why but she disappears we've never found
00:52:03
any trace of her the only thing that they found after she went missing was a strange photo of another little girl and
00:52:10
this photo is never been identified there's never been anybody that came forward that said oh I was that person
00:52:16
in the photo or I was the person that gave ASA that photo right so to me that photo will always be tied to her
00:52:24
disappearance and the reason possible reason for her leaving her home that night and then in this case very same
00:52:32
situation right it it's it seems very similar to me Captain where we have the parents telling the public you know
00:52:39
somebody gave our daughter all these Barby dolls and all the clothing to go with these Barbie dolls we asked her
00:52:44
where she got them some little old lady gave them to her we've never that was in
00:52:49
2006 let me check my calendar it's 2021 we've never had anybody come forward in and say I was that person
00:52:56
that gave her those dolls I I you know they were used to be my daughters my kid had grown up I had them laying around I
00:53:03
was going to throw them out or I was going to put them in a up in a garage sale I saw the little kid gave them to
00:53:09
her there's never been anybody come forward and say or people come forward and say oh I know who gave them to her
00:53:16
you know it there's no answer to this question well that's why it reminds me of the John B Ramsey case because day
00:53:23
John B Ramsey goes missing she is telling people that Santa Claus is coming to visit her after Christmas it's
00:53:31
just one of those weird stories where you're never going to get that out of your head where why is this little girl
00:53:37
playing with like you said it's a collection of dolls and a collection of clothes for those dolls who was this
00:53:46
little old lady did the little old lady even exist because these individuals that abduct children and thank God it's
00:53:54
such a rare crime but even these individuals that groom children or molest them or try to groom them into
00:54:03
some kind of Bizarro relationship they're very manipulative they're very in tune to how to trick
00:54:11
these kids it's much easier for them if they can get and convince the kid to go along with whatever it is that the adult
00:54:19
wants to do willingly rather than Kicking and Screaming it doesn't have to be a little old lady I'm I'm with you I
00:54:26
want to know who the little old lady is but then I also wonder could it have been a
00:54:31
20-some year old man or a 30-some year old man that says oh if anybody ask where you got these right you know I
00:54:40
don't want to have to come and take them from you if Mom and Dad or Mom finds out
00:54:44
that you got them from me you're going to get in trouble right just tell them that you got them from a little old lady
00:54:50
here's the other thing that's interesting too to me we know that both of lyanna's parents came from they were
00:54:57
they were married before they were married to each other if I'm an outsider and I'm viewing this situation or I have
00:55:04
any idea of that oh you got you got brothers and sisters that have other families well guess what little lyanna
00:55:12
you have another family too just like your brothers and sisters you've just not met them yet and here's a gift from
00:55:20
one of your family members yeah but there's also sickos that want to want to steal children and raise them as their
00:55:30
own they they see this precious beautiful little girl and they go I want her I want her to be mine and that's a
00:55:42
equally possible I think Captain you and I we stand in agreement here that these
00:55:49
three scenarios are of the most interest to us yeah I agree these individuals Joseph Edward Duncan who for no Rhyme or
00:55:58
Reason decides to discuss the case on his blog we certainly know the horror rfic acts that he is capable of right we
00:56:07
have the guy that lives just a couple doors down that's caught with child pornography in his home and he during
00:56:17
the course of questioning he goes from being a possible witness to somebody that police
00:56:23
have such an interest in that they get a search warrant to search his home and that's when they find the child
00:56:29
pornography in his house yeah and that is Matthew James Curtis and then this weird story
00:56:36
about lyanna having another family or going to live with her other family and receiving this gift from a quote unquote
00:56:44
little old lady is really bizarre stuff I think those three things to me in this
00:56:51
case where you have a lot of questionable behavior and and a lot of Persons of Interest and we've discussed
00:56:58
a lot of those those three for me sit at the top of my list as far as The Disappearance to lyanna Warner well and
00:57:06
don't forget about the monsters outside her window that are going to come take her away lyanna's parents Chris and kin
00:57:14
have moved away from the home and Chism that lyanna lived in with them they say that this decision was very hard for
00:57:22
them and that they were worried that she might not be able to find them should she return but it seems after 18 years
00:57:29
of holding on to Hope on the basis of nothing reality has prevailed they still leave the porch light on though cases
00:57:38
like the solving of Jacob wetterling's abduction and the three Ohio women found in Ariel Castro's basement continue to
00:57:46
give them hope and the fact that no trace of lyanna was found in the thorough and painstaking searches of a
00:57:54
WI wide radius makes part of them believe that she was taken out of the area and possibly could still be alive
00:58:03
most likely Chris Warner believes that she may be a victim of a black market abduction 2021 marks 18 years since
00:58:13
lyanna vanished the now Chism police chief believes that lyanna was abducted and investigators and law enforcement
00:58:22
have said the same thing within a week or so of the case they believe this is one of those rare cases
00:58:30
of stranger abduction they still consider this to be very much an open case but everyone is incredibly
00:58:38
frustrated because there seems to be nothing to go on in 2013 the national Center for missing and exploited
00:58:46
Children released an age progression picture of what lyanna might look like at the age of 15 and continues to issue
00:58:55
flyers and posters about [Music] Lan we save [Music] you rning just let me [Music]
00:59:22
sa as always we want to hear from you on any of the episodes that we covered we want to hear your thoughts and opinions
00:59:31
cuz we know you guys are no dumb Dums no Dum dumb heads here in the garage Colonel do we have any recommended
00:59:39
reading uh yes we do Captain a little recommended reading also maybe a little more of the recommended listening this
00:59:47
week we are recommending They Call Me baba buoy we're going to step outside of True Crime and have a little fun this is
00:59:54
for for anyone that's a Howard Stern fan I highly recommend the audio version of
01:00:00
the Call Me baba buoy by the great Gary deabate you can find that recommendation
01:00:07
as well as many others on our website True Crime garage.com some say it's the best book
01:00:14
ever written some say that and until next week be good be kind and don't litter [Music]
01:00:58
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