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Welcome to True Crime Garage. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, thank you for listening. I'm your host Nick
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and with me as always is a man that would like to remind us all to beware of what's in the sewers of Derry, Maine.
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Here is the Captain. Yeah, warning. It's poop. It's good to be seen and good to see you. Thanks for
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click on the store page. And that's enough the business. All right, everybody gather around, grab
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a chair, grab a beer. Let's talk some true crime. The following is taken from a 2006
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article from the Independent Record. Her girl is never far from Sydney Bacon's thoughts.
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The girl lives in a Tupperware box. Right now, the box is in Hayden Lake, Idaho with a University of Montana student who
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is studying her. But she'll soon be returned to Missoula for what Bacon and others hope will be
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the next step in figuring out who she is. Sydney Bacon who has a master's degree in forensic
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anthropology from the University of Montana knows the girl better than almost anyone.
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She detailed everything about her for her master's thesis. But someone, somewhere
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knows her better. Someone knows the name that goes with the bones in the box. "It's very upsetting to me that she is
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not on a missing person's report somewhere." Bacon said. For now, the girl's known by other names.
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Case number 850, 9102, Christy Crystal Creek. For more than 20 years, Christy Crystal Creek
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was essentially the soul sister of another young woman known only as Debbie Deer Creek.
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Debbie's nude body was found in the Deer Creek drainage on Christmas Eve 1984. Christy's remains were found by a bear
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hunter 9 months later scattered across a hillside in Crystal Creek, one drainage over from Deer Creek.
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Missoula County Sheriff's Captain Greg Hintz has known Christy Crystal Creek from the
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start. Known about the two bullets in her skull. Known about the possible connection to a
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suspect. Captain Hintz is contacted on a regular basis by people who think Christy might be
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this woman or that. But so far, he's never made the match. But with the work being done in North
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Texas, he is once again hopeful that Christy's identity might be closer to discovery.
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"The technology is out there." Hintz said. "All we have to do now is a little more
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work." Primarily, that work consists of sending one of Christy's bones to North Texas.
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Then, it's a matter of crossing our fingers. "There's no getting around it. We need
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some luck." Hint said. The problem, of course, is that the North Texas lab may produce
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a perfectly good DNA sample and have nothing to match it to. "If some law enforcement agency
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somewhere doesn't have evidence on the woman or her family, a match is unlikely."
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And one of the key methods of identifying remains has already been tried and failed with Christy.
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"She had very distinctive dentistry work done." Bacon said. "It's unique work and extreme work."
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"Christy had excellent and extensive dental care until maybe a year before her death.
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She had fillings in almost every tooth and had two root canals, including one in a relatively rare location.
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And then it all just stopped about a year before she died, Bacon said. Someone stopped taking care of her or
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she stopped taking care of herself. That sort of dentistry is often enough to identify an unknown body if someone,
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usually a family member, has given the dental records to law enforcement so that they can be entered into the FBI's
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computerized National Crime Information Center. But there's never been a match. That suggests that Christy might not be
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listed anywhere as a missing person. But it's also at least remotely possible the dental records weren't available.
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Christy was petite, maybe 5-ft tall, 18 to 21 years old. She weighed maybe 100 lb.
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Her remains suggest the possibility of both Caucasian and Asian heritage. And she was most likely right-handed.
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She smoked and Bacon speculates may have used drugs in the last years of her life.
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I don't think that she was from around here based on the way Missoula reacts to somebody going missing, she said.
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Bacon has long felt Christy may be from the East Coast, a runaway most likely, but that's just a hunch.
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I want to help in any way I can. I want her to be able to go home to a family, Bacon said.
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It's now October of 2020 and Christy Crystal Creek's real identity is still unknown.
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Christy Crystal Creek has been added to the NamUs database, the FBI's Violent Criminal Apprehension Program
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better known as ViCAP. At The Doe Network she is simply known as 3UFMT unidentified female.
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Her remains were discovered on September 9th, 1985 recovered in a wooded area of Missoula
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County, Montana. No clothing, jewelry, or other personal effects were located. The victim's estimated date of death was
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approximately 1 year prior. Dental x-rays and DNA are available for comparison. To provide or request additional
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information please contact the Missoula County Sheriff's Office at 406-258- 3348
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or the FBI Violent Criminal Apprehension Program at 800-634-4097. Christy Crystal Creek is only one of the
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victims that we will be discussing this week. This is True Crime Garage. Montana or Big Sky Country, as I like to
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say, is the fourth largest state by area in this greatest of countries, the USA.
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We've done over 400 episodes and we've only taken this Flying Garage ship to Montana one time before, and that was in
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July of this year for our Serial Confessor episodes. Now, I have only seen pictures, but this
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looks like an absolutely stunning place to live. I'm talking about Missoula, Montana.
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With beautiful landscapes and earth as far as the eye can see, you got mountains and of course, the big big
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sky. Well, here we are again, but this time we are not in Poplar, Montana like the
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Confessor shows. This time we are in Missoula, the hub of the five valleys. And in relation to Poplar, the other
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small towns in Montana, Missoula is the big city. Today, we have over 75,000 people living in Missoula. Our story
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starts back in the mid-70s, and since then the population has more than doubled. So, let's go back to 1974,
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Missoula, Montana to a city of about 30,000 people. On Thursday, April 11th, 1974,
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the Pounds family got up and started their day as usual. This is a family of five, a very religious family, living in
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East Missoula. At this time, there were only four of the five family members living in the home.
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We have husband and wife, which is Harvey and Donna Pounds, who have been married for quite a while by this time.
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Their son Kenny was out of the house. He is off serving this country in the armed
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forces. Their oldest daughter Karen, she too is grown, but still living at home. And
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their youngest is Kathy, who is only 12 years old. Harvey works at a local clothing store and does quite a bit of
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work for the church that his family attends. Donna works part-time at a nearby Christian bookstore.
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On this Thursday, Harvey and daughter Karen will be going off to work. And Kathy, she'll be going off to school.
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Donna, she has the day off. But on this morning, she's going to go off with a friend. And at the Pounds
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home, this morning really is nothing but routine. Everyone left the house, including
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Donna, who again has the day off, but she's picked up by a friend. Donna would ride along with her friend who made her
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Avon deliveries. That's how the captain spends a lot of his free time as well. Donna's friend returned and dropped her
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back off at the Pounds home. This is sometime after 1:00 p.m. in the afternoon. Later that afternoon, Kathy, the little
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girl, 12 years old, is the first one of the three to return to the home. She and a friend from school went to the
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Pounds house. They're doing typical after-school stuff, enjoying some snacks, watching a little
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television. A little less than 2 hours later, the father, husband, Harvey returns home
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from his day job. When he arrived, he briefly spoke with Kathy and her friend, and he inquired about
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the whereabouts of his wife. Harvey went upstairs to look for her. There he found several cut lengths of
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rope. This is very unusual in itself, but even more so because one, the family did not
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have any rope anywhere inside the home, and two, the different locations of these pieces of rope. There were pieces
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tied to the bedpost in one of the bedrooms. A cut piece of rope dangling from the
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doorknob in the bathroom, and some rope tied to the hoses attached to the family's washing machine.
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But despite these strange discoveries, his wife was nowhere to be found. Harvey decided to check the basement.
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And there, at the bottom of the stairs, lying face down, but up against the wall, was the lifeless body of his wife.
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Harvey knew she was dead and was the victim of an attack that took place inside his home. Yeah, and of course
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he's going to tell his children to get out of the house, and they probably went to neighbor's house.
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But you definitely want to protect them from seeing their mother like that. Yeah, he's going
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to call the police and call for help. The police arrive on the scene, and we can go through some of the
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evidence here, Cappy. The police arrived on the scene. This What they're looking for is
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how this whole thing went down, of course. And along with the rope evidence, they're able to determine the
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following fairly quickly. That the killing took place sometime between 1:00 p.m., when Donna's friend
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dropped her off at the house, and what they're a little murky on is did this murder occur before Kathy
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and her friend arrived at the house, which seems the most likely, or when Harvey arrived home, or did it
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occur shortly after he arrived home. They're a little suspicious, of course. Well, it seems like the perpetrator
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would have to to spend a lot of time in the house. So possibly they would have left DNA or
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fingerprints. So there's no sign of a break-in. There was little sign of of any actual
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struggle as well. This is concerning for police. The cause of death is five .22 caliber bullets fired into
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the back of Donna's head. There was evidence at the scene that suggests that the killer, as you said,
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spent a considerable amount of time in the home. This could be a couple of hours.
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We talk about the cut lengths of rope that are found in several different locations of the home. Right. Now, two
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very important key elements to this murder, the weapon was found at the scene. Now, this is not terribly uncommon, but
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more times than not, when a gun is used in the commission of a homicide, it is removed from the scene. The killer takes
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it with them and disposes of the gun elsewhere or keeps it sometimes for the purpose of committing future crimes.
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Now, why do you think that is? Well, in this case, the .22 caliber death instrument was not only left at the
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scene, but was found pinned between the legs of the victim. And even more curious,
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the gun belonged to Harvey Pounds, the husband. Okay, so the perpetrator comes in, brings his own rope, probably
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brings his own knife, does brings other things, but uses the homeowner's gun. Correct. That's the way that it looks.
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That's the way that it sounds with their discussion going on with Harvey at the time. Now, mind you,
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Harvey's being pretty forthcoming. That's my gun. Number one. But, he's the only one that can tell you if that rope
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came from the house or not. And he's saying that we didn't have any rope in the house. That is not our rope.
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Now, I read somewhere that this stuff was the holdback information, meaning that
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how many times she was shot and where they found the gun and who the gun actually belonged to.
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Right. I read several places that said that that is the the holdback information. Now,
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I'm not calling [ __ ] on that, but if that was the holdback information, they managed to hold it back all of 2 days
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because all three of those items were in the newspaper 2 days after the murder. Right.
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A couple of items that were in fact held back was that Donna's clothing was found in the upstairs master
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bedroom. Also found upstairs were some bullets. This means that shots were fired in the
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upstairs of the house, not just the downstairs in the basement where we have our victim shot five
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times. Right, but do we know if she was sexually assaulted? It's believed that she was. But was that when she was alive
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or is that postmortem? There is every indication that the sexual assault took place upstairs in
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the bedroom where we found the rope. Okay. And they held that back at the time for 2 days? Well, they they held that
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back for quite some time actually along with the the stuff that I just went through. But the idea that this initial
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stuff was going to be held back seems like a big deal. I think the problem is because the murder weapon belonged to
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Harvey Pounds, it's tough to hold that back. Right. Because now you have a concern that he
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might be your suspect. Right. And if you're walking into this case as an investigator, you're going, "Okay,
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who's the most likely suspect? Bing bing bing bing, the husband. All bing bing bing bing bing,
00:19:02
it's his gun." And then you start wondering, "Did they get into an argument and then
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did he stage this whole scene to make it look like something it wasn't. Mhm. Yeah.
00:19:15
Yeah, immediately Harvey was a suspect. This of course makes a lot of sense. He's the husband. You know, we've all
00:19:20
seen the shirts that say the husband did it. Mhm. Truecrimegarage.com. The murder
00:19:26
We don't sell those. We don't have those anymore. The murder weapon belonged to him as we said, and
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he found the body, right? Now, everyone knows that the husband or the spouse is not only often an early suspect, but
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if you watch three episodes of Dateline, on two of them the spouse turns out to be the murderer. Right.
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Then compound this with it is his gun and he found the victim. It's also not terribly uncommon for the
00:19:52
person who quote found the victim to actually be the one who committed the murder. Right. And of course you have to
00:20:00
factor in that there is no sign of forced entry. So, either Mrs. Pounds let the killer
00:20:06
into the home or the killer somehow had access to the home. Well, I just want to
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stop on that for a second cuz right now you say the population is 75,000. Today, yes.
00:20:19
Right. So, back then 30,000. And right. So, not a lot of people I guarantee you a lot of people were not locking every
00:20:28
door. But there are a couple problems with the theory that Harvey killed his wife. First, the police had two other
00:20:35
leads on the case that needed to be investigated. Next, Mrs. Pounds was alive and well when Harvey, Karen, and
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Kathy left for the day. She's alive and well when her friend drops her off at 1:00 p.m.
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Kathy and her friend did not see nor encounter anyone else inside the home until her father returned over an hour
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after the two kids arrived. So, if we are to believe our witnesses, Kathy and her friend, then Mrs. Donna
00:21:07
Pounds was dead before Harvey even returned from work. Now, going against Harvey is someone in
00:21:15
the neighborhood who says that they think that they saw Harvey's vehicle at the Pounds house at some point during
00:21:23
the day, but couldn't be sure. All right. Look, I'm all for see something, say something.
00:21:30
But, you're running a risk here of of locking this man up for the rest of his life by going, "Uh
00:21:38
I think I saw him his vehicle at their house sometime during the work day." Well, we have five shots. So, do we have
00:21:45
anybody that's ear witness? No, we have no ear witnesses in the case and that's what's
00:21:51
weird because we know that the five shots that that killed this poor woman took place in the basement of the home.
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Okay, so that's somewhat you can explain that away. Maybe that muffles the sound
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a little bit, but there's evidence that shots were fired at in the upstairs of the home as well. Okay.
00:22:10
But, again, maybe maybe everybody's just gone. Maybe everybody else is just at work or at school during the time that
00:22:16
this murder took place. The problem with the idea of this neighbor saying, "I might have seen
00:22:22
Harvey's vehicle at the Pounds house during the daytime." We have several people
00:22:28
who say and confirm that Harvey was at work that day for the entirety of the work day.
00:22:34
Right. So, this I might have seen his vehicle doesn't seem like such a such a It's definitely not a concrete
00:22:41
thing, but it doesn't even seem like a a good possibility at this point. Okay, so
00:22:45
what are the other two leads in this case? Mhm. The first comes from the statement
00:22:51
of a another potential witness. This is a neighbor that said that sometime during the day they saw a young man in
00:22:58
the Pounds backyard. He described the young man as someone who lived down the street. You know, it
00:23:04
looks like this kid that lives down the street. A white guy, young, maybe roughly 20 years of age.
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So, police went to where it was thought that this young man lived, and they spoke with a guy named Wayne Nance. Mhm.
00:23:19
He's 18 at the time. Wayne fit the description, and not only did he live in the neighborhood, and
00:23:26
he's lived there for several years, he lives there with his father and brother. Um they got a fairly big family, I
00:23:33
believe. Mother, father, and four kids, including Wayne. He was friends with the Pounds' son,
00:23:41
Kenny. Remember, Kenny is off at the army at this time. Right. So, he knows the Pounds family,
00:23:48
not just by living in the neighborhood. He was good friends with this kid at one
00:23:51
point in their lives. Wayne had been inside the Pounds home on several occasions. Police questioned the young
00:23:58
man, who said he had been home for the entirety of the day nursing a cold. He says, "I've mostly been sleeping and
00:24:05
watching TV." So, he doesn't really have much of an alibi. He's supposed to be in school
00:24:11
that day. Right. Police strongly questioned Wayne's lack of a real alibi, and they decided to keep him on their
00:24:19
very short list of suspects. But, other than that, they did not have much to go on. Plus, they had that other lead.
00:24:27
Yeah, this kid is skipping school, drinking back the old Robitussin, jerking off to The Price Is Right. This
00:24:36
other lead they found is quite suspicious. A young man, 19 years of age, his name
00:24:43
Clyde Wickstrom, was found on Interstate 90, about 12 miles outside of town. When he's found, he's dying from a
00:24:52
self-inflicted gunshot to the head. Oh. Clyde was rushed to the hospital where he soon died.
00:25:00
Police wondered and publicly they wondered and said this to the papers, could it be that Clyde was the young man
00:25:08
spotted in the backyard of the Pounds home? Now, did did he have a gun on him at the time? Yes. He did. Okay, so that
00:25:16
to me kind of pushes him away because why would he use why would he use the homeowner's gun
00:25:22
when he had a gun with him? That's a good question. You know, they they asked the papers,
00:25:27
they were asking and wondering did he attack and kill Mrs. Pounds and then due to the guilt or fear of getting
00:25:35
caught or both that he decided to take his own life? That's the thing though. The percentage of these killers that are
00:25:42
actually guilty or feel anything is pretty small. It It can be. I mean, everybody has a different reaction to to
00:25:51
their actions. And maybe the person Look, I don't want to go down that road because it's a long
00:25:57
one and it's going to lead us nowhere because as you pointed out Clyde decided to take his own life.
00:26:05
He used his own gun. Why would he choose to use the Pounds .22 found inside the home? And if Clyde knew the gun used in
00:26:13
the murder could not be tied to him well, then you start to wonder what's my chances of getting caught. Right, but so
00:26:21
if we have these two leads, it's pretty simple. Wayne has been in their house. So, if
00:26:26
his fingerprints are in the house, it's kind of hard to say when they got there.
00:26:32
This guy, Clyde he has no connection to the family. So, if his fingerprints are anywhere in the house, then he's guilty.
00:26:39
Yeah, the theory quickly unraveled in just a little over 24 hours after the murder of Mrs. Donna Pounds, the
00:26:46
Missoula County Sheriff's Office announced that any possible connection between the murder of Mrs. Pounds,
00:26:53
mother of three, and the death of 19-year-old Clyde Wickstrom had been ruled out.
00:27:18
All right, we're back, Cheers mates. He's back. I'm back. He's back. Tall cans in the air,
00:27:25
everybody. Robitussin in the air. Within days, the sheriff's department announced another possibility that there
00:27:33
could be a connection between Mrs. Pounds' murder and the slaying of a Billings, Montana couple
00:27:41
that was murdered in their home a little more than 6 months before Mrs. Pounds was murdered.
00:27:47
Law enforcement from both cities announced that they would be working together to see if there was in fact a
00:27:53
connection between what the sheriff was calling two bizarre sets of crimes. Right, but this makes the whole
00:27:59
community go on high alert. Yeah. Yeah. And we should point out that the cities, although in the same state, you
00:28:07
know, Montana is a big state. And the two cities of Missoula and Billings are about a 5-hour drive from one another.
00:28:16
So, in the same state, but not really close at all. Okay, so let's go through the double
00:28:22
slayings in Billings, Montana. This is a young married couple, and this is Mr. and Mrs. Clifford and Linda
00:28:30
Bernhardt. They were found dead inside their home by Linda's mother. She was unable to reach her daughter and
00:28:38
son-in-law by phone for a couple of days and decided to go to the home to investigate
00:28:45
and found both of them dead in an obvious double homicide. The couple were both 24 years of age and
00:28:53
had been married for 4 years and they recently moved into this home. I think it might even have been a new build.
00:29:00
Clifford was an army sergeant and Linda worked at the grocery store. Clifford was found lying face down in a
00:29:08
pool of blood. Linda was found in a bedroom sexually assaulted and strangled. There was no sign of forced entry into
00:29:18
the home. There was evidence that both victims at one time during the attack were tied at
00:29:25
the wrist and ankles, but detectives did not locate the bindings at the scene. So, meaning the killer took them with
00:29:33
him. Also taken from the scene were several of Linda's personal items. This included
00:29:39
a suitcase and some of her clothing. But, there were some even more bizarre things about this crime scene.
00:29:47
One, it appeared that the couple was getting ready to sit down for their evening dinner when something terrible
00:29:54
happened. Meaning, they were attacked just before supper time. Dinner was prepared and set out on the
00:30:00
counter as if it was about to be served. Even more strange, the table was set, but not for two people. The table was
00:30:09
set for three people. It was looking like the Bernhards' dinner guest either never arrived or
00:30:17
killed them both. He didn't like what they were serving. Right. Another odd behavior of the
00:30:23
killer, Would you like tuna salad? He turned the heat way down in the home and opened up several of the windows.
00:30:33
In the couple of days that it took for the bodies to be found, the low temperature was 6° during those days.
00:30:43
Now, if any connection was made between these two horrific crimes at that time, it's really unknown and probably not
00:30:53
likely. But, it was never really mentioned again. They said two agencies are going
00:30:58
to work together on this and then it kind of disappears from the news. Did we have any uh
00:31:05
tampering with the thermostat? At the Pounds home? Right. No, we did not. Mhm. So, of course, this is something we have
00:31:14
seen in many other cases where law enforcement will say they're looking for connection either between two somewhat
00:31:21
similar crimes or maybe a location. You know, we've we've covered cases where they start talking about pig farms,
00:31:27
church, gun stores, state park, uh even stating that they're looking for connection to a known offender,
00:31:35
someone recently picked up for something completely else. But, after a couple of
00:31:39
days, it just fades from the news. They don't ever really announce, "Oh, we were
00:31:44
looking at this guy and we didn't find anything." It just kind of goes away and we don't hear much about it again.
00:31:51
What we do hear about in the Donna Pounds case is a surgical glove. The sheriff's department, of course,
00:31:59
canvassed the area immediately, going door-to-door asking questions. That's how they got the lead on the Wayne
00:32:06
Nance, the witness who said they saw a young man in the Pounds backyard. And that was what led them to question
00:32:13
him. As said, Nance was a senior in high school and some of the officers thought
00:32:18
this type of horrible heinous act could not have been perpetrated by some kid from the local high school.
00:32:27
This surgical glove, however, was quite important. And of course, they thought so and it was not ever hold back
00:32:33
information. The The authorities found the glove just outside of the Pounds neighborhood. It was a single latex or
00:32:42
what some would call a rubber surgical glove. It looked like someone had just tossed
00:32:47
it on the ground. Isn't it amazing how many cases are similar? Like when you think of
00:32:54
the actions that probably took place in the Pounds home, the instruments that were brought,
00:33:02
the way she was found, the way that she was bound, that really reminds me a lot of like
00:33:10
BTK. Mhm. But then you have this glove that's found out in the yard. Remind Reminds me a lot of the Terri
00:33:20
Schiavo case. Well, you see what type of people litter? What type of losers who litter? If you
00:33:26
litter, you're obviously a psychopath. That's today's lesson, kids. Yeah. So, this glove is important because they
00:33:34
believe there was blood on it. So, they sent it to the FBI crime labs for analysis.
00:33:42
Thought to be the best at the time. They are hoping for two results. One, the very unlikely chance that the
00:33:50
glove contained both the killer's blood and the victim's or fingerprints from the person who took
00:33:58
the glove off. At this time, of course, Captain, they would just be simply looking for blood
00:34:02
type that could directly connect the killer to the victim or at the very least match the victim's blood so they
00:34:09
know that the glove was used in the commission of the crime. Right. But of course, the test would take time
00:34:16
and regardless of what the results came back with, law enforcement wanted to find the match to this glove, right?
00:34:24
Another single glove in someone's possession or even a box of gloves that match this glove.
00:34:32
So, the sheriff's office asked everyone in the area for their help. They were very public about this surgical glove
00:34:38
finding. They want to know, has anyone seen gloves like this in someone's possession? Or do they know anyone that
00:34:45
uses these types of gloves? More importantly, if people could go outside and check their yards to see if the
00:34:54
second glove was discarded elsewhere, or maybe even the gloves were tossed together
00:35:00
and a dog or something made off with one of them. We've covered true crime stories where
00:35:05
dogs show up running back to their owners with bones or body parts. Right. So, the the moving of a glove
00:35:11
does not seem strange at all. Now, like with most towns, Captain, there are going to be some local rumors,
00:35:20
and some of them make their way to the police or even the newspapers, and some of them don't. And just like this case,
00:35:28
the rumors from the '70s and '80s, when there is an unsolved mur- when there is an unsolved murder, are
00:35:35
always very interesting. We are coming up on Halloween, the old trick-or-treat time, and we've covered
00:35:44
plenty of cases where they cancel beggars' night because of local rumors, because of an unsolved murder and local
00:35:51
rumors. Right. So, what were some of the local rumors here in Missoula at the time?
00:35:58
I I'm going to warn you, I'm not going to go through all of them because there were quite a bit. There was a a bunch of
00:36:04
stuff swirling around, and we would later learn that the majority of them don't carry much weight. They're just
00:36:13
not true, but the more interesting ones that swirled around was the idea of a cult or witchcraft being involved in the
00:36:23
Donna Pounds murder. One rumor tied directly to the murder of Donna is that an individual involved in the
00:36:32
occult or Satanist was the killer. The rumor was that either a note or a letter of some type was found near the
00:36:43
Donna Pounds crime scene that described the quote ritual that was that this individual needed
00:36:51
to kill three people to give themselves to Satan. All right. The need to kill three
00:36:57
people. First, according to this rumor they needed to kill or sacrifice a virgin. Then kill or sacrifice someone
00:37:05
who is a faithful Christian. And then the third murder would be that of a betrayer.
00:37:12
If this is true, then Donna Pounds, the wife of Harvey, who spends most of his time working for the church Right. she
00:37:20
must be the faithful Christian follower. Okay, so that means that someone, the virgin, has already been murdered.
00:37:29
And then Donna Pounds was killed and someone else, the third victim, still needs to to die or this occultist or
00:37:35
Satanist uh for them to achieve their goal. So, who was the virgin? Well, sadly, there was a local case
00:37:44
to connect that theory to. And that was the very sad case that started just 2 months earlier
00:37:51
with the abduction of a little girl. On Tuesday, February 5th, 1974 a youngster described as precocious and
00:38:01
friendly this is little 5-year-old Shavon McGuinness. She vanished around 7:00 p.m. on that
00:38:10
night in early February. She was last seen by her neighborhood friend at approximately 7:00 p.m. Shavon
00:38:18
was at her friend's house. The friend lives in the same neighborhood. Around 6:30 p.m. Shavon's mother,
00:38:25
Bonnie, called the friend's house, spoke with Shavon, tells her she needs to come home soon.
00:38:32
The two little girls walked from the friend's house and headed in the direction of Shavon's
00:38:38
home. Right. When the two reached about the halfway mark, this is right near Whittier School, three blocks from
00:38:46
Shavon's home, the two parted ways. What kind of school is it? Elementary, middle
00:38:51
school, high school? I have no idea. Uh it The papers just said Whittier School. Again, this is only about three
00:38:59
blocks from Shavon's home. The two part ways, her friend turned around and is going to head back to her
00:39:06
house, and Shavon presumably continued on her way. However, she never made it to her home.
00:39:13
Yeah. Shavon's mother reported her missing at 8:45 p.m. Now, the search intensified after a
00:39:22
report of an attempted assault on another 5-year-old in the neighborhood earlier that day.
00:39:29
According to police reports, a man with curly red hair talked this other girl into a shack or a shed on the north side
00:39:39
of Missoula and tried to molest her. The girl, according to the papers, escaped unharmed.
00:39:46
The February 7th newspaper featured a sketch of the man sought in the molestation attempt.
00:39:53
Police did say that there was no official link between the two crimes. Do we know if it's a older man or a younger
00:40:01
man? Judging by the sketch, it appears to be a younger man. Right. Another lead was a report that came in
00:40:10
from another local school. This is from the Paxton school officials that said a man was seen near their school asking
00:40:19
children to get into his car so that he could take pictures of them. Yeah, that's a that's an innocent hobby, isn't
00:40:26
it? Yeah. The description of this man did not match that of the description of the man
00:40:32
saw in the molestations. with people? You know what I mean? What's wrong with people? Well, and then
00:40:38
you got to go a step further and you go, "Okay, what is scarier here?" Do we have
00:40:43
one guy going around to multiple schools looking for a potential victim, or do we
00:40:47
have three individuals who are all deviants into different weird stuff? Right. Unfortunately, Captain Shavon's body was
00:40:57
found in a culvert by a county road worker at the Turah, I believe it's pronounced Turah, t u r a h exit from
00:41:07
Interstate 90. She was found at approximately 3:45 p.m. on Thursday, February 7th.
00:41:17
The body was reported to be bloodied and there was a blood trail found beneath a
00:41:23
new layer of snow. So, it's early February, it's cold out, it's Montana, which gets even colder than
00:41:31
here. They were experiencing snowfall within several, you know, period of several
00:41:37
days. Uh-huh. And however this blood got there, it had it got there and it was on top of some
00:41:44
snow, but then there was an additional layer of snow that had fallen on top of this blood trail.
00:41:50
There's some weird things going on here though, Captain. There were no human footprints found in the area,
00:41:57
but there were several dog prints found in the area. And mind you, they find this trail of blood that leads down from
00:42:05
the road out to this culvert where she is eventually discovered underneath that layer of the new layer of snow. Right,
00:42:12
but the dog didn't transfer her out there. Well, you just you just totally poked holes in my my theory. I was going
00:42:19
to say I've not found anything to confirm my suspicions, but I think it's possible she was dumped right at the
00:42:25
side of the road and then dragged the dogs dragged the body to where she was eventually found.
00:42:30
Okay, look, is it possible, but wouldn't we have some drag marks on the body, drag marks
00:42:38
in the area? We could. We could. It's I just find it weird that we find dog tracks but no
00:42:44
human prints. Mhm. But it but also that might give you a clue of when the body was left because
00:42:53
it if the if it was dry or cold, we wouldn't have any footprints of a human. She was found frozen and fully clothed.
00:43:04
Now, witnesses reported seeing two distinct vehicles in the area of the dump site, maybe even roughly the time
00:43:12
that it's believed that she could have been dumped. One of the reports states that the
00:43:18
police were looking for a 1959 or 1960 Ford Fairlane with Montana license plates.
00:43:26
The other and this seems to be more they were more focused on this other vehicle and you'll
00:43:32
see why here in just a second. A heavy focus on this vehicle. This was either a 1958
00:43:40
to 1960, so 1958, 59, or 1960 green Cadillac with New York plates. Now, that's very interesting
00:43:51
because this car sounds even more distinctive than the other. And plus we have the out of state
00:43:58
plates. Right. So, it might have been noticed by other people in the area at the time or even the town over. Well,
00:44:04
not a close neighboring state. Right. And yeah, because you have New York and then you have parts unknown and then
00:44:13
Montana. Right, but if you're Parts unknown is huge. Right, if you're in Ohio and you
00:44:19
and you see like an Indiana license plate, not that big of a deal. Or if you see a Kentucky or if you can see see
00:44:26
Michigan, it's not that big of a deal. But you see a New York license plate, you go, "Oh, that
00:44:31
It always sticks out a little bit more." Look there, Captain Ice Suit. You see that? There's a New York City plate.
00:44:38
All right. So, this is interesting though, too, because along with this description of the car, Mhm. we get a
00:44:45
description of the driver of this car. He looks like a guy from New York City. That's right.
00:44:52
The descrip- The driver is described as a middle-aged white man wearing dark clothing and a baseball cap.
00:45:00
Uh-huh. The left rear fender skirt on the vehicle was missing. So, even more descriptiveness, if that's
00:45:09
a word. Right. Later on, the autopsy revealed that the little girl died from multiple stab wounds and she had been
00:45:16
sexually assaulted. Now, regardless whether or not the two unsolved murders were connected, and I
00:45:22
know we've covered several murders by this point, but I'm talking about Donna Pounds
00:45:27
and Shavon Mcguinness, the little girl. Well, the reason why I wouldn't discount it is the idea that
00:45:36
I think in the Pounds case, it almost seems like the perpetrator had this idea or had this um
00:45:46
plan and then it got switched around once he found the gun of the homeowner. Mhm. Meaning like So, just because they
00:45:58
were just because the murders happened by two different uh inflictions or injuries. I wouldn't separate the two
00:46:07
necessarily. Correct. Maybe he showed up with the knife that he used on Shavon Mcginnis
00:46:12
and decided that's not the way. finds a gun or threatens the homeowner, uh you got any weapons? And she she
00:46:19
reveals where the the weapon may be. Mhm. And then decides to use Oh, I'll use the gun because there's no
00:46:26
connection to me. Right. And I'll just leave it here because if I don't take it with me, again, no connection to me.
00:46:33
Yeah, but I'd also think on some level it'd just be easier. Like that you have to have some kind of
00:46:44
more of a raw emotion, more of possibly a hatred for the individual. Like they said, when there's a stabbing
00:46:51
victim, it's normally a crime of passion. Well, maybe these are just sexually motivated crimes. Then you have to
00:47:00
murder the person to cover it up, but the murder is just to cover it up. Mhm. It's not part
00:47:07
of the sexual fantasy. Right. And there in lies some more difficulty to me when I when I look at both of these crimes,
00:47:16
where you go, okay, well, why is murder necessary to cover up these crimes? That
00:47:22
usually points to the victim could identify the perpetrator. Not just in description, but maybe even knows them
00:47:29
by name. Right. And a little girl, her circle is much smaller socially than than an adult.
00:47:37
Than a a woman who's in her late 30s, early 40s. But generally, an adult will have a much larger social circle than a
00:47:44
four, five, or six-year-old child. Right, but what I'm saying is that I think this perpetrator is
00:47:51
I I think this murderer knows his victims without the victims knowing him as well as he knows them.
00:47:59
Regardless whether or not the two unsolved murders were actually connected, they were now linked in the
00:48:06
minds of the public, and this will be for a couple of reasons. One, the satanic panic letter rumor that was
00:48:15
going around. Got to kill a virgin, got to kill a follower, got to kill a betrayer. That means that this person
00:48:21
has achieved steps one and two, and now is looking for their third victim. The second reason, the murder rate is
00:48:28
very, very low in this area of the country. Montana has a very low murder rate, especially at this time, at the mid-70s.
00:48:39
They would usually have one or two murders a year, sometimes none. But when they had murders,
00:48:47
they were solved. They were solved easily. It all too often was the usual suspects.
00:48:54
The husband or the boyfriend did it. Or someone the victim had been feuding with committed the homicide.
00:49:01
So, these are linked in the minds of the public simply because they don't get that many murders, and
00:49:07
both of these ones are sitting there unsolved at the time. Two murders with extreme differences in
00:49:14
victimology, in my opinion, but still must be connected because they occurred within
00:49:19
two months and a few days of each other, and they are both unsolved. Back to the
00:49:25
Donna Pounds case. We still have some suspects, and there was rumor surrounding our victim's
00:49:32
husband, Harvey Pounds. Local rumor was that he was having an affair leading up to the murder of his
00:49:39
wife. Detectives investigated this angle quite thoroughly, as the local rumored was detailed enough
00:49:48
that it often named the woman that Harvey was thought to be having this affair with.
00:49:54
Police spoke to this woman on several occasions. And after investigating, they were having a hard time believing
00:50:02
that the affair rumor was even true. But one thing they didn't like was Harvey. Harvey was not only fully cooperating
00:50:13
with the investigation. This is one of those weird stories, Captain, where we hear all the time oh, this guy quit
00:50:20
talking to police. The boyfriend or the husband was not cooperating Right. with police. This is one of those weird
00:50:26
times where they go, he's fully cooperating and we don't feel good about it. They say that he was a little too
00:50:33
cooperative. He was constantly out in his yard and walking the neighborhood looking for
00:50:40
clues and then calling the sheriff's department reporting every irrelevant small find that he came across.
00:50:48
They thought it was like he was trying to steer the investigation. Well, yeah. Like he
00:50:55
he's bringing up something he found a block over. I found this rock on the side of the road and they're going, oh,
00:51:00
you're just you're just throwing us off the scent. Right. That's what their thoughts are. Can you imagine this guy?
00:51:06
Let's say he's innocent, right? Let's say he's the victim here. His wife has just been killed and he's been told by
00:51:12
police, oh, we're investigating this lead that somebody was seen in your backyard. Right.
00:51:17
We're investigating this lead so much so to the point where we're begging the public for their help that we found a
00:51:23
surgical glove. Could you all go out in your yards and look for the second one? Mhm.
00:51:28
It seems to me like he's kind of doing what the police are asking the public to do.
00:51:33
He's out walking the neighborhood in his yard looking for that other surgical glove or looking for right? They're
00:51:39
like, go out and look for this stuff and he's looking for it and they're like, man, Right, but Mr. Harvey Ponds, don't
00:51:45
you dare go out and look for this stuff. You seem a little suspicious when you do
00:51:49
it. They thought that it was like he was trying to steer the investigation. Maybe
00:51:53
he's trying to direct the narrative of the evidence we don't know the tied to the evidence.
00:51:59
We don't know the demeanor of this individual either cuz like you know, going back to the original
00:52:05
when the investigators show up and you have to talk to the husband that knowing what we know, knowing that the
00:52:13
percentages is most likely that the spouse is involved in the murder of another spouse.
00:52:22
So, when you show up you don't want to just assume that. You don't want to say that they're guilty before you have
00:52:32
any proof of that. But you're going to be looking at them with suspicious eyes anyways. Well, and
00:52:38
that was the issue within the sheriff's department itself. You kind of had a split down the middle of opinions with
00:52:46
the officers and the investigators. You had half the room that seemed to know Harvey Pounds pretty well and they
00:52:53
understood how religious this man was. And they're going he could have never have killed his wife because that's not
00:53:01
in his nature. That's not who Harvey is. He's not a violent individual. He's very
00:53:05
involved in his church. And then you have the other half of the room going maybe these rumors are true and he
00:53:12
certainly looks like a good suspect. He's the husband. His gun was used to kill this woman.
00:53:19
So, you really had a split down the middle within the sheriff's department. These people arguing, these officers
00:53:24
arguing amongst each other as to what the direction of the investigation should be. Right.
00:53:31
One thing that Harvey reported that the sheriff's department did not like at all
00:53:36
was a bullet that he found inside his home. He said that he found a bullet lodged
00:53:43
inside of a book that was in one of the rooms on a bookshelf in the upstairs. The problem that the Sheriff's
00:53:51
Department had with this bullet that Harvey Pounds found was they couldn't believe that they didn't find it. Right.
00:53:58
This could have simply have been one of the shots that was fired upstairs and they didn't find this bullet for
00:54:03
whatever reason. Now, the way that this was found, the way that I understand it to be anyway, Captain, was that the book
00:54:11
was positioned as such on the shelf that the not the uh binding or whatever you the spine Mhm. wasn't out, it was the
00:54:19
pages. The pages side was out. Mhm. So, when this bullet was fired from wherever
00:54:24
in the room, it got lodged in some of the pages of the book. Right. But, there was another rumor that was going around
00:54:32
at the time and this had nothing to do with Harvey Pounds. And this was something that started off
00:54:38
sounding like a rumor, but could actually be really true. The rumor was that this odd kid in
00:54:48
school, his name Wayne Nance, he's the same one that's already been questioned by police, the kid that skipped school
00:54:55
because he wasn't feeling well on the same day that Donna Pounds was murdered. Right.
00:55:00
The rumor going around school was that Nance had told a few other students that he was going to kill someone before he
00:55:07
turned 19 years of age. So, again, again, they're all connected. They're all little pieces of of the same puzzle.
00:55:17
This reminds me of Damien Echols. Right. Right. When reviewing this case, that's
00:55:22
one thing that kept popping up and you already mentioned BTK and you'll see some
00:55:29
some things that will remind you of the Golden State Killer as well. This is really a very fascinating case.
00:55:37
And these rumors that are going around at the school, Nance says to a couple people, "Hey, I'm going to kill somebody
00:55:43
before I turn 19." He's 18 at this time. He's running out of time if that's what
00:55:48
he's really going to do. I mean, thinking back on high school and middle school, I don't remember ever hearing
00:55:54
somebody say anything like that I thought was like insane. Like this. Right. Right. Violently insane.
00:56:03
Like I mean, I heard Kids say a lot of dumb stuff. Yeah. I heard a lot of dumb [ __ ] but I
00:56:07
told people I was going to be Batman when I grew up. Mhm. Still working on that. All the I turned
00:56:13
in my job application the other day. Failure. Yeah. Gotham City mayor denied my application. I'm Batman. If you get a
00:56:20
call by the way, I used you as a reference. I used you as a reference. If you you
00:56:25
need to answer the phone Vandelay Industries for the next few days. So, this kid, here's what's weird about
00:56:32
this though, Captain. Mhm. The principal catches wind of this, and it's not because he's, you know, out in the halls
00:56:38
and hears these kids speaking. The kids that that Nance supposedly told this to,
00:56:45
they weren't going around school and blabbing this to everybody. No, because once Donna Pounds is found murdered
00:56:53
in the neighborhood where Nance lives, these kids aren't blabbing about it because they're afraid of all of a
00:57:00
sudden. They're afraid, and they've already heard the rumor of the occult letter or
00:57:06
satanic note that was supposedly found in the area of the crime scene. You mean, they're just
00:57:12
afraid in general, not afraid of Wayne. No, I think it's twofold. I think they're afraid in general because there
00:57:20
is a killer out there, but they're they're extra afraid because they think they know the killer. They think it is
00:57:26
Nance. One of the kids that was in very good upstanding with the school, with the
00:57:35
teachers and the principal, his name was Bill, and he knew Nance fairly well. I wouldn't call them
00:57:41
friends, but he goes to the principal and he says, "Look, this is what Wayne Nance was telling people before Donna
00:57:50
Pounds was killed. That he was going to kill someone before he turned 19. Wayne is weird. We just all thought it
00:57:57
was Wayne being Wayne." Now, Donna Pounds is dead and in a roundabout way, Bill tells the
00:58:05
principal, "I believe Wayne was trying to tell me that he killed Donna Pounds." How this comes about is Bill says that
00:58:13
one day he's hanging out with Wayne at school. Again, I they're not they don't seem to be friends. They just know each
00:58:20
other from school. Right, they might have to sit beside each other in class. And Wayne said something to Bill like,
00:58:28
"It has been done." or "It is done." And mind you, Bill has this Donna Pounds murder on his mind. So, he thinks that
00:58:36
that's what Wayne is referencing and Wayne tells him, "No, I'm he's talking about something else." Bill doesn't
00:58:43
believe him. Bill is afraid enough that he goes to the principal to tell him this, begging that the principal
00:58:51
does not, you know, don't tell anybody other than the police. The principal's in this weird spot
00:58:56
because he's going, "All right, you know, kids will be kids." He's he's probably got several years under his
00:59:01
belt. He knows how kids behave, how teenagers behave. And he's going, "Is this something that
00:59:07
I go to the police with or is this just something weird that this kid is telling
00:59:11
me?" Again, You go to the police and let them decide. Our victim is in her early 40s.
00:59:19
The person that is rumored to be a suspect is Wayne Nance, who's a senior in high school. Mhm.
00:59:26
The principal does mention this to the the sheriff. He calls the head honcho at the sheriff's department, discusses what
00:59:33
is going on there. Now, the principal is unaware at this time that the sheriff's
00:59:37
department actually spoke to Wayne Nance early in their investigation. Now, what you have, remember we had the
00:59:45
split room at the sheriff's department where half of them believe that Harvey Ponds killed his wife and the other half
00:59:51
didn't? Well, now the half that did not believe that Harvey Ponds killed his wife, they think Wayne Nance killed
00:59:58
Donna Ponds. What you have here is you have arguments going on within the department of people saying,
01:00:04
"Get me a search warrant. Let me put the pressure on Harvey Ponds and I'll get a confession or I'll get
01:00:11
the evidence you need to convict Harvey Ponds." You have the other half of the room saying, "We need to look into this
01:00:18
Wayne Nance kid. This could be some serious stuff here." What they do is they bring both of them
01:00:25
in for a polygraph test. Wayne Nance passes the polygraph with flying colors. According to his answers, he had nothing
01:00:37
to do nor knows nothing about the murder of Donna Ponds. The results of Harvey Ponds' test are
01:00:44
inconclusive. Want to thank everybody for joining us here in the garage. A lot of people have
01:01:00
been talking about the Netflix documentary American Murder about Chris Watts. We covered that case. It's titled
01:01:10
Christopher Watts episode 269 and 270 and you can find those episodes for free. Just download the Stitcher app and
01:01:20
also check out our bonus show called Off the Record. Join us back here in the garage
01:01:25
tomorrow. Until then, be good, be kind, and don't litter.