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LeeAnna Warner /// Part 2 /// 517

August 30, 2021 / 58:03

This episode covers the disappearance of Leanna Warner, persons of interest, and various suspects including Lee Allen Wu, Matthew James Curtis, and Joseph Edward Duncan III.

The hosts discuss Lee Allen Wu, a 23-year-old convicted sex offender who became a person of interest due to his criminal background and vehicle theft on the day Leanna vanished. They also mention John Bartel and Bruce William Christensen, who were sought for questioning but not considered suspects.

Matthew James Curtis, a neighbor with a history of child pornography, was questioned multiple times before his apparent suicide. The hosts speculate on the implications of his death and its connection to Leanna's case.

Joseph Edward Duncan III, a notorious sex offender, is discussed due to his blog post referencing Leanna's disappearance. Although he was later cleared, his history raises concerns about potential involvement.

The episode concludes with the ongoing search for Leanna, the emotional toll on her family, and the hope that she may still be alive.

TLDR

The episode discusses Leanna Warner's disappearance and various suspects, including convicted sex offenders and a mysterious blog post by Joseph Duncan.

Episode

58:03
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so [Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome to true crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for
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business all right everybody gather round grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime
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[Music] me [Music] [Music] when we were wrapping up yesterday's episode captain we started talking about
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possible persons of interest or at least people that the police told the public they were looking
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for people that they wanted to interview and this came in the form of some names
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as well as descriptions of unknown individuals we need to start diving into some of
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these people that they were talking about at the top of today's show one of the individuals that they were
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looking for was a 23 year old convicted sex offender who later would be known as
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a person of interest in this case and his name is lee allen wu 23 years old convicted sex offender now
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they have not specifically announced or addressed any direct connection between this lee allen
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wu and leanna warner however they said that he became a person of interest one because of his
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criminal background and two because he stole a vehicle on the same day that lyanna disappeared and operated that
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vehicle with a expired license or invalid license at the time of course when you have somebody with a
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criminal background and it is a sex offense you have a little girl who goes missing a guy that's known to be in the
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area and he steals a vehicle on that day and chooses to break other laws you want
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to know as an investigator why why on this day did you feel the need to steal a vehicle and operate illegally
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operate a vehicle authorities also asked for help in locating john bartel who they said was not a suspect all we know
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about him is that police said that he was known to travel between chisholm and the twin cities
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they were also looking for a bruce william christensen of hibbing minnesota he was not a
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suspect but could have vital information in the case bruce christensen had 17 criminal cases
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filed against him between the years of 1997 and 2006 so a busy guy he eventually went to prison for robbery
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where he beat a fellow inmate to death with a piece of railing that he broke off in order to use as a weapon he was
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sentenced to an additional 30 years for that murder an article about his sentencing
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says that in september of 2003 he pled guilty to making terrorist threats against kailyn warner
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very interesting sounds like a piece of [ __ ] 2003 september he pled guilty to making terrorist threats against the
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mother of leanna warner christensen apparently blamed kailyn for the police interest in him in leanna's case and
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threatened to shoot her we don't know if there was any direct connection between kailyn warner
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and this guy but he attempted to attack a prosecutor in court and was subject to
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several mental health evaluations around the same time yeah a real piece of [ __ ]
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so it sounds to me captain like when police ask you that horrible question that that nobody wants to be asked do
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you know anybody that would want to harm your family or hurt your child or would
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have any reason to do something against your family i don't know this to be the case but i'm
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wondering if this man for whatever reason was somebody that was named by the family
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because it seems like he wanted revenge or to retaliate against the warner family specifically kaelin
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for the police interest in him yeah but it shows you the reason why they're looking at you
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because you go on to threaten the mother it's like look if you had nothing to do
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with it it's like look i'm i'm willing to cooperate i'm willing to answer your questions
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i had nothing to do with this yeah he's definitely a violent man at the end of the day no doubt about that
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sean burteck who we referenced and yesterday's episode was arrested on july 10th burtec was arrested on outstanding
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warrants rather than anything to do with leanna warner's case but he was one of the individuals that they named at that
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press conference as having an interest in speaking with but while police did confirm that bertek was a convicted sex
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offender they said that after interviewing him he was being considered more of a witness than a suspect we see
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that in a lot of cases when somebody goes missing or there's possibly a crime within the
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area they do the old pedo roundup they realize some of these guys are not registered correctly
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some of these guys have warrants and they make arrests and so there's a lot of arrests that are that have nothing to
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do with the disappearance but that's just a byproduct of of this girl going missing right on these are issuing
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and um carrying out outstanding warrants on this guy and then after you speak with him you you can
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tell that he was in the area and you could probably back up what he was doing in his whereabouts during that time so
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he like anybody else in that neighborhood or that that general area would be now
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witness status of course in any missing child case investigators would not be doing their job if they did not take a
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hard look at those with the easiest access to the missing child and of course we're talking about the family
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authorities said fairly quickly that they were comfortable with what the family was telling them that lyanna
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disappeared while away from home and they had nothing to do with it in fact they don't seem to have suspected the
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parents at all or if they did it was very brief and behind the scenes reports indicate that the warners were
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not asked to take polygraphs as you pointed out captain but the fact is kaelin warner was one of the last people
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to see leanna lyanna could have returned home after finding that the quirks were out
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putting her home by 5 20 or so if that were the case then what happened her mother didn't call police until 8 48 pm
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and we know that based off of the phone records and everybody else involved in this case so what do we know about the
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warners the media covering the case revealed that kailyn and chris had been married before and there was some
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indication of turmoil in at least one of their relationships the year before lyanna was born in 1998 chris warner and
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his ex-wife got into a violent confrontation involving blows both sought mutual restraining orders and
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chris's ex maintaining that he had an uncontrollable temper chris's petition for a restraining order stated that his
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ex-wife had threatened kailyn and her two daughters from a her previous marriage
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authorities looked at the situation but said that the incident with the ex-wife quote didn't raise any red flags
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now we don't know how thoroughly they looked into the ex-wife but we i would say that raises some flags
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yeah and you should look into it but again if she has a solid alibi then maybe that's why they moved on well
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and it sounds like a lot of this a lot of these issues between him and his ex by then they may have buried the
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hatchet right because the the the confrontation the violent confrontation between the two occurred in 1998. uh
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leanna warner didn't go missing until 2003. chris warner was a heavy equipment mechanic
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at a nearby employer as well as a volunteer for the ambulance service he shared a son anthony warner with his
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ex-wife kaelin was a manager at easy stop a convenience store in chisholm there is another weird story involving
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lyanna and the warners that came out and again investigators dismissed it as amounting to nothing but it is a little
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strange according to the warners and this is the warner's telling us this story someone reported to social
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services that leanna had been tied up the warner's told the social worker investigating the complaint
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that liana was playing with neighborhood kids and they had been playing maypole and had used lyanna as the maypole while
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they wrapped a jump rope around her it's hard to know whether social services dismiss this as a simple
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child's game or child's play or whether there was a file opened on the warner's this is one of those situations where
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it's like you can understand if there was a misunderstanding but you also go okay well it's hard to believe that
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somebody would bother to report this incident if they didn't feel that there was really something here it also seems
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captain that we're sitting here 18 years later and if this was a red flag if this was
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something that we should really question call into question the people investigating the
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disappearance and and the possible suspects are not dummies this is not something that slips past the goalie
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here this is something that would be at the top of the stack as far as information goes on the parents and
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something they would have looked at and something they would have questioned both chris and kalyn about all right so
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we have this issue of question some of the behavior question letting the child go off on her own
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i think that's all fair game so you have to wonder could the parents have some responsibility here do they know what
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happened to their daughter is one guilty and not the other all kinds of questions
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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
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gut feeling that i don't see the parents having any involvement in the disappearance of this little girl
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the only involvement i see is people that were desperate to find her and went to every effort that they
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possibly could if somebody told them that they here's something that could help your
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case or help you find your daughter they did it they didn't hold back well also with christopher being a
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volunteer emt worker a volunteer emt worker that if there was some accident they wouldn't try to cover it up
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they would call call squad and and try to get her help immediately here's a couple things that i want to
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point out to people too and it doesn't seem like the general public consider the parents to be suspects either and i
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think that anybody that really takes a good hard look at this case what you're going to see is a couple
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things it looks to me that chris was gone during the time in question and an ambulance run at 6 20
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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
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be documentation of this so on and so forth that's pretty straightforward to me now we can call into question
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kalin's decision making as a parent we can call in a question the wiggle room in the
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timeline that the sheriff referenced the other thing too you know we're quick to point out hey
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eyewitnesses are not always great about giving you an exact time on something because they're not sitting there
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noting everything that happened that day and noting what time that they witness something right so with her having this
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moving time of when leanna left her site it could be just that exact same situation she said that we just got back
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from the lake i was busy unloading the car bringing in stuff that we purchased at these garage sales
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and the kids badgering me about wanting to go to her friend's house i really didn't want her to go there
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and i told her she could go well what time was that well i don't know it was after we got home from the lake
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well that's when that's when sometimes you can arrive at the wrong time by the encouragement of law enforcement
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because incur they're encouraging you because they're telling you look i understand you weren't looking at the
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clock i need you to ballpark this thing for me or at least give me a guess i need something a starting point
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and she may have given a bad time we we're talking about a mother who's busy the reason why i think that law
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enforcement did not consider them suspects and didn't consider them suspects early on is
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the window of time to do something to this little girl dispose and conceal that crime
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takes time and effort and i think that when they really broke down the timeline and the people that
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were seeing the parents interacting with the parents and the what the eyewitness
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statements were that saw the little girl at 5 15 did not give a window of time that anybody could have
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done anything and covered it up and we don't know what kind of searches that law enforcement did on their vehicles
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and so if if you have cadaver dogs sniff the vehicles if you run some tests on the vehicles
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you're gonna go well we we don't believe she was transported well and nine times
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out of ten hopefully it should be 10 out of 10 this is pretty standard police protocol but if you are
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responding to a call about a missing child the first thing you ask the parents of course you want to know what
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were they wearing when did you last see them but one of the first actions that you
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actually take beyond asking questions of the parents or any person that may have seen the child
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is ma'am we understand that your daughter's missing we're going to search the neighborhood we're going to ask you know
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we're going to search the area we need to search your home first and that happens in in every case that
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i've ever reviewed that is the first action that seems to be taken when police are responding to that type of
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call and i have no reason to believe that that did not happen here and that also could be backing the thoughts of
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law enforcement that these people didn't have anything to do with it i also want to point out
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one big problem with the parents being guilty of anything or or or uh kalyn being guilty of having done anything
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they weren't the kailyn wasn't the only person home that day remember her the daughter the other daughter
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was with them for the entirety of that day she was 10 years old at that time now she's not an adult obviously but
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she's also not a little kid if something bad happened she could tell us about that and the 10
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year old daughter was active in the neighborhood search for lyanna almost immediately yeah it'd be hard to one
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convince her that you have you have to lie for mommy and two that she would be able have the
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capability to put on a great acting show for the public right and the other thing
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too is both kailyn the daughter that was 10 years old at the time and chris warner have remained
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active in front of the media on this case for 18 years so this 10 year old daughter is now an
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adult and she continues to do interviews about this case so it again there doesn't seem to be time
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for anything to happen involving kailyn well two kind of creepy things and like you said when
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they when they when law enforcement shows up at the scene they go hey let's search the house
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but they also start asking the parents like did anything weird happen in the last month or so has there been
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a vehicle that's been seen in the neighborhood have you seen some uh creepy character
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walking around one of the things that they said was well she one night when we went into
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leanne's room she was sleeping in her closet because she was afraid that the monsters outside her window were gonna
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get hurt yeah that's a very curious situation to this whole story and unfortunately this happens
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daily where a child is afraid of something and we don't know exactly what it is as a parent
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and most of the time it's almost always it's nothing here it's something we really call into question
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because of the state of this case where we have a little girl who disappears and
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we can't find any trace of her but like you said a child being afraid of the monsters under her bed or monsters under
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her closet you hear that more than you hear monsters outside my window right and in this situation you do have
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the parents who would be later telling us that they thought that lyanna was behaving oddly
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in the days or maybe even weeks leading up to her disappearance which is very interesting to me and we'll dive
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into that some more but while we're still talking about the parents you know i don't want to get accused of
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leaving anything out here because we do have a situation where a few months this was october after
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their daughter went missing we do have a violent altercation between the two parents uh kailyn and chris
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where apparently kalyn attempted to run chris over with their vehicle almighty they had apparently they had
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some kind of disagreement earlier that day or earlier that night to which police responded to their home
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and settled the matter whatever it was at the time and then within an hour or so
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this argument is now taking place in their vehicle as they're driving to which a very frustrated chris warner
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gets out of the vehicle and says that he would be walking the rest of the way home i'm sure he probably said it in in
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a different manner but uh kalyn uh hit the gas pedal and and took off after him in the vehicle
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and he jumped out of the way he received some scrapes maybe a couple of bruises but uh what
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happened was kaelin ended up being charged with a a misdemeanor in that case but the police have been extremely
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vocal about that situation saying look we spoke with the couple before this happened and we spoke with
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them obviously afterwards and we have kaelin who she says that the gears got jammed up
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and and she kind of lost control of the vehicle so she denies the saying that you know she denies that she
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attempted to hit her husband with the vehicle regardless of what actually happened we
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have the police saying this matter and leanna's disappearance are not connected they are two completely separate matters
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the couple was fighting they were arguing but they were not arguing about lyanna or anything about the case
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and look i'm not gonna lie to you captain this seemed very troubling to me because what it shows is
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angry impulsive behavior especially on kailyn's behalf which we know that she's on her behalf her own word well she's
00:22:38
the one that if 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
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to hit her husband with the car that's the violence getting out of a vehicle and saying i'm
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gonna walk home is not a violent act at all but what we have here is we have a person who is
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admittedly the last person the last family member to see leanna so that really made me call a lot of things into
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question but then i found this little tidbit here that made me feel completely different
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and go back to what my gut was telling me in the beginning that kalyn and the family has nothing to do with this
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this comes from patty wetterling whose son jacob disappeared in 1989 and when at the time when she is quoted
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in this article this is 2003. so keep in mind jacob disappeared in 1989 and by this point in the article he had never
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been found they didn't know what happened to him they knew he was abducted she says in this article
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that she's would like to discourage anyone from making a judgment about the warners because of this particular
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incident she says quote nobody knows what it's like to have your child missing for this
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long people always ask me did it bring us closer together and i say no it's just the opposite
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jerry who is her husband jerry and i went through some very hard times with so much anger frustration and anxiety
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it's absolutely the biggest test you ever go through as a couple it's a nightmare now we know that the
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wetterlings have nothing to do with what happened to their son jacob they were victimized just
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like everybody else in that situation and i think that what what we have patty wetterling telling us
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here is very interesting to me because this is the way that i've always kind of seen
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these types of situations right if in the wetterling case it was the father that decided yeah you guys can ride your
00:24:49
bikes down to the video store and pick up a video this was after mom said no you can't
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you cannot tell me that there are not arguments between mom and dad over who's responsible who wasn't a good
00:25:03
parent who didn't do their job if he was in my care this would never have happened
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because you get sad your your heart breaks and then you get angry those are natural feelings
00:25:14
and i have to believe in leanna's case something very similar very likely happened
00:25:20
where you get in a disagreement about this that or the other thing but your heart is broken and you're hurting and
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you want somebody to lash out to and it might be easy to go you know what mom you told her she could walk down there
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why the hell would you let a five-year-old walk down there by herself if she were with me that day this would
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never have happened and you can't tell me that that woman's not going to defend her self as a mother
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so i can see this playing out exactly how it did and have nothing to do with the case and not suggest that they
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are guilty of anything other than being grieving parents that are hurting and heartbroken
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all right just to put a bow on this here captain regarding this situation we need
00:26:03
to point out that chris warner stood by his wife telling the media that kaelin was on
00:26:08
edge and had reached a breaking point he blamed this on a montel williams show that the two recently taped but it had
00:26:16
not aired yet at this point now on the show the psychic sylvia brown told the warners that lyanna was murdered and
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buried in a shallow grave not far from their home chris warner says they didn't know
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that that's what was going to happen during the taping of the show they didn't know that somebody was going to
00:26:37
tell them that they thought she was murdered and buried near their home remember at this point we're just months
00:26:43
into the case and they're still holding out hope that their daughter is alive and i think they felt like they were
00:26:48
blindsided by this and they said that they left the taping feeling used and upset
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by the montel williams show and that this was something that that created an issue
00:27:01
between the two of the parents and it was it was just not good i mean this was they kind of felt like
00:27:09
we're down and you're gonna kick us while we're down so i think one can see quickly how
00:27:14
these types of things can happen [Music] all right you knuckleheads hey front and the back front in the back
00:27:48
to the windows to the wall cheers everybody cheers everybody on september 15 2003 this is three months
00:27:57
after leanna disappeared news reports began to surface about an interesting development a man
00:28:04
named matthew james curtis age 24 had been questioned multiple times in connection with leanna's case police
00:28:13
talked to him the day after leanna vanished and again four days later questions included police asking about
00:28:21
his whereabouts and when lyanna was last seen curtis lived at a house near the warner's in the neighborhood in fact
00:28:31
just a couple of houses down at the time that lyanna went missing according to a
00:28:35
news article in the virginia m n paper police spoke with curtis in the course of the investigation into lyanna
00:28:46
presumably because he was such a close neighbor whatever they learned during these interviews was enough for them to
00:28:52
get a warrant to search his home and when they went out to carry out this search warrant there they found kitty
00:29:00
porn on his computer so curtis was arrested charged and released on bail on september 17th
00:29:09
curtis was found dead of an apparent suicide three men were practicing archery in a
00:29:16
gravel pit area on national forest land and found curtis's body this is about eight miles from his home right he was
00:29:24
found with a plastic bag tied over his head and the cause of death after an autopsy was declared to be
00:29:31
self-inflicted asphyxiation the sheriff's department said it was investigating to
00:29:38
see whether there was any connection between the two cases and said that curtis had never been declared an
00:29:44
official suspect but had never been cleared either on the day curtis's body was found he
00:29:50
was out on bail and was scheduled to appear in court for that child porn charge but he failed to appear he killed
00:29:57
himself before the court appointment the sheriff's department searched the gravel
00:30:02
pit in curtis's home twice but found no signs of lyanna what we don't know is what turned police
00:30:08
onto curtis in the first place what was the basis for that search warrant well at the time that lyanna
00:30:15
went missing there was a man that some people say maybe was in his 30s was walking around
00:30:22
the neighborhood uh described as approximately 5 10 to 6 foot and had some kind of dark tattoo so i
00:30:33
always wondered there was like i said people in the area saying that there was this suspicious
00:30:38
guy walking the neighborhood did they connect that back to curtis i guess that could be a
00:30:45
possibility but that statement from police when they're looking for the person of that description
00:30:51
comes it's made public after the suicide no after they requested the search warrant for his home
00:31:00
so what's difficult here is we know based off of what the police are telling us that they spoke with this curtis
00:31:06
character the day after lyanna went missing and then again four days later okay so some so we can just assume that
00:31:13
something within that questioning made him go something's not right here that's what i'm thinking captain i agree with
00:31:20
that something during the course of them stepping foot into his home or standing
00:31:24
on his front doorstep and asking him questions told them this guy his home is of interest to us
00:31:33
specifically in this liana case and that could be something as simple as this guy seemed extremely nervous
00:31:42
when we were asking him that day after that she was missing right or he couldn't tell us where he was or had no
00:31:48
alibi or he was sweating profusely or he told us something on day one and then told us something different on day four
00:31:56
it could really be any number of things but the thing that's crazy here is that when they do get that search warrant
00:32:03
they search his home they file child pornography on his computer well that doesn't look very good
00:32:09
especially when this dude lives just a few doors down from the warners yeah i never like it when there's a
00:32:16
suicide in the sense of we don't have answers then and my gut always goes towards
00:32:26
this suspect you commit suicide you you're so distraught about what you did you can't
00:32:33
even live with yourself and suicide is not a obvious sign of guilt doesn't necessarily mean that he
00:32:39
felt guilty or or did something to lyanna i mean really he could have killed himself for any number of reasons
00:32:46
and he's not around to tell us why he did so we do have the warner's lyanna's parents who say hey you know we
00:32:54
saw this guy around the neighborhood but never saw lyanna interacting with him and we
00:32:59
didn't personally know him i do know that police continued to look into curtis postmortem
00:33:07
they did admit shamefully admitted that it would have been desirable for them to have talked
00:33:13
to him some more which possibly they were going to do that after he was charged or convicted we don't know but
00:33:19
of course now they will never get the chance to do so we do know that the minnesota bca
00:33:28
confiscated matthew james curtis's truck after he killed himself and processed it for forensic evidence
00:33:36
of lyanna's presence to see if you know they could find any proof that she had ever been inside his vehicle right
00:33:43
this did include dna and fingerprints and fibers and hairs they couldn't find any trace of lyanna having ever been in
00:33:50
that truck but we do need to point out this was after matthew james curtis's death which took place in september
00:33:58
leanne warner went missing the 14th of june so there would have been plenty of time for one to
00:34:06
clean this vehicle if one needed to do so well like i was saying to me when there's a suicide in the case you know
00:34:13
take like the amy mahalovic case when there's a suspect that takes their own life
00:34:19
my gut points to that that suspect but here is a different case because he's found
00:34:26
because when they're investigating this missing girl case they find this individual we don't know what led them
00:34:35
i'm guessing like we were talking about before when they're interviewing him he says
00:34:40
something not correctly or maybe just acts strangely and then when they when they do get the search warrant
00:34:48
they find child pornography and that could be enough for this individual to say hey look my life's not going right i
00:34:56
maybe have this i'm a sick individual for looking at this stuff i have these urges that i'm
00:35:01
trying to control and that's why he took his life so there are types out there that have
00:35:08
these fantasies urges whatever you want to call them desires and they never act on them
00:35:16
i mean we just don't know again it's a situation i'm with you captain it's you hate the suicides one
00:35:23
uh for any you know you hate the suicide for a million different reasons but one of
00:35:28
the big reasons especially in this case is that it creates another mystery in this case it creates one less person
00:35:35
to talk to and in my opinion this guy in in the humble goat garage opinion here captain this matthew james curtis
00:35:45
guy i would put him in the top three of suspects in this case now that's going to lead us to another
00:35:53
top three suspect and this is an individual that i despise one of the most hated men on the planet
00:36:03
as far as my mind goes that's not a nice way to talk about me this is a guy that
00:36:07
we've spoke about several times here in the garage and i never enjoy talking about him i'm talking about joseph
00:36:13
edward duncan iii so we're gonna jump ahead two years in this case to july of 2005.
00:36:22
now of course leanna's case is continuing to be worked at this time but meanwhile in coeur d'alene idaho
00:36:28
investigators captured suspected murderer and sex offender joseph e duncan he was charged with the abduction
00:36:36
of eight-year-old shasta grony and suspected of murdering shasta's 13 year old brother
00:36:42
mother boyfriend and missing nine-year-old brother dylan now you may remember for the long time
00:36:50
listeners joining us here in the garage today you may recall that we covered this case in our fifth nail episodes the
00:36:58
fifth nail was a blog basically an online rant written by joseph duncan in which he published his rambling
00:37:06
fantasies and dark thoughts he also talked about his love for computers you may also recall that duncan served
00:37:13
time in prison for the rape of a 14 year old tacoma washington boy when duncan was just 16 years old himself he was
00:37:21
released in 2000 so how does duncan's case possibly tie into leanna's case chief erickson
00:37:29
said that federal investigators were tracing joseph duncan's movements over the past
00:37:34
few years because of a posting on his fifth nail blog that appeared on january 4th
00:37:40
2004 in fact this post was the first of the fifth nail blog duncan wrote that learning about
00:37:48
lyanna's case was quote the proverbial last straw that led him to start his blog to rant about the stigma of being a
00:37:57
convicted sex offender yeah because that's what we want to hear about he does not mention leanna by name and
00:38:03
it seems that he felt the need to construct an alibi for the time that lyanna went missing
00:38:10
the exact words of the post were quote just found out that a five-year-old girl went missing from chisholm minnesota
00:38:18
on june 14 2003 i did not even know until today this happened so i have tried to figure out what i was
00:38:26
doing that day since i'm always afraid of getting accused when something like this happens end quote the post said
00:38:33
that duncan wanted to be sure that he figured out his whereabouts in june of 2003 when leanna vanished so that he
00:38:39
wouldn't be accused of being the one that abducted her he says he was doing this for his own safety and wrote i
00:38:47
figure it is just a matter of time before i am falsely accused of some crime or another
00:38:53
well yes you will be accused i don't know if it will be falsely in several different cases we know captain just to
00:39:01
for the people that didn't listen to the fifth nail he was convicted of all those
00:39:05
crimes he was accused of or thought to have done this guy has a dirt bag he's an animal he basically murdered a whole
00:39:12
family so he could abduct the two youngest children and he had those kids with him for a
00:39:18
long period of time where he tormented and tortured the kids yeah thankfully one of them was found alive
00:39:26
and is still alive and doing well to this day all these years later another thing to
00:39:31
be thankful about is they were able to tie joseph duncan to some other homicides and i suspect he's probably
00:39:38
done others that we are unaware of duncan was not the type to admit to any of his crimes he was the type that
00:39:47
one he would like to play games mind games and torment and tease the police and the public in the media
00:39:54
and i think that was a big part of the reason why he created his blog so he could do that from behind prison walls
00:40:01
the other thing too is that when you did finally convict him of something he would go out of his way
00:40:08
to explain to the public that the victims were not so innocent themselves that they had some blame in this and he
00:40:15
blamed some of the victims that he killed for their own deaths which is just completely bizarre in demonic behavior
00:40:25
in my opinion thankfully we can sit here in the garage today and raise a glass real high because joseph duncan passed
00:40:32
away last year and i hope he enjoyed every minute of it now chief erickson stated in this case that there was
00:40:40
nothing specific tying duncan to lyanna but did say it's very suspicious that he
00:40:45
brought the case up on his blog in fact if we are to believe joseph duncan he says that the case is what started the
00:40:53
whole blog to begin with blog more like clog i again duncan's a hard guy to get to put your finger on
00:41:01
i don't know if he would do this as something just simply to taunt i'm never putting my finger on him
00:41:06
police or lyanna's family i also don't think that he's above enjoying being suspected of crimes he
00:41:15
didn't commit yeah it's attention seeking you're exactly well looks like you just
00:41:21
put your finger on him told you i'm not gonna touch that son of a [ __ ] duncan says that he according to
00:41:28
his records that he was able to figure out what he claims to have been doing that day was watching some co-workers
00:41:34
parachute and that he did some shopping but could not find any receipts which makes sense he's locked up
00:41:43
anyway duncan did live in fargo north dakota and was when he was arrested on the grony case
00:41:50
but he was wanted on child molestation charges stemming from an incident in detroit lakes minnesota in 2004. now
00:41:57
fargo north dakota is much closer to detroit lakes minnesota than it is to chisholm minnesota and in fact
00:42:05
much closer to detroit lakes than detroit lakes is to chisholm minnesota if that makes sense uh duncan was
00:42:12
arrested for molesting a six-year-old boy on a playground in detroit lakes which is about a three hour drive from
00:42:20
chisholm minnesota now i do want to point out the other crimes that he did he would have had to drive a long
00:42:27
distance to do so so i can't i cannot completely just go alright he he says he was doing this on that day
00:42:37
and the distance between him and where this disappearance took place i don't think any of that rules him out
00:42:44
in fact there was uh one person who's done some good gangbusters work here and online an online sleuther that
00:42:52
posted that a treasure hunt winner found a treasure hunt winner log of a camping and scuba trip putting joseph
00:43:02
duncan in crosby minnesota in august of 2003. so this is interesting it's it's not you know it would be weeks away from
00:43:12
the disappearance but it puts him much closer in proximity to chisholm minnesota and it lists jet
00:43:20
duncan on this treasure hunt winner log joseph duncan called himself jet duncan he won a snorkel mask and defogger
00:43:32
in that contest by july 21st of 2005 investigators stated publicly that they had cleared
00:43:40
duncan of any possible involvement in leanna's disappearance i have no idea how or why they reached
00:43:47
this conclusion the best that i can think of captain they we know that investigators seized video
00:43:54
footage that duncan took the day of his co-worker skydiving so there that's not in question he he was there and
00:44:03
witnessed these people skydiving at some point the time stamp shows that they were diving in the afternoon the airport
00:44:11
where the dive took place is about a four-hour drive from chisholm i would like to see that exact time
00:44:18
stamp i would like to interview those people his co-workers can we determine 100 percent that he was
00:44:26
where he was when that time stamp says could he have altered that time stamp in any manner right those are just the the
00:44:32
questions that i have again he's such a horrible and despicable person i think if he's talking about a case and he's
00:44:41
putting himself on your radar you cannot remove him from your radar until you need to definitive proof yeah
00:44:50
because like we said this guy's a animal he's very capable of abducting a child that would that's
00:44:58
actually low on his list of what he's capable of you almost need the word of god to tell you that he did not do this
00:45:04
for for me to remove him he's i i'd like to move on from him now because i'm just sick of thinking about
00:45:11
him if that's okay with you captain well you're the go because this is going to bring us to
00:45:15
another story and probably the strangest portion of this case in my mind this this actually
00:45:24
gives me nightmares in 2006 some more information came to light and this was not news to the family this news is
00:45:35
going to come from the family because they say this is actually something that they discussed with investigators
00:45:41
but the investigators didn't seem to agree with them that this was an interesting avenue to investigate the
00:45:49
family decided at some point well you know what we're just going to tell the public about this we've told
00:45:53
investigators about this no you know i don't know if they have done stuff the investigators i don't
00:46:00
know if they did anything with this information or not they've never referenced it but the parents say that
00:46:04
the investigators did not seem interested in this information so now we're going to put it out to the public
00:46:10
and tell the world chris and kailyn warner went on the maury povich show this is october of 2006
00:46:19
and they decided that this information was worth disclosing after three years of it being largely ignored or given no
00:46:26
credence by police leanna they said one day came home with a case filled with barbie dolls and clothing for the
00:46:36
barbie dolls but would only tell her parents that she that she had got them from a little old
00:46:43
lady furthermore a week before she vanished their little daughter had packed up a
00:46:49
suitcase and said she was going to go live with her new family at her new family's house this was around the same
00:46:56
time that she started sleeping in the closet telling her father that there were monsters outside of her window yeah
00:47:03
to come home and see your daughter playing with maybe a a doll right and saying somebody gave it to her
00:47:13
okay maybe a garage sale in the neighborhood maybe she was playing with the doll at her
00:47:22
friend's house parents said hey just take this but when there's a doll and there's
00:47:27
a case filled with dolls and clothes multiple items and all she can say is it came from a little old lady that's it's
00:47:36
pretty creepy well yeah and let's go back to you know we referenced an online sleuther putting up
00:47:45
some information about uh duncan and his possible whereabouts you know in august of 2003
00:47:54
there was a person a woman who posted on tape a talk's website under the leanna warner discussion group
00:48:02
that says that she was about 12 years old at the time when leanna went missing and
00:48:07
was a sitter a regular sitter for lyanna she tells a story that once at the park
00:48:15
with leanna that leanna had told her she was going on a trip without her parents
00:48:20
now again this is something that somebody's posting online i can't verify that this
00:48:26
person was an actual babysitter for lyanna i can't verify that this story took place
00:48:32
it does seem to line up with some information that lyanna's parents are saying that they said in 2006.
00:48:40
so i found that to be incredibly interesting the thing that this really reminds me of here captain is is a case
00:48:47
that we've discussed here in the garage the asia degree case out of north carolina
00:48:54
this is where asia seems to have taken off on foot in the middle of the night we don't know where she was going or why
00:49:04
but she disappears we've never found any trace of her the only thing that they found after she went missing was a
00:49:11
strange photo of another little girl and this photo's never been identified there's never been anybody that came
00:49:17
forward that said oh i was that person in the photo or i was the person that gave
00:49:23
asia that photo right so to me that photo will always be tied to her disappearance and the reason possible
00:49:30
reason for her leaving her home that night and then in this case very same situation right it's it seems
00:49:38
very similar to me captain where we have the parents telling the public you know somebody gave our daughter all
00:49:44
these barbie dolls and all the clothing to go with these barbie dolls we asked her where she got them some little old
00:49:50
lady gave them to her we've never that was in 2006. let me check my calendar it's 2021.
00:49:57
we've never had anybody come forward and say i was that person that gave her those dolls
00:50:02
i i you know they were used to be my daughters my kid had grown up i had them laying around i was going to throw them
00:50:08
out or i was going to put them in up in a garage sale i saw the little kid gave them to her there's never been
00:50:14
anybody come forward and say or people come forward and say oh i know who gave them to her you know there's no
00:50:21
answer to this question well that's why it reminds me of the a ramsay case because day john benedict ramsay goes
00:50:28
missing she is telling people that santa claus is coming to visit her after christmas it's just one of those
00:50:36
weird stories where you're never going to get that out of your head why is this little girl playing with
00:50:42
like you said it's a collection of dolls and a collection of clothes for those dolls who was this
00:50:50
little old lady did the little old lady even exist because these individuals that abduct children and thank god it's
00:50:58
such a rare crime but even these individuals that groom children or molest them or try to
00:51:06
groom them into some kind of bizarro relationship they're very manipulative they're very
00:51:13
in tune to how to trick these kids it's much easier for them if they can get and convince the kid to go along
00:51:21
with whatever it is that the adult wants to do willingly rather than kicking and screaming
00:51:27
it doesn't have to be a little old lady i'm i'm with you i want to know who the little old lady is but then i also
00:51:32
wonder could it have been a 20-something year old man or a 30-something-year-old man that says
00:51:40
oh if anybody asks where you got these right you know i don't want to have to come and take them from you
00:51:46
if mom and dad or mom finds out that you got them from me you're going to get in
00:51:50
trouble right just tell them that you got them from a little old lady here's the other thing that's interesting too
00:51:56
to me we know that both of leanna's parents came from they were they were married before they were married to each
00:52:03
other if i'm an outsider and i'm viewing this situation or i have any idea of that oh
00:52:10
you got you got brothers and sisters that have other families well guess what little leanna
00:52:16
you have another family too just like your brothers and sisters you've just not met them yet
00:52:23
and here's a gift from one of your family members yeah but there's also sickos that
00:52:29
want to want to steal children and raise them as their own yeah they see this precious
00:52:38
beautiful little girl and they go i want her i want her to be mine and that's equally
00:52:47
possible i think captain you and i we stand in agreement here that these three scenarios are of the most
00:52:55
interest to us yeah i agree these individuals joseph edward duncan who for no rhyme or reason decides to
00:53:03
discuss the case on his blog we certainly know the horror horrific acts that he is capable of
00:53:11
right we have the guy that lives just a couple doors down that's caught with child pornography
00:53:17
in his home and he during the course of questioning he goes from being a possible witness to
00:53:26
somebody that police have such an interest in that they get a search warrant to search his home and that's
00:53:31
when they find the child pornography in his house yeah and that is matthew james
00:53:37
curtis and then this weird story about lyanna having another family or going to live with her other family and receiving
00:53:46
this gift from a quote-unquote little old lady is really bizarre stuff i think those three things
00:53:54
to me in this case where you have a lot of questionable behavior and a lot of persons of interest and we've discussed
00:54:02
a lot of those those three for me sit at the top of my list as far as the disappearance to leanna warner well and
00:54:10
don't forget about the monsters outside her window that are going to come take her away lyanna's parents
00:54:17
chris and kailyn have moved away from the home in chisholm that lyanna lived in with them they say that this decision
00:54:25
was very hard for them and that they were worried that she might not be able to find them should she return but it
00:54:31
seems after 18 years of holding on to hope on the basis of nothing reality has prevailed they still leave the porch
00:54:40
light on though cases like the solving of jacob wetterling's abduction and the three ohio women found in ariel castro's
00:54:48
basement continue to give them hope and the fact that no trace of lyanna was found in the thorough
00:54:56
and painstaking searches of a wide radius makes part of them believe that she was taken out of the area and
00:55:04
possibly could still be alive most likely chris warner believes that she may be a victim of a black market
00:55:13
abduction 2021 marks 18 years since leanna vanished the now chisholm police chief
00:55:21
believes that lyanna was abducted and investigators in law enforcement have said
00:55:27
the same thing within a week or so of the case that they believe this is one of those rare
00:55:33
cases of stranger abduction they still consider this to be very much an open case
00:55:40
but everyone is incredibly frustrated because there seems to be nothing to go on in 2013 the national center for
00:55:49
missing and exploited children released an age progression picture of what leanna might look like at the age of 15
00:55:58
and continues to issue flyers and posters about liam [Music] [Music] as always we want to hear from you
00:56:30
on any of the episodes that we covered we want to hear your thoughts and opinions because we know you guys are no
00:56:36
dumb dumbs no dumb dumb heads here in the garage colonel do we have any recommended
00:56:43
reading uh yes we do captain a little recommended reading also maybe a little more of the recommended
00:56:50
listening this week we are recommending they call me baba bowie we're gonna step
00:56:55
outside of true crime and have a little fun this is for anyone that's a howard stern fan i highly recommend the audio
00:57:03
version of they call me baba bowie by the great gary delebate you can find that recommendation as well as many
00:57:12
others on our website truecrimegarage.com some say it's the best book ever written
00:57:20
some say that and until next week be good be kind and don't litter [Music] [Applause]
00:57:35
[Music] you

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    Most heartbreaking
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Episode Highlights

  • Welcome to True Crime Garage
    Hosts Nick and the Captain introduce the episode and thank listeners for their support.
    “Thanks for listening, thanks for telling a friend.”
    @ 00m 57s
    August 30, 2021
  • Beer Review: Sweet Magnolias
    The hosts review an imperial stout and give it a solid five out of five.
    “Grade A solid five out of five bottle caps!”
    @ 01m 23s
    August 30, 2021
  • The Case of Lee Allen Wu
    A convicted sex offender becomes a person of interest in the case of Leanna Warner.
    “He stole a vehicle on the same day that Leanna disappeared.”
    @ 03m 45s
    August 30, 2021
  • Questioning the Parents
    Discussion on the parents' behavior and their potential involvement in Leanna's disappearance.
    “Could the parents have some responsibility here?”
    @ 12m 51s
    August 30, 2021
  • Patty Wetterling's Insight
    Patty Wetterling shares her heart-wrenching experience of having a missing child.
    “Nobody knows what it's like to have your child missing for this long.”
    @ 23m 53s
    August 30, 2021
  • The Tragic Suicide of Matthew Curtis
    Matthew Curtis, a person of interest in Leanna's case, was found dead of suicide.
    “I never like it when there's a suicide.”
    @ 32m 16s
    August 30, 2021
  • Joseph Duncan's Disturbing Blog Post
    Joseph Duncan's blog post references Leanna's case, raising suspicions about his involvement.
    “Learning about Leanna's case was the proverbial last straw that led him to start his blog.”
    @ 37m 51s
    August 30, 2021
  • The Investigation Deepens
    Investigators seized video footage showing Duncan's presence during the skydiving incident.
    @ 43m 52s
    August 30, 2021
  • Family's Frustration
    The Warner family reveals information they feel was ignored by investigators.
    @ 45m 51s
    August 30, 2021
  • The Creepy Doll Case
    Leanna's strange connection to a 'little old lady' raises unsettling questions.
    @ 47m 36s
    August 30, 2021
  • Hope After 18 Years
    Despite years of searching, Leanna's family continues to hold onto hope.
    @ 54m 31s
    August 30, 2021
  • Open Case Status
    Law enforcement considers Leanna's disappearance a rare case of stranger abduction.
    @ 55m 39s
    August 30, 2021

Episode Quotes

  • You stink, my friend. You need to get off the record.
    LeeAnna Warner /// Part 2 /// 517
  • I feel pretty confident, but it's just a guess and it's just a gut feeling.
    LeeAnna Warner /// Part 2 /// 517
  • It's absolutely the biggest test you ever go through as a couple.
    LeeAnna Warner /// Part 2 /// 517
  • Suicide creates another mystery.
    LeeAnna Warner /// Part 2 /// 517
  • He's such a horrible and despicable person.
    LeeAnna Warner /// Part 2 /// 517
  • Why is this little girl playing with dolls?
    LeeAnna Warner /// Part 2 /// 517

Key Moments

  • True Crime Garage00:40
  • Beer Fund Cheers01:27
  • Missing Person Investigation03:12
  • Parental Concerns12:51
  • Missing Child Pain23:53
  • Suicide Mystery35:30
  • Video Evidence Seized43:52
  • Hope Remains54:31

Words per Minute Over Time

Vibes Breakdown