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brand [Music] [Music] never [Music] welcome to True crab garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks for
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with with this week's beer fund check us out check out the store Page check out the blog check out the recommended
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reading at truecrime garage.com yeah and that's enough of the business all right everybody gather
00:03:11
around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true [Music] crime [Music] jal's grandparents Barbara and her
00:03:43
husband Dennis Smith well they publicly called out their son-in-law Steven in a capital news9 piece Barbara said quote I
00:03:53
believe that step is the only one who knows what happened to jelik on November 1st and I do believe he harmed him she
00:04:03
elaborated that earlier in 2007 Joselyn asked Steven to leave the home because she was afraid he would
00:04:11
harm the children according to Barbara Steven had anger management issues and had been going to counseling for them
00:04:20
they were so bad that Joselyn had made him move out of the family home for brief periods this twice in 2007 because
00:04:29
of aggressive behavior towards the children and after the stream incident that we talked about yesterday Joselyn
00:04:38
forced Steven to pen a letter of apology to jelik for this and made him do the child's chores for one month Barbara and
00:04:48
Dennis enthusiastically helped Elaine person found the find jelik task force getting Billboards erected holding video
00:04:59
uals and organizing volunteer searches those searches continued weekly even after police scaled back their official
00:05:07
searches for jelik this in May of 2008 and also in May of 2008 Barbara petition the court to assign custody of
00:05:18
jelik over to her so that she could more actively pursue legal Avenues to locating him such as obtaining medical
00:05:27
records and contacting homeless shelters on his behalf she said she also wanted to ensure that the boy had a safe and
00:05:36
stable home to come back to in the event that he was still alive a Warren County
00:05:43
Judge ruled against her in July Jeffrey McMorris he's the attorney for the parents said of her request quote the
00:05:53
grandmother here was just worried about her own publicity end quote this lawyer has big of a dirt bag as the father is
00:06:02
at least he's getting paid to do so the the father's just being a dirt bag for fre no no he was he's getting paid too
00:06:09
he's getting paid by the state that's true so they're both paid dirt bags continuing with July 2008 here Captain
00:06:17
the Albany Times Union reported that jal's grandmother the one that we were just praising was arrested and charged
00:06:24
with second degree burglary this is based on a complaint from Joselyn in Steven apparently Barbara entered the
00:06:33
unlocked Raven Way house this is where they were living right and used a flashlight to do a little snooping a
00:06:43
little poking around if you will remember Steven and Joselyn were no longer living there at this time they
00:06:50
had already moved off to Vermont a neighbor reported that someone was in the house you know you can you've seen
00:06:57
this in the movies the all the light lights are out it's supposed to be dark over at the neighbor's home oh no you
00:07:02
can see someone walking around with a flashlight in there so the neighbor reported someone was in the house and
00:07:09
since her entry technically was unauthorized by the owners Barbara was facing charges for this she did plea not
00:07:19
guilty in court in a court proceeding which took place on July 15th I think more interesting than her arrest is what
00:07:27
could she have possibly found in the house or what was she looking for well and whatever she would have found they
00:07:33
would have it probably wouldn't have been am missible in the court of law well what we do have is shortly after
00:07:40
this burglary and I don't think this is any coincidence at all the police executed a search warrant on the home
00:07:48
good well I look here's a couple things I applaud what she's trying to do I also
00:07:53
applaud that she has no problem throwing her son-in-law under the bus he doesn't
00:07:59
see seem to be cooperative he doesn't seem to give a [ __ ] you claim that this boy went missing on his own accord and
00:08:08
you move the none of this stuff makes any sense you're ripping down posters uh of this kid you are not Cooperative with
00:08:19
police you are caught lying over and over you're still collecting money for a kid that you're not taking care of you
00:08:29
you basically tried to kill this kid by Drowning him this is not a good dude and
00:08:35
I applaud the effort by turning on him and throwing him under the bus but at the same time we're not looking for a
00:08:43
missing person anymore we're we should be looking for a body if the father is responsible which it just makes the most
00:08:51
sense The Logical connection he's not responsible for the kid going missing he's responsible for the kid's death and
00:08:58
we need to be looking for a dead body what the police was looking for with their search warrant was one item of
00:09:06
Interest this was reported to be a piece of clothing that they stated that Barbara
00:09:12
saw while she was inside that home this was a bright yellow fleece pullover the one jelik was said to have been wearing
00:09:22
when he disappeared the same one that Searchers were looking for as they scanned the woods fields and waterways
00:09:30
usually that's one of the things that they're really pointing out here with in regards to the searches when you're
00:09:37
looking for someone it's very helpful when you're able to tell them tell the Searchers hey he or she was last seen
00:09:44
wearing this bright red sweater right or this bright yellow fleece pullover something that's easy to spot so you can
00:09:51
move and clear land and keep going well this fleece that they were told he was last wearing was found by Barbara in the
00:10:00
home and then later by police after they executed the search warant turns out obviously this thing was in the house
00:10:07
this whole time well it's just more proof that they're Liars it's odd too that it was even left
00:10:13
behind when they moved right like it this it it seems like an oversight because wouldn't this
00:10:21
be something you would try to get rid of if you realized after the fact oh this happens to still be here and I told
00:10:27
everybody this is what he was wearing I don't think these are good people I think these individuals try to use the
00:10:34
system well if we adopt these kids we're going to get set $1,500 a month as a stien we're not going to really clothe
00:10:42
these kids or take care of these kids we're not even going to try to pay for electricity or have Heating in the house
00:10:49
and so to me it's not an oversight that's just what kind of people these people are they're lazy pieces of [ __ ]
00:10:57
that don't want to work that don't want you know that don't want to care for people that they're going out of their
00:11:04
way to take responsibility of these kids but they don't even want to take care of
00:11:08
those kids they just want the stien therefore they don't have to work as hard and also kind of reminds you of the
00:11:16
Dior Coon's case where they found an article of clothing in their home that he was supposedly wearing when last seen
00:11:23
at the campsite yeah the police did submit this fleece for testing I don't know what really came of it there's not
00:11:32
been much said about it since it was located right we did have this weird voice analysis thing and we've seen this
00:11:38
in some other cases and this was brought in and gone about because remember Steven would not agree to the polygraph
00:11:45
test so some people said you know you can use data using data to determine whether he was lying or not with this
00:11:53
voice analysis stuff right so remember there was that strange inter interview that Steven and Joselyn gave to News 10
00:12:03
this was almost immediately after jelik disappeared all right the one where they
00:12:08
didn't really answer a bunch of questions correct well at the request of this fine jelik task force that has been
00:12:15
formed Texas Equis search brought in two leading voice analysis experts to use a
00:12:22
method called layered voice analysis which measures changes in voice frequency to detect truthfulness and
00:12:30
analyze the interview audio voice analysis expert and private investigator TJ Ward said quote I have dealt with
00:12:39
family members and this is not the way family members react to someone missing not at all end quote
00:12:47
okay but what do you make of this bringing in this expert does it doesn't seem like a huge
00:12:55
waste of time to you we already have evidence that this guy is a liar so why spend any more time on the fact that
00:13:02
he's not truthful well you're grasping for straws here is what you're doing it's it's you know it's the task force
00:13:10
bringing in these experts via Texas Equis search but do you think it's in some way shape or form like well we know
00:13:19
he's lying we know we've caught him lying multiple times right is this their way of if we bring them these experts
00:13:27
and maybe they state that he's lying maybe that puts a little more uh heat on the fire a little more flame uh a little
00:13:35
more pressure on him to possibly come forward it's an interesting tactic because it's not the police bringing in
00:13:42
these experts right and it probably didn't cost them anything to do this work and to publicly state that they are
00:13:51
doing this work really you're as you stated turn up the heat a little bit shake some trees see what falls out
00:14:00
maybe he maybe does feel the pressure and he goes and he talks to police I mean at some point in these
00:14:06
investigations when you really feel like you have the person or know the person to be responsible for whatever act it is
00:14:13
or misdeeds that were done if you got nothing on them you got nothing on them right but you still have them there in
00:14:21
the spotlight and they can react they can make mistakes we've seen this and I want to be clear about that alleged
00:14:30
behavior and actions of this man that don't seem to be well out or well planned and we've seen talk of him
00:14:40
flying off the handle maybe you turn up the heat and he does something dumb right well he he is dumb Barbara and
00:14:48
Elaine uh and jal's other Advocates prayed that these type of things would bring charges against Stephen Kerr but
00:14:57
we have to keep in mind just just like polygraphs this layered voice analysis the results of these are not admissible
00:15:05
in court articles noting the oneyear anniversary of jal's disappearance stated that police were still meeting
00:15:15
regularly to discuss the case and share any leads or tips that might have come in but the optimism was really fading
00:15:24
around this one-year anniversary well I was just going to say they need to be doing search is around his father's
00:15:31
cabin where they were at that night and and then the cabin that they lived in with kadaver dogs and and I don't know
00:15:39
if that has been done but th those are the searches that need to be done they they were doing that early on within
00:15:46
within the first hours and days of the boy having gone missing but the problem with all this is this is an area where
00:15:52
there's a lot of wooded area right so it's a lot of ground to cover yeah they did a fem radius search with the
00:16:01
assistance of many different agencies including the forest rangers the state forest rangers so around this first year
00:16:10
anniversary we have Chief Bell who states that at this point there was really little that they could do they
00:16:18
being the police other than investigate leads that were coming in and wait for a
00:16:25
break in the case cuz they've kind of exhausted everything by this point the investigation he said had cost a fortune
00:16:33
to that date putting the police department well over their budget the missing persons flyer issued they issued
00:16:41
a new one around the same time for jik by the state division of Criminal Justice
00:16:47
Services it was updated at this time to reflect that jalik had not run away but had disappeared under unknown
00:16:56
circumstances as for the parents the lawyer issued a statement saying that they continued to quote pray he is safe
00:17:06
and will return home soon do you think the mother just doesn't know I think that if the mother knows
00:17:14
what happened the only way she knows what happened is if she was told I don't think she witnessed anything firsthand
00:17:21
or was a part of anything in regards to the first 24 hours or 48 Hours of the boy being missing right 18 months age uh
00:17:30
into this thing roughly May 13th 2009 police and state force rangers searched the banks of the Baton Hill River this
00:17:41
is an area well it's it's an area that is called the hellhole and it's described
00:17:49
as a swirling bulge in the river water kadav dogs hit near this location and police were aware that steveen cerr was
00:17:58
was very familiar with the area sounds like a lovely place oh cuz he's a [ __ ] bag that goes with hell hole right well
00:18:05
the family would camp in this area and and had been known to do so hey kids let's go at the old hell
00:18:13
Hall nothing was found in this search of the banks uh Chief Bell said we continue
00:18:20
to get tips uh the interest has not died off we still want to find jelik this is all per
00:18:27
News 10 and about a year and 4 months later investigators returned to this area again this time with State Police dive
00:18:35
Crews on hand the water level of the Baton kill River fluctuated especially in the quote unquote hellhole and it was
00:18:46
often unsafe for divers quote it's a dangerous place to dive there is metal and rebar and other stuff down there
00:18:54
said Chief Bell this is per the Times Union the chief described the site as a Gorge at the bottom of a hydroelectric
00:19:03
Dam which leads to a WHL pool a New York State Police spokesperson said that the
00:19:10
dive team searched that specific area because of its proximity to a hydroelectric Dam because of the water
00:19:18
pressure created by the dam anything in the water there is pushed down into a very small area so I mean this sounded
00:19:27
like a perfect spot to hide something to hide a body maybe right the search unfortunately was fruitless or for
00:19:37
fortunately was fruitless in 2009 a hunter walking in the woods near Lake desolation in Northern Saratoga county
00:19:49
found skull fragments on the ground it was determined that they were in fact human and they were deemed de to be the
00:19:59
remains of a child estimated to be 10 to possibly 12 years old it looks like at the time in 2009
00:20:09
Captain there were six missing persons cases in the area that would meet or could meet this criteria right law
00:20:17
enforcement officials they jumped all over this of course and jik was one of the possible six missing persons that
00:20:27
they thought it could be fortunately it was not him and some of their estimates were wrong with their findings it turned
00:20:37
out that the skull uh was the remains of a 18-year-old girl from Colorado her name
00:20:45
Jennifer Hammond who went missing in August of 2003 in March of 2010 police released an aged enhanced
00:20:57
port pit of jelik that had been prepared by the national Center for missing and exploited children police held a press
00:21:06
conference announcing the release of this photo to the media Chief Bell said quote I'm hoping this might spark some
00:21:13
interest in the parents to come forward it's 2 and 1/2 years later and they act like this never happened they
00:21:22
need to reach out and be cooperative with law enforcement end quote one thing I will really
00:21:29
really want to commend Chief Bell and others that do stuff like this again we we have a situation where we look at it
00:21:37
from afar and we can say it really points to two possible outcomes yeah maybe the boy ran away but we have
00:21:46
evidence that the father is being less than truthful and is not being cooperative with police and by his own
00:21:54
admission in everybody else's account as well he's the last one to have seen the
00:22:00
boy one he has also temper issues and he can be violent so if the boy didn't run
00:22:05
away this is your responsible person your responsible party right and one thing that I love about Chief Bell is
00:22:12
anytime they have any reason to go to the media at all he's circling the wagons and saying hey we're putting out
00:22:20
this information one for the public to help us out but two because we want the parents this is this is in efforts to
00:22:28
get the parents to cooperate with us to talk with us to help us out now Captain we need to introduce somebody named
00:22:36
Scott Thorp age 37 okay and his involvement or non involvement in this case I don't know how you want to look
00:22:46
at it but he's certainly in my opinion a big part of the story because in April of 2010 Scott Thorp kidnapped a man who
00:22:56
owed him money for drugs he beat the guy up and showed him a photo of what appeared to be a dead body
00:23:04
along with jelik missing persons flyer he told the guy that he beat up that he had killed the kid and he would do the
00:23:12
same to this guy if he didn't pay up on his debts then he and his goons dumped this
00:23:20
kidnap victim off in kingsberry right a body in one of the photos is said to have some resemblance to
00:23:31
jelik and the victim was told that it was in fact jalik this is all per an investigator this was reported in the
00:23:42
Times Union paper they said that police recovered all of these photos during a search of Scott thorp's house apparently
00:23:53
this guy he fled the area he went down to Florida and was on the run for a while
00:23:58
until the US Marshals caught up with him and arrested him in late June of 2010 D
00:24:06
on the Run yeah douche On The Run Thorp was of course locked up and charged with
00:24:13
the attempted murder and kidnapping and he was extradited back to Washington County where at that time he was being
00:24:20
held for an eventual trial on the charges now investigators at the center for missing and exploited children
00:24:30
examined these photographs that were found in thorp's possession at his home and specifically the one that was
00:24:38
thought to be jelik their final ruling Captain was that it was not jelik in that
00:24:45
photo unfortunately any of the information out there to the public does not address who it was in the photograph
00:24:55
or my thoughts maybe it was a doctor photo that it wasn't anything right like what Scott Thorp was telling us it would
00:25:04
be the good news is we know that whatever it was in that photo dead body or not it's not our missing boy
00:25:20
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offered by T-Mobile and Verizon May [Music] [Music] 2023 all right we are back cheers
00:27:59
everybody thanks for joining us what a frustrating case yes frustrating indeed cheers to all the people up
00:28:08
front people in the back come on spend up spend up I think I think you're just getting excited cuz you're heading off
00:28:17
on your vacation I'm going to upset everybody before he's been drinking heavily all right captain
00:28:24
captain captain we mentioned the naal Center for missing and exploited children several times throughout this
00:28:31
case we've mentioned them on the show dozens of times before not because not just because they've been involved in
00:28:37
other cases we've covered but also because we've encouraged people to seek them out and maybe offer up a little bit
00:28:44
of donation be it money or time because they are doing fantastic work they are working their damnedest to bring
00:28:52
children home now in this case they've continued to support law enforcement and continued to help in the
00:29:00
investigation and the search for jelik rainwalker we mentioned that the national Center for missing and
00:29:08
exploited children created an age progression photo of jelik but in 2012 that organization took on a larger
00:29:19
role representatives of the ncmec or Nick Mech as John Douglas likes to call it came to Washington County to
00:29:29
undertake the daunting task of reviewing the investigation and all of the evidence compiled by four 1 two 3 four
00:29:40
law enforcement agencies that investigated this case not not only are you good at computer you're good at
00:29:47
counting I can also go 4321 in the opposite direction the Nick Mech report turned out to be 80 Pages it was an 80
00:29:56
page report that was eventually released to laww enforcement investigators said that it opened up a few leads that would
00:30:04
be pursued after working with the ncmec in late 2012 the Cambridge green witch police finally changed the
00:30:16
classification of jal's case this is something you were pointing out and you've been you've been pounding
00:30:23
the desk and pounding the table and saying this is what we need to be doing here changed the classification of J's
00:30:29
case from a missing child to a probable child homicide yeah at a December 2012 press conference Chief Bell made the
00:30:39
announcement that jelik was the victim of a quote probable child homicide not a runaway State Police Major Crimes unit
00:30:49
backed this up investigators acknowledged that they had exhausted all leads in the case although they insisted
00:30:57
that it was not a Cold Case at the press conference Grandma Barbara and her husband both spoke about how painful it
00:31:06
was to continue to have hope every day that jelik was still alive and yet to have no answers for all this time a plea
00:31:16
was made to the public to help find the missing boy authorities also requested that the media stop disseminating the
00:31:25
Old National Center for missing and exploited children's age progressed photos of jelik and the organization
00:31:34
took them off of their website this is weird right because earlier we are condemning the father for tearing down
00:31:43
the posters of the the prayer vigil and saying any publicity is good publicity but here we have law enforcement tearing
00:31:51
down their own photos and telling people to tear up the old age progression photos that we sent out they're doing
00:31:58
this because what they're saying at the time is all they are getting from these age progression photos are false leads
00:32:06
right they're spinning their tires they're out chasing ghost well we see that a lot of times with missing person
00:32:14
cases even people that we know people that were close to authors that have gone up to other countries and showed
00:32:23
people pictures of a girl and and they get these leads and you think oh my God it's going to be solved it's people
00:32:31
misremember people want to see things that they didn't see they want to help people are mostly good-natured people
00:32:38
they want to help and uh they'll try to give you some information that creates like you said a false lead well and also
00:32:44
what you have here too is I I think is it's really underlining what they believe it's really putting the
00:32:53
exclamation mark on hey we know longer believe that we're looking for a missing child yeah it's sad and although at this
00:33:04
press conference there there was nobody would actually come out well Chief Bell did not actually come out and name any
00:33:13
suspects but he did say quote certain people have been eliminated and certain people have not yeah he said flat out
00:33:22
that the police have not received any cooperation from Steven and Joselyn and he pleaded with them to come in and sit
00:33:31
down with him the grandparents on the other hand well they did not mince words they said if you did nothing wrong and
00:33:39
you have nothing to hide why don't you cooperate with law enforcement to find your son these were the words of Dennis
00:33:47
Smith in response to the press conference stepen and Joselyn released the following statement oh they released
00:33:55
another note yeah well this is their this is the way that they this is their third note in the case that they're
00:34:01
releasing well their statement they they have a rebuttal or at least it's not a no comment thing I I I don't know what
00:34:09
to make of this you could take it either way either let's hear it either condemn
00:34:14
them for dodging the media or condemn them for releasing a statement I don't know what to make of it but they said
00:34:21
despite everything that law enforcement has had to say we know that he is out there meaning jelik
00:34:27
and will return to us someday we pray that the reclassification of the case will not result in the lessening of
00:34:36
efforts to bring jelik home to his family the statement also expressed objections to the discontinued use of
00:34:45
the age progression photo arguing that people needed to know who to look out for this is a statement one half of the
00:34:53
parties that provided this statement was a man that was tearing down down posters
00:34:58
for a vigil at one time yeah I mean I don't know if they know how big of piles of [ __ ] they are of
00:35:10
people this Joselin that's the key to it all right is Joselin is what I think I think she now
00:35:20
knows I think she might not have known before but I think it maybe a temper tantrum and one of his little
00:35:31
rages that he slipped up or maybe there was some evidence that he left behind because he's a lazy pile of
00:35:38
[ __ ] and he slipped up and now she knows and now she's either scared and she feels like she has to protect her
00:35:47
children and other adopted child or or she's also afraid if she goes to police that they're not going to be able to
00:35:54
protect her possibly or what is he going to do because we know he's a known liar how much is he
00:36:02
going to throw her under the bus will he try to blame her for everything that has
00:36:11
happened these are are individuals that the kid goes missing and they've done nothing everything they've done every
00:36:21
step that they've taken is to muddy the waters and to me that's all that's all the
00:36:31
proof we need we're not you're not going to get anywhere unless you find his body but
00:36:39
again I think in these circumstances it's like you know that that's finding a needle on a hay stack unless somebody
00:36:47
comes forward and says I know what happened and I know some details and I could lead you to an area that could be
00:36:54
easier searched I but this this son of a [ __ ] ain't going to come forward and say [ __ ] so
00:37:02
maybe one day it's it's going to wear on her more and more cuz the these are her
00:37:08
parents that are coming out saying you guys are awful people right and if you had nothing to
00:37:15
do with this be cooperative with the police these are her her parents that is going to wear on
00:37:23
her and grind on her and it should it should wear on you and whatever God or whatever you think you pray to that
00:37:32
[ __ ] ain't going to help you and when you get to the other side you're just going to burn in hell for all your sins
00:37:38
that's what I think I don't I don't know that they're trying to muddy the waters it their actions to me look more
00:37:48
like pretend the water doesn't exist I mean it's right from the get-go right from Jump Street Grandma's over at the
00:37:57
house and she's saying they're acting like nothing happened they're they're more concerned about a doctor's
00:38:03
appointment and going to a birthday party and should they feed me some breakfast it's it's like as soon as he
00:38:10
was gone regardless of how he was gone right even if the kid ran away there was no there was no almost even no mention
00:38:20
of it to her like like they they called her and told her this is what's going on
00:38:25
she shows up wants to help and they're they're concerned with other things and it's been that way since the the minute
00:38:32
that it happened yeah but hold on that's that's what I'm saying though it's kind
00:38:35
of weird CU it it is both happening at the same time it's back to Forest gum it's both happening at the same time yes
00:38:43
acting like nothing happened completely but also oh by the way we found this note that suggests that he ran away now
00:38:50
I might have gave him that as a homework assignment but I I can't remember that but he probably ran away now let's Act
00:38:56
like nothing happened and let's do that for a time period okay now things are getting a little hot in the kitchen
00:39:02
here's some other random note that is typed saying that he's alive or he's fine I I believe whole hardly or
00:39:12
wholeheartedly that they're responsible for that note and so yes I agree with you there's there's a definitely there's
00:39:19
these moments of let's just act like this kid never existed right but I think there are these times where they're
00:39:27
they're throwing wrenches in you know into the case to muddy the water in regards to the anonymous letter that
00:39:35
shows up to Media I don't know man that's just a weird thing it's it you could see it
00:39:42
being the parents because they chose to send it to the media I could also see it
00:39:46
being just a complete hoax yeah I mean we have the attorney saying hey there's there's stuff in there that only jelik
00:39:54
would know that doesn't mean mean anything that's that man's opportunity and uh and the parents opportunity to
00:40:03
say see we told you so even even if they didn't mail it they go oh oh we got lucky some some weirdo decided to mail
00:40:10
in a an anonymous letter to the newspaper I would like to talk to a major newspaper and ask him how many
00:40:16
Anonymous weirdo letters do they get on the rag right like is what's what do you
00:40:21
put the what do you put the Mark at the quota is it somewhere a couple couple week yeah once a week I imagine back in
00:40:29
the day that it was it was more often but in late 2013 what was interesting here is that
00:40:35
rumors started to swirl that there was an arrest in this case that was going to be happening and soon but Chief Bell
00:40:44
said that there was no truth to these reports so we got all excited and worked up for nothing yeah half chub you know
00:40:52
what seemed to spawn these rumors was the current Washington County DA announced on the anniversary of ji's
00:41:00
disappearance that he believed a prosecution for jal's murder could go forward he didn't name anyone but
00:41:09
reading between the lines here this likely meant that he believed that there was sufficient EV evidence to bring
00:41:16
charges against Stephen Kerr now it's important to note that this public statement was issued in the middle of a
00:41:24
bid for reelection which the da did not win the current one did not win so when the new DA took over his office reviewed
00:41:33
the police investigative file for the case but did not proceed with any prosecution citing Double Jeopardy as
00:41:41
the reason that the nobody murder case should be put on hold until the evidence was Rock Solid in the case then in 2018
00:41:51
the case well received a terrible blow we had uh the man who had headed up the investigation from the beginning the
00:42:00
man who refused to let the case die the man who never gave up on finding jelik Chief George Bell very sadly he passed
00:42:09
away suddenly in March of 2018 according to the Times Union in his 39-year law enforcement career Chief
00:42:20
Bell had never missed a day of work 39 years work in law enforcement Chief Bell never
00:42:29
missed a day of work he had been having flu like symptoms leading up to this and
00:42:36
he died of a heart attack after leaving a hospital in Bennington Vermont in 2019 an article in The Post Star says
00:42:47
jelik disappearance spawned one of the most indepth investigations by local state and federal officials in
00:42:56
Washington County in decades and even after 13 years a group of investigators continued to work on the case according
00:43:05
to the same publication Washington County district attorney Tony Jordan's office has been reviewing the evidence
00:43:12
police amassed which was turned over to his office in the spring of 2018 shortly
00:43:18
before Bell's death they are cautiously assessing the material in the file with an eye toward possible
00:43:28
prosecution this here is another bizarre thing in this case here Captain you got
00:43:33
to wonder how strong is any of this evidence how strong is any of this case what do they have what could they
00:43:41
possibly have is it a case where it's just minus the body right and once we find that boom we're moving forward with
00:43:49
charges so this guy should be on the edge of his seat at all times he should be very afraid because we are one piece
00:43:56
away from convicting this guy and putting him away for a very long time or is this posturing to try to get this
00:44:03
dude to make a mistake but again he's pretending as nothing has happened I think there's a lot of stuff out there
00:44:11
in the open against the son of a [ __ ] so what do they have behind closed doors
00:44:17
let's say it's equal to now we got a pretty strong case but they we always know that they're weak cases if you
00:44:23
don't have a body so focus on that find the body once you find the body then you can bring this
00:44:32
bastard to trial and he can spend the rest of his life Behind Bars and once you figure out that his wife knew about
00:44:39
it she could spend the rest of her life behind bars as well see I don't know that I share that same opinion I don't
00:44:46
know that I believe that Joselyn is convinced that Steven did something and I say that because her action
00:44:56
before the boy went missing were to protect the children in the house she even complained to others
00:45:05
her mom and other people that stepen wasn't behaving or parenting the way that she wished that he would right so
00:45:14
for me I kind of look at it and go I I really wonder if she truly felt that he had done something that all the other
00:45:23
children are potentially in danger as well now we would know based off of the ages that we listed earlier that here in
00:45:33
2020 all of these kids would be adults now they would be young adults but they would be adults but still you would have
00:45:41
a period of over 10 years to be concerned that he could do something to one of these other children and I always
00:45:50
like to to rely on the um previous actions of of an IND individual will usually lead you to what their future
00:45:59
future actions and behavior will be and that's what we saw on the outside looking in before in regards to
00:46:07
Joselyn I'm not so naive to believe that she doesn't maybe at some level suspect
00:46:13
something but what I truly think is going on here is one of two situations well I shouldn't say that cuz
00:46:21
here I go here I go narrowing myself to two situations when immediately a third popped into mind let's say and you've
00:46:28
been hinting at this a little bit along the way and I can can agree with this a little bit there is a chance that
00:46:36
there's something so much more horrible under the surface going on that that never reached any of the public never
00:46:45
reached anybody that knew these people that there's just some really bad horrible stuff going on and it had been
00:46:51
going on for a very long time there is always that small possibility that that is a truth however where I lean with
00:47:01
this case and I'm going to go a little glass half full and a little glass half empty at the same
00:47:09
time okay why are we laughing I don't even know what that means well you will when I finish my
00:47:16
thought so where I'm going with this is one of two things I think is probably likely here either either a jelik did
00:47:24
run away and his adopted father was kind enough and concerned enough please hear
00:47:34
the sarcasm in my voice to give him enough time and opportunity to get as far away as possible so that he could
00:47:43
not find the boy and nobody else could find him and return him to the household if that did not happen I feel like he's
00:47:52
convinced his wife that that's what happened all right so do you want to know what I think sure I think
00:47:59
we all know what I think so we don't have to go over it right well this you know that I I think he's responsible I
00:48:08
think she knows or or like you said there's something maybe it's it's the way he told the story one time maybe
00:48:17
it's her finding the jacket that he claim that that he would he would have been in when they were looking for the
00:48:24
kid I think there's something in her deep down in her gut that's telling her this guy murdered a
00:48:35
child and I've been supporting him again maybe also in a sense if I'm here that I
00:48:42
can protect my children but um but it might not be a confirmed knowledge but I think I'd be really interested to see
00:48:54
what they have behind closed doors what evidence that they have that hasn't been shown to the
00:48:59
public H but I think it's really going to take finding a body in order to bring the charges against this individual that
00:49:08
need to be brought against him yeah and I think you're hitting on something really interesting there Captain because
00:49:14
there's a lot of gray area and there's a lot of what we do not know about Steven's cell phone that they were
00:49:23
tracking that night we know that they were tracking okay we know that they believe he was
00:49:28
out driving that gold minivan around that night I have to believe with all these swirling rumor rumors that they
00:49:38
keep going back to time and time again every so often that we have evidence to prosecute we might an arrest might be
00:49:47
happening soon I wonder if they have more information that's based around that cell phone and based around
00:49:56
activity that they know took place with that gold van that night and here is uh a statement from a former State Police
00:50:05
investigator who's now retired and he was involved in this investigation for six years or so and he said that there
00:50:15
was significant he used the word significant significant evidence in the case that has not been revealed publicly
00:50:24
and he went on to say that the national Center for missing and exploited children when they reviewed the case
00:50:30
years earlier that we reported on u in this episode he said they deemed it to be quote prosecution ready so you have
00:50:39
to wonder yes are they just looking for that one final piece now this is a case that that more
00:50:48
than just as much as any case out there but more so than than than a lot of them
00:50:54
needs the Public's help we need information from the public and if anybody knows anything at all in
00:51:04
regards to their suspicions about Steven their suspicions about where jalik could
00:51:08
be or what could have happened to this young boy then they need to come forward it's been too long and report this and
00:51:18
point law enforcement in the right direction please again anybody with information they're asking that you
00:51:25
contact either the New York State Major Crimes unit or the national Center for missing and exploited children and we'll
00:51:34
have those numbers posted for you on our website at true Crim garage.com on the blog for jelik rain Walker's
00:51:45
[Music] case for our bonus show Cod off the record check us out on Stitcher premium also if
00:52:01
you would like to check out our old episodes they're all for free on the Stitcher app just go to the iTunes Store
00:52:08
download the Stitcher app and listen to all the old catalog for free and before we wrap up we have a little recommended
00:52:15
reading this week we have a really good one as always it's called Hellhound On His Trail the stalking of Martin Luther
00:52:23
King Jr and the international hunt for his assassin this is by Hampton sides he's a bestselling author Hellhound On
00:52:32
His Trail is an intense narrative about the assassination of a great man and great leader Martin Luther King Jr and
00:52:40
one of the largest manhunts and American history that led investigators to Canada
00:52:46
Portugal and England so check out Hellhound On His Trail by Hampton sides and you can find that title in many more
00:52:55
at True Crime garage.com on the recommended page and until next week be good be kind and don't
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[Music] litter you can start your day off right when you find a professional on Angie to get
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