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Welcome to Off the Record. I'm your host Nick Crime. It's good to be seen. And it's good to see you. Off the record.
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Thanks for listening. Thanks for telling a friend. True Crime podcast. Be good. Be kind. And don't live. Crime. Gather
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around. Grab a chair. Grab a beer. Let's talk some ground. Welcome back to Missing. I am Tim here
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today with Lance. Lance, how are you today? I'm doing great today, Tim. I hope all the listeners out there are
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doing great as well. We have quite a treat here on this episode. This is going to be a good conversation. I think
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everyone's going to love this uh collaboration that we are embarking upon right now. Uh but Tim, let's uh find out
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how you're doing before we get to this amazing episode. How are you, sir? I'm doing great. Thanks a lot for asking.
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And yes, I'm very excited to introduce this two-part episode and our uh wonderful guests. It's Captain and Nick
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from True Crime Garage. And uh we go back a long ways with these guys. Um having I guess met them probably 2016
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range somewhere somewhere in that time frame. So we've covered some cases together. We've talked a lot at crime
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cons and other various conferences and here we invited them back for a great conversation. It's a wide- ranging
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conversation, Lance. We get into a lot of different topics. We talk a little bit about Nick's book. We talk a little
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bit about the Porch Light Project, which is Nick's nonprofit. Um, we talk a little bit about the cases that uh haunt
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us or stick with us. And uh so for us, Mora Murray's case comes up and also Brian Schaefer's case comes up as well.
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And uh Lance, I know you'll remember you and I covered um Brian Schaefer's case with Nick and Captain in the garage on
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True Crime Garage uh several years ago, so we're a little bit familiar with that
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case. But most of the Brian Schaefer discussion happens in part two and most of the more Murray discussion happens in
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part one of this two-part episode. I mean, it's almost impossible to have a conversation with these guys with the
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microphones on with the recording happening and not talk about the two major stories that each of us have
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covered respectfully, you mora Murray and Brian Schaefer. And one thing that just strikes me off the bat about the
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two of them, no matter what we're talking about, there's always just this like sense of calm, like you just feel
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calm and comfortable talking to these two. And I can totally see how their listenership is so loyal to them because
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they are just like a couple of couple of good dudes who are trying to do some good stuff. And this felt to me
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like one a a catch-up session. We were circling back to some topics that interest us and that we can talk about
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seriously for hours on end. But also, I don't know if Captain meant to do this, but he
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was going down this road of coming to terms with the fact that his life and if you do this true crime podcasting thing,
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your life doesn't have to always be about this. And it seemed like he kind of battled with that for a while. And I
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didn't realize how much that was a topic for him because he he brought it back a
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couple of times throughout the conversation that hey, I'm I'm fine with not being the person who's 100% my
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entire life is about true crime. He he had like what 20 guitars behind him, you know? He's he does a bunch of other
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things. And I think that's why it works really well between the two of them because he can put his technical hat on.
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He can do all the editing and all the sound design and, you know, the behind the scenes clicks and and edits that
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they need for that show to work. And Nick can do his thing with the writing and the researching and bringing the
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stories to them. And I just thought it was really cool that we were able to get a glimpse inside of Captain's, I guess,
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psychological wherewithal during that conversation where he was like saying, you know, it's okay. You don't always
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have to be always about true crime. You know, don't have to let it consume you. Yeah. And that's a good piece of advice,
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too, for people who want to get involved in this, who are just starting or people
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who have been doing it for years, who are like, I don't know what to do. I I feel bad every time
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I read an article that doesn't have anything to do with true crime. Feels like I'm not doing my job, but it's 11
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PM on like a Tuesday night. Yeah, definitely a balance there. Um yeah, and most of the sort of personal
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conversation comes in the second part. And we also spoke a little bit about our uh nonprofit in the conversation and our
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nonprofit is called Private Investigations for the Missing. You can learn more about that at investigations
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forthemissing.org or and we are going to be doing another live fundraiser for PI's for the missing and I think that's
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going to be at the end of May. So stay tuned for a date and a time for that. Very good. The last time we had a
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fundraiser, Tim, I think I got a tattoo because we raised enough money so that uh we went over the threshold. We
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haven't set a goal yet for that particular threshold. We do know that people's finances are tight, so who
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knows? is we're going to discuss this internally and then we'll maybe come up with some other fun goal reaching event
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that can take place. But yes, stay tuned for the date on that. But we did hear from Lou and from a few other people
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that we will have some very very interesting cool guests to join us and to discuss stories that are all like in
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relation to private investigations for the missing and can't wait to do that. It's been too long. It's been too long
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since we've had a PI's for the missing fundraiser. All right, everyone. So, we're going to play part one of this
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two-part conversation with True Crime Garage. Now, make sure to check out what they're doing at true
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crimegar.com. They have a great show. And hey, while you're going to find out more about True Crime Garage and
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listening to their show, Tim, we also have another True Crime Show, Crawlspace. Most of our listeners
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probably know about that. I don't know how many of those actually make the transition to listen to that podcast as
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well, but over the past like few months since the beginning of the year, we've had some great great guests come on and
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they're either talking about the crimes that they've committed. They've they're talking about and now they're trying to
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redeem themselves or they're talking about the undercover work that they did for the FBI and the crazy situations
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that they got themselves involved in. We talked to a bunch of authors, journalists. The past few months have
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just been chock full of these incredible episodes. So, why don't you go over and
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give that a listen as well? Hit up True Crime Garage. Hit up Crawlspace. And please follow us on social media at
00:07:13
Missingcm. And we're going to break quick for commercial here. And we'll be right back with Nick and Captain
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We are being joined by Captain and Nick of True Crime Garage. How's it going, guys?
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Thrilled. It's been a while, fellas. It's been what, a couple years? Too long. Too long. Tim only calls me. Tim
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only calls me when he's mad at me. But But really, is that unusual for the people in your in your life, though?
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Yeah. No. Yeah. People only call me when they're upset. Well, you guys are a sight for sore
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eyes. It It's really good to see you. You guys look good. You guys look like you haven't aged, and we look like we've
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aged twice the speed. That's not true. No, definitely not true. That's not true. We're both at this point. Yeah,
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we're we're we're decrepit. We're decrepit. What is What's going on? You have a lot
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of guitars behind you. Arms don't work. Legs don't work. Nothing works no more. They asked me to fight the big fight.
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I'll fight the big fight. How many guitars do you have behind you? Um, this is the small room.
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The big room is like, "Oh, I have issues. I have issues." My the my therapist told me I'm
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that just trying to fill up holes from childhood trauma. Okay. I had a very We could go down that
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rabbit hole if you want. Had a very abusive older brother. Oh. Oh my goodness. No, I'm just joking.
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Nick, you have a lot of books behind you. Yeah. Filling up holes for my childhood trauma. He had he had a very
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abusive younger brother. Wow. Two minutes in and we're already so deep in the psychology of True Crime
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Garage. Hey, 20 minutes in, we'll all be crying. Yeah, I do like the red you guys both
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got going on in the background there. It looks looks pretty nice. Um synchronized
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in a way. Very very fancy. We're actually in the same room, just different backgrounds.
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Do you guys still record at um in the same place? Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. So, I'm in the spot that we normally record,
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and he's normally on the other side of the window, but um not today. He's in his home office. So, the garage 2.0.
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Right. Well, what's been going on with your you guys' uh your show? Tell us a little bit about uh your journey. Where
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are you guys at in uh 2025? Well, we just finished up doing a series, a six-part series called Hate Made in
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America. It was um it spans, it's a story that spans decades and starts with some uh white supremist groups that
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wanted to overthrow the US government many years ago. And actually they started they they were tried a handful
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of guys were tried for conspiracy to overthrow the government in the 80s and they were unable to convict the guys.
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And this story really has it's really kind of the roots of the Oklahoma City bombing that that occurred in 1995. So,
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we start with that group that uh was tried for conspiracy and we end on the Oklahoma City bombing which was was a
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it's interesting because I think that there that the Timothy McVey story is much larger than most people think. You
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know, he's often thought of as this lone wolf homegrown terrorist and the I mean
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it really it's a story that spans hate begets hate. You know, that's what the Bible tells us and and this story proves
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that to be factual. Great. Great. I got some follow-up questions here. You must have a number of topics that you want to
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do these expanded series on. It's such a daunting task to take on something like
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this, especially in the climate that is today. There's a lot of hate going around and there's a lot of white
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supremacists that are starting to become just kind of brazen in their activities.
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Uh this is something that happened in the '9s, but you said it goes beyond that. And you also said that everyone
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looks at McD and says, "Oh, it's a lone wolf." Do you think that that's just like the comfortable way of saying, "I
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don't want to know the history. I don't know what want to know what's going on today because my life is comfortable, so
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we're just going to keep it at lone wolf." Well, I think that it's a it was such a horrific event and then to learn
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within a span of less than two days that it was committed by an American, you know, that they initially thought that
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this would have Middle Eastern ties and to learn that it was committed by an American is makes it even more harder to
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kind of try to wrap your head around it. And it's just I think it's the emotions
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that are involved, especially if you've not been to that part of the country. They they will never heal from this.
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They'll they'll never ever heal from this. And so it really truly was though when we started doing the research and
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started putting the shows together, the episodes together for this, we were quite surprised because we were starting
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to go, we think that maybe six episodes is not enough. that that we just kept finding things that were interesting and
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taking us down different paths that some of these uh extreme hate groups were a part of over the years. In fact, there's
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a double homicide out in the uh Garden State Parkway that that goes back, I think, uh to the early '7s that uh I'm
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pretty convinced that that a member of of one of these hate groups had intimate knowledge of that double homicide. And
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he created this Aryan Nation group that went on to rob banks. So they would go in with these pipe bombs and we all once
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they're caught we learned that they were they weren't actual bombs but they would
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go in and tell the these banks that they had pipe bombs on them and they were stealing money from the banks. In fact
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they they they did this in multiple states. They started in in Utah and worked their way all the way to Ohio.
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They were robbing banks to fund uh an attempt to commit terrorist acts and overthrow the government. And so I mean
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and that so we didn't even get a chance to start talking about the bank robbers in the story because it's really a story
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that that took 6 hours for us to tell the version that that we were able to put together and with our original idea
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of starting off with Richard Snell who not only kicks off the story, he goes to prison. He was one of the guys that was
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charged with conspiracy. In fact, he had planned it's it's it's well documented.
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He planned to blow up the Alfred P. Mura building, which is the building that Timothy McVey blew up. He planned to
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blow that up back in 1983. And he decided that it was divine intervention that that he didn't blow up
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that building. And ultimately, he is arrested and convicted of two murders. One abs an absolute hate crime. And he
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is sentenced to death by the state of Arkansas. and he is actually executed the same day that Timothy McVey blew up
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the Alfa Pura building. And some people say it's coincidence, some say that it was not. And so this was sort of a long
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examination including portions of Ruby Ridge and Waco with uh David Caresh that that we told that story and really kind
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of just pondered the question, what was McVeyy's real motivations here? Was it just simply hate? Was it was it revenge
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like he he claims for Waco? Was it the the first the first act of a revolution or was it a going away
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present for Richard Snell? And Richard Snell watched 9:02 a.m. is when the when the
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bomb went off, when the truck exploded and blew up the Alfred Pura building, Richard Snell was executed. 900 p.m.
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that same day. He watched he asked the guards if they could bring in a TV and he watched that that play out on CNN
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that morning and there's varying reports of what his reactions were to to that uh
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and but it's not so was it coincidence or was it something far beyond that that McVey
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blew picked the same building out of all the buildings out of McVey had very little ties to even the state of
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Oklahoma. So it it just seems very odd and strange that that he chose the same building. And a bigger contradiction
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there could not be when it comes to McVey for his reasons of saying why he did it, why he chose that building, the
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revenge for what happened at Waco. You got revenge by killing over a hundred innocent people in in a building that
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included children in in a daycare center. That come on, man. your argument has no legs and your war has it's it's
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all made up and it's I think of when I think of McVey I liken him to like Ted Kazinski the uniomber
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who created all these reasons why the and and and rationalize away what he was doing
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when really it's truly just the act of a of a hateful madman. Yeah, there's a number of other ways to exact your
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revenge, quote unquote, as opposed to targeting specifically a building that was there was there was no chance that
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there would be no children in that building, you know, like that there was going to be children there. He said that
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that building was his target, not necessarily the people in it. Well, then blow it up in the middle of the night
00:17:46
when there when there would probably be four or five people in the entire building.
00:17:51
No, he he picked 9:02 a.m. when once everybody had arrived at work, right? Yeah. Wow. Well, I'm glad you guys dove
00:17:59
into that topic. I think it's important to talk about that. And we recently hosted a um a great conversation with a
00:18:07
former um retired FBI uh undercover um agent who infiltrated some of these white supremacist groups. And um he's
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got a hell of a story to tell. He just wrote a book um called called uh Code Code Name Pale Horse and I think he was
00:18:24
on Joe Rogan and stuff like that too. So his story has gotten out there quite a bit. That was my nickname in high
00:18:31
school. Pale horse. Yeah. Pale horse. Fast. I was fast. Oh, it's cuz you were fast. Yeah. Well, and I had very pale.
00:18:41
Went very pale. And I had four legs. But my code name was Codeame. What what topic gets you guys fired up?
00:18:52
Because I'm seeing Nick describe this and then once we get deeper into the conversation and the actual details of
00:18:58
what happens in these like attacks. I I do find myself getting fired up on some What was that, Captain? Well, he
00:19:05
starts screaming. I always tell people uh well we grew up in a family with uh four siblings so no
00:19:13
matter what you were talking about you had to be passionate about or nobody was listening. So that's our gift. Um
00:19:21
probably his gift more than mine. But we could take a case that he's like I'm not
00:19:26
really invested in this case and 20 minutes in he's screaming and yelling and I'm like good good energy. Keep it
00:19:33
up. I'm like I'm like the juggernaut from X-Men comics. I just you once I start going I just start building up
00:19:39
momentum and getting bigger and bigger and stronger stronger louder. Is there like a uh is there a breaking
00:19:46
point though? You know like what's the point where you're listening to We'll start crying.
00:19:52
I've cried on Mike probably three times I think in the 10 years that we've done the show. Yeah. Okay. So what what were
00:19:57
those moments? What made you Yeah. We want to go back there. answer. That's where we're going. I don't know. You're
00:20:03
already talking about your childhood trauma. I thought that's where we were going. There was no childhood trauma,
00:20:07
but uh the um No, there's a couple cases that that I've gotten pretty well, like
00:20:14
the captain said, I get worked up about almost all the cases, but there's a couple cases that uh and I don't know
00:20:20
why. You guys are probably experienced the same thing. There's some cases that just affect you differently and it and
00:20:28
you don't know why. There doesn't seem to always be rhyme nor reason for it and it's just I it's something that it's
00:20:35
difficult for me to explain and difficult for me for me to even understand myself. Well, and your guys's
00:20:41
path is a little different because you were single case focused for a long time and now you're every case that you find
00:20:51
interesting or that you want to shine some light on. But do you feel that with some cases you feel more of a
00:21:00
responsibility too? Yes. 100%. 100%. And and sometimes I and we could all say in
00:21:09
fairness you when you guys were covering Mars case exclusively like obviously that that has a different level of um
00:21:18
responsibility and and and the attachment and then obviously the outside world attaching that case to you
00:21:26
is your own doing. But we have some cases um initially with Deli uh the Deli murders or like Brian Schaefer or some
00:21:36
of these other cases that we've just talked about. Sometimes we get painted as that's our case. But it's like none
00:21:44
of the podcasters, none of the YouTubers or content creators own a case, you know. So sometimes um
00:21:53
the responsibility that you feel is put on by the audience if that makes any sense. Yeah, that's an interesting
00:22:00
point. Yeah, I think that's that's a good point. Um I I also think like the more we cover a case um I think the more
00:22:08
kind of emotional we get on it. I'll just I guess I'll just speak for myself on that one. Um, you know, Mora Murray's
00:22:17
case is is the case you mentioned, um, Captain, that we started our podcasting journey on. And, um, that was a case,
00:22:26
uh, that we covered very in-depth. We did about 150 episodes or so. And, um, you know, it was really hard not to be
00:22:33
emotional about it. Um, and I think we we had to take a step back. There's a few reasons why we did. um mostly
00:22:43
because the nonprofit that we are on the board of private investigations for the
00:22:49
missing um has taken the case on. Um so it's a it's a great nonprofit that was started by Bruce Maitlin who is Brianna
00:22:56
Maitlin's dad and they aim to fund private investigations for cases that don't have private investigators and the
00:23:06
the investigators do it pro bono um with expenses paid. So Mora Murray's case is
00:23:12
probably the most high-profile case that the nonprofit has taken on. But um our role in the nonprofit is we will discuss
00:23:21
cases, publicize them, we'll interview the private investigators if there's some purpose behind it. If the
00:23:29
investigators want information out there for any specific purpose. Um, and with Mora's case and with all the cases,
00:23:38
we're not going to cover them if the investigators aren't asking. If if they're being uh investigated by the
00:23:45
nonprofit and they are not looking for publicity in that way, we stay away. So, that's kind of where we're at with
00:23:51
Mora's case. But, I will say it came after, you know, five or so, you know, I don't even know how many years, several,
00:23:59
maybe more than five years, um, working on it. And uh you know a lot of emotions
00:24:03
a lot of serious um emotions uh you know will get attached you'll get attached um
00:24:10
in any case especially unsolved ones. It's uh it's kind of wild. Well, I and I think that's again, you guys would know
00:24:17
this um as well as Nick is is when you start doing this, you don't know how indepth it's going to become or how much
00:24:28
it's going to start um defining your your life. I mean, I remember meeting Rener for the first time and he was
00:24:38
like, "Oh, you're interested in Mar's case. Well, you'll become part of not necessarily her case, but you're going
00:24:46
to become a part of some of the cases that you end up uh discussing. And and probably same way with you guys, like
00:24:55
when you meet Julie, the case becomes more real. It's not from a distance. And then, you know,
00:25:03
and you guys know this, I was a huge fan of your guys' show and your coverage of
00:25:08
Mars case. So, even just meeting you guys, it was like, oh, now I'm more part of it. And then then you guys became a
00:25:15
part of the six-part docu series and then you guys did your own. And so, it's like it's it's it's amazing to me how
00:25:23
you can just go from talking about a case with your friend to being somewhat involved um or maybe
00:25:31
even helping to solve solve the case. And you guys have your nonprofit as well. No. No. Nick Nick I always tell
00:25:40
people like we we started this journey and um uh Nick ran with it you know and Nick can talk uh about project porch
00:25:50
light. Yeah Project Porch Light was actually James Rener is the one who founded and had the idea
00:25:57
and really though you know the captain would have been a part of it. The problem is, and you guys know this from
00:26:05
uh being on a board as well, but the problem with with a board is you can't get too many people uh from two from
00:26:11
from one from the same space because you when you're voting on things, you don't
00:26:17
want to have um any kind of bullying or or or like a an unbalanced power, right?
00:26:25
So, once I'm on the board, there's an unbalanced power. Obvious obviously code pale horse is coming out to play.
00:26:36
Well, with us covering cases on a weekly basis, we could have possibly manipulated the the board
00:26:42
into covering cases that that we wanted to cover for the show in some weird way.
00:26:47
Uh that's something we wouldn't do, but but who's to say, you know, you don't know when you're seeking out people to
00:26:53
help. But so I'm very proud that True Crime Garage has been a part of Project Porch Light. had some success over the
00:26:59
years in the I think it's been around four or five years now, but um we've had some success. We've had some letdowns uh
00:27:07
as you will with in any of these situations. But um yeah, we've we solved a what was at the time a a over
00:27:15
30-year-old cold case homicide uh through DNA work that we were able to fund raise the money for the DNA testing
00:27:24
and the genealogy work that was done on that and and make an arrest of a guy and
00:27:30
um of the perpetrator. And so that I mean that we were able to provide answers to the family in that case that
00:27:39
they probably resolved themselves to the idea that their sister or their daughter's case would never be solved
00:27:46
after all that time. And we've also been able to identify a whole bunch of people
00:27:52
over the years and some of them um murder victims. So, and it it and it a homicide investigation is really
00:28:00
difficult to conduct when you do not know who your victim is. And so, just simply by identifying the
00:28:07
victim right then and there, now you have you have a list of potential suspects as an investigator because you
00:28:14
now can start to hone in on this person's inner circle, their family, their friends, people that they they may
00:28:21
have worked with. you can you can start to hone in and start talking to those people that you never knew to talk to in
00:28:27
the first place. And we'll be right back after a quick word from our sponsors. Thanks to our sponsors. And now we're
00:28:35
back to the program. Tell us about um I know there was there was some recent news um from the Porch Life project.
00:28:42
Yeah. Tell us a little bit about uh about what recently happened. Well, and I'll tell you what, like when when we're
00:28:48
going to have success on one of these cases, I know it almost instantly because it's always kind of like magical
00:28:54
how the connection of finding the case and getting to work the case comes about. And anytime it comes back, it
00:29:03
comes about in this really like mysterious, mystical way. I know that that I know that we're going to solve
00:29:11
it. Like I I know that we're going to be able to further advance the investigation. So, our part of our
00:29:17
parameters for covering a case or or taking on a case are are three-fold. One, it has to be a state of Ohio case.
00:29:26
Two, it law enforcement has to be willing to they to let us in because, you know, they're they're the ones that
00:29:33
are ultimately going to solve the case. We're just going to assist. And the other parameter is that the family wants
00:29:40
us to be involved in in their case. And so once we have all three of those ducks
00:29:45
in a row, we can move forward. Well, this recent case that we had success with uh is known as the Toledo Jane Doe
00:29:53
case. And we were able to identify a young woman that had not been since 1987. They had no idea who she was. And
00:30:02
I'll get into the case here in just a second. But this is an example, a prime example of how these cases sometimes can
00:30:09
come about. So, I called the investigating agency and I said, "Hey, I'm, you know, I'm going through my
00:30:15
whole spiel of introducing myself and and telling them what it is that we do and how we do it and the successes that
00:30:22
we've had." And I'm about halfway through my spiel and the detective cuts me off. He goes, he goes, "I know who
00:30:28
you guys are." I said, "Really?" I go I go, "Tell me that's a good thing." Uh, because I'm not going to lie to you.
00:30:36
There there are departments we've reached out to about specific cases and they they just don't want any help with
00:30:40
them. Uh they don't want any anybody else involved in it for some reason, one reason or another. I don't know.
00:30:46
But with this case, the detective tells me, he goes, "I know who Porch Light is because I've had it on my to-do list for
00:30:54
the past two weeks to call you about the case you're calling me about today." And
00:30:59
I said, "Well, that's strange." I said, "Because I've had it on my to-do list for the past two weeks to call you about
00:31:03
this case, too. and and you know, you just get busy and bogged down with things and there's always tomorrow. And
00:31:08
so we we we shared a laugh and well no there's not enough hours in the day but we shared a laugh and and very quickly
00:31:17
this was uh approved by the brass at uh Toledo Police Department and we were able to finally
00:31:26
identify this young woman who went missing in 1987 from Taylor, Michigan. And so we
00:31:35
now know her name is Tammy Lowe. Well, the reason why Toledo had this case was because in
00:31:42
1987 in the early morning hours, there was a body that was on fire, had been set on fire and left in
00:31:51
an alley behind like a it was either an auto body shop or mechanic shop that had
00:31:57
been left there. And since since then, they've been trying to figure out who she is. a who she is and b who put her
00:32:06
there and um we've got half of that we have half of that solution now we now know who she is and now we need to we
00:32:15
need to get people from Taylor Michigan to hear this and to see this and to see it on social media so we can start
00:32:23
finding people that knew her back in 1987 who knew Tammy Low 1987 she was 18 years old blonde as said from Taylor,
00:32:33
Michigan. And we we do have a photo with her with some friends that is new to our
00:32:40
investigation. So, some of those people have been identified and talked to, but we we're still trying to figure out the
00:32:45
the rest of what happened to her and who put her there. You get all that information coming in at you. How is
00:32:53
that filtered like through the nonprofit? How do what what information do you get and what information does
00:33:01
does like law enforcement hold back? So it it varies with every case and it varies with every department. Um and
00:33:10
which is true too for our work with true crime garage. You know sometimes sometimes on these cases we are
00:33:17
discussing the cases with law enforcement and you get varying degrees of assistance when you're putting
00:33:23
together these stories. Some we've had some cases on the show where they hand us the entire police file 300 400 pages
00:33:31
long. Uh we have other cases where we call and leave a voicemail that doesn't get returned until 2 months after we've
00:33:39
covered the case. Um and it's and it's not because they're not checking their voicemail. They're not interested in
00:33:45
talking with us. Um, but then they, you know, they may they may have tuned in and heard us saying, "We we we attempted
00:33:52
to reach out to the investigating agency and they haven't talked to us." So, there's always varying degrees of it
00:33:57
with in regard to the Porchllight Project. And if anybody wants to learn more about what what it is that we do or
00:34:04
how they can get involved and help, it's porchlightonline.org. That's porchlightonline.org. But with a case
00:34:11
like this, we we get a good amount of information. There are other cases where we're we're more handsoff uh and just
00:34:19
fundraising the and paying for the the funding of of testing that needs to be done.
00:34:26
There's, you know, I've I've toured u the coroner's office, met with met with medical examiners on some cases. And so
00:34:34
it really there is no uh cookie cutter version of of what we do. But with if tips start coming in, information starts
00:34:43
coming in, some of it will go directly to Porch Light. So that that it's determined by Porch Light where that
00:34:51
information goes, what to do with that information. Me, if a tip or information finds its way to me, it's going to law
00:34:58
enforcement. whether I think it's viable or not, whether I think it's whether I think it's something that you know,
00:35:03
Lance, if you came to me with information and said, you know, and I I would tell you upfront, I'm taking this
00:35:09
to law enforcement. Even if you told me you already did, I'm taking it to law enforcement. I will let them sort out.
00:35:16
They know the case better than I in all cases. So, let's let them determine what
00:35:21
is good information and what is bad information. Now, to be clear, the information I would be taking to law
00:35:26
enforcement is that Tim did it. overall blanket statements. Yes, I agree. I No proof. No proof, but I'd be a pretty
00:35:35
good character witness. Um he's a he's a phone yeller. When he gets on the phone,
00:35:40
he's a yeller. Like to yell at people on the phone. Yeah, I I'm sorry about that, Captain. I
00:35:48
definitely I don't even remember. I don't remember. I remember it being late one night and I
00:35:56
remember being a little uh a little maybe under the influence and uh just, you know, just emotional about about
00:36:04
these cases we cover. I mean, I I do apologize to you personally, but um but I I don't apologize as a whole um in
00:36:13
getting emotional with these cases. Well, okay. Question for you guys. And Tim, you can yell at me at whenever you
00:36:20
want because it's it's hard to be friends with people that you were a fan of. You know what I mean? Like I
00:36:27
listened to probably I don't know probably a hundred episodes of you guys before I
00:36:34
actually met you. So, you know, and and I thought, hey, yeah, cool. True Crime Garage, we got this cool show and
00:36:41
everything, but I'm like, this is Tim and Lance. like these are the guys I listen to in the garage like 100
00:36:47
episodes. But um but you guys started initially as wanting to do documentaries, right?
00:36:56
It wasn't so it wasn't so much crime enthusiast as much as it was film. Correct. Yeah, we have a uh a film
00:37:07
background and really the um deep dive into Mora Murray's case that we began in 2015 as Missing Mora Murray was um
00:37:16
really to further the documentary that we were making. And and we were talking more about the culture of armchair
00:37:23
detectives um that had kind of grown around that specific case more than we really were trying to get the facts
00:37:30
right. Um because God knows if you look at the YouTube comments, we did not get some of the facts right early on. Yeah.
00:37:36
But you're but what you guys were trying to what you were exploring is what is the
00:37:42
narrative? And to me that's that's what's been so fascinating over the last 10 years
00:37:48
is learning a case and learning the narrative and then the deeper you go you realize that was a false narrative that
00:37:56
was put out there in some cases. But back to what you were saying like with with Nick and uh Project Portrolite and
00:38:05
um other boards that he's been a part of and other investigations he's been a part of and writing a book. I
00:38:15
think that's something I've struggled with is like at first like this podcast looking into these cases, the victim's
00:38:24
families, it it like engulfs your whole life. And we were probably three or four years
00:38:32
in where I was like, "That's not what I signed up for." You know, I simply just signed up to help my
00:38:40
friend get out information about a about cases that he was fascinated with. And next thing you know, it was like 10 to
00:38:49
15 hours a week on the phone with victim's families or um and and let's just be clear. Um I know we're joking.
00:38:57
Uh, I I I don't hold anything against you. What me and Tim got I think if I'm gonna hopefully I get this right. Uh, I
00:39:10
had an opportunity to talk to Mar's boyfriend at the time that she went missing, Bill. And here again, this
00:39:18
is a it's like I don't want to be in this situation, but here I am. And it's like this guy's willing to talk to me
00:39:27
and I end up talking to him for eight hours the first time and I felt like a responsibility to like just he just
00:39:35
keeps telling me information I've I've never heard about the case. I should just let him talk and maybe he'll say
00:39:43
something that helps with the case or helps the narrative of the case. And then what what he did, which this
00:39:51
happens all the time, you talk to somebody on the phone and then all of a sudden they go online and make it seem
00:39:56
like you're best friends and that like somehow you're vouching for them being a nice person and you're like, I just
00:40:04
talked to you on the phone. I I didn't I I'm not giving you a review online. But
00:40:09
so there's been plenty of times in in our journey where if you know people go, I saw Nick on Court TV last night and I
00:40:19
I view Nick as a true crime expert. That's how I view him. That's what he's grown into. In my brain, I'm still just
00:40:29
his buddy that he's tossing out the ideas to. I I don't want to be a If somebody called me a true crime expert,
00:40:36
I'd be like, "You're you're an idiot." But but I should have the right to not want to be that or not to be labeled at
00:40:44
as as that, if that makes any sense. And I'm sure I know more about cases than most people because we've covered I
00:40:52
don't know, we've done almost a thousand episodes now. So, but that I should be allowed to determine whether I think I'm
00:40:59
a true crime expert or not, and I'm not. So, well, I think he's selling himself a
00:41:04
little short because there there some cases I can think of them right away, a good number of them, that he
00:41:11
is, like we said earlier, you don't know how or why some some cases affect you differently than others. And there are
00:41:19
some cases that he knows a mountain more of knowledge about than I do. Um, so you
00:41:27
know, if it there are some cases that that have got under his skin. Uh, I know Mara Murray case is one of those and and
00:41:34
he could he could tell you a lot more about the Mara Murray case than I ever could. But uh, you know, and the other
00:41:40
thing is Tim and Lance while I Well, and I did too. You guys did a fantastic job obviously with that.
00:41:48
But, uh, you know, um, everything else been submitted. But I mean, you see all the guitars
00:41:57
behind him, you know, he's still in the in the music making world and and doing very good at it. Los losing money by the
00:42:04
day. Well, I do remember now. I some of it's coming back to me that conversation. Um
00:42:11
I totally forgot about that um situation with Bill. I don't even know what we were arguing. Yeah, I don't remember ex
00:42:19
exactly the argument, but I will say there there is this new lead in Mora Murray's case um that came about because
00:42:27
there was a fellow named Stefan Baldwin who was arrested on animal cruelty charges and in fact convicted, but his
00:42:37
finger his fingerprint was found uh apparently on a CD or on a CD case inside of Moa Murray's car And I guess
00:42:47
the FBI has interviewed him about this. Um, so I think it was confirmed that Stefan knew Mora Murray from West Point.
00:42:58
But back to Bill for a second. Like where's Bill? Like, you know, and I'm not I'm really trying not to get
00:43:03
involved. Are you Are you asking, but but where is Bill now? Right. Did it doesn't Wouldn't he have known this guy
00:43:11
too? Like, are we going to hear from him on on this lead? Okay. Right. In the 8 hour phone call, he didn't bring up that
00:43:19
guy. No, he he did. He did. Yeah. And so what was crazy is um you know, me and Rener differ quite a
00:43:32
bit. Uh but but I think he I think he does want to have have this case solved and I think it's hard
00:43:46
sometimes when you're just getting I don't know who gave him this information. My gut feeling was that
00:43:53
maybe he actually got it from Julie and I know that they have a tensionfilled relationship.
00:44:01
I don't think Rener did get it from Julie, but when Rener was um when he put out a YouTube video talking about the
00:44:11
lead it was like the more he talked about the more I was like this has to be the guy that
00:44:18
Bill was talking about. So when I would talk to Bill the first time, he started talking about them
00:44:25
questioning him uh about some individual and but I remember Bill saying Mara was seeing a
00:44:36
guy before me and I want to say that he used the word dirt bag, but dirt bag is a term that's kind of connected to Mar's
00:44:47
case, right? The That's right. the YouTube guy, Fred Moira's dad, um, said that he thinks a local dirt bag took
00:44:56
her. So, there's been there have been people over the years who have even used that sort of moniker. But, yeah, if
00:45:01
someone says they're a dirt bag in this case, then you're essentially suggesting
00:45:07
they could be guilty of something uh, in regards to Mars. I could be quoting Bill
00:45:11
wrong, but during this conversation, he was like saying how when they were talking
00:45:16
to him initially, law enforcement, that this guy got brought up and he was like,
00:45:21
"Oh yeah, I don't know anything about him other than I heard he was a real dirt bag." Again, could be misquing him.
00:45:28
But I was like, "Well, who who was he? What was his name?" And he didn't know the name. So then I took that
00:45:35
information and gave it to a contact that I know that knows Julie and they I what I'm guessing is that law
00:45:44
enforcement has a record of who she was communicating with through instant messenger. I think this dirt bag, this
00:45:53
Stefano guy was one of those individuals. That doesn't mean, you know, great, they're connected digitally
00:46:01
that or through data, but that doesn't mean that they were planning to meet up or anything like that. But they assumed
00:46:09
when I said, "Hey, I talked to Bill and Bill talked about this guy that she was seeing
00:46:13
beforehand, they somehow believed that was connected to this guy up in New Jersey." And so now with this new Rener
00:46:22
information, I'm like, "No, I think Bill I think Bill was talking about Stefano or whatever his name is." And what I was
00:46:30
hoping for, and I I don't know what Rener's doing with it, but I was hoping Renard didn't run in in his normal Rener
00:46:37
way where it's like, well, let's gather all this information about this guy and and paint a horrible picture of him. And
00:46:46
yes, he's a horrible person, but none of that matters. All that matters is can we
00:46:51
put him in the area at the time she goes missing. You know, whether that's him driving a a a
00:46:58
tandem car or whether she was supposed to meet him in a certain location or was he there a week prior to her going
00:47:07
missing. If we can't put him in that location, then whatever character assassination we want to do on the guy
00:47:14
won't matter. If that makes any sense. No, it totally makes sense. You actually are
00:47:19
almost quoting uh former US Marshal Art Rodrik there because his whole thing when he was investigating with the
00:47:26
family was this individual, whoever it is, might be a terrible person. They might
00:47:34
have a criminal record. Can you put that person with Mora on that day? Right? That's really where the math has to come
00:47:40
together. You need to make that equation equal something. And we'll be right back
00:47:45
after a quick word from our sponsors. Thanks to our sponsors and now we're back to the program. We started covering
00:47:53
the deli case before a lot of people and that was my big issue with the whole case was
00:48:00
we're talking about thousands of individuals that people were posting. Here's this guy. This is his name. This
00:48:07
is where he works. And they couldn't put him. They might not even be able to put
00:48:12
the guy in the state of Indiana during the time of the m murders. And it's like that's what you have to do
00:48:19
first. And um so that that becomes frustrating when when people don't do that, you know. And and it's tough
00:48:27
though too because when Bill Rouse has charges against him and but I don't know if those
00:48:38
charges would ever be brought up against him if he didn't have a girlfriend that
00:48:43
went missing. And so it's tough because I thought it was important for you guys to have him on your show to
00:48:53
discuss because I don't know anybody um other than maybe one other person that knows the this case as well as you
00:49:01
guys do to have him on. But but I also understand it's hard to give that individual that has charges against them
00:49:08
a a platform um because people will then assume um that you're siding with him or
00:49:15
being a a character witness for him and and just giving him a platform. It's it's very difficult and I talked to him
00:49:22
for a long time and I mean I do feel bad for Bill in the sense of if there's no involvement and uh if he's not involved
00:49:32
at all with Mara's disappearance then this is this is a event that has shaped the rest of his life and and I think
00:49:42
maybe some of the mistakes he made and the and the points of his life that he was a bad character that he admits he
00:49:50
was a bad character might actually stem from from this event. Um, and that's not
00:49:56
to give him an excuse or anything, but I couldn't imagine if um I couldn't imagine having a girlfriend that I cared
00:50:05
about and loved. No matter if I was a good boyfriend or a bad boyfriend, I couldn't
00:50:12
imagine her just disappearing and having zero answers. Yeah. Right. Yeah. It's got to be a
00:50:20
tough situation. Um, yeah, we spoke with Bill as well a few times. Um, he really
00:50:27
really uh made us like I don't know, work for it. Really made us work for it and and like we would have had to have
00:50:36
been even more patient than we had been with him to ever talk to him on the record. Um, and I I felt like, and you
00:50:46
know, maybe this is part of the emotion of myself getting involved in this case,
00:50:50
speaking a bit, but I don't really ever feel like he was totally honest. Um, and
00:50:55
I don't know where that comes from, what he's holding back or whatnot, but I he just didn't he struck me as
00:51:01
disingenuous. Yeah. And I And I wonder if some of that is part of his training, like military training, you mean? Yeah.
00:51:09
What? Yeah. or um like a PR training almost, right? You know, because you know what drove me
00:51:18
insane is he kept saying my name. Yeah. And that's like a tactic that some people use where they'll go, "Oh, Tim,
00:51:28
you know, oh, Lance, they constantly keep every Well, Patrick, that's a good question, right? What?" You know what I
00:51:36
mean? Like he was just like constantly doing that. It's like a salesy tactic. And I got to the point where I was like,
00:51:43
"You need to stop doing that. You're annoying the [ __ ] out of me. Like, I think you're doing it for a
00:51:51
reason." And and and look, I think maybe he was more honest with me than some people
00:52:00
because we come from the same area. I mean, he he grew up 20 minutes from me. He he played against my high school team
00:52:10
in basketball. So maybe that's why he or maybe he was just trying to sell me some
00:52:15
[ __ ] But I also think he had this weird misconception that one, the true crime
00:52:23
space was bigger than it was and that we were all somehow connected. And so I know for a fact that
00:52:32
when he he I mean he told me when when he posted certain things online to try to clear up something that he heard on a
00:52:40
podcast, he thought somehow everybody was checking in on his uh Twitter account. And I think but again, what a
00:52:50
weird space to be in. But uh but there's people out there that have investigated
00:52:55
this case and other cases that go, "Hey, Bill, talked to me. Not a bad guy cuz he's willing to
00:53:03
talk to And it's like I I didn't view it that way, but I just feel like when I talked to him, it was a sense of like
00:53:12
that maybe that he could use me in a in a way, you know, like if if I can get this guy to like me, then
00:53:23
um then all this other stuff with these other podcasters and these other investigators, maybe that will go away.
00:53:31
Um, but he was also very honest with some of the shitty things he's done as a person. But there's guys out there, and
00:53:41
we've all met them, that they go on a date, they treat the girl like [ __ ] and they go back and they brag to their
00:53:47
friends. And some of the guys listen to the story and go, "Oh man, you're the you're the man." I've never been one of
00:53:53
those guys. So I think when he was telling me these stories almost in a braggadocious way, I just thought less
00:54:01
of him, you know, like, "Oh, congratulations. You did a horrible thing to somebody." Like, "I'm I'm
00:54:08
supposed to hold you in higher regard." Like, I don't know. Do you see that as like a um you know the length of the
00:54:16
conversation that you had with him, the fact that he was using your name so often that it got annoying to you that
00:54:22
you had to remind him like, "Hey, this is annoying." Do you think he was just overplaying his cards? Like thinking
00:54:29
with his military training and the psychological ops that he does and just that salesman approach, did he kind of
00:54:37
again overplay his hand in that conversation with you? Yeah, I think he just thought like I'm just going to do
00:54:43
what I normally do to manipulate people. And then when somebody called him out on
00:54:48
it, I think that's when he was like, well, maybe I need to be, you know, a little more honest here. Yeah. I mean, 8
00:54:56
hours. Well, no. And and the total amount of time we talked was probably, I don't know, 40, 50 hours.
00:55:04
Yeah. But 8 hours in a sitting like that that was the longest one. But there was
00:55:08
times that it was like six and a half hours. There was like those are like torture scenarios, you know? No. Like
00:55:15
when they capture prisoners and they're torturing them. Yeah. They push and push
00:55:20
and push. But there was a time period that I that I thought he was suicidal. He might not have been, but
00:55:28
there was a time period that I thought he was. And so my thought was anybody that's been there, you know, on the edge
00:55:37
of that, right? Whatever that is, that I just felt like I had to talk to him because again, again, I don't think some
00:55:47
of this stuff in his life would have happened again, would his actions have changed or again this that's where it
00:55:56
gets complicated because you can say, did he do these things? did he not do these things? And then would anybody
00:56:02
ever brought charges against him? Or, you know, when you have when you're having an affair on your wife, would
00:56:08
this ever been brought to light in the public space if he um never had a girlfriend that went missing? And then I
00:56:17
think somebody could then look at all these events in his life and say, "Well, does this mean it's possible that he
00:56:25
could have been responsible for a girl going missing?" Um, it's but I mean, there's been there's been several times
00:56:34
in the true crime space that I'm talking to somebody on the phone because I think
00:56:39
they're suicidal, and that's not comfortable. Um, and I won't use the guy's name, but
00:56:47
the guy got so rich and famous that he tried to kill himself and he, you know, shut the
00:56:54
garage door. He turned on his car. He 5 minutes in, he's feeling nothing. and he
00:57:00
looks it up online and realizes the car that he bought is so fancy that one of the features of the car is even if you
00:57:10
turn the car on in a shut that it's impossible to kill yourself with the fumes because it's such a nice vehicle,
00:57:20
you know? So, but that goes back to my thing of like I think it's okay. It's okay to have a podcast and not
00:57:30
identify as an expert or want to be an expert or want to do the work to become that. I think that's okay. And I still
00:57:38
think we uh as much as the more Nick learns, the more his uh opinion can be val, you
00:57:47
know, uh valuable as much as somebody that doesn't know about a case, their opinion can be valuable as well, if I'm
00:57:54
making any sense at all. Yeah. No, I think that works. I think sometimes someone who doesn't know much about the
00:58:00
case can see it much clearly than someone who's uh been in the weeds for for a long time, you know. I think
00:58:06
that's uh certainly true. And um yeah, Morris case is something that I you know and and Lance and I for I'm sure you
00:58:14
guys, but we're always rooting for it. Um always rooting for it to get solved. Um I really do hope this um new lead
00:58:22
goes somewhere. Um I I do think uh the investigators at PI's for the Missing kind of threw a little bit of cold water
00:58:30
on it. Um but we didn't get too deep into why or anything like that. So, we don't know any any more details on that.
00:58:36
Um, but it's definitely a case I I follow all the time and um I'm always rooting for it to get solved. And I just
00:58:43
want to say that I think a big reason why we another big reason why we don't cover it regularly anymore is because
00:58:50
Julie is so active out there and there's no reason for us to. You know, I think we we like to do purposeful um missing
00:58:59
person's cases. Um, and maybe not every episode is purposeful, especially if we're covering like a hundred-year-old
00:59:05
case or something like that. We're just interested in how it happened, but a lot
00:59:10
of times we're trying to get the information out there. And with Mora Murray's case, Julie is by far the best
00:59:16
advocate uh for that case. So, just want to give a big shout out to her for uh what she's doing with media pressure and
00:59:22
her social media pages. I think it's incredible and I'm uh behind it 100%. No. And and I think that I loved it. I
00:59:31
loved everything that she did. I think it adds and this goes back to the narrative. That's what I find, you know,
00:59:39
after 10 years of doing this is how the narratives change. You could I mean a lot of these
00:59:47
cases, it's like you have an elevator pitch. Well, like take Mars's case for example. Well, this girl, she leaves
00:59:55
college and uh she's going somewhere. But we don't know where she's going. She gets a car wreck and then uh somebody
01:00:01
stops to help her and 7 minutes later she's gone. Like that's the elevator pitch and then then the sto you know
01:00:08
Fred has a narrative. Rener has a narrative. Then then Tim and Lance come along and
01:00:15
they're trying to uncover more of the narrative and what is the truth. Is Rener's narrative false
01:00:23
in any way? Is Fred's narrative false in any way? And it might not be false in a
01:00:28
nefarious way. It might just be the color glasses that they looked at the case or will view the case. Fred is
01:00:36
going to view Mara's case completely different than any of us because it's his daughter.
01:00:42
And so that's why I find so fascinating is as you peel back the the onion, you start realizing I mean some of these
01:00:51
cases I mean the Schaefer case guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy
01:00:54
guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy go goes into a bar and never seen leaving
01:00:57
the bar again. All right that's it for part one. Make sure to tune in for part two coming
01:01:03
soon. [Music]