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n [Music] [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for
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all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true [Music]
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crime in true crime stories we often hear statements like that is when our town lost its innocence or that sort of
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thing just doesn't happen here many times those are the words of sad and Confused concerned
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citizens of a community rocked and shocked to the core with a recent unimaginable
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crime big city problems come to a little town as they say today we examine a terrible crime one
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that for some very strange and Indescribable reason has caused me to question so many
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aspects of the crime the concealment of evidence and the nature and secrets of this little girl's neighbors and the
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persons that lived in the town that was suddenly struck with a big city problem that sort of thing doesn't
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happen here well this sort of thing shouldn't happen anywhere this is true crime garage and
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this is the still unsolved homicide case of Shannon [Music] Paul this week we head on down to the
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Prattville Alabama area more specifically captain we're going to the nice quaint neighborhood of Candlestick
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Park sports fans will recognize that name as the onetime home ballpark for the San Francisco Giants and the home
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field for the 49ers but no longer as the last event held at that wonderful stadium was a 2014 Paul McCartney
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concert for the sake of our case in the case that we're talking about here this week we're going to go back to 2001 one
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the Prattville population at this time is just under 30,000 folks and the Candlestick mobile home Community is
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located in the Southeastern part of Prattville Alabama the focus of our case is going to be 11-year-old Shannon pulk
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and the date is August 16th 2001 this is a Thursday now Shannon's mother is heading off to work
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first thing in the morning when I say first thing in the morning some sources say that she's up at 4:00
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a.m. to get things going so she can get out the door now keep in mind this is summertime so this means no school for
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the kids on this day but Mom is going to work Shannon and her 16-year-old Sister
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Lisa will be staying home that day sounds like the protocol is that the girls have some
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chores and just make sure everybody's home after Mom returns from work and home in time for
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dinner so the girls were allowed to leave the home and go out and visit with friends and play in the neighborhood and
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such just be home before dinner and you can go out as long as your chores are done Shannon's mom Marie pulk as said
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had to be at work early that morning she says that when she left the home just before she saw Shannon was asleep on the
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couch so she kissed her on the forehead before leaving for the day now we do get
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a pretty detailed timeline of events I'm not going to say it's perfect obviously
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we we have some gaps here and we have some details that are missing that could certainly help solve this mystery but we
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do get some good information because this is this neighborhood this Candlestick Park is described by several
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of the residents as a live community and what they mean by that is there's always
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people outside and there's always people interacting with one another in this neighborhood be it people out mowing the
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grass people out riding bikes kids playing people sitting on their front porches so it's referred to as a live
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and active community and neighborhood as said her mother has to be up early that
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morning she's leaving the house rather early that morning and she has a stop on her way to work she's dropping off a
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baby nephew back to his parents home on the way to work so she kisses Shannon on
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the forehead and she walks out of the house she leaves this is supposed to just be another ordinary Thursday one
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thing that is going on here they live on Expo the name of their street is Expo by
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the way all the streets in this neighborhood are named after baseball teams Shannon's father is living about
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about 2 hours away dad and mom are in the process of a divorce one of the items here Captain is
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stated that Shannon was supposed to be grounded that day which is a little tricky because in my household growing
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up grounded for the day meant you weren't to leave the house but nobody seems to be questioning her leaving the
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house now at 9:00 a.m. Lisa this is Shannon's older sister said that she woke up and the TV was on in the living
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room and said that the TV was loud and she noticed that Shannon had made herself some breakfast and that she had
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already left the home for the day one account and report that is not that there's no discrepancies in
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when you go to different sources is Shannon's personality she's a very active child so her already being
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up for the day and out of the house was nothing nothing out of the ordinary not out of the ordinary for Shannon but not
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out of the ordinary for the other kids in the trailer park around 10 a.m. Shannon is over at a neighbor's house on
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Mets street she stayed with this neighbor for about 30 minutes or so Shannon had asked this woman if she
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could take her up to the gas station so she could buy some candy she said that she could later but at the time her
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child was still sleep sleeping in the other room and so she told Shannon to come back later and she would take her
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to get some candy from there Shannon went over to another friend's home so now on our timeline I have a marker of
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about 11:45 a.m. this is to see if some friends could come out and play however the
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friend is said to be too busy couldn't come out and play with Shannon these Neighbors
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reported seeing Shannon with a baby walker or baby stroller it's so from my understanding here Captain there is a
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stroller that even though she was grounded part of that day it was understood that she was going to go out
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and retrieve this stroller from somewhere in the mobile home park I would like to know more about where this
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stroller came from was this just something that was spotted that somebody was discarding or was this an arrangement to
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pick it up I don't have great details on this but the stroller has become a rather large part of the story because
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some of our witnesses that see her that day see her toing around the stroller now she was shanon was a
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very like helpful kid as we'll see in some of this timeline but she loved babies and the purpose of her getting
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the stroller was to bring it back to her own home because she was going to give it
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to her relative for the new baby that that Mom just returned home that morning when I hear that she's told to retrieve
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this stroller to me it's maybe an item that she was playing with that she left somewhere could be again I wish that we
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had a great understanding of the significance of this stroller because there are some sources that put a lot of
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thought and speculation into the movement of the stroller and then there's other times
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where I just go maybe it has nothing to do with the story at all other than it's
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something it was part of her day that day yeah it makes you wonder did people see her playing with this stroller
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before the day she went missing there's a neighbor called Miz Mary so a lot of these neighbors seem to have nicknames
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that that as we go through some of these nicknames you'll see it it's obvious that the nicknames are created by the
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kids in the neighborhood so this m Mary known to wear all black she saw Shannon out of her window over at this
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friend's house that we talked about she said that she saw her knock on the door and talk to them she said that she then
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saw Shannon leave with the baby stroller and walk around to the other side of the
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pond over to the quote Halloween man's house Miss Mary says that she saw Shannon knock on his door but he must
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have not scary or anything the Halloween man yeah so he must not have been home because M Mary
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says that this Halloween man does not answer the door now Ms Mary is she's very important to our timeline because
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for my understanding M Mary is somebody that Shannon even though M Mary's an older woman this is someone that Shannon
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would actually go and hang out with you know we talked about her sitting on somebody's porch and and talking earlier
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she would go and say hello to M Mary and things like that so this appears to be a
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trusted individual within the neighborhood and what we're going to see with some of the players in this
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neighborhood maybe some of them should not be trusted so when we have M Mary saying that she sees her knock on the
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Halloween man's door and nobody answers her statement is that the Halloween man was not home I don't know
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how she knows that the man wasn't home other or she just assuming that because he does not answer the door cuz it's not
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out of the realm of possibility that he was home and saw it's a little girl knocking on my door and I don't want to
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be bothered today or busy or still in bed um you know we don't know what his schedule would have been for that day
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and we do know his name we'll get into some of the players here as we go But continuing on the
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timeline according to Witnesses Shannon then walked back toward the back of the park to one of the homes closer to her
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own this is reported as being a little bit before noon that day Shannon knocked on the door of a home only a couple
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houses over from hers so she's now back on Expo or expose the neighbor was a Prattville Police Officer he lived there
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with his wife and his boys his kids Shannon had recently rescued a puppy and his family had been taking care of that
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dog because Shannon was not allowed to keep it right this neighbor however was getting ready for work the statement
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here is it was just him and the boys so his wife wasn't home and people have really read flag this thing saying
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that the man the police officer told Shannon she couldn't come in to visit with the dog or the boys because his
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wife wasn't home it's been stated that this is some kind of house rule okay I want to investigate this a little bit
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before we move on here some people have suggested that maybe the wife created this house rule because there's
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something weird about this dude like you can't have kids in here that aren't ours
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because he can't be trusted around them that's a rumor that's circled around this portion of the timeline well if
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he's a Mr mcely type then we need to create rules and boundaries for this pedo well the the rumor is that the rule
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is was created because he might be weird the the adult male the father again I want to point out this is a rumor it may
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be true that he says you can't come in because my wife isn't home there could be what I'm saying is there could be a
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house rule that has nothing to do with him being a weirdo that right you know there are some homes that either mom or
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dad or what have you just doesn't want to deal with extra kids and if the wife or husband's not there they don't allow
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extra kids into the home or was he busy getting ready for work and didn't have time you know there's a million reasons
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why she would be denied access into this home like you said maybe he just doesn't
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want to deal with her and maybe she's a little bit of a Bugaboo without him being some kind of weird strange guy but
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I I point that out because that is the rumor so let's leave that door a little bit open on the possibility that that
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could be the truth but also possibly not a complete scumbag because they find this dog and they take the dog in to
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take care of the dog well and he is a later they're going to narrow down the time of concern for
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noon you know there are there's often psychological test and all kinds of other tests that individuals take to
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become a police officer or work for a city or a town so I'm I'm choosing to give him the benefit of the doubt the
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listeners out there can decide if uh if your boy is right or wrong here I think that there's enough don't bet a Franklin
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on it I think there's enough mystery here in this case that uh we don't want to spin
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our tires too long on just this one individual now well the fact of the matter is this is a small community like
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you said under 30,000 individuals but in this park even less and anybody that saw
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her that day or anybody that was in that Park during this time that she went missing has to be looked at it's just
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the the way that's just the way the world Works absolutely so thank you for the nudge there Captain so here a little
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background on this trailer park the Candlestick mobile home park as it's called it's an all ages manufactured
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home Community located on South Memorial Drive in Prattville Alabama it's a land lease
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Community it was built in 1986 it has 220 home sites okay that doesn't mean that they are all filled but they have
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enough room for 220 homes and the Lots vary in size and we know that because the the lot rent
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ranges there's quite a big range of prices that a person could pay per month to live there so the lot sizes must vary
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but keep in mind if this thing's filled 220 homes that's a lot of people in this
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community so this is a big neighborhood and I think there's a lot of a lot of information here to suggest that
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whenever she went missing whatever caused her to go missing very likely could have happened right inside of this
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community inside this neighborhood here is a point for me that I don't love right I do not love to see this in our
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timeline and we can get into the wise of that here in a bit but originally police
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were working on the idea so what we're going to end up with is that police are notified when Shannon never comes home
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for dinner and they're called in now early in the investigation they are working through
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this timeline that we've just spoke of and they're saying that look this the last sighting confirmed sighting we have
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of her is Shannon leaving this house house around noon remember she knocks on the door of the Prattville Police
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Officer and family is denied access she's seen leaving there around noon and from my understanding this might be
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multiple accounts we have multiple Witnesses saying that spotted around noon so early in the investigation
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police are going to hone in on the timeline of noon to about 7:30 p.m. okay so that's when everybody's out in the
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restrictions apply see Min mobile for details [Music] welcome back you filthy animals cheers
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mates cheers to you Colonel cheers to you Captain cheers to people in the back power to the people around 1:15 p.m. the
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Prattville Police Officer leaves his home for work see this is why I I really kind of got the feeling that this was
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more of just a situational thing like hey I'm trying to get ready for work there's no other parents here and we
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don't know exactly what was said though right I mean because well I believe that
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he gave the statement of I told her she couldn't come in cuz my wife wasn't home
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and I think that people have kind of just run with that statement of like well that seems weird which is weird in
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itself I mean it it literally could be my wife knows you I don't know you that well I'm you can't come in sorry or
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maybe it was meant to be if my wife was here I'm getting ready to leave for work
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right right in an hour and 15 minutes if my wife were here you could come in because she would be here for the
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remainder of the day yeah we don't know what he needs to do we don't know if he needs to [ __ ] shower and shave or just
00:26:07
be straight up weird for an hour and 15 minutes he has to do the chicken dance very slowly yeah so
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around5 we get more of this statement here that Prattville Police Officer is leaving his home for work he says that
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he sees that baby stroller that Shannon had been toing around he says he spots left on the curb outside of the
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Halloween man's house he says he does not see Shannon anywhere so this window of time is what the police will
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eventually come up with is most believed to be when she was abducted or something
00:26:46
happened to her right it's not out of the realm of possibility that she went back to Halloween man's house she could
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be safe and sound in somebody else's house at this time we know she was what was she doing that morning that we know
00:26:59
100% toting around a stroller and knocking on people's doors so she could have knocked on anybody's door went in
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and actually been safe and sound and just left the stroller outside somewhere to retrieve it later or and this is a
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sad possibility she could have already been picked up somebody could have picked her up in a car or she's in
00:27:18
someone's home and things are not not great anybody that has grown up in a community when where there's other
00:27:26
kids you you've experienced this you wake up you're looking for somebody to hang out with you start going door too
00:27:35
you have your favorites you go to first or maybe the kids that you know are their go-to kids they're going to be
00:27:42
home and it seems like every person that she's going to hang out with is just not
00:27:47
available and if somebody was available that day then this might have never happen yeah a little background here on
00:27:54
Shannon so she's 11 at the time as we said she's 5 tall 83 lb this is according to her missing poster uh
00:28:04
Caucasian with green eyes and Sandy brown hair I don't know how tall a kid supposed to be if at 11 years old that
00:28:12
seems tall for to to my mind but she is reported to have been very friendly very
00:28:20
outgoing she saw everyone in that neighborhood as her friend she's remembered for visiting the trailers of
00:28:28
other persons of her neighbors to ask if they needed help with anything in particular she was known for visiting an
00:28:35
elderly resident known as M Mary to help her bathe and brush the teeth of her small dog listen to how much care this
00:28:44
little one had right she she's retrieving a stroller for her cousin the her baby cousin right she's rescued a a
00:28:54
puppy and and gave it to a neighbor to take care of and is going over to check on the dog she's helping an elderly
00:29:02
resident bathe and brush the teeth of her small dog regularly so she's extremely kind-hearted extremely
00:29:09
outgoing which might be might end up of being a big problem here she was a person that was described as she knows
00:29:19
no stranger she never met a stranger and her mother Marie stad stated she had a heart of gold and just
00:29:27
love love people all people and everybody loved her so do we have any more information on this Halloween man a
00:29:36
little bit let's let's we have a couple more items here on the timeline we have a pregnant
00:29:43
neighbor who came home sometime later I don't have a a marker a Time marker for this but it stated that she came home
00:29:51
later that day to see the stroller on the curb she thought that it had been thrown away I guess she retrieved it
00:29:58
thinking that it it was just you know somebody had tossed it was discarding it and so she could use it uh so she
00:30:05
retrieved it now she did clean the stroller and I don't know what kind of evidence anybody would think that they
00:30:12
could have retrieved from the stroller but we we should note here that if there were to have been any evidence physical
00:30:19
evidence on that stroller it was cleaned that very day the same day that Shannon goes missing and we don't have a
00:30:26
time marker for this individual but we do know that her mother left early in the morning because she had to work so
00:30:32
she's going to get home earlier so she comes back around 2:30 or so mhm and and she doesn't see any signs of her
00:30:43
daughter yeah Shannon's not at home when Mom returns and I guess the breakup was
00:30:49
fairly recent maybe 6 months prior or just a few months prior right between Mom and Dad and so look Shannon's not
00:30:58
the only big heart caring person in this family mom says she she knows her daughter was upset and sad about the
00:31:06
situation she came home her daughter's not there she's like okay cool she's just out playing with some friends I'm
00:31:13
going to swing over to Walmart and pick up a couple of items to surprise my kid and try to cheer her up and so she goes
00:31:21
over to the store purchases some items comes back Shannon's still not there now it's time to start making dinner shanon
00:31:29
never comes back and it's as we said earlier it's understood that by 7:30 p.m. whatever happened happened she was
00:31:38
she was gone by 7:30 p.m. to me I would like that to be a big marker on our timeline so what we do know happens is
00:31:49
mom and sister Lisa they're out in the neighborhood knocking on doors Shannon knew no stranger so a lot of these
00:31:56
Neighbors start joining in helping to look for the little girl they're going through the neighborhood they're
00:32:04
checking people's yards they're knocking on doors they're doing everything they can this all goes down approximately 60
00:32:12
minutes let's say one hour's time now we know at about 8:30 this is when Shannon's mom calls Shannon's father in
00:32:21
fact he was supposed to come and get the kid the next day and keep her for the weekend and of course he's like yeah
00:32:32
I've not heard from her but but he lives two hours away at this point he says I've not heard anything from her he's
00:32:38
extremely concerned so he's like I'm jumping in my car I'll be there as quickly as I possibly can but if I'm
00:32:45
clear on something the the last person that actually saw her was the police officer that's what it sounds like to me
00:32:54
yes and and so you you're making a big marker at this 7:30 8:00 but I think when you look at when he saw her last
00:33:04
the mom getting home other people in the neighborhood getting home the abduction
00:33:09
to me seems like it happened before 2: p.m. I can agree with that but the reason why I want to make this 730
00:33:17
marker very important is because I think that I think that people have created a
00:33:23
narrative here that she must have gone M because of the stroller right again I think that a lot of I
00:33:30
think that there's way too much weight put into the movement of this stupid stroller and because it's found it's
00:33:38
seen just sitting there unattended by Shannon at 115 that that there's they've created this narrative that has has
00:33:46
stood now for 20 years that oh something must have happened to where between noon
00:33:51
and5 I think I think it's it's very it could be very likely I'm not saying that that's impossible I'm not saying that
00:33:58
that is not likely at all I'm saying it could be very likely I think it's irresponsible to start creating a window
00:34:07
for which you have no verification the problem I guess is that we have no Witnesses saying that they've seen her
00:34:12
after that time and and she had a lot of friends and knew a lot of the neighbors
00:34:16
so it would it would make sense that that we would have good people saying yeah I talked to her oh yeah I saw her
00:34:23
walking there but what I'm saying is I don't know that she 100% had to be in the possession of her abductor by 115
00:34:34
and and and you'll see why I think that that's irresponsible well and I also think too it's like she could have
00:34:40
retrieved the stroller walked around with it for a little bit and went yeah not today I'm going to I'm going to
00:34:47
leave it here going I'm going to go to a couple more places and I'll come back and get the stroller but I'm not going
00:34:53
to just push this around with me all day and now what we have here is the police
00:34:58
are called the time the marker I have on my timeline Captain is around 9:00 p.m.
00:35:03
the police are called they do come out they are talking to neighbors talking with the family I've not seen Shannon's
00:35:11
family say a bad word about the police I have seen not a bad word but neighbors saying that they didn't think that the
00:35:20
police were taking it very seriously until the next day now this is this is why I really have a problem with that
00:35:30
noon to 1:15 so neighbors went around there searching for Shannon that night around
00:35:36
10 p.m. they said that everyone was very helpful and very concerned now they've they're talking to police right
00:35:43
everyone's very helpful everyone's been very concerned but they the neighbors the people out searching for
00:35:51
her they've got a problem with with two of the people that they speak with that night it's two men two individual ual
00:35:59
when they knocked on the root beer man's home so he lives right across the street
00:36:04
from the Halloween man this makes the story creepier though right do you agree with that I mean you got one guy called
00:36:10
the Halloween man this other guy called the root beer man sounds like a story that children
00:36:16
are telling you but these are probably nicknames that are thought up by children well so from my understanding
00:36:23
the the reason why root beer man gets his name is and this is this this is absolutely creepy in my opinion
00:36:30
he was known to to invite neighborhood kids into his home he lived by himself to invite them into his home or to have
00:36:39
them like do chores or work around his home yeah and he would either pay them or often he would give them a can of
00:36:48
root beer as payment so he gets this nicknam root beer man Halloween man from my understanding it's a very similar
00:36:56
situation but he was known to hand out candy to the to the kids in the neighborhood oh I'm Halloween man give
00:37:02
me some candy I would say hey give them the benefit of the doubt maybe they're just you know nice guys that that are
00:37:09
misunderstood that are handing out root beer and Halloween candy but we'll see with root beer man there's a lot of
00:37:15
reason to have some concern here so root beer man lives across the street from Halloween man people got a bad Vibe
00:37:23
about him that night because they say when they knocked on his door he took forever to answer answer the door and he
00:37:28
only cracked the door he refused to open the door all the way when asked if he had seen Shannon he said no she was
00:37:34
probably just out getting candy that seems like a strange statement to say at 10 p.m. at night that an 11-year-old is
00:37:42
probably out getting candy and that's why she's not home and then people were concerned that he took forever to answer
00:37:47
the door could be simply that he was sleeping at the time they did say he was fully dressed which which some people
00:37:54
thought that that was strange as well because he too worked early in the morning and typically would be up and
00:38:01
out of the neighborhood early in the morning to be off to work yeah just a little over the close flicky flicky
00:38:08
extensive searches of the area were done by local state and even federal law enforcement as the days went on
00:38:15
waterways were searched dogs were used helicopters the whole nine yards but they couldn't find her the uh State
00:38:22
Police were involved and as and the FBI even got involved as well but nobody really had any idea
00:38:30
what had happened to her now there was a man who had a dog trained in either search and rescue or or kadav
00:38:40
search it's not fully explained and those are two very different things handlers will know that that those are
00:38:46
two very different things but this man offered to provide services to Shannon's family and Shannon's father says that
00:38:55
the dog went into Shannon's room smelled some of her clothing the dog takes off running directly over to root bear man's
00:39:03
house right over to the creepy [ __ ] and it's stated that the dog sniffed around this trailer and tried to sniff
00:39:10
under the root beer man's trailer for around 45 minutes once they were able to get the dog to continue the dog then ran
00:39:20
to the nearby Forest up to the railroad tracks and over to County Road 4 and then stopped so I love these dogs
00:39:30
but I've pointed out plenty of times one one problem is they can't talk they can't tell us when you ran to those when
00:39:38
you ran to the forest nearby and ran over to the railroad tracks where you still following the scent you must be a
00:39:45
scent dog cuz you can't freaking talk either right but what we do know is that dog seem to show great concern for the
00:39:52
root beer man's house and under the trailer of that house so so much so that they had to they had to urge the dog to
00:40:01
to move on it just wanted to stay there that's where my concern would go well why are you urging the dog to go
00:40:09
anywhere else other than where it wants to go isn't that the point of having the
00:40:13
dog right but it that's why I pointed out it's different to be trained in search and rescue or or cadav because if
00:40:20
that dog's train in search and rescue your that dog's job is to find the person right right if it's trained in
00:40:28
kadav it's trained to find a kadaver any kadav but here if it's if if it's looking for the person you get to this
00:40:36
man's home he not he answers the door right and this dog is really concerned about
00:40:42
this home but you've not found the person you're searching for so you do have to kind of move on but but it
00:40:49
wasn't lost on anybody that this dog showed concern about this this home this is one of those situations that we've
00:40:59
seen in made for TV movies where fictional or whether it's true crime-based the whole
00:41:09
Community was constantly checking in on the news reading the newspapers where is this
00:41:17
little girl we're not just talking about Candlestick Park we're talking about Prattville the whole town and city of
00:41:23
Prattville they were putting up yellow ribbons now unfortunately those yellow ribbons did bring her home just not in
00:41:31
the way that anyone wanted right on October 6th 2001 so remember she goes missing mid August so this is weeks and
00:41:43
weeks that pass we have two rabbit hunters and forgive me if I say this wrong but they were hunting in the
00:41:53
ataga Wildlife Management Area this is a public hunting area it's about 19 miles
00:42:00
north of Prattville they come upon an area that appeared at first to be they think that it's just like scattered
00:42:08
trash that they find in this hunting area however they quickly realized that they had found a body they found the
00:42:15
body of a little girl who had been tied with a rope stuffed inside a trash bag and found with her underwear around her
00:42:23
head and enough time has passed that they're pretty certain unfortunately that this is Shannon pul
00:42:32
who they've everybody's been looking for for all this time but they're going to have to confirm that and in fact we we
00:42:39
have the police statements that are saying you know we don't have another missing person that even vaguely fits
00:42:46
this description so we're pretty certain that it's Shannon pul they do run some DNA and and get confirmation that it is
00:42:55
in fact the little girl that everybody was looking for we need to point out here that that this area to me is one of
00:43:04
the keys to solving this case I believe because there are several people that have gone on record saying I lived in
00:43:11
Prattville Alabama my entire life and we're not talking about 15year old people saying this we're talking about
00:43:17
50 60 year old people saying I lived in Prattville Alabama my entire life I didn't know that this area existed this
00:43:25
this this hunting area I I had never been there right it's it's like a dirt road off of a dirt road off of a dirt
00:43:34
road to get to it which is a tough thing because you look at these crimes where the the victims are found in remote
00:43:41
areas and law enforcement always assumes that that means it's somebody local but
00:43:46
I don't necessarily believe that you might not believe it but I'll tell you the first thing I would be doing after
00:43:52
after they found this girl if it were my case I would be checking for I would be cross referencing hunting
00:44:01
licenses right with people that lived in her neighborhood well that definitely makes sense remember just like just like
00:44:08
finding the Long Island serial killer it it was as simple as who owns a truck that the witness
00:44:15
saw in this neighborhood there was one guy and he fit the description the physical description of of a potential
00:44:23
witness in that case right in this case I would be looking for I I if if I if I see out of 220 homes in this trailer
00:44:32
park only one dude has a hunting license I'm going to be on him like white on rice so the the key players here the
00:44:41
persons of concern that stand out and again it's possible that none of these individuals have anything to do with the
00:44:49
murder of this little girl or or her disappearance for weeks at all but the but the people that remain key players
00:44:57
or people of concern in this case for 20 years is the Prattville Police Officer he doesn't seem very likely to me
00:45:06
Captain because his his kids are home the whole time right like we know that he's not alone and then he leaves for
00:45:13
work well because the way her body was discovered to me the crime didn't take place there it's more likely that it
00:45:20
took place somewhere else and she was transported there think what you're saying and that
00:45:27
there's not other possibilities but it's like the guy's at home he has to go to work he tells her not to come in the
00:45:35
house the the boys never see her in the house and so we don't have any evidence of him leaving super early and then you
00:45:44
know picking her up and doing something with her the case is unsolved so he is one of the last people that we know
00:45:52
of to see her so he has to stay on the list until we can prove that he didn't do it
00:45:59
yeah the thing here I that I keep I want to put him at the top of the list no actually I I I wouldn't discard him I
00:46:08
wouldn't remove him from your list but I'd put him at the very bottom because I what I see here and I look no Sherlock
00:46:16
Holmes but it looks to me like somebody had to conceal Shannon pul yes and there's no nice way of saying it so I'll
00:46:25
just say it they had to conceal K this girl either abducted and alive or or otherwise
00:46:35
and I don't given the timeline when a when a that's a pretty solid Alibi a police
00:46:44
officer is at work he leaves at 1:15 and is very likely trying to help the investigation by saying yeah she knocked
00:46:53
on my door I told her to go away and then when I left for work at 115 I saw that stroller that was with her earlier
00:47:00
and I didn't see her if he is involved he's got a short window of of an hour and 15 minutes to do whatever happened
00:47:09
and conceal her abducted and alive or otherwise it there just doesn't seem to be enough time for any of that and he's
00:47:18
not alone at any point in that timeline the Halloween man is of concern I wish I
00:47:24
had more information on this on this individual he lived acoss the street from rootbeer man handed out candy to
00:47:29
the kids in the neighborhood I'd love to know if any of these guys are registered
00:47:33
sex offenders well we do have somebody on our list that is um so I wish that we knew more about this Halloween man he
00:47:42
but he he is became Under Suspicion because of people in the neighborhood so that does hold some weight to me yeah
00:47:50
that he's he's rumored as being thought as could be possible I got to admit Captain when I found out that he handed
00:47:56
out out candy to the kids that completely made sense why he had this nickname I was hoping that it was more
00:48:02
of a he looked like Michael Myers situation um but then I guess nobody would knock on his door if that was the
00:48:10
case Ty Foster is a person that's named as a person of concern and and I'm saying a person of concern because the
00:48:18
police have not outwardly named anybody as a suspect or person of interest in this cas so let's just say person of
00:48:28
concern and a lot of this concern is coming from individuals in the neighborhood this is an individual that
00:48:33
he was a neighbor of Shannon he lived there with his wife and kids his kids were similar age to Shannon he
00:48:40
frequented their I'm sorry she frequented frequented their trailer to play with his kids another tie to the
00:48:47
family is that Shannon's older sister Lisa babysat his kids the root beer man I say pay attention to this guy guy
00:48:57
his name is Jack Earl Gibson he lived a couple blocks from Shannon uh he lived on Mets Street I believe he's the one
00:49:06
known as root beer man he would have kids do odd jobs around the trailer in his trailer he would pay the younger
00:49:13
kids with candy Andor soda I'm sure sometimes he was paying them with money but the reason why I say pay attention
00:49:21
to this man is the same night that Shannon goes missing Jack Gibson is arrested for possession of child
00:49:29
pornography so this makes him a a strange suspect right like wouldn't you move him
00:49:37
directly to the top of the list knowing this but also think of the timeline if he's arrested that night that means
00:49:46
police were in his home and found this stuff that night so they had concern enough to go in or he allowed them to go
00:49:54
in and again if and I firmly believe she had to be concealed had he already made Provisions
00:50:04
to move her at another time was she under his trailer is that why that dog paid so much attention to his trailer
00:50:11
right did he hide her for did he conceal her on his property before he moved her
00:50:16
which I think that's what somebody did here but again we don't know the details that the police were working with at the
00:50:23
time he gets problematic for me because of my earlier statements of she needed to be concealed and he's he's arrested
00:50:30
that night yeah I wish I had a better timeline on that it's it's just stated that he was arrested that night now he
00:50:38
ends up being charged with all kinds of possession they go through his computer and the the type of images and files
00:50:49
that he had stored on his computer were of kids that were around the same age of
00:50:55
of Shannon if you're looking to make an arrest and close out this case unfortunately what you're looking for on
00:51:01
this guy's computer and and his belongings in his home are images of Shannon that's what they don't find they
00:51:08
find images of other kids but not of her now to take this a step further this doesn't sound like it was just something
00:51:17
where he was collecting these images off of the internet or or wherever he's getting this gross stuff from but it it
00:51:26
sounds like like he on several occasions had lured children into his home and he was
00:51:33
physically taking photographs of of kids one thing that I want to point out about
00:51:39
him I think that like I said earlier I would be cross referencing hunting licenses with persons that live in this
00:51:47
neighborhood whether those licenses are active or not that's a paper trail that police could easily find that's
00:51:54
something I don't have access to we here at the garage task force we don't have access to that type of information but I
00:52:02
can't say this his email address I found his email address the word Hunter is in
00:52:09
his email address yeah our task force didn't find that but our ass Force did find that information I'm concerned that
00:52:16
this guy is a hunter I'm concerned that he lives in the area I'm concerned that he has all this child sex abuse
00:52:23
material uh and pornography in his possession possession he's a creep he's super creep root beer man
00:52:32
and he he fits he checks a lot of boxes here as a great suspect now I've seen several statements that this guy has
00:52:41
been cleared yeah do we have DNA do we have fingerprints do we have anything and look I don't I don't I don't this is
00:52:48
not we don't need to be privy to this information but I do get mad as hell when I see somebody that's cleared and
00:52:54
we get no explanation as to why now I've heard a few different person's thoughts
00:52:59
that live in the area and both would make sense so one thought is that he's been cleared either by DNA like you just
00:53:06
said or that he has or that his Alibi is Rock Solid and before we wrap up here today make sure that you make me Circle
00:53:14
back to that because I I got a lot of thoughts on that but but let's continue on with these persons of concern
00:53:20
right we already mentioned the police officer we mentioned Halloween man um one thing that makes him a little
00:53:28
concerning too is we do know that Shannon knocked on his door close to the time that she is believed to have been
00:53:36
abducted but we do have the witness saying that he wasn't home that he didn't answer the door like you said
00:53:42
root beer man lives right across the street from Halloween man so whether she's knocking on Halloween man's door
00:53:49
root beer man's door they both I think equally become suspects because of the proximity
00:53:56
Foster becomes a person of concern because they found a small a very small amount of blood in his home this was
00:54:07
collected it was tested it was believed to be Shannon's blood I don't know if they ever confirmed that it was 100%
00:54:17
Shannon's blood but we but he says to police you know cuz they're going to they're they're smart they're going to
00:54:24
ask these questions you try to trip these dudes up right you don't say why did why did we find this blood in your
00:54:30
home no you say hey buddy why would we have found Shannon's blood in your home whether it's hers or not right that's
00:54:37
how you word that question try to trip this guy up his statement to police is that she she would come over to his home
00:54:45
remember she played with his kids he her older sister babysat Tai Foster's kids so there is an easy explanation for
00:54:54
Shannon to have been in his home he says on one of those visits she had a nose bed Shannon's mother did confirm that
00:55:02
Shannon often got nose beds so this seems to make some sense maybe explain this away it does make some sense but then
00:55:10
you don't love to hear this at all that later he pleads guilty to charges of of assault and sodomy on a 9-year-old boy
00:55:20
Jesus he is somebody that remains a person of concern you just wonder if when I compare him to somebody like
00:55:27
root beer man rootbeer man checks a lot more boxes I believe than Ty Foster but but obviously you can't move off of this
00:55:35
guy and then of course you have the the the low probability of a random abduction and I think here we can't rule
00:55:45
that out obviously because we we just don't know it's unsolved for a reason but we do have statements by local kids
00:55:55
and this I don't want to get all weird and Stephen King on you here Captain dude you're weird as [ __ ] brph but I've
00:56:04
had like this case gives me a really weird and uneasy feeling I mean of course any child abduction murder case
00:56:12
should make us all feel something very strange depressed what have you but there's something
00:56:21
about this case that almost feels like like it cannot be solved and don't mean because of police or because of of the
00:56:29
actions of the perpetrator this just feels like there's something out in the in The Ether I don't know like I can't
00:56:36
explain it but there seems to be something preventing this case from being solved and when I first got this
00:56:43
uneasy feeling was because of the next detail here is that we had a couple of kids who gave a a description of a
00:56:52
person that they said that Shannon was last seen to be speaking with I hesitate to know how much time to spend on this
00:57:00
next detail because years later we're told by the authorities to disregard that sketch that that it's not part of the
00:57:12
case that it that it may have been simply a hoax or that they were given bad information right but part of that part
00:57:21
of that information that came from teenagers this was teenagers that gave information to police was
00:57:29
that she was seen spotted talking to this individual near where the bus would pick up the kids to go to
00:57:39
school this could Point more towards a random stranger abduction or it could also point to
00:57:47
somebody that maybe lives in the larger community of Prattville but not in the trailer park
00:57:54
community because I have to wonder did they come up with this idea because was there
00:58:03
someone that would stop and talk to the kids at the bus stop that's very possible lot of creep because that's
00:58:10
part of the story that that this was an individual that that may have stopped on
00:58:14
more than one occasion and talked to kids at the bus stop well if you're looking for kids the bus stop is a good
00:58:19
place to find them so part of that let's let's include this here because I this could still be important again we we
00:58:26
were told eventually to disregard that sketch supposedly there are witnesses that saw Shannon talking
00:58:33
to a stranger on the day of the abduction they claimed that Shannon was speaking to a man in a red Jeep Wrangler
00:58:40
or a red Jeep with a soft black top she it was said that she Shannon seemed to be familiar with this person there was
00:58:50
also word of a white sedan spotted in the area that day that was dirt that had a braided license plate uh like
00:59:00
a metal braided license plate holder that was part of the description the the description of this
00:59:07
man is pretty detailed uh kind of a a square shaped head SpongeBob with facial hair nope
00:59:16
goatee down to a beard short dark hair a tan male white male well what I wonder and I don't know if law enforcement has
00:59:25
come and said anything they're saying disregard the sketch are they saying disregard this this these eyewitnesses
00:59:33
Al together because it's such a detailed description of the individual the description of their car it seems like
00:59:40
law enforcement would have figured out who this individual was and they would have talked to him so the information I
00:59:46
have is that simply the years later the persons that provided this information to police recanted the statements
00:59:57
and even told law enforcement that the the sketch was made up strange why would you make why would you make this [ __ ] up
01:00:04
right and these are not like these are not like adults that had a that had reason to point the finger elsewhere
01:00:12
right to hey don't look at me too much because you should be looking for this guy in this Jeep or this white sedan
01:00:18
here's what he looks like this is coming from from youngsters at the time and again that's why I not to get all
01:00:26
Stephen King on you but I there's just like some some like dark force I feel like that is preventing this case from
01:00:33
being I don't know I know I'm not making any sense but I can't I've had that like
01:00:37
weight on my chest all week long and I don't know how to describe it a couple things here it could be and probably
01:00:43
most likely it's a pedo it's a creep oh couldn't control their urges but then you get this weird
01:00:54
eyewitness very detailed report coming from teenagers like you said why would they be making stuff up
01:01:02
well maybe something bad happen maybe and that's not out of the realm of possibilities because yes Hunters would
01:01:11
know about very weird remote locations but who else knows about weird remote locations kids and teenagers yeah that's
01:01:24
something if you're law enforcement you have have to question why did these kids
01:01:27
make this up yeah well exactly and the the other thing though we need to keep in mind is what at its simplest
01:01:36
form makes your best suspect well it's one a person that that was around in the area with Shannon at some
01:01:46
point that day and two had the ability to sorry but there's no nice way of saying this discard her body in that
01:01:56
location that is Miles and Miles Away right so those two things have to happen for your good suspect now I want to
01:02:07
point out here this rootbeer man he worked in he was a maintenance man at the Veterans
01:02:18
Affairs Medical Center in Montgomery Alabama I this is a this is a call to action this is a little homework for any
01:02:27
of our listeners out there if anybody in the area knows where this guy worked Beyond this I I'm trying to really I
01:02:35
know that that's a pretty good description of where he worked but if anybody has more information about where
01:02:41
he worked I there is a a possible lead on this case that that that could be a connection could be made here if we had
01:02:50
more information about his employment at this time the reason why okay he could have been ruled out by DNA and our
01:02:58
listeners are out there we we're lucky because we live in the Golden Age of using DNA to solve these cases genology
01:03:04
detective work and I'm sure there's a few listeners out there going okay if they ruled him out by DNA that means
01:03:09
they have suspect DNA in the case why aren't they just using genealogy work to get a surname and then figure out a
01:03:16
suspect from there hopefully I have my hands together in the praying motion that that is going on behind the scenes
01:03:25
right now and they're close to find in this dirt bag but we could also have a situation
01:03:31
where the DNA is not great and it's just enough to exclude people but not really hone in on the the
01:03:39
person responsible now we don't have any confirmation of why the statement of this child pornography collecting dirt
01:03:51
bag that's taking pictures of kids as well living in the neighborhood handing out root beer yeah to to kids when they
01:03:59
come into his trailer we don't have any statement from law enforcement as to why
01:04:04
this dude was ruled out other than he's been eliminated now I I I have concern of that because here's where my fear is
01:04:13
if they didn't use DNA if they didn't use science to eliminate this guy there's got to be a detective in this
01:04:21
agency that's going come on guys let's take another look at this dude because the other rumor that I've heard
01:04:29
is that he was ruled out due to an alibi that he was at work all day and so he was not in the area remember we said
01:04:36
that two things have to happen for your good suspect he has to be in the area at
01:04:40
the time that she went missing and has to have the ability to transport her all that way away to to try to hide the body
01:04:49
okay so he was at work all day that's great that works if you are correct in your belief that she went
01:04:57
missing during that 1 hour and 15minute window that they've created if that window is wrong if you
01:05:05
guys are wrong about that you can't eliminate him absolutely not if you if you take that timeline back out to what
01:05:13
you were originally working with that between noon and 7:30 was your time of concern he could have been back home and
01:05:20
in the area well before 7:30 but still not in the area to meet that noon to 115 window you see what I'm getting at with
01:05:29
that that's why I I hope that they've not eliminated persons because they were at work at 1:15 that afternoon right
01:05:38
because there could be there could be a situation where she's not abducted until
01:05:45
after that 115 timeline that marker there and the other thing that that brings up some great
01:05:53
questions here right time of day who who has access who who's just out and about
01:05:58
that time of day that's this is middle of the week this is a Thursday that plays A Part here I
01:06:05
believe the other thing too that you have to wonder about is the time of year this is about a week or so before they
01:06:10
would start school so who's not working in the summertime somebody had to have access
01:06:17
to to get her at that time whatever time of day that was they had to have access
01:06:24
to actually to getting her there's a lot of mystery with this case now rootbeer man Jack Gibson he he has served his
01:06:32
time he he faced a lot of charges he served his time he's I believe he's moved out of the
01:06:38
area as said though I think I'm going off of the idea because the word Hunter is in his email address that that he was
01:06:49
at one time a hunter uh and therefore may have known of this area where the body was disposed
01:06:55
of I have a lot of trouble moving on from this guy well that's cuz he was your high school sweetheart and I I'm
01:07:01
not law enforcement and I'm not certainly not qualified to say who should be cleared and not cleared in
01:07:07
this case well what's tough is we have a pretty good timeline we have a lot of individuals in
01:07:15
this neighborhood that search for her we have a handful of suspects her body is recovered we're not privy to what other
01:07:26
what other evidence was retrieved by law enforcement but with all these years later you
01:07:34
think they give us a list like an updated list of individuals they ruled out or ruled in well and this is a big-
01:07:41
Time case there this remains a case that is hyperfocused on by law enforcement and locals even more than 20 years later
01:07:51
so that is one thing that is glass half full here now another thing that I want to point out is Jim be this is the
01:08:00
one-time mayor of Prattville he was in fact he was the mayor for 12 years and was the mayor at the time that she went
01:08:07
missing and that was later found but Jim Bay he's on record very recently saying quote one of the things
01:08:16
we have got going on right now is we have another state that we've been working with and also a federal agency
01:08:25
that is working with us to review all the information on Shannon's case again he goes on to say that is one of those
01:08:34
things that we are talking about trying to link a case in another state to Shannon's and that's what we are going
01:08:43
to see if they are linked it could have been Nationwide he's talking about kids getting snatched could be Nationwide and
01:08:52
somebody else was invol you know somebody was involved that that was moving about or it could be somebody
01:08:59
that was going through the state he says we don't know we're hoping that one of those cases outside of the state might
01:09:07
be of help to Shannon's case as said this is very much on the hearts and minds of local law enforcement and even
01:09:17
law enforcement at the state level the FBI has been involved this is a horribly heartbreaking case
01:09:25
I'm hoping that somebody out there somewhere knows something Tom Allen from the Prattville Police Department is on
01:09:33
record he he's the lead I believe current lead on this case he has said that they still receive tips and they
01:09:40
still receive information and they still have people reach out that want to help
01:09:45
about this case help with this case so that's also uh something in the positive as well for those of you out there or
01:09:54
anyone out there with any information at all on Shannon Paul's case we urge you to call Prattville CSI sergeant Tom
01:10:03
Allen at 334 595 0256 [Music] want to thank everybody for joining us here in the garage each and every week
01:10:34
and thanks for telling a friend thanks for telling your mother and until next week be good be kind and don't live
01:10:43
[Music] [Applause] [Music]