00:00:00
[Music] Summer is coming right to your door with Target Circle 360. Get all the season
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gotos delivered just when you want them. Snacks, towels, and even pillows. Get it
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all delivered the same day with Target Circle 360. Restrictions apply. Substance use disorder and addiction is
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so isolating. And so, as a black woman in recovery, hope must be loud. It grows louder when you ask for help and you're
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power of hope, recovery is possible. Find out how at startwithhope.com. Brought to you by the National Council
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for Mental Wellbeing, Shatterproof, and the Ad Council. [Music] Heat. Welcome to True Crime Garage. Wherever
00:01:29
you are, whatever you're doing, thanks for listening. I'm your host, Nick, and with me as always, here he is, raving
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and drooling, the captain. Mostly drooling. It's good to be seen and good to see you. Thanks for listening. Thanks
00:01:42
for telling a friend. This week we are mega excited to be featuring very mega super deluxe mega
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cheers to Caroline in Pittsburgh. And a big we like to jib goes out to Nikki in Nashville. Here's a shout out to Ashley
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Indiana. Everybody we just mentioned went to trimegar.com, clicked on the pint glass, helped us
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fill up the old garage fridge for this week's show, and for that we thank you. Yeah. BW and beer run. If you need more
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True Crime Garage, more TCG for your ear balls, subscribe to us on Patreon or Apple podcast subscription. And Colonel,
00:03:04
that's enough of the business. All right, everybody, gather around, grab a chair, grab a beer. Let's talk some true
00:03:11
crime. [Music] [Music] When 15-year-old Edna Thorne vanished decades ago, no one held a news
00:03:40
conference to ask for help finding her. No one offered a $50,000 reward. There was no ongoing coverage of the missing
00:03:48
teen's plight on television and in the newspapers. Edna Thorne is still a virtual unknown.
00:03:56
Her disappearance is as much a mystery today to her family and to the police as it was decades ago. Quote, "She just
00:04:03
left one day and said she was going to the stables. She hasn't been seen or heard from since." End quote. As
00:04:11
reported back in 2000, each year more than 5,000 Philadelphia teens are reported missing. Most are runaways or
00:04:19
abducted by family members. However, 1% of these missing teenager reports like Edna's case is a bonafide mystery. So
00:04:29
Edna's case is not unlike teens who went missing before her and after. Unfortunately, sometimes folks simply
00:04:37
mysteriously vanish. Then years go by and then in some cases decades. The job of the Philadelphia police may
00:04:47
have been easier if Edna's case had the publicity and the reward that some other
00:04:52
cases have received. Sadly, her case remains open today. This is the missing person's case of 15-year-old Edna
00:05:01
Thorne, and this is True Crime Garage. [Music] [Music] It has been 50 years to the day, 50
00:05:27
years since a teenage girl walked out the door and has never been seen again. Edna Christine Thorne would have turned
00:05:37
65 this last February. That is if she was not missing and presumed dead. Instead, Edna and her family have missed
00:05:46
birthdays, maybe a wedding, and possibly children of her own in a case that has remained a Philadelphia mystery for
00:05:54
decades. Edna Christine Thorne was born in February of 1960, and she was just 15
00:06:01
years old when she went missing from Philadelphia 50 years ago on June 24th, 1975.
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She still has an older sister, her name is Deb, who is looking for her and who keeps an active Facebook page aimed at
00:06:17
finding answers to Edna's disappearance and hopefully bringing her home. Edna had several sisters, in fact, two older
00:06:27
and one younger. Now, at the time of the disappearance, Edna had recently graduated from Stson Junior High School.
00:06:35
The reports state that Edna left the family's home located on Front Street in Philadelphia. The reports state that she
00:06:42
left on foot and left alone. One of her older sisters is Elvara. Now, Elvra got married the previous year to a guy named
00:06:52
Frank Ryan. Edna's relatively new brother-in-law had given her a pony as a gift at some point. So on the day that
00:07:02
she vanished, Edna left her family's home on Front Street. This to go visit her new horse at its stable. Now, I do
00:07:11
not have a great timeline due to the how far we're going back here on this case.
00:07:17
So, I'm not sure of when he gave her this horse as a gift, but all reports state the same that she was leaving the
00:07:26
home on Front Street on foot to go visit the horse at the stable. Now, prior to leaving, Edna had invited her
00:07:35
13-year-old sister to join her in the visit, but for whatever reason, the sister stayed behind. The horse stable
00:07:43
was located on a relative's property. This is at Toga Street. This area is right on the border of Philadelphia's
00:07:51
Kensington neighborhood, which today is now known for the largest open air market on the East Coast. And this is
00:07:59
where the TV series Long Bright River takes place. Oddly, Long Brightite River is about a lady looking for her sister,
00:08:06
her missing sister. The series, though, has nothing to do with our case here today, just simply an interesting
00:08:12
coincidence. Edna Thorne, our missing individual, is listed on several websites and databases. One that we
00:08:18
reference often is the charlie project website, the largest, most comprehensive collection of missing persons reports
00:08:26
and database. Please visit the charliepro.org or spelled with an ey where they have over 16,000 missing
00:08:35
persons profiles and links are listed for most if not all of those profiles for further investigation and study. The
00:08:44
site is run by Megan Good who is doing good work and relies on donations to keep the site fully up and running. The
00:08:52
Teogga stables referenced in the Charlie Project write up on this case are no more, but their closure makes it
00:09:00
difficult for me to pinpoint the exact location. However, from what I could find here, Captain, the stables are
00:09:06
close to the family's home, I'm assuming, because she left on foot. The stables, the info that I found suggests
00:09:14
that they were located at Tyogga Street and I Street near that intersection, if not at that intersection. So, so if this
00:09:22
was a straight shot from their home, it's like 9 or 10 blocks. And we do believe that she made it there cuz we
00:09:28
have eyewitnesses that put her at the stables. Yes, that's correct. And like you said, Captain, it looks like the
00:09:35
Edna's trek to the stables is not of concern here. Now, in the trailer for today's episode, I briefly touched on
00:09:44
reports from 25 years ago out of Philadelphia of statistics stating that each year more than 5,000 Philadelphia
00:09:53
teens are reported missing. Most are runaways or abducted by family members. Some of the websites that have Edna's
00:10:01
missing case listed, among other cases, have hers as a suspected nonfamilial abduction. If you have listened to our
00:10:10
show for some time, you know that the results typically are for those abducted by someone outside of the family are bad
00:10:17
and even worse when you start to talk about a possible stranger abduction. So Edna's travels to the stable is not the
00:10:25
concern because as the captain said, we have several folks that see her at the stables at some point that day and some
00:10:33
that state that they even spoke with Edna. So, she made it there just fine. But as the story goes, Edna was last
00:10:42
seen leaving the stables and has never been heard from again. Okay, she's 15, but there's nothing to suggest this, but
00:10:51
maybe she's filled with that teenaged angst and defiantly walks away, leaving her family and old life behind. It it
00:10:58
would not be the first time that a teenager would run away from home, but again, there's nothing to suggest this.
00:11:04
And in fact, there are some indicators that suggest she had no intentions of leaving her family, especially her
00:11:11
mother, who loved Edna and the children dearly. So, a little digging here from the Charlie Project web page regarding
00:11:19
Edna's case. It states, "Although Edna had been in foster care as a child and she had recently argued with her sister,
00:11:27
now we should point out we are unsure of which sister. She had multiple sisters.
00:11:32
There's no indication she had been planning to run from home, and she didn't take any money with her when she
00:11:38
left the house, only taking with her a pack of cigarettes. She wasn't dating anyone at the time of her disappearance,
00:11:46
so no older boy to lure her away on a rebel lover's runaway. She simply left the stables and vanished, gone for 50
00:11:55
years, and possibly, very sadly, maybe gone forever. Let the captain state the obvious, right? If you're going to run
00:12:03
away and you decide that you're going to visit your pony first, you're not going
00:12:07
to invite your sister along with you. Doesn't make any sense. Oh, well, let's go visit my pony and then on the way
00:12:14
home, uh, you just go back to the house and I'll run away and start a new life. Doesn't make much sense at all. Yeah.
00:12:19
And there's nothing inside the home. Well, possibly. We we'll get we'll get to digging a bit deeper here, but on the
00:12:26
surface at least, there's nothing inside the home that suggests that she would want to run away. And then think about
00:12:31
her situation. It's early into the summer break. She's going into high school. She has the sisters and as you
00:12:39
said, invited a sister to go along with her. At the time of her disappearance, Edna was just 15 years old. She was
00:12:46
about 5'1 in tall and approximately 105 lb. She was wearing a striped shirt and bell-bottom jeans. She has brown hair,
00:12:57
brown eyes, and she was a smoker. As we mentioned, when she left her house, she left only with a pack of cigarettes. In
00:13:05
fact, this is something that I think gives further insight into this case. It's reported by multiple people that
00:13:13
she left that pack of cigarettes behind at the stable. So, as said, the reports are that she was last seen leaving the
00:13:19
stables, never heard from again. I would like to know a few things here, right? The details of that statement and from
00:13:26
who, right? Last seen leaving the stables. Who did that come from and what are the details of that statement? Also,
00:13:34
who reported Edna missing and when? That info has been requested by yours truly.
00:13:40
What does the great William Joel say in Allentown filling out forms standing in line? a song about another Pennsylvania
00:13:46
city. That's basically where we are. We are likely weeks away from that information making its way to us, if it
00:13:53
ever does, because who's to say that the information even exists. It's been 50 years. We'll find out. We've looked into
00:14:03
other cases, a few other cases going back this far and sometimes it happens where the file or information that
00:14:10
should be may once was in the file is now no longer, right? So that could be the case here. It's not terribly
00:14:19
uncommon with a case this old. One thing we'll know as, and I can say this proudly, former smokers, I think this is
00:14:29
interesting because this also messes with the timeline. Even if you had a definitive
00:14:35
timestamp of when she left the stables. Mhm. As once a avid smoker, if I'm taking off and I'm walking back home, I
00:14:44
just visited my pony. But as I'm walking home from the stables and then I realize, oh, I forgot my pack of
00:14:51
cigarettes, I'm walking back to the stables. Mhm. So, this becomes an issue because like you said, I I believe
00:15:00
there's family members that own the stable and there's family members that are at the stable. So, even if you have
00:15:06
eyewitnesses saying, "Well, I saw her leave." So then you could have all these assumptions of, well, if she was
00:15:13
abducted by somebody, it was between the stables and her house. But if she headed
00:15:18
back to the stables to get the pack of cigarettes she left, who did she come in contact with on the way back? Or who did
00:15:25
she come in contact with again at the stables? And we just don't have eyewitnesses of her coming back around
00:15:32
for the second time, if that makes any sense. Well, and that's where I'm curious and that's why I filed for the
00:15:38
information to see if they would the Philadelphia Police Department would give us the report or at least the
00:15:45
statement that they got from the individuals claiming to have seen her at the stable because I wanted to know is
00:15:51
that just it's 50 years old and we've learned something here in the garage covering multiple cases that the longer
00:15:58
a longer on a the longer timelines for these cases especially when they go unsolved D. It's like a game of
00:16:05
telephone. Sometimes something is suggested or or speculation and then it morphs its way into fact or a statement
00:16:14
of fact at some point. And so what I'm wondering here, Captain, is did she leave the stable? And if she did, did
00:16:22
someone actually physically see her leaving the stable? Because there's also a chance that she went missing from the
00:16:30
stable itself without willingly leaving, right? And I'm throwing that out there just because, you know, the reports
00:16:36
could be from these individuals. Yeah, she was here. I spoke with her and then, you know, she was gone. Well, where'd
00:16:42
she go? I I assume she went home. You know, uh, and like you said, former smokers, anybody that's a smoker, former
00:16:48
smoker knows a couple couple things are going to happen here. When she leaves, she's either going to return realizing
00:16:55
she left her pack of smokes. And as a former smoker, I'll tell you, I'm not trying to tell people, you know, there's
00:17:02
nothing better than just walking down the street and puffing. And man, if if they weren't terrible for
00:17:09
you, if they didn't kill you, I man, I'd be puffing one right now. Walking up and
00:17:13
down the summer streets of Philadelphia, just holding your microphone, walking down the street, living best life. Oh
00:17:19
man. Anyway, but so she would return to get the cigarettes or stop off to pick up a pack. God, they were probably like
00:17:26
25 cents a pack back then. Or she would have she would have came home. She's 15.
00:17:31
Like like those seem the three most likely next places that she would be spotted and go ahead and knock all three
00:17:39
of those options down because nobody's saying that that happened. Yeah. So the thing here with with waiting for this
00:17:45
information, I I think, you know, we we should get it. There's no reason that they would withhold this information.
00:17:51
And you know, there's hold back information in in every good investigation, but 50 years have gone by
00:17:58
and and we're still sitting here talking about this case. Well, it also makes me
00:18:03
think that if law enforcement had bigger pieces of evidence or things that they could release to the public to further
00:18:11
along their investigation or maybe drum up new leads that they would have periodically released more information.
00:18:19
And we've seen that happen in in other cases like Amy Mahalovic's case. Yeah. And I think here what they have is a
00:18:28
true vanishing case where she just up and vanished. She's not responsible for why she is
00:18:35
gone. But there's no breadcrumb trail for them to to follow now. And it sounds like over the years people have come
00:18:43
forward with information that very likely due to the passage of time police just cannot confirm if that information
00:18:51
is correct. And so with with this now, one one breadcrumb here is after she goes missing, one of the older sisters
00:19:06
got a disturbing phone call from a man who said that he knew what Ednab was wearing when she disappeared and claimed
00:19:15
that he had buried her in Pennac Park. Now, I want to be clear here because this is reported a few
00:19:24
different ways. The way that it is always reported is that this caller, this mysterious male caller, knows what
00:19:32
Edna was wearing. That part is consistent in every telling of this story. What is not consistent is that he
00:19:40
had buried her. Other versions of the story states that simply states that she is buried in Penny Pac Park. So, Penny
00:19:49
Packac Park still exists to this day, unlike the stables. It's approximately like 6 to 6 and a half miles from where
00:19:57
the stables were back in the day. And I say approximately because it gets very difficult here right away. This is a
00:20:07
rather large park. I don't know that it was the same size back in 1975 as it is today. But according to visitfilly.com,
00:20:18
this park covers more than 1,600 acres of woodlands, meadows, wetlands, and fields. The landscape of this rambling
00:20:28
city park covers rolling hills, open meadow, and many miles of unpaved and paved trails that are great for hiking,
00:20:37
biking, running, and horseback riding. Visitors also find numerous historic buildings there, including a working
00:20:45
farm. Yeah. If if I'm law enforcement, you you also wonder, is this just some sick individual that's going to try to
00:20:54
send the family or law enforcement on a wild goose chase? Because a large park that doesn't even do it justice. You
00:21:03
said over 1,600 acres acres. I mean, that's that's huge. And some of it's wooded, right? And some of its wetlands.
00:21:11
uh the fields would be easier to search because that that's the other part that's missing from the story. When was
00:21:19
this call? Again, some reports stating it was a phone call. Other reports stating multiple phone calls. When was
00:21:27
this call received or these calls received in relation to when she went missing? Because if you're out searching
00:21:34
fields, look, I've said this dozens of times and I'll continue to say it on the show. I'm nothing but repetitive, right,
00:21:41
Captain? Um, let's not get it. Most most criminals most criminals from what I have found, and you don't have to be
00:21:49
Sherlock Holmes or any great scientist or any great understanding of of humans or human nature to to to come to the
00:21:59
same conclusion. Most criminals, John Douglas, are lazy or stupid or both. And I love when they're both because when
00:22:06
they're both, they are easily caught. But this falls into the stupid part. Okay, so burying a body is very
00:22:16
difficult. It's far more difficult than most lazy and/or dumb criminals would expect it to be. Okay? And I know this
00:22:27
100% from reviewing a dozens and dozens of crime scenes and and where bodies are
00:22:34
located from our little garage stories here, but also from some some education that I've received over the years.
00:22:42
Typically, what will happen here, Captain, is people when a person sets out to bury a body, they'll go, "All
00:22:48
right, well, I'm going to I'm going to dig." Most caskets are what, six feet under? That's what most people intend to
00:22:55
do when they start out trying to bury a body. But guess what? Digging a six-foot
00:23:01
trench, rectangle in shape, is very difficult, very laborious, very tedious. It takes a long time, and it's
00:23:10
backbreaking work, my friend. Unless you have a skid steer or or a backhoe or or
00:23:15
some some form of of farm equipment or construction equipment, it's very difficult. So typically what happens is
00:23:22
people start off with that idea and then they bury the person in a very shallow grave. And so if you were searching
00:23:28
fields it, especially if this were in quick su succession after she went missing, you would you would find her.
00:23:37
You would find that burial site if this were true information. The woodlands complicates it, right? If she were in
00:23:43
the woods, that would be very complicated. Uh the wetlands, I'm out to lunch on wetlands. I have no idea about
00:23:49
about trying to conceal a body in wetlands. So, what I'm getting at here is I don't know that this information,
00:23:58
good or otherwise, could be confirmed by anybody. I think that there is reason to
00:24:04
believe a few different things. like you had pointed out, maybe this is somebody
00:24:09
phoning in phony information hoping to complicate the investigation, throw somebody off the scent, or it could be
00:24:18
simply a prankster. And unfortunately, this did happen a lot. It still happens to this day, but it it happened even
00:24:28
more so when you start reviewing these old crimes from the 70s and early 80s where somebody would phone in some
00:24:35
information and a lot of times it was punk ass kids calling a a grieving family or a hurting family just trying
00:24:42
to get their kicks. It could be many different things. One, it could be, like you said, a prankster. Maybe it's just
00:24:51
some sick individual that wants to send the family on a wild goose chase. Or it's possible that it could be the
00:24:57
actual killer. But are they giving you correct information? Oh, well, I I buried her over here. Go look over there
00:25:03
cuz that's 1600 acres. That's going to take you a long time to search. And like you said, hills, forest, wetlands.
00:25:13
That's going to complicate things. Well, maybe she's not buried there at all. Maybe she's buried somewhere else. Now,
00:25:19
let's throw a giant wrench into this narrative just to knock everyone off of their mark. Edna may have been pregnant
00:25:25
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today. Summer is coming right to your door with Target Circle 360. Get all the season
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gotos delivered just when you want them. Snacks, towels, and even pillows. Get it
00:27:34
all delivered the same day with Target Circle 360. Restrictions apply. Substance use disorder and addiction is
00:27:42
so isolating. And so as a black woman in recovery, hope must be loud. It grows louder when you ask for help and you're
00:27:54
vulnerable. It is the thread that lets you know that no matter what happens, you will be okay. When we learn the
00:28:01
power of hope, recovery is possible. Find out how at startwiththope.com. Brought to you by the National Council
00:28:08
for Mental Well-being, Shatterproof, and the Ad Council. You know that moment at
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[Music] [Music] All right, we are back. You filthy animals. Cheers to you and cheers to
00:29:40
your your mother, your father, and all your cousins. Distant cousin, distant cousin, your second and third cousin,
00:29:46
maybe even fourth cousins. And cheers to you, Colonel. Not cheers to the cousin that refers refuses to speak with you.
00:29:54
He doesn't get a cheers. I got an email from uh one of our beautiful listeners. You know, I sent out an email to get
00:30:01
people's info for for a shout out uh for the people that are kind enough to donate to the beer fund. And one of them
00:30:08
responded saying, "Cheers from the people in the back to us." So, the people in the back, she says, are
00:30:14
cheersing us. And she says that she is one of them. So, a big shout out to the people in the back. You know, we love
00:30:20
the people all the way in the back of the room. I do want to share this with you. Do I had anybody that's afraid of
00:30:27
um AI taking over the world? So, this listener was just curious if we were married. So, they went to Google and the
00:30:37
and ask Google and their AI response to is the colonel and the captain married? And AI responded, "No, the host of True
00:30:47
Crime Garage, Nick and the captain, are not married to each other. Nick is married to someone else and while the
00:30:56
captain is married to his wife Melissa. That's hilarious because right there's a
00:31:02
lot of stuff that's not true in that. But uh that's hilarious to me because I think we were hanging out with true
00:31:09
crime writer James Rener and we were talking we had just met Tim and Lance from Crawlspace and from Missing Mara
00:31:16
Murray and you asked James, you said are are Tim and Lance married? And James's response was to each other.
00:31:25
So, it's it looks like uh maybe AI and James Rener are the same. So, okay. It's But I just for the
00:31:36
record, it'd be very sick because brothers shouldn't marry each other. And also, I don't know who Melissa is, so I
00:31:45
can't wait to meet her cuz I hope she's nice cuz apparently we're married. Yeah,
00:31:50
she's she's very nice. There's there's a song about it titled Sweet Melissa. That's an old one. Oldie, but I get it.
00:31:56
Okay. This case is now 50 years old as of this very day, today, June 24th, 2025. So, let's go back to when the case
00:32:05
was 25 years old. In the trailer, we suggested that maybe this case would have been easier for Philly PD to work
00:32:15
this one had the case received any real media news outlet attention. And had there been a reward in this case, there
00:32:25
were and are very few news articles about Edna, about Edna Thornne's case. One with Edna's name in it was from 2000
00:32:36
from the Philadelphia Daily News. This was a great article by staff writer Nicole Wilson.
00:32:44
The article featured on the front page of the Tuesday, June 27th, 2000 paper has a lovely picture of Edna smiling
00:32:54
bright and big. Her brown hair appears almost blonde in the black and white of the newspaper pages. Nicole's article
00:33:04
was about several unsolved and unresolved missing teen cases. I took the start of her report and switched up
00:33:12
the names for the trailer because so much of that part that she so eloquently wrote is true. Now, at that time in
00:33:22
Philadelphia, Dr. J, yes, the famous basketball player, arguably the greatest 76er of all time, one of his sons was
00:33:31
missing. recently missing and was the case was receiving a lot of attention like one would expect plus a $50,000
00:33:39
reward. However, Nicole in her article is not trying to take away from the severity of level of concern for looking
00:33:48
for Julius Irving's son, but pointing out that, you know, a lot of other Philadelphia cases of missing people
00:33:55
just I mean, it's not going to didn't receive the media attention that Dr. Jay's son's case was receiving. Julius
00:34:05
Irvin's son, Corey. It was determined that he tragically died in a vehicular accident. He and his car were recovered
00:34:12
from a retention pond sometime later. But they were looking for him for some time and there was much speculation of
00:34:19
foul play leading up to the recovery of of Corey Irving. But in the article with
00:34:26
Edna's picture in reference of her case, it was simplified as just the following.
00:34:33
This is from the article. Quote, Edna Christine Thorne was 15 when she disappeared in June 1975 after leaving a
00:34:39
horse stable. That's it. The article references several other missing teenager cases. Now, it's not the fault
00:34:46
of the Philadelphia Daily News that Edna has not been located. It is not the fault of Philadelphia PD. Hell, if
00:34:52
someone evil had not done something so terrible to Edna, we would not be discussing this matter in the first
00:34:57
place. Edna likely would be living out the start of her golden years, probably with grandkids of her own, chilling like
00:35:04
milk, maybe still living in Philly. The pregnant part is up for debate. I want I
00:35:10
want to be perfectly clear about that. This the the information, if it's good information, great. I I'm so glad that
00:35:18
they put it out there because it can only help to further the investigation. And I'm assuming that this is all
00:35:25
information if it's speculative or fact that obviously this information has made
00:35:32
its way to the Philadelphia police. But as far as our internet investigation goes, end up being pregnant is not
00:35:41
confirmed. Okay. We we cannot say with certainty that that is the case. We do know
00:35:48
according to all reports that she wasn't dating anyone at the time, but internet
00:35:54
rumors suggest that someone within Edna's family might actually be responsible or be the one responsible
00:36:00
for her disappearance. And this this goes back to the to the brother-in-law that we mentioned that that had gifted
00:36:09
the pony. Yeah, it's fishy. Yeah. according to family members. And that's what I think is key here in this part
00:36:18
that we found. It's not according to a family member. It states according to family members. Edna's brother-in-law,
00:36:25
Frank Ryan. So, this is the husband of her older sister, Elvra, who also goes by the nickname Dot. So, Elvra Ryan.
00:36:35
This is not the same sister that today runs the Facebook page, but it's stated that this guy is a possible suspect in
00:36:44
Edna's disappearance. According to the story, this brother-in-law had sexually assaulted, abused Edna and got her
00:36:52
pregnant. There are other reports that state that he was at the horse stable on the day that Edna disappeared. What I
00:36:58
couldn't find here, Captain, and you you correct me if you were able to find it.
00:37:03
You had said earlier that someone in in Edna's family. I think I chimed in and said extended family was the owner of
00:37:12
the property where the stables were. I however I couldn't find the relationship between Edna and the the person that
00:37:21
owns or family that owns right that property. So I if it is extended family, it's not crazy to believe that maybe
00:37:30
it's the brother-in-law's family or extended family that that owns that property. And there that would make it
00:37:38
much easier for Frank Ryan to gift her a pony. And then you wonder, is he just look is this just a good guy who's who's
00:37:47
gotten his name tarnished and he's thrown under the bus by by persons in Edna's family? Could be. Or could this
00:37:55
be a guy be a real [ __ ] Could be. Uh but so why would he give her a pony? Maybe he's just a really nice guy. Maybe
00:38:04
he just wants to fit into the family. Maybe he's just, you know, especially early on. Hey, you want to get to know
00:38:09
the family. You want to get in right with the family. Maybe that's what he's doing. Or maybe the pony is a gift so he
00:38:16
can do things that he shouldn't be doing with a with a young girl, with a underage girl. Maybe this here's a gift
00:38:24
to keep your mouth shut. Yeah. Shut shut up. If if you like nice things, you'll keep your mouth shut. How far does one
00:38:31
have to go to keep somebody's mouth shut? Because as this story goes, if he was the one that got her pregnant, this
00:38:38
could ultimately destroy his marriage to the older sister, Alvara, or it could be
00:38:44
have him and Alvara being outed by the family. It could have him with his ass ending up in prison. Um there's all
00:38:52
kinds of bad outcomes for Frank Ryan if in fact these allegations. Yeah. These allegations if they are in fact true.
00:39:02
Yeah. It leads you to so many questions. Like you said it, was this a gift to keep her quiet? What evidence do we have
00:39:09
that a sexual assault took place or was it multiple sexual assaults? We don't know. You know, there's nobody that I've
00:39:17
heard that said, "Well, I caught him red-handed." Right. So then the question for me becomes, was this speculation
00:39:26
before she went missing? Because then her possibly being pregnant would be obviously that would give this guy a
00:39:34
motive to get rid of her? Because if it's just speculation that something happened and he's saying, "What are you
00:39:40
talking about? I I would never do that. She's she's too young and plus she's your sister and whatever." But then he
00:39:46
finds out, "Oh, well, Edna's pregnant." Well, that would then confirm or there'd
00:39:51
be ways for them to confirm that he's the father and that would confirm the sexual assaults that the assault was
00:39:58
real, right? And so, a lot of questions there and and we don't have certain details to point us in the right
00:40:06
direction. Yeah. Her case. So when I first started looking at this one, I was I remain intrigued, but I was initially
00:40:15
intrigued because there were some other cases that are close in proximity via the timeline, the time frame and the
00:40:26
proximity in distance geological. And there were disappearances of other missing teenagers or children around the
00:40:38
time that Ednim went missing. Now, one of the more well-known cases is that of Sheila and Katherine Lion, the Lion
00:40:46
Sisters, who went missing in March of 1975. So, the same year they went missing from Wheaton, Maryland. But
00:40:54
their case is is, you know, they went missing from a from a a mall, a shopping plaza, and the Adam Walsh case and and
00:41:04
so many other I mean, we've talked and touched upon I don't know that we've covered any in great detail, but we've
00:41:11
touched upon several serial killers that would go to malls to shopping malls specifically to find teenage girls
00:41:18
because that's who they were targeting for victims. And so that one stands out right away.
00:41:24
And there's there's details about that case that you know right away there there's something very bad going on.
00:41:31
That case remained unsolved. It's now solved, but it was for many years was unsolved and it's a very infamous
00:41:39
missing kids case. And then not just the time frame or geographical location proximity-wise,
00:41:52
but the nature of that of drawing a line to Edna's case would be the sister's ages at the time. And then there's some
00:42:01
others. We have Wendy Wheaton who went missing in May of 1975 in in Media, Pennsylvania, as well as Tracy Anne King
00:42:11
who went missing less than a month after Edna from Littlestown, Pennsylvania. And
00:42:19
then you have Kathy Batty who went missing almost exactly Yep. exactly one month after
00:42:30
Edna in Wheaten, Maryland. So, is is there a possibility that this case is connected to something else and this
00:42:35
Frank Ryan has just got a got a bad deal here? Could be. But what what I can say is that there are
00:42:44
multiple people that have gone online and went out of their way to suggest that Frank Ryan is not a good guy and
00:42:53
that he not only that they believe not only assaulted Edna but also got rid of her likely due to the pregnancy.
00:43:05
Well, two points. Go for it. Two points here. one, we know, like you were saying, serial killers go to malls or go
00:43:16
to different areas, not just malls, but different areas to basically hunt for their prey. But we've also heard from
00:43:25
serial killers that sometimes they just it becomes happen stance. was I'm looking for a prey and I'm driving down
00:43:34
this road and I see this young girl. And the other thing, too, is what what what do we see so often in these cases?
00:43:45
I mean, I I think she's under 5 foot. She's around 100 lb. A lot of the these things matter, especially to these
00:43:54
sadistic killers, because they want to be able to control them, but also not just to control them when they're alive,
00:44:03
but to be able to control them when they're dead. And so, if you're going to dispose of a body or get rid of a
00:44:10
victim, it helps if they're a smaller victim. Well, look at accused serial killer, the Long Island serial killer,
00:44:19
Rex Turman, who's a giant troll looking of a man, giant [ __ ] Yeah. Ogre. And he in his Look, we we can sit here and
00:44:31
go, okay, he's accused and he's not been convicted yet, but they found documentation inside his home on his
00:44:37
computer where he's he's talking about the ideal victim for what he wants to do. and he specifically references
00:44:44
petite women. And now that could be because he's sexually attracted to petite women or because that a petite
00:44:54
woman would make a good surrogate for the person that he actually wants to harm or murder or because he's very
00:45:03
large and presumably comes with some ogrelike strength that it would be easy for him to control a small person. And
00:45:12
like the captain said, it would be easy for him to move them around. Yeah. So my
00:45:18
second point was, well, he was married to the older sister. Mhm. One of the older sisters. Yeah. So we should have
00:45:26
some clue as what happened to this guy since since the disappearance of Edna. Like did did they get a divorce? Did
00:45:34
this guy have other charges against him? So Edna disappears and then the way I understand it, Captain Elvra and Frank
00:45:42
lived happily ever after. So we'll we'll get into that in just a second. I want to make sure I don't forget to mention
00:45:50
some of the statements that have come forward over the years. Okay. So what one of them has been that the from two
00:45:59
younger dudes that were at the stables that day. Now their names are a mystery to me. I that I don't I've not found a
00:46:07
place that they've been named, but these beus and Buttad these younger guys. Yeah. And keep in mind like Frank Ryan
00:46:15
would not have been an old guy at the time. Like he is married to Alvara and from my understanding my from the every
00:46:22
bit of information that I could collect here. Again, there's not a lot of it and
00:46:27
it's difficult to confirm a lot of this stuff, but it looks like he would have roughly been about 18 years old when
00:46:34
Edna disappeared. Okay. So, difference I mean that's not threeear difference. Yeah. Threeear
00:46:43
difference. Yeah. So, Frank Ryan would have been about 18. Uh let's say maybe 19. Elvra would have
00:46:50
been a little bit younger than Frank. They get married and Frank, these guys say that Frank was at the horse stable
00:46:59
that day and at the horse stable at the same time that Ednub was there, right? It wouldn't be crazy to think that maybe
00:47:06
he offered her a ride. The other thing, too, is that there are reports that Frank Ryan worked uh he drove a truck
00:47:13
and the it was a dump truck, so he would haul trash and other items and then dump
00:47:19
it. And at least one of these guys says that Frank not only was using the truck that night andor the next day, but
00:47:29
typically one of them or both of them would go with him for the purpose of collecting things, moving things,
00:47:34
dumping things. And he insisted that nobody go with him when he was in the truck. And so he could have been he
00:47:42
could have there's no nice way of saying this, he could have simply dumped her at
00:47:46
the dump. Yeah. And who's to say that he didn't phone in? You know, she's at the
00:47:51
park. She was buried in the park. Or that could just be a prankster. The other thing, too, it's not stated what
00:47:58
sister. It just says one of the older sisters was getting received calls. And I say this because I think that if See,
00:48:07
I hate I hate kind of trottting down this road. Go for it. Because Frank's not alive. So, he's not here to defend
00:48:14
himself. But us little garage fellas here, we're not the first ones clearly to accuse this guy of of wrongdoing. It
00:48:22
looks to me like maybe either Elvara suspected Frank and decided to move on, you know, not move on from Frank, just
00:48:30
carry on with her life. Or maybe I'm not saying that she helped him, but I think
00:48:35
maybe she was aware of the truth. When difficult to say, but I'm pointing that out just to to suggest
00:48:45
that could there have been no phone call at all and Elvra just made it up. Right.
00:48:50
Right. All we know is that one of the sisters was receiving these calls. I did have some brief interaction with one of
00:48:56
the family members. These were not questions that we were able to get to uh for because of the complexities that we
00:49:02
won't get into uh on this show, but super complex. Well, it's not always easy to communicate with with people,
00:49:10
especially when you're when you're putting together these stories and you have limited time to do so. So, there's
00:49:16
some very interesting things here. Okay, so when Frank Ryan dies, uh, he passed away in June of 2020.
00:49:27
There was a comment left on his memorial page by his wife, Elvro, that states, "I
00:49:35
was 15, he was 17." This is she's talking about when they first started seeing each other and dating each other.
00:49:41
And then she goes on to mention that they later they get married. And she says, "Some people predicted that we
00:49:49
wouldn't last a year. The first three years were the toughest, but somehow we got through it. We went through a lot
00:49:57
together. It made us stronger. He will always be with me. I love you, Frank. Today, tomorrow, and always." Okay,
00:50:03
nice. But little odd there with the first three years. Maybe that has nothing to do with
00:50:09
her sister. Who knows? Now, let's fast forward to 3 years later when Elvra passes away. This is in November of
00:50:16
2023. Her obituary, and not everybody gets to write their own obituary, but regardless of who was the author of
00:50:26
this obituary, it does not list Edna as a sister, does not list Edna as a relative, late or otherwise, right? It
00:50:35
doesn't say leaving behind her late sister, you know, joining her late sister and
00:50:41
after, you know, in heaven. Nothing. No reference to Edna at all in Elvra Dot's obituary. Yeah. Which again could
00:50:54
mean something or could just mean that I No, I point that out for a reason because there there are other family
00:51:02
members that never stopped talking about Edna. Right. Right. I'm always very suspicious when you see the complete
00:51:08
opposite by by other family members. And I don't know how quickly or or what the
00:51:15
relationship was with Elvivara going forward after that. Right. So the mother um according to the other sister Deb, so
00:51:23
Deb Deb runs a Facebook page for her missing sister and has done so for many many years. This is 50 years later,
00:51:32
right? She's still running this Facebook page, still posting things about her sister, especially on her on her
00:51:37
birthday, on her mom's birthday, and and saying, you know, we miss you and saying, "Hey, me and mom got together
00:51:43
and celebrated your birthday with we ate brownies, and I brought mom flowers for
00:51:48
your birthday." And I mean, very sad stuff. And and and very sadly, the mother passes away at the age of 96,
00:51:55
lives to be 96 years old, never knowing what happened to her daughter. and and the sister saying, "Mom said a prayer
00:52:04
for you every day from the time you went missing until the day she died. She said
00:52:09
a prayer for you every day, hoping that you were okay, hoping you would return or hoping that she would figure out what
00:52:15
happened to you." Right. And the reverse of that is is a sister who there's no mention of of her sister Edna. Right.
00:52:24
And then like you said, but who wrote this? Exactly. you know, and and also it's tough because we and I keep saying
00:52:32
this for the last couple weeks, we can only view these cases through our own lens.
00:52:39
And just like, you know, going back to like the the Brian Schaefer case, he goes missing. The the guy he's with that
00:52:47
night, his supposedly one of his good friends, Clint, wants nothing to do with it. Changes his
00:52:55
name, goes into hiding. his brother doesn't seem to want to talk to a bunch of people about the case. And we can
00:53:04
look at these situations and say, "Well, if it was if it was me, I'd be shouting
00:53:08
it from the rooftops. I wouldn't shut up about it until we got answers." But obviously, we just won't know. We
00:53:17
wouldn't know that unless we were in that situation. Well, and anybody in that situation,
00:53:23
I mean, hopefully none of our listeners have to experience this, but this is not
00:53:27
something that anybody should experience, but any for anyone in that situation, whether your loved one went
00:53:34
missing a month ago, two years ago, 10 years ago, and again, this is not on Deb has done the right thing with her her
00:53:43
Facebook page and what I'm saying, I'm sure mom would have done would have done more had
00:53:50
knew to. And you know, we're talking the internet didn't exist for a large part of of the when this girl was missing,
00:53:58
but read John Walsh's book, Tears of Rage. Um, that that is almost there's chapters in there that feel like a
00:54:06
handbook for what to do if your loved one is missing. Yeah, but hold on. What I'm saying is maybe it's the right thing
00:54:14
for Deb to do, but not everybody in the family, you know, will deal with this situation the
00:54:22
same way. And I think I think it's unfair to say, well, somebody didn't one of the family members didn't want to
00:54:29
talk about it, so that's suspicious. It's just a different way of dealing with it. Yes. I'm not telling anybody
00:54:38
how to handle any very difficult situation. I'm saying if you want to increase the probability the probability
00:54:45
of your loved one being found, located or recovered, read John Walsh's book that you know he will tell you how to
00:54:53
increase the likelihood of finding. Well, just a little kick. Yeah, a little kick back to that though is they didn't
00:55:01
have a lot of great information on Otis Tool being responsible for Adam's death.
00:55:07
And when there was other allegations of people saying, well, they should look into Jeffrey Dmer as a possible suspect
00:55:14
in Adam's death, he it seemed like John Walsh kind of shied away from that. So, right, but he was the one that that did
00:55:23
him and his wife uh Rey were the ones that were were keeping their son's story in the media and made it a national
00:55:33
story. That's what I'm talking about. Forget about any other part of that. Now, back to our case here and back to
00:55:43
the family. So looking through the post over the years on the Facebook page in 2012, so this goes to March of 2012.
00:55:54
Edna's sister Deb, she's she is uh there's some information on Web Sleuth on a Web Sloo thread as well. But this I
00:56:03
found this on the Facebook page as well. She's excited in March of 2012 because she is saying that the police were
00:56:15
revisiting the case and they had contacted family members and wanted to collect DNA from all the family members.
00:56:24
Now, this is this is great because look, Edna's case has been compared to several unidentified remains that have
00:56:32
been found and and and I don't know that there's enough information on Edna to exclude her other
00:56:39
than some some generalities, right? Generalities being height uh and physical attributes, right? The
00:56:49
problem becomes with this when you're recovering remains. You're oftentimes not recovering all of them. Height gets
00:56:54
very difficult. I've talked about that on a couple of other cases where they they've excluded somebody based off of
00:56:59
height and because it's one or two inches off and I say, "Nay, that's a that's a terrible terrible way to
00:57:05
exclude somebody. I think you mention that the height is different, but you don't exclude." So anyway, them
00:57:11
collecting the DNA is a good thing because if if there were remains to be recovered, they they could compare that
00:57:20
to Edna's DNA and then the familial DNA and see if there's a match, right? Because before this, there's a chance
00:57:29
she could have been recovered somewhere and it's never been linked together. That's her post. She's excited. They're
00:57:35
they're revisiting the case. They're collecting family DNA. Right. Shortly after, within a couple days, there's
00:57:43
another post that states, "One of our family members refused accepted originally accepted the
00:57:51
appointment to go and give their DNA, but then later the appointment was cancelled and that individual is
00:58:01
refusing to give DNA to the Philadelphia Police Department." Fishy. And according again this is according to
00:58:10
the family and their statements on webs and on the Facebook page. They state that they were told by the police
00:58:21
department, that the appointment that was agreed upon to submit DNA was cancelled by the individual's wife who
00:58:33
told the police department that he would not be coming down there and he is not going to be giving his DNA in the case.
00:58:39
Look, we we can't say 100% we the the this post states that it's a family member later canceled the appointment
00:58:47
and that it was the family member's wife that canled the appointment. We can't say 100% that it's Alvara and Frank Ryan
00:58:54
that they're talking about because they were kind enough not to mention them, but there's not too many coincidences in
00:59:00
these cases. And it would seem to be that all fingers would be pointing that that would be the most likely two people
00:59:07
that these online posts are referencing here. Well, can I point out something that's a little sneaky sneaky?
00:59:15
Is you were saying that well law enforcement we if we have her remains or if we find remains and we need to
00:59:23
compare them to your family's DNA, well, you'd want the DNA from the sisters, right? Because they're the ones that are
00:59:31
related. So, you wouldn't necessarily need Frank's DNA because he's not technically re related. But if law
00:59:40
enforcement is collecting DNA from the family and and and we don't know this for certain because we don't have all
00:59:48
the details, like you said, they were nice enough not to name these individuals. But if the law enforcement
00:59:54
is contacting the sister and her husband to get both of their DNAs, they're not just trying to get DNA to identify
01:00:04
remains. Well, does that make sense? Yeah, it does. Um, and and I think you're exactly right there. And here's
01:00:11
why. So, I wouldn't I don't want anybody to get to misconrue what I'm saying here, because I don't I don't think that
01:00:20
this is an indicator that they have recovered remains that they believe are Edna. I don't believe that this is an
01:00:25
indicator that they have um physical evidence that would identify the killer. Right. What what you're doing here is if
01:00:36
able, you cast a wide net, especially if you're going back and and re-examining a
01:00:42
case that's that old. Yes. So, if I have my date right here of March uh sorry, of
01:00:48
2012, the the case at this point is over 30 years old. So, if you're Yeah, that's
01:00:55
over 35 years old by that point. So if you cast a wide net and what you're doing is
01:01:01
you're going to collect DNA from anybody that's willing to give it to you. So you
01:01:05
want family and everybody that's one degree of separation from those those immediate family members. So this would
01:01:13
be mother, sisters, and spouses or or or other persons. And so here you go. We can there's databases. We can put that
01:01:24
if we have that information. We can put it into the databases. we we can figure out if she was found on the other side
01:01:29
of the country 20 years prior and it's never been connected. The other part of that too is there's a lot of one-offs. A
01:01:37
lot of times if a person is responsible for the demise of another, they've only they only kill one person. But it's not
01:01:43
a far stretch to say whoever is responsible for Edna's disappearance and likely murder. It's not inconceivable
01:01:51
that they are responsible for other crimes that may have physical evidence that's sitting in databases out there
01:01:57
somewhere. Yes, that's a that's exactly where my mind was going is this individual didn't want to give
01:02:04
their DNA because they know that there could be other cases that can confirm what some people in that family believe
01:02:14
is that this individual is a monster. This case was brought to us by Lauren Fritzky, a true crimeobsessed freelance
01:02:22
journalist and content marketer based outside of Philadelphia. She has followed Edna's case and other local
01:02:29
cases like it for the last 20 years and hopes this episode can help bring justice to Edna and closure to her
01:02:37
surviving family members, which includes several siblings. If you have information regarding Edna's whereabouts
01:02:43
or information that could further the investigation, please call in a tip to the Philadelphia Police Department at
01:02:51
215686 tips. That's 2156868477. [Music] [Music] Want to thank everybody for joining us
01:03:10
here in the garage each and every week. Make sure you subscribe. Make sure you tell your mother, your brother, your
01:03:15
father, and uh your third and fourth cousins. Colonel, do we have any recommended reading for the beautiful
01:03:21
listeners? Mhm. Only tell the relatives that you believe would submit DNA should something happen to you because
01:03:28
the ones that you don't think, you don't need to be friends with them. All right,
01:03:32
that this week we are recommending what happened to Holly Bobo. This is a podcast available on ABC's 2020 podcast
01:03:41
feed. ABC News correspondent and Good Morning America co-anchor Ava Pilgrim. She was kind enough to come on Off the
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Record with me. So, if you're already subscribed to our show, Off the Record, which is on Patreon and Apple
01:03:58
subscription, you may have already listened to this episode. if you haven't, go back and listen to it
01:04:02
because Ava knows every in and out of this case and it's a very twisty and turny type of case. Anybody that's
01:04:10
followed this case knows of the twist and turns some of them and more are coming to light as it would appear. What
01:04:18
happened to Holly Bobo is a series as said on ABC's 2020 podcast feed. 20year-old Holly Bobo was abducted in
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April of 2011. and her partial remains were re were found in 2014. The death was ruled a homicide. It was determined
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she had been shot in the back of the head. We covered this case in October of 2017. True Crime Garage episodes 146 and
01:04:43
147. So, really a lot of stuff here. If you want to dive into this case, you can
01:04:49
review our off thereord episode. You can review our two old episodes. And don't forget to go and check out the series
01:04:56
that is now available on ABC's 2020 podcast feed. So you can find that recommendation and many, many more
01:05:04
podcasts, documentaries, books, lots of different recommendations for you available. If you need some more
01:05:12
true crime, you can find that on our recommended page, true crimegar.com. And until next week, be good, be kind, and
01:05:20
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