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GameChanger [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
00:01:44
for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always as a man who when he left for college told his dad okay
00:01:51
you're the man of the house now he is the captain and boy how he cried papa papa it's good to be seen in it's good
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to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a [Music] friend ah this is great stuff Captain
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today we are very happy to be featuring scissor kick by Kings County Brewers Collective casy BC this is a double dry
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hopped up IPA garage grade 4 and 1 12 bottle caps out of five another great brew from some of our best crew here's a
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shout out to Becky and Redmond Oregon and a big shout out to Dan in Valley Village California all right here's a
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that's true crime stop what you're doing stop working just stop listening to the
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show and sign up now you bastards and that's enough of the business all right everybody gather around grab a chair
00:03:19
grab a beer let's talk some true [Music] crime [Music] [Music] one of the high priority leads the FBI
00:04:02
is checking an area man resembling the drawing of the suspect he left his job last Friday has not returned but
00:04:10
authorities will not comment further on that Amy disappeared from the shopping center a week ago today and today FBI
00:04:18
agents and Bay Village Police were back in the center talking with people who might have been here then Amy reportedly
00:04:25
left Bay square with a man she believed to be a friend sometime between 1: and 400 p.m. last Friday the shopping center
00:04:32
was busy but few who were here remembered anything unusual about the man and the girl what went on uh was a
00:04:40
ploy that was developed and carried through and it looked like a natural uh action going on it didn't look out of
00:04:48
the ordinary at all today in that same 1 to 4:00 p.m. time frame officers were trying to jog memories of Shoppers to
00:04:56
possibly recall something from a week ago that they did not not consider important them okay I'll be glad police
00:05:04
want anyone else who was here last Friday afternoon to call them regardless of whether they believe they saw
00:05:10
anything police also are seeking other children who might have been contacted by phone as Amy was by a man as a friend
00:05:18
seeking the child's help in buying a gift for a parent you have had some of those yes we have how
00:05:26
many I aware of at least three perhaps more John Herrington channel 3 [Music] news earlier this year in episodes 308
00:05:49
and 309 titled Amy mahalic that was from June of this year we were able to do a detailed timeline of this case this is
00:05:59
an unsolved abduction assault and murder case of a 10-year-old girl 10-year-old Amy mahalic this weekend unfortunately
00:06:08
will Mark a sad anniversary it will now be 30 years to the day that Amy was abducted taken from a small shopping
00:06:17
plaza that was just walking distance from her Middle School the abduction was not a violent one Amy did not scream
00:06:26
this was not a snatch and grab situation a man calmly walked up to her and she left with this grown man this was
00:06:34
witnessed by two of her classmates now for anyone who is unfamiliar with this case Don't Panic
00:06:41
you don't have to go back and listen to episodes 308 and 309 before listening to
00:06:46
this week's coverage we are covering this case in a way that these are pretty much Standalone portions of what is a
00:06:54
very very big story so what is now a 30-year timeline of a very big case you get that in depth in those episodes for
00:07:03
those that don't know our setup Captain you can listen to True Crime garage for free on anywhere that you listen to
00:07:10
podcast you can get episodes from the last 6 months or so now we have been doing this great show thanks to all of
00:07:16
the wonderful listeners out there for 4 years so the older episodes you can listen to those for free when you
00:07:24
download the free Stitcher app go to our website to learn more yeah some would say 4 years too long now I say all that
00:07:31
Captain to point out that we did an in-depth interview with James rener the only person who has authored a book that
00:07:39
is devoted solely to Amy's case that was way back in March of 2016 episode 22 the
00:07:47
purpose of this week is to discuss some of the suspects in this case now the information you are going to hear today
00:07:55
comes from many sources this being an Ohio case the two of of us have been watching this case for a very long time
00:08:03
but one source that we will use often is Cleveland magazine this here is from their
00:08:10
coverage on the 10-year anniversary which says the Amy mahalic case became the most intense search for a child in
00:08:18
local history involving every conceivable law enforcement agency and an army of volunteers federal state
00:08:26
county and local law enforcement Personnel logged more than 60,000 official hours and thousands more off
00:08:34
the clock hundreds of promising tips were tracked down and dismissed 14,000 people interviewed 120 potential
00:08:42
suspects investigated and questioned intensely 8,000 leads pursued an abandon the story was featured in major
00:08:51
newspapers and on national TV shows like America's Most Wanted and Unsolved Mysteries 2 million copies of the Amy
00:08:58
post were distributed that is in all 50 states and in Europe and all the way to Australia before we get to the suspects
00:09:09
first let's get into some of the known and possible movements of the killer we've talked at length about the phone
00:09:16
call or calls to Amy's home setting up the Meetup at the plaza I do want to mention it sounds to me that police and
00:09:25
FBI lean toward the idea that there was more than one call to me at home but regardless there was at least one we
00:09:33
have talked extensively about the abductor choosing Friday as the meeting up day let's get into the other phone
00:09:41
call the call from Amy to Margaret so for those not super familiar with the case the way this works is Margaret is
00:09:49
at work Jason Amy's brother arrives home from school he calls his mother at work
00:09:56
like he does every day on a typical day Amy would would arrive home before Jason
00:10:01
and Amy would call Margaret at work each day when she arrived home as well on this day Jason is the only one to call
00:10:10
and he points out to his mother that Amy is not home this is not of great concern
00:10:15
as Amy told her mother there was a choir tryy out that day at school okay then there was a second call on this call
00:10:23
Again Margaret and Jason they determined that Amy is still not home now margar is
00:10:29
a little panicked and she's going to leave work early but then and this is according to Cleveland magazine article
00:10:37
at 3:40 p.m. Margaret gets the call that she needed it's Amy calling to say everything is fine Margaret asked how
00:10:46
the try out went Amy said okay Margaret asked she said she had the impression that Amy was calling from home so they
00:10:54
talk briefly and then bye-bye see you soon that was the last last time Margaret ever spoke to
00:11:01
Amy now before we get into the experts and what they say about this last call I want to address this first for so many
00:11:10
years in fact up until the last 18 or 24 months it has always just been accepted
00:11:15
and understood that this call was made after Amy was in the company of her abductor now all of a sudden after all
00:11:23
this time people are starting to call that into question I get it it's interesting to ponder but it seems
00:11:29
extremely unlikely and of course we don't know for certain but we do know class got out at 210 that day Amy walked
00:11:36
with friends and it only took a few minutes to get to the shopping plaza and most of the good timelines out there say
00:11:44
that it was around 300 p.m. when a man approached Amy spoke to her and led her away so according to the Cleveland
00:11:52
magazine timeline we have 40 minutes that's a big discrepancy in time so I absolutely believe that Amy was in the
00:12:00
company of her abductor by this point I think the call was made from a pay phone
00:12:06
a motel phone or somewhere the abductor lived or was staying the interesting thing here I
00:12:13
think is you can put a cap on the distance that they could have been from the plaza at the time of this call and
00:12:22
the maximum would be a 40-minute drive from the plaza now people who believe that Amy would have be behaved much
00:12:29
differently during that phone call if in the company of her abductor that's fair
00:12:35
but it's possible that Amy may have been unaware that she was being abducted yeah
00:12:40
and let's remember this is supposed to be a secret shopping trip to get a present for her mother so she wouldn't
00:12:46
want to give away the surprise yeah he could have allowed her to call and reminding her hey don't you know don't
00:12:54
give up on this idea that we got this secret shopping trip to do you can't tell your mother this now I've had some
00:13:00
people question why I think that a pay phone is possible or would have been possible here they point out and this is
00:13:07
very obvious but very good too they point out if she was afraid if Amy was afraid a pay phone out in the open she
00:13:15
could have just fled the abductor then and there but you and I captain being children of the80s we are old enough to
00:13:24
remember payones quite a bit and use them quite a bit when we were children and one thing that I want to point out
00:13:31
is something that's kind of Forgotten today that at a lot of gas stations do you remember the pullup pay phone the
00:13:39
one that was constructed in a manner that wasn't in a booth but it was out and it was in a way that you would just
00:13:44
pull up with your vehicle you wouldn't even get out of the vehicle you would pull up and you could punch in the
00:13:50
number and make the phone call from sitting inside of your vehicle yeah this could have been a situation that he used
00:13:57
there what we do know is that a phone call happened we can't say for certain if she was quote unquote under his
00:14:04
control you know meaning he had a gun or a knife on her or he had already expressed a threat to her that would
00:14:12
have kept her under his control right but again let's think about this logically are you going to take that
00:14:17
chance have her under your control she knows this is now abduction she knows now that she's in some kind of danger oh
00:14:24
let's have her call her mother or do you keep playing itol and yeah I'll let you call your mother
00:14:31
before we go shopping right either way we do know that the call happened we can only
00:14:36
speculate what was going on at the time what the experts say about this phone call Amy checking in with her mother in
00:14:42
the abductor allowing this call the first lead detective on the case Jim Tomkins said quote that's critical it
00:14:51
bought him an hour or more precious getaway time for the man authorities were calling the unknown male expert
00:14:59
analysts also believe this event reveals important details about the unknown male
00:15:04
they are certain he was standing right there and that he may have known that Amy was supposed to call now this could
00:15:11
be from something he learned from Amy on previous phone calls or in conversation
00:15:17
on the day of the abduction or even possibly Amy threatening him if in fact by the time she figured out that he had
00:15:25
abducted her he's she's saying I have to call home mom and dad will be looking for me you're going to be in trouble so
00:15:33
some of the experts believe that he stood there and told Amy what to say during that
00:15:39
call the late and great FBI agent Robert wrestler says it tells us he was executing a bold plot that included Amy
00:15:48
her family and the police pointing out that the Bay Village Police Department headquarters is right across the street
00:15:55
from the shopping plaza he goes on to say this is an intelligent man presentable well spoken this is a
00:16:02
complicated personal crime when Amy's body was found in that field 3 months after her Abduction the kyoga County
00:16:10
coroner and the FBI scientist determined that Amy had been deceased for some time
00:16:15
most likely the murder had occurred shortly after her abduction probably a few days or less she was not killed
00:16:22
immediately Amy did eat at least one meal after she was taken maybe more her autopsy revealed blunt force trauma to
00:16:30
the head and stab wounds to her neck it appears that the blunt force trauma on its own was not fatal but the stab
00:16:36
wounds were over the years Captain there have been thousands of tips and hundreds
00:16:42
of suspects and in this sense we are using the term suspects very Loosely some of these men were just lookalike
00:16:50
suspects these were leads that the police received FBI received because somebody looked like one of the
00:16:57
composite sketches right and we've seen this with like the deli murders somebody
00:17:01
goes hey look this guy looks just like the sketch or just like the photo but they live in California and
00:17:07
you can't prove that they were in Indiana at the time so that that's why I don't like some of these suspects well
00:17:14
and it gets difficult for law enforcement because of of two factors one with the Amy case with the deli case
00:17:21
not a lot to go on so you have to throw that sketch out there but they throw that sketch out to the public knowing
00:17:28
that we're going to get a wealth of leads that are no good yeah you know they they only need the one good one but
00:17:37
we're going to get a whole bunch of people coming forward saying I know somebody that looks just like this guy
00:17:42
in Amy's case in the Amy composite sketches we pointed out in our previous episodes technically there were four
00:17:50
composite sketches released over a it's a little more than a one-year time period but there was a sketch release
00:17:58
the first weekend and then FBI artist came in and did two sketches that appear on the same flyer and that's the one
00:18:06
that I refer to as like the famous composite drawing where you see the two individuals now it was only one man that
00:18:13
abducted her but we have two somewhat different looking individuals in that famous composite sketch one two of the
00:18:21
eyewitnesses one claiming that they saw a man with glasses and one claiming they
00:18:26
saw a man without glasses so that's where the initial I think confusion started yeah so the first composite
00:18:33
drawing is basically a meshing of the two eyewitnesses accounts they were like all right we'll take we'll take
00:18:41
everything throw it in a blender and boom this is the picture that pop that comes out the FBI artist did separate
00:18:48
ones so why the reason why you're seeing two different composite drawings is one
00:18:53
is from one eyewitness and one is from the other eyewitness both of these eyewitnesses were children 10 or 11
00:19:00
years old both both of these eyewitnesses were not up front and center when they saw this guy they were
00:19:06
distance away 25 30 ft away and saw this man interact with Amy the thing that law
00:19:13
enforcement points out and has continued to point out over the years is they think that this is a very quote unquote
00:19:21
General description of somebody that this this is not somebody that is distinguishable right this is not
00:19:28
somebody that would stand out in a crowd and that's why you get so many lookalike
00:19:33
suspects because this kind of just looks like your average Joe right now investigators said that out of all of
00:19:41
the potential suspects ever to appear on the raadar screen less than two dozen remain priorities after acute
00:19:49
investigating now early on on the local level there was rumored to be two very good suspects in fact these men they
00:19:59
were suspects even before Amy's body was found suspect number one was Billy strunck from Fair viiew Park he injected
00:20:09
himself into the search efforts he joined the volunteers and helped to search for Amy he was questioned several
00:20:17
times this both by Bay Village Police Department and the FBI his story was checked and then double checked
00:20:25
according to Cleveland magazine Billy was found to have serious personal problems both medical and emotional but
00:20:33
all unrelated to Amy's case months after Amy's disappearance he consumed a lethal
00:20:40
amount of ethanol dry gas and died 3 days later right but to be clear they believe this was on purpose and this was
00:20:49
technically a suicide yes and FBI agent Robert westler who was briefly involved in the case questioned this suspect
00:20:58
personally wrestler maintained that he had a gut feeling that Billy strunak was hiding something wrestler later cited
00:21:05
this suicide as a possible indication of guilt in wrestler's book whoever fights
00:21:11
monsters wrestler says strunak was a good candidate to be the one they were calling the unknown male now all other
00:21:20
investigators insist that he was not the guy Steven Eder who was a supervisory special agent for the national center
00:21:29
for the analysis of violent crime said after his death meaning strunak we had access to his home and belongings FBI
00:21:40
agent dick Ren adds there was not a shred of evidence for this or any other crime Eder says that Billy strunak quote
00:21:50
simply didn't have the capacity to commit this type of crime some in the local community believe he still could
00:21:56
have been the guy we covered this angle of the investigation in depth on our other show
00:22:04
off the Record yeah now I have a couple issues with the detectives the investigators saying that they don't
00:22:10
think Billy was capable of doing this because most people probably wouldn't be capable
00:22:18
of dying from a suicide by ingesting gasoline right gas so that that takes a uh determined
00:22:30
individual and I also think just his involvement in the search the involvement in the investigation the
00:22:37
contact with the mother um and and like you said their big thing is well once he
00:22:43
died from this suicide and wrestler is saying well I believe he's basically saying right because there's a suicide
00:22:52
he believes that Billy had something to hide it might have been an indication of
00:22:56
guilt that he was overcome by guilt or he was afraid that he was going to be arrested and people were going to find
00:23:04
out what kind of monster he was and he's going to have to spend the rest of his life Behind Bars any number of those
00:23:10
reasons or all of them together would have been enough for this individual to commit suicide is what wrestler believes
00:23:17
right and then so now you have these investigators go well he's dead now and so we can investigate his property but
00:23:24
we didn't find any evidence of any crime I don't know why but my gut has always told me that this crime was the first uh
00:23:35
uh as far as a killing would go by this individual MH there might be some inappropriate touching or looking or
00:23:44
possibly even um exposing themselves to younger individuals but to me this is a this is
00:23:55
a one-time thing possibly never going to happen again and and so that would lead
00:24:01
me to believe well look at somebody like Billy and he makes a really good suspect
00:24:05
and then that you go well well we investigated his house and his property and and all that stuff and we didn't see
00:24:11
any sign of a crime well here's what we do know we know that there's a crime scene I would call it a crime scene
00:24:20
where he abducted her even though she went willing I'd still call that a crime scene and then we know that she went
00:24:27
into to a vehicle to me those are the two crime scenes and then plus where her body was found those are the three
00:24:35
places that we know we don't have much evidence to uh suggest that she went back to his
00:24:43
house or or went to anybody's house so I'm just saying that you can be searching in this location but it's like
00:24:51
again what if like you were saying what if the phone call was made from a hotel or a motel and
00:24:58
and so it's like you wouldn't find any evidence at his place because he never took the
00:25:05
victim back there MH so look we we can't we could sit here and spin our tires all day and try to
00:25:14
figure out why we have the FBI and we have other agencies later saying that he Billy strunak is not our guy they're not
00:25:23
going to give us all those reasons what I will say though too right but it's not
00:25:27
as clear that we we don't have like some strand of DNA that we can test to make sure that it's it's Billy or not Billy
00:25:34
right correct there is physical evidence in this case but we do not have we do not have DNA evidence that we
00:25:42
can test in the sense of of current types of Investigations so but but here's here's
00:25:49
the thing we got to we got to keep in mind while we're going through these suspects okay so these same the same
00:25:56
investigators or at least the same agencies are on record over the years as saying we're not going to 100% rule out
00:26:05
anyone and we hear that like with the deli case now we can take that for their word we
00:26:12
can take that for what that is supposed to mean we don't know exactly what that means behind closed doors and Behind
00:26:19
These closed door meetings that they're having regarding the suspects when they say
00:26:25
that look I I think that if we're if we were going to create a top 10 list of of
00:26:31
top 10 suspects in this case I didn't just go through and pick out suspects that were mentioned in the newspaper or
00:26:38
mentioned in local rumor or anything like that I went through there was there's more than 10 of those I went
00:26:45
through and I picked out ones that I believe should remain on some kind of top 10 list now this is just our own
00:26:51
little garage list here but I would leave Billy strunak on that list until I had further information to Lead Me to
00:26:57
believe that they are in fact right that he's not their guy they could have come
00:27:01
across some things to say that he had a 100% Ironclad Alibi right for that day we don't we don't know that because
00:27:09
that's never been said in the public um they also one thing that I do want to to
00:27:15
comment directly on though is where they say we simply don't believe that he had
00:27:21
the capacity to commit this type of crime now you pointed out that he consumed ethanol and killed himself and
00:27:30
that takes a certain something I guess but it takes a something well but what what they may mean here in this is not
00:27:38
so much that he couldn't have physically committed this type of crime they may firmly believe that he was of an
00:27:45
emotional state or he was he had these personal problems they may fully believe that he could have physically committed
00:27:54
this type of crime he wouldn't have been able to not crack or not tell someone or
00:27:59
not come forward you see what I mean like that not only did this crime happen but the person as far as we know has
00:28:06
also never confided in anyone never confessed to it never never had a mental break and just and just came clean or or
00:28:14
freaked out so that might be what in fact that they mean on this and again though um yes there there is a crime
00:28:23
scene that we are unaware of there was a place that she was killed yeah that's the missing puzzle piece
00:28:30
here um but what we have dick Ren saying is there was not a shred of evidence for
00:28:36
this crime or any other crime that they could find at his home or in the belongings that they were able to view
00:28:42
now there is local rumor in the area that uh and we we have wrestler who's on record saying this I don't know that
00:28:51
it's in fact true but we have local rumor that the family removed his items or had
00:29:01
access to his apartment before law enforcement did after his death because they weren't right they weren't fully
00:29:08
aware that he was dead at the you know immediately after his death it took some time for that word to travel to them
00:29:15
before they went in and looked at his apartment so there's local rumor that it's like a it's a really good uh Family
00:29:25
secret you know a Best Kept Family secret that Billy strunak did in fact kill Amy mahalic and his whole family
00:29:31
knows about it and they know about it because they were able to view all of his belongings but what we would know
00:29:37
later is that there are things missing from the crime scene there were items that Amy had on her person that have
00:29:44
never been found never been located and we know for certain from dick Ren's statement that they didn't find those
00:29:50
items in the belongings or in the space that they were able to view regarding Billy strunak right which makes me
00:29:57
wonder if the crime scene was a a vehicle those items could have been left in that vehicle that vehicle could have
00:30:03
been discarded with all those uh items but one of the things I like about Billy is when she went missing he was a
00:30:10
suspect when her body was found he was a suspect and I believe today he still is
00:30:16
a really good [Music] suspect this show is sponsored by better help do you look forward to the holidays maybe
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offered by T-Mobile and Verizon [Music] 2023 all right we're back cheers mates cheers to everyone so suspect number two
00:32:44
and in fact he may have been one of the very first suspects even more so than Billy strunak he worked at the horse
00:32:53
stable where Amy went horseback riding on the weekends some say he looks like the composite sketch personally I think
00:33:01
that is debatable MH I would say his appearance was vaguely similar to one of the composite sketches so this is at the
00:33:10
Holly Hill Farms riding stable where he works Amy was an avid horse rider she took lessons for two years and her
00:33:18
favorite horse at Holly Hill was named Razzle Holly Hill Farms which is no longer there but was for many years in
00:33:27
fact it was just in the last few years that Holly Hill closed for Good selling off all of the Farmland to make room for
00:33:34
new housing developments Holly Hill Farms was located on Nagle Road and the old address list of farm as in Avon Lake
00:33:45
but if you look at it on a map it was very close to where several communities meet you have Avon Lake West Lake and
00:33:53
Bay Village Nagle Road was not far from the the train tracks that ran behind the
00:33:59
mahalic home in fact the night that Amy went missing police and Mark mahalic and
00:34:05
friends were actually looking for Amy around those train tracks that was one area that they really focused on because
00:34:13
Amy would ride her bike there and go back there and go back there with friends from the neighborhood so that
00:34:20
was one area that if you could find her if there was a reasonable explanation as
00:34:25
to why she was missing if she was out on her own plane they thought they might find her
00:34:30
there this the the night that she went missing now at this time they're still trying to explain away why she is
00:34:42
missing right there no one was aware of the r used by the Predator to lure her to the shopping plaza right that info
00:34:49
was not learned by the police department until Saturday morning that's when the case officially went from a missing
00:34:56
person's case to to a kidnapping and the FBI was immediately called in now most of that area back in 1989 was
00:35:05
Farmland the man that we are talking about the suspect His Name Was Harold bound he actually lived at the riding
00:35:14
stables where Amy went weekly this dude jumps on the radar for several reasons first early on investigators were fully
00:35:24
focused on the call to Amy's house the r for the Meetup and abduction information
00:35:30
in the call again could offer insights to who the perpetrator was they were working off of the idea at the time that
00:35:39
the abductor may have known Amy Margaret or both persons involved with Holly Hill
00:35:46
Stables would have known Amy and Margaret Margaret actually would ride horses there as well this man Harold
00:35:54
bound he was the son of the owners of Holly Hill according to what I could find he was a Vietnam vet and he lived
00:36:03
in an apartment above the garage at Holly Hill it seems that he was an avid Hunter stories have been told of persons
00:36:12
going to the stables for writing lessons and seeing Harold what they said was he's wandering
00:36:19
around in camouflage with a bow and arrow mhm some I think thought this was weird maybe I mean maybe he was just
00:36:27
hunting really from the stories I could find about his behavior it's really a mixed bag right so some of the girls at
00:36:35
Holly Hill said things like we thought he was creepy even before Amy went missing others said he was strange but
00:36:43
thought that he suffered from PTSD from the war years later his brother Greg would say that Harold was a suspect for
00:36:52
a couple of reasons Greg says law enforcement said that Amy was taking taken away in a blue pickup truck the
00:36:59
farm owned a blue pickup this from my understanding was a shared farm vehicle and Greg says Harold came home late on
00:37:08
the night that Amy was abducted Harold bound's parents who owned the farm and lived on the
00:37:15
property this kind of adds to to the whole scenario here they were actually out of town when she was abducted they
00:37:23
were down in Florida for that weekend which would make make sense you know parents are out of town that's where
00:37:28
you're staying this is a perfect opportunity right and we both believe that the abductor picked that Friday for
00:37:36
some reason well investigators also said here's a guy that probably left work and
00:37:43
then probably didn't return so but that that would still put him in that category right right and to be clear I I
00:37:53
Believe In that clip that we heard there's there they're talking about a different individual not Harold bound
00:37:59
right right right but the interesting thing here is if he lives on that property and works there his parents are
00:38:07
the owners they're gone they're out of town yeah there would have been other people in and out of Holly Hill Farm
00:38:13
that day that weekend but he doesn't really does he need to be accounted for no right I mean he he comes and goes as
00:38:22
he pleased pretty much correct correct now James rener says when he first he actually interviewed or spoke to Harold
00:38:30
on at least two occasions he says that when first asked Harold says he didn't know Amy from any of the other students
00:38:39
at the stable then later Harold tells rener a very specific story about a time that he saw Amy at the stable and asked
00:38:49
her a question so this is completely different stories from the same guy about the same situation two completely
00:38:55
different answers one to say I wouldn't have known her from any of the other girls to then go
00:39:00
into a very specific story about a time where he had an interaction with Amy right Harold was questioned by the FBI
00:39:10
the day after Amy was abducted well that's what we say I'm a little unclear here Captain if it was in fact that
00:39:17
Saturday because remember the FBI was called in that Saturday it says that Harold was interviewed the day after she
00:39:24
was abducted but it could have been that sun regardless it's going to be that first weekend he's questioned very early
00:39:30
on during this whole situation he's questioned at his apartment and he did allow the FBI
00:39:38
agents and the officers to come into his apartment and he also allowed them to look around yeah not only look around
00:39:46
his apartment but also look around the farm property and inside of his parents' home the FBI agents left and when they
00:39:54
left they took nothing with them the feds questioned Harold bound multiple times the first week that Amy was
00:40:01
missing Harold did not like the treatment from law enforcement that he was getting so he gathered up some of
00:40:09
his things and he went and checked himself into a local VA Hospital some suspect he was trying to
00:40:16
put up a wall between him and law enforcement right his brother says that Harold believed that they were trying to
00:40:25
pin this abduction on him and he he was he got afraid and so he went and checked himself into this VA
00:40:33
Hospital well yeah think about this way you're you're working on this Farm you you come back from war you know you're a
00:40:39
little off or maybe you don't know you're a little off you're working around a lot of children and one of them
00:40:46
comes up missing MH and and maybe and and you're kind of considered by at least some of the the students to be the
00:40:52
weird guy or the creepy guy right but how many times you know has a school had a janitor where the guy is nothing but
00:41:01
nice but kids create you know rumors oh that guy's a little strange no he's not being strange he's just saying hello to
00:41:09
you or or saying hi to you uh but but th those uh rumors uh and speculations grow
00:41:17
over time too well and that's the thing too that that I wanted to point out where some of
00:41:24
the kids Holly Hill claimed the guy was creepy or or doing weird things sometimes things are just weird because
00:41:32
you're a child and you don't understand a situation right you know like you see this dude that's wandering around in
00:41:40
camouflage and he has a bow and arrow and you're like what's that guy always doing here right and and then but but as
00:41:46
an adult somebody would know a couple things one he he lives on the property so he should be there there's no reason
00:41:52
for him not to be there right two he's a hunter um and this is is this is a large
00:41:58
property that his parents own this is private land it's farm land he is allowed to hunt there right you know so
00:42:07
as an adult that doesn't seem so weird as a kid not going to lie man if I show up to ride a horse and there's some dude
00:42:14
walking around stealth like in the woods and in camouflage with a bow and arrow I'm going I'm staying away from that
00:42:20
dude yeah or the fact that every time you show up he's there you go well right well why is this guy always here why is
00:42:26
he always at work oh well he lives there or take this a scenario where a guy comes in to clean an area and maybe
00:42:34
doesn't uh say hello to the kids because he's trying to stay out of the way some
00:42:39
kids will take that as oh this guy's being really creepy he didn't say hello you know yeah so where we look at Herold
00:42:48
bound and say does he look guilty does he sound guilty I go with looking guilty I would say no no but sounding guilty I
00:42:58
think yes because of the that to me if if in fact that's true that in one conversation he claims to not have known
00:43:07
Amy at all and then another conversation says he had Direct interaction and names
00:43:13
her specifically right but that's that sounds a little weird but that's not coming from law enforcement or
00:43:19
investigators that's from James rener and you never know it could have jogged his memory but you also kind of think
00:43:25
well if I lived on a property where a young girl frequented and she went missing and then was later found dead I
00:43:33
don't know that I would forget her so I don't know that I would need something to jog my memory now Captain I will say
00:43:42
this you know back to the famous composite drawing of of the by the two classmates who say they saw who took Amy
00:43:49
in my opinion out of the two suspects that we have discussed today personally I think that strunck looks much more
00:43:56
like the composite drawing than this Herold bound right it would be interested to see if uh the law
00:44:03
enforcement did any kind of lineup with these eyewitnesses so we do have to keep one
00:44:10
thing in mind and and and remember you were talking to me last week about misinformation and when there is bad
00:44:17
information thrown out there drives me insane in some of these cases it can hurt the investigation and it makes you
00:44:25
wonder specifically in this case is it possible that the man who took and killed Amy does not look like the
00:44:32
composite drawing and therefore someone who knows something never picked up the phone or never sent
00:44:40
an email with a tip and a name because as uncomfortable as it was to suspect a person close to them maybe even someone
00:44:50
they loved yeah it made it so much easier for that person and so much more convenient when they looked at that
00:44:59
composite and they were able to say to themselves Well it can't be him he doesn't look like the composite well
00:45:05
well back to the truck thing you know eyewitness is saying that maybe she's abducted in this
00:45:12
truck okay so my thought is if you don't have a clearcut eyewitness account of the vehicle how sure can we be of the
00:45:23
eyewitness accounts of the the man they saw with Amy right and and that that kind of
00:45:30
bothers me a little bit yeah and the way that this shopping plaza is kind of divided
00:45:35
up you know there's some Standalone buildings in the immediate area there's several parking lots in the media area
00:45:43
the thought is a there's a couple of ways of thinking of this one as said earlier this was not a
00:45:51
violent abduction this was not a Kicking and Screaming situation nobody that saw
00:45:56
anything that day knew that she was being led away to be abducted so no one saw her get into a vehicle and the
00:46:06
thought is either just no one saw her get into a vehicle or that he potentially parked his vehicle in an
00:46:12
area that would be less visible and led her you know slightly away and then into
00:46:18
his vehicle right it makes me wonder though you're you have this ruse going hey me me somewhere we're going to buy a
00:46:27
gift for your mother is it possible you know here's a guy that works at the Stables when Amy sees me she isn't going
00:46:36
to be freaked out because she has seen me before and that makes me wonder I I get
00:46:43
that the the issue that I've always had with that and the issue that I've always
00:46:47
had with with people presenting a suspect that Amy would have known directly personally I think that it's
00:46:55
that it's highly unlikely just in the sense that she's being told that this individual is somebody else on the phone
00:47:03
and to arrive and learn that he is not in fact who he says he was makes it a you know weird from Jump Street right
00:47:12
there right so all right what I'm getting off topic here back to Harold bound so law enforcement blocked off
00:47:20
naggle road and they searched that area extensively and they Captain they searched it for days during the search
00:47:27
law enforcement found a pair of sweatpants in the field or a wooded area in that immediate area these pants very
00:47:38
well could be the same ones that Amy was wearing this does not help Harold one bit of course so law enforcement focused
00:47:48
serious attention on him for months they did intense surveillance exhaustive investigation all of this yielding
00:47:56
nothing Harold took polygraph test and I want to be clear that's plural tests uh
00:48:03
Harold Harold requested that he be questioned after they administer truth serum the FBI complied with this he was
00:48:13
subjected to questioning with truth serum pumping through his veins now I can't tell you if he passed the
00:48:21
polygraph test and I can't tell you what the FBI thought about his answer during
00:48:26
the truth serum questioning but I can tell you at some point they were no longer interested in talking to him
00:48:33
anymore right which makes you believe when he's checking into a VA hospital this is all a part of it hey look I'm
00:48:39
being accused of something uh this is this is heinous I see why an individual would want to do anything you want to
00:48:48
give me truth serum you want to give me a a polygraph test I'm not involved in this I I think and we've talked about
00:48:56
this before I think it's one of the scariest things in the world to think about being accused of a heinous crime
00:49:03
um with little to no evidence and how much that can affect these individuals lives can I can I tell you what the
00:49:11
local rumor and local thought was on Harold bound and his his reaction to the in investigation no I'm tired of you
00:49:18
talking so the general thought here is that because he served in Vietnam because he served in the war that what
00:49:29
he witnessed there what he experienced there left him mentally unstable and it was it was Harold that
00:49:36
that understood this though he he knew that he wasn't of mind to put up a fight and to Proclaim his innocence in the in
00:49:46
the you know in a sense that that made sense to him I guess and the idea is that he was living at home and he was
00:49:53
working for his parents because because because of what he suffered in the war that might have been the extent of his
00:50:01
capabilities at that time and then when he became under under Fire and under questioning for this Abduction of a girl
00:50:09
that it that it tipped him and he said this is the only way I know how to handle this I need to go get checked out
00:50:15
and get looked at where some Proclaim that that is a sign of guilt that he's trying to Shield himself or run away
00:50:23
from the problem other others suggest that it's just he's innocent and doesn't understand how to
00:50:31
properly fight this and I don't blame him I mean you're being talked to by the FBI and multiple agencies and in the end
00:50:39
what we do know took place is he was polygraphed multiple times he was questioned after they administered Truth
00:50:45
surum by his own request and at some point law enforcement they've never cleared him but we know that they moved
00:50:53
on from him right so again though I mean could you imagine being accused of a crime like
00:51:00
this this is a heinous crime against this young beautiful girl this uh smart intelligent girl she has so much promise
00:51:09
and and you kind of know her you you at least you might not know her that well but she works where you uh right shees
00:51:18
there ties to you direct ties to you and and the fact that once people didn't I I'm getting flustered with
00:51:28
Amy's mother's mentioned in that phone call in the ruse and he would have likely have known her as well yeah but
00:51:34
it's just once you're accused of this or there's some speculation about you and then you're trying to clear yourself and
00:51:41
I'm sure there's some people in his family that gave him some looks and he knew that they just didn't believe him
00:51:48
and I just think that would crush your spirits yeah I think for for the most part it sounds like his family had his
00:51:56
back now regarding his brother's Greg and his statements that appear in uh renner's book Amy my search for her
00:52:07
killer that statement about the blue pickup truck that law enforcement said to the family that Amy was taken away in
00:52:14
a blue pickup truck that's the only place I've ever seen that statement and in fact I don't
00:52:20
know how Greg came up with that maybe in fact he was told that by law en ment but
00:52:25
I've also seen public statements from very early on in the investigation where they were outright telling the public we
00:52:33
do not have a description of a vehicle and on top of that when they release these composite drawings and sorry I'm
00:52:41
holding these up and yelling at the captain when they release these composite sketches of of who they think
00:52:47
was at the plaza that day if they had a freaking vehicle description it would have been included on that as you and I
00:52:53
have said many times vehicle description is so much easier a vehicle's easier to
00:52:58
track down than a drawing of a person right and I even have um a newspaper article from very early on shortly after
00:53:08
her body was found where the chief of police for Bay Village is saying I would give anything for even a vague
00:53:16
description of a vehicle we don't have that right so I don't know where that information came from but it doesn't
00:53:23
seem to be accurate it may have just been a way of cranking up the heat and asking some questions and hoping that
00:53:29
this dude might crack but the other thing that we might we need to think about too when we talk about Harold
00:53:37
being a good suspect or not being a good suspect you can be a good suspect in the
00:53:41
eyes of law enforcement for a period of time and then thoroughly checked and then no longer a good suspect in their
00:53:48
eyes right so we referenced those sweatpants that were found near or on the property of Holly h
00:53:56
hill we we need to think about this portion of the investigation too the pair of pants that were found on Holly
00:54:03
Hill Farm property that made Harold or someone from Holly Hill look like they were
00:54:09
involved we know the the results of the autopsy remember when Amy was found she was found fully clothed right redressed
00:54:17
after death most likely but fully clothed those pants that were found on that property simply were not hers
00:54:25
now dick Ren when asked around the 10-year anniversary about Harold bound specifically Ren said he didn't do it
00:54:34
I'm as certain as I can be in an uncertain world is his exact quote in fact yeah and back to this blue truck
00:54:43
thing for a second you know it's it's heard one time you've seen it no other time again is it is it something that
00:54:52
was brought up by rener that was then Twisted later it's it's a possib well it was a
00:54:58
statement from Harold's brother Greg to rener right that's what I'm saying but the statement uh this conversation that
00:55:06
happened was there a Twist and Turn to get there you see what I'm saying and and just because somebody put it in his
00:55:14
book does not mean it's 100% accurate is is all I'm putting out there well yeah and that's why I said we don't know
00:55:21
where Greg came up with that information right you know that I mean he could have
00:55:27
could have it could be total fantasy for all we know and that conversation happened 15 years after the abduction
00:55:36
and I think a lot of things get changed and distorted and and and misremembered now from the uh articles
00:55:46
that came out around the 10year anniversary in regards to both of the suspects that we have discussed so far
00:55:53
strunck and Harold bound th this is the the statement that they gave at the 10year the 10-year mark
00:56:02
it says investigators are virtually unanimous in the certainty that neither one of these individuals was involved in
00:56:09
the abduction or murder of Amy mahalic well the other thing that I like about this individual
00:56:18
is that there's there was other phone calls made and there was a a a set of girls or or one girl that actually rode
00:56:26
horses at those Stables uh so there would be the connection of the phone calls mhm yes
00:56:35
and again it's it's we're unable to determine which in fact phone calls were connected to Amy's Amy's
00:56:42
[Music] [Music] case [Music] uh I thank one and all for your support your love and your concern without which
00:57:05
I would not have been able to make it through this past year a year ago today just across the street from the tree on
00:57:11
the granite marker Amy was abducted from a Bay Village shopping center a little more than 3 months later her body was
00:57:17
found let's fill the void that her passing has left with positive thoughts with a smile on her face and say she
00:57:26
blessed our life for a while unfortunately she is gone but now we must live on City and Civic leaders and
00:57:35
law enforcement officials spoke of love and Community togetherness and the Amy fund and the continuing search for the
00:57:42
child's killer we're not going to give up until uh we see this thing through uh Amy has touched our lives uh she will
00:57:50
Live Forever The Monument says that Amy lives on in our hearts Amy pulled a community together as a family and we
00:57:58
still are a family supporting each other loving each other we know that Amy is in
00:58:04
God's love and care and his love and care are with us there was mourning and there were
00:58:10
drawn faces and there were some tears but this was not a ceremony of Sorrow put a smile
00:58:16
on thank you for coming in Bay Village John hington Channel 3 News [Music] we want to thank everybody out there for
00:58:31
listening for everything true crime go to True Crim garage.com and until tomorrow be good be kind and don't
00:58:39
[Music] litter [Music] Angie's List is now Angie and we've heard a lot of theories about why I
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