True Crime: Cold Cases

Freezer on Sycamore Flats: The Woman Preserved Nine Years Silent Cold, calculated preservation: a running compressor kept human remains in an avocado-green chest freezer on an abandoned farm for nine years while the dead man's trust paid the electric bill - and no one knew who she was for four more years. How did a locked shed, a 50-foot outdoor-rated extension cord threaded through conduit, and a contractor-grade padlock stay invisible on a vacant property for almost a decade? In this episode, we lay out the timelines, the people, and the overlooked records that connect a missing woman last seen in 2016 to a freezer discovered in 2019 - and follow the question that kept the case cold for years: who arranged nine years of secrecy and why? Person: Jessica Anne Gallagher Date missing: September 2016 Discovery date: September 4, 2019 Location: abandoned farm outside Harmon's Bluff, Caldwell County, Missouri Status: unidentified at discovery; missing person reported September 2016 - The freezer was avocado-green and had a running compressor when septic contractor Duane Jensen lifted the lid on September 4, 2019. - Human remains in frost-covered orange landscape bags were skeletal and partially mummified after being preserved by continuous refrigeration. - The property had been vacant since Harold Mabry died in 2010 and the Mabry trust paid the electric bill automatically for nine years. - Jessica Gallagher was last confirmed seen on the evening of September 9, 2016, at Keller's Bar with Arthur Pell, who lacked a solid alibi for September 10-12. - An investigator in September 2023 noted Pell had been questioned three times in winter 2016-2017 but the case went cold in spring 2017 with no body or physical evidence.

The Coffee Cup in the Freezer That Broke a 30-Year Silence A twenty-ounce foam coffee cup and a climate-controlled freezer held the thread that unspooled a mystery frozen for thirty years: a partial DNA profile logged in a property room after Judith Perry was found strangled in August 1991. How did a discarded coffee cup pulled from an outdoor trash can in October 2021 connect to evidence stored since the 1990s, and who closed the loop? In this episode, we tell what the episode covers and who and what appear in the story, following the physical evidence, the people closest to Judith, and the chain of custody that led investigators back to a long-dormant vial - and ask whether that vial finally answered the century-long question of who killed Judith Perry. Person: Judith Perry Date: August 9, 1991 (disappearance) and August 20, 1991 (body found) Location: Marsh Road pull-off, Hessler Marsh corridor, Calloway County Status: Partial DNA profile logged and kept in a climate-controlled freezer; evidence reconnected in October 2021 Event: Twenty-ounce foam coffee cup pulled from an outdoor trash can in October 2021 - Judith Perry was 22 years old when she left The Anchor on August 9, 1991 and was last seen entering a tan 1987 Civic at 7:15 p.m. - Her car was found unlocked at a Marsh Road pull-off about 15 miles north the morning of August 10, 1991 with no signs of a struggle inside. - Her body was discovered on August 20, 1991 in a drainage culvert a quarter-mile from the pull-off and the medical examiner ruled strangulation with death occurring within hours of disappearance. - Investigators recovered a partial palm print from the driver-side door and trace epithelial material from the ligature; the partial DNA profile was entered into CODIS and re-run in 1994, ~2001, and ~2018 with no matches. - A twenty-ounce foam coffee cup pulled from an outdoor trash can in October 2021 became the new link that required a genealogist working 14 months and other chain-of-custody elements to extract the answer stored in the freezer.

The Sneaker, the Clay, and the Coach Who Lied for Decades The smell of reddish-brown clay and a single white canvas sneaker stopped a thirteen-year-old on her paper route-and that shoe carried a soil sample that would sit untouched for thirty-one years before cracking the case. How did a coach who stood twenty feet away become the center of a trail that began with a footprint of Millhaven clay? In this episode, you’ll hear how the scene, the people present, and a single overlooked evidence item connected a murder to a local baseball field, and what finally answered the question no investigator asked in 1991: who walked home with Emily Lewis that night? Person: Emily Lewis Date: July 14, 1991 Location: 4412 Dellwood Avenue, Crestford Person: Richard Vogel Evidence: white canvas sneaker, women’s size 7 with reddish-brown clay on the inner sole - The shoe was discovered at 6:47 a.m. on July 14, 1991 by a thirteen-year-old named Erin Keller. - Emily Lewis was found strangled in a back room and was 38 years old at the time of death. - Emily had moved to Crestford in May 1990 and lived at 4412 Dellwood Avenue for 14 months. - Richard Vogel, age 37, stood about 20 feet from Emily in the bleachers the night of the game and later followed her on the footpath. - The distinctive reddish-brown clay from the footpath was photographed and bagged from the sneaker but was not composition-tested for 31 years.

The Wallet in the Ditch That Broke a 27-Year Silence Cold, routine work on a winter morning revealed a wallet that had lain in a ditch for twenty-seven years with a grocery receipt dated June 11, 1991 and a driver's license for Lisa Thorpe - a reference librarian strangled the next night. Who held the right name for decades on a whiteboard while the official investigation followed the wrong lead? In this episode, you will hear how a missing wallet, a forgotten crawl-space door, and a retired man with a whiteboard and access to a DNA database reopened a case closed in all but name. How did routine details - bread bought on June 11, a Wednesday phone call that never came, and scrape marks around an unlisted hatch - point to the person investigators had overlooked? Person: Lisa Thorpe Date: June 12-13, 1991 Location: Renner Lane, Osburn Township Event: Strangulation, body found in pines Discovery: Wallet found February 9, 2019 on Fenwick Mill Road - Wallet contained a driver's license with Lisa Thorpe's photograph, $43 in cash, and a Fenwick IGA receipt dated June 11, 1991. - Lisa Thorpe worked sixteen years at the Osburn Public Library and walked two miles each weekday morning between 5:50 and 6:30. - The medical examiner placed time of death between 8:00 p.m. and midnight on June 12, 1991. - Detective Phil Kester noted scrape marks around a north foundation hatch on June 13, 1991 and later reconsidered them after 16 years. - The wallet was found by Wayne Webb on February 9, 2019 at 6:40 a.m. while grading ice on Fenwick Mill Road.

The Storage Unit Secret: 27 Years of Hidden Murder Evidence A sealed envelope addressed to Holly Vaughn, a 1991 tulip stamp, and a cooler full of labeled forensic tubes sat untouched in storage unit 34 for 27 years - paid by auto-draft and never claimed. Who placed murder evidence, stamped May 19, 1995, in a rented unit under a false name, and why did it go unnoticed until 2022? In this episode, we follow the discovery that reopened a cold case and the timeline that leads back to Holly Vaughn’s disappearance, the investigative choices made in 1995, and the unanswered question that haunted a mother for sixteen years: where had the evidence gone, and who had hidden it there? Person: Holly Vaughn Date: May 19, 1995 Location: drainage channel eleven miles southeast of Medford Status: body recovered; cause of death manual strangulation Event: cooler found May 11, 2022 in storage unit 34 - The cooler in storage unit 34 was found on May 11, 2022 by utility lineman Carol Mueller. - The white envelope on the cooler was addressed in blue ballpoint to Holly Vaughn and bore a 1991 tulip stamp. - Forensic collection tubes inside the cooler bore a Klamath County Sheriff's Office case number and the date May 19, 1995. - Holly Vaughn disappeared after watering her garden on the morning of May 14, 1995 and her body was recovered on May 19, 1995. - Holly Vaughn was 24 years old, had trained as a dental hygienist, and kept a written weekly schedule noting she watered her garden every Tuesday before seven.

The Birthday Card in the Freezer: Who Wrote a Killer's Note? A birthday card dated April 14th was found sealed in an envelope inside Clifford Fleming’s truck on April 11th - three days after he was killed, and with handwriting that didn’t match the envelope. The gummed flap carried male epithelial DNA that lay frozen in an evidence freezer for 31 years; who licked the envelope, and why was a birthday note written for a man already dead? In this episode, we lay out the timeline from the last night Clifford Fleming was seen alive to the discovery at Cantor Creek, and trace how a partial DNA profile from a sealed envelope eventually led a forensic genealogist to a match decades later. How did a card with the wrong date and wrong age end up in his truck, and what did that card mean for the man who was wrongly suspected? Person: Clifford Fleming Date: April 11, 1991 (body found); April 10, 1991 (last seen) Location: Cantor Creek / Greenbelt Trail parking area; Dunmore Road Status: Envelope DNA profiled and submitted to public genealogy database in February 2022 Person: Dennis Harber - Clifford Fleming was 48 years old and was found dead 40 meters from his truck on April 11, 1991, with time of death between 9:00 PM and midnight. - A plain white envelope inside the truck had "CLIFFORD" written on it and contained a drugstore birthday card dated April 14th that referred to a fiftieth birthday. - Lab technicians extracted a partial male DNA profile from epithelial cells on the gummed flap of the envelope in 1991; the profile was insufficient for databases at that time. - The envelope and card were stored in a county evidence freezer marked "FLEMING / APR '91 / DO NOT DISTURB" where the compressor ran for 31 years. - In February 2022, the state forensic genealogy initiative submitted a reformatted DNA profile from the 1991 envelope to a public genealogy database, yielding the first match for the case.

The Shiny Padlock and the Single Sneaker: Freezer on Coppermill Road A factory-shiny brass padlock sealed a chest freezer that had sat amid eight inches of leaf litter for months - and inside was a woman wrapped in two plastic layers with one canvas sneaker placed deliberately on top. The contradiction of old freeze and new lock, plus a size seven sneaker double-knotted and never paired, turned a routine meter read into a case that would haunt investigators for decades; who returned to place that shoe and why? In this episode, we tell the sequence of events from March 6-9, 1994, through the perspectives of the meter reader who first logged the lock, the deputies who used bolt cutters, and the detective who kept the case alive for twenty-seven years, asking how a single sneaker became the key clue. Person: Susan Bauer Date: March 6-9, 1994 Location: Coppermill Road, Grover County Cause of death: Manual strangulation Evidence: Size seven canvas sneaker, double-knotted lace - The freezer had eight inches of leaf litter packed under its base. - Bruce Simmons noticed the padlock and called the sheriff on March 9, 1994. - Deputies arrived at 4:20 PM and cut the padlock with bolt cutters. - The body was wrapped in two layers of plastic sheeting sealed with duct tape. - The right sneaker was missing while the left canvas sneaker size seven was placed on top of the wrapping.

The Folded Glove: Thirty-One Years Between Murder and Confession Fear and curiosity collide: a folded white work glove placed deliberately on a table beside an overturned sugar bowl, a fifty-two-year-old woman strangled in her kitchen on a nineteen-degree February night, and biological evidence sealed in a freezer for three decades - so how did a cotton swab finally speak? What did a genealogist, nine weeks of public records, and one handwritten sticky note unlock that detectives could not? In this episode, we tell the sequence of events from the morning Amanda Wells found Peggy Stein on February 9, 1993, through the preserved evidence that waited in a sheriff’s property room. We follow the missed lead about a man posing as a gas meter reader, the scene details that confounded investigators, and the moment decades later when a fingernail swab became decisive - but who folded the glove and why? Person: Peggy Stein Date: February 9, 1993 Location: Sutter Mill Road, Garvin Township, Delphin County, Ohio Status: Evidence preserved in sheriff’s property room freezer Event: Manual strangulation, body found at 8:40 a.m. - Temperature outside was nineteen degrees Fahrenheit the night Peggy was killed. - Peggy was fifty-two years old and had volunteered at Calvary Fellowship for nine years. - The glove was a white right-hand work glove, size extra-large, folded at the cuff with the open end facing the door. - Investigators noted gouged linoleum near the refrigerator and an overturned chair and shattered mug at the scene. - A deputy saw footprints inside the back door pointing inward and found no muddy tracks leading back out through the yard.

The Left Shoe: How a Frozen Sneaker Cracked a 33-Year Murder Mystery A single left canvas sneaker, size seven, surfaced in frost on January 9 - and matched a shoe that had sat sealed in the Harwick Township evidence vault since January 1989. That impossible overlap between a shoe in cold storage and one found on a trail would become the hinge in a murder that went unsolved for thirty-three years; how did two identical shoes exist at once, and what did a retired teacher's DNA test have to do with it? In this episode, we tell the story of Kelly Dalton’s last routine Tuesday, the evidence that lingered untouched for decades, and the small, unexpected leads that revived the file - including delivery records and a photographed boot print - to ask how modern science finally answered the question at the center of the case. Person: Kelly Dalton Date: January 14, 1989 (last seen); January 16, 1989 (found) Location: Garfield Street drainage channel, three blocks from Pershing Avenue apartment Item: Left canvas sneaker, white with blue stripe, size seven Investigator: Detective Bob Chung - Kelly Dalton ate the same diner breakfast every Tuesday for three years: black coffee, two scrambled eggs, wheat toast, small orange juice. - Dalton was found on January 16, 1989, with multiple blunt force trauma impacts; her right shoe remained on her foot and her left shoe was found about 40 feet away on a concrete slab. - The left shoe was bagged, logged, and placed in cold storage at the Harwick Township evidence vault, unopened since January 1989. - Detective Bob Chung compiled a 412-page case file and had a primary suspect, Victor Pace, by the end of the first month but never charged him. - The name "R. Weber" appeared on four unscheduled Harwick Supply delivery records to a Garfield Street produce business in the twelve days before Dalton's death, all between 4 and 6 p.m.

The Dry Fishing License That Brought a Killer to Justice Cold water, a dry laminated fishing license, and thirty years of silence: a man submerged for six days in twenty-three-degree water wore a shirt with a sealed pocket that alone stayed dry, holding a license belonging to someone who never met him-how did that card end up there and who wanted it to be found? In this episode, we tell the sequence of events from the night Glenn Padgett disappeared on December 2, 1991, through the recovery of his body on December 9, 1991, to the evidence preservation and later breakthroughs that reopened the case-what role did a stolen fishing license and frozen skin cells play in finally pointing to a killer? Person: Glenn Padgett Date: December 2, 1991 (disappearance) and December 9, 1991 (recovery) Location: Ashwick River at Sutter's Bend, roughly four miles south of Colton Cause of death: Ligature strangulation with braided nylon cord; cinder block attached Evidence preserved: Skin cells scraped from exterior of the nylon cord, frozen and stored - Glenn Padgett was 28 years old when he disappeared after saying he was finishing a bathroom retile on Fenwick Lane. - His body was recovered by Donna Dalton after being submerged for six days in twenty-three-degree Fahrenheit water. - A braided nylon cord with a knotted ligature and a wired cinder block caused his death, with wrist abrasions consistent with binding. - A laminated fishing license belonging to Dale Fowler was found dry in the sealed front pocket of Glenn’s flannel shirt despite the rest of the shirt being soaked. - Medical examiner Charles Pruitt collected and froze skin cells from the exterior of the nylon cord in December 1991, evidence preserved for thirty years.