Serial Killer: True Crime Stories

The Shoe in the Mud: How a Green Smear Unraveled a Killer A single white canvas shoe, size seven with double-knotted laces and a pink chevron, stood upright in graded mud after a flood-found by a road-grader operator at 6:20 a.m. on May 14. A cracked driver’s-side mirror with a smear of dark green paint and a three-quarter-ton tire impression would link that shoe to a missing camp cook and set off a two-year unraveling that ended in three consecutive life terms-so how did a smear of paint become the case’s hinge? In this episode, we follow the sequence of concrete evidence found at Lacklin Basin and in Darro that guided investigators from a single shoe to a conviction. We cover the discovery timeline, the forensic match to the missing person, the gate logs and fuel card trail, and the investigative choices that kept the case alive-what finally broke the case open? Person: Kelly Quinn Date: May 14 (shoe found at 6:20 a.m.) Location: west access road into Lacklin Basin / Darro Investigator: Harvey Moore, 38 years old Outcome: three consecutive life terms, no parole - Shoe description: white canvas, size seven, pink chevron along the sole, laces double-knotted, standing upright in graded mud. - Discovery details: found by road-grader operator Nicole Hughes at 6:20 a.m. on May 14 after the road had been underwater three days earlier. - Vehicle evidence: driver's-side mirror cracked with a long smear of dark green paint; keys left on seat in Kelly Quinn's white pickup. - Tire impression: heavy-duty tread consistent with a three-quarter-ton truck pressed into soft earth at a drainage culvert ten feet from the shoe. - Forensic match: DNA from the inner heel liner matched missing person Kelly Quinn eleven days after the shoe was found.

He Placed Their Items: The Van, The Daisies, The Locker Key Cold, deliberate placement: a daisy-emblazoned sneaker tucked under an insole, a library card with no road grime, a photo keychain found clean in a culvert - each left where only certain people could or would find them. What drove a man who worked the interstate maintenance corridor to leave these personal items as breadcrumbs, and why did he make sure they would be discovered? In this episode, we follow the timeline and evidence that links four women across Illinois and Indiana to the same service routes and one white Chevy Express cargo van, and we outline how a civilian analyst and detectives pieced together work orders, toll-cam footage, and locked utility access to ask the question that never fully closed: why did he want them found? Person: Heather Harrison Date: March 27, 2011 (last confirmed sighting) Location: Caldwell County rest area off Interstate 74 Event: Three women found strangled near I-74 facilities Person: John Johnson (service technician driving white Chevy Express) - Heather Harrison’s size seven yellow canvas sneaker with an embroidered daisy was found wedged at the base of a concrete power pole on April 9, 2011, roughly 40 yards from where her body was discovered on April 11, 2011. - A Calhoun Township Public Library card with Heather Harrison’s name, clean and dry, was tucked under the sneaker’s insole and showed no signs of road grime or moisture. - Tracy Elwell disappeared in August 2011; her body was found about six days later near the northbound rest area at the Arlen Road overpass on I-74, and her daughter’s photo keychain was recovered clean in a drainage culvert nearby. - Christine Albee was found in April 2012 near the Dunmore interchange facility; her workplace safety badge was later recovered inside a locked utility access tunnel requiring a contractor-issued key. - A white Chevy Express cargo van registered to Allied Site Services, driven by service technician John Johnson, appeared on toll cameras within 72 hours of three disappearances (April 4, 2011; August 2011; late March 2012) along the I-74 corridor.

The Dry Badge in a Soaked Shoe: How a Sneaker Broke the Killer's Alibi A dry laminated clinic badge tucked into a soaked, size seven white sneaker found upright in tidal mud ignites a single unnerving image: someone deliberately placed dry evidence inside a shoe that had been in the water. How did a badge warm to the touch end up inside a shoe that should have filled with water - and who would stage that contradiction at Hewitt Landing? In this episode, we present the sequence of discoveries and official observations that tied a missing clinic administrator to a staged scene at a local landing, and we follow the unanswered question about why the badge was placed where the tide would reveal it. Person: Amanda Jenkins Date: March 8-9, 2014 Location: Hewitt Landing, Pelican Trace Road Case: Missing person, Amanda Jenkins Officer: Leon Stroud - The sneaker was a white canvas, left-foot, size seven, found upright in tidal mud at approximately 5:00 a.m. - Inside the shoe was about 18 inches of orange braided dock line coiled around itself. - Clipped to the dock line on a yellow lanyard was a laminated clinic badge reading "Amanda Jenkins, Destreaux Regional Clinic." - The badge was dry and warm to the touch while the shoe and laces were soaked through to the insole. - Amanda Jenkins, age 38, lived alone, left her gray Honda Civic in the driveway, and had not fed her two cats per their strict schedule on the morning she was reported missing.

The Ski Boots on the Counter: How a Clinic Masked a Killer A retired librarian found dead on a lodge floor; her ski boots buckled and placed on the kitchen counter the way she never arranged them. Two years later another winter visitor dies after the same kind of clinic visit and the same predictable drug interaction - what connects the intake forms, the unlocked doors, and the precise way someone handled other people's gear? In this episode, we detail the sequence of events across two winters, the medical examiner findings, and the investigative thread that links routine clinic visits to unexpected deaths - could a pattern hidden in intake paperwork and small domestic details reveal deliberate harm? Person: Nancy Foster Date: February 9, 2011 Location: Pinecrest Lodge, Harrow Valley Cause of death: Acute cardiac arrhythmia from drug interaction noted by medical examiner Person: Raymond Kowalski - Nancy Foster was 61 and had been spending eleven seasons at Harrow Valley before her death. - Nancy’s last routine call to her daughter occurred at 6:45 AM on February 1, 2011. - Nancy’s body was found on February 9, 2011, by meter reader Dennis Graham; the side door was unlocked though she used a deadbolt. - Raymond Kowalski, 58, died on the evening of February 14, 2012; his intake form listed a blood thinner and the ME cited a hemorrhagic event from interaction with an anti-inflammatory. - Detective Philip Hoffman kept the Nancy Foster notebook open and later compared intake forms across cases, linking pharmacologically foreseeable interactions in both deaths.

The Bowling Bag That Broke Three Missing Men's Silence A worn black Ebonite bowling bag with a broken zipper and a name written inside turned up at a Wyoming work camp and reopened three separate disappearances spanning Colorado and New Mexico; how did one bag travel nearly nine hundred miles and connect files no one had read together? The bag’s leather strap bore initials burned in with a woodburning tool, a detail that eventually traced back to a mother’s gift and a lineup of intake and discharge logs that raised new questions. In this episode, we follow the events that began when a church volunteer found the bag at Harwick North in Blaine County, Wyoming, and how that discovery brought together records from three camps and three sheriff’s offices; what did the intake and discharge signatures reveal, and why had no one compared these cases before the bag appeared? Person: Scott Smith Location: Harwick North camp, Blaine County, Wyoming Date: January 14, 2010 Case: Missing persons linked by one bowling bag Person: Dale Porter - The bowling bag was an Ebonite brand, black canvas, with a broken main zipper and worn soft with use. - Dale Porter checked into Harwick Creek camp in Cibola County, New Mexico on January 3, 2009 and a discharge form was recorded on January 19, 2009. - The discharge signature for Dale Porter was neat, deliberate, and slower than his check-in signature, appearing like someone trying to remember how to write his own name. - Troy Neff disappeared from a camp in Eddy County, New Mexico in March 2009 at age thirty. - Eddie Boone vanished in November 2007 from a camp in Delta County, Colorado at age twenty-eight.

The Lanyard: How a Casino Card Unmasked a Serial Killer A loyalty-card lanyard, laminated and looped twice around a wrist, led to a dead woman who had no official record of dying - and a trail that crossed tribal casinos, rental properties, and an ungated fire road. How did a loyalty account flagged as "deceased" because of returned mail become the single thread that opened an investigation into who had access to the eastern gaming corridor? In this episode, we follow the discovery, the evidence chain, and the data search that connected a body found on December 9, 2019 to a loyalty account processed on December 22, 2019 - and ask what the lanyard reveals about the people who moved between those roads, properties, and women. Person: Erin O'Connor Date: December 9, 2019 Location: Arrowhead Flats recreation corridor Case: Body found wrapped in canvas tarpaulin, time-of-death window Nov 27-29, 2019 Account: Loyalty card registered to Diane Kettler, processed Dec 22, 2019 - Body found at 7:45 AM on December 9, 2019, with a Painted Sky Resort loyalty-card lanyard looped twice around the right wrist. - Erin O'Connor, 48, last seen leaving work on November 27, 2019; cause of death determined as manual strangulation. - Erin's own loyalty card was found in her purse at home when her apartment was searched on December 11, 2019. - The loyalty-card account matched Diane Kettler, 51, last recorded Painted Sky activity March 2019 and flagged deceased after mail was returned undeliverable. - The burial site sat within 80 yards of an ungated fire road that allowed vehicle access without being noticed.

The Red Lantern: Why a Stolen Vest Exposed a Hidden Killer A red lantern rated for eleven hours was still burning when Gina Hall pulled it from Sullen Fork at 6:42 a.m. on November 8, 2014 - even though the man wearing it had been dead at least thirty-six hours. That impossible battery life, a stolen extra-large CRRL railroad safety vest, and a missing lantern from an upstream depot became the first threads of an investigation that refused simple answers: who dressed Frank Peterson before dumping him in the river? In this episode, we follow the timeline from Frank Peterson’s last known clock-out on November 5 to the discovery of his body three days later, the serial numbers that tied equipment to a freight yard supply locker and a depot twelve miles upstream, and the questions that those mismatched records raised about where he actually died. Person: Frank Peterson Date: November 5-8, 2014 Location: Sullen Fork near Grade Crossing 44 on Route 9 Status: Body recovered; cause listed as blunt-force trauma to posterior skull, no water in lungs Item: CRRL railroad safety vest (size extra-large) stolen August 2014 - Time recovered: 6:42 a.m., November 8, 2014 - Lantern battery rating: 11 hours; body estimated dead at least 36 hours - Vest theft: reported stolen from Millhaven freight yard supply locker in August 2014 - Lantern serial trace: matched to Sullen Fork Junction depot; 40 units shipped in Sept 2013, 38 on hand at inventory - Investigator on case: Christine Thorpe, Aldrich County Sheriff's Office, 11 years on force

The Dry Coat at Peller Lake: Clues No One Could Explain Dry wool in a drowned world: a navy coat found perfectly dry on a birch by Peller Lake after 2.5 inches of rain stopped a county surveyor cold - the soil, bark and canopy were wet but the coat smelled of cedar and felt fresh from a dryer. Who left it, how did it stay dry, and how does that single impossible object tie to a missing woman whose car appeared three miles away with doors unlocked and purse inside? In this episode, we follow the sequence of discoveries and official actions: the surveyor Curtis Bailey finds the dry coat on June 3, 2019; Amanda Clark’s routine last known movements and her missing-persons report; and the Kessler Point camera outage that overlapped her disappearance. What do these concrete details together suggest about what happened? Person: Amanda Clark Person: Curtis Bailey Date: June 3, 2019 Event: Camera battery died October 7, 2018; Amanda disappeared October 9, 2018 Location: Kessler Point Launch, three miles north of Amanda’s cottage - Amanda Clark was 53, lived on Peller Lake for 22 years, and volunteered three mornings a week at Peller Junction Free Clinic. - On October 9, 2018 Amanda texted her son at 6:58 p.m. saying “Talk tomorrow, heading home soon, love you.” - A gas station camera captured her gray Subaru Forester at 7:22 p.m.; she left the station at 7:31 p.m., with no confirmed sightings after that. - Amanda’s car was found four days later at Kessler Point: engine off, doors unlocked, purse and phone on the passenger seat, cracked left tail lens noted. - A solar-powered camera at Kessler Point had its battery die on October 7, 2018; maintenance ticket filed but not serviced before Amanda’s disappearance.

The Manos en el Papel: cómo un ID desenterró cuatro asesinatos A laminated government ID placed inside a sealed wellhead casing led to a discovery that tied four disappearances to one document processor - and the card was issued thirteen months after the first man vanished. Who placed that ID in an isolated steel housing, and why did it finally break a pattern that had let multiple cases slip through county lines? In this episode, we follow the discovery and the records that connect missing persons across jurisdictions, showing how a single bureaucratic thread forced investigators to ask whether these disappearances were linked. How did one ID inside a wellhead become the clue that pulled four cold cases together? Person: Gary Crawford Date: October 9, 2017 Location: Greyhound terminal, West Congress Street, Tucson Person: Janet Casey - The laminated ID found in the wellhead was issued in November 2018, thirteen months after Gary Crawford disappeared. - Janet Casey, a well-service technician with eleven years' experience, found the card in September 2019 and paused for four minutes before calling 911. - Gary Crawford was 44 years old, disappeared after being seen on terminal footage at 2:22 p.m., and his phone last pinged at 2:31 p.m. two blocks from the terminal. - Detective Paul Tate flagged Borderline Compliance Services LLC, whose sole employee was Earl Fleming, 52, within weeks of Crawford's disappearance. - Dennis Schiff made eleven calls from his number to Borderline Compliance in the nine months before he vanished in June 2018.

The Hood Up: How a Staged Breakdown Hid a Killer's Trail Fear that something ordinary was a trap: a Kia parked with the hood up, keys in the ignition, purse on the seat, and a woman vanished-Julie Hensley, last seen leaving First Grace Fellowship at 9:20 p.m, on August 7, 2014. A waterlogged Bible wedged four feet high in a willow and a staged car scene became the only visible trail-who put the Bible there and why? In this episode, we follow the timeline from Julie’s last known movements at trivia night to the abandoned Kia on Redbud Road and the discovery at Calloway Creek. We reconstruct the physical clues, the detective work that mapped sightlines and property names, and the single item that tied the scene to Julie-so what sequence turned a small-town routine into a led-to clue? Person: Julie Hensley Date: August 7-8, 2014 Location: Redbud Road; First Grace Fellowship; Calloway Creek Detective: Mark Brown Finder: Gregory Harris - Julie’s last outgoing phone call was at 9:17 p.m.; Patsy Greer saw her drive away at approximately 9:20 p.m. - The abandoned gray two-door Kia was found with the hood up and the keys in the ignition, two and a half miles from First Grace Fellowship. - The mechanic reported the car had no mechanical problem: battery charged and engine started on the first try. - A Bible was found wedged four feet above the current waterline in a willow fork at Calloway Creek, pages swollen but inscription legible. - Detective Mark Brown drove Redbud Road forty times in the first month and logged sightlines to a corrugated metal shed on the Tatum property.