Serial Killers: Crime Investigations

The man who searched for her body had already chosen where to put it The jacket was hung deliberately on a ladder rung above Diane Lewis, her wallet still in the pocket and forty-three dollars in cash found on the body - a staged scene that left no fingerprints and a wiped metal rung. How could someone travel to a remote culvert, hang a jacket with care, leave no trace, and vanish - and what did the man who later described his intent mean by it? In this episode, we follow the timeline from Diane's last text on September 4, 2009, through the discovery on September 11 and the cold trail that followed, to the later disappearance of another woman in 2012 - a pattern that raises the question: who knew these roads, and what did the jacket actually signify? Person: Diane Lewis Date: September 11, 2009 (discovery), disappearance September 4, 2009 Location: Culvert beneath Forest Service Road 14-C, near Creekside Loop off Route 9 Cause: Manual strangulation Status: One related case unresolved - Diane Lewis was 31 years old and worked as a billing coordinator in Morrow Crossing. - Diane sent a last text at 5:47 PM on September 4, 2009, saying she was heading to the Creekside Loop. - Her orange Marmot women's shell, size medium, was hung on the second rung of the culvert ladder with the collar loop over the rung. - Investigators estimated Diane had been dead 48 to 72 hours before discovery; no sexual assault and wallet/debit card with $43 found in the jacket pocket. - A trail runner saw a dark blue pickup at the Route 9 trailhead and later near Forest Service Road 14-C on the afternoon of September 4; the truck had no plate in his memory.

The Shoe in the Tank: Why Only One Left, and No Body A single, clean, polished black oxford-size 10½, left foot-stood upright on the dry concrete shelf of a sealed septic tank in Crestford, New Jersey, on August 13, 2009, with no body, no blood, and no obvious explanation; how did it get there and where was the man whose DNA matched the lining? What deliberate act left one shoe alone in a tank that hadn’t been serviced in 18 months? In this episode, we follow the facts as presented in reports and interviews: the discovery by a waste technician, the immediate identification by the missing man’s wife, and the investigative trail that centered on a phony work order and access to the yard-could those details explain the single shoe and the missing person? Person: Alan Baker Date: August 13, 2009 (discovery); missing reported August 7, 2009 Location: Crestford, New Jersey Item: One black oxford, size 10½, left foot Work order name: R. Peterson (Clearview Utility Services; no record of employee) - Dale Hamilton lifted a ~60-pound concrete septic tank lid at 7:42 a.m. and photographed a single, clean black oxford standing upright on the dry concrete shelf. - The shoe was identified the same afternoon by Deborah Baker and confirmed by DNA from the lining as belonging to Alan Baker. - Alan Baker was last seen alive on Tuesday, August 4, 2009, missed his regular Wednesday dinner, and was reported missing on Friday, August 7, 2009. - The septic tank’s last scheduled service was November 2007-18 months before the August 13, 2009 discovery. - A utilities inspection work order dated August 3, 2009, listed access through the side gate and the name R. Peterson; Clearview Utility Services had no record of that employee or the order.

- established normalcy before disappearance The ordinary can be the last thing you see: three women vanished from fairgrounds parking lots, each leaving behind a locked car and a routine life, and each was found later strangled - so who was moving through county fairs in the summers of 1994-1997 and never in the same town twice? What link did a dry green canvas tote, a carnival company, and a pattern of Friday-night disappearances create that only a task force could begin to unravel? In this episode, we lay out the timeline and connections that tied Denise Price, Sharon Dent, and Beverly Sims to the same traveling carnival circuit and the same cause of death. We trace the specific evidence that shifted investigators from missing-persons cases to a multi-county murder inquiry, and ask whether the patterns in dates, locations, and the carnival operator point to a single killer. Person: Denise Price Date: July 8-19, 1994 Location: Pelham County Fairgrounds; body recovered off Tanner Mill Road Case: Strangulation; bag found dry at Sallow Creek culvert mouth on July 12 Person: Sharon Dent Date: July, 1996 Location: Coleville County Agricultural Exposition; body found behind a salvage yard Case: Strangulation; same carnival company (Starlight Midways) Person: Beverly Sims Date: July, 1997 Location: Waxler Tri-County Exposition; body found in a retention pond behind fairgrounds Case: Strangulation; same carnival company (Starlight Midways) - Denise’s green canvas tote contained wallet, house keys, lipstick, and a grocery receipt dated July 8. - Gordon McCarthy found the upright, dry tote at a culvert mouth on July 12, 1994, 48 hours after a six-foot flood. - Medical examiner determined Denise’s time of death fell within 12 hours of her disappearance on the night of July 8, 1994. - Sharon Dent disappeared from a Friday night fair in 1996 and her body was found 10 days later; cause of death strangulation. - Beverly Sims disappeared Thursday night in July 1997; her body was found 8 days later in a retention pond; cause of death strangulation.

The Repairman's Notebook: How a Pelargonium Exposed Five Deadly Gifts A sealed pink pelargonium left on a doorstep led to a discovery that connected five deaths across retirement communities - one plant, one notebook, and a repairman named on multiple work orders. How did a harmless houseplant and a clipboard tie a forty-one-year-old maintenance worker to lethal digoxin poisoning? In this episode, we follow the timeline from the morning the plant was found to the toxicology that reclassified a young man's death, and the records that linked a repairman to multiple elderly victims. What made the notebook and service records the thread Detective Russell Brown needed to see a pattern? Person: Michael Slater Date: June 11, 2014 Location: 44 Verbena Court, Suncreek Flats Person: James Keller Cause of death: Acute digoxin toxicity - The pelargonium was sealed inside a one-gallon clear plastic bag with thin even condensation on June 11, 2014. - Harvey Henderson, age 14, found the bagged plant 37 minutes into his delivery route. - Michael Slater, age 28, was found dead in his unit and initially listed as cardiorespiratory failure; toxicology later showed lethal digoxin levels. - James Keller, age 41, worked as a repairman for Keller Home Services and had clean signed work orders at multiple units. - Service records show Keller was inside Robert Fenn’s unit 9 days before Fenn’s 2012 death, inside Edna Watts’ unit 7 days before her 2013 death, and inside Virginia Casler’s unit 12 days before her death.

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.