# Six Chilling Solved Cold Cases With Disturbing Twists | 231

An episode of [Lazy Chill True Crime](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1815534472), 14 May 2026, 50 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO6596928494.mp3

Join me for six solved cold cases with disturbing twists. Episode 231 of the true crime podcast btw. Also don't forget to rate and share the podcast if you enjoy it :) helps out a ton. 👇 Youtube links: Lazy Chill History Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LazyChillHistory Lazy Chill Zone Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LazyChillZone 👇 Support My Work: 🛍️ Merch: https://lazy-chill-zone-shop.fourthwall.com ❤️ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lazychillzone 👇Social Media Links: https://www.instagram.com/lazychillzone/ 👇 Podcast links: ⚡History Video Podcast on Spotify⚡: https://open.spotify.com/show/7km5pLWpYWEj1mrPpEfRUr?si=0FHYnZf-Qs2FY1GyLevfig ⚡True Crime Podcast on Spotify⚡: https://open.spotify.com/show/0klIz08pAr7wR4we0Ia4sk?si=68qZxCeAQkysXzMZrHE0Iw 🍏 True Crime Podcast on Apple 🍎: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lazy-chill-true-crime/id1815534472

## Transcript

[0:00] At 4:48 AM on the morning of June 10th, 2016, police in
[0:05] Larimer County, Colorado issued an urgent alert. 18 year old
[0:10] Ashley Doolittle was missing and feared to be in danger.
[0:14] This kind of pre dawn bulletin was almost unheard of for a teen
[0:17] who had been gone a few hours. Ashley was due home by 7:30 the
[0:22] night before, but officers had good reason for the alarm.
[0:26] Ashley had recently broken up with her boyfriend, 18 year old
[0:30] Tanner Flores, and investigators suspected she was with him and
[0:35] that he was armed. By sunrise, a frantic search was
[0:40] underway and the tight knit community braced for the worst.
[0:45] Sadly, their darkest fears were soon confirmed.
[0:48] The beloved rodeo Queen's bright future had been shattered by a
[0:52] brutal slaying. Ashley Doolittle was a well
[0:56] known figure in her hometown of Berthoud, Colorado.
[1:00] A rodeo Princess and gifted horse rider with an infectious
[1:03] smile, she had been named the Lady in Waiting for the Boulder
[1:07] County Fair and Rodeo, poised to serve as the 2017 Rodeo Queen.
[1:13] Horses were Ashley's passion from early childhood, and she
[1:17] had won multiple riding championships.
[1:20] At 18 years old, she had just graduated high school and been
[1:24] accepted into Colorado State University's agricultural
[1:27] business program for the fall. Tanner Flores had been Ashley's
[1:34] high school boyfriend for about a year, but she chose to end the
[1:37] relationship as she looked ahead to college and a new life on
[1:40] campus. While this is a usual thing and
[1:44] many of us have been there, the breakup hit Flores extremely
[1:48] hard. Friends later told investigators
[1:51] that they had never seen him so depressed, and on June 8th he
[1:55] even sent a late night Snapchat message implying he was gonna
[1:59] off himself. Earlier that day, Flores had
[2:02] gone through Ashley's phone and become upset by messages between
[2:06] her and other male friends. This invasion of privacy led to
[2:10] a furious argument and the final breakup of their on again off
[2:14] again relationship. Flores was hurt and angry, and
[2:19] in the hours that followed he began to formulate a disturbed
[2:22] plan. On June 9th, 2016, Flores
[2:27] persistently pressed Ashley to meet with him, ostensibly to
[2:31] talk things through one last time.
[2:34] That morning, he surreptitiously took his father's revolver from
[2:38] a locker and even drove out near Carter Lake to fire off some
[2:42] test rounds. Ashley, busy with a rodeo event
[2:46] earlier in the day, agreed to meet him later that afternoon.
[2:51] She met Flores at a parking area by LON Hagler Reservoir in
[2:54] Loveland, expecting a civil conversation.
[2:58] Instead, he drove her to a secluded spot near Carter Lake
[3:02] under the guise of continuing their talk.
[3:05] When Ashley tried to step out of the truck, Flores hit the gas to
[3:09] prevent her escape. In a moment of rage, he reached
[3:12] behind the seat, grabbed the hidden weapon, and shot Ashley
[3:16] point blank. Inside the truck.
[3:18] He fired multiple times, striking her twice in the head.
[3:23] In an instant, the vibrant young rodeo star was brutally slain by
[3:27] the person she had once trusted most.
[3:32] When Ashley failed to return home on June 9th, her family
[3:36] immediately knew something was wrong.
[3:39] Late that night, her mother reported Ashley missing to the
[3:42] Larimer County Sheriff's Office after finding the teen's car
[3:45] abandoned near LON Hagler Reservoir.
[3:49] This was the site where she had agreed to meet Flores, raising
[3:52] immediate alarm. Sheriff's deputies quickly
[3:55] learned that Flores had also vanished and that a weapon was
[3:58] missing from his father's home. Fearing the worst, authorities
[4:03] issued the rare pre dawn alert and mobilized resources to find
[4:08] the pair. Those investigative efforts paid
[4:12] off within hours. By 8 the next morning, June
[4:16] 10th, authorities had traced Flores's pickup truck to a
[4:21] remote property nearly 300 miles away in Colbrand on Colorado's
[4:26] Western Slope. A woman living next to that
[4:29] property, formerly owned by Flores's deceased grandfather
[4:34] and then unoccupied, spotted the suspect's white truck in the
[4:37] driveway and observed A disturbing sight.
[4:41] There was a man, believed to be Tanner Flores, lifting a bundled
[4:45] blanket from the truck's back seat and setting it on the
[4:48] ground. Shockingly, the bag contained
[4:51] what looked like a human arm protruding from the bundle.
[4:56] That was enough for Mesa County authorities to act.
[5:00] The Mesa County Sheriff's SWAT team rushed to the scene, set up
[5:03] a perimeter and kept watch as Flores moved about the house and
[5:07] yard, even tossing blood soaked rags into a field.
[5:12] Around 10:30, officers moved in and took Flores into custody.
[5:17] The worst outcome was confirmed when they discovered Ashley's
[5:20] lifeless body wrapped in a blanket in the back of the
[5:22] truck. Under questioning later that
[5:26] day, Flores initially tried to claim that Ashley's death was an
[5:30] accident. He soon recanted and confessed
[5:33] that he had intentionally shot her out of anger.
[5:37] According to an arrest affidavit, Flores admitted
[5:40] shooting Ashley because he was angry with her, describing how
[5:44] he slew her near Carter Lake. He then drove her body to his
[5:48] grandfather's vacant house, where he cleaned her up before
[5:52] returning her to his truck. Flores described how he spent
[5:56] hours at the Colbrand house with Ashley's body, washing her
[6:00] clothes and redressing her before dawn broke on June 10th.
[6:04] He then carried the body back to his truck before law enforcement
[6:07] closed in. Flores was formally arrested on
[6:11] charges related to the crime. What had begun as a missing
[6:15] person case had now become a high profile homicide
[6:18] investigation. The trial of Tanner Flores took
[6:23] place in late September 2017 in Larimer County, drawing local
[6:28] attention. Flores himself took the witness
[6:31] stand during the week long trial, tearfully admitting to
[6:35] shooting Ashley but insisting he had never planned to slay her.
[6:40] His defense attorney echoed that stance, arguing the event wasn't
[6:44] deliberate or premeditated and urging jurors to consider a
[6:48] lesser charge. Prosecutors, however, presented
[6:51] A starkly different narrative. They laid out evidence that
[6:55] Flores had plotted the crime from the stolen gun and
[6:58] persistent texts luring Ashley to meet it all pointed to a
[7:03] calculated act fueled by jealousy and rage.
[7:08] After six days of testimony, the jury needed only a short
[7:12] deliberation to reach a verdict. On October 4th, 2017, they found
[7:18] Tanner Flores guilty on all counts.
[7:21] At 19 years old, the man who had taken Ashley's life now faced
[7:26] spending the rest of his own life behind bars.
[7:31] The following day, Flores returned to court for
[7:33] sentencing. Colorado law mandated a life
[7:36] sentence for a first degree charge.
[7:39] The judge sentenced him to life in prison without the
[7:42] possibility of parole, plus an additional 32 years for the
[7:46] kidnapping charge. Ashley's family filled the
[7:50] courtroom, and her mother, Anne Doolittle, delivered a poignant
[7:54] statement about the immense loss.
[7:57] She described how Flores's actions had robbed their family
[8:00] of a beloved daughter and all the milestones they would never
[8:03] share, from wedding days to simple, everyday moments.
[8:08] Yet even in her grief, Anne Marie expressed compassion for
[8:12] Flores. She told the court there were no
[8:15] winners in this tragedy and that two families had been destroyed.
[8:19] She even extended sympathy to the Flores family, recognizing
[8:23] that they, too, lost a child in a way, as Tanner's own life was
[8:28] effectively over. Flores, shackled and dressed in
[8:32] an orange jumpsuit, declined to speak when given an opportunity
[8:36] to address the court. It's impossible to walk away
[8:41] from Ashley Doolittle's story without feeling the sheer
[8:44] senselessness of it. This wasn't a situation where
[8:47] tensions escalated over time, or where anyone could pretend the
[8:51] ending was inevitable. Ashley was an 18 year old kid
[8:55] with her whole life opening up in front of her.
[8:58] She broke up with someone because she was ready to move
[9:00] forward, ready to grow, ready to start a new chapter.
[9:05] That's normal. That's healthy.
[9:09] It's virtually a rite of passage to break up with your high
[9:11] school girlfriend or boyfriend at some time after graduation.
[9:18] Flora's actions were the result of someone who couldn't handle
[9:21] rejection, control or independence.
[9:24] He was someone who had been showing signs for a long time
[9:28] that he was emotionally unstable, obsessive and
[9:31] volatile. In a way, Tanner was a ticking
[9:35] time bomb. The breakup wasn't the 'cause it
[9:40] was the trigger. The danger was already there,
[9:44] simmering under the surface, long before Ashley walked away.
[9:49] And that's the part that sticks with me.
[9:52] This didn't have to happen. It shouldn't have happened.
[9:56] Ashley did nothing wrong. She made a normal, healthy
[10:00] choice, and someone else's inability to handle that choice
[10:03] turned into a nightmare. On an ordinary evening in
[10:08] October 2012, nineteen year old Lizzie Marriott left her job and
[10:13] headed to visit a friend in Dover, NH.
[10:16] She promised to be home around midnight, but Lizzie never
[10:20] returned. Within days, the University of
[10:24] New Hampshire sophomore's disappearance sparked a frantic
[10:27] search and revealed A disturbing tale of deceit and violence.
[10:33] The same coastal waters Lizzie loved as a marine biology
[10:36] student became the hiding place for a terrible crime.
[10:41] Lizzie was a friendly UNH sophomore living with her aunt
[10:45] and uncle off campus. On the night of October 9th,
[10:49] 2012, after class, she told her family she was going to hang out
[10:54] with some new friends and would be back around midnight.
[10:58] She left campus to meet 18 year old Kat McDonough, a Co worker
[11:03] friend, at an apartment in Dover.
[11:06] Kat lived there with her 30 year old boyfriend, Seth Mazzaglia.
[11:11] When Lizzie failed to come home or show up at work the next day,
[11:15] her relatives grew increasingly worried.
[11:18] By October 11th, missing person posters covered the UNH campus
[11:23] as police and volunteers searched urgently for any sign
[11:27] of her. Friends soon told police that
[11:29] Lizzie had planned to visit Kat's apartment on the night she
[11:32] vanished, a fact confirmed by text messages on Lizzie's phone.
[11:37] Acting on this lead, police questioned Kat and Seth on
[11:40] October 12th. Their stories immediately
[11:43] clashed in a very major way. Kat claimed Lizzie never
[11:47] arrived, while Seth eventually admitted that Lizzie had been at
[11:50] their apartment and was now dead.
[11:54] Acting on Seth's information, officers searched the Piscataqua
[11:58] River shoreline at Pierce Island in Portsmouth, where he said
[12:02] they had dumped Lizzie's body. On October 13th, authorities
[12:07] announced that Lizzie was presumed dead and they arrested
[12:10] Seth Mazzaglia, charging him in her slaying.
[12:16] With Mazzaglia in custody, attention turned to Kat
[12:19] McDonough. And what exactly had happened in
[12:22] that apartment? A search of dumpsters near the
[12:25] couple's building yielded evidence like a pair of gloves
[12:28] and some of Lizzie's clothes. Those gloves, Cat later
[12:32] revealed, were worn by Seth when he strangled Lizzie, a chilling
[12:37] sign of premeditation. Forensic testing also found DNA
[12:41] from both Seth and Lizzie on certain items supporting that an
[12:45] illicit assault had occurred. The pair had also tampered with
[12:49] evidence. Investigators later uncovered
[12:52] that Mazzaglia and McDonagh used her phone to send fake text
[12:56] messages as an alibi and then deleted them to hide their
[13:00] tracks. Initially, Cat stuck to her lie.
[13:06] Days after Lizzie's death, she told an attorney that Lizzie had
[13:09] died accidentally during a consensual act between the two
[13:12] women. Cat remained free for two
[13:15] months, even as Lizzie's family demanded answers and justice.
[13:19] Finally, on December 24th, 2012, police arrested her for lying to
[13:25] investigators and helping cover up the crime.
[13:29] Facing charges of hindering prosecution and witness
[13:32] tampering, the 19 year old struck A plea deal in 2013 and
[13:37] agreed to testify against Mazzaglia in exchange for a
[13:41] reduced sentence. She ultimately received a prison
[13:44] term of up to three years for her role.
[13:47] Once she began cooperating with authorities, Kat revealed the
[13:51] harrowing truth about that night.
[13:54] She testified that Seth Mazzaglia had coerced her into
[13:57] luring an unsuspecting victim for his violent, carnal desires.
[14:02] When Lizzie arrived expecting an innocent movie night, Seth made
[14:05] unwanted advances toward her. Lizzie rebuffed him, and in a
[14:10] fury, he attacked. Kat recounted that Seth
[14:14] strangled Lizzie with a rope, even putting on gloves
[14:17] beforehand, and then continued to assault her after she went
[14:21] limp. Cat, who described herself as
[14:24] trapped under Seth's domineering control, did nothing to
[14:28] intervene because she was terrified of him.
[14:31] After the slaying, the couple methodically tried to cover
[14:34] their tracks. They drove to Portsmouth and
[14:37] dumped Lizzie's body into the river at a remote spot on Pierce
[14:40] Island. They then threw the rope,
[14:43] suitcase and other evidence into dumpsters before abandoning her
[14:47] car back on campus. These actions explained why,
[14:52] despite exhaustive searches, Lizzie's body was never
[14:55] recovered. It had likely been carried away
[14:58] by strong currents. Mazzaglia's trial began in May
[15:04] 2014. The prosecution's case relied
[15:08] heavily on Kat Mcdonagh's testimony over about 10 days.
[15:12] On the stand, Kat detailed the dark relationship she had with
[15:16] Mazzaglia and the events of Lizzie's final night.
[15:20] Prosecutors bolstered her account with physical evidence,
[15:24] such as the gloves and DNA findings, and with Mazzaglia's
[15:27] own writings. Letters from Mazzaglia revealed
[15:31] his desire to dominate and control Kat without mercy.
[15:36] An expert also testified to explain how Cat could have felt
[15:39] too afraid and isolated to resist him.
[15:43] Notably, Mazalia did not testify in his own defense, leaving
[15:47] Kat's account as the primary narrative for jurors to
[15:50] consider. The defense countered with a
[15:54] very different story. Mazalia's attorneys claim that
[15:58] Cat was lying and that Lizzie's death was actually a tragic
[16:01] accident. According to them, this occurred
[16:05] during a consensual encounter between the two women.
[16:08] They argued that Seth's only wrongdoing was helping dispose
[16:11] of the body out of misplaced loyalty to Kat.
[16:15] To support their case, the defense reminded jurors that Kat
[16:19] herself had initially stuck to the accidental suffocation story
[16:23] on video before changing her account.
[16:26] They also observed that this was after she could have confessed
[16:29] everything to the authorities. After less than two days of
[16:34] deliberation, the jury returned its verdict on June 27th, 2014.
[16:41] Guilty on all counts. Madzaglia was convicted of first
[16:45] degree slaying as well as an additional charge for committing
[16:49] this act during an illicit assault.
[16:52] He received the mandatory sentence of life in prison
[16:56] without the possibility of parole.
[16:58] At the August 2014 sentencing hearing, Lizzie's family
[17:03] addressed Mazzaglia through tears, describing the pain he
[17:06] had inflicted. Mazzaglia, given a chance to
[17:10] speak, still insisted he hadn't done anything to Lizzie and
[17:14] apologized only for hiding her death.
[17:17] The judge, unmoved by his denial, officially imposed the
[17:21] life term, though ultimately this was a mandatory sentence.
[17:27] Mazzaglia remains in prison for life, but Kat McDonough was
[17:31] released in 2016 after serving her sentence.
[17:35] Some felt her punishment was too light, given her role in the
[17:37] crime. However, Lizzie's own parents
[17:41] have expressed some degree of compassion toward Kat, believing
[17:44] that Seth's manipulation heavily influenced her actions.
[17:49] Notably, while awaiting trial, Mazzaglia even tried to
[17:52] orchestrate a brazen escape from jail, a scheme that was foiled
[17:57] and brought additional charges against him.
[18:01] Sadly, Lizzie Marriott's body was never recovered from the
[18:04] water. In lieu of a grave, her family
[18:07] created a memorial bench near a quiet lake in the Massachusetts
[18:11] woods to remember her. In my own view, Kat Mcdonough's
[18:16] sentence feels far too light, and I realized that this might
[18:20] be somewhat controversial, so let me explain it further.
[18:24] I don't dismiss the reality of the control Seth Mazzaglia had
[18:27] over her Coercive, manipulative relationships can twist a
[18:32] person's world until they can't see straight.
[18:35] But even with all that, she still had choices.
[18:39] She still had moments where she could have stopped everything
[18:42] from unfolding the way it did. She could have warned Lizzie not
[18:47] to come over that night. She could have stepped outside
[18:50] and called the police. She could have reached out to
[18:53] anyone in her life and said something wasn't right.
[18:57] Instead, she helped lure Lizzie into that apartment, stayed
[19:00] silent during the attack, and then participated in the clean
[19:04] up afterward. There were a lot of off ramps
[19:07] where she could have saved Lizzie's life, or at the very
[19:10] least made sure her body was recovered.
[19:13] Her testimony was important, and I get why prosecutors needed it,
[19:18] but that doesn't erase her actions.
[19:21] Without her testimony, convicting Seth would have been
[19:24] much more difficult without a body, but cooperation after the
[19:28] fact doesn't undo the damage done in the moment when Lizzie
[19:31] needed someone to stand up for her and knowing she served such
[19:35] a short sentence, walked out of prison and got to restart her
[19:40] life while Lizzie's family never got their daughter back.
[19:44] That's something I just can't square.
[19:47] It feels like accountability never matched the gravity of
[19:50] what she allowed to happen. 16 year old Joyce McLean was the
[19:58] kind of teenager who made her small town of East Millinocket,
[20:01] ME very proud. She was bright and talented.
[20:05] She was a popular cheerleader, honor student and band member at
[20:10] Shanghai School. Joyce had displayed
[20:12] extraordinary musical ability from an early age.
[20:16] And even enjoyed composing her own songs.
[20:19] She had just earned her driver's license and was excitedly
[20:21] planning a beach party for her 17th birthday.
[20:25] To paraphrase what her mother Pam later said, Joyce was very
[20:29] excited to be heading into a new phase of her life.
[20:33] Unfortunately, this bright new phase of her life would never be
[20:36] Joyce's reality. On the warm evening of August
[20:41] 8th, 1980, Joyce set out for a routine jog to get in shape for
[20:46] the upcoming soccer season. She left home around 7:30 PM,
[20:51] running toward the fields behind her high school, and was seen
[20:54] heading into the twilight near the school grounds.
[20:57] This would be the last known sighting of her alive.
[21:01] When she failed to return home, her mother grew worried and
[21:04] drove around looking for her, but Joyce had vanished.
[21:09] Her mother quickly alerted police and for two days and
[21:12] nights, family and friends combed the community for any
[21:16] trace of the missing teen. Then on Sunday morning, August
[21:21] 10th, 1980, a volunteer searcher discovered a horror no one in
[21:26] East Millinocket ever expected. Joyce's lifeless body was found
[21:31] in the woods along a power line clearing behind Shank High
[21:34] School's athletic fields. Her skull was crushed by a heavy
[21:38] blow, her hands were tied behind her back with a piece of cloth
[21:43] and there were marks suggesting she had been strangled with an
[21:46] object. Her clothing was in disarray,
[21:50] but investigators determined she had not been subject to an
[21:53] indecent assault. The idyllic piece of East
[21:57] Millinocket was shattered by the grim discovery.
[22:00] In a town where doors were usually left unlocked, residents
[22:04] now found themselves afraid, wondering who could have done
[22:07] such a thing in their midst. Pam McClain publicly pleaded for
[22:12] anyone with information to come forward, vowing that neither she
[22:15] nor the perpetrator would ever know peace until he was caught.
[22:19] And yeah, spoiler alert, Pam was going to make good on this
[22:23] promise. The initial police investigation
[22:27] faced daunting hurdles. Detectives determined that Joyce
[22:31] had likely been slain the same night she went missing, but
[22:34] beyond that, hard evidence was scarce.
[22:38] One person did emerge early on as a potential suspect, 19 year
[22:43] old Scott Fournier. In the pre dawn hours after
[22:47] Joyce disappeared, Fournier had stolen a fuel truck from a local
[22:51] garage and crashed at a short distance from the school,
[22:55] suffering a serious head injury. He was in a coma for weeks
[22:59] afterward, and when questioned, Fournier initially claimed to
[23:03] remember nothing about that night.
[23:05] But in May 1981, he gave a statement to police that sounded
[23:10] like a confession, saying he might have beat Joyce while he
[23:14] was in a drunken haze. A few days later, he recanted
[23:18] that story, insisting he had only had a bad dream, and given
[23:22] the magnitude of his brain injury, this seemed plausible.
[23:29] Over the ensuing years, Fournier made several troubling remarks
[23:32] about the crime. He allegedly confessed to a
[23:35] pastor and separately to his own parents in the 1980s, and later
[23:39] even told a Co worker that he was responsible for Joyce's
[23:42] demise. In these retellings, he
[23:45] sometimes implicated other men, but investigators eventually
[23:49] ruled out all the people he named.
[23:52] Notably, Fournier knew details about the crime scene that had
[23:55] never been made public. For example, he described how
[24:00] Joyce's hands were tied behind her back.
[24:03] Still, without any physical evidence or a consistent,
[24:06] credible confession, police didn't charge Fournier or anyone
[24:10] else, and by the mid 80s, Joyce Mclean's case went cold.
[24:17] For the next 30 plus years, Joyce's family and neighbors
[24:21] kept her memory alive and the quest for justice ongoing.
[24:26] Pam McClain refused to let the authorities forget her
[24:28] daughter's case. She and the community formed a
[24:32] Justice for Joyce committee and held candlelight vigils on
[24:36] anniversaries associated with Joyce in the investigation.
[24:40] In 2008, nearly 28 years after the slaying, Pam's perseverance
[24:46] led to a dramatic turn. That year, with community
[24:50] fundraising support, Joyce's body was exhumed for a fresh
[24:54] forensic examination. Forensic specialist doctors
[24:57] Michael Baden and Henry Lee conducted a new autopsy and
[25:01] announced that they had found physical evidence That gave
[25:04] investigators renewed hope. They didn't publicly disclose
[25:08] what the new evidence was, but it was the most significant
[25:12] break in the case in decades. Ultimately, it's unclear what
[25:16] this evidence was, but I'm getting ahead of myself here.
[25:21] At any rate, it's safe to assume that this evidence wasn't the
[25:24] potential bombshell it was thought to be.
[25:27] That said, sometimes causation has a funny way of working
[25:31] things out, and without this apparent dead end path, Fournier
[25:35] likely would have gotten away with it.
[25:40] Following the exhumation, Maine State Police reopened the McLean
[25:43] investigation. Detectives in 2008 began re
[25:47] interviewing witnesses and reviewing the case from scratch.
[25:52] In 2009, authorities publicly confirmed that Scott Fournier,
[25:57] long quietly suspected, was a person of interest in Joyce's
[26:01] slaying. As the cold case squad dug in,
[26:05] new witnesses emerged to bolster the case.
[26:10] One former colleague of Fournier's came forward with a
[26:12] story. Back in 1989, Fournier had
[26:17] suddenly blurted out a confession to him at work.
[26:20] Tips like these, combined with the forensic reexamination,
[26:24] strengthened the circumstantial case against Fournier piece by
[26:28] piece. After years of painstaking work,
[26:32] investigators and prosecutors concluded they finally had
[26:35] enough to secure a conviction. On March 4th, 2016, nearly 36
[26:42] years after the event, Maine State Police arrested 55 year
[26:46] old Fournier and charged him. Fournier went on trial in
[26:52] January 2018, and he waived his right to a jury, leaving the
[26:57] verdict up to a judge. This was apparently a strategic
[27:01] move by his defense counsel in light of Fournier's multiple
[27:04] confessions over the course of the years.
[27:08] They had believed that a judge would be more likely to accept
[27:10] evidence that Fournier's statements were the result of a
[27:13] traumatic brain injury rather than any real Commission of a
[27:17] crime. Given that this is a video on
[27:20] solved cases rather than unsolved mysteries, I'm sure I
[27:25] don't have to Telegraph to you any further how well this
[27:28] strategy ultimately worked out. Because forensic evidence
[27:35] linking him to the crime was virtually non existent, the
[27:38] prosecution's case focused on Fournier's own words and
[27:41] knowledge. They presented testimony about
[27:45] his multiple confessions over the years and the specific
[27:48] details he knew about the crime scene that only the perpetrator
[27:52] would know. The defense argued that
[27:55] Fournier's so-called admissions were the unreliable ramblings of
[27:59] a man who had suffered a brain damaging head injury on the
[28:03] night in question. His lawyers suggested that his
[28:07] memories were confused or imagined, and they pointed to
[28:10] other possible culprits. After hearing two weeks of
[28:14] evidence, Superior Court Justice Anne Murray rendered her
[28:18] verdict. On February 22nd, 2018, she
[28:23] found Scott Fournier guilty in Joyce Mcclain's case, finally
[28:27] closing a chapter that had haunted the community for nearly
[28:29] 38 years. Justice Murray sentenced him to
[28:33] 45 years in prison, and in 2019, Maine's highest court upheld
[28:39] Fournier's conviction, ensuring that he remained behind bars.
[28:44] Ultimately the slogan Justice for Joyce was fulfilled and this
[28:48] cold case was solved after a decades long fight for truth and
[28:52] accountability. On the morning of July 8th,
[28:58] 1972, a passing motorist in rural Allen County, Indiana came
[29:04] upon a heartbreaking scene. In a ditch along a quiet country
[29:08] Rd. lay the body of a young mother and beside her was her 3
[29:12] year old daughter, extremely frightened but miraculously
[29:16] unharmed. Just hours earlier, 26 year old
[29:20] Phyllis Baylor had been alive and on a journey.
[29:24] The young mother had set out the previous evening from
[29:26] Indianapolis, driving a borrowed car to visit her parents in
[29:31] Blufton, about 100 miles away, with her toddler in tow.
[29:37] When she failed to arrive, her worried family reported her
[29:40] missing. Early that next day, police
[29:43] found Phyllis's car abandoned on the shoulder of northbound
[29:47] Interstate 69 in nearby Grant County.
[29:50] The car's hood was propped open as if it had broken down, but
[29:54] Phyllis and her child were nowhere.
[29:56] Insight. Approximately an hour later, the
[30:00] dreadful discovery was made. Phyllis's lifeless body and her
[30:04] little girl were spotted in a roadside ditch miles from the
[30:09] highway. Investigators from the Allen
[30:12] County Sheriff's Department and the Indiana State Police rushed
[30:16] to the scene and launched an investigation.
[30:22] It was immediately clear that Phyllis had met a violent end,
[30:26] which was confirmed with certainty at the autopsy.
[30:29] It was also confirmed that the perpetrator had subjected her to
[30:33] the most disturbing form of assault, leaving behind the
[30:36] biological material that would ultimately crack the case.
[30:41] Her daughter, though physically unharmed, was too young to
[30:44] provide any useful details about what had happened.
[30:48] Detectives were left with a horrifying crime and very few
[30:51] initial clues. Phyllis's purse and belongings
[30:55] had presumably been in the car, but the car was found empty and
[30:59] in working order. Aside from the raised hood,
[31:02] authorities could only theorize that Phyllis had experienced car
[31:06] trouble and that someone had taken advantage of her
[31:09] vulnerable situation. The remote location where her
[31:13] body was found suggested the perpetrator had driven her and
[31:16] her daughter off the Interstate onto a secluded road to carry
[31:20] out this horrific act in the summer of 1972.
[31:24] However, there were no surveillance cameras on
[31:27] highways, no cell phones to ping, and DNA analysis was
[31:32] decades away from being a useful tool.
[31:35] Investigators had to rely on old fashioned police work, combing
[31:39] the area for witnesses and piercing together Phyllis's last
[31:43] known movements. In the immediate aftermath of
[31:49] Phyllis Baylor's slaying, police pursued every lead they could
[31:52] find. They interviewed other motorists
[31:55] who travelled I-69 that night, hoping someone might have seen
[31:59] Phyllis's green vehicle, pulled over or noticed a stranger
[32:03] lurking near a distressed driver.
[32:06] They spoke with Phyllis's family and friends to determine if she
[32:09] had any enemies or troubled relationships that could suggest
[32:14] a suspect. Standard procedure in cases like
[32:18] this is to look first at those closest to the victim, a spouse,
[32:23] an ex partner or friends. But nothing indicated that
[32:27] someone in Phyllis's circle was responsible.
[32:30] From all accounts, Phyllis was simply a young mother on a
[32:34] routine trip. There was no obvious personal
[32:37] motive, which made the crime even more baffling and
[32:40] terrifying. It appeared to be a random act
[32:43] of violence. Before long, investigators
[32:47] developed at least one potential suspect based on the limited
[32:51] evidence and tips they had. Details about this early suspect
[32:55] were not released to the public, but authorities privately
[32:59] considered him a strong person of interest.
[33:04] Perhaps it was a local man with a history of violence, or a
[33:07] passerby who matched a description from a witness
[33:10] sighting. However, in 1972 they lacked the
[33:15] forensic evidence to make a charge stick, something that
[33:19] would actually turn out to be fortunate given subsequent
[33:22] developments. Despite their efforts, no
[33:25] arrests were made, and the case began to go cold.
[33:30] Families in the area were left to wonder if a predator was
[33:33] still among them, and Phyllis's loved ones were left with
[33:36] agonizing questions. Who attacked her?
[33:40] And why did this horrific monster decide to spare her
[33:43] child? The Phyllis Baylor case
[33:48] gradually became one of Indiana's most stubborn cold
[33:51] cases. For decades, Phyllis's family,
[33:55] and in particular her daughter, received no answers.
[34:00] Periodic news stories recalled the tragic tale of the young
[34:03] mother found in the ditch. But as memories faded and
[34:06] investigators retired, the trail to her perpetrator seemed to all
[34:10] but disappear. Thankfully, it wasn't that
[34:14] police didn't have any evidence. They did recover physical
[34:17] evidence, but the perpetrator's identity remained hidden within
[34:21] it, literally at the molecular level.
[34:25] By the early 1990s, as DNA profiling emerged in forensic
[34:30] science, hope was rekindled. A partial DNA profile was
[34:35] eventually developed from biological material found on
[34:38] Phyllis's clothing, presumably from the assailant.
[34:42] When investigators compared this DNA profile against the man they
[34:45] had long suspected, the results were stunning.
[34:49] The partial profile eliminated their main suspect.
[34:53] It was now 2 decades after the crime, and the authorities were
[34:57] back to square 1. Throughout the following
[35:02] decades, the Indiana State Police Cold Case Unit
[35:05] periodically revisited it, especially as DNA technology
[35:09] improved over the years. Each advance in forensic science
[35:13] brought a new opportunity to glean more information from the
[35:16] evidence. But for a long time, the DNA
[35:19] sample was too degraded or incomplete to point clearly to
[35:22] one individual. It yielded no matches.
[35:25] In CODIS, the FB is database of convicted offenders because the
[35:30] perpetrator might never have had his DNA taken in a criminal
[35:34] case, or he simply wasn't in the system.
[35:38] Meanwhile, as the decades went by, Phyllis's daughter grew into
[35:41] adulthood believing that the man who committed this evil act was
[35:46] likely walking free. Little did she know, she would
[35:50] soon find out that the man responsible for her mother's
[35:53] death had suffered a fate that would have caused a medieval
[35:56] inquisitor to furiously take notes.
[36:01] In 2024, the cold case detectives investigating Phyllis
[36:06] Baylor's slaying decided to leverage the latest cutting edge
[36:09] technology. The Indiana State Police
[36:12] Laboratory re examined the genetic material from Phyllis's
[36:16] clothing and managed to develop a much stronger DNA profile of
[36:20] the unknown suspect. This new profile was more
[36:23] complete and thus far more useful for searching in modern
[36:27] DNA databases. Traditional law enforcement
[36:31] databases still didn't have a direct match, and the DNA
[36:34] profile didn't match with any known convicted offender.
[36:38] So investigators turn to an innovative method that has been
[36:42] solving cold cases around the country in recent years,
[36:46] forensic genetic genealogy. This is a painstaking process,
[36:51] building out family trees from distant cousins and obscure
[36:54] records, But it paid off big time.
[36:59] By early 2025, the investigators had zeroed in on a name.
[37:03] After 53 years of mystery, the DNA left on Phyllis's clothing
[37:08] finally had a match in the family tree.
[37:11] Fred Allen Lineman Lineman was a 25 year old man originally from
[37:18] Anderson IN roughly 40 miles from Indianapolis, not far from
[37:23] Phyllis's starting point that night.
[37:26] He later lived in Michigan and had accumulated a significant
[37:29] criminal history by his mid 20s. According to police, he had no
[37:34] known connection to Phyllis Baylor.
[37:36] He was neither a family friend nor an acquaintance.
[37:40] This lack of any prior link explains why he was never on
[37:43] investigators radar. Phyllis almost certainly didn't
[37:47] know him at all. A chilling hallmark of stranger
[37:50] on stranger violence. When detectives dug into the
[37:55] perpetrators background, they uncovered an interesting
[37:58] footnote on his disturbing life. Lineman himself had died
[38:03] violently in the 1980s. In a grim twist of fate, this
[38:08] man who preyed on a stranded young mother later became the
[38:11] prey himself. Investigators learned that
[38:14] Lineman was slain in Detroit in 1985 under absolutely brutal and
[38:20] gruesome circumstances. Now usually I don't go into too
[38:24] much detail out of respect for the victims of crime, but I'm
[38:28] going to make an exception here. Lineman, who was by then 37
[38:33] years old, had crossed 2 very bad men.
[38:37] These two men spent some time working him over with a baseball
[38:41] bat, threw him in a dumpster, and then potentially while he
[38:45] was still alive, lit the dumpster up.
[38:48] I naturally have to wonder if he questioned the life he lived and
[38:52] the acts he committed as the flames rose around him.
[38:58] The Indiana State Police announced the solved case
[39:00] publicly in April 2025, finally bringing a sense of resolution
[39:05] to this mystery 50 years in the making.
[39:09] Indiana authorities noted that if Lineman were alive, he would
[39:12] have been charged with Phyllis Baylor's slaying and prosecuted
[39:16] by the Allen County Prosecutor's Office.
[39:19] Some believe that Phyllis may not have been Lineman's first or
[39:22] last victim and that he may be connected to other crimes.
[39:27] So far, it's unclear if the authorities are investigating
[39:30] this Ave. but given the random nature of his attack on Phyllis,
[39:35] it's strongly speculated that they are.
[39:38] On April 18th, 1973, a man in rural Anderson County, Kansas
[39:44] stumbled upon the decomposed remains of a young male about 3
[39:47] miles southeast of the small town of Garnett.
[39:50] The body was found near a shallow stream roughly 180 feet
[39:55] off a country Rd. Investigators noted the victim's
[39:59] attire and personal items in detail.
[40:02] He was very well dressed, wearing a corduroy jacket, a
[40:05] button up shirt, stylish jeans, a black leather belt, hiking
[40:10] boots and leather gloves. The young man also wore jewelry,
[40:15] 2 gold rings etched with crosses, another ring engraved
[40:20] with the number 78 and a silver chain with a 2 inch cross
[40:24] pendant. These possessions offered a few
[40:27] clues but no immediate identity. An autopsy was performed and
[40:35] revealed signs of severe trauma, including a skull fracture,
[40:39] leading the coroner to rule the death of slaying.
[40:42] The medical examiner estimated the victim to be a white male in
[40:45] his late teens to early 20s with a slender build and medium
[40:49] length brown WAVY hair. It appeared his body had been at
[40:53] the site for only a few weeks. Authorities believed he had
[40:57] likely been slain about two to four weeks before discovery.
[41:02] Given the state of decomposition, whether the ACT
[41:05] took place right there in the woods or the body had been
[41:08] dumped afterwards remained uncertain.
[41:12] Early on, investigators theorized the victim might have
[41:15] been a hitchhiker who met a deadly fate while traveling
[41:18] through the area. Despite these efforts and a
[41:21] thorough search of missing persons reports from the region,
[41:25] the young man could not be identified.
[41:28] With no name to call him, authorities referred to the
[41:31] unknown victim as the Garnett John Doe.
[41:36] When no leads emerged, the community gave the unidentified
[41:39] individual a dignified burial in Garnett Cemetery.
[41:44] The story had moved the local community so much they even
[41:47] raised money for a small headstone, a rarity in cases
[41:51] such as this. And keep this in mind because
[41:55] this isn't just a fact to help restore your faith in humanity.
[41:58] It'll actually end up helping crack the case.
[42:03] The case of the Garnett John Doe turned cold as years passed with
[42:07] no identification. Law enforcement never forgot the
[42:11] nameless teenager, and over time, they revisited the case
[42:15] with new techniques. As technology advanced, his
[42:18] information was eventually entered into national databases
[42:22] for missing and unidentified persons as those grew in size
[42:25] and scope over the years. Still, throughout the 1980s and
[42:30] 1990s, no match was found for the Garnett John Doe.
[42:36] In 2005, more than 30 years after the slaying, investigators
[42:41] took a significant step in a testament to the community
[42:45] efforts to give him a proper burial.
[42:47] They exhumed the John Doe's remains to apply emerging DNA
[42:51] technology. Notably, in many of these cases,
[42:55] the body is buried, but due to poor record keeping, the exact
[42:59] location ends up lost. The community funded headstone
[43:03] solved this issue. Forensic experts carefully
[43:06] recovered the skeletal remains, which had been well preserved in
[43:10] a vinyl body bag inside a wooden coffin.
[43:13] Once again, another testament to the local community.
[43:19] The Kansas Bureau of Investigation attempted to match
[43:22] his DNA to databases, but ultimately nothing came of this.
[43:26] Given the technology at the time, this was a major
[43:30] disappointment to investigators, but all hope wasn't lost.
[43:36] Flash forward to the twenty 20s and forensic science has been
[43:39] revolutionized by genetic genealogy.
[43:42] The Anderson County Sheriff's Office and the KBI partnered
[43:46] with a private forensic lab, Othrum, who I feel at this point
[43:51] need no introduction. The remains of the Garnett John
[43:55] Doe were sent to Othrum's laboratory in Texas, where their
[43:59] scientists successfully developed a complete DNA profile
[44:03] despite the age of the evidence. This would ultimately result in
[44:07] this 5 decade old case being cracked wide open.
[44:11] But first, there's a parallel tale to tell.
[44:16] While the Garnett John Doe case sat unsolved, another mystery
[44:20] lingered 80 miles away in Kansas City, KS.
[44:24] And for those who aren't that familiar with Midwestern
[44:26] geography, there's also a Kansas City, MO right across the state
[44:31] border. In the fall of 1972, a 16 year
[44:37] old boy named Jimmy Dollison disappeared from his Kansas City
[44:41] home and was never heard from again.
[44:44] Jimmy had been living with his family in Kansas City and by all
[44:48] accounts was an ordinary teenager of the early 1970s.
[44:52] Sometime in October or November 1972, he went out and never came
[44:57] back. His worried parents reported him
[45:00] missing to local authorities, and the family desperately
[45:03] searched for answers. Unfortunately, there's not much
[45:08] out there on the investigative efforts undertaken by the
[45:11] authorities at that time. However, knowing the time
[45:14] period, my educated guess is that the police told Jimmy's
[45:18] parents he's likely a runaway and closed his file as soon as
[45:23] possible. Further, at the time, there were
[45:27] few tools to broadcast a missing persons information beyond the
[45:30] immediate area. Decades before the era of online
[45:34] databases and nationwide missing persons alerts, Jimmy's
[45:38] disappearance remained a local case with little publicity.
[45:42] His relatives never knew if he had run away, fallen victim to
[45:46] foul play, or had an accident. He simply vanished, and no trace
[45:52] of the teenager turned up in the weeks and months that followed.
[45:56] As the 1970s gave way to the 1980s and beyond, Jimmy's family
[46:01] was left with only painful uncertainty.
[46:04] They had no idea that their boys remains had actually been found
[46:08] the very next spring and laid to rest under a nameless tombstone
[46:12] in Garnett, under the careful watch of a caring local
[46:15] community. For over 50 years, the fates of
[46:19] Jimmy Dollison and the Garnett John Doe remained unconnected.
[46:23] Puzzles 2 Unsolved mysteries running in complete parallel.
[46:30] In early 2025, after months of specialized DNA analysis, the
[46:35] breakthrough finally arrived. Othrum's genealogical research
[46:40] had generated leads to specific families that shared significant
[46:44] DNA with the unknown Garnett victim.
[46:47] KBI agents and Anderson County investigators followed the
[46:50] genetic leads to locate surviving family members of the
[46:54] victim. They identified siblings of a
[46:57] missing Kansas City boy, and in February 2025, those siblings
[47:02] were approached by law enforcement.
[47:05] Investigators conducted interviews and collected DNA
[47:08] samples from at least one close relative for direct comparison.
[47:12] The laboratory analysis confirmed what the officers had
[47:16] suspected. The DNA from the exhumed remains
[47:19] matched the family's DNA. The Garnet John Doe was
[47:24] positively identified as Jimmy Allen Dollison, the Kansas City
[47:28] teenager who had vanished in 1972.
[47:32] The identification was officially announced in April
[47:35] 2025, bringing an end to the 52 year old mystery of the boy's
[47:39] identity. With Jimmy's identity confirmed,
[47:45] the focus of the cold case has shifted from who the victim was
[47:49] to who perpetrated this act against him.
[47:53] The Kansas Bureau of Investigation and the Anderson
[47:55] County Sheriff's Office have reopened the investigation.
[47:59] Now, armed with the knowledge of the victim's name and origin,
[48:03] detectives are piercing together Jimmy's last known movements in
[48:06] the fall of 1972, hoping to determine how he ended up in
[48:11] Garnett and who might have been involved.
[48:15] Some have speculated that he was hitchhiking westward and may
[48:18] have been picked up by a dangerous stranger.
[48:21] Others have questioned whether someone he believed to be his
[48:24] friend may have turned on him. These questions remain
[48:28] unanswered, but identifying him will give investigators the
[48:32] opportunity to investigate all sorts of new leads.
[48:37] While the case is over 50 years old, most of the people who knew
[48:41] him from school will likely still be alive and potentially
[48:45] be able to give information about what he was up to in his
[48:49] final days. One thing that's unclear to me
[48:54] at present, and that I'd like to know, is whether the police file
[48:58] from 1972 for Jimmy Dollison's disappearance has been preserved
[49:03] in any way. If it has, there may be witness
[49:06] statements which can now be followed up on over 50 years
[49:09] later. That said, it's not even clear
[49:12] to me if the authorities investigated Jimmy's
[49:15] disappearance when his parents reported him gone.
[49:19] It may be that there's no file whatsoever and never was, which
[49:23] would of course significantly hinder any potential complete
[49:26] resolution to this case. This, of course, seems
[49:30] incredibly odd to me given that he was 16 years old when he went
[49:33] missing, but this seems to have been the general approach to
[49:37] policing at the time. All that said, if they did any
[49:42] investigative work whatsoever, and if it survived, this could
[49:46] be the key to fully solving this case.
[49:50] By combining the evidentiary value of the Garnett John Doe
[49:53] file, the Jimmy Dollison investigative file, and the DNA
[49:57] evidence, perhaps the authorities can finally resolve
[50:00] this mystery fully.

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them.