# 7 Chilling Cold Cases That Need To Be Solved | 223

An episode of [Lazy Chill True Crime](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1815534472), 6 May 2026, 1 h 13 min.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/s/10f1e70d4/podcast/play/119548992/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2026-4-6%2F423558660-44100-2-a0c92549c755a.mp3

Join me for 7 chilling cold cases that need to be solved. Episode 223 of the true crime podcast btw. Also don't forget to request cases in the comments and drop a rating. 👇 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 unsolved mysteries, true crime, cold cases, unsolved mysteries, missing persons, murder investigation, forensic evidence, serial killers, crime scene analysis, dark history, criminal psychology, real life horror, police investigations, DNA breakthroughs, forensic genealogy, crime documentaries, criminal profiling, mysterious disappearances, solved cases, justice system, law enforcement stories, cold case files, creepy mysteries, true crime storytelling, crime reconstruction, chilling cases, investigative reporting, modern forensics, victim advocacy, unidentified remains, crime scene forensics, disturbing cases, true crime analysis, hidden clues, infamous crimes, real crime stories, forensic evidence, serial killers, unsolved cases, too dark for netflix

## Transcript

[0:00] On June 12th, 198541 year old Dottie Kaler did something that
[0:05] terrified her. She ventured alone into a busy
[0:08] Bay Area Rapid Transit station in Pleasant Hill, CA to buy a
[0:13] train ticket. For most people, this was a
[0:16] mundane errand, but for Dottie it was a remarkable act.
[0:20] She suffered from severe agoraphobia, an intense fear of
[0:24] public places that often kept her housebound.
[0:28] But here's the thing, no one can confirm if she ever boarded the
[0:31] train, and her husband's story is suspect.
[0:35] And from that day forward, no trace of Dottie Kaylor has ever
[0:39] been found. Dottie Kaylor was a conquered
[0:43] California housewife known to family and friends as a quiet,
[0:47] thoughtful woman living an extremely reclusive life.
[0:50] Born Dorothy May Rusnak in 1944, she was originally from Ohio and
[0:56] had worked as a legal secretary before marrying Jewel Kaylor in
[1:00] the mid 1970s. Also, I may be showing my age
[1:05] here, but I had no idea Dottie was once a common nickname for
[1:09] people named Dorothy, but I digress.
[1:13] The couple settled in Concord, where Dottie's personality was
[1:16] shaped in part by her mental health struggles.
[1:19] Her life was largely governed by her extreme agoraphobia, A
[1:24] debilitating anxiety disorder that made her fearful of
[1:27] venturing into public spaces. This condition turned her home
[1:31] into a self-imposed sanctuary. Dottie rarely went out, couldn't
[1:36] hold a job due to panic attacks, and carefully planned even minor
[1:40] outings. By 1985, at age 41, she spent
[1:45] most of her time inside and had become increasingly dependent on
[1:49] her husband, Jewel, for contact with the outside world.
[1:56] Life with Jewel Kaylor was far from idyllic.
[1:58] For Dottie, the marriage had serious problems simmering under
[2:02] the surface. Jewel, an entomologist and
[2:05] aerial photographer, often travelled for work and was away
[2:09] from home more than half the time.
[2:11] Left alone with her anxieties, Dottie grew suspicious of
[2:15] Jewel's long absences. Her worries weren't unfounded,
[2:19] and friends later revealed that Jewel also had an unpaid side
[2:22] hustle laying pipe for lonely ladies.
[2:27] In fact, Jewel had secretly proposed to a female Co worker
[2:31] about six months before Dottie disappeared, even purchasing
[2:34] wedding rings while still married to Dottie.
[2:38] Unsurprisingly, this double life deeply strained their
[2:41] relationship, and the couple's arguments sometimes escalated
[2:44] into ugly fights. On Thanksgiving 1981, a
[2:49] particularly violent incident occurred that would later take
[2:52] on a chilling significance. During a confrontation, Jewel
[2:57] struck Dottie in the head with a piece of furniture, injuring her
[3:01] enough that she needed stitches. Jewel claimed he acted in
[3:05] self-defense, alleging that Dottie had threatened him with a
[3:08] pair of scissors, and no charges were filed in the end.
[3:13] By the mid 1980s, Dottie and Jewel's marriage was hanging by
[3:17] a thread defined by distrust, fear, and increasing bouts of
[3:23] violence. Despite her crippling fears,
[3:28] Dottie was slowly gathering the courage to change her situation.
[3:32] In 1984, she quietly joined a support group for women in
[3:37] troubled marriages. Notably, this group was named
[3:40] Women in Transition, which I feel would perhaps not be the
[3:44] ideal name for this group if it were founded in, oh, let's say
[3:48] 2025. Without telling Jewel, Dottie
[3:54] made new friends through the group and started taking small
[3:57] steps toward independence. Her friends noticed positive
[4:01] changes. Dottie updated her hairstyle,
[4:04] added color to her wardrobe, and seemed more confident, as if a
[4:09] new Dottie were emerging. Crucially, she also took
[4:14] concrete steps to prepare for a possible split from her husband.
[4:18] Dottie opened a secret bank account in her own name and had
[4:22] a post office box for private mail.
[4:25] She squirreled away money from selling some belongings,
[4:28] eventually converting about $5000 into a cashier's check
[4:33] that she kept hidden with a close friend for safekeeping.
[4:37] This money was meant as an emergency fund in case she
[4:40] needed to escape quickly. Dottie even stashed documents
[4:44] and evidence of Jewel's infidelities and threats in a
[4:47] locked file cabinet at a friend's house, telling the
[4:50] friend to give it to police if anything ever happened to her.
[4:55] By the spring of 1985, Dottie had told her sister and friends
[4:59] that she intended to divorce Jewel and start anew.
[5:03] In May 1985, Jewel announced he had received a job transfer to
[5:08] Salt Lake City and would be moving there.
[5:11] Dottie flatly refused to go with him, and according to family
[5:14] members, she and Jewel agreed to separate.
[5:18] Dottie would stay in the Concord house and buy out Jewel's share,
[5:21] while Jewel would relocate to Utah for his new job.
[5:25] In the weeks before Jewel's planned departure, Dottie packed
[5:29] up many of his belongings and put them in storage.
[5:32] She appeared determined to build an independent life free from
[5:36] her husband's control. Friends later said Dottie was
[5:39] looking forward to a fresh start, which makes what happened
[5:43] next all the more tragic and baffling.
[5:48] On the morning of June 12th, 1985, Dottie Kaylor told Jewel
[5:53] she planned to visit a friend for a short overnight trip
[5:55] before he left for Utah. Jewel claims that around midday,
[6:00] he drove Dottie to the Pleasant Hill Bart station so she could
[6:04] take a train on her journey. He said Dottie brought an
[6:07] overnight bag and her turquoise purse, which contained
[6:11] essentials like her ID, some cash and a special allergy kit
[6:15] she always carried. According to Jewel, he dropped
[6:19] her off outside the station and watched as Dottie walked around
[6:22] the corner into the terminal. That was the last time anyone
[6:26] has reported seeing her. There were no witnesses who
[6:30] recalled Dottie at the station beyond Jewel's account.
[6:33] No one saw her board a train, and she did not reach out to any
[6:36] friends or family afterward. The next day, June 13th, Jewel
[6:43] returned to the Bart parking lot after work and was surprised to
[6:47] find Dottie's 1963 Volkswagen Beetle parked in the lot right
[6:51] next to his own car. This was immediately perplexing.
[6:56] If Jewel had driven Dottie to the station, why was her car
[6:59] there? Peering inside, Jewel found
[7:03] Dottie's purse sitting on the seat containing her wallet,
[7:06] identification, credit cards and about $30 in cash.
[7:12] The only item missing from the purse was Dottie's allergy kit.
[7:16] Everything else she normally kept with her was left behind.
[7:21] Dottie was known to never go anywhere without her purse.
[7:24] Leaving it in her car was completely out of character.
[7:28] Jewel later told police he left a note on the windshield asking
[7:32] Dottie to contact him, then moved her car to a different
[7:35] spot, supposedly to avoid a parking ticket.
[7:40] He even hid her purse under the seat, supposedly for
[7:42] safekeeping. Over the next four days, Jewel
[7:47] claims he returned to check the car and left additional notes
[7:51] begging Dottie to come home. Yet he didn't report his wife
[7:55] officially missing until June 17th, five days after she
[7:59] vanished, and only did so at the urging of a neighbor.
[8:04] Two weeks after Dottie's disappearance, Jewel Kaylor
[8:07] packed up and moved permanently to Utah to start his new job,
[8:11] effectively leaving the state while the search for his wife
[8:14] had barely begun. Dottie Kaylor's case was
[8:19] initially treated as a missing persons investigation, with the
[8:22] strong possibility that she left voluntarily, especially given
[8:26] her unhappy marriage. In the early weeks, some of
[8:30] Dottie's friends and relatives wondered if she might have used
[8:33] her new found confidence to run away and start a new life free
[8:37] from Jewel. Dottie had, after all, been
[8:41] making plans to leave and had even hinted she might disappear.
[8:46] Jewel certainly embraced this idea.
[8:48] He speculated to police that Dottie simply took off to quote
[8:52] UN quote disrupt his life. He suggested she might be hiding
[8:56] out, or even that someone helped her disappear permanently.
[9:01] However, as time went on, evidence strongly contradicted
[9:05] the theory that Dottie vanished by choice.
[9:09] Nearly everything investigators learned pointed to foul play
[9:13] rather than a planned escape. Several red flags in the case
[9:17] made authorities and Dottie's family deeply suspicious.
[9:22] Dottie's car turning up at the station next to Jules, despite
[9:26] him having supposedly dropped her off, is difficult to
[9:30] explain. It seems to suggest that perhaps
[9:33] she independently drove the vehicle there, perhaps to meet
[9:37] up with someone whose car just happened to be right there as
[9:39] well. Despite carefully saving funds
[9:44] for a potential escape, Dottie never withdrew a dime from her
[9:47] secret bank account after June 12th.
[9:50] The $5000 cashier's check she had hidden for emergencies was
[9:55] never cashed, and there has been no activity on any of her
[9:58] financial accounts since she disappeared.
[10:02] If she had started a new life somewhere, she inexplicably did
[10:06] so without touching the money she set aside for that very
[10:08] purpose. Now, it's always possible that
[10:13] this money was intentionally left there to throw off
[10:16] investigators, but Dottie wasn't wealthy by any means.
[10:20] To put this in perspective, this is about 15,000 bucks in 2025
[10:26] dollars, which could go a very long way in starting a new life,
[10:30] especially when she had been out of the workforce for a while.
[10:36] Curiously, Jewel waiting five days to report Dottie missing,
[10:40] looked highly suspicious to police and family.
[10:43] Moreover, him moving out of state just two weeks later,
[10:47] essentially fleeing the area, struck many as not the behavior
[10:51] of a worried husband. This quick exit to Utah with
[10:55] Dottie's fate unresolved raised serious eyebrows among
[10:59] investigators. However, some have pointed out
[11:03] that they were essentially already separated even though
[11:07] they were living together, which may explain his lack of concern.
[11:12] Under this theory, Jewel was simply a cold hearted guy who
[11:16] wanted to move on as soon as possible.
[11:21] During police questioning, Jewel's story contained
[11:24] inconsistencies and concerning revelations.
[11:27] Records showed he had taken several sick days off from work
[11:30] around the time of Dottie's disappearance, including leaving
[11:34] work early on June 12th and taking off the day before.
[11:38] Curiously, he failed to mention these facts to police upon
[11:41] initial questioning. Jewel also refused to take
[11:44] polygraph tests. And I know I'm going to get
[11:46] comments about how polygraphs are junk science, so to head off
[11:50] those comments, I'll just say that a polygraph is an
[11:53] investigative tool, and his refusal to take one perhaps
[11:57] wasn't a good sign. Given these clues, Dottie's
[12:03] family came to believe that she did not leave voluntarily at
[12:06] all, but rather met with foul play.
[12:09] Before long, Jewel Kaylor became the prime person of interest in
[12:14] the eyes of those who followed the case.
[12:17] Interestingly, a letter he wrote to the woman he was engaged to
[12:21] indicated that he would do literally anything for her.
[12:25] He even explicitly said that he would kill to be with her,
[12:30] which, if he meant it metaphorically, may have been an
[12:33] inappropriate choice of words given the circumstances.
[12:38] Over the years, investigators have searched for tangible proof
[12:42] of what happened to Dottie, but without a body or direct
[12:45] witness, the case remains circumstantial.
[12:49] In 1988, police received an anonymous letter postmarked from
[12:53] Indiana that accused Jewel Kaler of slaying his wife.
[12:58] The letter claimed Jewel beat Dottie with a tire iron and
[13:01] buried her under a tree at a construction site, even
[13:04] providing a hand drawn map of the supposed burial location.
[13:08] A significant investigation was conducted due to this letter,
[13:12] but nothing turned up and it was unclear if this was a hoax.
[13:18] Interestingly, some have alleged that the letter was actually
[13:22] written by Jewel himself in an effort to throw investigators
[13:25] off. In 2001, the Concord Police
[13:31] Department officially reopened Dottie's cold case, classifying
[13:34] it as a likely slaying. They served search warrants on
[13:38] the Kaler's former home in 2005, even excavating the backyard
[13:43] with cadaver dogs and ground penetrating radar.
[13:47] This dramatic effort also came up empty, and no hidden grave or
[13:51] any evidence was discovered to conclusively solve the mystery.
[13:57] Through it all, Jewel Kaylor has maintained his innocence and
[14:01] insisted that Dottie chose to leave him.
[14:05] In a 2001 newspaper interview, Jewel shockingly remarked that
[14:09] he had more or less forgotten about his wife's disappearance,
[14:13] Assuming she was dead and no longer his concern.
[14:17] He described life with Dottie as practically unbearable and
[14:20] admitted that once she was gone and he started his new life in
[14:23] Utah, things were pretty good for him.
[14:27] To Dottie's loved ones, these words sounded like those of a
[14:30] man who felt relief that she was gone.
[14:35] Jewel Kaylor is still alive and has never been charged with any
[14:38] crime in relation to the disappearance of Dottie.
[14:43] At present, it remains unclear if Dottie's disappearance will
[14:46] remain an unsolved mystery or if there will finally be closure on
[14:50] her case. Nearly 1/2 century later.
[14:55] On a cold January night in 198424 year old Sherri Hart left
[15:01] her home in Ash County, North Carolina expecting a simple
[15:05] evening out. She had recently moved back in
[15:08] with her parents after a divorce and was the devoted mother of a
[15:12] six year old daughter. But Sherri never returned home
[15:15] that night, and what began as a missing person case soon
[15:20] unfolded into one of North Carolina's most haunting
[15:23] unsolved mysteries. 11 months later, hikers discovered
[15:30] Sherri's skeletal remains at the base of a steep Cliff known as
[15:34] Jumping Off Rock. This is a scenic overlook in the
[15:37] Blue Ridge Mountains with a perilous 1200 foot drop.
[15:42] The investigation that followed revealed a story of betrayal and
[15:45] violence and a prime suspect who escaped justice, leaving
[15:49] Sherri's family waiting decades for answers.
[15:54] On the evening of January 15th, 1984, Sherri told her family she
[15:59] was going out to meet someone, reportedly a date at a local
[16:03] restaurant. When that date never showed up,
[16:06] Sherri crossed paths with two local young men, Richard Lynn
[16:10] Baer and Jeffrey Scott Burgess. According to statements later
[16:14] given by Burgess, they later talked her into hanging out and
[16:17] cruising around town with them. And trust me when I say it,
[16:22] you're going to want to take everything that Burgess said
[16:24] about this case with the biggest rock of salt you can possibly
[16:27] locate. Bear and Burgess were a few
[16:32] years younger and not close friends of Sherri's, but in a
[16:35] small town, it wasn't unusual for people to run into each
[16:39] other and socialize in groups. Tragically, this fateful
[16:44] decision to ride around with Bear and Burgess would be the
[16:47] last time anyone saw Sherri Hart alive.
[16:53] When Sherri failed to return home, her family grew alarmed
[16:56] and reported her missing the next day.
[16:59] An initial search turned up a disturbing clue.
[17:02] Sherri's car was found abandoned in the town of West Jefferson,
[17:06] which immediately raised suspicions of foul play.
[17:10] In those first weeks, however, leads were scarce, with no sign
[17:15] of Sherri and no evidence of a struggle.
[17:17] At the time, local gossip even fueled a theory that Sherri had
[17:21] run off to Florida with a lover, hoping to start a new life.
[17:26] Sherri's 6 year old daughter was left confused and heartbroken,
[17:30] even wondering if her mother had willingly left her behind.
[17:34] This was a notion that would be dispelled when the truth came to
[17:37] light. As winter turned to spring and
[17:41] then summer without any answers, Sherri's family endured an
[17:45] agonizing wait, clinging to hope that she might still be found
[17:49] safe. Nearly a year passed with no
[17:54] breakthroughs. Then, on December 10th, 1984, a
[17:58] group of hikers made a gruesome discovery in a remote area of
[18:02] the Blue Ridge Mountains known as Jumping off Rock.
[18:06] At the bottom of a rugged Cliff, they stumbled upon human
[18:09] remains. Authorities were called and the
[18:13] remains were soon identified as Sherri Hart.
[18:17] It was now painfully clear that Sherri had never run off to
[18:20] Florida or anywhere else. She had been the victim of a
[18:24] horrific crime close to home. Investigators determined that
[18:29] Sherri had suffered severe trauma before her body was
[18:32] thrown from the overlook, indicating she had been slain
[18:35] and dumped off the Cliff. One tip in early 1985 proved
[18:42] crucial. A witness reported seeing Sherry
[18:44] on the night of January 15th, 1984, in the company of Richard
[18:49] Baer and Jeff Burgess. Investigators learned that
[18:52] Baer's own brother had once dated Sherry, so she wasn't a
[18:56] complete stranger to them. This connection made the witness
[18:59] account even more significant. Acting on this lead, Ashe County
[19:06] Sheriff's deputies brought Burgess in for questioning in
[19:09] late March 1985. Confronted with evidence and
[19:13] perhaps his own guilt, Jeffrey Burgess eventually cracked and
[19:17] gave a chilling confession outlining what he says happened
[19:20] to Sherri Hart. According to Burgess's
[19:23] statements, the evening started out innocently.
[19:27] Sherri agreed to go joyriding with him and Bear after her
[19:31] original plans fell through. At some point during their drive
[19:35] through the back roads, Sherri asked the two men to pull over
[19:39] so she could take a quick rest stop by the roadside.
[19:43] They stopped the car about 1/4 mile from the scenic Cliff known
[19:46] as the Jumping Off Place, and what happened next turned
[19:50] deadly. Burgess told investigators that
[19:54] when Sherri walked into the woods for a moment, Richard Baer
[19:58] followed her and made unwanted, illicit advances toward her.
[20:02] Sherry resisted these advances and ran back toward the car,
[20:06] reportedly even pleading with Burgess to help protect her from
[20:09] Bear's aggression. Before Burgess could intervene,
[20:13] Bear burst out of the woods and raged.
[20:15] He was armed with a handgun, and he struck Sherry in the back of
[20:19] the head with the pistol, knocking her down.
[20:22] Sherry was gravely wounded and began bleeding.
[20:26] Panicked, Bear and Burgess placed her back in the car and
[20:29] decided to drive to the nearby Cliff.
[20:33] When they reached Jumping Off Rock, Bear dragged the injured
[20:37] Sherry out of the vehicle, forced her to the edge at
[20:39] gunpoint, and pushed her off the Cliff.
[20:43] Burgess claimed that he went along with this out of fear.
[20:46] He said Bear threatened to eliminate him and his family if
[20:50] he ever told anyone what happened.
[20:53] Armed with Burgess's confession and supporting evidence,
[20:56] authorities moved quickly. On March 29th, 1985, Richard
[21:02] Baer and Jeff Burgess were both arrested and charged.
[21:06] The community, shocked and outraged, now had faces to
[21:10] attach to this horrendous crime. Just four months after his
[21:16] arrest, Richard Baer pulled off a brazen escape from custody,
[21:20] dashing any immediate hope of closure in Sherry's case.
[21:24] On July 17th, 1985, while awaiting trial in the Wilkes
[21:29] County Jail, Bear simply walked out of the jail when a guard's
[21:33] attention was elsewhere. The ease of his jailbreak was
[21:37] shocking. A suspect effectively slipped
[21:40] through the fingers of law enforcement in broad daylight.
[21:43] A massive manhunt ensued, but Bear had a head start and a
[21:48] determination not to be caught. Despite extensive efforts, he
[21:53] managed to vanish without a trace and has remained A
[21:56] fugitive for almost 4 decades. And trust me, if you're thinking
[22:01] this whole thing is fishy, you're not the only one.
[22:05] But I'll get back to that in a moment.
[22:09] The impact of Bear's escape on the case was devastating.
[22:13] With the prime suspect gone, Geoffrey Burgess's trial was put
[22:16] on hold. Authorities decided not to
[22:19] prosecute Burgess for the slaying as long as the
[22:22] ringleader was at large, especially since Burgess had
[22:26] been the key witness against Bear.
[22:29] In fact, Burgess was released on bail pending Bear's recapture,
[22:33] essentially as a reward for his cooperation.
[22:36] This meant that no one was held accountable in court for
[22:39] Sherri's death, a bitter pill for the Hart family and the
[22:43] community to swallow. Years passed and the trial never
[22:48] took place and Burgess continued to live under suspicion but
[22:52] maintained that he never intended harm to Sherry.
[22:57] Despite confessing to his involvement.
[22:59] He ended up living out his life as a free man until he died in
[23:03] 2012. Naturally, many have questioned
[23:07] whether Burgess was telling the truth about his role in the
[23:10] crime. After all, he had a strong
[23:13] incentive to portray himself as an unwilling accomplice in a
[23:16] crime committed by a madman. Richard Baer, meanwhile, became
[23:23] the target of an intensive, long running fugitive investigation.
[23:27] Sightings of Baer were reported over the years, but each time he
[23:31] slipped away. In one instance in 1993, the FBI
[23:36] got a tip that Baer was hiding at a relative's home in
[23:38] Delaware. Agents arrived just hours too
[23:42] late, finding that Bear had already fled the location.
[23:46] Tips continued to come in sporadically, and some claim
[23:49] Bear was still in North Carolina, possibly sheltered by
[23:53] friends or family. There's been rampant speculation
[23:58] and theories about Richard Bear in the years following his
[24:01] escape. 1 popular notion is that Bear had help either during his
[24:07] 1985 escape or in hiding afterwards.
[24:11] His escape was so simple that it fueled speculation about whether
[24:15] someone intentionally left a door unlocked or looked the
[24:18] other way. Notably, the person responsible
[24:21] for watching him was fired and appears to have been charged in
[24:25] relation to the escape. Perhaps he should have fallen
[24:30] asleep along with a colleague and then made a surveillance
[24:34] camera malfunction while later falsifying log entries of what
[24:38] happened during that time. Rumor has it under those sort of
[24:41] circumstances you'll just get a slap on the wrist no matter what
[24:45] sort of prisoner you're guarding.
[24:48] Even if they're accused of having ties to extremely
[24:50] powerful and well connected people, You'll literally just
[24:54] get the most minor punishment available.
[24:59] After the escape, rumors suggest that Bear stayed hidden by
[25:03] relying on a network of friends or family willing to shelter him
[25:06] and keep his secrets. Some tips over the years claimed
[25:10] Bear was right back in Ashe County, living out in the open,
[25:13] suggesting some significant local corruption.
[25:19] In fact, there have been unconfirmed witness reports that
[25:21] Bear periodically snuck back into town in disguise to attend
[25:25] the funerals of his relatives. Authorities took these reports
[25:29] seriously enough to stake out at least one family funeral, but
[25:33] they were never able to conclusively nab him.
[25:38] The authorities remain uncertain if Bear is alive at this time,
[25:42] though given how young he was at the time of the crime he
[25:45] allegedly committed, he wouldn't even be a senior citizen yet.
[25:51] Also, as I was recording this, I realized I said allegedly here
[25:56] as if Richard Bear is going to come out and sue me over saying
[25:59] he did it. I'm not sure why, but the idea
[26:03] of him doing that and then getting arrested at the
[26:05] deposition is somewhat amusing to me.
[26:09] April is now an adult with a family of her own and continues
[26:13] to pursue justice for her mother all these years later.
[26:17] Personally, I suspect that Richard Baer has to be protected
[26:21] by a fairly large network of people locally who don't accept
[26:26] that he was involved in the case.
[26:28] That said, that's just complete speculation on my part, but I
[26:32] don't see how else a 20 year old is able to go on the run for
[26:35] four decades. Unfortunately, even if Richard
[26:40] Baer is caught today, the primary witness against him is
[26:44] long deceased, which may make securing A conviction much more
[26:48] difficult. State College, PA on Halloween
[26:55] night 2001 was a town electric with the energy of a major
[27:00] university letting loose. For the thousands of students at
[27:04] Penn State, Halloween isn't just a holiday, it's an institution.
[27:09] And on that night, 21 year old Hyun Zhong Song, known to her
[27:14] friends as Cindy Song, was part of the celebration.
[27:19] Cindy was a bright and hard working student just months from
[27:22] graduation. She was juggling 2 part time
[27:25] jobs along with her studies, but she wasn't thinking about her
[27:29] responsibilities that night. That night was supposed to be
[27:32] all about fun. She and her friends had decided
[27:36] on a costume theme and Cindy was dressed as a Bunny.
[27:40] It was a simple, playful costume, and by the end of the
[27:43] night, it became the last known picture of her, a haunting
[27:47] symbol forever linked to the dark mystery that was about to
[27:50] unfold. The night began at Players
[27:55] Nightclub, a popular spot on West College Ave. where Cindy
[27:59] and her friends danced and socialized with other students.
[28:04] The party continued until around 2:00 that morning, at which
[28:08] point the group left the club and went to a friend's house to
[28:10] hang out for a while longer. At approximately 4:00 on the
[28:15] morning of November 1st, the Halloween festivities were
[28:18] finally over. A friend gave Cindy a ride back
[28:22] to her off campus apartment at the State College Park
[28:24] Apartments on W Clinton Ave. The car pulled up to the curb
[28:29] and Cindy got out in a small, seemingly insignificant
[28:33] decision. Her friend drove away without
[28:35] waiting to see her safely walk through her front door.
[28:39] That moment in the pre dawn quiet of a sleeping town was the
[28:44] vanishing point. It was the last time anyone is
[28:47] known to have seen Cindy Song alive, and the solid, verifiable
[28:52] timeline of her life ends right there on that sidewalk.
[28:58] For three days, there was complete radio silence from
[29:01] Cindy. Cindy didn't show up for her
[29:03] jobs, and she didn't answer her phone.
[29:06] Her friends, whose calls went unanswered, began to worry.
[29:10] Their concern grew into a quiet dread until on November 4th,
[29:15] they contacted the police and officially reported her missing.
[29:21] The news sent a shockwave through her community and
[29:23] reached her family in South Korea, who immediately flew to
[29:26] Pennsylvania to face a parent's worst nightmare.
[29:31] When the Ferguson Township police entered Cindy's
[29:34] apartment, they found a scene that was somehow both
[29:37] undisturbed and deeply disturbing.
[29:40] There were no signs of a struggle, no shattered windows
[29:44] or splintered door frame indicating a violent forced
[29:47] entry. Inside, her backpack was on the
[29:50] floor, where one might drop it after coming home.
[29:54] Her cell phone had been left behind, and on a surface lay the
[29:57] false eyelashes she had worn as part of her costume removed as
[30:02] if she were getting ready to wind down for the night.
[30:06] These details offered clear proof that Cindy had made it
[30:09] inside her apartment after being dropped off.
[30:14] But the scene also presented A fundamental contradiction.
[30:18] While her backpack and phone were there, her purse, which
[30:21] contained her wallet, credit cards, driver's license and
[30:25] keys, was gone. The items left behind suggested
[30:30] she had come home to stay, while the items that were missing
[30:33] suggested she had left again. The investigation was
[30:38] immediately Hanford by two critical losses of potential
[30:41] evidence, one a matter of bad luck and the other a tragic
[30:45] misunderstanding. Investigators theorized that
[30:48] Cindy, finding herself home after a night of drinking, might
[30:52] have decided to walk to a nearby 24 hour supermarket for a late
[30:56] night snack. It was a plausible idea, but by
[31:00] the time police went to the store to check, the window of
[31:03] opportunity had closed, the store's security camera system
[31:08] recorded on a loop, and the tapes from the morning of
[31:11] November 1st had already been recorded over.
[31:15] This routine activity erased what might have been the last
[31:18] images of Cindy or a potential abductor.
[31:23] Compounding this loss was a well-intentioned but devastating
[31:26] act. Shortly after the police
[31:29] conducted their initial search of the apartment, Cindy's
[31:32] grieving parents arrived. Unfamiliar with American law
[31:36] enforcement procedures and overwhelmed by their
[31:39] circumstances, they cleaned their daughter's apartment.
[31:43] In doing so, they potentially erased any subtle forensic clues
[31:48] that might have been left behind, as a forensic team had
[31:51] yet to go over the scene with a fine tooth comb.
[31:55] These two events, the erase tapes, and the clean department
[32:00] created an information vacuum in the crucial first 48 hours of
[32:04] the case. The trail went cold almost
[32:07] before the search had truly begun.
[32:11] With no physical evidence to guide them, investigators had to
[32:15] rely on tips. A few days into the
[32:17] investigation, a startling one came from nearly 200 miles away
[32:22] in Philadelphia. An eyewitness claimed to have
[32:25] seen a young woman who looked like Cindy in the city's
[32:28] Chinatown district. According to the witness, the
[32:32] woman was in a car with a man, visibly distressed, crying and
[32:37] yelling for help. The witness even provided a
[32:41] description of the man, described as being Asian and
[32:45] having a medium build, an olive to light brown complexion and
[32:49] medium length dark hair. This account was compelling
[32:53] enough for police to create a composite sketch, which was then
[32:57] circulated to the public. For a moment, it seemed like a
[33:01] major break, a tangible clue in a case that had none.
[33:08] Unfortunately, the promising lead soon dissolved under
[33:11] scrutiny. As police interviewed the
[33:13] eyewitness further, her story began to change and key details
[33:18] shifted, including the age of the woman who was seen.
[33:23] Investigators were ultimately unable to verify any part of her
[33:26] account, and the credibility of the tip collapsed.
[33:30] The consensus became that it was likely a tragic case of mistaken
[33:34] identity, or perhaps even someone who wanted to insert
[33:38] themselves into an investigation with a fake tip.
[33:42] Notably, this isn't that unlikely given that Cindy Song's
[33:45] disappearance had become quite a high profile case.
[33:51] For two years the case remained frozen until one day in 2003
[33:55] when everything appeared to change.
[33:57] The break came from an unlikely source, a career criminal named
[34:01] Paul Weekley, who was facing felony charges and looking to
[34:05] make a deal. He told investigators A
[34:08] horrifying story involving 2 of his criminal pals.
[34:12] He claimed that Hugo Zelensky and Michael Krakowski had
[34:15] abducted and slain a young, attractive Asian woman from
[34:19] State College. Weekly's account included
[34:22] chilling details suggesting the men had kidnapped the woman and
[34:26] held her captive for a period before ultimately slaying her.
[34:31] For investigators who had nothing, this was the most
[34:34] significant lead they had ever received.
[34:38] Acting on Weekly's information, police from Centre County
[34:42] traveled to Lucerne County to execute a search warrant on Hugo
[34:45] Solinsky's six acre property. What they found there defied
[34:49] imagination, and it turned out the backyard was a clandestine
[34:53] cemetery. Investigators began unearthing
[34:57] human remains, some of which had been burned in a makeshift pit
[35:01] in an attempt to destroy evidence.
[35:04] Initially, 5 bodies were recovered, but a later grand
[35:08] jury report suggested the total number could be as high as 12.
[35:12] The discovery confirmed that Zelenski wasn't just a small
[35:15] time criminal, he was a monstrous and prolific serial
[35:19] predator. Weekly's credibility soared, and
[35:24] the proof was right there, buried in these makeshift
[35:27] graves. Among the remains, police
[35:31] identified 2 of the individuals he had named, Michael Kurkowski,
[35:36] one of Cindy's alleged abductors, and Kurkowski's
[35:39] girlfriend, Tammy Fassett. The discovery of this mass grave
[35:44] instantly made the story about a random college student's
[35:47] abduction seemed terrifyingly plausible.
[35:52] Here, however, the case slams into its most enduring wall.
[35:56] While Weekly's testimony LED police to a mass grave and
[36:00] ultimately helped secure a 2015 conviction against Hugo Zelensky
[36:04] for other slayings, there was one problem.
[36:08] Despite extensive searches of Zelensky's property,
[36:11] investigators found absolutely no evidence whatsoever related
[36:15] to Cindy Song. Furthermore, Weekly's motives
[36:19] and methods came under question. Investigators discovered that he
[36:23] had been extensively researching Cindy's case online before
[36:27] coming forward. This suggested he could have
[36:30] woven details of a famous unsolved disappearance into his
[36:33] true confessions to make his testimony more valuable.
[36:39] During Solinsky's trial, Weekly himself admitted on the stand
[36:43] that he had repeatedly lied to investigators in his initial
[36:46] interviews in an effort to minimize his own role in the
[36:49] crimes. This creates the central paradox
[36:53] of the Cindy Song case. Paul Weekly can't be entirely
[36:56] dismissed as a liar because his information led to the discovery
[37:00] of multiple victims. Yet he cannot be fully trusted
[37:04] because ultimately he's an admitted liar who researched the
[37:08] case and had a powerful incentive to fabricate parts of
[37:11] his story. This contradiction has left the
[37:16] investigation in a state of permanent limbo.
[37:20] Hugo Solinsky, now serving a life sentence, remains the
[37:24] primary person of interest, but without any direct evidence, the
[37:28] theory remains entirely unproven.
[37:33] While Cindy is officially still considered a missing person, she
[37:37] is presumed to have been slain despite her body never having
[37:40] been found. In 2013, a small measure of hope
[37:45] came through science when the authorities obtained DNA samples
[37:49] from Cindy's biological parents. Those samples were entered into
[37:53] national databases for missing persons and unidentified
[37:56] remains, a final desperate measure to find a match
[38:00] somewhere. Cindy's case file has never been
[38:05] closed, and her case remains an open and active investigation.
[38:09] Notably, her disappearance left such a mark on the community and
[38:13] the department that it was a key factor in the creation of a
[38:16] dedicated cold case task force. My theory on this one is simple.
[38:23] It wasn't Zelensky and Weekly lied to try to get a better
[38:27] deal. We know that Weekly was
[38:29] thoroughly researching Cindy's case prior to her disappearance.
[38:34] This wasn't just him confirming the facts, because he came to
[38:37] the cops and advised that Zelensky and his associate had
[38:41] slain a young Asian woman around that time.
[38:44] He tried to pass it off as if he knew nothing about Cindy's case,
[38:48] despite having fully researched all the public information prior
[38:51] to going to the authorities. My personal theory on this one
[38:57] is that this was a random abduction by a predatory
[39:00] stranger who was cruising the streets of a college town on
[39:04] Halloween night. While I can't prove it, of
[39:07] course, this makes a lot more sense to me than the Zelensky
[39:10] theory, since none of the hard evidence matches up with him.
[39:18] For four years, the identity of a teenage girl discovered in
[39:22] rural Texas remained a mystery. In June 2021, a property owner
[39:28] in Wharton County stumbled upon skeletal remains in a secluded,
[39:32] brushy area off County Road 225. The victim had been shot
[39:38] multiple times in the head and with no name and few clues, she
[39:42] became known only as the Wharton County Jane Doe.
[39:45] It wasn't until June 2025 that authorities finally gave her a
[39:50] name. She was 16 year old Jaime
[39:53] Makiela Beltran. This revelation cracked open a
[39:57] chilling story of her disappearance and slaying and
[40:00] marked the beginning of the end of a long running cold case.
[40:05] Jaime Beltran was last seen in April 2021 in her hometown of
[40:10] Houston, TX. She was just 16, but despite
[40:15] this. Her sudden absence initially
[40:17] raised little alarm. In fact, her mother did not
[40:21] report Yami missing until 15 days later.
[40:24] According to unverified accounts, the delay happened
[40:28] because Yami's mother received a disturbing phone call informing
[40:32] her that her daughter had been slain and she was in fear.
[40:38] On June 18th, 2021, about two months after Yami disappeared,
[40:44] her remains were found in Wharton County, roughly an
[40:47] hour's drive from Houston. A local landowner clearing brush
[40:51] came upon a human skeleton in an isolated field near Hungerford.
[40:57] Investigators noted that the body had been left exposed to
[41:00] the elements with no attempt at burial.
[41:03] The Fort Bend County Medical Examiner determined that the
[41:06] Jane Doe had died from multiple gunshot wounds to the head and
[41:10] had likely been dead for several weeks or more.
[41:14] Because of advanced decomposition, even basic
[41:17] details like her ethnicity couldn't be determined, but she
[41:20] was thought to be of white, Hispanic or mixed Native
[41:24] American heritage. Investigators found a few
[41:28] poignant clues with the body. The unknown girl was wearing a
[41:32] Gray shirt emblazoned with the word Ohana and a picture of
[41:37] Stitch, the Disney cartoon character.
[41:41] She also wore shorts printed with coffee mugs and doughnuts
[41:45] and a lightweight tan hooded jacket.
[41:47] On her fingers were 3 silver rings, one with two entwined
[41:52] hearts and two others with Whitestone settings.
[41:56] These personal items were carefully photographed and
[41:59] shared with the public in hopes that someone might recognize
[42:02] them. Despite these efforts, no
[42:05] immediate match was made to a missing person.
[42:08] The mystery girl did not correspond to any open case in
[42:11] Wharton County, which puzzled local officials.
[42:15] Investigators strongly considered that the victim might
[42:18] not be local at all. She was thought to likely be a
[42:22] trafficking victim or run away from far away whose family had
[42:26] no idea what happened. For nearly four years, the Jane
[42:32] Doe remained unidentified and the case went cold.
[42:36] The breakthrough finally came in mid 2025, when advances in DNA
[42:40] analysis and persistent detective work put the puzzle
[42:44] pieces together. Yami's mother had provided ADNA
[42:48] sample, which was uploaded to CODIS in June 2025.
[42:54] Specialists at the University of North Texas Center for Human
[42:57] Identification in Fort Worth managed to match the
[43:01] unidentified remains to Yami's mother nearly four years after
[43:05] her body was found. This 16 year old girl was no
[43:08] longer anonymous. Yami's family in Houston had no
[43:13] idea that the unidentified girl found in the next county was
[43:17] their missing daughter and had never heard of the case before.
[43:21] Presumably, had the case received wider attention, her
[43:25] identity may have been given back to her earlier since she
[43:29] had a lot of identifying items with her.
[43:33] Identifying Yami answered the biggest question, who was the
[43:37] victim? But it also raised an obvious
[43:39] urgent follow up question. Once her name was known, a
[43:44] harrowing narrative of Yami's final moments emerged.
[43:49] According to a witness, a female friend of Yami's, her demise was
[43:53] not a random crime, but an act of betrayal by an older predator
[43:59] who was claiming to be her boyfriend.
[44:02] On the night she disappeared in April 2021, Yami was riding in a
[44:07] vehicle with her 27 year old quote UN quote boyfriend, Luis
[44:12] Omar Beltran Mendoza. The friend was also in the
[44:15] vehicle and they were heading down Interstate 45 near Houston.
[44:20] At some point, an argument erupted.
[44:23] Beltran Mendoza allegedly struck Yami in the face while driving.
[44:29] Yami, wounded and furious, threatened to report him to
[44:33] police for unspecified crimes he had been involved in.
[44:37] That threat proved fatal, and Beltran Mendoza pulled out a gun
[44:41] and shot Yami 3 times in the head at point blank range.
[44:48] Beltran Mendoza then threatened to eliminate the other young
[44:51] woman as well. He drove to a rural spot,
[44:55] presumably the field in Wharton County, and dumped Yami's body.
[45:00] The terrified friend was held captive by him for a few days
[45:03] before he finally let her go, warning her not to tell anyone.
[45:07] Traumatized and fearing for her life, she initially stayed
[45:11] silent. It was only later that this
[45:14] witness bravely came forward and told police everything, even
[45:18] identifying Beltran Mendoza in a photo lineup.
[45:22] Her testimony gave investigators a clear picture of what happened
[45:25] to Yami and who was responsible. And I know there's going to be
[45:31] someone in the comments who will question why this friend waited
[45:33] so long to come forward, but we really don't know what Mendoza
[45:37] subjected her to over the course of her captivity and further
[45:41] yet, she knew he was capable of extreme violence.
[45:46] Also, reading between the lines, I'm going to guess that this
[45:49] witness was likely a minor as well.
[45:54] On August 7th, 2025, a Texas grand jury formally charged the
[45:59] 27 year old with Yemi's slaying, but by the time the indictment
[46:03] was issued, Beltran Mendoza had vanished.
[46:07] Now a wanted fugitive, he remains on the run and has yet
[46:10] to be apprehended. Beltran Mendoza is originally
[46:14] from Mexico, which has fueled speculation that he may have
[46:18] fled the country to avoid capture in the wake of this
[46:20] crime. What began as a nameless mystery
[46:25] has become a quest for justice, and investigators remain
[46:28] determined to catch Beltran Mendoza and hold him
[46:32] accountable. On an August morning in 1971, a
[46:39] father and son travelling along Oregon's Redwood Hwy. stumbled
[46:43] upon a horrifying discovery in the woods near the California
[46:47] border. They found the scattered
[46:49] skeletal remains of a young woman.
[46:52] The area was littered with trash, as if it were an illegal
[46:56] dump site, and it looked like someone had tried to conceal the
[47:00] body under debris. No one knew who this girl was,
[47:04] how she had perished, or why she was left in a lonely patch of
[47:08] forest. It took nearly 50 years for
[47:11] modern genetic sleuthing to finally identify her as Annie
[47:15] Marie Lehman, but learning her name is only the beginning, and
[47:20] what happened to Annie in 1971 remains unsolved.
[47:27] Annie Lehman was a 16 year old girl from Aberdeen, WA who
[47:30] vanished under fairly murky circumstances in early 1971.
[47:35] One day she was seen at home packing her bags, and when her
[47:39] sister asked where she was going, Annie advised that she
[47:42] was leaving with an older woman who was waiting outside.
[47:46] That older woman was later tracked down and allegedly told
[47:50] a relative that Annie had been taken to San Francisco and sold
[47:54] into a trafficking ring. Whether this story was true or
[47:59] just a rumor, it left Annie's family terrified for her fate.
[48:04] And stop me if you've heard this one before.
[48:07] Authorities assumed Annie left by choice and didn't launch any
[48:10] search for her, as was the style at the time.
[48:15] Seriously, I feel like I can just copy and paste that line
[48:18] into my scripts 90% of the time. When a teen went missing in the
[48:22] 60s or 70s. On August 18th, 1971, only a few
[48:29] months after Annie left home, the travelers discovered a human
[48:32] skeleton in Josephine County, Oregon, just outside the town of
[48:36] Cave Junction. Investigators determined the
[48:40] remains were a female in her late teens or early 20s, likely
[48:44] deceased for several months. Notably, she also wore two
[48:48] rings, including one with a mother of Pearl stone into which
[48:52] the letters AL had been scratched.
[48:55] This haunting clue would only fully make sense decades later
[48:59] when those turned out to be the victim's initials.
[49:04] Investigators also found a disintegrating road map of
[49:07] Northern California camping areas stuffed in the girl's
[49:10] pocket. This suggested the unknown young
[49:13] woman might have been traveling toward California.
[49:17] From the condition of the scene, police strongly suspected foul
[49:20] play. The body's hidden placement and
[49:23] the remote location indicated that someone may have dumped her
[49:26] there intentionally after eliminating her elsewhere.
[49:31] Unfortunately, due to the skeletal state of the remains,
[49:35] the medical examiner couldn't determine an exact cause of
[49:38] death. With no identification and no
[49:43] obvious cause, the case was difficult from the start.
[49:47] Police checked missing persons reports and sent descriptions of
[49:50] the victim and her clothing across the region, but no match
[49:53] was made. By the end of the 1970's, the
[49:57] Jane Doe case went cold and the victim remained unidentified for
[50:01] decades. In August 2004, cold case
[50:07] detectives reopened the file and used new forensic methods to try
[50:11] to identify her. In an absolutely bizarre
[50:14] coincidence, they released a facial reconstruction of the
[50:18] victim, and to help her case be more relatable, they named her
[50:23] the Jane Annie Doe. Of course, at the time, the
[50:26] investigators had no idea that Annie was actually her name.
[50:30] The reconstructed face was publicized, generating a few
[50:34] tips, but nothing that led to a name.
[50:40] In 2016, another approach was tried, forensic isotope analysis
[50:45] of the girl's hair and teeth. The isotope tests suggested a
[50:50] possible upbringing in the northeastern United States.
[50:54] This clue led to some false leads, but ultimately it proved
[50:58] to be a dead end. Annie was actually from
[51:01] Washington, not New England, and there's no record of her having
[51:05] ever even visited the Northeast. The real breakthrough came from
[51:11] cutting edge genetic genealogy. In 2018, the nonprofit DNA Dough
[51:17] Project took on this Jane Doe as one of its cold cases.
[51:22] Technicians extracted DNA from the old bone samples, though the
[51:26] genetic material was highly degraded by decades of storage.
[51:31] They were able to find family members in the UK and New
[51:34] Zealand and eventually use those hits to construct the family
[51:38] tree out. In early 2019, these connections
[51:42] were used to find a woman in Washington state who turned out
[51:46] to be the sister of the Jane Doe, and she gave ADNA sample
[51:50] for testing. In March 2019, it was confirmed
[51:57] that the Jane Doe, nicknamed Annie, was indeed Annie Lehman
[52:01] of Aberdeen, WA. With Annie identified,
[52:06] investigators turned to the bigger question of what actually
[52:08] happened to her. One possibility is that Annie
[52:12] left Aberdeen of her own accord and headed South, only to fall
[52:16] prey to foul play along the way. The map of California
[52:20] campgrounds in her pocket supports the idea that she was
[52:23] traveling toward California. She may have hitchhiked or
[52:27] gotten a ride with someone dangerous.
[52:30] If Annie was on the road and encountered a predator, that
[52:33] could explain how she ended up hidden in a rural area off the
[52:37] highway, far from home. During the early 1970s, it
[52:42] wasn't unheard of for hitchhiking teenagers to come to
[52:45] harm at the hands of opportunistic predators, and
[52:48] Annie may have been one such unfortunate victim.
[52:52] Also, I'm sure it won't come as a surprise to any of you
[52:55] watching, but California and the Pacific Northwest were a massive
[53:00] hotbed for serial predators during this period.
[53:05] The other main theory is based on the troubling account from
[53:08] her family that Annie was effectively trafficked.
[53:12] In this scenario, the unknown older woman who accompanied her
[53:17] was an accomplice who delivered Annie into the hands of a
[53:20] criminal organization. According to the second hand
[53:24] story shared with Annie's relatives, she was sold into an
[53:27] illicit operation in San Francisco.
[53:30] If that story is factual, Annie might have been held against her
[53:34] will and harmed by those who exploited her.
[53:38] Her slaying could have occurred at the hands of traffickers, and
[53:41] they may have dumped her body in the Oregon woods while moving
[53:45] along a route between Washington and California.
[53:50] Investigators acknowledge both scenarios as potentially true,
[53:54] though they haven't provided much further insight than that.
[53:58] What they've let the public know is that Annie's passing
[54:01] definitely did involve foul play.
[54:04] Authorities continue to gather information in hopes of proving
[54:07] one of the theories and ultimately finding out who was
[54:11] responsible for Annie's demise. More than 50 years have passed
[54:17] since Annie Lehman's life was cut short, but the case remains
[54:21] open and unsolved. The identification of her
[54:24] remains in 2019 was a major victory, but it's only the first
[54:29] step. IN2021A crew of tree planters
[54:37] working in a remote Washington forest made a grim discovery a
[54:41] human skull with multiple bullet holes.
[54:44] For four years, the identity of this John Doe remained unknown
[54:49] until cutting edge forensics finally put a name to the
[54:52] remains in 2025. The skull belonged to Anthony
[54:56] Kroy, a young man who had vanished from Portland, OR
[55:00] nearly 3 decades earlier. Anthony Kroy was 21 years old
[55:07] when he disappeared from the Portland area in late 1995.
[55:11] Known to friends by the nickname T-bone, Kroy was a talented
[55:15] tattoo artist. By the summer of 1995, Kroy was
[55:20] living a transient lifestyle, couch surfing and staying in
[55:23] cheap motels with friends while trying to get by.
[55:27] Perhaps the last confirmed sighting of Kroy was in August
[55:30] or September 1995 at a motel in Northeast Portland.
[55:36] He had been staying there with two friends, but when those
[55:39] friends left, Kroy remained behind and was never seen by his
[55:43] loved ones again. Kroy's friends and family
[55:47] reported his disappearance to the police, however, as an adult
[55:52] with a somewhat nomadic lifestyle, authorities initially
[55:55] suspected he might have left on his own.
[55:59] However, Kroy's family never believed he would willingly drop
[56:02] out of touch, and indeed all records of his life seemed to
[56:05] abruptly stop in 1995. Fast forward to April 26th, 2021
[56:15] in a remote wooded area near Lake Merrill in Cougar,
[56:18] Washington, when a crew planting trees for a logging company
[56:21] stumbled upon a human skull. Detectives from the Cowlitz
[56:26] County Sheriff's Office responded and noted 2 entry and
[56:30] two exit holes in the skull, clear evidence that this
[56:33] individual hadn't perished of natural causes.
[56:37] This gruesome find kicked off a new investigation, but the
[56:41] immediate challenge was identifying the victim.
[56:44] A search of the area on May 15th, 2021, aided by sniffer
[56:50] dogs, uncovered A femur bone, but no personal belongings or
[56:55] identification were found. The partial remains were
[56:59] designated as an unidentified John Doe case and initially
[57:03] yielded few clues and the case went cold in 2025.
[57:10] With traditional methods exhausted, the Cowlitz County
[57:13] Sheriff's Office turned to advanced genetic genealogy as a
[57:17] last resort. To identify the remains,
[57:20] investigators submitted adna extract from the bones to
[57:23] Othrum, who identified a potential relative who turned
[57:28] out to be the sibling of the John Doe.
[57:31] With this information, the unidentified remains were
[57:34] officially those of Anthony Matthew Kroy, born December 4th,
[57:39] 1973. Nearly 30 years after Kroy's
[57:43] disappearance, his family finally had an answer about his
[57:46] fate. Authorities announced the
[57:49] identification in early September 2025 and
[57:53] unsurprisingly, noted that the investigation into his
[57:56] disappearance would now be investigated as a slaying.
[58:02] Given how recently he's been identified, there hasn't been
[58:05] much time for theories to form about the case yet, but a few
[58:09] things are known. Investigators know where Kroy's
[58:12] body ended up and have a general time frame of when he perished.
[58:17] The fact that he was last seen at a Portland motel before
[58:20] presumably being shot and dumped in rural Washington is a
[58:24] critical clue. This suggests the perpetrator
[58:27] may have transported him out of the city after slaying him
[58:30] there. Given Kroy's social circle and
[58:35] transient habits, investigators will likely attempt to interview
[58:39] old friends and associates to find anyone with a possible
[58:42] motive to harm him. However, given the lifestyle he
[58:47] was living, and given that there was no meaningful initial
[58:50] investigation done, this may be extremely difficult at this
[58:54] point. On a warm Sunday in July 2001,
[58:59] just three weeks before her planned wedding, 28 year old
[59:03] Nicky McCown dropped off the face of the earth and has never
[59:06] been seen again. Earlier that day, she had
[59:10] attended church with her fiance and 9 year old daughter and was
[59:14] working through her list of wedding errands.
[59:17] That afternoon, Nikki headed out alone to do laundry, a routine
[59:22] chore on an ordinary day. But at the laundromat, two men
[59:27] started harassing her, making her uncomfortable enough that
[59:30] she left her clothes in the dryer and rushed back to her
[59:34] mother's nearby home. After venting to her mother
[59:37] about the threatening men, Nikki refused to abandon her laundry.
[59:42] Figuring that these two were unlikely to actually do anything
[59:45] to her in broad daylight, she decided to quickly retrieve her
[59:49] clothes and finish washing them at home, then continue preparing
[59:53] for her fast approaching wedding.
[59:56] With that, Nikki headed out again, and she never returned.
[1:00:00] Her sudden disappearance left her large, tight knit family in
[1:00:03] shock and her community grasping for answers.
[1:00:08] How could a beloved mother? Daughter and bride to be simply
[1:00:13] vanish in broad daylight. Over 2 decades later, the case
[1:00:19] of Nicky McCown remains unsolved and haunting.
[1:00:24] Nicky McCown was a 28 year old mother and the youngest of ten
[1:00:28] siblings in a big, loving family.
[1:00:31] She worked as an accounting clerk at a Correctional Facility
[1:00:34] in Dayton, OH and was taking college classes with dreams of
[1:00:38] becoming AUS Marshall. By the summer of 2001, Nikki was
[1:00:43] engaged to her high school sweetheart, Bobby Webster, and
[1:00:47] eagerly planning their wedding that was just weeks away.
[1:00:51] Family and friends described Nikki as kind, funny and
[1:00:55] determined, A perfectionist who put her heart into her career,
[1:00:59] her daughter and her upcoming marriage.
[1:01:02] By all accounts, she was in a great place in life and excited
[1:01:06] for the future. But Nikki was also harboring a
[1:01:10] dark secret that may be the key to cracking this case wide open.
[1:01:15] Something I'll come to in a moment.
[1:01:19] Those who knew Nikki also insist she would never have left on her
[1:01:23] own. She was deeply devoted to her
[1:01:26] family and responsibilities, so when she failed to return home
[1:01:30] on July 22nd, 2001, it raised immediate red flags.
[1:01:36] That Sunday evening, Nikki didn't pick up her daughter or
[1:01:39] call anyone, behaviors completely out of character for
[1:01:43] her. As night fell with no word from
[1:01:46] Nikki, her mother and sisters grew frantic.
[1:01:50] By the next morning, they went to the Richmond Police to report
[1:01:54] Nikki missing, desperate to start the search for her.
[1:01:59] After Nikki went missing, some key events have added to the
[1:02:02] mystery of her case. On July 25th, 2001, with Nikki
[1:02:08] still missing, her fiance Bobby Webster cancelled their upcoming
[1:02:14] wedding. I'll get to this more in a
[1:02:16] moment, but this made him look very suspicious to a lot of
[1:02:20] people, even though it turned out he had a really great
[1:02:24] explanation for it. On November 3rd, 2001, nearly
[1:02:30] four months later, Nikki's vehicle was found abandoned at
[1:02:34] an apartment complex in Dayton, OH.
[1:02:37] The truck's door lock was punched in, the ignition was
[1:02:40] tampered with, and the battery and stereo had been removed.
[1:02:45] Inside, police discovered 2 baskets of Nikki's clean, folded
[1:02:49] laundry, the same clothes she had been washing.
[1:02:53] The complex was the very place where Nikki's ex-boyfriend lives
[1:02:57] and where she had once lived with him.
[1:03:00] Again, I'll get to this more in a moment.
[1:03:05] On February 3rd, 2010, almost nine years later, a grand jury
[1:03:11] indicted Nikki's former Co worker Tommy Swint for an
[1:03:14] unrelated 1991 slaying in Dayton.
[1:03:18] As officers moved to arrest him that day, Swint ended up doing
[1:03:22] The Dirty work himself and can no longer be charged with
[1:03:25] anything. But let's get back to the
[1:03:29] immediate investigation for a moment.
[1:03:33] From the outset, Nikki Mccown's loved ones and the police
[1:03:36] suspected foul play. Investigators considered several
[1:03:40] suspects and scenarios, from strangers at the laundromat to
[1:03:44] those closest to Nikki. The two unknown men who had
[1:03:47] harassed her at the laundromat were briefly persons of
[1:03:50] interest, but surveillance footage showed Nikki leaving the
[1:03:53] laundromat safely and alone. They conclude that it was
[1:03:57] unlikely they abducted her in broad daylight, but despite
[1:04:01] efforts, those men were never identified.
[1:04:07] Attention then turned toward Nikki's inner circle.
[1:04:10] Her fiance, Bobby Webster, faced intense scrutiny.
[1:04:14] As is common in cases like this, Bobby's behavior after Nikki's
[1:04:19] disappearance raised eyebrows. Within days, he cancelled their
[1:04:24] wedding and attempted to get refunds for the venue and other
[1:04:27] expenses. He even pawned the wedding
[1:04:30] rings, amongst other activities, which were viewed as unseemly.
[1:04:34] When questioned by police, Bobby explained he needed the money to
[1:04:38] fund search efforts. But to Nikki's family, his
[1:04:41] actions seemed oddly hasty. Investigators had him take a
[1:04:45] polygraph test, and according to police, he didn't pass.
[1:04:50] However, there was no physical evidence linking Bobby to
[1:04:53] Nikki's fate, and his alibi on July 22nd was solid.
[1:04:59] Notably, in time, authorities announced that Bobby was no
[1:05:03] longer a suspect. They accepted that he had
[1:05:06] cancelled everything so that he could free up funds to help the
[1:05:09] search for Nikki, which, quite frankly, is the right thing to
[1:05:13] do in this instance. Another person in Nikki's life
[1:05:19] came under scrutiny due to a startling discovery.
[1:05:22] When Nikki's truck was found in Dayton, it was parked at the
[1:05:25] apartment complex of her former boyfriend, the father of her
[1:05:29] daughter. This coincidence initially
[1:05:32] raised suspicions. Could there have been an
[1:05:35] altercation or unresolved issues with her ex?
[1:05:38] Police looked into it, but the ex-boyfriend had a rock solid
[1:05:42] alibi as he was at work at the time Nikki went missing and he
[1:05:46] voluntarily submitted to a polygraph test.
[1:05:50] According to reports. He was extremely helpful and was
[1:05:54] willing to do anything he could to help this investigation.
[1:05:58] After all, the mother of his child was missing, and if he
[1:06:02] really had nothing to do with it, it makes sense that he would
[1:06:05] go above and beyond with nothing tying him to the case.
[1:06:10] He was effectively cleared as a suspect early on, though at that
[1:06:13] time nothing explained how her vehicle was so close to where he
[1:06:17] lived. The investigation reached a
[1:06:21] turning point when a secret love triangle came to light.
[1:06:25] Months into the case, Nikki's sister revealed that Nikki had
[1:06:29] been seeing a Co worker named Tommy Swint on the side.
[1:06:33] This was a huge development. Bobby had been unaware of the
[1:06:37] relationship, and it introduced a new potential motive and
[1:06:41] suspect. Tommy Swint was a former
[1:06:44] corrections officer who worked with Nikki at the prison.
[1:06:47] In fact, Swint had been quietly considered a person of interest
[1:06:51] since shortly after Nikki vanished.
[1:06:53] But now the evidence of an actual affair gave more weight
[1:06:57] to that suspicion. By all accounts, Tommy Swint's
[1:07:02] interest in Nikki was obsessive and unhealthy.
[1:07:06] He had a history of overstepping boundaries with her.
[1:07:09] For instance, he once sent lingerie as a quote UN quote
[1:07:13] gift to Nikki's home ahead of her wedding, which greatly upset
[1:07:17] her. On another occasion, one of
[1:07:20] Nikki's sisters found Swint at Nikki's house uninvited, and it
[1:07:24] appeared he might have been trying to assault Nikki.
[1:07:27] Though he played it off as a joke, these incidents were
[1:07:30] alarming in hindsight and suggested that Swint was
[1:07:33] dangerously fixated on her. Detectives digging into Swint
[1:07:39] learned more troubling facts. Swint lived in the Dayton area,
[1:07:44] not far from where Nikki's truck was recovered.
[1:07:47] It also came to light that on the day she went missing, Nikki
[1:07:50] had phoned a Co worker in Dayton about a beauty product, possibly
[1:07:54] indicating plans to visit a store there.
[1:07:58] This fueled a theory that Nikki might have driven to Dayton
[1:08:01] willingly, perhaps to meet someone or run an errand, and
[1:08:05] then encountered foul play. Swint, being in that area and
[1:08:09] eager to see her, could have arranged to meet her under
[1:08:12] fairly innocent pretenses. As the years went by, Tommy
[1:08:19] Swint remained a key suspect, but always just out of reach.
[1:08:24] Disturbingly, in 2007, he even became a police officer in a
[1:08:28] nearby Ohio town, concealing his connection to Nikki's case.
[1:08:33] He resigned once the department learned about it, since he
[1:08:36] failed to disclose that he was a suspect in an ongoing
[1:08:39] disappearance investigation. Then in 2010, a breakthrough in
[1:08:46] an unrelated cold case put Swint in the spotlight again.
[1:08:50] DNA evidence linked him to the unsolved 1991 slaying of a woman
[1:08:54] in Dayton, leading to an indictment.
[1:08:58] But before police could arrest him, Swint decided he was boned
[1:09:03] and just flat out blasted himself.
[1:09:06] With his death, authorities lost the chance to get answers
[1:09:09] directly from him. To this day, police publicly
[1:09:13] considered Tommy Swint the prime suspect in Nicky Mccown's
[1:09:16] disappearance, but no charges can ever be filed.
[1:09:23] Over time, several explanations have been put forward for Nicky
[1:09:26] Mccown's disappearance. The most prominent theory
[1:09:29] centers on Tommy Swint, of course, since he was a predator
[1:09:33] who was heavily fixated on her. Many in law enforcement and
[1:09:37] Nicky's family suspect that Swint lured Nicky to Dayton
[1:09:40] under false pretenses and harmed her, possibly as an act of
[1:09:45] jealousy or revenge. The evidence is largely
[1:09:48] circumstantial but compelling. Swint's obsessive behavior
[1:09:52] toward Nikki, the location of her abandoned vehicle, and the
[1:09:56] fact that he later turned out to be a violent offender are all
[1:10:00] factors in favor of the Swint theory.
[1:10:03] It's theorized that he may have left Nikki's vehicle at her ex
[1:10:06] boyfriend's apartment complex to throw off investigators.
[1:10:11] It's believed that Swint was familiar with where the
[1:10:13] ex-boyfriend lived, given that Nikki would have to drop her kid
[1:10:18] off at the apartment at various times.
[1:10:21] Tommy Swint was believed to be in the habit of stalking Nikki,
[1:10:25] so it seems highly unlikely he wouldn't have known this
[1:10:27] location. Unfortunately, if Swint was
[1:10:31] indeed responsible, his death in 2010 means he took any secrets
[1:10:36] about Nikki's fate to his grave. Another theory, considered early
[1:10:42] in the case, was that Nikki's fiance might have been involved.
[1:10:46] Bobby's supposedly unusual actions in the aftermath fueled
[1:10:50] speculation that he might know more than he let on.
[1:10:53] However, no concrete evidence ever linked Bobby to the
[1:10:56] disappearance. Those close to Nikki have mixed
[1:11:00] feelings. Some initially wondered about
[1:11:02] Bobby, but others defend him and point out that he cooperated
[1:11:06] fully and genuinely seemed heartbroken.
[1:11:11] That said, those who are convinced that he was in on it
[1:11:14] believe that he may have had motive when he found out that
[1:11:17] she had been unfaithful to him. This could also explain why he
[1:11:21] immediately moved to cancel the wedding right after the
[1:11:23] disappearance. However, there's no evidence
[1:11:27] whatsoever that Bobby even knew about the affair, and unlike the
[1:11:31] prime suspect, he doesn't come with a history of violence
[1:11:35] attached to him. Importantly, Bobby has been
[1:11:40] cleared as a suspect and is not believed to be involved in
[1:11:44] Nikki's disappearance in any capacity and has never been
[1:11:47] charged in relation to any offense.
[1:11:50] Further, even if he was responsible, which there's no
[1:11:54] evidence whatsoever to suggest he was, Bobby passed away in
[1:11:58] 2021. Bobby kept in contact with
[1:12:02] Nikki's family throughout the years and remained involved in
[1:12:06] her search, and reading between the lines, it appears that he
[1:12:10] never really got over her loss. There is also the possibility
[1:12:16] that Nikki fell victim to a stranger's violence, perhaps
[1:12:19] even those unidentified men who harassed her at the laundromat.
[1:12:24] Yet, given that she left the laundromat safely and there were
[1:12:27] no signs of a struggle at that location, this scenario has no
[1:12:31] clear supporting evidence. It remains an unsettling
[1:12:35] unknown. That said, it's a very odd
[1:12:38] coincidence that the harassment incident happened right before
[1:12:41] she disappeared. As of today, Nikki McCown
[1:12:46] remains missing, and her case is classified as an unsolved
[1:12:50] disappearance and a likely slaying.
[1:12:53] Her family has never stopped searching for answers, with
[1:12:56] billboards regularly going up asking for information on her
[1:13:00] whereabouts and prayer vigils to raise awareness.
[1:13:04] Until new evidence or witnesses emerge, the disappearance of
[1:13:07] Nicky McCown remains a haunting mystery that begs to be solved.

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