Latest / Gone Cold - Texas True Crime / The Murder of Father Patrick Ryan Part 2: Grave Danger

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The Murder of Father Patrick Ryan Part 2: Grave Danger · Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

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In this episode, we briefly discuss the unsolved murder of father Rainaldo Rivera in
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New Mexico. I cannot recommend strongly enough that you listen to our friend Eric's
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coverage of that case on his podcast, True Consequences. For those of you
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who don't know, True Consequences largely covers unsolved cases out of New Mexico and
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is presented with a great respect and empathy. Eric has experienced the fight for
0:30
justice firsthand. The writing and research team at True Consequences is top notch,
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and again I highly recommend you check out their coverage of the Father Rivera case
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and all the other excellent and important episodes there share these unsolved cases. Folks.
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It's an incredibly important part of raising awareness and the reason gone cold and
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our friends at True Consequences do what we do. Thanks. I'm going to
1:02
hazard a guess and say that a vast majority of you folks love Girl Scout
1:06
cookies. Well, a very special little girl we know is trying to make
1:11
it to Girl Scout Diva Camp this year. If you're in the market for
1:15
some Girl Scout cookies, please consider clicking on the link in the show notes
1:19
and placing your order. From there. You can even get the new Raspberry
1:25
rallies, this year's online exclusive cookie, and if you get nine boxes or
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more, shipping is half off. If you happen to place an order,
1:34
send a screenshot of your invoice to Goncold podcast at gmail dot com and we'll
1:38
send you some goncold swag as a thank you. Now onto the episode.
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The Goncold Podcast may contain violent or graphics subject matter. Listener discretion is advised.
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As the year turned to nineteen eighty two, police in Odessa, Texas
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or no closer to identify the murderer of forty nine year old father Patrick Ryan.
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He was killed at the Sand and Sage, a CD motel off the
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city's main drag, just a few days before Christmas nineteen eighty one. Not
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only did his parishioners and colleagues wish for swift justice for its own sake,
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but also the longer the perpetrator eluded the law, the greater the chance that
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more folks were in grave danger. It was more than the May thirteenth,
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nineteen eighty one attempted assassination of Pope John Paul the Second that had religious leaders
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all over the world fearful that an all out headhunt for their likes was being
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played out far more and for christ devotees in the South and southwest United States
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particularly, this fear was anything but unfounded. In a United Press International article
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in February of nineteen eighty two, professor of clinical psychiatry at the University of
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Texas Health Science Center at Dallas, doctor Myron Weener discussed potential factors to explain
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why someone would attack or murder a religious figure. Doctor Weener pointed out that
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someone who would attack a pastor, priest, or nune was likely doing so
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because the victim isn't fighting back. Such an attack is perpetrated by an individual
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who feels helpless and would not choose Weener said, a big burly cop to
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kill. This seems to ignore the many defensive wounds our victim, father Patrick
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Ryan, had on his hands and arms. Damage to the motel room in
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which he was slain also suggested he fought for his life. The psychiatrist wasn't
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speaking of the act of violence during a robbery or in retaliation for a perceived
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Rather, his determination left out motive and arguably important aspect of the call he
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was making. Doctor Byron Weener went on to say that these religious figures symbolize
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parents to their attackers, and they're striking out against a harshly religious upbringing or
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what was perceived as one others might feel generally oppressed by their chosen religion.
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Weener went on and lash out based on that psychology, it seems, has
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come a long way since the good doctor gave these very confident but ultimately flat
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observations in nineteen eighty two. It probably goes without saying that his opinion was
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of little help to authorities and did nothing to quell the fears of church leaders.
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What the psychiatrist did not deduce, for whatever reason, was that much
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of the violence had less to do with some nonsensical Freudian garbage and more to
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do with the fact that these religious figures were easy targets for robbers opportunists,
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easy targets meaning that they are trusting, not necessarily weak, and perhaps more
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likely to believe that the inherent goodness in folks will overcome inborn or conditioned malevolence.
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Another potential motive will become clear later. Doctor Weener, anyway, was
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speaking after the attacks and deaths of just a few clergy persons and before many
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more crimes, crimes that some investigators believed were eerily similar to the murder of
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Father Patrick Ryan in Odessa, Texas. When they came up empty handed after
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interviewing one of the last known people to see Father Patrick Ryan, a twenty
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five year old man named James Harry Rios, detectives on the case were back
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to square one. Rios, whose fingerprints didn't match the bloody ones found at
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the motel and in Father Ryan's nineteen seventy nine Chrysler Newport, told the cops
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that on December twenty first, nineteen eighty one, they had picked up a
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hitchhiker just outside Denver City, Texas, on their way to Hobbs, New
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Mexico. The statement was reportedly corroborated by Angel Perez, a parishioner of Father
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Ryan's, who said he saw the priest's car driving toward Hobbes about ten miles
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from Denver City that morning. Father Ryan was accompanied by two men. Perez
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told detectives the hitchhiker, who James Harry Rios described as a middle aged black
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man of average height and medium build, drove off with Father Ryan after dropping
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him off at a bail bondsman's house. Where Rios was to pay to get
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his nineteen eighty Ford pickup truck out of Hawk. He'd used it as collateral
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to get out of jail on an invalid driver's license charge. The bail bondsman's
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daughter corroborated this, and the bail bondsman himself confirmed that Rios was alone when
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he got back his truck when Father Ryan and the hitchhiker drove off. Rios
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told police he never saw the priest again, but he did see the hitchhiker
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again. After getting in his truck. Rios was headed to Albuquerque when he
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saw the hitchhiker on the side of the road. Rios offered him a lift,
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and the hitchhiker told him that Father Ryan insisted he get out just moments
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after dropping Rios off at the bail bondsman's This presumably meant that Father Ryan planned
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to head back to Denver City, and it can also be presumed that he
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made it, since a fully cooked meal steak and potatoes were later found untouched
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at his bungalow rectory next to the Saint William Church. Eventually, Rios dropped
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the hitchhiker off at a Greyhound bus station, but not before collecting plenty of
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receipts for everything from a case of beer to filling up his tank and buying
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a new gas cap. He'd collect many more after dropping off the hitchhiker.
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To our knowledge, the police have never been able to identify this hitchhiker,
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but if Rios's accounts are factual, it is incredibly unlikely he could have been
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involved in the beating death of Father Patrick Ryan. Yocum County Sheriff Jim Rice
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told reporters that details of the priest's final day were elusive. No one could
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figure out why Patrick Ryan had gone to Odessa and checked into a motel primarily
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used for paid sex or the selling and using of narcotics. Clues have been
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limited, Sheriff Rice commented, but as at tax On, men of the
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cloth continued, Odessa police detectives certainly weren't for a loss of leads to investigate.
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Bishop Leroy Matthiason of the Catholic Church's Amarillo Diocese appointed an assistant pastor at
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Saint Margaret Mary in La Mesa to take Father Ryan's place at Saint William in
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Denver City. Reverend Thomas moved into the small rectory beside Saint William just after
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the new year. The new priest said he'd received death threats by telephone in
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La Mesa in the past, and considering Father Ryan's brutal and unfortunate demise,
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he was taking precautions and did not wish to speak to reporters. Thomas's new
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congregants also wished to take no chances, and began inclosing the rectory's carport,
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converting it into a garage. Perhaps Saint William Church's new clergy was justified in
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his attempts to safeguard his own life. It certainly seemed that way when on
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January eighth, nineteen eighty two, another Catholic priest went missing. Forty four
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year old Reverend Simon Thomas Flores of Christ the King Church in Corpus Christie traveled
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to Laredo, Texas in early January for a youth prayer mission. The mission
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ended on Thursday, January seventh, nineteen eighty two, and the next day
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Reverend Flores prepared to drive home one hundred and fifty miles east to the Texas
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city named for the body of Christ. The six foot tall, one hundred
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and eighty pound left San Francisco Javier Catholic Church on Friday, January eighth at
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about four pm to take a walk and snap a few photographs. When he
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failed to return, his colleagues became overwhelmed with worry, and the Laredo Police
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scrambled to locate the man, who was last seen in black slacks and a
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blue sweater. A door to door search of the area surrounding the church was
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performed and the nearby Rio Grande River was dragged, but efforts ultimately failed to
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find even a trace of the missing priest. News of Reverend Simon Flores's disappearance
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was all over Texas newspapers, and when word reached Denver City, no doubt
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it gave the new priest there plenty to worry about. Little did Reverend Thomas
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No something far more frightful was heading his way. On January twentieth, nineteen
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eighty two, police banged on the door of the rectory located next to Saint
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William Church, demanding that whoever was inside opened the door and come out slowly.
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It was one a m Apparently the church had neglected to inform the Denver
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City Police Department that a new priest had been appointed. And was staying in
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the rectory once occupied by Father Patrick Ryan and a patrolman had seen movement inside
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the bungalow. The incident both shook Reverend Thomas and had the cops thinking,
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if only for a split second, that they were about to break the case
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of the murder of their town's former beloved holy man. The misunderstanding was settled
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relatively quickly, and both parties returned to business as usual, Reverend Thomas's being
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sleep The following morning, the priest discovered a mysterious and a letter in his
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mailbox, postmarked in Sydney, Nebraska, on January sixteenth, nineteen eighty two.
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The letter Reverend Thomas found in his mailbox on the morning of Wednesday,
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January twentieth, nineteen eighty two wasn't specifically addressed to him. Rather, it
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was generically addressed to the priest administrator, care of Saint William Catholic Church.
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Still, as Reverend Thomas began opening the envelope, it's likely he thought little
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of it when he began reading the pages inside. However, the threat to
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him was readily apparent. The envelope's contents consisted only of two pages torn from
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what appeared to be a religious magazine, though the entirety of that publication's title
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was incomplete due to the way it was torn. The only thing that could
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be made out or the letters S I, G, AN N and the
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magazine's date November nineteen eighty one. The pages were the story of a man
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named Father Angel, a priest who was killed in his own rectory. Area.
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Religious leaders, needless to say, were worried. As usual. Reverend
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Thomas declined to comment on the matter, but Bishop Leroy Matthiason was more than
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happy to speak for him. Matthiason told reporters that the pages contained at the
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message I'm going to kill you. While his appointed priest in Denver City was
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not concerned about the threat, the bishop continued he was. He advised Reverend
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Thomas to take it to the police and watch his back. Denver City Police
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Chief AJ Fowler discounted what Matthiason told the newspapers. It wasn't a letter,
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and it didn't say I'm going to kill you at all. It was an
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envelope addressed to the church that had two pages from a magazine in it,
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Fowler said, adding that the words they will kill me two were in the
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article, but they referred to the article's deceased subject, father Angel. While
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he eventually turned the letter over to the Odessa Police in case they wanted to
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investigate it concerning Father Patrick Ryan's murder. Chief Fowler insisted there was no threat
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to Reverend Thomas. It's unknown to us if any leads were produced from the
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letter, or if it was even intended as a threat at all. In
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late January nineteen eighty two, Crime Stoppers of New Mexico began offering a reward
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of one thousand dollars for information that led to the arrest an indictment of Father
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Ryan's killer or killers. Ordinarily, New Mexico Crime Stoppers Director Greg McAleese said,
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we're not involved in cases outside New Mexico, but we felt there is
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a possibility the offender might be in this state. That was certainly plausible,
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considering the dead priest's vehicle was found in Hobbes in Yocum County, Texas home
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of Denver City. The New Mexico reward was matched with five hundred dollars from
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their crime line and five hundred from an anonymous donor. Then came an attack
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on another man of the cloth this time in Gallop, New Mexico. Though
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it was five hundred and thirty seven miles northwest of Odessa, authorities there could
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not ignore the similarities to the Father Patrick Ryan case. The beating and robbery
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of Reverend John Middlestat happened on Sunday, January thirty first, nineteen eighty two,
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but authorities somehow managed to keep it out of the press for weeks after.
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Before he checked into a Gallop, New Mexico motel, forty five year
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old Middlestat had picked up a hitchhiker, he said. Now it's not been
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made clear if the reverend allowed this hitchhiker to spend the night in the room
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or if the man somehow snuck in. But in the dead of the night,
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Middlestat awoke to the hitchhiker going through his wallet. A confrontation occurred,
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and the hitchhiker assaulted the reverend before tying him up and making off with his
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wallet and car. Both. One of the first things Odessa detective Jerry Smith
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learned when he visited the police department there was that the description of this hitchhiker
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and the one that James Harry Roos had told him father Patrick Ryan, had
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picked up on their way to Hobbs, not match. According to REOs,
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Father Ryan's hitchhiker was a middle aged black man about five feet seven inches tall
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and weighed about one hundred and eighty pounds. The description of the hitchhiker in
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Reverend John middlestats beating was a twenty eight to thirty year old white man who
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stood six feet three inches tall approximately. Although newspapers were reporting that both Father
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Ryan and Reverend Middlestat were tied with bedsheets, there have been contradictions in the
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reporting of the former. Some reports say his hands were bound with a heavy
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cloth and some a bloody sock. A suspect in Middlestat's beating and robbery was
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quickly identified a man who'd been arrested in Texas in nineteen eighty one for an
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unspecified crime. He was never identified in the press, and it's unknown to
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us if he was ever apprehended and charged anyway. Detective Earning Barola of the
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Gallop Police Department agreed with Odessa Police Detective Jerry Smith when he later said,
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I couldn't establish a connection or leads between the two cases. We checked it
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out. Also when the priest disappeared in Laredo. During the first weekend of
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February nineteen eighty two, something found across the border had Laredo police and local
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Catholics alike fearing the worst. Farmers working afield in the border town of Nuevo
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Laredo, Mexico stumbled upon the badly decomposed body of a man. When Laredo,
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Texas detectives investigating the disappearance of forty four year old Reverend Simon Flores almost
19:48
exactly a month earlier, caught wind of the discovery, they quickly enlisted the
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help of Webb County pathologist doctor Francisco Gonzalez. The dead man had been shot
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once in his head, and although he was wearing clothing that differed from what
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Reverend Flores was last seen wearing, doctor Gonzalez said that all signs pointed to
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the body being the missing man, who was a native of Victoria, Texas.
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Church officials in both Laredo, from where he went missing, and Corpus
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Christie, where Flores was a priest, however, had their doubts. A
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few days later, when Reverend Flores's dental records arrived and were compared to the
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body found in Mexico. The clergyman's disbelief proved to be well founded. The
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body did not belong to Reverend Simon Thomas Flores. The next day, Flores
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himself phoned a colleague in Corpus Christie, the Reverend Vincent Patrezi, and informed
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him that he was alive and well in Georgia. He was traveling apparently wayward,
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Priest said to sort things out. It's unclear why he left his car
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and personal belongings behind when he left to do so. Whatever the case,
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persons of the Cloth everywhere breathed a heavy sigh of relief, but that comfort
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didn't last long. Friday March nineteenth, nineteen eighty two was the last time
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anyone heard from Father Eugene Kellen Bins. The sixty four year old Catholic priest
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was a chaplain at Saint Joseph's Hospital in Tacoma, Washington, and former head
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of the Saint Martin's College music department. The man was a graduate of the
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Juilliard School of Music in New York and a renowned liturgical composer who devoted nearly
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as much of his life to music as he did the Cloth. For a
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couple days. Colleagues and friends of Father Kellen Benz weren't worried about his absence,
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since he'd called the hospital on March nineteenth to inform them he was having
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car trouble and that he'd be in when he could. When worry did set
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in, fellow chaplain at Saint Joseph's Hospital, Reverend Tom Park, called the
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Tacoma Police to report his friend of twenty five years missing. The cops met
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Reverend Park at the home of Father Kellen Benz, and they looked around some
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Other than the fact that his nineteen seventy nine Ford Granada was gone, nothing
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seemed to miss. But when police learned the missing priests credit cards were being
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used quite freely. As Reverend Park put it, it was obvious to the
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missing man's friends and colleagues that something was terribly wrong. That fear was exacerbated
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when detectives got word that more than one person had been using the cards.
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On day April twelfth, nineteen eighty two, Reverend Park returned to Father Kelen
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Binz's apartment to search for clues. When he entered, the odor of decomposition
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was overwhelming. Behind some boxes, quilts, and luggage, in the back
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of a storage closet, Reverend Park discovered the body of his friend. He
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was nude, badly decomposed, and rolled up in a large rug, a
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plastic bag over his head and his hands bound with rope in front of him.
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The local Catholic community was horrified, and detectives in Odessa, Texas,
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rushed to compare notes with authorities in Tacoma, Washington. Father Kelen Binz's death,
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they thought seemed eerily similar to that of Father Patrick Ryan in Denver City,
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Texas. Yoakum County Sheriff Jim Rice lamented about the bleak chances he felt
24:11
they had for solving the murder of Father Patrick Ryan. I don't think the
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trail is any colder now than when we started, Rice told a reporter for
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the Denver City Post. We never did have anything. Of the dozens of
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people interviewed by Sheriff Rice and Odessa Police detective Jerry Smith, none could provide
24:33
any substantive clues. Father Ryan's replacement continued to take precautions for his safety.
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Not only had his parishioners insisted on converting his recurrey's carport into a garage,
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but also an alarm system was installed outside the bungalow next to Saint William Catholic
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Church sat Father Ryan's nineteen seventy nine maroon and white Chrysler Newport. The car
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was scoured for clues and evidence, was cleaned and now donned a for sale
25:06
sign on the windshield. Detective Jerry Smith of the Odessa Police Department admitted that
25:14
the trail to Father Ryan's killer had gone cold, but was much more optimistic.
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He said, the investigation will not stop. When we have the physical
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evidence that we do, there's always a chance of solving it. We don't
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ever give up on it. But Detective Smith was clear about one thing.
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Unlike many religious figures in the region and beyond, the policemen insisted that all
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the cases of violence against priests and other church officials can't possibly be tied together.
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He cited the dozens of calls and letters he received from Catholic Church congregants
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were calling assaults on priests similar to Father Ryan's slang. Detective Smith had studied
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many as far back as nineteen sixty six, and he said it was a
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common occurrence. While speaking to reporters, he once again reiterated that the man
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last known to see father Ryan James Harry Jos was eliminated as a suspect.
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On Wednesday, April twenty eighth, nineteen eighty two, two men were arrested
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and charged with forgery, possessing stolen credit cards, and auto theft in Rochester,
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Minnesota. Forty year old Donald Newton an eighteen year old Donald Bowdery skipped
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out on a one thousand dollars motel bill. There After traveling from Tacoma,
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Washington in the car of father Eugene Kellen Binz. They'd left a trail of
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charges on the deceased priests credit cards. Both men denied killing father Kellen Binz.
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Eventually, Newton was found guilty of the theft and forgery charges, but
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after the testimony of the pathologist who performed the autopsy on the priest, prosecutors
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decided there was no evidence that tied Newton or his teenaged companion to the murderer.
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In fact, doctor Edward M. Wood told the court it wasn't murder
27:22
at all. It was impossible to determine a definitive cause of death. Doctor
27:27
Wood testified the physical evidence is consistent with and characteristic of asphyxiation related to sexual
27:37
misadventure. Doctor Wood continued, an outside party wasn't in any way involved.
27:44
It was not a homicide, it was not a suicide, and in my
27:48
professional opinion, it was accidental asphyxia. Donald Newton was sentenced to ten years
27:56
in prison. After sentencing, the secutor told reporters that Newton had been involved
28:03
in a similar case in Hawaii twelve years prior, where he was arrested after
28:07
being found with his deceased business partner's travelers checks. Although Newton's colleague died a
28:15
violent death, he was not charged with the murder because he was determined to
28:21
be insane and not responsible for his actions. The Hawaii case was prejudicial and
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could not be brought up in the Kellen Benz trial. The judge ruled from
28:33
crowning the Saint Francis Cathedral School queen to providing local newspaper, The New Mexican,
28:41
with a lesson about the States Penitente's Brotherhood and correcting the publication the next
28:47
day for something they got wrong in the same article. Fifty six year old
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father Reynaudo John Rivera was well known and beloved in Santa Fe, where he'd
28:57
been born and raised. At about eight forty five pm on Thursday August fifth,
29:03
nineteen eighty two. Father Rivera quickly hopped in his cream colored nineteen seventy
29:10
six Chevy Chevelle after a call came in to Saint Francis Cathedral requesting a priest.
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The caller was calling from an Interstate twenty five rest stop just north of
29:22
La Bajara, they said, and needed a priest immediately to administer last rites
29:29
to his very ill grandfather. From the rest stop, the collar was to
29:33
lead Father Rivera to a residence in Waldo. Two days later, the man's
29:40
body was found in a field, murdered by a gunshot wound to his abdomen.
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The priest was shot somewhere else before being dumped in the field. Detectives
29:51
ascertained his vehicle was found abandoned one hundred and twenty five miles to the southwest
29:59
near Grants, New Mexico. Much of the initial investigations centered on a recent
30:04
parolelee, Manuel Nieto, who was later given an alibi. There is far
30:11
more to this story than we have time for here, but you can find
30:15
a detailed account of the still unsolved murder of Father Reinaldo Rivera on the podcast
30:22
True Consequences. Look for the episodes titled Faith in Action the Father Rivera Story,
30:29
which began on January eighth, twenty twenty three. There's little doubt police
30:33
in Odessa looked at Father Rivera's slang for a connection to their case, the
30:40
murder of Patrick Ryan. A link presumably was nowhere to be found. The
30:47
killing of Father Rivera was far from the last of its kind, of course,
30:52
and anyway, a case far more similar to Father Ryan's was still to
30:56
come. At the land Choe Motel in Yuma, Arizona, on the mid
31:03
afternoon of Wednesday, November tenth, nineteen eighty two, a maid turned the
31:07
master key and entered Room thirty two, though the room was supposed to have
31:12
been vacated hours earlier. She noticed a man under the covers on the bed.
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While trying to wake the man, who was lying on his stomach,
31:23
his face and the pillow, the maid realized he was either severely ill or
31:29
deceased. A manager was summoned, and when it was clear the man was
31:33
dead, the cops were called. Yuma police officers pulled back the covers to
31:40
see that the man had been bound, his hands behind his back and his
31:44
ankles wrapped tightly with black electrical tape. The man had been stripped of his
31:49
shirt, socks, and shoes. In the pocket of the trousers he still
31:55
wore, a broken rosary was found. No wallet or other means of identification
32:02
were in the room, But unlike Father Ryan at the Sandon Sage Motel in
32:07
Odessa, Texas, nearly a year earlier, this man had both identified himself
32:13
as a priest when he checked in and given his real name. Father Benjamin
32:20
John Carrier was a fifty four year old priest at Our Lady of Light Catholic
32:24
Church in Desconso, California, an incredibly small and beautifully scenic mountain town about
32:31
forty miles east of San Diego and one hundred and thirty six miles away from
32:37
where he was found in Yuma, Arizona. It was later determined that Father
32:44
Carrier died of asphyxiation, though it's never been clear if the death was the
32:49
result of strangulation or the seemingly more plausible scenario of being held faced down in
32:55
his pillow, since that is how he was found, and because the Yuma
33:00
County Medical Examiner reported that there were no other signs of trauma to the body,
33:06
no cuts, no bruises. Likely, Father Carrier could not have fought
33:12
hard, not because he was a small man or a scared man, but
33:15
because the priest was frail from a lifelong illness. His Toyota pickup was found
33:22
two days later, abandoned nearly three hundred miles away in Las Vegas, Nevada.
33:30
Father Carrier believed the best of people, which might have been his downfall.
33:35
He'd been attacked and even abducted by knife point by a hitchhiker in the
33:39
past. Friends and colleagues had warned him about continuing to give folks rides,
33:45
but he brushed off their concerns. Since several witnesses had seen Father Carrier arriving
33:52
at the motel with two men, police were able to get suspect descriptions fast.
34:00
When he was checking in the l Rancho motel, desk clerk saw a
34:04
white man with light facial hair in Father Carrier's nineteen eighty one Toyota pickup truck.
34:10
This person was described as twenty to twenty five years old, average height,
34:15
and medium build. At least one report describes this man's accent as Canadian.
34:22
The day before his robbery, and murder at about five pm. Father
34:28
Carrier was seen with this man at the motel pool, the last time he's
34:31
known to have been seen alive. Another man was with them, described as
34:37
white with medium length brown hair, a tattoo on the underside of his left
34:44
forearm, and a slight Southern accent. At least one report has this man
34:50
carrying a cane with a skull handle. These men have never been identified,
34:55
let alone found, and the murder of Father Benjamin John Carrier remains unsolved.
35:04
At least one law man in the recent past cannot get over the similarities between
35:08
Father Carrier and Father Patrick Ryan's murders, and he feels that they're both connected
35:15
to a man who died by suicide in late nineteen eighty two. Had they
35:20
not been so anxious to clear the Father Ryan murder from the books and done
35:24
their due diligence, perhaps police in Odessa and Ector County prosecutors wouldn't have put
35:30
everything they had into one man. But then again, why would someone confess
35:37
to a heinous crime if they're not guilty. That's next time, ugone cold.
35:45
If you have any information about the nineteen eighty one murder of Father Patrick
35:49
Joseph Ryan. Please call the Odessa Police Department at four three two three three
35:55
five four nine six one or Odessa Crimestoppers at four three two three three three
36:02
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36:09
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36:14
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If you're not in a position to help Gone Cold financially but would like to
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in some other way, well I've got just the thing. Leaving us a
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36:52
case here's the show and comes forward with what they know. Every little bit
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Sources for this episode can be found in the episode's show notes. Thanks
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for listening, y'all.