Latest / The Path Went Chilly / Gary Simmons Pt. One
Transcript
- 0:26Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Pathway Chili. I'm Robin, I'm Jules.
- 0:31Speaker 2: And I'm Ashley. Let's dive right into this week's case.
- 0:36Speaker 3: October fifteenth, nineteen seventy four, Overland Park, Kansas, thirty two
- 0:42Speaker 3: year old businessman Gary Simmons leaves his office in order
- 0:45Speaker 3: to purchase a horse from a man named Tom Dixon.
- 0:48Speaker 3: Later that day, Gary provides authorization for Dixon to cash
- 0:52Speaker 3: a thirty thousand dollars check, but he has never heard
- 0:55Speaker 3: from again, and Dixon also disappears after collecting the money.
- 1:00Speaker 3: Seventeen years later, gary skeletal remains are discovered inside a
- 1:04Speaker 3: cave and it turns out that he's been shot in
- 1:06Speaker 3: the head. Will Dixon is believed to be involved in
- 1:09Speaker 3: Gary's murder, He's never tracked down, and investigator suspect that
- 1:13Speaker 3: the whole thing was orchestrated by an unknown third party.
- 1:17Speaker 1: After that, the path went Chiley. So today we're going
- 1:21Speaker 1: to be covering a very bizarre case which was once
- 1:23Speaker 1: featured on Unsolved Mysteries, the nineteen seventy four murder of
- 1:27Speaker 1: Gary Simmons. This story is essentially two mysteries rolled into one,
- 1:32Speaker 1: as not only does it involve an unsolved murder, but
- 1:34Speaker 1: an individual who is suspected of being responsible has not
- 1:37Speaker 1: been seen in over fifty years. Gary Simmons was a
- 1:41Speaker 1: prominent businessman who lived in Orbitland Park, Kansas, before he
- 1:44Speaker 1: vanished without a trace, and his skeletal remains would be
- 1:47Speaker 1: discovered across the state line seventeen years later inside a
- 1:51Speaker 1: cave in Independence, Missouri. On the day of his disappearance,
- 1:55Speaker 1: Gary had met up with a man named Tom Dixon
- 1:57Speaker 1: to supposedly purchase a horse from him, but it's been
- 2:00Speaker 1: theorized that the whole thing was a setup in order
- 2:02Speaker 1: to scan Gary out of thirty thousand dollars before he
- 2:05Speaker 1: was murdered. But what really complicates this case is that
- 2:09Speaker 1: Tom Dixon also vanished without a trace, and there have
- 2:12Speaker 1: been no confirmed sightings of him at all since nineteen
- 2:14Speaker 1: seventy four. While the most logical explanation is that Dixon
- 2:18Speaker 1: took the thirty thousand dollars and disappeared to start a
- 2:21Speaker 1: new life, this story's a lot more complicated than it
- 2:24Speaker 1: looks on the surface. There's a lot about this case
- 2:27Speaker 1: which does not make any sense, and one theory is
- 2:29Speaker 1: that Dixon was just a cog and an elaborate murder
- 2:32Speaker 1: plot orchestrated by an unknown third party who subsequently got
- 2:36Speaker 1: rid of Dixon after he outlived his usefulness. Indeed, the
- 2:40Speaker 1: original Unsolved Mystery segment left out some key details about
- 2:44Speaker 1: this story, some of which provide more confusion. So we're
- 2:47Speaker 1: going to perform our own in depth exploration on today's episode.
- 2:52Speaker 2: This is fascinating. I used to live actually right outside
- 2:55Speaker 2: of Overland Park, Kansas. It's not too far from Kansas City, Kansas,
- 3:00Speaker 2: in Kansas City, Missouri, so I know over in part
- 3:03Speaker 2: quite well. And when you look at this case, you
- 3:06Speaker 2: have thirty thousand dollars that's being exchanged, and that doesn't
- 3:10Speaker 2: sound like a lot, but this was nineteen seventy four,
- 3:13Speaker 2: so today that would be somewhere between like one hundred
- 3:16Speaker 2: and ninety and two hundred thousand dollars. So that's a
- 3:19Speaker 2: significant amount of money. Is it enough money to completely
- 3:24Speaker 2: vanish and disappear and create a new life in nineteen
- 3:27Speaker 2: seventy four, I mean maybe. So you got to keep
- 3:30Speaker 2: in mind, could Dixon have actually fled and gone somewhere
- 3:33Speaker 2: like Mexico or even over to Europe because you didn't
- 3:37Speaker 2: have to really leave a trail back in nineteen seventy
- 3:40Speaker 2: four to travel or to get to other places. So
- 3:44Speaker 2: with two hundred thousand dollars in his pocket, basically you
- 3:47Speaker 2: would think, hey, I mean, he really could have taken
- 3:50Speaker 2: off on his own. And there's also a second possibility,
- 3:54Speaker 2: which investigators actually believe that maybe he was actually set
- 3:58Speaker 2: up to do the execution and then himself got killed
- 4:03Speaker 2: as well.
- 4:04Speaker 1: Yeah, you're absolutely correct that in today's money, thirty thousand
- 4:07Speaker 1: dollars is a lot like between one hundred and ninety
- 4:09Speaker 1: and two hundred thousand dollars, And that adds an extra
- 4:12Speaker 1: element of confusion because, as we're going to talk about,
- 4:15Speaker 1: the cover story is that Gary was going to use
- 4:17Speaker 1: that money to buy a horse. But his family would say, yeah,
- 4:20Speaker 1: that's very out of the ordinary for him to spend
- 4:22Speaker 1: that amount of money just to buy a horse. So
- 4:24Speaker 1: some people have wondered if there's more to the story
- 4:27Speaker 1: and if he was planning to pay Dixon for other reasons.
- 4:31Speaker 3: Ashley, did you just know off the top of your
- 4:33Speaker 3: head that it was about two hundred thousand or did
- 4:34Speaker 3: you look that up?
- 4:36Speaker 2: I looked it up. I'm smart, but I'm not that smart.
- 4:38Speaker 3: I was like, damn that is so impressive. But you
- 4:41Speaker 3: looked it up quickly. I'm impressed by that.
- 4:44Speaker 2: Yes, I wouldn't You said thirty thousand and seventy four.
- 4:46Speaker 2: I'm like, could that be enough for him to go
- 4:48Speaker 2: on the run? And then I looked it up. I'm like,
- 4:49Speaker 2: I mean two hundred thousand dollars to flee and start over.
- 4:54Speaker 2: It could gets you pretty.
- 4:55Speaker 3: Far, especially somewhere like Mexico.
- 4:58Speaker 2: Yes, that's very true.
- 5:00Speaker 3: Our story begins in nineteen seventy four in Overland Park, Kansas,
- 5:05Speaker 3: which is located in Johnson County right next to the
- 5:07Speaker 3: Missouri state line and is one of the suburbs of
- 5:10Speaker 3: the Kansas City metropolitan area. Our central figure is thirty
- 5:15Speaker 3: two year old Gary Simmons, who lives with his wife, Nancy,
- 5:18Speaker 3: and their son and daughter on a large ranch in
- 5:20Speaker 3: a rural area just outside Overland Park. Gary is the
- 5:24Speaker 3: president and owner of the Simmons Petroleum Corporation, which operates
- 5:28Speaker 3: a chain of independent gas stations in Kansas City, and
- 5:32Speaker 3: he has a reputation in the community for being a
- 5:34Speaker 3: hard working, self made man. Gary's biggest hobby is horse trading,
- 5:39Speaker 3: as he owns and raises twenty three horses on his
- 5:42Speaker 3: ranch and is a member of numerous local horse clubs.
- 5:46Speaker 3: On the morning of October fifteenth, Gary went to his
- 5:49Speaker 3: office in Overland Park and had a meeting with forty
- 5:51Speaker 3: two year old man named Tom Dixon, who he'd spoken
- 5:54Speaker 3: to on the phone the previous day. Dixon lived with
- 5:57Speaker 3: his family in a rural home in the un incorporated
- 6:00Speaker 3: community of Stillwell and was known for working various jobs
- 6:04Speaker 3: such as a painter, contractor, and carnival operator. He claimed
- 6:08Speaker 3: that he was acting as an agent for a man
- 6:10Speaker 3: who was selling a pure bread apple Lucia horse for
- 6:13Speaker 3: thirty thousand dollars and Gary was interested in purchasing it.
- 6:17Speaker 3: At ten fifteen am, Gary told his secretary, Jody Miller,
- 6:21Speaker 3: that he would be back within an hour or so
- 6:23Speaker 3: before he and Dixon left the office together. Gary never
- 6:27Speaker 3: told Jody where he was going, but fifteen minutes after
- 6:30Speaker 3: he left, Jody received a phone call from him. Gary
- 6:33Speaker 3: instructed her to make out a thirty thousand dollars check
- 6:36Speaker 3: to Tom Dixon, which he would be picking up shortly.
- 6:40Speaker 3: Sure enough, Dixon returned to the office a half hour
- 6:42Speaker 3: later in order to receive the check and told Jody
- 6:45Speaker 3: that he would be meeting up with Gary again in
- 6:47Speaker 3: order to get his signature on it.
- 6:50Speaker 2: All right, question for you, do we know if there
- 6:53Speaker 2: was already a signature on it? So if I leave
- 6:55Speaker 2: a check for let's say rebel to pay somebody coming
- 6:58Speaker 2: to paint, right, I'll write out the person it's too,
- 7:02Speaker 2: or even leave that blank, and I'll always sign my
- 7:05Speaker 2: name and write who it's for in the memo line.
- 7:07Speaker 2: So does Jody remember if it was actually signed and
- 7:10Speaker 2: if it would make sense for Dixon to need to
- 7:12Speaker 2: meet up with Gary again.
- 7:14Speaker 1: I don't. I'm guessing I thought it wasn't signed, because
- 7:16Speaker 1: otherwise Dixon never would have said that that I'm specifically
- 7:20Speaker 1: meeting up with Gary again to get a signature on it.
- 7:23Speaker 1: I mean, a lot of mysterious things would happen, but
- 7:25Speaker 1: there would be confirmation that for the next couple hours,
- 7:28Speaker 1: Gary was confirmed to be alive, So it doesn't seem
- 7:31Speaker 1: that far fetched he would send Dixon back to pick
- 7:33Speaker 1: up the check that was unsigned, and then go back
- 7:36Speaker 1: to get him to sign it after the transaction is completed.
- 7:39Speaker 1: I mean, obviously, if you just picked up this sign check,
- 7:42Speaker 1: then Dixon could very well just go cash it and
- 7:44Speaker 1: then not go up with meet up with Gary again
- 7:47Speaker 1: to complete the transaction. So I think they were under
- 7:49Speaker 1: the assumption that they were going to meet up together
- 7:51Speaker 1: again and that once the transaction was completed, he would
- 7:54Speaker 1: finally sign it.
- 7:56Speaker 2: Okay, so he's not basically leaving a check for him
- 7:59Speaker 2: to grab. He's actually making him go grab something so
- 8:02Speaker 2: they can complete a transaction together.
- 8:04Speaker 1: That's what it seems like.
- 8:06Speaker 2: Okay, well that makes more sense. I was like, why
- 8:07Speaker 2: do we need to go get another signature? He left
- 8:10Speaker 2: a check for you, But okay. Another thing that's really
- 8:12Speaker 2: interesting here is that when you look at Dixon, Dixon
- 8:16Speaker 2: doesn't sound like he would be brokering a deal for
- 8:20Speaker 2: a two hundred thousand dollars horse. He's somebody who does
- 8:24Speaker 2: odd jobs and doesn't seem like somebody who fits the bill.
- 8:28Speaker 2: He's a carnival operator. So when you think about is
- 8:32Speaker 2: it true that he's actually brokering a deal, or you know,
- 8:35Speaker 2: is he somebody who's being used as, like you said,
- 8:38Speaker 2: a cog in the wheel to get Gary executed. It
- 8:42Speaker 2: seems much more likely that he's that role, that he's
- 8:45Speaker 2: been hired as somebody who's kind of a throwaway person
- 8:48Speaker 2: in the system and he's going to be used to
- 8:52Speaker 2: kill him because he's kind of this, like, I don't know,
- 8:55Speaker 2: just more disposable person. Right when you're talking about buying
- 8:58Speaker 2: a two hundred thousand dollars horse and today's money, that's
- 9:02Speaker 2: a big deal. You would think this was a very
- 9:04Speaker 2: esteemed person. This is someone who's in the horse field
- 9:07Speaker 2: and in you know, actually in that kind of lifestyle,
- 9:11Speaker 2: and he is anything but that.
- 9:13Speaker 3: Do we remember the horse Syndicate.
- 9:16Speaker 1: Oh yes, yeah, we talked about that on previous episodes,
- 9:20Speaker 1: about like this mafia organization that operated in Chicago in
- 9:23Speaker 1: the fifties and sixties and used horse racing as their
- 9:27Speaker 1: cover for money laundering and murdered a lot of people.
- 9:31Speaker 2: The horses can go for millions upon millions of dollars,
- 9:34Speaker 2: it's insane. So that whole competition and the way people
- 9:37Speaker 2: will you know, kill horses for insurance and for revenge
- 9:41Speaker 2: and steal things from each other. It's a it's a mess.
- 9:45Speaker 3: And don't we think it's a bit wild that if
- 9:47Speaker 3: Dixon's plan was to secure this thirty thousand dollars from
- 9:51Speaker 3: Gary and then at the behest of somebody else to
- 9:54Speaker 3: kill him, that there's this major paper trail. There's people
- 9:59Speaker 3: that have met d there's Jody, the assistant, and then
- 10:02Speaker 3: you also have checks. There's people at the banks who've
- 10:05Speaker 3: seen him. Wouldn't it be better if your objective was
- 10:08Speaker 3: to run away with the money, to just leave with
- 10:11Speaker 3: the money and not deliver on the horse.
- 10:14Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, And you would also think that you would
- 10:16Speaker 2: have Gary bring you a check that you can go
- 10:18Speaker 2: deposit or something, or cash like, hey man, you know
- 10:22Speaker 2: my guy doesn't work in check You're gonna have to
- 10:24Speaker 2: bring cash to me. But you're right, they end up
- 10:27Speaker 2: I'm assuming going to a bank.
- 10:29Speaker 1: Yep. That's what we're going to talk about right now.
- 10:32Speaker 2: Wow.
- 10:33Speaker 1: So around the same time he phoned his secretary, Gary
- 10:36Speaker 1: placed another call to J. Thomas Bircham, the president of
- 10:39Speaker 1: the Santa Fe Trail Bank in the suburb of Merriam.
- 10:42Speaker 1: Gary was scheduled to have a meeting there at ten
- 10:44Speaker 1: thirty with representative from the McKee Oil Company, who had
- 10:48Speaker 1: made a business deal with the Simmons Petroleum Corporation. Gary
- 10:51Speaker 1: would receive a payment of over one hundred thousand dollars
- 10:54Speaker 1: for the deal, but he asked Bertram if they could
- 10:56Speaker 1: postpone the meeting until one PM and the McKee represented
- 11:00Speaker 1: agreed to this. Shortly before noon, Bertram received another phone
- 11:04Speaker 1: call from Gary, who informed him that a man named
- 11:06Speaker 1: Tom Dixon would be arriving shortly with a thirty thousand
- 11:09Speaker 1: dollars check he had received for the purchase of a horse.
- 11:13Speaker 1: Gary said he would not be present, but he wanted
- 11:15Speaker 1: to grant his approval for Dixon to cash the check.
- 11:18Speaker 1: Since Bertram was a personal friend who considered Gary to
- 11:21Speaker 1: be one of the bank's top customers, he had no
- 11:24Speaker 1: issues with this. Bertram would later say that he recognized
- 11:27Speaker 1: Gary's voice on the phone and did not detect anything
- 11:30Speaker 1: unusual from him. It wasn't long before Dixon showed up
- 11:33Speaker 1: at the bank with a signed thirty thousand dollars check,
- 11:36Speaker 1: and since Bertram had seen Gary's signature on several previous occasions,
- 11:40Speaker 1: he had no reason to believe it wasn't legitimate. Bertram
- 11:44Speaker 1: asked Dixon if he would be interested in opening up
- 11:46Speaker 1: an account with them, but Dixon declined, claiming that he
- 11:49Speaker 1: needed the money to pay off some debts. Since the
- 11:52Speaker 1: bank did not have the entire thirty thousand dollars in cash,
- 11:55Speaker 1: Berchram gave Dixon five thousand dollars in one hundred dollars
- 11:58Speaker 1: bills and the rest of the balance in the form
- 12:01Speaker 1: of a cashier's check. Dixon subsequently took the check to
- 12:04Speaker 1: the Commercial National Bank of Kansas City and received the
- 12:07Speaker 1: remaining twenty five thousand dollars in one hundred dollars bills.
- 12:12Speaker 2: So now this is two banks that he's actually gone
- 12:14Speaker 2: to and had to be physically present to get access
- 12:18Speaker 2: to the complete thirty thousand dollars. So Jeles, you're right.
- 12:22Speaker 2: Not only is Jody the one who's interacted with him,
- 12:24Speaker 2: but now you have two bankers, one who really knows
- 12:28Speaker 2: Gary and another bank who's fulfilling the rest of the obligation.
- 12:31Speaker 2: But it's a lot of individuals putting eyes on Dixon
- 12:35Speaker 2: if he was going to be this hit man for hire, And.
- 12:38Speaker 3: You're going to be pretty memorable when it's thirty thousand
- 12:41Speaker 3: dollars that you're getting like two hundred thousand dollars in
- 12:44Speaker 3: today's money, everyone is going to remember you.
- 12:48Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's why it makes sense to me that
- 12:50Speaker 1: this whole deal could have been orchestrated by a third
- 12:52Speaker 1: party and was having Dixon do all the leg work
- 12:55Speaker 1: and be seen by all the people, so that if
- 12:57Speaker 1: he was killed later on, this criminal mass mind who
- 13:00Speaker 1: orchestrated the whole thing could say, well, nobody's seen in
- 13:03Speaker 1: my face, so there's no evidence that I'm involved.
- 13:07Speaker 3: At twelve forty five pm, Bircham's secretary received a phone
- 13:11Speaker 3: call from Gary, who told her that he would be
- 13:13Speaker 3: a little late for his one pm meeting with the
- 13:15Speaker 3: McKee oil representative. However, Gary did not show up for
- 13:19Speaker 3: the meeting at all and was never heard from again.
- 13:22Speaker 3: He also did not return to his office, and when
- 13:25Speaker 3: he failed to come home by the following morning, his wife, Nancy,
- 13:28Speaker 3: contacted the Overland Park Police Department and reported Gary missing.
- 13:33Speaker 3: At the time of his disappearance, Gary had been driving
- 13:36Speaker 3: his silver Linking Continental Mark four, but the vehicle could
- 13:40Speaker 3: also not be found. While Gary's phone call to Birchram's
- 13:44Speaker 3: secretary was the last time he was confirmed to be alive,
- 13:47Speaker 3: the last reported eyewitness sighting of Gary was from the
- 13:50Speaker 3: owner of a truck stop located ten miles from Gary's office.
- 13:54Speaker 3: The sighting occurred at eleven thirty am on the morning
- 13:57Speaker 3: of October fifteenth, just over an hour before his final
- 14:01Speaker 3: phone call, and the truck stop owner claimed that Gary
- 14:04Speaker 3: was pacing back and forth between the counter and the window,
- 14:07Speaker 3: and he appeared to be waiting for someone.
- 14:10Speaker 2: Well, remember he had actually called and had postponed that
- 14:13Speaker 2: meeting till one o'clock, and then he ends up calling
- 14:17Speaker 2: the bank what around twelve thirty or a little bit afternoon,
- 14:20Speaker 2: to say, hey, this guy's coming in with a check.
- 14:23Speaker 2: And we know for a fact that he called his
- 14:25Speaker 2: secretary at twelve forty five, but he doesn't show up
- 14:28Speaker 2: for that one o'clock meeting. So really there's this fifteen
- 14:31Speaker 2: minute window that something could have happened, and it's almost
- 14:35Speaker 2: as if he's delaying that meeting because he knows there's
- 14:38Speaker 2: something else he needs to do before he sits down
- 14:40Speaker 2: with those individuals. So if one of the things is
- 14:43Speaker 2: securing that thirty thousand dollars check, is he then waiting
- 14:47Speaker 2: for someone for quote the horse he's getting? Is he,
- 14:50Speaker 2: you know, pacing back and forth because the people keep
- 14:52Speaker 2: being late and delayed, which is why his whole day
- 14:54Speaker 2: has been put off. What's happening? Who is that quote
- 14:58Speaker 2: third party? And is it directly tied to Dixon?
- 15:01Speaker 1: What's so weird about the whole thing is that this
- 15:03Speaker 1: was a pretty important meeting where Gary would have been
- 15:06Speaker 1: receiving one hundred thousand dollars from the McKee Oil company representative.
- 15:10Speaker 1: And you're thinking to yourself, even though Gary really loves horses,
- 15:13Speaker 1: would he really be willing to delay this meeting and
- 15:16Speaker 1: potentially not make this money just to buy a horse.
- 15:20Speaker 1: So that's what makes no sense about this whole thing,
- 15:22Speaker 1: is that he just suddenly decides, on this particular morning,
- 15:24Speaker 1: I have to pay thirty thousand dollars to get this horse,
- 15:28Speaker 1: even though I have a big business deal coming up.
- 15:30Speaker 1: And that's why people have speculated that there's a lot
- 15:33Speaker 1: more to this story and that he wasn't just buying
- 15:35Speaker 1: a horse. Police spoke to Tom Dixon's wife, Shirley, but
- 15:39Speaker 1: they learned he had also not returned home on the
- 15:41Speaker 1: evening of October the fifteenth, and no one knew where
- 15:44Speaker 1: he was. It turned out that earlier that morning, during
- 15:48Speaker 1: the time period, he met with Gary Dixon and May
- 15:50Speaker 1: plans to meet up at the owners of Bob's salvage
- 15:53Speaker 1: yard in Independence, Missouri, as they happened to be friends
- 15:56Speaker 1: of his. According to one of the owners, Bob Williams,
- 16:00Speaker 1: Dixon told him that he had recently purchased some junked
- 16:02Speaker 1: cars in Waverley, and they were planning to go pick
- 16:05Speaker 1: them up in order to bring them to the salvage yard.
- 16:08Speaker 1: Dixon finally arrived at the yard between five and five
- 16:11Speaker 1: thirty PM, and after apologizing for not showing up that morning,
- 16:15Speaker 1: he spent the next several hours hanging around there and
- 16:17Speaker 1: helping out the employees. At around eleven PM, Dixon told
- 16:22Speaker 1: Williams that he was going to use the phone to
- 16:23Speaker 1: call home, but they never saw him again, as he
- 16:26Speaker 1: presumably left without telling them. Dixon's abandoned pickup truck would
- 16:31Speaker 1: soon be discovered at the Quality Oil Company truck stop
- 16:33Speaker 1: on US Route sixty nine with the keys in the ignition.
- 16:38Speaker 2: Well, remember, his wife is saying that, hey, he didn't
- 16:41Speaker 2: come home that night, and no one knew where he was.
- 16:45Speaker 2: He tells the guys at the salvage yard at eleven o'clock, Hey,
- 16:48Speaker 2: maybe I should check in. Was it normal that eleven
- 16:52Speaker 2: o'clock wouldn't have been an alarm in and of itself
- 16:55Speaker 2: for his wife that Hey, you've been gone all day,
- 16:57Speaker 2: You're hanging out at the salvage yard, and by a
- 17:00Speaker 2: eleven PM I still haven't heard from you. Was that
- 17:02Speaker 2: odd in his wife's viewpoint.
- 17:04Speaker 1: I'm not entirely sure. I don't know if it was
- 17:06Speaker 1: standard practice for him to be out late, but she
- 17:09Speaker 1: did later tell the police that, no, he never did
- 17:11Speaker 1: call me at eleven pms, So it seems like maybe
- 17:14Speaker 1: he was just using this as an excuse to leave,
- 17:16Speaker 1: or maybe he got intercepted or something before he got
- 17:19Speaker 1: the chance to call his wife. But she just thought
- 17:23Speaker 1: it was very out of the ordinary that he would
- 17:25Speaker 1: just not show up at all.
- 17:27Speaker 3: Police eventually spoke to a friend of Dixon's named Tom Callahan,
- 17:31Speaker 3: who claimed that on the morning of October sixteenth, Dixon
- 17:35Speaker 3: called him at home and to ask for assistance because
- 17:37Speaker 3: his pickup truck had broken down at a Quality Oil
- 17:40Speaker 3: company truck stop. When Callahan drove there to pick him up,
- 17:44Speaker 3: Dixon asked if he could borrow Callahan's own pickup truck
- 17:47Speaker 3: for a few hours in order to conduct some quote
- 17:50Speaker 3: personal business. Callahan agreed to the request, and after he
- 17:54Speaker 3: was dropped off at his home, Dixon left in Callahan's
- 17:57Speaker 3: truck and returned about two hours later. Dixon told Callahan
- 18:02Speaker 3: that he'd just been hired to be the driver of
- 18:04Speaker 3: a cross country rig and asked for a ride to
- 18:06Speaker 3: the Heart of America Truck Plaza, located near Interstate thirty
- 18:10Speaker 3: five in the suburb of Oleitha. Callahan said that he
- 18:14Speaker 3: drove Dixon to the truck Plaza and dropped him off
- 18:16Speaker 3: at around one thirty PM, but this was the last
- 18:19Speaker 3: time anyone ever saw him. However, Shirley Dixon claimed that
- 18:23Speaker 3: she received a call from her husband at around three
- 18:26Speaker 3: pm that same afternoon. By this point, Nancy Simmons had
- 18:29Speaker 3: already reported Gary missing, and the police had asked Shirley
- 18:33Speaker 3: about her husband's potential involvement. When Shirley asked Tom who
- 18:37Speaker 3: Gary Simmons was, he confirmed that he did meet up
- 18:40Speaker 3: with him, but he had not seen Gary since the
- 18:42Speaker 3: previous day. Before he ended the call, Dixon told his
- 18:46Speaker 3: wife that he was calling from Arkansas and would return
- 18:49Speaker 3: home that evening, but he never did, and this would
- 18:52Speaker 3: turn out to be the last time he was confirmed
- 18:54Speaker 3: to be alive.
- 18:56Speaker 2: This is a little confusing to me. Help me break
- 18:58Speaker 2: this down. So we know that Dixon is borrowing his
- 19:02Speaker 2: friend Tom Callahan's truck. Do we know if Tom's truck
- 19:07Speaker 2: was nicer like a newer nicer model.
- 19:10Speaker 1: I have no idea. It's just I think he's just
- 19:13Speaker 1: saying that I need to borrow it just because my
- 19:15Speaker 1: other truck broke down and was having problems.
- 19:18Speaker 2: Okay, I call a lie. Possibly it could be one
- 19:21Speaker 2: of two things. He's remember going to broke her a
- 19:24Speaker 2: two hundred thousand dollars deal in today's money. So if
- 19:27Speaker 2: he's driving up in some credit truck, right, does that
- 19:30Speaker 2: raise alarm bells? And or could he also be trying
- 19:36Speaker 2: to move a body with blood and he doesn't want
- 19:39Speaker 2: to get that blood in his truck because it would
- 19:41Speaker 2: be directly tied to him. That's my first thought. Next,
- 19:44Speaker 2: when you look at the fact that Dixon's going to
- 19:49Speaker 2: the truck plaza, isn't that where people saw him saw
- 19:52Speaker 2: Gary pacing back and forth.
- 19:53Speaker 1: This is actually the day after his meeting with Gary.
- 19:56Speaker 1: So Gary was seen the previous day, and Dixon wasn't
- 19:59Speaker 1: boring to truck to see Gary because once again, this
- 20:01Speaker 1: is the day after. So I mean, your theory about
- 20:04Speaker 1: him using it to move a body, that would make sense,
- 20:07Speaker 1: But I think we can discount the idea that he
- 20:09Speaker 1: just wanted a nicer truck to make a better impression.
- 20:12Speaker 1: For making a horse deal.
- 20:13Speaker 2: I think he was moving a body. Then that's his
- 20:15Speaker 2: quote personal business. I'm sorry I misunderstood that it was
- 20:17Speaker 2: the next day. Yeah, I think his personal business was
- 20:21Speaker 2: making sure that forensic evidence was in his friend Tom's
- 20:24Speaker 2: truck and not his.
- 20:25Speaker 3: I like that theory. That sounds accurate, That makes sense.
- 20:28Speaker 1: And to clarify the timeline, he didn't come home the
- 20:31Speaker 1: previous evening and failed to call his wife, and he
- 20:33Speaker 1: did call her till three pm the day after, on
- 20:36Speaker 1: October the sixteenth, which was, of course, the last time
- 20:39Speaker 1: he was confirmed to be alive. So it sounds like
- 20:42Speaker 1: that was very out of the ordinary. So it makes
- 20:44Speaker 1: you wonder where was Dixon during the night. Was he
- 20:48Speaker 1: disposing of a body or something, or was he hiding out.
- 20:51Speaker 1: There's just nothing about his actions that make any sense.
- 20:55Speaker 1: So the investigation revealed that Gary and Tom Dixon were
- 20:58Speaker 1: both members of the Heart of America Horse Association, but
- 21:02Speaker 1: there was no indication the two men knew each other
- 21:04Speaker 1: before they met at Gary's office on the morning of
- 21:06Speaker 1: October fifteenth. Garys secretary Jody Miller, also said that she
- 21:11Speaker 1: overheard part of the conversation where Gary told Dixon quote
- 21:15Speaker 1: I don't remember you. Even though Gary owned twenty three horses,
- 21:19Speaker 1: most of them were inexpensive Appalooza brood mares, and he
- 21:23Speaker 1: had never paid a price as high as thirty thousand dollars.
- 21:26Speaker 1: Nancy found it odd that her husband would have agreed
- 21:29Speaker 1: to such a large purchase without consulting her first, and
- 21:32Speaker 1: she claimed to have no idea who Tom Dixon was.
- 21:35Speaker 1: Gary had also written to check at Dixon on a
- 21:38Speaker 1: rarely used general business account. He added a bank which
- 21:41Speaker 1: contained exactly thirty thousand dollars. As for Dixon, he was
- 21:45Speaker 1: in serious debt at the time of his disappearance, as
- 21:48Speaker 1: two houses he had been constructing around finished and the
- 21:51Speaker 1: firms holding the mortgages on them were granted judgments totaling
- 21:55Speaker 1: about one hundred and fifty thousand dollars in foreclosure proceedings
- 21:58Speaker 1: which would force Dixon family to move out of their home.
- 22:02Speaker 1: On April twenty second, nineteen seventy five, six months after
- 22:06Speaker 1: Gary's disappearance, the Least Summit underwater Recovery unit arrived at
- 22:10Speaker 1: Lebanite Park in the suburb of Sugar Creek after a
- 22:13Speaker 1: confidential tip was phoned in about a Cadillac that had
- 22:17Speaker 1: recently been dumped in the Missouri River. While searching the water,
- 22:21Speaker 1: the recovery unit wound up discovering a submerged Lincoln Continental,
- 22:24Speaker 1: which turned out to be Gary Simmons missing vehicle. It
- 22:28Speaker 1: was found about one hundred yards from a boat ramp,
- 22:30Speaker 1: and it appeared that someone placed a rock on the
- 22:33Speaker 1: accelerator to intentionally drive the car into the river. The
- 22:37Speaker 1: aforementioned Cadillac was also found, but it turned out to
- 22:40Speaker 1: have no connection to this case, and it was just
- 22:43Speaker 1: an odd coincidence that had happened to be in the
- 22:45Speaker 1: water so close to Gary's Lincoln Continental. Even though Gary
- 22:49Speaker 1: had gone missing from Kansas, the discovery of the car
- 22:52Speaker 1: over the state line in Missouri technically made it a
- 22:55Speaker 1: federal case, so the FBI became involved in the investigation. However,
- 23:00Speaker 1: they add no success turning up any trace of Gary
- 23:03Speaker 1: or Tom Dixon, and after officially being missing for seven years,
- 23:07Speaker 1: Gary was legally declared dead in October of nineteen eighty one,
- 23:11Speaker 1: but one decade later the investigation would be rejuvenated in
- 23:15Speaker 1: a most unexpected fashion.
- 23:18Speaker 2: That's wild. We know for a fact that clearly he
- 23:22Speaker 2: didn't drive, or I mean, he wasn't in the vehicle
- 23:25Speaker 2: when he drove it in, because there was a rock
- 23:27Speaker 2: put on the accelerator. I'm assuming people who found it said, well,
- 23:31Speaker 2: you know, if Gary wanted to disappear, he could have
- 23:33Speaker 2: put his own car in that area. We know later
- 23:37Speaker 2: we're going to find out that that likely is not
- 23:39Speaker 2: the case. But oh man, you would think that. You
- 23:44Speaker 2: look at this, and Dixon has a reason to be
- 23:47Speaker 2: desperate for money. I just don't understand why Gary has
- 23:52Speaker 2: that like urgent desperation as well, because he's even coming
- 23:55Speaker 2: into one hundred thousand dollars later that afternoon. So while
- 23:59Speaker 2: it makes sense that Dixon would basically do anything if
- 24:01Speaker 2: he was promised money, why Gary.
- 24:05Speaker 1: Yeah, that is the big mystery of this case. And
- 24:07Speaker 1: later on in the episode, we're going to talk about
- 24:09Speaker 1: the fact that his chain of gas stations were having
- 24:11Speaker 1: financial problems because of the oil embargo during the nineteen seventies.
- 24:15Speaker 1: But like you just said, he was scheduled to receive
- 24:17Speaker 1: one hundred thousand dollars payment at the bank that day,
- 24:20Speaker 1: and he flat out decided to postpone the meeting just
- 24:23Speaker 1: so he could make this horse deal for thirty thousand dollars.
- 24:26Speaker 1: And it just makes you wonder why was it so
- 24:29Speaker 1: important to potentially jeopardize a business deal that's pretty much
- 24:32Speaker 1: going to save your company.
- 24:34Speaker 3: And it's odd that he didn't tell his wife too.
- 24:37Speaker 3: I mean, it's a pretty large purchase, Like Ashley said,
- 24:41Speaker 3: it's around two hundred thousand dollars in today's money, and
- 24:45Speaker 3: I guess what he would be receiving would be like
- 24:47Speaker 3: around seven or seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. And
- 24:50Speaker 3: it doesn't mean the same thing. If your gas stations
- 24:53Speaker 3: are in financial they're having financial difficulties, you would maybe
- 24:57Speaker 3: want to be pumping some of that money back into
- 24:59Speaker 3: the gas station than not buying a horse that's worth
- 25:02Speaker 3: like two hundred thousand dollars. It seems very strange. On
- 25:07Speaker 3: October sixteenth, nineteen ninety one, one day after the seventeen
- 25:11Speaker 3: year anniversary of Gary's disappearance, a school bus driver named
- 25:15Speaker 3: Tyrone Rawlins was working at his company's bus yard in Independence, Missouri.
- 25:21Speaker 3: Tyrone claimed he'd always had an eerie feeling about the
- 25:24Speaker 3: rocky outcroppings located behind the bus yard, and on this
- 25:27Speaker 3: particular day, he decided to climb them and go exploring.
- 25:31Speaker 3: After being overcome with what he described as a weird premonition.
- 25:35Speaker 3: When Tyrone reached the north side of the hill, he
- 25:38Speaker 3: noticed a hidden cave and went inside it with a flashlight.
- 25:42Speaker 3: To his shock, he soon discovered a pair of cowboy
- 25:44Speaker 3: boots alongside a human skeleton which was clad in decaying clothing.
- 25:49Speaker 3: After the police were summoned to the scene, they found
- 25:52Speaker 3: Gary Simmons driver's license in the victim's pants pocket. Dental
- 25:56Speaker 3: records would eventually be used to positively identify him, and
- 26:00Speaker 3: it turned out that he'd been shot once in the head.
- 26:03Speaker 3: Since the Countess cloth was discovered inside the cave, this
- 26:06Speaker 3: seemed to indicate that Gary had been murdered elsewhere before
- 26:09Speaker 3: his body was placed there. This type of cloth was
- 26:12Speaker 3: commonly used by painters, which had been one of Tom
- 26:15Speaker 3: Dixon's jobs before he disappeared. So that was another piece
- 26:19Speaker 3: of evidence which seemed to point towards Dixon being the perpetrator.
- 26:24Speaker 2: So you're saying there was basically like a painter's tarp
- 26:26Speaker 2: almost that was found with him.
- 26:28Speaker 1: Yeah, that he was wrapped up in. So that's what
- 26:29Speaker 1: they probably moved to move the That's what they probably
- 26:32Speaker 1: used to move the body.
- 26:33Speaker 2: Yep, that makes sense, and therefore it doesn't really matter
- 26:36Speaker 2: the rest of it. No one's going to complete suicide
- 26:39Speaker 2: by wrapping themselves in a tarp and then attempting to
- 26:41Speaker 2: shoot themselves. So that's so bizarre. And you look at Tyrone,
- 26:46Speaker 2: he says, Hey, I just had this kind of Inklan
- 26:48Speaker 2: that something's not right. I'm going to go explore. I
- 26:51Speaker 2: believe that people have that ability, or that you have
- 26:54Speaker 2: this gut kind of premonition once in a while where
- 26:57Speaker 2: I don't think you would ever anticipate finding a human
- 26:59Speaker 2: body wrapped up in a tarp. But it's always so
- 27:05Speaker 2: crazy to me when something like what Tyrone had happened
- 27:08Speaker 2: actually occurs. Clearly, this man doesn't have anything to do
- 27:11Speaker 2: with it, but your first thought would be like, well,
- 27:13Speaker 2: how would he know. I just think it's one of
- 27:15Speaker 2: those kind of sixth sense kind of things. It's really
- 27:17Speaker 2: fascinating to me.
- 27:18Speaker 1: It's true, like some people hear this part of the
- 27:20Speaker 1: story and they get suspicious of Tyron and think that
- 27:23Speaker 1: he might be involved with the murder. But he was
- 27:25Speaker 1: in his early to mid twenties at the time, meaning
- 27:27Speaker 1: that he would have been like six or seven years
- 27:29Speaker 1: old by the time that Gary went missing, So He's
- 27:32Speaker 1: obviously not involved in what happened, so it could just
- 27:35Speaker 1: be one of those things where he just had this
- 27:37Speaker 1: weird premonition and lo and behold that actually paid off
- 27:40Speaker 1: and he did find someone.
- 27:42Speaker 3: And I think we've all been to places where the
- 27:44Speaker 3: vibes are off. You can just feel it in the air.
- 27:48Speaker 3: There's something ominous or nefarious about the place that you're
- 27:51Speaker 3: in and you just want to get out. You hear
- 27:53Speaker 3: people talk about that when they go to the catacombs
- 27:56Speaker 3: in Paris, for example. Right, it's like oppressed, absolutely, And
- 28:00Speaker 3: so this doesn't surprise me. I think if you've got
- 28:03Speaker 3: these rocky oat croppings close by, if there's some kind
- 28:06Speaker 3: of energy imprinted that could have been from the murder
- 28:09Speaker 3: or the disposal of the body, the fact that human
- 28:12Speaker 3: beings could pick up on it, I don't think is
- 28:14Speaker 3: so far fetched, and I do believe that human beings
- 28:17Speaker 3: all have that ability to different degrees.
- 28:20Speaker 1: The whole situation compelled Tyrone Rawlins to send a letter
- 28:23Speaker 1: to Unsolved Mysteries requesting them to feature Gary's case on
- 28:27Speaker 1: their show. They decided to cover this story on an
- 28:30Speaker 1: episode which aired on April the eighth, nineteen ninety two.
- 28:32Speaker 1: But while they were filming this segment, a local rancher
- 28:35Speaker 1: named Roy Hilton came forward and shared some surprising new information.
- 28:40Speaker 1: For years, the authorities assumed that dixon so called horse
- 28:43Speaker 1: deal was bogus and used as a ruse to scam
- 28:46Speaker 1: Gary out of thirty thousand dollars before he was murdered. However,
- 28:50Speaker 1: Hilton knew both men personally and claimed that he saw
- 28:53Speaker 1: Gary at the Whispering Downs Horse ranch on the same
- 28:56Speaker 1: day he went missing. Hilton said that Gary personally showed
- 29:00Speaker 1: him the horse he was planning to buy, and he
- 29:02Speaker 1: also witnessed Gary make two phone calls from the ranch,
- 29:05Speaker 1: the call to his secretary asking her to make out
- 29:08Speaker 1: a thirty thousand dollars check for Dixon, and his call
- 29:11Speaker 1: to the bank authorizing Dixon to cash it. In addition
- 29:15Speaker 1: to Hilton's new information, investigators were taken by surprise when
- 29:18Speaker 1: they decided to reinterview Bob Williams, the co owner of
- 29:22Speaker 1: Bob's Salvagyard, who revised his original story about his interactions
- 29:26Speaker 1: with Tom Dixon that day. Williams now claimed that Dixon
- 29:30Speaker 1: arrived at the salvage yard in the Lincoln Continental and
- 29:33Speaker 1: inquired about the possibility of using the yard's car crusher
- 29:36Speaker 1: to get rid of it. Williams said this would attract
- 29:39Speaker 1: a lot of attention and advised Dixon that the easiest
- 29:42Speaker 1: way to make the car disappear would be to put
- 29:44Speaker 1: a brick on the accelerator and drive it off a
- 29:47Speaker 1: boat ramp into the Missouri River. Well, sure enough, the
- 29:50Speaker 1: spot where Gary's Lincoln Continental was found in the river
- 29:53Speaker 1: six months later was only five miles from the salvage yard.
- 29:57Speaker 1: As a result of William's new story, police He's were
- 30:00Speaker 1: able to issue a new arrest warrant charging Dixon with
- 30:03Speaker 1: auto theft, though they lack the evidence to charge him
- 30:05Speaker 1: with murder.
- 30:07Speaker 2: I'm gonna have to give props to Bob Williams. Clearly
- 30:10Speaker 2: he's a CD individual who has no problem being like,
- 30:13Speaker 2: oh wait a minute, let me help you get rid
- 30:15Speaker 2: of that vehicle a different way, right. But he does
- 30:18Speaker 2: eventually tell the truth, and without that we kind of
- 30:22Speaker 2: would have lost track of what happened with Dixon. He
- 30:26Speaker 2: arrives in what we would allude to is Gary's Lincoln,
- 30:31Speaker 2: and then that same Lincoln is found with exactly what
- 30:34Speaker 2: Bob told him to do, put a brick on the
- 30:36Speaker 2: accelerator and put it down into the Missouri River. And
- 30:39Speaker 2: that's exactly what he did. I mean, he did eventually
- 30:42Speaker 2: come forward, so props to Bob Williams.
- 30:46Speaker 1: But I do think it's weird that he didn't put
- 30:48Speaker 1: two and two together at the time, because Gary's disappearance
- 30:51Speaker 1: made the news back in nineteen seventy four, and I'm
- 30:54Speaker 1: guessing maybe Williams didn't read about the discovery of the
- 30:57Speaker 1: Lincoln Continental in the river six months later, because otherwise
- 31:00Speaker 1: he should have put two and two together and realized, Hey,
- 31:02Speaker 1: that's the same car that Dixon told me to dispose of.
- 31:05Speaker 1: But who knows, maybe he forgot about it. And then
- 31:07Speaker 1: when he read about the discovery of Gary's body in
- 31:10Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one, just a light bulb went off over
- 31:13Speaker 1: his head.
- 31:14Speaker 2: Or did he not say something because it was like,
- 31:17Speaker 2: holy crap, I'm now part of a murder, you know?
- 31:19Speaker 2: At first? Was he too worried about being caught in
- 31:21Speaker 2: the middle of it?
- 31:22Speaker 1: Might be. I mean, obviously he's a shady person if
- 31:25Speaker 1: he's telling people to like run cars off into the river,
- 31:27Speaker 1: which is not just average advice you give to a customer.
- 31:31Speaker 1: But yeah, it's kind of weird these people coming forward
- 31:33Speaker 1: because Roy Hilton's story about seeing Gary at the Horse Ranch.
- 31:36Speaker 1: I keep thinking, why didn't he come forward with this
- 31:39Speaker 1: with his back in nineteen seventy four, or did he
- 31:41Speaker 1: just not realize the significance at the time.
- 31:45Speaker 3: For years, an alternate theory presented for Gary's disappearance was
- 31:49Speaker 3: that he'd been murdered over black market gasoline. In October
- 31:52Speaker 3: nineteen seventy three, the United States and several other nations
- 31:56Speaker 3: were hit with an oil crisis when members of the
- 31:59Speaker 3: Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries proclaimed in oil embargo.
- 32:04Speaker 3: By the time the embargo ended five months later, the
- 32:07Speaker 3: price of oil had increased by nearly three hundred percent,
- 32:10Speaker 3: which had serious financial impact on many people in the business.
- 32:15Speaker 3: This included the Simmons Petroleum Corporation, as the embargo caused
- 32:19Speaker 3: Gary's regular suppliers to be cut off and he was
- 32:22Speaker 3: forced to buy gasoline from other suppliers that inflated prices.
- 32:26Speaker 3: At the time, Gary had been operating a chain of
- 32:29Speaker 3: sixteen gas stations, but was unable to purchase enough fuel
- 32:32Speaker 3: to keep them all supplied, forcing him to close many
- 32:35Speaker 3: of the stations. Indeed, the oil crisis forced a number
- 32:39Speaker 3: of independent operators to purchase gasoline from legal vendors at
- 32:43Speaker 3: inflated prices in order to keep their businesses afloat. At
- 32:47Speaker 3: one point, Gary's family hired a private investigator who uncovered
- 32:51Speaker 3: information which made him suspect that Gary was killed because
- 32:54Speaker 3: he was scheduled to testify as part of a federal
- 32:57Speaker 3: US Department of Energy investigation into black marke gasoline fails.
- 33:03Speaker 3: Gary could have purchased gasoline from a source from a
- 33:06Speaker 3: source without knowing it was black market, but once he
- 33:09Speaker 3: found out and spoke out about it, his life was
- 33:11Speaker 3: put in danger. However, investigators never found any evidence to
- 33:15Speaker 3: suggest that Gary was involved in anything illegal, and his
- 33:19Speaker 3: family did not believe that he ever would have purchased
- 33:21Speaker 3: black market gasoline. Even though Gary had experienced economic hardship,
- 33:27Speaker 3: business had started picking up for him again in nineteen
- 33:29Speaker 3: seventy four. He was able to reopen some of his
- 33:32Speaker 3: gas stations, and at the time he went missing, ten
- 33:35Speaker 3: of them were in operation. One theory which investigators did
- 33:39Speaker 3: believe was that Tom Dixon was not the sole mastermind
- 33:42Speaker 3: behind Gary's disappearance, as he did not think that he
- 33:46Speaker 3: had the smarts to orchestrate an elaborate murder plot on
- 33:49Speaker 3: his own. They suspected that Dixon might have been hired
- 33:52Speaker 3: by an unknown third party who subsequently double crossed Dixon
- 33:56Speaker 3: and killed him as well before disposing of his body,
- 33:59Speaker 3: though it was never conclusively proven. If Dixon is alive
- 34:02Speaker 3: or dead, there's been no paper trail for him since
- 34:05Speaker 3: nineteen seventy four. He's technically still a wanted fugitive for
- 34:09Speaker 3: the auto theft charges, and if Dixon is still alive today,
- 34:13Speaker 3: he would currently be ninety three years old. But until
- 34:16Speaker 3: Tom Dixon or any other evidence can be found, the
- 34:19Speaker 3: murder of Gary Simmons will continue to remain unsolved.
- 34:23Speaker 1: So I guess you could say the path went chili.
- 34:26Speaker 2: I have to completely agree. I don't think that Dixon. Remember,
- 34:29Speaker 2: he's somebody who struggles to keep a job. He has
- 34:32Speaker 2: odd jobs, he works carnivals. He just doesn't seem like
- 34:36Speaker 2: the person. Like I said earlier, they would even be
- 34:38Speaker 2: involved in the horse industry at the level of trading
- 34:41Speaker 2: and buying and selling, but also who would be able
- 34:45Speaker 2: to orchestrate an entire murder plot to steal money with
- 34:49Speaker 2: the cover of the horse farm. But a question if
- 34:52Speaker 2: Gary was truly at the horse farm. Is it possible
- 34:56Speaker 2: that the man telling him, hey, I saw him, Could
- 34:59Speaker 2: he oh more than he's saying? Could he be like
- 35:02Speaker 2: part of the plot, or could it be someone at
- 35:04Speaker 2: the horse firm.
- 35:06Speaker 1: I don't think so, because I know that Roy Hilton
- 35:08Speaker 1: was interviewed on Unsolved Mysteries after he came forward because
- 35:12Speaker 1: they were in the middle of filming the segment in
- 35:14Speaker 1: the town, and that he learned about it in the
- 35:16Speaker 1: newspaper and says, oh, by the way, I have this
- 35:18Speaker 1: new information and I'm going to come forward and share
- 35:20Speaker 1: it on National TV. And I'd like to think that
- 35:23Speaker 1: if he knew something, or if he was involved in
- 35:25Speaker 1: the whole thing, he probably would have kept his mouth
- 35:27Speaker 1: shut and not gone on National TV. So, like I
- 35:31Speaker 1: mentioned in the intro, I was only familiar with the
- 35:33Speaker 1: case from Unsolved Mysteries, but once I started researching it,
- 35:36Speaker 1: it wound up being a lot more convoluted than I
- 35:39Speaker 1: was expecting. The original Unsolved Mystery segment is structured in
- 35:43Speaker 1: an odd way, as the first few minutes focus on
- 35:46Speaker 1: Tyrone Rollins's so called premonition, which led to him discovering
- 35:50Speaker 1: Gary Simmonson's skeleton, inside a cave. You initially get the
- 35:54Speaker 1: impression that it's going to be some sort of paranormal
- 35:57Speaker 1: theme segment about people's alleged psychic ability, But then the
- 36:01Speaker 1: entire side story about Tyrone Rollins is dropped and the
- 36:04Speaker 1: segment morphs into a pretty compelling story about an unsolved murder.
- 36:09Speaker 1: But the section with Tyrone is still pretty bizarre, because,
- 36:12Speaker 1: seemingly on a whim, he just decided to explore a
- 36:15Speaker 1: hidden cave and stumbled upon the remains of a person
- 36:18Speaker 1: who had been missing for seventeen years. I can see
- 36:21Speaker 1: how that might come across as suspicious, but given that
- 36:24Speaker 1: Tyrone would have been a young kid at the time
- 36:26Speaker 1: Gary was murdered, there's no reason to believe he was involved,
- 36:30Speaker 1: though I'm sure it still must have been awkward for
- 36:32Speaker 1: him to explain the situation to the police. However, when
- 36:35Speaker 1: I read the original newspaper articles about Tyrone's discovery, they
- 36:39Speaker 1: reported that exploring random caves was one of his hobbies,
- 36:43Speaker 1: and this is why he just happened to find the skeleton.
- 36:46Speaker 1: Given that Tyrone was the one who brought this case
- 36:49Speaker 1: to the attention of unsolved mysteries in the first place
- 36:52Speaker 1: by writing them a letter. You have to wonder if
- 36:54Speaker 1: he might have decided to exaggerate this premonition stuff to
- 36:58Speaker 1: help ensure the case would be featured on the pro
- 37:00Speaker 1: and he would get interviewed on national television. But Unsolved
- 37:04Speaker 1: Mysteries was not the only media outlet to attempted to
- 37:07Speaker 1: sensationalize this part of the story. If you do a
- 37:10Speaker 1: search online, you'll find an article about this case in
- 37:13Speaker 1: the January fourteenth, nineteen ninety two edition of the infamous
- 37:17Speaker 1: tabloid The Weekly World News. They mentioned that when Gary
- 37:21Speaker 1: originally went missing, a psychic apparently said that he would
- 37:24Speaker 1: be found in a quote unquote cold dark place, and well,
- 37:28Speaker 1: he was found in a cold dark place. However, I
- 37:31Speaker 1: might have to question the credibility of this story considering
- 37:34Speaker 1: that the main headline of this particular edition of The
- 37:37Speaker 1: Weekly World News was Lockness Monster captured and well, as
- 37:41Speaker 1: far as I can tell, the lock Nest Monster has
- 37:43Speaker 1: not been captured. So from now on, I think we
- 37:46Speaker 1: could move away from the psychic premonition angle of this
- 37:49Speaker 1: case and start focusing on the actual crime.
- 37:53Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, And think about this a cold dark place
- 37:56Speaker 2: that's not that specific. It could be a crawl space
- 37:58Speaker 2: it could be a cave, it could be a million
- 38:01Speaker 2: different things right a basement somewhere. I mean, I don't know.
- 38:05Speaker 2: That doesn't really shock me. Now, I will say Tyrone's experience.
- 38:10Speaker 2: I think even things like the Holy Spirit, I think
- 38:13Speaker 2: there's influences of like spiritual force and where you can
- 38:16Speaker 2: feel energies and things like that. But I know, I
- 38:19Speaker 2: mean in my own life, it's happened to me where
- 38:21Speaker 2: I see something that is gonna happen or I woke
- 38:25Speaker 2: up about I don't know about six months ago and
- 38:28Speaker 2: I knew in my gut my store was on fire downtown.
- 38:32Speaker 2: And I woke Rebel up and I was like, Rebel,
- 38:34Speaker 2: did you blow the candles out at the store? And
- 38:35Speaker 2: he's like, yeah, I'm ninety eight percent sure that I
- 38:38Speaker 2: blew them out. And I was so mad, and I
- 38:40Speaker 2: was like, ninety eight percent is not gonna cut it
- 38:42Speaker 2: right if our store's on fire. I got in my car,
- 38:45Speaker 2: drove downtown and as I pulled around the corner, there's
- 38:48Speaker 2: flames in front of my store. Someone had put their
- 38:51Speaker 2: cigarettes out in my planner and it was on fire
- 38:54Speaker 2: but crawling up the front of my store. Legit. I
- 38:57Speaker 2: woke up out of a dead sleep. My store was
- 39:01Speaker 2: on fire. Something happened right there, do you know what
- 39:03Speaker 2: I mean? We're like you see and know something. So
- 39:06Speaker 2: I think Tyrone very well could have been like something's
- 39:10Speaker 2: wrong in that cave, I'm going up there, or something's
- 39:12Speaker 2: wrong in that area, I'm going up there.
- 39:14Speaker 3: I think you're just like so connected to your store
- 39:16Speaker 3: and everything in it that you've like imprinted on it.
- 39:19Speaker 3: There's this quantum entanglement that like it is part of you,
- 39:22Speaker 3: so that you can feel when something bad is happening.
- 39:25Speaker 3: And I just think that maybe you're more perceptive to that,
- 39:28Speaker 3: and I've had similar experiences, but I think some people
- 39:31Speaker 3: will get a feeling like that, but then they'll just
- 39:34Speaker 3: be like the logical part of their brain will say,
- 39:36Speaker 3: oh no, that can't be real, Like I'm not a psychic.
- 39:39Speaker 3: And I think that Tyrone said a very vague thing,
- 39:42Speaker 3: like I had a premonition, Like maybe you were just
- 39:45Speaker 3: called towards that area because you thought that there was
- 39:48Speaker 3: just really strange vibes there, and so you thought that
- 39:51Speaker 3: you'd explore the caves. But like premonition, he doesn't go
- 39:54Speaker 3: into what that premonition is.
- 39:57Speaker 1: Oh yeah, And another thing that makes you. I know
- 39:59Speaker 1: some people have wondered, well, maybe if he wasn't personally
- 40:01Speaker 1: involved in the murder, that maybe he knew someone who
- 40:05Speaker 1: was or somebody told them something. But let's not forget
- 40:07Speaker 1: that this is an independence Missouri and Gary originally went
- 40:11Speaker 1: missing in Overland Park, Kansas, across the state line. So
- 40:14Speaker 1: Tyrone I don't think would have had any connection to
- 40:16Speaker 1: this case or anyone that he knew, and it probably
- 40:19Speaker 1: was just a coincidence and a genuine premonition that he
- 40:22Speaker 1: happened to find Gary's remains.
- 40:24Speaker 2: And he was a child, right, I mean he was
- 40:26Speaker 2: a child when Gary went missing.
- 40:28Speaker 1: Yeah, that's correct, So that's why he was ruled out
- 40:31Speaker 1: as a suspect. Though I always wonder though, if he
- 40:33Speaker 1: was around the age where he would have been an
- 40:34Speaker 1: adult at the time Gary went missing. I wonder if
- 40:37Speaker 1: you would have been more hesitant to go to the police, thinking, well,
- 40:39Speaker 1: they're gonna blame me for this because I'm the one
- 40:41Speaker 1: who led them to the body.
- 40:43Speaker 2: Well, I think that always is one of the first thoughts, Right,
- 40:45Speaker 2: it's either someone they know or the person that found them.
- 40:49Speaker 2: We've seen so many cases where people put themselves into
- 40:52Speaker 2: the case when the last thing they should be doing
- 40:54Speaker 2: is drawing attention to themselves. But not every criminal is smart,
- 40:58Speaker 2: and hey, I'm really interested in the longness month being captured.
- 41:01Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what Part two is going to be about.
- 41:03Speaker 1: We're just going to focus on that angle.
- 41:05Speaker 2: We're so excited.
- 41:07Speaker 1: So I think that about brings an end to part
- 41:09Speaker 1: one of our series. Join us next week as we
- 41:11Speaker 1: present part two of our series on the murder of
- 41:13Speaker 1: Gary Simmons.
- 41:16Speaker 3: Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit
- 41:18Speaker 3: about the Trail Went Cold Patreon?
- 41:20Speaker 1: Yes, The Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three
- 41:23Speaker 1: years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like
- 41:26Speaker 1: early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers
- 41:30Speaker 1: and sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up
- 41:33Speaker 1: with us on Patreon. If you join our five dollars
- 41:35Speaker 1: tier Tier two, we also offer monthly bonus episodes in
- 41:39Speaker 1: which I talk about cases which are not featured on
- 41:43Speaker 1: the Trail Went Cold's original feed, so they're exclusive to Patreon,
- 41:46Speaker 1: and if you join our highest tier tier three, the
- 41:49Speaker 1: ten dollars tier. One of the features we offer is
- 41:52Speaker 1: a audio commentary track over classic episodes of UNSAWD Mysteries,
- 41:56Speaker 1: where you can download an audio file and then boot
- 41:59Speaker 1: up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or
- 42:03Speaker 1: YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in
- 42:06Speaker 1: the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids about
- 42:09Speaker 1: the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very
- 42:13Speaker 1: first episode that I did a commentary track over was
- 42:16Speaker 1: the episode featuring this case. So if you want to
- 42:18Speaker 1: download a commentary track in which I make more smart
- 42:21Speaker 1: ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor, then be sure to join
- 42:24Speaker 1: Tier three.
- 42:25Speaker 4: So I want to let you know a little bit
- 42:27Speaker 4: about the Jeueles and Nashty patreons. So there's early ad
- 42:30Speaker 4: free episodes of The Path Went Chili. We've got our
- 42:32Speaker 4: Pathwent Chili mini's, which are always over an hour, so
- 42:36Speaker 4: they're not very mini, but they're just too short to
- 42:38Speaker 4: turn into a series, and we're really enjoying doing those.
- 42:41Speaker 4: So we hope you'll check out those patreons.
- 42:43Speaker 3: We'll link them in the show notes.
- 42:45Speaker 1: So I want to thank you all for listening, and
- 42:47Speaker 1: any chance you have to share us on social media
- 42:49Speaker 1: with a friend or to rate and review is greatly
- 42:52Speaker 1: appreciate it. You can email us at The Pathwentchili at
- 42:54Speaker 1: gmail dot com. You can reach us on Twitter at
- 42:57Speaker 1: the pathwin. So until next time, be sure to bundle
- 43:00Speaker 1: up because cold trails and chili pass call for warm clothing.
- 43:04Speaker 3: Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy