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Linda Sherman Pt. Two · The Path Went Chilly

0:29
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Path Went Chile for part two
0:32
Speaker 1: of our series about the unexplained death of Linda Sherman. Robin,
0:36
Speaker 1: do you want to catch everyone up on what we
0:37
Speaker 1: talked about in our previous episode?
0:40
Speaker 2: Well.
0:40
Speaker 3: The case takes place in nineteen eighty five in Benita Park, Missouri,
0:43
Speaker 3: and involves a married couple named Linda and Don Sherman
0:46
Speaker 3: who had been together since high school and Linda actually
0:49
Speaker 3: gave birth to a daughter named Patty when she was
0:52
Speaker 3: still seventeen years old, but the marriage has not been
0:55
Speaker 3: a happy one because Don has been alleged to be
0:57
Speaker 3: controlling and abusive, and many times Linda tried to get
1:00
Speaker 3: away from him, but would always go back. But at
1:03
Speaker 3: this particular point, she has decided that she wants to
1:06
Speaker 3: get a divorce, and Don is on the verge of
1:08
Speaker 3: being served the papers. But before this could take place,
1:11
Speaker 3: a Linda would go missing and her car would be
1:13
Speaker 3: found abandoned at the airport, but nobody believed that she
1:17
Speaker 3: left voluntarily because she never would have abandoned her daughter,
1:20
Speaker 3: and Patty would say that one morning her father was
1:23
Speaker 3: taking her to school and she recalled seeing her mother
1:26
Speaker 3: sleeping on the couch and This would turn out to
1:29
Speaker 3: be the last time she was confirmed to be alive,
1:31
Speaker 3: which has led to speculation that perhaps she was already
1:34
Speaker 3: dead at that point and that Don may have killed her.
1:38
Speaker 3: The case went cold for five years, but then a
1:40
Speaker 3: skull showed up outside a restaurant which was known for
1:44
Speaker 3: being one of Don's favorite hangouts, and they could not
1:47
Speaker 3: identify this call For about a year, it sat in
1:50
Speaker 3: a police evidence room, but then they received an anonymous
1:53
Speaker 3: note saying that the skull belonged to al Sherman, and
1:57
Speaker 3: sure enough, it was positively identified as belonging to Linda Sherman,
2:01
Speaker 3: but the rest of her remains have never been found.
2:04
Speaker 3: Of course, Don instantly came under suspicion, but brought up
2:07
Speaker 3: the legitimate point, saying that why would I dig up
2:09
Speaker 3: my wife's skull and leave it out in a public
2:11
Speaker 3: place so many years later after I had gotten away
2:14
Speaker 3: with it. They speculated that maybe it's because he wanted
2:17
Speaker 3: to get remarried and have Linda declared legally dead, but
2:21
Speaker 3: they never found any evidence that he was the one
2:23
Speaker 3: who dug up the skull, and he tried to say
2:25
Speaker 3: that whoever killed Linda was just trying to toy with
2:28
Speaker 3: him and frame him. But of course, Patty always believed
2:31
Speaker 3: that Don killed her mother and was pretty much estranged
2:34
Speaker 3: from him, and Don would get remarried, but he died
2:37
Speaker 3: of natural causes in twenty fifteen, so the investigation has
2:41
Speaker 3: pretty much hit a standstill, and it's still heavily debated
2:45
Speaker 3: whether or not Don would have been responsible for what
2:47
Speaker 3: happened to Linda.
2:49
Speaker 1: So let's go back and examine the exact circumstances of
2:52
Speaker 1: how Linda went missing. Don's official story is that he
2:56
Speaker 1: got home at around six pm on the evening of
2:59
Speaker 1: April twenty second, nineteen eighty five, and saw Linda quickly
3:02
Speaker 1: leave the house because she was running late for her
3:04
Speaker 1: shift at work. After she drove away, Linda did not
3:08
Speaker 1: show up for her shift and was never seen alive again.
3:11
Speaker 1: But of course we only have Don's word that these
3:14
Speaker 1: events took place, So the last confirmed sighting of Linda
3:18
Speaker 1: is from about ten to twelve hours earlier, when Patty
3:21
Speaker 1: saw her mother lying on the couch while she was
3:23
Speaker 1: leaving the house for school. And before that, we know
3:26
Speaker 1: that Linda signed out from her final shift at work
3:29
Speaker 1: at two sixteen am. Don's story is that they got
3:32
Speaker 1: into an argument because Linda arrived home late, and being
3:36
Speaker 1: the jealous guy that he was, he accused her of
3:38
Speaker 1: being with another man. After their argument subsided, they both
3:43
Speaker 1: went to sleep in separate rooms until Don woke up
3:46
Speaker 1: and took Patty to school a few hours later, which
3:49
Speaker 1: she found unusual since her mother was the one who
3:52
Speaker 1: generally drove her to school. Patty claims that she saw
3:55
Speaker 1: what appeared to be her mother sleeping on the couch,
3:58
Speaker 1: which she didn't move at all. So the disturbing implication
4:01
Speaker 1: here is that Down killed Linda after she arrived home
4:04
Speaker 1: from her shift, left her body on the couch, and
4:07
Speaker 1: then disposed of it after he'd dropped Patty off at school.
4:11
Speaker 1: It sounds like this is one of the main reasons
4:13
Speaker 1: Patty believes her father may have killed her mother. But
4:16
Speaker 1: I don't know if Don murdered Linda that morning. It
4:19
Speaker 1: seems to me that leaving her body on the couch
4:21
Speaker 1: in full view of her daughter would be an incredibly
4:24
Speaker 1: brazen thing to do. I mean, what if Patty had
4:27
Speaker 1: gone over and tried to wake Linda up. If Don
4:30
Speaker 1: had killed Linda in a fit of rage, I'm sure
4:33
Speaker 1: he knew that he couldn't go anywhere to dispose of
4:35
Speaker 1: her body immediately because Patty would wake up in only
4:38
Speaker 1: a few hours, so we had to go through the
4:41
Speaker 1: morning routine of taking her to school to give off
4:44
Speaker 1: the impression that everything was still normal. But if Don
4:48
Speaker 1: wanted to conceal what he'd done, I would think the
4:50
Speaker 1: most logical step would be to place Linda's body inside
4:53
Speaker 1: their bedroom, close the door, and tell Patty that her
4:57
Speaker 1: mother was sleeping and didn't want to be woken up,
5:00
Speaker 1: which seems far less risky than leaving her dead body
5:04
Speaker 1: out in the open on the couch. Interestingly enough, Patty
5:08
Speaker 1: was interviewed in an article about the case published in
5:11
Speaker 1: The Riverfront Times in nineteen ninety nine, and she described
5:14
Speaker 1: the image of seeing her mother lying on the couch
5:17
Speaker 1: while leaving for school as a recurring nightmare she often had,
5:21
Speaker 1: which caused her to wake up in tears. Since she
5:24
Speaker 1: was so young when this actual event happened, I have
5:27
Speaker 1: to wonder if Patty's memories of the situation are a
5:30
Speaker 1: bit exaggerated and the passage of time has made her
5:33
Speaker 1: believe that she was staring at her mother while she
5:35
Speaker 1: was dead. Personally, given that Linda supposedly did not go
5:39
Speaker 1: to sleep until around four am or so. I think
5:42
Speaker 1: it's equally plausible that she was sleeping soundly and simply
5:45
Speaker 1: did not wake up when Patty left.
5:48
Speaker 4: Can you imagine if Dawn was actually crazy enough to
5:53
Speaker 4: leave his deceased wife's body on the couch hoping that
5:56
Speaker 4: his little girl wouldn't go over there. I think I
5:59
Speaker 4: mentioned last time. But for me, even if I'm asleep,
6:02
Speaker 4: sometimes if you Oregan'll come in and she'll give me
6:04
Speaker 4: a kiss on the forehead, or she'll give me a
6:06
Speaker 4: light hug and leave the room and I might or
6:09
Speaker 4: might not wake up, but she'll just love on me
6:12
Speaker 4: because she just wants to say goodbye before she heads
6:14
Speaker 4: to school. And so if she had done that and
6:17
Speaker 4: her mother was deceased, it's possible her mother was cold.
6:19
Speaker 4: It's possible that there could have been an injury she saw.
6:22
Speaker 4: So it does seem very wild to think that Don
6:26
Speaker 4: would leave her there, and like you said, Jules not
6:28
Speaker 4: put her in the room with the door locked or
6:30
Speaker 4: something like that so that there was zero risk. And
6:33
Speaker 4: again when we talk about that skull appearing years later
6:37
Speaker 4: outside of Don's favorite restaurant, it does for any logical
6:42
Speaker 4: human beings scream, why would he do that? If he
6:45
Speaker 4: had gotten away with murder for so long? It does
6:49
Speaker 4: ring that bell of well did he need a deceased
6:52
Speaker 4: body and a conclusion that his wife was dead for
6:54
Speaker 4: things like life insurance? But there's a lot of laws
6:57
Speaker 4: in place that after a certain number of years, a
7:00
Speaker 4: missing person can be legally declared dead. So I'm wondering
7:04
Speaker 4: if that would have even been a motivator. It seems
7:07
Speaker 4: bizarre and like it could be retaliation or some kind
7:11
Speaker 4: of revenge against Don maybe able to scorned lover or
7:14
Speaker 4: something like that. But for anyone you went to a
7:18
Speaker 4: public place and dropped a skull with a name on it,
7:21
Speaker 4: That is the most brazen act I've ever heard of.
7:23
Speaker 4: It's just wild.
7:25
Speaker 1: Do you know how much Linda wide Robin I don't like.
7:29
Speaker 1: If she was really petite, I could see carrying her
7:32
Speaker 1: body to the bedroom from the living room where she
7:35
Speaker 1: was lying and it wouldn't be an issue. But if
7:38
Speaker 1: she was a larger size and heavier, it might have
7:41
Speaker 1: been a more difficult endeavor.
7:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, from the photographs I've seen of Linda, she just
7:45
Speaker 3: seems average size, so I don't think it would have
7:48
Speaker 3: been too complicated for Don to just simply move her
7:50
Speaker 3: into the bedroom rather than leaving her out on the
7:53
Speaker 3: couch in the open. I mean, I don't get the
7:55
Speaker 3: sense that Don is the smartest guy in the world.
7:57
Speaker 3: And as we talked about in the last episode, regardless
8:00
Speaker 3: whether he's guilty or murderer or not, he's definitely not
8:02
Speaker 3: a nice guy or a good husband because he was
8:05
Speaker 3: abusive towards Linda. But you have to think would he
8:08
Speaker 3: really be raisen enough to leave her body out in
8:11
Speaker 3: the open, because that just seems incredibly risky and there
8:14
Speaker 3: would be so many horrible things could go potentially wrong.
8:17
Speaker 1: Do we think that there's a possibility that there could
8:21
Speaker 1: have been some mysterious co conspirator who perhaps he enlisted
8:26
Speaker 1: to help dispose of the body, and then that person
8:30
Speaker 1: is the one that later digs up the skull and
8:35
Speaker 1: kind of brings it to light.
8:37
Speaker 3: I think that is a possibility that he did not
8:39
Speaker 3: act alone, because, as I'm going to talk about momentarily,
8:42
Speaker 3: I'm not exactly sure of Don's whereabouts after he took
8:46
Speaker 3: Patty to school, Like I don't know if he went
8:49
Speaker 3: to work for the next several hours, and obviously if
8:51
Speaker 3: he had witnesses vouching for his alibi, then it would
8:54
Speaker 3: have been really difficult for him to be able to
8:56
Speaker 3: dispose of Linda's body without his absence being noticed by
9:00
Speaker 3: But if he was able to get a cocon spirit
9:02
Speaker 3: to dispose of her body on his behalf, then who knows, maybe,
9:06
Speaker 3: like five years later, this person felt compelled to dig
9:09
Speaker 3: up her skull and leave it outside Don's favorite restaurant
9:12
Speaker 3: as a means to toy with him. So, like I
9:15
Speaker 3: just said, my biggest issue with the idea of Linda
9:17
Speaker 3: being dead that morning is that I'm not entirely sure
9:20
Speaker 3: about Don's whereabouts for the rest of the day. As
9:23
Speaker 3: far as I can tell, he ordinarily worked the day
9:25
Speaker 3: shift in a machine shop, and since April twenty second,
9:28
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty five was a Monday, it's reasonable to assume
9:31
Speaker 3: that Don would have been scheduled to work and went
9:34
Speaker 3: there after he dropped off Patty at school. If it
9:37
Speaker 3: turned out that Don conveniently called in sick, then yes,
9:40
Speaker 3: I can definitely believe he was busy disposing of Linda's body.
9:44
Speaker 3: But if he spent the entire day working until he
9:47
Speaker 3: arrived home at around six pm, then I find it
9:50
Speaker 3: highly unlikely that he would leave Linda's body lying on
9:52
Speaker 3: the couch the whole time. Of course, this does not
9:55
Speaker 3: necessarily mean that Don is innocent. I'm just saying that
9:59
Speaker 3: if he did kill Lynd, it's far more likely it
10:01
Speaker 3: happened after he got home that day rather than in
10:04
Speaker 3: the middle of the night. Remember, Linda officially filed for
10:07
Speaker 3: divorce on April the eleventh, but decided to remain in
10:10
Speaker 3: the house with Don because she knew he wouldn't get
10:13
Speaker 3: served the divorce papers for a few weeks. Well, since
10:16
Speaker 3: April the twenty second was a Monday. What if Don
10:19
Speaker 3: finally got served the papers that day or somehow learned
10:22
Speaker 3: about Linda's plans to divorce him, This could have put
10:26
Speaker 3: him in such a violent rage that he got into
10:28
Speaker 3: a fight with Linda after he returned home and wound
10:31
Speaker 3: up killing her in a crime of passion before she
10:33
Speaker 3: had the chance to leave for her night shift. To
10:36
Speaker 3: cover up the crime, Don took Linda's body and disposed
10:39
Speaker 3: of it somewhere, and then abandoned her Volkswagen in the
10:42
Speaker 3: parking garage at Lambert International Airport in order to make
10:45
Speaker 3: it look like she took off voluntarily. Don did mention
10:49
Speaker 3: that he thought an overnight bag and some of Linda's
10:51
Speaker 3: personal items were missing from the house, but he could
10:54
Speaker 3: have either been lying or gotten rid of these items
10:56
Speaker 3: in order to help make his story look more plausible.
10:59
Speaker 3: Of course, there are a number of missing persons cases
11:01
Speaker 3: in which the victim's vehicle is found in an airport
11:04
Speaker 3: parking lot, but the majority of the time it seems
11:07
Speaker 3: obvious that the vehicle was planted there by the perpetrator
11:10
Speaker 3: to give off the impression that the victim took a
11:13
Speaker 3: flight somewhere. The main reason no one believed that Linda
11:16
Speaker 3: took off is because they felt there was no way
11:18
Speaker 3: she would have abandoned her daughter. In the past, Linda
11:22
Speaker 3: had separated from Don and moved out with Patty on
11:24
Speaker 3: multiple occasions, and was always prepared to fight for legal custody. Ever,
11:29
Speaker 3: but now that she had begun the legal process of
11:31
Speaker 3: filing for a divorce and was planning to end the
11:33
Speaker 3: marriage for good, was she really just going to skip
11:36
Speaker 3: town and leave her daughter alone with her abusive husband.
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Speaker 4: I don't think so. There is a lot of complicated
11:43
Speaker 4: factors that go into this. Because you have a domestic
11:45
Speaker 4: violent situation and we know that Linda had done exactly
11:48
Speaker 4: what you said and what many many people in abusive
11:51
Speaker 4: situations do. They leave an average of seven to eight
11:54
Speaker 4: times before they can actually get away for a permanent
11:57
Speaker 4: situation where they're not with their abuser anymore. But she
12:01
Speaker 4: does have a daughter, and every time she leaves and
12:04
Speaker 4: she says had enough, I'm getting down of here, it's unsafe,
12:07
Speaker 4: she makes sure that Patty's with her. There's a little
12:10
Speaker 4: piece of me that wonders if you know, she's one
12:13
Speaker 4: of those women who said I'm going to leave the
12:15
Speaker 4: baby and come back once the divorce is final and
12:18
Speaker 4: get her, But that was never her mo before. It's
12:23
Speaker 4: very possible an attorney could have said, you know, you
12:25
Speaker 4: can't just take Patty. You're going to have to make
12:28
Speaker 4: sure that that's part of the custody agreement. And if
12:31
Speaker 4: she was scared of him, it's possible she could have
12:33
Speaker 4: taken her again. But never had that been an issue.
12:36
Speaker 4: So given the history, I think that it's more likely
12:39
Speaker 4: that Linda would have stood her ground and said, if
12:41
Speaker 4: Patty's not with me, I'm not leaving. Don was known
12:44
Speaker 4: to be abusive. Don was dangerous to her. That's why
12:47
Speaker 4: she wanted to leave, and therefore, why would she leave
12:50
Speaker 4: her daughter with that man. If she's no longer there,
12:53
Speaker 4: does Patty become the culprit of the abuse. I just
12:55
Speaker 4: don't see Linda leaving.
12:56
Speaker 3: Her exactly, and I'm sure any good attorney will tell
13:00
Speaker 3: her that if you're trying to start a divorce and
13:02
Speaker 3: fight for custody, it's going to look really bad for
13:04
Speaker 3: you if you suddenly just decide to take off for
13:06
Speaker 3: a while and disappear and not tell anyone from your
13:10
Speaker 3: family where you're going to be, because that's going to
13:12
Speaker 3: put you look like you're an irresponsible parent or something
13:15
Speaker 3: and won't favor you in the court. So yeah, that's
13:17
Speaker 3: why I thought there was zero chance that she would
13:20
Speaker 3: have taken off on her own.
13:21
Speaker 4: That's very true. While she'd have to be very careful
13:24
Speaker 4: of where she took Patty in a divorce because you
13:26
Speaker 4: don't want to be charged with kidnapping her or something
13:28
Speaker 4: like that. Either abandonment would have been what she was
13:31
Speaker 4: charged with if she left her, and then there's really
13:33
Speaker 4: not a favor of you getting your the custody agreement
13:37
Speaker 4: you want if you've just been charged with abandonment of
13:39
Speaker 4: your child. So very very good point.
13:43
Speaker 1: The only person who thought that Linda took off voluntarily
13:47
Speaker 1: was Dawn. He seemed convinced that Linda was having an
13:50
Speaker 1: affair with another man and acted pretty a nonchalant when
13:54
Speaker 1: she turned up missing. Now, it's never been one hundred
13:57
Speaker 1: percent confirmed that Linda was having an affair, though Don
14:00
Speaker 1: once said in an interview that she cheated on him
14:03
Speaker 1: in the past. He did specifically point to one of
14:06
Speaker 1: Linda's male coworkers, and while it's unclear if these allegations
14:10
Speaker 1: about an affair or true or not, this man was
14:12
Speaker 1: investigated by police and ruled out as a suspect. Regardless,
14:17
Speaker 1: Don seemed pretty certain that Linda was involved with someone
14:20
Speaker 1: and believed this person was ultimately responsible for her murder.
14:24
Speaker 1: As you'll recall, Don would later tell police he saw
14:27
Speaker 1: Linda inside a van being driven by an unidentified male
14:31
Speaker 1: a few days after she went missing, and she ducked
14:34
Speaker 1: down to avoid being seen. But of course, no one
14:38
Speaker 1: else but Don could corroborate the sighting. And once again,
14:41
Speaker 1: even if Linda really was seeing someone else, would she
14:45
Speaker 1: really have abandoned Patty for this person. It would be
14:48
Speaker 1: one thing if Don said it looked like Linda was
14:51
Speaker 1: being held against her will inside the van, but his
14:53
Speaker 1: story made it sound like she was there voluntarily and
14:57
Speaker 1: making a deliberate attempt not to be seen by him.
15:00
Speaker 1: There's definitely good reason to be skeptical about Don's story,
15:04
Speaker 1: though in his defense. If Don was the one who
15:06
Speaker 1: planted Linda's car in the airport parking garage in order
15:10
Speaker 1: to give off the impression that she traveled somewhere, it
15:13
Speaker 1: is odd that he would fabricate a sighting of her
15:15
Speaker 1: a few days later which implied that she was still
15:18
Speaker 1: in town.
15:19
Speaker 4: Okay, so Don's one pointing the finger that Linda's having
15:23
Speaker 4: an affair? Is there a possibility that Don is having
15:26
Speaker 4: extramarital relationships and that's why he needs her out of
15:29
Speaker 4: the situation to begin with.
15:31
Speaker 3: I've never been able to find any evidence that he
15:33
Speaker 3: was having an affair at this time. I mean, he
15:36
Speaker 3: did eventually become involved in another woman and got remarried,
15:39
Speaker 3: but I haven't heard anything to indicate he was still
15:42
Speaker 3: with this person back in nineteen eighty five. But it
15:45
Speaker 3: would not surprise me because a lot of the time
15:47
Speaker 3: these husbands will overcompensate by accusing their other of having
15:50
Speaker 3: an affair when they're actually doing the ad exact thing.
15:54
Speaker 4: Yeah, I love abusers because that's what they do. Anything
15:56
Speaker 4: that they're actually perpetrating, they accuse the victim of doing so.
16:01
Speaker 4: If they're having an affair, if they're drinking too much,
16:03
Speaker 4: if they're you know, writing somebody for their behaviors, it's like,
16:07
Speaker 4: you're doing that to me, you're cheating on me. It's like, actually,
16:10
Speaker 4: that's you. So because that is a common abuse tactic,
16:14
Speaker 4: I was just curious. He seemed fixated on this affair
16:16
Speaker 4: story and made me wonder if maybe he needed to
16:19
Speaker 4: be single, and his way of doing that was getting
16:22
Speaker 4: rid of Linda and.
16:23
Speaker 1: Like that van story, that sounds real far fetched to me,
16:27
Speaker 1: the idea that she's just going to like duck down
16:29
Speaker 1: and try to obscure herself. If it was something like
16:32
Speaker 1: she was actually being taken against her will and she'd
16:36
Speaker 1: been abducted and maybe somebody was pushing down her head,
16:39
Speaker 1: and then he thought that he saw her like trying
16:42
Speaker 1: to duck out a view. I could see that being
16:44
Speaker 1: misconstrued from somebody that already thinks that she's cheating. But
16:48
Speaker 1: I agree with you, ash is a common abuse tactic,
16:50
Speaker 1: and I think just because we don't know for a
16:54
Speaker 1: fact that dun was having an affair, it doesn't mean
16:56
Speaker 1: that he wasn't We in Part one talked about we
16:59
Speaker 1: just don't know the veracity of the investigation and how
17:02
Speaker 1: deep they dug into the potential that he could have
17:05
Speaker 1: had another woman or women on the side.
17:09
Speaker 3: But before we talk about the discovery of Linda's skull,
17:11
Speaker 3: let's discuss what happened during the five year window following
17:14
Speaker 3: your disappearance, as Don made an attempt to file for
17:17
Speaker 3: divorce from Linda on the grounds of abandonment. Now, when
17:20
Speaker 3: he was still a teenager, Don had a pretty terrible
17:23
Speaker 3: tragedy happened in his family. In February of nineteen seventy four,
17:28
Speaker 3: Don's mother was indicted for first tree murder after shooting
17:31
Speaker 3: her husband with a thirty two caliber gun during a
17:33
Speaker 3: heated argument, and Don and his siblings were home at
17:36
Speaker 3: the time this happened. Don's parents were both alcoholics, so
17:40
Speaker 3: it sounds like their marriage was a ticking time bomb,
17:43
Speaker 3: but his mother ultimately wound up pleading guilty demandslaughter and
17:46
Speaker 3: only had to serve six months in the county jail. Now,
17:50
Speaker 3: what's interesting is that Don's mother was represented by a
17:53
Speaker 3: public defender named Frank Anzeloni, who went on to become
17:56
Speaker 3: a prominent criminal defense attorney who was somewhat torreous for
18:00
Speaker 3: his willingness to defend clients whom most other lawyers were
18:04
Speaker 3: unwilling to touch. Over a decade after defending Don's mother,
18:08
Speaker 3: Anzelone wound up. Anzelone wound up representing Don himself when
18:12
Speaker 3: he requested an uncontested divorce from Linda after she went missing.
18:17
Speaker 3: By this point, Anzelone mostly handled violent felonies, so it
18:21
Speaker 3: seemed unusual that he would be handling a divorce case,
18:25
Speaker 3: but his client was suspected of potentially murdering his spouse anyway.
18:29
Speaker 3: As you recall, Linda had filed for divorce from Don
18:32
Speaker 3: less than two weeks before she went missing, so her
18:35
Speaker 3: attorney refused to consent to an uncontested divorce in her absence.
18:39
Speaker 3: He actually wanted to take a deposition from Don, but
18:42
Speaker 3: this never occurred since Anzeloni stated, quote, we will just
18:46
Speaker 3: plead the fifth. So it looks like Don really wanted
18:49
Speaker 3: a divorce from Linda, but not so much that he
18:52
Speaker 3: was willing to go under oath and be asked questions
18:55
Speaker 3: which he might not have been comfortable answering. As a result,
18:58
Speaker 3: the divorce filing was dismissed in June of nineteen eighty nine,
19:02
Speaker 3: which meant the Sherman's marriage was still legally intact, and
19:05
Speaker 3: it would be exactly one year later when Linda's skull
19:08
Speaker 3: suddenly appeared outside the Cassaga Yardo restaurant.
19:12
Speaker 1: So bizarre.
19:13
Speaker 4: I love how her attorney was like, excuse me, my
19:16
Speaker 4: client actually was filing for divorce actively when she went missing.
19:20
Speaker 4: And then this man says, well, you know, I just
19:22
Speaker 4: want this uncontested divorce, but I'm not willing to answer
19:25
Speaker 4: any questions to aid in any investigation around her disappearance
19:29
Speaker 4: or anything that could help authority. So it's just a
19:33
Speaker 4: very bizarre situation. And then on top of it, we
19:36
Speaker 4: talked about a year later, this skull appears in front
19:40
Speaker 4: of his favorite restaurant with her name on it. Someone
19:44
Speaker 4: took the time to drive up there, get the skull,
19:47
Speaker 4: put it out with there with a note that says,
19:50
Speaker 4: this is Linda Sherman's skull. It is mind boggling, and
19:54
Speaker 4: it's looking at the restaurant, if I remember correctly, like
19:57
Speaker 4: at the windows of the restaurant, so it incredibly eerie.
20:01
Speaker 4: I know he's desperate to get out of this marriage
20:03
Speaker 4: for many reasons. There could have been a life insurance policy.
20:06
Speaker 4: There could just be the freedom of getting away from
20:08
Speaker 4: the marriage itself and moving on with your life. But
20:12
Speaker 4: if the move was to plant the skull to get
20:15
Speaker 4: this to be an official deceased individual, which would then
20:19
Speaker 4: grant you freedom from your marriage, that's an extreme case.
20:23
Speaker 4: It has happened before. I just watched a case of
20:27
Speaker 4: a man who went fishing and his best friend was
20:30
Speaker 4: supposedly fishing with him, and it ended up that the
20:34
Speaker 4: wife and the best friend plotted to kill him. They
20:38
Speaker 4: couldn't find his body, and they decided to start planting
20:42
Speaker 4: evidence in the weeks and months after his quote drowning
20:46
Speaker 4: to prove that he had been in that area. So
20:48
Speaker 4: they were putting waiters in there. They were putting his hat,
20:51
Speaker 4: his id, things like that to wash up on shore
20:53
Speaker 4: months after he went missing. Mike something right, Yeah, it
20:58
Speaker 4: was in a lake seminole in Florida.
21:00
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yeah, I can't remember his last name, but
21:01
Speaker 1: I know his for same was Mike.
21:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, the Mike Williams case. It was on disappeared.
21:06
Speaker 4: Yeah, yes, And the reality is is that they did.
21:09
Speaker 4: They went to these really risky extreme links to say,
21:11
Speaker 4: we can't get the life insurance policy until it's proven
21:16
Speaker 4: he's actually deceased, and so they planted the evidence. The
21:20
Speaker 4: same thing could be happening here. It just seems to
21:22
Speaker 4: the logical human being preposterous, like why would you do that?
21:27
Speaker 3: Well, at least in the Mike Williams case, they wound
21:29
Speaker 3: up getting caught in that case wound up being solved.
21:32
Speaker 3: So if Don Sherman did the same thing, he still
21:34
Speaker 3: managed to get away with it.
21:36
Speaker 4: And to dig up a skull that's so different than
21:38
Speaker 4: an id or her purse or something like that. Someone
21:42
Speaker 4: had her body, knew where it was, took the time
21:45
Speaker 4: to go excavate, and you exhuom her skull and then
21:50
Speaker 4: brought it to this public location. It's way more bizarre
21:55
Speaker 4: than the Mic case, for sure.
21:57
Speaker 1: And no matter who did it, right, if Don did it,
21:59
Speaker 1: it's incredibly perplexing. It's like why would you do that?
22:04
Speaker 1: But then also if somebody else is doing it, what
22:07
Speaker 1: is their endgame here?
22:09
Speaker 3: And where was she?
22:11
Speaker 1: Yeah? I don't know, was she somewhere close? Was she far?
22:14
Speaker 1: Do they want Dawn to go down for the murder
22:16
Speaker 1: or are they just trying to like drum up attention.
22:19
Speaker 1: It's all so confusing, and.
22:22
Speaker 3: We just talked about this. But it's also bizarre that
22:24
Speaker 3: Don hired this criminal defense attorney, Frank Anzeloni, to be
22:28
Speaker 3: his divorce attorney, even though this guy was doing like
22:31
Speaker 3: violent felonies at this point rather than divorces. And it
22:35
Speaker 3: just seems like a situation where he's like, Hey, you
22:37
Speaker 3: defended my mother when she shot my father all these
22:40
Speaker 3: years ago. Do you think you could do a solid
22:42
Speaker 3: for me and represent me here? Because it was just
22:44
Speaker 3: kind of a unique situation where not only is a divorce,
22:47
Speaker 3: but he's a potential suspect and a disappearance and murder,
22:51
Speaker 3: So he wants someone with experience at this sort of
22:53
Speaker 3: thing to defend him. But I can't think of too
22:55
Speaker 3: many other cases where that sort of thing has happened.
22:59
Speaker 1: I'm sure it was no accident that the skull was
23:01
Speaker 1: left in front of Don's favorite restaurant at that time,
23:04
Speaker 1: a location where he hung out multiple times per week.
23:08
Speaker 1: This suggests that either Down himself planted the skull or
23:11
Speaker 1: it was someone else who was taunting him. If it
23:15
Speaker 1: was Dawn, then he was essentially attempting to give himself
23:17
Speaker 1: an alibi by placing it outside the establishment, because he
23:21
Speaker 1: wound up being told about the discovery of the skull
23:24
Speaker 1: when he visited the bar later that day, and he
23:26
Speaker 1: acted surprised. So now he could say, why would I
23:30
Speaker 1: be stupid enough to dig up my murdered wife's skull
23:33
Speaker 1: and leave it outside my favorite restaurant? But if Down
23:37
Speaker 1: was responsible, the obvious question is why would he do
23:40
Speaker 1: something like this. The theory pushed forward at the time
23:44
Speaker 1: is that Dawn wanted to get remarried, and since his
23:47
Speaker 1: attempts to divorce Linda in absentia were rejected, he dug
23:50
Speaker 1: up her skull and left it in a public place
23:53
Speaker 1: so that she could finally be declared legally dead.
23:56
Speaker 4: Well.
23:56
Speaker 1: The biggest problem with this theory is that Linda's skull
23:59
Speaker 1: could not be identified at first, so it remained in
24:02
Speaker 1: a more evidence room for fourteen months until the Benita
24:06
Speaker 1: Park PD received an anonymous note which read quote the
24:10
Speaker 1: Bridgeton Police have el Sherman's skull end quote. So if
24:15
Speaker 1: Don was so anxious to get remarried, why did he
24:18
Speaker 1: wait that long to send an anonymous note to let
24:21
Speaker 1: the police know that the skull belonged to Linda. To
24:24
Speaker 1: put this into perspective, in most states, a person has
24:27
Speaker 1: to be missing for at least seven years until they
24:30
Speaker 1: can be declared legally dead. The anonymous note was sent
24:33
Speaker 1: in September nineteen ninety one, and the seven year anniversary
24:37
Speaker 1: of Linda's disappearance would have been in April of nineteen
24:40
Speaker 1: ninety two. If Don wanted to declare Linda dead so badly,
24:44
Speaker 1: I see no logic in waiting fourteen months to send
24:47
Speaker 1: a note, yet not bothering to wait seven more months
24:50
Speaker 1: to declare her dead without any hassle.
24:53
Speaker 4: Yeah, that adds to the intrigue of this, because, like
24:56
Speaker 4: I had mentioned earlier, there were other ways to get
24:59
Speaker 4: her declared legally dead. I didn't realize it was that
25:03
Speaker 4: soon between the note being sent to the police department
25:05
Speaker 4: and then legally she would have been declared dead seven
25:09
Speaker 4: months later. So, like you said, you waited this long.
25:12
Speaker 4: Why put the risk there and actually go exhume your
25:17
Speaker 4: wife's skull and bring it and place it in this
25:20
Speaker 4: location and then send a note to the police. Why
25:23
Speaker 4: do all of that when you literally could just wait
25:25
Speaker 4: for seven months and go we got away with everything.
25:27
Speaker 4: I'm free from my marriage, I can collect any kind
25:30
Speaker 4: of financial benefit of her being deceased, and I can
25:34
Speaker 4: get remarried seven months. Do you really think he would
25:38
Speaker 4: have done that?
25:39
Speaker 3: Well? The lat thing I don't understand is why he
25:41
Speaker 3: wouldn't have sent the note sooner, Like he's probably thinking
25:44
Speaker 3: to himself, Okay, they're going to identify her eventually, I'll
25:47
Speaker 3: just hold off till it happens. But then why would
25:50
Speaker 3: you wait a whole fourteen months? Like, if you're so anxious,
25:52
Speaker 3: just send it maybe a month or two or something
25:54
Speaker 3: after the skull was discovered. And like we said, if
25:57
Speaker 3: you can wait fourteen months, then what's the horror waiting
26:00
Speaker 3: another seven months so you don't even have to go
26:02
Speaker 3: through with this at all?
26:04
Speaker 4: Someone trying to frame Don too, though, why would they
26:06
Speaker 4: wait fourteen.
26:07
Speaker 1: N That was what I was just gonna have too, Like,
26:10
Speaker 1: why would they wait? If you're going to go so
26:12
Speaker 1: far as to frame him and point the finger, why
26:14
Speaker 1: wouldn't you send a note right away.
26:17
Speaker 3: It's also worth noting that Don finally got married to
26:20
Speaker 3: his second wife in nineteen ninety, four years after Linda's
26:23
Speaker 3: skull resurface. So he really doesn't fit the profile of
26:26
Speaker 3: a man who was in a big hurry to get remarried.
26:29
Speaker 3: But I do can see that Don may have originally
26:31
Speaker 3: been planning to get married to someone else in nineteen
26:34
Speaker 3: ninety In the afore mentioned Riverfront Times article from nineteen
26:38
Speaker 3: ninety nine, Michael Webb, the lead investigator on the case,
26:42
Speaker 3: was asked about a rumor that an ex girlfriend of
26:44
Speaker 3: Don's had claimed he confess to Linda's murder. Web simply responded, quote,
26:49
Speaker 3: I won't deny that. I really can't comment on that aspect.
26:52
Speaker 3: End quote. Well, without more information, I can't really comment
26:56
Speaker 3: on that either, but I'm willing to consider the possibility
27:00
Speaker 3: Don was planning to marry this ex girlfriend at some point,
27:03
Speaker 3: but she changed her mind when she learned of Don's
27:05
Speaker 3: potential involvement in his wife's murder. As a result, his
27:09
Speaker 3: planned marriage to her fell through, and the woman Don
27:12
Speaker 3: ultimately married in nineteen ninety four was a completely different spouse. Wow.
27:17
Speaker 4: Okay, so he does have these plans to say, hey,
27:20
Speaker 4: I'm moving forward with my life, but then that falls
27:22
Speaker 4: through as well, and he does get married to a
27:25
Speaker 4: new woman in nineteen ninety four.
27:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's correct, which is a bouth three years after
27:32
Speaker 3: the notice sent to positively identify the skull.
27:35
Speaker 4: That's wild. I do find it really interesting too when
27:38
Speaker 4: you look back at his relationship with Patty, his daughter.
27:42
Speaker 4: When she talks, she never really speaks fondly of her father,
27:46
Speaker 4: right when she talks about him today.
27:49
Speaker 3: Oh, no, like she definitely thinks he did it. She
27:51
Speaker 3: was interviewed on Unsolved Mysteries, which aired I think in
27:54
Speaker 3: two thousand and two, and she was not hesitant to
27:57
Speaker 3: express her belief about the fact that she leave that
28:00
Speaker 3: her father killed her mother. But what was interesting is
28:03
Speaker 3: that we talked about this in our last episode, is
28:05
Speaker 3: that if you look up Don Sherman's obituary online from
28:08
Speaker 3: when he passed away in twenty fifteen, it mentions his
28:12
Speaker 3: daughter that he had with his second wife, and also
28:15
Speaker 3: his step kids, but it doesn't mention Patty's name at
28:18
Speaker 3: all as predeceasing him in death. So it gives off
28:22
Speaker 3: the impression that they were just completely estranged from each
28:24
Speaker 3: other by the time Dawn passed away.
28:27
Speaker 4: Wow, I mean, you had someone who was abusive to
28:29
Speaker 4: her mother no matter what, and I'm sure she was
28:32
Speaker 4: raised by him when mom died.
28:35
Speaker 3: Uh. Yes, I don't exactly know when they became a
28:38
Speaker 3: strange like how long she continued to raise Patty or
28:41
Speaker 3: when she had the realization that he probably killed her,
28:44
Speaker 3: because I think she was ten years old when her
28:47
Speaker 3: mother originally went missing. But I don't have any exact
28:50
Speaker 3: figures of when she realized that I need to get
28:53
Speaker 3: away from my dad.
28:54
Speaker 1: I'm so sad. Regardless of what Don's motive may have been,
28:59
Speaker 1: did up Linda's skull would still be an incredibly risky
29:03
Speaker 1: thing for him to do. If Don killed Linda, he'd
29:06
Speaker 1: successfully gotten away with it for over five years, as
29:10
Speaker 1: even though police had not ruled out Donn as a suspect,
29:13
Speaker 1: there was no hard evidence that he'd committed a crime.
29:16
Speaker 1: Even after the reappearance of the skull, the rest of
29:19
Speaker 1: Linda's remains could not be found, so whoever killed her
29:23
Speaker 1: did a very effective job at disposing of her body.
29:26
Speaker 1: Since there were traces of dirt on the skull, this
29:29
Speaker 1: implied that Linda was buried somewhere, and that someone had
29:32
Speaker 1: to go through the trouble of digging her up and
29:34
Speaker 1: then reburying the rest of her remains. Again, no matter
29:38
Speaker 1: who did this. That's a lot of needless work to
29:41
Speaker 1: go through, and it really defies all logic. There's also
29:45
Speaker 1: the fact that the reappearance of the skull helped rejuvenate
29:48
Speaker 1: the investigation, which had pretty much hit a dead end
29:51
Speaker 1: for years. If this was just a simple missing person's
29:55
Speaker 1: case where Linda vanished and was never seen again, it
29:58
Speaker 1: might have been forgotten about a long time time ago.
30:01
Speaker 1: But the reappearance of the skull put the case back
30:03
Speaker 1: into the spotlight again and was such a creepy detail
30:06
Speaker 1: that Unsolved Mysteries just had to produce a segment about
30:09
Speaker 1: the story.
30:11
Speaker 4: Oh, it's so perfect for Unsolved Mysteries. The reality, though,
30:14
Speaker 4: is exactly what you've said. If this was Non's work,
30:17
Speaker 4: had he just been quiet, you could have thought, Okay,
30:20
Speaker 4: Linda ran away to Mexico. There's nothing we can do
30:22
Speaker 4: about it. And it is what it is, right. She's
30:25
Speaker 4: a missing person far far more difficult and far less
30:29
Speaker 4: motivating for authorities to put a lot of resources towards
30:32
Speaker 4: than a murder that you know there is a deceased
30:36
Speaker 4: body somewhere that is missing its head. At this point
30:39
Speaker 4: like that to me would crank up an entirely different investigation.
30:43
Speaker 4: She's an adult, she could have left willingly on her own.
30:45
Speaker 4: Case closed. There is a body without a head somewhere
30:49
Speaker 4: of a poor girl who was murdered. That's a totally
30:52
Speaker 4: different scenario. So not smart for whoever whoever killed Linda,
30:59
Speaker 4: but it really does create this just heartbreak when you
31:02
Speaker 4: think about her poor family. They too were wondering what
31:05
Speaker 4: the heck happened to her. They were pretty convinced that
31:08
Speaker 4: probably Dawn had the responsibility of killing her. But there
31:11
Speaker 4: was this kind of bizarre hope too that if she
31:14
Speaker 4: did run away, she's going to come back for Patty.
31:17
Speaker 4: And this solidified No, she's not, she was hurt, she's deceased,
31:21
Speaker 4: she's never coming back, and yet we are left exactly
31:25
Speaker 4: where we were at square one, with no evidence of
31:27
Speaker 4: what happened to her. It's got to be one of
31:29
Speaker 4: the most gut wrenching cases when you think about the
31:32
Speaker 4: poor family going through this roller coaster of emotions and realities.
31:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's definitely a bittersweet moment because for missing persons,
31:40
Speaker 3: you at least want to get the remains back so
31:42
Speaker 3: you can give them a proper burial. But it's kind
31:44
Speaker 3: of a weird feeling where you get the skull and
31:47
Speaker 3: that's all you have, and you don't know where the
31:48
Speaker 3: rest of the remains are, like, where are they buried
31:51
Speaker 3: out there somewhere? And also the fact that as far
31:53
Speaker 3: as I know, there were no signs of trauma to
31:55
Speaker 3: the skull, so they have still never been able to
31:57
Speaker 3: figure out Linda's exact cause of death. So I'm sure
32:01
Speaker 3: her family was still thinking to themselves, how exactly did
32:03
Speaker 3: she die, what exactly happened to her? And the appearance
32:06
Speaker 3: of the skull only raised more questions than it answers
32:09
Speaker 3: and didn't give them any sort of closure. If Don
32:14
Speaker 3: didn't do this, then I have my doubts that the
32:16
Speaker 3: perpetrator was just some random serial killer, as they made
32:19
Speaker 3: a calculated choice to leave as they made a calculated
32:22
Speaker 3: choice to leave Linda's skull outside of Don's favorite restaurant,
32:25
Speaker 3: and likely did so for the purpose of taunting him.
32:28
Speaker 3: But there's a third possibility. What if Don had an
32:31
Speaker 3: accomplice when he killed Linda who helped him dispose of
32:34
Speaker 3: the body, Or perhaps it was someone who wasn't directly
32:37
Speaker 3: involved in the crime but knew exactly what Don had done.
32:40
Speaker 3: This person then made the decision to dig up Linda's
32:43
Speaker 3: skull and leave it in a public place where they
32:45
Speaker 3: knew what would capture Don's attention before they made an
32:48
Speaker 3: attempt to blackmail him. If Don stopped paying the money
32:52
Speaker 3: or cooperating with this person, that may have motivated their
32:55
Speaker 3: decision to send the police the anonymous letter which revealed
32:58
Speaker 3: that the skull belonged to Linda. However, if they were
33:01
Speaker 3: directly involved in the crime, then they may have stopped
33:04
Speaker 3: short at directly pointing the finger at Don, since they
33:06
Speaker 3: ran the danger of incriminating themselves.
33:10
Speaker 4: Jules pointed that out earlier. What if there was an
33:12
Speaker 4: accomplice who helped with this case. I think it's very
33:15
Speaker 4: possible that there could be an accomplice after the fact.
33:18
Speaker 4: If Don did kill Linda, I don't think that he
33:21
Speaker 4: needed anybody to help him. I think he was an abuser,
33:25
Speaker 4: and I think that he was angry about the potential
33:29
Speaker 4: of their marriage falling apart, or Linda's finally standing up
33:32
Speaker 4: for herself and actually making progress to get out of
33:36
Speaker 4: that marriage, or just not obeying what he said. So
33:40
Speaker 4: if there was an accomplass my heart thinks that it
33:42
Speaker 4: would be someone who he asked to help dispose of
33:44
Speaker 4: the body with him, and then it is possible that
33:47
Speaker 4: some falling out happened. But would they be more blatant
33:51
Speaker 4: would they try to do something more like in that
33:54
Speaker 4: letter of the police have the skull? Could they have
33:57
Speaker 4: written Don killed her this way and actually actually pointed
34:02
Speaker 4: them in a way where Don would get arrested and
34:04
Speaker 4: give them some more information to where this is not
34:07
Speaker 4: just going to be oh, the case gets reopened, but
34:09
Speaker 4: Don gets nailed for it. I feel like there could
34:12
Speaker 4: have been more info. If you have someone that motivated
34:14
Speaker 4: to get back at him, then give some information that
34:17
Speaker 4: would put handcuffs on him too.
34:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what's so bizarre about him, because you get
34:22
Speaker 3: the impression that they wanted to bring attention to Linda's case,
34:25
Speaker 3: but they didn't actually want to directly incriminate Don. And
34:28
Speaker 3: like I just said, maybe the theories for that is
34:31
Speaker 3: that whoever unearthes the skull and wrote the note, maybe
34:34
Speaker 3: they did something illegal themselves, such as helping Don dispose
34:38
Speaker 3: of the body, and figured, well, if I just come
34:40
Speaker 3: forward or I do anything that gets Don arrested, then
34:43
Speaker 3: maybe he'll give me up and I'll get arrested. As well,
34:46
Speaker 3: So that's why they for whatever reason, they just wanted
34:49
Speaker 3: to toy with them, possibly blacknail him or something, but
34:52
Speaker 3: they didn't want to give up too much information that
34:54
Speaker 3: they could incriminate themselves. Well, we've kept going on about
34:58
Speaker 3: how risky it was for someone to dig up Linda's
35:00
Speaker 3: skull and leave it in a public place. It ultimately
35:03
Speaker 3: did not bring the police any closer to solving this case.
35:06
Speaker 3: So whatever the perpetrator's endgame was, it did backfire on them.
35:10
Speaker 3: If the perpetrator was Don, he managed to successfully get
35:13
Speaker 3: away with it since he passed away in twenty fifteen.
35:17
Speaker 3: Part of me thinks that the simplest explanation in this
35:19
Speaker 3: case is the correct one, and that Don killed Linda
35:22
Speaker 3: in a violent rage after finding out she was planning
35:25
Speaker 3: to leave him. If Linda filed for divorce from her jealous,
35:28
Speaker 3: controlling husband and wound up being murdered by a completely
35:31
Speaker 3: different person only a few weeks later, then that seems
35:34
Speaker 3: like quite a coincidence. One of the biggest issues with
35:37
Speaker 3: defending Don is that, even though he maintained that Linda
35:40
Speaker 3: was probably having an affair with another man who did
35:43
Speaker 3: her harm, the investigation has never uncovered any strong alternate suspects.
35:48
Speaker 3: The person who had the motive means an opportunity to
35:50
Speaker 3: commit this crime is Don. But yet I just can't
35:54
Speaker 3: get over the bizarre reappearance of Linda's skull and the
35:57
Speaker 3: anonymous note, which makes me wonder if there might actually
36:00
Speaker 3: be more to this story. It's such a bizarre anomaly
36:03
Speaker 3: that I can't completely commit to the idea of Don
36:06
Speaker 3: being the guilty party. The odds are he probably is,
36:09
Speaker 3: but I wouldn't say I'm one hundred percent certain if
36:12
Speaker 3: Don did it. Perhaps he just got tired of living
36:15
Speaker 3: under the cloud of suspicion about his wife's disappearance, so
36:18
Speaker 3: he decided to dig up her skull and make a
36:20
Speaker 3: public spectacle of the whole thing in an attempt to
36:23
Speaker 3: give off the impression that someone else killed Linda. He
36:27
Speaker 3: did not expect it would take the police as long
36:29
Speaker 3: as it did to identify the skull, which is why
36:31
Speaker 3: he decided to send them an anonymous note over one
36:34
Speaker 3: year later. So this whole decision may have been motivated
36:37
Speaker 3: by ego rather than an urgent desire to get remarried,
36:40
Speaker 3: because even if Don had successfully gotten away with murder,
36:44
Speaker 3: he just wanted to do something to get everyone to
36:46
Speaker 3: stop thinking of him as a murderer. But even so,
36:50
Speaker 3: the whole situation was completely out of the ordinary, So
36:53
Speaker 3: if it turned out that someone else was the killer,
36:55
Speaker 3: I wouldn't be the least bit surprised. If Don did it,
36:58
Speaker 3: then there might not be anything else else that can
37:00
Speaker 3: be done since he's now deceased. But if there's someone
37:03
Speaker 3: else out there who is responsible, then perhaps Linda's family
37:06
Speaker 3: can finally recover the rest of her remain someday and
37:09
Speaker 3: give her a proper burial. So if you happen to
37:12
Speaker 3: have any information about the unsolved murder of Linda Sherman,
37:15
Speaker 3: please contact the appropriate authorities. Jules Ashley any final thoughts
37:20
Speaker 3: on this case.
37:22
Speaker 4: This case really highlights to me the dangers of domestic
37:26
Speaker 4: violence and the struggles that go on with that. It's
37:29
Speaker 4: interesting because when you talked about Don's mom and dad
37:32
Speaker 4: or mom and stepfather, you know, the mom and stepfather
37:35
Speaker 4: had an abusive relationship as well. They were both alcoholics.
37:39
Speaker 4: There was a lot of physical violence, and eventually the
37:41
Speaker 4: mom kills her husband and Don follows in a very
37:45
Speaker 4: similar suit. He was raised watching people physically fight and
37:50
Speaker 4: degrade each other and disrespect each other physically and emotionally.
37:54
Speaker 4: And that's the kind of husband he became, which speaks
37:57
Speaker 4: volume to the impact of domestic violence on kids and
38:00
Speaker 4: their adulthood. It also talks about the fact that Linda
38:04
Speaker 4: tried desperately to get away from Don multiple times. And
38:08
Speaker 4: we're changing the conversation. But people always say, if he's hurting,
38:11
Speaker 4: you leave, if she's hurting, you leave, And it's not
38:15
Speaker 4: that easy. Linda tried it. They had a little girl.
38:18
Speaker 4: I guarantee you there was a lot of pressure, especially
38:20
Speaker 4: back in the eighties. You are married, you have a
38:23
Speaker 4: little girl. She needs her intact family. But Linda kept saying,
38:27
Speaker 4: this is not okay for Patty to be exposed to this.
38:29
Speaker 4: I got to get us both out of here, and
38:31
Speaker 4: she tried multiple times. She's finally at a point where
38:35
Speaker 4: she's about to file for a legal divorce against Don
38:38
Speaker 4: and leave for the final time. And if you know
38:41
Speaker 4: a lot about domestic violence, that's the most dangerous time
38:44
Speaker 4: for an individual leaving the situation. It's the time where
38:49
Speaker 4: murder's most common and horrific assaults are most common. And
38:53
Speaker 4: whether it's Don or not, because Don would be the
38:56
Speaker 4: most likely one to hurt her in that situation. It
38:59
Speaker 4: is also possible that Linda became a vulnerable target to
39:02
Speaker 4: somebody else. Remember if she's expressing that she's in an
39:05
Speaker 4: abusive relationship, that she has a little girl, that she's
39:09
Speaker 4: insecure maybe financially about leaving, but she's going to do
39:12
Speaker 4: it anyway. It is very possible that a predator acted
39:16
Speaker 4: as someone who cared for her and was going to
39:18
Speaker 4: help her out of that situation, who was going to
39:21
Speaker 4: be there to support her, but actually saw her as
39:23
Speaker 4: a vulnerable target. So I don't necessarily think that's what happened,
39:28
Speaker 4: but I do know that Linda was incredibly prime to
39:31
Speaker 4: being a victim at this instance in her life. Patty
39:36
Speaker 4: is a victim in this case. She lost her mom
39:39
Speaker 4: and then eventually would go on to lose the abusive
39:42
Speaker 4: father in her life. There was potential for Don to
39:46
Speaker 4: turn the tides right and to be the father that
39:48
Speaker 4: she needed. It doesn't seem like that happened because of
39:52
Speaker 4: what details we don't know, but they were not fond
39:57
Speaker 4: of each other, right, She wasn't even mentioned in his obituary,
40:00
Speaker 4: So she lost an access to a parent who was
40:04
Speaker 4: the surviving parent as well, and like I said, the
40:07
Speaker 4: family sat there for years thinking did she really leave?
40:10
Speaker 4: Like I kind of hope she did just leave, because
40:13
Speaker 4: if she did, she might come home for Patty, she
40:15
Speaker 4: might come back to be with her family. But she didn't.
40:19
Speaker 4: They found just the skull. They never got her intact
40:22
Speaker 4: body to lay her to rest. It's a really complicated,
40:26
Speaker 4: complex and devastating case because of all of those elements.
40:30
Speaker 4: It's bigger than just murder. It's domestic violence that most
40:34
Speaker 4: likely ended in the most horrific way, which was with
40:37
Speaker 4: her death.
40:41
Speaker 1: I just have such a hard time believing that there
40:44
Speaker 1: isn't some way that Dawn was involved in this, just
40:48
Speaker 1: given the abuse of relationship and the way that he
40:51
Speaker 1: pointed the finger of Patty saying that she was having
40:54
Speaker 1: an affair and that she'd run off. I would think
40:57
Speaker 1: that you would at least entertain the idea that something
41:00
Speaker 1: have happened to your wife, Like did you really and
41:02
Speaker 1: truly believe that she'd run off with some other guy?
41:05
Speaker 1: And he doesn't sound that smart. I think there is
41:08
Speaker 1: a possibility that he could have left her body on
41:10
Speaker 1: that couch and just thought that he could stand between
41:14
Speaker 1: Patty and her mother. I'm fifty to fifty. I just
41:16
Speaker 1: think there is a possibility that he could have crossed somebody.
41:20
Speaker 1: The person who could have potentially been that co conspirator
41:23
Speaker 1: maybe help dispose of the body. Something happened in their
41:26
Speaker 1: relationship later on, and that spurned that person to then
41:30
Speaker 1: go and leave the skull outside of the restaurant. But
41:33
Speaker 1: maybe then they thought twice about it for a while
41:36
Speaker 1: before they actually doubled down and sent that note. Because
41:40
Speaker 1: I could see putting the skull there and then being like, wait,
41:43
Speaker 1: what if he's questioned and then my name comes up,
41:46
Speaker 1: and then I get brought in for questioning, and then
41:48
Speaker 1: somehow I'm tied to all this mess. I could see
41:50
Speaker 1: the person vacillating between saying nothing and then leaving an
41:54
Speaker 1: anonymous note. But I really can't see Don himself leaving
41:59
Speaker 1: the skull there and then just being like, well, why
42:02
Speaker 1: would I do that? So you, like, I couldn't be
42:05
Speaker 1: involved because nothing was really happening with the investigation that
42:09
Speaker 1: would lead him to believe that he needed to make
42:12
Speaker 1: some kind of big move to alibi himself out in
42:15
Speaker 1: a way. I don't know what happened here, but I
42:18
Speaker 1: just have this sneaking suspicion that Don had something to
42:21
Speaker 1: do with it, and I think the fact that Patty
42:24
Speaker 1: believes that so wholeheartedly probably does inform my decision a
42:28
Speaker 1: little bit. And I just I really feel for Patty here,
42:31
Speaker 1: especially because as Ashley just brought up the fact that
42:34
Speaker 1: she was left off of that obituary, you know, survived
42:38
Speaker 1: by his daughter, Patty and all the other kids were
42:41
Speaker 1: on there. It just it really breaks my heart that
42:44
Speaker 1: she had to lose Linda at such a young age
42:47
Speaker 1: and then essentially lose her father as well.
42:50
Speaker 3: Yeah. I've seen a lot of unsolved mystery segments where
42:53
Speaker 3: husbands are accused of murdering their spouse and they gave
42:56
Speaker 3: interviews and a lot of the time they came off
42:58
Speaker 3: really badly and you think that they're guilty and under
43:01
Speaker 3: almost circumstances, I feel the exact same way about Don Sherman.
43:05
Speaker 3: I mean, when your own daughter is appearing on camera
43:07
Speaker 3: to accuse you of killing her mother, then that looks
43:10
Speaker 3: pretty bad. And if this had been a case where
43:12
Speaker 3: Linda had simply gone missing and was never found, I
43:15
Speaker 3: would say it was pretty cut and dried that he
43:17
Speaker 3: killed her and disposed of the body But the big complication,
43:21
Speaker 3: as we talked about, is the skull, in that I
43:24
Speaker 3: really can't think of any logical reason why Don would
43:27
Speaker 3: go to the trouble of unearthing her skull and leaving
43:29
Speaker 3: it out in a public place and getting the story
43:32
Speaker 3: back into the spotlight. Because I looked in the old
43:35
Speaker 3: newspaper archives there was virtually no coverage of Linda's disappearance
43:39
Speaker 3: before this incident took place, but that only just jump
43:42
Speaker 3: started the investigation and got the story national attention on
43:45
Speaker 3: unsaw mysteries. And if Don did this, then he's either
43:49
Speaker 3: like really dumb, or really narcissistic, or just so brazen
43:54
Speaker 3: that he thinks he will still manage to get away
43:56
Speaker 3: with it no matter what, in spite of all this
43:58
Speaker 3: new scrutiny coming upon him. And technically he did get
44:02
Speaker 3: away with it because he went to his grave without
44:04
Speaker 3: being charged with anything, But I still can't figure out
44:07
Speaker 3: the logic for him doing that. But even if he
44:09
Speaker 3: wasn't the one who personally unearthed his skull and left
44:12
Speaker 3: it there and sent the anonymous note, that doesn't completely
44:15
Speaker 3: absolve him, because for all we know, maybe he had
44:18
Speaker 3: an accomplice of some sort who helped him dispose of
44:21
Speaker 3: the body, or maybe he bragged about it to someone
44:23
Speaker 3: at some point, and then they decided to pull off
44:26
Speaker 3: some prank or something by unearthing the skull in order
44:29
Speaker 3: to toy with Don for unknown reasons. But then they
44:32
Speaker 3: just backed off on flat out admitting their own culpability.
44:36
Speaker 3: But yeah, the real victim in this is Patty because
44:38
Speaker 3: she lost her mother and her father, and also Linda's
44:42
Speaker 3: family because even though they found confirmation that she was
44:45
Speaker 3: deceased by getting her skull back, they still have never
44:48
Speaker 3: found the rest of her remains and do not have
44:50
Speaker 3: any definitive answers about what happened to her. And it's
44:53
Speaker 3: just a very bizarre but completely heartbreaking case.
44:58
Speaker 1: Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit
44:59
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45:02
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