Latest / The Path Went Chilly / Marie Blee Pt. One

Transcript

Marie Blee Pt. One · The Path Went Chilly

0:27
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Pathway Chili.
0:29
Speaker 2: I'm Robin, I'm Jules, and I'm Ashley.
0:33
Speaker 3: Let's dive right into this week's case.
0:36
Speaker 4: November twenty one, nineteen seventy nine, Craig Colorado. After spending
0:42
Speaker 4: the evening at a dance, fifteen year old Marie Blee
0:45
Speaker 4: heads to a party but never returns home. Two days later,
0:49
Speaker 4: Marie's parents receive an anonymous phone call demanding a five
0:53
Speaker 4: thousand dollars ransom for her return. The caller turns out
0:57
Speaker 4: to be eighteen year old Monte Doolan, who originally drove
1:00
Speaker 4: Marie to the party, but he denized any involvement in
1:03
Speaker 4: her disappearance. Over the next few decades, investigators received contradictory
1:08
Speaker 4: eyewitness accounts about what might have happened to Marie and
1:12
Speaker 4: eventually named three persons of interest, but she continues to
1:16
Speaker 4: remain a missing person.
1:17
Speaker 1: After that, the path went chilly. So on this episode,
1:21
Speaker 1: we're going to be exploring a missing person's case which
1:23
Speaker 1: took place just over forty five years ago, the nineteen
1:26
Speaker 1: seventy nine disappearance of fifteen year old Marie Blee. This
1:30
Speaker 1: is a very complex but frustrating mystery because the victim
1:34
Speaker 1: in this story went missing after attending a party, but unfortunately,
1:37
Speaker 1: a proper investigation was not performed for nearly twenty years.
1:41
Speaker 1: Many of the witnesses who attended that party were interviewed,
1:44
Speaker 1: but the problem is that their accounts of what happened
1:46
Speaker 1: often contradicted each other, so it's tough to work out
1:49
Speaker 1: a concrete timeline and pinpoint the exact moment when Marie
1:53
Speaker 1: Blee was last confirmed to be alive. Investigators would eventually
1:57
Speaker 1: name three persons of interest, and one of them, Monty Doolan,
2:00
Speaker 1: drove Marie to the party on the night she went
2:02
Speaker 1: missing and soon made an inexplicable attempt to extort money
2:06
Speaker 1: from her family. This is one of those cold cases
2:09
Speaker 1: where it's been suspected that a number of people might
2:11
Speaker 1: know the truth but are reluctant to come forward. It
2:14
Speaker 1: seems apparent that something happened to Marie at that party,
2:17
Speaker 1: but all the pieces of the puzzle have yet to
2:19
Speaker 1: be put together.
2:22
Speaker 3: I'm already frustrated.
2:23
Speaker 2: You have a eighteen year old who drove Marie who's fifteen,
2:29
Speaker 2: to a party, so clearly we already know that there
2:31
Speaker 2: are multiple ages at this party. You have people who
2:35
Speaker 2: are a legal adult driving a fifteen year old to
2:39
Speaker 2: this party, And like you said, it's pretty clear that
2:42
Speaker 2: something must have happened there because she arrives at the
2:45
Speaker 2: party and then we know nothing about her whereabouts after that.
2:49
Speaker 2: What is absolutely heartbreaking is that there's a family who's
2:53
Speaker 2: waiting for their fifteen year old little girl to come
2:55
Speaker 2: home and two days later they get a phone call
2:58
Speaker 2: for a ransom and it turns out to be the
3:01
Speaker 2: very kid that Marie trusted to take her to the party. It's,
3:06
Speaker 2: i don't know, inexplicable, Like you just said, it's despicable
3:09
Speaker 2: that someone could behave that way. I'm dying to know
3:12
Speaker 2: more about Monty Doolan, the eighteen year old, why and
3:16
Speaker 2: how he's a suspect and who these other people could be,
3:19
Speaker 2: because already his behavior is it's just disgusting. You have
3:24
Speaker 2: a grieving family, a worried family, and then they have
3:28
Speaker 2: possibly a prank phone call for a ransom, or was
3:32
Speaker 2: it Monty really trying to get something because he knew
3:35
Speaker 2: where she was or what had happened to her, and
3:38
Speaker 2: then starts to recant that he has any involvement.
3:41
Speaker 4: It's diabolical if he is involved with Marie's disappearance. But
3:45
Speaker 4: if he isn't as well, if he just does this
3:48
Speaker 4: prank phone call, the callous nature of doing something like
3:52
Speaker 4: that to parents who have no idea what happened to
3:54
Speaker 4: their daughter.
3:55
Speaker 2: It's gross and you were responsible for her like she
4:00
Speaker 2: if the parents didn't know that Monty drove her, Marie
4:03
Speaker 2: trusted him to drive her, so to be in that
4:05
Speaker 2: position of trust and her alleged friendship with him, and
4:10
Speaker 2: then to manipulate and harm the family again when they're
4:13
Speaker 2: baby's missing, it's oh, it's bad.
4:18
Speaker 1: Yeah. Monty Dulin has always maintained his innocence and claims
4:20
Speaker 1: he had nothing to do with Marie's disappearance. So when
4:23
Speaker 1: you hear the excuse he gives for why he decided
4:25
Speaker 1: to phone the family and try to extort money, you're
4:28
Speaker 1: going to roll your eyes. So it's pretty obvious that
4:30
Speaker 1: even if he wasn't directly involved, these pretty terrible human
4:33
Speaker 1: being and that a lot of people did fail Marie
4:36
Speaker 1: that night because she was a fifteen year old girl
4:38
Speaker 1: going to one of her first grown up parties with
4:40
Speaker 1: a lot of older kids, and it doesn't seem like
4:43
Speaker 1: anyone was really watching over her.
4:46
Speaker 4: Our story begins in Colorado in nineteen seventy nine. Our
4:50
Speaker 4: central figure is fifteen year old Marie Anne Blee, who
4:53
Speaker 4: lives with her parents, Paul and Monablee, and is the
4:56
Speaker 4: youngest of five children. The Blee family lives in Hayden,
5:00
Speaker 4: a small town of around seventeen hundred located in Route County.
5:04
Speaker 4: Marie is currently a sophomore at Hayden High School and
5:07
Speaker 4: is very active in the sewing program for the local
5:10
Speaker 4: four h club. She enjoys a very close relationship with
5:13
Speaker 4: her parents and has gone on a trip to Germany
5:16
Speaker 4: and Switzerland with them. In September of this year, on
5:19
Speaker 4: the evening of Wednesday, November twenty first, which happened to
5:22
Speaker 4: be the day before Thanksgiving, Marie traveled seventeen miles to
5:26
Speaker 4: the town of Craig, located in Moffat County. She was
5:30
Speaker 4: driven there by an eighteen year old friend of hers
5:32
Speaker 4: named Monty Doolan, who had recently graduated high school, and
5:36
Speaker 4: they would attend a four age dance being held at
5:38
Speaker 4: the Moffatt County Fairgrounds Pavilion. When the dance ended, Monty
5:42
Speaker 4: drove Marie to the Shadow Mountain Village Mobile home Park,
5:46
Speaker 4: in order to attend a party. The party was hosted
5:48
Speaker 4: by an eighteen year old high school senior named Michael O'Brien,
5:52
Speaker 4: who would claim that he originally only intended to hold
5:55
Speaker 4: a small get together with his brother and their friends. However,
5:58
Speaker 4: once worred about the party spread, it wound up being
6:01
Speaker 4: crashed by somewhere between fifty to one hundred people, many
6:04
Speaker 4: of whom arrived there from the dance, and the mobile
6:07
Speaker 4: home became so overcrowded the people started spilling out into
6:11
Speaker 4: the yard. Some of Marie's female friends joined her at
6:15
Speaker 4: the party, but they became uncomfortable once they saw there
6:18
Speaker 4: was a lot of drug usage going on and most
6:20
Speaker 4: of the people there were older males who they did
6:22
Speaker 4: not know. Marie's friends decided to leave, but they claimed
6:26
Speaker 4: that she insisted on staying and they were unable to
6:28
Speaker 4: change her mind. The following morning, Marie's mother, moanably, woke
6:32
Speaker 4: up at six a m. In order to start preparing
6:34
Speaker 4: the turkey for the family's Thanksgiving dinner that night. She
6:38
Speaker 4: took a glance inside Marie's room and was surprised to
6:41
Speaker 4: discover that she was not there and her bed had
6:43
Speaker 4: not been slept in since Marie never missed her curfew,
6:47
Speaker 4: it was very uncharacteristic for her not to come home,
6:50
Speaker 4: and her parents soon became greatly concerned when they checked
6:53
Speaker 4: with her friends and learned that she had not spent
6:55
Speaker 4: the night with any of them. Mona and her husband
6:58
Speaker 4: Paul attempted to report Marie missing, but the Hayden Police
7:01
Speaker 4: Department believed that Marie had simply ran away and would
7:04
Speaker 4: turn up soon. However, Marie's parents didn't buy this, as
7:08
Speaker 4: she was doing well in school and not experiencing any
7:11
Speaker 4: personal problems at that time, so they plan to organize
7:14
Speaker 4: their own search effort for her.
7:16
Speaker 2: This is one of those cases that we've we've looked
7:19
Speaker 2: at many many times where you have a young individual
7:23
Speaker 2: who's doing what young people do and it's kind of
7:26
Speaker 2: caught up in that trap of manipulation and kind of
7:28
Speaker 2: insecurity and seeking approval from people. I wouldn't be surprised
7:33
Speaker 2: if Marie didn't have somebody at that party that she
7:38
Speaker 2: admired that she really wanted to be close to, that
7:40
Speaker 2: maybe she had a crush on, and she's seeing there's
7:43
Speaker 2: older people there, They're showing me attention. I want to
7:47
Speaker 2: be here, and I guarantee many people who are listening.
7:51
Speaker 2: And I myself have done the thing where my friends
7:53
Speaker 2: say let's go, and I say I'm good, leave me be,
7:56
Speaker 2: I have a ride home, just let me be. And
7:58
Speaker 2: you're putting yourself in such a dangerous situation. But at
8:02
Speaker 2: fifteen years old, you don't know that you trust people.
8:05
Speaker 2: You have this kind of hope that someone's gonna find
8:09
Speaker 2: you beautiful or funny and is gonna hang out with
8:12
Speaker 2: you and take care of you and maybe be interested
8:15
Speaker 2: in you. And so I wouldn't be shocked if that
8:17
Speaker 2: was the motivation for Marie fighting to stay at that party.
8:20
Speaker 2: Sounds like there's a lot of older people. It sounds
8:23
Speaker 2: like a lot of dangerous things were happening at that party,
8:26
Speaker 2: like drug use and drinking. And you have a lot
8:28
Speaker 2: of people coming and going that might not actually have
8:32
Speaker 2: anything to do with Marie, but they were involved in
8:35
Speaker 2: let's say the drug use or the drinking, and they
8:37
Speaker 2: pass her path and they could put her at risk.
8:41
Speaker 2: And or it's the people she's truly trusting and wanting
8:44
Speaker 2: to get close to who end up hurting her. So
8:46
Speaker 2: there's two really big scenarios here going on. Is it
8:50
Speaker 2: someone she was staying at the party for who ended
8:52
Speaker 2: up hurting her? Or is it someone who was watching
8:55
Speaker 2: her at the party and took an opportunity because they
8:58
Speaker 2: saw a young fifteen year old who was vulne and
9:00
Speaker 2: with fifty to one hundred people, good luck figuring out
9:03
Speaker 2: which one of them could have done it.
9:05
Speaker 1: And this is far from the only case we've covered
9:08
Speaker 1: on the podcast. An old missing person's case from like
9:10
Speaker 1: the seventies or eighties, where even though they're under age,
9:14
Speaker 1: their parents tried to report the missing the police and
9:16
Speaker 1: they say, oh, they just ran away. They'll turn up eventually.
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Speaker 1: And this is one case where that turned out to
9:21
Speaker 1: be such a detriment because if they had gone to
9:24
Speaker 1: work right away and interviewed everyone at that party they
9:27
Speaker 1: when their memories were still fresh, we might have gotten
9:29
Speaker 1: a better idea of figuring out what happened to her.
9:31
Speaker 1: But because they went interview these people into a long
9:34
Speaker 1: time later and just wrote off Marie's runaway as we're
9:37
Speaker 1: going to talk about, we got so many contradictory eyewitness
9:40
Speaker 1: statements about what Marie was doing and where she was
9:43
Speaker 1: that it was just so tough to get a handle
9:45
Speaker 1: on figuring out what happened to her.
9:48
Speaker 4: I'm like you, Ash, I can't help but think of
9:51
Speaker 4: all the stupid things that I did when I was
9:53
Speaker 4: Marie's age, and how many parties that I went to
9:56
Speaker 4: and ones where my friends probably left me. I would say, like,
10:00
Speaker 4: just leave me behind. I'm with like this guy friend
10:03
Speaker 4: or this guy friend, and I'm so thankful that horrible
10:05
Speaker 4: things didn't happen. But every time that I did that,
10:08
Speaker 4: it opened myself up to like such a dangerous situation.
10:12
Speaker 4: So to think back in retrospect, when you hear a
10:15
Speaker 4: story like Marie, it really makes you question your own
10:19
Speaker 4: decisions in your youth.
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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, And I know that Marie's friends, it would
10:23
Speaker 1: be easy to criticize them for leaving her behind at
10:26
Speaker 1: the party, but they said multiple times that we did
10:29
Speaker 1: what we could to try to convince her to leave
10:31
Speaker 1: with us, and she kept saying no, And ultimately our
10:34
Speaker 1: hands were kind of tied here. If she didn't want
10:36
Speaker 1: to leave, we couldn't make her leave, And unfortunately, this
10:38
Speaker 1: is one of those situations where she just was never
10:41
Speaker 1: seen again. On November the twenty fourth, the case took
10:44
Speaker 1: an unsettling turn when the Bleeze received a phone call
10:47
Speaker 1: from an anonymous mail who demanded that they pay a
10:50
Speaker 1: five thousand dollars ransom for Marie's safe return. Since November
10:54
Speaker 1: the twenty fourth was a Saturday and the bank was closed,
10:57
Speaker 1: the Bleedes were forced to scrap together the five thousand
10:59
Speaker 1: dollars by borrowing it from friends. This development finally caused
11:03
Speaker 1: the police to take Marie's disappearance more seriously, and they
11:06
Speaker 1: set up a tap on the bolic's phone, but the
11:09
Speaker 1: anonymous caller never phoned back to provide instructions about how
11:12
Speaker 1: to deliver the ransom money. However, within a few days,
11:16
Speaker 1: police would discover that the caller was none other than
11:18
Speaker 1: Monty Doolan, who had driven Marie to the dance and
11:21
Speaker 1: the party on the night she went missing. Monty was
11:24
Speaker 1: subsequently arrested and charged with extortion, but maintained that he
11:28
Speaker 1: had no knowledge or involvement in Marie's disappearance. Monty claimed
11:32
Speaker 1: that he had no intention of ever collecting the five
11:34
Speaker 1: thousand dollars from Marie's parents and only decided to phone
11:38
Speaker 1: them up and impersonate a kidnapper in order to give
11:40
Speaker 1: them the hope that Marie was still alive. According to Monty,
11:44
Speaker 1: he last saw Marie at the party sometime between one
11:46
Speaker 1: point thirty and two am on the morning of November
11:49
Speaker 1: twenty second. They did not leave together because Marie said
11:52
Speaker 1: she had arranged to get a ride with another guy
11:54
Speaker 1: at the party, though she never actually told Monty who
11:57
Speaker 1: it was. Monty ultimately wound up pleading guilty to telephone
12:01
Speaker 1: harassment and received a six month suspend a jail sentence
12:04
Speaker 1: along with two years probation.
12:08
Speaker 2: His explanation stinks when you look at this is decades ago,
12:14
Speaker 2: and you're asking this family who's two days into their
12:16
Speaker 2: baby being missing, and you say, I need five thousand dollars.
12:20
Speaker 2: That's somewhere between I don't know, twenty and thirty five
12:22
Speaker 2: thousand dollars today. That's not something that I have sitting around.
12:26
Speaker 2: A lot of families would be scrambling and desperate and
12:29
Speaker 2: would do anything to get that money and try to
12:32
Speaker 2: make sure that they got their daughter back. So you're
12:35
Speaker 2: asking a family in their most vulnerable state to then
12:39
Speaker 2: be stressed and traumatized by having to put together a
12:43
Speaker 2: large amount of money quickly, to think that their baby's
12:47
Speaker 2: life depends on your efforts and ability to reach this person.
12:51
Speaker 2: You're not able to remake contact with the person you're
12:53
Speaker 2: scrambling to get the money together. How much more trauma
12:57
Speaker 2: can a poor little family go through. Monty's explanation stinks.
13:01
Speaker 2: It doesn't offer any hope, and anyone who has three
13:05
Speaker 2: brain cells would know that all that would do is
13:08
Speaker 2: add harm to the family. So I can't even begin
13:11
Speaker 2: to understand how anyone, including the police, could say, Okay,
13:15
Speaker 2: we understand.
13:17
Speaker 4: But these are the same police that said, as soon
13:19
Speaker 4: as she went missing, even though she didn't fit the
13:21
Speaker 4: profile of a runaway, that she was a runaway. I
13:24
Speaker 4: think their investigation was just lacking on every level, and
13:27
Speaker 4: it seems like their investigation into certain individuals, they just
13:31
Speaker 4: wrote them off really easily, where they should have like
13:34
Speaker 4: dove a little bit deeper. Monty Doolan was known to
13:38
Speaker 4: have been with Marie, and so we're just to believe
13:41
Speaker 4: and like to take his word at face value. I
13:44
Speaker 4: just I don't know if I can get behind that.
13:48
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, that is just such a terrible excuse
13:50
Speaker 1: to say that. Oh, I just wanted to give hope
13:52
Speaker 1: to the family that Marie was still alive, even though
13:54
Speaker 1: she'd only been missing for a few days at that point.
13:56
Speaker 1: And that is an incredibly cruel act if doing that
13:59
Speaker 1: to the pair when you don't know what's happened to her,
14:01
Speaker 1: when she may very well be dead. And I have
14:04
Speaker 1: my doubt said he was legitimately trying to collect a
14:06
Speaker 1: five thousand dollars ransom, but I think there's a good
14:08
Speaker 1: chance he made this fake ransom call because he was
14:11
Speaker 1: trying to throw off the investigation and make the police
14:15
Speaker 1: think that something else happened to Marie rather than focusing
14:18
Speaker 1: their suspicion on him. But unfortunately Vermonty, he wound up
14:21
Speaker 1: getting caught.
14:22
Speaker 3: Also, you got to remember what year was.
14:24
Speaker 1: This, nineteen seventy nine, Okay.
14:26
Speaker 2: Nineteen seventy nine, So you're still you're coming out of
14:29
Speaker 2: that like free love. Kids are still hitch hiking and
14:33
Speaker 2: doing all these things that are troublesome behaviors now when
14:37
Speaker 2: you look back. But they were very, very common that
14:40
Speaker 2: young kids would jump in a car with just about anybody,
14:44
Speaker 2: go just about anywhere, and you didn't have all the
14:47
Speaker 2: communication and tracking devices that you have now. So I
14:51
Speaker 2: can see where police would be kind of lazy and
14:56
Speaker 2: ignorant to the idea of, oh, I bet she's a
14:59
Speaker 2: runaway because at the time, you really did have a
15:02
Speaker 2: lot of kids who were coming and going as they pleased,
15:04
Speaker 2: and they didn't always know who was taking them to
15:07
Speaker 2: different places. So I see at the time where there's
15:12
Speaker 2: a little bit more kind of assumption that the kids
15:16
Speaker 2: were going to come home. But still this kiddo, the
15:20
Speaker 2: parents had a feeling this is not her. We know
15:23
Speaker 2: where she was, she was doing great in school. She
15:26
Speaker 2: had no reason to run and not tell us where
15:28
Speaker 2: she was. And so I think at the point where
15:30
Speaker 2: the family has a child who's acting out of character,
15:35
Speaker 2: the police should have been alerted. But I do know
15:37
Speaker 2: at that time it really was pretty common for, you know,
15:40
Speaker 2: a kid to disappear and then go oh, I'm back,
15:42
Speaker 2: and the.
15:43
Speaker 3: Cases would be closed pretty quick.
15:45
Speaker 2: But that hurts all the cases that were actually authentic
15:48
Speaker 2: and needed the police to respond immediately to hopefully help.
15:52
Speaker 4: Anyway, it was now a parent that something likely happened
15:55
Speaker 4: to Marie while she was at the party, but the
15:57
Speaker 4: investigation into her disappearance went no way due largely to
16:01
Speaker 4: jurisdictional issues. The problem was that Marie lived in Route County,
16:05
Speaker 4: but technically went missing in MafA County, and it seemed
16:09
Speaker 4: like neither of the sheriff's office in those counties wanted
16:11
Speaker 4: to take the reins, and they both seemed like they
16:14
Speaker 4: were trying to distance themselves from the case. As a result,
16:18
Speaker 4: key witnesses were never interviewed, and it was hard to
16:21
Speaker 4: pinpoint the exact time when Marie was last seen alive.
16:24
Speaker 4: Many rumors circulated throughout the community about what happened to Marie,
16:28
Speaker 4: including her dying of an accidental drug overdose or being
16:31
Speaker 4: killed to cover up a sexual assault, and it was
16:34
Speaker 4: speculated that her body was buried in a rural area somewhere.
16:38
Speaker 4: There was even rumors that Marie's body had been dismembered
16:41
Speaker 4: and dumped in an abandoned mind shaft, or that she
16:44
Speaker 4: was encased in a concrete foundation of Craig's City Market,
16:48
Speaker 4: which was under construction at the time. Four months after
16:51
Speaker 4: Marie's disappearance, a sergeant with MafA County Sheriff's Office received
16:55
Speaker 4: an anonymous phone call from a man who said, quote,
16:58
Speaker 4: my two kids know who disposed of Marie Blee, but
17:01
Speaker 4: we're afraid to tell. Eleven people know, but they're afraid
17:05
Speaker 4: end quote. Even though the caller was sobbing when he
17:08
Speaker 4: said this, he was never identified, and his story could
17:11
Speaker 4: not be substantiated. Marie's parents did their best to keep
17:14
Speaker 4: their daughter's case in the spotlight, but they would eventually
17:17
Speaker 4: find it too painful to remain in Hayden. They moved
17:20
Speaker 4: to Grand Junction in nineteen eighty four, but made sure
17:23
Speaker 4: to keep the same phone number in case Marie ever
17:26
Speaker 4: tried to call them.
17:27
Speaker 2: That's pitiful when you sit there and you think about
17:30
Speaker 2: this idea. On both sides, you have parents who are
17:34
Speaker 2: saying that we'll do anything if we haven't.
17:36
Speaker 3: Found our body. There's still hope.
17:38
Speaker 2: If we haven't found our body, there's a chance that
17:41
Speaker 2: she is going to call us right and to the
17:43
Speaker 2: point where we'll stay in the home that we were in,
17:46
Speaker 2: and when that becomes too painful, we'll move, but we'll
17:49
Speaker 2: keep the same phone number and will continue to fight
17:51
Speaker 2: to keep awareness around her case so that you know
17:54
Speaker 2: she knows we're looking for You can just feel the
17:58
Speaker 2: devastation that that's taking on the family. And then you
18:01
Speaker 2: get that phone call, which in and of itself is
18:04
Speaker 2: heartbreaking on a lot of different levels. The person sobbing
18:08
Speaker 2: and saying, listen, two of my kids know what happened
18:12
Speaker 2: to her, but were really scared. And there's a lot
18:15
Speaker 2: of people who know. In fact, what do they say?
18:16
Speaker 3: Eleven yeah, eleven yeah, eleven.
18:19
Speaker 2: People know, but they're too afraid to talk. Something happened
18:24
Speaker 2: and people witnessed it or and or heard about it.
18:28
Speaker 2: But there's somebody or something they're scared of that if
18:31
Speaker 2: this person that kills Marie could also then turn around
18:35
Speaker 2: and kill them.
18:36
Speaker 3: They don't want to talk.
18:38
Speaker 2: That's why cases like this are fascinating, because if there
18:41
Speaker 2: was any one of those eleven people alive today who says,
18:46
Speaker 2: maybe the suspect or the perpetrator, maybe they passed away,
18:50
Speaker 2: maybe they're so old, what are they going to do
18:52
Speaker 2: to me?
18:52
Speaker 1: Now?
18:53
Speaker 2: If they just came forward now there could be answers
18:56
Speaker 2: in this case, not for any kind of quote closure,
18:59
Speaker 2: it's not going to happen, but resolution to know what
19:02
Speaker 2: happened to her. This idea that I just want to
19:05
Speaker 2: know the details of what happened.
19:07
Speaker 3: To somebody that we loved.
19:09
Speaker 1: I do.
19:10
Speaker 2: I feel sorry for the person calling too. There's a
19:12
Speaker 2: clear fear and to live with that kind of guilt
19:15
Speaker 2: and knowledge that can't do anything but tear you apart.
19:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've always wondered about the caller because if they
19:22
Speaker 1: were sobbing, it sounds like they genuinely like we're fearful
19:25
Speaker 1: of something or we're guilt written about something, because I
19:29
Speaker 1: don't know if they would cry like that if it
19:31
Speaker 1: was just a prank phone call. But at the same time,
19:33
Speaker 1: I am kind of skeptical that eleven people know the
19:36
Speaker 1: full truth about what happened. I mean, I could think
19:38
Speaker 1: maybe like two or three possibly know the full truth,
19:41
Speaker 1: but so much time has passed. I would like to
19:43
Speaker 1: think that one of those eleven people, if they did
19:45
Speaker 1: know what happened, would have come forward by now, especially
19:48
Speaker 1: years after the fact, when we would finally identify a
19:51
Speaker 1: couple of persons of interest. I mean.
19:54
Speaker 2: The thing to me too, is when people say they're
19:56
Speaker 2: too scared to talk, I get it. But at some point,
19:59
Speaker 2: if the police are going to be to apprehend and
20:00
Speaker 2: convict them, what else are you? I mean, what are
20:03
Speaker 2: you scared of? Are you scared of their associates? And
20:05
Speaker 2: you know the repercussions of that, I suppose, but I
20:08
Speaker 2: don't know. Let's let's go hardcore and lock them up
20:11
Speaker 2: and then they can't hurt anybody else, including us.
20:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would like to think that if you're younger,
20:16
Speaker 1: if you're a teenager, you would still be scared of
20:18
Speaker 1: something like that, But once you reached adulthood and no
20:21
Speaker 1: longer had to associate with these people, that your conscious
20:24
Speaker 1: would get the better of you when you would finally
20:26
Speaker 1: come forward and share what you know.
20:28
Speaker 4: And even if they're like a criminal element, the landscape
20:32
Speaker 4: would change considerably in that timeframe. So you've got to wonder,
20:36
Speaker 4: like eleven people knowing nobody comes forward, Like eleven is
20:40
Speaker 4: a really specific number, Like you said, I could see
20:42
Speaker 4: a few, but eleven, and I just would have a
20:46
Speaker 4: hard time believing that somebody wouldn't crack unless they felt
20:50
Speaker 4: like there was some sort of threat that somebody would
20:52
Speaker 4: go after them. And I get what you're saying, ash
20:55
Speaker 4: for sure that like if that is the case, then
20:59
Speaker 4: you know, go to life enforcement, tell them everything, and
21:01
Speaker 4: then that way they'll get locked up. But I guess
21:04
Speaker 4: there's always the fear that somebody like that could be
21:06
Speaker 4: out on bail. I mean, I don't know how insidious
21:09
Speaker 4: somebody would have to be or how dangerous that you
21:12
Speaker 4: would keep quiet and you would be sobbing on the phone,
21:15
Speaker 4: like years later, it's if it's a prank call, like
21:20
Speaker 4: whatever would motivate somebody to do that, I have no idea.
21:24
Speaker 4: But if it is somebody who truly did know, it's
21:26
Speaker 4: just too bad that they never figured out who it
21:28
Speaker 4: was and got more information from them.
21:32
Speaker 1: So and not be until nineteen ninety nine, nearly twenty
21:34
Speaker 1: years after Marie went missing, that a thorough investigation would
21:38
Speaker 1: finally be performed. This came about after Marie's case is
21:41
Speaker 1: featured in an extensive article in Frontier magazine, which was
21:45
Speaker 1: highly critical of how the various law enforcement agencies let
21:48
Speaker 1: their jurisdictional disputes hamper the original investigation. In response, the
21:53
Speaker 1: Route County Sheriff's Office decided to reopen the case and
21:56
Speaker 1: organize a multi jurisdictional cold case task Force, which also
22:00
Speaker 1: consisted of the Moffatt County Sheriff's Office, the Hayden and
22:04
Speaker 1: Craig police departments, and the FBI. They acknowledged that the
22:07
Speaker 1: original investigation had been mishandled, but they now wanted to
22:10
Speaker 1: make it right. Over the course of the next few years,
22:13
Speaker 1: the task force would organize a number of searches and
22:16
Speaker 1: excavations in areas where Marie's body was believed to be
22:19
Speaker 1: buried in order to make a positive identification in case
22:23
Speaker 1: they found any human remains. DNA was collected from an
22:27
Speaker 1: old orthodonic retainer Marie had owned and was still in
22:30
Speaker 1: the family's possession after two decades.
22:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're just left holding this potential evidence of Hey,
22:37
Speaker 2: we have her DNA from one of her items, but
22:40
Speaker 2: we don't have her body recovered. We don't have her
22:44
Speaker 2: to actually say, is there any other evidence on her body?
22:49
Speaker 2: Are there any you know, hair pieces on her body,
22:52
Speaker 2: Was there any blood near her body?
22:55
Speaker 3: None of that. So you're literally looking.
22:58
Speaker 2: For a ghost right now, and you have a box
23:01
Speaker 2: of evidence that's just things from her family and from
23:03
Speaker 2: her room waiting to be tested if and when they
23:07
Speaker 2: ever discovered her body.
23:09
Speaker 4: I think it's incredible that they still have her retainer
23:12
Speaker 4: after that many years, Like, thank god they held onto
23:15
Speaker 4: that because DNA wasn't as sophisticated as it is now,
23:20
Speaker 4: And I don't even know if they would have been
23:22
Speaker 4: able to take the parents' DNA and been able to
23:25
Speaker 4: compare that in the way that they can today.
23:29
Speaker 1: It's true, and back in nineteen seventy nine, it's not
23:31
Speaker 1: like the Bleaves would have been thinking about DNA testing
23:33
Speaker 1: because it didn't exist back then. But I guess they
23:36
Speaker 1: were just one of those families who decided to hold
23:38
Speaker 1: on to all of their missing daughter's items and then
23:41
Speaker 1: never imagine that two decades later this would be useful
23:44
Speaker 1: for DNA testing.
23:46
Speaker 4: Investigators finally tracked down and interviewed a number of witnesses
23:50
Speaker 4: who attended the party at Shadow Mountain Village on the
23:52
Speaker 4: night that Marie went missing, and many of them had
23:55
Speaker 4: never spoken to the police before. However, the big problem
23:59
Speaker 4: was at twenty years had passed and these witnesses memories
24:02
Speaker 4: were no longer fresh, so their statements often contradicted each other.
24:06
Speaker 4: For instance, one witness would claim they saw Marie doing
24:09
Speaker 4: drugs inside the mobile home's bathroom, but another witness said
24:13
Speaker 4: that Marie never went inside the mobile home at all
24:15
Speaker 4: that evening because it was so crowded. Different witnesses would
24:19
Speaker 4: also place Marie at different locations throughout the night, including
24:22
Speaker 4: the fairground's pavilion and a completely different party being held
24:26
Speaker 4: in Hayden. Marie was also seen at a Circle K
24:29
Speaker 4: convenience store with a man who may or may not
24:32
Speaker 4: have been Monte Doulin, but it was unclear if this
24:35
Speaker 4: was before, during, or after the party took place. Investigators
24:39
Speaker 4: were hoping that a grand jury would be called in
24:41
Speaker 4: order to help condense all the eyewitness statements into one
24:44
Speaker 4: coherent version of events with a clear timeline, but this
24:47
Speaker 4: never came to fruition. Of course, rumors continued to circulate
24:51
Speaker 4: that Marie had been the victim of an accidental drug overdose,
24:55
Speaker 4: and some people disposed of her body because they feared
24:57
Speaker 4: an investigation might lead to their drug supply. Police announced
25:02
Speaker 4: that as long as a murder did not take place,
25:04
Speaker 4: no one would be prosecuted for any crimes related to
25:07
Speaker 4: the covering up of Marie's death, since the statute of
25:10
Speaker 4: limitations had expired by this point. But in spite of this,
25:13
Speaker 4: no one ever provided any conclusive information about what happened,
25:17
Speaker 4: and the multiple searches for Marie's remains failed to turn
25:20
Speaker 4: up any evidence. After one unsuccessful search came to an end,
25:25
Speaker 4: pab Lee could be seen breaking out into tears and
25:28
Speaker 4: crying out, why won't someone just come forward and tell
25:31
Speaker 4: us what happened? I just don't understand.
25:34
Speaker 2: Can you imagine sitting there watching a father go through
25:39
Speaker 2: a search for his daughter and just begging people, please
25:43
Speaker 2: tell me what happens. And then you think back to
25:45
Speaker 2: this phone call that happens years later where someone saying like, oh, yeah,
25:48
Speaker 2: eleven of us know what happened, we're just too scared
25:50
Speaker 2: to talk. His grief and his just it's pitiful begging people,
25:55
Speaker 2: please tell me what happened. I just want to know
25:58
Speaker 2: what happened. And it's pretty powerful that the police say, listen,
26:01
Speaker 2: statute delimitations have run out. If you have any knowledge
26:05
Speaker 2: of something that happened to her. Let's say she fell
26:08
Speaker 2: and hit her head. Let's say she was you know,
26:11
Speaker 2: a drug overdose like they said, and then you just
26:14
Speaker 2: dispose of her body so that you didn't get in trouble.
26:17
Speaker 2: Just let us know, because that's different than first degree murder,
26:21
Speaker 2: right or second degree murder.
26:22
Speaker 3: That's different.
26:23
Speaker 2: So and no one still nobody came forward, which then
26:27
Speaker 2: makes me think with that kind of information out there,
26:30
Speaker 2: knowing the statute delimitations had passed, knowing that they're granting
26:34
Speaker 2: public permission to tell what happened, and if you weren't
26:38
Speaker 2: involved in her murder, that they were going to look away.
26:42
Speaker 3: It is crazy.
26:42
Speaker 2: If eleven people truly knew what happened, not one, not
26:47
Speaker 2: one of you broke.
26:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what's strange to me about it. It makes
26:53
Speaker 1: me wonder if perhaps only a handful of people know
26:56
Speaker 1: the exact truth about what happened. And like you said,
26:59
Speaker 1: if it was just an hour accidental drug overdose and
27:01
Speaker 1: disposing of her body because of the statute of limitations,
27:04
Speaker 1: they might not be charged. But the fact that everyone
27:07
Speaker 1: is still continuing to remain silent makes me wonder if
27:09
Speaker 1: something truly horrible happened, like a premeditated murderer, or maybe
27:13
Speaker 1: she was killed during an attempted sexual assault. But you
27:16
Speaker 1: have to think that after a statement like that by
27:18
Speaker 1: the police, that so many people would still keep their
27:21
Speaker 1: mouths shut, it must be really bad.
27:23
Speaker 4: And I mean, what if both things are true? What
27:25
Speaker 4: if she died from a drug overdose, but somewhere along
27:30
Speaker 4: the line of this drug overdose, somebody sexually assaulted her
27:33
Speaker 4: and that may be the reason that people haven't come forward.
27:37
Speaker 4: But I would think that if there was eleven people
27:39
Speaker 4: that were aware of a sexual assault, especially if some
27:42
Speaker 4: of those people were indeed women, that over time their
27:46
Speaker 4: opinions of the situation might change so that they would
27:49
Speaker 4: go to law enforcement, though.
27:51
Speaker 1: I always think of the social stigma as well, that
27:53
Speaker 1: even if they didn't do anything wrong, they just remained silent.
27:56
Speaker 1: That if they came forward and finally revealed the truth
27:59
Speaker 1: after all these years, a lot of people would get
28:00
Speaker 1: mad at them, saying, why did you wait so long
28:03
Speaker 1: before saying anything? And I think that might be one
28:05
Speaker 1: reason why some people are still reluctant to reveal the truth.
28:09
Speaker 2: That's true, like you didn't help when you could have
28:12
Speaker 2: stayed silence almost as bad as being involved, right, you
28:15
Speaker 2: had the ability to get justice or answers for that family,
28:18
Speaker 2: and you didn't help.
28:20
Speaker 1: So in September of nineteen ninety nine, investigators tracked down
28:23
Speaker 1: Monty Doolan, who was living in Grand Junction by this point,
28:26
Speaker 1: in order to interview him. However, when they returned to
28:29
Speaker 1: Grand Junction a few months later in order to speak
28:31
Speaker 1: with them again, they were surprised to discover that Monty
28:34
Speaker 1: and his wife were no longer living at the residence,
28:37
Speaker 1: even though they had only moved in there one month
28:39
Speaker 1: before Monty's first interview. For a while, investigators had trouble
28:44
Speaker 1: locating Manti again, but they finally tracked him down to
28:46
Speaker 1: another residence in grand junction. Over the years, Monty had
28:50
Speaker 1: been in trouble with the law on multiple occasions for
28:53
Speaker 1: such crimes as domestic violence and sexual assault. On the
28:57
Speaker 1: basis of all the new information they gathered during the investigation,
29:01
Speaker 1: the Cold Case Task Force publicly named three persons of interest.
29:05
Speaker 1: One of them was Monty Doolan, and the other two
29:07
Speaker 1: were max Abel Garcia and Steven Skuffka, who were both
29:11
Speaker 1: nineteen years old at the time Marie went missing. Some
29:14
Speaker 1: of the witnesses who were interviewed seemed to think that
29:17
Speaker 1: Marie had left the party with three men, and Doolin, Garcia,
29:20
Speaker 1: and Skuffka had all been placed in her presence that night.
29:24
Speaker 1: Garcia was now living in Portland, Oregon, so investigators traveled
29:27
Speaker 1: there to interview him. He maintained his innocence, but the
29:30
Speaker 1: task Force suspected that even if Garcia wasn't directly involved
29:34
Speaker 1: in Maurice's disappearance, he possibly had knowledge about what happened
29:37
Speaker 1: to her. Stephen Skuffka was still living in Craig at
29:40
Speaker 1: this point, and much like Monte Doulin, he had a
29:43
Speaker 1: history of criminal activity. Skuffka popped up on the investigator's
29:47
Speaker 1: radar when witnesses shared stories about how he had allegedly
29:50
Speaker 1: made incriminating comments over the years about being involved in
29:53
Speaker 1: Marie's disappearance. However, Skuffka claimed that he never even attended
29:57
Speaker 1: the party or met Marie. His The story was that
30:00
Speaker 1: he attended the four h dance that night with his sister,
30:03
Speaker 1: but they both returned home early because they found it
30:05
Speaker 1: boring and went to bed. Skuffka's alibi was backed up
30:09
Speaker 1: by his parents and Michael O'Brien, who hosted the party
30:12
Speaker 1: at the mobile home and claimed that Skuffka was never there. Hmm.
30:17
Speaker 2: I mean, they always say that the worst alibi is
30:20
Speaker 2: someone that cares about you, even though they would definitely
30:23
Speaker 2: be the person most likely to.
30:24
Speaker 3: Know the truth.
30:26
Speaker 2: But I don't know, it makes a lot of sense
30:28
Speaker 2: that the three of these guys, Remember, she's fifteen. You
30:32
Speaker 2: have an eighteen and nineteen and a nineteen year old.
30:35
Speaker 2: She's vulnerable, She's I guarantee you, because we've all been
30:39
Speaker 2: a fifteen year old girl before.
30:41
Speaker 3: She feels older than she is.
30:44
Speaker 2: She feels attractive and smart and important because these older
30:48
Speaker 2: boys are paying attention to her, and yet on the
30:50
Speaker 2: flip side, through their eyes, she's vulnerable. She's someone that
30:54
Speaker 2: would be perceived as weak in their mind, and if
30:57
Speaker 2: the three of them manipulate her and get her away
30:59
Speaker 2: from the party, I could see something like a gang
31:02
Speaker 2: sexual assault happening, or you know, one of them hurting
31:07
Speaker 2: her and the rest of them covering for them.
31:09
Speaker 3: So I think it's.
31:11
Speaker 2: Very realistic to start to picture who left with her
31:16
Speaker 2: that night. Three older boys would not surprise me, and
31:20
Speaker 2: the two of them seem to have a pattern of
31:22
Speaker 2: behavior that would very much be in line with something
31:24
Speaker 2: that could escalate to a murder. You have sexual assaults,
31:28
Speaker 2: you have domestic violence, you have very suspicious behavior moving
31:31
Speaker 2: all about trying to elude perhaps the detectives.
31:35
Speaker 3: But ah, it's just sad.
31:36
Speaker 2: I mean, yes, Skufka has an alibi, but I'm not
31:40
Speaker 2: so sure I buy it. I could see it just
31:43
Speaker 2: being Monty, and I could see it being a group
31:45
Speaker 2: of three or even more. Remember the caller set eleven
31:49
Speaker 2: people knew it sounds crazy, but when you think about
31:53
Speaker 2: group of assaults, threes horrific. But there's no limit to
31:57
Speaker 2: how many people can participate in manipulate and hurting the
32:00
Speaker 2: little girl.
32:02
Speaker 4: I think it's weird that Skufka went to the dance
32:04
Speaker 4: with his sister, that is true.
32:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, they don't even specify how old the sister was,
32:09
Speaker 1: But I know most people in high school would not
32:11
Speaker 1: go to social events with their siblings like that.
32:14
Speaker 3: No, they'd be like, I'm out piece ounds.
32:18
Speaker 1: And Michael O'Brien like, I don't think he's intentionally lying.
32:21
Speaker 1: But they say that between fifty and one hundred people
32:23
Speaker 1: showed up at the party, and even he admits a
32:25
Speaker 1: lot of them were stragglers who came who he didn't
32:28
Speaker 1: even know. So after twenty years, how could he be
32:31
Speaker 1: certain that he did not see Steven Skoff at the party?
32:33
Speaker 1: I mean, he could have been there and he just
32:35
Speaker 1: didn't notice him.
32:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, one hundred people. That's like thinking about, you know,
32:39
Speaker 2: like a high school dance or something. How are you
32:41
Speaker 2: gonna see everybody for sure? To the point where you
32:45
Speaker 2: could testify on that It's very possible that they were
32:48
Speaker 2: hanging out at a bonfire behind the mobile home, and
32:51
Speaker 2: or that Michael was in the mobile home most of
32:54
Speaker 2: the time while they were outside, So I don't necessarily think.
32:57
Speaker 3: That's much of a cover.
32:58
Speaker 2: And then, like I said, his parents would obvious tried
33:00
Speaker 2: to support their son to get the heat off of him.
33:04
Speaker 4: And when you add substances into the mix, everybody was
33:07
Speaker 4: likely inebriated or high on drugs. Then people's memories become
33:11
Speaker 4: more fallible. And I'm in total agreement with you Ash.
33:14
Speaker 4: The parents being his alibi, that's shaky at best, Like
33:18
Speaker 4: that is not a concrete alibi. They are going to
33:21
Speaker 4: say anything that they can likely to protect their son,
33:23
Speaker 4: because most parents do.
33:26
Speaker 5: Well.
33:27
Speaker 4: In September two thousand, only a few months after being
33:30
Speaker 4: named as a person of interest, Stephen Skyfka wound up
33:33
Speaker 4: in serious legal trouble after he was arrested for allegedly
33:37
Speaker 4: trying to run over a man with his car. Traces
33:40
Speaker 4: of methamphetamine, marijuana, and drug paraphernalia were found in Skyfka's possession,
33:45
Speaker 4: and at the time, he was also on probation for
33:47
Speaker 4: a witness tampering charge. He wound up being charged with
33:50
Speaker 4: forty seven different crimes and was facing a twelve year
33:54
Speaker 4: prison sentence. Skufka was interviewed by a cold case task
33:58
Speaker 4: force and was offered a deal for a sentence if
34:01
Speaker 4: he was willing to provide new information about Marie's disappearance.
34:05
Speaker 4: Skuffka did not divulge anything, and wound up receiving the
34:08
Speaker 4: twelve year sentence, though he was paroled in two thousand
34:11
Speaker 4: and nine. Following his release, Skuffka went to live with
34:14
Speaker 4: his mother in Lakewood, but became the victim of a
34:17
Speaker 4: fatal accident when he fell down his basement steps. In
34:20
Speaker 4: May of twenty twelve, Skiffka's mother stated that he was
34:23
Speaker 4: getting his life back together and had gotten engaged to
34:26
Speaker 4: be married. She continued to insist that he was falsely
34:29
Speaker 4: accused of his involvement in Marie's disappearance, and he had
34:32
Speaker 4: been home with her on the night Marie went missing.
34:35
Speaker 3: I view this two different ways.
34:37
Speaker 2: One, you have somebody who didn't do it, because he
34:40
Speaker 2: is offered this deal and says, hey, listen, you're already
34:43
Speaker 2: facing a heck of a lot of time.
34:45
Speaker 3: Help us out.
34:45
Speaker 2: We'll help you out with your charges because you're already
34:48
Speaker 2: going to have to serve time, and we can help
34:51
Speaker 2: one another.
34:51
Speaker 3: And he says no.
34:52
Speaker 2: He goes ahead and he gets the full sentence or
34:54
Speaker 2: whatever he was going to be facing for the multiple
34:57
Speaker 2: forty seven different crimes that he was So either he
35:02
Speaker 2: didn't do it, or you have somebody who is a
35:06
Speaker 2: careered criminal who has a unstable past with law enforcement
35:12
Speaker 2: and therefore is smart enough to keep his mouth shut
35:15
Speaker 2: or refuses to cooperate and help law enforcement. So I
35:18
Speaker 2: could see it being either way he truly doesn't know anything,
35:21
Speaker 2: or he just happens to have a criminal lifestyle that says, yeah,
35:25
Speaker 2: I might know something, but I'm not dumb enough.
35:28
Speaker 3: To tell you anything. It's not in it.
35:30
Speaker 2: There's nothing in it for me to tell you. I'm
35:31
Speaker 2: going to face my charges and move on.
35:34
Speaker 4: And Robin mentioned earlier like social stigma, I think that
35:38
Speaker 4: could explain potentially, even if he was already up on
35:42
Speaker 4: all of these other charges, being tied to a death
35:45
Speaker 4: is different. And also the social stigma can explain why
35:48
Speaker 4: the mother would back her son up so wholeheartedly saying
35:52
Speaker 4: that he was with me when there's likely a potential
35:55
Speaker 4: that he wasn't, because she doesn't want the idea that
35:59
Speaker 4: her son could be involved in the death of a
36:01
Speaker 4: young woman.
36:02
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Like most parents aren't just going to flat
36:04
Speaker 1: out say, like after they've lost a child, saying oh yeah,
36:07
Speaker 1: I believe that he did it. I believe he was
36:08
Speaker 1: a murderers. So it's understandable that she would continue to
36:12
Speaker 1: defend him to her dying breath. But of course the
36:15
Speaker 1: all their alternative is that the actual truth about what
36:17
Speaker 1: happened is so bad that Skuffit canoe that even if
36:20
Speaker 1: he confessed to it, he was going to receive a
36:22
Speaker 1: lot more than a twelve year sentence, because, like they said,
36:25
Speaker 1: there's no statute of limitations on murder. Well. A few
36:29
Speaker 1: years after Skuffka's death, Monty Doolan would face some serious
36:33
Speaker 1: legal trouble of his own. In June of twenty fifteen,
36:36
Speaker 1: Doolan was arrested after a grand jury for Colorado's fourteenth
36:40
Speaker 1: Judicial District indicted him on one count of first degree kidnapping.
36:44
Speaker 1: At the time, Doolan was living in Souldotna, Alaska, but
36:48
Speaker 1: he was brought back to Route County to face the charge.
36:51
Speaker 1: It turned out that in the year prior to Marie's disappearance,
36:54
Speaker 1: Dulan had allegedly kidnapped and sexually assaulted another teenage girl
36:58
Speaker 1: who lived in Route County. Doolan was accused of picking
37:02
Speaker 1: up this girl at the Elkhead Reservoir after offering her
37:05
Speaker 1: a ride home, but he soon pulled over at an
37:07
Speaker 1: isolated location and proceeded to sexually assault and choked the
37:11
Speaker 1: victim before letting her go. Shortly after Doulan's arrest, his
37:15
Speaker 1: brother also found himself in legal trouble when he was
37:18
Speaker 1: charged with intimidating a witness. This person had testified against
37:22
Speaker 1: Monty during the grand jury proceeding, and his brother had
37:24
Speaker 1: allegedly threatened to quote unquote put a bullet in her head. However,
37:28
Speaker 1: in November of that year, District Court Judge Shelley Hill
37:32
Speaker 1: dismissed the first degree kidnapping charge against Dulan because she
37:35
Speaker 1: did not believe the crime met that particular criteria. Judge
37:39
Speaker 1: Hill cited the definition of first degree kidnapping in the
37:42
Speaker 1: Colorado Criminal Code and ruled that Duelin did not have
37:45
Speaker 1: the intent to quote unquote force the victim or any
37:48
Speaker 1: other concession to give up anything of value in order
37:51
Speaker 1: to secure the release of a person. This did not
37:54
Speaker 1: necessarily mean that the alleged sexual assault never happened, but
37:58
Speaker 1: Doolan was never actually charged with set actual assault since
38:01
Speaker 1: the statute of limitations for that particular offense had already expired.
38:06
Speaker 1: Judge Hill just felt there was insufficient evidence to show
38:08
Speaker 1: that Doulin had committed kidnapping, the actual offense he was
38:12
Speaker 1: charged with. As a result, Doolin wound up being released,
38:15
Speaker 1: but he continues to maintain his innocence in Maurice's disappearance.
38:19
Speaker 1: Paul and Mona Blee continued to remain advocates for their
38:22
Speaker 1: missing daughter, and every year around Thanksgiving they would publish
38:25
Speaker 1: a notice in Route County's newspaper, The Steamboat Pilot in Today,
38:29
Speaker 1: asking someone to come forward with information. The Blees have
38:33
Speaker 1: pretty much reached the point where they are no longer
38:35
Speaker 1: interested in prosecuting whoever was responsible for Maurice's disappearance, as
38:40
Speaker 1: they just want to find their daughter's remains and give
38:42
Speaker 1: her a proper burial. But after forty five years, the
38:45
Speaker 1: exact circumstances of what actually happened to Marie Blee continued
38:49
Speaker 1: to remain unknown. So I guess you could say the
38:52
Speaker 1: path went Chile Robin.
38:55
Speaker 3: Are both of her parents still alive?
38:57
Speaker 1: I haven't read any obituaries for them, so I think
39:00
Speaker 1: that they are. And I think it was twenty nineteen
39:03
Speaker 1: where I went to crime con in New Orleans and
39:06
Speaker 1: two people came up to my booth who actually said
39:08
Speaker 1: that they knew the Bleaze had said, they were very
39:10
Speaker 1: nice people who have done amazing work trying to spread
39:13
Speaker 1: word to find their daughter. And they were still alive
39:16
Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen, and I haven't read anything about them
39:18
Speaker 1: having passed away since then, but they would probably now
39:21
Speaker 1: be in their eighties approaching their nineties.
39:23
Speaker 2: Bless our hearts. That's exactly what I was thinking. Because
39:25
Speaker 2: she was fifteen, I was assuming her parents would at
39:27
Speaker 2: least be, you know, upper thirties or something to that nature.
39:31
Speaker 3: Oh man, it's just so sad.
39:34
Speaker 2: You have these ideas where you say, you know, yes,
39:36
Speaker 2: charges have been dropped against some of these people, but
39:39
Speaker 2: not because necessarily the crime didn't take place, but because
39:41
Speaker 2: there wasn't enough evidence. And like you said, we have
39:45
Speaker 2: these three people who are you people of interest, but
39:50
Speaker 2: once deceased, you have Doolan, who has you know, come
39:55
Speaker 2: and gone all over the place.
39:57
Speaker 3: Right, he was the one that hid when he got
39:59
Speaker 3: asked questions.
40:00
Speaker 1: Yes, where he moved out of his house even though
40:02
Speaker 1: he had moved in there only one month before he
40:04
Speaker 1: was questioned.
40:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just the potential of any of the suspects
40:10
Speaker 2: ever getting hold accountable is low.
40:12
Speaker 3: But like the Bleas said, it's not even about that anymore.
40:16
Speaker 2: Like if you could even probably blanket promise that there's
40:19
Speaker 2: no prosecution, someone just please tell me where she is.
40:23
Speaker 2: Like they said, let us have enough of peace and
40:27
Speaker 2: give her the dignity to bury her, to have her remains,
40:30
Speaker 2: to know what happened to her. I remember I was
40:34
Speaker 2: just talking to another homicides Drivor recently who said, I
40:39
Speaker 2: had to know the details. I had to know what happened,
40:41
Speaker 2: because as gruesome as it was, and as horrific as
40:44
Speaker 2: it was to see the finality and the pictures and
40:47
Speaker 2: things like that, I had imagined so much worse. And
40:50
Speaker 2: she said, it's hard for people to look at, you know,
40:52
Speaker 2: crime scene photos of a loved one killed and think
40:54
Speaker 2: you thought something worse happened. And she said her imagination
40:57
Speaker 2: took over so much that by being able to see
41:00
Speaker 2: the facts, it allowed her to kind of close the
41:04
Speaker 2: wandering in her head, and that was peace in itself.
41:06
Speaker 2: So that's what I wish for the bleas you have
41:09
Speaker 2: these elderly individuals who are still advocating for their daughter,
41:13
Speaker 2: they just want to know what happened to her. And
41:15
Speaker 2: above that, I want to have my hands on my
41:19
Speaker 2: baby and her casket and know where she is, know
41:23
Speaker 2: that she's safe, and just put that chapter of our
41:26
Speaker 2: lives to rest because we were able to give her
41:29
Speaker 2: the honor and the dignity and the.
41:31
Speaker 3: Respect to bury her.
41:34
Speaker 2: But it's pitiful to think in their last years, right,
41:37
Speaker 2: their whole lives have been dedicated to trying to figure
41:41
Speaker 2: out what happened to their baby instead of living life
41:43
Speaker 2: with her.
41:44
Speaker 4: I remember Julie Murray saying something like it was much
41:48
Speaker 4: more important for her to be able to find out
41:50
Speaker 4: where her sister is and to bring more home than
41:53
Speaker 4: it was to get justice for whatever happened to her.
41:57
Speaker 4: And I think that's how Marie's parents felt, like, just
42:01
Speaker 4: please tell us where our baby is so that we
42:04
Speaker 4: can bury her. We can do whatever they choose to do.
42:07
Speaker 4: They can honor her, they have somewhere to go. But
42:10
Speaker 4: I think you said, just not having that body and
42:13
Speaker 4: not having that ability to have that resolution, no matter
42:17
Speaker 4: how horrible the facts of the crime may be. If
42:21
Speaker 4: it was indeed a murder, then they know, and like
42:24
Speaker 4: you said, they're not envisioning all of these horrible scenarios.
42:27
Speaker 4: They know what happened, and then the healing can truly begin.
42:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is far from the only missing person's case
42:34
Speaker 1: where it drags on for so long that the victim's
42:37
Speaker 1: family eventually says, I don't care about criminal prosecution, I
42:40
Speaker 1: don't care about justice. I just want my loved ones
42:42
Speaker 1: remains back. And you would think that in these scenarios
42:45
Speaker 1: where even if you're afraid of coming forward because you
42:47
Speaker 1: don't want the social stigma or your fear for your life,
42:50
Speaker 1: then the least you could do is maybe make an
42:52
Speaker 1: anonymous phone call from a payphone or leave an anonymous
42:55
Speaker 1: note just giving the location of where Marie is and
42:58
Speaker 1: then just hope that once they find the remains they
43:01
Speaker 1: won't try to find out who killed her and stuff
43:03
Speaker 1: like that. So, I mean, I can understand the perpetrators
43:06
Speaker 1: not doing that, but if there is anyone else out
43:08
Speaker 1: there who actually knows the truth they will not face
43:10
Speaker 1: criminal prosecution, then all they would really need to do
43:13
Speaker 1: was like make an anonymous call or leave some sort
43:16
Speaker 1: of anonymous tip.
43:17
Speaker 4: I think, don't you guys think though, that that leans
43:20
Speaker 4: more towards this could have been a murder, because I
43:22
Speaker 4: think if this was an accident and a lot of
43:24
Speaker 4: people knew about it, and they knew that there would
43:27
Speaker 4: be no charges if they came forward and they shared
43:30
Speaker 4: what happened and they led law enforcement to where her
43:33
Speaker 4: body was, or like Robin just said, if they did
43:35
Speaker 4: an anonymous tip, like why wouldn't you do that? But
43:39
Speaker 4: if you did indeed murder her and you were afraid,
43:41
Speaker 4: what would happen if the police or her family found
43:44
Speaker 4: the body, then that might be something that would hold
43:47
Speaker 4: you back from calling authorities.
43:50
Speaker 1: Yep, that makes sense to me, and that's probably why
43:52
Speaker 1: Steven Skuffka wouldn't say anything when he was in prison
43:54
Speaker 1: facing all those charges, because he probably felt, well, if
43:57
Speaker 1: I reveal the truth, I'm going to go to prison
43:59
Speaker 1: for murder for the rest of my life. So I'm
44:01
Speaker 1: not getting a reduced sentence. So this would be a
44:04
Speaker 1: good time to bring an end to Part one. Join
44:06
Speaker 1: us next week as we present part two of our
44:08
Speaker 1: series about the disappearance of Marie Blee.
44:12
Speaker 4: Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit
44:14
Speaker 4: about the Trail Went Cold Patreon?
44:16
Speaker 1: Yes, the Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three
44:18
Speaker 1: years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like
44:22
Speaker 1: early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers
44:25
Speaker 1: and sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up
44:28
Speaker 1: with us on Patreon if you join our five dollars
44:31
Speaker 1: tier Tier two, we also offer monthly bonus episodes in
44:35
Speaker 1: which I talk about cases which are not featured on
44:38
Speaker 1: The Trail Went Cold's original feed, so they're exclusive to Patreon,
44:42
Speaker 1: and if you join our highest tier tier three, the
44:44
Speaker 1: ten dollars tier. One of the features we offer is
44:47
Speaker 1: a audio commentary track over classic episodes of Unsolved Mysteries,
44:52
Speaker 1: where you can download an audio file and then boot
44:55
Speaker 1: up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or
44:58
Speaker 1: YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in
45:02
Speaker 1: the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids about
45:05
Speaker 1: the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very
45:08
Speaker 1: first episode that I did a commentary track over was
45:11
Speaker 1: the episode featuring this case. So if you want to
45:14
Speaker 1: download a commentary track in which I make more smart
45:17
Speaker 1: ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor, then be sure to join
45:20
Speaker 1: Tier three.
45:21
Speaker 5: So I want to let you know a little bit
45:22
Speaker 5: about the Jewels and Nashty patreons. So there's early ad
45:25
Speaker 5: free episodes of The Path Went Chili. We've got our
45:28
Speaker 5: Pathwent Chili mini's which are always over an hour, so
45:31
Speaker 5: they're not very mini, but they're just too short to
45:33
Speaker 5: turn into a series, and we're really enjoying doing those,
45:36
Speaker 5: so we hope you'll check out those patreons.
45:39
Speaker 4: We'll link them in the show notes.
45:41
Speaker 1: So I want to thank you all for listening, and
45:43
Speaker 1: any chance you have to share us on social media
45:45
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45:47
Speaker 1: appreciate it. You can email us at the Pathwentchili at
45:50
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Speaker 1: the Pathwin. So until next time, be sure to bundle
45:56
Speaker 1: up because cold trails and Chili pass call for warm clothing.
46:00
Speaker 4: Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Collors Comedy