Latest / Crime and Horror / BYU coed murder took 25 years to solve...

Transcript

BYU coed murder took 25 years to solve... · Crime and Horror

0:00
Speaker 1: One evening in March of nineteen seventy four, an investigator
0:03
Speaker 1: in Salt Lake City, Utah, sat across an interrogation table
0:06
Speaker 1: from a man who claimed he had psychic powers. Now,
0:10
Speaker 1: the investigator had naturally been quite skeptical of this man
0:13
Speaker 1: and his powers, but the man began giving him a
0:16
Speaker 1: bunch of very specific visions about the case the investigator
0:20
Speaker 1: was trying to solve, and in fact, some of the
0:23
Speaker 1: information he was revealing was enough to make the investigator
0:26
Speaker 1: wonder could this man actually be a psychic or was
0:31
Speaker 1: he the killer? But before we get into today's story,
0:34
Speaker 1: if you're a fan of the strange, dark and mysterious
0:36
Speaker 1: delivered in story format, then you've come to the right place,
0:39
Speaker 1: because that's all we do, and we upload two, three,
0:42
Speaker 1: even four times a week. So if that's of interest
0:45
Speaker 1: to you, please go on an amazing vacation with the
0:48
Speaker 1: like button and volunteer to take pictures for them. But
0:51
Speaker 1: every time you take their picture, turn the camera around
0:54
Speaker 1: secretly and just take.
0:55
Speaker 2: Selfies of yourself.
0:57
Speaker 1: Also, please subscribe to our channel and turn on all
0:59
Speaker 1: notifications so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads. Okay,
1:03
Speaker 1: let's get into today's story. On March eleventh, nineteen seventy four,
1:27
Speaker 1: twenty two year old Barbara Rocky sat at a desk
1:29
Speaker 1: in her bedroom in Provo, Utah, writing furiously as she
1:33
Speaker 1: was writing. Eventually she paused for a minute to reread
1:35
Speaker 1: what she had written, but she wasn't quite happy yet,
1:38
Speaker 1: so she added a few more lines. The letter she
1:41
Speaker 1: was writing was for her roommates, and she knew it
1:43
Speaker 1: had to be perfect because Barbara was saying goodbye. So
1:47
Speaker 1: Barbara was a junior at Brigham Young University or BYU,
1:50
Speaker 1: which was a very religious.
1:51
Speaker 2: School where most students.
1:53
Speaker 1: Were practicing Mormons, but not Barbara. She had chosen to
1:57
Speaker 1: go to BYU because of religion, but really just because
2:00
Speaker 1: she was fascinated by it and thought going to a
2:02
Speaker 1: school structured around faith would be very interesting. But when
2:06
Speaker 1: she actually got there, she immediately felt out of place
2:09
Speaker 1: because her classmates went to church every week for hours
2:12
Speaker 1: at a time, and they all followed a pretty strict
2:15
Speaker 1: set of behavioral rules and values, which wasn't really Barbara's thing.
2:19
Speaker 1: Barbara was from California and considered herself more of a
2:23
Speaker 1: free spirit who liked exploring new ideas and trying new things,
2:26
Speaker 1: so Over the last three years, Barbara had felt both
2:29
Speaker 1: frustrated and also alienated by the other students' very rigid lifestyles.
2:34
Speaker 1: She'd been hoping that that would change with her new
2:36
Speaker 1: living situation. She'd just moved in with seven other girls
2:39
Speaker 1: in January, but now just two months into that, it
2:42
Speaker 1: was already very obvious that those girls did not like her.
2:46
Speaker 1: They were just as religious as the rest of the
2:48
Speaker 1: kids at BYU, and they seemed to think Barbara was
2:51
Speaker 1: weird for doing things like dating around and experimenting with
2:55
Speaker 1: different religions. It just didn't make sense to them. So
2:58
Speaker 1: Barbara had decided that instead of trying to change her
3:01
Speaker 1: roommate's minds, she would just lean into this kind of
3:05
Speaker 1: weird behavior, as they called it. Barbara basically started making
3:08
Speaker 1: them uncomfortable on purpose, like by saying she prayed to
3:12
Speaker 1: the devil, which totally shocked them. And after a while,
3:15
Speaker 1: Barbara had really got the sense that these girls they
3:18
Speaker 1: weren't just weirded out by her, they were now actively
3:22
Speaker 1: scared of her, which really alienated Barbara a whole lot more.
3:25
Speaker 1: And so all of that was why Barbara was now
3:27
Speaker 1: writing this letter.
3:28
Speaker 2: She was telling her.
3:29
Speaker 1: Roommates that she was just going to go ahead and
3:31
Speaker 1: leave campus for a while to be with people that
3:34
Speaker 1: actually understood her. And the people she was thinking of
3:37
Speaker 1: were people like Richard find Her, a self proclaimed psychic
3:40
Speaker 1: that Barbara had connected with after she'd called into a
3:43
Speaker 1: radio show where Richard had been giving psychic readings, and
3:46
Speaker 1: the two of them had connected immediately because even though
3:49
Speaker 1: Richard was almost a decade older than her, he understood
3:53
Speaker 1: Barbara in a way that no one else in her
3:55
Speaker 1: life did, and ever since they'd had this really intense
3:58
Speaker 1: relationship that felt both romantic and spiritual at the same time.
4:02
Speaker 1: But since Richard lived far away, most of their relationships
4:06
Speaker 1: so far had been over the phone, and so Barbara
4:09
Speaker 1: thought it might be nice to be physically closer to
4:11
Speaker 1: Richard and also his circle of friends. But there was
4:14
Speaker 1: another reason Barbara wanted to get away from BYU, and
4:17
Speaker 1: that was because she had started to feel unsafe being
4:20
Speaker 1: a young woman on a college campus. So recently there
4:23
Speaker 1: had been some scary national news stories about college women
4:26
Speaker 1: being attacked on campus. One student in Washington State had
4:30
Speaker 1: been beaten and almost killed in her dorm room in January,
4:34
Speaker 1: and another woman had gone missing the following month, and
4:36
Speaker 1: even though these attacks had not literally happened at BYU,
4:40
Speaker 1: it still freaked Barbara out. I mean, especially because these
4:43
Speaker 1: women who had been targeted just looked a lot like
4:46
Speaker 1: her physically, with long, dark hair and sort of similar features.
4:50
Speaker 1: And so as a precaution, Barbara had been taking judo
4:53
Speaker 1: classes at school and even got her best friend, Jerry Hicker,
4:57
Speaker 1: to help her buy a gun. Except Barbara had actually
5:00
Speaker 1: lost her gun recently. She'd not been able to find
5:02
Speaker 1: it for the last few weeks. She'd reported it missing
5:05
Speaker 1: to the campus police, but she really had no idea
5:07
Speaker 1: where it went. But for now, Barbara forgot about the
5:10
Speaker 1: gun and just took a deep breath and finished up
5:12
Speaker 1: her goodbye letter. Then she glanced over at the clock
5:15
Speaker 1: and saw it was almost ten am, and so she
5:17
Speaker 1: had to get to class. So she grabbed the letter
5:20
Speaker 1: and put it inside of her purse, where she also
5:22
Speaker 1: was holding a turquoise necklace, which she planned to sell
5:25
Speaker 1: that day. It was the single most valuable thing that
5:27
Speaker 1: she owned, and she was going to pawnt it to
5:29
Speaker 1: get some seed money to leave town. She'd figure out
5:32
Speaker 1: her actual destination based on how much she got for it.
5:36
Speaker 1: As Barbara threw her bag over her shoulder and got
5:39
Speaker 1: ready to leave, she heard a car pull into the
5:41
Speaker 1: driveway outside, which was a relief because she'd actually let
5:45
Speaker 1: her best friend Jerry borrow her car to go skiing
5:48
Speaker 1: the other day, and she had been hoping he would
5:50
Speaker 1: drop it off before she left her class, and so
5:52
Speaker 1: clearly that's what he was doing. And so Barbara hurried
5:55
Speaker 1: out her front door, and sure enough, there was her car,
5:58
Speaker 1: and there was Jerry climbing up and waving her keys,
6:01
Speaker 1: basically being like.
6:02
Speaker 2: Hey, I'm back.
6:03
Speaker 1: As Jerry handed the car keys back over to Barbara,
6:06
Speaker 1: he asked her if they were still on for hanging
6:08
Speaker 1: out later.
6:09
Speaker 2: But Barbara was.
6:10
Speaker 1: Busy thinking about getting to class and the logistics of
6:12
Speaker 1: selling her necklace. She had decided that Salt Lake City
6:16
Speaker 1: would have more pawnshops that would pay better, and it
6:18
Speaker 1: was also less than an hour north, and so now
6:20
Speaker 1: that Jerry had dropped her car off, she could drive
6:22
Speaker 1: up there right after class. And so, you know, Barbara
6:25
Speaker 1: just kind of nodded at Jerry and whatever he was saying,
6:27
Speaker 1: and then she took the keys, jumped in her car,
6:29
Speaker 1: and she was off. Over an hour later. Barbara was
6:34
Speaker 1: sitting in her social work class waiting for the teacher
6:37
Speaker 1: to dismiss them, and as she was sitting there, she
6:40
Speaker 1: began to hear some students whispering behind her, and as
6:43
Speaker 1: they did, even though she couldn't quite hear what they
6:44
Speaker 1: were saying, she began to feel her face get red
6:48
Speaker 1: because even though she didn't know if they were talking
6:50
Speaker 1: about her, if they were, it certainly would not be
6:53
Speaker 1: the first time people talked about her a lot, so
6:55
Speaker 1: Barbara just did her best to try to ignore them,
6:58
Speaker 1: and then as soon as the teacher said they could go,
7:00
Speaker 1: she jumped up and shoved her books into her back,
7:02
Speaker 1: and then she hurried out of the building to where
7:04
Speaker 1: her car was parked. She got in and pulled out
7:07
Speaker 1: of the lot, and as she made her way down
7:09
Speaker 1: the street, she actually felt a wave of excitement. She
7:12
Speaker 1: couldn't wait to sell this necklace and finally get out
7:15
Speaker 1: of this place. About three hours later, Barbara's best friend, Jerry,
7:23
Speaker 1: walked up the sidewalk to Barbara's house. He thought they
7:25
Speaker 1: had plans to meet up that afternoon, but Barbara never showed,
7:29
Speaker 1: and Barbara did not usually just blow off plans without calling,
7:33
Speaker 1: so now he was actually at her house just to
7:35
Speaker 1: make sure she was okay, and now Jerry noticed that
7:38
Speaker 1: her car was not in her driveway, so he just
7:41
Speaker 1: stood there for a minute, wondering if maybe he should
7:43
Speaker 1: go in and ask her roommates where she was, but
7:46
Speaker 1: he ultimately decided against it and just instead headed back
7:49
Speaker 1: to his place. But after beginning the walk back to
7:52
Speaker 1: his place, he passed by an apartment complex down the
7:55
Speaker 1: street from Barbara's place, and he stopped because he could
7:59
Speaker 1: clearly see Barbara's car parked in the lot, which was
8:02
Speaker 1: definitely out of the ordinary because Jerry was sure she
8:05
Speaker 1: did not know anybody who lived there, and so, now
8:08
Speaker 1: really starting to worry about Barbara, Jerry walked up to
8:11
Speaker 1: her car to check it out, and when he looked inside,
8:15
Speaker 1: he saw there was a note, and so he just
8:17
Speaker 1: opened up her car because he found it was unlocked,
8:19
Speaker 1: and he grabbed the note and he began to read it,
8:22
Speaker 1: and as he did, he felt his heart rates start
8:24
Speaker 1: to pick up. An hour later, Jerry ran into the
8:28
Speaker 1: campus police station, with Barbara's roommates following right behind him.
8:31
Speaker 1: After finding the note inside of Barbara's car, Jerry had
8:35
Speaker 1: gone back to Barbara's house to show it to her
8:37
Speaker 1: roommates and ask if they had seen her, because now
8:39
Speaker 1: he was worried that this note was some kind of
8:42
Speaker 1: suicide note. The note was a goodbye letter that Barbara
8:45
Speaker 1: apparently had written, and it said that she was leaving
8:48
Speaker 1: to be with her people, and the tone of it
8:51
Speaker 1: was just kind of alarming. Now Jerry could tell her
8:53
Speaker 1: roommates thought that he was overreacting to this note, but
8:57
Speaker 1: they had ultimately agreed to come with him to the
8:59
Speaker 1: police to just make sure everything was okay. And so
9:01
Speaker 1: as soon as the officer on duty came out, Jerry
9:04
Speaker 1: explained to him that he had had plans with Barbara
9:07
Speaker 1: that day and she had not shown up, which was
9:09
Speaker 1: very uncharacteristic, and then he explained how he found her car,
9:12
Speaker 1: and then also this letter and his concerns about this letter,
9:15
Speaker 1: and the officer on duty said, okay, you know, we'll
9:17
Speaker 1: look into it. And so over the next few hours,
9:20
Speaker 1: the campus police did look into it. They reached out
9:23
Speaker 1: to some other kids on campus and also to Barbara's family,
9:27
Speaker 1: but nobody had seen or heard from Barbara since that morning,
9:30
Speaker 1: and so the police continued to look into this. You know,
9:33
Speaker 1: realizing this could be a missing person's case, but technically
9:37
Speaker 1: not enough time had passed to officially call it that,
9:40
Speaker 1: so in this first day, it was all just kind
9:42
Speaker 1: of preliminary. The next day, almost fifty miles north of
9:46
Speaker 1: the BYU campus, a worker for a Utah utility company
9:50
Speaker 1: hiked up a trail in Big Cottonwood Canyon, a hilly
9:53
Speaker 1: nature preserve on the outskirts of Salt Lake City.
9:56
Speaker 2: Officially, he was there to.
9:57
Speaker 1: Check on some water lines, but he was also, oh,
10:00
Speaker 1: you know, taking his time and enjoying himself. I mean,
10:02
Speaker 1: this area was beautiful. It was high up in the
10:05
Speaker 1: mountains and very remote and peaceful. So this guy was
10:08
Speaker 1: genuinely shocked when he reached the top of the trail and.
10:11
Speaker 2: Saw he was not alone. There was a woman up there.
10:14
Speaker 1: But at first, the way his brain processed what he
10:17
Speaker 1: was seeing is he saw this woman who was lying
10:19
Speaker 1: on the ground and she appeared to be nude or
10:21
Speaker 1: partially nude, and he thought, oh, she's sunbathing, like that's
10:25
Speaker 1: what she's doing up here. But then he's like, it's March,
10:28
Speaker 1: it's cold, and she's face down and she's definitely totally naked.
10:32
Speaker 2: And then he took a few.
10:33
Speaker 1: More steps forward and his brain kind of processed what
10:36
Speaker 1: he was seeing, at which point he just gasped, turned around,
10:39
Speaker 1: and ran back to his car to go alert the police.
10:54
Speaker 1: Within the hour, Captain Pete Hayward with the Salt Lake
10:57
Speaker 1: City Sheriff's Office, drove his cruiser along a remote act
11:00
Speaker 1: access road that led to Big Cottonwood Canyon. So Hayward
11:03
Speaker 1: normally loved being in nature. All he really did in
11:06
Speaker 1: his spare time was hunt and fish, but right now
11:09
Speaker 1: the scenery and remote location were actually kind of an
11:12
Speaker 1: inconvenience because he needed to get to his destination quickly
11:15
Speaker 1: and that was just very hard to do out here.
11:18
Speaker 1: Hayward had just gotten a call about a woman who'd
11:20
Speaker 1: been found dead in the canyon by a worker for
11:23
Speaker 1: a utility company, and while a few responders were actually
11:26
Speaker 1: already there securing the scene, Hayward knew they wouldn't be
11:29
Speaker 1: able to really do anything until he got there, because
11:32
Speaker 1: when he worked a murder case, every single detail had
11:36
Speaker 1: to go through him. A few minutes later, Hayward saw
11:39
Speaker 1: some police cars up ahead on the side of the road,
11:42
Speaker 1: and also a deputy waiting by a trailhead and so
11:44
Speaker 1: he pulled over, got out, and then followed the deputy
11:47
Speaker 1: up a steep trail for about three hundred yards, and
11:50
Speaker 1: he was pretty out of breath by the time he
11:51
Speaker 1: saw a few other crime scene texts and officers gathered
11:54
Speaker 1: around a bush, where underneath the bush there was a
11:57
Speaker 1: body of a naked woman lying face down on the ground.
12:00
Speaker 1: Hayward walked over and crouched down to examine the body,
12:04
Speaker 1: and right away he could see at least three bullet
12:06
Speaker 1: wounds in the woman's back, but other than that, he
12:09
Speaker 1: didn't see any other injuries, and there were no clear
12:12
Speaker 1: signs of decomposition.
12:13
Speaker 2: His best guess was that this.
12:14
Speaker 1: Woman had been there for maybe a day or so,
12:17
Speaker 1: which was actually sort of a miracle when he thought
12:19
Speaker 1: about it. I mean, this time of year, nobody came
12:21
Speaker 1: out to this area, and if it hadn't been for
12:24
Speaker 1: that utility worker, I mean, she might not have been
12:26
Speaker 1: found for months. Hayward looked next to the body and
12:29
Speaker 1: he saw the woman's clothes and shoes were right nearby,
12:32
Speaker 1: and each item was actually folded very neatly, which struck
12:35
Speaker 1: him as a little bit strange. Hayward pulled on a
12:37
Speaker 1: glove and began examining the clothing, and he could see
12:40
Speaker 1: that there was really nothing ripped or damaged. And also,
12:43
Speaker 1: as Hayward kind of walked around the immediate area, he
12:46
Speaker 1: noticed the whole scene was just as neat as the close.
12:49
Speaker 1: There was no gun anywhere, and no marks in the
12:51
Speaker 1: dirt or signs of a struggle or a fight, and
12:54
Speaker 1: there was no indication that the body had been dragged around,
12:57
Speaker 1: and so Hayward felt pretty confident that this woman was
13:00
Speaker 1: likely shot and killed in the exact spot she was
13:03
Speaker 1: found in. Hayward stood in the middle of the trail
13:05
Speaker 1: and considered everything he was seeing. The neatly folded clothes
13:08
Speaker 1: could have been removed during consensual sex and then maybe
13:12
Speaker 1: things turned violent, or that could mean the woman was
13:14
Speaker 1: maybe forced to undress at gunpoint. Either way, Hayward's got
13:18
Speaker 1: told him that this woman's killer.
13:20
Speaker 2: Was someone she knew.
13:21
Speaker 1: Because the thing was getting up here from the road
13:24
Speaker 1: was not easy. I mean, Hayward was pushing fifty and
13:27
Speaker 1: knew he was not in the best shape. But even
13:29
Speaker 1: for somebody who was young and fit, it would be
13:31
Speaker 1: hard to force another person all the way up a
13:34
Speaker 1: trail like this. It made more sense that this woman
13:37
Speaker 1: had first walked up willingly with someone she likely trusted,
13:42
Speaker 1: and then that person killed her once they were up there.
13:44
Speaker 1: But Hayward knew, you know, his theory didn't mean much
13:47
Speaker 1: until he figured out who this woman was. She didn't
13:50
Speaker 1: seem to have a purse with her, and there was
13:52
Speaker 1: no idea in the pockets of her folded clothes. So
13:55
Speaker 1: Hayward waved some other officers over to help him flip
13:57
Speaker 1: her body over so they could look underneath, and when
14:00
Speaker 1: they did that, Hayward saw there were a few bullets
14:03
Speaker 1: gathered in the dirt. They had clearly gone straight through
14:06
Speaker 1: this woman from the shots in her back, and so
14:09
Speaker 1: Heyward quickly told a teck to go ahead and photograph
14:12
Speaker 1: and bag the bullets for testing, and also to get
14:14
Speaker 1: some of the dirt that the bullets had been lodged
14:16
Speaker 1: in in case there was some other evidence mixed in.
14:19
Speaker 2: So investigators in the nineteen seventies.
14:21
Speaker 1: Did not rely on DNA yet, but they could test
14:24
Speaker 1: for things like clothing fibers or hares and potentially connect
14:28
Speaker 1: that material to suspects. And so after giving his team
14:30
Speaker 1: their marching orders, Hayward took a deep breath and then
14:33
Speaker 1: headed back down the trail. He needed to go find
14:36
Speaker 1: this woman's name. The next day, Wednesday, March thirteenth, Hayward
14:44
Speaker 1: hustled down a hallway towards a meeting room at the
14:46
Speaker 1: Salt Lake City Sheriff's office. He was bleary eyed and
14:49
Speaker 1: basically running on adrenaline because he'd been working this case
14:52
Speaker 1: non stop since the day before, and he'd just come
14:55
Speaker 1: from a meeting with the ballistics expert who told him
14:59
Speaker 1: the gun that killed this woman was likely a three
15:01
Speaker 1: fifty seven caliber. Now, this was obviously great for the investigation. However,
15:06
Speaker 1: a three fifty seven was not particularly uncommon, so it
15:10
Speaker 1: didn't really narrow things down.
15:11
Speaker 2: A whole bunch.
15:12
Speaker 1: However, Hayward had uncovered something that was major for the investigation,
15:17
Speaker 1: and that was the victim's identity. It was twenty two
15:21
Speaker 1: year old Barbara Rocky. So Hayward's team had put a
15:25
Speaker 1: broadcast out over the news the night before about the
15:28
Speaker 1: discovery of this body. And after they had put that out,
15:31
Speaker 1: they had gotten a call from the BYU Police about
15:34
Speaker 1: a student of theirs who had gone missing a day earlier,
15:37
Speaker 1: and just a few hours ago, some of this missing
15:40
Speaker 1: student's classmates had come up to Salt Lake City to
15:43
Speaker 1: identify the body, and they had confirmed it was Barbara.
15:46
Speaker 2: Now, Hayward had.
15:47
Speaker 1: Spoken to some of those kids already, Andy had some
15:49
Speaker 1: other officers contacting Barbara's family, but right now Hayward was
15:54
Speaker 1: on his way to get a formal statement from a
15:56
Speaker 1: young man named Jerry Hicker. Jerry was one of the
15:59
Speaker 1: people who identify the body, and he was the first
16:02
Speaker 1: person to report Barbara missing, so Hayward was hoping he
16:06
Speaker 1: would have information that could point them towards Barbara's killer.
16:10
Speaker 1: Minutes later, Hayward sat down at a conference table across
16:13
Speaker 1: from Jerry, and from the looks of it, Jerry was
16:15
Speaker 1: very rattled. He kept shaking his head and looking away
16:18
Speaker 1: like he was trying not to cry. But Hayward was
16:22
Speaker 1: not a particularly gentle interviewer, so he didn't waste time
16:25
Speaker 1: with condolences or tissues, especially because Jerry was an obvious suspect.
16:30
Speaker 1: He was Barbara's closest friend at school, apparently, and Hayward
16:34
Speaker 1: was sure Barbara was killed by somebody she trusted, so
16:37
Speaker 1: he just bluntly told Jerry that he needed to know
16:40
Speaker 1: every single thing that happened on the day Barbara went missing.
16:44
Speaker 2: Jerry was sort of caught off guard by.
16:45
Speaker 1: This level of bluntness, but he took a shaky breath
16:49
Speaker 1: and then explained how he'd borrowed Barbara's car the day
16:52
Speaker 1: before and then dropped it back off at her place
16:54
Speaker 1: on Monday morning around ten am, and then he went
16:57
Speaker 1: to the library for a few hours.
16:58
Speaker 2: He then said he was supposed to meet up with Barbara.
17:01
Speaker 1: They had plans for later that day to hang out,
17:03
Speaker 1: but Barbara didn't show up, and when he went to
17:05
Speaker 1: her house to check on her, her car was gone,
17:08
Speaker 1: and so he began walking back home again when he
17:11
Speaker 1: actually saw her car down the block outside of an
17:14
Speaker 1: apartment complex that he didn't understand she would be at,
17:17
Speaker 1: like he didn't think she knew anybody who lived over there,
17:19
Speaker 1: and he said he walked up to the car, looked
17:21
Speaker 1: inside and saw there was a note.
17:23
Speaker 2: He tried the door handle, it was open.
17:25
Speaker 1: He reached inside, got the note out, and he read
17:27
Speaker 1: it and he said it was a pretty disturbing note.
17:29
Speaker 2: He thought it was maybe a suicide note.
17:32
Speaker 1: Hayward nodded he had seen the note the BYU police
17:34
Speaker 1: had given it to him. It did seem to be
17:36
Speaker 1: from Barbara telling her roommates she.
17:38
Speaker 2: Was leaving town to be with people who she fit
17:41
Speaker 2: in with.
17:42
Speaker 1: But the note was kind of vague, and Hayward really
17:44
Speaker 1: wasn't sure what to make of it just yet. You know,
17:46
Speaker 1: it could be a suicide note, or it could be
17:48
Speaker 1: something entirely ordinary. And the truth was, he wasn't actually
17:52
Speaker 1: even sure that Barbara had really written the letter. Maybe
17:55
Speaker 1: her killer had written the letter. Maybe whoever murdered Barbara
17:58
Speaker 1: was attempting to make her disappear adhearance look like a suicide,
18:02
Speaker 1: or maybe imply that she had run away in the
18:04
Speaker 1: hopes that police would never find her body. And so
18:07
Speaker 1: Heyward had sent the letter off to a handwriting expert
18:09
Speaker 1: to see what they thought. Now, Heyward asked Jerry about
18:12
Speaker 1: his relationship with Barbara, and Jerry explained that the two
18:15
Speaker 1: of them hung out a ton, and she had gravitated
18:18
Speaker 1: towards him since she felt sort of unwelcome at school
18:20
Speaker 1: and around her roommates, who didn't really like her because
18:23
Speaker 1: she wasn't religious like they were. Jerry also told Hayward
18:26
Speaker 1: that Barbara had made the conflict with her roommates much
18:29
Speaker 1: worse by intentionally saying sacrilegious things in order to freak
18:34
Speaker 1: them out. So he said there was a lot of
18:36
Speaker 1: tension between them, and it had gotten so bad that
18:38
Speaker 1: at one point he had tried to find Barbara another
18:41
Speaker 1: place to live.
18:42
Speaker 2: This made Hayward perk up.
18:44
Speaker 1: I mean, knowing that Barbara had a potential domestic conflict.
18:47
Speaker 2: Was an interesting lead.
18:48
Speaker 1: Even though a group of young devout Mormon women were
18:51
Speaker 1: not necessarily obvious murder suspects, it was definitely worth looking into.
18:55
Speaker 1: Maybe one of them had been so horrified and outraged
18:58
Speaker 1: by Barbara's teasing that they'd snapped and tried to hurt her.
19:01
Speaker 1: Hayward didn't have any other questions for Jerry, so he
19:04
Speaker 1: stood up and told him he could go. He wasn't
19:06
Speaker 1: ready to eliminate anybody as a suspect just yet, but
19:09
Speaker 1: so far Jerry seemed pretty unlikely. He had an alibi,
19:13
Speaker 1: and he was also the one who reported Barbara missing,
19:16
Speaker 1: and considering it was complete luck that her body was
19:18
Speaker 1: even found at all in the area that it was,
19:21
Speaker 1: you know, it really would have been in the killer's
19:23
Speaker 1: best interest to keep quiet and hope her body was
19:25
Speaker 1: never found. So why would Jerry go to police at all?
19:29
Speaker 1: If he was the killer, so Hayward headed out the
19:31
Speaker 1: door to wrangle some officers. They needed to go to
19:34
Speaker 1: Provo and have another word with Barbara's roommates. The next afternoon,
19:45
Speaker 1: just two days after Barbara was found in the canyon,
19:48
Speaker 1: Hayward pulled up to a pawn shop on the outskirts
19:50
Speaker 1: of Salt Lake City. If he thought he was tired yesterday, well,
19:54
Speaker 1: he was absolutely exhausted now because a lot had happened
19:57
Speaker 1: in the last twenty four hours. They'd got in touch
20:00
Speaker 1: with Barbara's family, who were obviously shocked and devastated, but
20:04
Speaker 1: they didn't have any useful information for the investigation. They
20:08
Speaker 1: didn't know much about Barbara's friends or life at school,
20:11
Speaker 1: so they couldn't say if anybody would have wanted to
20:13
Speaker 1: hurt her, and they'd had no idea if she had
20:15
Speaker 1: been planning to leave campus for any reason. But apparently
20:19
Speaker 1: she was because the handwriting expert had come back and
20:23
Speaker 1: confirmed the note was authentic and Barbara did write it,
20:27
Speaker 1: so her plans to leave appeared to be genuine, which
20:30
Speaker 1: is what the note basically was about if you read
20:32
Speaker 1: it literally. But for Hayward, after speaking to Jerry, who
20:35
Speaker 1: talked about the tension between Barbara and her roommates and
20:38
Speaker 1: how she didn't fit in. And also after Hayward literally
20:42
Speaker 1: spoke to all seven of Barbara's roommates and they all
20:45
Speaker 1: actually admitted they did not like Barbara, it made Hayward
20:49
Speaker 1: think that the letter from Barbara should be interpreted literally,
20:53
Speaker 1: that she was just trying to flee campus and get
20:55
Speaker 1: away in particular from her roommates. But the roommates all
20:59
Speaker 1: had solid alibis for the day Barbara went missing, so
21:02
Speaker 1: for now, you know, Hayward basically.
21:04
Speaker 2: Had to rule out the roommates.
21:06
Speaker 1: But Hayward was not that upset about this because the
21:09
Speaker 1: roommates had actually given him another lead.
21:12
Speaker 2: According to one of.
21:13
Speaker 1: The roommates, right before Barbara had disappeared, she had mentioned
21:17
Speaker 1: that she planned to pawn a turquoise necklace that she
21:20
Speaker 1: owned in Salt Lake City. Soh Hayward and some other
21:23
Speaker 1: officers had spent the whole day canvassing pawn shops in
21:26
Speaker 1: that area to see if maybe she had actually gone
21:29
Speaker 1: through with it. Now, so far, Hayward had not found
21:32
Speaker 1: the necklace or you know, found the pawn shop that
21:35
Speaker 1: maybe Barbara went to, but he was very hopeful, maybe
21:38
Speaker 1: too hopeful in some ways, because you know, aside from
21:42
Speaker 1: this necklace lead, the investigation really was kind of losing steam.
21:46
Speaker 1: They had searched and fingerprinted Barbara's car but had not
21:49
Speaker 1: found anything significant. It also gotten the autopsy back, and
21:53
Speaker 1: it was mostly unhelpful. The medical examiner had actually counted
21:56
Speaker 1: five gunshot wounds, not just three, so more than Hayward,
22:00
Speaker 1: but they couldn't confirm whether or not Barbara was sexually assaulted.
22:04
Speaker 1: And also the forensics report had come back and they
22:07
Speaker 1: had not been able to collect any fingerprints at the scene,
22:10
Speaker 1: and so all of this was swirling around in Hayward's
22:12
Speaker 1: head as he stepped into this particular pawn shop and
22:16
Speaker 1: he asked the woman behind the counter if they had
22:18
Speaker 1: recently purchased a turquoise necklace, and to his shock, the
22:22
Speaker 1: woman said yes, and then she gestured towards a glass
22:26
Speaker 1: case behind the counter, where Hayward could see a long,
22:29
Speaker 1: white necklace lined with turquoise stones on a red felt pad.
22:35
Speaker 1: About a half an hour later, Hayward was back behind
22:37
Speaker 1: the wheel of his cruiser, and his heart was pounding
22:40
Speaker 1: and his mind was racing so fast he could barely
22:43
Speaker 1: pay attention to the road because Hayward finally had.
22:47
Speaker 2: A real trail here.
22:49
Speaker 1: The shop clerk's description of the person who had sold
22:52
Speaker 1: that turquoise necklace matched Barbara perfectly. Not only that the
22:57
Speaker 1: shopkeeper also had a receipt for the sale that showed
23:00
Speaker 1: Barbara was at the store on March eleventh at twelve
23:04
Speaker 1: fifty pm, the same day she went missing. But the
23:07
Speaker 1: most incredible part of this new lead was that Barbara
23:11
Speaker 1: had apparently told this clerk that she was in a
23:13
Speaker 1: hurry because her boyfriend was circling the block outside. And
23:18
Speaker 1: this was huge because Hayward and his team had spoken
23:21
Speaker 1: to a lot of people in Barbara's life and no
23:24
Speaker 1: one had mentioned a boyfriend. Now, unfortunately, the pawnshop worker
23:28
Speaker 1: had not gotten a look at this person, this boyfriend
23:31
Speaker 1: that Barbara was talking about. So Heyward had just taken
23:34
Speaker 1: the necklace and the receipt for evidence, and now he
23:37
Speaker 1: was rushing back to the precinct to make some calls.
23:39
Speaker 2: He needed to.
23:40
Speaker 1: See if anybody in Barbara's life knew about this boyfriend
23:44
Speaker 1: and maybe had just failed to mention it for some reason.
23:47
Speaker 1: But as soon as Hayward parked and hurried inside, the precinct.
23:50
Speaker 1: He was stopped by a deputy, and this deputy seemed
23:53
Speaker 1: as excited and frazzled as Hayward felt. The deputy told
23:57
Speaker 1: Hayward that he wasn't going to believe this, but they
24:00
Speaker 1: had been continuing their background interviews and some of Barbara's
24:03
Speaker 1: friends said that Barbara had mentioned a boyfriend named Richard.
24:08
Speaker 2: This was great news for Hayward.
24:09
Speaker 1: I mean, he was literally looking for exactly this information.
24:14
Speaker 1: But this actually was not the reason why the deputy
24:16
Speaker 1: was so worked up, just the fact that she had
24:18
Speaker 1: a boyfriend. He explained that Richard was Richard Finder, a
24:23
Speaker 1: supposed psychic from California who just happened to be in
24:27
Speaker 1: town on a ski vacation at the same time Barbara
24:31
Speaker 1: was killed. And the reason they knew that was because
24:34
Speaker 1: Richard had just called the station completely out of the
24:37
Speaker 1: blue and offered to help. A few hours later, Hayward
24:44
Speaker 1: sat down across an interrogation table.
24:47
Speaker 2: From thirty year old Richard Finder.
24:49
Speaker 1: Richard had on glasses and he had a goateee, and
24:51
Speaker 1: he seemed very confident and also quite eager to help.
24:55
Speaker 1: But to Hayward, he just felt like he was putting
24:57
Speaker 1: on an act. He felt certain that Richard had to
25:00
Speaker 1: be Barbara's killer. After all, it actually was not unusual
25:04
Speaker 1: for murderers to actually insert themselves into the murder investigation
25:09
Speaker 1: to sort of, you know, see what's going on and
25:12
Speaker 1: maybe deflect blame away from themselves, and so for Hayward,
25:15
Speaker 1: he felt like that was exactly what Richard was doing,
25:17
Speaker 1: you know, calling in to offer up his supposed psychic services.
25:21
Speaker 1: But also Hayward had spent the last couple of hours
25:24
Speaker 1: digging into Richard, and he also discovered that he owned
25:27
Speaker 1: a three point fifty seven pistol, the same kind of
25:29
Speaker 1: gun that had killed Barbara. And on top of that,
25:33
Speaker 1: he found out the place where Richard was staying was
25:35
Speaker 1: in Salt Lake City, very close to Big Cottonwood Canyon,
25:38
Speaker 1: where Barbara's body was found. It was just too many coincidences,
25:42
Speaker 1: and so Hayward was prepared to get extremely tough with
25:45
Speaker 1: Richard to get a confession. But Hayward got a few
25:49
Speaker 1: of his background questions out of the way first, and
25:52
Speaker 1: after asking Richard how he knew Barbara, Richard explained that
25:55
Speaker 1: they had connected after she had heard him speak on
25:57
Speaker 1: the radio, and he said that they'd actually never been physical,
26:01
Speaker 1: but they'd had a deep spiritual relationship. After that, Hayward
26:05
Speaker 1: cut to the chase and just asked Richard point blank
26:07
Speaker 1: why he had called the station. And at that point
26:10
Speaker 1: Richard became very serious and said that he needed to
26:13
Speaker 1: come forward because he had a feeling about what had
26:16
Speaker 1: happened to Barbara. He said, you know, he was a psychic,
26:19
Speaker 1: and he had a vision that the gun, the murder weapon,
26:22
Speaker 1: had been thrown in some water somewhere. Hayward couldn't believe
26:26
Speaker 1: what he was hearing, because, you know, the police had
26:29
Speaker 1: not announced the murder weapon was missing. Richard shouldn't have
26:32
Speaker 1: known they were looking for the murder weapon, but clearly
26:35
Speaker 1: he did so. At this point, Hayward did not ask
26:38
Speaker 1: more questions about what his vision said. Instead, he demanded
26:42
Speaker 1: that Richard account for every single hour of his day
26:45
Speaker 1: on Monday, March eleventh, the day that Barbara went missing,
26:48
Speaker 1: And for the first time, Richard actually seemed genuinely thrown off.
26:52
Speaker 1: He just sort of stared back at Hayward in what
26:54
Speaker 1: seemed to be complete shock, and then he said he
26:57
Speaker 1: didn't kill Barbara.
26:59
Speaker 2: He said he couldn't.
27:00
Speaker 1: He was with his friends the whole day Hayward just
27:02
Speaker 1: kind of glared at Richard and then slid a pad
27:05
Speaker 1: of paper over to him to write down his friend's
27:07
Speaker 1: informations they could follow up. And as you watch Richard
27:10
Speaker 1: hurry to jot down some names and numbers, Hayward felt
27:13
Speaker 1: sure this.
27:14
Speaker 2: Was their guy.
27:15
Speaker 1: There was just a mountain of circumstantial evidence here against him,
27:18
Speaker 1: but he knew they needed something more concrete to actually
27:21
Speaker 1: make an arrest. So Hayward first would have to check
27:24
Speaker 1: out Richard's alibi and then also test Richard's personal gun,
27:28
Speaker 1: his three P fifty seven against the bullets that had
27:31
Speaker 1: killed Barbara.
27:32
Speaker 2: So he told Richard that for now.
27:34
Speaker 1: He could go, but they would need to take a
27:36
Speaker 1: look at his gun. A few weeks later, Hayward sat
27:40
Speaker 1: at his desk in the Sheriff's office staring at some
27:42
Speaker 1: ballistics results from Richard's gun, and it would turn out
27:45
Speaker 1: it was definitely not the gun that killed Barbara, and
27:49
Speaker 1: Hayward literally couldn't remember a time when he'd been more
27:52
Speaker 1: frankly shocked and disappointed. I mean, he really had Richard
27:56
Speaker 1: pegged as the killer. Richard basically was his only son suspect,
28:00
Speaker 1: and he was a great one, especially since they had
28:03
Speaker 1: checked on his alibi and it didn't really hold up.
28:06
Speaker 1: The friends he said he was with that whole day
28:09
Speaker 1: actually said, well, we were with him, but not the
28:11
Speaker 1: whole day. So basically there were large chunks of time
28:15
Speaker 1: on the day she went missing. When Richard was unaccounted for,
28:19
Speaker 1: Hayward sighed and reminded himself that, you know, just because
28:22
Speaker 1: the gun he owned wasn't a match, it didn't mean
28:25
Speaker 1: Richard was innocent. I mean, it's possible he used a
28:29
Speaker 1: different three fifty seven and then just ditched the weapon. Still,
28:32
Speaker 1: though Hayward couldn't believe they were back to square one
28:35
Speaker 1: like this, he felt like he had done everything he could.
28:38
Speaker 2: At this point, he talked to who he needed to talk.
28:41
Speaker 1: To, he'd analyze the evidence they'd gotten, and he had
28:43
Speaker 1: really nothing to show for it. Hayward was used to
28:46
Speaker 1: closing cases in giving families the answers they wanted, and
28:50
Speaker 1: now he was worried he was not going to be
28:52
Speaker 1: able to do that. And sure enough, over the coming
28:54
Speaker 1: months and then years, you know, Hayward did continue to
28:58
Speaker 1: investigate this case, but the leads got fewer and fewer,
29:02
Speaker 1: and then eventually he got promoted and then before long
29:05
Speaker 1: he was pulled into other cases, and eventually Barbara's case
29:09
Speaker 1: just went cold. In the fall of two thousand and five,
29:22
Speaker 1: so over twenty five years after Barbara's murder, Detective Todd
29:26
Speaker 1: Park sat on the floor by his desk in the
29:29
Speaker 1: Salt Lake City Sheriff's Department. Around him on the floor
29:32
Speaker 1: it was covered with crime scene photos and interviews and
29:36
Speaker 1: evidence logs from the nineteen seventy four investigation of Barbara
29:39
Speaker 1: Rocky's murder. Park was a brand new homicide detective and
29:43
Speaker 1: he had taken on this case after getting a call
29:45
Speaker 1: from one of Barbara's sisters begging the Sheriff's office to
29:48
Speaker 1: reopen it.
29:48
Speaker 2: And Park wasn't.
29:49
Speaker 1: Sure if it was maybe just new guy enthusiasm, but
29:53
Speaker 1: he was already pretty obsessed with trying to solve it.
29:56
Speaker 1: He really wanted to find some answers for the Rocky
29:58
Speaker 1: family since they'd been wondering what what happened to Barbara
30:01
Speaker 1: for now over two decades. And Park actually felt pretty
30:04
Speaker 1: optimistic about it because even though during the original investigation
30:09
Speaker 1: they hadn't relied on DNA testing, you know, they couldn't
30:11
Speaker 1: really even do DNA testing. Despite that, the investigators at
30:15
Speaker 1: the time had done a rape kit and saved all
30:19
Speaker 1: the evidence from the scene, like Barbara's clothes and even
30:22
Speaker 1: the dearth that was underneath her body, which meant that
30:25
Speaker 1: with the current advancements in DNA technology, there was a
30:29
Speaker 1: good chance they could actually solve this thing. Park had
30:31
Speaker 1: already sent a few items over for testing, but while
30:34
Speaker 1: he waited for the results, he was going over the
30:36
Speaker 1: details of the case to get a sense of how
30:38
Speaker 1: it was investigated back in nineteen seventy four, and he
30:41
Speaker 1: found it was a pretty unusual case. The murder had
30:44
Speaker 1: initially been investigated as a personally motivated crime, but while
30:48
Speaker 1: the case was cold, police had also begun to consider
30:51
Speaker 1: the idea that maybe Barbara had been murdered by the
30:54
Speaker 1: notorious serial killer Ted Bundy, that this was not personal,
30:58
Speaker 1: that she was just one of many victim. Ted Bundy
31:01
Speaker 1: had been arrested less than an hour away from where
31:03
Speaker 1: Barbara lived in Salt Lake City in nineteen seventy five,
31:06
Speaker 1: just one year after her murder, and he had been
31:09
Speaker 1: killing college women all over the West Coast, including several
31:14
Speaker 1: in Utah the same year Barbara was killed, but investigators
31:18
Speaker 1: in the late nineteen seventies had ruled ted Bundy out
31:21
Speaker 1: after determining he'd been committing a different murder in Washington
31:25
Speaker 1: State at the same time Barbara was killed, so he
31:27
Speaker 1: could not have been her killer, but it was still
31:30
Speaker 1: possible that Barbara had been killed by a different serial
31:33
Speaker 1: killer in the area. Nineteen seventy four is notoriously known as.
31:37
Speaker 2: The Year of Fear because there were.
31:39
Speaker 1: So many killers operating in the United States at that time.
31:42
Speaker 1: But as Park read through the notes, he found himself
31:45
Speaker 1: agreeing with the original investigator's first instincts that Barbara's murder
31:50
Speaker 1: must have been personal. Also, just the amount of times
31:52
Speaker 1: Barbara was shot seemed emotionally charged, and so Park believed
31:57
Speaker 1: Barbara's boyfriend, Richard Finder, had to be the killer. I mean,
32:00
Speaker 1: after all, Richard had been in the area at the
32:03
Speaker 1: time of the murder. He basically had no alibi, and
32:06
Speaker 1: you know, he brought up the fact that there was
32:08
Speaker 1: a missing murder weapon when the public didn't even know that.
32:11
Speaker 1: So he knows things about the crime scene that he
32:14
Speaker 1: shouldn't know. But Park felt like there were some other
32:17
Speaker 1: people in this case that also deserved a second look,
32:20
Speaker 1: like Barbara's best friend Jerry hicker. It was true, he
32:22
Speaker 1: did have an alibi, and Barbara had told that pawnshop owner,
32:26
Speaker 1: you know, before she was killed that she was with
32:29
Speaker 1: her boyfriend, which she would not have referred to Jerry as.
32:32
Speaker 1: But if this was as emotional a crime as Park
32:35
Speaker 1: thought it was, Jerry had to be considered. After all,
32:38
Speaker 1: he was Barbara's closest friend at school, and maybe he
32:41
Speaker 1: heard she was leaving town and got mad at her.
32:44
Speaker 1: And then Barbara's roommates, they all seemed to have solid alibis,
32:47
Speaker 1: but maybe one of them had gotten somebody else to
32:49
Speaker 1: kill Barbara. I mean, Park knew the original investigators hadn't
32:53
Speaker 1: found any evidence of that, but they also hadn't seemed
32:56
Speaker 1: to spend much time on the roommates. One way or another,
32:58
Speaker 1: they just kind of quickly ruled them out. But Park
33:01
Speaker 1: also knew it could be someone that they hadn't even
33:03
Speaker 1: considered yet, like the utility worker who actually found the body,
33:08
Speaker 1: or maybe another student at BYU who didn't like Barbara
33:11
Speaker 1: and considered her an outsider or a weirdo. Park wasn't
33:14
Speaker 1: sure yet, but he was confident that they'd be able
33:17
Speaker 1: to pick up some DNA somewhere in the evidence, and
33:20
Speaker 1: once they did, they'd find their killer. Two years later,
33:29
Speaker 1: on an afternoon in October of two thousand and seven,
33:32
Speaker 1: Park paced around his office and periodically stopped to look
33:35
Speaker 1: at the phone on his desk. He was waiting for
33:37
Speaker 1: a call from the lab, and with each passing moment
33:40
Speaker 1: he got more and more anxious. So at this point
33:43
Speaker 1: in Park's reinvestigation of Barbara's murder, the DNA testing had
33:48
Speaker 1: basically gotten them nowhere. Over the last two years, the
33:51
Speaker 1: medical lab had gone over almost every single item from
33:54
Speaker 1: Barbara's case, like her rape kit, swabs, and her clothes,
33:57
Speaker 1: but they hadn't been able to get any DNA from anything.
34:01
Speaker 1: It either wasn't there or was just too old and
34:04
Speaker 1: not preserved well enough, and so the only thing left
34:07
Speaker 1: to test was the dirt that the original investigators collected
34:11
Speaker 1: from underneath Barbara's body. Park actually had not originally sent
34:15
Speaker 1: in the dirt because he didn't think it would have
34:17
Speaker 1: any DNA inside of it, but it was now the
34:20
Speaker 1: only piece of evidence that he had left. So Park
34:23
Speaker 1: knew that when the lab called this time, he'd either
34:25
Speaker 1: be on his way to finding the killer's name or
34:28
Speaker 1: his case would basically be over. But then Park's phone
34:31
Speaker 1: finally rang. He immediately picked it up and his mouth
34:34
Speaker 1: went dry when he heard it was the lab on
34:37
Speaker 1: the other end. And before Park could even ask them,
34:39
Speaker 1: they told him they had a profile. They'd been able
34:43
Speaker 1: to find traces of DNA in that dirt sample taken
34:46
Speaker 1: from under Barbara's body. And when Park finally got his
34:49
Speaker 1: hands on that DNA profile and he ran it through
34:51
Speaker 1: their criminal database, he got a name based on DNA
35:01
Speaker 1: evidence in a decades long investigation. Here is a reconstruction
35:05
Speaker 1: of what police belief happened to Barbara Rocky On March eleventh,
35:09
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy four, just before noon, the killer watched Barbara
35:21
Speaker 1: pull up to the sidewalk in her car. The killer
35:24
Speaker 1: immediately walked over and jumped inside and smiled at Barbara,
35:27
Speaker 1: and she smiled right back, and together they drove to
35:30
Speaker 1: the pawn shop in Salt Lake City that Barbara wanted
35:33
Speaker 1: to go to. When they got there, Barbara hopped out
35:37
Speaker 1: of the car and went inside, and once she was inside,
35:40
Speaker 1: the killer moved over to the driver's seat, and so
35:43
Speaker 1: they basically were going to drive the car from that
35:45
Speaker 1: point forward. And as the killer sat in the driver's seat,
35:48
Speaker 1: waiting for Barbara. Their heart was racing. They couldn't wait
35:52
Speaker 1: for her to get back outside and get in the
35:54
Speaker 1: car because the killer was in love with her and
35:57
Speaker 1: they had decided that today they were finally going to
36:00
Speaker 1: make their relationship physical. So when Barbara came outside and
36:04
Speaker 1: hopped in the passenger seat of the car after selling
36:07
Speaker 1: her necklace, the killer very excitedly turned to her and said, Hey,
36:10
Speaker 1: there's some trails nearby. Why don't we go for a hike.
36:13
Speaker 1: Barbara clearly hesitated, like she didn't really want.
36:16
Speaker 2: To do this.
36:17
Speaker 1: But the killer knew Barbara was leaving Utah, and they
36:20
Speaker 1: knew she had written a goodbye note and was selling
36:22
Speaker 1: the necklace for funds to leave for good, so they
36:25
Speaker 1: kind of gilt tripped her. They said, look like, let's
36:27
Speaker 1: go enjoy the beautiful countryside before you leap down. Barbara
36:31
Speaker 1: shrugged and said okay, fine, and so the killer very
36:34
Speaker 1: excitedly drove the car over to the canyon and parked
36:37
Speaker 1: near a picnic area. Then the two of them got out,
36:40
Speaker 1: and as they began walking towards a trail, the killer
36:43
Speaker 1: reached down and touched the outside of their pocket, just
36:46
Speaker 1: to make sure the gun that they had stolen from
36:48
Speaker 1: Barbara was still there.
36:50
Speaker 2: Now.
36:50
Speaker 1: They didn't know if they were going to use the
36:52
Speaker 1: gun or not, but they just wanted to make sure
36:53
Speaker 1: it was there and ready.
36:55
Speaker 2: And so for a while, the killer and Barbara just
36:57
Speaker 2: hiked along this trail, you know.
36:59
Speaker 1: Just chatting and making their way up and enjoying the scenery.
37:03
Speaker 1: But at some point, the killer just they couldn't wait
37:05
Speaker 1: any longer. They had to make their move, and so
37:08
Speaker 1: they stopped Barbara and the killer. After making sure nobody
37:11
Speaker 1: else was around, they moved forward and kind of.
37:14
Speaker 2: Made their move.
37:15
Speaker 1: They touched Barbara in a way that was very clearly
37:18
Speaker 1: meant to be romantic, but immediately Barbara kind of recoiled
37:22
Speaker 1: and jumped back and told the killer that she didn't
37:25
Speaker 1: want that, which immediately made the killer incredibly angry. And
37:29
Speaker 1: so the killer stepped towards her again and could see
37:32
Speaker 1: Barbara had this alarmed look on her face, which made
37:34
Speaker 1: them even more angry.
37:35
Speaker 2: So they pulled out Barbara's.
37:37
Speaker 1: Gun and they aimed it at her and then told
37:39
Speaker 1: her to take off her clothes. And Barbara, I mean,
37:42
Speaker 1: she was horrified, but you know, she did as she
37:44
Speaker 1: was told, but she intentionally was taking her time. As
37:47
Speaker 1: she took off a piece of clothing, she would painstakingly
37:50
Speaker 1: fold it very neatly, all the while begging the killer
37:53
Speaker 1: not to do this. And then after taking off all
37:57
Speaker 1: of her clothes and stacking them next to her, she
38:00
Speaker 1: continued to plead with the killer. But the killer was
38:03
Speaker 1: so humiliated and so angry that they decided enough was enough,
38:08
Speaker 1: and they shot Barbara right in the chest and she
38:11
Speaker 1: crumpled to the ground, and they fired wildly several more
38:14
Speaker 1: times until Barbara went still. And then once Barbara was
38:18
Speaker 1: either dead or dying on the ground, the killer just
38:21
Speaker 1: panicked and turned and ran back down the trail back
38:24
Speaker 1: to Barbara's car. They hopped in and they drove back
38:27
Speaker 1: to Provo and the BYU campus, But on the way
38:30
Speaker 1: there they stopped and ditched Barbara's purse and the gun, And.
38:34
Speaker 2: Then when they actually got to Provo.
38:36
Speaker 1: The reason they parked Barbara's car down the road near
38:39
Speaker 1: that other apartment complex was so that when the killer
38:41
Speaker 1: got out of the car, Barbara's seven roommates would not
38:44
Speaker 1: see them doing so. Then they fled, leaving Barbara's note
38:48
Speaker 1: in the car. Barbara's note was not a suicide note.
38:51
Speaker 1: It was a literal goodbye note that she had written
38:53
Speaker 1: for her roommates, but the killer figured it sort of
38:57
Speaker 1: seemed like a suicide note.
38:58
Speaker 2: So if they left it here.
39:00
Speaker 1: When they came back to find the car and find
39:03
Speaker 1: the note inside of it, they could tell the police
39:05
Speaker 1: that this seems like maybe maybe Barbara has killed herself,
39:09
Speaker 1: it would send the police in a direction that would
39:11
Speaker 1: hopefully not lead back to the killer. It would turn
39:14
Speaker 1: out Barbara's killer was her best friend, Jerry Hiccker. The
39:19
Speaker 1: original investigators didn't suspect Jerry at first, mainly because of
39:23
Speaker 1: his cooperation and since he was the one who also
39:26
Speaker 1: first reported her missing, but they did begin to get
39:29
Speaker 1: suspicious of him when he eventually revealed his violent streak.
39:33
Speaker 1: The year after he killed Barbara. He was connected to
39:36
Speaker 1: a few different rape cases on campus, but they didn't
39:40
Speaker 1: have enough evidence to make an arrest until decades later,
39:43
Speaker 1: when the lab finally found DNA in the soil from
39:46
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventy four crime scene. They were able to
39:49
Speaker 1: match that profile to Jerry's DNA, which they had on
39:52
Speaker 1: file from his involvement in another unrelated crime, and so
39:56
Speaker 1: ultimately Jerry killed Barbara with her own gun, which he
40:00
Speaker 1: had helped her buy so she could protect herself from
40:03
Speaker 1: killers just like him. By the time Jerry was arrested
40:07
Speaker 1: in two thousand and seven, he was dying of cancer.
40:10
Speaker 1: He confessed to Barbara's murder for a reduced sentence and
40:13
Speaker 1: served five years before he was released. He died in
40:16
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen. Thank you so much for watching. Let me
40:28
Speaker 1: know what you thought of today's episode in the comments.
40:31
Speaker 1: And remember, we have a whole playlist of true crime
40:33
Speaker 1: episodes ready for you to binge right now, so click
40:36
Speaker 1: here and give them a watch.
40:38
Speaker 2: All right, until next time, see ya.