Latest / Gone Cold - Texas True Crime / The Disappearance of Roxanne Paltauf Part One

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The Disappearance of Roxanne Paltauf Part One · Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Gone Cold. Podcasts may contain violent or graphic subject matter.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Listener discretion is advised. Austin, Texas was enduring one of
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  Speaker 1: the hottest summers it had ever felt in two thousand
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  Speaker 1: and six. Come July, temperatures had long climbed into the
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  Speaker 1: mid to upper nineties day after day, along with many
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  Speaker 1: hitting the triple digits. The heat hung over the capital city,
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  Speaker 1: pressing down on neighborhoods and business districts. Asphalt shimmered, apartment
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  Speaker 1: complexes and motels baked beneath the Texas sun. People stayed
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: inside when they could, Tempers shortened, and it wasn't only
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  Speaker 1: the weather that felt a little different. Austin had changed
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  Speaker 1: some since the nineteen nineties, solidifying itself as a tech mecca,
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  Speaker 1: or Silicon Hills, as it became known in some circles.
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  Speaker 1: Traffic was becoming more unbearable every year. Even the skyline
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  Speaker 1: felt new after the completion of the Frost Bank Tower
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  Speaker 1: in two thousand and four. Still, it was just as
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  Speaker 1: much the laid back college and music town it had
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  Speaker 1: been for decades, although those years the mid two thousands
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  Speaker 1: are often considered by some residents to be the last
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  Speaker 1: calm before the storm of explosive growth that came in
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  Speaker 1: the twenty tens, the city was still more than three
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  Speaker 1: hundred thousand residents, shy of the million or so that
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  Speaker 1: occupy the city today in twenty twenty six. In two
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: thousand and six, Austin still felt kind of like a
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  Speaker 1: big small town. Violent crime happened less frequently there than
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  Speaker 1: it did in cities like Dallas and Houston, and in
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  Speaker 1: some places perhaps was considered part of the overall experience,
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  Speaker 1: or at least a risk you took for a night out.
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  Speaker 1: The downtown bar and club scene is centered around East
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  Speaker 1: sixth the Street and the honky tonks, punk dives, and
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  Speaker 1: dance clubs. There saw a fair share of bar fights
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  Speaker 1: and other booze inspired misdeeds, the kind of crimes that
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  Speaker 1: became known to locals and those who frequented the area
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  Speaker 1: as trashy fun. But in other areas of the city,
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  Speaker 1: such as the neighborhoods to the north, particularly those immediately
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  Speaker 1: lining either side of Interstate thirty five, crime is another
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  Speaker 1: story Entirely. With Austin's highest concentration of violent property and
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  Speaker 1: street level crime, many folks avoided it entirely, while others
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  Speaker 1: felt safe and sound, visiting the authentic, internationally diverse hole
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: in the wall eateries there, among other culturally enriching experiences,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: whichever is the case. In two thousand and six, the
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  Speaker 1: area wasn't in a slow process of gentrification like it
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  Speaker 1: is today, and it was very well known as a
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  Speaker 1: hay even for drug activity, often the kind that turns bad,
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  Speaker 1: gun violence, and the kind of sex work driven by
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  Speaker 1: aggressive and controlling pimps. In the heart of it all
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  Speaker 1: is Rundeberg, a neighborhood that accounts for about twenty three
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  Speaker 1: percent of all homicides in Austin, but only six to
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  Speaker 1: eight square miles of the three hundred and twenty that
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  Speaker 1: make up the city. It's also where eighteen year old
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  Speaker 1: Roxanne Paltov vanished twenty years ago. Roxanne Elizabeth Paltov was
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  Speaker 1: born in Austin on January third, nineteen eighty eight, to
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  Speaker 1: Elizabeth Harris. She was the oldest of five children, and
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: according to those who knew her best, she took that
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: role quite seriously. Roxanne's younger siblings, her sisters rosalind, Ronica
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  Speaker 1: and Ruby among them, looked up to her. She was
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  Speaker 1: the type of sister who planned birthday celebrations, made certain
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  Speaker 1: everyone felt included, and carried herself with a sense of
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  Speaker 1: responsibility that often exceeded her years, and her siblings considered
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  Speaker 1: her a kind of second mother, as she always seemed
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  Speaker 1: to make sure they were well taken care of. Roxanne's
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  Speaker 1: family remember her as funny and warm, someone whose personality
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  Speaker 1: filled a room. She could be goofy one moment and
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  Speaker 1: fiercely protective the next. Although she had a few close friends,
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: Roxanne devoted most of her time to her family. Maintaining
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: bond with her siblings was incredibly important to her, and
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: she had an especially close relationship with her mother, Elizabeth.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: Roxanne remained in near constant contact with her, often speaking
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: with her multiple times each day. Patrick Doyle, Elizabeth's longtime boyfriend,
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  Speaker 1: would later say that nothing could have kept Roxanne away
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  Speaker 1: from home for long. The closeness of that family could
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: be seen in what they once considered routine or common moments.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: For Roxanne's eighteenth birthday, celebrated in January of two thousand
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  Speaker 1: and six, the family gathered at an Austin roller rink
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  Speaker 1: because that was what she wanted most, to spend time
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  Speaker 1: skating with everyone she loved. Her sister Rosalind later remembered
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  Speaker 1: that it was exactly the sort of thing Roxanne would
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  Speaker 1: ask for. On another occasion, she paid for professional family
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  Speaker 1: photographs at Highland Mall simply because she wanted everyone together.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: She was devoted to them. As Roxanne got older, that
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: sense of responsibility became even more apparent. Though she dropped
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: out of high school during her junior year, she had
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: not abandoned her plans for the future. Instead, she enrolled
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: in a good Will job training program and began working
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  Speaker 1: toward her ged. By the summer of two thousand and six,
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  Speaker 1: she had passed every section of the exam except math.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: She had also taken on a second job. Her ultimate
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: dream was to become a fashion designer. Those who knew
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: her acknowledged that Roxanne had faced difficulties growing up, but
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: they described someone determined to move forward and who appeared
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: to be building a future for herself. But two years earlier,
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: when Roxanne was sixteen years old, she met someone who
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: might not have been necessarily conducive to that future, a
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: man named Lewis Reginald Walls. Their relationship quickly became serious.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: In the time between when they met and the summer
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  Speaker 1: of six, Roxanne and Walls remained together in an on again,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: off again relationship that worried nearly everyone around her. Friends disapproved,
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  Speaker 1: her mother most certainly disapproved. Even Walls's mother reportedly objected
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: to the relationship. Elizabeth Harris later described Walls as a hustler,
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  Speaker 1: someone she believed brought trouble along with him. He claimed
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  Speaker 1: to have ties to the Blood's Street gang, though Elizabeth
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: suspected that his involvement, if any, was exaggerated. Whatever the
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: truth was, she didn't trust him and made it clear
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  Speaker 1: that she did not want Walls around her home. Roxanne, however,
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  Speaker 1: remained committed. Walls had two children from previous relationships who
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: lived with his mother, and Roxanne grew close to them.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: She often helped care for them when Walls had them around.
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  Speaker 1: Friends remembered her buying small gifts for the children, dinosaur
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  Speaker 1: toys for his son and accessories for his daughter's hair.
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  Speaker 1: Sometimes she babysat while Walls went out, even overnight. Her
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  Speaker 1: friend Elizabeth Ellis believed Roxanne stayed with Walls in part
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  Speaker 1: because she cared so deeply for his children. She had
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: a big heart. She later recalled friends and family repeatedly
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  Speaker 1: encouraged Roxanne to reconsider the relationship, believing Walls was taking
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  Speaker 1: advantage of her generosity and kindness. They saw a pattern
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  Speaker 1: of control developing, but Roxanne always defended him. That loyalty
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  Speaker 1: created distance between her and some of the people closest
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  Speaker 1: to her. With abuse, secrets inevitably find their way in.
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  Speaker 1: Rachel Gonzales, who had known Roxanne since junior high, said
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  Speaker 1: that Roxanne stopped sharing details about what was happening in
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  Speaker 1: her relationship. According to her, problems had existed from the beginning.
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  Speaker 1: Walls cheated on Roxanne, he pushed her around. The most
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: visible sign of trouble came sometime in two thousand and five.
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  Speaker 1: Roxanne's mother and sisters were driving home when they spotted
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  Speaker 1: her sitting alone at a bus stop. She was wearing sunglasses,
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  Speaker 1: and when they stopped and asked her to get in
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  Speaker 1: the car, she removed them. Her face was badly bruised.
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  Speaker 1: Her nose had been broken so severely that it required surgery.
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  Speaker 1: Roxanne explained that she and Walls had been downtown on
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  Speaker 1: Sixth Street when a group of men began harassing her.
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  Speaker 1: According to her initial account, Walls fought with them and
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: she had been struck while attempting to intervene. Although she
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: continued to maintain that story, her friends never believed it.
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  Speaker 1: One later said she was convinced that Walls had caused
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: the injuries. Another said Roxanne eventually admitted as much to her,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: shrugging it off as she did. The incident didn't prevent
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  Speaker 1: the relationship from continuing. The following summer, Roxanne was gone
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: because their mothers disapproved of the relationship. Roxanne Paltov and
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: Lewis Walls often spent their time away from either family home.
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  Speaker 1: They stayed with friends sometimes, but more frequently, rented motel
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  Speaker 1: rooms around Austin. On Independence Day weekend in two thousand
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  Speaker 1: and six, Roxanne had plans with Walls. The holiday also
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  Speaker 1: marked the couple's anniversary. Her mother, Elizabeth, didn't like it,
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  Speaker 1: but she didn't put up too much of a fight.
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  Speaker 1: When her daughter told her she was spending the weekend
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  Speaker 1: with him, Roxanne assured her that she would be home
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  Speaker 1: in a few days. Shortly before Tuesday, July fourth, two
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  Speaker 1: thousand and six, Roxanne stopped by her mother's home in
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  Speaker 1: Cherrywood to pick up some personal items before returning to Walls.
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  Speaker 1: The couple had been staying at the budget In Motel
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  Speaker 1: near Interstate thirty five and Rundburg Lane in northeast Austin.
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  Speaker 1: The area was known to the Austin Police Department as
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  Speaker 1: part of the Edwards Sector. Residents knew it simply as Rundeberg,
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  Speaker 1: and Rundeberg had long developed a bad reputation. The area
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  Speaker 1: was known for street level crime like robbery and assault,
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  Speaker 1: and aging motels where rooms could be rented cheaply and
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  Speaker 1: sometimes by the hour. The neighborhood stood in sharp contrast
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  Speaker 1: to other parts of Austin, home to the University of
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  Speaker 1: Texas and the state's capital. Although she was vaguely aware
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  Speaker 1: of its reputation, Elizabeth Harris didn't know the area particularly
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  Speaker 1: well at the time. She would soon become intimately familiar
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  Speaker 1: with it. As Roxanne and Walls celebrated their anniversary at
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  Speaker 1: the motel, Elizabeth was making plans. She intended to take
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  Speaker 1: Roxanne and the rest of the children shopping at the
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  Speaker 1: Outlet mall in nearby San Marcos once she returned from
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  Speaker 1: her anniversary get away. The arrangement seemed simple enough. Elizabeth
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  Speaker 1: could always count on her oldest daughter to call. That Friday,
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  Speaker 1: July seventh, Roxanne did exactly that. Hours passed after their
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  Speaker 1: initial conversation, and Elizabeth expected her to return home. Instead,
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  Speaker 1: Roxanne called again. She explained that she was going to
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  Speaker 1: spend one more night with Walls and would come home
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  Speaker 1: the following morning. Elizabeth was disappointed the shopping trip would
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: have to start later than planned, still she agreed. The
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  Speaker 1: call came at five point twenty eight that evening and
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  Speaker 1: lasted just two minutes. Roxanne reassured her mother that everything
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  Speaker 1: was fine and promised she would be home in time
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  Speaker 1: for the shopping trip the next morning, Saturday the eighth,
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  Speaker 1: Everyone expected her to arrive, but she never did. At first,
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  Speaker 1: the family wasn't alarmed. Roxanne had just turned eighteen six
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  Speaker 1: months earlier. It was possible that she had become distracted
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  Speaker 1: by the anniversary celebration and simply lost track of time.
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  Speaker 1: The family decided to continue with their plans and drove
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  Speaker 1: to San Marcos to spend the day shopping. When they
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  Speaker 1: returned to Austin later that afternoon, Roxanne had still not
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  Speaker 1: come home or called. Elizabeth found the situation unusual, but
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  Speaker 1: not yet frightening. That changed at approximately four thirty pm,
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  Speaker 1: when her phone rang. The call was from Roxanne's cell phone,
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  Speaker 1: but it was not her daughter on the other end.
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  Speaker 1: It was Lewis Reginald Walls. Elizabeth immediately questioned why he
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  Speaker 1: was using her daughter's phone, and his response made little sense.
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  Speaker 1: He asked whether she had seen Roxanne. Confused, Elizabeth reminded
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  Speaker 1: him that Roxanne was supposed to be with him. Walls
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  Speaker 1: then described what he said had happened the night before.
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  Speaker 1: According to his account, at some time around eight thirty
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  Speaker 1: the night before, he and Roxanne had argued inside their
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: room at the Budget in motel. The reason for the argument,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: if one was ever given, has never been publicly disclosed.
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  Speaker 1: Walls claimed that Roxanne became angry and stormed out of
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  Speaker 1: the room. Still in the motel room was Roxanne's purse, wallet, jewelry, clothes,
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  Speaker 1: and most importantly, her cell phone. Walls said that he
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: followed Roxanne outside, but she told him to leave her alone.
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  Speaker 1: According to him, he watched her walk along the I
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  Speaker 1: thirty five service road toward Rundeburg Lane before turning onto
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  Speaker 1: Middle Lane and disappearing from view. He returned to the
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  Speaker 1: motel room to cool off. Twenty minutes later, he claimed
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  Speaker 1: he went out looking for her, but she was nowhere
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  Speaker 1: to be found. The explanation immediately raised concerns. Roxanne's family
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: knew hers. They knew how attached she was to her
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: purse and cell phone, and how often she spoke with
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  Speaker 1: her mother. Friend Elizabeth Ellis later remembered arguing with Roxanne
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: because she insisted on carrying that purse everywhere. Rachel Gonzales
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: said the same thing. The idea that she would leave
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: behind everything simply did not fit the person they knew.
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  Speaker 1: It was the first sign that something was terribly wrong,
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  Speaker 1: and for Elizabeth Harris, another realization quickly followed. According to Walls,
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: Roxanne had disappeared almost twenty four hours earlier. Within minutes
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: of Walls's call, Roxanne's mother was in her car and
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: heading toward northeast Austin to find her daughter. By the
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  Speaker 1: time she reached the Budget Inn near Interstate thirty five
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  Speaker 1: and Rundeberg, panic had begun to replace confusion. The story
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: Lewis Walls had told her over the phone makes sense.
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  Speaker 1: Roxanne had supposedly disappeared the night before, yet Walls had
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: waited nearly a full day to tell anyone. She supposedly
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: took nothing. These details of Walls's story played over and
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: over in her head. Elizabeth searched the area herself, hoping
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: her daughter might be nearby. She found nothing. What she
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: did discover was an area of Austin she barely recognized.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: The farther north one traveled from downtown and the University
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: district the more the city changed. Elizabeth later admitted that
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: she had not fully understood just how rough the neighborhood
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: was until she began searching for Roxanne. It was not
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: a place where she wanted her daughter spending her time,
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: but she was eighteen now. Elizabeth contacted police, though she
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: quickly discovered that her daughter's age complicated matters. Adults disappeared
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: voluntarily every day, and at first there was little to
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: distinguish her case from countless others, and Austin police detective
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: later said, however, Roxanne never went this long without letting
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: Elizabeth know what she was doing or where she was.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: The cops might have had their understanding, but as far
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: as she was concerned, if Roxanne truly was in danger,
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: every hour mattered, every minute. Meanwhile, she urged Lewis Walls
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: to contact police as well. He was, after all, the
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: last person to see Roxanne alive that she knew of.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: At the Austin Police Department, Detective James Scott received the reports.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: One came from Elizabeth Harris, the other from Walls. The
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: stories matched, but it came from only one source. Walls
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: told police the same story that he and Roxanne had
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: argued the previous evening and that she had stormed out
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: of the motel room at around eight thirty pm. Detectives
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: were informed that she had walked away without any belongings
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: after telling him to leave her alone. On its face,
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: authorities found nothing particularly unusual about the story. Couples argued
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: all the time one person walked away, Sometimes they stayed
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: with friends or relatives frequently, most often, they returned home
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: within a day or two. Detectives believed Roxanne's disappearance fit
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: that pattern, but they weren't listening to those who knew
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: her best. Detectives appeared to have dragged their feet. On
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: Sunday morning, July ninth, two thousand and six, police entered
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: Roxan Paltaff's information into local, state, and national databases. Patrol
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: officers were alerted to be on the lookout for the
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: missing eighteen year old as detectives began piecing together the timeline.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: Questions quickly emerged. The first and most obvious involved Lewis
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: Reginald Walls himself. According to his account, Roxanne had disappeared
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: the previous Friday night, July seventh, two thousand and six,
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: at about eight thirty pm, but he hadn't called police
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: that evening, nor had he called them the following morning. Instead,
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: almost twenty four hours had passed before he contacted Elizabeth Harris,
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: Roxanne's mother, for Austin Police Detective James Scott. That delay
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: stood out, but it certainly wasn't the only thing. Detective
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: Scott also uncovered information about Walls's past. His criminal records
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: stretched back to nineteen ninety five and included charges involving robbery,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: drug possession, and selling fake crack cocaine to an undercover officer.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: He also learned that former girlfriends had obtained protective orders
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: against him. There were allegations of threats and violence, and Roxanne,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: detectives discovered, had said she was scared of her boyfriend.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: But by the time police finally began a serious investigation,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: a few days had passed and Walls had already checked
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: out of the budget In motel. He'd relocated to his
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: sister's apartment at the Walnut Creek Complex a couple miles away,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: and Walls had taken all of Roxanne's belongings with him.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: Because detectives had not initially viewed her disappearance as suspicious,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: no one had moved fast to secure the room. In fact,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: by the time detectives attempted to locate where they'd stayed,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: poor record keeping at the front desk made it difficult
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: to determine exactly which room Roxanne and Walls had occupied.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: When they finally did find out, police discovered other guests
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: had already moved in and out. The consequences for the
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: investigation were immediately apparent. Any potential evidence that may have
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: existed inside the motel room had either vanished or been compromised.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: Detectives would later acknowledge that the opportunity to collect anything
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: useful had largely disappeared. It's been reported that they didn't
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: even attempt to the budget in motel itself presented additional
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: obstacles Because of the poor bookkeeping, Potential witnesses proved difficult
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: to locate. Rooms listed as vacant had in some cases
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: actually been occupied during the weekend Roxanne disappeared. For instance,
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: detectives canvassed the area and attempted to identify anyone who
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: might have seen the couple, but the passage of time
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: complicated every step. Without evidence of a crime, without witnesses,
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: the investigation seemed to be at a near stand still
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: almost as soon as it began. Eventually, attention shifted instead
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: to the item's Walls claimed Roxanne had abandoned for the
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: missing young woman's family. Those belongings represented proof that something
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: about her boyfriend's story was wrong. Five days had passed
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: before he finally returned them. When Roxanne's sisters examined what
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: he brought back, their suspicions only deepened. Her purse was there,
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: and inside was her jewelry, along with makeup and other
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: personal effects. Roxanne's debit card was also there, utter Id
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: was not. Then there was the bizarre circumstances surrounding her
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: supposed clothing. Walls handed over a bag and indicated that
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: the clothes inside belonged to Roxanne. Her family immediately disagreed.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: Roxanne's sister, Rosalind, insisted that she knew her sister's wardrobe
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: well enough to recognize every piece of clothing she owned.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: The items in the bag, she said, were not Roxanne's,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: and upon closer inspection, they weren't even close. Not only
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: was the style way off, but the clothing was also
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: too small even for the petit eighteen year old. Some
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: articles looked as though they belonged to a child. Walls
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: claimed ignorance, stating he had simply grabbed whatever clothes were
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: on the floor without paying much attention. For her family,
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: the discovery only reinforced their belief that Walls's account could
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: not be trusted. The purse itself posed more troubling questions.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: Friends and relatives unanimously agreed that Roxanne carried it everywhere.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: Some joked that they had argued with her about never
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: being able to leave anything behind the same was true
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: of her jewelry. Friends recalled that Roxanne wore her accessories constantly,
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: even while swimming. More importantly, she never went anywhere without
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: her cell phone, and she never stopped calling her mother.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: The relationship between Roxanne and Elizabeth Harris was unusually close.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: Even friends later pointed out that Roxanne contacted her mother two, three,
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: often more times every single day. Cell Phone records would
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: later confirm that pattern. But suddenly, on the evening of
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: July seventh, two thousand and six, those calls stopped completely.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: Other calls, however, did not, although Roxanne was no longer
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: making them, someone else was. Records showed that between six
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: forty four pm and eight forty two pm on July seventh,
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: the same window in which Walls claimed Roxanne stormed out
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: of the motel room, approximately forty eight calls had been placed.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: Many were made to one of Walls's former girlfriends in Albuquerque,
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: New Mexico, according to Roxanne's sister, Rosalind. Detectives later learned
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: that during one of those conversations, Walls allegedly told the
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: woman that he'd fucked up and was in trouble. The
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: former girlfriend reportedly urged him not to travel to New Mexico.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: She was frightened of him and told police that he
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: had been violent toward her in the past. For police,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: the calls were alarming. For her family, they were devastating.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: But there was more. After the time Walls claimed Roxanne
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: had disappeared, the volume of activity on her cell phone exploded.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: Between July eighth and July twelfth, more than three hundred
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: calls were placed from Roxanne's phone. Detective Scott later described
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: the records as showing call after call, often separated by
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: only minutes, as though someone was repeatedly trying numbers without
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: receiving answers. They determined that Lewis Walls had been using
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: the phone. The calls went to motels around Austin, to
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: local singles chat lines, some went to a strip club,
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: and others to friends and former girlfriends. The records raised
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: even more questions. There was a gap in activity around
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: the time Roxanne vanished, followed by frantic calling in the
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: hours and days afterward. None of it resembled the behavior
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: of someone waiting for his girlfriend's return, but none of
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: it by itself proved that a crime had occurred either.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: Police needed more. As detectives dug deeper, they located a
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: witness whose account seemed to support Lewis Walls's version of events.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: A motel clerk working that evening told investigators that she
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: had seen Roxanne storm out of the room. According to
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: the clerk, she watched Walls follow Roxanne outside before he
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: eventually returned alone. Her account appeared to confirm the story
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: he had already told police and Elizabeth Harris, but that
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: was hardly all. When her shift was over at around
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: ten thirty pm, the motel clerk and Walls claimed that
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: she had come to his room, where she stayed until
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: approximately three am the next morning. Yet, even as the
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: witness corroborated parts of Walls's account, other aspects of his
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: behavior continued to trouble police. Why would he have this
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: woman in his room if he was expecting Roxanne's return.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: Detective James Scott repeatedly attempted to speak with Walls in person.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: The response was frustrating. Walls continually accused investigators of trying
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: to frame him. According to Scott, he urged the man
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: to help the investigation and work alongside police to determine
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: what had happened to Roxanne, but Walls refused. Although he
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: maintained the same basic version of events, he avoided interviews
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: and resisted further questioning. For Elizabeth Harris, the details of
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: their first phone conversation began to take on new meaning.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: She replayed the call in her mind. Walls hadn't asked
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: to speak with Roxanne. He hadn't called to ask whether
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: she had come home. Instead, he had opened the conversation
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: with a question, had Elizabeth seen her that wording felt wrong.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: Walls understood the closeness between Roxanne and her family. He
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: knew how often she called and how she always returned home.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: Just as troubling, according to Elizabeth, was his apparent lack
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: of urgency in helping search for her. But despite that,
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: detectives lacked the evidence necessary to arrest him. The case remained,
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: at least officially a missing person investigation. Meanwhile, Roxanne's family
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: began sharing details that cast her relationship with Walls in
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: an even darker light. Police learned the story of Roxanne
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: being found at a bus stop with a broken nose
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: that required surgery, and the explanation no one believed, not really,
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: but there was no way to prove it was Walls
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: that did it. For Roxanne's mother and sisters, the pieces
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: were beginning to fit together. Elizabeth became convinced that Walls
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: knew exactly what happened to her daughter. Virtually everyone had
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: reached that same conclusion. They did not believe Roxanne had
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: walked away from the budget in Instead, they believed something
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: had happened inside that motel room. But suspicion alone wasn't
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: enough unless detectives could gather forensic evidence or establish probable cause.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: Walls could not be forced to answer their questions, and
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: as the days passed, police found themselves confronting another unsettling possibility.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: Lewis Reginald Walls did not appear particularly concerned that police
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: considered him a suspect. Before long, anyway, another suspect entered
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: the investigation. That's next time on Gone Cold, Texas True Crime.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: Roxanne family is offering a ten thousand dollars reward for
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: information that leads to a conviction or for information that
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: leads to finding her remains. If you have any information
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: about what happened to Roxane Elizabeth Paltoff, you can submit
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: a tip anonymously at Roxannepaltov dot com or call the
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: Austin Police Department at five one two nine seven four
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: five two five zero. If you'd like to join con
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: Coold's mission to shine a light on unsolved homicides and
• 32:33
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• 32:37
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• 32:41
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• 32:45
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• 32:53
  Speaker 1: to support Gone Cold, We appreciate you. Thanks for listening, y'all,