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Hell and Gone Murder Line: Interview with Crime Scene Expert · Hell and Gone: Murder Line

0:08
Speaker 1: School of Humans. Over the past few weeks, we've been
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Speaker 1: covering two cases in Arkansas, the murder of Gale Vaught,
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Speaker 1: whose body was found on March seventeenth, nineteen eighty, and
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Speaker 1: the strange death of Dennis Flowers. Police believed that Dennis
0:29
Speaker 1: was responsible for the execution style murders of Lee Dixon,
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Speaker 1: a pharmacist who had become addicted to cocaine and started
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Speaker 1: dealing it with Dennis and Lee's wife, Karen Dixon, who
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Speaker 1: was eight months pregnant. A few days after the brutal
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Speaker 1: double homicide, Dennis's body was found under extremely mysterious circumstances.
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Speaker 1: The cause of death was listed as drowning in less
0:51
Speaker 1: than three feet of water, and the manner of death
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Speaker 1: was listed as a suicide. One of the many questions
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Speaker 1: that I see over and over that has come up
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Speaker 1: in these cases and so many others, is were these
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Speaker 1: crime scenes as they appeared to be or could they
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Speaker 1: have been staged? I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the past five
1:13
Speaker 1: years of making my true crime podcast, Helen Gone, I've
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Speaker 1: learned there's no such thing as a small town where
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Speaker 1: murder never happens. I've received hundreds of messages from people
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Speaker 1: all around the country asking for help with an unsolved
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Speaker 1: murder that's affected them, their families, and their communities. If
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Speaker 1: you have a case you'd like me and my team
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Speaker 1: to look into, you can reach out to us at
1:35
Speaker 1: our Helen Gone Murder Line at six seven eight seven
1:38
Speaker 1: four four, six one four or five. That's six seven
1:42
Speaker 1: eight seven four four six one four five. This is
1:46
Speaker 1: Helen Gone Murder Line. Now, as an investigator, I think
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Speaker 1: one of the most valuable skills that I can have
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Speaker 1: is knowing what I don't know, Because no matter how
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Speaker 1: many autopsies I've seen, or cases I've covered, or episodes
2:30
Speaker 1: of forensic files that I've watched, I'm not a professional
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Speaker 1: death investigator. So I decided to find one. I did
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Speaker 1: this for another reason too, because I get so many
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Speaker 1: emails and messages from people out there who have similar
2:45
Speaker 1: issues to the ones that Gail and Dennis's relatives have.
2:49
Speaker 1: These are people who have a death that they would
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Speaker 1: like reinvestigated. Sometimes it's an unsolved murder. Other times it
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Speaker 1: may be a death that was ruled a suicide where
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Speaker 1: these family members don't believe that their loved one took
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Speaker 1: their own life. I wanted to talk to an expert
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Speaker 1: of out the way that they work, and I wanted
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Speaker 1: to try and answer one of the biggest questions that
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Speaker 1: we have in the Gail Vault case. Was Gale sexually assaulted?
3:15
Speaker 1: Or are the condom, condom wrapper, and gun box that
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Speaker 1: were found near her body evidence that her crime scene
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Speaker 1: could have been staged. This is Arthur Steve Chanceller, a
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Speaker 1: death investigator who runs a company called Second Look Training
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Speaker 1: in Forensic Consulting. They provide investigative and forensic case consultation
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Speaker 1: and training.
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Speaker 2: I have been in law enforcements for a little over
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Speaker 2: fifty years. Spent a couple of years in the uniform,
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Speaker 2: and then I transitioned to a special Agent detective with
3:47
Speaker 2: the Army Cromoal Investigation Division, which is similar to NCIS right, Okay,
3:55
Speaker 2: that's that's the TV. But yeah, it was very rewarding.
3:58
Speaker 2: It was a really good career. So I did DA
4:01
Speaker 2: for twenty years. I then retired. I went to work
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Speaker 2: in a state to Mississippi or the crime Lab, doing
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Speaker 2: homicide crime scenes all over the state. Then I transferred
4:12
Speaker 2: to the Bureau of Investigation and I created their cold
4:14
Speaker 2: case unit. And then after seven years the retirement, I
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Speaker 2: went back to work with the Army CID as a civilian,
4:23
Speaker 2: so I spent you know, I spent about the last
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Speaker 2: twelve years here at Fort Bragg. I was a supervisory
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Speaker 2: especial agent, so I supervised about five different CID offices.
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Speaker 2: So I've had a chance to work several hundred felony investigations,
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Speaker 2: and over the course of my career, I've probably reviewed
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Speaker 2: or helped supervise about ten balloton I'm lucky enough. I
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Speaker 2: got a lot of really good experience, have a master's
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Speaker 2: degree in criminal justice. I'm a graduate at the FBI
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Speaker 2: National Academy. I've written a couple of textbooks on death
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Speaker 2: investigations on state scenes and one on investigating sexual crimes.
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Speaker 2: I'm under a contract right now to write another book
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Speaker 2: about investigating the suicides.
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Speaker 1: I tell Steve that we get a lot of calls
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Speaker 1: about suicide cases. The case is like Dennis Flowers, where
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Speaker 1: the death has been ruled a suicide, but circumstances at
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Speaker 1: the crime scene make people believe that this person did
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Speaker 1: not take their own life. And yet in so many
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Speaker 1: of these cases, these deaths are very quickly ruled suicides.
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Speaker 1: So I ask, what can families or other concerned citizens do.
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Speaker 1: We're told to let the police do their job, but
5:43
Speaker 1: so often people feel as if they're walking a fine line.
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Speaker 1: They want to know how they can help, how they
5:49
Speaker 1: cannot impede the police investigation, not annoy the police. But
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Speaker 1: at the same time they want to be proactive, especially
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Speaker 1: when they feel that in the case of a death investigation,
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Speaker 1: they believe that things could be falling through the cracks
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Speaker 1: or that law enforcement could just be going through.
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Speaker 2: On our company website, which is a www. Second Look
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Speaker 2: training dot Com, we actually have kind of a self
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Speaker 2: paced PowerPoint presentation that is designed to help folks walk
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Speaker 2: in all the path of how to deal, what to
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Speaker 2: expect from the police, how to get answers from the police,
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Speaker 2: how basically to work with the police and not be confrontational,
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Speaker 2: and it's designed just to help families.
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Speaker 1: I looked at the presentation on Steve's website and it's
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Speaker 1: very helpful. One of the best tips that I saw
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Speaker 1: was to make a note of any recent developments in
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Speaker 1: the victim's life. For example, did they just leave a
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Speaker 1: relationship where they arguing with someone about money. Write these
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Speaker 1: down in bullet points, and write down the questions you
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Speaker 1: have when you go to the police so that you're organized.
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Speaker 1: It reminded me of when you go to the doctor's
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Speaker 1: office and the doctor's giving you information. All these expert
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Speaker 1: websites tell you to write down your questions. It seems
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Speaker 1: like such an easy thing, but for example, I never
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Speaker 1: do it, and I always walk out of the doctor's
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Speaker 1: office feeling like I've forgotten something. I think that it's
7:13
Speaker 1: a good idea when you are talking to the police
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Speaker 1: to bring a friend with you and either you or
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Speaker 1: the person you're with to document everything. Again, we're looking
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Speaker 1: at Gail's pattern of life, and any changes in regular
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Speaker 1: routine should be noted. The website said something else that
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Speaker 1: I think is super important when you're talking to law enforcement.
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Speaker 1: It is super important to stick to facts, not opinions.
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Speaker 1: This is something that I try to follow myself when
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Speaker 1: I'm reporting on a case. I know it's easy to
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Speaker 1: get sidetracked by following a theory just because of the
7:49
Speaker 1: way our minds work. Even if we are really objective,
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Speaker 1: we want to try to make that evidence fit your theory.
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Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, I'm an investigator.
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Speaker 1: It's all about examining facts, going from the crime scene
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Speaker 1: and working our way backwards.
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Speaker 2: Unfortunately, suicigns. Typically what happens, and I'm talking you know,
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Speaker 2: ninety five percent of the time, I can almost guarantee
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Speaker 2: you what happens, and that is the police will come
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Speaker 2: to the scene. If everything looks like they think it
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Speaker 2: should look, that case is closed out, probably in one
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Speaker 2: or two days. There are multiple cases that I've worked
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Speaker 2: that they didn't even do an autopsy. So they come in,
8:31
Speaker 2: they do what I describe is the bobblehead to come
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Speaker 2: in to kind of nod, look around and what should
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Speaker 2: be required as an investigation, and that ends up being
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Speaker 2: a three or four page report.
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Speaker 1: The sad thing is evidence can be lost, and Steve
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Speaker 1: explains that even in a best case scenario, if a
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Speaker 1: company like his is able to find evidence, even what
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Speaker 1: they believe to be definitive evidence, at the end of
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Speaker 1: the day, it's up to the police whether or not
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Speaker 1: to pursue it, and often the reality is they don't.
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Speaker 2: What a frustrating, however, is we have reviewed a case.
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Speaker 2: We concurred with the family that there is no way
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Speaker 2: that this was a suicide, and we actually found forensic
9:18
Speaker 2: evidence in the form of bloodstain analysis that showed that
9:23
Speaker 2: after the victim had been shot and injured. Her hand
9:27
Speaker 2: had been moved and replaced, so we were able to
9:31
Speaker 2: show that to the police and they've done nothing. It's
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Speaker 2: extremely frustrating for the families, you know, if nothing else
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Speaker 2: just confirmed that it is a suicide. But sure the thought,
9:44
Speaker 2: the thought process to the cops is suicide is not
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Speaker 2: a criminal offense, right, so if it looks like it's
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Speaker 2: a suicide, basically we're not going to waste any time
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Speaker 2: on it.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's really unfortunate.
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Speaker 2: I can tell you I have reopened the suicide, improved
10:03
Speaker 2: this a murder. Well, we talked to the family and
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Speaker 2: somebody came forward with the new information. The difference is
10:15
Speaker 2: just happened in the military. But in the military, the
10:18
Speaker 2: Army Cide did a complete crime scene examination, a complete
10:24
Speaker 2: laboratory analysis. So when I went in to reopen, I
10:28
Speaker 2: actually had a lot of stuff to work with, had
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Speaker 2: good scene photographs and stuff like that. The only thing
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Speaker 2: is that even if I give you an outstanding report,
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Speaker 2: what's going to happen? Because I just told you about
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Speaker 2: the case we had, but we actually had forensic evidence.
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Speaker 2: My partner is a bloodstain expert, so he identified a
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Speaker 2: bloodstain that was peer reviewed by another bloodstain expert which
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Speaker 2: said the same thing. Yet absolutely this hand was moved,
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Speaker 2: and the police just shrugged it off, like dam they
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Speaker 2: don't care.
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Speaker 1: We start talking about Gail's case. I tell Steve about
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Speaker 1: the condom that was lost and about the fact that
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Speaker 1: a number of tests weren't done that I believe could
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Speaker 1: have more definitively answered the question about time of death
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Speaker 1: and possibly whether or not Gail's body had been moved,
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Speaker 1: including insect activity, which I did not see on the
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Speaker 1: autopsy report. Steve said he also noted that the lack
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Speaker 1: of insect activity being documented, and I asked him about
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Speaker 1: one of the most crucial elements of this case, Gail's
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Speaker 1: time of death.
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Speaker 2: This is an example will be called tunnel vision, and
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Speaker 2: that is I've identified the suspect. So don't confuse me
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Speaker 2: with the facts that leads me to anywhere else.
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Speaker 1: Because remember, Gail's boyfriend, Ray was basically never charged, largely
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Speaker 1: due to the fact that police believed Gail had been
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Speaker 1: killed the night before. But as we said in last
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Speaker 1: week's episode, I believe that the evidence points to the
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Speaker 1: possibility that Gail's could have been killed later early in
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Speaker 1: the morning on March seventeenth. That would explain why parts
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Speaker 1: of her body were still warm, and why rigor mortis
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Speaker 1: had begun in her face but not progressed down her body.
12:18
Speaker 1: We also talk about the rain, and this is why
12:21
Speaker 1: I love talking to experts, because Steve found things that
12:24
Speaker 1: I didn't see. I mentioned in last week's episode that
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Speaker 1: one of the reasons I believed why Gail had been
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Speaker 1: killed later than the police believed was because of the
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Speaker 1: tire tracks. The tire tracks were very detailed, and in
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Speaker 1: the police report it was noted that there had been
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Speaker 1: rained the night before, torrential rain at around two am.
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Speaker 1: But Steve pointed out that in the autopsy report there
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Speaker 1: was some conflict about whether the rain had started at
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Speaker 1: two am or ended at two am, which could potentially
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Speaker 1: be very important.
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Speaker 2: There were some conflicting information. Was it a torrential rain
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Speaker 2: at two o'clock or did it stop raining at two o'clock,
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Speaker 2: So there's real conflict, that's what I mean. So that
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Speaker 2: would be some of the stuff that I would have
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Speaker 2: to check out because the body was the was wet. Now,
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Speaker 2: some of the things that I noticed, first of all,
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Speaker 2: the gunshot, probably a small caliber twenty two or twenty five,
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Speaker 2: probably not anything heavier, but it never penetrated the skull,
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Speaker 2: so it kind of slid along. Okay, which is good. Now,
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Speaker 2: it did cost some bruising contusions to the brain and
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Speaker 2: some skull fractures, but it didn't end the brain. So
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Speaker 2: clearly she was killed by being run over. Okay. Now,
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Speaker 2: the thing that I caught that really caught my attention, however,
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Speaker 2: is the medical examiner investigator I think is who it is,
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Speaker 2: or the assistant one of them is out there, makes
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Speaker 2: an observation how she is described lying in the ground
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Speaker 2: on her right side, shoulders down. That she said that
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Speaker 2: it looks like her right foot had moved back and forth.
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Speaker 2: So that's important because that tells me that she was
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Speaker 2: probably killed right in that spot. Maybe not shots, but
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Speaker 2: killed in that spot. Yeah. Now I'm going to kind
14:18
Speaker 2: of go off subject just a little bit because one
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Speaker 2: of the things that I looked at I've been scratching
14:24
Speaker 2: my head, and that is her pants are down, but
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Speaker 2: they're not all the way off, so they.
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Speaker 3: Were it said that her clothes they found her clothes
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Speaker 3: twenty ten feet away or twenty feet away in the bushes.
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Speaker 2: Well, but there's conflicting information because there's another report that
14:39
Speaker 2: said her pants was around her, around her ankles. So
14:43
Speaker 2: you saw there there's a conflict.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I didn't notice that.
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Speaker 1: We discussed the fact that, according to the police report,
14:51
Speaker 1: Gail's clothing was found several feet away from her in
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Speaker 1: the woods. Steve says that in the autopsy report there's
14:57
Speaker 1: also a reference to her pants being around her ankles.
15:01
Speaker 1: In the crime scene photos, Gail is naked from the
15:04
Speaker 1: waist down, so this is probably a mistake unless someone
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Speaker 1: took her pants off at the crime scene, which seems unbelievable.
15:12
Speaker 1: But then again, this is a strange case. Steve and
15:15
Speaker 1: I talk again about crime scene staging. Gail doesn't appear
15:19
Speaker 1: to have been hit with the car, and she doesn't
15:21
Speaker 1: have defensive wounds on her hands. So was she forced
15:25
Speaker 1: out of the car at gunpoint or could she have
15:28
Speaker 1: been shot somewhere else and then her killer took her
15:31
Speaker 1: body out to dump her in the woods. Could they
15:33
Speaker 1: at that point have realized that Gail was still alive
15:37
Speaker 1: and decided to stage a sexual assault to throw off
15:39
Speaker 1: the investigators.
15:40
Speaker 2: So one of the things that I will tell you
15:42
Speaker 2: that I started looking at is one of the most
15:47
Speaker 2: popular themes to use when you stage the scene is
15:52
Speaker 2: the sexual assault of sexual homicide. Right, So, I mean
15:57
Speaker 2: I started looking at that, and I'm thinking, you know,
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Speaker 2: I have to me, this is so odd that she's
16:05
Speaker 2: clearly but she wasn't dumped out of the car. She
16:09
Speaker 2: wasn't thrown down because she doesn't have any of the
16:11
Speaker 2: contusions or she doesn't have any of the upraisings that
16:15
Speaker 2: I would expect that she had been pushed out right,
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Speaker 2: I'm not seeing that. So and the other thing is
16:21
Speaker 2: is I always the hair on the back of my
16:24
Speaker 2: neck stands up every time I feel like I'm being
16:26
Speaker 2: led down a path. Because if this is the guy
16:30
Speaker 2: and he's a sexual offender and he's out and he's
16:32
Speaker 2: gonna kill this girl, then why does he leave a
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Speaker 2: condom behind?
16:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I I agree. I have seen people
16:39
Speaker 3: do dumb things. But then on the on the flip side,
16:42
Speaker 3: or the condom could have been totally unrelated. It could
16:44
Speaker 3: have just been out there, maybe some people talking up
16:46
Speaker 3: out there.
16:47
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, exactly, And that's the other that's the other possibility.
16:51
Speaker 2: But then we have she's undressed, but there's really no
16:54
Speaker 2: indication of recent sexual activity.
16:57
Speaker 3: No, I think in the in the report, it said
16:59
Speaker 3: she had had sex with her boyfriend like two nights earlier,
17:02
Speaker 3: and that would have been consistent with that.
17:03
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, exactly, because so that that could be
17:06
Speaker 2: present for up to ninety six hours. So I'm sitting
17:09
Speaker 2: here and I'm looking at it, and I said, you know,
17:11
Speaker 2: I know about sex offenders, and I said, this doesn't
17:15
Speaker 2: This doesn't pass the common sense test that some sexual
17:18
Speaker 2: offender has this girl and he can do whatever he wants,
17:23
Speaker 2: but he doesn't do anything. Now, there are offenders that
17:26
Speaker 2: might kill her and then maybe masturbate over her. Now
17:30
Speaker 2: that there, Yeah, exactly. And I don't see any elements
17:37
Speaker 2: of her being no bondage. I don't see any indication
17:41
Speaker 2: that she was anally assaulted, which is something else I
17:44
Speaker 2: would expect for those type of offenders who do that. Yeah,
17:48
Speaker 2: So I'm sitting here scratching my head that I don't
17:52
Speaker 2: know if you're dealing with the true sexual offender are
17:57
Speaker 2: someone who's trying to make it look like a sexual offender.
18:00
Speaker 1: We're split on whether this could be a staged crime
18:03
Speaker 1: scene or just a panic sex offender. Steve asked me
18:08
Speaker 1: more about the location where Gaile's body was found, which
18:11
Speaker 1: is another extremely odd factor in this case, because why
18:15
Speaker 1: would gles kill her not leave her in the woods?
18:18
Speaker 1: They were surrounded by these very dense woods and trees.
18:21
Speaker 1: Why did they choose to dump her out in the
18:23
Speaker 1: middle of a road. Did they panic and have to
18:27
Speaker 1: leave quickly? Or could this have been an indication they
18:30
Speaker 1: wanted her body to be found?
18:32
Speaker 2: You have to look at us. When was the body
18:35
Speaker 2: actually found, because that's when you need to start working
18:38
Speaker 2: yourself back.
18:39
Speaker 3: Well around just after ten am was when it was
18:41
Speaker 3: found and the cops were there by like ten thirty.
18:44
Speaker 2: And I guess that's not a very well traveled road.
18:47
Speaker 2: No it's not.
18:49
Speaker 3: It was a back road off of a off of
18:51
Speaker 3: a two lane highway. But no, it's a back dirt road.
18:54
Speaker 3: To eat APU kind of know where it was.
18:56
Speaker 2: It's like a logging road. Okay. How far away from
19:00
Speaker 2: her residence?
19:01
Speaker 3: About three miles little less than three miles, so yeah.
19:04
Speaker 2: And then the other thing is if this is a
19:07
Speaker 2: stranger doing all this, then what I would expect if
19:10
Speaker 2: this was a stranger, that after the incident, they would
19:14
Speaker 2: have taken her to the next county or something like that,
19:16
Speaker 2: and done it not right there?
19:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is weird, Yeah, really weird.
19:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it has I mean there was interesting, interesting,
19:28
Speaker 2: interesting case for sure.
19:30
Speaker 1: So what do we know for sure? Gail was almost
19:34
Speaker 1: certainly shot before she was run over, because it was
19:37
Speaker 1: being run over that killed her. Steve said that, in
19:41
Speaker 1: his opinion, Gail's wounds indicate that she was run over
19:45
Speaker 1: by a vehicle with a higher undercarriage, one that was
19:48
Speaker 1: higher off the ground. Steve said it could have been
19:51
Speaker 1: a jeep which Gail drove, or a pickup truck. Remember
19:55
Speaker 1: last week we talked to the former sheriff, Herb Marshall.
19:58
Speaker 1: He told us that he believed Gail had been run
20:01
Speaker 1: over in her own jeep.
20:02
Speaker 2: Well, you know, she may have gone out there and
20:05
Speaker 2: or to you know, maybe regain consciousness, or maybe she
20:08
Speaker 2: never lost consciousness, because remember, I mean, it's just like
20:13
Speaker 2: like a like a big concussion, okay, is the type
20:16
Speaker 2: of injuries Okay, And then they get out there and
20:20
Speaker 2: and he figures out, shit, I got to do something
20:22
Speaker 2: or else. He's not struggling, right, I am imagining, takes
20:26
Speaker 2: her out on the road and just lips your pants
20:28
Speaker 2: off and runs over it. Now, the other thing that
20:33
Speaker 2: I did see with some of the autopsy photographs that
20:36
Speaker 2: are not great, but they're okay. I think you're looking
20:39
Speaker 2: at a pickup truck rather than a car. Hmm.
20:44
Speaker 3: Interesting. The police think her deep and I don't know
20:47
Speaker 3: where they got that from.
20:48
Speaker 2: I don't they don't know that well anything that's the
20:50
Speaker 2: higher that the body is higher off the ground, because
20:55
Speaker 2: what I what I didn't see. And I've seen bodies
20:58
Speaker 2: that are hit by cars, you know, the body runs
21:01
Speaker 2: into the the undercarriage and there's all kinds of nicks
21:04
Speaker 2: and scratches and stuff like that. And I didn't see anything,
21:08
Speaker 2: although I did find some pattern injuries. And what I'm
21:14
Speaker 2: looking at this at is you know, this is to me,
21:18
Speaker 2: these are caused by her laying across or laying on something.
21:25
Speaker 2: Well interesting, Yeah, it's on her lower I think left leg.
21:29
Speaker 3: Would that have been like something in that road or something?
21:33
Speaker 3: Or do you think or do you think someone shot
21:35
Speaker 3: her and then took her out there?
21:36
Speaker 2: Yeah? I think she was shot somewhere else, quite honestly,
21:41
Speaker 2: I mean maybe not. I don't know. I don't have
21:43
Speaker 2: her clothing, so I don't know if there's any blood
21:45
Speaker 2: own her clothing.
21:47
Speaker 1: I remember that there were no pictures of Gail's clothing,
21:50
Speaker 1: but the police report indicated that her clothes had been
21:53
Speaker 1: thrown in the woods about ten feet from her body.
21:56
Speaker 1: Her underwear and jeans were balled up as if they
21:58
Speaker 1: had been pulled off together, and there was fecal matter
22:01
Speaker 1: in her underwear. This next part is a little bit upsetting,
22:05
Speaker 1: but we have to examine the forensic evidence, so I'm
22:08
Speaker 1: just going to plow forward. It was noted in the
22:11
Speaker 1: report the police thought that, due to the fact that
22:14
Speaker 1: there was no feces smeared on Gail's buttocks, they believe
22:18
Speaker 1: the feces was expelled when she was run over by
22:21
Speaker 1: the vehicle, rather than, for example, when she was shot
22:24
Speaker 1: in the head. This is one of the reasons why
22:26
Speaker 1: police believe Gail was shot before she was run over.
22:30
Speaker 1: But when I talked to Steve, he believes that the
22:33
Speaker 1: evidence points to Gail's clothing being stripped off before she
22:37
Speaker 1: was run over, not after.
22:38
Speaker 3: I would think it would be possible that, you know,
22:41
Speaker 3: after you were shot in the head, that would happen.
22:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, but yeah, I mean it's that you know that
22:50
Speaker 2: got a aweso because it is a I awakened and
22:52
Speaker 2: experience as you might imagine, Yeah, being run over first
22:58
Speaker 2: and then the pants off, I suppose, but you know,
23:02
Speaker 2: with her broken pelvis, that may have been a little
23:05
Speaker 2: bit more difficult.
23:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, it seems like it'd be difficult to take off.
23:10
Speaker 3: And if they had to and if you do type
23:12
Speaker 3: tight jeans or tighter jeans off a girl, right, you're
23:15
Speaker 3: going to move things in a certain way, you know. There,
23:17
Speaker 3: I don't know, right, Yeah, it's so sad. I mean,
23:21
Speaker 3: the whole thing is actually I think about it a
23:23
Speaker 3: lot because I can't imagine a worse death. Really, it
23:25
Speaker 3: means horrible.
23:25
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, oh no, absolutely, you know, especially if it's
23:29
Speaker 2: if it's somebody at one time you had a relationship
23:31
Speaker 2: with or whatever, which is which was you know, generally
23:35
Speaker 2: what what happens. And one of the things that we
23:38
Speaker 2: that we always stay on a stage crime scene, don't
23:41
Speaker 2: look out signed on a stage crime scene, look towards
23:43
Speaker 2: the victim, because it's going to be somebody that has
23:46
Speaker 2: to point at somebody else. Yeah, they want to misdirect
23:50
Speaker 2: the police away from them, away from their activities.
23:55
Speaker 1: But it's also possible that she was run over by
23:57
Speaker 1: a pickup truck and Gail's boyfriend Ray drove a pickup truck,
24:02
Speaker 1: and I'm thinking about what Steve said about police not
24:04
Speaker 1: checking out about I've found this to be a theme
24:07
Speaker 1: over and over in so many of these cases, which
24:10
Speaker 1: you will know if you listen to this podcast. Remember,
24:13
Speaker 1: Ray's story was that he borrowed Gale's jeep the night
24:16
Speaker 1: before because his own vehicle was dead and not running.
24:19
Speaker 1: How do we know for sure that his truck was
24:21
Speaker 1: out of action? Ray said that on Friday, after he
24:25
Speaker 1: went home after his night out, He said that he
24:27
Speaker 1: slept in his truck and then he supposedly called some
24:30
Speaker 1: friends to come over to try to help him get
24:33
Speaker 1: the truck started and push it. He said that it
24:36
Speaker 1: did start briefly but then installed again. But I wonder
24:40
Speaker 1: did anyone actually check that. Did they look inside the truck?
24:44
Speaker 1: Did they ask Ray how his truck stopped working and
24:47
Speaker 1: when that happened? Did it really die months earlier or
24:51
Speaker 1: could it have stalled much more recently, for example, after
24:54
Speaker 1: running over something heavy. Steve believes, at least based on
24:58
Speaker 1: what he's seen so far from the autopsy report, that
25:01
Speaker 1: this scene has some of the hallmarks of a stage
25:04
Speaker 1: crime scene.
25:06
Speaker 2: You know, it could have been you know, teenagers out
25:09
Speaker 2: there exercising, and that's one of the rappers there. But again,
25:13
Speaker 2: that just it always bothers me when I see that.
25:15
Speaker 2: It's like I'm being led down the path, you know.
25:18
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, so it's a little why would someone leave?
25:22
Speaker 1: You know?
25:23
Speaker 3: I mean, on the flip side, I've seen really dumb
25:26
Speaker 3: people do really dwmb things, especially when they're panicked. But
25:29
Speaker 3: I don't know, it's weird.
25:30
Speaker 2: Well, you know, but he's But here's the thing we
25:32
Speaker 2: always look at. We always look at what we call
25:34
Speaker 2: it offended the ecotomy. So here's a guy that's apparently
25:39
Speaker 2: so clever as he can murder this person and leave
25:42
Speaker 2: her out there and leave basically no signs that they
25:46
Speaker 2: were there, no evidence. But then he turns around and
25:48
Speaker 2: leaves the condom. Yeah, that's the best evidence in the world.
25:54
Speaker 1: So it's looking more likely that Gail was shot in
25:56
Speaker 1: the head and then her pants and underwear were stripped
25:59
Speaker 1: off before she was run over. After that, there are
26:04
Speaker 1: two main possibilities. Either her killer took off her pants
26:08
Speaker 1: and then dropped the condom and gunbox there to stage
26:11
Speaker 1: the crime scene, or that Gale was shot and had raped.
26:15
Speaker 1: Did Gail's killer leave her in that open road because
26:18
Speaker 1: they wanted her to get found, which would be more
26:20
Speaker 1: characteristic of a stage crime scene. Or was them dumping
26:24
Speaker 1: her there a panicked reaction to something that got out
26:27
Speaker 1: of control. Did her killer panic for some reason and
26:30
Speaker 1: have to take off suddenly. One thing that Steve and
26:33
Speaker 1: I both agree on immediately is the fact that Gail's
26:36
Speaker 1: killer was almost certainly not a random stranger. It was
26:40
Speaker 1: someone local, someone who knew these woods well and believed
26:44
Speaker 1: that on that road at that time they would not
26:46
Speaker 1: be disturbed.
26:48
Speaker 2: Right, and the stranger would put her somewhere's else because
26:52
Speaker 2: that gives him a chance to get more distanced than
26:56
Speaker 2: the topspineing them. Yeah, so this is that was my
26:59
Speaker 2: impression as well, that somebody wanted her found. And the
27:02
Speaker 2: other thing is is that this is a dirt road.
27:05
Speaker 2: I asked myself, how would a stranger know how to
27:08
Speaker 2: get out there or why took the road.
27:13
Speaker 1: I mentioned to Steve the interview with laith Lane, the
27:16
Speaker 1: man who said that he saw Gail hitchhiking on the
27:18
Speaker 1: side of the road on Thursday, and too, as I
27:21
Speaker 1: pointed out, for some reason, when he was interviewed on Friday,
27:24
Speaker 1: just hours after Gail's body was found, knew exactly what
27:27
Speaker 1: Gail had been wearing when she was killed. We look
27:31
Speaker 1: back at our location map. Gail's apartment that she shared
27:34
Speaker 1: with Ray was about three miles from where her body
27:37
Speaker 1: was found. According to her sister, it was a distance
27:40
Speaker 1: that was a little bit too far to walk. Also,
27:43
Speaker 1: when she was found, she was wearing socks but no shoes,
27:46
Speaker 1: so she probably did not walk out there. Someone probably
27:50
Speaker 1: drove her to that location. Now, laith Lane may have
27:55
Speaker 1: a totally reasonable explanation for how he knew this. We
27:59
Speaker 1: know that word travels fast in that neck of the woods.
28:02
Speaker 1: A lot of people had cbe radios and police scanners. Also,
28:05
Speaker 1: laith Lane's mother lived near that crime scene, so he
28:09
Speaker 1: may have actually seen Gail at the crime scene. We
28:12
Speaker 1: just don't know. What bothers me is that I don't
28:15
Speaker 1: know an answer to a crucial question, actually one of
28:18
Speaker 1: the same ones that Steve asked me.
28:21
Speaker 2: So everybody that lives around there would know about it,
28:24
Speaker 2: but someone who's coming to Memphis probably wouldn't know about it.
28:28
Speaker 3: Oh No, I don't think any I don't think it
28:31
Speaker 3: was a stranger from like out of town. It might
28:34
Speaker 3: have been a stranger to her or something she didn't know. Well,
28:36
Speaker 3: that's possible, but I don't. I think I think you're right.
28:38
Speaker 3: I think it was someone.
28:39
Speaker 2: From Yeah, and that's what I meant by that. It's
28:44
Speaker 2: you know, it's probably somebody local rather than someone just
28:48
Speaker 2: driving through happened upon her.
28:51
Speaker 1: We start talking again about Gail's pattern of life. Where
28:55
Speaker 1: was Gail in the twenty four hours before she disappeared. Now,
28:59
Speaker 1: unfortunately the record of where she was on Thursday is
29:02
Speaker 1: not super well documented in the police reports, but I
29:06
Speaker 1: tell them what we know. Gail had her jeep on
29:08
Speaker 1: Thursday morning. She was seen at the job site talking
29:11
Speaker 1: to people, behaving normally. Then she left the job site
29:16
Speaker 1: on Thursday night, just after eight pm. She called her
29:18
Speaker 1: supervisor and asked if they would be working the next day.
29:21
Speaker 1: When she was told no that because the rains had
29:23
Speaker 1: been too heavy, that she would not be working on Friday,
29:26
Speaker 1: Gail told her supervisor she planned to come in and
29:29
Speaker 1: pick up her paycheck the next morning. Friday morning. Again,
29:33
Speaker 1: most of the things that happened that day in Gail's
29:36
Speaker 1: life seemed to be unfolding completely normally, except for one
29:40
Speaker 1: incident that was completely out of the ordinary and stood
29:43
Speaker 1: out the fact that Gail supposedly let Ray borrow her
29:47
Speaker 1: jeep that night. Steve once again talks about how crucial
29:51
Speaker 1: it is to identify a victim's pattern of life and
29:53
Speaker 1: to truly get inside the mind of the victim. I
29:56
Speaker 1: know a lot of people may think that I go
29:58
Speaker 1: over and over the same facts a million times on
30:00
Speaker 1: this podcast, but that is what I'm trying to do.
30:03
Speaker 1: I'm trying to understand Gaile's routine. What was she doing
30:07
Speaker 1: during all of the spaces in the police report where
30:09
Speaker 1: there are these unexplained gaps of time.
30:12
Speaker 2: Well, the big thing I always look for is any
30:14
Speaker 2: change of routine is what we call a coincidence, Right,
30:18
Speaker 2: any change of routine. Well, usually when we teach law enforcement,
30:23
Speaker 2: we say, every time you hear a coincidence, the many
30:27
Speaker 2: thing you hear is probably a lie. So in this
30:30
Speaker 2: particular case, she never lets anybody use her car, but
30:35
Speaker 2: that night she does. That's a change of routine, That's
30:37
Speaker 2: a coincidence.
30:46
Speaker 1: Once again, Steve and I discussed the fact that Gail,
30:48
Speaker 1: according to her friend Sheila, never let anyone borrow her vehicle,
30:53
Speaker 1: and then it seems weird to both of us. That
30:55
Speaker 1: suddenly Ray was out all night with her jeep and
30:58
Speaker 1: told the police later that Gail was fine with that.
31:01
Speaker 1: That's a definite red flag. That makes the hairs on
31:03
Speaker 1: the back of my next stand up.
31:06
Speaker 2: I mean, there's a there's an awful lot of stuff.
31:09
Speaker 2: Quite honestly, it's it's a it's a pretty good case.
31:13
Speaker 2: It's I wish the cops had done obviously a little
31:18
Speaker 2: bit better.
31:19
Speaker 1: Ray has passed away, so if the evidence does ultimately
31:22
Speaker 1: end up pointing to him, obviously he can't be prosecuted.
31:27
Speaker 1: But Gail has a sister, Teresa, who is still alive
31:30
Speaker 1: and who still has to go to sleep at night
31:33
Speaker 1: wondering what really happened to her sister all those years
31:35
Speaker 1: ago and why. Steve agrees with me that the laith
31:39
Speaker 1: Lane lead should have been investigated further, and he asks
31:43
Speaker 1: another one of the same questions that I've been lying
31:45
Speaker 1: awake at night, tossing and turning and thinking about obsessively.
31:49
Speaker 2: Here's the important question. Did the police contact him or
31:52
Speaker 2: did he contact the police first?
31:54
Speaker 3: Exactly? You know what? I asked that, and nobody can
31:58
Speaker 3: tell me the answer to that, because I was like,
31:59
Speaker 3: I'm just I just want to know how this guy
32:02
Speaker 3: got involved, like with he at the crime scene? Did
32:05
Speaker 3: he live? Did he happen to pass by? And then
32:07
Speaker 3: maybe you know, because that would explain it. But I
32:09
Speaker 3: just need to know an otherwise. It is very strange.
32:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I always I'm always suspicious of anybody who
32:15
Speaker 2: tries to interject themselves into the into the case.
32:19
Speaker 1: Something else bothers me. This idea that once someone is
32:23
Speaker 1: elderly above say age sixty five or seventy, that they
32:27
Speaker 1: are somehow harmless.
32:29
Speaker 2: I'm with you. Yeah, I don't care who it is.
32:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're gonna at least look at these things. But
32:34
Speaker 3: there's something weird. To check it out.
32:37
Speaker 2: Well, most most criminals will burn themselves out between forty
32:41
Speaker 2: five and fifty. But there's two people that will never
32:44
Speaker 2: burn out. That they will offend and up until the
32:47
Speaker 2: day they die if they can. Okay, that's a pedophile right,
32:54
Speaker 2: and a sexual statist. Now, this is the guy who's
32:57
Speaker 2: into the d s M. Often they reach the stage
33:01
Speaker 2: that their whole intent is to sexually torture someone all
33:04
Speaker 2: the way up to the timely murder them like Bundy
33:07
Speaker 2: like BTK. Now, those are all sexual status. So those
33:12
Speaker 2: little guys that never burn out. They will offend continuously
33:18
Speaker 2: if they can.
33:21
Speaker 1: You can find Steve's company, Second Look Training and Forensic
33:24
Speaker 1: Consulting online at second Loooktraining dot com. You can also
33:28
Speaker 1: reach them at nine to one nine three six zero
33:31
Speaker 1: three five one eight. So where does this leave us
33:35
Speaker 1: with Gail's case. It's possible that Gail's killer is dead,
33:39
Speaker 1: But what if they're not. What if there is a
33:42
Speaker 1: killer walking around out there right now, one who now
33:46
Speaker 1: maybe has children and grandchildren. I'm thinking about the information
33:50
Speaker 1: that Steve gave me. What if that crime scene wasn't staged.
33:54
Speaker 1: What if there's a sexual sadist out there, one who
33:57
Speaker 1: got away with murder? What else have they been doing
34:01
Speaker 1: since nineteen eighty? I'm Catherine Townsend. This is Helen on
34:06
Speaker 1: Murder Line. Helen Gone Murder Line is a production of
34:11
Speaker 1: School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated
34:15
Speaker 1: by me Catherine Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts. Music
34:19
Speaker 1: contributed by Ben s Lee. Executive producers of Virginia Prescott,
34:23
Speaker 1: Brandon Barr, and Elsie Crowley. Special thanks to Amy Tubbs
34:27
Speaker 1: for her research assistance. If you have a case, you'd
34:30
Speaker 1: like me and my team to look into. You can
34:32
Speaker 1: reach out to us at our Helen Gone Murder Line.
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Speaker 1: It's six seven eight seven four four six one four five.
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Speaker 1: That's six seven eight seven four four six one four five.
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