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Marie Blee Pt. Two · The Path Went Chilly

0:29
Speaker 1: Welcome back to The Path Went Chili for part two
0:31
Speaker 1: of our series about the unsolved disappearance of Marie Blee. Robin,
0:35
Speaker 1: do you want to catch everyone up on what we
0:37
Speaker 1: talked about in our previous episode.
0:39
Speaker 2: I sure will, but before I do that, I just
0:41
Speaker 2: want to give a shout out to a nice little
0:43
Speaker 2: website out there called feedspot dot com. They have recently
0:47
Speaker 2: put up a list titled the top twenty family friendly
0:50
Speaker 2: true crime podcast on the web, and they were nice
0:52
Speaker 2: enough to put The Path Went Chili on there, and
0:54
Speaker 2: they sent us all an email to let us know,
0:56
Speaker 2: so we greatly appreciate that. I think this might be
0:59
Speaker 2: the first time that The Path Went Chile made a
1:01
Speaker 2: list on the internet. So, and it's nice that they
1:04
Speaker 2: call us family friendly even though we're talking about gruesome
1:06
Speaker 2: subject matter. But we still greatly appreciate it. So be
1:09
Speaker 2: sure to check out their website feedspot dot com. So,
1:13
Speaker 2: getting back to the Marie Blee case, This took place
1:16
Speaker 2: in November of nineteen seventy nine in the town of Craig, Colorado.
1:20
Speaker 2: A fifteen year old Marie Blee went to a party
1:23
Speaker 2: and was accompanied by an eighteen year old friend from
1:25
Speaker 2: high school. Named Monty Doolin, even though they were not
1:28
Speaker 2: exactly a couple as far as I can tell. But
1:31
Speaker 2: Marie never came home, and when her parents tried to
1:33
Speaker 2: report her missing to the police, they just said that
1:36
Speaker 2: she probably just ran away and return home eventually. But
1:39
Speaker 2: then a few days later, Monty Doolan sent in a
1:42
Speaker 2: fake ransom demand for five thousand dollars for her return,
1:46
Speaker 2: and when he was caught, he eventually said, oh, I
1:48
Speaker 2: just did that to give the parents hope that she
1:51
Speaker 2: was still alive somewhere, but I don't actually know anything
1:54
Speaker 2: about her disappearance. And of course he got charged with
1:56
Speaker 2: a misdemeanor for the whole thing. And of course the
1:59
Speaker 2: police didn't really they do much of an investigation for years.
2:01
Speaker 2: They didn't really like to look at it seriously until
2:04
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety nine, twenty years after the fact. And by
2:07
Speaker 2: that point, when they tried reinterviewing a bunch of witnesses
2:10
Speaker 2: who were at the party, they all kept giving like
2:12
Speaker 2: conflicting stories about Marie's whereabouts because their memories were foggy,
2:16
Speaker 2: so it's tough to determine the exact last time she
2:19
Speaker 2: was confirmed to be alive, but multiple witnesses said that
2:22
Speaker 2: she was last seen in the company of three men,
2:24
Speaker 2: Monty Doolin and two friends of his name, max Abel
2:28
Speaker 2: Garcia and Steven Skufka, And of course they've all denied
2:31
Speaker 2: any involvement in her disappearance, but Monte Doulin and Steven
2:35
Speaker 2: Skoffka had a history of troubles with the law. I
2:38
Speaker 2: know that Monty was charged with attempting to sexually assault
2:42
Speaker 2: another young girl a couple months before Marie's disappearance, and
2:46
Speaker 2: Steven Skuffka got charged with a bunch of drug related
2:48
Speaker 2: crimes and was pretty much told when he went to
2:50
Speaker 2: prison that if you tell us what happened to Marie,
2:54
Speaker 2: we will reduce your sentence, but he refused to say anything,
2:57
Speaker 2: and he served his time and then died from a
2:59
Speaker 2: fall down on the stairs after his release from prison.
3:02
Speaker 2: So police have pretty much said that as long as
3:05
Speaker 2: it wasn't murder, then if there were any charges related
3:08
Speaker 2: to Maurice's disappearance, if her death was an accident or something,
3:12
Speaker 2: the statute of limitations has expired, so if you come forward,
3:15
Speaker 2: we will not press charges against you. But this has
3:18
Speaker 2: not led to a resolution. Everyone has continued to remain silent,
3:21
Speaker 2: and we have now almost reached the forty five year
3:24
Speaker 2: anniversary of Marie's disappearance, and sadly, she is still a
3:27
Speaker 2: missing person. So, as you probably know, I've covered a
3:32
Speaker 2: number of cold cases from the nineteen sixties, seventies and
3:34
Speaker 2: eighties involving missing teenagers, and whenever I researched them, it's
3:38
Speaker 2: usually inevitable that I'll let out a huge sigh once
3:41
Speaker 2: I learned that the police initially wrote off these victims
3:44
Speaker 2: as runaways. We mentioned this on a respective podcasts several times,
3:48
Speaker 2: but sadly, there was once a time when, unless direct
3:50
Speaker 2: evidence existed that foul play had taken place, law enforcements
3:54
Speaker 2: to fault attitude for a teenager or young person going
3:57
Speaker 2: missing was that they ran away, thank you. Only this
4:00
Speaker 2: attitude is not as prevalent today. But it's always heartbreaking
4:03
Speaker 2: to look up a missing person's case from three or
4:05
Speaker 2: four decades ago and realized that it could have been
4:08
Speaker 2: solved relatively quickly if law enforcement had been on the ball,
4:12
Speaker 2: and the Marie Blee case was a particularly egregious example
4:15
Speaker 2: of this. We have a fifteen year old girl who
4:18
Speaker 2: by all accounts was a model teenager, who was very
4:21
Speaker 2: close to her family, but when she didn't come home
4:23
Speaker 2: one night, the local police told her parents that she
4:26
Speaker 2: probably just ran off and would return home shortly. But
4:29
Speaker 2: of course that idea is completely shot down when the
4:31
Speaker 2: Blee family received a ransom call from Marie two days later.
4:35
Speaker 2: Even though the ransom demand turned out to be a hoax,
4:38
Speaker 2: the fact that it was perpetrated by one of the
4:40
Speaker 2: last people to see Marie alive should have been a
4:42
Speaker 2: major red flag for investigators, but sadly it sounds like
4:46
Speaker 2: they were much more concerned with red tape rather than
4:49
Speaker 2: red legs, as the jurisdictional issues really hampered the investigation,
4:53
Speaker 2: and it seems like no one wanted to take full
4:56
Speaker 2: responsibility for handling the case. To be fair, of different
5:00
Speaker 2: law enforcement agencies decided to form a jurisdictional task force
5:04
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety nine. They seemed to take the whole
5:06
Speaker 2: thing very seriously and were quite dedicated about finding out
5:09
Speaker 2: what happened to Marie. Given the circumstances, they probably did
5:13
Speaker 2: the best job they could. But the big problem, of course,
5:16
Speaker 2: was that twenty years had passed. This sounds like a
5:19
Speaker 2: case we're interviewing key witnesses and investigating key suspects as
5:23
Speaker 2: quickly as possible was crucial. It seems pretty obvious that
5:27
Speaker 2: something happened at the party Marie attended which led to
5:30
Speaker 2: her disappearance, but getting a couple dozen people to accurately
5:33
Speaker 2: recall their memories of this event two decades after the
5:36
Speaker 2: fact was a challenge, to say the least. If these
5:39
Speaker 2: witnesses have been interviewed while their memories were still fresh,
5:42
Speaker 2: there might have been a clearer pitchure of what took place.
5:45
Speaker 3: When you exactly when you look at this idea that
5:48
Speaker 3: at the time we know, the last person to really
5:51
Speaker 3: be seen with her, he had picked her up for
5:53
Speaker 3: a party, is the one who's making this ransom call.
5:57
Speaker 3: And it's pretty clear that Marie goes to a party
6:01
Speaker 3: where she's one of the younger attendees. There's well over
6:04
Speaker 3: I believe they said one hundred people coming and going
6:07
Speaker 3: from this trailer park area, and literally Marie's telling her friends,
6:12
Speaker 3: go leave me, I'm gonna hang out here. If it
6:16
Speaker 3: was my guess, she's a young girl with older people
6:20
Speaker 3: who are doing adult things like drinking, doing drugs, and
6:24
Speaker 3: she's feeling like she's validated important, she's getting attention from
6:29
Speaker 3: older people, and so I would not be shocked if
6:33
Speaker 3: one or all three of the suspects that have been
6:36
Speaker 3: discussed were present at the time Marie was injured and
6:41
Speaker 3: or killed and they all know exactly what happened but
6:44
Speaker 3: aren't speaking.
6:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, because all three of those guys who were a
6:48
Speaker 2: couple years older than her, like she was fifteen and
6:51
Speaker 2: they were around eighteen, nineteen years old, and she probably
6:54
Speaker 2: thought that was cool at the time. I'm with these
6:55
Speaker 2: older boys who were paying attention to me. But when
6:58
Speaker 2: you couple with the fact that she had never been
7:00
Speaker 2: at a party like this before and there was drug
7:02
Speaker 2: use and alcohol loose than a use, then you can
7:05
Speaker 2: see how things might have gotten horribly wrong.
7:07
Speaker 1: When I was going through our first episode, I was
7:10
Speaker 1: listening and Ashley said that Marie felt like similar to
7:13
Speaker 1: what she said today validated and that she probably felt special.
7:17
Speaker 1: And the way that she described it I think would
7:20
Speaker 1: speak to most women that have been teenagers at some point,
7:24
Speaker 1: Because when I listened to her say it when we
7:26
Speaker 1: recorded it, it was different. But when I listened to it
7:28
Speaker 1: after the fact, it really hit me in the gut
7:31
Speaker 1: because she so succinctly and so perfectly summed up what
7:35
Speaker 1: it felt like to be a teenage girl and to
7:38
Speaker 1: be hanging out with these older guys, and how validating
7:41
Speaker 1: it can seem. You do feel smart, you feel pretty,
7:44
Speaker 1: you feel special, and it's probably exactly how Marie was feeling,
7:49
Speaker 1: hanging out with these older guys, not knowing the danger
7:52
Speaker 1: that lurked. So let's start from the beginning and try
7:56
Speaker 1: to figure out a timeline. We know that Marie attended
7:59
Speaker 1: a day that night with Monty Doolan, who subsequently drove
8:03
Speaker 1: her to the party at the Shadow Mountain Village mobile
8:05
Speaker 1: home park. What's interesting is that even though Monty has
8:09
Speaker 1: been referred to as Marie's date in some accounts of
8:11
Speaker 1: the story, it's not exactly clear what kind of relationship
8:15
Speaker 1: they had. We do know that Monty was an eighteen
8:18
Speaker 1: year old high school graduate and that Marie was three
8:21
Speaker 1: years younger than him, though I don't get the impression
8:24
Speaker 1: they were officially boyfriend and girlfriend. Would Their age difference
8:27
Speaker 1: becomes a much bigger red flag when you learn about
8:30
Speaker 1: some of the other crimes that Monty is alleged to
8:33
Speaker 1: have done. So Monty's story is that he last saw
8:37
Speaker 1: Marie at the party sometime between one point thirty and
8:39
Speaker 1: two am, after she told him she was planning to
8:42
Speaker 1: get a ride home with another guy whom she never identified.
8:46
Speaker 1: Even if by chance, Monty is telling the truth, it
8:49
Speaker 1: still doesn't reflect well on him since he was leaving
8:52
Speaker 1: a fifteen year old girl alone at a party which
8:55
Speaker 1: was mostly attended by older guys whom she did not know,
8:59
Speaker 1: and there were supposed ample amounts of drugs and alcohol.
9:02
Speaker 1: On the surface, it might also not reflect well on
9:05
Speaker 1: Marie's female friends that they left her at the party
9:08
Speaker 1: once they became uncomfortable, But in their defense, it sounds
9:11
Speaker 1: like they did everything they could to convince her to
9:13
Speaker 1: leave with them, but she just refused to go. Even
9:16
Speaker 1: though it sounds like Marie was a good kid who
9:19
Speaker 1: never caused her parents any trouble, even good kids will
9:22
Speaker 1: sometimes decide that they want to rebel every once in
9:24
Speaker 1: a while, so Marie may have decided that she wanted
9:28
Speaker 1: to kick back and have fun at what was likely
9:30
Speaker 1: her first grown up party.
9:32
Speaker 3: Jules, like you said, I think we've all been there,
9:35
Speaker 3: done that. I was a huge nerd and a great kid,
9:38
Speaker 3: and I remember my friends been like going to a
9:41
Speaker 3: place like a fraternity party or something like that, and
9:45
Speaker 3: I didn't know anybody except my girlfriends that I went with,
9:48
Speaker 3: and I remember distinctly saying, oh my gosh, so and
9:51
Speaker 3: so is giving me attention, like seriously, you've got to go,
9:53
Speaker 3: like let me be or they'll say, hey, Ash, we're leaving,
9:55
Speaker 3: and I'll be like, I know, I'll get a ride home.
9:57
Speaker 4: I'll get a ride home.
9:58
Speaker 3: Because we quote know all these people even though I
10:01
Speaker 3: don't know anybody, you know, they're all acquaintances somehow, and
10:05
Speaker 3: it's so naive and in many ways ignorant, but I
10:09
Speaker 3: simply just didn't know. At the time, I felt like
10:12
Speaker 3: I was a grown up, I'm smart and aware of
10:16
Speaker 3: my surroundings and made a really dumb decision and thank
10:19
Speaker 3: god nothing happened. But I wasn't the only one of
10:22
Speaker 3: my friends who did that. It was commonplace where we'd say,
10:24
Speaker 3: come on, we're leaving, and someone would have a reason
10:28
Speaker 3: why they didn't want to go with us. And so
10:30
Speaker 3: you can only do so much. And I do have
10:33
Speaker 3: an issue with the young man who drives her to
10:36
Speaker 3: the party though, and Manty's saying, hey, I was responsible
10:38
Speaker 3: enough to come pick her up.
10:40
Speaker 4: But then this fifteen year old little girl.
10:42
Speaker 3: I just have zero responsibility towards her later in the
10:45
Speaker 3: evening and supposedly leaves and doesn't know what happened to her.
10:49
Speaker 3: It just seems bizarre. But then he wants to implant
10:52
Speaker 3: himself in the investigation. I can't stand his character in
10:56
Speaker 3: this story. I would truly love to rewind time and
11:01
Speaker 3: have them hone in on him more and investigate this
11:04
Speaker 3: more at the time it occurred. Because so much time passed,
11:07
Speaker 3: it just it's very difficult to get people's recollection back and.
11:11
Speaker 4: People to come forward. It's just tough.
11:16
Speaker 2: The story goes at the host of the party, Michael O'Brien,
11:19
Speaker 2: was only planning to hold a small get together, but
11:22
Speaker 2: everything spiled out of control once word spread and dozens
11:25
Speaker 2: of other people decided to crash the event. O'Brien always
11:29
Speaker 2: insisted that he only provided beer to the guests and
11:31
Speaker 2: that he never saw any drugs, but other witnesses have
11:33
Speaker 2: claimed there was drug usage there. But when you consider
11:36
Speaker 2: that anywhere between fifty and one hundred people attended this party,
11:40
Speaker 2: many of whom are likely high or intoxicated, it's easy
11:43
Speaker 2: to see why investigators have had a difficult time constructing
11:46
Speaker 2: a concrete narrative for all the events. There really is
11:49
Speaker 2: no official last confirmed sighting of Marie that night. We've
11:52
Speaker 2: got sightings of her at a convenience store, but it's
11:55
Speaker 2: not clear if these sightings are accurate or at what
11:57
Speaker 2: point during the night they supposedly took place, And there's
12:00
Speaker 2: at least one siding of Marie at an entirely different
12:03
Speaker 2: party I know. One of the most prominent theories is
12:06
Speaker 2: that Marie succumbed to a drug overdose, but we can't
12:08
Speaker 2: even be certain if Marie took drugs that night. While
12:12
Speaker 2: she was allegedly seen doing drugs inside the bathroom of
12:14
Speaker 2: the mobile home, others insisted that she remained outside the
12:18
Speaker 2: entire time she was there, But overall, it seems like
12:21
Speaker 2: one consistent eyewitness account, which investigators seem to put a
12:24
Speaker 2: lot of stock into, is that Marie left the party
12:27
Speaker 2: with three men. This is a part of by the
12:29
Speaker 2: fact that three specific men have been publicly named as
12:32
Speaker 2: persons of interest.
12:34
Speaker 3: Again, there's no way to know that without having her body,
12:37
Speaker 3: without having concrete evidence of what occurred, Because Marie could
12:41
Speaker 3: have been fifteen and naive and silly and used drugs
12:46
Speaker 3: with these adults. Wanting to fit in. But she also
12:48
Speaker 3: could have gone and said like, I'm just going to
12:50
Speaker 3: be here. I'll have my faculties to me. I'm not
12:53
Speaker 3: doing any of this stuff, so I'm not quote doing
12:55
Speaker 3: anything bad, but I like the attention and I want
12:58
Speaker 3: to be here with these people. And so we just
13:01
Speaker 3: don't know if she did, you know, try drugs. But
13:05
Speaker 3: if she did, keep in mind, this would, to our
13:08
Speaker 3: best knowledge, be the first time she's done so. And
13:12
Speaker 3: so is it possible that people took advantage of that
13:15
Speaker 3: and knew, hey, that she's never done this almost a
13:19
Speaker 3: joke of how much they could give her, or she
13:21
Speaker 3: doesn't understand how much she's taken and she justs too much.
13:24
Speaker 3: So it is possible that she easily overdosed with it
13:27
Speaker 3: being her first time using. Also very possible she's sober
13:31
Speaker 3: and decides to leave with these three guys who quote
13:33
Speaker 3: care about her and they had other nefarious purposes in mind.
13:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, given that she had a great reputation with her
13:40
Speaker 2: parents and never cause them any trouble, I am willing
13:42
Speaker 2: to wager that she had probably never done drugs before
13:45
Speaker 2: that particular night, and if she did, she could have
13:48
Speaker 2: had a bad reaction and wound up overdosing. But I
13:51
Speaker 2: think if that is what happened, that only a limited
13:53
Speaker 2: amount of people knew about it, because I think that
13:55
Speaker 2: if she had overdosed at the party in front of
13:58
Speaker 2: fifty to one hundred people, that someone would have talked
14:01
Speaker 2: by now.
14:04
Speaker 1: Anyway, the three individuals who have been named as persons
14:07
Speaker 1: of interest, which will come as absolutely no surprise to you, Ash,
14:11
Speaker 1: are Monte Dulan, Steven Skufka, and max Abel Garcia. So
14:15
Speaker 1: we know quite a bit about Doolan and Skufka's backgrounds,
14:18
Speaker 1: but not much is known about Garcia, aside from the
14:21
Speaker 1: fact that he eventually moved to Portland. It seems like
14:24
Speaker 1: investigators don't necessarily believe Garcia had direct involvement in what
14:28
Speaker 1: happened to Marie, but at the very least they suspect
14:31
Speaker 1: that he knows something but hasn't talked. What we do
14:34
Speaker 1: know is that both Doolan and Skufka had their fair
14:37
Speaker 1: share of run ins with the law, and Skiffka's criminal
14:40
Speaker 1: history is particularly extensive. What's particularly interesting is that Skufka
14:45
Speaker 1: was facing a twelve year prison sentence for various offenses
14:49
Speaker 1: and could have potentially shaved time off that sentence if
14:52
Speaker 1: he'd been willing to cooperate with investigators and reveal everything
14:55
Speaker 1: that he knew about Marie's disappearance, but Skufka didn't provide
14:59
Speaker 1: them with any information and took the full sentence. Now
15:03
Speaker 1: it's worth noting the police had stated that if Marie's
15:06
Speaker 1: death was the result of an accidental drug overdose and
15:09
Speaker 1: one or more individuals attempted to cover the whole thing
15:13
Speaker 1: up by disposing of her body, then they would not
15:15
Speaker 1: face prosecution for it, since over twenty years had passed
15:18
Speaker 1: and the statute of limitations on those particular crimes had expired.
15:22
Speaker 1: So if Skufka had admitted that Marie overdosed and he
15:26
Speaker 1: played a role in covering it up, he would not
15:28
Speaker 1: have received any additional jail time for his involvement, and
15:31
Speaker 1: he probably would have had his sentence for his other
15:34
Speaker 1: charges reduced. But since Gefka remained silent, that says to
15:38
Speaker 1: me that either a he legitimately didn't know anything, or
15:42
Speaker 1: b what he did know about Marie was so terrible
15:45
Speaker 1: that he felt like serving twelve years in prison was
15:48
Speaker 1: still a better option than coming clean. Of course, Skufka
15:52
Speaker 1: had died of an accidental fall down the stairs a
15:54
Speaker 1: few years after he was paroled, and his mother maintained
15:57
Speaker 1: that even though he was not a perfect individual, he
16:00
Speaker 1: was unfairly implicated in Marie's disappearance. She's always insisted that
16:05
Speaker 1: her son came straight home from the dance that night
16:08
Speaker 1: and never even attended the party. But of course it's
16:11
Speaker 1: not unprecedented that parents might be willing to lie for
16:14
Speaker 1: their children and give them a false alibi in order
16:17
Speaker 1: to prevent them from potentially going to jail. In Skiffka's defense,
16:22
Speaker 1: Michael O'Brien, the host of the party, also claimed that
16:24
Speaker 1: Skifka was never there. But could he really be one
16:27
Speaker 1: hundred percent certain? Remember, between fifteen and one hundred people
16:31
Speaker 1: were in attendance, most of whom were uninvited, So could
16:34
Speaker 1: O'Brien accurately recall who was or wasn't there. I know
16:38
Speaker 1: that Skiffka allegedly made some comments to incriminate himself in
16:42
Speaker 1: Marie's disappearance over the years, and other witnesses did recall
16:46
Speaker 1: seeing them together at the party, So I'm not sure
16:49
Speaker 1: Skefka would have been named as a person of interest
16:51
Speaker 1: by law enforcement unless they were absolutely certain that he
16:55
Speaker 1: was there. What is still not clear just how much
16:58
Speaker 1: culpabilities Skufka and max Abel Garcia might have had in
17:02
Speaker 1: regards to what happened to Marie.
17:05
Speaker 3: Okay, was he actually responsible for her death? Maybe not.
17:08
Speaker 3: He did have the party that night, and I don't
17:12
Speaker 3: necessarily think he can truly be relying on for who
17:16
Speaker 3: was at the party or not. Like you said, fifty
17:18
Speaker 3: to one hundred people when he was expecting a small gathering,
17:22
Speaker 3: There's no way he knows all of them. It's very
17:24
Speaker 3: possible that a friend shows up with three acquaintances that
17:28
Speaker 3: he has no idea their names or where they're from.
17:31
Speaker 3: And so I think the party gets so large and
17:34
Speaker 3: drugs and alcohol are present that there's just not an
17:37
Speaker 3: opportunity to say I'm one hundred percent sure he was
17:40
Speaker 3: not here, especially when you have other partygoers saying that
17:44
Speaker 3: Marie was there, He was there, right, All these different
17:47
Speaker 3: people were there. I just don't think that you can
17:50
Speaker 3: trust the mother's statement. And I just don't think Michael
17:53
Speaker 3: O'Brien can be confident of who was at his party.
17:56
Speaker 1: Think of those high school parties like I can remember back,
17:59
Speaker 1: and they're be parties where there would be a house,
18:02
Speaker 1: and then it would extend to like a bonfire, and
18:04
Speaker 1: it would be pitch dark outside, and there might be
18:07
Speaker 1: between fifty and one hundred people. And if you would
18:09
Speaker 1: have asked me the next day who was and wasn't there,
18:12
Speaker 1: could I accurately report most of the people probably, But
18:17
Speaker 1: all of them I don't think so. I think that
18:20
Speaker 1: when you involve drugs and alcohol when it's dark and
18:23
Speaker 1: when not all of the people can fit in the dwelling,
18:25
Speaker 1: and we know that they can't because it's a trailer.
18:28
Speaker 1: So I just think that O'Brien could have missed seeing
18:31
Speaker 1: Skuffkap because other witnesses reported seeing him at the party
18:34
Speaker 1: with Marie, and especially when it looks like we've got
18:37
Speaker 1: multiple people reporting that correct.
18:39
Speaker 2: Robin, Yes, definitely correct. A couple of people saw him
18:42
Speaker 2: there and talking about the issues with his alibi and
18:45
Speaker 2: how his mother said that he arrived home that night.
18:47
Speaker 2: We talked in our last episode that Skuffka said that
18:50
Speaker 2: he attended the dance with his sister, the same dance
18:53
Speaker 2: that Monty and Marie had gone to, and Skuffka said, well,
18:56
Speaker 2: it was boring, so we just decided to go home
18:58
Speaker 2: and we spent the rest of the night there. But
19:00
Speaker 2: we mentioned our last episode, that's kind of odd that
19:02
Speaker 2: he would go to a dance with his sister, because
19:05
Speaker 2: it's very uncommon for people who are teenagers in high
19:08
Speaker 2: school to attend social events like dance with their siblings.
19:12
Speaker 2: But his sister and his mother backed them up. But
19:14
Speaker 2: can we really one hundred percent rely on them.
19:17
Speaker 1: I would love some context as to why he went
19:19
Speaker 1: with his sister, Like did his sister not have any
19:22
Speaker 1: friends and the mom said, if you're going to go
19:24
Speaker 1: to the dance, you have to bring your sister. Or
19:27
Speaker 1: did he have no women or young women that were
19:30
Speaker 1: interested in him and so he decided to go with
19:33
Speaker 1: his sister. I just can't see an explanation. Just make
19:38
Speaker 1: it make sense.
19:40
Speaker 2: Now. Manty Doolan. On the other hand, where do we
19:43
Speaker 2: start with this guy? Regardless of whether he is innocent
19:46
Speaker 2: or guilty of what happened to Marie, he pretty much
19:48
Speaker 2: flushed any sympathy away when he phoned up Paul and
19:51
Speaker 2: moanably two days after their daughter went missing and made
19:54
Speaker 2: a five thousand dollars ransom demand. Now, sadly, this is
19:58
Speaker 2: not the only case I've seen which some cruel Hoaxter
20:01
Speaker 2: contacted the family of a missing person and provided them
20:04
Speaker 2: with a phony ransom demand. But these acts were usually
20:07
Speaker 2: done by strangers who just wanted to make a quick
20:09
Speaker 2: buck or a craving attention. But not only did Monty
20:13
Speaker 2: Doolan go out on a date with the victim on
20:15
Speaker 2: the night she went missing, but he took her to
20:17
Speaker 2: the party where she disappeared from and was one of
20:19
Speaker 2: the last known people to see her alive. Needless to say,
20:23
Speaker 2: it's pretty unsettling that he would decide to toy with
20:25
Speaker 2: Marie's family like that. When Monty was caught, his reasoning
20:29
Speaker 2: was that he fabricated the whole thing in order to
20:32
Speaker 2: give Marie's parents hope that she was still alive. But
20:35
Speaker 2: that defies all logic, and I'm sure it was incredibly
20:38
Speaker 2: stressful for Paul and Mona to believe their daughter had
20:41
Speaker 2: been kidnapped, forcing them to put together five thousand dollars
20:44
Speaker 2: in a short amount of time. I do can see
20:47
Speaker 2: that Monty likely wasn't trying to extort the bleaze and
20:50
Speaker 2: had no intention of collecting the five thousand dollars, but
20:53
Speaker 2: I do suspect that he was making a deliberate attempt
20:56
Speaker 2: at misdirection and wanted to lead everyone down the wrong trail.
21:00
Speaker 2: Monty knew that the last place Marie had been seen
21:02
Speaker 2: alive was at the party, and if he made everyone
21:05
Speaker 2: believe that she was kidnapped for ransom, then he probably
21:08
Speaker 2: hoped investigators wouldn't put too much focus on what might
21:11
Speaker 2: have happened at the party. When you consider that the
21:14
Speaker 2: local police initially wrote off Marie as a runaway and
21:16
Speaker 2: had not even launched a proper missing person's investigation before
21:20
Speaker 2: Monty made his phony ransom call, then it seems like
21:23
Speaker 2: this was a desperation tactic on his part, and I
21:26
Speaker 2: don't believe he would have attempted something like that unless
21:28
Speaker 2: he had something he wanted to hide. But the big
21:31
Speaker 2: question is was Manty trying to hide the fact that
21:34
Speaker 2: Marie died of an accidental overdose or was it something
21:37
Speaker 2: a lot worse.
21:39
Speaker 3: Also, when you think about the idea that he says, hey,
21:41
Speaker 3: I was doing it to give them hope, you're at
21:44
Speaker 3: the jerk who took her to the party, so the
21:47
Speaker 3: parents already placed responsibility in you. Why you would then
21:51
Speaker 3: reinsert yourself into the situation. Wouldn't you want to kind
21:55
Speaker 3: of disappear and back away like you're known to have
21:59
Speaker 3: been with her that night.
22:00
Speaker 4: You're known to have been seen with her.
22:02
Speaker 3: And you were actually responsible for the young lady you
22:05
Speaker 3: went and picked up and delivered to this party.
22:08
Speaker 4: And so you would think he would be very.
22:11
Speaker 3: Self aware of Oh my goodness, that really makes me
22:15
Speaker 3: number one suspect.
22:16
Speaker 4: I'm going to try to.
22:17
Speaker 3: Just carefully back away. If he truly had nothing to
22:21
Speaker 3: do with it. Now, if he had something to hide,
22:24
Speaker 3: like you said, then trying to throw the police off
22:27
Speaker 3: of his scent and say, hey, there's this crazy person
22:31
Speaker 3: who wants money from the parents, that might make more sense.
22:35
Speaker 3: I don't see him just doing it on a whim,
22:37
Speaker 3: because if he has any sense at all, he knew
22:40
Speaker 3: I'm already.
22:41
Speaker 4: In the mix of suspects.
22:42
Speaker 3: I've got to keep quiet, keep my head down, and
22:45
Speaker 3: hope it passes because I didn't do anything. When you
22:48
Speaker 3: have a guilty conscience, I feel like you continue to
22:50
Speaker 3: try to cover for yourself and it makes it work.
22:53
Speaker 1: Sounds like an incredibly impulsive choice made by somebody who
22:57
Speaker 1: was hoping to benefit financially off of the c that
23:00
Speaker 1: he likely committed.
23:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely, And I always wonder how this investigation would
23:06
Speaker 2: have gone if he had not made that ransom call,
23:08
Speaker 2: because the police weren't doing anything at first. They just
23:10
Speaker 2: said Marie was a runaway and probably wouldn't have looked
23:13
Speaker 2: into anything at all until this incident raised some red flags.
23:17
Speaker 2: And if they had just interviewed Moni and he says, oh, yeah,
23:20
Speaker 2: I was at the party and Marie was there, but
23:22
Speaker 2: I left and she said she was going to get
23:24
Speaker 2: a ride with someone else, and I don't know what
23:25
Speaker 2: happened to her afterwards. Perhaps they might have looked at
23:28
Speaker 2: him in an unflattering light because he left Marie there,
23:31
Speaker 2: but they wouldn't have thought of him as a suspect.
23:33
Speaker 2: But because he inserted himself into the investigation and toyed
23:36
Speaker 2: with the family, that made him pretty much the number
23:39
Speaker 2: one guy from the very outset and made everyone believe
23:43
Speaker 2: from that point on he must know something about Marie's disappearance,
23:46
Speaker 2: and he's trying to deflect.
23:49
Speaker 4: Well.
23:50
Speaker 1: Monty's connection to this case became a lot more troubling
23:53
Speaker 1: when he was charged with first degree kidnapping in twenty
23:56
Speaker 1: fifteen for allegedly luring another teenage girl into his vehicle
24:00
Speaker 1: and sexually assaulting her in the year prior to Marie's disappearance. Yes,
24:05
Speaker 1: the charge against Monty was eventually dropped, but it sounds
24:08
Speaker 1: like this was due to a technicality, not because he
24:10
Speaker 1: was proven innocent. For all we know, the alleged sexual
24:14
Speaker 1: assault could have played out exactly as the victim described,
24:17
Speaker 1: but because the statute of limitations had expired, Monty could
24:21
Speaker 1: not actually be charged with sexual assault, and the best
24:24
Speaker 1: investigators could hope for was a charge of first degree kidnapping. However,
24:29
Speaker 1: if the victim did originally climb into Monty's vehicle of
24:32
Speaker 1: her own free will and he let her go after
24:35
Speaker 1: sexually assaulting her, then it would have been hard to
24:38
Speaker 1: prove if his crime met the legal definition of kidnapping.
24:41
Speaker 1: I think one of the main reasons that Colorado's fourteenth
24:44
Speaker 1: Judicial District attempted to indict Dulan on this charge after
24:48
Speaker 1: so many years is because they were hoping it might
24:51
Speaker 1: help pave the way for uncovering his potential involvement in
24:54
Speaker 1: Marie's disappearance. Since the Casey Gainston was dismissed, this never
24:59
Speaker 1: came to fruition. But if the allegations against Monty in
25:02
Speaker 1: the sexual assault case are true, then I can see
25:05
Speaker 1: a similar situation unfolding with Marie. Perhaps Monty tried to
25:09
Speaker 1: sexually assault her as well, but she fought back against
25:12
Speaker 1: him and things escalated to the point where Marie wound
25:15
Speaker 1: up being killed. We have learned that Monty served time
25:18
Speaker 1: in jail for a completely different sexual assault, but we've
25:21
Speaker 1: been unable to find any specific details about that particular case.
25:25
Speaker 1: But this pattern of behavior does lend a disturbing amount
25:28
Speaker 1: of credence to the idea that Monty could have killed
25:31
Speaker 1: Marie because she resisted his attempts to assault her. When
25:34
Speaker 1: you consider that Manti was eighteen and Marie was only fifteen,
25:38
Speaker 1: and they were attending a wild party with drugs, alcohol,
25:41
Speaker 1: and a lot of males who are older than her,
25:43
Speaker 1: then you can see how this would have been a
25:45
Speaker 1: recipe for disaster.
25:48
Speaker 3: Absolutely, And you think about this idea of what if
25:50
Speaker 3: he wasn't actually attempting to kill her, but he's sexually
25:54
Speaker 3: assaulting her, and let's say, is strangling her because she's screaming,
25:58
Speaker 3: or covers her mouth because she screaming, and he accidentally
26:01
Speaker 3: suffocates her or hits her head against something because he's,
26:04
Speaker 3: you know, being rough and trying to take advantage of her.
26:08
Speaker 3: There's a million ways that a sexual assault could quickly
26:11
Speaker 3: turn into a murder that was not pre planned, and
26:15
Speaker 3: or there could be such a panic after the commission
26:19
Speaker 3: of a sexual assault, there could be a purposeful murder
26:22
Speaker 3: to cover it up. So there's multiple scenarios if he
26:25
Speaker 3: was going in, especially like with the wolf pack mentality,
26:27
Speaker 3: if all three men helped isolate Marie, there's a very
26:31
Speaker 3: strong possibility that she was hurt during an attempted sexual
26:35
Speaker 3: assault and then we have to kill her, or now
26:39
Speaker 3: we have to kill her so that she won't talk.
26:41
Speaker 3: A very very dangerous situation when you get to that
26:44
Speaker 3: point and you realize, Okay, she's going to ruin my life,
26:47
Speaker 3: or she's going to tell on me, or you know,
26:49
Speaker 3: people are gonna know what happened.
26:51
Speaker 4: A lot of times.
26:52
Speaker 3: People will panic and you have this, you know, either
26:55
Speaker 3: an incredibly brutal assault or a homicide. And I think
26:58
Speaker 3: that's a very probable impossible for what could have happened here.
27:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, it definitely would make sense, particularly when you look
27:04
Speaker 2: at his alleged previous assault, which took place about a
27:07
Speaker 2: year earlier. I mean, in that particular case, he did
27:10
Speaker 2: let his victim go even though she could have implicated him.
27:14
Speaker 2: But I get the impression that she decided to stay
27:17
Speaker 2: silent for many years and did not come forward until
27:19
Speaker 2: decades after the fact, and that's why they arrested him
27:22
Speaker 2: in twenty fifteen. So he may have thought that the
27:25
Speaker 2: same thing would happen to Marie. But perhaps she said
27:27
Speaker 2: I'm going to tell on you, I'm going to go
27:29
Speaker 2: to the authorities, and that's when they decided that they
27:32
Speaker 2: had to kill her. I mean, it might not have
27:33
Speaker 2: been Monty's idea, but maybe one of his other two accomplices,
27:36
Speaker 2: Skufa or Garcia, if they were involved, decided that it's
27:40
Speaker 2: too much of a risk to let her go, and
27:42
Speaker 2: that's why she wound up dead. Now, personally, I have
27:46
Speaker 2: my doubts that Marie's actual death took place at the party,
27:49
Speaker 2: as there were between fifty to one hundred people in attendance,
27:53
Speaker 2: and I don't think that many people would have been
27:54
Speaker 2: able to remain silent for over forty five years. But
27:58
Speaker 2: I'm sure there might be quite a few people out
27:59
Speaker 2: of that party who know or at least heard about
28:02
Speaker 2: what happened to Marie, even if they did not personally
28:05
Speaker 2: witness it. Remember a few months after she went missing,
28:08
Speaker 2: the police received an anonymous phone call from a man
28:11
Speaker 2: who claimed that at least eleven people, including his own
28:14
Speaker 2: two children, knew the truth, but were too afraid to
28:17
Speaker 2: come forward. But once again, I have a feeling that
28:20
Speaker 2: only a small handful of individuals were actually present when
28:23
Speaker 2: something happened to Marie. While there were so many contradictory
28:27
Speaker 2: and jumbled statements from eye witnesses who were at the
28:29
Speaker 2: party that night, investigators do seem to believe that one
28:32
Speaker 2: of the most likely scenarios is that Marie left at
28:35
Speaker 2: some point alongside the three primary persons of interest Monte Doolin,
28:40
Speaker 2: Steven Skofka, and max Abel Garcia.
28:43
Speaker 4: I believe the.
28:44
Speaker 3: Most common situation that would have occurred here if all
28:48
Speaker 3: three men are involved, is that they see Marie as
28:51
Speaker 3: this vulnerable young girl, and they really do enact the
28:54
Speaker 3: quote wolf pack action plan, which is, hey see that
28:59
Speaker 3: girl over there, Wanner, y'all help me isolate her. So
29:02
Speaker 3: they go over, they buddy buddy with her, they kind
29:04
Speaker 3: of get her away from her friends, which we know
29:06
Speaker 3: they successfully did because she tells her friends leave, I
29:09
Speaker 3: have people I'm hanging out with I have a ride,
29:11
Speaker 3: just leave. So they isolate her away, They make her
29:14
Speaker 3: feel really special. They oftentimes, like you said, remove her
29:18
Speaker 3: from other people being there. So maybe they get her
29:21
Speaker 3: in a car, or they take her into the woods
29:23
Speaker 3: or something like that, and then one or all of
29:26
Speaker 3: them sexually assault her, and then it only takes one
29:30
Speaker 3: of those people to panic for there to.
29:32
Speaker 4: Be a murderer.
29:34
Speaker 1: Again, if Marie's death was the result of an accidental
29:37
Speaker 1: drug overdose, and the only thing those three men did
29:40
Speaker 1: wrong was justpose of her body, then they were in
29:42
Speaker 1: no danger of being prosecuted after a certain amount of
29:45
Speaker 1: years because of the statute of limitation. Of course, some
29:49
Speaker 1: people never want to admit that they were responsible for
29:51
Speaker 1: something like that, even if they know they're unlikely to
29:54
Speaker 1: receive any punishment. But I can't overlook the fact that
29:58
Speaker 1: Steven Skufka had the opportunity need to make a deal
30:01
Speaker 1: and shave time off a completely unrelated prison sentence in
30:04
Speaker 1: exchange for sharing everything he knew, yet he still declined.
30:09
Speaker 1: As you well know, there is no statute of limitations
30:11
Speaker 1: on murder. So if Marie was the victim of a homicide,
30:15
Speaker 1: then I can see why certain people have continued to
30:17
Speaker 1: remain silent after all these years and might still be
30:20
Speaker 1: afraid to come forward with information. My personal theory is
30:24
Speaker 1: that Monty Dulan was likely responsible for Marie's death, and
30:28
Speaker 1: that even if Stephen Skyfka and max Abo Garcia were
30:31
Speaker 1: not directly involved, they at least know what happened and
30:34
Speaker 1: assisted with the cover up. Since Skufka is now deceased,
30:38
Speaker 1: the one thing which could still potentially break this case
30:41
Speaker 1: wide open is if Garcia finally decides to talk and
30:44
Speaker 1: reveal what he knows. In retrospect, given what we now know,
30:49
Speaker 1: it seems like law enforcement could have potentially solved this
30:52
Speaker 1: case within a week of Marie's disappearance, after Doulan was
30:55
Speaker 1: arrested for his extortion attempt on the Blee family. If
30:59
Speaker 1: law enforcement had put more pressure on Dulan or some
31:01
Speaker 1: of the other people who attended the party, they might
31:04
Speaker 1: have been able to uncover the truth. But because of
31:07
Speaker 1: the different sheriff's offices seemed to be immersed in the
31:09
Speaker 1: jurisdictional red tape at the time, this opportunity slipped through
31:13
Speaker 1: their fingers.
31:15
Speaker 3: Yep, it's politics and a lack of motivation. Again, at
31:19
Speaker 3: the time, it was not uncommon for them to say,
31:23
Speaker 3: she's a young kid who went to a party and
31:25
Speaker 3: she didn't come home. That's clearly a girl who's being
31:28
Speaker 3: young and silly and is going to be back home soon.
31:31
Speaker 4: You know.
31:32
Speaker 3: To their credit, that actually wasn't uncommon at the time.
31:35
Speaker 3: Right People would hitchhike, people would do all kinds of things.
31:38
Speaker 3: But Marie's family immediately said, something's wrong. She has never
31:43
Speaker 3: been that kind of kid. We need your help, and
31:46
Speaker 3: they just stuck to their you know, the traditional story
31:49
Speaker 3: instead of saying, you know what, let's give them a
31:51
Speaker 3: little bit of our resources and see what happened. Let's
31:53
Speaker 3: go talk to the people that were at that party
31:55
Speaker 3: and see did she leave with somebody.
31:57
Speaker 4: And had they done that?
32:00
Speaker 3: Like you said, Jules might have been very easily soft,
32:02
Speaker 3: But unfortunately, you get one shot and if you do
32:06
Speaker 3: not execute that opportunity, you lose your chance to really
32:11
Speaker 3: get the most valuable information. What is really interesting in
32:14
Speaker 3: this case is, like you said, there has been so
32:17
Speaker 3: much time that passed that many people could come forward
32:20
Speaker 3: and not get in trouble. But the moral weight and
32:23
Speaker 3: the way that I guarantee you they feel like they'd
32:26
Speaker 3: be publicly shamed for assisting in a cover up or
32:29
Speaker 3: hiding a body or those kinds of things would almost
32:32
Speaker 3: be as brutal is sitting through a murder trial, because
32:35
Speaker 3: I think even though legally it's not as severe, if
32:38
Speaker 3: you think about I helped bury a fifteen year old
32:41
Speaker 3: little girl, my goodness, right, this is how many years later?
32:47
Speaker 2: Forty five?
32:49
Speaker 4: Yeah, forty five.
32:50
Speaker 3: So these are individuals that might have been eighteen or
32:52
Speaker 3: nineteen and high at the time or whatever, and now
32:55
Speaker 3: they're in, you know, approaching sixty, their grandparents and all
32:59
Speaker 3: kinds of things. So it'd be pretty intense to come
33:02
Speaker 3: forward and say, oh, yeah, I actually helped bury her.
33:04
Speaker 2: Yeah. We talked about this in our last episode. The
33:06
Speaker 2: potential social stigma, and theoretically for someone like max Abel Garcia,
33:11
Speaker 2: like he may not have directly killed Marie, he may
33:13
Speaker 2: have just been present when her death took place and
33:16
Speaker 2: assisted with the cover up. But even though he's probably
33:19
Speaker 2: would not face any criminal chargers or spend any time
33:21
Speaker 2: in prison for his involvement, he would probably be shunned
33:24
Speaker 2: and like have serious damage done to his reputation because
33:28
Speaker 2: unlike Monty Doulin and Steven Scuffka, who have extensive criminal histories.
33:32
Speaker 2: I don't hear that about Garcia. All I know is
33:34
Speaker 2: that he moved out of state and has been living
33:36
Speaker 2: a normal life. And even though he's probably like in
33:39
Speaker 2: his sixties now, I could see him not wanting to
33:41
Speaker 2: uproot all that to finally come forward and to admit
33:44
Speaker 2: his complicity in the death of a girl that took
33:46
Speaker 2: place forty five years ago. Anyway, Paul and Mona Blee
33:50
Speaker 2: have worked NonStop at keeping their daughter's case in the
33:53
Speaker 2: spotlight and searching for answers these past four decades. But
33:56
Speaker 2: they're both now in their eighties, and I'm not sure
33:58
Speaker 2: how much time they have left to cover the truth.
34:01
Speaker 2: I mentioned earlier that they are no longer interested in
34:04
Speaker 2: seeking justice and putting the responsible party behind bars. They
34:08
Speaker 2: just want to find out what happened to Marie and
34:10
Speaker 2: bring a remains home. Sadly, this is far from the
34:13
Speaker 2: only missing person's case in which I've heard of victim's
34:15
Speaker 2: family say something like this, as the uncertainty of not
34:19
Speaker 2: knowing what happened to your loved one is pure torture.
34:22
Speaker 2: We've just passed the forty five year anniversary of Maurice's
34:25
Speaker 2: disappearance and it still seems like there are people out
34:27
Speaker 2: there who probably have the answers, and all it would
34:30
Speaker 2: take to bring full closure to this case is for
34:32
Speaker 2: them to come forward. So if you have been to
34:34
Speaker 2: have any information about the unsolved disappearance of Marie Bleed,
34:38
Speaker 2: please call the Route County Sheriff's Office at nine seven
34:42
Speaker 2: zero eight seven nine one zero nine zero. That's nine
34:45
Speaker 2: seven zero eight seven nine one zero nine zero, Jules Ashley.
34:50
Speaker 2: Any final thoughts on this case.
34:53
Speaker 3: It's pretty much the same final thoughts for all of
34:56
Speaker 3: these where you sit back and you say, look at
34:58
Speaker 3: who the champions are.
35:00
Speaker 4: In this case, it's Paul and Mona Blee. They're in their.
35:04
Speaker 3: Eighties, like you said, and they've continued to carry the
35:07
Speaker 3: torch and advocate for their little girl.
35:09
Speaker 4: They knew Marie.
35:10
Speaker 3: Better than anyone else. She was fifteen, She did a
35:13
Speaker 3: lot of fifteen year olds. Do they go out to
35:16
Speaker 3: a party to be with quote friends. You trust that
35:19
Speaker 3: the people there with are going to help get them
35:21
Speaker 3: home safely, and Marie never came home. They knew the
35:26
Speaker 3: moment that happened that something was wrong, and they have
35:29
Speaker 3: spent forty five years continuing to advocate for just peace
35:35
Speaker 3: of mind and having her remains back in their care.
35:39
Speaker 4: That's pitiful.
35:40
Speaker 3: And add on top of it what they went through,
35:43
Speaker 3: not just with media coverage and things like that, but
35:45
Speaker 3: this ransom call that they get a few days into
35:48
Speaker 3: it and they desperately scramble to gather the five thousand dollars,
35:52
Speaker 3: only to find out it's a hoax by someone who
35:55
Speaker 3: calls himself one of her friends. There's a lot of
35:58
Speaker 3: trauma at it on top of already your daughter disappearing.
36:02
Speaker 3: For a parent to not know what happened, I would
36:04
Speaker 3: need to have her body back, and I would need
36:07
Speaker 3: answers because my imagination would get the best of me.
36:10
Speaker 3: So my prayer would be these parents get those answers
36:15
Speaker 3: before they pass away. And while they might not, I
36:19
Speaker 3: have no doubt they'll be reunited with her in heaven
36:21
Speaker 3: pretty soon.
36:22
Speaker 1: I truly hope that Abel Garcia decides to come forward
36:26
Speaker 1: sometime in the future to be able to give Paul
36:29
Speaker 1: and Mona those answers about where Marie is. And I
36:33
Speaker 1: just keep coming back to the fact that when given
36:36
Speaker 1: the opportunity to share the information about Marie's death, and
36:40
Speaker 1: you know, if it was an accident and they disposed
36:43
Speaker 1: of the body. They likely would have had to have
36:46
Speaker 1: let law enforcement to Marie's body. But there must have
36:49
Speaker 1: been something about her body or her bones that made
36:53
Speaker 1: Steven Skifka uncomfortable that may have pointed to murder and
36:57
Speaker 1: not an accidental death, and they keep going back to that.
37:01
Speaker 1: So I just don't think that it was an accident.
37:03
Speaker 1: I don't think that it was an overdose. I think
37:06
Speaker 1: that Ashley's explanation of this, like they basically whooked packed
37:10
Speaker 1: her and Monty Doolan sounds like he was the ringleader,
37:14
Speaker 1: but it sounds like Abel Garcia and Skiffka were responsible
37:18
Speaker 1: as well, because I'm just amazed at how Skiffka took
37:22
Speaker 1: that full sentence and didn't try to even lie and
37:26
Speaker 1: say some kind of explanation for what happened it wasn't true,
37:30
Speaker 1: just so he could get a lower sentence. He just
37:31
Speaker 1: clammed up.
37:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, I totally agree with you here that I do
37:35
Speaker 2: think that this was not an accident, and I think
37:38
Speaker 2: that the truth of what did happen to Marie is
37:40
Speaker 2: so horrible that it'll explain like why all the people
37:44
Speaker 2: who are involved have stayed silent all that time, even though,
37:47
Speaker 2: like you said, Steven Skiffka could have shaved time off
37:50
Speaker 2: his prison sentence, But as you know, there's no statute
37:53
Speaker 2: of limitations on murders, so I have a feeling that
37:55
Speaker 2: if he had come clean, he probably never would have
37:57
Speaker 2: gotten out of prison because what he did to Marie
37:59
Speaker 2: was so horrible. But yeah, this is just a tragic case.
38:03
Speaker 2: We've gone over how it could have been solved back
38:05
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy nine, if the police had been on
38:08
Speaker 2: the ball from the very beginning, if they had pushed
38:10
Speaker 2: Monty Dueling harder after he made the fake ransom call
38:14
Speaker 2: and interviewed all the witnesses who were at the party,
38:16
Speaker 2: whetherough memories were still fresh, and not waited twenty years
38:19
Speaker 2: to do something, we may have had someone crack or
38:22
Speaker 2: provide some piece of evidence or a key piece of
38:24
Speaker 2: information that led to the recovery of Marie's remains and
38:28
Speaker 2: the people who killed her being brought to justice. On
38:31
Speaker 2: our last episode, I shared a story that shortly after
38:34
Speaker 2: I released my Trail Went Cold episode about this case
38:37
Speaker 2: six years ago, I went to crime con and these
38:40
Speaker 2: people came up to my booth saying that they know
38:43
Speaker 2: Paul and Mona Blee personally and said, they were such
38:45
Speaker 2: nice people and have fought valiantly for so many years
38:49
Speaker 2: trying to find answers about what happened to their daughter.
38:51
Speaker 2: And there was even one incident where police were acting
38:54
Speaker 2: on a tip that Marie's remains were buried in this
38:57
Speaker 2: mine in this remote area, and they performed to search,
39:00
Speaker 2: they found nothing, And it cost Paul to break down
39:03
Speaker 2: and say, why isn't someone telling me what happened to
39:06
Speaker 2: my little girl? Because, like we said, they don't even
39:09
Speaker 2: care if the perpetrators go to prison after all this time,
39:11
Speaker 2: they just want to recover their daughter's remains and give
39:14
Speaker 2: her a proper burial. But because people have remained silent
39:17
Speaker 2: and the original investigation was batched so much, that hasn't happened.
39:21
Speaker 2: So yeah, the Bleaese are still here as far as
39:23
Speaker 2: I know. They have not passed away yet, but I
39:25
Speaker 2: do hope at some point before they leave, they can
39:28
Speaker 2: finally get answers about what happened to their daughter.
39:32
Speaker 5: Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit
39:33
Speaker 5: about the Trail Went Cold Patreon?
39:35
Speaker 2: Yes, the Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three
39:38
Speaker 2: years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like
39:42
Speaker 2: early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers
39:45
Speaker 2: and sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up
39:48
Speaker 2: with us on Patreon if you join our five dollars
39:51
Speaker 2: tier Tier two, we also offer monthly bonus episodes in
39:55
Speaker 2: which I talk about cases which are not featured on
39:58
Speaker 2: the Trail Went Cold's original feat so they're exclusive to
40:01
Speaker 2: Patreon and if you join our highest tier tier three,
40:04
Speaker 2: the ten dollars tier. One of the features we offer
40:07
Speaker 2: is a audio commentary track over classic episodes of UNSAWD Mysteries,
40:12
Speaker 2: where you can download an audio file and then boot
40:15
Speaker 2: up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or
40:18
Speaker 2: YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in
40:21
Speaker 2: the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids about
40:24
Speaker 2: the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very
40:28
Speaker 2: first episode that I did a commentary track over was
40:31
Speaker 2: the episode featuring this case. So if you want to
40:34
Speaker 2: download a commentary track in which I make more smart
40:36
Speaker 2: ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor, then be sure to join
40:39
Speaker 2: Tier three.
40:40
Speaker 5: So I want to let you know a little bit
40:42
Speaker 5: about the Jeweles and Nashty Patreons.
40:44
Speaker 6: So there's early ad free episodes of the Path Went
40:47
Speaker 6: Chili we've got our Path Went Chili mini's, which are
40:50
Speaker 6: always over an hour, so they're not very mini, but
40:52
Speaker 6: they're just too short to turn into a series, and
40:54
Speaker 6: we're really enjoying doing those, so we hope you'll check
40:57
Speaker 6: out those patreons.
40:58
Speaker 5: We'll link them in the show notes.
41:00
Speaker 2: So I want to thank you all for listening, and
41:02
Speaker 2: any chance you have to share us on social media
41:05
Speaker 2: with a friend or to rate and review is greatly appreciated.
41:08
Speaker 2: You can email us at the Pathwentchili at gmail dot com.
41:11
Speaker 2: You can reach us on Twitter at the Pathwin. So
41:14
Speaker 2: until next time, be sure to bundle up because cold
41:16
Speaker 2: trails and chili pass call for warm clothing.
41:19
Speaker 1: Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy