Latest / Gone Cold - Texas True Crime / Bambi Lynn Dick Part 2: Now, Justice

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Bambi Lynn Dick Part 2: Now, Justice · Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

0:01
Speaker 1: The Gone Cold podcasts may contain violent or graphics subject matter.
0:05
Speaker 1: Listener discretion is advised. On Friday, February thirteenth, two thousand
0:12
Speaker 1: and nine, a Victorville, California woman called the Potter Randall
0:16
Speaker 1: Special Crimes Unit in Amarillo, Texas. While searching the website
0:22
Speaker 1: the Dough Network. Internet sleuth Teresa Sprague came upon a
0:26
Speaker 1: newly listed missing teenager, seventeen year old Bamby Lynn Dick
0:31
Speaker 1: of Davenport, Iowa, less than twenty four hours before. The
0:36
Speaker 1: website had uploaded and released Bamby's photo and information after
0:41
Speaker 1: her brother Paul submitted his sister's case days earlier. Paul
0:45
Speaker 1: had been looking for Bambi for more than two decades.
0:49
Speaker 1: As Teresa read Bambi's description, something clicked right away. Years before,
0:56
Speaker 1: she had stumbled upon an unidentified female found in the
0:59
Speaker 1: Texas Panhandle in nineteen eighty three, Amarillo Jane Doe. The
1:04
Speaker 1: enhanced photographed police released to try and identify her had
1:09
Speaker 1: burned in Teresa's mind, as did the Doe's description, which
1:13
Speaker 1: was of course remarkably specific. As Teresa re read Bambi's
1:19
Speaker 1: characteristics and cross referenced them with the unidentified murder victim
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Speaker 1: from Amarillo. Everything was matching up. Jane Doe wore a
1:28
Speaker 1: ring with Bamby's birth stone, the hair, the heights and weights,
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Speaker 1: double pierced ears, and blue tinted contact lenses. Everything, even
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Speaker 1: an extremely rare characteristic matched. Both Bambi Dick and Amarillo
1:44
Speaker 1: Jane Doe had a third nipple under their right breasts.
1:48
Speaker 1: There was only a ten day difference from when the
1:51
Speaker 1: Iowa teenager disappeared and the unidentified murder victim was found.
1:56
Speaker 1: Authorities in Texas had been trying desperately to idea their
2:00
Speaker 1: Jane Doe. Her characteristics and enhanced photograph were sent to
2:05
Speaker 1: law enforcement agencies across the country to compare to their
2:09
Speaker 1: jurisdiction's missing persons, but there was never a match. As
2:14
Speaker 1: Teresa Sprague stared at Bamby's photo and then Amarillo Jane does,
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Speaker 1: the resemblance became striking. I think I have a match,
2:25
Speaker 1: Teresa told the Potter Randall Special Crimes Unit. Bamby Lynn
2:38
Speaker 1: Dick was born at Saint Luke's Hospital in Davenport, Iowa,
2:42
Speaker 1: on January fourth, nineteen sixty six, to parents Edward and Evelyn.
2:48
Speaker 1: In the fall of nineteen eighty three. Bamby was a
2:51
Speaker 1: senior at West High School. At the time. One of
2:54
Speaker 1: the teenage crazes was hair bands and heavy metal music.
2:59
Speaker 1: Bands like Twist, Did, Sister di O, Iron Maiden, Motley Crue,
3:03
Speaker 1: and Quiet Riot were all the rage. It was the
3:07
Speaker 1: latter that, along with the opening Axe Queen's Reich and Axe,
3:12
Speaker 1: was featured at the Call Ballroom on Davenport, Iowa's West
3:16
Speaker 1: fourth Street on Wednesday, September twenty eighth, nineteen eighty three.
3:21
Speaker 1: Seventeen year old Bambi and a friend had tickets to
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Speaker 1: the show, and, according to that friend and others both
3:27
Speaker 1: made it. Later that night, Evely and Dick kept a
3:31
Speaker 1: close eye on the clock as she waited for her
3:34
Speaker 1: daughter to come home. Her friend claimed she dropped Bambi off,
3:39
Speaker 1: though where is not clear. Whatever the case, she never
3:43
Speaker 1: arrived back home that night or any other night. Bambi
3:47
Speaker 1: was reported missing a couple days after she disappeared, but
3:51
Speaker 1: after finding no evidence of foul play, the Davenport Police
3:55
Speaker 1: Department decided she had ran away. Her folks also won
4:00
Speaker 1: undered if and why Bamby just up and left, but
4:03
Speaker 1: it didn't make sense she'd taken nothing, really, not even
4:07
Speaker 1: any clothes. She was supposed to take her new blue
4:10
Speaker 1: tented contact lenses out after eight hours, but had left
4:15
Speaker 1: her glasses behind. Bambi couldn't see without them, but the
4:20
Speaker 1: cops apparently were dead set on the runaway theory. A
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Speaker 1: little over a week later, almost one thousand miles away
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Speaker 1: in Amarillo, Texas, the body of an unidentified woman was
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Speaker 1: found dragged across the dirt road and shoved in a colvert.
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Speaker 1: The body of Bambi Lynn Dick. She'd been strangled to
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Speaker 1: death using a cord or rope or something of the like.
4:46
Speaker 1: Though Bambi had been missing ten days, she'd only been
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Speaker 1: dead for twenty four to thirty six hours. No one
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Speaker 1: knows what happened in between the time she was last
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Speaker 1: seen in Iowa and when her body was found in Texas.
5:00
Speaker 1: Except for her killer, what is known is that she
5:03
Speaker 1: had a little chance of being identified. In the twenty
5:06
Speaker 1: five years she remained a nameless doe. Just a few
5:10
Speaker 1: months after she disappeared, and days after her eighteenth birthday,
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Speaker 1: the Davenport Police Department canceled the missing persons report on Bambie.
5:20
Speaker 1: Even if authorities in Iowa had received one of the
5:23
Speaker 1: letters sent out by the Amarillo Police, she was no
5:26
Speaker 1: longer on the books. In fact, running her through the
5:30
Speaker 1: Federal Law Enforcement Missing Persons and Unidentified Person's Repository wouldn't
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Speaker 1: even help identify her as Bambi. Dick was removed from
5:40
Speaker 1: the National Crime Information Computer Database, or NCIC when her
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Speaker 1: report was canceled. For twenty five years, her information wasn't
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Speaker 1: anywhere it could be compared to the unidentified woman in Texas.
5:56
Speaker 1: But none of that mattered in February of two thousand
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Speaker 1: and nine, when the and Amarillo got a call from
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Speaker 1: Teresa Sprague. For a year immediately following Bambi's disappearance, her parents,
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Speaker 1: Evelyn and Edward Dick hired a private investigator who had
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Speaker 1: no luck finding out what had happened to her. For decades,
6:17
Speaker 1: they looked out their window every time they heard the
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Speaker 1: rusty hinges of their homes front gate, thinking their daughter
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Speaker 1: was home, or, in the case of Forrest and Paul Dick,
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Speaker 1: their sister. They all halfway expected her to strut right
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Speaker 1: up the walkway, perhaps with kids and a husband, and
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Speaker 1: tell them what her life had been like all this time,
6:39
Speaker 1: But of course it never happened when they received a
6:42
Speaker 1: call from Teresa Sprague. The Potter Randall Special Crimes Unit
6:47
Speaker 1: contacted retired Amarillo Police Sergeant Modina Holmes immediately. They might
6:53
Speaker 1: have found their match, she was told, prompting the cop
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Speaker 1: who had worked doggedly and diligently to find a name
6:59
Speaker 1: for Emorriello Jane Doe to come out of retirement. Knowing
7:03
Speaker 1: what Sergeant Holmes felt. The investigator who put in countless
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Speaker 1: hours of arduous, tedious, and unrewarding police work year after
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Speaker 1: year in attempts to give the unidentified murder victim her
7:16
Speaker 1: name back is impossible because the identification wasn't DNA official yet.
7:23
Speaker 1: Sergeant Holmes wasn't jumping the gun, but she knew the
7:26
Speaker 1: match looked good. She and Bambi's family didn't have to
7:31
Speaker 1: wait long. Her parents had declined the Amarillo Police Department's
7:36
Speaker 1: offer to review the autopsy photos. They'd already been sent
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Speaker 1: the enhanced photo and believed the Texas Jane Doe was
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Speaker 1: their Bambie. At the same time, however, they didn't believe.
7:50
Speaker 1: On Thursday March twenty sixth, two thousand and nine, Special
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Speaker 1: Crimes Unit Lieutenant Gary Troupe announced that the DNA taken
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Speaker 1: from Bambi's family was a mitochondrial match to the DNA
8:03
Speaker 1: of Amarillo, Jane do Evely and Dick. Her daughter in
8:07
Speaker 1: law told a reporter for the Quad City News could
8:11
Speaker 1: not stop crying. All these years, in her mother's mind,
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Speaker 1: Bambi was alive. Now she wasn't. There was no relief
8:21
Speaker 1: in knowing, not really. Instead, she and her husband Edward
8:25
Speaker 1: waited twenty five years just to hear their worst nightmare
8:29
Speaker 1: had come true. Bamby's young age saddened Sergeant Modina Holmes,
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Speaker 1: who in her heart had always known she was sixteen
8:38
Speaker 1: to twenty years old. Regardless of what the pathologist said
8:42
Speaker 1: on his autopsy report, there's little doubt. She heavily reflected
8:47
Speaker 1: upon the case and her work on it, wondering if
8:50
Speaker 1: any of the suspects they'd looked at were responsible. One
8:55
Speaker 1: perhaps stuck out over the rest. Between four and four
9:11
Speaker 1: thirty pm on Monday, October fourteenth, nineteen eighty five, two
9:16
Speaker 1: years after the body of Bambi Lynn Dick was discovered,
9:20
Speaker 1: twenty year old Gail Leonor Smith approached a driver at
9:24
Speaker 1: a truck stop outside of Fort Worth, Texas, she was
9:28
Speaker 1: going to visit her mother in Amarillo. Gail told the
9:31
Speaker 1: truck driver if he was going that way, she asked,
9:35
Speaker 1: could he give her a lift? It was her lucky day.
9:38
Speaker 1: The trucker told the young woman his usual route was
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Speaker 1: US Highway two eighty seven to Amarillo, and he just
9:45
Speaker 1: happened to be going that way now. Earlier, as they
9:49
Speaker 1: were driving to the truck stop, Gail's sister and brother
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Speaker 1: in law had tried to talk her out of hitching
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Speaker 1: a ride, but she insisted on doing so to save money.
9:59
Speaker 1: It was no big deal. Gail insisted she'd done it
10:02
Speaker 1: before plenty. The cocktail waitress was kind of a free spirit.
10:08
Speaker 1: Before she took off, Gail returned to the car and
10:11
Speaker 1: told her sister get the license plated this motherfucker. They
10:15
Speaker 1: said their goodbyes, and Gail hopped in the semi The
10:20
Speaker 1: next day, less than a mile and a half north
10:23
Speaker 1: of the Canadian River Bridge in Potter County, Texas, at
10:26
Speaker 1: about four fifty pm, Donnie Ray McKay pulled onto the
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Speaker 1: median on the east side of Highway to eighty seven.
10:34
Speaker 1: He'd been on a long drive and needed to relieve himself.
10:38
Speaker 1: Donnie stepped out of his semi and walked past the
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Speaker 1: Canadian River Trade Route historical marker into the brushy field.
10:46
Speaker 1: About seventy five feet from the road was a small
10:49
Speaker 1: thicket of sumac trees. The man walked into them just
10:53
Speaker 1: enough to get out of the line of sight of
10:55
Speaker 1: passers by, and began going about his business. As Donnie's
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Speaker 1: eye wondered, he saw what he thought was a mannequin
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Speaker 1: in the trees. There, he zipped up and walked over
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Speaker 1: to it. As if his eyes were deceiving him. Donnie
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Speaker 1: lightly nudged it with his boot. It wasn't a mannequin
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Speaker 1: at all, but instead the nude body of a young
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Speaker 1: woman lying face down. She was bound with gray duct
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Speaker 1: tape hog tied. A slim necktie was knotted tightly around
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Speaker 1: her neck. Donnie walked briskly back to his truck, but
11:31
Speaker 1: when he attempted to call for help over his CB,
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Speaker 1: no one responded. After flagging down another truck driver to
11:38
Speaker 1: take a look, the two got in their vehicles, headed
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Speaker 1: north and pulled into the Canadian River Cafe. There they
11:45
Speaker 1: called the Potter County Sheriff's Office. Deputies responded to the
11:51
Speaker 1: scene not long after, followed by several detectives on the
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Speaker 1: Potter Randall's Special Crimes Unit, including Sergeant Modina Holmes. There's
12:00
Speaker 1: little doubt Sergeant Holmes was afraid they had another Jane
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Speaker 1: Doe on their hands. For two long years, she'd been
12:06
Speaker 1: trying to identify one murder victim with no luck. Amarillo
12:11
Speaker 1: Jane Doe. She was found just two miles up the
12:15
Speaker 1: road and on the same side. Could both have been
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Speaker 1: killed by the same madman. Holmes wandered this victim, like
12:23
Speaker 1: her Doe, had been strangled by ligature, although there were
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Speaker 1: noticeable differences between the murders. This new victim had been bound,
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Speaker 1: her face had been badly beaten, and the relacerations on
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Speaker 1: her breasts. Sergeant Holmes and other technicians found multiple signs
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Speaker 1: of rape right away. Amarillo Jane Doe sustained no other
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Speaker 1: injuries other than the fatal injury strangulation by a rope
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Speaker 1: or cord. Pathologist Ralph Erdman reported that the Doe was
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Speaker 1: not sexually assaulted. Twenty four hours later and not thirteen
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Speaker 1: miles south on the other side of Highway to eighty seven,
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Speaker 1: Missus Joyce Smith tuned into the six o'clock news on
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Speaker 1: her living room television. She was shocked to hear about
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Speaker 1: the murder victim whose description matched her daughter's, twenty year
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Speaker 1: old Gail Smith of Fort Worth. Missus Smith quickly phoned
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Speaker 1: the Potter County Sheriff's office and told Sergeant Walt Yuger
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Speaker 1: about Gail, who she expected at any time for a visit.
13:31
Speaker 1: The young woman's description given by Joyce, including details not
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Speaker 1: publicly released, were the same, like tattoos of a winged
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Speaker 1: unicorn over her left breast and a small mushroom in
13:43
Speaker 1: the webbing of her left hand. Sergeant Yuger and another
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Speaker 1: deputy picked up Missus Smith right away. She officially identified
13:52
Speaker 1: her daughter through photos at the Potter County Sheriff's office.
13:57
Speaker 1: At autopsy, doctor Erdman determined that Gail was raped orally
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Speaker 1: and anally. Authorities were able to arrest the man responsible
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Speaker 1: for the violent rape and callous murder of twenty year
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Speaker 1: old Gail Leonor Smith within days. Although her sister hadn't
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Speaker 1: written down the license plate of the truck that drove
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Speaker 1: off with Gail, she knew it was a cherry red
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Speaker 1: Peter built with a conventional cab and sleeper on the door.
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Speaker 1: She remembered was the name Jewet Scott, followed by Oklahoma.
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Speaker 1: The truck driver wore a pearl snap Western shirt, had
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Speaker 1: reddish brown hair, and was light complexioned. Sergeant Walt Yerger
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Speaker 1: phoned the Jewet Scott Trucking company in Mangam, Oklahoma, right away,
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Speaker 1: and was told the guy who drove that particular truck
14:48
Speaker 1: was forty two year old Benjamin Herbert Boyle. Boyle had
14:52
Speaker 1: a criminal record that included kidnapping and attempted sexual assault convictions,
14:57
Speaker 1: for which he received a stern talkie and a five
15:01
Speaker 1: year probated sentence. Everything happened relatively quickly after that. Boyle
15:08
Speaker 1: was apprehended in Dieball, a small East Texas town just
15:12
Speaker 1: south of Lufkin, on Thursday, October seventeenth, nineteen eighty five,
15:17
Speaker 1: two days after Gail's body was found. While investigators for
15:22
Speaker 1: the Potter Randall Counties Special Crimes Unit continued to collect
15:26
Speaker 1: evidence linking Boil to Gayle's rape and slaying, cops in
15:30
Speaker 1: multiple states were obsessing over records from several truck companies
15:35
Speaker 1: the accused murderer worked for. Fort Worth liked Benjamin Herbert
15:40
Speaker 1: Boyle for at least one of their cold cases. The
15:43
Speaker 1: February fourth, nineteen eighty three, murder of Christi Tower, a
15:47
Speaker 1: young woman who disappeared after getting off a shift at
15:50
Speaker 1: Billy Bob's nightclub. She too was strangled using a ligature,
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Speaker 1: in her case, electrical wire. Although their general character touristics,
16:00
Speaker 1: particularly the disheveled look matched, the man who was thought
16:05
Speaker 1: to have abducted Christie was much taller with a bigger build. Anyway,
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Speaker 1: the evidence stacked up against Boyle profoundly. Herron fiber evidence,
16:16
Speaker 1: as well as the autopsy conducted by doctor Ralph Erdman,
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Speaker 1: were later and rightfully called into question and used as
16:24
Speaker 1: an attempt to land Boil a new trial, but the
16:27
Speaker 1: other evidence was simply too damning. Items later identified as
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Speaker 1: belonging to Gayle Leonor Smith were found in his Peterbilt truck.
16:37
Speaker 1: Since witnesses placed Gail getting into Boyle's truck, confirmed by
16:41
Speaker 1: both photo and physical lineups, the items and themselves were
16:45
Speaker 1: not a smoking gun. Boyle himself admitted to giving her
16:49
Speaker 1: a ride, but said he dropped her off in Amarillo,
16:53
Speaker 1: but something was the smoking gun. His bloody fingerprints were
16:57
Speaker 1: found on a roll of duct tape when a sert
17:00
Speaker 1: Wich warre was executed on his vehicle. That tape matched
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Speaker 1: the tape used to bind Gail Smith, which also held
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Speaker 1: Boyle's bloody fingerprints. A grand jury indicted him within a month,
17:14
Speaker 1: and he was convicted of Gail's aggravated murder just over
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Speaker 1: a year after he raped and killed her. Boyle became
17:21
Speaker 1: the primary suspect in the murder of a then unidentified
17:24
Speaker 1: woman found outside Trucky, California, in June of nineteen eighty five,
17:29
Speaker 1: if only for a short time. That Jane Doe was
17:33
Speaker 1: hogtied and originally thought to have been strangled to death,
17:37
Speaker 1: although an FBI agent said fibers on the body matched
17:40
Speaker 1: a blanket found in Boyle's house, it was later determined,
17:44
Speaker 1: after she was identified as twenty year old Sheila Gay Sanders,
17:48
Speaker 1: that her abusive mother killed her. Almost eleven years after
17:53
Speaker 1: his conviction, in nineteen ninety seven, the state of Texas
17:57
Speaker 1: executed fifty three year old Benjamin Herb Boil by lethal injection.
18:02
Speaker 1: This was before DNA collection was mandatory for those convicted
18:06
Speaker 1: of many specific violent felonies to be uploaded into state
18:11
Speaker 1: and federal databases. It's unclear whether Boyle's DNA is in
18:16
Speaker 1: those databases. Bambi Lynn Dick's murder is both similar and
18:22
Speaker 1: dissimilar to Gaye Leonor Smith's. They were both strangled and
18:27
Speaker 1: found within two miles of one another, their bodies concealed
18:31
Speaker 1: on the same side of Highway to eighty seven. Considering
18:35
Speaker 1: gayl lived three hundred and forty miles away and to
18:38
Speaker 1: Bambi nine hundred and seventy miles, that proximity to one
18:42
Speaker 1: another within almost exactly a year period of time is striking,
18:48
Speaker 1: but the crimes themselves perhaps are very different. Bambie wasn't beaten,
18:54
Speaker 1: but Gail was severely bludgeoned in the face and head.
18:58
Speaker 1: Her skull was massively frackedured. Gail was raped, but it
19:02
Speaker 1: was determined Bambi was not, according to the pathologist who
19:06
Speaker 1: performed the autopsy, since investigators had no reason to doubt that.
19:12
Speaker 1: Having not known there was a ten day period between
19:15
Speaker 1: the time Bambi Lynn Dick went missing and Amarillo Jane
19:18
Speaker 1: Doe was found, it is possible she was sexually assaulted
19:22
Speaker 1: at some point during that time. According to information released
19:27
Speaker 1: in an FBI bulletin, Boyle's route, which in nineteen eighty
19:31
Speaker 1: three and eighty four consisted of traveling Highway two eighty
19:35
Speaker 1: seven and Interstate thirty five traveled to Davenport, Iowa. Also,
19:41
Speaker 1: a girlfriend he kept was from Iowa, though it's not
19:44
Speaker 1: known if she lived there in eighty three. It's unknown
19:48
Speaker 1: to us, however, exactly when Benjamin Herbert Boyle was in Iowa.
19:55
Speaker 1: Few other suspects for the murder of Amarillo Jane Doe,
19:59
Speaker 1: wherever public released. It's never been revealed if Potter Randall
20:16
Speaker 1: Special Crimes Unit scrutinized long haul truckers other than Benjamin
20:21
Speaker 1: Herbert Boyle. Murderous sexual predators like Robert ben Rhodes and
20:26
Speaker 1: Clark Perry Baldwin, like Boyle, generally used extreme violence or
20:31
Speaker 1: torture in the perpetration of their crimes. However, according to
20:36
Speaker 1: the officially known facts of the case, Bambi was not
20:39
Speaker 1: sexually assaulted and endured only the fatal injury strangulation. Out
20:44
Speaker 1: of those three long haul truckers, Boil still seems the
20:48
Speaker 1: most likely culprit. It's almost certain investigators in two thousand
20:53
Speaker 1: and nine check to see if Bambi had hitched a
20:55
Speaker 1: ride on a tour bus after the concert. If they did,
20:59
Speaker 1: they'd find out the band Quiet Riot went east instead
21:02
Speaker 1: of southwest. That the band acts played in Fresno, California,
21:07
Speaker 1: two days later, likely not driving anywhere near Amarillo, and
21:11
Speaker 1: Queens Reich headed to the Pacific northwest. Bambi Dick had
21:16
Speaker 1: no ties to Amarillo, though it's reported her boyfriend had
21:20
Speaker 1: lost his job and moved with his family to Texas
21:23
Speaker 1: not long before she vanished. Bamby's girlfriends claimed not to
21:28
Speaker 1: have known about this Texas boyfriend, and there is information
21:31
Speaker 1: that suggests she may have gotten into someone unknown's car
21:35
Speaker 1: after the concert. But why would she go without her
21:39
Speaker 1: glasses or without any other possessions for that matter. Bamby
21:44
Speaker 1: had never run away before, and her eighteenth birthday was
21:48
Speaker 1: three months after she disappeared, and graduation a few months
21:52
Speaker 1: after that. She was about to be free. According to
21:56
Speaker 1: Bamby's brother, Paul, the girl she was with changed story
22:00
Speaker 1: multiple times, which is ostensibly where the information about getting
22:04
Speaker 1: into another vehicle came from. Perhaps Bambi's underwear are a clue.
22:11
Speaker 1: She left her house for the Quiet Riot show on Wednesday,
22:14
Speaker 1: September twenty eighth, nineteen eighty three, but when she was
22:18
Speaker 1: found as Amarillo Jane Doe, she wore pink underwear with
22:22
Speaker 1: Thursday stitched in red. But perhaps that's nothing. The murder
22:28
Speaker 1: of Bambi Lynn Dick might not be as mysterious as
22:31
Speaker 1: it once was. But essentially only two questions have been answered.
22:36
Speaker 1: Where is Bambi? And who is Amarillo? Jane Doe investigators
22:42
Speaker 1: with the Potter Randall Special Crimes Unit reopened their murder
22:45
Speaker 1: investigation immediately upon the DNA match in late March of
22:49
Speaker 1: two thousand and nine, in an attempt to find answers
22:52
Speaker 1: to other questions. Most importantly, of course, is who killed
22:57
Speaker 1: Bambi Dick. A public book plea for information was made
23:02
Speaker 1: in the local media of both areas in question, in Amarillo, Texas,
23:07
Speaker 1: and in Davenport, Iowa. While Bambie was a citizen of Iowa,
23:13
Speaker 1: the murder case belongs to Texas. The geographic hurdle wasn't nothing.
23:19
Speaker 1: There was a certain competence that came with the identification breakthrough.
23:24
Speaker 1: Now the cops could actually track down folks to talk to,
23:27
Speaker 1: where before it was nothing but public pleas and rolls
23:30
Speaker 1: of the dice. Potential witnesses and persons of interest, at
23:35
Speaker 1: least a decent portion of them were not right. An
23:38
Speaker 1: investigator's backyard on this one. When they went to Davenport
23:42
Speaker 1: on the week of May seventeenth, two thousand and nine,
23:45
Speaker 1: its likely Special Crimes Unit investigators spoke with some witnesses
23:50
Speaker 1: while detectives back home tracked down the boyfriend, who had
23:54
Speaker 1: moved in with family in Texas and still lived there. Interestingly,
23:59
Speaker 1: when lamenting about the frustrations of dealing with the human memory,
24:03
Speaker 1: Lieutenant Gary Troop said that they had two men to
24:06
Speaker 1: speak with who were in Davenport at the time of
24:08
Speaker 1: the disappearance, one of whom, he added, lives in Texas.
24:13
Speaker 1: That might suggest Bambi's boyfriend had made a trip up
24:16
Speaker 1: to Davenport that night, but again we don't know. It's
24:21
Speaker 1: unclear if they ever found this individual. They mentioned they
24:25
Speaker 1: were having a hard time locating him. Whatever investigators did
24:30
Speaker 1: and found out in two thousand and nine, they held
24:33
Speaker 1: close to the chest, although Lieutenant Troop did remark that
24:36
Speaker 1: evidence found with Bambie had been resubmitted for DNA testing
24:40
Speaker 1: using advanced techniques, but that was fifteen years ago and
24:45
Speaker 1: the case has apparently gone cold once again. In September
24:51
Speaker 1: of two thousand and nine, Bambie's brothers, Paul and Forrest
24:54
Speaker 1: and her nephew Patrick all traveled to Texas to attend
24:58
Speaker 1: a second funeral for her. On their drive into town,
25:02
Speaker 1: they unknowingly traveled past the very spot where someone had
25:05
Speaker 1: dumped Bambi's body. The victim's parents, who were too frail
25:10
Speaker 1: to make the trip, had made the decision to keep
25:13
Speaker 1: their daughter's final resting place at Memory Gardens Cemetery in Amarillo,
25:18
Speaker 1: where such warmth and sympathy was given to Bambi when
25:21
Speaker 1: she was unidentified. The original memorial service, the clothing, casket,
25:28
Speaker 1: grave site, and headstone were all donated by a local
25:31
Speaker 1: funeral home. Sporadically, over the years, residents would clean Jane
25:36
Speaker 1: Doe's grave and leave flowers. In many ways, Bambi Dick
25:41
Speaker 1: had become a child of these folks who didn't even
25:44
Speaker 1: know who she was. The people there had made an
25:47
Speaker 1: impression on Evelyn and Edward Dick, and they felt exuoming
25:51
Speaker 1: and bringing her to Iowa was the wrong thing to do.
25:55
Speaker 1: Bamby belonged to Amarillo much longer than she lived. She
26:00
Speaker 1: was at peace there, her parents said. In the Texas
26:03
Speaker 1: town that had embraced her, almost twenty six years after
26:08
Speaker 1: she was buried, At the second service on Tuesday, September eighth,
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Speaker 1: two thousand and nine, under a large open air tent,
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Speaker 1: Bambi's brothers and nephew sat among law enforcement officers who
26:19
Speaker 1: also came to pay their respects, most from the Potter
26:23
Speaker 1: Randall Special Crimes Unit. About a dozen folks came. A
26:28
Speaker 1: large bouquet of flowers adorned the grave site, and the
26:32
Speaker 1: headstone that once read simply Jane Doe nineteen eighty three
26:36
Speaker 1: was replaced by one that bears Bamby's full name photograph
26:40
Speaker 1: and also reads found dead amongst the Angels of Amarillo
26:45
Speaker 1: at the bottom. Her family wept as the funeral proceeded.
26:50
Speaker 1: The service, Paul Dick later told reporters was one of
26:54
Speaker 1: the toughest things he'd ever done, but now it was
26:58
Speaker 1: time for justice. Perhaps Bamby's sister in law, Laurie, summed
27:03
Speaker 1: up the family's feelings best. You need to grieve, she
27:07
Speaker 1: told the Amarillo Globe Times, but it's also time to
27:10
Speaker 1: get angry. If you have any information about the murder
27:15
Speaker 1: of Bambi Lynn Dick, please call the Amarillo Potter Randall
27:20
Speaker 1: Special Crimes Unit at eight zero six three seven eight
27:24
Speaker 1: four two six eight If you'd like to join gon
27:28
Speaker 1: Cold's mission to renew the public's interest in unsolved homicides,
27:33
Speaker 1: missing persons cases, and other perplexing mysteries, you can support
27:38
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27:47
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27:51
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28:02
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28:11
Speaker 1: about a case will listen and come forward. A rating
28:15
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28:19
Speaker 1: are comments on Spotify. Thanks for listening, y'all,