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Hell and Gone Murder Line: Dana Stidham Part 1 · Hell and Gone: Murder Line

0:08
Speaker 1: School of Humans.
0:14
Speaker 2: On July twenty fifth, nineteen eighty nine, eighteen year old
0:17
Speaker 2: Dana's Didham had just graduated from high school in grave At, Arkansas.
0:22
Speaker 2: She had her whole life in front of her. Dana
0:26
Speaker 2: had moved out on her own for the first time.
0:28
Speaker 2: She was living in Centerton with her older brother, Larry
0:31
Speaker 2: and a cousin. She was starting her life. She was
0:34
Speaker 2: excited about the future. But on that day she had
0:38
Speaker 2: to do some laundry, and like a lot of teens
0:41
Speaker 2: that age who have just left home, she was a
0:43
Speaker 2: little homesick. She wanted to spend some time with her dad.
0:47
Speaker 2: Her parents, Lawrence and Georgis Didham, lived in Highwasee, an
0:52
Speaker 2: unincorporated area in Benton County. That was about a ten
0:55
Speaker 2: to fifteen minute drive to where Dana lived in Centerton,
0:59
Speaker 2: so Dana drove home. She started to do her big
1:02
Speaker 2: pile of laundry with her dad, and then her dad
1:06
Speaker 2: said he was not feeling well. He asked Dana to
1:08
Speaker 2: run some errands for him, and she said yes. Dana
1:12
Speaker 2: was planning on coming right back. She had clothes in
1:15
Speaker 2: the wash cycle and her dad said he would put
1:17
Speaker 2: them in the dryer if she wasn't back by the
1:19
Speaker 2: time they finished. There has been a lot of publicity
1:22
Speaker 2: about this case, but no real answers. We're going to
1:26
Speaker 2: try to relive the last day of Dana Sidham's life
1:29
Speaker 2: and see if there's anything that was missed that can
1:31
Speaker 2: help us get closer to finding out what happened to
1:34
Speaker 2: her anne who killed her. I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the
1:40
Speaker 2: past five years of making my true crime podcast, Helen Gone,
1:43
Speaker 2: I've learned that there is no such thing as a
1:45
Speaker 2: small town where murder never happens. I have received hundreds
1:49
Speaker 2: of messages from people all around the country asking for
1:52
Speaker 2: help with an unsolved murder that's affected them, their families,
1:56
Speaker 2: and their communities.
1:57
Speaker 1: If you have a case you'd like me and my
1:59
Speaker 1: team to.
1:59
Speaker 2: Look into, you can reach out to us at our
2:02
Speaker 2: Hell and Gone Murder line at six seven eight seven
2:05
Speaker 2: four four six one four five. That's six seven eight
2:08
Speaker 2: seven four four six one four five. This is Helen
2:13
Speaker 2: Gone Murder Line. Dana Stidham was just supposed to run
3:07
Speaker 2: out of the house for a few minutes, but hours
3:09
Speaker 2: went by and Dana never came home. So her worried
3:13
Speaker 2: parents called her older brother Larry, and after he got
3:16
Speaker 2: off work, he started looking for Dana.
3:19
Speaker 1: The whole family did.
3:20
Speaker 2: Actually, they were driving down Highway seventy one, the highway
3:24
Speaker 2: that cut through the middle of Bella.
3:25
Speaker 1: Vista, trying to find her.
3:28
Speaker 2: They thought maybe her car broke down somewhere, but there
3:31
Speaker 2: was no sign of Dana Sidham. Her brother Larry was
3:34
Speaker 2: the one who called the police at nine thirty pm
3:37
Speaker 2: to officially report her missing. Officers put out a bolo
3:41
Speaker 2: a bee on the lookout for Dana with a.
3:43
Speaker 1: Description of her.
3:44
Speaker 2: She was petitue, five foot two and weigh just over
3:47
Speaker 2: one hundred pounds, with short brown hair. She was wearing
3:51
Speaker 2: white shorts, a white top with red lettering and red
3:54
Speaker 2: sox with white tennis shoes. Police retraced her steps and
3:58
Speaker 2: they found out Dana had made it to the store.
4:01
Speaker 2: She went to the Phillips food store in Bella Vista,
4:04
Speaker 2: and she knew a lot of people at that store.
4:06
Speaker 2: She actually worked at the Phillips food store in high school,
4:09
Speaker 2: so she talked to several people and all of them
4:12
Speaker 2: remembered seeing her when she came to pick up those
4:14
Speaker 2: items that day for her dad. Dana bought Alka Seltzer
4:18
Speaker 2: dishwashing soap and sugar. According to the cashier's receipt, she
4:22
Speaker 2: checked out of the store at three seventeen PM. Detectives
4:28
Speaker 2: said the last time Dana was seen alive that they
4:30
Speaker 2: were aware of was when she was leaving the Phillips
4:33
Speaker 2: Food Center parking lot. According to multiple media reports, Dana
4:38
Speaker 2: was seen talking to an older man in that parking lot.
4:41
Speaker 2: The man's identity was never confirmed by police, and there
4:45
Speaker 2: was a landscaper who worked nearby. He told police he
4:49
Speaker 2: saw Dana drive out of that parking lot, but he
4:52
Speaker 2: said he could not remember which way she had turned.
4:55
Speaker 2: Over the next few days, volunteers and searchers were looking
4:59
Speaker 2: for Dana. The disappearance was all over the news, so
5:02
Speaker 2: naturally a lot of tips started flooding in the next morning,
5:07
Speaker 2: July twenty sixth, At around six thirty am, a sergeant
5:11
Speaker 2: with the Benton County Sheriff's Department named Karen Myers was
5:14
Speaker 2: driving south on US Highway seventy one. She was on
5:18
Speaker 2: her way to work near Wellington Road when she saw
5:20
Speaker 2: a car on the shoulder of the road. The vehicle
5:23
Speaker 2: was parked on the southbound side. She didn't think anything
5:26
Speaker 2: of it until she got to work and the officers
5:30
Speaker 2: were being briefed on the missing woman, Dana Siddam.
5:33
Speaker 1: Then she remembered the car.
5:35
Speaker 2: When she went back, the car was still there and
5:37
Speaker 2: it was confirmed that was Dana Siddam's nineteen eighty four
5:41
Speaker 2: gray Dodge Omni. It was just a little bit down
5:44
Speaker 2: the road from where her last stop was the Phillips
5:46
Speaker 2: Food Store and about four miles from her parents' home.
5:54
Speaker 1: So this is what we know about the state of
5:56
Speaker 1: her vehicle.
5:57
Speaker 2: The keys were still in the ignition, the driver's side
6:00
Speaker 2: window was halfway down, and the left rear tire was flat,
6:04
Speaker 2: but according to lawn enforcement, it wasn't totally flat.
6:07
Speaker 1: The car was still drivable. Besides the tire.
6:11
Speaker 2: There was nothing seriously wrong with the car, no breakdown,
6:14
Speaker 2: no obvious sign of a struggle, no blood. But there
6:18
Speaker 2: were some items missing. Dana carried a big denim purse
6:22
Speaker 2: and it was gone, and weirdly, her groceries, the ones
6:25
Speaker 2: she just bought at Phillips Foodstore were missing.
6:27
Speaker 1: Also.
6:29
Speaker 2: That was my first question, actually, where were her groceries?
6:33
Speaker 1: What happened to them?
6:34
Speaker 2: The driver's seat had also been adjusted as if a
6:38
Speaker 2: much taller person had been driving. This made police believe
6:42
Speaker 2: that someone else besides Dana had driven the car to
6:45
Speaker 2: that location. So the working theory was that the car
6:49
Speaker 2: had been moved because in addition to that pushback seat,
6:52
Speaker 2: there was the fact that the car was parked along
6:54
Speaker 2: the main highway. Now her family and friends had been
6:57
Speaker 2: driving that road all night. They felt like someone would
7:01
Speaker 2: have spotted her vehicle if it had been sitting there
7:03
Speaker 2: the whole time. Police began to believe someone moved that
7:07
Speaker 2: car there in the middle of the night. Last week
7:11
Speaker 2: we dove into Amanda Tussing's case. We pointed out that
7:14
Speaker 2: Amanda and Dana's situations did have some similarities, at least
7:18
Speaker 2: on the surface. Both were petite women with short, dark hair.
7:21
Speaker 2: Both crimes happened in the same general area, and in
7:25
Speaker 2: both cases, cars were found abandoned on the side of
7:28
Speaker 2: the road, with the keys in the ignition and no
7:31
Speaker 2: signs of a struggle. But as we also said last week,
7:34
Speaker 2: there are a lot of differences. The main difference for
7:37
Speaker 2: me is the time of day. Amanda Tussing disappeared late
7:40
Speaker 2: at night. Dana Sidham vanished in the middle of the
7:44
Speaker 2: day in broad daylight. As many of you know, this
7:47
Speaker 2: case has received a lot of publicity. I've seen it
7:50
Speaker 2: covered in various podcasts on news channels over the years,
7:54
Speaker 2: but every time I see it covered, I kind of
7:56
Speaker 2: hear a variation of the same story that there was
7:59
Speaker 2: a suspect, someone who police believed had something to do
8:04
Speaker 2: with Dana's disappearance. We briefly touched on this last week.
8:08
Speaker 2: We said there was a guy who Dana knew from
8:10
Speaker 2: high school. This person apparently had some feelings for Dana,
8:14
Speaker 2: maybe an unrequited crush on her.
8:16
Speaker 1: And every time I.
8:17
Speaker 2: Read a news story, I see a mention of this person,
8:20
Speaker 2: but then there's no follow up. So what we're going
8:23
Speaker 2: to do this week is go through everything we think
8:25
Speaker 2: we know about the case. We're going to start at
8:27
Speaker 2: the beginning, go through the timeline, and really explore to
8:30
Speaker 2: see if there are any other suspects who might have
8:33
Speaker 2: been missed. I wonder, could someone have pulled Dana over
8:39
Speaker 2: or signaled for her to pull over and then pulled
8:42
Speaker 2: up behind her using that flat tire as a ruse,
8:46
Speaker 2: or maybe she felt the tire going flat on her own,
8:49
Speaker 2: pulled over herself, and then someone pretending to be a
8:52
Speaker 2: good Samaritan took advantage of the situation. These are all
8:56
Speaker 2: situations that Dana's family and friends considered over that summer.
8:59
Speaker 1: After she disappeared.
9:02
Speaker 2: There were also, as there are with many cases and
9:04
Speaker 2: a lot of publicity, a lot of random people people
9:07
Speaker 2: coming forward to say they saw Dana. Some people said
9:10
Speaker 2: they had seen her partying on the night she went missing.
9:14
Speaker 2: Then other evidence started showing up. A few days after
9:17
Speaker 2: Dane went missing, her brother Larry, found some of her
9:20
Speaker 2: clothes on Ealing Circle, near the area where her car
9:23
Speaker 2: had been found.
9:24
Speaker 1: Then on August.
9:25
Speaker 2: Fifth, nineteen eighty nine, someone contacted law enforcement to report
9:29
Speaker 2: that they had found some other items. According to Ay magazine,
9:33
Speaker 2: those items included Dana's checks, her wallet, her driver's license,
9:38
Speaker 2: and they were kind of thrown out along the road,
9:41
Speaker 2: almost like someone had thrown them out of a moving car.
9:45
Speaker 2: There was also a pornographic magazine found nearby, though investigators
9:49
Speaker 2: seemed kind of divided about that, whether it was left
9:52
Speaker 2: by the person who assaulted Dana or if it was
9:54
Speaker 2: just random trash and it was a coincidence. A couple
9:59
Speaker 2: of days after that, someone's pet dog showed up at
10:02
Speaker 2: the house, and when its owner looked at what it
10:04
Speaker 2: had brought back home. It had Dana Didham's wallet in
10:08
Speaker 2: its mouth. This seemed to be the moment when the
10:12
Speaker 2: case turned around, because before that it seemed as though
10:15
Speaker 2: law enforcement had considered the possibility she might have gone
10:18
Speaker 2: missing on her own. But after that dog showed up
10:21
Speaker 2: with that wallet, the sheriff at the time, Andy Lee,
10:23
Speaker 2: made a comment. He said, quote, we know when she
10:27
Speaker 2: left the car, she took her purse with her, but
10:30
Speaker 2: we don't believe she would be throwing personal items out
10:33
Speaker 2: end quote. So the rest of the summer passes, Dana's
10:36
Speaker 2: family and friends are no closer to getting answers. The
10:39
Speaker 2: two lead detectives at the time, Mike Sediak and Danny Varner,
10:44
Speaker 2: worked tirelessly on this case. They've talked about it at
10:47
Speaker 2: various times over the years and when they've made comments
10:50
Speaker 2: to media. To me, it is obvious they cannot stop
10:53
Speaker 2: thinking about this case, and they were frustrated by the
10:56
Speaker 2: dead ends that they seemed to keep encountering. On September sixteenth,
11:01
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty nine, a squirrel hunter named Wayne T. Grantham
11:05
Speaker 2: was out in a remote area on the east side
11:07
Speaker 2: of Bella Vista. He was in a dry creek bed
11:10
Speaker 2: near the Missouri Arkansas border. He saw a skull. On
11:18
Speaker 2: September sixteenth, nineteen eighty nine, almost two months after Dane
11:22
Speaker 2: has Stidham disappeared, a hunter named Wayne T. Grantham saw
11:25
Speaker 2: a skull while he was out in the woods in
11:27
Speaker 2: Bellavista County. This brings us to another really strange point
11:32
Speaker 2: in this case. Not necessarily suspicious, but it's something that
11:35
Speaker 2: should be delved into, in my opinion, a little bit.
11:38
Speaker 2: According to the missing Persons report, which we have a
11:41
Speaker 2: copy of from the Arkansas State Police, the hunter apparently
11:44
Speaker 2: waited an entire day before reporting what he found. After
11:49
Speaker 2: he saw a skeleton, he went on and continued his hunt.
11:53
Speaker 2: Then the next morning, on September seventeenth, nineteen eighty nine,
11:57
Speaker 2: Wayne Grantham contacted the Benton County Sheriff's office and told
12:00
Speaker 2: him about the remains.
12:02
Speaker 1: According to that missing.
12:04
Speaker 2: Persons report, he said he waited because he basically did
12:08
Speaker 2: not want to ruin or interrupt his day hunting. At
12:10
Speaker 2: the time, he made some kind of comment about the
12:13
Speaker 2: fact that the skeleton wasn't going to go anywhere that day.
12:18
Speaker 2: This sounds pretty insensitive, and it kind of is, but
12:21
Speaker 2: to be fair, he did later tell police that he
12:24
Speaker 2: kind of regretted that decision. He said he should have
12:27
Speaker 2: called the police immediately. Police recovered the remains, They sent
12:33
Speaker 2: them to the medical examiner's office, and they identified them
12:36
Speaker 2: as Dana's. The remains were very decomposed, mostly skeletal, so
12:43
Speaker 2: at the time authorities could not determine if Dana had
12:47
Speaker 2: been sexually assaulted.
12:49
Speaker 1: This was a tough crime scene.
12:51
Speaker 2: The remains were spread out over a pretty big area,
12:54
Speaker 2: according to news reports, over fifty feet, but they were
12:59
Speaker 2: able to find some signs of Dana's assault. There was
13:03
Speaker 2: evidence of a nick, probably made by a knife, on
13:07
Speaker 2: her collarbone area on the left side. Authorities also found
13:11
Speaker 2: something else. They found baling twine. Several feet of twine
13:15
Speaker 2: that was tied up in knots. Duct tape was also
13:18
Speaker 2: found on her clothes. They were buried nearby. One of
13:21
Speaker 2: her braw stripes had been cut, which again made police
13:25
Speaker 2: think the killer had used a knife. There were also
13:29
Speaker 2: a few locks of Dana's hair found, and even though
13:32
Speaker 2: investigators had found Dana's wallet with her id in those
13:35
Speaker 2: closed by the roadside, they never found some things, including
13:39
Speaker 2: that denim purse she had had with her on the
13:41
Speaker 2: day she went missing, and the groceries she got for
13:44
Speaker 2: her dad. Something else was missing from the body. Dana
13:48
Speaker 2: always wore a ring, one that her grandmother had given her.
13:51
Speaker 2: She had been wearing it when she left home, but
13:54
Speaker 2: it wasn't on her body. On September twenty first, nineteen
13:58
Speaker 2: eighty nine, the medical examiner announced that the manner of
14:01
Speaker 2: death was homicide, but the cause.
14:04
Speaker 1: Of death was under turned at the time.
14:08
Speaker 2: Sergeant Varner, one of the detectives on the case, said, quote,
14:12
Speaker 2: robbery wasn't the motive. Everything points to a sex crime
14:16
Speaker 2: end quote. But police didn't have much to go on.
14:21
Speaker 2: They couldn't determine time of death. They couldn't figure out
14:24
Speaker 2: if Dana's killer had killed her on the day she
14:27
Speaker 2: went missing, or if they had had her somewhere else
14:29
Speaker 2: before that. They didn't know if the body had been
14:32
Speaker 2: moved now. Early on, there were rumors that the area
14:35
Speaker 2: where Dana's body was buried was near a notorious party spot,
14:39
Speaker 2: or that she may have been involved with some drug dealers,
14:43
Speaker 2: but these rumors were not backed up by any evidence,
14:46
Speaker 2: and honestly, those type of rumors about drug dealing, the
14:51
Speaker 2: fact that the party spot was on this dead end
14:53
Speaker 2: road kind of gave me deja vus and made me
14:56
Speaker 2: think about Rebecca Gould's case and in Dana Siddam's case,
15:01
Speaker 2: the rumors seemed equally far fetched. It was another theory
15:06
Speaker 2: that made more sense. Police wondered, could someone have punctured
15:11
Speaker 2: her tire on purpose, maybe while she was talking to
15:13
Speaker 2: her former co workers the Phillips food store. Then maybe
15:17
Speaker 2: that person followed her out of that parking lot because
15:20
Speaker 2: they knew that her tire would run flat. Some people
15:24
Speaker 2: believed someone impersonating a police officer or an actual police
15:28
Speaker 2: officer could have signaled for Danna to pull over. We'll
15:33
Speaker 2: get back to that in a minute. Back to Dana's
15:35
Speaker 2: route that day. So it turns out that Dana had
15:38
Speaker 2: a reason for avoiding a convenience store that was much
15:42
Speaker 2: nearer her parents' house, the Dairy Freeze, because a guy
15:46
Speaker 2: she went to high school with, one who apparently had
15:48
Speaker 2: a crush on her, the one we were talking about before,
15:51
Speaker 2: His parents owned that business. So Dana's parents told police
15:55
Speaker 2: that Dana avoided that store she wanted to avoid that guy.
16:00
Speaker 2: This guy's name is Mike McMillan. This is public information,
16:04
Speaker 2: by the way, It's part of the case case file
16:06
Speaker 2: and included in the paperwork that we got from the
16:08
Speaker 2: Benton County Sheriff's Department after we filed foyer request. Mike
16:13
Speaker 2: was a friend of Dana's. They knew each other from
16:16
Speaker 2: high school, and again, her family said he always liked her,
16:20
Speaker 2: but that the feelings were just not reciprocated. She was
16:22
Speaker 2: not interested. From the beginning, police were apparently suspicious of Mike.
16:28
Speaker 2: The police asked him if he had an alibi. He
16:31
Speaker 2: said that at the time of Dania's disappearance, he was
16:33
Speaker 2: visiting a girlfriend, but the girlfriend apparently said he wasn't,
16:38
Speaker 2: and then he mentioned another girl's house he supposedly went to.
16:42
Speaker 2: This is pretty vague and we haven't seen the whole
16:44
Speaker 2: case file with his interviews in it, but the bottom
16:46
Speaker 2: line is Mike was out and driving around and police
16:50
Speaker 2: were not able to verify his alibi. Detectives polygraphed him
16:55
Speaker 2: and he passed. But then it came out in the
16:58
Speaker 2: media that there was this weird quote he was quoted
17:01
Speaker 2: as saying during one of his interviews with police. Quote
17:05
Speaker 2: some times I think I did kill Dana, but I
17:07
Speaker 2: know I didn't.
17:08
Speaker 1: End quote. This was according to a local.
17:11
Speaker 2: Newspaper, Tulsa World, So, Mike's behavior was a little bit
17:16
Speaker 2: out of the ordinary. He was in the military and
17:19
Speaker 2: he went to San Diego to start his service. He
17:21
Speaker 2: ended up missing Dana's funeral and he appeared to be
17:25
Speaker 2: very distraught. Apparently, after that, Mike showed back up in
17:29
Speaker 2: town and he started visiting Dana's grave at night.
17:34
Speaker 1: Then he stole something.
17:37
Speaker 2: So on Dana's grave before they put down a headstone,
17:41
Speaker 2: you have the temporary grave marker, and that's what Mike stole.
17:45
Speaker 1: He stole the grave marker.
17:48
Speaker 2: Mike's lawyer said that his weird behavior could be chalked
17:51
Speaker 2: up to the fact that he was grieving. Mike's lawyer
17:54
Speaker 2: told NBC News quote, it was a temporary marker, a
17:57
Speaker 2: plastic marker. The news reports make it sound as though
18:00
Speaker 2: it was a gravestone. You see, my client was in
18:02
Speaker 2: the Navy at the time and miss the funeral. He
18:05
Speaker 2: came back feeling sorrowful and went to the grave. He
18:08
Speaker 2: wanted something to remember her by.
18:10
Speaker 1: End quote.
18:12
Speaker 2: Police arrested Mike and charged him with misdemeanor theft for
18:15
Speaker 2: stealing that grave marker. This gave them another chance to
18:18
Speaker 2: question Mike. They gave Mike a lot of detector test.
18:22
Speaker 1: And he passed it.
18:23
Speaker 2: In the end, police could not build a case against Mike,
18:26
Speaker 2: so they let him go. There were so many conflicting
18:30
Speaker 2: tips and timelines and suspects it made the case very
18:34
Speaker 2: difficult at times. So what happened to Dana after she
18:38
Speaker 2: left that parking lot? There is still a lot of
18:41
Speaker 2: unanswered questions that I hope to dive into more next week,
18:45
Speaker 2: including the multiple and conflicting witness accounts. There was reportedly
18:50
Speaker 2: someone who came to police and told them that on
18:52
Speaker 2: the day Dana disappeared, on the twenty fifth, she remembered
18:56
Speaker 2: seeing Dana's car and that a woman with long dark
18:59
Speaker 2: hair was in the driver's seat and a man with
19:02
Speaker 2: dark hair was in the passenger seat. She said that
19:04
Speaker 2: the car swerved into her lane in a way that
19:07
Speaker 2: may have been intentional. Then there was another witness who
19:11
Speaker 2: said they saw a car on the side of the
19:12
Speaker 2: road and a truck behind it. There was a woman
19:15
Speaker 2: and two men there, and apparently one guy crouched down
19:18
Speaker 2: by the car trying to change a tire. Now we
19:21
Speaker 2: know that Dani's tire was partially flat. We don't have
19:25
Speaker 2: the case file, we don't know who these people are,
19:28
Speaker 2: so for me, a big part of this investigation is
19:30
Speaker 2: going to be trying to track down the source of
19:33
Speaker 2: these supposed sightings and find out if they are credible
19:36
Speaker 2: or not. In the meantime, though, let's see if there
19:39
Speaker 2: are any theories we can eliminate. There are still a
19:43
Speaker 2: lot of unanswered questions, and I really hope to dive
19:46
Speaker 2: more into the case file into some of these questions
19:48
Speaker 2: next week. Last week, we talked about another theory that
19:53
Speaker 2: the Blue Light rapist Robert Todd Birmingham, the one who
19:57
Speaker 2: was arrested in nineteen ninety seven and convicted of two
19:59
Speaker 2: sexual assaults, could have been involved in Dani's kidnapping and murder.
20:04
Speaker 2: So there was a thirty one year old farm laborer
20:07
Speaker 2: from Pine Tree. He was arrested in Little Rock on
20:10
Speaker 2: September fifteenth, nineteen ninety seven. He farmed for his father
20:14
Speaker 2: in law and was married to a woman named Nanji.
20:16
Speaker 2: They lived on an eight acre plot of land where
20:19
Speaker 2: his parents had a house. The Blue Light rapist story
20:23
Speaker 2: became a national story. There was this quote from the
20:26
Speaker 2: La Times that I found that kind of summed it up.
20:31
Speaker 1: It read quote.
20:32
Speaker 2: A blue light rapist and others mimicking him have raped, accosted,
20:36
Speaker 2: or chased more than a dozen women in communities from
20:39
Speaker 2: northeastern Arkansas.
20:40
Speaker 1: To northern Louisiana. Since November.
20:44
Speaker 2: A predator using a police style flashing blue light has
20:47
Speaker 2: pulled over women traveling alone in Cross County, Arkansas. Because
20:51
Speaker 2: the incidents have occurred over a wide area, police suspect
20:55
Speaker 2: that some were carried out by copycats end quote. Last week,
21:00
Speaker 2: we talked about how Robert was convicted and a key
21:03
Speaker 2: witness against him was one of his victims, seventeen year
21:06
Speaker 2: old Shannon Woods. She survived the attack. She was the
21:10
Speaker 2: one who very bravely testified against Robert. She was able
21:14
Speaker 2: to give an accurate description of the house that was
21:17
Speaker 2: owned by Robert's father. He was apparently taking his victims
21:20
Speaker 2: to this vacant property. She knew the house was off
21:24
Speaker 2: a gravel road, that it had a screen door that
21:26
Speaker 2: was hard to open. She knew about the rocking chair
21:30
Speaker 2: with a loose arm, and a lot more details about
21:33
Speaker 2: the layout of the house. She was also able to
21:35
Speaker 2: describe the vehicle he was using. It had two door
21:38
Speaker 2: bucket seats with no air conditioning. This is all by
21:41
Speaker 2: the way. According to court documents, investigators were also able
21:46
Speaker 2: to link Robert to these crimes through a DNA profile
21:49
Speaker 2: taken from one of his victim's rape kits. In the end,
21:52
Speaker 2: Robert was convicted of the April nineteen ninety seven rape
21:55
Speaker 2: of a woman at her home and when, and the
21:58
Speaker 2: July nineteen ninety seven rape of Shannon Woods. But as
22:02
Speaker 2: those newspaper articles pointed out, those were not the only
22:06
Speaker 2: attacks happening in that area at the time. Robert Birmingham
22:09
Speaker 2: was accused of two other crimes, one in Cross County
22:13
Speaker 2: one in Lee County, using the same mo victims who
22:17
Speaker 2: had been pulled over on highways and then assaulted, but
22:20
Speaker 2: those two cases never made it to trial. In two thousand,
22:25
Speaker 2: Robert Todd Birmingham was sentenced to life in prison plus
22:28
Speaker 2: eighty years for those convictions. He never admitted to his crimes.
22:33
Speaker 2: He always said he was innocent. Robert Birmingham died while
22:37
Speaker 2: serving his sentence in twenty twenty. He died of COVID
22:40
Speaker 2: related complications. I can understand why Robert would be considered
22:47
Speaker 2: a suspect in Dana's case. Her car was found parked
22:51
Speaker 2: with the key in the ignition the back tire was
22:54
Speaker 2: running flat. It is possible, but there are some differences,
22:58
Speaker 2: like the fact that the blue light rapist mo was
23:01
Speaker 2: to wear a ski mask. Yes, there's a possibility that
23:04
Speaker 2: maybe he didn't. In this case, Dana's death happened several
23:07
Speaker 2: years before he was arrested in charge of these assaults,
23:10
Speaker 2: so he might have gotten more sophisticated over time. Maybe
23:14
Speaker 2: he panicked because she recognized him. But the blue light
23:19
Speaker 2: rapist struck at night, this happened in broad daylight. Also,
23:23
Speaker 2: the blue light rapist did not get into women's cars.
23:26
Speaker 2: He got women into his car and drove away. The
23:30
Speaker 2: working theory is that Dana's car was moved by someone else.
23:34
Speaker 2: And I know the police believed Dana was sexually assaulted,
23:38
Speaker 2: but the forensics or lack of forensics, mean we cannot
23:41
Speaker 2: know for sure. I think there's still a possibility this
23:46
Speaker 2: could have been someone Dana knew, maybe someone who wanted
23:49
Speaker 2: it to look like the blue light rapist or some
23:52
Speaker 2: random psycho abducted Dana.
23:55
Speaker 1: If so, taking.
23:56
Speaker 2: Her body to remote location would have been the logical
23:59
Speaker 2: next move. This could have been a stage crime scene.
24:02
Speaker 2: We can't totally discount that there was twine at the
24:06
Speaker 2: crime scene, but it was not tied to her body.
24:09
Speaker 2: We can't say for sure if it was used to
24:10
Speaker 2: bind her. The duct tape was sort of attached to
24:13
Speaker 2: her shirt, but there was no mention of any DNA
24:16
Speaker 2: being found on that duct tape. If someone did have
24:19
Speaker 2: an issue with Dana, if they got into an argument
24:21
Speaker 2: with her, if she was murdered and it was a
24:24
Speaker 2: crime of passion, the crime scene could have been staged
24:27
Speaker 2: to make it look like the motive was sexual assault.
24:30
Speaker 2: There was a young woman who came to the police.
24:33
Speaker 2: She told them that on the day Dana disappeared, she
24:36
Speaker 2: remembered seeing Dana's car. She said a woman with long
24:40
Speaker 2: brown hair was driving and there was a man with
24:43
Speaker 2: dark hair in the passenger seat. She said that the
24:46
Speaker 2: car swerved into her lane in a way that, looking back,
24:50
Speaker 2: she thought may have been intentional. Was that woman Dana,
24:54
Speaker 2: and if so, could she have been trying to signal
24:57
Speaker 2: that she was in trouble?
24:58
Speaker 1: But that description conflicted with the.
25:00
Speaker 2: Police officer, the one who saw Dana's car parked along
25:04
Speaker 2: the road.
25:05
Speaker 1: The officer said she saw another.
25:07
Speaker 2: Car park near Danis on July twenty sixth, but she
25:10
Speaker 2: really couldn't remember a lot of details, so in yet
25:14
Speaker 2: another twist, she agreed to undergo hypnosis in an attempt
25:17
Speaker 2: to have better recall. So the officer remembered under hypnosis
25:22
Speaker 2: the vehicle she passed on the road was a three
25:24
Speaker 2: toned Chevrolet Ranchero with a medium green top and a
25:28
Speaker 2: dark wood grain insert in the middle. She also remembered
25:32
Speaker 2: she had seen a man kneeling down by the tire,
25:35
Speaker 2: like maybe he was looking at it or planning on
25:37
Speaker 2: changing it. But how much of this is reliable? I
25:42
Speaker 2: did a lot of research into hypnosis and the use
25:46
Speaker 2: of hypnosis and police investigations. It's been used a lot
25:50
Speaker 2: over the years, but it's very controversial. It seemed to
25:54
Speaker 2: gain a lot of traction after the nineteen seventy six
25:57
Speaker 2: Chowchilla kidnapping. This was the case where two men kidnapped
26:02
Speaker 2: an entire school bus full of children and the driver
26:05
Speaker 2: and they buried the bus underground. The children and the
26:10
Speaker 2: driver were able to escape, and the driver was able
26:12
Speaker 2: to remember the license plate numbers of the cars that
26:15
Speaker 2: abducted them under hypnosis. But that was one single case,
26:20
Speaker 2: and more and more it seems like that might have
26:22
Speaker 2: been an outlier because over the years the use of
26:27
Speaker 2: hypnosis and recovered memories has really been debunked in a
26:31
Speaker 2: lot of cases. It reminds me of some types of
26:36
Speaker 2: bitemark evidence or in some cases polygraph tests. Some of
26:39
Speaker 2: these technologies that have become known as if not junk science,
26:44
Speaker 2: at the very least pretty unreliable. Researchers have actually done
26:48
Speaker 2: studies on hypnosis. There is a professor of psychology at
26:51
Speaker 2: Binghamton University named Stephen Jaylen, and he's done a ton
26:55
Speaker 2: of research on hypnosis. According to The Guardian, he did
27:00
Speaker 2: studies and he showed that hypnosis did not help memory.
27:04
Speaker 2: It actually armed people's memory, and it led them to
27:08
Speaker 2: recover as many false memories as real ones. But interestingly,
27:12
Speaker 2: the one thing that it does increase is people's confidence,
27:15
Speaker 2: so even when they're completely wrong, they absolutely believe that
27:19
Speaker 2: their memories are correct, just in general. When I was
27:24
Speaker 2: a kid, I remember when I was first taught about memory,
27:27
Speaker 2: I was told over and over that it was like
27:29
Speaker 2: a videotape or a tape recorder, always recording. So theoretically,
27:34
Speaker 2: if you could be taken back to that moment, you
27:36
Speaker 2: would be able to accurately remember details, but it turns
27:39
Speaker 2: out that's really not true. Memory does not work like that.
27:43
Speaker 2: It's not permanent. It can change every time. In fact,
27:47
Speaker 2: some studies have shown it changes every time you access
27:51
Speaker 2: the memory.
27:51
Speaker 1: Every time you.
27:53
Speaker 2: Recall the story and tell it, details can shift. And
27:57
Speaker 2: this is not even including things like false memory syndrome,
28:00
Speaker 2: in which people have these therapeutic regression sessions and actually
28:04
Speaker 2: believe they were sexually abused by their parents or other people.
28:07
Speaker 2: These memories can be absolutely false, but when people undergo hypnosis,
28:13
Speaker 2: their confidence in the memory increases. So it's a really interesting.
28:17
Speaker 1: Branch of science and there's a lot to learn.
28:21
Speaker 2: There was another person who said they saw Dana's car
28:24
Speaker 2: parked on the side of the road and that there
28:27
Speaker 2: have been a vehicle with a camper van shell parked
28:30
Speaker 2: behind it. Again, since we don't have access to the
28:33
Speaker 2: case file, I would very much like to know who
28:36
Speaker 2: these people are and exactly what they saw, because we
28:39
Speaker 2: know from other cases we've covered it's all about these
28:42
Speaker 2: tiny little details. In Dana's case, we have one person
28:47
Speaker 2: saying there was a truck with a camper van, another
28:49
Speaker 2: saying there was a man crouching beside the car. Then
28:53
Speaker 2: we have the officer under hypnosis reportedly saying it was
28:56
Speaker 2: a car with wood grain panel. Are any of these
28:59
Speaker 2: leads reliable? If there was a guy crouching by Dana's car,
29:05
Speaker 2: was it a good Samaritan or could it have been
29:08
Speaker 2: something more sinister? We should find out was that guy
29:12
Speaker 2: actually there and if so, was he a good Samaritan
29:15
Speaker 2: or something more sinister. Dani's case eventually went cold. And
29:19
Speaker 2: this is just my opinion, but from what I read,
29:22
Speaker 2: it seems as though police were laser focused on Mike
29:26
Speaker 2: over the years, and that might have meant that other
29:29
Speaker 2: leads were not followed as thoroughly as they should have been.
29:33
Speaker 2: Then in twenty thirteen, Dana's case made headlines again. On
29:37
Speaker 2: May eleventh of that year, a fifty four year old
29:39
Speaker 2: woman named Annette Rapoley was found barely alive by two
29:43
Speaker 2: men on horseback near her home in Bella Vista. She
29:46
Speaker 2: had been beaten, shot in the face, and left for dead,
29:50
Speaker 2: according to court documents. In addition to the gunshot wounds,
29:54
Speaker 2: she had a wound on her chest that appeared as
29:57
Speaker 2: though she'd been kicked. The man charged with attempted capital
30:00
Speaker 2: murder and aggravated robbery in this case was Orville Mitchell Goodwin,
30:05
Speaker 2: now sixty two. This made police remember the sixteen year
30:10
Speaker 2: old who gave the police that tip about Orvile Goodwin.
30:13
Speaker 2: He was a resident of Bella Vista and he had
30:16
Speaker 2: been in the area at around the time when Dana vanished.
30:26
Speaker 2: Orville Goodwin targeted a Net because they were acquaintances. He
30:31
Speaker 2: came over to her house one day to go with
30:33
Speaker 2: her to cash a five hundred dollars check that she
30:35
Speaker 2: had gotten from a neighbor. Then he brutally attacked her.
30:40
Speaker 2: He was sentenced to twelve years in prison for a
30:42
Speaker 2: Net's attack. According to prison records, he's been paroled. The
30:47
Speaker 2: Benton County Sheriff's office reopened Dana's case in twenty thirteen.
30:51
Speaker 2: At the time they said they planned to question Mike again,
30:54
Speaker 2: and they also mentioned Orville's name, But it seems like
30:57
Speaker 2: the case against orvald never went anywhere. There were no
31:01
Speaker 2: concrete facts. I keep coming back to victimology. What was
31:07
Speaker 2: Dana doing on the day she disappeared. She wasn't headed
31:10
Speaker 2: out to a party or to a date. She was
31:12
Speaker 2: getting groceries.
31:13
Speaker 1: For her dad.
31:15
Speaker 2: I look at what her cousin Christy told NBC News
31:18
Speaker 2: she said, quote, we all know she was really responsible,
31:21
Speaker 2: and she knew her dad was waiting on the medicine,
31:24
Speaker 2: so we knew something happened to her.
31:26
Speaker 1: She wouldn't let her dad wait on that end.
31:29
Speaker 2: Quote.
31:30
Speaker 1: Remember, this was the middle of the day in broad daylight.
31:33
Speaker 1: So where does this leave us.
31:35
Speaker 2: Well, in my opinion, the fact that this happened in
31:38
Speaker 2: the middle of the day does make it more likely
31:41
Speaker 2: it was someone Dana knew rather than a random stranger.
31:46
Speaker 2: There was someone else who police questioned early in the investigation.
31:50
Speaker 2: There was a former employee at the Phillips food store.
31:53
Speaker 2: And all of the facts are circumstantial, but they are
31:56
Speaker 2: somewhat interesting. This person apparently lived fairly near the area
31:59
Speaker 2: where Dana's clothing was discovered. They drove a Toyota pick
32:03
Speaker 2: up with a camper shell. This was someone who other
32:06
Speaker 2: employees told law enforcement had a habit of sexually harassing women.
32:11
Speaker 2: So my question is, was that person the worker who
32:17
Speaker 2: had a history of sexually harassing women who came to
32:19
Speaker 2: the store the same guy, the older guy whom Dana
32:22
Speaker 2: was seen talking to in the parking lot, And what
32:24
Speaker 2: about the landscaper, the one who said that he saw
32:27
Speaker 2: her driving out of the parking lot. Where was he
32:30
Speaker 2: and how does he fit into this? By the way,
32:34
Speaker 2: someone who have never seen mentioned in any media reports
32:37
Speaker 2: was Dana's ex boyfriend, but he is mentioned in the
32:40
Speaker 2: police report.
32:41
Speaker 1: His name was Danny. Dana and Danny.
32:44
Speaker 2: Had met the year before. They dated pretty seriously. At
32:47
Speaker 2: one point they were apparently talking about getting engaged. Then
32:51
Speaker 2: things ended, and from what I've heard, it was not
32:53
Speaker 2: a particularly friendly ending. On the day Dana went missing,
32:57
Speaker 2: Danny called into work sick, but he did have an alibi.
33:01
Speaker 2: According to the police report, he went to his new
33:03
Speaker 2: girlfriend's house and stayed there until five pm. And I
33:08
Speaker 2: know it's a small town, but it turns out that
33:11
Speaker 2: there are connections between a lot of these people that
33:13
Speaker 2: really haven't been explored. For example, Danny and Mike were
33:17
Speaker 2: close friends. I've heard they lived together at one point,
33:21
Speaker 2: but I really don't know if that's true. That's just
33:23
Speaker 2: something I heard. I've not been able to confirm that.
33:27
Speaker 2: After Danny called in sick that day to work, he
33:30
Speaker 2: said he was with his girlfriend until five pm. Then
33:33
Speaker 2: he said he drove to a friend's house, but that
33:35
Speaker 2: friend wasn't home, so he went back home, and then
33:38
Speaker 2: later that night another friend of his, whose name police
33:41
Speaker 2: have by the way, came over at around ten pm. So,
33:45
Speaker 2: as we said before, Mike also spent a large part
33:49
Speaker 2: of the evening just driving around side Note this was
33:53
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty nine. A lot of the men in this
33:55
Speaker 2: case had alibis that were not I would say ideal,
33:58
Speaker 2: as in, there was some missing time they were driving around,
34:01
Speaker 2: they were with one person, maybe their significant other, and
34:04
Speaker 2: not a lot of witnesses saw them. Now this is
34:07
Speaker 2: not to suggest at all they were lying about anything.
34:10
Speaker 2: It's just not that easy to verify. I would love
34:13
Speaker 2: to go back and re explore those alibis. In addition
34:16
Speaker 2: to that, I do think it's important to remember back
34:18
Speaker 2: then people were not accounted for twenty four to seven
34:21
Speaker 2: in the same way they are now. People did not
34:23
Speaker 2: have GPS, they didn't have cell phones. It was very
34:26
Speaker 2: common to be out for several hours and for people
34:29
Speaker 2: not to be able to reach you period. And in
34:32
Speaker 2: that part of the world, there are not a lot
34:34
Speaker 2: of witnesses driving around at night. But I keep coming
34:38
Speaker 2: back to Dana her habits, her victimology because despite tips
34:42
Speaker 2: from that young woman who thought she saw Dana out
34:45
Speaker 2: that night. Without more evidence, I actually would find that
34:48
Speaker 2: pretty hard to believe. Dana knew that her father needed
34:51
Speaker 2: his medicine, She was not dressed for a night out.
34:54
Speaker 2: She had laundry in the washing machine, She had other
34:57
Speaker 2: clothes in her car, probably more laundry to do. She
35:00
Speaker 2: was home to see her dad and spend some time
35:02
Speaker 2: with him. Every indication was that this was a young
35:05
Speaker 2: woman who was headed home. We can't discount without more evidence,
35:09
Speaker 2: the theory that she stopped to check her tire. But
35:12
Speaker 2: the car was drivable, and she was only about four
35:15
Speaker 2: miles from her parents' house. So I wonder would she
35:18
Speaker 2: not have driven home and gotten her dad or her
35:20
Speaker 2: brother or someone else to deal with that tire. She
35:23
Speaker 2: could have run another errand while she was out. Maybe
35:26
Speaker 2: she stopped by to see someone she knew, someone the
35:29
Speaker 2: police don't know about. Dana's father and brother have passed away.
35:35
Speaker 2: Her mother, Georgia, died in twenty twenty three. Before she died,
35:40
Speaker 2: Georgia told NBC, quote, I don't want to go to
35:43
Speaker 2: my grave not knowing nobody should ever have to lose
35:46
Speaker 2: a child.
35:47
Speaker 1: End quote.
35:48
Speaker 2: And it's tragic that Georgia did. She was interviewed by
35:52
Speaker 2: the journalist m William Phelps, who did a podcast called
35:55
Speaker 2: Paper Ghosts about Dana's case. The interview happened before Georgia
36:00
Speaker 2: passed away in December of twenty twenty three.
36:03
Speaker 1: She never gave.
36:04
Speaker 2: Up on getting answered about what really happened to her daughter.
36:08
Speaker 2: But there are other family members out there. I would
36:11
Speaker 2: love to help find answers for them and for Dana,
36:15
Speaker 2: and also for the community, because remember, a killer could
36:20
Speaker 2: still be out there. There are a lot of threads
36:28
Speaker 2: in this case that have not been explored. I feel
36:31
Speaker 2: like there are pieces of this puzzle that are missing,
36:33
Speaker 2: even years and decades later. We're going to go a
36:37
Speaker 2: lot more in depth on some of these angles next week,
36:40
Speaker 2: because it turns out there were a lot of unsolved
36:42
Speaker 2: disappearances around Bellavista, Arkansas, near that time, including the body
36:48
Speaker 2: of a woman in a suitcase that has never been solved.
36:51
Speaker 2: What happened after Dana drove out of that Phillips food
36:54
Speaker 2: store parking lot. Was this a love quarrel gone wrong,
36:57
Speaker 2: a sexual assault both neither, or could there have been
37:02
Speaker 2: as some people believe, a serial killer stalking Bellovis to Arkansas.
37:07
Speaker 2: I'm Katherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen
37:16
Speaker 2: Gone Murder Line is a production of School of Humans
37:18
Speaker 2: and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated by me, Katherine
37:21
Speaker 2: Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts.
37:24
Speaker 1: Music contributed by Ben Sale.
37:26
Speaker 2: Special thanks to Amy Tubbs for her research assistance.
37:29
Speaker 1: Noah camer mixed and scored this episode.
37:32
Speaker 2: Executive producers of Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and Else Crowley.
37:37
Speaker 2: Listen to Helen Gone ad free by subscribing to the
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Speaker 2: iHeart True Crime Plus channel on Apple Podcasts. You can
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Speaker 2: follow the show on Instagram at Helen Gone pod. If
37:47
Speaker 2: you have a case you'd like me and my team
37:49
Speaker 2: to look into, you can reach out to us at
37:51
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