Latest / Crime and Horror / Neighborhood gossip led them to the KILLER
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: On the morning of December tenth, nineteen ninety five, a
- 0:03Speaker 1: seasoned homicide detective walked into a house on a quiet
- 0:06Speaker 1: street in the suburbs of Tucson, Arizona. Another officer led
- 0:10Speaker 1: him down the hallway to a bedroom, and when the
- 0:12Speaker 1: detective looked inside, he froze. Now, he'd seen a lot
- 0:15Speaker 1: of crime scenes before, but this one had to be
- 0:18Speaker 1: one of the worst.
- 0:19Speaker 2: I mean, there was blood everywhere, all.
- 0:21Speaker 1: Over the walls, all over the floors, the mattress. I mean,
- 0:24Speaker 1: it was just a complete nightmare. But as much as
- 0:27Speaker 1: it appeared like clearly he's looking at the scene of.
- 0:29Speaker 2: A murder, there was a problem. There was no body.
- 0:33Speaker 1: But before we get into that story, if you're a
- 0:35Speaker 1: fan of the strange, dark and mysterious delivered in story format,
- 0:39Speaker 1: then you come to the right place, because that's all
- 0:41Speaker 1: we do, and we upload two, three.
- 0:42Speaker 2: Even four times a week.
- 0:44Speaker 1: So if that's of interest to you, please hide mouse
- 0:47Speaker 1: traps in all of.
- 0:48Speaker 2: The light buttoned shoes. Also, please subscribe to our.
- 0:50Speaker 1: Channel and turn on all notifications so you don't miss
- 0:53Speaker 1: any of our weekly uploads. Okay, let's get into today's story.
- 1:16Speaker 1: On the morning of December eighth, nineteen ninety five, a
- 1:19Speaker 1: forty one year old mother named Bonnie Sanborn set a
- 1:22Speaker 1: box of cereal down on the dining room table inside
- 1:24Speaker 1: of her home in Tucson, Arizona. She then called for
- 1:27Speaker 1: her three kids to come eat breakfast, and just a
- 1:29Speaker 1: few seconds later, her youngest son, ten year old Brandon,
- 1:33Speaker 1: came bombing into the room and sat down at the table.
- 1:36Speaker 1: Bonnie then poured herself a cup of coffee and carried
- 1:38Speaker 1: it down the hallway to her thirteen year old.
- 1:40Speaker 2: Daughter, Candace's room.
- 1:42Speaker 1: Candace was busy putting on makeup, and when Bonnie reminded
- 1:45Speaker 1: her that it was almost time to leave for school,
- 1:47Speaker 1: she just rolled her eyes and said, you know, she'd
- 1:49Speaker 1: be out in a minute. Then Bonnie continued going down
- 1:51Speaker 1: the hallway and knocked on the door of her fifteen
- 1:54Speaker 1: year old son Bradley's room, and when he didn't open
- 1:56Speaker 1: the door, she shouted through the door that if he
- 1:59Speaker 1: didn't get out of bed soon, she would come in
- 2:00Speaker 1: there and literally drag him out. But there was still
- 2:03Speaker 1: no response after she did this, so Bonnie put her
- 2:05Speaker 1: ear to the door and listened for movement. She was
- 2:08Speaker 1: hoping to hear sheets rustling or dresser drawers opening, but
- 2:12Speaker 1: she didn't hear those sounds. Instead, she heard a different sound.
- 2:15Speaker 1: It was like this weird clanking sound, like metal pounding
- 2:19Speaker 1: against metal. And so because this noise was so unusual,
- 2:22Speaker 1: she just opened up the door and she found her son, Bradley,
- 2:26Speaker 1: along with his friend eighteen year old Jason Horbachevski, squatting
- 2:30Speaker 1: in the middle of the room, trying to pry open
- 2:32Speaker 1: this big metal box with a crowbar and a hammer.
- 2:36Speaker 1: Bonnie stepped fully inside the room to get a better look,
- 2:39Speaker 1: and she saw there was a phone receiver dangling off
- 2:41Speaker 1: the side of this metal box. It was clearly a
- 2:44Speaker 1: payphone that Bradley and Jason had clearly stolen from somewhere
- 2:48Speaker 1: out on the street, and now they were trying to
- 2:50Speaker 1: steal the quarters out from inside of it. Bonnie was
- 2:53Speaker 1: so shocked that all she could thing to do was
- 2:55Speaker 1: just say what are you doing? And Bradley, he looked
- 2:58Speaker 1: at his mom and just seemed told totally unfazed that
- 3:00Speaker 1: she was in there, and he just said, what, We're
- 3:02Speaker 1: just trying to get the change out of this payphone.
- 3:06Speaker 1: And then before she could react to that, Jason, so,
- 3:09Speaker 1: her son's friend, he looked over her shoulder at her
- 3:11Speaker 1: also very nonchalantly, and just began laughing in a way
- 3:15Speaker 1: that made Bonnie wonder if he was high on something.
- 3:18Speaker 1: At this point, Bonnie just stepped back into the hallway
- 3:20Speaker 1: and just tried to think through what she should even
- 3:23Speaker 1: do here. I mean, this is so obvious that they're
- 3:26Speaker 1: committing a crime in her house right now, like what
- 3:28Speaker 1: in the world. But at the same time, you know,
- 3:31Speaker 1: she'd been having problems with her son, Bradley for a
- 3:33Speaker 1: long time. Now. You know, this was definitely not the
- 3:35Speaker 1: first time she had caught her son, you know, doing
- 3:38Speaker 1: something bad. Her son had been known to throw parties
- 3:42Speaker 1: in their house that he definitely was not supposed to.
- 3:45Speaker 1: He would pick fights with basically everybody in the house,
- 3:48Speaker 1: all the family members, and on top of that, she
- 3:50Speaker 1: also knew that periodically he would hang out with known
- 3:54Speaker 1: gang members. Now, for a while, Bonnie had tried to
- 3:57Speaker 1: be understanding and supportive because she remembered how hard it
- 4:01Speaker 1: was to be a teenager herself, But her son's trouble
- 4:04Speaker 1: really just kept escalating, and this, this payphone thing, was
- 4:08Speaker 1: like a breaking point.
- 4:09Speaker 2: She knew she could not let something like this slide.
- 4:12Speaker 1: I mean, it was literally criminal and so obviously so,
- 4:15Speaker 1: you know, and if she didn't step in now it
- 4:17Speaker 1: was clear her son would just continue to push the
- 4:19Speaker 1: limits further and further until he got hurt, or got
- 4:23Speaker 1: somebody else hurt, or you know.
- 4:24Speaker 2: Wound up in jail or something like.
- 4:26Speaker 1: This was the moment she had to put her foot down,
- 4:28Speaker 1: and so, without saying another word to her son or Jason,
- 4:32Speaker 1: who were now back to banging on this metal box,
- 4:35Speaker 1: she just turned and walked back into the kitchen where
- 4:37Speaker 1: her other kids, Brandon and Candace, were now eating their
- 4:40Speaker 1: breakfast and looking annoyed by all the chaos being caused
- 4:43Speaker 1: by their older brother, and she walked right past them,
- 4:46Speaker 1: picked up the phone and she called nine to one one,
- 4:48Speaker 1: and when the dispatcher picked up her call, Annie said
- 4:52Speaker 1: she wanted to report a theft, and she gave the
- 4:54Speaker 1: dispatcher her own address, and then after she hung up,
- 4:57Speaker 1: she told Candace and Brandon to go get their ba
- 5:00Speaker 1: and go outside so they didn't miss the bus. A
- 5:08Speaker 1: few minutes later, Bonnie heard a knock on the front
- 5:10Speaker 1: door and she opened it up to find two sheriff's
- 5:13Speaker 1: deputies standing on the doorstep. She actually recognized the deputies,
- 5:17Speaker 1: and she knew they also recognized her, because this was
- 5:20Speaker 1: not the first time they'd been called to the Sanborn house.
- 5:23Speaker 1: They'd been there several times actually, recently to deal with
- 5:26Speaker 1: domestic issues largely caused by her son. But Bonnie knew,
- 5:30Speaker 1: you know, Bradley, even though he was the obvious main problem,
- 5:33Speaker 1: at least in terms of her current issues. She was
- 5:36Speaker 1: already seeing that her thirteen year old child, Candace, had
- 5:39Speaker 1: begun acting out a lot lately, and she was also
- 5:42Speaker 1: worried what would happen when her ten year old Brandon
- 5:45Speaker 1: became a teenager himself, Like would he begin, you know,
- 5:47Speaker 1: following the footsteps of his brother and maybe his older
- 5:50Speaker 1: sister as well.
- 5:50Speaker 2: She didn't know, but she just couldn't.
- 5:52Speaker 1: Understand why her kids just were misbehaving so much, like
- 5:56Speaker 1: what did she do wrong? And so Bonnie showed the
- 5:58Speaker 1: deputies to Bradley's room, where he and Jason were still
- 6:01Speaker 1: actively trying to pry open this payphone. And when Bradley
- 6:05Speaker 1: looked up and saw the police, he looked furious. He
- 6:09Speaker 1: screamed at his mother that he couldn't believe she'd call
- 6:11Speaker 1: the cops on him. But Bonnie you know, she did
- 6:13Speaker 1: her best to push down the natural bit of guilt
- 6:16Speaker 1: she was feeling, you know, because she didn't want to
- 6:18Speaker 1: have to call the cops on her son. The deputies
- 6:21Speaker 1: ultimately handcuffed both Bradley and Jason, and they walked them outside,
- 6:25Speaker 1: and Bonnie trailed right behind them. And then as the
- 6:27Speaker 1: police were putting the kids in the back of the
- 6:29Speaker 1: squad car, Bonnie pulled one of the deputies aside and
- 6:32Speaker 1: asked if he could make sure Bradley spent at least
- 6:35Speaker 1: one night in the juvenile detention center. She knew this
- 6:38Speaker 1: was a very tough love sort of approach, I mean,
- 6:41Speaker 1: basically demanding your kid stays effectively in jail overnight, but
- 6:45Speaker 1: she was also hoping that in addition to being maybe
- 6:48Speaker 1: scared straight here, he would also get counseling in the
- 6:51Speaker 1: juvenile detention center and maybe begin to see the value
- 6:55Speaker 1: of staying out of trouble. The deputy nodded and said
- 6:58Speaker 1: he'd see what he could do. As the squad car
- 7:00Speaker 1: drove away, Bonnie saw movement in a window of the
- 7:03Speaker 1: house across the street. She squinted and saw that one
- 7:05Speaker 1: of her neighbors was peering out the curtains to get
- 7:07Speaker 1: a look at all the commotion. And then further down
- 7:10Speaker 1: the street, a couple out for a morning jog had
- 7:13Speaker 1: slowed down and was just staring at the squad car
- 7:15Speaker 1: as they passed by. And now for Bonnie, I mean,
- 7:18Speaker 1: she wasn't that surprised. I mean, she'd be looking out
- 7:20Speaker 1: the window too if police showed up on her street.
- 7:23Speaker 1: But at the same time, it still made her very embarrassed.
- 7:26Speaker 2: I mean, she knew people in this.
- 7:28Speaker 1: Neighborhood were already very aware of her family's problems and
- 7:31Speaker 1: it was a lot to bear. And frankly, making it
- 7:34Speaker 1: even worse was the fact that generally speaking, Bonnie's neighbors
- 7:38Speaker 1: were nice to her in person. When they were face
- 7:40Speaker 1: to face with her, people even like went out of
- 7:42Speaker 1: their way to help her, you know, But she knew
- 7:45Speaker 1: behind her back, people in this neighborhood gossiped constantly about
- 7:50Speaker 1: her family. Now for Bonnie this was obviously humiliating and
- 7:53Speaker 1: also very frustrating, because how could she possibly stop gossip.
- 7:57Speaker 2: I mean she couldn't.
- 7:58Speaker 1: But more than just dislike it the fact that there
- 8:00Speaker 1: were all these people talking about her, she also just
- 8:03Speaker 1: felt very isolated. Right now, she was married, but her husband, Robert,
- 8:08Speaker 1: had gotten a job in Maryland and he only came
- 8:10Speaker 1: home every other weekend. Bonnie had actually tried to sell
- 8:13Speaker 1: the house in Tucson and moved the whole family to Maryland,
- 8:16Speaker 1: but she'd eventually decided it just wasn't really worth the trouble. Plus,
- 8:20Speaker 1: Robert had already talked to a supervisor about potentially transferring
- 8:23Speaker 1: back to Tucson, and he was supposed to be coming
- 8:26Speaker 1: back for good just next week. And so at this
- 8:28Speaker 1: point Bonnie was just trying to survive here. You know,
- 8:31Speaker 1: she still felt very isolated, but she knew, you know, Robert,
- 8:34Speaker 1: he'd be back soon and she wouldn't be alone anymore,
- 8:36Speaker 1: and she would get to deal with the kids, with
- 8:38Speaker 1: the nosy neighbors, with the police, with her partner. It
- 8:42Speaker 1: just felt like that would be a whole lot better.
- 8:49Speaker 1: About sixteen hours later, around eleven forty five pm that night,
- 8:53Speaker 1: Bonnie brushed her teeth and put on her pjs. The
- 8:56Speaker 1: house was quiet for once, except for the TV humming
- 8:58Speaker 1: in the living room. She'd gotten a call from the
- 9:01Speaker 1: juvenile detention center that afternoon, and Bradley was being held
- 9:04Speaker 1: there on theft charges, which Bonnie thought was for the best,
- 9:08Speaker 1: but his friend Jason was eighteen years old, so he
- 9:11Speaker 1: was not held. Instead, he was just given a ticket
- 9:14Speaker 1: and released the same day, and Bonnie knew that as
- 9:17Speaker 1: soon as Bradley was out again, he and Jason would
- 9:20Speaker 1: reconnect right away and just fall right back into their
- 9:22Speaker 1: same old antics. Before she went to bed, Bonnie went
- 9:25Speaker 1: to the living room where her other two kids, Candice
- 9:28Speaker 1: and Brandon, were on the couch watching TV, and she
- 9:31Speaker 1: told them it was time for bed time, to turn
- 9:32Speaker 1: off the TV and go to your rooms, but they
- 9:34Speaker 1: just ignored her and just continued to watch TV. It
- 9:37Speaker 1: was a Friday night and the two kids didn't have
- 9:39Speaker 1: anywhere to be in the morning, and Bonnie had just
- 9:42Speaker 1: done enough fighting for the day, so she just decided,
- 9:44Speaker 1: you know what, let them stay up. They can go
- 9:46Speaker 1: to bed when they want to. And so she told
- 9:48Speaker 1: the kids to you know, don't stay up too late
- 9:49Speaker 1: and go to bed soon. Then she left, you know,
- 9:52Speaker 1: leaving them on the couch.
- 9:53Speaker 2: She went to her own bedroom and she turned out
- 9:55Speaker 2: her lights.
- 9:56Speaker 1: A few hours later, Bonnie woke up and looked over
- 9:59Speaker 1: at the clock and saw it was near three am,
- 10:02Speaker 1: and she also could still hear the TV on out
- 10:04Speaker 1: in the living room, and so Bonnie cracked open her
- 10:06Speaker 1: door and yelled down the hallway to the kids to
- 10:09Speaker 1: turn off the TV and go to bed. And then
- 10:11Speaker 1: as Bonnie got back in her bed, she heard the
- 10:14Speaker 1: sound of the TV turning off, and she heard footsteps
- 10:16Speaker 1: walking down the hallway, and then the house was quiet.
- 10:19Speaker 2: And she drifted back to sleep.
- 10:21Speaker 1: But some time before dawn, when it was still dark out,
- 10:24Speaker 1: she woke up again, and when she rolled over in
- 10:27Speaker 1: her bed, she opened her eyes and she saw there
- 10:30Speaker 1: was a large figure standing over her bed. Later that
- 10:36Speaker 1: same morning, around ten forty five am, ten year old
- 10:39Speaker 1: Brandon woke up to a eerily silent house. Normally, his
- 10:43Speaker 1: mother would have already been awake, making breakfast or getting
- 10:45Speaker 1: started on chores, but when he went out in the hallway,
- 10:48Speaker 1: he didn't hear. He went into the kitchen and he
- 10:51Speaker 1: checked to see if she was there, but she wasn't,
- 10:53Speaker 1: and there were no dirty pans or plates in the sink,
- 10:55Speaker 1: and no coffee in the pot. It looked like his
- 10:58Speaker 1: mom hadn't even woke up yet, which was weird for
- 11:00Speaker 1: a Saturday morning. So he went to ask his older sister, Candace,
- 11:03Speaker 1: if she knew where their mom was, but Candace said
- 11:06Speaker 1: she hadn't seen her. So Brandon and Candace both went
- 11:09Speaker 1: down the hallway.
- 11:09Speaker 2: To their mother's bedroom.
- 11:11Speaker 1: They knocked on the door, and when she didn't answer,
- 11:14Speaker 1: Brandon pushed the door open and looked inside, and what
- 11:18Speaker 1: he saw made him gasp in horror. The bedroom was
- 11:22Speaker 1: covered in blood, but the bedroom was also empty. His
- 11:26Speaker 1: mom wasn't in there.
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- 11:35Speaker 1: The other day, I had some family and friends over
- 11:37Speaker 1: and I couldn't wait to introduce them to my mochi.
- 11:41Speaker 1: We all shared the mango, the strawberry, and cookies and cream,
- 11:45Speaker 1: and unsurprisingly, everybody loved it. We even made a quick
- 11:49Speaker 1: run to the supermarket afterwards to get more. Because sometimes
- 11:52Speaker 1: the most simple pleasures in life bring the most joy,
- 11:55Speaker 1: like the joyfully chill sensation of biting into refreshing, creamy,
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- 12:15Speaker 1: comes in delicious flavors like strawberry, cookies and cream and mango.
- 12:19Speaker 1: My Mochi is only around seventy calories per apiece, and
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- 12:26Speaker 1: individual mochis. If you haven't tried Mimochi, you really don't
- 12:29Speaker 1: want to miss out on this joyfully chill experience. Look
- 12:32Speaker 1: for the purple box of Mymochi ice Cream in the
- 12:34Speaker 1: freezer ale of your local grocery store. Later that same morning,
- 12:43Speaker 1: Detective Brad Faust pulled up outside of a house in
- 12:45Speaker 1: the suburbs of Tucson. He was there to investigate a
- 12:48Speaker 1: mother's apparent kidnapping from her own home. Faust was actually
- 12:52Speaker 1: feeling a bit frustrated to be called out to yet
- 12:54Speaker 1: another case like this when he was already juggling so
- 12:57Speaker 1: many others. Nineteen ninety five had proven to be the
- 13:01Speaker 1: deadliest year in Tucson's history. There had already been nearly
- 13:04Speaker 1: a hundred murders just that year, and the Pima County
- 13:07Speaker 1: Sheriff's office was swamped. But as far as anyone knew
- 13:10Speaker 1: at this point, this was not a murder. It was
- 13:13Speaker 1: a kidnapping, you know. All Faust had been told was
- 13:15Speaker 1: that Bonnie Sanborn was missing. And her kids had called
- 13:18Speaker 1: nine one one after seeing that, and also.
- 13:20Speaker 2: Seeing all the blood in her bedroom.
- 13:22Speaker 1: So Faust was holding out hope here that this was
- 13:25Speaker 1: actually nothing that serious and that they would find Bonnie
- 13:28Speaker 1: relatively quickly and she'd be okay. He got out of
- 13:31Speaker 1: his car and he saw that officers had already taped
- 13:33Speaker 1: off the house. There was a young boy and girls
- 13:36Speaker 1: sitting out on the front curb, looking terrified and visibly distraught,
- 13:40Speaker 1: and Faust also noticed that there was blood on both
- 13:42Speaker 1: of their shirts, and so he figured that they must
- 13:45Speaker 1: be Bonnie's kids, the ones who had made the nine
- 13:47Speaker 1: to one one call, and he made a mental note
- 13:49Speaker 1: that he would need to talk to them later. Then
- 13:51Speaker 1: he walked through the front yard and went into the house,
- 13:54Speaker 1: and right away a crime scene photographer greeted him and
- 13:56Speaker 1: then led him down the hallway. As he walked, Faust
- 13:59Speaker 1: caught a glenn of a family photo on the wall
- 14:01Speaker 1: which showed Bonnie and her husband and their three kids,
- 14:04Speaker 1: all smiling and looking like the perfect all American family.
- 14:07Speaker 1: Before opening the door to Bonnie's bedroom, the photographer paused
- 14:11Speaker 1: and warned the detective that there really was a lot
- 14:13Speaker 1: of blood in here. Faus nodded, and then the photographer
- 14:16Speaker 1: opened the door, and Faust immediately saw what he was
- 14:19Speaker 1: talking about.
- 14:20Speaker 2: I mean, there was blood spattered all over the walls,
- 14:23Speaker 2: the floor, the windows, and the mattress.
- 14:25Speaker 1: He felt his heart sink as he realized that with
- 14:27Speaker 1: this much blood loss, they probably would not be finding
- 14:30Speaker 1: their victim alive here. But he knew it was going
- 14:33Speaker 1: to be very hard to figure out what had happened
- 14:35Speaker 1: here or who was responsible until they found her dead
- 14:39Speaker 1: or alive, and so Fous stepped into the room closer
- 14:42Speaker 1: to the bed where a forensic technician was swabbing for fingerprints.
- 14:45Speaker 1: The mattress was completely soaked in blood, and on one
- 14:49Speaker 1: of the pillows he could clearly see a bloody handprint.
- 14:52Speaker 1: He figured it either belonging to Bonnie or her kidnapper,
- 14:55Speaker 1: but they'd have to wait for test results to be sure.
- 14:57Speaker 1: Faus stepped back and he noticed that the shep he
- 15:00Speaker 1: had been partially pulled off the bed and were sort
- 15:02Speaker 1: of balled up on the middle of the mattress. And
- 15:05Speaker 1: to him, it seemed like, you know, given how much
- 15:08Speaker 1: blood is in here and the fact that obviously Bonnie
- 15:10Speaker 1: is not here, that clearly some sort of long and
- 15:13Speaker 1: violent struggle took place in this room, and it seemed
- 15:16Speaker 1: to him like the struggle must have originated on the bed,
- 15:19Speaker 1: and maybe even the bulk of the struggle was happening
- 15:22Speaker 1: on the bed. I mean it soaked in blood and
- 15:24Speaker 1: the sheets were all messed up, and he's thinking, you know,
- 15:27Speaker 1: very likely then Bonnie was in bed when the attack began.
- 15:31Speaker 1: Faust also noticed there was a folding knife with a
- 15:34Speaker 1: red handle on the mattress, and there was also a purse.
- 15:36Speaker 2: That had been poured out.
- 15:37Speaker 1: There were multiple credit cards and a check book that
- 15:40Speaker 1: were just sitting on the bed, and the fact that
- 15:42Speaker 1: these items were not stolen made Faust think that robbery
- 15:46Speaker 1: probably was not part of the motive for whatever happened
- 15:49Speaker 1: to Bonnie. But then something on the floor by the
- 15:52Speaker 1: bed caught Faust's eye. After double checking that the room
- 15:55Speaker 1: had already been photographed, Faust put on a paragloves and
- 15:58Speaker 1: then crouched down and he picked it up, and what
- 16:01Speaker 1: it was was a small brown button. He carried it
- 16:04Speaker 1: over to the closet and dug through Bonnie's clothes that
- 16:07Speaker 1: were in there, and the button didn't seem to match
- 16:09Speaker 1: anything that she owned, and so based on where it
- 16:12Speaker 1: was found in the room, Faus thought, you know, this
- 16:15Speaker 1: button must have come off of somebody's clothes in the
- 16:17Speaker 1: middle of this attack. It obviously could belong to Bonnie.
- 16:21Speaker 1: It could have come off with what she was wearing
- 16:22Speaker 1: and maybe is still wearing. Or this button could have
- 16:26Speaker 1: come off of the attacker's close and so Faus gave
- 16:29Speaker 1: the button to a forensics officer and told him to
- 16:31Speaker 1: bag it up.
- 16:32Speaker 2: Then he kept looking around, and.
- 16:34Speaker 1: In the midst of all the blood that had been
- 16:36Speaker 1: sprayed all over the room, he noticed there was a
- 16:39Speaker 1: clear trail of red droplets that snaked across the carpet.
- 16:42Speaker 1: The trail led to a sliding glass door that led
- 16:45Speaker 1: into the backyard, and when he tried to open it,
- 16:47Speaker 1: he realized it was already unlocked. The forensics officer told
- 16:51Speaker 1: him that nobody had touched that door all morning, so
- 16:53Speaker 1: it must have been unlocked before anybody arrived. Faus slid
- 16:57Speaker 1: the door open and stepped out into the backyard, and
- 17:00Speaker 1: he followed the trail of blood across the grass all
- 17:03Speaker 1: the way to a door that led into the garage.
- 17:05Speaker 1: He noticed there were no drag marks in the grass,
- 17:08Speaker 1: so Bonnie's attacker must have been carrying her, which sort
- 17:11Speaker 1: of naturally suggested that whoever did this likely was bigger
- 17:15Speaker 1: and stronger than Bonnie. But also, judging from the photos
- 17:18Speaker 1: he'd seen on the walls, Bonnie was very petite, so
- 17:21Speaker 1: really that didn't narrow it down very much. A lot
- 17:24Speaker 1: of people could potentially lift Bonnie and carry her.
- 17:27Speaker 2: Faust reached the.
- 17:27Speaker 1: Door that led into the garage, and he turned the
- 17:30Speaker 1: knob and it was unlocked. He opened it up, and
- 17:32Speaker 1: when he looked inside, there wasn't a car in there,
- 17:35Speaker 1: but the trail of blood clearly went into the garage
- 17:38Speaker 1: at least a few feet before it disappeared. So it
- 17:41Speaker 1: seemed like the suspect had literally carried Bonnie in here,
- 17:45Speaker 1: loaded her into the car that likely was in here
- 17:48Speaker 1: and now was not, and they drove it away, carrying
- 17:50Speaker 1: Bonnie with them. And so Faust knew his best shot
- 17:54Speaker 1: at finding Bonnie was to one identify the car that
- 17:57Speaker 1: would normally be in this garage, and then once you
- 18:00Speaker 1: have the identity of the car, to go find it.
- 18:07Speaker 1: Once Faust had done his initial sweep of the house,
- 18:10Speaker 1: he went outside and he crouched down next to Bonnie's
- 18:13Speaker 1: two younger kids, Candace and Brandon, and both kids were
- 18:16Speaker 1: still very shaken up and totally confused, and so Faust
- 18:20Speaker 1: very gently asked them about the last time they had
- 18:23Speaker 1: seen their mother, and Candace said it was around maybe
- 18:26Speaker 1: eleven forty five the night before, when their mom had
- 18:29Speaker 1: gone to bed, but she also added that maybe around
- 18:31Speaker 1: three AM, she and her brother Brandon were still up
- 18:34Speaker 1: watching TV in the living room and their mom had
- 18:37Speaker 1: shouted from her bedroom for them to turn off the
- 18:39Speaker 1: TV and go to bed. She said that when their
- 18:42Speaker 1: mom did that, they did get up, they turned off
- 18:44Speaker 1: the TV, and they went to their own bedrooms and
- 18:46Speaker 1: went to sleep, and both kids said they didn't hear
- 18:49Speaker 1: or see anything until they woke up later that morning
- 18:52Speaker 1: and found what they found in their mother's bedroom. And
- 18:55Speaker 1: so this gave Fous something to work with because it meant,
- 18:57Speaker 1: if what the kids were saying was true, that Bonnie
- 19:00Speaker 1: must have disappeared sometime after three AM, because that's when
- 19:04Speaker 1: she yelled to her kids at three. Plus, if the
- 19:07Speaker 1: suspect came in through that back sliding door that went
- 19:10Speaker 1: right into Bonnie's room and they were able to do
- 19:12Speaker 1: so without waking up the kids, and then after the
- 19:15Speaker 1: attack being able to find very likely Bonnie's car keys,
- 19:18Speaker 1: because that's the assumption they found her keys and then
- 19:21Speaker 1: loaded Bonnie into the car and drove off again without
- 19:25Speaker 1: waking anybody in the house. It suggested that whoever did this,
- 19:29Speaker 1: they likely were relatively familiar with the layout of the
- 19:32Speaker 1: house and had probably been there before, so maybe this
- 19:36Speaker 1: is somebody that they all knew. Fous pointed to the
- 19:38Speaker 1: blood that was on Candace and Brandon shirts, and he
- 19:40Speaker 1: asked them where it came from, and Candace would admit
- 19:43Speaker 1: that before she called nine one one, she and her
- 19:46Speaker 1: brother had desperately gone looking for their mom in the room,
- 19:50Speaker 1: in this horrible, bloody bedroom, but they couldn't find her,
- 19:53Speaker 1: and in their efforts to find her, they had gotten
- 19:55Speaker 1: blood on themselves.
- 19:56Speaker 2: Now, of course.
- 19:57Speaker 1: Faust understood that these kids had been through this hole
- 20:00Speaker 1: horribly traumatic thing, and they were just looking for their mom,
- 20:03Speaker 1: But he also now knew that very likely their crime
- 20:06Speaker 1: scene was contaminated now because the kids went in there
- 20:09Speaker 1: and touched a bunch of stuff. But of course he
- 20:11Speaker 1: did not tell the kids that he was in any
- 20:12Speaker 1: way annoyed with them or that they had done anything wrong. Instead,
- 20:16Speaker 1: he just told the kids to go inside and change
- 20:18Speaker 1: their clothes and then give the clothes that had blood
- 20:21Speaker 1: on them to the forensics texts because they needed to
- 20:24Speaker 1: collect them as evidence, and he also told the kids
- 20:27Speaker 1: to not go anywhere near at their mother's bedroom. Candace
- 20:30Speaker 1: nodded and stood up and grabbed her little brother by
- 20:32Speaker 1: the hand, and as they walked back towards the house,
- 20:35Speaker 1: a sheriff's deputy came up to Faust and told the
- 20:38Speaker 1: detective that he should also make sure to talk to
- 20:40Speaker 1: Bonnie's oldest child. She had a fifteen year old son
- 20:43Speaker 1: whose name was Bradley. That evening, detective Fous paced down
- 20:48Speaker 1: the hallway of the Pima County Juvenile Court Center holding
- 20:51Speaker 1: a file folder in his hand. When he opened the
- 20:54Speaker 1: door to a small office, a teenage boy was already
- 20:57Speaker 1: there waiting, and Faust recognized him from the mumm shot
- 21:00Speaker 1: in the folder he had as Bradley Sanborn, Bonnie's oldest child.
- 21:04Speaker 1: Faust walked in and as gently as he could, he
- 21:07Speaker 1: told Bradley that his mother was missing, and based on
- 21:10Speaker 1: the blood and the knife they'd found in her bedroom,
- 21:13Speaker 1: she'd likely been viciously attacked kidnapped, and.
- 21:15Speaker 2: She could even be dead.
- 21:17Speaker 1: So Faust knew that Bradley could not have attacked his
- 21:20Speaker 1: mother because he'd been here in the juvenile detention center
- 21:23Speaker 1: the whole time the attack took place. But Faust had
- 21:26Speaker 1: done some digging on Bradley's friends. He slapped the file
- 21:29Speaker 1: folder he was carrying down onto the desk in front
- 21:31Speaker 1: of Bradley and began flipping through it, showing Bradley the
- 21:35Speaker 1: information he'd found about, in particular his friend Jason Horbachevsky.
- 21:39Speaker 1: Jason was a known gang member, and according to several informants,
- 21:44Speaker 1: he was known for carrying a knife around and sometimes
- 21:47Speaker 1: apparently he would pull that knife out and stab himself
- 21:50Speaker 1: in the side of the head.
- 21:52Speaker 2: And so Faust wondered out.
- 21:53Speaker 1: Loud if the knife they'd found in Bonnie's bedroom was
- 21:56Speaker 1: Bradley's friend Jason's, and maybe the attack on her was
- 22:00Speaker 1: retribution for his mother calling the cops on Jason and
- 22:05Speaker 1: Bradley that morning. But when Faust looked at Bradley for
- 22:08Speaker 1: his reaction, he saw there were all these tears rolling
- 22:11Speaker 1: down his cheeks, and Bradley choked out that he really
- 22:14Speaker 1: didn't know anything, and as much as he argued with
- 22:16Speaker 1: his mom he.
- 22:17Speaker 2: Would never hurt her.
- 22:18Speaker 1: To Faust, Bradley's reaction actually seemed really genuine, and so
- 22:22Speaker 1: he immediately figured that if the gang Jason was a
- 22:25Speaker 1: part of, you know, was responsible for whatever happened to Bonnie,
- 22:29Speaker 1: Bradley appeared out of the loop, and so to get
- 22:32Speaker 1: a better read on this situation, Faust felt like, you know,
- 22:35Speaker 1: trying to ask Bradley questions was not going to go
- 22:37Speaker 1: very far. Instead, he would just go to Jason and
- 22:40Speaker 1: talk to him. Later that same night, Faust sat in
- 22:44Speaker 1: the station with a cup of coffee, combing through records
- 22:47Speaker 1: on Bradley and also on Jason and Jason's gang. After
- 22:51Speaker 1: speaking to Bradley earlier, Faust had immediately tried to locate
- 22:54Speaker 1: and interview Jason, which proved to be much more difficult
- 22:57Speaker 1: than he'd anticipated. He knew Jason was not in police
- 23:00Speaker 1: custody since he'd been released pretty much immediately after the
- 23:03Speaker 1: payphone debacle, but Jason also was not at any addresses
- 23:07Speaker 1: that he'd been associated with in the past, so it
- 23:10Speaker 1: was hard to tell where he even was.
- 23:12Speaker 2: So a few hours ago.
- 23:14Speaker 1: Faust had sent out officers to speak to as many
- 23:16Speaker 1: members of Jason's gang as possible to see if they
- 23:19Speaker 1: knew where he was, and also to see if they
- 23:22Speaker 1: knew anything about Bonnie. Now, so far they had not
- 23:25Speaker 1: located Jason, and nobody had brought anything up about Bonnie.
- 23:28Speaker 1: But just then faus office door opened and a deputy
- 23:31Speaker 1: told him there was someone he really ought to speak
- 23:33Speaker 1: to that was out in.
- 23:34Speaker 2: The lobby, and so Foust got up.
- 23:36Speaker 1: He went in the lobby, and who was waiting for
- 23:39Speaker 1: him but none other than Jason. When Faust walked out there,
- 23:42Speaker 1: Jason stood up from his chair, acting cocky and confident
- 23:46Speaker 1: and told Faust that he'd heard the Sheriff's department was
- 23:49Speaker 1: looking for him and he was there to prove he
- 23:51Speaker 1: had nothing to hide. And Faust he didn't even bother
- 23:54Speaker 1: asking where Jason had been. Instead, he just led him
- 23:57Speaker 1: into an interrogation room, and when he sat down across
- 24:00Speaker 1: from his newest suspect, he noticed the buttons on Jason's shirt.
- 24:04Speaker 1: They were small and brown, just like the button that
- 24:07Speaker 1: was found on Bonnie's bedroom floor, and also a few
- 24:11Speaker 1: of the buttons on his shirt appeared to be missing.
- 24:14Speaker 1: Now Faust controlled his excitement and didn't show it, and
- 24:17Speaker 1: decided pretty much right away that he was not going
- 24:20Speaker 1: to ask about the button, at least not at first.
- 24:22Speaker 1: He didn't want to overplay his hand. Instead, he started
- 24:25Speaker 1: the interview by asking Jason some standard questions about his
- 24:28Speaker 1: relationship with Bradley and also, by extension, his relationship with Bonnie,
- 24:33Speaker 1: Bradley's mom, and also where Jason was at the time
- 24:36Speaker 1: of the attack. And Jason would admit that he was
- 24:39Speaker 1: mad about Bonnie calling the police on him and Bradley,
- 24:42Speaker 1: but he didn't have some big plan to get revenge.
- 24:45Speaker 1: He insisted that he didn't know where Bonnie was or
- 24:48Speaker 1: what had happened to her, and he'd been at home
- 24:50Speaker 1: asleep on the night she was attacked. And at the
- 24:52Speaker 1: end of the interview he agreed to give Faust a
- 24:55Speaker 1: DNA sample, and he even turned over his shirt with
- 24:58Speaker 1: the missing brown buttons for forensic analysis. And so after that,
- 25:02Speaker 1: Faust released Jason and decided it was time to.
- 25:05Speaker 2: Call it a day.
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- 25:23Speaker 1: looking back, making that leap, despite the fear I had,
- 25:27Speaker 1: was one of the best decisions I ever made when
- 25:29Speaker 1: I started this mister Ballin adventure, because sometimes the scariest
- 25:33Speaker 1: step forward is the one that changes everything. Starting something
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- 26:08Speaker 1: ballin again. That's shopify dot com slash mister Ballin. The
- 26:16Speaker 1: next morning, Sunday, December tenth, so a day after Bonnie
- 26:19Speaker 1: went missing, Faus sat in his office and sorted through
- 26:22Speaker 1: all the information his team had collected the day before.
- 26:25Speaker 1: While Fauss had interviewed Bradley and Jason, other members of
- 26:28Speaker 1: his team had spoken to Bonnie's friends, family, and neighbors,
- 26:32Speaker 1: but so far it looked like nobody knew anything that
- 26:34Speaker 1: was helpful. A few neighbors had mentioned that the Sanborn's
- 26:37Speaker 1: had family problems, but apart from that, they all said
- 26:40Speaker 1: Bonnie seemed nice and they had no idea who would
- 26:43Speaker 1: want to hurt her. Fouss continued reading, looking for some
- 26:45Speaker 1: kind of clue in all the interviews. When his office
- 26:48Speaker 1: phone rang, he picked it up, and the man on
- 26:51Speaker 1: the line sounded terrified, and he said he had a
- 26:54Speaker 1: tip in the Bonnie Sanborn case. The man explained that
- 26:57Speaker 1: earlier that morning he'd seen a news report about Banni's
- 27:00Speaker 1: disappearance and how the detectives were looking for her car,
- 27:03Speaker 1: which the police had learned was a light blue Chrysler,
- 27:06Speaker 1: and he said that just the day before, he and
- 27:08Speaker 1: his wife had actually passed a car just like that
- 27:11Speaker 1: on their morning run. It was abandoned on the side
- 27:14Speaker 1: of the road in the desert just outside of town.
- 27:16Speaker 1: He said at the time he and his wife had
- 27:18Speaker 1: not gotten too close to the car, and they really
- 27:21Speaker 1: hadn't thought much of it until they had seen this
- 27:23Speaker 1: news report, and so after seeing the report just a
- 27:26Speaker 1: few minutes ago, he and his wife had gone back
- 27:29Speaker 1: to the desert to see if the car was still there,
- 27:31Speaker 1: and he said, not only was the car still there,
- 27:34Speaker 1: but when they walked up close, they could see in
- 27:36Speaker 1: the back seat what appeared to be a woman's body.
- 27:40Speaker 1: Faust immediately wrote down the car's location, and when he
- 27:43Speaker 1: looked at a map, he realized it was only about
- 27:45Speaker 1: a half mile away from Bonnie's house. He thanked the
- 27:48Speaker 1: man hung up the phone, and then he got in
- 27:50Speaker 1: his car and he raced out toward the desert. And
- 27:52Speaker 1: when he got past the edge of town into the
- 27:54Speaker 1: open desert, he saw right up ahead a light blue
- 27:57Speaker 1: Chrysler parked in the sand. He stopped car on the
- 28:00Speaker 1: shoulder near the car. He got out, and he approached
- 28:03Speaker 1: the Chrysler and he peered through the window, and almost
- 28:06Speaker 1: immediately he did see a woman's body. It was Bonnie's body,
- 28:09Speaker 1: and she was slumped over in the back seat, just
- 28:12Speaker 1: as the man had said. Bonnie's arms were bound behind
- 28:15Speaker 1: her back, and there was a sock stuffed in her mouth,
- 28:17Speaker 1: and the lower half of her body was naked. And
- 28:20Speaker 1: for Faust, you know, in seeing this, he wasn't surprised,
- 28:24Speaker 1: but at the same time, he had held out hope
- 28:26Speaker 1: that maybe Bonnie was alive. You know, just seeing her
- 28:29Speaker 1: dead in such a horrible way in the back of
- 28:31Speaker 1: this car was just it was heartbreaking, and so Faust
- 28:34Speaker 1: went back to his car. He radioed the station and
- 28:37Speaker 1: he waited until a forensics team arrived, and then at
- 28:40Speaker 1: that point he went back over to the chrysler and
- 28:42Speaker 1: he began to examine the body. Faust put on gloves
- 28:45Speaker 1: and he leaned into the car and he lifted up
- 28:47Speaker 1: Bonnie's head, and he found there were wounds all over
- 28:50Speaker 1: her skull, as if she'd been repeatedly struck in the
- 28:53Speaker 1: head with something very sharp, and her partial nudity made
- 28:56Speaker 1: it seem likely that she was also sexually assaulted. There
- 28:59Speaker 1: were also clear defensive wounds on her hands and forearms,
- 29:02Speaker 1: which suggested she had fought back.
- 29:04Speaker 2: Hard against her killer.
- 29:05Speaker 1: One of the forensics officers pulled out a black light
- 29:08Speaker 1: and began running it across the back seat of the
- 29:10Speaker 1: car to check for potential DNA evidence, and Faust watched
- 29:13Speaker 1: as the forensics officer ran the light over Bonnie's leg
- 29:17Speaker 1: and it lit up a spot, and the officer told
- 29:20Speaker 1: Faust that almost definitely that spot was the killer, Seamen,
- 29:24Speaker 1: and so he swabbed the area and put the swab
- 29:26Speaker 1: into an evidence bag and told Faust that in a
- 29:28Speaker 1: matter of maybe a few weeks they should get the
- 29:31Speaker 1: DNA profile back from the lab and maybe they'd know
- 29:33Speaker 1: who their killer was. In the meantime, the fingerprints found
- 29:42Speaker 1: in Bonnie's bedroom were analyzed and they'd come back with
- 29:46Speaker 1: a match that really surprised Detective Faust. All the fingerprints
- 29:50Speaker 1: and that bloody handprint on the pillow belonged to Bonnie's
- 29:53Speaker 1: thirteen year old daughter, Candice. And even though Faust really
- 29:56Speaker 1: did not want to consider that a thirteen year old
- 29:59Speaker 1: girl had in some way helped with a plot to
- 30:01Speaker 1: kill her own mother, he now had to consider it,
- 30:04Speaker 1: not only because of the hand print and fingerprints, but
- 30:07Speaker 1: also because there was a long record of family problems
- 30:11Speaker 1: inside of the Sanborn house. Now, obviously Candace could not
- 30:14Speaker 1: have committed this crime on her own, but she certainly
- 30:17Speaker 1: could have helped whoever did. So Faust confronted Candace, and
- 30:21Speaker 1: when he did, she just broke down sobbing. She said
- 30:24Speaker 1: she had just been really scared and confused and was
- 30:27Speaker 1: just looking in the bedroom for her mom and just
- 30:30Speaker 1: didn't realize what she was doing by getting her prints
- 30:32Speaker 1: everywhere and looking at this scared teenager. Faust knew that
- 30:36Speaker 1: Candace really didn't make sense as a potential suspect here,
- 30:39Speaker 1: but he still felt like Bonnie's killer had to be
- 30:41Speaker 1: somebody who knew Bonnie personally then had been in her
- 30:45Speaker 1: house before, and there was one person who still had
- 30:48Speaker 1: not been ruled out, Bonnie's husband, Robert. Later that day,
- 30:53Speaker 1: Faust was sitting at his desk with the phone pressed
- 30:55Speaker 1: to his ear. He was on hold and had been
- 30:57Speaker 1: for some time, and as he tried to tune out
- 31:00Speaker 1: the awful music that was playing on the line, he
- 31:03Speaker 1: looked down at the handwritten list of airline names and
- 31:06Speaker 1: flight numbers that were on his desk. Bonnie's husband, Robert,
- 31:09Speaker 1: had been working in Maryland for the past couple of months,
- 31:12Speaker 1: and he had not been scheduled to come back home
- 31:14Speaker 1: to Tucson on the weekend his wife was killed. But
- 31:17Speaker 1: just because he claimed that that he had been in
- 31:19Speaker 1: Maryland that whole weekend didn't mean he actually was. There
- 31:23Speaker 1: were multiple flights from Maryland back to Tucson that, in theory,
- 31:27Speaker 1: he could have secretly taken to come home. Kill his
- 31:30Speaker 1: wife and then go back to work in time for
- 31:32Speaker 1: his next shift. So Faust had compiled a list of
- 31:35Speaker 1: every single flight Robert could have theoretically taken, and one
- 31:38Speaker 1: by one he was calling the airlines to check the
- 31:41Speaker 1: passenger manifests. And so far there hadn't been a Robert
- 31:43Speaker 1: Sanborn on any of the flights he had checked. And
- 31:46Speaker 1: now he'd made it to the very last flight on
- 31:48Speaker 1: that list, and just then the on hold music suddenly
- 31:51Speaker 1: cut out, and the woman on the line told Faust
- 31:54Speaker 1: that she had triple checked and there was no Robert
- 31:57Speaker 1: Sanborn on that flight either, the one from Maryland to Tucson.
- 32:00Speaker 1: Anything actor hung up inside. Now, keep in mind this
- 32:04Speaker 1: took place before the events that happened on.
- 32:07Speaker 2: Nine to eleven.
- 32:08Speaker 1: Since nine to eleven, air travel has been much more
- 32:11Speaker 1: rigidly controlled, especially in the United States.
- 32:14Speaker 2: I mean, security is so so much higher.
- 32:16Speaker 1: But pre nine eleven that really wasn't the case. I mean,
- 32:19Speaker 1: people didn't even necessarily have to show their ID to
- 32:22Speaker 1: get on a domestic flight. And so Faust knew right now,
- 32:26Speaker 1: even though he's being told that Robert's name didn't show
- 32:29Speaker 1: up on the manifest of any of these flights. It
- 32:31Speaker 1: didn't really ruled him out because he could have theoretically
- 32:35Speaker 1: been traveling under a fake name. But there was a
- 32:37Speaker 1: next step that would show if Robert had something to
- 32:40Speaker 1: do with this, and that would be to ask Robert
- 32:43Speaker 1: for a DNA sample and hope that when the evidence
- 32:46Speaker 1: came back from the lab it would be conclusive enough
- 32:49Speaker 1: to give a clear answer. One morning in early January
- 33:02Speaker 1: of nineteen ninety six, so about a month after Bonnie
- 33:05Speaker 1: was murdered, Faust answered his office phone and he heard
- 33:08Speaker 1: a tech from the crime lab on the other end.
- 33:11Speaker 1: In the past few weeks, there had been five more
- 33:13Speaker 1: murders in the Tucson area that Faust and his team
- 33:16Speaker 1: were now dealing with. So when the lab tech said
- 33:19Speaker 1: he had results in the Bonnie Sanborn case, it actually
- 33:22Speaker 1: took Faust a few seconds to remember which murder that
- 33:25Speaker 1: was for. But once he remembered, he quickly sat down
- 33:28Speaker 1: at his desk and he grabbed a pen to take notes,
- 33:30Speaker 1: and he held his breath as the lab tech told
- 33:32Speaker 1: him that they had tested the sample found on Bonnie's
- 33:35Speaker 1: leg and it was not a match for her husband, Robert,
- 33:39Speaker 1: nor was it a match for her son's friend Jason Horbachevsky.
- 33:43Speaker 1: Those brown buttons on Jason's shirt also didn't come back
- 33:46Speaker 1: as matching the button that was found in Bonnie's bedroom,
- 33:49Speaker 1: so it really was just a coincidence that they looked
- 33:51Speaker 1: alike to the naked eye. Faust was disappointed, but he
- 33:54Speaker 1: knew this was going to be a possibility and.
- 33:56Speaker 2: He had a backup plan.
- 33:58Speaker 1: He asked the lab tech to run the DNA sample
- 34:00Speaker 1: against the DNA of every sex offender on the state
- 34:03Speaker 1: registry to see if there was a match there. But
- 34:06Speaker 1: as the crime lab slowly began doing that, they kept
- 34:09Speaker 1: calling Faust to update him that they had not found
- 34:12Speaker 1: a match yet, and eventually the search for a DNA
- 34:15Speaker 1: match ultimately just stalled and Faust was pulled onto other cases,
- 34:19Speaker 1: and so by that summer it was looking like Bonnie's
- 34:22Speaker 1: murder case might go cold. Then, after nine months without
- 34:27Speaker 1: any progress, an anonymous tip came in that summer. In
- 34:31Speaker 1: September of nineteen ninety six, Detective Faust sat inside of
- 34:35Speaker 1: an interrogation room at the Sheriff's department across from a
- 34:38Speaker 1: forty year old drug dealer named Lyle Winstead. The anonymous
- 34:42Speaker 1: tipster had said that Lyle had sold drugs to several
- 34:45Speaker 1: people in Bonnie's neighborhood, and he'd said some things about
- 34:48Speaker 1: the case that the tipster thought were very concerning, and
- 34:51Speaker 1: when Faust had dug through Lyle's records, he'd found that
- 34:55Speaker 1: Lyle had a history of violent crimes involving knives. Sitting
- 34:59Speaker 1: inside the entire rogation room, Lyle seemed obviously nervous and
- 35:03Speaker 1: very jumpy, and when Faust started asking him questions about
- 35:06Speaker 1: Bonnie's murder, Lyle made excuses for the killer, saying that
- 35:10Speaker 1: maybe the killer wasn't such a bad guy, maybe he
- 35:13Speaker 1: was just quote on a bad trip. Now, Faust thought
- 35:16Speaker 1: this was incredibly suspicious to be talking that way, so
- 35:19Speaker 1: he asked Lyle for a DNA sample, and he got
- 35:22Speaker 1: one and he sent it off to the crime lab
- 35:24Speaker 1: and Faust had to wait several weeks for the results.
- 35:27Speaker 1: And when they finally came in, Lyle Winstead was not
- 35:31Speaker 1: a match. And at that point Faust was feeling really frustrated.
- 35:35Speaker 1: I mean, they'd already put in so much work with
- 35:38Speaker 1: really nothing to show for it, and he didn't want
- 35:40Speaker 1: the momentum on the case to die again. So before
- 35:43Speaker 1: he put Bonnie's file back on the shelf, he decided
- 35:46Speaker 1: to go back to square one and make sure there
- 35:48Speaker 1: wasn't anything he just plane missed. The next month, between
- 35:52Speaker 1: all the other cases he was working on, Faust found
- 35:55Speaker 1: time to go literally door to door through Bonnie's neighborhood
- 35:59Speaker 1: and rein interview everybody his team had already spoken to
- 36:02Speaker 1: almost a year ago. Faust knew how gossip spread in
- 36:05Speaker 1: quiet communities like this one, and even though nobody had
- 36:08Speaker 1: been able to offer any leads the first time around,
- 36:11Speaker 1: he wondered if maybe anything unusual might have surfaced since then.
- 36:15Speaker 1: So he knocked on one door after another, and eventually,
- 36:19Speaker 1: at a house down the street, a woman told him
- 36:22Speaker 1: that she didn't know anything personally, but there was a
- 36:25Speaker 1: rumor circulating around the neighborhood that he might want to
- 36:28Speaker 1: look into. So Faust did, and after so many frustrating
- 36:32Speaker 1: dead ends to this point, it was ultimately this rumor
- 36:36Speaker 1: that did allow him to solve the case. Based on
- 36:45Speaker 1: that rumor and also DNA and other evidence that was
- 36:47Speaker 1: later uncovered, this is what police belief happened to Bonnie
- 36:50Speaker 1: Sanborn on December ninth, nineteen ninety five, around two thirty
- 37:01Speaker 1: in the morning, Bonnie's killer watched her house from a
- 37:04Speaker 1: hiding spot where nobody could see them. The killer knew
- 37:07Speaker 1: the Sandborns had been trying to move to Maryland, but
- 37:10Speaker 1: the killer felt like before they did go to Maryland,
- 37:13Speaker 1: if they did that there was something the killer had
- 37:15Speaker 1: to do.
- 37:17Speaker 2: Around three a m.
- 37:18Speaker 1: As the killer's watching the house, they saw the light
- 37:20Speaker 1: in Bonnie's living room finally go dark, and then the
- 37:23Speaker 1: killer saw some movement behind the curtains in one of
- 37:25Speaker 1: the bedroom windows, and then that lamp went out, leaving
- 37:29Speaker 1: the entire house completely dark. The killer had intentionally waited
- 37:33Speaker 1: for this moment. They wanted to make sure that not
- 37:36Speaker 1: just Bonnie but her children were asleep by the time
- 37:39Speaker 1: they went inside, and so now that the lights were
- 37:42Speaker 1: off and that it seemed like the coast was clear,
- 37:44Speaker 1: the killer grabbed their flex ties and also their chipping hammer,
- 37:49Speaker 1: and then began making their way towards the home. A
- 37:51Speaker 1: chipping hammer is a very particular type of hammer that
- 37:54Speaker 1: has a sort of typical one side that you would
- 37:56Speaker 1: use to strike something, but the back of that hammer
- 37:59Speaker 1: is shit arp, almost like a pickaxe, and so with
- 38:02Speaker 1: this barbaric tool, they were about to use in hand,
- 38:06Speaker 1: they slowly crept their way across Bonnie's backyard right up
- 38:09Speaker 1: to the sliding glass door at the back of the house,
- 38:12Speaker 1: and they found it was unlocked, just like they thought
- 38:14Speaker 1: it would be. After all, they'd been to this house before,
- 38:17Speaker 1: they sort of understood this one typically stayed unlocked, and
- 38:20Speaker 1: they also knew what was on the other side of
- 38:22Speaker 1: the stor it was Bonnie's bedroom. After sliding open the door,
- 38:26Speaker 1: the killer stepped in and they found Bonnie asleep under
- 38:30Speaker 1: the covers in her bed, and so, thinking here was
- 38:32Speaker 1: their chance, the killer began moving towards the bed, but
- 38:36Speaker 1: as they stepped closer, a floorboard creaked and Bonnie stirred awake,
- 38:41Speaker 1: and she rolled over and looked in the direction of
- 38:44Speaker 1: the creaking sound and made eye contact with the killer,
- 38:47Speaker 1: and the killer knew they had to strike. Bonnie tried
- 38:50Speaker 1: to fight back, but it was no use.
- 38:52Speaker 2: The killer completely overpowered her.
- 38:56Speaker 1: Once Bonnie stopped struggling, but before she stopped breathe, the
- 39:00Speaker 1: killer used those flex ties to bind her hands behind
- 39:03Speaker 1: her back. Then, as she was laying there, unable to
- 39:06Speaker 1: defend herself, they searched around for her purse, and when
- 39:09Speaker 1: they found it, they dumped it out on the bed,
- 39:11Speaker 1: and after they had emptied it, they found her car keys,
- 39:13Speaker 1: and so they grabbed the keys, and then the killer
- 39:15Speaker 1: picked up Bonnie, still very much alive, and they carried
- 39:19Speaker 1: her out that sliding door into the backyard and then
- 39:22Speaker 1: out into the garage. There they used her car keys
- 39:25Speaker 1: to unlock Bonnie's car, the blue Chrysler, and they put
- 39:28Speaker 1: Bonnie in the back seat.
- 39:29Speaker 2: Then they hopped in.
- 39:30Speaker 1: The driver's seat and they drove the car out into
- 39:33Speaker 1: the desert, where they parked on the side of the road.
- 39:35Speaker 1: When the killer was done with Bonnie, they simply got
- 39:38Speaker 1: out of the car and left it where it was
- 39:40Speaker 1: and walked back into town. And as the sun began
- 39:43Speaker 1: to rise, the killer wandered right back down Bonnie Street
- 39:47Speaker 1: in the direction of the Sandborn house. It would turn
- 39:50Speaker 1: out Detective Vows had been so focused on finding the
- 39:54Speaker 1: killer amongst Bonnie's immediate family and friends that he really
- 39:58Speaker 1: hadn't even considered somebody else who was literally physically closest
- 40:03Speaker 1: to the sanborns her across the street, neighbor, twenty two
- 40:07Speaker 1: year old Freddie Rouvel. Now Freddie was not actually, you know,
- 40:12Speaker 1: emotionally close with the Sanborns, but he and his dad
- 40:16Speaker 1: had in the past gone out of their way to
- 40:18Speaker 1: help Bonnie, you know, by doing some repair work at
- 40:20Speaker 1: her house. But what Faust had learned when he had
- 40:23Speaker 1: gone back and reinterviewed all the people on the street
- 40:26Speaker 1: to see if he had missed something, one of the
- 40:28Speaker 1: other neighbors, who was not remotely involved in what happened
- 40:31Speaker 1: to Bonnie, told Faust that there was actually a rumor
- 40:35Speaker 1: that Freddie had found Bonnie attractive, and there was also
- 40:39Speaker 1: another rumor floating around that Faust learned that previously a
- 40:43Speaker 1: woman had been assaulted by a younger man in this
- 40:46Speaker 1: neighborhood and that maybe it was Freddie. Now it's unknown
- 40:49Speaker 1: if Freddie actually was the subject of that second rumor,
- 40:53Speaker 1: but it was enough for Faust and the police to
- 40:56Speaker 1: go collect DNA samples from every young man on the block,
- 41:00Speaker 1: and wouldn't you know it, Freddy's DNA.
- 41:02Speaker 2: Came back as a match.
- 41:04Speaker 1: Freddie Royvolt was arrested in January of nineteen ninety seven,
- 41:07Speaker 1: a little over a year after Bonnie's murder. He was
- 41:10Speaker 1: convicted of first degree murder and sentenced.
- 41:12Speaker 2: To life in prison.
- 41:22Speaker 1: Thank you so much for watching let me know what
- 41:25Speaker 1: you thought of today's episode in the comments. And remember,
- 41:27Speaker 1: we have a whole playlist of true crime episodes ready
- 41:30Speaker 1: for you to binge right now, so click here and
- 41:33Speaker 1: give them a watch.
- 41:34Speaker 2: All right, until next time, see you