Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Sisters Carla Atkins & Vickie Stout go for gum & crackers, found in shallow graves

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Sisters Carla Atkins & Vickie Stout go for gum & crackers, found in shallow graves · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:05
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace Krola Atkins just fourteen years old,
0:18
Speaker 1: Vicky Stout just sixteen. Think about it, that's the age
0:26
Speaker 1: of my twins. Karla Atkins fourteen, Vicky Stout sixteen, gunshot
0:35
Speaker 1: wounds to the heads. I Nancy Grace, this is Crime Stories.
0:44
Speaker 1: Thank you for being with us here at Serius XM
0:47
Speaker 1: one eleven. Take a listen to this.
0:52
Speaker 2: A few weeks later, on October fifth, hikers were in
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Speaker 2: this area called Land between the Lakes where they smell
0:59
Speaker 2: in odor. That's when they contacted the Sheriff's department. We're
1:03
Speaker 2: deputies discovered the girl's bodies.
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Speaker 1: You were hearing our friends at Fox seventeen. And right
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Speaker 1: now I'm going to go to a special guest joining us.
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Speaker 1: This is Vicky and Carla's sister, Trish Gordon. Trish, thank
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Speaker 1: you for being with us.
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Speaker 3: Thank you for having me.
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Speaker 1: Trish. Do you remember when you learned Vicky and Carla
1:29
Speaker 1: were missing?
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Speaker 3: Yes, ma'am, I was living in the next county over,
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Speaker 3: about thirty minutes away. I was at work that evening
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Speaker 3: and my brother Roger called me. It was just starting
1:42
Speaker 3: to get dark outside and he said Mom wanted me
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Speaker 3: to call and tell you that Carl and VICKI walked
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Speaker 3: to the store of the road and they haven't come home.
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Speaker 3: Have you Have they been over there? You know? Have
1:56
Speaker 3: you seen them? I'm like no, I'm like, surely they'll
1:58
Speaker 3: be home later.
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Speaker 1: To which were they walking?
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Speaker 3: It was a little convenience store at the top of
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Speaker 3: the hill from where they lived the furnace.
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Speaker 1: Let me ask you a question. How far away was
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Speaker 1: the furnace from where they lived?
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Speaker 3: Less than a mile? It is just right up the hill.
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Speaker 3: It's less than a mile.
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Speaker 1: You're sending chills down my spine right now, because you know.
2:20
Speaker 1: Let me go out to Chris McDonough, colleague and now
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Speaker 1: I believe friend, director of the Cold Case Foundation, former
2:28
Speaker 1: homicide detective, about three hundred homicide investigations under his belt,
2:34
Speaker 1: and host. This is where I found him of a
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Speaker 1: YouTube channel called the Interview Room. You can find him
2:40
Speaker 1: at Colcase Foundation dot org. This reminds me of actually
2:45
Speaker 1: the first case we ever covered on Crime Stories. It
2:51
Speaker 1: was the case of this beautiful little boy, Chucky Mawk
2:55
Speaker 1: And one picture springs to mind. It's of him and
2:57
Speaker 1: his little league outfit. Believe he was about two. Well,
3:01
Speaker 1: he asked his mom who was now friend. Hey mom,
3:06
Speaker 1: they just had supper. Chris McDonough and the mom, this
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Speaker 1: is very poignant, It sticks in my mind, had her
3:15
Speaker 1: back to Chucky and she was washing dishes in the
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Speaker 1: sink and her hands were in the soapy water. He goes, Mom,
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Speaker 1: can I ride my bike to the store. She goes, sure,
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Speaker 1: hurry back. He said, I want to go get some candy,
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Speaker 1: And she says, to this day, why didn't I turn around?
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Speaker 1: To this day, that detail just drives her crazy. So
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Speaker 1: Chucky ridses his bike about a block and a half
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Speaker 1: to the store, and an adult male pulls up on
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Speaker 1: a car, exchanges words with him, and sheets him dead
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Speaker 1: right there in the store parking lot. Unsolved to this day,
4:00
Speaker 1: Risk mcdonna.
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Speaker 4: You know, Nancy, these are the type of castes that
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Speaker 4: just irk every one of us in our society. The
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Speaker 4: innocence of youth, like the description you just gave of
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Speaker 4: that young child, and now these two poor little girls.
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Speaker 4: What we have to initially take a look at here
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Speaker 4: is what we would call the contact site, And in
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Speaker 4: this case, it sounds like it's that convenience store, the furnace,
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Speaker 4: and it's within a mile of where these young ladies live.
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Speaker 4: I would be curious to know what type of eyewitnesses
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Speaker 4: they may have in relationship to have seen, you know,
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Speaker 4: something around that time, because that would tell us about
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Speaker 4: a risk level to the particular type of suspect.
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Speaker 1: Also joining me Kara Porter, attorney, co founder cole Ca
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Speaker 1: Coalition at coldcasehelp dot Com. Karen, thank you for joining us.
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Speaker 1: I mean, just off the top of my head, I
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Speaker 1: can name so many cases. There was the went coal
5:11
Speaker 1: but we just got it solved. The case of a
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Speaker 1: little girl, Debbie Randall, who went literally across the street
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Speaker 1: to the laundrymat and was never seen alive again until
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Speaker 1: she was found by volunteers. There is Aton Pats Member.
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Speaker 1: Aton walked to school for the first time after practicing
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Speaker 1: and practicing, and he was kidnapped and killed. There's Carly
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Speaker 1: brusha Carly in Florida was walking home from spend the
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Speaker 1: night with her little friend girl and was walking home
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Speaker 1: just blocks from her own home, and she cut caddy
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Speaker 1: cornered across the back of a car wash and she
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Speaker 1: was kidnapped and horribly sex assaulted and murdered. I mean,
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Speaker 1: I could go on and on and on a few blocks.
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Speaker 1: It's not that much, right, and then they're gone. And
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Speaker 1: in this case you hear the sister Trish Gordon, the
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Speaker 1: sister of Vicky and Carla. It was no distance at
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Speaker 1: all to the furnace. It's like a seven eleven type store.
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Speaker 1: And the parents, I'm sure, think, well that's just fine.
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Speaker 5: You know, it's and it wasn't uncommon. It's not uncommon.
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Speaker 5: I'm from the smaller town and you know, walking to
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Speaker 5: the local whatever the you know whatever the equivalent of
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Speaker 5: the local seven eleven is, you know, the furnace to
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Speaker 5: get whatever they were they were getting and then walking back.
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Speaker 5: That's that is something that happens every day. In one case,
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Speaker 5: we're a group of all volunteers. We've had about between
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Speaker 5: four hundred and six hundred families that have reached out
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Speaker 5: to us. But one of them was the mother was
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Speaker 5: looking out the back window and then an instant later
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Speaker 5: the child was gone.
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Speaker 1: That reminds you of the Samantha Running case. Samantha, three
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Speaker 1: years old, was staying with her grandmother and playing in
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Speaker 1: the front yard, I believe with other children, and the
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Speaker 1: pulls up, grabs her out of the front yard and
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Speaker 1: he's gone. Of course, molests her assaults her and kills her.
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Speaker 1: And I became friends with her mother, Aaron Runyon, And
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Speaker 1: it happened just like that, just like that, and you think, oh,
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Speaker 1: it's just a block. You know, you don't want to
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Speaker 1: raise your child thinking that all these horrible things are
7:45
Speaker 1: going to happen to them. To doctor Sherry Schwartz, joining
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Speaker 1: US forensic psychologist, author of criminal behavior and where law
7:53
Speaker 1: and psychology intersect at panthermitigation dot com. Doctor Sherry, I'll
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Speaker 1: never forget when Lucy, I guess she was eleven or twelve,
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Speaker 1: said mom, Am, I ever going to get to go
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Speaker 1: on a walk by myself, just around the block. I'm like, sure,
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Speaker 1: of course you can. You can go right now. Can
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Speaker 1: I tell you how quickly I call my husband. It
8:19
Speaker 1: was a nine to one one pronto call you follow
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Speaker 1: her that way, I'll follow her this way. And I
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Speaker 1: followed her. I telled her, you know, she never saw me.
8:30
Speaker 1: And this went on for you know, a couple of years.
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Speaker 1: I'd follow her halfway and then David would pick her
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Speaker 1: up and see her the other way, and then she
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Speaker 1: would be home. See. I mean, it's crazy. You don't
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Speaker 1: want the child to grow up thinking they can't go
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Speaker 1: for a walk for Pete's sake.
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Speaker 6: That's true, But the harsh reality is all of us
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Speaker 6: are living in a world where we have to be
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Speaker 6: very careful because these are the things that can happen.
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Speaker 6: At the same time, you want your child to grow
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Speaker 6: up and feel like they have some independence, because that's
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Speaker 6: important to their growth in development. But then when something
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Speaker 6: like this happens, the families of these victims tend to
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Speaker 6: blame themselves. I should have done this. What if I
9:13
Speaker 6: had done this? What if I just said no.
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Speaker 1: As code, Lucy's going for a walk. All hands on
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Speaker 1: deck when Lucy decides to go for a walk alone. Okay,
9:24
Speaker 1: back to these two girls fourteen and sixteen. Think about it.
9:29
Speaker 1: A gunshot won't to the head at age fourteen and sixteen? Guys,
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Speaker 1: what more do we know? Listen? It was three weeks.
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Speaker 7: Before the missing girls' bodies were found and evidence was collected.
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Speaker 7: One of the crime scene investigators at the time said
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Speaker 7: shotgun shells were found, as well as one of the
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Speaker 7: girl's flip flops. He said it was his belief that
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Speaker 7: she was running trying to get away. He also reported
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Speaker 7: finding a light blue stain on a tree. He says
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Speaker 7: the height at which the stain was found would indicate
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Speaker 7: came from a truck.
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Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
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Speaker 7: It was three weeks before the missing girls' bodies were
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Speaker 7: found and evidence was collected. One of the crime scene
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Speaker 7: investigators at the time said shotgun shells were found, as
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Speaker 7: well as one of the girl's flip flops. He said
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Speaker 7: it was his belief that she was running trying to
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Speaker 7: get away. He also reported finding a light blue stain
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Speaker 7: on a tree. He says the height at which the
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Speaker 7: stain was found would indicate it came from a truck.
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Speaker 1: Wow, so we have the light blue stain. We have more,
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Speaker 1: but the case is going cold? Is going cold? How
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Speaker 1: can we stop that?
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Speaker 8: Sixteen year old Vicky Stout and fourteen year old Carlos
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Speaker 8: su Atkins were half sisters. They shared a mother. Vicky
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Speaker 8: Stout and Carlos wu Adkins were very close. They lived
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Speaker 8: with their mother, brothers, and sisters near Dover, Tennessee.
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Speaker 1: The two girls extremely close. Let's start friends at crime online.
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Speaker 8: Vicky Stout and Carlos whu Adkins rode the same bus
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Speaker 8: to school, even though they went to different schools. Carlos
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Speaker 8: sue was a student at Dover Elementary while Vicki was
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Speaker 8: a student at Stewart County High School. After school on
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Speaker 8: September seventeenth, Vicky Stout and Carlos who Atkins got off
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Speaker 8: their school bus and walked down to the combination bait
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Speaker 8: shop restaurant convenienced or called the Furnace and picked up
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Speaker 8: some snacks before continuing the walk to their house. It
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Speaker 8: was about three point thirty in the afternoon.
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Speaker 1: So the last people to see the girls say they
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Speaker 1: saw them talking to someone in a blue pickup truck.
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Speaker 1: It was at the Furnace, they like seven to eleven
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Speaker 1: and it circled the highway by the store. That's what
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Speaker 1: we know so far. Let me ask Amelia Courtney joining us.
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Speaker 1: Amelia has been working with sister Trish Gordon and she
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Speaker 1: is the co host of a hit podcast called Murder
12:10
Speaker 1: at Land between the Lakes about this case. Amelia Courtney,
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Speaker 1: thank you for being with us. Is that where the
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Speaker 1: composite originated from the witnesses at the furnace?
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Speaker 9: The composite sketch did come from an eyewitness that did
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Speaker 9: talk to the police department in the sheriff's apartment. The
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Speaker 9: first composite sketch was actually released in nineteen eighty, but
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Speaker 9: it was a rough sketch, so they did have the
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Speaker 9: first rough sketch right away, and then later on in
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Speaker 9: twenty twenty they released updated sketches.
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Speaker 1: So the composite was made from eyewitnesses at the furnace,
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Speaker 1: which is like a bait shop seven to eleven, as
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Speaker 1: in fish bait. Is that right?
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Speaker 9: It came from another woman down the street. Actually she
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Speaker 9: saw something, okay, and she gave a detailed description of
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Speaker 9: the person that she saw in the truck.
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Speaker 1: Trish Gordon joining us, this is Vicki and Carla's sister.
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Speaker 1: Why did the police wait so long to speak to
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Speaker 1: witnesses and get that composite sketch?
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Speaker 3: That's a good question. That's a good question. They initially
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Speaker 3: told us it was within a day or two that
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Speaker 3: they thought vick and Carla had run away, So I
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Speaker 3: don't think they really did any searching initially, and I
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Speaker 3: don't know why they waited so long to come out
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Speaker 3: with a composite. I don't have that answer.
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Speaker 1: Okay, looking back on missteps, I agree with everyone, it's
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Speaker 1: not going to help us. Now we've got to move forward,
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Speaker 1: and so far, what we've got is a composite. We've
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Speaker 1: got a composite of the person last scene speaking to
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Speaker 1: the fourteen and sixteen year old Karla and VICKI. And
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Speaker 1: we know a blue truck, and we have the paint.
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Speaker 1: We have a paint scraping. I assume to leave climb
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Speaker 1: online dot com investigative reporter who found this case and
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Speaker 1: brought up to our attention, Levi Page, please tell me
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Speaker 1: the police got that blue scraping off of the tree
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Speaker 1: or wherever they saw it.
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Speaker 10: Yes, they did.
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Speaker 11: The crime zine investigators recovered it.
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Speaker 1: Okay, there's a lot you can tell from that. I'm
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Speaker 1: going to go to doctor Tim Gallagher, medical examiner, explain
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Speaker 1: how the explain the process of getting, for instance, paint
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Speaker 1: or some substance off of an object and maintaining it.
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Speaker 1: Because you retrieve substances all day long, you have to
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Speaker 1: be very very careful.
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Speaker 12: Well, that's true, Nancy. You do have to be extremely careful.
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Speaker 12: The paint is very fragile and it can disintegrate, you know,
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Speaker 12: very quickly if it's not stored correctly. So the paint
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Speaker 12: has to be removed very delicately with small instruments that
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Speaker 12: are supplied to see USI or crime scene investigators, and
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Speaker 12: then that paint is put in an air tight container
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Speaker 12: it is dry, and then it is then sent to
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Speaker 12: forensics for the paint to be analyzed and the paint combination,
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Speaker 12: the paint composition of materials can be analyzed and you
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Speaker 12: can actually determine the make an approximate year of the
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Speaker 12: vehicle that the paint has come from. For instance, the
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Speaker 12: motor companies in Detroit use a certain paint for a
15:34
Speaker 12: certain car during a certain period of time, and using
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Speaker 12: forensic analysis, you can take that paint and determine the
15:43
Speaker 12: type of car. For instance, maybe it's a Ford motor
15:45
Speaker 12: car built between say nineteen ninety seven and nineteen ninety nine,
15:50
Speaker 12: so you can narrow it down that way. But the
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Speaker 12: storage of the paint, the careful removal of the paint
15:55
Speaker 12: is critical in getting that analysis done.
15:57
Speaker 1: Because Dodger, there's so many subtleties when it comes to
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Speaker 1: car paint. Okay, you see a car and you go,
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Speaker 1: oh it's blue. No, no, no, no. My son loves
16:10
Speaker 1: F one fifties. Okay, he used to like a Taco Tacoma,
16:14
Speaker 1: but now he's in the F one fifties and we
16:17
Speaker 1: drive through. You know the lots of the car dealerships.
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Speaker 1: He goes, that's a great white and oh white. So
16:26
Speaker 1: I looked up online. Guess what. There's optic white, there's
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Speaker 1: Oxford white, there's Ivory white. They all look white to me.
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Speaker 1: But the dealership knows the difference. One may have a
16:37
Speaker 1: little sparkle in it. One may be Matt like Matt
16:41
Speaker 1: m a tte lipstick that so the dealerships, the manufacturers,
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Speaker 1: they know the difference, ain't It can be traced to
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Speaker 1: a dealership. I mean, if you think that sounds far fetched,
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Speaker 1: you can even trace a trash bag that has a
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Speaker 1: body in it, like the one holding the body of
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Speaker 1: little Cally Anthony, to the manufacturer. You can get the
17:05
Speaker 1: batch like this, six hundred bags were sent to this Kroger.
17:12
Speaker 1: You can do that. It's not far fetched anymore. I
17:15
Speaker 1: want to get back to this case. Guys, take a
17:18
Speaker 1: listen to this.
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Speaker 13: Their mother reported something wrong to juvenile officers. That same day,
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Speaker 13: the missing girl's twenty two year old sister, Patricia Gordon,
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Speaker 13: received a call from her brother seeing the girls hadn't come.
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Speaker 5: Home, but she didn't worry yet.
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Speaker 14: Well, the next day I think I called and they
17:36
Speaker 14: said they hadn't come back, and then that's kind of
17:38
Speaker 14: when we started to panting.
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Speaker 13: A few days later, Gordon says her family started to
17:43
Speaker 13: think the worst.
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Speaker 14: Then you realize something really bad has happened, you know,
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Speaker 14: but what's happened?
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Speaker 1: Hearing our friends at Fox seventeen and our special guest today,
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Speaker 1: let me go to Trish Gordon, Vicki and Carla's sister.
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Speaker 1: So at first first the mom thought, well, okay, they're
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Speaker 1: with friends. But then as the hours passed, everyone became
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Speaker 1: horribly worried. When did it sink in? Do you think
18:13
Speaker 1: that they aren't just with a friend, They're not out
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Speaker 1: joy riding, they're not just staying late, they're not at
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Speaker 1: a movie, they're not at the mall. When did it
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Speaker 1: hit they're really gone?
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Speaker 3: Probably that next afternoon. They had never stayed away from
18:26
Speaker 3: home all night like that and not contacted someone, you know,
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Speaker 3: they we called all their friends, they were with any
18:32
Speaker 3: of their friends, you know, I hadn't seen them, so
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Speaker 3: they hadn't contacted mom. W in town had seen them
18:42
Speaker 3: the ones that we had asked, and we knew because
18:46
Speaker 3: Carlal was on medication that she had to take daily,
18:49
Speaker 3: so we knew they left with nothing. She would have
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Speaker 3: taken her medicine with her had she not been meaning
18:57
Speaker 3: to come home.
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Speaker 1: And from what I understand, they had never stayed out
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Speaker 1: overnight before without permission.
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Speaker 3: No never.
19:18
Speaker 1: Time stories with Nancy Grace. Guys, take a listen to
19:22
Speaker 1: our friends at w k r N. Here's mom, sister's
19:27
Speaker 1: family worried where are the girls? Where are the girls?
19:31
Speaker 14: And then this we kind of thought maybe they were
19:34
Speaker 14: just with some friends, just decided not to come back
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Speaker 14: home when they should have.
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Speaker 15: In the days that followed, local law enforcement labeled the
19:42
Speaker 15: sisters as runaway, covering it from the start. David R.
19:46
Speaker 16: Ross, there was this three weeks van where the girls
19:49
Speaker 16: were missing. The initial reports where that they were run away.
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Speaker 15: Autopsy reports show they both died of a shotgun wounded
19:57
Speaker 15: a head to LEVI page, was the bullet found?
20:00
Speaker 11: Yes, bullets were found and it was from a twelve
20:03
Speaker 11: gage shotgun.
20:04
Speaker 1: There is the ni T Ballistics tool Mark research database
20:09
Speaker 1: and it is an open access research database of bullet
20:15
Speaker 1: and cartridge case tool mark data. Do we know, Amelia
20:21
Speaker 1: whether these shotgun shit anything to do with shotgun? Bullets
20:26
Speaker 1: have been run through the ballistics database.
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Speaker 9: Miss Anthia, I don't know if they have done that.
20:32
Speaker 9: I know they found they had a wad left and
20:35
Speaker 9: they have they had they did find shotgun shelves and
20:39
Speaker 9: they had bullets like they were scattered around and some
20:43
Speaker 9: are collected. And right now they still have some evidence
20:47
Speaker 9: that's being tested.
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Speaker 1: What evidence would that be? Do you know?
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Speaker 9: I'm not provy to say right now.
20:53
Speaker 1: So you know, but you can't say. To Chris mcdona,
20:56
Speaker 1: director Cold Case Foundation in the interview room, jump in.
21:00
Speaker 4: Important to understand why the contact site is so critical
21:04
Speaker 4: in this case because it tells us a lot about
21:09
Speaker 4: why the individual who did this put the girls in
21:13
Speaker 4: the location they were found here, and here's where I'm
21:16
Speaker 4: going with this. You have an eyewitness who sees this
21:20
Speaker 4: blue truck and so that that end of itself is
21:23
Speaker 4: a risk to the suspect. So they we measure the
21:28
Speaker 4: day of the week. It's a Wednesday, middle of the week,
21:31
Speaker 4: the time three point thirty in the afternoon. So this suspect,
21:35
Speaker 4: it's going to tell that those facts are going to
21:38
Speaker 4: tell us this individual is very comfortable in that area.
21:43
Speaker 17: And now when we.
21:44
Speaker 4: Go back to where the shotgun shows are found and
21:48
Speaker 4: we look at the truck.
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Speaker 17: Back in that time, it was not unusual to have
21:53
Speaker 17: a gun rack within, you know, vehicles all over, probably
21:58
Speaker 17: in Middle Tennessee, especially in a small town of of
22:02
Speaker 17: two thousand people.
22:04
Speaker 1: Yes, I got another question on this. Everything that Chris
22:07
Speaker 1: McDonough just said is correct in trying to coral the purp.
22:14
Speaker 1: I'm wondering, Trish Gordon, do we know if your sisters
22:19
Speaker 1: were raped?
22:20
Speaker 3: According to the autopsy report, they said that there was
22:24
Speaker 3: no evidence of it.
22:25
Speaker 1: Where they clothed when their bodies were found.
22:27
Speaker 3: Partially and they tell us that probably animals had taken
22:34
Speaker 3: clothing off. I think one body was probably had more
22:38
Speaker 3: clothing on it than the other one.
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Speaker 1: That all really depends on how the clothing was removed
22:44
Speaker 1: and where the clothing was found. Doctor Tim Gallagher explained, well.
22:48
Speaker 12: Generally when a rape occurs, especially a rape and a
22:52
Speaker 12: homicide occurred, that the underwear and pants are removed, and
22:57
Speaker 12: then sometimes your shirt is lifted up over the and
23:01
Speaker 12: that the body is left that way. You know. One
23:04
Speaker 12: of the other things that I wanted to point out
23:07
Speaker 12: to your last question about the about the niben and
23:11
Speaker 12: the shotgun, is that, unlike a rifle or a handgun,
23:16
Speaker 12: where you pull the trigger once and one bullet comes out.
23:20
Speaker 12: In a shotgun, you pull a trigger once and a
23:23
Speaker 12: spray of sometimes hundreds of little bebes come out. And
23:29
Speaker 12: so running one of those little bbes through NIBIN is
23:33
Speaker 12: going to be useless because there's no rifling marks on it.
23:37
Speaker 12: There's no unique characteristics, you know, to that projectile that
23:43
Speaker 12: niving can use to help identify where it came from.
23:47
Speaker 12: So when you pull a trigger on a handgun, one
23:49
Speaker 12: bullet comes out. You pull a trigger on a rifle,
23:52
Speaker 12: one bullet comes out. You pull a trigger on a shotgun,
23:54
Speaker 12: hundreds hundreds of metallic projectiles come out at the same time.
23:59
Speaker 12: So tracing that through NIVEN is going to be extremely difficult,
24:03
Speaker 12: if not impossible. I don't even think it's been done yet.
24:05
Speaker 1: Well, you're absolutely right. So all our discussion of ballistics
24:09
Speaker 1: was pointless but had to be done. As in every
24:12
Speaker 1: investigation you have to go all the way. Guys, I'm
24:15
Speaker 1: hearing that I was about to go to great minds. Haha.
24:19
Speaker 1: Toby Wilson is with US forensic consultant specializing in DNA
24:22
Speaker 1: serology and bloodstain at no Slow Forensic dot Com. Toby
24:28
Speaker 1: jump In well.
24:29
Speaker 10: I was just going to say, Niven's not going to
24:31
Speaker 10: assist you with the identification on this one in terms
24:35
Speaker 10: of the lead spray that comes out. But what they
24:38
Speaker 10: can work from is the shotgun shell if they retrieved it,
24:42
Speaker 10: because mark is left on the base of that shell
24:45
Speaker 10: by the pin of the shotgun when it slams into
24:49
Speaker 10: it to cause the explosion of the gunpowder in it
24:54
Speaker 10: and the propelling of the cup in projectiles forward. If
25:00
Speaker 10: they have the shell, there's a possibility of comparing that
25:04
Speaker 10: back to particular shotgun and saying, yes, this shotgun fired
25:08
Speaker 10: the shell.
25:08
Speaker 1: You're absolutely right, guys, what more do we know? Take
25:12
Speaker 1: a list to hour cut nine our friends at Fox seventeen.
25:15
Speaker 13: The autopsy revealed a shotgun killed the girls. Their bodies
25:19
Speaker 13: were too decomposed to reveal if they'd been sexually assaulted.
25:23
Speaker 13: An artist sketch with age progressions should demand described by
25:27
Speaker 13: witnesses seen driving that blue pickup truck with the girls.
25:30
Speaker 13: We're last seen. The TBI agent heading the investigation at
25:34
Speaker 13: that time, Jack Charlton, believed the sketch could be the
25:37
Speaker 13: girl's abductor, murderer or witness.
25:40
Speaker 14: I'm like, weel, this won't take any time at all.
25:44
Speaker 14: You know, they're going to find who did this, wrap
25:46
Speaker 14: it up, and it's done with Well.
25:48
Speaker 1: That is my hope. But the fact that there's an
25:51
Speaker 1: age progression composite sketch is very heartening to Amelia Courtney
25:59
Speaker 1: worked king with Trish Gordon, the sister of Karla and
26:03
Speaker 1: VICKI co host a murder at Land between the Lakes.
26:07
Speaker 1: What do you believe is the strongest lead?
26:10
Speaker 9: Well, miss Nanty, I think that this case is definitely solvable,
26:14
Speaker 9: and that's why we started the podcast. From the beginning
26:17
Speaker 9: was when we first my co host Landy Sullivan and
26:21
Speaker 9: I first started this podcast. We you know, I knew
26:24
Speaker 9: Trish and her family, and I saw that there was
26:28
Speaker 9: nothing being done on this case. There was no information
26:31
Speaker 9: to be found, and it was heartbreaking to me that
26:34
Speaker 9: these two sisters had been you know, violently murdered and
26:39
Speaker 9: there was hardly any information to be found.
26:42
Speaker 11: So when we came.
26:43
Speaker 9: To Trish and started the podcast, we went into it
26:46
Speaker 9: and it was hard to find information from, you know,
26:50
Speaker 9: the authorities, and but once we started opening up line
26:54
Speaker 9: of communication with the public and the community, they started
26:59
Speaker 9: giving us information lesson right and and that's when we
27:03
Speaker 9: started trying to talk to General Crouch and the tv
27:06
Speaker 9: I and trying to form a partnership with him, or
27:10
Speaker 9: not really partnership, but open line of communication with them,
27:13
Speaker 9: so we could really give them the information we were
27:17
Speaker 9: receiving and you know, without you know, harming the integrity
27:21
Speaker 9: of the podcast and also you know, keep our sources
27:26
Speaker 9: you know safe, and also you know, you know, respect
27:29
Speaker 9: the wishes of the tv I as well. So that's
27:32
Speaker 9: how you know our podcast, you know, really you know,
27:35
Speaker 9: was helpful in you know, getting information and helping work
27:40
Speaker 9: on solving this case. We were able to get a
27:42
Speaker 9: lot of information from the public that didn't want to
27:44
Speaker 9: share information with the police because I'm not sure the
27:47
Speaker 9: trust was there from the beginning. So there is one
27:51
Speaker 9: more eyewitness that we didn't even know about until just recently,
27:57
Speaker 9: about a year ago. There was another eyewitnessed form I
28:03
Speaker 9: guess you would say, that was found in a file
28:06
Speaker 9: that no one had heard about or seen about. And
28:09
Speaker 9: this eye witness, as you stated earlier, saw the blue
28:12
Speaker 9: truck that did have the rifle rack in the back
28:14
Speaker 9: of it behind it and was able to see the
28:17
Speaker 9: driver even more clearly and gave a better description of
28:21
Speaker 9: the driver saw the girls talking to the driver as
28:24
Speaker 9: though they did know the person, and saw the girls
28:27
Speaker 9: get in the truck and was able to give, like
28:29
Speaker 9: I said, a better description. And this eyewitness statement was
28:36
Speaker 9: pretty pretty, I mean was pretty This person seemed to
28:40
Speaker 9: have a pretty accurate description of what they saw.
28:42
Speaker 1: So we've narrowed it down based on what everyone on
28:46
Speaker 1: this panel has deduced to a local mail in a
28:50
Speaker 1: truck with a gun rack blue in color. The girls
28:55
Speaker 1: actually got in to the truck. Take a listen to
29:00
Speaker 1: our friend Jackie Howard.
29:01
Speaker 7: In twenty eleven, Stuart County Sheriff Derek White came on
29:04
Speaker 7: board and the search began anew for a suspect. Four
29:09
Speaker 7: years later, the DA says there are now three or
29:12
Speaker 7: four people that investigators are highly interested in and have
29:17
Speaker 7: narrowed down a pool of suspects.
29:19
Speaker 1: Is this true, LEVI page? Is there a short list
29:23
Speaker 1: of pois persons of interest?
29:25
Speaker 11: Yes, Nancy. Over the last handful of years, there has
29:30
Speaker 11: been news articles, a podcast about this case. It's there's
29:35
Speaker 11: been a new energy breathed into this case, and new
29:39
Speaker 11: witnesses have come forward and they have been able to
29:43
Speaker 11: narrow it down to a list of persons of interest.
29:46
Speaker 1: That's amazing to me, Trish Gordon. I'm not going to
29:49
Speaker 1: ask you who, but do you know who's on the list? Ah?
29:51
Speaker 3: Yes, ma'am.
29:52
Speaker 1: Does the list make sense to you, Trish? Are they
29:55
Speaker 1: locals that lived in the area that had a truck
29:59
Speaker 1: blue and collar at the time your sisters were murdered?
30:02
Speaker 3: Yes? Absolutely.
30:03
Speaker 1: I mean, how many people can it be? How many
30:06
Speaker 1: people are in that small area with a blue truck
30:10
Speaker 1: with a gun rack living there, mail in the driving
30:15
Speaker 1: age range and beyond all the day the two girls
30:19
Speaker 1: were murdered. How hard can it be? That's my question,
30:23
Speaker 1: Trish Gordon.
30:24
Speaker 3: It shouldn't be. It shouldn't be. And you know, I
30:28
Speaker 3: think it's very obvious. Do most people there as to
30:35
Speaker 3: who the suspects, suspect or suspects are? I think it's
30:39
Speaker 3: very obvious.
30:41
Speaker 1: It's obvious to me to Chris McDonough, director Cole Case
30:44
Speaker 1: Foundation in the interview room jump in.
30:46
Speaker 4: So my assessment of what I've heard here today is
30:50
Speaker 4: pretty clear that probably within one hundred the first one
30:54
Speaker 4: hundred and fifty pages of the initial investigation, the suspect
30:58
Speaker 4: is known. And I think because of the fact that
31:02
Speaker 4: there's a rural community. It's a logging community, and it's
31:07
Speaker 4: such a small residential area ie. Two thousand people at
31:10
Speaker 4: the time that this individual has been hiding in plain sight.
31:16
Speaker 4: And to raise awareness like this, you have now a
31:21
Speaker 4: conversation about eyewitnesses who've actually seen people, you have touched DNA.
31:27
Speaker 4: Potentially even on the back of a shotgun show you
31:30
Speaker 4: can pull off fingerprints because somebody had to load that shotgun.
31:35
Speaker 4: If they don't have DNA, they may have fingerprints evidence
31:39
Speaker 4: that they could continue to go after or even with
31:41
Speaker 4: today's technology, it's improved since the date of this incident.
31:46
Speaker 4: So my belief is this individual is nearby. He's been
31:51
Speaker 4: in that community within thirty miles would be my assessment,
31:55
Speaker 4: and I one hundred percent believe that he could be
31:59
Speaker 4: brought to if the individual is still alive today.
32:02
Speaker 1: Guys, hold on, take a listen to our friends WPSD
32:06
Speaker 1: and kr N.
32:07
Speaker 14: And I don't know how they can live with themselves,
32:11
Speaker 14: but they're able to live day to day, and we
32:15
Speaker 14: still have this question mark of who and.
32:19
Speaker 16: Why I would like to see not only justice for
32:22
Speaker 16: this family, but justice for this community.
32:26
Speaker 1: They will get there.
32:27
Speaker 14: Justice someday, you know, they'll get what's coming to them,
32:31
Speaker 14: whether it be in my lifetime or not.
32:33
Speaker 1: The District Attorney General Ray Crouch has now put new
32:38
Speaker 1: efforts into solving this case and evidence has been sent
32:42
Speaker 1: for a private DNA lab testing to Toby Wilson. What
32:46
Speaker 1: if anything can be learned from specific and highly highly
32:51
Speaker 1: technical DNA testing, Well.
32:53
Speaker 10: There's a lot that can be learned. It just depends
32:55
Speaker 10: on the quality of the DNA being tested. But as
32:58
Speaker 10: time has progressed at the beginning of the DNA and analysis
33:02
Speaker 10: to today, we've been able to work with more and
33:06
Speaker 10: more DNA that is low grade quality, very very degraded.
33:11
Speaker 10: And there's new technologies that are allowing this to be done,
33:14
Speaker 10: such as sniff technologies and new next generation sequencing things
33:21
Speaker 10: of that nature. There's even some work going on at
33:24
Speaker 10: the DNA repair that might make it possible. And what
33:28
Speaker 10: makes this obvious that we can do this is just
33:31
Speaker 10: a few weeks ago two more people from the World
33:35
Speaker 10: Trade Center attack in ninety eleven were identified using some
33:39
Speaker 10: of these newer technologies. So as time progresses, the DNA degrades,
33:45
Speaker 10: especially if it's not handled properly well it's being stored,
33:50
Speaker 10: But we are developing new technologies that allow us to
33:53
Speaker 10: work with more and more samples that are degraded. The
33:57
Speaker 10: problem is that if they become two degraded there probably
34:01
Speaker 10: it's irreversible. So it really depends on the quality of
34:04
Speaker 10: the DNA being used. And the reason it gets sent
34:09
Speaker 10: to private labs is these new technologies. Most public labs
34:13
Speaker 10: don't have them now. They're very expensive. It takes time
34:17
Speaker 10: to get them quality reviewed so that you can use
34:21
Speaker 10: them in criminal cases. So the private labs have the
34:24
Speaker 10: ability to move forward faster because they have the money
34:28
Speaker 10: and they have that they can get the technology, and
34:30
Speaker 10: they have the people to get these things reviewed so
34:32
Speaker 10: that they can use them for their casework. So that's
34:35
Speaker 10: why you send it to a private lab these days.
34:37
Speaker 10: But ultimately, somewhere down the road, hopefully public labs will
34:40
Speaker 10: be doing these same types of analysis.
34:42
Speaker 7: Also, Nancy gets Jackie, can I jump in, go ahead,
34:45
Speaker 7: jump in, Trish, weren't you told that DNA might be
34:50
Speaker 7: too degraded to be used?
34:55
Speaker 3: Yes, early on they tell them. They told me that
34:59
Speaker 3: the TBI told me that a lot of it is molded,
35:04
Speaker 3: and I'm not sure if it was the white stored.
35:09
Speaker 3: Initially we were told it was put in plastic bags,
35:13
Speaker 3: and then some state was put in piper bags, so
35:15
Speaker 3: we're not sure. But that's a lot of the hold
35:19
Speaker 3: up with testing the DNA is because we tell most
35:21
Speaker 3: of it is molded well.
35:24
Speaker 10: The bacteria is a contamination that can break down the DNA.
35:28
Speaker 10: So it really is one of those situations you don't
35:32
Speaker 10: know how much of an effect it will have until
35:34
Speaker 10: you try the testing. There are ways to clean up
35:38
Speaker 10: some of it, but they may not be usable depending
35:42
Speaker 10: on how much damage has been done. I've seen really
35:46
Speaker 10: nasty samples, bad samples that you would have never predicted.
35:50
Speaker 10: Give DNA profiles, get work from them. The only way
35:53
Speaker 10: you're ever going to know the answer is you have
35:55
Speaker 10: to do it.
35:56
Speaker 1: Carola Kim's just fourteen years old, Vicky Stout just sixteen,
36:05
Speaker 1: gunshot wounds to the heads. Think about it, what that
36:12
Speaker 1: family had to go through. Let me go out to
36:17
Speaker 1: Trish Gordon, this is Vicky and Carla's sister.
36:23
Speaker 3: Well, thank you for doing this for my family. And
36:28
Speaker 3: what I would like people to know is that they
36:30
Speaker 3: were happy, go lucky. They loved to laugh, love to
36:33
Speaker 3: have fun, never a sad day. They were just the happiest,
36:37
Speaker 3: happiest two individuals you could ever want to be around.
36:42
Speaker 3: Over the years, I had kind of lost hope in
36:45
Speaker 3: the case because it had gone cold. But my hope
36:50
Speaker 3: is renewed now with the help of Amelia's podcasts, the
36:53
Speaker 3: new district attorney, new TBI agents, help of the FBI.
36:58
Speaker 3: So I do, I do have hope now. I know
37:02
Speaker 3: there are individuals there that know who did this, and
37:05
Speaker 3: I think there's just that one person that needs to
37:07
Speaker 3: come forward, just one person to tell the story of
37:11
Speaker 3: what they know. I think we're just waiting for that
37:14
Speaker 3: one last piece of evidence to go along with what
37:18
Speaker 3: we have to finally bring him to justice. And yes,
37:21
Speaker 3: he's still alive.
37:23
Speaker 7: If you have information related to the deaths of Carla
37:26
Speaker 7: Atkins and Vicky Stout, you can contact the Covington Police
37:30
Speaker 7: Department at nine oh one four seven five one two
37:34
Speaker 7: sixty one or email Covington Police Department at covingtontn dot com.
37:41
Speaker 1: We wait as justice some foals. Goodbye friend,