Latest / Gone Cold - Texas True Crime / The Disappearance of Patty Vaughan Part 2

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The Disappearance of Patty Vaughan Part 2 · Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

0:01
Speaker 1: Before we start the episode, we'd like to offer our
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Speaker 1: Gone Cold Podcast. So thank you Casey M. And Wayland
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Speaker 1: Gone Cold Podcast. We immensely appreciate all the folks who
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Speaker 1: support us there. Thanks y'all. Now onto the episode. The
0:35
Speaker 1: Gone Cold Podcasts may contain violent or graphics subject matter.
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Speaker 1: Listener discretion is advised. Thirty two year old Patty Vaughn
0:44
Speaker 1: was last seen on Christmas Day nineteen ninety six. According
0:49
Speaker 1: to her estranged husband Jr. Who came to spend the
0:52
Speaker 1: holiday with their three children, the two had heated arguments,
0:56
Speaker 1: resulting in Patty storming out of the house next day.
1:00
Speaker 1: Her light blue Dodge Caravan was found at Farm de
1:03
Speaker 1: Market Road nineteen thirty seven and Loop sixteen oh four
1:07
Speaker 1: in South Bear County, about fifteen miles from her Wilson
1:11
Speaker 1: County home and approximately five miles from Quinney Electric, her
1:15
Speaker 1: place of employment. The vehicle was locked, the exhaust manifold
1:21
Speaker 1: was still warm to the touch, and the vehicle was
1:23
Speaker 1: reported not to have been in that area earlier in
1:26
Speaker 1: the day. After retrieving keys from Jr. Who didn't want
1:31
Speaker 1: anything to do with the minivan or its retrieval, Patty's
1:35
Speaker 1: boss and a coworker changed the flat tire it had
1:38
Speaker 1: and took it to Quiney Electric. The driver's seat was
1:42
Speaker 1: all the way back, but Patty was hardly tall enough
1:45
Speaker 1: to drive with the seat in that position. At first,
1:49
Speaker 1: Patty's family found it difficult to enlist the help of police,
1:53
Speaker 1: so they did some searching themselves and also reinflated the
1:57
Speaker 1: flat tire it held the air. There were no punctures
2:02
Speaker 1: or roadwear that would have caused the tire to go flat,
2:05
Speaker 1: meaning someone had purposely deflated it, a discovery that only
2:09
Speaker 1: added to the already long list of troublesome details in
2:13
Speaker 1: Patty's disappearance. It was far from the last.
2:36
Speaker 2: You know. It was set up to make it look
2:38
Speaker 2: like Patty disappeared from her vehicle in Bear County.
2:41
Speaker 3: The van was.
2:42
Speaker 2: Set up to look it was staged to look like
2:45
Speaker 2: she disappeared from there to distract from the fact that
2:48
Speaker 2: something happened at their house in Wilson County, and that's
2:52
Speaker 2: why we felt law enforcement would push to prove that point.
3:18
Speaker 1: After the family of Patty Vaughan reported that it appeared
3:21
Speaker 1: someone had intentionally let the air out of the tire
3:24
Speaker 1: of her Dodge Caravan, Deputies B Johnson and Adrian Ramirez,
3:29
Speaker 1: crime scene investigators for the Bear County Sheriff's Office, were
3:33
Speaker 1: sent to inspect the vehicle. Ramirez told us what he
3:37
Speaker 1: found on the bottom portion of the rear center seat.
3:41
Speaker 4: As we're looking through the van on site, that's when
3:44
Speaker 4: I spotted the blood in the rear portion of the van.
3:50
Speaker 1: When they got the mini van back to the department,
3:53
Speaker 1: the deputies discovered something else.
3:56
Speaker 4: It wasn't until we took the van back to the
3:58
Speaker 4: department that we had Natesch's gloves on that. When I
4:04
Speaker 4: got out of the van, my partner noticed that my
4:06
Speaker 4: knees were wet. I said, ah, hold on, let me
4:10
Speaker 4: take off my gloves. And then I felt and I
4:12
Speaker 4: said it didn't wash. That's when we started looking inside
4:16
Speaker 4: the crevices of the where the seat's going on that
4:20
Speaker 4: and there was water in there, and then there was water.
4:23
Speaker 4: We took some plastic parts off. There was water underneath
4:27
Speaker 4: there and this thing's been totally washed.
4:31
Speaker 1: It was obvious it had been sprayed out at least
4:34
Speaker 1: from the rear seat to the sliding door. Upon removing
4:38
Speaker 1: the rear seat, Johnson and Ramirez saw a significant amount
4:42
Speaker 1: of water in the seat mounts. The deputies removed the
4:46
Speaker 1: plastic covers from the center seat and found red tinted
4:50
Speaker 1: condensation around the area closest to the sliding door. Using luminol,
4:57
Speaker 1: a chemical that reacts to blood, among other things, and fluoresces,
5:02
Speaker 1: they discovered many other areas where blood had likely been
5:06
Speaker 1: Several spots lit up on the interior of the sliding door,
5:11
Speaker 1: between the sliding door and the center seat, under the
5:14
Speaker 1: rear portion of the front passenger side seat, under the
5:18
Speaker 1: rear seat nearest the sliding door. Chief forensic errologist L. D.
5:23
Speaker 1: Ginsburg later identified human blood on the carpet underneath the
5:28
Speaker 1: rear seat. A sample of the carpet was taken for
5:31
Speaker 1: further testing. Only a single set of fingerprints could be
5:36
Speaker 1: found on the Mini van, on the fender above the
5:39
Speaker 1: wheel well of the tire that had gone flat. The
5:43
Speaker 1: vehicle had been wiped down inside and out on Saturday,
5:49
Speaker 1: December twenty eighth, nineteen ninety six, an anonymous callar phoned
5:53
Speaker 1: the Bear County Sheriff's office on Christmas Day. The tipster
5:58
Speaker 1: said their friend had seen a blue minivan pulled to
6:01
Speaker 1: the side of the road and a white male exited.
6:04
Speaker 1: The man began running away from the van, the caller continued,
6:09
Speaker 1: but suddenly stopped and ran back to the van, as
6:12
Speaker 1: if they'd forgotten something. According to Patty Vaughan's family, the
6:17
Speaker 1: man's description matched Patty's estranged husband, Jr. Vaughan, and a
6:22
Speaker 1: car scene picking him up matched the description of the
6:25
Speaker 1: car Jr's mother drove. A popular misconception about the van's
6:30
Speaker 1: contents has also been the subject of speculation. Even it
6:35
Speaker 1: appears by law enforcement, a red jumpsuit with an emblem
6:39
Speaker 1: of the letters j M was found inside. However, it
6:44
Speaker 1: was found in a box alongside many other articles of
6:47
Speaker 1: clothing Patty had been collecting from folks to donate elsewhere.
6:52
Speaker 1: The search for Patty continued. Her aunt Jean told the
6:56
Speaker 1: San Antonio Express News that there was no reason and
7:00
Speaker 1: to look for her at the location the searches were
7:02
Speaker 1: taking place. Other than the fact that her van was
7:05
Speaker 1: found there. Patty had no reason to be at that spot.
7:10
Speaker 1: Geene added that Patty would walk, crawl, or drag herself
7:14
Speaker 1: to a phone to call her children if she were able.
7:19
Speaker 1: The following day, the Bear County Sheriff's Office, including Deputy
7:23
Speaker 1: Adrian Ramirez, came to Patty Vaughan's home. A couple days
7:28
Speaker 1: before the same day they searched the van, investigators had
7:32
Speaker 1: seen what looked like blood on the floor of the
7:35
Speaker 1: master bedroom, but when they returned, all traces, at least
7:40
Speaker 1: those visible to the naked eye, were removed. That's where
7:44
Speaker 1: they concentrated their efforts.
7:47
Speaker 4: Process in a resident we used lumino, you know, suffluorescent
7:51
Speaker 4: chemical that you used to see if there's any blood
7:55
Speaker 4: present on the floors or on the walls, and it reacted.
8:01
Speaker 4: But the thing about that chemicals ever, reacts to bleach
8:04
Speaker 4: and all this other stuff also.
8:07
Speaker 1: Even if it was bleach, it was telling. And in fact,
8:10
Speaker 1: when Patty's cousin, Barb came to the house to get
8:13
Speaker 1: articles of clothing for the search dogs, she said the
8:16
Speaker 1: bedroom reeked of bleach. Jr's sister, Marilyn, consistently interrupted the investigators,
8:24
Speaker 1: even going so far as to tell them any blood
8:27
Speaker 1: they found in the master bathroom was hers and due
8:30
Speaker 1: to her menstrual cycle, but the luminol had fluorreessed on
8:34
Speaker 1: a large area there. Patty's cousin, Barb told us.
8:38
Speaker 5: She said that to the officers and they were just
8:42
Speaker 5: floored by it because they were like, well, lady, if
8:45
Speaker 5: you left this much blood behind, you need to be
8:47
Speaker 5: in hospital. So it was it was just a lot.
8:53
Speaker 1: In the bathroom. The luminol showed what looked like shoe
8:56
Speaker 1: prints which led to the master bathroom closet. Mop. Like
9:01
Speaker 1: swab markings were also observed on the bathroom floor closet
9:05
Speaker 1: area and on the bedroom floor, which was hard wood
9:09
Speaker 1: adjacent to the master bathroom.
9:11
Speaker 2: They found like swab marks from the mop. It was white,
9:17
Speaker 2: white marks, drag marks from the bedroom. Blood found behind
9:21
Speaker 2: the baseboard by the door in the bedroom. Is that correct?
9:24
Speaker 3: Yes, that had come right. It looked like before they
9:28
Speaker 3: had that wall had been cleaned behind the bedroom door.
9:30
Speaker 3: There was white marks and s white marks on the wall.
9:33
Speaker 3: And then they actually found physically Patty's blood in the
9:37
Speaker 3: baseboard behind the baseboard on the floor crack.
9:41
Speaker 1: The iluminol also reacted to spots on a mop and
9:45
Speaker 1: bucket found in the garage. As in the case of
9:48
Speaker 1: the Mini van. Samples were collected from the Vaughan home
9:52
Speaker 1: and were later proven to be blood. Matching it to Patty, however,
9:57
Speaker 1: would prove to be a more arduous task than simply
10:00
Speaker 1: asking for a comparison sample, of which the Sheriff's office
10:04
Speaker 1: requested from her children. Early on, Jr. Declined that request. Meanwhile,
10:12
Speaker 1: searches in south Bear County trudged forward. Though official searches
10:16
Speaker 1: were called off that Saturday evening, Patty's family and some volunteers, however,
10:23
Speaker 1: continued their efforts. The Heidi Search Center organized as Sunrise
10:28
Speaker 1: to Sunset Search for Saturday, January fourth, nineteen ninety seven.
10:33
Speaker 1: About two hundred showed up from Bear County Sheriff's Office
10:37
Speaker 1: deputies and volunteer firefighters to dog handlers and members of
10:41
Speaker 1: Patty's church. Again, love for Patty shined through, as solemn
10:46
Speaker 1: faced acquaintances and friends told reporters about her good nature
10:51
Speaker 1: and devotion to her children. No one who knew her
10:54
Speaker 1: believed she would have left of her own free will.
10:58
Speaker 1: Her father, Billy Brightway, and stepmother had come into town
11:02
Speaker 1: from Atlanta. The disappearance of Patty, who he called an
11:06
Speaker 1: Angel had taken a toll on Billy. The searches that
11:10
Speaker 1: day and the others to come turned up nothing. In
11:26
Speaker 1: thirty seven year old j R. Vaughan's statement to police,
11:29
Speaker 1: he briefly describes their lives together, getting married, the several
11:34
Speaker 1: times they moved, and how they settled into his mother's
11:37
Speaker 1: house in Wilson County. Eventually, a mother in law's house
11:41
Speaker 1: was built for Jr's mom at the back of the property,
11:44
Speaker 1: and he and Patty took over residence of the main house,
11:48
Speaker 1: which was to be split between them should his mother die.
11:52
Speaker 1: Back to Jr's statement, he talked about various problems with
11:56
Speaker 1: their marriage and reconciling them by giving her more control
12:00
Speaker 1: of the check book. Patty's family suggests she never had
12:04
Speaker 1: any control over any of their checkbooks other than the
12:07
Speaker 1: one used for Jr's construction contracting business, of which Patty
12:12
Speaker 1: handled accounting. Also in the statement, JR. Claimed he found
12:17
Speaker 1: out about Patty's affair with her boyfriend Gary on December thirteenth,
12:22
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six, which began after they separated. He then
12:27
Speaker 1: spoke of visiting his divorce attorney on Christmas Eve to
12:31
Speaker 1: put down a deposit on Christmas Day morning, he left
12:35
Speaker 1: his San Antonio apartment, and when he arrived at he
12:38
Speaker 1: and Patty's home, let himself in through the back door.
12:43
Speaker 1: Their three children opened gifts, after which Jr. Helped them
12:47
Speaker 1: assemble the toys as Patty prepared dinner. After dinner and cleanup, Jr.
12:53
Speaker 1: Said both he and Patty fell asleep in the living room.
12:57
Speaker 1: When they got up, he continued, Patty went to the
13:00
Speaker 1: master bedroom to avoid his family, who were coming over
13:03
Speaker 1: to pick up the kids. After they did and left,
13:07
Speaker 1: the arguing began, he said. Quote. At times we raised
13:12
Speaker 1: our voices, we yelled, we calmed down, We said many
13:17
Speaker 1: hateful things. I threatened to take the kids from her.
13:21
Speaker 1: She said no way, and I told her she had
13:23
Speaker 1: already done enough things with Gary that I could win custody.
13:27
Speaker 1: She walked out of the bedroom, walked to the dining
13:30
Speaker 1: room table, picked up her purse and her coat, and
13:33
Speaker 1: walked out the front door, crying and yelling. End quote.
13:38
Speaker 1: Patty's family takes issue with much of Jr's statement here. Patty,
13:43
Speaker 1: they said, wasn't known to yell, even when she got
13:46
Speaker 1: mad or upset. In any other way, she would have
13:50
Speaker 1: been crying her cousin Barb told us, but she never
13:53
Speaker 1: would have yelled. Quote. She threw open the door, walked
13:58
Speaker 1: to her van and started off and left. She drove
14:01
Speaker 1: out the driveway, turned right and went up out of sight.
14:05
Speaker 1: I closed the house up, locked and latched the front door,
14:09
Speaker 1: paced around the house and walked back to my mother's home,
14:12
Speaker 1: and I told her of our argument end quote. According
14:17
Speaker 1: to eyewitnesses, there was a problem with Jr's story concerning
14:21
Speaker 1: Patty leaving in the van, which he claims was gone
14:25
Speaker 1: until her boss found it the following day.
14:28
Speaker 2: Neighbors talk about how the van had been in the garage.
14:32
Speaker 2: Patty and Jr. Had lived in that house and moved
14:35
Speaker 2: all of his mother's stuff out to the garage. There
14:38
Speaker 2: was never room enough for the van in the garage
14:40
Speaker 2: because Patty always said, when are you going to clean
14:41
Speaker 2: it out so I can park the van in the garage,
14:44
Speaker 2: And there was never room, And all of a sudden
14:46
Speaker 2: there was room in the garage for the van to
14:48
Speaker 2: be parked one night.
14:50
Speaker 5: Yeah, that night she disappeared.
14:52
Speaker 1: The night she disappeared, Patty's boyfriend, Gary was also scrutinized
14:58
Speaker 1: by police as he rode with his sister He admitted
15:02
Speaker 1: asking her to drive by Patty's house on Christmas Day,
15:06
Speaker 1: but had spent the rest of the day and evening
15:09
Speaker 1: with his family for the holiday.
15:11
Speaker 6: Gary had an alibi. Gary had phone call see where
15:16
Speaker 6: he called from his sister's house to Patty's house. He
15:20
Speaker 6: and his sisters drove by Patty's house that afternoon.
15:24
Speaker 5: And Gary helped us the whole time we were out
15:28
Speaker 5: looking for her. He's out there with us. He brought
15:30
Speaker 5: us water and food, and searched and handed out flyers.
15:37
Speaker 1: Jr. On the other hand, never showed up for searches
15:41
Speaker 1: and kept Patty's family from seeing her children, with whom
15:45
Speaker 1: they were extremely close. After giving his statement to police,
15:50
Speaker 1: he also lawyered up a smart move for someone who
15:53
Speaker 1: was innocent or guilty. It should be noted was never
15:57
Speaker 1: interviewed by them again and stopped his speaking with the press.
16:02
Speaker 1: On January twenty second, nineteen ninety seven, j R. Vaughan
16:06
Speaker 1: withdrew his divorce petition. Patty's family continually searched her aunt.
16:13
Speaker 1: Jean told reporters for the San Antonio Express News that
16:17
Speaker 1: they didn't expect Patty to be found alive. The reality
16:21
Speaker 1: of what we have to face now won't hold a
16:23
Speaker 1: candle to what we've had to face out there looking
16:27
Speaker 1: for her, Pulling apart every bush and pile of garbage,
16:30
Speaker 1: opening every empty refrigerator, she said, adding nothing can compare
16:36
Speaker 1: to all the horrifying things we imagined out there looking
16:39
Speaker 1: for her. She deserves to be brought home. Authorities had
16:44
Speaker 1: already obtained Patty's dental records in preparation for finding her body.
16:49
Speaker 1: Official searches, usually led by the Heidi Search Center, continued,
16:54
Speaker 1: though they had become sporadic. The police investigation as a
16:59
Speaker 1: whole appeared to have moved at a snail's pace, and
17:02
Speaker 1: witnesses important witnesses, such as Jr's sister Marylyn, were interviewed
17:08
Speaker 1: just once. On January seventeenth, nineteen ninety seven, a Wilson
17:14
Speaker 1: County judge signed off on a warrant ordering five milli
17:18
Speaker 1: liters of blood be taken from Jerry Ray j R.
17:21
Speaker 1: Vaughn and the same amount from each of he and
17:24
Speaker 1: Patty's three children. The blood was to be compared to
17:28
Speaker 1: the blood found in both Patty's Dodge caravan and in
17:31
Speaker 1: the master bedroom and bathroom of her home. Both the
17:35
Speaker 1: Wilson County and Bear County Sheriff's offices were putting out
17:39
Speaker 1: conflicting information, telling reporters in one breath that they'd found
17:43
Speaker 1: several indications of foul play, but in another insisting that
17:48
Speaker 1: the case was being investigated as a standard missing person's case.
17:52
Speaker 1: They had no suspects, only persons of interest. They'd later say,
17:58
Speaker 1: whatever the case, whatever was truly going on inside the
18:02
Speaker 1: mines of investigators, the forensic testing was moving as slowly
18:06
Speaker 1: as the investigation itself. More than a month after the
18:10
Speaker 1: blood was taken from Jr. And the kids, Patty's aunt
18:14
Speaker 1: and cousins questioned why the Bear County Medical Examiner hadn't
18:18
Speaker 1: yet ran the necessary tests. Doctor Vincent Demayo, chief Medical Examiner,
18:24
Speaker 1: told reporters basically that it was the bureaucracy. He was
18:29
Speaker 1: waiting on a purchase order to buy a kit from
18:31
Speaker 1: a private lab in North Carolina. The kit, a reverse
18:35
Speaker 1: paternity kit, was relatively new at the time. It would
18:40
Speaker 1: remove Jr's DNA from the children's samples, isolating Patty's DNA,
18:46
Speaker 1: which could then be compared to the samples taken from
18:48
Speaker 1: her home and mini van. No state funded lab in
18:52
Speaker 1: Texas could perform such a test. At the time. For
18:56
Speaker 1: the family, those hold ups were frustrating and bordering on infuriating.
19:02
Speaker 1: Even area citizens were sending in letters to the editor
19:06
Speaker 1: of the San Antonio Express News venting their frustrations at
19:10
Speaker 1: the lack of movement on the DNA testing. Finally, on
19:15
Speaker 1: April seventh, nineteen ninety seven, more than three months after
19:19
Speaker 1: Patty Vaughan disappeared, the results of the tests came back.
19:24
Speaker 1: Wilson County Sheriff Joe Tackett announced that the blood found
19:28
Speaker 1: in Patty's vehicle and house did belong to her. The
19:32
Speaker 1: lawman also insisted he'd try to get both the Texas
19:36
Speaker 1: Rangers and the Bear County Sheriff's Office more involved, though
19:41
Speaker 1: there was far more to it that was at least
19:43
Speaker 1: part of the issue from the get go. The case,
19:46
Speaker 1: as former Bear County Sheriff's Office Deputy Adrian Ramirez told us,
19:51
Speaker 1: was a jurisdictional nightmare.
19:54
Speaker 4: You know, another problem that we had. We had the
19:57
Speaker 4: case because the van was found in Burke County. Then
20:00
Speaker 4: somehow or another, Wilson County took the case because the
20:04
Speaker 4: house was in Wilson County.
20:07
Speaker 1: Eventually the jurisdiction transferred back to the Bear County Sheriff's
20:11
Speaker 1: Office solely. Sheriff Tackett also made a comment that would
20:16
Speaker 1: hang over the investigation like a dark cloud, defining it
20:20
Speaker 1: in unfortunate terms, and arrest, he said, probably won't come
20:26
Speaker 1: until her body has been found. Desperate for answers and
20:41
Speaker 1: frustrated with a law enforcement investigation that appeared to be
20:44
Speaker 1: going nowhere, the family of thirty two year old Patty
20:47
Speaker 1: Vaughan hired private detective Charles Parker. Parker was confident not
20:53
Speaker 1: only in his own capabilities, but also in the possibility
20:57
Speaker 1: that his investigation would breathe new life to the one
21:00
Speaker 1: being performed by the Bear County Sheriff's Office, though they
21:04
Speaker 1: all but scoffed at the idea, pointing out that hiring
21:08
Speaker 1: pis typically does little good in such a case. Wilson County,
21:13
Speaker 1: who were still jointly working the case, insisted that there
21:17
Speaker 1: wasn't enough evidence to take it to the district attorney,
21:20
Speaker 1: but promised the departments would not rest until they found
21:24
Speaker 1: out what happened to Patty. Assisting the private investigator was
21:29
Speaker 1: an attorney, a psychologist, and an intuitive psychic. On April seventeenth,
21:36
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety seven, Parker Road shotgun in a helicopter taking
21:40
Speaker 1: photos of an area he thought Patty's body would likely
21:43
Speaker 1: be found about four square miles. Apparently, the investigator's psychic,
21:49
Speaker 1: Susan Okonski, had drawn maps of the place she'd envisioned
21:54
Speaker 1: Patty to be buried. The maps bore a striking similarity
21:58
Speaker 1: to a construction side of which Jr. Vaughn was the
22:02
Speaker 1: superintendent the future site of an elementary school in Pleasanton,
22:07
Speaker 1: about thirty eight miles southwest of the Vaughan home. A
22:11
Speaker 1: State helicopter equipped with infrared had detected hotspots in a
22:16
Speaker 1: portion of the foundation, and ground penetrating radar was also
22:20
Speaker 1: brought in to identify any anomalies within the concrete. Jr.
22:26
Speaker 1: Vaughn had worked at the construction site the day after
22:29
Speaker 1: his estranged wife went missing, it was reported, although according
22:34
Speaker 1: to the San Antonio Express News, no concrete had been
22:38
Speaker 1: poured between December twenty one, nineteen ninety six, and January
22:42
Speaker 1: thirty first, nineteen ninety seven, four days before and more
22:46
Speaker 1: than a month after Paddy disappeared, respectively, Since Jr. Also
22:53
Speaker 1: filed for divorce the day after his estranged wife went
22:56
Speaker 1: missing and delivered the keys to Patty's van to her
22:59
Speaker 1: in employer. It's unclear how much time he's thought or
23:03
Speaker 1: known to have spent at the job site that day.
23:07
Speaker 1: With Jr's permission anyway, which meant no warrant was required.
23:12
Speaker 1: Authorities drilled four holes in the concrete slab and about
23:16
Speaker 1: two feet into the soil from where samples were taken
23:19
Speaker 1: to be tested, but cadaverdogs had failed to react at
23:23
Speaker 1: any of the drilled boores. The next day, a machine
23:28
Speaker 1: that detects methane was brought in, but again nothing was found.
23:34
Speaker 1: Three weeks later, the soil samples would prove to be
23:37
Speaker 1: useless as evidence. By June nineteen ninety seven, the Bear
23:43
Speaker 1: and Wilson County Sheriff's offices had amassed a file that
23:47
Speaker 1: measured approximately four inches thick, and one and a half
23:51
Speaker 1: of those inches involved tips that were called in. Wilson
23:56
Speaker 1: County was far more vocal than Bear about the case,
24:00
Speaker 1: often venting their frustration in their lack of progress. They'd
24:04
Speaker 1: spent two thousand man hours investigating the case, Sheriff Tackett reported,
24:10
Speaker 1: the most the department had ever worked on a single case.
24:14
Speaker 1: He refused to label JR. Vaughan as a suspect, while
24:18
Speaker 1: also acknowledging that much of the investigation was concentrated on
24:23
Speaker 1: him due to the recent separation and Patty's romance with Gary. Still,
24:28
Speaker 1: they were no closer to finding Patty Vaughan than they
24:32
Speaker 1: were the day they entered the investigation. More frustrated, of course,
24:37
Speaker 1: was Patty's family.
24:39
Speaker 5: They didn't investigate the car wash. They didn't investigate, I
24:44
Speaker 5: mean anything really when they found the blood and house,
24:46
Speaker 5: they didn't. They never even had Jr. And his sister
24:50
Speaker 5: leave the house. They were in there while they were
24:53
Speaker 5: doing their luminal testing.
24:56
Speaker 1: By the time a year had passed, Patty's family out
25:00
Speaker 1: thousands of flyers featuring her description and photograph, and relative
25:05
Speaker 1: to their numbers and availability, had inarguably put in more
25:09
Speaker 1: work than authorities in Wilson County. Besides handing out the flyers,
25:15
Speaker 1: searching and strategizing, Patty's aunt Jean told reporter Adolph Pasquero
25:21
Speaker 1: that they'd written physical letters, emailed, faxed, and called law
25:26
Speaker 1: enforcement agencies about the case in an attempt to keep
25:29
Speaker 1: the pressure on. Every single day of the past year
25:34
Speaker 1: consisted of following leads, eliminating possibilities. Jeane said even when
25:40
Speaker 1: it looked like their exhaustion and feelings of hopelessness would
25:44
Speaker 1: get the best of them, they would never give up. Meanwhile,
25:48
Speaker 1: quotes given to the media by law enforcement made it
25:51
Speaker 1: sound like they already had if it wasn't for the
25:55
Speaker 1: fact that Patty was still missing. Lieutenant bub Baker of
25:59
Speaker 1: the Bear County Sheriff's Office said there was probably enough
26:03
Speaker 1: evidence to take the case to trial. What if you
26:06
Speaker 1: do indict someone and get a conviction and she turns
26:09
Speaker 1: up alive, Baker asked, rhetorically, continuing, if you don't have
26:14
Speaker 1: a body, it's very seldom you can get a district
26:17
Speaker 1: attorney to prosecute the case. Up until the point Lieutenant
26:22
Speaker 1: Baker made these comments, there had been at least sixty
26:26
Speaker 1: five nobody convictions in the United States that we counted,
26:30
Speaker 1: and likely many more, including one that was unfolding in Lubbock, Texas.
26:37
Speaker 1: At that very time. The Sheriff's office told reporters that
26:41
Speaker 1: they'd exhausted all leads. We'll continue Paddy's story next time
26:47
Speaker 1: on Gone Cold Texas True Crime. If you have any
26:53
Speaker 1: information about the disappearance of Patty Vaughan, please contact the
26:57
Speaker 1: Bear County Sheriff's Office at two one zero zero three
27:00
Speaker 1: three five six thousand. We'd like to thank Kathy Barb
27:06
Speaker 1: and former Bear County Sheriff's Office Deputy Adrian Ramirez for
27:10
Speaker 1: taking the time to speak with us about Patty's case.
27:15
Speaker 1: If you'd like to join gon Cold's mission to shine
27:18
Speaker 1: a light on unsolved homicides and missing persons cases, get
27:22
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27:26
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27:31
Speaker 1: You can also support the show by leaving a five
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Speaker 1: star rating and written review on Apple Podcasts or wherever
27:38
Speaker 1: else you listen. However you choose to support Gone Cold,
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Speaker 1: we appreciate you. Thanks for listening, y'all.