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Hell and Gone Murder Line: Dardeen Family Murders · Hell and Gone: Murder Line

0:46
Speaker 1: School of Humans. Helen Got Murder Line actively investigates cold
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Speaker 1: case murders in an effort to raise public awareness invite
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Speaker 1: witnesses to come forward and present evidence that could potentially
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Speaker 1: be further investigated by law enforcement. While we value insights
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Speaker 1: from family and community members, their statements should not be
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Speaker 1: considered evidence and point to the challenges of verifying facts
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Speaker 1: inherent in cold cases. We remind listeners that everyone has
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Speaker 1: presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
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Speaker 1: Nothing in the podcast is intended to state or imply
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Speaker 1: that anyone who has not been convicted of a crime
1:24
Speaker 1: is guilty of any wrongdoing. Thanks for listening.
1:30
Speaker 2: On November eighteenth, nineteen eighty seven, twenty nine year old
1:34
Speaker 2: Russell Dardine, who went by his middle name Keith, did
1:37
Speaker 2: not show up to his seven am shift at a
1:39
Speaker 2: local water plant. This was very unlike Keith, who lived
1:43
Speaker 2: in a mon noble home in the tiny town of Anna, Illinois.
1:46
Speaker 2: The area back then had a population of just four
1:49
Speaker 2: hundred and sixty people. Keith lived with his family, thirty
1:53
Speaker 2: year old Ruby Elaine, who also went by her middle name,
1:56
Speaker 2: and their three year old son, Peter. Elaine was seven
2:00
Speaker 2: months pregnant. They were excited about the new baby, due
2:03
Speaker 2: January eleventh, and already had potential names picked out. If
2:07
Speaker 2: the baby was a girl, they were going to name
2:09
Speaker 2: her Casey. If it was a boy, he would be Ian.
2:12
Speaker 2: Keith worked for the Wrend Lake Conservancy District and Elaine
2:16
Speaker 2: worked part time at an office supplies store in Mount Vernon.
2:19
Speaker 2: They were very active in their local Baptist church, where
2:22
Speaker 2: Elaine played the piano and Keith sang in the choir.
2:26
Speaker 2: Both Keith and Elaine were very reliable, so his family
2:29
Speaker 2: immediately knew that something was wrong. Keith's shift supervisor went
2:34
Speaker 2: to the mobile home and knocked on the door, but
2:37
Speaker 2: no one answered, so then he called Keith's parents, Russell
2:41
Speaker 2: and Joanne Dardine, who were divorced but lived fairly near
2:44
Speaker 2: each other and had an amicable relationship. Neither of them
2:48
Speaker 2: had heard from Keith or anyone else in the family.
2:51
Speaker 2: Both Russell and Joanne spoke with the Jefferson County Sheriff's office,
2:55
Speaker 2: and the police agreed to do a welfare check. Joanne
2:59
Speaker 2: said that she remembered telling the officer where he could
3:02
Speaker 2: find Keith and Elaine's spare key, but in the end,
3:05
Speaker 2: they didn't need it. We called Joanne and she talked
3:10
Speaker 2: to us about what happened that evening when police came
3:13
Speaker 2: to that trailer.
3:14
Speaker 3: The state police officer came. He knocked on the front door,
3:18
Speaker 3: no offesser, So he went around to the back door
3:22
Speaker 3: and I had told him if the back door is locked,
3:25
Speaker 3: there's the key, and I told him where the key
3:27
Speaker 3: was dead. All he did was just turning the doorknob
3:30
Speaker 3: and the door open. So he shined his flashlight in
3:35
Speaker 3: because it was getting dark. The bedroom door was right there.
3:40
Speaker 3: He shined the flashlight into that bedroom and he'd seen
3:45
Speaker 3: people laying there.
3:47
Speaker 2: Keith and Elaine had been living in their mobile home
3:49
Speaker 2: by the train tracks for just over a year. It
3:52
Speaker 2: had formerly been used by the Illinois Central Railroad, and
3:55
Speaker 2: according to joe Anne, they had been planning on moving soon.
3:59
Speaker 2: Keith had told his parents that he wanted to move,
4:02
Speaker 2: partly because they wanted a bigger place for their growing family,
4:05
Speaker 2: and also because he said crime in the area had
4:08
Speaker 2: gotten bad. There had been a recent rape in the
4:11
Speaker 2: area near their trailer, and there had reportedly been fourteen
4:15
Speaker 2: bodies found in the two year period before in Jefferson County.
4:19
Speaker 2: With three confirmed murder cases. Many of those mysterious deaths
4:24
Speaker 2: were unsolved. There was a familicide committed in nineteen eighty
4:28
Speaker 2: five by eighteen year old Thomas Odele, who killed his
4:31
Speaker 2: parents and siblings one by one, stabbing them with a
4:34
Speaker 2: butcher knife, except for his younger brother, who he strangled,
4:39
Speaker 2: and it was also reported the local community had been
4:42
Speaker 2: in fear since July second, nineteen eighty seven, when the
4:45
Speaker 2: nude body of ten year old Amy Schultz was found
4:48
Speaker 2: in rural Jefferson County. Amy's clothes were found strown along
4:52
Speaker 2: the access road. It was later determined that she had
4:56
Speaker 2: been raped and murdered, Her throat had been slit, and
4:59
Speaker 2: her killer had stepped on her to exsanguinate her. Eventually,
5:04
Speaker 2: a local man named Cecil Sutherland was arrested, and in
5:08
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty nine he was tried and convicted for Amy's murder,
5:11
Speaker 2: but it took months for police to process evidence and
5:14
Speaker 2: make an arrest, and in the meantime, Amy's killer was
5:17
Speaker 2: still at large. The brutality of her murder terrified the
5:21
Speaker 2: community in Jefferson and in surrounding counties. Keith had been
5:26
Speaker 2: so worried by the news that one night, when a
5:29
Speaker 2: young woman showed up at the house asking if she
5:31
Speaker 2: could use Keith and Elaine's phone, Keith refused. When police
5:37
Speaker 2: entered the trailer, they found three dead bodies in the
5:40
Speaker 2: main bedroom, all in the same bed. There was blood everywhere.
5:45
Speaker 2: The victims had been beaten to death. It was Elaine
5:49
Speaker 2: and her son Peter, and police later said that during
5:53
Speaker 2: the prolonged attack, the killer beat Elaine so severely that
5:58
Speaker 2: she went into labor and gave birth to her daughter,
6:01
Speaker 2: and then the killer or killers beat the baby to death.
6:07
Speaker 2: Then they neatly wrapped Elaine, her baby, and Peter in
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Speaker 2: the bedding and tucked them into their waterbed. Keith was
6:15
Speaker 2: nowhere to be found. Even now, thirty eight years later,
6:20
Speaker 2: people in the area of Ana, Illinois and law enforcement
6:23
Speaker 2: who worked this case are still describing it as the
6:26
Speaker 2: most horrific murder that anyone has ever seen.
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Speaker 4: I'm Catherine Townsend.
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Speaker 2: Over the past seven years of making my true crime
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Speaker 2: podcast Helen Gone, I've learned that there's no such thing
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Speaker 2: as a small town where murder never happens. I have
6:41
Speaker 2: received hundreds of messages from people all around the country
6:45
Speaker 2: asking for help with an unsolved murder that's affected them,
6:47
Speaker 2: their families and their communities. If you have a case
6:51
Speaker 2: you'd like me and my team to look into, you
6:53
Speaker 2: can reach out to us at our Helen Gone Murder
6:55
Speaker 2: Line at six seven eight seven four four six one
6:58
Speaker 2: four five. That's six seven eight seven four four six
7:02
Speaker 2: one four five, or you can send us a message
7:05
Speaker 2: on Instagram at Helen gonepod. This is Helen Gone Murder Line.
7:54
Speaker 2: Police and Ana Illinois were processing a horrific and strange
7:59
Speaker 2: crime scene and they couldn't understand it because Keith and
8:02
Speaker 2: Elaine were very well liked in the community. Keith's friend
8:06
Speaker 2: Kevin Harris, who was the best man in the couple's wedding,
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Speaker 2: told local news station KFBS twelve that Keith and Elaine
8:13
Speaker 2: were two of the nicest people you'd ever want to meet.
8:17
Speaker 2: At first, police theorized that because Keith was the only
8:20
Speaker 2: one missing, he had killed his family.
8:24
Speaker 3: They were trying to locate Keith because they thought Keith
8:27
Speaker 3: had murdered them, and I said, no, no, no, no,
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Speaker 3: My son would not do that. He loved his family dearly.
8:37
Speaker 3: And they had me getting on the phone, falling his
8:41
Speaker 3: friends and whoever I could to see if Keith possessed
8:46
Speaker 3: their house, and of course they were all shocked. She said, no,
8:51
Speaker 3: Keith's not here, and so it just, you know, it
8:57
Speaker 3: just was really hard to bear.
9:01
Speaker 2: Joanne, Keith's mother, was still trying to process the shock
9:04
Speaker 2: of learning that not only had her daughter in law
9:07
Speaker 2: and two grandchildren been brutally beaten to death, but that
9:11
Speaker 2: her son Keith was the main suspect and Keith was missing.
9:15
Speaker 2: Joanne said that the police stayed at her house and
9:19
Speaker 2: told her that this was for the family's protection because
9:22
Speaker 2: presumably they didn't know where Keith was and if he
9:25
Speaker 2: was the main suspect, who he could target next.
9:29
Speaker 3: After quite a long time, they said, well, you are
9:34
Speaker 3: not allowed to leave the house until we say so,
9:38
Speaker 3: and you'll have a bodyguard outside the house. So they
9:43
Speaker 3: had to be golf parked outside my home for our benefit,
9:47
Speaker 3: and they were looking for Keith. They were there all
9:51
Speaker 3: night long, which we tried to get some rest, which
9:55
Speaker 3: I didn't, and then I got a strange phone call
9:58
Speaker 3: in the middle of the night. It was somebody calling
10:02
Speaker 3: for somebody and I said, they don't live here. I
10:06
Speaker 3: don't know you are, I don't know who you're talking about.
10:10
Speaker 2: Joanne said that she told law enforcement about the strange
10:13
Speaker 2: phone call, but then nothing more ever came.
10:16
Speaker 4: Of it, But already word was spreading.
10:19
Speaker 2: Through the small community about the horrific murders that happened
10:22
Speaker 2: at that trailer. The next day, Joanne was asked to
10:26
Speaker 2: go down to the police department. There she heard for
10:29
Speaker 2: the first time the brutal and horrific details of what
10:33
Speaker 2: really happened to her daughter in law and grandchildren.
10:37
Speaker 3: They took me into a room and they ended up
10:41
Speaker 3: telling me that Elaine delivered the baby during the feeding
10:48
Speaker 3: and the baby was born alive, and then they killed
10:53
Speaker 3: the baby. That was the first I had heard of it,
10:59
Speaker 3: and I was just totally shocked. But they didn't know
11:05
Speaker 3: the baby was there until their corner got there and
11:09
Speaker 3: they started to remove the bodies to the mortuary. The
11:13
Speaker 3: baby was laying between her and Peter.
11:20
Speaker 2: The police were still trying to track down Keith as
11:23
Speaker 2: their primary suspect, but the next day everything changed. At
11:27
Speaker 2: around five point fifty pm, two hunters were walking through
11:30
Speaker 2: a wheat field in Franklin County, the neighboring county, and
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Speaker 2: they saw something horrifying. It was Keith's body and it
11:39
Speaker 2: had been mutilated. Keith's mother, Joanne, told us that the
11:56
Speaker 2: entire investigation into her daughter in law and grandchildren's deaths changed.
12:01
Speaker 2: Law enforcement no longer believed that Keith killed his family
12:05
Speaker 2: because they had found Keith's body.
12:08
Speaker 3: My daughter she took me out to the hospital to
12:12
Speaker 3: get me something to help me relax and sleep. And
12:16
Speaker 3: while we was at the hospital, somebody was about ten
12:20
Speaker 3: feet away from us, and they were talking on the
12:22
Speaker 3: phone and they said, do you mean they found that
12:27
Speaker 3: Dardine man? And my daughter heard him and she walked
12:31
Speaker 3: over there and they told her that they had found Keith.
12:35
Speaker 2: Police found one of the Dardine family's cars parked near
12:39
Speaker 2: a police station Inventon, about eleven miles from anah A
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Speaker 2: nineteen eighty one Red Plymouth. The car interior was covered
12:46
Speaker 2: in blood, and police later said that they believed that
12:50
Speaker 2: Keith was shot multiple times in the head. Inside the car,
12:54
Speaker 2: he was also shot in the chest. Then his killer
12:57
Speaker 2: or killers dragged him outside to that wheat field on
13:00
Speaker 2: the campus of Red Lake College, which was about a
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Speaker 2: mile and a half from the Dardine's trailer. Then he
13:06
Speaker 2: was mutilated. His killers had severed his penis. The body
13:11
Speaker 2: seemed to have been left out in an area where
13:13
Speaker 2: people could pretty easily find it. And then it seemed
13:17
Speaker 2: as though the killer drove the car away from the
13:20
Speaker 2: site of where they shot Keith to the place where
13:22
Speaker 2: it was found abandoned near the police station.
13:26
Speaker 3: There was a road to the right that took you
13:28
Speaker 3: to the college, and then there was a road that
13:31
Speaker 3: slung around and went out to a lake and parks
13:35
Speaker 3: and stuff like that, And just as you turned that corner,
13:39
Speaker 3: they had drugged Keith's body out of the car into
13:44
Speaker 3: that field, and they pulled his clothes down in the cutting.
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Speaker 3: They left him that way.
13:52
Speaker 2: Keith's exact time of death could not be calculated precisely.
13:56
Speaker 2: According to the Saint Louis Post Dispatch, the coroner of
13:59
Speaker 2: Franklin County said that Keith had been dead for between
14:02
Speaker 2: twelve and forty eight hours, while other sources said he
14:05
Speaker 2: had been dead between twenty four and thirty six hours.
14:09
Speaker 2: So was Keith killed before his family at the same
14:12
Speaker 2: time or afterwards. Doctor Richard Garretson, the coroner, said that
14:16
Speaker 2: Keith had a completely different cause of death than that
14:19
Speaker 2: of the rest of his family. The coroner said Keith
14:22
Speaker 2: had not been beaten, but police were not saying much
14:25
Speaker 2: about this investigation, even though local rumors were already flying.
14:30
Speaker 2: Some people believed that Elaine's baby had been cut out
14:33
Speaker 2: of her womb, or that Keith's murder had been part
14:36
Speaker 2: of some kind of satanic ritual. Our foury request was denied.
14:43
Speaker 2: This is still open investigation, even though it's been almost
14:46
Speaker 2: forty years. Keith's body was found right across the county
14:52
Speaker 2: line from their trailer, so the investigation was initially handled
14:55
Speaker 2: by two different police departments. Separate inquiries were opened for
14:59
Speaker 2: Keith's and Elaine's deaths, and Elaine's family, according to Keith's mother,
15:04
Speaker 2: retained an attorney. Joanne said that the relationship between her
15:08
Speaker 2: family and her daughter in law's family began to deteriorate.
15:13
Speaker 3: They went on ahead and made arrangements for Elaine before
15:17
Speaker 3: we even found Keith's body, which her side. The family
15:23
Speaker 3: didn't want to agree to anything because they just knew
15:26
Speaker 3: Keith killed them, and when they actually found Keith's body,
15:31
Speaker 3: they realized Keith didn't do it.
15:34
Speaker 2: Joanne told us that even though police knew that Keith
15:38
Speaker 2: was a victim and that he did not harm his family,
15:41
Speaker 2: she felt as though they believed he was somehow responsible
15:44
Speaker 2: for what happened to them.
15:46
Speaker 3: They felt like it was his fault. They felt like
15:49
Speaker 3: even though they found Keith, they still felt like it
15:53
Speaker 3: was Keith's fault that it happened.
15:56
Speaker 4: We have reached out to Elaine's family.
15:59
Speaker 2: We spoke to one of her sisters, who indicated that
16:03
Speaker 2: neither she nor anyone else in the family wished to
16:05
Speaker 2: comment about this case. Joanne said, no one who talked
16:09
Speaker 2: to Keith's friends and family could find any reason why
16:12
Speaker 2: someone would have targeted him or why he would have
16:16
Speaker 2: wanted to hurt his family.
16:17
Speaker 3: The police told me that they had talked to over
16:21
Speaker 3: a thousand people, and they said that they never found
16:25
Speaker 3: not one person to say one bad word against Keith,
16:31
Speaker 3: not one.
16:33
Speaker 4: This case was complicated.
16:35
Speaker 2: There were two separate crime scenes, and the primary and
16:39
Speaker 2: secondary crime scenes were so different, at least from what
16:42
Speaker 2: we know now, that in my opinion, it seemed like
16:45
Speaker 2: the work of two different killers.
16:48
Speaker 3: I seemed to believe that whoever did it Keith was
16:51
Speaker 3: friendly with him Keith Newan.
16:59
Speaker 2: It was reported that Elaine, Peter, and the baby were
17:02
Speaker 2: beaten to death using a baseball bat. The bat was
17:05
Speaker 2: a present that Keith had given to his son, So
17:09
Speaker 2: whoever killed Elaine, the baby and Peter did not bring
17:13
Speaker 2: a weapon with them. We asked Joanne about the murder
17:17
Speaker 2: weapon that was used to kill Keith, and she said
17:20
Speaker 2: that Keith did own guns, but those were not the
17:23
Speaker 2: ones that were used to shoot him. She said one
17:26
Speaker 2: of Keith's guns was found in a closet and his
17:28
Speaker 2: other one, a shotgun, had also not been used in
17:31
Speaker 2: the killings. So it seemed as though the killer shot
17:34
Speaker 2: Keith with a weapon that they brought with them.
17:37
Speaker 4: But what about the other physical evidence?
17:39
Speaker 2: Surely with two such brutal crime scenes, the killer left
17:43
Speaker 2: a trace of hair, skin, or other DNA. Back then,
17:47
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty seven, DNA testing was in its infancy,
17:51
Speaker 2: But I still wonder what happened to the evidence, the
17:53
Speaker 2: baseball back covered in blood, the bedding, the DNA from
17:56
Speaker 2: the bodies and from the field where Keith was found.
18:00
Speaker 2: Was there any usable DNA collected and if so, where
18:04
Speaker 2: is it now? And is there any way that it
18:06
Speaker 2: could be tested. Police were also struggling with motive because,
18:12
Speaker 2: according to media reports, nothing was taken from the trailer,
18:15
Speaker 2: no cash, not their BCR or their camera, Elaine's jewelry
18:20
Speaker 2: was also found there, untouched. Robbery did not appear to
18:23
Speaker 2: be the motive. Also, the back door was open and
18:27
Speaker 2: there was no sign of forced entry. Police interviewed the
18:30
Speaker 2: family's friends, trying to figure out if there was another
18:33
Speaker 2: motive that wasn't immediately obvious. They asked if either Keith
18:37
Speaker 2: or Elaine had had affairs, but found no evidence that
18:40
Speaker 2: either of them had. They also checked to see if
18:43
Speaker 2: there could be a financial motive. At the home, there
18:46
Speaker 2: was a stack of papers with sports scores on them,
18:49
Speaker 2: and apparently this motivated police to ask if Keith had
18:52
Speaker 2: a problem with gambling or if he possibly had gambling debts.
18:56
Speaker 2: His mother told police that Keith was careful with money
19:00
Speaker 2: and that that would have been very out of character
19:02
Speaker 2: for him. With no motive, police considered the possibility this
19:06
Speaker 2: could have been a random drifter, a serial killer, or,
19:09
Speaker 2: as some members of the community had wondered, some kind
19:12
Speaker 2: of satanic cult. The Post dispatched it a story on
19:16
Speaker 2: the case. They quoted a police expert on cults who
19:19
Speaker 2: told the paper that Satanists would mutilate bodies and leave
19:22
Speaker 2: satanic symbols at the crime scene, among other things, and
19:26
Speaker 2: the nineteen eighties was prime time for Satanic panic, a
19:30
Speaker 2: period marked by these sensationalized and false media stories about
19:34
Speaker 2: alleged Satanic cults and ritual abuse. But almost all of
19:38
Speaker 2: these claims in the Dardian case were discredited. There was
19:42
Speaker 2: no evidence that the Dartian family murders were in any
19:45
Speaker 2: way connected to Satanism, so were the Dardenes killed by
19:50
Speaker 2: a random drifter or by someone closer to home. The
19:54
Speaker 2: Franklin County Coroner, for one, did not believe the Dardans
19:57
Speaker 2: were random victims. He told the Post Dispatch, quote, I
20:01
Speaker 2: believe it was a very personal, deliberate thing, end quote.
20:05
Speaker 2: But the crime scene seemed to perplex even outside experts.
20:10
Speaker 2: At one point, two FBI profillowers were brought in, and
20:13
Speaker 2: they reportedly said the crime fell outside the scope of
20:16
Speaker 2: their usual analytic methods. Joanne Dardine never gave up talking
20:25
Speaker 2: to the media. She asked the Oprah Winfrey Show to
20:28
Speaker 2: cover the case, but they turned her down due to
20:30
Speaker 2: the violent content of the killings. America's Most Wanted agreed
20:34
Speaker 2: to cover the killings, but the show generated no real leeds.
20:39
Speaker 2: Keith and Elaine led a quiet, family oriented lifestyle, Friends
20:43
Speaker 2: and families that they didn't drink, party or do drugs.
20:46
Speaker 2: There was a small amount of marijuana found at the trailer,
20:50
Speaker 2: but police said they weren't sure whether this was the
20:53
Speaker 2: Dardine's pot or whether it could have been left there
20:56
Speaker 2: by the killer. The autopsies showed no trace of drugs
20:59
Speaker 2: or alcohol in anyone's system, and the small amount of
21:03
Speaker 2: marijuana found didn't raise any red flags about possible drug dealing. Eventually,
21:11
Speaker 2: the Illinois State Police joined in the investigation. It was
21:15
Speaker 2: reported that thirty detectives interviewed over one hundred people in all.
21:19
Speaker 2: One detective told Keith's mother, Joanne, they had interviewed over
21:23
Speaker 2: one thousand people. They also publicly stated there were several
21:27
Speaker 2: binders full of information and leads about this case and
21:31
Speaker 2: yet no arrests. They talked to one of Keith's coworkers,
21:36
Speaker 2: someone he reportedly had some kind of a disagreement with,
21:39
Speaker 2: and another local man, but both of these people were
21:43
Speaker 2: quickly by law enforcement. The crime reverberated through the small community.
21:49
Speaker 2: The Franklin County Coroner described what people were experiencing as hysteria.
21:55
Speaker 2: People were scared. One man who lived nearby told local
21:59
Speaker 2: media he couldn't sleep at night and lost fourteen pounds.
22:02
Speaker 2: Because of the stress from these murders, people were driving
22:06
Speaker 2: around with guns in their gun racks and becoming suspicious
22:09
Speaker 2: of each other. Kids were told to come straight home
22:12
Speaker 2: from school. Then in March of two thousand, there was
22:16
Speaker 2: a big potential break in the case. A man confessed
22:20
Speaker 2: to the Dardine murders. It was the convicted serial killer
22:24
Speaker 2: Tommy Lynn Cells. Serial killer Tommy Lynn Cells grew up
22:36
Speaker 2: in Saint Louis, about ninety miles away from where the
22:39
Speaker 2: Dardines lived. He claimed that he committed his first murder
22:42
Speaker 2: when he was just fifteen years old. He was finally
22:46
Speaker 2: apprehended by police in two thousand days earlier. In Del Rio, Texas,
22:51
Speaker 2: on December thirty first, nineteen ninety nine, ten year old
22:54
Speaker 2: Crystal Searles and her friend, thirteen year old Kayleen Harris,
22:58
Speaker 2: were having a sleepover at Kayleen's trailer. Crystal woke up
23:01
Speaker 2: in the middle of the night to see a stranger
23:04
Speaker 2: assaulting Kayleen. She watched with horror as he murdered her friend,
23:09
Speaker 2: and then he turned to her and slipped Crystal's throat,
23:13
Speaker 2: but Crystal survived. She managed to stay calm and escaped
23:16
Speaker 2: to a neighbor's house. The neighbor called nine one one,
23:20
Speaker 2: and Crystal was rushed to the hospital. Even after that trauma,
23:24
Speaker 2: Cristel was able to help police. She gave them a
23:27
Speaker 2: description and they put out an APB. Tommy Lynne Sells
23:31
Speaker 2: was arrested the next day and quickly confessed not only
23:34
Speaker 2: to those killings, but to many more. He told police
23:38
Speaker 2: that he was a serial killer and that he had
23:40
Speaker 2: been killing people for over twenty years. He said that
23:44
Speaker 2: during his years drifting around the United States, many of
23:47
Speaker 2: them working temporary jobs in carnivals, he killed up to
23:50
Speaker 2: seventy victims. He was eventually linked to over twenty murders.
23:55
Speaker 2: He was sentenced to death for Kayleen's murder and placed
23:58
Speaker 2: on death row in Texas, and that's where in March
24:02
Speaker 2: of two thousand, he confessed to the Dardane family murders.
24:06
Speaker 2: But did he really kill the Dardines or was he
24:09
Speaker 2: just confessing to as many killings as possible as some
24:13
Speaker 2: killers do in order to messed up, as it sounds,
24:16
Speaker 2: potentially gain respect and become a bigger deal in prison.
24:20
Speaker 2: There were definitely questions about the authenticity of his confessions
24:24
Speaker 2: because Tommy Lynn Sells told several different stories. He said
24:28
Speaker 2: that he was living near Saint Louis, which would have
24:30
Speaker 2: been about ninety miles away from where Keith and o
24:32
Speaker 2: Lane were living at the time. He said that he
24:34
Speaker 2: was riding trains, jumping on and off of them to
24:36
Speaker 2: get around, and working odd jobs, mainly at various carnivals.
24:40
Speaker 2: He claimed to be familiar with the area near where
24:43
Speaker 2: Keith and Elaine lived. In one version of the confession,
24:46
Speaker 2: he said that he met Keith in a gas station
24:49
Speaker 2: that Keith propositioned him and asked him to come back
24:51
Speaker 2: to his house to have a three way sexual encounter
24:54
Speaker 2: with Elaine. But he claimed that once they were at
24:57
Speaker 2: the trailer, Keith made a homosexual proposition to him, and
25:01
Speaker 2: that he was offended by that and became very angry,
25:04
Speaker 2: so he said he drove Keith at gunpoint to where
25:06
Speaker 2: he was found. He told police, quote, I was just
25:10
Speaker 2: so pissed off that I took it to the maximum limit.
25:12
Speaker 2: Rage don't have a stop button.
25:14
Speaker 4: End quote.
25:16
Speaker 2: In another version of the story, he told the authorities
25:19
Speaker 2: that he was on a freight train and jumped off
25:21
Speaker 2: near Aina that he saw for sale sign outside Keith
25:24
Speaker 2: and Elaine's trailer. That's when he said he decided he
25:28
Speaker 2: was going to kill them, so he said he knocked
25:30
Speaker 2: on the door. He claimed that he told Keith he
25:33
Speaker 2: was interested in buying the trailer, which led to him
25:35
Speaker 2: drinking beers with Keith before overpowering him at gunpoint. This
25:40
Speaker 2: story completely left out any kind of a sexual mode.
25:43
Speaker 2: It again, he claimed that he forced Keith to drive
25:47
Speaker 2: to a nearby field, and then he said he sliced
25:50
Speaker 2: Keith's penis off. This time he added another detail. He
25:54
Speaker 2: said that during this attack, he told Keith that he
25:57
Speaker 2: was going to take his penis back to Elaine. Then
26:00
Speaker 2: he claimed he went back to the trailer, raved Elane
26:03
Speaker 2: and beat her, Peter, and Elaine's baby to death. He
26:07
Speaker 2: then stole the car, which he claimed he drove to Benton,
26:10
Speaker 2: where it was found abandoned. At the time, a local
26:14
Speaker 2: news report quoted John Kemp of the Jefferson County Sheriff's
26:17
Speaker 2: Office stating that because of a detail that Tommy Lynn
26:20
Speaker 2: Sells gave police something about seeing a set of watermelon
26:24
Speaker 2: ceramics inside the Dardine home, ones that John Kemp said
26:28
Speaker 2: match the crime scene, police believed that he was the killer.
26:33
Speaker 2: On the other hand, law enforcement have publicly said some
26:37
Speaker 2: of the details of Tommy's confession just don't match the facts.
26:40
Speaker 2: Police have stated that Elaine was not raped or sexually assaulted.
26:48
Speaker 2: Keith's mom, Joanne, has changed her opinion about whether or
26:51
Speaker 2: not Tommy Lynne Sells could have been the killer. At first,
26:55
Speaker 2: she said she felt the confession could be legitimate, but
26:58
Speaker 2: then years later, when a newspaper asked her again, she
27:02
Speaker 2: said she felt less certain. She said she believed that
27:05
Speaker 2: it was very unlikely that Keith ever would have propositioned
27:09
Speaker 2: a stranger to be sexually involved with his wife.
27:12
Speaker 4: She said that Keith was very protective of his family.
27:15
Speaker 2: Another reason why Joeanne does not believe Tommy Lynn Sells
27:18
Speaker 2: was the killer was because Tommy Lynn Sells would have
27:22
Speaker 2: been a random stranger. He told police he waited outside
27:26
Speaker 2: the trailer, drinking beer and waiting for his chance to attack.
27:29
Speaker 4: And given the fact that.
27:30
Speaker 2: Keith had turned away a young woman who wanted to
27:33
Speaker 2: use the phone, Joanne said she does not believe that
27:36
Speaker 2: it would be in character for him to let a
27:38
Speaker 2: random twenty two year old man into his home at night.
27:42
Speaker 2: Then there's the fact there was no sign of forced
27:44
Speaker 2: entry and no sign of a struggle at the home,
27:47
Speaker 2: and that whoever killed Joanne and her children took the
27:51
Speaker 2: time to clean up the crime scene, which suggested whoever
27:54
Speaker 2: it was was not in a hurry.
27:57
Speaker 3: I've seen the believe that there were two people that
28:00
Speaker 3: did it. I don't have anything that based it on
28:04
Speaker 3: or prove it, but I believe it was a woman involved.
28:10
Speaker 2: Could the killer have been Tommy Lynn Sells or another
28:13
Speaker 2: random drifter. In nineteen ninety nine, police considered a different
28:17
Speaker 2: serial killer named Angel Mattino Risendi's who was also known
28:22
Speaker 2: by the alias Raphael Ramirez. Angel had been dubbed the
28:26
Speaker 2: railroad Killer. He was from Mexico originally and is believed
28:30
Speaker 2: to have been responsible for his many as twenty three
28:32
Speaker 2: murders because his mo was to travel around by hopping
28:36
Speaker 2: on and off trains. Authorities did briefly consider the fact
28:40
Speaker 2: that he could have been involved in the Dardinane killings. However,
28:43
Speaker 2: he was also later ruled out and we can't ask
28:47
Speaker 2: Tommy Lynne says about the murders because he was executed
28:50
Speaker 2: in Texas.
28:51
Speaker 4: In twenty fourteen. He was forty nine years old.
28:56
Speaker 2: Joe Anne doesn't think her son, daughter in law, and
28:58
Speaker 2: grandchildren were killed by a serial killer. She has said
29:02
Speaker 2: she believes that the killer was someone who Keith knew
29:06
Speaker 2: and trusted. Joanne told us she believes that it's possible
29:11
Speaker 2: that the mob or someone else may have tried to
29:14
Speaker 2: convince Keith to sell drugs, and that after he refused,
29:17
Speaker 2: they lashed out in a rage against Keith and his family.
29:21
Speaker 2: She has also said in the past she has considered
29:23
Speaker 2: the possibility that someone might have been at their home
29:26
Speaker 2: and made sexual advances toward Elane, who refused, and that
29:30
Speaker 2: that might have set off the horrific series of events
29:33
Speaker 2: that followed.
29:35
Speaker 3: I think Keith knew who did it. I really do.
29:39
Speaker 3: I think he walked out voluntarily to be friendly.
29:44
Speaker 2: Joanne did say that back in the beginning of the investigation,
29:48
Speaker 2: police did ask her if Keith had ever shown any
29:51
Speaker 2: homosexual tendencies. She said that to her knowledge, he had not.
29:57
Speaker 3: When they first was questioned me, you know, by Keith's
30:01
Speaker 3: penis being cut off, They was questioned me about him
30:05
Speaker 3: being gay, and I said, no way whatsoever. And they said, well,
30:10
Speaker 3: the mom could be the last to know. I said, yeah,
30:13
Speaker 3: that's true, but not in this case because I knew Keith,
30:19
Speaker 3: and then they thought about, well what about evena I said, no,
30:24
Speaker 3: no way, I really and truly think that whoever did
30:28
Speaker 3: it do drugs maybe filter drugs through his mobile home,
30:32
Speaker 3: and he refused.
30:37
Speaker 2: We still don't know a lot of details about the timeline,
30:41
Speaker 2: who was killed first, Keith or family. Joanne also said
30:46
Speaker 2: she has been given Keith's autopsy report, but she said
30:50
Speaker 2: that the time of death was inconclusive because there had
30:52
Speaker 2: been bad weather before Keith's body was found, and at
30:56
Speaker 2: the home, the waterbed had a heater. Because of those elements,
31:00
Speaker 2: Joanne said she was told that the time of death
31:03
Speaker 2: could not be exact. These questions still haven't been answered officially.
31:11
Speaker 2: The Dardine family murders are still an unsolved case and
31:15
Speaker 2: the killer could still be out there.
31:18
Speaker 3: It's not part of my every day, but my four
31:21
Speaker 3: grandkids they know that they had Annie Laine, and uncle
31:26
Speaker 3: Piece and cousin Peter and Casey, and we talk about
31:32
Speaker 3: him a lot. Their mom takes them to the cemetery
31:36
Speaker 3: and they helped put stuff on the stone for Peter
31:39
Speaker 3: and Casey and they loved doing that.
31:45
Speaker 2: Joanne said that as long as she is alive. She
31:47
Speaker 2: will never give up on getting justice for her son
31:50
Speaker 2: and his family.
31:52
Speaker 3: I talked to the priests every day for months and
31:56
Speaker 3: months and years and years, and I still call one
32:00
Speaker 3: be Techie, my favorite one. I still call him and
32:04
Speaker 3: talk to him. He always told me, he said, Joanne.
32:08
Speaker 3: He said, this is like a puzzle. You've put one
32:12
Speaker 3: piece in at a time. One of these days, that
32:16
Speaker 3: final piece is going to be put in, and you're
32:19
Speaker 3: going to know who did it. And I said, well,
32:23
Speaker 3: I'll never give up, Mike, And he said, I know
32:26
Speaker 3: you won't.
32:28
Speaker 2: I'm Catherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen's
32:33
Speaker 2: Gone Murder Line is a production of School of Humans
32:35
Speaker 2: and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated by me Catherine
32:38
Speaker 2: Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts. Special thanks to Amy
32:42
Speaker 2: Tubbs for her research assistance and to James Wheaton for
32:45
Speaker 2: legal review. Noah Camer mixed and scored this episode. Our
32:49
Speaker 2: theme song is by Ben Sale, Executive producers of Virginia Prescott,
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Speaker 2: Brandon Barr, and LC Crowley. Listen to Helen Gone ad
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