Latest / Gone Cold - Texas True Crime / The Disappearance of Roxanne Paltauf Part Two

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The Disappearance of Roxanne Paltauf Part Two · Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Gone Call podcasts may contain violent or graphic subject matter.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Listener discretion is advised. When Roxanne Paltof disappeared after an argument,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: according to her boyfriend Lewis Walls, the last known person
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: to see her, detectives spent days trying to untangle the
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: man's story. Although police had heard similar stories countless times,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: most of which resulted in the missing person returning after
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: just a few days, Roxanne's case was in many ways
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: inarguably different. After listening to her family, who described many
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: abnormalities that didn't match the missing woman's character, that was
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: something authorities should have understood. Still, the police waited to
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: see if she would turn up before beginning a serious investigation.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Roxanne and Walls had been staying at a budget in
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: motel located in the Rundberg neighborhood in Austin's northeast to
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: celebrate their two year anniversary, but because they had dragged
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: their feet, the room the couple had stayed in had
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: been cleaned multiple times after being occupied by multiple guests.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: A potential crime scene had been badly compromised, and it's
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: been reported they didn't even try to collect evidence there.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: It was a huge miscalculation an irreparable mistake. Lewis Walls
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: had a troubling past, including allegations of abuse and protection
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: orders against him by past girlfriends, and more troubling in
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: this particular investigation, allegations he'd broken Roxanne's nose to the
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: point it required surgery. Roxanne's mother, Elizabeth Harris, also discovered
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: that Walls had only pretended to be nineteen when he
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: met her daughter, who was sixteen at the time. He
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: was actually twenty eight years old when Roxanne disappeared, she
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: was eighteen and he was thirty. But the police couldn't
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: find the evidence they needed to arrest him, even after
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: discovering he'd made well over three hundred calls on Roxanne's
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: cell phone. After she vanished, Walls phoned an ex girlfriend,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: who allegedly claimed he had told her he fucked up
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: and needed some help. She refused to. Other calls made
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: went to singles, chat lines, strip clubs, won eight hundred
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: sex lines, and other ex girlfriends. The circumstances were bizarre,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: but not evidence Walls had committed a crime. When he
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: returned Roxanne's supposed clothing to her family, it turned out
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: not to be hers. Another incredibly strange and suspicious detail.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: He also returned other items friends and family say Roxanne
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: would have never left without, including her purse, jewelry, and
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: debit car. Like the eighteen year old herself. However, Roxanne's
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: ID was nowhere to be found, at least for a while.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: When it finally was, it came alongside a development that
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: complicated the investigation in ways no one could have anticipated.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Six days after Roxanne Paltov disappeared, on Thursday July thirteenth,
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: two thousand and six, police responded to a violent disturbance
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: at a motel neighboring the Budget in where she and
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: her boyfriend Louis Walls were staying when she was last scene,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: and the circumstances surrounding that disturbance were impossible for Austin
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: police detectives to ignore. A man had picked up a
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: dancer from the Perfect ten Men's Club and her husband
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: outside the Chevron station at Rundberg Lane and Interstate thirty five.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: He reportedly asked the woman how much she charged. She
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: told him she was not a sex worker, but offered
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: to perform a private dance at a motel instead. Once there,
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: the man and the dancer entered a room, but before
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: her husband could follow, the man closed and locked the
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: door behind them. Inside, the encounter quickly turned violent. The
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: woman later told detectives that the man attacked her and
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: attempted to rape her, hearing screams, her husband found security
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: guard Brian Parker and enlisted his help. Parker used a
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: passkey to open the room, but even then the door resisted.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: When they finally forced their way inside, they discovered the
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: man and the woman struggling on the floor. He had
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: pinned her down and was attempting to remove her clothing
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: while choking her. The husband attacked the man, but he
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: managed to escape, leaving behind several personal items in his haste,
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Among them or his hearing aid, which had fallen out
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: during his struggle with a woman's husband, and his wallet.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: When Parker examined the wallet, something fell out, something that
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: instantly transformed the incident from a violent disturbance into something
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: potentially connected to one of Austin's most urgent missing person's investigations,
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: Roxann Paltoff's ID. But this crucial piece of physical evidence
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: wouldn't be linked to the case for an unforgivable amount
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: of time. When responding officers arrived, they discovered the man
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: who had assaulted the dancer was thirty year old Jeffrey
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: Brandon Moore. To apprehend the man, the police simply waited
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: there until he returned for his things. However, these officers
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: didn't realize that the other ID found in Moore's wallet
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: belonged to a missing woman. It was placed in the
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: police department's lost and found property. Had anyone ran the
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: identification through the police computer when it was found, Roxane
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Paltov's name and status would have immediately surfaced. But, like
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: so many other important things connected to this case, that
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: didn't happen. So and although it's been reported as only
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: days by some sources, months passed before detectives working Roxanne's
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: case finally learned that her ID had been sitting in
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: police custody since six days after she disappeared. The discovery
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: created a freendsh sense of urgency, ironically hindered by the
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: amount of time that had already passed. Detectives contacted Jeffrey Moore,
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: the man who had possession of the identification, communicating through
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: an interpreter because he was legally deaf. Initially, Moore claimed
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: that Roxanne was a friend and that he had simply
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: been holding on to her id after a night out.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: Investigators pressed him and the explanation changed. According to his
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: revised account, he had encountered Roxanne and Lewis Walls at
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: a downtown club as he was preparing to leave. He
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: said the couple asked him for a ride to a
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: Walgreens on Rundberg so Roxanne could buy cigarettes. The id
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: More assumed had fallen out of her pocket or purse. Then,
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: when they contacted Lewis Walls, his version of the trip
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: differed significantly. While More insisted they had traveled from downtown
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: Austin to the Walgreens, Walls claimed the trip began and
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: ended at the Budget Inn motel. Detectives immediately recognized the inconsistencies.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: Driving through downtown from the club made little sense given
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: the location of the Rundberg Walgreens. There was one closer
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: to the club. Moore's shifting story undermined his credibility, and he,
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: like Walls, had little to begin with. Moore had initially
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: described Roxanne as a friend whose identification he wanted to return,
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: even asking the police if he could have it back
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: so he could. Now he was minimizing that relationship and
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: insisting that they had only met that once. It was
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: also apparent that Moore and Walls knew each other. Detectives
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: began to wonder what exactly Moore was hiding. Police located
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: his vehicle. According to a source, they photographed the car
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: but fell short of searching it. Later, newspaper reports describe
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: a dark stain that was tested at a crime lab
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: and determined to be catch up, though this apparently never
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: happened at all. Jeffrey Brandon Moore was never charged in
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: connection with Roxanne's disappearance, but investigators remained deeply suspicious. Detectives
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: questioned him about the assault on the dancer at the motel,
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: and Detective Scott later described Moore as a man who
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: regularly sought out women working the Rundberg area, taking them
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: back to nearby motels. According to Scott, he had developed
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: a reputation for being violent and unpredictable. During the interview,
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: Moore insisted that he knew the woman and claimed they
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: planned to have sex. Instead, when he came out of
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: the bathroom, he caught her going through his wallet. He
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: claimed that is what caused the struggle. Although it's unclear
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: if he had an explanation for why he was trying
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: to remove her clothing at the same time. It was
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: an obvious lie, although it is commonly reported that the
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: woman simply didn't want to press charges. Once she was safe,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: she had gone to the police station to file a report,
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: but because she was in serious pain, left for the hospital.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: After waiting for a long period of time. Police either
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: didn't follow up or the woman later declined to cooperate.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: Detective Scott would later say that both Jeffrey Moore and
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: Lewis Walls were lying. In his mind, they were each
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: concealing something. The question was whether one of them was
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: concealing the murder of Roxanne Paltov. After they followed the
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: Jeffrey Brandon Moore lead as far as they could, detectives
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: turned their attention back to Lewis Walls and to the
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: witness whose account had become central to his story. The
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: sixteen year old motel clerk who claimed to have seen
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: Roxanne leave the budget in and proceeded to stay with
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: Walls in his room after her shift ended and until
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: three am the next morning, was given a polygraph examination
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: and she passed. Though the efficacy of polygraphs is severely
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: limited and questionable. Detectives believed the result strengthened her account.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: The corroboration perhaps only caused the investigation to stall further.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: Police never found another witness who saw Roxanne walk away
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: that night. Meanwhile, the missing young woman's family refused to
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: stop sir. Her mother, Elizabeth, returned again and again to
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: the neighborhoods around Rundeberg and Interstate thirty five, handing out flyers,
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: talking to anyone willing to listen, and trying to understand
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: the world her daughter had disappeared into. Elizabeth spoke with
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: motel residents, street level drug dealers, sex workers, and folks
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: simply down on their luck. The area was full of them.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: One woman she ran into introduced herself as Loretta. She
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: approached Elizabeth during one of her searches and asked about Roxanne.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: After she explained, Loretta clutched the cross she wore around
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: her neck and promised that she would help find her.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: It was a small moment of kindness in the middle
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: of an increasingly desperate search, the only thing they would
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: find that day. Nearly two weeks passed after Roxanne disappeared,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: there had been no confirmed sightings, no credible tips called in,
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: no new physical evidence discovered. Then, on the morning of Monday,
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: July twenty fourth, two thousand and six, at about ten
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: fifty two, Austin police officers responded to reports of a
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: foul odor coming from a vacant lot on a dead
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: ended street near the one hundred block of the Bastrup
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: Highway frontage Road. The location sat southeast of downtown near
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: the Montopolis neighborhood at the time, and, like its northeastern
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: counterpart Rundberg, the area was known as a place where
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: people gathered to use drugs and engage in other crimes.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: Officers entered the open field, which was littered with debris
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: and tall grass. There they found the body of a woman.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: The remains were badly decomposed and partially mummified. The victim
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: silver rings and a white cross around her neck. Detectives
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: suspected that the location was not where the woman had
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: been killed. It appeared she'd been dumped there after. News
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: of the discovery spread quickly. Detective Scott later said that
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: investigators had hoped to spare Elizabeth Harris from learning about
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: the body through the newspaper, online or the television news
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: that did not happen. Roxanne's mother and siblings heard the
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: reports and immediately feared the worst. Police obtained the missing
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: eighteen year old's dental records, and the family braced themselves
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: for devastating news. For a couple days, they waited. That
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: Thursday came in answer that was both relieving and horrifying. Still,
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: the discovery brought a fresh wave of fear, along with
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: even more questions. The body belonged to Lauretta Elynn Roberts,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: the same woman who had approached Elizabeth when she was
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: handing out flyers in Rundeberg. Loretta knew the area. She
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: knew that people who worked and lived around the motel
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: where Roxanne was last seen. She had told Elizabeth that
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: she would help find her daughter now she was dead.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: At the time of her death, Loretta Lynn Roberts was
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: thirty seven years old. She was originally from Lee, Florida,
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: and was survived by two daughters, Miranda and Tamera. Police
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: described her as a transient and sex worker who spent
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: much of her time around north and northeast Austin. Less
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: than two weeks before her body was discovered, Loretta had
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: been stopped by the Austin police near Rundberg and Interstate
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: thirty five, and cited for possession of drug paraphernalia. That stop,
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: which occurred on July eleventh, two thousand and six, was
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: the last sighting of her they could confirm when officers
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: found her body. The department released very little information publicly,
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: saying only that the circumstances surrounding her death appeared suspicious.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: Roxanne's family later learned that paper towels had been forced
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: down Loretta's throat. She died of asphyxiation, though it still
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: isn't clear whether it was caused by the paper towels, strangulation,
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: or some other means. The family could not help but
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: wonder whether Loretta's death and Roxanne's disappearance were connected. They
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: questioned whether she had uncovered something while helping search for her.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: Perhaps she had asked too many questions. Police investigated Loretta's murder,
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: distributing flyers and featuring the case on local television news
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: Crime of the Weak Segments. Detectives knew that men who
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: frequented the Rundberg area had reputations for violence and aggression
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: toward women working there. Loretta Lynn Roberts's murder received little
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: public attention. Like Roxanne's disappearance, it remains unsolved today. As
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: July gave way to August, the search for Roxanne Paltov continued.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: Her mother turned to internet forums like Websleuth's dot com,
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: hoping to spread awareness and generate new leads. Family members
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: held onto the hope that Roxanne was still alive somewhere
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: and that someone would come forward with information. But one
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: person who seemed to have moved on was Lewis Reginald Walls.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: He never contacted the family to ask whether there had
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: been any progress in the case. He didn't join them
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: in passing out flyers or speaking to people in the
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: neighborhoods where Roxanne had vanished. He didn't help search. Instead,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: Walls had already begun spending time with another young woman
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: only about a month after Roxanne disappeared. Elizabeth was alarmed.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: She feared another might fall victim to the man. The
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: investigation stalled once again. Then, on March twenty first, two
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: thousand and seven, nearly eight months after Roxanne vanished, a
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: new effort began to keep her face in front of
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: the public. A local advertising company donated billboard space along
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: interstate thirty five, only a short distance from the budget
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: in where Roxanne was last seen. Friends and relatives raised
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: the money necessary to design the billboard, contributing approximately eleven
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: hundred dollars for the artwork. The sign featured her photograph
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: and details about her disappearance. The location was perfect. Thousands
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: of drivers sat in traffic there every day, and Elizabeth
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: Harris hoped that someone would recognize her daughter's face or
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: remember something they'd seen. Roxanne's story had been featured on
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: national television programs and in publications aimed at truck drivers
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: crossing the country. Now, they hoped the billboard would produce
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: the breakthrough they desperately needed, and it did produce something.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: Tips began pouring in. Roughly two hundred people called the
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: Austin police and claimed they had seen Roxanne alive. Each
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: reported sighting brought a brief moment of hope, but all
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: eventually led to dead ends. As the first anniversary of
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: Roxanne Paltof's disappearance approached, her mother continued organizing searches and
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: distributing flyers throughout Austin. On July sixth, two thousand and seven,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: the family prepared to spend the following morning, retracing Roxanne's
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: final known movements. Once again, television crews accompanied them as
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: they walked the familiar streets between Rundberg and North Lamar Boulevard,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: eventually ending at the Billboard. Elizabeth later admitted that continuing
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: the search had become one of the few things that
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: kept her going. The investigation had slowed to a crawl.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: Every once in a while, detectives compared Roxanne's dental records
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: to unidentified remains found in and around Austin. None ever matched.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: The case was only getting colder. Nearly two years after
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Roxanne disappeared, Lewis Walls once again caught the attention of
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: the Austin Police Department. In March of two thousand and eight,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: Lewis Reginald Walls was charged with making a terroristic threat
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: against another girlfriend named Cassandra. She had arranged to meet
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: with Walls so that he could see the child they
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: shared together. When they met, he reportedly wanted to discuss
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: rekindling their relationship. When Cassandra refused, she later told police,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: Walls leaned in close and said something chilling. According to
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: her account, he said that he didn't want to have
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: to kill her like he had killed Roxanne Paltov, he
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: knew how to dispose of bodies. Cassandra recalled him, saying
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: Walls eventually pleaded no contest and sentenced to one hundred
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: and forty days in jail. The incident reinforced what Roxanne's mother, Elizabeth,
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: had believed for years now. Cassandra also reportedly told her
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: that Walls had attempted to force Roxanne into sex work.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: Austin police detective James Scott didn't believe the missing eighteen
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: year old had ever been a sex worker, but he
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: certainly wondered whether her boyfriend had been grooming her for
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: that role. Detectives interviewed Walls again while he was incarcerated.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: The result was the same. He denied making any confession
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: to Cassandra, and he refused to change his account of
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: the night Roxanne disappeared. They argued she stormed off from
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: the budget and motel and he never saw her again,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: he told them. In January of twenty eleven, nearly four
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: and a half years after she was last seen, Roxanne's
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: case was featured on the investigation Discovery series Disappeared. Her
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: family hoped that national attention would generate new leads and
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: encourage someone with information to finally come forward. Instead, the
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: investigation continued to follow a familiar pattern. Potential leads surfaced,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: the Fan family's hopes rose, and, like Roxanne, the trails disappeared.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: In twenty twelve, detectives in Austin learned that skeletal remains
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: had been discovered in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The location immediately
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: caught their attention. Back in July two thousand and six,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: phone records had shown that Lewis Wall's repeatedly contacted an
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: ex girlfriend living in Albuquerque in the hours surrounding Roxanne's disappearance.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: Walls had even told her that he'd fucked up and
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: asked if he could come stay with her. The possibility
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: that Roxanne's remains had been found hundreds of miles away
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: from Austin had to be considered. The police sent her
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: dental records to New Mexico, but the remains, it turned out,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: did not belong to Roxanne. Then came perhaps the biggest
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: tip the investigation had seen since the beginning. Almost eight
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: years after and disappeared, investigators launched one of the largest
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: searches since the summer of two thousand and six. On
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: March sixth, twenty fourteen, Austin police officers and agents with
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: the FBI's Evidence Recovery team descended on a ten acre
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: tract of land off East Rundberg Lane, only a few
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: tenths of a mile from the budget In. The search
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: was prompted by information detectives had received approximately six months earlier.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: According to police, a citizen had provided very specific details
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: suggesting that a body might be buried in a shallow
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: grave somewhere on that property. The area had been searched before,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: but never at this level. Cadaver dogs had alerted their
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: handlers multiple times and two specific locations. On the morning
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: of the excavations, more than a dozen law enforcement personnel
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: spread across the property under blue tarps and white canopies.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: Teams dug into the earth and sifted dirt by hand,
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: searching for evidence. Elizabeth believed that the investigators would not
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: commit that kind of time, manpower, and expense unless they
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: believed there was a genuine possibility that her daughter's body
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: was there. That was hard to bear, but also made
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: it seem that answers might be coming, but they didn't come.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: By the end of the day, the excavation had produced
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: no human remains and no other evidence connected to Roxanne's disappearance.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: The case went cold once more. Years later, Roxanne's family
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: discovered something detectives had overlooked from the very beginning. In
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, the family was reviewing Roxanne's cell phone records
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: and noticed unusual charges from the night she vanished. The
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: records showed additional airtime charges and indications that the phone
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: may have been roaming during the very period when Lewis
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: Walls claimed he and Roxanne were arguing inside the motel room.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: The discovery was significant, to say the least. If the
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: phone had indeed been away from the budget in at
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: that time, it would directly contradict Walls's version of events.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: On May twenty second, twenty nineteen, Austin police detectives acknowledged
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: that historical data connected to Roxanne's cell phone had apparently
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: never been requested during the original investigation, but way back
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: in two thousand and six, the missing eighteen year old's
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: mother had provided them with those records, meaning multiple detectives
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: had access to that evidence for over a decade. Detective
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: Jamie Harvell told the media he filed a search warrant
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: seeking records covering Roxanne's phone activity before, during, and after
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: her disappearance. The information, he said could potentially reveal the
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: location of the phone on the night she was last seen,
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: and might even help locate her remains. The news was
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: difficult for Roxanne's family to process. Almost thirteen years had passed,
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: and the roaming charges on the cell phone records could
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: have been crucial in the earliest days of the case,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: like their failure to secure the motel room before it
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: was cleaned and other guests moved in back in the beginning,
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: the mistake was seemingly detrimental. As police revisited the evidence,
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: Roxanne's friends and relatives found themselves revisiting another painful question,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: why had she gone back to Lewis Walls at all?
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: In the months leading up to her disappearance. Those closest
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: to Roxanne believed she had been pulling away from him.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: She was a young woman at that point and was
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: ambitious and eager to build a future. Roxanne was studying
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: to obtain her ged, working as an apprentice at a
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: flower shop in the hospital district, and had gotten a
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: second job with a census bureau. Yet, as Roxanne's life improved,
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: Walls was getting pushier. He'd been calling her constantly in
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: the weeks before she vanished, and would show up randomly
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: near her jobs, acting as if they'd just run into
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: each other. Friends later recalled conversations that suggested the relationship
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: was deteriorating. Family couldn't help but wonder whether Roxanne had
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: already decided to end things for good, and if that
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: was what led to the argument Walls described on the
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: night of July seventh, two thousand and six. It was
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: only a theory and there was no shortage of those.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: Others involved Jeffrey Brandon Moore, and some involved both he
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: and Lewis Reginald Walls. Detective James Scott eventually offered his
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: own theory about what happened. Moore had a history of
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: seeking out women in the Rundberg area and behaving violently
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: toward them. He believed that Walls wanted Roxanne involved in
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: sex work. Detective Scott said he didn't think she wanted
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: any part of it, which might have gotten or killed.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: But his theory isn't evidence, and it isn't even clear
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: if it's based on anything other than interviews with family
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: and friends. Without complete cooperation from either more or walls
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: both of them, or finding Roxanne's remains. Detectives acknowledged that
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: proving what happened would be extraordinarily difficult. Neither man has
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: ever been charged in connection with Roxanne Paltov's disappearance, and
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: both remain persons of interest, according to Roxanne's family. Law
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: law enforcement agencies conducted another search in South Austin in
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, but once again found nothing. Every year,
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: on the anniversary of Roxanne's disappearance, they returned to the
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: work they began in the summer of two thousand and six.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: They print flyers and t shirts, organize volunteers, and tell
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: the story to anyone who will listen. Some years, media
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: outlets pick it up, others not so much. Roxxanne's siblings
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: have now lived longer without her than they did with her,
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: and after twenty years, what they want most has never changed.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: They want answers. They want to know where Roxanne is,
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: They want a place where they can visit her, and
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: they continue to believe that someone somewhere knows exactly what
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: happened on that sweltering July night in two thousand and six.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: Roxanne's family is offering a ten thousand dollars reward for
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: information that leads to a conviction or for information that
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: leads to finding her remains. If you have any information
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: about what happened to Roxanne Elizabeth Paltov, you can submit
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: a tip anonymously at roxannepaltoff dot com or call the
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: Austin Police Department at five one two nine seven four
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: five two five zero. If you'd like to join Gon
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: Cold's mission to shine a light on unsolved homicides and
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: missing persons cases, get the show at free and have
• 31:37
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• 31:41
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• 31:46
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• 31:48
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• 31:53
  Speaker 1: to support Gone Cold, we appreciate you. Thanks for listening, y'all,