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The Skull Outside Casa Gallardo · Crime Night

0:00
Speaker 1: Picture this. It's it's a completely pristine sunny Thursday afternoon.
0:06
Speaker 2: Okay.
0:07
Speaker 1: June twenty eighth, nineteen ninety two, twa Fright attendants are
0:12
Speaker 1: sitting inside Casa Gyoto, which is this lively, brightly lit
0:16
Speaker 1: Mexican restaurant in Bridgeton, Missouri.
0:18
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, really popular spot.
0:19
Speaker 1: Right. So they're just decompressing from a flight, you know,
0:22
Speaker 1: enjoying a casual lunch. They're chatting over the hum of
0:25
Speaker 1: the restaurant, eating chips and salsa. That's perfectly normal, exactly.
0:28
Speaker 1: But then one of them casually glances out the large
0:31
Speaker 1: pane glass window. She's looking at the manicured landscaping just
0:35
Speaker 1: like three feet away from their table, and right there,
0:38
Speaker 1: nestled under a decorative bush is a human skull. Oh god, yeah,
0:43
Speaker 1: there is still dark, damp dirt, clean to the bone.
0:46
Speaker 1: It's literally just sitting there in the mulch, staring back
0:48
Speaker 1: at them.
0:48
Speaker 2: See that is just it's a profoundly jarring image. You
0:51
Speaker 2: have this completely mundane reality of a suburban restaurant, right,
0:55
Speaker 2: the clinking.
0:55
Speaker 1: Glasses, the laugh, yeah, the chips and salt exactly.
0:59
Speaker 2: And it just collies instantly with absolute atmospheric dread. It
1:04
Speaker 2: totally shatters that illusion of safety we all just walk
1:08
Speaker 2: around with every single day.
1:09
Speaker 1: It really does you realize the monsters aren't always hiding
1:12
Speaker 1: in the dark. Sometimes they leave their secrets right out
1:14
Speaker 1: in the daylight.
1:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, they really do.
1:16
Speaker 1: And that Macob discovery that is the gateway into today's
1:20
Speaker 1: deep dive. We are looking directly into the raw case files,
1:24
Speaker 1: the original police incident reports, and the chilling interview transcripts
1:28
Speaker 1: surrounding the incredibly bizarre disappearance of a twenty seven year
1:31
Speaker 1: old mother named Linda Sherman, who.
1:33
Speaker 2: Basically just vanished into thin air in April of nineteen
1:36
Speaker 2: eighty five.
1:37
Speaker 1: Right, So, our mission today is to reconstruct this case
1:40
Speaker 1: for you, the listener. We're going to navigate through this
1:43
Speaker 1: terrifying web of coercive control, suspiciously staged scenes, and a
1:48
Speaker 1: mystery that honestly still haunts her family today.
1:50
Speaker 2: Because in the world of criminal investigations, things are almost
1:53
Speaker 2: never as they seem.
1:54
Speaker 1: No, they are, and this case is going to profoundly
1:57
Speaker 1: challenge your assumptions about how well you act know the
2:00
Speaker 1: people in your life. Okay, let's unpack this.
2:02
Speaker 2: Well to understand how a human skull just ends up
2:05
Speaker 2: under a bush in nineteen ninety. We really have to
2:08
Speaker 2: rewind the clock back to Wednesday, April twenty fourth, nineteen
2:11
Speaker 2: eighty five.
2:12
Speaker 1: Right the beginning of it all.
2:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, So Don Sherman walks into the Venida Park Police
2:17
Speaker 2: Department in Saint Louis County to report his wife Linda missing,
2:22
Speaker 2: and looking at these original police reports, Don's timeline is,
2:26
Speaker 2: I mean, it's almost suspiciously specific.
2:29
Speaker 1: Oh totally.
2:30
Speaker 2: He tells investigators he hasn't seen Linda since Monday. He
2:33
Speaker 2: claims she got home from her night shift at the
2:35
Speaker 2: National Personnel Record Center around three am on Monday morning, okay,
2:38
Speaker 2: and then they supposedly argued for an hour, she slept
2:41
Speaker 2: on the couch, and then later that morning she drove
2:43
Speaker 2: their nine year old daughter, Patty to school.
2:45
Speaker 1: Right, and then Don tells the police that at six
2:47
Speaker 1: forty five pm that evening, Linda just rushed out the
2:50
Speaker 1: door to go back to work. And he gives a
2:52
Speaker 1: police this meticulously detailed description of what.
2:54
Speaker 2: She was wearing, which is always a red flag.
2:57
Speaker 1: It is. He says, she's wearing a blue jersey with
2:59
Speaker 1: the number seventy six on it, a matching seventy six
3:01
Speaker 1: graduation necklace, and he specifically notes she drove off in
3:06
Speaker 1: her yellow nineteen seventy one Volkswagen Beetle.
3:09
Speaker 2: But then he adds this one more crucial detail to
3:12
Speaker 2: the timeline, which is just it's so strange. Yeah, Don
3:15
Speaker 2: claims she briefly returned home at eight pm while he
3:19
Speaker 2: just happened to be standing outside talking to a neighbor.
3:22
Speaker 2: How convenient, right, he says, the yellow beetle pulls onto
3:25
Speaker 2: the street, idols for a moment, and then just abruptly
3:28
Speaker 2: leaves again.
3:29
Speaker 1: Hold on, though, because looking at the witness transcripts, this
3:32
Speaker 1: is exactly where his story completely fractures. I mean, a
3:36
Speaker 1: neighbor seeing someone driving a car at night does not
3:40
Speaker 1: mean they saw Linda.
3:41
Speaker 2: No note at all.
3:42
Speaker 1: When investigators actually track down that specific neighbor to confirm
3:46
Speaker 1: the sighting, the neighbor admits they couldn't even tell who
3:49
Speaker 1: was driving the vehicle.
3:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, they had no idea.
3:51
Speaker 1: Right, They couldn't tell if it was a man or
3:52
Speaker 1: woman because whoever was behind the wheel was intentionally hiding
3:55
Speaker 1: their face Like that is not an alibi. That is
3:58
Speaker 1: a decoy.
4:00
Speaker 2: It's totally a decoy.
4:01
Speaker 1: That is someone driving her car making absolutely sure they
4:04
Speaker 1: are seen by Don's neighbor to establish a false timeline.
4:07
Speaker 2: Precisely, you are looking at the literal mechanics of deception here.
4:13
Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture, you really
4:15
Speaker 2: have to look at how guilt manifests in early police interactions.
4:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, the staging exactly. Yeah.
4:20
Speaker 2: So fast forward two days to Friday, April twenty sixth.
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Speaker 2: Linda's sister Fran and her brother in law Sam are frantic.
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Speaker 2: They are scouring the entire city and Don suggests they
4:32
Speaker 2: check a specific hotel near the Saint Louis Lambert International.
4:35
Speaker 1: Airport because he claims Linda sometimes stayed there, right.
4:38
Speaker 2: Which is just such a highly specific, strange suggestion to
4:42
Speaker 2: make to her panicked family.
4:44
Speaker 1: So Fran and Sam go to the hotel, and obviously
4:46
Speaker 1: they find absolutely nothing. But they figure, well, we're already
4:49
Speaker 1: by the airport, let's just check the short term parking lot, right,
4:51
Speaker 1: And sure enough, sitting right there in this vast sea
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Speaker 1: of cars is Linda's yellow Volkswagen Beetle.
4:57
Speaker 2: Now you have to consider the timing here, which is
5:00
Speaker 2: documented in the police dispatch logs. At the exact moment
5:04
Speaker 2: Fran and Sam discover the car and call the airport police.
5:07
Speaker 2: Don Sherman just happened to be standing inside a local
5:10
Speaker 2: seven to eleven.
5:10
Speaker 1: Oh, this car is wild, it really is.
5:12
Speaker 2: He's chatting casually with a local police officer and Don
5:16
Speaker 2: casually suggests to this officer, Hey, maybe we should have
5:20
Speaker 2: the airport police check for Linda's car.
5:23
Speaker 1: He actually says that.
5:24
Speaker 2: Literally as the words leave his mouth. Dispatch radio's in
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Speaker 2: that the missing woman's car has just been found at
5:30
Speaker 2: the airport.
5:31
Speaker 1: It is the most deeply unsettling coincident. Wait, he was
5:34
Speaker 1: literally with a cop when the call came in.
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Speaker 2: Yes, standing right next to him.
5:38
Speaker 1: Wow. But here's where it gets really interesting, because the
5:41
Speaker 1: car wasn't just left there randomly. The airport parking logs
5:45
Speaker 1: proved the car had been sitting there for days, right,
5:48
Speaker 1: And there was absolutely no record of Linda boarding any flight.
5:52
Speaker 1: I mean, this wasn't an escape. This was a stage
5:54
Speaker 1: scene exactly.
5:55
Speaker 2: And what's fascinating here is the psychology behind stage crime scenes.
6:00
Speaker 2: In criminal behavioral analysis, there's this core principle. Guilty parties
6:04
Speaker 2: often try to orchestrate the investigation.
6:06
Speaker 1: Like a magician forcing a card.
6:08
Speaker 2: That's a perfect analogy. Yeah, yeah, they try to lead
6:11
Speaker 2: investigators directly to the evidence they want found. They want
6:14
Speaker 2: the police, or in this case, the desperate family members,
6:17
Speaker 2: to feel like they discovered the clue organically.
6:20
Speaker 1: But the perpetrator placed it there to build a highly
6:23
Speaker 1: specific narrative, right, And.
6:25
Speaker 2: In this case, the narrative Don wanted was that Linda
6:27
Speaker 2: simply abandoned her family, drove to the airport, and took
6:30
Speaker 2: a flight out of town to start a new life.
6:32
Speaker 1: And if Linda didn't run away, we really have to
6:35
Speaker 1: look at why Don wanted the police to think she did.
6:38
Speaker 1: Peering into the case files regarding their marriage, I mean,
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Speaker 1: it paints an incredibly dark, suffocating picture.
6:45
Speaker 2: It's horrific.
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Speaker 1: Don told police that Linda was having an affair with
6:48
Speaker 1: a coworker named Randy and that she ran off with him.
6:52
Speaker 1: So investigators track down Randy. He admitted to a four
6:55
Speaker 1: month affair, but he blew Don's story completely out.
6:58
Speaker 2: Of the water because Linda wasn't running away with Randy.
7:01
Speaker 1: No, she was meticulously planning to leave Don for good.
7:05
Speaker 1: She was just trying to survive.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, and the preparation of a victim trying to escape.
7:10
Speaker 2: In intimate partner violence, it's often desperate, but it's also
7:13
Speaker 2: incredibly systematic.
7:15
Speaker 1: You can see it in her actions.
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Speaker 2: You really can't. Linda's actions documented right here in these
7:20
Speaker 2: files show woman who was meticulously preparing a lifeboat. She
7:25
Speaker 2: had secretly re routed her mail to her sister's house
7:29
Speaker 2: so Don couldn't intercept it. Right, She cleared out her
7:32
Speaker 2: and Don's joint safety deposit box. She even took her daughter,
7:36
Speaker 2: Patty's birth certificate and kindergarten report cards and hid them
7:41
Speaker 2: inside her personal locker.
7:42
Speaker 1: At work, which is just heartbreak.
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Speaker 2: It is. These are not the actions of someone leaving
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Speaker 2: their child behind to run off on a whim. These
7:49
Speaker 2: are the actions of a mother securing her child's foundational
7:52
Speaker 2: documents so they could escape.
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Speaker 1: Together, and she had to hide those documents at work
7:56
Speaker 1: because her home was a literal surveillance state. Yeah, we
7:59
Speaker 1: hear the term course of control a lot, but this
8:02
Speaker 1: case file shows exactly how it paralyzes a victim. It's
8:05
Speaker 1: not just physical abuse, you know, it's the psychological warping
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Speaker 1: of your reality until you have absolutely no safe space
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Speaker 1: left aware. Hyde Don admits to investigators that he used
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Speaker 1: a long range listening device, something he casually called a
8:18
Speaker 1: big ear, a big ear. Yeah, he had manually rigged
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Speaker 1: it directly into the basement phone line to secretly record
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Speaker 1: every single one of Linda's conversations.
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Speaker 2: The sheer audacity of that admission is just striking. When
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Speaker 2: the lead investigator, Lieutenant Michael way Of, questions Don about
8:35
Speaker 2: these wire tapping rumors, Don doesn't even deny it.
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Speaker 1: No, he's proud of it.
8:39
Speaker 2: He is. He nonchalantly walks the lieutenant down into the
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Speaker 2: dark basement and physically shows him the wiretap setup. He
8:47
Speaker 2: treats it as completely normal marital behavior. He felt entirely
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Speaker 2: justified in owning her privacy, monitoring her every word.
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Speaker 1: It's like a prison warden proudly showing an inspector the
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Speaker 1: guard tower, completely oblivious to how terrifying it is.
9:02
Speaker 2: That's exactly what it's like.
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Speaker 1: But I gotta say, the most haunting detail in this
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Speaker 1: entire deep dive isn't the basement wiretap. It's the memory
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Speaker 1: from nine year old Patty.
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Speaker 2: Oh, this part is just gut wrenching.
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Speaker 1: Remember how Don told the police that Linda drove Patty
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Speaker 1: to school that Monday morning. While investigators interviewed Patty, and
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Speaker 1: her memory shatters Don's timeline.
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Speaker 2: Entirely because Don took her to school that day.
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Speaker 1: Right, Patty said, that was practically unheard of. Don never
9:26
Speaker 1: did the school run. And as she was leaving the house,
9:29
Speaker 1: she looked into the living room, she remembers seeing her
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Speaker 1: mother lying perfectly still on the living room couch, her
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Speaker 1: face pressed deeply into the back cushions. Oh man, Linda
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Speaker 1: never stirred, she never said goodbye. That image of her silent,
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Speaker 1: motionless mother is burned into Patty's mind forever.
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Speaker 2: It's a chilling detail that completely recontextualizes that entire morning,
9:50
Speaker 2: and it really underscores a grim statistical reality in domestic
9:54
Speaker 2: abuse cases, which is the most dangerous time for a
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Speaker 2: victim is the exact moment they try to leave. The
10:00
Speaker 2: abuser senses the ultimate loss of control, the realization that
10:03
Speaker 2: their surveillance and manipulation are no longer working. That triggers
10:06
Speaker 2: a swift and absolute escalation to lethal violence.
10:09
Speaker 1: Because she had everything in place, she did.
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Speaker 2: She had filed for divorce just weeks prior. She was
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Speaker 2: a literal steps away from freedom, and.
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Speaker 1: That silent image on the couch is the last time
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Speaker 1: anyone saw Linda for five years. She is just a
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Speaker 1: ghost until that sunny Thursday afternoon in nineteen ninety shatters.
10:26
Speaker 2: The silence back at the restaurant.
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Speaker 1: Right, the flay attendants find the skull outside Cosagayardo. The
10:32
Speaker 1: Bridgeton police are called to the scene. And what do
10:35
Speaker 1: they do with this massive break in a potential homicide.
10:39
Speaker 2: It's unbelievable.
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Speaker 1: They dismiss it. They wave it off as a youthful prank.
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Speaker 2: The rationale the police used at the time is well,
10:45
Speaker 2: it's difficult to digest and it reveals a massive systemic failure.
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Speaker 2: They claim the skull must have been a prank tied
10:52
Speaker 2: to cemetery relocations happening at Washington Park.
10:55
Speaker 1: Which was a real thing happening, right it was.
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Speaker 2: We have to understand the context here. Why Washington Park
11:00
Speaker 2: was a historically black cemetery in the area that was
11:04
Speaker 2: facing tragic systemic mismanagement and neglect because of airport expansion
11:09
Speaker 2: and highway construction. Grays were being displaced, there were genuine
11:13
Speaker 2: heartbreaking issues with remains being disturbed, but the police used
11:17
Speaker 2: that very real historical tragedy as a convenient bureaucratic shield to.
11:22
Speaker 1: Just avoid doing their jobs.
11:24
Speaker 2: Exactly why initiate a complex homicide investigation when you can
11:28
Speaker 2: just blame it on a cemetery relocation. They boxed up
11:32
Speaker 2: an unidentified piece of human remains and literally shelved it
11:36
Speaker 2: in the County morgue for over a year.
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Speaker 1: They used a systemic tragedy to avoid doing paperwork. They
11:41
Speaker 1: just left her on a shelf, YEP until September sixth,
11:44
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one. The tension in this specific police report
11:47
Speaker 1: is palpable. A clerk at the Vanita Park Police Department
11:51
Speaker 1: is sorting through the daily mail. She picks up an
11:53
Speaker 1: unsealed envelope. There is no return address. Okay, She opens
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Speaker 1: the flap and inside is a bright orange promotional flyer
12:00
Speaker 1: for a Casa Gayardo Super Bowl special. But when she
12:04
Speaker 1: turns the flyer over, meticulously stamped on the back in
12:07
Speaker 1: purple ink letter by individual letter is a message, oh wow,
12:11
Speaker 1: the Bridgeton Police have l Sherman's skull.
12:14
Speaker 2: The calculated nature of that letter is extraordinary. I mean,
12:17
Speaker 2: dental records immediately confirmed the tip is accurate. The skull
12:19
Speaker 2: belongs to Linda Sherman, right, But the context of where
12:23
Speaker 2: it was found shifts the entire gravity of the investigation.
12:26
Speaker 2: Cosagarda wasn't just a random location chosen for a.
12:29
Speaker 1: Prank, not at all. It was Don Sherman's second home.
12:32
Speaker 1: According to witness transcripts, Don practically lived at this restaurant.
12:36
Speaker 1: He was there five nights a week, five nights a week.
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Speaker 1: The staff knew him so well they had a personalized
12:41
Speaker 1: hat rack with his name on it, and police records
12:44
Speaker 1: confirmed Don was physically at the restaurant the very day
12:48
Speaker 1: the skull was discovered under the bush.
12:50
Speaker 2: Unbelievable.
12:51
Speaker 1: But wait, we have to question the logic here, right,
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Speaker 1: Why in the world would a killer leave the victim's
12:56
Speaker 1: skull at their own favorite hangout like that? Isn't a
12:59
Speaker 1: bank Robert dropping their id in the vault? Oh that
13:02
Speaker 1: is a pyromaniac sitting in a lawn chair watching the
13:05
Speaker 1: house burn while literally holding the matchbox. Why would anyone
13:09
Speaker 1: risk that?
13:10
Speaker 2: It's a vital question, and it really goes to the
13:12
Speaker 2: heart of criminal psychology. In behavioral profiling, we often see
13:17
Speaker 2: killers revisit or utilize locations where they feel safe, known
13:21
Speaker 2: and dominant.
13:22
Speaker 1: Okay, so it's a power thing.
13:23
Speaker 2: Absolutely for down Casa Gayardo was his kingdom, leaving the
13:28
Speaker 2: stall there. If he did, it might seem completely counterintuitive
13:31
Speaker 2: to a rational person, but to a killer operating on
13:34
Speaker 2: a god complex, it's the ultimate thrill.
13:37
Speaker 1: Just mocking them, right.
13:39
Speaker 2: Killers frequently believe they're vastly smarter than the police. Placing
13:43
Speaker 2: the most damning piece of evidence right in his own
13:46
Speaker 2: backyard while he is literally sitting inside having a drink
13:50
Speaker 2: is a display of absolute control. He's daring them to
13:53
Speaker 2: connect the docks, confident that even if they do, they
13:56
Speaker 2: can't prove how it got there.
13:58
Speaker 1: And Don certainly had a union meek, deeply twisted relationship
14:02
Speaker 1: with the justice system that fueled that arrogance.
14:04
Speaker 2: Oh the lawyer.
14:05
Speaker 1: Yes. When Don officially filed for divorce from his missing wife,
14:09
Speaker 1: claiming abandonment, he hired an attorney named Frank Anselone. Now
14:13
Speaker 1: Anzelone was a well known, high powered criminal defense attorney,
14:17
Speaker 1: not a family law practitioner.
14:18
Speaker 2: Right, which makes no sense for a simple divorce.
14:20
Speaker 1: Exactly why hire a criminal defense lawyer? Well, the family
14:24
Speaker 1: history hidden in these files explains everything. Frank Anselone was
14:28
Speaker 1: the exact same attorney who represented Don's mother, Audrey, back
14:31
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy four, and.
14:32
Speaker 2: That nineteen seventy four incident provides a dark psychological blueprint
14:36
Speaker 2: for everything that follows.
14:37
Speaker 1: It really does.
14:39
Speaker 2: Don's mother, Audrey, shot Don's father, Charles in the back,
14:43
Speaker 2: killing him in their family home, and Don was physically
14:46
Speaker 2: in the house when it happened.
14:48
Speaker 1: He was right there.
14:48
Speaker 2: Now, how did she avoid a life sentence? Frank Anzelone
14:52
Speaker 2: brilliantly leveraged claims of domestic abuse and intense household dynamics
14:56
Speaker 2: to secure a massive plea deal. Audrey served only six
15:00
Speaker 2: months in jail for killing her husband.
15:02
Speaker 1: Six months so Don grew up seeing first hand the
15:06
Speaker 1: loopholes of the legal system. He learned that you can
15:10
Speaker 1: commit murder within the family home, and with the right
15:12
Speaker 1: legal maneuvering, you can practically walk away free.
15:15
Speaker 2: It absolutely shapes a person's worldview.
15:17
Speaker 1: He felt invincible, and according to his ex girlfriend, he
15:20
Speaker 1: wasn't quiet about it either. We have interview transcripts from
15:23
Speaker 1: a woman Don dated after Linda vanished. She told investigators
15:27
Speaker 1: that Don once asked her to box up Linda's leftover
15:30
Speaker 1: photos wow, and when she expressed concern about Linda coming back,
15:34
Speaker 1: Don allegedly bragged her, I killed her with my bare hands.
15:37
Speaker 2: It goes beyond a simple boastful verbal confession too, The
15:42
Speaker 2: ex girlfriend claimed Don pulled out a green and white
15:45
Speaker 2: aerial map of his family's hunting property, which was located
15:48
Speaker 2: about ninety miles south of Saint Louis. He allegedly pointed
15:52
Speaker 2: to a specific spot on the map near a river
15:55
Speaker 2: and told her that the rest of Linda's body was
15:58
Speaker 2: buried right there, deep under a concrete slab.
16:02
Speaker 1: But despite that terrifying, highly specific confession, the physical evidence
16:06
Speaker 1: just wouldn't materialize. I mean, in nineteen ninety nine, investigators
16:09
Speaker 1: pushed for advanced soil testing on the dirt found clinging
16:12
Speaker 1: to the skull, hoping to chemically match it to the
16:15
Speaker 1: hunting property. Right.
16:16
Speaker 2: They brought in cadaver dogs. They searched the woods.
16:18
Speaker 1: But they found nothing conclusive. The agonizing reality is that
16:23
Speaker 1: knowing who did it and proving it in a court
16:25
Speaker 1: of law beyond a reasonable doubt are two entirely different universes.
16:30
Speaker 2: This raises an important question about the limits of the
16:32
Speaker 2: justice system, especially when dealing with individuals who meticulously destroy
16:37
Speaker 2: evidence and manipulate their environment. Don moved on with his life,
16:41
Speaker 2: but the pattern of violence didn't stop.
16:43
Speaker 1: No, it didn't.
16:44
Speaker 2: Years later, Don's second wife filed for a restraining order
16:48
Speaker 2: against him, explicitly citing that he had strangled her.
16:51
Speaker 1: Strangulation the exact, silent, intimate method of violence you would
16:56
Speaker 1: expect if someone killed their spouse quietly in the living
17:00
Speaker 1: room while their child slept just down the hall.
17:02
Speaker 2: It fits the profile perfectly.
17:04
Speaker 1: And speaking of that living room, when the police finally
17:06
Speaker 1: secured a warrant to get inside Don's house years later
17:09
Speaker 1: to execute a search, they found something deeply, deeply disturbing.
17:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, this part is it's hard to hear.
17:15
Speaker 1: He still had the exact same living room couch, the
17:18
Speaker 1: very couch where Patty saw her mother lying perfectly still
17:21
Speaker 1: all those years ago. He kept it.
17:23
Speaker 2: It is a chilling monument to the past. But despite
17:27
Speaker 2: all these psychological markers, the horrifying confessions, restraining orders, well,
17:31
Speaker 2: I mean, the case files ultimately reflect a story of
17:34
Speaker 2: systemic failure and agonizing, unresolved grief. The investigation slowly starved
17:39
Speaker 2: of resources.
17:40
Speaker 1: It did. Lieutenant Webb, the investigator who dedicated his entire
17:43
Speaker 1: life and career to finding justice for Linda, tragically passed
17:46
Speaker 1: away from cancer in two thousand and nine.
17:48
Speaker 2: Such a loss.
17:49
Speaker 1: And then Don Sherman died in twenty fifteen. So with
17:52
Speaker 1: the prime suspect dead, the institutional urgency evaporated entirely.
17:58
Speaker 2: Which leads us to the ultimate instant, situtional betrayal that
18:01
Speaker 2: Linda's daughter Patty is facing today. When you read the
18:05
Speaker 2: current status of these files, it is a bureaucratic nightmare.
18:09
Speaker 1: An absolute nightmare.
18:10
Speaker 2: The original agency of Anita Park Police Department was absorbed
18:14
Speaker 2: by a larger entity called the North County Police Cooperative,
18:18
Speaker 2: and the cooperative now claims they cannot find the full
18:21
Speaker 2: case files. They deny even being the lead agency responsible
18:24
Speaker 2: for the investigation.
18:25
Speaker 1: It's like finding out the library burned down just as
18:28
Speaker 1: you located the exact shelf holding the book you need
18:30
Speaker 1: to save your life.
18:31
Speaker 2: That's exactly it.
18:32
Speaker 1: They just washed their hands of it. A woman was murdered,
18:35
Speaker 1: her skull was left outside a restaurant, and the police
18:37
Speaker 1: department is basically saying, not our problem, the paperwork is lost.
18:41
Speaker 1: It leaves this case entirely orphaned, a victim's fight for
18:44
Speaker 1: justice just erased by jurisdictional shifts and a lack of resources.
18:48
Speaker 2: It highlights a tragic reality when a case loses its
18:52
Speaker 2: champion like Lieutenant Webb and gets caught in the gears
18:55
Speaker 2: of administrative consolidation. The victim is victimized all over again.
19:00
Speaker 1: The system forgets them, but you don't have to forget them.
19:03
Speaker 1: We need you to care about these cases that fall
19:05
Speaker 1: through the cracks. If you are listening to this, public
19:08
Speaker 1: pressure is the only thing that forces institutions to look
19:11
Speaker 1: for those lost files. Absolutely, you can contact the North
19:14
Speaker 1: County Police Cooperative's General Line at three one four four
19:17
Speaker 1: two eight seven three seven four and respectfully ask them
19:21
Speaker 1: to locate and prioritize the Linda Sherman homicide file. And please,
19:25
Speaker 1: if you are someone you know as experiencing intimate partner violence,
19:28
Speaker 1: you are not alone. Reach out to the National Domestic
19:30
Speaker 1: Violence Hotline at one eight hundred seven nine nine seven
19:33
Speaker 1: two three three, or you can simply text the word
19:36
Speaker 1: start to eight eight seven eight eight.
19:38
Speaker 2: Because when we look back at all the evidence that
19:40
Speaker 2: timelines in the psychological control, there is still one element
19:43
Speaker 2: of these case files that remains a gaping unresolved anomaly.
19:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, there really is.
19:47
Speaker 2: If we operate on the theory that Don killed Linda,
19:49
Speaker 2: we have to look very closely at the creation of
19:51
Speaker 2: that anonymous letter sent in nineteen ninety one which leaves us.
19:54
Speaker 1: With a truly chilling thought for you, tom all over,
19:57
Speaker 1: think about the physical act of creating that envelod, the
20:00
Speaker 1: unsealed flap, the bright orange Casa Gayardo flyer, the individual
20:06
Speaker 1: purple ink stamps meticulously spelling out the Bridgeton police have
20:11
Speaker 1: l Sherman's skull.
20:12
Speaker 2: Someone took the time to make.
20:13
Speaker 1: That exactly Was it Don taunting the police in an
20:16
Speaker 1: act of supreme arrogance or was it someone else? If
20:21
Speaker 1: it wasn't Dawn, that means someone in his inner circle
20:24
Speaker 1: knew his dark secret.
20:26
Speaker 2: That's terrifying to think about.
20:27
Speaker 1: Someone sat down in nineteen ninety one stamped that message
20:31
Speaker 1: and sent it to the police, ultimately deciding that a
20:33
Speaker 1: hint was enough to clear their conscience, but that full
20:36
Speaker 1: justice wasn't worth risking their own safety. What does it
20:39
Speaker 1: take for a witness to live with a ghost for
20:41
Speaker 1: thirty years?
20:41
Speaker 2: I can't even imagine to.
20:43
Speaker 1: Know that a mother was taken from her child, to
20:45
Speaker 1: know exactly where the evidence is, and to stay silent
20:48
Speaker 1: while the dirt clings to the bone just inches away
20:51
Speaker 1: from where people are sitting completely unaware, eating chips and
20:54
Speaker 1: salsa on a sunny Thursday afternoon. So what does this
20:57
Speaker 1: all mean