Latest / Gone Cold - Texas True Crime / Lou Allen Goettsch Part 1 of 2: The Confession

Transcript

Lou Allen Goettsch Part 1 of 2: The Confession · Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: The Gone Cold podcasts may contain violent or graphics subject matter.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Listener discretion is advised. On Saturday, January fourth, nineteen eighty six,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: two men hunted quail on a three hundred and four
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: acre ranch on the outskirts of Abilene, Texas. As they
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: stepped quietly through the brushy field, one of the men stopped,
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: I wonder what kind of bones these are? He said,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: looking down, it remains protruding from the earth below. His companion,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Abilene State School physician doctor Victor Vadney, knew right away
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: they were human. Doctor Vadney can make out a humorous tibia,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: rib bones, and a spinal column. The hunting trip was over,
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: the men hurried back to call the Taylor County Sheriff's Office.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Authorities arrived at the scene not long after the call,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: digging began, and as Captain Mike Smith and his deputies
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: carefully unearthed more bones. Other items were also found, a
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: shoulder harness that might be worn by someone with a
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: broken collar bone, a shirt, and a pair of blue jeans.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Inside the jeans was a wallet. The identification inside belonged
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: to thirty one year old Oscar Mendez of Mexico, A
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: migrant worker who'd been missing for more than a year
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: since August nineteen eighty four. The discovery was at least
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: halfway expected, but there was another missing man whose identification
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: would have met the other half. Exactly a week before,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: while stalking wild turkey on the same ranch, about three
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: hundred yards away, in a clump of trees, doctor Vadney
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: had discovered a human cranium with a bullet hole in
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: the dead center of the forehead. After that discovery, the
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: law combed the area for more or something that might
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: resemble a grave, but had found nothing. Abilene Police Missing
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: persons investigator Lee Reid doubted the skull belonged to one
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: of his cases because doctor Vadney estimated it belonged to
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: a small woman or child and had been in the
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: field for three to four years. Officers had no way
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: of knowing a wallet and identification would be found the
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: next week, of course, but even considering Vadney's educated guess
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: and before that discovery led to an official identification of
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: the skull as belonging to Oscar Mendez, other lawmen wondered
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: if it wasn't connected to a case from eighty one.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: That's when a young man by the name of Lou
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Getch vanished without a trace. Lou Allen Getch was born
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: on September twenty sixth, nineteen fifty nine, in Holstein, Iowa,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: to parents Luverne and Ona May. We know little about
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: Lou's childhood other than the fact that he spent some
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: of those years growing up on his family's farm, and
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: that he graduated high school in Holstein. In nineteen seventy seven,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: he enlisted in the United States Army and three years later,
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty, left after completing three years of active duty.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Presumably Lou had been stationed in Ohio, as at some
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: point in nineteen eighty he moved from the Buckeye State
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: to the Lone Star State, specifically Abilene, where his older
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: brother Roger lived. Call the Eden of the West to
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: draw people in. During its conception, Abilene was custom built
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: for a handful of wealthy ranchers who grazed their livestock
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: on the picturesque rolling planes there. In the nineteen thirties,
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: significant oil wells were finally struck after many established businessmen
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: and entrepreneurs had tried and failed, and black gold joined
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: ranching and agriculture as a major economic driver. Working class
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: folks came in droves to fulfill the needs of the
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: fields and the many new businesses that sprang up as
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: the result of the boom. The nineteen seventies had ushered
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: in another oil boom that stimulated the local economy something fierce,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: and though it would end in the mid eighties, lou
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: Getch had arrived just in time. Oil filled work wasn't
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: especially hard to come by in nineteen eighty when he
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: got to Abilene, Lou worked a few jobs here in
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: the there before picking up a job as a roughneck
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: that December, working for the company Master Drilling. In early
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty one, a job site injury put him out
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: of work for a while, but eventually he bounced back
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: and began working for another company, Safari Drilling. On March
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: twenty eighth, Lou got a three thousand dollars settlement check
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: from Master Drilling for his oil filled injury. He never
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: had a lot of money, so spending it wisely was important.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: A few days later, on the thirty first, Lou put
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: the money in an account at First State Bank, ordered
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: some checks, and put down three hundred and fifty dollars
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: plus deposit on a new place, a duplex on the
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: seventeen hundred block of South fourth Street, just a few
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: blocks from downtown. He drove his pickup truck loaded with
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: his things to his new home and parked in the driveway.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: Things were looking up. Several days later, Lou's brother, Roger,
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: received a receipt in the mail. It was for Lou's
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: settlement check. Lou came around Rogers often, and usually the
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: older brother would slide him some cash to keep him
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: up and running. When the receipt came, Roger figured Lou
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: hadn't called or been around in a while because he'd
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: come upon all that money. He was out partying and
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: whatever else, Roger thought. But when May twenty ninth rolled around,
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: about two months since he'd last seen or heard from Lou,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Roger believed something wasn't right. It was incredibly unusual for
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: Lou to go this long without getting in touch. Because
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: he didn't necessarily know where to look, Roger called the
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: Abilene Police Department not long after his search began. He
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: was in the dark about Lou's goings on his new apartment. Namely,
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: Roger set out searching Abilene on his own block by block.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: After notifying authorities. Then, on May thirty first, nineteen eighty one,
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: he came upon loose truck. It was parked in the
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: driveway of a duplex on South Forth. All his little
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: brother's possessions were in the bed, soaked with rain from
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: recent storms. Now Roger knew something was very wrong. He
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: raced to alert police about his discovery. When the police
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: arrived at Lou Getch's new duplex apartment, they quickly discovered
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: it was empty. None of the missing twenty one year
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: old's things had been brought inside. There were no signs
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: of a struggle or forced entry. The unlocked pickup truck
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: had been parked outside the duplex Awhile that much was clear,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: but when the cops asked neighbors if they knew how
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: long oddly none could help. It was quickly learned that
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: Lou's checking account balance of one thousand, seventy nine dollars
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: hadn't been touched since March thirty first. There had been
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: no transactions whatsoever. He hadn't called or picked up a
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: paycheck that Safari Drilling had been holding on to for
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: several weeks. At that point. Whatever happened to Lou, there
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: was a two month head start and clues were not forthcoming.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: In a matter of a couple days, a description of
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: Lou Allen Getch hit the area newspaper, the Abilene Reporter News,
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: and the local television news. He stood five feet ten
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: inches tall, The description read, had brown hair and a
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: full beard. Strangely, Lou's hair is blonde on top, but
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: it's never described as such. Right off the bat, the
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: police were frustrated to conduct any kind of meaningful search.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: They needed specific information to act on, but they had none.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: This particular problem would haunt the department during the initial investigation.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: Within a few months, anyway, area law enforcement would have
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: two more mysterious and suspicious disappearances to deal with as well.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: After the first few initial news reports, Lou Allen Getsch's
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: name in the newspaper headlines like the man vanished. A
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: month into the investigation, and having progressed little since the
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: day Lou was reported missing, another young Abylenian disappeared. Her
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: case was almost completely ignored by the media. On Tuesday,
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: June twentieth, nineteen eighty one, twenty one year old Dorothy
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: Jean Richardson and her husband Larry had an argument. According
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: to him, she left their Abilene home on foot, taking
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: nothing with her, leaving everything behind. Her husband reported her missing,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: and police felt right away that something was off. Dorothy
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: had no history of running off or of impulsive behavior.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: A month later, her husband, who is currently a registered
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: sex offender in the state of Florida, was given a
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: polygraph examination and passed there was no evidence against him.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: He was convicted of marijuana possession a couple months later,
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: something that perhaps should be kept in mind as Lou's
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: case unfolds. Just over three months after Dorothy's disappearance, twenty
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: year old Teresa Elizabeth Bishop vanished after she got off
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: work on Friday, October second, nineteen eighty one. Teresa met
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: friends at a nightclub called Diamond Jims on Abilene's south
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: Side at Butternut and South twenty first Streets. They all
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: had a few drinks and unwound after a hard day's labor.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: When they were ready to call it a night at
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: around ten pm, Teresa approached four men she appeared to
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: know outside the club as the group of friends were
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: walking to their respective cars. Her friends left, and as
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: they did, Teresa was still talking to the unknown men.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: The following Sunday, she didn't show up for a family dinner,
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: which was not like her at all. Teresa worked at
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: an automotive shop, and when she didn't show up for
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: work on Monday, her father phoned police and reported her missing.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Detective Lee read of the Abilene Police Department's Missing Persons
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: investigations found Teresa's nineteen eighty one Chevrolet Monza shortly thereafter.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: It was undisturbed, presumably exactly as the missing growth girl
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: left it as she entered Diamond Jims the previous Friday.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: She never made it back to the car and was
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: never seen again. Later in the month, in the middle
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: of the afternoon on October twenty second, a man of
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: average height and weight knocked on the door of an
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: Abilene Christian University co ed's apartment. When she answered, the
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: man asked for Teresa Bishop. There was no one there
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: with that name, the young woman told him, apparently several times,
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: as the man repeatedly asked. At his request, the college
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: student let the man in to use her phone book.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: Once inside, he promptly pulled out a pocket knife and
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: ordered the co ed to take off her clothes. She
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: refused and fortunately managed to escape. The Abilene police didn't
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: know what to make of the attempted rapist asking for
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: a missing woman by name at the home of a
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: local university student, but it was far from the only
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: perplexing detail of the case. Two of the details were
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: tied to, albeit loosely, For all the cops knew, the
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: case of another local missing person, Lou Getch. Like Lou
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: Teresa Bishop, was in the process of moving when she disappeared,
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: though she had a new place on the northeast side
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: of town and he the south side. Also, according to detectives,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: they had discovered an individual who knew both missing persons.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: By February of nineteen eighty two, police had exhausted all
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: leads into Lou's disappearance. Desperate for answers, the missing young
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: man's family requested the detective in charge of the case,
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: Lieutenant Melvin Martin, sent a psychic in Los Angeles. A summary.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: The psychic told the Getch family that Liu left Abilene
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: voluntarily and was in Hawaii working as a day laborer,
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: soon to move to Australia because he'd been stationed in
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: Hawaii during his stint in the US Army and had
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: a girlfriend in Australia. The family believed the psychic vision
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: made sense. Working under the assumption the vision was true,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: Lou's brother in law called directory assistance in every city
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: in Hawaii, but no phone number in the missing young
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: man's name could be found. Anyway, No foul play was involved,
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: the clairvoyant asserted, adding that Lou will turn up on
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: his own, whether it be months or years. The cops
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: rightfully disagreed no evidence had been found suggesting foul play,
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: yet at the same time, the circumstances surrounding the case
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: made it abundantly clear that was exactly what they were
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: working with. Why leave behind his money, Why not sell
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: his truck for more? Why order checks and get a
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: new apartment? The psychic's explanation didn't track, not by a
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: long shot. Lieutenant Melvin Martin remarked that somewhere there's a
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: person whose conscience is eating away at him for making
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: Lou disappear. The lawmen also said there were many persons
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: of interest in the case, plenty of folks to talk to.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: In fact, Martin said they had some new information that
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: they got after they sent the case summary to the
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: California Psychic having to do with some of Lou's associates
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: and information about his personal property, which he refused to
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: comment on further. Several months later, in June of nineteen
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: eighty two, while working at the Maxwell Municipal golf Course,
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Lou's brother, Rogers brand new black Mazda was vandalized and
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: severely damaged to the tune of about three thousand dollars
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: in repairs. That's an amount worth almost ten thousand dollars today.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: In September of twenty twenty four, two months later, their
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: brother in law, Steve Weinberg, came to Abilene to look
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: into Lou's case. As an investigative reporter in Columbia, Missouri,
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: Steve had the chops to do it. When he got
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: to Abilene, he read through the few newspaper articles available,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: checked Lou's employment file at Master Drilling, and to Abilene
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: Police Lieutenant Marvin Martin's credit, was allowed to study the
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: case file. On the second day of his visit. After
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: speaking with several of his missing brother in law's friends
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: and acquaintances, Steve found out Lou was involved with drugs,
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: but because he was always broke, he was likely just
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: using and it appears to have only been pot. Whatever
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: the case, he was a good kid, Steve said of
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: his brother in law, and he'd certainly never gone this
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: long without contacting someone in his family. I've made some
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: sense of who might have done it. I think I
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: know who did it, Steve Weinberg told a reporter for
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: the Amarillo Globe Times. He added, but thinking it and
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: proving it are two different things. You can't put a
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: man away for thinking he killed someone. A month after
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: Steve Weinberg left town, the police questioned someone in Low's disappearance.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: As nineteen eighty two was coming to an end, the
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: crime Stoppers reward for information leading to the whereabouts of
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: the missing twenty one year old or the arrest of
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: the person or persons responsible raised from one thousand to
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: six thousand dollars. For the next decade, the case couldn't
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: have been colder. Then came something big in the case
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: of missing person Lou Getch. The Abilene police had been
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: holding something back from the public. About ten months after
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: he vanished, an anonymous call came into the department. The
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: caller said a man named Ronnie Dean Harper and another
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: man whose name was never released, had murdered Lou in
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: a drug deal gone bad. And then dumped his body
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: near at Taylor County Lake. Nearly twelve years later, on
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: the weekend of September tenth, nineteen ninety three, a man
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: was arrested in Lafayette, Georgia for being drunk in public.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: While he was detained, he told the jailers he had
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: to get something off his chest that he had been
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: holding onto for more than a decade. His conscience had
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: finally gotten the best of him, the man said, and
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: he was tired of constantly looking over his shoulder. It
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: was time he Thirty four year old Ronnie Dean Harper
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: confessed to an old murder in Texas, the murder of
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: Lou Allan Getch. Once we get him here and talk
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: to him, we'll tell you the whole story. Abilene Police
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: Detective Lee Reid said of their recent confessor to the
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: murder of missing twenty one year old Lou Getch. For
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: Detective Reed, the confession hit home. He had been working
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: Lou's case for more than a decade. He was there
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: at the beginning. Ronnie Dean Harper's extradition back to Texas
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: from Lafayette, Georgia happened in record time. Within days of
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: his confession before he was and on the plane ride
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: to Abilene, he had described both the murder and the
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: place he had buried Lou, in a shallow grave near
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: a water tower in the Greater Abilene industrial district just
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: off Interstate twenty. He and Lou knew each other fairly well,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: Harper told authorities. In fact, they were together on New
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: Year's Eve nineteen eighty when police pulled them over for
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: driving erratically. Harper, twenty one years old at the time,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: was behind the wheel. They were both arrested for possession
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: of marijuana, which the police officer found, presumably while frisking
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: the men. It's unclear if only one or both was holding.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: Whatever the case, Harper said he suspected that it was
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: Lou who turned him in, apparently unable to explain exactly
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: how he would have done such a thing. He'd later
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: been fined one hundred dollars and been given six months
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: deferred adjudication for the charge, while Lou apparently got off
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: scot free. Harper told the police that three months later,
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: on April first, nineteen eighty one, he ran into Lou
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: at a gas station. Lou told Harper about a big
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: drug deal going down and asked if he wanted to
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: go along and score. So the men drove to a
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: secluded area off Interstate twenty and walked about three hundred
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: yards into a field. Harper, who carried a shotgun, thought
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: he saw someone hiding in the bushes nearby, he told detectives,
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: and then thought he heard gunfire. Lou was setting him
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: up again. Harper believed Lou, getch he said, was a
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: n arc. Scared, Harper fired toward the bushes, but Lou
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: stepped in the way. The man continued and the gunshot
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: hit him in the shoulder. Now was as good a
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: time as any to even the score. Harper thought. He
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: shot Lou twice more, he confessed, and then, still angry
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: about the perceived setup, began kicking him in the face.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: Harper dug a shallow grave and buried Lou, he told police.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: Detectives were impressed with Harper's admission. He was shooting straight,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: they said, and knew a lot of detail about the
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: missing person's case, including one never before released. They said
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: that Lou was carrying fifteen hundred dollars in cash. If
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: this is true, of course, it's still a major assumption
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: since a body had never been recovered up to that point,
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: and if Harper stole it, that's on his word alone.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: If the information came from the bank, Lou might have
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: already spent the money on something. Anyway, it was time
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: for Ronnie Dean Harper to put his money where his
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: mouth was and lead them to the body of Lou
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: Allen Gedge. When Abilene police detectives arrived back in town
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: with their new prisoner on Thursday, September sixteenth, nineteen ninety three,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: they first brought him to the Taylor County Jail and
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: had him arraigned quickly. He was ordered held on a
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars bond. Then they brought the confessor right
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: to the spot where he said he'd buried Lou, a
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: large brush and cactus covered pasture thick with thorny mesquite
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: trees off Interstate T twenty near full Whiler Road. Although
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: detectives were confident Harper could lead them right to lose remains,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: they had no luck finding the bones that evening. Regardless,
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: they were not discouraged. It had been a long time
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: since Harper committed the crime, and things, particularly the vegetation,
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: had changed somewhat. After twelve years they could hardly expect
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: the man to lead them straight to lose remains. Detectives
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: said it was only a matter of time, and as
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: anxious as they were to finally put an end to
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: this mystery and give the Getch family the answers they deserved,
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: it was going to require patience. The next day, they
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: planned a far more thorough and organized search. When tomorrow came,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: cadets from the Abilene Police Academy heated detective's call to
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: join the efforts. They turned Harper loose to wander and
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: get a feel for the general area, fire up the
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: old sonata so he can recall the day he shot
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: and killed Lou the confessed killer. The alleged killer walked
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: the field, and though the only bones they found that
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: day belonged to animals, detectives said they'd nailed down the
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: general area to a one hundred square yard space. The
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: inability to find a trace of Louke Getch, however, wasn't
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: the only hiccup. As the search dragged on, Ronnie Dean
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: Harper began changing his story. One minute, he told detectives
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: he'd put Lou's body in a shallow grave, and the
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: next claimed he left it on the ground. Harper acted alone,
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: he told them at first, and then later said there
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: were others involved. The cops were frustrated. On the one hand,
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: Harper seemed to recall details of the disappearance straight from memory,
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: and on the other hand, when asked by a group
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: of reporters, said I didn't do it. The story was
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: constantly warping and evolving. After Friday's search was over, detectives
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: decided to give it a rest for the weekend and
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: begin anew the following Monday. Again, searchers found nothing. Ronnie
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: Dean Harper refused to be hypnotized, the first refusal in
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: a series of them. In fact, though they still believed
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: he was telling the truth about killing lou Getch, asking
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: him to take a polygraph examination seemed inevitable too. Perhaps,
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: they pondered, their suspect had changed his mind after sobering
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: up back in Georgia and was now leading them on
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: a wild goose chase. After asking him to get hooked
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: up to the machine, which he refused, Harper completely clammed up.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: He refused to say another word about his confession or
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: lou In general. As Detective Lee Reid put it, he
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: has now reached a point of not cooperating because there
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: were other things to do investigation wise, like pouring back
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: over the case file carefully, reinterviewing old witnesses, and interviewing
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: new ones. Detectives decided to let Harper cool off, but
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: they were far from through with them. In hindsight, there
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: are questions about the confession of Ronnie Dean Harper. That
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: and the Big Country Bones next time on Gone Cold,
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: Texas True Crime. If you have any information about the
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: disappearance of lou Allen Getch, please contact Abilene crime Stoppers
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: at eight hundred eight six eight eight four seven seven.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: We'd like to extend as sincere and warm thanks to
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: all the folks who support us over at patreon dot
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: com This week at the Bomb City level, thank you,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: Shannon A. If you'd like to join Gone Cold's mission
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: to renew the public's interest in unsolved homicides, missing persons cases,
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: and other perplexing mysteries, you can support the show and
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: listen ad free at patreon dot com Forward Slash Gone
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: Cold Podcast. You'll also find episodes exclusive to Patreon there,
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: with more to come in the near future. Words cannot
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: express how much we appreciate our patrons. Thank you so
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: much for your support. You can also support Gone Cold
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: by leaving a five star rating in written review on
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: iTunes and Apple Podcasts, which will help the show reach
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: more ears, bettering the chance someone with information about a
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: case will hear it and come forward. A rating and
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: written review wherever you listen is much appreciated. Thanks for listening, y'all,