Latest / The Path Went Chilly / Nyleen Kay Marshall Pt. One

Transcript

Nyleen Kay Marshall Pt. One · The Path Went Chilly

0:26
Speaker 1: Welcome back to our latest series of episodes from the Pathway. Chili.
0:29
Speaker 1: Ashley is still on a break, so we will follow
0:32
Speaker 1: our routine where I share the details about a case
0:34
Speaker 1: with jewels and she will give off her live reaction. So, Jules,
0:38
Speaker 1: have you ever heard of the disappearance of Nileen and
0:40
Speaker 1: k Marshall?
0:42
Speaker 2: I don't believe that I have.
0:44
Speaker 1: Well, this is the case that was featured on Unsolved
0:46
Speaker 1: Mysteries and the trail went cold, and it's a very
0:48
Speaker 1: sad story about the disappearance of a four year old
0:50
Speaker 1: girl who was on a picnic with her family when
0:53
Speaker 1: she just vanished without a trace. And at the outset
0:56
Speaker 1: they thought she might have wandered off and maybe gotten
0:58
Speaker 1: in the lost in the woods and died of exposure.
1:00
Speaker 1: But some other kids would come forward who talked about
1:03
Speaker 1: seeing a mysterious man in a jogging suit near the
1:07
Speaker 1: site approaching Nileen, and a couple of years later, the
1:10
Speaker 1: authorities would receive a series of anonymous phone calls and
1:13
Speaker 1: letters from a man who claimed that he had Nileen
1:16
Speaker 1: and was raising her as his own child, and he
1:19
Speaker 1: apparently contained details which had never been released publicly, which
1:23
Speaker 1: is why the authority thought this guy was credible. They
1:26
Speaker 1: couldn't tell if he was actually lying about still raising Nileen,
1:30
Speaker 1: that maybe he could have killed her shortly thereafter and
1:32
Speaker 1: was making up this fantasy. But they've never been able
1:35
Speaker 1: to identify him or find Nileen. And this is a
1:38
Speaker 1: case we has had a lot of wild twists and turns,
1:40
Speaker 1: which we're going to talk.
1:41
Speaker 3: About, Okay, So right from the outset, this is reminding
1:46
Speaker 3: me very much of the Dior Koons Junior case where
1:49
Speaker 3: he disappears while the family is camping, and there's a
1:53
Speaker 3: lot of questions as to whether the family was involved
1:56
Speaker 3: or there was another party involved. And I'm just going
1:59
Speaker 3: to apologize right now if my voice is a little
2:02
Speaker 3: bit off. We have really bad fires in the Okanagan
2:05
Speaker 3: right now, and so my throat is like really scratchy,
2:08
Speaker 3: so I'm not really sounding the greatest, but I'm going.
2:12
Speaker 2: To power through.
2:13
Speaker 3: But yeah, so Dior's case, it reminds me of that.
2:18
Speaker 3: And I also wonder why would somebody write in so
2:22
Speaker 3: many years after the fact, And it really strikes me
2:26
Speaker 3: as somebody who maybe has a guilty conscience and they're
2:30
Speaker 3: trying to rewrite the narrative or rewrite history more for
2:33
Speaker 3: themselves than.
2:34
Speaker 2: For other people.
2:36
Speaker 3: In saying that Nileen is still alive and this is
2:40
Speaker 3: the scenario rather than Nileen was alive and I ended
2:44
Speaker 3: her life is seeming like more of a plausible scenario
2:48
Speaker 3: to me, because what would be your vested interest in
2:52
Speaker 3: outing yourself as by giving information if she was indeed
2:56
Speaker 3: still alive, Like, why would you want to hint at that?
2:58
Speaker 3: Do you want to get caught?
3:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what's interesting about this case is he apparently
3:03
Speaker 1: included information to show he might be credible, but the
3:06
Speaker 1: whole scenario written out in the letters might be nothing
3:08
Speaker 1: more than a fantasy. And I know that if you
3:11
Speaker 1: look at the earliest press coverage of this case, like
3:13
Speaker 1: there's a lot of ambiguity about whether she just wandered
3:16
Speaker 1: off and died of exposure or was abducted. It seems
3:19
Speaker 1: like law enforcement was inclined to believe that she just
3:22
Speaker 1: wandered off and died until these letters and phone calls
3:25
Speaker 1: started coming. So he was greatly increasing the possibility of
3:29
Speaker 1: being caught. And you mentioned the Dior Kuhn's case, Like
3:32
Speaker 1: that's one where the victim's parents have been under suspicion,
3:36
Speaker 1: and in this one, law enforcement has never directed suspicion
3:39
Speaker 1: towards Nileen's parents, but if you search online, there are
3:43
Speaker 1: a lot of people who said the stepfather. Nileen's stepfather
3:46
Speaker 1: was under suspicion, and he kind of wonder though, if
3:49
Speaker 1: some of the people writing these comments have their own agenda,
3:52
Speaker 1: because when you look at the logistics, it does seem
3:54
Speaker 1: unlikely that her family could have done something. Yet that
3:57
Speaker 1: seems to be a narrative that is plague disc case.
4:01
Speaker 3: And who was it who specifically saw this man in
4:04
Speaker 3: a sweatsuit, A.
4:06
Speaker 1: Couple of kids, and they all told similar stories to
4:09
Speaker 1: make them think that they're credible. But I think at
4:11
Speaker 1: the beginning, law enforcement may have believed that they they're
4:14
Speaker 1: misinterpreted things, that maybe he was just a stranger and
4:17
Speaker 1: he didn't kidnap Nileen. But in retrospect, it now seems
4:20
Speaker 1: likely that this guy probably was responsible. So the story
4:25
Speaker 1: takes place in nineteen eighty three in Montana. Nileen Ky
4:29
Speaker 1: Marshall was four years old at the time. Her birth
4:32
Speaker 1: parents wear a Nancy and Bill Briscoe, who had an
4:35
Speaker 1: older son named Nathan, who was two years older than Nileen,
4:39
Speaker 1: but the couple divorced shortly after Nileen was born, and
4:42
Speaker 1: Nancy soon got remarried to a man named Kim Marshall,
4:45
Speaker 1: who legally adopted Nileen, and they also had another daughter
4:49
Speaker 1: named Norien. This particular point that Marshalls are living and
4:52
Speaker 1: the unincorporated community of Alhambra in Montana, which is not
4:57
Speaker 1: too far from the state capital of Helena. In the
5:00
Speaker 1: afternoon of Saturday, June the twenty fifth, the Marshalls attended
5:03
Speaker 1: a picnic at a campground located in Helena National Forest
5:06
Speaker 1: near the Elkhorn Mountains. And this is interesting. The picnic
5:10
Speaker 1: was an event for Ham radio operators which was sponsored
5:13
Speaker 1: by a local radio club, and because Kim was one
5:15
Speaker 1: of their members, he'd attended alongside several other families. And
5:20
Speaker 1: I think that's kind of cute here in the nineteen
5:21
Speaker 1: eighties that they had this hobby for Ham radio operators.
5:24
Speaker 1: It just seems so old fashioned.
5:27
Speaker 2: It definitely does.
5:29
Speaker 3: And I'm trying to think of what case that it
5:33
Speaker 3: was where it featured heavily wasn't okay, so you're going
5:40
Speaker 3: to know, I'm wanting to say Releisha Rudd, but it's
5:43
Speaker 3: not Releisha Rudd's case. It's the case of a little
5:47
Speaker 3: girl she went missing in the middle of the night
5:50
Speaker 3: and was seen by truck drivers who had the handheld radio.
5:54
Speaker 2: Her back back was bound.
5:55
Speaker 3: Oh asia degree, asia degree, yes, yes, Asia degrees. Case
5:59
Speaker 3: that for another case where the handheld radios come into
6:03
Speaker 3: play because they're communicating back and forth. And I think
6:07
Speaker 3: that's interesting when people outside of truck drivers to have
6:11
Speaker 3: this as a hobby.
6:12
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm sure there's people that do it still.
6:14
Speaker 3: Today, but it feels like a hobby of yesteryear.
6:18
Speaker 1: It does. And a couple months ago on the Trail
6:20
Speaker 1: when Cold I did a episode about the mystery of
6:22
Speaker 1: Lost Boy Larry, there was all these Ham radio operators
6:26
Speaker 1: hearing a child saying he had gotten into an accident
6:28
Speaker 1: where his father was killed and was trapped in the
6:30
Speaker 1: New Mexico desert and was calling for help. But they
6:33
Speaker 1: never did find them. So it's been ambiguous about whether
6:35
Speaker 1: or not Lost Boy Larry was legitimate or if this
6:39
Speaker 1: was nothing more than a prank. It's kind of like
6:40
Speaker 1: that infamous Simpsons episode where Bart does that prank about
6:44
Speaker 1: being trapped in the well as a boy named Timmy O'Toole.
6:47
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I remember that episode of the Simpsons. I
6:50
Speaker 3: don't think I've ever heard of lost Boy Larry, But
6:52
Speaker 3: I can only imagine if you were one of the
6:55
Speaker 3: truck drivers during that time period hearing that and not
6:58
Speaker 3: being able to render assistance or to be able to
7:03
Speaker 3: direct anybody to where this little boy is. That would
7:06
Speaker 3: be so heartbreaking. It's such a cruel prank. But I mean,
7:10
Speaker 3: do kids do pranks like that today? I know it
7:13
Speaker 3: was a big thing back then.
7:15
Speaker 1: I don't know, like it would be very hard to
7:17
Speaker 1: get away with a prank like that, Like obviously with
7:19
Speaker 1: cell phones and stuff, they can track you, so and
7:22
Speaker 1: if they tried it on a Ham radio, I don't
7:24
Speaker 1: think enough people would be listening today for the prank
7:26
Speaker 1: to get as much widespread attention. But this was the
7:29
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies when Ham radios were pretty big, when they
7:32
Speaker 1: did like a whole bunch of trucker movies like Smoking
7:34
Speaker 1: in the Bandit, So you can tell why like a
7:37
Speaker 1: story like this would balloon out of control. So at
7:40
Speaker 1: around four pm, Nileen was playing with some other children
7:43
Speaker 1: who were catching frogs near the Beaver Dams in mop
7:46
Speaker 1: And Creek, which was less than one hundred yards away
7:48
Speaker 1: from the campground where everyone was having the picnic, and
7:51
Speaker 1: it's tough to know the correct version of how Nileen
7:54
Speaker 1: disappeared because if you look through news articles from that
7:56
Speaker 1: time period, they give a whole bunch of different variations.
8:00
Speaker 1: One of them is that she was being watched by
8:02
Speaker 1: a thirteen year old girl, but when she briefly left
8:04
Speaker 1: Nileen alone in order to go back to the campground
8:07
Speaker 1: and then returned a few minutes later, Nileen was gone.
8:10
Speaker 1: But whatever the case, the authorities are notified about her disappearance,
8:14
Speaker 1: and there was a massive search effort of Helen and
8:16
Speaker 1: National Force with law enforcement rescue workers, a number of volunteers,
8:20
Speaker 1: and they also used tracking dogs and helicopter with a
8:24
Speaker 1: heat sensing device, but they just could not find her.
8:27
Speaker 1: And at the time she went missing, Nilen was barefoot
8:29
Speaker 1: and only clad in a yellow T shirt in shorts,
8:32
Speaker 1: and since some thunderstorms hit the area and temperatures dropped
8:36
Speaker 1: in a huge way during the search, there was a
8:38
Speaker 1: fear that if she was lost in the forest that
8:40
Speaker 1: she wouldn't survive very long. So they looked everywhere, through
8:44
Speaker 1: some undergrowth, through some abandoned mine shafts to see if
8:47
Speaker 1: Nileen might have fallen in and they also drained a pond,
8:50
Speaker 1: but they turned up nothing. And at the time, investigators
8:54
Speaker 1: were not inclined to believe that an abduction took place
8:56
Speaker 1: because this campground was very remote and isolated, and pretty
9:00
Speaker 1: much all the people attending this picnic were friends and
9:03
Speaker 1: acquaintances of the Marshall family, whose whereabouts were all accounted for.
9:08
Speaker 1: So they're thinking, what are the odds that a complete
9:10
Speaker 1: stranger would show up here and be able to abduct
9:12
Speaker 1: Nileen and get away with it.
9:15
Speaker 3: I mean, yes, it's all friends and family, but statistically speaking,
9:20
Speaker 3: if a child is going to be abducted, or if
9:23
Speaker 3: anyone is going to be harmed or murdered, it's typically
9:25
Speaker 3: by somebody we know. And so it opens up the
9:29
Speaker 3: possibility that, say everybody is accounted for, okay, well can
9:33
Speaker 3: you account for everybody for every minute of that day?
9:36
Speaker 3: If somebody wanted to abduct Nileen and they thought, okay, well,
9:41
Speaker 3: I've got to drag her to a desolate spot where
9:45
Speaker 3: she won't be found, and you know, I'll put something,
9:48
Speaker 3: tie something in her mouth, and I'll bind her and
9:51
Speaker 3: then I'll go back to where everybody else is and
9:54
Speaker 3: then I'll go and retrieve her later. There's always a
9:57
Speaker 3: scenario where if somebody is determined and they would be
10:01
Speaker 3: able to find the means to be able to carry
10:05
Speaker 3: out what their desired objective is. And when people are
10:09
Speaker 3: looking back in retrospect and they're saying, all these people
10:12
Speaker 3: are accounted for, we know how unreliable eyewitness testimony is.
10:17
Speaker 3: I find it hard to believe that you can one
10:19
Speaker 3: hundred percent say that every single person there is accounted
10:22
Speaker 3: for for every minute of the time that you were there,
10:25
Speaker 3: because no one is observing thinking that one of the
10:28
Speaker 3: children is going to go missing and that little Nileen
10:30
Speaker 3: will never be seen again.
10:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. I mean, I'm guessing that if someone from
10:36
Speaker 1: the picnic abducted her, then they wouldn't have taken her
10:38
Speaker 1: from the area right away because that would look conspicuous
10:41
Speaker 1: if they disappeared at the same time. But they could
10:44
Speaker 1: have done your scenario where they tied her up, kept
10:46
Speaker 1: her somewhere in the forest, and then when they had
10:47
Speaker 1: a break, they could have just gone and grabbed her
10:49
Speaker 1: and then left the area without drawing any suspicion. So yeah,
10:54
Speaker 1: that's why you can't rule out the possibility that someone
10:56
Speaker 1: who attended the picnic was responsible. But at the same time,
11:00
Speaker 1: it makes me wonder how heavily this event was advertised.
11:02
Speaker 1: If someone could have read about it in a newspaper
11:05
Speaker 1: and thought, hmm, there's a picnic going on here. There's
11:07
Speaker 1: going to be kids. Even though I'm not a member
11:09
Speaker 1: of this club. Maybe I'll stop by there and see
11:11
Speaker 1: if I can kidnap one.
11:13
Speaker 2: I mean, that's a possibility too.
11:15
Speaker 3: Writ If somebody is looking to abduct a child for
11:19
Speaker 3: whatever reason, and you're seeing in the newspaper, which of
11:23
Speaker 3: course it's pre internet, So how are you going to
11:26
Speaker 3: get information about how to gain access to children? That
11:30
Speaker 3: would be a pretty good place to start, I would assume,
11:32
Speaker 3: And these types of picnics would be somewhere where there
11:36
Speaker 3: would be a lot of children, And I don't think
11:39
Speaker 3: there was this fear in the hearts of parents in
11:42
Speaker 3: the way that there was. I would say, into like
11:45
Speaker 3: the nineties and the two thousands, when the Internet started
11:48
Speaker 3: to spread, all of the information about children being abducted,
11:51
Speaker 3: even milk cartons started to get people thinking differently, I believe.
11:56
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, we were kids in the nineties,
11:58
Speaker 3: so for us, we're going to remember the milk cartons.
12:02
Speaker 3: We're going to remember the Internet in this new flow
12:04
Speaker 3: of information, but these things were always happening. How do
12:08
Speaker 3: you disseminate this information? How do you share it? Do
12:11
Speaker 3: you do it on the news? Maybe there's one news
12:13
Speaker 3: clip about a missing kid, if that kid doesn't fit
12:17
Speaker 3: the like we always talk about like a valuable victim, right,
12:20
Speaker 3: and a missing kid is typically always viewed as a
12:23
Speaker 3: valuable victim. But if somebody isn't from like the right demographic,
12:27
Speaker 3: or they aren't from the big city, they might not
12:30
Speaker 3: get the coverage that like a missing kid from a
12:33
Speaker 3: prominent family with blonde hair and blue eyes would get.
12:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And I think the milk carton thing started
12:39
Speaker 1: in eighty four eighty five, around the time that Janelle
12:42
Speaker 1: Matthews went missing, So I don't think they were doing
12:44
Speaker 1: that practice yet back in June of nineteen eighty three
12:47
Speaker 1: when Nihleen went missing. And of course, like most families
12:50
Speaker 1: aren't going to think that your child is going to
12:52
Speaker 1: be abducted. When you're going to a campground in a
12:54
Speaker 1: national forest, you're probably going to think your biggest concern
12:57
Speaker 1: is that she's going to wander off and get lost.
13:00
Speaker 3: Could I just side note this, I cannot hear the
13:03
Speaker 3: name Janelle Matthews without thinking of Steve Pankey being part
13:08
Speaker 3: of your Patreon.
13:10
Speaker 1: Oh yes, yes, I always share that story. And that's
13:12
Speaker 1: the ultimate example of someone who could have gotten away
13:14
Speaker 1: with their crime indefinitely if they didn't stop like sticking
13:17
Speaker 1: their nose into the investigation and putting themselves out there,
13:21
Speaker 1: which is kind of like the person we're going to
13:22
Speaker 1: talk about in this case, how who was writing the
13:24
Speaker 1: anonymous letters and the phone calls and almost seem like
13:27
Speaker 1: they want to be caught, but unfortunately they are still
13:30
Speaker 1: unidentified to this day. So it was not until five
13:34
Speaker 1: days after Nileen went missing when they started seriously looking
13:37
Speaker 1: at the possibility of an abduction, because various children started
13:41
Speaker 1: coming forward saying that they had seen Nileen in the
13:43
Speaker 1: company of a mysterious man in a purple jogging suit
13:46
Speaker 1: right before she vanished. The two girls said that they
13:49
Speaker 1: were walking past Nileen as she was sitting by the
13:51
Speaker 1: creek and saw this man suddenly emerge from behind a tree,
13:54
Speaker 1: and they did not recognize him as part of the
13:57
Speaker 1: picnic group. I don't think they found anyone who was
14:00
Speaker 1: in attendance that day who was wearing a purple jogging
14:02
Speaker 1: suit and as they walked off, they overheard Nileen saying
14:06
Speaker 1: to him, quote, my brother can run faster than you.
14:09
Speaker 1: There was an eight year old girl who reported that
14:11
Speaker 1: she had passed by Nileen and noticed the same man
14:13
Speaker 1: in a jogging suit sitting near her, and the day
14:16
Speaker 1: after the eight year old shared this story, a six
14:19
Speaker 1: year old would pretty much provide the same account, only
14:22
Speaker 1: she said that this man was speaking to Nileen and
14:25
Speaker 1: trying to convince her to play a game called quote
14:27
Speaker 1: follow the Shadow, which involves walking behind someone and staying
14:31
Speaker 1: within the outlines of their shadow while following them. But
14:35
Speaker 1: after that, Nileen and the man were never seen again,
14:37
Speaker 1: and the eight year old and the six year old
14:39
Speaker 1: both said that the man tried to speak with them,
14:41
Speaker 1: but one of the kids just ignored him, while the
14:43
Speaker 1: other got scared and ran away. And of course police
14:47
Speaker 1: were a bit skeptical because all these children waited a
14:49
Speaker 1: couple of days before they came forward, but the marshals
14:52
Speaker 1: found their accounts to be credible because as far as
14:55
Speaker 1: they knew, the kids did not know each other, they
14:57
Speaker 1: had not spoken to each other beforehand, yet their story
15:00
Speaker 1: orries where incredibly similar.
15:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think when you're hearing from this many kids
15:05
Speaker 3: just trying to dismiss it as Oh, they're fabricating it.
15:09
Speaker 3: It seems a little bit wild to me, especially when
15:12
Speaker 3: they all seem to be sharing similar details. This person
15:16
Speaker 3: is obviously trying to lure children, and I find this
15:20
Speaker 3: really fascinating that this individual is wearing a purple jogging suit.
15:25
Speaker 3: It's a choice, and either of these scenarios could be true.
15:29
Speaker 3: This was a crime of opportunity. This person was legitimately
15:32
Speaker 3: just jogging, happened to see children and was like, Oh,
15:35
Speaker 3: this is a great moment for me to strike. Or
15:39
Speaker 3: they planned this. They were aware that there was going
15:41
Speaker 3: to be children there, and they chose the purple jogging
15:44
Speaker 3: suit because they knew that would be the most identifiable
15:47
Speaker 3: thing that people would remember, sort of like the Lindsay
15:49
Speaker 3: boozy At case where people talk about how one of
15:53
Speaker 3: the perpetrators was wearing this like weird patterned, ugly dress
15:56
Speaker 3: and how that becomes like the focal point rather than
16:00
Speaker 3: looking at her features, or her hair, or her eyes
16:02
Speaker 3: or you know, her smile, her teeth, those types of
16:05
Speaker 3: identifying things become secondary to the odd clothing choice. And
16:10
Speaker 3: so I'm wondering, is this purple jogging suit intentional because
16:14
Speaker 3: it seems like it would be really easy to be like, oh,
16:16
Speaker 3: the purple jogging suit guy, and then nobody really remembers
16:20
Speaker 3: what he looks like.
16:21
Speaker 1: That is the identifier that is true, because we don't
16:24
Speaker 1: really have much of a description of what he looks like,
16:26
Speaker 1: just that he was a white male who appeared to
16:28
Speaker 1: be like in his thirties or something like that. But
16:30
Speaker 1: otherwise there's nothing distinctive about him. And if this is
16:33
Speaker 1: something he ordinarily did not wear, if he just got
16:36
Speaker 1: rid of the purple jogging suit afterwards and then didn't
16:38
Speaker 1: wear it again, then there's nothing to really distinctively identify
16:41
Speaker 1: him afterwards. Well, what I find very strange is that
16:45
Speaker 1: even though this became a focal point of the investigation,
16:48
Speaker 1: I know that when Unsolved Mysteries covered this story, they
16:51
Speaker 1: showed in nineteen ninety they showed a reenactment of a
16:54
Speaker 1: man in a purple jogging suit approaching a young girl
16:57
Speaker 1: playing Nileen. So it was treated as a very big
17:00
Speaker 1: But if you look through the newspaper archives at newspapers
17:03
Speaker 1: dot Com from nineteen eighty three, I could not find
17:06
Speaker 1: one article which mentioned this lead, which you would think
17:09
Speaker 1: would be a big deal. And the first thing I
17:11
Speaker 1: know time I noticed it was two years later in
17:14
Speaker 1: a newspaper article from July of nineteen eighty five, and
17:18
Speaker 1: it's being mentioned by Kim and Nancy Marshall during an interview.
17:22
Speaker 1: It's not even being mentioned by law enforcement, and they're
17:24
Speaker 1: not even getting this information out there. So I'm starting
17:27
Speaker 1: to think that law enforcement just didn't find these kids
17:30
Speaker 1: to be credible and thought that this lead was like
17:32
Speaker 1: a dead end. But it's Nileen's parents who are pushing
17:35
Speaker 1: for the idea that this guy abducted her, So you
17:38
Speaker 1: have to think that maybe law enforcement was feeling that
17:40
Speaker 1: the Marshals were grasping at straws that Nileen probably just
17:44
Speaker 1: wandered away died of exposure, and they're inventing this scenario
17:47
Speaker 1: to make themselves believe that she's still alive out there somewhere.
17:51
Speaker 1: But they're just so many kids like pushing forward the
17:54
Speaker 1: same story that I don't know why they dismiss it.
17:57
Speaker 1: And it would not be until a couple years later,
17:59
Speaker 1: when the phone call and the letters started coming in
18:01
Speaker 1: that they finally started taking this lead seriously and thinking, oh,
18:05
Speaker 1: maybe he did abductor after all.
18:08
Speaker 3: It feels like they potentially dropped the ball here and
18:11
Speaker 3: that they maybe had tunnel vision in that they believe
18:15
Speaker 3: that Nileen likely wandered off. But that just seems like
18:18
Speaker 3: a far less likely scenario when we're factoring in all
18:21
Speaker 3: of these children and like you said, a lot of
18:23
Speaker 3: them didn't know each other and they're sharing a really
18:26
Speaker 3: similar story about this creepy guy who seems who wants
18:30
Speaker 3: them to play follow the shadow. So it sounds like
18:34
Speaker 3: police are like, oh, well, the timeline that they share
18:37
Speaker 3: this information makes it not credible. But the fact that
18:40
Speaker 3: there's so many kids that are saying the same thing,
18:43
Speaker 3: and they're saying it independent of each other. They're not
18:47
Speaker 3: all together, and this like consortion of kids where they're like, Oh,
18:51
Speaker 3: let's all share this information together and we're going to
18:54
Speaker 3: come up with a story and then give it to
18:55
Speaker 3: law enforcement. Like this isn't some big grand conspiracy. So
18:59
Speaker 3: I personally would take that information as credible and try
19:03
Speaker 3: to run with it. But I think the idea that
19:07
Speaker 3: kids just wandered off or you know, left their own
19:11
Speaker 3: accord was far more likely to be taken by law
19:15
Speaker 3: enforcement in the seventies and eighties than it would be today,
19:19
Speaker 3: Like it just the attitude towards stuff like that, you
19:22
Speaker 3: would doggedly pursue that today. So I think part of
19:24
Speaker 3: it is a product of its time.
19:27
Speaker 1: Oh definitely. Like we've covered a number of missing children's
19:30
Speaker 1: cases from like the seventies and eighties where law enforcement
19:33
Speaker 1: just said, oh, they just ran away on their own
19:35
Speaker 1: and didn't think about the possibility that they could have
19:37
Speaker 1: been the victim of foul play. But what's crazy is
19:40
Speaker 1: that it seemed like the Marshalls were the ones taken
19:43
Speaker 1: the initiative to try to figure out who this guy was,
19:45
Speaker 1: because they brought in a psychology professor from the University
19:50
Speaker 1: of Montana named doctor John Watkins to perform hypnosis on
19:54
Speaker 1: seven witnesses who were at the picnic to see if
19:56
Speaker 1: they could provide any more details about the mysterious man
19:59
Speaker 1: in the jogging suit. And this is something you see
20:01
Speaker 1: law enforcement do not the parents of a missing child
20:04
Speaker 1: on their own time. Because abe the Marshals believed that
20:08
Speaker 1: enough information was collected from these hypnosis sessions to confirm
20:11
Speaker 1: that this man actually existed and had been near Nileen.
20:15
Speaker 1: So they actually got a composite artist to sit in
20:17
Speaker 1: on the sessions and based on the various descriptions he heard,
20:20
Speaker 1: he was able to create a composite sketch for the man,
20:23
Speaker 1: but they still cannot figure out who he was. So surprisingly,
20:27
Speaker 1: if you look through the news articles back during the
20:30
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties, I have not seen this composite sketch circulated
20:33
Speaker 1: anywhere in either contemporary or modern media accounts of this case.
20:38
Speaker 1: And even when it was on Unsolved Mysteries in nineteen ninety,
20:41
Speaker 1: they did not feature this sketch. So I just don't
20:43
Speaker 1: know why law enforcement was so content to ignore this lead.
20:46
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe they thought that the sketch was too
20:48
Speaker 1: generic and it wouldn't help. But here it is like
20:51
Speaker 1: the Marshall is doing like all this legwork trying to
20:53
Speaker 1: find their child, and even if it turns out to
20:56
Speaker 1: be a red airing, and most missing children's cases, you're
20:58
Speaker 1: going to explore every single lead and just to be certain,
21:02
Speaker 1: So like, why not provide like more information about this
21:05
Speaker 1: guy in the jogging suit and circulate the sketch at
21:07
Speaker 1: the time because it could lead to key information.
21:11
Speaker 3: That's wild that even Unsolved Mysteries didn't share this sketch
21:14
Speaker 3: because they like to share the like more titillating details
21:19
Speaker 3: of a case, and when you have a face that
21:21
Speaker 3: you can provide, even if it's not all that accurate,
21:25
Speaker 3: I would think that they would want to. So it
21:27
Speaker 3: makes me wonder during their investigation how much they talk
21:30
Speaker 3: to the family, how where the family was about the sketch,
21:35
Speaker 3: and like what access did unsolved mysteries have to it,
21:39
Speaker 3: Because it seems like you want to just cast a
21:41
Speaker 3: wide net at this point, Nileen is still missing. What
21:44
Speaker 3: could it truly hurt to put out that information, like
21:47
Speaker 3: to put out a sketch. You're not going to damage
21:50
Speaker 3: the investigation in any type of ways. So far you've
21:53
Speaker 3: been unsuccessful, So why not just like throw whatever at
21:56
Speaker 3: the wall and hope something sticks.
21:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is weird. I mean maybe they thought that
22:00
Speaker 1: hypnosis was incredible. They didn't like the idea that the
22:03
Speaker 1: marshals had done this independently without the assistance from law enforcements.
22:07
Speaker 1: So might have been an ego thing saying that while
22:09
Speaker 1: our guide didn't do the sketch and we didn't get
22:12
Speaker 1: all this information from the witnesses, so therefore we're not
22:15
Speaker 1: going to share it publicly.
22:16
Speaker 3: I think like hypnosis is like snifferdog evidence it should
22:20
Speaker 3: lead you in a certain direction, and there is a
22:23
Speaker 3: place for it, but it shouldn't be used to garner
22:27
Speaker 3: a conviction against someone. But in this case, when you're
22:30
Speaker 3: hypnotizing all of these children and you're trying to access
22:33
Speaker 3: their memories and trying to figure out who this individual is,
22:37
Speaker 3: it's not like it's being used in a nefarious way.
22:40
Speaker 3: You're just trying to get it to point you in
22:42
Speaker 3: a certain direction. And so why not enlist the help
22:45
Speaker 3: of the public, because maybe somebody is going to recognize
22:49
Speaker 3: this sketch and it's going to trigger something, and maybe
22:51
Speaker 3: that will get them one step closer Toannileen.
22:54
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, I know that they probably figured that
22:56
Speaker 1: she just wandered off in the woods and died of
22:58
Speaker 1: exposure and they couldn't find romains. But until you have
23:01
Speaker 1: a body, until you know for sure, you should explore
23:03
Speaker 1: every single lead involving a missing child.
23:06
Speaker 3: Do you think that any of this came down to
23:10
Speaker 3: classification of the case like a missing child When you
23:13
Speaker 3: believe that there's a perpetrator, then you're looking at potential
23:18
Speaker 3: abuse or murder attached to it, and it's a completely
23:21
Speaker 3: different type of classification and budget to be thrown that way.
23:26
Speaker 3: How many officers are investigating versus saying this child just
23:29
Speaker 3: wandered off into the woods and guide of exposure. That
23:33
Speaker 3: is going to be different for both your stats and
23:35
Speaker 3: for your budget.
23:36
Speaker 1: Well, we've used the expression juking the stats quite a
23:39
Speaker 1: few times in this podcast from the Wire. How sometimes
23:41
Speaker 1: they want homicides to be reclassified as suicides or accidents
23:45
Speaker 1: so it doesn't count as an unsolved murder on their books,
23:48
Speaker 1: and might be the same thing there where Well, if
23:50
Speaker 1: it's just a child who wandered off, then we don't
23:52
Speaker 1: have it doesn't go against our stats. But if we
23:54
Speaker 1: can prove it's an abduction and that potential foul play
23:57
Speaker 1: took place, then this counts as like an unsolved homicide
24:00
Speaker 1: in missing persons case, So, investigators did explore a couple
24:04
Speaker 1: leads during this time period, and there's one here where
24:07
Speaker 1: there's very few details and I would like to have
24:09
Speaker 1: more context. But apparently they found a photo of a
24:13
Speaker 1: girl who had appeared to have been beaten and resemble Nileen,
24:16
Speaker 1: But the details are so vague. They just said that
24:18
Speaker 1: this picture was found alongside some other photos at a
24:21
Speaker 1: place where a potential suspect had been and that's all
24:24
Speaker 1: they really said. And they said that the photo was
24:27
Speaker 1: given to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children,
24:30
Speaker 1: And even though they cannot positively identify the girl in
24:33
Speaker 1: the photo as Nileen, they did tell the marshals that
24:36
Speaker 1: the girl looked more like Nilen than any of the
24:39
Speaker 1: other missing children they had in their database, which is
24:42
Speaker 1: incredibly disturbing. I have never seen this photo. It's never
24:45
Speaker 1: been found online. But just imagine being in the marshall's
24:48
Speaker 1: shoes and finding a photograph of a child who'd been
24:51
Speaker 1: beaten and thinking it's your daughter. And even if it
24:54
Speaker 1: wasn't Nileen, the fact that this photo even exists in
24:56
Speaker 1: the first place makes me wonder, okay, than who is
24:59
Speaker 1: this child?
25:01
Speaker 3: That is so terrifying. Anytime we've got photos attached, it
25:05
Speaker 3: reminds me of, okay, what is the case Tara? And
25:09
Speaker 3: remember Tara Calico. Yeah, so that picture with her and
25:14
Speaker 3: the little boy and they're in the back of like
25:18
Speaker 3: what appears to be a van and it looks like
25:20
Speaker 3: they're bound And I remember it was found in a
25:22
Speaker 3: parking lot at some store. People were trying to figure
25:25
Speaker 3: out is this Tara? And I think like the FBI
25:28
Speaker 3: did analysis and there was some other analysis done and
25:31
Speaker 3: it was split like, yes, it could be her, No,
25:33
Speaker 3: it isn't her. And then we also have it in
25:37
Speaker 3: the Amy Lynn Bradley case where there is that photo
25:40
Speaker 3: posted of that escort in the Bahamas, I believe, and
25:46
Speaker 3: she bears a striking resemblance to Amy. But then it's
25:50
Speaker 3: later found out that with that one that there was
25:54
Speaker 3: somebody who looked a lot like Amy who was in
25:57
Speaker 3: that line of work and kind of leaned into that,
25:59
Speaker 3: but that was wasn't included in the documentaries. So anytime
26:03
Speaker 3: there is a photo, it's so haunting.
26:06
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, like that Tara Calico photo is still one
26:09
Speaker 1: of the most disturbing things I've ever seen in a
26:11
Speaker 1: missing person's case. And today the consensus seems to be
26:14
Speaker 1: that it wasn't Tara in the photo, that she was
26:16
Speaker 1: likely killed on the same day she went missing. But
26:18
Speaker 1: who was the teenage girl who was the boy in
26:21
Speaker 1: that photo? I don't think they've ever positively identified them,
26:23
Speaker 1: So it makes you think, are there two other kids
26:25
Speaker 1: out there who were abducted or was this just a
26:28
Speaker 1: horrible prank gone wrong. So it was finally in November
26:32
Speaker 1: of nineteen eighty five that the National Center for Missing
26:34
Speaker 1: and Exploited Children received an anonymous phone call from a
26:37
Speaker 1: man who claimed that Nileen was alive and that he
26:40
Speaker 1: had her in his custody. And then two months later,
26:43
Speaker 1: in February of nineteen eighty six, an anonymous, three page
26:47
Speaker 1: typewritten letter was sent into Child find of America, a
26:50
Speaker 1: national nonprofit missing children's organization based out of New York.
26:55
Speaker 1: The letter was postmarked from Madison, Wisconsin, and have been
26:57
Speaker 1: written by someone who claimed to have taken a girl
27:00
Speaker 1: named Kay, which of course was Nileen's middle name. And
27:04
Speaker 1: apparently investigators found this letter to be credible as it
27:07
Speaker 1: contained details about Nilen's disappearance which were never released to
27:10
Speaker 1: the public, and also contained information to make them believe
27:14
Speaker 1: that the same person who wrote it was the same
27:16
Speaker 1: person who made the phone call two months earlier. So
27:19
Speaker 1: finally law enforcement decided to take this seriously and started
27:23
Speaker 1: looking at the possibility that Nileen was abducted. And to
27:26
Speaker 1: this day, the full letter has never been released publicly.
27:29
Speaker 1: They have released some excerpts, but I'm still not entirely
27:32
Speaker 1: sure what information is in there that made them think
27:35
Speaker 1: that the writer was credible. And was the real deal.
27:38
Speaker 1: But it totally did a one to eighty on this case.
27:41
Speaker 1: And afterwards they started not they didn't even start talking
27:44
Speaker 1: about the theory that Nileen walked into the woods and
27:47
Speaker 1: died of exposure. They were now one hundred percent convinced
27:49
Speaker 1: that she had been abducted.
27:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, it just seems really odd that this person would
27:54
Speaker 3: be calling in, writing in with all of these details.
27:58
Speaker 3: And it does, like I saw said as the beginning
28:00
Speaker 3: of the episode, it makes me wonder if she is
28:03
Speaker 3: indeed still alive, Like, if she's dead, is he have
28:05
Speaker 3: a guilty conscience and he's trying to rewrite the narrative
28:09
Speaker 3: and say that she's alive so that it maybe it
28:12
Speaker 3: brings hope to the family, and or he thinks that
28:15
Speaker 3: he's convincing law enforcement that they're not looking for a deceased,
28:20
Speaker 3: murdered young girl, that they're looking for somebody who is alive.
28:24
Speaker 3: I don't know what would be his motivation And at
28:27
Speaker 3: this time, why now.
28:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly because he had essentially gotten away with it,
28:33
Speaker 1: because even though the marshals were convinced that Nileen was
28:36
Speaker 1: abducted and spreading awareness about her disappearance, law enforcement wasn't
28:40
Speaker 1: really doing much because they were convinced that she wandered
28:42
Speaker 1: into the woods and died of exposure. And if he
28:44
Speaker 1: had not sent in this letter and not made this
28:47
Speaker 1: phone call, who knows. We might not even know about
28:49
Speaker 1: this case today. It may have faded into obscurity, but
28:52
Speaker 1: this pretty much ensured that it would get national exposure
28:55
Speaker 1: a few years later on Unsaw Mysteries. So, like I said,
28:59
Speaker 1: the full contents have never been made public, but I
29:01
Speaker 1: am going to read some excerpts which have been shared publicly.
29:05
Speaker 1: Here's the first part quote. I didn't want their person
29:08
Speaker 1: to try to get information from her. All I could
29:10
Speaker 1: tell of them was that she was okay. I hope
29:12
Speaker 1: child find can get the following back to her family.
29:15
Speaker 1: I picked K up on the road in the Elkhorn
29:17
Speaker 1: Park area between Helena and Boulder. She was crying and frightened,
29:21
Speaker 1: and as I held her, she was shaking, and I
29:24
Speaker 1: decided that I would keep her and love her. I
29:26
Speaker 1: took her home with me. End quote. Now right from
29:29
Speaker 1: the outset, there are some problematic issues here because, as
29:32
Speaker 1: you recall, the prime suspect was this man in the
29:35
Speaker 1: purple jogging suit who approached her in the forest while
29:38
Speaker 1: she was next to a pond. And here he's presenting
29:41
Speaker 1: a hypothetical scenario where Nileen was walking down a road
29:44
Speaker 1: on her own and he just passed by and happened
29:46
Speaker 1: to pick her up, whereas it looked like the guy
29:49
Speaker 1: in the purple jogging suit was deliberately targeting her. I'm
29:52
Speaker 1: thinking though, like, even if this part doesn't ring true
29:55
Speaker 1: with the facts of the case, that he had to
29:57
Speaker 1: have other details in the letters which were true, which
30:00
Speaker 1: is why they found it to be credible.
30:02
Speaker 3: And who knows he might be trying to rewrite history.
30:07
Speaker 3: He very well could be the guy in the jogging
30:09
Speaker 3: suit and somehow then went and got his car and
30:12
Speaker 3: lured her away. And so he's maybe conflating the details
30:16
Speaker 3: of what he did later with what he did earlier,
30:20
Speaker 3: or just not disclosing some of the things that were
30:23
Speaker 3: done because he's trying to paint a picture. We have
30:26
Speaker 3: to always consider that what does he want to be
30:29
Speaker 3: perceived by law enforcement. He's putting out there a narrative
30:33
Speaker 3: that he thinks is likely the most palatable.
30:36
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, because the guy in the joggies who looked
30:38
Speaker 1: like he was a predator, who was targeting children. But
30:40
Speaker 1: here he's painting himself as like, Oh, I'm just driving
30:43
Speaker 1: down the road, minding my own business, and I happened
30:45
Speaker 1: to see this girl walking around crying, and I just
30:48
Speaker 1: decided to give her a ride and take her home,
30:50
Speaker 1: even though her parents were probably out there looking for
30:53
Speaker 1: But it still paids himself in a more heroic fashion.
30:55
Speaker 2: Exactly.
30:56
Speaker 3: It's like predator versus hero or good Samaritan. Even though
31:00
Speaker 3: like you don't just go if you see a lost
31:03
Speaker 3: child and like take them home with you. But I
31:05
Speaker 3: could see how somebody in that position would try to
31:07
Speaker 3: like rewrite that narrative and to spin it so it
31:11
Speaker 3: definitely makes them feel more heroic, because anyone who's looking
31:15
Speaker 3: at it is not going.
31:16
Speaker 2: Oh, good for you.
31:17
Speaker 3: It's like, find out who these parents are, find out
31:19
Speaker 3: who this child belongs to.
31:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, it's like that's still not a good thing
31:23
Speaker 1: to do. But I'm think he's trying to like paint
31:25
Speaker 1: himself in like the best possible light, at least in
31:28
Speaker 1: his own eyes. So here's another excerpt, but I want
31:31
Speaker 1: to share quote. I have a nice investment income and
31:34
Speaker 1: I can work at home, so I care for her
31:36
Speaker 1: myself all the time. I teach her at home, and
31:38
Speaker 1: she likes to go with me when I travel. Her
31:41
Speaker 1: hair is short and curly now, and she has really grown.
31:44
Speaker 1: She is about forty five inches and around fifty pounds.
31:46
Speaker 1: She is all four of her permanent upper and two
31:49
Speaker 1: of her lower incisors at this time. She takes a
31:52
Speaker 1: bath and brushes her teeth every day. She eats well.
31:55
Speaker 1: Her favorite meal is pizza and cherry coke. She would
31:58
Speaker 1: gladly recount to you trips to sam for Francisco, New York,
32:01
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City, New Orleans, Nashville, Chicago, Puerto Rico, and Canada.
32:06
Speaker 1: We were even in Britain for a month last year
32:08
Speaker 1: and she loved it. Nobody questions passports end quote.
32:11
Speaker 2: This is so weird.
32:13
Speaker 3: It's like you find a puppy on the side of
32:15
Speaker 3: the road and you take it home. That is strange,
32:18
Speaker 3: but a child and then so you've got a nice
32:21
Speaker 3: investment income, so you're like, oh, wow, I found this
32:23
Speaker 3: child wandering, may as well just take her home with
32:26
Speaker 3: me and I'll just raise her as my own.
32:29
Speaker 2: Then when I'm gonna.
32:30
Speaker 3: Give details, I'm gonna start giving details about like the
32:32
Speaker 3: teeth that she has and the cherry coke and the pizza,
32:36
Speaker 3: and how you're traveling together, and I want to know,
32:39
Speaker 3: why did you want this child? Why did you decide
32:42
Speaker 3: to keep this child? We're not hearing any of that.
32:45
Speaker 3: We're not hearing I lost a child years ago with
32:50
Speaker 3: my wife or with my partner, and I had this
32:53
Speaker 3: ache to raise a child, and so when I saw her,
32:56
Speaker 3: all I could do was think how I wanted to
32:58
Speaker 3: care for her and be her father. We're not hearing
33:01
Speaker 3: the why why do you want this little girl? And
33:05
Speaker 3: that is the disturbing part to me.
33:07
Speaker 1: I mean, it's possible he did put the why in
33:09
Speaker 1: the letter at some point and they just haven't publicly
33:11
Speaker 1: released that. But I think this good point to that
33:13
Speaker 1: scenario you talked about earlier where he killed her, but
33:17
Speaker 1: now is presenting this fantasy scenario where he's raising her
33:19
Speaker 1: and giving her the best life, saying I'm taking her
33:22
Speaker 1: all over the world on these wonderful trips, so I'm
33:24
Speaker 1: a good caregiver for And I know that it was
33:27
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties and like you could easily travel between
33:30
Speaker 1: countries a lot easier without everyone checking your identification. But
33:34
Speaker 1: I have our time believing he could have taken her
33:36
Speaker 1: to all these different locations without drawing any attention. And
33:40
Speaker 1: it's kind of funny how he says, nobody questions passports.
33:42
Speaker 1: Is he trying to say that he got a fake
33:44
Speaker 1: passport for under a fake name, which may have been
33:47
Speaker 1: easier to do in the nineteen eighties than it would
33:49
Speaker 1: be today. But it's hard to imagine her taking her
33:51
Speaker 1: to all these places like Britain without raising red flags.
33:55
Speaker 2: Just a question.
33:56
Speaker 3: So we don't have the totality of this letter, so
34:00
Speaker 3: it's difficult to say. But everything that you're reading, he's
34:03
Speaker 3: saying she and not nilely incorrect.
34:06
Speaker 1: He calls her k k, which was her middle name,
34:09
Speaker 1: so I guess that was the name that he was
34:10
Speaker 1: raising her under.
34:11
Speaker 3: I was thinking when you'd first said her name, that
34:14
Speaker 3: like her name was like Nileen k as in like
34:17
Speaker 3: Michael Kay Williams.
34:18
Speaker 2: You know, Oh yeah, no, not like kay.
34:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's exactly how it's spelled. So the next part here,
34:26
Speaker 1: I'm going to give a trigger warning because it has
34:28
Speaker 1: one very disturbing line in it, and also I wanted
34:32
Speaker 1: to mention that the part before this has not been
34:34
Speaker 1: released publicly, so we're kind of diving into the middle
34:37
Speaker 1: of a story and missing some context here. But I'm
34:40
Speaker 1: just going to read the part that has been released publicly.
34:42
Speaker 1: Quote it is or where it comes from, only that
34:45
Speaker 1: I get it from the bathroom every morning. It is
34:47
Speaker 1: actually a spoonful of my semen. It doesn't affect her physically.
34:51
Speaker 1: I have never molested her in any other way. She
34:54
Speaker 1: is a sweet little girl. And it is because of
34:56
Speaker 1: how much I've grown to love her that I realize
34:58
Speaker 1: how much her family must miss her. But she has
35:00
Speaker 1: adjusted and seems happy. She trusts me and isn't afraid.
35:04
Speaker 1: We play a lot, and she laughs when we clown around.
35:06
Speaker 1: She smiles and acts coy when I tease her. She
35:09
Speaker 1: giggles when we snuggle, and hugs me sometimes for no
35:11
Speaker 1: apparent reason. I love her and I have her. I
35:14
Speaker 1: just can't let her go. End quote. And you should
35:17
Speaker 1: have seen your face when I said that one line.
35:21
Speaker 2: I'm speechless.
35:23
Speaker 3: He feeds her a spoonful of semen?
35:25
Speaker 2: Did I hear that correctly?
35:26
Speaker 1: That's what it seems like. I'm assuming he mentioned feeding
35:29
Speaker 1: her before the part. The part that has been released publicly,
35:32
Speaker 1: but the fact that it just goes right into it
35:34
Speaker 1: is actually a spoonful of my semen, and he's making
35:36
Speaker 1: it sound like a good thing that he does for
35:38
Speaker 1: every morning, and actually says I have never molested her
35:41
Speaker 1: in any other way, as if that is okay on
35:44
Speaker 1: its own, but the rest of the time he's loving her.
35:47
Speaker 3: Never is not ann That's a very big difference. You
35:51
Speaker 3: learn that in statement analysis, and I would have to
35:54
Speaker 3: like read this and go through it, but from what
35:57
Speaker 3: I'm hearing, there's a lot of decis in there, and
36:01
Speaker 3: he's rewriting a narrative and saying that he's never molested
36:05
Speaker 3: her in any other way, and I think it's part
36:08
Speaker 3: of that, like, oh, I'm going to share part of
36:10
Speaker 3: the truth and make it look like I'm being honest
36:14
Speaker 3: and forthcoming by talking about the spoonful of semen, which
36:17
Speaker 3: is literally the most disgusting thing I've ever heard. Like
36:21
Speaker 3: I could feel myself feel physically sick as Robin was
36:24
Speaker 3: disclosing that so gross and as if to say that like, oh,
36:28
Speaker 3: it's okay, I haven't done anything else. I'm just feeding
36:30
Speaker 3: this little girl semen. And maybe that is one of
36:34
Speaker 3: his proclivities. I'm sure that one doesn't just come up
36:38
Speaker 3: with that, like when you're thinking of something to include
36:42
Speaker 3: in a letter that's obviously something that is maybe a
36:46
Speaker 3: weird paraphilia that he has where he desires to feed
36:51
Speaker 3: other people his semen in a non consenting way. This
36:55
Speaker 3: is absolutely vile, So I wish we had more context.
36:59
Speaker 3: I'm so disgusted I can't even speak right now.
37:02
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Like this is one case where we could
37:04
Speaker 1: have done a very interesting statement analysis episode if we
37:07
Speaker 1: had access to the full letter, because most of the
37:09
Speaker 1: time he's trying to paint himself as the most loving,
37:12
Speaker 1: perfect caregiver and then he just throws that disgusting detail
37:16
Speaker 1: in there, And does he actually think people are going
37:18
Speaker 1: to be okay with that? Like he's trying to assure
37:20
Speaker 1: Nileen's parents that she's being cared for and that she's okay,
37:24
Speaker 1: yet he throws in this detail about feeding her as semen.
37:27
Speaker 1: And I remember when this was on Unsolved Mysteries, they
37:30
Speaker 1: didn't specifically mention this part, but they had one of
37:33
Speaker 1: the investigators say that he's trying to portray himself as
37:35
Speaker 1: a loving guardian the letter, but he's also talking about
37:38
Speaker 1: an act, which is sexual abuse, even though he writes
37:41
Speaker 1: I have never molested her in any other way, and.
37:44
Speaker 3: I keep going back to the word snuggle.
37:46
Speaker 4: Mmm.
37:47
Speaker 3: That hit me like in the gut when he said that,
37:50
Speaker 3: what do you mean snuggle? And so are you talking
37:55
Speaker 3: about like this is something she wants to do because
37:58
Speaker 3: he's saying sometimes she hugs me out of nowhere, but
38:01
Speaker 3: does she come in for the snuggle or are you
38:03
Speaker 3: making her do it? It just seemed like a code
38:06
Speaker 3: word for something else for me, and it made my
38:09
Speaker 3: skin crawl.
38:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, And just imagine how Nileen's parents were feeling having
38:14
Speaker 1: to read that after fighting the police for so many
38:16
Speaker 1: years trying to convince them she had been abducted, and
38:18
Speaker 1: then getting like this letter with all this disgusting stuff
38:21
Speaker 1: included on it. It must have been so heartbreaking for them.
38:25
Speaker 1: So what was crazy is that when this was featured
38:28
Speaker 1: on Unsolved Mysteries in nineteen ninety, they did show parts
38:31
Speaker 1: of the letter and had like a voiceover guy like
38:33
Speaker 1: narrate certain sections. They obviously didn't have him narrate this part.
38:38
Speaker 1: But what was crazy is that they showed the letter
38:41
Speaker 1: on screen and while they didn't call attention to the
38:44
Speaker 1: part involving semen, you can actually see it right there
38:46
Speaker 1: on screen, which is pretty shocking because this is primetime
38:50
Speaker 1: network television in nineteen ninety and I know a lot
38:54
Speaker 1: of unsolved mysteries. Fans have said that when they watched
38:56
Speaker 1: it on TV at the time, it was one of
38:58
Speaker 1: those like WTF moments where they kind of see it
39:01
Speaker 1: out of the corner of their eye in the background
39:02
Speaker 1: and they're like, WHOA, did I really just see that?
39:04
Speaker 1: And this is before DVRs, when the only way you
39:07
Speaker 1: could rewatch these segments was to tape them on VHS
39:10
Speaker 1: and rewind them, and like, if you watch it on
39:12
Speaker 1: YouTube today, you can clearly see it, but you can
39:15
Speaker 1: only imagine the reaction back then where you're kind of
39:17
Speaker 1: looking in the corner of your eye and says, what
39:19
Speaker 1: the hell is he actually saying that he's feeding her
39:21
Speaker 1: his own sema, what is this? And it's like, I'm
39:24
Speaker 1: just shocked that they aired that on TV without like
39:26
Speaker 1: bleeping that part out, without covering it up.
39:29
Speaker 2: That was probably their workaround.
39:31
Speaker 3: They wanted to include it, but Lego was probably saying
39:34
Speaker 3: that they would be fined if they were to say
39:37
Speaker 3: the actual words, So their workaround was to put the
39:40
Speaker 3: letter on there and if people read it, they read it.
39:43
Speaker 3: But it's on for such just a short amount of
39:45
Speaker 3: time that there's only maybe a small percentage of people
39:48
Speaker 3: who are actually going to read the contents of the
39:51
Speaker 3: letter enough to be like, what is actually happening? Did
39:54
Speaker 3: that letter say something about a spoonful of semen it
39:57
Speaker 3: being fed to Nileen? And did I just see what
40:00
Speaker 3: I thought that I saw? Whereas today, if you're watching something,
40:04
Speaker 3: you know a lot of times we're watching on streaming services.
40:06
Speaker 3: If I see something that I'm unsure about it, I'll
40:09
Speaker 3: rewind it. I'll take a screenshot of it with my
40:12
Speaker 3: smartphone like most people do, Whereas back then people didn't
40:16
Speaker 3: have smartphones that they're ready and you couldn't just rewind TV.
40:21
Speaker 3: There wasn't on demand music. It was a different world,
40:24
Speaker 3: so if you saw it on screen, you just have
40:26
Speaker 3: to wait for that episode to re air. I presume
40:30
Speaker 3: to be able to see that again. And where would
40:32
Speaker 3: you even discuss it with people? If not in different
40:35
Speaker 3: chat rooms or like subreddits about that. So it would
40:41
Speaker 3: have been a time where unless your friends were into
40:44
Speaker 3: watching the same things that you were, who do you
40:46
Speaker 3: even talk to about this?
40:48
Speaker 1: That is true because I'm pretty sure I watched this
40:50
Speaker 1: episode on TV back in the day, but didn't notice
40:52
Speaker 1: that part, and it was not until many years later
40:54
Speaker 1: when I started joining the Unsolved Mysteries forum when I
40:57
Speaker 1: saw people talking about it. Then I went back and
40:59
Speaker 1: watch the segment. It's like, oh my god, that actually
41:01
Speaker 1: made it onto TV. But yeah, I do know some
41:04
Speaker 1: people who said that, Yeah, they noticed it on TV
41:06
Speaker 1: when they originally aired, and we're like, did I just
41:08
Speaker 1: see that? So that about brings an in to part
41:11
Speaker 1: one of our series about the disappearance of Ni Lee
41:14
Speaker 1: K Marshall join us next week as we continue for
41:16
Speaker 1: part two, Robin.
41:18
Speaker 2: Do you want to tell us a little bit about
41:20
Speaker 2: the Trail Went Cold Patreon?
41:22
Speaker 1: Yes, the Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three
41:24
Speaker 1: years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like
41:28
Speaker 1: early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers
41:31
Speaker 1: and sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up
41:34
Speaker 1: with us on Patreon. If you join our five dollars
41:37
Speaker 1: tier Tier two, we also offer monthly bonus episodes in
41:41
Speaker 1: which I talk about cases which are not featured on
41:44
Speaker 1: the Trail Went Cold's original feed, so they're exclusive to Patreon.
41:48
Speaker 1: And if you join our highest tier tier three, the
41:50
Speaker 1: ten dollars tier One of the features we offer is
41:53
Speaker 1: a audio commentary track over classic episodes of Unsolved Mysteries,
41:58
Speaker 1: where you can download an audio file and then boot
42:01
Speaker 1: up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or
42:04
Speaker 1: YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in
42:08
Speaker 1: the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids about
42:11
Speaker 1: the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very
42:14
Speaker 1: first episode that I did a commentary track over was
42:17
Speaker 1: the episode featuring this case. So if you want to
42:20
Speaker 1: download a commentary track in which I make more smart
42:23
Speaker 1: ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor, then be sure to join
42:26
Speaker 1: Tier three.
42:27
Speaker 4: So I want to let you know a little bit
42:28
Speaker 4: about the Jules Nashty patreons. So there's early ad free
42:31
Speaker 4: episodes of The Path Went Chili. We've got our Pathwent
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Speaker 4: Chili mini's, which are always over an hour, so they're
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Speaker 4: not very mini, but they're just too short to turn
42:40
Speaker 4: into a series, and we're really enjoying doing those. So
42:43
Speaker 4: we hope you'll check out those patreons. We'll link them
42:45
Speaker 4: in the show notes.
42:47
Speaker 1: So I want to thank you all for listening and
42:49
Speaker 1: any chance you have to share us on social media
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Speaker 1: with a friend or to rate and review is greatly
42:53
Speaker 1: appreciate it. You can email us at the Pathwentchili at
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Speaker 1: the pathwin. So until next time, be sure to bundle
43:02
Speaker 1: up because cold trails and chilly pass call for warm clothing.
43:05
Speaker 3: Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers comedy