Latest / Gone Cold - Texas True Crime / Kimberly Norwood Part 3: Hope & Despair

Transcript

Kimberly Norwood Part 3: Hope & Despair · Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

0:01
The Gone Cold. Podcasts may contain violent or graphics subject matter. Listener discretion
0:06
is advised. When twelve year old Kimberly Norwood went missing from Hallsville, Texas,
0:13
on the early evening of May twentieth, nineteen eighty nine, thirty nine
0:17
year old Harry Lewis Martin was paying close attention. This child's disappearance touched him,
0:24
Martin would later tell reporters, and was the impetus for his beginning to
0:29
research the problem of missing children nationwide. Within a year, Martin began an
0:36
organization called America's Missing Children, set up and run from his apartment in Shreveport,
0:42
Louisiana. His mission was simple, to get national media attention for Kimberly's
0:48
case and others like it, at absolutely no cost to the missing child's family.
0:55
Harry Lewis Martin was not your average missing person's advocate. He wore a
1:00
black eyepatch that covered an injury he'd sustained while serving in the Navy, and
1:04
his dark brown beard and six foot broad, sturdy frame only emphasized the unusual
1:11
accessory. Something else that set him apart from most was the fact that he
1:17
was a felon in nineteen eighty one, Martin had stolen almost eight thousand dollars
1:23
from a Shreveport burger king he managed and fled to Seattle, Washington, when
1:27
he was faced with his estranged wife's fourth attempt to get custody of their son.
1:34
After living life on the lamb and hiding out for two months, Martin
1:38
surrendered to police, was ordered to pay restitution and sentenced to five years probation,
1:45
But the conviction was something folks could easily forgive. The truth as far
1:49
as those aware of his record were concerned, was that Martin, being a
1:55
desperate father, just snapped when he thought he was going to lose his son.
2:00
He took responsibility for his actions and served out his probation with little to
2:04
know other problems. Later, he'd be quoted as saying a missing child case
2:09
is just as serious when the kidnapper is apparent. That something most folks can
2:15
agree with, but the irony perhaps wasn't lost on those in the know anyway.
2:22
Martin had set up a toll free hotline at his apartments where folks could
2:25
report sightings of missing children, calls that he'd turn into the respective police agency.
2:32
According to Martin, it was common for children to go missing for five
2:37
to ten years, and law enforcement, he added, waste a lot of
2:40
time and resources in their attempts to find them. The trick, he said,
2:46
was to take the guess work out of hunting missing kids. Martin had
2:52
managed to make a deal with national news networks to air thirty second segments profiling
2:58
a different missing child at the beginning of each week, a broadcast called Monday's
3:04
Child. They'd begin airing on September third, nineteen ninety, he said.
3:09
Martin told the Marshall News Messenger that his plan was to eventually have a missing
3:15
person's show each week that lasted thirty minutes, something he said would be similar
3:22
to America's Most Wanted. At first, though sort of a strange fellow Harry
3:28
Lewis, Martin seemed to be the real deal. He was making headway with
3:31
his organization, beginning television spots that could potentially make a huge difference. But
3:38
as time went on, the man's past began to haunt him, and the
3:43
things he'd go on to do were in stark contrast to the goals he was
3:47
claiming to wish to accomplish. When everything came to a head, Martin looked
3:53
like a viable suspect in the disappearance of Kimberly Norwood. At some unknown point,
4:08
Harry Lewis Martin began to claim he was responsible for recovering ten children.
4:14
Sometimes he'd boast ten still living unharmed children, and other times he'd be quoted
4:19
as saying seven recovered alive and three deceased. Believe it or not, it
4:26
was far from the most unsettling thing about him. In nineteen eighty four,
4:31
Shreveport's Tome Books published a work called The Book of the Spitzlod by author Harry
4:39
Lewis Martin. Spitzlod apparently is a fifteen foot tall supernatural being of the occult.
4:47
The book and the Order of the Spitzlod itself appears to be based on
4:51
a sexual occult, or at least the rituals performed by them are mostly sexual
4:59
in nature. Though a modern website owned by the Order of the Spitzelod acknowledges
5:05
that the rituals were once practiced alongside children, they vehemently deny there are any
5:12
sanctioned practices occurring in the modern order, but Harry Lewis Martin in his book
5:18
promotes children participating in the rituals quote. If the wicked child sees nudity in
5:26
a spell or ritual working, or is nude with the coven, so let
5:30
it be such exposure to the human form will free them from the inhibition and
5:36
idle curiosities that get so many non wickaned children in trouble. The occult child
5:43
knows end quote. After starting America's Missing Children, Martin admitted the book makes
5:50
him look bad and might hurt his credibility as an advocate for and finder of
5:57
children, but he backtracked, claiming the book was his foot in the door
6:01
of the world of the occult, which he said he could infiltrate and rescue
6:06
children. The mental gymnastics required to simply process Martin's claims are exhausting. He'd
6:15
said before that it was Kimberly Norwood's nineteen eighty nine case that got him interested
6:20
in helping missing children, and the book was written in nineteen eighty four.
6:26
Still, Harry Lewis Martin asked for the benefit of the doubt, and he
6:30
got it. Martin's first major discovery concerning Kimberly Norwood's disappearance was an abandoned well
6:39
just yards away from where the missing girl had been walking with her friends.
6:44
He'd stumbled upon the well while searching, and when he took the information back
6:48
to the Norwoods, Martin found out that back in October of nineteen eighty nine,
6:54
a member of the family had seen what looked to be either a white
6:57
T shirt or a body floating at the bottom. Yet another controversy was born.
7:04
Harry Lewis Martin accused the Norwood family of withholding evidence from the Harrison County
7:10
Sheriff's office, but Martin was likely angrier that the Norwoods hadn't thought to give
7:15
him the information. Kimberly's uncle, a reserved deputy for Smith County, had
7:23
originally visited the well because of a psychic's vision and saw a white object floating
7:29
at the bottom, but when Janice and her initial private investigator returned days later,
7:34
it was no longer there. The PI made a makeshift grappling hook out
7:41
of wire coat hangers to lower into the well, fish around and determine whether
7:46
or not anything was there. They found nothing. Janis claimed to have told
7:51
sheriff's deputies Vicky Stanfield and Claire Howell about the potential T shirt or perhaps body
7:59
in the west. They investigated, Janis said, and in turn told her
8:03
it was just a piece of PVC pipe. Sheriff Oldham admitted his deputies looked
8:09
in the well on a previous search, but there wasn't anything there except the
8:13
PVC pipe, which was now somehow gone. Someone, the lawman said,
8:20
had removed it. Deputy Stanfield denied ever seeing it. The department's quick response
8:26
and investigation of the well when he informed them, Harry Lewis Martin said,
8:33
was proof the Norwood's claims against the sheriff were unfounded. But in real world
8:39
logic, it absolutely did not prove anything, except perhaps that every endeavor that
8:45
ended in such disputes only lessened the chances of fulfilling the mission that seems to
8:50
have taken the back seat again and again finding Kimberly Norwood. On Friday July
8:58
twentieth, nineteen, after oxygen was pumped into the well to help dissipate the
9:03
methane gas that might be there, Deputy Frank Garrett and diver Forest Pittman were
9:09
lowered down one hundred and thirty feet by pulleys and wenches. On this new
9:15
search of the well, nothing was found save a few pieces of trash.
9:20
Harry Lewis Martin had also been following a lead back at home. Both he
9:26
and Sheriff Oldham had received multiple calls from a woman in Shreveport, Louisiana,
9:31
which is about fifty miles east of Hallsville and Caney Creek. This woman told
9:37
both of them that she'd seen Kimberly on several occasions. Martin told reporters he
9:45
suspected relatives who lived there of harboring the missing girl, and although he later
9:50
said he'd ruled that out, he made clear he was not ruling out the
9:54
possibility Kimberly was in Shreveport. The Norwood family it was time to try something
10:01
else. John Catchings was a relatively famous Dallas psychic. Throughout the late nineteen
10:18
seventies and nineteen eighties. He'd undoubtedly helped police nab a few purpse and find
10:26
a few missing people, most unfortunately deceased, but those in law enforcement who
10:31
knew him chalked his successes up to investigative genius and uncanny ability at psychological profiling.
10:39
Catchings, who says he gained his clairvoyant powers after being struck by lightning,
10:46
had predicted Kimberly would be found buried in the Norwood's dirt driveway in nineteen
10:50
eighty nine, not long after she disappeared. Now, in late July of
10:56
nineteen ninety, Harrison County Sheriff's deputies and Texas Department of Public Safety cadaver dogs
11:03
joined Catchings on the property of Kimberly's family looking for the missing girl's body.
11:09
The self proclaimed psychic said she was murdered, and I am as sure as
11:15
I can be that she is dead and buried somewhere here close to home.
11:20
Though he had an idea about who murdered Kimberly, Catchings was keeping it to
11:26
himself for the time being. At this time, Sheriff Bill Oldham denied rumors
11:33
that at best he let persist and at worst he perpetuated himself the rumors that
11:39
Janie and Bobby Norwood, and perhaps other family members were suspects in Kimberly's disappearance.
11:48
If they were suspects, the sheriff commented, he'd have them being interrogated
11:52
back at the station. Things it appeared were cooling off at least some between
11:58
the two parties. Janis Norwood even praised the sheriff's efforts. Although she believed
12:05
her daughter was still alive, Janis said she was grateful action was being taken.
12:11
John Catchings anyway walked the Norwood property and not including the driveway where he
12:18
predicted Kimberly's body would be found, marked six particular places to dig the driveway.
12:24
No doubt was a spot Catchings predicted because the day Kimberly disappeared, her
12:30
father, Bobby had been constructing a covert. Why he chose the other areas
12:35
as anyone's guess. It comes as no surprise that nothing was found, no
12:41
body or any other sign of Kimberly Norwood. Meanwhile, Harry Lewis Martin,
12:48
Janis Norwood said was putting the family through hell and torment, both in letters
12:54
written to the missing girl's parents and in person. Martin was putting four or
13:00
a bold accusation. According to him, Bobby and Janis were attempting to sabotage
13:05
his investigation by withholding leads and refusing to answer a questionnaire from his one man
13:13
organization, America's Missing Children. The Norwoods were the only family Martin said he'd
13:20
ever had to confront. A euphemism here for accuse in order to get their
13:24
attention, though in their case the emotional stakes were considerably higher. Kimberly's family
13:31
were far from the only folks Harry Lewis Martin was starting to annoy. Deputy
13:37
Claire Howell said she had completely lost competence in Martin after reading portions of his
13:43
sex Occult book, which again advocated for allowing children into adult sex rituals.
13:50
Deputy Howell also commented that Martin's accusations against the Norwoods bordered on slander. Charles
13:58
Pickett of the National sALS Center for Missing and Exploited Children agreed Martin's behavior.
14:05
His accusations against a family whose child was likely abducted by a stranger, Pickett
14:11
said, was outrageous. In fact, Martin's aggressive allegations and confrontations prompted the
14:18
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to drop his organization from their list of
14:24
valid and approved child recovery and rescue agencies. But this is hardly what did
14:31
Harry Lewis Martin inn for good. About a year after his self created debacle
14:37
on the Kimberly Norwood case, Martin closed up shop in Shreveport and headed to
14:43
Orlando, Florida. He believed donations there would be bigger and better, Martin
14:50
said, but at the heart of the move was actually the fact that the
14:54
IRS wouldn't give him the approval to take tax free donations. Settling in Florida,
15:01
he was still promoting America's Missing Children as a nonprofit organization, even though
15:07
he was still unapproved to do so by the tax man in the Sunshine State.
15:13
The law came down on him for working as an investigator while unlicensed,
15:18
but his legal troubles had just begun. In March of nineteen ninety three,
15:24
Harry Lewis Martin was arrested and charged with three counts of committing lewd acts on
15:31
three girls. The girls, two ten year olds, and one eight year
15:35
old, lived in Martin's neighborhood and weren't associated in any way with his organization.
15:43
The charges specifically were lewde lascivious acts in the presence of a child under
15:48
sixteen years of age, sexual battery, coercion by means of authority, and
15:54
loot acts upon a child. Ultimately, Martin pleaded no contest to the charges
16:00
while still maintaining his innocence. He was sentenced to two years house arrest and
16:06
five years probation. Though America's Missing Children Incorporated still operated, its reach at
16:15
that point was minimal until it eventually faded away completely. Martin would never name
16:21
the ten cases in which he claimed to have recovered children, and his entry
16:26
into Kimberly's case, when considering his actions and crimes as a whole, is
16:32
inarguably suspicious. Harry Lewis Martin had been a thing of the past for nearly
16:38
two years by the time his conviction came as far as Kimberly's case was concerned,
16:45
but there was plenty of activity going on without his hindrance. In March
16:52
of nineteen ninety one, newly elected Texas State Representative Paul Sadler introduced House Built
16:57
twenty three thirty seven, which laid out strict guidelines for law enforcement agencies to
17:03
follow concerning missing persons investigations. If those guidelines were not followed, the new
17:10
law would allow for the Attorney General's office to come into the investigation. That
17:15
same month, on the twenty seventh, three year old Meghan Elizabeth Garner vanished
17:22
from a playground near her residence in Tyler, Texas, about forty eight miles
17:26
west of Hallsville. Like Kimberly Norwood, Meghan remains missing to this day.
17:33
The Heidi Search Center came to Caney Creek in May of nineteen ninety one,
17:40
around the second anniversary of Kimberly's disappearance. As was the case with searches in
17:45
the initial investigation, the days were rainy and overcast, the perfect conditions for
17:52
cotton mouth snakes who slithered hidden in the brush and groundcover. But there was
17:59
a bright side of the rain, Heidi Search Center director Rick Bennington said,
18:03
since it may have sunk in the ground around any hidden graves in the area,
18:08
or might have even uncovered something. The week before the search took place,
18:15
Marshall native and star of the television show Dallas, Susan Howard led a
18:21
prayer for the Norwoods at Central Baptist Church. Nothing was found in the search.
18:27
Two computer enhanced age progressed photos of Kimberly were released, each with hairstyles
18:33
matching the most well known pictures of her. The following year, in nearby
18:41
Gilmour, Texas, seventeen year old Kelly Day Wilson disappeared after leaving her job
18:47
at Northwest Texas Video Store in the small cities downtown, about thirty eight miles
18:52
to the northwest of Hallsville. In nineteen ninety three, Harrison County had a
18:59
new share of Bob Green. He poured over the voluminous case file of the
19:03
Kimberly Norwood disappearance, Sheriff Green said, and made two stacks, one facts
19:11
and evidence and the other opinion and rumors. Green assigned a deputy to the
19:17
case who'd never worked it, while renewing the investigation with new eyes and from
19:22
scratch was music to Janis Norwood's ears. Two things foreshadowed trouble. One was
19:30
the fact that Sheriff Green still considered Kimberly a runaway. It seemed to be
19:34
a foregone conclusion before his deputy even got started. The second was that the
19:41
county's new top lawman was wishy washy about letting a psychic into the case.
19:47
At first, he said they didn't need the department's help. They could go
19:51
out and find Kimberly and report back to him. He'd be tickled, Green
19:56
said, but not terribly long after, the sheriff told the Martiall News Messenger
20:02
that he was in talks with the psychic out of New Jersey. And hoping
20:06
her arrival in town was eminent. It's not clear if she ever came.
20:23
In nineteen ninety four, several members of a family named the Curs were indicted
20:29
by an Upsher County grand jury alongside Gilmer Police Sergeant James York Brown for the
20:36
disappearance, the kidnapping and murder of seventeen year old Kelly Day Wilson. Her
20:41
body hadn't been found, but some Kerr family members headed for lengthy prison sentences
20:48
implicated Sergeant Brown in their satanic rituals, which were a fabrication from the mind
20:53
of the Upsher County District attorney and an over zealous Child Protective Services CASEWSE.
21:00
Because some of the abuse alleged against the Kerr family happened around the time Kimberly
21:07
Norwood vanished, Sheriff Bob Green was interested in following the lead. It's impossible
21:12
to get into the Kelly Day Wilson case here in any meaningful way, and
21:18
the likelihood her case is connected with Kimberly's is minute anyway, But if you'd
21:23
like to know more, check out our episodes on the case from April of
21:27
twenty twenty one. Bottom line is the Harrison County Sheriff's office found nothing to
21:33
tie Kimberly Norwood's case with Kelly Day Wilson's. By nineteen ninety seven, Sheriff
21:41
Green told the Marshall News Messenger that his department, after extensively investigating the Kimberly
21:48
Norwood file and attempting to gain new leads, hadn't come up with anything at
21:52
all. The preceding years and decades offered little more. To their credit,
21:59
the more Martiall News Messenger and even the Longview News Journal kept Kimberly's face and
22:04
description in their newspapers as much as they could, even if the story was
22:10
so small as to only report that police were still looking for leads and information
22:15
in the case. In two thousand and three, Kimberly's mother, Janis Norwood,
22:19
vented her frustrations. She claimed that evidence had been fabricated. Supposed letters
22:27
and drawings depicting abuse at the hands of Kimberly's father, Bobby, she said,
22:33
had been forged and the subject matter completely contrived. When she tried to
22:38
jumpstart an investigation by an outside law enforcement agency the year before, Janis said
22:45
they told her the statute of limitations was up on such a crime. No
22:51
sheriff since Bill Oldham, the county's top lawman at the time of Kimberly's disappearance,
22:56
had publicly mentioned the letters and possible ability that Bobby Norwood was a suspect,
23:03
and Janis told a reporter her husband had been polygraphed by the FBI and
23:07
passed. Still, whispers about his involvement persist. In twenty ten, Harrison
23:15
County Sheriff Tom McCool, who'd begun his first term in two thousand and one,
23:21
commented that the case has never had a legitimate suspect. The following year,
23:26
the Harrison County Sheriff's office took DNA samples from the Norwood family. The
23:33
development likely came as the result of the discovery of human remains in brush and
23:37
dirt thirty miles from Hallsville, just outside or City in Upshire County. Janis
23:45
Norwood chose to believe her daughter was still alive and that hope was not dashed
23:49
as the result of this finding, though they've not been identified to this day.
23:56
In April of twenty twenty four, the bones certainly did not belong to
24:00
Kimberly Norwood. Instead, they were estimated to belong to a male between thirty
24:06
to fifty years of age at the time of his death. Because the bones
24:11
showed absolutely no signs of foul play, and even stranger did not naturally decompose
24:18
in that or a similar environment, the University of North Texas Health and Sciences
24:23
theorized they'd been used for research purposes and discarded. It was a relief for
24:30
the Norwoods, but also it wasn't. It's a fine fragile line between hope
24:37
and despair. Janis Norwood's hope and possibly belief that Kimberly was still alive had
24:45
fully materialized in two thousand and nine when j. C. Dugard abducted as
24:51
an eleven year old in nineteen ninety one, resurfaced when Michelle Knight, Amanda
24:56
Barry, and Gina de Jesus escaped in twenty thirteen after being held captive by
25:03
a Cleveland, Ohio monster since two thousand and two, two thousand and three,
25:07
and two thousand and four, respectively. Janis's hope that her daughter was
25:11
still alive grew even stronger. She said in twenty seventeen that hope remained.
25:19
Janis told a reporter that although her husband doesn't sense that Kimberly is alive.
25:26
She does no matter the case, The grieving mother said, it is worse
25:30
not knowing tortuous. That year, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
25:37
released another age progressed depiction of Kimberly Norwood at age forty. In twenty eighteen,
25:45
the last publicly known lead came Investigator's Way for those of you who are
25:52
too young to remember. For a little more than a decade, beginning in
25:56
nineteen eighty four in Iowa, with twelve year old Johnny go Bus and thirteen
26:00
year old Eugene Martin, milk cartons featured the photos and descriptions of missing children.
26:07
In early January twenty eighteen, Harrison County Sheriff's Office deputies traveled three hundred
26:14
and forty miles southwest to Victoria, Texas. Several milk cartons featuring Kimberly's missing
26:22
person's case were found in the attic of a house there, but the caller
26:26
hadn't told the whole story. When investigators arrived in Victoria, they obtained permission
26:33
from the renter of the property to go up to the attic. There,
26:37
they found many milk cartons with many missing kids on them, not just Kimberly.
26:44
They'd been printed at a local facility apparently, and a former renter was
26:48
an employee there. Who the other children on the cartons were has never been
26:55
released publicly, nor has how many different children there were. Whatever the case,
27:00
Harrison County Sheriff's deputies were satisfied with the answer they got. Kimberly's father,
27:07
Bobby Norwood, suffered several health issues, particularly throughout the two thousands and
27:14
twenty tens. He died in July twenty nineteen. Janis passed away the following
27:21
year in June. She'd also gone through a series of health problems in the
27:26
previous two decades. When I die, Janis told the Martiall News Messenger in
27:32
twenty thirteen, I will know. While it is possible Kimberly Norwood ran away
27:38
from home, she was in danger and likely came upon danger. Since she's
27:44
not been heard from since nineteen eighty nine, there has been no activity as
27:48
far as her Social Security number is concerned, and she isn't known to have
27:53
contacted anyone. Not one sighting of Kimberly has been confirmed. Michelle Lee Richardson's
28:03
case, which we began this series with has seen very little public attention.
28:08
DNA was collected from her son in the two thousands, but she has yet
28:14
to be found. When he was twenty one years old in twenty eleven,
28:18
Michelle's son commented that he believed she was out there somewhere. He'd always wondered
28:23
how much different life would have been at his mother not vanished. Although Michelle
28:30
had disappeared when he was only a few months old, her son said he
28:33
didn't feel like his mother was dead. That maybe just wishful thinking, he
28:38
said, but I just don't feel like she is. Michelle Lee Richardson is
28:45
a white female and was sixteen years old when she went missing from Palestine,
28:51
Texas. She stood five feet six inches tall, weighed about one hundred and
28:56
fifty pounds, had reddish blonde hair, and blue eyes. Michelle occasionally wore
29:02
glasses and has a U shaped scar on her left arm. Michelle was last
29:07
seen wearing a pink and white pullover sweatshirt, pink jogging pants, and black
29:12
sneakers. If you have any information about the disappearance of Michelle Lee Richardson,
29:18
please contact the Anderson County Sheriff's Department at nine zero three seven two nine six
29:26
zero six' eight. If you like Gone Cold's mission to renew the public's
29:32
interest in cold cases, you can support the show at Patreon dot com slash
29:37
gone cold podcast. There for as low as two dollars and fifty cents.
29:41
You'll get the show at free. Leaving a five star rating and written review
29:45
at iTunes also helps immensely, as it bumps the algorithm and gets us into
29:51
the ears of more folks. However you choose to support the show, we
29:56
appreciate it more than words can express. You can find Gonecold online at goncold
30:03
dot com or on nearly all the social media platforms by searching at gone Cold
30:07
podcast. You can also find a link in bio in the episode's description.
30:15
Thanks for listening, y'all.