Speaker 1: School of Humans. Helen Got Murder Line actively investigates cold
Speaker 1: case murders in an effort to raise public awareness invite
Speaker 1: witnesses to come forward and present evidence that could potentially
Speaker 1: be further investigated by law enforcement. While we value insights
Speaker 1: from family and community members, their statements should not be
Speaker 1: considered evidence and point to the challenges of verifying facts
Speaker 1: inherent in cold cases. We remind listeners that everyone has
Speaker 1: presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
Speaker 1: Nothing in the podcast is intended to state or imply
Speaker 1: that anyone who has not been convicted of a crime
Speaker 1: is guilty of any wrongdoing. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2: Back in twenty nineteen, I got a Facebook message from
Speaker 2: Larel Hall, whose daughter Kleschnder Hall, disappeared in nineteen ninety
Speaker 2: four when she was just eighteen years old. It read quote, Hi, Catherine,
Speaker 2: my daughter disappeared from her after school job on nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety four without a trace. One of my Facebook friends
Speaker 2: listens to your podcasts and thought you could help me,
Speaker 2: will you? Thanks Laurel.
Speaker 1: Quote.
Speaker 2: In nineteen ninety four, Cleshender Hall, known to everyone as Clia,
Speaker 2: was living in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Actually Clia grew up
Speaker 2: very near where I grew up. We lived just a
Speaker 2: couple of miles from each other. Clia was a senior
Speaker 2: at Watson Chapel High School. She had big dreams and
Speaker 2: she was making them happen. May of nineteen ninety four
Speaker 2: was a super busy month for Clea. She was getting
Speaker 2: ready for a big speech at graduation. She was valedictorian
Speaker 2: of her class. After graduation, Clia was leaving town. She
Speaker 2: was supposed to start a summer internship that she had
Speaker 2: all lined up at a doctor's office in Boston, and
Speaker 2: then in the fall she would start college at Tennessee
Speaker 2: State University, where she had been accepted to the pre
Speaker 2: med program. Clia dreamed of a career in medicine. She
Speaker 2: woned to be a pediatrician. But on May ninth, just
Speaker 2: a few weeks before leaving town to start her new life,
Speaker 2: the one she had worked so hard for, Clea Hall
Speaker 2: disappeared without a trace. Over the past five years making
Speaker 2: my true crime podcast, Helen Gone, I've learned that there
Speaker 2: is no such thing as a small town where murder
Speaker 2: never happens. I have received hundreds of messages from people
Speaker 2: all around the country asking for help with an unsolved
Speaker 2: murder that's affected them, their families and their communities, and
Speaker 2: now they have a new way to reach out. I'm
Speaker 2: Catherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. If you
Speaker 2: have a case you'd like me and my team to
Speaker 2: look into, you can reach out to us at six
Speaker 2: seven eight seven four four six one four five. That's
Speaker 2: six seven eight seven four four six one four five.
Speaker 2: Cleshendra Denise Hall was born on March thirtieth, nineteen seventy six,
Speaker 2: in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Her dad, Willie and her mom,
Speaker 2: Laurel Hall had four children. They had three sons and
Speaker 2: Clia was their only daughter. They were a very close
Speaker 2: family and was a serious student and although she went
Speaker 2: out just like all teens do and enjoyed social activities,
Speaker 2: she was extremely responsible. She even had an after school
Speaker 2: job to help pay for college. She worked for doctor
Speaker 2: Larry Amos, PhD. And not a medical doctor. What he
Speaker 2: did was that he ran a nonprofit organization out of
Speaker 2: his home office at fifty three oh nine Fawcett Road,
Speaker 2: just a few blocks from Clea's house. Larry owned two
Speaker 2: houses that were right next to each other. Over the years,
Speaker 2: he did a lot of construction work on that property.
Speaker 2: The house where Clea worked was a big English tutor
Speaker 2: home and had a separate area that was a home
Speaker 2: office with its own dedicated landline. Clia's job was to
Speaker 2: help with bookkeeping. She got Larry to sign checks and
Speaker 2: help keep things organized. Now, it's been reported that Larry
Speaker 2: wrote grants where he would allocate resources for childcare facilities.
Speaker 2: But I've discovered that, like in so many cold cases,
Speaker 2: there are a lot of basic facts about this case,
Speaker 2: even though it has been reported on many times over
Speaker 2: the years, that are just flat out wrong, because the
Speaker 2: truth was that Larry Amos was involved in some very
Speaker 2: shady financial dealings, which we will come back to, but
Speaker 2: first let's go back to Clia and that day in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety four. I don't really like phrases like troubled
Speaker 2: teen because to me, everyone deserves justice and to have
Speaker 2: their case investigated. But just for clarity, because we are
Speaker 2: looking at someone's pattern of life. Clia came from a
Speaker 2: loving home. She had no issues with mental health, She
Speaker 2: had a steady job, she was very organized, she was
Speaker 2: planning for her future. She had no disputes with her
Speaker 2: parents or anyone else, and she was not known to
Speaker 2: party or to disappear for days. Clia's schedule had been
Speaker 2: set for several weeks. She had just gone to her
Speaker 2: senior prom, then on Saturday night, she went to a
Speaker 2: sorority ball. Sunday was Mother's Day, which Clia celebrated with
Speaker 2: her family. On Monday, May ninth, nineteen ninety four, Clia
Speaker 2: woke up, had breakfast with her brothers and her mom, Laurel,
Speaker 2: and then went to school. Laurel picked her up at
Speaker 2: around two thirty that afternoon. Clea was allowed to leave
Speaker 2: school a little early because of her after school job.
Speaker 2: They went straight to Larry's house, but there was no
Speaker 2: one home. Later, Larry's wife, Patricia, apologized to Laurel for this. Apparently, Patricia,
Speaker 2: Larry's wife, had a job she worked for the school,
Speaker 2: and when Clia arrived for work that day, she hadn't
Speaker 2: gotten home yet. After realizing no one was home, Laurel
Speaker 2: and Clia drove back to their house. Clia was tired,
Speaker 2: so she kind of crashed out on the couch. They
Speaker 2: waited to hear from Larry Amos or his wife. Laurel
Speaker 2: said that Larry called their house at four forty five pm.
Speaker 2: He said he was home and he was ready for
Speaker 2: Clelia to come into work. So Clia basically jumped up
Speaker 2: off the couch and got into the car and Laurel
Speaker 2: drove her back to Larry Amos's house. Laurel watched as
Speaker 2: Clea walked up to that house. She was wearing a
Speaker 2: blue and white Polkadot printed shirt and short set white
Speaker 2: tennis shoes and white socks. Clea had short hair, but
Speaker 2: she had gotten hair extensions for the prom, so she
Speaker 2: had her hair up in a ponytail with a pink ribbon.
Speaker 2: Laurel watched her daughter walk across the lawn and into
Speaker 2: that house. That was the last time she ever saw
Speaker 2: Clia alive. Of course, as we know with all these cases,
Speaker 2: everything becomes much more clear only in hindsight, and that's
Speaker 2: when these tiny details become so crucial. Laurel, when she
Speaker 2: was recalling what happened that afternoon, told reporters that Clia
Speaker 2: had been a little bit dazed after she got the
Speaker 2: call from Larry Amos because she was asleep on the couch.
Speaker 2: They jumped straight into the car and drove over to
Speaker 2: the Amos house. And because of that, because they were
Speaker 2: kind of rushed Clia forgot to grab her purse, which
Speaker 2: had her ID in it. So Cleah went to work
Speaker 2: that day with nos and no ID. Now, normally this
Speaker 2: would not have been a big deal since she was
Speaker 2: only supposed to be gone for a couple of hours,
Speaker 2: but later this would become very significant. Just to clarify,
Speaker 2: Clia did have a driver's license, but she didn't have
Speaker 2: her own car. And remember this was the pre cell
Speaker 2: phone era. There were cell phones out there. We had
Speaker 2: gone from the big brick cell phones you see in
Speaker 2: eighties movies to the plastic flip phones, but they were
Speaker 2: super expensive and back then teens did not really have
Speaker 2: cell phones. So Clia and her mom had a routine.
Speaker 2: Clea would always call her mother from Larry Amos's landline
Speaker 2: when she was ready to be picked up from work.
Speaker 2: They did this every day. Normally, Clea would finish work
Speaker 2: at around eight thirty, Clio would look out the window
Speaker 2: and wait for her mom. Laurel would pull the car up,
Speaker 2: but generally would not honk the horn because she didn't
Speaker 2: want to wake people up. So then to get out
Speaker 2: of the garage, Clia would push the button the automatic
Speaker 2: door would open, and then Clia would push it again.
Speaker 2: She knew exactly how to duck under that closing garage
Speaker 2: door without causing it to open back up. That night,
Speaker 2: the phone rang at the Hall house at eight pm.
Speaker 2: Laurel picked up the phone and it was Clea. Clia's
Speaker 2: brother also picked up the phone in the other room.
Speaker 2: Clia asked if anyone had called for her at home.
Speaker 2: Laurel said no, there were no messages. Clia said she
Speaker 2: wasn't quite finished at work, but she would be done soon.
Speaker 2: She said she would call back in around thirty minutes
Speaker 2: to get picked up. Laurel was reading on the couch.
Speaker 2: She drifted off to sleep with her book resting on
Speaker 2: her chest. Laurel was right next to the phone, but
Speaker 2: that phone never rang. Later police confirmed that because Clia's
Speaker 2: brothers were home too, no one heard the phone ring,
Speaker 2: so it's not like Laurella just slept through it. There
Speaker 2: were no other calls that night. Just before one am,
Speaker 2: Clia's dad, Willie, came into the house. He found his
Speaker 2: wife on the sofa and he woke her up. He
Speaker 2: asked where Clia was, and that's when Laurel realized she'd
Speaker 2: never gotten that call from Clia. She would later tell reporters.
Speaker 2: Immediately she felt sick. Laurel called Larry Amos's house and
Speaker 2: he picked up on the first ring. She told him
Speaker 2: Cleia hadn't come home that night and asked what time
Speaker 2: she left. Larry told Laurel he thought Clia left the
Speaker 2: house at around eight thirty, just like she normally did.
Speaker 2: He told her, hang on, I'll go check the time sheet.
Speaker 2: Then he said he had checked it and confirmed that, yes,
Speaker 2: Clia had signed out at eight thirty. He said that
Speaker 2: he assumed Clia had gotten into a car, but that
Speaker 2: he had not actually seen Clea leave the house. Larry
Speaker 2: said he heard the garage door open and close and
Speaker 2: just assumed that Clia left as usual and that Laurel
Speaker 2: had picked her up. Larry told Laurel that Clia didn't
Speaker 2: tell him or his wife that she was leaving that night,
Speaker 2: which he did say was unlike her. Laurel Hall did
Speaker 2: not sleep that night. One part of her brain was
Speaker 2: probably trying to tell herself. Maybe Clia did meet a friend,
Speaker 2: maybe she made a plan and didn't want to tell
Speaker 2: her mom about it. But in her heart, she knew
Speaker 2: something was very wrong, and because Clia was eighteen years old.
Speaker 2: Back then, police told her she had to wait twenty
Speaker 2: four hours to report her daughter missing. The next morning,
Speaker 2: Laurel told Clia's little brother to look for her at
Speaker 2: the high school they had band together, and her brother
Speaker 2: didn't see her there, but he told his mom later
Speaker 2: that the seniors had gone to the elementary school that
Speaker 2: day for some kind of school trip, so he held out
Speaker 2: hope that maybe she was there. But by that afternoon,
Speaker 2: Clia's brother realized she was not in school, and he
Speaker 2: called his mother and told her she had never shown up.
Speaker 2: At that point, Laurel knew something bad had happened. Again,
Speaker 2: this was totally out of character for Clia. She and
Speaker 2: her husband Willie reported Clelia missing that afternoon at the
Speaker 2: Pine Bluff police department. As we have seen in so
Speaker 2: many of these cases, at first, it seemed like the
Speaker 2: police were just not taking Clia's disappearance very seriously. According
Speaker 2: to the Hall family, the police seemed to treat Clea
Speaker 2: as a runaway. In fact, Laurel later told reporters that
Speaker 2: police suggested Clia could have run away, possibly due to
Speaker 2: her hiding a secret from her parents. Maybe even they
Speaker 2: suggested the fact that Clea was pregnant. Laurel told police
Speaker 2: bluntly that Clea was on birth control. She actually was
Speaker 2: on an implanable contraceptive that was in her arm, and
Speaker 2: this kind of birth control has a very low failure rate. Plus,
Speaker 2: Cleia didn't have a boyfriend. And even if she was dating,
Speaker 2: Clea was a young woman who was looking to the future.
Speaker 2: This girl was not trying to get tied down in
Speaker 2: her hometown. Literally everything in her life suggested the opposite.
Speaker 2: She had everything to look forward to, graduation, her summer job,
Speaker 2: her full scholarship in Tennessee. Clea was happy. She was
Speaker 2: in a great mood in the days before her disappearance.
Speaker 2: If we're looking at victimology, there was literally nothing in
Speaker 2: her background or her profile that would suggest that she
Speaker 2: would run away for any reason. And finally, there were
Speaker 2: the circumstances surrounding her disappearance. Let's say that she was
Speaker 2: inexplicably going to run away from home. Why would she
Speaker 2: choose that day? Why would she leave the one day
Speaker 2: she forgot her purse that had her money and her
Speaker 2: ID in it. Detectives looked through CLA's diary. They saund
Speaker 2: nothing about boyfriends or problems or plans to leave town suddenly.
Speaker 2: In fact, the main thing Clia had in that diary
Speaker 2: was her work schedule. It was filled out months in advance.
Speaker 2: They were finally understanding Clea was not the type of
Speaker 2: person to skip worker school, and they began to believe
Speaker 2: that there had been foul play. Even early on in
Speaker 2: the investigation, Laurel and Willie started to feel suspicious about
Speaker 2: Clia's boss, Larry Amos. First of all, it struck Laurel
Speaker 2: as odd that on that first night when Clea was missing,
Speaker 2: when Laurel called the Amos house, she thought it was
Speaker 2: weird that Larry Amos answered on the first ring. Now,
Speaker 2: he later told her that he was up in the
Speaker 2: next room watching TV. But if that was true, number one,
Speaker 2: why would he be up that late? And number two,
Speaker 2: why would he immediately pick up the phone on the
Speaker 2: work line? Why would he be sitting right next to
Speaker 2: the phone like that? And later she started to pick
Speaker 2: up what she believed were discrepancies in Larry Amos's description
Speaker 2: of what happened when Clea left the house. She thought
Speaker 2: it was a little off the fact that Larry said
Speaker 2: that he hadn't seen Clea leave because She said, Larry
Speaker 2: Amos always knew exactly who was coming and going at
Speaker 2: that property. Larry Amos was the last person to see
Speaker 2: Cleo live, but he wasn't being super cooperative with police.
Speaker 2: Police asked Larry if they could drop by so they
Speaker 2: could get a statement, but he said he was going
Speaker 2: out of town on a business trip to Dallas. He
Speaker 2: said he would be gone for three days, so police
Speaker 2: would have to take his statement when he got back
Speaker 2: in town. He emphasized that he wanted to be there
Speaker 2: in person when police came to his house. Larry claimed
Speaker 2: he was buying tanning beds for a business idea he had,
Speaker 2: but it was later reported that he never bought those
Speaker 2: beds and he never opened any kind of tanning bed business,
Speaker 2: so a lot of people wondered did he have a
Speaker 2: different reason for going to Texas. Police asked Larry Amos
Speaker 2: to take a lot of detector test, Laurel said Larry
Speaker 2: claimed he was busy, and then later said police would
Speaker 2: have to talk to his attorneys if they wanted him
Speaker 2: to take a lot of detector test. By the way,
Speaker 2: I completely get this after what I've experienced with cases
Speaker 2: in Arkansas and elsewhere. I know that light detectors are
Speaker 2: completely dependent on the skill of the person giving the examination,
Speaker 2: and to be honest, I've seen several cases where people
Speaker 2: have taken light detector tests and the results have come
Speaker 2: back inconclusive or that they failed it, and later that
Speaker 2: person was proven to be completely innocent. So I get
Speaker 2: Larry Amos's reluctance to take a lot of detector test.
Speaker 2: What I don't get is that Larry Amos seemed totally
Speaker 2: concerned about Clia being missing and about being one of
Speaker 2: the last people to see her, and there were some
Speaker 2: other odd things that were happening that Laurel said did
Speaker 2: not seem to add up. For example, before Larry Amos
Speaker 2: left town, police did very briefly stop by his house,
Speaker 2: and when they did, apparently detectives went into that home office.
Speaker 2: They picked up the phone and hit redial on the phone.
Speaker 2: They wrote down the last number dialed on a scrap
Speaker 2: of paper and said it was someone named Smith. The
Speaker 2: police asked Larry Amos about that phone number if he
Speaker 2: recognized it, because they were thinking maybe Clia had made
Speaker 2: a call from that home office landline and that might
Speaker 2: help explain who saw her last. Larry said he had
Speaker 2: no idea who that person was, but later it turned
Speaker 2: out that Smith this phone number was the phone number
Speaker 2: for Larry Amos's kids babysitter. So then Laurel started wondering
Speaker 2: why would he claim not to know the phone number
Speaker 2: of someone that he and or his wife presumably called often.
Speaker 2: And also, if the babysitter was the last person called
Speaker 2: and he was sitting up late in that office, why
Speaker 2: would Larry or anyone else need to call up a
Speaker 2: babysitter after midnight. Laurel and Willie did not wait for
Speaker 2: the detectives to start searching for their daughter. They called
Speaker 2: Clia's friends and posted flowers everywhere around town, which they
Speaker 2: printed up themselves. Across the street from the Amos house
Speaker 2: there are some woods. The volunteers searched there and also
Speaker 2: in the wooded area behind the house, and they did
Speaker 2: what police should have done in the first place. They
Speaker 2: knocked on doors and pounded pavement. Finally, several days after
Speaker 2: Clia went missing, detectives started searching too very quickly. It
Speaker 2: seemed like there were a few possibilities being talked about here.
Speaker 2: The first possibility was that Clia left with someone in
Speaker 2: a car. This seemed extremely unlikely because Cleah had a
Speaker 2: plan for her mom to pick her up, and she
Speaker 2: had a regular routine. This was a Monday night, it
Speaker 2: was a school night, and even if she was going
Speaker 2: to leave with someone else, she would have called her mom.
Speaker 2: She knew her mom would be waiting for her. Remember,
Speaker 2: Clia had already called her mom to tell her she
Speaker 2: would be done at work soon, so it would make
Speaker 2: no sense that she wouldn't call back and let her
Speaker 2: know that she was going to do something else. The
Speaker 2: second possibility was that Cleah walked home alone. In a
Speaker 2: documentary that later aired about the case on Oxygen, the
Speaker 2: journalist interviewed a friend of Clia's, another young woman who
Speaker 2: used to work for Larry Amos. The friend said that
Speaker 2: she was there the night when Clia went missing. She
Speaker 2: said she had offered Clia a ride home and Clia said, no,
Speaker 2: don't worry about it, that she was going to walk home. Now,
Speaker 2: this was a strange piece of information. I would love
Speaker 2: to find this young woman, this second person who said
Speaker 2: that they were there that night, because Laurel claims that
Speaker 2: she later clarified this girl was not in the house
Speaker 2: that night, that in fact, that young woman had not
Speaker 2: been working in the office for several months by the
Speaker 2: time Clia went missing, and she thinks that after this
Speaker 2: many years, the young woman just got confused in her memory.
Speaker 2: She thinks she was thinking about a different night. Laurel
Speaker 2: insists that the only people that she knows of who
Speaker 2: were in the house that night were doctor Larry Amos,
Speaker 2: his wife, and their small children. I just want to
Speaker 2: talk for a minute about the theory that Clea would
Speaker 2: have walked home alone. This would have been shortly after
Speaker 2: eight thirty at night, so it would have been dusk,
Speaker 2: not full dark, but getting dark. And I just want
Speaker 2: to explain a little about Pine Bluff. As someone who
Speaker 2: grew up there, I can tell you it has a
Speaker 2: history of violent crime and it continues to be a
Speaker 2: dangerous place to live. Back in the nineties, it's really
Speaker 2: not an exaggeration to say that parts of Pine Bluff
Speaker 2: and other parts of South Arkansas were like war zones.
Speaker 2: There was even a series back in the nineties called
Speaker 2: Banging in Little Rock about the Crips and the Bloods
Speaker 2: and other gangs that were active in Little Rock in
Speaker 2: South Arkansas. In the nineties, the population of Pine Bluff
Speaker 2: was around sixty thousand, but per capita, it regularly ranks
Speaker 2: and the five most dangerous small towns in the United States.
Speaker 2: Everyone knows, and everyone knew back then, you do not
Speaker 2: go out walking in I'm left Arkansas after dark, and
Speaker 2: Laurel was very protective of Clia. She insisted her daughter
Speaker 2: would never walk home alone. She said she had only
Speaker 2: walked home alone once from Larry Amos's house, and on
Speaker 2: that instance, Clia's brother walked home with her, so Clia
Speaker 2: randomly deciding to walk home alone near dark is a
Speaker 2: remote possibility at best. Later, from Laurell's interviews, it's clear
Speaker 2: that Laurel becomes more suspicious of Larry Amos as a person.
Speaker 2: She talks about discussing Larry Amos with Clia, and Clia
Speaker 2: would talk about Larry Amos's business. Laurel said Clia had
Speaker 2: made comments to her about the fact that when she
Speaker 2: would get Larry Amos to sign the checks, a lot
Speaker 2: of them did not seem to be related to the nonprofit,
Speaker 2: and Clia sort of remarked that was a little weird,
Speaker 2: maybe a little shady, And she would talk about how
Speaker 2: Larry Amos was cheap, but never said anything about him
Speaker 2: being dangerous or violent in any way. Laurel started to
Speaker 2: become more suspicious as time went on, because when Larry
Speaker 2: Amos did talk to police after he got back from
Speaker 2: his Texas trip and gave them a formal statement, she
Speaker 2: said certain details of the story he told started to
Speaker 2: change from what he told her originally. In his third statement,
Speaker 2: he said that when Clia left, she had a can
Speaker 2: of peach pop meaning peach soda in her hand that
Speaker 2: his wife had given her. He said he saw Clea
Speaker 2: looking out the garage window. Yet when he talked to
Speaker 2: Laurel that first time, Larry Amos said he was nowhere
Speaker 2: near the garage. He had said, specifically that he'd just
Speaker 2: heard the door open and close. Now again, these details
Speaker 2: seemed to be tiny, but they could be hugely important.
Speaker 2: Two weeks after Clea disappeared, police finally went in to
Speaker 2: search the Amos house, and they made a major mistake
Speaker 2: here in my opinion, because they didn't get a search warrant.
Speaker 2: So when Larry Amos told them after a little while
Speaker 2: they had to stop the search, they had no legal
Speaker 2: right to stay there. They had to leave the house.
Speaker 2: So afterwards, when police said they found no signs of
Speaker 2: foul play. Laurel remained suspicious because it was obvious to
Speaker 2: her that even if something was in the house, the
Speaker 2: police didn't stay long enough to do a thorough enough
Speaker 2: search to find it. And also, Larry Amos had had
Speaker 2: a lot of time. He had a couple weeks at
Speaker 2: that point. He could have cleaned up anything with two
Speaker 2: whole weeks to do it. And then another bizarre thing
Speaker 2: started to happen. Several people, including Laurel's husband Willie, saw
Speaker 2: Larry Amos tearing down Clia's missing posters. Laurel and Willie
Speaker 2: did a little bit of their own detective work on
Speaker 2: Larry Amos. They reached out to his ex wife, Christine,
Speaker 2: and this is a strange story. They arranged to meet
Speaker 2: up with Christine in person. They noticed that Christine seemed
Speaker 2: to be very nervous, and there was a man across
Speaker 2: the street who was taking pictures of them while they're
Speaker 2: talking to her. Now, Christine told Laurel and Willie she
Speaker 2: knew she seem kind of paranoid, but she said she
Speaker 2: was afraid of Larry Amos. She said he'd been physically
Speaker 2: and emotionally abusive to her in the marriage. She said
Speaker 2: they were in the middle of an ugly court battle.
Speaker 2: She said she was suing him for child support. Things
Speaker 2: between them had gotten really bad, she said. When she
Speaker 2: left him, they got into a physical fight that ended
Speaker 2: when she threw boiling water over him. When Laurel and
Speaker 2: Willie reached out to her, Christine said she was actually
Speaker 2: worried this could have been orchestrated by Larry. He might
Speaker 2: have been planning to do something to her. So now
Speaker 2: Laurel and Willie are alarmed, and they told the police
Speaker 2: about this violent streak that Larry Amos reportedly had, but
Speaker 2: they say the Pine Bluff Police Department basically blew them off.
Speaker 2: They said Christine was just basically a bitter ex wife.
Speaker 2: Then Laurel and Willie tried to reach out to Larry
Speaker 2: Amos's second wife, Patricia, the one who was home the
Speaker 2: night Clea disappeared, but they were never really able to
Speaker 2: talk to her or to Larry Amos again. In fact,
Speaker 2: Laurel has told people that Larry Aims has not been
Speaker 2: in contact with her family since the first week after
Speaker 2: Clea disappeared. The only thing on the record that I
Speaker 2: can find from Larry Amos's wife, Patricia came from a
Speaker 2: transcript of an interview that was quoted in a Fox
Speaker 2: News report online. In that report, she said, quote it
Speaker 2: was odd that she left without telling either of us
Speaker 2: end quote. So in essence, she seemed to back up
Speaker 2: her husband's story. Now I should say now that Larry
Speaker 2: Amos has always completely denied any knowledge of or involvement
Speaker 2: with Cleia's disappearance, and later Larry Amos kind of seemed
Speaker 2: to turn the attention back onto Kleia's family. Obviously, when
Speaker 2: a teenager goes missing, police have to look at the family.
Speaker 2: Larry Amos said that he was being unfairly targeted by police.
Speaker 2: In fact, he filed a complaint against one of the
Speaker 2: detectives who was investigating him. He is not really commented
Speaker 2: on this case at all over the years when the
Speaker 2: Arkansas demic, because that newspaper reached out to them, he said, quote. Strangely,
Speaker 2: those that have been calling have not wanted to read
Speaker 2: the report. Not only was a report filed, a complaint
Speaker 2: was filed against one of the detectives. There are very
Speaker 2: detailed questions that should have been answered about the family
Speaker 2: and other things. It's amazing that people who really want
Speaker 2: to find out, wouldn't begin to read the report. End quote. Now,
Speaker 2: I will say I would be very happy to read
Speaker 2: that report, and normally, in my understanding of Arkansas freedom
Speaker 2: of information law, complaints filed against officers are public information.
Speaker 2: I have made a freedom of information request for that report,
Speaker 2: But if an investigation is still technically open, normally any
Speaker 2: part of the case file, including a complaint that would
Speaker 2: normally be public record, will be sealed. Larry Amos's statement
Speaker 2: was bizarre because in this case, there's absolutely zero suggestion
Speaker 2: that Clia had any problems at home. Now, some people
Speaker 2: have suggested maybe Larry Amos just was tearing down these
Speaker 2: posters and behaving a little bit strangely because he didn't
Speaker 2: want people linking him with a young woman's disappearance. But
Speaker 2: in my opinion, Larry should have been way more concerned
Speaker 2: about Cleia in the fact she was missing, than about
Speaker 2: his reputation at that point. The fact that he seemed
Speaker 2: to try to impede the investigation and be uncooperative, that
Speaker 2: to me is a huge red flag. Over the years,
Speaker 2: like I said, the Halls have reached out to Larry
Speaker 2: Amos once they brought a canine dogged with the property,
Speaker 2: but Laurel said Larry refused to let them search there.
Speaker 2: According to Laurel, when Larry Amos came to the door,
Speaker 2: he made a strange statement when she asked to come
Speaker 2: on his property about not trusting psychics. Laurel later told
Speaker 2: a reporter that one of the women she was with
Speaker 2: had the letters ESP as part of her license plate number,
Speaker 2: and Larry's comment seemed to be a bizarre reference to that.
Speaker 2: Whether he genuinely thought he saw some kind of pattern
Speaker 2: there or whether he was just making up a reason
Speaker 2: to not let them search. Either way, the Hall started
Speaker 2: to get more and more suspicious that there was something
Speaker 2: not right about doctor Larry Amos. After Clia had been
Speaker 2: missing for a few days, detectives talked to other potential
Speaker 2: people of interest. Of course, they had asked her family
Speaker 2: and her friends about potential boyfriends, and again Laurel told
Speaker 2: police Clia didn't have a steady boyfriend. But Laurel said
Speaker 2: Clia did have a male friend, a slightly older guy
Speaker 2: who she liked. This person was a twenty three year
Speaker 2: old Army reservist, and he went to Clia's church. This
Speaker 2: guy was cooperative. He talked to police and agreed to
Speaker 2: take a polygraph test, but the results were inconclusive. And again,
Speaker 2: I don't put a lot of faith in polygraph tests
Speaker 2: in my opinion. There's a reason why they aren't amissible
Speaker 2: in court, and there are a lot of reasons why
Speaker 2: tests can be ruled in conclusive. I'm mentioning this because
Speaker 2: this guy was completely cooperative. He gave police permission to
Speaker 2: search his vehicle. They didn't find anything connecting him to
Speaker 2: Clia's disappearance, but when they talked to this guy, he
Speaker 2: did tell investigators he had had a strange encounter with
Speaker 2: Larry Amos himself. He said that he had given Cla
Speaker 2: a ride to work a couple of weeks before she disappeared.
Speaker 2: He said that when he dropped her off at Larry
Speaker 2: Amos's house, Larry said he needed to leave because courting
Speaker 2: was not allowed on his property, which is a strange
Speaker 2: comment to make to a high school girl. Clea explained
Speaker 2: to Larry, this guy was nothing more than a friend,
Speaker 2: but two of them were not going out, which again,
Speaker 2: why would that matter? That was none of Larry's business.
Speaker 2: Laurel said that Clia's friend remained cooperative with law enforcement
Speaker 2: over the years, Eventually he left the area married and
Speaker 2: had a family of his own. Over the years, other
Speaker 2: theories have come up. Some people have mentioned that Cleah
Speaker 2: could have been kidnapped by a serial killer. A very
Speaker 2: infamous serial killer, Samuel Lytle, confessed to killing a twenty
Speaker 2: six year old woman named Jolanda Jones and Pine Bluff
Speaker 2: just a few months before Clea disappeared. In my opinion,
Speaker 2: this does not seem to be a credible theory, but
Speaker 2: his first. Of all, Jalanda's murder was considered to have
Speaker 2: been related to drugs. Clia's disappearance did not fit Samuel
Speaker 2: Little's m O at all. Secondly, I have a hard
Speaker 2: time buying the idea that before dark someone would grab
Speaker 2: her off the street and have no one see a
Speaker 2: thing for me. In Clia's case, all roads lead back
Speaker 2: to the Amos house. I think something happened there that night,
Speaker 2: and a lot of online commenters seemed to feel that way.
Speaker 2: I've talked to a lot of people in Pine Bluff
Speaker 2: and they all look at that house with a lot
Speaker 2: of suspicion. One of the comments I read online reads quote.
Speaker 2: Growing up, it was common for people to nonchalantly say
Speaker 2: that doctor Amos killed Cleshendra and hid her in his
Speaker 2: concrete walls. His neighbors say they didn't see anyone come
Speaker 2: and pick her up. He was also seen sneaking around
Speaker 2: removing her missing flyers. The man is a creep, the
Speaker 2: kind of person you just feel uncomfortable being around. Laurel
Speaker 2: stopped relying on the Pine Bluff Police apartment and over
Speaker 2: the years the case went cold. Her family kept going
Speaker 2: to the media and every year they would do an
Speaker 2: awareness event on Kleia's birthday. Over the years, they went
Speaker 2: through even more heartache because a DJ raised money for
Speaker 2: Clia's reward fund and then kept the money in left
Speaker 2: town and sadly, the whole family was victimized again. Their
Speaker 2: funds were gone, and the DJ eventually passed away. I
Speaker 2: just want to say, as a side note here, I've
Speaker 2: seen this happen so often in cold cases. People will
Speaker 2: give money, they have good hearts, they want to help
Speaker 2: a family, and it will turn out that this money
Speaker 2: that was supposed to be for a scholarship or an
Speaker 2: event will get stolen. So please, when you are giving
Speaker 2: money to a victim or a family, please make sure
Speaker 2: you know exactly where it's going. Do not allow these
Speaker 2: families to be victimized again by scammers. In twenty twelve,
Speaker 2: after years of nothing happening, there seemed to be a
Speaker 2: potentially huge break in this case. Oxygen had a TV
Speaker 2: series called Find Our Missing, and they ran Clea's story.
Speaker 2: Two witnesses came forward and they talked to the TV program.
Speaker 2: One was a construction worker and he said he'd worked
Speaker 2: on Larry Ames's house during the late nineteen nineties after
Speaker 2: Clia went missing. This worker said he went to the
Speaker 2: police and he told them that he had been installing
Speaker 2: a fireplace in Larry Amos's house. He was taking out
Speaker 2: sheet rock and he saw what he believed was blood
Speaker 2: splattered on some drywall. Another worker had a similar story.
Speaker 2: He said he was working in the backyard and he
Speaker 2: was filling a hole with some cement. The worker said
Speaker 2: he smelled something horrible. The documentary said, quote when the
Speaker 2: wind would blow, he could smell an odor unlike anything
Speaker 2: he's ever smelled before. End quote. The worker also said
Speaker 2: there were flies buzzing all around that backyard. So in
Speaker 2: twenty twelve, after the series aired, police finally got a
Speaker 2: search warrant. They went back to Larry Amos's English tutor house,
Speaker 2: the last place where Clia was seen alive. The search
Speaker 2: warrant affidavit red quote sworn statements indicate the observance of
Speaker 2: a false wall inside the residence containing blood on the insulation. Also,
Speaker 2: statements indicate the body was buried on the property at
Speaker 2: fifty three oh nine Fawcet Road in a hole where
Speaker 2: bricks and rocks and powdered concrete was used to cover
Speaker 2: up something end quote. They went back to Larry Amos's
Speaker 2: oversized English tutor house, the last place where Clelia was
Speaker 2: seen alive. This aired on the news. You could see
Speaker 2: crime scene tape up everywhere. Police spent hours there. Larry
Speaker 2: was wearing a green work shirt and a tie and
Speaker 2: he was on a cell phone outside watching these detectives
Speaker 2: go in and out of his house. Police used sniffer
Speaker 2: dogs and ground radar penetrating devices, but they did not
Speaker 2: dig up anything in the backyard. They did go inside
Speaker 2: and police took out little pieces of that dry wall insulation.
Speaker 2: In all, they filled several huge bags full of evidence.
Speaker 2: So Laurel and Willie waited. A month later, they talked
Speaker 2: to police and were told that the Arkansas State crime
Speaker 2: lab had not sent back the evidence yet, but they
Speaker 2: were horrified to learn that this wasn't true, that actually
Speaker 2: the evidence was still sitting at the police station. It
Speaker 2: had not even been forwarded to the crime lab. After
Speaker 2: the delay, the evidence was sent to the crime lab
Speaker 2: and several weeks after that the results came back. There
Speaker 2: were no traces of blood on any of the evidence
Speaker 2: they had tested. This was just another devastating blow for
Speaker 2: Clia's family. They were outraged first of all at the delay,
Speaker 2: and they really believed that the police department was hindering
Speaker 2: the investigation. Even after all this time, they still had
Speaker 2: waited so long to send that evidence to the crime lab.
Speaker 2: A spokesperson for the Pine Blood Police department eventually said
Speaker 2: that the state crime lab bound no blood evidence and
Speaker 2: said that delay did not affect the evidence, but the
Speaker 2: Halls were not buying it. They still have questions about
Speaker 2: whether that evidence was tested accurately. In fact, later Laurel said,
Speaker 2: the whole thing was so strange and there were so
Speaker 2: many things that they believed were in competent mistakes. They
Speaker 2: started to suspect it could be a cover up, and
Speaker 2: it was about to get much worse because later Laurel
Speaker 2: Hall learned that when that evidence was taken out of
Speaker 2: the amo's house, one of the detectives put the bags
Speaker 2: of evidence into the trunk of his car and then
Speaker 2: drove it home and let it sit there all night
Speaker 2: before giving it to the crime scene text Later, the
Speaker 2: officer said they did that because there was a lot
Speaker 2: of media there. They didn't want to have to drag
Speaker 2: all these bags of evidence past the cameras. But that
Speaker 2: made no sense because the media had been there all day.
Speaker 2: You could see this whole thing unfolding. Even if that
Speaker 2: were true, they just wanted to get the evidence out
Speaker 2: of there quickly. They still could have taken it straight
Speaker 2: to the crime lab, but they didn't. This person went
Speaker 2: home and let that evidence sit they are all night
Speaker 2: in the trunk of that car. So the truth is,
Speaker 2: from my understanding, even if the evidence revealed anything crucial,
Speaker 2: the evidence could have been challenged in court, and that
Speaker 2: officer potentially ruined the chain of custody. A good defense
Speaker 2: attorney could tear that apart at trial. It was later
Speaker 2: reported that as a result of all this, a crime
Speaker 2: scene lab technician ended up being suspended. No further action
Speaker 2: was taken by the Palmbluff Police Department, and to this day,
Speaker 2: I am still trying to find out if, after they
Speaker 2: supposedly tested evidence and found no blood, any additional DNA
Speaker 2: testing was or could be done. A few people have
Speaker 2: reached out to Larry Amos over the years. Record show
Speaker 2: he still lives in that same neighborhood, in that same
Speaker 2: English tutor house. It's still owned by him and his family.
Speaker 2: And again I should say, obviously Larry Amos has always
Speaker 2: completely denied any involvement in Kleist's appearance. He said that
Speaker 2: the business trip was pre planned. He said people claiming
Speaker 2: that he was skipping town or running away were just
Speaker 2: spreading wild rumors. So what happened to Clea Hall? Again,
Speaker 2: for reasons we've discussed before, I don't think it's likely
Speaker 2: at all she got into a car with someone else.
Speaker 2: Police have never been able to find any evidence that
Speaker 2: there was another car at the Amos residence that night.
Speaker 2: No neighbors saw her leave, no one saw her along
Speaker 2: the route, either walking or another vehicle they didn't recognize.
Speaker 2: And for this reason, I also think it's unlikely a
Speaker 2: stranger grabbed her in the very short distance between Larry
Speaker 2: Amos's house and hers with no one seeing her. So
Speaker 2: I keep coming back to that third possibility, a theory
Speaker 2: that I believe is far more likely, that Clia never
Speaker 2: left the Amos house that night, and that something happened
Speaker 2: inside that house, some kind of altercation that we still
Speaker 2: don't know about. Obviously, the case file is still sealed,
Speaker 2: so there is very limited information out there available to
Speaker 2: the public. But I did do a deep dive into
Speaker 2: the blueprints and construction history of the Amos house. Over
Speaker 2: the past eighteen years, that house has had nine major renovations.
Speaker 2: I'm always looking for patterns in these cases, and I
Speaker 2: do see quite a few similarities, at least on the surface,
Speaker 2: between Clia's case and the case of Kristen Smarts. Kristen's
Speaker 2: case was finally solved after over twenty years. Kristin was
Speaker 2: nineteen years old when she vanished in nineteen ninety six,
Speaker 2: and over the years there was a person of interest,
Speaker 2: a guy named Paul Flores. A lot of people believed
Speaker 2: that he had assaulted Kristin and killed her, and that
Speaker 2: her remains may be in his father's house, but no
Speaker 2: one could prove it. But over the years, a lot
Speaker 2: of people looked at that house as a place of interest,
Speaker 2: and like in Clea's case, police did go in in
Speaker 2: the year two thousand. They executed a search warrant, and
Speaker 2: just like in Clia's case, they used ground penetrating radar,
Speaker 2: but they didn't dig up the backyard and they didn't
Speaker 2: find anything. Then years later, in twenty twenty one, detectives
Speaker 2: went back to the house again and this time they
Speaker 2: did dig up the backyard. They found evidence linked to
Speaker 2: Kristen Smart buried under the deck. I only mention this
Speaker 2: because a lot of people over the years have said, well,
Speaker 2: they've searched there, They've used ground penetrating radar, they didn't
Speaker 2: find anything. So we can't rule out the possibility that
Speaker 2: there could be secrets buried in that backyard or somewhere
Speaker 2: else in that house. So if something did happen to
Speaker 2: Cleia in the house that night, why would Larry Amos
Speaker 2: or someone in his family want to hurt her. Well,
Speaker 2: one potential motive could be something related to money, because,
Speaker 2: as some of you may know, in my other podcast,
Speaker 2: Red Collar, I talk a lot about financial fraud and
Speaker 2: how financial fraud can lead to murder, and there are
Speaker 2: a lot of red flags in Larry Amos's background related
Speaker 2: to fraud. He has filed for multiple bankruptcies and in
Speaker 2: two thousand and eight he was run another organization called
Speaker 2: Progressive Southeast Arkansas. It was supposed to be a housing
Speaker 2: development corporation where he would build houses with this federal
Speaker 2: grant money he got, but actually what he did was
Speaker 2: just scam the government because the only houses that he
Speaker 2: sold he ended up selling a house to his own
Speaker 2: daughter at a huge discount. And according to these court papers,
Speaker 2: a lot of the other homes that he built were
Speaker 2: badly constructed or never built at all. And these court
Speaker 2: papers alleged that he took the money and just kind
Speaker 2: of ran and left people without homes. So, if Clia
Speaker 2: was the person handling the books, could she have seen
Speaker 2: something she wasn't supposed to see. Could she have seen
Speaker 2: some shady stuff she didn't like? Could they have gotten
Speaker 2: into an argument, or could Cliah have gotten into conflict
Speaker 2: with someone else inside the house that night, someone who
Speaker 2: was never mentioned in the original police documents, because remember
Speaker 2: we don't have access to the case fall, we don't
Speaker 2: have a confirmed list of who was there, and Larry
Speaker 2: Amos over the years has not been forthcoming. One person
Speaker 2: who has been mentioned over the years, though he was
Speaker 2: never officially a person of interest, was Larry Amos's older son, Omar.
Speaker 2: Omar Amos was in his twenties at the time when
Speaker 2: Clea went missing. He didn't live with Larry and his
Speaker 2: wife Patricia, but he did live in a house close by,
Speaker 2: so he was over there a lot. Omar has his
Speaker 2: own dark past. He later was arrested for assaulting a
Speaker 2: female victim. So I do wonder could Larry Amos or
Speaker 2: his son, or someone else, maybe someone hanging out with
Speaker 2: his son or with another family member, have made some
Speaker 2: kind of a move on Cleia and she refused their
Speaker 2: sexual advances. Or did one of Larry's relatives do something
Speaker 2: to Clia, something that their father may have helped them
Speaker 2: clean up. Sadly, we can't ask Omar. In July of
Speaker 2: twenty twenty, Omar was beaten to death in his own
Speaker 2: home in Pine Bluff, just five miles away from his
Speaker 2: dad's house on Bossett Road. Over the years, Laurel has
Speaker 2: told people that she has a recurring dream about Clia.
Speaker 2: In that dream, Clia is sitting in Larry Amos's bathtub,
Speaker 2: her hands are tied, She's screaming for her mom to
Speaker 2: help her. Laurel knows it's just a dream, but it
Speaker 2: seems like her subconscious is screaming that there is something
Speaker 2: bothering her about Larry Amos and about that house. Laurel
Speaker 2: has confessed that she feels guilty. She of course asked
Speaker 2: herself why that night, Why did she fall asleep, even
Speaker 2: though there was no way she could have known what
Speaker 2: was going on. And to me, the fact that Clia
Speaker 2: did not call her mother back means that whatever happened
Speaker 2: to her probably happened between eight and around eight thirty pm.
Speaker 2: So we have to answer the question what happened inside
Speaker 2: that house. I believe this case is solvable. I believe
Speaker 2: someone knows something. Every year, Laurel, Willie and the rest
Speaker 2: of the family released balloons in pink, Clia's favorite color,
Speaker 2: on her birthday, March thirtieth. They do the same thing
Speaker 2: on May ninth, the day she went missing. Laurel said quote,
Speaker 2: she was just somebody that had a light that meant something.
Speaker 2: She had goals and she had dreams just like everybody else.
Speaker 2: And our family had dreams and goals for her too,
Speaker 2: And so somewhere we're missing out on seeing what our
Speaker 2: life could have been end quote. I'm Catherine Townsend. This
Speaker 2: is Helen Gone. Murder Line. Helen Gone is a production
Speaker 2: of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and
Speaker 2: narrated by me Catherine Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts.
Speaker 2: Music is by Ben so Lee and this episode was
Speaker 2: scored by Miranda Hawkins. Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr,
Speaker 2: and Elsie Crowley. If you have a case you'd like
Speaker 2: me and my team to look into, you can reach
Speaker 2: out to us at six seven eight seven four four
Speaker 2: six one four five. That's six seven eight seven four
Speaker 2: four six one four five.
Speaker 1: School of Humans