WEBVTT - Hell and Gone Murder Line_ Clea Hall [From the Archives] 0:00:46.480 --> 0:00:51.960 School of Humans. Helen Got Murder Line actively investigates cold 0:00:52.040 --> 0:00:55.360 case murders in an effort to raise public awareness invite 0:00:55.400 --> 0:00:58.760 witnesses to come forward and present evidence that could potentially 0:00:58.840 --> 0:01:02.960 be further investigated by law enforcement. While we value insights 0:01:03.000 --> 0:01:06.160 from family and community members, their statements should not be 0:01:06.200 --> 0:01:09.960 considered evidence and point to the challenges of verifying facts 0:01:10.040 --> 0:01:14.040 inherent in cold cases. We remind listeners that everyone has 0:01:14.080 --> 0:01:17.160 presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. 0:01:17.960 --> 0:01:20.840 Nothing in the podcast is intended to state or imply 0:01:21.040 --> 0:01:23.600 that anyone who has not been convicted of a crime 0:01:24.120 --> 0:01:27.120 is guilty of any wrongdoing. Thanks for listening. 0:01:28.560 --> 0:01:31.720 Back in twenty nineteen, I got a Facebook message from 0:01:31.800 --> 0:01:36.040 Larel Hall, whose daughter Kleschnder Hall, disappeared in nineteen ninety 0:01:36.040 --> 0:01:40.880 four when she was just eighteen years old. It read quote, Hi, Catherine, 0:01:41.160 --> 0:01:44.480 my daughter disappeared from her after school job on nineteen 0:01:44.560 --> 0:01:47.920 ninety four without a trace. One of my Facebook friends 0:01:47.960 --> 0:01:50.240 listens to your podcasts and thought you could help me, 0:01:50.720 --> 0:01:53.000 will you? Thanks Laurel. 0:01:53.880 --> 0:01:54.160 Quote. 0:01:55.640 --> 0:01:59.640 In nineteen ninety four, Cleshender Hall, known to everyone as Clia, 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:03.680 was living in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Actually Clia grew up 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:06.000 very near where I grew up. We lived just a 0:02:06.000 --> 0:02:09.120 couple of miles from each other. Clia was a senior 0:02:09.160 --> 0:02:12.400 at Watson Chapel High School. She had big dreams and 0:02:12.440 --> 0:02:16.400 she was making them happen. May of nineteen ninety four 0:02:16.640 --> 0:02:19.480 was a super busy month for Clea. She was getting 0:02:19.520 --> 0:02:22.800 ready for a big speech at graduation. She was valedictorian 0:02:22.840 --> 0:02:27.920 of her class. After graduation, Clia was leaving town. She 0:02:28.000 --> 0:02:30.440 was supposed to start a summer internship that she had 0:02:30.480 --> 0:02:33.360 all lined up at a doctor's office in Boston, and 0:02:33.400 --> 0:02:36.280 then in the fall she would start college at Tennessee 0:02:36.320 --> 0:02:38.800 State University, where she had been accepted to the pre 0:02:38.880 --> 0:02:43.360 med program. Clia dreamed of a career in medicine. She 0:02:43.400 --> 0:02:47.240 woned to be a pediatrician. But on May ninth, just 0:02:47.280 --> 0:02:50.080 a few weeks before leaving town to start her new life, 0:02:50.440 --> 0:02:53.720 the one she had worked so hard for, Clea Hall 0:02:53.920 --> 0:02:59.120 disappeared without a trace. Over the past five years making 0:02:59.120 --> 0:03:02.760 my true crime podcast, Helen Gone, I've learned that there 0:03:02.800 --> 0:03:05.560 is no such thing as a small town where murder 0:03:05.680 --> 0:03:09.760 never happens. I have received hundreds of messages from people 0:03:09.920 --> 0:03:12.840 all around the country asking for help with an unsolved 0:03:12.880 --> 0:03:17.320 murder that's affected them, their families and their communities, and 0:03:17.440 --> 0:03:20.720 now they have a new way to reach out. I'm 0:03:20.760 --> 0:03:26.200 Catherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. If you 0:03:26.280 --> 0:03:28.120 have a case you'd like me and my team to 0:03:28.120 --> 0:03:30.920 look into, you can reach out to us at six 0:03:31.000 --> 0:03:35.600 seven eight seven four four six one four five. That's 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:39.240 six seven eight seven four four six one four five. 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:30.560 Cleshendra Denise Hall was born on March thirtieth, nineteen seventy six, 0:04:30.680 --> 0:04:34.400 in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Her dad, Willie and her mom, 0:04:34.480 --> 0:04:38.160 Laurel Hall had four children. They had three sons and 0:04:38.240 --> 0:04:42.320 Clia was their only daughter. They were a very close 0:04:42.400 --> 0:04:46.800 family and was a serious student and although she went 0:04:46.840 --> 0:04:49.880 out just like all teens do and enjoyed social activities, 0:04:50.200 --> 0:04:53.640 she was extremely responsible. She even had an after school 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:56.760 job to help pay for college. She worked for doctor 0:04:56.840 --> 0:05:01.520 Larry Amos, PhD. And not a medical doctor. What he 0:05:01.520 --> 0:05:04.120 did was that he ran a nonprofit organization out of 0:05:04.120 --> 0:05:06.680 his home office at fifty three oh nine Fawcett Road, 0:05:06.920 --> 0:05:10.720 just a few blocks from Clea's house. Larry owned two 0:05:10.880 --> 0:05:13.680 houses that were right next to each other. Over the years, 0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:16.080 he did a lot of construction work on that property. 0:05:17.040 --> 0:05:19.800 The house where Clea worked was a big English tutor 0:05:19.840 --> 0:05:22.160 home and had a separate area that was a home 0:05:22.200 --> 0:05:26.120 office with its own dedicated landline. Clia's job was to 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:30.120 help with bookkeeping. She got Larry to sign checks and 0:05:30.360 --> 0:05:35.360 help keep things organized. Now, it's been reported that Larry 0:05:35.400 --> 0:05:39.440 wrote grants where he would allocate resources for childcare facilities. 0:05:40.280 --> 0:05:43.320 But I've discovered that, like in so many cold cases, 0:05:43.840 --> 0:05:46.400 there are a lot of basic facts about this case, 0:05:46.480 --> 0:05:48.880 even though it has been reported on many times over 0:05:48.920 --> 0:05:51.760 the years, that are just flat out wrong, because the 0:05:51.840 --> 0:05:55.200 truth was that Larry Amos was involved in some very 0:05:55.240 --> 0:05:59.080 shady financial dealings, which we will come back to, but 0:05:59.240 --> 0:06:01.680 first let's go back to Clia and that day in 0:06:01.760 --> 0:06:06.000 nineteen ninety four. I don't really like phrases like troubled 0:06:06.040 --> 0:06:09.200 teen because to me, everyone deserves justice and to have 0:06:09.280 --> 0:06:13.160 their case investigated. But just for clarity, because we are 0:06:13.280 --> 0:06:16.840 looking at someone's pattern of life. Clia came from a 0:06:16.920 --> 0:06:21.040 loving home. She had no issues with mental health, She 0:06:21.120 --> 0:06:24.080 had a steady job, she was very organized, she was 0:06:24.120 --> 0:06:27.400 planning for her future. She had no disputes with her 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:31.480 parents or anyone else, and she was not known to 0:06:31.560 --> 0:06:35.560 party or to disappear for days. Clia's schedule had been 0:06:35.600 --> 0:06:38.280 set for several weeks. She had just gone to her 0:06:38.280 --> 0:06:40.800 senior prom, then on Saturday night, she went to a 0:06:40.800 --> 0:06:44.560 sorority ball. Sunday was Mother's Day, which Clia celebrated with 0:06:44.600 --> 0:06:49.160 her family. On Monday, May ninth, nineteen ninety four, Clia 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:52.080 woke up, had breakfast with her brothers and her mom, Laurel, 0:06:52.560 --> 0:06:55.720 and then went to school. Laurel picked her up at 0:06:55.760 --> 0:06:59.440 around two thirty that afternoon. Clea was allowed to leave 0:06:59.480 --> 0:07:01.920 school a little early because of her after school job. 0:07:02.640 --> 0:07:05.440 They went straight to Larry's house, but there was no 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:11.760 one home. Later, Larry's wife, Patricia, apologized to Laurel for this. Apparently, Patricia, 0:07:11.800 --> 0:07:14.000 Larry's wife, had a job she worked for the school, 0:07:14.560 --> 0:07:17.160 and when Clia arrived for work that day, she hadn't 0:07:17.160 --> 0:07:21.320 gotten home yet. After realizing no one was home, Laurel 0:07:21.480 --> 0:07:24.760 and Clia drove back to their house. Clia was tired, 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:27.560 so she kind of crashed out on the couch. They 0:07:27.600 --> 0:07:31.560 waited to hear from Larry Amos or his wife. Laurel 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:34.920 said that Larry called their house at four forty five pm. 0:07:35.240 --> 0:07:36.880 He said he was home and he was ready for 0:07:36.920 --> 0:07:40.480 Clelia to come into work. So Clia basically jumped up 0:07:40.520 --> 0:07:43.440 off the couch and got into the car and Laurel 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:47.240 drove her back to Larry Amos's house. Laurel watched as 0:07:47.280 --> 0:07:49.760 Clea walked up to that house. She was wearing a 0:07:49.800 --> 0:07:53.240 blue and white Polkadot printed shirt and short set white 0:07:53.240 --> 0:07:56.600 tennis shoes and white socks. Clea had short hair, but 0:07:56.680 --> 0:07:59.120 she had gotten hair extensions for the prom, so she 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:01.400 had her hair up in a ponytail with a pink ribbon. 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:06.440 Laurel watched her daughter walk across the lawn and into 0:08:06.520 --> 0:08:09.640 that house. That was the last time she ever saw 0:08:09.680 --> 0:08:13.880 Clia alive. Of course, as we know with all these cases, 0:08:13.920 --> 0:08:17.400 everything becomes much more clear only in hindsight, and that's 0:08:17.440 --> 0:08:21.600 when these tiny details become so crucial. Laurel, when she 0:08:21.800 --> 0:08:25.640 was recalling what happened that afternoon, told reporters that Clia 0:08:25.720 --> 0:08:27.760 had been a little bit dazed after she got the 0:08:27.800 --> 0:08:30.480 call from Larry Amos because she was asleep on the couch. 0:08:31.360 --> 0:08:33.720 They jumped straight into the car and drove over to 0:08:33.720 --> 0:08:36.720 the Amos house. And because of that, because they were 0:08:36.840 --> 0:08:40.080 kind of rushed Clia forgot to grab her purse, which 0:08:40.120 --> 0:08:42.960 had her ID in it. So Cleah went to work 0:08:43.000 --> 0:08:46.280 that day with nos and no ID. Now, normally this 0:08:46.320 --> 0:08:48.040 would not have been a big deal since she was 0:08:48.040 --> 0:08:50.160 only supposed to be gone for a couple of hours, 0:08:50.600 --> 0:08:54.560 but later this would become very significant. Just to clarify, 0:08:54.720 --> 0:08:57.400 Clia did have a driver's license, but she didn't have 0:08:57.440 --> 0:09:00.160 her own car. And remember this was the pre cell 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:03.120 phone era. There were cell phones out there. We had 0:09:03.120 --> 0:09:05.480 gone from the big brick cell phones you see in 0:09:05.480 --> 0:09:08.640 eighties movies to the plastic flip phones, but they were 0:09:08.680 --> 0:09:11.560 super expensive and back then teens did not really have 0:09:11.600 --> 0:09:15.040 cell phones. So Clia and her mom had a routine. 0:09:15.400 --> 0:09:18.520 Clea would always call her mother from Larry Amos's landline 0:09:18.520 --> 0:09:20.080 when she was ready to be picked up from work. 0:09:20.720 --> 0:09:24.800 They did this every day. Normally, Clea would finish work 0:09:24.800 --> 0:09:27.560 at around eight thirty, Clio would look out the window 0:09:27.640 --> 0:09:30.560 and wait for her mom. Laurel would pull the car up, 0:09:30.640 --> 0:09:33.000 but generally would not honk the horn because she didn't 0:09:33.000 --> 0:09:35.320 want to wake people up. So then to get out 0:09:35.360 --> 0:09:38.200 of the garage, Clia would push the button the automatic 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:40.440 door would open, and then Clia would push it again. 0:09:40.760 --> 0:09:43.320 She knew exactly how to duck under that closing garage 0:09:43.360 --> 0:09:47.200 door without causing it to open back up. That night, 0:09:47.640 --> 0:09:50.080 the phone rang at the Hall house at eight pm. 0:09:50.480 --> 0:09:53.280 Laurel picked up the phone and it was Clea. Clia's 0:09:53.280 --> 0:09:56.800 brother also picked up the phone in the other room. 0:09:57.320 --> 0:09:59.520 Clia asked if anyone had called for her at home. 0:09:59.600 --> 0:10:02.480 Laurel said no, there were no messages. Clia said she 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:05.160 wasn't quite finished at work, but she would be done soon. 0:10:05.280 --> 0:10:07.600 She said she would call back in around thirty minutes 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:10.880 to get picked up. Laurel was reading on the couch. 0:10:11.360 --> 0:10:13.640 She drifted off to sleep with her book resting on 0:10:13.680 --> 0:10:17.000 her chest. Laurel was right next to the phone, but 0:10:17.080 --> 0:10:21.600 that phone never rang. Later police confirmed that because Clia's 0:10:21.600 --> 0:10:24.320 brothers were home too, no one heard the phone ring, 0:10:24.680 --> 0:10:27.480 so it's not like Laurella just slept through it. There 0:10:27.480 --> 0:10:31.080 were no other calls that night. Just before one am, 0:10:31.280 --> 0:10:34.080 Clia's dad, Willie, came into the house. He found his 0:10:34.120 --> 0:10:36.640 wife on the sofa and he woke her up. He 0:10:36.720 --> 0:10:40.480 asked where Clia was, and that's when Laurel realized she'd 0:10:40.520 --> 0:10:44.480 never gotten that call from Clia. She would later tell reporters. 0:10:44.520 --> 0:10:48.840 Immediately she felt sick. Laurel called Larry Amos's house and 0:10:48.880 --> 0:10:51.560 he picked up on the first ring. She told him 0:10:51.600 --> 0:10:54.040 Cleia hadn't come home that night and asked what time 0:10:54.120 --> 0:10:57.880 she left. Larry told Laurel he thought Clia left the 0:10:57.920 --> 0:11:00.200 house at around eight thirty, just like she normally did. 0:11:00.920 --> 0:11:03.560 He told her, hang on, I'll go check the time sheet. 0:11:04.360 --> 0:11:06.720 Then he said he had checked it and confirmed that, yes, 0:11:06.840 --> 0:11:10.080 Clia had signed out at eight thirty. He said that 0:11:10.160 --> 0:11:13.240 he assumed Clia had gotten into a car, but that 0:11:13.320 --> 0:11:17.160 he had not actually seen Clea leave the house. Larry 0:11:17.200 --> 0:11:19.320 said he heard the garage door open and close and 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:22.200 just assumed that Clia left as usual and that Laurel 0:11:22.240 --> 0:11:26.040 had picked her up. Larry told Laurel that Clia didn't 0:11:26.080 --> 0:11:28.240 tell him or his wife that she was leaving that night, 0:11:28.280 --> 0:11:32.440 which he did say was unlike her. Laurel Hall did 0:11:32.480 --> 0:11:35.640 not sleep that night. One part of her brain was 0:11:35.680 --> 0:11:38.800 probably trying to tell herself. Maybe Clia did meet a friend, 0:11:39.120 --> 0:11:40.960 maybe she made a plan and didn't want to tell 0:11:40.960 --> 0:11:44.040 her mom about it. But in her heart, she knew 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:48.240 something was very wrong, and because Clia was eighteen years old. 0:11:49.040 --> 0:11:51.600 Back then, police told her she had to wait twenty 0:11:51.640 --> 0:11:55.600 four hours to report her daughter missing. The next morning, 0:11:55.720 --> 0:11:58.040 Laurel told Clia's little brother to look for her at 0:11:58.040 --> 0:12:01.560 the high school they had band together, and her brother 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:04.280 didn't see her there, but he told his mom later 0:12:04.360 --> 0:12:06.360 that the seniors had gone to the elementary school that 0:12:06.440 --> 0:12:09.200 day for some kind of school trip, so he held out 0:12:09.240 --> 0:12:13.600 hope that maybe she was there. But by that afternoon, 0:12:14.120 --> 0:12:16.360 Clia's brother realized she was not in school, and he 0:12:16.440 --> 0:12:18.760 called his mother and told her she had never shown up. 0:12:20.240 --> 0:12:24.560 At that point, Laurel knew something bad had happened. Again, 0:12:24.640 --> 0:12:28.000 this was totally out of character for Clia. She and 0:12:28.040 --> 0:12:31.080 her husband Willie reported Clelia missing that afternoon at the 0:12:31.080 --> 0:12:36.080 Pine Bluff police department. As we have seen in so 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:39.400 many of these cases, at first, it seemed like the 0:12:39.440 --> 0:12:43.680 police were just not taking Clia's disappearance very seriously. According 0:12:43.680 --> 0:12:46.840 to the Hall family, the police seemed to treat Clea 0:12:46.880 --> 0:12:50.720 as a runaway. In fact, Laurel later told reporters that 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:54.280 police suggested Clia could have run away, possibly due to 0:12:54.280 --> 0:12:57.200 her hiding a secret from her parents. Maybe even they 0:12:57.240 --> 0:13:01.040 suggested the fact that Clea was pregnant. Laurel told police 0:13:01.040 --> 0:13:04.400 bluntly that Clea was on birth control. She actually was 0:13:04.440 --> 0:13:08.240 on an implanable contraceptive that was in her arm, and 0:13:08.360 --> 0:13:12.080 this kind of birth control has a very low failure rate. Plus, 0:13:12.240 --> 0:13:14.840 Cleia didn't have a boyfriend. And even if she was dating, 0:13:15.320 --> 0:13:17.920 Clea was a young woman who was looking to the future. 0:13:18.680 --> 0:13:21.040 This girl was not trying to get tied down in 0:13:21.080 --> 0:13:26.200 her hometown. Literally everything in her life suggested the opposite. 0:13:26.240 --> 0:13:29.720 She had everything to look forward to, graduation, her summer job, 0:13:29.800 --> 0:13:33.360 her full scholarship in Tennessee. Clea was happy. She was 0:13:33.400 --> 0:13:35.800 in a great mood in the days before her disappearance. 0:13:36.280 --> 0:13:39.280 If we're looking at victimology, there was literally nothing in 0:13:39.320 --> 0:13:41.800 her background or her profile that would suggest that she 0:13:41.800 --> 0:13:44.960 would run away for any reason. And finally, there were 0:13:45.000 --> 0:13:49.800 the circumstances surrounding her disappearance. Let's say that she was 0:13:50.000 --> 0:13:53.160 inexplicably going to run away from home. Why would she 0:13:53.360 --> 0:13:56.160 choose that day? Why would she leave the one day 0:13:56.280 --> 0:13:58.520 she forgot her purse that had her money and her 0:13:58.560 --> 0:14:03.080 ID in it. Detectives looked through CLA's diary. They saund 0:14:03.160 --> 0:14:06.960 nothing about boyfriends or problems or plans to leave town suddenly. 0:14:07.560 --> 0:14:09.800 In fact, the main thing Clia had in that diary 0:14:09.840 --> 0:14:13.040 was her work schedule. It was filled out months in advance. 0:14:14.320 --> 0:14:17.600 They were finally understanding Clea was not the type of 0:14:17.600 --> 0:14:20.720 person to skip worker school, and they began to believe 0:14:21.280 --> 0:14:27.800 that there had been foul play. Even early on in 0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:31.760 the investigation, Laurel and Willie started to feel suspicious about 0:14:31.800 --> 0:14:35.680 Clia's boss, Larry Amos. First of all, it struck Laurel 0:14:35.760 --> 0:14:39.480 as odd that on that first night when Clea was missing, 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:42.640 when Laurel called the Amos house, she thought it was 0:14:42.720 --> 0:14:46.120 weird that Larry Amos answered on the first ring. Now, 0:14:46.160 --> 0:14:48.680 he later told her that he was up in the 0:14:48.720 --> 0:14:53.840 next room watching TV. But if that was true, number one, 0:14:53.960 --> 0:14:56.280 why would he be up that late? And number two, 0:14:56.280 --> 0:14:58.480 why would he immediately pick up the phone on the 0:14:58.480 --> 0:15:00.480 work line? Why would he be sitting right next to 0:15:00.520 --> 0:15:03.520 the phone like that? And later she started to pick 0:15:03.600 --> 0:15:07.080 up what she believed were discrepancies in Larry Amos's description 0:15:07.520 --> 0:15:10.680 of what happened when Clea left the house. She thought 0:15:10.680 --> 0:15:12.880 it was a little off the fact that Larry said 0:15:12.880 --> 0:15:15.720 that he hadn't seen Clea leave because She said, Larry 0:15:15.760 --> 0:15:19.200 Amos always knew exactly who was coming and going at 0:15:19.200 --> 0:15:22.760 that property. Larry Amos was the last person to see 0:15:22.760 --> 0:15:26.720 Cleo live, but he wasn't being super cooperative with police. 0:15:27.520 --> 0:15:29.600 Police asked Larry if they could drop by so they 0:15:29.600 --> 0:15:31.880 could get a statement, but he said he was going 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:34.280 out of town on a business trip to Dallas. He 0:15:34.280 --> 0:15:36.720 said he would be gone for three days, so police 0:15:36.760 --> 0:15:38.840 would have to take his statement when he got back 0:15:38.880 --> 0:15:41.560 in town. He emphasized that he wanted to be there 0:15:41.600 --> 0:15:45.440 in person when police came to his house. Larry claimed 0:15:45.480 --> 0:15:48.080 he was buying tanning beds for a business idea he had, 0:15:48.760 --> 0:15:51.640 but it was later reported that he never bought those 0:15:51.680 --> 0:15:54.440 beds and he never opened any kind of tanning bed business, 0:15:55.440 --> 0:15:57.400 so a lot of people wondered did he have a 0:15:57.400 --> 0:16:01.520 different reason for going to Texas. Police asked Larry Amos 0:16:01.560 --> 0:16:04.800 to take a lot of detector test, Laurel said Larry 0:16:04.840 --> 0:16:07.680 claimed he was busy, and then later said police would 0:16:07.680 --> 0:16:09.600 have to talk to his attorneys if they wanted him 0:16:09.640 --> 0:16:12.080 to take a lot of detector test. By the way, 0:16:12.360 --> 0:16:16.120 I completely get this after what I've experienced with cases 0:16:16.160 --> 0:16:19.520 in Arkansas and elsewhere. I know that light detectors are 0:16:19.840 --> 0:16:23.400 completely dependent on the skill of the person giving the examination, 0:16:23.880 --> 0:16:27.600 and to be honest, I've seen several cases where people 0:16:27.640 --> 0:16:30.320 have taken light detector tests and the results have come 0:16:30.360 --> 0:16:34.000 back inconclusive or that they failed it, and later that 0:16:34.080 --> 0:16:37.120 person was proven to be completely innocent. So I get 0:16:37.200 --> 0:16:39.800 Larry Amos's reluctance to take a lot of detector test. 0:16:40.360 --> 0:16:43.480 What I don't get is that Larry Amos seemed totally 0:16:43.880 --> 0:16:46.920 concerned about Clia being missing and about being one of 0:16:46.920 --> 0:16:49.800 the last people to see her, and there were some 0:16:49.960 --> 0:16:53.120 other odd things that were happening that Laurel said did 0:16:53.160 --> 0:16:56.200 not seem to add up. For example, before Larry Amos 0:16:56.320 --> 0:16:59.560 left town, police did very briefly stop by his house, 0:17:00.160 --> 0:17:03.160 and when they did, apparently detectives went into that home office. 0:17:03.680 --> 0:17:07.200 They picked up the phone and hit redial on the phone. 0:17:07.360 --> 0:17:09.840 They wrote down the last number dialed on a scrap 0:17:09.880 --> 0:17:14.400 of paper and said it was someone named Smith. The 0:17:14.440 --> 0:17:16.960 police asked Larry Amos about that phone number if he 0:17:17.040 --> 0:17:19.760 recognized it, because they were thinking maybe Clia had made 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:22.680 a call from that home office landline and that might 0:17:22.720 --> 0:17:26.040 help explain who saw her last. Larry said he had 0:17:26.120 --> 0:17:29.040 no idea who that person was, but later it turned 0:17:29.080 --> 0:17:32.200 out that Smith this phone number was the phone number 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:36.680 for Larry Amos's kids babysitter. So then Laurel started wondering 0:17:36.960 --> 0:17:39.280 why would he claim not to know the phone number 0:17:39.320 --> 0:17:42.400 of someone that he and or his wife presumably called often. 0:17:43.080 --> 0:17:46.520 And also, if the babysitter was the last person called 0:17:46.960 --> 0:17:49.280 and he was sitting up late in that office, why 0:17:49.280 --> 0:17:51.400 would Larry or anyone else need to call up a 0:17:51.440 --> 0:17:56.120 babysitter after midnight. Laurel and Willie did not wait for 0:17:56.160 --> 0:17:59.520 the detectives to start searching for their daughter. They called 0:17:59.560 --> 0:18:02.920 Clia's friends and posted flowers everywhere around town, which they 0:18:02.960 --> 0:18:06.440 printed up themselves. Across the street from the Amos house 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:09.920 there are some woods. The volunteers searched there and also 0:18:10.120 --> 0:18:12.760 in the wooded area behind the house, and they did 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:14.960 what police should have done in the first place. They 0:18:15.040 --> 0:18:19.840 knocked on doors and pounded pavement. Finally, several days after 0:18:19.920 --> 0:18:25.000 Clia went missing, detectives started searching too very quickly. It 0:18:25.040 --> 0:18:27.760 seemed like there were a few possibilities being talked about here. 0:18:28.640 --> 0:18:31.480 The first possibility was that Clia left with someone in 0:18:31.520 --> 0:18:36.400 a car. This seemed extremely unlikely because Cleah had a 0:18:36.400 --> 0:18:38.000 plan for her mom to pick her up, and she 0:18:38.080 --> 0:18:40.960 had a regular routine. This was a Monday night, it 0:18:41.000 --> 0:18:42.560 was a school night, and even if she was going 0:18:42.640 --> 0:18:45.120 to leave with someone else, she would have called her mom. 0:18:45.200 --> 0:18:48.000 She knew her mom would be waiting for her. Remember, 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:50.000 Clia had already called her mom to tell her she 0:18:50.040 --> 0:18:52.200 would be done at work soon, so it would make 0:18:52.240 --> 0:18:54.360 no sense that she wouldn't call back and let her 0:18:54.400 --> 0:18:57.200 know that she was going to do something else. The 0:18:57.200 --> 0:19:00.800 second possibility was that Cleah walked home alone. In a 0:19:00.840 --> 0:19:03.920 documentary that later aired about the case on Oxygen, the 0:19:04.000 --> 0:19:07.240 journalist interviewed a friend of Clia's, another young woman who 0:19:07.320 --> 0:19:10.160 used to work for Larry Amos. The friend said that 0:19:10.240 --> 0:19:12.640 she was there the night when Clia went missing. She 0:19:12.800 --> 0:19:15.440 said she had offered Clia a ride home and Clia said, no, 0:19:15.480 --> 0:19:18.600 don't worry about it, that she was going to walk home. Now, 0:19:18.640 --> 0:19:21.520 this was a strange piece of information. I would love 0:19:21.600 --> 0:19:24.600 to find this young woman, this second person who said 0:19:24.600 --> 0:19:28.120 that they were there that night, because Laurel claims that 0:19:28.200 --> 0:19:30.760 she later clarified this girl was not in the house 0:19:30.800 --> 0:19:33.280 that night, that in fact, that young woman had not 0:19:33.440 --> 0:19:36.040 been working in the office for several months by the 0:19:36.040 --> 0:19:39.000 time Clia went missing, and she thinks that after this 0:19:39.120 --> 0:19:41.840 many years, the young woman just got confused in her memory. 0:19:42.160 --> 0:19:44.960 She thinks she was thinking about a different night. Laurel 0:19:45.160 --> 0:19:47.840 insists that the only people that she knows of who 0:19:47.840 --> 0:19:50.440 were in the house that night were doctor Larry Amos, 0:19:50.680 --> 0:19:54.800 his wife, and their small children. I just want to 0:19:54.840 --> 0:19:57.000 talk for a minute about the theory that Clea would 0:19:57.000 --> 0:20:00.040 have walked home alone. This would have been shortly after 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:01.880 eight thirty at night, so it would have been dusk, 0:20:02.000 --> 0:20:04.720 not full dark, but getting dark. And I just want 0:20:04.720 --> 0:20:07.520 to explain a little about Pine Bluff. As someone who 0:20:07.560 --> 0:20:09.280 grew up there, I can tell you it has a 0:20:09.360 --> 0:20:11.680 history of violent crime and it continues to be a 0:20:11.760 --> 0:20:15.160 dangerous place to live. Back in the nineties, it's really 0:20:15.200 --> 0:20:18.160 not an exaggeration to say that parts of Pine Bluff 0:20:18.240 --> 0:20:21.040 and other parts of South Arkansas were like war zones. 0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:23.520 There was even a series back in the nineties called 0:20:23.560 --> 0:20:25.840 Banging in Little Rock about the Crips and the Bloods 0:20:25.840 --> 0:20:27.680 and other gangs that were active in Little Rock in 0:20:27.720 --> 0:20:31.280 South Arkansas. In the nineties, the population of Pine Bluff 0:20:31.320 --> 0:20:35.160 was around sixty thousand, but per capita, it regularly ranks 0:20:35.200 --> 0:20:38.280 and the five most dangerous small towns in the United States. 0:20:39.000 --> 0:20:42.360 Everyone knows, and everyone knew back then, you do not 0:20:42.680 --> 0:20:46.000 go out walking in I'm left Arkansas after dark, and 0:20:46.120 --> 0:20:50.000 Laurel was very protective of Clia. She insisted her daughter 0:20:50.040 --> 0:20:52.920 would never walk home alone. She said she had only 0:20:52.960 --> 0:20:56.720 walked home alone once from Larry Amos's house, and on 0:20:56.880 --> 0:21:00.200 that instance, Clia's brother walked home with her, so Clia 0:21:00.320 --> 0:21:03.880 randomly deciding to walk home alone near dark is a 0:21:03.880 --> 0:21:08.680 remote possibility at best. Later, from Laurell's interviews, it's clear 0:21:08.920 --> 0:21:12.960 that Laurel becomes more suspicious of Larry Amos as a person. 0:21:13.680 --> 0:21:19.280 She talks about discussing Larry Amos with Clia, and Clia 0:21:19.360 --> 0:21:23.360 would talk about Larry Amos's business. Laurel said Clia had 0:21:23.400 --> 0:21:26.200 made comments to her about the fact that when she 0:21:26.200 --> 0:21:28.840 would get Larry Amos to sign the checks, a lot 0:21:28.880 --> 0:21:31.680 of them did not seem to be related to the nonprofit, 0:21:32.480 --> 0:21:35.040 and Clia sort of remarked that was a little weird, 0:21:35.080 --> 0:21:37.800 maybe a little shady, And she would talk about how 0:21:37.880 --> 0:21:41.360 Larry Amos was cheap, but never said anything about him 0:21:41.360 --> 0:21:45.360 being dangerous or violent in any way. Laurel started to 0:21:45.400 --> 0:21:48.600 become more suspicious as time went on, because when Larry 0:21:48.600 --> 0:21:50.880 Amos did talk to police after he got back from 0:21:50.920 --> 0:21:53.960 his Texas trip and gave them a formal statement, she 0:21:54.120 --> 0:21:57.480 said certain details of the story he told started to 0:21:57.600 --> 0:22:01.320 change from what he told her originally. In his third statement, 0:22:01.720 --> 0:22:03.920 he said that when Clia left, she had a can 0:22:04.000 --> 0:22:06.640 of peach pop meaning peach soda in her hand that 0:22:06.720 --> 0:22:09.600 his wife had given her. He said he saw Clea 0:22:09.680 --> 0:22:12.440 looking out the garage window. Yet when he talked to 0:22:12.480 --> 0:22:14.840 Laurel that first time, Larry Amos said he was nowhere 0:22:14.920 --> 0:22:18.360 near the garage. He had said, specifically that he'd just 0:22:18.480 --> 0:22:21.840 heard the door open and close. Now again, these details 0:22:21.920 --> 0:22:25.080 seemed to be tiny, but they could be hugely important. 0:22:26.080 --> 0:22:29.680 Two weeks after Clea disappeared, police finally went in to 0:22:29.680 --> 0:22:32.720 search the Amos house, and they made a major mistake 0:22:32.760 --> 0:22:35.560 here in my opinion, because they didn't get a search warrant. 0:22:36.160 --> 0:22:38.520 So when Larry Amos told them after a little while 0:22:38.560 --> 0:22:40.880 they had to stop the search, they had no legal 0:22:40.960 --> 0:22:43.120 right to stay there. They had to leave the house. 0:22:43.920 --> 0:22:47.040 So afterwards, when police said they found no signs of 0:22:47.040 --> 0:22:51.080 foul play. Laurel remained suspicious because it was obvious to 0:22:51.160 --> 0:22:53.920 her that even if something was in the house, the 0:22:54.000 --> 0:22:56.360 police didn't stay long enough to do a thorough enough 0:22:56.400 --> 0:22:59.960 search to find it. And also, Larry Amos had had 0:23:00.000 --> 0:23:01.960 a lot of time. He had a couple weeks at 0:23:01.960 --> 0:23:04.240 that point. He could have cleaned up anything with two 0:23:04.320 --> 0:23:08.280 whole weeks to do it. And then another bizarre thing 0:23:08.400 --> 0:23:13.960 started to happen. Several people, including Laurel's husband Willie, saw 0:23:14.040 --> 0:23:19.400 Larry Amos tearing down Clia's missing posters. Laurel and Willie 0:23:19.640 --> 0:23:21.680 did a little bit of their own detective work on 0:23:21.760 --> 0:23:25.360 Larry Amos. They reached out to his ex wife, Christine, 0:23:27.080 --> 0:23:30.320 and this is a strange story. They arranged to meet 0:23:30.400 --> 0:23:34.440 up with Christine in person. They noticed that Christine seemed 0:23:34.480 --> 0:23:37.480 to be very nervous, and there was a man across 0:23:37.520 --> 0:23:39.360 the street who was taking pictures of them while they're 0:23:39.360 --> 0:23:43.200