Speaker 1: I figure out what we're gonna talk about here, it's
Speaker 1: gonna take the interview. You've been County Sheriff's office times
Speaker 1: approximately nineteen minutes till twelve. President Ernest interviews myself, Detective
Speaker 1: Blankenship at the County Sheriff's office and Detective Arnorming with
Speaker 1: the television branch of the Sheriff's office.
Speaker 2: And we're talking to he's a white male.
Speaker 1: We served you what is called the prosecutor subpoena, and
Speaker 1: at that time you had agreed to come to the
Speaker 1: Sheriff's office and answer some questions and ask some if
Speaker 1: you want to. During that time, you also give us
Speaker 1: consent to search on your big Is that correct?
Speaker 2: You don't pick up a nunn? Is okay.
Speaker 3: During the summer of twenty twenty three, I spoke with
Speaker 3: a source about a b CSO suspect and Danas Didam's murder.
Speaker 3: The man I am calling Jack Lenny, who in my
Speaker 3: mind was the only suspect anyone needed to focus on
Speaker 3: and either eliminate or go after with everything I had.
Speaker 3: My source mentioned a recorded interview with BCSO detectives conducted
Speaker 3: with Lenny in the early nineteen nineties that I needed
Speaker 3: to hear and.
Speaker 2: Also your advised your rights. Did you understand your right? Yes?
Speaker 2: Was there any questions that you want to ask us me?
Speaker 2: Did you? Did you understand your rights?
Speaker 3: The more I had found out about Lenny, the more
Speaker 3: he fit into being the prime suspect in danist Didam's murder,
Speaker 3: and as I spoke to investigators who worked on SHAWNA.
Speaker 3: Grayte Garber's murder, Lenny's name was very much at the
Speaker 3: forefront of that investigation as well. And Jack Lenny, well,
Speaker 3: he knew it.
Speaker 2: Did you understand your rights?
Speaker 1: I'm well, I need the lawyer is now I wonder
Speaker 1: what that stop?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 4: Know?
Speaker 2: And that's for the lawyer.
Speaker 1: That's something you'll have to consider. What I want to
Speaker 1: go through is that you understood your rights? Why you're
Speaker 1: saying that now?
Speaker 2: Yes? If you don't want to answer any questions, you don't,
Speaker 2: that's totally. It's very baffled because other than know why
Speaker 2: I'm here.
Speaker 1: Proof, it's going to that oh see, okay, And if
Speaker 1: anytime you want to stop this interview and do what
Speaker 1: you think is right, like I said, you're not under
Speaker 1: wrist but anytime you want to stop, just say stop.
Speaker 1: You know, you're you're a free man, you're not under wrist,
Speaker 1: and you can go and come as you please. You
Speaker 1: want a glass of water, go get a coat, go
Speaker 1: to lunch. Okay, operate with Yes, I don't know why
Speaker 1: I'm here. Well, that's that's why we're going to get
Speaker 1: into it as we go on. And look, Well, I
Speaker 1: want to do is is ask you some background questions,
Speaker 1: and I want to go back, you know, say, four
Speaker 1: five years something like that, find out where all you've
Speaker 1: lived and what all you've done, and to remember that
Speaker 1: far back.
Speaker 3: The one consistent observation about this guy I had heard,
Speaker 3: beyond him being a serial sexual harasser or even worse,
Speaker 3: is that he's one cold son of a bitch who
Speaker 3: knows how to play the system. Facts that became increasingly
Speaker 3: more implicit throughout this old interview.
Speaker 2: You got a company car back in or company trailer?
Speaker 2: What was that? Hell, y'all? Pick up? What come? Was?
Speaker 4: All?
Speaker 2: Right? I think I remember it?
Speaker 5: You topper on it?
Speaker 3: If that was hard to hear on this time warrant ape,
Speaker 3: he says yes to the camper question. In fact, photos
Speaker 3: I obtained of this vehicle matched the exact description of
Speaker 3: the vehicle. Parked behind Dana's car on the morning after
Speaker 3: she was reported missing.
Speaker 1: Want's you tell me about the cars you've own him
Speaker 1: since this Ranger you've got right now?
Speaker 2: How long he had it now? After? I told that, yeah,
Speaker 2: not too much after.
Speaker 3: It's hard to understand his answer because he mumbles, is that.
Speaker 2: Back in nineteen ninety when you wreck the torioder? How
Speaker 2: very couldn't David? That sounds about right.
Speaker 3: All this discussion about his vehicles was small talk for
Speaker 3: detectives who were just looking to gauge his level of
Speaker 3: participation and transparency. They had already pulled the history from
Speaker 3: the Motor Vehicle Department to see which makes and models
Speaker 3: of vehicles he owned and when?
Speaker 2: How long do you have that one with Toyota?
Speaker 1: I was thinking about, it's a lot of time would
Speaker 1: you have before that one?
Speaker 2: Soon? Truck?
Speaker 4: And uh so?
Speaker 2: Science Cameron on cameras on the shell or.
Speaker 3: The amount of time he took to answer what are
Speaker 3: essentially basic questions, spoke to how carefully he was thinking
Speaker 3: about what to say. At one point, he mentions an
Speaker 3: accident he was in back in the early eighties, which
Speaker 3: he claimed had caused a traumatic brain injury. Danny Varner,
Speaker 3: the detective you here most prominently in the recordings, pushed
Speaker 3: him on it, but he refused to give any specifics.
Speaker 3: They moved on to his employment history during the time
Speaker 3: of Dana's abduction and murder. He not only worked within
Speaker 3: a mile of where Dana's body was found, but witness
Speaker 3: statements support how he had been sexually harassing women at
Speaker 3: the nearby Ozark Beverage company, which, if you recall from
Speaker 3: an earlier episode, was just up the road from the
Speaker 3: Stidham crime scene.
Speaker 1: Yours nineties. Yes, y'all still married? Yes, bit separated? No,
Speaker 1: still lived together.
Speaker 2: Sometimes you can explain that to him, he said.
Speaker 3: They split their time between two different states, where he
Speaker 3: lived in Arkansas and the state where she lived.
Speaker 2: Get married previously to her first marriage? Right, I went
Speaker 2: to her married beforeios.
Speaker 3: They pressed him for his wife's first name and address,
Speaker 3: simple things. What does he do? He plays the stupid card,
Speaker 3: of course, then recalled that she likely lived somewhere in
Speaker 3: the Southwest. He had one daughter with her, he says,
Speaker 3: but hadn't seen her in many, many years. Guess why
Speaker 3: exactly he was getting weird with her too?
Speaker 2: Does she give him around here an hour? No? Appreciate.
Speaker 3: Then they casually snuck in additional questions about his vehicle
Speaker 3: and a timeline associated with Dana's murder.
Speaker 2: You lived over here at these harvests, Wright Camber.
Speaker 3: He nodded yes to the question. The point of this
Speaker 3: short interview was to rattle Lenny and lock down a
Speaker 3: few specifics. Beyond that, they wanted to get a feel
Speaker 3: for his overall demeanor. See how cocky he was. In
Speaker 3: other words, as an investigator conducted an initial interview like this,
Speaker 3: you allow the suspect to think he is in control.
Speaker 3: The BCSO walked away from that short interview with two
Speaker 3: major tasks ahead to find and speak to Lenny's ex
Speaker 3: wife and daughter and begin to draft, secure and execute
Speaker 3: two search warrants, one for his house and of course
Speaker 3: a second for his vehicles. Previously on paper ghosts.
Speaker 1: If you've got a child and you send him and
Speaker 1: take care of the keys and all this, and send
Speaker 1: him to school and everything, you.
Speaker 4: Keep crack from your child. And the part that bothered
Speaker 4: me for years was so if somebody didn't report or missing,
Speaker 4: I want.
Speaker 1: You to talk to this man.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 5: I had no idea that he has something to offer,
Speaker 5: but he was here the night that he heard this.
Speaker 5: But I'm looking at my emails and it says Laurie
Speaker 5: me Grace, and she was nice. I didn't know her
Speaker 5: by Anna knew her, and she looked exactly like what
Speaker 5: I thought she would look like. And I just knew
Speaker 5: that this is funny.
Speaker 2: Who she is?
Speaker 3: My name is em William Phelps. I'm an investigative journalist
Speaker 3: and author of more than forty true crime books. This
Speaker 3: is season four of Paper Ghosts the Ozarks. It had
Speaker 3: taken thirty years to identify Grace Dowe and learn her
Speaker 3: name Shauna Garber, three decades. In that sense, technology had
Speaker 3: caught up to Shawna's case, the same as it had
Speaker 3: in so many cold cases we see today. But if
Speaker 3: Detective Laurie Howard, Sheriff Rob Evenson, and Detective Ronda Wise
Speaker 3: thought identifying Shawna was caused for celebration, the reality of
Speaker 3: the road ahead became abundantly clear right away, because as
Speaker 3: they began searching for information about her, it seemed as
Speaker 3: if well SHAWNA. Garber had never existed to begin with.
Speaker 2: Okay, so who is Shauna Garber?
Speaker 5: That's a good question, because she had a tough go
Speaker 5: as a little girl. She her mother had some issues
Speaker 5: and she was burned as a child to her mother's
Speaker 5: or her mother willfully earned her. So she went into
Speaker 5: foster care. But I think that she might have been
Speaker 5: bounced around for a little bit and even in the
Speaker 5: foster care system, and then of course eventually she aged out.
Speaker 5: So she lost her relationships with her bio family and
Speaker 5: also with her step family, and then she ultimately lost
Speaker 5: the relationships with her foster family. And so she goes
Speaker 5: out on the street.
Speaker 4: She does.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and she's eighteen at that time. Yeah, she's on
Speaker 5: her own now, I say, on her own. I think
Speaker 5: she had a boyfriend at the time. I don't know
Speaker 5: the nature of that relationship. I'm told it's difficult to
Speaker 5: find any type of information on him at this point.
Speaker 6: How does she end up in McDonald County.
Speaker 5: I can surmise how that happened. I can't tell you factually.
Speaker 5: But she was actually working in Joplin, Missouri, but she
Speaker 5: was living in Coffeevill, Kansas, and she was making that
Speaker 5: commute from Coffeevill, Kansas to Joplin, Missouri and back.
Speaker 2: And what kind of job was it that she was working,
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I contacted Shawna's brother, Robert Ringwald, and started by asking
Speaker 3: him where they grew up.
Speaker 7: We lived in several different places, that is mostly in
Speaker 7: eastern Kansas between Tapeka and Iole, Okay.
Speaker 3: And what was the house like the family like at
Speaker 3: the time as kids?
Speaker 7: At that time, it was our biological mother and my
Speaker 7: older brother, myself and Shauna.
Speaker 3: What was Shauna like then?
Speaker 7: She was singing happy quite a bit.
Speaker 5: You know what did she like to do?
Speaker 2: Play?
Speaker 7: I don't don't remember. You know, an awful lot. We
Speaker 7: used to play in the yard together and stuff.
Speaker 3: So you and Shauna were taken away from your mom. Yes,
Speaker 3: tell me a little bit about that. So how old
Speaker 3: were you?
Speaker 5: Uh?
Speaker 4: Six?
Speaker 7: And she would have been four.
Speaker 3: This was about the same time as you heard in
Speaker 3: the last episode that Shawna's mother horribly disfigured her own
Speaker 3: little girl. It's hard to talk about this sort of abuse,
Speaker 3: but it's what Shauna and her family went through. Her
Speaker 3: mother poured lighter fluid on her, lit a match and
Speaker 3: set the girl on fire. While she would never be
Speaker 3: the same, she was removed from the situation. It was
Speaker 3: also the moment in Shauna's life when she became part
Speaker 3: of the revolving door of the foster care system. So
Speaker 3: did you stay in contact with her?
Speaker 7: No, we weren't allowed to. I wasn't allowed to. She
Speaker 7: was removed from several foster homes because our mother would
Speaker 7: interfere with everything. I mean to the point she even
Speaker 7: threatened to kill one foster family's kids.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 7: Yeah, she was evil.
Speaker 3: And so as time goes on, do you ever see
Speaker 3: Shauna again?
Speaker 7: I saw our birthday after we were taken. We were
Speaker 7: taken to a SRS office or something like that and
Speaker 7: celebrate our birthdays. And then saw her one time after
Speaker 7: that in court when they severed our mother's parental rights.
Speaker 7: And I never saw her again.
Speaker 3: And how come they severed the parental rights.
Speaker 7: Because our mother was an evil, vindictive spawn of health.
Speaker 3: And then what did you hear about her as the
Speaker 3: years go on?
Speaker 2: Not very much.
Speaker 7: We were trying to keep everything about her a secret
Speaker 7: from everybody so that our biological mother wouldn't find her.
Speaker 8: I see.
Speaker 3: And so time moves on. You grow into an adult,
Speaker 3: and I guess you sent some letters to Shanna. Can
Speaker 3: you tell me about that?
Speaker 7: Yeah? I wrote two letters and I gave them to
Speaker 7: the social worker. One was for them to give to her.
Speaker 7: Writ way couldn't get anything but my first name in
Speaker 7: it and nothing other than that, you know, just tell
Speaker 7: her that you know, I was out here and I was,
Speaker 7: you know, looking forward to meeting her. And then the
Speaker 7: second one was formed to give to her after she
Speaker 7: turned eighteen and had my name, you know, my full name,
Speaker 7: my contact information, you know, how she could get a
Speaker 7: hold of me, you know, letting her know that if
Speaker 7: she wanted to meet me, that I was here and
Speaker 7: wanted to see her.
Speaker 3: And you were confident that the social worker would forward
Speaker 3: those letters to Shawna. Right, so I was. And then
Speaker 3: what happened?
Speaker 7: They were put in a drawer somewhere and left, never
Speaker 7: given to her.
Speaker 3: It was as if a series of tragic events beginning
Speaker 3: almost on the day she was born, culminated in Shawna's murder.
Speaker 3: Imagine the frustration, horror, and emotional trauma Rob felt when
Speaker 3: he discovered that those letters never made it to Shawna,
Speaker 3: all because some incompetent, lazy social worker forgot or just
Speaker 3: chose not to forward them. Which leads me to wonder
Speaker 3: if Shauna had gotten those letters, if she had known
Speaker 3: there was someone out there who cared for her, loved her,
Speaker 3: and wanted a relationship with her. Would I be talking
Speaker 3: about her now as a murder victim. I've heard it
Speaker 3: said that tragedy and life are inseparable. I think maybe
Speaker 3: inevitable is a better word. We can't avoid pain, yet
Speaker 3: we do put policies and programs in place and the
Speaker 3: hope that preventable tragedies stemming from the ugliest side of
Speaker 3: our humanity are avoided. But even those policies and programs
Speaker 3: can sometimes fail us. As I continued talking to Detective
Speaker 3: Lorie Howard, the idea that Shanna Garber got swallowed up
Speaker 3: by the system, the same system that contributed in some
Speaker 3: ways to her death, hovered over our conversation, which makes
Speaker 3: investigating her murder that much more difficult from both an
Speaker 3: emotional and practical standpoint.
Speaker 6: It's hard to do victimology. It's hard to find people
Speaker 6: who knew her right correct.
Speaker 5: And even more so if you are a child, which
Speaker 5: I now have hindsight, but if you're a childhood's growing
Speaker 5: up in the foster care system because she's not reported missing,
Speaker 5: so you can't go through a database of missing people
Speaker 5: in your area, or even missing people in a four
Speaker 5: state area because she's not there now. Later I learned
Speaker 5: that supposedly she had been reported missing by the boyfriend
Speaker 5: in Joblin, Missouri, but there's no.
Speaker 3: Record of it. I wondered if that elusive boyfriend had
Speaker 3: ever been considered a suspect in her murder.
Speaker 5: I think you have to always you kind of work
Speaker 5: from the victim out and the people that are closest
Speaker 5: to them, And certainly the boyfriend is where a paramour
Speaker 5: of any sort it would be where you would start.
Speaker 5: But I don't know that that could really easily or
Speaker 5: readily be developed because the boyfriend, again is we took off,
Speaker 5: he took off, and he's not there, and we're not
Speaker 5: sure where he is or even if he's alive.
Speaker 3: So as an unsolved murder, this is a very difficult case,
Speaker 3: right it is.
Speaker 9: It's extremely difficult, but it's not impossible. None of them
Speaker 9: were impossible. It was impossible, we'd probably stop trying. But
Speaker 9: this can be solved, and it will be. It's just
Speaker 9: a matter of keep plugging away.
Speaker 5: I mean, we started with nothing, and now we know
Speaker 5: who she is, so that's probably ninety percent of it is.
Speaker 4: Knowing who she is.
Speaker 5: We will continue to put things back to the lab
Speaker 5: and retest and as new technology comes along.
Speaker 6: Now, was this case looked at as possibly tied to
Speaker 6: data Stidham's case.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, And the reason for that is because they are
Speaker 5: similar in appearance, but they are also similar geographically, and
Speaker 5: the timeline is really close. You're looking at that eighty
Speaker 5: nine to ninety in years. So when you begin to
Speaker 5: put people together, you look, okay, geographically, how do they look?
Speaker 5: Are they similar in nature? Do they have anything in common?
Speaker 5: And then your timeline and the way they're found and
Speaker 5: the way they're fan Absolutely, now Dana, and again Dana
Speaker 5: was tied, not not to this degree, but she was
Speaker 5: certainly bound. She had the same colored hair, which is
Speaker 5: kind of a dark auburn hair. There's a group of
Speaker 5: women in this area that are that have been found
Speaker 5: that are similar in their appearance.
Speaker 3: How do you even begin to solve a murder? Better yet, too,
Speaker 3: if one is connected to the other when you know
Speaker 3: so very little about your victim. This was a problem
Speaker 3: for the McDonald County Sheriff's Office and its ability to
Speaker 3: begin building a profile of Shawna's killer if they have
Speaker 3: no idea about Shawna's movements near the time of her death,
Speaker 3: it becomes almost impossible to nail down not only those
Speaker 3: who might have known her, but the events leading up
Speaker 3: to her death. Hair Sheriff Rob Evenson.
Speaker 10: Remember, you're going back to nineteen eighty nine, nineteen ninety
Speaker 10: and there's not We have not been able to find
Speaker 10: those electronic those records of that. So when after she
Speaker 10: ages out of the foster system at age eighteen, there's
Speaker 10: not a whole lot that we've been able to find.
Speaker 10: She didn't have a lot of presence that left any
Speaker 10: kind of tangible record that we've been able to find.
Speaker 10: Like friends, correct, yes, friends, We were able to identify
Speaker 10: a former boyfriend, but the best information we have is
Speaker 10: that those two had broken up quite some time before
Speaker 10: she would have ended up here in McDonald County.
Speaker 6: Was there any indication that she was into drugs or
Speaker 6: that scene or anything like that.
Speaker 10: We believe so, But if you ask us how certain
Speaker 10: we are, I couldn't tell you that we were one
Speaker 10: hundred percent, But yes, the likelihood is there.
Speaker 6: Yet, did you begin to maybe think that her case
Speaker 6: was connected to some of the other cases in the
Speaker 6: area at all, because.
Speaker 3: There certainly was a lot of cases during that time.
Speaker 10: Yes, I mean, anytime you have an unsolved homiside, you
Speaker 10: always look for other connections to other similar cases. So
Speaker 10: of course that was one of the things. There were
Speaker 10: so many leads that were run down and followed. So yes,
Speaker 10: I mean, there are other unsolved cases in this area,
Speaker 10: so that is something that we always would look into.
Speaker 10: But I don't know that we had any direct evidence
Speaker 10: that would connect her to anybody else or any other case.
Speaker 3: I asked Detective Lorie Howard about a cause of death
Speaker 3: if they were ever able to find out. The speculation
Speaker 3: is strangulation based on all the bindings and cords and
Speaker 3: ropes found. Now you may wonder how law enforcement could
Speaker 3: possibly prove a skeletonized murder victim was strangled to death.
Speaker 3: After all, a pathologist cannot inspect bruising around the neck area,
Speaker 3: other soft tissue, or look for signs of particual hemorrhage,
Speaker 3: burst blood vessels in the eyes. But there's a delicate
Speaker 3: bone called the hyoid in our throats that, when compressed
Speaker 3: during strangulation, usually snaps. So was Shawna's hyoid bone actually broken?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 5: The answer to that is no, we believe very strongly
Speaker 5: that she was strangled, just because she was badly decomposed.
Speaker 5: Her body was strewn across the lawn from animals and
Speaker 5: the natural process of decomposition. But we believe that she
Speaker 5: wasn't stabbed because normally and that type of thing, if
Speaker 5: you hit a bone, you might have a chip, and
Speaker 5: that wasn't necessarily there. The skeleton was intact, so you're
Speaker 5: not looking at blunt force trauma. We didn't see anything
Speaker 5: like that. Really, there was nothing to tell us that
Speaker 5: there was any sort of trauma to person eletal remains.
Speaker 5: So we believe she was more than likely strangled, and
Speaker 5: I think that the bindings would support that.
Speaker 6: So the how she's found is very important.
Speaker 5: Right, it is, absolutely It tells you a great deal.
Speaker 10: Tell me about that.
Speaker 5: The crime scene essentially is your first picture of what happened,
Speaker 5: and so you can determine a lot obviously from that.
Speaker 5: Was there, what first trauma, how was she left, was
Speaker 5: she clothed, what clothing was missing? How long has she
Speaker 5: been there? And because she was bound in the manner
Speaker 5: that she was bound and how was she bound, she
Speaker 5: was essentially what we call hoptide, which is your hands,
Speaker 5: your wrists are bound behind your back and that then
Speaker 5: is bound to your feet, and in her case it
Speaker 5: was bound to a shoelace and only one shoelace, so
Speaker 5: she had massive amounts of bindings.
Speaker 3: What about the towel wrapped around Shawna's head with kowak cable,
Speaker 3: what did it mean?
Speaker 5: Normally that would tell you that he wants to cover
Speaker 5: He either one didn't want to see the look on
Speaker 5: his victim if she was alive at the time, and
Speaker 5: or he wants to cover something up. And so it's
Speaker 5: it's almost exactly what you would think it is. They
Speaker 5: and I've heard this from more than one serial killer actually,
Speaker 5: and I'm not suggesting that's the case with Shauna, but
Speaker 5: we don't know, but they do tend to not want
Speaker 5: to see the look on their victims those.
Speaker 10: Yeah, strangulation is very personal, it is.
Speaker 5: It is, indeed, if you're that close to someone, as
Speaker 5: opposed to just saying having shot someone from a distance.
Speaker 5: So it tells you a lot about the relationship. Generally powered,
Speaker 5: it tells you a lot about power.
Speaker 3: Still, three letters, yes, letters loomed large in my mind.
Speaker 4: B t K.
Speaker 3: At this stage my search for answers, I needed to
Speaker 3: either include or exclude Dennis Raider from Shawna's murder. If
Speaker 3: Jack Lenny was to be viewed as a potential suspect
Speaker 3: in Dana's and Shawna's cases, bt K had to be
Speaker 3: taken out of the equation. And there was only one
Speaker 3: person I knew of who could speak as the authority
Speaker 3: about Dennis Raider and his possible involvement in both cases.
Speaker 2: Well, that was part of my I guess, my witch
Speaker 2: Calt fantasy. These people were selected. A strangled missus o'toll,
Speaker 2: then she went out or passed out. I thought she
Speaker 2: was dead. She passed out. Then I strangled Josephine.
Speaker 1: She passed out or I thought she was dead, and
Speaker 1: then I went over and put a bag on Junior's head.
Speaker 3: That, right there is who BTK is. The affect says
Speaker 3: it all cold, stark, stoic, but very real. He is
Speaker 3: talking there about murdering a family. But the takeaway from me,
Speaker 3: I think, is that BTK is a serial killer, unafraid
Speaker 3: to talk about who he has killed. In September twenty
Speaker 3: twenty three, o Sage County, Oklahoma Sheriff Eddie Verdon announced
Speaker 3: the formation of a BTK Task Force. This was in
Speaker 3: relation to two specific victims. The sheriff was looking to
Speaker 3: bring Dennis Rader into a grand jury on murder charges
Speaker 3: for Cynthia Kinney, a nineteen seventy six unsolved Thomis Side,
Speaker 3: and SHAWNA. Garber. The local Oklahoma district attorney, Mike Fisher,
Speaker 3: felt differently. Fact the guy came out swinging, saying there
Speaker 3: was not enough evidence to prove Verdin's theorem or press
Speaker 3: charges against BTK. Verdon persisted, releasing a sketch Raider had
Speaker 3: recently made of a woman bound hogtide and sitting on
Speaker 3: a chair leaning up against a barn. Barnes played a
Speaker 3: profound role in raiders murder fantasies. Some in law enforcement
Speaker 3: believe the barn close to where Shauna Garber was found
Speaker 3: had to be somehow connected to her murder. I reached
Speaker 3: out to the one person who knows BTK, in my opinion,
Speaker 3: better than anyone, but had also studied SHAWNA. Garber's case.
Speaker 4: I'm doctor Catherine Ramsland. I'm a professor of forensic psychology,
Speaker 4: and i am a writer. I've written about seventy plus books,
Speaker 4: many of them on extreme offenders.
Speaker 3: In twenty sixteen, doctor Ramsland published the book Confessions of
Speaker 3: a serial killer, the untold story of Dennis Rader, the
Speaker 3: BTK killer. So how and when did you come across
Speaker 3: Seanna Garber's case?
Speaker 4: Maybe a couple of years ago someone had mentioned it
Speaker 4: and talked about is there these were cold cases in
Speaker 4: this area, like the whole state, and she was on
Speaker 4: a list, and somebody mentioned maybe there was some kind
Speaker 4: of association with Dennis Rader. So that of course got
Speaker 4: me interested.
Speaker 3: That interest in what is a longer story of a
Speaker 3: woman doctor Ramsland met and how her book was born
Speaker 3: turned into prison visits, telephone calls and letters between her
Speaker 3: and BTK. The book she produced with Rader is a
Speaker 3: kind of BTK confession manifesto.
Speaker 4: It was a very intense journey, and I always wondered
Speaker 4: if there might be are the victims. So when the
Speaker 4: grays Doe case came up, I wanted to see if
Speaker 4: there were any potential.
Speaker 3: Links to the dismay of many involved. Raider was suddenly
Speaker 3: thrust into the number one slot for Shawna's case. As
Speaker 3: of late twenty twenty three, I had it on solid
Speaker 3: law enforcement authority that Raider had no connection to Shawna's murder.
Speaker 3: I also uncovered information about a suspect other than Jack
Speaker 3: Lenny for Shawna's case, which I will delve into more
Speaker 3: deeply in the next few episodes. Here's how doctor Ramslin
Speaker 3: describes Raider's very distinctive m a invaluable insight into one
Speaker 3: of the darkest minds of the past half century.
Speaker 4: Well, first, he chose his own moniker behind them, torture them,
Speaker 4: kill them BTK, So that signals right off the bat
Speaker 4: he's after is he wants that binding thing that was
Speaker 4: highly erotic to him. He's actually compelled serial killer. The
Speaker 4: torture probably not so much, even though that would sort
Speaker 4: of what he wanted to achieve was to terrorize Wichita,
Speaker 4: his hometown. He murdered ten people between nineteen seventy four
Speaker 4: and nineteen ninety one, always with some kind of bondage
Speaker 4: aspect to it, because that would satisfy him. So if
Speaker 4: there's mo to be had, it's really the idea that
Speaker 4: he used some kind of bindings in each of his cases.
Speaker 4: But he started by going into houses, picking out houses.
Speaker 4: Usually they had a number three or some kind of
Speaker 4: number that three would be divided into like a six
Speaker 4: or nine, because three was a big deal to him.
Speaker 4: It's a magical number.
Speaker 3: As doctor Ramsland points out, Raider was meticulous and methodical.
Speaker 3: His murders very much fantasy driven, but also torture could
Speaker 3: have been involved.
Speaker 4: So he'd check out houses. He'd enter a lot of
Speaker 4: them where people weren't home, just to prove I guess
Speaker 4: that he could. And he was a voyeur. He stalked people.
Speaker 4: He found out about his victims typically, so usually had
Speaker 4: plenty of time to check out how safe it was,
Speaker 4: I mean, he was married, her job on the side,
Speaker 4: I guess, and so it was he had to do
Speaker 4: this when he had opportunities, so that if that's mo,
Speaker 4: I mean, he went in. But then later he took
Speaker 4: two of his victims out of the house, one of
Speaker 4: which he posed in a church for pictures and various
Speaker 4: items of lingerie he had stolen from other women, and
Speaker 4: the other one he had meant to take to a barn,
Speaker 4: an abandoned barn, which is instrumental in what we're talking about,
Speaker 4: because that had always been a fantasy of his, is
Speaker 4: to murder somebody in an old barn, And he had
Speaker 4: already picked out some abandoned farmsteads around Wichita. But he
Speaker 4: lost his way that night because it was snow, he
Speaker 4: had boggy, so he dumped her under like a culvert
Speaker 4: kind of bridge instead. But that and so that really
Speaker 4: breaks his mo.
Speaker 3: If you noticed, the term mo or modus operandi is
Speaker 3: not something doctor Ramsln sounds all that excited about linking
Speaker 3: to BTK or any serial killer for that matter. And
Speaker 3: I'd have to agree serial killers can and will change
Speaker 3: their mo from murder to murder. I believe there is
Speaker 3: no typical serial killer, as much as the public wants
Speaker 3: to believe there is. Base done the very small sample
Speaker 3: we see routinely on television.
Speaker 4: He didn't enter her home, but he entered her home
Speaker 4: very differently than he had and this is number ten.
Speaker 4: He entered her home very differently than he had any
Speaker 4: of the others he broke in. He lifted a cinder
Speaker 4: block and just through it through a sliding door, breaking
Speaker 4: the glass, which he'd never done before. But he used
Speaker 4: his typical ruse, I'm just here on a fugitive blah
Speaker 4: blah blah, don't worry, because he always believed if you
Speaker 4: put them at ease that they would survive. That would
Speaker 4: make them obviously more vulnerable and easier to manage. And
Speaker 4: then he put her in her car. He always had
Speaker 4: this thing with the people's cars, and that's always part
Speaker 4: of his MO as well. So it's hard to say MO.
Speaker 4: He certainly didn't have the same MO, but he had
Speaker 4: there were similarities from one thing to another, even when
Speaker 4: the MOO changed.
Speaker 3: He didn't rape any of his victims, right, He did
Speaker 3: not rape any of his victims. And what was his
Speaker 3: thought process behind that? If the crimes were sexual to him?
Speaker 3: What was going on with him?
Speaker 4: Well, you can have a sexual crime without necessarily having
Speaker 4: any kind of sexual penetration. It can like, for example,
Speaker 4: he hanged an eleven year old girl in the Otaro
Speaker 4: case and masturbated onto her. Okay, so that's not rape physically,
Speaker 4: but it's certainly, you know, a veryous sexual crime. He
Speaker 4: masturbated in a couple of others using their lingerie. But
Speaker 4: in many ways the binding was really about himself. He
Speaker 4: would bind himself in a lot of auto erotic kinds
Speaker 4: of incidents, So he'd take the items that he had
Speaker 4: removed from the victims and fantasize about them while he
Speaker 4: was having an auto erotic event.
Speaker 3: BTK dehumanized and degraded his victims. It was a very
Speaker 3: important part of the psychology, however, twisted driving his murders.
Speaker 4: So for him it was really reliving it. He had
Speaker 4: these motel parties where he take dolls and pictures and
Speaker 4: drawings he had made of the victims to relive it.
Speaker 4: And so he had this odd notion that if he
Speaker 4: raped his victims it was somehow unfaithful to his wife. Wow,
Speaker 4: and yeah, it's an odd kind of mindset that certain
Speaker 4: things and he's not going to cross the line, but
Speaker 4: other things more extreme he will. Like when he first
Speaker 4: started working with me, one of the earliest things he
Speaker 4: said was we're going to start playing chess by mail,
Speaker 4: and he said, don't cheat. I thought, well, what what there?
Speaker 4: You a serial killer moralized to me? Yes, but that's
Speaker 4: you'll see that in a number of these killers, or
Speaker 4: they have these these kind of odd compartments where they
Speaker 4: certain things are okay and other things are not okay.
Speaker 3: And did he use the same type of bindings in
Speaker 3: each of his murders.
Speaker 4: He liked to experiment sometimes because he was reading either
Speaker 4: a novel about a serial killer or some true crime case,
Speaker 4: and he sometimes would like to experiment. For example, getting
Speaker 4: back to m he strangled each of the Otaro's, but
Speaker 4: the next victim he stabbed, and he found that he
Speaker 4: didn't like stabbing, so he then went back to strangulation.
Speaker 4: And sometimes he'd use the cord, but he always bound them.
Speaker 4: Sometimes he used that duct tape. He had some thick rope.
Speaker 4: He had some like Venetian cord, a parachute cord, had
Speaker 4: tape of all kinds, twine. He liked twine, So he
Speaker 4: did have different kinds of bindings because ever since he
Speaker 4: was a kid, he would collect all different kinds of
Speaker 4: rope and string.
Speaker 3: And was he ever known to be trolling around like
Speaker 3: Anderson or Pineville, Missouri the Ozarks at all during the
Speaker 3: nineties early nineties.
Speaker 4: So for me, when I saw that this one case
Speaker 4: was in the area of Missouri that was pretty close
Speaker 4: to an area where Dennis grew up and would sometimes
Speaker 4: take his kids spend summers, I thought, you know, that
Speaker 4: made it a viable potential case.
Speaker 3: And if Sean of Garber was hitchhiking, which a lot
Speaker 3: of law enforcement I've spoken to think she might have been,
Speaker 3: would he be the type of serial killer to pick
Speaker 3: her up.
Speaker 4: I've never heard Denis Raiders say he picked up a hitchhiker.
Speaker 3: I had sent doctor Ramslin photos of the actual bindings
Speaker 3: used on Shauna and asked if those that Raider used
Speaker 3: were similar the same photos. I should point out that
Speaker 3: Detective Laurie Howard had shown Raider when she interviewed him,
Speaker 3: and Raider was shocked by how messy and how many
Speaker 3: of them there were.
Speaker 4: Some of the bindings on Shauna are very similar to
Speaker 4: the ropes found and confiscated by police when Dennis was
Speaker 4: arrested in two thousand and five. Even he has commented
Speaker 4: to me, because he's now seen the photos too, He's commented, Wow,
Speaker 4: those are like some of the ropes they use, but
Speaker 4: not all of them. And I can't think of the
Speaker 4: time he used coaxial cables.
Speaker 3: Raider had by now also denied killing Shauna Garber. So,
Speaker 3: Shauna Garber was found with a towel wrapped around her
Speaker 3: face and the coaxle wrapped around that. You know, in
Speaker 3: your professional opinion, what does that say about her killer?
Speaker 4: A lot of people like to think a covered base
Speaker 4: means it was personal, they knew her. That's a formula.
Speaker 4: I personally don't like formulas because they tend to give
Speaker 4: us tunnel vision. This looked more like part of whatever
Speaker 4: this person was doing to her, And especially with the
Speaker 4: cable wrapped around it, that looks to me more like
Speaker 4: a suffocation mechanism. If you put your hand of her
Speaker 4: mouth with a towel, she can't bite.
Speaker 3: It sounds like he adapted to the situations he needed
Speaker 3: he did.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but I think you can say that about any
Speaker 4: serial killer because you're always going to have circumstances, the
Speaker 4: variables are there. Their fantasy never actually matches right, it happens.
Speaker 3: Thoughts in general about Shawna's case, I mean, what are
Speaker 3: you thinking about that case?
Speaker 4: I think the Shawna one of the things that we
Speaker 4: see on her is the multiple bindings on her legs.
Speaker 4: That is interesting and that suggests captivity potentially that somebody
Speaker 4: held her and bound her, because why would they why
Speaker 4: would they take her to a Now I know there's
Speaker 4: there's theories that there were screams heard on Halloween night
Speaker 4: in that gentle area, But who is binding her all
Speaker 4: that much there on the farm that night? That doesn't
Speaker 4: make any sense to me. That's a lot of bindings,
Speaker 4: which that suggests it's not about keeping her captive so
Speaker 4: much as the binding itself. But that's that's not something
Speaker 4: that Rader would do. He wouldn't overbind like even he's
Speaker 4: said that with that, that's a lot of bindings, and
Speaker 4: he would have bound her in other ways. A lot
Speaker 4: of it was focused on the legs and ankles, So
Speaker 4: that suggests somebody who perhaps overties things in other ways
Speaker 4: or overdoes things in other ways. There's an obsessive quality
Speaker 4: to it.
Speaker 3: Shawna's murder, what little is known about it, was anything
Speaker 3: but meticulous. I saw anger, haste, and retaliation in Shawna's murder.
Speaker 3: Those are not the trademarks of BTK. He planned, he fantasized,
Speaker 3: he took his time, he wanted his bindings to be
Speaker 3: just so. When I mentioned BTK had been shown photos
Speaker 3: of this crime scene, the distaste verging on disgust he
Speaker 3: emanated was palpable. Furthermore, the signatures he left behind at
Speaker 3: his crime scenes weren't found at Shawna's crime scene. Torture
Speaker 3: was likely involved, but we'll cover that in an upcoming episode.
Speaker 3: That's why I just don't buy BTK being behind Shawna's murder.
Speaker 3: And when I put it to law enforcement, they echoed
Speaker 3: my sentiments, specifically that Raider had no connection to Shawna's murder.
Speaker 3: I was convinced, after looking at all of the available
Speaker 3: evidence and conferring with law enforcement, that Dennis Btk Raider
Speaker 3: should be moved far down on a list of potential
Speaker 3: suspects in Shauna Garber's murder, if he even deserves a
Speaker 3: place on the list at all. And Raider, remember, was
Speaker 3: not even close to being on the radar in the
Speaker 3: Danas Stidham homicide, which brings me back to Jack Lenny.
Speaker 3: The goal with that first interview the BCSO conducted with
Speaker 3: Lenny the tape you heard at the top of the episode,
Speaker 3: was to stir him up a bit, let him know
Speaker 3: they were focused on him, and see how he responded.
Speaker 3: As it were, Lenny had told investors the Gators he
Speaker 3: was out of town at a family reunion on July
Speaker 3: twenty fifth, nineteen eighty nine, the day Dana went missing.
Speaker 3: That was a lie. He had clocked eighty seven hours
Speaker 3: that week at a construction company he worked for in town,
Speaker 3: a job, remember, which put him on the road, driving
Speaker 3: around Bella Vista and bordering towns, including those close to
Speaker 3: the Missouri state line. In fact, the more they found
Speaker 3: out about Lenny, the more he fit into the profile
Speaker 3: of Dana and Shawna's killer.
Speaker 8: And you know, from my perspective, there was some pretty
Speaker 8: incriminating evidence in that basement of that house.
Speaker 3: The BCSO secured those search warrants for Jacquelinese home and
Speaker 3: vehicles after they interviewed him a second time and after
Speaker 3: finding a lot of blood and female hair in one
Speaker 3: of his vehicles. As they entered the basement of his house,
Speaker 3: what they found pointed in the direction of what I
Speaker 3: could say is a serial killer.
Speaker 11: My recollection is that there was probably like seventeen different
Speaker 11: types of twine that were used.
Speaker 8: To encase cocoon this young lady after she had been murdered.
Speaker 8: I just remember being in the basement of this individual's
Speaker 8: house and there had to been like over one hundred
Speaker 8: spools of different chords. I mean, I don't know who
Speaker 8: keeps cords.
Speaker 11: I don't keep cords, but it just was pretty ominous.
Speaker 3: With all of the new information I had developed on him,
Speaker 3: including all of that blood found in his vehicle, I
Speaker 3: decided it was time to confront Jack Lenny, to knock
Speaker 3: on his door and see what this guy had to
Speaker 3: say for himself. If you're enjoying Paper Ghosts. Check out
Speaker 3: my other podcasts, Crossing the Line with m William Phelps
Speaker 3: and White Eagle wherever you get your favorite shows coming
Speaker 3: up next time Paper Ghosts.
Speaker 11: They were wanting to pin him down, very surprised that
Speaker 11: he wanted to come in. You know, my initial reaction is,
Speaker 11: you know this guy's coming in. Surely he's not the guy, right,
Speaker 11: I mean, who does that? Something is going on with
Speaker 11: this guy. I don't know what it is. I'm not
Speaker 11: a doctor, I'm not a psychologist. I'm just trying to
Speaker 11: get a read. But there was just something that was
Speaker 11: clinically off.
Speaker 2: He probably destroyed her life.
Speaker 1: He just basically abused her emotionally, probably physically, and she
Speaker 1: did kill herself shortly after.
Speaker 2: BCSO Detectives spoke with her.
Speaker 4: I think probably she was at a praising point.
Speaker 2: Because you better listen, that's my goddamn life, you and
Speaker 2: they'll never find you.
Speaker 3: Paper Ghosts Season four is written and executive produced by
Speaker 3: me and William Phelps. Script consulting by Rose Bachi, sound
Speaker 3: design by Matt Russell, executive production by Catherine Law, and
Speaker 3: audio editing and mixing by Brandon Dicker. The Takaboom Productions.
Speaker 3: The series theme number four four to two is written
Speaker 3: and performed by Thomas Phelps and Tom Moon.