Speaker 1: A warning.
Speaker 2: This episode contains depictions of violence and conversations about suicide
Speaker 2: that may be disturbing and triggering for some listeners. If
Speaker 2: you are struggling with suicidal thoughts, please fast forward to
Speaker 2: the end of this episode to find out where help
Speaker 2: is available.
Speaker 1: Who was Byron's alibi?
Speaker 3: Kelly Moffitt is his alibi, Debbie Moffatt is his alibi.
Speaker 3: Bram Nisley is his alibi. Tara McDowell is his alibi.
Speaker 3: Evlyn Case's mom is his alibi.
Speaker 2: Byron Case's attorney, Brian Russell, is naming all of the
Speaker 2: people who he says can verify Byron's whereabouts after Anastasia
Speaker 2: supposedly got out of Justin's car at Truman Road and
Speaker 2: the I four thirty.
Speaker 3: Five, so Don Rand is an alibi witness, the two
Speaker 3: undisclosed witnesses at the other gas station are his alibi witnesses,
Speaker 3: and there his alibi be because Anastasia was alive when
Speaker 3: she got out of that car at Truman Rode in
Speaker 3: I four thirty five, he was somewhere else the entire
Speaker 3: rest of the night and has people to place him
Speaker 3: somewhere else the entire rest of the night. If she
Speaker 3: got out of the car. Byron didn't do it.
Speaker 2: I'm Leah Rothman, this is the real killer. Episode eight?
Speaker 2: What about Bob, Anastasia, Justin, Byron, and Kelly go out
Speaker 2: that fateful night, Anastasia ends up dead. Justin commits suicide.
Speaker 2: That leaves just Kelly and Byron. If we rule out
Speaker 2: a stranger killing, which was what Byron's did, defense attorney
Speaker 2: offered up as a possibility a trial, what makes the
Speaker 2: most sense that Byron or someone else did it? Attorney
Speaker 2: Brian Russell says he and the team believe they have
Speaker 2: uncovered some information that could point to the someone else.
Speaker 3: The other thing about Byron's case that really made me
Speaker 3: go I don't think Byron did it is when I
Speaker 3: was reading a report from Deputy Eperson that he wrote
Speaker 3: the day after Anastasia was found. And this is a
Speaker 3: four page handwritten report, which police don't usually take the
Speaker 3: time to do a four page handwritten report unless it's
Speaker 3: something important.
Speaker 2: Remember, Deputy David Epperson is the first person to find
Speaker 2: Anastasia's body at Lincoln Cemetery at three forty four am
Speaker 2: on October twenty third, nineteen ninety seven. The next day,
Speaker 2: he comes into contact with Anastasia's dad, Bob Whitbule's Fugen,
Speaker 2: and he writes a report about it.
Speaker 3: Deputy Eperson records an interaction that he had with Bob
Speaker 3: Whipple's Fugen where at a different cemetery, a cemetery called
Speaker 3: Highland Cemetery, and mister Whipples Fugen shows up there and
Speaker 3: says sees them and says, oh, I'm looking for Lincoln Cemetery.
Speaker 3: I'm the father of the victim that was found there.
Speaker 3: I just want to be close to where she was found,
Speaker 3: which makes sense if you're a grieving father. But he
Speaker 3: keeps asking Eperson if the crime scene looked like it
Speaker 3: was tampered with, can you show me where a body
Speaker 3: was found so I can be close to it. Eperson
Speaker 3: politely tells him, well, I can't share that information with you,
Speaker 3: but you should talk to the detectives if you want
Speaker 3: that information. He says, can you tell me where Lincoln
Speaker 3: Cemetery is. I've never been to Lincoln Cemetery before you.
Speaker 3: So Epperson gives mister Whipples Fugen directions to Lincoln Cemetery
Speaker 3: and then he uh follows him there a couple minutes later,
Speaker 3: and when Eperson finds mister Whipples Fugen and Lincoln Cemetery.
Speaker 3: He finds mister Whipples Fugen standing in the exact spot
Speaker 3: where Eperson found Anastasia's body without anyone telling him where
Speaker 3: her body was. And it was in that moment there
Speaker 3: I was just like, well, Byron didn't do this.
Speaker 2: I'm going to read from some of the report Deputy
Speaker 2: Eperson wrote on October twenty fourth, at seven am, the
Speaker 2: day after Anastasia was found murdered. He writes that he
Speaker 2: and two other deputies were sitting at the entrance to
Speaker 2: Highland Cemetery. Yes, there's a third cemetery in the area.
Speaker 2: While sitting there, Eperson writes that Bob Whipples Fugen pulled
Speaker 2: up in a quote blue four door Chevrolet Corsica with
Speaker 2: damage to the front quarter panel on the driver's side.
Speaker 2: He writes that Bob approached and said he was quote
Speaker 2: the father of the murder victim found in Lincoln Cemetery
Speaker 2: and he wanted to know if Highland Cemetery was Lincoln Cemetery.
Speaker 2: Bob tells Eperson he's never been to Lincoln Cemetery. Eperson
Speaker 2: tells Bob they're not the same, and he gives him
Speaker 2: directions there. Bob then requests Eperson take him to the
Speaker 2: place where the body of his daughter was found. Eperson
Speaker 2: tells him he can't do that and that he should
Speaker 2: contact the detective unit for a possible escort. Bob then
Speaker 2: starts talking about the events prior to Anastasia's death. Bob
Speaker 2: tells Eperson that his daughter had been emotionally disturbed for
Speaker 2: the last several months and talked of suicide, but had
Speaker 2: never acted on it. He describes his daughter as quote frisky,
Speaker 2: and that she would never have been killed without a struggle,
Speaker 2: and that she would die before ever letting anyone mess
Speaker 2: with her. Bob states that her boyfriend was not violent
Speaker 2: and he didn't believe he would kill her. Bob goes
Speaker 2: on to tell Eperson that he had last spoken with
Speaker 2: the boyfriend the night of October twenty second, around ten pm.
Speaker 2: The boyfriend had told Bob he and Anastasia had been arguing.
Speaker 2: She got out of the car at the stoplight at
Speaker 2: Truman Road and the I four thirty five and began walking.
Speaker 2: The boyfriend left her and went home. Epson writes that
Speaker 2: mister Whitbeles Fuchen believed quote a stranger had picked her
Speaker 2: up and told her that they would go to an
Speaker 2: interesting place, a cemetery, and after getting to the cemetery,
Speaker 2: the stranger shot her. Eperson notes that mister Whitbles Fugen
Speaker 2: kept his composure through the conversation and continued making references
Speaker 2: to the crime scene, stating quote, I hope they got
Speaker 2: all of the evidence and did not miss something. According
Speaker 2: to Epperson, Bob then says he's going to go to
Speaker 2: Lincoln Cemetery and probably just quote walk the cemetery with
Speaker 2: his hand on the wall, thinking about my daughter. About
Speaker 2: two minutes after he leaves, Eperson and the other deputies
Speaker 2: decide to go to Lincoln Cemetery to check on Bob's
Speaker 2: well being. When they arrive, Eperson writes, quote, upon approaching
Speaker 2: the circle drive, I observed mister Whipple's Fugen to be
Speaker 2: standing with his hands on his hips, standing directly over
Speaker 2: the exact location where I had found Anastasia's body on
Speaker 2: ten twenty three, ninety seven. Mister whipples Fugen was looking
Speaker 2: at the ground for approximately five seconds before turning around
Speaker 2: and seeing me. Eperson goes on to write quote, upon
Speaker 2: seeing me, he appeared startled and turned around, walking very
Speaker 2: quickly towards my police vehicle with his left hand talked
Speaker 2: firmly in his pocket. Mister whipples Fugen approached me and asked, quote,
Speaker 2: am I close? Eperson writes, referring to where the body
Speaker 2: was found. Eperson details quote I again advised mister whipples
Speaker 2: Fugen that he should come intact the detective unit for
Speaker 2: specific information, and he spontaneously stated, what are you guys
Speaker 2: doing following me? I'm not the bad guy. You guys
Speaker 2: should be out looking for the bad guy exclamation point.
Speaker 2: Here's Sean O'Brien, one of Byron's attorneys, you.
Speaker 4: Know, and this is like the day after all of
Speaker 4: the you know, activity around the crime scene. The crime
Speaker 4: scene tape is down, all that's been removed, but he's
Speaker 4: right there on the exact spot, and so, you know,
Speaker 4: that's really suspicious, and nobody.
Speaker 2: Here's Byron's attorney, Nicole Gordon. It's clear, and that report
Speaker 2: that Eperson is suspicious Abob should have been you know,
Speaker 2: fertile ground for kil Gore, but it just wasn't. Although
Speaker 2: Eperson and one other deputy write reports about this interaction
Speaker 2: with Bob, it seems Sergeant Gary Kilgore does nothing with it, okay,
Speaker 2: let's first talk about Bob's Remember at the scene, investigators
Speaker 2: discovered paint chips and broken glass on a tree not
Speaker 2: far from where Anastasia's body was found. Here's Sean again.
Speaker 4: Epperson notes in his report that he saw Bob's car
Speaker 4: had damage to the front quarter panel, so he made
Speaker 4: a note of that, of course he's aware of. He
Speaker 4: also worked the crime scene.
Speaker 1: Any broken glass on Bob's.
Speaker 4: He didn't make a note of broken glass, about headlight
Speaker 4: glass or anything, so that we don't know, and nobody
Speaker 4: ever followed up the paint chips that were on the tree.
Speaker 4: Those have been lost we were looking for.
Speaker 2: Here's investigator Quinn O'Brien, also on Byron's team.
Speaker 5: He's at the scene. The deputies who picked up the
Speaker 5: paint chips in the autoglass said that the damage to
Speaker 5: the tree looked fresh because everything was on top of
Speaker 5: the grass, and you know, the paint was still on
Speaker 5: the tree.
Speaker 2: Were there any reports that noted what the paint chips were.
Speaker 5: We were trying to find that for some reason. I
Speaker 5: want to say that it's blue, but I don't know.
Speaker 5: I know that they excluded Justin's car as having contributed
Speaker 5: to the paint ships.
Speaker 2: Justin's car was processed inside and out. I'm going to
Speaker 2: read from the report written about that quote. A scrape
Speaker 2: was present on the front passenger bumper. It was related
Speaker 2: that this scrape occurred before this homicide. A light coating
Speaker 2: of soil was present on the tires. This coating was
Speaker 2: too light for collection. No accumulation of soil was observed
Speaker 2: in any of the wheel wells. No obvious blood was
Speaker 2: observed on the inside or outside of this vehicle. Luminol
Speaker 2: was sprayed on the interior of this vehicle. No significant
Speaker 2: activity with the luminol was observed indicative of the absence
Speaker 2: of blood. It's noted that Sergeant Kilgore presented photographs of
Speaker 2: tire tracks at the scene. They were compared to the
Speaker 2: tires on Justin's vehicle.
Speaker 6: Quote.
Speaker 2: The tires on this vehicle did not match the tracks
Speaker 2: in the photographs. When it comes to Byron's car, I
Speaker 2: don't have any documentation that says it was processed and
Speaker 2: or rolled out. Remember, there are conflicting reports of where
Speaker 2: his car was that night. It might have been in
Speaker 2: a shop, or it might have been parked at his mom's.
Speaker 2: But because Bob took photos of Byron's car. I can
Speaker 2: tell you it was white and it had a big
Speaker 2: dent in the front bumper, no broken headlight glass. Though
Speaker 2: you can see photos of Byron's car on the Real
Speaker 2: Killer Podcast Instagram page, Bob's car was never examined. Okay,
Speaker 2: going back to Deputy Eperson's report, because Bob has more
Speaker 2: to say that day. Bob tells Eperson at eleven thirty
Speaker 2: the night of October twenty second, while he was out
Speaker 2: looking for Anastasia, he stopped at the gates of Mount
Speaker 2: Washington Cemetery. Remember that's where Anastasia was dropped off to
Speaker 2: meet Justin. Bob tells Eperson that the gate was locked,
Speaker 2: and he pondered for a moment, hopping the fence to
Speaker 2: go into the cemetery to search for his daughter because
Speaker 2: he quote, since she was in real danger at that time.
Speaker 2: Bob says he heard a loud gunshot, possibly from a
Speaker 2: large caliber rifle, and he immediately turned in the direction
Speaker 2: of the Cimarron apartments, believing the noise came from that direction.
Speaker 2: Eperson writes, quote mister Whipplesfugen stated at that time he
Speaker 2: clapped his hands together and yelled boom, there goes the neighborhood.
Speaker 2: Mister Whipplesfugen then stated, at that time, I knew my
Speaker 2: daughter was dead. Bob tells Eperson that he then began
Speaker 2: driving back and forth on Truman Road searching for his daughter,
Speaker 2: but never checked cemetery. Epperson continues to write, quote, I
Speaker 2: observed mister Whipplesfugen's demeanor to change when he began talking
Speaker 2: about the gunshot and described his actions upon hearing the gunshot.
Speaker 2: He appeared to switch from grieving parent to excite it
Speaker 2: and colorful describing in detail his emotion upon hearing the gunshot.
Speaker 2: Here's Brian again about it.
Speaker 3: He talks about hearing a gunshot and thinking I just
Speaker 3: knew my daughter was dead at that point, and the
Speaker 3: Cimarron apartments.
Speaker 1: He mentions the Cimarron.
Speaker 3: Correct, he doesn't mention Lincoln Cemetery, but if you put so,
Speaker 3: he was when he claims that when he heard this
Speaker 3: thing that sounded like a gun shot, he was at
Speaker 3: the south gate to Mount Washington Cemetery and he heard
Speaker 3: it coming from the direction of the Cimarin apartments. So
Speaker 3: you know, when you look at it on a map
Speaker 3: kind of you know, if he heard a gunshot from
Speaker 3: that direction. Lincoln said pemetary is fair game, and hearing that.
Speaker 2: I put a map of the area on the Real
Speaker 2: Killer podcast on Instagram so you can see where Mount
Speaker 2: Washington Cemetery is in relation to Lincoln Cemetery and the
Speaker 2: Cimarron apartments. So Bob says, in that moment he hears
Speaker 2: the gunshot, he feels he just heard the shot that
Speaker 2: killed his daughter Anastasia. But that's at eleven thirty pm.
Speaker 2: Kelly says Byron killed Anastasia sometime before nine PM, which
Speaker 2: seems to check out because Kelly is home in time
Speaker 2: for her curfew around nine nine thirty. Unfortunately, we don't
Speaker 2: know Anastasia's time of death. I reach out to doctor
Speaker 2: Thomas Young, the medical examiner who conducted the autopsy. First
Speaker 2: he declines to be interviewed. Then I write him again
Speaker 2: and ask if there's any way to determine even a
Speaker 2: window of time for Anastasia's death.
Speaker 1: He writes back, quote.
Speaker 2: Time of death to terminations only work in detective fiction.
Speaker 2: But I have a follow up question for doctor Young
Speaker 2: because in his autopsy report he said that Anastasia's corneas
Speaker 2: were clear, So I write asking him if her clear
Speaker 2: corneas can tell us anything about the time of death.
Speaker 2: Doctor Young never responds to that question. In my very
Speaker 2: simple Google search of this, I find articles, including one
Speaker 2: from the National Institutes of Health that says within two
Speaker 2: to three hours after someone dies, the corneas start to
Speaker 2: get cloudy. If the eyes are open, the clouding happens
Speaker 2: much faster than if the eyes are closed. Based on
Speaker 2: the crime scene photos, Anastasia's left eye was open, her
Speaker 2: right eye was closed. So if Anastasia's corneas were clear
Speaker 2: when the autopsy was performed, which was around nine thirty am,
Speaker 2: then what does that mean in terms of when she
Speaker 2: was killed. Could Bob have heard the shot that killed
Speaker 2: Anastasia at eleven thirty pm or did she die sometime
Speaker 2: before nine pm? When Bob says that he hears a gunshot,
Speaker 2: does he go toward it?
Speaker 3: I believe he says he drove up and down Truman
Speaker 3: Road after hearing that, which means he would have driven
Speaker 3: past one of the entrances to Lincoln Cemetery, the very
Speaker 3: entrance that Kelly later says they used to go into
Speaker 3: Lincoln Cemetery. But mister Whippleschugen says of a you know
Speaker 3: everywhere I went last night. I went everywhere but Lincoln Cemetery.
Speaker 2: Basically, Bob says he has an alibi right that he
Speaker 2: gets off work at six o'clock and goes to John
Speaker 2: Fisher's house. Bob told Sergeant Kilgore after work on the
Speaker 2: twenty second, he stopped off at his friend John Fisher's
Speaker 2: house for a meeting because he was supposed to run
Speaker 2: as a team member in a marathon in Kansas City.
Speaker 2: How closely did investigators look into Bob's alibi.
Speaker 6: They didn't. There's no report of them interviewing John Fisher.
Speaker 2: I reach out to who I believe is the correct
Speaker 2: John Fisher, but have yet to hear back.
Speaker 1: Here's Quinn.
Speaker 5: It has always bothered me and a lot of other
Speaker 5: people that Bob Whitbolsphugen places himself everywhere that night except
Speaker 5: exactly where Anastasia's body was found. It also bothered Deputy
Speaker 5: Eperson enough that Bob was found exactly in the spot
Speaker 5: where his daughter's body was lying the next day before
Speaker 5: anyone had told him that's where Anastasia's body was. He
Speaker 5: thought that was suspicious. I agree. Also when they ask
Speaker 5: Bob if he keeps guns in the house or if
Speaker 5: he has guns. He says, I don't keep guns in
Speaker 5: the house. The next question the deputy should have asked
Speaker 5: him was, Okay, where do you keep your guns?
Speaker 2: Because so I reach out to Bob via email and
Speaker 2: he agrees to be interviewed. You should know that he
Speaker 2: is currently in prison. I'll tell you why he's there
Speaker 2: very soon. When we speak, Bob makes it clear he
Speaker 2: doesn't want to talk so much about the investigation. He
Speaker 2: really wants to keep the conversation to talking only about
Speaker 2: Anastasia's life, death, and Byron's guilt. I record four calls
Speaker 2: with him, some of which you've heard in episodes one
Speaker 2: and two, but the connection isn't great. So I ask
Speaker 2: if we can do a proper interview arranged by the prison,
Speaker 2: where he can be in a quiet room on a
Speaker 2: phone line with a cleaner connection. Bob says yes. Then
Speaker 2: I write again, trying to nail down a day and time.
Speaker 2: He offers up some options, but then also says he
Speaker 2: no longer sees the need to talk with me. I
Speaker 2: reach out to him a few more times, he stops
Speaker 2: responding altogether. Obviously, I have one thousand questions for Bob.
Speaker 2: Among them, I'd like to know what he thinks about
Speaker 2: Deputy Eperson's report, and I'd like to know more about
Speaker 2: the investigation he was conducting at the same time Kilgore
Speaker 2: was conducting his. I hope we will be able to
Speaker 2: connect again sometime soon.
Speaker 1: Here's Nicole again.
Speaker 7: Bob inserts himself and the investigation pretty early. I cannot
Speaker 7: pretend to know what his motive was or why he
Speaker 7: did that. It could be a number of reasons. He
Speaker 7: could be trying to attaint the investigation. He could have
Speaker 7: a personality disturbance that would cause him to do something
Speaker 7: like this, or he could want the attention. Or he
Speaker 7: could be a grieving father, or he could be a
Speaker 7: grieving father, or he could be a suspect. You know,
Speaker 7: there's a handful of reasons why someone would involve themselves
Speaker 7: so heavily and an investigation, and I really don't know why.
Speaker 1: Here's Sean.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm not going to judge a man who just
Speaker 4: lost his daughter. If something happened to either of my daughters,
Speaker 4: I would probably be involved in trying to figure out
Speaker 4: what happened. I would want answers. I don't fault them
Speaker 4: with it all, but I don't think I would be
Speaker 4: as weird as Bob in going about it and distrusting
Speaker 4: and paranoid about the detectives and their motives, you know.
Speaker 4: But he does have some legitimate beefs about the quality
Speaker 4: of this investigation.
Speaker 2: And there is something interesting that happens in the course
Speaker 2: of the investigation between Bob and Kelly. We mentioned this
Speaker 2: briefly in episode five. Here's Nicole.
Speaker 7: Kelly reached out to Bob up through email and let
Speaker 7: him know that she was sorry for what had happened.
Speaker 7: Her story was the same, I mean, at this point,
Speaker 7: according to her, Anastesia got out of the car. Everyone's
Speaker 7: story is a line, and she just wants to tell
Speaker 7: Bob that she's sorry for what happened.
Speaker 1: And she asked me, I'm going to read you.
Speaker 2: Kelly's email dated May twelfth, nineteen ninety eight. This is
Speaker 2: roughly seven months after Anastasia's murder. Kelly writes, quote, dear
Speaker 2: mister Whipples Fugen, I don't even know how to begin this.
Speaker 2: I'm Kelly Moffatt, Byron's girlfriend. I just wanted to talk
Speaker 2: to you about everything that has gone on. No one
Speaker 2: else in my life knew Anastasia and Justin or they
Speaker 2: don't want to talk about it. I have blocked everything
Speaker 2: out for some time. I pretty much severed all ties
Speaker 2: with that part of my life. I guess I was
Speaker 2: hoping it was all a bad dream that I would
Speaker 2: wake up from. I know now that I won't wake up,
Speaker 2: and I need to talk to someone. I miss Anastasia
Speaker 2: and Justin so much. I'm not going to try and
Speaker 2: pretend that Anastasia and I were best friends. But I
Speaker 2: liked her and we had fun together before her death.
Speaker 2: I got to see what Anastasia was like on her own.
Speaker 2: We would have girl talk on the phone and whine
Speaker 2: about our boyfriends. She was always sarcastic and witty. I
Speaker 2: think we could have been great friends. For the first time,
Speaker 2: I feel I have really mourned her loss and am
Speaker 2: now realizing that she is gone. It hurts a lot,
Speaker 2: and I feel that I'm grieving alone. Byron has a
Speaker 2: tendency to block things out. He has hardly ever spoken
Speaker 2: of his loss of Justin, Anastasia, and his father. When
Speaker 2: I bring it up, he grows quiet and upset or
Speaker 2: ignores it. He is dealing with things in a very
Speaker 2: unhealthy manner. But I can't make him see it. I
Speaker 2: would appreciate it if we could get together and talk.
Speaker 2: It would mean a lot to me if we can
Speaker 2: swap stories and help each other through this. Sincerely, Kelly,
Speaker 2: and then they continue talking right right.
Speaker 7: There's an exchange between she and Bob that goes on
Speaker 7: for a couple of months. At one point they talk
Speaker 7: about an arrangement to meet, and Bob says that he
Speaker 7: thinks it's best for them to meet in a quiet
Speaker 7: place that he is hard of hearing, but that he
Speaker 7: would let Kelly decide. Does anything come of we don't know,
Speaker 7: not through email, it doesn't.
Speaker 6: We don't know if they ever met.
Speaker 2: The team says, once again, it's the timeline that raises
Speaker 2: some questions, specifically how Bob and Kelly talking might relate
Speaker 2: to Sergeant Kilgore's letter to Bob in August of nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety eight. Remember, kil Gore wrote basically, a stop harassing
Speaker 2: me and don't come to me if you don't have
Speaker 2: something new and viable.
Speaker 1: Letter. Here's Sean again.
Speaker 4: Now there is a place where Sergeant Kilgore in his
Speaker 4: letter saying listen, I've had enough for you.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 4: That's the tone of the of the letter that he
Speaker 4: sends kill Gore says, we have exhausted our leads in
Speaker 4: this case. We don't have anywhere else to go. I mean,
Speaker 4: if you have something, bring it to us. And of
Speaker 4: course it's after that that Kelly then changes her story,
Speaker 4: and you know, by her own statement in that conversation
Speaker 4: that was recorded between her and Byron, says, Anastagia's creepy
Speaker 4: dad has been calling and emailing me and bugging me about.
Speaker 1: This, you know.
Speaker 4: So I think it's huge that he was involved in
Speaker 4: this investigation.
Speaker 2: So here are the dates surrounding all of these events.
Speaker 2: It seems Kelly's first email to Bob is on May twelfth,
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety eight. The few emails go through May, she
Speaker 2: writes again in early July. What happens after that?
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: By the way, Kelly may have written Bob and wanted
Speaker 2: to quote swap stories for a purely innocent reason because
Speaker 2: she was hurting and simply needed to connect with someone
Speaker 2: who was also grieving. Okay, back to the timeline, kil
Speaker 2: Gore writes that stop harassing me letter to Bob on
Speaker 2: August twenty first, nineteen ninety eight. The next day, on
Speaker 2: August twenty second, Kelly meets with Kilgore and tells him
Speaker 2: she thinks Byron is acting weird and he might know
Speaker 2: more than he's saying, but she doesn't think it's a
Speaker 2: murder type of thing. Kelly doesn't completely change her story
Speaker 2: until two years later, on September nineteenth, two thousand and
Speaker 2: she says that comment about Anastasia's creepy dad to Byron
Speaker 2: in that June fifth, two thousand and one recorded phone call.
Speaker 2: So did Kelly and Bob ever talk or meet up?
Speaker 2: Is the reason she started to change her story connected
Speaker 2: to Bob? Or Is it because she was a traumatized
Speaker 2: teenage girl and the truth was starting to eat her alive.
Speaker 2: Earlier this episode, we talked about the report Deputy David
Speaker 2: Epperson wrote about seeing Anastasia's dad, Bob Whitblesfugen, standing at
Speaker 2: the exact spot where her body was found in Lincoln
Speaker 2: Cemetery the day before, well on October twenty second, nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety eight, one year to the day Anastasia was killed.
Speaker 2: Bob is back at Lincoln Cemetery, here's Attorney Nicole Gordon,
Speaker 2: and Eperson.
Speaker 7: Is there's just strange and so Epson describes his encounter
Speaker 7: with him and says that he's driving a different car.
Speaker 7: He notes that Bob's you know, so he's taking Bob in.
Speaker 7: He's suspicious of Bob the entire.
Speaker 6: Time, and I can't recall.
Speaker 2: Here's some of Eperson's four and a half page handwritten
Speaker 2: report from that encounter. Eperson writes that it's nine fifty
Speaker 2: five pm on October twenty second, nineteen ninety eight when
Speaker 2: he first sees Bob, who was sitting in his car
Speaker 2: near Lincoln's Cemetery with his engine and lights turned off.
Speaker 2: Eperson asks what he was doing, and Bob says just
Speaker 2: looking at the downtown skyline. A bit later, Eperson sees
Speaker 2: Bob again and he decides to follow him. He locates
Speaker 2: Bob at the south gate of Mount Washington Cemetery. Eperson writes, quote,
Speaker 2: upon contacting mister Whipple's Fugen, he appeared nervous. Bob goes
Speaker 2: on to talk about the caravan of cars and how
Speaker 2: investigators haven't followed up on how he obtained some secondhand
Speaker 2: information about the knight Anastasia was killed. Quote four parties
Speaker 2: had been riding around with a loaded gun and that
Speaker 2: the victim had been shot accidentally. Eperson goes on to write,
Speaker 2: I'm not sure whether he speculated at this point, but
Speaker 2: he went on to say after the accidental death, the
Speaker 2: victim's boyfriend wanted to call the police, but he was
Speaker 2: threatened by another member of the party, so he did not.
Speaker 2: The boyfriend then became afraid, so the next day he
Speaker 2: went out and bought a gun for his protection. Two
Speaker 2: days later, he was found dead in Kansas. Eperson writes, quote,
Speaker 2: mister Whipples Fugen stated he believed the boyfriend was murdered.
Speaker 2: Bob then goes on to recount the night of October
Speaker 2: twenty second, nineteen ninety seven, including hearing the gun shot.
Speaker 2: This time, he says it was around midnight. Bob says
Speaker 2: he knew it was a large caliber, not a twenty
Speaker 2: two caliber, but not a shotgun either because he used
Speaker 2: to shoot guns with his grandfather. Bob then starts asking
Speaker 2: Eperson questions about the case. Eperson says he is unaware
Speaker 2: of any new leads. Eperson writes quote. He then asked
Speaker 2: if the crime scene looked like it had been set up.
Speaker 2: Eperson tells Bob the crime scene was processed by the
Speaker 2: investigative unit and he would have to contact them for
Speaker 2: any information. Bob then states that the detective had labeled
Speaker 2: him as a suspect, and he stated, quote, I couldn't
Speaker 2: have did it. I didn't get off work until nine.
Speaker 2: Eperson writes, quote. Mister whitbeles Fugen seemed upset about his
Speaker 2: daughter's death, and it should be noted it had been
Speaker 2: one year, almost to the hour since the homicide. I
Speaker 2: ask Attorney Brian Russell if Deputy Eperson's reports about Bob
Speaker 2: in and around Lincoln Cemetery were ever handed over to
Speaker 2: Byron's trial attorney.
Speaker 3: That eperson reports were.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 3: I believe hort Lance had the reports before trial.
Speaker 2: So Byron's defense attorney had Eperson's reports but never used
Speaker 2: them at trial. I reach out to David Eperson, who
Speaker 2: sounds like he's open to talking with me. He asks
Speaker 2: me to call him back the following week, and I do.
Speaker 2: I try him several times after that, but he hasn't
Speaker 2: returned any of my calls. As Byron's legal team dives
Speaker 2: deeper into their investigation of Bob, they say it's what
Speaker 2: his ex wife, Anastage's mother Betsy Owens, tells Sergeant Kilgore
Speaker 2: back on November seventh, nineteen ninety seven. That makes them
Speaker 2: take note. Here's Nicole again.
Speaker 6: I'm sorry.
Speaker 7: After Bob and Betsy divorced, Betsy's neighbor approached Betsy and said,
Speaker 7: I'm glad the pub doesn't live here anymore.
Speaker 2: Betsy tells Kilgore that her neighbor, who was the grandmother
Speaker 2: of the child Betsy used to babysit, came over one
Speaker 2: day and told her that Bob had done some inappropriate
Speaker 2: things to her grandchild. To protect the identity of this
Speaker 2: neighbor and her family, we've edited out their names to begin,
Speaker 2: Betsy says the grandmother came to her and told her
Speaker 2: that Bob had come to the door nude when this
Speaker 2: grandchild was dropped off for babysitting. Betsy continues with.
Speaker 8: Another granddaughter had accused him some hoeffectual sometime. Never I
Speaker 8: know whether was reported or whatever. She was just happy
Speaker 8: before so getting them out of there. So I always
Speaker 8: made sure, what you know, I never let his want
Speaker 8: kid go over to his house. He took one of
Speaker 8: my kids a couple of years ago over there in
Speaker 8: the six weeks she wanted to come home, and I
Speaker 8: worked at philspe I rate. I thought itself right if
Speaker 8: he did anything that she would be the best thing
Speaker 8: you do you know, any him ever sexually I know
Speaker 8: who never had sexually suddenly in.
Speaker 9: My kids using on anything ever said? You know she
Speaker 9: will give you any indication that it was going on.
Speaker 8: No, So, as far as I know, nothing hands.
Speaker 2: Betsy goes on to talk about one of her other daughters,
Speaker 2: who I'm also not going to name. Betsy's particularly hard
Speaker 2: to hear during this next part, so I will tell
Speaker 2: you verbatim what she says, which is that one of
Speaker 2: her daughter's preschool teachers said this daughter quote acted like
Speaker 2: a child who had been sexually molested or abused. Betsy
Speaker 2: goes on to say, quote, but I don't have any
Speaker 2: proof one way or the other. Kilgore asks if Betsy
Speaker 2: ever called the police about any of this. Betsy says, yes,
Speaker 2: but she gave up calling the police after this war
Speaker 2: time when Bob quote beat me up and threw me
Speaker 2: out in the rain. Betsy says, police told her she
Speaker 2: could leave, but she couldn't take the kids with her
Speaker 2: without a court order, so she stayed because she couldn't
Speaker 2: leave her kids behind. Kilgore then circles back to the
Speaker 2: neighbor grandmother's story asking if the grandmother ever called the
Speaker 2: police on Bob.
Speaker 8: From then I understood shouldn't get the place because she
Speaker 8: didn't want to hurt play.
Speaker 9: Yeah, what would be Why didn't you say that the
Speaker 9: actor did make physical compact.
Speaker 10: With the downtown.
Speaker 8: Possibly can slay or something. I was laying down, rusting,
Speaker 8: and I could hear him on the bedroom.
Speaker 11: They were up on a point of video games and
Speaker 11: he was up on the top.
Speaker 9: By the.
Speaker 8: Like, and I could hear on that thanky to go
Speaker 8: downstairs or basebook to get something. And after a few
Speaker 8: minutes a dole this was re quite, I'm gonna get
Speaker 8: out for me got up and the little girl had
Speaker 8: gone home. And so I didn't think anything. You know,
Speaker 8: you know, I want to hear your own she left
Speaker 8: Jamie Loft when things that came back up, students or
Speaker 8: what so, I don't know what happened, but ever done
Speaker 8: anything it scared to girl of a look or she
Speaker 8: left them at home and told her her family and died.
Speaker 8: And why away do you recall what it was that
Speaker 8: she she said? Wether he was exposing in himself to home.
Speaker 7: Or what.
Speaker 8: I'm not sure. I don't know alight, you'd have to
Speaker 8: die better. I'm sure they got a better the home.
Speaker 8: Sometimes over everything that's happened on a book goes though.
Speaker 8: Uh And.
Speaker 10: Do you don't believe he was in one of you
Speaker 10: in dating?
Speaker 8: I don't think.
Speaker 10: I don't think she.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I love see and trying something back when she know,
Speaker 8: you know, because she you know, suddenly ended up over
Speaker 8: a jumping that she didn't want to to go back.
Speaker 11: Kind of relationships she had had with them, with their father.
Speaker 1: She did not want to live back there.
Speaker 8: If she had had felt like she had any other options,
Speaker 8: she would have chose her And the way she moved
Speaker 8: into justice that she had no place really to go.
Speaker 8: And I thought that was surprised that she moved back
Speaker 8: after that, you know, why did he didn't add the
Speaker 8: place off to go.
Speaker 2: Betsy says things were complicated at her house with her
Speaker 2: current husband, who was a recovering drug addict. It got
Speaker 2: to the point where Anastasia didn't want to be at
Speaker 2: her house either. Betsy goes on to tell Kilgore more
Speaker 2: about how Bob had been physically abusive during their marriage.
Speaker 2: Betsy says that Bob would beat on her and that
Speaker 2: Bob's mother would tell her to keep her mouth shut
Speaker 2: or she'll get beaten even harder.
Speaker 10: I mean because of UH getting beat up too many
Speaker 10: times that type of thing. Yeah, I wasn't going to
Speaker 10: subject to kids too big violent arguments, and and they
Speaker 10: were pretty violent, bloodsy physically abusing and dating station.
Speaker 8: As a pit or whatever wance or why is to
Speaker 8: get her to Iron left or world or to all
Speaker 8: of them, you know, no bruthals. You know, he didn't
Speaker 8: realize I don't think the power that he had or whatever.
Speaker 8: But I tried to protect the kids as much as
Speaker 8: possible too, and eventually got them out of there.
Speaker 2: In one of Anastasia's journal entries, dated March eighteenth, nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety seven, about seven months before she was killed, she
Speaker 2: writes this about Bob wanting her to get off the phone. Quote,
Speaker 2: my dad just started going off on me for speaking logically,
Speaker 2: and finally I couldn't take it anymore. The night before,
Speaker 2: my dad slapped me twice when I talked back to him.
Speaker 2: All I did was tell him to ask me to
Speaker 2: turn down the stereo instead of stomping in my room
Speaker 2: and doing it. I thought about taking a razor to
Speaker 2: my wrist, but then decided I liked my wrists too much.
Speaker 2: Back to Betsy and Sergeant Kilgore.
Speaker 9: Would you be shocked or surprised if if I had
Speaker 9: been amazing his gildn Im'd be disappointed with the kids.
Speaker 8: That will tell me about the kids that the fall
Speaker 8: well educated in school? That rit you or shocked would be.
Speaker 11: Based on what you've sild me to them.
Speaker 8: I don't know, surprisingly shocking, thanking the advocate that higher
Speaker 8: degree of emotion. Part of me wonder for where was people?
Speaker 8: They have not looked at a for stage. But you
Speaker 8: know she's ben being to death.
Speaker 11: I might have thought, you know, he might.
Speaker 8: Have had something to do with him, because he could
Speaker 8: get really angry at it.
Speaker 11: But you know, as far as I long, he hasn't
Speaker 11: had any.
Speaker 9: Weapons before we were married, or acts to him interest
Speaker 9: over the entirety, just because I'd never allow Weathers in
Speaker 9: top the drama him.
Speaker 11: I mean, I got a good temper on me and
Speaker 11: you know, but what starts coming after me?
Speaker 8: You know our dad I didn't have any Well, we
Speaker 8: get back to me.
Speaker 2: So Betsy says a lot during her interview with Kilgore.
Speaker 2: She says Bob used to physically abuse her, and although
Speaker 2: she doesn't believe Bob was abusing Anastasia or any of
Speaker 2: her other daughters. She does wonder where Bob was and
Speaker 2: what went on the night he was out searching for Anastasia.
Speaker 2: The only thing I'm thinking is why didn't Kilgore ask
Speaker 2: Bob about what Betsy said about him? These are some
Speaker 2: explosive allegations. Why were they not followed up on?
Speaker 7: Here's Nicole so in that same report, in the interview,
Speaker 7: the eleven seven, ninety seven interview with Betsy, she tells
Speaker 7: Kilgore that Bob worked at a children's home in Illinois,
Speaker 7: which whoa and he was a social worker, and so
Speaker 7: looking further into that, there's a lot of issues with
Speaker 7: this children's home, and in fact with a lot of
Speaker 7: children's home funded by Catholic charities.
Speaker 6: And it was in the paper.
Speaker 2: According to Betsy, she met Bob while he was working
Speaker 2: as a social worker at the Covenant Children's Home in Princeton, Illinois,
Speaker 2: back in the late seventies. There were some serious issues
Speaker 2: while she and Bob were there, which had absolutely nothing
Speaker 2: to do with either of them. A counselor pled guilty
Speaker 2: to sex assault charges involved two teenage boys. There was
Speaker 2: a sixteen year old boy who raped and murdered a
Speaker 2: ten year old girl. Betsy actually testified at that trial.
Speaker 1: Bob did not.
Speaker 2: This may be a good time to point out that
Speaker 2: Bob didn't testify at Byron's trial either. Why didn't either
Speaker 2: the prosecution or the defense call Bob? Did prosecutors view
Speaker 2: Bob as a liability to their case? Could some of
Speaker 2: his actions have caused reasonable doubt in the minds of
Speaker 2: the jurors, or did prosecutors not want to further traumatize
Speaker 2: a grieving father. Either way, I find it very strange.
Speaker 2: Something Brian Russell finds strange is how Bob handled or
Speaker 2: mishandled Anastasia's cries for help, considering he had worked as
Speaker 2: a youth counselor Here's Brian, I.
Speaker 3: Found it really interesting in the context of mister Whipple's
Speaker 3: fe game, especially because when his daughter keeps talking about
Speaker 3: suicide or being depressed, and how he just seems to
Speaker 3: have such a flippant attitude about it when he should
Speaker 3: know or should have known that, you know, my daughter's
Speaker 3: in crisis and needs help, and he just buried his head,
Speaker 3: buried his.
Speaker 6: Head in the sand.
Speaker 3: I mean, he also took out a second life insurance
Speaker 3: policy on her, so maybe he was taking it serious.
Speaker 2: Yes, you heard Brian correctly. According to police reports, it
Speaker 2: seems Bob had two life insurance policies on Anastasia. The
Speaker 2: first one he took out in February of nineteen ninety
Speaker 2: two for twenty thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: Bob was the beneficiary.
Speaker 2: That was paid out May nineteen ninety eight, so about
Speaker 2: seven months after Anastasia's death. The other policy was taken
Speaker 2: out on October twentieth, nineteen ninety seven, two days before Anastasia.
Speaker 2: That policy was for twelve thousand dollars and Bob again
Speaker 2: was the beneficiary. It should be known that Bob didn't
Speaker 2: seek this policy out. It was basically a solicitation call
Speaker 2: from J. C. Penny because he had a JC Penny
Speaker 2: credit card. I don't know if this policy was ever
Speaker 2: paid out. Did Bob have policies on all of his kids?
Speaker 1: I also don't know that.
Speaker 2: Here's Anastasia's mom, Betsy, talking to Sergeant Kilgore about one
Speaker 2: of the insurance policies.
Speaker 11: Where Robert was kind of pissy. He got an art
Speaker 11: why he just got more one.
Speaker 12: Thousand dollar accidental death and insurance policy on her but
Speaker 12: then he found out that it wasn't going to cover
Speaker 12: because she was eighteen in that full time student.
Speaker 10: So he's loll pissed off about that way.
Speaker 8: At least his expenses got paid for where ye I
Speaker 8: guess he had two thousand at work on her. So
Speaker 8: we split the funeral bell.
Speaker 10: And a half and my my stuffs paid it because.
Speaker 11: They didn't have and.
Speaker 9: So I don't know his his robber been pretty ubserve overall.
Speaker 11: Yeah, he even went to the well. At first it
Speaker 11: was like we're gonna have you know, we're gonna bury her.
Speaker 11: And the next day it's like, well.
Speaker 10: We got a crematory, you know.
Speaker 11: I well, I said, well, well, I asked him, well,
Speaker 11: don't they need to keep the body, you know, can
Speaker 11: stay after I ever have to exu it, you know,
Speaker 11: instead of having a crewmated, and uh, all of a
Speaker 11: sudden it was he wanted to have a crewmated. Why
Speaker 11: and well, that's what she would want, That's what her
Speaker 11: friends say that she would want. You know, she and
Speaker 11: I talked about her being in a casket, and you
Speaker 11: usually don't have a casket on a cremation, so him
Speaker 11: and she didn't carry you know, she started that bar.
Speaker 11: I don't care what you do with the just put
Speaker 11: me in the box and down stainly. I can be
Speaker 11: taken a quide aways, but he wanted to ClearMate it,
Speaker 11: and I wasn't going to hide.
Speaker 2: I asked Nicole her take on the insurance policies. It
Speaker 2: was weird because I was suspicious of the insurance policies,
Speaker 2: but then in the reports it says it was like
Speaker 2: a mat and I don't think it matters whether it
Speaker 2: was a solicitor call or Bob sat. You don't want
Speaker 2: it to get a policy because I just think that
Speaker 2: it's hard to look at this case and not consider
Speaker 2: that fact, which was totally not considered by either side
Speaker 2: of trial. So I mentioned earlier that Bob is in prison.
Speaker 2: Now you're going to hear why.
Speaker 3: Bob is currently residing with the Missouri Department of Corrections
Speaker 3: serving a seven year sentence for statutory a sodomy of
Speaker 3: a minor.
Speaker 2: Anastasia's father, Bob Whitbolsfugen, is currently in a Missouri prison
Speaker 2: serving a seven year sentence for statutory sodomy. The case
Speaker 2: originates in twenty sixteen. There's a lot of back and
Speaker 2: forth in the courts than in twenty nineteen. Bob pleads
Speaker 2: guilty and is sentenced to seven years with five years
Speaker 2: of SES, which is a suspended executed sentence. This essentially
Speaker 2: gives Bob supervised probation for five years. If he doesn't
Speaker 2: meet all of the conditions of his probation, then the
Speaker 2: court will revoke his probation and give him prison time.
Speaker 2: He also has to register as a sex offender. Here's
Speaker 2: attorney Nicole Gordon.
Speaker 7: So, I think that was an issue at one time.
Speaker 7: You know, when he was first placed on probation, he
Speaker 7: was allowed to have access to the young children in
Speaker 7: his FAEM family with supervision, so he could be around
Speaker 7: the younger kids with their parents around.
Speaker 6: And then something happened and they said no.
Speaker 7: They took that away specifically, And so I went to
Speaker 7: a violation hearing and they had talked about previous violations
Speaker 7: where drinking was an issue, and I believe pornography was
Speaker 7: also an issue. But in this particular hearing, he had
Speaker 7: dumped shovels in the victim's yard.
Speaker 1: What does a mean no dumped shovels.
Speaker 6: I don't know. It was just a weird thing that
Speaker 6: he did that the court didn't like.
Speaker 1: Multiple shovels.
Speaker 6: Yes, the court said shovels.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now this weird shovels thing is hearsay, right. But Nicole
Speaker 2: sent me the notes she took and emailed to Byron's
Speaker 2: other lawyers after attending Bob's probation violation hearing on the
Speaker 2: morning of September thirtieth, twenty twenty one, and it's in
Speaker 2: her notes, writes prosecutor accused Bob of quote very disturbing behaviors,
Speaker 2: saying that Bob dropped off a quote pile of shovels
Speaker 2: in the victim's yard. It seems after violating his probation
Speaker 2: six times from twenty twenty to twenty twenty two. In
Speaker 2: November of twenty twenty two, Bob's probation is finally revoked
Speaker 2: and he's sentenced to the seven years. Here's investigator Quinn
Speaker 2: O'Brien talking about that hearing where it all went down.
Speaker 5: Like, I don't know much about the victim. I just
Speaker 5: went to the probation revocation hearing and Bob's attorney put
Speaker 5: him on the stand. This just I mean, when we
Speaker 5: talk about getting chills, Bob was on the stand and
Speaker 5: his attorney is giving him a direct examination, and the
Speaker 5: attorney is asking Bob if he feels any remorse or
Speaker 5: if he understands that what he did to this young
Speaker 5: woman was wrong. And bob answer is that this young
Speaker 5: woman isn't directly related to him. He tried to treat
Speaker 5: her like one of his daughters, but he understands now
Speaker 5: that because she's not his daughter, there are certain boundaries
Speaker 5: that he could not cross with her. There were certain
Speaker 5: things that he should not do with her in the
Speaker 5: home because this young woman isn't his daughter. And I'm
Speaker 5: sitting here thinking that's a confession.
Speaker 6: Oh my god.
Speaker 5: I had always thought, given Anastasia's desperation not to move
Speaker 5: back with back with her father, she clearly has some trauma.
Speaker 6: She's suicidal.
Speaker 5: I can't I just can't even speak it into existence.
Speaker 5: It's just when Bob said on the stand that he
Speaker 5: treated the young woman that he raped like he would
Speaker 5: have treated his own daughters, I was horrified. I mean,
Speaker 5: that's it's no I know what he did, I know
Speaker 5: what he prefered to you. I know what he did,
Speaker 5: and I don't think I don't think I could even
Speaker 5: say it out loud. It's it's disturbing, and I know
Speaker 5: that it happened more than once because who reported it?
Speaker 5: She reported to her mother, and eventually her mother was
Speaker 5: the one who called it in because the young girl
Speaker 5: was able to identify a birthmark in a private area
Speaker 5: on Bob's body that she would not have seen unless
Speaker 5: Bob had his pants off in her presence. And when
Speaker 5: this young person's mother heard that, it finally clicked and
Speaker 5: she believed her daughter and reported it. And it's unspeakable.
Speaker 5: But even during the probation revocation hearing, the prosecutor brought
Speaker 5: up like this isn't the first time that you've even
Speaker 5: been charged with something like this, And I was a
Speaker 5: little stunned. But in Missouri, if you're not convicted of
Speaker 5: a crime, if you're only charged with a crime once
Speaker 5: that once you're acquitted, or if the charges are dropped,
Speaker 5: that record becomes sealed, Like I can't get it. So
Speaker 5: if Bob has been charged with, or been investigated for,
Speaker 5: or even arrested for molesting children before this, those records
Speaker 5: are going to be sealed in Missouri because he wasn't
Speaker 5: convicted of them.
Speaker 2: Okay, I don't have a transcript of what was set
Speaker 2: in court at Bob's final probation revocation hearing, Quinn is
Speaker 2: telling me what she says she heard, Like Nicole Quinn
Speaker 2: sent me her notes from that hearing. I don't see
Speaker 2: anything in there about Bob saying he didn't know he
Speaker 2: couldn't treat the victim as one of his daughters. Doesn't
Speaker 2: mean it wasn't said. It's just not in Quinn's notes.
Speaker 2: What is in Quinn's notes is that Bob blames this
Speaker 2: situation on his daughter's death, and that Bob says, quote,
Speaker 2: I am the problem. He says, even his daughters point
Speaker 2: out to him, he is the problem. One interesting detail
Speaker 2: that may mean absolutely nothing is that the attorney who
Speaker 2: represented Bob at these hearings is the same attorney who
Speaker 2: represented Kelly when she came forward. Anyway, just because Bob
Speaker 2: is in prison for doing what he pled guilty to doing,
Speaker 2: which sounds like it was pretty awful, doesn't mean he
Speaker 2: has done anything else to anyone else, and it especially
Speaker 2: doesn't mean he did anything to Anastasia. But Byron's team says,
Speaker 2: although there are several things that make them suspicious of Bob,
Speaker 2: like Deputy Eperson's reports, the stories Betsy shared, and why
Speaker 2: he is currently incarcerated. There is also someone else who
Speaker 2: is on their radar, Patrick Rock. We talked about Patrick
Speaker 2: Rock in episode three. He is a close family friend
Speaker 2: and has referred to himself as at times as Anastasia's
Speaker 2: godfather and adoptive uncle. He started and still maintains the
Speaker 2: Anastasia Memorial website. He also emailed several times with Byron
Speaker 2: on behalf of himself and Bob. Here's Nicole again.
Speaker 6: Pet Rock is a family friend.
Speaker 7: He inserted himself in the investigation, primarily with about the
Speaker 7: reward and starting the website. Managing the website, he would
Speaker 7: call and ask Kilgore, Hey, I'm going to post this information.
Speaker 7: I'm going to post this article. And I think that
Speaker 7: there was tension there, but not like it was with Bob.
Speaker 7: Can I also add something?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 7: Bob asked Sergeant Kilgore whether pat had an alibi and
Speaker 7: told him that if she had made it to a pavement,
Speaker 7: she knew his number by heart and she would have
Speaker 7: called him.
Speaker 6: We know that they spoke often.
Speaker 7: Pat Rock said that he spoke with Anastasia the monday
Speaker 7: before she died. She had called him in the evening
Speaker 7: to confide in him about what was going on. And
Speaker 7: so Pat Rock is at someone that kill or would
Speaker 7: want to talk to and officially get on the record.
Speaker 7: But that doesn't happen.
Speaker 1: Were phone records Were their phone records ever pulled in
Speaker 1: this case? No, that's right.
Speaker 2: No phone records were pulled in this case at all.
Speaker 2: Not Justin's phone records, Byron's phone records, Kelly's phone records,
Speaker 2: or Bob's phone records. Not the dairy Queen's payphone records,
Speaker 2: the records for the payphone at the gas station where
Speaker 2: two people allegedly said they saw a young woman use
Speaker 2: the phone, Not the phone records from the Phillips sixty
Speaker 2: sixth station in Kansas where Justin called Anastasia's house, the
Speaker 2: same gas station where Kelly said she called Anastasia. They
Speaker 2: also didn't pull Byron's beeper records. Sergeant Kilgore never had
Speaker 2: any of those records pulled. Okay, Back to Patrick Rock,
Speaker 2: Anastasia's mom, Betsy Owens, talks about him in that interview
Speaker 2: with Kilgore on November seventh, nineteen ninety seven. Here she
Speaker 2: is talking about some of her conversations with Anastasia in
Speaker 2: the three days leading up to her death, which included
Speaker 2: how Anastasia didn't want to talk about God.
Speaker 8: And we believe that I attributed to this one thing.
Speaker 8: Pat Rock. I checked his name on there, who has
Speaker 8: an atheist and has been kind of an usual friend
Speaker 8: with the family.
Speaker 10: I did not approve of him. I've been keeping.
Speaker 8: Kids away from when Bob had it been it's like
Speaker 8: one of the kid's birthdays this weekend, and his brother
Speaker 8: calm and keep this guy away for the kids.
Speaker 1: That's he just said.
Speaker 2: At one of the kid's birthdays that week, Bob's brother
Speaker 2: told him to keep Patrick away from the kids, but
Speaker 2: Bob was going to let them see him over at
Speaker 2: his house. Betsy then says she told one of her
Speaker 2: brothers she thought Patrick was quote a latent pedophile. Here's Nicole, but.
Speaker 6: She's suspicious, she says.
Speaker 7: Betsy tells Detective Kilgore that her Bob's brother, Hugo, is
Speaker 7: also suspicious that Pat Rock had approached Bob at a
Speaker 7: party that they were all at and told Bob to
Speaker 7: keep the girls away from Pat Rock.
Speaker 2: Although Betsy and perhaps Bob's brother are suspicious of Patrick Rock,
Speaker 2: there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that Patrick Rock
Speaker 2: is or ever was, a pedophile. Attorney Brian Russell says,
Speaker 2: but wait, there may be two more reasons why Kilgore
Speaker 2: should have paid more attention to him during the investigation.
Speaker 3: Family had said Anastasia's family had said at the time
Speaker 3: that if she called for a ride, she would have
Speaker 3: called Pat Rock. Pat Rock changed his phone number the
Speaker 3: day after her body was found. We also know that
Speaker 3: he was involved in the Negro Leagues. In Kansas City,
Speaker 3: there's a Negro League's museum and he was kind of
Speaker 3: an amateur historian for that, and one of the things
Speaker 3: we found in our investigation is that he liked to
Speaker 3: go try to find graves of Negro League players and
Speaker 3: Lincoln Cemetery is a historically black cemetery. Charlie Parker is
Speaker 3: buried there and four Negro League players are buried in
Speaker 3: Lincoln Cemetery. There's a working theory that he could have
Speaker 3: been familiar with the cemetery, and when we went out
Speaker 3: there one day to see if we could locate some
Speaker 3: of those headstones for those players, we spent a significant
Speaker 3: amount of time wandering around looking at greystones. And it's
Speaker 3: hard to do in that cemetery because so because the
Speaker 3: gravestones are all flat, dirt has gathered on a lot
Speaker 3: of them, and there's even grass growing on a lot
Speaker 3: of them, so sometimes you could step on a headstone
Speaker 3: and not even realize you're on a headstone and you
Speaker 3: have to clear it off. And we were doing that
Speaker 3: for a decent amount of time before we were like, okay,
Speaker 3: this is kind of pointless. Literally, as we were about
Speaker 3: to give up, I looked down and found one of
Speaker 3: them right there, and we measured it off and it
Speaker 3: was like about sixty feet away from where Anastasia's body
Speaker 3: was found. Maybe another coincidence of the many that are
Speaker 3: in this case.
Speaker 1: Where is Pat Rock today?
Speaker 7: Pat Rock lives in Ukraine, moved there six months ago
Speaker 7: with his girlfriend possibly wife, who's from Ukraine.
Speaker 1: I write to.
Speaker 2: Patrick Rock in Ukraine requesting an interview. He responds and
Speaker 2: declines to talk on the phone or over zoom, but
Speaker 2: says he might be willing to answer my questions via email,
Speaker 2: but because he is skeptical and cynical about my intent,
Speaker 2: he first gives me homework.
Speaker 1: He wants me to review.
Speaker 2: All of the evidence on the stasia dot org website
Speaker 2: that he says proves Byron is guilty. Here is some
Speaker 2: of his first email to me, we've hired an actor
Speaker 2: to read it.
Speaker 13: Please be assured that we all firmly believe in the
Speaker 13: jury's final verdict. I established the case against case webpage
Speaker 13: to answer many of the half truths and misinformation provided
Speaker 13: by supporters. I would hope you have already viewed it
Speaker 13: before having contacted any of us.
Speaker 2: Patrick goes on to talk about Justin Bruton's death, saying
Speaker 2: it wasn't fully investigated and there might be evidence that
Speaker 2: contradicts or clouds the ruling of a probable suicide.
Speaker 1: Patrick says, the.
Speaker 13: Truth is that the investigation into his death was ruined
Speaker 13: by the first officer who found his body. Body and
Speaker 13: the weapon were moved, the grass around the scene was trampled.
Speaker 13: The entire crime scene was absolutely tainted.
Speaker 2: I read the link Patrick sent me about Justin's death.
Speaker 2: To me, there's nothing that seems to point to anything
Speaker 2: other than suicide. In fact, the coroner said the manner
Speaker 2: of death was suicide, not probable suicide, like Patrick states.
Speaker 2: Then mister Rock mentions something that Byron wrote.
Speaker 13: A bizarre short fiction he wrote and placed on his
Speaker 13: website between the time of the murder and his arrest,
Speaker 13: in which he told his own fictionalized version of the
Speaker 13: murder placed one hundred years in the past.
Speaker 1: Now this is true.
Speaker 2: It seems Byron wrote letters to a fictitious mister White
Speaker 2: in sort of a Charles Dickens's voice and old fashioned font.
Speaker 2: There are also the faces of Justin Kelly in Anastasia
Speaker 2: photoshopped onto Victorian era clothed bodies. The letters are dated
Speaker 2: with various months and days, but no years. Patrick says
Speaker 2: they were written between the time of the murder and
Speaker 2: Byron's arrest. I don't know when Byron actually wrote them, anyway.
Speaker 2: In these letters, Byron writes about a lot of things,
Speaker 2: including introducing Anastasia and Justin being enamored with Kelly, Kelly's
Speaker 2: alleged infidelity, working at a restaurant, and the deaths of Anastasia,
Speaker 2: Justin and his dad. Basically, he tells the same story
Speaker 2: he always has, just set in another time.
Speaker 1: But in one letter he.
Speaker 2: Writes he is quote quite adept at excuses, and that
Speaker 2: quote this shall no doubt be my undoing. Someday I
Speaker 2: email Byron about this, and he writes, in part quote
Speaker 2: what have come to be called mister White letters, which
Speaker 2: I always considered the Gray letters, actually were all written
Speaker 2: for my personal website.
Speaker 1: It was partly a.
Speaker 2: Way for me to put the past in its place,
Speaker 2: describing different periods of my life in three distinct shades,
Speaker 2: each of which represented a particular era. Black represented my
Speaker 2: dark history, specific with drug use. Gray represented the more
Speaker 2: recent past and explored the pain of loss. White represented
Speaker 2: the present and an overcoming of all that came before.
Speaker 2: It was all very cathartic and clearly beyond anyone's ability
Speaker 2: to comprehend outside of the light cast on it by
Speaker 2: the guilty verdict at my trial. Back to Patrick Rock's
Speaker 2: email to me, he goes on to say, quote.
Speaker 13: I met Byron Case while Anastasia was alive. I knew
Speaker 13: the details of their relationship with each other, going back
Speaker 13: to their high school days, and I communicated with him
Speaker 13: sporadically in an adversarial manner at his instigation following her murder.
Speaker 13: Until I attended his trial and heard the evidence myself,
Speaker 13: I did not know whether he was guilty or not.
Speaker 13: Sitting and listening for those four days convinced me of
Speaker 13: his guilt. Patrick continues, as much as I love Denistasia,
Speaker 13: I see my duty these days as to protect society
Speaker 13: by working to count of the misinformation or kill her
Speaker 13: support or spread. I cannot bring her back. He killed
Speaker 13: her more than a quarter century ago. He killed her yesterday,
Speaker 13: he will kill her tomorrow. It is a sorrow and
Speaker 13: loss with which I live every day. I do not
Speaker 13: receive any joy from his suffering. But I believe he
Speaker 13: would have killed again by now, perhaps more than just
Speaker 13: a second time, had he not been put safely away
Speaker 13: twenty three years ago. But having personally been slandered and
Speaker 13: cyberstock more than once by a number of his friends
Speaker 13: and family. I hope you understand my reluctance to get
Speaker 13: more involved in your project without some better idea of
Speaker 13: its intent.
Speaker 2: After that email, I get another one from Patrick. He
Speaker 2: says he's writing because he's heard that I went to
Speaker 2: Kelly's mom's house and harassed her. Patrick says the FBC
Speaker 2: Free Byron Case group has been harassing all of them,
Speaker 2: especially Kelly, for years. In fact, Kelly also emails accusing
Speaker 2: me of harassing her mother. In one email, Kelly writes, quote,
Speaker 2: when you were a little girl, is this how you
Speaker 2: pictured your career as a journalist? Harassing the family and
Speaker 2: friends of an eighteen year old girl who was gunned
Speaker 2: down by people she trusted.
Speaker 1: You must be so.
Speaker 2: Proud, I assure Patrick and Kelly in multiple emails, they
Speaker 2: are mistaken.
Speaker 1: It wasn't me.
Speaker 2: I have never been to Debera Moffatt's house. I've never
Speaker 2: spoken with her. That's not how I operate. I'm an
Speaker 2: independent journalist and aligned with no one. Eventually, Kelly believes
Speaker 2: me and apologizes. Still, I was quite upset by the
Speaker 2: whole thing, so I asked Byron's legal team if they
Speaker 2: went to Deborah Moffatt's house, and to my surprise, they
Speaker 2: say yes they did. They send me a statement which
Speaker 2: explains that they went there looking for Kelly, but there
Speaker 2: was no harassment or intimidation. They said they talked to
Speaker 2: Deborah and the exchange lasted about three minutes and was conversational.
Speaker 6: They said they left their.
Speaker 2: Business card so it was clear who they were and
Speaker 2: why they were there. Then they said, quote, the evidence
Speaker 2: is very clear that Byron Case is innocent of the
Speaker 2: crime for which he has spent more than twenty years
Speaker 2: in prison. We will continue working on his case, and
Speaker 2: we will continue to act ethically and with integrity within
Speaker 2: the legal system to correct this injustice. Sean and Quin O'Brien.
Speaker 2: Needless to say, this whole alleged harassing of Deborah Moffatt
Speaker 2: thing gets in the way of me asking Patrick some
Speaker 2: very important things. I eventually send him my list of questions.
Speaker 2: I hope he will respond. In the meantime, this needs
Speaker 2: to be said and heard loud and clear. Neither Bob Whitbulesfugen,
Speaker 2: nor Patrick Rock have ever been charged or convicted of
Speaker 2: anything related to Anastasia's death.
Speaker 5: Even if Bob Whitble's Fugen is a child molester, I
Speaker 5: don't know if he's a murderer and to have murdered
Speaker 5: his daughter, and I just can't fathom that a father
Speaker 5: would do that to his daughter.
Speaker 1: Next time on the Real Killer.
Speaker 7: We know from what Don Wright told us that Anasasia
Speaker 7: was wearing socks, Birkenstock like styled sandals and baggy blue jeans.
Speaker 7: Those aren't the clothes she was found in.
Speaker 2: The sixty four thousand dollars. Question is this did Anastasia
Speaker 2: go home that.
Speaker 3: Night where Bob says I found her blue jeans in
Speaker 3: the washing machine. I found a pair of her underwear
Speaker 3: soaking in the utilities sink.
Speaker 6: That's what she was.
Speaker 3: Wearing at Dairy Queen and if those made at home,
Speaker 3: that means she went home, and if she went home,
Speaker 3: Byron didn't do it.
Speaker 2: The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely
Speaker 2: those of the individuals participating in the podcast. If you,
Speaker 2: or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts or a crisis,
Speaker 2: please no help is available. Call or text nine to
Speaker 2: eight eight, or chat online at the Suicide and Crisis
Speaker 2: Lifelines website at nine eight eight lifeline dot org. To
Speaker 2: see photos, maps and documents related to this season's story,
Speaker 2: follow The Real Killer podcast on Instagram and at TRK
Speaker 2: podcast on TikTok. The Real Killer is a production of
Speaker 2: AYR Media and iHeartMedia, hosted by me Leah Rothman. Executive
Speaker 2: producers Leah Rothman and Elisa Rosen for AYR Media. Written
Speaker 2: by Leah Rothman, editing and sound design by Cameron Taggy,
Speaker 2: mixed and mastered by Cameron Taggi. Production coordinator Andy Levine,
Speaker 2: Audio engineer Justin Longerbeam studio engineer Graham Gibson. Voice acting
Speaker 2: by Art Garza. Legal council for AYR Media, Johnny Douglas,
Speaker 2: Executive producer for iHeartMedia.
Speaker 1: Maya Howard