WEBVTT - Is Serial Killer Larry Hall Connected to Tammy’s Murder? 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:08.360 Paper Ghosts is a production of iHeartRadio. I started with 0:00:08.640 --> 0:00:12.840 one cold case in particular and spent twenty years doing it. 0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:16.840 And I had heard about this story throughout my career, 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:19.639 and finally I was just like, Okay, tell me about this. 0:00:19.880 --> 0:00:22.439 I want to know about this. And I didn't have 0:00:22.440 --> 0:00:25.520 a body, didn't have evidence, I didn't have nothing. I 0:00:25.560 --> 0:00:31.680 had a story. Cold cases, an inherent part of Paper Ghosts, 0:00:32.320 --> 0:00:34.640 have taught me a lot about the men and women 0:00:34.840 --> 0:00:39.360 who dedicate their lives to solving these long forgotten stories 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:48.479 of the missing and murdered. My name is m William Phelps. 0:00:48.960 --> 0:00:52.680 I'm an investigative journalist and author of more than forty 0:00:52.720 --> 0:00:56.720 true crime books. This is the second of two bonus 0:00:56.720 --> 0:01:10.720 episodes of Paper Ghosts Season three, in plain Sight. During 0:01:10.720 --> 0:01:15.440 the Illinois State Police's initial investigation into Tammy Ziwiki's murder, 0:01:15.800 --> 0:01:19.400 and in the decades that followed, law enforcement looked at 0:01:19.440 --> 0:01:24.160 a number of known or suspected serial killers. It was 0:01:24.240 --> 0:01:27.840 William James Banister, a truck driver from Colorado, who was 0:01:27.959 --> 0:01:31.880 arrested in July nineteen ninety three for the attempted murder 0:01:31.920 --> 0:01:35.680 of a fourteen year old girl. Police searched his truck 0:01:35.680 --> 0:01:39.160 and found bloody clothes they thought could have belonged to Tammy, 0:01:39.480 --> 0:01:42.200 but ruled him out as a suspect in her case. 0:01:43.319 --> 0:01:46.600 There was Bruce Mendenhall, known as the truck Stop Killer, 0:01:47.360 --> 0:01:51.480 a long haul trucker from southern Illinois. He was arrested 0:01:51.520 --> 0:01:54.200 in two thousand and seven after decades on the road, 0:01:54.440 --> 0:01:59.640 and ultimately confessed to six murders. Investigators believe his body 0:01:59.640 --> 0:02:03.480 count is likely much higher, but we're also unable to 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:08.040 connect him to Tammy's murder. If you've listened to this season, 0:02:08.120 --> 0:02:12.000 you've heard me talk about Banister Mendenhall and other truck 0:02:12.040 --> 0:02:16.280 driving serial killers who initially look good for Tammy's murder. 0:02:18.560 --> 0:02:21.680 But there's one serial killer I haven't spoken much about 0:02:21.800 --> 0:02:25.320 yet who was also looked at as a potential suspect 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:28.440 in Tammy's case. A guy who could be responsible for 0:02:28.560 --> 0:02:33.240 kidnapping and murdering more than fifty women between nineteen eighty 0:02:33.280 --> 0:02:38.639 seven and nineteen ninety four, a guy that confounded police 0:02:38.960 --> 0:02:45.560 for years. Larry Dwayne Paul. I'm going to say that 0:02:45.600 --> 0:02:48.520 this man is fascinating, but not for any of the 0:02:48.600 --> 0:02:54.720 reasons that you might think. He's not colorful he's not intriguing. 0:02:55.600 --> 0:03:00.880 He's interesting because he's none of that. He's very plain, 0:03:01.760 --> 0:03:09.600 very soft spoken, very uninteresting on the surface. Lorie Howard 0:03:09.680 --> 0:03:13.600 is a former deputy sheriff with the McDonald County Sheriff's 0:03:13.600 --> 0:03:18.200 Department in southwest Missouri. Many of the locations she worked 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:22.320 in were less than an hour's drive from Sarcoxi, Missouri, 0:03:22.520 --> 0:03:26.840 where Tammy's body was discovered. Laurie spent much of her 0:03:26.880 --> 0:03:31.000 career looking into cold cases in the region, specifically young 0:03:31.080 --> 0:03:34.359 women who went missing or were killed in the late 0:03:34.400 --> 0:03:38.640 eighties in early nineties. I was then trying to develop 0:03:39.040 --> 0:03:44.800 kind of geographically a timeline and chronologically, why do I 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:47.800 have all of these girls? And who came first? And 0:03:48.800 --> 0:03:52.000 how were they killed? And where are they degree geographically 0:03:52.000 --> 0:03:55.080 on my timeline? What interstate runs through there? All of 0:03:55.080 --> 0:03:58.160 these questions that you ask yourself. And I had five 0:03:58.280 --> 0:04:02.240 or six of them, all within maybe a hundred miles 0:04:02.280 --> 0:04:06.720 of me. This is how I became involved with Miss 0:04:06.720 --> 0:04:10.040 Tammy's a Wiki, because Tammy's a Wiki is not in 0:04:10.080 --> 0:04:14.680 my jurisdiction. Laurie was trying to identify a victim she 0:04:14.880 --> 0:04:19.320 named Grace Dough whose remains were found in rural McDonald County. 0:04:19.520 --> 0:04:23.680 Back in December nineteen ninety, Larry Hall's name came up 0:04:23.720 --> 0:04:27.680 as a possible suspect, not just for Grace, but for 0:04:27.720 --> 0:04:30.680 a number of young women who had gone missing in 0:04:30.720 --> 0:04:33.880 the area over a period of years near this time, 0:04:34.480 --> 0:04:38.760 including Tammy's. A wiki. I had a friend working on 0:04:38.760 --> 0:04:43.320 the Springfiel three and you know that's up the road 0:04:43.400 --> 0:04:46.520 from me as well, and she said, I think this 0:04:46.640 --> 0:04:51.120 guy bears looking at And so when I started looking 0:04:51.240 --> 0:04:56.000 at him for Grace, I obviously started looking at Tammy. 0:04:56.800 --> 0:05:00.279 But I did look at Tammy very thoroughly because wanted 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:03.840 to know. Okay, if I can figure out everything there 0:05:03.920 --> 0:05:08.560 is to know about Tammy, I can then recreate what happened, 0:05:08.920 --> 0:05:11.760 hopefully to Grace, and it's going to tell me who 0:05:11.800 --> 0:05:17.000 she is. By the mid nineteen nineties, Larry Hall had 0:05:17.040 --> 0:05:20.279 been on law enforcement's radar for years and was a 0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:23.960 suspect in a number of missing person cases, most of 0:05:24.000 --> 0:05:28.440 whom were young women and girls. In nineteen ninety four, 0:05:28.720 --> 0:05:32.719 Hall admitted to killing nineteen year old Tricia Rutler, a 0:05:32.839 --> 0:05:36.839 college student who vanished a half mile from Indiana Wesleyan 0:05:36.960 --> 0:05:42.200 University's campus the year before. Tricia's body was never found, 0:05:42.640 --> 0:05:46.240 but police identified Hall as a potential suspect when they 0:05:46.240 --> 0:05:49.760 were investigating the kidnapping and murder of another teenage girl, 0:05:50.160 --> 0:05:55.520 fifteen year old Jessica Roach, also abducted in nineteen ninety three. 0:05:56.120 --> 0:05:59.120 While searching Hall's home and vehicle, police found a number 0:05:59.120 --> 0:06:04.080 of suspicious items connecting him to both victims, including knives, rope, 0:06:04.279 --> 0:06:07.760 a mask, along with a collection of newspaper articles and 0:06:07.880 --> 0:06:14.000 notes about their disappearances. Hall would go on to recant 0:06:14.000 --> 0:06:18.200 his confession, something he did quite often. Local police suspected 0:06:18.240 --> 0:06:21.800 that he was a chronic confessor, a wannabe looking to 0:06:21.839 --> 0:06:24.479 take credit for crimes he saw in the news but 0:06:24.560 --> 0:06:29.839 didn't commit. Other agencies, including the FBI, were not convinced. 0:06:32.800 --> 0:06:35.760 If you're a fan of true crime television, you've likely 0:06:35.800 --> 0:06:38.960 seen part of Hall's story play out in the Apple 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:44.840 TV Plus limited series Blackbird. The show dramatizes an FBI 0:06:44.920 --> 0:06:48.760 informants attempt to befriend Hall and get him to reveal 0:06:48.800 --> 0:06:54.800 the locations of his suspected victims bodies. Ultimately, the informant 0:06:54.800 --> 0:06:58.640 had some success and was able to help investigators prove 0:06:58.760 --> 0:07:03.239 Hall's involvement in both Tricia Rutler and Jessica Roach's murders. 0:07:04.920 --> 0:07:07.960 In nineteen ninety five, Paul was sentenced to life in 0:07:08.040 --> 0:07:12.360 prison without the possibility of parole. Since then, he has 0:07:12.440 --> 0:07:17.440 continued to confess to dozens of homicides, all of which 0:07:18.080 --> 0:07:23.400 he later recanted. Still, law enforcement working a number of 0:07:23.400 --> 0:07:27.440 those cases believe Paul is their guy, and that he 0:07:27.560 --> 0:07:31.120 may in fact be one of the nation's most prolific 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:35.640 serial killers. It's part of the reason Lorie Howard decided 0:07:35.880 --> 0:07:40.040 she needed to speak to Hall herself. I had talked 0:07:40.160 --> 0:07:43.080 with Larry at length about all of the horrific scenes 0:07:43.800 --> 0:07:48.440 that he did to young women. They were graphic in depth. 0:07:49.280 --> 0:07:52.320 He never missed a beat. He never actually had a 0:07:52.320 --> 0:07:55.760 lot of inflection in his voice. His affect was very 0:07:55.840 --> 0:08:00.040 calm telling me about these gruesome things. But while we 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:04.040 are talking, they brought him lunch, and he begins to 0:08:04.080 --> 0:08:09.480 eat and then stops almost in mid fork and apologizes 0:08:09.520 --> 0:08:12.920 to me for eating in front of me. I was 0:08:13.200 --> 0:08:16.040 taken aback because I just thought, that's what he is 0:08:16.120 --> 0:08:22.880 sorry for. According to a psychological profile done by the 0:08:22.920 --> 0:08:27.720 Department of Psychology at Radford University, Larry Hall was antisocial, 0:08:28.240 --> 0:08:31.000 had a low IQ and was often teased by the 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:35.000 other kids for his speech impediment. He was raised in 0:08:35.080 --> 0:08:39.480 a home located on a cemetery in Wabash, Indiana, and 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:43.080 he and his twin brother, Gary Hall, were often ordered 0:08:43.120 --> 0:08:47.599 to help their father, the church sexton Barry, bodies and 0:08:47.760 --> 0:08:52.640 tend to the graves. Larry's brother Gary has described him 0:08:52.679 --> 0:08:57.240 as very awkward, quiet and backward, someone who had a 0:08:57.280 --> 0:09:03.200 hard time fitting in and also had violent tendencies. I've 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:07.800 studied Hall myself and had brief contact with him. My 0:09:07.880 --> 0:09:11.439 opinion about Larry Hall is that he's a vicious psychopath 0:09:11.520 --> 0:09:15.360 who knows exactly what he has done and takes enormous 0:09:15.400 --> 0:09:20.079 pleasure in playing cat and mouse with law enforcement. Laurie 0:09:20.160 --> 0:09:24.320 Howard agrees, I do think he is simple minded, but 0:09:24.480 --> 0:09:27.040 only on a social level. I do not think he's 0:09:27.080 --> 0:09:29.720 simple minded when it comes to forensics. I think he's 0:09:29.760 --> 0:09:34.920 extremely meticulous, and I do think he's capable and has 0:09:35.000 --> 0:09:39.160 hurt many women. And for all of the serial confessor 0:09:39.240 --> 0:09:45.000 that he's been labeled, there's truth in there. After graduating 0:09:45.080 --> 0:09:48.000 high school, Hall found work as a janitor and developed 0:09:48.040 --> 0:09:51.880 an interest in the American Revolution and Civil War, so 0:09:52.000 --> 0:09:55.200 much so that he began traveling the country to attend 0:09:55.280 --> 0:10:00.440 and take part in battle re enactments. Authorities suspect committed 0:10:00.480 --> 0:10:05.920 many of his murders close to the historical sites he visited. Today, 0:10:06.280 --> 0:10:10.800 he's at a medium security facility in Butner, North Carolina, 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:14.480 which is where Laurie Howard went to meet him. She 0:10:14.559 --> 0:10:17.360 asked Hal about the girls on her list, starting with 0:10:17.600 --> 0:10:24.040 her unidentified Grace Dough. I spoke very briefly about a 0:10:24.120 --> 0:10:27.840 series of girls. Once he shoots me down and says, 0:10:28.040 --> 0:10:31.240 you know I'm not responsible for Grays. Then I want 0:10:31.280 --> 0:10:33.240 to know. Okay, well, tell me more about who you 0:10:33.280 --> 0:10:35.760 are responsible for, because I've got a list here, let's talk. 0:10:38.400 --> 0:10:43.720 Utilizing her vast experience and interrogation techniques, Laurie had a 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:47.320 map brought in. Then she began listing off names of 0:10:47.400 --> 0:10:53.079 victims and locations, carefully studying Hall's reaction to each one. 0:10:53.480 --> 0:10:57.160 I want to know about Dana Stidham and he says no, 0:10:57.840 --> 0:11:00.240 And I said, okay, I need to know talk to 0:11:00.280 --> 0:11:05.040 me about Trisha Ruler. He absolutely would not talk about 0:11:05.040 --> 0:11:08.040 Trisha Ruler, but he did not deny Trisha Ruitler either, 0:11:09.360 --> 0:11:13.720 And then Hall forever one to try and change the narrative, 0:11:14.320 --> 0:11:19.319 did something unexpected and yet also completely in line with 0:11:19.360 --> 0:11:23.600 the psychopath that he is. I was just about to 0:11:23.679 --> 0:11:27.120 finish and hadn't yet finished the girls on my list 0:11:27.200 --> 0:11:33.240 when he said, let the Springfill three. We did kill them. 0:11:33.360 --> 0:11:36.319 And so then we started talking about the Springfill three. 0:11:36.320 --> 0:11:38.959 I said, I want to know where are they? Larry, 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:43.520 and he said, okay, we're leaning. The two of us 0:11:43.760 --> 0:11:45.840 are leaning over a map together on the table, he 0:11:45.920 --> 0:11:48.760 and I and he said they're buried in the March 0:11:48.760 --> 0:11:51.839 Train Forest. And I said, no, that's not gonna fly. 0:11:52.400 --> 0:11:55.679 The march Tinging Forest is huge. You can't throw out 0:11:55.679 --> 0:11:57.839 They're buried in the Marching Forest. And so he then 0:11:57.880 --> 0:12:01.320 begins to kind of narrow that down for me based 0:12:01.320 --> 0:12:05.000 on the map and what he can remember. The only 0:12:05.040 --> 0:12:07.400 way to know if Paul was telling the truth was 0:12:07.480 --> 0:12:10.160 to search the area he indicated in the Mark Twain 0:12:10.280 --> 0:12:14.920 Force and locate those bodies. The problem became, however, that 0:12:15.000 --> 0:12:21.360 the Springfield three case fell outside Laurie Howard's jurisdiction. So 0:12:21.400 --> 0:12:24.880 she called the Springfield Police Department and shared what Larry 0:12:24.920 --> 0:12:32.800 Hall had told her, or at least she tried to. Unfortunately, 0:12:32.880 --> 0:12:38.280 to some degree, in law enforcement, there are egos, and 0:12:38.679 --> 0:12:41.800 I think that they did not really want to readily 0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:46.680 accept the idea that I might have information that they 0:12:46.679 --> 0:12:51.240 had not either previously looked at and disregarded, or they 0:12:51.600 --> 0:12:55.040 already had kind of pigeonholed a suspect for that case 0:12:55.040 --> 0:12:59.160 and didn't really want to go outside of that, And 0:12:59.240 --> 0:13:02.480 so I they had eliminated him in their own mind. 0:13:04.480 --> 0:13:08.240 During her conversation with Larry Hall, Laurie Howard brought up 0:13:08.320 --> 0:13:12.640 Tammy Zuwiki. On paper, Haul was the perfect candidate to 0:13:12.720 --> 0:13:18.280 have abducted the twenty one year old college student. Investigators 0:13:18.280 --> 0:13:21.800 were never able to corroborate his claim, but in two ten, 0:13:22.040 --> 0:13:27.079 Paul confessed to the abduction of twenty year old Laurie Deppis, 0:13:27.360 --> 0:13:30.720 went missing just four days prior and a few hundred 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:34.439 miles away from where Tammy Ziwiki was last seen alive 0:13:34.760 --> 0:13:40.200 in Illinois. Paul denied any involvement with Tammy's murder. And 0:13:40.280 --> 0:13:43.959 as difficult as it is to believe anything the man says, 0:13:44.920 --> 0:13:48.120 Laurie Howard thinks he's telling the truth when it comes 0:13:48.160 --> 0:13:53.200 to Tammy's case. Regarding Tammy, not only does he not 0:13:53.320 --> 0:13:57.040 take credit for Tammy there's some things with Tammy that 0:13:57.120 --> 0:14:00.959 are for me stand out geneographically. Jimmy was in the 0:14:01.040 --> 0:14:04.160 right place at the right time for him. He was 0:14:04.440 --> 0:14:07.720 three hours and forty five minutes away. The time frame 0:14:07.760 --> 0:14:10.560 works for me. What doesn't work for me now is 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:15.640 she was wrapped in a blanket. She was also wrapped 0:14:15.760 --> 0:14:19.920 in a sheet, and she was duct taped. Those things 0:14:20.000 --> 0:14:24.080 do not do not fit with Larry Hall. He would 0:14:24.080 --> 0:14:29.840 never do that. He would dispose of them, potentially with rope, 0:14:30.640 --> 0:14:34.840 but he would never, you know, wrap a red blanket 0:14:35.360 --> 0:14:38.440 or a form fitted sheet that came from him from 0:14:38.520 --> 0:14:42.120 his van and leave that, especially with duct tape. He 0:14:42.280 --> 0:14:48.440 just he's never been known to use duct tape. Like myself, 0:14:49.040 --> 0:14:53.200 Laurie doesn't believe the circumstances of Tammy's murder fit. Larry 0:14:53.240 --> 0:14:56.960 Hall's a mall. It's just not how the guy operated. 0:14:58.360 --> 0:15:01.640 If he'd abducted Tammy, there's a good chance no one 0:15:01.640 --> 0:15:04.360 would have found her body. Because if there was one 0:15:04.480 --> 0:15:07.480 thing Larry Hall was good at, it was hiding his 0:15:07.640 --> 0:15:13.760 victims well enough for them never to be found. Larry's way, 0:15:13.920 --> 0:15:18.280 preferred way of killing would be what he really wants 0:15:18.320 --> 0:15:24.040 to pretend, at least in that first few initial seconds 0:15:24.200 --> 0:15:29.760 that this is going to be a reciprocal relationship, that 0:15:29.880 --> 0:15:32.440 he's going to ask this young lady out or this 0:15:32.480 --> 0:15:34.640 young girl out, and they're going to one want to 0:15:34.640 --> 0:15:37.360 get in with him, or two want to be in 0:15:37.400 --> 0:15:40.520 his presence. So he will go and ask them out, 0:15:41.320 --> 0:15:43.120 or he will ask them if they want to ride, 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:48.280 and then is astonished when they fight him, and then 0:15:48.360 --> 0:15:53.240 becomes incensed to the point that you know that he 0:15:53.400 --> 0:15:57.600 ends up killing them rather graphically and brutally. Falling in 0:15:57.680 --> 0:16:00.840 line with many of the people I've spoken to, Laurie 0:16:00.840 --> 0:16:04.800 believes Tammy was likely murdered by a trucker. As for 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:09.520 Grace Doe's identity, Laurie finally got her breakthrough thanks to 0:16:09.560 --> 0:16:14.280 advancements and DNA and forensics technology. I did not know 0:16:14.360 --> 0:16:16.640 this until much later on. That was the first time 0:16:16.640 --> 0:16:19.200 that that had ever been done in the United States 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:25.280 to reconstruct with just images. I think it was like 0:16:25.280 --> 0:16:30.760 one millimeter images of MRI. So my email pops up 0:16:30.760 --> 0:16:33.120 and it says, Laurie, meet Grace, and that was the 0:16:33.120 --> 0:16:35.920 first time I'd ever had a picture of her. And 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:41.680 so then you know, fast forward years later and DNA 0:16:41.760 --> 0:16:45.040 evolves and develops, and here we are. We now know 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:50.800 who her family is, and so Grace is now Shanna Garber. 0:16:54.160 --> 0:16:57.960 Laurie Howard spent nearly twenty years searching for the identity 0:16:58.120 --> 0:17:02.920 of Shanna Garber, never giving up on every last lead 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:07.760 and potential piece of evidence. Breakthroughs like that are rare, 0:17:07.960 --> 0:17:11.919 but it's a reminder that hopefully dies if we allow it, 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:16.040 especially for families of these victims and their chance for 0:17:16.200 --> 0:17:21.440 justice and a semblance of peace. And that hope is 0:17:21.480 --> 0:17:25.080 what drives Lorie Howard. I want to tell you the 0:17:25.119 --> 0:17:28.720 reason I do what I do. I got a phone 0:17:28.720 --> 0:17:34.000 call from Shauna's brother and he said, we really want 0:17:34.040 --> 0:17:40.159 you to come to Shauna's funeral for her burial, and 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:43.119 I was moved that they would even ask me, and 0:17:43.240 --> 0:17:45.480 I said, I want to be there. I want to 0:17:45.520 --> 0:17:47.679 be there, but I can't be and it really upset me. 0:17:48.600 --> 0:17:51.760 And so then he calls me back the day of 0:17:51.760 --> 0:17:53.840 the funeral and he says, I think it's important that 0:17:53.880 --> 0:18:01.640 you know. Shan's headstone reads SHAWNA graf Harbor. He said, 0:18:01.680 --> 0:18:04.679 because she was Grace as long as she was on 0:18:04.760 --> 0:18:10.640 her it wants something to me. It that's a lot 0:18:10.680 --> 0:18:14.399 to me. I mean, that's just one of one of 0:18:14.400 --> 0:18:29.680 a thousand stories. Of course, if you want to learn 0:18:29.720 --> 0:18:33.200 more about Larry Hall and his crimes and even hear 0:18:33.359 --> 0:18:37.320 from Hall himself, listen to episodes thirty two and thirty 0:18:37.320 --> 0:18:41.000 three titled The Man in the Van of my other podcasts, 0:18:41.520 --> 0:18:44.840 crossing the Line with Them William Phelps wherever you get 0:18:44.840 --> 0:18:48.119 your podcasts, I take a look at Hall's crimes and 0:18:48.200 --> 0:18:51.600 focus on two of his victims stories, and you might 0:18:51.600 --> 0:18:57.919 even hear Hall confess to yet another murder. Paper Ghosts 0:18:58.040 --> 0:19:02.200 is written and executive produce by me and William Phelps 0:19:02.240 --> 0:19:08.320 and iHeart executive producer Christina Everett. Additional writing by our 0:19:08.359 --> 0:19:15.040 supervising producer Julia Weaver. Our associate producer is Darby Masters, 0:19:15.160 --> 0:19:19.560 Audio editing and mixing by Christian Bowman and Abu Zafar. 0:19:20.560 --> 0:19:23.600 Our series theme number four four two is written and 0:19:23.680 --> 0:19:29.280 performed by Thomas Phelps and Tom Mooney. For more podcasts 0:19:29.280 --> 0:19:34.560 from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever 0:19:34.840 --> 0:19:36.560 you listen to your favorite shows.