Speaker 1: A warning about this episode. It contained sexually violent, offensive,
Speaker 1: extremely graphic language, yet vital to include when exploring the
Speaker 1: facts of both Shawnas and Dana's cases. Grass is not
Speaker 1: cut No one's around.
Speaker 2: But give it a shot.
Speaker 3: See what he has to say.
Speaker 1: Jack Lenny is still a strong person of interest for
Speaker 1: the murders of both Dana'stidham and Shawna. Garber I determined
Speaker 1: the best way to approach him was a cold call,
Speaker 1: a surprise knock on his door. Try to catch the
Speaker 1: guy by surprise off his game. See if I can
Speaker 1: tell who we he is before he can put up
Speaker 1: a front to disguise himself. Today, Lenny lives in a
Speaker 1: suburban neighborhood, each cookie cutter house like the one before it.
Speaker 1: The town where he lives, which I am choosing not
Speaker 1: to name, is between Belavis to Arkansas and Anderson, Missouri.
Speaker 1: During the time of Dana's murder, he was living in Bentonville, Arkansas,
Speaker 1: just a few miles from Dana's home, workplace, and where
Speaker 1: Dana's body was found. He then moved to a different county,
Speaker 1: just thirty five miles from Pineville, where Shawna's body was found.
Speaker 1: The houses around Lennie's were well kept yards well maintained,
Speaker 1: that is, all of them except for Linny's. In fact,
Speaker 1: it appeared as though he'd abandon yard work and any
Speaker 1: type of upkeep long ago.
Speaker 4: Sheets are drawn and haler on the ground.
Speaker 1: I stood for a while on his front steps and waited.
Speaker 1: He was either not home or not answering. The windows,
Speaker 1: quite strangely, were covered from the inside with newspaper, every
Speaker 1: single one of them.
Speaker 2: No one seems to be home.
Speaker 1: With multiple daily newspapers left on the doorstep, wet and moldy,
Speaker 1: I got a sense that no one had been home
Speaker 1: in quite some time. I checked the garbage bin and
Speaker 1: it hadn't been used for a while. Other than helping
Speaker 1: me paint a mental picture of this guy, I struck
Speaker 1: out this time. My surprise visit didn't yield the results
Speaker 1: I'd hope for, but I could now begin calling Lenny
Speaker 1: to see what he had to say and find out
Speaker 1: if he'd even talk to me. I sensed he was
Speaker 1: the type of guy who needed to explain himself, so
Speaker 1: I was hopeful this. As the deeper I looked at Lenny,
Speaker 1: the more evidence I found point to his alleged involvement
Speaker 1: in two thirty plus year old cold murder cases previously
Speaker 1: on Paper Ghosts.
Speaker 5: He said, we're going to start playing.
Speaker 6: Chess by mail, and he said, don't cheat.
Speaker 7: I thought, were what dare you? A serial killer?
Speaker 8: Moralized to be?
Speaker 4: There was probably like seventeen different types of twine that.
Speaker 2: Were used to cocoon this young lady after.
Speaker 9: She had been murdered.
Speaker 2: It's extremely difficult, but it's not impossible.
Speaker 3: None of them are impossible.
Speaker 2: It was impossible and probably self trying.
Speaker 3: But this is going to be solved, and it will be.
Speaker 1: My name is em William Phelps. I'm an investigative journalist
Speaker 1: and author of more than forty true crime books. This
Speaker 1: season four of Paper Ghosts, the ozarks law enforcement studies
Speaker 1: on cold casework have shown that the passage of time
Speaker 1: can pose a serious threat to recall accuracy. In other words,
Speaker 1: a witness's memory might produce inaccuracies because of the time
Speaker 1: between the crime and the account provided to law enforcement.
Speaker 1: This is why documentation, recorded interviews, and information gathered near
Speaker 1: the time of the crime in real time becomes so
Speaker 1: utterly vital to cold case investigation. At the end of
Speaker 1: the last episode, you heard a prosecutor talk about evidence
Speaker 1: found in Jacquelinese house during a search warrant over a
Speaker 1: year after Dana's murder, spools of various ropes, cable and wire.
Speaker 1: That search also uncovered some rather alarming forensic evidence, which
Speaker 1: we're about to unpack in this episode. Before that, however,
Speaker 1: I'd like to go back and look at two specific
Speaker 1: significant events leading up to the execution of those warrants. First,
Speaker 1: there was a disturbing phone call, unlike any of the
Speaker 1: past calls you've heard that the BCSO thought might possibly
Speaker 1: be connected to Dana Stidham's case. This call, which is
Speaker 1: violent in content, made just after Dana went missing, felt
Speaker 1: very significant and perhaps even an indication of things to come.
Speaker 10: Hello, this is understand.
Speaker 5: You're having an auction to raise money.
Speaker 10: Yes, that in PST the money for but we're trying
Speaker 10: to raise money for the Stidham family. We hoped to
Speaker 10: be able to raise enough money to help the family
Speaker 10: out and start a reward fund. That money help us
Speaker 10: find who killed Damis Didham?
Speaker 5: Are you finding to get involved in something like this?
Speaker 11: No?
Speaker 10: Not really, you should be Why is that?
Speaker 5: How do you like men to cut your t's off?
Speaker 1: Terrified, the woman immediately hung up the phone. A second
Speaker 1: call came in some time later.
Speaker 4: Hello.
Speaker 1: The caller alluded once again to the reward money, but
Speaker 1: he was hard to understand. The woman was certain, however,
Speaker 1: she was speaking to the same person.
Speaker 10: Who is this?
Speaker 5: Listen, bitch, I'm gonna stick my knife in you.
Speaker 12: Hey, you know where I'm at.
Speaker 1: She hung up the phone. A third call came in
Speaker 1: soon after.
Speaker 5: You know what I'm going to do to you. You
Speaker 5: have to be really hard. I'm going you so hard
Speaker 5: you'll think my is gonna come out of your throat.
Speaker 5: I cannot be waiting to show you. Oh listen, interest,
Speaker 5: did you hear me? And you because you better listen?
Speaker 5: God damn life, you and I'll never.
Speaker 2: Find you.
Speaker 1: This time. He hung up the phone. You might be
Speaker 1: wondering why these calls happened to be recorded, and that's
Speaker 1: because the calls had been made to the tip line
Speaker 1: set up for Dana's investigation. The woman called the BCSO
Speaker 1: immediately after the third call. The BCSO interviewed right away.
Speaker 1: Journalist Brandon Howard spoke with me about those disturbing calls
Speaker 1: you just heard.
Speaker 7: I understand it was a family friend and worked at
Speaker 7: the post office, which was really a caddy corner to
Speaker 7: the grocery store with Dana work. You could ask it
Speaker 7: from the same parking lot.
Speaker 1: The frightening part of Brandon's comment is that it's entirely
Speaker 1: possible the caller was watching the woman from a payphone
Speaker 1: overlooking the post office in the parking lot of Phillip's Grocery.
Speaker 1: These calls were different from the previous ones explored throughout
Speaker 1: the investigation, not only in context, but in how threatening
Speaker 1: and serious they seemed. Violence was part of the caller's objective,
Speaker 1: as was trying to instill fear and intimidate certain individuals
Speaker 1: connected to Dana's case.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think the phone call significant because it doesn't
Speaker 7: seem like a typical phone call to the prank, which
Speaker 7: I'm sure there were probably phone calls that were frames
Speaker 7: involved in Dana's case. I think that's probably typical of
Speaker 7: any case like this. But this is repeated phone calls
Speaker 7: that I would argue grow more disturbing, and they are
Speaker 7: pretty specific and the type of threats the caller delivers.
Speaker 1: I asked Brandon for his insights about the caller.
Speaker 7: First thought was that it escalated from zero to one hundred,
Speaker 7: like really quickly, seemingly in just a handful of phone
Speaker 7: calls too. If you're comparing this to another suspect in
Speaker 7: the case, possibly a high school classmate of Danas, it
Speaker 7: doesn't seem like something a high schooler would do. And
Speaker 7: to have an addendum to that, if there is the
Speaker 7: possibility that he made a phone call to another woman
Speaker 7: later in life, it doesn't seem to fit. Somewhat of
Speaker 7: a jovial, not disturbing, sexual conversation he had with another woman,
Speaker 7: nothing like this where there were threats of bodily armed
Speaker 7: in escalation to violence. And the third part about it
Speaker 7: is the phone call was paired with a voice lineup
Speaker 7: and the woman post office selected a voice of a
Speaker 7: suspect who later emerged the Dana's case that I think
Speaker 7: is probably the best suspect of the group.
Speaker 1: During the woman's interview with BCSO detectives, they played a
Speaker 1: voice lineup six different voices of six different men. Within
Speaker 1: those six men was Jack Lenny's voice from that first
Speaker 1: interview that BCSO had conducted with them. She immediately picked
Speaker 1: Lenny's voice out of the lineup. This call also points
Speaker 1: us away from the bcso's early target, Mike McMillan, because
Speaker 1: whoever called into this tip line would have had access
Speaker 1: to local information in order to know certain details. And
Speaker 1: so the other part of it is, and you made
Speaker 1: this point, which I think is very, very valid, it's
Speaker 1: hard to believe that it could be Mike McMillan because
Speaker 1: what do you have access to the daily record, right,
Speaker 1: or even get that information from family and make the
Speaker 1: call exactly.
Speaker 7: Yeah, the more I thought about that, to place the
Speaker 7: context of the nineteen eighty nine phone calls, he would
Speaker 7: have to have access to the daily newspaper in the area.
Speaker 7: There was no Internet, social media, any of things that
Speaker 7: we take for granted now.
Speaker 1: Mike McMillan was not even in the state when the
Speaker 1: calls were made into the tip line, which completely excludes
Speaker 1: him as a potential source. And here's the thing about
Speaker 1: Jack Linney's voice I need to underscore.
Speaker 7: She selected this voice, which I hate to say feather
Speaker 7: in the cat, but stood out to me at least
Speaker 7: because had a very unique speaking style, the result of
Speaker 7: a bad accident that lets him with some brain damage,
Speaker 7: so he had a slur list type of voice. And
Speaker 7: I thought that really stood out because it would seem
Speaker 7: like something somebody would remember from a phone call and
Speaker 7: then they heard back again, they'd be more likely to choose.
Speaker 1: It to focus on Jack Lenny as a person of
Speaker 1: interest in Dana Didham's murder, and fievably, Shauna Garber's went
Speaker 1: from intense to laser focused in nineteen ninety three after
Speaker 1: he was picked out of that voice lineup. Another fact
Speaker 1: leading to the search warrants on Lenny's home and vehicle
Speaker 1: was a second interview, which was more of an interrogation.
Speaker 1: If you recall, the first Jack Lenney interview was rather
Speaker 1: light handed and conducted during the information gathering phase of
Speaker 1: the investigation. This second interview was more strategically designed to
Speaker 1: get him to maybe admit to his possible role in
Speaker 1: Dana's murder and start heading in the direction of positioning
Speaker 1: him as potentially being involved in SHAWNA. Garber's Unfortunately, I
Speaker 1: could not locate a recording of this second interview, but
Speaker 1: was able to find a copy of a complete transcript. Additionally,
Speaker 1: while I was in Bentonville, Arkansas, I met with someone
Speaker 1: you heard at the end of the previous episode, the
Speaker 1: former prosecutor who was part of the team interviewing Lenny
Speaker 1: that second time. If I couldn't hear the interview myself.
Speaker 1: The next best thing was to talk to someone.
Speaker 2: Who was in the room.
Speaker 1: And so you are.
Speaker 4: Drew Miller right now, just said attorney in private practice.
Speaker 4: So you're coming to me because I was a deputy
Speaker 4: prosecuting attorney and the chief Deputy prosecuting Attorney in the
Speaker 4: Benton County Prosecutor's Office September ninety one until January of
Speaker 4: ninety five.
Speaker 1: Drew has this Southern charm abottom that is hard not
Speaker 1: to like. He works out of a sprawling office located
Speaker 1: inside a Gothic style building reminiscent of a fifteenth century church.
Speaker 1: Drew oversaw the Prosecutor's Office in Benton County and was
Speaker 1: present for the search warrants and second longer interview the
Speaker 1: BCSO conducted with Jack Lenny in nineteen ninety three. One
Speaker 1: thing he cleared up for me was how the BCSO
Speaker 1: had latched onto Lenny. Back in the first episode, I
Speaker 1: talked about a man seen talking to Dana in the
Speaker 1: parking lot of the Phillips. One report had the two
Speaker 1: of them apparently arguing the guy who was with Dana
Speaker 1: matched Lenny's description, and more importantly, when confronted about whether
Speaker 1: he was in the parking lot on that July twenty
Speaker 1: fifth afternoon, the last time Dana was seen, Lenny said, quote,
Speaker 1: she might have even talked to me.
Speaker 4: So I think my recollection he was identified early on,
Speaker 4: and then he surfaced again, maybe just to do due
Speaker 4: diligence and making sure that they were going back to
Speaker 4: reinterview everybody. But it seemed to me that when we
Speaker 4: talked to this individual that there was some independent evidence
Speaker 4: that they had found. I think they had found maybe
Speaker 4: some maps or something that had come up that were
Speaker 4: maybe in his vehicle, or that he had given them
Speaker 4: or given somebody that had some locations of not only
Speaker 4: where close proximity where Dana had disappeared, but some close
Speaker 4: proximity where other individual unsolved murders had appeared, generally the
Speaker 4: same type of criteria, female age, anywhere from twenty to
Speaker 4: thirty five, And they had some confidence even before he
Speaker 4: was interviewed, but they felt like that he was a
Speaker 4: strong lead.
Speaker 1: In an earlier episode, I mentioned those maps which were
Speaker 1: found in Lenny's vehicle and had the locations in town
Speaker 1: clearly marked where Dana had visited or had been seen
Speaker 1: on the day she disappeared, Why in the hell with
Speaker 1: Jack Lenny maps marked with that sort of information. Here's
Speaker 1: journalists Brandon Howard.
Speaker 11: He reportedly had several maps of Bellavista in his vehicle
Speaker 11: that he initially said belonged to the newspaper, but detectives
Speaker 11: were concerned because he had markings on the maps that
Speaker 11: included the spot where Dana's car was found and the
Speaker 11: grocery store where she worked at. He tries to pass
Speaker 11: that off as that's the location where newspapers might be built,
Speaker 11: but they have questions about that, since why would a
Speaker 11: newspaper to be built on the side of the highway
Speaker 11: or at a grocery store. He has no solid answer
Speaker 11: to that response. He also has a bizarre outburst that
Speaker 11: he has no idea about the Stideam homicide, seemingly in
Speaker 11: an unrelated question that bears little to any relevation about
Speaker 11: our case.
Speaker 1: He just, you know, red flags all over the place
Speaker 1: with this guy.
Speaker 11: Yes, I don't need to laugh. Yeah, red flags. It's shocking.
Speaker 11: I mean, if I was to check the box of
Speaker 11: predator or deviant, this guy checks several of those boxes.
Speaker 1: I mean, showing up at a store with a scheme, mask.
Speaker 11: On, telling the women you're horny as Hill. It's very
Speaker 11: bizarre waiting for them in the parking lot, mentioning he
Speaker 11: gave detailed answers about Dana's case, referred to her as
Speaker 11: a really good looking person. That saddened him that people
Speaker 11: like that are killed, never the ugly ones. In addition
Speaker 11: to that, he mentions unprompted that Dana had might have
Speaker 11: had a low tire which could have prompted him to
Speaker 11: pull her over, but that wasn't mentioned by detectives in
Speaker 11: the interview. It was public knowledge but not mentioned by
Speaker 11: the textives in the interview.
Speaker 1: The plan during this second interview with Lenny was to
Speaker 1: get him under oath to explain the circumstances, pointing the
Speaker 1: BCSO in his direction. You heard the first interview, which
Speaker 1: was very much an avenue for the BCSO to let
Speaker 1: Lenny know they were coming after him. During that second interview,
Speaker 1: Prosecutor Drew Miller explained Lenny rang several alarm bells without
Speaker 1: ever being prompted, starting with agreeing to the interview in
Speaker 1: the first place.
Speaker 4: They were wanting to pin him down, very surprised that
Speaker 4: he wanted to come in. You know, my initial reaction is,
Speaker 4: you know, this guy's coming in. Surely he's not the guy, right,
Speaker 4: I mean, who does that? But the interview was everything
Speaker 4: can be considered unusual, but from my perspective, it was
Speaker 4: it was almost like he definitely wasn't afraid.
Speaker 1: The interview was conducted mostly by Danny Varner. Lenny, forty
Speaker 1: six years old at the time, was cocky and smarmy,
Speaker 1: answering questions in a sarcastic manner, as if he was
Speaker 1: taunting law enforcement.
Speaker 4: I got the feeling during some course of that interview,
Speaker 4: if Danny had the legal ability to wrap his hands
Speaker 4: around his neck, he would have wrapped his hands around
Speaker 4: his neck. But he he maintained it was just an
Speaker 4: interesting interview because as I'm listen listening to him, it's
Speaker 4: just not like I'm sure he denied it, but it
Speaker 4: just really wasn't like he denied it, you know, It's
Speaker 4: just like he just wanted to continue the conversation.
Speaker 1: What law enforcement found unquestionably disturbing, not to mention revealing,
Speaker 1: was that Lenny himself brought the subject of Dana Stidham up.
Speaker 4: It's just as I sat there in the interview, my
Speaker 4: feelings changed to I know something is going on with
Speaker 4: this guy. I don't know what it is. I'm not
Speaker 4: a doctor, I'm not a psychologist. I'm just trying to
Speaker 4: get a read. But there was just something that was
Speaker 4: clinically off.
Speaker 1: At one point, while referring to Dana, Lenny says, quote,
Speaker 1: she was real good looking, and that's one of the
Speaker 1: big things that always ticked me off. They always killed
Speaker 1: the good looking once. They don't ever kill the old, fat,
Speaker 1: ugly hog end quote. It's a shaming, demeaning, and humiliating
Speaker 1: way to view women, especially when you're being questioned about
Speaker 1: the murder of the young woman you are talking about.
Speaker 4: Yeah, again, that would be a typical example, like in
Speaker 4: some aspects, really incriminating, right if he says it the
Speaker 4: right way or or the wrong way. But as you're
Speaker 4: going for he says a lot of that stuff and
Speaker 4: you're just going, why would he even go there?
Speaker 1: At one point, they pressed him about prior arrests, and
Speaker 1: he mentioned a concealed weapon charge and also being accused
Speaker 1: of stealing a police officer's gun. In an earlier episode,
Speaker 1: we discussed the report from a witness claiming to have
Speaker 1: seen Dana's carr being followed by a station wagon. At
Speaker 1: the time, Lenny owned a station wagon fitting the description
Speaker 1: which had been searched the week before this second interview. Inside,
Speaker 1: they found blood on the front passenger seat, floorboard, carpets
Speaker 1: on the backseat, along with several female hairs. So two
Speaker 1: and two make four.
Speaker 4: Again. At the time, I thought that there was enough
Speaker 4: evidence to piece things together.
Speaker 1: Next, Drew makeson a stoope point about motive, placing Lenny
Speaker 1: into a very distinct, rare category of murderers, which begins
Speaker 1: to point at him as a serious person of interest
Speaker 1: in SHAWNA. Garber's murder as well, or at the least
Speaker 1: someone who needs to be excluded.
Speaker 4: Well, that's the problem with a serial killer, because number
Speaker 4: one is motive, and with a serial killer, you don't
Speaker 4: really have motive. And this, at least based on it's
Speaker 4: the perception at the time and probably the perception now,
Speaker 4: is it was a serial killer. Could have been somebody
Speaker 4: that she known, but somebody that had done this before,
Speaker 4: or there potentially was no way to string them together
Speaker 4: individually as far as motive.
Speaker 8: So then the.
Speaker 4: Next thing you need to prove his opportunity, and and
Speaker 4: that's a tricky one because obviously the opportunity potentially existed,
Speaker 4: but the longer a case goes on, you know, it's
Speaker 4: very it's very difficult to prove that opportunity.
Speaker 1: The BCSO had already proved Lenny had the opportunity, was
Speaker 1: in the area at the time and had no alibi
Speaker 1: for that night. Furthermore, they spoke to his then wife
Speaker 1: who said he would leave home for days at a
Speaker 1: time and she had no idea where he was or
Speaker 1: where he had gone.
Speaker 4: And then you get to the intent issue, and the
Speaker 4: intent with regard to a serial killer is that is
Speaker 4: just that. So it's almost like with a serial killer,
Speaker 4: you got to you kind of got to build the bodies,
Speaker 4: you know, I mean that's the worst part of it.
Speaker 4: You got to connect as opposed to connecting the dots,
Speaker 4: you got to connect the bodies. And so it's it's difficult,
Speaker 4: I mean there because the number one thing that is
Speaker 4: good in any kind of murder case is the motive,
Speaker 4: and you really don't have it right, at least you
Speaker 4: can't connect it right. So that's what that's what makes
Speaker 4: these kind of difficult.
Speaker 1: A serial killer acts with impunity. Their number one motive
Speaker 1: for killing is for the fun of it. Drew Miller's
Speaker 1: point is incredibly valid. To catch a serial killer, it's
Speaker 1: imperative to find a connection among his victims, which often
Speaker 1: leads to evidence and simultaneously additional victims. And so over
Speaker 1: the course of time, how did it progress with him?
Speaker 4: I don't know how long. I mean, I definitely know
Speaker 4: Sedoriac he had a passion for it, and Barner had
Speaker 4: a passion for it. And it's just like anything else,
Speaker 4: just like any occupation, you know, the people that have
Speaker 4: passion for it continue the fire when they when they're
Speaker 4: not there to fan it is going to die. And
Speaker 4: so that's why people that do cold cases, it's really
Speaker 4: hard for them because they have to they have to
Speaker 4: build that desire, you know, and they have to build
Speaker 4: it from scratch. And some are really good at it,
Speaker 4: you know. Some of them, you know, open the box
Speaker 4: and they're they're all there. Some it takes away, I mean,
Speaker 4: but if you like, what are you going to do?
Speaker 4: Hand a young detective a thirty year old case and
Speaker 4: say go investigate this, He's like, oh, Mike, what am
Speaker 4: I going to be doing for the rest.
Speaker 5: Of my life?
Speaker 4: You know. So it's it's just a different it's just
Speaker 4: a different situation, for.
Speaker 1: Sure, Such an important comment, and one I think victims'
Speaker 1: families need to hear investigators involved in a particular case
Speaker 1: for ten, twenty, even thirty years ultimately retire, the new
Speaker 1: team comes in and they lock onto another case, contemporary
Speaker 1: or otherwise cold cases get put on a back burner,
Speaker 1: not for any nefarious or personal reasons. It's just how
Speaker 1: the system is designed. The squeaky wheels get the oil,
Speaker 1: which is why it's so vital for victims' families to
Speaker 1: keep whispering in the ears of law enforcement about their
Speaker 1: cases without making accusations or becoming too bothersome or an annoyance.
Speaker 1: I do understand how difficult a task this can become,
Speaker 1: how utterly painful, how gut wrenching and frustrating when there
Speaker 1: are no answers and law enforcement is seemingly not responding.
Speaker 1: But oftentimes it's a matter of logistics, budgets, and new
Speaker 1: cases taking precedence even when everyone is doing their best.
Speaker 4: With regard to this suspect, I'm confident that he was
Speaker 4: watched in some sort of fashion. He was somewhat kept
Speaker 4: track of.
Speaker 1: During his second interview, as investigators really began to drill
Speaker 1: down into him. Lenny clearly enjoyed playing cat and mouse,
Speaker 1: a pattern of his I would soon learn firsthand myself.
Speaker 1: In one instance, Detective Danny Varner asks him if he
Speaker 1: drove a station wagon and a pickup truck. Lenny responds
Speaker 1: rather smartly, only one at a time. Then they ask
Speaker 1: which roads he favored driving, and if he ever drove
Speaker 1: on River Road in Pineville, Missouri, which would have been
Speaker 1: a convenient cut through heading toward where he lived in Missouri,
Speaker 1: then this route would have taken him directly by the
Speaker 1: area where Seanna Garber's body was dumped. He plays dumb,
Speaker 1: saying maybe not sure, sometimes I think so. Then they
Speaker 1: ask him about a Texas license plate he had and
Speaker 1: if he ever used it. His bizarre response to that
Speaker 1: I don't know anything about Stidham, about the Stidham homicide,
Speaker 1: or anything else, makes you wonder how he made that
Speaker 1: leap from being asked about a license plate to responding
Speaker 1: with defensiveness about a murder investigation naming the actual victim.
Speaker 1: My guess is that if he had used that license
Speaker 1: plate on the night of Dena's abduction and murder, that
Speaker 1: he could be trying to get in front of the evidence,
Speaker 1: thinking maybe somebody had reported seeing a Texas license plate.
Speaker 1: Would you call him smart?
Speaker 4: I would not call myself smart. I don't call him
Speaker 4: smart because I thought, I think this person did it,
Speaker 4: and he was just allowed just he just was there
Speaker 4: giving an interview.
Speaker 3: That's what I mean.
Speaker 12: It's like I couldn't figure him out. I just couldn't
Speaker 12: figure him out. I would say, probably is one of
Speaker 12: those people that, you know, this might be a characteristic.
Speaker 12: Somebody might say if you ask in the parameters.
Speaker 2: Or this characteristic, that he's smart.
Speaker 4: I think, given a nuclear award, is one of those
Speaker 4: guys that are going to survive, you know, And that's
Speaker 4: smarter than of itself. So smart an intelligent way where
Speaker 4: he can add numbers or write a poem. No, but
Speaker 4: if it came to survival, maybe smarter than the emotions.
Speaker 1: That makes sense. And it also sounds like you're going
Speaker 1: down the psychology of a serial killer.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was convinced.
Speaker 1: Known as the adversarial model in law enforcement, AM is
Speaker 1: an interrogation technique specifically used to obtain a confession. Investigators
Speaker 1: apply high pressure tactics and close ended and suggestive questions,
Speaker 1: which are purposely hurled at a suspect in order to
Speaker 1: elicit a reaction. We've all seen this model on procedural
Speaker 1: cop dramas and true crime shows. This was how BCSO
Speaker 1: detectives Danny Varner and Mike Sedoriac, with then prosecutor Drew
Speaker 1: Miller sitting in, went at Jack Lenny during that second interview,
Speaker 1: hitting him hard with everything they had, the blood soaked
Speaker 1: station wagon, truck with the camper, the fact that a
Speaker 1: man fitting Lenny's description down to a ball cap he
Speaker 1: admitted wearing that day was reported speaking to Dana, perhaps
Speaker 1: even fighting with her in the parking lot of the Phillips.
Speaker 1: Further into the interview, Lenny says, in response to allegations
Speaker 1: of sexual harassment against him, quote, well, if some people
Speaker 1: want to take it wrong, they can complain if they
Speaker 1: want to. From there, he admitted that he routinely pulled
Speaker 1: over women on the road near the Phillips, had a
Speaker 1: habit of picking up hitchhikers, new details about Dana's case
Speaker 1: not released publicly. Later, when asked pointedly, quote maybe you
Speaker 1: picked up old Dana and just things went downhill for her,
Speaker 1: Lenny answered maybe. When asked for a hair sample, being
Speaker 1: the cocky, smart asked he is, Lenny responded, next time
Speaker 1: I go to the barber, I'll sit. I guess that
Speaker 1: was a numb After being asked why he was driving
Speaker 1: around with duct tape in his car, Lenny says, I
Speaker 1: don't use it. And finally, after being asked, within the
Speaker 1: context of Danu's murder, mind you if he ever sometimes
Speaker 1: thought about killing people Jack, Lenny replied, yes, it.
Speaker 4: Just it was an interesting interview. There was a scurry
Speaker 4: of activity, as I recall, right after that interview with
Speaker 4: regard to a young lady that had been found on
Speaker 4: a porch and wrapped in cords, I participated in a
Speaker 4: search worn up there, and that was of his parents' house.
Speaker 1: That search of Lenny's mother's house yielded several interesting findings,
Speaker 1: including two white ropes, some blue and white rope which
Speaker 1: matched with the same rope used to bind Seanna Garber,
Speaker 1: green and black army parachord, and two knives. And then
Speaker 1: there was the interview with Lenny's ex wife, whose name
Speaker 1: I am choosing not to use. From that interview, it's
Speaker 1: clear that BCSO was in full pursuit of Lenny heading
Speaker 1: down the road of an arrests. Warn remember law enforcement
Speaker 1: recovered the contents of Dana's purse, but not the bag itself.
Speaker 1: Lenny was said to have collected purses as strange as
Speaker 1: that sounds, and one source claimed he kept his vast
Speaker 1: collection of purses at his mother's house. As they get
Speaker 1: into a conversation about Dana's purse with his ex wife,
Speaker 1: an interesting exchange takes place. First, they describe what Dana's
Speaker 1: purse looked like before, casually, as you can hear in
Speaker 1: this exclusive recording, sliding a photo of a similar purse
Speaker 1: across the table, that what had Geordia ash in front
Speaker 1: of it?
Speaker 3: Ever given you a first life.
Speaker 13: Like that?
Speaker 3: I've got a denim one. It's kind of a pouch,
Speaker 3: denim purse or.
Speaker 14: What actually, sus friender jeans?
Speaker 3: Okay, what about any jewelry? Talking about remember if he
Speaker 3: gave you any jewelry during that time?
Speaker 2: Jewelry and silver?
Speaker 8: I like silver jewelry.
Speaker 3: No, did he ever find anything at that time? No
Speaker 3: jewelry do you usually give to me? Because I like jewelry.
Speaker 3: I got a bunch of it. I don't wear it
Speaker 3: you know where.
Speaker 2: But I like it.
Speaker 3: I collected.
Speaker 1: Then they touch on the seemingly endless number of sexual
Speaker 1: harassment claims lodged against her ex husband, and how most
Speaker 1: of the women working at Phillips were so scared of
Speaker 1: the guy they had their husbands wait for them in
Speaker 1: the parking lot after work because Lenny was out there
Speaker 1: just just about every single day, stalking and even following
Speaker 1: them home. Listen to how Detective Danny Varner explains it.
Speaker 15: To go On.
Speaker 2: I said, about five weeks ago, we started receiving another complaints.
Speaker 16: From a check her at there in the Philip store,
Speaker 16: and it got to the point that she had to
Speaker 16: be walking to her father for.
Speaker 2: Parking lot and she just get it.
Speaker 16: Then two weeks ago this Friday, followed another girl that
Speaker 16: works at Phillips's from Mettondale down bright Away Hill, like
Speaker 16: that's just friends here anymore, if he will right down there,
Speaker 16: coming back into Mela Vista and between there and Melo Vista,
Speaker 16: he pulled up beside her and was hollering at her
Speaker 16: and notioning.
Speaker 1: Order to go over.
Speaker 2: It's time like this to go over.
Speaker 16: This girl had her air conditioner, the windows up in
Speaker 16: stereo on and she says, I didn't knowing, and he
Speaker 16: has a lot of trouble with her exsually he's gonna
Speaker 16: stop ringing. She said, I just get him off and
Speaker 16: standing speed up, and he says he's still standing out
Speaker 16: on my mother all the way to Phillips is where
Speaker 16: I was coming back to work, and he got into
Speaker 16: the Phillips partner a lot and when she was inside, uh,
Speaker 16: telling the other girls what had happened and describing to
Speaker 16: pick up and the male subject in the pickup.
Speaker 1: So even after he was interviewed about harassing women and
Speaker 1: Dana's murder, Lenny was still frequenting the Phillips parking lot,
Speaker 1: still harassing women, still following them, still trying to pull
Speaker 1: them over.
Speaker 5: Then this.
Speaker 16: What we think is Dana knew him, which we've got
Speaker 16: people saying that he talked to it.
Speaker 2: You know, in time, he knew everybody in a delic
Speaker 2: the America numerous times. Uh, they know if he'd.
Speaker 16: Ever followed data and called up the side and told
Speaker 16: it draw off she you know, And we don't know
Speaker 16: if it was talk to her by outside of the store.
Speaker 16: Much possibly that he told her something that, you know,
Speaker 16: can you follow me out there and take.
Speaker 2: Me somewhere I can leave my car or something, And
Speaker 2: they would have been the type of person and maybe
Speaker 2: they's just got a little out of hand and you
Speaker 2: think right downhill from there.
Speaker 1: They asked about a possible penchant then he had for
Speaker 1: picking up hitchhikers.
Speaker 3: Is that a normal practice it is? Picked people up
Speaker 3: like that? How often does he do whenever.
Speaker 14: Someone is on the road, whenever someone is built down,
Speaker 14: someone just parts.
Speaker 3: He'll stop and they've.
Speaker 14: We can help him. I got no problem to pick up.
Speaker 14: I got no problem to pick up somebody I know.
Speaker 14: I got a problem to pick up somebody that I know.
Speaker 11: You know.
Speaker 14: I said, you don't know anymore, and I don't care
Speaker 14: if it's just me and him. I said, that's fine,
Speaker 14: but our kids are with us. I don't want even
Speaker 14: stopping for anybody, but he'll do that.
Speaker 3: Have you noticed any does your husband having any personal
Speaker 3: personality conflicts within himself? I know he had that accent.
Speaker 3: Has that affected it?
Speaker 9: He m.
Speaker 3: You haven't seen a draft vast change of personality that
Speaker 3: has happened since you met him, that he switches personalities
Speaker 3: or anything like that.
Speaker 2: You've been behind towards you.
Speaker 14: No, he's he's change.
Speaker 2: One of the things that we wish to value. My
Speaker 2: researchers vehicle I'm saying.
Speaker 16: Just going through the wallet type of thing that the
Speaker 16: papers dropped him in. I said, I know you will
Speaker 16: do that, And then he was gathering at the paper.
Speaker 10: Uh.
Speaker 16: And we've got doc said, which is to own maps
Speaker 16: to the new ones and do Arkansas state maps.
Speaker 9: Uh.
Speaker 2: Got he said, starting to kissing me off.
Speaker 16: And we we we thought it was you know, running
Speaker 16: even key of a person and joking with us and
Speaker 16: everything to get possibly balance.
Speaker 3: Well when you open some off.
Speaker 1: That last comment bears repeating violent only if you pissed
Speaker 1: him off, spoken like someone who I'd imagine may have
Speaker 1: experienced that violence firsthand. And then this.
Speaker 8: See hold it in or see let it out?
Speaker 2: You let me ask you kind of another personal question.
Speaker 2: Jenny's sexual fantasies kinky sex.
Speaker 8: No, not that, But Danny's asked, has he ever implicated
Speaker 8: or but you know he wanted to use some type
Speaker 8: of restraint on you or on you mm hmm, like
Speaker 8: rope or being tied out.
Speaker 15: No, I don't reason that that.
Speaker 3: You go somewhere out here.
Speaker 8: Why did he want to do that?
Speaker 3: Oh? No, he just said those kinds of people are
Speaker 3: good for you.
Speaker 1: They asked her about Dana's murder.
Speaker 16: Specifically, is there anyone you know well or not that
Speaker 16: she feels both suspicion would not do something like this.
Speaker 5: To think why, I.
Speaker 1: Had to stop and think about that a moment while
Speaker 1: studying this interview tape. Here was a wife who believed
Speaker 1: her husband was capable of committing murder.
Speaker 3: Let me, let me go. But this way, we've thrown
Speaker 3: a lot of stuff. That's sure. Quite honestly, you're taking
Speaker 3: it pretty good. I mean you're taking everything in stride.
Speaker 3: You're realizing what we're doing here. Have some of those
Speaker 3: things you talked about, have they raised any concerns with you?
Speaker 3: Or have they shot you or surprised you?
Speaker 14: Or I don't want anything shock or surprise me anymore.
Speaker 3: I've run around with a lot of people.
Speaker 14: Strange people, different people, So you know, if someone said
Speaker 14: my mother in law.
Speaker 3: Shot, somebody's not gonna surprise me, because.
Speaker 14: Anybody is capable of anything.
Speaker 1: After reading the transcript of Lenny's second interview, listening to
Speaker 1: his ex wife's interview, and also speaking with her myself,
Speaker 1: I expected to beco to bring him in on an
Speaker 1: arrest warrant at that time, but instead they asked him
Speaker 1: to take a polygraph, which took an additional two years
Speaker 1: to get done. After those two interviews, the BCSO conducted
Speaker 1: the search warrant of his house and a second vehicle,
Speaker 1: and well, what they found beyond those bindings and cables,
Speaker 1: Prosecutor Drew Miller mentioned at the end of the previous
Speaker 1: episode seemed not only enough to arrest him but guarantee
Speaker 1: a conviction. As they began searching his house, Detective Danny
Speaker 1: Varner pulled Lenny's wife aside and spoke to her again.
Speaker 1: And she says this quote. One night recently, when the
Speaker 1: TV news showed one of the female murder victims, he
Speaker 1: lowered his head and got sick. A detail I want
Speaker 1: you to remember. Moving ahead, all of that you just
Speaker 1: heard focused on Lenny's second wife. His first wife was
Speaker 1: no longer able to speak to law enforcement about him.
Speaker 7: His first wife, I mean, he probably destroyed her life. Honestly.
Speaker 7: She got with him early in college and he just
Speaker 7: basically abused her emotionally, probably physically, and then even more
Speaker 7: so after his accident, and she did kill herself shortly
Speaker 7: after DCSO detectives spoke with her. I think probably she
Speaker 7: was at a breaking point. She'd already tried committing suicide
Speaker 7: before that, but I think it was in her home
Speaker 7: in a bad upsetting. I spoke to her daughter too,
Speaker 7: and I think she said something along the lines, and
Speaker 7: you know, that last interview was probably too rough. I mean,
Speaker 7: it's just she's having to relive probably some of the
Speaker 7: worst times of her life.
Speaker 1: That's journalist Brandon Howard. I asked him what he thought
Speaker 1: about Lenny's second interview.
Speaker 7: He has some bizarre outbursts, specifically when they're talking about
Speaker 7: the truck and a truck tag, and he kind of
Speaker 7: just breaked out that he doesn't know anything about Damou's
Speaker 7: homicide or murder. And they're like, whoa, whoa, what a
Speaker 7: thing you did?
Speaker 5: Man?
Speaker 1: And the one thing you said to me was the
Speaker 1: one thing that has always bugged you is how would
Speaker 1: he know about this spot? I was referring to Oscar
Speaker 1: Tally Road where Shauna Garber's body was dumped. If Lenny
Speaker 1: was involved, there would have to be a link beyond
Speaker 1: him traveling through the area. It's clear an investigator's belief
Speaker 1: that Shawna's murderer had a direct tie to the place
Speaker 1: where she was found.
Speaker 11: When they went to his home, they found several bindings
Speaker 11: that appeared to match.
Speaker 1: Brandon had spent years investigating Lenny. Like me, he couldn't
Speaker 1: understand why the BCSO had not arrested Lenny after his
Speaker 1: second interview and the subsequent searches. So they get a
Speaker 1: search warrant for his house and his vehicles and and
Speaker 1: just talk to me a little bit about some of
Speaker 1: the forensic evidence that they find.
Speaker 7: Yeah, the forensic stuff. They found several hairs in a
Speaker 7: vehicle he owned that he sold to a neighbor, along
Speaker 7: with evidence of blood clean up throughout the vehicle. The
Speaker 7: hairs and blood were found pretty much all over the
Speaker 7: steering wheel, rear y ear, floorboards, cargo aria, outside doors.
Speaker 7: I think what complicated that was that the previous owner
Speaker 7: had a similar makeup to Dana in terms of complexion
Speaker 7: and maybe hair. He also cut himself when he tried
Speaker 7: to open the door because the door was locked when
Speaker 7: sold it to him. However, I still think that it's
Speaker 7: worth pursuing what happened to those hairs because they had
Speaker 7: what the crime labs stated was microscopic similarities to Dana's hair,
Speaker 7: which is more than anything they had of any other
Speaker 7: hair sample from any other suspect. Or suspect vehicle. To
Speaker 7: add to that, the blood found in the station wagon's
Speaker 7: floorboard on the passenger side seemingly is a pool of blood.
Speaker 7: It's a jar photo PCs, so it took a photo
Speaker 7: of the station wagon and the blood seemingly in the
Speaker 7: picture is joining it. It seems like there's a pool
Speaker 7: of it in the front seat. And it told me
Speaker 7: there's no way he can account for that much blood
Speaker 7: based off cutting his hands.
Speaker 1: And so what are your thoughts on this guy being
Speaker 1: responsible for Dana and or Seana Garber.
Speaker 7: I think he did not get fully vetted in either case.
Speaker 7: There's other things stand out. When they searched his home
Speaker 7: involving interviews family saying that he had a pension for
Speaker 7: bondage and sexual relations, and there was a videotape with
Speaker 7: seemingly raped and bondage on the tape. It's not clear
Speaker 7: if it was pornographic or if it was a personal tape,
Speaker 7: or who was on the tape or why he had it.
Speaker 7: There was no follow up interview and after the houses
Speaker 7: were searched, as far as I know, his interview specifically
Speaker 7: regarding it sit him case is all over the place,
Speaker 7: seemingly admitting that he pulls over Whomen's in the grocery
Speaker 7: store where she worked, that he doesn't know Dana, that
Speaker 7: he does no Dana, that he could have pulled her
Speaker 7: over for having a low tire, that she did have
Speaker 7: a low tire.
Speaker 1: It was getting harder to connect Dana and Shawna to
Speaker 1: Lenny or one specific suspect. I was feeling confident the
Speaker 1: two cases were the work of two different killers. I
Speaker 1: asked Detective Rhonda Wise from the McDonald County Sheriff's Office
Speaker 1: what she thought.
Speaker 6: I think the biggest thing from a law enforcement standpoint,
Speaker 6: you know, is that we work these things. In both
Speaker 6: of these cases, I would be safe to say will
Speaker 6: continue to be.
Speaker 2: Worked on until there is a solution.
Speaker 3: But I think the biggest thing is just to.
Speaker 9: Be able to find the answers and to bring closure
Speaker 9: for that family.
Speaker 1: Here's Detective Laurie Howard.
Speaker 6: People say they have to be connected. They may be connected,
Speaker 6: but I think they I think people also, this is
Speaker 6: the scariest thing in the world, to say they underestimate
Speaker 6: how many bad guys there are. You have to keep
Speaker 6: an open mind. I say they're not connected. Show me evidence,
Speaker 6: I'll change my mind. But that's the goal. But we're
Speaker 6: always open. I think that's that's the beauty of this
Speaker 6: particular agency in particulars. We're always open to take a
Speaker 6: different mindset on somebody.
Speaker 1: And McDonald County Sheriff Rob Evenson.
Speaker 15: When a person does something like this, they're gonna they're
Speaker 15: gonna answer for it, if not in this life, in
Speaker 15: the next. But they whoever did this to Shauna Owes
Speaker 15: a debt to the state of Missouri. And when I
Speaker 15: tell you I don't believe they're connected, that doesn't.
Speaker 9: Mean that my mind couldn't be changed. They serve our community,
Speaker 9: So you have to make a judgment call on how
Speaker 9: do you best serve your community. Do you put hours
Speaker 9: and hours into something that's old and cold, or do
Speaker 9: you work these more recent cases that are solvable so
Speaker 9: you can take care of people here and now in
Speaker 9: the moment we knew good to solve the ones that
Speaker 9: were working with today.
Speaker 1: After having some trouble pinning Jack Lenny down at his
Speaker 1: home during the early summer of twenty twenty three, I
Speaker 1: started trying to get hold of him on the phone.
Speaker 1: I made an early decision that I wasn't going to
Speaker 1: take his smarmy, sarcastic bullshit on the chin. He needed
Speaker 1: to be called out on all of the evidence pointing
Speaker 1: directly at him. He had obviously not been charged in
Speaker 1: either Dana or Shawna's case. For months, I got nothing
Speaker 1: but wrong numbers, dial tone, and silence. Then one morning
Speaker 1: in early December twenty twenty three, I dialed a new number,
Speaker 1: and there he was looking for.
Speaker 4: You got it?
Speaker 5: Wait? You what?
Speaker 1: It was the beginning of what would turn out to
Speaker 1: be an eye popping, bizarre, revealing, forty five minute call,
Speaker 1: resulting in me right afterward contacting a detective working one
Speaker 1: of the cases. My name is Emilyiam Phelps. I'm an
Speaker 1: investigative journalist recording this call for my podcast. I'd like
Speaker 1: to answer you some questions. Now what I said. My
Speaker 1: name is Emilyiam Phelps. I'm an investigative journalist working on
Speaker 1: two cold cases, recording this from my podcast Paper Ghosts.
Speaker 1: I'd like to talk to you about some things.
Speaker 5: Do what well?
Speaker 1: I'd like to talk to you about the murder of
Speaker 1: Dana Stidham. With what Dana Stidham's murder, I don't know.
Speaker 12: I have no earth idea.
Speaker 3: I thought that was all done.
Speaker 1: He knew exactly what I was referring to. That's not true.
Speaker 4: That has been so long ago.
Speaker 15: Oh, I don't think of that.
Speaker 1: But you were there on the day she went missing
Speaker 1: at the Phillips grocery. Could you talk to me about
Speaker 1: July twenty fifth, nineteen eighty nine. Did you kill Dana Stidham?
Speaker 1: And there's a lot of people, including me, who think
Speaker 1: you did. If you want to take a deeper dive
Speaker 1: into some of the subjects covered in this episode and
Speaker 1: get real time updates on the cases I cover in
Speaker 1: Paper Ghosts, subscribe to my ongoing weekly show, Crossing the
Speaker 1: Line with m william Phelps you get your favorite podcasts.
Speaker 1: Next time on Paper Ghosts.
Speaker 14: And everybody that has ever known him, and I'm going
Speaker 14: to be one of those those people.
Speaker 12: He was evil.
Speaker 7: He was pure evil.
Speaker 13: And so one of the things important is there could
Speaker 13: be someone listening who knows something. Oftentimes, in cases like this,
Speaker 13: it can be small things that make the difference. It
Speaker 13: can be a small key that unlocks a door to
Speaker 13: an avenue that no one knew was there.
Speaker 1: He also told me that the same person who killed
Speaker 1: Dana killed my girl.
Speaker 7: He referred to Sean as my girl.
Speaker 6: Then he just reminds me again that he is a killer,
Speaker 6: and he never once told me that he wasn't a killer.
Speaker 1: One note about sourcing. The call you heard at the
Speaker 1: top of this episode was a word for word reenactment
Speaker 1: taken directly from a transcript of the actual call paper.
Speaker 1: Ghosts Season four is written and executive produced by Me
Speaker 1: and William Phelps. Script consulting by Rose Bachi, sound design
Speaker 1: by Matt Russell, executive production by Catherine Law, and audio
Speaker 1: editing and mixing by Brandon Dicker Takaboom Productions. The series'
Speaker 1: theme number four four to two is written and performed
Speaker 1: by Thomas Phelps and Tom mo