WEBVTT - Hell and Gone Murder Line: Twilight Crooks 0:00:46.480 --> 0:00:47.880 School of Humans. 0:00:49.240 --> 0:00:53.000 Helen Got Murder Line actively investigates cold case murders in 0:00:53.040 --> 0:00:56.200 an effort to raise public awareness invite witnesses to come 0:00:56.240 --> 0:01:00.120 forward and present evidence that could potentially be further investigated 0:01:00.120 --> 0:01:03.760 by law enforcement. While we value insights from family and 0:01:03.800 --> 0:01:07.720 community members, their statements should not be considered evidence and 0:01:07.760 --> 0:01:11.520 point to the challenges of verifying facts inherent in cold cases. 0:01:12.280 --> 0:01:15.800 We remind listeners that everyone has presumed innocent until proven 0:01:15.800 --> 0:01:19.080 guilty in a court of law. Nothing in the podcast 0:01:19.200 --> 0:01:22.080 is intended to state or imply that anyone who has 0:01:22.160 --> 0:01:25.600 not been convicted of a crime is guilty of any wrongdoing. 0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:27.120 Thanks for listening. 0:01:32.680 --> 0:01:35.680 On August twenty eighth, two thousand and one, fifteen year 0:01:35.720 --> 0:01:40.400 old jesse Marie Twilight Song Crooks, who everyone knew was Twilight, 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:43.840 was hanging out at her home on Larman Mill Road 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:48.080 in Plano, Kentucky, when she got a phone call. The 0:01:48.120 --> 0:01:51.040 phone call came in at ten point fifty two pm 0:01:51.080 --> 0:01:54.160 from a phone booth at the Plano County Store, which 0:01:54.240 --> 0:01:56.960 was a convenience store less than a mile away from 0:01:56.960 --> 0:02:01.520 her home in that small town. The Plano Country Store 0:02:01.840 --> 0:02:04.960 was kind of the center of Twilight's social circuit. A 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:08.920 friend of hers later told police Twilight would often walk 0:02:08.920 --> 0:02:11.520 by there to buy cigarettes or hang out, and would 0:02:11.520 --> 0:02:13.920 get people to drop her off and pick her up there, 0:02:14.480 --> 0:02:17.960 so receiving a call from that phone booth would not 0:02:18.160 --> 0:02:24.000 have been out of the ordinary for her. But Twilight crooks, 0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:28.920 like many teenagers, had secrets, and like many of us 0:02:28.960 --> 0:02:32.640 back in the day, sometimes she lived a double life 0:02:32.760 --> 0:02:36.640 after hours, a few minutes after getting that call, at 0:02:36.680 --> 0:02:41.440 around eleven PM, Twilight snuck out of her house. Now 0:02:41.560 --> 0:02:44.960 according to the police report, when she left home, she 0:02:45.040 --> 0:02:48.120 was wearing pajama bottoms and a T shirt, and she 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:52.760 was barefoot. Her friends later said that wasn't super unusual. 0:02:53.240 --> 0:02:55.680 It would make sense if she was planning on hanging 0:02:55.680 --> 0:02:57.640 out for a while and then coming back home. 0:02:58.120 --> 0:02:59.640 On not being out for long. 0:03:00.680 --> 0:03:04.440 Investigators have said they believe Twilight went out to meet 0:03:04.480 --> 0:03:09.120 someone she knew. Her friends told police when she left 0:03:09.120 --> 0:03:11.880 the house barefoot, a lot of the time, she would 0:03:11.880 --> 0:03:14.520 have someone pick her up. They would ride around, and 0:03:14.560 --> 0:03:16.840 then whoever picked her up would drop her back home. 0:03:17.680 --> 0:03:21.400 But her family never found out who she was planning 0:03:21.480 --> 0:03:25.320 to meet that night because she was never seen alive again. 0:03:27.000 --> 0:03:30.240 I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the past eight years of making 0:03:30.240 --> 0:03:33.480 my true crime podcast, Helen Gone, I've learned that there 0:03:33.520 --> 0:03:36.400 is no such thing as a small town where murder 0:03:36.520 --> 0:03:40.400 never happens. I have received hundreds of messages from people 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:43.440 all around the country asking for help with an unsolved 0:03:43.480 --> 0:03:47.560 murder that's affected them, their families, and their communities. If 0:03:47.640 --> 0:03:49.520 you have a case you'd like me and my team 0:03:49.560 --> 0:03:51.840 to look into, you can reach out to us at 0:03:51.840 --> 0:03:54.800 our Helen Gone Murder Line at six seven eight seven 0:03:54.880 --> 0:03:58.480 four four six one four five. That's six seven eight 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:02.600 seven four four six one four five, or you can 0:04:02.640 --> 0:04:07.040 send us a message on Instagram at Helen Gonepod. This 0:04:07.520 --> 0:04:57.120 is Helen Gone Murder Line. The next morning, Twilight's father, 0:04:57.240 --> 0:05:01.520 Bobby and his wife Linda, Twilight's stepmother, realized that Twilight 0:05:01.600 --> 0:05:04.080 was not in her bed. Anne had not come home 0:05:04.160 --> 0:05:08.000 the night before. They called the Warren County Sheriff's office 0:05:08.000 --> 0:05:10.800 to report her missing the next morning, August twenty ninth, 0:05:10.840 --> 0:05:14.280 at six oh five am. At the time, the police 0:05:14.320 --> 0:05:18.640 report noted Twilight had run away in the past. We're 0:05:18.680 --> 0:05:21.760 trying to get more information about exactly what was going 0:05:21.800 --> 0:05:26.520 on in Twilight's life that year. Twilight Crooks was born 0:05:26.600 --> 0:05:30.080 on October twenty second, nineteen eighty five, in Santa Fe County, 0:05:30.080 --> 0:05:33.360 New Mexico. Her mother was Native American, part of the 0:05:33.400 --> 0:05:37.760 Arapaho tribe. She was also part Cherokee on her father's side. 0:05:38.640 --> 0:05:42.680 Twilight lived with her dad and stepmom, but apparently regularly 0:05:42.800 --> 0:05:45.560 visited her mother and the rest of the tribe, and 0:05:45.680 --> 0:05:47.840 was excited to share what she had learned about their 0:05:47.880 --> 0:05:52.920 culture with her friends. In Kentucky, Twilight was, according to Bobby, 0:05:53.080 --> 0:05:56.640 doing well at school. Her family and friends all described 0:05:56.640 --> 0:05:59.840 her as very bright. She was a sophomore at Greenwood 0:05:59.920 --> 0:06:02.960 High School in Bowling Green and she was very accomplished. 0:06:03.520 --> 0:06:07.080 Bobby Crooks later told journalists Twilight got straight a's and 0:06:07.160 --> 0:06:10.120 was very popular in her class, and that she had 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:14.800 dreams of going to Harvard. But Twilight had reportedly run 0:06:14.840 --> 0:06:19.360 away several times before. According to the police report, Twilight 0:06:19.520 --> 0:06:24.560 was considered a habitual runaway. According to the missing Persons report, 0:06:24.680 --> 0:06:28.080 on August twenty eighth, the days she disappeared, Twilight called 0:06:28.080 --> 0:06:30.120 her father and asked if she could have dinner with 0:06:30.160 --> 0:06:30.480 a friend. 0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:32.560 Her dad said that was fine. 0:06:33.280 --> 0:06:36.240 After that, she went to that friend's house had dinner 0:06:36.360 --> 0:06:39.840 and was home by around seven pm. Linda and Bobby 0:06:39.920 --> 0:06:42.880 told police they went to bed at around ten pm 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:46.720 after they said Twilight had done her homework, and they 0:06:46.760 --> 0:06:49.440 told police that when they went to bed, Twilight was 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:52.480 taking a shower. After she got out of the shower, 0:06:52.640 --> 0:06:55.280 she got that late night call at ten fifty two pm, 0:06:56.040 --> 0:06:59.280 and a few minutes after that, without her parents knowing, 0:06:59.640 --> 0:07:03.520 left the house. Twilight's friend talked to us about the case. 0:07:04.240 --> 0:07:06.280 We asked her how she met Twilight. 0:07:07.360 --> 0:07:10.720 Me and Twilight we met in elementary school. We went 0:07:10.760 --> 0:07:15.920 to Cumberland Trace Elementary. I remember she was just so 0:07:16.400 --> 0:07:19.080 sweet and kind, and I remember her grandmother would come 0:07:19.080 --> 0:07:21.600 and eat lunch with her sometimes at school, and like 0:07:22.040 --> 0:07:25.520 I was always intrigued by her Native American roots and 0:07:25.520 --> 0:07:28.080 stuff like that. And she used to make bracelets for 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:32.480 everybody with seeds and stuff. We were very close friends 0:07:32.600 --> 0:07:38.320 all the way up until she was killed. We were 0:07:38.640 --> 0:07:43.440 teenagers and we experimented and weren't always making the safest choices. 0:07:44.240 --> 0:07:47.760 I just remember that she was very trusting, and she 0:07:48.200 --> 0:07:51.200 trusted a lot of people, and that is, you know, 0:07:52.240 --> 0:07:55.200 what cost her her life. I believe I always felt 0:07:55.240 --> 0:07:57.680 like it was somebody that we knew that we went 0:07:57.720 --> 0:08:00.600 to school with, or maybe somebody that you know, we 0:08:00.680 --> 0:08:04.640 knew from our town, because where her body was found 0:08:04.880 --> 0:08:07.600 was so close to her house. And she was a 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:10.600 good kid. I mean, she had good grades, She had 0:08:10.640 --> 0:08:14.960 big dreams and a bright future. She was just a 0:08:15.240 --> 0:08:18.760 really sweet girl. And she was always smiling and always laughing. 0:08:18.880 --> 0:08:21.080 She had the biggest smile, and it was light of 0:08:21.120 --> 0:08:21.880 a room. You know. 0:08:24.000 --> 0:08:27.320 Twilight had a brother who was two years older. Linda 0:08:27.360 --> 0:08:30.160 told detectives they had reached out to Twilight's brother, but 0:08:30.240 --> 0:08:32.160 that he had not heard from her and had no 0:08:32.280 --> 0:08:35.360 idea where she was. They also called around to her 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:38.880 friend's houses, but no one had seen her at first 0:08:39.000 --> 0:08:41.480 because she had stuck out and left home in the past. 0:08:41.880 --> 0:08:45.480 Detectives treated the case like a run away, but when 0:08:45.480 --> 0:08:49.040 she didn't come home, police from the Warren County Sheriff's Office, 0:08:49.120 --> 0:08:52.520 who led the investigation, as well as other agencies including 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:56.680 the Bowling Green Police Department and eventually the FBI, scoured 0:08:56.680 --> 0:08:59.440 the area for her, along with her family and the 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:03.480 rest of the community. Her family pasted missing posters all 0:09:03.520 --> 0:09:08.040 over town looking for Twilight five foot five, one hundred 0:09:08.080 --> 0:09:13.680 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes, wearing braces. On 0:09:13.720 --> 0:09:16.960 September tenth, two thousand and one, at around four pm, 0:09:17.400 --> 0:09:21.200 nearly two weeks after Twilight disappeared, a dog walker was 0:09:21.240 --> 0:09:24.560 in the woods near Matlock Old Union Road in Plano, 0:09:25.000 --> 0:09:28.360 about ten miles from Bowling Green. This is a very 0:09:28.400 --> 0:09:30.760 remote area that has a lot of trees and other 0:09:30.800 --> 0:09:35.080 types of vegetation around. Today it's a soybean field. The 0:09:35.200 --> 0:09:38.920 dog walker found skeletal remains near a dried up pond 0:09:39.560 --> 0:09:44.960 that dental records later confirmed were Twilight Crooks. Her body 0:09:45.400 --> 0:10:00.280 was in pieces. On September tenth, two thousand and one, 0:10:00.720 --> 0:10:05.200 Twilight Crooks's body was found. The next day was September eleventh, 0:10:05.240 --> 0:10:07.840 two thousand and one, the day that terrorists attacked the 0:10:07.840 --> 0:10:10.400 World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon 0:10:10.520 --> 0:10:14.520 in Washington, d C. And suddenly the entire country was 0:10:14.560 --> 0:10:18.200 focused on the terrorists attacking the United States. The murder 0:10:18.240 --> 0:10:20.680 of a fifteen year old young woman of Native American 0:10:20.680 --> 0:10:25.760 descent seemed to be quickly forgotten, although back in Kentucky 0:10:26.320 --> 0:10:30.600 police were conducting their investigation, but it seemed like there 0:10:30.600 --> 0:10:33.840 were a lot of missing pieces. Law enforcement tried to 0:10:33.880 --> 0:10:37.360 figure out who had called Twilight minutes before she left 0:10:37.360 --> 0:10:40.920 her house. They checked and discovered that the caller ID 0:10:41.040 --> 0:10:44.160 showed the call came in from the Plano Country Stoor's 0:10:44.200 --> 0:10:48.200 phone booth. But back then there were no surveillance cameras 0:10:48.200 --> 0:10:51.400 at the store. It was a very different environment in 0:10:51.440 --> 0:10:53.560 two thousand and one than it is today. There were 0:10:53.600 --> 0:10:57.360 no ring doorbells or cell phone cameras, no surveillance video 0:10:57.560 --> 0:11:01.600 outside that phone booth. The Independent newspaper in the UK 0:11:02.120 --> 0:11:05.840 did an article about Twilight's case in twenty twenty three. 0:11:05.960 --> 0:11:10.480 They interviewed Warren County Sheriff Bratt Hightower. According to the article, 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:14.160 Sheriff high Tower told the journalists quote, there is no 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:16.720 way of telling who placed the phone call to her 0:11:16.840 --> 0:11:21.440 at the payphone that night end quote. Police were tight 0:11:21.520 --> 0:11:24.840 lipped about the investigation. They did not even release a 0:11:24.880 --> 0:11:29.040 cause of death, but rumors in town were already flying, 0:11:29.600 --> 0:11:32.520 and when police talked to students at Twilight's high school, 0:11:32.960 --> 0:11:36.520 several teens told police that there was a rumor going 0:11:36.560 --> 0:11:40.760 around that Twilight had died of a methamphetamine overdose and 0:11:40.880 --> 0:11:43.200 that the people who were with her panicked and hid 0:11:43.240 --> 0:11:47.960 the body and Twilight's friend said police did not interview 0:11:48.120 --> 0:11:50.920 a lot of Twilight's friends, including herself. 0:11:51.880 --> 0:11:54.880 It's hard because this has happened twenty four years ago, 0:11:55.080 --> 0:11:57.240 and I just feel like there wasn't much of a 0:11:57.400 --> 0:12:00.040 follow up or anything like that with her friends. They 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:03.280 didn't give her story the attention that it deserved, and 0:12:03.360 --> 0:12:06.360 like they never came to school, never questioned any of 0:12:06.440 --> 0:12:09.360 us about what happened, or if we knew or or 0:12:09.440 --> 0:12:12.240 hung out or they never ever came to the school 0:12:12.280 --> 0:12:16.560 to interview anybody. They just made one announcement when they 0:12:16.560 --> 0:12:19.240 had found her on the intercom that morning, and then 0:12:19.640 --> 0:12:21.760 you know, of course nine to eleven happened in the 0:12:21.840 --> 0:12:27.360 following day, which completely made her story just disappear. Like 0:12:27.400 --> 0:12:30.440 I don't remember seeing anything else about it on the 0:12:30.480 --> 0:12:34.720 news after nine to eleven. Everything was just focused on that. 0:12:35.640 --> 0:12:39.360 I don't think they mentioned her name for like probably 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:41.000 a couple of years. I want to. 0:12:41.000 --> 0:12:44.480 Say, though the case is still open. 0:12:45.000 --> 0:12:48.720 We were able to access some information via a Foyer request, 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:51.600 but it seems like everything is redacted. 0:12:52.120 --> 0:12:54.880 On some pages. There are more black boxes than there 0:12:54.920 --> 0:12:56.040 are regular text. 0:12:56.360 --> 0:12:59.240 So we're gonna have to do some serious sleuthing to 0:12:59.280 --> 0:13:01.640 figure out who these people are and how they were 0:13:01.640 --> 0:13:05.240 connected to Twilight. We got the autopsy report, but it's 0:13:05.280 --> 0:13:08.440 redacted too, so we don't know the cause of death. 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:12.360 The toxicology report is also blacked out, so we don't 0:13:12.400 --> 0:13:14.960 know if Twilight had drugs in her system or not. 0:13:16.120 --> 0:13:19.320 But the incident report refers to a weapon being used 0:13:19.880 --> 0:13:23.680 and it lists the weapon as a knife. That, plus 0:13:23.720 --> 0:13:26.720 the fact that the police were very clearly treating and 0:13:26.920 --> 0:13:30.720 labeling this as a murder investigation, would appear to point 0:13:30.720 --> 0:13:33.560 away from the theory that this was an overdose or 0:13:33.800 --> 0:13:38.160 something that could have been accidental. There were also rumors 0:13:38.160 --> 0:13:42.600 flying around that Twilight had been decapitated. Police also had 0:13:42.600 --> 0:13:46.360 some issues with the physical evidence. After nearly two weeks 0:13:46.400 --> 0:13:51.400 in the Kentucky heat, Twilight's body had been skeletonized. Crime 0:13:51.480 --> 0:13:55.080 scene photos that show part of Twilight's remains show that 0:13:55.120 --> 0:13:57.800 her skull was lying next to the lower part of 0:13:57.840 --> 0:14:01.320 her body, her spine and legs, but we can't tell 0:14:01.360 --> 0:14:04.560 from these photos whether her head was removed by a 0:14:04.680 --> 0:14:09.560 human or whether animals detached her skull. We also aren't 0:14:09.600 --> 0:14:13.240 able to see her torso in these photos. It's been 0:14:13.280 --> 0:14:16.840 reported that her body was partly covered with twigs and branches, 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:19.760 like her killer was trying to cover up the body, 0:14:20.080 --> 0:14:23.080 but maybe didn't do a very good job or didn't finish. 0:14:24.600 --> 0:14:28.160 When police processed the scene, they did find some physical evidence. 0:14:28.840 --> 0:14:31.120 One of the items and evidence was a yellow and 0:14:31.160 --> 0:14:35.320 white drinking straw, but no fingerprints were found on that straw. 0:14:36.640 --> 0:14:38.880 Since they hit a dead end with the phone booth, 0:14:39.240 --> 0:14:42.640 police were trying to figure out who Twilight was meeting 0:14:42.640 --> 0:14:45.960 that night by delve into her personal life, and like 0:14:46.040 --> 0:14:51.240 many teenagers, Twilight's love life was complicated. Twilight had been 0:14:51.280 --> 0:14:54.880 dating someone a boyfriend, but they had recently broken up. 0:14:55.520 --> 0:14:58.040 Police talked to him and he said he hadn't talked 0:14:58.040 --> 0:15:01.680 to Twilight in a while. However, another friend of hers 0:15:01.720 --> 0:15:05.160 told police she had seen Twilight standing outside the Plano 0:15:05.280 --> 0:15:08.320 store arguing with the ex boyfriend. The friend could not 0:15:08.440 --> 0:15:11.680 remember the exact date when she witnessed that argument. The 0:15:11.760 --> 0:15:15.280 friend's name and the ex boyfriend's name are both redacted. 0:15:16.120 --> 0:15:18.800 But there was another guy whom Twilight was talking to, 0:15:19.440 --> 0:15:21.840 someone who friends said she met on the internet and 0:15:22.280 --> 0:15:26.160 had been talking to regularly before she disappeared. This guy 0:15:26.280 --> 0:15:30.360 was supposedly in Cincinnati, Ohio. Now police wanted to figure 0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:33.440 out who this guy was and to find him. Could 0:15:33.480 --> 0:15:35.800 he have been the person Twilight was meeting that night. 0:15:36.840 --> 0:15:39.960 Twilight was active in church. She had recently taken a 0:15:40.000 --> 0:15:45.360 trip with Hillville Heights Church to Cincinnati July. One of 0:15:45.400 --> 0:15:48.560 Twilight's friends from her church group told police that during 0:15:48.560 --> 0:15:51.600 this trip, Twilight told her she had met a guy 0:15:51.600 --> 0:15:54.200 off the internet and she was supposed to be meeting 0:15:54.240 --> 0:15:57.520 him in person at King's Island. The last day of 0:15:57.560 --> 0:16:01.920 that church trip, which was July seventeenth, Twilight stayed in 0:16:01.920 --> 0:16:04.400 a Hampton Inn hotel room with a chaperone and two 0:16:04.440 --> 0:16:07.880 other girls. The police talked to the chaperone, her name 0:16:07.920 --> 0:16:11.720 was Terry. Terry told them that Twilight was talking to 0:16:11.760 --> 0:16:14.280 the same guy the one she had met in Cincinnati 0:16:14.680 --> 0:16:16.960 for several hours on the phone on one of the 0:16:17.040 --> 0:16:20.600 nights they were there. She said she got concerned Twilight 0:16:20.720 --> 0:16:25.040 might try to sneak out. Terry, the chaperone said, Twilight 0:16:25.080 --> 0:16:28.120 told her she had been sexually active with eight different guys, 0:16:28.440 --> 0:16:30.480 that she was on the pill, and that her dad 0:16:30.600 --> 0:16:33.200 was too strict on her. She also said that her 0:16:33.200 --> 0:16:36.920 stepmom was always telling her what to do. Twilight told 0:16:36.920 --> 0:16:39.440 the chaperone she had met the guy the summer before 0:16:39.600 --> 0:16:42.840 when she was with her mom in Clarksville, Tennessee, and 0:16:42.960 --> 0:16:45.920 that since that time, in addition to talking on the phone, 0:16:46.040 --> 0:16:49.360 they had talked on the internet. Terry said that Twilight 0:16:49.440 --> 0:16:51.560 started talking to the guy on the phone at around 0:16:51.600 --> 0:16:55.120 eleven thirty pm and they talked for two to three hours. 0:16:55.760 --> 0:16:59.480 The chaperone said she was worried about Twilight sneaking out 0:16:59.600 --> 0:17:03.080 because she said she overheard part of the conversation and 0:17:03.240 --> 0:17:07.160 Twilight was talking about meeting this guy later on. Terry 0:17:07.200 --> 0:17:09.960 told police that after that night, she told the church 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:12.800 staff she didn't want to be responsible for Twilight anymore 0:17:12.920 --> 0:17:15.640 because she was afraid of what she might get involved in. 0:17:16.680 --> 0:17:20.000 One of the detectives on the case, Detective Davis, contacted 0:17:20.040 --> 0:17:23.240 the Cincinnati Police. He asked them to send an officer 0:17:23.280 --> 0:17:26.080 to the residence of the person whom Twilight had been 0:17:26.080 --> 0:17:30.360 talking to. The Police in Cincinnati did locate the guy 0:17:30.400 --> 0:17:33.400 that she had been talking to online, but they found 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:37.280 no trace of Twilight at his residence, and the guy 0:17:37.440 --> 0:17:40.040 said he had not seen her and had no idea 0:17:40.080 --> 0:17:44.600 where she was. This seemed to be another dead end, 0:17:45.080 --> 0:17:48.440 so with the internet love interest crossed off, Detectives back 0:17:48.440 --> 0:17:53.520 in Kentucky began looking closer to home. This included focusing 0:17:53.560 --> 0:17:57.720 on the people who last saw Twilight, her dad and stepmother. 0:18:09.440 --> 0:18:12.320 In January of two thousand and two, Twilight's stepmother, Linda, 0:18:12.400 --> 0:18:16.600 contacted police. According to information contained in the autopsy report, 0:18:17.160 --> 0:18:19.520 she said she was upset about the amount of time 0:18:19.600 --> 0:18:23.160 the investigation was taking. She also said the family wanted 0:18:23.160 --> 0:18:27.480 to know more details about how Twilight died, but police 0:18:27.520 --> 0:18:30.200 declined to give the family any information about cause of 0:18:30.200 --> 0:18:34.440 death because, as indicated in these documents, they believe this 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:38.760 might harm the investigation. They asked Linda Crooks to take 0:18:38.760 --> 0:18:41.800 a polygraph test, which she agreed to do, according to police, 0:18:42.280 --> 0:18:44.320 but then when they called her to set up a 0:18:44.360 --> 0:18:47.360 time to come in and take it, Linda did not 0:18:47.440 --> 0:18:51.880 call back. At some point, according to police documents, they 0:18:51.920 --> 0:18:56.080 did tell Linda Crooks how Twilight was killed. They asked 0:18:56.160 --> 0:18:59.280 both Bob and Linda to take polygraph tests, but in 0:18:59.320 --> 0:19:03.800 the end, both of them refused. On September twenty fifth, 0:19:03.840 --> 0:19:07.800 two thousand and one, officers searched Bob and Linda's residents 0:19:07.800 --> 0:19:11.000 and vehicles. They took a number of items from the 0:19:11.000 --> 0:19:14.080 home including a Dell computer, the one that Twilight was 0:19:14.160 --> 0:19:17.400 using to email from. They also filed court orders to 0:19:17.400 --> 0:19:21.240 get her email communications, but they found nothing of even 0:19:21.280 --> 0:19:25.160 in cherry value in those emails. They began looking into 0:19:25.200 --> 0:19:29.400 Twilight's local romantic entanglements, and they learned that recently she 0:19:29.480 --> 0:19:32.880 had a boyfriend, though they had broken up sometime before 0:19:33.000 --> 0:19:37.920 she disappeared. After talking to Twilight's friend, who, as we said, 0:19:38.080 --> 0:19:41.120 saw Twilight arguing with the ex boyfriend late at night 0:19:41.120 --> 0:19:43.320 at the Plano store, police went to talk to the 0:19:43.320 --> 0:19:46.280 ex boy They asked him to take a polygraph test. 0:19:46.720 --> 0:19:49.880 He said no and referred them to his lawyer. So 0:19:50.160 --> 0:19:53.600 it seems like that avenue of investigation was pretty much 0:19:53.600 --> 0:19:58.600 shut down after that. Police were also exploring other potential 0:19:58.600 --> 0:20:02.640 suspects near the area where Twilight's body was found. Police 0:20:02.680 --> 0:20:05.680 talked to people who lived near that area. They told 0:20:05.760 --> 0:20:09.160 law enforcement about another guy described as a local boy. 0:20:09.880 --> 0:20:12.400 They said this local boy drove up and down the 0:20:12.480 --> 0:20:15.360 road where Twilight's body was found on a regular basis. 0:20:15.520 --> 0:20:19.000 Now this was before the murder, but they said after 0:20:19.040 --> 0:20:23.120 Twilight's murder, after her body was found, this guy disappeared 0:20:23.320 --> 0:20:27.320 and had not been back since. Police apparently tried to 0:20:27.320 --> 0:20:30.160 find this person, but he had left the area and 0:20:30.240 --> 0:20:36.920 quit school. As the days and weeks went by, police 0:20:37.000 --> 0:20:41.640 questioned several people, but they had no official suspects and 0:20:41.760 --> 0:20:43.720 made no arrests. 0:20:43.840 --> 0:20:44.440 Seemed to be. 0:20:44.480 --> 0:20:47.600 A flurry of activity early on in the investigation in 0:20:47.640 --> 0:20:49.440 two thousand and one, and then a little bit in 0:20:49.440 --> 0:20:52.480 two thousand and three, and after that. A couple of 0:20:52.560 --> 0:20:56.200 years later, items from the crime scene were sent in 0:20:56.280 --> 0:21:00.800 for testing, but to this day this case is still 0:21:00.840 --> 0:21:05.280 an open investigation. A podcast listener did a Foyer request 0:21:05.320 --> 0:21:08.840 and did receive part of the case file. Again, parts 0:21:08.840 --> 0:21:12.000 of it have been heavily redacted. Even though there were 0:21:12.040 --> 0:21:15.040 a lot of blacked out areas, we were able to 0:21:15.080 --> 0:21:19.960 cross reference addresses with names, and in some cases previous 0:21:19.960 --> 0:21:22.640 interviews are mentions of people, and we were able to 0:21:22.640 --> 0:21:27.240 get some clues. Another natural question is how long was 0:21:27.320 --> 0:21:30.520 Twilight out in those woods? Could she have left home 0:21:30.600 --> 0:21:35.280 voluntarily or been kidnapped and held somewhere and killed later. 0:21:36.200 --> 0:21:40.440 The autopsy report estimated Twilight's time of death as sometime 0:21:40.520 --> 0:21:43.600 around two or three am on August twenty ninth, which 0:21:43.720 --> 0:21:46.320 which would mean that the evidence points to her being 0:21:46.400 --> 0:21:50.720 murdered shortly after she left home, So the crucial window 0:21:50.760 --> 0:21:54.320 of time remains between eleven PM when Twilight left her 0:21:54.320 --> 0:21:58.000 house and early the next morning, August twenty eighth into 0:21:58.040 --> 0:22:00.840 the early morning hours of August twenty ninth, two thousand 0:22:00.880 --> 0:22:05.000 and one. One of the bigger questions surrounding this case 0:22:05.040 --> 0:22:08.360 has been what was Twilight doing on the night she 0:22:08.400 --> 0:22:11.000 walked out of her house after she had dinner with 0:22:11.040 --> 0:22:14.120 her friend. Her parents said she came home and that 0:22:14.200 --> 0:22:17.600 she was there until ten pm to their knowledge, but 0:22:17.920 --> 0:22:20.600 she may have made a stop prior to or after that, 0:22:21.240 --> 0:22:25.560 because we've discovered. Police interviewed someone on September nineteenth, two 0:22:25.560 --> 0:22:29.400 thousand and one. This person's name is also redacted, but 0:22:29.720 --> 0:22:32.280 they told police they saw Twilight at around nine to 0:22:32.280 --> 0:22:35.440 fifteen pm at the Plano store and that at that 0:22:35.600 --> 0:22:39.000 time she was wearing her pajamas, a white T shirt, 0:22:39.000 --> 0:22:43.000 and checkered bottoms. This person told police that Twilight had 0:22:43.040 --> 0:22:45.840 told him was going home and going to bed. The 0:22:45.880 --> 0:22:48.640 guy added that Twilight was a good girl who loved 0:22:48.680 --> 0:22:53.760 life and had no enemies. Twilight often hung out at 0:22:53.760 --> 0:22:56.920 the Plano store. She sometimes would stop there multiple times 0:22:56.960 --> 0:22:59.680 per day. She smoked and it was where she would 0:22:59.680 --> 0:23:04.560 buy cigarettes. Twilight's friend said that to her knowledge, Twilight 0:23:04.640 --> 0:23:07.920 had never actually run away from home, but she admitted 0:23:07.960 --> 0:23:11.200 that back then, Twilight, like a lot of teens, had 0:23:11.240 --> 0:23:13.400 a wild streak and a habit of sneaking out. 0:23:14.040 --> 0:23:16.480 I remember she got her tongue pierced and I had 0:23:16.560 --> 0:23:18.800 mine done, and a few other people did. And I 0:23:18.840 --> 0:23:21.760 remember one day at school she was crying and I said, 0:23:21.760 --> 0:23:24.200 what's wrong, and she said her dad made her take 0:23:24.240 --> 0:23:27.120 her tongue piercing out because she got caught sneaking out 0:23:27.720 --> 0:23:31.320 of her window, and so she was grounded. We were 0:23:31.360 --> 0:23:34.680 just young and rebellious and fishing boundaries and then experimenting 0:23:34.760 --> 0:23:37.960 with things that we probably shouldn't have been, not making 0:23:38.040 --> 0:23:42.280 the safest choices. And I believe she snuck out that 0:23:42.400 --> 0:23:45.880 night to use drugs, but that doesn't change like who 0:23:45.920 --> 0:23:48.400 she was. You know, we all were kind of wild 0:23:48.480 --> 0:23:51.400 at that age. I mean, we all smoked weed, and 0:23:51.440 --> 0:23:57.240 we were experimenting like ecstasy and myths and cocaine. My 0:23:57.560 --> 0:24:01.040 class in two thousand and three when we graduated, I 0:24:01.040 --> 0:24:03.880 think we had fourteen of our classmates that were dead 0:24:03.920 --> 0:24:07.360 by the time we graduated. It was like our class 0:24:07.440 --> 0:24:09.800 was just cursed or something. I felt like, you know, 0:24:09.880 --> 0:24:12.840 because there was people that died of overdoses, that they 0:24:12.880 --> 0:24:17.160 were people that died in correct from being intoxicated, you know, 0:24:17.280 --> 0:24:21.320 and then Twilight was murdered, and you know, there was suicides, 0:24:21.480 --> 0:24:25.080 and you know, it's just it seemed like our our 0:24:25.120 --> 0:24:29.600 class was just like, I don't know, we just we 0:24:29.600 --> 0:24:31.680 were all wild back then. 0:24:33.680 --> 0:24:37.160 Bobby Crooks said in twenty eleven that he preferred to 0:24:37.200 --> 0:24:40.760 remember Twilight as she had been in life. Same quote. 0:24:40.960 --> 0:24:43.480 I have a beautiful daughter, and a certain part of 0:24:43.520 --> 0:24:46.600 me wants to keep that image. I'll eventually have to know, 0:24:47.120 --> 0:24:49.480 but it hasn't bothered me for the last ten years 0:24:49.520 --> 0:24:52.280 to not know. I've got this image of her growing up, 0:24:52.360 --> 0:24:54.200 what she looked like, and how she acts. 0:24:54.680 --> 0:25:00.040 That's what we hold on too. I can completely understand. 0:24:59.440 --> 0:25:03.120 Why he feels that way, but as an investigator, in 0:25:03.200 --> 0:25:06.600 my opinion, the key to solving this case is figuring 0:25:06.640 --> 0:25:10.840 out what Twilight did after hours, figuring out the things 0:25:10.840 --> 0:25:15.240 that she didn't tell her parents. I wonder could she 0:25:15.320 --> 0:25:18.040 have left home, then come back home and gone out again, 0:25:18.800 --> 0:25:21.760 because there's something else in the crime scene photos that 0:25:21.800 --> 0:25:25.240 in my opinion makes that a possibility. When she was 0:25:25.280 --> 0:25:29.840 found in the woods, Twilight was wearing jeans, not pajama bottoms, 0:25:30.640 --> 0:25:33.840 So if she left the house barefoot, how did she 0:25:34.040 --> 0:25:37.200 end up wearing jeans and a completely different set of clothes. 0:25:42.280 --> 0:25:45.720 In two thousand and six, police released more information about 0:25:45.720 --> 0:25:49.520 the clothes Twilight was wearing when her remains were found. 0:25:49.720 --> 0:25:52.680