Speaker 1: School of Humans. Helen Gon Murder Line actively investigates cold
Speaker 1: case murders in an effort to raise public awareness, invite
Speaker 1: witnesses to come forward and present evidence that could potentially
Speaker 1: be further investigated by law enforcement. While we value insights
Speaker 1: from family and community members, their statements should not be
Speaker 1: considered evidence and point to the challenges of verifying facts
Speaker 1: inherent in cold cases. We remind listeners that everyone has
Speaker 1: presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
Speaker 1: Nothing in the podcast is intended to state or imply
Speaker 1: that anyone who has not been convicted of a crime
Speaker 1: is guilty of any wrongdoing. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2: Over the past five years making my true crime podcast,
Speaker 2: Helen Gone, I've learned that there is no such thing
Speaker 2: as a small town where murder never happens. I have
Speaker 2: received hundreds of messages from people all around the country
Speaker 2: asking for help with an unsolved murder that's affected them,
Speaker 2: their families, and their communities, and now they have a
Speaker 2: new way to reach out. I'm Catherine Townsend. This is
Speaker 2: Helen Gone Murder Line. If you have a case you'd
Speaker 2: like me and my team to look into, you can
Speaker 2: reach out to us at six seven eight seven four four,
Speaker 2: six one four or five. That's six seven eight seven
Speaker 2: four four sixty one four or five. Thursday, December first,
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety four started out as just a normal day
Speaker 2: for Melissa missy Wit. Melissa was a nineteen year old
Speaker 2: college student who still lived at home with her mom,
Speaker 2: mary Anne Whitt, on a quiet street in a quiet
Speaker 2: neighborhood in Fort Smith, Arkansas. Melissa was Marianne's only daughter,
Speaker 2: and Melissa was her whole world. In interviews later, Marianne
Speaker 2: talked about how she'd been almost forty years old when
Speaker 2: Melissa was born. Melissa's dad, Johnny, was fifty four at
Speaker 2: the time. Today that's more common, especially in places like
Speaker 2: New York City, where I've spent a lot of my
Speaker 2: adult life, but back then, in small town Arkansas, it
Speaker 2: was definitely not. Because they were so close. Mary Anne
Speaker 2: was always very protective of Melissa. She always thought about safety.
Speaker 2: Fort Smith had around seventy five thousand people living there
Speaker 2: back in the early nineties with a military base. It
Speaker 2: was much larger and more diverse than say a lot
Speaker 2: of towns in the Ozarks, but it still had that
Speaker 2: small town feel when Melissa was growing up. It was
Speaker 2: the kind of place where kids rode their bikes around
Speaker 2: town and entertained themselves after school. On that December morning
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety four, Melissa asked mary Anne if she
Speaker 2: could borrow twenty dollars. Mary Anne was trying to teach
Speaker 2: Melissa about smarter budgeting, so she said no. Melissa and
Speaker 2: mary Anne actually got into a little argument over this,
Speaker 2: and Melissa left the house that day without them resolving it.
Speaker 2: After Melissa left, mary Anne felt bad about the argument,
Speaker 2: so she left Melissa a note telling her to come
Speaker 2: to Bowling World that night, where mary Anne was part
Speaker 2: of a ladies bowling league. In the note, Marianne apologized
Speaker 2: for getting upset with her and offered to buy her
Speaker 2: a Hamburger when they saw each other that night. She
Speaker 2: signed the note, love Mom. Melissa did go to meet
Speaker 2: her mom that night at Bowling World, but she never
Speaker 2: made it inside. Instead, Melissa disappeared, and Marianne never saw
Speaker 2: her daughter alive again.
Speaker 3: For days.
Speaker 2: No one noticed that Melissa's brand new white nineteen ninety
Speaker 2: five Mitsubishi Mirage was parked in a far corner of
Speaker 2: that parking lot, and no one noticed the blood.
Speaker 4: Alan it's being lookout for a Melissa Whit me a
Speaker 4: white female nineteen years of age five one point five
Speaker 4: have hazel eyes, brownish blond hair. When I've seen Thursday
Speaker 4: December First.
Speaker 2: I'm Catherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone Murder Line.
Speaker 5: Hi Catherine, this is LaDonna.
Speaker 6: I just wanted to talk to you about the Melissa whitcase.
Speaker 2: I was introduced to the Melissa whitcase through Loadonna Humphrey,
Speaker 2: a private investigator and native Northwest Arkansas. We've been talking
Speaker 2: about Melissa's case for a couple of years now. LaDonna
Speaker 2: has devoted years of her life to investigating the case
Speaker 2: and to getting justice from Melissa's family and friends. She's
Speaker 2: also written two books about Melissa called The Girl I
Speaker 2: Never Knew and Strangled, and made a documentary about the
Speaker 2: case called Uneven Ground The Melissa Whit Story.
Speaker 7: I have been a part of.
Speaker 6: A nonprofit that I had founded called Let's Bring Them Home.
Speaker 6: We offered support to families who had adult cases that
Speaker 6: had gone missing, and we acted as a liaison between
Speaker 6: the family and law enforcement.
Speaker 5: And we wanted to film a documentary.
Speaker 6: Our team got together and everyone kept bringing up the
Speaker 6: Melissa Whit case, and I was really actually against it
Speaker 6: in the beginning because obviously she's not a long term
Speaker 6: missing case.
Speaker 5: They found her body.
Speaker 6: Six weeks after she disappeared, but the team out voted me,
Speaker 6: sent me to Fort Smith, and really kind of the
Speaker 6: rest is history.
Speaker 5: Once I met with law Enforce and realized how passionate.
Speaker 6: They were about the case, I knew that I needed
Speaker 6: to get involved, and it was initially just for the documentary,
Speaker 6: and then it really morphed into me being more involved
Speaker 6: in the day to day things that were happening with
Speaker 6: her case.
Speaker 2: Loa Donna had a unique experience. She was able to
Speaker 2: gain the trust of J. C Ryder, who was the
Speaker 2: lead investigator on Melissa's case for years. Donna got access
Speaker 2: to the case file.
Speaker 6: I had brought some information to them in my initial
Speaker 6: work with the documentary that started putting some pieces together
Speaker 6: for them and kind of led them back to a
Speaker 6: suspect that they'd had all along, okay, because he started
Speaker 6: contacting me.
Speaker 5: Because this was before I was a private investigator. I
Speaker 5: was just.
Speaker 6: Normal citizen filmmaker doing my thing, and I think that
Speaker 6: they realized that this could be a perfect storm really
Speaker 6: for the WIB case because it was bringing renewed interest.
Speaker 6: But not only that, there was information that was coming
Speaker 6: into the case that was valuable that I was turning.
Speaker 5: Over to them that they had never gotten before.
Speaker 6: And they made a decision then as a department that
Speaker 6: they were going to allow me to see the case files.
Speaker 5: There was a bunch of rules around it that couldn't
Speaker 5: take any of it with me, you know, I.
Speaker 6: Couldn't share the information in the film, some of it,
Speaker 6: but they felt like I needed to know some of
Speaker 6: the information basically because I was dealing with some of
Speaker 6: the characters that they were looking at really closely in
Speaker 6: Melissa's murder. But yeah, it was interesting because that doesn't
Speaker 6: happen very often, and they allow me to stay to
Speaker 6: continue to stay involved in the case because now it's
Speaker 6: more of a partnership than anything else to you know.
Speaker 5: Get justice from Melissa.
Speaker 2: We're going to go through some of the theories in
Speaker 2: the case, but first we have to go back to
Speaker 2: the beginning, to the last twenty four hours of Melissa's
Speaker 2: life to see if there's anything that we missed. Melissa
Speaker 2: was pretty bubbly, friendly and kind. Her friend Tara, talked
Speaker 2: to local news channel News five about how she became
Speaker 2: fast friends with Melissa when they were around five or
Speaker 2: six years old. She said that they would ride their
Speaker 2: bikes around town and go to local fast food restaurants
Speaker 2: like KFC and Hardy's. They would buy candy cigarettes and
Speaker 2: pretend to smoke them. When they got to high school,
Speaker 2: Tara said Melissa always retained that friendly innocence. They would
Speaker 2: cruise around town on the weekends. Melissa would talk about
Speaker 2: boys who she thought were cute, but for the most part,
Speaker 2: Tara said, Melissa remained focused on school. Melissa was an
Speaker 2: honor student and a cheerleader. She didn't have a regular
Speaker 2: boyfriend in high school, but she did have lots of friends.
Speaker 2: After graduation, Melissa enrolled at West Dark Community College, which
Speaker 2: is now part of the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith.
Speaker 2: Melissa also had a part time job at a dentist's office.
Speaker 2: She was studying to be a dental assistant. On that Thursday,
Speaker 2: after leaving home, Melissa had classes in the morning, then
Speaker 2: she had lunch with a friend at the mall. That afternoon,
Speaker 2: she went over to Family Dentistry. The dentist office where
Speaker 2: she worked. The dentist, doctor Jennings, and the rest of
Speaker 2: her colleagues said Melissa was her happy and normal, bubbly self.
Speaker 2: Nothing seemed out of the ordinary that day. Melissa left
Speaker 2: work a little after five pm. But then something out
Speaker 2: of the ordinary did happen because when she got outside,
Speaker 2: her car wouldn't start. Now a woman Melissa worked with
Speaker 2: told five News that what happened was Melissa had left
Speaker 2: her lights on for too long, so she needed to
Speaker 2: get a jump. This coworker said they were looking for
Speaker 2: someone with jumper cables. They went next door and found
Speaker 2: a guy who worked at a business there. This was
Speaker 2: the person l Donna called the Good Samaritan in her book,
Speaker 2: The Good Samaritan helped Melissa jumpstarter car. The coworker told
Speaker 2: the news station that she stayed to watch Melissa start
Speaker 2: the jump process. Then when the cables were attached, she
Speaker 2: told Melissa to just leave her car running for like
Speaker 2: fifteen minutes to make sure the battery was charged. Then
Speaker 2: the coworker left. Now, in her book and in multiple
Speaker 2: media reports, we learned that the Good Samaritan was cleared
Speaker 2: by police pretty early in the investigation. But as we
Speaker 2: know from previous seasons of Helen Gone, we can't assume anything.
Speaker 2: I asked the Donna about the Good Samaritan.
Speaker 5: You know, obviously when someone goes missing, as you know,
Speaker 5: they're going to look at the day's activities pretty closely.
Speaker 6: And of course that was pretty suspicious to law enforcement
Speaker 6: because to have her car not started, and they looked
Speaker 6: at that really really closely. The Good Samaritan, who they
Speaker 6: try not to name just to not disrupt.
Speaker 7: His life, he worked nearby to the dental office, and
Speaker 7: as it turns out, she had left her lights on
Speaker 7: her car most of the day, starting from when she
Speaker 7: had been at the mall to have lunch, and that's what.
Speaker 5: Killed the battery. And so they looked at him so closely.
Speaker 6: In fact, I think he was probably interviewed maybe half
Speaker 6: a dozen times, and he just.
Speaker 5: Had no connection to what had happened to her.
Speaker 6: It was one of those things that you know, he
Speaker 6: was a good smart and he helped her, but it
Speaker 6: was almost like he was at the wrong place at
Speaker 6: the wrong.
Speaker 5: Time because she went missing that day. But he was
Speaker 5: completely cleared by law enforcement.
Speaker 2: After getting her car started, Melissa drove home, which was
Speaker 2: just a few minutes from the dental office. She left
Speaker 2: work at five point fifty, so this would have put
Speaker 2: her home a little after six Her dental scrubs were
Speaker 2: found crumpled up on her bedroom floor, like she had
Speaker 2: taken them off to do a quick clothing change, and
Speaker 2: her mom later told investigators that, based on the clothes
Speaker 2: that were missing, Melissa changed into jeans, a white V
Speaker 2: neck sweater, silver hoop, earrings with a wavy pattern on them,
Speaker 2: and a Mickey Mouse wristwatch. Police figured out later that
Speaker 2: Melissa must have seen her mother's note because Melissa then
Speaker 2: headed out to Bowling world Sstigators estimated Melissa arrived at
Speaker 2: Bowling World between six thirty and seven PM. Now, at
Speaker 2: that time, the parking lot would have been pretty full.
Speaker 2: The bowling league was popular by the time Melissa got there,
Speaker 2: pretty much everyone would have been inside, which is part
Speaker 2: of the reason why police later could not find many witnesses.
Speaker 2: But Melissa never made it inside. Mary Anne, of course
Speaker 2: noticed that Melissa never showed up at Bowling World, and
Speaker 2: after she got home and saw Melissa's car was not
Speaker 2: there at the house, she got worried. Mary Anne called
Speaker 2: Melissa's friends, but no one had seen her. The next morning,
Speaker 2: Friday morning, Melissa's friend Tara said that her mother walked
Speaker 2: into her room and asked if she'd heard from Melissa.
Speaker 2: Her mom said Maryanne had called the house looking for Melissa.
Speaker 2: Tara said no, but she said they were supposed to
Speaker 2: go out on that Friday night. She figured they would
Speaker 2: catch up later. Then Tara went to class. They had
Speaker 2: a biology class together, and when Melissa didn't show up
Speaker 2: in that biology class, Tara immediately suspected something bad had happened.
Speaker 2: This was not like Melissa. Melissa was extremely responsible. That's
Speaker 2: when Marianne went to the police. But then the first
Speaker 2: officer to talk to mary Anne, in my opinion, made
Speaker 2: a crucial and unfortunately a far too common error. We
Speaker 2: see this over and over in this podcast and in
Speaker 2: our investigations. Mary Anne was talking about what happened that morning,
Speaker 2: and she mentioned that small argument she had gotten into
Speaker 2: with Melissa over the twenty dollars that apparently led the
Speaker 2: officer to believe that Melissa could.
Speaker 3: Have been a runaway.
Speaker 2: Since Melissa was over eighteen and was an adult, of course,
Speaker 2: she did have the right to disappear voluntarily, but mary
Speaker 2: Anne and all Melissa's friends kept telling police there was
Speaker 2: no way she would do that. This was not like Melissa.
Speaker 2: This was completely out of character. She would not just disappear.
Speaker 2: Because of this delay by police, crucial hours in the
Speaker 2: beginning of the investigation were lost. Melissa's family did not
Speaker 2: want to wait, so they got together with some of
Speaker 2: her friends and other members of the community and they
Speaker 2: started searching for her. They printed thousands of flyers with
Speaker 2: Melissa's picture on them. They also put her picture on
Speaker 2: billboards around town. Local news media took the story and
Speaker 2: ran with it, and once that story hit local news,
Speaker 2: a crucial tip came in. A Bowling World employee called
Speaker 2: the police and told them that on the night Melissa
Speaker 2: went missing, a construction worker and his family turned in
Speaker 2: a set of keys they found in the parking lot.
Speaker 2: This happened at around seven forty five pm, so this
Speaker 2: would have been just a few minutes after police say
Speaker 2: Melissa arrived at Bowling World. The key ring had Missy
Speaker 2: written on it. The keys belonged to Melissa. Later forensic
Speaker 2: testing would reveal they had tiny specks of blood on them.
Speaker 2: At that point, police did suspect foul play. They turned
Speaker 2: the case over to the Fort Smith Major Crimes Unit,
Speaker 2: and that's when investig Gator J. C. Rider took over
Speaker 2: the case. Now should mention here that J. C Ryder
Speaker 2: has his own checkered history. Ledonna has worked with him
Speaker 2: for years. She presents him as a competent, carrying investigator
Speaker 2: who's been instrumental in getting the word out about Melissa
Speaker 2: WIT's case and never giving up. But as you all know,
Speaker 2: I don't take anything for granted, including the backgrounds of
Speaker 2: the people investigating the case. The allegations against J. C
Speaker 2: Rder go back to a man named Ron Fields. He
Speaker 2: was the deputy prosecuting attorney in Fort Smith from the
Speaker 2: late seventies until two thousand and five. Back in nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety five, when J. C Ryder was police captain, the
Speaker 2: FBI investigated claims that Ron Fields was dealing drugs and
Speaker 2: operating basically a hit squad that some people compared to
Speaker 2: the movie That Departed Inside the Fort Smith Police Department,
Speaker 2: the FBI investigated allegations that Ron Fields ordered J. C
Speaker 2: Ryder to kill a woman named Laurie Murchison and to
Speaker 2: get rid of her body. We're actually going to do
Speaker 2: an entirely separate episode about Lourie Murchison. It's way too
Speaker 2: complex and comprehensive to cover here, but needless to say,
Speaker 2: Ron Fields later became a suspect in Laurie's disappearance. J
Speaker 2: c Ryder, through his attorneys, has always maintained that those
Speaker 2: federal charges were completely ridiculous and not true. Jac's lawyer
Speaker 2: at the time told the Arkansas Democrat Gazette that their
Speaker 2: quote absolutely nuts. The lawyer said the FBI basically went
Speaker 2: in and intimidated and threatened people to give them information.
Speaker 2: The lawyer said the whole thing was a witch hunt.
Speaker 2: The police detective who led the investigation into Lourie's death
Speaker 2: also back j c.
Speaker 3: Rider.
Speaker 2: The detective said the evidence pointed to Lourie dying of
Speaker 2: a drug overdose and that there was a suspect in
Speaker 2: that case, someone who was imprisoned in Oklahoma, a place
Speaker 2: where Lourie traveled often. But the detective said they just
Speaker 2: didn't have enough evidence to charge that person in connection
Speaker 2: with Laurie's death. Going back to Melissa with so now
Speaker 2: it's December fourth, three days after Melissa disappeared, j c
Speaker 2: Ryder was assigned to the case. He and his fellow
Speaker 2: detectives immediately searched the parking lot of Bowling World, and
Speaker 2: they found Melissa's white car abandoned there in the northwest
Speaker 2: corner of the parking lot, so her car had been
Speaker 2: sitting there for three days.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 2: This seemed a little bit weird at first that no
Speaker 2: one noticed that, but Melissa's mom hadn't seen it because
Speaker 2: again it was in the outer part of the lot
Speaker 2: when she came out and didn't see Melissa that night,
Speaker 2: she just assumed that Melissa never came to Bowling World.
Speaker 2: Officers searched around that car, and they found drops of blood.
Speaker 2: Melissa's blood had never been tested, so they couldn't confirm
Speaker 2: then that it was a match. But the drops of
Speaker 2: blood led pretty much from Melissa's vehicle over to the
Speaker 2: next row of cars. So the police theory was that
Speaker 2: Melissa was attacked and thrown into someone else's vehicle, and
Speaker 2: that the blood blood either came from her being hit,
Speaker 2: probably with a blunt force object, or when her head
Speaker 2: hit the parking lot pavement. Now police had what they
Speaker 2: believed to be the primary crime scene, they started looking
Speaker 2: for witnesses. Initially, there were reports that witnesses had seen
Speaker 2: Melissa with someone they described as a black, six foot
Speaker 2: two male. Rumors were flying that she had been involved
Speaker 2: in drug deals or sex trafficking, mainly because at the
Speaker 2: time there were a lot of people who dealt drugs,
Speaker 2: especially methamphetamines, near Fort Chaffee, the military base, but that
Speaker 2: sighting was later confirmed to be a totally erroneous mistake.
Speaker 2: Police did eventually find someone who was a credible witness,
Speaker 2: a ten year old boy who was actually the son
Speaker 2: of one of mary Anne's friends. While his mom was
Speaker 2: playing with mary Anne in the bowling league that night,
Speaker 2: she sent him out to the car to get some
Speaker 2: textbooks so he could start doing his homework. When the
Speaker 2: boy came back in, he said that he saw a
Speaker 2: man and a woman fighting in the parking lot. At
Speaker 2: the time, his mom didn't think too much about it,
Speaker 2: but police later believed that he witnessed Melissa with her abductor. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: the boy didn't see enough of the kidnapper's appearance to
Speaker 2: make a full sketch. Another early missing poster said Melissa
Speaker 2: had been spotted quote possibly in nineteen eighty one gray
Speaker 2: Oldsmobile cutlass with a tall, white male with black, wavy
Speaker 2: hair and an earring end quote. I saw this tip
Speaker 2: on a missing poster from an old news report, and
Speaker 2: I still don't know who reported it or where that
Speaker 2: came from. As with so many investigations that get a
Speaker 2: lot of press, thousands of tips were flooding in, so
Speaker 2: now police had to figure out which ones were good
Speaker 2: leads and which ones were dead ends. Everyone in town
Speaker 2: had a theory about who could have killed Melissa. Was
Speaker 2: it a drug deal gone bad? Was it a random
Speaker 2: serial killer who came in off Interstate five while passing
Speaker 2: through town, or was it someone she knew. Melissa's personal
Speaker 2: life didn't seem to offer a lot of clues. At first,
Speaker 2: she was well liked, She didn't have any enemies. She
Speaker 2: also didn't have any turmoil in her personal relationship. No
Speaker 2: fighting with boyfriends, or at least not ones that anyone
Speaker 2: knew about. The holiday season passed mary Anne's first one
Speaker 2: without her daughter.
Speaker 3: No one had a clue what happened to Melissa.
Speaker 2: Almost six weeks later, on January thirteenth, nineteen ninety five,
Speaker 2: two hunters were near Turner Bend in the Ozark National
Speaker 2: Forest when they saw a nude body. Dental records proved
Speaker 2: this was Melissa Wit. Melissa had been found. This was tragic,
Speaker 2: but detectives hope now they would be able to gather
Speaker 2: evidence from her body, hopefully evidence that would get them
Speaker 2: closer to finding her killer. Melissa was naked, so all
Speaker 2: of her clothing, shoes, and jewelry, including her other earring
Speaker 2: and her Mickey Mouse watch with a brown band, were
Speaker 2: all missing. Her autopsy revealed blunt forest head injuries, either
Speaker 2: from an object she was struck with or possibly from
Speaker 2: her head hitting the ground. Then Melissa's killer or killers
Speaker 2: probably put her into a vehicle in the next row
Speaker 2: of cars. Someone drove her to that area where her
Speaker 2: body was found. Investigators believe that remote location is where
Speaker 2: Melissa Whit died. It's located down a single lane dirt
Speaker 2: road that's used for logging. The autopsy revealed that the
Speaker 2: cause of death was exphyxiation by strangulation. When I spoke
Speaker 2: to her, le Donna talked about how she retraced Melissa's
Speaker 2: root and how horrifying it must have been for her
Speaker 2: to be riding in that car with a head wound bleeding,
Speaker 2: knowing that something horrible was about to happen to her.
Speaker 5: Love for sand.
Speaker 6: They take me out to its remote site in the
Speaker 6: Ozark National Chorus, and I had a sense of dread.
Speaker 6: The whole way there because it's it's just this, you know,
Speaker 6: there's a lot of beauty to look at, but knowing
Speaker 6: how remote it was as we're you know, winding around
Speaker 6: and seeing like there was nowhere for her to go,
Speaker 6: nowhere for her to escape.
Speaker 5: And when we parked the car and I got out,
Speaker 5: one of the first things that j. C Ryder looked
Speaker 5: at me and said was, if you.
Speaker 6: Screamed right now, Ladna, Hon'll bring nobody would hear you.
Speaker 5: And I remember being just almost to the point of tears.
Speaker 6: And I'm not like a crier, really very easy, but
Speaker 6: realizing this nineteen year old girl was out there at
Speaker 6: night was someone who had already attacked her in a
Speaker 6: parking lot.
Speaker 5: She had to have known what was going to happen next.
Speaker 6: The amount of fear that she had, and that part
Speaker 6: of the case really broke me, especially seeing where he
Speaker 6: left her, you know, eventually left her body like.
Speaker 5: She didn't matter.
Speaker 2: Investigators said they found pieces of leaves in Melissa's lungs
Speaker 2: and grass and other vegetation that was native to the
Speaker 2: Ozark National Forest in her windpipe. This led them to
Speaker 2: believe that after Melissa was kidnapped from the Bowling World
Speaker 2: parking lot. She was immediately driven to that location in
Speaker 2: the forest, then sexually assaulted and killed there. Because Melissa's
Speaker 2: body was nude, investigators assumed that there had been a
Speaker 2: sexual assault. According to the autopsy report, there was another
Speaker 2: strange twist of the case. Melissa's body had been moved. First,
Speaker 2: it was put behind a large rock that was kind
Speaker 2: of shaped like a tombstone. The body was covered with
Speaker 2: pine leaves and that's where it stayed for several weeks,
Speaker 2: but then just a few days before the body was found,
Speaker 2: someone moved it. Over the years, JC Riders offered up
Speaker 2: a couple of theories about why he believes someone would
Speaker 2: have moved Melissa's body. He said, either it's because as
Speaker 2: the killer wanted credit for the kill, so they wanted
Speaker 2: the body to be found so that it would be
Speaker 2: written about and they would get some kind of celebrity status.
Speaker 2: Or maybe the move was out of sympathy. Maybe it
Speaker 2: was someone who knew Melissa and wanted to make sure
Speaker 2: that she was found so that her friends and family
Speaker 2: would have some kind of closure. There's also a third possibility,
Speaker 2: by the way, that someone who was not Melissa's killer
Speaker 2: or involved in her murder, found the body and decided
Speaker 2: to move it, but didn't want to admit that because
Speaker 2: maybe they lived nearby or had history law enforcement and
Speaker 2: were just scared to talk to police for some reason.
Speaker 2: This theory was bolstered a little bit when police got
Speaker 2: a mysterious phone call the day before the body was found.
Speaker 2: In that call, it sounded like there were two people talking.
Speaker 2: You could hear an older woman. Police later said, it
Speaker 2: sounded like a grandmother and a grandson, and you can
Speaker 2: hear the woman saying, tell them what you found, Tell
Speaker 2: them what you found.
Speaker 3: Then the caller hangs up.
Speaker 2: Police cannot def say that that caller was connected to
Speaker 2: Melissa whit, but the timing seems like a pretty big coincidence.
Speaker 2: Police never found that caller, and back then they had
Speaker 2: no way to trace them.
Speaker 3: Le Donna has said.
Speaker 2: By the way, that she does not agree with law
Speaker 2: enforcements theory because the night Melissa was killed was a
Speaker 2: really cold night. She thinks it's possible Melissa was sexually
Speaker 2: assaulted somewhere else, maybe even kept somewhere for days or weeks,
Speaker 2: and then was murdered near where the body was dumped.
Speaker 2: When I look at these cases, I always go back
Speaker 2: to the very beginning. I asked myself if it was
Speaker 2: possible that Bowling World was not the primary crime scene.
Speaker 2: Maybe Melissa had left that parking lot with someone and
Speaker 2: later they took the car back and parked it there.
Speaker 2: After all, it wasn't found for three days. I have
Speaker 2: seen this in other cases. Anyone who has basic knowledge
Speaker 2: of crime scenes. No, if you can waste police time
Speaker 2: by staging a false crime scene, you can throw them
Speaker 2: off the trail for quite a while. But Melissa's keys
Speaker 2: and the spots of blood made me think this is
Speaker 2: much less likely because those keys were turned in at
Speaker 2: around seven forty five pm.
Speaker 3: But the fact that the.
Speaker 2: Body was moved and some other little odd tidbits about
Speaker 2: this case made me think it's definitely possible that the
Speaker 2: crime scene was stage. Maybe sexual assault wasn't the motive.
Speaker 2: Maybe someone was angry with Melissa and hit her and
Speaker 2: then took her out to the dumb site and took
Speaker 2: her clothes off, even to conceal evidence, or also maybe
Speaker 2: to make it look like a random serial killer did it.
Speaker 2: So let's go back to what could have happened that
Speaker 2: night in the parking lot at Bowling World. Melissa got
Speaker 2: to Bowling World. The parking lot was pretty full because
Speaker 2: of the Ladies' leak. Almost everyone was inside. Melissa got
Speaker 2: out of her car, and whatever happened had to happen
Speaker 2: really quickly because she had her keys in her hand.
Speaker 2: Presumably she didn't take the time to lock her car
Speaker 2: and put them into her purse, because her purse was missing,
Speaker 2: but the keys were there. Melissa started arguing with someone.
Speaker 2: The argument got heated. Maybe she got scared and went
Speaker 2: to get back inside her car, but before she had
Speaker 2: time to put the keys in the door and to
Speaker 2: get back in her car to safety, the killer hit
Speaker 2: her over the head with a blunt fors object, grabbed
Speaker 2: her and threw her into their vehicle. This would have
Speaker 2: taken just a few seconds, just long enough for the
Speaker 2: keys to slip out of her hands, and that would
Speaker 2: also explain another piece of evidence they found there, Melissa's
Speaker 2: crushed hair clip. The killer or killers grabbed Melissa's bag
Speaker 2: and threw it in the vehicle with them, but probably
Speaker 2: in their panic, they didn't notice those keys. Almost every
Speaker 2: single theory that has been mentioned in connection with this case,
Speaker 2: all of them have one thing in common. This was
Speaker 2: not a planned attack. This was something probably an argument
Speaker 2: that got out of control and escalated, which brings us
Speaker 2: back to who would have known that Melissa was going
Speaker 2: to be there that night. The years police have gotten
Speaker 2: thousands of tips, there have been a few people of
Speaker 2: interests who've come up over and over, and we're going
Speaker 2: to go over those now. One person of interest who
Speaker 2: was mentioned pretty early on was a guy named Larry Sweeringin.
Speaker 2: He was convicted of the nineteen ninety nine murder of
Speaker 2: a young woman named Melissa Trotter in Texas. Le Donna
Speaker 2: wrote in her book there were actually a lot of similarities,
Speaker 2: at least on the surface, between Melissa Trotter's case and
Speaker 2: Melissa Whit's case, other than the obvious, which is they
Speaker 2: had the same first name. Both Melissa Trotter and Melissa
Speaker 2: Witt were nineteen years old, Both of them were strangled.
Speaker 2: Both were found several weeks after they disappeared in national
Speaker 2: forest areas. Melissa Trotter's body was found on January twenty second,
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety nine, in sam Houston National Forest in Texas.
Speaker 2: Melissa Trotter had a knife wound on her neck, her
Speaker 2: throat had been cut, and the pockets of her shorts
Speaker 2: were torn, exposing her red underwear. She had been strangled
Speaker 2: with a pair of panny hose. Larry Swaringen was twenty
Speaker 2: seven years old, he was married, and he had a
Speaker 2: long criminal history with allegations of sexual assault against multiple women.
Speaker 2: It turned out that there were a lot of issues
Speaker 2: with the case against Larry Swaringen. There were serious problems
Speaker 2: with the physical evidence, though, actually the biggest issue in
Speaker 2: the case against Larry Swaringen was the timing. The Houston
Speaker 2: medical examiner who conducted the autopsy testified during Larry Swaringen's
Speaker 2: trial that Melissa Trotter had been dead the entire time
Speaker 2: that she was missing, so for almost three weeks. But
Speaker 2: in two thousand and seven, the medical examiner recanted her testimony.
Speaker 2: Now she said that Melissa Trotter had been dead for
Speaker 2: no longer than two weeks when her body was found.
Speaker 2: The problem with that is that three days after Melissa
Speaker 2: went missing, the police picked him up on an outstanding warrant,
Speaker 2: and he was in jail when her body was found.
Speaker 2: I absolutely believe that if Larry Swaringen were charged with
Speaker 2: that murder today, he would not be convicted. Not only
Speaker 2: do I not believe he's a viable suspect in Melissa
Speaker 2: Whits case. I think it's highly unlikely that he killed
Speaker 2: Melissa Trotter. But even with all the questionable evidence, Larry's
Speaker 2: Swaringen was convicted and he was sentenced to death.
Speaker 3: After the Innocents.
Speaker 2: Project took up the case, his execution was stayed five times,
Speaker 2: but finally Larry Sweringen was executed by lethal injection in
Speaker 2: two thousand. His last words and a final statement were
Speaker 2: quote today.
Speaker 3: The state of Texas murdered an innocent man.
Speaker 2: While police were investigating Melissa Whits case, another possible person
Speaker 2: of interest came up. His name is Travis Dale Crouch.
Speaker 2: He was also known by his nicknames Tramp or Skull.
Speaker 2: Travis is from Ozark and did time for the rape
Speaker 2: of a twenty year old woman in Colorado in nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety seven. Travis was panhandling in a mall parking lot.
Speaker 2: He started chatting with his victim, then he attacked her
Speaker 2: in her own car. He forced her to drive to
Speaker 2: this remote location on a mountaintop, and over a period
Speaker 2: of hours, he subjected her to a brutal sexual assault. Somehow,
Speaker 2: his victim escaped. She was dazed, and she ran out
Speaker 2: of there completely naked and got help. Law enforcements saw
Speaker 2: similarities between this case and Melissa Whits case, and they
Speaker 2: figured out that around the time Melissa disappeared, Travis was
Speaker 2: in Arkansas. Actually, Travis was a carpenter at a church
Speaker 2: camp a few miles from the remote area where Melissa's
Speaker 2: body was found. He was seen driving as Chevrolet Caprice
Speaker 2: near Bowling World around the time when Melissa disappeared. Travis
Speaker 2: was also a deer hunter, so he would have known
Speaker 2: the forest well. Police safe fibers in his car were
Speaker 2: tested at one point, but then nothing more was ever
Speaker 2: reported about the results of those tests. Travis was sentenced
Speaker 2: to sixty four years in prison for the rape of
Speaker 2: the twenty year old victim in Callraer Hto. He becomes
Speaker 2: eligible for parole next year, twenty twenty four. According to
Speaker 2: multiple reports, Travis has also always denied any involvement in
Speaker 2: Melissa Whits murder, which in a way brings us back
Speaker 2: to where we started. We can eliminate some possibilities. None
Speaker 2: of the rumors about drugs or sex trafficking rings made sense.
Speaker 2: Melissa never did drugs. No drugs were found in her system.
Speaker 2: Police later publicly said that the whole black male suspect
Speaker 2: and Fort Chaffee connection were just red herrings and had
Speaker 2: been a complete waste of time. Also, sex traffickers don't
Speaker 2: drive into full parking lots and kidnap random women. It's
Speaker 2: sad to say this, but sex traffickers do not have
Speaker 2: a problem finding young victims. They groom at risk young
Speaker 2: teens and runaways, but they don't randomly kidnap people from
Speaker 2: parking lots. Over the years, a number of armed shared
Speaker 2: detectives on podcasts have mentioned possible suspects. The podcast True
Speaker 2: Crime Garage talked to Lodonna a few years back about
Speaker 2: a guy named Gary Hilton, aka the National Forest serial Killer.
Speaker 2: But in my opinion, this doesn't make a ton of sense.
Speaker 2: On the surface, there are a few similarities, but Gary
Speaker 2: Hilton's mo was abducting women from remote areas. For example,
Speaker 2: one victim's car was found abandoned in a field, another
Speaker 2: was on a hike. Over the years, LaDonna has devoted
Speaker 2: countless hours to researching what could have happened to Melissa Whitt.
Speaker 2: A few years back, she was contacted by a woman
Speaker 2: who said years ago when the woman was twenty three
Speaker 2: and living in the Pacific Northwest. This woman had been
Speaker 2: in a fetish video and this was a very creepy story.
Speaker 2: The woman said that this creepy director wanted a video
Speaker 2: where the young woman was wearing a Mickey mouse Watch.
Speaker 2: He wanted her to pretend that she was dead and
Speaker 2: in a morgue. As a result of this, LaDonna did
Speaker 2: a deep dive into some very disturbing internet forums. I've
Speaker 2: been on a lot of those same forums, and there
Speaker 2: are some definite violent creeps in there. But I don't
Speaker 2: think that this direction will ultimately lead to Melissa's killer.
Speaker 2: There are a lot of people who enjoyed dark fetishes
Speaker 2: who never cross the line. I also don't think that
Speaker 2: Melissa WIT's killer was a random stranger. First of all,
Speaker 2: I find it hard to believe that a random stranger
Speaker 2: would trawl through a packed parking lot to find a victim.
Speaker 2: This wasn't two am in a car garage. This was
Speaker 2: prime dinner time in the middle of the Ladies bowling League.
Speaker 2: Over the years, some people have suggested the Mickey mouse
Speaker 2: Watch might be some kind of important connection, like maybe
Speaker 2: Melissa Trotter and Melissa Witt were both targeted because they
Speaker 2: wore Mickey Mouse watches. AY magazine did a story about
Speaker 2: the case. They called it the Mickey Mouse Killer. I
Speaker 2: get why people might focus on the watch, because both
Speaker 2: Melissa Trotter and Melissa Wit wore that style of watch,
Speaker 2: and they were missing when the bodies were found. But
Speaker 2: in my opinion, this is also just a coincidence because
Speaker 2: that style of watch was everywhere in the eighties and nineties,
Speaker 2: lots of young women wore them. I just don't believe
Speaker 2: that there was a serial killer targeting young women because
Speaker 2: they wore Mickey Mouse watches. Now, I could, of course
Speaker 2: be totally wrong, and if other evidence points in that direction,
Speaker 2: I will change my mind. But I think that the
Speaker 2: killer taking Melissa Whit's clothes was more of an attempt
Speaker 2: to not leave blood or saliva or anything else that
Speaker 2: could connect them to Melissa. J. C Ryder seems to
Speaker 2: agree Melissa's killer knew her, they knew her routine, and
Speaker 2: they were waiting for her in the parking lot that night.
Speaker 2: But when I talked to Ldonna, she was focused on
Speaker 2: a suspect much closer to home, someone she says, who
Speaker 2: knew Melissa well, someone who contacted her early in the investigation.
Speaker 6: So this particular guy, I guess he was the one
Speaker 6: that's called me and kind of creepy called me for many.
Speaker 5: Many years, and it started out with.
Speaker 6: Him calling me weeping over Melissa, you know, wanting me
Speaker 6: to go with him to the grave side, those kind
Speaker 6: of things.
Speaker 5: But it was definitely, yes, he's someone that knew Melissa,
Speaker 5: and his name is definitely in that diary.
Speaker 6: Because of that, and because he had been reaching out
Speaker 6: to me and there was no possible way for me
Speaker 6: to know that name. You know, it wasn't something that
Speaker 6: I could have gone to law enforcement and just make up.
Speaker 5: This was, you know, information that really just kind of
Speaker 5: fell into my lap.
Speaker 6: They realized how critical this piece could be because I
Speaker 6: could literally gather some information for them and give it
Speaker 6: to them as intel that they.
Speaker 5: Were never going to have with him because he had
Speaker 5: lawyered up.
Speaker 6: Even though I wasn't acting as an agent of the
Speaker 6: police or even as a private investigator at that point,
Speaker 6: as a filmmaker and doing an investigative journalism piece part
Speaker 6: of it, I was still able to go ahead and
Speaker 6: talk with him. And reading that case file helped me
Speaker 6: because I at least knew some of the statements he made,
Speaker 6: and then I would know immediately if he was being
Speaker 6: honest with me. And for the most part he was live,
Speaker 6: which was really really interesting and intriguing to the case.
Speaker 2: I believe something scared Melissa. She got into an argument
Speaker 2: with her abductor, either because she said no to some
Speaker 2: kind of sexual advance, or maybe because they were having
Speaker 2: some kind of a fight, maybe even a lover's quarrel.
Speaker 2: Maybe Melissa Witt was seeing someone secretly. It could be
Speaker 2: someone who might have had a girlfriend or even a wife.
Speaker 3: Then when Melissa.
Speaker 2: Witt raised her voice and they started getting into a
Speaker 2: more heated argument the one the ten year old boy witnessed,
Speaker 2: her killer wanted her to be quiet, so they hit her,
Speaker 2: then panicked and threw her into their vehicle. Maybe her
Speaker 2: killer took her into the Ozark National Forest, sexually assaulted
Speaker 2: her and strangled her. Or maybe they hit her, panicked,
Speaker 2: threw her into the car, then went to dump her
Speaker 2: in the forest. Maybe they thought she was dead, but
Speaker 2: when they realized she was still alive, they knew they
Speaker 2: had finish the job. In either scenario, I think Melissa
Speaker 2: Whitten knew her killer that it was someone local, or
Speaker 2: maybe more than one person.
Speaker 5: What's the missing piece?
Speaker 3: What can people do to help at this point?
Speaker 5: I think that there's a couple of things. One is
Speaker 5: that this.
Speaker 6: Guy has had lots of problems with drugs and alcohol
Speaker 6: over the years, and I.
Speaker 5: Do believe that he's talked to different people in his life, and.
Speaker 6: I think that those people are probably very fearful of coming.
Speaker 5: Forward, and you know, we need those people to come
Speaker 5: forward because I know they exist.
Speaker 6: We also need any of the women that were connected
Speaker 6: to him to come forward. I do believe that this
Speaker 6: alibi can be negated he has. I believe that there's
Speaker 6: a lot more there and a lot more violence that
Speaker 6: got swept under the rug that he was never prosecuted for,
Speaker 6: and we need those people.
Speaker 5: To come forward.
Speaker 2: Marianne Whitt passed away in twenty eleven without ever knowing
Speaker 2: who killed her daughter. She was seventy five years old,
Speaker 2: and she was buried right next to Melissa. J c
Speaker 2: Ryder has said the case has followed him over the years.
Speaker 2: He said he's never forgotten about it. That's why, even
Speaker 2: after retirement, he continues to work for justice and closure
Speaker 2: for Melissa and her family. Over the years, Leadona Humphrey
Speaker 2: has teamed up with j c Ryder. She's continued to
Speaker 2: push forward on this case. She's seen the case file
Speaker 2: and she's seen Melissa's diary. In her book, she writes that,
Speaker 2: in her opinion, there are some other people who need
Speaker 2: to be investigated.
Speaker 3: Further, he's given an alibi.
Speaker 8: He has had not had anybody come forward to help
Speaker 8: to negate that alibi, and that's the piece that we
Speaker 8: really need to crash. And I think that a lot
Speaker 8: of people that are around.
Speaker 6: This particular individual are very afraid of him. He's a
Speaker 6: very volatile, very violent person, and so it's stands to
Speaker 6: reason that you know, people are afraid or that now
Speaker 6: they're afraid that they've kept information to themselves for so
Speaker 6: long that they're afraid to come forward.
Speaker 7: Now.
Speaker 6: I'm not hurting anybody except Melissa in my opinion, for
Speaker 6: the quest to get justice from Melissa Witt.
Speaker 5: I mean, they would really.
Speaker 6: Just be a hero and would help take somebody off
Speaker 6: the street. So I believe very well may do it again.
Speaker 6: He is a very dangerous, violent man and it all
Speaker 6: comes down to that.
Speaker 2: Ldonna co founded a nonprofit organization called All the Lost Girls.
Speaker 2: It's dedicated to finding justice for female strangulation cold cases
Speaker 2: in the United States, and police say they are still
Speaker 2: working on Melissa WIT's case. Captain Daniel Grubbs of the
Speaker 2: Fort Smith Police Department talked to News five and in
Speaker 2: that interview, Captain Grubbs said that they do have items
Speaker 2: that they can test for DNA. I would love to
Speaker 2: get more details about exactly what is in the case file.
Speaker 2: I wonder if they could test familial DNA, or maybe
Speaker 2: someone will be scrounging through in a state sale or
Speaker 2: in a relative's old basement. Maybe they'll find that Mickey
Speaker 2: mouse watch with a serial number that could match it
Speaker 2: to Melissa Wit. In the past, when I've seen news
Speaker 2: reports of updates in Melissa WIT's case, I've seen a
Speaker 2: lot of descriptions of the police looking at known criminals
Speaker 2: in the area, including local sex offenders. But after everything
Speaker 2: that I've looked through on this case, I am convinced
Speaker 2: that Melissa Witt knew her killer and that the answers
Speaker 2: to who killed Melissa Witt will only be found by
Speaker 2: taking a closer look into her life. Do you think
Speaker 2: that this person is still in the area.
Speaker 5: It's still an Archecias.
Speaker 2: So if you were friends with Melissa Witt, please get
Speaker 2: in touch. I'm Katherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone Murder Line.
Speaker 2: Helen Gone is a production of School of Humans and
Speaker 2: iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated by me Catherine Townsend
Speaker 2: and produced by Gabby Watts. Music is by Ben so Lee.
Speaker 2: Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and Els Crowley.
Speaker 2: If you have a case you'd like me and my
Speaker 2: team to look into, you can reach out to us
Speaker 2: at six seven eight seven four four six one four five.
Speaker 2: That's six seven eight seven four four six' one four.
Speaker 1: Five school Of humans