Speaker 1: School of Humans. Back in twenty nineteen, I got a
Speaker 1: Facebook message from Laurel Hall, whose daughter Kleashnder Hall disappeared
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety four when she was just eighteen years old.
Speaker 1: It read, quote, Hi, Catherine, my daughter disappeared from her
Speaker 1: after school job on May night, nineteen ninety four without
Speaker 1: a trace. One of my Facebook friends listens to your
Speaker 1: podcasts and thought you could help me. Will you? Thanks?
Speaker 1: Laurel end quote. In nineteen ninety four, Kleshender Hall, known
Speaker 1: to everyone as Clea, was living in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Actually,
Speaker 1: Clia grew up very near where I grew up. We
Speaker 1: lived just a couple of miles from each other. Clia
Speaker 1: was a senior at Watson Chapel High School. She had
Speaker 1: big dreams and she was making them happen. May of
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety four was a super busy month for Clea.
Speaker 1: She was getting ready for a big speech at graduation.
Speaker 1: She was valedictorian of her class. After graduation, Clia was
Speaker 1: leaving town. She was supposed to start a summer internship
Speaker 1: that she had all lined up at a doctor's office
Speaker 1: in Boston, and then in the fall she would start
Speaker 1: college at Tennessee State University, where she had been accepted
Speaker 1: to the pre med program. Clia dreamed of a career
Speaker 1: in medicine. She wanted to be a pediatrician. But on
Speaker 1: May ninth, just a few weeks before leaving town to
Speaker 1: start her new life, the one she had worked so
Speaker 1: hard for, Clia Hall disappeared without a trace. Over the
Speaker 1: past five years making my true crime podcast, Helen Gone,
Speaker 1: I've learned that there is no such thing as a
Speaker 1: small town where murder never happens. I have received hundreds
Speaker 1: of messages from people all around the country asking for
Speaker 1: help with an unsolved murder that's affected them, their families,
Speaker 1: and their communities. And now they have a new way
Speaker 1: to reach out. I'm Catherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone
Speaker 1: Murder Line. If you have a case you'd like me
Speaker 1: and my team to look into, you can reach out
Speaker 1: to us at six seven eight seven four four six
Speaker 1: one four five. That's six seven eight seven four four
Speaker 1: six one four five. Kleschendra Denise Hall was born on
Speaker 1: March thirtieth, nineteen seventy six, in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Her dad,
Speaker 1: Willie and her mom, Laurel Hall, had four children. They
Speaker 1: had three sons and Clia with their only daughter. They
Speaker 1: were a very close family and Clia was a serious student.
Speaker 1: And although she went out just like all teens do
Speaker 1: and enjoyed social activities, she was extremely responsible. She even
Speaker 1: had an after school job to help pay for college.
Speaker 1: She worked for doctor Larry Amos, PhD. And not a
Speaker 1: medical doctor. What he did was that he ran a
Speaker 1: nonprofit organization out of his home office at fifty three
Speaker 1: oh nine Fawcett Road, just a few blocks from Clia's house.
Speaker 1: Larry owned two houses that were right next to each other.
Speaker 1: Over the years, he did a lot of construction work
Speaker 1: on that property. The house where Clia worked was a
Speaker 1: big English tutor home and had a separate area that
Speaker 1: was a home office with its own dedicated landline. Clia's
Speaker 1: job was to help with bookkeeping. She got Larry to
Speaker 1: sign checks and help keep things organized. Now, it's been
Speaker 1: reported that Larry wrote grants where he would allocate resources
Speaker 1: for childcare facilities, But I've discovered that, like in so
Speaker 1: many cold cases, there are a lot of basic facts
Speaker 1: about this case, even though it has been reported on
Speaker 1: many times over the years, that are just flat out wrong.
Speaker 1: Because the truth was that Larry Amos was involved in
Speaker 1: some very shady financial dealings, which we will come back to,
Speaker 1: but first let's go back to Clia and that day
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety four. I don't really like phrases like
Speaker 1: troubled team, because to me, everyone deserves justice and to
Speaker 1: have their case investigated. But just for clarity, because we
Speaker 1: are looking at someone's pattern of life. Clia came from
Speaker 1: a loving home. She had no issues with mental health.
Speaker 1: She had a steady job. She was very organized. She
Speaker 1: was planning for her future. She had no disputes with
Speaker 1: her parents or anyone else, and she was not known
Speaker 1: to party or to disappear for days. Clia's schedule had
Speaker 1: been set for several weeks. She had just gone to
Speaker 1: her senior prom. Then on Saturday night, she went to
Speaker 1: a sorority ball. Sunday was Mother's Day, which Clia celebrated
Speaker 1: with her family. On Monday, May night, nineteen ninety four,
Speaker 1: Clia woke up, had breakfast with her brothers and her mom, Laurel,
Speaker 1: and then went to school. Laurel picked her up at
Speaker 1: around two thirty that afternoon. Clea was allowed to leave
Speaker 1: school a little early because of her after school job.
Speaker 1: They went straight to Larry's house, but there was no
Speaker 1: one home. Later, Larry's wife, Patricia, apologized to Laurel for this. Apparently, Patricia,
Speaker 1: Larry's wife, had a job. She worked for the school,
Speaker 1: and when Clia arrived for work that day, she hadn't
Speaker 1: gotten home yet. After realizing no one was home, Laurel
Speaker 1: and Clea drove back to their house. Cla was tired,
Speaker 1: so she kind of crashed out on the couch they
Speaker 1: waited to hear from Larry Amos or his wife. Laurel
Speaker 1: said that Larry called their house at four forty five pm.
Speaker 1: He said he was home and he was ready for
Speaker 1: Clea to come into work. So Clia basically jumped up
Speaker 1: off the couch and got into the car and Laurel
Speaker 1: drove her back to Larry Amos's house. Laurel watched as
Speaker 1: Clia walked up to that house. She was wearing a
Speaker 1: blue and white Polkadot printed shirt and short set white
Speaker 1: tennis shoes and white socks. Clea had short hair, but
Speaker 1: she had gotten hair extensions for the prom, so she
Speaker 1: had her hair up in a ponytail with a pink ribbon.
Speaker 1: Laurel watched her daughter walk across the lawn and into
Speaker 1: that house. That was the last time she ever saw
Speaker 1: Clia alive. Of course, as we know with all these cases,
Speaker 1: everything becomes much more clear only in hindsight, and that's
Speaker 1: when these tiny details become so crucial. Laurel, when she
Speaker 1: was recalling what happened that afternoon, told reporters that Cleia
Speaker 1: had been a little bit dazed after she got the
Speaker 1: call from Larry Amos because she was asleep on the couch.
Speaker 1: They jumped straight into the car and drove over to
Speaker 1: the Amos house. And because of that, because they were
Speaker 1: kind of rushed, Clia forgot to grab her purse, which
Speaker 1: had her ID in it. So Cleah went to work
Speaker 1: that day with no purse and no ID. Now normally
Speaker 1: this would not have been a big deal since she
Speaker 1: was only supposed to be gone for a couple of hours,
Speaker 1: but later this would become very significant. Just to clarify,
Speaker 1: Clia did have a driver's license, but she didn't have
Speaker 1: her own car. And remember this was the pre cell
Speaker 1: phone era. There were cell phones out there. We had
Speaker 1: gone from the big brick cell phones you see in
Speaker 1: eighties movies to the plastic flip phones. But they were
Speaker 1: super expensive, and back then teens did not really have
Speaker 1: cell phones, so Clia and her mom had a routine.
Speaker 1: Clea would always call her mother from Larry Amos's landline
Speaker 1: when she was ready to be picked up from work.
Speaker 1: They did this every day. Normally, Clea would finish work
Speaker 1: at around eight thirty. Clia would look out the window
Speaker 1: and wait for her mom. Laurel would pull the car up,
Speaker 1: but generally would not honk the horn because she didn't
Speaker 1: want to wake people up. So then to get out
Speaker 1: of the garage, Clia would push the button. The automatic
Speaker 1: door would open, and then Clia would push it again.
Speaker 1: She knew exactly how to duck under that closing garage
Speaker 1: door without causing it to open back up. That night,
Speaker 1: the phone rang at the Hall house at eight pm.
Speaker 1: Laurel picked up the phone and it was Clea. Clia's
Speaker 1: brother also picked up the phone in the other room.
Speaker 1: Clia asked if anyone had called for her at home.
Speaker 1: Laurel said no, there were no messages. Clia said she
Speaker 1: wasn't quite finished at work, but she would be done soon.
Speaker 1: She said she would call back in around thirty minutes
Speaker 1: to get picked up. Laurel was reading on the couch.
Speaker 1: She drifted off to sleep with her book resting on
Speaker 1: her chest. Laurel was right next to the phone, but
Speaker 1: that phone never rang. Later police confirmed that because Clia's
Speaker 1: brothers were home too, no one heard the phone ring,
Speaker 1: so it's not like Laurella just slept through it. There
Speaker 1: were no other calls that night. Just before one am,
Speaker 1: Clia's dad, Willie, came into the house. He found his
Speaker 1: wife on the sofa and he woke her up. He
Speaker 1: asked where Clia was, and that's when Laurel realized she'd
Speaker 1: never gotten that call from Clia, she would later tell reporters.
Speaker 1: Immediately she felt sick. Laurel called Larry Amos's house and
Speaker 1: he picked up on the first ring. She told him
Speaker 1: Clelia hadn't come home that night and asked what time
Speaker 1: she left. Larry told Laurel he thought Clia left the
Speaker 1: house at around eight thirty, just like she normally did.
Speaker 1: He told her, hang on, I'll go check the time sheet.
Speaker 1: Then he said he had checked it and confirmed that yes,
Speaker 1: Clia had signed out at eight thirty. He said that
Speaker 1: he assumed Clia had gotten into a car, but that
Speaker 1: he had not actually seen Clia leave the house. Larry
Speaker 1: said he heard the garage door open and close and
Speaker 1: just assumed that Clia left as usual, Lolarel had picked
Speaker 1: her up. Larry told Laurel that Clia didn't tell him
Speaker 1: or his wife that she was leaving that night, which
Speaker 1: he did say was unlike her. Laurel Hall did not
Speaker 1: sleep that night. One part of her brain was probably
Speaker 1: trying to tell herself. Maybe Clia did meet a friend,
Speaker 1: maybe she made a plan and didn't want to tell
Speaker 1: her mom about it. But in her heart, she knew
Speaker 1: something was very wrong, and because Clia was eighteen years
Speaker 1: old back then, police told her she had to wait
Speaker 1: twenty four hours to report her daughter missing. The next morning,
Speaker 1: Laurel told Clia's little brother to look for her at
Speaker 1: the high school they had band together, and her brother
Speaker 1: didn't see her there, but he told his mom later
Speaker 1: that the seniors had gone to the elementary school that
Speaker 1: day for some kind of school trip, so he held
Speaker 1: out hope that maybe she was there. But by that afternoon,
Speaker 1: Clia's brother realized she was not in school, and he
Speaker 1: called his mother and told her she had never shown up.
Speaker 1: At that point, Laurel knew something bad had happened again.
Speaker 1: This was totally out of character for Clia. She and
Speaker 1: her husband Willie reported Clia missing that afternoon at the
Speaker 1: Pine Bluff Police Department. As we have seen in so
Speaker 1: many of these cases, at first, it seemed like the
Speaker 1: police were just not taking Clea's disappearance very seriously. According
Speaker 1: to the Hall family, the police seemed to treat Clea
Speaker 1: as a runaway. In fact, Laurel later told reporters that
Speaker 1: police suggested Clia could have run away, possibly due to
Speaker 1: her hiding a secret from her parents. Maybe even they
Speaker 1: suggested the fact that Clia was pregnant. Laurel told police
Speaker 1: bluntly that Clea was on birth control. She actually was
Speaker 1: on an implanable contraceptive that was in her arm, and
Speaker 1: this kind of birth control has a very low failure rate. Plus,
Speaker 1: Cleia didn't have a boyfriend, and even if she was dating,
Speaker 1: Clea was a young woman who was looking to the future.
Speaker 1: This girl was not trying to get tied down in
Speaker 1: her hometown. Literally everything in her life suggested the opposite.
Speaker 1: She had everything to look forward to, graduation, her summer job,
Speaker 1: her full scholarship in Tennessee. Clea was happy. She was
Speaker 1: in a great mood in the days before her disappearance.
Speaker 1: If we're looking at victimology, there was literally nothing in
Speaker 1: her background or her profile that would suggest that she
Speaker 1: would run away for any reason. And finally, there were
Speaker 1: the circumstances surrounding her disappearance. Let's say that she was
Speaker 1: inexplicably going to run away from home. Why would she
Speaker 1: choose that day? Why would she leave the one day
Speaker 1: she forgot her purse that had her money and her
Speaker 1: ID in it. Detectives looked through Clea's diary. They saw
Speaker 1: nothing about boyfriends, or problems, or plans to leave town suddenly.
Speaker 1: In fact, the main thing Cleia had in that diary
Speaker 1: was her work schedule. It was filled out months in advance.
Speaker 1: They were finally understanding Clia was not the type of
Speaker 1: person to skip worker school, and they began to believe
Speaker 1: that there had been foul play. Even early on in
Speaker 1: the investigation, Laurel and Willie started to feel suspicious about
Speaker 1: Clia's boss, Larry Amos. First of all, it struck Laurel
Speaker 1: as odd that on that first night when Clea was missing,
Speaker 1: when Laurel called the Amos house, she thought it was
Speaker 1: weird that Larry Amos answered on the first ring. Now,
Speaker 1: he later told her that he was up in the
Speaker 1: next room watching TV. But if that was true, Number one,
Speaker 1: why would he be up that late? And number two,
Speaker 1: why would he immediately pick up the phone on the
Speaker 1: work line? Why would he be sitting right next to
Speaker 1: the phone like that? And later she started to pick
Speaker 1: up what she believed were discrepancies in Larry Amos's description
Speaker 1: of what happened when Clea left the house. She thought
Speaker 1: it was a little off the fact that Larry said
Speaker 1: that he hadn't seen Clea leave, because she said Larry
Speaker 1: Amos always knew exactly who was coming and going at
Speaker 1: that property. Larry Amos was the last person to see
Speaker 1: Cleo live, but he wasn't being super cooperative with police.
Speaker 1: Police asked Larry if they could drop by so they
Speaker 1: could get a statement, but he said he was going
Speaker 1: out of town on a business trip to Dallas. He
Speaker 1: said he would be gone for three days so police
Speaker 1: would have to take his statement when he got back
Speaker 1: in town. He emphasized that he wanted to be there
Speaker 1: in person when police came to his house. Larry claimed
Speaker 1: he was buying tanning beds for a business idea he had,
Speaker 1: but it was later reported that he never bought those
Speaker 1: beds and he never opened any kind of tanning bed business,
Speaker 1: so a lot of people wondered did he have a
Speaker 1: different reason for going to Texas Police asked Larry Amos
Speaker 1: to take a lot of detector test, Laurel said, Larry
Speaker 1: claimed he was busy, and then later said police would
Speaker 1: have to talk to his attorneys if they wanted him
Speaker 1: to take a lot of detector test. By the way,
Speaker 1: I completely get this after what I've experienced with cases
Speaker 1: in Arkansas and elsewhere. I know that light detectors are
Speaker 1: completely dependent on the skill of the person giving the examination,
Speaker 1: And to be honest, I've seen several cases where people
Speaker 1: have taken light detector tests and the results have come
Speaker 1: back inconclusive or that they failed it, and later that
Speaker 1: person was proven to be completely innocent. So I get
Speaker 1: Larry Amos's reluctance to take a light detector test. What
Speaker 1: I don't get is that Larry Amos seemed totally unconcerned
Speaker 1: about Clia being missing and about being one of the
Speaker 1: last people to see her, and there were some other
Speaker 1: odd things that were happening that Larel said did not
Speaker 1: seem to add up. For example, before Larry Amos left town,
Speaker 1: police did very briefly stop by his house, and when
Speaker 1: they did, apparently detectives went into that home office. They
Speaker 1: picked up the phone and hit redial on the phone.
Speaker 1: They wrote down the last number dialed on a scrap
Speaker 1: of paper and said it was someone named Smith. The
Speaker 1: police asked Larry Amos about that phone number if he
Speaker 1: recognized it, because they were thinking maybe Clia had made
Speaker 1: a call from that home office landline and that might
Speaker 1: help explain who saw her last. Larry said he had
Speaker 1: no idea who that person was, but later it turned
Speaker 1: out that Smith this phone number was the phone number
Speaker 1: for Larry Amos's kids babysitter. So then Laurel started wondering
Speaker 1: why would he claim not to know the phone number
Speaker 1: of someone that he and or his wife presumably called often.
Speaker 1: And also, if the babysitter was the last person called
Speaker 1: and he was sitting up late in that office, why
Speaker 1: would Larry or anyone else need to call up a
Speaker 1: babysitter after midnight. Laurel and Willie did not wait for
Speaker 1: the detectives to start searching for their daughter. They called
Speaker 1: Clia's friends and posted flowers everywhere around town, which they
Speaker 1: printed up themselves. Across the street from the Amos house,
Speaker 1: there are some woods. The volunteers searched there and also
Speaker 1: in the wooded area behind the house, and they did
Speaker 1: what police should have done in the first place. They
Speaker 1: knocked on doors and pounded pavement. Finally, several days after
Speaker 1: Clia went missing, detectives started so too very quickly. It
Speaker 1: seemed like there were a few possibilities being talked about here.
Speaker 1: The first possibility was that Clia left with someone in
Speaker 1: a car. This seemed extremely unlikely because Cleah had a
Speaker 1: plan for her mom to pick her up, and she
Speaker 1: had a regular routine. This was a Monday night, it
Speaker 1: was a school night, and even if she was going
Speaker 1: to leave with someone else, she would have called her mom.
Speaker 1: She knew her mom would be waiting for her. Remember,
Speaker 1: Clia had already called her mom to tell her she
Speaker 1: would be done at work soon, so it would make
Speaker 1: no sense that she wouldn't call back and let her
Speaker 1: know that she was going to do something else. The
Speaker 1: second possibility was that Cleah walked home alone. In a
Speaker 1: documentary that later aired about the case on Oxygen, the
Speaker 1: journalist interviewed a friend of Clia's, another young woman who
Speaker 1: used to work for Larry Amos. The friend said that
Speaker 1: she was there the night when Clia went missing. She
Speaker 1: said she had offered Cla a ride home, and Clia said, no,
Speaker 1: don't worry about it, that she was going to walk home. Now,
Speaker 1: this was a strange piece of information. I would love
Speaker 1: to find this young woman, this second person who said
Speaker 1: that they were there that night, because Laurel claims that
Speaker 1: she later clarified this girl was not in the house
Speaker 1: that night, that in fact, that young woman had not
Speaker 1: been working in the office for several months by the
Speaker 1: time Cleo went missing, and she thinks that after this
Speaker 1: many years, the young woman just got confused in her memory.
Speaker 1: She thinks she was thinking about a different night. Laurel
Speaker 1: insists that the only people that she knows of who
Speaker 1: were in the house that night were doctor Larry Amos,
Speaker 1: his wife, and their small children. I just want to
Speaker 1: talk for a minute about the theory that Clea would
Speaker 1: have walked home alone. This would have been shortly after
Speaker 1: eight thirty at night, so it would have been dusk,
Speaker 1: not full dark, but getting dark. And I just want
Speaker 1: to explain a little about Pine Bluff. As someone who
Speaker 1: grew up there, I can tell you it has a
Speaker 1: history of violent crime and it continues to be a
Speaker 1: dangerous place to live. Back in the nineties, it's really
Speaker 1: not an exaggeration to say that parts of Pine Bluff
Speaker 1: and other parts of South Arkansas were like war zones.
Speaker 1: There was an even a series back in the nineties
Speaker 1: called Banging in Little Rock about the crips and the
Speaker 1: Bloods and other gangs that were active in Little Rock
Speaker 1: in South Arkansas. In the nineties, the population of Pine
Speaker 1: Bluff was around sixty thousand, but per capita, it regularly
Speaker 1: ranks in the five most dangerous small towns in the
Speaker 1: United States. Everyone knows, and everyone knew back then, you
Speaker 1: do not go out walking in Pine Bluff, Arkansas after dark,
Speaker 1: and Laurel was very protective of Clia. She insisted her
Speaker 1: daughter would never walk home alone. She said she had
Speaker 1: only walked home alone once from Larry Amos's house, and
Speaker 1: on that instance, Clia's brother walked home with her, So
Speaker 1: Clia randomly deciding to walk home alone near dark is
Speaker 1: a remote possibility at best. Later from Laurel's interviews, it's
Speaker 1: clear that Laurel becomes more suspicious of Larry Amos as
Speaker 1: a person. She talks about discussing Larry Amos with Clia
Speaker 1: and Clea would talk about Larry Amos's business. Laurel said
Speaker 1: Clia had made comments to her about the fact that
Speaker 1: when she would get Larry Amos to sign the checks,
Speaker 1: a lot of them did not seem to be related
Speaker 1: to the nonprofit, and Clia sort of remarked that was
Speaker 1: a little weird, maybe a little shady, And she would
Speaker 1: talk about how Larry Amos was cheap, but never said
Speaker 1: anything about him being dangerous or violent in any way.
Speaker 1: Laurel started to become more suspicious as time went on,
Speaker 1: because when Larry Amos did talk to police after he
Speaker 1: got back from his Texas trip and gave them a
Speaker 1: formal statement, she said certain details of the story he
Speaker 1: told started to change from what he told her originally.
Speaker 1: In his third statement, he said that when Clia left,
Speaker 1: she had a can of peach pop meaning peach soda
Speaker 1: in her hand that his wife had given her. He
Speaker 1: said he saw Clea looking out the garage window. Yet
Speaker 1: when he talked to Laurel that first time, Larry Amos
Speaker 1: said he was nowhere near the garage. He had said
Speaker 1: specifically that he'd just heard the door open and close.
Speaker 1: Now again, these details seemed to be tiny, but they
Speaker 1: could be hugely important. Two weeks after Clea disappeared, police
Speaker 1: finally went in to search the Amos house, and they
Speaker 1: made a major mistake here in my opinion, because they
Speaker 1: didn't get a search warrant. So when Larry Amos told
Speaker 1: them after a little while they had to stop the search,
Speaker 1: they had no legal right to stay there. They had
Speaker 1: to leave the house. So afterwards, when police said they
Speaker 1: found no signs of foul play, Laurel remained suspicious because
Speaker 1: it was obvious to her that even if something was
Speaker 1: in the house, the police didn't stay long enough to
Speaker 1: do a thorough enough search to find it. And also,
Speaker 1: Larry Amos had had a lot of time. He had
Speaker 1: a couple weeks at that point. He could have cleaned
Speaker 1: up anything with two whole weeks to do it. And
Speaker 1: then another bizarre thing started to happen. Several people, including
Speaker 1: Laurel's husband Willie, saw Larry Amos tearing down Clia's missing posters.
Speaker 1: Laurel and Willie did a little bit of their own
Speaker 1: detective work on Larry Ry Amos. They reached out to
Speaker 1: his ex wife, Christine, and this is a strange story.
Speaker 1: They arranged to meet up with Christine in person. They
Speaker 1: noticed that Christine seemed to be very nervous, and there
Speaker 1: was a man across the street who was taking pictures
Speaker 1: of them while they're talking to her. Now, Christine told
Speaker 1: Laurel and Willie she knew she seemed kind of paranoid,
Speaker 1: but she said she was afraid of Larry Amos. She
Speaker 1: said he'd been physically and emotionally abusive to her in
Speaker 1: the marriage. She said they were in the middle of
Speaker 1: an ugly court battle. She said she was suing him
Speaker 1: for child support. Things between them had gotten really bad,
Speaker 1: she said. When she left him, they got into a
Speaker 1: physical fight that ended when she threw boiling water over him.
Speaker 1: When Laurel and Willie reached out to her, Christine said
Speaker 1: she was actually worried this could have been orchestrated by Larry.
Speaker 1: He might have been planning to do something to her.
Speaker 1: So now Laurel and Willie are alarmed, and they told
Speaker 1: the police about this violent streak that Larry Amos reportedly had.
Speaker 1: But they say the Pine Bluff Police Department basically blew
Speaker 1: them off. They said Christine was just basically a bitter
Speaker 1: ex wife. Then Laurel and Willie tried to reach out
Speaker 1: to Larry Amos's second wife, Patricia, the one who was
Speaker 1: home the night Clea disappeared, but they were never really
Speaker 1: able to talk to her or to Larry Amos again.
Speaker 1: In fact, Laurel has told people that Larry Amos has
Speaker 1: not been in contact with her family since the first
Speaker 1: week after Clia disappeared. The only thing on the record
Speaker 1: that I can find from Larry Amos's wife, Patricia came
Speaker 1: from a transcript of an interview that was quoted in
Speaker 1: a Fox News report online. In that report, she said,
Speaker 1: quote it was odd that she left without telling either
Speaker 1: of us end quote, So in essence, she seemed to
Speaker 1: back up her husband's story. Now I should say now
Speaker 1: that Larry Amos has always completely denied any knowledge of
Speaker 1: or involvement with Clia's disappearance, and later Larry Amos kind
Speaker 1: of seen to turn the attention back onto Klia's family. Obviously,
Speaker 1: when a teenager goes missing, police have to look at
Speaker 1: the family. Larry Amos said that he was being unfairly
Speaker 1: targeted by police in fact, he filed a complaint against
Speaker 1: one of the detectives who is investigating him. He is
Speaker 1: not really commented on this case at all over the years.
Speaker 1: When the Arkansas Democrat, because that newspaper, reached out to them,
Speaker 1: he said, quote Strangely, those that have been calling have
Speaker 1: not wanted to read the report. Not only was a
Speaker 1: report filed, a complaint was filed against one of the detectives.
Speaker 1: There are very detailed questions that should have been answered
Speaker 1: about the family and other things. It's amazing that people
Speaker 1: who really want to find out wouldn't begin to read
Speaker 1: the report. End quote. Now, I will say I would
Speaker 1: be very happy to read that report. And normally, in
Speaker 1: my understanding of Arkansas freedom of information law, complaints filed
Speaker 1: against officers are public information. I have made a freedom
Speaker 1: of information request for that report. But if an investigation
Speaker 1: is still technically open, normally any part of the case file,
Speaker 1: including a complaint, that would normally be public record, will
Speaker 1: be sealed. Larry Amos's statement was bizarre because in this case,
Speaker 1: there's absolutely zero suggestion that Clia had any problems at home. Now,
Speaker 1: some people have suggested maybe Larry Amos just was tearing
Speaker 1: down these posters and behaving a little bit strangely because
Speaker 1: he didn't want people linking him with a young woman's disappearance.
Speaker 1: But in my opinion, Larry should have been way more
Speaker 1: concerned about Cleia in the fact she was missing, than
Speaker 1: about his reputation at that point. The fact that he
Speaker 1: seemed to try to impede the investigation and be uncooperative,
Speaker 1: that to me is a huge red flag. Over the years,
Speaker 1: Like I said, the Halls have reached out to Larry
Speaker 1: Amos once they brought a canine dogged with the property,
Speaker 1: but Laurel said Larry refused to let them search there.
Speaker 1: According to Laurel, when Larry Amos came to the door,
Speaker 1: he made a strange statement when she asked to come
Speaker 1: on his about not trusting psychics. Laurel later told a
Speaker 1: reporter that one of the women she was with had
Speaker 1: the letters ESP as part of her license plate number,
Speaker 1: and Larry's comment seemed to be a bizarre reference to that.
Speaker 1: Whether he genuinely thought he saw some kind of pattern
Speaker 1: there or whether he was just making up a reason
Speaker 1: to not let them search. Either way, the Hall started
Speaker 1: to get more and more suspicious that there was something
Speaker 1: not right about doctor Larry Amos. After Clia had been
Speaker 1: missing for a few days, detectives talked to other potential
Speaker 1: people of interest. Of course, they had asked her family
Speaker 1: and her friends about potential boyfriends, and again Laurel told
Speaker 1: police Clia didn't have a steady boyfriend. But Laurel said
Speaker 1: Clia did have a male friend, a slightly older guy
Speaker 1: who she liked. This person was a twenty three year
Speaker 1: old Army reservist and he went to Clia's church. This
Speaker 1: guy was cooperative. He talked to police and agreed to
Speaker 1: take a polygraph test, but the results were inconclusive. And again,
Speaker 1: I don't put a lot of faith in polygraph tests
Speaker 1: in my opinion. There's a reason why they aren't admissible
Speaker 1: in court, and there are a lot of reasons why
Speaker 1: tests can be ruled in conclusive. I'm mentioning this because
Speaker 1: this guy was completely cooperative. He gave police permission to
Speaker 1: search his vehicle. They didn't find anything connecting him to
Speaker 1: Clia's disappearance. But when they talked to this guy, he
Speaker 1: did tell investigators he had had a strange encounter with
Speaker 1: Larry Amos himself. He said that he had given Clia
Speaker 1: a ride to work a couple of weeks before she disappeared.
Speaker 1: He said that when he dropped her off at Larry
Speaker 1: Amos's house, Larry said he needed to leave because courting
Speaker 1: was not allowed on his property, which is a strange
Speaker 1: comment to make to a high school girl. Clea explained
Speaker 1: to Larry, this guy was nothing more than a friend,
Speaker 1: but two of them were not going out, which again,
Speaker 1: why would that matter? That was none of Larry's business.
Speaker 1: Laurel said that Clia's friend remained cooperative with law enforcement
Speaker 1: over the years. Eventually he left the area, married and
Speaker 1: a family of his own. Over the years, other theories
Speaker 1: have come up. Some people have mentioned that Clea could
Speaker 1: have been kidnapped by a serial killer. A very infamous
Speaker 1: serial killer, Samuel Little, confess to killing a twenty six
Speaker 1: year old woman named Jelanda Jones and Pine Bluff just
Speaker 1: a few months before Clea disappeared. In my opinion, this
Speaker 1: does not seem to be a credible theory because, first
Speaker 1: of all, Jolanda's murder was considered to have been related
Speaker 1: to drugs. Clia's disappearance did not fit Samuel Little's mo MO
Speaker 1: at all. Secondly, I have a hard time buying the
Speaker 1: idea that before dark someone would grab her off the
Speaker 1: street and have no one see a thing for me.
Speaker 1: In Clia's case, all roads lead back to the Amos house.
Speaker 1: I think something happened there that night, and a lot
Speaker 1: of online commenters seem to feel that way. I've talked
Speaker 1: to a lot of people in Pine Bluff and they
Speaker 1: all look at that house with a lot of suspicion.
Speaker 1: One of the comments I read online reads quote growing up,
Speaker 1: it was common for to nonchalantly say that doctor Amos
Speaker 1: killed Leschendra and hid her in his concrete walls. His
Speaker 1: neighbors say they didn't see anyone come and pick her up.
Speaker 1: He was also seen sneaking around removing her missing flyers.
Speaker 1: The man is a creep, the kind of person you
Speaker 1: just feel uncomfortable being around. Laurel stopped relying on the
Speaker 1: Pine Bluff Police Department and over the years the case
Speaker 1: went cold. Her family kept going to the media and
Speaker 1: every year they would do an awareness event on Clea's birthday.
Speaker 1: Over the years, they went through even more heartache because
Speaker 1: a DJ raised money for Clea's reward fund and then
Speaker 1: kept the money in left town and sadly the whole
Speaker 1: family was victimized again, their funds were gone, and the
Speaker 1: DJ eventually passed away. I just want to say, as
Speaker 1: a side note here, I've seen this happen so often
Speaker 1: in cold cases. People will give money, they have good hearts,
Speaker 1: they want to help a family, and it will turn
Speaker 1: out that this money that was supposed to be for
Speaker 1: a scholarship or an event will get stolen. So please,
Speaker 1: when you are giving money to a victim or a family,
Speaker 1: please make sure you know exactly where it's going. Do
Speaker 1: not allow these families to be victimized again buscammers. In
Speaker 1: twenty twelve, after years of nothing happening, there seemed to
Speaker 1: be a potentially huge break in this case. Oxygen had
Speaker 1: a TV series called Find Our Missing, and they ran
Speaker 1: Clia's story. Two witnesses came forward and they talked to
Speaker 1: the TV program. One was a construction worker and he
Speaker 1: said he'd worked on Larry Ames's house during the late
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties. After Clia went missing. This worker said he
Speaker 1: went to the police and he told them that he
Speaker 1: had been installing a fireplace in Larry Ames's house. He
Speaker 1: was taking out sheet rock and he saw what he
Speaker 1: believed was blood splattered on some drywall. Another worker had
Speaker 1: a similar story. He said he was working in the
Speaker 1: backyard and he was filling a hole with some cement.
Speaker 1: The worker said he smelled something horrible. The documentary said, quote,
Speaker 1: when the wind would blow, he could smell an odor
Speaker 1: unlike anything he's ever smelled before. End quote. The worker
Speaker 1: also said there were flies buzzing all around that backyard.
Speaker 1: So in twenty twelve, after the series aired, police finally
Speaker 1: got a search warrant. They went back to Larry Amos's
Speaker 1: English tutor house, the last place where Cleia was seen alive.
Speaker 1: The search warrant affidavit red quote. Sworn statements indicate the
Speaker 1: observance of a false wall inside the residence containing blood
Speaker 1: on the insulation. Also, statements indicate the body was buried
Speaker 1: on the property at fifty three oh nine Fawcet Road,
Speaker 1: in a hole where bricks and rocks and powdered concrete
Speaker 1: was used to cover up something. End quote. They went
Speaker 1: back to Larry Amos's oversized English tutor house, the last
Speaker 1: place where Clia was seen alive. This aired on the news.
Speaker 1: You could see crime scene tape up everywhere. Police spent
Speaker 1: hours there. Larry was wearing a green work shirt and
Speaker 1: a tie, and he was on a cell phone outside
Speaker 1: watching these detectives go in and out of his house.
Speaker 1: Police used sniffer dogs and ground radar penetrating devices, but
Speaker 1: they did not dig up anything in the backyard. They
Speaker 1: did go inside and police took out little pieces of
Speaker 1: that drywall insulation. In all, they filled several huge bags
Speaker 1: full of evidence. So Laurel and Willie waited. A month later,
Speaker 1: they talked to police and were told that the Arkansas
Speaker 1: State Crime Lab had not sent back the evidence yet.
Speaker 1: But they were horrified to learn that this wasn't true,
Speaker 1: that actually the evidence was still sitting at the police station.
Speaker 1: It had not even been forwarded to the crime lab.
Speaker 1: After the delay, the evidence was sent to the crime lab,
Speaker 1: and several weeks after that the results came back. There
Speaker 1: were no traces of blood on any of the evidence
Speaker 1: they had tested. This was just another devastating blow for
Speaker 1: Clia's family, outraged first of all at the delay, and
Speaker 1: they really believed that the police department was hindering the investigation.
Speaker 1: Even after all this time, they still had waited so
Speaker 1: long to send that evidence to the crime lab. A
Speaker 1: spokesperson for the pam Bluff Police Department eventually said that
Speaker 1: the state crime lab bound no blood evidence and said
Speaker 1: that delay did not affect the evidence, but the Halls
Speaker 1: were not buying it. They still have questions about whether
Speaker 1: that evidence was tested accurately. In fact, later Laurel said,
Speaker 1: the whole thing was so strange and there were so
Speaker 1: many things that they believed were in competent mistakes. They
Speaker 1: started to suspect it could be a cover up, and
Speaker 1: it was about to get much worse because later Laurel
Speaker 1: Hall learned that when that evidence was taken out of
Speaker 1: the amo's house, one of the detectives put the bags
Speaker 1: of evidence into the trunk of his car and then
Speaker 1: drove it home and let it sit there all night
Speaker 1: before giving it to the crime scene text Later, the
Speaker 1: officer said they did that because there was a lot
Speaker 1: of media there. They didn't want to have to drag
Speaker 1: all these bags of evidence past the cameras. But that
Speaker 1: made no sense because the media had been there all day.
Speaker 1: You could see this whole thing unfolding. Even if that
Speaker 1: were true, they just wanted to get the evidence out
Speaker 1: of there quickly. They still could have taken it straight
Speaker 1: to the crime lab but they didn't. This person went
Speaker 1: home and let that evidence sit there all night in
Speaker 1: the trunk of that car. So the truth is, from
Speaker 1: my understanding, even if the evidence revealed anything crucial, the
Speaker 1: evidence could have been challenged in court, and that officer
Speaker 1: potentially ruined the chain of custody. A good defense attorney
Speaker 1: could tear that apart at trial. It was later reported
Speaker 1: that as a result of all this, a crime scene
Speaker 1: lab technician ended up being suspended. No further action was
Speaker 1: taken by the Palm Bluff Police Department, and to this day,
Speaker 1: I am still trying to find out if after they
Speaker 1: supposedly tested evidence and found no blood, any additional DNA
Speaker 1: testing was or could be done. A few people have
Speaker 1: reached out to Larry Amos over the years. Record show
Speaker 1: he still lives in that same neighborhood, in that same
Speaker 1: English tutor house. It's still owned by him and his family.
Speaker 1: And again I should say, obviously Larry Amos has always
Speaker 1: completely denied any involvement in Klea's disappearance. He said that
Speaker 1: the business trip was pre planned. He said people claiming
Speaker 1: that he was skipping town or running away were just
Speaker 1: spreading wild rumors. So what happened to Clea Hall. Again,
Speaker 1: for reasons we've discussed before, I don't think it's likely
Speaker 1: at all she got into a car with someone else.
Speaker 1: Police have never been able to find any evidence that
Speaker 1: there was another car at the Amos residence that night.
Speaker 1: No neighbors saw her leave, no one saw her along
Speaker 1: the route, either walking or another vehicle they didn't recognize,
Speaker 1: And for this reason, I also think it's unlikely a
Speaker 1: stranger grabbed her in the very short distance between Larry
Speaker 1: Amos's house and hers, with no one seeing her. So
Speaker 1: I keep coming back to that third possibility, a theory
Speaker 1: that I believe is far more likely that Clia never
Speaker 1: left the Amos house that night, and that something happened
Speaker 1: inside that house, some kind of altercation that we still
Speaker 1: don't know about. Obviously, the case file is still sealed,
Speaker 1: so there is very limited information out there available to
Speaker 1: the public. But I did do a deep dive into
Speaker 1: the blueprints and construction history of the Amos house. Over
Speaker 1: the past eighteen years, that house has had nine major renovations.
Speaker 1: I'm always looking for patterns in these cases, and I
Speaker 1: do see quite a few similarities, at least on the surface,
Speaker 1: between Clia's case and the case of Kristen Smarts. Kristen's
Speaker 1: case was finally solved after over twenty years. Kristin was
Speaker 1: nineteen years old when she vanished in nineteen ninety six,
Speaker 1: and over the years there was a person of interest,
Speaker 1: a guy named Paul Flores. A lot of people believe
Speaker 1: that he had assaulted Kristin and killed her, and that
Speaker 1: her remains may be in his father's house, but no
Speaker 1: one could prove it. But over the years a lot
Speaker 1: of people looked at that house as a place of interest,
Speaker 1: and like in Clia's case, police did go in in
Speaker 1: the year two thousand. They executed a search warrant, and
Speaker 1: just like in Clia's case, they used ground penetrating radar,
Speaker 1: but they didn't dig up the backyard and they didn't
Speaker 1: find anything. Then years later, in twenty twenty one, detectives
Speaker 1: went back to the house again and this time they
Speaker 1: did dig up the backyard. They found evidence linked to
Speaker 1: Kristen Smart buried under the deck. I only mention this
Speaker 1: because a lot of people over the years have said, well,
Speaker 1: they've searched there, They've used ground penetrating radar, they didn't
Speaker 1: find anything. So we can't rule out the possibility that
Speaker 1: there could be secrets buried in that backyard or somewhere
Speaker 1: else in that house. So if something did happen to
Speaker 1: Cleia in the house that night, why would Larry Amos
Speaker 1: or someone in his family want a heart her. Well,
Speaker 1: one potential motive could be something related to money, because,
Speaker 1: as some of you may know, in my other podcast,
Speaker 1: Red Collar, I talk a lot about financial fraud and
Speaker 1: how financial fraud can lead to murder, and there are
Speaker 1: a lot of red flags in Larry Amos's background related
Speaker 1: to fraud. He has filed for multiple bankruptcies and in
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, he was running another organization called
Speaker 1: Progressive Southeast Arkansas. It was supposed to be a housing
Speaker 1: development corporation where he would build houses with this federal
Speaker 1: grant money he got, but actually what he did was
Speaker 1: just scam the government because the only houses that he
Speaker 1: sold he ended up selling a house to his own
Speaker 1: daughter at a huge discount, And according to these court papers,
Speaker 1: a lot of the other homes that he built were
Speaker 1: badly constructed or never built at all. And these court
Speaker 1: papers alleged that he took the money and just kind
Speaker 1: of ran and left people without homes. So if Clea
Speaker 1: was a person handling the books, could she have seen
Speaker 1: something she wasn't supposed to see? Could she have seen
Speaker 1: some shady stuff she didn't like. Could they have gotten
Speaker 1: into an argument, or could Cliah have gotten into conflict
Speaker 1: with someone else inside the house that night, someone who
Speaker 1: was never mentioned in the original police documents, because remember
Speaker 1: we don't have access to the case fall, we don't
Speaker 1: have a confirmed list of who was there, and Larry
Speaker 1: Amos over the years has not been forthcoming. One person
Speaker 1: who has been mentioned over the years, though he was
Speaker 1: never officially a person of interest, was Larry Amos's older son, Omar.
Speaker 1: Omar Amos was in his twenties at the time when
Speaker 1: Clea went missing. He didn't live with Larry and his
Speaker 1: wife Patricia, but he did live in a house close by,
Speaker 1: so he was over there a lot. Omar has his
Speaker 1: own dark past. He later was arrested for assaulting a
Speaker 1: female victim. So I do wonder could Larry Amos or
Speaker 1: his son, or someone else, maybe someone hanging out with
Speaker 1: his son or with another family member, have made some
Speaker 1: kind of a move on Clia and she refused their
Speaker 1: sexual advances, or did one of Larry's relatives do something
Speaker 1: to Clia, something that their father may have helped them
Speaker 1: clean up. Sadly, we can't ask Omar. In July of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, Omar was beaten to death in his own
Speaker 1: home in Pine Bluff, just five miles away from his
Speaker 1: dad's house on Fawcett Road. Over the years, Laurel has
Speaker 1: told people that she has a recurring dream about Clia.
Speaker 1: In that dream, Clia is sitting in Larry Amos's bathtub,
Speaker 1: her hands are tied. She's screaming for her mom to
Speaker 1: help her. Laurel knows it's just a dream, but it
Speaker 1: seems like her subconscious is screaming that there is something
Speaker 1: bothering her about Larry Amos and about that house. Laurel
Speaker 1: has confessed that she feels guilty. She of course asked
Speaker 1: herself why that night, Why did she fall asleep, even
Speaker 1: though there was no way she could have known what
Speaker 1: was going on? And to me, the fact that Clia
Speaker 1: did not call her mother back means that whatever happened
Speaker 1: to her probably happened between eight and around eight thirty pm.
Speaker 1: So we have to answer the question what happened inside
Speaker 1: that house? I believe this case is solvable. I believe
Speaker 1: someone knows something. Every year, Laurel, Willie and the rest
Speaker 1: of the family released balloons in pink, Clia's favorite color
Speaker 1: on her birthday, March thirtieth. They do the same thing
Speaker 1: on May ninth, the day she went missing. Laurel said, quote,
Speaker 1: she was just somebody that had a light that meant something.
Speaker 1: She had goals, and she had dreams just like everybody else.
Speaker 1: And our family had dreams and goals for her too,
Speaker 1: And so somewhere we're missing out on seeing what our
Speaker 1: life could have been. End quote. I'm Catherine Townsend. This
Speaker 1: is Helen Gone. Murder line. Hell and Gone is a
Speaker 1: production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It's written
Speaker 1: and narrated by me Catherine Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts.
Speaker 1: Music is by Ben so Lee, and this episode was
Speaker 1: scored by Miranda Hawkins. Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr,
Speaker 1: and Elsie Crowley. If you have a case you'd like
Speaker 1: me and my team to look into, you can reach
Speaker 1: out to us at six seven eight seven four four
Speaker 1: six one four five. That's six seven eight seven four
Speaker 1: four sixty one four five. School of humans,