WEBVTT - Episode 2: “The Evidence of Things Not Seen” 0:00:04.559 --> 0:00:04.960 Who is it? 0:00:06.080 --> 0:00:14.440 Who is it? Who is this? 0:00:18.280 --> 0:00:19.079 Why do you want to know? 0:00:22.720 --> 0:00:26.040 In the summer of nineteen eighty nine, during those early 0:00:26.200 --> 0:00:29.840 days after Dana Stidham went missing, a nineteen year old 0:00:29.840 --> 0:00:35.199 woman from Bella Vista began receiving bizarre, sexually explicit calls. 0:00:36.120 --> 0:00:39.640 According to a police report, she claimed they were made 0:00:39.680 --> 0:00:43.000 by a man she suspected of being a former classmate 0:00:43.440 --> 0:00:44.320 and her neighbor. 0:00:45.240 --> 0:00:48.400 Did you just take me at ramdy to call? Do 0:00:48.440 --> 0:00:48.879 you know me? 0:00:51.280 --> 0:00:51.879 Don't know me? 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:52.319 Then? 0:00:52.360 --> 0:00:53.199 Why are you calling me? 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:54.400 An asking you this question? 0:00:58.120 --> 0:01:01.320 She recognized the caller's voice because because the man quote 0:01:01.520 --> 0:01:04.680 lived near her, and that after her father left for work, 0:01:04.959 --> 0:01:08.400 within three or four minutes, the calls began, as if 0:01:08.440 --> 0:01:11.000 the caller was watching her house. 0:01:11.880 --> 0:01:12.520 Who is this? 0:01:14.880 --> 0:01:18.399 Are you reading, Bud? What do you want? 0:01:18.200 --> 0:01:20.240 Why? 0:01:21.319 --> 0:01:22.280 Why are you calling me? 0:01:22.400 --> 0:01:23.640 If you don't even know who I am? 0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:28.200 Do you know who I am? You don't know who 0:01:28.240 --> 0:01:29.679 I am? Then why are you calling me? 0:01:30.520 --> 0:01:33.560 The young woman had known the neighbor she suspected of 0:01:33.600 --> 0:01:37.160 making the calls since the fourth grade, which was why 0:01:37.360 --> 0:01:41.720 she immediately recognized his voice. The caller, who is hard 0:01:41.760 --> 0:01:46.480 to understand in these actual recordings, from thirty plus years ago, 0:01:46.520 --> 0:01:51.800 never identifies himself. Tired of being harassed, and since there 0:01:51.840 --> 0:01:55.400 was nothing much law enforcement could really do, the woman 0:01:55.480 --> 0:01:59.480 decided to take matters into her own hands and confront 0:01:59.480 --> 0:02:04.480 the neighbor by knocking on his door. He invites her in, 0:02:05.160 --> 0:02:09.720 and what she sees inside alarms her. On his bedroom wall, 0:02:10.040 --> 0:02:14.080 her name had been spray painted in large letters, alongside 0:02:14.160 --> 0:02:17.200 photographs of her cut from their school yearbooks. 0:02:18.200 --> 0:02:23.639 Well, I bet I'm not and I bet that you're 0:02:23.720 --> 0:02:24.320 really sick. 0:02:25.400 --> 0:02:29.760 Remember the calls came only when her father was not. 0:02:29.800 --> 0:02:34.239 At home, Hello, Hello, is anybody there? 0:02:36.160 --> 0:02:39.920 And then suddenly, after her visit to the neighbor's house, 0:02:40.720 --> 0:02:44.720 the call stopped. She called the police and gave them 0:02:44.720 --> 0:02:48.680 his name. Turned out he was already on the Benton 0:02:48.760 --> 0:02:52.640 County Sheriff's Office list of suspects in connection with the 0:02:52.680 --> 0:03:01.600 disappearance of Dana Stidham previously on Paper Ghosts. 0:03:02.360 --> 0:03:06.600 I have nightmares about this. I have nightmares that she's 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:09.360 asking for help and I can't help her. That she 0:03:09.520 --> 0:03:11.880 has been found after all these years, and she's alive, 0:03:12.080 --> 0:03:14.359 and I don't know. I just want to know. 0:03:14.560 --> 0:03:15.359 What happens to her. 0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:19.640 I think you get more from a community when they're divided, 0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:23.120 because everybody wants their opinion heard and they want to 0:03:23.120 --> 0:03:26.320 explain why they feel the way they do, and they 0:03:26.480 --> 0:03:30.320 want somebody to listen and acknowledge that their opinion counts 0:03:30.360 --> 0:03:30.640 on this. 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:35.160 They drive around it and they see some clothes on 0:03:35.240 --> 0:03:38.240 the side of the road, maybe six feet off the road. 0:03:39.160 --> 0:03:42.400 They get out look at it and they're like, hilarious, Like, 0:03:42.640 --> 0:03:44.400 I'm pretty sure that's Danu's clothes. 0:03:45.080 --> 0:03:48.200 My name is em William Phelps. I'm an investigative journalist 0:03:48.240 --> 0:03:51.680 and author of more than forty true crime works. This 0:03:51.920 --> 0:04:11.080 is season four paper Ghosts the Ozarks. On July twenty sixth, 0:04:11.360 --> 0:04:15.560 the morning after Dana's Didham vanished, Benton County Sheriff's Office 0:04:15.560 --> 0:04:19.520 detective Mike sidoriac arrived at the scene of Dana's vehicle, 0:04:19.760 --> 0:04:23.520 wearing a white and blue pinstriped button up shirt, jeans, 0:04:23.839 --> 0:04:28.920 and Aviator sunglasses. Sidoriak was photographed kneeling by the driver's 0:04:28.920 --> 0:04:32.799 side open door of Dana's car, a clipboard in one hand, 0:04:33.200 --> 0:04:37.719 the other reaching inside the vehicle. Dana's car was all 0:04:37.800 --> 0:04:40.760 the Benton County Sheriff's Office, which I'll refer to from 0:04:40.760 --> 0:04:45.279 here as the BCSO had as far as a crime scene, 0:04:45.520 --> 0:04:49.479 a crime scene, mind you, showing clear signs of staging, 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:53.240 as if someone had placed items in certain areas of 0:04:53.279 --> 0:04:55.360 the car and also taken things. 0:04:56.440 --> 0:04:57.720 My name is Nathan Smith. 0:04:57.760 --> 0:05:01.440 I'm the prosketting attorney in the nineteen Judicial District West, 0:05:01.480 --> 0:05:05.080 which is Benton County, Arkansas, and I oversee all the 0:05:05.120 --> 0:05:09.480 felony prosecutions in Benton County, and our county has an 0:05:09.600 --> 0:05:12.480 unsolved or cold case murder involving. 0:05:12.120 --> 0:05:16.919 Dana stem Nathan Smith was first elected prosecuting Attorney for 0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:22.239 Benton County, Arkansas in twenty fourteen, re elected in twenty eighteen, 0:05:22.480 --> 0:05:26.119 and again in twenty twenty two. He was seven years 0:05:26.120 --> 0:05:29.760 old when Dana Stidham went missing, never once guessing her 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:33.159 case would drive him to ensure she was never forgotten. 0:05:34.160 --> 0:05:37.440 I think the reason cold cases, once they've become cold, 0:05:37.440 --> 0:05:40.520 if you will, tend to stay cold, is simply because 0:05:40.560 --> 0:05:43.680 one they're going to be very difficult to solve. You know, 0:05:43.760 --> 0:05:47.600 most cases are solved within the first several days, if not. 0:05:47.640 --> 0:05:49.839 Immediately of knowing what happened. 0:05:50.240 --> 0:05:53.919 Crime is committed Today, video cameras are ubiquitous on people's 0:05:53.920 --> 0:05:54.560 homes and. 0:05:54.480 --> 0:05:56.039 Gas stations everywhere. 0:05:56.680 --> 0:05:59.640 We have DNA evidence, We have all these kinds of 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:03.080 sign hip mechanisms that have really been sort of relatively 0:06:03.120 --> 0:06:06.320 late developing. The other real problem with cold cases is 0:06:06.360 --> 0:06:08.880 that we don't live in a static environment. There are 0:06:08.880 --> 0:06:11.400 going to be more crimes, more homicides, more things that 0:06:11.440 --> 0:06:13.839 come in for police to work on that really will 0:06:13.839 --> 0:06:15.920 take their focus off of cases where it seems like 0:06:15.960 --> 0:06:17.760 they've hit a wall or hit a dead end. 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:22.440 So she leaves the store, do we know if there 0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:24.880 was anyone that she met up with in the parking lot, 0:06:24.960 --> 0:06:26.640 in the store, anything like that. 0:06:27.080 --> 0:06:30.440 We believe that she did have a conversation with a 0:06:30.440 --> 0:06:33.120 person in the parking lot before she left, and then 0:06:33.160 --> 0:06:38.080 from there, really the evidentiary conclusions kind of diverge as 0:06:38.120 --> 0:06:41.040 to what happened that There have been reports that she 0:06:41.200 --> 0:06:43.120 was later seen on the side of the road, or 0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:44.720 her vehicle was seen on the side of the road 0:06:44.760 --> 0:06:47.599 with a man apparently changing a tire or something like that. 0:06:48.120 --> 0:06:50.279 So it gets kind of spotty as to what happened. 0:06:51.040 --> 0:06:53.640 That man Dana spoke to was a threat of inquiry 0:06:53.920 --> 0:06:58.279 I decided to focus on early in my investigation, but 0:06:58.440 --> 0:07:02.360 other questions kept nagging me. Had Dana been abducted right 0:07:02.400 --> 0:07:07.240 away or did she go voluntarily with her abductor only 0:07:07.279 --> 0:07:11.000 to have things go sideways leader that night. And if 0:07:11.040 --> 0:07:14.600 she had gone willingly, could that mean she knew the 0:07:14.640 --> 0:07:19.760 person or had she simply taken off all on her own. 0:07:20.720 --> 0:07:22.880 Did anyone believe that she'd run away? 0:07:23.440 --> 0:07:25.360 One of the things that the investigators did at the 0:07:25.360 --> 0:07:27.520 time was to eliminate that possibility, because one of the 0:07:27.560 --> 0:07:30.120 things you're always going to look at is you know 0:07:30.360 --> 0:07:33.720 and you see it. Even with runaway children and things 0:07:33.760 --> 0:07:36.440 where they have alerts go out for kids, they're trying 0:07:36.440 --> 0:07:38.400 to figure out, Okay, did this kid run away from home? 0:07:38.880 --> 0:07:41.280 Have they done this of their own own accord? But 0:07:41.320 --> 0:07:44.080 there was simply nothing in Dana's life to indicate that 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:47.360 she would do that. Right everything would indicate she wouldn't 0:07:47.400 --> 0:07:47.800 be doing that. 0:07:49.120 --> 0:07:53.200 As the first full day after Dana's disappearance progressed, more 0:07:53.240 --> 0:07:56.760 bad news came, leading anyone who was hopeful she had 0:07:56.800 --> 0:07:59.200 taken off on her own to lean in a more 0:07:59.480 --> 0:08:04.840 uncertain direction. Two additional pieces of Dana's clothing, confirmed to 0:08:04.840 --> 0:08:08.280 be dirty laundry from inside her car, were found on 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:12.240 Wellington Road in a grassy area not far from a 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:18.160 porno magazine. What's more, the receipt from the purchases she 0:08:18.320 --> 0:08:22.360 made that day at the Phillips grocery was discovered inside 0:08:22.440 --> 0:08:27.600 Dana's car. Oddly enough, however, the groceries she bought would 0:08:27.680 --> 0:08:34.679 never be found. In addition, belongings confirmed to be from 0:08:34.760 --> 0:08:39.760 inside her purse were discovered scattered along the grass medium nearby, 0:08:40.200 --> 0:08:44.800 but Dena's purse, a unique large denim bag, was not. 0:08:47.240 --> 0:08:50.480 It does appear that that's certainly the theory that the 0:08:50.480 --> 0:08:55.400 investigators operated on, that those items were thrown out of 0:08:55.559 --> 0:08:59.679 a car window. And it was always perplexing why they 0:08:59.679 --> 0:09:02.560 found her car on the side of the road with 0:09:02.640 --> 0:09:05.440 the keys in the ignition, and so there's all kinds 0:09:05.480 --> 0:09:08.640 of theories around that. Was it a kind of a 0:09:08.640 --> 0:09:12.679 sabotage thing to make sure a car wouldn't run. Did 0:09:12.720 --> 0:09:15.040 she have a legitimate reason that was just happenstance to 0:09:15.080 --> 0:09:17.520 pull over, But it certainly seemed at the time, I 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:22.440 think obvious to investigators that her car just being abandoned 0:09:22.520 --> 0:09:25.079 on the side of the road does seem to be 0:09:25.360 --> 0:09:27.239 a pretty significant coincidence. 0:09:27.840 --> 0:09:30.920 That same day, a local girl came forward to say 0:09:31.160 --> 0:09:34.920 she saw a tan or cream colored small pickup with 0:09:35.000 --> 0:09:39.800 a camper parked behind Dana's vehicle that morning. She was 0:09:39.840 --> 0:09:42.360 certain a man had been kneeling near the back of 0:09:42.400 --> 0:09:45.600 the car as if he was fixing a flat. She 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:48.320 could not describe the man, but said the truck was 0:09:48.360 --> 0:09:50.520 beat up and appeared to be used on a farm 0:09:50.920 --> 0:09:55.920 or in the woods. Prosecutor Nathan Smith brought up a 0:09:55.960 --> 0:10:00.760 good point. Did someone sabotage Dana's vehicle so the car 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:04.000 would malfunction and break down at some point on our 0:10:04.040 --> 0:10:08.360 way home? Remember there is a report of several people 0:10:08.400 --> 0:10:11.600 seeing an older man talking to Dana in the parking 0:10:11.640 --> 0:10:14.920 lot of the Phillips just after she walked out of 0:10:14.960 --> 0:10:20.880 the store. I also wondered how aggressive investigators had been 0:10:21.160 --> 0:10:24.760 with regard to questioning people who popped up on their radar? 0:10:25.720 --> 0:10:28.959 Are there any suspects being questioned that might have had 0:10:29.000 --> 0:10:30.000 something to do with this? 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:32.719 So, and I got to be careful here. I only 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:36.559 say what's been publicly reported. But there were several suspects 0:10:37.200 --> 0:10:40.199 that officers looked at at the time, the folks that 0:10:41.160 --> 0:10:44.000 you would expect, they looked at, a at a man 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:47.480 that was a I believe a classmate of hers or 0:10:47.480 --> 0:10:50.760 someone who knew her from her town, So that was 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:53.160 at least one person. And one of the problems with 0:10:53.240 --> 0:10:58.040 cold cases, and specifically with Dana's case, is that there 0:10:58.120 --> 0:11:01.280 is some evidence right now that if you looked at 0:11:01.280 --> 0:11:05.040 it in a vacuum, could tend to support theories one 0:11:05.080 --> 0:11:07.959 way or the other. And so as this case goes forward, 0:11:07.960 --> 0:11:11.920 it's really important to narrow down who the evidence really 0:11:12.000 --> 0:11:12.480 points to. 0:11:13.679 --> 0:11:16.920 But the suspects in Dana's case weren't the only ones 0:11:17.160 --> 0:11:20.840 the BCSO were looking at, because Dana's wasn't the only 0:11:20.960 --> 0:11:26.319 disappearance in the area. The ugly reality law enforcement could 0:11:26.360 --> 0:11:29.520 not ignore was that within a fifty mile radius of 0:11:29.559 --> 0:11:33.559 where Dana was last seen, no fewer than five additional 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:37.319 young women had either gone missing or their bodies had 0:11:37.320 --> 0:11:41.200 been discovered over a period of five years leading up 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:45.800 to Dana's disappearance, which led to the troubling notion that 0:11:45.840 --> 0:11:49.960 a potential serial killer was roaming through Benton County and 0:11:50.000 --> 0:11:53.640 the Ozarks, plucking young women off the streets at will 0:11:53.880 --> 0:12:19.679 and running under every single law enforcement radar available. When 0:12:19.720 --> 0:12:22.880 a small community like Benton County is rocked to its 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:26.600 core by the disappearance of a popular, well liked young 0:12:26.640 --> 0:12:31.120 woman on a summer afternoon in broad daylight. They banned 0:12:31.120 --> 0:12:35.720 together to help an eight x ten flier. A paper 0:12:35.760 --> 0:12:40.240 ghost was mass produced and tacked to telephone poles in 0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:46.080 supermarket windows, convenience stores and gas stations. A five thousand 0:12:46.120 --> 0:12:50.080 dollars reward was offered for any information leading to Dana. 0:12:52.080 --> 0:12:54.880 A canine search dog was then brought up to Ealing 0:12:54.960 --> 0:12:59.400 Circle off Wellington Road, where Dana's brother, Larry Stidham, had 0:12:59.400 --> 0:13:02.400 found some of his sister's clothing the night she was 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:06.480 reported missing, just a half mile from where Dana's car 0:13:06.880 --> 0:13:12.439 had been located. By now, hope for the Stidham family 0:13:12.800 --> 0:13:17.360 was waning, and that despair would only increase after a 0:13:17.400 --> 0:13:22.000 pet dog trotting along the grass on the side of 0:13:22.080 --> 0:13:28.880 Route seventy one found something. Here's Hunter portray, a current 0:13:28.920 --> 0:13:34.080 lieutenant with the BCSO who you heard in the last episode. 0:13:34.400 --> 0:13:38.760 I think maybe a week and a half later, further north, 0:13:39.559 --> 0:13:43.199 there's a dog that brings up like a wallet and 0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:46.720 it has Dana's ID in it. So at that point 0:13:46.720 --> 0:13:48.600 in time, you know, it went from bad to worse 0:13:48.720 --> 0:13:52.040 to now. It's like Okay, we think we're pretty sure 0:13:52.440 --> 0:13:55.480 foul play because it was her id. There were some 0:13:55.520 --> 0:13:57.600 contraceptives that were found. 0:13:58.520 --> 0:14:03.000 I appreciated Lieutenant trace sincerity, compassion, and eagerness to see 0:14:03.080 --> 0:14:06.880 Dani's case resolved. A cold case needs someone in law 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:10.000 enforcement fighting for it, or the case will sit in 0:14:10.040 --> 0:14:12.720 an eminence room and collect frost. 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:13.520 Well. 0:14:13.679 --> 0:14:18.000 Generally, with the passage of time, it doesn't get any easier. 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:21.640 A lot of times the detectives investigators that work those 0:14:21.680 --> 0:14:25.520 cases are either retired, a lot of times they are deceased, 0:14:26.000 --> 0:14:28.200 and you can't go back and speak to them directly, 0:14:28.280 --> 0:14:30.320 so you have to look through the case file. So 0:14:30.400 --> 0:14:32.240 the best way to do it, the best way that 0:14:32.320 --> 0:14:36.120 I found is go back and start from square zero 0:14:36.480 --> 0:14:39.800 and basically look through everything with the fresh set of 0:14:39.840 --> 0:14:42.840 eyes and just kind of kind of get your own 0:14:43.840 --> 0:14:48.280 gauge and opinion of the case itself. Look for things 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:50.760 that may have been missed, things that you can do, 0:14:50.840 --> 0:14:53.400 people that may have been interviewed that need to be 0:14:53.480 --> 0:14:57.040 interviewed again, people that you think weren't interviewed need to 0:14:57.040 --> 0:14:57.720 be interviewed. 0:14:58.680 --> 0:15:02.400 Advancements in DNA over the past ten years, Lieutenant Portray 0:15:02.480 --> 0:15:05.520 noted had been both the cause of great celebration and 0:15:05.600 --> 0:15:07.160 also disappointment. 0:15:08.160 --> 0:15:11.640 The OJ trial that kind of brought it to everybody's spotlight, 0:15:11.840 --> 0:15:15.760 and that was what early nineties. So in the twenty 0:15:15.840 --> 0:15:21.920 thirty years since that DNA technology has increased dramatically. Like 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:26.080 just last year, we saw three of our cold case 0:15:26.880 --> 0:15:28.440 John Doe. Two of them were John Doe's and one 0:15:28.480 --> 0:15:30.240 was a Jain Doe, and we had no idea who 0:15:30.240 --> 0:15:33.200 they were, and we were able to through DNA and 0:15:33.240 --> 0:15:38.160 genetic genealogy figure out who those people were. So now 0:15:38.280 --> 0:15:43.120 we have leads to try to close those cases out victimology, 0:15:43.280 --> 0:15:45.880 you know who they associated with. Prior to that, they 0:15:45.920 --> 0:15:47.680 were just John Doe's and Jane Doe's and you had 0:15:47.760 --> 0:15:50.680 no idea who they were, and you can't start anywhere 0:15:50.720 --> 0:15:51.880 until you know who they are. 0:15:51.920 --> 0:15:54.720 And we know that probably eighty percent of murders is 0:15:54.720 --> 0:15:56.800 someone you know in your circle. 0:15:56.960 --> 0:16:00.000 That seems to be the consensus at least the homicide 0:16:00.160 --> 0:16:05.960 that I've worked on. Very few random stranger homicides. Now 0:16:05.960 --> 0:16:10.080 they do happen, but statistically speaking, it's going to be 0:16:10.080 --> 0:16:14.600 somebody that they're associated with, and not necessarily close family 0:16:14.680 --> 0:16:18.680 or whatever, but somebody that they're somewhat associated with. Whether 0:16:18.720 --> 0:16:22.880 it's an acquaintance, someone they ran into, somebody they bumped 0:16:22.880 --> 0:16:27.000 into at the store, or knew from another friend slightly 0:16:27.040 --> 0:16:30.480 but didn't really know personally, but generally it's somebody that 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:33.800 they affiliated with or associated with at some. 0:16:33.800 --> 0:16:34.480 Point in time. 0:16:35.440 --> 0:16:39.120 As I dug deeper into the victimology side, several things 0:16:39.120 --> 0:16:43.520 about Dana's circle of friends bothered me more than usual. 0:16:44.480 --> 0:16:48.000 You see, I generally develop a sense, or rather thoughts 0:16:48.000 --> 0:16:51.920 and theories as I begin working on a cold case, knowing, 0:16:52.000 --> 0:16:55.120 of course they will shape and change and perhaps point 0:16:55.120 --> 0:16:58.200 me in a new direction as I move forward. But 0:16:58.440 --> 0:17:02.800 here I started talking to sources on and off the record. 0:17:03.000 --> 0:17:04.879 I could not shake a feeling that there was an 0:17:04.880 --> 0:17:09.560 important piece of this puzzle missing, something either few were 0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:12.280 willing to talk about, those close to Dana were in 0:17:12.400 --> 0:17:17.880 denial about where they just didn't know. And something Lieutenant 0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:21.240 Petree said to me pushed me further down this road. 0:17:23.840 --> 0:17:27.680 This is the day that Dana went missing, around five pm. 0:17:28.160 --> 0:17:31.359 There's a lady who's driving on three forty, which is 0:17:31.359 --> 0:17:35.560 the highway basically right there at Town Center. She says 0:17:35.560 --> 0:17:37.919 that there's a car that comes into her lane. She 0:17:38.080 --> 0:17:41.280 has to swerve to miss it. There's a mail driving, 0:17:41.600 --> 0:17:44.600 there's a female passenger, and there looks like there's another 0:17:44.640 --> 0:17:48.439 person in the backseat. At that point in time, she 0:17:48.440 --> 0:17:50.000 doesn't really think anything about it. 0:17:50.840 --> 0:17:53.959 I obtained the transcript of the interview police conducted with 0:17:54.000 --> 0:17:56.840 this woman. She was twenty four years old then and 0:17:56.920 --> 0:18:00.480 lived in Bella Vista. On July twenty fifth, between five 0:18:00.520 --> 0:18:03.520 and six pm, she drove up to the Missouri state 0:18:03.560 --> 0:18:06.840 line to buy gas. On her way back into Arkansas, 0:18:06.960 --> 0:18:10.639 not too far from the town center where Phillips Grocery is, 0:18:11.119 --> 0:18:14.840 a vehicle swerved into her lane. Quote it looked like 0:18:14.960 --> 0:18:19.480 Dana's car. The guy driving had dark hair. He was 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:22.639 a big dude, likely in his twenties. The girl sitting 0:18:22.680 --> 0:18:26.440 next to him had long, dark hair. The source explained 0:18:26.440 --> 0:18:29.119 to police that the girl she believed to be Dana, 0:18:29.480 --> 0:18:33.960 had perhaps grabbed the wheel and purposely swerved the car 0:18:34.200 --> 0:18:39.160 into her lane. The next morning, July twenty sixth, as 0:18:39.200 --> 0:18:42.600 she was driving toward Wellington Road, she saw Dana's car 0:18:42.680 --> 0:18:46.040 parked on Route seventy one, heading south, where it was 0:18:46.080 --> 0:18:50.560 eventually found. She noticed the driver's side window was rolled down. 0:18:51.720 --> 0:18:54.520 She then drove up Wellington to a friend's house. By 0:18:54.560 --> 0:18:57.919 six thirty am that same morning, she was on her 0:18:57.920 --> 0:19:02.280 way back down Wellington, sitting at a stoplight facing Route 0:19:02.320 --> 0:19:05.080 seventy one in front of her, when she saw a 0:19:05.160 --> 0:19:09.080 Ford courier truck, as she described it, parked behind Dana's 0:19:09.080 --> 0:19:12.600 car with a shell or camper on the back, and 0:19:12.640 --> 0:19:16.480 there was that same large man again from the previous night, 0:19:16.640 --> 0:19:20.800 the one driving Dana's car, standing behind it. She assumed 0:19:20.800 --> 0:19:24.119 he was getting ready to change the tire of Dana's car. 0:19:26.200 --> 0:19:29.240 Woul Dana's case being the top story on all the 0:19:29.280 --> 0:19:32.840 local news stations throughout those early days. This would not 0:19:33.000 --> 0:19:36.399 be the only report from a random person claiming to 0:19:36.480 --> 0:19:39.359 have seen Dana on the day she went missing, or 0:19:39.400 --> 0:19:41.040 even later on into the evening. 0:19:42.080 --> 0:19:44.480 What I'm getting from you is that her car is 0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:47.520 seen kind of all over seventy one that. 0:19:47.600 --> 0:19:54.280 Day, couple of different places, all relatively around that Phillips area, 0:19:54.840 --> 0:19:59.240 but one person saying that they saw it south in 0:19:59.280 --> 0:20:03.000 the north boundle line, and then obviously later on we 0:20:03.080 --> 0:20:06.840 know that it was found in the southbound lane north 0:20:06.880 --> 0:20:11.400 of the town center. So those are things that complicated 0:20:11.400 --> 0:20:13.960 the case. You got three people saying they all saw 0:20:13.960 --> 0:20:16.240 it at the same location. You got three people saying 0:20:16.240 --> 0:20:20.399 they saw it, but different locations, different set of circumstances, 0:20:20.440 --> 0:20:23.760 just not conducive to getting it solved right away. 0:20:24.600 --> 0:20:27.560 It bothered me at so many different people, a list 0:20:27.640 --> 0:20:31.000 which would continue to grow as I developed. Additional sources 0:20:31.560 --> 0:20:35.240 claimed to have seen Dana at different locations around Bella 0:20:35.320 --> 0:20:38.240 Vista and even as far away as Gravit, the time 0:20:38.280 --> 0:20:41.480 where she grew up and had lived most of her life. 0:20:41.560 --> 0:20:45.119 Here's one of Dana's cousins, Dwight Stidham, who spoke to 0:20:45.200 --> 0:20:48.439 police a day after Dana went missing about what he 0:20:48.440 --> 0:20:52.200 had seen, but has never spoken to anyone else about 0:20:52.200 --> 0:20:56.360 this since. Tell me what you remember about Dana growing up. 0:20:56.920 --> 0:21:03.760 She just well, behaved well and always doing stuff for 0:21:03.840 --> 0:21:09.080 her parents, and especially for Laurence because he had as righters, 0:21:09.119 --> 0:21:12.440 real bad and that's what finally got him at the end. 0:21:12.560 --> 0:21:15.280 You know, she was always there for him. 0:21:15.119 --> 0:21:19.480 And Dwight, several years older than Dana, is referring to 0:21:19.560 --> 0:21:23.560 Dana's father, Lawrence. Dwight saw Dana a lot growing up. 0:21:24.040 --> 0:21:26.439 He also knew the town of Gravit and the people 0:21:26.480 --> 0:21:29.639 within dana circle of friends. In and out of town 0:21:29.920 --> 0:21:33.399 fairly well. And not all of them were as straight 0:21:33.480 --> 0:21:36.159 lace as Dana has been described. 0:21:40.040 --> 0:21:43.199 They was a little bit on the wild side in 0:21:43.240 --> 0:21:46.960 what ways, in the drinking and the drugs. 0:21:47.119 --> 0:21:49.080 When you say drugs, what kind of drugs are you 0:21:49.160 --> 0:21:50.280 talking about? 0:21:50.480 --> 0:21:53.080 When we talk about drugs around here, it's just your 0:21:53.119 --> 0:21:58.719 basic drugs, marijuana, speed, just different kinds of peals. 0:21:58.720 --> 0:22:02.200 You know, when goes missing. Do you remember that time? 0:22:03.080 --> 0:22:04.680 Oh yeah, tell me about that. 0:22:04.760 --> 0:22:06.359 Tell me how it starts for you. 0:22:06.440 --> 0:22:07.200 What you remember. 0:22:08.240 --> 0:22:11.399 Well, at that time, we was living up from grab It. 0:22:12.080 --> 0:22:13.639 We had a little dairy bar up her. It had 0:22:13.640 --> 0:22:16.600 pool tables and some arcade games in it, and I'd 0:22:16.640 --> 0:22:19.480 go up there on the weekends and play pool. And 0:22:21.240 --> 0:22:24.640 it was probably around six seven o'clock. It wasn't dark 0:22:24.680 --> 0:22:27.800 or anything. It was still good daylight and sunny and everything. 0:22:28.440 --> 0:22:31.480 And me and my nephew we was going up her 0:22:31.520 --> 0:22:36.159 to play the games, playpool and stuff. And before you 0:22:36.240 --> 0:22:39.080 get to the little dairy bar, I pulled up to 0:22:39.119 --> 0:22:42.479 the four ways stop and she had pulled up across 0:22:42.560 --> 0:22:46.119 the street from me, facing me, and she had a 0:22:46.160 --> 0:22:48.160 girl in the car with her, But I didn't recognize 0:22:48.200 --> 0:22:50.439 who the girl was or anything. But you know, she 0:22:50.600 --> 0:22:53.520 just she waved at me and everything, and I didn't 0:22:53.560 --> 0:22:56.840 think nothing about it. As far as I know, Me 0:22:56.880 --> 0:22:58.760 and my nephew was probably the last two in the 0:22:58.800 --> 0:22:59.879 family that had seen her. 0:23:01.400 --> 0:23:04.680 And she didn't look distressed, she didn't look in trouble. 0:23:05.640 --> 0:23:07.720 No, she had a big old smile on her face, 0:23:07.880 --> 0:23:11.480 just wayed real big and you know, did we just 0:23:11.560 --> 0:23:15.919 crossed past her at the four ways stop and it 0:23:15.960 --> 0:23:17.000 just seemed normal to me. 0:23:18.119 --> 0:23:21.080 So between six and seven pm on the night Dana 0:23:21.119 --> 0:23:23.840 went missing, she was out and about with a friend, 0:23:24.320 --> 0:23:27.320 driving around the town where she grew up in smiling, 0:23:27.680 --> 0:23:31.040 having a good time. That kind of nixes the theory 0:23:31.080 --> 0:23:35.200 that someone at the Phillips sabotaged her tire, or followed 0:23:35.200 --> 0:23:38.840 her or abducted her that afternoon in the parking lot. 0:23:39.720 --> 0:23:44.760 This information pointed in the direction of somebody Dana knew. 0:23:46.320 --> 0:23:49.760 Another thing that hindered this case, and it's nothing that 0:23:49.800 --> 0:23:53.600 the investigators did wrong. It's a product of the time 0:23:53.600 --> 0:23:57.600 that it happened. Eighty nine, nobody had cell phones really, 0:23:58.280 --> 0:24:03.240 so today and age, cell phones are tremendous for law 0:24:03.320 --> 0:24:06.760 enforcement as far as tracking people we know based off 0:24:06.800 --> 0:24:11.040 a GPS they went here there nineteen eighty nine, we 0:24:11.080 --> 0:24:17.200 didn't have that. Also, you know, surveillance cameras, security cameras, 0:24:17.440 --> 0:24:23.280 it existed, but not for most people. So Phillips Grocery, 0:24:23.520 --> 0:24:28.320 no video surveillance, there's nothing. So those two things kind 0:24:28.320 --> 0:24:31.040 of complicated the case as well, because you don't have 0:24:32.119 --> 0:24:34.800 video of her driving by a certain location. You don't 0:24:34.800 --> 0:24:38.000 have GPS location of hey, she placed a phone call here. 0:24:38.840 --> 0:24:42.800 Even more alarming is the timeline the BCSO developed for 0:24:42.880 --> 0:24:46.040 when Dana's car could have made it to the location 0:24:46.600 --> 0:24:48.560 where it was found on Route seventy one. 0:24:49.240 --> 0:24:52.199 There's a sergeant who was our sheriff here for a 0:24:52.240 --> 0:24:55.919 while after, but he worked for the state police. He 0:24:56.040 --> 0:25:01.159