Speaker 1: School of Humans. On September fourteenth, twenty eighteen, in Galesburg, Illinois,
Speaker 1: a twenty three year old graduate of Western Illinois University
Speaker 1: named Tyler Smith headed out to party with some friends.
Speaker 1: Tyler had dreams of becoming a police officer. He was
Speaker 1: always super athletic. He played football in high school, and
Speaker 1: after graduating from Western Illinois University, he applied to and
Speaker 1: was accepted into the Police Academy in San Jose, California.
Speaker 1: According to his family, he was one of only fifty
Speaker 1: candidates out of five thousand who were selected for that program.
Speaker 1: Tyler's mom, Sandra, said that Tyler loved California. He loved
Speaker 1: everything about it, especially surfing in outdoor sports. He was
Speaker 1: super excited about his upcoming move. Once he entered law enforcement.
Speaker 1: Tyler hoped to eventually possibly become a DEA agent or
Speaker 1: work with a canine unit. He was starting his life
Speaker 1: and chasing his dream, and he was actually making it happen.
Speaker 1: Tyler had also been in the Army National Guard since
Speaker 1: twenty thirteen, and he had come back to Illinois to
Speaker 1: fulfill his commitment because the next day, September fifteenth, Tyler
Speaker 1: was due to report for drills. Tyler and his friends,
Speaker 1: a guy named Evan and Evan's cousin Robbie, were out
Speaker 1: drinking that night. They were blowing off some steam and
Speaker 1: taking advantage of their last night of freedom. According to
Speaker 1: Tyler's mother, Sandra Halsney, who has been working on a timeline,
Speaker 1: they went to several bars in the area. He and
Speaker 1: his friends left a bar at ten thirty and were
Speaker 1: seen at a nearby atm at around ten forty two.
Speaker 1: Then at some point Tyler got separated from his friends,
Speaker 1: and what happened next is kind of a mystery because
Speaker 1: later his friends told his mother that they were all
Speaker 1: intoxicated that night and they can't remember exactly how they separated.
Speaker 1: I will say I think that one of the things
Speaker 1: that first got to me about this case was the
Speaker 1: fact that, in my opinion, we've all been there. We've
Speaker 1: all gotten separated from our friends, maybe had a little
Speaker 1: bit too much to drink, and not known where we are.
Speaker 1: There are all times in our lives when we've been
Speaker 1: a little bit vulnerable and in a strange place. I
Speaker 1: know it's definitely happened to me. But Tyler was five
Speaker 1: foot eleven and weighed just over two hundred pounds. He
Speaker 1: was very muscular and fit, so it's not surprising he
Speaker 1: probably felt like he could take care of himself. Tyler
Speaker 1: started walking around lost and made several phone calls starting
Speaker 1: at eleven oh five pm. Then at some point he
Speaker 1: stopped answering the phone, and the next morning he never
Speaker 1: showed up at the National Guard Armory to report. At
Speaker 1: seven thirty am, around twelve hours later, his body was
Speaker 1: found in the Cedar Fort Creek area, just two blocks
Speaker 1: away from where he was last seen the night before.
Speaker 1: Since then, Sandra Tyler's father, Keith Smith, and the rest
Speaker 1: of his family have been desperately trying to find out
Speaker 1: what happened to him. How did Tyler end up in
Speaker 1: that drainage ditch, did he fall, did he drown? Or
Speaker 1: could he have been murdered? I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the
Speaker 1: past five years of making my true crime podcast, Helen Gone,
Speaker 1: I've learned there's no such thing as a small town
Speaker 1: where murder never happens. I have received hundreds of messages
Speaker 1: from people all around the country asking for help with
Speaker 1: an unsolved murder that's affected them, their families, and their communities.
Speaker 1: If you have a case, you'd like me and my
Speaker 1: team to look into You can reach out to us
Speaker 1: at our Helen Gone Murder line at six seven eight
Speaker 1: seven four four six one four five. That's six seven
Speaker 1: eight seven four four six one four or five. This
Speaker 1: is Helen Gone Murder Line. Sandra and her son Tyler
Speaker 1: have always been close. In fact, Sandra said she was
Speaker 1: going to drive with him to start his new life
Speaker 1: in California, but before he left town, Tyler made those
Speaker 1: plans for a night out with some of his old friends.
Speaker 1: Sandra said that Tyler told her and his father, Keith,
Speaker 1: that he was planning on staying at a friend's house.
Speaker 1: Here's Sandra.
Speaker 2: And they went out and they were drink king and
Speaker 2: I'm assuming he was celebrating leaving, you know, Drill. So
Speaker 2: that was a big thing for him. And he went
Speaker 2: out with his friends, and you know, he's just turned
Speaker 2: twenty three. I mean, that's what they do. They go out,
Speaker 2: they drink, they have fun. They went to light maybe
Speaker 2: four or five bars. There's just one block of bars.
Speaker 2: They walked everywhere, and so he had went missing and
Speaker 2: he didn't show up for Drill. And I didn't even
Speaker 2: know this until about Saturday, at about four point thirty.
Speaker 2: I got a messenger. I got a phone call from Evan,
Speaker 2: who was this guy that he was supposed to stay with.
Speaker 1: Sandra said she was not familiar with the area where
Speaker 1: Tyler and his friends were, but they weren't worried because
Speaker 1: Tyler was obviously a very physically fit guy who could
Speaker 1: take care of himself. Also, Tyler was gregarious and kind
Speaker 1: and had no issues with talking to strangers. The next day,
Speaker 1: Sandra could not reach her son. Then she got a
Speaker 1: call from Evan, one of the guys who was out
Speaker 1: with Tyler the night before, saying that Tyler never showed
Speaker 1: up for the National Guard drill. This was an immediate
Speaker 1: red flag because Tyler always showed up on time. Sandra
Speaker 1: and Keith made the drive to Gilsburg. They found Tyler's
Speaker 1: car in the driveway of the house where he had
Speaker 1: been staying, but there was no sign of their son.
Speaker 1: They talked to his friends, Evan and Robbie about the
Speaker 1: night before. Basically, the guys said they had all been
Speaker 1: pretty drunk and that after they left the last bar,
Speaker 1: they got separated from Tyler, and they said they hadn't
Speaker 1: seen him since. At some point, Tyler ended up with
Speaker 1: Evan's car keys. They were found in Tyler's Jean's pockets.
Speaker 1: Sandra claims that Evan told her at some point, I
Speaker 1: guess they must have decided that of the three of them,
Speaker 1: Tyler was the most sober, and so he apparently was
Speaker 1: going to drive at one point. Obviously this is not
Speaker 1: a great choice, which I guess they must have realized,
Speaker 1: because in the end none of them drove home. Evan
Speaker 1: said he woke up at five thirty am the next
Speaker 1: morning he realized that Tyler wasn't there, but his stuff
Speaker 1: was there, and his car was parked in the driveway,
Speaker 1: and he knew Tyler still had his car keys. Evan
Speaker 1: started trying to call Tyler. He called him at five
Speaker 1: thirty eight am five forty five am, but Tyler never
Speaker 1: picked up and never responded. Evan texted again a little
Speaker 1: while later, but that text stayed unread. Evan immediately reported
Speaker 1: Tyler missing to the police that morning and also called Sandra.
Speaker 1: Sandra said that she has no reason to doubt any
Speaker 1: of the story that Evan and Robbie told her, and
Speaker 1: that they seemed very cooperative and helpful, but she did wonder,
Speaker 1: just being human, if there could be more to that story,
Speaker 1: maybe they got in some kind of argument, maybe even
Speaker 1: just a minor dumb, drunken argument that can we sometimes
Speaker 1: get into after a long night out. And then she
Speaker 1: wondered if some reason Tyler decided to leave suddenly, and
Speaker 1: maybe he was going to stay somewhere else. That was
Speaker 1: just a possibility. It's also possible that after they split up,
Speaker 1: he went on into another bar by himself. Because it
Speaker 1: seems so weird that he had just randomly disappeared into
Speaker 1: the darkness.
Speaker 2: We don't have clear why he was looking for another
Speaker 2: place to stay. I don't know, you know, I just
Speaker 2: it's I'm not saying Tyler was innocent. He could drink,
Speaker 2: he could party with the best of them, you know,
Speaker 2: he just did four years at the university. The kitchen party,
Speaker 2: you know. But he also had a good head on
Speaker 2: her shoulders. It wasn't stupid.
Speaker 1: Sandra told Dateline that after she and Keith talked to
Speaker 1: Tyler's friends, they went to the police station. Then what
Speaker 1: happened next was horrifying. She said. A pizza delivery guy
Speaker 1: randomly walked in and said something about a body being
Speaker 1: founded nearby creek. She said she sensed immediately that the
Speaker 1: body they found was Tyler. According to the Gailsburg Police Department,
Speaker 1: someone was passing by the Cedar Fork Creek area. They
Speaker 1: found Tyler's body at around seven pm on September fifteenth.
Speaker 1: Forensic testing would reveal that Tyler's body had been lying
Speaker 1: there since early that morning or the night before. He
Speaker 1: was lying face down in about two inches of water.
Speaker 1: Sandras said that from the beginning she thought the case
Speaker 1: should have been investigated as a homicide until proven otherwise,
Speaker 1: but the police very quickly concluded. She said that this
Speaker 1: had been an accident. She said the autopsy was done
Speaker 1: in just thirty one minutes, which she was later able
Speaker 1: to figure out. And I'll get into this in much
Speaker 1: more depth a little bit later and next week through
Speaker 1: her own investigation.
Speaker 2: It's so unfortunate that there's so much information I have
Speaker 2: uncovered so much, and like nothing's being done about it.
Speaker 1: In fact, Sandra's advocacy for her son and her determination
Speaker 1: she has done an incredible amount of work really is
Speaker 1: another one of the main things that made me want
Speaker 1: to look further into this case. As you all know,
Speaker 1: I like to take cases not just a talk about
Speaker 1: what was done, and to bring the case public attention,
Speaker 1: but also I want to help people. I want people
Speaker 1: out there who may be dealing with these situations and
Speaker 1: their homes and their towns and their families to be
Speaker 1: able to advocate for themselves. I want to learn what
Speaker 1: we can from this case, and in my opinion, Sandra
Speaker 1: has done an amazing job of getting information when she
Speaker 1: got frustrated with the police. Because we always struggle with
Speaker 1: that balance. I talk a lot about this. We're always
Speaker 1: trying to ask ourselves, how do we find information and
Speaker 1: do our own detective work and support the police investigation,
Speaker 1: but not interfere with it. We're always trying to get
Speaker 1: that balance right. Tyler's phone was found pretty intact. The
Speaker 1: screen wasn't even cracked. According to Sandra, there was no
Speaker 1: password protect on that phone. So initially this would seem
Speaker 1: like a really good piece of evidence. It seems like
Speaker 1: you'd be able to trace where he was the night
Speaker 1: before using GP. Yes, but there were some complications with that.
Speaker 1: And this is where the difference between what we see
Speaker 1: on shows like CSI and reality really coming to start contrast. Because,
Speaker 1: first of all, at some point in the evening, Tyler's
Speaker 1: battery died, but that wasn't the problem. The data was
Speaker 1: still there. Really, the bigger problem was that apparently Tyler,
Speaker 1: when he was walking around in that neighborhood, that area
Speaker 1: was kind of a dead zone, so GPS tracking apparently
Speaker 1: didn't really work there. Sandra said she was prepared to
Speaker 1: assist with the police investigation, but she said she was
Speaker 1: very surprised when police ruled so quickly that this had
Speaker 1: been what they described as an accidental drowning, even though
Speaker 1: Sandra said she later learned that Tyler had several wounds
Speaker 1: on his body that made her believe that he had
Speaker 1: been viciously assaulted. Sandra told me about the reaction she
Speaker 1: had from police when she came to their office and
Speaker 1: asked to see her son's body. At Lasse came in
Speaker 1: and gave Sandra Tyler's belongings, including his wallet. They told
Speaker 1: her that Tyler smelled of alcohol and that he had
Speaker 1: been found in a creek bed. Now at the time,
Speaker 1: according to Sandra, police said there was no way that
Speaker 1: Tyler had fallen from the distance to where he was found.
Speaker 1: They told her bodies don't just end up there side
Speaker 1: note this would change later, because police later told Sandra
Speaker 1: that they did believe that Tyler had fallen from above
Speaker 1: the railing. Initially, though they said he must have gotten
Speaker 1: down in there somehow fallen and knocked himself out from
Speaker 1: the train tracks above. Just for clarification, there are train
Speaker 1: tracks in the area where Tyler's body was found. The
Speaker 1: ground there is very rocky and uneven. Police told Sandra
Speaker 1: and Keith they believe Tyler had possibly fallen over the
Speaker 1: railing and then drowned, but Sandra questioned that because Tyler's
Speaker 1: body was found face down, her arms were stretched behind
Speaker 1: him and his palms were facing up, So she wondered
Speaker 1: how could he have gotten himself into that position? Why
Speaker 1: would he not try to reach his arms out and
Speaker 1: somehow break his fall if this was an accident, and
Speaker 1: she had other questions about the scene. There were marks
Speaker 1: in the muddy water near one of Tyler's hands that
Speaker 1: to her looked like drag marks, looked like the hand
Speaker 1: impossibly the whole body had been pulled a few inches.
Speaker 1: She also saw marx on Tyler's wrist. Police later told
Speaker 1: her they believed those were from the zip ties when
Speaker 1: they had zipped Tyler into the body bag, but Sandra
Speaker 1: wondered about that post mortem lebidity would normally have settled
Speaker 1: in by the time Tyler's body was found, so could
Speaker 1: those marks she wondered have been from something else, perhaps handcuffs.
Speaker 1: There was also a beer can next to Tyler's body.
Speaker 1: Sandra said that it was never tested for fingerprints. She
Speaker 1: began to suspect that Tyler did not fall into that
Speaker 1: position she believed he was placed there. Police did not
Speaker 1: let her identify Tyler's body.
Speaker 2: I literally begged to see him, and they refused for
Speaker 2: me to see him or I tim I said, but
Speaker 2: I'm his mother, like, don't you need a family member
Speaker 2: in a dam? And they're like no, one of the
Speaker 2: police officers used to drill with your son and she
Speaker 2: knew him and she ided him. Plus he has tattoos
Speaker 2: that match or a tattoo, and I'm like, well, I'd
Speaker 2: like I won't touch him. I'll just look at him
Speaker 2: and promise I won't screw anything up because they're like no,
Speaker 2: his body in a body bag and sip tight and
Speaker 2: everything's evident. And then Steve and I had to drive
Speaker 2: back home to two two and a half hours, you know,
Speaker 2: after finding on our son's dead in this concrete canal
Speaker 2: and with no answers and refusally even see him. So,
Speaker 2: you know, it's just it's just been a nightmare.
Speaker 1: Now, this is not uncommon, A lot of people do
Speaker 1: ask about that. In fact, police departments are moving more
Speaker 1: away from having family members identify the body and doing
Speaker 1: it through DNA or other methods. But Sandra said this
Speaker 1: was traumatic for her. She said they told her the
Speaker 1: body was already in a body bag and that due
Speaker 1: to chain of custody rules, they could not allow her
Speaker 1: to see her son's face. They said they were taking
Speaker 1: Tyler to Peoria for an autopsy. After that, Sandra said
Speaker 1: she did have a conversation with the coroner, Mark Thomas.
Speaker 1: She said that she got a call from Mark Thomas
Speaker 1: on Sunday, September sixteenth, twenty eighteen, and at that time,
Speaker 1: she said, Mark told her that Tyler's autopsy would be
Speaker 1: performed the next day by forensic pathologists from Peoria who
Speaker 1: was going to do a thorough exam.
Speaker 2: I said, well, you're going to make sure that you know,
Speaker 2: she didn't have a brain sleep, right, You're going to
Speaker 2: make sure you can't do X rays writ in the
Speaker 2: street and having broken balls or anything like that. And
Speaker 2: the corner told me, oh, yeah, for sure. He's like,
Speaker 2: you know, they know what they're doing and that'll all
Speaker 2: be done. And then I found out later that, you know,
Speaker 2: once I got the report back, I'm like, did they
Speaker 2: act ray Tyler? And he's like, well, I'm sure they
Speaker 2: did it. Let me look at so I guess they
Speaker 2: did it. It's the corner. You didn't even know you're
Speaker 2: putting this stuff on a death certificate. You don't even
Speaker 2: know if he got X ray. Like, I just closed
Speaker 2: my mind.
Speaker 1: Sandra is no stranger to the medical field, so she
Speaker 1: believed that the coroner and the medical examiner would do
Speaker 1: a thorough job, so she was shocked when she got
Speaker 1: the call after the autopsy was complete. The emmy said
Speaker 1: Tyler's death was caused by drowning, and when that conversation happened,
Speaker 1: Sandra said, they made it sound like Tyler only had
Speaker 1: minor injuries. To Sandra, the investigation seemed rushed. She said
Speaker 1: she was also shocked when she discovered the extent of
Speaker 1: the injuries on her son, injuries she said that were
Speaker 1: much worse than what she had been led to believe.
Speaker 1: She said she was told that Tyler had a small
Speaker 1: scratch on his face, most likely from falling and knocking
Speaker 1: himself out. The funeral home director told her Tyler had
Speaker 1: much more than just a scratch. She finally saw her
Speaker 1: son for the first time on Tuesday, September eighteenth. She
Speaker 1: had his visitation scheduled for the following Friday.
Speaker 3: That's when I knew something's wrong. My cheek was ten
Speaker 3: times the size it should be, and I didn't even
Speaker 3: get to see the one side, you know, And I
Speaker 3: telled this by looking at knuscles were all scratched up.
Speaker 3: That I mean he he could he had a huge
Speaker 3: like he had like a wound in his frontal.
Speaker 2: Area, like temporal frontal area, like what happened to him?
Speaker 2: I thought he had no I was told he had
Speaker 2: a bump on his head.
Speaker 1: It's heart wrenching for me to imagine the scene of
Speaker 1: this mother who was having to have a conversation with
Speaker 1: a funeral director about her son's injuries and how much
Speaker 1: makeup they would need to use. I cannot imagine the
Speaker 1: pain this must have caused her, she said. In the end,
Speaker 1: the funeral director did his best and was able to
Speaker 1: cover up some of the injuries with makeup, while Sandrew
Speaker 1: prepared to bury her son. She kept calling the detective
Speaker 1: to find out what was going on with the investigation.
Speaker 1: She learned they were going to list the cause of
Speaker 1: death as drowning, manner of death undetermined, but police told
Speaker 1: her they did not suspect foul play. According to reports
Speaker 1: by the Knox County Corner in the Galesburg Police Department,
Speaker 1: they believed this was an accident. One of the factors
Speaker 1: that led them to believe that was the fact that
Speaker 1: Tyler's blood alcohol level was er point two four to
Speaker 1: six percent. Now, this is very high. In fact, it's
Speaker 1: almost three times the legal limit. He was clearly intoxicated,
Speaker 1: and he was wandering around in an area he was
Speaker 1: unfamiliar with. So we do have to consider the possibility
Speaker 1: that he did have some sort of accident and no
Speaker 1: one else was involved. Sandra doesn't discount that, but she
Speaker 1: believes that police closed the case much too quickly.
Speaker 2: When I went to go see Tyler, Tyler was found
Speaker 2: to see that. Even said to the police officer, Hey,
Speaker 2: this person over here at camera, you know, did you
Speaker 2: guys check these cameras? Yeah, yeah, you know, Well he's
Speaker 2: like just kind of blew me off. And then when
Speaker 2: we got back to the pay station, I said, well,
Speaker 2: can you call the guy and see if you know
Speaker 2: you can he has still has footage. And he's just like, oh, well, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'll call him. You know, I know him. Blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: Like the officer in Tyler's case was horrible. Every time
Speaker 2: I gave him information, He's like, what's that going to
Speaker 2: tell me? How's that going to tell me? I said,
Speaker 2: it's going to give us something, you know, like did
Speaker 2: you look at video to see if you could find
Speaker 2: Evan walking? Did you look at street video? Did you
Speaker 2: look at the bar video? Did you look at surveillance
Speaker 2: video around? You know? Did you even do like a
Speaker 2: you know, you go and knock on people's doors. Did
Speaker 2: you hear anything, see anything? You know, There's a whole
Speaker 2: list of stuff they were supposed to do, and they
Speaker 2: were supposed to call in the state police to help
Speaker 2: them with the investigation, and they just didn't do that,
Speaker 2: And so they didn't follow any protocol at all, not
Speaker 2: one single bit of it.
Speaker 1: She was also frustrated that at every single turn it
Speaker 1: seemed like she had to gather evidence herself, and the
Speaker 1: costs were mounting. She did for a requests. She said
Speaker 1: she had to pay seventy five dollars for an autopsy report,
Speaker 1: plus an additional one hundred and thirty dollars for the
Speaker 1: pictures of her son's body. She got them on December sixth,
Speaker 1: almost three months after his death. Sandra decided to do
Speaker 1: more of her own investigation. She started following her son's
Speaker 1: digital trail. She started going through his bank account. Sandra
Speaker 1: went through Tyler's email. She found a receipt that showed
Speaker 1: that Tyler had used an ATM at ten forty two
Speaker 1: pm on Friday, September fourteenth at a Wells Fargo bank
Speaker 1: in Galesburg. He withdrew one hundred dollars. She asked the
Speaker 1: police to get video surveillance from Wells Fargo, but says
Speaker 1: she was told that it could take up to six
Speaker 1: weeks and that Wells Fargo were very hard to deal with. Again,
Speaker 1: Sandra said she was made to feel that Tyler's case
Speaker 1: was not a priority. Sandra said where Tyler's body was
Speaker 1: found was in a pretty dangerous area with a high
Speaker 1: crime rate. There are people out on the streets late
Speaker 1: at night, so it seemed to her that it was
Speaker 1: very possible that he encountered someone who assaulted him.
Speaker 2: I even went and found the guy that called nine
Speaker 2: one one. I got the police report and got his
Speaker 2: name and then googled him and showed up at his
Speaker 2: house asking him questions. And he's like, how do you
Speaker 2: know where was I at? Like who told you about me?
Speaker 2: And I'm just like, well, the police report. I got
Speaker 2: your name from fish report and I googled. He's like,
Speaker 2: did they tell you where I lived? I'm like no,
Speaker 2: I'm like, I found you on my own, and he's
Speaker 2: just like, oh, because Keith and I showed up at
Speaker 2: the house, and then that's when he shared his wife
Speaker 2: took a video of what she saw down there, and
Speaker 2: then I had the nine one one call and so
Speaker 2: but I've never really spoke to him since I went
Speaker 2: to his house, and I know the police never even
Speaker 2: followed up with them.
Speaker 1: Since she had not gotten any word from the police
Speaker 1: about the ATM video, Sandra started to look for other
Speaker 1: potential surveillance footage. Law enforcement gave her the rest of
Speaker 1: her son's belongings. This included some change Tyler's watch, a
Speaker 1: vaping device, a snuff box with some pills in it
Speaker 1: that she was told were ibuprofen and seventy two dollars
Speaker 1: in cash that was in his pocket. Now, Sandra thought
Speaker 1: this was very strange because he had gone to the
Speaker 1: ATM at around ten forty two and withdrawn one hundred dollars.
Speaker 1: She had the receipt for that, and she said he
Speaker 1: used his debit card at the bars he was at
Speaker 1: that night, So where was this missing twenty eight dollars?
Speaker 1: Then there was the beer can. She wondered why they
Speaker 1: would just assume that it was unconnected to Tyler, Why
Speaker 1: they wouldn't test for fingerprints. And Sandra also found herself
Speaker 1: wondering if the case was so quickly dismissed because of
Speaker 1: her son's race. Tyler is by ray, half black, half white.
Speaker 1: She wondered if that could have factored into the police's
Speaker 1: decision to, in her mind, dismiss this case so quickly.
Speaker 1: The last place where Tyler was seen having drinks was
Speaker 1: the Corner Connection Bar, just a few blocks from where
Speaker 1: his body was found. After he left the last bar,
Speaker 1: Tyler started trying to call his friends. The calls started
Speaker 1: at around eleven oh five, so the phone records lead
Speaker 1: Tyler's friends who remember are also trying to remember exactly
Speaker 1: what happened, his mother and everyone else to think that
Speaker 1: they probably separated just after that. And again, Sandra was
Speaker 1: frustrated by the fact that police waited two months to
Speaker 1: talk to Tyler's friends, because even though, as we said before,
Speaker 1: and I want to make this clear, there's absolutely no
Speaker 1: reason to believe they were in any way involved in
Speaker 1: his disappearance. They were his friends. They did the right thing,
Speaker 1: they immediately reported it to police. But as an investigator,
Speaker 1: I would have wanted to talk to them anyway, because
Speaker 1: they may re tiny details about the night before that
Speaker 1: could end up being crucial. We're all human, and to
Speaker 1: me it seemed like potentially these young men might have
Speaker 1: given more evidence to police at that time when their
Speaker 1: memories were fresh, simply because it must have been hard,
Speaker 1: much as they wanted to be helpful, it's hard to
Speaker 1: talk to someone's mom sometimes about a night of heavy
Speaker 1: drinking and what they might have talked about. In my opinion,
Speaker 1: police detective should have questioned these guys immediately for several
Speaker 1: different reasons. After getting separated from his friends, Tyler walked
Speaker 1: the streets for the next forty minutes or so. During
Speaker 1: this time, he was making phone calls and sending snapchat messages.
Speaker 1: At eleven forty six pm, Tyler sent a snapchat message
Speaker 1: to another friend. It read quote, I don't know where
Speaker 1: I am end quote. His final call was to a
Speaker 1: friend at eleven fifty After that, the friend called him back,
Speaker 1: but Tyler didn't answer. He never made another call. Something
Speaker 1: happened at around eleven fifty pm. When Sandra came back
Speaker 1: in to talk to police, she started to get the
Speaker 1: feeling that the detectives were kind of blowing her off
Speaker 1: and that something wasn't right. Sandra said they told her
Speaker 1: to quote move on from this end quote. She said
Speaker 1: she felt as though she'd done something wrong by investigating,
Speaker 1: like the detectives were angry with her, and unfortunately, this
Speaker 1: is a reaction that we have all seen far too
Speaker 1: often in these kind of cases. She came back to
Speaker 1: the Gailsburg Police Department and had another meeting with the sergeant.
Speaker 1: Sandra said that she was following up on some ATM footage. Remember,
Speaker 1: she had found the receipt saying Tyler had withdrawn some
Speaker 1: money from Wells Fargo on the night he went missing.
Speaker 1: She wanted to know if the detective had looked for
Speaker 1: it yet. And if they had, if Tyler had shown
Speaker 1: up on that footage. So Sandra was sitting there when
Speaker 1: the detective played this video, and even though he said
Speaker 1: that he had watched it and that Tyler was not
Speaker 1: on the video, Sandra said she was shocked when about
Speaker 1: twelve minutes in, Tyler showed up on that video. Sandra
Speaker 1: was shocked when she saw that video, the one that
Speaker 1: the police detective insisted that he had seen, and also
Speaker 1: that Tyler was not in.
Speaker 2: The sergeant before he even showed up on the video
Speaker 2: was like what this is literally what he said to me,
Speaker 2: what the fuck do you want from me? Or sonkra ound?
Speaker 2: And I kid you not. Seconds later, Tyler shows up
Speaker 2: on the video where he's supposed to be exact time location.
Speaker 2: I gave him everything.
Speaker 1: Tyler was captured on the Wells Fargo ATM camera at
Speaker 1: ten forty two pm. According to the receipt Sandra had,
Speaker 1: he withdrew one hundred dollars. Again this is a mystery.
Speaker 1: He had been using his debit card at bars all night.
Speaker 1: And you can see if you look at the video
Speaker 1: footage which Sandra has, Tyler has one of those wallets
Speaker 1: that has a money clip on the outside. You can
Speaker 1: see on the money clip he has cash there. So again,
Speaker 1: why at this point in the night is he going
Speaker 1: to get money? Could they have been planning to call
Speaker 1: a cab or were they going to go on to
Speaker 1: another bar or buy something else. Now at this point,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to put myself inside Sandra's mind. She's done
Speaker 1: her own detective work. She's fought to get this video
Speaker 1: after finding the receipt of her son going to an ATM.
Speaker 1: They assure her they've got the video, that they've looked
Speaker 1: at it and that her son is not on it.
Speaker 1: And then right there in front of her eyes after
Speaker 1: the detective she claims, got a little bit of an
Speaker 1: attitude with her. She's finally sitting there and sees her
Speaker 1: son on that video. I cannot imagine how it would
Speaker 1: feel at that point. Of course, you're gonna wonder if
Speaker 1: they insisted they had looked at it and he wasn't
Speaker 1: on it, and you find out that's not true, what
Speaker 1: else did they miss did did they look at the
Speaker 1: video and just missed Tyler on it, or did they
Speaker 1: never really look at it at all? Not surprisingly, at
Speaker 1: this point, Sandra explained that her relationship with the police
Speaker 1: department pretty much completely deteriorated. Detectives told Sandra their theory
Speaker 1: that Tyler had been black out drunk and that he drowned.
Speaker 1: Case closed, Sandra went through the process of filing a
Speaker 1: formal complaint. Sandra, along with her family, opened their own
Speaker 1: tip line. They offered a five thousand dollars reward, which
Speaker 1: was eventually raised to ten thousand dollars for any information
Speaker 1: that would help lead to an arrest and conviction. She
Speaker 1: started a Facebook page, Justice for Tyler Smith, which led
Speaker 1: to over twelve thousand followers and hundreds of comments and tips.
Speaker 1: Sandra said that she and her family asked about other
Speaker 1: surveillance videos from other businesses in the area. They were
Speaker 1: heartbroken to learn that a lot of the videos had
Speaker 1: been overridden after around two weeks after Tyler's death, So,
Speaker 1: she says, pull waited too long. Again, this is devastating
Speaker 1: and happens in so many cases, and this, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: is something that should never happen. That surveillance footage should
Speaker 1: have been a requested The next day. Sandra said she
Speaker 1: and her family did not give up. They tried to
Speaker 1: retrace Tyler's steps. They knew he had been seen at
Speaker 1: several establishments around town, including the Cherry Street Bar. They
Speaker 1: talked to the manager, and the manager of Cherry Street
Speaker 1: Bar told law enforcement that Tyler was seen leaving there
Speaker 1: with his friend Evan at around ten thirty. Sandra was
Speaker 1: also trying to figure out under what circumstances Tyler got
Speaker 1: separated from his friends. She said that she asked police
Speaker 1: if they looked for Tyler's friends or their cars separately
Speaker 1: from Tyler in that surveillance footage. She said she was
Speaker 1: shocked when they asked her, why would we do that?
Speaker 1: She said she was further discouraged when she learned that
Speaker 1: police had not contacted many nearby businesses. Casey's on Northwest
Speaker 1: Main Street Now Casey's was very close to where Tyler's
Speaker 1: body was found, and the manager there was willing to
Speaker 1: give Sandra six hours of footage between ten pm on
Speaker 1: the night of the fourteenth and four am the next day,
Speaker 1: September fifteenth. This was the crucial time period when Tyler
Speaker 1: went missing. Sandra said she also saw her son on
Speaker 1: that tape. This was the last video surveillance footage of
Speaker 1: her son alive that we know of. We're going to
Speaker 1: get more into the health app in a minute, because,
Speaker 1: as it turned out, Tyler's phone had a wealth of
Speaker 1: information on it that was not pulled by the police
Speaker 1: and not related to anything involving as GPS. In fact,
Speaker 1: I think this is pretty genius and could have impacts
Speaker 1: in a lot of cases. So I'm going to talk
Speaker 1: about that in a second. Sandra was getting closer. She
Speaker 1: still didn't know what happened to her son, but the
Speaker 1: window of time when it happened was getting smaller and smaller.
Speaker 1: She reached out to other members of the community for help.
Speaker 1: This included Gee Wright with a Missing Person's Awareness network.
Speaker 1: That organization made a Facebook live. In that Facebook live,
Speaker 1: they followed the steps that Tyler took on September fourteenth,
Speaker 1: when he was last seen alive. They released the surveillance
Speaker 1: video from Casey's General Store on Maine and West Streets.
Speaker 1: That footage showed Tyler walking past there toward the direction
Speaker 1: of the canal where his body was found. Sandra said
Speaker 1: she saw something else on that final video of Tyler.
Speaker 1: She saw several cars following her son at around eleven fifty,
Speaker 1: including a police car. Sandra and her family went for
Speaker 1: a meeting on January third, twenty nineteen with the city manager,
Speaker 1: the city attorney, and the chief of police. She said, quote,
Speaker 1: they told us that they failed us and communication could
Speaker 1: have been better and our treatment could have been better.
Speaker 1: They said this had been a learning experience and that
Speaker 1: the investigation was still open and active.
Speaker 2: Quote.
Speaker 1: So Sandra found herself in the limbo in my opinion,
Speaker 1: that so many families go through because police are saying
Speaker 1: the investigation's open and active, but they've told her they
Speaker 1: believe it's an accident, So you have to question how
Speaker 1: much active investigation they're actually doing a few months later,
Speaker 1: Sandra met with an investigator. She was put in touch
Speaker 1: with a retired homicide officer, Mitchell Drake, through a mutual.
Speaker 4: Friend, a friend of mine. He contacted me and he said, listen,
Speaker 4: you know, his wife was an attorney had been contacted
Speaker 4: by a friend of Sandy's. And he goes, you know,
Speaker 4: I don't have the expertise to look into this, but
Speaker 4: from what I've looked at, it seems him like there
Speaker 4: was a really bad job done. And I said, yeah, well,
Speaker 4: you know, my whole thing was was bad things happen
Speaker 4: to good people all the time, and I was just
Speaker 4: just retired and I wasn't really too interested in taking
Speaker 4: on a project. He told me a little bit more
Speaker 4: about it, and we met with Sandy and Keith and gush.
Speaker 4: Within a half hour looking over the stuff that she had,
Speaker 4: I realized that it was a really, really bad investigation.
Speaker 4: I can't even describe how bad the investigation was. I mean,
Speaker 4: it was really really bad. And what amazed me about
Speaker 4: it is, you know, these were the parents of a kid,
Speaker 4: and she had everything. She had the autopsy photos, she had,
Speaker 4: the police report, she had everything. And I told her,
Speaker 4: I said, well, give me the information and I'll get
Speaker 4: back to you.
Speaker 5: And I spent a few days, a couple of weeks
Speaker 5: maybe going over the information she gave me, and the
Speaker 5: more I got into it, the more I realized that,
Speaker 5: you know, they really hadn't got.
Speaker 4: Any investigation to speak of into there, and there was
Speaker 4: a lot of unanswered questions. So I went back and
Speaker 4: I told him I would look into it.
Speaker 1: Mitchell did something that I think was so creative and
Speaker 1: clever and in my opinion, potentially led to a huge
Speaker 1: break in the case. He got Tyler's phone, the one
Speaker 1: that apparently the GPS didn't show a tremendous amount of data,
Speaker 1: and he went into Tyler's health app. That's the app
Speaker 1: that measures how many steps we take per day and
Speaker 1: also the length of steps, the length of the stride,
Speaker 1: which can tell you a lot about how symmetrically a
Speaker 1: person's walking, what their pace is, and lots of other things.
Speaker 1: So Mitchell Drake was literally able to trace how Tyler
Speaker 1: took his last steps. Sandra said, Mitchell Drake talked to
Speaker 1: Robbie and Evan, Tyler's friends. He was a fresh set
Speaker 1: of eyes with a balanced approach, and she felt that's
Speaker 1: what the case needed. Mitchell analyzed the health app data.
Speaker 1: He also walked the area where Tyler's body was found
Speaker 1: many times. According to Mitchell Drake's report, Tyler's body was
Speaker 1: found about nineteen hours after he stopped moving. Tyler Smith
Speaker 1: was last seen at the corner Connection Tavern. This was
Speaker 1: about eleven thirty. He was walking northbound along that road
Speaker 1: right by Casey's General Store. That's at two twenty three
Speaker 1: West Main Street in Galesburg. He was walking along Northwest Street.
Speaker 1: Then that street dead ended at an iron fence. This
Speaker 1: is about two blocks away from the place where he
Speaker 1: was last seen. So what Mitchell Drake did was basically
Speaker 1: break down Tyler's average step length. He figured out from
Speaker 1: eleven twenty to eleven fifty two, Tyler was walking at
Speaker 1: basically an average walking speed. He stopped a couple times
Speaker 1: for around one minute and forty five seconds each. This
Speaker 1: is when he was walking around lost, calling his friends,
Speaker 1: and sending snapchats. In the time period from eleven twenty
Speaker 1: to eleven fifty, so thirty minutes, Tyler walked two thousand,
Speaker 1: nine hundred and three feet. But then just before eleven
Speaker 1: fifty one, in what we now know were the last
Speaker 1: couple of minutes of his life, something changed. Something happened.
Speaker 1: At that point, Tyler started taking much larger step links,
Speaker 1: which means, according to Mitchell Drake, Tyler started running. For
Speaker 1: the last four hundred and seventy nine feet, Tyler was
Speaker 1: running at full speed. So why was he running? Did
Speaker 1: he get scared for some reason? Did he see someone
Speaker 1: or something that scared him. Tyler's mom had seen a
Speaker 1: police car pass at eleven fifty. Now, there's no suggestion
Speaker 1: that Tyler had any kind of encounter with the officer,
Speaker 1: but maybe just seeing a police car frightened him for
Speaker 1: some reason. That does seem a little bit logical because
Speaker 1: remember he was literally about to become a police officer.
Speaker 1: But who knows, maybe in his mind somewhere he didn't
Speaker 1: want to get picked up for being intoxicated. This is
Speaker 1: all pure speculation. Mitchell Drake pointed out that there was
Speaker 1: a railroad bed and railroad tracks out there, very rocky
Speaker 1: uneven tern did someone grab Tyler out in the darkness.
Speaker 1: She and Mitchell Drake asked the Illinois State Police to
Speaker 1: do some more investigation, and they were successful because in
Speaker 1: September of twenty twenty, the Illinois State Police Department of
Speaker 1: Criminal Investigations said they become involved and they were able
Speaker 1: to request and get a second autopsy. Sandra said she's
Speaker 1: not totally sure what the state of the investigation is
Speaker 1: right now, but she does believe that police are still
Speaker 1: following up on Leith. We're going to get a lot
Speaker 1: more into it next week. There's a lot more to
Speaker 1: this case, including leeds about a potential white supremacist and
Speaker 1: his friend who were allegedly bragging about beating Tyler up.
Speaker 1: They're also working to decrypt Tyler's phone, and more work
Speaker 1: is apparently being done at a cold case institute in
Speaker 1: South Carolina, and Sandra says despite her difficulties with the
Speaker 1: police in the past, she is continuing to pass along
Speaker 1: all really of an information to them. Mitchell Drake has
Speaker 1: said that in his opinion, the investigation by the police
Speaker 1: was mismanaged from the very beginning. He said police did
Speaker 1: not follow the proper investigated protocol. He said no crime
Speaker 1: scene technician was sent to the scene, and after they
Speaker 1: pulled the metadata from the photos that were sent of
Speaker 1: the autopsy, Mitchell and Sandra say they figured out that
Speaker 1: autopsy had been done in just thirty one minutes for
Speaker 1: a potential homicide, for the unexplained death of a twenty
Speaker 1: three year old young man with absolutely no health problems.
Speaker 1: Then there were the marks on Tyler's wrists and the
Speaker 1: other injuries on Tyler's face, the fact that Tyler's feet
Speaker 1: were very close to the wall of the canal. Mitchell
Speaker 1: and Sandra both feel that he just couldn't have landed
Speaker 1: that way naturally, And we've already talked about the fact
Speaker 1: that his poems were facing upward. Mitchell said, in addition
Speaker 1: to that, the authorities did not look for DNA underneath
Speaker 1: Tyler's fingernails, which he considers a huge oversight. He said
Speaker 1: that there are marks on Tyler's head, around his wrist,
Speaker 1: and on the back of his hand and on his back,
Speaker 1: many injuries that he said just are not explained. He
Speaker 1: also criticized the first autopsy. He said no X rays
Speaker 1: were taken and that Tyler's neck had not been dissected
Speaker 1: to see if there were injuries there that could have
Speaker 1: contributed to his death. According to Mitchell Drake's report, his
Speaker 1: conclusion is that the most likely explanation is that Tyler
Speaker 1: Smith was beaten by persons not yet known, and that
Speaker 1: that beating had directly led to his death. And Mitchell wrote,
Speaker 1: quote he was likely unconscious prior to his final placement
Speaker 1: in Cedar Fort Creek end quote. In July of twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: Tyler Smith's body was exhumed and a second autopsy was performed,
Speaker 1: and this time the results were completely different because the
Speaker 1: second autopsy found that Tyler had not drowned, but that
Speaker 1: he had died directly as a result of catastrophic injuries
Speaker 1: sustained in the fall.
Speaker 2: It's the worst thing in the world. It's literally the
Speaker 2: worst pain you could ever imagine. I mean, he was
Speaker 2: just he was a best friend. He just was such
Speaker 2: a good kid, you know, and he was all I
Speaker 2: had and we just were very close. And I just
Speaker 2: know that, you know, I have this gut instinct that
Speaker 2: something was wrong and there's just too many wrongs and
Speaker 2: not enough rates with it, and I just I'll never
Speaker 2: give up.
Speaker 1: So now Sandra believed her son did not accidentally drown.
Speaker 1: The question was did he fall to his death by
Speaker 1: accident or did someone chase him there? Or was he
Speaker 1: as Sandra and Mitchell Drake believe place there? Did he
Speaker 1: fall or did someone push him? And what was he
Speaker 1: running from? I'm Katherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone Murder Line.
Speaker 1: Helen Gone Murder Line is a production of School of
Speaker 1: Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated by me
Speaker 1: Catherine Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts. Special thanks for
Speaker 1: the research assistance provided by Amy Tubbs. Music contributed by
Speaker 1: Ben Sale. Executive producers of Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and
Speaker 1: LC Crowley. 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 our Helen Gone Murder Line at six
Speaker 1: seven eight seven four four, six, one four or five
Speaker 1: that's six seven eight seven four four six ' one
Speaker 1: four or five. School of Humans,