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