A Dark Past /// Part 1 /// 114 | Forensic Files

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[Music] this is true crime garage and this is the case of a dark [Music] past what if you thought you knew
someone's secrets what if you had learned about someone's past a very dark past and you suspected that person of
murder multiple murders but this person this evil dangerous person is not in prison he is not tucked
away Behind Bars Society is not safe from this killer and you and I are not safe
because this monster is still walking the streets maybe he's living in your neighborhood where you work and where
your kids go to school you know his Secrets what would you do would you act on what you
know what if you could not not just turn him in what if the police knew what you knew
but they had no proof would you confront the man would you confront a killer how close would you
[Music] get we're talking with Gina frenzel a licensed private investigator in the
state of Texas Gina can you take us through your typical work week oh a typical work week is is a lot of a lot
of research work everything starts at the desk and on the phone and vetting everything that we have to do but the
most common cases that that we work are what we call domestic cases you know cheating spouses a child custody
those types of things that's kind of our cash flow to keep the the business going
and then I am one of the few that Branch out and try to volunteer for missing persons families that can't afford
cases uh to be you know to hire a pi to work on cases especially missing persons
I like the cold cases the best I like the historical aspect of it but commonly I mean th those are few and far between
if if families have the money they'll come to us you know ask for the services but most families don't have a lot of
money and that's part of the reason unfortunately why they end up being cold cases so I try to choose a case or two
during the year to work on and uh reach out to a family usually it's a Texas case because I can get a lot of the the
work done you know locally but so times like right now I'm working on a missing person case out of Washington state for
a family the case that we're going to be talking about it goes backways I believe
it starts in 1962 How did you get involved in this this was actually one that kind of found
me I was on my way to a private investigation convention up in Dallas and I was traveling with a colleague of
mine and I decided to download some stuff on my Kindle to read you know because you have downtime and and during
during the conference there's downtime and also and I'm a big reader so I'm looking I kind of blame the whole thing
on Amazon I I'll be honest with you because I'm looking at my suggested reading list now God forbid somebody uh
you know pick up my Kindle and look at my reading list they would probably need therapy when they're done I read all
true crime stories the only uh fictional author that I read is John Grisham the rest of them are all true crime and and
there's no filter on anything I'm pretty uh morbid when it comes to my reading list so Amazon of course clues in on
that and at the very bottom there was this 99 cent book and it was called gone and I was
like oh 99 Cents I'm cheap too so yeah I'll take the 99 cent book you know and it's a short read I think it's like 30
pages or something this is the book Gone by Jerry Mitchell and it's about Felix veale who is a suspected serial killer
so while I was gone on this convention I read and it was just fascinating and I'm
one of these people that if something is really interesting to me I don't just read the book and be like oh that was
cool and lay the book down I get online and I start researching and I want to know the ups and downs and lefts and
rights of every little detail about it you know and this guy I don't know what it was there were
something with Annette and and which was one of the missing women that really just connected with me and so I just
started researching it well I I'm still in Dallas and I Google his name and it pops up that he is living in Kenyon Lake
well that's like an hour and a half from where I live so on my way home I just kind of cruised through the area and so
you know being a private investigator you get the privilege of you know databases proprietor database and so I
just ran his name through there and figured out where he lived and drove by and and of course he was outside at the
time it was kind of funny and he yelled at me for driving by it that was an interesting little
interaction and then I get home and about a week later I thought man this is this guy is still out there obviously
there's a question of his guilt or innocence I wonder if Jerry would need any help cuz Jerry's in
Mississippi so I just sent him an email and I offered my services I just said hey this is me this is what I do I'm
literally in the guy's backyard um if you need any you know research work done or anything like that
I'd be happy to help because I do want to help the families get closure and there was a fire on the
property that he was living on had nothing to do with Felix at all okay so on the property where Felix Vil the
suspected serial killer lives there had been a fire previously that had caused some damage and Jerry was interested in
the information about the fire and that's how I got involved and then I had zero intention of talking to Felix at
all you know I treated that just like I would any other case and your your suspect or your prime target you usually
either never talk to them or or they're the very last person in the chain of investigation that you talk to um like
at the very end of your investigation that's when you you know kind of blow your wiad so to speak and you're because
once you talk to them it's over everybody knows that you're talking to everybody else and you know the whole
thing and and if you talk to that person sometimes it Spooks them and they take off so you're in the neighborhood you're
talking with fire investigators you're almost pretending to be investigating this fire but
you have no intention of speaking with the owner of the property Felix Vil I had zero intention of talking to Felix
but being the smartass that I am I was talking to Jerry on the phone and I said well I'm just coming up you know empty
I'm not really getting anywhere of this fire thing and I said I'm just down the road from where Felix lives I'm just
going to go knock on his door and I laughed I literally laughed and Jerry comes back and said oh don't worry about
that he won't he won't talk to you he doesn't talk to anybody he doesn't even open the gate he wouldn't even talk to
law enforcement I Tred nobody he will not talk to anybody of course because he's hiding from a murder investigation
in my mind I'm like oh really you want to bet so I took it as a personal Challenge and just drove over there and
his gate was open I think if his gate wasn't open I probably would have never got never got with him you know as far
as visiting or anything like that but his gate happened to be unlocked he probably regrets that but I just walked
in and knocked on his door and then it went on from there you read a story telling you that this guy is probably a
multiple murderer you suspect him of killing at least three people now you decide to go to his property you're on
the property inside the gate and you're just going to knock on the door what what is the interaction like with with
the serial killer with with the suspected serial killer I was shaking like a leaf and I'll tell you you do
that not just because it was Felix but because it's the prime target you know it's the suspect in the case and
anybody no matter how long you've been investigating or if you've never been in that situation before you're going to be
nervous and it's it's a good thing because it keeps you alert driving over there I'm thinking to myself what am I
going to say to this guy to get him to talk to me I mean obviously if I just walk up and say hey I read a book and
read that you killed three women possibly obviously he's not going to talk to me so I needed a story I needed
a cover story so I used the fire on the property and said that I was investigating the fire and technically
it wasn't a total lie but you know it it morphed from there and I had my camera with me because I was using it for
another uh case that I was working so I just got out with my camera bag and told
them I said hey the insurance company is investigating this fire even though it happened a few years ago they've
reopened the investigation they want me to come out and take pictures CU there's
this big concrete slab where this house burned down and there's still Scorch marks on the slab so and then a burnt
tree you know and just kind of weird stuff so I said they wanted me to just kind of photograph everything so it was
about a 20 minute interaction and it was was rainy and cold and and he was kind of put off in
the beginning you know he didn't want to mess with it and rightfully so I mean if
somebody came to my house I would probably wouldn't want to mess with it either you know but he eventually about
five or 10 minutes into the conversation kind of let down his guard a little bit
and we were walking around and I'm snapping all these random useless photos he said something during that
first 20 minutes that he he spoke about a girlfriend not one of the three women but a girlfriend that actually I met
later on that was I guess they had a falling out obviously and and he had said something
along the lines of a personal response nothing significant but when I left there I thought to myself that he he let
down his guard enough to allow me to come back for a second time to see if I can get him to really talk to me and and
because the whole the whole first part of the conversation he was just like you know the attitude of take your pictures
and get off my property but as soon as we started getting chatty and he kind of let his guard down I knew I could go
back at least one more time during this first interaction with Felix were you recording your
conversations yeah I was recording the first one um I was wearing the sundress cuz it was late March early April and it
was it started out as a hot day it turned chilly in that evening but uh so I wasn't dressed prepared to go and talk
to him but it was a sometimes in the industry you have to dress a certain way for certain situations and another case
that I was working on there was a gentleman that I needed to talk to and the only way I knew he was going
to talk to me is if I showed a little cleavage for lack of a better way of putting it and so I dressed that way
well if I would have hindsight I would have never dressed that way going to talk to Felix in the first place however
it probably helped but the problem with that is usually I will put the recorder that I used I would put down in my bra
and I didn't have one on that day and I'm like ah crap you know what am I going to do I got to record this this
could be the only conversation I ever have with this man it has to be recorded and I'm wearing and so my next option
you usually is my boot well I wasn't wearing boots I was wearing sandals so it promptly went down into the front of
my panties and sat there the whole time while I was walking around with them picked it up great you know I was that's
the first time I'd ever used that spot to hide my recorder but it worked I was a little worried and I thought okay if I
sit down you know because it's just a little Olympus digital recorder and I thought if I sit down it could very well
push a button I've had that happen before and and it stops it and it could mess up the recording you know there's
all kinds of things that could happen but in that first interaction I didn't sit down I didn't have a reason to sit
down so I was um grateful for that it goes better than you had expected better than planned now you're back in your car
you're driving away you probably start to feel some that you're safe again you can shake off the nervousness but now
it's time to call Jerry the author of Gone and let him know that that you just you just spoke to Felix and not only
that but Felix went into this personal information and now Jerry just kind of brushes this off but you realize the
importance of this because Felix has left the door open for another visit I said I'm going to try to go back and he
was like you're crazy and I was like yeah I am and nice to meet you you know I mean he was new so he didn't know and
uh I said I'm going to try to go back and see what he does another day so then I go home and your adrenaline is just
you know when you're I've never jumped out of an airplane I never would I'd rather sit in a shed with a Ser a serial
killer than jump out of an airplane I'll be real honest with you but those people
that jump out of airplanes you know that that do that for the adrenaline rush it's the same type of feeling I can
imagine and but then when when it comes down you just crash you know I slept it off like literally 10 hours and I never
sleep that long and when I got up the next day I called Jerry and I was like okay I've got to figure out a plan and
he said how are you going to go back you you have no reason to go back what are you going to tell them I said I'm going
to tell them that my pictures were [ __ ] and I need to take better pictures You'
developed a plan to get back there and talk to Felix again but now speaking with a suspected multiple murderer once
is is nerve-wracking but to go back there a second time is just crazy you know I didn't I didn't know what I was
going to be up against so you prepare your body your physical body like you're going to be on surveillance for the
whole night which you know you load up on protein you stop drinking water you know so you don't have to go to the
bathroom you know the whole thing and which was a good move on my end because he didn't have a bathroom and um I told
Jerry it's about you know 2 o'clock in the afternoon or something I said okay I'm going in I'll just leave me be I'll
talk to you when I'm done I was in there for 6 hours talking to him that second time 6 hours it was crazy
so now you're in Felix's rundown house it's like a storage shed almost and Felix he's elderly at this point correct
yeah he was I think 73 72 at the time yeah but on your first visit you didn't go into his home I stepped in about one
foot because he asked me to come in so he could put on a different shoes and a jacket but I didn't get a good look and
it's a storage shed it's actually a storage shed that he lives in like a two room storage shed it was wasn't very big
at all probably the whole thing was probably 500 square fet you know guy sounds like he lives like the captain I
tell you the bo Factor was on pegged to 10 I mean the guy had serious Bo it was horrible it was gagging but he's
very he's very neat and clean in a sense his body was not clean but his stuff was
very well I mean almost to the point of OCD you know very well organized and clean and everything had its own little
place and compartmentalized it was very interesting so not a home at all this is
not a house at all this is a storage shed does he have electricity does he have running water no he had water and
electricity there so you have like this concrete slab where This Old House was there's nothing there anymore it's I
don't know a half an acre and then right behind it was a storage shed well the storage shed still existed so he
converted that into a glorified bedroom and there was electricity to the storage
shed but of course there's no running water so he would just go to the bathroom in the yard that's easy enough
if you're doing a number one but what about a number two pretty sure he would just dig a hole and take a crap in the
yard I'm not I'm not kidding um he he was like that you know and so but while I was there in that six hours he offered
me wine and I'd take it I mean you have to in those situations and I didn't want
to but I I did and and I thought to myself okay milk this because a you don't want to obviously get you know
drunk or anything and two you don't want to have to go to the bathroom and at one
point he said I'm going to step out and go to the bathroom and I said okay and he said do you need to go and I was like
no I'm good and he said well I can help you with that if you need to and I'm thinking to myself no you can't but
thanks for the offer you know if I would have had to have gone I still would have
done it anyway you know your options or pee your pants or go squat in the yard and have a serial killer watch you pee
whatever I'm going to go squat in the yard well you're nervous on that first visit but during the second visit I mean
are you scared at all because now you're inside the guy's home I was I don't know
if I would say terrified but I was I was anxious and nervous and a little scared
because it the main thing was when you sit in that storage shed at the time there was only one way in and
one way out and that was that one door and he was in between me and that door and so there are double doors that open
but they were blocked with boxes and crates and things like that you know you think that's of course it's in my nature
when I walk into a building I always look at this Escape Route you know how do how am I going to get out of here the
fastest way possible and so of course that's running through my mind the whole time and then I realized I mean he's
he's back in the day he could easily kick anybody's ass I'm sure he worked out a lot he he tries to eat healthy and
he was probably pretty strong however I probably outweigh him by about 75 pounds
you know I'm a big girl so I thought to myself okay this guy's 73 and yeah he's he still works out and he's still eating
healthy in the whole thing but I could probably take him enough to get out of the building if I needed to yeah cuz
this guy could just get extremely violent very quickly I mean you have to watch his mannerism try to pick up on on
what he's doing on his character what read into him is this guy just some Rampage you know if I said the wrong
thing he's just going to snap and you know try to kill me right there or what's what's the situation so that's
always in the back of your mind but then about halfway through that first long meeting that six-h hour meeting um I
just was pissed off and your demeanor changes a little well what did he do to get you pissed off you know I was aggrav
ated because he wasn't saying what I wanted him to say he was he just kept going on about this minutia
and but you're when you're undercover you're in a position to where you can't just be like hey dude shut up and get to
the point you know you can't do that especially with Felix of all people you cannot do that cuz he'll shut down and
you're done and that's it and I wanted to leave that door wide open because we didn't know how big our window was going
what was some characteristics that you were picking up from him I was just like this guy is the most narcissistic
[ __ ] I've ever met in my entire life and on top of that he's used what he perceives as his Superior mental state
of everybody as the way he views himself to take the lives of these women and that just it just pissed me off you know
so my demeanor changed a bit I had to keep it intact but my demeanor changed a bit about halfway through and then from
then forward it was just like I'm on a mission and this son of a [ __ ] is going
to talk to me whether he wants to or not you know type of attitude yeah because after all of these years we're talking
about a guy that was married twice he's intimately involved with another woman we have this situation where the first
wife is found dead and the other two are just simply missing you know he gave me
great detail about his relationship with Annette pretty good detail about his relationship with Sharon he never really
talked about Mary at all um just very very briefly you know in this and all of like 90% of all this information came in
that 6- hour time time frame that that that meeting but he never would say my lover Annette my wife Annette he never
would say that he would just say this girl you know the girl I met I mean he gave me detail from how they met all the
way to just kind of fizzled out and and and even though he's talking about his past relationships he's not telling you
what you need to know what happened to these women at some point during that conversation I think okay this is my
this is where I'm going to get my Smoking Gun how do I you know ask him questions without grilling him so to
speak plus I have to be oblivious to all this information he can't know that I know everything already he's telling me
the last thing you can say to a man like this is well what happened to her because that projects a a an accusatory
tone towards him I could say it to you all day long you'd be like well what happened to her was
XYZ not with him what do you mean what happened to her are you saying I did something to her that's how he would
react and now you're walking a very fine line because you can't ask him specific
questions very direct questions without him shutting down you still need information and all he's willing to say
is that these relationships well they just fizzled out I said well do you ever see her again this was the weirdest this
is the single most strangest thing that has ever happened to me in my entire life ever is this moment when I said to
him oh that's sad it sounds like you really you know had a deep love for her do you ever see her anymore and I knew
damn good and well he didn't CU you know he murdered her there's no doubt in my mind
but his you know how they talk about oh so and so's eyes just turned black and their demeanor just changed in an
instant the whole thing and I always thought to myself okay whatever you know I'm I'm very skeptical I don't trust
anybody and I'm just like whatever whatever I saw that happen in that very moment and that was the only time that I
was truly for the lack of a better term terrified in his presence cuz he was he was standing up for whatever reason I
can't remember and I was sitting down so I'm immediately more vulnerable in the physical ratio and I said oh I I thought
to myself I'm going to provoke him and get him to talk about the end of their relationship because like I said he just
kind of fizzled oh we just went our separate ways okay what a great love story that is and you know all the
detail I had to hear Do you ever see her anymore and his he turned to me and mind
you he's like four feet away from me he turns to me and he steps towards me when
he turned his eyes were black and he's got blue eyes you seen the pictures he's got blue eyes his eyes
were black and he took a step towards me and he was just no no I don't see her anymore and he immediately started
talking about something else and it made me nervous to where I was almost physically shaking I was like oh my God
this is this is the part where I die all right I don't have time to text I'm going to die and here we
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[Music] that we are talking with Gina frenzel a private investigator in the state of
Texas who is investigating the suspected serial killer of Felix Vil and Gina who
do you believe is his suspect Ed victims okay uh in technical terms I think his first victim is Mary Horton Veil which
would be his first wife and basically his story Felix's story is that they were out on the boat and he
had a stump they're Trotline fishing you know at night like at dusk and he hits a
stump and she falls in the water and he Dives down to find her he can't find her
and you know her body's found what three days later but I think what happened based
off of I base this information off of what what he's told me what other people have
said that you know had firsthand information from Felix and then things that I've seen and read be it in his
journals or you know letters that he had kept and you know just all the pieces of
the puzzle I think what happened was that they went he took her out on the boat made her go out on the boat with
him she didn't she was terrified of water at night and um took her out there strangled her HIIT her in the head I
think he might have hit her in the head first with one of the ores put her into the boat drug her in and put her into
the boat drove out to where he dumped her body which was a couple miles down the river put her in the water
and turn around left and if you look at the pictures of her body coming out um I
mean all of that there's so much that indicates that you know she's got a head a head wound and her there's oil and
stuff on her on on the front part of her body her her panties are actually pulled
out of the back of her pants and that to me it just indicates you know I'm I'm moving somebody across and the docks
that he the Shell Beach um boat docks where he kept his boat so many it was dark there were no there was no
NightLight there or anything like this and I've I've talked to several people that grew up in the area and knew the
docks well and you know if your boat motor was broken or whatever you just set them there on the dock and you'd
work on it and there was oil and all kinds of things you know just on the dock so it and it was clear that has
some kind of oily substance all over her the front of her clothes so also the scarf around her neck um back in the day
of course the ladies wore the scarf and they would wear it over their hair to keep their hair you know from blowing in
the wind but it was shoved three or 4 Ines 4 Ines down into her throat so you don't get that from accidentally
drowning but what would be Felix's motivation for killing his wife she you know they just had had a baby he was
just a few months old and she thought she might have been pregnant again she was not turns out she was not she had uh
female problems that caused some issues that would mimic her being pregnant and Felix is documented telling
someone that he didn't want to have the first kid much less the second kid and you I think his words were I fix that
[ __ ] to where she'll never have another kid you know that kind of thing you had
mentioned to me that that Felix had some mommy issues what did you mean about his
his family and his mommy issues he in in my undercover work with him he claims now keep in mind out of that six hours
of just dredging on about everything you know he's very Transcendental Meditation
type of product of the 60s you know just your stereotypical person like that well so out of that six
hours probably four of it is him talking about all this just crap that just but you have to endure it and during the
course of that he's talking about he claims to have you know he he asked me what the earliest memories I have and
you know I said I don't know three or four years old I can't remember and he claims to have memories of him in the
womb he says that he remembers as a newborn breastfeeding and he talks about he's fascinated with breastfeeding and
even through his journals it's just weird he talks about breastfeeding on his mom and playing with her nipples to
the point of stimulating her sexually and it's just it's just weird but then you have
of course there's there's the all the siblings and he's the second son or the I'm sorry he's the first son and his
brother I can't remember the age difference but he's got his younger brother Ronnie and they're close you
know they stay close but apparently Felix was very very close to his mother in a bizarre way you know just in a
weird way unnatural and of course he touched on that you know with me what I just explained to you but then
throughout his adult life you you know it was I I got the impression that his mother was oh Felix can do no wrong you
know Felix is he will he is the perfect child he is whatever he does wrong Mommy's going to cover up for him too or
turn a blind eye so to speak now I'm not saying that he she knew that he did something
and she hid the truth I that I don't think that was the case I think what it was is she probably thought okay he's
done done something poorly and or you know he's done something dece deceiving and so we're just going to act
like it didn't happen and we're not going to bring it up and we're not going to talk about it of course you have to
attribute some of that to the generation too but all these years of course we didn't learn this until like a year
later but all these years he has all these journals and the man writes down every freaking thing he's done
everything I'm not kidding you he writes down everything but the journal start January 1st of 1985 you know andette
disappeared in 1984 so where are the rest of the journals well then later we learned that he kept them in the Attic
of his mom's house well you can't tell me his mom didn't obviously she knew he kept
things up there and there was probably a pretty strong chance that she might have
read a journal or two throughout the years who knows but he he led such a nomadic lifestyle that his prize
possessions that he didn't have with him always stayed at his parents' house what
do you know and think about his second victim was was she a wife or a girlfriend Sharon was his second victim
and she Sharon Hensley and she was a girlfriend she's a longtime term girlfriend but according to Felix she
took off in a boat failed away with a couple at one point in a letter he wrote to her mom
mom she took off with John and Vanessa and then at another point he wrote in something else
to somebody else that he took off with uh another another name you know a couple but he took off with another name
and nothing is consistent except the fact that she was in a boat and she took off with this couple he claimed that
they both did pornography films I don't know that he obviously could have performed in that kind of setting
however I think she probably did she was a stripper and I think that evolved into
maybe one or two uh pornography films and I think what happened was sometime at some point in
1973 they go to the Florida and to do pornography I mean he told me that's what they did they went over there to do
that and I think there was a different man I think Vanessa is actually Sharon when he refers to Vanessa in these
letters I think Vanessa is actually Sharon and this guy John I think is probably somebody that she either was in
the pornography industry with or met somewhere along the way and in relation to that and I think his jealousy took
over because Mary obviously he offed her because he didn't he didn't want the kid
responsibility and there was a life insurance policy that he was was able to collect on partially collect on with
Sharon there was no fiary gain for her her to be dead and Felix is very possessive and
very jealous and very controlling I think what happened was John whoever this John guy is and Vanessa being
Sharon started an intimate relationship and it was probably okay at the beginning but then he gets insanely
jealous and you're not going to be if you're not going to be with me then you're not going to be with anybody I
think he rented a boat I think he drove off the coast of the keys and killed them both dumped them in the ocean and
came back that's what I think honestly happened to her um her body will never ever ever be found I think she and I
think there is potentially a male victim associated with her so Felix's first wife is found
dead he claims she drowned in the river and but her body's found 3 days later and it's obvious that it's s suspicious
circumstances then he has this other relationship with a girlfriend and the mother is looking for the girlfriend
because she disappears he claims that she took off with another couple they left out in the middle of the ocean but
Felix doesn't stop with the relationships there does he he he he has another suspected victim yes his third
victim was a wife a nette cerville she was 15 when they met and they they dated and traveled
around they met at a garage sell in Houston Texas of all places they date for a while he convinces Mary to sign
off paperwork so she can marry him claiming that we're driving we're traveling around and I and and I think
Annette even said in a letter to her mom at one stage you know if we have to get
married because he's traveling with a minor and we love each other just let us get married and and Mary anette's mother
says at that point she said you know if I don't allow her to get married then I'm probably never going to
see her again it was it it got to one of those situations so she said okay y'all
get married they get married F Felix is a pedophile plain and simple I have zero
doubt based off of all the information that I have gathered during the course of my investigation Felix is a pedophile
so that partially to me in my mind explains why he would be attracted to a 15-year-old girl anyway she was not you
know today you look at 15-year-old girls and you're like what are they what are they putting in their milk you know
they're developed and they're like got the ass and the boobs and you're you're thinking you're not 15 Anette was not
like that she was very thin frame she did not have big breast you know um almost a boyish type of
figure and I think Felix preferred little boys over little girls in his pedophilia well so to me
and my mind that explains partially explains the attraction to Annette but from the very beginning he knew about
Annette getting an inheritance when she was 18 um her father was killed in a car
crash in Mexico and she was his only child and her mom and dad were divorced but he had a life insurance policy that
paid to a net that she would get when she was 18 and again Felix Felix never really held
down a job hardly ever so with the First with his first wife we see the motive of
not wanting to have the child but there's also the financial gain of the insurance policy collecting a portion of
that we later learned that that money that he received he used zero doar of that to pay for his own wife's funeral
he didn't pay for her funeral at all now we have the situation where he puts himself in a relationship with a young
girl that he believes is going to receive money when she turns 18 and so he can he can foresee the financial gain
here Anette all always finan gain he knew from the very beginning she was going to get this money
and then he just planned his course you know he never gave up they they met each
other they separated you know she was in Oklahoma he goes back he goes to Oklahoma to find her her mom says no
she's not there he tracked her down she was over in Bernie of all places which is between here and Kenya Lake between
where I am and Kenyan Lake the little community and she was at this private school there he tracks her down he was
after her her money the entire time and when she disappeared I think there was about4 or
$50,000 that was unaccounted for and there's no doubt it ended up in his pocket so they get married they travel
around and when she turns I mean it's just like clockwork when she turns 18 they convince her mom her mom had
bought this house with a back apartment a garage apartment so that they could fix it up and have
income a residual income while they were living off in Oklahoma well he convinces Annette to convince
her mom to sign the house completely over to Annette and her mom did her mom Mary said that it it was all but a
threat it was basically turn it over or else type of thing and she was very intimidated
by the whole situation and it all was coming from Felix so she does she signs it over to Annette because it the money
if I understand right the the money some of the money used to buy the house was from anette's inheritance from her dad's
life insurance policy and so that was the idea was Mary said look you know she's young she's she's very
artistic uh you know the whole starving artist mentality I want to set her up in
a situ situation to where she can have some residual income and still be free to explore her artistic side and not
have to worry about you know Financial issues so it was a smart move in the onset so she she signs it over to
Annette and then just within two or three months later Annette signs it over completely 100% to Felix and then two
months later Anette disappears so yeah I mean come on yeah where is she what is his
explanation for where she's gone what does what is his story and his story is so inconsistent like completely
inconsistent with her he said that she took off on a Grayhound bus in St Louis her off there so she could go pursue
this boyfriend in Mexico and then then another story was that he put they were in St Louis camping they were on this
you know road trip camping and uh she met two people at the bus station and she decided she just wanted to take off
with them she didn't want to be married to him anymore and he's like fine here you go here's your here's your money and
your your stuff you hit the road um he claims that she signed the house over to him as a love offering what was his
words for being um a father figure and a lover and a teacher you know just very everything was very much I'm so great
she loved me so much because I'm so awesome she gave me this house you know that kind of
mentality and then he was I so those are his stories on her that she she just took off and and they made the agreement
and that was one of the things he told me but he said it numerous times over the years that they agreed to see where
each other were 10 years later and meet up and say hey and have a cup of coffee type of deal well that's what prompted
me in in my meetings with him was to say oh have yall seen each other you know and that's when he you of course turned
black what do you think the real story is in reality the day or the week that he said she took off on the
bus and that was the last time anybody saw her two weeks later approximately two weeks later they they being Felix
and Annette were down in Louisiana in Sulfur Louisiana or Lake Charles area at the county fair with his family and they
testified to that and so of course that story doesn't hold water then what happened oh I don't know I just have my
dates wrong well what happened was they go down there to stay with his family and they go down there to stay with his
family and go to this County Fair and the whole thing and then they say hey we're going to take off and go camping
for a day or two and he's they're gone for three days and he comes back by himself and his niece I think it's his
niece one of the family members said that he was acting weird and he was eating meat and Felix was not a big meat
eater now not to say he was 100% I never eat meat no he would eat meat but he wasn't like you know give me a steak
every day I'm a happy girl that's not how he was he would selectively eat meat very very few times
in his life okay they said that he came back and he was acting strange and he was eating meat and just just bizarre
just bizarre I think what happened was yeah they went camping I think you know she
was already 18 it was time for him to move on he was tired of her he tired of her and he killed her and as morbid as a
sound my gut tells me I can't explain it I have no proof of this whatsoever my gut tells me he chopped her up he threw
her in a bayou somewhere where he knew there were alligators he knew the area very well he lived there when he was
married to Mary his first wife and her body will never be found again I think that's what happened to Mar I mean
Annette I think that's what happened to Anette so what happens when he comes back he comes back and a few weeks
later anette's mother Mary Hey where's Annette where's Annette where's Annette and he's oh she he
starts spinning off the story that she took off on the bus and that's when she immediately missing person and Report
according to the police and what he's saying is not right Mary never Mary craer never never once
thought her daughter took off from the very beginning like within weeks of her disappearance he she always said Felix
killed her and disposed of her and I know he did and he's lying about it and she's always been just diligent about
you know never giving up and and of course that's what brought it took 50 years but it got us to this stage now
but there were some signs you know there were some red flags that went up things
that her mother had seen regarding the turmoil in their relationship Annette during the time they were
married Felix choked her and beat her up and she left him and she comes back to live with her mom and she had gotten
pregnant and he made her have an abortion he didn't want kids and then she he he he beat her up chokes her you
know not choked her out obviously they they had a fight she comes back and stays with her mom in Oklahoma and then
he comes up there to come get her and she reluctantly goes back with him uh I think her term was Felix was the
smartest man I've ever known and you know it's the Love of All loves you know that kind of thing so that being said um
there was there was um the domestic violence in that relationship and after the fact it wasn't until probably a year
maybe two years later later after his arrest after Felix's arrest that we found women in fact right up until the trial
we were getting tips and we talked to all these people we found several women that that same thing he beat me up he
slapped me one woman said she he was choking her in the shower and her brother came in and saved her you know
um and this was all from from The Disappearance of no it was right it it went anywhere
from 1968 all the way up to like 1980 you know in that time frame and a lot of it in California but but the the
interesting thing about it is f forward to the house in Oklahoma that he has owned up until 2013 literally has owned
all these years and used it as a rental and there's this nice couple living there a young
couple and all of a sudden there's this room up in the attic and it's always locked padlocked and it's Felix's room
I'm the landlord that's where I keep my tools and whatever just don't mess with my stuff but this couple um had a free
range of everything else well they decide they're going to buy the house from him and this is interesting enough
this is all taking place it's all coming out at the same time I'm undercover with
with him before he gets arrested it's all happening at the same time and of course I was unaware of it at the time
but when you look back at the Timeline you see it so Felix wants to owner finan this house for this couple but what's in
the room what's in the secret Felix room and he said hey I'm going to come up and
I'm going to clean out that room and then you know I'll unlock it and the house is yours so all the paperwork's
done everything's done he goes up he gets his stuff he leaves and a few weeks later the new owners of this house say
hey we're going to go up in that room and clean out cuz he left some stuff behind back in an old suitcase
like from the 70s I mean it's old old softsided suitcase shoved up inside the suitcase
is a is a bag and inside that bag is a net uh clothing it's her belongings and it's all shoved in the suitcase and all
shoved way back up in like tucked in the corner of the eve of the house and they
find it and they immediately call the police on it and for the police to come and get it well at this
point I I can't remember if he'd been arrested yet or not but they had heard the story about him and they're like
whoa this is weird then when they see this a immediate red flag and the police come and get it well what is in this bag
I'll tell you it's it's a weekend bag first and foremost the most red flag of the whole bag is her birth control her
birth control is in the bag okay I don't don't care who you are if you're taking
off if you're whatever stage of life you're in as a woman if you were on birth control because you're not going
to have a kid and you're taking off you might leave your shoes behind you're taking your birth control I'm going to
tell you that right now so her birth controls in there and there were three different forms of birth control okay
there was a pill a sponge and a spermicide this girl was serious about not getting pregnant and from what I
understand the abortion rightfully so was probably one of the most horrible experiences you know at that stage in
her life so she didn't want to go through that again and she knew Felix didn't want kids so she wasn't going to
take the chance of getting pregnant so it's birth control a swimming suit a change of clothing and like a hat a pair
of sandals I think I'm not sure some undergarments but if I look at it as a female and I'm looking at that bag I say
that is a weekend bag so my assumption on that is that that was the bag that she had
while they were down in Louisiana during the last time she was seen and he gets back home after he
kills her gets rid of her body goes back to his family's home stays there a night
or two then goes back home to Oklahoma cleaning out the car and he's like oh [ __ ] I got her bag I'm going to
shove it up here in the corner and I'll take care of it later and he never did and he to literally he totally forgot
about it because when he went up there he kept it padlocked this all these years so when 30 years 40 years when he
goes up there to get his stuff for the final time to turn the house completely over to the new owners he forgets about
that back and they find [Music] it all right did you guys miss me did you miss me I'm still here I'm still
here lot of information there Captain lot of stuff covered regarding this Felix character and his past
relationships and and talk about a creep factor I mean to be stuck in a shack with this guy that you believe has
killed multiple women and he's he's the thing between you and Freedom the door mhm and she feels Gina feels like he
wants some kind of friendship or relationship with her and that's why he's allowed her in his home allowed her
himself to open up and speak with her and talk with her about his past M and yet she she would fall right into his
victimology at that sense and if he were to slip or say the wrong thing or if she
were to act out of turn and ask the wrong question right well it could be lights out for Gina yeah like you said
either or I mean he could say something that he didn't want to say and now uh she has to die because of that M all
right a lot more to dive into in part two of a dark past and for everything true crime garage make sure you go to
the website True Crime garage.com don't forget we have our pint glasses on there
we have T-shirts available old episodes bonus episodes available check those out
as well I guess uh we'll see you tomorrow yeah that's it for today we'll see you back in the garage tomorrow
until then be good be kind and don't litter [Applause] you can start your day off right when
you find a professional on Angie to get your plumbing right first connect with skilled professionals to
get all your home projects done well visit angie.com you can do this when you Angie that

A Dark Past /// Part 1 /// 114

Part 1 of 2

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What if somehow you learned about someone's past? You know the secrets of a monster. What would you do? One murdered woman and two missing women all had one thing in common, they were married or had an intimate relationship with the same man. Tonight we chat with Private Investigator, Gina Frenzel. She got involved in the investigation of a serial killer but to do so she had to sit down with the monster.

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Brief Summary

Private investigator Gina Frenzel discusses her investigation of suspected serial killer Felix Vail and his victims' mysterious disappearances.

Key points

The Dark Past. What if you learned about someone's dark past and suspected them of murder?
Confronting a Killer. A private investigator shares her nerve-wracking encounter with a suspected serial killer.
Inside the Killer's Home. The investigator shares her anxiety during her first visit to the suspect's home.
The Moment of Terror. A chilling moment occurs when the investigator provokes the suspect about his past relationships.
Unraveling Felix's Past. The investigator discusses Felix's troubling history and relationships with his victims.
The Inheritance Scheme. Felix's attraction to Annette was tied to her inheritance, revealing a sinister motive.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Society is not safe from this killer.

5:00WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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