Austin Colson ////// 578 | Forensic Files

[Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] welcome to true crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for
listening i'm your host nick and with me as always is a man who just tattooed the
initials of kim kardashian's children right on his bare body ladies and gentlemen here is the very stylish and
topical captain yeah they call me captain pete it's good to be seen and good to see you thanks for listening
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there you go thank you and that's enough of the business all right everybody gather
round grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime i just want to know where he is if he's
safe or not because that's the hardest segment it's not knowing diana mckinney hasn't
heard from her son for two weeks there's a flyer on the door of her west lebanon
apartment like dozens of others posted in towns along the new hampshire and vermont border hoping to find 19 year
old austin colson i can't sleep or eat or anything because i'm so worried because i don't know
it's just killing me inside police say on january 11 coulson left an apartment he shared with his girlfriend in
royalton vermont authorities say coulson may have gone to collect scrap metal a partially filled trailer it's believed
he was using was found in nearby sharon to date we have had no sightings or contacts with him obviously
his family is very very concerned this is is described to us as very unlike him captain sinclair says colson's cell
phone has been turned off since 11 o'clock on the day he disappeared and while they don't suspect foul play at
this point they have received no credible leads to his whereabouts his mother hopes someone can help the family
get answers it kills me inside because i know my son he wouldn't just get up and disappear with no
evidence of anything it's like he just vanished it's hard for me not knowing what happened or where he is if he's
safe or if he's not [Music] a couple of months ago i received the following email
hi nick i've listened to you guys for a few years now i live in a small area in vermont that is close to new hampshire
we had a horrendous murder that happened a few years ago and still to this day there has been no conviction
this needs attention brought back to it this is a very small town with not a whole lot going on
tricia haynes was the last murder that was left by the wayside and i don't want that to happen again
this young man was murdered and found in the wall of a barn i would really like this case brought to
light the victim was a young man and the perpetrator is a nasty and continued offender of all kinds of
crimes who continues to get away with this murder and it sickens so many of us i would love for the two of you
to tell this story please it might help bring the process of a conviction back and that is what led us to this week's
true crime story it's a case where we have a young man trying to better his life
sure he makes mistakes and sure he might take some shortcuts but he is still growing and still
learning learning to make it out on his own one way or another he's a man in some ways in other ways
he's still just a kid so in those years sure mistakes can happen all of the time
but 99 of the time those mistakes are not fatal but in this case he trusted someone he should not have
and then he paid for it with his life we are here to tell you that someone our victim knew
is responsible for his murder yet four years later that man continues to evade a conviction
will he ever face murder charges and will we ever find justice for this young man
this is true crime garage and this is the case of austin coulson [Music] on thursday january 11 2018
katie grizzofe said goodbye to her 19 year old boyfriend austin coulson when he left their apartment located at 224
rainbow street in south royalton vermont this was around five in the morning previously austin had asked to borrow
his father's trailer so he could pick up some loads of scrap metal and get them to a dealer
so that was the plan for the day pick up and haul some loads of scrap metal get paid and return the trailer as soon as
possible austin will have some help with the labor as well a buddy of his name rich whitcomb
will be working with him so the two austin and rich were going to go pick up the trailer that morning
and return it at the end of the day katie his girlfriend was texting austin throughout the day but at some point
austin stopped replying to her text then later katie's text to austin started not going through at all
katie wasn't too worried because in vermont there are lots of dead cell service areas sometimes you have to
drive up a mountain to get some service and calls can get dropped with no warning so she really didn't start to
worry until much later yeah and the type of work that austin is doing there's no set in time so she's not
gonna get worried because his end time of work could vary every single day now he's supposed to pick up this
trailer from his father's house this is actually a very typical situation austin would pick up the trailer from
his father's house take the scrap metal get money for the scrap metal and then return the trailer at some point in the
day before two o'clock around i'm guessing 145 or so is when austin's father sees
that his trailer is gone but again no big deal because he'll bring it back later that day yeah no big deal because
the trailer is supposed to be gone right arrangements were already made so his father is his name is dana
and it's yes right around 1 45 p.m that he notices that one his trailer is gone as austin said it would be but also he
notices that austin's vehicle was parked there at his property so dana knew that
austin and whoever was helping him that day would have hooked the trailer up to someone else's vehicle now
that night when dana gets back home the second time and the trailer was still gone and
austin's car is still there right where his son had left it early that morning this seems like something that he might
be concerned about but austin's father dana would actually say that at first he wasn't concerned he still wasn't
concerned he assumed that they were just running late or had run into some type of unpredictable delay
and that eventually the trailer would be returned that night or maybe even the following
morning but katie was a completely different story she was really starting to worry about austin
because austin wasn't answering his text and by now it was late and as we said at
some point she believed the texts weren't even going through to him and he's still not responding at a later
time so she starts to drive around looking for austin she continues to call him and
text him but there's no response from her boyfriend his phone was off as far as she knew
by 4 am so this would be nearly 24 hours since she last seen austin she at this point is hysterical and not
knowing what else to do she drove over to her mother's house her name is laurie and the two of them
together started making phone calls katie texted diana this is austin's mom who lived in new hampshire
praying that she would have heard from her son but she hadn't dianna called her ex-husband dana
waking him up and same story there as well captain no he hadn't seen or heard from austin as well
yes his car was still at his house and now is when we all start to believe that something was terribly wrong
austin's mother is going to notify the police that he is missing yes she starts by calling the new hampshire state
police remember she lives in new hampshire austin lives in vermont so she's told to call the police in vermont
where austin lived and had vanished from she does so and the police took down a report
initial media reports say only that foul play was not suspected but police were concerned for austin's welfare but
deanna emphasized that austin had never before left and remained out of touch for more than a day with his family and
especially with his girlfriend they were extremely close so she was concerned and later she admitted on a segment of
channel 5 news that austin's disappearance might have something to do with drugs
now we have his father dana that said in an interview that the family went over to this guy's home
who was this guy well we've heard this name before already richard whitcomb's house
they wanted to see if they could find austin remember it was no mystery who austin was working with on the day that
he did not come home so we have austin who's missing when working with richard whitcomb we also
have this trailer that is still missing it's never been returned to austin's father at this point whitcomb was the
man with whom austin told his family he would be scrapping with on the day that he went missing
yeah richard was somebody that would help him with different jobs but it's not out of the realm of
possibility that you wake up hey we're going scrapping today and richard says hey i can't make it well and austin
worked for himself and at times would work with different people he didn't work with richard whitcomb daily this
was specific to that day's task now keep in mind though another key factor here is not only has he worked with richard
in the past and told people that he would be working with richard on that day dana quickly points out that
he knew that richard's vehicle was capable of towing his trailer austin's car was not capable of pulling the
trailer and whitcomb was someone austin worked with and hung out with regularly according to katie his girlfriend that's
a great point that you bring up and i think that's very important for people to understand
austin's vehicle could not tow this trailer austin had to be driving somebody else's car or somebody had to
be driving a vehicle that was capable of moving this trailer because we know the
trailer's not there right and when they go when the family goes to speak with richard whitcomb
he says well no in fact i hadn't seen austin that thursday after all i know he told
you that we were going to be working together but i didn't see him one and two i have no idea
who had towed the trailer but he says he himself was about 100 miles away in manchester
new hampshire on that same day so not only did he not help austin he was busy and he was out of town doing other
things for about the entirety of the day right an alert on the vermont state police facebook page said that austin
coulson was missing and he was five foot eight inches tall 135 pounds with brown
hair and brown eyes said that he was last seen wearing blue jeans boots and a hooded camo jacket with a white ball cap
with black lettering with the words a and c painting on it after that visit from the family rich
whitcomb's wife sarah started posting on the state police facebook page about austin's disappearance saying she was
hoping he would be found safe and soon this makes this case a little more difficult because
austin working for himself you don't have this definitive list of people that austin could have been
working with but let's dive into his background so we know a little bit more about who austin is austin coulson was a
vermont native born to mom diana and dad dana who were divorced dana lived just a few miles away and
dianna lived in nearby new hampshire austin also had an older brother and a younger sister
he went to hartford high school where he played basketball soccer and baseball but he never graduated in the winter of
2018 he was trying to get his life on track and at this point he's actually running his own
and at this point he's actually running his own painting business that's the a and c painting
that he started in 2017 things had gone well initially but business took a downturn in the winter
time so austin and katie had to take on odd jobs to make ends meet hauling scrap metal was one of the jobs
that he regularly took on austin also made homemade soaps and candles that he sold at farmers markets
and even in local retail stores and he was working to get his ged in 2018 before he went missing
austin and his girlfriend katie as we said were very close diana later said of their relationship quote he had a good
girlfriend and they both loved each other to death and would do anything for each other and quote while austin was
missing katie told dateline i just want him home i love him more than anything now no one in austin's
family or katie herself believed that austin had just gone away on his own again we
he was very close with his family very close with his girlfriend and specifically he was very close with his
younger sister and his father the relationship that he had with his girlfriend to everyone
said that it was rock solid his family truly felt and believed and shouted this from the
mountaintops that his leaving austin leaving was really just simply out of the question well
let's look at some of the evidence he he takes no belongings with him he doesn't
even have his vehicle and he then takes a trailer it doesn't make a lot of sense well and
if rich whitcomb did not go with him that day we know somebody went with him that day because as you pointed out
his vehicle can't tow the trailer right so we need to fill in that blank real quickly was rich actually with him that
day or did somebody else take rich's place and now we need to figure out who that person is almost a week after
austin vanished katie and her mom lori they're together they end up finding the missing trailer
this on one of the back roads this was downer road in sharon vermont about 10 miles from dana's home we have dana who
says when i was notified i dropped what i was doing and drove there as fast as i could
get down there he says when he got there to the trailer all of the detectives were already on
the scene the trailer was parked on the side of the road perpendicular to the road the
trailer was still partially loaded with some of the scrap metal pieces that they
were to be hauling that day there was a light dusting of snow on the trailer so according to everybody that was there
that day they agreed that this meant that the trailer had been sitting there for a couple of days
so missing trailer found however there's still no sign of austin so they find the
trailer but they don't find a vehicle with the trailer and again we we need a vehicle to be
pulling this trailer the area in which they find the truck not only is there light dusting of snow
i'm guessing it's pretty cold this time of year what i see here captain is a situation where
it's fortunate that the police are taking this young man's disappearance seriously right there's been some debate
about that however what we do know is we have the father who owns the trailer saying hey i'm notified that my trailer
was found about 10 miles from my home i raced down there as soon as i could get there
and when i get on the scene detectives are already there checking out the trailer looking in the area looking for
my son looking for evidence as to why the trailer was there who put it there where could my son be so it
appears to me that they are already taking this very seriously enough to send detectives to the scene of the
trailer but i'm guessing that everything's going to get ramped up real quickly with the finding of this trailer
if i was a detective on the scene once i find that trailer and no vehicle to me this is pointing to the worst case
scenario of homicide plus they're going to try to find anybody that may have seen
the trailer arriving and being dropped off left there or vehicles coming and going from the area so you're going to
canvas the area by reaching out to anybody that you think may have seen or heard anything
in the week that had passed since this man went missing and now we have the trailer being found so they find a local
jogger who tells them that she had actually seen the trailer at that same location
where it was eventually found but the first time she had seen it was on thursday a week earlier in fact
thursday was the day that austin vanished so he goes missing on that day and according to this jogger
that trailer was there the entire time right the whole week that everybody's looking for him so it just been sitting
there dana his father says that the detectives searched the area there there are 30 cabins in that location because i
guess in that same spot there is a summer camp so the detectives and law enforcement
went into every cabin they even brought in dogs to help search the area they covered a wide area during their search
but unfortunately there was no sign of austin but it's hard to imagine what his family's going through when they start
searching this land and searching the cabins again everything starts pointing to
something very tragic happening well and this is quite interesting too here captain if it gives us some insight into
their investigation because the police will come out and say hey we need the public's help and that's
because according to a vermont state trooper's news release the police believe that the scrap metal
found on the trailer was likely collected in royalton sharon and or the surrounding town so
they have reason to believe that they can narrow down where the scrap metal likely came from
so they are seeking public assistance in identifying the exact locations where the scrap metal was collected from so
often i'm sure some of us have experienced this i know i have where you may see a hauler a scrapper or whatever
you call them in your area but they may drop by and say to you hey if you ever have
anything set it out on this day or leave it out on this day and i'll swing by and
pick it up i i do my rounds in this area on this day and i collect everything that i can so they're looking to find
people that either had a direct conversation with austin about picking things up or
set some things out that were later gone and this would be interesting because what they want to do here captain they
want to try to trace the origins of the metal and that's going to help them reconstruct austin's day
creating a timeline and a road map so to speak and perhaps lead them to their missing person austin coulson
authorities also determined that austin's phone unfortunately was not going to be helpful to them at all
or if it was going to be helpful is going to be in the least bit helpful because
they figured out that it was powered off around 11 15 a.m on january 11th the same day that he went missing austin's
whereabouts after that of course were a mystery but when you hear about austin and when i first was
researching this case this young man picking up scrap metal he has a painting service
he is making candles and and making soaps and and doing all these odd jobs to make it buy
go look up what austin coulson looks like he looks like a child but he was doing these
manly type jobs i think by seeing a picture of him you're gonna be able to get a
better sense of why his family was so fearful and maybe also why law enforcement was taking this so
serious so now we get into the searches and the searching for austin and searching for evidence as to what could
have happened to this young man so first we know that police took a look at the small home where austin and katie live
together it's not clear whether katie gave permission for this because she may not want the police in there not
because she had anything to do with austin's disappearance but rather that police search the home and find a small
marijuana growing operation inside the home as well as sizable quantities of cash that's their words sizable
quantities of cash i do not know exactly what that means but that is the words used in media reports
other searches and this is very interesting here captain police conducted several searches for austin
over the next few weeks after finding the trailer they concentrated on the area surrounding the location where the
trailer was found but to no avail but then on february 1st they received a tip about a quote body
sighting this was at a very specific two acre property located at 714 beaver meadow road this is about eight miles
from the location where the trailer was found it's unclear what or who the source of this tip was
but police followed up on it right away on the property they found a baseball hat with the words
a and c painting on it this was austin's hat [Music] hmm [Music] all right we are back if you need more
tcg in your earbuds check out our bonus show called off the record or go purchase one of our three bonus
episodes colonel cheers to you cheers well along with austin's hat here captain according to the
vt digger which is a great new source for this case and some others that we've covered in the past police also located
shell casings at the scene as well as a cigarette butt with coulson's dna on it and a pair of
gloves now they did not find any further signs of austin coulson in that area but you have to wonder
unfortunately for the family and for his girlfriend if i'm there on the scene or i'm a family member i'm
getting worried at this point that we might be looking for human remains rather than
finding austin alive and well state police records show that the investigation into his disappearance
began on january 12th troopers first interviewed the family and trying to get a sense of who austin
was his connections his last movements and so on now dana and katie both told police that austin had plans on that day
he went missing to go scrapping with richard whitcomb they're giving them that name a name
once austin went missing his mother asked whitcomb about it he tells her that austin had never
responded to a text from him that day and he didn't know what had happened so now we have multiple family members
saying that austin planned to spend the day scrapping with rich whitcomb and someone helped austin tow away the
trailer that he would have needed to go scrapping but whitcomb as we know says nope i
wasn't there it was time for police to figure out if this man is lying or not and really this is not rocket science
here the last person believed to be with austin was richard whitcomb of course police are going to be very
eager to pin him down on january 16 2018 vermont state police major crimes unit detectives albright and holden
interviewed rich whitcomb at the royalton vsp barracks during the interview whitcomb denied knowing anything about
coulson's disappearance the detectives were aware that whitcomb was a felon with a reputation for being involved in
the drug trade at this interview whitcomb admitted to knowing austin and scrapping with him on occasion
but whitcomb told the detectives that on january 11th he never saw austin that day instead he
whitcomb was in manchester buying cocaine well that's quite the alibi give me a little bit of that nose sugar
whitcomb admitted to middling drug deals for austin coulson and said that the previous week
he gave austin a firearm as collateral in a cocaine transaction all right so we have whitcomb and ex
felon admitting that he was the middle man in drug deals whereby he would deliver drugs to austin's
customers and bring the money back to austin and he had used a gun as collateral
collateral sounds like to me captain that austin did not really trust whitcomb with the merchandise or the
money i don't know if you should trust a drug dealing drug user whitcomb admitted
that he and austin were in contact via phone on the morning of the 11th he said that he texted austin that morning but
austin never got back to him again that's the same story that he told family members
so the detectives naturally said well cool can we see your phone remember this interview is on the 16th
austin is only missing five days at this point in our timeline if whitcomb is telling the truth well then there is
every reason to believe that whitcomb's phone would reflect that conversation oh
but wickham told them he didn't have the phone it was gone in fact he had switched to new cellular account on the
13th telling detectives his wife found out that he made a trip to manchester on the
11th to buy drugs she was upset she made him get rid of all of his drug connections that were saved on his phone
she forced him to get rid of the phone so detective albright of course this ain't his first rodeo he found this
story to be extremely fishy he also knew that as a convicted felon whitcomb was prohibited from being in
possession of a firearm yet he just readily admitted that to the police whitcomb told the detectives he did get
the gun back from austin and it was located at his home that it was still there in his house but it didn't belong
to him it belonged to his father-in-law detectives said well you don't mind if we take a look for it at your house do
you to which which to which whitcomb agreed to tell them where the gun was and let them enter his
home to retrieve it so he said that they could also search his car so meanwhile what we have here captain a separate
batch of detectives was interviewing his wife sarah in another room at the same time right they're asking her about the
gun and the phone she told them that both were at the house she consented to a search of the residence and the
couple's car she's saying that the phone his phone is still at their home to which he said that they had gotten
rid of the phone so now we got some different stories going on here but at the end of it what
we learn is that police have permission to search for the gun and the phone in their home and in their vehicles what
happens is the vermont state police they're concerned that before they can get out
there to search the home that somebody else might get there and remove these items
so very smartly here they contact some police department in hartford and asked if they would secure the
whitcomb residence so that nobody could go in and out before they could get in there and search for these items that's
pretty freaking smart what ends up happening is a hartford officer got to the whitcomb's home
and he convinced one of the children to open the door he called sarah rich whitcomb's wife
on the phone and had her talk him through finding the phone in the home it was located underneath
the covers of a bed in the master bedroom the officer picked it up and placed it
right next to the front door so when the detectives arrived it was sitting there
waiting for them when the vsp detectives arrived at the whitcomb household during the search of the residence the
officers also located the firearm in question and then additional cell phones they took all the phones and the gun
along with an eight-round magazine containing five bullets and left the premises
but they would be back captain because on february 9th they charged richard whitcomb with federal charges of
possession of a firearm as a previously convicted felon and the use of a firearm
and a drug transaction but they still didn't have enough to charge whitcomb with anything related to austin
coulson's disappearance but they named whitcomb publicly as the only person of interest in the case
and that's because of what they found or did not find on his phone let's go through the wording of these search
warrants for whitcomb yeah the wording here is key and it goes along with the idea that he's the only
person of interest in austin's disappearance the warrants say that searching whitcomb's property was
necessary because police had quote probable cause to believe that such property or objects will be found and
will constitute either possession or sale of cocaine unlawful restraint or kidnapping carrying a dangerous weapon
while committing a felony or aggravated assault manslaughter or homicide wowza yeah that really seems to echo what
their thoughts and beliefs were in this case meanwhile they started with the phone
that whitcomb said that he had gotten rid of but of course they found it in his home
when investigators got the phone in front of their techs they noticed that the phone appeared to
have been wiped clean but of course they were able to retrieve and view some of whitcomb's communications anyway
immediately after austin went missing this is what whitcomb is searching for his
his internet searches on his phone are at the same time that austin coulson goes missing one search was for how long
does gunpowder residue or gsr last and also whether deleted text messages can be retrieved yes dumbass they can on
january 15th he had a text exchange with his wife sarah that included the following
sarah text tell me the truth rich it's all going to come out rich whitcomb replies it's all crap i'm
telling you the truth sarah i want to know what happened to austin are you the last person to talk to him
whitcomb no his girlfriend was the last i saw him monday sarah you text him thursday and then he vanished weird
stuff sounds like the police are not the only ones that are suspicious of rich whitcomb well people are starting to
catch him in a lie he's telling people i i didn't talk to him thursday and then see him thursday
now we're getting information that he they text him on thursday so then one could assume that he at some point met
up with him yeah the the evidence on the phone is really all just kind of good circumstantial evidence
but it does not appear that there was much useful information on there so that they
could track uh tracking information for the phone or anything leading them to austin coulson
other than the police said that it placed whitcomb on the 11th this is interesting at the location
where the trailer was picked up from at dana's house so he says i never saw him but his phone says that he was near
dana's house around the time that the trailer was removed from dana's property lying [ __ ] princess the other thing too
is his phone also places him in the area where the trailer was eventually found but it's also difficult too because if
they have worked together you're gonna find his fingerprints or austin's fingerprints and his car
you're gonna find you know some dna touch dna of austin and rich's vehicle and rich's dna and austin's vehicle so that
that does make things a little more complicated so you have to really gather up as much circumstantial evidence as
you can before you can try to find um the nail nails in the coffin of the case and that's exactly right you're not
really looking for proof that the two knew each other or were together at any point
leading up to the the disappearance you're really looking for your proof that they were together on the day that
austin coulson disappeared and that will be key here and what you have is you have evidence that is
showing you that yes in fact whitcomb was likely with austin coulson on that day but you still have whitcomb's alibi
that hey i was 100 miles away purchasing cocaine well let's dive into that alibi real
quick shall we so whitcomb is going to try to back this up by saying not only was he away but there
are people that could could place him away from dana's home and away from where austin is believed to have last
been seen there's one person in particular and this person that whitcomb claims accompanied him to manchester
was a one mark ruppel of lebanon whitcomb originally gave police a false last name i don't know the false last
name that they that he provided to police he said that the person's name was mark something
i guess he was hoping that they would not be able to locate this individual but the police were a lot smarter than
rich whitcomb mark sniffing butts so they find out that the person he was talking about was this mark ruppel so
they find rupple they interview him ruppel tells police that whitcomb called him on january 17th
and was quote upset on the verge of crying and begging him to tell the police that he had either seen whitcomb
or was hanging out with him in manchester on july 11th this is quoted from police affidavits
but ruppel hadn't been with him on the 11th this is a direct contradiction to whitcomb's statement that he gave to the
police on january 16th so he manufactures this alibi on the 16th they're able to find this mark
sniffin whatever you call them sniffing butts and his real last name is ruppel and
thankfully this mark ruppel is a better guy than rich whitcomb because he says look man i ain't gonna lie for
you and he tells the police straight up uh i wasn't with him and in fact he called me and asked me to say that i was
right so as law enforcement again this rich guy is a giant pile of [ __ ] and he's a liar he he tells you i was
with this guy makes up the last name the guy tells you no i wasn't with him and he wanted me to make up an alibi anybody
that's trying to make up an alibi always goes to my number one on the suspect list and before we move on captain i
just want to echo what we said earlier that the information what little information that police were able to
pull from that phone that cell phone that rich whitcomb said didn't exist anymore but they found it in his home
it absolutely pointed out that a he was where the trailer would have been picked up from on the day that austin
went missing b he was in the area of where the trailer was later found a week later his phone
says he was there on the day that austin coulson went missing and so everything that they're seeing from his phone would
indicate that he was lying and that he actually was with austin coulson on the 11th when austin
went missing well you got to go a step further the phone says that he was with the
trailer in the morning phone says he was with the trailer in the afternoon and then the phone says
he was in the location where austin's hat cigarette and bullets were found this brings us to
may 23rd on our timeline when police conducted an all-day search for austin at a two-acre property where they had
previously found the baseball hat that belonged to austin or that they believed belonged to austin i can't imagine that
there were too many a and c painting baseball hats anywhere in america let alone in this
small town in vermont so i would think that they're pretty much 99 convinced that it's his hat at this
point it was hoped that now that it was springtime and all the snow had melted that it might expose things that were
previously hidden things that they had missed in their previous search this remote property was down one of those
long winding dirt roads that are commonplace in vermont a police press released that evening stated quote crews
located what are believed to be human remains at the beaver meadow road location
the body was found buried in the dirt floor of an old dilapidated barn on the property
three days later on the 26th of may the chief medical examiner's office used dental records to identify those
remains as belonging to austin coulson so whose property was this and how did austin get there is now our big
questions again from the vermont digger the home on beaver meadow road that sits near the large barn is
owned by carlton family trust according to property records buck carlton who is listed as a broker
with north east commercial realty in west lebanon told the valley news he owns the home on beaver meadow where
police had been searching carlton says he stays at the home from time to time but carlton was a snowbird so he's
someone that goes to warmer climates during the winter months and he says that while he's absent
carlton employed a caretaker to keep an eye on his property he says that the person that he put in
charge of this is this rich whitcomb all of the phone evidence is saying he was with austin
coulson on the day that he disappeared and now we have the owner of the property saying
where you found austin coulson's body this man rich whitcomb had access to the barn and was expected to be at the
property from time to time to take care of this property while i'm gone according to the autopsy
and according to vermont's chief deputy medical examiner austin died from multiple gunshot wounds
to the head inflicted by another person oddly though the death certificate puts his place of death as woods
or place found and the date of his death as january 2008 his death was classified as a homicide
the windsor county state's attorney announced that the case was in a holding pattern while police worked the
ballistic evidence meanwhile his father dana told wcax news we hoped for a better outcome but
it was good to get the final official word so we're not wondering he pointed out that austin's phone
wallet and car keys remained missing at that time as far as we know they have never been found captain i've
heard people criticize law enforcement a little bit because they found some items
of austin and then it took them four months to do another search but i don't know how long they searched
the initial time that they did search and i don't know what the conditions of the weather were so
what people need to realize it's it's not an hour-long episode of law and order or hour-long
episode of unsolved mysteries the hands of justice sometimes work very slowly well and
we're not getting told a lot of the story which we don't need to have a lot of the story but we should all be smart
enough to go well they didn't just find his hat and go okay well that's enough work for today yeah see you guys later
see ya see at the bar got to be there by 3 p.m no what i like here and when they go out on
these searches we got to keep in mind they've not been to this area before they could arrive on site that day and
go whoa we got a lot of difficulties and a lot of unexpected problems here in searching this property
what i love though is they're going this is a place we want to come back to this is a place that we want to search
again and we want to keep digging and finding whatever we can because we think we have
a case here i'm going to shorten some of this a little bit because we have some difficulty
in the case as far as getting anybody charged in relation to austin coulson's first disappearance and then later ruled
a homicide but in the course of a lot of the things that we've already discussed
remember we have those charges that whitcomb was facing based off of him in possession of a gun and using a gun in
the transaction of drug trade so he will actually face those charges before austin coulson's
body is even recovered at the pre-trial for those charges we have austin's family there that are wearing shirts
that say where's austin we also have his father going on record speaking to the media saying we have a lot of reason to
believe rich whitcomb is very guilty and not expanding on that too much but we know exactly what his father means
he's very guilty not only in these charges but these charges are really just sort of backing up all of our
thoughts and beliefs that he is responsible for what happened to our son to our family member but smart for law
enforcement get them on these charges you have a bad individual you have this bag of [ __ ] now
locked up and charged with these and you can then put together and piece together a case
which right now has a lot of circumstantial evidence well and the prosecutor for those charges
made a really good effort to try to convince the judge that hey this dude rich whitcomb is extremely dangerous and
is he's not only dangerous because of his previous crimes the crimes we know that he committed and the crimes that we
are charging him with today but also because he is the number one suspect in a murder
that we have not been able to bring charges against him yet so you should keep him in jail for the entirety of the
time leading up to his trial for these charges right sadly the judge did not fully agree with this the judge let him
out but this was based on the condition that he entered a drug treatment facility and
that he was allowed to go home after completion of that rehab he was required to wear an electronic monitoring
bracelet and he had some other parameters that he needed to play within during that time rich is
going to take a plea deal on one of these charges yeah they will ultimately drop one of the counts and
deal on the other one now again we have an assistant u.s attorney her name is wendy fuller
she really wanted him convicted to the the fullest extent right give him the best and longest punishment
that you can because wendy fuller knows how dangerous rich whitcomb is if he's out he's a
danger to society into our communities she wanted to get some comments on the record
despite the fact that she said in court they could not charge they could not change the sentence
because there was a plea agreement determining that but she wants to really hit home how dangerous this individual
is and remind them that he is a suspect in a murder so i'll read for you just portions of her statements during court
says this case started as your honor knows in connection with a very serious investigation but it's largely driven by
the defendant's own admissions and so he admits to being a member of that community who regularly sold drugs
this is a community it's small it has struggled mightily with drug abuse and he aided in that
i understand that he was not selling drugs for financial gain i've never made that allegation he was doing it to feed
his own addiction but it's serious nonetheless and by selling drugs to other drug addicts you keep that cycle
of addiction alive and it keeps these people who are addicted unable to contribute to their community they
cannot pay their bills they cannot take care of their children it destroys lives
just like it has in some sense destroyed his but he did that to other people so i
just want to be clear that this is not merely having access to a firearm there are greater factors here that go into
the seriousness so he's regularly selling to people in his community but the other aspect of this case is that he
decided to take a firearm that did not belong to him that belonged to his father-in-law he took the firearm and he
used it as a currency in a drug trade he traded it to mr coulson mr coulson gave
him drugs in exchange for that so that mr whitcomb could go out and sell more cocaine
this conduct is extremely serious drug-related offenses with firearms as your honor knows is on the rise in
vermont and what comes with that are drug related shootings and drug related homicides and so this conduct of taking
a firearm especially one that doesn't belong to you and giving it to somebody in exchange for cocaine
it's some of the most serious conduct we see in drug related crimes and so that's
why he's here that's why he's in federal court he committed a very serious crime
but on top of that we have the defendant's characteristics as i read his criminal
history he has a violent history i don't think there's any dispute about that in
2002 he had an unlawful mischief conviction in which he harassed his girlfriend damaged her belongings and that during
the arrest he had a loaded rifle and when the police asked him if he intended to use it on himself he said no
i'd rather shoot you he was convicted of that offense and then he went on to violate his probation for that offense
twice once for harassing and assaulting yet another girlfriend that's the 2003 felony conviction for
domestic assault and i'd like to read from the affidavit of lieutenant jordan with regard to the
domestic assault felony conviction so the court understands the gravity of this offense
and i will substitute the victim's name for the word victim the victim told me that they arrived at home and whitcomb
continued to scream and yell at her this went on for some time when whitcomb got
mad at her the victim said whitcomb grabbed her by the arms and threw her to the floor she
was in pain the victim said that whitcomb then grabbed her by the hair and dragged her
down to the basement he put her in a headlock and he started choking her she could not breathe and she began to
pass out the victim said that whitcomb let her go and then threw her onto the floor where
he punched her in the head the victim told the lieutenant that whitcomb was looking for bullets
and his hunting knife and whitcomb told her he was going to kill her and slit her throat
the victim said that whitcomb could not find his hunting knife so he again grabbed her by the hair dragged her out
of the basement and back upstairs the victim in fear for her life said she broke free ran out of the house and
called her neighbors who called 9-1-1 now these are not just the victim's words captain
whitcomb pled guilty to that offense and to reiterate we have cell phone technology that puts him with the other
victim austin the day of the afternoon of the evening of and then he's caught lying to police
trying to establish an alibi and he's caught by police lying over and over yes and then ultimately
what we have is whitcomb is sentenced in january of 2020 to 37 months in federal
prison so he's 40 years old roughly at that time he's still going to have to do his time
he was scheduled to be released in february of 2023 however we've seen austin's mother posting
recently that whitcomb has already been moved to a halfway house and will be released altogether
in 2022 it actually looks like he may have already been released i just could not
confirm any of that information to to support the statements that she posted online
regardless it's to point out that he was supposed to be locked up until 2023 and
i guess that what they were hoping they being law enforcement was that we might not be able to charge this guy yet
with a homicide but maybe we could build a case against him and in the meantime he's locked away in federal prison so
he's no real threat to anybody in our communities but if these posts that austin's mother
are posting online if they are true then this man is already back out and walking walking around a free man
well i know there seems to be some frustration with law enforcement but i'm not willing to give up on them just yet
because i don't know what cards there are holding close to their vest what it seems to be for me
is that they're building a case and again hands of justice sometimes move very slowly there is also some online
rumor that richard whitcomb is responsible for possibly another homicide and these are based off of several
facebook posts like this one they simply say quote everyone knows whitcomb was involved with robbie
briggs murder end quote now i captain could not find any evidence or any articles that
name whitcomb as a possible suspect and robbie briggs's murder that's a 20 year old
homicide case and in fact i found to the contrary of that that there were other possible suspects that were named
in some of those articles richard whitcomb's name did not appear in anything that i read regardless it's one
of those situations where yes i'm on your side here captain i think that law enforcement has done a pretty good job
in this case but if they are holding on to something that we've not already reviewed if they have the icing on the
cake that is going to be what they what one would expect that you would want to have and charge this man with
murder i think now's the time to do so if in fact that he's out we've seen his repeated history of violence that he
carries out on people that are close to him so anybody out there close to richard whitcomb if he's out and you're
hearing this get as far away as you possibly can well this is why it's important if you know something you need
to say something to keep the rest of the world the rest of the community safe it's not just all on law
enforcement we have to do our part as humans to go hey i actually know some information that could put
this guy away come forward and say something [Music] thank you so much for joining us here on
the garage thanks for telling a friend thank you so much for sharing the show on social media
colonel do we have any recommended reading for the beautiful people first up a late and overdue happy mother's day
to everybody out there listening this one was sent to me as a gift and i'm very grateful to have received it
because this is a great and fascinating true crime book the title is if you tell
a true story of murder family secrets and the unbreakable bond of sisterhood by the great greg olsen he is one of the
best in the biz i recommend that you check this one out here's a little background information this is the true
story of three young girls caught in the web of a coldly calculating killer after more than a decade when sisters
nikki sammy and tori hear the word mom it claws like an eagle's talents triggering memories that
have been their secret since childhood until now check out if you tell by greg olsen you can find that great
recommendation and many more on our recommended page at truecrimegarage.com and until next week
be good be kind and don't [Applause] [Music] you

Austin Colson ////// 578

Part 1 of 1

www.TrueCrimeGarage.com

This week we dig into an unsolved homicide case out of Vermont. A couple years back 19 year old Austin Colson went missing. Unfortunately the search ended in an outcome that no one wanted. It took a couple of months but his body was eventually recovered. This case should be solved. Tune in and find out why.

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Brief Summary

Austin Coulson disappeared in 2018; his remains were found later, implicating Richard Whitcomb in his murder.

Key points

The Disappearance of Austin Coulson. Austin Coulson goes missing after leaving to collect scrap metal, raising concerns for his safety.
Tracing Austin's Disappearance. Authorities aim to reconstruct Austin Coulson's last movements through scrap metal haulers.
Suspicious Alibi. Richard Whitcomb claims he was buying drugs when Austin went missing, raising police suspicions.
Discovery of Remains. Human remains identified as Austin Coulson were found buried on a property.
Austin Coulson's Death Classified as Homicide. Austin died from multiple gunshot wounds, classified as a homicide by authorities.
Rich Whitcomb's Criminal History. Rich Whitcomb has a violent past, including domestic assault and drug-related offenses.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

It kills me inside because I know my son wouldn't just disappear.

A mother expressing her anguish over her missing son.

4:08WatchMay 12, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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