Barbara Blatnik /// Part 1 /// 316 | Forensic Files

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enough for the business all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true
crime a 17-year-old girl goes out with friends to a party on a Saturday night nearing
what was believed to be the end of her night she calls her parents this is just a brief and simple
call saying she plans to be home soon but something happened something went wrong because
she does not come home the next day in the morning hours her body is found on the side of a road
about 30 m away she was strangled for any town this would be a horrific crime that would strike fear
into the residents Hearts but for the akan Ohio region in 1987 this murder caused extreme Terror
panic and outrage there are three strongly supported theories in this unsolved murder case
each Theory presenting its own level of disgust and outrage but each also presenting a
different Terror and Threat Level the first theory is someone close to the victim
attacked and killed the girl the second is maybe someone she only thought she knew or someone on the
fringes of her Social Circles as responsible and thirdly and certainly the most terrorizing Theory she was the
victim of an undetected serial killer you see there is evidence to suggest that this murder was not a
one-off this murder could be just one in a string of murders of women in the area four women were found murdered in
Summit County in the final 18 weeks of 1987 all of those murders to this day are still
[Music] unsolved this is true crime garage and this is the case of Barbara blatnik in
the 1987 Summit County [Music] murders [Music] [Applause] our featured case takes place in
December of 1987 Barbara Anne blatnik was a fairly typical 17-year-old girl she lived in
Garfield Heights Ohio this is on band drive with her mom Teresa her dad John and her 19-year-old sister Donna Barby
as she was called had feathered 1980s style blonde hair and as described as cute and bubbly her father described her
as a free spirit Who Loved people maybe too much she loved heavy metal music makeup dancing babysitting and hanging
out with her friends of which she had a lot Barbie's sister Donna whom True Crime garage spoke with at length in our
research for the show describes her younger sister frankly as a girl who liked to party she was known to drink
dabble in drugs smoke and basic basically live the party lifestyle now we said she loved loud heavy metal music
Captain one thing we have in common with Barbie and anyone who listens to our other show off the Record knows this one
of her favorite bands was ACDC a Barbie had a pack of girlfriends that was very tight and they all hung
out with a bunch of neighborhood guys at a bike shop on Warner Road called motorcycle
Specialties where they would go to Party according to our sources the bike shop owner liked pretty girls around and
would Supply booze and pot now Barbie had a boyfriend his name was Jerry and the two were dating on and off for about
a year from what we understand this wasn't a relationship that was likely to go down the traditional route of dating
marriage and kids Donna says her sister liked boys and was known to date around never really being exclusive with
anyone Barbie had been in trouble a few times and transferred high schools in January leaving Garfield Heights High
School and switching to eie viw Catholic where she was a junior according to her
family although Barbie was a handful she had no enemies and on the contrary Barbie had lots of friends and was known
as a fun Scrappy badass girl anyway Barbie set out on the afternoon of December 19th which was a Saturday with
some friends to go to a party she dressed in jeans a sweater jewelry and she had her comb money and sigs in her
back pocket as usual newspaper reports at the time state that she left her home either around 400 p.m. or 6:30 p.m.
reports differ on this do we know why there's such a gap in time we have one paper reporting 400 p.m. and one
reporting 6:30 p.m. we don't know why there's a discrepancy in that time frame but what we do know is that she left
with friends and they went to a party on turny road which was about a mile and a
half away from Barbie's home it's unclear whether this party was at someone's home or somewhere else we
don't know who hosted this Gathering well it's also hard sometimes to Define what an actual quote unquote party is
party could be eight people sitting around the house or 100 people or a couple of teenage kids in somebody's
backyard or at a park right now newspaper reports stated and Donna confirmed this that Barbie called home
sometime after 10:30 p.m. this just to say that she would be home soon now Barbie's sister Donna tells us that this
was very unusual Barbie did not usually check in typically she would go out with
friends and she would come home or she would crash at someone's house it wasn't uncommon for her to stay
out all night sleeping at a friends it was was uncommon for her to call home remember this is 1987 so this would also
require her to find a landline to make that call who took the call her parents answered that call so but can we
definitively say that it's her I mean because I know with my parents if I would have called especially like on a
on a school night or the weekend night and said hey I'm going to and it was a quick call I might be able to confuse
them by having of a friend call I don't think anybody's disputing that it was Barbie on the phone but despite that
unusual call saying that she would be home she didn't come home her parents went to bed and didn't worry the next
morning they assumed that she was out of friends Barbie's mother and sister went
out Christmas shopping little did Teresa and Donna know that while they were shopping two cops showed up at their
house John blatnik was asked to go to the morg in kyoga Falls Barbie have been found dead we have been able to shed a
little more light on the events of the last night of Barbie's life this thanks to Donna and also from the justice for
Barbara blatnik website run by a local armchair detective who wants to help bring closure to the blatnik family
here's what we found Barbie met up with her good friend Michelle that afternoon at a party at the bike shop on Warner
Road this is an addition to the party on turny road that Barbie told her parents
she was going to if in fact that was true all right so she meets up with her friend Michelle right they're going to
go to the bike shop that's where they normally hang out have these little parties little Gatherings yeah so when
Michelle meets up with Barbie it sounds like one of them is already at the bike shop on Warner Road all right at this
party so the first time that Michelle sees Barbie according to Michelle is at this bike shop where they were known to
hang out and party okay okay so then they're going to go to another party no that's why I think things are a little
confusing here so we have the statement that Barbie tells her parents that she's
going to a party on turny road right right and then we have Michelle who's going to add some detail fill in some
blanks of the time that Barbie was gone that night and she's saying that the first time that she sees Barbie is at
this party at the bike shop on Warner Road so a different party so if in fact there was even a part on tney road that
Barbie was going to go to she could have actually gone to that party and then went to the bike shop afterwards I think
this is part of the reason why we have some different things within the timeline regarding when she left the
house that day yeah and I think it's It's Tricky too because there are some people when you're friends with people
when you're younger that you know you'd be hanging out at your buddy's house and
they'd just be saying oh we're going to go to such and such house and we're going to go to somebody else's house and
it might because they know the the parents know the parents better but you never end up going there does does that
make sense well the other thing too that we got to keep in mind is I don't know 100% when this uh Barbara blatnik
website was created by the local armchair detective but Michelle is supplying the armchair detective with
this statement of the timeline for that night of or what she knows of the timeline for that night and this could
be 20 years later all right so we have a gathering at the bike shop that's where
Barbie runs into her friend Michelle Michelle was Barbie's friend who had just had a baby and the two actually
hadn't seen each other in a while now Michelle also had another girlfriend with her and they did eventually meet up
with at least one other girl their names are Linda and Sheila the four of them partied at the bike shop along with with
a bunch of other local teens this bike shop had a basement and the owner Jeff was known to provide booze and marijuana
to to attract teens to hang out there during the winter months when they couldn't party
Outdoors the girls partied there for a while and then they left in Michelle's car to go to a pub that served miners
this is on East 71st Street Barbie and her friends were known to hang out at pubs like this where drinking rules
weren't enforced and they were open late right and some people are probably listening right now going what bike shop
owners are supplying drugs for kids to hang out um bars serve underage people because that is cracked down on a lot
more now back in the 80s even in the '90s there was plenty of bars that you could go to cuz they had no customers so
they're they were fine with serving underage people right and they I really feel like it was in the the early 2000s
at least in this area which we are somewhat close to her area maybe hour and a half two hour drive let's say MH
but in our area it wasn't until the early 2000s where they really cracked down on that everybody either themselves
or know somebody that had a bar that they could go into and get a couple drinks and be 18 years old let's say or
19 years old right this is where things get a little tricky because now we know that they're at the pub okay but at
10:30 when that call goes from Barbie to her parents it's not known where that call was placed so that gets to be a bit
of a difficult thing it could have been as something as simple as calling from a
pay phone at that Pub but we don't have anybody else to tell us that Barbie that
they were present when she made that call so anyway we have the girls they sat at a table in the pub chatting and
drinking they say that nothing seemed a Miss according to Michelle anyway there was no one who seems strange or
threatening at the pub all right so we know that this call happened around 10:30 but based on Michelle's records we
don't know what time she left the bike shop what time they got to the pub so we don't know if this call came from the
bike shop or while they're at the pub or after the pub it would seem that it well
we do know what time they left the the pub so it would seem that this call would have had to have taken place if we
are going off a Michelle's events of that night that the call would have had to taken place at the either the pub or
at the bike shop right because Michelle goes on to say that the girls all of them including Barbie stayed at the pub
until closing time which was 3:15 a.m. at that time Michelle drove Barbie to the intersection of Warner Road and
Grand division at Avenue this is right near the bike shop so if you look at the area on a map you can see that it's a
residential neighborhood but Warner Road has commercial businesses like convenience stores automotive repair
shops and so on Barbie says that she was going to Jerry's house remember Jerry is
the boyfriend MH or the guy that she was seeing at the time Jerry Jerry dingleberry so this is fairly close to
the place where Michelle drops Barbie off he lived with his older brother Bob and his parents in a house behind the AC
Delco Auto Parts store which was another place where the kids would meet up to party in the yard in the parking lot
outside this mostly in the summertime when it was warmer outside right Michelle and the other friend dropped
Barbie off there and then drove off and never saw or heard from her again the next morning Sunday December 20th around
10:20 a.m. Barbara's nude and bruised body was found in a wooded area just off O'Neal Road near the Blossom Music
Center in kyoga Falls Ohio this is about 30 miles away from where Barbara was last seen yeah it's kind of out in the
middle of nowhere if if I remember correctly yeah kyoga Falls is a totally different area of Ohio and is a suburb
of akan whereas Barbara lived in Garfield Heights near Cleveland now initial reports confused things because
they stated that Barbie was found on the grounds of the Blossom Music Center this
is an outdoor concert venue the kind of place where like 15,000 people can watch
a concert yeah it's a pretty popular it's popular in that area anyway I saw a radio head there oh fantastic uh Barbie
and her friends had been there in the past to see concerts but she was nowhere near it on the night in question it
turns out that she wasn't found on the grounds of Blossom detectives corrected this on December 22nd she was found near
a wooded area on the side of a nearby access road that would not have been heavily trafficked on a Sunday morning
in December we don't know whether Blossom would have been open in December although it seems unlike
unless they had some kind of Christmas holiday show some of these places have holiday light displays and we do know
that blossom in modern times has a Halloween Fright Fest in October yeah but a lot of these concerts like we had
Germaine Ampitheater here which is similar to Blossom but a lot of those concerts don't you remember them like
closing down around midnight like there weren't it wasn't like a bar show where you'd stay there till 2:00 in the
morning remember some of them closing at 11:00 p.m. because of noise ordinances I'm assuming that it was not open that
night and probably not open during the cold weeks of early winter we have little details of how and
by whom Barbie was spotted newspaper reports stated that it was an employee of kst oil and gas who spotted Barbie's
body as he drove along the road The akan Beacon Journal and other papers reported
that she was found about 10 ft north of O'Neal Road O'Neal Road has a strange orientation in that it runs north and
south then curves sharply and runs east to west M and then turns again into North and South Barbara was found on the
Northern side of the East West portion which Falls between two other more unused
roads O'Neal Road runs parallel to another road that abuts the kyoga Valley National Recreation Area as for the
person who found her it doesn't seem bizarre that an oil and gas company worker would be out and about on that
desolate stretch of road right if he was on duty perhaps even working nearby what's
horrifying is that barb 's sister Donna tells us that when this person found Barbie who had been dumped naked on the
roadside like a piece of garbage she was still alive barely but alive and sadly that
was not the case for long you couldn't even imagine being at work and coming across somebody that is losing their
life yeah well we do have some of this autopsy information because it was released to the
newspapers at the time so the Summit County coroner this is William A Cox performed the autopsy promptly after she
was found a preliminary report was released on Monday the Beacon Journal quoted Cox's statement in some broadcast
interviews and what he said was very interesting he said that Barbie was killed in an unidentified place and her
body was taken to where it was found just a couple of hours before it was discovered so now we have to question
how could he come to this conclusion one thought I had is possibly since she was still breathing when found
he may have been estimating that she would not have survived long outside in the cold after such a brutal attack or
we have this too this possibility someone perhaps even the same oil and gas worker or someone else the police
talked to had drove by this area on O'Neal Road just a couple of hours before right and he or she was certain
that Barbie was not there at that time well like you said this worker could have been working in the area so he
could have been paying attention and said well when I entered my route I didn't see anybody there whatever the
case may be the coroner will stick with this timeline and stick to that statement as he stated the coroner
didn't believe that the O'Neal Road Site was the murder scene whether he could have concluded this because of lack of
blood signs of a struggle drag marks or disturbed foliage we don't know and we have no idea if Barbie was carried or
dragged to the dump site or just dumped out of a vehicle now coroner Cox also stated that Barbie was intoxicated when
she died this does go along with what we hear from Michelle her friend he did not
indicate a time of death but we know that she was still alive when found at 10:20 as for when the attack occurred we
can narrow that down ourselves if we assume her friend Michelle is accurate about the timeline
she provided then Barbie was still alive and well at around 3:30 a.m. when the girls were dropped off near Jerry's
house and she was found at 10 20 a.m. so sometime between the hours of 3:30 a.m.
and 10:20 a.m. someone raped and strangled Barbie and they beat her so badly that her neck had to be covered by
a scarf at her funeral service to disguised the bruising Barbara was found wearing only
her contact lenses and a class ring that displayed her school and her first name
inside of it her clothes and other jewelry that she was wearing that night have never been found now this is a
little known fact that was never released to the papers but we learned this from Donna from Barbie's sister it
was the 80s and Barbie was wearing at least four or five earrings and wearing uh you know tons of
stacked bracelets M at least two necklaces and possibly other jewelry that night kind of like the Madonna
style yeah or uh Mr T yeah uh none of these were were found at the scene the class
ring we have to wonder did the killer if he took and removed all these other items why not take the class ring was it
something as simple as he didn't see it or was it too hard to get off he couldn't take it off of her finger but
you said the the earrings were in or they were taken no earrings the only thing she had on her was her contact
lenses and class ring yeah I I would assume it was something just didn't see it or maybe he couldn't get it off yeah
and he would have had no way of knowing that her name was inside of this ring well which is actually that's if you're
assuming that the person that attacked her didn't know who she was no I mean the the her name was inside of the ring
so you would have to remove the ring to see her name right right there so if the
ring never came off he would not have known that and we can't we can't really go down the road too much of whether he
wanted her to remain unidentified for a period of time or if he cared at all uh but regarding this ring I want to point
that out because this is actually how they were able to identify her so they have her school class ring and then they
have her name inside of it that's what led them to realize that we have Barbara blatnik that we found on the side of the
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the Stitcher app they're free on the Stitcher app also check out our show on Stitcher premium called off the Record
let's get into this investigation some more so Barbie's case was assigned to the kyoga falls PD she was found in
Summit County not her native kyoga County keep in mind Barbie had no ties to kyoga Falls that police could find
and no one could think of a reason why she would be in that area all anyone knew was that Barbie and her friends
were very familiar with the Blossom Music Center so Barbie's case was investigated based on the jurisdiction
of the body not the jurisdiction where she had attended a party and been out and about just hours before her
death this is standard procedure but if the murder took place in or near Garfield Heights by a person or persons
who knew her perhaps this is why her case remains unsolved and perhaps dumping her in Summit County may have
been quite deliberate after the autopsy Corner Cox made some statements to the media that
are interesting Barbie was strangled to death we don't know whether manual or with an Implement and she was raped
what's intriguing here and these are some uncomfortable details to cover in the case but they're important to the
case so bear with me here for a minute the main thing that's intriguing about what Cox went out of his way to
clarify regarding Barbara being raped he says quote by more than one person end quote this statement was made to the
media on Tuesday December 22nd so only 2 days after Barbie was found dead the question becomes how could the coroner
know this detail this is 1987 and very very early in the DNA testing era and what is the likelihood that a
small town in Ohio had access to the highest level of DNA testing available at the time or could complete that
testing within just 48 Hours my guess is slim to none one thing that is possible
is that perhaps the coroner found two different samples of seen on different parts of Barbie's body and he did blood
type testing which showed two different types what seems more likely is that Cox
may have just jumped to this conclusion based on what he determined in the autopsy that Barbie had been raped
repeatedly he said quote it was repetitious I believe that we are dealing with more than one person
whether or not this is correct is really anyone's guess in any event coroner Cox
said that Barbie was raped by more than one perpetrator it's interesting to hear
Cox describe the state of DNA testing back in late 1987 the following appeared in a Beacon Journal article about
Barbie's case on December 23rd 1987 where it says quote sperm taken from the girl's body has been sent to a New York
firm for analysis of genetic content because molecular genetic material DNA is different for everyone except
identical twins a print of this material would be equivalent to a fingerprint for
positive identification cocked the question is is there enough to cultivate if anything ever came of this DNA
analysis police have not revealed that an article in the Beacon Journal in February of 1988 stated that although
coroner Cox used the DNA test on Barbie he said nothing had been produced to help identify a suspect why you wonder
did they have enough to identify a suspect right and that's the question that he first posed when they were going
to send it off for analysis now we don't know if that means they didn't get a match to anyone or whether they weren't
able to extract a profile at all as you're saying MH for what it's worth we did ask the sergeant currently in charge
of the kyoga falls detective unit whether there was any testable DNA in Barbie's case and he told us that quote
we've done everything we can do with regard to DNA and quote and he would not comment on whether any samples remain
intact for future testing right so we can't assume either way but if they have it we've like we know now we're in the
Golden Age and this could get solved Donna this her sister does not know whether any DNA from Barbie's attacker
remains either she does know though that her sister was a fighter and would almost certainly have harvested
perpetrator DNA under her fingernails as she fought for her life I know that they
did a toxicology report and they said that she had been drinking but I wonder if they went any further because let's
say there wasn't DNA underneath her fingernails I mean do we know that no we don't know that that's just speculation
by her family and with her sister saying look my sister was a fighter this also makes you wonder was Barbie you know in
a state where she could even fight back or was she so heavily intoxicated or or drugged by something where she couldn't
fight back right and really the the simplest thing with all of these words that the
corner is saying really all that's providing to us the general public is that they have or had some form of DNA
they know that she was raped and they've they believe that she was dumped there within just a couple of hours of being
found so another intriguing tidbit that the coroner mentioned to the media this involved some something found on
Barbie's body so the coroner found that she had something written on her hand two lines of text written in
pen so during the autopsy this is what Cox says we notice that there was some kind of writing in the palm of her left
hand some of it was legible and some was not he stated that the first line contained numbers and the second line
was words possibly Cox guessed it was an address so what did the authorities in Summit County do to try to interpret the
writing which the Press immediately seized upon as a possible clue left by Barbie as to her Killer's Identity or
identities MH without her family's consent or even their knowledge the amputated her left hand
and sent it to the FBI lab in Washington for analysis Cox said that the lab had sophisticated
laser and infrared technologies that might enable them to decipher the wording on Barbie's palm and that he
should have the results in a few weeks and that's the last the public heard of this writing on her Palm whether or not
it was an actual clue well we don't know well it's weird be because okay we do know that she went to a bike shop
that she went to often why would you write down that address right this other party that she
told her parents about if she left a address when she called I would then assume that that
would be the address that you might find on her hand but we could also assume that maybe
she knew where that party was too mhm and then she gets dropped off at her boyfriend's house or her I mean we're
calling it her boyfriend right but she was kind of not one to have serious relationships
mhm you would assume that she knew the address of course she does yeah right so why would you write that down on your
hand so if if it's not a phone number which that would make sense to me as well you're out at some parties you run
into some friends or Old Friends hey here's my number but but the corner is saying I think it's an address numbers
words underneath to me you'd only write that down if you're going to a place that you
didn't know mhm and so it's like is this a sign okay we don't have any we don't have any information back
they they sever her hand they send it to the FBI why the family hasn't got some answers on this is absolutely
ridiculous well even more so that they weren't asked for permission to do so or or at least even told about it yes right
right I maybe not asking for permission um but saying hey this is what we're doing because this is how we think we
can solve this and this is what we discovered that's appalling really um that's like you know that's just very
disrespectful to Barbie and her family well they likely they likely didn't get the information from it even during this
testing that they were hoping to to get right but let's just assume that Cox is correct right that it was some
kind of address then it almost implies that she knew she was going somewhere or possibly going to go somewhere after she
gets dropped off at her boyfriend's house mhm yeah or I mean it could have been for any type of future use we don't
know that it had to have been for that night and when I first read this statement my mind jumped to
a phone number you know I could see we've all done it whether it be a piece of paper or on your hand where you
write down someone's name and a phone number but the way that he says it when he says that there were numbers on top
and some type of words on the bottom that to me I'm I'm going with Coxs on this one because that's how I would
typically write down an address you know the the the numeric and then the street
name so the other thing too is we've not actually seen this and not many people have apparently the including the family
so it's very likely that whether you're able to make it out or not what what was
written there's a chance that he could have looked at this and said well there's only four or five numbers on top
not enough for an actual phone number again this type of laser technology back then we have
discussed this on some of the other cases that we covered that were around the same time frame it wasn't uncommon
for them to bring in these this Laser Technology from the FBI to try to find fingerprints on a body or on certain
items so this is really just to try to paint a a better picture and fill in some of the blanks because if there
weren't blanks they wouldn't have had to send it off to be tested well this is also kind of the problem with
having where she was found not where we think the actual crime took place but where she was found
investigate this crime because again maybe you have some smeared letters or numbers or whatever but maybe detectives
within her home town would know what those meant you know what I mean like they have a better chance of you know
does that make any sense I I mean I know what you're getting at but I don't I don't know I do think that there is
confusion in this case because they did follow protocol and and the investigative agency was where the
body was found right right but I understand this protocol but again it's to me the protocol should be not only are
we going to have where she was found investigate but where she came from we're going to have
them involved because again a name or a number might ring a bell to a local detective where it might mean nothing to
somebody from Kai hoga Falls you know so when we covered the Tony Muny case that
took place in the 80s as well and in Ohio as well there was a bit of a struggle for jurisdiction regarding that
case I don't know that there was necessarily a struggle for jurisdiction here but just to give some people an
example of such in Tony mun's case he lived in Columbus Ohio he was found in Delaware
County and found within what was it 24 hours or so after he was last seen yeah now a lot of people just to clear this
up a lot of people are going Tony Muny I don't know if I heard that episode is one of our uh bonus episodes we only
have two uh Tony Muny and the brick of family murders you can find those on iTunes or on our website yeah and during
that time Columbus PD said we want to take this case on because we believe he was he was
killed likely in Columbus or by somebody that that was in Columbus okay right and Delaware County
was like no we're going to take it because we found the body in Delaware County what what transpired there in my
opinion I don't mean to criticize but the leads that Delaware County was following they weren't they weren't
equipped to handle that type of case back then they are nowadays but not back then I think it would have been a
different outcome had Columbus Police Department been the one to lead the investigation or I mean well I shouldn't
say lead because they weren't really allowed to be involved very much at all right so what you're saying is not to
offend but hey you guys are just little pieces of [ __ ] well I don't know the way
that it went down in Barbie's CL in Barbie's case I don't know that they were that there was a struggle for
jurisdiction what I'm getting at here is but see what I'm saying my the new protocol not to cut you off sorry but
new protocol is everybody works together that's the new protocol right I mean the
somebody may still have the lead on a case but often times we see yeah of at least here in Ohio what we've seen with
our own eyes and a lot of times with the cases that we've covered elsewhere what
we see is when we're reporting this stuff it's like we mentioned two or three or four agencies when we're
talking about some of these cases so I don't know how much involvement Garfield Heights actually
had in this situation because we know that it was Summit County that had the case and we know still to this day the
case remains unsolved and Summit County still has the case where I will give criticism goes back to the removal of
the hand because this is the way that this whole thing thing went down and it's a
bit shameful to me the family discovered that Barbie's hand was severed and sent away
effectively mutilating the corpse when a reporter called the blat neck home and the person that answered the phone was
19-year-old Donna her sister and she was simply asked by the reporter why was your sister's hand why had it been cut
off what I'm getting at is I'm not suggesting that they would have had to ask for permission but I do think there
are better ways to handle this situation when you have loved ones that are mourning the
loss of their sister and their daughter where you don't have to show any of your cards per se you could
simply say look this is one thing that we think will be extremely helpful to the investigation of the murder of your
daughter the hand contains we believe that it could contain some evidence that could lead us to the perpetrator right
and in order for us to do the best job we can as investigators we're going to actually turn over this to the FBI right
you don't have to tell them what you found you don't have to and in doing so we have to remove her hand right and you
know because it'd be a very difficult thing for a parent because part of you would
just be going can't they just come here yeah can't they just come here do we have
to you know put her through more than she's already been through right and and I understand that she passed away at
this point but that's what it feel like that you're putting her through more torture than is necessary
so what is known about the investigation is uh besides what we've already talked
about B by Tuesday December 23rd kyoga Falls Police had interviewed 15 or 20 people in connection with Barbie's death
including a number of her friends but they said publicly that they had come up with nothing concrete and had no
definite suspects in mind what if any police uncovered in their investigation remains a mystery even to this day when
we inquired of the kyoga falls Sergeant about certain aspects of the C such as whether police ever found her clothes or
jewelry or whether they could tell us what the message was on her hand we received basically a no comment which is
which is fine that's good I hope what that means fine well it's fine that's good and I say that
because I hope that this is a case that they're revisiting from time to time and
they don't want to show any of those cards that we just talked about right but you could say something like that
and we're currently working on this uh we don't want to compromise what we have um but the fact that there's out there's
people out there like you said armchair detectives you got people in our family that are still pushing this forward now
we're trying to push this forward sometimes these cops need to get off uh stop sitting on their hands and put out
more information even if cuz that's going to be my argument constantly you see it
like with the Amy Mahal case coming out with new evidence and having press conferences 20 years after the
fact you know some of that stuff just doesn't make any sense and if they have DNA they need to be testing it well
according to Barbie's family the clothes in the jewelry were never found and the
police captain at the time back in 1988 told the Beacon Journal that quote we have probably interviewed over 200
people about Barbie's last hours her whereabouts and the timeline 10 years later reflecting on the unsolved case in
1997 the lead kyoga Falls detective on the case Larry Wagner theorized that it hadn't been solved because the crime was
probably committed 30 mil away in Garfield Heights and police didn't have an easy time tracking down Witnesses
Wagner said quote she was a fairly popular young lady so she had a lot of friends and a lot of people we had to
look into I'll bet we interviewed at least 100 people but he said they had very few solid leads to go on even
chalking her murder up to a possible transient and that's about it for public knowledge of the official
investigation now thanks to the Facebook page and Barbie's sister Donna again we
have a little more insight into some of the players whom police might have spoke
to or looked at in this case according to Michelle Barbie did not hook up with Jerry her boyfriend that night at least
initially right we know that Jerry wasn't around she asked to be dropped off on Warner Road and that she was
going to head to his house nearby by local reports Jerry wasn't home he was out with his friends that
night we have no idea whether Barbie knocked on the door or just went away when no one answered right what the
situation could have been or here's a possibility or if Bob Jerry's brother or anyone else answered the door if Barbie
did approach the door and knock right well because we have to put it out there that it's a possibility that she tells
her friends hey drop me off by my boyfriend's house and that could have been a meeting spot for her to meet
somebody else so we don't even know if she made it to her boyfriend's house right exactly I mean there could be any
number of reasons for her to change her mind and go elsewhere right we do know that Jerry was looked at Hard by police
but it's unknown whether they ever tested his DNA so he's not home that we know of and well we we know according to
statements that he was out with friends that night right so he has an alibi he's
not at home and he has an alibi it seems like was looked at pretty good by police
but it is unknown whether they ever tested his DNA mhm we have been told that several of the guys in the
neighborhood eager to exclude themselves from the suspect pool agreed to be tested but we don't know for certain if
Jerry was one of them according to Donna there were a few who refused but police
seem to have satisfied themselves that Jerry was not involved we're basing this off of the fact that he was never named
a suspect or arrested uh he has since passed away so you got all these local Creos think about the shitty things that
you had to do with your life where you somebody comes up missing somebody's uh dead body is found and you're very eager
to get yourself excluded from the investigation well I don't know that that necessarily means that they're
creeps or that they've done anything wrong not all of them but I'm saying out one of them in that group is super duper
creepo right and so he's going please test me cuz I've made a lot of bad decisions and I don't want people to
think that I did this I I don't know I'm just saying there there's at least one and I'm just
saying that guy made a lot of bad decisions it's a possibility but when they're talking to these
individuals look if they believe that they have a blood typee or or anything regarding DNA right or that type of
evidence that can either clear somebody or connect them they're not going to make their jobs any harder than it has
to be they're going to ask you where you were that night do you know Barbara blatnik uh how long have you known her
do you know any of her friends okay who of them do you know would you be willing
to submit your DNA or your blood type or any of that evidence to us and we can either include you or exclude you but
I'm saying there might be some somebody in the audience going with their hand raised please test me hey we're not even
talking to you no I know you're not talking to me but please test me I want to be excluded from this investigation I
think what's more interesting is the um Alibi that some of these teenagers and young adults may or may not have had for
that night MH we have a lot of kids and young adults that are look I'm not going to
accuse them of of anything that we don't already know these are people that are drinking underage smoking some pot
hanging out partying not a big deal right that's pretty that's a fairly common activities for people of that age
right so no big deal there no harm no foul however I think where a lot of the the
trouble that this investigation has got into is going off of the word of these young adults and teenagers that are
breaking some very small rules and laws right I wonder how well we can trust the
aliis and statements provided to detectives regarding what was going on that night with whom and where right so
hypothetically speaking you got a group of teenagers that were hanging out at the Captain's Pub and the captain's Pub
was serving in miners alcohol that night my ties and margaritas yeah loads of my
ties and and we got a special drink called the douche canoe it's very long and it's filled with booze and it's kind
of like a fish bowl but anyways there's a so here's what I'm hearing you say it's a teen a teenage
group might tell the cops we were at Tommy's house or we were just driving around and not to give the location of
the place that they might have been drinking or partying at mhm and so that makes did they do anything wrong no are
they involved in the crime no but it's making a lot of these stories unclear yes and and I base that off of this so
let's I'm going to create four different compartments real quick here regarding these teens and young adults and
especially the young adults that are still living at home with Mom and Dad okay so we have the a group that may not
give a [ __ ] about anything and they're just willing to tell the cops whatever because they don't care they don't fear
the cops they don't fear their parents they don't fear the law then we have another group who might be terrified of
getting in trouble with the law may not understand the law and think oh I sold some pot to these people right I'm going
to go away forever okay and then you have another grp group group C that might just be
terrified of mom and dad I don't want to get in trouble with Mom and Dad or I don't want to disappoint my parents
right then we got Group D who is going to go you know what maybe I'm a little afraid of the law maybe I'm a little
afraid of disappointing my parents but in the sake of doing what's right I'm going
to accept what I've done and I'm going to tell the truth to the police anyway right but what I'm getting at is you
still have two groups within that that large pool of people we know that she was a popular kid she had a lot of
friends nobody there's nobody out there saying differently so you have a large group of people all of them young adults
and teenagers and you have if we're going to break that up into just four different groups we got two of those
four groups that probably would bend the truth well right or leave out details or
you know the other group is the people that don't want to get that establishment that they're at in trouble
right so so no and then on top of that no it also can affect your personal life going forward right and your activities
maybe you love going to the bike shop in December and January and getting all boozed up with your buddies but guess
what after I tell the truth about what I was doing that night when barbar went missing and then was found dead MH guess
what I can no longer say hey Mom Dad I'm going off to the bike shop see you in a
few hours that ain't going to fly anymore well yeah and all those rats that ratted out the captain's Pub No
douche canoe for you no douche canoe for you well in episode two of this case Captain I really want to take a deep
dive into what are some other possibilities for that night for Barbara's last night and I also want to
explore if her murder could be connected to other murders in the [Music] area a lot more to dive into if you have
thoughts on this go to True Crime garage.com and leave your comments on the blog yep join us back here for part
two until then be good be kind and don't litter [Music] you can start your day off right when
you find a professional on Ang to get your plumbing right first connect with skilled professionals
to get all your home project done well visit angie.com you can do this when you Angie that

Barbara Blatnik /// Part 1 /// 316

Part 1 of 2

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Join us in the Garage as we discuss an Ohio Cold Case. Barbara was just 17 when she didn’t come home one night. Her body was found the next day. There was fear at the time that an undetected serial killer was operating in the area. We will discuss some possible leads for this unsolved case and ask you for your help. Beer of the Week - Focal Banger by The Alchemist Garage Grade - 4 out of 5 bottle caps

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Brief Summary

Barbara Blatnik, 17, was murdered in 1987; her case remains unsolved with theories of serial killers involved.

Key points

The Disappearance of Barbara Blatnik. A 17-year-old girl goes missing after a party, leading to a tragic discovery.
Unsolved Murders in Summit County. The case of Barbara Blatnik reveals a string of unsolved murders in the area.
The Timeline of Barbie's Death. Barbie was alive at 3:30 a.m. and found dead at 10:20 a.m. after a brutal attack.
The Class Ring's Role. The class ring was crucial in identifying Barbie, despite other jewelry being missing.
Controversial Handling of Evidence. Barbie's hand was severed and sent for analysis without her family's consent, raising ethical concerns.
Investigation Insights. Police interviewed many but found no solid leads in Barbie's case.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Something went wrong because she does not come home.

A 17-year-old girl calls her parents but never returns home.

3:57WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

60/ 100Some tension

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