Barbara Blatnik /// Part 2 /// 317 | Forensic Files

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round grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] according to Barbies friend Michelle
Michelle dropped Barbie off near the bike shop that we have discussed as well as near her boyfriend's home Jerry so we
need to discuss what are the possibilities of what happened after 3:30 a.m. where we have nobody else
who's come forward saying that they saw her after that time period so let's pretend that either she decided not to
go to Jerry's house or that she did in fact go to Jerry's house he was not home and there was no one there to let her in
or nobody answered the door one thing that I find curious here captain is this situation of if she in fact wanted to go
to Jerry's house why not just drop him her off right at Jerry's house yeah and I know that that that was my initial
immediate thought and reaction to finding out that she that we knew her whereabouts until about 3:30 a.m. that
morning mm-hmm again though these are younger people Barbara is not even an adult yet and it's 3:30 in the morning I
don't know that she would just pull right up to Jerry's house get out of Michelle's car walk up and ring the
doorbell yeah so I would I would be curious to find out from Michelle or if any of Barbara's friends from way back
then if they have any idea or clue as to how this would typically go down because
I'm kind of guessing here but if they had been on and off for about a year I'm wondering if this was not so entirely
uncommon that this wasn't the first time that she thought about showing up at Jerry's in the middle of the night was
there some type of procedure that they had you know you the throw the little rock the little pebble at the
window or did she in fact call Jarry earlier that night we know that she called her parents and we don't have
anybody saying that they were present or around Barbie when that call was made so
is there a chance that she called Gerry as well and said hey I'm gonna be here til the bar closes and I might come over
to your house afterwards well then that would make some sense cuz again hypothetically let's say she calls Gerry
she can't get ahold of Gerry this would make sense on why she would call her her
parents she normally doesn't call her parents to let him know where she's gonna go or what's happening but maybe
she called in hopes that Gerry called and left a message that's a possibility I also think that it might be likely to
that there was something else going on with the black Nick family that she may not have wanted to miss out on we
mentioned that her sister and mother went shopping that is shopping trip the next morning right is there a chance
that she was asked if she wanted to go on that trip and this unusual call for her to call home is her saying hey I'm
on my way home and that's you know I want to be a part of that shopping trip tomorrow or letting them know I will be
home tonight so don't allow me to miss out on the events of tomorrow that wake me up tomorrow yeah so back to the
boyfriend Gerry thing though I mean it wasn't this wasn't something that that you or I did every night but I have to
imagine I know with myself and I'm sure with you as well that there was more than one occasion where you call a
friend and say hey I'll meet you in your backyard at 11:30 or I'll meet you in your backyard at 2:00 in the morning and
you sneak out of your house and you go meet your buddy well sometimes it's hard to remember times before cellphones yeah
but yeah that was very common or it was also more common just to swing by somebody's house just to see if they're
there possibly but what I'm getting at is with Gerry's home and with this with this possibility of her going over there
but they're not being cell phones if I was going to meet up with a buddy at 1:00 in the morning or 2:00 in the
morning and in somebody's backyard you did that because you couldn't call their house that late at night to let them
know hey I'm outside right or you couldn't ring the doorbell because you'd wake up their parents I'm talking about
being 15 16 17 years old sneaking out and meeting up with somebody is there was there a procedure
if they had done this before that they would not necessarily meet at Jerry's house not necessarily meet on his front
at his front door you know to me where they can Street yeah meet me at in the church yard or meet me in my backyard at
this time and I can actually think of a time or two where I went to meet the person and for whatever reason they
didn't show up you don't panic you just leave because you're like Oh their mom or dad must have caught them sneaking
out the window or trying to get out the back door yeah the guy that didn't show up he actually told me he didn't like
you so whatever may have happened here let's say that she decides to do something else
other than to go to Jerry's or for whatever reason that meetup didn't take place and I don't mean to sound a little
douchey here but to toss out the the old anything is possible but this could be as simple as drop me off down the street
so I can smoke a cigarette before I get to his house drop me off down the street
because I want to walk off this bus I have it could be so many things oh yeah there's a bazillion options here but
what we what we can go the rabbit hole we can go down is this she didn't meet up with Jerry she didn't get into
Jerry's house or whatever that meeting was supposed to be let's say that didn't take place or she changed her mind a
bazillion things like we said right regardless that meeting doesn't happen she would find herself on the street at
close to 4:00 a.m. so what would she likely have done at that time well we do know we've spoke with some of her
friends and spoke with her sister so we do have some thoughts on that my first thought is she could have went over to
see if anyone was still at the bike shop this is just a short walk away from where she was
if she if she did do this she could have run into anyone including there was a person that was named an ex of hers
named Dave who was at a party that night at the bike shop party at some point that night apparently police looked at
this guy pretty hard apparently he had an alibi for the time when Barbie went missing there's another option that she
could have proceeded down the street to where her very close friend Gina lived now we've not yet mentioned Gina Gina
was living with her boyfriend just two blocks up Grand Division Avenue she was in a relatively new relationship and her
boyfriend Rodney did not want her to go out and hang out on Warner Avenue the night before with Barbie now Gina says
that Barbie had called her on that Saturday in question and asked her to come out with her but Gina declined a
decision that she says she later regretted adding that if she had been with Barbie that night no one would have
messed with her apparently according to Gina her boyfriend at the time was one of three brothers who were not only
known in the area but kind of feared in the area as well yeah according to Gina Barbie did not make it to her house that
night but I point out that as being an option for two reasons one it's not terribly far from where she got dropped
off it's her very good friend and she she would be under the belief that her friend is at home because she spoke to
her earlier that day she's not coming out I'm not coming out I'm staying at home yeah so maybe she wanted to see her
friend now we know she didn't arrive there but is it possible that something happened to her on on her way out to
that way yeah again it might be a punt but she gets dropped off she tells her friends she's going to Gerry's house she
goes over to Gerry's house there's nobody there there's no lights on I'll [ __ ] what I'm gonna what am I going to
let me head towards a friend's house yeah she's she's been drinking or doesn't want to go home yet I'll drop in
on Gina see what she's doing okay so there's another option here and it's just plain
and simple that maybe Barbie decided to walk home from that location how far away is it well I don't have the exact
distance here but what is interesting is it's a much further walk if she were to
stick to the streets but there's a park that she could have cut through now this
is not terribly far from where she lives I do know that but I don't have an exact
you know miles or anything here if she chose to cut through the park it's 4:00 in the morning right if anything's going
on on Park it's nothing good right and if anyone's there yeah they're nothing good - this is Jack Donovan park with it
had baseball fields and wooded areas this was in fact between Barbie where she would have been near Jerry's home
and her home so perhaps someone seized upon her in the park while she was making the cut through rein Barbies
family said that she would never accept a ride from a stranger but they did add that she would have taken a ride from
somebody that she knew and of course there's always the possibility that she was snatched off the road maybe from the
park whatever and just thrown into a car against her will one with that rabbit hole again yes somebody picks her up
throws around a vehicle fine but also this is the age where I mean how many times did you end up at a party or end
up in somebody's car that you you knew from school or knew there were a friend of a friend you know so this this makes
it wide open if somebody saw her that was just a acquaintance you know so they're saying yeah she wouldn't get
into a car with the stranger a complete stranger but she might get into a car with you know local jack that she kind
of knows well and I mean consider this she's dropped off at 3:30 in the morning we've only looked into this case
for about a week or so and we've already identified three possible places that she could have gone to and she would
have known multiple people there that's where I circle back to what the detectives were saying at the time and
even ten years after the fact right where they say look she was a popular kid had a ton of friends we interviewed
everybody that we could think of and we're we're not coming up with any suspects here right but and part of the
issue they're saying is there could have been just like you pointed out that the
possibilities do seem somewhat endless hmm they're saying look what there's so many options here of whom she could have
been with and until we find somebody saying that they saw her with somebody or somebody saying that she was with me
we got this marker of 3:30 a.m. and that's where the road dead-ends for us yeah but that goes back to your breaking
down those categories of these teenagers or early 20 some year olds that don't want to talk that don't want to get in
trouble or get their friends in trouble right and so it goes back to that is there it almost seems like there's a
piece of the puzzle missing that possibly could be given to us by one of these individuals well here's the thing
- look man it's been 30 years if you saw Barbara that night if you hung out with
her after 3:30 a.m. or if you can add further detail regarding that night now's the time I mean that [ __ ] the time
was decades ago but right right it's never too late to do the right thing and nobody gives a [ __ ] if you were underage
drinking or smoking a doob yeah just help us out tell somebody something you know add to the timeline help police
maybe they'll get back involved in this thing no what was the Facebook page again I
believe it's justice for Barbara Blanton ik so they could contact the page as well correct
correct but regardless of these endless possibilities the reality is where we sit today that after 3:30 a.m. no one is
saying that they know where barbie was or what she was doing or how she ended up on the side of
O'Neil Road in Cuyahoga Falls yeah now after Barbara was killed the media in the Akron area was quick to highlight
her murder multiple stories ran about the case in the days that followed the discovery of her body
this is particularly because murders in the area were relatively rare in 1987 there were only nine women murdered in
Akron proper I want to point out that Barbara is not part of that statistic Akron police had about an 88 percent
solver II on average not bad right 88% solver II but Barbies case drew special attention and not just because it was
the brutal murder and rape of a pretty young girl Barbies murder was the tipping point in the eyes of many who
believed that a serial killer was at work in Summit County as of the end of 1987 there were four cases of murders of
women which remained unsolved and which the police did not seem to have any leads on all of these involved bodies
dumped in a diamond pattern on the map of northern Summit County within just a few miles of each other all were middle
class white females living in a low risk area low-risk lifestyle who were last seen going about their usual daily
routine in very safe neighborhoods only to be found murdered within a short time
period okay I'm I'm just trying to make sure I'm following go ahead one these bodies were laid out
seems like a diamond pattern if you look at a map yeah if you're looking at a map
it would it would look like a diamond pattern some people have pointed out pointed out that pattern that it means
something some people have pointed out that that adds to the serial killer theory and so then all these women were
living high risk lifes low-risk lifestyles low risk low risk lifestyles and they
all were in very safe neighborhoods I think what's more important scratch the diamond pattern throw that out the
window that seems like some Hollywood [ __ ] to me what seems more important is that we have similar victimology and all
of them are within a few miles of each other right all of these all but one were found stabbed in all but one were
raped all were found out in public spaces no weapons were found in any of the cases and all of them had occurred
within the last four months of 1987 this series of murders was causing near panic
among the residents of the area articles appeared in local papers about women being afraid to leave their homes gun
sales spiked and pepper spray tear gas and mace flew off the shelves okay so and then in these four cases did they
believe that the attacks happen where there the bodies were found or were they did they happen somewhere else well
we're gonna dive into each one of these cases look at each one of them specifically rather than you know just
doing it as a whole but there there were calls to hotlines to rape hotlines that were going through the roof this is
women looking for advice on how to protect themselves and self-defense class registrations shot up now I will I
want to point something out anybody that has never done self-defense classes or has considered it but for whatever
reason has not gone around to it I highly encourage these types of classes for a million reasons I'll name just a
couple one it's going to give you some tactics that you do not know these are life-saving tactics as well as the
confidence to to push through this type of situation right I don't know karate but I know crazy there were rumors at at
the time that were spreading about perpetrators lying in wait for women hiding under their cars cutting their
ankles with knives or disguising themselves as old ladies asking for assistance and then attacking
women this is something that you often see in a situation where there's there's cause to panic we have the general
public that are coming up with these folklore type stories in an area we got four murders that took place in a short
period of time and all that the public knows is that these murders are unsolved regardless of
how many perpetrators it was they're still out there so police are gonna step up manpower they did issue statements
assuring the public that they were on it and debunking these wild stories that were circulating through the county in
response to public outcry a task force was in fact formed this is just days after Barbies death they wanted to get
to the bottom of these murders the task force was formed by Summit County Prosecutor Lynn slabby and included
Akron Cuyahoga Falls Hudson Township the office of Summit County Sheriff and the
we also have the coroner Cox that we mentioned earlier as well as representatives from the FBI prosecutor
slabby said there have never been this many homicides in this short of a time without one or more being resolved we
cannot tolerate this the plan was for the task force to share information get centralized they wanted to do a computer
database which we've talked about and I think the first time I recall us talking
about this might have been during the course of the Ted murders which we know eventually led to the arrest of Ted
Bundy mm-hmm they wanted to get this centralized computer database put together with
information on all of the murders and then work together all these different agencies now one anchor in detective at
the time said any idea is a good one and hopefully we will be able to gain some information we don't feel the murders
are related but it doesn't hurt to get together and exchange ideas so let's take a quick look at the other three
murders as you have inquired captain these three murders that stumped police proceeded Barbies
authorities believed at the time that none of the victims knew their killer or killers which made the cases very hard
to solve and investigating right here are the three victims the first is Janice Christensen so on
Monday August 10th 1987 in Hudson 31 year-old Janice Christensen laced up her running shoes
Janice was a computer operator at Cuyahoga Falls General Hospital and she was also a fitness enthusiast who liked
to run many days she brought along with her her very large 70 pound dog named wolf but for some reason on this day she
did not around 9:30 a.m. she got into her vehicle a Toyota Tercel and headed out to the Metro Park district bike and
hike trail in Hudson for her run when Janice didn't show up for lunch with her mom it this being very unlike her and
when her husband Ken arrived home from work at 5:45 and didn't find her there and then checks with mom and finds out
she hadn't shown up for lunch he calls the police and he filed a missing-persons report after spending a
very uneasy night alone at home I mean he can't sleep and it's like 6:30 in the morning he decides I'm gonna go out and
look for ya he knows that she was going to go out for a run I'm guessing that he
knew the areas that she preferred to run because he ended up heading to the very
same trail that Janice had went to and this is around 6:30 a.m. he brought the dog with him he and the
dog walked the path and wolf started acting very strange and was alerting to some bushes unfortunately they're hidden
in the brush was Janice's partially nude body her husband said he touched her arm
it was cold and he noticed dried blood on her shirt yeah later police determined that Janice had been raped
and stabbed to death in the Ches they say about 10 a.m. the day before when she had gone running this was a
very popular recreational trail and if it was in fact that she was murdered at 10 a.m. this would have been in broad
daylight right and you think that somebody would have saw something yeah and we talked about safe areas in safe
neighborhoods this was the first serious crime ever to happen since the trail opened in 1973
I've actually been to hudson quite a bit it's a nice area whoever killed Janice they were either brazen enough to do it
in a public area in broad daylight or dumb enough to do it that way hmm her car and this is the weird part man her
car was found in a drugstore parking lot in Bedford but police have stated that they believe that she was killed near
the trail where her body was found right so somebody took her keys moved her car
yeah and Ken was looked at the couple apparently was having some type of marital troubles that they may or may
not have resolved isn't everybody heaven married if you're married you have problems you have problems that's the
rules right yeah the report was that whatever these troubles were they were resolved and
they resolved so much that the couple was planning on moving together to Florida police weren't able to link Ken
or anyone else to the murder and no weapons were found in this murder Janice's murder remains unsolved coroner
Cox collected a DNA sample left from the rape but nothing has come of it and nothing has been stated regarding that
publicly as well our next victim is Joanne Bartholomew two months later this is after Janice's murder just two months
later on Wednesday October 21st 47 year-old Joanne Bartholomew headed out alone to an evening church service
Joanne's husband chuck often accompanied her but on this night he was busy working on opening the couple's second
Dairy Queen franchise now Joanne made it to the eight o'clock service and and she headed to the mall she was seen
at a store called O'Neal's looking at VCRs and according to police she made a purchase there Chuck got home
around 9:30 fell asleep on the couch around midnight the couple's son woke him up and saying look mom's not home
she's still not home and her car's not in the driveway yeah so father and son go off in the car to look for Joanne
driving the route to the church and back because they didn't know that she had gone to the mall so they didn't bother
looking there Chuck called churchgoers from the night before to ask if they had seen his wife after the church service
they had not then he called the police and reported Joanne missing by 7:30 the next morning after Chuck and Tom decided
to go back out and drive around in daylight hours this time they spotted Joanne's Cadillac it was parked in an
outdoor lot at the Chapel Hill mall this is close to the mall entrance Joanne's poor husband had to open the trunk of
the car in the company of police but to their relief it was empty police theorized that Joanne never
re-entered her car after shopping Chuck's relief was short-lived because on Saturday at 3 p.m.
Joanne's body was found in a wooded area behind the best product store at the mall she was found face up partially
naked raped and stabbed to death in the neck and chest no knife or other evidence was found Joanne had also been
robbed according to the Akron PD her purse and credit cards including the one used to make the purchase at O'Neill's
were taken her things were found in two separate locations one set of credit cards and ID were found by a jogger
dumped about three miles away in North Hill and some more cards were found by someone about two miles away in
Patterson Park now make sure if the person was on foot police searched the park and
the missing purse as well except for the robbery the case looked very similar to
that of Janice Christiansen and the public began to be concerned [Music] take killing your hair at home to the
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[Music] all right we're back cheers cheers Cheers ahoy unfortunately captain we have another victim in this
string of murders the task force is going to have to investigate now this is the murder of Marcia Potter on Monday
December 14th Marcia Potter age 36 she was getting ready to leave bingo at her church this is around 10:30 p.m.
Marcia was a wife mother and a dental office receptionist she was in the company of her parents on that evening
this is a North Akron not far from her home Marcia was reported to be very safety-conscious she made a point of
double-checking that her car doors were always locked and she even counseled her
friends and family to do the same now on this night after bingo Marcia's parents
walked her to her car in the church parking lot they saw her locked the doors and then drive off but by 4:30
a.m. on Thursday morning Marcia's husband Larry was alarmed that she had not come home so he calls police it
didn't take long to find her at 11:30 p.m. Wednesday Marcia's body was found inside of her car by residents in
apartment complex on North Pershing Avenue and North Akron this is just six blocks just six blocks from her home no
she was lying on the floor or the seat the reports vary but she was stabbed to death in the neck newspaper reports are
also they also report that she was robbed the Akron Police said that Marcia's purse was emptied and several
credit cards were missing now there are some interesting things about Marcia's case she was not raped she was found
fully clothed and media reports were that the door of her car were still locked when her
body was found akron police theorized that she might have been killed elsewhere and then driven to that spot
by the killer again with this crime no murder weapon was found some final thoughts on the murders these four
murders and the task force that was assembled there was a lot of disagreement right off the bat about
whether the cases were even in fact related to one another we have detective Sam Messina and other
Cuyahoga Falls Police spokespersons who told the Beacon Journal repeatedly that Barbara's murder had no similarities to
the other three cases of murder of women in Summit County coroner Cox seems to agree with these statements
investigating officers in North Akron felt that it was likely that Marcia Potter was killed by someone she knew
they're basing this off of the thought in fact that she was found in her locked car implying that maybe she had picked
someone up also her case she was not raped I guess they had assault a strong suspect in her case but there was never
an arrest made so I'm guessing they didn't have enough evidence in Marcia Potter's case well it's difficult to
because it kind of seemed like a robbery as well so didn't go under the you can go down the rabbit hole that maybe she
knew the person but it's also possible that she just didn't have a door locked when she was driving and I guess
generally investigators did not feel that Barbie's case fit the pattern if there was a pattern going on right one
we can point out some things here that are obvious from the get-go she's much younger than the other three victims but
she lived 30 miles away which i think is a huge indicator that it might not be connected and she was strangled not
stabbed but not so fast because do you feel like the three other than Barbies case were connected
and that's a tricky one I actually think that two of them are connected and the other two have no connection to any of
the others yeah so it seems like the first two that you discussed the first two seem very similar yeah well there's
a park involved and that's the only reason why I would go okay well thirty miles away
yes but possibly Barbie would have cut through that part to reach her house so that puts a park into play and I know
that's a stretch but the first two had parts possibly involved where I would say that there could be the possibility
that we have similar cases is Barbie's case would fit with the first two in the fact that it looks like the the first
two victims were just kind of snatched out in public yeah there was a it seemed like the
motive was sexual right 100% and same way and Barbies case as well mm-hmm well sadly all of these cases whether they're
connected or not went cold and they actually went cold very quickly by August of 1988 this is the first
anniversary after the murder of Janice Christianson she was the first one murder yeah Hudson police said that they
had little hope of solving the case what a kick in the freaking pants right less
than a right in the grundle right we got a year later and we have the police straight up saying we have little hope
of solving this case but but don't they have DNA they did but that didn't mean anything in nineteen that right or
nineteen yeah they didn't have a crystal ball to know that hey right one day but
again that's like it seems like they would be able to test all this stuff by now I mean you would think this is not
like a some you know dirt poor area that they don't have tax money coming in for
these people to do their jobs right so it just seems like I wonder what it feel like to be a detective the day that they
caught Golden State killer too to go oh [ __ ] now think about the hundreds of cases that
are not solved that have DNA that they can start doing this test too well that's the thing though that's what
we're doing here essentially is reminding everyone that these cases are unsolved there was evidence collected in
these cases if that evidence is still around and still exists let's see if we can do something with it yeah yeah The
Beacon Journal this is also another not uplifting thing to report here but what was reported was that the task force
never really got off the ground it stalled because the information sharing software wasn't yet completed so the
task force basically just kind of fell apart and the other thing too that seems like the case for the task force in
their defense frankly there just weren't leads to pursue in some of these cases so police did admit that they were never
close to an arrest on any of these four cases and still to this day there's no consensus about whether they were
looking for one killer two three or maybe even four different killers right again because it's not clear even with
the odd top so you have Barbies case is it are we looking for one individual or two and if we're looking at two then I
would say that this this case is definitely not connected to the other three and I lean more towards what
you're saying that the first two seem more likely to be connected if any of them are connected those first two we
don't know about the third one maybe that's maybe that's a robbery maybe that's somebody that she knew and
Barbies case maybe it's two individuals and if that's the case then it's like the couldn't they come out and tell us
that are we looking for one person or two do you want to hear a theory this is this is an interesting theory
I want to pass along the theory that Barbara's family told us yes right her sister Donna says Barbie's family
does not believe that her case is related to the other three murders according to Donna word on the
street after Barbies brutal slaying was that her sort of boyfriend Gerry may have been responsible this along with
two other men who were brothers Donna believes that Barbie got into a car with these guys that night and they
drove around drinking maybe doing drugs and then something went very wrong I'm not I want to be clear we obviously know
Barbies death was not an accident at all so nothing wrong like that something occurred in one two or all three of
these men were involved in the murder of Barbara Blatt Nick now Donna says that Barney there would be involved in her
rape as well one two or three of them yes according according to this rumor according to word on the street and
according to the theory that the family seems to believe now Donna made sure to point out that Barbie was a tough cookie
she was a fighter she had been in several physical fights in the past there are people that knew Barbara who
have pointed out that it may have taken multiple men to to overcome her so this is where this thought gets in theory
gets some legs here from people that knew Barbara now Donna also heard a rumor that a car matching the
description of Gerry's car was seen that night in the Blossom Music Centre area we do know that police searched Gerry's
home at one point in the investigation they didn't find anything now just a few years ago a local man named George was
drunk in an area bar and recounted a story to a friend of Barbies named Kelly this drunk guy George said that on the
night of Barbie's death Gerry and the two brothers that we had mentioned came to him for help they wanted help help
cleaning out their car with bleach and they wanted him to help them wash their close mm-hmm when he asked why they need
his help what is this mess what the hell's going on they say one of them tells him we just killed Barbie blanik
so this she's this woman Kelly relayed this story that she hears from this drunk guy George one night two Barbies
best friend Gina remember the one who decided not to go out right and I want the new boyfriend Gina takes this
information and passed this along to a detective according to Gina her thoughts on this
scenario was that the detective did not seem overly interested in this information but that's hard to say if
there is any truth to this story and George is not a lying drunk then it's unlikely that the black mix they may
never see closure because here's some problems with the current state of this case yeah I hesitated there for a second
captain I was going to say current state of the investigation I'm I really feel like in this case there's no
investigating currently going on but anyway you know if in fact this is true they may never see closure because Jerry
and one of the brothers named by this George guy both of them are deceased by now right and even if there is DNA that
remains in Barbara's case we don't know if it was ever tested against Jerry or the brothers and now it it could be too
late to test you know it's it's too late to test these two men no it's not too late dig up their bones well the other
thing too is the a it's always possible that one of them could have killed her but not left their DNA I don't want to
go down that road too far because I'm not very comfortable with with some of the things that we think that happened
that occurred during the attack of Barbara right but but what I'm getting at here is there's a chance that more
than one person was involved maybe even as many as three if we're going to believe this rumor or this
theory or thought then that one of the perpetrators didn't leave behind any evidence well yeah and let's hold our
horses first second two on the idea that that maybe that law enforcement didn't care because what I have noticed or what
I've come to find the more I've hung out with local detectives in an art in our area when they talk about cases there's
a lot of cases that they believe they know what happened they just can't prove it and so if you
have your coroner telling you I think there's multiple people involved in the rape which would be mean that there's
multiple people and the murder multiple people on the cover up in the dumping of
the body and now maybe not law enforcement in cuyahoga but law enforcement in the you know in the area
that Barbie grew up in they probably heard these rumblings of these rumors and you might have a bunch of
circumstantial evidence but like you said we have two people dead so it's not like you can start rounding them up and
turning them against each other so it could be one of those situations where they've heard these rumblings maybe
that's why they didn't seem so interested you know like because they're but it's like and I don't even know what
you do as a detective what you do if you go this is what I think happened but I can't prove it well but on top of that
and I wanted to make sure that we came across we've well I want to make sure that
we're clear on this right when we state that we're saying that Gina says when when I pass this information along I
didn't feel that the detective found it very interesting right now I don't know Gina I've never spoken to Gina so I
don't know exactly how this went down or what gave her those thoughts and feelings but a detective isn't going to
jump out of his chair and go oh I got a live one here you know the inner city they're going to take in the information
and and take a look but there are times when they take the information and don't look at it I mean
we're not gonna sit here and pretend that that never happens yeah I actually got to hear a really cool interview of a
pretty high-profile case I can't tell you what the case is but it was people that were presenting information to law
enforcement and the reason why they presented this to me was for me to hear the law enforcement reactions and some
of the stuff they would drop these bombshells stuff I've never heard about these this
big case and I'm going oh my god I can't believe what I'm hearing and the detective was stone-faced you know yeah
what else she got well throughout the interview you start realizing that big bombshell that they're dropping on him
he's already heard he's already been working on somebody else told him or right they've already worked it or they
know that it's a dead end right that there was a couple other things again bring up a couple things that I thought
were bombshells didn't seem that interested the longer they talked you start realizing he you
know actually showed his hand on a couple things saying you know that one thing that you brought up I've never
heard before that's that's pretty interesting he just didn't do it so at the time and I and that could mean
nothing but I think this seems like one of the again I hate to you know keep beating this drum but it seems like
there's some information that maybe law enforcement can give us that would help and and and or somebody could come
forward and say I saw these three guys that night or this drunk guy George somebody else could come forward if they
told drunk guy George if they were dumb enough to go to a fourth party if there's three individuals involved and
say can you help us clean our car which seems it that seems like that's why it sounds like a drunk [ __ ] story right
at first when I go through that I'm like I'm I want to toss it out and say no doesn't seem right to me but
if maybe in a panic they go we have no ability to wash our clothes you know what I mean if if whatever they're
trying to it being and and dumb enough right if whatever they're trying to achieve they have no ability at that
time to do that they may have reached out to somebody that they thought wouldn't tell anybody
yeah and again this is years later so or somebody that would help them and then in trade you go well he can't tell
anybody now he helped us right or he likely would less be less likely to tell us of or he was on drugs or he's such
drunk that I also don't want this to deter anybody from going to police or any type of law enforcement agency with
information I'm a big if you see something say something and if it's even if it's something that you don't know if
it has any importance to a case at all let let somebody know let the experts decide if it has any importance to the
case yeah let's be very clear let's start with the idea if you know something go to police right because I
feel like in Barbara's case here that's what we're missing there's somebody that
night I have a my gut tells me that this is less likely to be connected to the first two murders in this series I feel
like there's too many moving parts and pieces where she could have just went with somebody she knew we have her
family saying she would have went in a car with people she knew she would have accepted a ride with somebody she knew
there's the bike shop there's her other friend's house there's her boyfriend's house whatever type of relationship they
were having and she knows all these people in this area this area we're talking is about one mile from her home
yeah I wish we knew who gave Jerry the alibi because if one of those individuals is somebody that is a part
of one of these rumors could be the two brothers right then it you know and then
of course that makes a great alibi too because you got two people saying well he was actually with us alright big deal
but by the way he's with us why were killing this poor girl so but I think sometimes with their wooden their smoke
there's fire and there seems to be some details about this you know one it's a piece of of possible evidence that
points to more than one person and then you have a story that's pointing to more
than one person when there's smoke there's sometimes fire yeah I mean you had just the simple fact of alright I
like a nice drunk person as much as the next guy let's pretend that drunk George
is telling the truth well now we have two stories linking Barbara to Jerry and we have her friend Michelle saying not
only did she tell me to drop her off in this area she was getting dropped off in
this area because she said she was going to Jerry's or that she was going to meet
up with Jerry right then some time frame goes by and now poof Jerry and two brothers show up talking to George and
they need help getting their car cleaned up in their clothes cleaned up right which would make sense that the murder
took place somewhere maybe even in the car or that blood happened during the transportation of of the body yeah I'm
not gonna lie I will never say 100% that I trust this George's story but the interesting thing is the missing time
frame involved all seems to it ends with Jerry and then picks up and starts again with Jer
[Music] for more information on this case you can check out the justice for Barbara
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awesome folks out there for listening and telling a friend until next time be good
be kind and don't live [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Source: https://www.podbean.com/eau/pb-z9rja-b7693e

Barbara Blatnik /// Part 2 /// 317 Part 2 of 2 www.TrueCrimeGarage.com 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 Cheers to this week’s sponsors! Save some ca$h with our codes! www.Madison-Reed.com - use code GARAGE and get 10% off plus FREE shipping www.HelloFresh.com/Garage80 and enter code GARAGE80 and get $80 off your first month of Hello Fresh The full archive of True Crime Garage is available on the Stitcher listening app - for FREE. Our show “Off the Record” is only on Stitcher Premium. For a FREE month of listening go to http://stitcherpremium.com/truecrimegarage and use promo code GARAGE

Brief Summary

Barbara Blatnik's unsolved murder raises questions about her last night and possible connections to other local murders.

Key points

The Mystery of Barbie's Disappearance. Exploring the possibilities of what happened to Barbie after 3:30 a.m.
Public Panic and Task Force Formation. The community reacts to a series of murders, leading to a task force being formed.
Janice Christiansen's Disappearance. Janice goes missing after a run, leading to a frantic search by her husband.
Joanne Bartholomew's Murder. Just two months after Janice, Joanne is found murdered, raising public concern.
Marcia Potter's Tragic End. Marcia is found dead in her locked car, leading to speculation about her murder.
The Role of Law Enforcement. Discussion on how law enforcement handles cases with circumstantial evidence and rumors.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

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Host welcomes listeners.

0:56WatchJul 10, 2019

Tension

60/ 100Some tension

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