Bodies in the Basement /// Part 1 /// 466 | Forensic Files

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[Music] % [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
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called off the Record and that is enough of the business all right everybody gather around grab a
chair grab a beer let's talk some true [Music] [Music] crime [Music] [Music] I was working a giant schneer by the
name of ammo and uh he was a cross train to be a cadabra dog was contacted by the Hammond
Police Department and they took me to a house and they said that they uh had a suspect and they had several missing
children in in the area missing boys in the area and they wanted to know if my dog could go into the basement of this
house and conduct a search for him so I put the dog into the basement gave him this command to
search and he went to a corner of the house in the back corner of the basement and he was trained to do what's called
an aggressive response which is to scratch and you know like he's digging yeah and he didn't he didn't do that he
went to the far corner of the house and just stood there and barked so I pulled him back out and I redirected him again
to do a search and he went back to that corner and did nothing but bark so I uh told the hammer detective he's not
trained to do that he's trained to give a an aggressive response however Prudence would dictate we better bust up
some concrete here and take a look because there's a reason why the dog won't leave the
spot so I cleared the area and about a week later I was contacted by the Hamond police to come back again went back to
the exact same residence and what they had done is they had taken a drill and started tried to drill through the
concrete and they discovered that they went down about 10 Ines and there was absolutely they were still solid
concrete so uh they went back to the other side of the basement and did the same thing started a bore hole there
went down about 68 inches and gave up so they asked me to send the dog again so I
did and this time the dog went to the hole in the it would have been the uh southwest corner and he started
scratching very aggressively so I pulled him off and the detective told me he said man I didn't get that on videotape
can you do it again and I said sure so I got the dog back he got the videotape up
I sent the dog and the dog instead of going back to that hole went to the other hole which would have been about
halfway along the west wall and started scratching there so they got that on videotape so after that I told them that
uh they should break up they have to break up the concrete now you know that we've got an an aggressive response so I
cleared and I don't know about 3 Days Later 4 days later they contacted me again and sent me back
to the same house this time when I got there they had a concrete expert who had determined
that this guy had whoever the guy was who put this concrete in the basement had used bags and this was David MOS and
he had used he had to use like some phenomenal amount like 80 bags of concrete or some phenomenal
amount they also brought in a forensic entomologist who found evidence of coffin flies in the spiderwebs in the
basement coffin flies are a species of fly that's indicative of Rotting Flesh but it doesn't have to be human it could
be chickens pigs beef anything like that but they did Def find they did find evidence of coffin flies in the
spiderwebs in the basement okay the uh they also brought in a pathologist out of
Indianapolis and what they had done is they determined that all across the back of the basement the concrete was 16 to
18 in thick so they moved out out to where they could uh get a little bit the concrete was thinner where the older
concrete was which only several inches and they broke a hole probably about the a circle about as big as a garbage can
okay and uh they had me S the dog well as soon as I sent the dog the dog dove into the hole and started throwing dirt
like crazy digging very aggressively so he pulled him out of the hole and uh once I got him up then the pathologist
knelt down and started feeling underneath into the dirt and he felt he said what feels like a human leg joint
knee joint encased in a plastic bag so they broke up the the concrete on the Southwest end and they discovered
two bodies there that were wrapped in plastic and buried under 16 to 18 inches of
concrete they then went to the west end where the or the North End of the West wall where the dog had made this second
alert on the different hole and they broke that one up and they discovered the third body the third body was uh
this guy had apparently had to fill a a bathtub full of a blue lead based paint and he had just had to continually dunk
this body in this blue lead based paint because the the body was completely encased in paint about a half inch thick
and then it was wrapped in plastic also I don't maybe that was something to try to keep this the smell down I have no
idea idea what the what the paint was for and and I do remember that they found uh when they did x-rays they found
things inserted into the bodies through the rectum like bottles or coat hangers or something I don't recall exactly
what and up in the room they did discover a map with uh x's on it where he had we don't know but assumed that he
had gone to various places across the country on his way up from Texas and these is we don't know what they
[Music] meant the voice you just heard there in today's trailer is that of K9 detective
Dale Bach as you heard he was brought in to help a local law enforcement agency in Hammond Indiana to have his K9 search
a home more specifically the basement of an apartment in this particular situation the K9 is acting in a cadav
search role brought in because the search for some missing teens led a Hammond Police Department detective to
that apartment so how exactly did we end up here in the basement of an apartment
in Northwest Indiana well the investigation started on September 10th 2003 when the phone rang at the police
department in Hammond Indiana a woman named Lynn Smith reported her 16-year-old son James regani was missing
and I apologize if I did not pronounce that correctly it's Regan or regani I believe oddly enough another mother
Holly gilkinson had also called and reported that her son too was missing her son is 13-year-old Michael Dennis he
had not come home the night before okay we have two missing teens here Captain a
guy James 16 another guy Michael he's 13 most of the time what this is going to say to Small Town Police is well we have
a situation where a teenage boy got fed up at home or maybe he's super rebellious and decided to run off for a
little bit yeah or he stayed over at a friend's house and forgot to tell his parents the problem with this situation
is we have runaway notes that were left for the family to find the other problem
that we have for law enforcement is look they're no dummies they're going wait a
second two kids run away on the same day these two kids were friends and from what I could find there was no mention
of oh I'm running away with James or I'm running away with Michael right but that's a possibility that law
enforcement has to look at of course they're going to look at that situation and they're also going to wonder if in
fact these two were runaways as said the boys's parents produced runaway notes from their sons which said that they had
run off but these notes were very vague about where they were going there were a
few different places listed in the short notes some people say runaway letter letters I've reviewed some of these
these are very short notes the Rani parents also received a voicemail from a phone number that was later traced back
to a rest area off of I65 near roson I do not have any details about what that voicemail was or who they believe the
the voice was I I have to believe captain that they the voicemail came from their son or else it would have
been highly suspicious from the get right now these notes we said they were vague
well they were so the notes were simple they were as such I'm tired with the way
things are at home I'm leaving I'm heading to Chicago sh Town um one note said I'm moving out to either California
or maybe Washington State haven't decided yet I'll come back when I turn 18 so when you get your freedom you're
going to come back well if you are to believe that these kids ran away they're they're leaving the notes to make sure
Mom and Dad don't think that they're dead and murdered right uh that they're showing enough care for their parents to
let them know hey I took off here's the reasons why and here's some places that I might go one of the notes said that
they were going to Texas the weird thing here Captain is I do not know how many notes were in the possession of the
parents when they made the calls that their sons were missing to begin with but what I do know happened was there
were multiple notes left by both boys short little notes that they seem to like kind of hide around their homes
like an Easter egg hunt that you know Mom would find one and then maybe a couple days later find another one
that's that's very strange very strange and then second of all like let's to for
for sake of confusion do you know if these were like actual like full Pages or again these were very short notes
maybe a maybe a paragraph a couple sentences at at best but what I found incredibly strange and I'm sure this
weirded out the parents big time is let's say that James left three different notes for his parents to find
or that Michael left three different notes for his parents to find so to save everyone the confusion we'll just say
runaway notes a b and c right in each situation well when Mom would find runaway no a it would say hey i' I've
been fed up I can't take it at home I don't like school I maybe I'm going to Chicago I'll call you in a couple months
well then a few days later she finds runaway note B it kind of contradicts everything that
was said in runaway note a where it's you know the the next note may say hey I've got a job out on the
west coast all lined up I'm running way out there and I'll reach out to you when
I turn 18 or I'll come back when I turn 18 so this is going to be weird one for the parents they got to be highly
alarmed and two for law enforcement because if you are going to try to figure out where these boys went
especially a situation with the 13-year-old Michael Dennis well law enforcement knows that these guys know
each other so I think once you find multiple notes at one location and then you find multiple notes at the other
location then you go hey these are connected somehow right and so then you now have to determine one did either of
these boys go where they said they were going which there was communication sent
from the Hammond PD out to these other jurisdictions but again it's very vague you can't just it's it's not easy to
reach out to every jurisdiction in California or Washington State and say hey do you got anybody that matches this
description running around there right but we also don't know if the locations match up with each other what will be
easier for the Hammond Police Department to determine is are these boys still in the area for
any reason at all when kids are not getting along with parents they say that they're running away the first people
you want to talk to in your investigation are these kids friends because kids tell their friends more
than they tell Mom and Dad so police start asking around trying to determine whether these two boys were in fact
runaways or if something maybe happened to them or if they were still in the area they came across some kids who were
buddies with the two missing boys they told them that Michael and James spent some time hanging around with an older
guy in the neighborhood that summer this was a guy known as Crazy Dave locally in the neighborhood he's
known as Crazy Dave so not someone you want to hear your kids are hanging out with if you're parents of Dennis or
Michael yeah and is he like really crazy and spells it with a K what they are able to determine is these kids are
hanging out with this dude named Crazy Dave of course detectives want to figure out who the hell is Crazy Dave they
start asking ing around and they learned that crazy Dave's real name was David Edward
mous Michael Dennis had met Mouse at a community pool that summer oh my God no kid should ever meet a doll at a pool
well yes weird weird weird weird but the other thing that we need to teach our kids even and remind our
teenagers is there's no reason for adults and children to be friends there's no reason for adults and
children to for adults to give gifts to Children there's no reason for adults to
ask help from a child there's no reason for adults to ask a child to keep a secret these are all huge red flags now
if we're talking about somebody that's friends with Mom and Dad you know there are some some ways to get around that
but in this specific situation get around that it makes seem like the person's trying to do something bad
there's plenty of people that are become mentors to you know younger but that's all stuff that you should share with Mom
and Dad right this isn't things that you should keep from your parents if if an adult is is a friend with a child or
asking a child for help asking a child to keep a secret or giving them gifts that needs to be shared with Mom and Dad
because that's not something that should happen it's not something that's normal
right so what we have here is now detectives are going to return to the families of these missing boys and say
hey look this is what we've come up with so far some of the other kids have said
that they may have been hanging out with this older guy that that we know is Crazy Dave and we've now figured out his
real name is David Edward Mouse he spells crazy with a K and Dennis's mom Michael Dennis's mom Holly confirmed
that her son did spend a lot of time with mouse she was aware of this saying that her son spent time with him and on
one occasion he came home with a pair of new shoes that he said Dave gave to him
and another time he came home with some stereo equipment maybe she was hopeful that it was like a Daniel Son Mr Miyagi
type relationship like they're just sitting around learning karate so these detectives learned that the boys like to
hang out at Mouse apartment this was on the second floor of a house located at 4933 Ash Street in Hammond
Indiana the people they spoke to said that they had been there six or seven times that the boys had been there about
six or seven times these other teenagers are telling police that Mouse would give
them beer cigarettes and money you know other teenagers had gone to this guy's apartment detectives ran David mous name
through the system and discovered that he had a record surprise surprise so they decided to pay a little visit to Mr
Crazy Dave Mouse and stopped by his apartment so detective Ron Johnson of the Hammond PD visited this David Mouse
at his place on September 18th he found Mr Mouse in the backyard smoking a cigarette and enjoying a beer Mouse did
not seem nervous at all at the appearance or the arrival of the officer well to be fair he was buzzed and he
didn't feel nervous at all answering any questions in fact detective Ron Johnson
said mouse was extremely friendly and very courteous to the detective so much so that he permitted the detective to
look through his apartment you know a guy shows up with no warrant he says sure I got nothing to hide I can answer
all your questions go ahead and look through my apartment so the the detective is in there he's asking Mouse
questions opening closets and checking under beds and such but there was no sign of either of the missing boys at
the apartment well if you take a look at David he he looks like if you take Nick
NTI Nick NTI and the Ultimate Warrior had a baby that came out a little disheveled maybe drinks too much smokes
too much how could that baby not come out disheveled right that's that's what he looks like though so nevertheless
police fat neck he has a big fat neck too police remain suspicious of David Mouse who had just finished parole for a
previous crime and detective Johnson says he was even though this guy was nice answered all of his questions and
such he said I was suspicious of him right away and this is a judge a book by its cover situation because the
detective says straight out mouse was quote different and that boy's different when asked later well what do you mean
by different he says if you would have seen him you would have said he's different yeah almost looks like he's
stuck in the 80s well police staked out his place hoping to see some sign of these missing boys right that maybe
they're coming back and returning to his apartment maybe they're just running around having a good time and this is
somebody that they could either crash with on occasion or go back to his apartment to party yeah that makes sense
they contacted the other jurisdictions that had been mentioned in the runaway notes we already discussed the
complications with that asking if anybody had seen these missing boys now you have a situation where you probably
are believing that the two boys left together so that helps you a little bit when you reach out you're not just
looking for one teenage boy you're looking for two teenage boys at this point which may be a little easier
meanwhile local prosecutors I love when people do good work I love when people say you know
what we're we're going to do our jobs we have a a service a community to take care of and to protect this guy even if
he doesn't know anything about these runaway boys he's a problem so the prosecutor local prosecutors filed a
misdemeanor charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor against David mous this was on October 2nd this was
because of what the other kids told the police about the underage beer drinking pot smoking and things that were going
on at Mouse place you know he's providing underage kids with beer and marijuana and they're hanging out at his
place so Mouse posted the $300 Bond and he was released he continued to talk casually with the detectives about the
missing boys but not really admitting anything at the time the police contacted the landlord and the owner of
the house where mouse was a tenant right they found out from this owner his name
was Bill Hinton that mouse was employed he was an employee at a trophy shop that
the homeowner owned as well he also told them a second cuz David looks exactly like a guy that works at a trophy shop
like what's his job he works at a trophy shop he also told them that mous had done some work in the basement of the
home that he had repaired some seepage on the floor so detective Johnson went back to the home to inspect this work
that mous had done on the basement floor when he went to the basement he discovered a new concrete pad in the
southwestern corner of the basement this is interesting and I know a lot of people are probably saying well why
wouldn't the detective have searched the basement to begin with I think it the situation here is the way that it was
explained to me is that there were multiple tenants living in this house in these different apartments that were
broken up through this house when the detective was first questioned Mouse in in the backyard of this property and
mouse said yeah sure go ahead look through my apartment I I'll be happy to take you inside and show you everything
come on in it's a nice place he's simply showing him his apartment there are spaces throughout this home that are
common spaces that are shared amongst the tenants yeah shared by the other pedos and so the detective probably
didn't check the basement because either a he wasn't suspicious of the basement because it was a common place or B he
didn't feel that he had permission to do so because there were multiple tenants and mouse was not the owner of the home
itself it's not like when the police officer comes up and starts talking to David and and they go hey do you mind if
we search your apartment and he goes come on in it's a nice place it's not like you can just spend days in there
well not only that I was having this discussion with somebody a week or so ago and had to point out that a really
good detective and a really good officer especially if they're in a situation where they're suspicious of the
individual that they're talking with or suspicious of a crime scene or potential
crime scene right a good detective and a good police officer is always working with the knowledge of knowing that the
most important thing here is that I secure a conviction that whatever my actions are will later hold up in a
court of law and so if I step over the line at any point and this guy is my guy like I believe him to be well I might
run the risk of losing that conviction in the court of law so what good have I done none with the permission from the
homeowner now detective Johnson is in the basement and he he's checking out this new concrete pad that was poured in
the southwestern corner of the basement I found a source that said that the the P was determined to be approximately 8T
by 5T and 12 in thick or 12 in deep and the homeowner did consent to not just a a quick look see at the basement but he
also consented to a detailed search of the basement as well and this comes about because detective Johnson says
look I was down there in this area it would be very common in this area of the state of Indiana it would be very common
for people to repair their basements in this way to pour additional concrete and
that is so that you have if you have a washer and dryer in the basement that you are placing it on an elevated
platform on a platform so that if you were to have your basement floods then these items are not getting wet because
they're elevated yeah that makes sense so at first he says he wasn't suspicious of the concrete pad but then knowing
what he knows from living in the the area he applied that to oh wait a second the water hookup is way over here so if
that was the purpose of this concrete pad it made no sense at all because you would want to create that platform as
close as you could to the water hookup he's super suspicious of this so the police decide that on November 20th this
is detective Johnson and Commander Dale Bach of the Lake County Sheriff's Department again he's the one that you
heard in today's trailer they come back on the 20th of November to search the basement again at 4933 Ash Street more
like Ash Street this is with the trained kadaver dog now the dog showed considerable interest in the one end of
the basement and this is the corner with the concrete pad the dog is telling you
you've trained me to find cadavers yeah I'm telling you I believe that there's a
dead body underneath this concrete in this corner of this basement well like you said with this K9 unit like he's
trained to be a Cav dog but he's also trained to search for people's sense so it I wonder if they thought maybe he was
confused well every canine unit is different it it all goes to training some have the ability to be trained in
different areas some don't I I don't know the specifics of this particular dog um but in this situation we do know
he's being used to find a cadaver he's not he's not being brought in there to find a missing
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plan offered by T-Mobile in Verizon May 2023 [Music] all right we're back cheers everybody
cheers to you Colonel he's back I'm back everybody's back everyone's in the face
all right uh the dog again the K9 Officer showing considerable amounts of signs that hey he's detecting something
underneath the concrete in the corner of this basement yeah but he's not acting as normal right right he's
supposed to he's trained to give a very aggressive response to when he finds when he's hitting on something and
that's not the response he's giving here you have to wonder if in fact if the K can9 unit if the officer is
correct people are getting confused cuz some people are like you know I'm I'm referring to the dog as the officer he
is an officer so we'll pay him his respects um if he is well and we want to be respectful just in case he's
listening that's right um just in case he's listening um but if in fact the the K9 Officer is correct that he that there
is something underneath that concrete I don't again I don't know this particular dog I do not know the
training is he giving a different response because it's a faint right you know is is the detection faint I I think
we we can just move past that because whatever the dog was doing to indicate that there was something there and that
they should do further searching of this area it was enough for them to bring in
technicians and they're going to drill some sample holes in the pad you don't want to go in there and Jackhammer the
whole thing up if you don't have to you can just drill some holes and see if there's anything down there this this
portion of the search was conducted on December 5th when they drilled holes into this concrete pad Captain coffin
flies flew out of these holes coffin flies coffin flies are indicative of there being a
decaying body now it doesn't have to be human it can be animal or or something else but they would not be there if
there was nothing for them to be is pretty gross living off of mhm so on December 9th after hold on one second
let me finish my lunch now the police have probable cause to to tear up the place right so on December 9th Just 4
days later police brought in equipment to take up the concrete pad or concrete slab very quickly into this search they
found two bodies which is two more bodies than are supposed to be there they were able to determine almost
immediately that the the bodies were that of teenagers or young men right these two bodies that were found were
wrapped in plastic and tied with cord and tape but one second I mean we have to applaud the officer both officers I
guess the the dog is Officer but you have to applaud where your dog is trained to make a certain
reac action he doesn't react like he's supposed to gives you a odd reading but you go hey better safe than sorry right
mhm might as well dig this up and and yes yeah nobody wants to find anything but at the end of the day when you have
these missing kids you're trying to find answers so right away you're looking for
two missing teens and you find the bodies of what you can determine to be either teenage boys or young men right
so when you think about it Captain these other teens the the ones that told police and
detectives that these kids were hanging out with some guy named Crazy Dave these
other kids were in fact quite lucky that they did not end up killed yeah you know
these were teens that hung out with this crazy Dave as well or at least one had been to his apartment these kids knew
about Crazy Dave knew about the activity going on at Dave's apartment with him providing alcohol and such to the teens
one of the teens in particular says that he was with James and Michael on what is believed to be
the last night that the two were alive he told the detective that he went with James and Michael to Dave Mouse
apartment and he left at some point in the night and he he said that when he left James and Michael stayed there and
they were alive of course when he left the apartment so immediately we have Dave Mouse who we we we need to arrest
this man so he was in fact arrested on that same day this is again December 9th 2003 they pick him up while he's riding
his bicycle home from work but here's the troubling part I think finding the two bodies in the basement is the
troubling part but riding a bike to work is kind of Rich Man Poor Man rich man uses it for EXT exercise poor man uses
it as a vehicle look nothing against this hint in character but I can't imagine that the job at the trophy shop
pays very well and he's living in a rundown apartment this is not a guy that's riding a bicycle for exercise
yeah but you could always like use the line when women came in like why do you work at the trophy store I'm looking for
my trophy wife but here's the troubling thing Captain this uh you mean the two dead teenage bodies bar buried in
concrete is not troubling enough it is not oh the troubling part here is the two that were found in the
basement were identified via dental records one was the missing Michael Dennis that we were looking for you know
as anyone would expect but the other was identified as 19-year-old Nick James W so not the other kid that they were
looking for Nick had been missing since May of 2003 this is December of 200 and three when they find the bodies the more
you study True Crime the more you just see similarities and so many things uh look at the type of victim is teenage
boys gayy would put them in the crawl space this guy seems to just be putting them into concrete Nick had been missing
since May of 2003 he in fact worked at the trophies R Us shop with David mous and Nick was reported missing by his
girlfriend but you said Nick was 19 correct because you'd think okay look law enforcement has two missing kids
that you'd think that they would go oh yeah there's also another missing kid from the trophy shop oh they hang out
with Crazy Dave where does Crazy Dave work the trophy shop You' think they'd be putting this all together but maybe
they what I'm saying is maybe they didn't put it together in that manner because he was
19 right that that's where my head went immediately but the other thing too is maybe they did put it together it's just
now you're looking for a 19-year-old as well I don't know that you're announcing
that to anyone uh when you're surveilling David mous So Paul goded was Nick James's best friend the 19-year-old
that was found in the basement he said that the two of them spent a lot of time with David mous and he said that David
was generous giving them cash and beer and said quote he never asked for anything I just thought that he being
you know David was being a nice guy this is what Paul told the monster Indiana Times newspaper yeah he only asked for
hand jobs so then police excavated a third body it was proved to be James Rani the other missing teen now the
cause of death for the three victims this is per the the times again quote Lake County coroner David Pastrick said
he had not ruled out Suffocation and strangulation as a cause of death for bani and for Dennis the two that police
initially started off looking for right they said that Nick James died of blunt force trauma to the skull David mouse
was charged with three counts of murder they also charged him for having a fat neck the Hammond neighborhood when went
into an uproar over this crazy Dave guy right because David Mouse is living in their small town and unbeknownst to them
he's he's living there but the reason why they're in an uproar is it turned out that David Mouse had a very serious
criminal record right in fact he was a twice convicted murderer living in the neighborhood wait wait
wait he's been convicted twice of murder correct and he has he lives in an apartment with other people and has the
Stellar job at the trophy shop yeah this this highly desirable job say I'm just saying that he's he's living better than
some people living better than the colonel I wonder if he gets unlimited trophies like unlimited free Trophies
the idea that this dude was out free living in the small town and hanging out with kids terrified the
residents many of whom said that they planned to move away from the area even though David mouse was now behind bars
in all fairness eventually the state of Indiana would pass a law requiring that convicted murderers must register with
local officials when they moved to a new location so David mouse was not from this area well thank God they corrected
that if sexual offenders have to register her on a sexual offender's website or whatever murders should have
to do the same so Mouse now in handcuffs well he was in for a 6-hour interview session with detectives Mouse
confessed to The Killing saying that others had helped him commit the murders even naming his landlord as one of the
accompli again again I I the comparisons with this individual and and gasy are very similar I mean
gayy once he was arrested was saying hey it wasn't just me there was multiple people involved mous also implicated his
old cellmate from time served in the state of Illinois and he implicated another neighborhood teen saying he
helped as well I don't think that he's sitting there saying the four of us killed these three guys
I think what he's saying is is a situation where he's telling a story and it's changing as we go along here yeah
I'll give him a trophy for being a douche but in the end Captain he admitted to all three of the murders and
he said that he did all three of them on his own now for some reason we have a written statement pertaining to James
rani's murder but not the other two so the details are a little tricky on some of these murders here yeah David Mouse
signed a confession stating that on September 9th 2003 at his apartment James orani had been drinking
beer and doing shots and got sick and at 11:45 p.m. David Mouse took a rope and put it around James's neck and strangled
him until he was dead he then wrapped his body in plastic and took it to the basement and later put cement over his
body but he was as said I mean he he's telling these stories but it's very obvious to
detectives that this dude's responsible for all three of the murders a Lake County prosecutor Bernard Carter said
quote basically he drugged them with alcohol and the date rape drug and then strangled them the first one the first
victim he means Nicholas James he hit in the head with a baseball bat and then strangled
him he said meaning David mous that the first one was too bloody of an attack so
he decided to strangle the others so he he's saying that he killed all three of them the same day no okay so at
different times Nicholas James was a separate situation altoe right that when he went missing back in May that's when
Nicholas James was killed right the other two boys were killed SE setember 99th of that same year but what mouse is
explaining to detectives in his confession that look I I I hit the one over the head with a baseball bat and
realized later that's not a good method of killing because now I got all this blood everywhere that I have to deal
with yeah everybody listen to that statement we have a murderer telling you that if you hit somebody in the head
when their heart is still beating there's blood everywhere it's two blood bloody of a scene again con connect the
dots in other cases like Shan Benet Ramsey if she was hit on the head first there would have been blood everywhere
David Mouse admitted to detectives that he would on occasion visit the basement to continue to talk to his victims after
they were buried in the floor what you heard me right so he's drinking yeah I'm going to go down to the
basement I'm going to go talk to the concrete cuz he's missing one of his buddies that he
killed I'm reading between the lines here Captain but what I think actually went down is I believe that they found
all three victims at the same time when they were digging up that slab because as said it's determined or reported that
it was 8T by 5T by 12 in deep that's not that big of a concrete slab and we have
three victims in that concrete slab where I think that we have the speed bump in the investigation is that two of
the bodies were wrapped in plastic that was tied with rope or some type of cord right the third body
for reasons only David Mouse could explain was completely dipped or you know I guess it
wouldn't be dipped but uh covered in lead based paint blue lead ba base paint and mouse said basically that he took
the body of this victim placed it in the bathtub covered it in this paint and we're talking about uh an inch thick
covering the body at all points he states that uh he did this so that it would conceal the odor of the body that
nobody would be able to smell or detect the dead body I guess uh the smell of paint is better than dead body as for
the runaway notes detectives believe that mous led the uh L the boys to his apartment of course with Promises of
some kind of trip okay remember we talked about them leaving notes for their parents this misdirecting the
investigation or hoping that the parents don't go looking for the kids they figured out that mous was the he
spearheaded them leaving these notes for their parents this was all his idea so to me this is looking more and more like
a premeditated murder situation right what he said to these these boys is that look I I have access to a
lot of money I have access to a lot of drugs I need you to run some errands for me and you can make a lot of money in
the process and hold on a second any young teenage boy is listening and you hear this from somebody remind yourself
that he he rides a bicycle to work he works in a trophy shop and he lives in an apartment with multiple people and
his only friends are the friends that he's giving booze to and those individuals can't buy booze I wouldn't
really believe that he has connections to a bunch of money somewhere cuz if he did he probably would have called in
those favors by now well if you go off of what I said earlier you're already in the clear adults and children do not
need to be friends for any reason at all yeah my motto is no friends okay um so what they were able to determine is that
Mouse told them that hey I'm going to give you a vehicle and I've set up this vehicle so that we can conceal drugs in
this vehicle and then you're going to drive it out to the West Coast basically you're going to make a delivery for me
and the people there are going to to pay for all these drugs that you deliver you're going to bring the money back to
me and then you're going to get a big Hefty cut of everything right and this is how he enticed them and talked them
into leaving these notes for their parents so this was all very much planned out on his end and even planned
out by the kids themselves because they go over there thinking all right well we're friends with this guy we're going
to go on this trip yeah it's it's sophisticated for such a disheveled individual the
other interesting thing too is that he told investigators that he took the two boys with him to breakfast at the
rosand I'm sorry Ros laon truck stop on September 9th classy and this was they were talking more about the trip at this
breakfast so you can piece this together this is where that voicemail came from right this is the same location that
they traced it back to so while they're there he had them so convinced that he had one of the kids call home and leave
a voicemail at that time so so we have three bodies and we know that David was in prison before for two other killings
mhm so we have a total of five victims correct I still don't understand how he got out of prison well that's a great
segue cuz that's what I'm going getting to right here so the Indiana prosecutors
knew that mous was a suspected serial killer right he's eligible for capital punishment so the prosecutor prosecutor
Carter requested that the death penalty be on the table for the three murders so
on October 31st 2005 Mouse took a plea deal and admitted guilt for all three murders
So Crazy Dave mouse was sentenced in December of 2005 to three consecutive life sentences without the possibility
of parole and in his guilty plea Mouse requested that he be held in isolation away from the general population of the
prison now as the captain just mentioned this monster had killed twice before so
who was David mous and why was a convicted murderer out living in a nice Community David mouse was the second of
four children born to Ava and George mous on April 5th 1954 in the state of Pennsylvania PA in
1961 the family relocated to Chicago that next year Mouse father left the family David was only 8 years old at
this time right there's a lot of uncertainty about Mouse's early life and exactly how screwed up it was so how
screwed up he was right so he was eight when his father leaves but do we have any indication that there was physical
abuse or sexual abuse or or verbal abuse that we don't know of as far as the ages
from ages 0 to 8 but again it's very difficult in this situation to figure out how screwed up his family life was
or how screwed up he was and if who was responsible for that his his parents were both I feel very fine and confident
with saying that both of his parents were dysfunctional according to the times George mous was orphaned at age 12 and
spent the rest of his life rest of his juvenile years I should say in foster homes some that were described as
sexually abusive Ava mous his mother spent a month and a Mental Hospital in Pennsylvania this right after David
Mouse birth hospital records describe her as quote psychotic her upbringing took place on a Georgia Farm
and has been reported as miserable and depraved according to her son's later defense team in court writings his
mother was beaten by a stepfather with boards and chains and treated as a slave by her mother that sounds awful with his
father gone and a mother that there's no more simple way to put it a mother that either did not want him
or could not handle him his mother David's mother requested that he be institutionalized at the age of eight or
I'm sorry at the age of nine yeah so per the times quote Chicago State Hospital records show that David Mouse ear
yearned for a relationship with his mother but she showed little interest in him when the staff at the state hospital
pressured her to take David Mouse swimming with a sibling and a later stepfather she told the hospital I'm not
taking him I wish he would drown burn so whether Ava loved David and did the best that she could
for him or whether she was the reason that he was screwed up depends on who you're talking to or where you're
getting your information because Ava his mother gave a lot of interviews over the
the years and in some she says that David mouse was a pretty good kid and that she loved him she told the Chicago
Tribune that she loved her kid and says that when David's father left the family
David started acting out things got bad pretty quickly his little brother Jeffrey recalls David Mouse beating a
squirrel to death with a bat in front of his younger siblings there's also a report that that
David Mouse is a little kid set his three-year-old brother's crib on fire and tried to drown him in the park maybe
when your kid does that you just lock him in a cage and forget about it it's a very difficult situation Captain because
as said was he the actual problem or was his childhood that was not carved out by
him the actual problem yeah it's the chicken of the egg because well but it goes back to who you talk to and where
you get your information from and even with Ava who gave multiple interviews over the years she gives a different
story in different interviews he was a good kid he was a normal kid and it wasn't until he was nine that he started
acting up and I had to get rid of him in other stories he was born bad and he was
trying to kill his little baby brother and and drown his baby brother from a very very early age it's
not both it's it's one or the other yeah I don't think she's getting an award anytime soon for mother of the year it
can't be both these are her words these are words she chose to to give to these people that he was fine he was
completely fine until his dad left then he went off the rails and I had to get rid of him and other interviews she says
that he was born bad that he was evil from day one and that he was trying to kill his little brother at a very early
age that's not the same story so when I say it can't be both we don't know the true story maybe
it maybe it was both I'm saying these are her words she pick a story Lady it's one or
the other because they're two very different stories the other thing that you have to keep in mind too is is back
then yeah if you just didn't want a child for any number of reasons you could institutionalize him
I'm glad that wasn't around when I kid I I wouldn't say it was a common thing but
it was not it it wasn't that unheard of yeah and the reason why I question some of this is that we have the look he's at
9 years old David Mouse is sent to the Cook County mental institution and he describes this
location as he called it this the snake pit and the situation was this that he's he's in this state institution
or the County mental institution there was another child that was there at the same time as David that
would be dropped off in the summer months and then picked up by Mom and dad at the end of
summer yeah and what's believed is that they simply dropped them off said the kids crazy and dangerous and we can't
handle him so that they could vacation or not have to deal with this kid when he's not in school people do this I know
it's I know it's sad but uh and it's something you know that nobody wants to talk about but what kind of people do
this pieces of [ __ ] but it's very possible that his mother was a piece of [ __ ] and decided for whatever reason
willy-nilly or or something very serious that she didn't want her her son we have
the I look look you look we have the the statement from the hospital that when they were trying to encourage mom to
spend time with her son that was institutionalized on one occasion she's taking her current family on a swimming
trip and when asked by the hospital well why wouldn't you take check David out and
take him with you she says I don't want to be around him I wish he would drown that's not the response of a
loving caring parent the other thing that's weird and we do know that some of these types
Captain behave a different way in a in a very structured environment where there's set rules and uh and we can
imagine that that probably what was going on when young David was institutionalized by his mother but we
also have the his time spent there is well documented so these reports say that David mous had no incidence of
serious misbehavior during his years at the hospital he has no documented incidents of lying stealing or out of
control behavior all stuff that sh that her his mother reported to the hospital as the basis for committing her son the
hospital described David as generally generally described David in their reports as an appealing sensitive and
reliable child but he was deeply disturbed by his parents rejection yeah you think and preoccupied with the
threat of Abandonment his father left the family when he was just eight and then his mother [ __ ] drops him often
has him institutionalized at the age of nine when his mother was asked to be specific about the trouble she claimed
David Mouse caused during his occasional home visits she became evasive and stated that quote she just doesn't want
him at [Music] home all right so much more to get to tomorrow for everything true crime check
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Bodies in the Basement /// Part 1 /// 466

Part 1 of 2

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This week we take a look and profile a very unique serial killer "Crazy Dave." David Maust is a killer that most have not heard of before. Join us in the Garage for a couple of cold ones as we try to dissect this monster.

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Brief Summary

David Mouse, a convicted murderer, is linked to the disappearances of two teens in Indiana, leading to a shocking investigation and discovery of bodies.

Key points

The Gift of Better Sleep. Your mattress purchase helps give the gift of better sleep to children in need.
True Crime Garage Introduction. Hosts Nick and the Captain introduce the episode and the beer of the week.
Discovery of Bodies. A K9 search leads to the discovery of bodies buried under concrete.
The Missing Boys. Two boys go missing, leaving vague runaway notes for their parents.
Crazy Dave. The boys were seen hanging out with a man known as Crazy Dave.
Discovery of Bodies. Police find two bodies in a basement, leading to the arrest of David Mouse.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

This pale is hoppy, clean, and smooth!

Description of the beer being reviewed.

2:25WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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