Cabins by the Lake /// Part 1 /// 765 | Forensic Files

a& crime and investigation event the pursuit returns with a new unprecedented season of 60 days in this time we're
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and guess what you get hugs kisses and please and thank yous and that's enough of the business all right everybody
gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] 17-year-old Belinda van lith has been
missing now for almost 50 years Belinda was a smart outgoing young lady with blonde hair and blue eyes she and her
family were well known in their neighborhood but the neighborhood where the van lths lived was very likely quite
different from the city streets or suburbs where most of us grew up a lot of us spent time during the
summer months hanging out at the community pool in Belinda's neighborhood it was the lake that kept everyone busy
back in 1974 Belinda van lith vanished from her neighborhood in Eagle Lake Minnesota this is in Wright County
unable to account for some of the minutes and hours in the timeline have added to the complex nature of this case
there have been several suspects over the years but there is one who has managed to find him self a top of that
list this is a sexual predator who was living about one football fields distance from Belinda's last known
whereabouts this is the still unsolved missing persons case of 17-year-old Belinda van lith and this is true crime
garage [Music] this week Captain we head out to the great state of Minnesota and once again
we are brought to task with another who done it but this one has a different kind of twist to it as you will see as
we go through this week's True Crime Story now at the center of our story we have 17-year-old Belinda van lith
Belinda has been missing for almost 50 years now in fact it will be 50 years this weekend Belinda lived with her
family a large family with a gaggle of siblings in Wright County Minnesota Belinda was born in
1957 she was an active outgoing and social teenager at the time of her disappearance at that time she was
described as 5 fo 5 in tall about 110 PBS with blonde hair and blue eyes now depending on the source Belinda was last
seen at 8:00 p.m. on Friday June 14th but other sources state that her last known whereabouts were from the morning
of Saturday June 15th and we will go through all of the minutia of that weekend and try to sort those details
out as we go but what is not in question is her whereabouts when she was last known to be safe and sound so Belinda
was at little Eagle Lake in Wright County Minnesota Belinda was house sitting for a neighbor at the time also
not in dispute is most of the activities of that weekend while Belinda was housesitting her family is preparing to
host an outdoor going away party at their home on June 15th 1974 there were seven vanlith children
and the way that their childhood and where they grew up sounds amazing with the very big exception obviously of
Belinda having vanished they grew up in a lake house during the summertime the children had use of the lake and the
Beautiful Park SL camp like setting on occasion the kids would even ride horses to their friends homes to visit their
friends now this little Eagle Lake setting is very different from most childhood neighborhoods here we have a
setup where some of the cabin owners are only present during the warm months for
a decent portion of the cabin owners there these were often their vacation homes where they left the cabins
buttoned up for the cold winter months and then would return in the summer or the warmer months to enjoy this
beautiful setting and to enjoy the lake it was very common for teens to babysit for Neighbors neighbors and it was
common for persons to house it for Neighbors as well I won't go so far to say that it was common for someone as
young as Belinda to be housesitting she's 17 and in fact had just recently turned 17 but that is the situation she
is house sitting for a neighbor well that sounds like a dream childhood for some personally I I would not want to
have that many siblings think about all the hamme downs and then the problem with horse it's a horse [ __ ]
well sounds like they were horse people it sounds amazing to be like can you imagine being on the phone with a friend
and saying yeah I'll be over in a little bit I I just you might see me pull up in
the horse yeah but if you have if you have six other siblings you're not going to get a chance to be on the phone
that's true one of the big events for that weekend was going to be a going away party we will say it was a big
event for the van lith family Belinda's older sister was packing her bags and heading to the great state of Texas this
because she had joined the Air Force so the family was going to celebrate together that weekend with friends
invited over and some of these friends are persons living in cabins near the lake so we have I would imagine this
would involve some adult friends of their parents but this should be including some of the
the child friends as well right the cabin that Belinda was house sitting this is why this is one of those
situations right Captain where you look at it and I think when you look at it from
2024 eyes it seems strange that someone who you know less than a year from being
18 but also still a minor would be house sitting for someone else so you can look
at that and go that seems strange we don't know the details of what her responsibilities were to house it it
could just be simply that she went over twice a day it was it's not like she had
to stay there well actually she she was staying the night at the for for several
nights at the the home great I'm wrong again some of the details are a little murky all of these years later we don't
know if she had any actual task or job duties to perform other than simply watching the house and let's say PR ing
the house and we'll get into that here in a minute when you look at this maybe from 1974 eyes it might not seem as
strange as it would today and let's talk about and not forget about the setting right so this cabin that Belinda was
housesitting was just a quarter of a mile down the road from the van lith house and anytime you have these
communities where people leave for Seasons at a time yeah you do have a lot of people keeping their eye on their
neighbors properties that's pretty common in these types of setups so she's house sitting for a man named Dwayne
Cornwell Dwayne was a musician who was going to be away on a work trip with his band they were visiting Nashville
Tennessee Dwayne Cornwell had this this is where the part I think makes it seem a little more unusual Dwayne Cornwell
by every resource that I could find and in fact the van lith family the siblings
today sadly the parents have passed away as you know time drag gone in this case
her siblings said the weird thing about this was that Dwayne Cornwell had no real connections with the vanlith family
that they are aware of right aside from living down the road he didn't associate
with any of the van children or other vanith children or the parents so today when they look back retrospectively on
their sister's case they wonder how it came to be that she took this job housesitting for this man that as stated
the family did not know very well yeah like you said it was a different time in the in the 70s once you graduated from
high school is Common Place hey go to college or get a job start your life and the thing here too is keep in mind the
distance right these are this is a tight community and mom or dad with with a quick phone call Mom or Dad could be
could arrive at the house that she's sitting on foot within three four minutes you know if she needed to she
could walk or run home and be home in no time at all so I think the distance plays a part in the decision making here
I am a little unclear on how many days it was arranged that she was going to be staying and watching the place it was
several nights we do know that to be fact but I am yet to see anywhere where it says she was due to start staying
there on this date and expected to be done with the job on this other date what we're going to hone in on here
Captain though is the known events for Belinda on June 13th 14th and 15th and we can Circle back to Dwayne Cornwell
The the owner of the home where she's house sitting here in a little bit now we do know on these nights well at least
on the 13th and 14th Belinda did stay the night there and from what I gather and the way that some of the reports
read it sounds like she had already been there prior right may have stayed there
the 11th and the 12th but that's neither here nor there because what I think is most important in this case are the
events of the 13th 14th and 15th so let's go back to June 13th 1974 on this day belenda calls her father she tells
him that she's concerned because she was hearing some noises some noises at night
that were unsettling to her right but she tells her father that she thought that maybe a fuse had gone out according
to the police file which was later released to the family Belinda's father Clifford van lith he went to check on
Belinda that night after getting this phone call he says that while there he didn't notice anything out of the
ordinary he says his daughter didn't say that she was frightened didn't seem like
anything strange was going on he did say he checked and the fuse did need to be repaired as confirmed by dad and the
what he's telling the police later but he says that that night he didn't have the tools that the job required so he
told Belinda that he would be back the next day and he followed through on that he did come back the next day and he
fixed the fuse however the next day so we're at the 14th Belinda wasn't there at this
time right he goes on to tell the authorities that that this did not concern him it's summertime at the lake
during the day she was likely just out and about she had a bunch of friends you know she grew up and lived here she
wasn't one of these people that left for the winter so she had friends and according to the police file which was
released to the vanlith family many years after Belinda went missing when interviewed after The Disappearance her
father and family told police that they just assumed Med on the day that Dad went and fixed the fuse that Belinda was
either out with friends or went down to the lake at some point that day or possibly both as we will see going
through this timeline well do we have anybody coming forward saying that they hung out with her that day cuz it's
possible that she could have just visited the lake on her own yeah we have some of her words as she had
conversations with some friends that took place that day and the reason why I think that there's there's a little bit
of uh of a little bit of a disconnect here on exactly when she went missing is her her actual movements on the 14th and
the fifth 15th so one of the biggest pieces and parts to this case is that police report the the police file that
was released to the family now we do need to point out this was not released to the family until many years in fact
we should say many decades later right so the family then shares this police file with inum so check out inforum.com
inform not only did gangbusters work on writing up a long form investigative journalism story on this
case and they've done it with many other stories as well obviously but they did a
seven-part podcast dedicated to this missing person case and that will be our recommendation to all of you this week I
believe captain that Trisha Turan asz not only did the writeup and a great job on the writeup 4 in form and she hosted
the podcast but I truly think that she has helped to actually greatly further this investigation with her work that
she's done in recent times right so this is from inform who again can base all of
their information on what they read straight from the police file we have Belinda's friend her name is Diane
schleff who later told investigators this is during a 2008 interview though right we're we're talking about a long
period of time that has gone by during a 2008 interview she tells investigators that she spoke to to Belinda that Friday
night so that would have been June 14th 1974 chalif didn't recall anything bizarre about that night or anything
strange about their conversation right there was nothing that that told her oh I should be worried about my friend
however she said in this interview decades later that Belinda did mention to her that she had gone swimming in the
lake that day with a boy from the neighborhood now the question mark here will always
be did Belinda ever name this boy did she know the boy's name right and if she did did she con did she tell the name to
her friend and the friend just forgot over the years what we do know though Captain is that I am yet to hear or see
a name put to this boy that her friend recall decades later that Belinda told her she was swimming with at the lake
well I think the community and the setting the lake setting makes this case more difficult today they say the
population is just a little over 3,000 so what's the population back in the 70s I'm
guessing at least a thousand or so less than that but also what do we know about
Lake communities it's not just hey I have a lake house house and I'm the only one that uses it in the summer if you
have a lake house some people use that as a almost like a bartering system like hey why don't you go up to my lake house
for the week or hey why don't you take your family to to my lakeh house for the weekend so the amount of people that
don't live in that community that could be in that community at any set time makes things difficult oh she was
swimming with a boy was it a boy that lived there was it a boy that the family had a summer house is it a boy that was
just visiting somebody else's summer house with his family it it becomes a little more complex it is quite complex
and I think though based off of and again this is an interview that's taking place decades
later but the detail in there is her friend telling the authorities that she went swimming with a boy or was swimming
in the lake that day with a boy from the neighborhood and we do know that Belinda
grew up in this neighborhood this community so again it's weird because the complexity of It is Well it why
didn't she if it was somebody that she knew why didn't she say his name or maybe it was just not important at the
time you know how conversations flow maybe it just wasn't something that she expressed and wasn't asked of of her oh
who what boy was it you know that maybe that question just never came up but the
detail there would be that her words of that it was a boy from the neighborhood I can only think back to like our days
like we weren't lucky enough to grow up right by a lake in a Lake Community but we were lucky enough to go down to Lake
Cumberland several times and it was like you were constantly saying hello to people because that was a vacation type
setting right that was like more what you were describing of people coming and staying for a week or for a long weekend
and I just remember constantly like saying hello to people having chitchat conversations with people and I don't
ever remember asking anybody anybody's name you might swim with somebody for a while you might hang out with them on
the playground or in the barbecue area and you might have a lengthy conversation with somebody and never
exchange names but think about what she said a boy from the neighborhood that doesn't necessarily imply that it's a
boy that lives there all year round just like she does a boy from the neighborhood could be a a a family that
visits every summer and she's just accustomed to him being there in the summertime yeah that could exactly be
the the situation what we do know though in comparison is she's not saying a boy
from Michigan or a boy from Wisconsin or giving or providing a city and if she did her friend is not recalling that
information all the years later now also from this police file but wait hold on on top of that though he could have been
uh AO has a great personality but he's a little little on the fugly side and so she doesn't want to tell her friend that
she's hanging out with Ugo MC fugo you know what I mean and then so she just omits the name also from the police file
following Belinda's disappearance another friend told investigators that they spoke on the phone the following morning
on June 15th that morning Belinda's friend her name is Debbie H house called Belinda the two made plans to meet up
for a brief meeting later that day so this to me this statement is very interesting to me okay so not only is it
a person who's saying I spoke with her on the morning of June 15th right while we don't have anybody
saying that I hung out with Belinda that day we don't have anybody saying that she came to my house or I saw her
walking around what we do have is this person Debbie her friend who says I called her I spoke to her on June 15th
so this means a that Belinda was alive and well and of course had not vanished by this time on
the morning of June 15 right so whatever happened to Belinda whether she took off and that was some
police speculation at one point or whether there was Foul Play involved whatever
happened with Belinda took place obviously after this phone call and this is also a situation where this person
Debbie she's saying the same as what Belinda's father Clifford had said about his interaction with his daughter on the
the the night of the 13th saying that you know that didn't seem anything to be out of the ordinary Belinda seemed fine
she didn't seem worried about anything same situation with Debbie so a it tells us she's alive and well and hadn't
vanished by the morning of June 15th but this is interesting to me too because it
also tells us something else it tells us B that this is proof positive of something that I was wondering about
from the very beginning of looking at this case the call to Belinda from her friend remember Belinda's house sitting
she's at DNE Cornwell's house this tells us that other persons outside of Belinda's family were aware that she was
staying there at Cornwell's house right that's going to be key here and here's the thing too I'm assuming I would make
the Assumption here I don't like to assume but I would make the assumption here that with other persons knowing
that she's staying at Cornwell's house that she's house sitting that they likely very likely knew that she was
staying there alone and that's where this whole thing could get into some big trouble for this young lady yeah she's a
young attractive lady on her own like you said people not just her family but friends and then who did they talk to
how many people know that she's there by herself my only problem with this phone
call is do we have any indicators that would make it definitive that her friend knew it was the 15th the
morning of the 15th and not the the 13th or 14th other than this person's word no
right I'm just saying there's sometimes that people get confused and you you talk to somebody a couple weeks later
and they go yeah remember I I called you last Thursday and you go no actually that was Wednesday right the reason why
I feel very confident in this statement is twofold one this is not an interview that took place a year or two or decades
later this is from the police file from somebody that they spoke to on the 17th or 18th so this is relatively quick
turnaround on getting this information to the authorities the other reason why I believe this to be some pretty solid
information is remember the detail in there they had made plans to see each other to meet up later that day so it's
not just a hey a check-in or hey how you doing it's a we're we're also we made some plans now what is missing from this
report is the two actually connecting and meeting up for that day right so they make plans to do so via a phone
call that morning but whatever happened I think with with all the mystery that's left in this case I think
we have to start making some little leaps here ourselves to fill in some of these blanks if we make plans to hang
out and then later someone doesn't show up whatever happened to Belinda I think happened at some point between that
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[Music] all right we are back you filthy filthy animals cheers to you talk hands in the
air cheers to everybody out there and cheers to everybody that stopped by our booth there was so many of you it was
wonderful meeting every single one of you but Nashville was great crime conon was great and thank you to everybody who
stopped by our booth to say hello stop by for a picture and everybody that picked up uh some true crime garage
merchandise from the store there it was wonderful to see all of you and that's we kind of look at that as an
opportunity for us to shake hands give a hug take a picture and say thanks to you
for listening to us and putting up with us some of you for years now so thanks to everybody where we left off here
captain we're now at Saturday June 15th remember we had that phone call earlier that day we have a Meetup that doesn't
take place between Belinda and the person that she had the phone call with right Debbie the other important part of
Saturday June 15th this this is an important date because this is the day of the going away party it was to be
that evening and everyone was expecting Belinda to be at the going away party and why wouldn't they well anytime we
have a missing person case it's these these major points okay you make some arrangements to hang out with your
friend and you don't show up H that might be a little bit of a red flag but not the end of the world but this going
away party big deal so when she doesn't show up I think this is when everybody really starts going what's going on here
exactly and this is we're we're kind of left with some varying opinions on her not appearing at the going away party
and part of that I believe Captain is due to just the situation like we said she's been missing now for almost 50
years a lot of time has passed her parents are no longer with us and so what we have today in the reports and
interviews that are taking place in current day it's some of her siblings relaying information or relaying their
thoughts and opinions of what Belinda's parents may have been experiencing or thinking at the time they're not here to
tell us exactly but again everyone was expecting Belinda to be at the party she doesn't show up for the going away party
this does raise the alarm and at some point the Sheriff's Office was called in now I have some varying information on
that some sources say that the sheriff's apartment was called the following morning on the 16th and some reports
state that it was the 17th it seems to be and the thing here is while inform.com has access to the very large
case File and while the family does have access to that very large case File as well I don't have anything in front of
me telling me what date that report was taken the other other thing too and we've seen this time and time again
especially when you go back to the 70s and we're talking 1974 here is often times there's a situation of a call is
made okay we'll send out an officer and there's a brief conversation officer drives around does some looking maybe
goes and checks on the cabin talks to a couple people and it's a we got to wait 24 hours to file an official report or
to make it official that she's missing and so right so basically there could be a call on the 16th and then law
enforcement says if she doesn't turn up by tomorrow give us a call again yes this could be a 24-hour process and that
but what what we do know to be fact based off of everything the family has said and this you know that they're
missing their daughter I would guess they're probably a little upset with her on Saturday evening you didn't show up
for your sister's going away party maybe you ch up to just oh she's a teenager maybe she ran off with some friends got
busy and she's being kind of disrespectful here nobody thought that of her personality so I think there were
plenty of people that were concerned that night but what we do know is at the very least at the earliest the morning
of the 16th the alarm was raised because we have her father and family they're out looking for actively searching for
Linda on the 16th so before we get to that in our timeline let's cover a few other bases here so let's go back to the
15th that same day the report that I have in front of me is that Dwayne Cornwell the owner of the house where
Belinda was house sitting returns from his trip from Nashville Tennessee also included in this information it states
that before he arrives to his place even before the time that he was expected to
arrive his mother showed up at the house right so she shows up I don't know if she was going to be waiting on her son
to return or what that situation was but the report states that his mother arrived at the home before he
did she says and this is going to be important because if something happened at that at that cabin or Lakehouse she
likely may have first eyes on the scene so she says that when she arrived her son wasn't there Belinda
wasn't there and she says that she found the door open I always want more description when
we get into any of these details right does that mean it was it was just look like somebody had let it close behind
them and it didn't close all the way or was it was it fully a jar or some people
will even refer to an unlocked door as an open door but the report is she says she found the door open but Belinda was
nowhere to be found and is it the type of door that when you shut if you don't lock it it could be blown open by the
wind or or whatever now it sounds like according to all the reports that they found the home other than the door and
no Belinda again for for Cornwell's Mom showing up or even Cornwell arriving back to his own place not to see Belinda
there probably wouldn't raise any concern we know that her job isn't to be at the house 247 EXA thank you exactly
but then you fall into a situation where time goes by she doesn't return and oh there are belongings of hers still here
the house appears to be as it was left by Dwayne other than finding some of Belinda's belongings there right I it
did take some time because I think this is one of those situations that once the
police are there that they they take a look around there's nothing that's obvious they're asking the homeowner is
there anything out of the ordinary is there anything missing from your home I don't know if it was was reported to
them there on that the first day that they are in Cornwell's home or if it was a day or two later but at some point
Dwayne Cornwell reports that the only item belonging to him that he believes to have been missing from his cabin was
a pink blanket like like one that you would spread out on a bed so I don't have a um a size to report here but it
sounds like it's a fairly lar blanket it's one that he noticed to be missing now we sit here 50 years later and we
know that Belinda has never returned to this cabin we know that people were still looking for her now those
belongings of Belinda that were left behind seem so much more important than they likely seem that first hour or two
right one of those items was her her driver's license so from my understanding Captain she did not own a
vehicle did not possess a vehicle but did have a a driver's license SL identification card and her wallet was
left behind as well I will say this in the 70s especially the you know this is 74 so one could make the argument that
this is the early '70s police are looking at this scene and they don't see any obvious signs of Foul Play they do
find that at the rear of the home a screen and for my understanding this is a screen that goes to a window not like a
screen in porch or anything but a screen to one of the windows was missing a roughly let's say a 12 in by 12 in
square that had been cut do we have any comment by the homeowner about this well
thank you I I'm assuming based off of The Limited information in the report that Dwayne is saying yeah that wasn't
like that before I left right that that's an that's a easy yes and no answer or easy yes and no question for
police well then I think the other question becomes is this damage that could have been done by animal or done
in some other way other than a a human making this damage to this screen well you you want to you want a description
but when I hear the short description is 12 by 12 that sounds like a pretty clean
cut to me um the the thing here though that really complicates matters is included in their notes about that
screen being cut they say that the window was not accessed I don't know how there's no Rhyme or Reason as to how
they arrived at that conclusion right we've seen some some cases where they're like oh there's
cobwebs that were never Disturbed right um we've seen other cases where there's windows that are paint painted shut that
even if someone were to have cut or removed a screen they wouldn't be able to open it or nailed shut what seems
pretty definitive is their their understanding that when they observed this they wrote the detail in included
the detail in on this that the window was not accessed they go on to say that this the door being open whether it was
locked or sorry unlocked a jar or what have you that they're looking at a scene and they're going
well we can kind of there's no obvious signs of Foul Play to us here we can see a likely scenario again this is the cop
saying this a likely scenario of someone came over and she left with somebody or
she decided to leave and I get it it's You could argue it's the early '70s remember
like every movie that that takes place in the 60s almost especially the late 60s almost always has some teenager 17
18 19y old that's what are you doing we're we're heading out to California far out man you know what I mean like
that's that was a thing in this country at the time and maybe they just chalk it
up to here's a uh young 17-year-old blond hair blue eyes good-look girl very very popular with
lots of friends maybe she she and somebody else just chose to take off and again they are making these notes in the
moment right right so we looking back on it retrospectively we have to stay water
we have to understand that they this is something that they decided to include in the police file then that day now
what they what it doesn't say is you can't ask that person in the same moment to include in your notes hey if she
doesn't come back and F 5 days or 2 weeks or 3 weeks would you change your whole opinion of the scene or your
thoughts or theories on to where she is or what happened to her because when I look at it it's easy for us to go
retrospectively and go I don't think she's leaving her wallet or her driver's license behind the other thing too is
she only took this job to get paid right she only took this job to make some cash
if she was in intending to or wanted to leave for any reason at all with anybody
it would stand to reason that she would have stayed the extra couple of hours to
collect from the homeowner that she had been housesitting for yeah this gets complicated did she invite somebody over
did she leave with that person did the person that she invite over have a weapon and force her to leave the
property or did she simply go hey I'm going to go to the lake and go sunbathing something happened there or
I'm going to go to the lake and I'm going to go swimming and something happened there what we do know and this
just makes a very mysterious and sad story even all that more sad was her her father
Clifford was upset with his daughter that she hadn't shown up the night prior to wish her older sister well to you
know have a celebration before we send her along her way now that year Captain just as it shall be this year Father's
day was Sunday June 16th so poor Clifford this poor man had to spend Father's Day searching for his daughter
and he's doing that with other family members and and likely other persons of this community as well they're all
looking for this young woman they're not seeing any signs obvious signs of Foul Play again as as a armchair detective I
think maybe I always expect the worst has happened uh and that's pretty easy for us to do giving the number of cases
that we've looked at and we're only obviously looking at the bad ones right we're not covering cases where
somebody's reported missing and then they turn up alive and well 36 hours later and it's just a misunderstanding
people don't tune in for those shows but This Woman's been missing for almost 50
years now and what we're going to see here is a change in opinion of the authorities it's going to take a while
it's going to take several months in fact but at some point they're going to go back and say not so fast maybe there
was Foul Play involved here and that that will slowly matriculate into we do strongly believe that there is Foul Play
here and we we have some people that we are concerned about and you first have to look at the homeowner Dwayne Cornwell
so he's gone on this trip now one thing that is great for his Alibi as said he's
traveling with friends with with people other musicians and he is states away he's
he's in Nashville Tennessee our case is taking place in Wright County Minnesota so they check into his Alibi and of
course they have his mother to interview as well she's confirming yes I arrived at the the house beforehand they want to
know why he's having somebody bother to house sit at all right why don't just lock up the place and go on your trip it
wasn't for my understanding this wasn't he was going to be gone for months this was he was going to be gone for a
handful of days maybe a week at the most but he did have some concerns so he's he's telling police look it's common
here in this area for people to to house sit of course Belinda's family's backing
up that information with law enforcement but he says look I have I have chickens
that need to be taken care of so that's one explanation again he's a musician so
he's saying look I own a lot of expensive instruments and I have other items that are of value expensive items
in my home and I was more so having her house sit to to keep an eye on my belongings not necessarily the house
itself this stands to some reason right I mean these cabins are they're out there and some people are some of them
are are owned but not completely occupied every day of the year if you were looking to steal some stuff from a
house this would be easy pickings in my opinion the report though is that none of these items other than this pink
blanket are missing from the house so it doesn't seem like somebody went there with the intent of stealing any of his
belongings and then turned out to to be in a situation where Belinda's there it appears like whatever happened to
Belinda either happened without a whole lot of force or a whole lot of struggle in his home or that she was elsewhere
when whatever happened to her took place the we'll expand on this a little bit though so from my understanding too uh
Dwayne Cornwell had been married a couple times and he unloads the detail on the police that like Not only was I
worried that somebody might take or steal some of my expensive instruments or or valuables from my home while I was
gone he was specifically worried that one of his exes may come to the house to either do something to the house or to
steal something so it sounds like whatever relationships he had with these you know with woman a woman b or
whomever I've not seen their names it sounds like it was a pretty messy breakup and that he had some concerns
yeah his relationship with Tammy 1 and Tammy who were toxic now this might be a captain obvious question here but I'm
guessing when law enforcement the family people in the community are searching for her around the lake that they never
found this missing pink blanket you're exactly right and in fact there's a little bit of a hangup with the items
that we should be looking for right so we're looking for Belinda we're looking for the pink blanket we do know that
some of her belongings in and what we just described for you earlier is probably a shorter list of of the list
of items that they have that she left behind or that were left behind before she vanished but one item that they
never found that she was never without is a troll necklace and in fact there are some pictures online of her you know
with friends or hanging out what have you and you can see her wearing the troll necklace in some of these pictures
so right away police say like we're looking for Belinda we're looking for the pink blanket and we're looking for
this troll necklace because if we can't find Belinda the pink blanket in the necklace are are probably some of the
best leads we could get when looking for her they're not going to find any of this stuff it's 50 years later they
don't find the blanket they don't find the the troll necklace what they do find in their
investigation and this is going this is very problematic IC for Dwayne Cornwell they go to check on his Alibi again he's
traveling with other people he's staying in a hotel they get the name of the hotel from him where were you staying
and he says you know we were staying there the whole time and I think he said that we don't know the route that that
they would have taken so I I don't know if this was a straight shot or not but he said it was about 14 hours to travel
from Nashville back home okay again there's other people on this trip the problem here becomes when they
go to check on the hotel reservations and the hotel stay he's not staying alone there's at least one person that's
rooming with him they confirm that he did stay at the hotel however he's returning a a day or a night later
than when the hotel says that he checked out so even with the arri even with the
return now we have this window of time where his story doesn't match up I won't go so far as to say that he was
unaccounted for because we do know that he wasn't traveling alone but the question becomes when did he drop off
that other person and what is this time Gap that he has because if he has a Time
Gap it's very possible he comes back home he does something he does something to Belinda and then discards her body
yes this this missing time would in my opinion and and everyone else's should mean that this allows for time for him
to have been involved in her disappearance to be responsible for her disappearance now the thing though is
here Captain for whatever reason the police even though they tracked down this lead and they were looking at it
they were looking at him it seems like it seems like they were able to move on from that because again this is a
50-year-old investigation we have different agencies that have investigated this over the years we have
different detectives that have have reviewed this case and worked this case over the years so we don't have detailed
information as to how they came to this conclusion but at some point they move off of him in fact it's there's a note
in the police file that says that Dwayne Cornwell was cleared and this is within
days of her having gone missing is this just as simple as they spoke to multiple
people that could confirm that hey I was with him from the time that we left whatever time that they that hotel said
we checked out or date that we checked out not a big deal I was with him the entire time or the overwhelming majority
of the time it could be as simple as we took a detour and then we we stayed in the van or or when he went to drop me
off he stayed at my house for a little but I don't think we know exactly what it was that made the cops move off of
him no and it it would seem to me like it's got to be something very solid because isn't he your obvious lead he's
your obvious suspect right out the gate especially when you confirm that oh his his story is not 100% spoton we we we
check the facts of his story they don't line up with what he's telling us now that could just be in the moment he was
shocked he was surprised he gave bad information he does we do know that he tells police
it was roughly like a 40 sorry roughly a 14 hour travel time from point A to point B I can tell you this it's a quick
map search tells me that it's roughly 13 and a half hour so he's he's very close
on on his time timing with that but it I'm I'm again paron me for making a leap I'm not saying we trying to stay water
and looking at this retrospectively that we collectively look back and say oh yeah move off of Dwayne completely but
I'm saying looking at their investigation and the notes that were included that's been released to the
public the information states that the police moved on from him so again here making the leap that there must have
been something solid for them to move off of Dwayne and then now they're back at the idea of she probably left or she
left in whatever happened to her didn't take place at the cabin and Dwayne's not
involved yeah because even though we have some of her items left behind we don't have any signs of a struggle no
signs of a struggle and the problem here though is the the notes in that case File indicate that the police that the
investigators at the time believed that there was not much of a case to work here that there was no real crime
committed that she took off on her own and I think that all of us can agree that look some people do they yeah they
go off and they live a whole new life and they never come back they never make they never reach out or make
communication with with anyone so that's always going to be a possibility right but I would put that in the one or
two% chance because I with all this time that has expired and all of of the information that will come out later in
this investigation it's starting to see it's starting to seem very highly unlikely that she just took off in fact
as said the police at some point will change their opinion and they will say look we now believe that there is Foul
Play involved [Music] so much more to get to in this case join us back in the garage and until then be
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Cabins by the Lake /// Part 1 /// 765

Part 1 of 2

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17 year old Belinda VanLith has been missing for fifty years now. At the time of her disappearance she was described as five foot five inches tall, about one hundred ten pounds with blond hair and blue eyes. Belinda was house sitting for a neighbor at the time. She failed to attend her sister’s going away party on June 15th, 1974. Her family contacted the Sheriff’s office and reported her missing the following day. Accounts from that time have narrowed her disappearance to prior to the party. Foul play is suspected. Anyone with information about Belinda VanLith is asked to call the Wright County Sheriff’s Office at 763-682-7879 or 763-682-7637.

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Brief Summary

The episode investigates the 1974 disappearance of Belinda van Lith in Minnesota, focusing on her last known activities and potential suspects.

Key points

The Disappearance of Belinda van lith. Belinda vanished from her neighborhood in 1974, leaving behind a complex mystery.
A Different Kind of Twist. This case has unique elements that set it apart from typical investigations.
The Last Known Movements. Belinda's last known whereabouts are crucial to understanding her disappearance.
The Mysterious Phone Call. A phone call reveals Belinda's whereabouts, but raises more questions than answers.
The Going Away Party. Belinda's absence at a significant party raises alarms among her friends and family.
Father's Day Search. Clifford spends Father's Day searching for his missing daughter, highlighting the family's anguish.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

This is the still unsolved missing persons case of 17-year-old Belinda van lith.

Introduction to Belinda's case.

4:13WatchJun 11, 2024

Tension

65/ 100Some tension

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