Denise Pflum /// Part 1 /// 651 | Forensic Files

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welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and
with me as always is a man who just stepped out of a Six-Day Darkness Retreat and straight into the darkness
of the garage here is the captain and I got a little poo on my shoe it's good to
be seen and good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a [Music] FR this week we are very excited to be
featuring Hunter harvest blood orange blonde from the creative Brewers over at second Crossing Brew Company this is a
wonderful blonde ale and the good Folks at second Crossing added some delightful
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you can save some money on the store Page Colonel that's enough of the business all right everybody gather
around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true [Music] crime all right okay
forever forever can't can't get away all right okay all right okay forever forever
get the pain never goes away for the family of those that are reported as last seen here or last seen by Who
posters have become synonymous with the missing missing posters or missing Flyers no one needs a definition or
clarification you can close your eyes and envision the template when you are out in a about on occasion you may see a
poster or flyer and you stop and you look and you make a mental note of some of the information
listed the poster flyer headline missing last scene seeking information and have
you seen me today's case Denise flum is a case that is easily remembered for many
reasons but one of those is for The Unique last name spelled pflu m the missing posters show us what she
looks like they contain all of the pertinent information that might help someone to identify her like Denise's
missing poster on missingkids.org that reads missing since March 28th 1986 missing from Connorsville
Indiana date of birth January 14 1968 age now 55 if she's still alive a Caucasian female missing since
she was just 18 years old with brown hair brown eyes and she is listed as 5 foot 6 in tall and weighing about 135 lb
this poster is complete with two photos of Denise it look like they were taken some time during her senior year of high
school if we achieve nothing else in covering the story that spans several decades and
has several suspects we hope that at the very least we can tell you what the posters
cannot Denise flum was last seen leaving her parents' home in Connorsville Indiana it was Good Friday just about a
half past noon she was going back to an area where she attended a party the night before
she was going to look for her purse almost 37 years later and Denise has not come
home like most cold cases there have been plenty of tips theories and rumors some claim to know what happened to
Denise some claim to know where she is buried detectives have talked to prisoners they say they know who is
responsible but also like many cold cases this case faces a key problem time the Indiana State Police and the
fet county sheriff's department have some physical evidence they have some witness statements and incriminating
statements made by suspects but everyone stopped expecting Denise to return long
ago sadly they have been reserved to looking for her remains Judy flum Denise's mother
said 9 years ago that it is likely that someone killed Denise but Judy still clings to some tiny amount of hope that
Denise is alive somewhere Judy says quote the pain never goes away you learn to wall it off and you go about your
daily business you don't think you're going to lose your mind like we did back then like we said detectives have some
physical evidence they have some witness statements and incriminating statements
made by suspects but what will it take to finally catch a break in this case well
that likely will come in one of two forms either getting a confession or finding her remains this is true crime
garage and this is the case of Denise flum all right okay forever forever can't get away all right
okay all right okay [Music] forever missing since March 28th 1986 Denise flum was just 18 years old
when she V vanished and that's what this story really is to me the first thing that jumps off the page here Captain is
that she simply poof seems to disappear Into Thin Air very few traces of this young woman this is one of those stories
you hear them time and time again one bad night one bad day and it turns into a lifetime of Torment for a family an
endless heartache for a pack of friends portions of today's trailer leading into
this case description and timeline came from a 2014 Indianapolis Star article by
Christine Guerrera and a 1986 Palladium Item article by Harold Wy now what those missing posters cannot
tell you is that Denise flum was fun she was likable she had a bunch of friends and all of her life's intermediate goals
she had them all planned out she had worked very hard to lay the foundation of the path that stood in front of her
what likely would seemed like a future that was just footsteps ahead of her it was Denise's senior year at Connorsville
High School in the hooer state of Indiana Denise was 18 and all set to graduate with the end of the school year
just months away she was sixth in her class and one teacher referred to Denise as a perfectionist well like you said
she was sixth in her class but she also played three Sports yeah beyond the typical high school curriculum she
played softball basketball volleyball and she was a longtime member of the science club but more importantly at
Connorsville High School Denise ran track and she was hoping to secure a track scholarship after graduation the plan
was to go off to the neighboring state of Ohio and attended Miami University in the fall she planned to study
microbiology March 27th 1986 was a Thursday and on that Thursday night Denise and Friends attended a local high
school party she went to the party with one of her closest friends her name is Kim this was that time that time of year
that time in most people's lives and a time that most of us have been fortunate enough to experience you've already put
in all of the hard work High School graduation was imminent it was that short little window of time that goes by
so fast but it is a time that one can focus on socializing and creating some last minute memories with high school
friends both new and old before shipping oneself off into the uncharted waters of
a college that may be far away but as we already said in Denise's case Miami University it was just about 30 m or so
away from home just far enough that one could spread their wings a bit but close
enough to keep tight with family this party here is a great place to start off our timeline leading up to Denise going
missing this party was on a Thursday and it was going to be hopping yeah the party was going to be hopping you nerds
now it's spring break this week and the kids were ready to gather and throw down
from my understanding Captain a lot of the locals traveled out of town and out of state for a big spring break getaway
but not Denise she had track to attend to she had school and other things that she was concerned with and so she was
going to do a bit of a station if you will and hang out with some friends Denise attended the party that night as
did about 100 or so other students now this is curious to me because I've reviewed many
reports on the timeline of Denise going missing the number of persons attending this party seems to be up for debate
I've seen it reported as few as 100 people or 200 people maybe even as many as a few hundred people which seems a
bit exaggerated to me it sounds like the fish that I caught when I was on vacation that keeps getting bigger and
bigger every time I tell the story there only so many people that attended Connorsville High School this was not a
huge town this is a small town back then I believe the population was about 177,000 people and with some of them out
traveling for spring break I question how much of a quote high school party this was how many adults do we have
attending this big party but it was a typical party where they'd have a bonfire in those scenarios you have a
lot of people coming and going maybe staying for a beer and then leaving on the way to the party Kim and Denise
stopped off at a place called the Greenwood Inn this was to buy beer to take with them to the party now her
purse becomes a big portion of this story and I want to go ahead and throw out there that I have a lot of questions
about this purse situation so we're going to jump in and out of the purse situation from time to time throughout
our timeline here but for our story the way that this is typically reported is that she left her purse at this party
and then would need to go and retrieve it the following day I found it interesting that once you dive a little
bit deeper into the story that she actually misplaced the purse at the party and was aware of that situation
before leaving that night that she was seen and there are several people that have stated that they saw her or spoke
with her and she was actively looking for her purse at the party with all those other reports the shorter versions
I had just made the Assumption as it was reported that she had left her purse there like so many of us do leave your
phone somewhere leave something else and then have to retrieve it later that evening or the following day but no her
purse was misplaced sometime during the party and she was actively looking for it and at some point she leaves the
party and goes home so other than missing her purse losing her purse at the party everything seems pretty normal
on this Thursday evening and night so March 27th is the party she wakes up on the 28th and obviously she's concerned
because she doesn't have her driver's license she doesn't have any money so she wants to head back to where the
party was and now that it's daylight maybe she'll be able to find her purse that's correct so she decides to venture
out around 12:30 p.m. Denise left her her home to retrieve her purse and as the captain pointed out she's leaving
the home with simply her car keys and her vehicle and she has no money she has no
identification or driver's license because those items are in her purse that she lost the night before and her
family is aware that she's going to be heading back to the party site to try to look for her purse now the party site is
only about 15 minutes away from her home the interesting thing here is it's obvious to everyone that Denise for
whatever reason did not want to go alone to go looking for this purse we know this because she called a
few of her friends two of them in fact that we have names for that she asked hey can you go with me back to where the
party was I need to find my purse both of her friends that she spoke to were unable to go with her now there's some
question as to what this could mean here it could be just as simple as a teenager
that doesn't want to miss out on hanging out with some friends hey could you join
me for this errand that I need to run or was there something else going on here where she did not want to go alone back
to that location of the party to retrieve her purse Denise's house was about 7 miles outside of connorville and
so this party location it's pretty remote so I could see somebody going there's nothing out there there's nobody
out there I'd like for somebody to come with me and we know the time that she left for two factors one her younger
sister was at home at the time and again this is around 12:30 p.m. and on her way
out Denise stopped and briefly had a conversation with one of her neighbors the conversation with her neighbor is
believed to be and reported to be the last confirmed sighting of Denise now fast forward to later that evening
when Denise doesn't return home that night her parents of course they begin to worry this is not like their very
responsible daughter to not return home well she was also known to check in a lot so her mom starts calling the house
I think at around two So within an hour and a half her mom's going there's there's something wrong because she
hasn't come home yet and like I said it's not that far of a drive out to the to the party site and you're exactly
right mom got a very uneasy feeling very early on in this case now her parents they're nervous they don't know why
Denise has not returned so of course they go to local law enforcement and they report their daughter is missing
they try to inform the police and ask for their help however it's 1986 the person we're talking about is only 18
years old and of course the cops are telling Mom and Dad don't worry about it she probably took off with some friends
she'll be back late tonight she'll be back in the morning it's spring break who knows what's going on she'll return
don't worry about it yeah but I have a big problem with this with law enforcement your job is to Serve and
Protect this is maybe a 15-minute drive out to the party site from their location maybe 20 at tops send a cruiser
out there just a check on her yeah this is something I've always had an issue with and we've talked about this plenty
of times here in the garage and you can understand it's one of those debatable items one of those one of those
arguments where you can sympathize with the police department and say well they you know you get these reports of these
teenagers and then 99% of the time they turn up no harm no foul other than they weren't where they were supposed to be
they've done upset mom and dad and it's as simple as that now on the other side of that argument is where you empathize
with the parents and with the loved ones and the family and you say my God man help us out here we we are coming to you
we we put a lot of thought into coming to you we didn't just show up willy-nilly this is about 8 hours after
she was last seen our daughter sixth in her class this isn't like her she she's not someone that runs the streets she's
not someone that's out all hours of the night and as you said Captain she's somebody that regularly checks in with
mom or dad so this is incredibly out of character the other argument that I have
here is when we talk about these smaller towns this seems more strange to me in these smaller towns now I know 1986 a
lot of things have changed since then a lot of police departments and law enforcement agencies have changed
changed their protocol for looking for missing persons much earlier than they would have in the 70s and the 80s but
when you have these smaller towns forgive me small towns but part of me goes what else you got going on out
there nothing and that's the problem because a object at rest stays at rest and I think that's what happens is they
go well we're not doing anything right now so instead of getting off our getting off of our ass and looking for
somebody we're going to stay in lazy mode and that's just the thing man you signed up for this job likely not to be
a hero but as the captain pointed out to Serve and Protect and you find yourself
when you work as a first responder you find yourself in a situation where you could end up being the hero and this
case needed a hero other than her parents and some people that come along much later in this investigation I don't
see a whole lot of Heroes here in this case well I don't even know if this case needs a hero as much as it just needs
need somebody to do their job that they signed up for they took a oath like I said 15 to 20 minute drive out there and
look if something bad happened to her at that location maybe there would be something that the officer would come
across maybe another vehicle maybe another person out there you talk to detectives we talk to detectives all the
time and one of the things that we hear about in these cold cases time and time again is had we just spoke to the right
person early enough in the investigation had we just found this one piece of evidence that we know was covered up or
discarded of later if we would have found that earlier in our investigation this would be a solved case this would
be a completely different situation you and I captain here might not be sitting here 30 some years later discussing
Denise flum still being missing now what could have happened is the officer could
have said said sure give me the description of Denise heck he or she may have even known the flums this was not a
large town give us a description of her car that's even more important because cops are very good at finding Vehicles
now they don't go out looking that does not stop her parents that does not stop her family from calling people they know
they're calling hospitals and businesses calling friends asking where Denise could be they're rounding up people and
they're going out and they're doing their own search an unorganized one but they are conducting their own search
starting that night as soon as they are turned away for a lack of a better word from law enforcement they start actively
searching for their daughter they were doing so before they showed up to law enforcement but they continued the
search that night and then on to the next day it would be quite some time before law enforcement would get
involved in the search for Denise flum the following day we are now at March 29th Denise's car is
found parked near a farm the car was parked alongside Tower Road this is a gravel small Gravel Lane or road that is
east of Glenwood and the car is parked near a barn yeah technically the road is filling road but all the locals call it
Tower Road the landowner would later tell police that the vehicle hasn't left that spot where
it was found since he says about 12:30 p.m. to approximately 1:15 p.m. the day before this is interesting because this
lines up with our timeline we know that she left her home at approximately 12:30
p.m. the day before and as the captain pointed out we're talking about a 15minute drive to get to where she
needed to go to look for this purse and so it would appear that if Denise took off or if something bad happened to
her that this vehicle was placed there by someone or Denise herself a relatively short time after she left her
home yeah and this this road Tower Road like the locals call it is only 4 miles from the party site but it's still
strange because if you're looking for your purse you're not going to find it four miles away right right that purse
grew legs you're not finding it 4 miles away now the interesting thing here Captain points out 4 miles away I've
seen one report that says it's approximately a 6-minute drive from the general Party location from the night
before the point here is that according to multiple reports there was no reason for Denise to be in that area where her
car was found so at this point they're not able to find Denise but like the colonel said they found her vehicle the
vehicle is a white or cream colored Buick Regal 1981 when the vehicle's found the doors
are locked and the keys are gone and as said no one could come up with a reason for the vehicle to be in that location
the family also believes that the car seat was in the position that Denise would normally have it in when she was
driving and there seemed like there was no crime scene or no sign of a struggle inside that vehicle so there's pretty
much no evidence around the vehicle also it's a rural area no Footprints were found around the vehicle yeah very
interesting and keep in mind that at the time when her vehicle is found it's found when the family and friends are
out searching for Denise police have not joined in the search effort at this time
now they once they find the vehicle they report this to police and now the the police are getting involved the police
look it over and they determine that there's no sign of a struggle there's no sign of Foul Play as far as they can see
regarding the vehicle the condition of the vehicle and the seat is in that normal position the normal position that
Denise would have left it in this is according to her parents and Denise as we said is 5 foot 6 in tall and we've
seen in some cases where the seat position can be rather important because we may have a very short woman
who owns the vehicle and the seat is found all the way extended away from the steering wheel indicating a much taller
person may have driven the vehicle here we have a situation where it's hard for me to tell given the description by the
police and the pictures that I've seen and the statements from her parents I think one could make a strong argument
that Denise may have placed this vehicle there herself or if somebody else did they left little evidence behind to
indicate that someone else moved this vehicle after a rather quick assessment of Denise's car the car is returned to
Denise's parents and unlike the vehicle Denise never comes [Music] home this show is sponsored by better help do
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50% [Music] forever forever all right we are back cheers mates thanks for joining us here in the
garage cheers to you captain now this should be a homicide case not a missing person's case Denise had a lot of plans
in place she was excited for the future she had a good home life she was vocal and open openly expressing to those she
knew how excited she was for some of the upcoming events in her life and we're talking about things like prom
graduation going off to school and mind you she had an opportunity to go with friends on a trip out of town for spring
break and chose not to because she wanted to stay and focus on her schooling which the main reason was
track track was starting up and was active at that time that week and she wanted to stay involved with track it
was one of her passions well this is my problem with law enforcement they do this a lot in missing person cases where
they tell the family well look she probably ran away and there's zero evidence that she ran away we don't know
if she ever found her purse so as far as we know she has no money she has no identification like you said there's
evidence that she stayed in town to keep pursuing her goals and then on top of that law enforcement
didn't even really search her car that well and didn't search her house so it's not like they went back to her house and
found Journal upon Journal of her wanting to escape her life or something we've seen a bunch of these cases where
it appears that we may have a missing person and then the missing person's case turns into a homicide
investigation and we've seen multiple times where a vehicle is found and it's returned to the
family heck we covered one case very recently gate The Bowman where I believe that the police return the vehicle to
the prime suspect the vehicle is not processed properly and there is a lost opportunity there for evidence that
could lead you to what actually happened to Denise flum well I just think it's a
common misstep by law enforcement it needs to stop happening unless you have some evidence that they wanted to to
start a new life or they wanted to run away with somebody I mean it's not even like she had a relationship with
somebody that was from out of town there's there's just no reason that she would want to take off the other thing
too is I've never understand why especially in this case when you have an 18-year-old
daughter why the police aren't saying to Mom and Dad hey it's probably nothing we
still think that there's an opportunity that she may return but would you mind if we hold this
vehicle in a secured location for x amount of days and in case this turns into something else right you could have
lost evidence in this case especially if this vehicle was moved by the person responsible for her disappearance yeah
finding a fingerprint in that vehicle could be a a big deal there's no doubt in my mind Mom and Dad say yes please
hold on to this car and here's the other thing too you find a person's vehicle a missing
person's vehicle you look it over and you go H I don't see a sign of struggle I don't see any signs obvious evidence
of Foul Play the vehicle itself being parked in a strange location with no person with no
owner to be found is in itself evidence of Foul Play in my mind yes I agree and the other
problem that I keep going back to is why is this vehicle for miles away from the
party site correct she went to the party site to look for her purse it would make
sense if you found her car at the party site but we don't we find it four miles away on this Gravel Road basically one
of the most heartbreaking parts of this story is Denise's parents they I watched
a bunch of interviews with them these short little news clips from 1986 where they keep saying
like we don't believe she had any reason to run away she was not that type but we're hoping and praying that she
ran away right and you have her father on camera saying me and her mother are questioning everything right did we not
show enough affection did we not tell her that we loved her enough we could have said it more I guess we we should
have said it more and it's this heartbreaking thing where you're constantly telling law enforcement and
the media please take this seriously because my daughter she's not the type she would not run away but oh I'm
praying and hoping that she did well I think that's coming from law enforcement I mean the the lead detective Ted MC
quinley was also related to the father he was the cousin he was David's cousin yeah so I think then that becomes
a there's a conflict of interest anyways you probably shouldn't be the lead detective if you are related to the
father because look like I said it shouldn't be viewed as a missing person case it should be viewed as a
homicide assume the worst thank you and then and then work backwards and if evidence uh leads you to another path
fine but at least you're doing your due diligence from the word go but again object at rest stays at rest and to me
this is just it's just constant laziness by law enforcement I like what you're saying here Captain so we easily agree
this is most likely a homicide case and since we have run out of breadcrumbs for
our general timeline I think going forward we pursue this and discuss it as we would a homicide case so typically we
would talk about some of the persons that may be responsible for Denise to go missing let's talk about evidence or
some things that could be evidence in this case before we get into some suspects since this is a missing case
let's start off by talking about what exactly is missing simply put we have Denise her clothing that she was wearing
that day and her car keys that's it that's what is missing in this case what is not missing is her car as we know it
was found four miles from the party site right and strangely enough the other item that's not missing is her
purse her purse was returned to her family the same day that Denise goes missing so the purse has returned to her
family but what items do we find in that purse that's very that's a very good question here and that's one of the big
problems that I have with this case I believe there are so many things that are missing from this timeline I believe
that there are witnesses that have statements that are missing and I believe that there's a lot of evidence
that could clue us into what may have happened or give us a bigger picture a bigger better picture of what happened
and we simply don't have a lot of that stuff and I think it's because and I hate to do this two weeks in a row but I
just see a poor investigation from Jump Street in this case well and I'm just going to piggy
back off that for a little bit I I agree this this investigation is horeshit for
one but there are a couple things working against law enforcement like you said 100 plus people at this party and
anybody that's been to a bonfire knows that there could be crowds of people around the fire and you might go to that
bonfire you might be there for an hour you might have a couple drinks but you're not in a well-lit area where you
see everybody so there could have been I've gone to bonfires before where one of my buddies was at the bonfire I just
never saw them so I think one to identify all the individuals that were at this party there's also rumors that
she was making out with some guy John that night that person John I I don't know has if he's ever been fully
identified and then I think the other issue for law enforcement is this happens during spring break so you have
a bunch of kids out of town and then the kids that you have in town there's no school that day it's good
Friday so now all those individuals normally if a girl went missing let's say on a Friday at noon or 12:30 the
majority of the people that you would want to question their Alibi would be school they would be in school but
because they're not in school now every person that you interview you have to figure out what their Alibi is and then
you have to fall follow up on that lead to make sure that the Alibi is correct well and you're right with so many
people potentially at this party what we should have here is one of your favorite
words Captain a plethora a plethora a plethora of witness statements of people that saw her that night spoke with her
that night or guess what's also important the ones that didn't speak to her and didn't see her that night what
else did they see what else did they hear while they were there now we talked about how big could this party be well
we know that she went with her friend Kim and from one report that I've seen is that her senior class had 348
students in this class now that could mean that 300 of those 348 went to that party like one report States most
Reports say 100 to maybe 200 kids but what's interesting to me here is that based off the report that I'm looking at
in front of me right now we gain some information not a lot but the information here is that Kim Gilbert and
Melissa Cook both seniors at connorville high school were good friends with Denise
flum these were two of the persons that she called on that day before she left her home to go look for her purse these
are two of the people that she called to ask if they would go with her neither was able to they were unable to go so
now she heads out on her own and then what we are told later is she goes out looking for this
purse she vanishes poof disappears Into Thin Air as it would appear never returns home they find her
vehicle and her purse made its way home and I've seen two reports one report says that it was returned to the
flums house about an hour and a half after Denise left to go looking for it and the person that brought the purse to
them from my understanding was somebody that was pretty to fairly well known to the family this wasn't any kind of
mystery person to them the person has remained unidentified they're not listed by name in any of the reports that I've
seen but what's crazy is this purse makes its way back home Denise does not now that leads me to what is
missing from this case as we stated Denise her clothing and her car keys all missing but what also is missing from
this case is background statements for that party background a background story on the purse itself witness
statements here's the thing when she drove out there to retrieve her purse who was she hoping to meet was she
hoping to meet up with somebody once there was she hoping to speak with somebody once there help me find my
purse or now that nobody's here everybody's left from last night did you happen to see my purse well that's
another thing that's not clear did everybody at this bonfire leave or did some people just crash in their car or
did people set up some tents I mean I've been to bonfires before where at the end
of the night a couple people just set up some tents and just stay the night and so was it found by a person that went
back out to the party or was it somebody that woke up at the party or did they find her purse last night these are
questions that should be easily answered and they should have been easily found out this information should have been
easily found out by detectives in law enforcement and I know it sounds like we are a couple vultures circling around
one small item here but here's where my head is Captain I don't think we're cir around one item I think there's a bunch
of things that we're a little pissed off about I feel like this my gut feeling is
that this party and her disappearance could have a lot to do with one another yeah duh what happened
at that party and the thing too with the statement of there's a statement out there in multiple reports that says she
did not want to go alone to retrieve her purse okay well what does that mean did
she was she just simply a busy body that likes to be hanging out with people all the time and
didn't want to really do anything by herself or is there a reason why she didn't want to go alone was she afraid
did something happen the night before at the party that made her uncomfortable made her uncomfortable to go alone to
retrieve her purse and what's the backstory on the purse itself it could be just as simple as she set it down
somewhere misplaced it or is there something more nefarious going on here did somebody take it from her as a a
prank did she set it down and somebody took it on purpose when it was returned what items
were in the purse we we talked about her having no money and no identification because those items were in her purse
when she left on that Friday was there money in her purse when it was returned to the family yeah my gut feeling is
just one it's a royal area so maybe she just wanted somebody go with her because
she wouldn't feel safe out there by herself and also if you bring somebody it's probably quicker to find the purse
with two people looking yeah I would love to hear some background statements for the party itself yeah who's this
John guy yeah who's the John guy the other thing too we talk about the things she was looking forward to in her life
one of them being prom another being graduation then of course going off the college in the
fall but one of the Persons of Interest here in this case will be her ex-boyfriend and it's reported that her
and her ex-boyfriend broke up about a month before Denise went missing well what would be interesting to know too is
if her and her boyfriend his name is Shawn McClung if they were broken up who was
she going to go to prom with because what you have here all these years later is people saying Shawn mclung was not
looked at good enough early on in this investigation and I agree with those statements
1,00% however who was she going to go to prom with who was she in a current relationship with or hoping to have a
relationship with was she just going by herself just going with friends that's not uncommon is it possible that she was
still in contact with her exboyfriend and that maybe they were going to go together because they were together for
3 years which is a that's a long time that's a very longterm relationship for somebody so young and Lieutenant Ted
mcquin as we said he was the lead investigator on this case early on back in 1986 and when he is asked years later
about the ex-boyfriend sha mclung he simply says yeah I spoke with him he had an alibi
for that time period he was out fishing with some friends but it doesn't seem like there
was a whole lot of followup on Shawn well I don't think he ever confirmed The Alibi so correct so law enforcement
comes to me and goes what were you doing that day well I was uh fishing with a Jim and Steve well if you don't ever go
ask Jim and Steve then that's not an alibi that's just a story that I've told you and my issue too with him again step
down become don't be the lead detective if you're related to the family because look in these cases especially a
18-year-old you got to start with the Inner Circle well that inner circle is your
cousin your cousin's wife now you have to what about the sister okay now we got to look at relationships current
relationships and past relationships and one thing that I failed to put in my notes Here Captain is that I do not know
if Ted mcquin Ley was with the local police department or with the sheriff's department at the time which I think
could have some important meaning to it because I would imagine a town of 16 to 177,000 probably does not have a very
large Connorsville Police Department he may have been the only investigator that's true but at the time but we we do
have or at least I heard that Indiana State State Police did offer assistance so even if you stay on as the lead why
aren't you getting some assistance from them that that look I I get so tired of these cases you you don't have to be the
smartest guy in the room you just have to know the smartest guy in the room and and you become the smartest guy in the
room when you place smart individuals that are qualified around you and Ted Lieutenant mcquin Ley here seems to
have really bought into this idea of and and I'm sure he he may have had other people
than just Shawn mclung telling him this but he seemed to have moved on rather quickly from Shawn
McClung yeah you're moving on pretty quickly when you're not following up to see if his Alibi is actually legit he
simply seems to do this because he believes The Narrative of that there they were still friends that it was a
mutual breakup that they were still friendly that nobody was mad at one another and again this could this is
very likely backed up by other students other people but still you double check these
aliis and you look at this guy one thing if you you want to talk about spinning your tires here and going completely in
the wrong direction it sounds to me like they spent more time looking into Denise's father than they did Shawn
mclung back in the day because one thing they State emphatically is that David Den's father was Miles Away with
multiple people that were interacting and hanging out with him that day that that Friday leading up to the point
where he becomes aware that she's missing so I I just have a hard time understanding why they went and verified
those aliis but not sha mcclung's well they did that with the father but they also do that with the mo mother so that
they're able to make the statement to the public that we have cleared these individuals which that's great okay but
we're still talking about the Inner Circle close friends family members current or past
boyfriends or current or past relationships however you want to look at it and it just seemed like they did
the first couple steps of the Inner Circle and then they just again H we'll just get
lazy and the my other issue too is this this dumbass doesn't take any notes so when you ask him about this stuff he
can't even refer back to his notes MH uh H how are you investigating this oh it's
just it's up in it's up in my Noggin again him being the lead investigator might be more of a
seniority situation more of a he he rose to that rank because of attrition rather
than being a great investigator or detective you got to take a lot of notes you got to write everything down because
you do not know two weeks from now three weeks from now what seems to be insignificant today could become very
significant to your investigation well and the notes aren't necessarily for you because you take these notes because
if this case doesn't get solved you get moved to a different department then when you have new detectives coming in
and you have no notes then they're basically starting at square one and hoping that you remember
anything and I know that you know there you know there's a really good documentary about this case and I know
when they were asking him it's you know 30 some years later so he's not going to
remember anything but again you could refer back to your notes mhm yeah that documentary is called small town
secrets and it is available currently available on viv.com it's a three-parter it's a very good very well put together
documentary on this case it's one of the best true crime documentaries I've seen
in the last few years and a cheers to Nicole berser Moore and Gian tobani for that wonderful documentary I hope I
pronounce their last names correctly kudos to you and for doing a game Buster's job on that documentary
small town Secrets now we want to talk about notes somebody not taking notes well here's some notes that become
important and it's not brought into the light until a good deal of time later we
talk about sha mclung not being looked at his Alibi not being checked but it seems like old Ted mcquin Ley moved on
from him because everybody's saying well they stayed friends and it seemed like a mutual breakup yeah
it's almost like Ted took the timeout to talk to Shawn and then just bought everything that Shawn was selling the
notes that I'm talking about come from one of Denise's friends who had moved away and they stayed close and they
became pen pals because of the distance between them so she's writing letters to
her friend and she's telling her friend leading to the breakup with her current boyfriend Sean that you know what I
recently made what she refers to in the letter as a life or death mistake I made a fatal mistake I
mean it says in the letter life or death now we don't have that complete letter to clue us into what she means by that
statement what she's talking about though is she's telling her friend I cheated on my boyfriend and I'm
getting ready to tell him I'm going to tell him I'm going to confess she's an honest person she's not going to try to
hide this secret she's going to tell sha this is what I've done and and take it from there so she tells Shawn and I
don't know that this immediately led to their breakup but from my understanding he was incredibly disappointed he was
hurt he appreciated her honesty and they broke up sometime after that the notes I have state that she
dated that letter to her friend March 3D and we know that she would go missing before the end of March and we have the
other two friends statements saying that they broke up roughly a month before she
went missing so we know the date of the letter but we don't know exactly the date that she had this convers ation
with Shawn but it seems based on what Shawn is saying based on other people that they broke up March six so like you
said about a month before she went missing yeah that all lines up with the timeline I have in front of me as well
but again if you're law enforcement it's who's this individual that she slept with and that's somebody that you would
at least want to question did she continue to have a relationship with that person or did she cut that off when
she cut off the relationship with Shawn and was this person looked at and cleared was this person looked at even
more finely than you looked at Shawn mclung was this person JN who she may or may not have been making out with at the
party the night before was this person the same person she may be attending prom with or was John the person she was
attending prom with these are the things that you need to know if you're going to
look at if I'm I'm just a little confused why they didn't look at Shawn Mong more
closely early on in this investigation part of me I'm I'm a a blue backer here right I I I do my best to stand with the
the women and men in blue but you got to call it like you see it and from what's
been reported it doesn't look like there was a great job that was going on early
in this investigation part of me wants to believe captain that that was because they had other people that they were
looking at that they were more interested in at that time and could it have been whoever she was in a current
relationship with but it's this simple if you're able to confirm his Alibi for that Friday Sean's done right you never
have to go back to him right you can now ask him questions about her character and maybe other rumors now he becomes
somebody that is an ally for law enforcement now there's a couple things about Shawn that that I kind of dismiss
when people say well Shawn didn't help with the search ever or he never made contact with her
family I don't find that to be that strange he's he's young he's towards the end of
his high school career so he's going to be heading off into the real world they did break up a month ago with
which might not seem that long but when you're in high school a month is a very long time he claims he was already
seeing some other girls so maybe he was seeing somebody and he didn't feel comfortable making
contact so I don't find that to be as strange as some other people do what I keep going back to that is strange is
you didn't confirm his Alibi exactly and the thing too is we talk about him not participating in searches those are keep
in mind they're not organized searches yes this is the family and friends conducting their own search and again
even if the breakup was Mutual even if they stayed friends it's widely reported by multiple people that the two
of them were living very different Lifestyles leading up to the breakup so they're together for like 3 years sure
they probably shared a lot of common interest early in that relationship but by that senior year they were both going
down two very different paths and very likely had very different Social Circles by that point Denise was very honed in
on her schoolwork and all of her extracurricular activities like playing Sports volleyball basketball running
track she was building her future she had plans to go off to college and then on the flip side of that you have sha
McClung who was very much into the party lifestyle at that time and had a a bunch
of party partyer friends at that time his senior year the thing that that I cannot shake here shake and B
is where is the report from the person or persons that hosted that party right because we talk about the last and I
said I purposely said that is believed to be the last confirmed sighting well it is so far the last confirmed sighting
of Denise but we know at least one other person saw her after the neighbor that she spoke to on her way out that day
where is the statements from police from the person or persons that hosted the party the night before I it could be
something as simple as we know she went her intention was to go and find her purse that Friday afternoon around 12:30
1:00 1:30 did she did you see her did you interact with her did she ask about her
purse and then where is the statement from the person that Returns the purse where did they find it who did they get
it from when did they obtain it these things I think are very key to this case and very interesting to me because again
you go back to the the land owner who says her vehicle that you find the following day yeah it's been there since
about 12:30 to 1:30 yesterday that's not too long after she left her house all right
okay forever [Music] forever all right we want to thank everybody for joining us here in the
garage so much more to get to thank you and for everything True Crime Check out true crime
garage.com and until tomorrow be good good be kind and don't [Music] litter is it possible to predict the
unpredictable can 3D printed life-size organ models help to map out complex surgeries ahead of time is it possible
it already is right here Mayo Clinic you know where to go

Denise Pflum /// Part 1 /// 651

Part 1 of 2

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The disappearance of 18 year old Denise Pflum has got to be one of the biggest mysteries of Southeast Indiana. Denise Pflum went missing back in March of 1986 from the town of Connersville. It was her senior year of high school. After attending a party the night before Denise went back to the party location to look for her purse. Denise’s car was found abandoned the next day. Denise never came home. Join us in the Garage as we crack a couple of cold ones and discuss this cold case. Denise’s case is riddled with questions. There are several publicly known suspects in Denise’s case. One is a man locked up for a life term in North Carolina, he’s also a suspected serial killer. Fans of the Apple TV+ series Black Bird will want to tune in. This just might be one of the many victims of serial stalker and kidnapper Larry DeWayne Hall.

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Brief Summary

Denise Flum vanished in 1986; her case highlights police investigation failures and ongoing family heartache.

Key points

The Case of Denise Flum. Denise Flum vanished on March 28, 1986, leaving behind a mystery that endures.
Denise's Vehicle Found. Denise's car is discovered locked and abandoned, raising questions about her disappearance.
Law Enforcement's Oversight. Criticism of law enforcement's handling of the case, particularly regarding the vehicle.
Parents' Heartbreak. Denise's parents express their fears and doubts about her running away.
Purse Returned, Denise Missing. Denise's purse is returned to her family shortly after she goes missing, but she is nowhere to be found.
Ex-Boyfriend as a Person of Interest. Denise's ex-boyfriend is mentioned as a potential suspect in her disappearance.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

The pain never goes away.

Judy Flum reflects on her daughter's disappearance.

7:43WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

60/ 100Some tension

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