Denise Pflum /// Part 2 /// 652 | Forensic Files

[Music] thank you [Music] [Music] thank you welcome to True Crime garage wherever
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Colonel that's enough of the beers and yes all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some
true crime [Music] it's been over 30 years since 18 year old Denise flum disappeared from
Connersville Indiana in 1986. she went out to retrieve her purse that she lost the night before at a party and she
never came home her vehicle was found the following day and we as we pointed out in episode one are missing a lot of
important statements one in particular is the property owner of where the party was the night before I'm curious as to
why we've never heard and my guess is maybe the individual or individuals was never questioned but I'm curious as to
why we've never heard one simple thing in this case ask that person who threw the party or the persons that threw the
party did you see Denise on the day that she went missing she left her home to retrieve her purse what we don't know
after they find her car the following day four miles away from where the party was hosted did she go missing before she
arrived to look for her purse did she go missing at the location where she was looking for that purse or did she fail
to find it and go missing and something happened to her on her way home well like we said there was over a hundred
people at this party a step that law enforcement could have took early on in this investigation is come that Monday
go to the high school and start questioning a lot of individuals and I think they would have
gathered a lot of information just a couple days after she went missing because there were not notes and
documents that were kept during the early stages of this investigation it gets very hard to determine who was
spoken to and who and what statements they gave at that time we have some suspects here to discuss even though we
have a big lack of evidence the suspects here are both local and one of interest that is from out of town but
one of the things that seems Paramount in this case or at least has remained so throughout the three decades
that Denise has been missing is the local rumors the local rumors and the short of it is these guys or some guys
got away with it they did something to Denise flum and they got away with it now it's hard to say exactly who these
guys are from top to bottom the list could be longer than what we're going to present
here but we have a short list of some very good suspects at least circumstantial
suspects one we talked about in episode one his name is Sean McClung Sean McClung is
Denise flum's previous boyfriend they broke up in early March Denise goes missing in late March another person of
interest is Benny Johnson Benny Johnson graduated a couple years before Denise and it's my understanding
Captain stop me if I'm wrong but really pinpointing the location of that party and who the landowner was or is of that
party right was a little difficult but everything I reviewed I keep getting the sense that the property belonged to the
Johnson family so Benny Johnson graduates a couple years before Denise he's known to all the locals all the
teenagers and everybody in their early 20s at the time his father the Johnson family goes way back they're Farmers
they own a lot of properties in the area and they own a lot of properties that surround Connersville Indiana yeah so
the property would have been owned by Benny's father Ben Johnson another person of interest is Benny Johnson's
cousin who it appears that they were rather close and were regularly together yeah I don't think locals view him as a
suspect on his own but believe that Randy was involved because of Benny so his name is Randy Cates and again he is
Benny's cousin then our third suspect is a man named Larry Hall now long time listeners of this show May
recognize that name and people that watch the Apple TV show Blackbird will most certainly know that name Larry Hall
is a suspected serial killer from Wabash Indiana who trolled around the Midwest in the
Civil War reenactments he is Accused again a suspected serial killer never have has
been convicted of murdering anyone but he is serving life in prison based on kidnapping charges yes and they've had
law enforcement agents that have studied Larry's movements and studied the cases
that they believe that Larry possibly could be connected to and the numbers reach up into the 50s
which would make him one of the most prolific serial killers and Captain you said something to me that's very
interesting when we took our little break here everything I say is interesting well this one went to the
top of the list for today anyway okay good that this I cannot think of another case you said you said to me that here
we have this case where we have three suspects now keep in mind it could also be
somebody we have we don't know that's not named that we did not name but here we have three suspects
there's not evidence to suggest one is a better suspect than the others and we all three
of them at some point and then or some form has confessed to killing Denise flum three really good suspects that you
could make an argument somebody could bring an argument to the table and I'd go well that's a good argument but three
good suspects all have confessed in some form or fashion two of them have confessed to law enforcement and then we
have confessions from Benny Johnson and or Randy Cates to people that are outside
of law enforcement these would be people that know these two individuals and they
are often referred to as drunken confessions so again we have Sean McClung the ex-boyfriend he confesses to
law enforcement we then have Benny Johnson that has the drunken confessions his cousin Randy has drunken confessions
not that he's the murderer but that he had some involvement and then we have a confession by Mr Hall
a suspected serial killer let's start with Sean McClung the former boyfriend now I shared a similar opinion with Ted
mcquinley that maybe he's easy to move on from again you want to check his Alibis and confirm his Alibis before you
move on from him but there's a lot to suggest that it may have been a mutual breakup that Sean is out living his best
life separately from his ex-girlfriend Denise but it's not it doesn't appear until years later that
people become more suspicious of Sean and probably rightfully so so people were concerned that he wasn't
looked at very good in the early stages of the investigation and then he moves away to Arizona I was trying to get an
exact date or at least a week narrow it down to a week of when he moved because depending on what reports you review it
says later that year he moved to Arizona well if later that year means she goes missing in March and he didn't move till
November that makes some sense but if it was within a a couple days or a week of her
going missing that would be very suspicious to me considering that he's a senior in high
school at that time and he still has his pending graduation coming up later that year my guess here
is Captain is that he went and moved to Arizona after graduating high school that year the reason why this becomes
important one obviously it looks like he might be running and hiding from something that he did back in
Connersville Indiana but two while he is in Arizona well he's not a saint he breaks the law and in
fact he ends up getting charged with what is reported as racking up some domestic violence arrest yeah so what
law enforcement is not obviously privy to is how these individuals will turn out so when you have new detectives
looking at this case 30 some years later you go well Sean moved away so that's suspicious that's a red flag
and he is abusive towards women so that's a red flag so then we got to go back and say okay well he had this Alibi
and when new detectives look at this case they're not able to confirm that alibi
and then on top of that Sean is saying well look we were friends and was a mutual breakup
but then when you find out well Denise wasn't faithful so I don't know how how much that seems like a mutual
breakup and there'd be some reason that Sean would be upset with her and rightfully so I mean they had a
relationship and she was unfaithful but you could see why he would be upset with
her so what he was telling law enforcement is oh we were friends and and everything was fine that's not the
correct story and then on top of that you got another red flag because she's sending letters at the time
saying hey I I made a mistake and I'm I'm fearful we know this guy is abusive towards women so it's very possible in
this three-year relationship he had with Denise that possibly was he was possibly
abusive towards her as well I'll say some things in defense of Sean McClung here before we get into some other
things that might be Point more towards his guilt in his defense he doesn't stay gone from
Connersville Indiana forever he eventually moves back and in fact I found some reports to indicate that he
may have bounced between the two locations more than what's generally reported a lot of the reports make it
sound like he went out to Arizona State gone for a couple decades and then came back
the one report I found indicates that he had residents from time to time in Indiana and from time to time in Arizona
so he seems to have bounced back and forth a little more frequently so if he was running from something and
I'm not saying that he wasn't but if he was running and attempting to hide from something he didn't stay gone forever he
kept coming back to Connersville yeah and also in Sean's defense he keeps coming back to Connersville and there's
really no local rumors that Sean confessed to anybody and the other thing too while there might be local suspicion
like the captain said he doesn't seem to have confessed to anybody he also doesn't return to Connersville because
they've named other suspects or they've had other Persons of Interest publicly or or hot on a lead of somebody right
like the if he left Connersville with any stank on him then there's nothing to have removed that before he decides to
return now something that goes against Sean McClung however not something that you could use
in the court of law when questioned by police once he's back in Connersville Indiana he does fail
according to their report that he does fail a voice stress test again this is years later yeah they
bring him in for questioning in 2018. now again in his defense he's been Cooperative with law
enforcement correct and he fails this stress test and again according to to the report the things that really stand
out or the things that they want us to know that stand out to them is they believe the questions the important
questions that he failed on were do you know what happened to Denise flopp did you kill Denise flop
that's where they're saying that their test indicates to them their interpretation of the results of
that test is that he was not truthful on those answers yeah I don't know how these tests actually
operate or what the test indicates in the documentary it makes it seem like uh a wavering in their voice
but a lot of people could have a wavering in their voice if you're asking somebody Point directly did you murder
your ex-girlfriend one thing that I thought was rather off-putting and this was something that the documentary did a
really good job of is when the documentarians would go out to interview somebody or attempt to interview them
for the first time they're walking up to them and it's a surprise to the person that
they're going to interview right and they did a great job of having the camera person hang back hang back a
little bit so this person may not know that we're going to be recording that we will at
least get to hear their answers when they are first engaged by the documentarians now Sean McClung
answer some of their questions he seems to be he's weird because he seems standoffish in the beginning and
then he seems eager to try to tell them some of the story or at least the portion of the story that he knows which
according to his words is he doesn't know what happened to Denise he doesn't really know what was going on with her
leading up to her disappearance and I believe he even says that when she first turned up missing
he thought that maybe she just took off or went off with some friends he says we
weren't hanging out with the same people at the same time we weren't hanging out with the same
people at that time and the weeks leading up to her disappearance he didn't really know what she was doing or
what she was up to because they had parted ways and really truly did go their own separate ways
one thing though that I thought was a little weird when he was being standoffish with the documentarians
he said you know and this could be simply out of frustration or this could be out of
guilt or he's trying to hide something he says it's been 32 years I wish people would just let it die
now I've never been questioned or suspected of anything or local rumor or people coming up to me asking me about a
missing persons case that they think I may have been involved in so I don't know what that's
like I cannot say what kind of reaction I would have maybe he's just frustrated with the
whole situation why do you keep talking to me I had nothing to do with this why do people keep coming up and talking to
me about this I had nothing to do with it or maybe he's trying to hide something and he's uncomfortable by the
questioning probably a little frustrated that they didn't get the answers 30 years ago because if they would have
done their work and done their due diligence 30 years ago they could have possibly cleared him
and then he would never been brought up again the person that has really kept this case alive is detective Stacy Reese
and you see look she's amazing when you watch the documentary you're gonna go if
it wasn't for her we want to be talking about this case you know what there would be no movement
on this case if it wasn't for the Stacy Reese well Stacy Reese and and like we said the the two documentarians
I'd be honored to work with any of those individuals they were just amazing and I can't
applaud their effort enough but then what ends up happening here with Sean is Sean gets sick and he is arrested on
I believe fraud charges Denise's mother Judy writes a letter to Sean and basically says look your mom
was a good person Denise loved your mom your mom's probably in heaven you probably want to join her in heaven so
just tell us where our daughter is we we believe in law enforcement at this time believes
you're it and they do something that's very surprising like we said he has these fraud charges
he then would be charged obviously with murder and he is sick he is dying and so the family makes
a deal look if you can just give us the location of where Denise's body is and we can find the body we're going to let
you out of prison you're going to get off on the fraud charges we're not even going to charge you with murder so he
makes this deal with police and starts talking to police even before his lawyer gets there and this is a last
ditch Hail Mary effort by Judy flum and her family to say look we we don't at this point all these years later we
don't really care exactly what happened we are not so concerned about murder charges against you
we just want to bring our daughter home we want to know where she is and have some answers as to what happened and as
the captain said he comes in and he he he's in his jail uniform and he's in the room with the sheriff and he's starting
to confess his confession is that she contacts him to have him go with her to retrieve the purse
yeah this would make some sense with with her activities that we know the the things that she was doing that day he
says that they stopped off at this bridge she falls hits her head he Stomps off in in aggravation and
frustration and when he returns she's not moving his push then caused her death according
to this statement right he then says that he contacted a couple of friends these names it's not clear whether he
disclosed these names to law enforcement or purposely left those names out of his
confession I believe he told them and but law enforcement has left that information out of Public's eyes and
then he says that the friends were contacted so they could help him with this situation help him dispose of
Denise there's a lot of problems with his story though because he's he's very vague
his story is kind of wonky donkey I mean he goes out there with her but it's not clear on
how he got to a place or where he went to to contact individuals to come help him
and so his immunity is based off of two things that one he confesses and says what
happened which he was able to give him Sheriff looks at him in the eye and says look me in the eye and tell me
that you're the killer because there could be the real killer out there still and he says no I I killed her so then
the next thing that he has to give law enforcement is where are her remains and he goes out with them on the first
occasion to one of the Johnson family's properties and the sheriff's department says look
he he did seem confused as soon as we arrived there now mind you 30 some years have passed and the location may look
quite different than the last time he was there he also gives some indication too that
it may have been dark during some of the periods of the activities that he's confessing to again
what's crazy though is he is so vague in at least the statements that have been released to the public
but he's also very emotional right like doesn't his emotion almost it almost sealed it for me until then later we
learned he can't lead them to Denise's body and not only can he not lead them there
but he seems very confused almost like he's like well I'm going yeah it's around here but he's almost like looking
for law enforcement to point him in the right direction and they're not able to do that and they're also kind of
instructed not to have a bunch of communication with him because that they don't want to interfere with
the information that he's giving right they don't want it to appear like they're recording him when he's out on
these let's call them field trips looking for Denise they go to multiple properties on different occasions
looking for her he sounds clueless to me like he's like like you said hoping that law
enforcement will Point him in the right direction so he can deliver on his end of the deal and they don't want it to
later look like this was an extended interrogation or interview of this man they want it to be clear that we were
rolling tape we were just letting him talk we just needed to hear his thoughts he is supposed to be directing us to
where she is he's not able to do so on multiple occasions now think about this he has all these reasons to confess
and all these reasons to try to find where her remains would be he's going to get off on fraud charges he's going to
get away with murder he's going to be set free yes he's towards the end of his life he's withering away
but he's also going to receive 25 000 that he can pass on to his kids because he confessed he has all these
reasons to confess that benefit him so I don't look at this guy is like oh well he he just you know had a change of
heart and he just wants to give people the answer he's doing this for so many selfish reasons and and then the reason
why I don't believe him is because he's not able to give them the information that would set him free
he wants to be set free he wants to not have these charges against him he wants this money to give to his family and
he's not able to provide the information what ends up happening here is a very weird sequence of events he confesses to
the murder he tells him he can lead them to her body he fails to do so he fails to give great details of the
murder itself he therefore does not deliver on his end of the deal so law enforcement says we ain't going to give
you what we promised you either and in fact we're not going to give you immunity in fact we're not going to give
you the two twenty five thousand dollars in fact we're not going to let you out of jail on these other charges what
we're going to do instead is charge you with involuntary manslaughter because now we have your confession
we just don't have a whole lot of evidence to back it up they're hoping that this confession that he made on
tape which is completely you know he he's not he's not being physically or verbally pressured at the
time of giving this confession the only pressure on him is to make this deal and they say we're going to charge you
with involuntary manslaughter and they go out and arrest him later this it takes some time between these events to
to take place well he's still in prison on the fraud charges but and they arrest
him for uh involuntary manslaughter now before he could be taken to court on these charges he passes away as the
captain pointed out Sean McClung was was Ill at the time and I'll read some brief
statements from from a very good article on the matter that says on September 26
2020 Sean McClung age 56 of Connersville Indiana died from complications with an
undisclosed illness on July 9 2020 the Fayette County prosecuting attorney's office charged Sean with voluntary
manslaughter as a class B felony after he allegedly confessed to killing Denise flum more than 30 years ago mcclung's
alleged confession has made many headlines but the full circumstances and motivations surrounding the
quote confession have not been disclosed now as the captain pointed out Sean McClung a dying man he was in jail on
two pending cases unrelated to Denise's disappearance he was unable to post bail
his attorney comes forward and says look my client told me in his dying days I did not kill Denise I only said that I
did that because I was hoping to not spend my last few days on this Earth in jail
and I was hoping to give my children the 25 000 reward that they were offering me I
was hoping to leave something to my kids and his attorney says he was devastated
when they turned around and charged him with it I happen to believe and Captain correct me if you think I'm
wrong here but I think Sean may have thought that someone in law enforcement knew more
about the case than he did yeah definitely and what parts he couldn't confess to
they would fill in some of the blanks and maybe together using local rumor and what the police knew maybe they could
stumble upon a body or maybe they would take that portion off of the table if they just got him to confess
right in some jurisdictions in front of some officers it's good enough to just close out the case not actually solve it
so where we were really coming down hard on them yesterday for the lack of effort in this
investigation we should point out that they had the easy way out here and they didn't take it now you could
argue well they were going to charge him with that voluntary manslaughter charge
so maybe maybe his death is what simply removed that from the equation well there's still
people in law enforcement that believe Sean is responsible for The Disappearance and murder
of Denise but there's two things that are really important in this case who did it
and how do we find her remains and Sean wasn't able to provide those two important pieces of information
[Music] [Music] all right we are back and cheers mates again what uh this case really blew my
mind normally when it's a 30 some year old case I go well what can we learn from this are we going to have any
movement on this case but we have three really good suspects with three confessions
let's get into suspect number two yeah this is Benny Johnson and we've spoke about him a little bit before he
graduated a couple years before Denise and it's our belief that it was one of the Johnson's properties
that was hosting the party the night before Benny Johnson has been it's been rumored and it's been stated on camera
and stated in written reports that he has admitted to multiple people not law enforcement but to multiple
persons that he killed Denise flum now the problem with these statements is that he's given multiple different
stories as to all aspects of the crime how she died how he disposed of her body though how she died
has changed in different stories where the body is or how he disposes of the body has has changed in different
stories what led up to the murder has changed in different stories he's a guy that it's really difficult to
pin down what his actual statements would be and part of that is he lawyers up once the
heat gets turned on Benny Johnson he gets an attorney now I'm not in law enforcement so I'm
not going to pretend to know what the best strategy is at this time given the state of the case and him as a potential
suspect but it looks like as soon as he lawyers up the the sheriff's department takes on
a very hands-off approach with this individual yeah they don't call him in with it and this is again a huge giant
pile of horseshit you have this individual he he is a piece of [ __ ] individual he has some issues his family
owns that property and properties around where her car was found and you don't bring them into
questioning now his lawyer when they talk to the lawyer he the lawyer says well yeah you can bring my client in and
we probably won't answer any questions but we'll make a statement well you don't know what that statement's going
to be so you call him in and you record that statement and they never did that and that's again just it's just lazy
horseshit investigation so on March 27th that's the day of the bonfire right so there is a a party that night bonfire
party but there's also a party that Benny has with a bunch of his friends at his mother's cabin
so it's very unclear on how big this party was but the following day they're going to have a bigger party and because
they're at this cabin they need to clean it up a little bit and they've when they go to clean up this party his
girlfriend sees blood on a sheet discover some blood yes in the cabin a lot of blood actually and her their
reasoning for this blood is that somebody was having sex and it was their first time and so they bled but she
thought initially well this seems like a lot more blood than the reason they're giving keep in
mind too at this time the the local thought the general consensus if you will was that Denise was missing
voluntarily that she may return there was still a lot of people that believed in the first
day or two that she had just gone off with someone or was out partying or or doing stuff that that of course she was
not that type according to her parents but that was the local belief by a lot of people so while this may cause some
red flags it doesn't seem to send them all the way up the flagpole but I believe the girlfriend says that she
did report this incident to somebody at law enforcement yeah after a little bit of
time went by and it started becoming more clear that Denise didn't just walk away from her life that there was
probably some foul play she did contact law enforcement but again law enforcement just didn't follow up on
certain things they could have went out to the property they could have got maybe a search warrant they could have
got a search warrant for the property of the party they just didn't do things that you should do well and the Johnsons
have a lot of land and they have different properties multiple properties and a lot of these properties are large
you know they have several Acres if not dozens of Acres right and one thing that's troubling here too
regarding the ex-girlfriend for Benny Johnson is she says it about two months after Denise
went missing Benny's telling her that hey after school I've got something to show you so after school she goes and
meets up with Benny he wants to take her out into the woods on one of their properties one of the Johnson properties
and the girlfriend says at some point she backs out she got nervous she didn't feel comfortable going into the woods
she's she says even to this day she's a little unclear why she didn't feel comfortable and she's
asked direct questions was it because you didn't trust Benny was it because you were afraid of Benny and she says
you know I I've thought about this a long time it might simply just be I was afraid of what he was going to show me
yeah so here we go so Benny the big red flags to me is that the Johnson family his family owns this property
owns where her remains could be at owns this cabin that we find blood in his girlfriend
Benny's girlfriend at the time starts suspecting him he takes her out to this pond
she never sees what he's trying to show her but then again all the local rumors that
Benny confesses I think the thing that plays in his favor is like you said his confessions seem to contradict
themselves or the details don't line up but then on top of that they're actually
able to question his cousin which was at the party the night before and then the
night afterwards and he says well and then there's local rumors that Randy has confessed to
involvement and one of the statements is that Denise went out to get her purse and
Benny and Randy um were out there so they take her back to a place that they were drinking and
they were partying now this could have been the cabin I'm not for sure once Denise sees these drugs she starts
freaking out and somebody it's not clear based off of this local person this local person came forward and said this
is the confession that Randy gave him right says somebody punched her and that's where it all started okay now we
punched her and now this situation has got a out of hand so they end up beating her
basically to death and then feeding her to the pigs and that there was screams and she was screaming and basically that
Randy is haunted by these screams Randy says on camera in the documentary that he never claimed to have any involvement
and doesn't recall ever making those types of statements to anyone again the people that are saying this are saying
that he was heavily intoxicated when he's made these statements these are referred to as drunken confessions and
he even states that he was in Michigan at the time again it's all these years later it's hard to verify these things
but look what what we do know and I I hate to cut you off but this just pisses me off so bad what we do
know is that these scumbags these rumors it's not like these are rumors that happen 20
years later this this is stuff that P there's rumors happening and people talking about Benny and possibly his
cousin early on in the investigation and I wonder if originally if mcquinley was
looking so hard at Benny and his cousin Randy Cates that he just failed to see the obvious uh of a potential person of
interest in Sean McClung but if you're not a piece of [ __ ] detective then and you'd take notes and you did your due
diligence you'd you'd know and have confirmed or denied The Alibi for Sean and then you would have been able to
confirm or deny The Alibi for Randy and a couple statements that I keep going back to here is one from the family they
say the pain never goes away they're absolutely right 100 and I hope at some point they can locate Denise so they can
have some answers some form of healing can start for them the pain never goes away but what did Sean McClung say when
he was uncomfortable and the questions were brought to him 30 some years later he says it's been 32 years I wish people
would just let it die what's weird is in some in some way that's not so obvious to us because it's not
reported and not not been public information in Sean mcclung's confession that he gave to law enforcement he must
have implicated Benny Johnson in some form or fashion because that's where they go looking for Denise's body
and we can't say 100 that he did implicate Benny Johnson but one thing that I found
weird was when the documentarians go to interview Benny Johnson he says something similar he says it's been all
these years I just wish people would forget about it I wish people would just let it go yeah
and what what a weird thing to have similar statements now he lawyers up and it does not seem that
police are going to jump the hurdle of that lawyer of that attorney of that representation and ask
bring Benny in and ask him the hard facts well no and look ask him the hard questions the creators
of the vice documentary and I would State their names but they're difficult names to say
and detective Stacy Reese they're the only ones that have ever really talked to Benny to this day law enforcement
hasn't brought them in you know this is way in on their family because the family has been asked
multiple times to give us permission give law enforcement permission to do searches brain and cadaver dogs and
they've been denied over and over and over so okay so on one hand law enforcement's not questioning Benny but
the other on the other hand they are asking to search properties and they're being denied well actually
I should take that back I don't know how much law enforcement is actually pushing
for these searches but the family the plum family has been plum the plum the flum family
has been pushing for these searches so and and here's where it gets uh interesting as well because we talk
about those screens so you have that one confession where they feed her to the pigs and these screams well
we do have a witness from 30 years ago Vivian May so Vivian tells her kids when they come home she
seems rattled that she heard some screams three or four screens three or four screams loud guttural very uh horrific
haunting yeah to the point where she screams she feels to the point where they know that she
feels uncomfortable even just talking about what she heard so they go out and look
at this property ask their mom where did the Screams Come From she pointed since she goes look I I
know because these were guttural horrific screams points to this plot of land and who is the land owned by
Benny Johnson Ben Johnson Senior it's it's Johnson family property yeah the property was owned by pin
Johnson Benny's dad and on this property there was a pond so they call law enforcement but guess
what law enforcement doesn't follow up just like with the freaking alibis just like with the questioning
I I'm look I'm still pissed off and I understand that you have suspects in this case but again why didn't you talk
to more people that possibly were at this party why didn't you go to the high school and start rounding people up and
just getting statements at least we'd have a lot of information to go off of but you don't even follow
up on this Vivian maze story now again the screams were coming from Ben Johnson's property it's
absolutely ridiculous and then for whatever reason one of these ponds were later filled in
which I find to be pretty suspicious and this this look and I know this Ben Johnson is dead but
this guy is a real son of a [ __ ] because you have a 18 year old woman that disappeared
is most likely was murdered and their remains were most likely disposed of on your property and it's possible that
your son is involved and he has stood in the way of law enforcement or the family to bring in
law enforcement to search any of his properties and he's passed away now but he kept on
saying well yeah I I was fine with them searching but we couldn't get together on the details
and I understand that maybe you don't want them coming in and just digging up your property
but grass is going to grow back I it just it just baffles me to me with all these local rumors and people saying
that your son has confessed to them it's almost like he's protecting his son maybe he is afraid of what they'd find
and they were able to talk to Benny's mom and she says he has issues and he never does the right thing right
so I mean it's just well but it's like your husband's not doing the right thing either let them search the damn property
because if you search the property and you find nothing fine well and as far as Benny's confessions or drunken
confessions go that gets a little difficult too to to discern just how incriminating that
actually is given that he's given different statements different stories at different times but then also the
general consensus among among around town is that many don't just have one screw loose he got a whole bunch of
screws loose yeah and so it's hard to believe in anything that he says and then you want
to talk about hard to believe in anything that someone says you have to talk about Larry Hall
Larry Dwayne Hall as we pointed out earlier is a suspected serial killer he's a giant [ __ ] stain that's what he
is and he suspected of kidnapping raping and killing girls and women in multiple
Midwestern states thankfully he is currently locked up in North Carolina and he does not seem like he's ever
going to get out uh he's locked up on federal charges because they found a murdered victim
that they could prove that he kidnapped her and transported her across state lines right therefore making it a
federal crime however they were reserved to charging him with kidnapping because
they simply didn't have the evidence they believed at the time to get the murder conviction
they've made great efforts to make sure that Larry Hall never gets out because if you were to believe Larry Hall or at
least Larry Hall's a man that changes his story frequently if you are to believe some of his
stories then he may have killed he may have abducted and killed 30 40 women and girls and the reason why he falls
into suspicion here is one he was active at this time kidnapping females he lived in Wabash Indiana so he's about
two and a half hours from Connersville Indiana and some say well that's that's a little far that might be
a bit of a stretch but a lot of the crimes he suspected of happened in other states in fact the crime that he's
convicted of the kidnapping charge that he's convicted of happened over two and a half hours driving distance from where
he lives so the distance alone does not put it out of the realm of possibility that he could be the perpetrator of this
and then furthermore and I was trying to me this was very important to nail down
a date on when this confession came the confession we have that where he implicates himself
as a potential good suspect in Denise flum's case comes from a list that he created and
the best I could do Captain was to determine that he created this list in either 2010 or 2011. and on this list he
lists 39 girls and women he does not say that he murdered them he says that these
are girls or women that he abducted well on that list he the list is pretty simple
he puts a date which is simply a year he doesn't give exact dates just a year right he gives a name if he can provide
a name sometimes he just says girl or uh will give a different title and then he provides a general location
well his list starts with a girl or a person named Debbie in 1981 if we go down the list one two
three four names from Debbie's name he has listed 1986 Denise Connersville Indiana well that certainly matches up
with our Denise flum case yeah the problem with law enforcement with Larry Hall is is he a serial killer or
is he a Serial Confessor or a wannabe he's been called a wannabe by several investigators and look if you get the
time to check out Blackbird on Apple TV it's a very fascinating story and I'll just break it down as quick as I can
he's arrested we don't know if he's a serial killer or a Serial Confessor so there was this famous cop
that his son was arrested for I believe selling drugs James Keane is the son's name so they're
like well look this this is a son of uh law enforcement a really respectable officer we're going to approach the
officer and talk with his son and say hey we can put you in a Maximum Security Prison he's he he's in a cupcake prison
but we can put you in a Maximum Security Prison you be friends Larry Hall you get him to confess
you get him to tell you where the bodies are and if you do so we'll let you out of prison
done and done so he takes the deal and what happens is he does become friends with Larry Hall
and gets Larry Hall to confess to certain things and then at some point Larry Hall has this map
that he has red dots on it and those red dots indicate where these crimes took place and he was carving
these little I believe there were owls and that he would place the owls roughly where the victims were I believe
they were Falcons Falcons okay but this is where James Keane screws it up and he's admitted that he screwed this up
but he's in a Maximum Security Prison probably fearful of his life with every turn also probably fearful that he's
going to be found out that he's our informant for the FBI and he sees this map and instead of
taking his time and telling law enforcement and making sure that they can get to this map
that Larry Hall has created he loses it yeah and he basically tells Larry Hall you are the scum of the earth
you're a giant pile of [ __ ] and it blows his cover and he's unable for a time period to get I think
probably what happened was he tried to get in touch with his well he's a guy agent he got he gets moved to solitary
confinement so good luck getting your information out when you're locked up in a in a tiny
little room all by yourself and so at the time this was an actual actually a medical center for federal
prisoners in Springfield Missouri at the time and when he sees this map according
to James Keane he believes that the red dots on the map and the black birds or the Falcons or the owls or whatever they
were we don't get clear indication of from Larry Hall exactly what these birds are but he believes this to be markings
of where either where bodies are left by Larry Hall or where he abducted a murder victim or where he murdered a
victim uh Larry Hall gets very difficult because there's a lot of people that believe he drove around this big van
this big old van and there's no doubt he's a murderer so even though he's never been convicted of
murder keep in mind the kidnapping charge that he is currently incarcerated for is a an abduction that resulted in death
so he is a murderer the difficult thing with him is a lot of these people on his list
a good deal of them have never been found which makes it one incredibly difficult
for an investigation but then on top of that this guy roamed and roamed and roamed
the Midwest to a degree that's unheard of I mean we've talked often about a vehicle being
a Serial Killer's tool or weapon this is crazy I mean he's driving around this murder wagon this murder van
and sometimes he would he would assault and kill or it's believed I should say it's
believed that he would assault and kill a victim where he found them and sometimes leave them where he found them
but other times he would abduct them and drive them very far away and torture them in this van that he had
also known to mutilate the bodies now when you read this it actually says mutilate the body sexually
I I'm not we don't need to go too far down that road but I mean this guy is a horrible
individual and that's my other problem though with Ben Johnson in the whole Johnson family is you do have people in
law enforcement that go look Larry Hall is a very good suspect for Denise's murder
let us search your property is it possible that he dispose of the body not I mean think about that if if he
came across Denise looking for her purse and somehow captured her or got her to move her car or maybe there
was some car problems or whatever got her to pull over got her to pull over maybe he was parked on the side of the
road and and she thought maybe he was some guy from the party who knows but it's like he is a good suspect
and he might have disposed of the body roughly where he came in contact with her at because it was a very remote
rural area so let them search the property and the thing is is if they do find her remains and they
can connect the case back to your son well then you're taking a murderer that you clearly have stated his family has
clearly stated that he has mental issues and you're taking a very dangerous person off the streets whether that's a
family member or not but it's possible that you find her remains and you're able to tie that back to Larry Hall
Larry Hall was arrested in 1994 and he was convicted in 1995 and sentenced to life in prison without parole for the
kidnapping of Jessica roach now under the federal system if a suspect is convicted in a
kidnapping that results in death there is a mandatory life term with no parole so he is not getting out as said when
James Keane was working on getting confessions from Larry Hall they were spending time at a medical center for
federal prisoners in Springfield Missouri Hall is currently serving time at the butler Federal Corrections complex in
the great state of North Carolina now he has on multiple occasions admitted to several
murders and in fact in 2010 or 2011 he admitted to per this list the Abduction of
39 females and he was heavily involved in the in participating in Civil War reenact reenactments from
1980 to 1994. according to his list of 39 that he provided to a reporter he was actively abducting girls and
women from 1981 up until he was arrested in 1994. and now some people have called
him a wannabe some people have said that he's made all this up I think we have to
when you take a look at this You Gotta Give unfortunately you got to give Larry Hall a little bit
of credibility here because before they arrested him in 1994 one thing that that separated him they
had some suspects in some of these cases these outstanding cases Larry Hall was a suspect in two of their
cases they started taking a good look at Larry Hall and then what they realized they're like wait a second
we have 11 reports 11 police reports from girls in five different towns that say they
were approached by Larry Hall and multiple occasions these 11 reports they give the V they give a description
of his van and a description of him his van is pretty unique it's over 10 years old at the time it's two-toned
well and some of them are actually able to give his license plate he's unique looking because he's got mutton chops he
looks like [ __ ] he's on the shorter side he's a little heavier and like the captain said there were
multiple reports where what could have been a potential victim was able to give a complete license plate number to
law enforcement and in fact one time one of these reports comes from a girl that
says he he was stalking her she's out on her biker she's out walking around and he's driving up and keeps approaching
her and keeps approaching her and keeps approaching her and she notifies a police officer
who she provides the license plate too he tracks Larry Hall down ask him what are
you out here doing Larry Hall goes well I'm out here looking for my friend's address I'm trying to locate this person
I know right and unfortunately they don't haul him in right then and there the law enforcement officer goes back to
the station and later looks up that address to learn that it was a fake address that Larry Hall provided there
on the spot to get himself out of a jam so all of these different reports and then he confesses to killing Jessica
roach then recance that statement and then that's when they are able to get a search warrant for his vehicle and for
his property well and one of the reasons why I think he's a really good suspect in Denise's case is because when he'd go
to do these Civil War or Revolutionary War reenactments they might be taking place on a Saturday
or Sunday and he would leave early so he would peruse these towns on that Thursday or the Friday before
and so here we have a girl that goes missing midday Friday very likely he was in the area for one
of these reenactments in Larry Hall's initial confession regarding the murder of
Jessica roach he told investigators that he tied her up but can't remember with what he says he took off her pants and
then he says that he later raped Jessica led her to the woods and then strangled
her from behind he said that he did this because he did not want to see her face as she died he
says that I laid her up against a tree and put a belt around her neck and then she stopped breathing again remember he
then later recants this confession which leads to searching for evidence at his in his van and at his
property during that confession though Captain he also admitted to abducting and killing other girls and gives very
vague statements saying all of the girls look alike I can't remember all of them
I picked up several girls in other areas but I can't remember which ones I hurt well Larry Hall's interesting because
like I said he's he's driving around looking for opportunities but he also seemed to have a very
distinct type and Denise would fall into that type of victim very similar build very similar
look they found what they are calling a kill kit or abduction kit in his van which
I think we're getting a shortened version of the amount of items that were found but what is reported is that it
was rope knives a ski mask ether which was also described as a rag soaked in starter fluid which can be used to
incapacitate somebody and also in the van they found news stories about kidnappings and serial
killers now when they search his home they find list in journals that Larry Hall
it's believed that they were made by Larry Hall and some of the notes were seen joggers and bikers many alone
so it's like he's driving around and taking notes on the different locations that he is he's in scene joggers and
bikers many of them alone he goes on in in the notes to say check colleges check
parks seen some prospects then he has a list of items to buy at the hardware store
with detailed instructions and the list says buy two more plastic tarps cover all floor and sides of van
no body contact buy condoms buy two more leather belts find one now I don't know
if he means find one belt now or find a victim now and investigators also found newspaper clippings about Jessica roach
who he was later convicted of kidnapping they also found pornographic photos that
they believe were altered by Larry Hall one investigator saying quote he had drawn what looked like a rope or belt
around the neck of one of the people and on the left side of one of the pictures
the left side of the mouth he had drawn blood and here's where I have to unfortunately give a little bit of
credibility to Larry Hall's confessions or at the very least list that he provided to that reporter
in 2010-2011. because on that list we have Denise's name 1986 Connersville Indiana
her name is wedged between two other what he's listing as abduction victims for the same year 1986.
milia is listed as Summerfield Illinois 1986 listed just above Denise's name just below Denise's name we have Kim
1986 this is from Champaign Illinois the thing that's interesting to me here Captain is Malia Chavez was from
California her body was found in Summerfield Illinois and I went through and I cross-referenced a lot of these names
listed with the year and the location that he provided on the list they all check out there's all a victim
with that name from that location who went missing the year that he provides so that's a little weird now it's also
not completely out of the realm of possibility that he's just reading about serial killers he's clipping all these
news stories about abductions and therefore he's been able to memorize them or put them to Memory and now he's
simply interacting with this reporter and getting some kind of satisfaction from providing this reporter with all
these false leads or this false confession to all these 39 different abductions but the one that I want to
hone in on is this milia Chavez of California what's so interesting to me is that yes
he provides this name on his list in 2010 or 2011. she was abducted and went missing in 1986. the remains that were
recovered were not identified until 2007. and she was from another state a state
far away California she was found in Somerville Illinois I don't know that he would know that
via newspaper or somebody else telling him you know you see what I mean there's there's enough mystery there
and he gets enough right with such a little to go on that that seems to me that there could be
a lot of Truth at least to this one particular victim that he has listed and it's a victim that he's got listed
right next to Denise's name it's it's very difficult to sit here and say which ones we think
he committed but I think that there's probably some truth along the way to this 39.
I don't know that I believe all of them but they're just not able to connect him to
this I also wonder with some of these cases and some of the jurisdictions how how much effort or time or resources
they want to spend on it knowing that he's not getting out of prison but the other problem though too is with these
kill kits and possibly these tools or weapons used in the murders well that's great and maybe you could do some kind
of DNA tests as far as like Gene genealogy but a lot of these victims their remains
were never recovered correct most of these victims were never recovered we do have several investigators that are on
record saying that if there were to be a DNA match to Larry Hall in some of their
cases he won't be prosecuted because he simply can't be released from prison that he's locked up in federal prison
but here's the thing here's where I say wake up a little bit because it's all set up that he'll never be
released in December of 2021 Larry Hall and attorneys filed motions for what's called a compassionate release
he was asking for the courts to release him from prison stating that he is overweight
that he is up there in years he has high blood pressure and therefore he is more susceptible to dying from
getting coveted 19. and that they should take that into consideration and then release him from
prison as a compassionate release thankfully he was denied this compassionate release
now one thing that that I want to talk about too is as far as civil war reenactments go
and the captain hit on something very very important when you talk about Larry Hall
this guy drove a lot this guy would often leave early for these reenactments and he would often come back late
well I couldn't find anything in the greater Connersville Indiana area for the day
or two in question regarding Denise flum's disappearance but there was a Civil War reenactment in Henning
Tennessee which was held at Fort Pillow State historic area March 22nd and March
23rd 1986. it would not be impossible for Larry Hall to travel down from Wabash from Wabash Indiana down to Henning
Tennessee and stop off on in Connersville along the way or on the on the way back
the other thing too was just the previous year in 1985 Sunday October 13th in Roberts
park there was a Civil War reenactment in Connersville Indiana so there's a chance he had been to the area the year
before just six months before Denise was abducted so there are some things that do
certainly tie him to this case into a lot of other cases well like I said we have three good suspects so I think you
could make an argument for either one and then we have confessions with all these Suspects
but that's what pisses me off we have three good suspects we have confessions and I believe if law enforcement would
have done the work that they needed to do initially we would have answers in this case and
possibly would know where Denise's remains were and the family would have some closure and the community would
have some closure Connersville has been haunted by Denise's case and I I think it'll be continuing to be haunted until
they get answers in 2007 the Indiana State Police were able to collect DNA Denise flum's DNA so she has been listed
now in National databases of missing persons so if or when her remains are recovered they can be identified as that
of Denise flum if anybody has any information regarding the death or disappearance of Denise flum please
contact the Fayette County Indiana Sheriff's Department or if anyone has any information regarding Larry Duane
Hall please contact the FBI [Music] get away [Music] want to thank you all for joining us
here in the garage make sure you are subscribed to the podcast Colonel do we have any recommended reading for the
beautiful beautiful listeners yes we do Captain this week we are recommending a classic it's called love me to death by
the great Steve Jackson this is the chilling true story of William Wild Bill Cody Neal The Vicious Denver lady killer
this was originally released in 2011 by New York Times best-selling author Steve
Jackson and he's also a an award-winning journalist as well this was re-released
at the end of last year because again it is a true crime classic so check out love me to death by the great Steve
Jackson you can find that recommendation and many more on our recommended page at
our website truecrimegarage.com and if you're not following us on YouTube check us out at True Crime Garage on YouTube
and until next week be good be kind and don't litter foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Denise Pflum /// Part 2 /// 652

Part 2 of 2

www.TrueCrimeGarage.com

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.

Beer of the Week - Hunter’s Harvest by Second Crossing Brew Company

Garage Grade - 4 and a quarter bottle caps out of 5

Brief Summary

The episode discusses Denise Flum's 1986 disappearance, key suspects, and investigative failures in Connersville, Indiana.

Key points

The Disappearance of Denise Flum. Denise Flum vanished in 1986 after going to retrieve her purse. Her case remains unsolved.
Suspects in the Case. Three main suspects emerge, each with confessions and connections to Denise.
Sean McClung's Confession. Sean McClung confesses to a murder but fails to provide crucial details.
Benny Johnson's Involvement. Benny Johnson is rumored to have confessed to killing Denise but his stories contradict.
Screams Heard on Johnson Property. Witness Vivian May reported hearing horrific screams from Benny Johnson's property.
Larry Hall: The Suspected Serial Killer. Larry Hall is suspected of kidnapping, raping, and killing numerous women across multiple states.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

It's good to be seen and good to see you.

Host Nick welcomes listeners.

0:52WatchMar 2, 2023

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