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

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okay all right okay [Music] forever it's been over 30 years since 18-year-old Denise flum disappeared from
connorville 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 sus ects at least circumstantial suspects one we talked about in episode one his name is Shawn
mclung Shan McClung is Denise flam'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 land
owner 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
Connorsville 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 Kates and again he is Benny's cousin then our third suspect is
a man named Larry Hall now longtime 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 wall bash
Indiana who trolled around the Midwest in these 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 50 s which would make him one
of the most prolific zero 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 to 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
that's not name 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 in or some form has confest to
killing Denise flum three really good suspects that you could make an argument somebody could bring an argument to the
table i' 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 Kates 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 mclung 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 Shawn mclung the former boyfriend now I shared a similar
opinion with Ted mcquin that maybe he's easy to move on from again you want to check his alibi
and confirm his Alibi before you move on from him but there's a lot to suggest that it may have been a mutual breakup
that Shawn 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 Shawn and probably rightfully so so people are 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 as 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 Connorsville 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 Shawn
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
it 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 ual breakup and there'd be some reason that sea 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 Shawn mclung 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 Connorsville 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 stayed 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 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 Connorsville yeah and also in Sean's defense he keeps coming back to
Connorsville and there's really no local rumors that Shawn 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 Connorsville because they've named other suspects or they've had other Persons of Interest publicly or
are hot on a lead of somebody right like the if he left Connorsville with any stank on him then there's nothing to
have removed that before he decides to return now something that goes against sha mclung however not something that
you could use in the court of law when questioned by police once he's back in Connorsville Indiana he does fail
according to their 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
question questions that he failed on were do you know what happened to Denise flum do did you kill Denise flum 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 sha McClung answers 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 stand offish 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 of
people coming up to me asking me about a missing person's 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 by the questioning probably a little frustrated that they didn't get the ansers 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 mhm and you see look she's amazing when you watch the documentary you're going to go if it wasn't for her
we wouldn't 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 Shawn is Sean gets sick and he is arrested on I believe fraud charges Denise's mother
Judy writes a letter to Shawn 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 and law enforcement at this time believes you're and they do something that's very
surprising like we said he has these fraud charges he then would be charged obviously with murder mhm 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 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 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 happen 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 are 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 arrive 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 does wasn'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 it 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 with him cuz 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 him 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 as 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 them 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 $25,000 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 sha 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 sha mclung age 56 of Connorsville Indiana Di died from complications with an undisclosed illness on July 9th 2020
the fet County prosecuting attorney's office charged Shawn 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
closed now as the captain pointed out Shan 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 Shawn may have thought that someone in law enforcement knew more about the case
than he did yeah definitely and what parts he couldn't conf 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 Shawn 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 [Music] information this show is sponsored by better help do
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[Music] forever forever can't get away all right we are back and cheers mates again what a 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 disposed 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 that that the sheriff's department takes on a very hands-off approach with this individual yeah they don't call him
in with and this is again a huge giant pile of horeshit 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 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 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 flag pole 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 that they just didn't do things that you should do well and the
Johnson's 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 uh 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 Ben's girlfriend at the time
starts suspecting him he takes her out to this Pond she never sees what he's trying to
show 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 so 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 the 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 party in now this could have been the cabin I'm not for sure mhm
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 for for 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 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 but 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 happened 20 years
later this this is stuff that PE there's rumors happening and people talking about Benny and possibly his cousin
early on in the investigation and I wonder if originally if mcquin Ley was looking so hard at Benny and his cousin
Randy Kates that he just failed to see the obvious uh of a potential person of interest in Shan mclung but if you're
not a piece of [ __ ] detective then and you take notes and you did your due diligence you you would know and have
confirmed or denied The Alibi for Shawn 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 they say the 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 Shawn
mclung 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 Shawn mcclung's confession that he gave to law
enforcement he must have implicated Benny Johnson in some former 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 document Arians 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 a 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 and you know this is Weighing on their family because the family has been
asked multiple times to give us permission give law enforcement permission to do searches bring in
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 flum the flum 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 screams 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 viven May so viven
tells her kids when they come home she seems rattled that she heard some screams three or four screams three or
four screams loud guttural very uh horrific haunting yeah to the point where 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 points and she
goes look I I know because these were gutural 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 Ben 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 aliis 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 Vivan May's 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 MH and this this look and I know this Ben Johnson is dead but this guy is a 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 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 many'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 am
around town is that Benny 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 is what he is and he's 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 is 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 wall bash Indiana so he's about 2 and a half hours from Connorsville 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 to me this was very important to nail down a date on when this confession came
the confession we have that impl where he implicates himself as a potential good suspect in
Denise flam'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 list 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 Pro provide a name sometimes he just says girl or uh we'll 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 Connorsville
Indiana well that certainly match up with our Denise flum case yeah the 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 sec 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 Kean 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 an 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 FBI 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 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 ramed and roamed the Midwest to a degree that's unheard of
I've 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 yeah that he had also known to mutilate the bodies now when
you read this it actually says mutilate the bodies 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
and the whole Johnson family is you do have people in law enforcement that go look Larry Hall is a a very good suspect
for Denise's murder let us search your property is it possible that he disposed 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
remain s and they can connect the case back to your son well then you're taking a 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 evicted 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 C 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 of this up I think we have to
when you take a look at this you got to 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 realize 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 bike or 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 to 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 I'm trying to locate uh 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 recants
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 Cas 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 looked 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 is 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 um 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 seen 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 pornograph 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 10
2011 because on that list we have Denise's name 1986 Connorsville Indiana her name is wedged between two
other what he's listing as abduction victims for the same year 1986 Mia is listed as Summerfield
Illinois 1986 listed just above Denise's name just below Denise's name we have Kim
1986 this is from Champagne Illinois the thing that's interesting to me here Captain is Mia 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 Prov 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 Mia 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 little to go on
that that seems to me that there could be a lot of Truth at least to this one 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 well 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 test as far as like G genealogy but a lot of these victims their remains were never recovered
correct most of these victims were 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 it's all set up that he'll never be released in December of 2020 2 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
covid-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 Connorsville Indiana area
for the day or two in question regarding Denise flums 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 six it would not be impossible for Larry Hall to travel down from W Bash from W bash Indiana down to Henning
Tennessee and stop off on in Connorsville 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 Robert's park there was a Civil War reenactment
in Connorsville Indiana so there's a chance he been to the area the year before just 6 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 a 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 Connorsville has been haunted by
Denise's case and I I think it'll be continue to be haunted until they get answers in 2007 the Indiana State Police
were able to collect DNA Denise flums 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 fet County Indiana Sheriff's Department or
if anyone has any information regarding Larry Dwayne Hall please contact the [Music]
FBI 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 Neil 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 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 truecrime garage.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
[Music] 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 2 /// 652

Part 2 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

The episode discusses Denise Flum's disappearance, key suspects, and investigation failures over 30 years.

Key points

The Disappearance of Denise Flum. Denise Flum vanished in 1986 after leaving to retrieve her purse. Her case remains unsolved.
Suspects and Confessions. Three suspects have confessed in some form regarding Denise's disappearance, raising questions about the investigation.
Shawn McClung's Confession. Shawn McClung confesses to killing Denise but can't lead police to her body.
Benny Johnson's Involvement. Benny Johnson's conflicting stories raise suspicion in Denise's case.
Witness from 30 Years Ago. Vivan May recalls hearing horrific screams from Johnson family property.
Suspicious Property Changes. The pond on Johnson's property was filled in, raising suspicions about potential evidence.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

These guys got away with it.

6:12WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

60/ 100Some tension

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