Garage Refill /// Lane Bryant Shooting /// Part 1 | Forensic Files

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[Music] welcome to True Crime garage where you are whatever you are doing thanks for
listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man that studied at the Miyagi no Karate Dojo he is the captain
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a [Music] friend today we are drinking grinder punch by the good people at sound
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uh the show has some overhead cost and we use you know if there's a little extra leftover we donate money to the
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thank you and chear to all of the True Crime garage Army and the Beautiful People of Parts Unknown now everyone
gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true [Music] crime [Music]
[Music] police say a gunman shot and killed five women in a robbery at a women's clothing
store late Saturday morning the incident happened at this Lane Bryant southwest of Chicago the store is at a strip mall
called the Brookside Marketplace authorities say the store was open when the incident happened when police
arrived they found the victims in the back of the store Defender is described as a medium skinned male black
5'9 230 to 260 lb he was wearing a black waist length winter coat a black knit capat and dark jeans authorities haven't
identified the victims but say they range in age from 22 to 37 they say four were from suburban Chicago and one was
from South Bend Indiana one resident says crime is a growing problem in the area and security needs to be beefed up
and this could have been us and I just feel really sorry for the people's family and the victims because you know
this could have been this could have been prevented police brought in a helicopter and dogs to search for the
gunman but found no sign of him there was no security camera inside the lamee Bryant store but police say they're
trying to determine if the suspect was recorded by any cameras at neighboring [Music]
stores our true crime story this week is from a lovely place called Tinley Park Tinley Park is a village located in Cook
County Illinois it is one of the fastest growing suburbs south of Chicago this horrific crime took place in 2008 but to
give you a general idea of the location Tinley Park Illinois in 2007 had no murders M and only 15 robberies were
reported in this Village the population was just over 56,000 at the 2010 census and in 2009 Tinley Park was selected by
Business Week a u very good magazine as the best place to raise a family in America so the single best place in all
of America Captain oh that sounds pretty lovely in 2017 Tinley Park was listed as
one of the 50 safest cities in America did you know that um the garage was voted number one place to do a podcast
in the world and Parts Unknown was number two desired place to live for the very low taxes that pay almost we we pay
you to live there yeah so while I feel very good about those assessments being quite accurate you know that this is a
safe place great place to raise a family this crime may make you feel different but it is crimes like this that remind
all of us that unfortunately these sort of things while they can be rare they can happen anywhere anywhere laye Bryant
is at the center of this case um and it's going to be a Lane Bryant store in Tinley Park Lane Bryant is a store for
the ladies uh according to their website Lane Bryant is the most recognized name
in plus-size clothing and their emphasis is on fashion and fit not merely size well I just want to point out the fact
that and the Lulu Limon case they didn't sell to plus size and now Lane Bryant they're known for plus sizes I don't
think they sell to the petite ladies there a lot of discrimination going on in selling both ways um but they Lane
Bryant will tell you that their emphasis on fashion and fit is what makes them a
style leader so uh quick and interesting story history here for uh Lane Bryant the company was founded way back in 1904
by Lena Bryant uh she made maternity clothing mainly dresses I think M Lena rented a storefront on fth Avenue the
name Lane Bryant well the company got that name because a bank officer misspelled Lena's name on the paperwork
the business opened its first Branch store in Chicago in 19 1915 so Lane Bryant has been deep rooted in the
Chicago area for a long time as of 2013 the chain consisted of 8812 stores in 46
US states only Alaska Hawaii Montana and Wyoming at that time did not have lamee
Bryant stores in 2010 Lane Bryant accused Fox and ABC of censoring their 302 ad spot during commercial breaks for
the Dancing with the Stars in American Idol TV shows the ads featured plus-size model Ashley Graham in their line of
lingerie Lan Bryant accused the networks of discrimination because stating that the networks had no problem airing
Victoria's Secret advertisements with similar similarly clad models right in the same time slots I'm a lover of all
women of all sizes just put in that out there hey I'm a lover of Ashley Graham um so all right Lane Bryant store
this particular Lane Bryant store that we are discussing today is located in the Great Village of Tinley Park at the
Brookside Marketplace which was built in 2005 Lan Bryant there were there were probably what about six or seven lamee
Bryant stores in the Greater Columbus area around us somewhere I don't know I never go shopping but it's pretty much
like a big box store right yeah so smaller than a Target but still a decent size store yeah you normally find him in
a mall or a strip mall so this particular one is a 23,000 squ ft store now back in 2008 Brookside Marketplace
included some storefronts that were not open yet this making the Lane Bryant store more ice isolated MH the strip
mall skirts a major section of Interstate 80 uh the belt of America and it also has a holiday in and a sleep in
nearby so hotels nearby hotel motel holiday in no houses are in immediate in the immediate area and a few apartment
buildings are about a half a mile away okay so this brings us Captain to Saturday February 2nd 2008 which was a
very cold day the ground was frozen and snow covered yeah it was actually the day before the Super Bowl yes it was
Captain we have uh 42-year-old Roa McFarland she went to work on this Saturday but she was not scheduled to
work uh she was the store manager at the Lane Bryant store now she knew that her
employees would be stretched on that Saturday after the corporate office mailed customers Flyers promoting a big
$9.99 clearance sale now I'm not I don't know much about the Lane Bryant store but from what I understand it's some of
the items can be more expensive and so this is a pretty good deal for everybody this will draw in the customers on a on
a busy Saturday everybody's going to line up to get some good deals did you say $9.99 that's right so rather than
then she's a she's a team player uh this store manager Roda she rather than force
her staff to go to loan she decides to pitch in and go in that day now the Lane Bryant store opened its doors for
business at 10:00 a.m. the crime began to unfold shortly after at 10:08 a man entered the store and engaged the clerk
asking her questions about a delivery he carried with him some type of papers that he stated were related to the
delivery that he was attempting to make at this store now this man was wearing a
dark colored below the- waist length winter coat as he entered the Lane Bryant store it is reported that he
looked toward the ceiling and this is believed that he was looking for cameras he chatted briefly with Roa McFarland
the store manager he also talk to another person that we will refer to as the witness uh we don't use her real
name we don't know her real name but she is called Martha and we're not using her
name because the police don't use her name right she's only referred to as Martha so that's what we we will have to
call her here so the man spoke to both of these ladies regarding this delivery well this this was a ruse um he was not
there to make some kind of delivery this was used to engage somebody with inside
the store I'm a little confused why he would use this and some kind of ttic but we're going to see where it goes from
there okay SOA the manager she decides to try to help out so she calls another store location to see if there was some
kind of mixup with the delivery because she's telling the guy we don't have any delivery scheduled right so maybe this
delivery was supposed to go to another store anyway during this time two customers entered the store it is at
this time the police would later say that the man then pulled out a gun and announced a holdup he forced the four
women into the back room this was a small employee B break room he forced the women to tape each other's hands and
then he bound the remaining women uh or woman himself after binding them he told
them to lay face down on the floor then two more women who who later entered the
store they were also taken to the back room they were bound and placed next to the others now the order so we have four
customers at this time right everybody's been taken hostage the order of which the customers came in is unknown it is
known that Connie wol Fork uh was a fighter and at some point during this holdup she had a physical altercation
with the suspect she was struck in the face with what is believed to have been the butt of the gun that the man had
brought with him she also had blood under her fingernails which is believed to have come from the suspect so she
fought this guy at some point right this man also took some of the store's clothing and placed it over the heads of
some of the women now I want to be clear here on this statement because I've this
has been reported multiple ways from multiple sources and several of the sources
suggest that all of the women had their heads covered with with clothing items some suggest that it was just a few of
the women um and also one report a couple reports state that women's panties were used to cover their heads
now while this might not seem important I think that it is somewhat important because we are going to be relying on
some witness statements to have conclusions and thoughts about this suspect and we will have to use our own
opinions to determine how much weight to apply to those witness statements later
so apparently one of the victims um one of the ladies that was bound was the was
a target of sexual advances by the suspect during the time that he had them taken hostage it is stated that she was
fondled there was that's not sexual advances that's that's assault right sexual assault I I I apologize I'm
reporting it as it as it was well whoever reported it is a toll bag um there there were no further sexual
content or contact from suspect to any of the other victims beyond that point now store manager Roa McFarland somehow
she managed to call 911 she had her cell phone Bluetooth yeah she calls 911 at 10:44 a.m. and I want everybody to kind
of Mark that time in their in their heads here because remember we're saying that the man entered the store at
approximately 10:08 so he's been in the store for quite some time all right 10:08 he
enters at 1044 there's a 911 call and he's still on the store at this time now Roa she managed to to make this call
while the gun man was distracted MH uh even though she was bound with tape on the call which is posted on the Tinley
Park Police website um so very very brave Roa McFarland calls to notify 911 of the robbery in progress the the 911
dispatcher picks up and at this point Rus says Lane Bryant she Whispers it to the uh dispatcher and the dispatcher ask
where at and she states Tinley Park please hurry let's take a listen to that 911 call 911
emergency we at stay on the line stay on the line let me get you to Tinley Park don't hang up
It is believed that the suspect heard the dispatcher's voice over Roa McFarland's Bluetooth the police were
dispatched a Tinley Park police officer was in an adjacent parking lot at the time of the 911 call it is approximated
that he was about 20 I'm sorry 200 yard away mhm so police arrived on the scene very quickly and it is reported that the
first officer arrived only about 2 minutes after the short 911 call now the the witness that we are calling Martha
she has stated that she believes she heard police sirens before the shooting started so this is at approximately
10:46 a.m. so all six women at this point at 10:46 a.m. were shot execution style Roa McFarland was the only one
shot in the forehead the rest in the back of their heads the man then wed walked out the front door and
disappeared five of the ladies were dead when police arrived and as we said only
a couple minutes from the beginning of McFarland's 911 call one woman survived this is who we are we are call calling
Martha right she too had been shot and left for dead but she tricked the Killer by moving her head at the last second
causing a severe graze in her neck she then pretended to be dead until police arrived a black SUV as well as a black
sedan were seen on video leaving the Lane Bryant parking lot at approximately 10:48 a.m. so all of this happened
within a time span of about 40 minutes the suspect arrives at the Lane Bryant store at approximately 10:08 M the call
to 911 is placed at 10:44 shots are fired at approximately 10:46 and the suspect left the seen at approximately
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newspapers went to the doorsteps in news stands the following morning the Sunday
Chicago Tribune LED with the headline five women slain in store police hunt gunman and shooting at Tinley Park Mall
the article reads A gunman LED women into the back of a clothing store Saturday morning killed them then walked
out the front door and disappeared police said there were no survivors at the Lane Bryant store in a Suburban
strip mall along interstate highway weigh 80 and what they are calling a boted robbery still with little
information made public conflicting reports and rumors about motives and Witnesses swirled throughout the day
yeah officers from at least eight local departments quickly descended on the shopping center some went from door too
combing stores for Clues others hunted in a nearby subdivision for a stocky man described by one witness while
helicopters hovered in the sky one Helicopter Armed with an infrared camera scanned snow covered open land and
forest preserves police pleaded for help from anyone with information on the killing spree as night fell the gunman
remained on the loose Tinley Park police chief Michael oconnell tried to calm fear saying we are very confident that
the offender is out of the area but earlier in the day an officer at the scene admitted we have no idea who he is
the gunman was still at large late Saturday do they have any evidence of what he took or did he take anything
let's get into that but I want to kind of clarify some things I found that that article to be very interesting this is
what the the locals are hearing these are the reports they're hearing and reading just the day after and I thought
we should comb through that because there's one very important detail here and that is that the the police police
are stating that there were no survivors that five women were taken hostage they
were all shot and killed before the man left the store the reason for this this is not any confusion on anyone's part
this is simply to protect the living witness they did not want the offender to be aware that there was a Survivor
right they didn't want this person to know that there is still a person alive from the scene that could identify them
and that he might I mean we have to keep this in mind whether he went into the store with intending to kill anyone at
all we don't know right but at the end of the day what he did do what this person did do is murder five people very
capable of looking for this woman finding her and killing her we wouldn't even know at this point in the
investigation if he would have known who she was yeah I mean there could be ties
from the suspect to one or more of the victims or I mean is is she being kept in a hospital for observation for days
on end you know we've we've all seen the the mob movies where there's somebody that survived something and they're a
living witness and they got to put put the police officers by their door because we could get some mobster dude
coming in the middle of the night and take this person out but on the other side of things you could say there was a
Survivor and if this was just a robber that went bad in this person snap that could force the hand of this individual
to turn himself in mhm like oh somebody survived I'm going to get caught let me turn myself in well let's take a look
real quick captain at the key players in this whole crime let's talk about some let's talk about the victims as well as
what they may know about the suspect so there were five women killed one wounded
uh she was treated that you know the wounded one would go on to be known as Martha she would be treated at St James
hospital in Olympia Fields and she was released on Sunday so she was in the hospital for approximately 24 hours
right uh currently it's my understanding that this living witness uh is living out of the area now um but she stays in
close phone contact with police investigators and she's been extremely cooperative and she is there for them
whenever they need to to ask questions of her so one of the victims that we've already mentioned by name was Roa
McFarland mhm age 42 she was the manager of the Lane Bryant store in Tinley Park
she had been there for two years she was a US Air Force veteran uh she worked as
a nurse at Andrew's Air Force Base Roa served as an associate pastor at Embassy Christian Center she began working at
Lane Bryant after her PR Hill Church had closed she started a program at her church called Princess this program
teaches girls proper etiquette and guides them to help them grow to be young productive women she was planning
on expanding this program and expanding it to other churches um in in the area as well in other areas as well right she
went to work that Saturday was but was not scheduled to work as we had already said now Roa was engag engaged over the
holidays of 2007 to a man named Stuart Gibbs she continued to answer her Christian calling at the Lane Bryant
store often often using her employee discount to buy clothes for people who are less fortunate she is the only
victim that was shot in the forehead this is believed that the Killer caught her on the phone talking to 911 and when
he confronted her that's when he shot her in the forehead and another one of the victims is Jenny L Bishop yeah Jenny
was 34 at the time of this crime she was from South Bend and she was a customer at the Lane Bryant she was married to
Brian Bishop and they had three young children she graduated from Indiana University with a Bachelor of Science in
nursing in 1996 she had been employed by Memorial hospital since 1995 she worked in the
Intensive Care Unit fellow nurses described her as a compassionate caring knowledgeable an efficient worker well
she's a nurse so you know she was a badass relatives of Jenny Bishop believe that she may have gone to the Lyn Bryant
store that day to cash in a birthday gift card yeah the Lane Bryant yeah she had celebrated her 34th birthday just 5
days prior to the crime her husband was in the area for business and she was out
while he was working our next victim is Sarah zansky she's 22 years old at the time of the crime from Oak Forest she
was a customer as well the future looked promising for Sarah because in May of 2007 she had graduated from Northern
Illinois University with a degree in finance and had a job already lined up at CNA financial courp and this is in
Chicago she went to the Lane Bryant store that day because she needed work cloes for her first postc col job right
now later after life a a park bench in Oak Force Bears her name she was the youngest of the five murdered victims
just 22 years old now scholarships were also awarded in her name Connie woolfork
uh was one that we had mentioned by name as well she was 37 at the time of Flossmore she was a customer as well at
the store that day she was a single mother of two sons ages 16 and 10 her youngest child suffers from spinoid
and requires much of his mother's time and attention for seven years she served the village of Park Forest in a variety
of positions working in the finance and Community Development departments she left her job with the village in
December of 2006 this to pursue a Family Mortgage business with her mother Connie
worked as a mortgage lender lived with her mother and two sons to help make ends meet in the troubled housing market
she took a second job stocking shelves overnight at the Super Target in the same Tinley Park Shopping Center she was
treating herself to a manicure and pedicure on that Saturday and some shopping at Lane Bryant to buy a new
outfit when she didn't show up for a scheduled meeting with a client at 2: p.m. her family grew increasingly
worried her family said that she was a fighter and would not have gone along without a fight it is reported that she
had bruising and blood under her fingernails that might have been from the suspect the bruising as we said is
thought to be from being struck in the head with the gun we also have Carrie chusu she's 33 years old of Frankfurt
she was a customer Carrie was a social worker at her school um Homewood Flossmore high school that my friends
social worker at a high school is an extremely tough and difficult job I don't know this particular high school
but I know two ladies that work in these very same capacities and let me tell you
friends that is no walk in the park now Carrie and her husband married a year and a half before the murders her
husband was waiting for her to return home from a quick shopping trip to the Lane Bryant clothing store when he saw
the news reports on TV and he actually recognized her car parked in front of the store on the news coverage you want
to talk about sick feeling yeah after Tony saw his wife's car in the news reports he left their home and he went
to the Tinley Park police station there he was what he was suspecting was confirmed that she was one of the
victims now the day after Carrie died her brother's wife went into labor uh they had a little girl who they named
they named her Carrie M uh car's current and former students p act into the what
ended up being a 7-hour wake for Carrie in in Memorial of her life Martha as we said not her real name she was the
surviving victim she was 30 she was 33 years old at the time a part-time employee at the Lane Bryant store she
was shot along with the rest but the bullet went into her neck missing vital organs she was enrolled in nursing
school and working two jobs to make ends me recently divorced she stated that she
had heard the police sirens prior to the shooting started so what do we know about this suspect well the killer was
not wearing a mask or disguise he was described as 6 foot tall I I do want to kind of add to that though a little bit
because I've read and watched news reports yeah that will state that he could have been as short as I believe 59
yeah yeah um which pretty short for a male or he could have been as tall as 6'2 now I want to throw this in there
though the overwhelming majority of these stories say that the man was 6 foot tall that he was approximately six
foot tall yeah but don't they also say he was stocky yeah so it's an he's an African-American male of average weight
um he the police have described him as stocky but also average weight see that doesn't make any sense to me well they
state that they believe he's between 2 and 220 lb right but at six foot tall I wouldn't call somebody stocky he's also
described as a medium to dark skin tone with braided hair with three to five poofy
cornrows pulled toward the back of his head one braid hung down the right cheek and had four light green beads on the
the end this man is believed to have been between the ages of 25 and 35 years old at the time of the murders now the
suspect this is where we might have a little issue with his weight Captain the suspect was wearing a dark colored
waistlength jacket or coat right now we did say it was very cold that day the ground was frozen snow covered depending
on the the the poofiness or the bulk of this coat that could change the perception of his weight yeah my jacket
makes me look a little fluffy there are some reports out there that state that he was seen having a roll of duct tape
in one of the pockets of this coat mhm the suspect was also wearing black jeans with an embroidery on the back pocket
similar to a cursive G now one possibility here Captain is that he was wearing gunit clothing the gunit
clothing company was established in 2003 this is because of 50 Cent and and you know he teamed up with Mark Ekko to
create this line of clothing and accessories inspired by 50 Cent and fellow G Unit members these jeans have a
cursive G on the pocket right so possibly wearing this line of clothing now the suspect was also wearing a
charcoal gray or dark ski skull cap on his head a couple of websites mentioned that he had possibly left behind a
baseball hat at the scene of the crime the Survivor said the killer may have had professionally manicured
fingernails this is only mentioned once so you know I I I actually hesitated to even put this in the report but on
airing on the side of full disclosure throw it in there and and let people make what they want of it now police
have released a composite sketch based on the witness's description the weapon that he used is a Smith and Wesson Glock
the gunman took a few hundred according to police there were two vehicles seen leaving the area shortly after the
shooting this was a black SUV and a black sedan now police have said that they have fingernail clippings remember
we said that one of the victims had it's believed that she had blood underneath her fingernails
remember we also stated that the man came in with papers that are supposed to be part of this delivery that he was
making uh maybe instructions or some type of invoice something like that uh it's believed that the police have these
papers that he left them at the scene of the crime possibly touch DNA on those correct correct so that's what we know
for certain on the suspect do you think this is just a robbery turn murder well that seems to be the strongest Theory or
motive that's out there because this is a very strange crime Captain when you when you really think of the Simplicity
of it where you have so many people being killed so many murdered victims and yet you have almost a robbery
situation that doesn't make a lot of sense when you look at it and I know that there are probably details of this
crime that have just not been made public and therefore we are only working with part of the story but yes I would
say that probably the strongest or most popular Theory regarding this crime out there is that the thought is it was a
simple robbery that turned violent um so a botched robbery in which the offender
made off with very little cash in the course of the robbery he figures out that one of the ladies had called 911
and he panics and shoots all of them yeah within a couple minutes yeah and what I mean I understand saying that
this is the most likely Theory but you're robbing a store at the beginning of the workday the store opens at 10:00
you enter the store at 80 or 10:08 sorry you know you're out of the store within
45 minutes you take a couple hundred dollars I mean you're going to rob a store where
most people understand that there's a night drop done for all these stores and a lot of these stores especially like
Elaine Bryant these are credit card-based stores and and now most stores don't carry a lot of cash on
them so you see what I'm saying like it's no no no I I follow you and that's why I feel like this is a crime that
doesn't make a lot of sense right and and and and here's where I go with that my thought is that I what I can see from
what we know from the living Witnesses statements right is that we are probably working and talking about a very
unorganized Defender here and I see where this guy may have had some type of plan whether whether it all makes sense
to us may not be the case right we don't know what kind of Rhyme or Reason this dude's working with first of all and
then second of all it appears to me like he lost control of the situation fairly
quickly and when things weren't going his way he's not intelligent enough to work
through the problem to problem solve on the spot in the end his only result the only thing he can come up with is to
kill everybody and leave um so so let's let's go through this first Theory here okay because you bring up some good
points so if this was to be a robbery why would somebody choose a store like lay Bryant or any kind of clothing store
at all to Rob Early on a Saturday right so I my first thought there would be that we have a guy that is looking for
what he would perceive to be a soft target an easy target yeah chances are the employees are going to be female
chances are the customers are going to be female and by choosing early morning hours you may have less people in the
store to have to deal with yeah because we as we mentioned this is a 23,000 ft store it could be tough it could be
tough to Corral everybody and manage the scene just given the B of this place I mean people can hide fairly easily in a
23,000 ft building but that also might be to your point that this suspect is not thinking things clearly and so he's
going to rob a place that one is not going to have a lot of cash on it and it's a big building mhm now when we say
that a soft target that that uh potential victims or people being in the store would all be female or most likely
to be female let's be clear here we're using we're trying to use the criminals thought process here trying to use the
suspects thought process here and we don't know that for certainty but the guess would be that that may have put
some kind of put him at ease in some way that there was a reason for picking this
particular store that is really the only thing that stands out to me or is could
it be that this man believes that okay they're they're not selling lowline stuff right you know maybe there's some
more money in this store than would be in some of the other stores because they're you know more expensive items
right so a soft target 2 should be secluded in some way um from from busy areas and we know the Lane Bryant store
was away from the rest of the businesses and it's in a strip mall that was not fully rented out at the time yeah also
an easy target should have an easy Escape r route the Lane Bryant is just minutes from Interstate 80 this is a
huge uh freeway that that starts in New Jersey and ends in California we had mentioned that the timing is a little
weird um but for the sake of wanting an easy target the timing is great so he walks into the store that just opened
its doors 8 minutes prior less likely to encounter a large number of customers but if it's the money that you're after
Why not pick a bank or a g gas station right yeah well we have the the surviving witness's account the killer
according to her the killer walked in and was looking up at the ceiling and it's believed he was possibly looking
for cameras now my thought here is that this man knows that Banks and gas stations because of their high
probability of getting robbed will be outfitted with cameras yeah multiple cameras so when he went into the store
he has he's technically committed zero infra actions against the law at this point right so if he walks in and he's
never been in this store before and he's looking up and he sees cameras he can simply just turn around and walk out and
go pick another Target at this time well he is wearing gunit pants so I think that is a
crime um there's there are some drawbacks to this Theory and you've mentioned a couple of them Captain but I
kind of want to go through my laundry list here so we don't leave any out as long as it doesn't include any gunit
pants I'm okay with your laundry list so as you mentioned how much money would there be in a register that that's you
know they just opened up the store 8 minutes prior okay um I don't know well here's the other thing too in
a couple of accounts they state that the guy may have robbed the women too uhhuh
so most of the material out there does not State this but this could this could be possible maybe even likely you know
he had had the ladies bound and if he felt in control of the situation he gets the cash from the register and from the
office and finds out it's not that much money he decides to rob the ladies as well I mean as well yes it's it's it's
reminiscent of that conversation in the diner scene in Pulp Fiction when the couple is getting ready to rob the diner
and they're talking about what their plan is and their last Heist and they say that they both agree that it was a
good idea that robbed both the business and the customers in the last Heist because they they doubled their
take yeah but again not very well thought out cuz how many people are carrying cash well I
I'm just stating this could be a possibility After he finds out he's not got much money at this point I agree so
and and keep in mind the killer was in the store for approximately 40 minutes this gives him enough time to rob the
ladies as well now I do want Wonder here one thing that I one thing that I wish that we had here is a lot more
information I think there was probably a lot of stuff that went down in that store over the course of the 40 minutes
what at what time did he draw his gun is a big question for me I would love to know what time the store manager called
the other store to inquire about the delivery that he was pretending to do so let's say that this theory is right that
this is correct this would lead me to believe and I'm sure that the police have looked into
this and I if not I don't understand why they wouldn't have but um then we need to get new police officers yeah my
thought would be just food for thought here Captain potentially this guy might have some experience in doing this and
what I mean by this is maybe the plan doesn't seem so bad when you work it over the course of
many different stores I mean it only didn't work out in this situation is what I'm getting getting at because
here's the thought the suspect may have hit what he perceives to be soft targets
before and he's hitting them early in the morning for a good reason maybe he's only looking to get a few hundred let's
say $200 whatever is in the register right now why would he do this the thought is that he would bring he brings
a gun into the store with him but probably most of the time he never even needs to draw the weapon to make the
threat he just goes up threatens the person at the register or speaks to somebody in the store tells them it's
going to be a robbery and he makes off with $200 now keep in mind if he doesn't pull a gun a $200 unarmed robbery will
go away pretty fast in most police jurisdictions M well and if you did this at the bank it's a federal offense
second of all if you if you mention that there's a gun mhm then it's arm robbery
so it doesn't matter if you show your gun or not an implied threat of a firearm is the same as having a fire
chances are that these registers are not going to have bait money or die packs that's what a bank would have you know
the die packs are normally within like a football field or so they just blow up and they turn everything blue they Smurf
your ass um so yes I agree that this plan doesn't seem so dumb except for the fact that you're going into a store
showing your face and yes less likely that there's going to be there's going to be less
cameras than a bank but there's still going to be cameras but now you have all these eyewitnesses that see your face so
I still think it's a really horrible plan but I I think that he manages to get out of the store and there are no
cameras to take footage of him well we have cameras seeing cars leave right those are from another store right so
all right let's get into let's go to Theory two real quick all right this is a very similar theory in the sense that
it's robbery but possibly an inside job meaning our offender the killer had inside help maybe an assistant manager
or former manager or former employee correct right so I'll break this down real quick Inside Job meaning that this
robbery was set up with the help of a current employee or former employee of this particular l Bryant store or maybe
even another Lane Bryant store these would be the only so one thing that I'm curious about here with the money we
know that a few I'll call you whiskers a few hundred was taken in this robbery I
would love to know did this come from the safe did it come from the register did it come from a combination of both
also robbing the the uh customers as well where did this money come from because one thing here is that current
managers current assistant managers or previous managers and assistant managers are likely to be the only people with
the safe combination so if money was taken from the safe he accessed that safe in some form or fashion whether it
be through the employees that were at the Lane Bryant that day or he walked in there with prior knowledge of the store
right now where I worked before there was a safe but all it had was the drawers that we used so there was no
extra funds it was just whatever's in those drawers mhm so again if even if you just got the one drawer and then you
open up the safe so I can get the next drawer I would one assume that he would get more than a few hundred if he could
get to both drawers so again that would be information that I don't know if it would help the investigation but again I
mean this crime is now 10 years old I think at some point try to get the public involved I mean that's one of the
reasons why we're covering the case to shine some light on it and get people talking about this so if this in fact
were the correct Theory here uh the correct motive let this is kind of how I see it it playing out okay so the inside
person the accomplice that this man had that this killer had failed to show up to the store for whatever reason that
day you know the inside accompl got cold feed or whatever decided not to show this leaving the suspect stuck with six
women who he thought could identify him he walks in there without any type of Disguise maybe he doesn't he doesn't
Discover that his helper that his accomplice is not there until after he's drawn the gun and already told everybody
that there's going to be a holdup so as the suspect is is waiting he had to control the workers and the customers
and as time went on at the scene he starts to lose control of the scene and once he hears the 911 operator on
McFarland's phone he knew that the robbery was a total bust except for the register money and then the suspect
hears the sirens in the distance and in a moment of anger or Panic or both he killed the women and fled the scene mm I
I think this could be a strong Theory the only reason why I I really question the weight of this theory is like what
you for what you just said 10 years has passed okay and this theory is easily investigated and we know from detectives
that we know here in Columbus and in the Greater Columbus area that this is often
the theory that they look at first when they start looking into these crimes can
we tie anybody that's working there previous employees to this criminal act whether it just be the theft robbery or
what went down here so in exploring this possibility here's some more information
and this is what I was able to gather from an assistant manager of a Lane Bryant store and it it is a stating this
person told me that it is store policy it was then and is currently store policy to have a manager or an assistant
manager open the store along with a regular employee right which we kind of learned from the Lululemon case it is
also a policy to drop off the previous day's proceeds at the bank in the morning before the store opened so this
has been one thing that's highly contested so I all I can go off of is what this person told me I've never
worked a day in my life at Lane Bryant you haven't worked a day in your life I filled out two applications they didn't
even call me for an interview or anything for Lane Bryant yeah oh I'm I'm joking oh I was going to say it's cuz
you have a fascination with their spokes model so just to be clear on that all the
money taken in the day before is then counted the next morning and dropped off at the bank before they open for
business on that day pretty clear yeah so if you get there early enough you get the drop according to this person the
assistant manager and the manager are the only two that had the safe combination so if like you said if this
person could have got to the store before they open their doors there's a chance at that time the safe would have
been open money is out and being counted by each employee um and during this time
once the money's counted they sign off on it and here's my thought any chance this guy didn't do much homework and
thought the store was opening at 11 because that's where that's where you start to wonder about the delivery he
seemed to have a ruse to want to get in the St now you don't need a ruse to get into the store and ass the situation
when the doors are open anybody can just walk in you just go in and act like you're shopping yeah yeah but this guy
had uh what he a fake delivery that he was planning on doing yeah but I think to me the the fake delivery is more of a
setup to for him to get into the building and for him to be looking around and kind of case casing the joint
with this ruse and also I think with this Insider job idea right that it's an Insider job I also think that there's a
lot of there's High turnover rate in these retail stores and you're talking about normally a lot of different ages
you know when I worked at pacon there was a lot of people uh in their late teens early 20s and then you had other
people in their mid-30s so you got this pretty decent range and it could have just been somebody drinking at a party
saying well I used to work there and blah blah blah you see what I'm saying right I get you and and telling about
the workings of of the store right you or this guy dated some girl that worked at Lane Bryant two years ago I mean he
could have some kind of Insider knowledge on some different level well where the this is where I have a big
issue with this whole story is that we have if if he in fact had Insider knowledge of the intricate workings of
the lame Bryant store or if he was working with an accomplice remember we were stating that according to this
person that we spoke to that the money is counted in the morning and then taken to the bank that day and this is done by
a an assistant manager or a manager and the store is opened by a manager or assistant manager and another employee
right the the thing that I have a big question mark on here is and it makes this whole thing very curious to me is
that Roa McFarland the store manager she was not it's general knowledge that she
was not scheduled to work that day and according to newspaper accounts she was ends up being the only manager that we
can get the name of of being in the store that day right so what could have happened though
is that a manager gets sick assistant manager somebody gets sick something happens they have to call off work and
she had to come in of course no I I understand how that works I'm saying what makes it weird is that either
that's just a coincidence or this happened on this day for a reason right and so the questions here are some some
questions that were likely asked by the investigators and hopefully they receive
satisfactory answers to help clear suspects or potential suspects in this case so one was there an assistant
manager scheduled to work on the morning of February 2nd 2008 and if so where was
he or she and what was the reason for them not being at the store two did the money from the previous day get dropped
at the bank on the day of the shooting if so did the bank have any cameras that they could see if the
people making the money drop were followed to or from the bank yeah number three could an ex-employee or an
assistant manager have promised a large payout from a safe and then changed their mind and failed to show up to
assist this offender yeah next question I would have would be have Lane Bryant employees or ex-employees um from other
locations been investigated thought here too a little bit going deeper into this going back a
little bit the Lane Bryant store was open this particular store was open prior to Roa McFarland having taken over
as a manager so who was the prior manager and was the combination to the safe changed when management changed
yeah sometimes those safes just change randomly yeah and who and who's in charge of save changing the safe
combination is that something that they send somebody in from corporate to do that or is that just going making a
phone call and stating well now you have to change the combination here's the old
one um you know is that left up to that particular store what's the protocol on that and then
here's another question that I would have regarding the safe combination are the safe combinations different per
location or are they similar enough to figure out a different stores combination now that seems like a weird
question right no there most of these but it doesn't does it when people who have worked retail or worked where there
are safes especially in franchises or chains they understand that that question is not that strange of a of a
thought right I think it's strange the reason why is cuz most of those people hire security companies to help them do
this stuff so the security companies are not going to have branches in similar locations to have combinations that are
even remotely close that's my guess I mean and that's just from my experience with Banking and how many times we had
to change combinations to everything to the main Vault to the teller Vault to individual vaults on our teller stations
and in the back room and so I'm guessing that Lane Bryant being such a big store
what you say 800 and some stores yeah 800 some stores as of 2013 they're going to have some security company that's
kind of monitoring all that stuff they're going to pay somebody to to monitor that I agree I could be wrong I
agree but let me throw this at you and and I know you're speaking on experience but you're speaking from your experience
having worked in a bank now I know you worked retail at some point as well I don't know if you had any Insider
knowledge of how they did the the safes there at the retail what I was telling you at the well I think it was just a
key but I was telling you during the break I I believe our safe uh at Pon you could have just picked up and walked out
with like it wasn't like I don't even think it was attached to a wall or anything because a strong person could
carry it out of the store yeah and this would have been 2001 when I worked there
so we're talking about a long time ago there was there was barely any cash ever in that store if somebody when it came
in to Rob us it's like here's your couple hundred bucks have a nice day I worked retail very briefly and I was
such a low-level employee I had no knowledge of anything I I went in there and worked for fun twice a week
basically um I worked for fun well I mean they paid me but it was just kind of a a fun job that I took but however I
did work as a uh manager at a gas station and a manager at a pizza shop now we had pretty at both places we had
pretty Loosey Goosey rules as far as how we conducted business I will say this at
at the yeah but this was what 1976 no no no no would have been like 99 2000 so I will say this the one the gas
station that I worked for is a major chain I'm not going to say what n what the brand is because I don't want people
to know this well we don't want people looking down on that brand for hiring you at the location that I worked we had
a four-digit combination to the safe MH and the reason why I posed this question
of could an employee of another store have some general knowledge of how this store works and I don't think that's
far-fetched even as much so as a possible combination idea for the safe and I bring this up because of my
experience there so our we had a store number a four-digit store number which is is not easily known to the general
public it had nothing to do with our street address it wasn't posted anywhere on the outside of the store on the
inside of the store it was something that usually only the managers would know uh most the employees were unaware
of our store number however I will say this and and I only know this and maybe it didn't work this way at every
location but at the time that I worked at this gas station our combination our four-digit combination to our safe was
the store number that's stupid well no it is stupid it it it's very stupid but it's
also not it's not crazy it's not out of the realm of possibility that this type of thing was going on on other places MH
um but again all we have to know is how much money did he get and I'm sure that the law enforcement is well aware
of where he got the money from who he got the money from so this is a question that they could obviously answer Captain
before we move on to I have a a bit of an outside the box Theory here but before we move out of talking about
robbery that turned into a got turned violent and turned into murder right there's another theory out there that's
that I find to be very interesting and the theory is to simplify ity it is an out of Town offender meets an outof Town
murdered witness and what I mean by that is remember we mentioned earlier that Jenny Bishop she was from out of town
she was in town with her husband that was there on work and Jenny was going shopping while her husband was out
working that day mhm is there is there a chance and this is just food for thought
that the offender that the the man that went into Rob the Lane Bryant store could he have been staying at one of
those local hotels where she was staying and they they had seen each other prior
to the robbery he gets in in there in the back room and now he's got a customer that he recognizes her face he
doesn't know her name but if he recognizes her as having stayed at the same hotel as he had the night before he
would probably assume that she might be able to say hey that guy that took off with the money out of here he was
staying at the blah blah blah hotel last night possibly I I I do believe that the
suspect was triggered by the 911 call because once that call happened you know five murders within minutes yeah that's
when the shooting starts so I I find this Theory intriguing and and I find it to be very interesting and it makes me
kind of think about other possibilities here I would believe that the that a lot
of time was spent investigating those local hotels you know most of the time people they keep records of license
plates vehicles or you normally need a credit card to rent credit card ID all those sort of things not that this
individual couldn't have stolen you know couldn't have put together materials to
travel um and use somebody else's funds or vehicle for that one of the theories here is that
this was not a robbery at all that this was kind of is kind of staged to be a robbery but in sense there was there was
a murder that was actually going to happen and the thought on this is Roa McFarland she would be at the center of
this Theory because for several years Roa had been deeply involved with the embassy Christian Center which is a now
defunct Church in Crest Hill Illinois she began as an administrative assistant assistant to the pastor George AI Jr and
soon became one of his most trusted colleagues she was ordained as a minister and had become an associate
pastor at the church and she was even counseling girls remember we said she set up that Princess program at some
point Roa began to feel uncomfortable with some of ai's financial decisions it's unclear of what if any wrongdoing
transpired and whether roa's discomfort was solely over finances or if it included
something more personal that she had uncovered so a bad relationship happens between these two
now around this same time the church's membership went from 1,000 people to 75 by the time of 2006 and this is when Roa
decides to leave yes just looking looking on the outside in when you see drastic numbers like that drop you
assume you kind of assume something weird is going on there right yeah well it sounds to me that he was making some
weird decisions this got out to uh his the the members of the church most of the members of the church probably
thought it was shady or or not a part of their belief systems and they left MH well AI he moved with his family and
several church members to Austin Texas and this was to start a new church um Embassy Nation Network which now appears
to be closed as well well the only problem with this theory for me is that Rona wasn't scheduled to work that day
yeah no I I get what you're saying but I want to kind of go into this in a little
more depth here because this was something that the police investigated and even though they've been very tight
lipped about it one intriguing clue that the investigators uncover covered is a 20-minute phone call placed by a former
Embassy member now this took place about an hour before the murders and it was routed through the tower the cell phone
tower nearest the Lane Bryant store apparently this was enough to Peak the task force interest because in Late
July of the year of the murders nearly a dozen detectives from the major crimes task force traveled to Texas to
interview former church members and Associates of Roa including Ai and now apparently at this time he was living in
some big mansion up in the hills and uh somewhere in Texas when they tracked him
down now right so you go from a thousand members to 75 and then you go to Texas and you
close down another church but you're still living in a mansion mhm H interesting how that works AI has
publicly and forcefully rejected Ed any notion that his church is linked to the homicides and investigators have
continually said that um currently that they have no suspects so but but it's an
intriguing connection the Texas con connection for several reasons and one is the day before the murders there was
a San Antonio newssite this is W ai.com ran a story about a sex scan involving a
pastor named Rick Hawkins Hawkins is alleged to have used church funds to silence women either because he had had
affairs with them or he has sexually harassed them now a poster on that site using the name for what's right left the
following comment under the Hawkins story for what's right February 1st 2008 posted well someone should check out
George Ai and Austin Texas formerly of Illinois he has ties with Hawkins and has been suspected of doing the same
thing the name of his church is Embassy Nation Church formerly Embassy Christian
Center records show for what's right registered on that day and posted on that day and never commented again there
are some out there that believe that this for what's right could actually have been Roa
McFarland so I here's the thing Captain that's an interesting Theory it's an interesting thought very interesting one
that we shouldn't completely rule out here that that maybe somebody was sent to kill Roa or one of these other people
now regarding this particular Theory there is the cell phone tower information but really nothing much else
right um so while it sounds like a very juicy lead imposs Theory keep in mind the police did investigate this and
currently today they are stating that while through the course of 10 years they have had what they thought to be
many good suspects as we sit here today they are telling us they have no suspects so having investigated this
telling us they have no suspects it seems like it's been thoroughly investigated and possibly no connection
but I do want to mention this before we conclude today another possible Texas connection is that America's Most Wanted
the great te show they covered this case when it was fresh well after doing a segment on the Lane Bryant case they
concluded that the killer sounded like he had some type of southern [Music] accent if you'd like to help shine some
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Garage Refill /// Lane Bryant Shooting /// Part 1

Episode 200

Part 1 of 2

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10 years ago a man walked into a Lane Bryant clothing store posing as a delivery man. He announced a holdup and began taking women to a back room where they were bound with tape. One of the brave ladies managed to call 911. The robbery escalated and turned very violent. Before fleeing he shot all six ladies. Despite police arriving on the scene within minutes of the 911 call the killer managed to get away. Police have spent millions of dollars trying to catch this man. Was this a robbery gone very bad or are there bigger motives at play? Beer of the Week - Grinderpunch by Soundgrowler Brewing Garage Grade - 4 out of 5 bottle caps

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Brief Summary

The episode details the 2008 Lane Bryant shooting in Tinley Park, where five women were murdered during a robbery, exploring the crime's motives and investigation.

Key points

Community Response. Nick addresses the prank donation incident that could harm relationships.
Brave 911 Call. Store manager Roa McFarland managed to call 911 during the robbery, alerting police.
Tragic Robbery at Lane Bryant. A gunman shot and killed five women during a robbery at a clothing store in Tinley Park.
Police Search Intensifies. Departments quickly descended on the shopping center, searching for clues and witnesses.
Victims Remembered. The victims' backgrounds reveal their lives and aspirations cut short by violence.
Survivor's Story. Martha, the sole survivor, was shot but managed to escape death.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

This could have been us.

A resident reflects on the growing crime problem.

6:20WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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