Heather Dawn Church /// Part 1 /// 339 | Forensic Files

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foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] Black Forest Colorado about 20 miles Northwest of Colorado
Springs the church family lived in a single family home with four bedrooms the smaller bedroom was used as a family
Den the house was nice and was rather secluded which was just what parents Mike and Diane Church wanted
they had over five acres on eastonville Road this was a family of six Mike and Diane church and their four
kids Heather Chris Gunner and Sage Mike and Diane were College sweethearts and they worked very hard to build a
nice and happy home for their family this was their dream house and Diane said it was the perfect place to raise
children but things were not always perfect in fact by early 1991 Mike had moved out
Diane filed for divorce Mike was living in an apartment in town closer to his work
and Diane stayed in the home with the four children everyone was working through this tough
time Diane sought some counseling Mike had regular visitation in equal time with
the kids and their oldest child Heather Dawn Church was excelling in school Heather played the violin and even at an
early age she was telling her parents she was going to be an astronaut when she grew up
her parents played along even though they thought it was just a phase and sent Heather to one of those summer
space camps when she returned she was even more excited about becoming an astronaut
and told her folks she was the only kid that did not throw up when in the shuttle simulator
as the finalizing of the impending divorce Drew near Mike and Diane put the house on the
market but Diane and the kids would stay there until it sold the school year started up in September
of 1991. the kids were back to being busy on Tuesday September 17th this was to be just another ordinary day
at 6 30 a.m 13 year old Heather Dawn church and her younger brothers got on the school bus
they lived out in the Sticks so the bus ride was as long as an hour some days Heather was in the eighth grade at
Falcon Middle School after school Diane prepared dinner for the kids she and two of her boys had some
commitments at their local church the two middle boys Chris and Gunner were involved with the Cub Scouts
they had a meeting on this evening the church was just 15 miles down the road while the two boys were at Cub Scouts
Diane was going to attend a homemaking class Heather explained if she and five-year-old Sage tagged along they
would have nothing to do Heather offered to stay home babysit and tidy up the house
this would work out nicely because Sage could keep his normal bedtime of about eight o'clock
before leaving Heather and Diane discussed several things two of the most important
Sage had a flu shot earlier that day and Heather should look out for adverse reactions
and Heather told her mother about a school dance that would be that Friday she was asking for permission to go
Diana greed as long as Heather went with a group of friends before leaving Diane checked the doors
and made sure they were all locked she hurried Chris and Gunner into the back seat of their vehicle
and she pulled out of the driveway while leaving the property she noticed that one of the bedroom windows was
slightly open just about five inches she planned to call Heather later on anyway to check in on Sage
so Diane made a mental note to ask Heather to close the window during that call at 8 30
Diane called home Heather picked up the phone Diane wanted to know if Sage was in bed
Heather says no she let him stay up to watch the TV show Home Improvement they were watching together in the
family room after the show he was going to bed Diane told Heather that she loved her
and she and the two boys would be home by 10 pm Diane pulled into the driveway just before 10 15.
she noticed that the outside house lights were not on her and the boys got out of the vehicle
and made their way up to the house they went to the patio sliding door which was pretty common
Diane found the door unlocked so she did not need to use her key the door being unlocked was also common
the church family had two cats and they would typically let the cats outside for
the night and Diane says the kids were always forgetting to lock the door after doing
so inside the house was dark Diane turned on some lights and told the two boys to go to bed
all three boys shared a room and Diane went and checked on little Sage finding him asleep in his bed
wrapped up in the blankets like a burrito Diane went to the family room to talk to
Heather she expected to find her sitting in the dark watching TV as usual however Heather was not in the family
room she was not in her bedroom Diane searched the house and could not find Heather at all
she went outside and walked the property around the house shouting Heather's name
in the dark still nothing no Heather Diane was worried and Afraid she called her husband Mike
she asked him if he had Heather was she with him Mike said no he asked if she called Heather's friends
or the neighbors then he asked Diane does it look like someone came in the house
before Diane could answer Mike said call 9-1-1 now [Music] we start off Captain by jumping right
into the search for 13 year old Heather Dawn church now we must keep in mind how
large the church family's property is now that guy that we just heard said it was over five acres there are two really
good books on this week's case and we will have those as this week's recommended reading and maybe next week
as well one source says the property was six acres and the other list the plot of land at 5.8 acres so
both probably very accurate but that's what size of property we are dealing with
now because of the remoteness of where they lived Diane Heather's mother she was thinking that Heather must have gone
outside maybe in search of one of the cats and walked too far maybe she fell Twisted an ankle or busted her knee
couldn't walk back to the home that sort of thing on the other hand we have Heather's
father Mike he had a completely different feeling that night Mike said immediately after the phone
call with Diane where he tells her to call 9-1-1 he jumped into his pickup truck racing
like a jet to get to his family's home later he would say he knew right away that someone took his daughter yeah and
they have the extra stress already by their family separating Diane did exactly as Mike said he she called 9-1-1
her call was routed to the El Paso County Colorado Sheriff's Department it was not customary for this Sheriff's
Department to take a missing report until the person in question was gone for more than 24
hours sadly this included teenagers as well Diane requested that a deputy at the
very least come out to the house this request was denied Diane was told by the deputy on the
phone that she should be calling Heather's friends because 99 of the time missing kids are with a friend or at a
party Diane asked her what about the other one percent because the sheriff's office would not
send a deputy Diane started calling her friends and family asking if anyone would come to the house and help look
for Heather by the time Mike arrived others were already there looking for the missing 13 year old
after several more calls to 9-1-1 a deputy was finally dispatched to the house arriving just before midnight yeah
and we don't like how they handled it initially but at least they sent on a cop yeah regardless of how the 911 calls
were handled the deputy that was dispatched to go to the house the churches have and had nothing but good
things to say about this officer we are talking about sheriff's deputy Les Milligan Les was very young and very
green officer Milligan went right into action as soon as he arrived on the scene he he took control of the scene
and ordered the El Paso search and rescue team to come out to the property ASAP Unfortunately they never found Heather
that night in fact they did not even find any clues as to where she may be or what could have happened
Diane later said it was like the girl just vanished Into Thin Air the next morning the questions started
the officers wanted to know everything everything about Heather the house their marriage the divorce everything so
they're looking around the house they're calling friends and family they can't find her now they want to know is it
possible that she would want to run away for any reason yeah law enforcement they're speculating here Captain they
want to know could the 13 year old be upset about the divorce yeah so from which from my understanding this
was going to be final the divorce was going to be final just before Thanksgiving so it was coming soon could
she have been upset about the whole situation and maybe she took off Diane believed no that could not be what
happened here she tells the officers that Mike moved out of the house months before and Heather did not seem upset or
to be having any difficulty with the situation at all so she's explaining here this isn't anything new this didn't
just happen this week or last month this has been going on for months and me as a
parent and my my husband living elsewhere us as parents we've not seen any indication from her that she's
struggling with this in fact she's excelling in school Diane told the Daily Sentinel many
reasons why her daughter Heather why her life was great and why she would not run away citing that Heather was a
very reasonable kid she got really good grades She was recently accepted into the gifted and talented program at
school she asked about going to the school dance on that Friday right we talk about
usually when people were making plans they don't have these underlining plans to disappear well I understand that law
enforcement has to look at all these different angles but it's sad that you see in so many cases that parents or
loved ones have to try to convince law enforcement of of what they believe yeah yeah and she she also pointed out
back to the dance she said you know I've not only did I give her permission to do
this thing so it's not like we got in some kind of argument she wanted to do something and I said no right I gave her
permission to go to the dance to which we have Heather telling her mother great I have a new outfit I'm going to save
that outfit to wear it to the dance yeah it seems like something that she was looking forward to seems like something
that she was making a big deal to herself and she recently applied for the school
yearbook staff as well now obviously we don't know all that was said to investigators or exactly how they
arrived at this conclusion but I will say that very early on the sheriff's office said publicly and to the media
and this is an exact quote it's unlikely the girl ran away in fact very quickly in the
investigation the sheriff's department brought in the FBI to investigate this as a likely abduction
but it was that morning that next morning where things would start to get a little weird
so it's during this questioning that Diane remembers the open window this is the window to the master bedroom she
opened it and forgot to close it before she left and then saw it open when pulling out of
the driveway right like you stated before she went around locking all the doors making sure that her kids were
safe when she's pulling out of the driveway she notices this window but the fact that you're hearing this the next
day I think it would raise a little bit of alarm I agree I agree she tells law enforcement that she meant to tell
Heather about the open window when she called home at 8 30 p.m the night before but states that she forgot to she told
them that all of the doors were locked when she left the house but when she came home the sliding glass door to the
patio was unlocked she added that other than a couple of items nothing was out of place no signs
of a struggle no forced entry and in fact five-year-old Sage was asleep and perfectly fine when she arrived home at
10 15 PM now I don't think we know this information like you said one rep one site reports 5.8 acres one report six
acres but I wonder how far away from the road the house actually was I don't know the exact distance but the
description that I've seen a few times is that it's it's a long driveway that we're talking about right that there's a
decent amount of distance between the house and and the yard so if you're an investigator I think I
get what they're what they're thinking about I mean you're looking at this thing like well is this even a crime
scene there there's no clues here no evidence and I'm guessing but I would bet some of
the detectives were probably wondering if Heather went with someone willingly or open the door willingly for her then
abductor right because it could be a friend that she went with possibly a boyfriend or a male friend that she
maybe hasn't told the family about yeah we do know about the dance right um now the thing about this master bedroom
window when Diane went to show them show Law Enforcement exactly which window she was
talking about she found the window was now closed she told them she did not close the
window and they asked everyone who was there that night looking for Heather if any of them had closed the window and
everyone says no so they are dusting the window and other areas of the home for fingerprints upon
further examination they found that the screen to the window was Askew so they take the screen off and quickly notice
it was actually in the track but it was backwards a technician inspected the metal frame
all in all windows and the screen the tech found three possible fingerprints and so remove these fingerprints or the
latent fingerprints these were submitted to the automated fingerprint identification system or aphis for short
in hopes that a match would be found in the National databases but no such match was found
the investigators did not like that the churches called so many friends that night people who walked through the
house and property possibly disturbing the crime scene but I mean what are you going to do if you call the sheriff's
office and they offer no help yeah at first you're going I mean you're going to call your friends relatives and such
for help sounds like a bunch of malarkey and a bunch of horse [ __ ] I mean like
you said it it's very similar to uh JonBenet Ramsey case where they had a lot of people inside the crime scene
basically but like you said when you're calling for help and nobody shows up what what else are you supposed to do so
the morning after The Disappearance after questioning Diane says she got tired of doing nothing so everybody is
out that night and all the next morning looking for Heather meanwhile Diane is supposed to just kind
of sit tight inside the home she I mean as a parent you got to be going freaking crazy here
she says she got tired of doing nothing while everybody else was out looking for
Heather so she decided to calm herself by cleaning the house she started off by doing some dishes and then she turned on
the vacuum cleaner she's vacuuming the carpet when one of the investigators standing outside he's just outside the
house right he heard the vacuum he heard the noise he went running into the house
and he yelled at Diane wanting to know what she was doing why are you doing this we need to process the scene
yeah in the days after Heather vanished Lieutenant bill mistretta of the El Paso Sheriff's Department kept
the media and the public informed he said the FBI was brought in and the FBI was
conducting interviews at Heather's Middle School the sheriff's department and the FBI together were questioning
classmates teachers counselors friends neighbors and church Associates but ground and aerial searches turned up
nothing Lieutenant mastretta said the case was taking no positive direction and we are
just continuing at it with no new leads [Music] foreign [Music] now let's talk about one lead that did
come in so first we need to understand that with a lot of these missing kid cases the community really comes
together we're talking missing Flyers everywhere pictures of Heather seen all over town
they were not just posting missing Flyers at local businesses far and wide middle school kids made big signs with
poster board and small wooden handles standing in crowds and on the sides of streets holding these signs high as cars
drove by asking everyone have you seen this girl there was also a command center of sorts
set up this place was for volunteers to meet and man the phone lines there were phones set up with a tip number that
people could call on Monday October 13th in the morning less than one month after Heather
disappeared A call came in the caller an anonymous female caller said there is a
body at the Fox Run Regional Park area this is in Black Forest this sent the sheriff's department 30 members of the
El Paso search and rescue team two tracking dogs and two helicopters on an all-day search that covered 400 Acres
but turned up nothing well afterward the Sheriff's Office publicly urged the caller to call again but this
time with more details because of the size of the park right they would get another call this time
another anonymous female caller sending them on another fruitless search later information provided by several in
law enforcement would state that both calls were believed to be hoaxes even before the searches were conducted but
they had to follow up on all tips and leads well that's amazing how sick individuals are it's it's very
strange that that stuff even happens and it's unclear if law enforcement believes
that both calls came from the same person but they have stated it's believed both calls came from a teenaged
girl from a teenage sounding girl this is strange that somebody would be sitting there watching the case unfold
and and want to make something up to waste law enforcement's time and what's the motive yeah it just doesn't make any
sense but to this day Captain the caller or callers have not been identified while they have been identified as real
pieces of [ __ ] that's right singer you're a real [ __ ] stain yeah so we talk about the community coming together but
then we also talk about these asshats of society with these harmful and hurtful fake calls which destroy the parents and
loved ones of Heather and compromise search efforts and the investigation itself yeah but I much rather prefer to
talk about people coming together and helping one another one of many instances was when we see
this case this is the the uh Matthews family they reached out offering friendship to
Mike and Diane Church Jim and Gloria Matthews were able to offer the churches their sympathies and
they were two people that can truly understand and empathize just exactly what the churches were going through
seven years before Heather Church went missing and the believed Abduction of Heather Church
twelve-year-old Janelle Matthews was believed to have been abducted from her whole this is in Greenlee Colorado about
a two-hour Drive North of Black Forest Colorado Janelle was dropped off at the family's
home after she attended a Christmas choir concert she was last seen walking into her empty
home by her friend and her friend's father when they dropped her off at the house
later Janelle's parents found the house empty but Janelle's shoes placed neatly in the family room near a space heater
with the TV on there was no sign of a struggle or forced entry but police said they
believed the 12-year-old was abducted from the home her case remains unsolved to this day
now over 34 years later and recent developments her body was finally located just a little over two
months ago in July of this year the body was found by oil field workers about 20 miles from her home
I believe they are putting in a pipeline in that area and that's how they found the remains police have named Idaho
resident and two-time candidate for governor 68-year-old Steve Pankey as a person of interest and continue to
investigate this case I would expect further movement in this case and that could
and hopefully come very soon so what we know here Captain with as the police say we're working this case with
really no leads really no clues we're working it we need it to take some kind of Direction
all we really know at this point is that something happened to Heather Dawn Church on September 17
1991 between the hours of 8 30 PM when her mother called home and talked to Heather Heather was just fine in 10 15
when her mother arrived at the house yeah at least we're pointed in the direction I think law enforcement is
going okay based off what her parents are saying based off what people were saying around the community we don't
think that she took off on her own there's some evidence to suggest that somebody came through the house so so
she if she is alive she is in danger the search and the investigation was huge is rather big and I think
Lieutenant Ken Hilt of the investigations division of the El Paso County Sheriff's Office
summed up the search best in his summary for the case where he States a detailed crime scene
search was conducted of the church home search and rescue teams coupled with search dogs scoured the area
fingerprints were recovered and forwarded to both the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Colorado Bureau of
Investigation both local and National media took part in the quote where's Heather missing
persons campaign as the El Paso County Sheriff's Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation combined efforts to
solve the case in the years that followed detectives continued to pursue hundreds of leads
which came in from all parts of the country in addition to being featured in National Publications and television
shows the FBI's Behavioral Science unit produced a suspect profile the suspect profile that was released to the media
was a summarized version of the profile and it is as follows the Unknown Subject
is a male in his early to late twenties shy introverted and a loner subject is unable to achieve sexually whatever he
wants with women and has difficulty with women in general the subject would probably have knowledge of the victim
and her family after the crime the subject would have behavioral changes which would be
noticeable by Associates persons close to the offender would notice changes which include an increase
in alcohol or drug use a deterioration and personal appearance sleeping disorder a desire to be alone possibly
failed to show up for work after the abduction I'm wondering since we have little to no clues how they're getting
this possible age range I would think that they're basing a lot of this off of previous crimes that that
have a similar similar victimology and maybe even a similar um modus operandi where somebody's
coming into an actual home that's very rare and abducting a child from inside the home
the victim is 13 years old what we're also seeing here what is what is released it's interesting on a few different
levels because one we are getting a summarized version they're getting they're they're going okay this version
we're going to release to the media so that they share it with the public because we do need the Public's help but
there's another version of this profile that would have been given to law enforcement to to agencies actually
working the case yeah now I don't know how much they would vary I imagine in some cases they vary greatly
but this specific case we don't know what we do see here is typical things of what we see in other profiles it's
it's all kind of vague stuff but they're saying to the public with this profile we're
looking for somebody that has changed this is a dramatic change for this person this person committed an
abduction this would be a dramatic change therefore their appearance their behavior their mannerisms their their
routine they're drinking or drug use all of that is going to be affected and change as
well right because of this big change so if you've noticed a big change in your cousin your your uncle your your brother
your husband boyfriend whomever right that might be somebody that we might want to talk to this is also trying to
ring bells with employers do you have somebody that showed up and they were missing work and when they return to
work are they are they cover you know covered in scratches or do they look like they've been in a fight or
something like that I feel like some of the things we see here Captain are kind of
repetitive from other profiles the the the age of late 20s is one that we typically see with a victim
of this age and I think that they come up with that age now profilers will tell you that age
is by far the hardest thing to come up with but typically when we see a victim in
their early teens female victim early teens I often see that late 20s is kind of
where they put that that number for age yeah I also wonder if that has an effect
I mean if you look at Heather and the pictures I've seen she looks like a young 13.
yeah and so I wonder if they take that into account as well I think the thought with with being late
20s is is simply this it's it's one they're old enough to show some some form of sophistication some form of
not being so impulsive and also they're old enough to have committed more Petty type crimes but
similar in nature where they may not have been locked up they these may have been things where they made a pass at a
young girl maybe it's a relative maybe it's somebody close to the offender but maybe
it was never reported usually those types of crimes we need those to occur for something
like this to take place usually there's escalation going on the the the offender
will escalate into abduction and then I mean I'm sorry to say it but possible murder
so that's why I think we have the age of 29 plus it's you wonder why they don't go higher
than that but you also wonder does that factor in that that this there is some impulsiveness because of
the risk level of going into somebody else's home yeah I would also lean towards the idea though as law
enforcement I mean this is not something I would want to share with the family but
the way she was abducted the lack of Clues um we have no sightings it seems like we
have no leads coming in and she's been gone for quite a while at some point you have to start leaning
towards the idea that that she might not be alive anymore yeah and and then that that doesn't really change the Prof
profile much but I think as far as drinking and all those things those will get even more escalated
um because of of a murder the really weird thing the strange things to me that stand out one there's no blood
there's no evidence of any type of struggle inside their home and then on top of that if she wasn't abducted from
inside the home removed from the home the the little boy was sleeping right I mean he didn't wake up and and
hear screams or see anybody strange in their home this was all if she's removed from inside that home this all went down
very stealth-like now the case as mentioned was featured on several different TV shows Diane
Church she was really the one she was the the face of this investigation she did countless interviews she handled the
newspapers and TV interviews on a national level she was on several programs including but not limited to
the Oprah Winfrey show and the Jerry Springer Show the Oprah Winfrey show Captain am I showing my age
here wasn't it recent more recently just called Oprah did when did it make the change from the Oprah Winfrey Show to
just Oprah I don't know I'm not the head of the fan club I feel like when I was a
kid it was the the Oprah Winfrey Show well the national Spotlight and the huge focus on this case
even just at the local level Sparks what this week's recommended readings author would call the usual
confusion and lunacy this next part is from the book The Devil's right hand man callers reported Heather look-alikes at
a credit union in Pueblo at a Taco Bell in Colorado Springs and at a mall in Aurora Diane would remember her missing
daughter once was cited in four states in one day and as far away as Israel investigators checked out a white van a
blue truck an old green barn where Satanic rituals allegedly were held they even went so far as to research
important dates for practitioners of Witchcraft and Satanism and wrote around El Paso County for hours with a mental
patient who claimed to have information about the crime psychics popped up one offer to Diane an eerily exact
description of the last meal she prepared for Heather and the boys saying quote you cooked hot dogs because you
were in a hurry and the boys liked them but Heather didn't like hot dogs and she
told you she would fix a peanut butter sandwich for herself the woman was able to offer Diane a
little more other than to say she thought Heather was dead another psychic Dorothy Allison
of New Jersey told members of Diane's support group that she saw a property with lots of trees a building with a
triangular roof a tan pickup truck and a man named Brown except there was something unusual about the spelling on
September 13 1993 almost two years to the day when Heather vanished an unkempt scruffy
Drifter named Timothy belbeck walked into the Colorado State Police Station and he had a story to tell
four days earlier he found quote a body off of Rampart Range Road the officer Tim spoke with told him
that's not our jurisdiction you're going to need to go to the El Paso County Sheriff's Office and so he did right
there he told a deputy that down a deep ravine that four days earlier he found a
body and an old rusted out beat up 1960s Chevy the front door to the vehicle was open
and the car was filled with dirt from likely a Mudslide near the vehicle amongst some larger
rocks Tim spotted what he later determined to be a human skull he freaked out and ran back up to the top
and left the area the deputy listened to Tim's story and then told him to take his information to
the state police a vehicle death would be their investigation so Tim did so there he met officer Quintana
after being turned away twice finally someone wanted to talk with him Quintana and Tim got in the officer's
state trooper vehicle and made their way back out to Rampart Range Road there the two slowly worked their way
down to the vehicle just as Tim had said sure enough there was this old rusted out blue and white
1961 Chevy Impala with the door open and the car full of dirt the officer looked around and thought
that a body it should be easy to find right I want everybody to to note that when Tim is reporting this information
all three times he's saying that he found a body but it it turns out that there was just
a skull there he had it only in fact found a skull right after more searching they did find a small pile of bones
now the officer bagged up the skull bagged up the bones and took all of this all of Timothy's information and his
full story and how and why he found the skull officer Quintana then with the skull
went to the El Paso Sheriff's Department again where he too was told that it sounded
like a car fatality so it was his the it was the state police's investigation the
state police's case officer Quintana put the bags in his work car and drove to meet his family
eventually he he's going to take Polaroids of the skull and he believed that that maybe the the body
didn't have anything to do with the Vic the the vehicle at all he thought maybe it was
left there from decades and decades and decades ago that it could have even been like a Native
American um or anything of that nature right at this time so now he's got these these
polaroid pictures of the skull in his work car and he goes to meet his family and I
believe they were meeting either to like go shopping or or go out to eat something of that
nature he's meeting them there now keep in mind this is almost two years to the day
when Heather disappeared and still at this point in our timeline there have been ribbons put up all over
the neighborhoods to to you know cheer on the return of this girl there were missing posters put up there were
Heather's picture all over town so his daughter officer Quintana his daughter gets into his vehicle and
she's rummaging around she finds the Polaroids of the skull and she's looking at them and and unfortunately officer
Quintana once he realized that his daughter was in the car he realized he had some things in there he didn't want
her to see she's looking at these pictures and he's trying to tell her you know hey I think
this is what was going on that's this is why dad has these pictures it's his daughter that says
you found Heather you found Heather Dawn Church she recognized the layout of the
teeth so the the picture of the skull there is no lower jaw just the upper teeth there right and she
recognized the two large incisors flanked by two crooked laterals this matched up with a lot of the pictures
that they had posted around town of Heather yeah it's very distinct look yeah so on the
second anniversary of Heather's disappearance the state police announced that they had recovered the body of
missing 13-year-old Heather Dawn Church investigators were quite skeptical about
Timothy belbeck's story how did he find the skull so well hidden this was not a spot where people go this
isn't you know there's no traffic in this area he had to climb down into this Ravine to find the skull
why did he tell police he found a body when he said he only saw a skull right why would he call a skull a body why did
he wait four days before reporting what he found Tim's story is pretty uh complicated let's say okay what we
know is he's he's a Drifter he is somebody that is may just be passing through the area right he states that he
was staying when he had money he would stay at the Pink Panther Motel but on a night about five days before he
led Quintana to the skull he says he was forced to camp in his truck because he didn't have enough
money for the motel so he's trying to sleep in his truck he's sitting in there drinking whiskey
for his camping trip and he's he said that he saw like um I don't know if they were teenagers or
just young adults that parked some distance away and they were they were partying as well
and throughout the night they were kind of tossing rocks down into this ravine and when the Rocks would land down below
he could hear them bouncing off of what he thought was metal now we do know that
there was a vehicle down in that Ravine right this dude does not have much money he's
a Drifter his he's thinking there's metal down there I can turn that metal into money
so the next day he decides to climb down into the Ravine looking to pull all that
scrap metal out of the Ravine and turn it into walking around money he finds the car down there that's a
good sign he said he saw a washing machine down there as well this is a place that people were dumping
large size throwaway objects probably for a very long time it's when he's down there conducting
this search for scrap metal that he says he saw the skull amongst some of the Rocks near the vehicle
these rocks were you know bigger bigger rocks almost bowling ball size but he said what stood out for him was the
color of the skull was significantly different than the color of the rock so he went to investigate when he saw that
it was a skull he did in fact freak out when he returned you know gathered his thoughts got back to to normal
he thought well if it's a uh vehicle fatality right because it's right by this vehicle he's
thinking he should report it because the family of this missing person should know what happened to their loved ones
exactly he tells one of his drinking buddies hey I'm going this is what I found and I'm
going to report it the drinking buddy quickly points out if it's not a vehicle fatality
if it was Foul Play they might think you did something so that kind of talks him out of
reporting it right a couple days go by and Timothy starts thinking well maybe there would be a reward
involved even if it was a vehicle accident if it's a missing person or if there was
Foul Play Timothy thanks well maybe I should report it due to there being a possible reward so his
whole story is complicated and I'm sure the investigators when they find out that this was a missing 13 year old girl
you found her skull your story is strange you didn't report it for a few days they
you're a Drifter yeah yeah they don't like this guy they're they're looking at him as okay not only did we find her but
we now may possibly have for the first time a suspect in this whole case they walked around him in the
interrogation room going it's trying to smell if he's a piece of [ __ ] or not yeah in the end though
Captain they ended up believing Timothy's story they were probably able to um back up some of the things that he
was telling them right so the other thing too with him being a Drifter I don't know how they ruled him out but
I know they ruled him out fairly quickly they may have been able to figure out that he wasn't even in the area when
Heather went missing right so now we have recovered the body but really that did nothing for the investigation other
than rule out a runaway scenario now they knew she was abducted and killed but they still didn't know by who
why [Music] for everything true crime go to truecrimegarage.com and join us back
here tomorrow for more on this case until then be good be kind and don't litter thank you
[Music] [Applause] [Music]

Heather Dawn Church /// Part 1 /// 339

Part 1 of 2

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September 17th, 1991 Heather Dawn Church vanishes. She was abducted from her home in Black Forest, Colorado. Join as we go year by year through the investigation. Beer of the Week - Killer Cupcake Panda by Flying Monkey Craft Brewery Garage Grade 4 and 3 quarter bottle caps out of 5

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Brief Summary

Heather Dawn Church went missing in 1991; her remains were found two years later, raising questions about her abduction and murder.

Key points

The Church Family's Dream Home. Mike and Diane Church built a happy home for their family, but things changed with divorce.
The Disappearance of Heather Dawn Church. On September 17, 1991, 13-year-old Heather went missing after staying home alone.
Initial Response to Heather's Disappearance. Diane's frantic calls to 911 were met with skepticism, delaying the search for Heather.
Search Efforts Intensify. The sheriff's department and rescue teams conduct an extensive search but find nothing.
Hoax Calls Complicate Investigation. Two anonymous calls lead to fruitless searches, believed to be hoaxes.
Community Support Emerges. The Matthews family reaches out to the Churches, sharing their own tragic experience.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Diane said it was the perfect place to raise children.

Description of the Church family's home

4:24WatchNov 21, 2022

Tension

70/ 100High tension

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