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

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[Music] he Black Forest Colorado about 20 mi 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 it 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 gunar 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 and 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 and the kids were back to being bus 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 eth 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 and they had a meeting on this evening the church was just 15 M down
the road while the two boys were at Cub Scouts Diane was going to attend a homemaking
class Heather explained if she and 5-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 8:00 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 Diane agreed 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 gunar 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 5 in 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 10:00 p.m. 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 and 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 Dian man could answer Mike said
call 911 [Music] now 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 5 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 6 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 911 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 911 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
1% 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 911 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 reasons yeah law
enforcement they're speculating here Captain they want to know could the 13-year-old be said 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 uh 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 med 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 and 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 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 5-year-old Sage was asleep
in perfectly fine when she arrived home at 10:15 p.m. now I don't think we know this information like you said one one
site reports 5.8 acres uh one reports 6 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 uh a boyfriend or a male friend
that she maybe hasn't told the family about yeah we do know about that dance 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 in other
areas of the home for fingerprints upon further examination they found that the screen to the window
was a skew 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 remov 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 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 hor [ __ ] I mean like you said it it it's very similar to uh John
Ben 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 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 dianae 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 mrea 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 grounded and aerial searches turned up
nothing Lieutenant mrea said the case was taking no positive direction and we are just continuing at it with no new
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cheers captain 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 1 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 wow 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 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 it'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 teenage
girl from a teenage sounding girl it's just strange that somebody would be sitting there watching the case unfold
and and want to make something up to waste law enforcement's time what's the motive yeah it it just
doesn't make any sense but to this day Captain the caller or callers have not been
identified well they have been identified as real pieces of [ __ ] that's that's right Zinger you're a real [ __ ]
stain yeah so we talk about the community coming together but then we also talk about these ass hats 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 7 years before he Heather Church went missing and the believed Abduction
of Heather Church 12-year-old Janelle Matthews was believed to have been abducted from her home this is in
Greenley Colorado about a 2-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 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 believe the 12-year-old was abducted
from the home her case remains unsolved to this day now over 34 years later in recent developments her body was finally
located just just a little over 2 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 Panky 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 17th
1991 between the hours of 8:30 p.m. when her mother called home and talked to Heather Heather was just fine and 10:15
when her mother arrived at the house yeah at least we're pointed in a direction I think law enforcement is
going okay based off what her parents are saying based off what people are 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 in the investigation was huge it
was rather big and I think Lieutenant Ken Hilt of the investigations division of the AL 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 of in investigation and the Colorado
Bureau of Investigation both local and National media took part in the quote we'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 20s 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
in personal appearance sleeping disorder a desire to be alone possibly fail 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 of the perpetrator so I 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 in abducting a child from inside the home the 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 this would be a dramatic change therefore their appearance their behavior their
mannerisms their their routine their drinking or drug use all of that is going to be affected in
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 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 a effect I mean if you look at Heather in 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 uhuh 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 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 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 have no sightings seems
like we have no leads coming in and 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
pro profile much but I think as far as drinking and all those things those will get even more
escalated um because of a 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 likee 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 C 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 Winfree 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 Winfree 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 lookalikes at a credit union in peblo 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 rode around
El Paso County for hours with a mental patient who claimed to have information about the crime psychics popped up one
offered 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 like 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 Diana 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 13th 1993 almost 2 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 4 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 ruine that 4 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 among 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 only in fact found a skull right after more searching than
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 V 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 rumaging
around she finds the Polaroids of the skull and she's looking at them and 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 inzersdorf 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 Bel Beck'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 4 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 5 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 whis
uh for his camping trip and he 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 siiz throwaway objects probably for a very long time it's when he's down there conducting the search for scrap
metal that he says he saw the skull amongst some of the Rocks near the vehicle these rocks were uh 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 Rocks 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 cuz it's right by this vehicle mhm he's thinking he should
report it because the family of this missing person should know what happened to
their loved one exactly he tells one of his drinking buddies hey I'm 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 thinks 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 is okay not only did we find her but we now may possibly have
for the first time a suspect in this whole case mhm they walked around him in the
interrogation room going trying to smell if he is 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 and
[Music] why for everything true crime go to True Crim garage.com and join us back here
tomorrow for more on this case until then be good be kind and don't [Music] litter
[Music] [Applause] [Music] Angie's List is now Angie and we've heard a lot of theories about why I
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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 vanished in 1991; her remains were found years later, but the case remains unsolved.

Key points

Initial Police Response. Diane Church calls 911 after realizing her daughter is missing, but the response is slow and dismissive.
The Disappearance of Heather Dawn Church. On September 17, 1991, 13-year-old Heather Dawn Church goes missing from her home in Black Forest, Colorado, leading to a frantic search.
FBI Involvement. The investigation quickly escalates as the FBI is brought in to assist with the case.
Community Efforts in Search. The community rallied together to search for Heather, posting flyers and holding signs.
Hoax Calls Disrupt Investigation. Two anonymous calls claiming to have found Heather's body led to fruitless searches.
Discovery of Heather's Remains. On the second anniversary of her disappearance, Heather's body was finally found.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I knew right away that someone took my daughter.

13:44WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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