How Detectives Found an Unexpected Twist in the Rhys Pocan Case (Part 1) | Forensic Files

the story I have for you today has quite literally been years in the making what
we found was a possible serial killer at work 10 eily similar cases that had never been connected separated by
jurisdiction and bureaucracy our story starts with one case the case that piqued our interest years ago and that
is the murder of ree po on September 2nd 1989 the non-emergency dispatch line at the Shaban County
Sheriff's Office in Wisconsin started to ring the caller won't give his name but
he says earlier that morning like sometime before Sunrise he and his wife were walking in Nicholls Creek which is
this like public hunting ground and they stumbled upon a dead body so the dispatcher asked like are you sure it's
a human body and the man says quote Oh yeah it's been decapitated and it's been there for a while apparently now he
explains that he saw the body about 100 ft off a public access road and when the
dispatcher offers to get a detective on the line the man's like no no no no like
I just found it I wanted to report it like like I I don't want anything to do with this basically right so he hangs up
without identifying himself and leaves before authorities actually get to the scene where they do find the body that
he described and it is in a particularly gruesome state so this victim is severely decomposed like almost
mummified and the victim's head and hands are missing and it appears as if the corpse had been scavenged by animals
and insects like the insides are literally hollowed out and the skin is almost like leather and other than the
body though there is nothing else at the scene and despite searching far and wide
they don't find any other body parts they don't find any clothes no personal belongings which makes identification
essentially impossible but based on the pelvic bone of this victim the EM determines that
this was a female and a small scar on her abdomen plus surgical Clips near where the gallbladder would have been
tells them that this Jano likely had a gallbladder surgery there aren't any obvious markings or wounds on the body
so the cause of death is undetermined and strangely the manner of death is ruled undetermined too ma'am she was
Decap at how is that undetermined in any way I well I list everyone agrees with you like now but back in the day I guess
the me so this guy named Dr Jeffrey Jensen says that the head and hands being gone that could be due to like
animal predation and they didn't take her feet animals just came and took the things
that could identify her I know it sounds bananas when you say it out loud but everyone back then was like well that's
what the me says like he's the professional except yes he was a professional but he was new at his
profession at the time and we actually talked to this doctor for this episode we asked him to review his own old
findings and he said that if he could do it all over again with like what he knows now his experience he would
definitely list her death as a homicide rather than leaving that line blank he said that in '89 again he's brand new to
the job and in talking to us he admitted that there's like just no possible way that her head and hands were actually
removed by animals so anyways almost 2 months later the wakasa county sheriff's office which is just over an hour south
of Shaban they get a surprise when a hunter walks into their office with a severed hand in a bag now this man
Russell Martin says that he was out with his son and their dog like pheasant hunting on October 21st in this big open
field which by the way is also a public hunting ground when all of a sudden his dog starts acting super strange like off
in the distance like he's not right next to him he's just like rolling around on
the ground it's like I have Chuck I know he's rolling in something dead always like it's terrible so he's not coming
when he calls him he goes over there to see what his dog's doing and he gets the
shock of his life he looks at what his dog is so worked up over and it is a human hand it looked like a left hand
mostly skeletal with four fingers and no thumb but thumb or no thumb there is no
doubt what Russell is looking at so he actually he doesn't call police like they did with the body he like picks up
the hand and takes it to the Sheriff's Office in like this little plastic baggie that he had in a first aid kit
and then the sheriff comes out to like where he found it they end up doing this big search of the area which turns up
the other hand but nothing else so basically in Shaban there's a body with no head or hands and in wera there's
hands with no body exactly so wakaa actually tried getting fingerprints off off the hand to try and identify them
but I told you it's like mostly skeletal like it's not even really possible but then I'm not really totally sure like
which department it was someone has this like light bulb moment and it's like oh
wait a minute exactly what you said like I wonder if these hands belong to that body that has no hands right now they
couldn't definitively connect anything yet but like you know come on probably though even if they could say that these
hands belong to the body like you still can't say who this person is can we at least call it a homicide
because animals didn't take the hands and drive them 80 M away of course we could if they were determined to be
connected right but they can't for sure say that like this is where DNA would be
super useful right about now but in 1989 in rural Wisconsin like forget about it
it's not until like 6 months later in April of 1990 that efforts are finally made to see if detectives can finally
match the wera county hands to the Shaban County body and more importantly try and identify who they belong to so
lab tests are done out of state but those ultimately come back inconclusive okay this might be a dumb question but I
assume they've gone through all of their like cataloged missing people right not
dumb question no but yes they have so there's nothing in either of these counties that fits the little
information they have but after these inconclusive lab results investigators decide to broaden their search and I
mean considering how far apart these remains are like clearly someone is willing to travel to cover their tracks
here so they start looking as far away as Milwaukee which is a pretty big city with a lot more missing person reports
and one of them really stands out there is a 35-year-old woman who was reported missing in August of 1989 named ree poan
not only does the timing fit since she went missing about a month before the body was found but there is a note in
her missing person's report about a gallbladder surgery scar that really raises some eyebrows and it's that scar
that helps detectives confirm less than a month later what they'd been waiting almost a year to find out their Jane Doe
is without a doubt reys poan but now they have even more questions because the circumstances around Reese's
disappearance are truly bizarre now the story of her disappearance begins on August 10th 1989 so reea dropped her
8-year-old daughter Charlie off with her sister Flavia who was Charlie's Aunt and
I actually got to meet Charlie and even all these years later she says that she can still remember her last moments with
her mom vividly and there are just certain parts of this episode I'll tell you right up front that I I want you to
hear something directly from the person who lived it and this is one of those so
here's Charlie I do remember that day and it's always kind of just replays in my head
she told me I had to go to my aunt's house um that she was going to watch me and so we rode our bikes down she didn't
live far from us and then we got there and I was like well I don't want to stay here I want to go with you and she's
like no you can't this time you have to stay here and then I remember watching her ride her bike away and I kind of
like I was mad and then I turned around and and that was the last time I saw her
every place all the time and you know now I look back and like you know it's it's just kind of weird cuz it's
I'm watching her you know right away not knowing that's the last time I would see her um but it's really hard
when you you look back and you know that was the last time I was going to see her
did your mom tell you why you couldn't go with her that day she just said you couldn't I just couldn't go with her
that day that she had I I she didn't say Reese's brother Billy also remembers seeing Reese that afternoon on her bike
and this is likely right after she dropped Charlie off but he's not totally sure of the timing he said they spoke
for a second and REE seemed like she was in good spirit she told him that she was
on her way to her boyfriend's house we're going to call her boyfriend Chris so Chris told Billy that Reese had
stopped by his place and he puts that at like 2:45 3 p.m. which would have been right before he left for work and then
Chris says that reys headed out on her bike in the direction of nearby National Avenue to go bar hopping and this is
where things start to get weird because there was this trail of sightings and encounters and even physical signs of
ree poan in the following hours but sometime before midnight she seemingly vanished Into Thin
Air so much all of Reese Pan's last movements center around this one strip of establishments on National Avenue the
first sighting of her there is actually around round Nish at a bar called the Golden Spike Tavern and apparently while
she's there Reese seems pretty drunk or like just out of it now where she was from the time she left Chris's place to
the time she got to this bar and how she got so drunk or whatever it is she was that's unclear there are no confirmed
sightings of her during that period but the bartender at this bar says that around 10 or 11:00 p.m. Reese ends up
leaving with this older man named Harry to go like sleep it off at at his house oh I don't like that so that was my
first reaction too but apparently like it's not as Sinister as it sounds the bartender says that Harry lives like
right around the corner from the bar and he's known I guess to let barflies kind
of crash at his place if they're too drunk to drive home or in Reese's case bike home so she says that Rees just
like grabs her backpack and heads out with Harry on foot did she leave her bike behind it would seem so and
actually a few days later when her brother Billy is trying to retrace her last steps like on his own he does find
her yellow bike up right across the street from Golden Spike Tavern it's possible she was there like in between
that time we only me sightings of her but anyway according to Harry when he and Rees go to his backyard gate reys
kind of like stumbles and drops her backpack in his yard so Harry like bends over he picks it up to like hand it back
to her but before he even can Reese darted back toward National Avenue so Harry started walking back toward the
bar to return her back to her and she's like out of eyesight by this point and when Harry gets back to the bar he sees
actually Reese's flip-flops like neatly placed together on the sidewalk outside so he Scoops her shoes up planning to
return those as well but when he gets inside of the golden spike Tavern she's nowhere to be found so he just leaves
the items with the bartender do we know if ree ever made it inside the bar that's unclear but around 11:35 p.m.
Reese encounters a woman named Shirley who works at the American Indian Council on alcoholism which is just down the
road Road from the bars on National Avenue and I guess Reese was known to attend this Council sometimes so she
wasn't a stranger to Shirley but Shirley says basically she's working a late night session and was approaching the
front doors to leave when she sees Rees coming inside and she said that Rees was
incoherent when she tried to speak with her she seemed to be under the influence
of something but she didn't know what jley thought maybe it was drugs only because she said she didn't smell
alcohol on her and she said that ree's words were like slurred when she's trying to talk to her she just wasn't
really making sense but she seemed super agitated and jle says that she tried to
talk to reys but ree sort of just like pushed her away and from there reys walked off without explanation without
shoes in the eastbound direction of National Avenue now what's interesting is Charlie told us that her mom did
drink a lot but the only drug she ever experimented with was pot and not even that often but maybe that's something
that you keep from your kids totally possible but I will say the investigator on this case today his name's Detective
Nathan hatch he says that that seems to kind of be backed up by other family members like not just her eight-year-old
kid apparently re she did like to drink beer but she like wasn't into especially
hard drugs which makes me wonder if someone like drugged her at the bar it makes me wonder too I mean it would be
great to have other accounts of her behavior or what she said when she sobered up but this encounter with
Shirley at 11:35 p.m. is the last known time that reys poan is ever seen alive she never shows back up at her sister's
house at the agreed upon time to get Charlie so Flavia ends up taking Charlie back to Reese's apartment herself and
not finding Reese there she ends up leaving Charlie with the downstairs neighbor Carla and Reese basically lives
in this duplex so she lives on top Carla lives on bottom and Carla watches Charlie like pretty regularly since
Reese Works full-time so it wasn't all that odd when Charlie got dropped off but what was odd was when Rees didn't
show up the rest of the night or the next day on the 11th or the 12th I mean normally her routine was to pop by every
4 hours or so to make sure everything was good when Charlie was with Carla but two days went by without so much as a
word and Carla didn't think to tell anyone I guess not and we actually did get to speak to Carla and she wasn't
able to remember exactly what she was thinking at the time but apparently she I think just assumed reys would turn up
eventually now it wasn't until the 12th that she finally started to get concerned because that's when Chris her
boyfriend Reese's boyfriend came by looking for reys apparently he and REE were in this like bowling league
together and she had been totally Mia to their bowling alley date so he figured that something might be wrong but it
really wasn't until that moment that he and Carla both realized how wrong things
were so they raised a flag for her brother Billy and he came over to stay with Charlie until Reese came back but
when she still wasn't there on the 13th the next day like all bets are off that Sunday August 13th Billy reported Reese
missing to the Milwaukee PD and an investigation began and really it's like investigation light I should say because
police call the local hospitals they call the jails but of course they don't find Rees in any of those and 5 days
later at the suggestion of Reese's mother Zayn they pulled Reese's bank records which showed some transactions
on August 7th and 8th and nth but nothing on the 10th or after which is kind of just confirming what they
already knew also leave it to the mom to suggest like very routine basic investigative room I know yeah so in all
that time that reys has been missing in almost the year before she was connected
to that body showing up in Shaban the poan family to your point was like pretty much their own investigators like
they were having to unravel her disappearance themselves like her brother Bly was actually the one who
went and canvased the National Avenue bars in the early days when police wouldn't and he is the one who found out
that her backpack and shoes were left at the bar with the bartender at the golden
spike Tavern did Milwaukee PD do anything to search for her I mean at a certain point they like follow Billy's
lead and start canvasing the bars themselves but I think that their lack of action probably can be attributed to
two things number one 1989 Milwaukee was Prime dber Time like he gets gets arrested in ' 91 and listen he's like
not connected to ree's story uh like even though we're talking dismemberments but it's just proximity and like really
close proximity so interesting as we're like in Milwaukee we were like going to all the places that that like things had
happened like the scene the bar she was at and as we're driving the detectives like oh by the way that was Dahmer's
house like it's literally six blocks east of where Reese's boyfriend Chris lived but again just a coincidence that
we stumbled across and I don't think police at any point were ever trying to even connect Reese to the dmer stuff
back then even before he was like found right dmer targeted men like exclusively
exactly but still again this is like Milwaukee py was zeroed in on that investigation and maybe didn't have the
bandwidth to dive into Reese's case as they should have but the second reason that Rees wasn't getting the full force
of the MPD behind her was likely because of who she was reys was an indigenous woman and a single mother and she didn't
just leave behind Charlie she had three other daughters too Barbara Regina and Michelle they were a little older than
Charlie they lived with different relatives out of town I mean Michelle was 11 when Reese went missing like she
was living with her grandma she hadn't seen her mom since she was very little so all of the sisters had vastly
different relationships with reys but her going missing still deeply affected all of them and actually the summer that
Reese vanished Barbara was actually considering moving to Milwaukee to live with her mom and Charlie so they had to
have been like pretty close or kind of close even though the relationship was long distance but all that to say I do
wonder if Reese's scattered family played into this assumption that the police maybe had or were making about
her life or her lifestyle and then just add on top of that assumption just a general apathy toward indigenous people
as an adult reys was a member of the bad River Le Point band of the Lake Superior
tribe of chipa Indians and there is no arguing that indigenous people especially those who go missing or are
murdered are treated vastly different than their white counterparts and I can say it but here is where I want you to
hear it from someone who has lived it so this is Reese's daughter Michelle this happens to our people all
the time and they have reports of these Caucasian women that go missing nobody Parts about us it's like we don't exist
and there's so many of our women sorry they're they're gone nobody knows where they're at we've been dealing with
this for God hundreds of years and it's this is like something that really just touches my
soul cuz it's sad that it's it's hit my my family so ree's disappearance didn't get
much attention and not just from the police the Press at the time wasn't really talking about this missing mother
either and for Charlie it sort of seemed like nobody cared about her mom who just
up and vanished was very confusing cuz I I remember when I went to my aunt's house and she was missing for a while I
remember being very angry and saying I don't understand why they can't find her like she's probably just down at the bar
by our house um um did anybody go there you know have they looked there have they you know why can't they find her I
remember being very upset that I just couldn't understand why nobody could find her at this point
Charlie was living with her aunt uncle and their five sons and that situation was starting to feel more permanent it
was a completely different world there um I was used to just being my mom and I and that's it and then all of a sudden I
have five boys it was very different from what I had known and um we lived in the country um I was used to the city um
it was it was a pretty big shift and then obviously not having my mom um but it was but it was nice you know it was
different having all those people you know with you but um but I know they cared about me and stuff so um so it was
good did Charlie had been living with her aunt for almost two months when the call from the Shaban County Sheriff's
Office came in they had found Reese's body and Charlie still remembers what that conversation was like with her aunt
and uncle when they told her they had sat us all down and they had told us that you know my mom's remains were
found um and you know that she had been murdered and remember just sitting there
and not knowing what to do it was almost like I was frozen and then I remember my my aunt was like it's okay to
cry and then I started crying and and then I didn't I didn't know I know I couldn't process
everything is I I remember telling my aunt that um I remember I had to help her home from the
bar one time and maybe she was sick and she's like no you know somebody killed her you know and I was like oh okay yes
that's right you know so I remember just being like very confused um and not totally
understanding but it was like I didn't I didn't know what to think I knew they had found her torso and then
I knew her hands and her skull were missing but I didn't totally know like where you know they found what um they
would share things with me but I don't remember like a lot of the details um my anest they told
me they always try to be honest with me um so I don't know if maybe I block some of
it out but I don't remember you know them really telling me you know her hands are found here or her spells found
here and tors found here um any of those actual details of um you know or oopsy or anything like that Reese's skull
would end up being found more than a year and a half after Reese went missing in the Vernon Marsh area and this is
about a quarter of a mile from where her hands were found but finding her skull doesn't progress the investigation much
it's not like it's in a new location that gives them Clues plus the skull didn't show any markings or signs of
trauma that would indicate even how Reese died is it weird that they didn't find the skull before possibly but I
mean detective hatch took me to that Marsh and we were talking about the possibility of animal activity there
like I mean it is this big Wildlife Area so animals could have easily moved the hands or skull for that matter
now Charlie couldn't understand how anyone could have wanted to do this to her mom no one in their family could not
even detective hatch could because everyone he spoke with during the investigation had just glowing things to
say about reys her co-workers at the Bradley Center where she worked as an admin assistant loved her her friends
loved her there wasn't an obvious suspect well that is until police learned about Reese's boyfriend Chris
and there was something that right off the bat set up some pretty big red flags it was a few of Reese's siblings
who first became suspicious of Chris like again very quickly and for two reasons mostly one he had been dating
another woman at the same time as reys and apparently he started dating this other woman in July and then continued
to see her through September while ree was missing and two apparently his story kept changing like originally he told
police that the last time he saw ree she was biking away from his apartment heading south after visiting him on the
day inqu question but later he told police that the last time he saw her was in his apartment and that he never saw
her biking after that which is like small inconsistencies but they stuck out nonetheless and he also didn't have an
alibi for the night that Reese disappeared Chris originally told Billy and detectives again Billy is Reese's
brother he said that he was at work while Reese was at the bars now I don't know if they checked with his work but
even if they did his shift was scheduled to end at 11:00 p.m. we know that Reese
was last seen at 11:35 so he would have been off work at the time that something
happened to her yeah it's not really an alibi right also it comes to light that Chris apparently sold one of his SUVs a
few weeks after ree's disappearance and they tried back in the day to track down
this car which was a 1972 red and white Toyota Land Cruiser but they're never able to locate it which leaves them with
a lot of questions about not only Chris but specifically his car I mean without a doubt reys would have had to have been
transported right in a vehicle from Milwaukee all the way to where she was found in Shabu again so like there's
there's no way around that they need a vehicle and I mean what are the odds that Reese's cheating boyfriend's car
conveniently gets sold it stands out right after she goes missing right so Chris also told detectives that he by
the way had hunted out in the Vernon Marsh before for which is where her hands and her head end up being found
and we know perss tend to dispose of things or commit crimes in areas where they're comfortable they familiar with
but the thing is they couldn't really tie Chris to Shaban or the Nichols Creek area where Reese's body was and on top
of that is there like a motive did he have a history of like violence or violence with her so I mean he admitted
to slapping Reese one time and Carla the downstairs neighbor said she heard them
arguing sometimes but she said it was like normal relationship arguing and I don't know what that means to Carla but
I don't think it was anything super violent in her mind I think that everyone who's maybe side eyeing Chris
maybe believes that if he had something to do with it it might have been just to
get her out of the way so he could date that other woman but even if Chris wasn't violent if she didn't suffer
abuse at his hand the thing I'll say about reys is that she had no known what life with an abusive partner was like
enter suspect number two Larry Larry was Reese's most recent ex before Chris the
two had started dating after ree gave birth to Charlie and Charlie actually grew up thinking that Larry was her dad
but he wasn't her actual biological father still he lived with Reese and Charlie in the early 80s and he
definitely had a temper like he was not only violent but also known to stalk re and here is Detective Nathan hatch as we
took a look at Larry he um he he stood out to us because he was abusive uh towards Reese not only do did we find
medical records of abuse where where ree had went to the hospital in laer Falls for abuse she had like a broken rib or
contusion on her face or broken fingernail that kind of thing on three separate occasions she reported her
boyfriend at that time um had abused her um um but we also found out that he had
dated a girl in Illinois who he was um abusive towards as well I was scared for my mom yep um he was always very loving
towards me and I never had an issue with being afraid of him um but I was definitely afraid
of of when they would start fighting um and it was really hard cuz I I knew how to call the cops right
away um I knew that at a very young age of how to do that and it's not something
the kids should know but when detectives speak to Larry they find out that he was
living in Illinois in the summer of '89 and so at that point they're like oh he's out of town they pretty much just
write him off okay where in Illinois though cuz this midwesterner knows that it's just a hop scoop and a jump from
Chicago to Milwaukee and and it was Chicago land like you're right but at the time I guess The Alibi seemed good
enough Larry's girlfriend says she was with him so like they're done with Larry but our reporting team recently got a
hold of Larry and he told us that when Reese disappeared they had already been separated for like 2 years and after he
moved to Illinois he says they didn't visit each other or really stay in touch he didn't admit to any abuse but he did
say that drinking was a big problem in their relationship and Larry told us that when he lived in Illinois that
summer he didn't have a car which was like implying that he couldn't have easily gotten back to Milwaukee now he
didn't explicitly say that he didn't visit Milwaukee during his stint in Illinois but he did explicitly tell us
that he did not kill reys and I assume Chris was denying any involvement in Reese's murder too yes and we tried
repeatedly to get in touch with him as well but no luck there he what I know is he told police back in the day that he
didn't have anything to with it like barking up the wrong tree did anyone ever search Chris's apartment or or even
Reese's apartment for that matter no and no I I know they did search whatever vehicle that Chris still had but they
didn't find anything in that and I know that Reese's daughter Barbara actually moved into her mom's apartment after she
went missing and she told police that there was nothing out of place there which again just like seemed like enough
for them like okay thumbs up so by this point to try and generate some leads in the homicide inves ation detectives put
out the news of Reese's identification to the local media and over the next 6 months a handful of tips come in dozens
of callers are naming people in the area that they're suspicious of or saying that they might have seen Reese that
night is there anything legit well it seems like maybe some of the tips could have been but again I go back to like
what are the reasons this case didn't get worked were they overwhelmed did they not care whatever Plus add the fact
that like detective hatch told us that the area she was in that night that she went out in had this like criminal
element to it so people were calling in with like all these like names of sketchy people who might have been
around National Avenue and for for all the reasons listed above I think things just got
like lost in the shuffle or again just like not paid attention to ignored whatever and none of these tipers are
even naming the same people so like every single one is different and you can't like prioritize who like five
people are saying it's this person everyone's saying something different so they fielded the calls they run down a
few of them and remember running them down is no easy task since they were having to make this isn't Milwaukee
Milwaukee had the missing person's case Shaban has the homicide so to go like try and find these people to go to the
bars like they're making the hours long trip down to Milwaukee where she was last seen every time they want to run
something down they don't even have the internet back then you know what I mean right now the only super interesting tip
is from a man who in a very roundabout and confusing way calls in at like 2:30 in the morning one day and tells the
dispatcher that he knows who killed ree he says that he was with his friend that
night and they picked Reese up and when she didn't do what his friend wanted his
friend pulled a knife on her and wait so basically this is a confession kind kind
of like a hearsay confession so basically the caller tells the dispatcher that like gives the friend's
name everything gives an address which by the way the address is extremely close to National Avenue where ree was
last seen and the dispatcher keeps trying to like get more details about this like murderer friend and this is
the caller says it's so wild he says you're talking to him right now and so the dispatcher immediately like wait
yeah you're telling me you killed her and he's like no no no no my friend did and the dispatcher asks like why he's
providing this information and he's like I'm just feeling really guilty and then
he goes on to say that he doesn't want to face jail time but again he's like I know my friend killed Reese because they
were together at the bush bar that night and like that's where his friend picked
Reese up and then the caller says that about 3 weeks after all this his friend told him what he did to her so he's not
even like he was there so a detective follows up on this call he actually figures out the name of the caller and
that phone number that he gave actually belongs to the caller's mom but guess what that is the extent of the detective
work this call basically again call it lost in the shuffle of other tips or whatever they just stop investigating on
that and things go quiet so wait did they rule this guy out no like the lead just stops getting
worse they just stop working on it yeah okay but if things go quiet this feels like the kind of thing you'd like Circle
back on when you have absolutely nothing else right but they don't which is like a
clear mistake because in early 91 some more tips come in one of them is anonymous but says that Rees was seen at
the bush bar the night she went missing where the caller said she had been right
which is and it's along the same strip of bars as everything else and they say she was seen there sometime around 9 p.m
and that she left with a white man potentially the caller who pseudo confessed and implicated his friends and
I know he's a white guy so like it feels very freaking interesting all of a sudden but when they're getting this new
tip because that other lead got just dropped they're not putting two and two together well we know she's seen after
nine as well and then like she's alone when she's last seen right but that doesn't mean that she didn't like meet
back up with someone so like I get I get what you're saying like she's not with him the whole time but they could have
reconnected I think anyone in her orbit that night is worth identifying and getting more information from though
there is another tip that they get from a woman who says that she knows about a group of people who saw Reese the night
that she went missing just before midnight which is even more interesting yeah that feels more promising yes she
says that this group of people knew Reese and they saw her walking barefoot on National Avenue now East would be
away from the bars but because this tip was thirdhand information detectives were never able to confirm either the
bush bar thing or this new sighting of her being with this group so in 1991 that's when the case officially goes
cold and all investigative work stops and that's it for another decade at least in 2003 there's this like little
blip a strange twist in the case one that I think throws everyone for a major curse
ball so in 2003 Shaban County gets a weird call from another Police Department in the region and they're
like hey there's this guy here saying that he knows something about one of your murders and this man is none other than
the previously Anonymous caller who first discovered Reese's body in the woods all those years ago and I don't
know what it is about here and now but all of a sudden he's ready to talk so he tells police that he was in Nicholls
Creek with his girlfriend by the way not his wife they learn like he previously said he says they liked to go there to
hook up also he says he has this like lowkey like marijuana patch and he's got to like check on his crops so that could
explain why he didn't want to give the cops his name like back in the day but police find this man suspicious for a
few reasons one is because when he first called in he noted that the body belonged to a woman like he said that
specifically I've seen the photos I've seen the state of decomposition I don't know how you could
tell that well you even said that it was determined that it was a woman based on
like pelvic pelvic and then there's the fact that this guy was known by the way to hang out at the bars on National
Avenue back when Reese died and some of his acquaintances were this same people who may or may not have seen Reese like
that group of people again there's like rumors about who they were his acquaintance could have been that group
of people how did they all know each other well one of the men who may have seen Reese around midnight or in the
group or whatever was reportedly selling pills to the girlfriend of the guy who found Reese's body and remind her she's
with him when Reese is found that feels too intertwined to be a coincidence right you've got somebody who's like at
the place where she goes missing and somebody who not only do we know they're familiar with the place where she was
they're the people who freaking called it in and like found her but even though this is like a weird like tangled web
detectives like don't seem to be able to untangle it so just as soon as it seems
like this case is heating up again it goes back on the Shelf with more potential suspects added to the list I
almost feel like if that guy who found her wasn't a part of what happened to re and maybe he like heard about it and
went out there looking to see if the rumor he heard was true you know like looking into like how legit it was right
and like um he did have that little like grow operation like I mentioned and again like grow operations maybe too big
of a word it's like a patch of marijuana out there so I don't know like I can't shake the feeling that it feels more
connected to me I also like can't shake the feeling of like why come forward all
those years later cuzz it's not like he's saying he knows who did it saying he knows more but like finding this body
is like Weighing on him you know what I mean I don't know more than if I found a
body and I and and you know I call police and they found it whatever and I wanted to be anonymous I don't think I
would come forward years later and be like I was called it it but nothing new to say right oh and one of the other
things I forgot to mention the reason I find it so weird is that in this guy's original call to police when he wouldn't
give his name he also said that it was dark when he stumbled upon the body and again like I said like this
body isn't in a state that you could tell the gender even under fluorescent lights let alone in like a pitch black
field right so all of these tips are coming in but for Reese's daughter Charlie it felt like answers in her
mom's case were further away than ever my family was didn't really want to talk about it
that it hurt too much and I understood that so I just kind of let it I go and I kind of you know it so many
years had passed and they never found anybody so I just assume well you know that's kind of just the way it is and
that's just you know there's not not going to be anything that comes of this I don't think I was too
hopeful of that anything would come of it so I just didn't want to maybe bring myself through that
pain of of not finding answers because it had been so long and I felt like there was nobody investigating
There Was You know I just forgot like she was forgotten over the next couple of decades they actually reopen the case
a handful of times when various tips come in but every time after a few months the case just ends up back on the
shelf and this goes on pretty much until 2017 when detective hatch is assigned the case almost 30 years later but even
then detective hatch is still working other Active cases for the sheriff's department so he's only able to focus on
Reese's in between those assignments in that time though he is able to check off
important things like in 2018 he sends a bone from one of the hands to a lab in Texas to definitively connect that bone
Tes then in 2021 audio cheuck enters the chat so that's actually when I hired our
reporter Emily she was our first reporter on my other weekly show the deck and she was planning a reporting
trip to Shaban County Wisconsin to cover some Deck episodes when she came across
Reese's case so she asked the sheriff's office for an interview about her because she could only find like one or
two loan articles about this woman and she was the only case in the county not on the Wisconsin Cold Case card deck and
we just kind of became obsessed so hatch said was actually Emily coming along that really sparked him to go all in on
this case but hi like in case you haven't looked at the calendar yet it's 2025 we have been playing the long game
hatch had to do the unsexy part of investigating first like digitizing the case File but when he was ready to start
the investigative work there was one person at the top of his list that he wanted to look into first and that was
Larry the ex mhm I I thought he was ruled out for being being just across the border in Illinois during's
disappearance right like that's again as yeah exactly but here's the thing so what I preach about hatch is he's like I
want to do my due diligence like I'm going to get The Alibi for myself and he sees what we see like he can't tell if
him being in Illinois was a like meaningful and honestly was that even corroborated by anyone when we talk to
him he says well I couldn't have done it I was in Illinois I was in Chicago um so
I talked to his girlfriend and I was able to um find out from her that she remembers the F pan Family calling her
house looking to see if they could identify where reys was right and um he didn't know or said he didn't know and
she recalls well he couldn't have done it because he was home with me but that I reminded her that the homicide didn't
take place you know within minutes or hours of that phone call so I wondered where he was prior to that and she said
about 3 or 4 days leading up to that phone call he was gone for several weeks at at that time so to me that just his
Alibi poof you know went away well that changes things exactly because think about it Chicago isn't that far from
Milwaukee if Larry had access to a car he could have popped into town easily of course Larry said he didn't have a car
but detective hatch actually found a driving infraction for Larry in Illinois that summer which proves that at some
point he at least had access to a car even if he didn't own it like semantics Larry Jesus so even though it's possible
it doesn't prove anything and hatch doesn't want to get tunnel vision he also wants help so in 2022 he goes to a
mmiw webinar where he finds out about the Bureau of Indian Affairs which is a federal agency that in part Works to
address issues like violence missing persons and other serious crimes affecting tribal communities so he
reaches out to them to get more eyes on the case and they're actually able to assign a special agent to help with the
investigation this guy's name is Michael Potter and together hatch and Potter reinw multiple suspects including Chris
including the caller who initially discovered rees's body and some men who popped up in initial tips and they
conduct a number of Po gra exams with help from the FBI and of the seven people total that they triy to give
polygraphs to four of them refuse three accept of the three who accepted only one showed deception and I guess this
was one of the guys who reportedly saw reys around midnight the night she went missing but then after he then refuses
to answer any further questions and all these guys are still alive they are that
which is like the wild part we don't often see that in cold listen we actually tried we're not all
of them we tried toct all of them nobody had any interest in talking to us but anyways around this time detectives also
finally follow up on that suspicious confession phone call from 199 finally yeah the one where the caller told the
dispatcher that his friend killed Reese after picking her up at the bush bar so they went to this implicated friend's
house and B you won't believe this but he lives not six houses away away from where Reese was last seen so detective
hatch actually took Emily and me on a ride along I mentioned that before and I'm not kidding I could be standing at
where the bush bar and alcohol Alliance used to be alcohol Alliance is where she's last seen and I could throw a rock
and hit this guy's front door which to me like makes this like mysterious friend actually a little more a lot more
a lot more interesting so when detectives pay him a visit in 2023 he tells them that he's not interested in
being interviewed he does admit to knowing the confession caller though and the cops actually play the call for him
right on his sto but he wanted no part of any of it and they say he became combative so that was that do they go
back to the confession caller himself they do he tells detectives that it's not his voice on the old recording call
like he he said like he's like you got the wrong person even though like it was pretty clear who it was and then he
refuses to take a polygraph and when detective hatch hands him his business card like hey if you change your mind
like we would love to talk to you the guy he's like I'm going to rip this up when you leave so cool and it's worth
noting like where this guy lived back when Reese went missing it was just a half block North of National Avenue like
specifically the same cross streets where the bush bar was so even he's super close and again I have to ask how
could this all be a coincidence I know tangled web I told you basically there's like a lot of smoke here but they can't
find the fire so in 2023 detectives track down Larry again they tried to talk to him in person now obviously he's
not in Illinois anymore it turns out that in the early 90s Larry moved back to Wisconsin and had been living in
Black River Falls with a long-term partner now initially he agrees to come in take a polygraph but then he ends up
changing his mind no go but by this point some polygraphs given some interviews ripping up cars s hatch is
invested so in September 2023 he gets Crim Stoppers to put up 11 billboards with ree's picture and information and
he even gets some put up near Larry's house last we spoke to hatch he had interviewed about 45 more people in
connection with the case and while he was busy doing that Emily was doing some of her own work on this case but also on
the other cases because like hi again we have the deck we're trying to collect cases from all over for another weekly
show like you have to be juggling like 10 cases at a time and I'll never forget this moment we were in the office and
Emily comes in I'm like in the conference room and she's like hey I think Reese's case might be connected to
a bunch of others and I think there might be a serial killer in Wisconsin that nobody knows about except for me

Join us as we dive into the chilling unsolved mystery of Rhys Pocan, a 35-year-old Native American mother of four who vanished on August 10, 1989, while walking along National Avenue in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Weeks later, her dismembered remains were discovered scattered across public hunting grounds—partially in Nichol’s Creek, Sheboygan County, as well as in Vernon Marsh, Waukesha County—sending shockwaves through her community. Despite decades of investigation, including a renewed effort by the Sheboygan County Sheriff’s Office in 2022, her killer remains at large. In this video, we explore the haunting details of her disappearance and the ongoing quest for justice led by her daughter Charlee Russ.

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About Ashley Flowers Ashley Flowers is the top female podcaster in the U.S. and the host of Crime Junkie, the #1 podcast among women and the #1 true crime podcast globally. As the Founder of audiochuck, she has built a top-tier podcast production company that has garnered over 2.6 billion downloads, captivating audiences with its gripping storytelling through 10+ chart topping podcasts. Ashley and her team are dedicated to creating responsible true crime content that respects victims and their families.

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Brief Summary

The episode investigates the unsolved murder of Ree Poan and potential connections to a serial killer in Wisconsin.

Key points

The Discovery of a Body. A couple stumbles upon a decapitated body in Wisconsin, leading to a chilling investigation.
Ree Poan's Disappearance. Ree Poan goes missing after a night out, leaving her family desperate for answers.
Charlie Learns of Her Mother's Death. Charlie receives the devastating news that her mother Reese's remains have been found, leading to a heart-wrenching moment of realization.
Suspicion Falls on Chris. As the investigation unfolds, Reese's boyfriend Chris becomes a person of interest due to inconsistencies in his story.
Larry's Troubling Past. Reese's ex-boyfriend Larry is revealed to have a history of violence, raising concerns about his potential involvement.
A Confession Call. A mysterious caller claims to know who killed Reese, leading to a bizarre and convoluted confession.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Ma'am, she was decapitated. How is that undetermined in any way?

Frustration over the classification of the cause of death.

2:29WatchMar 8, 2025

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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