Missing Interviews True Crime Garage /// Part 1 | Forensic Files

Welcome to Off the Record. I'm your host Nick Crime. It's good to be seen. And it's good to see you. Off the record.
Thanks for listening. Thanks for telling a friend. True Crime podcast. Be good. Be kind. And don't live. Crime. Gather
around. Grab a chair. Grab a beer. Let's talk some ground. Welcome back to Missing. I am Tim here
today with Lance. Lance, how are you today? I'm doing great today, Tim. I hope all the listeners out there are
doing great as well. We have quite a treat here on this episode. This is going to be a good conversation. I think
everyone's going to love this uh collaboration that we are embarking upon right now. Uh but Tim, let's uh find out
how you're doing before we get to this amazing episode. How are you, sir? I'm doing great. Thanks a lot for asking.
And yes, I'm very excited to introduce this two-part episode and our uh wonderful guests. It's Captain and Nick
from True Crime Garage. And uh we go back a long ways with these guys. Um having I guess met them probably 2016
range somewhere somewhere in that time frame. So we've covered some cases together. We've talked a lot at crime
cons and other various conferences and here we invited them back for a great conversation. It's a wide- ranging
conversation, Lance. We get into a lot of different topics. We talk a little bit about Nick's book. We talk a little
bit about the Porch Light Project, which is Nick's nonprofit. Um, we talk a little bit about the cases that uh haunt
us or stick with us. And uh so for us, Mora Murray's case comes up and also Brian Schaefer's case comes up as well.
And uh Lance, I know you'll remember you and I covered um Brian Schaefer's case with Nick and Captain in the garage on
True Crime Garage uh several years ago, so we're a little bit familiar with that
case. But most of the Brian Schaefer discussion happens in part two and most of the more Murray discussion happens in
part one of this two-part episode. I mean, it's almost impossible to have a conversation with these guys with the
microphones on with the recording happening and not talk about the two major stories that each of us have
covered respectfully, you mora Murray and Brian Schaefer. And one thing that just strikes me off the bat about the
two of them, no matter what we're talking about, there's always just this like sense of calm, like you just feel
calm and comfortable talking to these two. And I can totally see how their listenership is so loyal to them because
they are just like a couple of couple of good dudes who are trying to do some good stuff. And this felt to me
like one a a catch-up session. We were circling back to some topics that interest us and that we can talk about
seriously for hours on end. But also, I don't know if Captain meant to do this, but he
was going down this road of coming to terms with the fact that his life and if you do this true crime podcasting thing,
your life doesn't have to always be about this. And it seemed like he kind of battled with that for a while. And I
didn't realize how much that was a topic for him because he he brought it back a
couple of times throughout the conversation that hey, I'm I'm fine with not being the person who's 100% my
entire life is about true crime. He he had like what 20 guitars behind him, you know? He's he does a bunch of other
things. And I think that's why it works really well between the two of them because he can put his technical hat on.
He can do all the editing and all the sound design and, you know, the behind the scenes clicks and and edits that
they need for that show to work. And Nick can do his thing with the writing and the researching and bringing the
stories to them. And I just thought it was really cool that we were able to get a glimpse inside of Captain's, I guess,
psychological wherewithal during that conversation where he was like saying, you know, it's okay. You don't always
have to be always about true crime. You know, don't have to let it consume you. Yeah. And that's a good piece of advice,
too, for people who want to get involved in this, who are just starting or people
who have been doing it for years, who are like, I don't know what to do. I I feel bad every time
I read an article that doesn't have anything to do with true crime. Feels like I'm not doing my job, but it's 11
PM on like a Tuesday night. Yeah, definitely a balance there. Um yeah, and most of the sort of personal
conversation comes in the second part. And we also spoke a little bit about our uh nonprofit in the conversation and our
nonprofit is called Private Investigations for the Missing. You can learn more about that at investigations
forthemissing.org or and we are going to be doing another live fundraiser for PI's for the missing and I think that's
going to be at the end of May. So stay tuned for a date and a time for that. Very good. The last time we had a
fundraiser, Tim, I think I got a tattoo because we raised enough money so that uh we went over the threshold. We
haven't set a goal yet for that particular threshold. We do know that people's finances are tight, so who
knows? is we're going to discuss this internally and then we'll maybe come up with some other fun goal reaching event
that can take place. But yes, stay tuned for the date on that. But we did hear from Lou and from a few other people
that we will have some very very interesting cool guests to join us and to discuss stories that are all like in
relation to private investigations for the missing and can't wait to do that. It's been too long. It's been too long
since we've had a PI's for the missing fundraiser. All right, everyone. So, we're going to play part one of this
two-part conversation with True Crime Garage. Now, make sure to check out what they're doing at true
crimegar.com. They have a great show. And hey, while you're going to find out more about True Crime Garage and
listening to their show, Tim, we also have another True Crime Show, Crawlspace. Most of our listeners
probably know about that. I don't know how many of those actually make the transition to listen to that podcast as
well, but over the past like few months since the beginning of the year, we've had some great great guests come on and
they're either talking about the crimes that they've committed. They've they're talking about and now they're trying to
redeem themselves or they're talking about the undercover work that they did for the FBI and the crazy situations
that they got themselves involved in. We talked to a bunch of authors, journalists. The past few months have
just been chock full of these incredible episodes. So, why don't you go over and
give that a listen as well? Hit up True Crime Garage. Hit up Crawlspace. And please follow us on social media at
Missingcm. And we're going to break quick for commercial here. And we'll be right back with Nick and Captain
We are being joined by Captain and Nick of True Crime Garage. How's it going, guys?
Thrilled. It's been a while, fellas. It's been what, a couple years? Too long. Too long. Tim only calls me. Tim
only calls me when he's mad at me. But But really, is that unusual for the people in your in your life, though?
Yeah. No. Yeah. People only call me when they're upset. Well, you guys are a sight for sore
eyes. It It's really good to see you. You guys look good. You guys look like you haven't aged, and we look like we've
aged twice the speed. That's not true. No, definitely not true. That's not true. We're both at this point. Yeah,
we're we're we're decrepit. We're decrepit. What is What's going on? You have a lot
of guitars behind you. Arms don't work. Legs don't work. Nothing works no more. They asked me to fight the big fight.
I'll fight the big fight. How many guitars do you have behind you? Um, this is the small room.
The big room is like, "Oh, I have issues. I have issues." My the my therapist told me I'm
that just trying to fill up holes from childhood trauma. Okay. I had a very We could go down that
rabbit hole if you want. Had a very abusive older brother. Oh. Oh my goodness. No, I'm just joking.
Nick, you have a lot of books behind you. Yeah. Filling up holes for my childhood trauma. He had he had a very
abusive younger brother. Wow. Two minutes in and we're already so deep in the psychology of True Crime
Garage. Hey, 20 minutes in, we'll all be crying. Yeah, I do like the red you guys both
got going on in the background there. It looks looks pretty nice. Um synchronized
in a way. Very very fancy. We're actually in the same room, just different backgrounds.
Do you guys still record at um in the same place? Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. So, I'm in the spot that we normally record,
and he's normally on the other side of the window, but um not today. He's in his home office. So, the garage 2.0.
Right. Well, what's been going on with your you guys' uh your show? Tell us a little bit about uh your journey. Where
are you guys at in uh 2025? Well, we just finished up doing a series, a six-part series called Hate Made in
America. It was um it spans, it's a story that spans decades and starts with some uh white supremist groups that
wanted to overthrow the US government many years ago. And actually they started they they were tried a handful
of guys were tried for conspiracy to overthrow the government in the 80s and they were unable to convict the guys.
And this story really has it's really kind of the roots of the Oklahoma City bombing that that occurred in 1995. So,
we start with that group that uh was tried for conspiracy and we end on the Oklahoma City bombing which was was a
it's interesting because I think that there that the Timothy McVey story is much larger than most people think. You
know, he's often thought of as this lone wolf homegrown terrorist and the I mean
it really it's a story that spans hate begets hate. You know, that's what the Bible tells us and and this story proves
that to be factual. Great. Great. I got some follow-up questions here. You must have a number of topics that you want to
do these expanded series on. It's such a daunting task to take on something like
this, especially in the climate that is today. There's a lot of hate going around and there's a lot of white
supremacists that are starting to become just kind of brazen in their activities.
Uh this is something that happened in the '9s, but you said it goes beyond that. And you also said that everyone
looks at McD and says, "Oh, it's a lone wolf." Do you think that that's just like the comfortable way of saying, "I
don't want to know the history. I don't know what want to know what's going on today because my life is comfortable, so
we're just going to keep it at lone wolf." Well, I think that it's a it was such a horrific event and then to learn
within a span of less than two days that it was committed by an American, you know, that they initially thought that
this would have Middle Eastern ties and to learn that it was committed by an American is makes it even more harder to
kind of try to wrap your head around it. And it's just I think it's the emotions
that are involved, especially if you've not been to that part of the country. They they will never heal from this.
They'll they'll never ever heal from this. And so it really truly was though when we started doing the research and
started putting the shows together, the episodes together for this, we were quite surprised because we were starting
to go, we think that maybe six episodes is not enough. that that we just kept finding things that were interesting and
taking us down different paths that some of these uh extreme hate groups were a part of over the years. In fact, there's
a double homicide out in the uh Garden State Parkway that that goes back, I think, uh to the early '7s that uh I'm
pretty convinced that that a member of of one of these hate groups had intimate knowledge of that double homicide. And
he created this Aryan Nation group that went on to rob banks. So they would go in with these pipe bombs and we all once
they're caught we learned that they were they weren't actual bombs but they would
go in and tell the these banks that they had pipe bombs on them and they were stealing money from the banks. In fact
they they they did this in multiple states. They started in in Utah and worked their way all the way to Ohio.
They were robbing banks to fund uh an attempt to commit terrorist acts and overthrow the government. And so I mean
and that so we didn't even get a chance to start talking about the bank robbers in the story because it's really a story
that that took 6 hours for us to tell the version that that we were able to put together and with our original idea
of starting off with Richard Snell who not only kicks off the story, he goes to prison. He was one of the guys that was
charged with conspiracy. In fact, he had planned it's it's it's well documented.
He planned to blow up the Alfred P. Mura building, which is the building that Timothy McVey blew up. He planned to
blow that up back in 1983. And he decided that it was divine intervention that that he didn't blow up
that building. And ultimately, he is arrested and convicted of two murders. One abs an absolute hate crime. And he
is sentenced to death by the state of Arkansas. and he is actually executed the same day that Timothy McVey blew up
the Alfa Pura building. And some people say it's coincidence, some say that it was not. And so this was sort of a long
examination including portions of Ruby Ridge and Waco with uh David Caresh that that we told that story and really kind
of just pondered the question, what was McVeyy's real motivations here? Was it just simply hate? Was it was it revenge
like he he claims for Waco? Was it the the first the first act of a revolution or was it a going away
present for Richard Snell? And Richard Snell watched 9:02 a.m. is when the when the
bomb went off, when the truck exploded and blew up the Alfred Pura building, Richard Snell was executed. 900 p.m.
that same day. He watched he asked the guards if they could bring in a TV and he watched that that play out on CNN
that morning and there's varying reports of what his reactions were to to that uh
and but it's not so was it coincidence or was it something far beyond that that McVey
blew picked the same building out of all the buildings out of McVey had very little ties to even the state of
Oklahoma. So it it just seems very odd and strange that that he chose the same building. And a bigger contradiction
there could not be when it comes to McVey for his reasons of saying why he did it, why he chose that building, the
revenge for what happened at Waco. You got revenge by killing over a hundred innocent people in in a building that
included children in in a daycare center. That come on, man. your argument has no legs and your war has it's it's
all made up and it's I think of when I think of McVey I liken him to like Ted Kazinski the uniomber
who created all these reasons why the and and and rationalize away what he was doing
when really it's truly just the act of a of a hateful madman. Yeah, there's a number of other ways to exact your
revenge, quote unquote, as opposed to targeting specifically a building that was there was there was no chance that
there would be no children in that building, you know, like that there was going to be children there. He said that
that building was his target, not necessarily the people in it. Well, then blow it up in the middle of the night
when there when there would probably be four or five people in the entire building.
No, he he picked 9:02 a.m. when once everybody had arrived at work, right? Yeah. Wow. Well, I'm glad you guys dove
into that topic. I think it's important to talk about that. And we recently hosted a um a great conversation with a
former um retired FBI uh undercover um agent who infiltrated some of these white supremacist groups. And um he's
got a hell of a story to tell. He just wrote a book um called called uh Code Code Name Pale Horse and I think he was
on Joe Rogan and stuff like that too. So his story has gotten out there quite a bit. That was my nickname in high
school. Pale horse. Yeah. Pale horse. Fast. I was fast. Oh, it's cuz you were fast. Yeah. Well, and I had very pale.
Went very pale. And I had four legs. But my code name was Codeame. What what topic gets you guys fired up?
Because I'm seeing Nick describe this and then once we get deeper into the conversation and the actual details of
what happens in these like attacks. I I do find myself getting fired up on some What was that, Captain? Well, he
starts screaming. I always tell people uh well we grew up in a family with uh four siblings so no
matter what you were talking about you had to be passionate about or nobody was listening. So that's our gift. Um
probably his gift more than mine. But we could take a case that he's like I'm not
really invested in this case and 20 minutes in he's screaming and yelling and I'm like good good energy. Keep it
up. I'm like I'm like the juggernaut from X-Men comics. I just you once I start going I just start building up
momentum and getting bigger and bigger and stronger stronger louder. Is there like a uh is there a breaking
point though? You know like what's the point where you're listening to We'll start crying.
I've cried on Mike probably three times I think in the 10 years that we've done the show. Yeah. Okay. So what what were
those moments? What made you Yeah. We want to go back there. answer. That's where we're going. I don't know. You're
already talking about your childhood trauma. I thought that's where we were going. There was no childhood trauma,
but uh the um No, there's a couple cases that that I've gotten pretty well, like
the captain said, I get worked up about almost all the cases, but there's a couple cases that uh and I don't know
why. You guys are probably experienced the same thing. There's some cases that just affect you differently and it and
you don't know why. There doesn't seem to always be rhyme nor reason for it and it's just I it's something that it's
difficult for me to explain and difficult for me for me to even understand myself. Well, and your guys's
path is a little different because you were single case focused for a long time and now you're every case that you find
interesting or that you want to shine some light on. But do you feel that with some cases you feel more of a
responsibility too? Yes. 100%. 100%. And and sometimes I and we could all say in
fairness you when you guys were covering Mars case exclusively like obviously that that has a different level of um
responsibility and and and the attachment and then obviously the outside world attaching that case to you
is your own doing. But we have some cases um initially with Deli uh the Deli murders or like Brian Schaefer or some
of these other cases that we've just talked about. Sometimes we get painted as that's our case. But it's like none
of the podcasters, none of the YouTubers or content creators own a case, you know. So sometimes um
the responsibility that you feel is put on by the audience if that makes any sense. Yeah, that's an interesting
point. Yeah, I think that's that's a good point. Um I I also think like the more we cover a case um I think the more
kind of emotional we get on it. I'll just I guess I'll just speak for myself on that one. Um, you know, Mora Murray's
case is is the case you mentioned, um, Captain, that we started our podcasting journey on. And, um, that was a case,
uh, that we covered very in-depth. We did about 150 episodes or so. And, um, you know, it was really hard not to be
emotional about it. Um, and I think we we had to take a step back. There's a few reasons why we did. um mostly
because the nonprofit that we are on the board of private investigations for the
missing um has taken the case on. Um so it's a it's a great nonprofit that was started by Bruce Maitlin who is Brianna
Maitlin's dad and they aim to fund private investigations for cases that don't have private investigators and the
the investigators do it pro bono um with expenses paid. So Mora Murray's case is
probably the most high-profile case that the nonprofit has taken on. But um our role in the nonprofit is we will discuss
cases, publicize them, we'll interview the private investigators if there's some purpose behind it. If the
investigators want information out there for any specific purpose. Um, and with Mora's case and with all the cases,
we're not going to cover them if the investigators aren't asking. If if they're being uh investigated by the
nonprofit and they are not looking for publicity in that way, we stay away. So, that's kind of where we're at with
Mora's case. But, I will say it came after, you know, five or so, you know, I don't even know how many years, several,
maybe more than five years, um, working on it. And uh you know a lot of emotions
a lot of serious um emotions uh you know will get attached you'll get attached um
in any case especially unsolved ones. It's uh it's kind of wild. Well, I and I think that's again, you guys would know
this um as well as Nick is is when you start doing this, you don't know how indepth it's going to become or how much
it's going to start um defining your your life. I mean, I remember meeting Rener for the first time and he was
like, "Oh, you're interested in Mar's case. Well, you'll become part of not necessarily her case, but you're going
to become a part of some of the cases that you end up uh discussing. And and probably same way with you guys, like
when you meet Julie, the case becomes more real. It's not from a distance. And then, you know,
and you guys know this, I was a huge fan of your guys' show and your coverage of
Mars case. So, even just meeting you guys, it was like, oh, now I'm more part of it. And then then you guys became a
part of the six-part docu series and then you guys did your own. And so, it's like it's it's it's amazing to me how
you can just go from talking about a case with your friend to being somewhat involved um or maybe
even helping to solve solve the case. And you guys have your nonprofit as well. No. No. Nick Nick I always tell
people like we we started this journey and um uh Nick ran with it you know and Nick can talk uh about project porch
light. Yeah Project Porch Light was actually James Rener is the one who founded and had the idea
and really though you know the captain would have been a part of it. The problem is, and you guys know this from
uh being on a board as well, but the problem with with a board is you can't get too many people uh from two from
from one from the same space because you when you're voting on things, you don't
want to have um any kind of bullying or or or like a an unbalanced power, right?
So, once I'm on the board, there's an unbalanced power. Obvious obviously code pale horse is coming out to play.
Well, with us covering cases on a weekly basis, we could have possibly manipulated the the board
into covering cases that that we wanted to cover for the show in some weird way.
Uh that's something we wouldn't do, but but who's to say, you know, you don't know when you're seeking out people to
help. But so I'm very proud that True Crime Garage has been a part of Project Porch Light. had some success over the
years in the I think it's been around four or five years now, but um we've had some success. We've had some letdowns uh
as you will with in any of these situations. But um yeah, we've we solved a what was at the time a a over
30-year-old cold case homicide uh through DNA work that we were able to fund raise the money for the DNA testing
and the genealogy work that was done on that and and make an arrest of a guy and
um of the perpetrator. And so that I mean that we were able to provide answers to the family in that case that
they probably resolved themselves to the idea that their sister or their daughter's case would never be solved
after all that time. And we've also been able to identify a whole bunch of people
over the years and some of them um murder victims. So, and it it and it a homicide investigation is really
difficult to conduct when you do not know who your victim is. And so, just simply by identifying the
victim right then and there, now you have you have a list of potential suspects as an investigator because you
now can start to hone in on this person's inner circle, their family, their friends, people that they they may
have worked with. you can you can start to hone in and start talking to those people that you never knew to talk to in
the first place. And we'll be right back after a quick word from our sponsors. Thanks to our sponsors. And now we're
back to the program. Tell us about um I know there was there was some recent news um from the Porch Life project.
Yeah. Tell us a little bit about uh about what recently happened. Well, and I'll tell you what, like when when we're
going to have success on one of these cases, I know it almost instantly because it's always kind of like magical
how the connection of finding the case and getting to work the case comes about. And anytime it comes back, it
comes about in this really like mysterious, mystical way. I know that that I know that we're going to solve
it. Like I I know that we're going to be able to further advance the investigation. So, our part of our
parameters for covering a case or or taking on a case are are three-fold. One, it has to be a state of Ohio case.
Two, it law enforcement has to be willing to they to let us in because, you know, they're they're the ones that
are ultimately going to solve the case. We're just going to assist. And the other parameter is that the family wants
us to be involved in in their case. And so once we have all three of those ducks
in a row, we can move forward. Well, this recent case that we had success with uh is known as the Toledo Jane Doe
case. And we were able to identify a young woman that had not been since 1987. They had no idea who she was. And
I'll get into the case here in just a second. But this is an example, a prime example of how these cases sometimes can
come about. So, I called the investigating agency and I said, "Hey, I'm, you know, I'm going through my
whole spiel of introducing myself and and telling them what it is that we do and how we do it and the successes that
we've had." And I'm about halfway through my spiel and the detective cuts me off. He goes, he goes, "I know who
you guys are." I said, "Really?" I go I go, "Tell me that's a good thing." Uh, because I'm not going to lie to you.
There there are departments we've reached out to about specific cases and they they just don't want any help with
them. Uh they don't want any anybody else involved in it for some reason, one reason or another. I don't know.
But with this case, the detective tells me, he goes, "I know who Porch Light is because I've had it on my to-do list for
the past two weeks to call you about the case you're calling me about today." And
I said, "Well, that's strange." I said, "Because I've had it on my to-do list for the past two weeks to call you about
this case, too. and and you know, you just get busy and bogged down with things and there's always tomorrow. And
so we we we shared a laugh and well no there's not enough hours in the day but we shared a laugh and and very quickly
this was uh approved by the brass at uh Toledo Police Department and we were able to finally
identify this young woman who went missing in 1987 from Taylor, Michigan. And so we
now know her name is Tammy Lowe. Well, the reason why Toledo had this case was because in
1987 in the early morning hours, there was a body that was on fire, had been set on fire and left in
an alley behind like a it was either an auto body shop or mechanic shop that had
been left there. And since since then, they've been trying to figure out who she is. a who she is and b who put her
there and um we've got half of that we have half of that solution now we now know who she is and now we need to we
need to get people from Taylor Michigan to hear this and to see this and to see it on social media so we can start
finding people that knew her back in 1987 who knew Tammy Low 1987 she was 18 years old blonde as said from Taylor,
Michigan. And we we do have a photo with her with some friends that is new to our
investigation. So, some of those people have been identified and talked to, but we we're still trying to figure out the
the rest of what happened to her and who put her there. You get all that information coming in at you. How is
that filtered like through the nonprofit? How do what what information do you get and what information does
does like law enforcement hold back? So it it varies with every case and it varies with every department. Um and
which is true too for our work with true crime garage. You know sometimes sometimes on these cases we are
discussing the cases with law enforcement and you get varying degrees of assistance when you're putting
together these stories. Some we've had some cases on the show where they hand us the entire police file 300 400 pages
long. Uh we have other cases where we call and leave a voicemail that doesn't get returned until 2 months after we've
covered the case. Um and it's and it's not because they're not checking their voicemail. They're not interested in
talking with us. Um, but then they, you know, they may they may have tuned in and heard us saying, "We we we attempted
to reach out to the investigating agency and they haven't talked to us." So, there's always varying degrees of it
with in regard to the Porchllight Project. And if anybody wants to learn more about what what it is that we do or
how they can get involved and help, it's porchlightonline.org. That's porchlightonline.org. But with a case
like this, we we get a good amount of information. There are other cases where we're we're more handsoff uh and just
fundraising the and paying for the the funding of of testing that needs to be done.
There's, you know, I've I've toured u the coroner's office, met with met with medical examiners on some cases. And so
it really there is no uh cookie cutter version of of what we do. But with if tips start coming in, information starts
coming in, some of it will go directly to Porch Light. So that that it's determined by Porch Light where that
information goes, what to do with that information. Me, if a tip or information finds its way to me, it's going to law
enforcement. whether I think it's viable or not, whether I think it's whether I think it's something that you know,
Lance, if you came to me with information and said, you know, and I I would tell you upfront, I'm taking this
to law enforcement. Even if you told me you already did, I'm taking it to law enforcement. I will let them sort out.
They know the case better than I in all cases. So, let's let them determine what
is good information and what is bad information. Now, to be clear, the information I would be taking to law
enforcement is that Tim did it. overall blanket statements. Yes, I agree. I No proof. No proof, but I'd be a pretty
good character witness. Um he's a he's a phone yeller. When he gets on the phone,
he's a yeller. Like to yell at people on the phone. Yeah, I I'm sorry about that, Captain. I
definitely I don't even remember. I don't remember. I remember it being late one night and I
remember being a little uh a little maybe under the influence and uh just, you know, just emotional about about
these cases we cover. I mean, I I do apologize to you personally, but um but I I don't apologize as a whole um in
getting emotional with these cases. Well, okay. Question for you guys. And Tim, you can yell at me at whenever you
want because it's it's hard to be friends with people that you were a fan of. You know what I mean? Like I
listened to probably I don't know probably a hundred episodes of you guys before I
actually met you. So, you know, and and I thought, hey, yeah, cool. True Crime Garage, we got this cool show and
everything, but I'm like, this is Tim and Lance. like these are the guys I listen to in the garage like 100
episodes. But um but you guys started initially as wanting to do documentaries, right?
It wasn't so it wasn't so much crime enthusiast as much as it was film. Correct. Yeah, we have a uh a film
background and really the um deep dive into Mora Murray's case that we began in 2015 as Missing Mora Murray was um
really to further the documentary that we were making. And and we were talking more about the culture of armchair
detectives um that had kind of grown around that specific case more than we really were trying to get the facts
right. Um because God knows if you look at the YouTube comments, we did not get some of the facts right early on. Yeah.
But you're but what you guys were trying to what you were exploring is what is the
narrative? And to me that's that's what's been so fascinating over the last 10 years
is learning a case and learning the narrative and then the deeper you go you realize that was a false narrative that
was put out there in some cases. But back to what you were saying like with with Nick and uh Project Portrolite and
um other boards that he's been a part of and other investigations he's been a part of and writing a book. I
think that's something I've struggled with is like at first like this podcast looking into these cases, the victim's
families, it it like engulfs your whole life. And we were probably three or four years
in where I was like, "That's not what I signed up for." You know, I simply just signed up to help my
friend get out information about a about cases that he was fascinated with. And next thing you know, it was like 10 to
15 hours a week on the phone with victim's families or um and and let's just be clear. Um I know we're joking.
Uh, I I I don't hold anything against you. What me and Tim got I think if I'm gonna hopefully I get this right. Uh, I
had an opportunity to talk to Mar's boyfriend at the time that she went missing, Bill. And here again, this
is a it's like I don't want to be in this situation, but here I am. And it's like this guy's willing to talk to me
and I end up talking to him for eight hours the first time and I felt like a responsibility to like just he just
keeps telling me information I've I've never heard about the case. I should just let him talk and maybe he'll say
something that helps with the case or helps the narrative of the case. And then what what he did, which this
happens all the time, you talk to somebody on the phone and then all of a sudden they go online and make it seem
like you're best friends and that like somehow you're vouching for them being a nice person and you're like, I just
talked to you on the phone. I I didn't I I'm not giving you a review online. But
so there's been plenty of times in in our journey where if you know people go, I saw Nick on Court TV last night and I
I view Nick as a true crime expert. That's how I view him. That's what he's grown into. In my brain, I'm still just
his buddy that he's tossing out the ideas to. I I don't want to be a If somebody called me a true crime expert,
I'd be like, "You're you're an idiot." But but I should have the right to not want to be that or not to be labeled at
as as that, if that makes any sense. And I'm sure I know more about cases than most people because we've covered I
don't know, we've done almost a thousand episodes now. So, but that I should be allowed to determine whether I think I'm
a true crime expert or not, and I'm not. So, well, I think he's selling himself a
little short because there there some cases I can think of them right away, a good number of them, that he
is, like we said earlier, you don't know how or why some some cases affect you differently than others. And there are
some cases that he knows a mountain more of knowledge about than I do. Um, so you
know, if it there are some cases that that have got under his skin. Uh, I know Mara Murray case is one of those and and
he could he could tell you a lot more about the Mara Murray case than I ever could. But uh, you know, and the other
thing is Tim and Lance while I Well, and I did too. You guys did a fantastic job obviously with that.
But, uh, you know, um, everything else been submitted. But I mean, you see all the guitars
behind him, you know, he's still in the in the music making world and and doing very good at it. Los losing money by the
day. Well, I do remember now. I some of it's coming back to me that conversation. Um
I totally forgot about that um situation with Bill. I don't even know what we were arguing. Yeah, I don't remember ex
exactly the argument, but I will say there there is this new lead in Mora Murray's case um that came about because
there was a fellow named Stefan Baldwin who was arrested on animal cruelty charges and in fact convicted, but his
finger his fingerprint was found uh apparently on a CD or on a CD case inside of Moa Murray's car And I guess
the FBI has interviewed him about this. Um, so I think it was confirmed that Stefan knew Mora Murray from West Point.
But back to Bill for a second. Like where's Bill? Like, you know, and I'm not I'm really trying not to get
involved. Are you Are you asking, but but where is Bill now? Right. Did it doesn't Wouldn't he have known this guy
too? Like, are we going to hear from him on on this lead? Okay. Right. In the 8 hour phone call, he didn't bring up that
guy. No, he he did. He did. Yeah. And so what was crazy is um you know, me and Rener differ quite a
bit. Uh but but I think he I think he does want to have have this case solved and I think it's hard
sometimes when you're just getting I don't know who gave him this information. My gut feeling was that
maybe he actually got it from Julie and I know that they have a tensionfilled relationship.
I don't think Rener did get it from Julie, but when Rener was um when he put out a YouTube video talking about the
lead it was like the more he talked about the more I was like this has to be the guy that
Bill was talking about. So when I would talk to Bill the first time, he started talking about them
questioning him uh about some individual and but I remember Bill saying Mara was seeing a
guy before me and I want to say that he used the word dirt bag, but dirt bag is a term that's kind of connected to Mar's
case, right? The That's right. the YouTube guy, Fred Moira's dad, um, said that he thinks a local dirt bag took
her. So, there's been there have been people over the years who have even used that sort of moniker. But, yeah, if
someone says they're a dirt bag in this case, then you're essentially suggesting
they could be guilty of something uh, in regards to Mars. I could be quoting Bill
wrong, but during this conversation, he was like saying how when they were talking
to him initially, law enforcement, that this guy got brought up and he was like,
"Oh yeah, I don't know anything about him other than I heard he was a real dirt bag." Again, could be misquing him.
But I was like, "Well, who who was he? What was his name?" And he didn't know the name. So then I took that
information and gave it to a contact that I know that knows Julie and they I what I'm guessing is that law
enforcement has a record of who she was communicating with through instant messenger. I think this dirt bag, this
Stefano guy was one of those individuals. That doesn't mean, you know, great, they're connected digitally
that or through data, but that doesn't mean that they were planning to meet up or anything like that. But they assumed
when I said, "Hey, I talked to Bill and Bill talked about this guy that she was seeing
beforehand, they somehow believed that was connected to this guy up in New Jersey." And so now with this new Rener
information, I'm like, "No, I think Bill I think Bill was talking about Stefano or whatever his name is." And what I was
hoping for, and I I don't know what Rener's doing with it, but I was hoping Renard didn't run in in his normal Rener
way where it's like, well, let's gather all this information about this guy and and paint a horrible picture of him. And
yes, he's a horrible person, but none of that matters. All that matters is can we
put him in the area at the time she goes missing. You know, whether that's him driving a a a
tandem car or whether she was supposed to meet him in a certain location or was he there a week prior to her going
missing. If we can't put him in that location, then whatever character assassination we want to do on the guy
won't matter. If that makes any sense. No, it totally makes sense. You actually are
almost quoting uh former US Marshal Art Rodrik there because his whole thing when he was investigating with the
family was this individual, whoever it is, might be a terrible person. They might
have a criminal record. Can you put that person with Mora on that day? Right? That's really where the math has to come
together. You need to make that equation equal something. And we'll be right back
after a quick word from our sponsors. Thanks to our sponsors and now we're back to the program. We started covering
the deli case before a lot of people and that was my big issue with the whole case was
we're talking about thousands of individuals that people were posting. Here's this guy. This is his name. This
is where he works. And they couldn't put him. They might not even be able to put
the guy in the state of Indiana during the time of the m murders. And it's like that's what you have to do
first. And um so that that becomes frustrating when when people don't do that, you know. And and it's tough
though too because when Bill Rouse has charges against him and but I don't know if those
charges would ever be brought up against him if he didn't have a girlfriend that
went missing. And so it's tough because I thought it was important for you guys to have him on your show to
discuss because I don't know anybody um other than maybe one other person that knows the this case as well as you
guys do to have him on. But but I also understand it's hard to give that individual that has charges against them
a a platform um because people will then assume um that you're siding with him or
being a a character witness for him and and just giving him a platform. It's it's very difficult and I talked to him
for a long time and I mean I do feel bad for Bill in the sense of if there's no involvement and uh if he's not involved
at all with Mara's disappearance then this is this is a event that has shaped the rest of his life and and I think
maybe some of the mistakes he made and the and the points of his life that he was a bad character that he admits he
was a bad character might actually stem from from this event. Um, and that's not
to give him an excuse or anything, but I couldn't imagine if um I couldn't imagine having a girlfriend that I cared
about and loved. No matter if I was a good boyfriend or a bad boyfriend, I couldn't
imagine her just disappearing and having zero answers. Yeah. Right. Yeah. It's got to be a
tough situation. Um, yeah, we spoke with Bill as well a few times. Um, he really
really uh made us like I don't know, work for it. Really made us work for it and and like we would have had to have
been even more patient than we had been with him to ever talk to him on the record. Um, and I I felt like, and you
know, maybe this is part of the emotion of myself getting involved in this case,
speaking a bit, but I don't really ever feel like he was totally honest. Um, and
I don't know where that comes from, what he's holding back or whatnot, but I he just didn't he struck me as
disingenuous. Yeah. And I And I wonder if some of that is part of his training, like military training, you mean? Yeah.
What? Yeah. or um like a PR training almost, right? You know, because you know what drove me
insane is he kept saying my name. Yeah. And that's like a tactic that some people use where they'll go, "Oh, Tim,
you know, oh, Lance, they constantly keep every Well, Patrick, that's a good question, right? What?" You know what I
mean? Like he was just like constantly doing that. It's like a salesy tactic. And I got to the point where I was like,
"You need to stop doing that. You're annoying the [ __ ] out of me. Like, I think you're doing it for a
reason." And and and look, I think maybe he was more honest with me than some people
because we come from the same area. I mean, he he grew up 20 minutes from me. He he played against my high school team
in basketball. So maybe that's why he or maybe he was just trying to sell me some
[ __ ] But I also think he had this weird misconception that one, the true crime
space was bigger than it was and that we were all somehow connected. And so I know for a fact that
when he he I mean he told me when when he posted certain things online to try to clear up something that he heard on a
podcast, he thought somehow everybody was checking in on his uh Twitter account. And I think but again, what a
weird space to be in. But uh but there's people out there that have investigated
this case and other cases that go, "Hey, Bill, talked to me. Not a bad guy cuz he's willing to
talk to And it's like I I didn't view it that way, but I just feel like when I talked to him, it was a sense of like
that maybe that he could use me in a in a way, you know, like if if I can get this guy to like me, then
um then all this other stuff with these other podcasters and these other investigators, maybe that will go away.
Um, but he was also very honest with some of the shitty things he's done as a person. But there's guys out there, and
we've all met them, that they go on a date, they treat the girl like [ __ ] and they go back and they brag to their
friends. And some of the guys listen to the story and go, "Oh man, you're the you're the man." I've never been one of
those guys. So I think when he was telling me these stories almost in a braggadocious way, I just thought less
of him, you know, like, "Oh, congratulations. You did a horrible thing to somebody." Like, "I'm I'm
supposed to hold you in higher regard." Like, I don't know. Do you see that as like a um you know the length of the
conversation that you had with him, the fact that he was using your name so often that it got annoying to you that
you had to remind him like, "Hey, this is annoying." Do you think he was just overplaying his cards? Like thinking
with his military training and the psychological ops that he does and just that salesman approach, did he kind of
again overplay his hand in that conversation with you? Yeah, I think he just thought like I'm just going to do
what I normally do to manipulate people. And then when somebody called him out on
it, I think that's when he was like, well, maybe I need to be, you know, a little more honest here. Yeah. I mean, 8
hours. Well, no. And and the total amount of time we talked was probably, I don't know, 40, 50 hours.
Yeah. But 8 hours in a sitting like that that was the longest one. But there was
times that it was like six and a half hours. There was like those are like torture scenarios, you know? No. Like
when they capture prisoners and they're torturing them. Yeah. They push and push
and push. But there was a time period that I that I thought he was suicidal. He might not have been, but
there was a time period that I thought he was. And so my thought was anybody that's been there, you know, on the edge
of that, right? Whatever that is, that I just felt like I had to talk to him because again, again, I don't think some
of this stuff in his life would have happened again, would his actions have changed or again this that's where it
gets complicated because you can say, did he do these things? did he not do these things? And then would anybody
ever brought charges against him? Or, you know, when you have when you're having an affair on your wife, would
this ever been brought to light in the public space if he um never had a girlfriend that went missing? And then I
think somebody could then look at all these events in his life and say, "Well, does this mean it's possible that he
could have been responsible for a girl going missing?" Um, it's but I mean, there's been there's been several times
in the true crime space that I'm talking to somebody on the phone because I think
they're suicidal, and that's not comfortable. Um, and I won't use the guy's name, but
the guy got so rich and famous that he tried to kill himself and he, you know, shut the
garage door. He turned on his car. He 5 minutes in, he's feeling nothing. and he
looks it up online and realizes the car that he bought is so fancy that one of the features of the car is even if you
turn the car on in a shut that it's impossible to kill yourself with the fumes because it's such a nice vehicle,
you know? So, but that goes back to my thing of like I think it's okay. It's okay to have a podcast and not
identify as an expert or want to be an expert or want to do the work to become that. I think that's okay. And I still
think we uh as much as the more Nick learns, the more his uh opinion can be val, you
know, uh valuable as much as somebody that doesn't know about a case, their opinion can be valuable as well, if I'm
making any sense at all. Yeah. No, I think that works. I think sometimes someone who doesn't know much about the
case can see it much clearly than someone who's uh been in the weeds for for a long time, you know. I think
that's uh certainly true. And um yeah, Morris case is something that I you know and and Lance and I for I'm sure you
guys, but we're always rooting for it. Um always rooting for it to get solved. Um I really do hope this um new lead
goes somewhere. Um I I do think uh the investigators at PI's for the Missing kind of threw a little bit of cold water
on it. Um but we didn't get too deep into why or anything like that. So, we don't know any any more details on that.
Um, but it's definitely a case I I follow all the time and um I'm always rooting for it to get solved. And I just
want to say that I think a big reason why we another big reason why we don't cover it regularly anymore is because
Julie is so active out there and there's no reason for us to. You know, I think we we like to do purposeful um missing
person's cases. Um, and maybe not every episode is purposeful, especially if we're covering like a hundred-year-old
case or something like that. We're just interested in how it happened, but a lot
of times we're trying to get the information out there. And with Mora Murray's case, Julie is by far the best
advocate uh for that case. So, just want to give a big shout out to her for uh what she's doing with media pressure and
her social media pages. I think it's incredible and I'm uh behind it 100%. No. And and I think that I loved it. I
loved everything that she did. I think it adds and this goes back to the narrative. That's what I find, you know,
after 10 years of doing this is how the narratives change. You could I mean a lot of these
cases, it's like you have an elevator pitch. Well, like take Mars's case for example. Well, this girl, she leaves
college and uh she's going somewhere. But we don't know where she's going. She gets a car wreck and then uh somebody
stops to help her and 7 minutes later she's gone. Like that's the elevator pitch and then then the sto you know
Fred has a narrative. Rener has a narrative. Then then Tim and Lance come along and
they're trying to uncover more of the narrative and what is the truth. Is Rener's narrative false
in any way? Is Fred's narrative false in any way? And it might not be false in a
nefarious way. It might just be the color glasses that they looked at the case or will view the case. Fred is
going to view Mara's case completely different than any of us because it's his daughter.
And so that's why I find so fascinating is as you peel back the the onion, you start realizing I mean some of these
cases I mean the Schaefer case guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy
guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy guy go goes into a bar and never seen leaving
the bar again. All right that's it for part one. Make sure to tune in for part two coming
soon. [Music]

Missing Interviews True Crime Garage /// Part 1

Part 1 of 2

Nic and the Captain sit down to talk True Crime with Tim and Lance from the podcast Missing.

www.TrueCrimeGarage.com

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Brief Summary

Nick and Captain from True Crime Garage discuss their podcast, notable cases, and their nonprofit work in this engaging two-part episode.

Key points

Welcome to Off the Record. Host Nick Crime welcomes listeners to the podcast, setting a friendly tone.
A Catch-Up Session. Tim and Lance reflect on their long-standing friendship with True Crime Garage hosts.
Upcoming Fundraiser Announcement. Announcement of a live fundraiser for Private Investigations for the Missing.
Deep Dive into Hate Made in America. True Crime Garage discusses their series on hate groups and domestic terrorism.
The Emotional Toll of True Crime. Covering cases can deeply affect those involved, leading to emotional attachments and responsibilities.
Success in Solving Cold Cases. Through Project Porch Light, significant progress has been made in solving cold cases, including identifying victims.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

You don't always have to be about true crime.

Advice on balancing life and true crime podcasting.

4:30WatchMay 5, 2025

Tension

50/ 100Some tension

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