Missing on Campus /// Part 1 /// 522 | Forensic Files

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[Music] crime no no no no [Music] so no no no no no no no no this week in the garage we tell the tale
of a promising and popular college student one that has seen plenty of academic success in our True Crime Story
a holiday is coming up which means a break in the college action so this will be a chance for our successful student
and their classmates to take some time off finally getting the opportunity to take some time and spend it on oneself
with a trip this is a chance to take a break and get away excited for the break and
for their trip out of state our student decides to spend an evening out to celebrate going out to dinner and then a
little drinking and partying afterward evening drinks turn into late night fun and late night fun turns into the small
hours of the next day it's 2 a.m. and things are wrapping up winding down and it's time to go home and and then poof
just like that our college student disappears some say into the night and others say Into Thin Air longtime
listeners of this show are most certainly thinking of Brian schaer a promising Ohio State med student gearing
up for a vacation with his girlfriend out with his friends and having a great time when
suddenly he's gone and now it's been over 15 years and he's still gone still missing one night he walked into a bar
and 15 years go by and his name and photos of him are still listed on the Charlie projects website and the all
missing persons database maintained by the Ohio attorney general Dave Yos office but we won't be telling you the
tale of Brian Schaefer again this week because sadly there is another student that very strangely exper experienced a
quite similar fate a fate of possibly never being seen alive again or simply put lost but never
found this week we will be covering another missing student from another Ohio College
campus Judy Martins went out partying with friends on the night of May 23rd and come morning she was gone and
quite possibly lost and never to be found this is true crime garage and this is the case of Judy
[Music] [Music] Martins Judy Martins was born on July 15th 1955 to Proud parents Arthur and Dolores
she would be the eldest of three children all three children were pretty close in age and Judy and her sister
Nancy had a tight Bond Judy was born and raised in the nice community of Avon Lake Ohio which is up near the Cleveland
area on the shores of Lake Erie Judy graduated from Avon Lake High School in 1973 and she enrolled to go to school at
Ohio University in Athens but things changed a couple years in and she transferred to Kent State University
yeah the rumors that she was getting homesick sadly Kent State University is mostly known for the notorious Kent
State shootings also known as the May 4 Massacre this was the killings of four Kent State students and the wounding of
nine others all unarmed when 28 Ohio National Guard soldiers fired approximately 67 rounds at the group of
students 10 Soldiers and Nixon coming there Captain I'm not a c but as said Judy enrolled in Ohio University where
she completed two years of college after that she moved back home and eventually
enrolled at Kent State where she moved into one of the dorms Judy was seeking an art major minoring in women's studies
and she told her parents and fellow students she wanted to be a therapist or counselor and in 1978 she was well on
her way she was completing her schooling at Kent State and she was a resident staff assistant at one of the all female
dormitories this is the ingelman hall dorm and she was a volunteer counselor at the campus's pregnancy information
center and that brings us up to the details of when Judy went missing yeah so the night in question here captain or
the days in question here will be the later part of May 23rd or the early hours of May 24th
1978 now here is the The Disappearance as reported by The Columbus Dispatch which is one of the bigger newspapers
here in Ohio and we will pause periodically to add in our own two cents or in my case one cent but the dispatch
article says Judy was last seen at about 2:30 a.m. May 24th 1978 Witnesses told police she left a
party headed for ingelman Hall only 4 to 6 minutes away on foot okay stepping in here Captain she was at
Dunbar Hall this is an all male dormatory building all dongs she was living alone at Engelman Hall an all
female dorm now the article that we are citing says 4 to Six Minutes on foot the
best report that I think I could find out there states that it was 25 yards from door too so two football field bus
is of a walk late at night by herself now this might be conflicting information information I get is it's
about 100 yards but the issue becomes that there's two entrance ways there's a front entrance and a back entrance so
maybe that is why there's a discrepancy on how many yards away it is yes and neither of us have made this walk
ourselves so obviously we're going off of different reports from different people but I have been on the campus
though the information I'm citing here came from the chief of police at Kent State University but again this is an
old case and some of this information is 30 40 years old either way it's a very small distance correct well and one
critical thing here that I think we should point out regardless if it's one football field or two football fields in
distance is that we have a situation where Judy made this trip before you know this is a a common thing that she
would have done she was uh an evening outgoing person she was very sociable one thing that I think we should also
mention here is a very general statement of her personality and I think this really sums her up very nicely is it was
said by her friends that Judy was very sociable and very much the life of the party after hour hours but she was
incredibly responsible she was never late to school never missed school never missed work never late to work she was
topnotch go-getter during the day and sociable in the evening time so again a short walk by herself the middle of the
night and a trip that she had done on foot several times she was also known to ride a bicycle around on campus and the
bike is mentioned throughout our story and will be mentioned throughout our story but it was never mentioned I could
never find any mention of this bicycle on the statement of how she was getting home that night it's always been stated
that she was walking home that night now Judy was wearing a curly red wig over her long
dark hair she was wearing I believe you said call it Galo style jeans a brown and yellow blouse beige trench coat
brown boots and carrying a large white imitation leather shoulder bag okay so the wig and her get up for that night
she was out and she was partying with friends so she was definitely playing dress up here that night later after she
was reported missing several people would say that they saw her that night and Judy was dressed like a hooker these
are their words and I don't think that they mean that to paint Judy in any kind of negative light here captain again I
believe she was just playing dress up that night so maybe she was telling people that she was dressing like a
hooker that night well and that style of jeans would have been popular in the 70s think of a bell bottom but instead
of them being tight and then flaring out at the bottom they just they just flaring out all over they're flaring out
all over but they kind of look like bell bottoms at the at the bottom and that's
a good description and another good description is that when we say or she said or her friends said she was dressed
like a hooker that night this is not like the movie Pretty Woman street walker type clothing stuff that is very
revealing this is basically funny looking jeans in a button-up shirt MH the following day Judy was supposed to
travel home to Avon Lake to get her new car when she didn't come home or didn't call home by that Friday Dolores her
mother called Judy's room every hour without success yeah so she was supposed to go back to pick up her car but she
was going to go on a trip yeah so that is one thing that I wanted to jump in here with on that story right because
this is one of the confusing portions of the story let me finish up the next two
sentences of this article real quick this is again is from the information from The Columbus Dispatch it says a
fellow student officially reported Judy missing on May 26th please note that date May 26th which is would be 2 days
after the last sighting or supposed last sighting of Judy when her room was searched nothing was missing so she left
behind her glasses clothing books and cosmetics now back to the double story there of picking up the
car Andor going on a trip so again captain and I found this to be a little troubling the how the how it was noticed
that Judy was missing because I've seen these two different stories or different
versions of What Judy was supposed to be doing on the 24th or the 25th and this was one of my questions when I met with
one of the law enforcement agencies still investigating Judy's case so there's some good news there right this
case is still very active mhm you mentioned a trip to New York so there was two stories one that she's going
home to pick up a car the other story is she was going with two of her friends from Kent State to go to out of state to
go to New York and I asked law enforcement since we know that Judy didn't have a car on campus she rode
that bike most places and her family says her family's words were that she was returning home to get her car or a
new car so my question for law enforcement was well who was going to drive her to get to
Avon Lake to retrieve that vehicle because obviously I think that would be my number one suspect because whoever
that was was not the same person that reported her missing to my knowledge now the Memorial Day weekend was coming up
and Judy Martins had planned a trip to New York with two friends and I believe some of the confusion here is possibly
that maybe both stories are accurate that she would be doing both as we are talking about having five or six days
when she could achieve both of these events yeah so possibly my schedule's lighter at this point let me go pick up
my car I'll bring it back to campus and then when we go on the road trip we're going to take my vehicle yeah cuz what I
was told was no uh we didn't have any information that she was coming home but again the article in the dispatch those
are the family's words so that portion there has to be some truth to that to me and then the law enforcement version is
that New York trip has always been something that they were they were investigating the thing here though we
need to remind the listeners that are not familiar with the state of Ohio we're talking about an hour and 15 to
maybe an hour and 30 minute drive from the college campus to Avon Lake so this is something that she would if she was
going to go home she would need someone to drive her there now we have Judy's siblings weighing in in the article and
saying wearing contact lenses when she vanished they say no way would she have left her eyeglasses behind this is Steve
Martins her younger brother and saying that she rarely went anywhere without makeup according to her sister so
remember remember it was quickly and easily determined that nothing was missing from Judy's dorm room leaving
behind her glasses clothing books and cosmetics now anywhere you would see Judy's case you
will absolutely see this portion of the case information repeated as there were several outside sources that would later
say Judy left on her own the family says no her family says no and I say no but we will examine the mysterious details
of those claims as our case unfolds okay so she's at this party and when we say party loose terms right cuz there it
wasn't like there was hundreds of people there she was in another dorm having a couple drinks with people and hanging
out there correct and I think to call it a party really is is something that just
confuses the matter a little bit more I I would not describe any of these going on to be any type of party they may have
had a drink or two and and may have called it that or maybe she went to the dorm thinking she was going to a party
and it was just as you said hanging out with a couple of people it was a little bit of uh room jumping or or going from
dorm to dorm and we have some more details on that now the article goes on and says the week after she goes missing
her family the Martin family had a sitdown meeting with Kent State president Brad Golding and they say that
they left this meeting unimpressed Judy's sister Nancy said she believes that the University was still
rebuilding its reputation after the May 4 1970 incident and didn't want any type
of negative PR about their college camp campus or their college right and Steve Martins agrees saying quote what was
disappointing was the way that the investigation played out the university didn't want a whole lot of press end
quote and we've talked about this with Brian schaer's case but it's more obvious here isn't it no well no because
it's a different time period obviously back then they're going hey we don't want if we talk about this too much
we're going to get more newspapers we don't want the big newspaper to talk about this and Brian Schaefer's case
when you looked up medical student missing Ohio State it was flooded with the first few pages of Google that's all
you could find within a few days once you typed in Ohio State student missing it didn't show up the University was
able to bury it in Google searches and so just look if you're in a state and you hear about a college student going
missing Google it and you'll find within a week that university has took control
of the Google searches to make sure that those stories get buried so when Johnny
from Iowa gets a letter saying he can go to the Ohio State University they want to make sure when that parent Googles or
searches for the Ohio State University that something from the actual University pops up well yeah your kid's
going to go off and be living elsewhere for the first time not under your roof you don't want Mom and Dad or Mom or Dad
separately or together don't want to send you know their their little their young their daughter or their son off to
what they believe might be a dangerous place right and if the first thing that they Google about that college ising
orur then some red flags get thrown up there Arthur and Dolores speaking of parents the Martins kept Faith according
to this article kept total faith in the police Nancy said and never hired a private investigator because they
thought it would make the police upset Nancy believes investigators assumed Judy left on her own and broke contact
with the family that's a mistake I'm going to say this I I base my reputation on this you have a missing person case
immediately hire a private investigator but you're not trying to hinder the investigation at all you're just going
to be doing your due diligence and the thing here in this case Captain I see a situation where the case got hindered
the investigation got messed up very early on and it became a confusing and complicated case very early on
unnecessarily like there were steps that could have been made that that would have made this investigation a little
easier here and speaking of which let's dive into the investigation and search for Judy because Judy leaving a party at
2 or 230 a.m. to walk a short distance home and never making it there is obviously not the whole story there is
much much more detail to it than that but the investigation really was just a poorly conducted investigation from the
beginning and this was for several reasons the first was this was really an uphill climb in my opinion for the Kent
State Police because years later and this would have been uh from information I found from 1983 so 5 years after she
went missing we have uh Kent State Police Chief Robert Malone saying on record this is the only case that we have had
at Kent State of a missing person who could not be accounted for he says I know it's the only one since 197 73 when
I came on board so now a 10year span 73 to 83 according to Robert Malone now we need to keep in mind Robert Malone was
not the police chief in 78 when when Judy went missing but he goes on to say with 177,000 students we get a
lot of missing persons reports here but there always seems to be an explanation so think about that 10year period when
this man has worked there 177,000 students we get a lot of missing persons reports she's the only one in 10 years
that we couldn't find out where she went or what happened to her so what happened
to Judy on the night of May 24th 1978 when Judy apparently left the party at dunar Hall on her way home to Engelman
Hall first Judy lived alone so that caused a delay to report her missing she was missing and unaccounted for
but just no one knew so she was not reported missing until the 26th so that's two days now local police
went to Judy's dorm and they find everything as it should be nothing's missing no sign of Foul Play no sign of
a struggle no forced entry in fact there are a lot of theories out there in this
case but I could not find one single Source I spoke to three different people that know this case better than anyone
else no Source says that Judy returned to her dorm that night no case expert says that she made it home that night
and I could not find anything to suggest that she in my opinion made it home that
night after going out so whatever happened to Judy that night it looks like it happened sometime
after this party and before she could arrive at her dorm she's not reported missing for 2 days and then her family
is notified after she's reported missing Judy's mom says she was calling Judy's dorm often looking for her so at least
we have the night in question narrowed down to a matter of a couple of hours yeah and Captain I would put that window
of time when something went down something bad happened to Judy between 11:00 p.m. on the
23rd and maybe as late as 3:00 a.m. on the 24th so some additional issues with the
initial investigation as we said the Memorial Day long weekend yeah was the weekend after she went missing most of
the students have left the campus by the time police start looking into this so they have no one to question or they're
missing a lot of the people that they could question and not really anyone to help fill in the blanks here within the
first couple of days and they just just didn't take it seriously at first and look often we all
become products of our environment and the environment at Kent State in the late 70s according to the police chief
said that they were receiving two missing persons cases a week on average and in every case up to Judy's case the
person was accounted for within hours or days of the report so you can almost see how the police themselves fall
victim to this environment and the police likely thought that this would be the case here as well usually someone
turns up they stayed with a boyfriend or a girlfriend or they went home back home
unexpectedly now regardless because think about how many missing persons cases turn into homicide cases right
right well your homicide investigation will go much better if you are not starting from scratch once you figure it
out or decide that it is in fact a homicide case rather than a missing person's case so what sort of things can
one do well it's interviewing persons and properly recording their statements you can take photographs of her dorm and
belongings take photographs of all of the last known places she is believed to have been and photos of the people she
was with did any of them have any noticeable scratches or injuries none of that happened in this case so really
this is just an all out difficult situation for the investigation as we can view it 40 years later and to make
matters worse according to Kent State they lost or destroyed the case File oh that's aw this is due to some [ __ ]
records protocol hey now and it's believed in the year 2000 that they got rid of the file in the year 2000 now
sometimes too in these older cases Captain you find that the lead detective took the file home or the police chief
took the file home but for whatever reason when the case was being looked at again and this would have been in the
last 10 to maybe 15 years when they were looking at this case Again by a different agency other than Kent State
Police well that's when they learned that the Kent State Police file no longer exist on this case but some smart
people did do some smart moves one Judy was reported missing in two jurisdictions right she was reported
missing where she was going to school and two she was reported where she was from so she's reported missing in Avon
Lake as well so Avon Lake was investigating this case as well and they had a file of their own that in air
quotes survived and we managed to get a copy of the file that still [Music] exist
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cheers to you Captain cheers to all the fine fine people out there so the investigative timeline as laid out in
the police file is as follows and it's going to start as early as late April or early May and that's their exact
statement here that in late April or early May of 1978 Jim young visits Judy at KSU they are intimate per Jim Jim young
is or was Judy's longtime on again and off again boyfriend he was considered a suspect in this case now we need to note
that Jim is Judy's boyfriend from Avon Lake not Kent State he does not attend Kent State right he says their breakup
was pretty much mutual and it basically involved that they didn't see each other
very much they lived in two different locations and so they both agreed to break up it sounded like that Judy had
some other concerns maybe Jim partied too much or drank too much but According to Jim the breakup was mutual and I
couldn't really find any family or friends to go against that idea that the make up
the breakup was Mutual yeah but just because it's mutual at at one time doesn't mean it stayed that way he did
say that he would visit her on occasion at Kent State and when she was home on break or during the summertime the two
of them would hang out this is probably information backing up the idea that everybody puts forward that they
were on again off again well and also because she's resident staff that means she has her own room and she would have
been basically the hall monitor for her floor or a section of her floor so it it
does suck that we don't have a roommate that is able to back up Jim's claims what we do have though I I want to kind
of go out of my way to point this out is it sounds to me Captain like her family
her her remaining family and the friends that she had at the time MH are backing
up to police what this young man was saying now we should though make mental note of two things one his name because
we're going to be going through different names and different people during this
timeline but we should also make mental note that he was considered a suspect very early on in this case so the things
that he says or suspicions around him as you're pointing out Captain are important to this story but this brings
us to May 19th now this will be the last last day that Judy's mother talks to her
daughter on the phone and then we have May 23rd so note she disappeared on either the 23rd or 24th this is the last
time that Jim young the former boyfriend or John Young says that he talked with Judy on the phone now at 1:00 1 p.m.
approximately that afternoon James cratek reports seeing Judy in the prince Hall cafeteria
sitting with a another student named Kevin Greer Greer states that they were sitting in eating with Steve uh another
classmate named Steve no last name given and that kic borrowed coupons or meal tickets at this time from Judy Judy told
him to pay her back as she would be needing them by the end of the year I do want to point this out like this is just
a another one of those little tidbits one of those little indicators along the way that she was making plans she
probably wasn't planning on taking off or at least a statement of hey yeah I'll give you a meal ticket or two to cover
you for today but I need these back before the end of the year well it's similar like with the Brian shaver case
a lot of people go well why would Brian go missing from a bar when you look at the
Judy martins's case okay she leaves this party let's say roughly around 2 but nobody was in her dorm room for multiple
days correct so we don't know if she made it back to her dorm room so maybe she made it back and maybe on her answer
machine if there was one she had a message from some guy that she had a crush on it that said come out to
California and she decided to leave without a car but we don't know that all we know is that there wasn't really
really anything Disturbed in her dorm room right and just pointing out that there's nothing to indicate up to this
point that she wasn't planning on doing anything other than attending school for
the remainder of the year right so this brings us to about 300 p.m. that day when Judy leaves a note for Charles
Neville in his room and the note says that she stopped by when he was not there now I'm not certain here Captain
but from what I G Charles is a popular dude and may have been considered quite the catch back then so I'm not sure if
they were just friends or if there was something there but according to the investigation she dropped by roughly
around 300 p.m. that afternoon leaving a note for Charles that evening Judy goes
to dinner with one of her good friends and her name is Robin after dinner this is approximately 8:30 p.m Judy leaves
her friend Michelle Morgan's room telling her that she was going to see Charles Neville she said she might stop
back at the room after leaving Charles's place now Charles lives in the dorm rooms as almost everybody that we're
going to be mentioning did at the time right Kent State for example is not a highly commuted College a lot of a good
majority of the students live on campus at approximately 11: p.m. am this is where I think I really start to call
things into question but this is the information that the police have collected over the years at
approximately 11: p.m. Judy leaves her friend Robin's room in Engelman Hall dormitory she tells her that she is
going to Charles Neville's room after that Judy arrives at 233 Dunbar Hall stays there with Charles Neville and
John Becky this is in John's room Judy removes the wig sunglasses and trench coat at this time remember she's
playing dress up that night again around 11: p.m. approximately this is per Kevin
Greer who we've already mentioned Judy stops by to see if Bernie cafrey would be there but he's not home so she talks
to Bernie's roommate Leo robe for a minute or two and then goes to Charles Neville's room Leo r
says Judy was dressed quote like a hooker okay so the important thing here though to me Captain is now we have
multiple independent Witnesses placing our missing person in Dunbar Hall in the Dunbar hall building this is the male
dormatory yeah this is a all male dormatory so that doesn't seem to be really in question right we can question
what was going on or how things went down after this but it's not a question that she was there in that building at
11:00 and a little bit afterward yeah but here's what we don't know is we we're getting this information from
Robin right no this information is coming from all kinds of different sources independent sources so these
this is statements from Charles from Robin from James every person that we've mentioned so far on the 23rd all this
information is coming from them yeah but if you that's why you should let somebody
finish talking but this information is coming from Robin it's coming from Charles right what we don't know is what
were Charles initial statements I'd be interested to know that I'd be interested to know if they said hey well
we we believe that she visited you on the night she went missing and he said uh I don't remember or U I know I don't
think she did and then they got information from Robin and said hey well we got information from Robin that she
headed towards your dorm and then we got information from this other person that
she was here and then he comes forward you see what I'm saying like we we know what their statements are but we don't
know exactly how they got them yeah that's that's cool and the thing here is it's not really them coming forward you
know I I I know what you mean by that but I always kind of hate that statement right right because it sounds like they
went up and called the police station or knocked on the the front door and said hey I got a story to tell this is Kent
State Police going around and asking people did you see anything on the 23rd did you see anything on the 24th and
you're right we don't know the exact wording of questions that were first fired at any of these individuals but
from my understanding and the way that the information that we received reads to me is that these are all their
initial statements when first asked about that night and if anything changed when they
were questioned at a later date right it's noted in the information as well but also what's interesting too is we
have this isolated space that you would think and and we were kind of talking about this
off air before we started recording was this is 78 smoking in the 70s you could smoke in
the hospital buildings not all hospitals but a lot of them you could you were smoking in a lot of the schools so I if
I had to bet make a wager here I would put my money on smoking was allowed in the dorms yes and and I think that
becomes a big key here because if it wasn't allowed but there was still a lot of smokers that you would have a a
gathering outside of the male dorm room even though it'd be late but you know college students stay up pretty late so
there I think there would have been more eyewitnesses so if somebody would say hey there were smoking in the dorm rooms
I'd go well there's probably not going to be a bunch of people gathered outside or less people gathered outside to be
eyewitnesses once she left the all male dorm rooms well smoking or non-smoking aside you're really hitting on something
I think that's important here Captain where you're right this is May it was a warm night that
night she wasn't the only one going out and having a good time that night there's a lot of people going out and
having a good time that night and who knows how late they stayed up we know that there was not much schooling or
academic activity that was going to be taking place over the next several days so this was a time to kind of let loose
and if you were going to stay up or stay out till 3:00 or 4: in the morning this
sounds to me like this was a good night to do it at approximately mid night John
Becky who we've mentioned already says that he knocks on Charles Neville's door he and a friend are going to the 711 for
those that don't know what a 7-Eleven is it's a like a little convenience store little gas station also people know it
as Heaven There You Go Becky Returns the wig sunglasses and coat to Judy at this time per his
statement Becky reports that Judy is in quote good mental and physical condition
at this time May 24th at approximately 2:30 a.m. Charles Nevel says that this is the time that Judy leaves his room
now a weird note in our timeline and there are going to be several of these as we get further from her disappearance
but this is the first one and this takes place on May 24th so by all of the stories the information that we've
received in every story out there she goes missing sometime after leaving that male dormatory at 2:30
a.m. right this brings us to 1:30 p.m. on that same day so if all those stories are right she's already missing just not
reported missing at this time right we have another individual who is named David horning David says or reports to
police and this is where I think it's appropriate to say comes forward it sounds like this man came forward and
reports seeing a girl who matched Judy's description and clothing at the bus stop
near a sandwich shop he says a large yellow car pulled near the Stop and the girl either got in or was pulled in he
was not sure the car then abruptly pulled from the curb and went to the farle Lane it was then heading westbound
on Route 59 and I'm not saying that this this individual is lying whatsoever but it's not clear that he's
stating that he knew her before she went missing right there a guy that came forward after when the
gr hey we're looking for this girl he goes well I saw a girl that looks similar I would hold a lot more weight
to this eyewitness if he said I'm friends with her I'm friends with Judy yeah and I saw her get into a
car then at that point what do we know what we know is that she went back to her dorm she probably fell you know she
slept in her own bed the next day she took off with somebody around 100 p.m. 1:30 p.m. but this guy doesn't know her
he's not friends with her so he's going he well she look like the similar person
and so we have no clue if she ever made it back to her dorm room well and one thing that's really tricky in this case
here and again I mean we can keep circling around this but but I've not seen any information to suggest that she
ever made it home that night ever anywhere by by any of the investigating agencies any of her friends or family no
one's that seems to be one of the furthest things from speculation well I remember at some point and I could be
wrong but some of my buddies would live in like a all male dorm and then you'd have the all female dorm and then you
have a co-ed dorm but some of the dorms you actually had to sign in even though like you live there like you had to sign
in because it was past like midnight and they didn't have maybe somebody on guard
to see who was coming into the buildings yeah and that is very smart of you because that's one thing I was thinking
as well like would would there be a curfew because this was during the week would there be a curfew to get in or or
would you at least have to sign in or sign out and what I was told now again we're being told this 40 years later so
we can't hop in the DeLorean and and know 100% but from what I was told was that it was a pretty
casual laid-back atmosphere on campus that year and maybe even years after that I don't know if her going missing
changed some of that here becomes the problem with her going missing was like I said she's basically like the chaperon
on her floor so she would she would be one of those individuals if some other girl went missing on her floor they' be
going right to her right right to Judy and saying hey what did you see what do you know can you talk to these other
girls well not only that if there were someone to get away with not signing in she would be able to do that right the
uh statement about this this young man seeing somebody matching Judy's description either getting into a
vehicle or maybe she was pulled in he doesn't know for certain as you pointed out Captain you're very right he's
coming forward after the you know he's seeing missing persons flyers and one thing that that I thought was amazing
about this case you know we always have these little very unique details each one of these cases you would think that
at some point here in the garage after you've covered several hundreds of cases that at some point they just start
becoming carbon copies of one another where in Judy's case it was interesting to me that the story on the surface is
very similar to Brian schaer but then here we have this interesting unique portion to her case where she's playing
dress up the night that she goes missing right how freaking weird is that so they all become an amalgamation of like
a bunch of different cases so she when he says the the statement in the police file is someone matching or someone
matched Judy's description that this vehicle which description is it is it the description of her playing dress up
that night that's a great point or is it the description of her because she she looks very different that night than she
does the rest of the day and that is one thing that I found bizarre about this case because some of
the missing persons Flyers only had the picture from her from that night where she's wearing a freaking
wig you know like I mean this is a young beautiful college student and she looks
quite a bit different she looks quite a bit different in in both of those images
to me that's my opinion and we'll post all those photos on social media so follow us on Facebook Twitter and
Instagram True Crime garage if you want to see those photos the missing person's
flyers in this case that I liked the best or that I thought carried the most weight were the ones that had a a recent
photo of her as she would regularly look and a photo from that night because I think it's crucial here when you're
looking for someone this is how she looks when she's not in her little disguise or playing dress up that night
but these are the items that we expect to be with her or items that we might want to find because we can't locate her
well and like you said in her dorm there's no wig there's no glasses no fake leather purse right to me that's
more evidence that I can lean towards the fact that she never made it back to her
dorm right she's wearing contacts at night she's wearing sunglasses none of those things are ever found in in her
dorm now it's 2 days later as we said earlier but it's at 4:35 p.m. when the actual missing person's report is filed
by a Michelle Shabbat I believe is how you say her last name I probably got that wrong the report was taken by
detective Brandon of the Kansas the report was taken by the the report was taken by detective Brandon of
Kent State uh University PD the then Judy is reported missing to Avon Lake PD at about the same
time this is a weird part to the case as well May 27th the day after she's reported missing Judy's camera is
secured this is by the Kent State PD they obtain her camera pictures show how Judy was dressed that night so this
is interesting because we have the photos of Judy from the night that she went missing so how she looked that
night and what what she was wearing the wig and all that and what is missing from the police information here though
Captain is and this is really anyone's guess where and from whom did they get the
camera again you know we everything we have says that she didn't come home that night so did she leave this camera with
one of her female friends or a male friend after dinner or was it recovered from you know a female friend's dorm or
a male friend dormatory room well like we just don't know it's it's it's an answer that I would love to have yes and
I think there's a couple things one it could have been her dorm room or it could have been when she left her wig
and and other items in that other kid's dorm room and he return those items MH maybe he just didn't notice that she had
a camera there um and here's why I question that it could be from her dor room is it is it possible that
she had this outfit took some pictures of her in this outfit at some point in time and then just went hey I'm going
out to have fun tonight have a couple drinks with my buddies before I go on this trip and I'm
going to put on my zany outfit right I'm with you I think that from the information that I seene it sounds to me
like there's a a high probability this wasn't the first time that she wore that outfit or the wig or some version of
such but the other thing too is we know she was back at her dorm building after dinner hanging out with different
friends that she didn't go to dinner with so when we say she didn't go back to her dorm that night I really want to
underline and Echo what we were saying earlier that I mean that that once she went to the the male dorm building that
she didn't go back to her dorm that night I believe that after dinner she probably went back there because we know
she was in the building so why not stop by her own place if you need anything or
yes she may have dropped off her camera at that time not wanting to carry it around already taking pictures of her
and her friend hanging out before during or after dinner that's a very good point
and also maybe it's part of her responsibilities to then go and check on her floor and make sure there's nobody
reporting anything because that's part of their job I mean I I believe like I believe they actually get paid to
do that well on the following day on the 27th Judy is officially entered as a missing person so this is technically
now three days after she's gone missing the county jail the hospital and campus Health Center are all contacted to see
if she would be there for any reason at all and of course they received negative
results uh friends Michelle and Robin so this is the one friend that reported her
missing the one friend that went to dinner with her that night and Judy's mom along with Sergeant hunt of the Avon
Lake Police Department on the 27th they have like a group call a group phone call that goes
to Kent State PD and they basically ask what the f is going on in the investigation my guess here is because
they probably don't think that kspd is doing anything or actively investigating the missing person's case that they
think it's just another person that will turn up in a few hours or a couple days
well no and you see this look we always talk about oh this happened in a small town and this this law enforcement
agency is not equipped to hand handle this right mhm well that's what a campus is is a small town and yes Kent State
Police will know more about the nooks and crannies of their little Community than State Police or the local law
enforcement but they're not equipped to handle a missing person case like this like once you don't find
her and I'm not even in the 24-hour rule I'd say on a campus you don't find an individual in 12 hours this needs to be
handed over to the big boys well this is when uh Judy's mother says that she is going to call the media and I don't I
imagine this is like a threat of hey I don't think you're doing enough or doing anything and we're not it's not gone
unnoticed well and ask yourself this question if you were questioned by Kent State
Police or the sheriff department which one are you going to be more intimidated by in this case it would be the
sheriff's department you know what I mean it's like there's a lot of people when they're on campuses they don't take
even though they have what they are calling a police department and they can arrest you people don't take them as
serious they look at them more as like security guards than they do police officers look most of their work is
going to be busting up underage drinking parties or breaking up drinking parties
especially back in the late 70s catching people smoking pot smoking doobies um that kind of stuff so you're
right you're absolutely right on that now we said that there are going to be some weird things in the timeline and
here's another strange one on May 30th time unknown there's no time mentioned here um I imagine this is a person
coming forward after the fact after they witnessed this Deborah helmi claims to have seen Judy on Merill Circle near
Engelman and that's as far as that statement goes uh again on May 30th this is at approximately 900 p.m. Bill Jones
a resident of college Towers says that he saw a tall girl with long dark hair being led out of the main door of the
complex by two males he said that the female seemed spaced out and heard her saying quote I haven't been home since
Tuesday but she wasn't all that tall yeah you're you're right um 5'4 I would not consider that to be tall correct and
again I think with some of these sightings of Judy what I think we need to keep in mind is I don't think I think
that they're seeing young ladies that look similar they're just not seeing Judy and I think that these are just
people that are you know they see a missing person's flyer and they're trying to help you know I I saw this and
it's probably nothing but I want to make sure that I at least report it to the proper authorities and what did you call
them grouo pants is that what they're called I no I called them goucho pants and I don't know if that's correct
they're probably not called grouo Pants uh but I also wonder because if somebody
said to me oh well this guy went missing and he had a navy blue hoodie and then 3
days later I'm like oh I saw this guy with a navy navy blue hoodie but he wasn't he wasn't shorter he was a little
bit taller I would report it like where I'd feel like I had to because he had a similar item and like I said these were
kind of these were popular pants at the time so I wonder if there was some sightings just based off her clothing oh
I saw a girl with you know flanel shirt and in these uh goucho pants on May 30th
again no time given for this one Jim young the former boyfriend is contacted he agrees to an interview and is told to
make an appointment ASAP with a detective at 2 p.m on that same day an attempt to interview Charles Neville is
made but he isn't in his room detective Stanley instead finds John Becky who he then interviewed also on May 30th
officers interview Bernie cafrey in the hallway at 3:30 p.m. on the same day officers go to Jim kic's room they they
reinter him officers state it takes several minutes for him to answer or open the door the officer requested to
go into the room for privacy purposes and find an unidentified female in his room he repeats that he last Saw Judy at
11:30 to 12:30 on May 23rd 24th along with Kevin Greer well we know why it took him so long to answer the door and
put his pants back on also on the 30th Captain this is at 4:45 officers stopped by Charles
Neville's room remember we already mentioned that they went there to speak with him again earlier that day they
don't find him he's not home and they speak to Bernie Caffrey and Jim kic in the meantime so now they're going to
circle back to talk with Charles Neville again he is home at this time at 4:45 they enter Charles's room again
they probably asked if they could come in for privacy purposes privacy of the questions that they're going to ask and
they don't want right when you're interviewing people that may have been the last person or one of the last
people to see a missing person you don't want their story being broadcast to everybody else now do you no so they're
in Charles's room and officers stated that he repeated the same story that he told another detective so this would be
the second time that they spoke with him per this statement and they said that Charles during this visit speaks with
his mother and his brother of course this is going to be via phone I believe that his mother and brother are not only
in another state but I believe that they are in two different states themselves he states that his brother is an
attorney at the time or will be an attorney soon and after speaking with his family he agrees to a polygraph test
with the uh police department and Charles was read his rights at that time and given a statement
form and he stated that he would complete these later as he was cooking dinner so he agrees to the polygraph but
it's not going to be administered right then obviously they're in his room they give him a statement form to fill out
this would be like what's your official statement right write it out and sign it
this is kind of your sworn statement right basically we know you've talked to detectives but now we want you to write
down that same story and here we go with back to the old casual atmosphere of the
campus we have a missing person here's your statement form that I need you to fill out but it's okay if you get to it
later right right like we don't want you to burn your dinner here Charles or your
dong why don't you finish cooking have your dinner have nice night and give us a call when you've completed the form
and my problem with this is he's a person of interest because we're talking about what's happening 2 days after she
possibly goes missing what we do know is that she went out to dinner with a friend Robin they
she comes back she's in her her dorm building we know that because we have two different individuals stating that
they spoke with her there at that building and these these are two people that didn't go to dinner with her yeah
so is it possible that she sto by her room to freshen up or or to change clothes or to grab something and then
head over to this Charles guy's dorm and in the and look anybody that's been a part of dorm life when you're going to
go visit with somebody you could just be walking past a room and somebody pops out cuz they they spot you hey what's up
Captain what are you doing and you sit there and talk to them for a while or you
pass a couple people that you in class with and you go hey did you get homework done for the day or whatever so she runs
into some other people so we know she's in the all male dorm room and then we know that at some point she's in
Charles's room we know at some point she's in somebody else's room and then she goes back to Charles's room yep and
this is per Charles Neville and per these other individuals as well and and those were the good old days when you
just open up the door to your room room and on a night where there's a lot of activity and people out and about you
never know who's going to drop in who you're going to see or when a party's going to bust out in your place yeah
until you you know you get labeled icky flicky flicky and nobody wants to talk to you anymore so again
she's in the mail dorm room we don't have anybody that places her back into her dorm we don't have anybody that
places her outside heading towards her dorm room so look th then these individuals Charles John Jim Bernie and
Kevin they all become Persons of Interest and we need to know if their stories line up or if any of them have
any nefarious background I think those that's the starting point of the investigation but
like you said they're already going about it in such a such a lacad isical manner and top that off here captain
that will not be this will not be the end of the weird activities or the strange events that will take place in
this [Music] timeline so much more to get to to check out our blog go to True Crim
garage.com and please join us back back here tomorrow in the garage until then be good be kind and don't
[Music] litter you can start your day off right when you find a professional on Angie to get
your plumbing right first connect with skilled professionals to get all your home projects done well
visit angie.com you can do this when you Angie that

Missing on Campus /// Part 1 /// 522

Part 1 of 2

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This week in the Garage we discuss a case that may be old but it’s far from cold. Law Enforcement agencies are still investigating the mysterious disappearance of Kent State student Judy Martins. Judy was 22 years old when she was last seen. Anyone with any information please call the U.S. Marshal's Office @ 1-866-4-WANTED, that's 1-866-492-6833.

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Brief Summary

Judy Martins, a Kent State student, vanished in 1978 after a night out, with her case remaining unsolved for decades.

Key points

The Disappearance of Judy Martins. A promising college student vanishes after a night out, leaving behind unanswered questions.
Confusion Surrounds Judy's Plans. Conflicting stories emerge about Judy's intentions on the night she went missing.
The Night Judy Went Missing. Judy was last seen leaving a party on May 24, 1978, but her whereabouts remain a mystery.
Investigation Challenges. Initial police response was lackluster, impacting the investigation's effectiveness.
Lost Evidence. The case file for Judy's disappearance was lost or destroyed, complicating the investigation.
Eyewitness Account. A witness reported seeing a girl matching Judy's description at a bus stop.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Lost but never found.

Summarizing the fate of Judy Martins.

6:09WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

55/ 100Some tension

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