Nancy Eagleson /// Murder Investigation /// 609 | Forensic Files

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welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me
as always is a man that is here to sprinkle a little magic dust on the situation here is the captain this magic
dust has my allergies going nuts it's good to be seen and good to see you thanks for list listening thanks for
telling a [Music] friend this week we are very excited to be featuring instant Snowman from the
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True Crime garage.com Colonel that is enough for the business all right everybody gather
around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true [Music] crime [Music] we cover these kinds of stories from
time to time and it never gets any easier stories that involve the senseless murder of children last week
we told the True Crime tale of an innocent little child walking to church no less taken off the streets just a
couple of blocks from her home and then executed her body discovered just a few hours later in a Ravine and a forest
preserve what kind of monster could shoot a little girl in the head then just one day later and two
states away two girls walking home one of them is grabbed and stolen in the night just four houses away from her
own she met a similar fate as the first girl was found just a short drive from where she was
abducted what kind of monster could kidnap one sister in front of the other and in plain view of so many houses only
to leave her body in the cold dark woods the answer in both cases is the kind of monster who was
left to walk around a free man while early on it seems investigators were looking for a
connection between the two murders but after a few days they failed to find one and so the two homicide
investigations parted and went their separate ways police in Chicago landed on the
theory that a local man who likely committed several similar crimes was probably responsible for the murder of
the little girl who never made it to church that Saturday morning in Ohio the sheriff and the
people of the Tiny Town of paing could never quite agree was it a local man or someone driving through who spotted two
sisters walking in the dark and then forever took one away the individuals responsible for these
heinous acts never paid for these crimes not these crimes anyway now today we continue to look for
these monsters because even if they themselves are dead Justice still has not been
served on that terrible weekend back in November of 1960 evil one twice this is true crime
[Music] [Applause] [Music] garage [Music] [Applause] like last week we told you about the
horrifying abduction and murder of two girls Gloria kallwitz in Chicago who was just 9 years old and also Nancy eagle
son a 14-year-old from paing Ohio early on the two murder investigations shared the same suspect this was 17-year-old
Robert Lee stovel who was questioned about both murders extensively this after he was arrested in Indiana found
by police there sleeping in a stolen car the car he was found in was reported stolen from the Chicago area police
wondered if Robert had stolen the car and killed the girl in Chicago before leaving the state and while traveling
through Ohio spotted Nancy and was also responsible for her murder all before turning around and heading back to
Illinois police determined that Robert stoil lived in Jacksonville Illinois and was recently released from the State
Mental Hospital there this of course did not go along with Robert Lee sto's Story
who first told officers that he lived in Montrose Michigan Michigan and was a mechanic for the General Motors
Corporation when he was arrested for the stolen vehicle the state trooper discovered blood stains on the inside of
stovall's coat and on his trousers and that is how he found himself involved in not one but two homicide investigations
Robert Lee stovel had a lot of miles on him for a 17-year-old he looked a little too
rugged and too dirty for 17 and frankly probably could have passed for 23 or 24 years of age he was described as a
goateed beatnik type and he told officers what they called fantastic stories about his whereabouts that
weekend he told police that the car was not stolen and in fact he had borrowed it from his sister or maybe it was his
sister's boyfriend but of course it wasn't his sister or even her boyfriend's vehicle the car was in fact
a stolen car he told police that his clothing became Blood Stained in a Tavern brawl in Detroit investigators
took note of stovel having been a patient at the mental hospital and described him as a psychopathic liar
sto's clothing was sent to the Chicago crime laboratory for examination Robert leoville was charged
with aotto leny but he quickly and quietly Fades from the newspapers and both murder investigations without the
public being told exactly why but we can look at these cases and arrive at some possible
conclusions last week here in the garage the intention was to solely focus on and
explore the Nancy eagleson murder the Ohio case in just two episodes however Gloria's case is a part of the story and
again still unsolved so that warranted fur further examination to tell a more complete story we decided to go to four
episodes and take a really good look at both cases this week we will really be focusing in on Nancy eagleson's case so
why would the authorities move on from Robert Lee stovel in both murder investigations well consider the
evidence stoval is arrested about 5 miles east of leaport Indiana so proximity doesn't really put him up
front and center on either murder or doesn't but the car he was found sleeping in was reported stolen from
Chicago so the car puts him at the center of Gloria's case correct but in Gloria's case they also have a decent
amount of evidence remember that they have a finger and or palm print we say either because it was reported both ways
from all that I have reviewed I believe that it's likely that they had both a fingerprint and a part partial palm
print this was found on the victim's purse there was a tire track found at the scene where Gloria's body was
recovered we know the blood stained clothes were being examined and stoval shoes were sent off for analysis as well
they were checking mud from the shoes law enforcement knows he's from Illinois and now he's saying he got in this bar
fight in Detroit well he'd have to go through Ohio to get to Detroit exactly so with this evidence they would have
ways of not necessarily clearing stoo but they may have ways of moving on from him from glorious murder because of the
evidence now one real troubling thing about stoval being a good suspect in Nancy eagleson's case is the timing of
everything the captain just pointed out that the car was stolen in Illinois and then he says he was up in Detroit he
would have had to go through Ohio at some point and unfortunately Northwest Ohio is where he would need to travel
through and Nancy eagleson was murdered in northwest Ohio but the troubling thing for him to
be a good suspect in nany's case again is the timing the reports are not really clear here on what time Robert Lee
stovel was picked up by police in Indiana just that it was Sunday night well we know that Nancy was abducted at
approximately 7:40 to 7:50 p.m. that SU right I'm not really wondering about what time he was arrested there because
leaport is not terribly far from Pauling but time and distance alone could potentially eliminate stoval from
having committed the Nancy eagleson homicide to give a little more perspective depending on current day
routes from paing to 5 miles east of leaport where he was picked up it's about a 2hour and 30 minute to closer to
a 3 hours drive so if he's picked up 30 minutes 1 hour or 90 minutes after Nancy
was abducted it makes it very difficult nay impossible for stovel to be responsible
for ny's murder the other thing too is he tells the story of being involved in a bar fight in Detroit Michigan and I
know they are calling him a liar and he's been telling these air quotes fantastic stories but is there a chance
that upon further checking law enforcement is able to determine that yes he was in a bar fight in Michigan
why or whatever the cause police in both cases moved on from Robert Lee stovel well just because he's a known
Psychopathic liar doesn't mean that he's a psychopathic killer why or whatever the cause police in both cases moved on
from Robert leoville so will we as well so the next item on our Nancy the eagleson investigation timeline is a
strange one Captain this is when it is reported that quote authorities admitted their investigation of the slanging of
Nancy eagleson was pretty well at a standstill note the date of this statement this is on November 16th Nancy
was killed on the 13th the body was found in the small hours of the 14th how are we already at a standstill right is
this the sheriff telling us less than 72 hours into the investigation that the case has already gone cold or maybe he's
telling us that he's incompetent you have to wonder is this comment more in direct relationship to connecting the
two cases that we've already discussed well that's a good point the koala witz case in Chicago and the paing case of
Nancy eagleson and then the suspect Robert Lee stovel altogether because he's in the news quite a bit for those
first two days he Fades from the news and it's at this same time that we have the sheriff this is Sheriff Keeler in
Pauling Ohio saying the case is pretty much at a standstill well even if this is where you're at cuz look you know
there's that show you just brought it up off air the show The First 48 The First
48 being the most important well yeah I guess they're really important in this case but even if you came to a
standstill after a couple days you don't need to address this to the media yeah this is something that you write in your
notes to not say yeah to the newspaper reporters and what's funny do not tell them we don't know what we're doing we
got nothing in our investigation and what's interesting too is the Articles themselves are quite short so there's no
room for explanation as to what that statement means what it's in direct relationship to and I'm sure that's the
trouble right when you when you speak to somebody else and you're talking about an investigation or you're talking about
something as important as this you are then relying on them to understand that information correctly and then deliver
it properly to the audience and who knows Sheriff Keeler may have gone into great description and great detail about
what he meant and what he was talking about and those words just failed to make it to the Articles right so we got
to look at it and say well maybe Keeler did know what he was doing maybe the person that wrote the article painted
him in a poor light or didn't know what they were doing all right Captain so should we do a review of the timeline
simply because it's been a few days since most people have listened to ny's case or should we do a review of The
Evidence first I'm going with what's behind door number one let's start with the timeline I like it I like it I'll
tell you what why don't we do kind of both at the same time considering that we just pointed out not too long ago how
the timeline can be evidence itself well that wasn't the options you gave me right so Captain approved due abides
let's move on whatever you want the timeline is as such November 13th 1960 around 2 p.m. Nancy and her sister leave
home to see a movie after this movie the girl stopped for a soft drink and then went to the bowling alley before heading
home on foot this is in the 700 p.m. hour closer to 8:00 p.m. the two girls notice a car is following them the car
stops to ask them if they would like a ride and we know that Nancy the older sister who's 14 explains to the driver
no we are getting close to our home we are only a few houses away M between 7 :40 p.m. and approximately 7:50 p.m.
Nancy is abducted by the man driving the car right in front of her sister Cheryl
Cheryl is very little at this time she's only 5 years old she says that the man threw Nancy into the back seat of his
car let's examine this this is very bizarre to me we know from covering so many of these cases that the perpetrator
especially in an abduction what they want to do is control their victim this man does not want Nancy to
escape this man wants to control her yet according to our surviving witness the man threw her into the back
seat of the car and of course he's going to have to drive the car from the front
seat this complicating the situation of trying to control her as he's fleeing from the abduction scene well it's
possible that there's somebody in the back seat that she didn't see that is one thing that I always thought there
could there be somebody that was maybe lying down or concealing themselves in some Manner and helping and assisting
and this wasn't just a single purpetrator that there was more than one person involved the other thing too that
we also have to consider is this is a lot of things happening very quickly Cheryl explained to us us two garage
guys here that she was already afraid when she felt the presence of the vehicle following them and so maybe the
memory's not spot on maybe it's not 100% that is her story that's what she stuck to for all of these years so we
just have to believe it but she was five she was 5 years old and again terrified
at the situation yeah and you can't blame her if her memory isn't correct if she doesn't remember every detail my my
thought would be is this a two-door car or a four-door car the witness Cheryl she says that it was a four-door vehicle
because that makes more sense on tossing her in the in the back because it'd be easier to
actually do that anybody with a two-door car knows that you'd have to lift up the
seat and you know move things around just to get into the back seat and maybe has he set up this situation so that his
car is kind of rigged like a police car where if you put somebody in the back seat they can't open the doors anyway
right I mean we know that other perpetrators other Killers have outfitted their vehicles or Rigg them up
so that the passenger or the victim or the abducted person is at a significant disadvantage once they are inside the
vehicle Ted Bundy altered his vehicles in many different ways right Edmund keer did something as simple as taking a
little chapstick a little you know one of the little chapstick things and wedging it
down in the door handle so when you tried to pull open the door using the handle it wouldn't go all the way you
couldn't pull it open all the way and get you know allowing the vehicle door to open and and maybe this killer had a
destination spot because like we know she was found not that far from where she was
abducted so was it let me put her in the back seat I'll drive as fast I can to that
spot and then I get out of the car to controller so after midnight on the 14th this is around 2 a.m. ny's body is found
by hunters now let's pause and hone in on this for a minute right the abduction location was in a housing area of State
Route 111 the spot where Nancy was taken from was well lit she was abducted in full view of seven houses the state
route runs between the Indiana state line and the City of Defiance Ohio most of this route is a rural two-lane
Highway and passes through both farmland and Residential Properties the body recovery location is a rural wooded area
near junct Ohio so ny's body was found by hunters approximately 100 ft off of paing County Road
176 this is just 7 miles from ny's home and the abduction location right and as we explained last week this road takes a
couple of Curves but it's pretty much a straight shot if you stayed on Route 11 and just didn't turn left to continue on
to Route 111 because it cuts the and it goes left if you just went straight ahead you're now on paen County Road 176
so it's essentially the same road now what is weird here Captain is I walked the abduction scene with Cheryl
and she explained everything as she remembered it from that horrible night back in 1960 right then afterward she
got in her car I got mine and and I followed her to where the body was recovered and I had a friend riding
shotgun with me and we had two very different opinions on the distance between the two locations I thought that
it was a very quick drive I was like shockingly surprised at how quick it seemed like we went from abduction site
to where the body was later recovered right so so quick in such a short distance that I was really surprised
that somebody that was committing such a horrible crime and that would want to get away with it would would not have
driven further or to a more this is a a secluded location but again because you're essentially on the exact same
road it doesn't feel so secluded the person that was riding shotgun with me thought that it seemed like a very long
drive so two very different perspectives and my friends said that they were just
picturing themselves being in the backseat of this criminal this murderer's car mhm and being scared
being terrified and they felt that the minutes felt like much more well question for you were you talking to
your friend as you did this drive because briefly I was more looking around and trying to make some
observations I was going to say maybe your story was a little long-winded and they're like oh man this is a this is a
long trip but it was as we got close like I was unsure of the exact location of where they recovered the body right
and when I saw the brake lights come on and I saw Cheryl her vehicle stop in front of me and park to the side of the
road that's that's when it occurred to me I was like oh snap we're there already this is that was incredibly fast
and I had seen it and reviewed it prior on a map right so I knew we weren't going a great distance but it just
seemed like a like a two-minute drive and according to Cheryl's statement when the guy took off with Nancy in the back
seat he speeds off so this dude was likely traveling much faster than I was again I was a little shocked that that
the perpetrator didn't go further but again as you pointed out last week Captain there could be another crime
scene that we are unaware of he could have in fact taken her to another location
and then brought her and and disposed of her in the area where she was found looking at the scene and and being
told what I was told from the family as far as what they found back in 1960 it looks to me like my gut feeling says no
that he abducted Nancy rushed off to that spot that spot may have been predetermined may not have been
predetermined by our killer but the way that they described the what would have been probably tire
tracks and they found paint on a tree stump that was located near her body they believed at the time that the paint
may have come from the perpetrator's vehicle that he didn't see the tree stump we're talking there are no lights
out there even today right let alone 1960 and that he likely didn't see the tree stump and either hit it with his
vehicle brushed up against it somehow leaving paint from his vehicle to the tree stump one thing that's a pisser
here though my friend is nobody seems to be able to recall what color paint it was I was told it might be this color it
might be that color I'm choosing to leave out both of those colors because nobody seems to be certain as to what
color it could have been we have our witness Cheryl who said that it she believed it was either a black car or a
dark green car now neither of those colors match up with the color of paint that people thought it could have been
back in 1960 yeah it definitely seems like a possible misstep in this investigation but if it's 7 miles away
and this murderer is driving high speeds it's going to take him less than 7 minutes to get there so I would go with
you on the idea that it's a that's a shorter ride but again we don't know if they went somewhere else let's go back
to we're throwing the victim in the car we don't know if there's anybody in the car to control her is it possible that
she started fighting him off and he had to pull over very likely that he lost control of the victim and he had to pull
over to straighten out the situation and again that would mean that this was a location that he didn't determine in
advance we know that Criminal are typically you know nobody likes when I say this I don't know why but uh I I
find that the majority of criminals typically are rather dumb and who knows this could have been an impulsive act he
sees two girls walking alone he's not really planned anything out grabs one of them drives off with the intention of
going to a specific location but as you said she starts to fight him off he starts to lose control of the situation
and says oh I got to stop the car here th this is one of those crimes where you review it and you can
argue five six seven points of reason that say this was a premeditated well-thought out crime and then on the
very flip of all those items that you just list there you could say well that points to an impulsive crime a crime
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[Music] [Applause] 50% all right we are back mates cheers to the people in the front to the back
side he's back I'm back people are laying on the ground in the air pants on the ground pants on the ground looking
like a fool or looking very cool that's what I thought or maybe you should be arrested
if you're pantser I was looking very cool with my pants on the ground let's continue on this uh timeline and the set
of evidence while we're going through this evidence and this timeline I want to make sure that we take a little bit
of a stop here to kind of hone in on what Cheryl's description was of the the man now one thing that I did not
appreciate in my research of this case the sheriff Keeler he's a weird dude because I've asked a lot of people about
Sheriff Keeler and remember he is the main investigator here he's he's leading the investigation he was out searching
for Nancy that night that she was abducted and it's a mixed bag man half the people you talk to tell you that
sheriff Keeler was the greatest man that ever lived and that the the town of Pauling and the county of Pauling are
better for having a sheriff like him and then there's other people that you talk
to and they say it's a bit of a weasel yeah squeez in the juice bit of a guy that you might not trust so I think it
will be fair even though keeler's not here to present his side of the argument I think it will be fair to examine some
of his actions throughout this investigation because we are sitting here 62 years later with an unsolved
case one thing I did not appreciate that Keeler did was the following he said to
the papers at the time this is just days after the abduction and the murder of Nancy eagleson the newspapers say that
Cheryl's description of the suspect is limited though he may have been wearing glasses in fact a quote attributed to
the sheriff at the time says quote we only know two things for sure it was a man and he drove an automobile I do not
appreciate this because one thing that we do have is Cheryl claiming that the suspect wore glasses and she's not she's
not willy-nilly about this this is something she told the sheriff that night when Nancy was abducted this is
something she told her parents and everyone willing to listen in 62 years later she still says the man was wearing
glasses well not and not to be silly or nitpicky here but this is also at dusk so this kidnapper would not be wearing
sunglasses that she would be mistaken you know she is saying glasses exactly somebody that's driving with
glasses to me means somebody that probably needs glasses 24/7 very likely and so I don't
really appreciate him taking away that one detail I mean that's a that's a pretty vital detail if you ask me when
we say hey we're worried about the description we're getting from our eyewitness we know one thing for sure
Cheryl knows one thing for sure 100% this man that night was wearing glasses now she did tell me she said Nick
there's a chance that he had disguised himself maybe he was wearing them just because he knew he was going out looking
to take somebody and that's a good point but let's not steer away from the fact that
the man was wearing glasses is that night yeah it could be Again part of a disguise we're going to wear glasses
this will throw them off the scent but this sketch we'll post it on Instagram and Facebook and and Twitter this sketch
is to me the eyes hit you right away very dead eyes doesn't put me in the mind frame of a younger perpetrator 17
to 20 this puts me to to me late 20s mid-30s yeah you know we have that old joke that we reference from time to time
here in the garage that back in the 1960s men either looked like two men either they looked like the Zodiac or
they looked like Charles Manson yeah this is this is much more zodiac yep short hair uh shorter hair and the
sketch we're holding in front of us has glasses on one sketch no glasses on the other sketch but this man is wearing a
suit and tie dressed almost in his Sunday's best uh short hair he looks like a like an ugly version of PeeWee
Herman to me kind of an older uglier PeeWee Herman ping Mr Herman and we'll put these suspect composite sketches
that to my knowledge have never been released to the public which again is a bit of a misstep Mak any sense they may
have obviously you know with the case being 62 years old we can only review so much or or can only get our hands on
certain things as some things are just certainly lost to time but everything I've reviewed everything the captain's
reviewed we've not seen these being released to the public anywhere so it's a little if if they have not been
released it's long overdue because you were looking for this guy Cheryl says this is the guy you are looking for now
in the profile picture the man looks a little more distinguished little more proper than
the hair might be a little bit longer than expected when you look at the front view of the suspect but again we will
post these on Instagram and Twitter so that you can put your own eyeballs on them and see
what Sherl says that she saw yeah to me they they look like two different people
I agree I agree like when I see the front view and then I flip to the profile I that's not exactly it's not
completely off but it's not exactly what I was picturing the profile to look like
after seeing the front view there was some evidence and last week we kind of complained about the lack of finding
tire tracks both situations the abduction scene and where nany's body was recovered from one would think that
there would be tire tracks and we know law enforcement are very good at looking for cars they are very good at looking
for cars and very knowledgeable about Vehicles tires uh vehicle lights and things of that nature so I think that
was a misstep if if in fact they failed to collect those nowhere in the file does it say that they had any tire
tracks or collected them again we know that the scene where they found the body there were a lot of people in and out of
that scene they really didn't secure the scene but some things that were collected in this case were two pieces
of a dress and a jacket with blood on them these were Nam FES they found a scarf her purse shoes her bra her
underclothes garter belt a necklace they found some of her hair on a lwh hanging tree
branch and here's the things that are kind of missing though some things that you would expect to find or have as your
evidence we know that a very thorough autopsy was conducted how however nowhere in the list of evidence do they
say anything about fingernail clippings Captain just brought up the fact that our victim was probably fighting this
man in the vehicle probably fighting him at the scene the final scene and fighting him during the course of the
sexual assault we could have very good suspect evidence underneath her fingernails now
just because there's no mention of these on any evidence list doesn't mean that they never existed but from what we can
say and see today it looks like the finger fingernails were never collected yeah
another misstep the other thing too is we are told time and time again that this was a rape and a murder well
there's no mention of Sean samples MH which we know in 2022 would solve this case right away
yeah it'd be uh a very quick got moment one thing that we did have is that they believe that the type of
weapon used to kill Nancy was a 22 caliber gun this based off of some evidence that we find in the autopsy
where it says quote around the base of the brain is found a fragment of a lead jacketed bullet it goes into some
measurements there and it says it is roughly Arrowhead in shape and appears to be about 22 caliber so yeah she is
abducted on the 13th just 3 days later on the 16th law enforcement and saying hey we're at a
standstill which look look there's not a lot of witnesses to this crime but you'd think
in this neighborhood more people would have seen this vehicle and maybe they could have followed more of those leads
but maybe they worked every lead that they had and once they made these announcements to the public maybe they
thought well come 14th and 15th we're going to get a ton of leads and they just didn't I don't like their
statements I don't think I would have put that out to the public but maybe they thought if we put that out to the
public somebody's going to come forward to help us maybe if we show a little desperation right it will light a fire
and people come forward and help us out I agree that it who knows what the strategy was if there was a strategy in
that statement again we don't know what the sheriff told the reporter and what what didn't make it into the newspaper
article one big question of course when we talk about a village this small a county with a very low population is
people wanted to know did Nancy potentially know who her killer was was the murder simply a way to cover up the
abduction and the rape was the killer from outside of paing Ohio outside of the community or was the killer somebody
known to Nancy known to the area was the killer is this the Killer's first or last
murder these things we don't know so when we investigate and we look at these pieces of evidence we have to question
do they suggest that this is a man from outside of the area or a local man now one thing that was told to us from the
family are two things in my opinion that would strongly strongly suggest that this was in fact a local man that
abducted and killed Nancy the family says that on the night of the Abduction the phone lines were cut at the eagleson
home now I've not seen this reported in any newspaper I've not seen it in the police file I've not seen it reported
anywhere else but the family has said to me that on that night the phone lines were cut that would suggest that this
was a premeditated abduction and somebody already had start to set things into motion before Nancy was even
abducted the second and this is one that is you know I want to be clear here I'm not
questioning what the eagleson family is saying and and sitting here going well do do I believe them or do I not believe
them I I have no reason to not believe them but this second portion seems even more credible because this is said by
several different people more than one source says that Cheryl the iwitness who witnessed her sister being abducted was
almost taken in what they believe to be a botched abduction attempt that took place about 3 weeks after nany's
death according to the eagleson family someone tried to come in the back door of their home and grabed the little girl
the lock was jimmied or the door was jammed open with a screwdriver there was visible physical
damage to the door what a scary scene now Cheryl thankfully was not abducted and
not taken right but that would strongly suggests that hey I've got to shut up this person the one person that saw me
do this the one person that knows who did this that could identify me that could pick me out of a lineup is still
alive and oh by the way I'm a local person I know where she lives I'm going to go and shut her up yeah or what if
we're out in public and she sees me can she identify me or is he connected to the family somehow and knows that hey at
a family party she's going to see me or hear me or something might trigger her to scream bloody murder and maybe
Sheriff Keeler was a Sly dog maybe he was a little wiser than we're giving him credit for maybe he was Dirty Dog maybe
he was playing koi right maybe he was just posturing for the papers and as we said maybe he's acting desperate so that
the public will come and help his investigation because you take that statement and then you look behind the
scenes and you see that no this case was far from a stand still and in fact they
wanted to see if they could extract more information from their eyewitness Cheryl
would be the key to finding this killer if she could tell you things like the license plate if she could tell you give
you a a very good description of the vehicle or a better description of the perpetrator now one thing that they did
in an attempt to extract this information and help her to remember better is they subjected Cheryl to
several hypnosis sessions and I've taken some notes from those sessions and these were conducted
within weeks of the murder and from her statements while under hypnosis we learn that this is
what she's remembering that the suspect's vehicle was facing the same way that the girls were
traveling one person was in the vehicle she says the suspect was alone from what
she could see the suspect was wearing a white shirt wearing black clothes and black glasses he was skinny with black
hair and when asked to give an age she doesn't provide an age for the suspect but she does say that he appeared to be
older than my dad older than my father and she also says that the man was not wearing a hat the vehicle was all one
color and she describes it as both black but also said that she thinks that it could be green green a dark green the
lights were off as she remembers and she says that it was a new or newer car it was a
four-door vehicle the black clothing that the suspect was wearing she says is black pants and a short coat black shoes
she says not boots black shoes and that the man had to walk around the car she actually says that he walked around the
front of the car and then after the abduction in the hypnosis sessions she's saying that after the abduction he drove
toward town so there's some conflicting stories just within Cheryl's story itself in some versions of her story she
says that the man pulls up abducts Nancy and then drives off continuing going the
direction that the girls were walking which would be heading out of paing heading away from paing under hypnosis
in one of the sessions she says that the man actually pulled up up said something
to the girls went away drove away from puling then turns around comes back and then that's when he abducts Nancy now
his vehicle's facing the opposite direction and when he speeds off with Nancy he is heading back into town so
that part's a little unclear but again we're getting one statement from her when she is
awake and other statements when she's under hypnosis but this leads to our timeline of law enforcement getting a
new suspect in December this is a weird story this almost sounds like something out of an old movie where we have a man
his name is Virgil Johnson and in fact we kind of know a little bit about Virgil Johnson already remember we said
that Nancy and her little sister stopped off at a restaurant a locally owned restaurant to grab some sodas sitting
there in the restaurant chatting with people sipping sodas before they walk off to the bowling alley well the owner
of that restaurant that they stopped off to have these sodas is Virgil Johnson so
Virgil Johnson becomes a suspect if you will in the minds of the public right maybe not so much in the minds of the
sheriff or law enforcement but the way that this story goes is that he Virgil Johnson is hearing
rumors that they have a suspect and the suspect is a local businessman well what he does not
realize for a couple of days anyway is that that suspect is him he is the local businessman that the public are talking
about as being the killer of Nancy eagleson right but any of the places that they stopped on their walk home
people are going to say we should look into those those individuals of course but again we have people in town openly
discussing Virgil Johnson as the man who killed Nancy eagleson maybe he was a little bit of odd
duck well part of this may have come from a statement that says that Virgil's wife said that she found blood on his
clothing and that he explained that so there was blood found in the back of his vehicle and there was blood found on his
clothing according to this statement now the blood in the back of his car is very questionable right because we
talked about this last week where some people have suggested that Nancy was not killed where she was found some people
suggest and believe that there is evidence that may point to her actually being killed in the vehicle that
abducted her right and then the body transported 100 ft off of the road and laid in the woods if that's true that we
would see a lot of blood in that vehicle from my understanding Virgil Johnson says well of course there's blood in my
vehicle I own a restaurant and I'm regularly picking up beef you know a big side of beef you know items from the
butcher shop that is miles away and driving them to my restaurant and the blood found on
my clothing is from unloading these items from the car now that seems somewhat reasonable given that it's 1960
and that he is in fact the restaurant owner we don't know if this Blood was ever tested or even collected to be
tested it sounds to me or at least the way that the story goes is that the vehicle was cleaned up by the time he
becomes a suspect right the other interesting thing though is remember he's hearing these rumors cuz people are
openly talking about him being the person that killed Nancy eagleson for several days and then he realizes oh
they're talking about me right I better do something about this but if they're not looking into him until a week later
you can't say it's suspicious that his car is clean because some people that's their weekly routine especially back
then well this is early December so we've we have a minimum of two weeks that have passed by this time and we
don't have an exact day I did have I did I do know what the day is uh I failed to
put it in my notes but I put it down as early December because what's weird here
Captain is well stepping into my office cuz you're fired again he does not appear to be a suspect per law
enforcement this is a local suspect this is the public thinking this dude did it
he goes to the sheriff and says everybody in town saying that I killed Nancy eagleson and so the sheriff
decides he starts hearing rumors that the towns people have decided that Virgil Johnson did it and they're going
to go get Justice them damn selves they're going to go find Virgil Johnson and they're going to Lynch him up in the
center of town so Sheriff Keeler decides you know what I'm going to have to put your butt in jail not because I think
you did anything just so that these people don't come in here and kill you so he throws Virgil Johnson in jail and
then he comes out and tells the village of paing and all of paing County I Sheriff Keeler I've checked into Virgil
Johnson he's not the guy we we subjected him to a lie to detector test he passed
the poly and therefore he is not a suspect do not harm this man and they publicly
announced that Virgil Johnson is cleared as being the killer of Nancy eagleson that he's innocent yeah and if he's
hearing these rumors then you know law enforcement is and then once you start hearing these other rumors of let's take
him to the middle of the town and and and hang him well you better start doing your due diligence very quickly
and and so yeah I I wish they' do that more in cases I mean look at the deli case I think there's a lot of suspects
that have been identified publicly that they could have came out and and ruled out or in you know by late December of
1960 the reward fund for information about ny's murder was increased to $6,595 that would be the equivalent of
approximately $65,000 to day that's a lot of money for a small town this reward money was
raised by businesses businessmen and other community leaders and in hopes of solving the Nancy eagleson murder in
January of 1961 this is where we start to see the case kind of drag on you know we talk so much about how the first 48
are so important to any murder investigation well also the first two weeks the first two months now we're
getting outside of that world and we're getting beyond that because in January of
1961 Sheriff Keeler is trading and swapping information with a town up in Michigan that experienced a similar
murder right so this is where we need to make sure that we give Sheriff Keeler some well-deserved Kudos give him an old
attaboy right because this is one thing that most law enforcement agencies did not do in 19 even in 1980 or 1970 let
alone 1960 this guy's reaching out to other agencies other law enforcement agencies
and comparing notes and saying hey what happened there we had something that happened here that's similar let's
discuss let's see if we're talking about the same perpetrator or is there things
in your case in your investigation that you got right or got wrong and we can learn from that here and apply that to
what we are doing and ping Ohio so we got to give him some credit for reaching out and discussing this with other
agencies and other jurisdictions because again that is stuff that just did not happen back in that day well reaching
out to other jurisdictions other departments locking this guy up clearing people all this Hoopa that's going to
bring us to another suspect yes this is a grown man his name is Thomas ball and the reason that he becomes on the police
radar and this is to be clear a law enforcement suspect not a public suspect he gets on to sheriff keeler's radar
because in 1961 in February Thomas ball is charged with the rape of Janet Bergstrom in Defiance County
Ohio now they're looking at him he's charged with this rape with this assault he's about 30 31 years of age at this
time and so they start looking at him at in the Nancy case because they see some
similarities in their cases now where I will say that I don't think Keeler did a
great job on this case is that we will see again here he questions Thomas Paul about the Nancy eagleson case he
subjects Thomas ball to a lie detector test and ball according to Keeler passes the ply
and he is publicly cleared the sheriff comes forward and tells everybody this man was not involved in Nancy eagleson's
case the problem with this is this really seems to be their only one of their few options back then in 1960
especially when they didn't feel like they had great evidence in nany's case so they're using polygraph examinations
to determine whether they should continue to to investigate an individual for her murder or if they should move
on from the individual in nany's case and so they are publicly clearing People based off of the results of these
polygraph tests which we still do in some jurisdictions they still do to this day and the captain and I don't like it
now and we don't like it back in 1960 either because experts would tell you that the
individual that was capable the type of individual capable of abducting raping and executing a child very likely could
feel no remorse very likely would not be nervous at all about your questions and
very likely could look you in the eyes and tell you whatever it is that you want to hear tell you whatever story
will get them out of the room from you and their heartbeat their heart rate won't
budge at all well I like giving somebody a polygraph test to see like it's a barometer really are they telling us the
truth on anything are they being are they telling tall tales about everything or just a few things just to give a
barometer of where this person is but in no way shape or form should you be clearing anybody of the murders because
of these tests especially somebody like Thomas ball so the the charges for the rape and the assault that took place in
Defiance County Ohio were eventually dismissed right and that is what gets him onto the police radar in paon County
right they look at him for Nancy eagleson's murder they give him the polygraph test he passes it and Sheriff
Keeler says cleared and we move on but here's why you don't move on from somebody like Thomas ball because in
1963 in September he lured a 19-year-old girl into his hotel room in Detroit Michigan and then stabbed and killed
that 19-year-old and so in 1964 he's convicted of that murder yeah this guy's a psychopath he's capable of anything
really he gets sentenced to 20 to 40 years in prison and then in 1976 after serving 12
years he's moved to a psych facility in Detroit which he escapes from and then he mov moves down to
Tennessee where he remains there undercover undetected until 2006 he's living under the name of
Thomas fry down in Tennessee and one day police hello show up knocking on his door down in
Tennessee and arrest him and say this is Thomas ball who escaped from Michigan back in 1976 so they find him 30 years
later right he's he eventually paroled in 2007 in Michigan but for me Captain he remains and should remain a suspect
to Nancy eagleson's [Music] [Applause] murder so much more to get to in part four join us back here in the garage
tomorrow until then be good be kind and don't litter [Music] is it possible to predict the
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Nancy Eagleson /// Murder Investigation /// 609

Part 3 of 4

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November 13, 1960 - Nancy Eagleson was abducted while walking home. A man driving a dark car pulled up alongside of her and asked if she would like a ride. Seconds later the car was gone and so was Nancy. Unfortunately her body was discovered a short time later and only a few miles from the abduction location. Who could do such a thing? This is a small town murder that shocked the community of Paulding, Ohio and still haunts them to this day. This week we take a hard look at the murder investigation and the suspects.

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Brief Summary

True Crime Garage discusses the unsolved murders of Gloria Kallwitz and Nancy Eagleson, focusing on suspect Robert Lee Stovel and investigation challenges.

Key points

The Abduction of Nancy Eagleson. Nancy was abducted in front of her sister, leading to a tragic investigation.
The Suspect's Alibi. Robert Lee Stovel's questionable alibi raises doubts about his involvement in the murders.
A Standstill in the Investigation. Authorities admit the investigation into Nancy's murder is at a standstill just days after.
The Quick Realization. As they approach the location, the narrator realizes they've arrived much faster than expected.
Premeditated or Impulsive?. The discussion reveals conflicting views on whether the crime was planned or spontaneous.
Eyewitness Account. Cheryl's testimony about the suspect wearing glasses is highlighted as crucial evidence.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

What kind of monster could shoot a little girl in the head?

Reflecting on the senseless murder of children.

4:21WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

65/ 100Some tension

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