Roxanne Paltauf /// Part 1 /// 491 | Forensic Files

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crime [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] picture this your mother or father for the sake of
this week's True Crime Story will make more sense from the perspective of the mother
it's the middle of summer in Austin Texas and it's plenty hot outside your oldest is your 18 year old daughter
now at this age she's your daughter but she's not really a child but she is still not yet a woman
she's really still a girl but she's finding her way she's just starting to carve out her
little place her soon to be well deserved little place in this world she's had some ups and downs
but it's really starting to feel like she has put most of those Downs behind her
and through her own hard work and dedication to herself she's really starting to put it all
together but there's this let's call it a large anchor attached to a short chain
that's wrapped around her throat and it's holding her back she is so close to spreading her wings
and finally taking flight but that dead weight is holding her down it's her boyfriend
and he's a real piece of work but to mention work in the boyfriend in the same sentence
really just seems kind of silly it's funny and you really think about it because this guy does not know the
meaning of the word work he's a loser and why the heck your daughter hits her wagon to his star
well no one has a clue and you didn't like this guy to begin with you knew he was a loser
when she first started to bring him around it was obvious and she's still with them
if she could just wake up and leave this guy then she would most certainly be on a
bridge to Better Days but she's 18. and she's in that weird space where she's still your daughter
but she's not really her own woman she does not have to listen and obey your every command
and she's not your only kid you have others younger ones that still require more
attention regardless of the boyfriend situation everything between you and your oldest
daughter is good and you are working on each other growing as ladies together and
separately but tonight she's staying at a hotel with the loser boyfriend because he certainly is not welcome in
your home morning rolls around and the two of you had plans to go shopping but your daughter
doesn't show up and now you're angry but it's not the first time that plans have been broken or mom got stood up
we'll go shopping without her you decide after all she's the one that promised that she'd be home first thing in the
morning as this was a special shopping trip mom and her four girls we're going shopping in San Marcos
but your 18 year old daughter never showed and now it's 15 years later and you're still waiting
waiting for her to come home this is true crime garage [Music] foreign Elizabeth paltoff was born on January
3rd 1988 and 18 years later Roxanne is living at home with her mother Elizabeth Harris and her sisters and one brother
in Texas Roxanne was the oldest of the five siblings and the family was super close the people close to her called her
Roxy her sisters and her mom described Roxanne as hilarious sweet fun-loving maybe a little naive
she and her mom spoke numerous times a day and everyone who has been involved in this case describes the two as having
a very special relationship closer than most moms and 18 year old daughters one of Roxanne's friends said that whenever
she would sleep over at Roxy's house they would hang out on her mother's bed just chatting with Elizabeth for hours
Roxanne went through some things some difficult things in her teen years and dropped out of McCollum High School in
her junior year but was slowly working on obtaining her GED now captain from what I've heard in my
limited understanding of what was going on with the family during her high school years is that Mom and Dad were
separating and I don't know the details of the divorce but it sounds like there was a lot of moving around you know Dad
moves mom moves kids are being moved around this might have added some difficulty to her high school years and
led her to dropping out well divorce becomes a lot more difficult when you have that large of a family and now
she's working to get that GED and it sounds like she only had one test remaining a math test before she
completed obtaining her degree her deal with her mom was that if she got her GED
her mom would purchase her a vehicle which she was super excited about for now she was taking the bus or would
get a ride from Friends whenever she needed to go somewhere she was also working two jobs on that
summer Roxanne had enrolled in the Goodwill job training program and through that she
had obtained an internship at Charlotte's Fiesta Flowers on Lamar Boulevard according to the Austin
Chronicle for which the journalist Jordan Smith extensively covered Roxanne's case quote everyone loved
working with her said flower shop owner Charlotte Wainscott she was just such a sweet and nice
person when the internship ended Wayne Scott hired Roxanne as a paid employee according to her caseworker Roxanne
hoped that one day she might be able to have her own flower shop she also aspired to get into fashion
perhaps being a designer but for now Roxanne picked up a second job at the Census Bureau so she's really working
things out here in my opinion Captain she's got two jobs she's trying to finalize this GED she certainly has some
short-term and long-term goals now even though Roxanne was technically an adult she's 18. she was still dependent on her
mother living at home and she had just got off of her mother's cell phone plan and recently purchased her own cell
phone and was working towards saving money and establishing good credit she spoke with her mom and her sisters
constantly this would be via text or phone calls any time that she wasn't at home she stayed in close in constant
communication with Mom and the sisters now at this time on our timeline the summer of 2006 Roxanne had been dating a
guy named Lewis walls for about two years the timeline of their relationship is a
little foggy and this is coming from the people that knew Roxanne the best but the best we can figure out is that it's
roughly since she was 16 that she had been dating this guy it sounds like it started off pretty casual in the
beginning and then got pretty serious at some point now Lewis walls he's bad news and he's bad news from the
get-go Roxanne's mom said that she never approved of him and he was not allowed in their home
according to the Mother Elizabeth Louis was abusive and violent in fact there was an incident where Elizabeth
and some of her younger daughters had just by chance come upon Roxanne sitting at a bus stop across town from their
home wearing big giant sunglasses when she got in the car they saw that her nose was severely injured Roxanne lied
to her family and said something accidental had happened to her it looked like she got beat up by her
boyfriend but the story that she was going to tell is that some guys were harassing her and her boyfriend Louis
decided to defend her and this broke out into a fight and during the course of the fight
that Roxanne and accidentally got hit in the face but some of her very close friends seemed to know the truth
and after Roxanne disappeared her friend Elizabeth Ellis told Roxanne's mother that actually Lewis had punched Roxanne
in the face and broken her nose so badly that Roxanne had to have surgery to repair the damage how old was Lewis well
Lewis is quite a bit older than Roxanne and that does not help the situation for
anybody to try to like this guy it's a little weird though here Captain because the waters are very murky and it sounds
to me like Roxanne and her friends and family were not fully aware of this guy's age when they first started dating
right so from my understanding it sounds a little happenstance that these two met
and I'll just go ahead and cut through it right now but he was like in his late 20s when they met well he's probably
showing up to high school parties so of course it should be it should be kind of
happenstance right they probably shouldn't be running in the same circles if she's 16 and he's in his late 20s
but from my understanding they meet each other and it sounds like most of her close
friends and family seem to say that Roxanne was not fully aware that this guy probably lied to her in the
beginning he did say he was an adult but it sounds like Roxanne thought that this dude was
like 19 or 20. and most of the people seem to agree that this guy is younger looking
and did even kind of pass as 19 or 20 when they first met this guy but again in the beginning of their relationship
it was extremely casual they were dating and this would be for about six months so it wasn't like she was bringing him
around a lot during this six-month time period yeah she's probably a pretty naive
16 year old when they started dating but at some point when she turned 17 18 knowing the age difference that's either
something you need to be explaining to your parents or you need to be cutting off ties with this individual yourself
and of course after this incident with the broken nose and the nose surgery of course her mother Elizabeth and her
family they're doing their best or at least what they could to try to keep Roxanne away from Lewis or encourage her
to not be with this guy anymore but since her 18th birthday in January of 2006 as we said in the trailer she's now
an adult Technically she's an adult and sometimes she's going to go out and do what she wants to do hang out with who
she wants to hang out with regardless of what others may say well right and she has that right because she has a she's
an adult but as a parent these are my rules you live if you live under my roof then you have to follow my
rules but back to the the broken nose even if he's not abusive physically abusive because we don't know if that is
true or not but even if her story is correct and you're but that means you're now hanging out with somebody that's
getting into violent altercations while you're around and you become uh innocent
bystander well and if you're trying to sell the story to Mom and friends what a better story to come up with than oh he
was defending me he you know he's you might think he's a bad guy but he was really just doing the right thing
here and I ended up getting accidentally hit or injured during the course of him
defending me the thing here though is we have close friends of hers that have come forward and say that look she may
have told Mom and her family this one story about this fight breaking out with these guys that were rude to her
and knight in shining armor Lewis defending her yeah but she told them a completely different story her her two
friends and that involved him punching her in the face so when they met captain my notes say that Lewis was 28 years old
and he had two kids at that time and at some point of course Roxanne had to learn of this dude's age and of
course she becomes aware of these children and in fact there's a lot of speculation that over the course of this
two-year relationship when she's being told to leave this guy by practically everybody
that not only did she seem to love this Lewis character but she probably fell in
love with these two children as well because it seems like she was helping out a good deal with these kids now
Lewis lives at home or from what I could find was living mostly at home with his
mother and at least his two children seem to be mostly in the care of his mother but
Roxanne's trying to help out with these kids Louis well they probably rode the bus
together is the opposite of Roxanne and what I mean by that is he doesn't seem to be doing anything to get
his life together we have Roxanne who's out there working multiple jobs she's trying to line up future better jobs she
has goals short term long term she's working on that GED if she gets the GED she's going to get a vehicle for Mom
she's got her own cell phone Louis doesn't have his own phone doesn't have a driver's license doesn't have a car
doesn't have a job what he's got is a girlfriend that seems to be paying for a lot of his stuff in his children's stuff
with a mom that's helping out yeah which would be fine if you're in your late teens in your in between that high
school and college or High School in real life but he's 10 years past that and he has
two children that he's responsible for and then it makes you wonder are these kids
primarily with him or technically his mother was he such a loser that he corrupted the mother of these
children and now she became even a bigger loser than Lewis well the the kids seem to be mostly in the care of
his mother I don't know what the situation was with the children's no that's what I'm saying
is like where she had like did he corrupt her so bad that she's a bigger loser than him
it sounds to me Captain like most people seem to agree that they believe that Roxanne probably did not
know Lewis's true age until about a year into their relationship according to the Austin
Chronicle this citing Jordan Smith's interview with Roxanne's friend Elizabeth Ellis quote Roxanne was simply
too trusting and too generous Roxanne stayed with walls Lewis walls in part she believes to help take care of his
kids his two children to whom she had grown attached she would buy them presents at the dollar store dinosaur
toys for his son for example and pretty accessories for his daughter's hair she'd go to the apartment Lewis wall
shared with his mother and babysit for the kids by herself when Lewis wanted to go out sometimes overnight
she had a big heart and was a nurturer says Ellis she was watching the kids when he was going out to see his other
girlfriend Ellis says that she and Harris tried to convince Roxanne that she was being used quote she really
didn't know how to pick him Ellis were called recently Roxanne was always trying to get Lewis walls to get himself
a job to be a man and that's something that her mom and I would always tell her you can't tell a man to be a man he
needs to just be one but Roxanne would always stick up for him and perhaps lie for him Roxanne's junior high school
friend Rachel Gonzalez said that Lewis regularly cheated on Roxanne and pushed her around but Roxanne refused to leave
him and instead as so often happens pushed her friends away to still be with this guy
still in the summer of 2006 her friends believed that Roxanne was in fact done with this guy done with the loser Lewis
but he would not let her go Rachel Gonzalez told the Austin Chronicle that the two weren't getting along quote she
told me that they were arguing she recalls she was trying to leave him alone but he wasn't letting her I said
to her just leave don't talk to him anymore but you can only tell a person so much let's just State what this
wanker is he's a pedophile I mean he met her when she was 16. he was grooming her
that's one of the big things when you're grooming individuals separate them from
their friends and their family and and have it where your their whole existence that's what he did he groomed her
[Music] thank you [Music] [Music] all right we're back cheers mates cheers to everybody in the front and in the
back cheers to you Captain all right let's start talking about July of 2006. we have 18 year old Roxanne who had been
staying with Lewis her then 30 year old boyfriend for several days at various motels around runberg Texas this is a
high crime area near the City of Austin or in the city of Austin now from my understanding here Captain is that this
area this general area of runberg they've done a lot to really clean it up in the past several years but a quick
check of crime in that area and this was studies as of 2012 state that 11 over 11
of the Greater Austin area's crime takes place in this space in this runberg area
which is only about six square miles wow so that's a good amount now while Lewis
wasn't welcome in Roxanne's family home it sounds like for whatever reason Roxanne was not welcomed into Lewis's
mother's home where she lived with Lewis's two kids so the two of them would have a difficult time being
together hanging out together spending time together because it doesn't seem like anybody wanted the two of them to
be together or that's just what he's telling her well so they're hanging out at these motels these are overnight
stays over the course of several days now on July 4th God Bless America rocks and stopped in at home this was to grab
some clothes at her mother's house she talked to her mom daily for the next couple of days as one would expect as we
said they have a close relationship then Roxanne called her mother this is around
4 30 p.m on Friday July 7th this was to say hey I'm not coming home tonight I'm staying out one more night
and her mother Elizabeth said that she thought that she had been spending way too much time with Lewis yeah well and I
don't want you to spend time with him anyway but let's not do one more night here's my problem so if he doesn't have
a job and she has two jobs but she has some bills and look when you're 18 you're just the jobs that you have don't
pay that much money where are they staying motel flicky flicky Long Dong Hotel I mean they're
they're PL they're staying in crap hotels agreed and you have a couple where only one person seems to have any
kind of income and two defend Roxanne here a little bit I I do think she was making pretty good money at the time
given her age anyway as you said a lot of jobs when you're 18 don't pay a whole heck of a lot no no and I'm not I'm not
knocking her what I'm saying is when you're 18 your jobs don't pay that well and plus she has these expenses he she
has to support him and so she's probably paying for these hotels I mean this this
guy is just a manipulator a user he should have these expenses he just doesn't he just chooses not to have them
and I kind of go back to what her friend and her mom were saying about you can't
tell a man to be a man he just has to be a man and one thing I've always thought
here we're talking about a 30 year old for crying out loud but one thing I've always tried to tell younger people and
even myself in my younger days is age does not dictate whether a boy becomes a man you know just because you
wake up one day and you're 18 you're not a man a man is someone that upholds their responsibilities in life and this
dude certainly is not that yes some boys never become men and I could get past the age thing a little bit not not when
she's 16. if he was 30 years old and he met an 18 year old technically that's legal in the eyes of the law
but if this guy had a job was supporting her taking her nice places buying her nice things telling her to go to college
I could get past that I can't get past a 28 year old manipulating and grooming a
minor well and you're exactly right what you have here is when she's 16 and leading up to this time of her
actually being an adult at 18. he is in fact grooming her because by this point she's I can't say for certain
what was going on in the relation relationship at this very day in our timeline in July of 2006 but what's
clear to everyone is at some point she fell in love with this dude and so she was blinded by that love that affection
and so of course she's probably not making the best judgments and decisions at the time because her love was blind
and unfortunately she fell in love with this loser guy now on this night okay we're at Friday July 7th at 4 30 in the
afternoon we have Roxanne calling home calling home to speak with her mother Elizabeth saying hey I'm going to be out
for one more night and of course we know Elizabeth doesn't love this because she
knows this means Roxanne's spending another night with Lewis who she doesn't like at all but on top of that there's
an added urgency to getting Roxanne to come home because they had already agreed that
Elizabeth Roxanne and Roxanne's sisters they were all going to go on this big shopping trip in the morning and this
was kind of a special to do for the group you know it's hard to get everybody together it sounds like
Elizabeth and Roxanne both had a little extra money at this time and there were some new stores opening up nearby and
they wanted to go check them out together so this was kind of an event that was planned in advance and she's a
little worried that this extra night out another night out at the motel with Lewis might mean she doesn't show up for
the morning's shopping trip her mother Elizabeth says okay fine reluctantly agrees I don't really know that she has
to agree for her 18 year old daughter to stay out another night but she accepts it a Saturday morning came and went and
Roxanne never showed up the family waited and waited and then gave up at some point and just went shopping
without her they you know you've promised these other kids that we're going to go out and have this
fun day yeah so now you're out you got to take the other kids but her mother Elizabeth obviously is
not pleased and in fact she was a little ticked off to the point of saying you know what I'm
I could reach out to her I could give her the business for not showing up today but I'm not going to call her I'm not
going to call and bother not going to waste my time to call my daughter's cell phone she thought you know what I will
let her let her be the one that has to call me and apologize or make up some excuse while why she couldn't be on this
shopping trip that we had all planned together when the family gets home from this trip the shopping trip this is
around 4 30 on Saturday afternoon so if you're filling out a timeline here this is almost exactly at the 24 hour mark
since she has last heard from her daughter Elizabeth's phone rings and it was Roxanne's cell phone number
that was calling her so Elizabeth answered it she's thinking all right here come the excuses or here
comes the apology for missing the shopping trip right but she's immediately surprised
when it's not Roxanne on the other end of the phone in fact she's quite surprised to hear
that it's Lewis that is calling her a guy that she does not like that probably has no reason nor business to
be calling her she says and this is Elizabeth's words that Lewis did sound concerned he
sounded concerned and he asked Elizabeth if she had seen or heard from Roxanne recently now as you can imagine Captain
Elizabeth is very alarmed by this she says no I thought she was with you of course
yeah you know this this is a situation you know she's been staying in a motel with this guy if she's not at home
they're close you're she doesn't have a driver's license she may have had a driver's license pardon me but I know
she didn't have a vehicle at this time right so at the very least you're thinking in your mind I don't like this
guy but at least I know where my daughter is she would either be at home at work one of her two jobs or out with
this dude now this dude's calling me wondering where she is it's strange it's very strange so this is what Lewis tells
Elizabeth on the phone he says that the previous night sometime around 8 30 PM that he and Roxanne they got into an
argument in the hotel room hold on because I I'm trying to follow this this is Saturday right so Lewis is calling
Elizabeth on Saturday asking where Roxanne is right now he's talking about his story of Friday the last time he saw
her and he he says this is about 8 30 p.m on Friday night wow so he's saying hey we had an argument at
the motel room the argument was about an old girlfriend of his or something or other and Roxanne storms out yeah do you
know what her name was I do not skankosaurus Rex she sounds lovely yeah she was a dinosaur of a
woman whatever went down Roxanne according to Lewis underlined that stormed out of the motel
room and left walking out walking away from the hotel right Lewis says hey he tried to go after her but
she wanted nothing to do with him finally you would think right he saw her walking along the service
road out in front of the motel and then he says that he saw her make a left again she's on foot onto Middle Lane
so he went back to the room and he says that you know he's gonna try to cool down it was a heated
argument he was just going to let her blow off some steam he's going to chill out in the hotel room wait for her to
come back well in his defense right and his defense she doesn't have a car she you're in a bad area she's probably
not going to just take off on foot so she might just pace around a little bit in the parking lot and come back in
yeah this is one of those times when you know look if you've if you've lived in a
city long enough you are aware of the bad areas the bad parts of town yeah and you just hope and pray and I do this
with even people I don't know kids I don't know I hope that 16 17 18 19 year old young people
that they realize what could happen what can happen when you are in a bad area of
course bad things can happen anywhere right but there's a higher risk level in certain areas now we're talking about
a pretty 18 year old woman walking around on her own in what we've already clearly laid out is a high
crime area on a Friday night according to again according to Lewis's story well and given her size should be a lot
easier to take control of correct I mean obviously Rick Rude was much easier to body slam than Andre the Giant so size
always plays a factor in these situations I gotta point this out too because if I'm Elizabeth and I'm on
the phone talking to Lewis and he's telling me this story not only am I immediately alarmed that my daughter has
gone off on her own on foot he hasn't seemed to seen her overnight now she never returned overnight right but my
mind's also going wait a second this dude's calling me on her phone her phone number was the one that came up on my
phone yeah so did she storm out and just leave her phone that doesn't seem like something that it doesn't seem right a
woman would do doesn't make sense but okay let's give Lewis the benefit of the doubt here if he is in fact telling me
the truth well then that means my daughter went out on her own on foot in a high crime area without even a cell
phone yeah again it could have just been a situation where she gets an argument with him and
thinks that she's going to eventually cool off and come back in that she wasn't going to take off yeah there's a
little more to Lewis's story he says that after some time passed so he says roughly about 20 30 minutes she doesn't
return he must have cooled off or chilled out by that point he says that he went out to go look for her now keep
in mind this dude does not have a driver's license nor a vehicle so he's out looking for her on foot as well so
this is roughly let's say like 9 00 p.m 9-ish yeah that would be correct he says
look I I went out there looking for it and I could not find her and then she never at any point comes back to the
hotel room and then he adds when telling Mom the story that oh Roxanne also left without any of her
stuff right but she took her ID that seems like a weird thing to kind of throw in there but that's what she says
that that Lewis said you think that'd be in your purse it sounds like according to all parties involved that Roxanne
walked away from this motel room if this story is to be believed wearing a pink tank top white shorts and a pair
of flip-flops so normal summer attire Elizabeth and some of her daughters well they're
they're nervous they're anxious they want to go find Roxy so they all jump into the car and they went down to
the area this is the Budget Inn where the two were staying right off of Interstate 35.
this was an area of Austin as we said called runberg which was to put it mildly sketchy the hotel was basically a
cheapo Motel on a city dangerous strip that was known for drugs and even sex work and things of that
nature there was crime going on in and around those streets Elizabeth was angst to see that area where her daughter had
walked off into the night alone oh first of all you like we said she doesn't have a lot of
money so she you know that your daughter is staying the night in these hotels can't really say much because she is 18
and but at some point as the mother then you have to decide how long are you going to put up with this until you put
your foot down and say hey if you're going to keep doing this stuff you're going to just have to move out well in
in Elizabeth's defense with Roxanne here too we have a situation where mom probably doesn't fully know exactly
what's going on other than what she's being told by Roxanne so Elizabeth says she shows up to this area to this place
and she's like oh I was kind of under the impression that they were staying at a nice hotel
not some run-down place that's you know a dump near the highway it's nice to Lewis
right she opened up the door and she's like oh my God it smells like feed in here to Lewis it's like Disney World
yeah he's like man it's so nice to be out of my mama's house for the night so Elizabeth and family and friends spent
the next couple of days trying to track down Roxy and of course searching the area around the motel they peered into
ditches and climbed the sides of dumpsters but found nothing no sign of of Roxanne or where she could be can we
take a step back for a second because okay if we believe Lewis then I applaud him for calling
his girlfriend's mom he knows she don't like me but it's gotten to a point where I have
to call her so I would applaud him for that my big issue is why did you wait till
the next day once you go out looking for her and you can't find her and you know that she doesn't have her
cell phone on her so she wasn't able to contact anybody that she knows there would be no way for her to get to
an area of safety that she knows that Roxanne knows once you know that around 9 00 pm
that's when you call you don't hesitate and wait till the next morning well he's likely calling it this time
because he knows that the parents her mother being close with Roxanne her family being close with her at some
point they're going to come looking for Roxanne and the longer I delay telling anybody that I think she's missing or or
at least throw out there the possibility that I might be worried or concerned about her
the worst this is going to look for me later so at some point yeah he decides I got
to reach out to Mom I got to reach out to her family and see where she is now the other thing that goes down here too
and I've seen several different reports about this and I I don't know in all honesty which one is the most
accurate but some Reports say that that day that later that night this is after Roxanne's Mother Elizabeth shows up on
scene with her daughters actively looking for Roxanne some Reports say that it was that night
and other Reports say that it was the next day but regardless what we do know that did happen
is that both Roxanne's Mother Elizabeth Falls Austin PD to report Roxanne is missing
and she also convinced Lewis at the same time she says no you got the call as well because according to your story
and what you told me on the phone you are the last person to see her so we need you to call this in as well
so kudos to Elizabeth for sounding the alarm so police received two calls both of them for the purpose of filing
missing persons reports on Roxanne and the police responded they looked around for Roxanne when they
showed up in the area they did make some inquiries but of course this is the situation they assumed that
the young adult 18 years old gets in a fight with her boyfriend they probably seen the story a million times
everybody anybody who's watched cops knows that that show is just filled with calls of of boyfriend and girlfriend
yelling and screaming at each other and a lot of them one of them takes off in the middle of the night
so after all we do have Lewis who's admitting to police and to Mom that yeah we got into
an argument and then he's saying that Roxanne stormed off after this argument during the course of
and Elizabeth stressed to the detectives to the officers that responded saying look
there's no way I don't care what you think happened I don't think I don't care if you think that she's just going
to go somewhere and hide out and stay away from this guy but she would have come home
she would have figured out a way to get home she would have contacted me at the very least to call me tell me what's up
and to top that off she would have never have left without her purse her phone and these are all things that Lewis was
saying that Roxanne had left behind in the motel room disco and played devil's advocate here for a second it is
possible though get in a fight you're at a hotel I'm guessing their door doesn't go to a
Lobby or go to some fancy area their door probably goes outside that she storms off and she goes into
the parking lot and she doesn't leave with anything but her ID and and the reason why maybe I'd buy the
ID if he can put if if there was two Hotel keys if there was two Hotel keys and she left
with her ID and a hotel Key I could buy his story a little bit more yeah that's one thing I questioned myself as well
here Captain I couldn't find anywhere anybody stating whether she or Lewis even claiming if she left with
a hotel key or not and I'm guessing the way that it's described that this might be a an actual
physical key for her to get into the motel room that they were staying not one of the little plastic credit card
keys I'm just guessing now the other major red flag here though is going to be a few days after Roxanne disappears
this is when Lewis finally brought back Elizabeth brought to Elizabeth sorry Roxanne's thinks this is five days after
she had gone missing on the 12th of July he comes over he hands her a bag of clothes
Roxanne's phone Roxanne's jewelry her toothbrush and makeup and her pink purse saying these are the items that she left
behind when she stormed off immediately her mother and Roxanne's sisters were concerned
when they saw this stuff that Lewis brought back of course it was her phone and it was her pink purse
but in regards to the clothing immediately this wasn't like okay more time goes by and they start to get
concerned and then notice this this was immediately they noticed that the clothes they were given
none of them believed that they belonged to Roxanne at all and in fact her sisters swore that they knew every
article of Roxanne's clothing because her and her sisters all kind of shared clothing even you know fighting arguing
over clothes at times the way that sisters will do and not only was this stuff that they said was not Roxanne's
wasn't her style wasn't something that she would wear but it's also stuff that's all the wrong size
and Roxanne's purse still contained her wallet and her ID is missing further that wallet did contain some items that
the family observed with horror these were Roxanne's Rings according to her mother Elizabeth quote even when she
went swimming that girl wore accessories why on Earth would Roxanne take off all
of her jewelry and leave it behind and then storm off into the night as you pointed out Captain she's leaving with
if we are to believe Lewis she's leaving with no money no phone and in an unsafe
and unfamiliar area my answer would be that she would and that Lewis is probably not really
telling the truth here regardless of my feelings what we do know is that this story that
Lewis is telling it does not sit well with Roxanne's family I I hate to play devil's advocate
for this giant pile of dog [ __ ] you know but is it possible she took off her rings
why would he return these items if there weren't hers no one's questioning the Rings
it sounds to me like they're concerned that the clothing I understand and maybe he maybe this son
of a [ __ ] returned a skankosaurus Rex close clothing to the wrong house several days after she goes missing he's
still in contact with the family then he takes every item that he claims that she
left behind look within seconds you can explain away certain things somebody says well shoot that girl would swim in
her rings well maybe she took a shower maybe she was put it on lotion and she took off the Rings as they were in a
fight and then she got pissed off and she walked out of the room every little thing that they're pissed
off about you can explain away within seconds he he returned the cell phone he returned clothes oh well we
don't recognize those clothes she stayed a lot over at Lewis's house before there was confrontation and she wasn't
allowed to stay there so is it possible when they were at these hotels did they go buy clothes and she didn't take a
bunch of clothes with her or did she just get clothes from Lewis's house and then they went and stayed in these
hotels I just think you can explain away some of these things that they don't like of course you can you absolutely
can does become a little difficult that the clothing size does not seem to match
up but you're right you can't explain some of these things away the problem though
being it's been five days you've not seen her nor heard from her in this suspicious activity continues
and a lot of it is circling around one dude and I want to make sure that we're not painting the wrong picture here
because this is not Lewis spending five days with these women trying to look for
Roxanne now he has very very limited communication with Elizabeth and the sisters right so much so that yeah he
called Elizabeth yeah he agreed to file a missing persons report but other than that nine o'clock time that he says he
went out and looked for for a little bit and couldn't find her nobody else is saying that he was actively looking for
Roxanna any other point ever that he was assisting Elizabeth and the sisters looking for Roxanne no he wasn't
in fact that he was so limited access to Roxanne's family that even though he says hey she stormed
off and left all this stuff here he wasn't available to give them that stuff until five days later and when he shows
up with it it's not a meeting of the minds it's oh here's a bag of your sister's stuff right peace out and then
you open up the bag after dude leaves and the items in there are not checking out with what you know about your sister
my biggest problem with Lewis is the hesitation to call especially her being in that area you know what she doesn't
have honor you don't hesitate you don't hesitate that long to call so what's going on hold on a second how the hell
did they get to the hotel in the first place there's public transportation in these cities well now I understand that
but I'm saying do we do we know how they did it did they take a bus do they get a
cab do they you know because neither one of them Drive correct they're both known to frequent
the bus note to all the little ladies out there if you if your boyfriend asks you to spend the night in a hotel and
you have to take a bus to get there don't don't do it tell them to save his money or save your money so you can get
a car yeah she's probably paying for the motel room now in the meantime of what's
going on I want to make sure that everybody understands what's going on here again saying he's not actively out
looking for Roxanne as far as we know right there's no one to say that that's what was going on again look even if the
family doesn't like me if I supposedly love this woman and she's missing I'm going to be bothering them saying hey
how can I help what can I do I'm going to be out there actively looking if he was that is not known to anybody
other than Lewis but what we can tell everybody and what we do know is the following Lewis
checked out of that motel room this was before reporting Roxanne missing to her mother on Saturday
afternoon so Roxanne never shows back up he went ahead and checked out of the motel room
and leaves leaves the immediate area he's at his sister's apartment this is a Walnut Creek complex is what I have in
my notes and he supposedly took Roxanne's things with him to his sister's apartment then calls her
mother to say hey by the way your daughter stormed off I don't know where she is now by the time the Austin Police
got around to checking the motel for anything suspicious well it seems like it was far too late for one thing the
motel records were a mess as you can imagine in this type of area they're just happy that someone rented the room
good luck keeping tabs on everybody and probably often charging cash rather than
any kind of paper trail that way the person that's working the desk can just pocket the money as said
the motel records were a mess it was the kind of place where where I guess you could get rooms by the hour
and as you pointed out Captain a lot of people probably paid under the table some clerks kept records some didn't
detectives believed that they figured out which room Roxanne and Lewis had shared but by the time they took a look
at it days had passed and it had been cleaned and reoccupied several times think about that statement
okay one it's disappointing that detectives weren't in that room faster looking for evidence looking for things
that could help lead them to Roxanne I get that but within that same statement is
something that's even more alarming that's not super obvious detectives believed they figured out
which room Roxanne and Lewis had shared that means Lewis is not cooperating with
the detectives he's not helping them he's not providing information to them to even tell them this was the room we
were staying God I hate this I hate this case because I keep feeling like I'm defending this
dick I love that you start off by saying I hate to play Devil's Advocate but here
I am doing it for the Dozen for the for the tenth time today yeah but we that's what we're supposed to do I think you
enjoy it no I mean that's that's why we're here is here's this case this girl went missing this guy seems like a giant
bag of turds my question to this guy would be does he just not remember the room number and I know that seems like
uh like something you would remember but they've stayed in multiple hotels a couple days later I don't have a great
memory if somebody said well where did you what was your room number I'd be like I I don't remember
or can you take us there I think so you know I mean so the fact that they stayed in multiple
hotels leading up to all this again I I hate to say that I don't think that's as
suspicious as people were making that out to be but what is suspicious is that he's not cooperating with the detective
but how do we know that because they have no clue what room that they stayed in yeah but if he doesn't
know then he can't tell police so it's not that's not evidence of him not being cooperative if they came out and said
hey we asked Louis and he said I don't remember it I don't give a [ __ ] or I remember but I'm not telling you that's
that's being uncooperative or they're calling Lewis and he's never answered on the phone or never calling him back
which I believe is probably the case and I have every reason to believe that he is fully aware of where they stayed the
room that they stayed in I believe he's not being cooperative because he's got a
lot to hide either he did something or he knows a lot more than what he's saying
and I think it's easy to see this and go yeah he probably does know more than what he's saying because he ain't saying
anything so it's difficult for me to believe that when you are reporting your girlfriend missing
within 24 to 48 hours of the last time that you saw her think about that he checked out his
words the morning after he last saw her so that means within 20 to 30 hours of the time that you checked out of the
hotel room you don't know what room you stayed in if it's somebody that I truly cared
about if if I'm contacted by police or talking to police and I say this is the last time I saw so and so
what room did he stay in I can't remember if it was 3 18 or 308 maybe it was 218 I can't remember
I'd be happy to meet you guys there or could you pick me up and we'll go over there and I can look maybe if I see the
door or walk to it I can walk to the door and show you where we stayed but also what we're assuming is that she
paid for the room so she got the room number told to her she grabs the keys they walk down she might have never told
him we're staying in this room you know other than leaving uh for 30 minutes to look for
and I'm I'm sure he didn't go that far it's amazing he found his way back to the hotel room to begin with like a lost
puppy he had no idea where they were staying well it might have been on the key I'm just saying that especially somebody
that stayed in multiple hotels I don't it's possible that you wouldn't remember and I and I would just like to know what
the conversation was between him police well let's get into Lewis's background here to put it bluntly
he's a thug he'd been involved in criminal activity for years he has a record dating back to 1995 for felonies
like robbery burglary and drug dealing he has been in and out of prison multiple times Austin Police Department
detective James Scott who is now working Roxanne's case told the Austin Chronicle
quote Lewis among his peers is an idiot I mean you can look at his criminal record and tell he's not the smartest
criminal out there end quote the chronicle gives an example in March of 2005 Lewis was arrested agreeing to
sell three rocks of crack cocaine for fifty dollars unbeknownst to him he was selling three rocks of crack cocaine to
an undercover Austin police officer who had offered him a ride to runberg well we've heard of that place and it
turned out that the crack was fake so Lewis got off with only a 120 day jail sentence but selling fake crack to a
real cop not so bright Lucy's crimes weren't just drug related two of his exes had taken out
restraining orders against him and Lewis had been arrested for violating one of those restraining orders as we know
Lewis was 28 when he started dating 16 year old Roxanne it seems he preferred younger girls although another of his
exes was also underage when they were together Elizabeth Harris Roxanne's mother considers him to be a pedophile
there are rumors based on some things some of his exes have implied that Lewis tried to get some of his girlfriends to
sell their bodies for him that he tried to pimp them out now according to Roxanne's mother Lewis was a bragger and
a poser a wannabe big man she said he boasted of being a member of the Bloods street gang but that he was
most likely only marginally involved basically a small time crook but still Big Time dangerous to women
[Music] yeah foreign [Music] so much more to get to in this episode stay tuned till tomorrow if you need
more True Crime garage and your earballs check out our show called off the Record
it's exclusively on the Stitcher app to find that just go to the Stitcher app or
go to our website truecrimegarage.com and until tomorrow be good be kind and don't litter
[Music] thank you thank you [Music]

Roxanne Paltauf /// Part 1 /// 491

Part 1 of 2 www.TrueCrimeGarage.com

This week we cover a strange missing persons case out of Austin, Texas. Roxanne Paltauf vanished in 2006 while staying at a seedy motel with her boyfriend. This case is considered now 15 years later to be a cold case homicide. Foul Play of course is strongly suspected. Join us in the Garage as we try our best to keep the story out there. Police need the public’s help. This is truly a case when the person(s) responsible have told someone what they did.

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Brief Summary

Roxanne Harris, 18, disappears after arguing with boyfriend Lewis Walls, raising suspicions about his involvement in her case.

Key points

Welcome to True Crime Garage. The hosts introduce the show and thank listeners for tuning in.
Introducing Sunset Cerveza. The hosts feature a local beer, celebrating its unique flavors.
Roxanne's Aspirations. Despite challenges, Roxanne is working hard towards her GED and future goals.
Roxanne's Relationship with Lewis. Roxanne's relationship with her boyfriend Lewis is explored, revealing troubling dynamics.
The Truth About Lewis. Roxanne's boyfriend Lewis has a troubling past that raises concerns among her family.
Roxanne's Choices. Roxanne's decisions lead her into a troubling relationship, raising concerns about manipulation.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

She's really starting to put it all together.

A hopeful moment about Roxanne's progress.

4:39WatchNov 7, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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