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

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picture this you're 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 out 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 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 and the boyfriend in the same sentence really just seems kind of
silly it's funny when 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 hitched 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 him 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 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 home first
thing in the morning as this was a special shopping trip mom and her four girls were 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]
roxan Elizabeth ptto was born on January 3rd 1988 and 18 years later roxan is living
at home with her mother Elizabeth Harris and her sisters and one brother in Texas
roxan 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 funloving 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 Rox an's friends said that whenever she
would sleep over at roxxy'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 McCullum 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 a 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
roxan 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 waycott she was just such a sweet and nice person when the internship ended Wayne Scott hired roxan
as a paid employee according to her case worker Rox an 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 roxan 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
roxan 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 anytime
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 roxan had been dating a guy named Lewis walls for about 2 years the timeline of their
relationship is a little foggy and this is coming from the people that knew roxan 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 Lewis was abusive and violent
in fact there was an incident where Elizabeth and some of her younger daughters had just by chance come upon
roxand sitting at a bus stop across town down from their home wearing big giant sunglasses when she got in the car they
saw that her nose was severely injured roxan 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 Lewis decided to defend her and this broke out into a fight and
during the course of the fight that roxan and accidentally got hit in the face but some of her very close friends
seemed to know the truth and after roxan 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 roxan had to have Sur y to repair the damage
how old was Lewis well Lewis is quite a bit older than roxan 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 roxan 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 happen stance 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 happen stance 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 roxan 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 Brock San 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 6 months so it wasn't like
she was bringing him around a lot during this six Monon time period yeah she was
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 cuz 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 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 night 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 roxan had to learn of
this dude's age and of course she becomes aware of these children and in fact there's a a lot of speculation that
over the course of this 2-year relationship when she's being told to leave this guy by practically everybody
uhhuh 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 Rox an's trying to help out with these kids Lewis well they probably rode the bus together is the
opposite of roxan and what I mean by that is he doesn't seem to be doing anything to get his life together we
have roxan who's out there working multiple jobs she's trying to line up future better jobs she has goals
shortterm longterm she's working on on that GED if she gets the GED she's going to get a vehicle from Mom she's got her
own cell phone Lewis 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 and his children's stuff and a mom
that's helping out yeah which would be fine if you in your late teens and you're in between that high school and
college or High School real life but he 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 is she at 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 roxan probably did not know
Lewis's true age until about a year into their relationship according to the Austin Chronicle this citing Jordon
Smith's interview with Roxanne's friend Elizabeth Ellis quote roxan was simply too trusting and too generous roxan
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 roxan that she was being used quote she really didn't know how to pick
him Ellis recall recently roxan 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
roxan would always stick up for him and perhaps lie for him Rox San's junior high school friend Rachel Gonzalez said
that Lewis regularly cheated on roxan and pushed her around but roxan 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 belied that roxan was in fact done with this guy done with the loser Lewis but he would not let her go
Rachel Gonzales 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 you're their whole existence that's what
he did he groomed [Music] her [Music] this show is sponsored by better help do you look forward to the holidays maybe
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visit angie.com you can do this when you Angie that [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 roxan 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 roxan
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 Motel
these are overnight stays over the course of several days now on July 4th God Bless America rockx an 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 roxan 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 uh she thought that she had been spending way too much time with Lewis
yeah well I 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 they're
staying in crap hotels agreed and you have a couple where only one person seems to have any kind of income and to
defend roxan 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 eight 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 a 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 roxan 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 roxan
spending another night with Lewis who she doesn't like at all but on top of that there's an added urgency to getting
roxan 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 Tod do
for the group you know it's hard to get everybody together it sounds like Elizabeth and roxan 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 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 now Saturday morning came and went and roxan never showed up the family
waited and waited and then gave up 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 plan together when
the family gets home from this trip this 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 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 roxan 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 mhm 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 roxan 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 the 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 p.m. that he and roxan 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 roxan is right now he's talking about his story of Friday night 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 skankasaurus Rex she sounds lovely yeah she was a dinosaur of a woman whatever went down roxan according
to Lewis underline 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
going to 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 in 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 19y 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 Roode was much easier to body slam than Andre
the Giant so size always plays a factor in these situations I got to 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 stor 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 off 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 900 p.m.
9ish yeah that would be correct he says look I I went out there looking for her 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 Louis said you think that'd be
in your purse it's sounds like according to all parties involved that roxan 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 in where the
two were staying right off of Interstate 35 mhm 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 Cy 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 right Elizabeth was angst to see that area where her daughter had walked
off into the night alone well 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 you can't really say much because
she is 18 and 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 and in Elizabeth's defense with roxan 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 roxan 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 rundown place that's you know a dump near the highway well it's nice to
Lewis but she opened up the door and she's like oh my God it smells like feed in here to Louis 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 nothing no sign of of roxan 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 into 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 contct
anybody that she knows there would be no way for her to get to an area of safety
that she knows that roxan knows once you know that around 9900 p.m. 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 roxan her family being close with her at some point they're going to come
looking for roxan 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
roxan some Reports say that it was that night and other Reports say that that it
was the next day but regardless what we do know that did happen is that both Roxanne's Mother
Elizabeth calls Austin PD to report roxan as missing and she also convinced Lewis at
the same time she says no you got to 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 roxan and the
police responded they looked around for roxan when they showed up in the area they did
make some inquiries but of course this is the situation they assume that the young adult 18 years old gets in a fight
with their boyfriend they've probably seen this 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 roxan stormed off after this
argument dur 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 you 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 to call me tell
me what's up and to talk that off she would have never have left without her purse her phone and these are all things
that lwis was saying that roxan had left behind in the motel room just going to play 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 if if there was to 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 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 uh 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 roxan disappears this is when Lewis finally brought back Elizabeth
brought to Elizabeth sorry Roxanne's things this is 5 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 roxan sisters were concerned when they saw the the 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 noticed this this
was immediately they noticed that the clothes they were given none of them believed that they belong to roxan at
all and in fact her sisters swore that they knew every article of Roan'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 Rox wasn't her style wasn't something that she would wear but it's
also stuff that's all the wrong size and rox'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 Roan's Rings according to her
mother Elizabeth quote even when she went swimming that girl wore accessories why on Earth would roxan 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 wouldn't 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 Rox San'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 why would he return these items if they weren't hers no one's
questioning the Rings mhm it sounds to me like they're concerned that the clothing returned was I understand the
clothing and maybe he maybe this son of a returned uh skankasaurus Rex's cloth 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 way certain things somebody says well she 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 ls'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 ls's house and then they went and stayed in these hotels I 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 is 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 and 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 5 days with these women trying to look for roxan no 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 person's report but other than
that 9:00 time that he says he went out and looked for her for a little bit and couldn't find her nobody else is saying
that he was actively looking for roxan any other point ever that he was assisting Elizabeth and the sisters
looking for roxan 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 of this stuff here he wasn't available to give them
that stuff until 5 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 on her 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 well
there's public transportation in these cities well no I understand that but I'm saying do we do we know how they did it
did they take a bus did they get a cab did 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 him 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 roxan 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 roxan missing
to her mother on Saturday afternoon so roxan 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 Rox San'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 trip yeah cuz then 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 roxan 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 roxan 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 roxan 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 in God I I hate this I hate this case cuz 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 for the 10th 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 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 but can you take
us there I think so you know what 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 are making them 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 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 there that's not evidence of him not being cooperative if they came out and
said hey we asked Lewis and he said I don't remember and 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 answering 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 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 soand so what room did you stay in I can't remember if it was 318 or 308 maybe it was 218 I can't
remember I 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 stay 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 never told him we're staying in this room you know
other than leaving uh for 30 minutes to look for her 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 and police
well let's get into Lewis's background here to put it bluntly he's a thug he've been involved in criminal activity for
years he has a record dating back to 1995 for felony 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 Roan'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 AG ageing to
sell three rocks of crack cocaine for $50 unbeknownst to him he was selling three rocks of cracked 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 Lewis'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 roxan 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 Roan'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 Small Time crook but still Big Time
dangerous to [Music] women 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 truecrime garage.com and until tomorrow
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Roxanne Paltauf /// Part 1 /// 491

Part 1 of 2

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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

Roxan Harris, 18, disappears after a fight with her older boyfriend, Lewis Walls, raising suspicions about his involvement.

Key points

Roxan's Struggles with Lewis. Roxan, an 18-year-old, finds herself in a toxic relationship with her older boyfriend, Lewis.
Roxan's Relationship with Lewis. Roxan, 18, is staying with her 30-year-old boyfriend Lewis in a high-crime area.
The Argument. Lewis claims he and Roxan had an argument before she went missing.
Missing Persons Report. Elizabeth and Lewis both report Roxan missing after she fails to return home.
Roxanne's Missing Items. Lewis returns items belonging to Roxanne, raising suspicion among her family.
Suspicious Behavior. Lewis's actions after Roxanne's disappearance raise red flags for her family.

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