Stolen: The Angie Housman Story /// Part 1 /// | Forensic Files

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[Music] I can't tell you where I was, but I can remember being just sick. Just sick.
Anytime a child is involved, it's the worst. So, um, you know, you hold your kids tighter. you walk you look at
people differently for a long time, you know, untrusting and um it's just it was tough. I mean, you just feel
horrible for the family and the community. So, we knew she was uh based upon, you
know, when she was uh found where she was left um some she was held somewhere. There's no doubt about it.
So, I can't we just what she went through. If you let your mind go too far, open a rage, you know, it's hard to
contain. It was actually the weather, I think, that gave them the clearest idea because
she had snow and ice on her and it had snowed and, you know, we' had that winter weather
overnight and she had that that uh precipitation on her body. So, we know she was there at least before then.
But there was and I'm sure the temperature had a lot to do with it because it was winter, but there was no
decomposition per se. So she wasn't we they figured she wasn't out there very long because
like I said, she had that snow on there. So we know she was there before that, but again, no decomposition or anything.
So I don't know that they narrowed it down, but they figured she was somewhere for
several days. [Music] This week we go out to St. Louis County, Missouri for a true crime story that
starts off in the late fall of 1993. To hone in a little closer, we will be in St. An, Missouri. And our coverage of
this case, you're going to hear a lot of saints. St. Louis County, St. Charles County, city of St. Anne, and of course,
we have the city of St. Louis. So, my apologies in advance if the number of saints here makes this case more
confusing than it needs to be. The real pisser is all of the saints in the world
didn't stop the evil that invaded St. Anne in northwest St. Louis County in the late fall and early winter of 1993.
Let's start with the late fall and work our way through. So, we're going to talk
about November 18th, 1993. That is the day in question. This is one week before Thanksgiving, 1993. November 18th should
have been just another Thursday, just another ordinary day for the folks of St. Anne, Missouri. That day was a
school day, of course. And just like she had done so many times before, little 9-year-old Angie Houseman packed up her
backpack, walked out of her home on Wright Avenue. She walked about eight or so houses down to the bus stop where she
met up with some of her schoolmates. They boarded the bus and it was off to school for another day of learning and
hopefully a little fun as well. Angie was in the fourth grade at Butter Elementary School on Baltimore Avenue in
St. An. This is a quiet bluecollar suburb of St. Louis. Angie was a cheerful and kind-hearted kid. She was
regarded to be quite a gifted student, so very smart and she applied herselves and worked hard in the classroom. She
was outgoing and very quick to make people smile. To say she was outgoing, I think, is a bit of an understatement.
She would regularly approach people that she may not have known and speak with them and talk with them and engage them
in conversation. And I have seen several reports and many people say that if she
met you once or twice, she considered you to be a friend. She was just that kind of person inviting you into her
world. The school day on that Thursday came and went with all of the normal regularities, lunch, recess, and book
learning. And at the end of the school day, just a bit after 300 p.m., little 9-year-old Angie Houseman packed up her
blue and white book bag and joined a number of her schoolmates once again on the big yellow school bus. Destination,
Wright Avenue, back to her home. The bus pulled up to stop at Wright Avenue at the normal time. The bus stop located
just eight houses down from her home. Angie got off of the school bus just like she did each afternoon in her
neighborhood. She's not the only kid at this stop. Typically, two parents on the
street would watch as the kids walk to their houses on Wright Avenue. However, on this Thursday, those two parents were
both busy and no one was watching the children as they walked home. Now, a short time later, Angie's stepfather,
his name is Ron Bone, he returned from work. Typically, when Ron would arrive home on a school day, he would see
Angie's backpack placed in its usual afterchool resting place, between the back of the couch and the front door in
the living room of the home. They lived in a duplex. On this Thursday, when Ron came home, there was no backpack. And
quickly, he learned that there was no Angie as well. Angie had to walk eight houses to her home from that bus stop.
We have other school kids to tell us that yes, Angie rode the bus that afternoon and yes, she got off with the
other kids as usual. In fact, some of the kids remember seeing her get off of the bus and walking in the direction of
her home, but at some point she seemed to just simply vanish. Eyewitnesses at the bus stop confirmed that Angie had
gotten off the bus at the regular time. To be very specific, this bus stop was located at the corner of Wright Avenue
and St. Gregory Lane. Quote, she had four more houses to go to make it into the house and she never made it, said
Angie's stepdad, Ron. Sounds to me, Captain, like several of the other schoolmates must have seen her
walking for some time, passing a few houses before they went on their way or made their way into their own homes,
thus losing sight of the little girl. And what happened from that point is really up for debate and what is in
question here. So, we have eyewitnesses in this case, but limited details. Exactly. kids in the neighborhood did
not recall seeing where Angie went. And one thing they do recall when being asked that I mean she wasn't with
anybody at some point when she gets off of this bus. She is then at some point walking alone. So she is there one
minute and simply gone the next. There are different reports on what time she got off of the bus. And this case has no
shortage of internet coverage over the years. I think a lot of that was spawned from the very extensive coverage that
this received in the newspapers local and even in the region as far as Chicago this case was heavily reported on. So
over time I think maybe that exact time has been lost. We we'll get into that in
just a second here, Captain. The key thing here is that all reports state that it was only a short time between
the bus ride home and when Ron got home. This typically would be between 30 and 60 or so minutes. Uh
Ron's wife and Angie's mother, Diana, was home at this time as well. I asked the detectives who worked the case and
they said that the times that they had were pretty exact and they broke it down for me like this. The bus dropped her
off between 3:50 and 3:52 p.m. that afternoon. That's pretty precise there. Ron gets home on this day
around 5 or so. He works at Sears Auto, which was close to the home, so it's just a very short drive. when he gets
home, Diana and the toddler. So, Angie had a a a little brother and he was about two at
this time. Mom and her little brother are sleeping on the couch when Ron gets home. The backpack, as we said, was not
there. So, he wakes up Diana. They go out in the neighborhood and they are looking for little Angie. around 6:00
p.m. or maybe a few minutes after this. Again, according to detectives, this is when Diana and Ron flag down a Saint an
patrol officer. So, there's a officer just driving in the area making their rounds. They see the officer, flag him
down, and that is when a report is made saying, "Hey, our daughter is missing. She's 9 years old. This is what she
looks like. We can't find her." This is similar to we've seen this in some other
cases where parents are out looking for a child or children and happen to see a police officer and report it then and
there without having to make a call or go to the police department. I believe it was in the me West Memphis 3 case
when you had Mark Buyers and his family out looking for Christopher Buyers and they flagged down an officer. But I do
think that's important in this case and in other cases because that's a definitive
dot on the timeline where some other things could be speculation or you just have to take that person's word for it.
This is at least something that is probably documented in the police records. The detective stated that there
was no hesitation from police. They sprung into action immediately looking for the little girl. So, we do have to
point out here though, given this fairly exact timeline, very precise within 2 minutes, 3:50 to 3:52 that afternoon
when the bus dropped her off. Ron arrives home around 5. They're out looking for her shirt shortly after and
then reporting it to police around 6:00 or just after. The abductor had time to move. It was a small amount of time, but
the abductor had some time to move. Now, the St. Louis Post Dispatch reported that one neighbor who usually stood
guard at her window to watch children get off of the bus did not do so that day. and another neighbor who also
watched the afternoon drop offs from her front porch. She just so happened to be
away taking care of her sick father that day. So, this is one of those weird scenarios and we come across this in so
many cases where things just line up to fail that day and and it's all happen stance. It's no one's fault. But on this
day, things that normally would happen did not occur. And so, nobody saw where this little girl went, what happened to
her. When Angie failed to return home after school, her mother and stepfather, as we said, became concerned. This is
part of the story and it and it forever will be. But like I had talked about when we were going through some of her
personality traits, her mother and stepfather were very upfront with this right away, saying that Angie was
outgoing and it was not uncommon for her to get engaged in conversation with other schoolmates when she's getting off
the bus, maybe even follow them to their home briefly, and then she would make her way back to her house. It was also
not uncommon for her to come home, drop the book bag, and then go back out into the neighborhood and look for somebody
to hang out with or talk to or play with. She was always looking to hang out with some people. But their general
stance on this captain was that she would rarely be gone for very long, right? And so this is why they sprung into
action very quickly. Part of it too is her age. And this is a heavily populated area. Now, St. An's from my
understanding is I don't know 3/4 mile, four/4 miles, but there's a lot of people that live here. St. Louis is a
very heavily populated area. And it is a very expansive area. And really what set this whole
thing off was the book bag. No book bag. So, mom and dad sprung into action. They
began to search the neighborhood. No sign of Angie. They're knocking on doors during this time before they flagged
down the police, asking the neighbors if they had seen her or maybe is she somewhere playing with your kid. This
turned up a whole lot of nothing. The parents quickly reported the child missing as we said and very quickly a
bolo goes out to all the patrol officers in the area to be on the lookout for a small Caucasian girl with dark hair
likely carrying a backpack. and the search for a little girl began that evening.
This is a heavily populated area. So, I'm guessing with the neighbors having young kids and and other school kids in
the area that a lot of individuals start searching for her and trying to help the
family out. Yeah, this as said is a bluecollar neighborhood. It's a lot of nice homes,
small homes, but it's a tight-knit community and a lot of people know one another. And as you heard, we have a
scenario where we have folks looking out for each other, right? Moms or dads watching as the bus pick up the children
or the buses dropping off the neighborhood kids at the end of the day. Now, when nighttime hits, that is when
things really start to get scary, especially for the family and the parents in particular. By the next
morning, you have a whole new set of concerns. Of course, I'm going to try to stick to looking at this from the
investigator side of things. The very first thing that you would be doing is to do a canvas of the area. Confirm that
she was in fact on the bus. Once you've confirmed this, now you're canvasing the
neighborhood, her street, the surrounding streets, the bus route. It's a a six or seven minute drive from
Butter Elementary to Angie's house. Of course, you're going to question the parents, the parents friends, and
extended family. For your neighborhood canvas, you are doing a knock and talk. You're
going to knock. Somebody opens up the door and you are going to engage them in conversation and you are going to peek
around them, see what you can see into their home. It would not be out of the realm of possibility that whatever
happened to her, she may still be close even if she was abducted. You're going to also want to be set up for a trap and
trace at some point. You have to set up for a trap and trace. We could get a ransom call. You are look in a lot of
these scenarios you as weird as it may sound you are hoping for some kind of ransom call if you cannot locate the
missing individual. And then ransom or no ransom state lines or no state lines, you are contacting the FBI and informing
them that you have a child, a missing child and and what you are seeing here is telling you that this child may have
been abducted and especially in this case, right? Because you have a great FBI field office right there in St.
Louis that covers St. Louis and five counties. And I don't know about 30 years ago, but today the FBI has three
resident agencies in that area as well. The other thing you have here, and this is true for a lot of other heavily
populated areas where you have expanding an expanding populace sprawling across several jurisdictions like what we have
here in St. Louis, the greater St. Louis area. They have a major case squad. This
will be investigators from multiple agencies. oftentimes working together side by side or at least with regular
open door communications with each department and agency. Of course, we don't want a kidnapping case anywhere
ever, but at least here you have resources at a very, very high level. It is only about a 15-minute drive or so
from the FBI field office out to the abduction site. So, the FBI joined the search for 9-year-old Angie Hman on that
Friday. So, just under 24 hours after Angie goes missing, we have the FBI involved. Now, speaking of FBI, because
their agents typically investigate far more abduction cases, especially abduction cases involving children, one
agent that worked a lot of these kinds of cases out in California is on record saying that often you are reminded the
very sad, very grim, and scary reminder of thirds when it comes to these types of cases. This agent said that a third
of the kids are located and returned home. A third of the kids are found dead and a third are never found at all.
Ever. And another agent who worked the very well-known infamous case in California is on record saying that he
out of all the child abduction cases that he worked, he only got two ransom calls. The rest, no ransom calls. And in
those cases, the child was no longer alive once found. And obviously this could be just happen stance that
somebody came across her, but you would you would think it's maybe more likely that they understood the schedule. And
so we were talking, I think last week about how these killers will go to a mall because their victim type is a
teenage girl. Well, if your victim type is a elementary school girl, you can follow the bus. Yeah. And that's the
another sad scary realization here that the short amount of time that would have
taken her to walk the eight maybe nine houses from that intersection, the corner bus
stop back to her home. It's such a short window of time that it would seem plausible that whoever took this kid may
have followed the bus on that day. [Music] This message is sponsored by Greenlight.
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cheers to you Colonel. Cheers to you, Captain. Happy, happy, happy Fourth of July and Independence Day to all of our
great fellow Americans out there. Please celebrate responsibly, have a great time, grill out, crank up some music,
get together with friends and family, and just just have a great time. And and this year it's awesome that it falls on
a Friday. So everybody gets a hopefully you're getting a big long weekend to spend with your friends and family. The
victimology here and it gets a little trit and generic when we have such young victims
and like we do in this case. You know a lot of these children have very similar personalities or at least situations,
right? living situations. And here seems to be a very common situation. We have Angela Marie Angie Houseman who was born
February 18th, 1984. She was born in St. Louis, Missouri. As we had said, she is
a fourth grader who lived in St. Anne. She lived with her parents in a two-bedroom duplex on Wright Avenue. She
was a big sister to her little brother. He was about 2 years old when Angie went
missing. Her mother, Diana Houseman, married her stepfather, Ronald Bone, when Angie was just a toddler.
So, he had been in the picture. They had been living together for quite some time
leading up to this. Years later, years after she went missing, Ron described himself as a proud father.
Angie's biological father wasn't much in the picture. um he he is known he is somebody that police spoke with many
times but he wasn't somebody that was really playing much of a role at all in in her life. Now I'm not saying this
suggesting that there was a really good reason to but the parents were looked at
very strong in this case. The biological parents and Angie's stepfather were all
looked at very strong in this case. this was much much more it it's difficult to
say because I think that this case has so many complexities that I think the opinions and theories and
thoughts of detectives that worked this case over the many many years probably went in and out and changed their
thoughts on this case and who looked suspicious, who sounds suspicious and who they should be looking at. But I
think in large part, mostly here, Captain, that this was just a matter of due diligence and conducting a proper
and thorough investigation when it comes to the parents. Yeah, that'd be a tough situation, but
again, it's like, look at me, do the work that you need to do to rule me in or out so we can start looking in the
right direction. Yeah. And the stepfather, he complicates the case even further because he says
weird stuff throughout the course of this investigation. Some of his statements are are downright
incriminating, but from my understanding, there's a I hesitate to say this because I don't
know that it to be fact, but I I question if he has some disabilities and that maybe some of those statements come
from stem from that. I I don't want to linger on this too long because it's I've not
met the man. Where we go here now though, we got Thursday night is over. Friday comes and goes, then the weekend
passes, all with Angie still gone. Not good. No ransom call, no great leads early on. Police and
detectives are working around the clock. It's late in the year, the days are getting shorter, the nights are getting
longer, and it's getting colder outside as the calendar works itself closer and closer to the end of November. Now,
obviously at this point, they don't find her. But do they find any evidence of her? Do they find her book bag? Do they
find a notebook? Do they find anything? No. And usually in these cases, we have something like that, right? Where we
have a the start of a breadcrumb trail or somebody saw something or, oh, I think I heard something,
right? you know, or or even maybe blocks away or down the road somewhere. Somebody goes, "Yeah, I saw a guy in a
vehicle that I've never seen before and there was there was some kind of kid looked like there was a kid in the car."
We we don't have any of that here. It's It's crickets. It's nothing. Yeah. Or there's a some weirdo that was
walking down the street and he was fugly as hell. Might be somebody we want to look into. The city and the area was on
high alert. And people were afraid, openly afraid. Who would take a little girl and why?
And where the hell is she? A sicko. We're looking for a sicko. I mean, that's what we know. We're looking
for do we do a pervert roundup? The old famous pervert roundup. They did the old pervert roundup.
Old Mr. McSticky. 3 days after Angie vanished. We are now at November 21st on the timeline. I mentioned the major case
squad. Earlier, this is when they were brought in. So, you have the FBI there on day two and then by Monday, you have
the major case squad that is brought in. This was no doubt a massive search effort for this little kid. The local
media covered the case very well. Angie's face and last scene information were plastered everywhere.
Police received hundreds of tips from all over the St. Louis area to emphasize just how well the local law enforcement
fully understood the urgent nature of this case. This was only the second time in history that the major case squad
came in to work a case without a body. So this is all hands on deck situation. Now one thing that was reported and the
police learned about fairly early in their investigation here, Captain, there was an attempted abduction nearby that
was reported just a little more than a week before Angie's disappearance. Wow. But that girl was lucky. Somehow she
managed to get away from the creep. Now, here is what we know, right? This happened on November 8th in
Maryland Heights in the 2800 block of Smiley Road. So, this is about 4 miles from Angie's house, just a short
10-minute drive away. The perp was described as a white male, mid40s, approximately 200 lb, a mustache, and
glasses. He was driving a white car. A police sketch was produced of this perpetrator, of the person attempting
the abduction of this other little girl, and it was displayed on the evening and
nighttime news as well as in the paper. So, the sketch was in the paper multiple
times, but the sketch didn't really produce any leads that would direct police to a
suspect or more importantly to Angie. So, I'm looking at the sketch now. It's pretty detailed.
The guy has distinguishable hair, I would say. And uh looks like we got a double chin and a little little bit of a
chubby bohemoth. One week after Angie disappeared, it was Thanksgiving and at the Bone Houseman
family home, they had little if anything to be thankful for. The city was on high
alert and people were very much afraid. Who would take a little girl and why and
where the hell is she? Thanksgiving 1993 was celebrated on Thursday, November 25th. Angie vanished on her way home
from school exactly one week prior. On this Thanksgiving, people watched the 67th annual Macy's Day Parade featuring
the great Stevie Wonder, one of my favorites, and actor Kelsey Grammar. Folks tuned in to see the Dallas Cowboys
take on the Miami Dolphins at Texas Stadium in a game later called the Sleep Bowl or the Snow Bowl as temperatures in
Dallas never got above 35° in that game. Meanwhile, at a house in a neighboring county, a 13-year-old boy was visiting
friends on that Thanksgiving. there. The folks were sitting around watching the Thanksgiving Day football game during
which an enticing preview for the later newscast came on the TV screen. The news person
said something to the effect of, "Coming up tonight, the search for 9-year-old Angie Hman continues."
Mhm. So after this news breakak, the 13-year-old boy, the one visiting the home, he tells his friend in the
grown-ups in the room, I know where they will find her. They'll find her tied to
a tree in bush wildlife area. That's and then bizarre. Then the kid mentioned something about a
blue car. So he told the room that he saw it in a dream. No one really said much. The sad and scary subject was not
brought up again. The commercial break was over and the football game resumed. Late in the game, Dallas Cowboy
defensive player Leon Lit performed another in-game mistake by slipping in the snow to accidentally touch the
football after a blocked field goal attempt. This error gave the Dolphins the ball back deep in Cowboys territory.
Miami would go on to win 16 to 14. So, while America celebrated with food, family, friends, and football at Angie's
house, they cried, hugged one another, and tried to keep it together all while praying that the little girl would
somehow return home safe. But that was not to be. Well, let's go. Hold on. Let's go back
to this uh 13-year-old boy. This with a weird dream. I mean, if you're at Thanksgiving and and
this uh news report came on TV and your little nephew said something strange, don't you think you're going to do
something with that information? Or you just going to view it as well? I mean, we don't know the kids, so maybe it just
says weird stuff all the time. Yeah, I don't really know how to wrap my head around that situation.
Yeah, it's very bizarre. Two days later, on Saturday, November 27th, 1993, just nine days after she disappeared, a deer
hunter found something in a wooded area. This is in August a Bush Wildlife Area.
August Anheiser Bush Wildlife Area. I spoke with the officer that was first on the scene
and the wounds of what he experienced have not healed. Like I I'm saying that for him. This is not what he told me.
This is just the feeling that you got when you were speaking with him. Yeah. And I've spoke with a lot of law
enforcement personnel on many different matters. This one is one of the most difficult conversations I've ever had.
So maybe I was in my feelings a bit, but it would be it would be weird if he didn't feel I mean, this man is scarred
by what he witnessed that day. He's scarred by the whole investigation. That seems plain as day to me. I'll go
through some of what's been reported online and try to weave in his description of the area. So, while it's
reported that a a deer hunter was the the person that found this gruesome site in this wooded area,
the officer says, "I didn't know 100%, but I was pretty convinced immediately that it was Angie Houseman. I knew she
was missing. Everybody in the area knew she was missing. We didn't really have any other missing little kid cases at
the time and it was obvious that it was a child that they had found, not an adult. Now, it's a complicated crime
scene and you'll understand if you don't know this case, you'll understand very quickly why. So, the the deer hunter was
actually out with somebody else. It was two hunters, let's call them, but they weren't out hunting that day. They they
had drove up to the area and they were scouting. A lot of times hunters will go out and scout an area because if there's
no animal activity, if in fact they were hunting for deer, if there's no deer activity in the area, it's it's
pointless to go up and spend a whole day looking and waiting to to find and hunt
something. So, they're up there kind of scouting out this area. But, you know, if there's no deer in the area, it gives
you guys more time to talk about your feelings and hold hands. Well, they had they had checked in with a
conservation officer earlier. I don't know if there was a check-in process or if this was
more happen stance, but anyway, they had spoke with a conservation officer. His name escapes me at the moment. They come
across this horrific scene and they immediately contact the conservation officer and then we have a domino effect
of the conservation officer contacts the sheriff's department. Now, we need to note here that this is while it's still
relatively close to where Angie Houseman lived, it is in a neighboring county. So, now we are talking about St. Charles
County, Missouri. So this deputy, he was very nearby when So he gets the call just because he's in close proximity.
He arrives. He talks to the con conservation officer who tells them, "Hey, I went in there and looked and I
just to confirm that I was seeing what what they thought they had seen right before calling you. And I, you know, I'm
here to tell you that I'm pretty sure that that that what they were reporting is correct. So, very astutely, the
officer, the deputy says, "Show me exactly how you walked in. Let's go. Let's enter this area the way that you
entered, and let's exit the way that you exited." So, there had been some snowfall, some light snowfall, and the
deputy, he said that he could see the conservation officer's footprints in the snow. So, he he knew where where to go
in and how to leave. And he was already very mindful of the idea that there is going to be physical evidence here. we
do not want to disturb the scene or create any kind of chaos at the scene. And he described this area as a heavily
wooded area, but he said that even though the leaves had mostly fallen or all had fallen by this time of year,
that it would still be very difficult to see back in to this space. However, she
was found on the ground and he he he had said had she been standing up or maybe even sitting up
that he may have spotted her sooner on his own even without the report coming in because he often patrolled that area.
This was an area that people would go back and park. You might get teenagers that would go drink back there. their a
party spot. And th this seemed very strange, but but he said it so matterof factly that it doesn't seem strange at
all to the people that live there. He had said that he would go back and check cars in this area of this wildlife
preserve because it wasn't uncommon for someone to commit suicide in their car. Wow. back in this area or and I also
wonder with you know this is the early 90s but since then I also wonder if this is a may be an area where people
accidentally overdose as well. So anyway this this was an area where not too far from where she was
found they he would go back there and check vehicles and and snoop around and look around and he patrolled this area
regularly. He told me that she was found about 30 yards from the road. Again, heavily wooded area, difficult to see
back in there. I'll go off of what the internet and newspaper reports are and then if needed fill in some of the
additional information that we received from the detectives. So eventually, of course, they will identify the body that
was located as that of Angie Hman. She was found nude, and the short description is that she was tied to a
tree about 90 ft from the road. Her wrist had been handcuffed. She had duct tape covering most of her
face except for her nose. Under the duct tape, they found a cut piece of Barbie doll underwear, which was confirmed to
be hers. The rest of her clothing was found somewhat near the body in a Dollar General bag, you know, one of those
thin plastic bags that you get from the from the store when you pick up items. And the backpack was found as well. This
was actually located on the other side of the street. So, if you can kind of picture this, you go back into this
wooded area and on one side of the street, you're going to have where you would walk in and find the body about 90
ft from the road. And then on the other side of that road in a basically an adjacent location is where they find
what what would probably look like debris to just anybody that's passing by or like oh great somebody littered out
here in this wildlife area but it was actually evidence for their case because it was items belonging to the victim.
So, now we have a body. We have an absolutely horrific crime scene and a missing person's case that just turned
into a homicide case. A little more description here. Tied to the tree. So, she was tied to the tree with her own
jeans. These would have been jeans that she was wearing when she went missing. Whoever placed her there, we had
mentioned handcuffs. They had taken the legs of the jeans and tied it around a tree and then tied a knot to the
handcuffs and this is what secured her to that tree. Now, the detective speculated that
had she been in better shape when she was placed. So, one of the most This is one of the most difficult and horrific
cases that we've ever had to cover, right? Uh, I think just because the nature of how this poor little girl was
found. And so bear with me here as I struggle to to go down this road here one more time and hopefully for the last
for me anyway. The handcuffs were not like a police grade. These were like novelty handcuffs that you would
purchase at a store for I think most kids own a pair of these when they're younger. Well, I'm glad you
pointed that out because these are not like the the play handcuffs that are of, you know, for magic tricks or for uh the
even plastic ones that are just straight up toy handcuffs. These are a little more novelty maybe that that adults
would purchase for bedroom activities, I guess you would say. Joy toys. The jeans were tied around these
handcuffs or Her hands were cuffed behind her back. The detective speculated that had she
been she was alive when she was placed there. They're absolutely certain of that because there is physical evidence
telling them that at the scene. Right. Now, what he said to me, had she been in better health when she was placed there,
she might have been able to stand up. And if that were the case, like he said, he may have spotted her. somebody may
have spotted her prior to this. Now, just point out a couple things. I mean, one of the things that you said that you
can just visually see, you almost said it perfectly to put a picture in your mind is when the law law enforcement
officer is going out to the scene and he sees these footprints. So then obviously
it's like you got to make this mental note that if somebody's leaving footprints, there could be other
footprints. There could be other evidence at this scene. And also the placement of her, it's confusing because
on one level you go, well, was she placed out here to die or did the person that attacked her thought did he think
she was dead already and and just left her thinking that she was already dead? Because obviously if she's not dead,
that would give her some kind of a chance possibly. Uh but like you said, law enforcement officer saying that
she's so um in a bad situation, but the imagery kind of reminds you of the first case in True Detective season
1, just the placement of the body around the tree and the hands behind the back.
And then am I missing something? We have this 13-year-old that basically tells his
family that she's going to be found tied to a tree. Yeah, that is just I mean one of many
many very strange and complicated parts to this case and investigation. the So, one thing that I struggled with
early in this was the thought like you had said maybe and I think shame on me because I think I gave the the killer
far too much credit when I had pondered the idea of well maybe he or they thought she was dead
when they placed her there. But but they wouldn't they wouldn't tie the jeans to
the handcuffs like that. I think that that is more of an indicator that the person or persons knew that she was
still alive and they were just too big of [ __ ] cowards to do the job themselves and they left her out there
in and in in a very cruel one of the most cruel acts I've ever ever read about or talked about and the but then
you also wonder if there's something that happened when the individual was out there. This is
obviously not a heavily populated area, but if you look into the Deli case, you know, there's some evidence that if the
killer got disrupted that one of the victims, we believe wasn't fully dead by the time that the
the killer left. So, is it possible that there was supposed to be more that happened at this crime scene and didn't
because of some kind of disturbance to the killer? Yeah, I think that's always in consideration with in regard to the
Deli case. I think he simply just didn't know that she was still clinging to life
because it he made some efforts. He he did some things that are very common that other killers have done after
similar to when they're dumping a body right at at some place. So with as far as the duct tape goes, so the the duct
tape was covering the the internet reports say almost all of her face and head, but the detective told me that it
it other than her nostrils, those were the only that was the only part that was not covered by duct tape. Again, a
portion of the internet says a cut piece of her Barbie underwear was stuffed in her mouth underneath the duct tape, but
it was it was a torn piece. And then the the killer or the killers also um duct tape around the they duct taped around
the the handcuffs as well. And so I just see a lot of effort going into placing her there so she can't leave that. I
think they were well aware that she was still alive as the detective said in very bad condition.
But the other thing that and this is speculative because you know there's no all the reports that have made their way
to the newspapers and the internet over the years all say a very similar statement that she
likely expired within just a very short time period very you know just hours before she was found. And had the Yeah.
had the weather conditions been better or had she been clothed that she may have survived long enough to be
recovered and and taken to a hospital? I don't think that that's the case based off of the information that I received
that we received. It was. So remember she is finally located on a Saturday. On that Thanksgiving
there was freezing rain. So when she was found there was ice on her, freezing rain on her. And so that tells me that
she probably she was placed there before that freezing rain on Thanksgiving, which is a couple days before she was
located. And Jesus, I um she wasn't doing a whole lot of moving u after that freezing rain situation. So
the autopsy of course was conducted and the short of it was that they had confirmed that in the days that she had
been missing that she was held somewhere before she was placed there in the woods. She had been brutally sexually
assaulted, beaten, starved, and denied fluids. Uh some reports state that her hair had been cut and and maybe dyed to
some different color. Um, it seems I don't know about the the dying of the hair, but the the hair seems to be cut.
That seems to be a consistent statement through and through. Uh, her autopsy determined that Angie likely died of
exposure. Probably, again, the reports out there are just hours before her body was found. I think it was probably a day
or so. Uh, most reports state that the cause of death is hypothermia. It was very it was
getting very cold and she wasn't she wasn't clothed and and and she was in bad shape when she was placed there.
Whenever that was she was in bad shape when she was placed there. Yeah. It's it's almost hard to hear the
cause of death is hypothermia. No, the cause of death is that she was abducted and basically
she was abducted and tortured by a sick sadistic psychopath. That that's the cause of death. There was a deep cut on
one of her thighs and then the her wrist had several cuts on them as well. And one thing that I had speculated was
often times when you see cuts on wrist and you find a victim handcuffed. A lot of times those cuts on the wrist come
from the handcuffs, right? where they're struggling to get free or they're being
moved and controlled via the handcuffs and and it creates bruises or even cuts and injuries to the wrist. And so I had
said to the detective so that she clearly was handcuffed for quite some time and and they said yes that seems
very likely. However, they could not. They tried to reconstruct those injuries to the wrist using
handcuffs and they couldn't do it. So, they just bound somewhere else. Well, they Yeah, they they don't know
where those those cuts came from or how they were administered, but they feel confident that they didn't come from the
handcuffs, especially from the handcuffs with her trying to to break free. So, she had she had a lot of injur injuries.
She wasn't cared for. And that also I found that to be incredibly cruel, but also strange, right? There's a lot of
strange pieces to this case immediately when you look at the crime scene. One, handcuffs.
Yeah. Two of the detectives that we spoke to have had careers where they worked 30
years and covered many homicides, many death investigations. I said to both of them, I said, "How many of those death
investigations or homicides did you find a pair of handcuffs on the victim?" This
was the only one. Damn near 60 years of experience. This is the only one. Or like you said, the amount of duct
tape around the handcuffs and then the duct tape around the mouth. And then I think it's probably, and you know this
um better than I would, but you'd think on some level this individual, the the victim's going to be tied up to a tree
with a rope or something, not necessarily a item of their clothing. Yeah, that's the other thing, too.
There's very little items here that you would be finding. And I don't have a complete inventory because I know that
they collected dozens and dozens and dozens of items. I don't want to go down this road again because we've covered it
a lot of times here in the garage. If you're new to the garage, we got Oh, we got two or three old episodes you could
go back and listen to. We're new to the true crime space. Yeah, we're new to the garage.
They call us newbies. The the complications with an outdoor crime scene. We've talked about that,
but there's also an abundance of items that would need to be collected. Some of it's just straight up debris. Some of it
could be physical evidence here. Without having an inventory, I can see some things that very obviously seem to have
belonged to the killer or killers. The duct tape was not hers. The handcuffs were not Angie's. And the I would I
would guess that even the Dollar General bag where her clothing, some of her clothing was found was not hers as well.
So, as horrific as this crime scene is, you're looking at it going, "Okay, well,
I would expect to find some physical evidence that may lead me to the person or persons responsible." Duct tape is is
usually something that will lead you to a perpetrator. Um, and we can get into that, but for because there's many
reasons it's it's it's so the the effort that it takes to tear it, to place it on
someone, to use somebody to bind them with it, it it takes a lot of effort and a good amount of physicality.
And even if you use gloves, there's a possibility for DNA or touch DNA or even some kind of fabric transfer.
Yes. And they did have fibers that were found and hairs that were found that were physical evidence that they were
going to be using. And they did use quite a bit in this case. But the first piece of evidence that they thought may
have been promising was a fingerprint that was found on the adhesive side of one of the pieces of duct tape. In fact,
I think there's a chance that it may have been found on more than one piece of the duct tape because it was torn
several times. This wasn't one or two or three pieces of duct tape. This was many
tears uh of duct tape that was were placed. And look, they there were small bits of ice that formed all over her
body. I believe some of that was from the the the frozen rain. and she suffered a terrible death that
unfortunately did not come quick. The body was recovered in St. Charles County. [Music]
reading the case file and al also um we spend a lot of time at the scene just because it helps your mind or it helps
me think she just the way she was left it's like she was just she was just discarded
and her cause of death when they Dr. case perform that autopsy and what they found
was pretty horrific. Ed finding that first of all, he's probably the biggest bulldog for kids. Um I can
only imagine I mean I wasn't there with him then, but yeah, the right person was
the first person on scene because there was no stopping him and him and John worked this for plus 20 years, over 20
years. So, um the pictures and having seeing her there and then with pictures and then having been there
um it's just the one thing I couldn't wrap my mind around is again what kind of person does this? And it was just if I
had I'm glad I didn't see it in person. I've seen plenty. But um that had to be tough and I'm sure something that I
still think about it. So I imagine anybody involved the hunter, bless his heart, I can only imagine him seeing
something like that. Children were dying and and not just, you know, from a sickness or something
which would be bad enough. These were horrific deaths and it was terrifying. [Music]
Want to thank you so much for joining us here in the garage. So much more to get
to in this case. Stick around for part two. Until then, be good, be kind, and don't litter.
[Music] [Applause] [Music]

Stolen: The Angie Housman Story /// Part 1 /// 853

Part 1 of 3

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November 18, 1993 in a quiet suburb of St. Louis, a 4th grader disappears on her way home from school. 9 year old Angie Housman was last seen departing the school bus after arriving at her normal stop. Something happened between the bus stop and home and she vanished. There were similar cases and victims nearby at the time which complicated the investigation. Sadly, Angie was just one of many victims that are discussed throughout this story. This is the story of an investigation that lasted decades and the dedicated detectives that lived, worked, and closed out one of the most heartbreaking cases that we have reviewed.

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Brief Summary

The episode details the abduction and murder of 9-year-old Angie Houseman in Missouri in 1993, including the investigation and crime scene findings.

Key points

The Disappearance of Angie Houseman. On November 18, 1993, 9-year-old Angie Houseman vanished after getting off the school bus.
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Mint Mobile Savings. Switch to Mint Mobile for affordable wireless service and save money.
Angie's Disappearance. The community is left in fear after 9-year-old Angie goes missing.
Discovery of Angie's Body. A deer hunter finds a body in a wooded area, leading to a tragic conclusion.
Discovery of the Body. A body was found tied to a tree, marking a tragic turn in the case.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Anytime a child is involved, it's the worst.

A poignant reflection on the emotional toll of child abductions.

4:07WatchJul 8, 2025

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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