Stolen: The Angie Housman Story /// Part 2 /// | Forensic Files

Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. With the price of just about everything going up, we thought we'd bring our
prices down. So to help us, we brought in a reverse auctioneer, which is apparently a thing. Mint Mobile
Unlimited Premium Wireless get 30 30 20 15 just 15 bucks a month. So give it a try at mintmobile.com/switch.
Up front payment of $45 for three month plan equivalent $15 per month required. New customer offer for first three
months only. Speed slow after 35 gigabytes of networks busy. Taxes and fees extra. cement.com.
You just realized your business needed to hire someone yesterday. How can you find amazing candidates fast? Easy. Just
use Indeed. When it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need. Stop struggling to get your job post seen on other job
sites. Indeed sponsored jobs help you stand out and hire fast. With sponsored jobs, your post jumps to the top of the
page for your relevant candidates so you can reach the people you want faster. According to Indeed data, sponsored jobs
posted directly on Indeed have 45% more applications than non-sponsored jobs. There's no need to wait any longer.
Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get
your jobs more visibility at indeed.com/mpodcast. Just go to indeed.com/mpodcast
right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast.
indeed.com/mpodcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need. [Music]
Welcome to True Crime Garage. Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, thanks for listening. I'm your host Nick and
with me as always is a man who independently celebrates his independence. Here is Captain.
It's good to be seen and good to see you. Thanks for listening. Thanks for telling a friend.
We are still sipping on some brewree or die blood orange IPA by the great people
over at 21st Amendment Brewery. This fed IPA is brewed just like 21st Amendments's West Coast style brew free
or die IPA, but with an abundance of fresh blood orange puree and a touch of dry hops. It's refreshingly great. It's
refreshingly different. Garage grade four and a quarter bottle caps out of five. And here are some cheers. Very
much deserving cheers to our good garage friends. First up, a cheers to Michelle
from Indicott, New York. And a big we like your jib goes out to Angie Lloyd in Levvenworth, Kansas.
Here's a cheers to Reggie in Grand Island, Nebraska. And a big tall cans in there goes to
Rosemary in Scenic Dearborn, Michigan. Here's a shout out to Tristan Sakamoto in Happy Valley, Oregon. And last, but
certainly not least, we give a shout out to Jean and Dean from Akran, Indiana. Everybody we just mentioned, well, they
donated to this week's beer fund and for that we thank you. Yeah. BW are ruin beer run. Want to give
a big thank you to all the freak nasty True Crime Garage listeners that went to true crimegar.com and they clicked on
the store page, checked out some of the new merchandise, use the promo code, and
picked them up some swag. Colonel, that's enough of the B is nas. All right, everybody. Gather around. Grab a
chair. Grab a beer. Let's talk some true crime. [Music] to get to the scene. He drove down a
little private lane, little asphalt lane that that led off of the two-lane asphalt state highway uh into a wooded
area referred to as Bush Wildlife Area. Um and I think I at one point in time I was
told not to mention Bush Wildlife. They didn't want the bad publicity, but whatever that that's where she was
found. Everyone knows that now. Um, so the scene was uh treeine road on both sides. You couldn't really see anything
beyond the trees because it was so thick with trees even though it was the leaves
were falling or have had fallen off the uh the limbs. If you if that makes sense. She was found probably 20, I
don't know, 20 yards, 30 yards off the road in the woods. I think honestly I I worked that particular area pretty much.
And I I think to this day, even if I would have driven down that road in in the nine days that she was missing, I
had driven down that road several times. dead end road goes to the end of the it
goes back to where a schoolhouse had once been had since burnt down. I I would go as part of my patrol. I would
go down that road. I would check for hunters to make sure that their vehicles weren't broken into. There was nobody
back there uh dead in a vehicle. Uh it's a it was a it is still to this day a popular place for people to go to commit
suicide as as sad as that is. So I would check that that that was part of my patrol function. And I would go back
there, I would check for cars for various reasons. Uh, and then the point of that was I believe that had she been
sitting up leaning against the tree, I would have seen something that probably would have peaked my curiosity out in
the middle of the woods, if that makes sense. I could see that far. Yeah. The woods were thick, but I could I and
and eventually I I walked back there. So, it was a matter of pushing branches out of the way that you could walk back
there. So, she had uh a pair of jeans with her. I I don't know had if she had worn them
to school. I know there was some issues with her when she got ready for work or got ready for school that morning. She
had a skirt or some skirt or something on and it was too cold, mom said. So, she made her put jeans on. Um so, if you
if you can imagine the legs of the jeans, they were wrapped around a tree. They were looped through her arms that
were behind her back and just tied in a knot. Uh yeah, just um I don't know cuz she wasn't laying
she was against the tree. She was flat on the back. Yeah. Like laying Yeah. Yeah. Left side
of her left shoulder was like right at the tree. Arms were like swung to the side behind her. if that. And then so
like her her hands taped or or handcuffed as you said, they were uh on the left side of her body. She's 9 years
old. She's flexible obviously, but much more than me. Um but so she was laying on her back, left
side kind of against the tree, her left shoulder, and then the jeans secured her.
Uh I don't know if it would have normally the way they were tied if that would have kept anybody there that
wasn't you know near death anyway because of no food no nothing apparently for 9 days 7
days however long she lived I can tell you that she was definitely alive when she was put there because her
they were picture this in your head let's just say they sit her down at the tree they tie her hands behind or her
hands are handcuffed behind her back, whatever. And they tie her to that tree. You can see in the ground where she had
like used her feet and she tried to either sit back up or reposition herself. So you can see where the ground
was uh the scuff uh the scuff marks in the ground from the heels from her heels. Does that make sense?
Yep. Uh she's so she's on like a leaf covered ground because the leaves are falling
and she's pushing with her feet to try to reposition herself. I I could speculate she was trying to sit up. Uh
she was blindfolded or had duct tape over her eyes. I just can't imagine uh just what she was going through.
[Music] Very sadly, the body of Angie Houseman was recovered in the neighboring county
of St. Charles County. There was a lot of evidence at the scene, or at least a lot of items that detectives confidently
believed could yield some physical evidence. So, they spent days collecting and then even more time examining items
that were found on Angie and items found scattered at the scene. Some forensic clues were retrieved from the
examination, including a fingerprint on the duct tape that was covering her mouth. We need to
note here and this was very smart on behalf of the detectives. They refused to say how Angie died, right? We are we
are reporting it here today, it would eventually be reported for but for a very long time and as best as they could
keep this thing under wraps, they would they would simply just say that it was an extremely violent death confirmed
homicide. Yeah. and we have some big details. And if they would release those details like
the handcuffs or the duct tape or how she was bound to the tree, if they release any of that information, then
you can get false confessions. You can get, you know, bogus reports coming in. It can it can muddy up your
investigation, bog down the investigation, as I like to say. And of course, and they were
expecting because of the amount of local news coverage and how much media presence there was in this case from the
time that she went missing to the time that she was found. They were expecting that they would get some false
confessions or at least that they may get somebody calling in with bad tips or many many people calling in with tips
that are not great for your investigation. Meaning they're they're leads to follow up on but they don't
lead you to the suspect or to the person's or person responsible. you know, they they had good or believed
that they had good physical evidence and that it would only be a matter of time before they found the killer. So, let's
add this as well, Captain. A lot of what you were saying, I'm going to echo it here. because of the very specific way
that Angie was left, should the killer talk to someone else or and that person were to come forward to police with some
details? Well, then they would also know that they had a good lead, a great lead,
likely the best yet. Because if someone says, "Hey, I think so and so or so and so told me that they knew what happened
or were involved." Here's what they told me. There's specific details in there that would tell detectives right away.
This is this is our lead that we got to chase down immediately. Push the other ones aside just for a moment and let's
work on this one. The other thing, too, is keep in mind the fingerprint. When you're investigating and you find a
fingerprint that is pulled from an item that you know that the killer had to place on your victim and think about the
crime that we're talking about, the abduction of a child, sexual assault, homicide, this every one of those is
telling you that you are likely dealing with a person that has that was already in the system that's been picked up for
something else at some point, locked up for something else at some point, and you're going, "Aha! Ah, we got this
guy's fingerprint. We got the killer's fingerprint. We're going to find him in a database
somewhere. It's only a matter of time. Sadly, what happens here is, and I don't know that this was ever released to the
public, but sadly what happened with that fingerprint, they tested it and tested it and analyzed it, analyzed it
because they thought that they could pull that that over time it would get better because the fingerprint that they
pulled was simply this. It wasn't good enough to throw it in a database and find a match.
It was only good enough if you had a onetoone comparison to say that person not a match. This person yes is a match.
Right? People that know this case and if we have enough time we'll get into it. There were a lot of suspects in this
case. A lot of suspects. Now, many of them they were able to eliminate, maybe not off of their words or what else they
were being told about suspect A, B, or C, but they were able to eventually eliminate them based off of physical
evidence. So, some of that would be this one toone comparison of the fingerprint.
Remember, we also talked about there being fibers and hairs that were recovered from this scene as well. Now,
I mentioned bad tips. I want to be clear here. Most of the time that this is people with good intentions calling in,
phoning in, saying, "Hey, I think so and so did it or I saw this and it was weird."
It's the people aren't bad that are phoning those in or alerting police. If you see something, say something. But
what it what it then what then ensues is you have leads that detectives have to chase down ultimately to spend time on
those and efforts and resources on those only to figure out that well it didn't lead us to the person that we're
actually looking for. Right now let's flip the page on the monthly calendar here and go to December
1st. So we're still early on in our timeline here. December 1st, 1993. So this is now 4 days after Angie's body
was found. This is when another girl disappears. November was one of the worst months ever for this community.
And now December is right on par to be the same to be of the same dread here. For this we go to Hazlewood, Missouri.
Hazelwood is about seven or eight miles from St. An with daytime traffic. The quickest route would be about 14 minutes
drive time. This case that we're about to get into is not only nearby in both time and proximity, but right from Jump
Street, this case is eerily similar to that of Angie Houseman's case. So, here we have 10-year-old Cassidy
Center. Everyone calls her Cassie. On Wednesday, December 1st, she arrived home from
school and then she left on foot to walk to a friend's house. This meeting was known. So, the friend
became somewhat alarmed when her friend did not arrive, but they're I mean, they're little kids. That happens. The
little girl, Cassie, never showed. When Cassie didn't return home at 5:00 p.m., her mother called the friend's house to
learn that the daughter never arrived. Now, here is something that's quite unique. I don't know that we've found
this in other cases. if we have I don't recall. But little Cassie, 10-year-old, she had this little yellow
alarm that she would keep with her. Now, I don't know the specifics of this alarm, but I remember these from when I
was a kid, and sometimes adults would carry them, like if if a lady was out jogging or walking and known to walk in
parking lots late at night, these were often ones that you could strap on to like your purse or you could put them
even around your neck and it was just this little kind of picture like a a little tiny flashlight. They kind of
look like that. and and you you can hit a button or you can pull them. Some of them you would pull and then it would
send off this like very annoying loud earpiercing alarm, right? The it it's not monitored. It's not like um the old
commercials of I help I've fallen and I can't get up, right? Life alert. It's there's nobody
monitoring it. So, you're not paying for any type of service. You used to be able
to buy these things for like $10. And so people would carry these and you could pull them. It's it's almost like a a
rape whistle, right? But a battery powered alarm that you could pull them or hit a button and this very loud
annoying alarm would just keep going and going and going. And it's meant to draw
attention or scare persons off. She had one of these on her the day that she went missing. Now remember, the Angie
Houseman case was big news. A lot of people were following it. A lot of people were afraid, especially people
with kids. So, I don't know if this was purchased because of the news of Angie Houseman's case or if she was already
arming herself with one of these, but I saw other news articles stating that a lot of these types of items were being
purchased around this time because of the Houseman case. Again, here in this case, like the Houseman one, we have a
rather small amount of time in which something happened to this little girl. same age roughly, nearly identical
victimology. And of course, after this little girl goes missing, police feared that there
was a serial predator in the area. We already talked about the major crimes unit working Angie's case, the FBI being
brought in, but they also were using something that was a little bit of a new strategy back then. This was an FBI
strategy, and it was a program called Rapid Start. So, I'm going to read a little excerpt here from the great book,
In the Light of All Darkness. This is page 168. From the notes, it says, "Rapid Start was used in the November
18, 1993 kidnapping of Angie Houseman and the December 1st, 1993 abduction of Cassidy
Center. Investigators feared that a serial killer, a child serial killer was active after both bodies were found
separately. So very sadly, Cassidy Cent's body was recovered the next day. They used this rapid start program and
strategy. This was, from my understanding here, Captain, this was something that the FBI put together when
there was a bomb case going on somewhere in the South, I believe just a year or so prior to these two kids going missing
and then being found killed. And it was a way to collect and organize tips that were coming in from the public and a way
to help them strategize and prioritize chasing down specific leads and also a way of making it easier for detectives
to communicate with one another, but also communicate with the FBI and work hand in hand. We know we we saw how
difficult the lack of communication made things in the 70s and early 80s with some of these very difficult cases to
work where you have multiple jurisdictions or multiple agencies. What we're seeing here in the late 80s early
90s is an effort an effort by these agencies specifically the FBI to make it so that that the barriers that were once
there for communication are no longer there. eliminate those barriers. Open door communication can only help should
help your investigation. The point is the object is obviously is to catch these bad guys as quickly as possible
because we know how the likelihood of sexual predators to reaffend, especially child sexual predators. And now in quick
succession here you have two kids roughly the same age go missing for a period of time later recovered dead and
obvious signs that it's a homicide obvious signs of an abduction and you have a community two communities a whole
area region that is terrified about a serial killer potential serial killer operating in this area.
Not only do we have two abductions but remember that we had the abduction attempt before the first abduction.
Exactly. Now, the St. Louis Post Dispatch did fantastic coverage of these two cases. One of the more interesting
articles that they put out was from January 23rd, 1994. So, we will go to there real quick here
to kind of explain what was going on at the time in the area and how police were
working, try to figure this out very quickly. So they reported that the headline was cases at ground zero
woman's killing investigated with those of two girls. This was by Kim Bell and Bill Bryan of the Post Dispatch. And I'm
not going to read the entire article here, but the key points are that there was a third victim. So a
woman who was killed, she was 20 years old. her name is Amy Bond. And there was thoughts that there were things in that
investigation that made it seem like it was possibly connected to the Houseman case. And then
Houseman and Center because the victimology is so similar and the proximity is so close in both time and
distance. There was a lot of people that thought they were connected. So, if Amy
was connected to Angie, then she was connected to both in many people's minds. So, part of that is 20-year-old
Amy Bond, she was working at a Casey Masterpiece restaurant and she got off work.
This would have been in the month before Angie was abducted. when she got off work. It everything is telling us that
she was intercepted between the time she left the building, the restaurant, and and getting to her car.
And when she was later, her body was later found and recovered. The killer had used a considerable
amount of electric tape to bind her and even used it on on her face and head in a manner similar to that of Angie's case
with the duct tape. And because there were sexual assaults in both cases, there was a lot of thought that maybe
they they were connected. So this article is telling us that the task there was a task force that was formed
because of the panic that was going on. And the task force was made up of detectives from across many different
jurisdictions and agencies working together because you also had three different jurisdictions where these
crimes took place. Plus, the victims are found in other locations from where they
were abducted. So, you can see how complicated this whole thing gets very quickly. They were saying openly in this
article here, Captain, that police don't even know if there is one killer, two killers, or more, saying detectives have
interviewed hundreds of pedophiles and peeping toms. You had asked about the old pervert roundup. It sounds like they
absolutely did that. And they took it a step further. They've even questioned convicted murderers and rapists. And
because of how much work was spent on this and talking to all those people, rounding those people up and chasing
down leads, they even solved a string of burglaries, car thefts, and assaults thanks to leads that were de developed
during the course of talking to these people in these inquiries, right? All of this effort, it did help to
develop a profile of the killer. We'll get into that here in a minute. But when being interviewed, the the task force,
the man in charge of the task force, he openly said, "Look, we got all these detectives working this case. There's a
lot of different opinions here. There's a there's there's many different theories across the amount of detectives
that are working this case." Yeah, you got to you got to go, "Hey, perverts, come come gather around. Take your hands
out of your pocket. Stop playing pocket pull. We got some questions to ask you little perverts.
So, according to the article, it says each morning about 45 detectives from St. Louis County, the city of St. Louis,
and the major case squad huddle at the county's police academy for a briefing. They then break into three teams, one
for each victim. I I really think this is a very smart strategy. This is something we talked about when the then
when there had before there was an arrest in the Long Island serial killer case because you had agencies that could
not come to a consensus an agreement if all those victims were from the same killer or same group of killers and we
had said the same thing back then you you you can investigate this in a way that they are connected and also not
connected all at the same time. You just got to be smart with it. when Cassid's body was found. So Cassid's body was
found on December 9th. The there was a whole bunch of tips that came in, of course, and there were
thousands of leads, thousands of tips that were police were doing the leg work on it. FBI lab experts were sifting
through crate loads of evidence that had been shipped out to Washington for analyzation and testing. And in this
article, so keep in mind this is from January 23rd, 1994, they're saying, "Look, at this time, it's been about six
weeks since these these two girls were abducted and murdered, and we we haven't found a killer yet for all three of
these victims. Amy Bond was 20 years old, lived in Chesterfield. I want to make sure we throw that out there." and
it was the parking lot of the CA the Casey Masterpiece Barbecue and Grill on Chesterfield Parkway South and she was
abducted October 4th, found October 5th in a wheat field in Montgomery County. So now you can see we have multiple
counties involved in this investigation. Going back to the Cassidy Center, the Cassie case, that personal alarm, a
yellow device, this article says the size of a transistor radio was found sounding off,
screeching in a neighbor's yard. Whatever happened to her, that alarm was activated. She may have activated it,
likely activated it herself, but when it's found, it's found in a neighbor's yard, and she is not found
right away. She's not found until December 9th when two teenage boys found her body wrapped in a bedspread and
quilt in a St. Louis alley. She had been beaten severely and the task force that
we have referenced a couple of times was formed the same day, December 9th, that
her body was found. and police in this article go in and out of saying, "Look, there are some there are similarities
that are striking. There's also some considerable differences." And I did like one of the quotes
that came from one of the detectives that was saying, you know, they're saying some think it's a serial killer
that that they're all that they're all connected. But to be clear to the reporters, he's saying it's a gut
feeling kind of thing. That and 50 cents will get you a cup of coffee. We have no
proof yet. [Music] Whether your child is trying to catch up, stay sharp, or get a head start for
the fall, Il can make learning a seamless part of summer. Il is an award-winning online learning platform
that helps kids truly understand what they're learning, whether they're brushing up on math or diving into
social studies. L is used in 96 of the top 100 school districts in the US and is a great tool to keep learning going.
L's personalized learning that is trusted by parents and educators. More than 17 million students have already
tried, used, and benefited from. And that's grade levels prek through 12th grade. Plus, has Spanish for all ages.
Whether you're looking to stay on track, get ahead, or get caught up, Il can help. I know many who have benefited
from their experience with a path to success. Make an impact on your child's learning. Getl now and True
Crime Garage listeners can get an exclusive 20% offl membership when they sign up today atl.com/g.
Visit excl.com/g to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price.
This is an ad by BetterHelp. Workplace stress is one of the top causes of declining mental health. With 61% of the
global workforce experiencing high stress, most of us can't wave goodbye to work. But we can start small with a
focus on wellness. Therapy can help you navigate whatever challenges the workday
or any day might bring. With over 30,000 therapists, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, having
served over 5 million people globally. And it works with an app store rating of 4.9 out of five based on over 1.7
million client reviews. It's convenient, too. You can join a session with the click of a button, helping you fit
therapy into your busy life, plus switch therapist at any time. As the largest online therapy provider in the world,
BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise. Our listeners get
10% off their first month at betterhelp.com/g. That's betterhp.com/g. You just realized your business needed
to hire someone yesterday. How can you find amazing candidates fast? Easy. Just use Indeed. When it comes to hiring,
Indeed is all you need. Stop struggling to get your job post seen on other job sites. Indeed sponsored jobs help you
stand out and hire fast. With sponsored jobs, your post jumps to the top of the page for your relevant candidates so you
can reach the people you want faster. According to Indeed data, sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed have 45% more
applications than non-sponsored jobs. There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with
Indeed. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at
indeed.com/mpodcast. Just go to indeed.com/mpodcast right now and support our show by saying
you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com/mpodcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring
Indeed is all you need. We all belong outside. We're drawn to nature. Whether it's the recorded sounds
of the ocean we doze off to or the succulents that adorn our homes, nature makes all of our lives, well, better.
Despite all this, we often go about our busy lives removed from it. But the outdoors is closer than we realize. With
All Trails, you can discover trails nearby and explore confidently with offline maps and ontra navigation.
Download the free app today. [Music] All right, we are back. Cheers, mates, to the windows, to the walls. Cheers to
you, Colonel. Cheers to you, Captain. We had mentioned that there was a profile that was put
out. This was released to the public, but just real quick, we have a sketch in the first abduction, but do we have a
sketch for the second abduction? So, we end up with a a a different composite sketch that comes that stems from
something else. So, to be clear, the first composite sketch that came out was from the attempted abduction one week
prior. I believe it was 10 days prior to Angie Houseman being abducted. Of course, you got to wonder, is that a
that failed abduction attempt? Is that connected to Angie's case? Yeah. Let's let's get into this profile
real quick. And because this case is very complex, so we'll stay and try to keep things in chronological order here.
It looks like this profile was compiled and then released to the public on December 4th.
Uh the article we just referenced came out in January. So we're jumping back just a second here. I found short
versions of this profile. And profiles are weird, aren't they? Like we've reviewed a whole bunch of them and it
doesn't seem to be any real template out there for an FBI profile. And then a lot
of times they they may have a lengthy profile and then only release a portion of it to the public.
Yeah. They could have hold back information within the the profile. Correct. There may there may be parts of
that profile that they want to share with law enforcement, but not the public in general for for a multitude of
reasons. Now, rather than go through a handful of of the shorter versions, it seems like the the lengthiest version I
could find was from J Tiger Tale on Reddit, who has many good write-ups on other cases, who wrote that the profile,
they predicted that the murderer or murderers was an intelligent white male between
the ages of 20 and 45 who may have recently started living alone and owned more than one vehicle. They described
him as a loner who didn't get along with women and may have experienced a recent
major stressor in his life like the death of a loved one or losing his job or a divorce maybe.
Yeah, exactly. Divorce that would go along with recently started living alone. Yeah.
And look, I don't want to get into the psychology of this profile. There's a lot there's a lot of things that I could
uh duck and weave on on this profile and what I'm seeing and the way that things
line up for this profile, but we can say this. This is going to greatly affect the investigation. I personally think
that looking back, this may have had a huge negative effect on the investigation, but look, there's they're
they're panicking, right? They're they have a an area community that is freaking out and rightfully so. Children
are being plucked off the streets. They're throwing everything at the wall here. And I think that's also something
you want to show the killer killers. We're pulling out all the stops here, man. We are doing everything we possibly
can. We have more resources than you, bad guy. So eventually we will catch up with you. We outnumber you. We will
eventually hone in on you and bring you in. Well, and these again this scenario,
these stranger on stranger abduction, it's rare. So when you have a situation where you have three that are possibly
connected, two attempts that were actually committed and one that wasn't. But again, if these three are connected,
then this sicko is something has snapped and he's just going to keep doing what he's doing until he gets caught. That
that's what it makes. That's what it seems like to me. Or we do we have a scenario and we've talked about this
like in the the Long Island serial killer case. Was there more than one killer happening? Was there all this
stuff in the news and somebody went well now when I kill somebody I'll just dump
them in this area because then they might confuse this victim with another killer. And so is there other sickos,
other perverts sitting around touching their little wee wee wee going, "Hey, this guy uh somebody out there abducted
a girl." Well, had this fantasy and and now if I do it, maybe they'll pin it on somebody else.
In the Amy Bond case, too, the adult, the 20-year-old who was abducted and killed there, there there's some signs
there, too, that that show me similar things like the Angie case where the person went to great lengths. And we
also get a clear motive, I believe, in Amy's case because she's a restaurant worker. They you leave with cash in hand
at the end of every night. So this is clear the way that she was found, what was done to her, that the motive was a
this was a sexually motivated crime because the money she made that night was found in her car. That that was
overlooked by her abductor and killer. And one other thing that it's believed that the killer did in that case was
moved the vehicle to make it look like maybe she w had been ab abducted elsewhere. that that cases is a
complicated one and remains so to this day. Just like these other two cases with this profile that comes out, they
very quickly get all these tips that come in. They have 100 suspects, 200 suspects, 400. Now, in total in the
Angie Houseman case throughout the years, there was 500 men roughly that were considered to be suspects and ruled
out as the perpetrator in Angie's case. and they could be ruled out for a number
of different ways and reasons. Most of the time it was the physical evidence that they had to compare to what was
found at the crime scene. Now, back to something that we talked about earlier. You brought up the composite sketches on
December 17th. We have a guy down in Texas who was picked up for that first composite sketch. So, this is So, this
guy lives nowhere in the area. Yeah. He travels around for work. How do What leads them to him is they didn't I
couldn't find this so I don't think it was public record. They had a partial plate. Remember that we we got the
description of the guy and he was driving a vehicle. They had a partial plate and I think what they did was they
must have run that plate in all of the possibilities that come up and they find a guy that matches the description with
a plate that would line up to match the partial. Yeah. They go down and they talk to this
guy and he confirms he was in the area. So, he tra he traveled for work, but he also had a relative. I can't recall,
Captain. I apologize. I think it was his mother that lived in the greater St. Louis area.
Well, you know what? Maybe get your [ __ ] together. Get your [ __ ] together. So, this guy's name is Gary Stuffbean.
And of course, immediately guilty. He is claiming that he was innocent and that they're telling him
like, "Look, we think you're good for this attempted abduction and we also think that you're good for murdering
these two girls." So, they arrested him and what was released to the papers is they were saying he said incriminating
statements. He gave incriminating statements after we questioned him, right? And his rebuttal to that is,
well, they questioned me for something like five or six hours over the course of a 12-h hour time period,
and so I was, you know, a little disheveled and worked up during the course of that. But he says, "I also
they they also kept threatening me, saying that um you know, you're good for these two murders until we find it until
somebody else turns up dead." You know, until until somebody else turns up dead,
we're convinced you are the killer. So now he's got to shift because he's absolutely guilty of attempting to
abduct this little girl, but now he needs to he and we know that because he plead guilty. He may he may
have claimed innocence in the beginning. His wife and his kid were standing by him. His mother was standing by him.
They're all speaking out in the paper that he's been wrongly charged and uh they're dragging his name through the
mud and this is this is terrible what they're doing to my husband and father and son.
What we learned this year in the true crime community is that if you confess to your wife or your mother, it doesn't
count. No, I'm not. He didn't conf I'm he they're standing by him and claim that
he's innocent as well with what he confesses in court. Eventually he pleads guilty in court and he and he he he has
to go on the flip of this because look he admits to being a pedophile and attempting this abduction.
He's saying I didn't kill those but I didn't kill those two kids. And so the short of it is he was able to prove that
he didn't kill those two kids. He wasn't even in the area when they were abducted. Again, he lives in Texas,
another state. And he gets So, so, so basically he gets charged and sentenced for the
attempted abduction, right? And and basically law enforcement then believe this guy because based off
of his whereabouts and his alibis and stuff, he's guilty of this crime that he has admitted to being guilty of and
these other ones he couldn't have done because he wasn't in the area. But to to have to admit that you're a pedophile
and you try to abduct a kid. Well, you're he traveled for work and he traveled for
family and the in reality it looks like he was traveling just to to be a piece of [ __ ] because he there were other
accusations once his face and name were were put out there. There were accusations from people in other
locations, even in other states that came forward. And then he ultimately admitted to committing other crimes. He
never admitted to killing anybody, but he admitted to commit committing other crimes. And these accusations and other
crimes were were children and uh grown women as well. So, um thankfully they got that guy. Unfortunately, he's not
the guy for the Angie case or any of these other three cases as it would appear. Now, Cassie's case, it's
February 3rd. This is shortly after about 10 daysish after that article, big-time article comes out about the
task force, the 45 detectives in the area working together on this major case squad, working all three of these cases
separately and in unison. But it is on February 3rd that they make an arrest. This guy was in his late 20s.
His name is Thomas Brooks. He was arrested for murdering Cassidy Center. And the case is it's very weird because
what happens is I the way I understand this is that some a good tip comes in that leads them to this guy. He lives in
a house in the neighborhood. He lived with his sister. I believe he was renting a room from his sister and his
sister had a roommate as well. Somehow he I don't know if she knocked on the wrong door,
but his story ultimately is that that he abducted her with the intent to rape her, but she fought back so much that he
that his reaction was to beat her to death. Jesus Christ. It's believed that the
alarm was sounded, her little personal alarm that she was carrying, that she either pulled it or or set it
off and that he had tossed it into a neighbor's yard. So, he lived in the neighborhood. Somebody when they found
the victim, when they found little Cassie, remember she was wrapped up concealed in a bed spread and quilt or
some other item. The caller, the tipster had recognized one of those items and pointed them to
that house. And very quickly, this I mean I the amount of disturbing details in this story across the three
cases are incredibly hard to fathom. Even Even having been looking at this for 2 weeks, it it looks like
the sister and the roommate were aware that there was a dead girl in their dwelling for a couple of hours or 24
hours, however long it was, until he moved the body. And why didn't they call law enforcement?
Because they are pieces of [ __ ] They are horrible freaking people. That's why. I I mean there's I we can examine
it as much as we want, but it doesn't take a doctor to come to that diagnosis. So they don't they don't turn in their
brother or roommate or whoever, whatever their relationship is to Thomas Brooks,
they don't turn him in. It's not until they are being pressed by police and being charged. They were charged with uh
obstruction of justice with multiple charges and then both of them say, "Yeah, this is what happened. This is
what we believe happened. This is what we think happened based off of living with this guy. So the the Cassie center
case ultimately gets closed. There was an arrest and conviction there after a trial and they were able to confirm this
is after questioning and the physical evidence that they had in Angie's case. They were able to confirm that he had
nothing to do with Angie Houseman's murder. as as as many similarities as there were.
Yeah. He had nothing to do. Now, back to the composite sketches. We already cleared
one of them with Gary Stuffle Bean. What a bad name. Well, Stufflele Bum. I hate to make fun of it because we
don't unfortunately we don't get to choose our last names and rarely do we get to choose our first name. So,
you can change it. Yeah. But there's other stuff beings out there, I would guess, that are that are
not terrible, horrible people like old Gary is. Uh Preston, it's an odd name. The there was a
composite sketch that was released to the public on February 8th. This was detectives announcing that they were
looking for a a different man. Uh this would be a heavy set man between the ages of 38 and 45 with brown hair, wavy
brown hair. And the police were very clear about this. They were saying he's not a suspect. He could turn into a
suspect. He's just a person that we're interested in talking to because he was spotted multiple times in
Angie's neighborhood prior to the abduction, on the day of the abduction, and since the abduction. On one
occasion, an eyewitness says that this man matching this description was seen with
another man. So, here here's the quick descriptions here, Captain. The man they're looking for is the heavy set man
between the ages of 38 and 45 with wavy brown hair. And then the man that he may
have been seen with on another occasion was tall, slender, caucasian. Both of them are Caucasian. And but the tall
slender man appeared to be in in his late 20s with either light brown hair or possibly red hair.
The vehicle that they were in or he was in was reported to be possibly a blue older model sedan. Police were looking
for the car, looking for this guy because it was somebody that they wanted to talk to. One thing that they did
announce to the public that I found was quite interesting was, and this has to be based off of the information that
they get from eyewitnesses about this vehicle, and I bet you they got some pretty specific information. and
description of this vehicle because they went into the neighborhood casing the neighborhood looking and looking and
looking to try to find a guy that looks like this asking people, "Have you seen a guy that looks like this? Have you
seen a car that looks like this? Can you direct us to a car that looks like this?" They couldn't find it. I'm basing
that off of the fact that they did state to the public that this guy's not local
because we we can't find him. We can't track him down. We're hoping he would come forward or somebody knows who he is
so they can direct us to him. We just want to talk to him about things he may have seen during his time in and out of
the neighborhood. I hate to bring up that weird 13-year-old boy that says she's going to be found tied to a tree.
There's going to be a blue car. Doesn't make any sense. Well, this is where this story comes
about, right? Because the way that that story works is that he made those statements during the Thanksgiving Day
football game when he was at the the house of a friend. At the time, none of this was reported to police. When it was
reported was when this request by police was out in the public with the second composite of the guy that they wanted to
talk to. when they gave the description of that vehicle to the public, somebody that was there on that Thanksgiving with
the 13-year-old boy called in because they remembered the boy saying something about a blue car,
right? And so this is how that story comes to light and makes its way to us because
you'd go, "Well, how Nick, how do you know that that happened if it was never reported?" Well, it was reported, but it
wasn't reported until after February 8th. So, this was well after Angie was found in late November. This is one of
those things that this case receives so much local news coverage, and we've seen
this with other cases. It just seems like some people, for whatever reason, want to be a part.
Yeah. I I call horseshit on this story. Yeah. Well, so they they go and pick up they go and pick up the boy. And of
course, he actually I don't think it was ever publicly stated as such, but he had to be considered a person of
interest or or even a suspect at some point. He just knew too much, right? May maybe he's not responsible. Very likely
he's not responsible. But why does he know this information? Again, he says it's something that came to him in a
dream. There was another family member that that told police, "Our family seems to have a history of having strange
things come to us in dreams that this might be the first for him, but it's not the first for our family tree." They I
mean, they questioned this kid. They had him submit fingerprints, hair. They really looked at this kid and he he
couldn't be connected to Angie's case again. Well, it's kind of weird that the again, how true is that story? I mean,
It could be complete horseshit. Yes. Or but but it is strange that family members would go, "Hey, look, this is
No, I I've witnessed things like this where I I couldn't explain it. You know, somebody just knowing something that
they shouldn't know and knowing that that person had no connection to it." So, I I don't want to say it's
completely, you know, I don't I'm not smart enough to think that I know everything about the world or how
everything works. And so, is this a possibility? Could there be certain people that are clairvoyant? Sure. Uh
but it also could just be a horseshit story. Yeah. I mean, there's and I don't want
to the I I find it fascinating. I truly do. So, there are some people that will roll their eyes when we bring up the
psychic stuff because when you go back to these old cases, and this one's not that old. I mean, 1993,
but when you go back to the 70s and the early 80s, you'll see a lot of this psychic communications and activity.
Some of them are just terrible people that are trying to build money or get money or notoriety. But then there's
other people that I think are legitimately either trying to get involved in the case for whatever reason
or they're trying to help or maybe they did dream something or or they think they sense something.
I'm with you. I don't know that it's any of that's real. I find it fascinating. I
find it an interesting part of these different troop crime stories. But the other thing too is you could dream
something or sense something and it's the same as a lottery ticket, right? it a million dreams. One of them is going
to be accurate, right? One of them, it just will be. Um, now the spec the specificity here of his
claims if if in fact this wasn't completely made up after the fact seems seems jarring to say the least. Now, we
we had mentioned holding back information and the best that they could. When you have this many people
working the case, it gets very difficult to to hold back everything. Information
has its way of leaking and making its way to others and and the public at large. The uh best way to keep a secret
in my opinion is don't tell anyone. Um and that's simply not possible with an investigation of of any type of homicide
investigation. I don't know if you want to get into some of the other people, the names that are kind of always been
tethered to this murder investigation because there's there's a bunch of them. Now, one thing I will say, so I spoke
extensively with Detective Lieutenant Ed Copelan from the St. Charles County Police Department. He was the one that
was first on the scene that found Angie Houseman. I also spoke with Captain John
Langford of the St. Anne PD. So he worked for the outfit that uh where she lived where Angie lived and and was
reported missing to. Both of these individuals worked this case for over 20 years. And then later another detective
joined Detective Mickey Morris who is retired from St. Charles County Police Department as well. All three of them
said the exact same thing. Now, they they weren't the three the only three to work this case, but Ed Copelan and John
Langford worked this case more than anybody else. Mickey Morris came in and worked this case thoroughly for
almost the entirety, if not the entirety of her career. All three of them said the same thing. One thing that
complicated this investigation for detectives over the years is no matter what time period they were in in their
investigation, there was always two or three really good suspects. Two or three guys that
all that looked really good for this. And they weren't always the same two or three guys throughout the history of the
investigation. Those those names changed throughout time. But you can understand
how that would complicate an investigation because you're spending so much time vetting your flavor of the
month or flavor of the year guy or guys who look really good for it. Yeah. But can I just point something
out? We So there's three cases, right? Mhm. Two actual abduction, one attempted abduction. Two of the three get solved,
but two of the three are stranger on stranger abductions. Well, even Amy Amy Bond's case was uh
abduction and murder, and that was stranger. That was stranger on stranger, right? So, wouldn't it statistically it
would tell you that in Angie's case, it wasn't stranger on stranger? Well, in any case, statistically, it
wouldn't be stranger on stranger, right? But but also because we have these other cases within that area that
were I just wonder if that changes the statistics and how you approach that being law enforcement.
Yeah. I I can't give a great answer for that. I I mean I really can't. And look,
you're get your together. Well, you can say that, but I'm offering up a lot of information here in the
course of this two hours. So, I think my [ __ ] is pretty well in order. But the
when you are trained when you're trained to be an investigator, you're not trained to there's a methodology to
finding connecting victim to perpetrator and it that methodology does not involve
much in the way of training of well the person's a complete unknown, right? Because then there would be there would
be little to tie them to the victim if that makes sense. Um, so that that is not something that is often trained.
That's why you see shows like Minehunter where they had to take a whole new approach when they started to see an
uptick in stranger on stranger crimes and violence and murders where they had to send around a couple of guys that
that understood this better than anybody else to teach the local police department and the local sheriff's
office. Hey, you got to start thinking outside of the box on some of these. If if you're working your investigation the
way that you've been trained to and it doesn't lead you anywhere, you need to start thinking that it was somebody that
didn't know the victim at all, right? And now here's what you do and and here's here's what we can attempt to
do. And a lot of times what was great about those guys and it goes, you know, that show is great, but it goes well
beyond Douglas and Wrestler going out and teaching these um other police departments because at some point what
they started doing was they started going around uh bringing in individuals from the different FBI field offices and
training them. So then they could go out and have a designated area that they would work in and they would train local
law enforcement in their state or in their region. And what happened in so many cases as you see on Mine Hunter is
that when they're there and they are educating these and teaching these courses, if you will, oftent times
they're being somebody's telling them, "Hey, we got this case and we've never been able to connect it to anybody.
Could you help us?" and they would work it briefly while they were there or when
they had to return they would work it from afar. And that's how some of those cases got solved and people got locked
up in cases that we may have never had uh a conclusion [Music] and the the weather also. Nick had had
to do with Ed's always said this that determine how long she was out there because there's no So Thursday night,
Thursday uh was Thanksgiving and there's always Dallas always plays football on Thanksgiving. You follow me?
Yep. So during that Dallas football game in my area where I live, which was 5 miles from where she was found, it we
got freezing rain. Uh or it was freezing rain. It was coming down as sleep or whatever. Uh when she was found, she's
laying on her back as I described. And then like the the lowle areas, her eye sockets, her stomach, um all of that was
she was pretty much covered with snow, freezing rain, whatever. So that occurred on Thursday and she was she was
in a in a prone position or whatever that is uh whatever. She's on her back lay down uh supine, but she's covered
with the precipitation that fell during the day on Thursday. And if she was sitting up, if she had been put there on
Thursday, she obviously wouldn't be covered with that stuff. I I've always said she was placed there on Tuesday or
Wednesday and died from hypothermia. Although it was cold enough for her to die from that for the entire time that
she was missing. It got nice during the day a couple times, but the nights were too they were too cold for anybody to be
naked and survive that. [Music] Stick around for episode three of this case. More information coming. Join us
back here in the garage. Until then, be good, be kind, and don't [Music]

Stolen: The Angie Housman Story /// Part 2 /// 854

Part 2 of 3

www.TrueCrimeGarage.com (http://www.truecrimegarage.com/)

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.

Beer of the Week - Brew Free or Die, Blood Orange IPA by 21st Amendment brewery

Garage Grade - 4 and a quarter bottle caps out of 5

More True Crime Garage can be found on Patreon and Apple subscriptions with our show - Off The Record. Catch dozens of episodes of Off The Record plus a couple of Bonus episodes and our first 50 when you sign up today.

True Crime Garage merchandise is available on our website’s store page. Plus get True Crime Garage Pod art that you can post on your socials on our Media page.

Follow the show on X and Insta @TrueCrimeGarage / Follow Nic on X @TCGNIC / Follow The Captain on X @TCGCaptain

Thanks for listening and thanks for telling a friend. Be good, be kind, and don’t litter!

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com (https://pcm.adswizz.com) for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Brief Summary

The episode discusses the abduction and murder cases of Angie Houseman and Cassidy Center in Missouri, detailing the investigations and suspects involved.

Key points

True Crime Garage Introduction. Hosts Nick and Captain introduce the podcast and share a cheers to listeners.
The Discovery of Angie Houseman. Angie Houseman's body is found, leading to a tense investigation.
Cassidy Center Goes Missing. 10-year-old Cassidy Center disappears, raising fears of a serial predator.
Rapid Start Program. FBI's Rapid Start program is implemented to aid in the investigation of abductions.
Task Force Formed. A task force of detectives is created due to rising panic over the abductions.
Profile of the Killer. A profile of the suspected murderer is released, detailing possible characteristics.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Grab a beer. Let's talk some true crime.

Invitation to the audience to engage in the podcast's theme.

4:04WatchJul 9, 2025

Tension

75/ 100High tension

More from True Crime Garage TV

Solve the Crime

Read a real case one clue at a time, then see how your call held up against the investigators.