Suzanne Lyall /// Part 1 /// 422 | Forensic Files

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[Music] we've heard these terrifying Tales so many times a young woman is there one minute
in the next she is gone banishing seemingly Without a Trace the devastated families
are left to try to cope as best they can living with not having any answers in some cases there are Clues
some warning signs or red flags pointing to what could have happened but in some perplexing cases such as
this one there is literally nothing so we are left to speculate is someone close to her responsible for
her disappearance could the young woman have been the victim of a random crime of opportunity
is her case similar to others in the area or could she have been the victim of one
of the most notorious and calculated serial killers of our time this is true crime garage
and this is the case Suzanne Lyle [Music] foreign [Music] 1978 Doug and Mary Lyle already the
parents of two children welcomed into this world a sweet little baby girl Suzanne Lyle was born on April 6
1978. her parents say she was a surprise baby joining her 12 year old brother Stephen and nine-year-old sister Sandy
in their home in Boston spa this is a small town of just 5 000 people located in Saratoga County which is in Upstate
New York from a very early age it was evident that Susie was very smart she wanted to read and write especially
poetry and do anything with computers as a teen Susie was not concerned with what other girls her age were doing in
fact a high school classmate of hers says Susie didn't really have any close girlfriends she pretty much kept to
herself writing poetry in her spiral notebook her mom tells a story of one day when
Susie was in the shower and she jumped out with soap in her hair and ran down the hall to write down a poem that had
come to mind as she bathed yeah that that happened to me one time the poem was titled flicky flicky don't
touch your sticky all right well something we can respect Captain right is Susie was a big fan of the Canadian
band Rush slapping the bass as you can see Susie enjoyed solitary activities her parents fondly recall Susie as a
geek but in the best Brainiac way possible Susie was very successful at school and getting good grades were no
trouble and quite successful with computers as well at the age of 12 she dismantled and
reassembled her Commodore 64 computer by Middle School she was helping the teachers with their computer problems
and fixing the school's computers as well just like the colonel that's right I take them apart and then I put them
back together and then there's a few extra pieces left over in High School in the 1990s this
was she was already connecting with people in chat rooms online before this was an actual thing
building up before his actual thing before it was popular there you go and she was working toward learning computer
programming at that time as well at the age of 16 she joined a computer club that met at a local Denny's this is
where she met Richard Condon the computer Club president Susie's computer friend Mike was a neighbor of rich
condons and he introduced the two virtually before they met in person at the Denny's
Rich was 17 and he and Susie were Kindred Spirits Susie's dad was initially impressed with Rich describing
him as mature Beyond his years something we've never been described as he's also
described as well spoken when we strike out there again and very intelligent uh no nope he knew everything about
computers nope nope rich in his computer buddies considered themselves quote unquote hackers and they allowed Susie
to enter their all-male hacker group by proving her abilities to hack into someone else's computer yeah shout out
to the movie hackers that was a great movie Angelina Jolie they shared the hacker Manifesto that was circulated
around in the late 80s they even established their own website provider called global 2000.
Susie rich and their friends dressed in all black and they were seen as somewhat
goth in their High School the two Tech nerds Susie and Rich became an item for the next three years Rich
seemed to be Susie's soul emotional support besides her family and the two developed a codependent
relationship in which several say Rich was the dominant one they attended different high schools but
after school they spent all of their time together when they were apart they were on the
phone or chatting on their computers when it came time for college her parents are going to suggest that she
goes to the State College in New York well this is the State University of New York which actually has several
locations they're going to encourage her to go to the one in Oneonta which is about two hours away instead of the much
closer State University of New York in Albany so they wandered her out of the house
yes but this is because they felt that she could use a break from her relationship with Rich who was living at
home while attending another College Susie's mother Mary admits that she and Susie butted heads over what Mary viewed
as a somewhat unhealthy relationship between her daughter and Rich right so hey go off learn your stuff but let's
do it you know let's do it at arm's length you're you're not too far away from Mom and Dad in the family you're
just a couple hours away maybe it's healthy for her to spread her wings and fly and meet new people yeah and I think
sometimes as a parent of a teenage kid when they're so intense with the relationship you you're afraid they're
going to miss out on opportunities that they would have taken if they weren't in
a relationship right and other than Rich she doesn't have much of a social life right right she works she goes to school
she gets good grades and then she spends all of her time with Rich but when you have a daughter that seems very
independent and maybe a loner the worst case scenarios for her to get into a relationship where she's then
codependent well Susie did enroll at Oneida for her freshman year but she found the computer curriculum curriculum
was not challenging her she told her mom that basically she could teach the class
herself and she wanted to transfer but you have to wonder this may have been really just an excuse to hide what
was really going on right yeah or a lot of teenagers think they know everything well Susie did not have any friends at
college but that was because it doesn't look like she ever really gave it a chance
her parents discovered that Susie was leaving the school every weekend and going to Rich's house and staying at
Rich's house every weekend Rich's parents facilitated this by doing all of the driving
because Susie did not have a driver's license Mary and Doug Susie's parents were not
happy when they found out about this but the pattern continued anyway for the entirety of Susie's freshman year and
into her sophomore year when she then transferred to the State University of New York Albany just minutes away from
Rich's home when she was on campus Rich was often in her room or with her and he
and his computer friends would constantly stop by the computer store where Susie worked so once again the two
were inseparable Susie's family was not happy about this they found Rich to be cold hard to get to know not really
friendly and lacking in social graces he was all about computers and he was very
opinionated Susie seemed to be growing to be more and more like him as their relationship
progressed taking on his opinions and taking up the activities that he preferred
Susie did break up with Rich at least one time that we are aware of her cousin later related that Susie told her rich
was too possessive and she didn't like it so they broke it off but just for a little bit because they did get back
together Susie and her mom argued a lot about this decision at the time one of the
things that I don't like about this relationship either as rich as the gateway to the other
friends so if there's no Rich there's no other friends right the only thing though
just from someone who look we don't know either of these individuals and we weren't there present for any of this
from the outside looking in it appears to me that rich may be a little more outgoing than Susie is and
that Susie's fine with just having the one friend Rich and having her family at Albany Susie found the
computer coursework to be much more rigorous than she had expected in fact she was struggling at school and she was
stressed and was afraid that she was failing some of her classes organizational skills were not Susie's
strength and she was paying for it in her academic life Plus in addition to her full-time course load she was
working two jobs she worked in Troy which is about 10 miles away transcribing medical textbooks into
CD-ROM that sounds like a fun job yeah and she worked at babbages a software and Tech chain store located in the
local Crossgates Mall in Guilderland sounds like a real snoozer Susie was very conscientious and she was a very
reliable person she liked routine and predictability she was in touch with her parents every day
and as we have already seen she was also in touch with her boyfriend Rich multiple times a day either by phone or
on the computer Susie was not someone who would just run away or go off the grid she was not a
partier or someone who acted spontaneously she was a creature of habit and her family and Rich generally had an idea
where she was at all times she had a circle of people that she chatted with at work and in the computer
clubs that she was a member of now let's get to the events of March 2nd 1998. in the beginning of March 1998 Susie was
living in a large dorm complex on the State University of New York we're going to just start calling that Sunny because
it's getting too long for me to say that in Albany uptown campus she had some female Suite mates who she shared her
residential space with but her roommate had left school after the first semester
so it doesn't seem that she shared an actual room with anyone Susie was about to enter midterm exams
and she was stressed out about this while in school as we mentioned she held down a part-time job at babbages that's
a that's like a video game store that would eventually become GameStop as we know it today right this was a store in
the mall not far from the actual campus over the weekend she told her boss his name is Garland Nelson that she was
anxious about a big midterm that was coming up on Monday it was her hardest test that week and she was concerned
that she would not do well Garland knew her pretty well and described her as friendly and helpful
confident in who she was someone who enjoyed chatting with customers about the products that the store carried so
nothing but good things to say about Susie on Monday March 2nd Susie took her midterm exam as scheduled then in the
afternoon she took a Capital District Transit Authority CDTA bus from the bus stop on campus
right near her dorm to the mall to head to work this was Susie's routine and lots of students took the bus around
Albany when she arrived for her four o'clock shift at babbages she told garland that
her exam had gone okay she set to work unboxing merchandise and placing sales tags on items her boss
says she seemed 100 percent normal on this day Susie clocked out of her job that Monday
night at 9 00 pm a mall security person saw her head out a back exit of the mall
toward the bus stop to take the CDTA bus back to campus this exit was closer to the bus stop
than the busy main exit to the mall and all indications are that Susie did board the number 12 bus that night but
she never made it to her dorm and Susie Lyle has never been seen again so this Campus bus was it something that they
had to use a student ID or did they have to pay for did they have a pass that's a
good question I do not know the answer to that question it seems like you would have to pay for it in some manner or
some form right but we don't have any indicator my guess is that it was something that was paid for per person
that you didn't pay using an actual pass because a pass with her name on it or any type of swipe card that would have
electronically recorded that she got on the bus yeah we don't have confirmation that she got on the bus right there's no
record of that for us to cite here now if that is the case the police may know that we just don't
the next day Mary Lyle's home phone rings the caller is Susie's boyfriend rich rich says quote did you know Susie
is missing and Mary and Doug Lyle their nightmare began at that moment right as we said Susie always checked in with
Rich multiple times a day but more specifically when she got home from work each night the two would often chat on
the computer or played video games into the night that night her Suite mates never heard
her come in they did however hear Susie's phone ring over and over again that night as March
2nd turned into March 3rd and Rich grew more and more concerned he was trying to
call Susie's dorm trying to get a hold of her in fact he called her dorm room nine times that night this was confirmed
both by Rich and by the phone records there was never any answer he accessed her computer remotely but
could not find any indication of where she could have gone by morning time he was frantic he and
his mother reported Susie missing to the campus police when Rich phoned the Lyles to let them
know that he could not reach Susie everyone immediately knew that this was very bad as we said she was a person of
routine she was easy to get a hold of she was always in contact with her parents and with Rich
now they probably have the phone records of when he started calling her phone yes they do and and as said he
called nine times that night that has been confirmed I'm guessing around 9 30 9 45 is probably when the first call is
coming in because she would have been back to her or dorm by then well Mary calls Susie's brother Stephen and her
sister Sandy and wanted to see if either of them have heard anything and they had not heard
from Susie either Doug Lyle called the campus police Doug and Mary waited while the campus
officers located the resident advisor on Susie's dorm floor who opened up her room and said that nothing appeared to
be out of place an officer went to her next class to see if she showed up but Susie was not there
either so Doug decides her father to drive over to the campus security office this is a
30-minute drive from the family's home Mary stays at home with her other daughter Sandy by the phone they are
calling friends and family and even checking with area hospitals and really waiting to see if Susie herself would
call we will say right off the bat that the way that the case was handled by the
campus police has been resoundingly criticized and in fact laws have been passed to change the way these things
are addressed well but in their defense though there's probably several times a week where a student thinks another
student is missing and they just aren't and within a couple calls or reaching out to other contacts they're able to
find the individual pretty quickly right but it doesn't appear that they did much
in the early stages of this because at first the campus police told the lies that this kind of thing happens all of
the time you know the college students right they they disappear they fall out of contact for a while especially during
the exam times the Lyles insisted that their daughter did not leave on her own it was purely because of Doug and Mary's
persistence that the case was actually taken seriously Doug says he refused to leave and sat in
the security office and waited while he was assured that security Personnel would scour the campus looking for his
daughter meanwhile Rich went down to the Crossgates Mall to try to retrace Susie's steps okay so we have Dad
working with the security Personnel we have the boyfriend who is now going to go to the mall where she worked and try
to retrace her steps so Captain let's see using the witnesses if we can retrace Susie's steps with Rich
so Susie's boss at babbage's consulted with the Knight supervisor who was on duty when Susie left on Monday night he
said that he did not see Susie actually leave the mall but added that many employees including Susie usually went
out the back way that was a shortcut to the bus stop which we would believe her to be heading to
eventually the state police were able to determine that Susie had almost certainly made it onto the bus so what
they did was they tracked down the number 12 bus driver and he said that he remembered Susie who
was often on his bus he was fairly certain that she got onto the bus that night but unfortunately he
could not recall where she got off what stopped she got off of the bus all he knew was that she was no longer
on the bus when it got to the last stop someone else saw Susie that night this was a FloorMate of Susie's who was
very familiar with her they regularly crossed paths on their daily schedules this young woman who was interviewed
multiple times and never ever wavered in her certainty that she saw Susie disembarking the bus
at the stop right near her dorm this would be Susie's regular stop the Collins Circle stop after work
this woman was getting on the bus and the two passed as Susie got off and she got on
this was around 9 40 to 9 45 PM which actually fits exactly with the timeline that Susie would have followed according
to her normal routine the walk to Susie's dorm building from the bus stop was just a matter of 100 yards along a
path that led through some trees straight to the dormitory door it is generally stated
that Susie did not make it into her dorm that night the swipe machine that allowed students to access did not
register her entering the building however as anyone who has lived in a dorm knows often students will just hold the
door for one another so she could have gotten into the building without technically using her card right but
nobody saw her in there we have no eyewitness we don't have any of our suite mates saying they saw her no it it
really appears that the last person who believes that they saw Susie as the reports go is this this woman who
young woman who shared a dorm and lived in the dorm building with her shared a floor with her so knew her face well
knew her name well sees her getting off the bus while she's getting on and again
this fits with the the time frame that we're talking about some other indicators that Susie likely never
returned to her room that night her glasses were still sitting on the bed where she had left them she wore
contacts to work that day the backpack that she always carried in her wallet were never found and she never checked
in with Rich As we said and no one in the entire dorm could recall seeing her that night most signs are pointing
toward the theory that Susie lull disappeared somewhere in the 300 feet between the bus and her dorm
[Music] foreign [Music] all right we're back cheers mates cheers now while poor Mary Lyle was at home
calling everyone she knew to try to find her daughter Susie she had a stroke of Genius
she decided to call Susie's Bank to check her bank transactions this was around 3 45 p.m on Tuesday March 3rd
she spoke to a representative who looked up her daughter's bank account information she noted that Susie had
used her ATM card twice the day before Mary knew that it was Susie's Mo to only take out twenty dollars at a time
this was normal for her and she had about a hundred and twenty dollars in her account
but what was strange was that there were two transactions on that Monday both for
the amount of twenty dollars one was at the Key Bank ATM across from the Collins Circle bus stop this is
where she would have got on the bus to go to work that day and then the next one was another
withdrawal for twenty dollars at the Cross Gates mall after she would have gotten off the bus
this seemed very strange to Mary she could not imagine why her daughter would have taken out money twice in such a
short amount of time even more significant while Mary was on the phone with the bank representative
the woman said to her oh wait I think the card was just used and sure enough someone used Susie's
card to take out another twenty dollars this was at 3 50 pm on March 3rd when Susie had not heard
she's not been heard from for about 18 hours by this point and even more chilling the pin number
was entered correctly on the very first attempt the woman on the phone could not tell
where the cash machine that had just been used was located this was 1998 and that kind of information would take
hours to register on their system she promised to call Mary back the next day with the location and when she did
Mary learned that the card was used at Stewart's convenience store at the corner of Central Avenue and Manning
Boulevard in Albany this is about two and a half miles from campus so they're wondering at the time captain
could this have been Susie using her card or do we have somebody else that's taking possession of this card and for
some reason they know the pin number one just to be clear you said there's a eyewitness that saw or thinks they saw
Susie getting off the bus while she was getting on the bus now was that at the stop of their dorm
yes okay so it's not like Susie stayed on the bus and maybe got off the bus at a different exit
if this eyewitness is correct then Susie disappeared somewhere between that bus stop and her dorm door it's a 300 feet
between the bus stop and the door leading to the dorm Mary and Doug they decided to sit down
with Rich and his parents Richard and Donna cunden to brainstorm now Mary was a little surprised when she
told them about the ATM card usage and the pin being correct Rich volunteered that besides Susie he
was the only one who knew her pin Mary found this to be very strange this was around the first time that she
started to question whether Rich could have been involved in The Disappearance of her daughter
she recalled how intertwined he was with his with her daughter's life they each had full access to each other's
information it would have been easy for him to manipulate things to make incriminating
evidence go away right and Mary and Doug began to feel that rich was not as emotional about Susie's disappearance as
they would expect them to be well they both had access to each other's laptops but they also had access to excess those
laptops remotely correct now we should make us a note here you know he knew her pin because he always drove
Susie did not have a driver's license so it's a very simple situation of they're
going somewhere together he's the driver you pull up to the drive up ATM she hands him the card my pin number is one
two three four get me twenty dollars I think you should come up with a better pass code on Wednesday March 3rd in the
mail at the Lyle house was a birthday card for Mary from Susie it was mailed on Monday the first the
day after Mary's actual birthday it said quote see you Thursday Susie of course this card has taken on all the
more poignancy in Mary's mind since it was the last contact she would ever have with her daughter
after two days of fruitless searches and pressure from the family the campus police finally called in the New York
State Police they took the case seriously from the outset they conducted shoulder to shoulder searches of the
campus and surrounding areas this was a total of 300 acres in all they brought in divers They seized Susie's computer
but didn't find anything they found the bus driver who was the one that told them that he believed Susie was in fact
on the bus that night they were the ones that found the FloorMate who saw her getting off of the bus
they tracked down her old roommate who had left school she had nothing enlightening to say well one of the
problems with somebody going missing on campus is all the areas that they could have gone to I mean you have
a very small radius um but you have a lot of people within that radius that's true the the other
thing too is we seem to have a situation where yes she could have gone in any number of places in a fairly short
amount of time walking there I would imagine but we also have a short amount of time that she is all of a sudden not
accounted for you know she comes home from work she would have been thought to checking in with her boyfriend or seen
by people that live in the dorm with her right and that doesn't seem to be the case we also just to be clear too with
the with the birthday card it seems a little more ominous than what it actually is
the the card was mailed before she went missing it just happened that it took two days for it to be delivered and by
the time it's delivered to her mother she is in fact missing now by this time right some people question the date of
it they're like you know it was mailed the day after her mother's birthday well her mother's birthday was on Sunday so
if Susie slipped up and forgot to drop it in the mail on Saturday this thing wouldn't be registered as
mailed until Monday one of the things that the staties were able to do was to get a lead on that ATM
card usage they subpoenaed the surveillance footage from the Stewart's convenience store where the ATM card was
used but in a disappointing blow to everyone the video camera that the store used did not show the ATM machine at all
it showed only the register and the customers who were paying police were able to put together a list of the
transactions on the ATM machine that were made that day and track down all but one user
they contacted each of these people and interviewed them and ruled them out as having used Susie's card the one final
ATM user who they could not find they believed may have withdrawn cash from the ATM and then purchased a cup of
coffee a newspaper and a lottery ticket at the register this meant that they had his image on
camera and there he was this guy became known as Nike man he was a black man wearing a Nike baseball hat police put
together a sketch of the man seen on the grainy video and circulated it the Camden Family paid to have Billboards
all over town featuring Susie and the image of Nike man eventually Nike man contacted the state
police and spoke with them this guy's name has never been released to the public
there were two red flags regarding this man one he was a cook in the kitchen where Susie went to school
two he was a felon convicted of a violent rape in the Troy area in the 1980s police interviewed Nike man seven
different times they watched the tape with him at the convenience store according to Mary Lyle this man paid for
his coffee and lottery ticket with a wad of ones so there is no indication that he had
used the ATM machine right that wouldn't make any sense you don't doesn't spin once
depending depending on what ATM you go to yeah I would be shocked there are some ATMs that will spit out once I
would like to withdraw seven dollars please I won't tell you where those are located though so there's no indication
that this man used the ATM machine and in his defense he was the one that contacted police when he's seeing his
picture on the Billboards right yeah and eventually police came to the conclusion
that he had not used the machine he did not have Susie's ATM after his pictures everywhere and he had an alibi for the
night of her disappearance well so we got to keep in mind it I don't think they did anything wrong there uh with
putting his face out there what they're doing is they are tracking those ATM transactions and then they're going okay
well within minutes of someone using this ATM then we see a person at the register buying
something right they're finding out they're going okay this person did this transaction this person did this
transaction this person did this one they have all of them accounted for except for the one with Susie's card and
Susie's not seen on the camera but we have this man who's seen on camera shortly around the time of that
transaction but again like you said the camera never picks up the ATM machine so
we can't rule out the fact that Susie could have used her own card correct we have no idea who used that card at that
ATM that day and the thing that we have to keep in mind too for for the younger listeners and I'm sure it's probably
still this way today but very uncommon I would guess for three year olds and five-year-olds listening yeah the ones
that have bank accounts right but the uh the deal would be back then an ATM card
was just that an ATM card it wasn't like a debit card where you can pay for goods
and serve services with your card or use it at an ATM machine right that makes a lot of sense so somebody
would have to go in there to get money but but that's also another problem too because if it was a debit card
then she might have not actually withdrew money from that location and might have just made a purchase so it
would know what that money was for or would know um because maybe we don't see her on
video footage somewhere but if we knew what the purchase was we could line that up with her to see if those purchases
made sense but she didn't make a purchase at the store I know that what I'm saying is if if it
was technology that we use today a debit card right right then then she wouldn't
have went to that ATM to do a withdrawal or whoever went to the ATM to do the withdrawal they would have just made a
purchase and then based on what the purchase item was would be able to kind of connect the dots does that go back to
something that she would purchase right right and the for that scenario to go down in that manner the I mean the
purchase would be have been made elsewhere not at this store right so the police showed her photo to the store
clerk who was on duty that day he didn't recall seeing her at all seeing Susie at all that day and Susie's
family did a televised plea for information on their daughter and offered up a fifteen thousand dollar
reward for information but nothing really came of any of this now two months later so what we have
here Captain we got two excruciating months that go by as the Lyles coped with this nightmare situation their
daughter is missing they have no leads and no answers by this point Mary spent days in her nightgown and
robe she says she was not even functional during this time Doug went the opposite he went 100 full-on
quest to find his daughter with everything he had he worked with police he searched the mall and campus areas
over and over and over again he kept a Running Blog of observations and developments in the case
he worked with all the psychics who contacted the family he helped organize searches
for his daughter all in all he poured his heart and soul into the search for his youngest child
now it was much to everyone's surprise and really to their dismay as well when two students turned something into the
campus police in May two months after Susie vanished they were walking on the street right near the bus stop where
Susie was last seen in the visitor parking lot that was heavily used and they're sticking out of a small pile
of sand was an ID card it was a babbage's employee card the kind with the you know the pin on the back so that
it can be pinned to someone's shirt or clothing right and it read Susie l it looked a little weather beat and the
pin on the back was rusted this discovery was a big deal because after the ATM machine it was the only
clue that the investigation yielded this was the 1997 babbage's employee ID in the New Year the company had replaced
the pin style card with lanyard cards so this was not Susie's current work ID and
more importantly what is it doing on the ground in this you know visitor parking
area near the bus stop where she gets off the bus yeah very strange so this is 300 yards in the opposite direction of
the path that Susie would use to walk directly to her dorm now Mary did not believe that Susie got off the bus that
night and headed away from her dorm she said she would have gone to her room if she was planning to meet up with
someone they were unable to determine who it didn't nobody knows if she had any plans that would be different than
any other day than than her normal routine Rich told the police that he sometimes
parked in this visitor's lot to meet Susie when she got off the bus after work but he says that that night he did not
now no one could figure out how her old card ended up where it did and how it had not been found in all of the
searches before some believe that there was one possibility so and I think this makes a good deal of
sense here the area had a big snowfall in the day or so after Susie vanished some have wondered is it possible that
the card maybe got pushed by snow plows or trucks into a pile of snow in the visitors lot and only emerged once you
know all the snow melted away others wondered if it was planted by somebody police were not able to obtain any
usable prints or DNA off of the card to help them come to any conclusions now it's worth noting that the visitor
parking lot was in a very well lit and again it's a very busy area the lot itself is very busy with traffic the
street is very busy and it's on a very busy campus it would have been busy even at the time of night as students got out
of night classes or got rides from friends to go out it seemed very unlikely that Susie was abducted from
here at 9 45 PM without anyone seeing or hearing anything nobody reports hearing
a scream or seeing some kind of scuffle right or or a young woman being pulled into a vehicle
her mother Mary is convinced that she would have screamed if someone had tried anything she says that she knew that
Susie knew to yell fire to attract assistance from people nearby she could have been abducted as she walked the
path through a small wooded area between the bus stop and her dorm but again this was a busy campus with roughly 17
000 students is she the one that said if you yell help most people won't come help you you have
to uh fire her and thousands of other people if yeah if you yell fire people are more likely to react than if you
yell help or rape or you know which is strange because if somebody yelled fire to me I'm like run fire means run
but if somebody said help to me that would be run towards you know so we are rich
the boyfriend as We Know they were dating for about three years before Susie vanished what's his Alibi
he is believed to have been playing video games so we have we have the police they did look at Rich pretty hard
and he was cooperative let's say he and his mother were the ones who actually reported Susie missing they reported her
missing and then contacted her parents when asked where he was on the night of uh that she went missing he said that he
was at home at his parents playing video games online with his friend Justin right but doesn't that seem a little odd
don't you think you'd call the parents you've been with her a while don't you think you'd call the parents before you
called the cops um yeah I mean that's what I would do yeah so he's at home playing video games
yes he says he was at his parents house playing video games online with his friend Justin Justin confirms this for
police and his parents Rich's parents say that he was at home that night as well now we do have phone records they
confirmed that the calls from his phone went to Susie's dorm that night and later that night according to Mary Lyle
rich took the time to upload some music to Susie's computer that he knew she liked rich and his parents appear to be
fully cooperative and super concerned about the search for Susie still so odd that so he uploaded music to her
computer remotely yes yeah that's still a little strange to me that I don't find strange if they
both had access to each other's computers this might have been something that she had asked him to do right right
in advance no I don't find the ACT I think it's a very you know sweet thing to do for your girlfriend but
a little strange to give access to to your computer to your significant other senior investigator James Horton well
he's got something different to say he was at the time the head of the major crimes you didn't in Loudonville he said
that police believe Susie fell victim to a crime quote we felt immediately that she was most probably a victim of Foul
Play and time has not helped to change our mind in fact it has made us feel even more strongly end quote
Jim Horton said on the upstate unsolved podcast which did a long-form coverage of this case and a damn good job at that
too Jim said that it is his opinion that the condens the boyfriend and his parents
did not really cooperate with police as much as they tried to stay close to the investigation
they wanted to in his opinion stay on top of what the police knew and he says some of their behavior was
odd there are examples of rich and his parents acting strange so are you know are they just weird people or are they
possibly hiding something right here are some examples of things that came to light involving Rich that at least raise
the question of whether he should be considered a suspect or not we'll call this segment things that make you go
right investigator Jim Horton told Upstate unsolved that Rich's mother Donna try to paint a picture in which she was
super close with Susie that she knew her better than her own parents did and that
Susie didn't really care for her own parents Jim determined based on the evidence
that this was in fact not true and when meeting with Donna and Susie's parents together he said that Donna
would jump in to answer all of Jim's questions even the ones that he directed at Mary and Doug at Susie's parents to
the point that Jim says he had to ask her to stop doing this further as the investigation progressed
Donna would not allow Jim to speak with her son Rich alone even though Rich was technically an adult at this time right
Jim Unearthed that Donna and Richard Condon Richard's dad lived separate existences in the household with the dad
living in the basement the grandparents lived on a recliner in the living room that sounds comfortable
Rich had a room where they lived like they couldn't like the floor was lava and they couldn't move around right they
had to stay on the recliner Rich had a room but when Susie visited each weekend he would give Susie his room and sleep
in the bed with his mom that's oh right hey you hold on don't flag I'm gonna be nice take my bed I'll be in the
other room sleeping with my mom yeah sniffing her in May Susie's cousin organized a volunteer search for her
that gathered at the campus and radiated outward five miles Donna and Rich showed up as well okay so
Mom and boyfriend well boyfriend and boyfriend's mom are at this search right now when the search leader instructed
The Searchers to bring anything found back to him now we have boyfriend's mom Donna who
interjected that said that these items should be brought to her instead because she knew
Susie best wow so one that's weird on its own but two let's times that by ten because
Susie's family were all in attendance for this search as well well you can't believe his parents as
his Alibi it just doesn't work for me they have reasons to lie so right we're gonna throw that one out but okay so
he's playing these games at home now these he's still got his friend and he's got the uh phone records they work on
his but hold on real quick because nowadays when you play video games online which I'm not much of a
gamer but shout out to the there's a gamer right now listening to us you know you know
who you are shout out to you and we know who you are and we know and we're watching you right now no but video
games now they're pretty interactive you have headphones you talk to each other back in the day
you could be playing somebody online that doesn't mean necessarily that you're talking to them it could have
been his father playing a game with his friend that is correct situation so we don't know exactly how
his friend knows it was his you know uh it was the boyfriend the other thing too
is the calls that were going to her dorm room were coming from his house that just proves that the calls were
made coming from his house I don't think that proves that he made the calls that's correct you could have somebody
a sit-in for both the video game playing playing and the phone calls right and this just seems like a pretty
strange family so I like this Jim Horton investigator uh and what he wanted to do
was throughout the months he wanted to try to maintain a rapport with Rich and with his parents
and so what he did was he would just stop by their home fairly often in the first few months of this investigation
and he would he would take a nap with the mom yeah he would sleep with the grandparents on the recliner he lived in
the same town so this was convenient for him to do but I you know I appreciate someone going above and beyond
especially when we're looking for a missing young woman here so at one point over that summer rich said something
very strange Richard is again uh Rich's father to be clear okay so Richard and Jim were talking about
Richard and Jim were talking and Richard mentioned that he recently saw Susie 45
minutes to an hour west of Albany while driving on his Trucking route he says that he did not report this
sighting but he was certain that's his words certain it was her didn't report it why didn't he report this that's a
very good question that makes zero sense the next week when he spoke to Jim he said that he saw her again this time
Jim gave Richard his cell phone number and said you know call me right away when you see her again
well why wouldn't you stop and talk to her well listen to what Jim did Jim put undercover cops on surveillance of
Richard and they followed him around so sure enough in a few days Richard called
in to Jim and said hey I want us to be clear so they're going to put surveillance on the boyfriend's father
yes okay yes so sure enough in the few days in a few days afterwards Richard called Jim
and said I can see her meaning Susan Susie she's sitting on a park bench the undercover cops saw this woman too and
estimated that her age would be about 80 years old so it was not oh Susie no one could ever
figure out what the heck was going on with these so-called sightings that Richard
reported to Jim about Susie there's that there's your red flag right there so that
is all the information you need as a detective to say something's not right here
and we need to figure this out well and how bizarre if if in fact rich is responsible for
Susie's disappearance then it appears that his parents know something or are trying to cover
something up at the same time yeah they're both trying to cover up tracks it's uh
it's very telling um besides the the bizarre behavior that we just discussed there are a few pieces
of circumstantial evidence that do point to riches more than just an eccentric dude from a
Bizarro family one we know that he knew Susie's ATM card pin as we pointed out he could have
been the one to use that the pin number was entered correctly the first time two he admitted that he usually picked
her up from the visitors lot where her old id work ID card was later found right
when the ID card was found his mother volunteered that she had told Susie if she were ever abducted to drop
items on the ground you know maybe maybe she's trying to point out that maybe this really did
happen maybe she did tell this young woman to do this or maybe she's trying to point out my son couldn't have been
involved he was at home she was following my advice and this is proof that she was abducted right
further Rich never spoke to the police alone as we already stated and after a few months he stopped talking to
investigators all together another thing of note is that Mary Lyle was present when about two weeks before
she vanished before Susie vanished Susie stopped by Rich's house and handed him an eight and a half by 11 envelope
apparently this contains some kind of letter Now Rich her boyfriend has never produced this letter and has refused to
discuss its contents so we do not know what was in that envelope Susie's mother wonders if it was
something important or has to do with why she cannot find her daughter of course if this guy's not one going to
produce that information or explain the information that's just ridiculous on Upstate
unsolved there are some pieces of information about the condens that are damning the family owned a boat and a
car that were sold shortly after Susie's disappearance they also owned a property
in gansfort with a trailer and a shed on it now it appears that these this has never been
searched as far as We Know also Rich was asked to leave this is really bizarre he was asked to leave the
college where he was enrolled when Susie disappeared and it is not known why it could be something very simple but it is
not known why he was asked to leave and the whole family lawyered up in the fall of
1998. none have agreed to be interviewed by the media [Music] if you're looking for any of our old
episodes download the Stitcher app they're on there for free and we also have a bonus show called off the Record
where we give a lot of case updates so that's something you want to check out as well yeah we just dropped a new off
the record this week all right join us back here in the garage tomorrow until then be good be kind and don't litter
foreign [Music]

Suzanne Lyall /// Part 1 /// 422

Part 1 of 2 www.TrueCrimeGarage.com

This week join the Gents in the garage as they dive into this cold case from New York. They will attempt to retrace Suzanne’s steps to find out when and where she disappeared. After a cold one or two they might even have a few potential suspects. Beer of the Week - Paradox Pilsner by Paradox Brewery Garage Grade - 3 and 3 quarter bottle caps out of 5 The full archive of True Crime Garage is available on the Stitcher listening app - for FREE. Our show “Off the Record” is only on Stitcher Premium. For a FREE month of listening go to http://stitcherpremium.com/truecrimegarage and use promo code GARAGE

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Brief Summary

Suzanne Lyle vanished in 1998; her boyfriend's behavior raised suspicions during the investigation.

Key points

The Disappearance of Suzanne Lyle. A young woman vanishes without a trace, leaving her family and friends in turmoil.
Susie's Routine and Relationships. Suzanne Lyle was a creature of habit, deeply connected to her family and boyfriend.
The Night of March 2, 1998. Suzanne takes her midterm exam and heads to work, but never returns home.
ATM Card Usage Raises Questions. Mary discovers strange ATM transactions linked to Susie, raising concerns about her disappearance.
Mysterious ID Card Discovery. Two months after Susie's disappearance, an ID card is found near the bus stop.
Rich's Alibi Under Scrutiny. Rich claims he was playing video games when Susie went missing, raising suspicions.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Susie was a surprise baby joining her 12-year-old brother and 9-year-old sister.

Background information about Suzanne Lyle's family.

5:21WatchNov 12, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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