The Evansdale Murders /// Part 1 /// 393 | Forensic Files

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[Music] [Music] KCRG tv9 Julian Petrus joins us now Julian you were in Evansdale for today's
news conference not a lot of new information that came out for today but the main theme going into Monday is that
this case is now being treated as an abduction it is christen authorities say they have
hard strong evidence and gives them reason to believe that the girls were taken and that they are still alive
but the FBI cannot say much more beyond that information what the FBI is saying is every little detail counts that's why
investigators are asking for anyone who visited Myers Lake on Friday the 13th before three o'clock in the afternoon to
contact police even if you think you didn't see anything what you think you don't know might end up bringing these
girls home investigators say they need to know everything that happened near Myers Lake before 3 p.m. on Friday the
13th even if you think that you don't have any information that's important to this case investigators want to talk to
you federal authorities tell us a man recently told them he caught a glimpse of the girls bikes while jogging around
the lake he didn't see the girls but the information helped narrow down a timeline for their disappearance he was
able to pinpoint the time of the day that he saw the bikes small details of it like this are really important to the
investigation we're told authorities don't want people to feel like they're bothering
investigators they tell us they are well equipped to handle the search there is enough manpower to cover all the the
tips which may lead to good leads are good information the tip lines are reportedly receiving several calls an
hour about the missing girls investigators say they need the phones to keep ringing someone may have been
out there taking pictures of you know bird-watching or something and they may not think that's relevant but we just
asked for them to call and and we can talk to them ask for specific details surrounding the investigation I can't
answer that I can't comment I can't answer that I can't answer that right and I I can't answer that all
authorities can tell us is they feel confident the girls are alive and to not give up hope for safe return
some of the details the investigators cannot tell us involved questions surrounding the families whether or not
they have any suspects or if any search warrants have been issued and of course they could not share with us what
information is leading them to believe these girls are still alive all of this authorities say might hurt their
investigation [Music] in the summer of 2012 Elizabeth Collins lived with her parents and siblings in
Evansdale Iowa this is a small Midwestern town of 4700 residents that is a suburb of the much larger Waterloo
Cedar Falls metropolitan area Evansdale is a blue-collar town many residents are
involved in agriculture production in some manner elizabeth attended pointer elementary and was described by her
mother as a bubbly little person who was always active and busy she was 8 years old and loved girly stuff like having
her nails done but also playing softball and hockey and riding her bike one of her best friends was her cousin lyric
cook aged 10 who lived just minutes away in Waterloo lyric went to Kingsley Elementary and also was a very active
outgoing girl who loved bowling cheerleading gymnastics and just being outside in general well it's great when
one of your best friends can be a family member as well and their mothers are sisters that's correct we have lyric and
Elizabeth's mothers are misty cook and Heather Collins and Heather and her husband Drew Collins they seem to be
like your very typical American family they're hardworking people religious their parents just raising a bunch of
children really and Heather had her hands full as they had several young kids but she also had some undisclosed
health issues around this time as well so her mother Wilma would come over for about 4 or 5 hours almost daily to help
out around the house and help with the children Heather's sister misty was also married to a man named Dan Morrissey but
in 2012 misty and Dan were estranged and had been separated for years in fact Dan
was out on bail pending trial for four separate criminal cases this from 2011 which included assaulting misty and
significant drug charges including manufacturing meth yeah he's a real winner winner chicken did
he's yeah well he went into the meth manufacturing industry now misty back in 2003 she got into trouble as well.this
for drug charges to which she pled guilty and was released in 2006 in July of 2012 when
our story takes place she was still on federal supervised release at that time misty and Dan's daughter lyric lived
with misty and Heather's mom Wilma cook so Wilma cook grandma is helping out quite a bit with both families lyric
lived in Waterloo at Wilma's house and Wilma had permanent custody of lyric lyric and her cousin Elizabeth played
together nearly every day now keep in mind because she's living with grandmother grandmothers going over to
help out at her cousin's house almost daily she brings her along the cousins all play together right but it's also a
way to help her out yeah so on Friday the 13th this is July 13 2012 misty cook Morrissey was staying with her mom Wilma
and her daughter lyric in Waterloo she left for work that day at 8:30 a.m. this was a new job at a gas station slash
convenience store called Casey's and it sounds to me captain like Casey's was a popular chain with several locations
misty worked at one which was about two miles away from the Collinses house in Evansdale so keep in mind she's not very
far away when we're talking about being gone at work now after misty left Wilma took lyric over to the Collinses
house both Heather and drew Collins were going to be gone for the day so grandma
Wilma was going to be watching the kids in brought lyric with her as usual lyric
and Elizabeth set off around 11:30 a.m. for a bike ride now this was something that they typically did I mean this was
very routine stuff here and the girls were expected to stay within a short distance of the house their unsupervised
but they're not to be venturing off very far from the home Ram although it does not seem that there were any like real
specific rules it's just kind of these understood rules from Grandma to to the grandkids they always stayed according
to grandma and the parents the kids always stayed within yelling distance and would check in about every 15
minutes or so people were probably thinking back to their neighborhoods growing up I remember I thought it was
neat one of my neighbors growing up they had like what I would call dinner bell but you know they didn't use it just for
dinner but anytime the kids were out playing they wouldn't shout for them they would ring the bell and the kids
would come in this situation lyric and Elizabeth if grandma or mom or dad came outside they're out on their bikes keep
in mind they're supposed to be within yelling distance she shout their names boom they come riding right back to the
house often Elizabeth's older brother his name is Kelly he was 12 at this time he would
typically go with them but not on this day and at some point Heather returned to the house the exact timing of this is
in dispute and some interviews heather says it was around noon but Wilma has said that Heather came home closer to
12:30 so a discrepancy in time but they're not they're not off big time so most an hour after the girls left
correct it has been reported consistently that Wilma told police that she saw the girls zipping by on their
bikes around 12:15 and that Heather was not home at this time or had not returned to the house at that time
so by this timeline the girls were last seen by a family member at 12:15 and Heather arrived home shortly after that
the girls were to be back at the house shortly after Heather had returned so for argument's sake captain we're going
to say like 12:30 to 1:00 p.m. ish is when the girls were were to return to the house
so at 1 p.m. ish hether set out with her older son remember this is Kelly the 12
year old to scout the area they were looking for the girls to tell them hey it's time to come home but he returned
home reporting that he could not find them anywhere and at this point drew stopped home the the father which
he often did during his workday you know he would come home maybe for lunch Heather told him that she was going out
to look for the girls and she got in her car this is at 1:20 p.m. and started driving around the neighborhood by 2:00
p.m. we have five adult family members all out looking for these two girls so very quick to react misty lyrics mother
says Wilma called her at work around 2 p.m. to tell her that they could not find the two girls misty called her ex
dan Morrissey who was living in Waterloo dan and his mother and his 15 year old son they all drove to Evansdale to help
look for the girls so now we got a small army of people looking for the girls misty left work and went over to her
sister's house remembers just a short distance away by 2:30 all of these adults and some children are all out
driving all over Evansdale looking for the two girls at some point somehow they ended up at this place called meyers
lake this was around 2:45 they started asking people whether they had seen two little girls on bikes one man walking on
the trail told them he did see two little girls on bikes going west on the bike trail but the time was unclear he
you know I saw them I don't know exactly what time I saw them meanwhile Heather went to the Evansdale Police Department
most reports have the time of her in-person visit to the Evansdale Police Department at 2:48 p.m. according to the
Waterloo Cedar Falls courier which we relied on extensively for research on this case quote within
minutes of authorities learning of the disappearance of lyric cook Morrissey and Elizabeth Collins three Evansdale
squad cars were scouring the area in checking the home within half an hour the search mushroomed with four
Blackhawk sheriff's deputies and Evansdale firefighters joining in on the efforts and now you might have noticed
in there that they said checking the home and that might sound weird to some people but you would be shocked how
often a child is reported missing and then they find a kid inside the home mm-hmm you know the kid is hiding the
kid fell asleep somewhere and you just you thought they were outside and overlooked them it can be embarrassing
but obviously that's what you want to happen when you call and you're begging for help because you can't find your
children you want some stupid answer to be the solution to the problem that is not the case here one sometimes kids
want to hide to scare their family oh well we'll hide and we'll be in the closet and when they call for us I'll
just don't come well there's some bad news here captain because around 4:00 p.m. a firefighter found the girls bikes
this is a bad sign lying on the Evansdale Nature Trail at Meijer Lake the bikes were lying on the
paved bike trail at the far southeastern corner of the lake now Meijer lake covers 27 acres with water and is about
25 feet deep at its deepest parts the lake is a major recreation area for the people of Evansdale it is stocked with
fish it has a boat ramp there's bathrooms there a playground picnic areas grills that paved bike
paths that we talked about the payback bike path winds its way around three-quarters of the way around the
lake so this is a fairly big bike path right a little bit of a discussion about geography I think is an order here the
Collinses lived at 166 Brava Boulevard in Evansdale the distance from the Collinses house on on Bravo
Boulevard to Meijer Lake is only 1.5 miles the Evansdale Nature Trail on which the
girls bikes were found starts at Lafayette Road in downtown Evansdale this is just a block away from the
Collinses house right the trail then runs south past the skate park and crosses Arbutus Avenue then the trail
turns west through a short wooded area and leads to Myers Lake the trail follows the southern shore of the lake
and as said runs three-quarters of the way around the lake so on a map this portion of the trail would look like a
like a sideways u ending at Elmer Avenue on the lakes of north side there is an offshoot of the trail that goes straight
north and then connects with Gilbert Avenue right near the advanced automotive store the the trail then runs
back east along gilbert drive and reconnects up with the north / south portion of the trail through downtown I
know that sounds all very confusing to listen to and kind of go through there are maps that are regularly available on
if you a simple google search use with our two victims names and if you just type in map with that it will bring it
up and it will also the maps that I saw clearly indicate where their home is as well as where the bikes were found just
like we pointed out in the Delphi case because of where those bodies were found the moanin high bridge area the
recreation area I think it's very important if you want to have a clearer understanding of this case and maybe the
possible theories or outcomes the did you take a look at these at this map but what you're saying is that this path
goes through town it's not secluded from town right so most of the locations of this trail you would expect to see other
people there you know Myers Lake is heavily trafficked there's lots of people in and out of there all the time
it's a big recreational area the trail as you just said captain does go through town I did want to point out how close
one portion of the trail is to the Collinses home because the argument here is where the bikes were found is a
distance away from the home that the parents said they would have never the girls would have never have gone there
they never had known them to go there to travel that far or to even trial though
to Myers lake now could they have everyday these kids are getting older they get a little more adventurous
certainly but the parents really questioned why and how the bikes were found in this area so there are a few
areas along the trail where a vehicle could park close to the trail there are some areas that are wooded so there are
a couple of secluded spots along the way the girls bikes were found on Evansdale
on the nature trail right at the southeastern tip of the lake along a line of chain-link fence this portion of
the trail runs near I 380 so this is a major roadway but from my understanding and in the way that it appears to me on
the map captain it would be difficult for somebody to park alongside a 380 venture up to where the bikes were found
snatch the girls and then bring them back to their vehicle that would be very difficult there was a hole in this chain
link events so you don't have to get out of the car is that you have to get the victims to come closer to the car that
would that would be true I don't know why the girls would venture beyond that chain-link fence down to a major roadway
it just doesn't seem like I'm not saying it couldn't happen it doesn't seem like
a likely scenario we also don't have anybody coming forward saying hey I saw a vehicle
parked on the side of a 380 what is interesting though this area where the bikes were found is right by a
maintenance gate that leads to a water outlet on the lake this gate is not a locked gate photos show that this area
of the paved nature trail is straight with the fence on both sides and the trees are overhead it has like almost
like a tunnel appearance according to the girl's family the bikes were about 12 feet from the edge of the water on
the trail and investigators also found Elizabeth's purple purse and cellphone now note this phone did not have service
it was just it was a real cell phone but she just used it for like games and to play on right the purse and cell phone
were thrown over the fence onto the lakeside now here's how it was described on Nancy Grace's show by her reporter
Jim Spellman he says it's a densely wooded area with freeway on one side a fence which he says is a pretty tall
fence then the bike paths then another fence and then the water the girls bikes were found on the bike path between the
two fences and the purse was found on the lake side of the trail between the fence in the shoreline so that's where
the big question is what were the girls bikes doing by Myers lake anyway as we pointed out this is not exactly close to
their home well the big cause for concern for me is we got these missing girls but it's not just the bikes if we
have the bikes somewhere you go okay well maybe they ran into somebody somebody stole the bikes or maybe they
had left the bikes behind they went somewhere else but right when you see that person that cellphone even though
like you said it's not a working cell phone you go okay that's that's cause for alarm yeah this this is not
something that the girls would have ditched even if they would have ditched their bikes for some reason which would
be strange but to get rid of the purse in the this cellphone seems not likely at all
now this Lake is not a swimming lake I do want to point that out because they're the first suspicion by law
enforcement and by firefighters was because of where the bikes were found maybe these girls drown in the lake the
parents were quick to point out look both of them can swim and swim very well right they agree that of course yeah we
got it we got to check this out but they kept pointing out they didn't seem to think that that would be very likely and
then you take that a step further if there was some type of accident one of them drowned that's one person we have
two missing children here so there's no sign of the girls there's no sign of the
clothing that they were wearing at the time including their shoes all of this is missing so that's the another thing
that the family points out that they would expect to see the shoes of these girls near the shoreline had they chose
to get in the water for some reason well I'm back to the purse though if if you were meeting up with somebody you knew
or got into a car with somebody you knew you would take your purse true and the other thing that really scares me is the
it always scares me with the leaving of the bikes because I just think back to my childhood that's not something that I
would have done I was always worried somebody was gonna take my bike so I I feel like if you're out and about and
your kids most the time you're going to use that bike to get yourself around when you
have a My Little Pony bike that's meant I mean you're going to be nervous that somebody's gonna steal it this is all
stuff that was reported in the newspaper so other than the bikes the purse in the
phone that was all found at this location if anything else was located there by police or firefighters it has
never been disclosed to the public the following timeline was provided to the media by Kent smock who at the time was
the police chief of Evansdale he says by 4:40 p.m. on Friday the 13th emergency calls went out to Evansdale residents to
notify them of the missing girls officers began canvassing the lake neighborhoods and the media was
notified by 5:30 p.m. boats were put into the water on Meyers Lake to begin scanning the surface and divers with a
local search and rescue organization were called in to search the lake surrounding city police and firefighters
Black Hawk County sheriff's deputies and Iowa State Police joined Evansdale PD in
searching wooded areas a plane with special infrared was brought in to search from the air and the National
Center for Missing and Exploited Children was notified of the girl's disappearance by 8:00 p.m.
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cheers to you mr. captain the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children had a representative on the
ground in Evansdale by the next morning this person began emailing and faxing photos of the girls to businesses truck
stops and retail locations within a 100-mile radius the Iowa Division of Criminal
Investigation DCI and FBI both arrived and began interviewing people as well as looking into registered sex offenders in
the area 30 FBI agents and 15 DCI agents joined this search the FBI's child abduction response team was also on site
a nearby creek surrounding woods and a city campground were all searched in the coming days these twelve mile radius
large-scale searches included cornfields and farmland rivers ponds abandoned buildings wooded areas and other public
places cars were stopped at police checkpoints in the days after the disappearance searching car trunks and
asking drivers to be on the lookout for the girls all dumpsters were searched and the Black Hawk County landfill was
instructed to set aside trash collected from Evansdale for two full weeks for a full week the nearly round-the-clock
searches interviews evidence collection and information gathering proceeded full
steam ahead this is a large effort and it appears to be a well-oiled machine everybody acting in unison looking for
these girls well they did a lot of extensive searches on the actual lake yes they did and in fact just within
hours of the girls bikes being found the order was given to drag the lake and after two days of dragging nothing was
found but in skaters decided it was in their best interest to actually drain the lake to
be sure that they weren't missing anything yeah they didn't drain it completely but they drained it enough to
help the search but nothing was found and unfortunately the families both families very early on believed that the
girls had been abducted on the 17th FBI bloodhounds were brought in to track the girls scent police refused to
comment on the dog's findings but a family member said on Nancy Grace quote I watched the bloodhounds continue on
into this dense forest area which is about 400 yards I watched them go into that area and they positively identified
both girls were at that location if you continue on down the bike trail east there is about approximately 400 acres
of forest dense forest to the left side and that is where the dogs continued on to and picked up the the girls sense and
that's kind of where it went cold for the dogs that is where the investigator stopped according to this family member
beau again that doesn't make a lot of sense to me because if you have these two children let's just say they're
gonna put their bikes down and go into the woods why wouldn't you take your purse with you yeah that you think that
would be something that the girls would take with them it's very difficult because both of these locations one
where the bike is found in - - where the the scent is found located of both girls
are believed to be anyway these aren't ideal locations for grabbing a child and pulling them into your vehicle they're
just they're just not and so it's difficult and you know I've jokingly said this several times before but
unfortunately the dogs can't talk so we don't know exactly what it is that they believe they were hitting on now we did
see I saw a video footage of them having them sniffed the girl's shoes some other
pairs of the girl shoes so that's what they were trying to trace but right we obviously can't
confirm that that's what was actually going on because it seems that it seems to be a weird location right like you
remove if you're the abductor you remove them from their bikes or they get off their bikes on their own and then they
go out into the middle of this wooded area and then they just vanish into thin air right so an FBI spokeswoman said
that the dogs detection of the girls sense indicated a strong possibility that was her exact where it's strong
possibility that the girls had been there meaning that it was likely that the girls had been on the scene at the
lake rather than their bikes and possessions being planted there by their abductor the bikes were processed for
prints and other evidence but police will not say if anything was found police quickly started the
time-consuming task of interviewing all of the family members the family was initially completely cooperative with
police investigators were granted permission by both families to search any of the houses that they were living
in or had lived in without having to obtain a search warrant but we have two different families basically we have one
family that seems to be doing the right thing and upstanding citizens and and then the other family that seems to be
getting into a lot of trouble - two of the parents on the one side yes struggling with some drug issues yeah
they did take some of their computers their cell phones were searched but as police dug deeper they could not ignore
the criminal past of both misty and Dan remember Dan was a big-time meth manufacturer and dealer yeah and that
puts him around the cast of characters that that could be harmful to his family if he owes somebody money if he sold bad
drugs to them this could put his family into danger yes and this is seeming like
a likely scenario to police remember he's out on bail when the girls went missing well he's a real piece of
[ __ ] on the day before the girls disappeared dan appeared in court and instead of taking a plea I believe that
everybody assumed he was going to be taking a plea at that time but instead Dan opted to proceed with an actual
trial dan and misty put on a united front at this time holding hands and even staying together in a motel rather
than going to their respective homes this is also believed to be to avoid the media this despite the restraining order
misty had against Dan and the fact that they had been separated for years the two went along with the investigation
for the first few days but then things changed it seems that Evansdale police suspected
that Dan was either capable of harming his daughter and niece or at the very least he might know who was responsible
in fact according to his sister-in-law Tammy who spoke with ABC News she says quote they have accused him they told
him they had proof that he did it and quote there was also a report that Dan abruptly ended a police polygraph
session after investigators accused him of injuring the girls and knowing where they were after this debacle Dan and
Misty hired an attorney and this attorney advised them to stop talking to police or the media yeah but think about
how shady that is we're asking you a bunch of questions we're doing a polygraph one of the questions are gonna
be did you hurt these girls or any know who hurt the girls and you then stopped the tests you knew these questions were
coming and you then stopped the tests all this is [ __ ] you're gonna ask me questions like this
I mean that that just comes off that's very shady to me it does come off as shady it's also I mean it's just
difficult with what these people are going through and then you feel like you're being accused some people it is a
natural reaction to kind of fly off the handle and react to that it's difficult man hey this this
whole thing is I understand that it's difficult but it's it's the parents that say we're people involved in missing
person cases that say look I understand that because I was close to this individual I am going to be looked at
look at me as hard and fast as you want to get to other actual options because I
know I didn't do anything yeah I mean so I understand it's difficult but if you really want to help the situation but I
think you're gonna see time and time again that this individual is is about himself preserving himself well what you
are a level-headed person and what you're talking about is don't make fun of my head is a
thought out good decision what we have here is a man who has shown a history of making bad decisions so well he also
claims that once that she went missing he started to hidden he took back to meth pretty hard during this time on
Tuesday the 17th chief deputy Rick Abin of the Black Hawk County Sheriff's Office held a press
conference saying that authorities had been grasping for straws in their search for the girls but it was as if they had
just disappeared into thin air he said quote it wouldn't be proper for me to stand here and tell you we have a theory
because we don't he goes on to say we have two missing girls and we have no idea why he stated we have no reason to
believe there was any foul play at this time and he also said everyone is a suspect until we find something
no now what's your thought on press conferences like this because sometimes they come out and they tell people we
know nothing we have no theory and it's almost like a plea for help and then sometimes I think
even when they don't have anything they come out and they come out a little more
confident if you're leading an investigation like this what do you think your tactic would be well I would
be look I believe you need to strategize really with your delivery of anything to
the public especially if you have things that you're working on if you have leads
in this investigation or suspicions if you don't have leads or suspicions then I would go the route of being as candid
as possible and telling the public we don't know anything I don't think it's it's any kind of downfall I actually
think that it's a it's a good smart move to say hey we don't know anything because we've seen this look we're we're
four days into the search for these girls now we've seen how the rumor mill starts to go where people people sitting
in bars are sitting at work or talking to one another in town are saying oh yeah the I heard they found those girls
or oh yeah and you start getting all this bad information that swirls around in the community and they need the
public to know we don't know where they are and we don't have a lead so if you know something or even if you just think
you saw anything at all that you questioned and it has nothing to do with the girls let us know we're grasping at
straws let's talk about the last known sightings of the girls this on Friday the 13th remember the girl's grandmother
Wilma cook last saw the girls riding their bikes behind Linderman's big and tall this is located at 35 24 Lafayette
Road at about 12:15 p.m. the rear of the Collinses house looked out through a gap
in the buildings on the block behind so she would have been able to see the girls riding their bikes on Lafayette
Road from the Collinses backyard surveillance camera footage from a business called corn belt auctions this
is located at 35 20 Lafayette Road captured the two on their bikes riding at 12 11 p.m. but wait and I hate to
chuckle during this but the business owner said that the cameras were about eight minutes behind making the sighting
more likely being at 12:19 p.m. look I just admire the business owner coming forward and saying we know that they're
behind we monitor it with the understanding that they're eight minutes behind but you know there
are eight mins behind when you fix them still we've been it we've been doing this for five years in the garage
captain and we are yet to have a surveillance camera footage that has the right time right it will never happen
and now makes me question every footage I've ever seen because even like with the valid with the Brian Schaeffer
footage a lot of people believe that was the correct time but now it makes me question that yeah to this point I need
proof you gotta prove to me that was the correct time often it is not yeah but and then they're going to take this
tactic because now hey we got video footage of the girls and we have other businesses that we can check
well what's cool about this is if you suspect anything going on from the grandmother or if anything weird may
have happened at the house you can verify that a portion of her story is absolutely correct right
you know I last saw them roughly at this time you can spin it a minute to of a minute or two forward or backwards but
all about that time is is happening what she said is happening we have video proof of that
now this location is just a block it's less than a block from the Collinses home the girls were biking in a
direction away from the lake at this time that the footage was shot brain according to Iowa cold cases org the
girls were next seen at 12:23 p.m. on Bravo Boulevard and then again sometime between 12:30 and 1:00 p.m. on Gilbert
Drive not far from Meyers Lake right book but there both times heading towards the direction of the lake on
these accounts they may have been but on the with on the video footage they're heading in the direction away from the
lake but I also want to be clear about this because we cannot confirm we cannot verify any of these last two sightings
and it does not seem to be and other reports about the case so I want to just make sure everybody knows that going
forward what we do have though is a man named Robert carpenter he's an Evansdale
resident who lived about two blocks from Myers Lake he came forward and told police he saw the girls while he was out
watering his yard they biked by him sometime between noon and 1:00 p.m. this is according to an
ABC article carpenter lives at 10:20 Lake Avenue if this is really was the girls riding by they were close to the
area where the bikes were eventually found right another witness Ted gammer dinger I apologized and said
but I that's how his name is spelled in my notes apologized to his family the Gama dingers are great people mm-hmm the
upstanding citizens of Iowa you have to be with a name like that well Ted G was what we're gonna go with he is living in
Waterloo he's a cyclist who often rode the Evansdale Nature Trail he is a good guy he goes to police and he says this
is when they're searching the woods along the trail he told them that he saw two kids bikes on the trail on Friday
the 13th but no sign of the girls so he sees the bikes but does not see the girls ring he said quote I saw the bikes
lying on the path and had to swerve to miss them he placed this time that he saw the bikes at approximately 12:20 on
a phone call he made to his daughter soon after at 12:27 so of course jammer dingers sighting and the surveillance
footage from the auction house cannot both have the times correct but we know that both could be askew a bit right
right the girls could not have been on Bravo Boulevard at 12:19 and then already have been abducted on the trail
and bikes left there at 12:20 p.m. it's just not physically possible now this next part has to be taken with a grain
of salt because it involves both Facebook post and unverified sightings of the girls one person posted that her
son a cashier at the fairway store on South Evans rohde he was questioned by police twice
this was because he told police he gave the girls directions to Meyers lake that
day his statements were supposedly backed up by a co-worker the Evansdale nature trail commences literally right
next to this grocery store on Lafayette Road and runs directly south to the lake
so this seems like a very likely possibility if this was the two girls we're looking for it makes sense that it
would be that they would be right at the at the fairway just a block and a half from home but it is perplexing that they
would be asking for directions to the lake they're so close to the lake they right because of a couple things they're
young so I believe that they may have needed or required directions to get to the lake if that's where they wanted to
go but again we still have grandma and mom and dad the responsible ones pointing out that the kids were not
allowed to go there it was too far from the house now you said that she had a cell phone the thing that I couldn't
find which maybe you found was any activity of the kids being involved with any social media because or any contacts
as far as like were they able to text people and the reason why I bring this up is because I really questioned when
the parents and the grandparents are saying hey this is not this is too far they won't have gone that far because
they only stayed within a distance that they would be able to hear us yell well the lake is too far from there
they're not going to be able to hear their their grandma yell right so why is there a reason they were going there was
there somebody that they're gonna meet up and and and so but I haven't heard anything of that I mean when you look at
like the Delphi case were or Brian Schaeffer case or any missing person case we normally have some kind of
record but they're normally older individuals well I'm glad you bring that up because
some stuff on web sluice which is quite interesting there's several sleuth errs on there that have theorized that lyric
so she's the older of the two right right she was hanging out with an older cousin the week before and seems to that
they got in trouble for coming home late so now thus Luther's are taking that a step further and saying could she being
the older one maybe she's more adventurous by this time is she the one pushing for the trip to the lake maybe
they're not meeting anybody there but maybe she thinks she's gonna get her you know I went there last week with my
older cousin right now I'm going to be the older cousin and take my younger cousin there for a quick trip to the
lake that's a good idea though I mean that's it's a plausible theory it is and the thing is too we don't have anybody
any friends coming forward saying hey I did I was going to meet them at the lake
which I think we would have considering that that they need all the help they can get looking for these two girls no
what I'm saying is like an online predator somebody oh yeah Laura can't fish yeah you know hey oh yeah you seem
like a nice person we meet in a chat room or something oh I know that Lake let's meet by that Lake I'd like to meet
you sometime yeah and if the girls didn't fully know or understand how far away the lake was there's a good chance
they thought maybe they could go there and make it back in time and not get into trouble with with mom and dad right
the other thing you have to consider and I know we've been kind of dancing around
this a little bit but but we like to dance the right the the truth of it is look whether or not the girls actually
even made it to the lake depends on how much faith you put in the tracking dogs right and we know that the bikes the
purse and the phone were found there but again looking at it on a map it to me it
seems like a strange place to abduct the children like what I can't shake captain
is the feeling is this where the bikes and the purse planted there or is this the site of the abduction
again it could be not far off they could have been abducted a couple blocks over
and and then this is where the the person decided to dump the bikes right so six days after the girls were last
seen police were still not calling the disappearance and abduction the day after the girls went missing Evansdale
police chief Kent smock told the media that the case was being treated as a suspicious disappearance media outlets
theorized that a double abduction one in which two girls were taken at once would
be very unlikely you and I have been doing this long enough we know that to be the case and police chief smock told
the media that this is so rare for an abductor to take two children at a time they weren't really working under that
abduction theory by this point but a week out on the 20th chief's mock his notes indicate quote focus turns fully
to abduction as other causes were eliminated I think this also has a lot to do with the lake you were talking
about the lake being searched dragged drained so on and so forth I think that that they wanted to fully eliminate that
before they went into full abduction yeah I mean FBI sends out special divers they clear the lake at that point I
think all roads point to something bad happen right now the other than a bad accident in the lake and this is where
things get sad because now we have a big shifting gears where we have the Sheriff's Office are saying some
evidence has been found we don't know what that is you and I cap them we don't know what that is but this these items
that they're calling evidence were sent to the DCI crime lab for analysis they go on to say if they meaning the girls
were lost in that area they would have been found by now so they've ruled out the lake they've
ruled out being lost in the area and the the officer goes on to reiterate that they had not cleared anyone
everyone is a suspect until we find these young girls he said and he announced that a $50,000 reward was
being offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone involved with the abduction of the girls
but once a like you said they're kind of rolling out some stuff and that leads to
the idea that there these girls are probably abducted okay that's fair enough but they're also stating that we
believe that they're alive and so even though time is passing and days are passing it seems like law enforcement
it's like we're not and I don't know if they were just trying to be safe by that
but it seems like they had some kind of evidence that these girls were still alive that they were still alive or or
maybe that that's really interesting that you bring that out because I don't know what would give them the indication
that the girls would still be alive because we have the FBI spokeswoman saying this on Friday the 20th so a week
later right my my thought goes to they have no evidence that they're dead so we're gonna we're gonna stay on this
road of they're still alive now I don't know I didn't come across this in this investigation but I've seen it and other
investigations of abductions of adults and children especially children and especially when you get younger children
that law enforcement will come out and say we believe them to still be alive and then they will show the grieving
parents crying on TV and saying just drop them off at some public place and drive away right and so maybe this is
part of a plea to get somebody not to do something stupid often you you want to be reminding the
offender yes you may have abducted these two girls but it doesn't have to get worse than this yeah but what's the
likelihood I mean is it more likely that a child would be abducted and within 48
hours they're probably dead unfortunately the statistics tell us that within two hours most of them are
dead right if they're abduct by a stranger and that's what I want to know why is law enforcement a week later
saying and then the FBI is saying week later they have something they had to cut have some nation they could have
something but I I have often heard law enforcement officials say until we have proof that that the person is damn then
we're we're sticking with we are searching for a live person on the 23rd of July so we are ten days after the
girls vanished BCSO captain Rick Abin said that the couple's refusal meaning Dan and Misti
refusal to talk to police has been a problematic he goes on to say quote it's a distraction for us and why they wish
to do that I don't know Abin said we're asking for 100% cooperation why they don't want to do
that I have no idea what is going on here according to CNN both misty and Dan passed polygraph exams and police
cleared them based on this and their alibis misty was at work and Dan was at home with his son and this is backed up
by his mother it seems that police might have had a working theory that we've kind of talked
about a bit that the disc the abduction of the girls was somehow related to Dan's drug connections the aunt of the
girls Tammy this is the sister-in-law said quote the children weren't exposed to those people they were pretty much
for the most part kept away from there and quote but that didn't stop the rumors from flying that maybe the girls
were taken by someone connected to Dan someone involved in his shady drug underworld as you pointed out maybe it's
somebody that he wronged that he owes money to the Daily Mail said that the girls could have been abducted by drug
dealers as payback for Dan's snitching remember it was believed that he was going to work out a plea deal on all
those drug charges for that trial that was going on right around the same time that the girls went missing right
the mail article said that Wilma told them it's possible her son-in-law made an enemy through his cooperation with
police many were wondering about Dan suddenly deciding to go forward with a trial
where he's going to face many years in prison rather than taking the plea deal the day before the girls were taken this
could be seen as suspicious Black Hawk County Sheriff Tony Thompson said quote we're not ruling anything out with
regard to the investigation to include Daniel Morrissey's criminal history his known associates any prior or future
criminal activities now although Dan himself was not considered a suspect and this was the police's very words not
considered a suspect it seems to many at the time just ten days into the disappearance of these girls that it
might have been easier to believe that there was a known suspect or reason that the girls have been taken rather than to
believe the alternative that the girls were kidnapped at random by a stranger [Music]
I want to thank you guys so much and remember if you want to be a part of parts unknown get your pre-order in
today a true-crime garage comm join us back here in the garage tomorrow until then be good be kind and don't
live [Music] [Applause]

Source: https://www.podbean.com/eau/pb-9jjkw-dac0af

The Evansdale Murders /// Part 1 /// 393 Part 1 of 2 www.TrueCrimeGarage.com What could be more innocent, more everyday America, two little girls setting off on a bike ride to explore the neighborhood? Something they had done countless times before. Except this time, they did not come home. This week we discuss the unsolved double murder case of Lyric Cook and Elizabeth Colins. Beer of the Week - Easy Eddy from Big Grove Brewery Garage Grade - 4 and a Quarter Bottle Caps out of 5 Cheers and thanks to this week’s sponsors!!! Listen to Disturbing Interests on Apple Podcasts, iTunes, Stitcher, Castbox, iHeart Radio, Spotify and where ever else you get your podcasts. www.StoryWorth.com/TCG - Get started right away without the need for shipping and get $10 off of your first purchase!

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Brief Summary

The episode discusses the 2012 disappearance of two girls in Iowa, focusing on the investigation and family dynamics involved.

Key points

Case Treated as Abduction. Authorities believe the girls were taken and are still alive, urging public assistance.
Missing Girls' Bikes Found. The discovery of the girls' bikes raises alarms about their safety.
Suspicion Falls on Dan. Dan, a parent with a troubled past, becomes a suspect in the disappearance of the girls.
The Search for Missing Girls. Authorities launched a massive search effort for two missing girls, involving multiple agencies and resources.
The Search for the Girls. Law enforcement shifts focus to abduction as evidence mounts against other theories.
Belief in Survival. Despite the passing days, authorities maintain hope that the girls are still alive.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

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0:46WatchApr 28, 2020

Tension

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