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

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Let's talk some true crime. K C R G T V 9's Jillian Petrus joins us now. Jillian, 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, Chris. And 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 3:00 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 3:00 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 the 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 or 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 ask for them to call and and we can talk to them. As for specific details
surrounding the investigation, I can't answer that. I can't comment. 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 a safe return. Some of the details the investigators
could not 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.
In the summer of 2012, Elizabeth Collins lived with her parents and siblings in Evansdale, Iowa. This is a small
Midwestern town of 4,700 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 hard-working 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 dinner. 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 uh 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, grandmother's 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 13th, 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/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 2
miles away from the Collins's 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 Collins's house. Both Heather and Drew
Collins were going to be gone for the day, so Grandma Wilma was going to be watching the kids and 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. They're unsupervised, but they're not to be venturing off very far
from the home. Right. 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 are 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 a 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. Mhm. 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. You 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. In 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 there. So, almost 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. Mhm.
So, at 1:00 p.m.-ish, Heather 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 work day.
You know, he would come home maybe for lunch. Mhm. 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, Lyric's mother, says Wilma called her at work around 2:00 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. Remember, it's 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 Myers 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 and checking the home. Within half an hour, the search
mushroomed with four Black Hawk 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 the kid inside the home. Mhm. 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.
Well, sometimes kids want to hide to scare their family. Oh, we'll we'll hide and we'll be in the closet and then when
they call for us, oh, just don't come. Well, there's some bad news here, Captain, because around 4:00 p.m.,
a firefighter found the girls' bikes. They This is a bad sign, lying on the Evansdale Nature Trail at Myers Lake.
Mhm. The bikes were lying on the paved bike trail at the far southeastern corner of the lake. Now, Myers Lake
covers 27 acres with water and is about 25 ft 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 path that we talked about. The paved bike bike path
winds its way around 3/4 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 in order here. The Collinses lived at 166
Braven Boulevard in Evansdale. The distance from the Collinses' house on on Braven Boulevard to Myers 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 3/4 of a 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 lake's north side. There is an offshoot of the trail that
goes straight north and then connects with Gilbert Avenue right near the Advance 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 Monon High Bridge area the recreation area. I think it's very
important if you want to have a clear understanding of this case and maybe the possible theories
or outcomes that that 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 Collins's home.
Because the argument here is where the bikes were found is a distance away from the home that
the parents said they 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 travel to Myers Lake. Now could they have? Every day 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. Mhm. 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 I-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 fence. You don't have to get out of the car.
You just have 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 it
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 I-380." Mhm. 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 a tunnel appearance.
According to the girls' family, the bikes were about 12 ft from the edge of the water on the trail. And
investigators also found Elizabeth's purple purse and cell phone. 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 path, 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 lakeside of the trail between the fence and the shoreline." Mhm. 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 you 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 left the bikes behind, they went somewhere else."
But right when you see that purse and that cell phone, even though, like you said, it's not a working cell phone, you
go, "Okay, that's that's cause for alarm." Yeah, this is 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 cell phone Mhm. seems not likely at all. Now, this lake is not a swimming lake. I
do want to point that out because there the first suspicion by law enforcement and by firefighters
was because of where the bikes were found, maybe these girls drowned in the lake.
The parents were quick to point out, "Look, both of them can swim and swim very well." Right.
They agreed that, of course, yeah, we got to 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 and
one of them drowned, that's one person. We we 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 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 going
to take my bike. So, I I feel like if you're out and about and your kids most of the time you're going to use that
bike to get yourself around. When you have a My Little Pony bike that's mint, I mean you're going to be
nervous that somebody's going to steal it. This is all stuff that was reported in the newspaper. So, other than the
bikes, the purse, and 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 Myers 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 into search from the air, and the National Center for Missing and
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for $10 off. All right, we're back. Cheers. Cheers to you, Mr. Captain. Mhm. The National
Center for Missing and Exploited Children had a representative on the ground in Evansville 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 12-mi 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. Uh in fact, just within hours of the
girls' bikes being found, the order was given to drag the lake. And after 2 days of dragging, nothing
was found, but investigators 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 dogs' 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' scents.
And that's kind of where it went cold for the dogs. That is where the investigators stopped, according to this
family member. Well, again, that doesn't make a lot of sense to me because if you have these two children, let's
just say they're going to put their bikes down and go into the woods, why wouldn't you take your purse with
you? You think that you think that'd be something that the girls would take with
them. It's very difficult because both of the these locations, one where the bike is
found, and two two where the the scent is found, located of both girls, or believed to be anyway,
these aren't ideal locations for grabbing a child and pulling them into your vehicle.
Mhm. 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 video footage of them having them sniff the the girls' shoes,
some other pairs of the girls' 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 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 scents
indicated a strong possibility. That was her exact words, 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 and upstanding citizens and and and then the other family that seems to be
getting into a lot of trouble. Two 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 cast of characters that they could be harmful to his family. If he owes
somebody money, if he sold bad drugs to them, this could put his uh 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 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 Evansville police
suspected that Dan was either capable of harming his daughter and niece, or at the very least, he might know who was
responsible. Mhm. 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." End 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. Uh we're asking you a bunch of questions. We're doing a polygraph. One of the questions are going to be,
did you hurt these girls or do you know who hurt the girls? And you then stop the test. You knew
these questions were coming. And you then stop the test. All this is [ __ ] You're going to ask me
questions like this? I mean that that just comes off as 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. This this whole thing is just difficult all the way difficult, but it's it's the parents
that say or 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. You know what I mean? So I I understand it's
difficult, but if you really want to help the situation, but I think you're going to 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 hitting he took back to meth pretty hard during this time. On Tuesday, the 17th, Chief Deputy Rick
Abben 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." Now 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 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 4 days into the search for these girls now. We've seen how the rumor mill starts to go where
people people sitting in bars or sitting at work or or talking to one another in
town or saying, "Oh, yeah, that 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 question 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 girls' grandmother, Wilma Cook, last saw the girls riding their bikes behind Linderman's Big and Tall.
This is located at 3524 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 Cornbelt Auctions, this is located at 3520 Lafayette Road, captured the two on their bikes riding
at 12:11 p.m. But, we're and I I hate to chuckle during this, but the business owner said that the cameras
were about 8 minutes behind, making the sighting more likely being at 12:19 p.m. Look, I 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 8 minutes behind." But, still they're 8 minutes behind, why don't you fix them?
Still, we've been we've been doing this for 5 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 now with the Brian Shafer 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 got to prove to me that it 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 two 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 Collins' home. The
girls were biking in a direction away from the lake at this time that the footage was shot. Right. According to
Iowa coldcases.org, the girls were next seen at 12:23 p.m. on Brovan Boulevard and then again
sometime between 12:30 and 1:00 p.m. on Gilbert Drive not far from Myers Lake. Right, but but they're
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. Mhm. 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 in 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 1020 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 Gammeldinger, I apologize to Ted, but I that's how his name is spelled in my notes. I'll
apologize to his family. The The Gammeldingers are are great people. Mhm. The outstanding citizens of
Iowa. You have to be with a name like that. Well, Ted G was what we're going to 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. Right. 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 based on a phone call he made to his daughter soon after at 12:27.
So, of course, Gammeldinger's 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
Braden 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 Road, he was questioned by police twice. This
was because he told police he gave the girls directions to Myers 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. Mhm.
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 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. Be- 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 or any uh contacts as far as
like were they able to text people? And the reason why I bring this up is cuz I I really question
when the parents and the grandparents are saying, "Hey, this is not This is too far. They wouldn't have gone that
far cuz 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're going there? Was there somebody that they're going to meet up?
And and and so, but I haven't heard anything of that. I mean, when you look at like the
Delphi case or or Brian Shaffer case or 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 WebSleuths, uh which is quite interesting, there's several sleuthers 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 the sleuthers 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 going to get her, you know,
I went there last week with my older cousin, 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 that'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 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 a online predator, somebody that's luring them out.
Yeah, you know, hey, uh oh yeah, you seem like a nice person you meet in a chat room or something. Oh, I
I know that lake, let's meet by that lake. I 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 were the bikes and the purse planted
there? Mhm. Or is this the site of the abduction? Again, it could be not far off. They
could have been abducted a a couple blocks over, and and then this is where the the person decided to dump the
bikes. Right. So, 6 days after the girls were last seen, police were still not calling the
disappearance an 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 Smock, his notes indicate, quote, "Focus turns fully to abduction as other
causes were eliminated." Mhm. 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 they clear the lake. At that point, I think all roads point to something bad happened. Other other than
a bad accident in the lake. And this is where things get sad because now we have
a big shift in 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 captain, 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 they, like you said, they're kind of rolling out some stuff
and that leads to the idea that they're 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 is 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's really interesting that you bring that up 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 going to we're going to 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 in 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, isn't more likely that a child would be
abducted and within 48 hours they're probably dead? Unfortunately, the statistics tell us that within 2 hours
most of them are are dead if they're abducted 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 a week later, they have something. They had some information.
have something. They could have something, but I I have often heard law enforcement officials say, "Until we
have proof that that the person is dead, then we're we're sticking with we are searching for a a live person." On the
23rd of July, so we are 10 days after the girls vanished, BCSO Captain Rick Abbin said that the
couple's refusal, meaning Dan and Misty, refusal to talk to police has been problematic. He goes on to say, quote,
"It's a distraction for us, and why they wish to do that, I don't know." Abbin 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 dis- the abduction
of the girls was somehow related to Dan's drug connections. Right. The aunt of the girls, Tammy, this is
the sister-in-law, said, "The quote, the children weren't exposed to those people. They were pretty much, for the
most part, kept away from there." End 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 10 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 had
been taken, rather than to believe the alternative, that the girls were kidnapped at random
by a stranger. 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 at truecrimegarage.com. Join us back here in the garage
tomorrow. Until then, be good, be kind, and don't litter.

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

Elizabeth Collins and Lyric Cook disappeared in 2012; their case remains unsolved despite extensive investigation efforts.

Key points

The Disappearance of Two Girls. On July 13, 2012, Elizabeth Collins and Lyric Cook went missing during a bike ride.
Search Efforts Intensify. By 2:00 p.m., five adults were searching for the missing girls, escalating the urgency.
Bikes Found at Myers Lake. Around 4:00 p.m., the girls' bikes were discovered, raising alarms about their safety.
Bikes Found, Alarm Raised. The discovery of the girls' bikes and belongings raises serious concerns about their safety.
Police Search Intensifies. A massive search effort begins, involving local law enforcement and the FBI.
Suspicion on Dan. Police suspect Dan may know more about the girls' disappearance than he admits.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

They feel confident the girls are alive and to not give up hope.

Authorities' reassurance about the missing girls' status.

5:44WatchNov 14, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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