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

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[Music] % [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
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[Music] crime [Music] [Music] hey oo w w [Music] [Music] KCRG tv9 Julian petus joins us now
Julian you were and 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 chrisen 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 Meers Lake on Friday the 13th before 3:00 in the afternoon to contact
police even if you think 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 Meers Lake before 300 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 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 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 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
[Music] 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 waterl
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 LC cook
age 10 who lived just minutes away in waterl 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 LC 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 four or five 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 morsy 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 winter 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 plad 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 L lived with Misty and Heather's mom Wilma cook so Wilma cook Grandma is helping out quite
a bit uh with both families L lived in waterl at Wilma's house and Wilma had permanent custody of l l
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 morisy was staying with her mom Wilma and her daughter l in waterl she left for work that day at
8:30 a.m. this was a new job at a gas stationsconvenience 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 colins'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 L 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 lyc with her as usual ly 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 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 grma 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 U 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 L 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 sake captain we're going to say like 12:30 to 1 p.m.
is is when the girls were were to return to the house so at 100 p.m is 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 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 M 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: p.m. we have five adult family members
all out looking for these two girls so very quick to react Misty L's 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 morsy who was
living in water 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 Meers Lake this was around
245 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 Evans Dale
Police Department most reports have the time of her in-person visit to the Evansdale police department at 248 p.m.
according to the waterl Cedar Falls Courier where which we relied on extensively for research on this case
quote within minutes of authorities learning of The Disappearance of lric cook morisy 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 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 MH 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 well we'll hide and we'll be in the closet and when they call for us oh just
don't come well there's some bad news here Captain because around 4 pm. a firefighter found the girl's
bikes this is a bad sign lying on the Evansdale nature trail at Meers Lake mhm the bikes were lying on 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 pave bike path that we talked about the pave
bik 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 of a discussion about geography I think is an order here the Collins's lived at 166 Braven Boulevard in
Evansdale the distance from the Collins's house on on Braven Boulevard to Myers Lake 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 Collins's house right the trail then runs South past the skate park and
Crosses arbitus Avenue then the trail turns West through a short wooded area and leads to to Myers Lake the trail
follows the southern shore of the lake and as said runs 3/4 of 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 lak's
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 simple Google search use uh with our two
victims names and if you just type in map with that uh it will bring it up and it will also the maps that I saw clear
indicate where their home is as well as where the bikes were found just like we pointed out in the
deli case because of where those bodies were found the mo and 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 uh one portion of the trail is to the
Collins's home because the argu 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 Meers 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 mhm 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 understand in the way that it 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 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 be on 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 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 Spelman 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 path between the two fences and the purse was found on
the lake side of the trail between the fence and the shoreline so that's where the big
question is what were the girls bikes doing by Meyers Lake anyway as we pointed out this is not exactly close to
their home well the big cause for concern for me is you 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 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 that's caused 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 cell phone seems not likely at all now this lake is not a swimming
Lake I do want to point that out because their 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 Dr around 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 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 at somebody is 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 smok 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 to
Evansdale residents to notify them of the missing girls officers began canvasing 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 Blackhawk 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 exploited children was notified of the girl's disappearance by 8 [Music]
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$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 Evansdale by the next morning this
person began emailing and faxing photos of the girls to businesses truck stops and retail locations within a 100m
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 camp ground were all searched in the coming days these 12m radius large scale searches included corn fields 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 Blackhawk 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 preceded 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 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
investigators decided it was in their best interest to actually drain the lake to be sure that they weren't missing
anything yeah and they didn't drain it completely but they drained it enough to help the search but no was found and
unfortunately the families both families very early on believed that the girls had been abducted on the
17th FBI blood hounds were brought into 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 blood hounds continue on into this dense forest area which is
about 400 yard 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 girl
sense and that's kind of where it went cold for the dogs that is where the investigator 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 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 sniff the the girl 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 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 dog's detection of the girls sense indicated a strong possibility that was her exact
word 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
timeconsuming 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 a 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 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 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 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 do 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 stopped 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 of 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 understand that it's difficult but it's it's the parents that say or people involved in 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 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 levelheaded person and what you're talking about is don't make fun of my
head is a 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 abin of the Blackhawk 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 uh a plea for help and then sometimes I think even when when they don't have
anything they come out and they come out a little more confident if you 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 are 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 lender's big tall this is located at 3524 Lafayette Road
at about 12:15 p.m. the rear of the Collins's 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 Collins's backyard
surveillance camera footage from a business called Cornell auctions this is located at 3520 a at Road captured the
two on their bikes riding at 1211 p.m. but 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 1219 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 eight minutes behind but still you know there are eight minutes behind when you fix them still we've been 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 it now makes me question every footage I've
ever seen because even like with the now with the Brian Schaefer 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's home the girls were biking in a direction away from the lake at this
time that the footage was shot right according to Iowa cold cases.org the girls were next seen at 1223 p.m. on
Braven 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 MH 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 an
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 p.m.
this is according to an ABC article Carpenter lives at 10:20 Lake avue 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
gamerdinger I apologize to Ted but I that's how his name is spelled in my notes apologize to his family the the
gamma dingers are are great people upstanding 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 waterl 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 missed 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 gamerdinger sighting
and the surveillance footage from the auction house cannot both have the times correct but we know that both could be a
skew a bit right right the girls could not have been on Braven Boulevard at 1219 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 Meyers Lake that day his statements were supposedly backed up by a coworker 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 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 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 because 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 were 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 deli case or or Brian schaer
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 web sleuths uh which is quite interesting
there's several sleuther on there that have theorized that l 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 sthers
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 for 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 an online Predator somebody that's Ling yeah you know hey uh oh yeah
you 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'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 I 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 six days after the girls were last seen
police were still not calling The Disappearance in Abduction the day after the girls went missing Evansdale police
chief Kent smok 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 we know that to be the case and police chief smok 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 smok 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 they clear the lake at that
point I think all roads point to something bad happened right 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 say like you said
they're kind of rolling out some stuff and that leads to the idea that there'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 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 up because I don't know what would give
them the ation 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 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 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 could 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 live person on the 23rd of July so we are 10 days after the girls vanished
bcso Captain Rick abin said that the coup's refusal meaning Dan and Misty refusal to talk to police as 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 Aban 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 aliis 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 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 right around the same
time that the girls went missing right the male 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 Blackhawk County sh Sheriff Tony Thompson said quote we're not ruling
anything out with regard to the investigation to include Daniel Morris'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 have
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
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The Evansdale Murders /// Part 1 /// 393

Part 1 of 2

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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.

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Brief Summary

The episode discusses the 2012 disappearance of two girls in Iowa and the ensuing investigation.

Key points

Missing Girls Case Intensifies. Authorities now treat the case as an abduction, believing the girls are still alive.
Search Efforts Expand. A small army of family and friends mobilizes to search for the missing girls.
Bikes Found at Meers Lake. Firefighters discover the girls' bikes, raising alarms about their safety.
Search Efforts Intensify. Authorities mobilize a large-scale search for the missing girls, including boats and divers.
Suspicion Falls on Family. Investigators begin to suspect Dan, one of the girls' parents, may know more than he admits.
Abduction Theory Emerges. As evidence mounts, police shift focus to abduction, ruling out other possibilities.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Authorities feel confident the girls are alive.

A glimmer of hope in a tense situation.

6:45WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

65/ 100Some tension

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