The Evansdale Murders /// Part 2 /// 394 | Forensic Files

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crime longtime listeners of this fine program will know that one of the tactics I
would certainly use in any of these investigations is what I like to call the old pervert Roundup and that is
exactly what law enforcement did investigators Tracked Down approximately 10 registered sex offenders living in
Evansdale and all were cleared by police but according to CNN there were 200 registered sex offenders in a 10mile
radius this scary stuff yeah the town of water has wait did you make sure that there wasn't a prison I I did the town
of waterl has one registered sex offender for every 236 residents for comparison purposes
Evansdale has a registered sex offender for every 484 residents overall the DCI says it
looked into over 300 sex offenders to date throughout the investigation investigators had a hard time figuring
out exactly how the girls were abducted where the bikes were left was quite far from their house and was not in an area
cars could travel on further the girl sense had seemed to lead into the woods how had a predator or Predators managed
to get control of two girls silently and sight unseen in broad daylight yeah but
we we've talked about this many times normally I'm going to guess that it's by threat of violence I show you a gun I
show you a knife you're a little kid it's not going to be that hard for me to you know most little kids are not
going to think hey I could take off running right now or maybe I can scream or I could do something you're going to
see that gun and once that threat is made now that perpetrator's in control yeah and what you have to wonder about
too is do you take that a step further and say were they lured to a vehicle perhaps by someone they knew and trusted
and there was no reason for them to scream or run away right I think that's your second option the other thought too
had they been grabbed from another location perhaps a long Road alongside a road which would make sense and then the
bike's left by their abductor on the trail and the dogs are just mistaken or confused well and we talked about this a
little off the Record was the idea that what if the perpetrator had a truck or had uh a truck with maybe a cap on it
where he got the girls got control of the girls they're now in his vehicle he has the their bikes but now he's afraid
that once he takes off off that maybe somebody sees the bikes in the back of his truck here's the other thing to
consider as well staying along the idea that it was a stranger abduction could we have a situation
where they were somewhat targeted meaning had someone been watching the two girls as we said this bike ride was
pretty routine they were out riding together often and I would imagine it would be roughly about the same time of
day mhm so did somebody put together a you know a carefully and attack a snatch and grab of these two girls especially
if they were following them and then followed them all the way to the lake that might have presented the
opportunity the perpetrator was looking for mhm there were a rash of child abduction attempts throughout Iowa in
2012 the following reports appeared in various media Publications and I'll kind of go through these one at a time
captain and you just kind of jump in where you see fit May 19th 2012 authorities say they were
looking for a man suspected in the attempted abduction of three girls on the west side of Perry Iowa Perry police
say the man stopped his car about 8:00 p.m. Friday and asked the girls ages 8 and nine for directions to a convenience
store he then tried to get the girls into the car asking for them to show him the way show him the directions police
say the girls ran to a neighbor's house thankfully on June 6th of that same year
Metro Police are teaming up with following a string of attempted child abductions in the De Moine Iowa area
note this is like 125 miles away from Evansdale but I I I want to go through some of these as we as we can here the
most recent of these attempts happened in Pleasant Hill on May 23rd of that year police say a man in a SUV tried to
lure a young girl into his vehicle in the same article they're talking about walki police were investigating an
incident that happened around the same date there were two girls they say they were followed by an SUV in June parents
in for City Iowa were notified of two abduction attempts in one of them the driver of a tan panel work style van
stopped three children on bicycle on North 8th Street and told them he was going to get them the children ran away
and the driver drove off it seems like we need another stranger danger campaign through this country I mean with all
these creeps and all these pieces of [ __ ] to teach these kids one stay away run away run to the nearest house yell
for help well what I always find interesting in these situations is when you do have some a child or children who
actually go go missing and then the thought is abduction you'll see these little stories in the newspapers in the
local newsp papers and they are just that they are little tiny stories because they don't know much about the
offender they don't really fully know what the offender was attempting to do the actual crimes they were attempting
to carry out but it's scary stuff and they're really just delivering a little short warning to the community and to
the parents in the area what happened once you have a child who actually goes missing these stories all start to cycle
back through the news because now you have people making connections and you're going all right there's a shark
in the water and he's over here swimming around in this area and look try to get
somebody here and try to get somebody there uh in the same article Captain they are going all the way back to March
of that year where they say the police department investigated a possible attempt to abduct a 10-year-old boy
the boy who was in front of his home said he was approached by an Asian male approximately 50 years old with a thin
face the suspect was driving an older gray van possibly with Iowa license plates the man reportedly tried to lure
the boy into his van after asking for directions to a church whether these attempts could have been the same person
who took Elizabeth and laric is almost certainly something that police in Evansdale would have been considering at
the time on the 4mon anniversary of The Disappearance a letter appeared in the newspaper and it read to whom it may
concern we would use your name but we don't know who you are or maybe we do maybe you are someone who knows the
girls maybe you're someone who just acted upon impulse maybe you had planned to take them we don't know because we
don't know who you are but we can sort of imagine that you must not have had the things you needed to grow up feeling
safe and loved because only someone who hurts inside would hurt another person in their family we've all heard the
saying hurt people hurt people we believe this to be true we are so sorry for what happened to you when you were
growing up certainly all children do not receive all the love and care they deserve some are even abused by those
who are supposed to have taken care of them when that happens it is very wrong taking the girls from us has caused much
pain pain for them pain for us and our families since the time you took them maybe you've wondered more than a few
times how you could ever make it right right how to be a hero not a monster things probably look pretty hopeless for
a good outcome we want you to know that we are praying for you to do the right thing by
releasing the girls everyone wins even you the person who took them imagine how it will feel to have everyone remember
that you were the one person in all the missing children cases the one person person who cared enough to let the girls
go you will not be remembered as the one who took the girls but as the one who let them come home our lives have not
been the same since July 13th please let our girls come home to us do the right thing be a hero sincerely and it's
signed by both of the families well and then we're going to learn that that's not an option anymore to return the
girls because the girls would be found yeah yeah this takes place on December 5th of that same year
2012 the family they get the phone call that they were really hoping not to get the family was told that two bodies had
been found and at that time they believed them to be the girls three Hunters found two small corpses in Seven
Bridges Wildlife Park in Brimmer County north of Evansdale this was a totally offthe
grid 166 acre Wildlife Area about 22 M from Myers Lake 22 mi from where the bikes were found mhm the area was not
one that someone would just stumble upon it was frequented mostly by hunters ATV
riders fishermen you know outdoor people yeah this wasn't uh the type of Park that you would just take your kids for a
hike this was like you said more for hunters and fishermen ATV riders and to kind of clue everybody in that's not
from that area when I see these types of statements it really it really puts it into perspective for me what kind of
place what kind of area we're talking about this is also an area where people would drive and dump appliances you know
how you see things that that are just dumped that are unwant wanted that they have no other idea of how to get rid of
them right they just dump these appliances out in the middle of nowhere so and this is also a place that pretty
much only the locals know about you wouldn't know about it if you weren't from the area I mean you could find it
on a map but as said it's it's very much like you just described it's only going
to be frequented by people that are specifically intending to go to that area for the purpose of hunting or
fishing now some locals used to use the area as a party spot so if you were local you were aware uh particularly
high school kids you know kids out looking for a place to drink some beers the bodies were found by hunters making
their way through the brush near a river the hunters nearly stepped on one of the
corpses the two corpses were lying about 20 yards apart from one another Blackhawk County Sheriff Tony Thompson
said even the hunters you know in describing this area he says even these Hunters if they had just gone 5T in
either direction they would have never have found those bodies mhm the area where
the bodies lay was accessible only by one road this is 270th Street this road had a dirt road off of it that went a
short distance to a dirt parking area and a turnout near the riverbank the bodies were found about 150 ft from this
turnout in the woods the whole place is incredibly desolate the kind of place where you could go and know that that
you're not going to see any other human beings the Iowa State medical examiner office confirmed after autopsies that
the remains were in fact that of L and Elizabeth the medical examiner was able to determine a cause of death but this
has never been released by law enforcement law enforcement made statements to the effect that details
surrounding the cause of death would be known only to the Killer and Evansdale police Chief Kent smok said
investigators had an idea of how much time passed between the girl's disappearance and when they were killed
however he would not release that detail to the public investigators have also never addressed whether they have
suspect DNA in this case although given that the bodies were exposed to the elements for what could be close to 5
months DNA recovery could be difficult Drew cins has stated that he was never informed whether DNA of anyone other
than the girls was found in the family chose not to learn how the girls were killed well I think the important
information that they're putting out there is we know roughly when they were abducted and we roughly know when they
were killed yes yes very much so and then one of the more famous leads in this case Captain this comes about on
July 24 2013 and there's some different parts to this lead um I actually think they had a good amount of this
information in advance but this is when we become aware of it this is almost a year to the date of when the two girls
were abducted the authorities announced that they received information from three Witnesses who saw a vehicle that
could be important to the case all three Witnesses reported seeing a large and clunky white SUV an older model likely a
Chevy Suburban or Ford Bronco parked on arbitus Avenue on Friday July 13th arbitus Avenue is crossed by the
Evansdale nature trail and is the road that is closest to the part of the trail where the girls bikes were found two of
these Witnesses said that they saw the white SUV parked between two bike trail signs
and the other witness told police they saw the vehicle parked near the woods on the east side of the lake a few hundred
fet from where the girls bikes were found right but that that would be where the scent dogs took investigators yeah
roughly the same area what made these witness statements so intriguing was that all three Witnesses said they seen
the SUV sometime between 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. on the day the girls went missing and if you recall the cyclist my
boy Ted G told police he had seen the bikes on the trail sometime between sometime around
12:20 so this whole time period is all really fitting together two of the witnesses made their statements as part
of the original police canvasing the third came forward months later having assumed that someone had already
reported it this third report caused police to go back can reexamine the other two statements about the SUV and
decide that it was likely very important to the case but it's unknown whether the
public release of this information regarding the white SUV dredged up any further helpful
tips in 2013 the year after LC and Elizabeth were murdered Iowa investigators were alerted
to another double Abduction of two girls on May 20th 12-year-old Desiree Hughes and her 15-year-old friend Kathleen
Shepard were abducted while walking home from school this is around 400 p.m. in the afternoon in Dayton Iowa they got
into a vehicle with a man who offered to pay them to mow Lawns but he just keeps
driving with them and eventually taking control of the two girls by waving a gun
while in the vehicle this item was actually described as a gun to be a gun but later we would
learn that this instrument was actually used to euthanize livestock MH their abductor Michael kunder drove around for
about 90 minutes and then took the two to a hog processing facility where he worked at the time he zip tied their
hands he then left one of the girls in his truck and he dragged the other girl off
into places unknown right the girl in the truck she bravely escaped the vehicle and hit out in the woods before
approaching a nearby home and then asking them to call for help around 8:00 p.m. police located cunder truck at a
nearby property where they found that kunder had hung himself yeah I believe that he wasn't that far
from his truck and I think at some point he came back to check on the other girl
and she was gone and that's when he knew oh game's up you know I got to do whatever I'm going to do plus I got to
take my own life yeah Desiree was the girl who bravely escaped and unfortunately when police when they find
kunder who had hung himself Kathleen Shephard is nowhere to be seen no there was a significant amount of
blood which they believe to be hers that was found on his truck her body was found uh sometime later by fishermen
about 15 to 20 miles down the de MO River she had been stabbed and beaten to death by a sharp instrument Michael
kunder who was a 6t 6 in tall 42-year-old farmand he had already D time in prison from 1992 to
2011 this was half of the sentence that he received for the 1991 kidnapping and assault of a young woman he grabbed her
hit her and pulled her into his car in an unrelated case kunder abducted two three-year-old twin girls this is like
the strange one of the strangest stories I've ever heard who were later found in
a trash receptacle these were the daughters they were alive thank God these were the daughters of a
female acquaintance cunder said he was angry with one of the little girls so he kidnapped them drove 50 miles with them
in his trunk MH and then left them in the garbage one of the girls did show signs of possibly have been choked
kunder completed a sex offender treatment program in prison and registered as a sex offender upon his
release yeah but you shouldn't be serving half your sentence you it should always be a little more than that or
let's make the sentences a little bit longer if you're only going to have to serve half of them yeah there should be
like no good behavior for this man yeah I mean this show nothing but bad behavior this guy gets out a year before
this and he starts committing crimes like this this is a monster this a very dangerous individual and police and
Evansdale and Dayton Iowa thought that theunder c could be connected because of obviously the similarities between the
two abductions M two girls taken in daylight from a public place kunder spent some time in Brimmer County where
Seven Bridges was located in the 90s so he may have been familiar with that Seven Bridges location well look we have
evidence that this individual likes to drive commit crimes and drive so you know when he takes capture of these two
girls n 90 minute drive you say and then the other one we have U 50 miles right so
this is individuals not afraid to commit a crime and then drive to different locations like I said it when we covered
Ted Bundy you know a long time ago I I reiterated that when we covered Ed keer these serial killer types and we don't
know if numbers actually would put kunder into the serial killer uh category but it
seems like he was going that direction he he kidnapped two girls that day we know he's guilty of that he killed one
of them but these serial killer types their vehicle is one of their weapons and maybe one of their most important
weapons a lot of these guys do a lot of driving a lot of trolling a lot of hunting I I just think this guy is a
very good suspect I do too um now they claim that he's not a good suspect anymore yeah and here's the thing when
you see a suspect that that feels this good feels like a a possible connection I want a little bit more of a
reason why he's not well and and I know they don't owe me that but I'm I'm selfish well here here here's my problem
with their findings is is and again we don't we we only know so much we don't even know if there's DNA that they
matched or didn't match and that's how they ruled him in or out what what the statements they have given to the public
or what I've heard is if you look at these crimes yes there's a lot of similarities but there's a lot of
difference and that's why we ruled him out and my argument for that would be he takes one girl away to isolate her he
comes back this is again what I believe he comes back and finds that the other victim is gone okay now everything has
to be sped up now did he kill the other girl before this happened or after I'm not for sure but again these things were
sped up and then he kills himself so I I I don't think you can look at the actual
murder or the manner in which it was done and compare the two and say it was it similar or different so what you're
referencing Captain is on May 14th 2014 where DCI said they were and this is this is their words here they were
pretty confident Michael plunder was no longer a person of interest in the Evansdale case right so here's what
they're citing in this they said that he did have an alibi for the day that the girls went missing that he was at home
in Stratford and I don't know how many people are there at this home or what puts him there that they're that they
sound this confident in this Alibi now one thing we should note though straford is about miles away from
Evansdale yeah that's not that far though hour and a half not with how much this guy seems to like to drive and then
as you pointed out they stated there were forensic differences between the two cases that's an interesting choice
of words because with all the information that they're holding back in the Evansdale case they can't clearly
come out and tell us exactly what those forensic differences are because that could be showing their hand in the
Evansdale case so where we don't know if we have DNA suspect DNA in the Evansdale case if
they do and they compared it to kunder DNA and they don't get a match well that technically would be a forensic
difference but you don't want to say that out to the public and let them know that you have DNA remember they're
holding back just as much in this Evansdale case as they are in the deli case and other cases that are similar to
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premium all right we're back this case I mean this you know I've heard of it before but to spin the time and dive
into it it's it's very complex and and it's very very confusing well and it's one of those cases where we have enough
information to lead us to more questions and we're sitting here now spinning our
tires trying to answer some of those questions but it's an intriguing case it's one that I'm very confident that
they're still very active with and we'll get into to some of that as we go and before we leave you today we will give
you the tip number if anybody should have any information or thoughts that they want to pass along to the proper
authorities on August 21st 2014 more than 2 years after L and Elizabeth were killed Evansdale police
held a press conference announcing a new website dedicated to the girl's case and
I used some of that for my note taking when doing research for this case part of this website Captain discusses the
likely characteristics of the killer because law enforcement developed a profile of sorts with the help of the
FBI's behavioral analysis unit who believed that the killer was a single individual stating he was familiar with
both Myers Lake in Evansdale and Seven Bridges Wildlife Area in brimer County he likely selected Seven Bridges as a
Dumping Ground because he was familiar with the area and knew it was secluded according to the profile the offender
blame lanss in with the community at large and may be a resident of Blackhawk or Brimmer counties he likely used quiet
coercion to subdue the girls and coers them into leaving with him using a ruse or threats of violence like you pointed
out the cousins were possibly the victims of opportunity seized by someone who had expressed interest in underage
girls and possibly had attempted abductions in in the past finally the suspect likely altered his appearance
and or cleaned painted or disposed of his vehicle after the abduction right but this this profile matches kunder
right they just described Michael cunder yeah so I I I just really am interested
to know what they had that that that points away from him I agree with you Captain I cannot shake this suspect I
can't I can't get him off of my list because he just seems too good he seems to fit too well with what we believe
we're looking for very violent yeah History of Violence also the same victimology that we would see in both
cases he doesn't mind look a lot of offenders are looking for that opportunity to find a vulnerable a
person that's in a vulnerable position and alone a lot of offenders will be turned off when they cannot find a
potential victim by themselves he seems have to to be able to overstep that obstacle we know that for a fact because
he took two girls who are walking home from school it might be a part of his ML and he used quiet coercion right just
like they described in the profile and that's really what these offenders and these perpetrators want to do when
they're trying to get somebody in their vehicle be it an adult or a child you don't want screaming you don't want a
violent altercation to have to go down because what does that create it creates ear Witnesses and eyewitnesses and
that's bad for your business his business is getting the victim into his vehicle sight
unseen and that can be done by offering to pay them for mowing lawns or as you said waving a gun in the face with
threatening you know with threatening violence toward them we do have some you know just when
this case can't get any more strange we did get two confessions over the years people who alleg that they were
responsible for killing the girls here's what we should start doing from now on if you confess to a crime that you
didn't commit we just put you in jail you get 30 days just for fun no no no you you get whatever that crime
would entail so if if it's murder and you confess to it and we know you're lying you still get 30 years just lock
you up because because it makes zero sense I don't understand well but the problem with that is it often it's
somebody with some pretty severe mental issues okay right right that come forward you could put them in in a
hospital usually these people need some kind of treatment that they're in a bad place and they're confessing to
something that they they weren't even capable of doing and I mean that from on many different levels well and that's
the import these are not bad people they're not evil people they're just they're confused because of of their
illness right but the the that's where law enforcement holding things close to the vest is important because when these
individuals come forward then they they can match certain things up and if your story doesn't line up or or the evidence
doesn't match your story we know that you're you're lying right and unfortunately hundreds of years ago we
would have just hung the person or a lesser Police Department would have went ahead and put this person in jail or
taken them to trial well but some sometimes with these crimes look at like John B Ramsey we've had so many people
come forward and confess well there's so much information out there it's really hard to okay they got this wrong or they
got this wrong well what if they only got a couple things wrong you go well did they just miss remember that or or
are they really not the Killer and this is pretty common especially when you have a case that's
like famous on the state level I mean Amy mahalic that we've covered several times there were multiple people that
confessed to to her murder and we have every reason to believe that none of them actually killed her one of the guys
confessed in the middle of church he got up on a Sunday morning and started marching up and down the the aisles conf
in to the whole congregation that he had killed Amy M now now that's a weird that's a weird Church experience right
there beyond weird right put a few extra bucks in the collection plate for the theatrics for that day now we let's get
into another good suspect now that we're past the two confessions that that don't
go anywhere there's no validity to those conf and and when you go over the suspect it's almost like you're making
this up Jeff altm yeah yeah so in late 2016 Iowa authorities received a report of an
attempted abduction a man pretending to be an undercover police officer MH tried
to lure a young girl into his car this is one of the more bright spots in this whole story and let me go
through this in in good detail here so the girl tells her parents and police uh that okay so she's she's going
through the the neighborhood bag right what's that this [ __ ] bag yes yes so so she tells her parents about this
attempted abduction right her neighbor and some brothers run out and they can still see the guy's vehicle she gave a
description of the vehicle to to her parents and to these these guys yeah he was still in the neighborhood he was
just leaving the neighborhood so they get in a vehicle and they start chasing after him and there's a really good
article about this in the De Moine register that that I recommend but what what it ends up being here Captain is
this pervert was 58-year-old married father of two Jeff altm mhm he was arrested in charge with enticing a minor
and impersonating a public official yeah but what's interesting is he has a a little tiny Ford Focus so they easily
catch up with him right and and then they're yelling at him and then this guy is threatening them saying he's law
enforcement and you better you know leave me alone the the coolest thing of this is and I don't have the guy's name
in front of me but the kind of the leader of the of the group of guys chasing after this man after the Pervert
man in the silver little Ford Focus go [ __ ] M this is a younger dude like he looks to me like he's like 18 or 19
years old and he's not put off by any of the things that this Jeff altm saying to
him because they pull up window to window yeah and he's not like you know pardon me do you have any gray Pon he's
like did you try to kidnap a girl yeah sick [ __ ] and the guy's like he's like no I didn't and I'm an undercover cop
and thinking that that's just going to end this situation yeah to which he then altm says to to this guy that's chasing
him if you don't leave me alone I'm gonna beat you up so he then says okay get out of your
car yeah and alm's like nope I don't I don't want to get out of my car to which he then says again I'm undercover police
trying to scare these guys off the guy says just think if you could get your hands on somebody like that you'd beat
his ass the the guy says to altm he says um that's fine one of my relatives is in law enforcement and they're on
their way and we've called the cops and we're going to we're all going to sit here and in a few minutes we're all
going to find out the truth yeah so what this leads to is Jeff altm obviously being arrested and charged with enticing
a minor impersonating a public official once police had altm in custody they started to connect other abductions
and attempted abductions to him it turned out out that altm had been trying to lure kids into his vehicle for months
if not possibly longer his moce operandi was to entice children by offering them
$100 to get in his van or his vehicle I'm sorry once they did he would molest them or attempt to he eventually
succeeded in sexually abusing at least two girls yeah but what was his job didn't he have a a a job where he
traveled around that's the scary thing he was a traveling he worked as a traveling automobile damage field
inspector which means he spent a lot of time in his vehicle or what might be his
work vehicle which could have been a van driving around this is I it sounds to me
Captain like he drove around in multiple States now I wonder if he's always using
his own vehicle or if there's a company vehicle but what you're saying is that two cars get in an accident the
insurance company is called at some point his job is to go out there and look at the damage go out and assess the
situation make a ruling right but insurance are normally just uh the laws only apply to that state like if you
even if you live on the border you know like that's true so he probably only works in Iowa but he probably works all
over Iowa well but the the information I have says driving around areas of the Midwest which makes me believe it might
be mle States but all in all regardless of where he's driving police were able to link altm to 19 that's one nine one
short of 20 such incidents in nine different counties as stated in the de moin register between May 31st 2016 and
November 16th 2016 altme is suspected of trying to entice at least 19 children he sexually
abused two of them his victims were all girls with the average age we talked about V victimology here with the
average age of 10 but he went after kids as young as six and as old as 13 right and but these are the ones we know of I
mean there could be way more that that we don't know of well there's one possible case that that that was
unsuccessful for altm thank God where he's he's trying to get somebody into the vehicle uh child enticement case from
Cedar Falls which was only about 12 miles from Evansdale MH so if you want to try to link him as close as you can
to our case that's about as close as we can we can place him or suspect him to be a man reportedly approached three
young girls in that situation at a park in Cedar Falls and offered them money to
get into his car he's not been charged in that actual enticement case cuz he can't prove that it was actually him but
they suspect that it is they continue to investigate this guy right what I'm saying is there could be another hundred
cases of this creep yeah one of the things after his arrest that they showed in some of the newspaper coverage of his
arrest was these $100 bills you know he's he's that is his Mo offering children $100 cash MH he they they
showed a picture of like I don't know 20 $100 bills he must have been keeping them on him on him at all times so that
when he saw an opportunity he had the the cash on him to to try to that ruse on these these
poor kids and I'm assuming he's working five days a week but he's so he's traveling 5 days a week and and way
different parts of the state that we we're not aware of you'd have to go back through his the cases that he was
assigned to but also just the rounding areas cuz how how easy would it be for him to say well I got a flat tire or I
actually took the wrong route or I was at the scene longer than I thought I would be and he was actually just
driving around a as a sick predator and I think that people would be quick to point out like look he's he's got all
these other cases and it seems like he's let the kids go all the time we don't know could something else have gone down
something unexpected in knee-jerk reaction he killed one of the two girls and then had to kill the second one M
you know it doesn't it doesn't always have to fit you know there are these one-off cases there are murders that
take place when people are really just trying to cover up other bad behavior and one thing that made him
very interesting to law enforcement and to to me and to us garage guys here as well we touched upon in the first
episode how how rare it is to try to abduct multiple children at a time MH well we
know of several cases where that is in fact what altm was trying to do so again he's already stepped over that obstacle
that potential obstacle in February of 2018 Jeff altm was sentenced to first degree sentence four
first degree kidnapping second degree sexual abuse and two counts of enticing a minor in Jasper County he got life in
prison and his wife of several decades has divorced him since he's gone away to prison well that's what I meant by this
guy to me when I was reading about this case I go this guy seems BTK like guy that was married
kids seems like a normal guy and always thinking and planning these things out in advance yeah or well
actually putting yourself in that position I mean it could have been the reason why he took the job without
getting too much into it because there's a lot lot of little details there but I
want to Circle back to the family we were talking about Dan morresy and his legal troubles and remember he was still
facing a trial at the time that his daughter went missing eventually he ends getting 90 years in prison for his
charges so he's that's where he is to this day and Misty his wife she continued for a a little bit of time to
be in and out of trouble look the the drug angle of the lyric in Elizabeth investigation does
not appear to have led anywhere apparently it's a still a working theory in the case personally I
feel Captain like I have a little bit of an issue with this Theory and part of that being I see the efforts put forward
and how many different agencies were working together on this case I kind of feel like if that were what was going on
here I kind of feel like it would have been solved by now that that would have been an
easy that would have been an easy thing to investigate for them because it's it the circle and the possibilities of
suspects is much smaller than what we are probably facing in my opinion what what appears to me to be more of a
stranger abduction right but does because it's easier to investigate doesn't mean it's easier to prove and
that to bring charges against somebody that you have to be able to prove that they could that they did this now many
people are probably recognizing that this case has a lot of similarities to another case that we've covered on True
Crime garage with numerous episodes and that being the deli double murder case that took place in February
of7 MH it's very difficult to do internet searches and be looking around snooping around on either one of these
cases without bumping into to the other now some of the the possible similarities or things that I believe
seem similar and some of these just seem a little too much to be coincidental but so we have two cases
that involve the abduction and murder of two young girls in Midwest Towns now the
towns are 400 miles apart both cases occurred on or near recreational Trails but also in areas where the girls were
not supposed to be or not known to frequent both cases occurred in the middle of the day in broad daylight both
cases occurred on the 13th of the month Deli was on a Monday and Evansdale was on a Friday the dates are palindromes
too which I never would have picked up on that but my friend Jess pointed that out to me them being the same backwards
and forwards 2 131 17 and 71312 21317 71312 in both cases the bodies were found in remote areas that investigators
believe required someone to be familiar with that part of the area with those specific areas both sets of
investigators stopped short of declaring the offender uh to definitely be a local
in both cases a close family member had ties to the drug world and rumors flew that drug connections were responsible
well in both cases very very small towns very low populations yeah neither case is the cause has the cause and manner of
death of the victims been known to the public nor is it known whether there was sexual assault so we can't really
compare some of the more important aspects of the Killer's Mo in these two cases and of course there are
significant differences between the cases as well we do have Authorities on the record stating that they do not
believe that the two are related yeah I think they're too far apart for one um we also in this case in
the Evansdale case the victims were moved or taken maybe brought to a different location and and then 22 miles
away from where the body from the distance between the bodies and the bikes we don't know if somebody took him
somewhere else before that uh Deli it's really tough because the new research that I've come across and we've
talked about this is there's now a debate if they were murdered in that spot and left in that spot or if those
bodies were moved uh but they weren't moved 22 miles I've heard plenty of law enforcement statements in in regards to
Deli that the two girls were killed where they were found and then when we go and we take a look at the Evansdale
case we really have no clue how many different locations they could have been before they were found at Seven Bridges
and as you pointed out how long they may have been kept by whoever took them we do have some thoughts by the
family members now keep in mind the family has chosen not to know how the girls were killed
but we have at least one family member who is on record saying it's of their belief that the girls were alive when
they were when they were brought to Seven Bridges and then killed in that location I don't think that there's a
lot that they're basing this off of other than them knowing the area having been to the area and really just their
suspicions my guess would be that it's it's an area that's not easily traveled on foot
from where you would have to leave a vehicle thus just making it difficult to transport one body let alone two bodies
in 2017 authorities had interviewed over 1,000 people in lric and Elizabeth's case nonetheless the murders remain
unsolved the deaths of the girls rre havoc on their families and people in Evansdale say the town has never been
the same Drew Collins said in an interview that the deaths of the girls devastated the town Drew continues to
assist in cases of missing children even having reached out to Mike and Becky Patty in the deli case to let them know
he was there if they needed anything also similar to Deli Evansdale has turned a small island at Myers Lake into
a dedicated memorial called Angels Park Memorial Island if features memorials to
the girls and other female victims of violence in Iowa as well as gazebos Memorial brick walkways murals and
decorative Landscaping this was an expansion of the 2013 announcement that the trail and
park at Meers Lake would be renamed to honor the memory of LC and Elizabeth the trail that runs around the lake is now
known locally as the trail of angels there is a substantial reward for information leading to a conviction in
this case and tips can be submitted by calling 85530 tips that's 1855 38477 on the 7th anniversary of the
girls abduction authorities reminded us that there are still several agencies that are actively working this case the
Evansdale police Department the Blackhawk County and Brimmer County Sheriff's offices and the FBI saying
they get together regularly to review information and evidence and evaluate new information Drew Collins tells
interviewers that he remains confident that the investigators are working hard on his daughter's case and that
eventually they will catch the guy who did it let's hope he is [Music] right oh hey I want to thank everybody for
joining us in the garage but I want to thank everybody that's been sharing our show with their friends on social media
especially on Instagram stories thank you guys so much thank you Captain we also want to say check out the new book
murder in mome this case started when the body of 12-year-old Tina Marie Andrews was found underneath a discarded
sofa in the woods outside of mcom Miss Mississippi she was last seen accepting a ride at a local teenage Hangout to
this day the case is unsolved Trent Brown's book murder and mome is the only comprehensive examination of this case
you don't have to write that title down just go to True Crim garage.com and click on the recommended
page and until next week be good be kind and don't [Music] litter [Music] this show is sponsored by better help do
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The Evansdale Murders /// Part 2 /// 394

Part 2 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 unsolved abduction and murder of Elizabeth Collins and Lyric Cook in Evansdale, Iowa, and the investigation's challenges.

Key points

Gift of Sleep. Your mattress purchase helps children in need sleep better.
The Letter to the Abductor. A heartfelt plea for the safe return of the girls.
The Escape of Desiree. Desiree bravely escaped from Kunder, marking a pivotal moment in the case.
Kunder's Violent History. Michael Kunder had a troubling past, including a prison sentence for kidnapping.
Confessions and Confusion. Two confessions emerged over the years, complicating the investigation.
The Evansdale Case. A chilling comparison emerges between two abduction cases involving young girls in the Midwest.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

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0:11WatchNov 16, 2023

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