The Evansdale Murders - Ten Years Later /// Part 1 /// 595 | Forensic Files

thank you [Music] [Music] thank you foreign garage wherever you are whatever you're
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of the business all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime
[Music] thank you here he comes [Applause] [Music] it must have been the Devil Himself that
did it that would be the only explanation that would make any sense at all and the heinous and horrific crimes that
we are going to tell you about today two girls enjoying a beautiful day out together on
their own in a remote area you go missing from a public area accessible to all this is a park that includes trails
and the girls were taken from here in broad daylight later they are found dead they're the victims of an abduction and
homicide for someone to take and kill victims this young for the offender to take the risk that
they did and get away with it well then it must have been the Devil Himself when we try to size up this monster
the first thing we all naturally question is has he killed before and we think well he must have
he must have done this before to be capable of such cruelty to have such evil in his heart
to commit these crimes if he has killed before if he is responsible for this double
homicide two young girls taken from a public place well then he will most certainly do this
again how many nightmares will he create but this sounds all too eerily familiar
unfortunately that is one of the parts of this nightmare that we know to be true
this last February makes five years unsolved since the murders of Libby German and
Abigail Williams two young girls out hiking on a beautiful day in a remote area they go missing from a public area
accessible to all they were taken in broad daylight later found dead when we first covered the Delphi murders
case in May of 2017. no one here in the garage believed that five more years would pass
we would still be looking for the monster that committed those homicides must be the Devil Himself
but now just a little over a week we're celebrating the independence of our great country
and as temperatures of the summer in the midwest slowly but steadily climb we are reminded of a double homicide
another one the Killer is still unknown the case that when we first covered it back in 2020
I would have thought could have should have some Solution by now but very sadly I say tomorrow will make
it 10 years now to the day 10 years since that horrible day when someone or someone took Elizabeth
Collins and lyric cook the two cousins were last seen riding their bikes together
near Myers Lake just afternoon in Evansdale Iowa later they were found dead it must have been the Devil Himself
this is another look a new look still unsolved and unresolved cases Elizabeth Collins and Larry Cook
the Evansdale murders Ten Years Later and this is True Crime garage [Music] Friday July 13
2012. we have two little girls reported missing this is eight-year-old Elizabeth
Collins and her ten-year-old cousin lyric cook the two disappeared while out riding
bikes together in Evansdale Iowa when they didn't return from the bike ride the Evansdale Police Department was
notified and the girls were reported missing lyric Cook's grandmother says she last
saw the girls around 12 15 in the afternoon on that Friday the 13th but we do end up with a few eyewitnesses who
say they too saw the girls out on their bike ride Evansdale is a small community under 5
000 residents back in 2012 and still less than 5 000 people today Evansdale is located in the northeastern
part of the state of Iowa Evansdale is in Blackhawk County Iowa and while this is more of a small town
it is very near Waterloo and Cedar Falls cities that combine have over 100 000 people the girl's grandmother
Wilma cook told the Press she last saw the girls riding their bikes near downtown Evansdale about 12 15 PM July
13th the girls were also seen at about 12 23 p.m that same day this on brovan Boulevard in Evansdale
and then spotted between 12 30 and 1 pm on Gilbert drive not far from Myers Lake
Myers Lake is a recreational area and a popular fishing spot these are the last known sightings of
the girls let's talk about the girls here for a minute so in the summer of 2012 eight-year-old Elizabeth Collins lived
with her parents and siblings in Evansdale Iowa Evansdale is a blue-collar town with
many residents involved in agriculture production in some manner Elizabeth who attended Poyner Elementary
was described by her mother as a bubbly little person who was always active and busy one of her best friends was her
cousin lyric cook age 10 who lived just minutes away in the next town over Waterloo
lyric went to Kingsley Elementary and she was also an active outgoing Girl Who Loved bowling cheerleading and
gymnastics and playing outside lyric and Elizabeth's mothers Misty cook and Heather Collins are sisters
Heather was married to Elizabeth's father Drew Collins and the couple had four children
Elizabeth being one of them they seem to be a very typical American family with hard-working religious
parents raising a bunch of children Heather's mother Wilma came over for four or five hours most days to help out
Heather's sister Misty was also married she's married to a guy named Dan morsey now at the time that the girls vanished
Misty and Dan were estranged and had been separated for Years lyric lived with her grandmother Wilma cook who as
we have already established is Misty and Heather's mom lyric and her cousin Elizabeth played
together nearly every day when Wilma went over to the Collins's to help out well let's get back to that Friday the
13th July 2012. here's how the events went down according to multiple interviews with
the family and articles about the family Wilma took Lyric over to the Collins's house around breakfast time
now Drew Collins left the house in Evansdale early that morning to go to work at the tree trimming company that
he owns Heather Collins had an appointment and she wanted to run some other errands
so her mom Wilma came over and brought lyric with her as usual Wilma stayed home with the kids while
Heather went out and Lyric and Elizabeth set off around 11 30 for a bike ride this was something
they routinely did and the girls were expected to stay within a short distance of the house
now Captain we covered this back in April of 2020 and episodes 393 and 394. and one thing we talked about concerning
this bike ride right and we already established that it's a usual typical activity for the girls to enjoy together
is there was no real clearly defining boundaries on where they could not go with their bike ride but it was
established that they were to stay close to the home and the grandmother stated that she
could go outside call the girls names they would respond and they would return to the house
so while we don't have any clear defining boundaries here what we do have is a situation where
she's saying stay close enough that you can hear me and then if I need you to come back to the house you come back to
the house but we know how kids are they sometimes push boundaries they forget about boundaries or they think they see
a window of opportunity of oh they won't miss us for 15 minutes or 20 minutes let's go check this spot out right so
it's widely been reported that the grandmother saw the the two girls zipping by on their bikes around 12 15.
yeah and this is you hear these little parts of these stories and that's what makes them even more sad and tragic when
you're kind of picturing this you think to yourself this seems like a very happy situation right right even
though we have kind of a not ideal situation with lyrics parents but she's a happy kid living with Grandma and
regularly goes over to her cousin's house and is watched by Grandma and gets to hang out with her cousin who also
happens to be one of her very best friends so this is a very ideal situation for these kids and a great way
to be spending their summer months out of school what reminds you of a scene from a movie and I know the the movies
are written about real life but just this moment where the grandmother's outside in the sun is shining and her
grandkids are playing on their bikes and she watches them ride by right before tragedy hits yeah the good parts of it
remind me of my childhood when the days of summer when you're this young they just seemed endless like you're outside
just playing forever but what we have here Captain is you're right we have tragedy that is about to occur Panic is
about to set in and this will start and it probably starts at a very small level
and then ramps up from there right but this is all going to commence when the girls do not come back from this bike
ride and when they don't return we have concern that's going to set in so what we do know is that we have
Grandma Wilma says she saw the girls she noted the time it was about 12 15 in the
afternoon when she saw them riding around on their bikes and we do know we don't have an exact
time of when Heather returns to the house but it's after the last time that Wilma sees the girls and both have
stated it was shortly after that one thing I find interesting here too is we have this very
well-defined timeline that we're going to continue on for this day this timeline's so key and so very important
to this case but when we have the statements of Grandma and mother stating it's about 12
15 when I last saw the girls Heather comes home shortly after that this is a small town one thing that does not
happen is when Heather's returning home she doesn't cross paths with the girls she doesn't see her daughter and her
niece at any time when she's returning to the house well the next time they're spotted is between 12 30 and 1 o'clock
and they're spotted on Gilbert Drive which is mile and a half to two miles away from their their mother's house yes
so they could be in an opposite direction than what Heather was traveling the key thing though here is
that we know that Heather returns to the house before one o'clock so we got a small window of time 12 15 ish to about
one o'clock and the reason that we know one o'clock is a Time marker is because Heather says she gets home the girls
aren't there she's immediately concerned but she's not in panic like thinking anything
terrible has happened both the girls Heather and Wilma all had stuff scheduled for later that day very
shortly after this time period in fact and so they were all going to kind of go their separate ways and do the things
that they needed to achieve that day things that the girls were actually looking forward to right so when they
didn't return of course Wilma and Heather started to get nervous now our one o'clock time marker comes in
because what we are told by Wilma and Heather is that by one o'clock Heather sent out her older son Kelly to scout
out the area to go find the girls tell them to come home hey you were supposed to be home a while ago
but he returns home reporting that he could not find them he didn't see them could didn't find any sign of them at
all at this point we have one of the fathers is back at the house Drew he stopped at home this is
something he would often do he owns the tree trimming company he's in charge of his schedule often he would drop by for
a quick lunch Heather told drew that she was going to go out and look for the girls again you
can tell by all of this in the way that it's playing out that nobody is overly concerned at this point they're just
kids that are probably not where they should be or lost track of time and should have came home earlier but did
not it happens a lot when you have siblings hey your your little brother your little sister they're they're
playing with their friends somewhere I can't find them can you get on your bike and go look around because the girls are
on the bike and now you escalate it more to go okay well you keep looking you you
ride your bike around keep looking I'm going to now Drive the neighborhood to try to find them yeah and growing up
unless we had something to do or had some place to be in the summer months my parents did not care where I was they
did not care if I was outside all day long and I would often be busy and the only indicators of time that I really
had was there was somebody in the neighborhood that would ring like a lunch Bell like a you know Dinner Bell
lunch Bell for the kids to come running back and grab some lunch and so I always
knew that would be like around noon or one-ish and then after that it was like you
would start seeing the parents come home between 5 6 6 30 and then Sundown those
were like the three things that told me about what time it was because I couldn't care any less what time it
was as long as I was out having a good time but especially there in a small town so you would you would definitely
feel the traffic of people coming home and then you'd feel the calmness of once everybody got home and then obviously
the calmness of of night setting in so Kelly the older son who's sent out by Heather and Wilma to go looking for the
girls he comes back he goes out around one o'clock does not find the girls now we have a situation where adults are
going to start paying attention to time and we have Heather who says she got into her car at 1 20 and she herself
started driving around canvassing the neighborhood going to Elizabeth's school and the softball field but Saul no sign
of the girls so you can see what's happening here we're starting to Fan out right go out a little bit further and
for further looking for the girls because we've covered some ground already and nobody has seen them
nobody's been able to locate them Misty remember she's a Lyric's mother says Wilma called her at work around 2PM
to tell her that they could not find the girls so Misty called her ex Dan Morrissey they're still technically
married at this time but again they've not been together for quite some time from my understanding
Dan is living at his mother's home in Waterloo now we have three more people that will be joining the search rather
quickly so this is Dan who is the other father his son Dylan who was at home with Dan
that day and his mother Vicky so we got three people that show up now to assist in looking for the girls
Misty leaves work and went over to her sister's house just a short distance away I don't have a time marker for that
but we know that she receives the call around 2 p.m and she lives very close to where
her sister lives but this is becoming a scary situation at this time Heather is still out driving around and she returns
home around 2 20. unfortunately empty-handed and does not have any information either about where the girls
are at this point the family began driving all over Evansdale we got multiple family members multiple cars
out driving around all over Evansdale looking for both girls well Panic is also probably starting to set in what's
weird and this will only be weird because later we will have some information that will make this strange
but they ended up at Myers Lake this was around 2 45. and in fact they're at Myers Lake they see other people there
and they start asking people whether they had seen two little girls on bikes now there is a man that they speak to
and he says he was walking on the trail and he said he did in fact see two little girls on bikes he said they were
traveling west on the bike trail but the time that he saw them was unclear he was
a little uncertain of the time meanwhile Heather made the decision to go to the Evansdale Police Department
sometime between 2 30 and 3 P.M and you know kudos to her because some people feel like oh these are just kids being
kids we'll find them we shouldn't bother the police with it no I think as soon as
you start getting nervous as soon as you start Panic setting in as the captain said that's when you you get somebody
else involved I agree that's what they're there for let them know we can't find our kids we're concerned can you
help and like you said Heather is going to go to the police to report the girls missing she's at the police department
around 2 30 to 3 P.M most reports that we have seen have the time of her in-person visit to the Evansdale PD at 2
48 pm three Evansdale squad cars after the after Heather's there she explains the
situation three Evansdale squad cars were now scouring the area and checking not just checking the area they go and
check the home first and start Fanning out from there within half an hour we have Blackhawk sheriff's deputies and
Evansdale firefighters joining in on the effort on the search effort well I like
this a lot because like you said they go back and search the family home they're not taking anybody's word for
anything and that's not and as law enforcement that's what you're supposed to do hey our our uh little girls are
missing they were on their bikes okay well let's start in the house let's look make sure nothing happened in the house
and then we we go from there yeah and that seems silly some people were probably thinking well they they wasted
a little bit of time here and no that's that's common practice I cannot tell you I've I've had 10 to a
dozen officers tell me that when we get a missing person's call if it's a little
kid 90 of the time believe it or not we find them inside the home they're hiding
somewhere in the home or everybody went out looking for little Johnny and while they were out looking he came back home
yeah he's just hanging out in his room well unfortunately that does not seem to be the situation here and things are
going to go from scary to incredibly scary within a matter of minutes because Elizabeth's
purse and both of the girls bicycles were found on a trail in the Southeast corner
of Myers Lake around 4 pm that afternoon [Music] thank you foreign [Music] [Applause]
[Music] all right we are back cheers mates cheers mates tall cans in the air cheers
to you Captain just before the break we said that the purse of one of the girls both of the bicycles belonging to the
girls were found on a trail in the Southeast corner of Myers Lake around 4 P.M that afternoon now we already stated
earlier that the family some of the family members went to that area to that Myers
Lake location and we're looking for the girls even before they were officially reported missing to law enforcement and
this area is rather big so just because they were there before does not mean that the bikes weren't already in that
location you know the parents then report them missing the police start looking for the girls
they start by looking at the house and of course this is one of those situations that I wish I could tell you
that they found the girls at the house that day instead what we find are the bikes and the purse but no Elizabeth
no lyric to be found and unfortunately the finding of the bikes in the purse does not really give
them any clues as to where the girls could have been no other than the fact that they were out of their boundaries
let's talk about what we know about where the bikes were found so this Myers Lake covers 27 Acres with water and is
about 25 feet deep at its deepest parts the lake is a major recreational area for the people of Evansdale it's stocked
with fish has a boat ramp there's restrooms there a playground picnic areas with a grill all things that you
would expect to see at a large Park it's very scenic but it also has a really nice paved bike path winding its way
through three quarters of a mile around the lake according to a report in the Globe
Gazette the girl's bikes were found on the Evansdale nature trail right at the Southeastern tip of the
lake between two lines of chain-link fence by the maintenance gate leading to a rock jetty
and a water Outlet on the lake this gate was not locked photos show that this area of the paved nature trail is
straight and with the fence on both sides and the trees overhead it has almost like a
tunnel appearance right picture that you have fencing on both sides you have the
trees overhead and underneath you have this paved Scenic Trail Bike Trail right according
to the girl's Aunt Tammy the bikes were found about 12 feet from the edge of the
water on the trail this will lead to the suspicion that the police have early on in the
investigation that being that the girls went into the lake and may have drowned or had some
kind of accident in the lake we can Circle back to that in a minute the investigators also found Elizabeth's
purple purse and cell phone now we need to note that this phone does not have any type of service
from my understanding it was just used for games it was used for her to play games now Captain when we covered this
two years ago well more than two years ago now you brought up some interesting questions about this phone and we wanted
to know if she could have been using this phone to communicate with anyone and I unfortunately do not have those
answers that Still Remains unclear to this day as we all know it doesn't require service if she's in an area that
she has Wi-Fi and if the phone has Wi-Fi capabilities right and she likely did have Wi-Fi capabilities to be playing
certain games on that phone doesn't doesn't require them to play all of them but certainly some of them yes but if
you have internet connection to play those games you have internet connection to possibly communicate with somebody
but to break down where they find the the bikes simply to me if if I'm in law enforcement or I'm part of the family
searching I'm seeing this scene of the bikes and the person going this is not good no
it's uh I'm leaning towards something really bad happen at this point yeah if I see this scene I I agree with their
concern of well maybe they ended up in the lake you know they're 10 they're eight years old they're young that could
be the situation the family's quick to point out the law enforcement both of the girls knew how to swim the other
thing that the family was concerned about when the thought of drowning in the lake came up was the family was
quick to point out look none of their clothing none of their shoes are found we would expect our kids to take their
shoes off at the very least before going into the lake it was a very hot day that day I mean it was middle of July
so the lake makes some sense but I'm with you Captain if I see these bikes abandoned sitting here
when I was a kid I didn't go anywhere without if I left my bike unattended it was in my friend's front yard or in
somebody's garage it wasn't just leaving it in a public place where I couldn't turn and look to see my bike at any time
because I was you had a nice Mongoose bike I had a Dyno we all had bikes that we didn't
want somebody to come along and snatch well it's also your biggest possession at the time yeah that's true
that's true it was like my Corvette uh for my 10 year old Corvette but but for everybody for every kid that's like the
biggest thing that you have the most expensive and you're not going to just leave that so once you see these bikes
laying on this side of the path you you look around and you don't see any any signs of them anywhere
this is bad and this is the other thing that scares me too is the purse I think the purse might scare me more than
finding the bikes so the way that this is described is that the purse was on the lake side of
the fence about 10 feet to the east of where the bikes were found and about two feet from the fence officials said
now this location is interesting to me as cars can't get to this spot so what I mean by that is these bikes
are found in a location where someone couldn't just pull up and snatch and grab the girls
you know snatch them off of their bikes at this spot and drive off to me that's weird right and I get maybe that's kind
of why they were honing in on the lake possibility early on there's a lot of accidents
especially with children with water but and it doesn't have to be that they went swimming it could just be simply
that they're going to put their toes in the water and then something bad happened
right and we spent a lot of time talking about the searching of the lake in our original coverage so if you want to
check that out and some of the other details that we won't get into this time around because we covered it so good
before those are episodes 393 and 394. so we're going to try awesome well but this time what we will want to do is
to dive into some things that weren't discussed that we didn't get to or anything that has changed in our
thoughts and feelings about this case since that time well that's one of the things that I find very fascinating with
these cases that aren't solved right away and we're coming up on 10 years but these cases maybe they don't have
answers but they continue to evolve right and when these girls are missing and this case first broke we had some
decent coverage of this missing person's case on the Nancy Grace show and I found
both of these accounts to be very insightful regarding where the bikes were found in
a description of how the uh bikes were when when found and this comes from two reporters so the first reporter was a
man named Jim Spellman Spellman said what I find so fascinating is the geography of where the bikes were
found because again it's this kind of dead end area and if there was an abduction that
happened how would you get two girls all of the way to the end of and he cuts off
and then says it's a 10 minute walk from the end of this bike path at the very least to the end of where you might be
able to get to a car or something like that okay that's awfully insightful think
about the distance that that must be from where the location of the bikes were to where you could possibly have
any type of vehicle to put the girls into and drive off with them he's saying in his opinion that at the very least he
believes it to be about a 10 minute walk from where the bikes were found to the end of the bike path where a car or a
vehicle would be and I'm not trying to crap all over their point because I do think it's important to point out but
the girls could have already put down their bikes and they could be walking around the water so at the time of
abduction if they were abducted by that area and put into a vehicle or you know coerced into a vehicle or or
threatened to get into the vehicle they could have already been closer to to that side easier area to be abducted
well yeah and I don't think that this means I I just like hearing the the tales of
getting a better description of where these bikes were found by this Jim Spellman because I don't think that it
indicates that they weren't abducted at this location as you pointed out they could have been on foot they could have
set their bikes down just to look around Mill about what have you someone bad guy
crosses their path decides to take them and walks them controls them lowers them
coerces them to his vehicle which is 10 minutes away it is fascinating to me though that in the course of that walk
we don't have an eyewitness or an ear witness that says they saw something strange they saw
something troubling or heard anything of concern around that time right the thing
again though to me with the purse that scares me is the purse the way that it's described almost sounds like you have
the bikes here and I know the purse is only like 10 feet away but the way that that description reads to me Captain is
that the purse is on the other side of the fence well chill out you're already getting a colonel fire pants and it that
to me sounds like oh snap either these kids like hop the fence and then something bad happened
when they got over there she immediately drops her purse that seems unlikely what
seems more likely to me is if in fact the location of where the bikes were found if that is in direct relation to
the abduction site if they were abducted there this purse its location it feels like to me like
like a perpetrator grabbed it with and tossed it with the attention of of tossing it as far as he could or or just
tossing it out of the area to free up an additional hand to control the girls it
it seems it seems all very weird it's a it's a very strange situation to kind of
try to dissect now another reporter his name is Jesse Gavin went on to discuss the likelihood of
someone abducting the girls from the highway side of the trail right you have these fences right that
are on both sides of this bike trail on one side of one fence is the lake on one
side of the other fence is the highway so we already have this other reporter who's talking a little bit about where
the bikes were found but this reporters talking in direct relation to the highway side of the trail and they go on
to say apparently there was a hole in the fence somewhere along this section of the trail that was the result of a
man losing control of his car on the highway and crashing through the fence so this is not a complete fence at this
point due to some damage from this single car accident the reporter said quote well like Jim said it wouldn't be
the most likely scenario obviously that is kind of an area that's closed off to main roads since it's a bike trail
obviously it's very close to an interstate but it would be kind of tough to get to that interstate the other
thing you've got to keep in mind about that interstate is it's being worked on right now
there's a lot of construction activity going on right there so there's going to be backed up traffic
traffic is going to be slowed down so any kind of suspicious activity that happens in that area it's going to be
seen by somebody it's going to be seen by a lot of people people driving along the highway would surely have noticed a
car stopped along the roadside and possibly two little girls entering or being placed in
a vehicle after walking through a hole in the fence he goes on to say and remind us all that
after all it was broad daylight back to your point about the the purse being 10 feet away to me okay if it's on the
other side of the fence fine but just it being 10 feet away it kind of shows that
these bikes weren't placed down that the that the purse wasn't just placed down because if if I'm riding a bike and I
have a purse and I and I get off the bike and I don't want to carry the purse around I'm just going to lay it right
down beside the bike yeah and the thing here too that I I want to kind of throw out there
is just because the bikes are found there and the purse was found there and ultimately we know that they are
found dead unfortunately many miles away from this Myers Lake location so an abduction
is the only thing that makes sense but just because the bikes and the purse are found in this location doesn't mean that
that's exactly where or has to be where the abduction took place no because let's say the abduction took
place in in um close by neighborhood the abduction happens it gets the girls into the
vehicle has their bikes with them in the vehicle goes down to this park grabs both of their grabs both of their
bicycles it's a 10-minute walk dumps them there to to throw people off hey now look around this park like you said
it was what do you say 20 some acres big I mean that's a that's a big area to start
searching that that kind of throws people off the scent yeah the thing here too is you know if somebody knows that
area let's pretend for a moment that the abductor knows this area somewhat well they don't even have to know it very
well actually at all I would think looking at the the location and where this kind of takes place but if you have
the ability to do so it would be difficult because if you just abducted two girls now you have all these moving
parts and pieces of trying to conceal the bikes at the same time but if you had the ability to control
them and conceal the bikes at the same time it does make a lot of sense right maybe the girls were abducted close by
the road or right at the roadside before even getting to that bike trail and that
bike trail is right there and you go you know what if Mom and Dad or anybody comes looking
for these girls they're going to be out in a vehicle driving around looking for the girls and if the bikes are found
right here by the roadside they're going to be alerted to something bad immediately
at the very least I could take these bikes and tuck them away back in the middle of this Trail here where they
wouldn't be seen from the road and whoever's out looking for these girls will just keep driving yeah that's
an excellent point knowing that people will be searching from a car and what is going to be in their eyesight so we
spend all this time here Captain talking about what were the girls bikes doing by
Myers Lake anyway and we should be pointing out here as well that Myers Lake is not extremely
close to their home in fact it's it's beyond wherever that imaginary line was that the girls were allowed to be riding
their bikes and this is according to the family Myers Lake is one and a half miles away from the Collins's house
again the girls were not supposed to be riding there Misty cook said on Nancy Grace's show they are not allowed to
just ride freely for hours or until dark they do have a little bit of Freedom so
they're allowed to go you know maybe two or three blocks away and stay within those blocks an hour check back in is
kind of the standard that we hold with them and mostly they stick to it so it was surprising to see that they had come
this far if indeed they did ride this far she's obviously referring to the lake Misty also said in an interview this
with kwwl.com I'm surprised they rode their bikes this far but their kids and later
Heather and Drew Collins told the media that they did not believe the girls would have biked that far on their own
well this is leading to what you were saying before about maybe that the perpetrator then took their bikes and
and placed them in this area on purpose if in this you know these cases they're not there's all kinds of horrible
possibilities that we that we have to kind of talk about and and go over here and so a lot of this is not comfortable
to say a lot of this is not comfortable to hear but if you have a situation where the girls are incapacitated a
single offender would have the ability to move those bikes the other thing too is if you had
complete control of the victims you might have the possibility of having them move the bikes for you at your
direction right or if there's more than one offender one offender is staying with the girls
wherever that location be likely a vehicle while the other offender is moving these
items that they don't want to have any part of but not out of the realm of possibility that they rode their bikes
this far because if this eyewitness is correct they saw them a mile and a half to two miles away
from their home on Gilbert Drive correct and correct me if I'm wrong here Captain this reminds me a little bit of
the West Memphis 3 case a lot didn't we have a situation there where the bikes were concealed yes and
some theorize that the bikes were concealed maybe even after the boys were already attacked to later
kind of hinder finding the victims at all because if you find the bikes in that location then one
would start to go well maybe they are here somewhere or were here in this location at some
point yeah and in that case there there was a pipeline and that pipeline really kind of signaled to everybody that
that's the back half of the wood so I think having those bikes being seen at the pipeline it was like
the the perpetrators are leaving the crime scene they see the bikes and they go okay well we need to hide these
because this is basically an advertising sign to go go back there and look but not just that just uh I mean different
in some ways because in this case there was no school today and and they're out riding their bikes and
and so the timeline I think is a little more blurry because at least when you have a case where children get home from
school you have a definitive starting point I'm not saying that I don't believe anybody in their family but you have to
uh question question everything in this case well there we do have a situation in your right Captain the situation is
this we have Grandma who is in charge of essentially five kids at that time right
and so yes I don't believe that these times are spot on I do believe that they're fairly
accurate and I say that based off of the fact that we have such a short window of
time so even if the times are off they can't be off by so much because we have a lot of activity happening really
within the course of four and a half hours because she says that they left the house on their bikes
around 11 30. and then she says that she believes she saw the two kids still alive and well riding around on their
bikes at 12 15. we have those other possible sightings other uh sightings of the girls on their bikes we had the
bikes being found by family and law enforcement at 4 pm so that gives us just that little window of four and a
half hours now after the bikes were found fortunately the family sitting there watching as crime scene tape is being
put in place the officers are closing off access to this Trail so they can scour the area
and look for more evidence or look for anything at all any clues that might tell them where the girls could be right
investigators spent several hours out of sight you know they're they're in on this Trail down on the trail where the
bikes were but the family members cannot see them again it's about a 10 minute walk from where the bikes were to where
the trail kind of ends and pops out there while this is going on the family members held a vigil outside of the
taped off area if anything other than the bikes or lyrics purse were found and we know the
phone was found it has never been disclosed and just to be clear and and I I feel bad because
I'm jumping back in time here a little bit but when you're talking about that the grandmother's time might not be
completely accurate I don't think in any way I don't get the sense that it's she's not accurate because she's lying
or trying to cover anything up I just think it's because she's simply in charge of multiple kids and there's a
lot going on she's busy yeah she's busy and the other thing we need to point out
too those other eyewitnesses that said they saw the girls on their bikes and a little further from the home
at later times in 12 15. that kind of backs up Wilma's story that that what she says did in fact
happen and if in fact 1215 was the last time that she saw them well then Wilma couldn't have done anything to these
girls she's not responsible for anything here because we have other eyewitnesses
that see them after the fact those other eyewitnesses tell me that nothing weird
nothing strange went on inside the home and later somebody's trying to conceal what happened by getting rid of the
girls getting rid of the bikes staging some kind of scenario to look like something else took place right now
continuing on our timeline for Friday the 13th by 4 40 PM we have emergency calls that are going out to the
residents of Evansdale this is to notify them of the missing girls right we have
two girls that are missing we need help finding them if you see either girl call us tell us let us know officers
also began canvassing the lake neighborhoods and the media was notified by 5 30 PM so a lot of things are taking
place very rapidly here and I like to see all of this activity and all this effort we have boats that were put into
the water on Myers Lake that begin scanning the surface we have divers with a local search and rescue organization
that are called in to start searching the lake police and firefighters from the bigger city of Waterloo next door
they come by and they are now assisting the Blackhawk County sheriff's deputies as well as the Evansdale police
department and we also get the Iowa State Police that joined in on searching wooded areas so there's a lot of wooded
areas in this General location and many people stayed out searching all night long they even brought in some
Lionel Richie they brought in a plane so they could do some searches from from the air and now we have the national
Center for missing exploited children that were notified of the girl's disappearance by 8 pm
by by the next morning we have a representative from the national Center of missing and exploited
children on the ground in Evansdale boots on the ground in Evansdale assisting in the search for the girls
[Music] [Applause] [Music] thanks for joining us here in the garage we have so much more to get to tomorrow
so join us back here same bat Time same bat Channel that's right Captain such an
intriguing case such a tragic case join us back here in the garage tomorrow until then be good be kind and don't
live [Applause] thank you foreign

The Evansdale Murders - Ten Years Later /// Part 1 /// 595

Part 1 of 2

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What could be more innocent, more everyday America, than 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 re-visit the still unsolved double murder case of Lyric Cook and Elizabeth Colins. We covered this case for the first time over two years ago and with the unfortunate ten year anniversary since these two wonderful and bright little girls were taken we felt compelled to give this another look and hope for some renewed interest and awareness of this still unsolved case. This case has been compared to the Delphi case countless times as there are many similarities. Just like the Delphi case someone knows something. If you have any information about the circumstances surrounding the disappearance and deaths of Lyric Cook-Morrissey and Elizabeth Collins, please call theEvansdale Policetip line at 232-6682 orCedar Valley Crime Stoppersat 855-300-8477. A $150,000 reward, raised privately and by the FBI, is available for information leading to an arrest and conviction in the case.

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Brief Summary

The episode discusses the unsolved murders of Libby German, Abigail Williams, Elizabeth Collins, and Lyric Cook, detailing their disappearances and search efforts.

Key points

The Evansdale Murders: A Tragic Timeline. Two young girls go missing on a summer day, leading to a decade-long search for answers.
A Family's Desperate Search. As hours pass, family members begin to panic and search for the missing girls.
Escalating Fear. The situation surrounding the missing girls intensifies as their belongings are discovered.
Suspicion of Abduction. The location of the bikes and purse leads to fears of an abduction.
Concerning Discoveries. The discovery of the girls' bikes and purse raises alarm about their safety.
Family Vigil. Family members hold a vigil as investigators search for clues.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

This sounds all too eerily familiar, unfortunately.

Reflecting on the ongoing unsolved case.

4:55WatchOct 21, 2022

Tension

70/ 100High tension

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