The Hog Trail Murders /// Part 2 /// 601 | Forensic Files

thank you [Music] [Music] thank you foreign garage wherever you are whatever you are
doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man who
has agreed to play out the rest of the season on the franchise tag here is the captain oh honey it's good to be seen
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two south Florida counties in the mid 90s were rocked by the disturbing discovery of five disfigured and
mutilated bodies in three different locations across the cities of Northport and Port Charlotte
this between 1994 and 1996 five bodies were discovered but it was the last one which was the first to be identified all
five cases were considered homicides two of the five victims at this point in our
timeline are identified and along with autopsy reports it was believed that the killer was preying on
vulnerable young male victims who were either transient or homeless now one victim that was identified was Richard
Montgomery who was killed a short time before his body was discovered this would make his case quite a bit
different from the others and the police were gearing up to try to track down the
persons known to Mr Montgomery to find out what they could possibly know about his murder and what they find is some
great Witnesses for the Montgomery case here's what they learned they find two witnesses that say that they had seen Mr
Montgomery the day before his body was found in the woods according to these Witnesses these were people that knew Mr
Montgomery to some degree they said that he told friends the night that he disappeared here that he had a gig he
had a job that was going to pay him two hundred dollars and he was last seen by his friends standing by a rural road
waiting for someone waiting to meet someone but it sounds more like he was waiting for someone to meet him and pick
him up at that location then of course we know that Mr Montgomery was found dead the next day police also learned
that Richard Montgomery lived with his sister and they could place the victim with some other individuals this is
Bobby Whitaker and Gary Mason and some other friends the day before when he mentioned that he was going out to make
a few hundred dollars and would be back shortly when asked by somebody in the group if whatever he was up to was
illegal Mr Montgomery simply smiled Mr Montgomery also told his mother that someone had offered to pay him 200 to
pose for nude pictures but he did not tell her who made the offer right in this same conversation with his mother
Montgomery mentioned that he had recently met a man named Daniel connahan who lived in Punta Gorda Isles and was a
nurse at a medical center the last time friends saw Montgomery alive was on April 16th between 4 pm and
7 P.M Weeks Later in may of 1996 two witnesses came forward to point out that Dan conahan
is likely to be the last person that they were aware of to be in contact with the now deceased Richard Montgomery
again he was the fifth body found but this is huge because we can identify one of the victims and we have some people
that knew the victim while still working to piece these alarming details together
an unexpected call came into law enforcement this maybe from one of the strangest places that they would think
to possibly get a break in their case this call came from an incarcerated individual
who told the police he knew who had murdered Richard Montgomery well and if this guy is
credible this could be a huge break for law enforcement the person who calls in is a one David a Payton so the next big
break in this case came on May 8th 1996 that from a prison inmate located in moorhaven
and this was David a Payton who had a story for the detectives David Payton told police that before he was locked up
he said that he would Cruise the streets of Fort Myers Florida and hustle gay men for money
he told detectives that in March of 1995 he was picked up by a person that he identified as Dan conahan he said Dan
gave him drugs and alcohol and asked if they could drive to a remote area to take some photos of David Payton naked
and tied to a tree this is an incredible detail and graphic account of this incident and
this is all from a fantastic website called Twisted Florida it's a Blog about several different true crime stories
from the Florida area yeah I recommend this blog which I love Florida Captain especially the beach communities there
but Florida is as weird as any state when it comes to True Crimes well you love to go on vacation there and uh and
because of you you have shined so much light on the the crimes in Ohio so basically the two places you go most of
the time have some weird cases suspicious a little bit of a red flag so I'll tell
this portion of our True Crime Story as it is told on the Twisted Florida blog go on kind sir David Payton might have
thought he was in for a good time when a stranger in a car rolled up alongside him and asked him if he wanted to smoke
some joints Peyton often spent his nights hanging out on the streets of Fort Myers hey bro
you Wanna smoke some weed that late evening in 1995 he accepted a man's offer and hopped into his car what
followed would not be a typical night in Southwest Florida as the two were coasting along U.S 41
Peyton noticed that while The Quiet Man in the driver's seat was supplying him with marijuana Valium and beer
the driver was not partaking himself little conversation was taking place between the two strangers until the man
seemingly out of nowhere asked Peyton if he had ever had photographs taken of him
specifically nude photos The Stranger said he wanted to drive to the woods and take photos of Peyton's naked body tied
up reaching over he touched Peyton in a certain area and explained that the Rope
would not be and explained that the Rope would be tied tightly but not bad enough to hurt
him yeah right continuing on their Drive the two ended up on an out of the way Dirt Road in Charlotte County Florida
they passed a couple of people and trucks with dogs and upon seeing them the Man became agitated and upset this
is the driver the two moved along slowly until they hit a mud hole and the vehicle became stuck
when Peyton offered to go ask the other people that they had just seen for help the man's demeanor darkened and he
firmly said to not move from the car while he talked to them run for your life returning with another person to
help push the car out of the hole he directed Payton to remain inside the vehicle alarmed Payton turned around and
looking at his surroundings he noticed a few disturbing items in the back seat of
the vehicle items with a potentially chilling purpose the these items that he says he saw their Captain were a camera
a bag a tarp some rope and a hunting knife well the camera maybe that doesn't throw up any red flags but I don't like
people having big trash bags in their car so run for your life or oh you got some ropes maybe run for your life or
once you see a tarp run for your life get out of there this is not a good place to be I don't find myself in that
vehicle at all so it's hard for me to think past that part one I'm not getting in the vehicle in the first place two
once you touch my purple-headed yogurt Slinger I'm gone but also when you say hey I'd like to take some nude photos of
you tied up to a tree well first of all nobody nobody wants to see the captain nude but second of all
you do not want to see me tied up naked on a tree well this guy driving this car
he does oh yeah he he send me a couple I've not asked him specifically this question but I'm here to tell you I
would wager 100 Bill he does well on those on our 600 episode you just said the funniest thing
that you've ever said so I guess the next 600 shows it's all up hill from here ladies and gentlemen but yeah I'm
not getting into that car there's too many red flags and and if I get in that car there's so many red flags that I am
jumping out of the window for my life this is what's going to push him over the edge I don't know how scared or
frightened he was or how off put he was by any of the actions leading up to this
I can simply simply uh regurgitating the story that's on Twisted Florida as they
saw it so he says Peyton says that you know seeing these items he was already kind of
getting frightened and he said driven by fear I had to make a split second decision and tell you what this Peyton
guy now while I would not have gotten in the car this guy makes a great effort uh
here this is a very smart move on Peyton's behalf so what he does is as soon as this man Dan conahan and this other
person get the vehicle remember the the car is stuck in this mud hole right as soon as these guys push it out Payton he
does as instructed by this this person that's been driving him around remember Dan conahan says don't get out of the
car you say you are to remain in the vehicle well David Payton remains in the vehicle he just hops in
the driver's seat and flees the area takes the vehicle with him he's driving off in this blue Mercury
Capri and he's heading south on US-41 in the man's vehicle that you know the guy that
picked them up but because of the drugs and the beer in his system he was already having a hard time staying awake
at the wheel as he's trying to flee this area well and again so it could be a situation where they start moving the
the car and he starts going man whatever this guy gave me is is doing something to me it's trying
to pass me out right well I don't know if he's trying to pass him out I think he's just plying him with drugs and
alcohol so that this guy becomes an easier victim even more vulnerable and I mean you're talking that combination
as described by Peyton right is Valium marijuana and beer well party you want to stay awake and drive a vehicle you
better get some toothpicks and and keep your eyes pried open your eyelid's pride
open there but um he says that he drove off the drugs are in his system they're taking effect he was having a hard time
staying awake of course this whole thing there's no real violence here what happens is you would think that
maybe or as the good people at Twisted Florida wrote that Payton would contact the authorities after such a strange and
frightening experience but the flip side of that coin is ironically it was not Payton who contacted the police but
rather Dan conahan who was the owner of the rope and the knife and the tarp uh he lost very little time in contacting
police and this is because he was driving his father's vehicle right so when he comes home
without his father's vehicle because his this person that he picked up made off with the vehicle he contacts the police
and says hey someone stole my father's car and here is a story or my version of the story as it goes
unfortunately soon after David Payton reached Fort Myers Florida he's picked up and arrested
for the stolen vehicle so now he's telling police what happened that night and they don't believe
Peyton's story Dan conahan he reports his father's car is stolen on the on that same night and he his story was
very different he said that the theft happened when he stopped on the side of the road and he went to relieve himself
now an initial background check of Dan conahan revealed that he was an unemployed licensed practical nurse who
had previously worked at Charlotte Regional Medical Center he had formally served in the military until being
discharged he was currently living with his parents in Punta Gorda so they didn't believe David Payton's story
Peyton's defense attorney at the time told him to take the plea or he was going to be risking more time in prison
so with no support on his side David Payton pled guilty to vehicle theft and was sentenced to two years in prison so
now we fast forward to may of 1996 David Payton still incarcerated tells authorities hey I know who committed the
hog Trail murders it's the same person that picked me up a year before took me to a road not well traveled and told me
that he wanted to take nude pictures of me tied up and of course he's not able to identify
The Man by name I'm guessing maybe even on this phone call he's certainly not able to identify the person driving the
vehicle that night as it happened but when you later plead guilty to stealing the car you know who filed the police
report so of course police have that man's name from the police report of that stolen Mercury which
ended up leading them to Daniel connahan Jr right and you have to remember where
he jumped into the driver's seat and drove off to escape where they claimed that he
stole the vehicle from was only a few miles from one of the dumping sites where they found all those bodies well
let's just think for a second how bad that would suck you you get in the car you shouldn't have gotten the car but
you got on the car you took some drugs they're doing some stuff to you this guy's acting strange he's talking to you
about taking pictures of you nude tied to a tree he has this knife in his car that you get stuck you jump in the
driver's seat you take off you get arrested the cops don't believe you and now you're sentenced to two years in
jail I mean maybe you'd feel lucky at that point like look I could have been murdered
and then you would think at some point that this person after the situation happens
then kind of sees different things in the news that would make him believe that he escaped death yeah after all it
was it was he the inmate that contacted police and said hey I know who I think did this and then
you know let's go back to some of the other unique details of these cases you know we have police who are working
these as they are in fact connected due to the unique nature of the homicides and the fact that they believe
and have proof of the victims being tied to a tree tied naked to a tree and then
strangled the police are reviewing similar assault reports from the recent past and we talk about this so many
times when we cover cases like this and unsolved cases of Serial offenders you have to remember in the cases that are
solved it's not something that happens in every single case but it happens often and
sometimes it's not until the guy's already in handcuffs are already on trial or even after the fact that he
gets locked up right but often we find the one who got away yeah Ryan Gosling there's usually somebody who got away
the the managed to survive a serial killer and they're able to give us great insights into the other attacks that
happened on victims that weren't so lucky so one such report if in fact police were looking for one that got
away or similar types of crimes they come across this report that is from August 15 1994. so it falls into
our general timeline right the 94 to 96 seems to be the span of concern here right and I have a very kind of basic
version of this story but I'll go through what I have here Captain it says Stanley burden was a high school dropout
who had difficulty keeping a steady job the assault report indicated that burden
met Dan conahan who offered to pay him 100 to 150 dollars to pose for nude photographs Burton agreed and conahan
drove him to a rocky Dirt Road in a secluded area where conahan pulled out a duffel bag with a tarp and a Polaroid
camera the two men headed into the woods where codahan laid the tarp out and asked Burton to take off his shirt after
taking numerous pictures of bird and connahan then took out a new package of clothesline so he could get some bondage
pictures he asked burden to step close to a nearby tree and then clipped the clothesline in several pieces draping
them over burden to make it look like bondage conahan moved behind burden snap the Rope tightly around him pulled his
hands behind the tree place the ropes around his legs and chest and wrap the Rope twice around Burton's neck
conahan then performed a sex act on burden and attempted to sodomize him after many unsuccessful attempts
connahan snapped the Rope around Burton's neck placed his foot against the tree and pulled on the rope in an
attempt to strangle burden who tried to slide around the tree to keep his windpipe open conahan hit burden in the
head this dude is a absolute Savage I mean he is a sick SOB eventually he gives up on this attack
conahan seems to get frustrated as the two are struggling back and forth in the woods
and he gives up on this attack and he leaves the area but he left this man tied up to the tree
right now who knows how long he would have been there the way that Burton describes it it sounds to me like he
leaves conahan that is leaves mid-struggle who knows I wasn't there and again this is a brief
description maybe conahan thought he had successfully choked the guy to death sure you want it using the Rope but
regardless what we know ends up happening is this burden guy gets extremely lucky that
conahan left something at the scene it was like a set of pliers or something that somehow in a struggle he was able
to reach these pliers I don't know if he used his his foot to grab them off of the ground
but he's able to use these pliers to help pry himself loose from the rope and from the tree and he he managed to
escape with his life uh in that way now it's uncertain to me what what is unclear through all of this is they have
this assault report that was filed by this individual by Stanley burden but I'm curious if that because we're
reading it after the fact that they've retroactively applied Dan conahan's name to this report because it seems like
conahan should have been arrested and charged with something knowing that he filed this police report but it doesn't
seem like that ever happened so it's very likely that this victim Stanley burden didn't know the man who picked
them up and who tried to kill him there in the woods yeah so even though he didn't know him so he couldn't say hey
well it was John it was my buddy John they were able to have him identify who's able to identify Dan conahan
through a police lineup [Music] everything anybody [Music] all right we are back
can't believe we made it this far it's all because of you but make sure you subscribe to the podcast and make sure
you tell a friend so we can reach another 600 episodes cheers to you Colonel cheers captain now remember our
inmate David Payton who called police says hey I know who killed Richard Montgomery
they hear his story they are aware that well we charge you with stealing Dan conahan's father's vehicle so we do know
that you know this individual or spent you know some deal of time with him even if you were in fact guilty of stealing
the car or if you say what happened happened they can clearly connect the dots between
Peyton and Dan conahan now what happens here is they're like you know what we better double check
everything before we really start investigating this guy we have other people mentioning Dan conahan's name to
law enforcement as well in regard to Richard Montgomery's murder they hook Peyton up to a lie detector test he
passes the test and so with that they decide hey that's enough for investigators to put a tail on Dan
conahan they want to start their investigation but they're going to surveil Dan conahan for some time before
before they take the investigation any further well it's smart on law enforcements
part to hey we don't know if we should believe him let's give them a polygraph at least they give us some kind of
barometer of if we can trust him or not yeah and they're going to use that information to
start to tail Dan conahan and they start by going to the condo where he shared a living space with his father
and Punta Gorda and the detectives they discover very quickly that he has some erratic driving behaviors he's always
out driving he often pulled u-turns he stopped on side streets and parking lots they wondered if he was aware that they
were trailing him or if he just did these types of Maneuvers because he was worried that somebody
may be tailing him you see what I mean like not necessarily any awareness that somebody is in fact doing it right but
as a just in case so they decide very quickly that they're going to put a tracking device on this vehicle in fact
soon after they received David Payton's information police began monitoring Dan conahan
and a mobile tracking device was placed on that vehicle they say every time he left his house we had six cars
bracketing him yeah one of the best tips I've ever heard from law enforcement is
if you think somebody's following you do four left turns or four right turns they
had Dan conahan's home under 24-hour surveillance with both human eyeballs on the team as well as
video cameras surveilling this condo where he lived at with his parents at all times they say that they surveilled
him for 50 days and they had two separate instances when they had undercover detectives who posed as
homeless men who stood on the side of U.S 41 and while they were wearing a wire Dan actually approached these two
men and asked them about going to have them pose for nude pictures in the woods aha haha
feels like a gaudy moment some more details about that is one detective said that he was asked if he was into
modeling and Dan told him that he liked to take photos with a theme of progressive bondage and then we have a
second undercover detective that put himself in conahan's path and he said he too was propositioned with cash if he
would pose naked for some pictures now they couldn't get these two undercover Detectives
they could never get him to take them to the actual to any place in the woods or
out in any of these locations they were hoping to have him do that the interesting thing here though too is if
you look at the situation and you have these five victims and I know we're talking about a span of of two years or
so in which we had these five victims but with the 50 days of surveillance they're really hoping to catch this dude
red-handed is what it tells me and unfortunately that means that based off of the crime scenes and how
decomposed some of their victims were they likely didn't have much in the way of physical evidence against Dan conahan
they were able to trace some of that fiber evidence that they had and some paint chip evidence that they had found
at the crime scene and on some of the murdered victims back to Dan conahan back to the vehicle that he was using
and back to the home that he shared with his parents right so that gives us some
kind of physical evidence the other troubling thing they were able to subpoena Dan conahan's credit card
records and they were able to see his purchases and his purchases are lining up with some of these stories of of what
people called in mainly Stanley burden's story then also David Payton's story where they got credit card statements
showing that Dan conahan purchased clothesline r rope Polaroid film pliers a utility knife this all in the area and
they also found that he was using ATM machines located close to the areas where he was propositioning these men
and picking them up yeah because he doesn't have to give them the money but he might need to show them the money
correct so not only does he have this kill kit but he has the tools of the trade to also document
the kill and then also like you said the the ATM to have the money on hand so he
could show these individuals hey I got two hundred dollars so armed with all of these statements of the witnesses that
led up to the Richard Montgomery murder and then the two statements of the individuals that survived Dan conahan
and that physical evidence and these credit card statements and ATM statements this is enough for them to make an
arrest they arrest him and they are going to charge him with the assault on Stanley burden and also the murder of
Richard Montgomery ultimately the Stanley burden case the the assault case they dropped the charges on that case
and I think it's a rather complicated matter and we we still have quite a bit to get to so I don't want to go through
the details of that people are certainly welcome to find those on their own now while they are awaiting trial for Dan
conahan another skeleton was found in Charlotte County 10 months later DNA identified the remains as a one William
Charles Patton who disappeared in 1993. so if in fact this William Charles Patton murder is connected to Dan
conahan this would be likely the earliest one to date in our timeline this man disappeared in 1993 at this
point in our timeline captain we're bringing up murder charges against this guy only for one murder that being
of Richard Montgomery right four other victims that we believe are connected to Dan conahan
but three of them still hadn't been identified at this point by the time they go to
trial against this guy that they believe is a serial killer and like what you're
stating the other day that some of these victims were put out there and then once they were discovered then
another victim was put out there so we didn't believe that the victims were just all out there at the same time and
law enforcement didn't find them they were finding the victims as he was dumping them but that does not mean
because we got miles of wooded area that doesn't mean that they've found all the
victims that could be connected to this like I said psychopath Psychopathic killer it would take a
couple years but in 1999 Dan conahan was found guilty he was found guilty on first degree premeditated murder charges
and kidnapping and in December of 99 he was sentenced to death he is currently still alive and he is being held at the
Union Correctional Institution and Rayford Florida and if you look him up online the the one of the first
sentences and first paragraphs that will come up is that he is convicted of one murder but suspected in six plus murders
now depending on who you talk to that number can vary to a great degree that's because several more bodies were
discovered in the Charlotte County area with similarities to the hog Trail killings there was one victim found in
2000 to victims found in 2001 and an additional one found in 2002 now that's going to lead us up to this horrific
discovery which took place on March 23rd 2007. this is when eight skulls and skeletal remains were found in a wooded
area in Fort Myers This is reported to be the largest such Discovery in the state of Florida's history and you would
reference this captain in episode one where this case has some things that reminds one of the West Mesa body pit or
the Long Island serial killer case right what happens in the discovery of all of
these bodies well we can get the details straight from an article that is titled
Fort Myers police seek clues in deaths the skeletal remains of eight people were found in a wooded area about 25
feet from an unpaved section of Arcadia Street and East Fort Myers so to give one some perspective of distance here
I don't have the exact locations of where the first five victims were found and then we have a sixth potential
victim that is found leading up to connahan's trial we have four other victims that are found in the early part
of the 2000s and then we have eight that are discovered together these eight are
are discovered in a relatively small space but it could be upwards of 20 to 30 miles from where some of the other
bodies were found and keep in mind these these eight bodies are being discovered
over 10 years after Dan conahan was arrested yeah so these deaths have been worked as a homicide all eight of them
and they believe police believe this to be a body dump location in fact it was somewhat obvious early on we have a
quote here from one of the officers involved that says it certainly sounds like a dump site but having said that
you would now have to determine whether they were murdered and dumped killed at that location and left there or just
bodies illegally disposed of one could make an argument that these are connected to the other victims I think
you make a strong argument that they're not and this is probably the working of a a
entirely different serial killer just in the same area well and that's where we kind of find ourselves left here in this
case because there are many people that argue that these eight skeletons that were found together these victims would
go on to be known as the Fort Myers eight that they are all just other victims of
Dan conahan right he's the easiest one to go well he was active in this area an active believed to be about the same
time that maybe some of these victims went missing yeah I wish we could put a time period on on the deaths because
that would give us a sense of if these were before or after the victims well that's interesting here Captain
because what we have here is um some kind of it's it's really sad information because in in the first set
of bodies that are found that we covered extensively there are still some of those victims
that are unidentified of this Fort Myers eight I've seen reports that three of them
have been identified I've seen reports that only two of them have been identified uh the the more concrete
information that I have in front of me is that two were later identified as men who disappeared in 1995 which would
certainly fall into the Dan conahan timeline that we were working with with his other suspected right victims which
we should say other suspected victims because Dan conahan of course was spoken to very quickly after the discovery of
these bodies it wasn't lost on police that hey we have a known serial killer that's locked up
that may be responsible for these additional murders and yeah and he has a life sentence so is it a possibility
that he's going to come forward and confess it's possible the problem with Dan conahan is he's he's only been
convicted of one murder he suspected of many more obviously he's never admitted to even the one that he's been convicted
for right he's admitted to killing zero people and with the amount of decomposition and evidence lost due to
time and weather and other items as well it doesn't appear that the police have any evidence to connect Dan conahan to
the Fort Myers eight my problem with the Fort Myers eight is that they're they're
buried in Shallow Graves they say what less than two feet no less than two inches oh sorry of dirt
yeah less than two inches of dirt so this doesn't go with the signatures of his other crimes the problem with the
signatures of his other crimes though is those signatures are are not there's no
way of knowing so the right the the bearing of the body necessarily isn't you can look at it as
a potential signature or as a potential Mo which are two very different things but it could fall into either one of
those categories based off of the psychology of the killer but because we don't know the Killer and can't say for
certain it's hard to really hone in on that psychology so the the problem with with looking at signatures and comparing
them from Richard Montgomery to the Fort Myers eight right is these are skeletal
remains his signatures Dan conahan's signatures as they were on victim Richard Montgomery are all based off of
they're still being skin very true on our victim yeah where we can see the ligature marks where we can see that
there was a portion of the body amputated or removed cut off right none of that is available for us to to view
or even speculate on in regard to the Fort Myers eight because they're all skeletal Remains the problem is I I
don't think we can look at this situation and say nope can't be Dan Cunningham because the signatures don't
match up the the issue being when we talk about burying somebody in two inches of dirt
one we don't know how long they've been there police have outwardly said that this
could simply be due to flooding in the area or changes in the area over time that maybe necessarily they were just
left on the ground and these changes occurred due to the passing of time right the other thing that they point
out the the officers that do believe that the Fort Myers eight were in fact buried in these shallow Graves if we
were to call it that that's how it's referred to in some of the news articles and Reporting on this case but I think
that paints a whole entirely different picture than what police say that they saw at the scene
at the scene of the Fort Myers eight they're saying that it they wouldn't even go as far to calling it burying
somebody more as somebody just took the time to throw some dirt leaves and sticks over top of the bodies before
leaving the area yeah but it's it's also different in the sense of the other victims or
not found in a cluster like like these victims are or as close of a cluster as these victims are yeah
with John Doe one four and five and obviously four and five were later identified I would call that a body
cluster I believe it was Gary Ridgeway the Green River Killer who referred to some of his kills and and where he left
remains as body clusters this to me with the Fort Myers eight that's that's eight
people all together in one location who's to say that he wasn't spreading out uh at some point the other thing too is
the he you could look at it as if he did all of these well maybe he was evolving or devolving
whichever way you want to look at it maybe his crimes evolved to something else or devolved that he was getting
lazier with how he was choosing to conceal the bodies right then on the flip side of that though you still have
the possibility because we don't know who these victims are because we don't know who is in fact responsible you
could have had two killers working at approximately the same time with similar similar victimology you
could have a copycat situation now it's been reported that with the Fort Myers eight again many of them still to this
day not identified uh but they put the possible span of murders from as early as 1987 and one or two maybe as late as
2001 which is super scary because we know that Dan conahan was locked up in 1996 so if if this again this is all
speculation they're not basing any of this off of scientific fact but let's say this speculation is
correct and one or two of these murders happened that late well Dan Cunningham was already locked up and incarcerated
at that time so he couldn't have been responsible for those later murders and therefore would make it even much more
difficult to believe him to be responsible for any of the Fort Myers eight where we stand is we have the
psychopath in jail for life convicted of one murder now if you put all the victims that they
found together that they don't have somebody in jail responsible for that's 18 victims and then and we've both said
I think he could make a strong argument uh that all of them are connected and whether you want to put the the eight of
the Fort Myers eight in your in there there's a strong argument I think either way well right and with one
situation I mean you look at John Doe number five who's identified as Richard Montgomery and John Doe number four
who is identified as Kenneth Smith well those two victims are found 50 yards apart from one another one was
killed the day before he was found and one was killed just weeks before he was found and that's very difficult to say
well whoever did the killing of Richard Montgomery didn't kill Kenneth Smith it's you you would have to go out of
your way to be able to prove that right I think what what to me that shows is the difference in the degree of what
they were able to work with in their investigation with Richard Montgomery he was killed so shortly before he was
found they were able to piece together a series of events that made a a a courtroom only deliberate for less than
30 minutes before sentencing this guy to death where the case that happened just
weeks before Richard Montgomery's death and murder that of Kenneth Smith there's so much evidence already lost to
time just weeks prior that one loses very little confidence in all these other murders that likely happen months
or maybe even a year or two before that of Richard Montgomery now one piece of good information or
good news anyway occurred last year when authorities tell us in July of 2021 that
using genetic genealogy they have in fact positively identified one more of the unidentified victims
here this is more than 27 years after his mutilated and decomposed body was found
in a wooded area of South Florida they say now that John Doe number one was 31 year old Gerald who went by Jerry
Anthony Lombard so now they've identified John Doe number one and now they are tasked with trying to connect
him to his alleged killer foreign [Music] you could be anywhere but you choose to
be right here and we thank you Colonel do we have any recommended reading for the beautiful listeners
today we will be recommending Boogeyman by Stephen Jackson boogie man he was every parent's nightmare this is the
true story of a detective that refused to let some cases go cold he tracked down a serial killer and put him behind
bars check out Stephen Jackson's great book Boogeyman you can find that great title and many other wonderful
recommendations on our recommended page at truecrimegarage.com yeah I'm going to
write a book called Boogerman it'll be out next year until then be good be kind and don't litter
foreign [Music]

The Hog Trail Murders /// Part 2 /// 601

Part 2 of 2

www.TrueCrimeGarage.com

The Hog Trail Murders refers to series a murders that took place in the Southwest District of Florida from 1994 - 1996. Warning this is some pretty gruesome stuff. Today we take a look at the crimes as people working and living in two Florida counties begin finding the bodies of victims that were left in the woods and on the Hog Trails. Today we expand this True Crime story to a third county as eight bodies are recovered in Fort Myers, Florida. These remains will become known as the Fort Myers 8 and as you will hear there is much debate out there if the Hog Trail Murders and the Fort Myers 8 are connected or not.

Beer of the Week - Pulp Friction by Motorworks Brewing

Garage Grade - 3 and 3 quarter bottle caps out of 5

Recommended Reading - Bogeyman; He was every parent’s nightmare by Steve Jackson

Our show - True Crime Garage “Off the Record” is available only on Stitcher Premium. For a FREE month of listening go to http://stitcherpremium.com/truecrimegarage and use promo code GARAGE

Brief Summary

The episode details the hog trail murders, focusing on Richard Montgomery's case and the investigation into suspect Dan Conahan.

Key points

The Disturbing Discovery. In the mid-90s, five disfigured bodies were found in South Florida, raising alarms.
Witnesses Come Forward. Witnesses reveal details about Richard Montgomery's last moments before his murder.
A Shocking Call. An incarcerated individual claims to know who murdered Richard Montgomery, leading to a breakthrough.
The Escape. David Payton flees from a dangerous situation, taking the suspect's car with him.
A Lucky Survivor. Stanley Burden escapes a near-fatal encounter with Dan Conahan, who attempted to strangle him.
The Investigation Begins. Police begin to surveil Dan Conahan after receiving tips about his involvement in murders.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

It's good to be seen and good to see you!

0:52WatchOct 19, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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