We're All Lunatics /// Part 1 /// 171 | Forensic Files

foreign [Music] [Applause] welcome to True Crime 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 rang in the New Year drinking whiskey and got
way past Tipsy he is the captain it was a cocktail it was a mixture between whiskey and antifreeze it's good to be
seen and it's good to see you I'm thankful I'm alive after last night thanks for listening and thanks for
telling a friend [Music] drinking cast iron oatmeal Brown by the good good people over at Four Hands
Brewing Company garage grade three and three quarter bottle caps out of five this is a monster of a brown ale there's
lots of chocolate malt here pours dark mahogany and has a wonderful coffee Aroma cast iron oatmeal Brown was
brought to us by these wonderful folks first up we have Adrian in Denton Texas and from New Orleans we have Alex and
Colin or how it's properly pronounced nerlands and we have it cheers from Sandra down in Little Rock Arkansas and
from the place that rocks Cleveland Ohio we have sweet and here's a shout out to
Natalie a New Whiteland Indiana and last but not least we have Ray and Redwood Falls Minnesota so thanks to everybody
and if you'd like to donate to the Beer fun you can do so at truecrime garage.com and just click on the Donate
banner and we are very happy to be back Captain looking forward to a wonderful 2018 with each and every one of you here
in the garage and that's enough for the business that's right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's
talk some true crime [Music] as kids Edward and I were pretty close he of course was the typical boy
we grew up with my father so as you'd expect I stayed pretty close to him anything he did I did no matter what
it was if he was 100 feet in a tree I was too he had no fear as a kid as we got older we kind of slowly
started to drift apart and started our own paths in life I moved 200 miles away and he stayed
close to our dad he and my dad were very close good friends it wasn't too long until he
moved up here with me to start a new life our relationship pretty much started back
to where we were as kids we stayed pretty close again always talk to each other and he often talked about
his future for him he couldn't wait to start a family he respected women as their father taught us
and as kids kids were drawn to him it's like no other he loved kids and kids would play
with him all the time Edward would have been an amazing father had he had a chance
the town that we moved to wasn't anything special it had two Sawmills a factory but no matter where Edward was he made
friends all sorts of friends see Edward never judged anybody he liked People based on what he knew about him
not what they look like or not what they had or where they lived Edward and I grew up for ourselves
and learn to respect everybody Edward made all sorts of friends the good ones for him the ones that were good for him
and the ones that were potentially bad for him one friend particularly was Deacon salt
[Music] foreign [Music] back in December of 2016 a St Louis newscast was reminding everyone that the
Crawford County Sheriff's department needs your help to locate a missing man Edward Hill House 28 years old had been
missing from the Bourbon Missouri area since April 26 2016. the newscast stated that there are very
little details regarding his disappearance but what is known is this Edward Hillhouse was last seen leaving
his sister's Bourbon Missouri residents on April 26 2016. A lot of these places were new to me so for those of you
wondering bourbon is a very very small town about 75 miles outside of St Louis Southwest of St Louis
he had left her trailer and was walking he was seen walking down the driveway toward Highway N the letter N to meet
with someone but the person he was to meet never picked him up so you would think that if
this person never picked him up he would just walk back to his sister's trailer but that did not happen either he never
returned to the trailer Kayla is Edward hillhouse's younger sister she described
Edward as a bit of a Drifter saying he had worked odd jobs and he was trying to find his own way Kayla said she knew
something was wrong early on because he was supposed to come back and see her apparently he had some things of his at
her residence so he was going to see her to get his stuff he was moving to a new
place he needed to take his things there she never heard from him Kayla said she
knew something wasn't right because no matter what he would always get a hold of her good or bad he he wouldn't let
her worry about him so Kayla reported her older brother as missing this next nugget has been
reported in several reports about this case and I don't know where this information is coming from if this is
something that his sister passed along to law enforcement but there is a thought that he may have met with two
unnamed individuals just prior to his disappearance he has never been heard from since April
2016. again very few details are available in this case the family has offered a fifteen hundred dollar reward
for information leading to the location of Edward Hill House so before we go any further let's take a
look at this at the details of this disappearance because sometimes they make these things pretty cryptic and I
think that's what we have here because often you will see this when little is actually known about a disappearance
but I think we can take some of this information that they gave us and sort of read between the lines here to try to
fill in some of the blanks because there are two tidbits of information in there
that are extremely important to the investigation into the whereabouts of Edward Hillhouse although they don't
really Supply us with any information the first thing we need to talk about here Captain is the statement that
Edward was last seen walking down the driveway toward Highway N to meet with someone but the person he was to meet
never picked him up I think the the inference we can make here is that the police must know who this person is and
probably have spoken to this person right even though they're not naming them in this uh quote unquote
disappearance announcement that they're making trying to locate him so the name of this person is not
withheld because they don't know who this person is they have probably spoken to them they must believe the story of
this person yeah I was supposed to pick him up but we never met up for one reason or another also if this person
hasn't already been cleared well then they are at at the very least cooperating with the police and police
May believe this person has nothing to hide second the thing here about he may have Edward
may have met with two unnamed individuals just prior to his disappearance this appears to be
something completely different than what we just discussed this sounds like we have possibly two unnamed individuals
that were either unknown to the Hill House family and police or or one or two individuals that are known but not
cooperating with the investigation into this missing person's case so I know it's really kind of stating the obvious
here but that's your lead after you've cleared up the first bit of the person picking him up and really it's just
simply one of two things here either identifying who those two people are that he may have met with yeah or know
who they are and they are not cooperating so it's time to turn up the heat on those fools right
here is some information on Edward Hillhouse a little uh victim profile if you will at the time of his
disappearance he was 28 years old height and weight he is six foot four to six foot five inches tall and about 160
pounds he is a Caucasian male with brown hair and blue eyes some distinguishing marks Edward has the following tattoos a
scroll on his chest he has a tattoo of his last name Hill house across his upper back and the number 13 and a half
on the outside of his left calf he may have pierced ears and may have some facial hair Edward Hillhouse was born
Friday February 12 1988 in Missouri to Timothy Hill House and Sherry Hill House Edward's parents would eventually
separate his mother Sherry went on to marry Benny Compton of Forsyth Missouri Edward moved to Bourbon in 2011 to be
closer to his sister Edward was very close with his sister Edward's sister Kayla Hillhouse was
Edward's best friend and he was good friends with her fiance Chase Toliver prior to The Disappearance Edward Jr
Hillhouse was described as a resident of Caseville Missouri might be Cassville Missouri I
apologize which is a town of a little more than 3 200 people in Barry County Missouri which is in the southwestern
portion of the state another very small town both of these extremely small towns
yes everyone who had the privilege of meeting Edward will tell you the same thing that he was kind loving funny and
would do anything for anyone he was known for his goofy smile bright blue eyes Edward had three true passions uh
fishing Arrowhead hunting and working on cars he grew up fishing with his family
on bull Shores Lake there wasn't a time that he didn't catch something so apparently he was very good at the
fishing uh him his aunt and his father shared a love for arrowheads and all together
they had a great collection as for cars apparently Edward could fix anything he loved a challenge when it came to
working on somebody's vehicle so a very troubling disappearance here Captain we have a person that is well he has places
that he's scheduled to be he doesn't see his sister uh the thing that I have a problem with here is we have someone
that is described as being very close to his family especially his sister and he this guy's not heard from yeah he
he's supposed to meet these people I don't know who these people are uh but he's supposed to meet these people and
then he's not heard from again this is not I don't think we're describing a person
here that is somebody that is walking away from from a life I don't think we're describing somebody here that
would have found themselves in a bad situation and not reached out to one of his parents or to his or at the very
least to his sister but as the newscast States there's very little details in this disappearance
the other troubling thing here is that we have these three individuals possibly three individuals one that he was
scheduled to meet maybe accept a ride from uh two that he may have spoken with or had been with before he disappeared
that's even more troubling to me that we don't have it appears to me like the investigators
may not have followed up on some of these leads that they've not spoken to these people there seems to be to me
like there should be a longer timeline regarding his disappearance one with a such a small town you'd think everybody
knows everybody so it's harder to keep a secret now Kayla would go on to marry her fiance and take the last name of
Toliver this would all take place after her brother and best friend had disappeared the police in the
investigation according to Kayla Toliver Edward's sister and best friends she had
to stay on the case she was looking for her brother but she was also looking for
answers Kayla put up and missing posters everywhere that she could she pleaded for help while the police she said did
almost nothing in her opinion she felt like from very early on in the case that she had been ignored
this is sad you know because okay look there are a lot of times when we you know we just have upset and frustrated
loved ones of missing persons or of a victim and of course here's why it it is this may shock most of you
um I I know that I found this and the captain has found this this was a surprise to me we have spoken to a lot
of people that have been family members of victims or family members of people that have gone missing and the thing
that I found very surprising when we first got into this when we first started speaking with these people is
that in most cases not all the time but in most cases they don't seem to have any more knowledge about the
investigation than than anybody reading the newspaper or watching the news would
have which is almost a little shocking I guess uh it was to me in the beginning you would think that they would be have
some form of knowledge that they would have been would have been asked certain questions or sat through certain
interviews where they would have an idea of of the direction of the investigation
yeah well so many cases these missing person cases you need to take Mara Murray for example
she leaves or her College she's driving down the road her car wrecks disappeared Into Thin Air Brian Shaffer
goes into a bar talks to some people never seen leaving the bar disappears now you take Edward Hillhouse supposed
to meet with a friend possibly friends maybe he got in the car with the the two guys but not not the one guy just
disappears how does this happen right this case though has a little spin on it uh though because the case spanned two
jurisdictions we have uh Bourbon and we have the Crawford County so we have the bourbon police and we have the Crawford
County Sheriff's Office and I usually don't care for that as I think it is important for one law enforcement agency
to take ownership of a case uh things to me seem cleaner that way more organized
that way when we have just one working on it yeah because if you have two you can point the finger you can pass the
buck all day long you go well that's uh we're not handling that they are I'm pointing the fingers worse than smelling
the finger uh I know that that I have the opinion of of a local case here in Columbus Ohio
where I think this could have totally changed the outcome of an investigation and and I think that's why I feel so
strongly about this we talked about uh the Tony Muncie murder that took place in the early 80s where we have someone
that was last seen in Columbus where he lived and his body is found in Delaware County right and the problem that we had
with that investigation is we have Delaware County who are kind of Keystone Cops coming into Columbus and trying to
investigate this this murder case and really in my opinion that thing should have been handed over to Columbus from
the get-go we may have had a solved case here we have a similar situation we got
the Crawford County Sheriff's Office and the tiny little bourbon Police Department working the same working the
same case yeah so there's somebody needs to step up and take a responsibility for
this case well my guess here and I'm sure that uh you know our our listeners are certainly
smarter than me I'm sure the garage listeners figured it out uh the the town of bourbon is in Crawford County duh
right so that that's pretty easy but I'm guessing here in these smaller communities this is probably very
typical uh for two people to be two agencies be working these cases I want to stress the
word if here though if the powers that be have a good working relationship this could be a typical thing that works out
well to solve these cases because you're going to have the Crawford County that will have access to
State funds and resources that the little bourbon PD just won't have but they they need to work with local PD
because of one resource that the sheriff's department may not have uh is a better understanding of the
locals making up that small community well I've talked several detectives that work missing person cases I think one I
think did something crazy like 4 000 or 6 000 missing person cases but the hardest thing is once the
individual is of age and that there's no sign of a crime so those two things of age
um and no sign of a crime it's hard for them to investigate it because there is the possibility that
this person's stepped away and doesn't want to have contact with anybody and even though that the family is screaming
no he would call me he would tell people there has been several cases several thousands of cases where people get up
leave their current life and then they don't contact their family members right yeah I do you wish that they would
handle that differently do you I'm sure there's there's a lot of victims families out there that are probably
screaming it from the mountaintops that this is not how we should handle these things I I'm on the fence this is a
weird topic because it's strange to me yes as adults we should have that right a person should
have the right if they need to leave for some reason without communicating that to anybody right I think the thing too
is so this detective that I talked to said this has happened several times and so what they normally do is it's not
just you can't just go oh I saw this individual so now I can close this case you have to make contact within the
individuals so once you make contact with the individual then you have to say hey look the people that filed the
missing in person report would be your parents for example okay so you went missing your parents were looking for
you ah I'm going to shut this case do you want me to reach out to your family do you want to or do you want me to
and if they say I don't want you to that that is not the police officer's job that's not the detective's job so the
job of the detective is to close the case right and I think it's not in their job description or it's frowned upon if
the detective would say to the family yeah he went missing on his own and he doesn't want to speak with you right and
we close the case right but normally what this detective said is oh I'd talk with the individual and he'd say hey
tell him I'm fine I I'll make contact when I want to or whatever but the thing that I mean here too is that you know
you talked about something that makes it tough for detectives if there's no signs
of a crime that they don't they don't have to investigate it further right that they they may not they may not have
to go and look into this thing any more than it's just a missing person potentially left on their own well and
the thing too is one would argue you know overwork underpaid and I'm sure that's the case and especially smaller
towns or the budget is smaller um maybe not so much in in bigger towns or richer towns
but if you have all these cases on the desk and there is no leads at all you know you can't fault the law
enforcement to go well let's give it some time let's see if something pops up right you know I mean like if a murder
took place well now we need to solve this quickly but a missing person like like you said it could be
well he just didn't go with this guy he went with another group of friends and and he just went a town over for a
couple days so you know it's hard to fault law enforcement for that I I guess the question that I'm posing
to myself here is this if if someone goes missing and we're looking for signs of of further criminal activity I guess
what you're looking for is either was this person killed was this person abducted or did this person leave and
flee the area because they themselves committed some crimes that they're running from
what I'm getting at is when we say that they have the an adult has the right to walk away
the question I have is in certain situations wouldn't you think that probable cause for a possible abduction
or murder would be would be just the family saying he or she would have never left without communicating right yeah
you know what I mean it seems like um yeah about how many thousands of cases messy person cases have the parents said
that or a friend or a family or girlfriends that he would never just get up and leave and then they contact the
person why did you leave I was just tired of life you know right I I actually hate my family right I hate my
girlfriend and I moved down to Key West she smells funny well so I went to Key West
and Key Largo uh Key West is just full of people that have run from other other towns hey Qs is a fun time I'm going to
move there um I wish you would but the thing that I was talking about here where it's
possible that it might be a good thing that you have two agencies working on this particular case is where we have
the resources the the larger Sheriff's Department can get from the state funds and from resources that
they have but then you have the small bourbon Police Department that knows that should know the locals better than
the sheriff's department I'm guessing um and I want to use this as an example to to explain this because a lot of
times people get confused about this they think that oh small time you know small towns can't solve crimes the way
that the big city police department oh yeah those those local yokos they can't solve anything so a lot of us City
Slickers have that thought and I want I don't have that thought I want to point this out to everybody because
sometimes in a smaller Community the police department often in cases they they're solved at a higher rate or at
least a suspect is honed in on a little faster in these smaller communities where you have a police department that
understands the locals because often they know the people by name and address and more importantly they know these
people's past yeah you know if I'm a local cop and say it's a Sunday morning an old Leroy's pickup truck got stolen
that was parked on the side of the road last night and I know that living on the
other side of town you know out of his parents houses seventeen-year-old Jerry who has a
history of boosting cars and joy riding around on the weekends well dirty Jerry where do you think I'm going to go first
without you know if there's no evidence pointing to somebody else I might end up
on Jerry's doorstep knocking on the door asking about his whereabouts and and where he was and was he involved in
stealing this car and why do you smell so bad Jerry so that's just I mean that's just an example how in some of
these smaller communities smaller towns that that they can solve these things at
a higher rate now I do know in this bourbon area we're talking about a very small town
that has I mean nearly no homicides nearly no missing persons cases right and that to me is
why it seems so frustrating I think is the right word frustrating the overwork underpaid
Theory doesn't kind of apply to this area not not in the sense of Major Crimes we'll get right back to The
Disappearance of Edward Hill house right after this quick beer break [Music] foreign
[Music] [Music] ties cheers all right we're discussing the case of Edward Hill House he was
missing but his sister Kayla stayed in near constant contact with the two departments investigating the case she
was asking officers for updates wanting to know whether anything had progressed in the case again she felt ignored by
both agencies in this case and I'm not sure that they were working very hard on this case is
is what I'm guessing and here's why Kayla believes officers disregarded vital clues in her brother's case for
example she told them early on of a person in town who seemed to have information that Edward was not just
missing but he was in fact dead right Kayla told police about this person and let's say
um you know the rumor or rumors around this person because here's the thing like you pointed out earlier
I'm willing to bet that that the police probably heard some rumors about this case you know with it being a small town
and I know rumors are rumors but let's face it really uh well let's face it rumors have solved
cases they they have nabbed perps hundreds of thousands of times because of rumors yeah
but Kayla says that they didn't the police didn't speak with the witness that she told them about yeah so this
witness was hanging out at somebody's house and this person actually didn't speak to
Kayla personally I don't believe I believe it was one of those uh in passing I'm going to tell a friend about
what happened and he claims that he saw Edward Hill House dead on a couch at a person's home right
yeah uh so police didn't speak with this witness law enforcement didn't follow up on this
lead I I don't I don't understand I don't get it you know she she presented this to
them in here's what here's what they said investigators basically said you know this is all hearsay
um saying that there's nothing that they could do they couldn't they couldn't just you know round up people and make
them talk to them right they couldn't just round them up and make these people give them answers no you can't but the
thing is is you have somebody saying hey I saw a dead body at this guy's house so what you can do is get a
search warrant and search that guy's property yeah and I know that you can't make
people give you answers but at the very least you can speak with them I mean who's to say according to Kayla they
didn't even speak to the witness that she had provided them and how can how can you tell a victim's loved one who
who themselves is a victim right if there in fact was a crime that took place how how could you tell that person
look we can't make people speak to us we can't make them tell us what they know uh when you didn't even bother to to to
speak with them in the first place man we see law enforcement on the other side sometimes acting too Vigilant you know
we're gonna bring this guy in and because he saw a a dead body on a couch we're gonna pin the murders on him you
know but yeah you call the guy you try to find out if this story is true or not because how many times have you been at
a party drinking and somebody tells you something crazy that you're like that is
definitely not the truth so question these people get a search warrant well here's the other thing too
aren't you kind of telling the perpetrator okay let's let's say that Edward was in fact killed and he was
lying in someone's home and somebody did something with that body right because that's what she stating that this
witness may know right so let's say that that actually took place now aren't you
as law enforcement if you are not following up on leads aren't you kind of telling the criminal that we're not
going to work this case very hard you really have nothing to be afraid of right we'll probably never catch you
because guess what kill again if you want yeah we show up at nine o'clock we clock in and at five you know some
donuts drink a few coffees and clock out at five and smoke three parliaments take
a huge dump we'll see you tomorrow I hope there's a football game on tonight I mean that's really what you're telling
this person that should be should be extremely afraid of the investigation afraid to the point where they might be
willing to come forward and confess say hey I know what happened to this guy that's missing right you know again you
know you know I don't want to jump on law enforcement too much because well I think you can in this particular case
well right at this moment from what we know but we don't know what they're working on behind the scenes as well
that's true that's true so we have Kayla who's going to have to do a little sleuthing of her own you know at her
dinner table she's pouring over Clues she's looking through things apparently authorities had given her Edward's phone
records um something that she was later told is out of the ordinary in a criminal
investigation I would believe that to be very true but after sifting through go ahead I
don't think it's out of the ordinary for the cops to get I mean he had a cell phone right
that's what I'm assuming the records are from yeah yeah so they're taking these cell phone records and they're going to
sift through them let's figure out who he called last right that's or maybe if there's a history of calls who was he
talking to yes this is a small town but that doesn't mean everybody hangs out with each other so let's try to figure
out who is in Edwards Circle right because if there's something that happened that's nefarious then hey
it's going to most likely be within this Inner Circle that's not that odd what's odd is when
they hand her the records right and they say uh yeah you might want to go through
these huh is it that's like what we need your help on this are you too busy eating Donuts
smoking your parliaments and taking a huge dump to look through these phone records
I mean and it doesn't take a you know Kayla looks at the information and what did she figure out real quickly
well the the last person that Edward was on the phone with was a man by the name
of Deacon zelch a man with whom Edward had been hanging out with apparently there were some kind of friends she
tells law enforcement to look at Deacon zelch but according to Kayla they never did anything with this information and I
get what you're saying here captain it's only odd that they provided the phone records to her what's even more
odd was that you would think it's all right you would think that the people that that he spoke to that day the last
day that we know him to have been around um and then maybe you're probably not seeing any more activity on his phone
after that and if that's the case don't you speak to all those people first and then hand over the records when you've
when you've exhausted all leads and said hey you're his sister you're his best friend
you know him better than anybody else right here's the records for the past month or two or three sift through these
and see if anything is odd if anything is strange anything sticks out to you because you would know better than us
because we've spoken to everybody that that he spoke to within the last three days or within the last week right and
again just to play Devil's Advocate I'm not jumping down law enforcement throat they could have been handing her a copy
and the guy could have had a bad day you know his hemorrhoids were flaring up and
he just said hey here's the phone records you need to go through these that that
might be all you know there's a lot of stuff that you know let's just not imply they're not just handing over the phone
records and just not having records I'm going to assume and if they if they did that well
then they're just pieces of [ __ ] but I let's just not assume that that's just what happened and again like I said
it could have just been what the officer was implying her he just had a bad day maybe they were going through the phone
records well because law enforcement didn't follow up with Deacon zelch themselves Kayla she decided to talk to
Deacon herself yeah uh she reached out to him I believe it was on maybe through Facebook messaging
um yeah a lot of times somebody will say text message or they'll say I emailed the person but it's really that you
messaged them through like a social media platform yeah and actually I've there's a there's a few reports about
this case yeah but the few that I've seen and read um each one States something different
that it was either text email or Facebook messaging so I'm a little unclear but regardless she reached out
to Deacon herself well let's explain why though because cops found a lot of marijuana plants on his
property yeah and actually I have the report right here in front of me if you give me
just a second marriage Awana 30 I believe it was 31 plants that they found on his property so yeah Deacon was
growing some marijuana and quite a bit of it um yeah and he got busted now we don't
know if he's going to be charged or not but what does deacon do he runs away leaves town and this is when Kayla
messages him well and he responds back to her message and he gives a lengthy rambling response
right to which Deacon wrote All I can say is some people live life Fuller as ghosts
his spirit and he's referring to Edward here his Spirit just as many of us needs
a break his spirit and a life Fuller as ghost Deacon is talking about Edward is from these words he's not missing
Edward is dead right yes and even to the point that that Deacon has knowledge that Edward is dead is what you can
gather from these messages yeah so here's what we have we have the rumor the rumor starts becoming right that
Edward went and hung out with somebody at some point he's gonna get a call we know from the phone records who calls
him deacon right think it Deacon's this guy shaved head weird beard Captain weird beard right he has a beard
but he has like some stuff well he's there's a few different pictures of him out there and the beard varies depending
on on the photo right but I'm talking about the weird beard yeah it's like it's like these long strands almost like
almost like he has pigtails coming off of his beard or something yeah ugly guy hideous
but that normally happens she got Edward the six foot four tall friend hanging out with Deacon the
ugly friend with the weird beard hit me he kind of looks like a thumb you know like a beat up thumb a bruised
thumb with a beard so he gets a call from deacon at some point then Deacon's gonna pick him up
what happened then what happened next there's no rumors about that but then this unknown source is going around town
saying I was at Deacon's house and I saw Edward on Deacon's couch dead yes and now Deacon is busted with his
marijuana he is now left the town and Kayla contacts him and he starts talking about
spirits and who knows what you know and no no we gotta put this in context a little bit because we could jump to the
conclusion of oh well he's talking uh you know his spirit and all this stuff Deacon was wanted to be known as kind of
a hippie so we got to put that in context well so some clarification this took place in August of 2016. this is when
the investigators found 33 marijuana plants on Deacon zelch's property they located them on the east side behind two
outbuildings that were located on the property yeah They confiscated one and placed it into evidence against deacon
zelch They confiscated all the remaining plants and destroyed them now what they did at the same time
though is they sent in a cadaver dog from a volunteer unit to search for any signs of a corpse but the cadaver dog
did not hit on anything right this is this is strange to me well at least at some point that you know law
enforcement is doing work yeah yeah in in this but but this is what the problem is here Captain is that we have
um we have a situation where we have the sister who has provided a witness or possible witnesses to law enforcement
and those people were not reached reached out to they were not spoken to and for whatever reason
they do decide to do the cadaver dog thing in August of 2016. but this is this is after some time here this is he
went missing in April of 2016. so quite some time has passed and then it's not doing any work yeah but then a few other
changes have occurred as well and in that uh in that time since Edward vanished without a trace the bourbon
police chief and the Crawford County Sheriff well they both retired mm-hmm so convenient so Kayla is hoping that
this Changing of the Guard will put some fresh eyes on this case the new police chief that came on board this is Paul
Satterfield previously a detective in the Crawford County Sheriff's Office he was already familiar with the case when
he took over right so Chief Satterfield felt the same as Kayla he too wanted to put fresh eyes on this case because
Satterfield felt that from early on in the initial investigation that Deacon zelch was a good suspect yeah that he
was somebody that they should be looking at and we have these rumors around town
why aren't they talking to him right in the new and the new Chief was also he wasn't satisfied with the low with how
little progress had taken place in Edward hillhouse's case so he hired a task force
he used the town of bourbon's public funds to hire this task force he broke away
from the rest of Crawford County and hired a vice unit from Franklin County that had no ties to the area
Franklin County is just North of uh of Crawford County by the way and when these new investigators came in they
started the investigation over from scratch a clean slate right and what what is one of the main reasons this is
happening it's because of Deacon's father yes yes it's because of deacons Deacon
zelch's father Vernon zelch uh he he had worked for the police department yeah and they're going to use this informant
they're going to use this witness that you had spoke about that that had said that they witnessed the body the
lifeless body of Edward Hillhouse lying on a couch in Deacon zelch's home they're going to use that information
the other the other information that they receive from this informant was that deaconzel should actually admitted
to them that he had killed Edward with a single shot to the head with a 22 caliber rifle right so Vernon zelch he
worked in law enforcement but now he does a lot of stuff with like radio and but he knows like everybody in this
small town I mean yeah he's he's uh what I would refer to as a personality you know what I mean he's a personality
amongst amongst Town amongst the the small town right but even though you're the personality around town or a
personality around town if there's rumors that your son murdered somebody you're going knocking on that door
and you're investigating but it seems like there was nothing happen until there was a Changing of the Guard
and I think that's the main reason why you know the new sheriff in town or the new Chief right said hey let's set up a
task force because I have reason to believe that Vernon is snooping around and and basically
um obstructing justice yeah and the problem you're gonna have here Captain is the the little bourbon
Police Department that's with inside of Crawford County uh that's that's policed
by the sheriff's department right all those guys are going to be buddies so it doesn't matter if you work for the
police department or if you work for the sheriff's department these guys know each other these guys hang out in the
same circles they're going to or they at least should have one another's backs right
but the thing is a certain degree well of course to a certain degree not to the point of crossing the line right but
this is crossing the line if you're not you're not interviewing people you're not falling if you're looking if you're
looking the other way because you know someone because you know the zelch family and you're you don't want to
offend anybody or you don't want to throw anybody under the bus then yes you're doing you're doing the wrong
thing you're you're not doing what you swore to do which is protect the people of your jurisdiction and that's why you
have Satterfield Chief Satterfield the new new Chief calling in this vice squad from Franklin County yeah they had
Satterfield they have no ties they may not even know anybody uh from Crawford County or from the bourbon Police
Department so they're going to go in there and be able to look at this thing and not have any worries about it not
have any preconceived notions about anybody right they're going to be able to actually go in there and do their
jobs do what these other officers and investigators should have done from the get-go they're going to go in there
the situation we have right is that they're going to go in there and they're going to do their due diligence
well and we have we were able to speak with Edward's sister Kayla and that's who you heard earlier in the show
discussing her relationship with her brother and what type of person he was and she also knew Deacon zelch the
person that she pointed out to investigators should be someone that they should talk to and we get to hear
Kayla describe Deacon zelch and describe the relationship that her brother had with him
Edward's relationship was D with Deacon was very vague to me um Deacon was known into the community
for not being very bright never actually worked couldn't keep a family he had multiple
kids but never took care of them or they'd have nothing to do with him as they got older
Deacon had a little respect around here for from people so when Edward started hanging out with him I warned them about
him that he was no good that he wasn't a good person I told him I don't want him
around my house or anywhere near us or my family so a good description of this Shady
character Deacon zelch who may be at the center of this missing person's case yeah we have a 28 year old young man
missing a family looking for him investigators early on don't seem to be working the case very hard
and then we have these rumors about town that seem to be pointing this case in the direction of we're no longer working
a missing person's case this could be a homicide investigation we have Kayla who's working hard on her own her family
working hard to point the investigators in that direction The Changing of the Guard the vice squad comes in and very
quickly we might see some movement on this and we also might see the hints of a possible police cover-up
foreign [Music] Captain I want to thank you and I want to thank everybody out there for kicking
off the new year with us here in the garage and we got plenty more to get to in this case and we look forward to
doing so on the next show we will see you back here in the garage until then be good be kind and don't litter
foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music]

We're All Lunatics /// Part 1 /// 171

Part 1 of 2

www.TrueCrimeGarage.com

On April 26th, 2016 a 28 year old man went missing from the small town of Bourbon, Missouri. Edward Hillhouse was last seen leaving his sister's home. He was going to get some of his belongings he had stored at her home and take them to his new place. He never did. Edward was seen walking down the driveway toward the highway. He never returned to his sister's home. Tonight we discuss the case of a missing man in a small town that turned into a small town murder.

Beer of the Week - Cast Iron Oatmeal Brown by 4 Hands BrewingGarage Grade - 3 and 3 quarter bottle caps out of 5

Beer Fund: https://truecrimegarage.com/home

Brief Summary

The episode discusses Edward Hillhouse's mysterious disappearance and the investigation's shortcomings, highlighting family struggles and police inaction.

Key points

The Disappearance of Edward Hillhouse. Edward Hillhouse went missing in April 2016, leaving his family desperate for answers.
Kayla's Fight for Answers. Edward's sister, Kayla, took matters into her own hands to find her brother.
Police Ignoring Leads. Kayla expresses frustration over police not following up on vital witness information.
Deacon's Mysterious Message. Deacon hints at Edward's fate with a cryptic message about living as ghosts.
Task Force Established. New police chief hires a task force to reinvestigate Edward's case after little progress.
Police Accountability. The new Chief calls in a vice squad to investigate potential police misconduct.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Edward would have been an amazing father had he had a chance.

Reflecting on Edward's potential as a father.

3:57WatchNov 27, 2022

Tension

60/ 100Some tension

More from True Crime Garage TV

Solve the Crime

Read a real case one clue at a time, then see how your call held up against the investigators.