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

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[Music] e welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
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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 a typical boy we grew
up with my father so as you'd expect I stayed pretty close to him anything he did and I did no
matter what it was if he was 100 ft 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 talked to each other and he often talked about his
future for him he couldn't wait to start a family he respected women as our father taught us and his kids kids were
drawn to him 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 them not what they looked like or not
what they had or where they lived Edward and I grew up poor 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 in particularly was Deacon [Music] salch 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 Hillhouse 28 years old had been missing from the Bourbon Missouri area since April 26th
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 residence 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 uh 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 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 hillh House'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 MH 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 Cayla 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 $1,500 reward for information leading to the location of Edward Hill house so before 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 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 mhm 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 mhm 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 so it's time to turn up the heat on those fools right here is
some information on Edward Hill housee a little uh victim profile if you will at
the time of his disappearance he was 28 years old height and weight he is 6'4 to
6'5 in tall and about 160 lb 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 housee 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 12th 1988 in Missouri to Timothy Hillhouse
and Sherry Hillhouse Edward's parents would eventually separate his mother Sherry went on to marry Benny Compton of
for Sith Missouri Edward moved to Bourbon in 2011 to be closer to his sister mhm 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 Tolliver prior to The Disappearance Edward Jr Hillhouse was described as a resident of Caseville
Missouri might be cville Missouri I apologize which is a town of a little more than 3,200 people in Barry County
which is in the southwestern portion of the state another very small town both of these extremely small towns yes uh
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 uh 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 altogether 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 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 or at the very least to his sister MH
but the 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 mhm 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 well and with a such a
small town You' 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 toer this would all take place after her brother and best friend had disappeared
the police in the investigation according to Kayla toer 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 a 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 uh 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's 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 people
that have been family members of victims or family members of people that have gone missing M and the thing that I
found very surprising when we first got into this and 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 haveh 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 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 take Mara Murray for example she leaves
her her College she's driving down the road her car wrecks disappeared Into Thin Air Brian schaer goes into a bar
talks to some people people never seen leaveing the bar disappears now you take Edward Hill House 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 mhm 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 cuz if you have two you can point the finger you can pass the buck
all day long you can go well that's uh we we're not handling that they are and pointing the finger is 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 Muny 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 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 somebody needs step up and take a responsibility for this case well my guess here and I I'm
sure that U you know our our listeners are certainly smarter than me um 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 mhm 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 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 to 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 then 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 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 M 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 I do do you wish that they would handle that differently do you I'm I'm
sure there's there's a lot of victims families out there that probably screaming it from the mountain tops 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 with
individual so once you make contact with the individual then you have to say hey
look the people that filed the missing room person report would be your parents for example okay so you went missing
your parents are looking for you uh 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 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 Clos 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 it 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 anymore than it's just a missing person potentially left on their own well and the thing to is
one would argue you know overwork underpaid and I'm sure that's the case in especially smaller towns where 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 what 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 a 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 mhm 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 it seems like um yeah but how many thousands of cases Missy person cases
have the parents said that or a friend or a family or girlfriend said 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 kargo uh Key West is just full of people that have run from other other towns and cities hey Key
West is a 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 I is where we have
the resources the that 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 departments yeah those those local yoos they can't solve
anything so a lot of us City Slickers have that thought and I 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 house is
17-year-old Jerry who has a history of boosting cars en 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
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[Music] all right cheers me mes cheers all right we're discussing the case of Edward
Hillhouse he was missing but his sister Kayla stayed in near constant contact with the two departments investigating
the case M 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 M you know with it being a small town and I know rumors are rumors
but let's face it really uh let's face it rumors have solved cases they they have nabbed perss 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 mhm and he claims that he saw Edward Hillhouse 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 MH I 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 B basically said you know
this is all heay 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 H how could you tell that person look we can't make people speak to us we can't make make them tell us
what they know uh when you didn't even bother to to to speak with them in the first place right and we see law
enforcement on the other side sometimes acting too Vigilant you know we're going
to bring this guy in and because he saw a a dead body on a couch we're going to pin the murders on him you know but you
you you call the guy you 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 h 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 9:00 we clock in and at 5: you know Donuts drink a few
coffees and clock out at 5: and smoke three parliaments take a huge dump we'll see you tomorrow I hope there's a
football game on tonight mhm 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 again you know you know I don't want to jump on law
enforcement too much because there well I think he 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 Edwards 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 goad I don't think it's out of the ordinary for the cops to get I mean he had 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 into 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 Edward's Circle right because if there's something that happened and it'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 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 does 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 they were some kind of friends she tells law enforcement to look at deacon elch uh 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 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 3 days or within the
last week right and again just to play Devil's Advocate not jumping down law enforcement's 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 mhm
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 or 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 and yeah a lot of times somebody will say text message or they'll say I emailed the person but
it's really that you message them through like a social media platform yeah and and actually I've there's a
there's 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 marijana
30 I believe it was 31 plants that they found on his property they so yeah Deacon was growing some Mar Joana 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 de 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 uh to which Deacon wrote All I can say is some people live life Fuller as
ghost 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 as and even
to the point that the 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
MH at some point he's going to get a call mhm we know from the phone records who calls him Deacon right de 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 and but that normally
happens you got Edward the 6 foot four tall friend hanging out with Deacon the ugly friend with a weird beard he kind
of looks like a thumb you know like a beat up thumb a bruise thumb with a beard so he gets a call from deacon at some
point then Deacon's going to pick him up what happened then what happened next there's no rumors about that M 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 has now left the town and Kayla
contacts him and he starts talking about spirits and who knows what you know and
now now we got to put this in context a little bit cuz we could jump to the conclusion of oh well he's talking all
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 zel's property they located them on the east
side behind two out buildings 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
sign of a corpse uh but theab 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 and and 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 is provided
a witness or possible witnesses to law enforcement and those people were not reaching
reached out to they were not spoken to mhm 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 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 mhm the bourbon police chief and the Crawford County
Sheriff well they both retired mhm 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 saterfield previously a detective in the
Crawford County Sheriff's Office he was already familiar with the case when he took over right so chief sanderfield
felt the same as Kayla he too wanted to put fresh eyes on this case because sanderfield 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 and
the new and the new Chief was also he wasn't satisfied with the low with how little progress had taken place in
Edward Hill House's case so he hired a task force mhm 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 but but
what is one of the main reasons this is happening it's because of Deacon's father Yes yes it's because of Deacon
Deacon zel's father Vernon zelch uh he he had worked for the police department yeah and they're going to use this
informant uh 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 c couch in Deacon Z's home they're going to use that
information the other the other information that they received from this informant was that Deacon zelch had
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 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 and 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 happened
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 going to 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 bu budies 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 to 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 that because you know the zel 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 saterfield Chief saterfield the new new Chief calling in this vice squad from Franklin County
yeah I saterfield they have no ties they 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 and 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 with 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 uh Degan had a little respect around here from from people so when Edward
started hanging out with him I warned him 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 [Music] all right 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 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 [Music] [Applause] [Music] whether you're making the same breakfast
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We're All Lunatics /// Part 1 /// 171

Part 1 of 2

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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.

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Brief Summary

The episode covers Edward Hillhouse's disappearance, family frustrations, and police investigation failures in Bourbon, Missouri.

Key points

The Disappearance of Edward Hillhouse. Edward Hillhouse went missing under mysterious circumstances in 2016, leaving his family desperate for answers.
Family's Frustration with Police. Kayla, Edward's sister, felt ignored by law enforcement during the investigation.
Kayla's Frustration with Police. Kayla feels ignored by law enforcement in her brother's case, believing vital clues were overlooked.
Deacon's Cryptic Message. Deacon responds to Kayla's message with a strange remark about Edward's spirit, hinting at something darker.
The Cadaver Dog Search. A cadaver dog was brought in to search Deacon's property, but it found nothing.
Change in Law Enforcement. With the retirement of key police officials, Kayla hopes for a fresh perspective on the case.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

He had no fear as a kid.

Describing Edward's childhood bravery.

4:00WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

60/ 100Some tension

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