Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore - The Deadly Night Out: The Disappearance of Gretchen Fleming

Episode Date: October 7, 2026

Today's episode features an appearance by Connor Tomlinson, star of Love on the Spectrum and the new co-host of the Rewind Original What the Fact. As a special segment, Connor and Kaelyn will go over some of history's most botched investigations. Be sure to follow What the Fact wherever you listen to podcasts, with new episodes dropping every Wednesday! For more: https://t-sml.mtrbio.com/public/smartlink/whatthefact-856Then, today's main case: In December 2022, Gretchen Fleming finished her shift in Parkersburg, West Virginia and went out for karaoke. She left her purse in a friend's car and walked out just after three in the morning with a man she'd met that night. No one reported her missing for eight days. No one found her for almost three years. Because the man police say she left with had spent twelve years as a West Virginia police officer under another name. This episode Sabrina and Kaelyn follow the clues: a purse no one ever came back for. A car an entire county was asked to search for. And remains that took genetic testing to name. By the end, there's an indictment, a not-guilty plea, and no trial date.Head over to our Clues YouTube channel to WATCH this episode: https://www.youtube.com/@CluesPodIf you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Clues to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Clues is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals including Crime House 24/7, Crimes Of Reddit, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow us on SocialYouTube: @CluesPod | @crimehousestudiosInstagram: @cluespodcast | @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaClues is hosted by Kaelyn Moore Instagram: @itskaelynmooreTikTok: @heartstartspoundingEpisode Sponsors:Apply to Year Up United today, and take the first step toward achieving the career you want. Visit https://www.YearUp.org to learn more.With Nutrafol Strand Serum, your length goals are officially in reach. Discover Strand Serum today at https://www.Nutrafol.com

I'm Connor Tomlinson from Love on the Spectrum. History is my thing, and I've been waiting my whole life for a show like this one. And I'm Carter Roy, and this is What the Fact. Three facts a week, each with the whole story behind it. The history class you actually wished you had in school. New episodes every Wednesday. Follow What The Fact wherever you listen or subscribe on YouTube at What The Fact Pod. This is Crimehouse.

A 27-year-old musician and writer, vanishes in her hometown after a night out at the bars. Her purse and her wallet are left behind, but her disappearance isn't reported for eight days. Her final moments are on camera, and within 48 hours, police have a very solid lead. But it takes them three and a half years before anyone is charged. Hi, welcome to clues, where we sneak past the crime scene tape to explore the key evidence behind some of the most gripping true crime cases. I'm Kailen Moore, and I'll be the one digging deeper into the timelines, the backstories,

and the court files released for these cases. And today, once again, I'm so excited to welcome my very good friend and host of Crime House's newest show, Crimes of Reddit, and also the co-host of Two Girls One Ghost, Sabrina Deanna Roga. If you love falling down the Reddit hole as much as I do, I can guarantee you'll love the show. Until then, I'm excited to be joining you, Kaylin, as the co-host, talking about the clues and internet theories, and also doing the botched board. And don't forget to share your thoughts on social. Want ad-free and early access to clues in the rest of the Crimehouse lineup?

Subscribe to Crimehouse Plus and get at least two bonus episodes for for your time. across Crimehouse every month. To join, go to Crimehouseplus.com or if you listen on Apple Podcasts, try free at the top of the Clues page. Now, let's get into the case of Gretchen Fleming and the clues that defined it. Hey, Clues, crew. Before we get into today's case, I've got something very exciting that I want to share with you. Today, I'm coming to you from the set of Pave Studios' newest show, What the Fact. I'm joined by Connor Tomlinson, which I'm so excited about. you might know him from Love on the Spectrum and as the co-host of What the Fact, where he and Carter Roy take you through some of the most unbelievable true stories in history. Make sure to subscribe to them on YouTube and follow wherever you get your podcasts.

Hello, everyone. I'm Connor Tomlinson. Thank you for having me, Kaelin, and thank you for coming. So here's the plan for today. Connor and I are going to talk through three historically bungled or botched investigations. And we're going to decide which one was the biggest botch. Then be sure to stick around after for a sneak peek of what the fact. See you soon. All right. So we're going to get into this one today. We have a big case for you.

A very interesting one that's had big updates recently. Very recently. Recent updates. So this might be one that you've heard on true crime channels maybe years ago. But we have lots of updates to go over with you today. And just a reminder, if you're watching on YouTube, you're going to see some pictures, videos, maybe maps that will help. you visualize the case. And if you're listening, you can see all the same assets on our Instagram.

That's at Clues Podcast. A warning before we begin. This episode contains discussions of murder, kidnapping, sexual abuse, and gender-based violence. Please listen with care. So we're going to start on December 3, 2022. 27-year-old Gretchen Fleming is looking forward to a night out in her hometown of Parkersburg, West Virginia. Gretchen's only been back home for about six months. Before that, she was off at college in North Carolina, so she missed a lot of her friends back home. And lately, she's been making up for lost time and trying to reconnect with a lot of them. Ever since she's been back in town, she's been hopping around, couch surfing a little bit. She mostly stays with her paternal grandparents in nearby Vienna, West Virginia,

and sometimes she floats between friends' houses or other relatives. Plus, she doesn't drive, so she's kind of at the mercy of those around her. But she manages pretty easily. So that morning, her grandma Louise drops her off for a shift at the local H&M. As they say goodbye, Gretchen tells Louise that she's going out after work and she's probably not going to be staying with her later that night. It's just easier that way. Louise has a strict policy. Her doors lock at 10 p.m. So whenever Gretchen stays out past 10 p.m., she usually spends the night elsewhere. Now, Gretchen doesn't take it personally. Louise does this for her own safety, and plus the

two have a really close relationship. So after she finishes her shift, Gretchen meets up with a friend known only is John. They start their evening at the front row sports bar in Parkersburg where Gretchen is a regular. Some of her old high school classmates work there

including the bartender on duty that night, Casey Farnsworth. Around 11 p.m. She and John leave front row and they head to My Way lounge about 10 minutes away

where the bar is having a weekly karaoke night. My Way is a solid bar on any night of the week. There's poker machines, there's pool tables, they have a jukebox.

When they arrive, Gretchen leaves her purse and phone in John's car rather than bringing them inside. For whatever reason, I mean, maybe she doesn't want to carry them with her. This is one thing that will be debated a lot, and unfortunately, we will never know the reason why she left her phone, but it's a very unfortunate part of the case. So that night, people described there being a good-sized crowd for karaoke. Gretchen and John stay for several hours before they call it a night.

But the next morning, something really strange happens. John shows up to the front row alone, that first bar that they went to, and he's carrying Gretchen's purse with her phone, her ID, and her credit cards all still inside, and then he hands it to the daytime bartender. He says that he has no idea where Gretchen is. He hasn't seen her since they were at the bar last night. And he's not the only one. But still, it's going to take another eight days before Gretchen is reported missing. But before we get further into what happened, let's talk a little bit of the first. bit more about Gretchen, who she was, and how she ended up at home at 27, figuring out her next steps. So Gretchen was born on December 24, 1994, in Warrington, Virginia. Her parents split soon after she was born. Now Gretchen and her younger sister, Emma, stayed with their dad, David. He moved

the family to Parkersburg, West Virginia. It's about 270 miles from Warrington. And it doesn't seem like Gretchen kept in close contact with her biological mother, though her name didn't really appear in any of the coverage of this case. David goes on to... to remarry. He met someone new, this woman named Jennifer. And after they got together when Gretchen was in her mid-teens, they blended their family together. Yeah. Jennifer had twins from a previous relationship, and David had Gretchen and Emma, and the couple went on to have three more kids together. So it was a full house. Another set of twins, a boy named after David, and there were seven kids in total. Now, coming from a big blended family, Gretchen found ways to stand out.

People said she had incredible style. She loved thrift shopping. She had a great eye for it. Plus, she knew all of the best spots to go. She also loved talking about astrology. She was obsessed with Borders Books. And most importantly, she might have been the band Paramore's biggest fan. She even dyed her hair red wants to look like the lead singer Haley Williams, which I loved that fact about her. Because who didn't dye their hair because of Haley Williams? Oh, 100%. You know, maybe inspired by Haley, Gretchen loved to sing. She wrote her own songs and she loved doing karaoke. She was never part of the popular crowd. She's more of a creative, quirky type. maybe kind of like us, honestly.

But people loved her. She was different from a lot of other people in the best way possible. And those close to Gretchen believed that she was going to be the one that left their small town to go on and do big things. And she actually did for a while. So after graduating from Parkersburg High School, she moved to North Carolina for college. There she studied political science at both William Peace and Shaw University. But she eventually dropped out and she moved to Charleston, South Carolina, supposedly for a new boyfriend. and things seemed to be going the way she wanted until May of 2022 when Gretchen was 27.

That's when she lost her biological mother. The details of this part of the case are not entirely clear, but the disappeared episode on her case said that Gretchen had to make a pretty hard decision about it herself. She was the one who had to take her mom off of life support. So right around that same time, her relationship in Charleston started falling apart, Gretchen thought that this guy was the one she'd given up a lot for him. She was also left reeling when it ended. And suddenly, the girl who always dreamed of getting out of West Virginia was forced to go back home.

Can I add a category to the botchburg? Oh my God, of course. I want to give out hugs this episode. Yeah, that's great. Because I feel like a lot of people, and as we'll see, in this case, need hugs. Yeah. Yeah, definitely Gretchen. Like, that's just a lot of hard stuff to deal with in your 20s.

Okay, so I gave one hug. Okay, yeah, that's a good one. So by that point, her dad was busy with the younger kids that he had after Gretchen was born and his new job as a high school wrestling coach. So Gretchen decided she was going to stay with her paternal grandparents about 15 minutes away in Vienna. And it wasn't supposed to be permanent, just some family time to clear her head and figure out next steps. Everyone in their 20s, I feel like has this moment. Yes. But her 76-year-old grandmother, Louise, was delighted to have her.

Louise would say later of Gretchen, she brought life, she brought passion, she brought joy, and she always knew how to make you smile. Soon, Gretchen got a job working at the H&M at the Grand Central Mall in Vienna, but her 20th birthday was coming up on Christmas Eve. And this is not where she wanted to be at this age. It's not what she imagined for herself. But still, she reminded herself it was only temporary that she was on the way out of her slump. And that brings us to December 4th of 2022 when John goes up to that bartender. says he doesn't know where Gretchen is. So we talked about it earlier, but Gretchen was not reported missing right away, which I'm going to hit the botch board on like the people around her. Yeah. There's some people who I don't blame, but it's definitely a botched.

To hear that someone is missing for eight days and doesn't get reported, it just, yeah, it feels like a botch. Agreed. So around the time of her disappearance, her dad, who's 48-year-old David, sent her text. he didn't hear back from Gretchen. And that was not necessarily unusual for her. She sometimes waited a few days to respond. So he assumed that she would just get back to him eventually. And meanwhile, her grandmother Louise assumed that Gretchen was staying with someone else for a few nights. Like she did sometimes. And this is where you're getting into, like, she is just always staying at someone else's house. So it was easy for people to be like, oh, she must just be staying somewhere else right now. No one is linking up to say, hey, I haven't heard from her. Right. So that is how an entire week passed before anyone realized that something was seriously wrong. Finally, on December 11th, Louise was worried enough to go over to David and Jennifer's house and see if they had heard from Gretchen. And when they told her that they hadn't, that's when the alarm all goes off in all of their heads. David and Jennifer called and texted her repeatedly, and still, with no response,

they drove around to the local bars and restaurants that she hung out at asking if anyone had seen her. And it's not until they got to front row, that first place that she went on December 3rd, that they learned something. A bartender handed David Gretchen's purse. And she told him that it had been sitting there unclaimed for an entire week. Gretchen's phone, her ID, and her credit card were all inside. And David, as a dad, sees this and immediately just gets a horrible feeling.

That's... It's every very important item. Yeah. Inside the purse. I'm going to give another hug. And also the phone, like, just to know, Oh, the one thing that can track her at all times that police would be able to figure out maybe where she is if she just had the phone with her, not available. It's in the purse, so they have it.

So it got worse when the bartender told him that the purse had been dropped off by a man who had been on a date with Gretchen the night before on December 3rd. So on December 12, 2022, that's eight days after Gretchen was last seen, David and Jennifer officially reported her missing. Once David and Jennifer filed a missing person's report, the Parkersburg police open a case. and get to work. And I will say it does sound like they did a really good job of like immediately. Yeah. So Parkersburg Detective James Zimmerman was assigned to the case. And when he heard that she had been missing for that long and her phone and everything was found in the purse, he was like, we need all hands on deck.

Yeah, he agrees. That is a big deal. Yeah. Which is so different from so many cases we cover where they're like, nah, she's an adult. She's on a date. She'll come back. So do we give a Sherlock? It's tough because I've been told to stop giving Sherlock for people doing their job.

They're doing their job? Okay, sure. And I'm trying, you guys. I want to give people pads on the back for doing the bare minimum. That is so fair. That's a flaw of mine. Okay. The police immediately posted that she was missing on their Facebook page, and this post is shared over a thousand times. Like, the community is getting very involved. Yeah. So maybe a Sherlock for the community. Yeah, we'll do that. That's fair. I love giving out Sherlock, so I'll do it. We're Sherlock happy over here. One of his first priorities was to find. Find the man that Gretchen was on a date with the night she disappeared. And the bartender at the front row only knew him as John. So no one knew his last name. Like literally one of the most common names in the country.

Literally the most common. It's similar to me, like alarm bells are going off. You hear that this man, John, was the last person seen with her. And he dropped her purse off the next day. Like, you're kind of like, oh, that's suspicious. Point being, police definitely think he's involved in some way we need to talk to him. But John was not hiding. In fact, he came forward on his own after seeing the photo of Gretchen being posted online.

He walked into the police to tell them everything he knew. Yeah. He seemed eager to cooperate and he was genuinely worried about Gretchen. So his account of that night of December 3rd, 2022 is actually our first clue. According to John, he and Gretchen met up. They went to front row and they stayed there until around 11 p.m. then they went to My Way for karaoke. When they got to my way, John ran into a couple of people he knew,

and so he went to say hi. Somewhere amongst this, John lost track of Gretchen. The bar had dim lighting and a couple of separate rooms, so there were people who were stepping outside to smoke, what not. John said at first he wasn't too concerned. She figured that she wouldn't leave without him. They went there together, and I think he had, he told the police that he was planning to drive her home.

Yeah. And like that was, they both agreed on that. But then later in the night, John got anxious. He knew the bar would be closing soon. So he made a quick trip to the bathroom, took another look around the My Way bar as the crowd was filtering out. But he still could not find Gretchen. She was not there. He even went to bars nearby in search of her. And like, ultimately, at a certain point, he was like, I don't know where she is. So, and he had no way of contacting her. So he went home. keep in mind her purse and phone are in his car right so he couldn't call her yes her phone is in the car exactly so the next day not knowing what to do john went back to the front row the morning of december 4th and gave them gretchen's person phone to the bartender working because he assumed you know gretchen would wake up the next morning and realize she didn't have her phone in purse and she'd be like oh well i must have left it at a bar right and that she would retrace her steps yeah So I understand that thought process, but I also feel like maybe he could have reported that. I don't know. It's hard because it's like, how well do you know each other?

How long have you been friends? You don't. Yeah. I know. That's hard. And all of John's information has not been released to the public. We only know his name. Yeah.

His first name. But yeah, so then he saw Gretchen was reported missing on Facebook and he went to Detective Zimmerman and told him about that night. Even Gretchen's dad, David, believes John. He later said of John, he was just as freaked out as I am as a father. And then the police seemed to agree. Not only was John cooperative and his concern for Gretchen seems sincere, but more importantly, his story did check out. My Way Bar provided police with all the security footage they had,

and upon reviewing it, John's story adds up. In the footage, you can see John chatting with his friends, and then leaving the bathroom and walking around the bar looking for Gretchen at the end of the night. So it's pretty clear he left by himself. After that, he was cleared of any suspicion. But John's story and the surveillance footage pointed police to the next clue. A clue that really should have and kind of did crack the case open. Did you know penicillin, the drug that has saved more lives than any other in history,

was discovered because a scientist forgot to clean a petri dish before going on vacation? I'm Connor Tomlinson, and history is my name. thing has been my whole life. And I'm Carter Roy, and this is what the fact. The history lesson you actually wished you had in high school with everything they cut for being too interesting put back in.

Every week, we take the wildest true things that ever happened and tell you the whole story behind them. I bring the history. I bring the facts, the tangents, and the occasional British accent. The wildest stuff is real. And the real stuff is wilder than

you think. New episodes, every one, Wednesday. Follow What the Fact on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or subscribe on YouTube at What The Fact Pod. You know their names. You know their faces, but you've never heard these stories. On Celebrity Ghost Stories, an A&E original podcast presented by Rewind Studios, you'll hear spooky stories directly from the actors, musicians, and athletes you love in their own words. What do you do when a spirit saves you? you from the edge of death when a single night in a strange hotel ends with you running for the door, from angry spirits to haunted houses to unexplainable magic. These are true first-person accounts told by the stars who lived through them. Follow celebrity ghost stories available now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. It is the surveillance footage and the second clue being the man seen with Gretchen on the My Way security footage.

Because John is not the only person seen on surveillance footage. You can see Gretchen too. I say you, but you can't because it's... We've not released it to the public. Yeah, never been released. But on the footage, Detective Zimmerman saw Gretchen Fleming sitting alone at the end of the bar. And then, an older man with short, thinning gray hair comes into frame. This man brings Gretchen a drink and a drink. And after that, the two of them go into the lounge's separate gambling room, and they stay there together for the next 30 to 45 minutes. When they exit the gambling room, the older man leads the way out of the bar, and Gretchen follows right behind him. This was not long before closing time, and actually,

timing-wise, is exactly the same time that John went to go to the bathroom before looking for Gretchen. So truly, they just missed each other. Just missed each other. It is in that small window that Gretchen left. So this video footage is a huge lead. Zimmerman needed to move fast because he was like in case Gretchen is still out there and alive and in need of help. Like we need to find this man and we need to ask him questions. So Zimmerman begins questioning employees at the My Way lounge to see if any of them recognized the man on camera. And they did. It's important to note that the man's name that I'm about to share was never released to the public until like a year after Gretchen was missing. Yeah.

But his name was Preston Pierce. So someone knew his name. Like someone watched the footage and it's like a small community. Yeah. They saw that footage and they were like, that's Preston. Yeah. Like immediately recognized him too. Yeah.

Yes. Investigators quickly identified his vehicle, a black Nissan rogue sport with a Darth Vader sticker on the left rear window. But there is no camera footage that shows Preston getting into his car or Greg. getting into the car with him after that. But there is footage of the car driving past the front of the My Way bar, but because it's late at night, it's dark, you cannot see who's inside the vehicle, and you cannot see if Gretchen is in the passenger seat. So that means they can't confirm whether or not Gretchen was with him when he drove away. So on December 13th, the first full day of the investigation, the chief of police asked local news stations to air an appeal for tips.

The following day, detectives try to stitch together footage from surveillance cameras all around town. They're like, we know he went this direction leaving My Way bar. Yeah, let's just get all the cameras. Let's get every camera footage we can. And by doing this, they see Preston's vehicle on the roads that morning. And they were able to track its movement in the direction of his home. Like, it's heading towards where he lives. Unfortunately, a lot of these cameras recorded in fairly low resolution, which means that none of them have enough, or none of them,

them are clear enough to show if Gretchen's in the car with him. With that said, police had to go about this next part of the investigation the old-fashioned way by figuring out who Preston Pierce is and by questioning him. According to staff at My Way Bar, Preston Pierce was not a regular, but he had been down to the bar a couple of times before this, which is also why people at the bar recognized him and his name. Police tracked down the 55-year-old. They find that he is an app-based delivery driver. in the early morning hours of December 13th, investigators sat down with Preston Pierce for questioning, making Preston's story our third clue. Shockingly, Preston does admit that Gretchen had been in his car around the time of her disappearance.

But he tells police that he dropped her off somewhere downtown in Parkersburg on December 4th and that she left on foot. Again, police have not released the location that Preston claimed to have dropped her off to the public, because it is an ongoing investigation. But according to Zimmerman, police then went down to the downtown area. They start knocking on doors. They are looking for any information. Did anyone see Gretchen walking? They are asking for security footage to confirm Preston's story.

Right. On December 14th, the Parkersburg police received a lot of surveillance footage, and while reviewing it, they reconstruct where Preston went in the early hours of December 4th. That route did not line up with his story. Gretchen, nor Preston's car are seen in the downtown area that he claimed have dropped her off at. Instead, the footage seemed to indicate, like I said earlier, that Preston was driving in the direction of his home. Based on the route that he took, they canvassed the area under the Fifth Street Bridge because I thought it could be a possible dumping site. Yeah, so they're already thinking that something nefarious happened.

They didn't find anything of note. Point being now at this point, they know Preston had lied. He's lying. Yeah. He's suss. So when detectives called him out on it and pressed him on where he actually took Gretchen, he ended the interview. Because at that point, he could just walk away, not under arrest. He stopped cooperating entirely.

And so what investigators really suspected was that he drove Gretchen to his home on Division Street in Parkersburg, which is only about six minutes from My Way lounge. They couldn't prove it yet, but they could prove that he was lying and that he wasn't being honest. and because Preston Pierce was as far as they knew the last person to see Gretton Fleming, they were able to get multiple search warrants. Now, from here on, there's a lot that we still don't know, mainly because police kept a lot of what they were doing sealed to protect the case in court. But we know that on December 15th, three days into the investigation, police executed multiple search warrants on Preston's home on Division Street.

That also included his vehicle and a rented storage unit. All were filed under seal so we don't know what they found, if anything. That same day, the community held a vigil for Gretchen at Vienna Baptist Church, which is close to her grandparents' home. And the word had spread fast about Gretchen's case, and a lot of people showed up. Meanwhile, the Parkersburg Police Department was getting flooded with tips. Like, again, the community is really coming through with this one. There were quite a few about Preston, even though police had never publicly named him as a person of interest in their case. which leads us to our fourth clue, Preston's reputation.

To summarize, Preston was known to be a creep, capital C-R-E-E-P, like the worst of the worst. Yeah. A lot of these tips talked about Preston's extremely checkered past. And the first thing that they learn, and I don't know this is necessarily from the tips, but detectives looked into Preston's past, they learned that his real name was actually Darrell Lott and he had legally changed his name sometime around 2009, which given what I'm about to share, it makes me think there's a nefarious reason. Why he changed his name.

Like something he was running from from his past. And even more shocking than the name change is that before he changed his name, he was a police officer for 12 years. 12 years. He moved around a lot in that career. He moved from one department to another. He moved from one location to another. A lot.

I think we can put that on the botched board. Yeah, the botch board is like becoming just a like, what the hell were they doing kind of board? Like, bodge, moving around all that time. A Facebook page about Gretchen's case shared what appeared to be screenshots of official records from his law enforcement career. And if accurate, they show he was terminated from his final policing job in Bellington on July 2, 2009. And we don't have records that explicitly say why he was terminated, but like we're assuming, a lot of assumptions have been made. So since then, Preston Pierce, had been driving for food delivery apps for some time. So already, some red flags.

Yeah. Even more concerning were the countless people who started to come forward who had been personally harassed by Preston. There it is. Prior to his name being released to the public, but then also once his name was released to the public, more came forward. people in Parkersburg and the surrounding area recognized him, and multiple people called Gretchen's stepmother, Jennifer, to personally share their experiences. And a lot of other people took to that Facebook page.

And there were like over 40 individual accounts from people saying that they personally had been harassed by Preston. And then, of course, these reports, a lot of reports came into the police as well. Jennifer started searching social media the moment she learned Preston Pierce's name and found complaint after complaint about him using his delivery driver work to harass women. He would send sexually explicit messages from, like, because he had gotten their phone number from DoorDash. This is so botched, because if you get fired as a cop and you become a door dasher, and now you just have access to everyone's address, like I do think about that

too with delivery apps because like, oh my God, he just likes a girl and now he knows where she lives and he has her phone number and he can show up and be like, I delivered you your cheeseburger. Like, do you want to hang out? There was a clothing store that like primarily females worked at that they would order DoorDash for their lunch breaks and he would keep showing up outside of their place of work because he knew where they worked. He knew and he was just waiting for them to be off. There was another story of a woman who he would. He, like, held her food hostage until... Oh, my God.

I'm just going to make a botchmark for every single one of these stories. Yeah, and I didn't even write them all down. But he held her food hostage until she gave him her personal phone number. And then he started texting her nonstop. And then he would... There were, like, accounts of... He would text them being like, hey, it's Preston from yesterday, dropped off your food.

You're so beautiful. And then if they wouldn't respond, he would send, like, an angry text. So he feels like he's entitled to her response. He would send an angry text being like, oh, I guess like, I can't call you beautiful. Like, he would be mad at them. You can't. Yeah. On the clock as a door dasher.

There was also, and again, these are people posting stories like online, so there's no way to validate. Of course. Yeah. If they are true. But there was one woman who said that she had met Preston out and then like woke up on his couch for like no memory of what had happened, insinuating perhaps he had drugged. her. Yeah. He also apparently like hit on underage girls. Like he was a creep. Yeah. There were enough firsthand accounts to acknowledge like he's a creep. Yes, of course. There's also a very detailed anonymous Reddit post from someone who claims to have had an extremely abusive live-in relationship

with Preston. And that was when the poster was barely 18. Preston was middle-aged. And they included specific details about his house, his belongings, his habits, and like talking about literally the layout of his house, the furniture, the color of his furniture, the color of his, proving that they knew what they were talking about. Exactly. Some even dug up his TripAdvisor account and found that he chronically left reviews about the women and girls who worked at places he visited, not about the businesses. There was one review that read, if you go on a night that Martha or Marta is working, just plan on having your fill of visual pleasure. Phil a visual pleasure?

Oh my God. So at best, locals describe Preston as a man who tried to sexually coerce the woman he interacted with, and at worst, a serial predator. Yeah. After learning about all of this, Jennifer and I'm sure police as well were convinced Preston had done something to Gretchen. But a pattern of bad behavior, however disturbing, is not. probable cause for an arrest, police still needed hard evidence connecting Preston to Gretchen. So just a week or so into the investigation, police were almost exclusively focused on Preston.

Between the security footage, him being the last person she's seen with, and his lie about the drop-off, they were sure that he was the key. So they worked around the clock to try to get him in handcuffs. Unfortunately, their initial search of his home vehicle and storage unit didn't yield enough for an arrest. Again, we don't know if they found anything, what they found, but it was not enough. enough to arrest him. Yeah. On December 20th, that's eight days into the search, there was another community candlelight vigil.

It was organized by Gretchen's close friend Jake Grimm. And there, the chief of police spoke. He urged the crowd to keep sharing tips. Because after all, it was like these tips that they were getting that was like tipping them off about Preston in the first place. Yeah. So he took his candle back to his office and he put it on a shelf. He wanted it to motivate him to be that constant reminder that Gretchen was still out there

needing his help. Gretchen's 20th birthday passed on Christmas Eve. There was no news. And then, finally, on December 29th, that's 26 days since she was last seen, police decided they were going to show their hand just a little bit. They publicly announced that they had a person of interest. Still not saying his name publicly. Still not saying who it is. And the very next day, they released photos of Preston's Black Nissan Rogue, asking community members to check their doorbell and security cameras for any footage of it around the time of Gretchen's disappearance.

There's also a $15,000. reward that was announced that same day. Which I think the reward got up to like $100,000 at one point. Yeah. Eventually it gets up there. Now, like we said, they didn't name Preston, but local media quickly identified him because they gave like the address that had been searched. They also released a picture of his vehicle. Yeah.

There was all those witnesses that saw him at my way that night. Community members launched multiple Facebook groups to support the investigation. Thousands of people started joining. And then on January 4th, 2023, the one month. month anniversary of Gretchen's disappearance, police returned to Preston's home with another sealed search warrant. And the next day, a devastating update was in the news. Human remains had been found in Elm Grove. It's about two hours from Parkersburg. Based on the timing and the location, everyone was holding their breath, wondering if it could be Gretchen. You know what's wild?

David disappeared in the episode says that someone called him saying that they found Gretchen's body. Without testing it. Without testing it. But then he calls Detective Zimmerman and he's like, what the heck's going on? And Detective Zimmerman had no idea. Right, right. Which why you have to be so careful with stuff like that too. Yeah. But yeah, so it ended up not being Gretchen's remains. Yeah. They were actually later identified as a missing man named Andrew Downs. They were two completely unrelated cases, but the pressure kept building. People felt like Preston should be arrested based on the evidence that was already available. But police knew, and this comes up a lot,

But before we mark it on the botch board, police knew that if they arrested and charged too early without enough evidence, it risked an acquittal. And you wouldn't be able to charge him again because you could get double jeopardy and then you can't charge for the same crime. So you have to really make sure that you have enough to build a solid case, build a solid case, exactly. So investigators shifted their focus from Preston's home to the search for Gretchen herself. And on February 4th, the two-month anniversary of her disappearance, police called for volunteers to start. search the 2,600-acre Mountwood Park, which is about 20 minutes outside of Parkersburg. You know, what I actually really appreciate about this is, so the night before this, they announced that they're going to do a search.

Yeah. But they don't tell anyone where they're doing a search until the morning of the search, which I appreciate because had they announced it the night before, someone could have gone to, like, move evidence. So I'm marking a Sherlock for that one. Yeah. And then I'm also giving a hug to David for the someone called. calling him and saying that they found Gretchen when they didn't because that's really sad.

Yeah. But yeah, that was smart on their end to do that. So they, and they did this because they received multiple tips that pointed in this direction, though they didn't elaborate on the details about those tips. More volunteers showed up. I think it was over 500 people showed up. Way more than they even asked for. Yeah. Some people flew or they drove in from other states.

Police even expanded the radius to put all 450 to 500 searchers to work. and still the group found nothing. So sad. And in the months that followed, the community kept Gretchen's name front and center. Donations pushed the reward to $65,000. And her family put up this billboard, which the billboard company that owned this billboard gave them the billboard for free. Yeah.

It just seems like a really good community of people. Locals started placing signs in their yards and business windows so that anyone passing through Parkersburg would learn about the case. I wonder, too, what that does psychologically to, like, if you're sure that the person is in your community, kind of like the three billboards outside of Ebbing, Missouri. Yeah. You know, like, if you're, like, giving this constant reminder, like, we're looking for this girl. If that, I'm curious, like, from a psychological perspective or, like, investigators what they think about doing that if it puts pressure on the person to come forward or if they, like, freak out more and try to conceal stuff. I would imagine it would put pressure on them to come forward.

Yeah. So, by mid-July, 2023, with still no major. progress, local police began working with outside agencies. The U.S. Marshal Service and the FBI eventually got involved. And still, the one-year anniversary passed without any major news. But the chief of police told the media that the case was not even close to cold. Louise even posted about her admiration for the detectives on Facebook, saying, they are working so hard on this case, please don't second-guess what they are doing. We are 100% supporting their efforts. They will see that Gretchen gets the justice she deserves.

Because I think the community was getting nervous that when the FBI and U.S. Marshal Service came in, like that the local police were just handing off the case. Right, right. But it was actually them being like, they have actually better technologies and like things that they can do. We're going to work with them. Just saying we need help. Like, we don't have enough resources. Yeah. Another birthday passed on December 24th, 2023.

No answers. Gretchen would have been 29. David called what he was going through a living nightmare. I can't even imagine. Then there was even more sad news. In June of 2024, 19 months after Gretchen went missing, her grandmother Louise died at 78 years old, and she would never see this case solved.

A hug. Yeah, give another hug. So by the fall of 2024, Gretchen's 30th birthday and the second anniversary of her disappearance was approaching. The family was still waiting, and now they were also mourning Louise. And then something happened in November of that year. So detectives went back and searched Preston's home again, this time with FBI assistance.

By now, it wasn't clear if he actually even lived there still. The warrant remained sealed and no new leads were announced. The FBI stayed actively engaged and used their national reach to make another public call for tips. And it still was not enough to move the investigation. Instead, the family suffered through another devastating blow on March 9, 2025, just 27 months after grand. Gretchen disappeared. Her father, David, died at 51 years old. I was so young. Another hog. I know. In a gesture of hope, his obituary listed Gretchen among his surviving children.

Ugh. With David and Louise gone, Gretchen's stepmother, Jennifer, took over as the family's spokesperson. The investigation remained open and active, but there were no new leads. Until September 14, 2025. That's when a hunter in Palestine, West Virginia, about 30. 35 minutes from Parkersburg called the state police. He wanted to report our fifth clue, human remains. He was squirrel hunting along Courtney Ridge Road when he noticed what appeared to be a skull at the edge of an embankment. A crime scene teen and coroner responded quickly

and found the remains in a shallow grave. Upon finding them, though, they cautioned that identification might take a long time. They collected a skull, teeth, and a possible forearm bone. Investigators later collected DNA from Gretchen's living family members and from items at her grandparents' home. They sent everything to a lab for genetic testing. And months later, in May of 2026, DNA results confirmed. The remains belonged to Gretchen Fleming. After the news, U.S. Marshals quietly kept tabs on Preston. He was now living in North Carolina, but they were afraid that he would catch wind of the news and he would flee. So there were no more public updates for several months, but a lot was happening quietly behind the scenes. Prosecutors convened a grand jury, and on May 15, 26, that grand jury

returned an indictment against the now 58-year-old Preston Pierce. The charges he faced were first-degree murder, felony murder, concealment of a deceased human body, and kidnapping. That same day, agents took Preston into custody during a traffic stop in Asheville, North Carolina, and after that, the police held a press conference. They confirmed the DNA results on Gretchen's remains, and they said that no cause of death had been determined. They also declined to answer questions about forensic evidence, motive, or potential accomplices.

Police chief Matthew Bord told reporters, with everything that had been gathered in the last three years, and the fact that it was Gretchen and Work County, we felt comfortable moving forward with the arrest and pursuit of prosecution of Mr. Pierce. Which makes me think and hope that they really do have evidence from like inside his car

house or something. Yeah. Or like they wouldn't answer a question. questions about forensic evidence, like, was there something with her that they were able to test? Yeah. And that, like, came back to him. Because clearly they had enough for an arrest this time. Yeah. We don't really have any inside information on how prosecutors plan to tie Preston to Gretchen's remains. But Preston Pierce was supposed to appear in a Buncombe County, North Carolina court on June 5th for a preliminary extradition hearing. And on May 28th, a week before that hearing, he submitted a waiver of extradition choosing to return to West Virginia rather than to fight it. So two Parkersburg police detectives personally traveled to Buncombe County, North Carolina, to bring him back.

They arrived around 5 p.m. on June 4th, and Preston was booked immediately. He was seen smirking during a perp walk past press cameras that day. And after news broke, Jennifer spoke on behalf of the family. She said, I believe he is responsible for what happened to Gretchen. I also feel he plays a big part in the loss of my mother-in-law and my husband. So sad. He has caused a tremendous amount of stress on our family. and I hope that he feels the stress on himself now.

On June 11th, Preston was arraigned in Wood County Circuit Court and pleaded, not guilty on all charges. His public defender then asked to be removed due to a conflict of interest because they had a close relationship to Gretchen's family. And the judge had to cast an even wider net to find a new lawyer given how many people in such a tight-knit community had been involved in the search for Gretchen. Right.

But on July 7, 26, a new Ohio-based attorney was appointed with a second lawyer as co-counsel. They really had to make a wide-net. Oh, my God. Ohio. Yeah. Preston is expected to appear back in court on October 26th. That's not long after this recording is going to air, where the judge will hopefully set a trial date.

And then once it goes to trial, all that information is going to be public record. And we're going to have a lot more information on what was really going on. Now, Preston remains legally innocent until proven guilty and has not. yet been tried or convicted. He faces up to life in prison on the two murder charges and the kidnapping charge and up to five years for concealment of a human body. But what's important in all of this is that Gretchen was able to come home. And now a jury will decide whether Detective Zimmerman and his colleagues did enough to prove Preston Pierce is responsible for her death. So obviously because we don't have all the evidence, there are a lot of lingering questions.

The main questions are obviously what happened that night. Yeah. which I'm hoping a lot will be answered when it's presented in court. You know, a lot of people have speculated about the drink that he bought her. Like, did he drug it in some way? Yeah. Based on what we know of the video, it does seem like Gretchen walked out willingly and followed him. But she walked out without her phone or wallet. I know. Because she, I imagine she thought she was going to get back in John's car.

But I also, I know that there are nights where I've had enough to drink where I don't think, like, I left my purse behind or I didn't think about it. Yeah. But I guess that to me is like maybe he did drug her because if she was able to leave without her purse and not even think about it. Or he picked a victim that he knew was intoxicated. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. You know?

Unfortunately, due to how long it took to find Gretchen's remains, drug testing likely won't be possible. So if he did, we might not ever know. But I also mostly wonder if there are other victims of Preston Pierce's out there. based on his history and based on how horrible he was, according to people in the community, it makes me wonder if there are other victims of his. Yeah. If you're willing to go to a bar on a random night, pick up a girl and kill her and dump her body miles and miles and miles away. Like, if you're comfortable enough to do that, is that the first time you've done that? Right.

Is this guy a serial killer? I don't know. Yeah, that's really. really scary, but it sounds like he was very comfortable harassing other women. Yeah, and I think there were enough people coming forward on the Facebook group who never reported it for, you know, whatever reason, but he was comfortable getting away with it. Yeah, yeah, and he's smiling in that purple. Yeah. If anyone does have information about any additional potential victims, you can call that in. And because we like to end the episodes with a little bit of

activism. What I just wanted to mention at the end of this episode is just a quick reminder that if you need help, the National Sexual Assault Hotline is available at 800-656-56-4-673. And you can also text Hope, H-O-P-E, to 64-673, or you can go to RAN-R-N-N-N-D-R-A-N-N-org for a live chat. And with that, we are going to highlight a missing person this week. This episode is brought to you by Nutraful. Have you ever felt like your hair just gets stuck at a certain point no matter how much care you give it? You're being patient, but your ends are brittle and fragile from daily heat and styling. I used to think that my hair just stopped growing, but it turns out the real culprit was everyday breakage cutting my progress short. That's why I love Nutraful because they aim to solve this issue. Meet Nutraful Strand Serum, a powerful new formula designed to reduce breakage for stronger hair that can grow longer. Strand serum, is powered by dual fusion complex technology, which unites a replenishing oil phase and a strengthening water phase to protect thinning strands. It helps reduce breakage and split ends while delivering up to 72 hours of frizz reduction for smoother, more manageable hair. Plus, strand serum provides heat protection up to 450 degrees Fahrenheit. Defending your hair against the heat from styling stress that can contribute to breakage. It's truly the missing step your routine needs to keep every inch you've earned. With Nutraful strand serum, your length goals are officially in.

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Join me every Sunday this month on Crime House 24-7 for Crime House of Horrors, where I dive into four stories behind some of our favorite scary movies. From Abigail, The Autopsy of Jane Doe, Sinister, and The Taking of Deborah Logan, you'll find one thing in common. The truth is scarier than fiction. Listen every Sunday on Crimehouse 24-7 or join Crimehouse Plus for all four right now. Add free. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or at CrimehousePlus.com. This week we're going to highlight Bethany Leanne Markowski. Bethany Markowski, then 11 years old, was last seen by her father in the parking lot of the old Hickory Shopping Mall in Jackson, Tennessee on the afternoon of March 4, 2001. Bethany had gone into the mall alone while her father waited for her in the car.

After approximately two hours past, Bethany's father went into the mall to look for his daughter but was unable to locate her. Investigative efforts have revealed that Bethany was last seen after a trip to Little Rock, Arkansas. Bethany was last seen wearing a green shirt, blue jeans, and black shoes. At the time of her disappearance, she was missing her baby molars. If you have any information concerning this person, please contact your local FBI office or the nearest American embassy, your consulate. Even the smallest detail could help bring Bethany home. That's it for this episode of Clues. And now, Connor is back to join me as we get into three of the biggest botches in history.

So the first one that I want to read to you. Maybe you know something about this is the trial of Socrates. Are you familiar? Yes, Socrates was a philosophy. and a scholar, though I believe many of his philosophies were far-fetched as well as some of his studies. So the background is that four years before the trial of Socrates, a group known as the 30 tyrants had seized Athens and had killed a lot of the people there in a brutal few months. When democracy finally came back, the city passed an amnesty and nobody could be prosecuted for anything political. from before that time.

But several of Socrates's best-known former students had been part of the regime, and Athenians actually blamed him for shaping them and their ideas. So the prosecution begins with these vague charges of impiety and corrupting the youth. They talk for three hours during the trial, and 280 of the 501 jurors vote to convict Socrates. Then he gets to propose his own things. sentence because you could do that back then.

Whoa. Yeah. So he got... Choose your own way to die. Choose your own way to die. But they also gave him the offer that he could have gone into exile. He didn't have to die. But instead, what he tells the jury that he really deserves is free dinners for life at the

public hall. The honor Athens gave to Olympic champions. So I think he was being a little cheeky with that. Yeah. I love the Olympics. Yeah. More jurors voted to kill him than voted. to convict him. Some of the men who thought that he was innocent voted for the death penalty anyways,

even though they said he was innocent, which to me that feels like a big botch. Yeah. That doesn't feel right. Total botch. And he elected death by hemlock. So Socrates was convicted over politics, and then he was sentenced to death for his attitude. I would have chosen exile. Yeah, me too. Yeah. It would have been sad. It would have been lonely, but it's better than drinking hemlock, which is kind of a painful way to die. You can, well, there's a benefit to being alone. You can actually listen to what's around you and actually hear yourself think.

Yeah, that's really beautiful. Yeah. Can I read you another one? So the next one, maybe you've heard of this one too, is the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. Oh, yes, I've heard of those. My mom's actually from Massachusetts. No way.

So did she grow up with the story of the witch trials? Yeah. And I always remembered what, they did to poor Giles Corey. More weight. Is that what he said? Yeah. They laid a flat slab of wood on his chest and piled it with heavy rocks.

Pressed him to death. Alas, poor Giles. Poor Giles. So let me, I'm going to give an overview for the audience in case they're not aware. So at the center of the trials in Salem was something called spectral evidence. What do you think that means? Like, if people did strange things or acted weird, it was considered witchcraft or if you didn't confirm it of the codes of the colony. It was that, but it was actually worse than that.

Because if you even encountered someone's spirit, so if you were sleeping at night and had a dream of a person's spirit, that was considered to be spectral evidence. You mean if I have a dream of seeing my girlfriend's face before I went to bed, that could be considered witchcraft? If you had a dream of your girlfriend stirring a big cauldron, making a potion, that could have been evidence in the court. And that feels like a botch to me. So the court for the witch trials was run by Governor William Phipps, and he convicted around 30 people of witchcraft. And 20 of them were sentenced to death, including Giles Corey, who you brought up, who was the only one of the group that was pressed to death. So in October of 1692, which was five months after the court was first set up, accusation started reaching people with real standing. including by some accounts the governor's own wife was accused.

Oh my gosh. Then after his wife is accused, wouldn't you know it? Phipps ruled that spectral evidence seeing a witch in your dreams or just the image of someone was no longer a basis for conviction and he dissolved the whole court. Wow. Yeah, which that feels botched. Anytime someone changes the rules because it affects them differently, I think that's a botch. Yeah. Not fair. And then I have one more for you. This is a case that's local to L.A. So I don't know if you've heard of this one, but it's really famous here. It's called the case of the Black Dahlia.

I've heard of this case. So what was done to the Black Dahlia is very extreme. I'm not going to talk about it here. But I want to talk about what happened afterwards after her body was found. So the Los Angeles examiner newspaper had a reporter at the lot. And by his own account, he beat the police to her body. He was there before any of the police saw what happened. Nobody was keeping anyone back.

So reporters and photographers just walked across the whole scene. It was an active crime scene and they were just walking into it. And by the time that two actual detectives arrived at the scene, it was swarming with reporters. And then once the news comes out, all of these confessions start. There's more than 60 in the first stretch. There's housewives, soldiers, drifters, clergymen. Over the years, it passed 500 people that came forward. And decades later, the LAPD said that they were still getting about half a dozen confessions per year. And the only arrests anybody ever made in this case were for obstruction. People who confessed to a murder that they hadn't committed.

They never found the person who actually did it. Oh, man. So two years later, a grand jury convened specifically to examine how the LAPD's homicide unit had handled this whole case. But nobody was ever charged with killing Elizabeth Short. And she has a really classic L.A. story. She was an actress from not L.A., but she came to L.A. to pursue her dreams of actress.

She was very pretty. One night she was seen drinking at like a really popular, famous bar downtown. And no one knows what happened. But the next morning, her body was found on the side of the road. So we have those three. The Socrates trial. We have the Salem Witch trials. And then we have the Black Dahlia, which is true crime case that no one was ever convicted

for her murder. Which case do you feel like was the most botched? I think the Black Dahlia. I mean, don't get me wrong. The Salem Witch Trials was a load of. bunk. None of those women were witches. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. They're all botched, but there's something specific about the Black Dahlia where it felt

like they could have solved it, but they just... Maybe those people who claim they did those terrible things, even though they didn't were probably on some sort of hallucinogen, like maybe they were on opium or something. They said that one of the theories about the Salem Witch Trials is that there was a fungus that grew in some of the grains. And when you ate it, you hallucinate. so they think that maybe everyone in Salem was eating this like poisoned grain or like the fungus that was growing in the grain and they were hallucinating. I think they've disproven that, but it was a theory for a long time. Yeah. Well, that is all we have today. Thank you guys so much for sticking around to the end of

the episode. Check out what the fact you can watch Connor on his new show. Make sure you subscribe and follow wherever you get your podcasts. And we'll see you guys next time. Bye. See you soon. And at Crime House, we value your support. You can share your thoughts on social media and remember to rate, review, and subscribe to help others find and discover the show. And don't forget, for early and ad-free access, subscribe to Crimehouse Plus at CrimehousePlus.com or if you listen on Apple Podcasts, tap, try free at the top of the clues page. We're going to be back next week with another episode. And we'll see you then.

See you then. Bye, guys. Did you know a volcano once blocked out the sun and accidentally gave us Frankenstein? or that the answer to history's greatest mystery was two specks of dust on a glacier. Found with a laser? Hi, I'm Connor Tomlinson and history is my thing. And I'm Carter Roy, and this is What the Fact.

The wildest stuff is real and the real stuff is wilder than you think. New episodes every Wednesday. Follow What The Fact wherever you listen or subscribe on YouTube at What The Fact Pod.