Cold Case Files - Lil' Miss / Skeletons in the Closet

Episode Date: June 30, 2026

An eerie note left on a grave helps solve a 12-year old case of murder, and an exhaustive questioning of a mother helps investigators unravel the mysterious deaths of multiple infants.IQBAR -... Get 20% off all IQBAR products plus free shipping by texting COLD to 64000Marathon - Join Marathon Rewards today and start earning rewards on every gallon of gas. Marathon, where fun runs on full!Mint: To get the new customer offer and your new 3-month premium wireless plan for just $15 a month, go to Mintmobile.com/coldcaseSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 This episode contains stories involving violence against children. Listener discretion is advised. There are over 100,000 cold cases in America. Only 1% are ever solved. This is one of those rare stories. It's March 25th, 1998, in northern Colorado. 18-year-old Lisa Marie Kimmel is traveling north on Interstate 25 toward Wyoming. The next day, Lisa Marie Kimmel, is traveling north on Interstate 25 toward Wyoming.
Starting point is 00:00:36 Lisa's parents, Ron and Sheila Kimmel, walk into their home in Billings, Montana, and press play on the answering machine. There are multiple messages from Lisa's boyfriend, Ed Jouroch. We received a number of phone calls, letting us know that Ed was trying to reach us and that she had not made it to his place that evening, and that's when we realized that something was desperately wrong. Ed Jirak tells Lisa's parents she never showed up at his home in Cody, Wyoming, and she never called. Family and friends immediately begin driving the interstate, retracing the route Lisa would have taken,
Starting point is 00:01:20 looking for any sign of her or her car, a two-door black Honda with the license plate, Little Miss. After the first day of searching, road searches and airplane searches, retracing her intended route, did not produce a car maybe off on the side of the road or down an embankment. We were very, very concerned, and we had set up basically a command post at home. The next morning, Lisa's father filed a missing persons report. Detective George Jensen works the case. Lisa was a very responsible young lady. She generally called, let her family know where she was going.
Starting point is 00:02:03 when she was leaving, when she got there. So there was some concern that either she got into an accident or something went wrong. Jensen puts a teletype out to Denver and Wyoming authorities about Lisa's disappearance. The missing person's case is also picked up by the evening news and local papers. We were getting calls right away
Starting point is 00:02:27 saying they had just seen the vehicle minutes before. And so we were running around, trying to find the vehicle, talking to people, seeing if she was with anyone, checking those leads out. By week's end, Lisa Kimmel's disappearance is the talk of the town. Everyone claims to have seen her or her Honda, yet no one can provide any solid information that will help authorities locate the 18-year-old. At one point, we knew that that car wasn't there, that something else had to be wrong. Something is indeed terribly wrong, and it surfaces less than a week later. On April 2nd, a fisherman sees something floating in the North Platte River in Natrona County, Wyoming.
Starting point is 00:03:15 On closer inspection, he sees it as a body and calls the police. Investigator Dan Tholson watches as a partially naked woman is pulled from the water. Typically, if you find a female that's been murdered alongside the road or in the river or something like, that there's been a sexual assault. So we were thinking that but really didn't know for sure. Tholson and his partner, Jim Brose, speculate the victim was thrown from the bridge less than a mile away. The investigators inspect the bridge's surface and find support for their theory. There was an area on the bridge, probably 12 inches by 18 inches where there was a large puddle of blood. And then you could see where blood spatters were on the concrete abutment that came
Starting point is 00:04:02 from the surface of the bridge. The blood is collected and tagged. Meanwhile, Jane Doe's body is zipped into a bag and transported to a local funeral home for an official autopsy. Dr. James Thorpin compares dental x-rays from the corpse to current missing persons cases in the area. Lisa Marie Kimmel's x-rays are the first Thorpen pulls
Starting point is 00:04:24 and are a perfect match. The woman taken from the North Platte River is the missing 18-year-old. The question now is how did she get there? Thorpin also finds six stab wounds to the chest and abdomen. It became apparent that whoever killed her had avoided the ribs, almost as if he were feeling with a hand the five points of the fingers, the intercostal spaces in between. All of the wounds, with exception maybe of one, were intended to be lethal, and they were
Starting point is 00:05:01 On Kimmel's arms and legs, Thorpin notices a row of bruises, evidence that she might have been tied up and held captive before she was killed. The bruising was along the medial inner surface of the base of the thumb. We found a series of binding marks, equal distant, two rows of those. So she was bound. A rape kit is taken and the presence of semen is detected and collected. Thorpin shares his final conclusions with sheriff's detectives who must now break the news to Lisa's family. At 7.30 p.m., a sheriff's deputy's car pulls into the Kimmel driveway.
Starting point is 00:05:43 Sheila Kimmel greets George Jensen. They introduced themselves, and they immediately asked us if we would like to call a friend or a member of the clergy or a family member to be with us. They knew our feelings that we thought possibly foul play was involved. But when someone sits down and tells you that they found or they probably found the body of your child, it's pretty hard to take. Then we asked them if they could tell us, then what happened to her?
Starting point is 00:06:21 Car wreck? No. She had been murdered. I'm certain that our screams could have been heard from my whole. around. Sheila Kimmel makes preparations to bury her daughter and detectives in Natrona County redouble their efforts, tracing Lisa Kimmel's movements on the night she disappeared. They discovered a citation for speeding issued to Lisa's Black Honda by a highway patrolman in Douglas Wyoming. The patrolman tells detectives he wrote Lisa Kimmel a ticket for speeding
Starting point is 00:06:54 and let her go a little after 9 p.m. Then the patrolman hands over an audio recording of the stop. As standard operating practice for the Highway Patrol here, they recorded the conversation when she was sitting inside his car. So that is the only recording that I've ever heard of Lisa Kimmel.
Starting point is 00:07:15 Okay, Lisa, one of the law requires for Montana to place a cash bond. The amount of that is fortunate $20. $20.00. $7.8.4.
Starting point is 00:07:27 $7. She was very calm, very low-toned, you know, like an 18-year-old girl. The patrolman confirms that Lisa Kimmel was alone in the car and did not appear to be in any danger. Homicide checks out the patrolman's story and dismisses him as a suspect. They then return to their search for Lisa's missing Black Honda. We had Lisa, but we didn't have a murder weapon. We didn't have her car. She was found partially clad, so most of her clothes are missing.
Starting point is 00:08:03 And this car is a link. This car is very important to get back. Investigators put out an ATL, or an attempt to locate, for a Honda CRX with a license plate, Lil Miss. They also enlist the local news media for help with their search. Within days of the murder, sightings of the Honda overwhelmed the two-man investigation. We start getting sightings of this vehicle everywhere. We had sightings in Canada, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, and it looked like someone had this vehicle
Starting point is 00:08:36 and making a big loop. It was like chasing a mirage of some kind. We kept hoping to see a pattern, I think, and thinking, you know, at times we were an hour behind it and we'll get it really soon. And we were just really frustrated with all of the sightings and kind of decided then that we were chasing a ghost that wasn't really out there.
Starting point is 00:08:59 Lisa's black Honda takes on the aura of legend, a mysterious murder car, roaming the highways at will and disappearing into the darkness. The media jumps on the story and pumps it up even further. Vicki Daniels is a local news reporter. So, as you can imagine,
Starting point is 00:09:17 speculation starts running wild. And in the press, we heard all kinds of stories, things like a satanic cult was operating in Casper and had kidnapped her and murdered her and dumped her in the, river to all kinds of things. The Natrona County Sheriff's Department is heading up the four-month-old investigation into Lisa's death, but it's been a frustrating case for investigating officers.
Starting point is 00:09:38 The Tron County Sheriff Ron Ketchum says his office still gets daily leads from people, especially on the signing of Lisa's car, a Honda CRX, with the plates reading Little Miss. Media coverage adds to the pressure felt by detectives working the case round the clock. Nothing, however, is more motivating than the anguish felt by a family, looking to homicide detectives for any sort of answer. It was frustrating because Mrs. Kimmel would call me at home at night at beginning of this case, wanting answers and needing information, wanting to know where we were with the case on a day-by-day basis, which she had every right to know. What has happened to Lisa can't be reversed. But maybe if we can catch the perpetrators of this particular crime, we can prevent it happening
Starting point is 00:10:30 to someone else's lovely young daughter. Despite good intentions and hard work, six months after Lisa first disappeared, detectives have no idea where her car might be or who might have killed her. With no new leads, the Kimmel homicide investigation goes cold. On March 29th, 1989, four days after the first anniversary of Lisa Marie Kimmel's disappearance, detectives are handed their best lead in a long time. It comes in the form of a note taped to Lisa's headstone. Well, the note is kind of hard to read.
Starting point is 00:11:10 It was dated 11, 13 of 88. And it basically says there aren't words to say how much you're missed. Your death is my painful loss, but heaven's sweet gain, love always Stringfellow Hawk. Investigators believe whoever wrote the note most likely killed Lisa and is now taunting police. Detectives take the note apart word by word. The most notable detail is the name at the bottom, Stringfellow Hawk, a reference to a character from the 1980s TV series, Airwolf. We were never able to link Stringfellow Hawk to Lisa Kimmel, but we kept it on file. And now, though, what it did do for us, it gave us another avenue to go down,
Starting point is 00:11:58 that perhaps we could link someone to this crime through handwriting. The handwriting of the killer provides little comfort to detectives who still don't have a major suspect in the case. With few directions to turn, Natrona County reviews a report generated by profilers at the FBI. hoping that their expertise can breathe life into a stalled investigation. The resulting report points detectives in the direction of a white male, 20s to 30s, most likely still residing in the Casper area. They also specifically described the person as being kind of a lone wolf-type person
Starting point is 00:12:36 who would prefer to be alone, and they thought probably that he had come into contact with her at maybe a convenience store or something in the middle of the night like that. The note left on Lisa's grave tells detectives her killer is still out there, watching and perhaps ready to kill again. For Lisa's mother, it only strengthens her resolve to resurrect Lisa's case from the cold files. To find out who killed her daughter and why. We had to explore whatever we could possibly explore.
Starting point is 00:13:08 I would have crawled to hell on bloody knees and back anything to find out what happened to our daughter. It was a cold case. We weren't actively working it anymore. I left, and it was hard. You know, I was always thinking about Lisa Kimmel. So was Dan. And thinking, you know, will we get this thing solved someday? You know, we'll let what right lead come up.
Starting point is 00:13:31 And I remember when I left, I said, Dan, before I die, you know, call me. And let me know you found out. This episode is brought to you by IQ Bar, our exclusive snack, hydration, and coffee sponsor. IQ Bar, Proteen Bar, Bar, IQ Mix hydration mixes, and IQ Joe mushroom coffees are the delicious, low sugar, brain and body fuel you need to win your day. And with the ultimate sampler pack, you can try a mix of all their products, nine IQ bars, eight IQ mix sticks, and four IQ Joe sticks. So you can find your favorites without overthinking it.
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Starting point is 00:15:23 Catch Anchorman, the legend of Ron Burgundy. Fantastic. Men in black, one through three. That's what I'm talking about. Mean girls. Shut up. Titanic. I'm the key of the world.
Starting point is 00:15:33 And so much more. For showtimes, press nothing. They're free 24-7. That is so fetch. On Pluto TV, stream now, pay never. It's now 2002. 14 years after Lisa Kimmel was found dead in the world. wash of Wyoming's North Platte River. After years of investigating, detectives only have a mysterious
Starting point is 00:15:57 note left on Lisa's grave, sightings of her missing car, a black Honda CRX, and a box full of dead-end leads. Natrona County Sheriff's Investigator Lynn Cohe knows it's a long shot, but decides the Kimmelphile is worth a final look. Lisa's case was one of those that was never forgotten by The people in Casper and even in Montana and other states, for some reason, they always remembered this certain case. Cohe sends semen samples recovered from the autopsy to the state crime lab. A genetic profile is extracted and downloaded into the state's DNA data bank. There, it is compared against more than 2,000 felony offenders from Wyoming. A few months later, Lynn Cohes' phone rings.
Starting point is 00:16:47 The crime lab has a hit. Of course, the first question out of my mouth, who is it? And Sandy Mays and Tilton Davis said, the guy's name is Dale Wayne Eaton, and he was in our penitentiary back in 98. So after I picked my job off the floor, I started doing any in all research that I could find on Dale Eaton. Dale Eaton's DNA went into the state data bank after he was convicted on a federal firearms charge. According to prison records, he is in the middle of a five-year sentence for that offense. Coughy and fellow detective Dan Tholson decided to visit Eaton at a federal prison just outside Englewood, Colorado. On July 17, 2002, Lynn Cohie and Dan Tholson sit down with Dale Wayne Eaton and ask what he knows about Lisa Kimmel.
Starting point is 00:17:40 He said that he'd heard about the case on TV. He said he never knew Lisa. but he did say, well, wasn't that the girl that was on her way to Montana? And on that particular time, she was not on her way to Montana. She was on her way to Cody, Wyoming. He denied ever knowing or ever having any kind of context. So he couldn't use that defense later that he had sex with her and turned her loose and somebody else killed her. But as far as specifically admitting anything, he wouldn't. And he eventually got so dry mouth, he couldn't talk anymore.
Starting point is 00:18:10 Tholson and Kohie then tell him about the DNA match linking him to semen recover from the autopsy. Suddenly, Eaton doesn't want to talk at all. Detectives believe they have found Lisa Kimmel's killer, but still have some work to do. The DNA match establishes only that Eaton had sex with Lisa Kimmel, but not that he killed her. We wanted to be able to prove the case without the DNA, which theoretically couldn't do that because you got his name from the DNA, but we wanted to be able to do it without having to rely on the DNA. Tholson and Kohie begin to take apart Dale Eaton's life, looking for any tangible link to Lisa Kimmel's death.
Starting point is 00:18:52 Among the people they speak with is one of Eaton's neighbors in Manita, Wyoming, a woman named Doris Bukta. He was a good neighbor, but he was, in my opinion, what I call weird. Weird includes a wide range of behavior, including one day, when, according to Doris, Dale Eaton started digging in his front yard. My husband asked him, he said, what are you digging, Dale? And he said, I'm digging a well. And he said, well, man, you're crazy.
Starting point is 00:19:22 You can't dig a well out here. We have to go down almost 300 foot to get water. He was so weird anyway that I thought, well, he probably thinks he can dig a well. According to a journal kept by Doris, Eaton began to dig in the days just after Lisa Kimmel disappeared. That, coupled with the size of the hole described by Doris, leads detectives to wonder if Dale Eaton was not digging a well, but a grave for Lisa Kimmel's long-lost car. At 10 a.m. on July 29, 2002, detectives descend on Dale Eaton's property, armed with a warrant
Starting point is 00:20:01 to search for the black Honda Lisa was driving on the night she disappeared, 14 years earlier. pushing their way through debris in the front yard, investigators see evidence of several holes that had been dug and filled in. They pick one close to the trailer, Eaton used to call home. There was all sorts of garbage and debris on top of the hole, and there was probably a sinkhole, probably five feet deep, with a great big rusty pipe sticking out. So we started digging that hole.
Starting point is 00:20:33 Within the first few hours of searching, investigators have uncovered a variety of, of car parts. None, however, that can be identified as belonging to Kimmel's Honda. Then they hit something that gives them a bit of hope. We uncovered a wheel cover with the letter H. And of course, we knew right then that we knew H stood for Honda. And I think that's when we finally thought, yeah, we had some real car parts that we could tie to that car. Investigators continued to uncover other scraps of car material and a pair of eyeglasses, satisfied that they had fully searched the first hole, the day ends. At 7 a.m. the following day, detectives returned to the
Starting point is 00:21:16 Eaton property, pick another hole, and start to dig. So we started digging what we call the septic tank, which, you know, had a sinkhole of about three feet with a white piece of plastic sticking out of it. A backhoe digs into the earth just eight feet down before hitting something. The operator dug in and scraped back some dirt, and there was a chunk of metal sitting there, and it was the top of the driver's side door. As the hole widens, detectives realize they have found not just a door, but Lisa Kimmel's entire car buried hole in Dale Eaton's front yard. It's really hard to describe, you know, there's the car.
Starting point is 00:21:58 There's the car we've been looking for for 14 years. It was very quiet out there. everybody that was out there helping us, there was hardly a word spoke. Everybody, I'm sure, had their own thoughts, like, oh my gosh, here it is. Also at the excavation is Dr. James Thorpein, who conducted the autopsy of Lisa Kimmel and has never forgotten the case. Bang, here is her car. And the investigator, Dan Tolson, leaped down on the thing and said, here's the VIN number.
Starting point is 00:22:32 We brought the car back into town and we're cleaning out the car. And here on the rearview mirror is her rosary. And that was disturbing. Dale Wayne Eaton is charged with the murder of Lisa Kimmel on April 21st, 2003. Jim Brose, who worked the case in 1988, gets a call from Dan Tholson. I was recovering from a heart attack. And he asked how I was doing and said, we have somebody in custody. And I said, Dan, you know, when I left the sheriff's office, I said, you know, before I die, find out who did it.
Starting point is 00:23:11 But I said, you cut it kind of close. I said, that was a little too close. But good work. While preparing for trial, detectives still have one more clue to investigate. Finding the author who wrote the letter that was left behind on Kimmel's grave a year after her disappearance. Jim Bros analyzed the handwriting in 1989 and decides to take another look at it, this time comparing it to samples of Dale Eaton's letters from prison. Mr. Eaton had a unique way of dotting his eyes.
Starting point is 00:23:42 He had a unique way of joining certain letters together. I remember like OU, I'm like in a word thought or bought. There's a unique way he wrote those at a certain slant consistently throughout his letters and in that note. Rose concludes that Dale Eaton is the author of the letter and the case against him is complete. Eaton is convicted of murder in the first degree and receives the death sentence.
Starting point is 00:24:10 16 years after her daughter's murder, Lisa Kimmel's mother finally gets to hear the words she has waited to hear. All I know is I could hear, the charge read, guilty. The charge read, guilty. The charge read guilty. I will be forever grateful for all of the investigators that didn't give up when sometimes we felt hopeless and at a loss.
Starting point is 00:24:36 There are even parents that haven't even found their children. And maybe with advances in technology and the forensic sciences, maybe they will one day get their answer to. In Bethel, New York, just a mile from the site of the original Woodstock Music Festival, There's a scrapyard full of steel drums, old crank cases, and junk cars. In March of 1989, the yard's owner brings in his newest acquisition, a VW wagon. He opens the trunk and finds a suitcase. Inside that, he finds a face peering up at him and calls police. Detective Roy Strever responds to the call.
Starting point is 00:25:26 I recall that the junkyard operator wasn't absolutely certain it was a human fetus when he first discovered it. And I believe his wife was a registered nurse. And she said, yes, that's a human fetus called the police. Strever learns that the Volkswagen had been abandoned by Diane O'Dell, a local woman who recently left the area. The police track her down in Pennsylvania, where O'Dell says she knows nothing about a dead baby. She just flat out denied that it was hers
Starting point is 00:25:58 or that having any knowledge as to how it got into the trunk of her. her vehicle. Strever is skeptical. He walks the streets where Odell used to live and finds a man and wife who rented a house to Diane O'Dell. They tell him when O'Dell moved out, she left the suitcase behind. When the couple discovered what was inside, they called O'Dell instead of police and asked her to pick up the case.
Starting point is 00:26:23 Strever goes back to Diane O'Dell and tells her what he now knows. And once confronted with that, she acknowledged that she had in fact given birth to that child somewhere around 1972. In 1972, Diane O'Dell was a teenager living alone in upstate New York, eight months pregnant and scared. She tells Strever that one day she took the bus to New York City to tell her father about her situation. Her father, she says, was less than thrilled.
Starting point is 00:26:54 And she said that later that night he had become intoxicated and gotten out of cat of nine tails. beaten her with it, including several strikes across her abdomen. The next day, Odell says she returned to her home in Sullivan County and went into labor. But she stated that she went into the bathroom and gave birth to a stillborn child and didn't know what to do with it, eventually put it into the suitcase and carried it around with her for, well, I guess it was about 17 years. By 1989, Diane O'Dell's father is conveniently dead.
Starting point is 00:27:37 Is he being used as a scapegoat, or is Diane O'Dell also a victim? Strever orders an autopsy, hoping science can provide some answers. The remains, however, are badly decayed, and the medical examiner can only say that it was a full-term baby. As for the crucial question, whether the baby was born alive or dead, The pathologist is unable to say. So without that confirmation that the child had ever lived, we don't have any basis for any homicide charges.
Starting point is 00:28:10 I'm thinking personally that her version of the event is probably somewhat self-serving and less than accurate, but without any real ammunition to dispute it, it leaves you with nowhere to go with the case. No charges are fine. wild and the case goes cold. Diane O'Dell moves west, leaving behind an ugly bit of the past. On the outskirts of Safford, Arizona, a row of storage units bake in the sun. From time to time, a renter will fall behind on payments, and the contents of their units are put up for auction.
Starting point is 00:28:48 In May of 2003, Safford resident Tom Bright is the highest bidder on lot number six. entitled to everything in the storage unit, he trucks at home and finds a box labeled moms. Inside he finds a garbage bag, inside that another bag, and inside that, a third. And I opened the third bag up, and it was a little orb about the size of the softball,
Starting point is 00:29:16 and it was kind of leathery-looking with white leathery-looking, graysh thing. And right then I kind of had a neatling of what it was. And I said, oh, Christ. And I yelled at my grandson. I said, Robert, call 911, had him send a sheriff's deputy out here. I think I found a baby. Diane Thomas of the Graham County Sheriff's Office takes charge of the scene.
Starting point is 00:29:42 I have two children and I have seven grandchildren. So it was very disturbing thinking that this baby was actually a human baby. Kind of wondered what happened to him. Thomas and a few deputies go through the rest of the boxes from the storage shed. Before long, they find a second baby. Shortly after that, a third. My initial thought was someone was having miscarriages and mainly maybe a young girl and a home and not knowing what to do.
Starting point is 00:30:15 The bodies are sent to Dr. David Winston at the morgue. The remains are dry and crumbling. X-rays offer the best chance of examining the infants without disarrows. destroying the evidence. Winston immediately notes that the bones are fully developed, indicating the babies were carried to full term. Because of decomposition, however, Dr. Winston cannot tell whether they were born alive or dead. You've got three basically term infants with no bony abnormalities found hidden in three separate boxes. So you're thinking that something bad happened to these infants and somebody
Starting point is 00:30:52 was trying to hide something. Winston leaves the cause of death undetermined. For detectives, however, a theory is beginning to come together. Once he told us that they were full-term babies, that kind of made me start thinking towards possible homicide. Among the items left behind in storage shed number six were a pile of old receipts, bills, and letters all belonging to one person, a woman named Diane O'Dell.
Starting point is 00:31:21 A computer search tells Detective Thomas, Odell has left the state of Arizona and now resides in Pennsylvania. Thomas books a flight east to talk with Odell about the contents of her storage unit. When people hear that Mint Mobile plans are only $15 per month, a lot of people wonder, what's the catch? Well, I can tell you, there isn't one. No gimmicks, no gotchas, just in limited talk, text, and data, fast, reliable coverage on the nation's largest 5G network, and an award-winning care team. That kind of value is the real catch. After switching to Mint, people's bills drop. They have fewer headaches dealing with customer service,
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Starting point is 00:33:13 you need to stock up and live life on the go. Marathon, where fun runs on full. Available at participating Marathon locations, terms and conditions apply, see Marathonrewards.com for details. In May of 2003, detectives find Diane O'Dell, now a mother of eight, working at a drugstore in Tawanda, Pennsylvania. They say they'd like to talk to her alone. To the detective's surprise, Odell seems indifferent. No emotion, no inquisitiveness as to why are you talking to me? What have I done in Arizona? That would be my initial thought if somebody from New York came to talk to me is what is this about?
Starting point is 00:33:55 She never once asked us anything like that. At the Pennsylvania State Police barracks, Diane O'Dell says she's shocked by the discoveries in her old storage shed. What he found and what we continued to find after we were called were three dead babies. Three babies? Holy cow. I would have no idea. I'm sorry. I wish I did.
Starting point is 00:34:20 The interview ends with O'Dell sticking to her denials. The next day. detectives make it clear they're not leaving until they get more answers. And I said, you have the answer to why these babies were in the bags. And we don't intend on going back to Arizona until we find out why they were stored in these boxes and left in Arizona. And I guess maybe that kind of clenched at her. And she said, fine. They're mine.
Starting point is 00:34:48 And it was more than 10 years ago and started talking about it. The first one occurred as a rape. I went the home line once, didn't see a doctor, didn't have any medical attention at all. Odell says that the three babies found in the storage shed were from three separate pregnancies in the early 80s. In each case, when the labor pain started, she used her bathroom as a birthing center. Odell says that each time she blacked out during the final push. I pushed and went back.
Starting point is 00:35:21 That was it. I don't know if the baby cried. I don't. I have no knowledge of them. When she awoke from these three separate blackouts, Odell claims the babies were dead. Detective Thomas does not find Odell's story credible. She knows the consequences, I would think,
Starting point is 00:35:39 of having to deliver your own child by yourself. One that you haven't had any prenatal care. Don't know if there's going to be any complications whatsoever. I didn't buy that story at all. Although Thomas has a lot of problems with Odell's story, her statements by themselves are not proof of a crime. And there's another problem. Odell claims the babies were born and died in Connie Onga Lake, New York, and the Arizona shed was merely a depository. For Thomas, it means the case was out of her jurisdiction.
Starting point is 00:36:11 She places a call to the New York State Police. Tom Skelope is a senior investigator with the New York State Police. He pulls the background on Diane O'Dell and learns about the baby she left behind in a suitcase in upstate New York 14 years earlier. It was just too coincidental, too suspicious. And in fact, knowing in light of knowing that she has eight other healthy children that are no physical problems at all. So the key was going to be this interview with Ms. O'Dell. To complete his case for murder, Skeleppy must coax an admission from Odell that her babies were born alive and then abandoned. He catches up with Odell and asks her about the infants found in Arizona. She repeats her story of three separate stillborn births in a
Starting point is 00:37:02 homemade delivery room, but this time adds something more. When she recovers, there's baby number one laying on the floor between her legs with a several inches of a towel down the baby's throat. At that point, the baby was cold, was not breathing. Being a father and grandfather, I just couldn't conceive a newborn infant swallowing several inches of a towel as she's telling us that. But this is what she told us. Odell tells a similar story about baby number two, born in 1983. Then there's baby number three. Baby number three is the interesting one.
Starting point is 00:37:45 She tells us that she took the baby with her, crawled into the bedroom, laid next to the bed on a floor, and cuddled with this baby for a considerable amount of time. That to me was significant. I felt there was some bonding there between her and this particular baby for whatever reason. Skellope senses an opening and pushes with questions about baby number three. As the minutes turn into hours, Odell opens up. She tells us that that baby gasped and let out a cry, which would indicate that the baby is alive and breathing. A single cry to a mother is a sign of life. To Cold Case Detectives, it is the beginning of a case for murder.
Starting point is 00:38:28 That's when the investigation changes. It goes from being inquisitive as to finding out what happened to these three babies, as to now we're looking at a possible homicide investigation at this point. Odell eventually admits that all three babies found in Arizona breathed and cried. She never tells Skeleppi exactly how they died, but logically leads him to only one conclusion. Diane Odell is somehow responsible for their deaths. She is arrested and charged with murder for the deaths of three infants found in storage shed, number six. At her trial in December 2003, Diane Odell is supported by her family, including five of her
Starting point is 00:39:11 children alive and well. Odell's other children are also present in the courtroom, reduced to a nameless collection of old crime scene photos that speak to the jury far more eloquently than any attorney ever could. After a single day of deliberation, the jury delivers its verdict, guilty. From the time Ms. Odell told us that the babies gasped and cried, I was convinced that what we were looking at here was a homicide. But so I feel that after 30 years, the babies got their due. Diane O'Dell is sentenced to 25 years to life for the three infants discovered in Arizona. No charges have ever been filed against O'Dell for the infant found in a suitcase in New York,
Starting point is 00:39:56 due to a lack of evidence as to a cause of death. It's like she knew she didn't want these babies. She knew that. I really believe she knew she did not want these children. And that was the way to get rid of them. Movie you'd like to see, just stream it for free on Pluto TV. Where all your blockbuster favorites are landing all summer long. Catch Anchorman, the legend of Ron Burgundy.
Starting point is 00:40:27 Fantastic. Men in Black, one through three. That's what I'm talking about. Mean girls. Shut up. Titanic. I'm the key in the world. And so much more.
Starting point is 00:40:36 For showtimes, press nothing. They're free 24-7. That is so fetch. On Pluto TV, stream now, pay never.

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