Cold Case Files - REOPENED: A Sister Lost

Episode Date: November 21, 2023

A thirteen-year-old girl vanishes, seemingly out of thin air, while her brother is standing just feet away. She was never seen again, and her disappearance would haunt her brother or thirty years. That is until another victim comes forward, and her trauma unlocks the mystery of what happened to the missing child. Progressive: Quote at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive. 

Some quick housekeeping before we get started. We're going to be taking a little break, so this is going to be our last episode for a little bit. I know, I know, you're going to miss me and the enigmatic Bill Curtis. Just be sure to keep an eye on the Cold Case Files the podcast feed for updates. But meanwhile, if you want more Brooke listening time, check out my new show, Buried Alive, and my original show, Actual Innocence. And if you want another great A&E podcast, go subscribe to PD Stories, a new show hosted by Tom Morris Jr. of America's Most Wanted and Live PD. The trailer's out now.

Go subscribe to Buried Alive, Actual Innocence, and Live PD wherever you listen to podcasts. Okay, on to the case. It was a hot summer afternoon in 1974 in Prairie Village, Kansas, a few days after the 4th of July. Kids were out on summer break, and a bunch of them were doing what any lucky kid does in the heat of a Midwestern summer. They were playing at their local pool. But on this picturesque day, one of those kids wasn't lucky at all. 13-year-old Lisbeth Wilson was never seen again after that day at the pool, despite the fact that her brother John was just feet away when she was taken. That would haunt John well into his adulthood, and so did the fact that his sister's murder

would go unsolved for nearly 30 years. But someone else in Prairie Village would also spend 30 years living with a haunting secret, another victim who buried her childhood trauma and never told a soul about the man who assaulted her, a woman who holds the key to both crimes. From A&E, this is Cold Case Files the Podcast. I'm Brooke, and this story, adapted from a classic episode of Cold Case Files,

is told by the exceptional Bill Curtis. I had done a cannonball off the side of the pool and I accidentally ran into her. So she was upset. And she had told me that she was going to go home and tell Mom and Dad and that I was going to get in trouble. It's the summer of 1974. John Wilson is 11 years old. His sister Elizabeth, 13. So I went out into the middle of the parking lot and then I heard my name. She called out my name, John. I turned around and looked and she was

running my way. John Wilson runs through the parking lot, ducks around the corner of a local high school and waits for his sister. I was going to jump out and scare her and try to make a last-minute deal with her, not to tell Mom and Dad. And she never came by. Never came by. With no sign of Liz,

John runs the four blocks home and waits. The minutes turn into hours, and still Liz is a no-show. Our rule was when the streetlights come on, you better be in your yard. And we never once broke that rule. And so we knew something was terribly wrong. At 10 p.m., the Wilsons dialed 911. Officer Randy Politis catches the call. We received a radio call on a missing child from the Prairie Village swimming pool parking lot.

Politis and a team of officers hit the streets. Responded to the area and conducted a neighborhood canvas of all these homes and went door to door to see if anyone had seen the little girl. After five hours, the search turns up no trace of Elizabeth. and went door to door to see if anyone had seen the little girl. After five hours, the search turns up no trace of Elizabeth and no reports of anyone or anything suspicious. Extreme concern for her welfare. The fact she's 12 years old in her swimming suit and it's now dark

and going into the early morning hours, there's still no sign of her. It became one of the biggest cases the FBI had in Kansas City. We can go out and put 100 people on a case, you know, almost around the clock. And that's what we did at the time, just to try to cover all bases. Zach Shelton and J.B. Brown are two of 100 FBI agents called in to work Elizabeth Wilson's disappearance. There was no abduction. There was no witness stated that a car drove in

and a little girl was taken. In fact, it looked like she vanished in thin air. Elizabeth Wilson was last seen alive running past a local high school. With nowhere else to turn, detectives returned to the school, and the only man working there at the time, a janitor named John Henry Horton. He's a person of extreme interest at the time, given the extensive amount of door-to-door canvas and investigation that was being conducted, and no one else had seen any other person in the area and he had the job to put him right there where she was last seen.

Horton's time card shows he punched out for a dinner break at 8 p.m. and didn't return until almost 11. He clocked out about 20 minutes after Liz Wilson's last scene. Well that was the first serious red flag of the investigation, was the fact that he had not returned during that window of her disappearance. According to the overnight janitor, when Horton returned to work, he was shirtless and had fresh scratches on his back and arms. When detectives questioned Horton about his absence from work, he claims he went out to buy dinner and had some car trouble.

His story is that his car broke down at a Milgram's grocery parking lot on 75th Street. We interviewed the employee there at the Milgram's, and this particular employee said there was nobody in that parking lot during that period of time. Horton's shaky alibi raises enough suspicion to merit a search warrant. When detectives pop the trunk on Horton's car, they get an eyeful. They pulled a lot of stuff out of the trunk of his car that was very questionable.

Sulfuric acid, chloroform, ether, butcher knife, some bags, and it just wasn't right, obviously. We all know when police work that chloroform in a rag, you put it over someone's face, you can render them incapacitated very quickly. And at that time, I was very concerned about the fact that we had a possible homicide on our hands. Horton tells police he stole the chloroform to get high, and the knife was a gift for his wife.

Agents don't buy a word of his story. They have Horton pegged as a liar and a murderer. It's a theory that gets a boost when police talk to Beth Reichmeier, a 15-year-old who describes an encounter she had with Horton on the same night Elizabeth disappeared. I had been over playing tennis at Prairie Village Pool, and I was walking home, and on my way, a gentleman stopped me. He's standing right here.

He wanted me to stand on his shoulders to help him turn off the water. He said he'd been watering the trees, and he just meant to stand on his shoulders to help him turn off the water. And that just didn't sound right to me. Beth says she refused to help and walked on. When FBI agents revisit the school, they discover the water spigot is just six inches off the ground and suspect Horton was using that ruse to lure Beth into the school. In the weeks and months that follow, detectives pound the pavement,

trying to forge a similar link between Horton and Liz Wilson. You know, when you put a hundred agents out here on one particular thing, and with all the people you talk to, there's nobody else that shows up that could have done it. That's it about him. Everybody's a suspect. We interviewed a lot of child molesters, sexual deviants of the area. So we did our job, but it kept coming back

to the only explanation of what happened was John Horton. After six months, detectives have a circumstantial case, but no direct evidence tying Horton to Elizabeth's disappearance. Meanwhile, a brother keeps hope alive that his big sister will someday return home. I kept hope. I just knew in my heart she'd return home. But that was not to be. Nine miles from the spot where Elizabeth Wilson vanished

is a vacant field. On January 7th, a construction worker named Fred Kipp surveys the land and turns up a skull. You know, it didn't look like much of anything. It was, here it's winter, and you have a skull. You know, it's just, there's nothing there but just the bone and the skull, and everything else has deteriorated.

Kipp dials 911, and a team of officers arrive to search the area. We walked almost arm in arm through this whole half to three-quarter section of land, bare land, looking for anything that we could pick up. Agents recovered the skull and some bones, but nothing further in the way of usable evidence.

Dental records confirm the remains belong to 13-year-old Elizabeth Wilson. After six months, a family's worst fears become a reality. I felt bad because I was the last one with her, and I felt like I had let everybody down because obviously she ran into foul play, and I wasn't there. I didn't understand it. How could this happen to my family? It was way beyond me. It's too young, too much. Investigators take their

case to the DA, hoping to secure an arrest warrant for John Horton. The DA, however, doesn't bite, citing the lack of sufficient evidence tying Horton to the victim. In time, Elizabeth Wilson finds her way to the cold files, where the investigation sits until 2001, when a rookie detective takes an interest. This poor family for 27 years has lived without justice for their daughter, and the suspect that everyone keys

on is still walking around free so that was my motivation to take a look at it one afternoon while looking for part of a file in another case, I was working on it. I came across some photocopies of reports related to this case. Kyle Shipps is a detective with the Prairie Village Police Department. On a slow day in 2001, he comes across the unsolved murder of Elizabeth Wilson. It was just one of those things that grabbed you when you first read it. This poor family for 27 years has lived without justice for their daughter, and the suspect that everyone keys on is still walking around free. So that was my motivation to take a look at it. He had all these young teenage girls right across the parking lot at

the pool. Ships partners up with Agent Brad Quartz from the KBI cold case squad. The two take a hard look at John Horton, the prime suspect from 1974. What was hard to believe was that he left all that evidence in his trunk. I mean, he didn't get rid of it that night. No. He left it in his trunk and they found it the next day. And that, those telling of items too, I mean, we're not talking anything nondescript but bottles of ether and chloroform.

Why would you have those in the trunk of your car? Exactly. Twenty-seven years ago, police pulled chloroform, rags and a knife from the trunk of Horton's car. Ships pulls the evidence and takes a look. These three bottles here are marked as chloroform. It was our feeling that he had utilized the chloroform in order to render Ms. Wilson unconscious and then to effect the molestation.

A person who is just going about day-to-day business has no business having these kind of items in their trunk. They're basically an abduction kit, whether to threaten somebody into accompanying you, rendering the person unconscious, things of that nature. Detectives refresh the investigation by running a criminal history on Horton. In 1993, the former janitor was arrested for peeping into teenage girls' windows, a misdemeanor offense, but telling.

That was a big break in the case, I thought, because it established that he's had a propensity for stalking and molesting teenage girls his whole life. It was all a common thread of this fascination in a sexual manner with young teenage girls. Cold case detectives begin the process of tracking down and re-interviewing witnesses. Well, first I found a note on my door, and so I called them, and they said they were going to reopen the case. In 1974, Beth Reichmeier was just 15 years old when she told police that Horton approached her

near the high school on the same night Liz disappeared. Now detectives return to Reichmeier and ask her if she might have also seen Liz's brother, John Wilson, that night. It was Horton first, and then as I got up around the front of the school, that's when John Wilson went running by. We were up towards the front of the doors, and he was out near the pillars. Reichmeier's statements put Horton that much closer to Liz Wilson and the time she disappeared.

Captain Dan Meyer is a specialist in forensic mapping and lays out a timeline for cold case detectives. Based on the evidence provided to me, I know that Beth is talking to John Horton and identifies the time of that encounter at 7 20 p.m. I then calculated the time that it would have taken them to reach the front door and I know that Beth arrives at the front door of the school at 7 22. It's during that time that she sees young John Wilson run by her location. Based on my calculations, I know that just seconds prior to the 722 time, John had turned and saw his sister while she was continuing to run from this location. The final location that he saw his sister was only 175 feet, 13 to 17 seconds away from the location that John Horton was last seen,

meaning he was the only one that had the opportunity for the abduction and was in the area at the time. Liz was last seen by her brother John at the end of this median here. Cold case detectives take their timeline into the field and play out how Elizabeth Wilson was abducted. John Horton was at this location near the sidewalk in between the two trees. John Wilson was on around at the front of the school, and it should have taken Liz about two minutes

to walk up to where John was, and she never did arrive at that location. He didn't forcefully bring her into the school, but rather somehow was able to gain her confidence. We think he used some sort of either ruse or excuse in order to get her to enter the school with him at that time. Then once he got her in the school, began a molestation. There's indications that there was a struggle at one point.

Their case is built almost entirely on circumstance, times, and dates that put John Horton in close proximity to a child gone missing. It is not an ideal case, but enough to warrant a sit-down with Horton. We wanted to catch him cold to get that initial, unrehearsed response from him, because that's a true indicator. On August 7th, Brad Kortz surprises Horton in the parking lot of the factory where he works and asks him about Elizabeth Wilson.

And immediately, he dropped his head and just remained silent, like he was trying to think of something to say and he started to shake and I actually said to myself right then I said he's guilty he did it it's not the issue is whether you did it or it happened. Horton agrees to sit down for questioning. For two hours, Quartz digs. But Horton sticks to his denials and admits to nothing. I know I'm the only one there, according to that. I don't remember seeing her.

I don't remember anybody running by. As my wife said, I need to evidently contact a lawyer if all this kind of stuff's going on. This is crazy. No, it's not crazy. It's fact. You think I'd make all this stuff up? No, I say you make everything up. It's not crazy, John. It's reality.

It's not crazy. It's reality. Cold case detectives believe their case is as good as it's going to get and prepare to take their evidence to the DA. Then another woman surfaces, one who had her own run-in up close and personal with John Horton and his bottle of chloroform. I couldn't move at all. None whatsoever. But when I came to, it was like a foggy vision. Revealing a long-kept secret, after the break.

Cold Case Files is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. after the break. now, getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance. It's easy, and you could save money by doing it right from your phone. Drivers who save by switching to Progressive save nearly $750 on average, and auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. Discounts for having multiple vehicles on your policy, being a homeowner, and more. So just like your favorite podcast, Progressive will be with you 24-7, 365 days a year, so you're protected no matter what. I think anyone who listens to this podcast regularly June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary. Discounts not available in all states and situations. I think anyone who listens to this podcast regularly will know I'm not a huge fan of criminal profiling. Sometimes the picture painted of an accused person is nothing close to reality. However, in this case, John Horton seems to come straight from a criminal playbook and the pieces seem to fit.

13-year-old Lisbeth Wilson had gone missing near the school where Horton worked as a janitor. He was seen in the vicinity of the school in the exact moments before she went missing, and he had a knife and chloroform in his trunk. A lot of chloroform. All signs pointed to Horton, but so far that's all investigators had. Signs and clues that pointed towards Horton. It was all just circumstantial evidence. What investigators needed was a smoking gun, something that tied Horton to Lisbeth's assault and murder, or at least something that proved that he had a track record of sexual assault and violence. And that is exactly what they would find when one woman bravely came forward to tell her story. She had kept a secret for nearly 30 years,

and her testimony would give investigators the solid evidence they needed to bring the killer to justice. The vast majority of people that knew him that we talked to said the same thing basically, that he was a creepy, weird, strange person. They didn't believe a lot of the information that he said. So you know, he's a deceptive person naturally. I mean, that's his nature. Yeah, told a lot of stories. Yeah, to have to do this all over again.

Brad Quartz and Kyle Shipps are talking about John Horton, a former school janitor and the man they believe abducted and killed 13-year-old Elizabeth Wilson more than 30 years ago. Quartz and Shipps can place Horton at the school where Wilson was last seen and have a bottle of chloroform and a knife recovered from the suspect's car. But little else in the way of hard evidence. That is, until they review the case file

and happen upon a name. There was just a written note in the case file I found that said, had a name Joy Krieger. We have another young teenage girl. She needs to be talked to. When they brought up his name, it freaked me out, and I was at work. And I'm like, oh, my God, you know, why do they want to talk to me? They haven't in 30 years almost, you know.

Joy Krieger is a woman with a secret, one she has kept locked away for almost 30 years. On August 8th, she sits down with Agent Angie Wilson and decides to talk. We asked her how she felt about John Horton and what her experiences were like with John Horton, and that's when she became very emotional and said that she didn't like him at all. Joy tells Agent Wilson that two months before Elizabeth disappeared,

her neighbor John Horton offered to get her high. Krieger at the time was 14 years old. So we were just going to go to the golf course for what I thought was just going to pop and get high. Walked over to a green, kind of sat down, like a little circle area, I'm just going to go to the golf course for what I thought was just to get high. Walked over to a green, kind of sat down like a little circle area, and he pulls out this bottle and a rag and kind of says, here, you know, this will get you high.

And I went like this because that's what he told me to do, and I was like, no. And he said, no, go ahead, and I remember him putting his hand back up to mine. Joy inhaled the fumes and quickly blacked out. Some time later, she woke up in a haze. I couldn't move at all, none whatsoever. But when I came to, it was like a foggy vision. But my pants were down. He had his fingers inside of me.

He was kind of leaning up over me a little bit, but it's like I couldn't move. I couldn't say anything. Before she could do anything to stop Horton, Joy blacked out for a second time. I have no idea how I came to it, but when I did, my pants were being pulled up and zipped. I kind of went out again.

When I came to again, I remember sitting up and just violently throwing up. Joy found her way home and made a promise to herself that she would never tell a soul. She was very upset by it and explained to us that we were the first people she'd ever told about this. Detectives believed the attack on Krieger to be a blueprint for Horton's abduction of Elizabeth

Wilson and the final piece in their case against him. You almost thought it was too good to be true that there's no way this guy could be doing this twice. On October 15, 2003, Horton is arrested and charged with the murder of Elizabeth Wilson. On September 20th, John Horton's trial begins. This was probably, in my opinion, the prosecutor's dream case in terms of having a victim as pure as the driven snow and a defendant who had done some very outrageous things to cause this to happen.

And, yeah, I was fired up about trying to get a conviction. Central to Prosecutor Rick Gwynn's case is the testimony of Joy Krieger. Nothing can prepare you for saying something like that on the stand and seeing him in person. On September 23rd, she takes the stand and tells the jurors her story. Because he had molested me when I was young.

We believe there were two lessons he learned. Number one, that Joy Krieger woke up in the middle of his assault on her, and so therefore more chloroform would be needed in order to keep his next victim unconscious. And number two, Joy Krieger never told a soul, so in his mind it could have very easily been that she had no memory of what happened to her, and therefore it was the perfect crime. Gwynn picks up on Krieger's testimony,

arguing that Elizabeth Wilson was victimized in the same ways, except this time Horton went one step further and killed his victim. Our theory was that she was solicited by the defendant to come inside the school to turn off a water hose. He took her into a TV room inside the high school, had the chloroform with him at that time, had a knife with him at that time

to threaten her in case she struggled or fought with him. And then he subdued her through the chloroform, rendered her unconscious, and then removed certain clothings for the purpose of fondling her. In the process of doing that, the chloroformform, instead of renting her unconscious, ended up killing her. After six days of testimony, the case goes to the jury. Just two hours later, they are back with a verdict, guilty in the first degree. You could see the color slowly draining out of his face.

That smile that had been present throughout the trial suddenly started turning into a look of shock, a look of surprise. The look on his face when they announced guilty, it was priceless because he was stunned. For the family of Elizabeth Wilson, the verdict means justice, 30 years in the making, and a small bit of comfort for a brother

who wonders how different things might have been. We were supposed to walk home together, and even though she was right behind me, that was not supposed to happen. But I knew in my heart that I wasn't there, and that was hard to overcome. Miss her. I often wonder how it would have been growing up with her in teenage years and getting old.

But I'll see her again in heaven. Elizabeth Wilson didn't get to grow up. And her brother's right. Things like that are not supposed to happen. But Joy Krieger did grow up, and like John, she was forced to live with the pain and trauma inflicted by Horton. While they suffered in different ways, they were linked by that common experience. It seems fitting, then, that Joy Krieger was the one to provide a small bit of justice for Lisbeth and peace to the Wilson family. And hopefully, by telling her story and protecting more children from Horton's reach, Joy was able to find some peace too. Thank you. were distributed by Podcast One. The Cold Case Files TV series was produced by Curtis Productions

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