Cold Case Files - Sooner State Nightmare

Episode Date: January 28, 2025

A massive search unfolds in Chandler, Oklahoma when two women and a child go missing from a Walmart parking lot in 1992. It will take 23 years and a tip from an unlikely source to piece together a heinous plot of misdirection and murder. IQBAR - Get 20% off all IQBAR products plus free shipping by texting COLD to 64000 Rosetta Stone: Cold Case Files listeners can get Rosetta Stone’s lifetime membership for 50% off when you go to RosettaStone.com/coldcase 

Hi, cold case listeners. I'm Marisa Pinson. And before we get into this week's episode, I just wanted to remind you that episodes of Cold Case Files, as well as the A&E Classic Podcast, I Survived, American Justice, and City Confidential are all available ad free on the new A&E Crime and Investigation channel on Apple Podcasts and Apple Plus for just $4.99

a month or $39.99 a year. And now on onto the show. The following episode contains disturbing accounts of violence. Listener discretion is advised. My sister Wendy, Cynthia, my niece, and Lisa, my sister-in-law, went missing. I just didn't know what to do except pray. Nobody wants to see a child go missing, and Wendy suffers from MS.

So it was critical that we find them immediately. I desperately wanted to get them back. I feverish, almost obsessive hope. But Wendy, Cynthia, and Lisa vanished out of thin air, and they could not find them. It consumes you. You lie awake at night thinking about it. We need to get this case broke open and solved.

But what we found was very disturbing. It made me sick to my stomach. Now, you know who did it. But it's not what you know, it's what you can prove. I still wanted to find out what happened to them, and I never gave up trying. Every day I see something that reminds me of my sister. Every day.

There are over 100,000 cold cases in America. Only about 1% are ever solved. This is one of those rare stories. It's May 29th, 1992 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The world looks a little brighter for 23-year-old Wendy Camp, since she's getting to see her 4-year-old son for the first time in months. She's been locked in a custody battle with her ex-husband Chad Noe. Marty Wilson is a special agent for the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation. special agent for the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation. Chad made arrangements for Beverly Noe, Chad's mother, to drive to Oklahoma City, pick Wendy

up and bring her to Shamrock, Oklahoma, where Chad was living at the time, to visit with Jonathan, their four-year-old son. Jackie Taylor is Wendy's mother and Cynthia's grandmother. Beverly had called and said, we're gonna come and pick you up to have a visit with Jonathan. My daughter was ecstatic. Oh, I finally get to go see him. I finally get to go see him.

Asia Hashmi is Wendy's sister. Wendy was super excited to go, and her daughter, she's six years old, asked to go and she was permitted to go, and her daughter, she's six years old, asked to go and she was permitted to go. Wendy's current husband did not feel comfortable with Wendy going alone, so he had asked his sister, Lisa, to go with them. Wendy reluctantly agreed, you know, she really wanted to just go by herself with Cynthia, her daughter. Jackie Johnson is a former special agent for the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation.

He asked Lisa to tag along because he was concerned about Wendy's safety because she suffers from EMS. They got to Shamrock at about 1.40 p.m. on that day. The first thing they did was stop at a convenience store there so that Wendy could call her husband Leon, let him know that they'd made it there. From there, Beverly took them to Chad's house. By all accounts, the visitation went well.

Beverly showed back up at the house at around 4.30 to pick Wendy and Cynthia and Lisa up to take them home. They went to the same convenience store and again Wendy called Leon to say we're headed back home and that call was about 440, 445 p.m. Shamrock, Oklahoma is about 80 miles from Oklahoma City. It should have taken an hour and a half to two hours to get home. But Wendy and Cynthia and Lisa did not make it home. Wendy was the class clown. She wanted to be a veterinarian. She was amazingly smart, straight-A student.

Everything that she did, you know, she picked up the flute, picked up the clarinet, played the piano, and with zero effort. She really was my role model. Cynthia was a log wire. I wish I could bottle that energy. I'd be a millionaire. Very, very inquisitive on anything and everything. She loved to read. So very, very intelligent, just like her mom.

My niece's favorite thing when my sister would get home from work was bubble bath time. I remember once Wendy even called and said, Did you get the bubble bath ready? I remember once Wendy even called and said, did you get the bubble bath ready? I'm almost home. Lisa, my daughter's sister-in-law, was a young mother with two small children herself. My sister-in-law, Lisa, was a very, very docile, sweet girl. Lisa Kreger was Leon Camp's sister.

She was also 23 years old in the spring of 1992. So we had a huge loving family. At 8 p.m. on May 29th, 1992, Wendy Camp, Cynthia Britto, and Lisa Kreger are late getting home. Leon was very, very concerned when they had not made it home by eight o'clock. Wendy had multiple sclerosis and she needed her medications daily.

If she did not take the medications, it would immediately throw her into an attack from the multiple sclerosis and could lead even to immediate death. But she never got home. Leon fears something is wrong. And when he talks to Beverly, Wendy's former mother-in-law, that fear deepens. Beverly, who had driven them to the visit, dropped them off at a shopping mall, 45 minutes outside Oklahoma City, instead of driving them back home. According to Beverly, Wendy was complaining the whole time,

so she'd finally had enough, so she stopped at the Walmart parking lot in Chandler, dropped the girls off there, and said she figured they could get a ride from there. Beverly felt that leaving them in Chandler would be okay because they would be capable of getting a hold of Leon to come and pick him up. You would expect that the first thing Wendy would have done was call Leon,

but that did not occur. Leon called me and said, Mon, they're not home. What do I do? I said, call the police and have them come out and take a report on missing persons. The Oklahoma City Police Department responded around midnight that day. It was excruciating agony because I didn't know what happened. I had the feeling deep down in my heart that it was not going to be all right. Three days after Wendy, Cynthia, and Lisa go missing, the family waits by the phone, fearing the worst.

As the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, the OSBI, starts searching for Wendy, little Cynthia, and Lisa. All of the people who had been working at the store on that date were interviewed. People and businesses in the area, everybody was talked to, and nobody reported seeing anybody like that. They could have taken off walking down the highway. They could have tried to reach out to people in the parking lot. You would expect somebody would have had some contact with them. Maybe somebody offered to give them a ride and then something untoward happened.

Did they decide to strike out on their own and maybe a car hit them? Where did they go? It was imperative to find these three women as quickly as possible, especially given Wendy's medical condition and the fact that Cynthia is only six years old. Wendy and Cynthia and Lisa had disappeared. My parents were just beside themselves frantic. Where are you? My sister and niece Wendy and Cynthia and Lisa, my sister-in-law, went missing at a parking lot. The longer you go without finding them, the chances of finding them alive dwindle pretty quickly. With her MS,

if Wendy is not found immediately and start taking this medication within three days, she will start going back into a coma. There were searches of the whole surrounding area. There were deputies on horseback looking through the rural areas. Melissa Gann is a former special agent for the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation. Law enforcement even did aerial searches to make sure that the girls weren't in a ditch somewhere.

But nobody could find them. Special agents talked to Beverly Noe, Wendy's former mother-in-law about the ride back. Beverly was the last person to see Wendy, Lisa, and Cynthia. It is important to establish what could have happened. Beverly said that when she picked the girls up, her mother, Ida Pruitt, was also with her. They hadn't got a block and Wendy was just complaining about everything. So Ida told Beverly, why don't you just take me home?

Beverly dropped Ida off and then continued on to Chandler, Oklahoma. When she reaches the Walmart in Chandler, she said she had become very tired of listening to them. So she just stopped and dropped them off. Beverly was very cooperative with us, answering all the questions. Everything she was telling me was very feasible. The family wants to believe that Wendy, Cynthia, and Lisa are still alive. There's still hope that maybe they were somewhere being held hostage or something. I just didn't know what to do except pray.

I literally turned to God and said, God, please help us. Please bring them back safely. This episode is brought to you by IQ Bar, our exclusive snack sponsor. We all know mornings can be hectic. That's why I absolutely love IQ Bar products. I start off my day with IQ Joe, a jitter-free coffee that not only provides natural caffeine, but also boosts my focus and mood thanks to its unique magnesium and lion's mane blend. And when I'm on the go, I always make sure I have an IQ bar in my bag.

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Six days since the disappearance, agents interview Wendy's husband Leon and clear him. That's not the case with Chad No, Wendy's ex. Red flags pop up right away, and they're connected to Wendy's illness. When Jonathan, my grandson, was three weeks old, that's when she developed the multiple sclerosis. Wendy could not walk or anything. She fell into a coma.

This vibrant, bigger-than-life personality, now just lying there day in and day out for a little over a year. When Wendy was in the coma, we found out that Chad had filed for a divorce and for custody of Jonathan. That was just one shockwave on top of another shockwave. But Wendy's family is grateful when Chad's mother, Beverly, steps in to help him care for the new baby. We did reach out to Beverly and ask if she would take care

of Jonathan. Beverly loved Wendy. It was a big relief. Beverly was awesome. Everything is going to be great. When Wendy was recovering, she reached out to Chad to get visitation with Jonathan. At first, the visitation went fine,

but then ultimately ended up in the courts. Chad wanted custody of Jonathan, and Wendy had wanted custody, and so they were fighting over him. of Jonathan and Wendy had wanted custody and so they were fighting over him. We consider Chad as a suspect because of the custody battle, him being angry over it and then he sets up the meeting,

which leads to their disappearance. Chad No was interviewed numerous times. Chad's story matches up with Leon's story and with a lot of what Beverly said. We did a search of Chad's house, looking for evidence. However, we did not find anything. Chad was never ruled completely out, but Chad Noh did not become the focus of this investigation. All the interviews and searches lead nowhere. It was good investigative work.

There just wasn't a lot to go on. It was very frustrating because we could not develop any evidence that could tell us what had happened. When you get to the point where you have no more leads, it consumes you. You lie awake at night thinking about it. What else can I do? I decided that I'm not going to give up hope,

but I'll never forget what my mom said to me. She said, I'm telling you right now that they're dead. I know that they're dead. Personally, it bothered me that we could not find Lisa and Wendy because of her medical condition, and especially because of Cynthia. Nobody wants to see a child go missing. I didn't know if somebody had gotten them from the parking lot.

Unfortunately, the parking lot didn't have cameras. Nolan Clay is a journalist covering the story. I think the investigators did look into the possibility that they were abducted from the mall or on the way to a phone. Tragically, I've covered cases where that has happened. Then a possible lead comes in from neighboring Missouri, an apparent abduction. There had been some women go missing in Missouri under similar circumstances.

Three hours away in Springfield, Missouri, there was a mother and daughter that went missing along with the daughter's 18-year-old friend. You don't see three women disappear in Oklahoma, and then the next month, three other women disappear in Missouri. Their stuff was still in their house, their cars were in their house, their cars were in

their driveway, and they vanished out of thin air too, just like our mother and daughter and Lisa did. They weren't living a high-risk lifestyle. There really was no reason that they should have gone missing whatsoever. I contacted the investigator, and we compared the specifics of his case, and we just could not make a connection. They could not find any evidence linking these women. Just all six women disappeared under suspicious circumstances.

Random abductions do happen. This is before cell phones and it was a big mystery. It was a terrible tragedy. The family's fear and pain grow with each passing day. We prayed that as an innocent little child that baby to rot. Please Lord, please. At least let my little granddaughter be alive. I'm sorry. My mother literally could not function

was sitting on the floor in a pool of tears, unable to move, just screaming, where's my daughter? I can't imagine the despair and hopelessness that she felt at that moment. I tried every day to reach out to news medias. I started reaching out on the anniversaries. Can you do an update on Wendy or Cynthia's birthday? But there was just no movement. A year and a half after the disappearance, the TV show Unsolved Mysteries features the

case. Oddly enough, it is one of Wendy's favorite programs. Back in the day when Unsolved Mysteries just came out, Wendy was an avid, avid buff. How excited we would get watching Unsolved Mysteries back in the early 90s. The OSPI decided to reach out to Unsolved Mysteries because maybe somebody would see the show, recognize them, and we could find them that way. They came out and did the interview,

and we felt that that could help solve the case. Something about the program stands out to Wendy's sister. In an interview, Ida Pruitt, Beverly Knows' mother, strongly denies she or Chad Noe had anything to do with the disappearance. Why would Ida get so upset and claim on the Unsolved Mystery segment that my sister was griping and a bitching about the past.

Her remarks do not make sense because my sister was struggling with memory. I knew right then and there when I heard that statement on the Unsolved Mysteries episode that it was false. I knew that the family was involved when the Unsolved Mysteries episode aired. That's when the OSBI were saying that the facts didn't line up. Now Beverly came out as the strong suspect, the last person seen with them, but I thought so highly of her.

Did Beverly really do this? At first, they did have to take Beverly's statement at face value, but at the same time, things didn't really add up. Beverly said she dropped the woman and child off. We checked. We could not find any witnesses, and if Wendy had a problem, she was going to call Leon. I guarantee you, in 1992, she would have been able to find a pay phone outside the parking lot. And then I learned that Beverly was very angry due

to the custody battle. But by all accounts that went beyond that she basically wanted Jonathan for herself. But there was never any information developed to implicate Beverly. You need to have probable cause, and they weren't really anywhere close to that. At the time I retired in 2000, I was disappointed that we had not located Cynthia and Lisa and Wendy. I can't imagine what it would be like to know that one of my family was missing and we could never find them. Suspicions remain, but leads dry up, and the case of Cynthia, Wendy, and Lisa goes cold. The pain and anguish of not knowing, it dominates their thoughts and their dreams. Maybe Cynthia, my granddaughter, has survived. That was a desperate, fervent, almost obsessive home for me.

It's now April 12, 2004, 12 years after Cynthia, Wendy, and Lisa go missing. Cynthia's family never gives up. They connect with groups dedicated to finding missing children. There were several organizations that deal with human trafficking and that type of thing that worked with us.

The missing and exploited children wanted to do a age progression photo of Cynthia. Somebody might recognize Cynthia if she was still alive. Maybe Cynthia would look like this. And it just gave me more hope. I just saw how beautiful she would have been. It lifts your heart out, knowing that this is just images that aren't real, that it could have been.

The case languishes for years, but a suspicious fire in February 2007 might revive it. Police charge Beverly Noe and Ida Pruitt with arson. Beverly and her mom Ida are in jail. And I was like, what? Beverly and Ida set Beverly's house on fire and they were arrested. They did it for insurance money. It just shows the corruption in their soul. I was ecstatic.

Maybe they can offer Ida a free card out of jail, get her to turn against Beverly. And I got told by law enforcement in general that that's not possible. Ida and Beverly spent some jail time for that case. It's now September 2, 2011, 19 years after Cynthia, Wendy and Lisa go missing. Beverly and Ida do six months and are released. Then, four years later, Ida Pruitt dies, giving the police a possible opening in their case.

In 2011, Ida Pruitt passed away of esophageal cancer. And by all accounts, she was the one that held the family together. Now maybe people are going to start talking and giving information up about the case. It takes two years, but the hunch proves right when an unnamed relative calls in with a lead. The tip had come in to investigators telling them that they needed to look at this case. This person's story was that the bodies were buried under a cement slab at a home where Grover Pruitt used to live. Grover Pruitt is Ida Pruitt's son and Beverly Knows' brother. So is Grover Pruitt involved in these murders?

A tip had come in that we needed to go talk to Grover Pruitt, Beverly's brother, about Wendy and Lisa and Cynthia. We were actually excited about it. As we step into 2025, I've been reflecting on my personal growth goals. And one thing that's really exciting me is the opportunity to learn a new language. It's not just about taking off a New Year's resolution. It's about opening doors to new cultures and enriching my travel experiences. That's why I'm thrilled to introduce you to Rosetta Stone, the most trusted language learning program out there. I've been using Rosetta Stone to brush up on my Spanish, and what I love most is how it truly immerses you in the language. There's no English translations,

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Redeem your 50% off at RosettaStone.com slash cold case today. It's now March 28th, 2013, 21 years since Cynthia Brito, Wendy Camp, and Lisa Kregger go missing. The story was that the bodies were buried under a cement slab at the house where Grover Pruitt used to live. You've got to check that out because the case had definitely gone cold. You're looking for anything to kind of get it going again.

The tip was vetted out, but no bodies were found. Still, this did jumpstart the investigation again on Grover Pruitt. We interviewed Grover at his house. The strategy was just to see if any of the other family members had to Grover. Did he know where their remains were? Grover started telling them about this other property he owned back then. He kept saying, I don't know anything about this, but if I was going to look anywhere,

it would be out on that property. Grover had sold five of those acres to his mother, Ida. She had asked him to dig her a hole to put a septic tank in. Shortly after that, Wendy, Lisa, and Cynthia went missing, and Ida told him to hover that hole up. Grover said that maybe the girls could have been buried there. And Grover pointed out a depression in the ground where the hole for the septic tank had been.

That got us really excited. If Wendy, Lisa, and Cynthia were in there, we didn't want to disturb any of the evidence when we started digging. Also, if we found them, we wanted to preserve their remains. Excavation on the hole begins, and it's a slow and careful process. Even though we had a piece of heavy equipment out there,

a backhoe, we had to have a special bucket on it. You basically want to scrape away a little bit at a time. It was not a quick process. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, we hadn't gotten anything but dirt. And since it was dug for a septic tank, this hole was eight feet deep. Police asked Wendy's family to stay away until the work is done.

They just told us that they would let us know the results. And I said, I want to be present if they do find the bodies. They said, all right, well, you can come to this little town, but you got to wait at the police station. As we got further down, we began to find layers of trash. After the trash, there was another layer of dirt where we didn't see anything, but we were still digging and very hopeful. And then we saw a little sneaker.

When the bucket of the bike hoe scraped across the dirt, we could see something that looked different. The first thing that appeared were the souls of Cynthia's tennis shoes. Believe me, it was very somber. In the hole, there were what appeared to be two adult skeleton remains and then a smaller child skeleton remains. We may actually have found them. The clothing was exactly the same

as what Wendy and Cynthia and Lisa were wearing on the last day they were seen alive. There was a Ruger 357, two kitchen knives in the hole. there was a backpack with Cynthia's name inside, and there was a purse with Wendy's medical card. When they came in and told us that they had found them, all we could do was just cry and pray and walk. We couldn't even, we couldn't even sit down.

When the news reaches Leon Kemp, Wendy's husband, it makes a real impact. Just imagine your wife and your sister and this girl who had been part of your family and they never come home. Last time I talked to Leon, he was working at a hospital and he had found some peace in knowing that they were at rest and not a mystery. Investigators have finally found the bodies of Wendy, Cynthia, and Lisa. Now they have to solve a second mystery that has eluded them for 21 years. We're still going to have to go out and find the evidence of murder.

It's not what you know, it's what you can prove. You can't just go on hunches. You have to have evidence to file charges. You know who did it. The hard part is being able to make somebody pay for what they did. We had found Wendy, Lisa, and Cynthia's remains. But what happened to them after they left Chad's house?

We needed to tie Beverly to the homicides. When we saw the picture of them in the grave, the first thought that came to my mind was, this will be the last photograph I ever see of them. They are gone. As agents slowly remove Cynthia, Wendy, and Lisa's remains, they make a gruesome discovery. It was readily apparent that Cynthia had duct tape covering her face, including her nose

and mouth. That was very disturbing to me. You're talking about a six-year-old girl here. Looking at the duct tape on Cynthia, it's just a sickening feeling. Cynthia had duct tape wrapped around her head. And I think that she was left to suffocate. An autopsy was performed.

Wendy Camp had sustained gunshot wounds and sharp force trauma, likely a knife. Lisa Kreger had multiple gunshot wounds to the torso and Cynthia by homicide, by undetermined means. But who pulled the trigger, who held the knife, those kinds of things, we're still gonna have to prove that Beverly Noh did it. The OSBI special agents turned to the person

who helped them find the bodies, Beverly Knows' brother, Grover Pruitt. We asked him if he would wear a wire and go talk to his sister about Wendy, Lisa, and Cynthia. And Grover agreed reluctantly. We attached a recording device to him and told him to specifically mention something about guns. Grover told Beverly that OSBI wanted his.357 and Beverly said, I don't know why they do

that. We threw all the guns in the hole. And he shut her down. Grover definitely was sabotaging the efforts to get information from Beverly. Grover's attempts to protect his sister don't stop the authorities. With the discovery of the bodies and everything that we learned with Beverly's statement on the recording about guns, we decided it was time to arrest Beverly. on the recording about guns, we decided it was time to arrest Beverly. Beverly was charged with three counts of first degree murder, but she never admitted to any of this. The evidence against Beverly Ngo is shaky. Prosecutors aren't sure they can convict her

of first degree murder. Who actually killed these three girls? It could have been Beverly or Ida, either one, but Ida had died. So Beverly ultimately pled guilty to three counts of accessory to murder because she claimed that Ida hadn't done it. We don't have enough evidence to say exactly where any of them were killed, whether they were killed standing next to the hole or in the hole,

or whether they were killed before they got there. So ultimately, it would be nice to know that. Beverly, no, was given 15 years in prison for this because of Beverly's age. It's now January 7th, 2020, 27 years and 7 months after Cynthia, Lisa and Wendy are murdered. The family faces one final injustice. Beverly's back out in society. It's crazy. I can't say for certain why she got out early, but I think it had to do with some health problem she was having.

Does it anger me? Yes, it angers me. I feel that my family members got no justice whatsoever simply because of the fact Beverly is out of jail after four and a half years. What's the justice? Where was the justice? And to this day, 30 years later, Jonathan is still living with Beverly. Every single day, I miss her. I miss my daughter. The intimate memories and the closeness and being able to hug her or kiss her or call her on the phone. I miss family, family. If I had a chance to just spend some time with Wendy and Cynthia,

I would just say, I love you, and you really impacted my entire life. I'm grateful, and I never quit loving you. and we'll see you next time. with NCIS or Tracker. Or curl up with a surefire hit like Forrest Gump. Run, Forrest! Pluto TV has thousands of movies and shows all for free. Pluto TV. Stream now, pay never.