Cold Case Files - Sweethearts Silenced

Episode Date: April 29, 2025

A killer authors a book about his con-man past that becomes the key to solving a 29-year-old cold case of two high school sweethearts--and three other cold case murders--leading police to believe he could be the Zodiac Killer.Progressive: Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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. This program contains subject matter that may be disturbing to some listeners. Listener discretion is advised. They said the kids are going to come back. They just ran away. We knew they didn't just run away. This is one of the largest manhunts in the state of Wisconsin.

Dave is absolutely relentless. You think it should be solved, you gotta blame somebody. We had to figure out what kind of killer we were dealing with. He exhibited all of the stereotypical signs of a serial killer. When an investigation runs out of leads, it becomes a cold case.

Years pass and hope fades, but for the families of the victims, these cases are never cold. The truth takes time. It's August 9, 1980 in Fort Atkins in Wisconsin. High school sweethearts Tim Hack and Kelly Drew are at the wedding of a friend. The couple have plans to go to a carnival so they don't stay long. They have a drink then disappear into the night,

never to be seen again. Patrick Hack is Tim's brother. We do take this part of Wisconsin for granted. We love the sunrises and the sunsets and planting and harvesting of crops. Some of us are lucky enough to meet our high school sweetheart and get married. Mary Mode and Dave Hack are Tim's parents. Tim and Kelly started dating in high school.

Tim would bring Kelly out to the farm. They were a good couple. I really do believe that the two of them would eventually be married, that they would be a couple for life. Tim and Kelly were going to go to a wedding reception at the Concord House. Detective Chad Garcia investigated the case. Tim and Kelly get to the Concord House at approximately 1030 p.m. They're there for approximately half an hour, 45 minutes.

Witnesses say that Tim had a beer and Kelly had a soda during the time they were there. And there are witnesses that see them leave. Witnesses say that Tim had a beer and Kelly had a soda during the time they were there. And there are witnesses that see them leave. The next morning, get up and get work done. Except when you got up in the morning and Tim wasn't there, instantly there was a level of concern. If he wasn't going to come home and he was going to stay with a friend, he'd call. We called Kelly's mom and said, did they stay there? She said, no.

I drove up to the Concord house to look. Tim's car was still there. The door wasn't quite shut. And this wallet was still in the car. And that was not like him to do stuff like that. From there on, we finally realized Tim and Kelly are gone. The Sheriff's Department finds cigarettes, checkbook, wallet. There did not appear any sign of a struggle. Lawrence Lee was the original detective sergeant on the case.

They were boyfriend and girlfriend. There was some talk, I remember, did they lope? Did they take a bus someplace? Our kitchen actually became a command post. Dave knows that something's wrong. Something has happened. We need to figure out what happened. If they had run off to Las Vegas and got married, they would have called us. They wouldn't have let us sit and worry about them. In the first four days, they were talking to all the employees from the Concord house. We were talking to wedding guests.

Susan Happ is a Jefferson County District Attorney. One consistent thing that was reported was that there was this dark, dirty van that had been in the parking lot. One witness specifically recalled the van taking off, sort of in a suspicious fashion, in a quick way. The Concord house itself was right next to the interstate. There's a big parking lot.

There's not a lot of lighting or anything out there. If you were intent on abducting somebody, all you had to do is wait for the right moment. We need to find the kids. The community stepped up. All the local farmers were there to help do some searches around the Concord House. They're searching vacant buildings.

They're searching everywhere that they can find. Everybody was involved. This is one of the largest manhunts in the state of Wisconsin. It didn't seem real. Nothing seemed real. You'd have two news helicopters landing in the field next to the house. I mean, how real is that? We checked every place we could think of. There was nothing that could lead us to them.

Searches continued for six days after the disappearance before the discovery of a piece of evidence gave investigators their first clue. A teenager on his tractor had seen something as he was driving that caught his eye. A pair of pants, just like Kelly had been wearing on the night that she disappeared. Both the left and the right leg are completely cut. A pair of pants, just like Kelly had been wearing on the night that she disappeared. Both the left and the right leg are completely cut from the ankle all the way up to the waist. And so in other words, the pants could have still been on her body, but they had been cut away. It just magnified what I had thought all along, that someone had definitely raped her. Over the course of 10 days,

multiple pieces of clothing belonging to Kelly are found along the roadway within a six-mile radius of the Concord house, as well as about a dozen pieces of rope with various knots tied in it. We have very good evidence now, but we need Tim and Kelly. Then, 72 days after the disappearance,

news comes in from Exonia, Wisconsin. Squirrel hunters from Milwaukee are out in the Exonia, Wisconsin area, which is approximately seven miles from the Concord house. While they're walking through a wooded area, they stumble across a body and immediately contact law enforcement. The body was badly decomposed.

It's dark out, it's nighttime, so law enforcement sets up a perimeter around this area until daylight, approximately a hundred yards away. They locate a male body that's fully clothed and appears to be the same clothing that Tim was reported to have been wearing on August 9th, 1980. The manner of death for both of them was homicide. I had the radio on, and they announced over the radio that they had indeed found both bodies. And so, I'm going to tear up. So I remember walking in the kitchen, and the detective is there with my parents,

telling them that they did indeed find Tim and Kelly. There were ligature marks on Kelly's ankles and wrists that were consistent with having been bound. Kelly was most possibly strangled based on damage and insect activity around the throat area. So then these pieces of rope we're finding along the road sides become extremely significant. There's the regular square knot but there's also half hitches, clove hitches, bowline knots. This is somebody with knowledge of knot tying, somebody that's been in the Navy or the military or in the trades like a

carpenter, maybe a painter. It's not gonna just be your everyday person that's gonna tie these types of knots. This is a tight-knit community, so the phone calls are coming in, the tips are coming in. There's a tip that comes in from a woman who believes that her husband may have been involved

in the murders of Tim and Kelly. This suspect, Mr. James, lived in the area where Tim and Kelly. This suspect, Mr. James, lived in the area where the bodies were found. He does roofing work, works with ropes. He's known to carry a knife on his belt. He has a van. And on August 10th of 1980,

shortly after the disappearance of Tim and Kelly, he has his wife and stepdaughters completely clean out the van. A lot of things are adding up here. This could be the guy that took Tim and Kelly. So a search warrant is obtained to search the property to try to see if they could find anything linking Mr. James to Tim Hack and Kelly Drew. They retrieve clothing that is eerily similar to Kelly's shirt, both in terms of color and the way that it's torn. They find ropes tied in knots. They find what could be blood. They transport this clothing to the crime lab for testing. As they're conducting a search,

they received information from his wife. She said that he's an alcoholic, he's violent. He, according to his wife, had tied her up in the past. And then his wife said that her daughters, his stepdaughters, were being sexually assaulted by him. Officers took him into custody so that he could be questioned in regards to Tim and Kelly. He was questioned at length. He denied any involvement, and a polygraph or lie detector test was used on him.

Polygraphs aren't admissible at trial, but they do give investigators at least some guidance as to whether a suspect is being truthful. He admits to the sexual assault of his stepdaughters, but denies any knowledge of Tim or Kelly, denies ever meeting them, abducting them, ever being at the Concord house. It was the examiner's determination

that Mr. James was being truthful when he denied having any involvement in Tim and Kelly's murders. Mr. James ultimately is convicted of the sexual assault of his stepdaughters and sent away. However, he remains a suspect in this case. I know that my parents and Kelly's parents

worked together on planning the funerals. They died together. They wanted him to be together eternally. Dave never let it go because Dave was always searching for justice for Tim. You think it should be solved. together eternally. Dave never let it go because Dave was always searching for justice for Tim. You think it should be solved. You gotta blame somebody.

We were looking at anything that was gonna help solve it. It's now June 1983, three years after the deaths of Tim and Kelly. Dr. Robert Shug is a forensic psychologist. Henry Lee Lucas and Otis Tool were a pair of drifters who were arrested on a number of very minor charges. After their apprehension, they started confessing to dozens and dozens of murders.

As a result, detectives from all over the country now have to become involved in the investigation to see if any of their cold cases involved Lucas or Tool. What led us to believe that they could be responsible was that they had abducted so many women and men, sexually assaulting them and at times killing them. There were a total of either four or five cases in Wisconsin at that time that were unsolved

that could have been them. A serial killer with a drifter lifestyle can leave a trail of bodies and no one can actually pinpoint them to be in that location at any given time. One of the murders Henry Lee Lucas confessed to was the Orange Socks Drifter. This was a young Jane Doe, unidentified, who was found murdered wearing only orange socks. The Orange Socks Drifter was strangled and raped, very similar to the way Kelly Drew

was. Because of the similarities in these crimes, this was a significant motivating factor for detectives to go interview Lucas and Tool. There was optimism. Now it's getting serious. You just had that feeling that they were going to solve this case. Lucas and Tool are confessing to an excess of 300 rapes and homicides that they've done across the country. The reasons that Lucas and Tool might confess

to all these crimes might be to gain attention. It might be important for them. Maybe it fed their egos. Our investigator went to interview Lucas and Tool regarding Tim and Kelly. What led investigators to believe that they could be responsible for the murder of Tim and Kelly was that they committed two separate homicides in Wisconsin.

Lucas and Tool had previously admitted to being in Wisconsin, traveling on I-94, very close to where Tim and Kelly disappeared from at the Concord House. And the time frame was around the same time frame as Tim and Kelly's disappearance. In a recorded conversation, Lucas and Tool discuss the Jane Doe's location. But who's going to do it if we don't? How many people did you kill? 150. Tool tells Lucas that he has killed over 150 people across 48 states. Investigators and the families believe that the murder had been found. And it was all that people could talk about was that finally we know who did it.

Investigators established a detailed timeline and find that Lucas and Tool were in Wisconsin in September and October of 1980, however they were not in Wisconsin in August of 1980. I mean they certainly were killers, serial killers even, but they were not involved in Tim and Kelly's murders. Tips aren't coming in. All the evidence that has been found has been processed, has been sent in. All the leads that have been developed

have pretty much been followed up on. The reality was we weren't making any progress towards identifying a suspect. Eventually, the leads dry up and the case goes cold. The case remains cold for more than two decades and the Hack family is forced to move on without their oldest son. I sold the family farm.

I always felt Tim would eventually take over the farm, but then after they died, it didn't really make any difference anymore because it was no longer a family farm. You always expected Tim and Kelly to be there to run the farm, to run the crops. It just leaves a hole. When I turned 18, my parents gave me Tim's car. And I still have the car, I still drive the car, I still love the car.

I just didn't want Tim and Kelly forgot. Cold Case Files is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You chose to hit play on this podcast today. Smart choice. Progressive loves to help people make smart choices. That's why they offer a tool called AutoQuote Explorer that allows you to compare your progressive car insurance quote with rates from other companies. So you save time on the research and can enjoy savings when you choose the best rate for you. Give it a try after this episode at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates not available in all states or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy.

It's now 2006, 26 years after the murders. A big part of my love for the community is that it's where I grew up. It's where I'm raising my daughter now. Small towns are safe. You know, you can let your kids out at night and they can play without fear. I was eight years old at the time Tim and Kelly went missing. So when I first was elected district attorney, I was well aware of this case. And I wanted to know what happened to Tim and Kelly.

When I got the case, it was 26 years old at that point. Knowing what a big case this was after being unsolved for so long, it immediately became my number one goal to solve this case. I reviewed thousands of pages of reports, attachments, maps, and photos, but in general, there's limited evidence I have to go with. But what I do have was Kelly's clothes. At that time, DNA is becoming more and more popular. That was something that wasn't available to law enforcement back in 1980. The clothing was submitted to the Wisconsin State Crime Lab,

and they told us that they did have DNA. The DNA located on Kelly's pants and underwear was from seminal fluid. So this was a huge break in the case. This is incredible. I think for the first time in my life I felt like there's a ray of hope here. In looking at the maps you could see where there were clearly three major roads that were used to dump the bodies and to dump the evidence. And so a triangle was established. At one point is where the majority of the evidence was found. At another point is the Concord House. And at the third corner would be the location where Tim and Kelly's bodies were found.

So this was something somebody used to throw us off the track or this person lives or is very familiar with this area. Though he cannot know for sure, Garcia says his gut tells him someone local is responsible. Media is a valuable tool for law enforcement to use. They have a huge audience and they can get people to say something they normally wouldn't say or maybe get people to feel that what they thought wasn't important is important. It had been a couple months since the news story ran, and one evening I received a phone call. It was a female who identifies herself as April.

She explains to me that their family were basically drifters, that they lived in a lot of locations. In the summer of 1980, they lived in the Concord area within that triangle. She said, I think my dad could be responsible for Tim and Kelly. I think he killed them. And she said his name is Edward Wayne Edwards. She tells me about a book that he had written that she said would explain more about her father. Ba-ba-ba! Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba! applause about her father. Bop, bop, bop. Bop, bop, bop, bop, bop.

Bop, bop, bop, bop, bop. Will the real Ed Edwards please stand up? Oh! applause Back in the early 70s, Edwards appears on numerous talk shows and game shows

with this book about his life as a master criminal. In the late 60s, Edwards was on the FBI 10 Most Wanted list. He was a suspect in a double homicide in Portland, Oregon. They couldn't prove that he did it, but upon checking the criminal history of Edward Wayne Edwards, I see that he has been in prison. He has been convicted of numerous crimes to include robbery, vehicle theft, fraud, arson.

He's done a lot of things. And he goes on the circuit talking to people about what a horrible person he had been, but what a great person he had become. I met a man who was a guard at the penitentiary, and he's the one that helped me to rehabilitate. As I read the book, what was so interesting was he exhibited all of the classic signs of,

the stereotypical signs of a serial killer. He was a bad weather. He had an affinity for starting fires. He was extremely controlling. For some serial killers, the need to put on a normal face to interact with members of society and have access to victims is very important.

In fact, if they looked unusual or weird or bizarre, they might not get to approach victims in the way that they need to. My life has certainly been anything but good. Dangerous, yes. Honest, no. In addition to that, Edward's daughter, April, had told me her dad was in the military,

that he had been dishonorably discharged from the military. So Edward knows how to tie these knots. And his house is smack dab in the middle of where Kelly and Tim were last seen alive and where their bodies were ultimately located. This drifter stranger who floated around who wasn't really from Wisconsin, he wasn't from Jefferson County.

We obviously have a new prime suspect. I start going back through the reports and seeing if there's a mention of Edward Wayne Edwards. And I had him on my suspect list. Edwards was interviewed in early September of 1980. He really didn't have a lot of information to offer. He did not know anything about Tim or Kelly's disappearance. The one thing that stuck out to me

was that he had a broken nose. He said it was a deer hunting incident that caused the rifle to kick back and caused the broken nose. That seemed odd to me. Gun deer hunting in Wisconsin is November, not in August. Once I found out where Edwards had lived, I talked to the landlord that took care of the house. He said that Edwards lived in that house for a brief time

and then moved to another state shortly after the disappearance of Tim and Kelly. They packed up in the middle of the night during the school year. Our advantage is to having a drifter-like lifestyle. You're not accountable for your whereabouts at any given time. You don't necessarily have people tracking you and keeping up on your location. For a serial killer, it's actually quite ideal. The landlord also found some rope in the garage.

And this rope was of similar characteristics to the rope that was found alongside the road. Edwards had a van. He kept a.357 revolver in the van. This van adds up with the van that was spotted that night. What was especially suspicious in 1980, Edward Wayne Edwards was a handyman at the Concord house. Everything was making sense. Everything was pointing towards Edwards. I think I know what happened to him and Kelly.

Edwards was waiting in the parking lot. Kelly fit the profile he was looking for. Tim, being a strong farm boy, got a good swing in on Edwards, causing the broken nose, and that's when Tim was stabbed. There's no telling what happened in the van, but we know that Kelly was raped and strangled to death. I need to go to Louisville, Kentucky. I need to talk to Edwards and I need to get his DNA.

It's now July 31, 2009, 29 years after the murder. If Ed Edwards truly was a psychopath, not having a conscience, not having empathy, not being afraid of punishment would have made it very easy for Edwards to kill again. I was nervous. I realized what kind of person I was dealing with. There was a high probability that Edwards committed these crimes.

He is a very, very dangerous person. This was it. I was surprised with his health condition. He was in a wheelchair on oxygen Very overweight and not in very good health throughout the entire time that we spoke with him He acted very nonchalant Like it didn't matter that we were there at all for some serial killers. It is a game Given Edwards's age it might have been this was his last opportunity to manipulate law enforcement.

When I asked him to provide a sample of his DNA so that we could test it, he said that he had no problem doing that. He thinks he's smarter than us. After 29 years, he's thinking, what DNA are we going to have? How are we going to prove this? Turns out, it's a match. At the time, we take him into custody. We're just waiting on those guys. Let's take the talk to your wife. Edwards is acting as though this is no big deal.

Oh, okay, with my wife. That should be a concern. I'm joking. No, they're not. I'm joking. I'm joking. I know you are. So one of the traits of a psychopath is this superficial charm that they can turn on and

off at will in order to do their bidding. Hey, thanks. No problem. They call you Cal, is that what you're called? Kyle. Kyle. Kyle. Thank you.

Myself and the DCI agent speak with Edwards. I'm willing to make a statement and answer questions. I do not want to layer it this time. You're good with that? We'll go over them again if you're not comfortable. Everything's fine. Everything's fine. He waves his Miranda rights and we explain a number of things showing that he is responsible for this. We're trying to get him to give us his version of events. We're trying to get him to give us his version of events. This is your shot. I mean, this is your show. If there's anything you want to get off your chest, I'm yours.

I'm here to listen to you. But unfortunately, this is your only shot. He completely denies ever killing anyone. You say that you didn't kill him. I've never killed anyone. All right. I'm going to ask you this then. Who did? Who did it, you didn't kill him. No, sir, I have never killed anyone. All right, I'm gonna ask you this then. And it upsets me. Who did? Who did it?

Throughout the eight plus hours of interviewing with Edwards, he remained calm the entire time. And he frequently would try to change topics. I use two shots of insulin a day. He would talk about anything he could to stay away from talking about Tim and Kelly. His manipulating law enforcement in the interrogations is very consistent with who Ed Edwards is

and had been his entire life. He lied, he manipulated, he conned. You can continue this like that. No, I know, I know. I think this is just a game for you. And he's right, your DNA was there. And that's the bottom line. You can explain it.

You're just saying, you're not in charge. He's lying to us, trying to beat us, thinking he's smarter than us. So I decide to feed into his ego. And I had his book with me. But if you wouldn't mind signing the book, would you mind doing that for me? You got any money? Oh, money.

Well, how much do I put you in? I'm a police officer. I don't have any money. I'm a police officer. I don't have any money. And he did enjoy that. I'm gonna sign this as Wayne, okay? Sure. During the final hour or two of the interview, we asked him if he could explain the seminal

fluid DNA being on Kelly's clothes. So then he comes up with the most unbelievable story. All right, I had sex with her. You had sex with the young lady who died? Yes. Okay, that explains a lot. Consensual? Who, with me?

Yes, oh yes. Not, not forcible,. Consensual? Who, me? Yes. Oh, yes. Not, not forcible, not... Oh, no. No, no, no, no. It was consensual. Tim and Kelly were joined at the hip.

Kelly Drew's not going to go off and willingly have sex with Ed Edwards in a cornfield. But Edwards, defense attorney, could have said it was consensual sex. We, as prosecutors, have to be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that this is the person. And the DNA was really good. But from a prosecutor's standpoint, that's strong enough. After conducting the interview of Edwards, which was digitally recorded, I went back to see if maybe there was something he said that I didn't pick up on or maybe there were certain movements he made to tell me when he was lying. As I'm watching the video, something struck me.

There was a comment that he made when nobody was speaking with him and it was myself and Detective Sergeant Brian Nunn in the room. He said something sort of under his breath. We probably rewound it, you know, a thousand times trying to make sure that we heard what we heard. This is a story that begins with a dying wish. My mother's last request that my sister and I finish writing the memoir she'd started about her German childhood When her father designed a secret super weapon for Adolf Hitler My grandfather Robert Lusser headed the Nazi project to build the world's first cruise missile

Which terrorized millions and left a legacy that dogged my mother like a curse. She had some secrets, mom had some secrets. I'm Suzanne Rico. Join my sister and me as we search for the truth behind our grandfather's work and for the first time face the ghosts of our past. Jeez, who is he?

Listen to the man who calculated death. Available now, wherever you get your podcasts. I can remember exactly where I was when I heard that recording. He thought it was under his breath, or maybe it was subconsciously that he said it, but he clearly wasn't saying it out loud. It was quietly said. And after listening to it repeatedly and having many others listen to it repeatedly,

everyone agreed that what he said is, Damn it, I killed her. Damn it, I killed her. To hear him say, damn it, I killed her. It's a goosebump moment. Rarely do you have someone who's committed a double homicide actually admit what they did and that took away any possibility that he would not be found guilty.

We got him. We got him. We got our guy. Ultimately, he pleads guilty to killing Tim and Kelly. We don't know why he confessed. He had been playing the game of cat and mouse for many years, but I was happy to see that the two families did get closure. It was over, you know, that feeling of it's over. Ed Edwards returns to Wisconsin to face justice for the murders of Tim Hack and Kelly Drew. But as his health fails, he reveals a 33-year-old secret to the cold case detectives. While Edwards is in the infirmary in Wisconsin, he begins sending letters to a detective in Ohio regarding two other young people that he had murdered, Billy Lovacco and Judas Straub. to other young people that he had murdered, Billy Lovaco and Judas Straub.

His goal is to return to Ohio and get the death penalty for killing them. Edwards wants to maintain control over his life, over his trajectory, and he will say anything and do anything when the opportunity presents itself to maintain that control. He's again trying to manipulate the system and control his future know, his future.

But he doesn't know that there was a chunk of time that went over the Lavaco and Straub homicides where the death penalty did not apply. So once he realizes that, Edwards confesses to killing his foster son Danny. I felt bad, but apparently not bad enough that I kept from doing it. And that's the case that is death penalty eligible. We don't generally, in prosecution circles, give defendants what they want. But it's going to solve five homicides now. There are people working in law enforcement who do believe that Edwards committed many more murders than he confessed to.

Edwards was an over-the-road truck driver that traveled to California in the late 60s. Because of this, some people believe Edward Wayne Edwards is the Zodiac Killer. Zodiac Killer was a serial killer who operated in Northern California in 1968, 1969. Some of the links include the fact that Edwards was a drifter

and he could have been in California at this time. The fact that Edwards killed couples and that the Zodiac killer also killed couples. Symbols that are used to sign off on the Zodiac letters consist of 13 symbols. Edward Edwards is 13 letters and his birth name of Charles Murray is 13 letters as well. The more trouble you get into, the bigger you are. This is why I was out there committing the crime, was for the recognition. On April 7, 2011, Edward Wayne Edwards

died of natural causes while imprisoned in Columbus, Ohio. The actual number of his victims may never be known. It definitely was the highlight of my career to get somebody like that, especially for the families, to get this done and to put a bad, bad person behind bars. Ed Edwards was held accountable for what he did and he had to admit what he had done and I think that really brings me some peace. Tim and Kelly's death made us realize that there are terrible things in the world

and you have to appreciate every day and what we have. I think Tim was a son that a lot of fathers would have liked to have. He will never know what may have been, but we don't want Tim and Kelly forgotten. Stream all the movies and shows you love for free on Pluto TV. Say what now? Showtime.

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