Cold Case Files - The Missing Hunters

Episode Date: April 30, 2024

Two Michigan hunters get in an altercation with local ne’er-do-wells the Duvalls. It ends with the long time friends beaten to death and fed to pigs. Sponsors: Apartments.com: To find whatever you’re searching for and more visit apartments.com the place to find a place. SimpliSafe: Right now, get 20% off any new SimpliSafe system with Fast Protect Monitoring at SimpliSafe.com/COLDCASE There’s No Safe Like SimpliSafe. 

The first time I heard it I kind of dismissed it, but after the third and fourth time I heard it I thought maybe there is something to this. What we learned was that one of the brothers did have pigs or large hogs. They were extremely mean and would eat anything. They then chopped up the body and fed it to the pigs. From A&E, this is Cold Case Files, the podcast. In northern Michigan, a rural legend hangs in the air. It whispers in the wind, blows through the trees, legend hangs in the air. It whispers in the wind, blows through the trees, and travels down the road.

A tale of two hunters, downstaters who came to these parts never to return. The ending makes the rounds in backwoods bars for close to 20 years. The beginning, however, is known to but a few. Deer hunting season, 1985. Childhood friends David Till and Brian Ogin join the Exodus Upstate, a three and a half hour trip to a cabin owned by David Till's family in White Cloud, Michigan. This is David Till's wife, Denise Dudley. They were just going to meet up with his brothers and probably play cards and do a little hunting and just have a relaxing weekend. The two men leave Friday evening. Monday morning dawns with no word from the hunters. I got a call from my mother-in-law and she had informed me that they never even came or showed up the whole weekend.

Denise Till files a missing persons report with the Troy Police Department. Philip Steele works the case. Our initial impression is that it's so uncharacteristic for them not to have come back, that perhaps something did happen. An accident offers the most likely scenario. Steele alerts law enforcement to be on the lookout for the Hunter's vehicle, a 1980 black Ford Bronco, and asks the media for help. By early December, several people claimed to have seen their truck in the Mio area,

some 150 miles distant from their cabin. It almost leads you to believe, based upon the many tips that were coming in, that the vehicle, if that in fact was the Bronco, was being used. And we were just not able to pinpoint the location of where it was. Where is the Ford Bronco? Who was using it, and what happened to its owners?

Police conduct an exhaustive search in and around Mio. The woods of northern Michigan, however, offer no clue as to the whereabouts of the Bronco or the missing men. After the hunters have been in the woods, that they've not come across the vehicle, that they've not come across a weapon, anything that would lead you to believe that they got lost or something happened that was accidental, then you're pretty sure that they meant some type of foul play. In 1985, Phillips Steel will work 14 missing persons cases. By year's end, only one sits unsolved. The fate of the missing hunters remains a mystery.

Their case slipped into the cold files. Two years later, the hunters are still missing. Their truck apparently swallowed whole by the Michigan woods. Their picture is still plastered in Mio's local watering holes. Kurt Schramm is a detective with the Michigan State Police. In the fall of 1987, he is assigned to the case. When I inherited the case, there really was not much. At that particular point, it was still not real clear as to where they were or where they had gone to.

Locals have little to offer about the missing hunters, either because they don't know anything or perhaps are afraid to talk. Investigators finally get a break in the form of a confidential informant who overheard a conversation and wants to get it off his chest. When I was talking to a couple officers, a conversation of something came up, and I says, well, I overheard something, and I don't know how true it is, and it pertains to the two deer hunters that's been missing. Lloyd tells detectives he was at a birthday celebration with family and friends in a Michigan bar called O'Shea's.

At the other end of the table, a family of seven known as the Duval brothers, also known as local bullies. Everybody was sitting around at the table drinking. A few of them was getting up back and forth dancing. And they were talking to a brother-in-law and my father-in-law about, you know, fights that they had been in, things they were doing. They were laughing, you know, and having a good time. The Duvalls begin talking about the beating

they once gave to two Michigan hunters. It begins with one of the brothers, J.R., getting beat up himself. I guess an altercation took place and they beat J.R. pretty good. And that he'd went home and told the other brothers what had happened. According to Lloyd, at least two of the brothers returned to the bar, took the brothers outside, and beat them to death. They made the remark, you should have seen the expression on one of them's face when we did the other one. And they had made the remark that they fed them to the pigs. As Lloyd listens inside O'Shea's,

the brother describes how they took the hunters' bodies back to a local farm and into the pig pen. They were laughing and joking about it. And I mean, when somebody makes a remark, yeah, we fed them to the pigs, you know, you guys are BSing, you know. Detective Kurt Schramm takes Lloyd's story seriously and begins to dig into the Duval brothers' background. He starts with the local pigs, huge animals more than capable of devouring a human. When we initially heard it, it was, you know, that seems about as far-fetched as what it could be. But what we learned was that one of the brothers did have pigs or large hogs. And the information that we learned

was that they were extremely mean and would eat anything. As for the brothers themselves, they are pretty mean too. All of them carry criminal convictions for either boosting cars, poaching deer, or assaulting women. Just enough violence to scare the locals into silence. Persistence, however, has its rewards.

Over time, SRAM cultivates some contacts, people who are willing to risk the brothers' anger and begin to talk. For their part, the brothers are not happy. One of them phrased it as there was a snake in the woodpile, and they were concerned about who was talking. Unbeknownst to them is that they were the ones that were talking to other family members and friends and, you know, eventually it was getting back to us. The stories largely corroborate what Lloyd had already told police about a fight outside a bar. The hunters beaten to death

and then a ride out to the pig pen. The first time I heard it, I kind of dismissed it. I thought, yeah. And then after the second time, yeah. But after the third and fourth time, I heard it from different people throughout the state. I thought, maybe there is something to this. The problem for Schramm, how does he prove it? None of his informants claim to have actually seen the beating.

The Duvalls are holding their peace, and pigs don't make very good witnesses. Without something more, the Michigan DA declines to press charges, and the case goes cold. Until nine years later, when a woman surfaces who claims to have spent some time herself around the Duvall brothers.

This is Barb Boudreau. I says if the Duvall brothers are here, and they zeroed in to these two deer hunters, there's going to be some ass kicking tonight. As a Cold Case Files listener, you know the world can be a dangerous and unpredictable place. And one thing I've learned after hosting this show is that many times your best line of defense is vigilance and preparation for the unexpected. That's why I recommend SimpliSafe Home Security. How many times have we heard stories of people being surprised by an attacker in their own home? I often wonder how things might have been different if they had cameras and a security system to alert them, giving them precious time to react and giving the police valuable investigation footage. Even without an actual invasion, SimpliSafe can still give you

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There's no safe like SimpliSafe. Pluto TV has over 300 channels and thousands of TV shows and movies for whatever mood you're in. Just open the app and something good will already be playing because it's curated by people who love TV as much as you do. So if you're in the mood for comedy, there's 18 channels that'll make you laugh. Looking for drama? We got so much of it, you'll cry tears of joy. Reality shows, game shows, sports, Star Trek, and even more Star Trek. No matter what mood you're in, there's something on Pluto TV. Just download the app and start streaming. Pluto TV. Stream now. Pay never. David Till and Brian Ogin are the best of friends.

Brian stands as best man at David's wedding. Both men love the outdoors and in the fall of 1985, plan a hunting trip. They pack up a Ford Bronco and head into the Michigan woods, never to be seen again. Five years later, their disappearance is the stuff of local legend. Inside a Michigan bar, two brothers, J.R. and Coco Duvall, brag of beating the hunters to death and feeding their bodies to the pigs. Witnesses to the bar room boast testify before a grand jury, but without a shred of physical evidence, no indictments are issued and the case goes cold until another Bronco cruises the back roads of northern Michigan.

Detective Robert Bronco Lesneski. In 1998, Lesneski is a new detective with the Michigan State Police. His first assignment, work the missing hunters case, now 13 years cold. My colleagues had pretty much identified who the players were, the responsible players. At least they were in that right circle. And most of the law enforcement people in this area knew that. Just trying to prove it. Bronco reviews the work of his predecessors,

organizing 13 years of investigation into three-ring binders. All of it focusing on the two Duvall brothers, none of it amounting to a chargeable case of murder. I always felt as though we had a decent circumstantial case, but I also believe there were others out there that knew something. Bronco catches a whiff of a rumor about a woman who might have been an eyewitness to the Hunter's death. The detective compiles a list of people with possible connections to the Duvall family. Then he starts making the rounds. I just start knocking on doors.

Until finally I knocked on this door and the woman started shaking uncontrollably. She started threatening me that I'm going to get her killed, and she tried to close the door on my face, and I've never done this before, but I stuck my foot in the door. Bronco talks his way into the home of Barb Boudreau. The fear in her eyes is naked and palpable. The detective knows he has his first break in the case. She knew something, and I just needed

to establish a relationship with her, a rapport, some kind of a trust with her to where I could get her to talk to me. I told him I would tell him some of the story, but not all of it. He would never get the truth out of me. Barb claims she has no direct information about the killings, nothing that can really help the investigation.

Bronco believes that might be a lie, but understands he must practice patience. I never really knew how far I could go with her, but I recognize this, is that I didn't want to lose her. I could take whatever I could get. I just kept telling him more and more stuff, but I kept it as hearsay. That way, they couldn't abuse me for anything as long as it's hearsay. Bronco meets with his witness over a period of months, months that eventually become years, each time he draws out more of Barb's story. Barb tells Bronco she saw the hunters on the night they died.

She and her friend, Ronnie Emery, now deceased, were drinking at a bar called Linker's Lost Creek Lodge. The two hunters were standing at the bar. A pair of Duval brothers, J.R. and Coco, walked in and confronted the men. Barb knew the Duvals and knew there was going to be trouble. I says, if the Duval brothers are here and they zeroed in to these two deer hunters,

there's going to be some ass kicking tonight. Barb and Ronnie pick up steaks and head out of the bar back to Barb's house, less than a half mile away. Outside her kitchen window, Barb hears men in the street and the makings of a fight. You could hear men cussing at each other, saying, you MF, and just bad language. And I says, Ronnie, they're fighting down here. So he says, well, let's go watch. Barb tells Bronco that Ronnie Emery headed down to the fight alone.

A short time later, the yelling stopped. Then Ronnie returned. He came back and said, they're beating them. I think they killed them. I think they beat them to death. These guys are pleading for their lives. Barb said she could hear these pings, and it sounded like an aluminum bat hitting a softball.

Barb's testimony is not the eyewitness account Bronco had hoped for, but it's close enough. Investigative subpoenas are issued, and Barb Boudreau is asked to repeat her story before a prosecutor from the Michigan Attorney General's office. Four years after they first met, Barb Boudreau and Detective Lesneski trade kitchen talk for an on-the-record deposition. Barb is nearing the end of her testimony when conscience takes hold and her story takes a twist. When I went to the Attorney General, I was sworn to tell the truth, which I did, sort of, until near the end. And I said, you know, I can never tell you the whole truth.

And they shut the tape down, and I looked at Bronco, and I said, you know I know. And she just blurted out that she saw it. She was there. She saw the whole thing. She was with Ronnie Emery. She saw the whole thing. She was with Ronnie Emery. She witnessed the whole thing. And I mean, I suspected there was more, but I never thought it was that. Barb Boudreau explains that she watched from behind a tree as at least five men surrounded David Till and Brian Ongin. J.R. and Coco Duvall beat the two hunters with baseball bats as the

others looked on. Then she describes exactly how the missing hunters met their ends. David Till was on his knees. He had already been beat because he was pretty well bloody. And he had his hands up in the air and he goes, oh my God, somebody help us. And Coco swung the bat and said, you're a dead MF-er. And his head popped like a pumpkin. It just sounded like you drop a pumpkin. And he was down. David Till lay dead in a snow-covered field. His companion, Brian Ongin, broke free and began to run for his life. They went after him and drug him back and he's saying, you killed my friend,

you killed my friend. And then they stood him up and they said, look at that. He pissed himself. And then they threw him on the ground, proceeded to start kicking him, beating him until there was no more noise.

Barb runs from the scene with Ronnie Emery hot on her heels. A short time later, the two hear a knock at the front door. It's the Duval brothers with simple instructions and a highly specific threat. It was Coco, JR, and said, you saw nothing, you heard nothing. We know you and your family, pigs have to eat too. She remembers that statement. And, I mean, when she told me that, I just couldn't believe it. JR and Coco Duvall are finally arrested for the murders of David Till and Brian Ongen. Cold case detectives have no bodies, no physical evidence, and a single eyewitness

supporting their case for murder. That slender read, however, is about to gather some support from a second witness, another woman who made the mistake of dating the son of J.R. Duvall. This is Katherine Stilinski. It just scared me to death to sit there and look at this man and to think that I had to go to sleep on the other side of the wall of him that night. Apartments.com believes a dishwasher does more than just clean plates. It turns your whole place into a time machine by turning the time you would have spent washing dishes into extra time for you. That could mean more time to read, more time to knit, or more time to contemplate the vastness of time itself. With Apartments.com,

finding somewhere to live with an elusive dishwashing slash time-expanding device is easy. Apartments.com hosts the most rental listings with over 1 million available units. And with comprehensive search tools and instant alerts, you never have to worry about missing out on the perfect place. To find whatever you're searching for and more, visit Apartments.com, the place to find a place. I'm Brett. And I'm Alice. And together we host a weekly true crime podcast called The Prosecutors. In every episode, we bring our unique perspective as full-time prosecutors to the most famous and debated true crime mysteries. Whether it's Maura Murray, Scott Peterson, or the Delphi murders,

Brett and I dig deep to bring you details you won't hear anywhere else. Our podcast is about more than just a story. We will walk you through the legal problems lurking behind every case, breaking down the complexities of the criminal justice system with humor and a personal touch. And it's not just true crime. We bring the same training and approach we've learned as prosecutors to classic mysteries like the Dyatlov Pass incident and the ghost ship Mary Celeste. So if you're looking for a true crime podcast with a different point of view, The Prosecutors is the one for you. Find us wherever you get your podcasts. In September of 2003, Assistant Attorney General Donna Pendergast prepares to put flesh and bone to a longstanding story of the woods. It's a tale of two hunters beaten to death, then fed to pigs to dispose of the evidence.

For 18 years, two brothers, J.R. and Coco Duvall, have claimed bragging rights to the story, boasting of the murders in bar rooms across the state. Now the Duvall brothers sit in a Michigan jail cell, awaiting their trial on charges of murder. Pendergast hopes her eyewitness will convince a jury the rumors are reality. It was tough. I mean, we had nobody. We had no vehicle. We had a lot of rumors, a lot of hearsay, and we had one eyewitness. The state's case will turn largely on the word of Barb Boudreau, a one-time party girl who admits to downing at least nine drinks the night she watched J.R. and Coco Duvall murder David Till and Brian Ongin. I could see all of them. When we got there, David Till was bloody, and I could see the blood. And when Coco swung the bat, you could see the blood splatter.

Barbara Boudreau was the case. It was just, what could I put in that would in any way corroborate what she had said? So I had to sift through everything and look for the snippets that substantiated what could I put in that would in any way corroborate what she had said. So I had to sift through everything and look for the snippets that substantiated even a little part of her testimony. We're going to bring people in who are very close to the Duval family, who are related to the Duval family, who lived with them for years,

who shared a bed with them, who are going to give damaging information about their knowledge of this situation and this incident. Cold case detectives are fighting the fear factor. Family, friends, and neighbors who know the Duvall family secrets but are afraid of possible retribution. With Coco and J.R. Duvall behind bars and murder charges in the air, the atmosphere

of intimidation begins to lift and potential witnesses begin to find some spine. That's why I came forward. I knew they were in jail. Obviously, the police had enough evidence to arrest them. And it wasn't going to be because of me that they were sent to jail. Catherine Slawinski is the former girlfriend of J.R. Duvall's son, Tommy. She approaches cold case detectives in June of 2003

and tells them about a conversation she had with J.R. Duvall. The year was 1996. He kind of smiled and laughed and then told me how him and Coco had gone up north and they were hunting for deer, and they had ran across a deer that they had shot, and two other guys claimed they had shot it, and they got into a big fight over it. They ended up, I guess, taking the deer with them

and ran into them later on that night in a bar. And they followed them outside and continued to fight with him and then beat him to death. And J.R. was extremely proud of this. J.R. told Catherine he put the bodies of the hunters through a shredder and then fed the remains to the pigs. He told Catherine to expect a similar fate should she choose to leave his son

and the home they all shared in Michigan. It just scared me to death to sit there and look at this man and to think that I had to go to sleep on the other side of the wall of him that night. Slowinski's statements, however, are just the beginning. By the time the trial begins, cold case detectives have a parade of locals willing to talk

about the Duval bullies and make sure they get what's coming to them. For more than a decade, the Duval family has kept the lid on murder using a combination of muscle and fear. The house of cards, however, is about to come tumbling down. It begins with Connie Sundberg, yet another woman with a Duval in her past. Connie Sundberg is the former girlfriend of Donald Duval.

She says in 1986, months after the alleged murders, he came home drunk one night. Head in his hands like this, and he said, we killed somebody. And he looked up at me and said, and he started smacking me around. The state then focuses on the Duvall family itself, several of whom made incriminating statements to the police. We had more than one. We had a brother who had made a statement to another brother. I didn't kill anybody. All I did was transport the bodies. Frank Duvall is Coco Duvall's younger brother.

In a statement to the police, he appears to implicate Coco in the murders. Once on the stand, sitting just a few feet from his brothers, Frank gets a case of courtroom amnesia. And you overheard Coco say, the police are so dumb, if they found one body, they'd find the other one right underneath it. No, I told him, as I was leaving out the door, I heard, to me, it sounded like his voice, but actually I didn't really see him say it.

Brother Kenny Duvall is next to the door. Police suspect he might have scrapped the Hunter's Ford Bronco for parts. I mean, he gives us a taped statement telling us that they're stripping this thing down. They're in the process of stripping it, and he firmly believes this is the missing Hunter's truck. Once on the stand, Kenny, like Frank, can't remember a thing. Remember telling Sergeant Schramm you loaded up possibly the axles? No. Do you remember telling Sergeant Schramm that you drove to somewhere in Saginaw. Hello? Pendergast continues to build her case, calling Catherine Zlewinski.

Tom did not want me to leave. He had turned to his father and said, Dad, tell her what happened to the hunters. They were fighting and smashed their heads like melons. They then chopped up the body and fed it to the pigs. The stage is now set for eyewitness Barb Boudreau. On October 21st, she takes the stand and tells the packed courtroom what she saw. He was begging, and they swung the bat, and it sounded like squashed, like if you drop a pumpkin.

And there was just blood. He broke away and ran. And they pulled him back and he says, "'My God, you're killing my friend.'" On cross-examination, Duvall's attorney goes hard at Boudreau, realizing the verdict rests largely on her credibility. Jan and Coco weren't present when you testified at your investigative scene, were they?

No. Okay. So you didn't have to look them in the face and tell your stories then, did you? I still don't have to look them in the face. Yes or no? No! Okay, good. Thank you. The defense's final offering is a testimony from the mouths of the accused. A simple statement painting Barb Boudreau as a liar.

Did you kill David Taylor? No, I didn't. Did you kill Brian Oden? No, I didn't. In the end, the jury doesn't believe the Duval brothers. After just two hours of deliberation, it renders a verdict. The jury's verdict count one is guilty of first degree premeditated murder. I mean every time I think about the case it just you know to myself I smile and say god we did it,

we did it. Finished to just something that had been such a Michigan story, Michigan mystery, for so long. For 18 years, J.R. and Coco Duvall cut figures that were larger than life, bragging freely in bars and restaurants of the time they murdered two hunters and the loathsome way they disposed of their bodies. On November 13th, the brothers are cut down to size, sent to jail for life without the possibility of parole. David Till's former wife, Denise, talks about her late husband. I mean, they took a great guy away from everybody. And he cut his life short. My life will never be the same again. His parents' life will never be the same again.

And I don't know. I mean, they shouldn't have done it. The verdict, though satisfying, is not enough for Detective Bronco Lesneski. According to Barb Boudreau, there were several men in the field that night with the hunters, only two of whom have been arrested. She thought there were about five people there, and she could identify J.R. and Coco for sure, and she could identify one other person. Lesneski is not at liberty to share the names of any other suspects in the case. He does, however, have a message for them.

For those that are out there walking around that may have some responsibility to this crime, that think that because we got two people in prison, do a natural life for these double murders, that it's over. It's not over. Cold Case Files is hosted by Marissa Pinson, produced by Jeff DeRay, and distributed by Podcast One.

The Cold Case Files TV series was produced by Curtis Productions and hosted by Bill Curtis. Check out more Cold Case Files at anetv.com. Pluto TV has over 300 channels and thousands of TV shows and movies for whatever mood you're in. Just open the app and something good will already be playing because it's curated by people who love TV as much as you do. So if you're in the mood for comedy, there's 18 channels that'll make you laugh.

Looking for drama? We got so much of it, you'll cry tears of joy. Reality shows, game shows, sports, Star Trek, and even more Star Trek. No matter what mood you're in, there's something on Pluto TV. Just download the app and start streaming. Pluto TV. Stream now. Pay never.