Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Teen Girl's Murderer Admits to Strangling Her with Belt, Burying Her Body

Episode Date: March 14, 2024

Valerie Tindall, 17, went missing from her family's home in Rush County, Indiana in June 2023. Five months later, detectives found her remains in a wooden box on the property of Valerie's boss and trusted neighbor, Patrick Scott. Scott confessed to killing Valerie and was sentenced this week. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy talks with Valerie's mother, Shena Sandefur, and Rush County Sheriff's Office Detective Randy Meek about Valerie and how the case was solved in this episode of Crime Fix —a daily show that delves into the biggest stories in crime.Get 50% off of confidential background reports at https://www.truthfinder.com/lccrimefix and access information about almost anyone!Host: Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guests: Shena SandefurCRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoAudio Editing - Brad MaybeGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@LawandCrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law & Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. She was a good girl, and she done her best to get good grades. A mother grieving after her teenage daughter is murdered by the neighbor she trusted. Now he's going to prison for decades after confessing. She tried to seduce me, and I wasn't going to have it. The lead detective talks about how the case was ultimately solved. We had no eyewitnesses here. Thanks for joining me for Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy.

Valerie Tindall's family and detectives spent months searching for her and hoping beyond hope that she would be found alive. Valerie disappeared last June from her home in Rush County, Indiana, east of Indianapolis. Deputies searched for her, initially thinking she may have taken off. But that wasn't like Valerie. She wouldn't just leave. And her phone and social media showed something bad likely happened to her. We'll have more on that in a bit. Valerie was only 17 and had worked for her neighbor, Patrick Scott, mowing lawns. Scott confessed to killing Valerie months after she went missing and after detectives had found her remains in a box made of two-by-fours on Scott's property. She tried to seduce me and I wasn't going to have it. But what

happened to Valerie? That's where you're stopping. What'd you do to her? What'd I do to her? What'd you do to her? Tell us what you did to her. Strangled her. With what? A belt. Okay. Then what'd you do with it? I moved her into the office. Okay. How long was she in there?

Till the next day. I don't know about you, but I don't buy that Valerie was trying to seduce Patrick Scott. It's possible, but I'm not buying it. Scott claimed Valerie was blackmailing him into buying her a car. Deputies wrote in a report that the relationship between Scott and Valerie seemed close and that he would give her money and food and take her on trips. Sounds a little bit like grooming to me. Patrick Scott has pleaded guilty and will spend 57 years in prison. Sheena Sandifer is Valerie Tindall's mother, and she's joining me now.

Sheena, thank you so much for coming on. I'm so sorry for your loss. I want to start there. How are you doing, given the fact that the sentencing just happened? Really not great. Like I was hoping that this would bring a lot of closure and it didn't. I know it's just been a short time and Valerie has been gone since last June. How difficult was that? Take me back. I know that you reported her missing the very next day and you were looking for her the deputies were looking for her and all the while your neighbor is the person who took her life i thought about her all day at work literally

um because i noticed that she had been going through something, but I didn't know what. Valerie was not the most open person. You know, sometimes she would just willingly share, and other times she'd keep everything to herself. But now I come home expecting her to be here, and when she wasn't, I was surprised. But when he said she went to work work it wasn't really all that shocking but then again it was because i i said well it's wednesday she don't work wednesdays

so why should it work and he said i don't know i get tired of arguing with her so i just told her go ahead and so uh it started getting late i noticed it was probably six or so. And I said, well, she should be home by now, I would think. So I called Scott after I called Valerie probably three times and her phone will go straight to voicemail. And I thought, well, that's not usual. I don't understand why it's going straight to voicemail. And so I called him and he says,

no, she didn't work today. And I thought, well, then she must have wired to us. And the way my family had said, when she left, she had a big smile on her face. I said, well, she must have went to meet a guy. That was just my original thought you know being a teenage girl you're excited you're going to meet a guy i just was hoping that night didn't come home the later it got me and him just laid here every car that passed just wondering is that her and i'd sit up and listen to see if it pulled in and it wasn't as the night passed i hope to god she went to a friend's house and it just got late and she decided to stay. But I knew that something was wrong. Lori had never ever left our house without telling us where she was going. When her car wasn't nowhere to be found, I immediately called the authorities.

They met me here at her house as I was driving back. They showed up a couple minutes later. And we told them exactly who she had told us she was going to meet and why. And they knew him, like they knew the family. I remember the officer making a remark and said, yeah, they're a school. And I thought, well, that's kind of odd to just willingly share with me. But he took my statement, and I noticed in the police report, it says that we reported her as a runaway. I never once said she ran away.

Never once. I said she was missing and we did not know where she was and it was out of character. And I did tell him that she had never left this house without telling us where she was going. Months passed, and they later found Valerie on your neighbor's property, on Patrick Scott's property, and he confessed to killing her. Yeah. I mean, it's your worst fear, but at the same time, were you i mean it's it's your worst fear but at the same time were you not surprised i honestly was i was uh blown away yes absolutely you know the scotts and i heard everybody say

they were strange and i agreed just like they were definitely different they were strange, and I agree. Just like they were definitely different. They were definitely different. But I try not to judge people, first of all, because I think I can sit back and judge others. But I've never seen any of them as being aggressive or malicious in any way. You know, Scott would get up and go to work, come home, work in his yard. And the only thing I did find out was how early he would be up. And then it seemed like he worked into the dark, you know.

He would be working at dark sometimes, just a little past dark. But not like every night. It was just once in a while. And it seemed to be all he done. Like he just worked to who he was. That's the way I chose my husband loves to work. That's what he does to pass time. And there's always something to be done.

I didn't really read too much into that. Linda, her and her daughter hung out. You know, mom and daughter, that's pretty normal. And so never once thought anything bad. Just that they were odd. So Valerie worked for him and you trusted him. Yes, I did. At least I wanted to.

And then months prior to Valerie's disappearance, I started feeling unease with the situation. You know, at first it was fine. And about two to three months before um well first thing that happened was i found a i never snooped in my kids style even doing that to your children because it breaks trust but i put something in her drawer and i found a box that had a pregnancy test in it. And it was a two-pack pregnancy test. And I said, I turned around with the box in my hand and looked at her and I said, are you pregnant?

And she said, no. And I said, who bought this? And she said, Elizabeth, which is Pat's daughter, bought it for her when they went on their trip. And that upset me because here this is a child and you bought her a pregnancy test but you take to come over here any of you and mention this to me that upset me but i didn't know how to go about addressing it so i just let it be. But I asked her that night. I said, if you were, who would be the dad? And she had mentioned a young man that I knew very well she was just head over heels for. And I said, okay.

And I let that be. She said it come back negative. I know Pat took advantage. But I feel like other people did too i do not feel like he was the only one involved so you think that patrick scott took advantage of your daughter that he may have done something to her he manipulated her he manipulated her without a doubt and i didn't realize that until all this had happened she went to court this week yesterday and he was sentenced to 57 years he admitted to killing your daughter being in that room and seeing him sentenced what was that like for you?

It was gut-wrenching. He walked through the door, and I know me and my whole family just was dreading that day. I mean, we were just dreading it. We were looking forward to it being over, but we were dreading it. And everybody had mentioned how he wouldn't even look up, and he wouldn't raise his eyes up to look at us one time, and it kind of irritated me. I was hoping that he would contact me when I made my plea out to him to give me the truth about what happened,

because what's coming out of your mouth we both know is a lie and anyone who knew her knows it's a lie so tell me the truth when you say the lies are you talking about this claim that you know he's made this claim that she was blackmailing him and things like that. Is that what you're referring to? Absolutely. Absolutely. He even ran her through the mud after he took her life. Like, are you kidding me? And then it seems like all everybody talks about is what he said.

That's all I've heard the whole time is what he said. That's what the whole police report's about, not a scoffing mouth. The world can be a scary, scary place. This case makes that very clear. Truthfinder.com is a website that you can use to keep you and your family as safe as possible. Truthfinder is one of the largest public record search services in the world. The goal is to help people like you and me learn the truth about the people in our lives. Truthfinder background checks anyone you search to look for any possible red flags. It'll show you things like someone's past and current addresses, criminal records, even sex offender status. Here's how it works. Log on to truthfinder.com and for example, type in the name of someone you just met. It could be someone

you're meeting for a date, a new neighbor, or even someone you met at yoga class. Maybe it's the parents of one of your kids' friends. Results will appear within seconds telling you everything that Truthfinder knows about the person that you search. If you'd like to check out Truthfinder, and I think you should, you can get 50% off of confidential background reports. Just log on to www.truthfinder.com slash lccrimefix and start accessing information about almost anyone. Sheena, what do you want people to remember about Valerie? Because you're saying all that's out there is what he has said. But what do you want people to know about your daughter?

The truth about Valerie is she was complicated. But the real her was sweet, loving, caring, giving, generous. And anybody who knew her knew that. Yeah, the people who knew her knew she was damaged. The people who loved her tried to help her. And they tried the best they could. I might see issues and I drew the connection between me and Valerie, but I couldn't figure out why. And it was too late by the time I realized what had caused

some of the issues. I begged her and pleaded with her to get mental help, to talk to somebody, see a counselor. But in the end, Valerie was living two different lives. She was the real her some days. and then other days she turned into somebody you wouldn't recognize but barry was really a good person he was a good girl and she done her best to get good grades so she could go to college. She wanted to do better so that she could help her family, and I read that out of her writings that I found in her bedroom in her school work.

And what hurts the most is she was so excited about moving back into our house that it caught fire in 2017. She helped hang the drywall. She helped tear out the house. She helped with everything. Detective Randy Meek was the lead investigator on Valerie Tyndall's disappearance and murder. Detective Meek, thanks for coming on. First of all, take us back to the beginning of when Valerie was reported missing. What did you guys do?

Thanks for having us today. So Valerie was reported as a runaway to our agency on June 8th. And the initial days of it were investigating it as a runaway. And in the initial phases, we spoke to all the people involved, the family and her neighbor. And on the day that she had left, she had told her family that she was going to go to work for a couple of hours with a neighbor who owned a lawn care company. So the initial days we started as that, as two or three days passed, we issued a silver alert for her in Indiana. And then we began executing search warrants

on various social media accounts and bank statements and phone records to try to track her movements, to try to see where she was in the initial parts of it. When did you all discover or realize, this is not a girl who ran away. This is a girl who, a young woman, I should say, she was 17, who likely was murdered.

Sure. So the, one of the things we did at the very beginning, this is a very data-driven investigation. Unusual from a lot of investigations, we had no eyewitnesses here, but what Valerie did tell us that day was she told her family that I'm going to go work, and we knew she worked for Patrick Scott, the lawn care, with the lawn care company. Early on in the investigation, we started

conducting search warrants on, again, phone records, bank statements, and social media accounts. When we started receiving those back, it took about a week or two to get those back. As we started receiving them back, what we noticed with Valerie at that time was that she wasn't communicating. She had no phone activities. For 96 straight hours, every 10 minutes, we were doing phone checks on her, telling us that her phone was not on. When we started seeing the no social media activity and stuff like that and seeing her past social media activity. She's like a lot of kids and she's on there routinely. We started looking at it from that standpoint as this is not normal.

This wasn't normal behavior for a high school kid. And so we started gearing it towards the investigation that there was this was more than than just running away or trying to stay away from the family at that point. So within the first couple weeks, we were already gearing that way based off of search warrants we had already conducted. So what leads you months later to Patrick Scott? Is it the data that you get back from her cell phone? Is it the fact that she said, yeah, I'm going to work or whatever, and he's believed to be the last person to be seen with her. I mean, tell me how you land on him. So again, very data driven. We were able to start tracking Valerie's geocoordinates, which was one of the first things we wanted to do. Where did Valerie go that day? So we knew she left in her car and she reportedly was going to work. So we started tracking her movements

based off of geocoordinates we were able to get from her social media and her phone, in which we saw that that day she had traveled to Shelbyville. Got to Shelbyville, which is the neighboring county from us, and then instantly traveled back to Rush County, which is unusual in general. Using that data, we then were able to look through license plate readers. We were able to look at surveillance cameras and we were matching vehicles that were passing the area at the time with what her coordinates were. She wasn't she wasn't in her car at the time. During that time, we discovered a Maroon 4 Taurus, which we then knew was owned by Patrick Scott. And that started us heavier on to him at that time. So what do you do from there? Do you just go and question Patrick Scott and he confesses,

or do you do other things? Sure. So this investigation had over 50 search warrants executed on it. And so we had already talked to Patrick Scott, and Patrick Scott had already told us that she hadn't worked for him that day. When we obviously had learned otherwise that she had been with him that day based off the cars and the travel, we went back to Patrick Scott where he had then changed his story and said that she had worked for him that day or that she had been with him that day. I'm sorry. And he had drove her to a small town here in Rush County where she met a boy and he was able to provide us a first name of that boy. And she got in the car with him and left with that boy and went a different direction. During that time, we were actually able to track that boy down.

We interviewed him and found that to be false. And again, using data, we were very questioning of Patrick Scott at that time because the data was not exactly showing what he was saying. It was in the area, but it wasn't exact. Multiple search warrants then were executed on Patrick Scott's property as we narrowed in, which we took more electronic devices out. We obviously searched the property at that time. And again, Patrick Scott was questioned or spoke to. And during that time, Patrick Scott again changed his story. And this is over the course of several months as this goes. On the second time Patrick Scott changed his story, it went to he did bring her back to his house, went back to work and back home and she was gone.

We were on Patrick Scott's trail pretty early in this investigation, but his lawn mowing business mows primarily super remote locations. And so what created a lot of problem here was, again, not having an eyewitness, using data and it taking a long time for us to get the data back. When we get the data back, it's massive files. And the analysis of that data took a long time as well. And the remote locations that he had access to put us in a lot of different areas. So when you talk about data, are we talking Celebrate and stuff like that, where you download cell phone dumps or geofencing or tell us exactly what you're talking about? Because a lot of our viewers and listeners they know about this stuff because of the trials we covered so we did we did

forensics on the all of the cell phones laptops any electronic we took out of the house but beyond that the big the main data here is the social media as the geolocations we were able to look at those um tracking app a family tracking app we were able to look at those um tracking app a family tracking app we were able to use that which ended up being a very valuable asset in this investigation we basically did a search warrant on any application that Patrick Scott used or Valerie Tyndall used and in the end when we started doing analysis that started creating the foundation for this case that we built the case off of such things as Patrick. Patrick had basically stopped using his applications and his phone when all this transpired.

However, the phone activated an Apple Health app in the background because of an increased activity. And we were able to use that to try to narrow the timeline down of when it happened. And then we were able to utilize that to determine a radius of an area, which led to a lot of the other stuff. Why we put cadaver dogs in certain places when we did, why we did flyovers when we did, and those things that led to that, which also led to the big search warrant that was executed on November 28th on his property. So when you discover that Valerie, you discover her remains in this makeshift box that he constructed, what were your thoughts and your feelings? Um, it's, it's, so you, you go through the investigation five months, you know, it's,

as an investigator, you live it just like the, just like the parents who were parent, all of every investigator on the case team, we all, we all have kids. So we lived it for five months and you hold on hope that there's some possibility that Valerie had ran away, but you know, um, the likelihood isn't there. The awareness is in our world is that she probably hadn't ran away. Um, so it's, it's a weird feeling to describe because in one aspect of you get semi-closure because you found her. And the other aspect is that you have a tragedy that you will forever be connected

with that family because of. So you get Patrick Scott in an interview room and he confesses. And he says that he strangled her with a belt that he continued to wear. I can't even imagine. It's horrifying. Does he just kind of spill his guts to you?

Tell us what happens. So Patrick, I mean, to be honest with you, I've been a law enforcement officer 18 years. Majority of my career has been in investigations, and I've never met a person like Patrick Scott in my life. His ability to just sit there and lie at you, and he's a believable guy. You know, he has no criminal record. He's ran a successful business.

He's not what you would expect, I mean, so to speak. And we interviewed Patrick a lot. I mean, this investigation was, he was interviewed for hours as this investigation progressed over five months. And he has the unique ability to sit there and stare at you and lie to you and have no remorse. And his answers are very fast and stuff like that. So the day of in the interview, it was a unique interview. And every traditional interview we had tried with Patrick Scott didn't work. He had the ability to lie. And again, they're believable lies. I mean, what he says comes across as true.

And that day I decided that as I walked in the door that day with him, we drove 40 minutes back here. And I said, everything we have done, everything we've thrown at him in an interview hasn't worked. So I'm going to try something different. So I went in that interview and I basically told him all the evidence we had before he was ever advised of his rights. I gave him the entire case and tried it because nothing had worked prior. And he ended up confessing, giving a full confession during the interview. So it was the, like I said, it was a unique interview because it wasn't a traditional style interview, so to speak, I guess. He blamed Valerie from everything I've seen and read.

Almost blamed the victim for her own murder, that she was blackmailing him about a car. I mean, it sounds absurd to me. She's a kid. She's 17 years old. What were your thoughts when he did that? Because to me, everything I'm hearing, it sounds like, you know, he's giving her money for gas and food and things like that. Everything I'm reading in the complaint, that sounds like grooming behavior to me.

Sure. So, I mean, overall, obviously, Patrick Scott's not a good person, you know, to do what Patrick Scott did is heinous. I can't imagine it. So knowing that, knowing that he's not a good person, he's the only person that can tell us that right now. She doesn't have a voice right now. So she can tell us. yes i agree with you i mean i i don't necessarily believe that the blackmail and all that stuff and i and i think that patrick um unfortunately this situation has the ability to be the one to talk to us and tell us that um you know and like i said in the end he's not a good person and and any person that does what he does or did here is not a good person so um it's unfortunate but no i i agree i think there were grooming behaviors here um that patrick did to valerie at the end of the day detective meek he

ultimately takes responsibility for murdering valerie and he's given a 57-year sentence he's going to die in prison why 57 years and not life in prison without parole? So I don't want to talk because I'm not the prosecutor. So I don't want to talk a lot on the prosecution case. What I would tell you, the prosecutor, you didn't feel Cabanez is our prosecutor. He did a really good job of this. And he was with us from the get go in there in regards to sentencing, though, for this for the charge of murder in Indiana under the circumstances of this case, it was a range of 45 to 65 years with an advisory sentence of 55. So the plea bargain was two years greater than the actual advisory sentence was. And so the prosecution did a good job on it. And it was

under the sentencing guidelines, it is a good sentence. I don't agree with it. And it was under the sentencing guidelines. It is a good, it's a good sentence. I don't agree with it. And I understand people not agreeing with it, but it was in the sentencing guidelines, it was two years greater than advisory sentence. Detective Meek, it's my understanding that a lot of agencies worked on this case at Rush County, where you worked on it. You had some federal partners working on it. Tell me a little bit about that. Sure. So we were instantly joined in the investigation by the Rushville Police Department, Detective Caitlin Herbert and Detective Jordan Hoey.

Fairly early in the investigation, the U.S. Marshals came on, Tom LaBrieu, and then later the FBI came on. And I truly think this investigation, especially as data driven as it was and all the prosecution and the conviction of Patrick Scott, which has led to him being where he needs to be in prison for the rest of his life ultimately. Well, it's a horrible, horrible case. And we hope Valerie can now rest in peace and her family. They'll never have closure, but they can have some sense of justice.

Detective Meek, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for coming on. Thank you for having me. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with us. We'll see you back here next time. Until then, have a great night.

You can download Crime Fix on Apple, Spotify, Google, and wherever else you get your favorite podcasts and new episodes post each weeknight at 6 Eastern time on Law and Crime's YouTube channel. Daniel Camacho does our video editing. Our head of social media is Bobby Zoki. Our senior director of social media is Vanessa Vine. Savannah Williamson is one of our producers. Diane Kay and Alyssa Fisher book our guests. And Brad Mabee is our audio editor.