Crime Junkie - MURDERED: Sharmini Anandavel

Episode Date: January 23, 2023

When 15-year-old Sharmini Anandeval doesn’t come home from her first day at a new job, her family is immediately suspicious of one of their neighbors. But despite an overwhelming amount of circumstantial evidence, her death remains unsolved… at least, in the eyes of the law. Did you know you can listen to this episode ad-free? Join the Fan Club! Visit https://crimejunkieapp.com/library/ to view the current membership options and policies.Source materials for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit: https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/murdered-sharmini-anandavel/

Hi, crime junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And the story I have for you today is about a young girl who seems to vanish just weeks before she was supposed to graduate junior high. The search for her has led investigators to one man, a man with a dark past and troubling tendencies. This is the story of Charmini Anandavelle. This is Charmini Anandavelle.

It's the evening of Saturday, June 12, 1999, and a couple named Anandavell and Vasanthamilar are becoming uneasy. Their 15-year-old daughter, Sharmini, was supposed to be home hours ago, and they haven't heard from her all day. Now, today was a little different than normal days, because this was actually supposed to be her first day at a new job answering phones. So then just call her up. Where is she working?

Well, here's the problem. I don't think her parents knew where she was working. But even though they don't know where she is, there is someone who should. You see, she got the job because a man who lives in their apartment complex offered it to her. His name is Stanley Tippett, and he lives on the floor below them, and he's actually well known in the building. According to reporting by Michelle Shepard for Toronto Life, he takes some of the residents'

kids like swimming, he gives them martial arts lessons, kind of stuff like that. Okay, I don't love this. Obviously, I'm a crime junkie, so maybe I'm a little biased, but it's kind of tough for me to hear that and not think that this dude has some ulterior motives. Yeah, so even though he's at this guy's like only 23, he says he's a former cop, so they all kind of trust him because of that. They even let him patrol the unit as kind of this unofficial security guard. So I think that's why they have no problem letting their kids go off with him.

So anyways, that night, once her parents can't wait anymore, they march down to his apartment and start just like banging on the door, but he's not home. And they realize no one is home, actually, because the apartment is vacant. Because of course it is. This guy is bad news, like right from the get-go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And like just to note, like, it's not like they were like, oh, he's going to be moving anytime soon, like he should be down there.

So that's when they decide to call the police and report Charmini missing. Once officers arrive to their apartment, the Anandavilles tell them everything about Stanley, the job offer, and how they can't find either of them now. Her parents also take police through each of their days. And from what they've all been able to piece together, the last one to see her was her brother. He'd actually walked her to the elevator at about 9 a.m. with her plan being to go to work.

After work, she was going to pop by the mall at some point to return some earrings. And then after that, it's just been radio silence. But the police aren't jumping to any sort of conclusion just yet. They don't know this family. They don't know their situation. And in their minds, there are so many other options for what could have happened to Charmini other than something nefarious. OK, yeah.

If she had just like not come home, sure, I'd get it. They have to, you know, check all their boxes, right? Did she run away? Did she lose track of time? Never. But the grown-ass man who gave her a job is also MIA? That feels like the first place to really dig into things. Yeah.

And her family is trying to tell them that, like she's a responsible kid. She didn't have a boyfriend. She was supposed to be graduating from the ninth grade in just a few weeks. Like she didn't even have a reason to run away or to even be gone without communicating. And in fact, she'd gotten the job so that she could buy some new shoes to go with her graduation dress. Like this girl was planning on being around. So in their minds, there is no reason for her to just not come home unless something

terrible happened to her. Now, as the officers are talking to her family, they look around Charmini's room just to see if they can find anything that might clue them in as to where she is. But it looks like a normal teenage girl's room. All her clothing and personal items are accounted for, which actually makes the runaway theory all the less likely. Yeah. According to reporting by Chris E.B. for National Post, the only thing that looks out of place

is this document that they find. And it's a job application for something called the Metro Search Unit. But right away, there's something about this document that doesn't look right. I mean, it's typed out on plain paper. Like there aren't any logos, branding, letterhead, nothing like that. And it's not written out like a normal job application because all it asks for is name, birth date, address, and then a signature to confirm all of the above information is true.

There's no description of the job, place the list references, or even skills, experience. Yeah, nothing that would make it look like an actual job application. I mean, I remember when I applied for my very first job at Cold Stone Creamery, it was a couple of pages, I know. I just think for tips come a long way. So the other thing that stands out as just not making sense is this thing even has a typo in it. Like nothing about this job application is feeling legit.

And none of the officers who are looking at this recognize the name of the company. And when they ask Charmini's family, none of them recognize it either. So right away, this theory starts developing that someone may have given her a fake application. I mean, she was desperate for money since graduation was only a few weeks away. And if someone knew that, they could have used that to their advantage to possibly lure her away. Um, yeah, duh, obviously look into the very much not real job. Yeah, again, what I'm screaming as well, but they're saying they can't jump to conclusions

when all they have is a piece of paper. Now, again, in my mind, it's not just a piece of paper. You have her parents telling you that's exactly what happened, but and the piece of paper is super sketch. Yeah, it just corroborates what they're saying and what they're worried about. But either way, they gather it as evidence and they keep talking to her family and friends to get some more information, especially regarding that application. So they're at least honing their questions in a little over that next day.

They talk to her friends and family and something that strikes them is how they all describe Charmini. That same reporter I mentioned earlier, Michelle Shepard, she actually covered Charmini's case for season five of Uncover, which is a podcast from CBC True Crime. And in it, she spoke to Matt Crone, who was one of the original investigators. And he says that when it comes to missing teens, you usually get multiple versions of the missing person, like their parents have like, you know, they experience one side and then their friends, you know, maybe can fill in the little pieces vice versa.

Oh, yeah, definitely, I totally get that. And sometimes even a different version from teachers, like, I'll hear my son's teachers talk about him. And I'm like, wait, are we talking about the same kid? Exactly. But what was weird here is with Charmini, they all describe the same version of her. She's dedicated. She's a hardworking student.

She cares about her friends and family, never in any trouble. She's just this good all around kid. The only instance where her friend's story splits with her families is when it comes to that job actually that she had gotten. Now, her family is sticking to their story about her answering phones, but her friends say that she told them she was offered a job by Stanley Tibbet to work as an undercover drug operative. Because remember, he's saying he's with the police.

I'm sorry, this child is 15. No way. Right. And again, everything is coming back to this job. And the investigators are like, there's no way, again, we're investigators, we're never recruiting a kid out of like junior high high school to be our undercover operative. So this is like the push that they finally had to like really dig into this guy's background. And it turns out he is not affiliated with the police in any way.

Surprise, surprise. Like never was either. Oh my God. Which comes as a shock to the building's residents because they say he looks the part. They say he even has this jacket that he always wears that says police. He's carrying around a night stick with him all the time, like whole nine yards, but it is all a lie. And a massive red flag.

And listen, that is not the only massive red flag. See, when they dig further into this guy's background, they learn that he's had multiple run ins with law enforcement dating all the way back to 1992 when he was just 16 years old. Back then, he had actually followed a teenage girl off a bus, held a pellet gun to her head, and then led her to a narrow side street and told her to lie down. Now fortunately, she ran away and he couldn't hurt her. When he was caught, he claimed that he just wanted to rob her and he pled guilty to attempted

robbery, but I'm not sure if he actually served any time for that. Now more recently, which would have been 1998, he told a group of kids that he was a police officer and he took one of their bikes saying that was part of some investigation that he was doing. And according to an article for CBC News, later that same year, he made a fake arrest. How the heck is he just getting away with this and everyone was okay with it? No one, bats an eye? Well, he was eventually caught, but I don't think he was given any sort of substantial

punishment for impersonating an officer. That's a little bonkers to me because this guy clearly has a history of faking being a police officer and using that power over other people. So investigators next step is obviously to talk to Stanley. They learned that he has in fact moved, but he didn't like take off in the middle of the night the same night that Charmini went missing. He'd actually moved out of the complex two weeks ago and he is living in a town about an hour away with his wife and young kids.

Multiple officers are sent to descend on his house, not long after Charmini is reported missing. And when they talk to him, he agrees to go into the station for questioning. And the story that he gives only raises more concern about Charmini. Stanley immediately denies having anything to do with Charmini's disappearance. He says that he hadn't offered her a job with him, but he had given her an application for one. He said that he knew Charmini was looking for work and when he realized that this local

pool was hiring, he had picked up an application for her. And that would be the weird application they found in her room then? It wouldn't. That's what's so weird. So the pool and the metro search, whatever, whatever, those are completely different things. And I don't know if they actually ever even find an application for a job at any pool. But from the way he frames it, he's like, I was just doing something nice by pointing

her in the direction of that job. And he says, listen, I gave her that application in late May just before I moved out. And he's like, that's the last time I saw her. Okay. Let me make sure I have a story straight. So he's saying she definitely did not have a job with him. Correct. And on top of that, he lives hours away, so there's no way he would have been even nearby

to see her that day. Well, as it turns out, yesterday, so in our story, this is the day that Charmini went missing, he admits that on that day, he was actually back in Toronto for business. He says that when he got into town at about like 9am, he drove by his old apartment on his way to a job cutting grass. Wait. Just 9am, that's around the same time Charmini would have been leaving. Yeah.

That's when her brother said they were like getting into the elevator. And second, he drove two hours for a job cutting grass. Yeah. I thought that was weird too. He says that he does jobs like that all the time and he's like, oh, and the timing of it, you know, just a weird coincidence. Okay. I feel like he could have found work doing odd jobs like that closer to home, but yeah.

Okay. Whatever. It's also to me weird too that you just like, you're putting yourself at the scene, right? Is it just in case anyone saw you like, oh yeah, I just drove by my old place to see it. Right. I find that strange as well. But basically he says that he got to his first job at about 9.30, but then he started

having car troubles and he's like, you know, I tried to fix it myself, but then I got my hands dirty. So then I went to Fairview Mall, which by the way, another weird coincidence, it's the same mall where Charmini was going to return her earrings. Though the timing doesn't quite fit because if her brother was right, that was supposed to happen after she worked, if there was a job for her to even work. So we would assume that she'd be there later, but again, at this point no one knows if there was a job at all.

Right. So anyways, he's saying after he goes to the mall that he just kept working and eventually drove home. Now something that stands out is how much detail he is able to provide in his statement, even about things that don't matter. Like for example, he says that, you know, I had a soda and then he takes officers through this whole thing of like, I put the soda down here and then I mowed the lawn and then I picked up the soda and I took a drink and then I set it down in this other place.

Just like really odd details like that, which have nothing to do with the investigation. Well, and like things that you wouldn't remember in a normal day, you know, right, right. And what's so strange about the detail, you know, it's strange in and of itself. But it's the fact that then there are these times where his story is not super detailed and then those start to really stick out like a sore thumb. Like for instance, there is this two hour window at some point during the day where he says that his car overheated. So he pulled into a strip mall and just sat there for like two hours to let it cool off.

But he's really unclear about the details here. So much that it's overtly noticeable. Right. He remembers where he set a soda and picked it back up again. But yeah. And they're like, but what'd you do for two hours in your car? And he's like, can't remember. Right.

So even though his story is clearly suspicious, police can't really do anything with him. They have a feeling in their gut that something is wrong with his story and something wrong with this guy just in general, honestly, but you can't arrest someone on a gut feeling. So they have to let him go, but they do keep an eye on him. In the meantime, investigators also appeal to the public for anyone with information to come forward. And they actually get a few tips from people who saw Charmini on the day she went missing. First, one of her friends mentioned seeing her sitting on a bench outside of the mall

at around 10 30 or 11 o'clock that morning, which is the same time Stanley would have been there. Right. According to his own story. Yeah, exactly. But according to an article by Shannon Kari for National Post, when police go check security cameras and see the purchase records at the store that she was supposed to be going to, they don't find any sign of her actually making it to the mall.

And she isn't seen on any security footage and they even go talk to the store. Like did you get a return that day of these earrings and they say no. So I'm not sure if that friend could have thought they saw her, maybe saw someone else, maybe got their timing wrong, who knows, but it doesn't actually seem like there's proof of her being at the mall that day. So again, maybe she didn't run into him at the mall when he puts himself there. Now another witness comes forward saying that they saw her at an intersection across the street from her apartment building at about 1030 that morning too.

But again, the police can't confirm that it was even her. And so I don't think they spend a lot of time answering the question if her brother sees her leaving at nine, then she's put at the intersection outside of her apartment at 1030. What did she do for 90 minutes? But again, we don't know if that's a real question because we don't know if that was her at 1030. Right. But after that possible sighting that morning, no one else comes forward.

And that's not for a lack of trying on both the part of the police and Charmini's family. They're part of the larger Tamil community there in Toronto. The family had immigrated to Canada from Sri Lanka when Charmini was 10 to escape the civil war happening there at the time. And this community shows up for the Anandavels. They hang posters, they have a booth at the mall with people handing out missing persons flyers, and her immediate family welcomes reporters into their home. In uncovered, Michelle Shepard reports that the Anandavels know how important it is to

have their daughters face everywhere to get her story out to the media as much as possible. So again, they're inviting reporters to come into their home. They're talking to anyone who will listen and begging the person responsible to just bring their daughter home. It is unspeakably difficult for them. And Michelle describes watching Charmini's mother sitting and holding her graduation dress, stroking it gently while just sobbing. And while the family is doing everything they can, so are police.

Dozens of officers are scouring the area. They even bring in search dogs hoping to be able to track Charmini's scent to see if she left on foot. But if they find anything, it's never been reported on. Now all this time, while the family is talking to media, while they're doing the searches, they are still keeping an eye on Stanley just to see if he does anything suspicious. Shortly after their interview, and sure enough, he does. Shortly after he initially sat down with police, he sells his car to a junkyard.

Oh. Yeah, now it's unclear why he even wanted to sell his car. I don't know how old it was. And he only gets like 10 bucks for it. Which feels like a red flag to me. If he's okay selling it for $10, he clearly wants to get rid of it. Yes, but I don't think this is like some shiny new car because he's selling it to a junkyard that's just going to crush it and turn it into scrap metal.

So like... But still. Again, it depends on how you're looking at it. But still, again, the timing is weird. And police know that now the clock is ticking for them to secure that vehicle and search it. Now fortunately, they get there in time and seize it. And they're hopeful that this car is what's going to finally give them something to work

with because, I mean, right now they literally have zero hard evidence that points them in any direction. But when they search the car, they find nothing inside. No hairs, no blood, nothing. The only thing that stands out is a missing trunk liner. And spoiler alert, they never find that. Now it's around this time that the case starts to cool off a little bit. It's July at this point.

Stanley is square in their sights, but without any physical evidence or a confession or eyewitnesses placing him with Charmini on the day she went missing, there isn't much they can do other than just continue to watch him. But it's worth mentioning that the Stanley theory isn't the only one that they're working with. And here's where I think we need a bit of background information on the culture in Toronto at the time of Charmini's disappearance, especially within the Tamil community. They were experiencing high levels of violence due to gang activities, specifically these

two large violent gangs with primarily Tamil members. So to try and curb violence, police actually set up what they called the Tamil task force. Britt, I actually asked you to kind of look up this initiative if you don't mind telling us what you found. Yeah. So the purpose was to target these gangs, diminish their violent activity and ultimately keep the community as a whole safe. And at first, the Tamil community was supportive of this effort.

On paper, it sounds good, right? But that all went down the drain pretty quickly because they felt like everyone in the community was being targeted, not just the gangs. And with a name like the Tamil task force, it made it seem like the whole community was at fault, not just the ones that are involved with these gangs. Right. So according to the Uncovered Podcast, when Charmini went missing, investigators called in this task force thinking that her disappearance could possibly be gang related.

But there wasn't any evidence to actually insinuate it was. So that theory faded almost as fast as it came up. But now rumors are spreading that her disappearance has something to do with her culture. And the biggest of these has to do with an arranged marriage. Some people say that she has been taken to Montreal to get married or she escaped to Montreal to run away from an arranged marriage. And to be clear, none of these rumors are coming from her family or anyone who actually knows her.

They're all being spread by folks who have no idea what they're talking about. But even though they're just rumors with literally zero evidence, investigators do their due diligence and still try and follow up on them, which takes away valuable time from the genuine leads. Yeah. And it absolutely crushes her parents, not just for the wasted time, but because it implies that they were forcing their daughter to do something that she didn't want to do. Well, yeah.

And it places the blame for her disappearance on them, which I mean, that has to be devastating. Well, and it is, in just in case anyone's wondering, her parents have never been investigated as having anything to do with her disappearance. They have been cleared pretty much from day one. So anything that insinuates the blame lies with them is just not true. So after these rumors subside a little, things start to stall. Eventually, the police move on to other cases and her family is just kind of left to pick up the pieces.

Stanley is still in that other town, Oshawa, continuing to deny any involvement. And that's how things are left. Until October 9th, when police get a call from a man who says that he found human remains. The man says that he was out with his son and that the two were hiking trails and wooded areas along the Don River, which is like 11 minutes away from Charmini's apartment building. And it was on their track where they came upon what was unmistakably a human skull. Police swarmed the scene right away and based on the surroundings, they determined that whoever it is that they have there, this doe, had been buried in a shallow grave with a

log rolled on top. Once they begin searching the area, slowly unearthing everything they can, they don't find much. All that they find was that skull, a mandible, a little bit of hair, some fingernails, and several long bones, like the kind from arms or legs. But that's it. They even bring in a forensic archaeologist to try and excavate the scene, but the only notable thing that they find is a coyote den nearby.

So they end up determining that, likely, coyotes pulled everything else out of the shallow grave site and they probably won't find anything else. Now, at the time, they weren't sure who they had just found. In fact, an early report by Mark Gallum for National Post says that the bones are likely from someone aged 19 to 40. That's quite a wide age range. Exactly. I mean, Charmini's family, of course, is worried that the remains are hers, even though

she's just 15. And so they wait with bated breath until October 12, exactly four months after she went missing, when it's finally confirmed that the remains found at the park are, in fact, hers. Her death is immediately ruled a homicide, and investigators get to work examining the few remains that they have. So they are met with roadblock after roadblock. I mean, it was a hot summer, the second hottest in years, which sped up decomposition. So really, all they have to work with are bones.

The area had also flooded within the time that she'd been missing, not to mention those coyotes and even other critters. And there was nothing at the scene like a murder weapon or anything like that. By the end of the search, they can't even determine if she was killed there or somewhere else. So with more questions than answers, investigators are left trying to find missing pieces of the puzzle. They again appeal to the public, this time releasing more information, like they tell

the public about that Metro search application, but still, they come up with nothing. And during this time, is Stanley still on their radar? Oh yeah, he's never left. And Charmini's family is like more convinced than ever that he has something to do with her death. But again, like they haven't found anything new in all this time, so there's still nothing they can do. Even despite the fact that as time passes, he starts displaying some troubling behavior.

Like for instance, in 2000, he's accused of stalking a cashier at a grocery store. Now, he's never charged with anything, but he's told to basically stay away from the store and he even receives a no trespass order. And then in 2005, he's accused of harassing a woman who rejected him romantically. So had he and his wife divorced? Oh no, no, they're still married, with multiple kids. According to Paola Lourigio and Daniel Dale's article for the Toronto Star, the story goes that this neighbor rejected him and afterwards, instead of just accepting the rejection and

moving on or going home to your wife and kids, he would sit in his red van outside of this woman's home and just like stare at her through the windows. Oh cool, this guy just has all the creepy vibes. Yeah, he basically was not about to just let this woman reject him. He even goes so far as to report her to the Children's Aid Society, which is basically like child protective services in Canada. She's a single mom with a son and I don't know if it was like some sort of revenge thing or what his motive with that was, but he is just not leaving her alone.

Oh my God. And he ends up getting charged with criminal harassment and receives probation after apologizing for quote unquote upsetting his neighbor. I think upsetting is a massive understatement. Yeah, try traumatizing. I think this is a problem with stalking all around. I think stalking cases often times get get underplayed. Yeah, and just be like, Oh, well, sorry.

He was standing outside. No, this escalates. His family moved around a bit after that and everywhere they go, this guy continues telling people that he's a police officer or was a police officer. Oh, he's still keeping that up. Oh yeah. It's like his favorite thing. Now, eventually he moves to this town called Peterborough, which is about an hour and a

half away from Toronto. And he's on the Peterborough police's radar right away since he's been on probation. And it doesn't take long for him to start making trouble there. First, the police there get a call from a woman who says that Stanley offered her 12 year old daughter a job at a local YMCA. But she was like, you know, I don't know that it's real. So I was calling the police first and they're like, okay, well, we'll look into it. They do a little digging.

But sure enough, the YMCA isn't hiring and Stanley doesn't even work there to offer anyone a job. Cool. So fake application, underage girl, fake job, honestly. This sounds really familiar. Totally. Now, Stanley isn't charged with anything. Again, I don't know what you would charge him with, but these are those red flags that's

like, oh my God, will someone pay attention? Yeah. But the similarities to Charmini's case aren't lost on anyone. Now there's another instance where he's charged with criminal harassment and attempted kidnapping after trying a similar ruse with this other woman that he met in a Walmart. Basically, she was looking for a job. He told her he could get her position at the YMCA. Okay.

What's with this guy in YMCA's? I don't understand. Dude, I don't know. I literally think he just picked it because again, he had no affiliation with them. But somehow he gets this woman's address and starts showing up at her home. He starts bringing her things like a birthday card, don't even know if it was a birthday, but she's not into it. And the whole situation just kind of freaks her out.

So she calls the Y, again, to see if this guy's legit. Nope, they're not hiring. So she gets a job somewhere else. I think it was like a Taco Bell or whatever. And he shows up at her work and he gets pissed off that she took another job when he said he was going to hire her at this, again, fake job where he doesn't work. Thank you. Okay.

Okay, sir. Now, the folks over at the Y had actually called the police to report that second fake job offer. But when they call, they're like, we don't know who's doing this, but like, hey, we remember that has happened one time before, someone is out there offering fake jobs. And once the police hear what happened, they're like, yep, that's our guy, that's Stanley. So they go talk to him. And when they do, they take a look in his car.

Inside, they find knives, they find a hammer, plastic sheets, ropes, and other restraints. Oh my God, that's literally an abduction kit. Well, that's exactly what this retired officer named Dan Smith tells Michelle for her podcast. He calls it an abduction kit 101. Now Stanley tries to claim that none of these were for abducting someone. And he's like, you're just blowing this way out of proportion. I mean, come on, dude. A few tools here and there in your car, sure.

But I certainly am not carrying around plastic sheets and restraints in my Subaru. Neither is anyone else. For whatever reason, the kidnapping charge ends up being dropped. And basically Stanley pleads guilty and he is sentenced to two years in prison for the harassment. Well, I guess to me, it's like, like we said earlier, he's escalating the job application, the abduction kit, the harassment. That's what I'm saying.

He's not stopping. No. There's no like point where he's slowing down or showing signs of stopping at all. No. And this isn't even all of it. There's a whole incident at his kid's school where he's given another no trespass order after he's seen lurking around, like watching the kids, even showing up at the school grounds where he's not supposed to be.

Oh, I hate that. And like to get a no trespassing order from your own kid's school. Wow. Right. And he even breaks that order by trying to say that he was just bringing one of his kids their lunch or whatever. So this guy's clearly not a good guy. Everyone feels really on edge.

And they're honestly kind of just waiting for him to strike again. And sure enough, he does. On August 6th, 2008, police in the town of Curtis, Ontario get multiple calls at 2 a.m. from residents who say that they're hearing screaming by a local high school. Like high pitched, desperate screaming that sounds like someone saying, please and no. So officers head to the scene right away. And when they get there, they see a man walking out of this wooded area and towards a red van parked in the parking lot.

They shout for him to stop, but the guy bolts. He jumps in his van and just like takes off. And what follows is this intense chase with speeds reaching over 60 miles per hour on residential streets. And the driver is driving so erratically that for the sake of everyone's safety, they have to just back off and let this driver get away. It's not like they're just letting him go completely because one of the officers takes down the license plate number.

They're close enough to get that. And he gets a good look at who the guy was driving. He's got dark hair, eyes that are slightly slanted downward, he has small ears and a small chin. So they are really confident from the start that they're going to be able to identify and apprehend him. Now back in the woods, more officers find a young girl who looks like she's maybe 12 or 13 years old.

In the article I referenced earlier from Toronto Life by Michelle Shepard, she's described as stumbling around like she's intoxicated and her shirt is torn, she's naked from the waist down. Oh my God. It's horrific. And this poor girl doesn't really even know what's going on, she's just really, really confused. It's awful.

They determine that she's from the town of Peterborough and her grandmother has already reported her missing. So how did she end up here like this? Well, based on what they're able to piece together, she and a 13 year old friend of hers were out walking home from a birthday party, like really drunk and a man in a red van pulled up and offered to give them a ride home. They said they accepted and he dropped the 13 year old off no problem, but then he was alone with the 12 year old and she never made it home.

Now she says she doesn't even remember much of what happened, whether that be from the trauma, the alcohol or both who knows. She can't even describe the man who took her, but the other officers can. And according to that uncover podcast, as they're describing him to Peterborough police, they know right away that it is Stanley. See, he has something called treat your Collins syndrome. And according to the national organization for rare diseases, quote, it's a rare genetic disorder characterized by distinctive abnormalities of the head and face.

Now it varies from person to person, but some of the symptoms include underdeveloped cheek bones, ears, eyes, and that slight slant downward that I mentioned earlier. Sometimes people can even have like hearing and vision problems. So these features have the potential to be really distinctive. So between that physical description of the man driving the van, the fact that he's been on police's radar for a while now, they're pretty sure that Stanley is their guy. And sure enough, when they run the plates, the van comes back to him. And this is slam dunk, right?

Like now all they got to do is find him. Yeah. And that doesn't even take them long. It's like 30 minutes after this girl has recovered that Peterborough police get a call and it's the very man they're looking for. What? Yeah. Stanley calls them, but here's the twist.

He's not calling to confess or turn himself in. He's calling to report a crime. Okay. Mm-hmm. He says that he had been carjacked by these two dudes who stole his van, which super convenient timing, right? Yeah. So Peterborough officers head out to his home right away to get him get his clothes and to

figure out where this mysterious van is that he clearly wanted to distance himself from. Now they eventually find it abandoned in Oshawa, which is about a 15 minute drive away and they seize it. Now when they ask him what happened, he gives a bit more detail about this carjacking thing. He says, yeah, I did pick up two girls, but not for any nefarious reasons, just because I'm a nice guy. I wanted to help them out do the right thing. Sure.

Sure. He's like, I dropped the older of the two off at her home, but before I could take the second girl home, I was carjacked. I was thrown out of the van after which the guys sped away with the girl inside. And so he's like, you know, I walked around for a little bit, then I called my wife who called me a cab, then I got back home and that's when I called you and I reported the carjacking. But not the kidnapping, even if it was accidental.

I mean, exactly. You can't see my side eye, but I hope you can hear it. This story. Yeah, he leaves that part out completely when he calls them. Now from the beginning, they know this story is completely bogus. They find the rest of the girls clothes in the wooded area and two used condoms in his van, so once they get DNA, they figure it's open and shut. But here's where things get weird.

It's not that simple because according to more reporting in on cover, they don't find any of his DNA anywhere. Wait, that seems almost impossible. How does this even happen? I don't know. They do find minor traces of semen on the girl's shirt, but the DNA is determined to be from two other men. Wait, so you're telling me this carjacking story is real?

Dude, I don't know. Here's the thing. So investigators confirm that the samples on her shirt, again, these are not from the condoms. They're from her shirt. And they're saying that they are like super minor, like to the point, it's what you would see if you shared a laundry basket with someone and there was like a transfer or something. So that's what they're thinking the samples are from.

So again, this is not the slam dunk because they wanted Stanley's DNA and they don't have that. But he is still charged with sexual assault and kidnapping. The whole time he sticks to his story, but the judge finds it as unbelievable as everyone else does and he has given a life sentence. Now in Canada, they don't have life sentences quite the same way we do here in the US. So if you're given a life sentence, you can start applying for parole after like a set amount of time, the longest of which is 25 years.

But if you're classified as a dangerous offender, it's super unlikely that you're going to get out even after you've served your sentence. So given his background, given his past crimes, Stanley is designated as a dangerous offender. So he likely will never get out of prison. So is that it? Like he's locked away forever more than likely. So even though they can't connect him to Charmini, like this is good enough? No, they're definitely not saying this is good enough.

Actually once he's convicted, police back in Toronto reopened the investigation in Charmini's death. This is in 2011. And they say at that time it's because some quote unquote new information came to light. Now as far as I know, whatever that new information is has never been made public. Maybe it's just the fact that he was connected and charged and convicted on another case. I don't know. I do know that at some point after they've reopened the case in their investigating,

they take a special look at that job application found in Charmini's room. Again, I think everyone agrees that's the key to this thing. They do some testing on the paper itself and they're able to determine that it wasn't printed on regular paper. It was actually printed on this heat activated paper, which is primarily used in receipt printers today. But I don't think it was super common otherwise. Basically the way it works is like the printer heats up all the keys and it turns the paper

dark when the keys hit. So it's not actually ink. And here's the problem with that. It doesn't just react to printer heat. It reacts to all heat. And apparently the document wasn't stored properly. It was stored in a warm environment. And so the entire page has turned dark and it's basically useless.

You're kidding me. Yeah. And that's not even the worst part. So back when they first found the document, technology didn't really exist to lift prints or other evidence from paper like this. But at that time when they reopened the case, even now technology does, but they can't test it anymore. So literally the only thing that they have that could definitively connect Stanley to

Charmini's case is gone, not really gone, but useless. Yeah. And unless they find something else, there probably is nothing they can really do. I mean, the circumstantial evidence is there, but they don't have anything physical. Right. And where does her case stand today? Well today Charmini's case is still technically unsolved. After the uncover podcast airs, a few people come forward saying they actually saw Charmini

with Stanley on the day she went missing, but I'm not sure what police have done with that information. I know they took their statements, but that's about it. Still to this day, Stanley refuses to admit anything. And over the years, he's claimed that everything he's been convicted of is all just a misunderstanding. He's also changed his tune when it comes to his involvement in Charmini's murder. He says that he never gave her a job application in the first place, even though that's literally what he claimed in his first interview back in 1999.

He's also started denying smaller things here and there, like he says he never took any of those kids in the building swimming. But Charmini's brother remembers Stanley taking them swimming. And he also remembers Stanley talking to his sister about a job application. So I mean, again, he is in prison likely for the rest of his life and it's just denial after denial. But he can denial he wants. To this day, the Anandavell family still believes he's responsible.

And even though he's not in prison for Charmini's murder, he's still likely going to be put away for a long, long time, unable to hurt anyone else. And to them, that's enough. You can find all the source material for this episode on our website, crimejunkiepodcast.com. And be sure to follow us on Instagram at crimejunkiepodcast. We'll see you next week when we'll be back with a brand new episode. So, what do you think Chuck, do you approve?