Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - AMISH GIRL VANISHES AFTER CHURCH. WHAT BEFELL LINDA STOLTZFOOS?
Episode Date: December 11, 2020For nearly 6 months, Linda Stoltzfoos, 18, has been missing. She disappeared on Father's Day. She was last seen walking home from church with plans to meet with friends at a youth meeting after pickin...g up a dessert at home. Someone reported to be Stoltzfoos was seen riding in a red Kia around the time she left the church. What happened to Linda Stoltzfoos?Joining Nancy Grace Today: Troy Slaten - Criminal Defense Attorney, Los Angeles California Caryn Stark - NYC Psychologist Sheryl McCollum - Forensics Expert & Cold Case Investigative Research Institute Founder Karen Johnson Wiener - Professor Emerita of Anthropology at SUNY Potsdam & Author of "The lives of Amish Women" Sierra Gillespie - CrimeOnline Investigative Reporter Tipline: Pennsylvania State Police 717-299-7650 FBI 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324) FBI Reward: $10,000 Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
A teen girl, a young Amish girl, goes missing seemingly without a trace after church on a Sunday afternoon. How does this happen?
Where is Linda?
First of all, take a listen to our friends at CrimeOnline.com.
It was Father's Day, and Linda Stoltzfus was on her way home from
church. She told friends she'd meet them at a youth meeting after she went back to her family's
Burden Hand Farm to change her clothes. Stoltzfus was seen at a farm on Stumptown Road between the
intersection of Beechdale and Gibbons Roads in Burden Hand. When Stoltzfus didn't meet her friends
at the youth meeting, they worried. Her parents later told the East Lampeter Township Police that they looked in her room, and when they couldn't find any church clothes in her
room, they knew she'd never made it home from church. She never changed her clothes. She never
made it back to the youth meeting. The 18-year-old Amish girl's disappearance on June 21st left
authorities scrambling for answers. The FBI, Pennsylvania State Police have all joined the
search, but still nobody knows
what happened to Linda Stoltzfus. What happened to this teen girl? Now, you would think in the
middle of Amish country, nothing could go wrong, but it did. Joining me, an all-star panel to break
it down and put it back together again. First of all, Troy Slayton, renowned criminal
defense attorney joining me out of LA. Karen Stark, New York psychologist. You can find her
at karenstark.com. Cheryl McCollum, director of the Cold Case Research Institute and forensics
expert. Special guest joining us, Karen Johnson Weiner, professor emerita of Anthropology at SUNY, that is in New York, author of The Lives
of Amish Women, coming out September 2020 in just a few days. Sierra Gillespie, CrimeOnline.com
investigative reporter. First to you, Sierra, explain to me how in Amish country, where
typically there's not a lot of cars, very tight-knit community, no one saw what happened
to Linda. Let's start at the beginning. When was she last seen for sure? So Nancy, she was last seen for sure
at church on June 21st, 2020. So that's Father's Day. Most of us can remember where we were on
Father's Day. So she was seen at church in the morning and the plan was for her to go home.
She had made a dessert that she was planning to bring to her youth group. She was going to change her clothes, grab that dessert,
and then head over to her youth group, which was 2 p.m. to 11 p.m.
But nobody at youth group saw her.
And again, her parents figure she never even came home to change her clothes.
But one thing we can say for sure is this area, Bird in Hand,
it's about an hour 15 east of Philadelphia. And it is a large
Amish Mennonite community. However, it is somewhat of like a tourist attraction for people in the
area. Like if you want to take a look at what it would be like to live in an Amish community,
or if you want to, I don't know, purchase whatever they're selling. So there are vehicles that are driving through that area. Okay, so there is a fair bit of car traffic,
because it's really hard for me to believe she could be abducted on foot or in a horse-drawn
carriage with nobody seeing her. Where I grew up, I would say about 45 minutes to an hour away,
a huge Mennonite community in a very rural area.
So I'm comparing to that.
Joining me, a special guest, Karen Johnson Weiner, Professor Emerita Anthropology, SUNY,
author of The Lives of Amish Women, coming out, you can get it September 2020.
Karen, thank you so much for being with us.
Tell me about the life of an Amish woman at this age, particularly 18. Well, at 18, her life would have revolved around
whatever work she was doing. I don't know if Linda was employed either with a family business or working for friends. But on Sunday, it would have been,
on the Sunday that church met, it would have involved church and the youth group that she
was with. The young folk that she would join. All of her social life would have been with that young
folk. So she would have been busy. She would have been helping at home. She would have been with that young folk. So she would have been busy.
She would have been helping at home.
She would have been with her friends.
How often do you see Amish teens defect, leave the community?
Well, that depends on the particular Amish group.
There's a lot of diversity in the Amish world. And in some communities,
the rate of leaving may be 15, 20%. In others, it's much, much lower.
There's no indication that Linda was leaving her church community.
I don't know Linda or her family, but her friends would have known, and that doesn't seem to be the case.
Why do you say her friends would have known?
If she were leaving, wouldn't she have kept that a secret?
Probably her friends would have known.
She took nothing. She took no money.
It would have been something that those closest to her would have suspected.
The Lancaster Amish young people are quite connected with each other there's a lot of um the amish don't um well let me put it this way being with others is important in the community and so she she would not have been so
isolated people would have suspected straight out to sierra g, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. Way in.
What do we know, if anything, about the possibility she wanted to leave?
Nancy, we're told that she did not want to leave.
Investigators say that they did interview family, friends.
She was kind of a timid young woman.
She was happy in groups, but she wasn't like super outspoken or anything like that.
And she made no indication to anyone that she wanted to actually leave the Amish community.
Guys, take a listen to this.
Investigators in Lancaster County spent the day searching for 18-year-old Linda Stoltzfus.
State police say about 600 trained search and rescue volunteers focused on a two and a half square mile area in the Welsh Mountains in East Earl Township.
They searched from seven this morning until six this evening.
So far, Linda has not been found, but investigators say their goal is to continue to work together with the community to locate her.
Stolzfus has been missing since June 21st.
Police believe she was abducted while walking home from church in Burden Hand.
To Cheryl McCollum, director of the Cold Case Research Institute,
if she were abducted on the street, walking home from church to home, why are there no witnesses?
Well, Nancy, one of the biggest concerns is going to be she obviously will not have a cell phone.
She wouldn't have a way to call for help or have us even through GPS know her whereabouts.
You know, in her community, there's not going to be any cameras.
There's not going to be any surveillance near her farm or the farms of other people in the Amish community.
So what we're going to have to rely on is somebody in a typical American family that may have a ring camera.
Of course, there are no ring cameras. There's no video surveillance. And according to what we're
learning, many people come to the area to buy furniture, to buy vegetables and fruits, to buy
homemade jams and jellies. What do we know about the disappearance of this teen girl?
How did she just disappear off the street? Was she still wearing her Amish clothes or was she
changed into regular street clothes?
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
We are talking about the disappearance of a precious young girl, a teen girl, Linda Stoltfus, who goes missing.
What do we know?
We were just listening to our friend Ann Shannon at WGAL News 8. Now take a listen to our friend Dave Mack at CrimeOnline.com.
When Linda Stoltzfus failed to meet her friends back at church for a youth meeting, they were confused and a bit scared.
It was totally unlike Linda to not be where she was expected.
Friends and family immediately started looking for her, retracing her footsteps, but no Linda.
As members of the community tried to remember every minute of the day, several members of the Amish community said they saw a red Kia
Rio passing through the area that day with someone resembling Stoltzfus sitting in the passenger seat.
That same red Kia Rio was later spotted parked next to railroad tracks. A red Kia. You know,
I want to go to Karen Stark, New York psychologist, joining me from Manhattan
today.
Karen Stark, when someone is brought up in a very sheltered environment, they might get
into a car if somebody said, hey, can you hop in and show me how to get to XYZ?
Where my children, I've had it, you know, drummed into their head day one,
don't get into a car with anybody you don't know, no matter how nice they may seem.
And, of course, they're always doing those tests on a group of children,
and they still get in the car.
But especially growing up in a sheltered environment,
she may think it's okay to get in a car with someone to give them directions.
Well, I think that's a good point, Nancy, because she might even go close to the car.
It's a rural area. It's not that developed. And she's very naive. And so I also think there's this whole emphasis, you know, on helping and being cooperative toward each other.
So it's a stranger what to say. I'm totally lost. I don't know where I am.
I don't know if she'd get in the car, but she might come close enough to the car for someone to grab her, brighten her, you know, pull out a knife, a gun and say, you've got to get into the car.
So I do agree that that's a
possibility. To Cheryl McCollum, Director of the Cold Case Research Institute. Cheryl, what kind
of a search needed to take place as soon as she was realized she was missing? And remember,
whatever happened, if someone did take her, they've got to jump on us because it wasn't until hours later that the parents went and saw her church clothes were still missing.
So she didn't come home and change.
Nancy, I think that it's significant to point out that when you have a missing person, the first three hours are so critical.
And at that point, to me, they should have been able to utilize drones, cars, dogs, volunteers, you know, even on foot, certain places.
That needed to happen literally as soon as possible.
To Karen Johnson Weiner, professor emerita anthropology at SUNY, author of The Lives of Amish women, the Amish society heavily emphasizes being friends to others.
Is it conceivable to you that she would have gotten into the car with someone trying to
help them?
Not very.
I mean, Lancaster County is, I mean, they're not isolated in their homes away from non-Amish or English, as we're called.
Burnt Hand, Lancaster County is a center for tourism and thousands of tourists come every year. Now, that said, she would have tried to be helpful. It's also a very confusing place,
and I'm sure tourists get lost all the time. And so it wouldn't have been an odd thing for someone
to perhaps ask her for help. But she would have known better than to get in someone's car. Even the most conservative, isolated Amish teach their
children not to do that. So it's very hard for me to think that she would get in the car of
someone she didn't know, had never met, willingly to go some way and point it out, especially
walking along the road when she could have just said, go three miles that way and point it out, especially walking along the road when she
could have just said, go three miles that way and turn right. So they're not so isolated as to be
completely naive about the world. And in fact, they learn that the world is a dangerous place,
the world outside their community.
You know, you have dedicated your book to the lives of Amish women.
Yes.
Let me ask you this.
Karen Johnson Weiner, are marriages arranged within the Amish community?
No, absolutely not.
Young people meet each other in the context of those young groups, the youth groups, and they date.
And while it's important that the person they choose to marry be a fellow church member and that, you know, and parents will certainly speak up if they think someone is unsuitable.
Those are love matches.
From what we're learning from the local township police and from the Pennsylvania State Police,
Linda was very happy in the Amish lifestyle.
No one, not one person that they interviewed,
reported she was unhappy in any way.
She was very timid in groups, in public.
She never had any boyfriends or non-Amish friends. Police searched her bedroom and found her money still there, along with her travel bag and other belongings. The only thing missing were her church clothes.
Police also checked for any activity on this young girl's bank accounts.
There has been none.
That tells me a lot.
You know, when I compare Karen Stark, New York psychologist joining us,
Lucy's behavior to John David's behavior, my children, they're completely different.
John David is the mayor of Happyville. He will walk into a room and he may not know anybody at
the beginning. By the time he leaves, he'll know everybody.
And while not being the center of attention,
we'll have a perfectly wonderful time.
Lucy, my daughter, at home, she runs the whole ship, okay?
Because it's just easier because she's very particular for us to go along with her desires.
But in a group, she's really timid and shy, very, very quiet.
So I believe that.
What do you make of the fact that police are saying very timid and shy,
no indication she was unhappy
with the Amish lifestyle? Well, that's a very strong indication that this is not a girl who
just decided one day I'm going to leave and walked off wearing her Amish clothes and decided that
she's going to start her life again. It's not like the kind of movies that we see where
someone leaves that kind of a strict religious community and decides to be independent because
there was no indication. And much like Lucy, who, by the way, was like that since she was
born, I think. Yeah. Much shyer. You know, she's she's very shy, so she would never just approach a stranger.
I'm sure she was taught not to, and there would be no reason for her to do that.
So something is indeed very suspicious here.
And that's where you look at the beginning.
Troy Slayton, a renowned criminal defense attorney joining me out of L.A., you look to see if they left on their own.
And a lot of people would think, oh, she hated the Amish lifestyle.
It was too repressive.
No, as a matter of fact, she loved it. So that's where you start. Did she leave on her own? Was
she in the car with some guy in this red Kia that may or may not have been her because the woman in
the car had on one of the traditional headdresses? But that is not supported by the facts that we
know, Troy. Isn't that where you, the jumping off point? Well, the people that they asked about whether or not she was happy with the Amish lifestyle
were other Amish people. So of course, everyone is going to say that she was happy with that
lifestyle. I don't believe that. You've got a girl missing. I think they're going to tell the truth.
We heard from the anthropologist that up, that there's an up to 15% defection rate for Amish youth.
That's not that much.
All of that aside, we don't have any body.
We don't have any forensic evidence that we know of that's been publicly reported that shows that there was any type of
foul play. And although she may have left her money and other belongings, if she was trying
to make a quick getaway and not raise suspicion in the Amish community where everybody is looking
in on everybody else's business, then maybe that makes perfect sense.
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
Guys, we were talking about the disappearance of a teen girl, Linda Stoltzfus.
When you think of Amish communities, you don't think of kidnap, much less anything worse.
So what did happen to Linda?
Where is she now?
I want to go back to our special guest joining us, Karen Johnson Weiner, author of The Lives of Amish Women.
It's out September 1, 2020, we just heard Troy Slayton, defense attorney out
of LA, reiterate the fact that there's a 15% defection rate in the Amish community. A, I think
that's a very low defection rate. 85% of people, Amish people, stay within the community. And two,
I'm not the expert you are, but I would be willing to guess that a large percentage of those that defect are male.
You would be correct.
The defection rate is higher among male than female.
And females tend to leave the church if they're unhappy with the church teachings.
And so far, there seems to be no indication that Linda
was unhappy with church teachings. Men often leave to get things, you know, they want to
have cars or something. So it's even less likely that she defected. When people defect,
they often have plans in advance and do make arrangements
with outsiders. But there's been no indication that, or at least none has been mentioned,
that Linda had those kinds of connections with non-Amish people that would facilitate
such a departure. And Karen Johnson-Weiner, I assume they don't have social media either.
Well, that would be false, particularly in Lancaster County. Amish young people,
many of them do have cell phones. Many of them are on Facebook. As I said, there's great diversity
in the Amish world and the Amish in Lancaster. And, you know, this is not uniform across all of Lancaster, but the Amish in Lancaster
tend to be among the most progressive of Amish. So you will find Amish young people with cell
phones. You will find them participating in social media. It doesn't sound like Linda was one of those, and I don't know
what the nature of the youth group that she was in. That's not been reported. There are different
kinds of youth groups. Some are supervised by adults, some are not. I don't know about Linda's
group, but nothing in what's reported suggests that she was unhappy with the
church, that she was one of those who, you know, crowded the fences, the Amish say, that she was
partying wildly with a wild youth group. Well, it was said earlier, and I thought this really
stuck in my head, that they don't have cars.
Sometimes men leave the Amish community because they want things like cars,
but we think she may have been spotted in a red Kia,
which tells me if that was her, it was a non-Amish person she was with.
Earlier, Troy Slayton mentioned forensic evidence. Let's Take a listen to our friend Grace Griffith at Fox 43. Authorities said they have not found 18-year-old Linda Stoltzfus.
They reiterated all evidence suggests that she may have been harmed. They're also asking people
in Lancaster County to check their home surveillance systems to see if there are any clues there.
Something that seems so insignificant could be of great impact to this case.
That's the message from the four main agencies investigating the Linda Stoltzfus abduction,
the Pennsylvania State Police, East Lampeter Township Police, the FBI,
and the Lancaster County District Attorney's Office.
Authorities spoke publicly on the case for the first time.
There have also been many questions about what steps police are taking in this investigation, and while we cannot answer that in detail at this time, I want to assure you that we are using all
investigative tools at our disposal to completely and appropriately investigate the disappearance of Linda Stoltzfus.
I do not believe it's appropriate to just assume she wanted to leave the Amish community.
A, the defection rate very, very low for Amish women.
Two, she exhibited no unhappiness amongst her religion or her friends and family. But the red Kia keeps looming.
Take a listen to Barbara Barr, WGAL.
Court papers provide information on the alleged abduction and detail what led police to arrest
34-year-old Justo Smoker. The paper cites surveillance cameras that put his car
in this area when Linda Stoltzfus disappeared the afternoon of June 21st. The video enhanced
by the FBI captured a red Kia police eventually traced to Smoker driving along Stumptown and
Beachedale Roads between 1236 and 1242 that Sunday afternoon. The cameras show a person walking in
the direction Linda would have
been going and a second unknown person coming from where the vehicle pulled off. In the affidavit,
witnesses told investigators they saw an Amish woman riding in a red car on Amish Road in Gap
around 1 30 that afternoon. Two days later, around 5 p.m., police say another witness reported seeing
the vehicle parked near train tracks in Ronks. Police would eventually find some of Linda's clothing buried there.
The search for this teen girl takes an ominous turn
when items believed to be hers are found buried near a railroad track.
Straight out to Cheryl McCollum, director of Cold Case Research Institute.
Where did the surveillance video come from, and how can we be sure that that was Linda
in the surveillance video?
Nancy, it came from a private home.
It was on the path that she would take to go back home to get the dessert that she made
for the party.
She was walking in the right direction, And they've identified her from that video.
And here's the thing that, of course, is completely just twisted devil to me.
This person in the red Kia knew from a distance that she was Amish.
The calf link dress, the apron, the bonnet, he knew.
So even from a distance, he knew, again, she wouldn't have a cell phone.
Nobody would have GPS on her.
He knew there wouldn't be a phone at the family home.
So when she didn't return home, they would literally have to take a horse and buggy to the next place that maybe had a phone.
You're talking about a lot of time before they can search places for this child.
The church, where the party is, her best friend's farm.
You're talking about a lot of time wasted trying just to figure out, is she where she's supposed to be?
The other thing that is good, though, forensically, is that they did recover some items that had been buried.
Those items, if the assailant touched them and buried them, her bra and stockings,
they would possibly have touched DNA on them.
To Karen Johnson Weiner, author of The Lives of Amish Women,
comes out September 1, 2020.
Karen, I look, was walking, and on either side of it,
tall, tall grass, trees, fields.
On either side beyond that.
I don't think anyone could have seen what was happening because the grasses are so high.
And is it true that Amish do not have telephones?
You told me that many of them have cell phones.
Yes, certainly some of the young folk have cell phones. Others have, others in the community will have cell phones.
It really depends on which Amish community you're talking about. And that's the case in Lancaster. People will have cell phones. phone is another question. It sounds to me like her family was conservative and that she was with
a conservative youth group. And so she may not have and people there may not have had cell phones.
My guess would be she did not and that they did not, Karen, because I think they would have called her if she didn't show up.
Yeah, it's Sunday and people keep, you know, that that Sunday is important.
She's not going to have it on Sunday.
Sunday is for church.
Sunday is for for the youth to meet. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
Guys, we're talking about a missing Amish girl, Linda Stoltzfus, 18 years old, very shy, very timid, walking home from church, goes missing.
We believe she was spotted in a red Keogh. I'm speaking with Karen Johnson Weiner, author of The Lives of Amish Women. So Karen, unlike, for instance,
orthodox number or push an elevator button or do anything that may be construed as work on
their Sabbath, I don't believe that the Amish have that rule that they can't even make, if they're going
to have a cell phone, which many of them do not, but if they do, I don't understand.
I've never known that there is a rule they can't use it on Sunday.
They wouldn't be using it on Sunday.
The Sunday is, well, it's the Sabbath. She's at church. She's not going to
take a cell phone to church. Others aren't going to take a cell phone to church. Church is in
someone's home. So you're not going to do that. They're not going to be buying and selling things on Sunday. So there's not going to be much traffic past the road where an Amish stand might be.
Right, right.
So they do have stands on Sunday.
So they do buy and sell on Sunday to tourists?
They won't.
They don't.
Okay.
They won't.
You know, young people who may have cell phones are not going to take them to church.
You know, the Sabbath is a day when you don't do worldly things.
When it's for the church, it's for family, it's for young people to get together.
Got it.
So while there may be cell phones in the
community, and I know there are, they wouldn't have been in play on Sunday. And so and I don't
know if Linda even had one. Guys, we are speaking with Karen Johnson Weiner, author of The Lives of
Amish Women. What more do we know about the driver of that red car and about the car itself?
Take a listen to our friends at WGAL. Police have arrested 34-year-old Eustace Smoker for
kidnapping 18-year-old Linda Stoltzfus. They're still searching for her and reaching out to
residents for help. We are asking for residents of East Earl, East Lampeter, Laycock, Paradise,
and Salisbury townships to think whether they might have seen the red Kia, red Kia Rio pictured
here in recent weeks, and if so, where they saw it. That's the car belonging to Smoker. It was
key to his arrest, and police hope it will lead them to Linda. Surveillance video captured it on Beechdale Road, where police say she was kidnapped
walking home from church the afternoon of June 21st.
The Stoltzhoots family did not know Smoker, and we found no reason that Linda would have
voluntarily entered Smoker's vehicle only a short distance from her home.
A witness also spotted the car near train tracks
where investigators found some of Linda's clothing buried underground. The discovery of intimate
clothing buried in a location where Smoker's vehicle was seen lends only to the conclusion
that she suffered harm. What are we learning? We are learning a lot, and one simple move by this girl, Linda Stoltzfus, tells me a lot.
Take a listen to John Borick, WGAL News 8.
Police have made an arrest in the disappearance of 18-year-old Linda Stoltzfus,
who went missing just three weeks ago as she was walking home following a Sunday morning church service. 34-year-old Justo Smoker has been arrested and charged with kidnapping
and intent to inflict bodily injury.
He's currently being hailed without bail.
Authorities believe Smoker abducted Stoltzfus on Beechdale Road,
where Lindell was walking home and then proceeded to drive away with her in his 2007 red Kia Rio. Several eyewitnesses say
they saw Stoltzfus in the passenger seat of that car. They waved at her, but she did not wave back.
Two days after her disappearance, that same car was spotted at a lumber company in Bronx,
and just yesterday, detectives found some of Linda's clothing buried in a wooded area
at that same location. As of now, though, detectives have not found Linda Stoltzfus,
but the search continues. Sierra Gillespie with me, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter.
What specifically were the items of clothing that had been found? And is it true
zip ties were also recovered?
Nancy, it is true. Zip ties were recovered in that area.
Investigators were searching around.
They even brought in cadaver dogs, which were dogs that would smell out if there was a body. The dogs did not find anything, but eventually investigators decided to dig,
and relatively deep down, they found some of her personal items. So
they found her stockings and Linda's bra in that area. Cheryl McCollum, Director Cold Case Research
Institute forensics expert joining us. This young girl who was so shy and timid from the Amish
community would never have partnered with her stockings or her bra willingly?
Never. Would not have happened. Again, Nancy, what's concerning, obviously, is that this
person that was last seen with her had at least three days, the day of the abduction,
and then two days later, his car is seen. So he's had three days to dispose of evidence and to hide evidence and hide her.
And he did, of course, obviously have access to a vehicle.
So we don't know where she is right now.
But again, if she's recovered, obviously, I think zip ties are going to be involved.
It'll be the exact same zip tie that's already been found.
And again, his DNA quite possibly is on all three items that they have recovered so far.
If he has a cell phone, they will also start pinging that cell phone to see just how far outside Lancaster he might have gone to dispose of her. But if I can just say one more thing, the FBI has done something unique that I've never heard of before in just regular street clothes that any 17-year-old, 18-year-old teenager would wear and have done a photo with her with her hair down without the bonnet.
So just in case he's put her somewhere else to look like a typical American teenager, non-Amish.
A typical American teenager without her bra or stockings.
Okay.
So, this is what I don't understand.
Who is this guy?
And as Cheryl McCollum pointed out earlier, he could target her as Amish at a distance
based on her outfit.
Karen Johnson-Weiner, what would her outfit have been?
Well, it would have been a black dress with a white apron.
She would have had a bonnet or perhaps just her prayer cap on,
which would have been white for church.
And she would have had black stockings, black shoes.
So she would have stood out easily.
It's a well-known outfit.
It's in all sorts of tourist pictures all over Lancaster County.
To you, Sierra Gillespie, what do we know about Hustow Smoker, 34 years old?
Nancy, what we know about him is he's from the Paradise Township, which is relatively close to Bird in Hand.
It's like 10 or 15 minutes away.
So we know that this guy is very familiar with the Amish community growing up or living in that area.
Something else that's very important to note too is he was just
released from prison back in 2019, so just last year. And this was after a string of armed
robberies that took place in 2006. So he spent a great deal of time in prison for that and was
just recently released. Troy Slayton, criminal defense attorney. Why is he even out, number one? And
it's my understanding he's just pled not guilty. Shouldn't he be trying to work a deal and tell
where Linda is? That's assuming that he knows where she is. But at this point, he's pled not guilty. And he is presumed innocent until the government can prove each and every element of the crime against him beyond a reasonable doubt.
The only thing that's happened so far is that there's been a preliminary hearing where the burden is so low.
Just probable cause to believe that a crime has occurred and that he may possibly be involved with that crime.
And at this point, according to his attorney, the chief public defender in Lancaster County,
the only images that the government have are blurry images that show pixels and not any people. And there's no way to prove from those photos or
videos that it was Stoltzfus in the video with Smoker. So Cheryl McCollum, how do I prove she
was in the car? Well, I think what they're going to do again, they're going to look at his cell
phone and that data. And, you know, when they interviewed him, he even admitted, yeah, that looks like my car. The other thing is, Nancy, he has no alibi. So it's not like he was
visiting his own father that day. He wasn't at work. He wasn't with other family or friends.
He wasn't golfing. He wasn't at church. He didn't check in anywhere with his cell phone like
Starbucks. The fact that he does not have an alibi is very concerning for me as well. Well, I've got another break, and that is that the suspect who has been arrested in her disappearance, we now believe may have been a third cousin once removed.
Translation, a distant relative.
That gives him a connection, although it's tenuous, to this girl.
We wait as justice unfolds.
Tip line 1-800-225-5324.
There is a $10,000 reward.
Goodbye, friend.
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