Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Cold Case: Who killed Allison Foy?

Episode Date: August 17, 2017

Allison Foy disappeared after asking for a taxi to take her home from a Wilmington, NC, club in June, 2006. Her skeletal remains were found a mile away 2 years later, along with the skull of another missing woman. Foy's sister and cold case expert Sheryl McCollum discuss what they are doing to find the killer in this episode. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. 2017 marks the 40th anniversary of the Summer of Sam. To mark the occasion, Pocketbooks is proud to release a special anniversary edition e-book of Son of Sam by Lawrence D. Klausner. This is an incredible story of how a single man, David Berkowitz, dubbed Son of Sam, the demon-haunted.44 caliber killer, killed six, wounded several others, and terrorized millions of New Yorkers over eight known attacks from July 1976 through August 1977. It's also the story of the greatest manhunt in the history of the New York Police Department, the intimate narrative of the men assigned to tracking down a lone killer. The police task force investigated more than 3,000 suspects, some of them cops, before finally making an

arrest. In the meantime, politicians watched a city writhe in panic, newspapers played upon the fears of their readers, and the criminal justice system showed itself incapable of coping with the man who committed such horrendous crimes. Download Summer of Sam by Lawrence D. Klausner today. Royalties earned from the sale of this book will be shared between the victims or their families and the author. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace on Sirius XM Triumph, Channel 132. Allison Jackson Foy disappeared on Sunday, July 30, 2006. It's another hot, humid summer in Wilmington, North Carolina. All signs led to the likelihood that she had left the area on her own accord.

In April 2008, a human skull was found in a wooden area three miles from where she was last seen. But Allison wasn't alone. It was soon discovered that there were actually two human skulls. Her case is still an unsolved homicide. By process of elimination, have eliminated all but one potential suspect. A Port City cab driver who was in the bar Allison disappeared from. The case is just kind of in a stalemate. Investigations are ongoing and there is no statute of limitations for murder.

There is hope that the case will be solved. I'm just really fearful that we're not going to get justice for my sister. You know, I've talked to so many crime victims, and we all seem to agree on one thing, and it's largely anecdotal. I don't have a statistic to prove it. There's never been a scientific study. But everyone, every crime victim I have ever spoken to, they know when they get that call. They know immediately. I knew when I was told to call my fiance's family and they picked up the phone. I said the words, is Keith gone?

I knew. I knew. And I don't know how I knew. In this case, a sister gets a phone call from dad saying there's a problem. Allison's gone. Did she know? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us and with me, that sister, Lisa Valentino. And we are talking about the disappearance of her beautiful sister allison lisa thank you for being with me do you remember when your dad called you oh yes absolutely i i was on a family vacation with my brother other brother my brother and my other sister traveling back from new hampshire with our children and my dad called us and from New Hampshire with our children. And my dad called

us and said, you know, there's a problem. Just like you said, Allison's missing. And immediately I knew that she was no longer living. That was the feeling that I had within my heart, within my gut. But needless to say, you know, we got our stuff together. We Three of us strapped off our families, hopped on a plane, and immediately flew to Wilmington with my dad. During that flight, I mean, I know you had to drop your children off. You had to pack a bag. You had to get it together and get gone. How many of us have been in that situation?

In those moments, I remember I had flown to New York to take the children ice skating at Rockefeller Center. And we just got there. And I got them all bathed and in their PJs. And my mom called and said, they just put your dad on life support. And when I was trying to repack everybody, and I remember hearing somebody screaming, get dressed, get dressed, we have to go. It was me when I look back on it.

But at the time, it sounded like somebody else. And I threw everything back in the bags. And within 20 minutes, we were all dressed and assembled out on the sidewalk trying to helicab in the middle of the night. And it's almost like a blur do you remember running in and trying to get everything together to get the children straight and get your clothes and get out of there you know if for us it was a little bit different it's funny that you say that though because these 11 years seems like another lifetime ago but I do remember like it was yesterday you

know being in the car getting the phone, still being hours away from our destination and all of us being in separate cars trying to contact one another, you know, and actually we didn't even go home. along with my husband. And we hopped on a plane to Philadelphia early the next morning. I mean, so I can remember all of that and thinking at the same time, I knew something not good. I really did believe she wasn't alive. But then how do I know that for sure? Same here. Same here. I mean, I knew Keith was dead, but I didn't think about it.

I just tried to get to him. And with Daddy, with my dad, I just kept thinking, Okay, don't be crazy. He's been sick before. It's gonna work out right. And Cheryl McCollum, director of the cold case Institute and my longtime friend, Cheryl, thank you for the memento for my dad, you sent me, you know, to me, it's like he's still here and I wonder to you Lisa Valentino when you were on that flight you were trying to get to your dad when you first saw him what did he say to explain to me how you got off the plane and you saw him and what he said you know that part is a little is a little foggy.

I just can see him and we just lost my dad. It'll be two years and I'm sober. But I could just see him shaking his head like he often did and just saying, I just can't believe it. It's all so unbelievable. I don't, I don't understand, you know? You know what's weird, Lisa? It seems like, like I have my my sister she is a brainiac you

know she graduated at wharton they asked her to stay and get her phd she became one of the first women in her department to be on tenure track you know my brother was like the number one sales person in the whole country a couple of years in a row with his pharmaceutical company. It's funny how people can do all sorts of stellar things. Like my mom was this fantastic musician and my dad worked at the railroad all these years. But you seem to end up being defined by, oh, that's Allison's family. You remember what happened? That's who you are now. And I've talked about that with so many crime men. It's somehow that is what you and your family are. What happened then? You hit the ground. And then what do you guys start

doing? We hit the ground and actually at the time the current investigator who was on the case met us at the airport. Met us at the airport, drove us to the police department, and then proceeded to bring us into his office and have a conversation with the four of us about what happened. Tell me what happened. How did Allison go missing? Well, that kind of, so this is what happened. How did Allison go missing? Well, that kind of, so this is what happened. She, and my sister, listen, was not without her issues and problems, but, you know, at her heart, she was a very good person,

and most importantly, she was the mother of two young children at the time who were her life. And so they said to us, we received a phone call from her husband that she hasn't come home and that, you know, he doesn't know where she is. And the last place we know she was seen was at a place called Junction Pub and Billiards after she finished a shift at work. Allison had just gotten a new job. She was assistant manager of a holiday inn here in town, and she supposedly had gone out to celebrate after work with a friend of hers. They found her car at the establishment, I think a couple days later, exactly where it was it was never you know what's interesting another thing lisa hold on and i want to bring cheryl in on this one before i lose this thought because every sentence you're saying gives me another whole series of

investigatory thoughts you know cheryl mccullum director of the cold case institute when people it's and you know what i guess it's just habit when people hear she was at a pub they think oh you know she was a party girl she was drunk she was doing drugs she probably ran a car off the road they'll find it it this woman and i always feel like i'm in the position of defending the victim right And it goes across the board. I remember talking to Chucky Mock's mom. He was shot riding his bicycle to the 7-Eleven. And she feels she always has to say, he was a good boy. He was not doing anything wrong. He was like 12. Of course, he wasn't doing anything wrong. In this case, Allison worked. She was working there at a brand new job at the Junction Pub and Billiards. And that is why she was there, Cheryl.

Not as if she needs to be defended, but it doesn't matter. But I just want that clear on the record. Because for some reason, some people seem to discount lives. Their life is no less or more valuable than anybody else's. It does not negate what happened to her. Have you noticed that, Cheryl? Nancy, people spend so much time investigating the victim, not the crime. Allison leaves the Holiday Inn, where she's an assistant manager, and she's celebrating this new job with friends at the Junction Pub, not far down the road. And yeah, the police are going to be like,

oh, well, she didn't make it home. She's probably having an affair. They discount the obvious. Her car's still at the pub. She's never not come home before. Her children mean everything to her. So instead of putting everybody on this and trying to find this young woman, they're pretty lackadaisical about it. So what did you learn? You know, Lisa, that she worked that night until the end of her shift. Right. You know that she left when the pub was closing down.

Then what happened? She steps out the door into the night. Well, and this is where what happened this is where things get a little a little blurry because there have been a couple of um different theories one is and this is the one we really believe that the friend that she was with who was exactly that just a type of confidant who she would you know speak too often about different things going on in our life, said to her, I don't want you to drive home. Let's call you a cab. And he says that he motioned for the bartender. The bartender came over. He said, let's get Allison a cab. She went, made a phone call. And a few moments later,

and this is how he describes him, in walks this big country husky guy, says, does anybody, did anybody call a cab? Which is unusual enough to begin with. Normally they don't walk into the bar. And he said, yeah, we did. And Allison said, good night, and walked out with this cab driver. That's really what we believe, what everybody believes. Some other people have said, oh, they saw her outside crying on the curb. You know, she was talking to some other girls. But we followed up all those leads, and this really seems to be the one that is truthful. I mean, first of all, he was a regular.

You know, that's something you've got to look for, Cheryl, when you have, especially, and this is rare in cases like this that you have a lot last sighting corroborated where somebody walked and that really stuck out in their minds the guy walks and say says hey did anybody call a cab that would stick out in my mind because I've never had a cab driver come in and say hey did anybody call a cab oh no I'm out in the street begging for a cab right and that's corroborated by several people, Cheryl. So I believe because of that, that is what happened. Your focus at that moment should be on that cab driver, period. I'm talking about a beautiful young, a married mother of two little daughters,

an accomplished dancer, a gymnast, the only member of a very, very tightly knit family to have moved out of their hometown area and to North Carolina. That day, she had called, and she had talked to her sister, Lisa Valentino, and then it wasn't much longer that she got a call from her dad to tell Lisa Allison was missing. So trying to reconstruct the night that Allison Foy goes missing. That's where we are now in our attempt to put it all back together again with the hopes of solving this. I want to go back to Cheryl McCollum, director of the Cold Case Institute. All right, so we've led up to the moment that we learn

Allison, this young mom of two little girls, has disappeared. We know where she disappeared. What more do we know at the outset, Cheryl? What else do we know about her disappearance? Right now, that's all they know. That the bartender called for a cab. Cab driver comes in. Allison walks out. That's it. Gone in the night.

Okay, where do we go from here? That's the next question. Joining me is Allison's sister. Thank you so much for being with us, Lisa. What happens next? So you're sitting there in the police officer's office. He's telling you she's missing. Then what do you do? Well, I have to be brutally honest. At the beginning of this case, and it's since changed, law enforcement was not as great as it has been in the past few years with a few detective changes. They basically told us, oh, she'll turn up,

and, you know, why don't you just get a hotel room, and, you know, we'll let you know if anything comes up. Make some flyers. So here we are, four of us who've never been to Wilmington, North Carolina before, never been in a situation like this before, left on our own. So what happens? We make flyers. We're out in the baddest areas of the town late at night searching for my sister until a desk clerk at a hotel room gives us a name and a number of someone in town who she thinks can help us. And that's the Q Center for Missing Persons and Monica Kaysen.

And then once they got involved, things started to move within law enforcement and people started taking things a little bit more seriously. Although I can't tell you until she was recovered how many times I had law enforcement say to me, oh, she's out there. She'll turn up. She was spotted here. She was spotted there. Before we left town, we hired a private investigator who continued to work on the case. And actually, it was through him and his radio show locally that the suspect, there became

a suspect in the case. Let me talk to you about them saying, oh, she'll turn up. She's been sighted. Where were the sightings? Carolina Beach on a bicycle at a hotel room in Carolina Beach downtown. Wilmington at 2 a.m. in the morning. I can remember we went to Wilmington as all the bars let out at 2 a.m. at last call in downtown on the riverfront handing out flyers looking for my sister because again that was another place that she had been seen so it was all different types of places what do you make of those sightings Cheryl McCollum I remember in so many cases

that there are sightings and sometimes they're even photos I remember when we were looking for one oh she was such the cutest little girl. And there was a siding and, you know, a play area within a mall in one of those ball pits. And you know what I'm talking about? Those ball pits, my children would just dive into them. And all I could see was a bunch of germs. But then I'd have to dive in after them and drag them out. Anyway, the little girl, they thought, was in a ball pit. And the person actually took the girl's picture and sent it in. I remember putting it on the show because it looked

so much like the missing girl. It was not her. And the girl's parents called in, the police then checked it out and it looked so much like her. It was not her. And that happened, I think that happened in the Kelly Anthony case. I mean, it goes on and on and on. People, good-hearted people. Good-hearted. Truly believe they see the person. So what do you make of these sightings, Cheryl? Well, again, common sense needs to play a role here, Nancy.

Allison had no money. She had not used a credit card. She had not shown up anywhere like at a hospital for help or contacted her husband or her family. So her being on a bicycle makes no sense. She's not just riding around on a bicycle, not contacting anybody. And the police, instead of listening to her siblings and her father, are saying, eh, she'll just show up. She's just taking a few days off from being a parent. That's insane.

That was not her MO. They didn't listen. You know what? If anybody tells you I'm taking a day off from being a parent, you need to start the search right then, Cheryl. Absolutely. Right that minute. No question.

Get out and start running up and down the streets calling my name, okay? So how did you take that, Lisa Valentino, for them to say, oh, she's just taking a break? Did that make sense to you? No, and I absolutely told them that. I said to them, I know my sister, and if she was leaving town or going to hang out somewhere or wherever, once she, you know, she would have taken her children with her and to be missing this long now, she would have called one of us and said, I'm okay.

This is where I am. You know, don't worry about me because she was constantly in contact with us. And it just, you know, it really, it's very upsetting because, you know, over these years, that's one of the things I've discovered, too. Law enforcement needs to listen to the people who know them best, and that's the family. And we told them over and over again. So it was very frustrating because it made you feel like they're not looking. What did you and your family do to try and find Allison? We hit the streets.

We hang up flyers. We connect with the missing person organization queue. We're here for 10 days on the ground in Wilmington. We do news interviews and anything we can just to get the word out. And we try to convince law enforcement that you know, that this is an issue. It's not going away. And again, we hire a private investigator before we leave because we weren't confident that law enforcement was doing the right thing. Cheryl, can you imagine being there at the Kinko's or whatever it was at the time, trying to print off flyers, trying to make your own flyers.

Just standing there, wondering what happened to her as the Xerox machine goes. And, you know, I've often thought of that. What do you do? And I've told this story a million times. Go ahead and try to stop me. I remember standing at Baby's or Us. It's like a huge baby superstore looking because some mom at the pool had put me on a guilt trip. She said she made her own organic sunscreen. And I'm like, ooh, I'm a piece of crap. Okay. So I go and try to find

sunscreen that doesn't have chemicals in it. Right. So I'm standing there and John, Dave and Lucy have just, they're walking fairly well. They're little, they're just above my knees and they're right behind me. And of course what I'm looking for is on the very bottom row. Okay. So I'm all down on there trying to dig around. And then I can't find anything like that. And I stand up and I go, okay, come on. And Lucy takes my hand. I said, John David.

And I turned around. He was gone. That fast. And that feeling that went over me, I've never forgotten it. And you know what I did. I screamed bloody murder. Somebody took my baby. I mean, you know, as an ex-cheerleader, I let it grip. And honey, they locked those doors and all H-E-L-L broke loose. Of course, you know where he was. Running like a wild animal up and down an aisle, like three aisles over, with something in his hand.

I don't even know what something he had grabbed off of a gown. But that moment when you don't know what to do. Can you even imagine if one of your two went missing? You would be insane. And Nancy, here's the thing. You've got a family that's hitting the streets in these bad areas. There's this underbelly to crime. And law enforcement is also very bad about not going to the source.

Well, you know, in the day, you and I would have gone in the cut in a heartbeat of Zone 3 or Zone 1. Okay, you're going to have to tell everybody what the cut is, okay? Oh, I'm so sorry. Everyone doesn't know our alternate language go ahead sorry um like a really bad street in the ghetto that you go in one way and you can't really come back out you know is that going the same way you know what's interesting when i was prosecuting it never failed i would finally be tromping through some horrible area of town with my investigator earnest either with me or I just

finally just gave up with him fussing at me not to go to these places and gone on my own. And I would be tromping around and it never failed. It would always be in the cut. Yeah. The shortcut is what I'm saying. And it would be somewhere you don't want to go. And I can just imagine this family out there beating on the doors. I remember Cheryl beating on the door and opening it up and it would be a crack house or, you know, worse. Anyway, that that's what happens. Where did you guys go, Lisa Valentino, in your search to find Allison? Well, believe it or not, we were in some of those areas and homes.

And like I said, we became fortunate in that when we got other people involved, we had someone who knew what they were doing. And so when we were hitting those areas, it wasn't really us. So, I mean, we went everywhere. We searched all over this town, which is not very big, but it's not very small. And from downtown at the riverfront, at bars at 2 a.m., to the worst neighborhoods, to homeless shelters, you know, everywhere that you can imagine trying to get some answers to these questions. And so all along, what were police telling you?

Were they still convinced she had just taken a powder and left? Were they starting to look at the possibility of abduction or homicide? Homicide never came up on our first trip down here. Subsequently, after we left the first time, I, in turn, kind of became the family spokesman and traveled back and forth quite often. Well, the detective, the investigator, switched on the case almost immediately because they went on vacation, which was good, because we didn't even have a homicide detective on the case originally. We had embezzlement and fraud investigators on a missing person. Why?

Because they didn't believe that there was foul play or that she was missing. I mean, I'm laughing now, but it's extremely sad. It's just incredulous. I'm being, like, I couldn't believe it. So we got a new detective on the case. He was a homicide detective. But he actually was not much better. He really didn't believe that she was missing either.

He thought she had left of her own accord. And, guys, again, Cheryl, I do not want to be in the position of trashing the cops, and I'll tell you why. Some of the most decent and honest people I have ever known and the most hardworking have been police officers. No question. And, you know, there are some bad ones. I know that, and they make all of them look bad. But that's simply not true. I have seen them out beating the streets right beside me.

I remember working cases for months on end. We would go out every single day in the rain, in the cold, looking in flop houses and brothels and dope dens, you name it, trying to find witnesses, trying to find victims, working through the night, going out and having to arrest witnesses that were afraid to come to court, you name it. So cops, in my mind, are good. Are there bad cops? Yes. Are there cops out of their league that don't have the training?

Like here, you've got an embezzlement cop trying to find a missing person. But I bet you, I guarantee you, they tried. Right. And I do want to say, I just do want to say that the investigator who has been on this case for the longest amount of time and who has really been awesome. I mean, the guy who's been there for the longest amount of time has been great. And he he has done his job. And so I just things have changed in the Wilmington Police Department over these 11 years that this case has been there.

So. So what were they telling? They were still sticking with the idea that she had just disappeared. What about it, Cheryl? Oh, yeah, that's all they're thinking. And, Nancy, I agree with you. I mean, they're the salt of the earth people, but they are human. And sometimes once they make their mind up,

it's very difficult to get a police officer to think differently. Again, they thought she ran off. They thought she had been drinking, had an affair, whatever. They weren't on this radar of this person could have been murdered. So now, where does the case stand right now? What do we know at this moment, 2017, about what happened to Allison? With me, Allison's sister, Lisa Valentino. Lisa, do you recall learning that your sister's remains had been found? Yes, absolutely. What happened? Well, actually, I got a phone call from the people that I've been working with down here and saying,

you're going to get a call tomorrow from law enforcement. It's breaking all over down here that remains have been found. And I want to just warn you that, you know, we believe it's your sister. And I just, I remember I was lying in bed. It was 11 o'clock at night, and I just was in shock on the one hand. I was finally grateful to have some answers as to where Allison was, even though I really knew in my heart where she was. But on the other hand, I just, you know, tremendous sadness and just, you know, I had no words. I had no words.

And sure enough, the next day, we do get a phone call. However, they couldn't identify that it was definitely my sister. That process took from April to September because we had to have her confirmed through DNA. We had no dental records, couldn't find current dental or any type of dental records. But I knew, too, they sent me pictures of jewelry that was found on the body,

and I knew that the jewelry was my sister's. I knew it was her. What was the jewelry? A ring and a necklace of hers. that the jewelry was my sister's. I knew it was her. What was the jewelry? A ring and a necklace of hers that was found at... What was so distinctive about it? What was distinctive that made you know it was her? I had just seen Allison prior to her disappearance, and I know that ring and the necklace that she had on,

I just knew they were hers because I had seen them on her. I had seen them on her previously when she had come to my house for a visit, which was the last time I had seen her. So I knew it was her, but there again, too, I've got to tell you this crazy thing that happens is the whole while, even though I knew it was her and we're waiting for confirmation of, you know, there's still that little inkling, maybe they're wrong. Maybe they're wrong. You know, and then you get the call. You wanted to believe, you know, I did the same thing.

In my head, I was making up all sorts of reasons why Keith's family was calling me. And I almost convinced myself by the time I could get back to the phone that there had been a car crash and he was alive. And if I could hurry, I could get to him and fix it. And it wasn't until I saw it was my pastor, actually, uh,

that nobody was home. And I saw a car at the church and pulled in to use the phone. That was before cell phones and ran in. He happened to be there, and he called. I was on the other side of his desk, and I read upside down Bernstein's funeral home. And it wasn't until he got off the phone that I knew Keith had been shot dead. So you try to tell yourself maybe this, maybe that.

When did you come to the realization she had been kidnapped and murdered? I think it all finally set in when we got the definite DNA back in September of that year. For me, that phone call is, I had all of this emotion and that's when it was finally all released. And that's when it really hit me that this was it. This had happened, and she was no longer here, and she met a brutally violent end to her life that she really did not deserve. Cheryl Weyand, tell me about the discovery of Allison Foy's body, and what does it mean forensically? Well, she was stabbed over 40 times, Nancy, in the front and the back of her chest and her back. The disposal site was off Carolina Beach Road, so it's off kind of a main thoroughfare,

but it's in this little culvert, this little wooded area, and it was in the open. She hadn't been buried or anything like that, which is critical to me. Why? Why do you say that? I think the same thing. Why is it very important her body was not buried? Because again, she's found with another person. So you've got two victims in the exact same area, feet apart. And the fact they weren't buried, but they had been put there a year apart tells me that this killer is not only very familiar with that area, he's very comfortable in that area, meaning he probably revisits often. And somehow he's able to do it unseen, which tells you another thing about him.

He can go around town and nobody focuses on him for some reason. So, for example, you know, you see a mail carrier truck. You see it, but you don't really see it because you're used to seeing them. You can dismiss that. You can dismiss FedEx or a pizza delivery guy or a cable company truck because you just, whatever. So the primary suspect drives a taxi cab. So again, he can park different places. He can basically hide in plain sight. So those things are connected to me.

They're obvious to me in that regard. For over two years, Lisa Valentino suspected her sister was dead and asked friends and strangers, please don't give up trying to learn what happened to my sister. Then she learns DNA testing confirms her sister, Allison Foy, just 34 years old, is one of two women whose bones were found in the woods off Carolina Beach Road. What do you know about that area, Lisa Valentino, Carolina Beach Road? Is it remote? Is it heavily wooded?

Is it near a trash dump? What is it? Actually, what we have discovered about the area was used as a kind of cut-through area, and also as a sex area. At the crime scene, there were dozens and dozens of condoms, and it was a place that people would go to have sex. There was one restaurant. I wonder if they took the condoms, Cheryl McComb, just in the remote possibility that, not that I think a killer slash rapist is going to use a condom, but just in case.

You never know, right? You never know. But, Nancy, I had a chance to walk that crime scene with Lisa Valentino. Tell me. And it's amazing to me the trash and the debris that is still there. And I'm like you. You know, you might want to go back and, you know, scavenge again every now and then.

Well, didn't they find she was wearing a pink sleeveless top? Didn't they find that there? Yes. Well, absolutely. Not only did they find that, I forget how many months later it uh actually six weeks six weeks later i went back to visit the site even though it wasn't confirmed that that was my sister but just because i felt i had to be there and see it and upon entering the site there were more

there were bone sounds i was with my friend and he's like what's this and crime scene had to come back and they ended up being more remains of my sister six weeks initially after she was already recovered okay that is very upsetting to me cheryl that like they were placed there has to come and find her sister's bones that is that's bad for a civilian to come and unearth bones. Where were the bones, Lisa Valentino? That's bad. It's almost like they were never, like, it was almost like somebody knew I was in town.

Because often the press would, you know, the media would say I was coming back. And we were meeting press, actually, to do an interview. And we had gotten there before then. And they were just laying on top of leaves and pine needles as if someone had placed them there. Okay, that is scary. That is very scary, that either A, the crime scene techs didn't find it from the medical examiner's office as well, or B, someone had placed that there. Isn't this behind a Mexican restaurant that was closed? There's like a narrow strip of woods behind this Mexican restaurant.

Describe the scene a little bit more, Cheryl McCollum. It's right off a road. So here you have this Mexican restaurant. It's got like a driveway that you pull in. You can park right there and there's a patch of grass that you could easily chip a golf ball across. It's not far. And then you're in this little wooded line of trees. It's not a huge wooded area, but it's enough trees to give cover. And then there's this little divot, there's a culvert there, and that's where the bodies were.

But I'll tell you something that was fascinating to me. When we were at the crime scene, I got Lisa to take me to the pub. I mean, it's right there. I mean, it's three and a half miles. And then from the crime scene to where the main suspect lived, this is something that stuck out. There's a cell phone tower right at the crime scene, the body disposal site. As she's driving me to the main suspect's home, every now and then I look up, I can still see that tower. I can still see it. I can still see it. From his driveway, as the crow flies, you can see that tower.

So, again, to me, if somebody wanted to revisit Austin straight out of their backyard is a good way to do it. Because at this site, you had no posing of victims, you had no staging of the victims, there was no ritual. This was literally where they were placed. He appears to me to be like a hunter type killer, opportunistic in a way, like he's going to use his cab. Once they get in the cab, he's in control. Now, it's my understanding also that a search then ensued, and once her bones were identified, and that was several months later, about five months later, a search goes down of a man that had been accused of raping a prostitute.

Is that correct, Cheryl? Correct. What happened? Well, the third victim now comes forward. And, you know, they're telling this story that he took me here to this restaurant. He beat me. Somehow she's able to escape him. And it becomes the primary suspect in these other two murders.

And, again, he takes her. Why? Why? Why did he become a suspect? He gets another woman. He beats her. He assaults her. How did he then get tied into Allison?

Took her to the same place, the same Mexican restaurant, same area, same cab, same time of day. And how is he a legitimate cab driver? He's a legitimate cab driver, but he does a twist. Instead of using the cab company phone number, he uses his private cell phone number. And so what law enforcement found afterwards, they interviewed a lot of the prostitutes in town. They all knew him and they said, yeah, we would all, you know, call him on his cell phone. He would come pick us up. And if we didn't have money for a ride, he would give us a ride in exchange for a sexual favor. So they would. But how? Well, I don't understand. When Allison calls a cab, she didn't call somebody's private cell number, did she?

Yes. And this guy walks in and says, who asked for a cab? Right. The bar, if I may, I'm sorry. The bar all knew him, and what they would do down here is, this suspect was actually off duty and this

is how cab drivers down here at the time would make extra money they called his private cell phone and said there's a fare here and he would come and pick them up their their taxis at the time didn't even go back to the companies when they're done driving They keep them at their home. So that is how it happened. So that's part of his MO, Nancy. It's totally off the books. The cab company couldn't tell law enforcement when he picked up a fare, where he dropped off a fare, because they didn't know. He didn't tell them.

He was doing it all on his own. So tell me this. The one woman who lived to tell the tale, after he takes her to, I guess, behind, is the Mexican restaurant closed? I understood it was shuttered. Is it working again? It is working, and so still closed. So he takes her back to this burial ground, so to speak, and she manages to get away? Correct. She actually, I think what happened was that he had pulled in to get a soda somewhere,

and she was duct taped. And I think that's what happened. Did you say duct tape? Did you say duct tape? Yes, duct tape. She was duct taped. Her hands were duct taped. She manages to kick and somehow get out of the van and run across the street,

and someone calls law enforcement and that and and they arrest him and um you know they speak with her but unfortunately what happens is at the time this woman um who was living this life uh was frightened and had been doing drugs and she never shows up for her court date and so oh no he pleads out we are talking about i'm going to go ahead and put his name out there it's timothy ianoni a former port city cab driver that's who we're talking about so because she had been using drugs she didn't want to come to court what happened then cheryl he took a plea and it was reduced to almost nothing but again now you've got not just a parallel investigation. You mean a plea for the molestation or the assault on the woman who had been duct taped,

but because she used drugs didn't come to court? And I believe the actual plea was for like having sex in public or something. It was nothing. Oh, man. But you originally. Okay, so then what happens? You had this parallel case going on with Allison and Angela, the two victims found in the wooded area.

But now you have a third victim. So by any account, Nancy, you're talking about a serial killer. That's what you're talking about. Which means there are likely other victims. Now tell me what you know about the other victim, Cheryl, Angela. Well, Angela was also a prostitute at the time. She was living that lifestyle as well. There's some belief that she may have also been familiar with Timothy Ione

and may have willingly got in the car with him for a ride before he also assaulted him and murdered her. So again, there's these, these, you know, victims that didn't get the attention that possibly they should have. Allison did. And that's the great news. Her family was there. She didn't. Where does it stand now, Cheryl? Oh, it's still open being investigated, Nancy. We are trying to get the DA to take this case to the grand jury. That's our number one request at this time. He's got enough. Can I ask you what, if anything, actually links him,

other than the third witness who did not come to court, to these two women? Can anybody in the bar identify him as coming in saying, who needs a cab? Can anybody say, I called a cell number to come pick her up? Do we have any witness like that? Well, we don't have someone for sure who could say it was him. There's been sketches done. There have been other people have come forward and said they saw a cab pulled up in the woods with tarps one night. I mean, there's a ton.

If I could just say this, law enforcement believes this is the guy. I think everybody here believes this is the guy. And there's so much circumstantial evidence. But unfortunately, there's no DNA evidence linking him to the scene. And I know in my heart what's going to happen is this is it. I've basically been told unless short of a miracle or a confession or anything else, there's no, you know, this is where it kind of ends. Even with a new witness over the last year who was another camp driver who finally came forward and said,

I saw him at the bar. So, yes, you do have that. There was a new witness who stepped forward with more information, but that's not enough either. That's not enough either. We need your help. We need your help to solve the murder of Allison Foy, along with we don't know how many others. The tip line 910-343-3620. Repeat 910-343-3620. If this were your daughter, your sister, your wife, wouldn't you want justice? I'm Nancy Grace, Crime Stories, signing off. Goodbye, friend. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. This is an iHeart Podcast.