Crime Weekly - S3 Ep163: Crime Weekly News: The Neighbor’s Secret

Episode Date: December 7, 2023

17-year-old Valerie Tindall mysteriously vanished on June 7 from Arlington, Indiana. After being missing for over 5 months, police believe they have found her remains on the property of their 59-year-old neighbor, Patrick Scott. Court documents reveal shocking details, including a confession, and Scott is officially being charged with her murder.  Try our coffee!! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.com Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod

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Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Crime Weekly News. I'm Derek Levasseur. And I'm Stephanie Harlow. Real quick, if you haven't heard already, the new stories for Criminal Coffee are up on the website. Anyone who's subscribed to our free newsletter, you've already received notification. If you're not subscribed to our newsletter, why not? Go to criminalcoffeeco.com, sign up today. You'll be notified when there's some new deals and also be notified when the stories for our criminal coffee characters are updated. And we're a little biased, but the

stories are pretty interesting. Go check them out. Anything to add, Stephanie, before we dive into it? It's kind of a sad one this week. Yeah, they are very interesting, but we do have a sad case and a sad resolved case now, but not the resolution that I think any of us hoped for. No, but I do think there's something to take away from this, and we'll get into that. So for those of you who haven't heard, 17-year-old Valerie Tindall was reported missing in early June of 2023. And initially, Arlington, Indiana law enforcement officials believe that she may have been intentionally hiding out and receiving aid from someone who was keeping her hidden. But unfortunately, this week, Valerie's remains were found hidden inside a barrel on the property

of 59-year-old neighbor Patrick Scott. This is a terrible outcome. And this is why we have to take missing persons cases seriously, because here's a situation where law enforcement thought, you know what? She's probably just being hidden by a friend or a family member, whoever they thought it was. I don't want to accuse them of anything, but clearly they didn't pound the pavement hard

enough. Or maybe they did. I shouldn't judge. But overall, they thought it was one thing. It was completely something else. And now we have, we've lost her forever. So sad story. But what are the details behind this one?

It's actually crazy because Patrick Scott was Valerie's neighbor, lived across the street from her. But not only that, he was employing her at his lawn care business. So she would mow lawns for him and things in the summer. And he was the person last seen with her on June 7th before she disappeared. Patrick was charged with providing false information to the police in late June after he had changed his story more than once about the last time he'd seen Valerie. And ultimately, I think this was like his fourth version of the story. He claimed he had dropped

Valerie off in Homer, which is a town five miles south of Arlington, Indiana, and he said he watched her get into a pale blue car with an unknown man. However, the last known location of Valerie's phone was in Arlington, not Homer. And Valerie's mother, Sheena Sandifer, has reported that another person had overheard Patrick Scott telling Valerie that he was going to take her someplace special in Indianapolis for lunch on June 7th. And it's been revealed by Valerie's mother that Scott had been acting like a jealous boyfriend with Valerie. Remember, this is a 17-year-old girl and a man in his 50s who's not only a neighbor, but an employer to her. Valerie's mother, Sheena Sandefora, said, quote, she came home one day and said he had her on a 360, which I didn't even know what that was. And I said, what is that? And she says where he tracks their phone because they all had the iPhone. And I said, why does he have you on that? You're not his family. Why is he tracking you? And she said, I, she's out there. Like he was upset about it almost. And he wanted her over here, end quote.

So basically what it sounds like is Patrick Scott had Valerie on Life 360, which is an app that usually you would use with your family. It shows like the little picture and shows where they are. And so you can basically, you know, make sure your kids are safe. And if something happens, you know where they are. Great thing for family members. We strongly recommend it for everybody out there. If you don't have the iCloud family sharing thing, definitely have something like Family360 for sure. Life360, yeah, it's free too. Life360, I apologize. There's like a paid version and stuff where it tells you like how fast you're driving or things like that. So if you wanted to track how fast your kid was driving and stuff like that, there is a paid version with more benefits.

But the just tracking part is completely free. That's awesome. And I mean, they can turn it off, but whatever. That's neither here nor there. Yeah, I mean, better than nothing. And that's a whole different conversation, like privacy for kids, like all that good stuff. But we will save that for a different day.

I guess as her employer, I could see Patrick Scott saying, oh, I have all of these kids who mow lawns for me on Life360. That way I can make sure they're where they're supposed to be. This is my business. I don't want to send them over to someone's house to mow lawn. They never show up, et cetera, et cetera. But the way he was using it seemed to be to track her even off business hours.

Agreed. Yeah. I agree with you, by the way. If I had a service where, again, it would have to be their consent. Agreed. Yeah. I agree with you, by the way. If I had a service where, again, it would have to be their consent, they're doing it. I don't know if he was forcing them to do it, but you do have companies where, whether it's GPS coordinates in the work vehicles or on work phones where they can track you to make sure obviously you're where you're supposed to be, you're not slacking off, and to obviously track you're maybe your ETA for the next job site. So there are a lot of benefits to it. But like you said, there is the

right way to use it. He was clearly using it for the wrong purposes. And she was a minor. So that's weird, too. That's weird. There's some issues there. Like, can she really consent to that? I guess I don't know. There's you know, but apparently it seems like the parents didn't stop it when they found out. The parents didn't stop it. They thought it was peculiar. But Valerie said, I have no problem with this. So and according to Valerie's parents, not only did Valerie work for Patrick Scott, but they shared a bond. They were friends.

Valerie was friends with many of Patrick Scott's family members. And she was apparently a good friend with his granddaughter. And the parents said Patrick Scott treated Valerie like his own daughter. Now, two weeks after Valerie went missing, Patrick Scott tore down and burned a garage on his property at 2 a.m. The barrel that Valerie's remains would inevitably be found in was located beneath the rubble of that burned down garage. The discovery of the remains followed multiple searches on Scott's property. On October 11th, sniffer dogs detected the presence of human remains at the property and on November 28th, the police found a large pile of dirt, which they then dug up and

this revealed this homemade wooden barrel that Valerie had been buried in. Patrick Scott was arrested and he confessed. He told investigators that he had strangled Valerie in the bedroom of his home on June 7th, the day she went missing, and he said he continued to wear the belt that he had used to murder her after she was dead, while her family, police, and the community searched for her. He claimed that the 17-year-old girl had attempted to seduce him and blackmail him into buying her a new car. According to Scott, the murder just happened, and when asked if he was troubled by what he had done, Scott responded that he wasn't too crazy about it. After killing Valerie, Scott wrapped her body in black plastic and left her in his home office while his family went about their evening. He then put her in a homemade wooden barrel the next day and buried her on his property just feet away from the house that she lived in. After Valerie went missing, Patrick Scott and his wife Linda spoke to Valerie's parents, and Valerie's parents said that they felt Scott and his wife were like picking their brains, and they wanted Valerie's parents

to believe that she had run away. They were trying to steer her in that direction, according to Valerie's parents. I don't know what part Patrick Scott's wife Linda plays in this, whether she knows more than she's saying. If she was aware of what had happened, I would like to think no. The police haven't said anything about this. I would hope to God no, because that would make a horrible situation even worse. But the end result is we have an inappropriate relationship between a grown man and a young girl. For me, the second that this almost 60-year-old man is like calling me and being like, oh, your daughter's here and your daughter's there and what's going on? And he starts acting like a jealous boyfriend. I'm going to be like,

this is inappropriate. I don't want you working for this dude anymore. But also Valerie's parents said they had a very close relationship and he treated her like his own daughter. So they may have thought it was just a parental thing. I don't really believe that Valerie tried to blackmail him. I think he had a sexual interest in her and he was grooming her in a way. And then he made his move on June 7th. She probably was like, nah, gross. And then he got mad and killed her. I don't see really you getting that upset to commit murder because a girl was like, I'm going to blackmail you to get a new car. You know, like I don't see you getting that mad unless you had sex with her already. And then she said, I'm going to blackmail you. And then you're trying to keep her quiet. But he doesn't really make it sound like he was trying to keep

her quiet. He makes it sound like he just kind of saw red, got mad and then killed her. And the murder just happened. And he wasn't too crazy about it. Either way, she was that close to home the whole time. She went missing on June 7th. She was dead on June 7th. And this guy, her neighbor, somebody who was close to her and her family ended up being the culprit. And it's just a very sad story, but I'm glad at least we know what happened to her. And she's not just one of those victims that goes decades or forever without ever knowing what happened to her. Yeah. At least her family has answers, which is more than we can say for a lot of families out there. I see it every week on Detective Perspective. There's just, they just, a lot of parents just saying, listen, it's been so long. I don't think my, I don't think

that they're alive anymore. I just want to know what happened. I just want to bring them home. And that's, that's the point they're at. So yeah, no, not trying to even, you know, find the silver lining in this. There really isn't. But to what you were saying there a few things to unpack agree with you 100 he's absolutely lying about the the motive behind why he did it i think it's a you nailed it right on the head it's a situation where he had sex with her and after the fact maybe she had said like you know this is what i want for it and he got scared because he's married and did what he did. Or more than likely, if I was a betting man, I would say he made his move. Like you said, she rejected him and said she was going to or gave the inference that she

was going to tell someone or she was uncomfortable. And he assumed that she was going to go tell people, including his wife. He got spooked and he killed her. That's that's more than likely what happened here. Because make no mistake about it, I'm just trying to be honest here, if for some reason Valerie wanted to have sex with him, he absolutely would have based on the behavior that he was displaying. He definitely had a sexual interest in her and he would have done that religiously if she would have allowed it and probably would have paid for it, honestly. So I don't see that being the case. More than likely, she turned him down like we saw

recently in the Natalie Holloway case where the victim rejects their offender, their attacker, and they get frustrated and they go into this violent rage because of that sense of rejection. They can't handle it. They're scumbags and, you know, they do what they do. And, you know, where does it leave us? I don't, we say it all the time and you can take it for what you will because, you know, we're not, we're not fortune tellers, Stephanie and I, but we have these conversations a lot off camera as parents and as friends about our kids. And honestly, I wish I had a better answer for you guys as a former law enforcement guy. And I'm supposed to be able to shed light on this, how to protect your kids. The only real way to do it is just to assume everyone, everyone-

Has nefarious intentions. Could be bad. Given the opportunity, they could be bad. There's no standard testing or anything you can do to confirm and definitively rule out the possibility that the people closest to you could do something bad to your kids. And so I wish I could say like, and you know, there are people you can trust and yes, there are, like, for example, there are people in my life, like close family relatives that I would trust unconditionally with my kids, but that's because I know them and I feel like I have a good read on people. But anyone outside of like my mother,

my father, my sister, my brothers, that's it. I don't give a shit if I've known you since I was five years old. I ain't letting you like even, even letting someone pick up my child that's been like a neighbor and has kids of their own. I'm like, eh, you know what? I'll pick them up. Just because we've heard so many stories where it's like, it's not the, it's the exception, not the norm, right? It's the exception, not the norm that someone you've known since you were five would turn out to be a brutal killer who would pose a threat to you or your family. That's the exception. But we are too familiar with that exception. So we don't want to be on the end of that where we're like,

oh, how would I have known? We just want to assume the worst and hope for the best. Yeah. And ask the parents of all of these cases that we've talked about, how many of them thought before it, yeah, I don't trust anybody anyways. That ain't going to happen to me. Right. They all think that. all, they're all under the impression that they have a good sense of the people around them and that these stories that they've heard about in the news couldn't happen to them. That's something they only read about or see on TV until it does right. Until that worst nightmare comes true, becomes your reality. So yeah, I mean, listen, you can't live life scared, but I have no problem with you being conservative about who your children or your loved ones are with, because that's really the only way to ensure their protection is to be there yourself.

And there will come a point as they get older. And I think Valerie was kind of getting to that point where she's transitioning into adulthood. Right. You're starting to give her more responsibilities and you're entrusting her to do the right thing and choose the right people to hang around. Let her make some of her own decisions, yeah. You got to, right? You got to let the bird out of the nest at some point. So I don't know in the situation if there's anything you could do. And honestly, we're not here to just pick apart things.

The family was skeptical about it, but as you just laid out this whole dynamic and i only know what you're telling me he was a close friend they known him for years lived across the street neighbor treated him like her his own daughter worked for him yeah yeah so there's no doesn't appear there was any red flags other than this 360 thing so it's just a situation where you just never know and if you you got it's like this happy medium of protecting your children but also giving them enough leeway to be their own person as an individual because and learn how to live in the world independently eventually right they're

gonna have to do it on their own you can't always be there for them so that i think was the the hardest thing when i was looking at it because she's 17. So when you're seven, and I have an older daughter. Yeah, you're 22? She's 22. But I mean, like that's 17, 18, 19 time. You know, you're still looking at them like kind of like you're my child. You're my dependent still. However, they're about to be or are just newly like legally an adult.

So they come home and they're like, oh, yeah, my employer's tracking me on Life 360. And to you, you're like, that's a little weird. But then they're like, well, I don't have a problem with it. And you're like, well, what am I going to do? I can't tell her what to do in this situation. I have to let her make some of her own decisions. You would never expect this. I mean, the case we're covering on Crime Weekly this week is about a mother who killed her own children. I'm sure that her husband would never think that that would happen. Things happen that you don't ever expect and you wouldn't think in a thousand million years could happen. And there's no way to prepare for that. I mean, we can't tell you out there like, oh, you should

suspect your own wife, your own husband. Things happen that you don't expect and you can't prepare for. And I do feel like this was kind of one of those things where Valerie's parents can't tell her. She's not nine. We don't want you hanging out with Patrick. We don't think it's good for you to him to track you because she's working. She's independent. He's her employer, which is what predators do, though. That's how they groom. So you do have to kind of like be a little careful. But she's she's growing up. She's older. She's 17. And what are you going to do in a year? She's going to be old enough to vote, old enough to go to the military. You have to let them develop some sort of autonomy

and making small decisions like this about their own life is where you start. And I don't think Valerie's parents did anything wrong. I mean, I may have had a discussion with Valerie and we don't know if they did. And I would have been like, hey, we know he's your employer. We know you trust him, but like be careful.

People sometimes have nefarious intentions and they don't show you right away. And they spend a lot of time building a relationship with you so that you trust them. So just always be careful and always be vigilant. They may have had that conversation with her. Who knows? But I would have conversations like that with your older children when they're dealing with people out in the real world who are trying to build close relationships with them. Sometimes there's a nefarious purpose for that. You know, and I don't want to leave you guys with just saying, yeah, it's just life.

You got to deal with it. So one thing I would suggest, and this is after working hundreds of cases like this and what I've seen in cases like this, where it's child molestation or sexual assault or even domestic assault, it's highly unlikely that these things will occur if there's more than one person present, right? Unless they're involved. So if you can make sure, and you can tell this to your kids and also apply it to your own life, try to make sure you don't find yourself in positions where, and I'll just say it like this, you don't want to put yourself in a position where if you're a

female, you're alone with a male in a situation or vice versa. If you're a male alone with a female, because things can be said, things can happen. And it's going to be a situation where if it did happen, now you're vulnerable because you're by yourself. And if it didn't happen, you could be accused of something you didn't do. So I would just recommend that I would tell my daughters as they get older and start to work, hey, listen, I don't care if it's Uncle Tommy or your employer. If you're working for this gentleman, he's a great person,

just make sure that you have other employees around when you can and there really is no business for him to be alone with you at any point. So try to avoid that if you can and it goes back to the whole buddy system, right? Try to put yourself in positions where you're not in environments where you're alone as a female with a man. And I don't want people to come at me and say, oh my God, you can't be, it's a reality guys. It's really what it is. And I'm a male and I'm saying. And vice versa also, you know, there's.

That's why I'm saying it. And we've talked about this as well especially being more and I hope you don't mind me saying this you know it's like being more in the public eye you know it's a situation where even as a male I you know I tend to be more cognizant of like putting myself in positions where I'm alone with a female absolutely because because it's a situation where you want you don't want anything to be misconstrued or or more neious, for malicious reasons, something be said that's not true. So you want to make sure that you're doing things for both sides to protect both parties. And that's the one advice I would give to my daughter or son. If you find yourself in a situation, make sure you have friends or family members or other employees or colleagues around.

Yeah, like why is he taking her to lunch alone? You've got other employees. Like why is he taking her to Indianapolis for lunch by themselves? Like this is a 60-year-old man and a 17-year-old girl. And I don't care if he treats her like a daughter. He's not her father. And more specifically, I'd love to know why she was at the house that day. Because he was going to take her to lunch apparently.

Right. And that's the thing where her to lunch, apparently. Right. And that's the thing where it's like, hey, you know what? I can go, but Tammy wants to come with us or Joey wants to come with us. You know, like, let's have other people there. Try to avoid it. And I'm not sitting here. I'm a realist. It's going to be nearly impossible to avoid it all the time.

But if you do find yourself in that situation, try to wrap it up as quick as possible. Get yourself out of it. Hey, I'm going to make a phone call. I'll be outside. Let me come out when you're ready. You know, or I got to go to the bathroom real quick. So he, Oh, I got some things I got to do in the bedroom. Okay. I got to go to the bathroom real quick. Wait a couple of minutes, flush the toilet, and then head out outside and just wait outside and go, Oh, you know, I just thought you wanted me to wait outside for you. It's very easy to, you know, remove yourself from that situation and to minimize the opportunities where something can be done or said that could have a dramatic impact on your

life or their life. And that's, again, wish we didn't have to have these conversations and it doesn't apply to everyone. But I would say those recommendations, some of them I follow myself. I know that Stephanie does. some of them I follow myself. I know that Stephanie does. She's recommended them to me. Hey, Derek, just be careful. You've said it to me before. Derek, just be careful.

I've seen things in my time. Seen a few things. I've seen a few things, yeah. So, I mean, there's predatory people out there, male or female. It don't matter. 100%, opportunist. I'll also say though, like she's 17, man. It's like the hardest,

having teenage children, because you don't want to push them away. You don't want to start forbidding them from, you can't hang out with him alone. Now you're pushing her away and you're pushing him closer. You're pushing her closer to him potentially. Right?

Right. My parents don't understand. Yeah, my parents don't understand our relationship. They don't trust you. Oh, I can't believe that. They want to get in between us, you know, and now it's like producing something that maybe you is the opposite of what you want. It's just very difficult to know how to parent in an almost adult child. It's very, very difficult. And I don't envy anybody. And I

still have two who are going to be there. So it's not even like, oh, I'm so glad I'm done with that part of my life. Like, I don't want to even do, I don't want to do it because you want to keep them protected. You want to keep them safe. And there comes a point where you have to like unclench a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. That's why it's got to be a subtle, hey, here's my recommendation, but you got to do what you want to do. I will say this. I'd necessarily, hypothetically, Tenley's in that situation. I would have no problem with her saying to this guy, Hey, by the way, my dad had said something that he wasn't a fan of you. So he knows. Yeah. Like, Hey, listen, exactly what I wanted to do. So there's a little social engineering for you

because that's my way of shooting across the bow, letting you know that dad knows and he don't like it and he's watching you. You know, maybe that is a deterrent for him because he realizes dad's monitoring shit too. You know? I think the one good thing about her being a little bit older was you can be honest with her. Of course. You got to have that good relationship. And when they're like six or, you know, even like my kids are six and 11, you don't really want to tell them about the realities of how violent the world is

because you want them to stay young and innocent. At 17, you can sit down and have a real conversation and say, I know he's your friend and blah, blah, blah, et cetera, et cetera, whatever. But here's the stats, right, of how a grown man will groom a young child. So if you see these signs and if you think that something like that's happening, just make sure you're communicating with me so that I can help watch your back. I'm not telling you what to do. I'm just educating you about what the reality of the world is. You're old enough now. Treat them like an adult, but also warn them like someone you want to protect. Absolutely agree. No, we're thinking of Valerie's family. We're thinking of everybody out there who's going through a situation like this, has gone through it, is yet to go through it. It's

a tough one and there's no perfect solution. There's no absolute answer that will solve this problem. It's just a matter of keeping an eye on everyone, building relationships, but also having a level of a buffer and insulation between you and the people that you care about the most so that they're protected as well as you can. Understanding that the reality of the situation is there's no guarantee that something can't happen. We can't not live life, but we can always do what we can. And unfortunately, if something like this happens, if you know in the back of your mind that you did everything you could and you had that open relationship and it just, it's just the way it went. I think I would like to think that would be easier for me to accept. I wouldn't want to have regret. I wouldn't want to be sitting there

like, I wish I would have had that conversation with her or him. So that's where I stand on it. It's a tragic situation. Hate covering it. We cover it for this reason, to have these conversations. There's no benefit for us covering it other than to open up the dialogue as two concerned parents with young kids living in this world, trying to navigate it just like many of you. It's not good. Any final words from you on this topic? You don't have to live life scared. Just live it safe.

Live it safe. That's a good way to end this episode. Live it safe. We want you guys to go out there. Have a good time, but be cautious of your surroundings. And we will hopefully see you later this week or you'll hear us on Friday. Like Stephanie said, although she's so good at not giving it all away, we are covering a new case this week. She didn't say the name, so I won't say the name.

It'll be out on audio on Friday and out on video on Sunday on YouTube. We also have Patreon if you want to add free a day early. And make sure that if you're watching on YouTube, subscribe, notifications on. And if you're listening on audio, make sure you leave a review. We really appreciate it.

Everyone, stay safe out there. We will see you later this week. Bye. Night.