Criminology - Lyric Cook and Elizabeth Collins

Episode Date: March 13, 2022

In 2012, ten-year-old Lyric Cook and eight-year-old Elizabeth Collins disappeared while riding their bikes on their summer vacation. An extensive search began quickly to find the two missing girls. But, even though the authorities found some witnesses and CCTV footage that caught the girls on video, they only managed to find the girls' missing bikes. Sadly, the bodies of the two young girls were found almost five months after they vanished. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the disappearance and murders of Lyric Cook and Elizabeth Collins. Some members of their family came under scrutiny for activities that they were involved in. Police even said that some family members were uncooperative. This case has some parallels with the murders of Abigail Williams and Liberty German in Delphi, Indiana. Police did look at a possible connection between the two cases but ultimately said they could not find one. You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Subscribe now to moms and mysteries wherever you get your podcast. Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 198 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And I'm Mike Morford. Mr. Morford, what's going on with you, brother? Not too much.

Just hanging out, getting a little bit of sun today. It was humid out, but came in to do this episode. How you don't? Yeah, I'm doing good. I'm still, you know, heartbroken for Ukraine. I can't stop watching the news or probably am watching too much news because I think there's some fatigue there. You know, when you're constantly seeing the devastation and the toll that this is taking on

the Ukrainian people, I think there is a danger there and watching too much of it. But I can't help it. Man, I'm glued to the television and my heart breaks as I watch. Yeah, it's very depressing. And every day it seems like there's another, just a worse story than the day before or something that's heartbreaking. And you see all these old people and sick people that are forced to walk trying to just escape their country and escape that, the bombings and stuff. It's very tough to watch. Yeah, it's just a horrible situation.

Hey, let's go ahead and do our Patreon shoutouts. We had Alyssa Sprout. Angel Brady jumped out at our highest level. Mary Ann Liddy, Katie Westerman, and Patty Simpson. So a lot of great new support. We really appreciate it. Yeah, thank you so much for all that support. It means a lot to us and helps us put out the show.

We can't thank you enough. If you'd like to help support the show, you can go to patreon.com slash criminology and sign up. All right, buddy, let's go ahead and jump into this episode. We're focused on one of the most commonly discussed cases online that a lot of people may not have actually ever heard of. It's a tragic case of the murder of two young girls in a Midwestern town who went out to enjoy the outdoors and never came home. Their bodies were eventually found in news of the gruesome double murder sent shockwaves through their community. I think some

people may immediately find their mind going to Delphi in the murders of Liberty German and Abigail Williams. and that would be natural, that would be on the right path, because their murders have been linked by some, at least by circumstances and similarity. But we're talking about the murders of Cousins, Lyric Cook, and Elizabeth Collins. We actually discussed Lyric and Elizabeth briefly in our episode about the Delphi murders, but we thought that their case, too, was deserving of a full episode. In many ways, the murders of Alaric and Elizabeth have been overshadowed, by the Delphi murders and never got the same kind of national media attention.

But just like the Delphi case, two families are heartbroken over the violent and senseless murders of these two little girls, and they're hoping to one day get justice and find out who murdered Lerick and Elizabeth. Lerick Cook was born on October 2nd, 2001 in Waterloo, Iowa. She went to Kingsley Elementary School. Elizabeth Collins was also born in Waterloo on July 31, 2003. she attended Pointer Elementary School. In 2012, the two cousins were excited to be out of school for the summer and to spend some time together. It was a month into their school break.

And up to that point, things had been pretty uneventful. The girls just hung out and did the kind of things that girls that age do. 10-year-old lyric and 8-year-old Elizabeth were spending some of those days at Elizabeth's house in Evansdale, Iowa. in Black Hawk County, Evansdale is a tiny town that still has less than 5,000 residents today. 72-year-old Wilma, Lyric's maternal grandmother, was watching them. They definitely enjoyed spending time with Wilma. At around 11.30 a.m. on July 13th, the girls decided they wanted to go for a bike ride, an activity that no summer day is complete without for many kids,

something the pair had done many times. Wilma watched the girls ride off down Broven Boulevard. She didn't go back inside until the girls rounded the corner out of sight on their way to enjoy the day. But after an hour, Wilma began to worry of it. Their bike ride was supposed to be a pretty quick one because they had somewhere to be that afternoon. And exactly what their plans were is unclear. Some reports say Lyric needed to head home to Waterloo after Lyric's mom Misty got off work. Other reports mentioned that Wilma had to meet a friend or keep an appointment.

But the point is that the girls knew that they needed to be back relatively soon that day. It was when Wilma realized how much time had passed and that the girls hadn't returned from their bike ride that Wilma became nervous. She watched the clock until 12.30 p.m. And then Wilma got in the car and took a drive around town to see if she could spot the girls. She searched for about an hour and then returned home waiting until Lyric's mom, Misty Cook, Morrissey came to the home after work. By then, it had been almost three hours with no sign of the girls. Misty and Wilma called family and friends nearby to help them search the neighborhood for Lyric and Elizabeth. It was unlike them to not check in. And the more time that went by without word from the

girls, the more Misty and Wilma worry. And more if I think this is, you know, every parent's nightmare. Your kids are playing. They're given a little bit of freedom, right, to travel around the neighborhood. You expect them to be back, you know, within a relatively short period of time. That doesn't happen. Okay. You make the decision that you're going to go out and look for them. You can't find them. And then hours go by. And I can just imagine the panic that creeps in, creeps in, and then, you know, at some point kind of hits a crescendo. Something is really wrong here. Yeah, I know times are different from when you and I were younger, but I think of it on my summer

days, my grandparents would say, okay, go on down the road and stay on this road and come back before dark. And I'd be gone all day most of the time, unless I came home for a quick lunch break or something, but for the most part, I'd be out all day. And nowadays, that doesn't typically happen. there's a little bit more of a way, especially with technology, to keep an eye on where kids are at, maybe track them. And plus, with everything we see in the news, maybe a lot of people don't trust them being out all day without checking in. But, you know, I imagine these girls just doing their thing, being out, having fun, and doing that, keeping busy.

And it seems like it could be a possibility of them losing track of time and maybe forgetting. but I think the longer the day went on without any sight of them, I think that's really worrisome, and that's why they got so nervous. There was no sign of Lyric or Elizabeth anywhere in the neighborhood. They weren't at the nearby playground or the park. It didn't seem they just forgot to come home. They were nowhere to be found. Later, witnesses would report seeing the girls to police,

riding their bikes down Gilbert Drive, between 1230 and 1 p.m. The exact time is unknown. another witness claimed to have seen them around the same time riding their bikes on Lake Avenue, just east of Myers Lake. Gilbert Drive runs east to west and it intersects with a much shorter Lake Avenue, which runs north-south. At 2.48 p.m., Lyric and Elizabeth were reported missing to police. Elizabeth's mom actually drove to the police station to make the report.

Now, we hear a lot of times that police tell worried parents to give it time. their kids will show up. Well, that didn't happen here. And a search party, including local firefighters, was formed to canvas the bike trails near Myers Lake with the idea that the girls may have been riding on a trail and gotten lost on their way home or perhaps maybe one or both of them got injured. At around 4 p.m. at the southeast corner of Myers Lake, firefighters searching the bike along the Evansdale Nature Trail, found two bikes.

They belong to Lyric and Elizabeth, but the girls were nowhere to be found. And it's true more if we have done a lot of episodes where, you know, parents have gone to police and police have said, okay, let's give it some time. They're going to show up. I get that. I think that has changed over the years. I think you also have to factor in the ages of the. two girls. You know, I think that plays a big part in thinking by police, right? If you go to them

and say, my 18, 19 year old is missing. Okay, well, then you're in the territory where you are technically talking about an adult. We're not in that territory here. So it doesn't surprise me really at all that police would want to jump into action. We're talking about two pretty young girls here. And I think what's pretty concerning about it is the fact that they're nowhere within sight of these bikes, because I don't know if many kids would just ditch their bikes someplace and run off and leave them there, you know, being worried about them being stolen or whatever. It just doesn't seem like something that would be common.

So the fact that they weren't found close by to these bikes, I think probably set the people that found those bikes on edge right away. It appeared as if the bikes had simply been abandoned on the trail. Elizabeth's purse was also there, about 25 feet away from the bikes, but it was on the inside of a fenced-in area, separated from the bikes, and this made the fines even more alarming. It now seemed less likely that the girls had left their bikes on the trail and walked off somewhere nearby,

because why would Elizabeth throw down her purse as well? This was also surprising because the bikes were found further away from Elizabeth's home than they were allowed to go. The fine was alarming to say the least, and at 4.30 p.m., both girls were entered into the National Crime Information Center database of missing persons. At 4.40 p.m., an Everbridge alert was sent out, calling all phones within half a mile of the area, letting them know about the disappearance. So here again, Mor, if I think this highlights the difference from some of the other cases that we've profiled, you know, things are happening very quickly. from the time that they were reported missing, you know, police got into motion very quickly. And then, you know, within a short time, their information is being entered into missing persons databases.

And again, I will say, I do think this has a lot to do with the time. But I also think that their ages played a really big role. authorities continued to canvas the area. An auction house called Corn Belt Auctions, which was just across the street from the Collins home, where the girls had left from, had a security camera that happened to capture Lyric and Elizabeth riding their bikes that day.

They were headed west on Brovan Boulevard. This footage showed them riding their bikes at 12, 11 p.m. Just a bit after they had left Wilma. And just before the witnesses later recalled seeing them much farther south. This was the only time. They were caught on surveillance footage that day. Unfortunately, once news of the missing girls' bikes being found was shared. Another larger search was started for them with many volunteers from the community as well

as officials from local law enforcement joining it. Myers Lake was dragged before 5 p.m. And divers searched the lake around 5.30 p.m. In case the girls had somehow fallen in and drowned. By nightfall, the Iowa State Patrol was using their infrared search tools on an airplane to try and find the girls in the woods around the lake. But there was still no sign of either of the girls. But more if I want to point out, again, how much effort is being put into this search

and how quickly that effort was started. I mean, we're talking about not just law enforcement, right? Volunteers coming forward. They bring in the divers very early. They're using infrared search tools very early on. Yeah, I think we cover a lot of cases where people drag their feet and they're slow to get started and they give them the old, well, they'll be home soon. And I don't think they can be faulted here because I think they did the

right thing. They went out right away and put all their effort into searching and looking for them, hoping they would find them, and they just unfortunately didn't. Yeah, I really cannot find any fault here in the way that law enforcement reacted to this situation. When it became clear that Lyric and Elizabeth might be the victim's foul play and fearing the worst, law enforcement turned to local registered sex offenders first in their search for answers. They began to interview people listed on the registry by 7 p.m. Just hours after the girls were reported missing. Some more obvious suspects in the area were registered sex offenders who were known to

victimize young girls specifically. Officers brought them in for interviews and polygraph tests, but none of the offenders they spoke to seemed to have any connection to the disappearance. Meanwhile, law enforcement kept searching the area on the off chance the girls had gotten lost or wandered off and were stuck in the woods someplace. The FBI's child abduction response team was called in and Star 1 search and rescue, sent in cadaver dogs to search near Myers Lake. Once again, divers searched the lake as well as the aircraft again using infrared tools

to try to detect the girls in the area. It became pretty clear due to this extensive amount of searching that Lyric and Elizabeth were not in or around Myers Lake. But just in case, on July 16th, officials worked to drain Myers Lake. Dumpsters in the area were searched by officers. Authorities asked the local landfill to put all trash from Evansdale

in one contained area for the next two weeks. On July 17th, authorities searched sewer lines and pipes using cameras and FBI bloodhounds. were brought in to search the area. The dogs reportedly did detect the girls sent nearby. On July 18th, sonar was used to search the water. On the 19th, officer stopped draining the lake. And an FBI dive team came in to search Myers Lake.

So I think when you look at this morph, they really focused a lot of their attention on this Myers Lake area. They searched it extensively. But unfortunately, their efforts didn't lead them to Lyric or Elizabeth. And to me more, if it does make sense, right, that they would focus around this area, you know, obviously finding the bikes. The thinking had to be, well, okay, if they got off the bikes and, you know, decided to travel

on foot, well, how far could they have gone? I think it's pretty troubling to just not have them, any sight of them anywhere close by. And I think if for searchers, maybe for their family, whoever was out there, that had to be really disheartening to not find any sign of them around. And, you know, God forbid, I can't even imagine what the family was thinking. Just where are they? It had to be really, really hard for them to see that there was no sign of them out there. Well, my thought is, and obviously I've never been in this situation. I hope to never be in this situation. but my thought is in the beginning. Yes, there's panic, but there's also, you know, a sense of relief that you have all this help, right? Personnel, technology. They're definitely going to find them. But then I think as things stretch out longer and longer and they start to exhaust some of the efforts, well, then the panic becomes even,

more real. And then I think at a certain point, it's not just panic. It's, what's the word, morph? You know, it's terrifying. The possibilities probably that start to run through your mind. As time went on, it became more and more clear that the girls were likely the victims of foul play. Police were saddled with the knowledge that Lyrick and Elizabeth were in danger, or even worse, had been abducted, probably by a stranger, and they may have been harmed. It was a real race against time for them. Police set up a tip line so that anyone with information relating to the disappearance could call it in easily.

The line was answered 24 hours a day. At its peak, soon after the girls disappeared, dispatchers were taking 20 tips every hour. One of these tips was from a jogger who saw the two bikes abandoned near the trail at around 2 p.m. the day the girls vanished. This gave investigators a better understanding of the time that the bikes wound up there where they were found. On July 1st, eight days after the girls vanished, the Courier News reported that authorities were confident that Lyric and Elizabeth were both still alive. FBI spokeswoman Sandy Brealt stated, We believe the girls are alive and we are not discouraged by the passage of time.

She also mentioned that the girls' family members were not. not being fully cooperative, which she said was hindering the investigation into their abduction, but she didn't elaborate on that at the time. As the days passed with no sign of Lyric and Elizabeth, people began to look deeper into their lives and the lives of their families. Lyrics parents were also subjected to heavy scrutiny. Authorities, as they do in most cases, work to clear Lyric and Elizabeth's families and then branch out from there. Captain Rick Abin openly said that no one was being targeted or suspected more than others telling the courier news. Now that it is an abduction, everyone is a suspect. The families were interviewed by detectives and willingly handed their phones over for searches

by 8 a.m. the day after the girls went missing. Nothing of interest was found. The reason for the scrutiny had to do with the fact that Lyric's mom, Misty, and her husband Dan, had criminal records. Dan Morrissey had previously been charged with assaulting Misty. He was also facing drug manufacturing charges for making meth, among other drug-related charges. Misty's first polygraph test was inconclusive, so she had to take another one, which Misty claims that she passed. According to the director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire, this focus on the families was warranted. Apparently, Lyrick and Elizabeth would not have been the first children

abducted over a drug debt or his intimidation to prevent testimony. Though Dan Morrissey hadn't been the only person arrested in the drug case he was charged in, he was facing the most serious charges, and the charges against his co-defendant carried fewer consequences, certainly nothing to abduct two children over. Most of the family believe that the girl's disappearance was completely unrelated to Lyrick's parents' drug histories. The family was a family was. officially cleared of any involvement in the disappearance of the girls. With the family seemingly ruled out, authorities kept at it, hoping that someone, anyone, would find something to help their investigation. Weeks turned into months. At around 1245

in the afternoon, on December 5th, 2012, five months after Lyric and Elizabeth vanished, hunters in Seven Bridges Wildlife Park found two child-sized human, skeletons. This secluded area was near Redland, Iowa, which is about 25 miles north of Evansdale, where the girls were last seen, and where their bikes were found. It's also in a completely different county. Bremer County, the news of two children skeletons being found was shocking, and by this time, residents all over that part of Iowa were well aware of Lyric and Elizabeth's case and feared that to search for them had come to a tragic end. The next day, on December 6th, the Black Hawk County Sheriff's Office held a press conference.

Chief Deputy Rick Abbin said that it was believed that the remains were, in fact, those of Larry Cook and Elizabeth Collins. The medical examiner hadn't finished analyzing their remains at the state lab in nearby Ankeny, but still, it was quite clear to authorities that the search for the girls was over. Four days later, on December 10th, it was officially confirmed that the remains found near Redland were indeed those of eight-year-old Elizabeth Collins and 10-year-old Lyric Cook. Understandably, their families were heartbroken and wanted privacy. No details were released publicly about their cause of death or the state of the remains,

but police were investigating the case as a double homicide. Police didn't say whether the area they were founded was where they had been left after they were killed or if they had actually been killed in Seven Bridges Wildlife Park. All that the public knew was that the girls had been murdered and the community realize that a monster might be living amongst them. A memorial for Elizabeth was held on December 13th, 2012, with lyrics memorial 16 days later on December 29th. Lyric's private funeral was on April 12, 2013, and then... In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency? We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer.

For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, Blood and Water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. And Elizabeth's Graveside Funeral Service was held a few weeks later on May 4th. On February 3, 2013, the park and trail near the middle of Myers Lake on its north. end were renamed in honor of Lyric and Elizabeth. The park is now called Angels Park, and the trail there is now called the Trail of Angels. July 13th was declared Lyric and Elizabeth Day by the city of Evansdale. On July 24th, 2013, just over a year after the girls vanished, law enforcement made an announcement. There was a description of a vehicle that may have been connected to the murders.

Multiple witnesses had come forward to describe a car parked on Arbitus Avenue near Myers Lake, the day the girls went missing. It was a white SUV described as large and clunky, according to the website Iowa Cold Cases.org. It was described as being like a Ford Bronco or maybe an old-style boxy suburban, and it was in the area that day between 11.30 a.m. and 12.30 p.m., just after the girls were caught on camera riding their bikes near Broven Boulevard. So, more of this definitely seemed like a solid lead because Arbitus Avenue is the street near the southeast end of Myers Lake where the girls' bicycles were found. The witnesses remember the specific location of the SUV itself a bit differently. One witness recalled the SUV parked near the woods on the east end of Myers Lake and others recalled it parked between two different signs for bicyclays. vehicle trails. As you head east from Myers Lake, on Arbitus Avenue, there are two bike trails. The Evansdale Nature Trail, which runs north-south and intersects Arbitus before the trail then

curves west towards the lake and the Cedar Valley Nature Trail, which also runs north-south, but is just east of where Arbitus Avenue ends. This whole area is heavily wooded, and it doesn't look like there is anything stopping a car from driving on the trails or through the trees. Two of the witnesses told law enforcement about this SUV within the first few days of the investigation. But the third witness didn't call in the tip for months. They had been sure. Someone else would have called it in already and didn't want to call in a duplicate tip. When the case went unsolved for months, they finally decided. decided to call it in. Although the white SUV tip seemed to be the best clue investigators had,

it didn't lead to an arrest. And tracking down every white SUV in Iowa would be a monumental task. And Morp, I know this is something that you and I have talked about, Gibby and I talk about it quite a bit on TCAT Unsolved, people not wanting to call in tips or leads because either they think it's not important or just as in this case, well, the police probably already know it. I think what we're all saying is call it in. Let police know. Let them vet it.

If they've already received it, great. No harm, no foul. You just never know what that type of information could lead to. and I really want to stress to people that you just can't assume that the police already know something or that you would be bothering them by calling in something. They want it all. I think it's frustrating that the tip didn't really lead to anything, but, you know, it reminds me of the DC sniper case when they started saying a white truck of some sort was involved.

Well, if you start looking for white trucks, they're all over the place. So looking at every white SUV, I can imagine what they would have had to do to try and figure out who that SUV belonged to. Lyric and Elizabeth families tried to go on with their lives as they waited for an arrest, but life after losing the girls was tough. In 2014, Misty Cook Morrissey was sentenced to 10 years in prison for possession of methamphetamine. She had been struggling to stay sober while grieving. for her daughter and niece, and being constantly judged by the public, was tough on her.

She told the courier news that the stress of the focus on her was absolutely crippling, causing her to not want to leave her house for an entire year, even to get the grocery she needed. And I do think more if this is something that is sometimes overlooked. You know, we talk a lot about the grief. That's obvious. That's going to be there. It's heartbreaking. There's no way around it.

but in some of these cases you have family members who, you know, at the same time that they're trying to grieve the loss of a loved one or also, you know, getting some bad press, people are thinking they could possibly somehow be involved. I think to live with that on top of the grief, that would be very tough if you knew in your mind you had nothing to do. with what happened. Yeah, that seems like an impossible situation to be in. And I think once that stuff is out there about you, even if later on someone comes along and says, okay, they had nothing to do with it, I think the damage is done and you can't unring that bell once, once it happens.

Yeah, well, you know, the old saying, right? The damaging stuff is on page one. The later retraction is on page 18, right? That's kind of been pretty normal throughout time. So does everybody know that you've been cleared or that police have come out and said, we don't think that this person is involved? It's very tough. In May 2014, investigators were still working the case hard and were able to rule out a suspect. One who seemed promising.

This was a registered sex offender named Michael Clunder. He had been suspected by many people of the murders because he had committed a similar crime. On May 20th, 2013, he abducted two girls in Dayton, Iowa. 42-year-old Clunder picked up 15-year-old Kathleen Shepard and her 12-year-old friend in his pickup truck and took them to a hog confinement facility miles away in pilot mound Iowa. The 12-year-old girl was able to escape and go for help. She led authorities back to the facility where Kathleen's blood was found on the ground, but Kathleen was gone.

And so was Michael Clunder. He took his own life just hours after this abduction. And Kathleen's blood was also found on the table. Hellgate of his truck. Since he took his own life, police were never able to question Clunder. Cyril Goro County Sheriff Kevin Pals went on to tell the courier that the only good thing about him being found dead is there is no more victims. Kathleen Shepard's body was found in early June in the Des Moines River in Boone, Iowa, just over 10 miles from where she was abducted. It's uncertain why Clunder took his own life, and he apparently didn't leave a note. Perhaps he knew that when his 12-year-old

victim escaped that it was only a matter of time before he was apprehended. Clunder had been to prison before and had been able to live with his crimes that he had committed in the past, including two other kidnappings. On December 15th, 1991, in Mason City, Iowa, Clunder forced a 22-year-old woman into his car by telling her he had a knife and headed down a gravel road with her. But luckily, another car was headed in the opposite direction. And she was able to get their attention and escape. The very next day, Clunder abducted two three-year-olds from an apartment complex in Chester City, Iowa.

The motives for the two abductions may have been different. The young woman he abducted was a stranger to him, but he apparently knew the mother of one of the children he abducted. In that case, he drove about 50 miles with the toddlers in the trunk and left them both stole in a trash can in Northwood, Iowa. After being examined by medical professionals, it was obvious that one of the toddlers had been strangled, but luckily survived. When Clunder was arrested for this a few days later, he pleaded guilty. He was released from prison after serving 19 years combined for kidnapping the toddlers

and the young woman. But for reasons known only to him, after the double kids, napping in Dayton, he ended his life. Evansdale Police Chief Kent Smock told the Des Moines Register that there were so many similarities between the case in Dayton and the case in Evansdale that an entire investigative team of the Evidencedale Police Department was specifically assigned to focus on Clunder. Clunder had also spent time in Bremer County where Lerick and Elizabeth's remains were found. When he was a young boy in the 1980s, he was living at a facility for troubled youth there.

When Clunder was found dead, Chief Smock made it clear that there was no hard evidence directly pointing to Clunder being involved in lyrics and Elizabeth's deaths, but it was hard for them to dismiss him out of hand. As you can imagine, while investigating whether Michael Clunder could have abducted and murdered the girls in Evansdale, the team spent a lot of time. Looking into his whereabouts on July 13th, 2012, the day Lyric and Elizabeth disappeared, despite gathering information and running different tests, Smock described nothing but what he called dead ends

when he spoke to the Des Moines register about the investigation into Clunder. As best as investigators could tell, Clunder was in the town of Stratford, Iowa, where he lived when Lyrick and Elizabeth were abducted. Stratford and Evansdale were about 100 miles away. While Clunder seemed like an obvious suspect for the murders, Some people still have their doubts, including Elizabeth's father, Drew Collins,

because Clunder lived so far away, up to two hours away depending on the route. Drew Collins actually found that the clunder was ruled out by watching the news. On May 14th, Special Agent Mike Roker House from the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation officially announced that they were not looking into clunder as a suspect in Lyrick and Elizabeth's murders. The dismissal of a promising suspect was very disappointing for many. not only did this mean that the murders of Lyric and Elizabeth were still unsolved, it meant that there was someone else out there, another person willing to kill multiple children in broad daylight.

Evansdale police chief Kent Smock said it best to the Des Moines Register. People were kind of hoping this would be the end of it. It's definitely easier or more comfortable to believe that there's one monster out there. It's a lot harder to let your kids play outside when there are multiple people out there who may want to hurt them. So I understand what he's saying more. I don't know how many people actually believe that there are not at any given time multiple people in an area who are out to hurt someone. You know, we've talked about this kind of notion of the boogeyman. right there's there's a buggy man out there you know to me that's not really the truth there are a lot

of people out there looking for targets looking to do bad things i'm not trying to scare anybody but i don't think either that i'm saying things that people don't already know and i think that's why so many parents watch every little thing that their kids are doing and are conscious of where they're at at all times and want them to stay close to home because they know these kinds of people are out there. Yeah, I mean, you mentioned it earlier, right? What it was like for you growing up, I experienced the same thing. Well, let's face it. Times today are much different. You know, I don't believe near as many kids are allowed to, you know, roam the neighborhood, kind of ride their bikes all over town. I just don't think it happens near as much as it did,

let's say, in the 70s and 80s. And I think, for very good reason. We now know a lot more, I think, than our parents knew back then. By July 2014, the reward for information leading to an arrest in the Evansdale double murders had grown until $170,500, with $150,000 privately raised by the FBI and the remaining $20,500 being offered by the Cedar Valley Crime Stoppers. In August 2014, a website was created by the Evansdale police. The site, which no longer exist, included a report from the FBI's behavioral analysis unit outlining details of the killer's supposed profile. If that profile was accurate, the suspect would have been familiar with both Myers Lake and Seven Bridges Wildlife Area,

and he would blend in in Evansdale. Investiators doubted that the suspect was a transient, and they believed it was more likely that only one person was responsible, though it was not impossible for two people to have been involved in the murders. The suspect probably got the girls under control through quiet coercion, like threatening them perhaps with a gun. Investigators from the behavioral analysis unit also believe that the suspect may have been under some sort of stress in July 2012, whether that was legal, financial, relationship, work, or health struggles, and afterward changed their physical appearance and possibly altered their vehicle somehow or replaced it altogether.

So again, all of this makes sense to me. You know, I often look at at these profiles and think, okay, make sense. I think a lot of it is very common type sense stuff. But I want to go back more to the reward. You know, this is by most standards a pretty substantial award. You know, over $170,000. most of the rewards that we see in cases that we do are five, 10,

maybe $25,000. This is a lot of money. This is the type of rewards that you see in other countries like Australia and places like that. And as I think we've talked about before, there's no doubt that the higher the reward, the greater the incentive for someone to come forward. is. I mean, I just don't think there's any way around that. And the fact that no one did come

forward to try and collect that reward money, maybe that indicates that whoever did this didn't share any information kept all the details to themselves. Yeah, I think that's one way to look at it. Another way to look at it is maybe they did share it, but the person or persons they shared it with were either involved as well. And, would implicate themselves if they came forward, or the relationship between those people is so strong that they're not willing to roll over on the perpetrator. Now, the one thing I would say about that is that I believe relationships change over time, right?

You might be so very close to someone that you'd be willing to kind of keep their secret. but at a certain point that person may cross you. You know, the relationship experiences a fallout so that reason for keeping the secret goes away. And now that $170,000 is looking mighty tempting. In February 2015, authorities switched their focus to the Seven Bridges Wildlife Area in Bremer County. A press conference was held, which included a plea to the public. public from Chief Smock. At the press conference, he said, we have no doubt that the person or person's responsible

for this crime are very familiar with seven bridges because it's so rural you would never just kind of happen upon it. It's a place you specifically go to on purpose. On April 14th, 2015, just two months after that press conference, Smock was fired from his position as chief of police in Evansdale. Most of the allegations against him were about creating a hostile work environment. Interim Evansdale Police Chief Jeff Jensen was dedicated to solving the case, refusing to call it cold since authorities were still actively working it daily. In February 2017, there was a double murder of two young girls in a rural area of Indiana,

about six hours southeast of Iowa. No one knew it at the time, but these two cases would later be investigated to see if there was a connection. 13-year-old Abigail Williams and 14-year-old Liberty German vanished while out in a secluded area together in Delphi, Indiana.

This happened on February 13th, 2017. The girls had a day off from school, so they convinced their families to let them go to the Monon High Bridge. This bridge is an old abandoned wooden railroad bridge that's 63 feet high and 850 feet long and dilapidated. They were supposed to spend a few hours there, taking pictures, enjoying nature,

and then later on meet up with a family member to get a ride home. But they never met their ride. They also weren't answering their phones when their family tried to reach out to them. As was the case early on in Lyric and Elizabeth's case, the initial thinking was that Abby and Libby may have just lost track of time or didn't realize how long it would take them to get back to the parking lot.

At worst, perhaps one of them had sprained their ankle. Family members and friends searched for the girls that night, but found no sign of them. The next day, Valentine's Day, a larger search was conducted and sadly Libby and Abbey's bodies were found not far from the bridge. Their case is still unsolved today, five years later. We're not going to go too deep. into the Delphi case. But for those that want to hear our episode on it, it's episode 48.

What we do want to discuss are some of the similarities or parallels between the two cases. The first glaring thing that jumps out is that two girls in each case were attacked, abducted and murdered together. It's very rare that two children are abducted at once. Also, the areas where both crimes happen were sort of outdoors in nature. in areas where there weren't a lot of people around. Additionally, both sets of murders happened on the 13th day of the month, which may simply be an odd coincidence.

As far as the causes of death for both pairs of girls, authorities chose not to release them. So it's just one more thing that jumps out. Some people have also pointed out that there are large meat packing plants in both Evansdale, Iowa and Delphi, Indiana. I think more if when you go looking for things that seem odd or eye catching, you are going to find some. People have gone as far as to point out that in February 2017, around the time when Abigail

and Libby were killed in Delphi, Misty Cook Morrissey had another child, a daughter named Abigail. So, I mean, I think it's clear that many of these little parallels, while attention getting may simply be coincidences. but police in both cases did see enough similarities that they looked into a potential connection between both sets of murders. In March 2017, authorities announced that they believed the cases in Evansdale, Iowa and Delphi, Indiana were unrelated. Indiana State Police Sergeant John Perrine acknowledged the similarities telling the Courier News. At this point in our investigation, it

appears merely coincidental, the similarities in this case, but we don't believe they are connected. The Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation agreed. Reiterating, as of right now, there is no connection. Sergeant Preen added that it was still early on in the Delphi investigation. They weren't ruling it out, but it was clear that there was no similar evidence in the two cases. Sadly, the five-year anniversary of the Delphi murders just passed and the 10-year anniversary of the Evansdale murders is just around the corner. And both cases remain unsolved. Despite anniversaries coming and going, that hasn't stopped investigators from trying to solve

Elizabeth and Lyric's case. In June 2018, authorities searched the home of Teresa Grohlman and Bell Plain, Iowa, after she took her own life. A community support specialist who worked with her had told authorities that she possessed a letter that was supposedly written by former acquaintances of hers who admitted involvement in the murders of Lyric and Elizabeth. An agent of the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation dismissed the information found in the notebooks

and on scrap paper in Girlman's home, telling the courier news, its old information is what it is. Though it was supposedly old news to police, Drew Collins was unaware that Girlman's home had even been searched until the Des Moines Register contacted him. At the time, he told them, I'll wait to see how it plays out before getting too excited. Apparently, authorities had looked into the information before Girlman's suicide and had already been quite sure she, nor the person or persons in the letter, were involved in the murders. Apparently, she was struggling with her mental health for some time before her suicide, and whatever she had written, and down was related to that, not real information or evidence related to the case.

At the end of July 2019, the reward for information leading to an arrest was doubled, thanks to an anonymous private donor, the Waterloo Police Department clarified that the reward would be paid out upon arrest of any suspect. There was a second reward that would be paid out upon conviction of a suspect. As of now, that reward money remains unpaid. And as we mentioned, we're coming up on the 10-year anniversary of the murders of Lyrick Cook and Elizabeth Collins in Evansdale, Iowa. If you have any information regarding the abduction and murder of Lerick Cook and Elizabeth Collins,

please call the Cedar Valley Crime Stoppers at 855-350-300-0-0-0. 8477. So more if as we wrap up this case, I mean, obviously it's heartbreaking. These were two young girls just trying to have a good time with each other, right? Enjoy each other's company, ride their bikes, enjoy their summer break. They weren't doing anything wrong. They were doing what kids have done for years and years and years. Unfortunately, it sounds.

it sounds to me as though they met up with a monster. Now, we don't know who that monster is. We don't know the details. Hopefully one day we will in this case will be solved. I think the other interesting aspect to this case is some of the similarities with the Delphi murders. I don't know that there's a lot of facts really to support that they can. could be connected in any way.

In fact, people have come out and said they don't believe that they're connected. But the one thing I want to talk about is both horrific cases, both involving young girls. I don't think there's any doubt that the Delphi murders have over the years received much more attention from the media than the case that we just profile. And I think you always have to ask, question. Why is that? You could make the argument that the Delphi murders had that kind of extra element of video and audio and maybe that sparked people's interests to a higher level, to a greater degree. I don't know, you and I talk about it quite a bit, right? Why do some cases

receive more attention than others? Now, I'm really only talking about the media. I don't think there's any doubt that these murders got a lot of attention, right? Law enforcement jumped in. It sounds like they really did a good job of allocating manpower and resources to first trying to find these two girls and then later on trying to find out who was responsible for their murders. I think you hit the nail on the head when you mentioned that maybe Abby and Libby's case got a lot more attention because of that audio, video, evidence that they had. But it's not like there were no clues in this case. There were actually some pretty good clues. They just didn't lead anywhere. You know, you had the surveillance footage of the girl who's on their bike. You had witnesses coming forward

to identify this vehicle that was out there. But unfortunately, those clues didn't lead anywhere. Thanks goes out to Sunny Landon for help with research and writing in this episode. As always, if you love the show but haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, leave a five-star rating, give us a review. All of that makes a big difference, as does word of mouth. Tell your friends about the podcast. If you want to find us on social media, we're on Twitter with the handle at Criminology Pod. You can also find us on Facebook by searching for Criminology Podcast or by joining our Facebook discussion group, Criminology podcast, discussion and fans.

So Morp, that is it for our episode on Lerick Cook and Elizabeth Collins. We'll be back with everyone next Saturday night with an all-new episode of criminology. So until then, for Mike and Morph. We'll talk to you next week. Take care, everyone.