Every Town - Murder Victim Speaks From BEYOND The Grave - David Chase - Evergreen, CO

Episode Date: October 7, 2022

Nearly 50% of all murders in the united states go unsolved. It’s essentially a coin flip just to put it into perspective. When all leads have been followed and efforts exerted, cases eventually turn cold because there’s just no new information coming forward. But sometimes, when all hope is lost – help can come in the most bizarre sort of way.--------------------------------------------💀 Exclusive Video Content & Access https://www.patreon.com/scarymysteries 🥇 Watch This Episode on Youtube!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlrnlGlWgnw&ab_channel=ScaryMysteriesSOCIAL👁 Videos not found on Youtube check us out on TikTok @andrewfitzgerald💀 Instagram @andrew.fitzg💥 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scarymysteriesofficialPODCAST🎧 Scary Mysteries Podcast for more content from ushttps://www.buzzsprout.com/1235579 Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you love true crime, grab your favorite mug and pour yourself a dose of creepy true crime every single morning with a morning cup of murder. This short daily show is the perfect podcast to incorporate into your morning routine, because in less than 15 minutes, you'll hear about a true crime that took place on a day's date in history. Each day's dark history lesson will kickstart your morning with intriguing tales of murder, abduction, serial killers, cults, and everything in between. With over 20 million downloads, Morning Cup of Murder has something for every true crime lover. One listener describes the show as a small package with a powerful punch of crime.

Another writes that the show is an absolute delight in the morning. Support yourself a piping hot cup of murder every single morning with Morning Cup of Murder. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Every town has a dark side. Nearly half of all murders in the United States go unsolved. It's essentially a coin flip, just to put that into perspective for you. When all leads have been followed and efforts exerted, cases eventually turn cold because there's just no new information coming forward.

But sometimes, when all hope is lost, help can actually come in the most bizarre sort of way. In 1995, a small town of Evergreen in Colorado was swept by a strange occurrence when the spirit of a dead man sought the help of a detective to solve his own murder. David Chase, who died in June of that year, seemed to have resurrected and chosen a private investigator to get the justice he wanted. But was it enough, he had a conviction. I'm Andrew Fitzgerald, and welcome to this week's episode of Everytown, while it may sound like the synopsis of a B-rated horror movie,

what we have for you today is a true account of what started out as a dreadful crime that segway into an eerie ghost story. David Thomas, Chase, or simply David to his friends, had lived with his wife Judy in Evergreen, Colorado for a year and a half. He was originally born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota, but he moved Evergreen in Jefferson County, Colorado, The quaint town got its name from the evergreen trees surrounding the town. During the winter season, people and visitors can enjoy ice skating from mid to late December

all the way until March, depending on the weather and thickness of the ice. And the chase couple found evergreen an ideal place to live together with their foster children, twins named Darius and Tricia, whom they were hoping to adopt as their own children in the near future. The 42-year-old David was able to provide for his family. needs by working as a local cabinet maker and doing other freelance jobs. On May 6, 1995, he was scheduled to do a couple jobs with a local handyman named Matt Orohowski, who was seven years younger than him. They needed to finish a roofing job and clear away brush from the local Elks Club. And by noon that day, the two men had finished the task

and decided to have lunch. After that, David stopped by a bank to cast a check for $1,800. dollars that was an advance payment for an upcoming job. Then, when it was time to unwind, David and Matt headed to a local bar. When the night was over, Judy never received a call from her husband, and David never came home to his family. For his wife, Judy, this was clearly a red flag. The following morning, a baffled Mrs. Chase drove immediately to Matt's house because she instinctively knew something wasn't right.

The local handyman told Judy that he, he was a little man. told Judy that he left her husband at the bar shooting pool the previous night. In the next few hours, Judy said that Matt's girlfriend called her about what Matt had mentioned. Judy recounted what Matt's girlfriend had said to her. She said Matt had told her when she asked about David that David had said, Oh, I'm going for a swim. I've got a wrath. I found this completely bewildering. I mean, my husband was a very experienced mountain climber and had studied hypothermia.

and knew full well the dangers of jumping into a snow-fed river. So the story was absolutely completely impossible for me to believe. The river being referred to here is the Bear Creek River, which runs by the bar where the two men were last seen hanging out and having drinks. Jude didn't believe a thing, Matt had told her, so she decided to go to the police. When Sergeant Brian Scott of the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department questioned Matt, he told them virtually the same story.

that he told his girlfriend. He said that he and David had been drinking most of the day. They allegedly had a pitcher of beer during lunch, another beer at the Elks Club, and two more pitchers at other bars. He then claimed that at the last bar, they unloaded the tree limbs from David's car into the Bear Creek River.

Judy didn't believe that David would do this because he was an advocate in protecting the wilderness. After unloading the brush, David allegedly decided to jump into the river. He told Matt to pick up to... me up in Morrison. And no sooner had he uttered that inexplicable sentence. And David opened the truck door and threw himself out into the shallow, frigid waters of Bear Creek. Matt claimed that he never saw his friend again. So did David even reach Morrison? Well, that answer came about a month

and a half later. A caretaker of the Gates property and Evergreen reported that a decomposing body was in the creek among some low trees. The authorities recovered that body, believed to be David Chase, that washed up at the Bear Creek River, three miles downstream from where he was last spotted. In the odd types of report, the result corroborated Matt's claim,

and the coroner ruled that the cause of death was consistent with drowning. But Judy sensed some of the coroner's findings were suspicious, analogical. For example, Matt claimed that he and David had been drinking from lunchtime until they hopped to the last bar, yet the autopsy didn't reflect that David was intoxicated at the time he died.

Sergeant Scott also disclosed that David's neck was broken and there were unusual cuts on both of his legs. His clothes were obviously ripped from his body, as well as part of his pants, although his shoes and socks were still on along with part of the pant leg. Right away, Judy suspected foul play, as she said that David's jeans would not have come off no matter how long he was submerged in the water

because he would tuck his pants' legs into his boots. Mrs. Chase believes somebody deliberately cut off David's pants and insisted that this should be further investigated. Police decided to question Matt again, and two details from his previous story had changed. In his new version, he claimed that he and David left the bar together and drove down the street to dump the brush into the river, but instead of jumping into the ice-cold river,

Matt and David had an accident and fell into the river. Mrs. Chase then wondered why, if it really was an accident, Matt didn't report what happened to David from a nearby fire station. Judy said this location was 50 yards from the fire station. It was around 10 yards from where people were still playing pool, and you could have gotten someone to come help within one minute. And David's life could have been saved. Judy also learned later on from Matt's girlfriend,

that she had found $800 in cash in the glove compartment of his car. So where did that come from? Could it be a piece of evidence? I would further nail Matt's involvement in David's untimely death. Despite the inconsistencies and loopholes and the stories from Matt and a recovered dead body, the case of David didn't move forward much to the disappointment of Judy. Now, it was not pursued as a potential suspect of the time,

but no one was prepared on the case turned from a regular homicide into a bizarre one that had a paranormal twist. See, three months after David's death, a private investigator named Phil Harris from Colorado, had fallen asleep on his easy chair on the night of October 15, 1995, when a strange thing happened. He was suddenly awakened a few hours after by the sound of a disembodied voice. And it told him, My name is David Chase.

I was murdered. I want you to investigate my murder. Go buy the Sunday paper. Phil got the paper and found the story of David's murder in there. Then Phil told his wife Janet about the voice and told her he felt that David had chosen him to solve his case, which Phil vowed he'd do. And he thought that the first step to take was,

talk to Mrs. Chase, and tell her of his out-of-this-world message, that he received from her dead husband, David. When Mr. Harris contacted Judy and told her that David had been speaking to him from beyond the grave on a regular basis, Judy was initially skeptical. The investigator then proved the veracity of his stories by telling Judy intimate knowledge about her relationship with her late husband that only David could have told Phil. Judy said,

There were a lot of very personal details about my relationship with David that nobody else knew. about our life together, our love for one another, pet names that David called me. He called me Honey Bunny and Shuggies, things like this. There's no way that Phil Harris could have known that. Judy was able to overcome her disbelief and accept that her dead husband communicated with the investigator, and the two made a deal that Mr. Harris would work in solving the case for a mere $1.

Over the coming days, Phil would claim that he was contacted by David on numerous occasions, and a picture of what happened on the night of June 6, 1995 became to become clear. According to David, he and Matt had gotten into an argument, after which he had been murdered by Matt and a young accomplice. Phil dutifully took a transcript of what David told him, part of which said, before I deposited the check for $1,800, he talked to me into cashing it and keeping the money in my pocket, under the guise of possibly buying a decent truck from him. I had second thoughts about buying a truck from Matt, and I told him that as we were leaving the bar. Matt was furious with me at the time, but I didn't realize it.

As soon as we got back to his truck, he started to tell me that I had promised him this money, and therefore it was his. Matt shoved me in the chest, I shoved him back, and he hit me in the face. I immediately hit him back, and all of a sudden, he started bleeding very hard from the nose. This made him extremely mad, and he flew into me. I went down very near the edge of the water. In fact, we were up against the small retaining wall, fighting on the ground. We rolled around and tried to punch each other, and I feel Matt got in a couple of good punches. I only remember him hitting me in the back of the neck with a hard object.

I don't know what he hit me with. but it broke my neck. The knife that was used to cut my clothing off belonged to the other person. You were right, Phil, about the cuts on my legs. This is where Matt cut my clothes off, rather than take my boots off. They tied my clothes around the murder weapon.

He told the kid to throw them out in the middle of the river as far as he could throw him. I'm not sure whether it was a hammer, crowbar, or even just like a gardening tool. Phil added that Matt hadn't a con. who helped him get rid of David's body and his bloody clothes. These are very detailed accounts of what truly transpired that night, and Matt knew them as much as David did.

While the former tried to distort the facts, the latter's spirit had to manifest to an investigator for the real story to finally be told. A year and a day after David died, Investigator Morris brought Mrs. Chase to the local reservoir and pointed out the area where he believed the murder weapon and David's clothes were dumped. Judy was gaining hope that her husband's case had shown promise,

but suddenly Phil Harris died of a massive heart attack, leaving Judy alone and without a sort of contact to David. She tried to approach the authorities with the details of the wise and hows of David's death, but police were not impressed with Judy's story about a ghost speaking from the grave to solve his own murder. Not only did it sound nuts to them, but such evidence wasn't. really admissible in court. Sergeant Scott provided the explanation. Well, obviously, if we were going to develop a criminal case,

we have to have something that we could present in court that would be a prosecutable situation. And in order to do that, you have to have evidence that you can put your hands on and witnesses that you can talk to. So the information that Phil Harris was presenting, although not discounted, needs to be corroborated through some other source.

This left Judy hoping that someone would come forward one day to corroborate Phil's claims and finally solve her husband's murder. This seemingly unbelievable story had been featured on a TV program in 1996, but Matt Orohose refused to be interviewed. While it may seem that the majority of people who know this story find Matt guilty, there has never been any hard evidence to hold him to any wrongdoing. Don Olin, a homicide investigator assigned to David's case, concluded that he had been murdered. He also requested an arrest warrant for Matt, charging him with criminally negligent homicide. But the DA's office declined to prosecute,

deciding to continue the investigation instead. No charges were ever filed. David Chase's death has never been solved. Despite his wife's efforts and much disagreement, it is still mostly deemed to have been a case of drowning. The verdict on this, case is unsolved, but will the restless spirit of David Chase manifest again someday until he and his wife find justice? Thank you guys so much for tuning in today. That's going to do it for this

week's episode of Everytown. If you guys want even more stuff from us, go check out our YouTube channel called Scary Mysteries or our podcast Scary Mysteries. I remember to tune in next week for another episode filled with scary, strange, and mysterious stories. Because who knows? Maybe your town will be next.