Going West: True Crime - Heather Teague // 436

Episode Date: September 11, 2024

In August of 1995, a 23-year-old woman was sunbathing on a Kentucky riverside when an unknown man grabbed her by the hair and dragged her off into the woods. The only person to witness this was a man who was observing her from his telescope, all the way across the river. An investigation began immediately, with police receiving incredibly helpful clues regarding possible suspects. So, what happened to her? This is the story of Heather Teague. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on true crime fans? I'm your host Heath and I'm your host Daphne and you're listening to going west Hello everybody today's case is a case that we actually covered in episode 6 of going west. Hello everybody. Today's case is a case that we actually covered in episode six of going west. I think it was episode six. It was a long time ago. Yeah. But as many of you know, our original nine first episodes got deleted in a data transfer years ago, which was probably for the best, honestly. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like we didn't know what the hell we were doing in those first nine episodes. We probably sounded pretty terrible, so we wanted to redo this one. Yeah, I always get anxiety to this day when people are like, Oh yeah, I'm gonna start from the beginning. Please don't do that.

Well, if you want. Please don't do that. You can see a progression. You can see us getting better, hopefully. We were just so awkward, and we weren't comfortable. We didn't have the confidence. But now are you know nearing 500 episodes in so we're a little bit more relaxed and comfortable and a lot better at researching I feel like back then our research was a lot more limited anyway though but yeah so we wanted to redo this one there's still a couple from

those first nine that we have not redone but I noticed this one there's still a couple from those first nine that we have not redone. But I noticed this one in particular we've gotten some recent suggestions for it from Kelly, Dana, and Jamie. So thank you guys for reminding us that we needed to redo this story. Yeah and there is a big call to action at the end as we're hoping for answers for her family before the 30th anniversary which is next year. So listen up and don't forget to share. Yes, and without further ado. Alright guys, this is episode 436 of Going West, so let's get into it. My name is Payne Lindsay and I host a True Crime Podcast called Up and Vanished.

My new season has taken me to the remote town of Nome, Alaska, where two people have gone missing. I'm convinced they were murdered, and someone in this town is covering it up. We came back without my son. I want you to find him. The roommate lied about his whereabouts Saturday night. I know he's murdered. I know he is.

I want to find my brother. Everything about this points to a homicide. I invite you to be a fly on the wall for the most intense real-time murder investigation you'll ever hear in a podcast. Hi Payne. Would you like to solve a murder? Receiving cryptic messages from a random stranger. I want to stay anonymous. I'm scared. Are you ready to get your hands dirty?

From Tenderfoot TV, Up and Vanished Season 4 is available now. Listen for free on Apple Podcasts. In August of 1995, a 23-year-old woman was sunbathing on a Kentucky riverside when an unknown man grabbed her by the hair and dragged her off into the woods. The only person to witness this was a man who was observing her from his telescope, all the way across the river. An investigation began immediately, with police receiving incredibly helpful clues regarding

possible suspects. So what happened to her? This is the story of Heather Teague was born on April 25th, 1972 to parents Sarah and Paul Teague in Seabree, Kentucky. Now Seabree is a small city of fewer than 2000 people in Western Kentucky, about 30 minutes south of Evansville, Indiana. Heather was the oldest child, later joined by three siblings, and she was described glowingly by her mom, Sarah, as smart and shy.

Sarah added fondly that Heather was, quote, everything that I never was. Because, I mean, Heather was an active and busy teenager. She participated in track, basketball, and martial arts. And not to mention, she was also an incredibly gifted student and public speaker and even acted in the school plays. But she also had an artistic side and wrote a lot of poetry in her notebooks. In high school, Heather blossomed as a cheerleader and pageant girl, and she was even elected as her high school's homecoming queen.

She was very well-rounded. She had a ton of different interests, and she really went after the things that she wanted. Her mom, Sarah, recalls that despite her more introverted nature, Heather was always surrounded by friends. After her graduation from Webster County High School, she planned to attend Western Kentucky University to pursue psychology. Her high school boyfriend, Mickey, remembered her as a promising young student

and that at different points in their relationship, she aspired to both be a nurse and a doctor, or perhaps even get into politics. But the pressure of her studies seemed to kind of catch up with her and Heather wound up dropping out of school. Her family and friends feel that she may have been partying too much or that she may have even got mixed up with the wrong people. Her mom admitted quote, she was dating a guy who was almost 20 years older. She had gotten into drugs, some things that she didn't know how to get out of.

Sarah also speculated that the man that her daughter was dating was a drug dealer, so all around she didn't like the idea of Heather being with this guy. But regardless of the reason, Heather decided that it was best to temporarily set aside her aspirations of higher education and she moved back home with her parents, securing a job working at a factory. Mickey later reported that at this time, Heather had seemed a bit saddened by her decisions, saying that she wanted to turn things around and that she was still pursuing her career goals.

But in the days leading up to her disappearance, Sarah remembers her daughter becoming increasingly withdrawn, and recalls that she mostly wanted to spend time by herself. Up to her disappearance, Sarah remembers her daughter becoming increasingly withdrawn and recalls that she mostly wanted to spend time by herself. She was living in Clay, Kentucky at the time, in a western part of the state near the border of Illinois and Indiana. And she had been moving around pretty frequently at this time as well, like she would stay with her parents or her friends or her boyfriend and just kind of keeping most of her belongings in her car so that it would be easier.

She was kind of somewhat living out of her car and seeing, okay, who can I stay with tonight? Where should I go tomorrow? Right, she was just kind of hopping around at that point. Yeah, totally. And when Sarah later rifled through her daughter's poems and journal entries, because her journal was also in her car, she found this scribbled passage that was eerily foreshadowing,

written just a few days before Heather disappeared. It read, I loved you all. On Thursday, August 24th, 1995, Sarah Teague arrived home to find Heather sleeping on her couch. She told her mom that she had been fired from her job at the factory and had nowhere else to go. And that day was the last time that she saw her daughter. Sarah remembers Heather's hostile attitude and just general upset for her current situation, you know, understandably, and remembers asking her before she pulled out of the driveway,

quote, Heather, why are you so angry? And Heather responded simply, I wish I knew. Sarah said, quote, those words still haunt me to this day. And you know, this could have absolutely nothing to do with what would happen to her. I don't think her current position in this way necessarily does. You know, she had been on this particular path for her life and her career and things veered off track. You know, now she lost her job.

She had to move back home. She's also crashing at friends places. She was probably feeling very lost and stuck and confused, which is so normal, especially because she was just 23 years old Yeah, she's young you know not everybody has it figured out by the time They're 23, so she's just kind of starting to figure things out and you know really it's sad because she didn't get the opportunity To figure things out But she went about her day and Heather later called her mom and left her a voicemail, the last one that Sarah would ever hear.

Sarah remembered quote, I've got one little tape, you can hear a Bob Seeger song playing. She talks about a dream that she had. The sun was shining down on a dirt road and then suddenly she just knew that she wasn't there anymore. The day before Heather's disappearance, which was Friday, August 26, 1995, she and her boyfriend and some friends were hanging out at Newburgh Beach, which is this like sandy stretch along the Ohio River that was pretty popular with locals. Others in attendance that night remember Heather admitting that she had been dancing at private

parties and also doing drug runs for a local man named James Hendrix to kind of make some extra money. A few hours after meeting her friends at the beach, she reportedly hung out with James Hendrix at the Hayes boat ramp in Henderson, Kentucky, which is about a 30-minute drive away from Newburgh Beach. Now presumably they met for reasons related to the drug operation that he was running, but we can't really be sure about that. According to Sarah, James was working with the Henderson Police Department at the time,

and eventually went on to work with the FBI. Supposedly, James was employing Heather from time to time, so this would kind of make sense since she had just lost her job and she needed to make some extra money. He later claimed that their late night hangout at the boat ramp was actually three weeks prior to her disappearance, when he spotted Heather sleeping in her car nearby. Now no one's been able to confirm this definitively, but it's possible that Heather was working as a police informant, kind of infiltrating local drug and sex work organizations. But it's also plausible that Heather was working for the organizations herself.

But nobody really knew what was going on here, because her movements in the weeks and even months preceding her disappearance have become mysterious to her family. On Saturday, August 26, 1995, so two days after she left her parents' house for the beach, 23 year old Heather started her day early, stopping by the house of her boyfriend because they were planning to go camping that night. But when she arrived, his car wasn't there. So she assumed that the plans were off because he wasn't there. So she figured that maybe he wasn't available that day after all. But then at about 10 a.m.,

her boyfriend called her and asked her to come over for breakfast. But she declined, saying that she wanted to catch some sun and sit out on the beach for a while, because by that time she had already left her boyfriend. So she had these other beach plans to just relax. Her boyfriend said that he might stop by to meet her there around noon, but he never showed up.

Heather again headed to Newburgh Beach on the Kentucky side across the Ohio River from Newburgh, Indiana. The beach didn't quite offer a super idyllic spot for sunbathing or water sports because it kind of has this rough sand and a lot of rugged brush, but it was a beach nonetheless. So Heather set up a spot adjacent to the Newburgh Loxham Dam, and the beach was pretty crowded that day, but Heather found herself that quiet, secluded spot, quiet enough that there was no one in her immediate vicinity when she needed help. Heather was lying face down on the blue beach chair

that she brought with her sunbathing. She was sporting what were later described as John Lennon sunglasses, and either a floral or red plaid two-piece swimsuit, and she had unfastened her swimsuit top, you know, to get some sun on her back and avoid some tan lines. Meanwhile, across the river on the Indiana side

was Tim Walfell, who was camped out with a telescope so he could do some bird watching. As his wife Karen made them hamburgers for lunch, he used the zoom on his telescope and watched four ATV drivers coasting down the shore of the river. But then he viewed something peculiar. What looked like a man crouching in the weeds spying on a woman near the water with seemingly hostile intent. Now this man hid in the

brush as the ATVs passed by him and then emerged unbeknownst to the woman lying in wait on the beach. As he came up behind her, Tim watched in horror as the man knelt down and put his arm around her back, yanking her up by her hair as she fumbled to cover herself with her towel when her bikini top fell off. Now, as the pair struggled, Tim thought that he spied the man holding a small silver pistol up against her, and then he dragged her into the brush behind them and disappeared. She had only her towel and bikini bottoms with her, leaving behind her top, her chair,

and her other belongings. Initially, Tim remembered thinking that maybe it was a friend or boyfriend playing a joke on her, saying quote, I told my wife, someone's stalking that woman. I thought maybe it was her boyfriend trying to scare her. Initially, despite his alarm, he wasn't sure that a crime had taken place, so he kind of just wavered on calling the police, which actually he was later criticized for. But as he scanned the banks of the river that separated them, waiting for her to return to her chair, he grew increasingly anxious. Yeah, and I mean, this worried him enough that he kept an eye out on the situation, of course thinking,

oh, was that just her boyfriend? Am I going to be jumping to conclusions if I call the police and then she comes back out and everybody's laughing and I waste the police's time? Obviously, it's always better to call anyway, but hindsight's 20-20. So yeah, the fact that he is still watching though is awesome, Trying to really assess the situation and not just forget about it. Right, right, exactly. And then on the flip side of that, you know, did he just witness an abduction? So after about 25 minutes, Tim called the police and by his description, he witnessed the crime between 1230 and 1245 PM. And waited about 25 minutes before calling authorities.

But the police response was actually kind of cursed here with a slow start because he had actually sent a call to the Indiana State Police because he was calling from the Indiana side and the abduction had taken place on the Kentucky side. So when he was told that there was nothing that they could do, he called the Kentucky State Police to make a report as well. Now, for some reason, the call to the Indiana State Police was not recorded, and the notes were made on Post-Its, proving to be very little help to the investigation further down the line. According to Tim, he actually placed three calls to emergency services that day. He called the Warwick County Sheriff's Office first, then 911, which went to the Indiana State Police, and then to the Kentucky State Police.

However, no one has ever been able to track down the phone call to the Warwick County Sheriff's Office, and no one there has ever been able to determine whether or not this call actually did take place. Now after the abduction, Heather's belongings, including her purse, clothing, bikini top, and chair remained on the beach as time ticked by. Sarah said that her daughter's purse was later returned to her, but that she couldn't be sure that it was actually Heather's because her wallet and identification had been removed. Alarmingly, almost immediately upon their arrival at the scene, police located Heather's bikini bottoms and towel, and they were located in the brush behind the beach,

which we know that she had on and with her when she was abducted that day. Heather's red, two-door Nissan was parked on a dirt outlet down the road from the water, which is how they confirmed that the victim of the abduction had been Heather Teague. Now, weirdly, her car looked like it had been ransacked, like the doors and the hatchback had been left open on the side of the dirt road, and there was a tarp on the ground next to it. Which then just makes us, and of course made police wonder if her attacker was trying to rob her. We know that her purse was empty. Now her car is ransacked with

somebody looking for something in particular. And this will come up again later because of the discussion of drugs, right? So we have to wonder if they were looking for something in particular but there was also proof that somebody had abducted her in the form of footprints because Leading away from her chair in the sand and into the woods It looked like the souls from a rubber lacrosse brand boot But sadly these prints were never confirmed to match with any of the suspects so There were these boots. We know she was not wearing boots on the beach So somebody had taken her away, and they were wearing boots that day We just don't know who they belong to yeah, and if she was in this kind of secluded area

It wouldn't make sense that there would have been you know some boot prints before It wouldn't make sense that there would have been, you know, some boot prints before she got there or, you know, it seems like these prints were directly connected to her abduction. Exactly, but even though we have this, we have a major witness, you know, Tim, across the river. Police really struggled to find any leads for this crime and they had no suspects. But thankfully, Tim was able to give a description of the man that he believed he saw. He claimed that Heather's abductor was about six feet tall, weighing between 210 and 230 pounds.

And he had long curly reddish hair with a large beard. Now, although Tim was across the river from the abduction, the zoom on his telescope was so strong that it would have looked as if he was only about 12 feet away. So he saw this abduction very clearly. So he also noticed that the man was shirtless and wearing jean shorts or George I knew you knew I was gonna say George. I was what I was reading G Charles. I'm like But there were some reports speculating that he may have been wearing a wig and a mosquito net at the time So I don't know what that's about unless he you know He is out there to commit a crime and he's trying to conceal his identity in some way, but an interesting disguise, to say the least.

Yeah, I was gonna say that's pretty strange. I mean, I feel like that would kind of make you stick out maybe more. Yeah, I mean, absolutely. You know what I mean? Yeah, for sure. It's just not covering up anything. Well, this whole, you know, Tim involvement, the fact that he kind of came forward, I think we actually talked about this in the original episode.

I don't have our research from back then or our notes, so I can't look back. But I'm pretty sure that we talked about Tim's potential involvement because it kind of seemed convenient that he is looking across the river at this woman watching her. Was he watching her sunbathe? Did he really just happen to scan over her at the time she was abducted? Like a lot of people kind of thought that he was a little creepy. Yeah. And to be fair, you know, was he really watching the ATVs drive down the beach or

was he watching a young woman sunbathing on the other side of the river? And also on top of that, we only have Tim's word, right? Yeah, and his wife who could be lying, right? So you're looking at this kind of thinking, huh, this is a little, maybe a little weird. So naturally, these thoughts have come up for a lot of people, for the police. But I will say he was very present in the ground searches. He was always willing to help and he told and retold his story for years after Heather disappeared. Maybe that's also people thinking, oh, well, that's because he wants to stay in the loop of the investigation and be involved, which we see a lot, but his wife corroborated his story and he actually worked very closely

with Sarah Teague for much of the investigation to find her daughter. So even though it might kind of seem weird, I think Tim is a good guy here and without his witness statement, we would have much less information. And what's really interesting here is that we don't often see a lot of cases where somebody witnesses an abduction, right? Yeah. I mean, that doesn't happen. What are the chances?

Right. That doesn't happen that often. Yeah, especially, again, knowing that she was in a more secluded part of the crowded beach that there was nobody else around her, you know, nobody else would have seen because of the exact location that she was at. But then Tim just happens to be looking through his telescope in that moment, which again is a big reason why a lot of people have been suspicious of him, but he has never been considered a person of interest. And I think that's okay personally.

So as police searched the area for any clues, you know, they really scoured this particular area of the beach and the woods and, you know, the various cars that were parked around, as well as the other people on the beach, but they found no trace of Heather after her towel and bikini bottoms were recovered. Now, before we dive in a little bit more for the investigation, I just want to recap really quickly that police scanned the scene of the crime, the beach, the woods, and of course they had found her towel and her bikini bottoms.

Now we know that according to Tim, she only had her bikini bottoms on when she was laying on the chair. She had, you know how it works with a lot of women, you untie your bikini top and then it's kind of laying underneath you. Right. So if she got up, it would not be connected to her. Therefore, she would only have her bottoms on. That's why she then grabbed the towel and ran off with that. But then you have to think that if the towel and her bikini bottoms were found in the woods, that could definitely hint to an assault occurring in the woods.

You know, the fact that then that would mean that she was carted away from the scene completely naked. Yeah, that's a horrifying thought and I'm not sure how that would have happened, but you know, as you said, it did. Yeah, and how nobody saw anything, how somebody was able to get her, of course, most likely into a vehicle without being seen despite her being more than likely completely nude. Well, although evidence was pretty minimal and suspects were non-existent, detectives did have one lucky break in the form of multiple sightings of vehicles in the area at the time of Heather's disappearance. One local farmer with an access road to the beach had gotten kind of tired of beachgoers

using his property to pass through on their way to the area and having his corn crop shredded, so he hired a man named James Allen, also called Jimboy, to survey the surroundings with a video camera. And shortly before her abduction, James happened to drive by Heather who was still sitting in her driver's seat of her red Nissan parked on River Road Just downstream of the Newburgh Loxham dam which remember is you know kind of where she was set up lounging at that spot that day Now about a hundred yards away from her car He recorded himself driving by a red and white Ford Bronco. And this Ford Bronco is kind of, uh, it's talked about a lot in this case.

And that's because the driver of this Bronco reportedly resembled the police sketch rendered of the man witnessed to have abducted Heather. And here he was, happened to be caught on video. I mean, it's wild Seriously, so James described him as a white man between the ages of 25 and 30 With shaggy hair and a full beard and remember this is exactly how Tim described the suspect And get this the Bronco was able to be identified as belonging to Marvin Ray The Bronco was able to be identified as belonging to Marvin Ray Dill, who went by Marty. And as I just mentioned, he also matched Tim's description of the culprit fairly closely, with dark eyes, long, curly, strawberry blonde hair, and a large, fluffy beard.

Now, Marty, who lived in neighboring Henderson, Kentucky, had had a few run-ins with the Kentucky State Police already, including a charge for growing marijuana. He was sentenced to five years, but was released on probation after only about a month. And I know that this does kind of sound irrelevant to being a violent criminal, but he did have some previous marijuana charges, as well as charges for disorderly conduct, and harassment. One woman who grew up with Marty remembered him calling her incessantly and even taunting her about her deceased boyfriend.

The calls grew increasingly disturbing in nature, and his obsession progressed to him stalking her, even calling to comment on what she had been wearing that day, so obviously he was following her. Now, though he was married with at least one child, he was also known to leer at young girls. During a February 1995 traffic stop, so six months before Heather went missing, Marty's car was searched and police were shocked at the contents that they found. was searched and police were shocked at the contents that they found. Inside Marty's vehicle they found two knives, two guns, duct tape, rope, and rubber gloves. I mean this is not looking good for Marty. Yeah, I mean why the hell would you need those specific items in your vehicle if you are

not abducting people? And there's his car at the scene. He matches the description. Like this is a really great suspect. Well, allegedly, as police arrived at his home to question him about Heather's disappearance, Marty was acting strangely and asked his wife to leave the house for a while, even telling her, quote,

the less you know, the better. As suspicions stacked up against him, both the FBI and the Kentucky State Police descended on Marty's trailer again. Officers later claimed that they made it clear that he was not yet under arrest and that they were only there to search the property. But when they obtained a warrant to search his home, the unthinkable happened. Marty shot and killed himself.

In the early morning hours of September 1st, 1995, the officer surrounding his residence heard a gunshot as they closed in on him. And a friend of his name, Ernie Green, raced out of the trailer, exclaiming that he had shot himself. Marty was rushed to the hospital, but was pronounced dead at 3.15 a.m. that morning,

the haunted time. Now a search of his vehicle made it clear that it had been thoroughly cleaned in the days prior to his death, but he missed two spots of blood. However, one sample did not match Heather's blood, and the other was unfortunately too small to be matched. But it makes you wonder if he was able to clean up the scene of the crime, or if there

wasn't any blood in the scene of the crime, if there wasn't any blood in the scene of the crime if he had anything to do with what happened to Heather because there was no actual crime scene you know blood or any proof of a murder at the beach or in the woods yeah so that would lead us to believe that her murder happened elsewhere assuming that she was murdered so is that why he cleaned it extensively is that why he allegedly took his own life? It's all pretty suspicious. Well, although Sarah had her doubts, investigators were becoming increasingly confident that they had their culprit.

Kentucky State Trooper Larry Abel said simply, quote, We can't rule out other people, but we feel this is the man. One anonymous source close to Marty, who was interviewed by the FBI in the aftermath of his death, told them that he strongly believed Marty to be involved, explaining that it was his gut opinion, saying that quote, he's up to his ass, the girl is gone, and I strongly feel he will kill himself. And then, of course, he did. Yeah. However, rumors also swirled that Ernie himself was responsible in Marty's death instead of it being a suicide, which I do understand because Ernie is at his house.

The police are outside swarming and they hear a gunshot and Ernie runs out and says he shot himself. So is that true? Was Marty freaked out as the police were encroaching on him and Ernie was just, you know, just happened to be there and Marty said, this is what I need to do or were they possibly in it together? Ernie was afraid that Marty was gonna talk

and so he had to get rid of him, right? Because Ernie also had a checkered past dotted with run-ins with the law, despite having a background in law himself. He was this disgraced police officer with a sexual harassment lawsuit and accusations of abuse of power stacked against him. And incidentally, Marty and Ernie had recently gotten into a fight over money

that escalated so intensely that it drew blood. And this took place on August 25th, so the night before Heather disappeared. Yeah, so that kind of seems like there might be a little bit of motive for Ernie here to kill Marty Yeah, they got into a fight the night before where blood was drawn and now all of a sudden You know like you said Ernie's running out of the house going he shot himself. He shot himself. It's like did he though? Yeah, I think it makes sense obviously if Marty is involved We have seen this in many other cases where the suspect takes their life because they know they're about to go to prison for the rest of their life. Um, so that's definitely possible, but it is a little suspicious that he was caught up with Ernie because Ernie could be involved as well.

Well, like you said, I think it's also possible that Marty was concerned at the potential of being arrested again, and, you know, because he was still on probation from his arrest earlier that year. And there was no known link between Heather and Marty prior to her disappearance, and nothing has ever definitively linked Marty to the crime. Despite the heavy belief that he was involved based on him being at the scene that day, what he said to his wife, his strange behavior around investigators, his previous crimes against women, and of course, his believed suicide. You know, that's a lot. I mean it really is, but her mom Sarah just was not satisfied. After some digging, she poked a hole in one of Detective's strongest arguments for Marty's

involvement. The picture of Marty that police matched to the description of Heather's abductor was an old and outdated photo. He had shaved his head because he had been in jail, and pictures of him snapped in mid-July so weeks before Heather went missing showed him with no hair or facial hair. On his latest release from prison on June 21st, 1995, he was also bald and clean shaven. So of course, Sarah questioned, was two months long enough to grow back all that hair? I mean, especially if he also had no hair and was clean shaven in mid-July, so like a month before?

Yeah. I mean, it's not enough time. Unless he did wear a wig. Well, he was also shorter and lighter than the description that Tim gave, so kinda nothing here was really adding up for Marty. But even if he was the culprit, where was Heather's body? In October of 1995, a grand jury was held to determine whether Marty was responsible or not. Tracy Dill, who is Marty's wife or was Marty's wife, was called as a witness but chose not to testify. It was only two months into the investigation and Sarah was already growing suspicious of

the veracity of the evidence being compiled. Marty's father, whose name was Marvin Dill Sr., worked as an administrator for the city, and she wondered if maybe this could have been some sort of cover-up. And Tracy Dill even leveled charges against Sarah, alleging harassment when Sarah continued to send her letters pleading for her to share whatever information she knew. The charges were eventually dropped, and Sarah actually filed a civil lawsuit in response, attempting to encourage Tracy to share what she knew with law enforcement.

Sarah said frustrated, quote, I pleaded with her for a meeting face to face, mother to mother. I didn't want any charges brought against her. But Tracy Dill continued to abstain from sharing any pertinent information and claimed that she hadn't learned anything about Heather's disappearance either before or after her husband's death. Now, sadly, as months passed, Sarah was resigned to the conclusion that her daughter had most likely been taken away from her that day, saying, quote, we were given no choice except to think that she was dead.

We looked in refrigerators and ditches. We were looking for a body. Well, while they were trying to figure out whether or not Marty was responsible, they were still fielding other tips and clues. And another witness in the vicinity of the beach that day claimed to have seen a red Chevrolet Chevette driving in the area. And the theories surrounding Heather's disappearance began to evolve, with some wondering if she was taken by multiple people and shuffled between captors and vehicles in order to avoid

them being caught. Although James Allen claimed that he was sure that he saw Marty Dill driving the Ford Bronco that day, were there other people involved? Maybe even someone who was holding Heather in the back of the car while Marty was driving? As with every unsolved disappearance case, the theories ran rampant, whether they were plausible or not. But because Heather had a history of involvement with known drug users and drug sellers, Sarah recalls her first hunch when she spoke to the police about their investigation, that drugs were involved. According to the FBI files that Sarah later received in her

efforts to continue her own investigation, the cause of Heather's abduction was listed as drugs, prostitution, strip clubs, and potentially public corruption. Now another man frequently linked to Heather's disappearance is Christopher Bello, a truck driver who was about 40 years old at the time of the crime. Christopher was raised in West Kentucky and knew some of the potential culprits very well, including Marty Dill, because they had actually grown up together.

But unlike Marty, who many claim bears only a passing resemblance to the police sketch, Chris was nearly a dead ringer. His tall frame, potbelly, and wild hair were captured perfectly and matched Tim's description exactly, right down to his inverted thumbs and the pattern of the hair on his chest. I mean, it really does look just like Chris and we're going to post photos so you guys can see. I do think, I mean, here's the thing. The sketch is a shirtless kind of, you know, slightly chubby man with, you know, chest

hair. He has a beard and wiry crazy hair and at one point Marty Dill did look like that he did have that hair but that's also not a super unique appearance I guess like to have a beard and kind of crazy hair yeah yeah maybe not in that part of Kentucky at that time who knows I don't know but it does really look like Chris. It does. There's this one composite next to a photo of Chris

where he is shirtless and it looks like he was plucked from the photo and drawn. It looks like somebody drew that picture of him. Looks like they just did a line sketch of Chris. It really does. So we'll post that so you guys can see. But actually another really interesting part of Chris it really does so we'll post that so you guys can see but actually another really interesting part of Chris is that Tim the witness later even picked Chris out of a lineup three different times and he was the only one

who actually saw the guy so I think that is very interesting. It's very telling But that's actually not all Those who knew Chris claimed that he was violent and a sexual deviant He was married at least three times But was known for his overlapping affairs his general distaste for monogamy and his lack of respect for women His sister said that they frequently took him in when he was on the outs with whatever woman he had been seeing at the time, but that they stopped coming to his rescue when they caught him in what they described as a quote, compromising sexual position with a child. Then in the summer of 1991, while he was living in Northeast Ohio,

he struck up a sexual relationship with a woman named Katherine or Kathy Fetzer Like Chris Kathy was married at the time working in a factory and living in Medina with her husband Now after a few months Kathy began to have second thoughts about this affair And it's believed that she tried to kind of cut things off with Chris, but he would not take no for an answer So on November 26 1991 Chris allegedly accused Kathy of stringing him along and playing head games with him and he shot her in his apartment And guess what Chris even later admitted to disposing of her in a dumpster Now when she didn't come home, her husband reported

her missing, and her locked car was found a day later in a gravel turnaround for truck drivers 20 miles or 32 kilometers from her home. It was found near Lodi, which is where Chris had been living at the time. Detectives didn't find any sign of foul play in her car, per se, but they did find a letter written to Kathy from Chris, detailing how much he loved and missed her, and saying that he couldn't wait to see her again. In 2004, so 13 years after Kathy disappeared, Chris finally pleaded no contest to the murder of Kathy Fetzer. When asked where her body was, Chris responded, quote,

there's not much left to find, adding, quote, if I told you what I did with her body, you would think I'm a horrible person. Uh, yeah, we already think you're a horrible person and you're a piece of shit. Yeah, the fact that he's using that as his excuse to not explain what he did, like you're saying, Yeah, I did it, but I don't want to tell you what I did because I don't want you to look at me badly. What? Yeah, makes no sense. Maybe you shouldn't have done it then.

Well, disturbingly, there were other women who disappeared in his orbit, but he was never concretely connected to any of them. But it's definitely possible that this guy is a serial killer. Chris could be a serial killer. His plea deal allowed him to be charged with attempted involuntary manslaughter for Kathy's murder and he was sentenced to just 11 to 18 years, meaning he has since been released. He has continued to deny any involvement in the murder of Heather Teague, but Heather

and Kathy did have some physical similarities, including that they were brunettes, they kind of had a similar looking hair as well, standing at about five feet tall and weighing about 100 pounds. Among his belongings, his sister once came across a box of letters, nude photos, trinkets, women's jewelry, and missing posters of multiple different women. But when Chris caught her snooping, he got rid of this box, which is suspicious in itself, and it has never been located, so she is the only person that can confirm that it existed. In August of 1994, so one year before Heather was abducted, Chris moved back to Kentucky,

settling in Henderson, which we know is right next to the beach that Heather disappeared from. It's about 30 minutes drive away. Now though he and Heather didn't seem to know each other prior to her disappearance, they did share some acquaintances, possibly through drug trade or drug use. Some people who were in the area on the day Heather vanished even claimed that they saw Chris driving Marty's Bronco, believing that Marty was simply an accomplice and that Christopher was the driving force behind the act. Chris apparently even left town on the very day that Marty killed himself, so is it possible

that they did do this together? Well over the years, a slew of confounding tips have come to the attention of Heather's grieving family. Sarah Teague has compiled over a hundred pages of tips, ranging from feasible to outlandish and everything in between. Her social security number was also used multiple times after her death, likely in cases of fraud, and one man named Glenn Stephen Rackley made a deathbed confession that he had reason to believe

that there were four men between the two vehicles involved, the red and white Ford Bronco and the red Chevrolet Chevette, and he spoke to one of the men in the car, a man named Mike Shelton. Glenn also claimed that Marty Dill was there, along with a man who went by the nickname NoNo, and one unidentified man. Glenn also noted that one of these men was a quote, dangerous drug debt collector in Webster County, which is where Heather was living at the time. So if this is true, one of these men could have been Chris and he could have been the one to grab Heather in this much larger scheme. And this could

make sense with what we know about Heather's involvement in drugs. Yeah, especially because there was another witness that came forward that said that they had heard a story that Heather allegedly fumbled a drug delivery where like a large sum of money was missing. So is that why somebody came after her? Was it a crime of opportunity? Was she targeted? Were multiple men involved?

Was it Chris? Was it Marty? Was it Ernie? Was it all three of them plus somebody else? I mean, the fact that that guy Glenn made a deathbed confession, did he not come forward with this information that could be true before because he was afraid for his life? Like, I feel like this is a pretty solid-seeming angle.

Yeah, I mean, it's definitely possible that he was afraid to come forward with information. He didn't want to disappear himself, you know, so... But without any evidence here here it's just so hard to know exactly what happened. Yeah and with so much time passing but the one person that has really not given up hope is Heather's mom Sarah because most of the investigation was led by her. She traveled miles of wooded areas surrounding Newburgh Beach, as well as digging in wells and scouring abandoned houses top to bottom on her own. And in one, she found bones in the basement that she thought might belong to her daughter.

But after they were tested, they were confirmed to belong to a goat. This year in 2024, Sarah leveled a $29 million lawsuit against both the Kentucky State Police and the FBI, citing multiple missteps and the mishandling of evidence and information. She explained, quote, "...had there been honesty and integrity in this search for Heather, there would have been an alternative to case being closed with Dill's death. One very strange discrepancy is that there seems to be a missing call to the authorities by an eyewitness who was not Tim Walthal.

Basically Sarah and her attorney at the time, a guy named Chip Adams, claimed that they heard a recorded call at the Kentucky State Police headquarters that has now been lost. The dispatcher in the call is a female, unlike the dispatcher in the call that Tim made, and this witness confirms the rumor that the abductor was sporting a mosquito net and a wig at the time that Heather was kidnapped. But now Sarah says Kentucky State Police assures her that they only fielded one 9-1-1 call about Heather's abduction that day, and it was Tim's. Chip Adams explained, quote, they maintain there's only one.

So the explanation is you fabricated the first one to bolster or validate the story that they were trying to sell Sarah Teague from day one. Or two, there were two calls, but you lost one. That's also a possibility to just be objective about it. And then the third possibility is we're wrong. But I'm not. I'm a thousand percent sure. That first call I heard had mosquito netting and a wig and the sexes between the two dispatchers were different. Kentucky State Police now claim that they do not have any information or documents that have not been handed over to Sarah Teague. Sarah Teague has continued the fervent search for her daughter and has now spent nearly

30 years waiting for answers. She said sadly, quote, that's longer than I had her. But she has more hope than ever this year. On the 29th anniversary of her daughter's disappearance this last August, again, 2024, Sarah said, quote, I just know our story is supposed to be told. It's supposed to last this long, and I just want her back. It's so cruel to not know what happened. But once again, I know, just like Alison Goodman wrote, quote, once this is done, it will be a wonder to all mankind. And it is.

That's why Heather was born. That's why I was born. And I believe with all my heart, this will be the last August 26th without knowing. I may have said that in the past, I probably have, but I still believe it. So let's help make that come true. If you have any information about the disappearance of Heather Teague, please email Sarah Teague at sarah.teague5 at gmail.com. Sarah has an H in it, sarah.teague5 at gmail.com or call the Kentucky State Police at 502-782-1800. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West again.

Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode. If you've heard this case before, it was a while ago. It was a long time ago. If you're new to this one, thank you again for listening to this episode. If you've heard this case before, it was a while ago. It was a long time ago. If you're new to this one, thank you again for listening. Also make sure you go over to our socials. We're on Instagram at going West podcast where you can see Chris's doppelganger in the police sketch. Yes. Go check that out. Let us know what you guys think. And yes, like he said, thank you so much for tuning in as you can tell her mom Deserves answer. She is trying so hard She has fought for so many years to figure out what happened to her daughter And she is really hoping that this is the last year that she has to be without that information

So, please make sure that you share this episode or just share Heather's story in general Thank you guys so much and we will see you on Friday. All right guys, so for everybody out there in the world, don't be a stranger. I'm just a little bit of a wimp, but I'm just a little bit of a wimp you