Going West: True Crime - Kortne Stouffer // 68

Episode Date: May 9, 2020

In 2012, a 21-year-old woman in Pennsylvania seemingly vanished out of thin air from her apartment. But as police began to unravel her evening, some interesting suspects came into play. So, what happened to her? This is the disappearance of Kortne Stouffer. CASE SOURCES https://bringkortnehome.com/about-kortne/ https://www.huffpost.com/entry/kortne-stouffer-milton-rodriguez-cody-pruett_n_1818359 https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/7o19cv/the_disappearance_of_kortne_stouffer/ https://lancasteronline.com/news/local/kortne-stouffer-disappearance-to-be-featured-on-investigation-discovery-sunday/article_c9b0fdc0-1ad2-11e7-80d9-2b5feb2c1221.html https://www.pennlive.com/news/2017/04/reward_doubled_to_100k_for_inf.html https://www.websleuths.com/forums/threads/pa-kortne-ciera-stouffer-21-palmyra-29-july-2012-6.202960/ Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy 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 other host, Daphne, and you're listening to Going West. We have got an absolutely wild disappearance case for you guys today, so you're gonna want to listen carefully to all the details that we give you in today's episode. There's a lot of little facts that will really help give you a visual of what's going on in the story, so make sure that you've got your listen and hat on. Yeah, this is one of those cases that's just so strange. Big shout to Mary Kate for telling us about this case, she's actually recommended it a few times, and I was so excited to finally dive into it, so thank you so much, Mary Kate,

so without further ado. This is episode 68 of Going West, so let's get into it. In 2012, a 21-year-old girl went missing from her apartment in Palmyra, Pennsylvania. As police began to pick up her night, some people became obvious suspects. Earlier in the evening, she had gotten into a fight with her neighbor and some other people at a bar downtown. But even though her friend was sleeping on the couch in her living room all night, he told police he didn't hear or see a thing.

It's as if she just vanished. So what happened to her that July night? This is the disappearance of Courtney Stalffer. Courtney Sierra Stalffer was born on April 24, 1991 in Grantville, Pennsylvania to Wendy and Scott Stalffer. She had four siblings who she was reportedly very close with. Courtney was definitely the life of the party and made a ton of friends very easily, and all of her friends described her as being free spirited and loving

and said that she enjoyed spending time with family and traveling. One of her dreams was to move to Los Angeles to be closer to the beach since she absolutely loved the outdoors. She loved going on hikes and walks and just getting outside, especially if she had her black labrador with her, who was named Shiba. She got Shiba for her eighth birthday and they were inseparable. In high school, Courtney ran track and she was also a cheerleader, but in 2009 she graduated from Northern Lebanon Senior High School in Fredericksburg, Pennsylvania and remained living at home until she was around 20 years old. Courtney loved music, so you would either find her blasting music while driving her car or singing in a musical or a band with friends.

Every year Courtney would go to Massachusetts with friends to a three-day festival called Wormtown, which was something that she always looked forward to. She was a big family girl and never missed a family get together. And even after moving in with her boyfriend in early 2012, she would still go home once or twice a month to enjoy a family meal thanks to her mom's amazing cooking. But her parents had split up when she was just 14 years old so the household was split. But still, she was close with everyone. She and her brother Ryan would go to the Lebanon County fair every single year together, so making sure to spend a lot of time with families seemed to be

really, really important to her. So when Courtney was 21 years old, in 2012, she lived in the town of Palmyra, Pennsylvania, which is very close to her hometown where her family still lived, and also just 18 miles or 29 kilometers away from the city of Harrisburg, which is Pennsylvania's capital. At this time, Courtney was working as a hairstylist and as a dog rumour, and she also would sometimes work for her dad's tool grinding service company called Steufer Equipment Company. She was living in a second floor apartment in Palmyra with her boyfriend Bradley Hurr at 810 West Main Street. And to give you a visual, it's a two-story brick building that was built in 1900.

There's a big porch out front which actually looks a lot like a house and in fact it's a converted house, but it doesn't look like any of the units have any balconies. But all the entrances are on the outside of the building. Basically it's a duplex split in half. So for the upstairs units like Courtney's there's a wooden staircase leading up to her door. Courtney did not get along with her neighbors here very well though. And there was a lot of issues because of this. And I've seen a lot of apartment buildings like this, where they take an old house and they convert it into, you know, a duplex or into apartments.

So it's interesting because it feels so close quarters, but at the same time, it's very split up. I don't know, it's just an interesting setup. Yeah, exactly. And if you were to look, we'll post a photo of it, but if you were to look at the front of the building, there's basically two front doors and it's split down the middle. And then Courtney's entrance was along the side back of the building. So everyone's apartment or duplex door entrances are in separate places.

Courtney was a 21 year old girl and like mostyear-olds, she liked to have fun and was definitely more of a party girl. We actually looked at her Facebook to check out some of her statuses and the year prior which was 2011, she posted, party, party, party, who's ready to get wasted. Another status read, why can't the world be free-spirited and think about things with an open mind? Another status said, don't fuck with me, you don't know what you're getting yourself into smiley face.

So she definitely didn't take shit from anyone and stood up for herself, but overall, she was reportedly a really nice girl. But like I said, she did love to party and drink and smoke weed, which a lot of 21 year olds do. So really nothing out of the ordinary. But this really bothered her neighbors in her apartment building. They hated the loud stomping and the music and the parties, so she would get into arguments with them pretty regularly.

Let's meet Courtney's neighbors. Like I said, Courtney lived in one of the upstairs units of the duplex. It appears to me that there are four units total, two downstairs and two upstairs, from what I can tell. Below Courtney was a couple named Janice Rymer Schneider, who was 49, and Rich Sheetz, who was 57. Todd Sack-Sack, who was 44, lived in the unit right next to Courtney, so he was also upstairs. And I never read about any other neighbors, and I know that he owned his duplex, so it's

possible that he had the upstairs and the downstairs, but I'm not totally sure. That's kind of what I'm thinking, though. On the night of Saturday, July 28, 2012, Courtney and her boyfriend Brad decided to have a little party with just five other people at their apartment. Someone called the police regarding a noise complaint and suspicions of underage drinking occurring inside Courtney and Brad's apartment. So around 9 p.m. that July evening, the police showed up at their door. Brad was just 20 years old at the time and happened to be on probation and house arrest for driving under the influence while under age. So when police found he had been drinking underage once again and therefore

violating his probation, they arrested him. Courtney was incredibly pissed off by this, of course, because she had figured that one of the neighbors had been the one to call the police. Her neighbors seemed to be very focused on all the things that she and Brad were doing and meddled into their lives a little too much. And I suppose that this could happen if you have a younger person living in an apartment complex where there are somewhat older people. I mean, it's not like she's living in, you know, a dorm or an apartment on campus. Exactly. And of course, you know, like I said, there are other people living in this building or in their 40s and 50s, meanwhile, she's 21. So I understand how that would be super annoying. They're probably more interested in the peace and quiet. For sure. But I mean, also at the same time, who hasn't, like, had an apartment party, you know? I mean, like? I've lived in apartments, you've lived in apartments, and we've both had parties in our

apartments. It's understandable. It doesn't seem like it was a huge raging party of 30 people. Like you said, there was only five other people there. I guess it could get out of hand depending on how loud these people actually are. It might more so just be the fact that these people are a little older and they just kind of don't want to deal with the noise. Well, I am kind of surprised that the neighbors go straight to calling the police for non-emergency

situations so often in this story. Like you said, we've both had parties in our apartments. I mean, one time I had a two-bedroom apartment with my friends and we had 30 people in there. And yeah, we kept the music at a reasonable level and we weren't all being super loud, but the party went until like 2 a.m. and I remember that. I mean, no one called the police, but I remember that my landlord, like the week later, had said, oh, by the way, you got some noise complaints last week. But it's interesting that nobody's going to the landlord about these non-emergency situations and they're instead just going straight to the police especially because even though she was younger

Courtney was 21 so why would someone call the police and say I think there's underage drinking going on? I understand that that's the law, but it's kind of none your business. So why are you getting involved? So are you kind of insinuating that maybe somebody knew that Brad was under age or that there was people that were under age? Well, I don't know. I just think it's weird that someone would call the police about that. I get a noise complaint, but again, why go the police? Why not just go the landlord? To me, it's just that's just really extreme. The police have more important things to do than come assess some music, you know? I mean, the noise complaint makes much more sense to me than the specific, hey, there's underage people drinking in that apartment call, but that's just me.

Yeah, and we don't know, we don't know who made this call, so we'll get more into that later, but that's what's going on. So, since this event seemed to ruin Courtney's night, now that her boyfriend was being hauled back to Jill for who knows how long, her friends wanted to try and turn the night around and take her mind off of everything that was going on. So they decided to go out to a bar called Hardware Bar in the city of Harrisburg, which remember is Pennsylvania's capital and just around a 25 minute drive away. But Courtney didn't get into a better mood after this and even ended up getting in a blowout verbal argument with a man named Arward Brown and his girlfriend at the bar.

So she was then kicked out. Courtney then texted her brother and asked him if he wanted to come out with her because she was having a tough night, but he said he couldn't make it. At some point, Courtney headed over to a bar and an American style restaurant called the gas station located in Hummelstown, Pennsylvania, which is just outside of Harrisburg, on her way home to Palmyra. While at the gas station bar in restaurant, Courtney asked her friends Cody Pruitt, age 21, and Milton Rodriguez Jr., age 22, if they could drive her back to downtown Harrisburg, which they agreed to do.

For whatever reason, Cody was driving Milton's 2004 Accura, and three of them went to a bar called Sawyers, which is a diving bar with a big outdoor section that apparently attracts a younger crowd. Afterwards, she went to Hardware Bar once again, but with Milton and Cody. And I guess security let her back in because they stayed there for a little while, but she was apparently still very angry about everything that was going on, so they left all together. At around 2am, Cody and Courtney dropped off Milton in his home, which again is strange because they had his car, but Milton only lived a few blocks from Courtney.

So after dropping him off, Cody and Courtney headed to Courtney's apartment. Cody was the designated driver that night, so it's possible that he didn't have a car, and that's why he was using Milton's, but that for information isn't very clear. At 312 AM, Todd Sackseck, who remember is her 44-year-old neighbor, got into an altercation with Courtney. Apparently, after she and Cody got back to the apartment from the bars, Todd approached her and they got into a chest-to-chest screaming match in the downstairs yard. And we're not sure the exact nature of the fight, because Courtney had actually suspected that Janice and Rich downstairs had been the one to call police about her party earlier that evening.

So my guess is that Todd may be confronted her for coming home and being super loud at 3 in the fricking morning. Some other neighbors went outside and saw this brawl occurring, so Janice and Rich, who remember, lived downstairs, called the police to report this vicious argument, and the police arrived on the scene about three minutes later. The police stayed to assess the situation for around 35 minutes until 350 a.m. So Courtney and Todd are in a huge blowout argument and then Janice and Rich come out to see this because it's downstairs They're outside on the grass and of course they're on the bottom floor So they see this all happening. Go outside to make sure everything's okay. And I guess Cody had kind of yelled at Janice and Rich to go back inside and mine their

own business. Like he got mad that they were looking at them. So they shut their door and called the police. And I mean this is three o'clock in the morning so obviously there's a fight going on. Everyone's waking up and they're just kind of like, what the hell is happening? You know, so obviously then they call the police so that the situation didn't escalate further. At 4.15 a.m. so 25 minutes after the police left the scene, the police were called again with a noise complaint apparently because Courtney was stomping loudly in her apartment. When the police arrived to the building for the third time that evening, which was 15 minutes

after this call was made, the scene appeared to be quiet. According to the officer, he knocked on both Courtney's door and Todd's door, but didn't get an answer. He noticed from the outside of the building that all the lights were off, so the officer said that he figured they had all calmed down and gone to bed. The officer didn't make any further attempts to contact either of them, because he states that he didn't want to start things up again. Five minutes after arriving, the officer left. And this is going to be the biggest and most controversial, I think, part of this case.

What, that the officer left so soon? Yes, yes, and the fact that there was no confirmation whether or not things had actually calmed down. A few hours later, around 7.30 a.m., Cody Pruitt woke up on Courtney's couch and he noticed that Courtney was gone. He said he assumed she had fallen asleep in the other room, but didn't go to check. He then left her apartment and went to a convenience store to buy a drink and some food, and there's security footage of this so we can confirm it happened. Then he texted Courtney saying, I left, I didn't see you, what happened to you, but

Courtney never responded to this text. And a lot of people wonder why he waited until he got to the convenience store to text her instead of just texting her when he woke up. I also wonder how he knew that she wasn't in the apartment. You know, did he go into her room and not see her there? I don't really think he would have opened her bedroom door while she was sleeping, but I mean, if he went so far as to check her bedroom But not check the other room that he later stated that he figured she was sleeping in I just I it's a little weird

I mean I can kind of understand this situation. I've definitely woken up very hungover in a friend's place and just and just left without Saying goodbye and then I'll text him later and say, hey, crazy night. And they'll be like, yeah, crazy night. Ah, let's do it again. But he was also the designated driver. So he wasn't, he wasn't hung over. So I'm assuming that he just didn't check the house for her. Well, the only reason I say that is because like you just said, he assumed that she had fallen asleep in another room. How did that means he knew that she wasn't in her own room. So why would he check her bedroom and not another bedroom? That's I don't know. Yeah, it seems strange and also I want to know like how good of friends Were they really you know because that does make a difference apparently they were long time friends

They had known each other for a while But I had also read that neither for parents had ever met him and he was in a friend group that she really didn't hang out with anymore. So, I mean, they knew each other pretty well. So after Cody went to the convenience store, he apparently went back to Milton Rodriguez Junior's house, probably to drop off Milton's car. Hours passed and no one had heard from Courtney. Later that day, she had plans to go to the County Fair

with her brother and her grandfather, which she never would have missed on purpose. But the fair started and her brother called their mom asking if she had heard from Courtney because she never showed up to the fair. Wendy, who is Courtney's mom, automatically became concerned. So the following morning, which was a Monday, Wendy drove over to Courtney's apartment. Courtney hadn't made it to work that morning, so she knew that something was wrong. When she got there, the door was unlocked, and Shiba, Courtney's dog, ran to the door to greet Wendy. She looked around the room and noticed that Courtney's keys, shoes, wallet, and purse

were all there, and her cell phone was was plugged into charge next to her bed. The air conditioning was on full blast and the TV was also on. Sheba had gone to the bathroom all over the floor, which indicated to Wendy that Courtney hadn't been there for possibly days to take sheba outside. Also, Courtney's car, which was a Ford Fusion, was out front so it wasn't missing. Wendy then called her ex-husband Scott and Courtney's brother to come over to the apartment and see what they made of the scene, but Wendy was sick to her stomach that something bad had happened to her daughter. Then, she called police to report Courtney missing. Police didn't jump into the investigation right away.

So the first day or so, Courtney's family were kind of the only people out there looking for her. Wendy started calling all of Courtney's friends who she was with that Saturday night and asked what they knew, but no one had spoken to her since that evening. The next day, an investigator was assigned to the case and began conducting various interviews with those close to Courtney, and those who had last seen her. One of the first people police spoke with was Cody Pruitt, and he said that after police left after 3.50am, the second time that they were called that night. Remember,

she and her downstairs neighbor Todd were chessed to Chest arguing. So after that situation, Courtney was apparently still letting off steam and stomping around the apartment. And this was when Todd called the police the second time, supposedly, to report the noise complaint from Courtney stomping. Cody also stated that he nor Courtney heard police knock the second time when they arrived around 4.30 a.m. regarding the noise complaint. And again I say reportedly Todd because we don't know for sure if he was the one to call about the noise complaint and we'll get into that later. And it's unclear why Cody slept over.

He hadn't been drinking that night, and I know that there were longtime friends, but I just see a lot of people questioning this on different threads regarding this case. Since he hadn't been drinking that night, he didn't have much of a reason to crash on her couch, you know, why not just drive home, but some speculate that maybe he was just really tired and didn't want to make the drive home. But Wendy, Courtney's mom, thinks that he stayed over to keep her company since she was so upset with what had happened that night. And also, it's possible that he stayed that night because Brad,

like we said, her boyfriend was going to jail and maybe she didn't feel safe being at the apartment by herself. I'm not really sure because they did live together, correct? Who Brad and Courtney? Yes. Yeah, Brad, Courtney's boyfriend and Courtney lived together. And since he was at jail that night, that's kind of what Wendy was thinking. That maybe Cody just stayed the night to kind of keep make her feel safe. We also can't rule out the possibility that maybe he had a crush on Courtney and he knew that Brad was now out of the house and decided to take advantage of the opportunity to

maybe get close to her. That's definitely a possibility and will always be a possibility in my mind. Yeah, he definitely went out of his way to help her that night. He picked her up, he took her downtown, he took her home, he stayed with her. So I think just when you have a male and a female situation like this, you kind of automatically go to that, but he's also a dude and he might have, I mean, she was a beautiful girl. So who knows that could have been as motive for wanting to stay over for sure.

Sure. And also for all I know, they could just be really great friends and maybe I'm way, way off the base, but that's just something I wanted to bring up, because it could be a scenario. It's worth mentioning. Yeah, and the other thing I was gonna say is possibly why he didn't go home is because he had Milton's car, but then again, I was wondering to myself, well why wouldn't he stay at Milton's house? Well, that's what I was thinking, too, because they were like best friends, so he obviously

chose to sit Courtney's house. But again, I mean, the mom thinks that, again, the mom never even met Cody, so she doesn't really know his motives, but she was just kind of like, oh, maybe he was just trying to come for her. Since Courtney's boyfriend Brad had been in jail all night and remained there for a week, the police obviously didn't question him about her whereabouts because the police could all account for his location when Courtney disappeared, since he was in jail. On Wednesday, August 1, 2012, so two days after Courtney was reported missing, the Palmyra PD submitted for a search warrant to enter Courtney's apartment and began investigating.

They also impounded her ford fusion to search there as well. The following day, a vigil was held at the Palmyra football field to bring attention to Courtney's case and spread awareness. And the whole community really showed up and came together to support the search for Courtney. The following week, over 50 volunteers, along with Courtney's family, searched the woods near Courtney's apartment to see if there were any clothing items or signs that Courtney had been there, but nothing was found. They also put up missing persons flyers all over

the area, and the flyers stated that Courtney was five feet eight inches or 172 centimeters, 120 pounds or 54 kilos, had long blonde hair, which was partially in dreadlocks and fair skin and green eyes. She also had multiple tattoos, one on her right arm that said one love, one on the top of her right foot, and that was three large stars, and then on her left side, she had a gun shooting flowers. The following day, which was Thursday, August 9, 2012, about a week and a half after Courtney's disappearance, police were finally granted that search warrant to look through her apartment, and they even had canines with them that were trained to sniff out cadavers

and missing persons. And they were also granted a search warrant to inspect Milton's car, which again was the one that Cody drove Courtney home in. And we're not sure the results of these search warrants because those results are sealed. Milton's father also allowed police to search their family home, but police didn't come up with any evidence in the home nor in Milton's car, so police then determined that neither Cody or Milton were suspects or persons of interest in Courtney's case. They had also given them polygraph tests, which they both passed, and they interviewed both

of those young men extensively, for multiple days in a row. Police just didn't believe either of them had motive or the capability to do something to Courtney. The community really banded together to help find her. And a lot of local businesses were trying to raise money to add towards Courtney's reward fund, which after a month was up to about $30,000. And let's think about this for a second. Cody and Milton were interviewed and interrogated for hours on end multiple days in a row.

So you would think that if they were hiding something, like they would have cracked. I can't imagine that they were interviewed that intensely and neither of them said anything. I think that it's always a possibility that somebody can slide by through interrogations like this, but I mean, this is five days of intense interrogation by police. Especially to have five days of intensive interrogation and for them to completely say,

we do not think that they're at all lying or that they're making shit up. At the end of it, they were like, these dudes are innocent. So for them to be that confident and not even say, well, he seemed a little weird on this or maybe they were lying about this, but to completely say we're not even looking at them at all, kinda says a lot. Definitely, it says a lot about this case, but at the same time, it's still something

that sticks in my mind and it's not something that I'm so quickly, you know, willing to let go of. Just because he was the last person in the apartment with Courtney. And we do get into this later, so we'll go more into it then, but of course I agree with you. I think I just cannot see a way that he wouldn't hold the answer to this case because he was right there in the living room.

But again, we'll get into that. When police initially went to question Todd Sack-Sack, he'd loyered up and said that he was not going to be speaking about the events that occurred the evening she went missing at all. Remember Todd is the next-door neighbor in the apartment complex. Little suspicious. Yeah. Meanwhile, the other neighbors were fully cooperative and answered any question that the investigators had.

Janice and Rich, who remember lived below Courtney, allowed police and canine units to search their entire apartment and explained everything that they had seen that night to police, which was really only the fight that broke out between Courtney and Todd at 312 AM. I guess it's kind of wrong of me to say suspicious because I've definitely heard, you know, people in other cases, loyering up because they don't want to get railroaded by police

or something similar to that. But it's just strange that the other two neighbors, Janice and Rich, were willing to do anything really that police asked, you know, search their apartment, explain everything that happened that night, but right from the get-go taught is saying, no, fuck that, I have nothing to say about this. Exactly, and especially because Janice and Rich were so cooperative, and they also stated their concerns for her and said that they pray for her every night, and they just hope that justice is served and that she's brought back to her family. But both Janice and Rich seemed to feel like Courtney left the apartment building and

was met with a dangerous situation elsewhere. They don't believe that any of the other neighbors are involved at all. We know that Courtney smoked cigarettes. We're not sure how often she did it, but there was a pack of cigarettes found in her room, so we know she at least smoked to some degree. Some theorized that after Cody fell asleep, Courtney grabbed one out of her pack and snuck out for a cigarette, and then she was met with foul play. This makes sense to me because she left her keys, car, cell phone, and even her shoes.

So if she did go outside for any reason, it seems like smoking a cigarette would make the most sense since she wouldn't need any of her other belongings to go and do that. So something that we should bring up is how confusing this case was to research. A lot of things have been misreported, including who called police that night. We know that all of Courtney's neighbors, which there are only a few, had some issues with her and had called police on a few different occasions. Courtney's dad Scott told the media that Todd was the one who phoned police regarding

the stomping, but there are a couple discrepancies with this. It would make the most sense if her downstairs neighbors, aka Janice and Rich, were the ones to call the police about the stomping, since they would hear it more than Todd would. Also Todd didn't answer the door, even though police showed up only 15 minutes later. He would know that they'd likely be checking in with him about the noise, of course, so why not answer the door? And how would he have just fallen asleep so quickly knowing that the police were on their way? And also that he just earlier had this huge confrontation with Courtney, he would likely still be awake. And I think we all know, you know, when police follow up on a call, they check in with the person who called and with the person who the call

is against. So obviously Todd knew this because this wasn't his first rodeo with Call on the Police on Courtney. So if he were the one to call the police, why didn't he answer the door? That is just really, really odd to me. Unless he wasn't the one to call, which could make sense because maybe he did go to bed. But if he was the one to call, why didn't he answer? Yeah, very strange. And there's a lot of people not answering their doors when police knock on them.

And police never confirmed who exactly made this call. So it's possible they thought it was Todd when it was actually rich from downstairs calling, which would explain why Todd didn't answer the door again because maybe he was sleeping. But obviously, either it was Todd or police thought it was Todd because they literally made a statement saying, we check Todd's door and we check Courtney's door. They didn't say anything about Janice and Rich. Since Todd himself won't confirm any of this since he's not talking, we can't know for sure

who called about the stomping. Since Janice and Rich volunteered their time to help with questioning and even offered to have their apartment searched, I think it's pretty clear that they were not involved with whatever happened in Courtney. And I'm gonna go ahead and agree with you on that. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks this. To me Todd is a bit sketchy and even in an interview with Wendy, she called him the quote-unquote creepy neighbor. So it's not just me. And of course, I mean, it's his right to avoid

questioning since he hasn't been charged with any crime, but to not volunteer to answer just a few general questions in a missing persons investigation when you were right there can seem a little suspicious. All Todd did tell police is that he didn't know Courtney well and didn't hear any loud noises that evening. So again, after police were called about the stomping, this leaves only a very small 15-minute window for something to happen. Because the lights in Courtney's apartment were off, the lights in Todd's apartment were off, I just don't really know what could have happened in this very short amount of time. And that's an even smaller window of time to just forget about the fact that the police are coming

and go to bed or forget about the fact that you're stomping in rage and just fall immediately to sleep. Todd also stated, quote, I'm just praying that everything turns out all right. To me, he seems to be downplaying his relationship with Courtney. She had only lived there for a few months, but it seems like they got into it a number of times. For them to have a screaming brawl, that's pretty serious, especially at 3 in the morning. And for him to constantly call the police on her, seems like he may have something against her.

Also, Todd made it seem like he did not have an altercation with Courtney by stating that he didn't know Courtney well and that he didn't hear anything that night, so obviously he's saying, oh, well, nothing happened between me and her. But as soon as it was leaked to the media that he was caught lying about this, he then got a lawyer, and he didn't say anything further. Which again, is just a little weird. And I don't know this man, but here's what we do know about Todd Sack-Sack. He appeared to be unmarried at the time of Courtney's disappearance and also appeared to live alone, and record state that he owned his side of the duplex, again, which is kind of why I think that maybe he lived on both floors of the duplex,

but I have no idea. And he also worked as a painter. One theory I would have that involves Todd is this. It appeared that Courtney was not letting this whole fight with Todd go, which is why she went upstairs and was stomping because she was so freaking mad. Maybe Cody was very tired and he fell asleep quickly and then Courtney snuck out to have a final word with Todd. This could have happened after Todd or Rich and Janice called police about the stomping. Since Todd is so unwilling to speak about Courtney at all

and since he didn't answer his door when the police came at 430 regarding the noise complaint, maybe Cody didn't hear the knocking because he was fast asleep. And meanwhile, Courtney had gone to Todd's to have one last word and maybe accidentally or purposefully killed her. And he didn't answer the door because he was trying to conceal what he'd done to Courtney. The only thing about this theory is that Janice and Rich didn't hear any other noises

and neither did Cody. So knowing how vocal Courtney was, how would she not make a sound? I mean, even her mom said that she wouldn't go quietly. But this can also be said for any theory, since nothing was heard, yet Courtney is nowhere to be found. So that's why I think it's kind of fair to say this is a possibility because something something happened. Yeah exactly. I mean it's entirely possible that she went outside to have a cigarette and maybe Todd was out there. You know when she went outside to have a cigarette and they you know said some things to each other or possibly she came outside, went to his door

and you know the thing is is I don't buy the whole oh well he couldn't have done it because there was no other noises heard I mean you can definitely kill somebody by strangulation so they couldn't wouldn't be able to yell or scream well and especially because something did happen so obviously no noises were made but that doesn't mean nothing happened because she's still gone and she didn't leave willingly because she didn't bring any of her stuff. So another big thing to me is Cody, Heath was weighing on earlier. I just feel like if Cody was involved, why would he stay at the apartment? I feel like it would be much less suspicious to say that

he dropped her off and then left and didn't see anything, you know? He's out of the woods, he's out of the area. Because to all of us, we're thinking, how could you have been sleeping on the couch in the living room where you would have heard any kind of commotion going down or would have heard Courtney leave the apartment, yet you didn't hear anything? To me, that sounds more like a lie, so I feel like if he had killed her for whatever reason, he would have taken her body away from the scene and gone home to sleep instead of just staying in her apartment. When I initially heard about this case, I thought there is no chance that Cody isn't

involved considering he was right there. But now, I don't know, I'm just not sure. I mean, the only thing I can think of that he wouldn't here would be if Courtney did sneak out for a cigarette and she was met with foul play by Todd like he said. Or that she was on her way to Todd's and then happened in his apartment. Well, here's a really big thing. The fact that I mean we could say okay, here's the possibility that Cody maybe made advances towards Courtney. She wasn't having it. He got pissed off and killed her. But they had a forensic team go through Milton's car, so I'm sure they would have looked in the trunk, the back seat, looking for hairs, or any fibers, or anything like that, because

I mean, there's no other way that Cody is getting Courtney away from the scene, other than in Milton's car. The only other possibility is that he called somebody to help him dispose of the body, or else there's no other way he could have done it. But if that were the case, then we would have his phone records to say who the hell did you call at for 30 in the morning

or something, I thought you were asleep. And good point because we know that police ruled out Milton and Cody, but if he had used Milton's car to dispose of her body, I would assume that there would be some type of forensic evidence there. Yeah, exactly. And I know that she was writing in the car. I'm assuming she wasn't writing in the trunk on the way home from the bars. So if they did check the trunk and there was no fibers or anything, which usually, typically, if someone's trying to dispose of a

body, they're going to put the body in the trunk. Right. You know, so that just doesn't make any sense to me. And also the fact that, you know, he went through all this interrogation and police still ruled him out, I think it's likely that maybe he wasn't involved. And I think that if he did go through all that and had got rid of her body, he wouldn't go back and sleep on her couch. Like what's the purpose of that? Exactly, yeah. I think that that's true as well. And I don't know. There's just a lot of things that are pointing me towards the direction of maybe Cody didn't do it, but hey,'re a person out there that thinks that Cody was involved in this like I totally understand your feeling and where you're coming from and

I'm not gonna discredit you at all. I just don't see who else could have done this. I mean what are the odds that someone came into Courtney's apartment and took her without Cody hearing this whole ordeal? Very unlikely and almost impossible, I'd say. But also, whether the chances that someone that wasn't in the apartment building happened to be sneaking around the apartment building and met Courtney with foul play, without Courtney or them making a sound. Since her car keys, phone, wallet, and car were all left behind, it doesn't make sense for her to be attempting to leave her apartment to go anywhere, like to leave the property, which is why I have believed that it had to have been within the

apartment building that something happened. Even if Courtney had disappeared after the police left for the third time, so between 4.35am to 7am when Cody woke up, it still doesn't explain where she would have gone or how she would have been met with foul play without Cody being alerted. Right, I originally thought that, oh well, it's possible that she had met somebody else and they left the property to go do God knows what or whatever. But then I realized her shoes were there, her phone

was there, her wallet was there. Like, I mean, nobody leaves their house without a few of their key things. And her phone was plugged in in the charger next to her bed, which is what most of us do when we're going to sleep. So you would think that she was preparing for bed and then something happened, whether she walked outside to do something really quick or someone came inside. It just you would imagine that she wasn't planning

on going anywhere else since her phone was next to her bed, she's in for the night. And have you ever left your house or your apartment and had that feeling, like late at night and you're like, oh, I gotta go get something for my car. And you have that feeling where you're like, oh, like could somebody be and you're like, oh, I gotta go get something from my car. And you have that feeling where you're like, oh, like, could somebody be watching, you know, like, could somebody just snag me right now?

I've had that feeling before. And I'm sure a lot of you guys have, too. So, that's a possibility as well that she was going to get something from her car. Maybe she didn't make it all the way to her car when she was grabbed, but, you know, like you said, she's also a fighter. She's feisty.

That's actually a really good point to bring up because I didn't even think about maybe she was going down to her car to get something. She didn't have her keys, but what we do know is that her car windows were rolled down, which Wendy says is something that she did all the time. She just kind of left her windows rolled down. So I know that the crime rates in Palmyra are not high,

so it's not like it was a super dangerous area. She probably just felt safe leaving her car windows down. So if she was going to grab something, she could have definitely just reached into her car and done so. But again, what's she leaving in her car when she's leaving her windows rolled down? Yeah, that's true.

I mean, maybe it was something that wasn't that important, but at the time, it seemed important. And I think the fact that there's not a lot of crime in that town would lead a person, somebody who was a stalker or an abductor or something like that would lead them to believe that there was more opportunity, like, hey, this town seems safe. Like this girl's leaving her car windows rolled down. This is a perfect opportunity

for me to take somebody and for no one to even know or see anything. Totally agree, really good point. And another known theory is that Courtney had been killed by Arward Brown. Arward is the guy that she got into a fight with at the hardware bar the night she disappeared. And she actually knew him. He was friends with Milton and Cody. He lived in Palmyra and Courtney had previously been friends with their whole group, but apparently once she started dating Brad, she kind of stopped hanging out with them as often because she spent more time with Brad's crowd. Apparently, Courtney and Arvard were fighting that night because a few weeks prior, her apartment

had been ransacked while she was out, and she apparently thought that Arward had potentially done this, which she had told her mom. Her mom thinks that drugs were potentially involved with that break-in, and it's never been confirmed whether or not Arward did steal anything from her apartment, and it's also unclear if this is why they were fighting that night. It's just speculation. Yeah, it does seem kind of strange, though.

You know, it definitely raises some red flags for me, the fact that, you know, she believes that it was Arvord, and she gets an argument into an argument with him at a bar that night, and obviously when you're drinking, things can get very heated, very fast. So that's a huge possibility. And we know that Arward is no angel, because a couple months after Courtney disappeared, Arward and some other guys broke into a house, and they stole items from the house while holding the residence at gunpoint. And he wasn't charged for this for about four years,

but he was eventually arrested and imprisoned. So because of this, it's then also suspected that after Courtney and Arvord's fight that night, he had gone to her apartment to either mess with her or with her belongings. But according to his break-in track record, he doesn't seem to do it quietly and also nothing

was really taken from Courtney's apartment the night that she disappeared as far as we can tell. Her phone and her wallet were still there and that's kind of, you know, usually the two things that people would grab. I mean, at least her wallet. Yeah, exactly. So unless Arvard went there strictly to mess with her, I don't know how Cody wouldn't have heard.

Unless Cody did witness something happening and he's lying about it, especially if he and Arward had been friends. But if that was the case, you'd probably assume he wouldn't have passed the polygraph test, and wouldn't have been so cooperative with police. But I mean, it's definitely possible to outsmart a polygraph, so who knows. Almost two years after Courtney disappeared, a young woman named Amanda felt like she knew what happened to Courtney. So she asked Courtney's dad Scott to meet with her. Amanda claimed to have overheard two guys bragging about killing Courtney, and she also

believes these were the guys who called the police on Courtney and Brad's party. Amanda explained that these two guys called the cops on the party so that Brad would be arrested. This way, they would get him out of the house so they could later go into the apartment and steal marijuana and cash. Apparently, those responsible for the crime told Amanda that Courtney died in the apartment and they rolled her up in a rug, waited the rug down with center blocks and dumped her body in memorial lake, which is an 85 acre lake located about 20 minutes from her apartment. Amanda had previously met Courtney but the two were not close. They had hung out on a few occasions so Amanda says that her motive for telling the police

and Scott this story was to get justice for Courtney and not to receive the reward money. Apparently Amanda's story contained various details that were true in the case but that had not been released to the public. So of course, this really stands out that she might have some insider information. Amanda described the color of the rug that she was supposedly wrapped in, and Scott believed it to have been in Courtney's apartment, but said that it was now probably missing. So I don't really know the details on this, I couldn't find that much, but he basically said, that sounds like a rug that Courtney might have had, and I don't think it's in her apartment now. This has not been completely

confirmed though. After police investigated this whole thing further, they noticed that Amanda's story changed three times. And I mean to be fair, Amanda was apparently telling a retold story. So mistaking some details would make sense since it's not like she was there to witness it. Right, that makes a lot of sense. So after this, police had search teams use sonar equipment to search the entire lake. They didn't want to use divers because although the waters weren't very deep, the waters were pretty cloudy, so any number of items in the lake could injure or even kill the divers.

But after going out on boats sifting through the lake and using sonar, they didn't find any evidence of a rug or a body. Scott was convinced that Amanda had been telling the truth, but after the search turned up empty, he wasn't so sure that she had all of her facts straight. Then, an anonymous tip came into search weabers saw Mill Pond, which was in the same county, and police used underwater cameras to search it. But again, nothing was found. The thing that doesn't make sense with this theory is if Courtney was killed in the apartment, again, Cody would have had to have heard or seen something. He was sleeping right there

in the open. So if her body wasn't where it was said to be, then this theory doesn't really hold too much weight. We don't have any information regarding these two suspects, or if they were even questioned by police, but we know that police didn't believe Amanda's story anyway because of the red flags that they detected. So it's unclear if they really followed up on anything other than searching the lakes. To this day, this case remains unsolved. The family hired a private investigator hoping that they could find the key to all of this. But so far, there's nothing.

Right now, the reward sits at $100,000. As you can tell, the details are incredibly peculiar and police don't even have a clear suspect in mind. If you have any information regarding Courtney's case, please call the Lebanon County Detective Bureau at 717-228-4408. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you so much everyone and next week we'll have an all-new case for you guys to dive into. And you know what this new time is, it's time for the shout-outs.

Thank you so much to Madison in New York, Liz in New Hampshire and Brandy in Utah. And a huge thanks to Nurse J and Milesville, Minnesota. I hope that's how you say that. Thank you so much, Nurse J, you're a hero. Yep, fighting on the front line. And then a big thanks to Leanne and Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, and Zara and Los Angeles. Thank you so much to Annie and Kansas,

Christine and New Jersey, and five star in Dallas, Texas. And then we have Kelly and San Antonio, Texas, Sarah and San Diego and Kate and Seattle, Washington. And Kate is making bread during this quarantine girl, give me some. Thank you so much to Summer and Tampa, Florida, Erica and Central Illinois, and Evan Big Shoutout to you for working as well in North Carolina. And last but not least, we have Lara and Iceland, Jen and Ontario Canada, Amanda and Indianapolis Indiana, and Sarah and Sydney, Australia. Also, Big Shout's to our new patrons who subscribe to our Patreon, which is where you get bonus

episodes, head on over to patreon.com slash going west podcast to subscribe and get yourself some bonus episodes. Thank you so much to Hannah, Catherine, Joanna, Olivia, Ashley, Alexis, and Janay. And then we have Sheila, Rachel, Danielle, Tara, Dennis, Rianne, and Michael. You guys are fucking awesome. Thank you so much for helping out the show, and I hope you guys are enjoying those bonus episodes. We have a lot of fun putting them together.

Yeah, thank you so much everybody. If you have bonus episode suggestions or even just regular case suggestions, believe us a message, let us know. We love getting those kinds of things. We love hearing what you guys like to listen to and cases you guys want us to cover and also if you guys have any theories or you have any comments about this case make sure you head over to our Instagram and let us know at Going West Podcast and check out a Heath over on Twitter at Going West Pod. Spat your theories there too.

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