Hidden True Crime - Blue Barrel Killer: 2 Neighbors Speak Out!

Episode Date: July 23, 2024

*The interviews in this episode were originally recorded in October of 2022. The only edits made were to cut out connection issues.* This is a case Hidden True Crime has been following since the very beginning. If you're new to Timothy Haslett Jr and the Kansas City House of Horrors, begin here. We will be sharing many of our interviews as well as the all of the evidence we have uncovered from the Excelsior Springs, Missouri Kidnapping. About Hidden True Crime: Lauren Matthias was a television reporter for a decade and she and her husband, Dr. John Matthias, a forensic criminal psychologist, started Hidden True Crime in 2020 with their Season, 'Beyond the Veil,' a psychological deep dive into the doomsday murders of Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow. What started as a simple conversation at their dinner table became a captivating podcast. Join the dynamic duo of Dr. John Matthias, a forensic criminal psychologist, and Lauren Matthias, an investigative journalist, as they delve into the psychological facets of unthinkable crimes every week. Their unique perspectives and in-depth analysis offer a fresh take on true crime storytelling. Thank you for your support through sponsorships, subscribing, listening, and becoming a Patreon member at Patreon.com/HiddenTrueCrime Our Sponsors:* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/HIDDENTRUECRIME* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/HIDDENTRUECRIME* Check out Armoire and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://www.armoire.style* Check out Effecty and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://www.effecty.com* Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://happymammoth.comSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/hidden-a-true-crime-podcast1836/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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actually helped rescue this woman. Is that right, Sierra? It was actually, it was my grandma. As at work, my grandma was babysitting my almost two-year-old. and at my house. Take us through what happened then. This was yesterday at what time? What happened? About 745, 750 in the morning. A lady ran to my neighbor's house and knocked on the door and was asking for help.

My neighbor wouldn't let her in the house, but she called 911. And so she ran down to my house and knocked on the door. and when my grandma answered, she found a lady that had a collar around her neck. She could see ligature marks. And she was telling my grandma, I've been raped. I've been held captive.

Please help me. You have to help me. He's going to end up killing me. And so my grandma, she took a minute, being home with a baby. It took her a minute, but then she just knew she needed to help her. And so she brought her in and sat her down and covered her up. Okay, good. She brought her in.

realize that she really needed help. When you say a collar, what do you mean by a collar around her neck? She had a metal dog collar around her neck, which my grandma described as a collar. You normally see like on a pit bull for like bad dogs is what she said. It was pretty tight around the neck. Wow. No, my neighbor has been reporting it's a shot collar. My grandma said no.

It was just a metal collar. Okay. Okay. And then what happened? And she had, well, she had duct tape around her neck too, which we're guessing her mouth was probably duct tape. And we think she probably grabbed it and pulled it down when she escaped. Okay, okay. And then what did your grandmother do after that?

She brought her inside, took care of her, then what? She brought her in and she covered her up. And she could tell the girl is very hungry. So this is a woman then that's clearly been being held for a long time. She was hungry. Did she look malnourished? Yeah, so my grandma went and grabbed a couple packages of muffins and a bottle of water for her until the police arrived. They came in, they questioned her in my house, and my grandma said she knew every detail.

She told them exactly who did it, exactly what house she came from. She had made the comment. My friends didn't make it. He killed my friends. My friends didn't make it. So there are other victims and there are, so we're talking about murders as well? They haven't located any victims as far as we know right now, but she was pretty adamant about that her friends had been murdered by him.

Do we know how long she was held for by this, by, by Tim? She said she had been there since September. Since September. So for a long time. So what's going on right now in the neighborhood? Are they searching the house? Yes. They've been there.

The CSI units are there today. They've had the cadabs there again today. They got it taped off pretty good up there. But no other victims yet. We're still waiting for additional charges to come down again. They've seen some barrels. Some of the neighbors that live behind his house said that they've seen about a dozen barrels being brought out of his basement.

Really? And that's where she had been held captive at. She said he had kept her tied up in his basement. She said he left to take his son to school. And when he left, she took the opportunity to escape. And the school's only like maybe two minutes from the house. So she had a matter of like minutes up to maybe not even 10 minutes to get away. before he was back.

Really? Really. Wow. Did your grandmother, you know this man? He clearly has a child that he's taking to school. Was he well known in the neighborhood? No. No, nobody knew him. I've only seen him. One of my neighbors said he's lived there about three years. I've probably only seen him three, four times, maybe. I've only had one interaction with him. and he wasn't a very pleasant person. And so this woman made a run for it. And she was running from neighbor house to neighbor house.

Your grandmother let her in. Yes. What did your grandmother, what did she tell your grandmother? What else did she tell her your grandmother? She claimed she was pregnant. We're not sure if she's really pregnant. One thing we wondered is it may be the stress from being held captive,

that maybe her period stops, we're not really for sure if she's pregnant or not. Okay. Okay. And she said what we know now is sexual assault. Yes. That she claimed her friends didn't make it. We don't know what that means.

Yeah. What kind of barrels are they referring to being taken out? Are these barrels that the police brought in for evidence or barrels that were in his house that they're taking out? Everybody's guessing that they're barrels that they were taking out. They're big blue drawings. wrong. Wow. Wow. What else are you hearing from neighbors? Well, not a whole lot. Like, the only neighbor I've really talked to is the one that had called 911. They said that a tow truck driver came to tow his

truck away. And the tow truck driver made a, made the comment, he's been towing vehicles from that resident, like different vehicles the last couple months. Wow. Wow. Wow. And so, so with your, so I want to go over again her, what she looked like. She had duct tape around her neck. She had a collar around her neck. Yeah. She looked, she was hungry. Did your grandmother feed her at all or give her anything? Yeah. She gave her some muffins. With it being my house, my grandma just grabbed the first thing she she knew that was there. I have a big box of like the little packages of mini muffins. So my grandma just grabbed a bunch of those packages and gave them to her. What was she wearing?

She did my grandma didn't really go into detail. My neighbor claims that she had a trash bag on. And I asked my grandma today and she said no, she absolutely did not have a trash bag on. She did have clothes on. She described the shorts like I don't know if she had underwear on. She said it reminded her really short shorts, but said she wasn't clothes. Yeah. Yeah. People are asking where this is taking place. This is a suburb of Kansas City, Missouri. Is that correct? Excelsior Springs. Yeah, we're a small town off of Kansas City. Okay. And from what I've read in the news, I haven't ever been there before I've been to Kansas City. But from what I'm reading the news, this is a nice neighborhood. It's a family neighborhood. Is that how you'd explain it, Sierra? You said that you'd lived in the neighborhood for how long we lost you for a bit there again. Almost 30 years. Wow. Almost 30 years. I've lived in the house I live in now for. for 25. And I've been proud to grow up in excelsior. I was proud to raise my kids in excelsior until this. We'll get together when our connection is better. If you wouldn't mind, I'd love to do a recorded interview with you at a later time. But will you do us a favor

at Hidden True Crime and thank your grandmother for what she did? This is an unbelievably heartbreaking story and I just also want to commend this woman for escaping. It sounds like she made a daring and brave escape and I'm so grateful for your grandmother who realized the situation and let her in. Is there anything else you want to tell us at this moment, what's going on or anything else we need to know? I don't know of anything right now. There is a lot of rumors flying around on Facebook and, you know, a lot of neighbors that live around that house that are putting out information that's definitely not true or doesn't seem to be true from the way she talked. Okay. Okay. Also, and then, yeah, one last question, actually, was it just him and his son who lived there? Was there anyone else in the house that we know?

As far of, as I know, it's just him and his son. I had never seen the little boy there, but I have sources that work with the school district that said, yes, his son lived there with him. Okay. And his name is Tim Haslett, and he is behind bars right now. Yes. They captured him. I actually wasn't home. I must have not been home when it happened, but I have a friend that said she's seen the guns drawn and his truck was parked on my street. That's where it was towed from. So I'm guessing the police were on it very fast. And I had heard from parents that their kids go to that school. The police were down. in the kid drop-off line waiting for him. And so I'm guessing they probably caught him when he was dropping his son off.

All right. All right. Okay. Wow. And how old exactly is this son? Elementary school it sounds? Eight years old. Eight years old.

Eight years old. My goodness. And honestly, where mine goes, I want to know whose son he is. You know, like how long is this been going on and what do we know? There's clearly a lot to find out about. this story. So I want everyone to know Hidden True Crime is covering this story. We're on this story. Sierra, it is so nice to meet you. I'm so grateful you to talk to our community. We are a community that cares very much about the victims and the heroes in cases and about

domestic violence. That's what our focus is. So again, thank your grandmother. Thank you for helping. Let's be in touch. And when we get some better connection, and let's have an additional interview and we'll be continuing to follow the story and please please keep our community in touch um or in in the loop thank you okay thank you for all you done all right we'll talk to you later uh-huh okay bye mom can you tell me a story sure once upon a time a mom needed a new car was she brave she was tired mostly but she went to corbana.com and found a great car at a great price no secret treasure map required did you have to find a dragon nope she bought it 100% online, from her bed actually.

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met him one time. One time. All right. Tell us what you did notice about him, though, because you'd come across him a few times? Well, when I first moved here, I've been here three years. He was here when I got here in the first year he worked and, you know, I just didn't pay much attention. Just noticed that he was by himself a lot and had a little boy that came over from time to time. But like in the last year and a half to two years, he's been home a lot. I just think that because of his truck was home. Apparently he worked out of town sometimes. But in the last year, he's been home a lot. I I would say he did not work. And his little boy, who is like six or seven, was there like every other weekend or sometimes longer.

I just saw them outside. But that's very much to himself. I never saw anybody over there, but his son. Okay. And his son was often playing outside, it sounds like. Is that accurate? Yes. Whenever his son was out, the dad was out working on the truck.

I have a view to the back of the house. and the driveway. So the front of the house faces the other way. So he would work on his truck a lot. Also in the last year, he's gotten a drone. I've noticed. So whenever he's outside, he uses the drone. He works on his truck.

He recently got a trampoline this summer. And so him and his little boy were outside a little more. And the dog, that's it. That's actually a really interesting tidbit about the drone, that he would fly the drone a lot. that he was home a lot doing that. Makes you wonder what he was looking at or where he was flying. How long had that been going on, the drone flying?

Probably about six months. But I'll tell you what I did notice too in the last couple years was wrecked cars. There would always be, not always, okay, probably about 15 in the last two years of cars. They were all like the same model, like a geostorm. geo metro kind of smaller car parked in the back of his driveway or even lined up sometimes there was up to three of them at a time that were wrecked usually the fender or bumper were off laying on top of the car i'd say 90% of the time and they would stay there sometimes a week sometimes up to three months and someone a tow truck would come and get them and so that happened that was probably about

15 different cars and i don't know i just assumed that was kind of something he did on the side or some kind of business. I don't know what was going on there. Sure. Right. The things you assume and then you look back and you wonder. Yeah. Exactly. Right. And so, and we had heard this, that there was a tow truck coming to tow cars a lot. This might be part of that. Did you see the tow truck a lot? Yeah, like maybe every three months, maybe, something like that. Okay. A cars were there. I'd never, I mean, winter, summer, spring, whatever, that was always happening. Okay. Would you see him doing a lot of construction? We learned from the probable cause today, of course, that, or not today, excuse me, yesterday when it came out, that we learned that he built the room in his basement. Did you see him working on construction?

No. What I did see usually was him working on his truck, but I felt like he worked on a lot of things right outside. of his garage, which his truck was kind of there in the garage, but he never opened the garage all the way. He would open it like this much, enough to crawl under. And I just kind of deal. So I'm like, okay, because it looked kind of sketchy over there. So I assumed he couldn't get the garage door all the way up, you know. So in other words, he would only open the garage door partially, and then he would roll out or kind of sneak out underneath the garage door. Yeah.

And you weren't thinking, of course, that he was holding hostages in there. You were thinking, oh, my gosh. I thought this guy just lived by himself, worked on cars, just kept to himself. I just thought he was probably sketchy in there. I mean, no, I did not have a clue. I've never heard, like, loud music, never seen him drink a beer, smoke, let alone hear any screaming or anything from there, really. outside of his dog barking, that's it. Huh.

And, yeah, that's fascinating. Nothing that stood out. And, yeah, Blue Skies mentioned you probably thought you had a hoarder garage situation or something. Was there a lot of garbage in his yard? Did you notice that at all? Well, the yard, like, always need to be mowed. And it was always kind of, he had a corner lot. In the back of it, it was kind of an L-shaped.

So no one can really see the. back of this L. Like you can see the back and there's another area which I never could see. But there was usually a lot of like plywood stacked up, but it looked old and rained on and just like trash in his like area up by the garage. But and I never really went around the front of the house. I never even left my house that way. So I was just always kind of came in the back of his place. So I mean, I went by his house a few times in the front of it. Yeah, I had some, you know, miscellaneous stuff out front, kind of more like a hoarder kind of vibe, but not a lot of wood or, you know, construction kind of stuff. And again, he had a child there. And so it seems like

he's a single father. And you mentioned it didn't seem like he was working. And that was maybe the past year, would you say? Yes. And actually, actually a year and a half maybe. And I got hurt in June. So, and I usually work all the time and I've been home. I'm waiting to get the surgery back then. So June, July, August, and September, I've been pretty much home to work the first week of September. And I was all the time like going on my front porch and sitting out there for a few minutes and coming back in. I had a spinal injury. So actually in July was the first time. I saw him. I didn't know his name was Tim. And his son was jumping on a trampoline they had gotten not too long ago.

So this was in July. I walked over there because I knew all my other neighbors. I had never met him. So over there, he was sitting in a chair by the trampoline, but still out there. And the little boy was jumping, probably like six or seven years old. I said, hi, I've been here three years. I'm your neighbor. I've never met you.

My name's Missy. And he just loudly grunted at me like, what? I mean, it was. I could hardly hear what he said, but I felt immediately this pretty dark vibe. I was like, okay. And the kid was just, the little boy was just, hey, how are you doing? You know, happy and talking to me. And the reason I went over there, too, because I noticed he had cut his hair and shaved his beard a little bit and he had mowed his long.

I don't know. I felt like, okay, maybe this is a good time. Plus, I'd never met him. Sure. So after that, I talked with a little boy, and I just said, said, okay, take care. And he never said another word. He gave me the look like, lady, get out of here, man. You know, I mean, so I just walked back over and that was the only real interaction I've had with him. Okay. Yeah. And probably after that, you didn't feel inclined

to continue trying so hard to get to know him. No, no, no. The house is boarded up, chain link fences around, and they're not telling you a lot. Is there anything else that neighbors know or what you're hoping to find out soon? You know, I've heard so many things, a variety of different things from different sources. And, you know, they haven't really told us anything. When I woke up Friday morning, my son and daughter and all actually happened to be in town. We were here Friday morning and we heard Aries is the dog. That's really the only time I heard him talk was he'd yell at Aries.

He was getting taken by animal control. Ari's was only outside his dog whenever the guy was outside. So I kind of walked over to the police. I was like, what's going on? And they're like, I said, why is the dog being taken? Because he's never been a problem. And he said, well, that's just part of an issue we have going on. And so then I slowly found out that there have been several victims.

And apparently the girl that came out of the house had been in there since September. and she said many of her friends didn't get out. That's what we've heard as well. We interviewed Ciara Tharp, your neighbor, Saturday, and she implied that. But, you know, a law enforcement I do want to share with everyone has not yet made a statement on if there are additional victims, but that is sort of what people are concerned about and wondering about.

I agree. I don't think you build a home in your basement to hold someone for one month either. It feels like he had further. plans, whatever those are. I, yeah, it's just a very, definitely eerie vibe here now. I mean, it should have been before, but you're just, you didn't know and you would think you would pick up on something. But, I mean, he's very private.

And I feel like when people want to, you know, be sneaky and hide things, they're going to do it. I mean, I found out that he rented the home and that he was kind of behind on his rent. These are all things that I've, you know, heard through neighbors and. I'm not sure exactly what happened. But I do know his son was in there when she was in there. And that's so disturbing for that little guy that I hope he gets some immediate help is kind of what I want to see come out of it. Right. Absolutely.

Absolutely. To clarify, he was working perhaps more or his car was gone more. And then you noticed in the past year he was home more, which would imply he didn't have a job and that he was fly. a drone a lot. Yes. Okay. The drone flying is interesting. And then again,

don't we all exit our garage the same way, right? We open the door a little bit and then we all roll out. No, I'm just kidding. We don't do that. But, you know, if you had a garage that was messed up, which that garage did look messed up. So I was like, okay. Yeah.

Interesting. Very interesting, yes. Thank you so much. Is there anything else you want to share right? now, Missy, we really appreciate all the information you have as we follow this and definitely want to keep the public apprised, especially because the law enforcement in your area isn't saying anything right now. And I know that there are many questions. Anything else you want to say right now? I think that's it. Just that it's just a very dark vibe here. It's just crazy. And I wish that I would

have heard something or I do know well one neighbor down the road said he did go knock on his door to return something that fell out of his truck this was a few months back and I asked the gentleman I said what fell off his truck he said it was a huge thing of hand cleaner so he went to the front door which I'd never seen he went to Tim's front door and knocked and knocked and he had seen him come home with his kid so he knew he was in there so he said I just left and went down the sidewalk and He opened the door and was like, what? Why are you here? He was like, I just saw something fall out of your truck.

I left it at the front door, and he just took it and slammed the door. Huh. So something fell out of his truck. It was hand sanitizer. According to your neighbor, he tried to take it back and it didn't work out, but you try to return it. Very interesting. No, right now, yeah, that's all I have. Hey, thank you.

Let's be in touch. Thank you so much for your information. and we'll keep you posted as well as we learn more. Thank you, Missy, so much. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Most people don't realize how much their personal information is being bought and sold every day. Data brokers are making billions, pulling details about you from public records and the Internet,

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