Money Crimes with Nicole Lapin - Kevin Collins: The Last Walk Home

Episode Date: August 25, 2026

On February 10, 1984, 10-year-old Kevin Collins left basketball practice at St. Agnes School in San Francisco and began the short, familiar walk home through the Sunset District. Multiple witnesses recalled seeing him speaking with an unknown man near a schoolyard. He never made it home. Despite one of the largest searches in San Francisco history — roadblocks, helicopters, hundreds of volunteers — no physical trace of Kevin was ever found. A known sex offender was investigated for years and stood trial in the 1990s, but was acquitted for lack of evidence. The Collins family, and an entire city, never got their answer.For more, follow The Final Hours wherever you listen to podcasts: https://pod.link/1872821250If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Scams, Money, & Murder to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Scams, Money, & Murder is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of Reddit, Crime House 24/7, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Murder True Crime Stories, and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

Hi listeners, it's Vanessa. Are you the type to fall down an internet rabbit hole and not come up for hours? You'll love Crimes of Reddit, a new crimehouse original with Sabrina Deanna Roga and Alexis Linkletter. Every week, one host brings real true crime stories from Reddit, while the other reacts completely blind. No prep, no spoilers, then they swap. It's the feeling of sending your group chat a threat at 2 a.m. that starts with, You have to see this. Except Sabrina and Alexis.

are in the chat with you. Follow Crimes of Reddit on Apple Podcasts and Spotify or subscribe at Crimes of Reddit Pod on YouTube. This is Crime House. You're in a kitchen. It could be any household in 1984 that's serving breakfast. There's a milk carton on the table. And from the side of it, a face stares back at you. It's a 10-year-old Caucasian boy. In grayscale, you can see his big, gap-tooth grin. His freckles, his smiley, squinted eyes and bowl cut. An image captured in much simpler times.

The facts beneath the picture fill in other details about him. He's 4'6 and 72 pounds with green eyes and brown hair. He was last seen wearing a San Francisco Giants jacket over his school uniform, a white short-sleeved dress shirt, a dark green sweater, brown corduroy pants, and beige Nike sneakers. He was born on January 24, 1974, but was last seen on February 10, 1984, two and a half weeks after his 10th birthday. His name is Kevin Collins. That year, his face was everywhere, in fridges and on tables all across America, and yet he was nowhere at the same time.

For 42 years, America has been searching for him, and for 42 years, there's tons of questions. that have gone unanswered. Every year, over half a million people go missing, and that's just in the United States alone. Most of those stories barely get a headline. Some don't even get a tip line. And when cases do get media attention, we only get the broad strokes.

But for those of us who have lived these true crime cases, we know the devil's in the details. This is the final hours, a crime house original powered by Pave Studios. I'm Sarah Turney. And I'm Courtney Nicole. Every Monday, Sarah and I will be looking at the final hours of someone's disappearance to see if there was anything hiding in plain sight.

Each episode all offer insight on what those close to the victim might have experienced. Courtney will use her expertise to give more context into the investigation itself. Crimehouse exists because of listeners like you. Want even more? Join Crimehouse Plus and get every episode of the final hours and the rest of the crime house lineup ad-free and early. plus at least two bonus episodes every month. To join, go to CrimehousePlus.com.

Or if you listen on Apple Podcasts, tap Try Free at the top of the final hour's show page. As always, this show is made and recorded by humans, not AI. This episode, we're discussing the disappearance of Kevin Collins. On February 10, 1984, 10-year-old Kevin went to basketball practice in a San Francisco Catholic school. But instead of catching a ride home in his coach's van with the other boys, like usual, he decided to take the city bus, only he never got on. Someone else got to him first, and to this day, nobody knows who that someone was or where they took him. Hey, Ontario, come on down to BetmGM Casino and see what our newest exclusive the Price's

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Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your. your gambling or someone close to you. Please contact Connects Ontario at 1866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor, free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Kevin Collins changed the way people looked for missing children. Literally. As one of the first milk carton kids, Kevin's face could be seen at breakfast tables across America,

even though he never made it home for dinner. While his picture served as a constant painful reminder of his absence, it raised awareness in those who had no idea how close to home a missing person could be. Unfortunately, that still wasn't enough to bring him back. But before we talk about the impact Kevin made on others, let's talk about the little boy himself. It's 1984. 10-year-old Kevin Collins lives with his traditionally large Irish Catholic family

in San Francisco's Western Edition neighborhood. In a five-bedroom apartment on Sutter Street, Kevin's parents, 44-year-old's Anne and David, raised 10 children total, eight biological children, a foster child, and a living cousin. Of the biological children, the two girls were born first, 19-year-old Laura and 17-year-old Michelle, then the eldest brothers Michael and Stephen, then the four youngest brothers who were inseparable, 11-year-old Gary, 10-year-old Kevin, 9-year-old Kenneth, or Kenny, and eight-year-old Brian.

On most nights, the whole family would crowd around the table and eat dinner together. It was a ritual. They'd say grace and talk about their days. Kevin's aunt, Jackie D.C., remembers the joyful, energetic sounds that filled the Collins home. The roughhousing, the laughter, them sliding down the banisters. Those were the days when kids could play hide-and-seek in the streets and nobody worried. Unlike some of his siblings when he was out in the world, Kevin often stayed quiet and didn't say much, but he was incredibly lively amongst his siblings.

In fact, his uncle considered him rambunctious, and his older siblings thought Kevin was the toughest of the four youngest brothers. They had all sorts of neighborhood misadventures, like fishing coins out of the wishing pond at Golden Gate Park and using them to buy candy. Kevin loved doing things with his brothers. He joined the basketball team with Gary, who was one year older, and he got dirty on the school yard fighting to protect his younger brothers. He knew what it was like to be bullied. And that wasn't Kevin's only worry at school. Kevin was dyslexic, so a reading and spelling took him extra work.

He was taking special classes to work through it, though. But as he got closer to Kevin's 10th birthday, his older sisters noticed that he started coming into his own. He was gaining confidence and independence. This birthday felt monumental to him. Growing up, for me, the longest time, it was just me and my older sister. She was always the popular one's era, so I kind of always felt like I lived in her shadow. And one thing that always bothered me was that I was always revert to as Ashley's sister,

which really bugged me back in the day because I'm like, I have my own name. My name is Courtney, but I was always Ashley's sister. But because it was just us too and our little brothers weren't born for a very long time after this, we became incredibly close. And there's honestly nothing I wouldn't do to protect her. Well, Ashley's sister. Just kidding. Oh, Courtney. I mean, that really sounds kind of like the reverse of my childhood. I was the youngest, right? So my oldest brother was like 18 years older than me. And then here I come along at the last minute. But really, Kevin's childhood reminds me a lot of my own, just a house full of six kids running around with like complete chaos at times. It was like the best thing at times, but also kind of the worst when all the siblings picked on you. So I feel like I totally get it. On Friday, February 10th, 1984, Kevin gets an A on his spelling test. This is a big deal and something he's really proud of, especially with his dyslexia.

On a less fun note, Kevin's 11-year-old brother Gary stays home sick that day, which means Kevin has to stick around for basketball after school alone. Practice wraps up at 6 p.m. And Kevin leaves the school gym in his St. Agnes uniform at 6.10. Usually Kevin joins the carpool home with his coat. Paul Fontana. But when he doesn't hop in the van at 615, the coach assumes Kevin's taking the public bus home, which he does sometimes. And the coach is right. Kevin's friends spot him waiting for the bus at Oak and Masonic, the nearest stop to the school. That night, the Collins family

gathers around the dinner table, but Kevin's seat is empty, and Dan starts to worry. At 7.30 p.m., she calls Coach Fontana to let him know Kevin isn't home yet, and he's completely taking in a back. He confirms Kevin was at practice that afternoon, but for some reason he never got into the coach's fan. And that's when the Collins family really starts to panic. Sarah, there's not a lot information in the hours leading up to Kevin's disappearance, which we know it's so crucial to know what is going on in those final moments. So to not have a lot of information about that and then now like so many hours in past, it's just frustrating. Yeah, I mean, I agree. Obviously, I wish that we knew more, but I also think this is kind of a sign of the times. You know, back in the 80s,

I think kids were given a lot more trust and independence than they are now. And I don't think it's right or wrong. I don't think the parents maliciously allowed their children to have more independence than they should. It was just kind of a sign of the times. You know, a kid getting home from school using a few different methods doesn't seem crazy to me. Yeah, and like they mentioned, you know, Kevin was known to sometimes take the bus home and not join that carpool. So when you do have that like a little bit of variation, it can be hard to like really keep track of like what somebody's doing. And in this case, it didn't really seem unusual that he didn't join that carpool. Like he did sometimes take the bus and that really didn't seem out of the ordinary.

So I don't know. When hours go by and he's stolen on at the dinner table, like that must have been really, really terrifying for his family. And then to come to find out when they talked to his coach and his coach is like, well, that shouldn't be like he should have gotten on the bus and gone home. Like, that is just another terrifying thing to hear. Yeah. I mean, I think getting that second confirmation from another adult that you should be worried is really helpful in these situations. Because I think you can almost gaslight yourself into thinking that everything's okay. But it seems that they were pretty on the ball with this one.

The Collins think Kevin might be wandering around the neighborhood. So Kevin's father David and older brother Stephen head over to the school. It's just over a mile away in the Hade Ashbury District. They retrace what his steps would have been, assuming he was heading home. During the search, they run into a family friend who says he saw Kevin at 6.40 p.m. that evening. He was in his St. Agnes uniform, and he also says he saw him waiting for the bus at the corner of Masonic and Oak, the nearest stop to the school. When David and Stephen can't find Kevin by 10.30 p.m., they drive to the police station.

They make the incorrect assumption that he's just out playing with friends and will eventually come home on his own. So they tell McCollins that they won't be able to help until he's been missing for three days. David is rightfully frustrated by the police's refusal to help. So that night, he goes back out to keep searching the Hade Ashbury section of San Francisco himself. Meanwhile, Anne waits anxiously by the phone, hoping anyone will call with News of Kevin. But the phone doesn't ring, at least not for the first few days. But when the tips do start rolling in, many of them point in the same direction. On Monday, February 13, 1984,

three days after Kevin's disappearance, the San Francisco police finally meet with Anne and David at their apartment. They're still suggesting that Kevin ran away, which upsets Anne. She can't see any reason for him to do that. But regardless of the theory, the police do kick into gear now. They launch a ground search,

go door to door talking to neighbors, they canvass the area of the school in Haiti, Ashbury and interview friends, family, and classmates. The whole Collins family helps with the investigation. They print emergency flyers, and Kevin's father David plasters them all over town. They turn the St. Agnes rectory, the administrative offices serving the parish's church and school, into the volunteer headquarters for the search. They install telephones hoping someone will call in with a lead. While the San Francisco police continue to canvas the neighborhood, the phone lines at St. Agnes start to ring. People who believe they saw Kevin the night he

disappeared keep calling in tips. They get passed on to the police. One of his classmates says that he also saw Kevin at the bus stop on Masonic and Oak the night he disappeared. But he claims that he wasn't alone. A white man stood by him with a giant black dog, maybe a great dane. Someone else tells the police that they saw Kevin further up the block from the bus stop, talking to the same man with a dog outside of an apartment. The police go to this home on Tuesday, February 14th, four days after Kevin's disappearance. They knock on the door hoping whoever's inside

can tell them something about Kevin or where he might be. And when the man who lives there opens the door and sees the cops, he says this chilling line, quote, I've been expecting you, end quote. This is Dan Therian, a man in his late 20s or 30s. He does have a dog that fits the description and happens to live about a block away from the bus stop. In their initial interview, Dan volunteers up some information that surprises the police.

He admits he's been arrested in the past. That immediately makes Dan a person of interest. But there's one more person to look into at the house. Dan has a roommate, a 34-year-old man who does not have a police record. The police asked to look around the property, and Dan and his roommate give them permission. Investigators go through the house, basement and backyard, but they don't find anything suspicious. Dan claims he has no knowledge of Kevin's

disappearance, and there's no evidence Kevin has been inside of his house. So the police leave, but they dig deeper into Dan's background, and they find the arrest he referenced, which happened just over two years earlier in 1981. Dan was arrested in Fisherman's Wharf, four and a half miles from Hade Ashbury, for kidnapping a little boy from a store. Thankfully, the victim was able to escape and get the attention of a police officer in a squad car, who then found Dan and took him into custody. Dan promptly skipped his bail, at which point he was re-arrested and sentenced to six months in jail. He's been out for about two years at this point, but of course this past conviction makes him even more of a suspect. So the next day, Wednesday, February 15th, 1984,

police take the mugshot from Dan's previous arrest and put it in a photo spread. They show the two witnesses who saw Kevin with the man that night. But neither can pick Dan out of the lineup. After that, the police stopped considering Dan Therian a person of interest. Sarah, can I just say how mad I am that the police didn't look for a 10-year-old little boy for three entire days? I don't think that's right in any case, but like a little boy, a 10-year-old little kid, they cannot take care of themselves over a three-day period with no parents there to help them or like no adults there to help them. I'm so mad about that. That's wild. I mean, forget the 48-hour rule, right? The fake rule that we hear about all the time. Three days is insane. I would have lost my mind. I know. I know this was a different time, but three days, no. I feel like that's so unacceptable. And honestly, I think they gave up on Dan way too easily. Like, you've got a known child predator basically volunteering information about his past right away. That's a huge red flag to me. It kind of felt like he was oversharing. to get ahead of the investigation.

I just think that they're, like, ethically, they could have kept interviewing people, like, who knew this guy, tracked down more witnesses, look deeper into his timeline. Like, they could have done so many other things than just shown a picture to the two witnesses. I mean, one of them was a child as well who saw this man. There are just so many different factors

that could, like, alter someone's memory. I just feel like there are just so many different things that they could have done to keep investigating this guy rather than throw in the towel right away. He is a child predator. And the fact that they just kind of like wash their hands of him immediately, that does not make sense to me. No, me either.

I mean, I get it. Like, you have to take those witnesses into account. If they say that's not the guy, you have to consider that. But to just take that and drop it seems crazy to me. Well, back at the St. Agnes rectory, the phone is ringing off the hook. And David is still out there searching relentlessly for his son. But the hopelessness is taking its toll on Anne. She doesn't leave the house for about two weeks after Kevin goes missing.

She doesn't want to miss his phone call if it does come through. With Anne struggling, her daughter's Laura and Michelle take care of their three youngest brothers, assuming a more parental role. They drive the boys to school and help with their homework. They also cook and clean. They don't let their little brothers out of their sight. This breaks my heart because I see it all the time, all the time in missing persons cases.

I mean, I did the same thing, you know, for my dad, I should say, when my sister went missing. I resumed all those roles that she did. I was cooking, I was cleaning. I was the new maternal figure of the house. And again, I just see it all the time. It's so heartbreaking. I know. I do think it's a lot more common than people realize for kids to step up and take care of their siblings or even their parents.

And these are just kids. They shouldn't have to suddenly grow up because of something like this. Seeing them recognize that their parents are struggling. and then they just naturally step in to take care of their younger siblings. There's just something incredibly sweet and selfless about that. I agree. And I think it's important to acknowledge that it doesn't seem like the parents like push this on their oldest daughters. I think naturally within a family, when you see somebody struggling, you want to step up and you want to help. So I don't want to put like any shade on these parents.

It seems like the kids just wanted to help out, which is completely understandable. And to your point, still heartbreaking. In the early months of Kevin's disappearance, his face starts showing up somewhere new, the sides of milk cartons. This was the beginning of something that would define missing children cases for the next decade. Around this time, the dairy industry was starting to band together on a groundbreaking idea, printing photos of missing kids on milk cartons so a child's face wasn't just seen in their own town.

It landed on breakfast tables across the country, and Kevin was one of the very first. Soon after he disappeared, his picture was on cartons nationwide. He became one of the original milk carton kids. Yeah, this is huge. It helps get Kevin's story out to the entire country. And his family is grateful for that. But of course, seeing a picture of their missing brother at the breakfast table every morning also serves as a painful reminder for his siblings.

At the same time, all the public attention helps motivate the family further. Not just for Kevin's case, but for other. families who are in a similar situation which is why David and Anne start to help others. In March 1984, one month after Kevin's disappearance, they establish a non-profit missing persons foundation. It's called the Kevin Collins Foundation for Missing Children. They install a 24-hour 1-800 hotline in their home. It's never off and neither are they. They start doing everything they can to keep Kevin's face and the faces of other missing children in the public eye. They set up booths at street fairs in different cities and show pictures of missing children.

They spend long days away from home and come back exhausted. They sleep only to get up and do it again the next morning. And that's not the only way they're getting Kevin's face out there. Four weeks after Kevin goes missing, on March 19, 1984, he's featured on the cover of Newsweek. We should also note that People Magazine has done a lot of great coverage on this case. and being on a lot of information about Kevin from the People magazine Investigates TV series episode on him. It's season four episode three without a trace.

I do think all attention is good attention in a missing person's case because the more people who know the better. But once rumors and speculations start spreading, that can be really hard to undo and it can absolutely hurt an investigation. So that being said, though, I also want to give another shout out to his parents because one month, only one month into Kevin's disappearance, they're setting up a foundation. I feel like that is so amazing to do because it's still early in their son's disappearance, in their own son's disappearance. That takes a lot of strength. And it's something that if I was ever in the situation, I don't know if I'd be able to do. So it's just amazing. Yeah. I mean, I think it goes back to experiencing true crime, right? Living inside of a true crime case, I think it forces you to see the gaps

in the system. And I see so many families just like that that want to fill. those gaps and just help. I think it's this natural inclination that they have, especially his parents seem very caring, right? They're taking in a foster child, they're taking in a cousin. They seem to really care about kids, so all of this makes sense to me. But of course, it's a painful reminder. Like, I always say that media pressure is a double-edged sword. It's bittersweet. It helps in a lot of ways, but it continues to cut open that wound. But I think so many families are happy to do it because the pain, for example, I'll just speak for me, right? The pain I feel about my sister going missing is like nothing compared to what she had to go through. So I'm willing to make that sacrifice.

Every time I see a video of her, it hurts, but I'm also so grateful that her story is out there. And I think the last thing I wanted to say was just like bring back the kids on the milk cartons or the plastic gallons or whatever right now. I think that was such a fantastic program, and I would love to see it come back. I covered a case actually on my own TikTok a little while ago about a missing child case who got featured on a milk carton. And I looked into like one of the reasons why that stopped. And one of the reasons, which I found super interesting, is that it was scaring little kids. And I felt like from the research I found, little kids were really the only ones that would kind of look at these milk cartons sitting on like their kitchen tables.

And it like instilled this fear in them. And so that was one of the reasons eventually why. the campaign ended. Yeah, you know, I think it might have just been like a sign of the times, right? Back when this program was happening, it's like kids were watching Saturday morning cartoons and going out and playing all day, right? And now they're watching like horrific things on the internet. Let's be real. Like most kids get some type of access to the internet, watch some horrible stuff. So I feel like acknowledging that children go missing and having that conversation with your kids, centering around safety versus fear, I think it's a bit, easier to get away with today. No matter how much exposure the case gets, it seems to be going nowhere. Until 17 months after Kevin's disappearance, when something seemingly unrelated happens.

On Sunday, June 2, 1985, an Asian male walks out of a lumberyard and hardware store in South San Francisco with an item he hasn't paid for. It's a vice, a mechanical device with two jaws that tightened to hold something in place. He drops it in the trunk of a Honda, parked outside in the lot, and just before the police arrive, he escapes on foot. But the officers find a different man sitting at the wheel of that car, a bearded Caucasian

who says his name is Scott Stapley. He shows them ID, but the photograph looks off. They search the car and find the vice. Scott tries to get out of the situation by paying for the stolen item, but there's something else in the car that he can't buy his way out of. A 22-caliber pistol with an illegal silencer attached. So they arrest Scott on theft and weapons charges. In the interrogation room, Scott asked for a glass of water, a paper, and a pen. The investigator gets him all three things. He drinks and writes a note.

Then, after a few minutes, he starts convulsing before going into a coma. The detective reads the note and learns the man's name isn't Scott steeply. It's Leonard Lake. And his accomplice, who stole the vice, is Charles Ing. Leonard had a cyanide pill hidden under the lapel of his shirt and took it with his water. He remains in a coma for four days and then dies on Thursday, June 6th. Within days and with Charles still on the run, investigators do a more thorough search of Leonard's vehicle. They find paperwork with an address in Wilseyville, California, a small unincorporated community in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

So the police go to the address. They find a cabin in the middle of nowhere with a workshop. out back, and when they go inside the workshop, they see nothing short of an absolute nightmare. There's a small room with a mattress on the floor. The police can tell instantly that this cell was used to hold prisoners. And to make matters worse, there are restraints and torture devices spread around the room. The police also find photographs. They appear to be of the victims who were held in this dungeon. When the police move on to search the grounds outside surrounding the cabin, they discover evidence of a murder mill.

Scattered around the yard and at several burn sites, the police uncover pounds and pounds of human fragments. This much bone has to belong to multiple victims. Detectives also find a hand-drawn map. It leads them to a spot on the property where they dig up two five-gallon buckets. One contains envelopes with names and ID cards. Police think they belong to Leonard and Charles' many victims.

The other bucket contains, two home video recordings of Leonard and Charles torturing and sexually assaulting two female victims. It also holds handwritten journals that Leonard kept from 1983 to 1984. They detail how Leonard met Charles by placing an ad in a survivalist magazine and how they partnered up to live out sadistic torture fantasies in a place they believed no one would find them. The journals also reveal that they abducted some of their victims from the hate Ashbury neighborhood, where Kevin Collins went missing. In 1984 and 1985, Leonard and Charles traveled between San Francisco and Wilseyville to look for

victims. They kidnapped their prey from the streets, not unlike how Kevin disappeared. So as this horrific story fills the headlines, detectives and prosecutors' ears start to perk up. The San Francisco police called the Calaveras County Sheriff's Department and asked if Kevin Collins could be one of their victims. It seems possible. Many of their victims are still unidentified. But at that point, it's just a theory. One Kevin's parents haven't heard yet. That is until later in June 1985, when a journalist calls Anne and asks her if she thinks her son's bones are in the yard of these two serial killers. That's the first time she ever hears the connection. Sarah, have you ever had this happen to you where you find out shocking news?

like this from either the internet or like a reporter rather than the police? Oh, yeah. When my dad was first arrested in 2008 for all the bombs and explosives, I didn't know that there were any bombs in the house until I saw the 9 o'clock news. And they said it was the largest gun and explosive bust in Phoenix history. So, yeah, I can vouch that this is like the worst way to find out. And it happens all the time. I hear it from families all the time that they hear certain details from. the news. And I think it's so wildly inappropriate and traumatizing for no good reason. I do feel 100% like it is the police's responsibility to notify the family before it gets

to a reporter because there shouldn't be any reason why something like this would get leaked to a reporter first other than, you know, rather than a family member. Yeah, and let's be real. A lot of the times journalists are looking for that first reaction. They want that shocked reaction. So they're not always breaking it to in a way that is trauma sensitive. And I think that's where the police need to step in. At the same time, the police are working to analyze the remains. They identify six adults and two children. But there have to be more based on the sheer number of bones.

However, none of it can be linked to Kevin. Neither can any other evidence found at the nightmare compound. After a month of unearthing and analyzing evidence, On Saturday, July 6th, 1985, Charles Inc. is arrested, and not for any of the crimes you'd expect, including anything against Kevin. Instead, it's for shoplifting food from a market in Alberta, Canada. After another false start, Anne and David keep traveling around the country to raise awareness for Kevin's case. Meanwhile, there's seven remaining kids are back home. Laura has been pitching in with a nonprofit, but steps back from public-facing work to work in.

exclusively on taking care of her brothers. Some of the other siblings struggle with their mental health, leading them to drop out of school. The three youngest no longer feel safe leaving the house. And all of the Collins kids have nightmares for years. I have never experienced losing a sibling, so I cannot pretend to know what that feels like. But Sarah, I know this is something you've unfortunately lived through.

Is there anything, if you're comfortable, that you'd want to share about what that's been. like for you. I mean, honestly, I think it's just like however you feel about it, as long as you're not hurting yourself or anyone else, is correct. There's no wrong way to grieve the loss of a sibling. They, I think siblings have this like unique experience of all these shared, lived experiences. You know, usually, right, growing up in the same house, sometimes the same bedroom like me and my sister, you know, just the top bunk above me, that is an experience that you cannot replicate, with a best friend, with a parent, with a cousin,

having somebody live with you 24-7 is just such a unique and intimate experience that sibling loss, I think, has no guidebook. And again, as long as you're not hurting yourself or someone else, I think those feelings are valid. Everything I'm seeing of this Collins family is valid. I can imagine it's unlike any other kind of loss. I mean, not to get too emotional,

but you're born around the same time. You grew up together, and you're supposed to get old together. And when that's ripped away, especially when a sibling just disappears like Kevin, you're suddenly forced into a life that you never expected or even just wanted to live. I can't imagine how much fear that creates too, because if your sibling can just vanish, the world probably never feel safe again. And that's just something that is really hard to move on from. And I mean, I can imagine for a lot of people, you don't move on from it. You just live with it. Yeah. I mean, the constant reminders are there. And I think, again, that goes back to living inside of a true crime case. It never leaves your brain.

You know, at every holiday, you're thinking, what if they were here? At every major milestone in your life, you're thinking what it would be like if they were there. It's something you cannot run away from. It's something that like therapy cannot erase. Of course, it helps with like coping mechanisms and dealing with it. But I think grief is often a lifelong thing. This case is a good example of how people cope with loss in different ways, and they aren't always compatible. The kids are having a hard time at home, but they're focusing back inward on taking care of each other. In the meantime, Anne and David channeled their energy outwardly to the foundation. But that doesn't mean the search for Kevin is over, because in 1986, another suspect crops up,

with the past just as devastating as the last. It's 1986. Two years after Kevin's disappearance, a 25-year-old man named John Dunkel gets sentenced to six years for committing a residential burglary in Rancho, Cordova, California. He's sent to the California State Men's Prison in San Luis Obispo. While he's there, a romantic relationship sparked between him and his cellmate, Charles Rice. John tells Charles that he's committed more crimes than just the one he's in for. Way worse crimes. John fatally stabbed three preteen boys.

Hoping to get a deal on his own manslaughter charges, Charles brings this information to the authorities. He tells them that John admitted to killing two 12-year-old boys and one 15-year-old boy in Northern California between 1981 and 1984. Now, this isn't a total shock to authorities because for a while now, John's been the primary suspect in three murders. The police ask John if he'll talk to them. He won't. But Charles tells John he has friends at the FBI who can help him. So he agrees to speak with them instead. On Friday, October 3, 1986, two FBI agents interviewed John,

and he gives a full confession to three murders. He knows the names and ages of all three victims, and he walks the agents through what he did to each of them. But that's where the FBI's report ends. Three victims. none of them Kevin Collins, though later he mentions a fourth. John tells his cellmate and a second inmate

that there was one more, a victim whose name and age he doesn't know. He says he threw this victim off the Golden Gate Bridge to make it look like a suicide. That same account later turns up in a psychiatric evaluation of John, but it never makes it into the FBI's file. Still, when San Francisco police hear about it,

they can't help but wonder if that fourth victim could have been Kevin Collins. After all, John targeted young boys by picking them up off the street and offering them rides. And around the time Kevin disappeared, John was briefly employed by the IRS in San Francisco, not far from where Kevin was last seen. Considering all this, the San Francisco police visit John in prison while he awaits his murder trial. They hope he'll talk again and give them more details on that unidentified victim. But even though John has already confessed to the three murders to the FBI,

he won't talk to the San Francisco PD, so nobody ever comes up with evidence tying John to the disappearance and possible murder of Kevin Collins. John was convicted and sentenced to death for two of the murders, and years later, to life without parole when he pleaded guilty to the third.

As of this recording, he's incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison in California. Four years after the disappearance of Kevin Collins in 1988, Anne makes a tough decision. The foundation is taking her attention away from her family, and they need her, so she quits. David feels like she's giving up, which changes the dynamic between them, and they keep growing farther apart. A year later, in 1989, Anne and David get divorced.

Their eldest daughter, Laura, who's been taking care of the kids, isn't surprised. She's seen what a toll losing a child takes on a marriage. It's a heavy burden for the entire family to bear. Before they know it, a decade has passed. In 1994, Kevin's family still has no answers, no body, and no place to mourn. So on Thursday, February 10, 1994, the 10th anniversary, the call-ins go out into the rain at the Holy Cross Cemetery and hold a memorial service. They dedicate a marble bench to Kevin, but they don't give up the search.

In 2013, 29 years after Kevin's disappearance, The Collins family is still putting a lot of pressure on the San Francisco police to figure out what happened to Kevin. And that's when the department reopens the case as a cold case homicide. The detectives who take over look at the disappearance with fresh sets of eyes, and they see one really solid lead established in the first few days. They can't look past the fact that the last time anyone saw Kevin, he stood with a man and his giant dog, Dan Therian. the person the police interviewed in 1984, four days after Kevin's disappearance.

Even though Dan had kidnapped a seven-year-old boy at Fisherman's Wharf, the San Francisco PD never followed up with him. But now, detectives have tools that help them dig deeper into his background. It turns out the man they called Dan Therian used at least five different aliases, and he faced other charges that the San Francisco police had no idea about the last time they looked into him. He was also wanted for kidnapping and assaulting two 13-year-old boys in Canada. He skipped bail on those charges and fled the country, moving to the Bay Area. He was then registered as a convicted sex offender.

To the Collins family, it feels like a betrayal. See, in 1984, they knew the police looked into Dan, but they never told the family the full extent of his criminal history. So when the police errow in on Dan in 2013, the Collins family learns about his sexual assault charges for the first time. It really feels like the San Francisco PD kept something from them, especially since they dropped what was undisputedly their best lead. And now they're never going to catch Dan,

because he died of natural causes five years earlier in 2008. But of course, the call-ins are still trying to get answers. When the police searched Dan's house in 1984, they checked his basement and backyard, but there's no record that they searched the garage. So with the new owner's cooperation, cold case detectives get a warrant and come back in with cadaver dogs on Tuesday, January 29th, 2013. When they go into the garage, the cadaver dogs alert. So the police dig up the floor, and that day, they find bones. The San Francisco Medical Examiner ultimately concludes that they are not a match for Kevin's.

In fact, they appear to belong to an animal. But this time, investigators don't throw in the towel. They also dig into Dan's relationship with his former roommate and find out there was more to it. They were romantically partnered, and when Dan died, the roommate moved to Canada. So in late January 2013, police travel to Whistler British Columbia to find the old roommate. He agrees to talk to the San Francisco police, and they interview him twice. Details about the conversations aren't public, but something the roommate says reinforces their suspicions. ones that say Dan was the last person to see Kevin,

and they think this former roommate knows more than he's saying. The Collins family isn't looking to punish the man for any knowledge he may have had. They just want to know what happened to Kevin. So they suggest the police offer him complete immunity if he tells them everything he knows about the night Kevin disappeared. The police say they're going to grant that immunity, but they never do. Even though Dan is still their leading person of interest. honestly like what are they doing? Why are we doing this? Why torture this family? What's happening?

I don't know, but it does make me furious because now so many years have passed and the lead suspect is deceased at this point. There's nothing that can come from that. I mean, police can still investigate, but I don't even know if I'd like fully trust them because they dropped the ball in the very beginning. So I feel like at this point, all trust must be lost between the family and this police department. Yeah, and I don't blame them. And it's so hard when, a perpetrator or suspected perpetrator passes, right? Because I think that there's still knowledge to be gained. It seems that this roommate potentially has knowledge. And I think that having some form of answers for a family is better than nothing. It's not the ideal situation. But I think just because somebody passes, it doesn't mean that all hope is lost. I think that there's still

great hope for them to find answers. But yeah, I mean, to your point, I do think that that trust is completely shattered and rightfully so. I think investigating a suspect after they've passed can sometimes be easier in some ways because investigators can search their property, belongings, records, you know, and other evidence without that person refusing to cooperate or trying to, like, control the narrative. But on the flip side, it's also so much harder because you lose the one person who might have been able to tell you exactly what happened. Yeah, no, I totally agree.

And to be honest, I think empty promises made by police cause so much distrust. You know, as opposed to just being honest and saying, hey, like, we can't grant him immunity or we don't want to, whatever the reason is. Like, just be honest with families. I know we have law enforcement that listens to this show. So, like, that's always my advice is under promise and over-deliver. That's how you build trust with families. But the instant that you do something like this and say, this is going to happen and then it doesn't, it just breeds that mistrust. And you don't want that.

At the end of the day, there were a few leads in this case. that felt like real possibilities. But the truth is, we still don't have answers. What we do know is that on Friday, February 10th, Kevin went to school, followed by basketball practice. His brother Gary, who normally went with him, was homesick that day. The two boys usually caught a ride home with their coach and the other boys, but Kevin separated from the group and went to take the bus instead.

The stop was just one block away from school. He got there around 6.30 p.m. Shortly after, a family friend noticed him sitting at the bus stop talking to a man with a big dog. After that, another person spotted him talking to presumably the same man with a dog in front of an apartment building. Around 6.45 p.m., Kevin's family realized he hadn't made it back for dinner. They started to look for him immediately, and they've never stopped. Kevin's face made it onto milk cartons and magazine covers all across. the United States, but nobody saw him again in person, no matter how desperately they wanted to. Kevin Collins will be about 52 years old as of this recording. He's Caucasian with brown hair and

green eyes. At the time of his disappearance, he was an average build. He also has a scar on his tongue. If you have any information about Kevin Collins, you can contact the San Francisco Police Department at 415-553-1071. Thank you for listening to the final hours. If you have any other details about Kevin Collins' case, please share it with us on social media. We want to hear from you. Your thoughts, condolences, and feedback are what make this community so special.

At Crimehouse, we value your support. Share your thoughts on social media and remember to rate, review, and follow the final hours to help others discover the show. And to enhance your listening experience, don't forget to join Crimehouse Plus at Crimehouse.com. or if you listen on Apple Podcast, tap Try Free at the top of the Final Hour's show page. The Final Hours is hosted by Sarah Turney and me, Courtney Nicole, and is a crimehouse original powered by Pave Studios.

This episode is brought to life by the Final Hours team. Max Cutler, Ron Shapiro, Alex Benadon, Lori Maranelli, Natalie Pritzofsky, Sarah Camp, Alyssa Fox, Dana Brazil Solovee, and Russell Nash. Thank you for listening. I'm Sarah Turney. And I'm Courtney Nicole. We're the host of the Crime House original podcast, The Final Hours. Crime has impacted both of our families,

teaching us how the last conversations, the missed red flags, can change everything. On the final hours, we examine the moments before a disappearance, and the questions that never got answered, a podcast that puts the moments before a disappearance under a microscope. Listen to and follow the final hours, available now wherever you get your podcasts. Hi listeners, it's Vanessa. Are you the type to fall down an internet rabbit hole and not come up for hours? You'll love Crimes of Reddit, a new crimehouse original with Sabrina Deanna Roga and Alexis Linkletter.

Every week, one host brings real true crime stories from Reddit, while the other reacts completely blind. No prep, no spoilers. Then they swap. It's the feeling of sending your group chat a threat at 2 a.m. that starts with, You have to see this. Except Sabrina and Alexis are. in the chat with you. Follow Crimes of Reddit on Apple Podcasts and Spotify or subscribe at Crimes of Reddit Pod on YouTube.