Morbid - The Disappearance of Bobby Dunbar

Episode Date: February 13, 2025

Two decades before the Lindbergh baby became America’s most famous missing child, four-year-old Bobby Dunbar, went missing in Opelousas, Louisiana, setting in motion one of the strangest kidnapping stories in the nation’s history.In the summer of 1912, the Dunbar family took a trip to Swayze Lake in St. Landry Parish, where Bobby wandered off and disappeared. The boy’s disappearance was followed by an eight-month search across the American south, until Bobby was ostensibly found in the company of William Walters, a handyman traveling through the Mississippi. Bobby’s parents were elated to have their son back after such a long absence, but the problem was, very few people seem convinced that the boy was in fact Bobby Dunbar.After extensive news coverage of the search, Walters’ trial for kidnapping, and the joyful return of Bobby to his family, interest in the case began to fade, but for the Dunbar family, questions remained about Bobby’s identity. Had the Dunbars, in their desperation to find their son, unintentionally kidnapped someone else’s child?Thank you to the Incredible Dave White of Bring Me the Axe Podcast for research and Writing support!ReferencesCrowley Post-Signal. 1913. "Charges fell to ground." Crowley Post-Signal , April 11: 5.Daily Advertiser. 1914. "Walters' trial at Opelousas." Daild Advertiser (Lafayette, LA), April 21: 1.—. 1914. "Supreme court frees Walters." Daily Advertiser (Lafayette, LA), June 30: 1.McThenia, Tal, and Ira Glass. 2008. "The Ghost of Bobby Dunbar." This American Life. Chicago, IL: Chicago Public Media, March 14.New York Times. 1912. "$6,000 for missing boy." New York Times, November 10: 1.—. 1912. "Kidnapped boy murdered." New York Times, December 15: 14.Ray, S.W. 1914. "Opelousas jury hears life story of other mother." Times-Picayune, April 23: 8.St. Landry Clarion. 1912. "No trace of lost Bob Dunbar." St. Landry Clarion , September 7: 1.—. 1912. "Robert Dunbar, 4 years old, mysteriously disappears." St. Landry Clarion , August 31: 4.—. 1914. "Asks that fair play be given to the accused." St. Landry Clarion, April 18: 1.—. 1914. "Fair play for Walters." St. Landry Clarion, April 18: 1.Times-Democrat. 1913. "Recognizes playmates." Times- Democrat (New Orleans, LA), April 26: 1.—. 1913. "Does not identify boy." Times-Democrat (New Orleans, LA), April 22: 1.—. 1913. "Dunbar boy talking." Times-Democrat (New Orleans, LA), May 20: 4.—. 1913. "Hunting for kidnappers." Times-Democrat (New Orleans, LA), April 27: 1.—. 1913. "Is not Bruce Anderson." Times-Democrat (New Orleans, LA), April 26: 1.—. 1913. "Now believes boy hers." Times-Democrat (New Orleans, LA), May 3: 1.—. 1912. "Scores search for missing lad." Times-Democrat (New Orleans, LA), August 25: 1.—. 1912. "Suspicion turns toward negroes." Times-Democrat (New Orleans, LA), September 2: 1.—. 1913. "Movements of Tinker." Times-Democrat, May 23: 1. Cowritten by Alaina Urquhart, Ash Kelley & Dave White (Since 10/2022)Produced & Edited by Mikie Sirois (Since 2023)Research by Dave White (Since 10/2022), Alaina Urquhart & Ash KelleyListener Correspondence & Collaboration by Debra LallyListener Tale Video Edited by Aidan McElman (Since 6/2025) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, weirdos, I'm Elena. I'm Ash. And this is morbid. It is. We're always shocked. I know. Every time. Sometimes I think I just like run out of shit to say to like, and this is morbid.

I'm like, whoa. Crazy. Because we always just say, yep. Or it sure is. Or whoa. We'll come up with something better maybe. Oh, I got a good one for next week. Oh, cool.

Write it down because we'll forget. Yeah, 100%. But welcome to part two of Heidi Allen, baby. This one's going to be a lengthy one, I heard. It is lengthy. It is lengthy. And it is shocking and it is devastating. Well, you left us with quite a cliffhanger and quite a shock, which set me up

perfectly to go into this episode. That's what I'm here for. I always write a little recap. There you know. Just like you're watching TV. Like, that's just who I am. I just do that for you. Who I am.

I write recaps. It's okay. Recaps are kind of my thing. Kind of my thing. No. They're not. Let's be serious. So when we left you off in part one,

both Richard and Gary had been officially arrested on kidnapping charges. And two of Gary's former cellmates had come forward to say that Gary had confessed to them. They told this whole tale about some kind of drug deal gone wrong. And they said that that was the reason why Gary and his brother Richard decided to get rid of Heidi. But everybody who knew Heidi heard that story and they were like, why? Like she wasn't involved in that kind of world, really. Yeah. To their knowledge, she wasn't involved in any kinds of shady dealings like that.

Now, it would take some time to come to the surface, but later down the road it would come out, like I told you in part one, that Heidi was working as an informant for the police. That blew my brain apart. And you're probably like, well, how? She's like 18 years old. Yeah. Yeah. Also, if you heard like a little dung, that was me touching my.

microphone. I apologize, everybody. I'm sorry. So there's two different stories that I've seen reported as to how Heidi got wrapped up in this informant stuff. The first one when, oh, first one, okay, is that is what the police claim to be true. They said that Heidi was hanging out with a group of people. She really liked these people. They were like her good friends and that they started getting into the drug scene. And she was worried about them. So she went to the police and she said, you know, here's what's going on. I don't want my friends to be doing drugs. Like, can you do anything to stop them? Okay. I just don't

see that happening, really. Who knows? In my opinion. Who really knows? The second story comes from Heidi's Aunt Martha. I mentioned Heidi's cousin Missy in part one. She was 10 years older than Heidi, but they were super duper close. Kind of like us. Whoa. And according to Martha, around that time, that, or excuse me, around the time that Heidi was 15, she and Missy were hanging out a lot. So she was 15, Missy would have been 25. And I guess they had kind of fallen in with like a bit of a party crowd. Now, there was one night at a house party where Heidi was supposed to be babysitting, Missy's young baby.

But for some reason, there was a party going on at this house and the baby was left in a car. Oh. While the party was going on. Oh, God. Now, just to be clear, Missy claims that this is not true. Okay. This is Aunt Martha's claim. Missy says this is not true.

Okay. But the police were called to the house probably for some kind of noise complaint. I would assume. And when they got there to break up the party, they see an unattended baby in the car, and they find out Heidi's supposed to be babysitting, Missy's the mom, the whole thing. So Martha said that Heidi's mom was called down to pick her up.

And then because of this whole event, Heidi ended up being determined a person in need of supervision or pins. It's a petition that a parent or guardian can file on their child, that's 16 years or younger, if they've gotten into like some kind of trouble or dangerous situation. basically to ensure that they aren't able to get in a situation like that again. Okay. Because somebody in the PINS program is you're under supervision like 24-7 basically.

Okay. So Martha said that to avoid being charged with any kind of crime, her husband, who was Heidi's uncle, he was a judge in town. So he talked to some people and basically that's how Heidi became an informant. She wouldn't get charged, whatever she would have gotten charged for maybe like child neglect or something. I, no. Yeah.

The whole thing doesn't make a lot of sense. To be quite honest. No. That's a, what a tale. Yeah. I don't know why they would make a 15-year-olds become a drug informant because they were maybe there when an adult left their own child in a car. That doesn't make any sense.

Even if they were like, oh, this 15-year-old child was supposed to be babysitting. That's a 15-year-old child. Exactly. They're not the ones to blame. And they wouldn't be the one to get charged, you wouldn't think. No, of course not. It's not their kid. No.

And how would they even prove that she was, if she's at the party, that's the mom's responsibility. Right. And if Missy is saying this did not happen, then did it happen? I don't buy any of that. The whole thing is just weird. That's weird. The police say that it's this whole thing where like Heidi, but like, do you see that? That one way makes way more sense to me.

It makes more sense, but do you see that? actually happening? I could see that. Really? I mean, who knows? Like, everybody said she was like a really good kid. It might have freaked her out. That is true. I was not, I can tell you right now at 15 years old, I was not around drugs ever, ever. Yeah. And so if I saw drugs happening around me, it would freak me the fuck out. Like, I would panic. Yeah. It would have been a very, very scary situation to me. Yeah. I know, like, not everybody had that same experience. I was going to say, not it. But, But I did. Yeah.

And if Heidi did was that way, like hadn't been, you know, exposed to that shit and, like, was suddenly seeing it around her and it was freaking her out. I could want, 15 is young. Yeah. That's a very scary thing to be around if you're not around it. Yeah. And I can see her being freaked out and maybe being like, I don't know what to do here. I want this to stop. And maybe she was scared she was going to get pulled into it.

Yeah. But you're not wrong. I think I needed your perspective of that because you and I. have very different upbringings. Yeah, exactly. So I was looking at it from the point of view, like, no, I don't think she would do that because I had been in those situations before. Yeah.

And if you've never been exposed to that stuff, then it's scary. It's very jarring to see people like doing drugs, seeing drugs, like even hearing about every, like it can be a very jarring experience. So to me, that was the case. I buy that a hundred times more than that other crazy tale. Yeah. I think the other, the problem with like this other story. I think is there's a lot of missing pieces.

So many holes. Like you're like, but what about that? Like there's many things you can point to and be like, but what about that? I just, I don't understand why she would be charged with stuff. And also, I don't understand why it then in turn becomes, well, she better become a drug informant. Like, she's 15. That's putting her at an unbelievable amount of risk. Mm-hmm.

So even the first story, I don't even know if that lines up with the amount of risk that being an informant comes along with. especially a drug informant. That's the thing. So it's like neither one of these stories really makes sense for why that child would be put at risk like that. No, it's true. Well, and the police claim that they never used informants that young and that Heidi only gave them the information about the friend she was worried about. But that does not seem to be the case here. Because the information about Heidi being an informant, it comes out more around 2015 after somebody had spent years in prison for her kidnapping and was hoping to get a new trial. So we're going to get a little bit more into that in a minute. Okay. But that's somebody who was trying to get a new trial. That was Gary

Tibido. Now, before we get into his trial, I want to give you a little background because I think I mentioned in part one, he did have a bit of a past. He had a colorful past. He did. And this is kind of sad. Gary was his mother's youngest child. And before she had Gary, she had two daughters and one son, Richard. Richard and his two older sisters actually were placed in an orphanage when they were young because they were just too much for their mom to handle. Oh. So they spent seven years in an orphanage before she was ready to come and bring them back home. And when they got home, they had a new little brother, Gary. Oh. It was like a very traumatic experience, one might say. Very Albert Fish. I know it reminded me of that. I agree. So growing up, Gary was a lot. He was a lot. He was a

like the quintessential youngest child always finding himself in some kind of trouble. But his trouble was more serious than most. He would get into fights. He would steal things. As he got older, he was known to drink. You know, as we know, he did dabble in drugs. He later said, I would steal something just to say I stole it. Wow. Yeah. Just getting the thrill out of it. Yeah, I know. When he was 13 years old, he got sent to reform school for stealing a car. But actually, he did a lot better at school and the book scrapped that I mentioned in part one. And again, we'll link it in part two. He started, they mentioned to this, he started teaching the class at reform school. Just like got up one day and just started teaching the class.

He's like, let me tell you about life, guys. Yeah. And he did really well. Wow. The teachers would just sit back. And I think that said that they would leave the butt of a cigarette in the window sill for him. Like, oh my God. That's your reward, Gary. Which is hilarious, like thinking of the time. Wow. So yeah. But he obviously couldn't stay at reform school forever. So he did get integrated back into mainstream school, but he didn't stick around too much longer. He didn't do as well there. So he does a lot better with like discipline. Yeah, like structure. Definitely. And he ended up dropping out his junior year. Now, eventually he went on to join the Marines with his brother Richard. And things were fine for Richard, not so much for Gary.

He went AWOL a few times over the six years that he spent enlisted. Oops. Eleven times. Oh, the exact. They let you go AWOL 11 times? No. They don't. I was like, does it end at some point? He kept like finding himself out of it somehow. Like he, he's, that's impressive. They'd bring him back.

He'd get into trouble. He'd probably have to do some kind of like service to. Yeah. You know, but one of the last times they were like, yeah, buddy, like we're done with your shit. We're not dealing with you. I was going to say you get discharged at some point. You do. dishonorably, I would assume.

You would think. Yeah. So he was about to get kicked out and they were having like a hearing basically of whether or they were going to kick him up out and the night before he had met a Marine who was like a net like an ex-marine who was like a bar owner now like a bartender and he ends up shooting the shit with this guy and the guy just like really likes him and all the sudden they're like getting ready at this hearing to be like peace out Gary and this guy comes in the hearing and starts vouching for Gary what and got him out of it what yeah you like a bartender just walk in and be like I can fix this because I think he was like a

highly respected Marine at one. point and they were like, oh shit, he's here to vouch for you. Like, okay. Wow. Isn't that crazy? That's lucky. Yeah. So that happened. And then throughout their whole lives, Gary and Richard, they had periods of being close. They had periods of time where they weren't so close. But once the two of them were arrested, Rich was not only looking up for himself. He was looking up for Gary at this point, too. And for one reason or another, Gary stood trial first. Now, I think I mentioned in part one that he wasn't able to get bail. I missed a note that I had.

He did get out on bail at one point. And so did Sharon. And actually, kind of similar to Richard, but a little bit different, somebody they didn't know, a total stranger posted their bail and said they didn't think Gary or Richard were guilty. The man who anonymously did this said, quote, I believe whoever is responsible for Heidi Allen's disappearance never had to lose any sleep about being caught because no one ever looked for them.

The search never went any further than the brothers, Tibado. Wow. Like a total stranger. They have a lot of people vouching for them out of nowhere. They do. So Gary also had a good chunk of money left over from a settlement that he had won. He'd been like seriously injured on a construction site job when he was working. He had like pins in his ankles and stuff.

And actually when they arrested him, Sharon yelled out for them to like watch out for his ankles. And they stepped on his head. Like they like crushed his ankles. Oh. Yeah. Oh, that's terrible. Yeah. But he did have money left over, so he was able to hire Joe Fahey as his defense.

So Gary was hopeful going into the trial because in his opinion and in a lot of people in the town's opinion, there really wasn't that much solid evidence against him. And the biggest tip that the investigators had came from two people that he was incarcerated with. Yeah. And usually when we see like inmates testifying, it doesn't hold up as much as it would if it was somebody else. It's just usually just how it goes. Yeah. And I don't think he thought that tip was going to hold up in court as much as it did. And I also don't think he could have gotten a fair trial anywhere near the greater area of New York because this case was so highly publicized.

The police were talking to the media so much during this that the judge actually ended up putting a gag order on them. Whoa. Like they couldn't talk about it anymore to the media. So the prosecution, we're starting trial. The prosecution makes their case that both Gary and Richard drove to the DNW. you convenience store together and abducted Heidi sometime between 741 and 745 a.m. Which was interesting, considering that one of their main witnesses, Chris Bivens there, said he drove by sometime after eight and saw the altercation between the woman and the two men.

Oh, okay. So at some point, Chris must have changed his story. I was going to say. After some chatting. After stuff. Yeah, you know, just after chats. So Gary maintained his story throughout the whole trial. He said, again, I was asleep next to my girlfriend, Sharon, when Heidi was kidnapped. That's the deal. Sharon testified for Gary and explained the exact same story, but she would later actually be tried for perjury at the request of prosecutor Donald Dodd. Because according to him, they had found a receipt in Gary's 1983 Cadillac that showed that he and Sharon were in Massachusetts in the days following Heidi's murder. Now, this was a big deal because they had previously said, they had not been in Massachusetts when they had been questioned on the topic.

Now, they said that they had been in New York that day and in the days following. But some family members said Sharon and Gary had gone to Massachusetts hours after Heidi disappeared. And investigators wondered if this was because that's where they had disposed of Heidi's body. Oh. They actually believed that they had driven out to Massachusetts to burn Heidi's body as a means of disposing her. Oh, that's awful. And by this point, Heidi was presumed dead, like in these trials. she was very much presented, which is just awful. Also, you said Joe Fahey was the attorney.

Doesn't that name sound familiar? It is because he represented Katie Hualca's family. Dude. As soon as you said that name, I was like, wait a second. You know what's funny? I read that and I meant to check back on it. And then as I was reading, I was like, oh, fuck it. He assisted them for years. Look at that. Yeah. That's wild. Okay. As soon as you said it, I was like, Joe Fahey, why do I know that name? The same area. Yeah, it makes sense. Oh, that's funny. Look at that. Thank you for looking that up. You're welcome. I just wanted to double check it to make sure my brain wasn't like just making a connection when it was. No, because my brain did that too and I meant to check it. All right, cool. So they think they've disposed of Heidi in Massachusetts. Family members are saying like, yeah, they went to Massachusetts. And they're like, we didn't go to Massachusetts. But then they find this receipt for a drive shaft. So why are you lying? Well, so when Sharon said on the stand yet again that her and Gary hadn't left the state, Donald Dodd saw his chance to perjure her.

He said that his investigators had found a receipt in Gary's Cadillac for a new drive shaft. And when they went to the auto body shop to check back on that, I believe it was in Lemonster, records showed that they did have a receipt on April 5th, 1994, for somebody buying a drive shaft. But there was no name associated with the receipt. Come on. So Sharon and Gary fought back saying it simply wasn't possible they're not there. So during Sharon's perjury trial, multiple witnesses. testified in her favor saying that she was in New York on April 5th, 1994, and one of those

witnesses had a receipt of her own showing that Sharon had withdrawn money at 1115 a.m. at a.m. at a. at a. So it's like she was at least in New York at 1115 a.m. As you and I full well know, Massachusetts and New York are not that far apart. Pretty close. She still could have gone there later that day. Also, did someone else have her card and took out money for her? Potentially. You don't know. But there were other people vouching for her that were like, no, we saw her. Okay. So the perjury case was thrown out. They were like, this is all just like back and forth.

That's the thing. Who knows? Everybody saying something different. So now back to Gary's trial. FBI officials did testify that there was absolutely no DNA evidence against him. Even his Cadillac had been searched and tested by this point and nothing had come back. There was no body either. But based on what they heard, the jury decided to convict Gary Tibodeau.

Wow. Gary was convicted on first-degree kidnapping in June of 1995 and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. With no physical evidence? No physical evidence. I don't know. That's, wow. Basically the biggest thing that they had in this investigation were those two inmates. And then I think the chicken bones.

Yeah, that look great. The chicken bones, the fact that they weren't able to confirm. And then the receipt, I think. I think it was all circumstantial evidence, but put together, I can see why a jury felt the way they did. I can see why a jury was, I could see why a jury would be hung. Yes. I could see why they wouldn't agree. Yep.

I'm pretty shocked that they were able to get a unanimous decision of guilty on that one. Same. I'm not saying that they would get a unanimous not guilty either. No. I don't feel either way that they had enough either way, really, to say that. but I would think it would just be hung, deadlocked. That's what I would think, too. That would it be my thing.

All right. So Richard Tibido is next. He had basically the exact same trial as Gary. The evidence was pretty much the same other than those two inmates testifying because they didn't really bring his name into it, so they weren't brought forth in his trial. And after Gary's trial, it was discovered that prosecutor Donald Dodd there had somehow gained access to Heidi's journals and combed through all of them. But the journals were never submitted as evidence. Oh. And Donald Dodd never mentioned anything about them to the defense.

So they just simply weren't brought up during Gary's trial because they didn't know they existed. What? But during Richard's trial, since the journal's new existence was now known, Gary's lawyer was able to argue that there was never a single mention of either Richard or Gary in those very detailed journals. Hmm. So they were like, did she even know them? Yeah. Now, Richard Tibadoad's jury was convinced of his. innocence and he was found not guilty. Whoa. So the thing that baffles me is how the whole story that

the prosecution was trying to argue was that Rich Tibado's van was there that day. He had something to do with Heidi's disappearance and his brother was the one to help him. And by the way, he was the one who went to the store that day. Yeah. How was he the one acquitted and Gary the one sitting in prison for the rest of his life? Doesn't make any sense. That's very strange. It makes no sense. So Richard was just as confused. And as soon as he was acquitted, he said his whole entire focus switched gears and it would now be on getting Gary out of prison. And he was like, if I'm not guilty, he's not guilty. Then your whole story crumbles. Well, that's the thing. Your story just falls apart. He's not guilty. Doesn't make any sense. And again, it's like, no one's really proving anything

here so far from what I'm hearing. Like, I'm not convinced either way. No. So it's like, we just got to do a better job here. We got to get some more evidence. We do. And we have to be forced coming with the evidence that we actually have. Yeah, I think being forthcoming with the evidence that we do have is one of the biggest things in this trial. Big lesson here. And like what's considered hearsay and what's not considered hearsay doesn't make a lot of sense in this trial because as we're going to see, a lot of people came forward with like new information about this and people that they thought were involved. But it was considered hearsay.

But the two inmates, they're like basically the whole trial. hung on their word and that's not hearsay. I don't understand what defines hearsay in one case versus the other. That's a tough one. Lawyers, let us know. Yeah, because I would really like to know like the actual yeah, because I think you can like look up the definitions obviously, but it's still a little gray when it comes to like something like that. Right. And I think maybe it's just up to the judges. Yeah, maybe it's a discretion thing. Personal standpoint, yeah. But listen to the rest of this case and then let us know it like you think lawyers because I'm confused a little bit on a lot of this. Yeah. So Gary did appeal his conviction, but he was denied in 1999. And throughout the years, new lawyers were brought on to his

defense counsel. He tried to be hopeful that he'd get out of prison. The more, but the more and more time he spent behind bars, he was losing hope every single day. He was, he tried actually getting involved with the innocence project, which fitting because he would always sign his letters, Gary the innocent. Oh, geez, that's sad. But unfortunately, they couldn't help because they only take cases where there's DNA evidence. Yeah, and I mean, I get that. I totally get that because it's like... Because once again, they're not proving either way here.

Exactly. So that would be a risky way to take. And as we know, there was no DNA evidence in this case. Eek. Now, before Gary went to prison, he had quit smoking cigarettes. But after about 10 years in there, he started smoking again. And he stopped working out. And he actually knew that he had a lung condition and that smoking would be detrimental.

but he just didn't care. And he said of this whole thing. I just figured, well, there ain't no chance now. No sense in giving them the 25. I'll let my body go to hell and hope I can die a lot sooner. I ain't going to kill myself. But if it happens naturally, then that's fine by me. Oof. So he did end up dying in prison. He died in 2018. He was 63 years old. And it was two years before he would have been put up for parole. And the thing is with this, if he's innocent, that is tragic. And if it, if he's, and if he's, and if he's, he's guilty or can you like me you're like bye gary yeah like it's just like there's i don't know my my body like can't register a feeling right now because i just can't understand what i should feel here because i'm like well it's that's tragic if he's innocent but if not if not then like moving on honestly that's the thing so he passes away two years before he's going to be up for parole by that point he had actually tried to appeal his conviction his lawyers had actually brought his case before the new york supreme court trying to win a new trial, and they got nothing. The New York Supreme Court of Appeals denied a four to three decision, and their reason

for denying the appeal was that the new evidence was composed of uncorroborated hearsay. Okay. Now, one of the judges who was in favor of a new trial, Judge Jenny Rivera, agreed that the evidence brought up during both of the Tibadoes trials, like original trials, was not overwhelming. And that statements over the years regarding three men, Roger Breckenridge, James Thumperstein and Michael Boar were enough to grant Gary Tibido a new trial. Oh, damn. And like I said before, wasn't all the original evidence also uncorroborated hearsay?

Yeah, I don't get it. That's what I don't understand either. Yeah, I don't really understand it. But during one of his last interviews, Gary told the reporter, they know I didn't do it. And to be honest, that's possible. I don't know if it's the truth that he didn't do it, but I think there's other avenues that also need to be looked at. Yeah, I mean, obviously.

Because it's not like we know where Heidi is or that we know what happened here. So you can always keep looking. Exactly. And people should. Yeah. Between 1994 and now, there have been at least five suspects in Heidi Allen's case. Really? But the only ones that were investigated thoroughly were the Tibido brothers.

And that was until February of 2013 when a woman named Tanya Priest called the police and told them that there were three men who had kidnapped and then killed Heidi. and that none of them were behind bars for it. She claimed that the three men responsible were Michael Boar, James, or excuse me, James Thumperstein, and Roger Breckenridge. She told the police that years earlier, sometime around 2006, Thumper, who's James, but we're going to call him Thumper for this whole time, he had confessed to her, Tanya, and his then-wife, Victoria, Vicky West. So Tanya and Vicky worked together. They were really good friends. and one day after work, Tanya offered Vicky a ride home,

and when they got back to her place, they just both went inside to hang out for a little bit. Now, Thumper was there. He was having some eggs and toast, according to Tanya. And the three of them were just shooting the shit when a news story came up about Heidi Allen. Now, by at that point, the case was about 12 years old. So the news story was just saying,

after all these years, she'd never been found. So Tanya and Vicki started talking about the Tibado brothers and whether or not the right guy was in jail for the crime, just kind of like talking about it. overall and thumper pipes in and goes do you really want to know? What do you say to that? Like I would be like, I'd be like, yes. Yeah. But you're sitting in my house right now, so I don't know. Yeah. Well, she's in his house. Or I'm in your house. Like, I'm in a house with you. That's like, I don't really know about that.

It's scary. But of course they're like, yes. Yeah. So he dives head first into a story. He claimed that there was some kind of drug money owed to a higher up in that whole world. Now, over time, he's actually said that it was Heidi's boyfriend, Brett, who owed money, and that Brett was being threatened. And then word gets back to Thumper and his friends that Heidi allegedly told Brett she would take care of it by reporting the people that were threatening him to the police. That's when Thumper said he made the decision to do something to Heidi. He said, big guys would have gone down and he couldn't stand by and watch that happen because he was very connected within the drug world. And I would argue that he probably was dealing directly with those big guys. Probably. So that's why he didn't want to see

them go down. And that kind of links a little bit to that first story of why she was an informant. Because if she was saying, in this case, if she's saying like, I'm going to the police to get help, that links a little more with her being more willing to run to the police for help. For drug stuff. That does make sense. Good call. Just saying. Yeah. So on the morning of Easter Sunday, 1994, again, according to Thumper, the three men drove Michael Boar's rusted white van to the D&W. Michael waited in the van.

Thumper went in the side door. Roger went in the front. He said, Roger distracted Heidi, while Thumper grabbed her from behind in a self-described bear hug. That's literally what Chris said that he saw. Uh-huh. And dragged her into the van. They then took, and this is a trigger warning. because this is really awful.

They took her back to Roger's girlfriend's house, who was Jennifer. And I guess she lived with her mom, so she was pissed that they brought her back there. They left her in the van for a little while as they figured out what to do. And then Thumper said they took her into the garage and took turns beating the shit out of her until she died. Oh, my God. It's like, if that is the truth, you three grown men kidnapped a girl, a young girl. Oh, my God. to death and you just think that you get to sit here and tell people that if that's really the case.

And you're sitting over a plate of eggs and toast telling people. Yeah. Very casually. Mm-hmm. Even if that's not true, what the fuck is wrong with you? He should be arrested. Yeah. Like, that's insane for having those kind of thoughts.

He's in prison. Okay. Thank you. Because I'm like, um, that's really detailed. And he got some of those details correct. Well, that's the other thing. The bear hug was the thing for me. The bear hug?

Because it's like, that is way too specific. On the nose. So specific. And a rusted white van. Mm-hmm. So he's not done yet. He then said they took her body to Mexico, New York, to a remote cabin in the woods. He said they put her clothes in a wood stove.

He didn't say whether or not they were burned. And he then said they dismembered her body and put her remains under the floorboards of this cabin. Now shortly after Heidi's disappearance, a couple of them were questioned. Roger and Michael were questioned. Nothing really went much further than questioning. So Roger and his girlfriend at the time, Jennifer Westcott, skipped town and went to Florida.

Okay. Now Michael opened up a computer repair business near the cabin where they had disposed of Heidi's remains, and Thumper said this was because he'd be able to see if there was any police presence coming or going. Whoa. Later, a woman would call the police and tell them that she had seen a white rusty van at the DNW that morning.

They re-questioned her and said, was there any black on it and are you sure it wasn't two-toned? And she said, no, no way. It was a completely white van aside from the rust, just like Michael Bors. Whoa, shady. This is so shady. Shady.

He also sold the van not too long after Heidi went missing and started driving a black pickup truck. Now, when Thumper got done sharing all this information, Tanya and Vicky just sat there for a minute. They were like dumbfounded. And they didn't believe him at first. They were like, you are telling stories. Can you imagine your friend doing that, though, and being like, you're joking? Like, I'd be like, who, what kind of joke is that?

Who the fuck are you? Well, that's how Tanya felt. She was like, I just stopped going there after that because that whole thing freaked me the fuck out. Because even if that was a joke, what the fuck is wrong with you? Well, I think that's how she felt. I think she just couldn't get it in her mind that he was not joking or that he, that he, that he was telling the truth.

Like, she's like, there's no way. Well, and what do you do? Right. In that. So I think in that moment, she was like, let me, she said to him, she was like real nice that there's an innocent man in jail of what you're saying is true. Yeah. And he was like, I don't know.

Fuck. And then I think she made her way out of there. And she knew him to be a very violent man. So she started avoiding that situation altogether. Honestly, good for her for getting out of there because I was going to say, I don't even know what you would do in that scenario. And especially if he's violent, that would be terrifying. That's the thing. Well, before she got out of there, she's saying, like, real nice if there's an innocent man in jail, but like, I still don't believe you. And he's like, oh, and like, Vicki is like,

I don't know. There's no way. That's what I would say. I'd be like, I don't believe you. Right. And Vicki is married to the, or she's dating him at the time. Eventually, she marries the man. And she's like, I just always knew him as a gentle man before this. But he said, if you want to look for yourselves, it's the cabin on Rice Road. He said, I would, take you there, but then I'd have to kill you. So if you want to find it, you got to go yourself. I am speechless. Speechless. This is so wild and so fucked up. Yeah. If that is the truth, holy shit. Yeah. That's awful. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. And he said, if I take you there, I have to kill you. But that was just a threat in the moment. But James Thumberstein was very capable of murder. Just four

years after that conversation with his wife Vicky and Tanya Priest, he would end up killing Vicky. Oh, my God. He had actually been telling people that he was going to kill her for years. It was just that nobody actually thought he meant it. Five months before Vicky was killed, Thumper was at a woman named Megan Shaw's house. He was friends with her and also her husband, I believe his name is Sydney, but he goes by Ruben. And Rubin had actually previously been married to Tanya Priest. I am. I, like, are you following? Yeah, I was going to say there's a lot of like connections here. There's a lot. But I am following it. You're doing a good job, like, keeping it very. Okay. I'm glad because it is difficult. Small town, a lot of people connected. Yeah.

So yeah. So now Ruben and Megan are together, but Ruben was previously married to Tanya Priest. And it seemed like they were on good terms because they end up talking later. Okay. But now it's Megan and Rubin and Rubin and Thumper comes over one day and he's just talking about how he's going to kill Vicky. Now Megan and Rubin are like, you're just being facetious. Of course, you're not going to kill her. Like you got to stop. saying that. And that's when Thumper confessed to them about being involved in Heidi Allen's disappearance. Okay, guys, he told them a slightly different story than the one that he'd told Vicky and Tanya years earlier. He told Megan and Rubin pretty much everything that he had said about why Heidi was to be killed. She knew too much. She was threatening to get higher ups in the drug world taken down. But this time, he said that he had not been the one to kill her. He just helped

dispose of her body in that same cabin that he mentioned to Tanya and Vick. before. Then he came by on another occasion to Megan and Ruben's house. I think he was picking up a car there and he was upset about Vicky again. He's saying he's going to kill her. And Megan's like, you got to stop saying that. You're not going to kill Vicky. Stop it. Somebody inform somebody, please. I know. Seriously. Like when a man is saying over and over, he's going to kill his wife. Time to get somebody involved. Definitely. So he looks at her and he said, I already told you about Heidi. I will kill Vicky. Jesus. Yeah. Five. months after he showed up to Vicki's place, or five months after, after that time, he showed up to

Vicki's place where she was with her new boyfriend, Thumber's cousin, Charles Carr Jr. And he had driven a man named Jonathan Barclay's truck to Vicki's apartment and brought his young child with him, their young child with him. And there were other children present in the home when James pulled out a shotgun and shot his cousin and Vicky to death. Oh my God. And after he killed them, he called his uncle, Charles Carr Sr., so his cousin's father, and told him, I told you it was going to be bad, now it's all over with. Wow. So a neighbor, luckily, well, not luckily, but heard all of this happening and luckily called the police. When Thumper's son heard the police coming, he warned his dad. So Thumper put his son outside of the apartment door, just like placed him there to

just be standing there when all these police show up. And then he barricaded himself in side and refused to come out for the next seven hours. Oh, my God. He seemed to hope that the police would shoot him, but he also said that he was fully prepared to shoot right back at them. Now, eventually he did agree to come out again after those seven hours he spent inside, and the police then saw the shirt that he had dressed himself in that day. He wore blue jeans and a T-shirt that said,

It's all fun in games until the cops show up. Wow. He knew full well. what he was doing that day and wore that shirt. Wow. And if you look up his mugshot, it's very evident that he was not of sound mind. My goodness. So he was promptly arrested, excuse me, and when he was, it was discovered that while he was inside,

he got a text from the same man whose truck he'd driven over, Jonathan Barclay. The text said, Heidi? Chow. Heidi, question mark, chow. What? And like chow, like chow, Bella. Yeah. What? This is too weird. This is too weird.

It gets even weird. Like what is what? So Jonathan Barclay claimed at first that he barely knew Thumper. They just knew each other in passing. They waved at each other sometimes in town. He said he was surprised when he saw his truck on the news. It was stolen. Obviously.

He also claimed that he never sent that text or called, like the phone record said that he did, about one minute before the text. came through. Okay. His excuses were the following. He must have let somebody use his phone. He actually lost his phone, so that text could have been from anybody. Yes, obviously. And this is my favorite. Third, his phone was broken, so maybe it just came up with a random weird text to send a thumper. You know, like, how phones will do that sometimes. Yeah. So a lot of times my phone will just like make up a text for me and send it to somebody. It's so weird. I hate when it happens. So just in case you guys get a random text for me, it's my phone. just, you know, just being a phone.

Just becoming sentient for a minute. And also, your phone just came up with the text, Heidi, question mark. That's a little weird. Yeah. Yeah. No. That's a coincidence. Yeah.

There are no such thing as coincidences, my friend. He later said, Steen testified that he did not remember receiving it, and I don't recall sending it, so it must not have been too important. Besides, I was only six years old when Heidi was abducted. I didn't even know her. even though I let Steen borrow my truck the night before I hardly knew him I met the man one time and I had seen the man plenty of times What? He just contradicted himself there I was gonna say that man one time and I'd seen the man plenty of times So then you met him plenty of other times and also like what point were you trying to make there? I can't figure it out

I cannot pinpoint exactly what point you were trying to land on no because because there is no there is no either way you let him you your truck and that's weird if you don't know someone like you probably shouldn't let random people use your vehicle this is and these excuses are subpar well and just the facts that like they're just like okay yeah that sounds good yeah it's like what like none of those excuses are legitimate or at all and clearly there's a lot more going on here if these people are in like even just like associated with yes it's weird like teenagers can lie better than this. And they do. This is what? This is insane. So Thumper was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility for parole. And he was just like happy as a clam when he was in prison. He was on the

phone calling people saying it's your favorite criminal, actually calling his new girlfriend in prison. Cool. Yep. He also was boasting about the flower arrangement that he had sent, sent his wife, who he had killed. He said it was the biggest one. Which like, it should be, you murdered the woman. He's a monster. A monster. Like a true monster. An actual monster.

But no. The sheriff came out and said, you know, this was a crime of passion. And they were told that Thumper was not a bad guy, quote unquote. Oh, good. As long as somebody told you that he's not a bad guy. What? No. He took a shotgun and shot his ex-wife in front of their children.

Not only that, that couldn't be further from the truth. because on top of murdering Vicky in front of their children, like you just said, and then murdering his own cousin and calling his uncle to taunt him about the murder, he also had multiple protective orders put on him before he killed Vicky by Vicky. Of course. After he threatened to kidnap their children and after he had strangled her past the point of consciousness. He's a good guy? Yeah, he's a good guy.

Totally. She also at one point was so scared of him that she had to have some of his guns removed from his house. He had guns confiscated from his home because she was that scared of him. The fact that they're letting all of that go is just an abomination. Cuckoo nuts bananas. An abomination. I don't know how anybody explains this away. And it just gets worse.

How? So Tanya Priest had always thought that Thumper was lying about his involvement in the story he had told her. But then when the news broke that he had killed Vicky and his own cousin, Tanya second guessed her gut. that was when she called the police and told them everything she knew and she said there was a woman who she used to be friends with who was dating roger at the time that heady was had disappeared jennifer west got they had gone and skipped town gone to florida oh yeah she said you know maybe i can call her up and just see what she knows and what she'll say and they were like yeah go ahead and record that conversation yeah so i'm going to play that for you right now just told me that him, Michael Boer, and Roger had taken Mike's van to the store and that they grabbed her from the store and they brought her to your house and he had said that you did flip out when you guys got there and, you know, I stuck up for you and I don't blame you for flipping out.

And basically that's, you know, what he had said had happened and that's, you know, that's, you know, It's not your fault, though, you know. So I knew a long time ago, I just didn't want you to think that I thought less of you. I really, in my own, had dropped their shit. Right. I don't know, probably about 10 years ago. Yeah. But it took me away all to get it gone.

How did they even involve you or even do this? Yeah. I mean. I don't know. You were young. I know that's that for cocaine. It was for cocaine. Yeah, it sounds like the area.

I don't know, kiddo. I love you, and I'm sorry that happened to you. Yeah. Did you even know that this was Heidi that they brought there and that this is what they were going to do? Uh-uh. You had no clue if they just showed up with her? Yeah.

What a bad position for you. It's pretty scared of shit out of you. Yeah, that's... It doesn't mean. Well, Thumper told me. me they took her out in the garage. And me and Vicky at this point, honestly, Jennifer didn't believe him. And he said that they took her out in the garage and that they beat her until she died.

That's what he had told me. But I mean, as long as you, that's all you know and everything. I mean, the only thing he said you did was junk the van with Roger. Then I wouldn't really worry about anything. I had no part of it. And it's kind of sad that that even happened. Is that why you guys went to Florida? She knows too, so I'm letting you know. Thumper told all of them.

So I'm just giving you heads up. Everybody in the area knows Megan Rubin. He told me and Vicky. He even threatened to kill me and Vicki. He said that if anybody said anything, he would kill me and Vicki. And me, Vicki, you know how Thumper is. At that point, he was just a happy-go-lucky guy. I never would have thought that, Jen. Right. And, you know, what did they do? Just leave her in the van when they got to your house? Yeah Who actually Frikin killed her

I have no idea It's been happening around me Oh good At least she weren't part of that That's bullshit That this even happened And when was that When the day she came up missing

I don't remember I love you I know she could just give you a hug And I'm sure that'd make you feel better All right Did you know everybody Well why do you about Well I know hon

But that's Why, it bothers me because it's been bothering me since Slipper told me. I was like, no way, Jennifer doesn't know. She would have talked to me and Vicki about it because we were all very close. I couldn't say anything about that. I never heard anybody. Why did that? Yeah, why was it?

Why didn't she say anything? Because they scared you, hon? Yeah. Well, I'm sure. Well, who scared you, Roger? Probably Roger living with you? Yeah. It was all crazy.

Yeah. Would they do threaten you if you said anything? No. Do you ever think about turning Roger in for it, honey? Huh? Do you ever think about just turning Roger in for it? No. They're scared you that bad, huh?

I would never open a can of worms like that. Right. I hate them. It's done so much to you. You know? Can't say as I blame you. God Almighty. Right.

See anything that happened during it or just freaking. you just flipped out when you knew she was there. Oh, good for you. What heck did you find out it was Heidi in the end? Yeah. So that's that. I...

Yeah. So that's it. That's that. Yeah. She said... And so just so you know, the first voice you hear is Tanya. And then the second, a little bit more muffled voice, is Jennifer Westcott. And she's saying, I don't want to open up a can of worms like that.

I'm not going to do the investigator's job for them. Like, granted, she does say, you know, I don't know if I knew it was Heidi, but it's way after she's already gone through the whole thing of like Tanya saying, Heidi, Heidi, Heidi, Heidi, and then she's like, how did you know it was Heidi? And she's like, well, I didn't know it was Heidi, but I just put two and two together. That's literally, that's it. That's admitting everything. That's the smoking gun right there.

That's her being like, yep, that happened. that story he told you was 100% true. Yep. Like, just corroborating everything. A story that was told that he offered up himself. Hearsay. Hear say, Elena. I don't know about this.

I don't know about this either. That is weird as fuck. That story, hearing that conversation go that way, is like so unsettling. And just the fact that she's like, they're not going to give me a big reward. I'm like, yeah, but you could give the. family something. Yeah, it might be rewarding to help a family have closure. Yeah, exactly. That's pretty rewarding, I feel like. Or just like anything. Or I don't know, maybe reward your soul with a little bit of a good, a good deed. Be a good person. Yeah. So not too long after that phone call, uh, the police called

Jennifer and they said, hey, you want to come talk to us? And she said, I guess I have to. She said, she didn't know anything about the Heidi Allen disappearance. Didn't know why she was there. She was just telling Tanya whatever she wanted to hear so that she could get off the phone with her. It's always funny to me when people do that kind of stuff when they're like, yeah, I just said that to get them off the phone. It's like, oh, you just implicated yourself in an objection and murder to get someone off. I mean, I hate the phone. I don't like talking on the phone at all. I have never implicated myself in a crime to get off of the phone.

Thank you. I actually wrote this sentence. Listen, I don't like talking on the phone either, but I'm not going to pretend to be somewhat an accomplice to a murder I wasn't involved in just to get off the phone. No, definitely not. Instead, I will ruffle a bag of chips and say, oh, we're working all. I'm going through a tunnel. That's an asinine excuse. That's outrageous.

Yeah. So a friend of Jennifer's later said that she would talk if she was first given $5 million because this information is worth a whole lot of money, quote unquote. You know that, like, Heidi had an entire family. And Heidi was an entire person. You don't put a value on that. She's an entire human being with an entire feeling. with an entire future ahead of her.

Who has an entire family that has been tirelessly wondering what happened to her. Mm-hmm. I feel like it's worth it. Yeah. I feel like that's worth it. You would think so. My God. Who are these people?

That's the thing. It's like, why are we putting dollars and cents on a family's need to know what happened to their loved one? And possibly giving Heidi a final resting place. That's the thing. I could never hold a dollar sign over a family, like, information. Like, I have information that could help you. But I'm not going to give it to you. But unless I get paid money, I'm not telling you how do you do that?

Are you fucking kidding me? Come on. Unreal. She, Jennifer, then wrote to a friend on Facebook that she was done talking because she didn't want to be the next person dead in a box in the woods. Okay, here's the thing. I get it if you're terrified. Of course. These people are fucking terrifying.

I mean, think of how far they were pushing Sharon and, or Shannon, excuse me, and Teresa, though. into saying they were going to go into the witness protection program. They would have offered her the same thing. So it's like, why don't, like, this is too big. You have the information. Right. But she, no, Alina, she's not going to do the investigator's job for them. No, of course not.

Just to be, to have that lack of empathy, I hope I never understand that in my entire life. I hope I never understand that. Because everybody can understand being scared and being scared of these people. Absolutely. Absolutely. I can't imagine that feeling. But you've gone this long with this. And you've never once thought to like drop a tip anonymously or something. Oh, no. Or go to the police and be like, I don't want to be attached to this, but I need to tell you what happened. But like, please make sure I am protected. Jennifer was subpoenaed to show up in the original trial to testify. And she didn't show up. And nothing came of it. if you are subpoenaed to testify and you don't show up, there are not many other cases I would think in which you would get away with that.

I don't understand this at all. It doesn't make any sense. And so they were coming around asking Roger questions, talking to Jennifer, asking them to come to court, they don't come to court, and then they skip town. Yeah. This is so fishy in every direction. Now, Michael Boar, let's get into that, who's 5-11, by the way. Oh, yeah. Familiar height. He was acting very strange right after Heidi's disappearance and in the years that followed. He became very enthralled in the case and started his own case file with newspaper clippings and any information that he could get together on Heidi's case.

Okay. Kind of like how Van Zant said somebody involved in the murder might do. Yep. Absolutely. He apparently referred to himself as Investigator A and on one occasion showed up to high. Heidi's family home with a briefcase and told them that he planned to write a book on the case. He never did. I have no words. And he told them that he remembered Heidi because he used to go into the DNW daily and have her make him a BLT sandwich. Remember how she said there was a person on cocaine who kept coming in freaking her out? Yep. He was a known dealer of cocaine.

Okay. Okay. So there's that. Yeah. So he was also taking extensive notes while he was investigating, quote unquote, this case. They were uncovered years later and they showed that he was dating a woman who claimed to be psychic. And as he was investigating, this woman was helping him. And she said to him that Heidi was kidnapped by three men and one woman and that she saw Heidi being beaten with a pipe. The woman said that she then saw Heidi being transported in a car and that as she was laying in the back seat, she took off a bracelet that she'd been wearing and tried to stuff it in between the seats like she was leaving behind something that could help investigators with the case. Oh, wow. Interestingly enough, around 2004, Heidi's cousin Missy got a strange bulky envelope in her mailbox.

She opened it up in a bracelet that she had given Heidi was inside. Are you kidding me right now? It was a gift for Heidi's graduation, and Missy had had it personally engraved. On the front, it said Heidi, and on the back it said love Missy. Oh, that's like heart-wrenching. Whoever sent this to her had to have known that she was the one to give it to Heidi. And he has this note that Heidi took off a bracelet in the back seat. Come on.

Are you kidding me? How much more do you need? Are you kidding me? He also provided a tip to the police in the early days of the investigation. saying that he had seen two men acting strangely in the area. That's it. He said one of them was a young and blonde and that the other one had a dark ponytail. And according to Michael, they drove either a red Chevy or a GMC pickup with a yellow light on top.

Nothing ever came from that tip. Okay. But it would not be the last time that they'd speak to Michael. But before we get to that, let me tell you, people in New Haven seem to be remembering a lot. Roger Breckenridge's ex-wife came forward and told the investigators that early on in the investigation, the police had come out to her house on more than one occasion asking about Roger. She was married to him at the time that Heidi went missing, and she told him he left early that Easter morning and didn't come back until everyone had eaten Easter dinner.

Then, I'm not done. Later, she heard him talking to Thumper and saying something about blood being on the backseat of a van and not wanting to deal with it. What is going on here? How is all of this being laid out? This is like gift wrapped. Yes. This is delivered to your door.

Giff wrapped. What the fuck? What the actual fuck. Now, I will give it to her. She said she was too scared to ask any questions. And Roger was known to be a violent man. Yeah. So I get that.

That's the thing. I understand people being scared of these people. I totally get that. 100%. But it's like, what are we doing with this information now, everybody? Well, and like, what is the investigation? That's the thing. Like, what are you doing with it? Right. Now you have the information. It's all hearsay. Run. It's all hearsay.

Hearsay. These are witnesses. Yeah. This isn't hearsay. I don't know a ton about, like, legal terms. This is not hearsay. Well, and it's like, I mean, then think, like, if you think about it, it's like, okay, so then why do you go around asking people questions and what they're going to tell you is just hearsay. That's the thing. You ask witnesses, like, for statements. People come in, eyewitnesses testify. How was that not hearsay? This is hearsay, somebody who lived with the man and was married to him? And said he didn't, he left early that morning and didn't come home until after everyone had eaten. And was talking about blood on the vaccine of a van? Because it's like, guys, did we not get an alibi from Roger? And if you did, did that not blow it up? I mean, an alibi is not hearsay. Nope. You can

blow up an alibi with somebody being like, nope, he wasn't here. Right. Wow. Yeah. So another infuriating. Another woman, Amanda Braley, came forward to the police and said that she had been around when conversations had happened about what really happened to Heidi. She said in an affidavit, she filed an affidavit, quote, they told me they, Roger and whoever else, took her to Murta's scrapyard and put her in a wood stove, then put her in a vehicle and put her on a tractor trailer for scrapping. Car was crushed, they put her in. She was with Roger, oh, this is me talking. She was with Roger and Jennifer Westcott on one occasion when Roger was talking about Heidi and he said, this is horrible. We took that bitch to the scrapyard in the van, had it crushed, and she was shipped

to Canada. She's long gone now. Holy shit. Yeah. Now Jennifer apparently slapped him on the shoulder and said, you can't be talking like that. Now, there were other claims, while Amanda, was hanging out with them that Heidi actually had not been shipped to Canada, but was actually crushed in a van at the junk slash scrapyard owned by a man named Richard Murta. This like junkyard scrapyard was known as Crosby Hill Auto Recycling in Volney, New York. Okay. So Jennifer Westcott actually texted Richard Murta when investigators asked her to come in and chat about the phone conversation that she'd had with Tanya Priest.

she asked him why the hell investigators were calling her about this. She said he didn't recognize her number, so he didn't answer. Are you kidding me? And unfortunately, I can't give you the full transcript of those text messages because once they were handed over to the detectives in hopes of getting Gary a new chance at a new trial because he was still alive at this point, the text messages went missing. Oh, the classic went missing. Yeah.

Okay. So now there were multiple people coming forward with information, and pretty much all of it seemed to fit together perfectly. Tanya's call with Jennifer Westcott. That whole story seemed to match up with what Megan and Ruben Shaw had said they heard, also seemed to be in line with Amanda Braley's statements. And then there were people who were clearly being caught in lies, too. Like Jennifer saying that she was just trying to shut Tanya up and Jonathan Barkley saying he didn't know thumper, but wait, yes, he did, but he didn't let him borrow his truck, but actually he did. and he didn't send that text, but maybe his phone was just broken and sent it itself. Yeah, that sentient phone thing. I forgot about that. And then another inmate with information that matched up pretty much well with everybody else's came forward.

This man was Joseph Menino, and he and Thumper had been housed at the same prison, and Thumper told him that Heidi had been crushed in the van that she was kidnapped in and then hauled off to Canada. That's a pretty specific story. It's a pretty specific story that now three separate people have. told. So when the information started circulating about Roger Thamper and Michael, the local media wanted to talk to all of them as much as they possibly could. Now it was known back in the day that they all scrapped together. They were all known to go to scrapyards, get the money, la la la, and it was noted that they all had connections to people who would dispose of crushed cars. They knew people

who would drive the crushed cars to a landfill in Canada. And they also knew of that junkyard in where they could scrap the cars. So there were people in town who hung out with all three of them and people who seemed to know that they were all good friends with one another. But years later, when people became suspicious of the trio and more and more people are coming forward with new information, Michael tells a reporter that he barely knows those guys. Yeah.

And he said, you know, I might know them if I saw them in a photo. And then he was shown a photo of one of them and he was like, oh yeah, those are killers' eyes. What? Yeah, buddy, that's your friend that you used to hang out with. Wow. He then told the reporter that he was obsessed with Heidi's case. He told John O'Brien, who co-authored Scrapped, I was obsessed with it.

I took a personal note in it because she was the same age as my oldest daughter. It just freaked me out that a kid could be taken away like that, and I took it personal. To be clear, Michael did have a violent history. He had a really rough childhood. He started acting up way before he was even an adult. adult. He was known to set fires as a child and just like run amok. But he was incredibly smart and talented when it came to computers. When he became an adult, he started a family with his wife. He had an incredible job working for IBM. Everything was going beautifully. But unfortunately,

he lost everything he had because he started drinking and then using drugs and he became allegedly abusive to his family. Things actually got so bad that IBM sent him to rehab. And we're like, just come back like when you're good, but he came back and he had not changed his behavior at all. He lost his job. He lost his wife and his wife took his children. Wow. Because he was like that violent. Yeah. That was when he ended up in New Haven. When he got there with his brother, the two of them started selling drugs together in the area. He said, I'm not a violent man, but I suffer from panic episodes. And he said in those episodes, he would become violent, but he would never kill someone, even when he was going through one of those episodes. He knew he wouldn't because he didn't want to go

to hell. Okay. But there were people who argued the exact opposite. On one occasion, right around one o'clock in the morning, he actually put a woman in a chokehold after following her home, tried to grab her and drag her into his van, but luckily she was able to get away. She filed a police report and he pled guilty to unlawful imprisonment. But he's not violent. But he's not, yeah, no. No. No.

Now, something that came up during the interview with him that made a few eyebrows and hairs on the back of people's neck's rays was Heidi's informant card. Why would he know about that? Yeah. You see, the detective that she worked with, Chris Van Patten, had actually dropped the card he kept with all of her information, a photo of her, her address, her influence. informant code name, which was Julia Roberts. Everything. Her thumbprints. Everything. In the parking lot of the DNW where she worked. He just dropped it? He dropped her informant card. He apparently didn't

realize that he was like talking on a payphone and it fell out of his pocket. And he dropped a teenage informant's card where she worked with all of her information. Okay. Yes. Now luckily, the owner of the store, Kristen Duel found it. She was a family friend of Heidi's, luckily. So if Kristen Duel found this card and called the police to let them know that she'd found it and that they could come to collect it, then nobody saw it. And crisis averted, right? Hmm. Wrong. When John O'Brien was interviewing Michael Bore, he actually referenced Heidi's ID card and said something along the lines of like, oh, crazy that they found that, huh? Oh. And everyone there was like, what are you talking about? And he was like, oh yeah, I saw that on the news.

And they were like, that was never on the news. Oh, man. That was never information released to the public. Oh, man. Yeah. Un-fucking real. Because Heidi's informant card had actually been sitting in a box of court documents that was handed over to Richard Tibido when Gary was convicted.

Other people may have known about Heidi's status as an informant, though, because Chris Van Patten was apparently known to have a few too many at the bar and go off at his mouth about investigative. that he was working on. Oh. Shortly before Christmas that year, he was at a bar talking about this big bus that they were going to do and how they got there was using a child informant. Oh, my God.

And he's sitting at a bar talking about that. Are you kidding me? I read one news source that said he is no longer a police officer. Oh, that's good. So they're like, what the fuck? How do you know about that? And then they're like, you know what? It's time to go out to that Rice Road cabin with all of this weird bullshit.

For real. What the hell? So Lisa Peebles, who co-authored that book and also took over Gary's case, was planning on eventually making that federal appeal, which we already know she made. She said, if things didn't go well, that's what we need to go for. And she's like, we need to get that cabin searched. Yeah. So they do. They get to the cabin, which it's really hard to get to.

Actually, Tanya and a couple friends had tried to get there, but Thumper was right. The brush was like too thick. They couldn't go through. So the investigators get here to this cabin. and the floorboards had been dug up in the cabin. There was a fresh footprint in the dirt alongside the cabin, and cadaver dogs responded to a scent. Guys.

But unfortunately, nothing was found. Oh, my God. This is so frustrating. The handler of the cadaver dogs said, somebody must have just cut themselves out there, and the dogs were picking up on that. Yeah. Yeah.

Probably. Now, like I said, all of this happened while Gary was still alive and Lisa was trying to get him a new trial. So they took all these new statements which each corroborated the other, the information about the cadaver dogs responding to his son, and they try to get the new trial. But as I said, we all know at this point, they wouldn't take it. It was all uncorroborated hearsay. That doesn't make any sense to me. And then Lisa never got the chance to take it to a federal level like she had planned because Gary passed away in prison, which left the case close. Holy shit. Now, to me, there are just way too many shady people involved in this case to say that

Gary definitely did this. I'm not saying he didn't, but I'm just saying there's a lot of questions. There's so many unanswered questions, and I don't think other suspects were looked into as much as they could have been. Which leads me to the final what the fuck in this case. While Gary's team was working on getting information together to build a new case for him, they found a case file that said, to not copy it for the defense. It had a note on top that said, do not copy for defense. And it was signed, D.H.D., the signature of Donald Dodd, the prosecuting attorney, who was, had a little bit of a reputation for not handing things over, not only in this investigation, but in previous ones. I love how you can just get a reputation for that and not just get, I don't know, disbarred.

Thank you. Thank you. It seems like that should be, that's kind of your job, I would say. And he apparently was also very well known to go the informant route, like the jailhouse informant route. Okay. Which is interesting. Hmm. Yeah. Now, inside this file that he said, do not share with the defense, there were transcripts from a court report where an internal forensic examiner hired by the FBI was interviewing a young boy who had started talking to his mother and his counselor about Heidi and her disappearance. So the man interviewing this young boy was Dr. Murray Myron, which also sounds like that.

familiar. Yeah, it does. And he was hired to do a delicate interview with a young child. This child was about three and a half, four years old. Oh my goodness. And he was diagnosed with PTSD. In the doctor's report, he wrote, quote, it is my professional opinion that report of the certain events pertinent to the disposal of Heidi Allen's body, which he witnessed, are true and accurate accounts of those events. He went on to say, it is my opinion that he witnessed Heidi Allen's body being transported in van and then saw her body burnt in a garage on the property of the Barlow residence. He noted that he was articulate, bright, active, and alert, but that the second his father enters the picture, the boy becomes frightened and does not talk. Oh my God, this is horrible. What did he see? Yeah, what the fuck is going on

here? His father was with the Tibido brothers the day that they showed up to help search for Heidi, and then Richard Tibido was taken in for questioning. Now, the boy had started talking to his mom and his counselor about Heidi after she disappeared. And he said he saw her and he knew what happened to her. Now remember, he was three and a half when Heidi went missing. Yeah. He told his mom, and I just want to let you guys know, this is really bleak. It's really awful. Oh, God. He said that he had seen Heidi at his dad's house before and that she had handed his dad money for something. He could describe her perfectly, and he also said that she came to the house in a car that was long and reddish, which as we know describes her car perfectly.

especially in the words of a three-year-old. He was shown a picture of her and he said, yes, that's Heidi. He then said that three men took her and that he saw her body in a van and then again in a garage and that there were snakes and bugs crawling on her. And then he told his mother

that a policeman with black boots shot Heidi in the head. Oh my goodness. So nothing ever came of that originally because the file was hidden away. But when it was discovered, the defense wanted to check the Barlow property where this supposedly happened. The Barlow's refused to have their property searched.

And I couldn't find anything that has come of this. What? But it's interesting to note that at the time Heidi went missing, that boy was, this is going to get a little confusing. So I hope you can follow. So his dad was dating a woman named Jamie Coon. Jamie's mother Joyce worked at the D&W convenience store because Joy, Joyce's sister Bobby owned the place. Okay.

Now, Bobby's daughter was Kristen Duhl who owned the D&W with her. Okay. Kristen Duel is the person who found Heidi's informant card. Is it possible she may be mentioned this to her mother? Her mother mentions it to her sister. The sister mentions it to the niece. The niece mentions it to the man she's dating. Then he becomes involved in something horrible.

Whoa. It's possible. It's all possible. It's all possible. Absolutely. It is absolutely mind-blowing. Mind-blowing. And there's a documentary I watched that looks a little bit more into that specific theory, so I will link that and you can decide for yourself. But I just think it really sucks that after all these years, even after a man was convicted and spent the rest of his life in jail, that there's all these questions. There is, and so many questions. I mean, I am baffled. baffled. I've never heard a case like this. Neither have I. Putting this case together, my brain was just like,

what? And I feel so hard for Heidi's family because while somebody was put away, and I do believe they were pretty comfortable with like and felt that the right person was put away, they had to sit around in town and hear all these theories and, you know, maybe second guess that at some point. And hearing awful things being said. And like, I'm sure horrible rumors were spread because maybe some of these theories are rumors, you know? Yeah. And it's like, they have to sit there and hear that. Like, that's awful and just not know. And on top of that, they don't have Heidi. They don't have a place where they can go visit her. They do not have Heidi. And that's the biggest issue here. And it's so sad. Her sister Lisa said, even when Heidi's found, the kidnapping doesn't go away. There's no closure. For families of

the missing, closure is the worst word in the entire world and we don't believe in it. I haven't met a family of a missing person yet that would tell you closure is real. It's a new normal. Yeah, it's true. Because, I mean, when you really think about it, how do you get closure when you don't have your loved one anymore? You don't. There's no such thing. You don't get that. And I think she put it, I mean, I've never obviously experienced this, but I think she put it perfectly. It's a new normal. Yeah, you just have to, like, try to survive without them. It's like something that you have to adapt to in a weird way. Which no one should ever have to adapt to. No. Now, it's unclear whether or not this case is still being investigated. It seems like it's not because there was so in for any time. there was new information, it was shut down. But that doesn't matter. If you know something about this case or if you know anything about Heidi's potential whereabouts, you can call the Oswego Police

Department, I think I said that right, at 888-349-3411. Again, that's 888-349-3411. Wow. And that is the disappearance of Heidi Allen. I just really hope that they find some... some definitive answer that leads them to Heidi that brings her home. There's an answer somewhere. A definitive thing. There's like a deathbed confession. I hope we don't have to wait that long, but there's got to be something. And you know, it's like if you know something and you're too scared to come forward, that's understandable,

but just try to put yourself in the position of this family. Yeah, because it's like even if you know something about Gary. Yeah. Like you know something that could be like, yep, this is what I know that this happened. We don't know either way. At least that would give some kind of something, you know? Like, it's... It's like Heidi's mother went to the grave not knowing what happened to her daughter.

And she actually passed away on Heidi's 39th birthday. Oh, my God. She's so sad. That's horrific. It really is. So again, I'll repeat that number one more time. It's the Oswego Police Department 888-349-3411. So we hope that you guys have any information that you can share.

We hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep. It weird. But not so weird that you're so wrapped up in this whole string of wild people involved. I am just still speechless. Not so weird that any of this pertains to you. Oh.