MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories - Season's Grievings (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

Episode Date: July 6, 2026

In December 1990, a worried father paced his kitchen, hoping his daughter would call. But the phone stayed silent, and an anxious pit formed in his stomach. He was worried his daughter was in trouble – and afraid that he, himself, had just accidentally done something to make things worse.   You can WATCH all new & exclusive MrBallen podcast episodes on my YouTube channel, just called "MrBallen" - https://www.youtube.com/c/MrBallen If you want to reach out to me, contact me on Instagram, Twitter or any other major social media platform, my username on all of them is @mrballen Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In December of 1990, a very concerned father was pacing around his kitchen, hoping that his daughter would call. But the phone stayed silent. And as it did, you know, an anxious pit formed in his stomach. He was really worried about his daughter. He thought maybe she was in trouble. And also he was worried that he himself might have accidentally just done something that could make things even worse. But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious, delivered in story format, then you've come to the right place place because that's all we do. So if that's of interest to you, please hack the Follow Button's Facebook account and go ahead and delete their date of birth so that nobody wishes

them a happy birthday. Okay, let's get into today's story. On the night of Friday, December 7th, 1990, a 39-year-old woman named Janet Dennis set four dinner plates on the kitchen table at her home in a suburb of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. She had just finished making dinner for herself and her three kids who at the current moment were watching a Christmas movie in the living room. Janet hummed along to the TV as she brought the food over to the table, and then she called her kids to come over and eat. The kids got up, they rushed over, they sat down, and as they began eating, Janet told them about all these fun holiday plans that she had made for them over winter break. So Janet really loved Christmas. She typically would decorate her house like the instant Thanksgiving was over. And earlier that same day, she had gone to a toy store and filled the entire backseat of her car with gifts for the kids.

But Janet really wanted this Christmas to be especially memorable for her kids because the past few months had been really tough on them. Back in July, Janet had divorced their father, Leroy. And so now the kids only saw their dad about once a week. Now, Janet knew the kids missed him terribly, but actually, Leroy had never really been a very present father, which was part of the reason that Janet had asked for the divorce in the first place. They'd been married for 16 years,

And for most of that time, Janet had pretty much felt like she was just a single parent, on top of being the primary breadwinner for the family. And this was because Leroy owned and operated this ranch that was located about 90 miles away in a rural town called Sealing. And this ranch really had never made much money. And so Leroy had begun working all these crazy long hours to basically avoid hiring extra help. But because of that, he was usually gone before sunrise every single day. and he didn't get home until very, very late.

So he's gone all the time working, but for not much return, not much money. And so for years, Janet had picked up the slack. She worked as a school nurse. That way she could, you know, make some money. And then also she could be home to meet the kids after school every single day. And then when she was home, she managed the house by herself as well. And so that was ultimately really why a judge awarded her full custody of the kids back in July when the divorce was finalized. I mean, Leroy, undeniably loved his son.

kids, but he simply couldn't provide for them. And besides, at this point, he was now living on that ranch and ceiling 90 miles away full time. And so, you know, his kids' schools and social lives were here in Oklahoma City. It just, it wasn't a match. And so now Janet put another serving of mashed potatoes on her plate, and as she did, she reminded her 12-year-old son, Tad, who was her oldest child, that he had a wrestling tournament at school in the morning and that they had to leave really early so they could get to the competition on time. After dinner, Tad helped his mom clear the table, and then they all went out to the living room to finish watching that Christmas movie together. And then when it was over, Janet followed her kids upstairs and helped get them all ready for bed.

And then once they were all tucked in, she came back downstairs to finish cleaning up the kitchen. Now, this was about the time that Leroy, if they were still married, would be coming home from work. But now that Janet was divorced, she got to spend her evenings however she wanted. She thought about heading out to the garage to grab all those gifts she had purchased out of the car and bring them in to wrap them. But then as she was about to head out, she saw a pair of headlights pull into her driveway. At 5.30 the next morning, Janet's 12-year-old son, Tad, shut off his alarm clock and rolled out of bed to get ready for his wrestling competition. Once he had his stuff together, he went downstairs, expecting to find his mother in the kitchen already making breakfast. But he didn't see her in there.

So he just went down the hallway to her bedroom and he opened up her door and he looked in and there was his mom still lying in bed with the covers pulled all the way up over her head. So Tad, thinking this whole thing was a little bit odd because his mom was all over everything, he still called out for her to wake up because it was time to get ready to go. But his mom didn't move. And so he walked into the bedroom right next to the bed and pulled down the covers to shake her awake. But when he did that, he realized, His mom is not in the bed at all.

What he was looking at underneath the covers was actually a pile of pillows, arranged to make it look like she was still sleeping in bed, which was really weird, because to Tad, it now seemed pretty obvious that his mother had actually left the house, but for some reason she seemed to want him to think that she was still home. And so just to make sure, Tad left the bedroom and ran to the garage to check, and sure enough, his mother's car was gone. And now Tad, like, he really didn't know what to do. Because in his entire life, his mother had never just left without telling him. And so Tad went back to the kitchen and he looked over at the clock on the oven and saw it was already 6 a.m. Which

meant he was already going to be late to his wrestling tournament. He wondered if maybe his mom had just like run out to the gas station or something quick like that and she'd be home any minute. But a few more minutes passed by, then she still didn't come home. And so at this point, Tad was becoming really anxious, and he started to worry that his mom had maybe gotten into a car accident or something. So he did the only thing he could think of. He went over to the kitchen phone, and he called his dad, who was out at the ranch and ceiling. And when his dad picked up, he told him everything that was going on. Now, Leroy was, you know, admittedly sort of confused by this whole thing, but he told his son, don't worry, your mom's going to be home any minute, I'm sure of it.

But he also told him that just in case he would start driving over to their house right now, just to make sure everything was okay. Two hours later, Tad heard the sound of his father's truck pull into the driveway. And the instant he heard it, he jumped off the couch to go unlock the front door. When his dad walked into the house, the first thing he asked his son was his mom home. And Tad said, no, she's still not here. Leroy nodded, but reassured his son that, you know, his mom was going to be home soon, that she would have a good explanation, it's okay.

But, you know, as Tad followed his father, all around the house at this point, basically looking for Janet and looking for any sign of maybe where she had gone, Tad began to notice a look of concern growing on his father's face. And that sort of gave Tad this sick feeling in his stomach that maybe something's really wrong here. And then, sure enough, at some point his dad, after searching the whole house and just sort of standing there for a moment, he turned to Tad and he said, we got to call the police. Two days later, on Monday, December 10th, Lieutenant Detective Craig Gravel with the Oklahoma Oklahoma City Police District, knocked on the door to Janet Dennis' house. He had spoken on the phone that

morning to Janet's ex-husband Leroy, and now he heard Leroy's voice again, but from inside of the house right in front of him, calling to his kids to go on upstairs for a minute. And then a moment later, the door opened and Leroy invited Gravel inside. So even though it had been two days now since Leroy had called 911 and reported Janet missing, Grable had only just been assigned to her case that morning. His captain had wanted to wait out the weekend before investigating formally because there had been no signs of violence at her home, and, generally speaking, most adults who get reported missing show up within 48 hours. But that morning, when the case landed on Gravel's desk and he'd begun reading over the details, his gut told him that something had happened to her. From all

appearances, she was a very responsible and loving mother with no history of just disappearing like this. So, Gravel had immediately put out an alert to all the police stations in the area to be on the lookout for Janet's car, which was a red Chevy Blazer. And then he had called Leroy and asked if they could speak. And so now Detective Gravel stepped inside of Janet's home, and right away he noticed how tidy and how covered in Christmas decorations it was. I mean, the whole house seemed so festive, which made Gravel think that Janet very likely had planned to be home for the holidays. And so he followed Leroy into the kitchen. They sat down at the table, and the first question he had for Leroy was, have you heard from Janet since we spoke this morning?

But Leroy said no. He said all they knew was that Janet had disappeared at some point between maybe 9 p.m. on Friday night when the kids went to bed and they had seen her when they went to bed and 6 a.m. the next morning when Tad had called him saying, Mom's not here. And Leroy said, you know, despite the fact that, you know, Janet is his ex-wife and there wasn't a whole lot of love lost there, he said he was really worried, because Janet would never just leave their kids alone. Never. However, he did tell the detective that while he had been just walking around the house for any clues about where she might have gone, he said he had noticed that her toiletries bag was gone.

So now he didn't really know what to think. That sort of did suggest that maybe this was planned, but just very out of character. Grable nodded and then asked Leroy, could he think of any place that Janet might go to, maybe to go blow off steam or something, like someplace if she was really really, stressed, where would she go? Leroy said, you know, in the past, Janet had gone to Las Vegas to gamble, but again, she would never just go without warning and also would never just leave the kids unsupervised. Leroy said, at a minimum, she would have let him know if she was going away, because, again, they have kids together. Even though they were divorced, they still basically were on decent terms.

Gravel nodded and wrote down everything Leroy said. Now, to him, Leroy was definitely a suspect. But at this moment, he seemed to be cooperating. So Gravel wrapped up the interview and headed out because for right now, what he really wanted to do was go speak to another person who had also called the police station that weekend about Janet Dennis. Later that morning, so on Monday, December 10, 1990, Detective Gravel pulled up to the home of Arthur Olson,

who was Janet's father. Arthur had also called the station that weekend, repeatedly, to ask if any progress had been made on his daughter's case. When Arthur opened his door, he looked frazzled, and he asked if Gravel had found his daughter yet, or had any idea where she might be, or if she was okay. Gravel told Arthur that, no, they still did not know where she was yet. However, he said that Leroy had told him that occasionally Janet would go to Las Vegas, to gamble, to blow off steam.

But Arthur echoed the same sentiment as Leroy when he brought this up, which is like, yeah, Janet would occasionally go to Las Vegas, but she would never do that without first making making sure her kids were okay. She would never just leave in the middle of the night. That is not something she would do. And also, Arthur said, if she had gone to Vegas, like if that's where she was now, she wouldn't be alone. She would have gone with her new boyfriend. And when Arthur said this, that caught Gravel by surprise. Because Leroy, the ex-husband, had definitely not mentioned a new boyfriend. In fact, no boyfriends had been mentioned at all. And so Gravel asked Arthur to tell him more about this boyfriend, because this is the first he was hearing of him, at which

point Arthur said, well, you know, my daughter's actually been keeping this boyfriend a secret, both from Leroy and from the kids. Arthur said the guy's name was Jim Umbanhauer, and he was a soldier stationed at Fort Sill, which was an army base just a few towns over. But then, this look of regret crossed Arthur's face. He told Gravel that he had actually only just met Jim for the first time this past weekend after Janet was already missing. And the reason he met with him is he gave Jim a key to Janet's house. Gravel at this point looked up from his notepad and asked Arthur, like, what does that mean? Why did you do that? Now, Arthur went from looking regretful to looking straight up embarrassed, as he explained. And he told Gravel that just a few hours after Janet

was reported missing, Jim had actually called him. And Jim had told him that some of his belongings were actually at Janet's place. And that Janet would definitely not want Leroy to find those things because their relationship was a secret. So Jim had told Arthur that his plan was to wait until Leroy took the kids out somewhere, and then when the house was empty, he would sneak in using the key that he was asking Arthur for, and he would just grab up all his stuff. That way, you know, Leroy wouldn't find it. Gravel, when he heard this, was shocked. Because to him, it was like so obviously a bad idea for Arthur to have given Jim that key. Because as far as Gravel was concerned, Janet's house could be an active crime scene.

But Arthur seemed to guess what Gravel was likely thinking here because he said, you know, he knew now that that had been a mistake. But back on Saturday, he just didn't believe Janet was truly missing here. Like he expected her to come home. Like this couldn't be a big deal, right? But now he said he was absolutely sick with guilt. Shortly after this, Gravel wrapped up their interview, and then he hopped in his car, and he drove right back to the station.

His top priority now was to track down the secret boyfriend Jim Umbanhauer. But as soon as he got back to his desk, he learned there was actually a more pressing lead for him to follow up on. Janet's car had been located at the Oklahoma City Airport. An hour later, Detective Gravel turned his car into the long-term parking garage at the Oklahoma City Airport. He was there to follow up on a lead about Janet Dennis, who had disappeared from her house overnight on Friday, leaving her three young kids. kids on attendant. And right away, Gravel saw another police cruiser at the far end of the garage parked behind a Chevy Blazer, Janet's Chevy Blazer. And so Gravel, he pulled up behind the other cruiser and then he got out and just began walking around Janet's car, getting a look. And eventually

he walked up and cupped his hands over his eyes so he could look through the window into the back seat. And when he looked in there, he saw it was completely full of new toys, which he assumed were Christmas presents for her kids. And when Gravel saw those presence, he instantly had a bad feeling in his stomach, like his gut was telling him that Janet did not drive her car to this location. Somebody else did. And also, at this point, Gravel also had proof that she wasn't in Las Vegas. So right before Gravel had come out to the airport, his team had called into the centralized database that could access all of the hotel reservations in the Las Vegas area. And there were no reservations anywhere in the entire city under Janet's

name. Now, of course, she could be there with somebody else, maybe under their name, but this at least suggested, very strongly suggested, that she was not there. And so now, Gravel was confident that Janet had not skipped town for some spur-the-moment gambling trip. Now, at this point, if something had happened to Janet, well, Gravel's primary suspect at this point was Janet's new boyfriend, her secret boyfriend, Jim Umbanauer. However, Gravel still had not looked into him yet, which meant if he was involved in any way in Janet's disappearance, well, by today, by now, he could be anywhere. And so as Grable is thinking about this, he was interrupted by the sound of a vehicle approaching. And he turned and he sees a car pull up right behind his cruiser. And then after they

parked, this guy got out wearing a full army uniform and he walked over to Grable and he introduced himself as Jim Umbenhauer. Late that afternoon, Gravel sat in an interview room at the station across from Janet's secret boyfriend, Jim Umbenhauer, and Jim was hooked up to a polygraph machine. So back at the airport, Jim had claimed that he'd been worried sick about Janet all weekend, and he'd been literally driving around town looking for her car. He claimed he had no idea that it, the car, or Detective Gravel, would be at the airport when he arrived. And it had just been like a total coincidence that he had just happened to find Janet's car at the exact moment, police had found it.

To Gravel, this felt like a fairly obvious lie, because the chances of Jim, just running into Janet's car at the exact moment that police are finding it and that he's arriving to look at it, it just felt like not possible. And Gravel figured that Jim must have already known where Janet's car was and had somehow learned that the police had found it, and so he had just sort of shown up. Gravel knew it was actually common for killers and kidnappers to actually intentionally insert themselves into an ongoing investigation of their victims to like, you know, influence the investigation or just keep a pulse on what's happening under the guise of being really helpful.

And right away, Grable had gotten the sense that Jim was doing just that. So Grable had immediately asked Jim to not only come back to the station to talk, but to take a polygraph test. And Jim had agreed. And so now, the polygraph examiner, so the person actually administering the polygraph, nodded to Grable that they were ready to start. And so Gravel asked Jim, why did you ask for a key to sneak into Janet's house that past weekend? Now, Jim looked genuinely surprised that Gravel even knew about that.

But he told Gravel that he had simply gone over there to get a box of love letters from Janet's bedroom that were between he and Janet. He said that Janet had wanted to keep their relationship private, especially from Leroy. As a precaution, he had, you know, asked Arthur to get the key to go in and get the letters. And he said, you know, the letters were actually right now out in his car. Now, Gravel knew that would be easy enough to verify, so he just moved on, and he asked Jim, where were you on Friday night, which was the last night that Janet's kids had seen her. And Jim actually said that he had been at Janet's house that night, which caught Grable

completely off guard. Jim explained that he had gone over to Janet's house after the kids had gone to sleep so that he and Janet could secretly spend some time together. Now, at this point, Gravel really had to just stop for a second and collect his thoughts before asking more questions, because he really had not seen this coming. I mean, all day, he had been trying to place someone at Janet's house after 9 p.m. on that Friday, and now here was Jim admitting he had been there at the house on that Friday night after 9 p.m., making him the official last known person to have seen Janet. After a minute, Gravel told Jim to just go on. Tell me more

about your last time seeing Janet. And Jim explained that he had stayed at Janet's house for a few hours, and he had left really late to drive back to Fort Sill, because he was actually supposed to deploy to Afghanistan the very next day, but when he got back to base that night, he learned that his deployment had actually been delayed for a few weeks. So Jim said the next day, he had called Janet's house to tell her the good news, that they had a few more weeks together before he went overseas. But he said Janet didn't answer the phone. A family member had, and they had said that Janet was missing. Grable just sat back in his chair, taking all this in. To him, it just seemed impossible that Jim would be the last person to see Janet before she just vanished,

and then he also just so happened to find her car at the exact moment the police arrived to investigate. So Gravel began asking Jim more questions, predominantly about his personal life. And it was at that point that he learned that Janet was not Jim's only girlfriend. Right now, he was actually living with another woman in a town closer to Fort Sill. Now, Jim admitted that he knew this looked bad, but he swore that the relationship with this other woman wasn't working, and he really just wanted to be with Janet. But Gravel at this point felt like he had heard enough. I mean, this guy really had dug himself a hole. And so what he really wanted to do was just discuss the results of this polygraph test with the examiner in private.

So he ended the interview and sent Jim home. And once Jim was gone, Gravel turned to the examiner, and the examiner said, yep, Jim failed his test. which meant he had been lying throughout the interview. And this was sort of unnerving for Gravel. I mean, because this guy that he had just interviewed, very likely, was the man responsible for Janet's disappearance. But Gravel knew that he would need more than polygraph results and sort of a gut feeling to arrest him and charge him with some sort of crime.

Right now, he needed more evidence. A few days later, Detective Gravel was in his office pacing around, reading through some documents. So after his interview with Jim, Gravel had decided to go to the school where Janet worked to speak to her colleagues about her relationship with Jim. Now, he didn't even know if anybody at the school would know about her relationship at all because she had basically kept it secret. And so Gravel had been really surprised to learn that not only did everybody at the school seem to know about Jim, but when they talked about Jim, they spoke with, you know, huge adoration.

I mean, they really loved Jim and thought that he was great for Janet. And on top of that, they all seemed to think sort of collectively, that Leroy was a terrible husband and had been glad when Janet finally dumped him. They said Leroy was very argumentative and he was very controlling and said the divorce had been really messy. And for Gravel, you know, he found that kind of interesting because until that point, he had thought that Leroy and Janet were basically on good terms. But all of a sudden, it seemed like maybe that was not the case.

So Gravel had gotten his hands on a copy of Janet and Leroy's divorce settlement and those were the documents he was looking through. And as Grable thumbed through it all, he saw that Leroy actually owed Janet a lot of money, $30,000 plus half of his ranch in ceiling. And that ranch, I mean, that was a really big deal because that was Leroy's entire livelihood. So to owe her half on top of the cash was like a huge deal. Plus, Gravel also knew that Janet had been given full custody of their kids. And so the way Gravel saw it, I mean, Leroy, he had a lot of.

of reasons to be mad. And Gravel wondered if maybe he had been mad enough to do something to Janet. Just then, the phone on his desk rang and Gravel answered it. It was an undersheriff named Jerry Jones who worked in Dewey County, which is where Leroy's ranch was located. And he told Gravel that he had heard about Janet's disappearance and he wanted to help with the investigation in any way that he could. And he explained that right now there were lots of rumors sort of flying around ceiling that Leroy had killed Janet and that one of Leroy's neighbors had spotted a big bonfire on Leroy's property just about at the same time that Janet had disappeared. The next day, Gravel was back in the interview room with the polygraph examiner, and this time

Leroy was the one sitting across from the table from them hooked up to the polygraph machine. Now, at first, Leroy definitely seemed nervous about taking this test, like he just seemed anxious. But as soon as they actually started, he quickly relaxed. It was almost like this was no big deal. Gravel began the interview by just asking him basic questions about his relationship with Janet and about their divorce. And Leroy would admit that he and Janet did fight a lot when they were married, and he said initially he had been very upset about owing Janet half of his ranch and sealing.

But he insisted that these days they were basically on good terms and that he just really tried hard to focus on being a good father. And so not long after these sort of initial questions, Gravel asked Leroy to simply walk him through the night Janet disappeared, like tell me where you were what you were doing. Leroy told Gravel that he had been at his mother's house that night, which was near his ranch and ceiling, and that the two of them just watched TV together and then they both went to sleep. This was the same story that Leroy had already given Gravel a few weeks ago when they first spoke, and Gravel had already called Leroy's mom and she had backed it up. Now, at this point, Gravel really wanted to ask Leroy about that bonfire that someone had spotted on his property. But he didn't want Leroy to know how suspicious of him he was. So Gravel decided that first he would check the polygraph test so far to see whether Leroy had been truthful throughout the interview.

So he asked Leroy to hang tight for a few minutes while he stepped out into the hallway and spoke to the examiner about his test results. Leroy was like, okay, great, yep, see in a few minutes. but as he sat back down, Grable could see. He definitely looked anxious. And so Gravel, he went into the hallway and he walked over to the examiner, and the examiner told him that, unfortunately, Leroy's results were inconclusive, which meant that he couldn't tell if Leroy was lying or telling the truth. And so feeling frustrated, Grable went back into the room and just asked Leroy,

hey, would you mind taking this test again? Leroy, he glanced at his watch and said, no. He'd been there for three hours already and he had to get home to the kids, so no, he couldn't. He clarified to Gravel that he had actually moved the kids from Janet's house in Oklahoma City back to his ranch all the way out in ceiling because the daily commute had been too hard for him. And so now he had a long drive back home and he just wanted to get going. He also told Gravel that he had heart problems. And so part of him didn't want to take the test again simply because it was too stressful

and he was worried about his heart. Now, Gravel thought that was a pretty strange excuse. I mean, the kids were one thing, but heart issues being the reason you can't take a polygraph, that just felt a little fishy. But at the same time, he couldn't force Leroy to stay at the station. Still, he didn't want to come out of this three-hour polygraph session empty-handed, so Gravel asked Leroy to do one last thing before he left, to sign a consent to search form, which would allow investigators to come out to ceiling and search his ranch. And to Gravel's relief, Leroy said, sure.

The morning after Leroy took his polygraph test, Detective Gravel made the long drive from Oklahoma City to ceiling where Leroy's ranch was located and where Gravel hoped to find the at this point body of his missing person, Janet Dennis. The previous night, Gravel had placed a call to under Sheriff Jones, the officer from Dewey County who had volunteered to help with Janet's case. Gravel knew that Leroy's ranch was over 1,500 acres, so it's massive, and that it would likely take weeks to search the entire property. So Gravel had the undersheriffs' recon team actually begin that big search, while Gravel and his team began speaking to some of Leroy's neighbors. And so now, Gravel pulled up a long driveway and parked outside of a big farmhouse, and then after he stopped, he got out and walked up and knocked on the front door. A moment later, a middle-aged woman answered, and Gravel explained who he was, and that he had heard that one of Leroy's neighbors had seen a huge fire on Leroy's property around the time that Janet Dennis had disappeared. And this woman's eyes immediately went wide and she said that she was the one who had seen the fire. And it had caught her attention because there was a ton of smoke, so it must have been huge.

Gravel felt the surge of adrenaline because he had this feeling that this woman was likely about to lead him directly to Janet's body. She was going to show like where this fire was. But then a guilty look came across her face and she apologized to Gravel and she said, you know, after I had told some people about this fire, I learned that actually the fire I saw had occurred a few days before Janet went missing. And for Gravel, I mean, this was truly crushing. But, you know, he asked the woman if she had spotted any other weird behavior on Leroy's ranch. But the woman just said no. And so Gravel ultimately thanked her for her time and then felt completely defeated as he walked back to his car.

Gravel spent the next few hours going door to door in the area, asking more of Leroy's neighbor. about the rumors flying around town that Leroy had killed Janet. But pretty much everybody said that those rumors were largely connected to the bonfire that actually happened a few days before Janet disappeared, which meant that by the time Grable headed back to Oklahoma City, he had no actual proof that either Leroy or Jim had been involved in any way in Janet's disappearance. He really barely had any evidence at all that a crime had even occurred. And even though he strongly believed that,

Janet had been abducted and potentially killed, it was still technically possible that Janet disappeared by choice and was alive and well somewhere. And so at this point, Gravel was completely out of Leeds, and he would just have to wait to see what would turn up on the ranch at the end of this massive search of the 1500 acres. Six weeks later, in early February of 1991, Gravel answered the phone in his office, and the person on the other end of the line said that they had information about Janet Dennis. And this was fantastic news. Because at this point, Gravel's investigation had completely stalled out. Nobody knew what happened to Janet. She had not turned up. It was basically dead end after dead end. And also so far, the search of Leroy's property,

which was still ongoing, had yet to turn up anything useful for this investigation. The only other recent development in the case had happened a few weeks ago when Leroy had contacted Gravel about a box of Jim's belongings that he had found at Janet's house. Now, by this point, you know, Jim was no longer a secret. Leroy knew about the secret boyfriend. When Gravel looked inside this box, he found this VHS tape, and it was a pornography tape. Now, it was not like homemade. It was not Janet or Leroy or Jim or anybody. It was, you know, real actors in this pornography tape, but it was a really specific type of pornography. It showed this woman being tied up, and burned. Fictional, but that was the script. That's how the pornography went. When Gravel saw this,

he wondered if this tape was actually why Jim had tried to get the key from Janet's father to sneak into Janet's house, if the real reason for that was actually to try to find this tape, this, you know, torture porn and get it out of the house. And so Gravel had actually brought Jim down to the station to question him about the pornography tape, but Jim swore up and down. He had no idea where that video came from, and he had even taken another polygraph test, and this time he passed. And so now, Gravel really didn't know what to believe, and he was desperate for really any new information. And so this caller, saying they knew something about Janet, was like the only positive development in the case that he had seen in quite a while. And the caller

said that they actually had remembered something that might be important. And that's when Gravel realized that he recognized the caller's voice. They had actually spoken before. Based on forensic evidence and witness testimony, here is a reconstruction of what police believe happened to Janet Dennis on the night of December 7, 1990. Late that night, the killer was standing inside of Janet's bedroom by the side of her bed, just watching her sleep. And as they stared at her sleeping, the killer was just filled with rage. Even though on the outside, the killer sort of projected a very affable nature and just was a very calm and very kind person. Inside, they loathed Janet.

And one of the primary reasons they hated her so much is because of her recent decision-making. And so after standing there, just taking in the sight of, like, the object of their rage, they reached over and grabbed a rag they had soaked in chloroform, which is a chemical that when it's pushed up against your face, it can cause you to pass out if you're, breathe it in, and the killer, they put this rag right over Janet's mouth until she passed out, because they didn't want her waking up when they inevitably moved her. And then after using the chloroform, the killer grabbed Janet's purse and then also grabbed her toiletries to make it look like she had chosen to leave, to go on a trip somewhere. And then the killer

actually lifted Janet up out of the bed, put her on the ground. Remember, she's passed out from this chemical, and then they put pillows in her bed under the sheets and kind of arranged them so at first glance it would look like Janet was still in bed with the covers up over her head. This really was just in case one of the kids came into the bedroom in the middle of the night, they would look and see their mom and they wouldn't think anything of it. And so now, you know, with the pillows in place and with the purse and the toiletries in hand, the killer scooped Janet back up off the ground and then carried her out of the house. And once they were outside, the killer placed Janet's unconscious body in the back of the killer's vehicle.

and then they drove her to a nearby house in Oklahoma City that they owned. The killer took Janet inside of this home and tied her up so that even if she woke up from this chloroform, she wouldn't be able to escape. And then the killer drove back to Janet's house, parked their vehicle there, and used Janet's keys they had gotten from her purse to get into her Chevy Blazer. And then they drove her blazer out to the airport and parked it in the long-term parking lot. Then the killer took a taxi from the airport back to Janet's house where they got into their own vehicle again and drove back to the house where Janet was tied up.

Then the killer put Janet, who was still passed out, back into the killer's vehicle, and they drove her to another house they owned. This one was outside of Oklahoma City. And when they got to this house, the killer dragged Janet out of the back of their vehicle. They put her on the ground, and the killer went and got a shovel, and then came back over and said, smashed her in the head with it until she was dead. And then once Janet was dead, the killer burned her body in the fire pit on their ranch. Janet's killer was her ex-husband Leroy, who just basically hated Janet for getting full custody of their kids, for getting half of his ranch for him being ordered to pay her $30,000. Like he hated her and resented her for all

that. And then when he found out she was also dating this new guy, Jim, he was consumed by jealousy. decided he needed to do something, which was ultimately to murder his ex-wife. And then after the murder, he invented an alibi and reported Janet missing himself in order to cast suspicion off of himself. But he was ultimately caught because Leroy's neighbor remembered seeing smoke from his burn pit. It was the same neighbor that Gravel had spoken to. She had first thought the fire happened after Janet went missing, and then she changed her mind and thought it happened maybe before. But then a few weeks later, she checked her calendar and realized she had gotten the date wrong again and that the fire was actually the day after Janet disappeared. And so she called gravel right away and said,

I have more information about Janet. And it might be important. And so later that same day, after getting this information, the search team out at the property, out at the ranch, focused their efforts on the burn pits, and they would eventually find Janet's remains. Leroy Dennis was convicted of first-degree murder and ultimately sentenced to life without parole. A quick note about our stories, they are all based on true events, but we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved, and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes. The Mr. Ballin podcast, Strange, Dark, and Mysterious Stories, is hosted and executive produced by me, Mr. Ballin. Our head of writing is Evan Allen, produced by Jeremy Bone and Cole Lacassio. This episode was written by Margaret LeBron,

Research and fact-checking by Shelley Shoe, Samantha Van Hoose, Evan Beamer, Abigail Shumway, Camille Callahan, Alex Paul, Ben Fasiano. Research and fact-checking supervision by Stephen Ear. Audio editing and post-produced by Whit Lacosio and Jordan Stidham. Production support by Antonio Manata and Delana Corley.

Artwork by Jessica Clogston Kiner, theme song, Something Wicked, by Ross Bugden. Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin podcast. And just a reminder, every new and exclusive episode we put out on the Mr. Ballin podcast, you can also now watch on the Mr. Ballin YouTube channel that very same day. And trust me, some of these stories you truly have to see to believe. Again, my YouTube channel is just called Mr. Ballin.

If you want to listen to episodes one week early and ad free, you can subscribe to SiriusXM Podcast Plus on Apple Podcasts or visit seriousxm.com slash podcast plus to listen with Spotify or another app of your choice. So that's going to do it. I really appreciate your support. Until next time, see ya.