Small Town Murder - #488 - Write It In Blood - Price, Utah

Episode Date: May 3, 2024

This week, in Price, Utah, a mysterious man, in a multi colored hat terrorizes the town, when he tries to abduct a young girl, gets chased off, and ends up horribly murdering a woman, while h...er young daughter looked through a key hole. Police are forced to let the suspect go, but later on, with help from the now grown daughter, they notice something very incriminating, written in blood! But how many more dead young women are out there??Along the way, we find out that bears are definitely an issue, when walking through mountains, that you maybe shouldn't wear your most identifiable clothing when committing terrible crimes, and that it's very odd to take a picture of a child, in a room full of her mother's blood! Hosted by James Pietragallo and Jimmie WhismanNew episodes every Thursday!Donate at: patreon.com/crimeinsports or go to paypal.com and use our email: crimeinsports@gmail.comGo to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things Small Town Murder & Crime In Sports!Follow us on...twitter.com/@murdersmallfacebook.com/smalltownpodinstagram.com/smalltownmurderAlso, check out James & Jimmie's other show, Crime In Sports! On Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Wondery, Wondery+, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Starting point is 00:00:58 most times it's nothing to worry about. However, for an unlucky few, their weird symptoms are just the start of a terrifying medical mystery. Listen to Mr. Bolland's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts. Hello everybody and welcome back to Small Town Murder Express. Yay and choo choo. Oh yay indeed Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petragallo.
Starting point is 00:01:35 I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wissman. Thank you folks so much for joining us today all aboard the murder train pulling away from the station with some real weird stuff today. Oh fun, one of those with a clue. I love it. Yeah, when you have like an old timey murder almost, like with a clue in it that you find.
Starting point is 00:01:53 I love that sort of thing. So it makes me feel like I'm playing a board game. So I'm gonna solve this thing. I have the clue, here it is. Fun stuff, we'll get to all of that. First though, before we get into everything, just want to say head to shutupandgivem me murder.com right now. Virtual live show still available. You can still get that. Pick that up. Also you can pick up tickets to regular live shows. May 31st, Durham,
Starting point is 00:02:17 North Carolina. Tickets still available. Still a few tickets there, almost gone actually. But the next night Nashville sold out. so get your tickets there. Also other shows over the course of the year, and we have Minneapolis. That is gonna be our biggest show ever. Giant, yeah. If you guys sell that bad boy out, it will be our biggest show ever.
Starting point is 00:02:37 You will beat Chicago. Can you beat Chicago? Try. Can you do it? Can you do it? Maybe you can. You guys are nice up there, let's see. Check those out also end of the year year Boston and New York are going pretty fast
Starting point is 00:02:48 So you want to get those two so just a little heads up there shut up and give me murder.com Patreon.com Crime in sports is where you get all the bonus stuff five dollars a month or above will get you hundreds of back episodes immediately New episodes every other week right there, but sits the best bargain You're gonna have here. A cup of coffee or all of this stuff. You're not going to find better. And this week, which you're going
Starting point is 00:03:10 to get for Crime and Sports, which you'll have access to, that bonus, we're going to talk about the Otani gambling scandal and the basketball gambling scandal and some old gambling scandals that the NFL just swept under the rug like they never happened. So those are a lot of fun. Then for small town murder, it is conspiracy theory rabbit hole time, baby.
Starting point is 00:03:30 Let's do it. Let's go down a rabbit hole. A guy wrote a book. He spent decades and pretty much ruined his whole career writing this book. Let's find out was Charles Manson really a CIA asset that was put up to all of this stuff by the government? We'll find out. And obviously we won't know the answer, but we'll talk about it for sure We'll try yeah and some other CIA murdery things also
Starting point is 00:03:52 Patreon.com slash crime and sports is where you get all of that and that said I think it's time everybody Oh, yeah, it's time to take a deep breath here. Let's get into the story, because it's wild. Here we go. Arms to the sky, and let's all shout. Shut up and give me murder. Let's do this, everybody, shall we? Let's go on a trip. Here we go. And again, if you listened earlier in the regular show
Starting point is 00:04:21 this week of Small Town Murder, you know that we're both ill. So if you hear it, it's there. Obviously, our voices don't sound quite as crisp as they might because we are very sick. But in our minds, we're healthy. So we can do this. Just our voices and our respiratory systems aren't terrific at the moment. So let's go to Utah.
Starting point is 00:04:40 What do you say? Okay. Oh boy, I've been having too much fun lately. Let's go to Utah. I need some alone? Okay. Oh boy. I've been having too much fun lately. Let's go to Utah. I need some alone time. Yeah. I need some quiet reflection here.
Starting point is 00:04:51 We're going to Price, Utah. Price. It is about two hours to Salt Lake City and about two hours and 35 minutes to Fillmore, Utah, which is our last episode in Utah. Episode 441, bashed, slashed, and scattered, that was called. That was a brutal one, yeah. Utah, telling you one thing, they might be nice,
Starting point is 00:05:12 they might knock on your door with a smile on their face, but man, when murders happen there, they let it all out. It hangs. Is that where the bloodsickles was at too? I think it was. That's the bloodsickles, yeah. Bloodsickles with the dad dad have dead riding the snowmobile That was the guy with the lion back in the day. Remember that guy with the explosives the lion
Starting point is 00:05:31 That's it's wild. It's all happening in Christ's name. We do know if it's happening in Utah, but other than that, who knows? something somebody's name population here 8192 it's a pretty it's a pretty small town actually median household income here much lower than the national average. It's a pretty small town actually. Median household income here much lower than the national average it's 45,429. So about 25 grand under the national average. Median home price here 251,900 dollars also below the national average. So because it's not really commutable to anything. You gotta be in price. You're living in price, so that's when you see
Starting point is 00:06:06 houses prices really drop when they get out of the commuting range of a big city. Is it south of Salt Lake? I think it's north of Salt Lake. I thought it was north of Salt Lake, but I could be wrong for some, no, no, it is south of Salt Lake. It's gotta be, because Salt Lake's
Starting point is 00:06:19 already almost to fucking Idaho. Well yeah, you'd have to be in a mountain to be north of them, like sitting atop a mountain really. So a little bit of history, they think it was named after the LDS Bishop William Price of Goshen, Utah. It probably was. I assume it is. More than likely.
Starting point is 00:06:38 Any town name you go, is that named after that, LDS Bishop, that was a guess, okay, that's what I thought. You're probably right, it's a pretty good guess. Any town name, is there a bishop or somebody high up in the church with this last name? Yes, then probably. Probably thought so. He explored this area in about 1869. Price County is the seat of, or Price, Utah is this county seat of Carbon County. So, is that right? They hold all the records as we know here Here's a little story from back in the day that I found pretty amusing
Starting point is 00:07:09 Caleb Baldwin Rhodes and Abraham Powell. They were trappers from Salem, Utah They were the first recorded settlers in the Price River Valley Okay, they got here in 1867 in October They built a cabin in the northwest corner of what is now Price, but was then nothing. They returned to Salem when the trapping season was over. They got, they said, oh man, this place is great. And people were like, oh, really? Wow, so a whole group, you know, he convinced a group
Starting point is 00:07:37 to join them in relocating to the valley. Let's live there permanently. And then they said, okay, but Abraham Powell couldn't get back there because he was killed by a bear instead on the way there Oh my he was like, yeah, let's move back and on the way He was just mauled by a bear and he never made it back. So whoops. So one of the guys got back Reviews of this town. We'll do a couple. Here we go. Four stars price is a great place to live There's so many Christmas lights during Christmas if you want to you can walk to places If you want to if you want to I mean, you know, you don't have to it's not part of the rules or anything
Starting point is 00:08:15 big big Christmassy vibe around here. Yeah, there's a lot of small town So it's like a hallmark one of those Hallmark rom-coms that they make where the Christmas town fucking love fest and you know everybody tries That sounds like an orgy that doesn't sound like one of the movies, but you know a lot of red velvet and Yeah There's amazingly eight attractive women who all own cupcake shops in the one town. This is really weird
Starting point is 00:08:41 Four stars here. They, this is one sentence, they are always quick to get to the scene. Who? Who? Yeah, who? The police, firemen, fucking newspaper, what are we talking about? Who's scene of what?
Starting point is 00:08:55 Yeah, who, that's terrifying. And then finally, three stars, the restaurants in our area are pretty good. However, our town can use some improvements on the nightlife part. It's a small town in rural Utah. Do you expect heathenism at the nightclub? What nightlife is there in that proximity to Salt Lake City? He says, coming from Phoenix, Arizona, there were nightclubs. Yeah, that's a completely
Starting point is 00:09:20 different place. That's a metropolis. A hellscape. Yeah, it's a metropolis. That is a hellscape. Yeah, that's a metropolis with, there's four million strip clubs in Phoenix, in Scottsdale, in Glendale, in all these different towns. What are you talking about? There were night clubs available to kids who were 18 and over. Yeah, non-alcoholic places that had those.
Starting point is 00:09:40 If Price had something like that, it would liven up the weekends to a lot of teenagers. But how many teenagers can there be? There's only 8,000 people. That's it. Yeah. But and then you got to convince the fucking all the older people that a nightlife for a child is a necessity.
Starting point is 00:09:55 Yeah, we need. Yeah, that's what we need. We need the kiddie night. We need the non-alcoholic nightclub. We need the night. You know, open up Shirley temples for me, please. I go, we need that So then she goes on to say or he my favorite dishes in the area are from
Starting point is 00:10:19 From the smaller restaurants who have unique dishes for example wingers has their personal quote creamy amazing sauce Oh my god Creamy amazing sauce does sound unique like DNA unique probably Wow, which is unique and delicious Grogs creates their own personal sandwiches, and you cannot find any other sandwiches like that But if nightlife could improve then people would have better reviews on food places and nightlife Yeah, why cuz you're I don't know what the hell they're talking about could improve, then people would have better reviews on food places and nightlife. Yeah. Why? Because you're, I don't know what the hell they're talking about.
Starting point is 00:10:48 There's great sandwiches and wing jizz. I want more. I want wing jizz and sandwiches. It's all I have here. Really. I want to have those late at night. Is that possible? It seems like that's what they're looking for.
Starting point is 00:10:59 A Denny's I think would satisfy this person. So things to do in this town, the Price Greek Festival. Okay. There's more... 8,000 people in the Greek Fest. Yes, there's more Greek people here than anybody, any other like ethnicity for some reason. So they say to come out and eat, drink and dance at the Greek Festival. Oh boy. It's an extraordinary event, of course, that will take place at the historic Assumption Greek Orthodox Church. Yeah, bring your hairy shoulders, let's party.
Starting point is 00:11:32 Wow, bring your hairy shoulders and your penchant for anal sex and cheese that doesn't melt because we're coming through. Let's do it! Non-melting cheese. Non-melting cheese. We had a whole long thing about that on your stupid opinions. So many folks will enjoy the endless Greek food and pastries that have been prepared
Starting point is 00:11:51 by the church's parishioners. One person says, it's just the same as it always has been. We have wonderful people running it and the community volunteering to work the food line. So if you come through, choose your food and then at the end you pay for it. You know, like a cafeteria. You know, like a cafeteria, like a high school cafeteria. You just have a tray and some lady goes, four dollars. And then there is a annual Greek Fest 5K and that they charge
Starting point is 00:12:20 twenty dollars for you to do that. So if you'd like some exercise, it costs $20. It's $20 to run? $20 to enter it, yeah, not to watch it or to participate or sponsor. $20 just to put in. So that said, let's talk about some murder, shall we? Okay, let's do this. We gotta go back in time.
Starting point is 00:12:40 This is fun, because we're going back in time farther than we normally go. We are. We've been in the 80s a little bit lately. We've had a lot of really modern cases lately We're going back. This is fun because it's gonna mix Modern technology and modern things with also old-timey story here. So it's kind of interesting how 1970 we're gonna start in okay, okay, which is farther back Like I said that we usually go now it is a wild weekend at the area of a 400 south and 700 east block of price. Okay. Okay. Wild area here.
Starting point is 00:13:13 We're wild times this night. Um, there's a 10 year old girl named Lori here and she's riding her bike in the street right around dusk. It's July, middle of the summer kid riding their bike in their street right around dusk. It's July, middle of the summer, kid riding their bike in their small town. There might as well be a flag waving behind her and like bottle rockets going up in the air and a little yellow dog running next to her. 400 South 700 East is like,
Starting point is 00:13:38 it's almost dead center of downtown. It's seven blocks and four blocks. Yeah, there's not much of a downtown really though here in Price, it's a main street. Center street, yeah. Yeah, it's seven blocks and four blocks. Yeah, there's not much of a downtown really though here in Price, it's a main street. Center store. Yeah, it's closer around there. So she's riding her bike when out of nowhere she's grabbed from behind.
Starting point is 00:13:54 Shit. Somebody grabs her, I mean this is the ultimate nightmare here, this person clamps his hand over her mouth. Now she had a big giant wad of bubblegum. Yeah in her mouth and For some reason when he did this her immediate instinct was to like spit the gum out is what she wanted to do She spit the gum out on against his hand and he like it like freaked him out for some reason What is that? Yeah, like he didn't know if it was her tongue or something I guess it like it like
Starting point is 00:14:25 went against his hand and then dropped on the ground and so like I said I don't know if she thought if he thought she like bit her tongue off and spit it out or something. Yeah He freaked out and like let go for half a second. So she took off. Oh She was like, yeah, well feet don't fail me now and yeah took the fuck off Oh, she was like, yeah, well, feet don't fail me now and yeah took the fuck off She ran toward a basement apartment that she lived in and as that happened he went he stood there for half a second Then went off fuck. I should probably run away He's probably running towards someone who's gonna kick the shit out of me now, right? Yeah, this guy starts running away So her brother a friend of the family's and her stepfather were home at the time
Starting point is 00:15:04 Yeah, which is exactly the people you were home at the time. Hell yeah. Which is exactly the people you want home at this time. Yeah. And they had seen the bike fall, but they didn't see the attack at first. I guess it was over, they just heard a bike fall and looked over and saw the bike, but they didn't see what was going on there. So they ran outside and as that happened, they come up just as she's coming in. And she's like, a guy just grabbed me and
Starting point is 00:15:25 I you know spit my gum out and he you know ran away so they started chasing him all the guys so now it's just a run through town which is pretty exciting they're gonna beat the shit out of some child molester this sounds awesome. As a stepdad like you're earning you're earning that little girl's trust forever. Oh yeah yeah you're getting a blowjob tonight for mom too. Yeah yeah. You chased out a molester and beat the shit out of him You should get to be a better dad than her dad. Yeah, even her dad's gonna shake your hand Yeah, you know, I'm a hell of a man, sir. No walk Keith. I'm gonna tell you something at first
Starting point is 00:15:57 At first we just didn't see eye to eye. You know what I mean? Just you're a Ford guy. I'm a Chevy guy you know how I mean? Just you're a Ford guy, I'm a Chevy guy, you know how it is. But after you've done this, I think we agree on one thing. We both want what's best for that little girl. And then you shake hands. I sure hope my pain in the ass ex-wife sucks your dick. I hope she really... She's not, by the way. Spoiler alert, probably not.
Starting point is 00:16:20 Bet you didn't even get a blow job. So I divorced her. I wouldn't expect much out of that really, probably. I wouldn't go holding my breath that she'll hold hers. I'll hold my breath because yeah, she never holds hers. Not even for like one second. She don't give it no effort. No, it's a quick tease and then right in there.
Starting point is 00:16:42 She makes a face like she's like eating like something bad too, like a spoiled piece of turkey or something while she's doing it. So you got to contend with that too. It's like a baloney face I call it. I washed it, don't worry. Bitter baloney face, you know, like she just don't want to be there. So they chase him. He's obviously running away at full speed and they it's I guess it's
Starting point is 00:17:05 getting dark and he ran south and they lost him real so they end up not be yeah this guy made a turn somewhere it's getting dark and they lose the guy now the guy has a like a multicolored hat on everybody says okay I had or just like that nobody has a good description of it other than a multicolored hat So I don't know if it's one of those like a silly hat a little propeller on top Panels of red blue and green yeah, what the fuck is this? What's going on or is it some other kind of hat because it is 1970 so is like a nice type of hat like a puppy One of those hats that kids or sometimes or is it a tie-dye fucking Rastafarian hat?
Starting point is 00:17:45 Yeah, who knows? It could be anything. So, but that's what everybody sees, a multicolored hat. So, the same later this evening, that was about nine o'clock-ish, 8.30-ish, something like that. Later on this evening, we'll talk about Loretta Jones. Loretta Jones is 23 years old here.
Starting point is 00:18:04 She's born September 14th, 1946 here and she's 23. She's from Utah here. Her parents are like known people. Her parents, her dad's name is Parley. Parley Jones and he's a well-known contractor in the area. So he lives in Price, too. She's a Price-born-and-bred kind of a girl here. And she is living in a house only a few blocks from her parents in town. She's a single mom who's living with her three-year-old daughter, Heidi, at the time. Almost four years old.
Starting point is 00:18:40 She comes from a big LDS family, too. She appears to have, from what I can count about seven or eight siblings. There you go. Yeah, quite a few of them here. She's a member of the LDS church. She went to carbon high school. She attended LDS business college for a while as well. What is that? I don't know some business. Pepsi accounting. Yeah. They show you how to make you how to really spike the Mountain Dew profits, I believe is how it works. I think that's what it is. I'm not sure.
Starting point is 00:19:10 Okay. So she's right now taking correspondence courses for accounting also, which back then was a big deal because they didn't have online, so you do correspondence. In something like accounting, you can teach someone accounting. Yeah, it's just numbers. Yeah. like accounting, you can teach someone accounting. Yeah, it's just numbers. Yeah, so July 31st, 1970, this is that same night because that was the night of the 30th, the morning of the 31st past midnight. She's seen about 9pm, Loretta is, outside, a woman, a neighbor stopped
Starting point is 00:19:40 and they talk on her front porch for a little while and then she walks away this other woman and Heidi remembers going for ice cream that night with Loretta. This is the daughter the three-year-old almost four Got in a car with her and then also she remembers from that night standing next to her mom while her mom did some ironing So when you're that age three almost four you do have memories, but this is exactly how they are. They're kind of little like pockets of memories, flashes. Yeah, the snapshots. Yeah, I remember this from this day, doing that. Do you remember two seconds in time? It's like a Vine memory.
Starting point is 00:20:17 Yeah, yeah, it goes real quick. Eight seconds, yeah, absolutely. Only there are no celebrities. No, it's just like fine. Yeah, so it works out perfect. So that's actually right. So that's what you remember. She also remembers getting up there. Then she remembers she was at some point went to bed. And then she remembers looking through a peephole or the keyhole in her bedroom, you know, like old-time fashion with the keyhole she looks through the keyhole in her bedroom which she can see out into the front room and
Starting point is 00:20:52 She could see something lying on the floor the next day or not that next day that you know next morning I guess No, I guess I think it was the next morning is when she saw that and She opened the door and went into the front room and saw that there was blood everywhere, all over the house, just blood spread. No, she's like three, almost four, so I don't think she would even know what that was.
Starting point is 00:21:15 She'd probably think it was paint before she would think it was blood, I would imagine, at that age. Yeah, yeah. You'd probably see more paint than blood at four, you know? Yeah, but if there's that much of it, the smells in the air, she might recognize, she might think... A four-year-old comes out, I smell death.
Starting point is 00:21:30 Yeah, she's not blood thirsty. Is she in Vietnam? I don't think... Yeah, you got a point. Apocalypse Now, girl. She knows what that shit smells like. Yeah, now she knows. She said, quote, when I opened the door it was my mom's body. There was blood, there was a lot of blood, there was blood everywhere.
Starting point is 00:21:51 She was lying in a pool of blood. Jesus. She said at that point I knew she was dead and I went outside to go get help. She knew. That's pretty remarkable for a kid who's not even four yet to know what dead is, number one, is pretty- Right, to know what the- The concept of dead. Yeah. Right, that idea exists. Yeah, and that mom could die. Not like mom's hurt and she won't wake up, or dead, dead person.
Starting point is 00:22:17 And she does, because she walks outside and finds a neighbor boy who's digging up worms to go fishing, and he's 10 years old, and she's walked up to him and said I think my mommy's dead Yeah, so and the kid got went. Holy shit. You know what I mean? The little girl was like blood on her feet going. I think my mommy's dead You'd freak that kid's gonna have nightmares for the rest of his life. You think the shining was terrifying? Yeah, fuck that have a little four-year-, and she's a cute little blonde girl too, coming outside with blood on her feet going, I think my mommy's dead.
Starting point is 00:22:49 Ah, you fucking. Blood footsteps all the way up to you. Oh dude, you'd run so fast if you saw that. Get on your bike and pedal. So he ran next door and got his mom, and her name is Sue Ann Horvath, sounds like Horvath, which is pretty funny. And she goes and the woman goes up to Heidi
Starting point is 00:23:10 and says, what happened? And she says, I think my mommy's dead. She goes, well, let's go on and take a look see, shall we? So she looks inside the home through the door, looks in there and sees Loretta's body on the living room floor. Oh no. And there's blood everywhere. She's lying face down between the couch and the coffee table. So you can picture any living room where a coffee table is. She's there. She's naked from the waist down with just a bra on
Starting point is 00:23:38 on top. Yeah. So this woman, holy shit, freaks out, calls the police obviously, and the Price City Police Chief Art Poloni responds to the scene, of course. Here comes these guys. They're going to come in, well, we'll solve this. This is under my jurisdiction here. I'm the chief. I'm going to investigate personally. Trust me that this is not going to go unanswered in my town.
Starting point is 00:24:03 So he gets there. He observed that the house other than being covered in blood is clean and orderly. The windows and the back door were you know nothing's been broken. Nothing's been jarred crowbarred appears to be no forest entry. And he said quote nothing had been turned over. So it didn't look like anybody was looking for jewelry or jewelry It didn't look like it was tossed like a burglar either so none of that stuff we'll get into the medical stuff to see if there's a struggle but Fairly large blood stain on the living room couch, but she was right next to the
Starting point is 00:24:40 they I guess they have the Him then the sheriff shows up also let's get all the people here then the county attorney shows up too. Oh yeah. Yeah. What's that guy got to be there for? Because he got to be here. That's why it's important stuff. The mayor is going to show like this is one of those cases. It's a small town and a 23 year old mother's been butchered in her fucking living room and let's let's campaign. She's got no pants on also which in Utah is going to be even draw a bigger you know we all hands on deck here obviously so they figure out here the medical examiner identifies two stab wounds in Loretta's chest 14 stab wounds in her back.
Starting point is 00:25:23 Wow. And her throat's been cut This is this is kill kill three times over rage rageful and Absolutely horrifying also. I mean this is bad shit So the her her shorts and her underwear are lying next to her and her underwear appeared to have been cut with a knife someone cut her underwear cut with a knife. Someone cut her underwear off with a knife, which is horrifying.
Starting point is 00:25:49 It's a horror movie shit that someone would do. That's terrifying. Really, cutting any clothes off of somebody is pretty fucked up. It's scary. Yeah. It's psychologically, it'll scar you. But the unimaginables, the under under part, you know what I mean? Those are so, so personal.
Starting point is 00:26:08 That's something you do in a horror movie to really amp up the- To get into the- That's the next one. Then what's he going to do next? Oh my God. You know, there's a knife down in that area which you don't want right away. Right. It's horrible.
Starting point is 00:26:20 That's a child tearing the wrapper off the Christmas gift. Man, fuck man. Too fast. Yeah. Unwrap it nicely, you know? Right, gentle. Jesus, this is horrifying. That took me a lot of work to put that on there. Fuck, so they said that she died by, obviously,
Starting point is 00:26:32 internal bleeding caused by stab wounds in the pulmonary artery, lungs, and heart. Fuck. They testify also later on in the preliminary deal with the evidence findings that semen is discovered in the vaginal cavity as well. And they say they estimate that it took between five and 20 minutes for her to die like this, which is fucking terrible.
Starting point is 00:26:58 This is a bad way to die. Now the daughter never heard any kind of anything. There's no screams, no struggles, no anything like that. None of the neighbors heard anything, nobody heard anything. But it definitely happened there. It definitely happened there. And they placed the time of death between about 10 and 1 a.m.
Starting point is 00:27:16 Now they have no fucking idea, obviously. Even now they're like, I mean, it's sort of probably in this to there. So they still give you three hours. The last time she saw, yeah. Between the last time she was seen alive and the time that her child found her. That's when she was murdered.
Starting point is 00:27:29 That's exactly what it was. Yeah, about 10 o'clock and that's what they do. Well, they go by that evidence and they go by temperature and stuff like that. And these things can vary wildly, depending on a lot of factors. So if you're listening to this podcast, then chances are good,
Starting point is 00:27:43 you are a fan of the Strange Dark and Mysterious. And if that's the case, then I've got some good news. We just launched a brand new Strange Dark and Mysterious podcast called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries. And as the name suggests, it's a show about medical mysteries, a genre that many fans have been asking us to dive into for years. And we finally decided to take the plunge and the show is awesome. In this free weekly show, we explore bizarre, unheard of diseases, strange medical mishaps, unexplainable deaths, and everything in between. Each story is totally true and totally terrifying. Go follow Mr. Bolland's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts, and if you're
Starting point is 00:28:21 a Prime member, you can listen early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, available exclusively on Wondery+, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church
Starting point is 00:28:56 for possible criminal activity. The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth. With an all-star cast led by Emmy nominee Sanaa Lathan and Star Wars Kelly Marie Tran, Shnook is available exclusively and ad-free on Wondry+. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple podcasts.
Starting point is 00:29:27 They said that the wounds indicate that the murder weapon was a thin blade at least two inches long. So not a big knife, a small, like a pocket type knife. You know what I mean? So they said that it had to be sharp though. The murder weapon, they cannot find it, even though they search all throughout the house Surrounding properties they basically block off this neighborhood and say nobody's fucking in or out. No, everybody's getting talked to
Starting point is 00:29:54 You go find tooth comb all the bushes and the grass and we're finding, you know this shit because I mean this is a big deal So they said the weird thing is is Loretta Jones had barely any defensive wounds Which for this type of attack is extremely strange because they said the throat cutting came last They said that would make sense if the throat cutting came first, but it based on the way the wounds bled It's not how it happened. So They said no one heard any screaming anything like that. So no defensive wounds and no screaming, which is very strange. Yeah, especially when nothing,
Starting point is 00:30:30 the scream function was not affected when stabbed in the chest and the back. No, well, I mean, once the lungs are punctured, it would be very difficult. There'd be some gurgles. It'd be hard to scream at that point, but when she's first being attacked, I would assume there'd be a scream.
Starting point is 00:30:44 Yeah, there's that. As soon as you see the knife. Yeah. When someone maybe would cut your underwear off, you'd probably scream. You know what I mean? That'd be terrifying. So one of the police officers says this much later, quote, I believe Loretta stayed quiet to protect her child because she was afraid her daughter would run out and get hurt as well. Which that's Which that's some shit that a mother would do too. A mother would go, I'll get stabbed quietly so my kid doesn't get fucked up. Whereas a dad would be like, come out here, hide A. Come save me.
Starting point is 00:31:16 Bring a knife. Bring a bigger knife. And get your brother and everybody you know. Big weapons. Come on now daddy buy you ice cream. Let's go. We fucking we don't care at all. So the theory is obviously that they think that possibly the person who accosted this 10 year old girl might be the same person who would be a, you know, home-invading rapist murderer. Yeah, I mean, they're generally good for it.
Starting point is 00:31:49 And they're like, it happened within a couple blocks of each other, within an hour of each other more than likely, or two hours of each other. It would be too much of a coincidence that we have a molester pervert and this guy. They almost would have bumped into each other and go, what are you doing? I'm going to molest a girl. Oh, I'm going to go kill a lady and rape her. Okay. Well, best of luck to you. I'm in the molestation. Oh, I'm a little, I'm a step higher. Meet you in the morning for breakfast. We'll compare notes on how our nights went. Yeah. So they said a search for that man failed to turn up any suspects. And then this happens. So
Starting point is 00:32:21 now there's an all points bulletin about a murdering would-be molester Yeah, dangerous dangerous dangerous basically fucking watch that little girl is so lucky. Oh Laurie's lucky as fuck Yeah, she's really lucky. She had done better get her parents better get her a lifetime supply a bubble tape It's gonna say that'd be great if she had like a sponsorship deal after that. Keep your kids safe with Juicy Fruit. Big League Chew. Yeah. If only Big League Chew was invented yet, that would have been great. For the biggest wad you could get in there.
Starting point is 00:32:54 Yeah, just really pop it in there. You're not getting that with Denteen. Not going to say, Denteen. Bubblicious, I think, should have sponsored her. Hubba Bubba, one of them was fucking around back then, right? Found a lot of kids dead with dentine. Yeah, those, try it and your kid will die. Very dangerous.
Starting point is 00:33:11 Hubba Bubba walking around, doing fine. They're coming home for the dinner. They're going to be home by curfew. So the suspects here, they interrogate multiple people here in the area. They round up the perverts, let's be honest here. Because anytime there's a sexual crime, the first thing the police do if there's not an obvious suspect that they know of is round up the local perverts. Who likes doing creepy shit?
Starting point is 00:33:37 Him? Oh, man. One time back when he was in junior high, I went to junior high with him. This is, oh man, is he weird. I'll round him up and talk to him run down ever run down the DMV list of everybody with vans that doesn't have a business written on the side isn't selling ice cream actively out of the side of it so they interrogate four people and all of these people had alibis between both before the 10 p.m. both for the attempted molestation and the alibi for later on in the night past 10 p.m. They only got four weirdos?
Starting point is 00:34:11 They got four. It's a small town. They only had four weirdos that they knew of. Back then too, weirdos were much harder to catch. Yeah. They couldn't catch them like doing weird shit on a computer and bust them that way. They'd have to actually catch them in the act of doing something. You know, it was it was different. So that led police to concentrate on that
Starting point is 00:34:30 guys she would have known is the lack of forced entry means they're saying, well, she wouldn't have probably let some stranger in her house past 10 p.m. That's just not normal with a baby in the house with a baby in the house. yeah. So it had to be someone she knew probably. There's also an anonymous phone call tip they get. They get a bunch of them. They lead police to a guy here. A guy, he's 30 years old, and he admits to knowing Loretta, and he said he was in Price that night and was even in the area where the 10 year old had been accosted as well sir, but
Starting point is 00:35:10 After they asked him a bunch of questions about that. He asked for an attorney and that's that so they can't nothing more they can do Okay, put himself at two crime scenes. They try to talk to him again the next day He says I don't think so I'd like a lawyer then they go Why don't you just take a lie detector test and clear yourself and he goes I'm not gonna do that. No, thanks Did you know miss when I said lawyer? So they're trying to figure this out here and they said they because The guy who tried to cost that girl was seen that's the best bet to concentrate on because someone might have seen this person. So, and also they're gonna talk to Heidi a lot too
Starting point is 00:35:49 because she seems to be pretty sharp and lucid for a kid her age. She's doing pretty well, yeah. So they bring her in and they said, what do you remember? And she said, I remember vividly looking at it, not later, she says vividly, not as a three-year-old. Well, she got to put a pipe up to her mouth. Well, it was a pink dusk, I'll say that much. The sky was
Starting point is 00:36:12 a fire with oranges and reds and purples and it was very lovely. I remember vividly coming down the hall. Exquisite evening. Exquisite evening. Wonderful, wonderful. Then she told police, they go, well, you know, do you know anybody that was around? And she said, quote, Tom did it. Oh, well that's easy. Well that's helpful, yeah. That's pretty good, I like that.
Starting point is 00:36:36 Got a social on that guy, babe? Well, that's pretty good. Well, you know his address? And they said, well, who's Tom? And she goes, I'm the guy, my mom knows, man named Tom. When you find him, I'll tell you. Yeah, I mean, I'll say if that's Tom or not. Then they look over the crime scene a lot more
Starting point is 00:36:49 because they have a lot of pictures here. They have some weird pictures, by the way. There's pictures later on that they'll have of Loretta. For some reason, they took cops, cops took pictures of like, Heidi standing in the crime scene. What? Yeah, like amongst the blood, it's really weird.
Starting point is 00:37:06 There's pictures, yeah. Put that in an expose or something and sell it? I don't know what it is, like there was a little girl here to put, I guess it's like inventory. There's one TV, one radio, a fridge, this, that. A three year old, a fucking dead lady. One female child. One tiny female child, age indeterminate.
Starting point is 00:37:28 Covered in blood. There's the inventory. Okay, you can take the kid out now. So in the pictures and in the scene, they find what appears to be right at the end of Loretta's hand in the carpet, it appears to be letters written in blood. Letters? Letters, she appears to write. Oh, no way.
Starting point is 00:37:53 She's trying to write something in blood. With a slit, what? With her fucking fingers, with her last drop of, it took five to 20 minutes to die, they said, so she had a little time here to do this. They find a T and then overlapping the T a little is an O and that's all they find. That's all she had. Yeah. So, you know, either that or... That's close to Tom. She was trying to get to Tonga maybe and she's, I had a vacation plan to cancel my plane tickets to Tonga. She's 66% of the way to Tom or halfway to Toby. We have no idea
Starting point is 00:38:31 No clue that's I mean so that you don't know so to is what they find to Then they say okay. They have her diary Also, so they scour her diary for any mentions of a Tom Also, so they scour her diary for any mentions of a Tom Maybe she knows a Tom and she kept her diary meticulously every day So if she real she knew a time she's gonna put a fucking Tom in there and they find a mention of a Tom a man She dated for about two months a few months back his name is Tom eggly eg le why and They had dated he's kind of a local shitbag, basically.
Starting point is 00:39:08 He's from Helper, Utah is the name of the place. I guess Heidi said later on he was set up on a date by some friends with my mom. So he got, it was like a setup. Mom picked him. No, some of mom's friends set mom up with him. It was one of those. She didn't just meet him randomly.
Starting point is 00:39:25 This was a set up by both mutual friends. Oh, Heidi said that. Heidi said that. She said, my mom did not care for him, though. They never really hit it off. I guess, you know, she said that as a child, Heidi had met Tom. That's how she knew Tom did it. But she said he wasn't there all the time. He just
Starting point is 00:39:45 came a few times and she knew who he was and that sort of thing. She said Tom was an acquaintance of my mom. My mom knew him. He was somebody that my mom knew and that I knew. So he is Thomas Edward Edgley or Egli. He's 30 years old. We'll say Egli because it sounds worse. He's 30. And at the time when they want to go talk to him they find out he is living at a motel with his pregnant girlfriend. Atta boy. Real nice. Yeah I'm very pregnant too. She's like eight months fucking pregnant. Oh my. So they're like okay this is a an interesting one here and he's the guy they talked to that said I was in price. And didn't want the and lawyer that guy they had already talked to him because there was
Starting point is 00:40:28 anonymous tip about him and now they find out of a Tom so they're like we're talking to you again and he goes lawyer I'd like a lawyer and no lie detector actually. But what he does admit to is he said listen that day I was in town I had some drinks I ate a hamburger and I went window shopping. You know how one does. Yeah, big window shopper. Big window shopper. They said, well, do you have any alibi?
Starting point is 00:40:51 I mean, you must have seen people if you were out and about. He said, no, there's no one that I know of. There was people that I saw that I didn't, I don't know them, so I couldn't tell you who they were. Yeah, I don't like my friends to go with me window shopping. It's very distracting. I go to a town by myself, I get a hamburger, and just just shop the windows. That's what I do. That's normal Everyone does that wedding dresses and shit. You know while my eight-month pregnant girlfriend is in a fucking motel back there. That's everyone does
Starting point is 00:41:17 So like I said he asked for a lawyer. They let him go So they a little while later. They asked him him again and he denies any involvement And he says look this is the last time to talk to you guys. I'm tired. I asked for a lawyer But I will give you here's a hat of mine and a set of clothes. This is the clothes I wore that night And also here's three knives that I own And the cops go okay Like you know he couldn't have had a fourth knife in a different set of clothes.
Starting point is 00:41:48 Yeah. This is self-reported. Okay. The clothes he's wearing. Yeah. He could have just given him anything. So they do talk to a bar owner that confirms that she did see him in the bar that night. Okay.
Starting point is 00:42:02 So the drinks alibi holds, but she said one weird thing about that, the one thing, he was there that night, very strange, he had red spots all over his shirt. Red spots all over his shirt. That's worse than if he had no alibi, I would say. How are you going to go there, but covered in blood? How are you going to go somewhere and be bloody when you're there? I would say There but covered in blood Be bloody when you're there. How do you go to a bar go? Well? I mean, maybe they'll think it's the style I just need them to see me that is fucking why I turn it inside out. I guess the blood would seep through I don't know it might have been inside out Maybe he well he showed up. It was the highway rendezvous club. That was the name of the bar by the way
Starting point is 00:42:45 South of helper and she said pinkish red spots all over his shirt is what the woman there the bar owner said She said he was adamant that he needed to find someone who was driving into helper to get a ride from them I have to go back to helper. I have to go right now. That's adamant However, they said that it was strange because the place he was staying in town, the motel was about three blocks away. So they were like, why does he need a ride? I don't understand why he needs a ride. Just somewhere so far. And then he left before sometime before midnight with another man. So he lived at the new house,
Starting point is 00:43:22 which was the name of the motel with his pregnant girlfriend. And they so they go to the pregnant girlfriend. What's up with that? When did he come home? How was he? She said, Well, he didn't come home till about three or 4am that night, which was my word, very unusual, by the way, because he never stays out that late. So that's weird. She said she yelled at him for being home so late when he got home. See you asshole. Inconsiderate shithead, I could've gotten into labor at any time, you don't have a cell phone. What are you doing?
Starting point is 00:43:51 She said that he went into the bathroom and took a bath in his clothes. While wearing his clothes. He just, well, I'm gonna get out in the bath and just soaked on in at four o'clock in the morning after being yelled at hilarious. She was like, what the fuck are you doing? Taking a bath bitch. What do you think I'm doing? What's it look like my clothes now Jesus? Yeah, it's a good idea. I just had He was in clothes at the same time. That's perfect. He then took his clothes off, the wet clothes that he bathed in,
Starting point is 00:44:27 and put them in a bag by the door. Okay. Just those clothes. The next morning, he got up early, slept for a couple hours, and told her he's going to wash his clothes that he just bathed in. What the fuck is happening? He asked her, you have any laundry you need me to do?
Starting point is 00:44:45 I'll do yours now too, at 4am. I'm gonna, whites, darks, whatever, I'm doing low to H. And she said quote, this was even more unusual than him not coming home till 4 o'clock in the morning because she said quote, he never did the laundry, ever. He's never done it. Never, it's 1970, he's not doing the fucking laundry. Yeah So he left and went to the laundromat. She said I thought that's what he said he was doing. So The thing is in those days much of the town had coal furnaces still yeah
Starting point is 00:45:21 So there were burn barrels scattered all around town used to dispose of shit like that The ash and stuff like that so all the leftover furnace ash and the rock and stuff like that. So even though it was summer, the barrels always have smoldering fires in them from people burning trash in them because people just burn trash in the burn barrels all over town. So that morning across the street from the laundromat, there's a bar, and the bar owner saw Thomas Eggly standing by a barrel with smoke coming from it, staring at it. Watching something burn. Yeah, we'll talk about that. She asked him, like, what are you doing?
Starting point is 00:45:56 And he said, fucking, oh, I'm just burning my clothes from last night. Yeah. Okay. But that's what he said, that was his answer. So the guy who drove him from Eggly, Yeah, okay, but that's what she that's what he said that was his answer so The the guy who drove him from eggly drove eggly from helper to price the night of the murder there He remembered eggly was wearing a colorful hat and a white t-shirt and jeans. Oh
Starting point is 00:46:18 Colorful hat not good because that's yeah exactly the outfit that was reported by the little girl and right her family Exactly the outfit that was reported by the little girl and her family the owner of the rendezvous bar Said that he visited twice on the day of the murder when he visited the second time It was around 1130 red spots on his shirt, and he was acting very nervous So now the problem is The little girls kidnapping the police and Provo just pick somebody up for it. They grab somebody, okay, who fit the description of this guy. They bring the little girl down and she says, that's not him.
Starting point is 00:46:56 It's not Thomas Eggly, just some other guy they picked up. So the little girl's description of the man began to resemble Eggly even more after she says, no, he's more like this and like that and they were like, oh more like this fucking idiot so August 6 1970 they do a lineup here and a guy named Kulo fennel is his name, which is a very fun name Butthole funnel but whole fennel which is even worse fennel that comes from your butthole. I Harvest the fennel from my hula once a year
Starting point is 00:47:29 It's Kulo harvesting time Ha fennel like butthole funnel but whole funnel Yeah, only your name was Jesus. So this guy I picked This is one of the relatives of the little girl sheep They pick out Thomas ugly as the guy who tried to kidnap the girl really they said is this the guy and the guy said I felt like I was about to throw up So he is booked for the assault of the girl ugly picking it grabbing Laurie the little girl So he's considered a suspect in the murder
Starting point is 00:48:04 But they say they don't have enough evidence to book him because they can't find the clothes He was wearing and all that kind of shit because he burned them They don't know have a murder weapon or anything like that. So still they have a lot of circumstantial evidence. This is a lot. Yeah So very very strange So they do some more interviews with him and they get some FBI reports on some evidence and stuff and they decide they're going to go ahead and charge him with this murder. Okay. Okay.
Starting point is 00:48:31 September 19th, by the way, he and his girlfriend have a little girl. Oh, a baby's born. So by the way, these kinds of sexual attacks and murders and assaults, if you read Mindhunter and read like FBI profilers do this. They always happen near this. There's always, number one, the pressure thing. There's a big pressure buildup and there's also a lot of time, a lack of able to have sexual release too at this time.
Starting point is 00:48:58 So they just go out and fucking turn into. There's a lack of sexual release and they know that there's none on the horizon. Yep. And there's a lot of pressure on the horizon. It's stressors as well too causes this. Just a pressure cooker and no coming. Yep and they apparently have a lot of jizz to give and he does. Guy named Charles Welk Nelson Kirkwood, he testifies he gave him a ride later on in the preliminary
Starting point is 00:49:25 hearing about the colorful hat and the jeans. So November 5th here, they've arrested him, he's got a new little girl. By the way, he marries the girlfriend right away. They have the kid, they get married. This is all before he gets arrested. This is very important because now she does not have to testify against him. That's why he did it. That's exactly why, and she didn't wanna testify either
Starting point is 00:49:50 because this is the father of their brand new newborn baby. So now, her saying he took a bath and his clothes, came home late, took the clothes. None of that's all out. Went to the laundromat, it's just he left, he had red spots on his shirt, and the next day he was burning his clothes That's all we know hmm Gotta take all that out of the timeline for what the cops were allowed to charge. Yes. She's not gonna testify
Starting point is 00:50:13 So he admits to trying to snatch Laurie off the street. He admits it. He admits to that He admits yet tried to kidnap this girl. So he tried to kidnap. Yeah It's almost like he realized. ooh, that's a hard target. That's not a soft target. That's a hard one. People notice when a 10-year-old girl goes missing, and then every guy in town chases me down the street, like Frankenstein.
Starting point is 00:50:34 That's bad. She didn't even get captured, and three guys tried to get me. Yeah, so he said, oh, in a house where I can have control of the scenario, it's a little bit better. But he's not admitting to the murder. He says, I don't know what you're talking about.
Starting point is 00:50:48 Didn't have anything to do with the murder. So they have a preliminary hearing and the police chief says that he got there, collected the evidence, blah, blah, blah. They talk about the photographs of the scene. They also talk about information they got from the girlfriend that she gave beforehand. His now wife was Kurt, past girlfriend. And that was the only thing that she told the cops was that he told his girlfriend
Starting point is 00:51:17 he was going to see Loretta Jones. Really? Yes, but he said that that's all that they had out of the thing, but now she can't testify to it. So they have a statement of that, that she can't testify to in court. If you're listening to this podcast, then chances are good, you are a fan of the Strange, Dark and Mysterious.
Starting point is 00:51:37 And if that's the case, then I've got some good news. We just launched a brand new Strange, Dark and Mysterious podcast called Mr. Bolland's Medical Mysteries. And as the name suggests, it's a show about medical mysteries, a genre that many fans have been asking us to dive into for years, and we finally decided to take the plunge and the show is awesome. In this free weekly show, we explore bizarre, unheard of diseases, strange medical mishaps, unexplainable deaths, and everything in between.
Starting point is 00:52:05 Each story is totally true and totally terrifying. Go follow Mr. Bolland's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts, and if you're a Prime member, you can listen early and ad-free on Amazon Music. So the day of this hearing, judge, this is county attorney Dan Keller, asked the judge to postpone the hearing for three reasons. Said there's some persons of interest who knew both the suspect and the victim who were recently located in Kansas. We'd like to talk to them. Police have not yet had a chance to speak with them. And second, some anticipated FBI reports had not been completed.
Starting point is 00:52:41 And they said also, Polony, the chief who found the body and did all this, he's unavailable to testify because he's attending law enforcement school in New York. So he's at school. He's at a conference at the moment. So the defense attorney protested the continuance saying that his client's civil rights were violated due to a long incarceration with not even a preliminary hearing. This isn't what I'm doing. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:53:04 Yeah. He said the police went on phishing expeditions concerning the guilt or innocence of his client and that these expeditions have not succeeded. He said if the state had not prepared its case by now, he should release my client. Okay. Now, they grant the continuance on the condition that the prosecution file an affidavit detailing its reasons for it. They said yes, his bail was denied, and they set a new hearing date for November 5th.
Starting point is 00:53:33 On that day, the prosecution says charge, we're ready to charge him, hand down the thing, and the judge should say that there's enough evidence to hold you for trial. That's the preliminary hearing. And the judge says, not enough evidence to hold him for trial. That's the preliminary hearing and the judge says not enough evidence to hold him for trial Get gone orders him released. Oh my god because For kidnapping the girl attempted kidnapping of a ten-year-old girl for obvious sexual purposes He serves 90 days for that 90 day they give him a month and a half in jail for that 1970 was a wild time to be alive
Starting point is 00:54:09 just try to grab a kid and it was like well don't try that again mr. you're gonna sit down for a little bit wow so the chief commented this is Art Polony he said that the judge just called it as he saw it and we'll just have to start again from scratch. Oh Lee. Just, oh well. Um, the next, that right after he gets out in January, Thomas Egli moves to Colorado and just takes off. Yeah. He wants out. So Heidi is adopted by her grandparents because has to be, has to be. Um, he says, she said with all my aunts and uncles becoming my brothers and sisters at that point.
Starting point is 00:54:46 They just integrated her into the family. Maybe they told she knew that they weren't, but that was how it was treated. She's just as broken as it gets now. Yep. She said that we stopped talking about the murder because it was so hard on my grandparents and then said her grandpa died of a heart attack in 1974. So I guess they tried to, the parents tried to keep the cops on the case, but once grandpa died, they kind of, she said, quote, once my grandpa died, it was too much for my grandma to even pursue. She was the mourning the loss of her daughter,
Starting point is 00:55:22 then her husband, it was easier for her to just tuck those memories away. So Heidi tries to get her mother's case reopened in 1989 because she saw Unsolved Mysteries and was like, 19 years later. That's when it came out Unsolved Mysteries. She's like, she's like, maybe fucking Robert Stack will help me. I have no idea. Yeah, that's let's find out.
Starting point is 00:55:42 So she said, I had this binder of newspaper clippings, things I got on my own. I was writing to the authorities that I had worked on my mom's case, that had worked on my mom's case, trying to get some answers, but I kept hitting a brick wall and another brick wall. So she moved to Utah or from Utah to California in 1986 and spent 20 years working as a San Jose real estate agent and then came back to Utah in 2006 to be closer to her family, especially her grandmother's getting old. So she said moving back stirred up, you know, some shit. Now she wanted to start thinking about it again. And she said she had nightmares as a child, but never flashbacks. And she said she wished she did have flashbacks because then she'd know what the fuck happened.
Starting point is 00:56:27 She said, I want to remember more. I want to remember what I can't remember. She wants to see it. Because she said, I might have seen it and blocked it out. Yeah, I could fix this. Yeah, because one minute she knew he was there, so she had to have looked out the peephole and seen that. Or maybe they even
Starting point is 00:56:46 he might they even might have had interaction in the living room and then she might have blocked it out till she looked out the next morning and saw her mom's body and kids do that you know your brain will will do that so she said maybe there was something that was buried in my brain that if it came out could help solve the case quicker maybe there was something I needed to remember so yeah 2009, 2009 her car is stolen. Oh no. And she posted about it on Facebook and said one of the people who commented was a now Carbon County Sheriff's Office deputy named David Brewer, who was an old classmate of hers. He was a friend from high school and so she decided she'd go find him and ask him to look in.
Starting point is 00:57:26 It was her mother's murder. Maybe he can do it. So she does. Don't find my car. Find this. Yeah, find my mom's murder. I bet the guy who killed her took my car too. So she said that she thought that her mom, she thought of her mom as a hero for not screaming
Starting point is 00:57:42 or making noises that might have woke her up. She says she believes that her mother closed the bedroom door to protect her and that so she wouldn't come out with him still there, which is probably true. 2010, Brewer here, the deputy, travels to Colorado to interview Thomas Egli. He's still alive and he denies all involvement and although he asked when asked a particular question, check this out, the deputy says I asked him if we did find the person who murdered Loretta after 40 years of looking for them what should happen to them? His answer was that that would depend on whether the person that
Starting point is 00:58:20 committed any more murder since. I mean everybody gets one right? You know what I mean? Then from there it could be a little more complicated probably. What's the severity of this? Yeah I mean is he an asshole? Is he a nice guy? Is he mean? What are we talking about? Is he like a guy who likes to wear colorful hats maybe?
Starting point is 00:58:41 So this guy is intrigued but you know doesn't have any evidence here all he had to go off of was Recollection of people and past media coverage the same shit. I have to go on old newspaper clippings but there's a strange photograph of Heidi taken at the crime scene of the blood-soaked carpet there. Yeah, and She said he said that picture kind of set me back a little because why are they taking a picture of her where? Her mom died. She's literally in a bloody crime scene of fucking three-year-old But he said this picture is the only crime scene photo We have that still remains because that's the family took that that picture ended up in the family archives
Starting point is 00:59:21 Not the police shit. So the police probably that shit's been been long gone for 40 years, but they still have it, and it's in color, which is helpful. So they said that Eglee had lived in many places before and after the murder, and that he's never had a stable home life. He's lived with tons of women on and off, married three times, had five kids spread out all over the place, and mostly
Starting point is 00:59:46 kept to himself the last bunch of years or so. He's kind of just, he's been called a drifter on and off. So they tracked down his former girlfriend, then wife that was pregnant, the one he lived with at the time. She said, yeah, he did. He took a bath with all his clothes on. Next day he went to the laundromat and when he came back it was obvious that several items of clothing that he normally has were missing.
Starting point is 01:00:10 Missing. Missing. So they said, okay, that's very fucking interesting. Her name's Marcia Hidalgo and they also find Barbara Bateson who's the owner of a bar now and also at the time they talked to her again and also Thomas's former boss because he worked for her for a while. So they said by the way he wasn't drunk when he came home and his girlfriend said she asked she asked him where he'd been when he got home before he took a bath and he said that he had brought hamburgers to a woman and her
Starting point is 01:00:41 daughter so he knew the daughter was there. He knew. Because he brought, that's how the daughter knew too, because I bet he brought hamburgers for him. That's the thing. So I guess that's when he took the clothes and did all that kind of shit. She said that was really weird. And you know, the Barbara Badison said
Starting point is 01:01:00 that he was using the burn barrel by the laundromat to burn shit. When she asked, what are you burning? He said, burning was using the burn barrel by the laundromat to burn shit when she asked What are you burning? He said burning clothes from the night before and Also said that he gave police a different set of clothes when they came and searched this hotel room Why are you telling people this? That's crazy. I mean I can tell you why he's dumb Holy shit
Starting point is 01:01:22 so then they talked to the girl and her family who was abducted by him or attempted to be abducted and she told him that the guy wore an odd multicolored hat that he dropped as he attacked her but then ran back and retrieved it and then the family started to chase him. So he almost left his hat behind. His favorite hat. His favorite hat. He had a multicolored welder's cap that he wore. Okay. So and he is like, I wore it all the time, people said.
Starting point is 01:01:51 And they said, okay. And a witness reported seeing a similar hat hanging on a hook by Eggly's door at the hotel. Also before an incident, before the incident, the brother and the friend of the girl that was attacked Noticed a man who accosted her sitting on the curb near the Arctic Circle, which was a some bar or something eating a hamburger they live just a few doors down from that restaurant and they The brother identified ugly as the attacker that he saw wearing the cap. So later on as well as the attacker that he saw wearing the cap. So later on as well. Then they find out that one of the cops who was there,
Starting point is 01:02:29 Price Police Officer Barry Briner, he said that he told Brewer now, because he's still alive, that before she died, she scrawled letters in blood, the T and the O. Have you looked into that? And this guy said, what the fuck are you talking about he'd never heard that before this Brewer guy he didn't know that so they said that it was crazy so they said holy shit the letters are clearly legible but it's hard to reach a collaboration on the
Starting point is 01:02:58 point 40 years later as all the crime scene photos and statements for that time are gone but they found a family member who had photographed the blood on the floor when they took a picture of Heidi So for a long time they were in the in the family picture album at the grandmother's house crime scene photos Yeah, yeah, she said over the years. I would look through the family album among these happy photos or pictures of this crime scene I asked my grandmother to take them out and she finally did then years later I realized that we needed them and she found them again Wow so that's it you can see the picture of her standing there you can see very clearly the T&O drawn on the carpet behind that's the only evidence of that that they have is this family
Starting point is 01:03:41 photo so they talked to Tom he's living in Rocky Ford, Colorado, and they go, Yeah, you know, what's up with that? And he goes, Oh, yeah, price. I remember that one of my old girlfriends was murdered. I don't remember her name. They were like, Okay. They said, Well, do you remember what you did on July 30 1970? And he said, Oh, yeah, yeah, I remember I ate a hamburger. He doesn't remember his girlfriend's name Do you remember is eating a hamburger on July 30th? How do you remember that? I'm very I mean you can eat a hamburger if you brought hamburgers to fuck a murder victim and her kid That's it. So that's 2010 six years go by
Starting point is 01:04:21 They need to exhume Loretta to get to see if there's any DNA That's the big thing here Six years go by. They need to exhume Loretta to see if there's any DNA. That's the big thing here. But they can't because they don't want to do it because the grandmother, Loretta's mother is like 90 and she can't handle an exhumation. So they wait until she dies. Smart, I guess. Once she dies, they exhume Loretta.
Starting point is 01:04:40 So the cop here, Brewer, said if there was just a 1% chance that we could find physical evidence It would be worth the effort But the body and coffin suffered extensive water damage Oh, no, so they could recover zero physical evidence from it. That's so ever so but they hoped they what they did was on purpose Publicize the exhumation like they're gonna have all this evidence. Oh, this is what we need. So they didn't say it's a bust They were like, oh, it's a treasure trove of evidence Right, they were doing this to try to stir up ugly to say something to somebody and he does He does a woman named Linda Carter who knows who knows them here
Starting point is 01:05:19 The police she told she was the one who originally told the police about the written-in-blood thing and they were like for real Holy shit, then they went and found the photos and they were like, okay. Yeah, so He's an he she's his current neighbor and she used to know Loretta Jones too But now in Rocky Ford, they live near each other. Okay weird so Okay, this is fucking crazy she's been chatting with him and hinting that the police found some good information to try to get something out of him.
Starting point is 01:05:51 The police, she offers to wear a wire and talk to him about this. She is ballsy. Oh, she's a super ball. He's an old, discrepant man at this point, too. So during this, he said, oh, that's interesting. They're exhuming her and all that. He said, do you know how long DNA evidence and semen lasts? Siemens forever, my friend. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:06:12 Until you swallow it. I don't know. Yeah. Not diamond. Semen is forever. So, um, then the neighbor convinced him that he should confess to the police. Yeah. If you've got those questions, those are incriminating questions.
Starting point is 01:06:28 He said he used to date her and he stabbed her because he was angry at her for refusing sex with him. That's what he told Linda Carter. He said, it gets worse, man. He said after he stabbed her, she fell on the floor and then he had sex with her and then he slit her throat. He stabbed her 16 fucking times and then had sex with her. Wow.
Starting point is 01:06:49 Then fucking raped a dying woman. That's disgusting. Get out. He then said he tossed the knife that he used in the river behind the Price Hotel and burned all of his clothes. So she said, you gotta tell the cops, you gotta tell the cops, there's the family, blah, blah, blah, he does it. He goes in and confesses.
Starting point is 01:07:07 Wow. Yep, he said he slit her throat. He said, quote, I was there for sex. He went out looking for sex that night. I'll go to the bar, look for sex, I'll kidnap a kid and have sex with her, I'll fucking do it. Go see my ex.
Starting point is 01:07:20 Go see my ex, see if I can get it there. That's what he was doing. He said, I was turned down for for sex It made me feel like shit She went to the kitchen for or something after that and when she came back I stabbed her in the living room she fell in front of the couch And he said she was still alive when I had sex with her He said then he cut her cut her throat and he fucking left That was the end of it. Then he went and did all those things that everybody said he did
Starting point is 01:07:45 so and he fucking left. That was the end of it. Then he went and did all those things that everybody said he did. So they agree to, if he pleads guilty to murder, that they'll drop the rape charge on him. Okay. So they asked Heidi, what was it like to see him finally in court? The boogeyman of all these fucking years. And she said, he just looked like an old man, an old frail man.
Starting point is 01:08:04 It's not the same No, she said I remember she said I remember standing out in the hallway And I told Brewer that he wasn't that wasn't the boogeyman that I thought he was and Brewer said quote even the boogeyman gets old Truth and the fact 40 years. That's been for years and all he's and he was 30 then and he's 69 years old now So Heidi during sentencing, says in court, I was in shock, terrified and all alone. That day changed my life forever. Tom Egli is a poor excuse for a human being and I hope his life will be lonely and a living hell.
Starting point is 01:08:36 She said, my mom was my hero that terrible night. She never screamed or made a sound. She did everything she had to, to prevent me from coming out of my room. How does that make you feel Tom Eglee knowing that you left a four-year-old little girl all alone in the next room to find her mother's bloody and lifeless body? My hope for Tom Eglee is for him to be sentenced for the rest of his life in prison. I hope that he will take his last and final breath behind prison bars all alone, not holding the hand of a loved one if Tom is ever
Starting point is 01:09:06 Eligible for parole. I'll be at the parole hearing to make sure he never walks as a free man again from this day forward This will be a happy day for getting justice for my mom. So Yeah, they said what about you Tom you got anything to say for yourself? Yeah, he doesn't speak himself, but has his lawyer read a statement. Read this, please. And it says, I didn't know that the daughter was there. I'm sorry she had to find her mother like that.
Starting point is 01:09:33 I'm terribly sorry. And the lawyer also says that Tom says he doesn't now remember many of the details of the crime, even though he just confessed to them six months ago. So the judge says, you, sir sir may fuck off at least 10 years in prison and up to life. He's 69 so yeah. He's pissed off about it.
Starting point is 01:09:55 Tom says, they asked him, he said quote, I'm not really satisfied because he wants to be, he wants a closer prison to his family so people can visit him. Tough shit. Yep, the guy said, well, you can appeal it. Other than that, go fuck yourself. The daughter, Heidi, was upset. She said, I was really hoping that he would have turned and told me he was sorry for killing my mommy.
Starting point is 01:10:16 That's what I was really hoping for. But he didn't, he never did any of that. You're not getting that out of that guy. Yep, he said that he wasn't mad. She said she wasn't mad at the cops They did what they could do at the time and that was just kind of how things were at the time if there was DNA It would have been a lot easier She said I want I want to be in his face as much as possible to remind him of what he did to my mom
Starting point is 01:10:37 And why he's sitting where he's sitting it's to remind him I was a four-year-old little girl what he did to what he did to my mom and she was a human being So yeah pretty impressive. He tries to appeal this thing It's to remind him I was a four year old little girl what he did to what he did to my mom and she was a human being So yeah, pretty impressive. He tries to appeal this thing By the way, he tries to appeal this thing on the case of entrapment saying that there was entrapment for that woman to get the that out of him and Also saying that his his confession wasn't taken correctly So, you know, they said get the fuck out of here You're listen old man. Yeah
Starting point is 01:11:10 2017 they come to his house with a bloodhound team to sniff Why this case is closed? It's not about this This is about this whole his home being five minutes from Rocky Ford High School Which 35 years ago in? 1982 November 1st 1982 two students Victoria Sanchez and Yvonne Mestis left school and were never seen again. Oh no. Yeah so they said they declined to say anything further but they're searching his house for forensic evidence. Yeah that's not good at all. So these were the 15 year old and a 14 year old were
Starting point is 01:11:48 kidnapped right by his fucking house. So they're like, um, let's talk about that. Probably him, probably him. So possibly an even bigger scumbag than we thought. God written out in blood. That's what did it. It was the blood that got him to confess. He was like, oh shit, the blood and all that. It made it free. Oh yeah. Tio baby. the blood and all that, it made it freak them out. She got TNO, yeah. T-O, baby, not bad. So there you go, that's Price, Utah, everybody. Unbelievable. Fucking crazy case that took 40 something years to solve,
Starting point is 01:12:13 46 years to get him to confess to it, which is amazing. But that's what I mean, it was an old timey crime that kind of mixed new school shit, where he was afraid of DNA evidence that he didn't know existed back then. So it's wild stuff He had to have done much much more right? Oh if he was in one night if he was gonna kidnap and Rape and kill a fucking 10 year old and then did this in someone's house
Starting point is 01:12:36 He's capable of anything. I would he has five kids I'd look every fucking time one of his kids were born look anywhere around him for whatever he was at Yeah, every single fucking one of those times I would do. So anyway, I'm not, I don't know, someone can check that out, I'm sure that has more resources than us for it. But yeah, get on that Utah law enforcement. Utah and Colorado, get to work. I can't be the only one to think of that.
Starting point is 01:12:57 So I'm sure I'm not, I'm sure they thought of it, I hope so anyway. So if you like that, leave a review, a nice one, say something good about us on whatever act you're listening on. Also tell your friends, follow on social media, we are at ShutUpAndGiveMeMurder, that's the website, ShutUpAndGiveMeMurder.com. Social media, we're at Small Town Murder on Instagram, at Small Town Pod on Facebook,
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Starting point is 01:13:42 They act like Pete Rose is the first guy this ever happened to and they were surprised. And only. Yeah talk about many many more especially in the NFL. Talk about that for small town murder it's conspiracy theory rabbit hole time baby. Let's do it. It was Charles Manson a CIA asset that committed those murders at the behest of the government to discredit the hippies or whatever the fuck. We'll talk all about it and we'll go down that rabbit hole hard. A guy wrote a whole book about it and it is crazy shit. That is patreon.com slash crime in sports. Crime in sports is the name of our other show
Starting point is 01:14:12 that you should be listening to as well as your stupid opinions, which is fucking hilarious. Listen to that goddamn shit. Check these shows out. Keep hanging out with us and doing that. I think that's about it, right everybody? Yeah, you wanna follow us on social media, do it. Come see us. Oh, shut up and give me murder.com. Tickets to the live shows. May 31st, Durham, North Carolina, virtual live show. Still available.
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