Stop Podcasting Yourself - This Sounds Serious Season 2 Episode 1 - Missing Melissa

Episode Date: June 5, 2019

Written by Dave Shumka: A 9-1-1 call from a 2017 bank heist leads investigative journalist Gwen Radford to the story of the country’s most missing person, Melissa Turner. And now Melissa has disappeared again, only this time it’s different.

Hey everybody, it's Dave. I just wanted to share something in this feed. It's the show I've been working on. Season 2 of This Sounds Serious just started and I wanted to share episode 1 with you. wrote it this season with past guests mark chavez and pat kelly and it stars carly pope again as well as a ton of past stop podcasting yourself guests aaron reed is the voice you'll probably recognize the most all over the show as well as all the sunday service members and uh emmet hall Emmett Hall, who else? Nima Golamipour, Christine Bordelon, Amy Goodmurphy. A ton of former Stop Podcasting Yourself guests are in this. So I think you'll enjoy it. If you like true crime, if you like S-Town or Serial or any of that, you'll be on board with this. It's available anywhere you find your podcasts or this sounds serious dot com.

Episode one of season two of this sounds serious. Here it is. Thanks. Kelly and Kelly. 911, what's your emergency? Hi, hi, hi. This is Jimmy Klein and I have hostages and I have demands. And I'm robbing the van too. Everyone be quiet. I'm robbing this place.

Jimmy, let's stay with me here, okay? Look, I have demands. I have demands. Okay. Do you have a weapon? Yes, I have a big gun. It's a real gun. Jimmy, have you heard anybody? I'm looking at you. I think I'm going to shoot you. Jimmy, talk to me here. Jimmy, have you heard anybody? I'm looking at you. I think I'm going to shoot you. Jimmy, talk to me here. Jimmy, have you heard anybody?

Not yet. I haven't heard anybody yet, but I could. This is a 911 call placed to emergency services in Grant County, Oregon in 2017. The caller, Jimmy Klein, was holding up a bank in the small town of Tom Day, Oregon. And what bank? I'm robbing the First Union Bank, the one that's near the store, the hair salon called Here We Are or Here We Go or something like that. It doesn't matter what it's called, okay?

I'm Gwen Radford. And if you've heard the show before, you know I'm obsessed with 911 calls. My brother, I think he's dead. That's how I find all of my stories. I listen to hours of emergency calls every day, and I get seduced by the emotion I hear in a call. And I need to find out who is the person behind the voice. What's their story? Sometimes when I'm researching, I get fixated on a particular

type of call. And one night, a few months ago, I was on a long jag of bank robbery calls. I sat at my desk all day and into the night, listening to call after call. Look, if you want any of these house, just make it out alive. You're going to give us a helicopter. Okay, with a pilot. I'm sorry, I'm just, I'm stuck on the inside. I was just trying to take the money out of the safe, but then the door closed on me,

and I can't get it open, so I'm stuck in here right now. Okay, one of the hostages here is actually my cousin of mine, so I'm going to let him go. And then I found this one. You step one foot near this building, and you know what? I just might. Phil, everybody, you're full of bullets. Yeah, I said it, yeah.

It's a fascinating call. Jimmy holds the bank hostage for a day and a half. And during the course of those 36 hours, he goes back and forth with police in some truly unusual exchanges. All right, everyone get down. One second. Hold on. I'm going to put you on speakerphone, okay? Everyone. Okay, everyone get down. At one point, he loses some hostages. At another, he unconvincingly claims to be carrying a bomb. At times, he seems childlike and naive. Why don't you stop right now so you're not in any more trouble than you're already in. Do you understand? You come on out. Then there are other times he sounds like an unhinged criminal. It's one of the most unforgettable 911 calls I have ever heard.

And it's led me on a journey that crisscrosses the Pacific Northwest, uncovers a bizarre online subculture, and exposes the seedy underbelly of a small town. I have demands. I have demands. Okay. But what really made me want to dig deeper into this story is that through all the strange moments, all the mistakes made by Jimmy and the police, he maintains one single demand.

Listen, listen, listen, listen. You need to arrest the mayor. I'm going to use this bomb if you don't arrest the mayor. Why don't you come out? We can have a little chat, okay? No, not until you arrest the mayor for murder. have a little chat, okay? No, not until you arrest the mayor for murder. It's This Sounds Serious, a CastBox original. The Jimmy Klein 911 call is truly remarkable. You need to hear it, and you will.

But first, there's another part of the story you need to know about. And it takes place about a five-hour drive east of Tom Day in Twin Falls, Idaho. Thank you, everyone. I will pass it over now to the parents. Thank you. She is 28 years old, 5'5", 140 pounds. She's got straight brown shoulder-length hair. This is news footage of a June 2017 press conference held at the police headquarters in Twin Falls, Idaho. She was wearing this black

t-shirt with a cartoon duck on it. We'll circulate a photo with the press packet. The couple speaking are Bruce and Tracy Turner. We just want our little girl back. What do you mean little girl? I thought people were supposed to be on the lookout for a full-grown woman. She's 28 years old yet? No, you're correct. She's a full-grown woman. But she'll always be my little girl. Their 28-year-old daughter Melissa was last seen eight days earlier at a gas station outside the small town of Riddle, Idaho.

Sorry, we just want our full-grown daughter back. It's a bit of an unusual press conference. The Turners, who are in their mid-50s, are constantly stepping away from the microphone to whisper to each other. Is that better, sweetie? It's like they didn't both agree to the same statement. To the public, if you see her...

Do not approach her. Why not approach her? Why is she dangerous? No, I think my wife just said that because that's something people say about dangerous criminals. Or dogs. But Melissa's neither. But it's largely an all-too-familiar scene. Bleary-eyed loved ones of a missing person pleading for the public's help in front of a small assembly of local press at a police station. Just a few more questions. Okay. Why did you wait nine days to report her missing? You know, we don't see her every day.

She can go where she wants. She's a grown woman. She doesn't have to check in with us. And we all know this isn't the first time she's gone missing. time she's gone missing. Melissa Turner was last seen on June 7th, 2017. Police in Twin Falls opened an investigation on June 13th. They questioned witnesses, they followed leads, but that investigation never reached a conclusion. There were no suspects, no clues, no explanation that anyone found satisfactory. And now, two years later, the case has gone cold. I want to find out what happened to Melissa,

because there's more to this story than a missing person and a tearful press conference. There's more than a name and a description. But the main thing you need to know about Melissa's case is that she actually goes missing a lot. And we all know this isn't the first time she's gone missing. So who is Melissa Turner? And where is she? And what does her disappearance have to do with a marathon bank robbery in another state? That's coming up after the break.

This looks like the place. Not that much around here. No. My producer Dave and I are at the gas station off Highway 51 outside Riddle, Idaho. It's not the kind of gas station you see much of anymore. It's not part of a nationwide chain. It's just two pumps and a little wood-paneled store under a neon light. What's that name again? Hmm? Brewster. There's a weather-. What's that name again? Brewster.

There's a weather-faded sign that says Brewster Gasoline. It's definitely a throwback to a different time. Oh, they've got the old-timey gas pumps with the lever on the side. The gas pumps don't have digital readouts. Do you ever use these? They don't take credit cards. You have to go inside to pay. Looking at the horizon, I get the vibe that

I'm looking at an old black and white photo that's been colorized. I wouldn't be surprised to hear this whole town looks a lot like it did a hundred years ago. That is, until I see an ATV drive past, or some bored kids flying a drone over a ridge. But the reason I'm here, in this picturesque town, at this relic of a gas station isn't to step back in time to the early days of America's West. I'm here because this spot where I'm standing is the last place Melissa Turner was ever seen. Do you want to go in? Sure, yeah. Yeah. Sure, yeah. Yeah.

Hi. Hey, we're pumped. Oh, no pump. We're here for the podcast interview. I'm Gwen Radford. We spoke on the phone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Podcast, podcast.

Joe Rogan, yeah. Yeah, is there somewhere we can set up? Sure, yeah, yeah. Baird Morrison was working the day that Melissa came through here. I'd say about every couple of weeks we take a look at the footage because it is the most cuckoo thing you've ever seen. Melissa Turner was last seen at the Brewster gas station on June 7, 2017. Do you want to see it? We know this because even though the gas station doesn't have digital pumps or automatic doors,

it does have security cameras inside and out. Yeah, here we go. Let's pop that in. The security footage that Barrett is showing me was released to the public when Melissa went missing. And looking at it now, Melissa is definitely acting suspicious. She's acting like how a little child acts when they're playing a suspicious burglar in a play. She gets out of her car

and looks around and then pumps gas for a few seconds and stops. She puts the pump back and tiptoes into the store. I thought she was on something, you know, such a real cuckoo. One thing you need to know about Baird is he has the habit of using the word cuckoo to describe a lot of things. It can be kind of distracting. We get a lot of tweakers around here. And they are cuckoo. I mean like, cuckoo, cuckoo. You know? Melissa's only in the store for a couple of minutes, and she's constantly looking over her shoulder.

It's like what someone would do if they thought they were being followed. We don't get too many people who come in here, pay $3 worth of gas, and then start sneaking around like I can't see them. You know? You know, we got cameras everywhere. I can see cameras everywhere. I see it in the bathroom. Later in the video, she takes items off the shelves and brings them to the counter. She doesn't have a basket to carry everything,

so she brings each item one by one up to the counter and then turns around to bring the next item. Watch, watch, watch, watch. Swiss Army knife? Skittles. Scratch and win. 50 feet of rope. I mean, that's cuckoo.

Oh, wait, wait. This is our favorite part. Watch it over and over again. It is so cuckoo. Okay, so she goes to the bulk section, grabs a bag of peanuts, brings it to the front, okay? But then she goes back, grabs a handful of peanuts, brings it to the front, puts it in the bag. No wash. She goes back again, grabs a single peanut, and brings it to the front.

Oh, it's cuckoo. After 28 excruciating minutes, she pays and walks out of the store with her arms full, gets in her car, then she drives north on Highway 51, which is also the direction she came from. I mean, the closest town is Bruno. That's an hour away. You're telling me that she drove an hour for $3 worth of gas, turn around?

Man, it sucks that she disappeared, but it's cuckoo. Yeah. That's it. Anybody need to use the bathroom? But Baird is just one guy, and his opinion is based on a pretty short interaction with her. So, who is Melissa Turner? She was sort of quirky when she worked here.

Like a real free spirit type of person. She had like this aura of a real artist, you know? This is Anne. She was Melissa's manager at a sandwich shop in Twin Falls. I mean, you know, the rest of us were just sandwich artists, but she was a true, real artist. I mean, she would sometimes color her hair crazy colors, you know? I mean, like blue and teal and turquoise and other things of blue. Melissa was born in 1989 in Boise, Idaho, but she grew up in Twin Falls, an only child. Coworkers say she didn't really have any close friends and she never dated.

They describe her as shy and introverted. And the flap over here and do one on the other side, and you flip it upside down, and this is a little penguin guy. This is an Instagram video she made. She used to do these short origami video tutorials. I don't have the right yellow for the beak, but you get the idea.

I don't mind being a penguin with a purple beak, but it makes it hard to disappear in a crowd. The videos are some of the few pieces of media that give insight into her personality. They're playful and cute. She was 27 when she made this one. Hello. Hey, where are you going? I'm going to fly far away.

And I think it's important to hear her voice. Melissa Turner isn't just a missing person. She's not just a name. She's not a prop. She's a woman who has thoughts and interests. She's unique in many ways. Okay, this has been Melissa. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye, world. Well, I mean, she's crafty. She was always making stuff, you know. That's Melissa's father, Bruce. You heard him before at the press conference. After high school, she went to Moscow. He's talking about Moscow, Idaho, home of the University of Idaho. She did some art history for a few semesters there, but dropped out and she moved back home. And, you know, most parents might be disappointed, but honestly, we were thrilled. I mean, obviously, we liked having her as close as possible, you know. After moving back in with her parents, she got a job at the local movie theater and got her own apartment. We convinced her to get an apartment close to us because, you know, we'd become accustomed to keeping an eye on her.

She lived alone for most of her 20s, never had a roommate. to get an apartment close to us because, you know, we'd become accustomed to keeping an eye on her. She lived alone for most of her 20s, never had a roommate. Twin Falls is a pretty affordable place to live, even if you get a new job every 12 or 18 months. And from the sound of it, Melissa had pretty much every kind of low-paying customer service job. She was a movie theater usher.

Oh, a pizza sign twirler. Cashier at a drugstore. Sandwich maker, duh. She was a delivery driver. You know like when you go and you're like renting a car and there's like the person behind the counter? They're like you talk to and like they ask for your credit card and stuff and want you to sign the paper. She did that. Yeah, and she worked at the flower department at Reynolds.

This is Joe. He worked with Melissa at Reynolds. It's a local supermarket in Twin Falls. He says she had worked there for about two years at the time she went missing. And what can an 18-year-old do? You know, join the army? What I'm saying is there's not a lot of opportunities in this city for a 28-year-old, 18-year-old. As I'm learning more about who Melissa is, I'm trying to find out what led to her disappearance. Do you think there was anyone who would want to harm her?

Melissa? Oh, God no. She's a saint. Would anyone want to harm her? Hmm, no. I mean, not that I can think of. I don't think so. Oh, man, we've racked our brains about that one. Did she engage in any risky behavior? No. No, definitely not. No, no, no. Not at all. She always did the same thing everyone does after work. You know, she went home and just, like, got on the internet.

She did tell me she had this Pinterest account that, you know, followed clowns, but other than that, I didn't think that was really... That was a little weird, but, yeah, it's Melissa, though, you know? Did she have a boyfriend? Oh, gosh.

If she ever had a boyfriend, I didn't know about it. Oh, boys loved her. We used to hang a bit back in like 2012. This is Scott Sanderson. They worked at a call center together in Twin Falls. We were just friends. I thought maybe

for a little bit we'd become boyfriend and girlfriend, but mostly we just watched TV. She loved this game show where the people were at a swimming pool and they had to answer questions and if they got them wrong, the prizes got dropped in the pool. Okay, Terry, one more question and the washer dryer is yours. Get it wrong and you're in the splash zone. I really need this. Let's do it. Which world capital's name contains the most vowels? Your time begins now. Okay, Ottawa, Washington, Oslo. Oh, so sorry. There it goes. It's all wet. Eventually, we stopped hanging out because she went missing.

Now, let's stop for a second because this is important. We know Melissa went missing in 2017, but she also went missing when she was hanging out with Scott back in 2012. But she also went missing when she was hanging out with Scott back in 2012. And there's even more than that. The thing about Melissa Turner is she went missing a lot. Detective Philip Moore has been a member of the Twin Falls Police Department for 19 years. He says that missing person cases are pretty common in the Twin Falls area. We get a couple every month, more in the summer.

You know, it's beautiful here. People go out into the hills and get lost, or they get too close to the falls. You know, it's beautiful here. People go out into the hills and get lost, or they get too close to the falls. I've seen it dozens of times. But Melissa Turner isn't the typical missing person. Well, she's kind of a chronic case. Most people who go missing once don't go missing again. But this is the eighth time the TFPD has received a missing person report about Melissa.

And I guarantee there were a few more times when she went missing and it wasn't even reported. The remarkable thing about Melissa Turner, the thing that makes her story so intriguing, is that she's gone missing so many times that her own family has lost count. Going missing is kind of what Melissa's become known for. Welcome back to Idaho Today. They call her America's most missing person. At just 19 years of age, she's already gone missing 10 times. age. She's already gone missing 10 times. In 2008, her parents, Bruce and Tracy, were guests on Idaho Today, a daytime talk show in Boise. Bruce and Tracy is our guests today.

Could you tell me the first time you remember her going missing? Well, oh, when she was four, we were having some renovations done on the house. Second bathroom. Yep. She crawled into the walls then and got sealed up for a few hours. The thing about Melissa is she always comes back. So no matter how many times she goes missing, her family comes to expect her to return, and often they don't even bother to report her missing. Every time, it's so hard to know how serious it is. One day when she was 12, she just

stayed late at school and forgot to let us know. The next, she got on the wrong bus and literally ended up in Ogden, Utah. Every time she comes back, she's oblivious to the fact that we were worried. You know, it's like she's happier when she's missing. Bruce says it's hard not to think about the worst-case scenarios. I mean, there have been some really serious times, really serious moments, really serious. But you feel pretty embarrassed reporting her missing when she's just stuck on the roof, which I've done once or twice. On Idaho Today, Bruce told a story about the longest Melissa had ever gone missing. Can you tell me a time that you were really concerned for her

safety when she was gone? Oh, the hike. Oh, yeah, last year. She decided to take our dog for a hike over by Highway 51. It's real rough terrain out there. And somehow she got lost in the hills. She couldn't find her way back to the car, couldn't get a cell signal. We reported her missing that night. She was out there five days before they found her, but she was okay. She survived the whole time just by eating Skittles. The candy, not our dog. Yeah, our dog is also named Skittles. No, he's fine.

And she was fine, too. No big deal. So you don't think it's a big deal that your teenage daughter went missing for five days? Well, we'll see what she has to say about that. Melissa Turner, come on out. Melissa? Melissa Bear?

But I'm concerned with Melissa's most recent disappearance, so I asked Detective Moore to lay out the timeline. On Sunday, June 4th, 2017, Melissa had dinner at her parents' house. Because of her history going missing, Melissa had a standing invitation for Sunday dinner. On that particular Monday and Tuesday, she went to work at the supermarket. Yeah, when you do shift work, you get two days off. That's Melissa's co-worker, Joe.

You know, you call it your weekend, even if it's in the middle of the week. Everyone does it. I remember Melissa used to always say, today's my Friday. Super cute. Just like that. On a Wednesday.

But this time, she was going to take Wednesday off as well. So Tuesday was her Friday because she was going to take a three-day weekend. Although Tuesday was really her Thursday, and she was taking her Friday off to have a long weekend and be back in time. For the regular weekend, you take Saturday with her Monday. Does that make any sense? On the morning of Wednesday, June 7th, she drove to the gas station in Riddle. That's where she was last seen. On Saturday, June 10th, she didn't show up to work. Honestly, I wasn't that surprised. What are you going to do with a girl like Melissa?

Eventually, she's going to go mission again. She didn't show up the next day either. And that night, she didn't show up for dinner at her parents' house or even call to check in. If a missing person isn't found in the first 48 hours, the odds of finding them drop dramatically. And Melissa wasn't even reported missing for the first 200 hours. That's a spicy meatball. A lot of bad things can happen to a woman out on her own in the middle of nowhere between Riddle and the rest of civilization. And it's been two years. It's hard to believe that this is another one of Melissa's disappearing acts and she's just going to walk through the door all smiles. Well, I mean, I think the reason why she works at so many places is because it's hard to keep a job when you keep going missing.

That's Melissa's manager at the sandwich shop, Ann. We had a nickname for her, Melissa-ing. I came up with that. Yeah, I guess I had a bit of a pet name for her. That's Scott, Melissa's former boyfriend. Melissa Peer. Like disappear? Yeah, we used to have a nickname for her at the grocery store. Miss Lisa. We used to joke that she'd have her face

on the side of a milk carton. You know, like those missing kid things. What was the joke? That she'd be, her face would be on there and then by the time they found her,

then her face would be on there again. But then the milk would still be fresh. Yeah, no, that doesn't even make sense. It was something more like, it would be a new picture of her every time you looked at milk. Shit, that can't be the joke. That's not even a full joke.

I didn't even say it's a full thought right there, but god damn it wasn't funny. I hope she comes back, and I hope she's okay. We didn't report her last few disappearances and she always ended up coming home. But we're very worried now. If you're watching this now, Melissa Bear, please come home. If anyone has any information about Melissa, please contact the police. We just want to see her again. What safeguards were there in place to protect someone like Melissa?

Someone who went missing as a child and continued to go missing as an adult? Someone who everyone knew would go missing again? How does our system, law enforcement, health care, rescue services, account for a case like Melissa's? It's a heartbreaking fact, but it's one that I will unfortunately repeat throughout this series. The system failed her. Melissa fell through the cracks in a system that is supposed to protect our most vulnerable. And she fell through those cracks again and again. But here's the thing. I don't think Melissa is missing.

I think Melissa is dead. 9-1-1, what's your emergency? Because when Jimmy Klein entered the bank that day and began taking hostages, he also shared one other piece of information. I have demands. I have demands. Okay. Listen, listen, listen. You need to arrest the mayor, okay? She killed my girlfriend.

Okay, who is your girlfriend? Melissa Turner. Melissa Turner. Melissa Turner. Melissa Turner. Melissa Turner. Melissa Turner. Melissa Turner. Melissa Turner. Melissa Turner. Melissa Turner.

Melissa Turner. Melissa Turner. Melissa Turner. Melissa Turner. Next time on This Sounds Serious, what does Melissa's disappearance in Idaho have to do with the longest hostage situation in Oregon's history?

And why is a mayor being accused of murder? What are you doing? Why are you coming in? Wait, stop, stop, stop! Jimmy? Jimmy, what's going on? Jimmy, I need you to talk to me. Hello? Jimmy? Jimmy? Jimmy, what's going on? Jimmy? Bye.