The Deck Investigates - 12 of 15: P.I.'s Best Lead

Episode Date: March 9, 2023

We interview private investigator Patrick Zirpoli who reviewed the case and came up with yet another person of interest based on pre-crime, crime, and post-crime behavior. We obtain interviews that were done with witnesses who had reason to believe this man was the one who killed Darlene Hulse.Click HERE to sign the petition and demand justice for Darlene Hulse.If you believe you have information about Darlene Hulse’s 1984 abduction and murder in Argos, Indiana, please email [e-mail] view information and photos referenced in this episode, visit https://thedeckpodcast.com/pis-best-lead/Brought to you by CarMax. Car buying reimagined. Find a car you’ll love at CarMax.com. Find more of The Deck Investigates on social media.Instagram: @thedeckpodcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @thedeckpodcast_ | @audiochuckFacebook: /TheDeckPodcast | /audiochuckllcThe Deck Investigates is hosted by Ashley Flowers. Instagram: @ashleyflowersTikTok: @ashleyflowerscrimejunkieTwitter: @Ash_FlowersFacebook: /AshleyFlowers.AFText Ashley at [phone] to share your thoughts about the case, discuss all things true crime, get behind the scenes updates, and more!

About a year before we got involved with Darlene's case, her family worked with a private investigator, Patrick Zerpoli, who goes by Zip to those who know him. Zip spent his career with the Pennsylvania State Police. He retired in 2015 as a corporal and the unit supervisor of the Criminal Investigation Assessment Unit. One of his specialties is cold case homicide investigations, and after retirement, he's gone on to consult in cold cases. Zip had the opportunity to review

Darlene's case file, and he honed in on a particular person of interest. He cannot be ruled out as a suspect. When you look at means, motive, and method and opportunity, he's the guy who stands up above everyone else. This is Episode 12, PI's Best Lead. We're not using the real name of Zip's POI for legal reasons, so I'm going to call him Daryl Lemon. Daryl first came on the radar for police back in January 1985 via a tip from a woman named Dolores who worked at Young Door.

That's the same manufacturing company in Plymouth where Ron Hulse worked. Dolores told police that during the summer of 1984, Daryl had been in Argus under quote-unquote peculiar circumstances, and he had been staying at a home on 15B Road just northeast of the Hulse home. This was on the edge of Argus, and he was staying with a couple named Larry and Bonnie Berger. He'd been staying with them for a couple named Larry and Bonnie Berger. He'd been staying with them for a couple of months before taking off in either October or November and then moving to Arizona.

There isn't much follow-up on this tip, just a note that I can find about Daryl having brown hair, not blonde like the suspect, so maybe that's how they determined that this tip didn't warrant any further action. But almost a year later, in December 1985, Marshall County dispatchers got a call saying that a detective needed to contact Ron Hulse ASAP. Sergeant Yoculet called Ron right away, and Ron said that he had just gotten a call from his brother Randy,

who had gotten a call from another woman saying that she had information about Darlene's murder. Now, the woman said that she knew a man who was in a motorcycle gang and that he killed Darlene. The woman told Randy that she was afraid to report the information directly to law enforcement because she was scared of the gang. The woman said that she even knew where the murder weapon or the suspect car could be found.

So at this point, we're talking almost a year and a half after Darlene's murder. This was a pretty exciting potential lead at the time, when all other leads had dried up. But it was born out of a confusing game of telephone. By the time it got to police, it was like four sources removed. Now, Ron's brother Randy knew the name of the woman who called him, but he didn't want to share

her name because she was scared, but also because she claimed she wasn't the direct informant, because she had actually heard this information from a friend of hers. So now we're like five people removed. So Sergeant Yoculet contacted Randy Hulse directly to cut out at least one middle person. And Randy had enough information to get them going. He told them that the guy everyone is talking about is a man named Daryl Lemon. And the people that he was staying with,

the ones who started this chain of information, were Larry and Bonnie Berger. Maybe because the case had stalled out, or maybe because of how the information reached Sergeant Yoculet, this time there was documented follow-up of him sitting down with the Bergers. Larry Berger told Sergeant Yoculet that, yes, his former friend, Daryl Lemon, had been a houseguest of theirs in Argus during the summer of 1984, specifically from July to early October. Larry described Daryl as slim, tall, with blue eyes and brown hair. When Sergeant Yoculet asked Larry and his wife

if they could recall what Daryl was up to on August 17, 1984, they couldn't account for all of his movements that day because Larry said that he'd been at work until the evening and Bonnie had been running errands in the critical window of time when Darlene was attacked. Specifically, Bonnie Berger said that she went to Rochester around 9 that morning to shop and then she got back at around 10.30. But she remembered so clearly,

even a year and a half later, because on her way home, she was driving north toward Argus and she saw all of the police activity on State Road 110. She said at the time, she had been driving their four-door light green 1970s Plymouth Satellite, a car that closely matches the suspect car police had still yet to locate. Apparently, Daryl had borrowed that car quite a bit while he was staying with the Burgers, but Bonnie was certain she was the one that had the green car the morning of the homicide. And Bonnie was also certain that Daryl was at their house when she returned home that morning at 10.30. Before the interview wrapped up, Sgt. Yocolette asked the Burgers if they thought Daryl would have been capable of murder. And they both said, yes. But Sgt. Yocolette was already pretty

convinced Daryl didn't have anything to do with Darlene's murder, mostly because Bonnie said that he didn't have the green car that day. And that was that. Until about a month later, in January 1986, when Larry Berger called Sergeant Yoculet and he said he had some more information to provide now. You see, Larry and Bonnie

had since moved to Chicago. So Sergeant Yoculet and another officer drove up to interview them immediately. The Burgers told police that they had known Daryl Lemon for years because he was originally from Indiana. They said that Daryl was a member of a motorcycle gang from Arizona and that in October 1984, Larry had tried to kick Daryl out of their house because he was trying to manipulate them. Larry said during that summer, Daryl was trying to drive a wedge between him and his wife Bonnie, and he was trying to convince them to move to Arizona with him.

They were all getting high a lot, and apparently Daryl gained so much control over the couple that they signed over their bank accounts to him so he had free access to their money. Bonnie also came clean about her suspicions from the day Darlene was abducted. She said that her story before about going to the store in Rochester was mostly true, but her timeline was off. And this time around, her story got a lot more detailed. Bonnie said when she left that morning, Larry was already at work, and she's

pretty sure Daryl was asleep in his sleeping bag on the floor, but she can't say for sure. She said that when she left that morning, which she puts at around 8 a.m., well before Darlene's attack, she remembered looking at the Holces' house when she passed by it. She doesn't say she saw anything, just makes it a point to say that the house drew her attention and she looked at it, even though it, quote, had no significance to her at the time, end quote. On her way back from Rochester in the green car, Bonnie said she saw the police near the Hulse home, but she didn't go straight home. In this version of her story, she says instead she went to her mom's realty office in Argus and told her mom that she was worried Daryl had done something bad. She didn't get back to her house until 3.30 that afternoon. And that's when she saw Daryl was there. Now, here's where the burgers story gets really weird.

They told Yocolette that Daryl always carried a Bible with him and would quote from it. But they said that he wasn't a church-going guy. And they said Daryl kept telling Bonnie about a quote-unquote black market for babies that he had connections to. And he kept saying that they could sell Larry and Bonnie's blonde-headed, blue-eyed children and make a huge profit. Larry said when Darryl was in Indiana, he would make a point to dress like a clean-cut businessman because he was paranoid of police. Larry said one time after the Hulse murder, he and Darryl were driving around Southern Marshall County, and Darryl became very nervous when they got close to the intersection where the

Holst home was. Oh, and by the way, they said there was this other weird thing. During the months that he was staying with them, Darrell would act weird at night and he would ask them to drive him around the back roads. Like, no particular destination in mind, just aimlessly drive off the beaten path for like hours at a time. We're talking 11 p.m. till the wee hours of the morning. At one point in October of 1984, Daryl tried to get Bonnie to leave Larry and move with him to Arizona, which was the last straw for Larry. And that's when he kicked Daryl out. The Bergers said that before, they had been scared to reveal all of this information about Daryl because they were scared of him. But after thinking about it for a while, they definitely thought Daryl had been involved in Darlene's murder. This was a bombshell.

But could they prove it? Not exactly. Though they did say all of his actions after the murder seemed like that of a guilty man. But could they prove it? Not exactly. Though they did say all of his actions after the murder seemed like that of a guilty man. Like they said he started growing a mustache and beard after the homicide, which seemed sus. And Bonnie said all of a sudden a pair of his pants went missing because they weren't cycling through their laundry anymore. Daryl also became violent and even physically hurt their children a few times after Darlene's death. And they said he wouldn't go out during the day, only at night. Larry said he became so certain that they had a killer living with them that at one point he even went out and

searched behind their house for the missing fireplace poker. He and a friend dug up a 55 gallon drum in the woods behind his house looking for it. And yeah, same reaction as you. The cops were like, why the hell did you have a 55-gallon drum buried behind your house? But Larry said, oh no, it doesn't matter. That's just where we kept marijuana and we didn't find any weapon anyway. Before the officers left Chicago, the Burgers said they also believed that Daryl stole their motorcycle. And they had filed a report with the local police about it. The Burgers also let them look at their old green car,

which they still had, but a cursory glance didn't reveal any bloodstains or anything else suspicious. So it seems like the police didn't take the vehicle with them or do any formal testing. On the ride back to Indiana, the officers discussed what they'd learned about Daryl Lemon from the Burgers, and they agreed that the couple didn't seem trustworthy. It seemed like Bonnie was

still hiding something from them, and to them it was more likely that the Burgers just wanted revenge on Daryl for possibly stealing their motorcycle. So that's where the Daryl Lemon leads seem to stop. And if Daryl was involved in trafficking children, wouldn't his motive to go to the Hulse home have been the girls rather than Darlene? From the record searches we conducted, Daryl also doesn't appear to have any type of criminal history outside of some drug-related crimes.

But Zip wasn't put off by the same things we were. He told us this guy had all the behavioral characteristics of a murder suspect. I'll let him explain. After looking at everything, looking at the motive of the crime, how the crime was committed, his post-crime behavior, he's the guy that you have to deal with before you can move forward. Either it's him or it's not him, but they have to make that decision. Before the incident occurs, he's doing a lot of strange things. Like, I always look for those people who are roaming around at night. He's having the people he's living with drive him

around at night. He acts very suspicious there. Plus, he has access to a vehicle that is almost described exactly as the vehicle that's there. And it's interesting when you read the report, there's different people who are saying he has that vehicle that day of the incident occurring. And there's some confusion to that, but I think he has a lot of control, again, power and control, and being manipulative over the people that he's living with, over these burglars. Zip thinks Daryl could have wanted to cruise the back roads at night to stake out houses in different areas.

You know, it's someone from the area. This is not your wandering psychopath who just is wandering through the area. It's someone from the area. And like I always tell people, like when you, again, bigger picture here, whoever did this knew the area. It's not like they knew where to then, here's a remote at place to dump her body. And what to me is very interesting is that the female Berger makes a comment that she drove past the Hulse residence the morning of this happening with the vehicle that matches the description of the vehicle that was in the driveway. Well, why are you putting yourself there?

Why are you even making that comment? And that's to a third party. It's not even to the police. You know what I'm saying? And then, you know, his kind of manipulative power and control behavior fits the crime scene. It fits the person who committed the crime. And then afterwards, that's even amplified even more, where he starts taking more control over the Burgers and more control of their finances.

He's having them ship stuff to Arizona because he wants them to come down there and live. It's reported that he changes his appearance, which is a big piece of this, that, you know, why all of a sudden change your appearance? And, you know, and after this crime is committed again, you know, it's another red flag that you see there. Zipp also thinks that even though robbery wasn't explicitly stated as a motive, and even though Ron said nothing was taken from the house, it's clear by the suspects police did have early on that police's theory was a robbery gone wrong. And Zipp really believed that if they wouldn't have chased that motive from the get-go, that this could have been solved a long time ago. This is not a multiple person

crime. Like if two people did this, like one drove and one went in there and did this, this would have been solved because one of them would have talked. You know, this is that one person crime. And I think the problem is they missed the motive from the beginning. They missed the why from the beginning. And when you miss that, it leads you in the wrong direction. And now you're trying to play catch up so many years later, too. And again, you know, people are deceased now. Time is, you know, there's, you know, you're never going to get that back again. So now it's try to figure out how to solve the case, you know, using new technology that we have today.

Zipp's theory of motive actually fits what most people agree on today, that the crime was sexually motivated, but it didn't go as planned. The consensus now is that Darlene's murder wasn't premeditated. If the killer would speak, he'd probably tell you she wasn't supposed to die. Do you think that the person who killed Darlene went on to commit other violent crimes? Because of why he did it, it might not be violent homicide. It could be, you know, domestic violence being abusive. It's that power and control piece. I think the homicide came out of anger because he couldn't control the victim. And he tried to control her,

but he went too far and killed her. I think you're going to have some of those power and control behaviors and power and control crimes might not be homicide. And sometimes, you know, if, like a lot of people, like this is how we get our serial killers and sexual sadists who get excited from that homicide.

If he's a person who's like, I didn't want that to happen, he might never see anything out of him again, you know. And in this case, I think it was just trying to control her. And he ended up hitting her, not realizing that he killed her, until he gets her to where her body's dumped. And he's like, she's dead, and just kind of dumps her and goes on from there. We tried reaching Daryl for comment. We found a few numbers for him in Arizona, and we messaged him on Facebook, but never heard back. We also tried a dozen different numbers trying to track down Larry and Bonnie.

Most of them were disconnected, or we were told that we had the wrong number. A few of them went to voicemail so we left messages. Now we didn't get any calls back but one of the numbers did text us back saying quote, Hi Emily, I believe you have received the wrong number. I am in no relation to Larry Berger but but after doing some research, I learned that Mr. Berger had unfortunately passed on the 17th of May, 2022. But if you don't mind me asking, what case are you working on? End quote. Emily dodged that question about the case and just asked if they knew that their number was on several different websites as being associated with Larry Berger, but whoever was on the other end just said that they didn't know,

and that was the end of that. Now, there is an obit for A. Larry Berger from May 2022, but it's just one sentence, so it doesn't help us confirm if it's the same guy. Bonnie, on the other hand, she has a new last name now, and we found four numbers for her, but they were all dead ends. So, Bonnie, if you're listening, call us back. When we asked prosecutor Nelson Shipman about Daryl Lemon,

he said that it made him uncomfortable talking about him in case he's innocent. We asked him if he was ever interviewed by police in the Hulls case, and he gave a weird answer. I think one of them was, but nothing came out of it. One of them. Nelson wouldn't go into more detail about what he meant by one of them. Did he mean Larry and Daryl? Someone else connected to Daryl? From the context of the rest of our conversation, the best we can piece together is that he maybe meant a family member of Daryl's, but he wouldn't give a name.

And then he moved on, making mention of how close Daryl's family lived to Darlene, which again made us scratch our heads because Daryl Lemon didn't live anywhere near Darlene. He was staying with the Burgers, who lived nearby, but the location of where Nelson was pointing to was in the opposite direction of where the Burgers who lived nearby, but the location of where Nelson was pointing to was in the opposite direction of where the Burgers lived. Specifically, Nelson was pointing to a property west of Darlene's house. It was that same property that he had pointed out to Emily on their ride-along the very first time they met.

That same property with the lure of the buried bus in the yard. The bus where Nelson said he had dreams about finding the fireplace poker. Now we knew about the buried 55-gallon drum behind the burgers place, but surely that's not what everyone is confusing with a bus. Nothing was adding up. So to try and make sense of all of it, we are sitting down with Nelson in his conference room back in November, and so we bring up Darrell again. And Nelson says something about him being dead.

And we knew Darrell was still alive and living in Arizona, so we pressed, and Nelson walks over to this whiteboard where there's this huge piece of white paper covering something up. Yeah, I don't know. It's behind the paper up there. Can we peek behind the paper? Yeah. Nelson takes off his mic, lifts up the paper, and there's something that looks like a family

tree. Maybe with some photos and initials written in little boxes. And that's when he's like, yeah, Daryl died. And then he puts the paper back down. Do you think there's some kind of connection? I don't have any idea. Okay.

Any idea? You know, I despise that expression. I don't have any idea. You have some idea. Well, as far as **** goes, not really. Okay. He's a lot harder to research because he doesn't have much of a criminal history. He has a little bit, but there's not, it seems like most of it was after.

If there is a connection, no one's brought it together to even, you know, even go to the next sentence about, oh yeah, there's something to look at here. We tried to get Nelson to let us take a closer look under the paper on the whiteboard before we left, but another meeting was about to start in the conference room and we were being told to leave. But I just couldn't let it go. I was certain from the little bit I'd seen

that it wasn't Daryl Lemon's family on that board. And I was right. Some internet sleuthing using the names and initials that I was able to see led me to a completely different family, one that I'll call the Parsons. So between that meeting and meeting back up with Emily for

lunch, I am frantically looking up what I can about this family, specifically these four brothers who grew up in Argus and would have been in their 20s at the time of Darlene's murder. And listen, you guys, I was literally shaking, 99% from excitement for what I was finding and 1% because I thought Emily might kill me when I tell her, hey, we've been working on this for a year, and everything was going in kind of one direction, but we got to pivot. But she's as deep in as I am,

and she was just as excited about this new possibility. Because for us, it's not about proving a theory. It's about finding the truth. And speaking of truth, Emily and I were left with one giant question after we debriefed. Had Nelson been lying to us? I mean, the more innocent explanation is that maybe he's confused. A few of the sons in the Parsons family have the same names as members of the Lemon family, so maybe that was the mix-up. But to me, that's more than an innocent mix-up because it wasn't just one slip of the

tongue. He didn't confuse the names once in passing. We had talked over and over about the Lemons. And again, that very first meeting Emily had with Nelson, where he offered to give her a ride-along around town, it was him who pointed out what he said was the Lemon property. So was the guy in charge really that turned around, or was he intentionally trying to throw us off? At that point, I was kind of done taking his word for things. So I had Emily look up the property records for this mythical bus property in Nelson's infamous triangle.

And sure enough, the buried bus property that Nelson was pointing to? It's the Parsons. When we started digging into this new lead, we found more than just a buried bus. We track Nelson down again for an explanation and investigate brand new people next in episode 13, Untangling Misinformation. You can listen to that right now.