The Deck - Dale Williams (Jack of Hearts, Colorado)

Episode Date: December 7, 2022

Our card this week is Dale Williams, the Jack of Hearts from Colorado.In the spring of 1999, 42-year-old Dale Williams seemed to vanish into thin air inspiring an investigation that would span four law enforcement agencies and more than 20 years. To this day, there’s been no sign of the devoted father and husband, who left behind a legacy of kindness in his tight-knit small town in Colorado, and who investigators are determined to track down as new theories emerge from decades of rumors and dead ends. If you know anything about the disappearance of Dale Williams, don’t hesitate to call the CBI Grand Junction Regional Office at 970-248-7500. To learn more about The Deck, visit www.thedeckpodcast.com. To apply for the Cold Case Playing Cards grant through Season of Justice, visit www.seasonofjustice.orgFollow The Deck on social media and join Ashley’s community by texting [phone] to stay up to date on what's new!

Before we jump into the episode, I have a quick announcement to make. I know it's hard to believe, but we're actually coming up on the one-year anniversary of the deck. And I've been kind of working on something kind of in secret in the background. You see, in the middle of investigating all of these cases that we've told you over the last year, our reporter Emily and I stumbled across a case right here in Indiana that was so wild. There was no way we could tell it in just one episode.

And there was no way we could leave it alone. We became engrossed in this case and determined to try and solve it for the family. So for the last year, almost, we have been on the ground. And I want to bring you that story in a special way. In a live documentary-style experience. That's right, I am hitting the road and going on tour for what I'm calling the

deck Investigates. There is so much to unpack and I promise I am going to blow you away. Pre-sale for the Deck Investigates Tour starts December 8th. So if you want all the details, be sure to follow the deck podcast on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. And you can even text me at 317-733-7485. And I'll keep you up to date. I also have all the tour dates on my website, ashleyflowers.com. So stay in the know. Hopefully I'm coming to a city near you, and I'll see you soon. Alright, now let's get to this week's episode. Our card this week is Dale Williams, the Jack of Hearts from Colorado. In the spring of 1999, a small town was rattled by the disappearance of a dedicated father and husband

who seemed to vanish into thin air. Inspiring an investigation by four law enforcement agencies spanning more than 20 years. While it's still cold today, investigators remain determined to find answers as new theories and possible leads emerge from the decades of rumors surrounding the case. I'm Ashley Flowers and this is The Deck. It was the evening of May 27, 1999, when a woman named Diana Williams started to get worried, because she hadn't been able to contact her husband all day. 42-year-old Dale Williams was working at the auto body repair shop that he owned in the rural town of Newclah, Colorado, and she had called him shortly after noon to see if

he had something to eat for lunch. The phone rang, and rang, but there was no answer. And initially, this didn't make her panic because she figured that he was just busy with a customer or the sounds of his tools drowned out her call. Besides, she knew that she'd get to talk to him when he got home for dinner that night. But evening had come and Diana

and their youngest daughter, 17-year-old Sarah, were still waiting for Dale to come home. So Diana tried to call the shop again, but again, Dale didn't pick up. Now, she's thinking maybe he just got caught up working on a car and was just running late. So, just to be sure, detectives told R Reporter that Diana decided to let Sarah stay at home while she went out to drive by the shop. Now, there is a slight discrepancy here.

Some other source material says that she didn't actually visit the shop until the next morning. And there's also some confusion on how the shop looked as well. Now official reports from the investigation say that the shop was closed, lights off, no cars around, but people and Dale's families say that it looked like Dale had just walked away and was about to come right back to work at any moment. But one thing every source does agree on is that Diana didn't find any sign of Dale or his 1994 white Ford pickup truck. And that truck would have been hard to miss because it had the company's name and logo on the side of it.

Diana was worried, but there was a thousand places Dale could have been and she knew she'd see him in the morning, if nothing else. So she went home to her daughter and the two of them went to bed. But morning came and went on Friday the 28th and there were still no signs of Dale anywhere. Diana was super worried at this point. So a bit afternoon, she decided to go look for him at the auto body shop one more time. But again, he wasn't there.

So next, Diana went to Dale's mother's house. Her name's Aida. To see if maybe she'd seen him. But Aida hadn't. She hadn't even heard from him, which it was actually even more concerning, because Dale pretty much talked to his mom on the phone every day. Together, Diana and Ida started searching the town for Dale. They called other family, other friends, and even drove around to local junkyards, all

while in the back of their minds wondering if maybe he had some kind of accident. They searched high and low in the small town that towed the line of 1000 residents. And as they did, word was spreading fast. Within hours, pretty much everyone knew Dale was missing, but no one knew where he was. So after a few hours, they went to the Nuclear Marshall's office to file a missing persons report. It was extremely rare for Nucle to have any missing people, so the Marshall's office put in a request for help from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.

But that's not a request that would get processed right away, especially because they were coming up on Memorial Day weekend, so most of their offices were already closed. So in order to not lose too much time while they waited for the CBI, the Marshall started investigating throughout the weekend. In any investigation the first thing you want to do is get to know your victim and that was easy because Dale was so well known around the small community. Here's his oldest daughter Tony who was 19 years old and attending college out of town when her father went missing. He did a lot for the community. He would help anybody that he could with anything from like jobs, car work, he would deliver

presents, dress up as Santa Claus to kids in the community. He just did a lot. He would do like, auctioneer stuff for fundraising. He drove the homecoming queens every year in the parade and out on the field. And he was just a really fun dad. We had a lot of really good times with him. Dale wasn't just there for his community, but for his family as well. Dayana, Tony and Sarah were extremely close to their dad, and he dooted on them.

So everyone knew he wouldn't just leave them without a word. Growing up, my dad or my sister and I were just pretty much everything for my dad. We did a lot of like picnics and like formal drive adventures that I can still remember. But he was a really incredible dad. As the investigation kicked off, the community that Dale loved and supported for so long was now stepping up to support his family and to help in the search for him. Meanwhile, officers were checking out the body shop and talking to the people who came forward with information.

The first man investigators talked to was a friend of Dales and a local pastor, the guy named Tom Ross. He and his son, who was only a little kid at the time, were at Dales' body shop like mid-morning on Thursday, the day that Dales disappeared. Tom told officers that Dales had time for a break so the two men play the game of darts and just kind of caught up with one another. And while they were hanging out, the shop phone rang at maybe around noon. He said it was a call from someone who was stranded with a broken down vehicle near Bedrock

right outside of Paradox, Colorado. This is about 40 minutes from Nucla. Tom said that he overheard Dail say the location and mentioned bringing the tow truck before he hung up. He then told Tom he had to go so they both left the shop and went their separate ways. Now, the second person who came forward to police was a woman named Tammy Lorenz. She told officers that Dale came to her work just afternoon that day and said that he needed to reschedule her appointment to replace her windshield from later that afternoon to the next week. She said he seemed like he was

in a hurry and he left fairly quickly after they spoke. This version of events continued to look legit when yet another witness told investigators that they saw Dale's truck leaving town heading towards the town of Naderita, which is only a few miles south on the way to Bedrock. But what really caught investigators attention is that this person saw Dale's white Ford, not his tow truck, which he mentioned on the call that he would need to bring, and which anyone would need to bring

for a broken down car. While officers couldn't find any evidence of Dale's exact destination in Bedrock, or if you ever made it there safely, they got another tip from a witness who said that they saw him at a local grocery store in Naderita hours later, like at around 6 p.m. on the 27th. They were going in as he was leaving, and they exchanged a brief hello as they passed. They said he appeared to be alone and nothing in investigators reports indicated

that he had any belongings with him. Now a lot of people were quick to question this sighting. They're thinking that this witness had their days mixed up because why would Dale disappear from Nucla, stop at this store hours later, and then just disappear again. But investigators actually confirmed that the witness was at the store that very evening through a check that they had written to pay for their items.

Officers had a lot of questions after this timeline came together. The first was that Dale's shop was focused on body work, not necessarily mechanical issues. So why would he be the one to go help someone having mechanical problems? But his family has the one to go help someone having mechanical problems? But his family has the answer to that question. I think that a lot of people who are unfamiliar with Nucla or small town communities

kind of misconstrued this information a lot. So in Nucla, in any small town, you know, there are people who have many talents and offer their abilities and services to anybody that they can possibly help you know. So even though my dad was an auto body man and would only work on the outside of cars technically, and you could also do some like engineering pair or, you know, things like that. My dad would just because God is so annoying. People are like, where did they just call AAA? He was in the origin of America. But if he really was just being a good Samaritan,

why not take his tow truck? And why in the world was he gone for so long? I mean, remember, he allegedly left Nucla around 12-30 in the afternoon. But the last sighting of him was at 6 p.m. Also did he stay in Naderita the whole time and never even make it to Bedrock or was he in Bedrock for hours and hours and then stopped in Naderita on his way home and more importantly, where did he go after? These questions left investigators' heads spinning, but luckily the CBI was preparing to help and hopefully uncover some answers. The time CBI started processing, the Marshall's office request on Monday, May 31st.

CBI cold case unit analyst Audrey Simkin said the process moved fairly quickly. So once the call came in from Nucle, it was run kind of through our process at the time to determine if assistance could be provided, and then ultimately it was determined that we could assist in the case. And so an agent from our office went out to meet with the Nucla Marshall's office and kind of talked with them about the case. The CBI agent arrived in Nucla on Wednesday, June 2nd, and immediately began catching up. By the end of the week, they, along with local officers, had interviewed anyone who was even slightly associated with Dale, which, again, was almost the entire town. And at this point in the case, a few rumors were starting to pop up around town.

Some people were even saying that Dale may have been involved in illegal activity like drug trafficking and was having financial problems. But Audrey said that those were just rumors. There were no legitimate signs that Dale was involved in anything suspicious. It seemed like they interviewed people who were acquaintances of him and who may have been involved in shady activity,

but nothing indicated that he too was involved in that shady activity, only that they knew he too was involved in that shady activity, only that they knew each other. Now, if they were really tight, or if it's a small town and they just knew of each other, that's kind of the question. But just to cover all their bases, officers also looked into the Williams financials. But again, they didn't find anything suspicious. They also looked at different properties in town that he owned like his wife and him worked at the video shop and kind of had that. He had the body shop, I think he had a couple of rental properties,

but I didn't see any red flags that would indicate the money transaction. Also, it didn't seem like they were really well outside of their means as far as, you know what I mean with debts and that kind of thing. So ultimately, the rumors were yet another dead end for investigators. And throughout the rest of June, the case really started to cool off. Police weren't getting any new leads, even with the investigators' dedication and the formation of a task force made up of the Marshall's Office, the CBI, Montrose County Sheriff's Office, and the FBI. But then, on July 4th, they finally caught a huge break. A local family called in and said,

they were out celebrating the holiday at this popular spot where two rivers connect, the San Miguel and the Dolores Rivers. The family said they were swimming in this park because it's the deepest. It's like 10 feet there. And when they were there, they noticed something in the water. Something really big sitting at the bottom. They swam around to investigate, and that's when they realized that it was a truck completely submerged under the water. Now this area that they're in, this is like

20 miles from Nucla and Naderita where Dale was last seen, but authorities rushed to check it out. They couldn't tell much from their vantage point other than that the truck was white, which was another checkmark, ticked off for reasons that it could be Dale's, but they needed to pull it out of the water to be sure. Investigators called for backup from forensic teams and pulled the truck from the current, and they were met with mixed emotions when they saw the logo running down the side. There was no doubt. This was Dale's truck.

There didn't seem to be any damage on the outside of the vehicle that wasn't caused by the river, like nothing from an accident or anything like that. But they noticed right away that his toolbox was missing. Now, this wasn't like a little tin one that you carry around. This was one of those long metal containers that went along the back of a truck and attached to the bed. It wouldn't have been knocked off easily. When they looked inside the truck, they saw that the keys were still in the ignition

and turned to the on position. The steering wheel was jammed all the way to one side, and there weren't any signs that the brakes had been used before it was submerged. And there was something else off when they looked inside the truck. There was no sign of Dale. No personal belongings or clothes, but also to their relief, no sign of blood or injuries. But then they noticed a detail that made some people close to Dale think that he wasn't in the car at all before it was put in the water.

See, the driver's side window was only halfway down. And to Tony, this detail is crucial. My dad had this weird thing about him where he would drive with the window all the way up or all the way down. And it wasn't in between, you know? And that truck did not have power windows. It had the old roll down windows. So when we found out that the window and the truck on the driver's

side, well, in the passenger's side, I believe was open a little too. When we found out that it was not all the way down, we definitely knew that it wasn't my god driving. That was just one of his little clerks. Officers searched the scene both in and out of the water and they eventually found tire tracks on the side of the embankment that matched the truck's tires. Given that these tracks were still intact, investigators thought that the truck couldn't have been

submerged the entire time Dale was missing, which was about six weeks at this point. They thought either the tracks would have been erased or someone else would have come across the truck before then. They didn't find anything else helpful in the river, definitely not the toolbox that was missing. So, they did a more thorough exam on the truck itself. But with the water damage and the limited technology of the 90s, they didn't find anything else there either. Throughout the rest of July 1999,

investigators kept circling back to their initial leads. They were sure that the answers were somewhere in the clues that they already had. But there was another lead investigators were still having trouble fleshing out. That phone call that Dale got on the 27th just before he left the shop. Reports from officers' investigations are kind of all over the place about this. And Brooks Bennett, another investigator with the CBI, who is actually the lead detective on the case with Audrey, says that none of the scenarios that they explored were ever proven. Basically, everything they have all rumors. Some said that the FBI tracked the cell phone to an unknown woman who was later cleared

of any involvement, while others said that the call came from a stolen cell phone. Now, Brooks said that this call was investigated, quote, nine ways to Sunday by a lot of different people. End quote. But in the end, even trying to track the call was and continues to be a dead end. And part of this may be because in Newcla in 1999, cell service was basically non-existent. So while cell phones did exist, Tony says that it would have been even more rare for someone to have one in this area. I bet you that they hadn't had like real good cell coverage until like 2015-16 where

paradox is located. It's in a really deep valley between mountains. I would certainly be surprised if there's any cell coverage out there right now, really. Now, Tony says that the call actually came from a landline in the area, not a cell phone. Now, this theory hasn't been proven either, but this was just as hard for investigators to look into because of the technology they had. And then in Nukhla,, Nucla and Naderita, the telephone service was provided by the local telephone

company, not, you know, AT&T and grand junction or anything like that. We had our own little telephone company. So from what I understand, talking to other investigators and stuff that tracing the call during that time in 1999 was a landline call was nearly impossible and it wouldn't keep the records. It would take until the year 2000 before there was any movement in the case, and it stemmed from something weird that had been happening in Nucla. You see, throughout that year, investigators had worked with Dale's family to absolutely cover the town in missing persons' flyers.

But as Spring turned into summer, mysteriously, the flyers were disappearing. And they weren't just like falling down randomly and floating around town. They were straight up gone. Like someone was ripping them down and tossing them out somewhere. Officers decided to put up a surveillance camera at the local post office near one of the flyers to figure out what was going on and maybe catch someone in the act. And it worked. A man was captured on video pulling the flyers down one by one. Authorities didn't know the man seen in the video, so they showed the footage to Dale's

family. And when Diana saw it, she had to catch her breath. He was a friend of theirs, or at least he used to be. That man and his wife, who I'll just refer to as the Joneses, were both friends with Dale and Diana until like 1998, when Mrs. Jones decided that she wanted out of her marriage. I don't think there's any specific abuse related here, just that maybe the relationship was rocky, which I think was probably why she was seeking to move on.

So like any good friends would do, Dale and Diana supported Mrs. Jones through the divorce and then secretly helped her leave the state that year. They wouldn't tell Mr. Jones where she went, so this guy was angry to say the least. According to an episode of Unsolved Mysteries, Diana said that he let them know just how angry about a month later when Dale found torn up photos of the couples together, along with 22 caliber bullets scattered outside of his shop. Diana said that this was even more concerning than it seemed on the surface

because the pictures and Dale's 22 caliber revolver had actually been stolen from his shop just a couple of weeks prior. Now, to be fair, they don't know for sure if Mr. Jones was behind this, but all signs kinda pointed to him. And the harassment just continued. A few days later, someone put Dale's revolver in the drop box of the video store that Diana

managed. She was freaked out, but Dale assured her that everything would be okay. But now that he was missing, nothing was okay. Officers started looking into Mr. Jones and eventually interviewed him. And this is where my timeline gets a little...heazy. My sources say that Mr. Jones was interviewed a total of four times throughout this investigation, including one interview that was part of their initial efforts to talk to everyone in town. But of course, that was before he had displayed any shady

behavior like pulling the posters down. I don't have a lot of details from the interviews following the flyer incidents. I know that he denied being involved in any of those threatening actions from before Dale disappeared. Of course, he couldn't deny tearing down the missing person flyers.

I mean, they had him on camera. But it isn't tough to deduce it's probably because he was still mad at Dale. Eventually, he provided an alibi for when Dale went missing. Unfortunately, we don't know what that alibi was. Audrey and Brooks can't share that information as this is still an ongoing investigation, and some information has to be protected. In my mind though, this guy is super suspicious.

And thankfully, officers don't just like forget about him after this. Remember, I said that he was interviewed a total of four times. They did a little more digging on him and finally contacted the former Mrs. Jones, but she pretty much just confirmed everything Diana had told them and that was that. It's at this point that the case officially went cold. For years, Dale's case sat on the shelf just collecting dust. There were a few glimmers of hope here and there, like human skeletal remains were found in 2003 near Naderita, but testing proved that they weren't Dale's.

And in 2006, someone found an empty toolbox off the side of the highway around the areas that Dale would have been driving the day he went missing. But it's important to note that the toolbox that was found was like a handheld toolbox, not the one missing from the back of his truck. But either way, they showed it to Dale's brother, and he actually said, yes, this was Dale's. So, they turned it over to police, but nothing came of that, and it's still just sitting in evidence today.

Two years prior in July of 2004, Diana had Dale declared legally dead. It was a heartbreaking decision, but something that was necessary for the family to clear up some legal matters with bills and things like that. Over the years, occasional tips and sightings came trickling in, and although none of them ever panned out, it did make people wonder. Had Dale just left? To be sure that wasn't the case, investigators looked into his social security number in 2007. Not for his case specifically, but in general, you can look to see, like if anybody's used a specific social security number, so in some of the open source data bases, you can kind of look to see if there's any

connection and who those people might be. Oftentimes, their family members Sprite who have a connection there, but then you can also reach out and just see if there's any been any wage report under that social security number, which it looks like in 2007, maybe a tip came in saying, my, K, we saw him wherever. And then as part of that, the analyst dug in a little deeper and noticed that the social security number somehow was tied in that whatever she was looking at.

But then was able to go back and confirm that there was no employment and that whatever address or whatever she was looking at was actually tied back to Diana and the girls, which, you know, maybe there was something after the death certificate or whatever with that, which wouldn't be uncommon. The next big push in the case came two years later. The CBI had been off the case for years since it went cold, but in 2010 they received a grant specifically to fund the review of cold cases,

including Dales. So, Audrey and Brooks both joined the case. Now, with more time and resources, Brooks and Audrey got DNA swabs from Dale's mother, brother, and one of his daughters in 2012. They also got a hold of his dental records and uploaded all of that information to Kodis. So, given the record keeping that's done with Dale's case, I'm confident that if there's remains out there, and those remains have been tested and gone through the necessary steps to make sure that they're complete right and uploaded to CODIS, that we would get a notification that we found him. Unfortunately, we just aren't there yet.

Those remains I don't believe have been located. Now, in 2013, Sarah and Tony were finally interviewed for the first time. Brooks just wanted to start from scratch with the family, so he traveled to each of the girls and talked with them. But isn't it bananas? Or at least it was to me that they weren't interviewed before. I mean, yes, Tony wasn't even in town

when everything went down, but still, you'd think they would have interviewed anyone and everyone who could have had even the smallest bit of insight into Dale's life. Now, my sources say that investigators email back and forth with the family several times in the early days of the case and even talked about scheduling formal interviews with every member, but it just didn't happen. The media kept the case in the public eye,

especially with that unsolved mysteries feature, which surrounded it with lots of media buzz for a while. As with a lot of cases, this exposure sparked an online rumor mill that kind of spiraled. I mean, every single person suddenly had a theory on what had happened to Dale and thought that their theory was the right theory. One person who commented on the Unsolved Mysteries webpage claimed that they saw a man experiencing homelessness who looked like Dale and Sacramento, California. Others said that Dale's body could have been thrown down some kind of abandoned mind-shap that are scattered all throughout the region.

But Audrey says that they never had a concrete reason to believe that this was a viable theory, or any reason to search any minds. So over the next few years, Audrey and Brooke spent their time raising awareness for Dale's case. In 2014, Dale was featured in Colorado's first cold-case deck as the Jack of Hearts. For the 20th anniversary of his disappearance, they put out media blasts and distributed flyers in and around Newclah. And in 2021, they even placed two billboards

in Colorado with Dale's picture and information. But even with all of these efforts, not one new lead emerged. Today, the case is as cold as ever, but that doesn't mean things are silent or that Audrey and Brooks are slowing down anytime soon. Even with more than 400 other cold cases on their plates. So really it's going to be dependent on somebody coming forward now with new information who for whatever reason feels more comfortable. That probably blows this case

open because unfortunately with us not having a lot of physical evidence to tie anybody to anything. Some of those new kind of traditional methods that were used to seeing work probably aren't applicable here. I mean, I'm hopeful that someday someone will say something. Even if we don't find him that we find out what happened to him, I mean, in the best world and what best circumstance we'd find him as well, but I don't know. It only takes one little tiny crack to break a case wide open, and Audrey and Brooks are chiseling at every week's spot they can find.

In fact, during our reporter's interview with Audrey, she came across a body found on September 18, 2014 in one of the databases that could possibly be Dale. But it was not in Colorado. It's just across state lines in Utah. Now I don't want to blow this out of proportion because it looked like a lot of the John Doe's information hadn't been uploaded yet. But it opens up a new question. Should the CBI be looking for matches and jaundos in Utah as well as Colorado?

Or maybe even beyond that? Another area in Dale's case that Tony is really hoping will be explored is Touch DNA from Dale's truck. According to Scientific American, its name for the way it analyzes skin cells in places where someone has touched a surface. It's a process that takes a few days, and 7 or 8 cells from the outermost layer of skin must be collected and then tested to reveal a highly specific genetic portrait of a person. 7 or 8 cells, can you even fathom that?

But here's the problem. My sources say that while the truck is still in evidence, it's actually been stored outside since it was found in 1999. It's been exposed to decades of extreme weather and natural wear and tear, and that's after it was underwater for who knows how long. So all of that makes it a lot harder to test. Brooks did have the truck fully re-examined after he took over the case, but they didn't have any luck finding evidence inside or outside.

Tony though still hasn't given up on hope that the truth about her father's fate will one day be revealed. But she does believe that despite the online rumors, he isn't out there alive somewhere. I think that he may have put together some information that may have gotten somebody else in some serious trouble. And then they

conjured up a plan to eliminate that. And I think that he walked into a gun fight. And I think they dumped his body before they dumped his truck. I think they had the truck for a bit. But I think they got rid of the body immediately. And that was it. I just think that I think that he might be in the toolbox somewhere. You know, also, so. Oh. Yeah, I think they may have put him in the toolbox and then, you know, discard it for toolbox. A lot of people still tag Sarah and Tony in a seemingly endless stream of tips online. Some people on Reddit even claim that they were finding Dale's tools in the woods along roads in the area,

almost like they had been thrown from a vehicle. And Tony says that some of these tools, in grade by Dale with a large D on their handles, have actually been returned to her mom who still lives in Nucla. Now, my other sources couldn't confirm these claims, but remember that toolbox that was found? I mean, in my mind, it makes sense that if someone finds this empty container, the tools that were inside had to turn up somewhere at some point, too, right? Each spark of hope is just as bright for Tony and her family,

but each let down just hits even harder. But, I don't know, I feel like it's different because there hasn't been any closure. And so, no closure for me or my sister or anybody, anybody that my dad was associated with or made an impact in their life has had closure. And so this, when a lot of people cared about him, so when whoever did whatever they did,

they didn't just affect his family, you know, they affected a community. So it's been 23 years and it would be really nice to have some closure to this case absolutely, but at this point I want to see justice 100%. And there was a time where I was like, you know, I just want to have closure. I don't want justice. I just want closure, but the older I get, the angrier I get about it and more callous about it. And I think that, boy, I just want to close here, but the older I get, the angrier I get about it and more calis about it. And I think that boy, I just, ooh, people got to meet their makers at one point and if you're

taking this to your grave, you're not going where you want to go. So, you know, if people believe that way. So, and most of them do down there. I just can't believe that people have lived with this that long, this secret knowing the trauma that has caused people. Today, Tony has three kids of her own, and she often wonders what her father would be like as a grandparent.

I can't imagine him being a very boring grandpa because of the way that my sister and I grew up. So I think that they would have really enjoyed it, but I have like, you know, I have little memories of your trinkets and stuff like that of my dad around the house and stuff. And, but my kids are older. My daughters 14 and then my boys are 20 and 21.

So, you know, the majority of their lifetime, it's real, that's pretty hard because you're like, since the case is still open and it's been investigated for the last 23 years. I mean, that's my son's entire life, you know? At the end of the day, someone out there knows what happened to Dale. Someone who's been carrying the weight of that knowledge for more than two decades. And Tony hopes that that person will come forward and at least provide some resolution

to the family that they stole from all those years ago. Well, the great thing is, is that they live in a small community, so they can physically see the pain and trauma that they have caused in my family's life and friends. So I'm certainly glad that they enjoy their children and their grandchildren because they have completely stolen that from our family. Audrey and Brooks are looking for any remains that match Dale's description. A white male with brown hair, blue eyes, and scars under his chin and on his jaw bones. He also had a birthmark under his left jaw.

So if you know anything about remains, even about that phone call that came in the day he went missing. Don't hesitate to call the CBI Grand Junction Regional Office at 970-248-7500. The Deck is an audio chuck production with theme music by Ryan Lewis. To learn more about the Deck and our advocacy work, visit thedeckpodcast.com. So what do you think Chuck, do you approve?