The Deck - Patricia Barrett (2 of Hearts, Utah)

Episode Date: October 9, 2024

Our card this week is Patricia "Patti" Barrett, the 2 of Hearts from Utah.When Patricia “Patti” Barrett got on a bus from Dallas to Salt Lake City in 1978, her family had no way of knowing they’d never see her again. For over 30 years they were left wondering what happened to Patti, until 2012, when, with the help of Patti’s daughter and DNA testing, Salt Lake County detectives were able to connect her to the remains of a 1978 Jane Doe. Nearly 12 years have passed since that identification, and investigators are still trying to figure out what happened to Patti, and who’s responsible for her death.If you know anything about the murder of Patricia “Patti” Barrett in Salt Lake City, Utah in September of 1978, or if you know anyone who may have been in the Salt Lake City Jail who could have crossed paths with Patti during that period of time, we urge you to call Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Detective Ben Pender directly at 385-468-9816 or email him at [e-mail]. View source material and photos for this episode at: thedeckpodcast.com/patricia-patti-barrett Let us deal you in… follow The Deck on social media.Instagram: @thedeckpodcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @thedeckpodcast_ | @audiochuckFacebook: /TheDeckPodcast | /audiochuckllcTo support Season of Justice and learn more, please visit seasonofjustice.org. The Deck is hosted by Ashley Flowers. Instagram: @ashleyflowersTikTok: @ashleyflowerscrimejunkieTwitter: @Ash_FlowersFacebook: /AshleyFlowers.AF Text Ashley at 317-733-7485 to talk all things true crime, get behind the scenes updates, and more!

Our card this week is Patricia Barrett, the two of hearts from Utah. Patricia, known as Patty to friends and family, never stayed in the same place for too long. Her home base was Dallas with her daughters. But as she got older, the big city began to overwhelm her. There were too many people, too much chaos. It made her nervous. She thought she'd find a safer, more peaceful life surrounded by the mountains in Salt Lake City. But in a cruel twist

of fate, just weeks after arriving, Patti was murdered. More than 45 years later, her family is still trying to figure out why. I'm Ashley Flowers and this is The Deck. In April of 2011, 53-year-old Sibi Barrett was sitting at home, scrolling through NamUs, the National Missing Person Database, just as she had the month before that, and the month before that, and the month before that. Really, ever since 2007, when NamUs first came out, Siby had been scouring the site, looking at profile after profile of Jane Doe's, hoping that one day she'd find the one that belonged to her mom, Patty Barrett. The last time Siby saw her mom Patty

was 33 years earlier, in August of 1978, when she was 21 years old. At the time, Patty wanted to get out of Dallas ASAP. Now this wasn't totally out of character for Patty. She moved around a lot, mostly as a result of her schizophrenia. Siby was barely eight years old when Patty was diagnosed with schizophrenia. And though she probably didn't even know what that word meant at the time, it was impossible for her not to notice her mom acting differently.

In Siby's earliest memories, Patty was smart and pretty and had a hilariously dry sense of humor. But over time, she became quieter, less present. And then she began experiencing symptoms of paranoia. At home, at the grocery store, on the street, she began to think that somebody was following her. When it got to the point where Patty could no longer work or take care of her children, she started relying on disability checks from Social Security.

At that time, teenage Siby was living on and off with her mom, trying to support her, assisting her with medications, making her feel safe. But it was a hard job. Patty would have moments where she would suddenly get too scared to stay at home. She'd go off on her own and then call Siby to pick her up and help her find a new place to live. And this happened again and again. At a certain point, Patty began putting her social security checks

towards bus tickets so she could escape the city altogether. She got something in her head that she needed to go up into the mountains and she needed to be somewhere safer than in the city. And you know, the paranoia that is paranoid schizophrenia, something that happened where she felt like I need to get out of the city. She would get the money and she'd get on a bus and she'd go and then she'd call me and she'd also write me cards and mail them to me and say, you know, I didn't call the West Springs

and she'd tell me all about great little restaurants that she found and she would go stay in some really inexpensive motel. In August, 1978, Patty had decided Salt Lake City was where she needed to go. It was nearly a two-day bus ride away, so Sivy didn't expect to hear from her mom like the next day or anything.

But she was surprised when a whole week had passed and she hadn't heard from her. She finally got a call on day nine, and the call was from jail. Siby learned that her mom had been arrested for loitering shortly after she'd gotten off the bus. I remember her telling me it felt like city was beautiful and she was so tired when she got off the bus that she just needed to get a rest. And so she found this, I don't even remember what kind of building it was, some kind of public community building that she was asleep in the women's bathroom

because she just needed to get some sleep. I remember her telling me that. I have a memory of sitting down in my backyard with the phone on my lap talking to her and thinking, oh, God, you know, I can't. Because it was just one thing after another. And I knew that she was in trouble and I needed to mail the check. And I was like, I need to talk to somebody there to tell me what to do. And she handed the phone to a death sergeant and he gave me an address. Siby found out Patty's bail had been set at $100, but she didn't have the money to pay

it. That's why she was calling. According to Siby, her mom often lost her wallet, and her $222 Social Security checks that came at the first of every month were put in Siby's name because she had a permanent address. As soon as Siby got off the phone, she forwarded Patty's check to the jail with the hope that she would use it for bail. And I don't know whether or not she ever got the check

because I tried for years to try to get the social security department to release the check. I wanted to see, you know, did she sign it? Did somebody else sign it? Did she go to a check cashing place? Did they cash it for her at the police station? I never could find that out. Patty never called again,

even after she got released from the jail a week later. When a month passed with no contact, Siby started to worry. and you start worrying more in October, and then you think, well, something's definitely happened. I think I just knew right away that something was wrong because we stayed in touch and talked on the phone quite often, no matter where she was. And when she didn't call, I knew that something was wrong. It's important to keep in mind that this was 1978.

So after Patty left the jail, Siby really had no way to know where her mom was unless Patty called to tell her. So after Patty left the jail, Siby really had no way to know where her mom was unless Patty called to tell her. Plus, Siby lived in Dallas, which is like 1200 miles away. She didn't even know anyone in Salt Lake City. My thoughts were at this point, she could be anywhere. And as more time went on, I think that feeling took over more than anything that I would

be foolish to continue looking for in Salt thought like, hey, because basically the day she walked out of the jail, she virtually could be anywhere in the world. And I just felt like there was, you know, that was helpful, but there was nothing I could do. That feeling of hopelessness plagued Siby for months. She didn't know what she was supposed to do or where to go for help. Finally, in May of the following year, when she was just 21 years old, she decided to write a letter to the Salt Lake City Medical Examiner. Here's a voice actor reading the letter.

I'm not certain you will be able to help me, but I will explain what I need and hope you can help. My mother has been missing for approximately 10 months. The last time anyone heard from her, she was calling from the Salt Lake City Police Department, asking me to send her social security check. She always calls once a month for the check as it is the only source of income.

She has been in and out of mental institutions for 10 years and never carried much identification with her. I'm afraid since it's been so long and she has no money left, obviously, that something must have happened to her. And I assume it probably was there in Salt Lake City. What I need to know is, is it possible to find out if there were any persons buried there

during the months of July and August, 1978, that were unidentified, and could they have been her? She's in her late 40s. Her name is Patricia Ann Barrett. I would be glad to fill out any forms or signed papers to enable you to release any information to me. Anything you could tell me or anyone you could enable you to release any information to me. Anything you could tell me or anyone you could refer me to that might help would be greatly appreciated.

I've also enclosed a self-addressed envelope if you need it. Thanks, Sibi Chasney." The Emmy wrote back pretty quickly directing Sibi to a detective at the Salt Lake City Missing Persons Bureau. And from there, Siby hit the ground running. She spoke to detectives in multiple counties, contacted Social Security, obsessively checked missing persons logs, and even hired her own private investigator. She took notes on every conversation she had and recorded every letter and email she sent and received.

No matter how hard it got or how many dead ends she hit, she wouldn't stop until she got answers. I mean, there would be times when I would see somebody on the street or remember going to a store where I had an account and I gave them my last name and they said, Patricia Barrett. And it was just this moment where like I swallowed my heart because I was like, is she living somewhere? And I don't know it. and she just didn't ever call me back. I mean, you always think that it's possible.

It's possible, but it's just something that's always with you. Over the years as technology advanced and new systems like NamUs were created, Siby stayed on top of it and took advantage of every new opportunity to try and find her mom. been hours going through that stuff, just thinking, now that the internet is here, maybe there is a chance that I could find her.

By 2011, there were already 18,000 profiles in NamUs. And because Siby didn't really know where in the country to focus the search, she had her work cut out for her. The months of scrolling commenced. But on April 13th, 2011, 33 years after her mom first went missing, something made Siby stop scrolling.

A profile caught her eye. She clicked it, and alarm bells started going off in Siby's head. And the more she read, the louder they got. the louder they got. The profile she came across was one of an unidentified body found in Salt Lake City in 1978. The file described a white female, 35 to 40 years old, 5'5 with brown hair, which matched her mom.

It also mentioned that scientific data indicated she may have traveled quite a bit in the 16 months prior to her death. Now, there were a few inconsistencies that stood out to Siby, like a field titled notes on body parts recovered. In that field, it said that the person might have been biracial, and the person wasn't found with any eyeglasses, which Siby knew her mom always wore. But still, she couldn't fully describe it.

She just got this feeling. It was really difficult to go through those things, but I just stuck to it and just kept looking and looking. And then when I saw that description, I knew immediately it was her. I didn't care whether or not they said she was black. I was like, that has to be her. There was a section of the NamUs profile that really caught Siby's attention.

A note that there were items preserved that could be used for DNA analysis. When you think about the fact that in 1978, they saved her hair, her fingernails, and that they still had it, I mean, there are plenty of police departments all over America who would have tossed that stuff out a long time ago and would not have even saved it.

That's one thing in the back of my mind, I think. Wow, you know, thank goodness. Immediately, Siby reached out to the contact on the profile. She was more than prepared for the back and forth that ensued. She gave descriptions, photos, Patty's personal history, the story about how Patty ended up in Salt Lake City, and she recounted the final moments that they shared on the phone.

Here's Salt Lake County Sheriff Cold Case Detective Ben Pender, who's working Patty's case today. So the detective's calling the medical examiner's office asking about this potential lead, and the medical examiner's office is connecting them with the detective at the sheriff's office saying, well, why don't you connect? And then that way you two can determine if there's going to be a match. And the detective here had indicated that they would like to try to do some type of a DNA match to see if this was actually our unidentified female at the time."

The unidentified female he's talking about had been an agency mystery for over three decades. The Jane Doe first came onto the department's radar on October 25th, 1978. That's when deputies had responded to a call from a man who was driving around with his wife about a half an hour from the city center when he pulled over to go to the bathroom. He said he didn't see much else around other than tumbleweeds, and it didn't look like there'd be anything for a while, so he'd figured this would be a fine stop on the side of the road. But when he got out, he saw two things that he wouldn't have expected to find out there, only a few feet from where he parked. The first was a stray piece of carpet, certainly out of place in the dirt.

But the second thing, which was sticking out from underneath that piece of carpet, was much worse. It was a human foot. When they arrived at the scene, they obviously saw the piece of carpet, and forensics would have responded out with them as well and photographed that. And then the carpet would have been removed and they would have continued on taking photographs. When the carpet was removed, detectives could see that the body was completely

nude with no clothing, no shoes, jewelry, bags, nothing to help detectives figure out who this person was. And on top of that, the body was in a bad state of decomposition. They estimated that it had likely been there for about a month. It was extremely difficult to try to make some type of identification. Even though they were able to get some fingerprints, the challenge is still going to be the quality of the prints. With that person being left there for such a long time, the fingers weren't in pristine condition. They sent that information then to the FBI,

who were able to run them and come up with some of the classifications, but ultimately were still not able to match that up. And even at that time, the FBI indicated that they weren't even sure whether it was a male or a female as far as the fingers go. All they could determine at the scene indicated that they weren't even sure whether it was a male or a female as far as the fingers go." All they could determine at the scene was that they were looking at a female, most likely white, but with the decomposition, they couldn't be 100 percent sure.

They thought maybe 30 to 40 years old, maybe 5'5", with a slender build and brown hair. Detectives put the little information they had out to other law enforcement agencies, to local media, and even neighboring states. And because their Jane Doe description was so vague, they actually started to generate a bunch of tips from people all around the U.S. Because there was no email back then, all of these tips came in over the phone, and detectives had to go out and do the footwork to follow through on each one of them. But unfortunately, none of the legwork resulted in anything meaningful, and the autopsy report didn't offer much help either.

Because of the state this Jane Doe was in, there was very little the ME was able to say with certainty. Was there any evidence of sexual assault that you were able to identify? They weren't able to determine that, or it doesn't indicate that. However, the medical examiner obviously ruled it as a suspicious death, and it had indicated possibly strangulation.

How does somebody end up out there? Clearly that's not on their own doing, with absolutely no clothing and being covered up with a piece of carpeting. With the lack of evidence at the scene, there wasn't much more detectives could do. Even the tipster calls that originally bombarded detectives started to dwindle after a few months.

Investigators had exactly zero persons of interest to look into and then no leads to follow up on. So on January 4th, 1979, they decided to bury their unidentified Jane Doe. Every few years, they would take her prints back to the lab and run them again with newer technology. But they did this for almost two decades without a match ever surfacing. As time goes on in these types of cases,

when the media is no longer putting stuff out in the papers or on the news, tips would kind of start dropping off. However, if another state had something that they were looking at and could match potentially with our case, then yes, they would reach out. Our detectives weren't necessarily just responding as any tips came in. They were actually being very proactive. So during that time, they would actually go and look at different individuals within our own community

that have committed different types of crimes and try to see if it would match up with them, whether it be interviews or whether it be looking at their history and if they were incarcerated at the time or near that time or what have you. So I really give them credit because for what little they had to work with, they really went out and pushed the envelope to turn up anything and everything they possibly could.

Their work got amplified in 2004 when the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office decided to pull a detective from active cases to work solely on cold ones. Nothing popped up right away, but just having someone dedicated got them a little more organized. By December of 2010, detectives submitted their 1978 Jane Doe's information in Tenaimus, and then, in 2011, they got a call from none other than Siby herself. It took a very long time for them to decide that they would pursue it and get a DNA test to see if it was her. I mean, it took a while, but eventually they did.

About eight months after Siby first reached out to the Salt Lake County sheriffs, to be exact, that's when detectives ordered DNA tests for her and her sister. Two months after that, those reference samples were submitted to CODIS. And then four months after that, on June 25, 2012, about 34 years after her mom disappeared, Siby Barrett got the email that she had been waiting for her whole adult life. It was from a Salt Lake City detective asking her to give him a call. And that's when Siby knew.

Sure enough, the Jane Doe that had been buried with an unknown identity for 34 years, the Jane Doe that was given no funeral, no obituary, no anything really, that was her mom, Patricia Ann Barrett. And I knew, I mean, I knew, I knew the day that I saw it online on NamUs, but it was her. I had no doubt whatsoever. But I remember thinking, not everybody gets to find out. You know, not everybody gets this amount of closure. And reminding myself to be grateful for that. Siby said when she got the news, she wasn't surprised.

The main emotion she felt was actually relief. And now, she had a different kind of letter to write to the Salt Lake City Medical Examiner. One to ask for an amended death certificate with her mother's name on it. Siby had Patty cremated, and she keeps her remains in a decorative wooden box that one of Siby's friends made, never out of sight. Siby also put all the cards and letters that her mom ever sent her in that box tied up with string. But even though she and the detectives had finally gotten some answers, they were all desperate for more. some new serial killer that was a long haul trucker that they have scanned three young ladies on. He's some old geezer somewhere, does it matter? I try to tell myself what difference does it make. But if somebody had done this to me and got me somewhere, I'd want somebody to find out.

From the police perspective, SIPI was an extremely valuable resource. With her input, they could now form a handful of new paths to take the investigation down. When it comes to families and wanting to be involved in the case, I encourage it because they know a different side of the individual than we will probably ever know, even through interviews with Siby. I think how she's been doing her part and providing us with information and keeping those doors of communication open from both sides, it's been helpful to be able to reach out to her to ask questions or vice versa for her to reach out and maybe provide

information. Siby told detectives that given the state of her mom's mental health at the time, she was fearful of strangers and, quote, wasn't the kind of woman to go to a bar or pool hall and drink beer with a bunch of guys that she didn't know. End quote. We also were able to be provided with a lot of information from the family about her kind of wandering around to different states and different places.

So that gave us kind of an idea of who she was. We learned that she wasn't actually out there driving. So there's a lot of variables involved in that. Like, did she meet somebody when she was in jail? Did she meet somebody outside of jail? Did somebody come along and maybe offer her a ride? And she thought she was headed somewhere else with that person.

Siby said she could never imagine her mom hitchhiking, and she knew that Patty would always try to get where she was going before dark. So it's not likely that she would have willingly traveled with somebody unless she knew them somehow. Still, even with new information, it was difficult to pinpoint who that person could have been. We looked in the jail as far as who was incarcerated

with her at the time, and there were other tips that were brought up even after the fact that we looked into. Once she was identified and that information was put out to the public, we had a couple of people that we were looking at, potentially just based on tips, but through the course of their investigation, they were ruled out.

Still, over the years, Detective Pender continuously checked to see if any evidence from the scene could be retested. There are items in the case of evidence other than just the rug, and we are utilizing everything we have currently to process those, but also being aware that new technology will come and will improve. So we want to make sure we have evidence when that happens, if the things that we're doing right now don't bring resolution to this case. I truly believe there's somebody out there that knows something.

I think there's still a likelihood this person is still around. And for the sake of the family and the community, to get this information back to me, to where we can get this resolved, even if this case ended up being some type of an accident, something, but there's an explanation. And it's important that we know what the reason is so that we can deal with this appropriately and the family can deal with this appropriately as well.

With things finally starting to move more than 46 years later in this case, it's clear that Detective Pender is just as determined to find justice for Patty as Siby is. In my mind, there's things to do. And as long as there's things to do, that gives me hope. Siby is hopeful too. She wants answers, but above all,

she just doesn't want her mom to be forgotten. That's why she continues reaching out to Detective Pender regularly. And she'll continue to until Patty's case is closed. Most recently, in January of this year, Siby sat down once again, nearly five decades after she wrote that initial letter with pen and paper, and she sent another note,

this time an email from her computer. We asked Siby to read the letter herself. I sent this on January 5th of this year. And I said, Ben, I hope to find you and your family doing well and that you have good holiday season. I'm sure you have nothing to tell me or I would have heard from you. But my mother is on my mind more today

than the average day, as today would have been her 91st birthday. I can't even grasp that in my mind, as in my mind she is still a young woman frozen in time. She's now been gone from me for 46 years. I was 21 when she disappeared, and today I'm 67. I've lived longer than she did by 22 years. I don't say these things only to ask you to not forget her. I think you were probably one of the hardest working detectives in Salt Lake City.

And I know for a fact that you're the hardest working of the five previous detectives. Please keep her in mind and let me know if there's anything on the horizon to even hope for. Many thanks and happy new year. If you know anything about the murder of Patricia Patty Barrett in Salt Lake City, Utah, in September of 1978, or if you know anyone who may have been in the Salt Lake City jail who could have crossed paths with Patty during that period of time,

we urge you to call the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Detective, Ben Pender, directly at 385-468-9816 or you can email him at bpender at saltlakecounty.gov. The Deck is an AudioChuck 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?