True Crime All The Time - Dale Wayne Eaton

Episode Date: June 12, 2023

On April 2nd, 1988, the body of 18-year-old Lisa Marie Kimmell was found in the North Platte River near Casper, Wyoming. Fourteen years later, Dale Wayne Eaton was charged with her murder after Lisa’s missing car was found on his property. In the preceding years, the investigation had stretched all the way to Canada because of numerous reported sightings. Lisa had a very distinctive license plate that read "LiL Miss," and many people reported seeing it.Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss Dale Wayne Eaton, whom many believe to be a serial killer, although he has never confessed to other murders. He is suspected of a number of murders in several different states. When Eaton was finally caught for the murder of Lisa Marie Kimmell, it kickstarted an arduous legal process. You can help support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeVisit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise, and donation informationAn Emash Digital production See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello everyone and welcome to episode 337 of the True Crime All the Time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And with me as always is my partner in true crime, Mike Gibson. How are you? I'm doing good. How about you? I'm doing very well. Good. You and I just got done recording our Patreon weekly minisode. You know, we talked about some updates on Madeline McCann.

We did. Zombie Hunter. Oh, yeah. What I'm watching, what you're watching. That's right. Just whatever comes to mind. Fun times. Fun times, fun times.

Let's go ahead and give our Patreon shoutouts. We had Tracy Digilormo. Hey, Digilormo. Josh Shear. What's going on, Shearer? Olympia Stevens. Hey, Stevens. Carrie Harmon.

Appreciate that, Harmon. Terese Victoria Martinson Holman. Well, that's a mouthful. That is four names. Yeah. Sarah Brin. Hey, Sarah. John Hutt.

What's going on? Hood, Hood. Jeffrey Elner. Hey, Elner. Tom Leary. Well, thank you, Tom. Heather Williams jumped out to our highest level. Look at you, Heather.

Bit die. What's going on, BitDai? And last but not least, Betty Speth. Hey, Betty. So we appreciate that new support. And then if we go back into the vault, this week, we selected Cat Tracks. What's happening to Cat Tracks? Yeah, been with us a long time.

We really appreciate it. And we had some great PayPal donations from Marissa Malvo. Hey, Malvo. And Lila Hansen. I appreciate that, Lila. So, yeah, appreciate it all. Gibbs right now, we have an episode, out un-unsolved where we're tackling the case of Natalie Wood.

This is a case that a lot of people have wanted us to do. I think a lot of people are fascinated by it. Yeah, it's been out there for a long time. We know that. Sure. We decided to go ahead and do it. And very interesting. And we're kind of go over the controversial parts of it.

Yeah, there is a lot of speculation, controversy, and we'll get into all of that. All right, buddy, are you ready to get into this episode of true crime all the time? I am ready. We're talking about Dale Wayne Eaton. On April 2nd, 1988, the body of 18-year-old Lisa Marie Kimmel was found in the North Platte River near Casper, Wyoming. 14 years later, Dale Wayne Eaton was charged with her murder after Lisa's missing car was found on his property. So it's a little bit of a different type of story this week. You know, we've had a lot where there's a murder, there's multiple murders, but it seems as though it's solved fairly quickly. Right.

Somebody's brought in for questioning. They crack. Now, you know, we're talking about the motive and the trial and all of that. This one's a little different. This was unsolved for 14 years. But ultimately, they, they got the right person. Lisa Marie Kimmel was born on July 18th, 1969 in Covington, Tennessee. Her parents are Sheila and Ron Kimmel.

Ron passed away in 2020. Lisa also has a younger sister named Sherry. Lisa was named by her grandmother who called her My Little Miss Lisa Marie. Her friends and family called her Lil Miss. Lisa grew up in Billings, Montana. She graduated high school in 1987 and was living and working in Denver, Colorado, managing an Arby's at the time of her death. Lisa was never in trouble and was, described by investigators, according to the Casper Star Tribune, as straight as an arrow. About as straight as you can get, right? An arrow? Yeah.

Yeah. And there's a lot of things that are straight. But I mean, I think the bottom line is this is a person who was doing the right stuff, not getting in trouble. You know, definitely not putting herself in positions or scenarios where things could get dangerous. On March 25th, 1988, Lisa left Denver to travel to Cody, Wyoming, to visit her boyfriend. Lisa drove a black 1988 Honda CRX SI with the custom license plate, Lil Miss. Lissa's case would become known as the Lil Miss murder. I have trouble saying Lil, Lil Miss. So she left work at 3 p.m. Around 9 p.m.

She was driving north on Interstate 25, 5 miles south of Douglas, when she was stopped by Wyoming Highway Patrolman Al Lesko for speeding. Lisa asked Lesko for directions and said she was going to Montana. She signed her ticket, which proved it was her that was stopped that night. This was the last confirmed sighting of Lisa. However, Lisa was also reportedly seen in Casper, Wyoming at a gas station. So we've got confirmed versus reported. Confirmed by this highway patrolman.

Right. Based on the fact that he gave her a ticket, she signed it. I'm sure he, you know, had her license. No doubt it was her. Exactly. And then reported in that somebody saw her at a gas station in Wyoming. Lisa's boyfriend Ed Jarrett told Unsolved Mysteries that she was supposed to get to Cody late that evening around midnight. He spoke to her around 4.30 p.m. The trip should have taken 8 to 9 hours and the weather was pretty good that day.

Ed contacted Lisa's parents when she never showed up and Lisa was reported missing. So again, it's 1988. No cell phones. No. So if you're taking a long trip, unless you're, you've got a CB radio in your car, I don't know how people are getting a hold of you. Now, you can pull over or you could have pulled over back then used to pay phone to call somebody. If you could find one. Yeah, I mean, they were still pretty prolific, I think, in the 80s. But again, they weren't everywhere. Right.

You would have to look for one, especially off the interstate, right? You were going to have to get off the interstate, pull into a gas state. they would have had a pay phone or something like that. I just, I think it's important to kind of talk about the time frame and the differences. Again, I can pick up my cell phone. And I don't even have to call anyone in my family.

I just have to punch up an app. It, it tells me exactly where they are, how fast they're going, um, all of that. It even has some type of crash alert that would alert you, alert me if one of my,

my family members was in an accident. It's pretty amazing, really. Now, there were sightings of Lisa's vehicle after she went missing. A teletype message sent out by the police stated that Lisa's car had been seen in Billings, Callispell, and Great Falls, Montana. And according to the Casper Tribune, the reports have stated that there are one or two male occupants, but none of the reports include a female subject in the vehicle. So that's somewhat perplexing. It's her car. She's thought to have been alone. But you have these sightings where people are saying, yeah, saw the car with at least one, maybe two men in it. No females at all. No little, no little miss. No little miss. And then a body matching Lisa's description was found in the North Platte River

on April 2nd, 1988, 20 miles southwest of Casper, Wyoming. Two fishermen found the body in about 18 inches of water. Natrona County Sheriff Ron Ketchum said there was no doubt foul play was involved. He also said that authorities were speculating the time of death was last than a week before she was found. No ID was found with the young woman. Evidence showed that the victim was put. pushed or dropped from a 20-foot-high steel girder bridge parallel to the government bridge near

Bolton Creek Road, about half a mile south of where she was found. Ketcham said the body probably floated downriver. He said it was possible that there was more than one crime scene because, according to him, minimal evidence was found at the steel girder bridge. However, there were bloodstains found on the bridge. You know, if she was alive during that period, just trying to think how frightened she had to be, to be on that bridge knowing what most likely their intentions were. To push her off or push her over the bridge.

Yeah, I mean, I see where the police are coming from. You find bloodstains on the bridge. The body is found somewhere downstream. And really what was not a lot of water, right, 18 inches. you could theorize pretty easily that something happened on the bridge, she went into the water, and then floated to the area where she was ultimately found, which was much more shallow. It was also said that this highway bridge was inaccessible and rarely used. So according to Unsolved Mysteries, police concluded that the killer likely lived in the area.

And we hear that quite a bit. Yeah, and this makes sense, right? if it's rarely used and not really easy to get to, you probably live in the area to know about it. Strangers are not going to probably happen upon it. Somebody from out of town is not going to know where it is. I get it. Unsolved Mysteries also reported that residents outside Casper, Wyoming reported seeing lights on a suspension bridge on March 26th. A Star Tribune report published soon after Lisa's body was found.

stated that Fremont County authorities contacted Sheriff Ketchum to report a suspicious incident in their jurisdiction. According to then Fremont County Sheriff's Investigator Bill Braddock, the office received a report that someone heard screams and either saw or heard a car, but there was nothing connecting the report to the death of this woman. On April 3rd, the body found in the river was identified as, Lisa Marie Kim. At the time, Sheriff Ketcham came out and told papers that a weapon was used in the murder,

but he was not at liberty to give more details. Why is that? Well, you know, you and I have talked about it before. I think on the part of law enforcement, when you're talking to the media, you got to be careful, right? Sure. What can we give out? What should we give out?

What shouldn't we give out? because, you know, if we get a suspect and we're grilling this person, we're questioning this person, we need some things, some details that have not been published to try to corroborate someone's story. I think it's very important. So you could say a weapon was used, but you're not saying whether it was a gun or a knife or, you know, a blunt object. if somebody comes in and confesses and says, yes, I shot her in the head. And it's known for a fact that a gun wasn't used.

Okay. You can pretty much discount that confession. Exactly. It's not going to hold up. It was reported that Lisa was found partially clothed. But again, there was no elaboration on what this meant. For the same reason. For the same reason, right?

What pieces of clothing were left? what was missing. Sheriff Ketchum said it was impossible to determine the exact date of death because the body was exposed to the river in weather conditions. However, the body had not really decomposed. Well, in that region, you know, when you're into March, going into April, I think the weather had a part to play in that. Yeah, I don't think it gets super hot at that point of the year there. Law enforcement launched a search for Lisa's missing car that took them all the way to Canada. And I think this was based on eyewitness reports. People saying they had seen Lisa's car. Some people even claim that they had seen Lisa. One reliable sighting occurred

about 10 hours after Lisa was thought to have been killed. Donna Kirkpatrick, the wife of a county sheriff, reported that she saw Lisa driving her car in Buffalo, Wyoming. She told Unsolved Mysteries. It was Saturday at noon, and I noticed a little black sports car had pulled out right in front of me. Then I noticed the license plate. It was a Montana license play with Little Miss on it. And at that point, I decided that I needed to see if the car went with whoever was driving it. I am absolutely positive. There was a young gal driving it.

There's not a doubt in my mind. I don't know if we talk about this very often, but, you know, this thing about personalized place. Yeah. I've never been a personalized plate type guy. Right. I know you have had one for a long time. You took years off of Seinfeld and went with Asman for some reason. I have no idea.

Why? But, you know, the one thing in all seriousness that comes to mind is that when you see a car driving down the road, How many people really look at the license plate and are able to memorize it? Probably not many. No. But when you have some of these personalized plates, I think it's easier. You know, if you see Little Miss. Right.

Okay. You can remember that much easier than you can LQ 92745 or whatever it might be. But it is funny, you know, when you think about some of the personalized license plates, sometimes when you do see the driver, you're like, doesn't go. Doesn't go. And then you're like, maybe it's the daughter driving the dad's car or the dad driving the daughter's car or whatever

because you're like, it doesn't make sense the way it currently sits. Yeah. Another eyewitness saw Lisa more than a day after she was believed to be murdered. This siding occurred in Casper, Wyoming, over 100 miles from Buffalo. Witness Diana Houston was driving through Casper when she saw a car, with an out-of-state license plate.

She told Unsolved Mysteries. It was Sunday afternoon, and I saw a Montana license plate in a vehicle, and being from Montana caught mine. So I looked, and the license plate said, Lil Miss. I went by, I saw somebody with blonde hair driving, and she had on a yellow sweater. So two people describing the same personalized license plate, the same type of car, and both saying that at that point in time, a female was driving. Now, what does that mean? We don't know for sure, but you can make the argument that it was Lisa. Doesn't mean for sure it was, but on April 6th,

1988, Sheriff Ron Ketcham told the public that Lisa was stabbed more than once with the sharp instrument, but that was about it. Didn't really go into detail about what other types of injuries she had, this was information that investigators were withholding until someone was arrested. Kind of like we just talked about earlier. The sheriff's office was still looking for Lisa's car. According to Sheriff Kacham, only two black Honda CRX SIs were shipped west of the Mississippi and Lisa owned one of them. The sheriff's office had over 350 reports that the car had been seen, but only one siding

was listed as good. Two law enforcement officers saw the Honda on two separate occasions in Regina, Canada, on April 1st. The sheriff's office received word of the sightings after the FBI was asked to assist in the case. So you're telling me

that this Honda CRX SI and black, only two of them were shipped west of the Mississippi. That's pretty rare. It is. I mean, if you're trying to find a car and a missing person. Right. What better type of vehicle than one that is pretty rare in the area where it went missing. It definitely limits the possibility of being somebody that you're not looking for. Yeah. If it's not really a black Honda CRX, S-I. Now, I don't know what

an S-I is. I had a buddy in high school who had a Honda CRX, which would have been about the same time, late 80s. But the S-I, but the S-I. probably is some maybe souped up model maybe, I don't know. Ketcham also told the media that he had been in contact with the second person who claimed they saw Lisa at a convenience store in Casper. So this meant that three people saw her alive, said they saw her alive, on March 25th. On April 7th, Sheriff Ketchum confirmed that Lisa was sexually assaulted and died of stab wounds. Coroner James Thorpeman determined that Lisa died from these stab wounds.

Lisa had other trauma to her body, but again, authorities were withholding this information about these additional injuries. Later that month, Ketcham said lab test results obtained from the state crime lab showed that the blood found on government bridge on State Highway 220 was Lisa's blood. So now the sheriff's coming out with a little bit more details, not everything, but enough to start telling a little bit of the story of what happened to her. Well, I think the blood is big, right? You know, we talked about it early on.

You find blood on the bridge. Okay, that may not be a good sign when you find a body down the river, but you don't know whose blood it is. And you don't even know for sure if it's going to match to the body you found. Well, now they know who the person is and they know that that was her blood on the bridge. So it does kind of add pieces to the puzzle. Lisa's car was reportedly seen in the Sheridan area on April 15th. According to the Casper Star Tribune, the person who saw the car was adamant.

It had Lisa's Lil Miss license plate. However, the police were still unable to find the vehicle. So again, how many people saw or said they saw this vanity plate? Somebody zooming around in this car. is what it seems like. Police learned that there were two black cars similar to leases in Casper, and investigators started to believe that some of the sightings involved those vehicles, which I get, you know, a lot of black cars may look similar,

but how many of them are going to have a plate that says Little Miss? Exactly. That would be very hard to mistakenly see, right? You can't say there's the black car. Oh, it's got that license plate. I mean, the either has that license plate or it doesn't have that license plate. Yeah, you're right about the license plate. A lot of people call it a license plate.

But, you know, call whatever you want, man. That's what I've said, this whole run. So, you know, they've got sightings. They had some leads. But really, nothing seemed to pan out as far as, you know, getting the break that they needed to end the case. On September 22nd, 1988, a man named Thomas DePaul was arrested in Sacramento in charge with deliberate homicide, an aggravated kidnapping for the death of Deborah Hopper, who disappeared

from her night job in August. She was found dead in Butte, Montana. Several days later, she had been raped and shot. Natrona County, under Sheriff Mark Benton said that DePaul was a suspect in the Lisa Kimmel case. but he said not a viable suspect. Okay. It's really sending a mixed message there. Big time.

So you're either a suspect or you're not. If you're not a viable suspect, then have you been ruled out, which means you're not a suspect? Right. I just found that to be odd. Why not just say person of interest? Or was at one time thought to be a,

I don't know. It seems like they've ruined him out. In 1989, Lisa's case was featured on unsolved mysteries. And, you know, very quickly after the show aired, sightings of her car were reported throughout the country. Now, you're going to have that. We've seen that in episodes where, you know, a story was featured on Unsolved Mysteries, America's Most Wanted. You're going to get flooded with calls.

The majority of those are going to be incorrect information. You want everything to come in. But you're going to try to track things down. Neither they're not verifiable or they're just wrong. Yeah. I think you're going to, like you said, you're going to mixture of all type of calls from that show, even pranksters. So years are going by, though, here, right? They're still looking into Lisa's case.

They're really not getting anywhere on August 14th, 1991. Wyoming authorities announced that they were waiting on an FBI report to determine whether the claim. of Donald Leroy Evans were true. Evans told the police in Gulfport, Mississippi that he called over 60 people over a 10-year period. He told the police about the murders to verify his confession to kidnapping and murdering a 10-year-old girl. He claimed that he had killed someone in Wyoming. And there were two unsolved cases that investigators wanted information on, one of which was leases. So a little bit of a maybe a Henry, Lucas vibe here.

He's coming out and saying, you know, I committed all these murders. Well, you're going to have jurisdictions all around the country, kind of combing their unsolved cases to see if anything matches information that this guy has given. Investigators eventually determined that Evans was in prison in Texas for rape from May 1987 to April 1991 ruling out any connection at least to him with the Lisa Kimmel case. But still, you know, he's making a claim of 60 people over 10 years. Yeah. That's six people a year on average.

Right. If I'm doing my math correctly. And I always have wondered how many people exaggerate the number of murders they've committed, right? They're claiming to be this big time serial killer. why I don't know. And then how many people under report? Right. I think you have it go both ways.

I think you do. And somehow it ends up balancing out, as Seinfeld would say. So you have people that want to take credit for things that they didn't do. And then other people who have probably killed a lot more than what they're being prosecuted for. Yeah, or actually convicted of or even thought to have done. Yeah. On July 31st, 2002, local TV crews filmed what appeared to be the unearthing of a car on land off Wyoming Highway 2026 in Manetta, located in Fremont County. Law enforcement had been at the scene since the 29th, so a couple of days.

It was difficult for reporters and neighbors to see the car because investigators covered it with a tart right away and towed it to an unknown. location and always interesting to me to see, you know, some type of excavation or something going on. And the police trying to shield both the public and the press from it. Right. We've seen it in a number of times where they, they put up barriers. They put up, you know, tents, worked inside the tent. It just don't want anybody taking pictures or seeing what they're doing. And for good reason. You know, don't want people standing there as you on earth a body or something like that. This is quite a time period from when Lisa went missing and her body was found.

Yeah, we're 14 years on from the murder of Lisa Kimmel. Natrona County Sheriff Mark Benton and DA Kevin Meenan held a press conference, but they declined to discuss the investigation. Benton wouldn't confirm, but he also didn't deny a link to the Lisa Kimmel case. On July 31st, the Fremont County Assessors Office said the property was owned by a man named Dale Wayne Eaton. And Eaton was no stranger to law enforcement. 57-year-old Dale Wayne Eaton was wanted in Natrona County on a criminal warrant for

allegedly escaping from the community alternatives of Casper in June 1988, where he was finishing a sentence for. aggravated assault. Sounds like maybe he left like a halfway house or something like that. Yeah, something like that. But he was in prison in Colorado at the time of this excavation. He had been accused of killing his cellmate, Inman Palmer, on September 3, 2001. Dale Eaton grew up in Greeley, Colorado.

His criminal record dated back to the early 60s. And it was reported that Dale showed signs of. mental illness and spent time at a psychiatric facility. So I mentioned he was in prison. He was serving three years in Colorado on a charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm. He was supposed to be released in September 2003. But like I said, he allegedly killed his cellmate during an argument.

Eaton's public defender said he punched his cellmate once. They talked and then Enman Palmer, quote unquote, dropped dead. he argued that an artery in Palmer's head burst after he was hit, which makes a lot of sense because normally when somebody punches me in my head, I like to sit down and really have a good convo. Yeah, I want to talk. Let's talk it out. Let's talk it out after you've sucker punched me in my head.

Now it could be that he only punched him once. And it could be that an artery in this guy's head burst and killed him, but possible. Who caused that? You know, if I punch you and we're not talking self-defense, I'm just mad and I punch you and you fall to the ground and hit your head and die, I'm responsible. You are. I'm going to be held accountable for that. On August 2nd, a 90-year-old former neighbor of Eaton spoke with the Casper Star Tribune and said

that she saw Eaton digging a huge hole on his property. Eaton apparently said he was digging a well. She couldn't recall exactly when she saw him digging the hole, but she said it was approximately in the same place where the car was found. He dug deep enough that she could barely see the top of his head and it was a large hole. So I don't know how tall the guy is. Let's just say six foot tall. That's a pretty deep hole.

Yeah. And it obviously had to have been pretty large in, area to put a car in there. Yeah, wide enough, deep enough, long enough. You're just covering all the dimensions. All the dimensions. Okay. I appreciate that. You know, you can have all that dirt too, because, you know, when that top of that car crushes in, you get out that backfill. It doesn't look like you buried anything there. Yeah, but wouldn't you have the backfill from what you just dug out? Yeah, you should. Actually, yeah, I was going to say, my thought is you probably have a little leftover, right? Because some of that area is going to be taken up by the car.

at least when I've buried things, I always put a little mound on top, knowing it's going to settle down in time. Okay. So you're just giving out tips and stuff. But I love the fact that this 90-year-old woman is going back, what, 14 years? Yeah, recalling. And recalling what happened. You and I have talked about it. We can't even remember what we had for breakfast last week, but this 90-year-old woman is sharp as attack.

Yeah. Now, you could ask the question, why didn't she come forward earlier? But you see a guy digging a hole in his yard. What are you going to do? Call the cops? I mean, yeah, I mean, you might say that's kind of strange, but not strange enough to call to police. But when you find out later that it had a car in there, you're going to think, I do remember.

Yes. Now, maybe if she saw him put the car in there, drive it in there, that'd be different. That'd be different. But you're just digging a hole at your property. On August 12th, authorities confirmed that the car found in Manetta belonged to Lisa the Marie Kimmel. Authority said they questioned Dale Wayne Eaton and considered him a person of interest at that time, according to Sheriff Mark Benton.

Well, I was sure hope that he would be considered a person of interest. Investigators told papers that they were trying to find a 1963 black Ford truck that Eaton sold in 1997 or 1998, and they did find it later that month. On November 21st, 2002, Dale Wayne Eaton, was found not guilty of involuntary manslaughter in regards to the Enman Palmer case. I guess I figured that was self-defense. Yeah, maybe. There wasn't a lot of detail around it, but I don't know what else they could have thought.

But Dale, who was now considered a suspect and Lisa's murder, was extradited to Natrona County on April 2, 2003 to face his escape charge. And then on April 17th, D.A. Kevin Mee. Menon filed eight charges against Dale Eaton in connection with Lisa's murder. He was charged with first degree premeditated murder, aggravated kidnapping, aggravated robbery, first degree sexual assault, and second degree sexual assault. He was also charged with three more counts of first degree felony murder. Each count was allegedly committed during the course of separate felony crimes.

So you had sexual assault, robbery, kidnapping, so attacking on murder charges for each one of those felons. Court documents revealed that Eaton was linked to the murder by a DNA match. These court documents included the findings of coroner James Thorpein. The document stated that a blow to Lisa's head was severe enough to fracture her skull and cause bleeding and swelling of the brain, Lisa was stabbed six times. Five wounds formed a circle on her chest and the six stab wound was in her abdomen.

Each stab could have been fatal because they all hit vital organs. Now, you and I have talked about a lot of different stabbings. I don't know that I've ever heard of a stabbing to the chest in a circular fashion. What do you make of that? Maybe it's just how the suspect is like doing it. doing things, you know, that he like to go in a clockwise or counterclockwise circle. Well, that's a scary thought because if somebody liked to do something a certain way, to me that means there was a basis for that.

Yeah. And they honed that or they realized that over time. Sure. It's not like just taking the knife and plunging it every time, right? He's taking it out, making sure it moves to the next. And doing it in a circular fashion. I just found that very odd. Investigators started searching Eaton's property after the Wyoming State Crime Lab

informed them on July 16, 2002 that a blood sample taken from Eaton back in 1998 matched a sample from Lisa's body that was on file in the FBI lab. It was also reported that a portion of Lisa's custom license plate was found near her car. Court document said Lisa's car was stripped, a very vehicle. valuable parts. It was missing all four tires, the aluminum wheels, the front seats, stereo and gear shift. Not eaten allegedly sold the wheels to a recycling company and helped install the stereo and seats in the Ford truck.

So we mentioned that they were trying to locate this Ford truck. We didn't say why. But this is the reason. It had stolen parts. That allegedly came from Lisa Kimmel's car. In May 2003, the Casper Star Tribune reported that criminal profiler said Lisa's murder appeared to be the work of a serial killer. According to the paper, experts close to the case have said the degree of criminal sophistication

the killer displayed in disposing of Kimmel's body and in the removal of evidence such as ligatures raise that possibility. I would go back to the circular stab wounds. Sure. I mean, does that seem just off, you know, the top of your head as though someone's first murder? No. It doesn't. And it doesn't seem like it's a act of rage either in a sense that it's very calculated in the design of the stab.

Controlled. You're taking your some time at least to move the knife in a very specific direction. former FBI profiler Greg Cooper investigated Lisa's murder in association with the series of other murders from 1983 to 1997 in the Great Basin of Nevada, Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming. In 2002, he said Lisa was probably killed by a very organized serial killer. And Lisa's murder has been linked by many with what are called these Great Basin. murders. As mentioned by former Agent Cooper, nine murders took place between

1983 and 1997, involving women between the ages of 18 and 35. The women were violently attacked and dumped along remote highways in the Great Basin, according to ABC 7. At least three victims were posed in the shape of a cross, which investigators

thought pointed to a serial killer. Authorities are unsure. sure, if all nine murders are connected. And we see this so often, you know, as we're doing our unsolved cases, you always have a number of murders in an area, a region, whatever you want to call it. Are they connected or are they not connected or are they the work of the same person, multiple people? You know, those questions all have to be asked and do. And someone has to try to answer them. It's just not always that easy. It's very rare do I research a unsolved case and not find more murders around that same area. Very rare. That people believe could possibly be linked.

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It happens all the time. The FBI created a profile on Lisa's killer 10 years before the police got a break in the case. The analysis was prepared by FBI supervisory special agent Ronald Walker. Walker concluded, it is significant that the assailant removed a ligature prior to disposing of the victim's body. This assailant is sufficiently sophisticated to realize the evidentiary value of such items. Lisa Marie Kimmel fell victim to an assailant who acted methodically and with a purpose. She was a randomly selected victim whose path crossed with her assailants by chance. Well, look, we have talked about that in the past, right? If they can't tie a relationship between you and your victim, it's going to be so much harder to solve.

Yeah. Yeah. Crimes committed by people who are known to the victim are easier to solve. Yeah, but I want to talk about this FBI profiler, you know, making this analysis, like 10 years before they knew anything about Dale Wayne Eaton, that would have been what? about four years after the murder. Now, like I say, a lot of times, I think some of these profiles are pretty self-explanatory.

I don't even know if that's the right word for it. Yeah. He's not wrong in what he's saying. No. But I also think most people who listen to true crime could make these same type of arguments. So if the killer removed things that could be, evidence used against him. What are we talking about here? Someone with a little sophistication.

Also, sometimes I think these profiles give too much credit to the suspect's intelligence. Yeah, I think you're right. So, you know, they're saying sophisticated, a lot of times you're talking about, you know, organized. And it turns out that some of these people really aren't. He's got lucky. They got lucky or. You know, maybe they had done it so many times that they'd kind of honed it a little bit. But yeah, I think you're right. Especially when you're talking about intelligence. Because we find out that, you know, some of these people are not all that intelligent.

Some are. Some are. Now, he also suggested the possibility that more than one person was involved. According to the report, it was suspected that Lisa's abductor held her against her will for days after she disappeared. So in 2003, investigators were looking into Eaton's connections with two unsolved murders in that Casper area, according to ABC 7. One 21-year-old woman was found naked and strangled along I-25 north of Casper in 1982. She was last seen hitchhiking.

The second victim was found 14 miles south of I-25 in 1986. She was run over near the roadway. She was last seen walking to a friend's house in Casper. Now, those seem like two very different scenarios. They do a little bit to me. That second one, you know, run over near the roadway. That could be an accident. It could be hitchhiking.

Somebody's not paying attention. They hit you. They panic and they take off. But when someone's found naked and strangled, obviously we know that's, that's no accident. Another potential victim of the Great Basin murders was Amy Roe Betel. Amy disappeared on July 24, 1997 from Lander, Wyoming, and Fremont County. She went missing while on a run. Her car was found parked off a dirt road in the Shoshonee Forest.

Amy has never been found. An investigation placed Eaton in the area around the time of her disappearance. I know they have them listed as a potential suspect. in that one. But again, no body was found, so I don't know how you can tie that together. Yeah, I think it's hard. Amy's story was also featured on

Unsolved Mysteries. Most media accounts only named Amy's husband Steve as a suspect. However, Richard Eaton, Dale's brother, submitted a tip to the police. Richard knew Dale was camping in the burnt Gulch area

at the time of Amy's disappearance. This is near Amy's running route. In one of the brother's favorite hunting and fishing spots, Richard's tip, though, was dismissed in favor of a statement from Dale's niece who said he was visiting her in Greeley, Colorado on July 24th. And it was said in a number of outlets that detectives were also suspicious of his brother Richard because of the $100,000 reward in the case. And you're going to try to put your brother up as a suspect for $100,000? It's 100,000.

It is a lot of money. I put you up for worse and less. But we're technically not brothers. We're like brothers. Yeah. But we're not blood related. That's true. On May 15th, 2003, Sheila Kimmel filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Dale Eaton.

On June 5th of that year, the Casper Star Tribune reported that DA Kevin Meenan would seek the death penalty against Eden. On November 12th, Eden, was sentenced. to seven to ten years for the escape charge. So they brought him back, right? They extradited him. They did. For this escape charge. And then they filed all these murder charges against him.

So he's already got seven to ten years. And he hasn't even gone on trial for the murder yet. Jury selection for Dale Eaton's murder trial started on February 23, 2004. The trial officially began on March 3rd. Defense attorney Wyatt Skat. didn't deny that Dale committed the crimes he was accused of, but he argued that Eaton was overcharged. He said Eaton bears criminal responsibility, but there was no proof. Lisa's homicide occurred in the commission of robbery, sexual assault, or kidnapping. Okay. That's kind of a different

way to go, I guess, you know, as far as the defense. Yeah, but who's he kidding? She wasn't there on our own free will as kidnapping. We know there was sexual assault. So what is he saying? And no robbery, but yet they pieced out her car and sold her wheels and her stereo and seats. So again, it seems strange to me to admit that Dale Wayne Eaton murdered Lisa, but try to get out of the other extra murder charges in connection with the robbery, sexual assault, kidnapping.

Basically, what the defense said was that they planned to dispute some aspects of the DNA evidence. Skaggs also said he would call a medical examiner from Tampa who would contradict some of the testimony from James Thorpe. If you're a defense attorney, can you find an expert in whatever field that for X amount of dollars will refute whatever the prosecution's expert, says it seems that way yeah and to me it's a little scary now we've done some cases where the defenses experts have actually agreed with the prosecution experts and that was kind of

nice to hear but more often than not they're able to find someone who disagrees now do they really disagree or are they doing it for the money because from a legal standpoint that scares the bejeebies out of me as it should the prosecutors play a recording made by Wyoming Highway Patrol officer Al Lesko who pulled Lisa over on March 25th, 1988. Lesko testified that at 8.39 p.m. on March 25th, he pulled Lisa over for driving 88 miles per hour. He wrote her a citation and told her she would have to post a $120 bond because she wasn't from Wyoming. Lisa didn't have cash with her. She asked if she could go to an ATM. So Lesko followed her to one in Douglas.

But the ATM wouldn't take her car. Lesko allowed her to sign a promise to appear and gave her directions to get back to I-25. Okay. We're talking about the 1980s. A couple of things here jump out at me. One is that if you got a speeding ticket in another state, it wasn't like they just issued you the ticket.

You went home and you paid it online or whatever it was. Right, right. Yeah. not a possibility then so they there were some some differences and then the fact that the ATM wouldn't take her card that really kind of got me as well yeah because we just think about being able to use our ATM card at any ATM yeah even those little ones in the gas station but if they're not part of the network you know back then you weren't going to get your money you had a lot and that's why I don't know if you were called but a lot of people had triple a or some type of service like

that one of the values of that card is it it had up to a $500 advance cash advance or not a cash advance but it it you could present it to the sheriff or the highway patrol oh as a like a bond as a bond yeah yeah well the other the other thing that it brought to mind was travelers checks oh yeah because again you needed money sure you know think about vacation where he's got all these travelers checks and he needs to cash him in. Who in the world uses travelers checks now? Maybe some people, but there's really no need for them. Ron Kimmel testified that he found an odd note on Lisa's grave in Billings on March 29th in 1989. The note was dated November 13th of 1988. It read, there aren't words to say how much you're missed. The pain never leaves. It's so hard

without you. You'll always be alive in me. Your death is my painful loss, but heaven's sweet gain, love always, Stringfellow Hawk. This is according to the Casper Star Tribune. In his opening statement, the DA said his research led him to determine that Stringfellow Hawk was a fictional character on the TV series Airwold. Now, I don't really remember that, but wasn't there a movie that maybe this TV series was based off of? That I don't recall. Okay. Because I'm not remembering what Air Wolf was, but that is interesting.

Because just the statement on its own, you could attribute that to someone who loved her. Her boyfriend. Yeah, whatever. It's really the Stringfellow Hawk that is very strange. The rest of it, you know, that could be a family member or friend. Prosecutors presented evidence about Lisa's time. of death and cause of death, Lisa's watch stopped at 940, but the day and time of her death were still unknown. Former sheriff's investigator Mike Sanford went to the scene where Lisa's body was found.

He said Lisa's body appeared fresh. It was about 65 degrees and sunny that day, but the water was only 44 degrees. Lisa's body still actually had some color. She was only wearing underwear, socks, and jewelry. He found a large pool of blood on the nearby bridge. The blood was fresh and clean without dust. So we mentioned that time of year. What we didn't talk about is the water temperature. 44 degrees. That's chilly. It's going to, you know, keep the decomposition away or at least delay it considerably. Well, and in nighttime when that sun's down, that outside temperature is going to drop drastically as well. Yeah, absolutely. corner James Thorpen testified that he was never able to come up with an estimate on Lisa's time of death,

mainly because her body was submerged in cold water. He did say that per his report, Lisa's pubic hair was shaved about seven days before she died. Seamen was found inside of her body. The semen and sample of Lisa's hair and blood, as well as an unidentified hair found on her abdomen, were sent to the state crime lab. The DNA matched a blood sample from Dale Eaton. You know, this is interesting because we're 14 years on from the murder when they

charge Dale Eaton even longer when they go to trial. Right. If they had had him as a suspect in 1988, I don't even know if they could have done all of this DNA stuff. DNA was so new in 1988. Thorpein also testified that Bruce, cruising and abrasions found on Lisa's wrists indicated she was bound by a rope. From the head wound alone, Lisa would have died within about two to six hours. The stab wounds caused her to die within seconds to minutes.

Lisa had no defensive wounds to indicate that she tried to fight her attacker. She also had no drugs or alcohol in her system. So it sounds like she was kidnapped, sexually assaulted, eventually taken to the bridge. where she was killed. Yeah, it's definitely possible. You know, one of the individuals mentioned a large pool of blood on the bridge. Now, she could have also been stabbed somewhere else, transported, and still have been bleeding. But the no defensive wounds, you know, to me, that says that this head wound kind of incapacitated her. I don't know if she was caught by surprise from behind because she didn't or was not able to fight back at all.

Two DNA experts testified on March 8th, 2004 that the lab results positively matched Eaton's DNA and the odds of another person having the same DNA profile were one in 240 quadrillion. I'm not even sure if that's a real word, a real number. That's a pretty, uh, no, we know it is, but it's just so. high that you really can't comprehend. Exactly. I can't even help with that.

I just now got the hang of billion. Not that I have a billion, but I kind of understand what a billion is. Trillion is still pretty foreign to me. Quadrillion is way out there. But in other words, 99.99% of the Caucasian population was excluded from having the same DNA makeup as

Eaton. William Eaton testified against his father on March 9th. He said he unknowingly helped his father install a stereo and bucket seats from Lisa's car into the truck. The state alleged that Lisa's car was not found for so many years because Eaton buried it on his property. The car was buried in an eight to 10 foot hole disguised as a septic tank. You know what? People are probably not going to be real eager to explore? A septic tank. A septic tank. Eaton testified that he was familiar with Hondas. In 1988, he saw the parts installed in his Ford truck, came from a new Honda CRX or a court.

He said that the aluminum wheels and other materials were melted. But he said he never saw any digging at the property around the time of Lisa's murder. His dad told him a well was dug on the property. on March 10th, a handwriting expert told the court that the note left on Lisa's headstone was almost certainly written by Dale Eaton. Now, a lot of people are iffy on handwriting analysis. I get that. But again, all of this is up, you know, to the jury.

I do want to go back to William Eaton testifying against his father. So he sees these parts in his truck. And he knows that they came from a CRX or an accord, but that doesn't mean anything to him because I don't think he's aware at all. No, he has no awareness of Lisa Kimmel and the fact she's missing and that she was driving a Honda CRX or that her car is buried on the property on the family property. In his closing argument, defense attorney Wyatt Skaggs told the court, there is no question. My client kept sexually assaulted, killed and disposed of Lisa Kimmel's body. Dale Eaton did it. You just don't hear that all that much from a defense attorney.

No, you really do not. But I think he knows that the evidence is overwhelming against his client. Yeah. It sounded like he was really just trying to get out of some of the counts of murder. He argued that Eaton was overcharged on some of these counts. he argued that the kidnapping, sexual assault, and robbery were not committed at the time of Lisa's murder. And there was no premeditation. He said second degree murder was a more appropriate charge.

So not only is he trying to get out of the additional counts of first degree. He's trying to get out of first degree altogether. He's trying to get the jury to give his client second degree murder. Yeah. Which is a big difference. We know. It's huge when it comes to the time of sentencing. Skaggs questioned the DNA evidence, pointing out significant differences in the results from two labs.

Some of the results led him to believe there could have been another person involved. He also said Eden didn't write the note found on Lisa's grave. Skaggs argued that the jury shouldn't accept the testimony of Joe Dax, a federal inmate, who claimed that Eden confessed to him. Skaggs argued that Dax lied to get time taken off his sentence. Dax testified that Eaton told him Lisa offered him a ride. The day she disappeared, Eaton told him that the girl, he didn't use her name,

refused his advances. He decided to kidnap her when she told him to get out of her car. He made this confession when they were in the county jail in April 2003. To me, this is something that the jury has to make a decision on. How credible is this inmate's testimony? Is he really going to get some time off his sentence by telling this story? Right. And does that factor in to the veracity of it? The DA disputed the assertion that Eaton didn't plan the murder. He told the jury that Lisa was kidnapped, held against her will for days, raped and killed. Lisa was killed not long before

her body was found. So obviously we can't go through every bit of testimony and evidence. What I thought was really strange in this trial was the defense tactic. And maybe you're right, Gibbs. They knew they were up against it. There was just too much evidence. But to blatantly just come out and say, yeah, he did it. He did all of it. Right. But he doesn't deserve first degree murder. because the murder wasn't committed at the same time as all these other things that he also did. Yeah. And it wasn't premeditated. It was later when he decided he wanted to kill her at that moment.

But that has to be hard to believe too, right? Well, you're standing at a bridge knowing you're going to push her over. Well, and also, you know, when you say a murder committed in the process of another crime, is that how it's worded? well obviously you can't rob somebody sexually assault them and kill them all at the exact same time. So I really don't know how that that factors in. On March 17th, 2004, Dale Wayne Eaton was found guilty on all charges, excluding one count of second degree sexual assault. After the verdict, the DNA said he could only speculate where and how Eaton abducted Lisa. they had always thought that Eaton approached her in Casper when she stopped to get gas at the

Waltman rest area or that Lisa had a flat tire. And I don't know that this is that unusual. You know, there are parts of a case that the prosecution just can't tell the jury definitively how something happened. Right. They're saying we know who did it. We don't know for sure how he did it or, you know, where he abducted her. where it began. We know where it ended. We know how it ended and we know who did it.

The penalty phase started after the verdict. A woman named Shannon Breeden was among the witnesses expected to be called by prosecutors in 1997. Eaton was convicted of attacking Shannon Breeden, her husband, Scott, and their five-month-old baby in the red desert. So Shannon, Scott, and their baby Cody were traveling from Michigan to Washington to Washington. Washington State in September 1997 when their van broke down. They had to spend the night in a van. And the next day, a man pulled up to them who turned out to be Dale Eaton. He offered them a ride.

Shannon testified that she felt uncomfortable right away. She actually said she thought that he looked like a serial killer. But she told herself not to judge him. And it's something that we're kind of taught. We are. You know, don't judge a book by its cover. and I understand that. But if you have a bad feeling and you think someone looks like a serial killer,

I think you have to take that into account. Now, I think they were desperate. They needed help. Sure they did. At some point, Eaton said he had to go to the bathroom. So he pulled off.

When he got back, he told Shannon to drive because he wanted to rest. And it was not long after she started driving that she saw Eaton pointing a rifle at her husband and at her baby. He demanded that she drive down a dirt trail away from the highway. Shannon testified that she decided, if I'm going down, I'm going down right here. She pushed the accelerator and turned in a circle to try to knock the gun away from Eden. He tried to pull the keys out of the ignition.

Scott jumped out of the van with the baby. Shannon jumped out of the vehicle and tried to get to her husband, but Eaton grabbed her. The rifle fell out of his reach. so he grabbed a knife from under the passenger seat. Shannon jumped on his back. He managed to get her down to the ground and put the knife against her ribs. But Scott grabbed his arm, Eaton Warned, let go, or I'll kill her. Scott grabbed the rifle with his other hand and he hit Eaton on the head,

hard enough to break the wooden butt of the rifle. I mean, this is a fight for their life. Absolutely. I mean, this woman is a rock star. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of people in that scenario would be frozen with fear. And I wouldn't blame them one bit. I might be as well. But it doesn't sound like she was. She made the decision. Hey, I'm not going down without a fight. She pulls some kind of Italian job stunt car driving trick and, you know, does a circle. Then she jumps on the guy's back. Her husband comes to the rest. I mean,

it's just an amazing story. So this fight kind of kept going, right? Scott and Eaton got into a fight during which Eden was stabbed in the chest. Shannon got the gun and she fired a shot in the dirt. Eaton told her that if she fired again, the gun would blow up and kill her. So she gave the gun to her husband who beat

Eaton until he gave up. The family fled in the van and they stopped at a maintenance area to call for help. And then later, Eaton was found alone. in the desert. So basically he got his ass whipped after... By this family. By this family. After trying to abduct them.

It's a wonder the baby didn't walk over and kicking him in his nuggets. Well, if it was boss baby, he would have. Or Stewie. Stewie. Stewie from family guy. But he was being up pretty bad. He was. That the investigators weren't even sure who was guilty of what.

Who was the victim and who was the aggressor? because apparently the breedans weren't injured. But Eaton had been stabbed and beaten with the rifle. But eventually he confessed. Sweetwater County Chief DA Anthony Howard said that the confession was strange. According to the Casper Star Tribune, he said, Eaton's statement all the way through was that he had cancer or a life-threatening disease.

And he wanted to commit suicide but didn't have the guts. So what? he was going to abduct a family and hope that they somehow got the gun away from him and killed him. That's a, that's a strange story. Yeah. B.

S for sure. Yeah. I mean, that doesn't pass mustard at all. Eaton took a plea deal for attempted kidnapping. But he only served 99 days in jail. That's, like,

that's nothing. According to Runner's World, I don't know, maybe they factored in the ass whipping. Maybe. Now, If you're that family and you think about what happened later, you're glad you did what you did because that very well could have been you found dead.

Oh, absolutely. Wife, baby, probably too. Absolutely. But how do you feel when this guy gets 99 days in jail? Not good. Can't, can't, can you? And then afterwards, after that, he was paroled to a halfway house, was allowed to work. Eaton failed a report to work on June 16th.

1998 and an arrest warrant was issued. His van was found on July 30th on a dead end road near Du Bois in the Bridger-Teton National Forest. Dale was arrested at gunpoint, told the police he was going to end his life. His shotgun was found in his van, so he was imprisoned on federal weapons charges. We talked about this, right? This is what they extradited him. He ultimately got like seven to ten years, I think, right? This. Shannon, Breeden was allowed to testify against Eden, but was not allowed to talk about what happened to her. She was only allowed to identify him and say when and where the assault occurred. The judge was concerned that the jury may believe that he was undercharged in the Breeden case

and that they would need to compensate for it. I could see that happening. Yes. You only got 99 days? Well, we'll fix that. We're going to tack on extra. Now, I'm not saying that a jury would have done that, but I could see where they would definitely take a look at this case if they had all the facts and say, how did this guy only get 99 day? Right.

Because we say that all the time. Psychiatrist Kenneth Ash testified about Eaton's statement to him. He claimed Lisa was sitting alone in her car on Eaton's property on the night of March 25th, 1988. Eaton thought that the person in the car planned to rob him. He snuck up on them with a gun. When he saw that it was a girl, he ordered her to get into his vehicle. He raped her over a period of several days.

He decided to kill her because he was worried about the police showing up. Now, when I look at this story, I think the first part is BS. I think the second part is probably pretty close to the truth. Yeah. But the part about, the fact that he thought this person was going to rob him. So he snuck up. So he sees that it's a girl. He could just walk away, right? Sure, he could. I'm in no danger. Yeah. This person's not going to rob me,

but he doesn't do that. He kidnaps her. He sexually assaults her and he kills her. Eaton's public defender told the jury that his mental impairment was bad enough that he was not of sound mind at the time of Lisa's murder, Ash found Eaton to be suffering from severe depression that caused brain damage and overall dysfunction. He had been isolated from his family and friends. He was undereducated and had an explosive temper that caused him to lose jobs. Eaton lived in poverty and had no power, heat, or indoor plumbing. The DA argued that Eaton used his mental illness to rationalize his bad act. This was according to the Casper Star Tribune. He also said Eaton was not that isolated.

His neighbor who kept a journal noted four visits in March 1988 that lasted several hours. He also visited in April. And obviously Gibbs is something that we see in trials every time that the topic of mental illness comes up. That's true. And how that mental illness relates to the criminal acts that a person committed. how it played into it. Yeah. Ash said that the night Eaton found Lisa. He had just gotten home from calling

his estranged wife. He wanted to have his kids for Easter, but was told no. His wife said that the kids weren't his and she was with another man. Ash told the jury that Eaton thought he wouldn't be alone for Easter when he saw Lisa. The only conversation Eaton told him about was that Lisa wanted to be with her family by Easter. After deliberating, Eaton decided to kill her. He hit her in the head with a pipe and then stabbed her.

He threw her off the old government bridge into the river. Ash said, Eaton told him he knew there would be fishermen there and that she would get home by Easter. Okay. So he thought, this is how I'm going to do it. Eventually she'll be found by one of the

fishermen and her body would get home to her family. Or it could just let her go. And let her really be with her. And she'll get home by Easter. But these are always tough, right? Because you have a mental health professional telling a jury what this person told them, is it real?

Or is the person saying some things that they think is going to make this mental health professional kind of side with them, right? Right. Soften me up a little bit. because I'm telling you these things. And you and I can't answer that question, though. On March 20th, 2004, Eaton was sentenced to death. Lisa's family made public statements afterward. Her younger sister, Sherry, talked about how they were becoming friends and she admired her older sister. The Kimmel said they would never know who Lisa would have become because her life ended

at such a young age. Sheila also said that she met Eaton's family and they were truly and genuinely wonderful people. They have become a victim too. So this was according to the Casper Star Tribune. They really did a lot of reporting on this case. I found that to be pretty amazing. It does happen from time to time where the family of the victim is able to see the family of the perpetrator. and separate them and view them as a victim as well, right? Right. Eaton's family didn't kill their loved one. And his family is going through hell also.

But I don't know that everybody can do that. I think it'd be difficult to do in some cases. Just like I don't think everybody can forgive as some people do. Yeah. The person who murders your loved one. On April 5th, 2004, the Kimmel's were granted a five-me. million dollars civil judgment against eden and you know they're never going to see a dime of that money this guy was living in squalor poverty so that has to be what gibbs really more of a

moral victory a vindication of some sorts eaten sentencing hearing occurred on may 20th 2004 the judge signed the death warrant and his execution was set for june 25th eden was also sentenced to life plus 50 years for the other charges. And it's always amazing to me that these executions are set so quickly, knowing that they're never going to happen that quickly, if they ever happen at all. Lisa's family showed a memorial video of her in the courtroom. Sheila Kimmel also pleaded with Eaton to confess if he had killed anyone else, but he declined an opportunity to speak for himself. on July 18th, 2005, what would have been Lisa's 36th birthday, Eaton's trailer and shed were burned down. His property was awarded to the Kimmel's as part of their civil suit.

They had planned to burn down the buildings and clear the land. Eaton tried to get a new trial, went through various courts over the years. He was shot down by the Wyoming Supreme Court in 2008. but in 2014, a federal court vacated his death sentence. Basically, what they told the state was that they had to, you know, have a new sentencing. And if they didn't, then he would get life without parole. But the DA announced that he would seek the death penalty again. In 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court denied a petition to hear Eaton's appeal.

In January 2022, it was decided that even, Eaton would no longer face the death penalty. Her documents filed in the Trona County District Court, prosecutors and attorneys agree. Eaton was no longer mentally competent for a death penalty sentencing hearing. For years, Eaton has shown signs of brain deterioration. He's also had multiple strokes. On March 25, 2022, Dale Eden was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

He did make a statement through his attorney. attorneys, according to K2 radio that said he wants to say he's sorry. So there was a lot of legal wranglings and, you know, I didn't want to get too in the weeds on it. Right. I think at the end of the day, life with no possibility of parole, I'm absolutely fine with that. I didn't really see how the, the family felt and which is really all that matters. But this is also what happens when things drag on for what, 34 years. This guy's getting older. Yeah.

He's had a number of strokes. He's got some issues with brain deterioration. Eden is also a suspect in a series of murders in the 1970s. We kind of briefly mentioned it, right? The Great Basin murders. The victims are known as the Star Valley Jane Doe from 1972 and the Elko County, Jane Doe from 1993. Both victims were beaten and shot in the same manner.

They were also dumped. Both of them near I-80 and were posed in shapes resembling crosses. Eaton is also a suspect in the murders of the Devil's Gate, Jane Doe, and the Thousand Springs, Jane Doe. Both victims were found in Elko County. The first Jane Doe was found in October 1972. The second was found in 1974. So, you know, no idea because he didn't come out and take credit or admit his involvement in any of these. And, you know, again, as we kind of wrap this thing up,

Dale Eaton to me didn't seem like a guy who all of a sudden decided to kidnap and murder a woman. The facts of the case lead me to believe he had done it before. Yeah, it's not new to him. It didn't seem like that. Now, we have no way of knowing for sure. We don't. There are two books available online about this case, the murder of Lil Mill Miss by Sheila Kimmel and Rivers of Blood by Robert Scott. It does seem as though many people suspect that Dale Wayne Eaton is a serial killer, but he's not been charged with any murders besides that of Lisa Marie Kimmel. He's currently 78 years old and incarcerated at the Wyoming Medium Correctional

Institution per the Department of Corrections Offender Locator page due to his mental state. it's unlikely. He'll confess or that if he did, his confession would even be considered credible. That's true. But still, if he has something he wants to get off his chest, I think he should. And allow investigators and people close to that case to determine is it credible or not. Yeah, I just don't know how bad off he is. Mentally at this point, he may not even remember all of the things that he's done.

That's true. I have no idea. But that's it for our episode on Dale Wayne Eaton. You know, some interesting facets to this case and, you know, how it took 14 years, but they ultimately ended up getting justice for Lisa, right, which is always an amazing thing. In the end, they got their man. Yeah. Yeah.

We got some voicemails. You want to check those out? Let's hear them. Good afternoon, guys. It's Jenna from Denver, Smile High City. Yes, it is exactly one mile high. It's marked on the capital steps of the state capital. But I wanted to let you know that I'm listening to Chris Crimmers and Lizanne's room.

Denver is not the highest city in the United States. It's Leadville. And you got the state right, but not the city. So Leadville is 10,200 feet. And I do know that they say that the altitude messes with the athletes. But I don't think it does that much. Once you're here for a couple days, it seems to be okay. But I don't know.

Then again, I'm a native, so that's just how it works. But I just wanted to let you know you got the state right, but it's Bloodville, and it's actually almost twice as high in Denver at 10,200 feet, and a mile is 5,280 feet. So I hope you guys are doing well, and I'm looking forward to, I'm still trying to catch up. So I'm just going to listen. keep my own time ticking and you guys do too and I will chat at you'll later.

Thanks. Bye. Now we learn something new every day. I know it. So I was right about the altitude of Denver. I don't remember what I said. Maybe I said Denver was the highest city in the U.S. I don't know where I got that.

I was just making that up. But obviously it's not. This Leadville is twice as high. And the fact that, you know, it doesn't really have that big of an impact on athletes. See, I've been training on my second floor. Mm-hmm. thinking when I come down my first floor, I'm going to be stronger.

Yeah. Because I higher up training, you know? All I know is that I saw an article where LeBron James said playing in Denver was like trying to run through water or something to that effect. He said he was gassed. So it's unlike any other place. Because if you think about it, they're not there for days and days and days to get acclimated. Right.

Now maybe baseball, you know, you try, you go in, you play three games. But basketball, you're just there for one night. And then you fly out to another city. So it's definitely a big home advantage because Denver has the best home record over the last, however many years in the entire NBA. So there's definitely something to it. And they've always said when you go there, you got to hydrate, keep hydrated. Yeah. You get dehydrate real easy.

Not me because I don't exert myself all that much. But, you know, it's one of the places that I will say when I used to go out. there, you would find oxygen tanks, little personal oxygen tanks everywhere. Because people needed them? People might, yeah, they might need them out there. How about that? Hi there. This is Rachel from West Palm Beach, Florida.

I was trying to find a podcast on True Crime for a long time, and I stumbled upon you guys. So I'm kind of gone backwards here. It started with, you know, one of your most recent and then went all the way back to the beginning. So I just finished David Westerfield, and I'm obsessed. I tell all my friends to listen to you guys. You're amazing. I just wanted to say hi, and hopefully I get to hear my voicemail pop up once I get to, you know,

up to date on the podcast. So thanks so much for everything you guys do. You're amazing. And, yeah, keep your own time picking. Bye. West Palm Beach. Well, that sure makes this feel good. It does.

Very much appreciate it. and you will get to hear this at some point. I love when people tell other people about us. Yeah. That's a huge thing. It is. That people probably don't realize how big a deal that is because, you know, is that person going to tell somebody?

And it's kind of a snowball effect, butterfly effect, whatever it's called. I love it, though. All right, buddy, there's no mailbag. Okay. So that's it for another episode of true crime all the time. So for Mike, and give you, stay safe and keep your own time ticking.