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E094: Lucinda Strange
1.5k Plays4 years ago
Hidden behind the facade of being named “The Most Beautiful Town in America” by USA Today is a staggering amount of brutality and death. Lucinda Strange’s family would have never thought in quaint Bardstown, KY their beloved mother and wife would meet such a gruesome end. For more than 30 years this case has remained a mystery. Will the answers to Lucinda’s case remain hidden in this small town?
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Transcript
Starting a Podcast with Buzzsprout
00:00:00
Speaker
Sleuth Hounds. Have you ever considered creating your own podcast? Have you been inspired by listening to some of your favorites and thought, I'd love to try this out on my own? Whether it's a true crime podcast like ours, a motivational podcast, or maybe one filled with tips and strategies for those interested in the same activities you are,
00:00:19
Speaker
When Maggie and I first decided to start our podcast, we knew absolutely nothing about what podcasting would entail. But when we found that the platform Buzzsprout was one for which we didn't need any special equipment, just a computer microphone, some quiet space, and each other, we knew that this was the way to go. It is intuitive to use, fun to play around with, and so helpful in getting analytical data about our number of downloads to track trends and from where our listeners hail. Best yet,
00:00:48
Speaker
Buzzsprout is affordable, even by our teacher salary standards. Buzzsprout will get your podcasts listed on every major podcasting platform. So what are you waiting for? Fulfill that dream of yours and start today.
Nostalgia and True Crime
00:01:02
Speaker
If you use our coffee and cases referral code 709-643, linked on Facebook and in our show notes, not only will you help support our show, but you will receive a $20 Amazon gift card after your second month on a paid plan.
00:01:17
Speaker
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00:01:32
Speaker
One of my favorite things to do is take a walk in the evenings. If I've had a stressful day at work, walking around my neighborhood often makes everything seem better. Growing up in Eastern Kentucky meant that I heard a lot of stories about my aunts and uncles walking out of the holler in the snow to catch the school bus. And to be honest, their walk really wasn't a short one. And my mom laughs that she would often turn around and come back home when she was small instead of trekking the mile or so they had to walk to catch the bus.
00:02:00
Speaker
But my aunts and uncles also talk about how beautiful it was to walk home in the spring. My mom tells stories about one neighbor who always had cookies ready for them to grab as they walked by.
00:02:10
Speaker
and further up the hauler, they would stop and drink from another neighbor's well. Walking takes me back to simpler times. Although I didn't walk a mile to catch the bus, I did have a longer walk than a lot of kids my age. But that quarter of a mile walk was time for me to tell my mom all about my day. It was time for me to decompress after a long day in high school. It allowed me to stop by my granny's house every single day until she passed away to eat a grilled cheese and just laugh with her.
00:02:37
Speaker
Even in college, my mom and I would take walks on the weekends to catch up and enjoy each other's company. Walking is still an escape for me. I often drag Anthony along on my walks, and even though he complains at the start, he usually enjoys it once we get going. For me, walks have a sense of safety.
00:02:54
Speaker
But how many cases have we covered where walks have been anything but safe? We've heard about kids being snatched from walking their dogs or out riding bikes with their friends. And in today's story, a daily walk turns into a nightmare for one family. When a loving mom and wife was found by the road with 40 stab wounds, was it a case of mistaken identity? A crime of opportunity? Really, what happened? This is the case of Lucinda Strange.
00:03:36
Speaker
So.
00:03:57
Speaker
Welcome to Coffee and Cases, where we like our coffee hot and our cases cold. My name is Allison Williams. And my name is Maggie Dameron. We will be telling stories each week in the hopes that someone out there with any information concerning the case will take those tips to law enforcement so justice and closure can be brought to these families.
00:04:17
Speaker
With each case, we encourage you to continue in the conversation on our Facebook page, Coffee and Cases podcast, and to follow us on Instagram at Coffee Cases podcast and on TikTok at Coffee and Cases podcast. Because as these families know, conversation helps to keep their missing family member in the public consciousness, helping to keep their memories alive.
Connecting with Listeners
00:04:40
Speaker
So sit back, sip your coffee, and listen to what's brewing this week. Okay, before we start, Maggie,
00:04:48
Speaker
your intro is so you. Like, if you guys could see what Maggie posts on her Facebook, it's like pictures of fields and like clothes hanging on the clothesline. Why can't we go back to these days and like table full of sweets, you know, like home baked goods and all this stuff. And you know,
00:05:17
Speaker
This country living reminds me also, I have to share with you, Maggie, some conversations I've been having with our listeners on Facebook this week. I did say something about someone talked about the chicken, their chicken. Yes. Back a couple of weeks ago, Sleuth Hounds, we did an episode on Kelly Brannon.
Bardstown's Unsolved Crimes
00:05:38
Speaker
She and her boyfriend had some pet chickens. And so I decided to post on Facebook, if you had chickens, what would you name them?
00:05:48
Speaker
And I had to share some of the responses, some of my favorites. So a girl that I had gone to school with when I was younger, Megan LaMaster Newborn, she said, my chickens have been named Dolores, Melinda, Jenny, Red, Ann, Alice, Rodrigo, Roscoe, Pearl, and Shirley.
00:06:10
Speaker
She has a lot of chicken. Yes, my cousin Rebecca, this was pretty funny. It said she would name her chicken nugget. But the best one, I think, came from Jordan Andrews. And she does have chickens as pets. One is named Henrietta, which is totally what I would name a chicken. But she also has one named Cluck Norris.
00:06:40
Speaker
That's clever. That's funny. I know. So if I ever have a pet chicken, I think I shall name it Cluck Norris Jr. Just name the chickens at your neighbor's house. That's true. Yeah, because my neighbor has them and you know, my stepson and daughter-in-law. So yeah, maybe I should just name theirs. I could live vicariously through them.
00:07:09
Speaker
and not have to step in chicken poop. That's right. So best of both worlds. Yeah. Okay, back to your case, Maggie. Sorry, I just had to share.
00:07:17
Speaker
No, you're fine. So I feel like our Kentucky listeners, you're going to know a lot about what I'm talking about. But for our non Kentucky natives, we may have to explain a little bit in today's case. So if you were to hop on to the Bluegrass Parkway in Kentucky and drive west, you would find what I would call the beautiful town of Bardstown. Like I think Bardstown
00:07:47
Speaker
is just this little gorgeous town nestled right in the heart of the bluegrass. Have you been to Bardstown before? Passing through, yes, but I've never visited there. It is like this quaint little town, but I'm sure you'll get into it. Looks can be deceiving in terms of its crime history.
00:08:11
Speaker
Yes, so Bardstown is like what Allison said like a unique little town. There's 11 distilleries in Bardstown all within like 16 miles of downtown and so for people that don't know
00:08:28
Speaker
So Kentucky is like the bourbon capital of the world. And Bardstown is like, I guess the mega center for bourbon. So that's why we've been because Anthony loves bourbon and I like just the tours, because I'm a nerd. So we've been to a few of the distilleries there. And so that's how I know it. But
00:08:49
Speaker
if you're a bourbon drinker, Bardstown is where you would want to go. And their website says, and this is kind of a long quote, guys, but I thought that it really summed up how you would view, yeah, how you would view Bardstown from the outside. So this came from their website. It says, with an atmosphere that seems to have magically leapt from the paintings of Norman Rockwell and the pages of Mark Twain, see for yourself why Bardstown was declared the most beautiful small town in America by USA Today.
00:09:18
Speaker
Settled in 1780, Bardstown is Kentucky's second oldest city. Throughout Nelson County, there are more than 300 buildings on the National Register of Historic Places, with nearly 200 of them located in the historic downtown district.
00:09:34
Speaker
The stagecoach stop that was built in 1779 still stands today as a tavern, restaurant, and bed and breakfast. It's not just the town structures that have stayed the same. You'll also find the friendly attitude and southern charm that can only be found in such a small town. It's a place where neighbors still borrow cups of sugar. I love that. The borrowing the cups of sugar.
00:10:01
Speaker
How did you? It's like what you were saying, like those memories of like, you know, your mom and your aunts and uncles. I mean, that's totally something that happened in the small town where I grew up too. I mean, if you needed something, you could rely on your neighbor for it. And I also love the Norman Rockwell reference because my grandma had Norman Rockwell like plates and mugs up on her mantle and I still have some of them. Aww.
00:10:30
Speaker
But I feel like that description brings back so many sweet memories for us. But like Allison said, looks can be deceiving because what their website fails to mention is the crazy amounts of unsolved murders within this small town. And by crazy, Maggie means crazy. Yes.
00:10:56
Speaker
I don't know if it's like a curse that comes with being named like the most beautiful small town in like the United States, but like this little town is almost like it's cursed.
00:11:11
Speaker
I'm gonna briefly just so our listeners kind of get a feel for this small town I'm gonna briefly talk about a few and I think I talk like about maybe five or seven Unsolved murders within this town. So just very very briefly before we get in so one
00:11:31
Speaker
Unsolved murder is that of Jason Ellis. So this death literally was in shockwaves through the small community in 2013. He was a 33-year-old Bardstown police officer. He was a seven-year veteran of the department. He was a member of the K-9 unit and Jason had just gotten off work and was driving home when he found like a stack of freshly cut tree limbs
Lucinda Strange Case Details
00:12:00
Speaker
blocking the exit ramp that he was on off the Bluegrass Parkway. He, of course, exits his police cruiser and he's ambushed. According to WCPO, he was fatally shot multiple times with a 12-gauge shotgun.
00:12:22
Speaker
Yeah. And all these stories, I'm sure, Maggie, that you're going to tell, just like the Jason Ellis one. If you're from Kentucky, these are pretty well known. And like with Jason Ellis, I'm fairly certain something had happened. He didn't have, because like you said, he's a member of the K-9 unit, but he didn't have his dog with him at the time. And I feel like the shots
00:12:48
Speaker
if I remember correctly, came from like both sides of the road. So this truly was an ambush. Yeah, I think it was like his, he wasn't in his, for some reason he didn't have his K-9 car. He was like in a different cruiser. So the dog wasn't with him. But yeah, it was like the people were on a knoll and like shot him when he was on the road. So another one is in April of 2014. So what is that? Like a year?
00:13:19
Speaker
There was another murder that yet again would turn Bardstown upside down, except this time it was a double homicide with 48-year-old Kathy Netherland and her 16-year-old daughter, Samantha. This one freaks me out. All these are freaky, but this one just really freaks me out. Their bodies were discovered by Kathy's father after she failed to show up at work because she was a special education teacher.
00:13:49
Speaker
at Bardstown Elementary School and according to their autopsies and a report that was on wave three, Kathy, the mom, had been shot multiple times while Samantha had been bludgeoned on the head and both women showed knife wounds to their necks. Yeah, and that one creeped a lot of people out too because
00:14:14
Speaker
they were murdered in different ways. So normally, you know, I guess, you know, if someone is there with a gun, then both victims would be shot.
00:14:26
Speaker
but there were different injuries. The next mystery that fell upon Bardstown was the disappearance of 35-year-old Crystal Rogers in 2015. She was last seen on July 3rd at the home that she shared with her boyfriend Brooks and their two-year-old son and another child. Two days later,
00:14:48
Speaker
Her mother reported her missing and that same day, which is crazy, her car was found abandoned along the bluegrass parkway with a flat tire, but all of her belongings were still in the vehicle. So, can I make two comments? Yeah. Number one,
00:15:08
Speaker
Well, actually three comments. I lied. Number one, Maggie and I have wanted to cover Crystal Rogers case. And many people have suggested Crystal Rogers, but Maggie and I don't want to die. Yeah. Because of my second comment, which is the belief that all of these murders that Maggie is talking about, so towns, people believe they are connected.
00:15:32
Speaker
So these are not, in a lot of people's minds, like isolated incidents. They are all part of one ring of crime.
00:15:44
Speaker
And also, I wouldn't even, I mean, yes, obviously, I don't wanna die. But Crystal Rogers' case, Jason Ellis' case, and the double homicide case, and then the next one I'm gonna talk about, those have all received a lot of coverage. I mean, there's documentaries on Amazon Prime, there's probably documentaries on Netflix, there's a ton of podcasts. And Crystal's family has stayed super vigilant
00:16:13
Speaker
about keeping her case like fresh in everyone's mind almost to the point that some people, maybe not necessarily her family, but some people think it's almost borderline harassment to persons involved or possibly involved in the case, you know. But can I tell you the third thing that is breaking news, Maggie. Yeah. Like today.
00:16:39
Speaker
Oh, FBI went into Bardstown again to look at rental property owned by the main suspect and they had cadaver dogs. Just saying. So, and that was literally two day.
00:17:00
Speaker
Yeah, actually Laura that we worked with, you know, at the school you still teach at. She's the one who told me about it. She texted me, I have yet to text her back, so I need to do that. Yeah, she told me about it. She came down to my room.
00:17:13
Speaker
This is what people know us for. All of our friends at school know our true crime obsession. They just feed into it. The next one we're going to talk about is Crystal's father, Tommy, was actually fatally shot in the chest by an unknown gunman while he was out hunting with his 11-year-old grandson on their family property.
00:17:34
Speaker
So they obviously have ruled his death. The homicide, we do not know who is responsible for that, but as Allison mentioned,
00:17:44
Speaker
A lot of people believe all of these cases are linked. Some lesser known ones is in April of 2000, Kent Harlan Hardin, which was so hard for me to say, was discovered in a wooded area and he had been murdered. There was a man named George Lawless.
00:18:10
Speaker
Uh-huh. Look at me. And he was bludgeoned to death on November 14th of 1991 in this small town. So, I mean, just right there was like seven unsolved cases within the most beautiful town in America, Bardstown, Kentucky. Yeah. So the most beautiful and the most brutal in America.
00:18:32
Speaker
Yeah, and like Allison said, I feel like a lot of people know some of the cases that I just listed, but many people have either forgotten or don't know about Lucinda Strange, and that is the center of today's episode. Well, I'll be the first to say I've never heard of Lucinda's case.
00:18:50
Speaker
Well, her case, her, you know, staying like right on par is also very graphic. Oh. So Lucinda and her husband, Jeremy, moved to Nelson County in 1983 and they wanted to live on like a small, like they wanted like a little farm. So they moved on to like a small 10 acre farm. Which is pretty small for a farm. Yeah. Yeah.
00:19:18
Speaker
And in every source that I read, it appeared that they were like truly happy in this home that they have built together at 129 Clarktown Road in Bardstown with their son and their daughter.
00:19:30
Speaker
In the months and years that followed their move to Nelson County, the family quickly settled into their lives in Bardstown. Lucinda began working as a hostess at the Holiday Inn. As a way to decompress, she started taking daily afternoon walks to relax after work, as well as get some exercise in.
00:19:53
Speaker
One report I read said that even though Lucinda got home from work a little late on March 25th 1990 so that's when our story takes place because she had like a training at work she still was determined to get her daily walk in and I read also that like it didn't matter if she got home from work at 2 30 in the morning or 2 30 in the afternoon or like
00:20:17
Speaker
10 o'clock at night, she was going to get her walk in for the day. She walked every day. She's dedicated. I mean, that is dedication, but I think at some point I'd be like, oh, well, I've missed my window. Yeah, well, I applaud her because I literally had six Oreos dipped in milk for dinner today.
00:20:38
Speaker
You know, Lucinda. Reports say that on this particular day, on the 25th, Lucinda left her house at around 7, 10 p.m. and her husband recalled in an interview with WDRB, quote, she said, I'm going to walk now and walked out the door. Okay, so normal.
00:21:00
Speaker
After Lucinda left, Jeremy recalls sitting down to watch some TV on the couch and drifting off to sleep. So this is more Maggie, right? Yeah, it's more Allison too. Like I'll be the one sitting on the couch. Take a little nappy nap. That's right.
00:21:15
Speaker
And actually, Allison, do you remember a time in your life, this brought back some, it unlocked some memories for me. When you would sit down as a child to watch a movie with your mom or your grandma, and you would make them promise, swear to me, you will not fall asleep. And they would be like, oh, I swear, I swear, I won't fall asleep. And then the next thing you know, they're snoring on the couch while Dorothy's dropping a house on the Wicked Witch.
00:21:42
Speaker
Oh, first of all, so glad you made a Wizard of Oz reference because that is our favorite movie. So it's a bond. And our husbands get mad because we recite literally every single word. I mean, I can like spit it out right now. Yeah.
00:22:00
Speaker
Um, but yes, I totally remember that and now I feel like i'm the one making those empty promises Yeah, like literally anthony was like because i'm like the person I want I like to if i'm going to watch a movie and it's like later at night Like I want to cuddle down in bed and watch the movie So anthony is opposite like he wants to be like in the living room before watching tv or whatever and so he was like
00:22:26
Speaker
Do you want to go into the bedroom and watch a movie? And I was like, sure. And so like he even let me pick the movie. And so I picked like, um, I can't even remember now. That's how tired I was. What's the one where he goes to like the, oh, like the museum comes to life. Not at the museum. Not at the museum. Yeah. Yeah. So I picked that one and like we sat down or lay down to watch the movie and I was literally out cold in 10 minutes. Oh yeah.
00:22:53
Speaker
Mean I can be wide awake talking and like two seconds later now same So that's what happened to Jeremy and when he wakes up. It's about an hour later and Lucinda still wasn't home So like if you're a slow walker, you can walk like a mile in an hour So I feel like that's like she would had been gone for a while I was gonna ask like how long her normal walks were but I guess that's something we might not know I
00:23:19
Speaker
Yeah, I did not read anywhere like where it said how long her normal walks were, but I'm assuming they weren't an hour because he was concerned when he woke up. Okay.
00:23:31
Speaker
And what happened next was something that no one would have really ever expected to happen. He said so about an hour later when he woke up, it was to someone knocking on his door. Oh, which is weird. And when he pulled the door open, it was his neighbor. And he heard his neighbor say, quote, there's somebody down here along the side of the road.
00:23:53
Speaker
What? Okay, that's a weird comment to make. Like, there is somebody. First of all, if the neighbor saw somebody along the side of the road, why didn't the neighbor check to see who it was? And if the neighbor knows who it is, why would the neighbor say somebody?
00:24:13
Speaker
I think that somebody may have been not to cause so much alarm in Jeremy's house because his kid or his daughter at least is home at the time. So I think- Then why wouldn't the neighbor just be like, hey, hey, Jeremy, come outside with me for a second.
00:24:30
Speaker
Yeah, there's another weird oddity about that that I'm going to bring up towards the end and you're going to ask more questions that we don't have answers to.
Theories and Connections
00:24:40
Speaker
Okay. So as this driver was passing by, Jeremy and Lucinda's house, he saw something in the ditch just about 150 yards away from the Strange family home.
00:24:50
Speaker
So that's when he stops and a 911 call goes out at about 9 p.m. And Jeremy supposedly according to everything I've read ran the short distance to see who was lying in the ditch and You know, we've all talked about
00:25:10
Speaker
that small voice in her head when the world's going to crap and you're that still there's a voice in your head that's like, no, everything's fine. Everything you're fine. Everything's fine. Yeah, I can't be this bad. And so I'm sure sure that Jeremy was battling that, you know, trying to ignore that gnawing feeling and reassure himself. But the situation that he ran up to was literally anything but fine. His worst fears had been confirmed.
00:25:37
Speaker
because lying in that ditch just a mere 150 yards from Jeremy's front door was Lucinda with her earphones and radio laying close by her. So that in and of itself is heart shattering. Did they tell like what had happened? Well, that's part of the problem. Oh.
00:26:05
Speaker
Yeah. We'll talk about that too. Okay. Okay. So in an even more heartbreaking scene that I read, Jeremy describes that his 16 year old daughter came running after him when he ran. And, you know, I guess just to see what was happening and in an effort to protect her from like seeing such a devastating state, he actually took his jacket off and covered up the crumpled and bleeding mother. So she wouldn't have to see the body.
00:26:35
Speaker
I mean, I understand why he did, but that's not what you do. Oh, that's not even what I said we were going to talk about that happened to this scene. Oh my gosh. Instead, he needs to run over to his daughter and move her away. They don't need to be touching anything or covering anything up because that contaminates.
00:26:54
Speaker
Well, sadly, Allison, Lucinda's death is initially ruled a hit and run. So because of this conclusion, her body was moved. Maggie. Yes. Oh, so basically all potential evidence that they could have gotten then is gone.
00:27:20
Speaker
because they did that. Yeah, it does really hamper the crime scene. And then the Kentucky Standard, it said, quote, it was initially reported when they found her as a hit and run, so she was moved. The coroner came, pronounced her dead, and she was moved, said Nelson County Sheriff Steven Campbell. And Campbell at the time was a Kentucky State Police Detective, and his role in Lucinda's case would soon become much more important.
00:27:48
Speaker
Wow. So at this point at the beginning, she doesn't come home. The neighbor sees her calls 911, then goes get to get Jeremy to bring him down. They see her and they, the police come, the corner comes and they basically say it appears to be a hit and run.
00:28:10
Speaker
I think what actually happened was the neighbor saw her, went to see Jeremy, the 911 call came in, the coroner comes, she's pronounced dead, it's a hit and run and they move her body. Okay. So the 911 call comes after Jeremy's told someone's in the ditch. Okay.
00:28:29
Speaker
So the coroner at the time was Sunning Greenwell and he's actually who made the disturbing discovery that we're going to talk about and it's at that time Campbell is assigned to loosen this case because I'm
00:28:45
Speaker
Like, I don't know that we fully grasp the magnitude of what happened to Lucinda, but she was stabbed 40 times. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Okay. My initial question
00:29:10
Speaker
is how she could if the crime occurred right at the spot where she was found, which I don't know if we know that or not, or if that was in any of the research. But if she's only 150 yards from the house, why did no one hear screaming?
00:29:29
Speaker
Well, I'm assuming that well, obviously that it's not like, you know, subdivision like mine or even yours, right? Because they remember they live on a 10 acre farm. Oh, okay. So it's not like they have houses a couple hundred feet away from them. So that's, I guess. So the fact that, you know, a neighbor even was driving by and saw her when he did.
00:29:56
Speaker
Right. And I mean, I know like when we looked to build, when we were thinking about building, like we looked at a subdivision in Georgetown and it was kind of like that, like all the lots were like five to 10 acres. So it was still in a subdivision, but the lots were like bigger than your typical like acre less subdivision you get in central Kentucky. So, I mean, maybe they still lived in a neighborhood, but it would have been like a larger neighborhood. Okay.
00:30:24
Speaker
but stabbed 40 times. Yeah, and she was actually like one of her cuts was so deep that it like gashed the corner of her mouth.
00:30:35
Speaker
And I also read that she was dealt a severe blow to the back of her head. I don't know if it was like by maybe the other end of the murder weapon, but yeah, I read that there was a severe blow to the back of her head. There were also several defense wounds on Lucinda's body showing that she tried to fight off the attacker. So I'm really honestly not sure like how this was confused as a hit and run, even for the short amount of time that it was, but it apparently was.
00:31:05
Speaker
I would think that even visually, the wounds would look completely different. Right. I mean, maybe she was just so, like this is graphic, but maybe she was just so bloody. Oh. Hell at the time, maybe. Yeah. That makes sense. I mean, essentially, she bled out like 150 yards from her house.
00:31:32
Speaker
Jeremy talks about, and this I think is also just really sad, but talks about driving to Berea, which again is not super far away from Bardstown, another like central Kentucky, super tiny town. And actually the place of the very first episode Allison and I ever did Brooklyn Farthing. That's right.
00:31:54
Speaker
Um, but he drove there to tell his 21 year old son Travis that his mother was hit by a car. And he said in an interview, I can't remember whether they told me right then or later on that morning that they told me she'd been stabbed to death. It was like I had to tell my kids twice.
00:32:12
Speaker
Oh my gosh. Yeah, which I had not thought about when I was initially researching the case. But then like when I found spread that it would be like that. I mean, you're initially telling them their mom was hit by a car and now you're saying, no, she was murdered. And now I feel like how you process that's completely different. Like the first obviously both are traumatic. Especially because it was a hit run if she had been hit by a car.
00:32:39
Speaker
And then you're like oh my gosh how could something accidental like this. Happen like why my mom but then when you hear instead that it's murder then it's even those are even deeper questions like how could this happen to my mom. Right.
00:32:59
Speaker
And like you said, Allison, because Lucinda's body was moved, many investigators say that critical evidence was lost at the scene of the crime because they do believe that the scene of the crime was where she was found. And her husband expresses those same worries today about how the investigation started.
00:33:21
Speaker
that the scene was never blocked off, it was never secured. Even the next day to look for evidence, he said, it just wasn't what we would think about. When we think about a typical crime scene now, I know we've covered cases where crime scenes weren't
00:33:41
Speaker
investigated properly or even at all in some cases but you know we know the smallest most insignificant clue can really pan out to be a game changer like i can't think off the top of my head but i know we've had several where
00:33:57
Speaker
you know, just crime scenes were not treated as such. Right. So basically like the Paige Wankowski case where she's missing, her car is abandoned on the side of the road, like keys in the ignition, her shoe in it, and they just
00:34:13
Speaker
Toe it off. Yeah, basically. And the investigator Campbell said, quote, they may have lost no telling what kind of physical evidence. I think law enforcement handles things differently now. End quote. And like, I would really hope so. Like, yeah, I hope things differently. Even though the crime scene was like, I guess you could say tampered with the investigators were able to find some pieces of evidence at the scene and OK.
00:34:43
Speaker
Even though what I could find said that they were small pieces of evidence, I couldn't find exactly what they were. According to the Kentucky Standard, the evidence could be tested with today's technology. And from what I read, it hasn't been tested since 2004. So back in 1990, we just didn't have
00:35:06
Speaker
the technology capabilities that we have now. So they tested it in 2004 and they're hoping that they can test it again because you know things have advanced even more since 2004. Right.
00:35:22
Speaker
So at the scene of another murder that happened around the same time, I didn't find a name. This was just in like maybe the Kentucky Standard that I read. They actually found a knife and it fit the profile of the knife that was used to kill Lucinda. So they think that those could be tied together. Campbell said- So like a serial killer? Maybe.
00:35:48
Speaker
Or, I mean, or, or these two women are somehow connected then the hours just a coincidence that they
00:35:56
Speaker
use the same murder weapon, which I find highly unlikely, but. Right. Campbell actually said, quote, the blade width would have fit her wounds, the blade length would have fit her wounds and there was blood on it. End quote. But I did read that the quantity of blood was too small to be tested to see that if it was hurt. Darn it. No, so close.
00:36:23
Speaker
Campbell though still suspects the man who committed the other murder also should be a suspect in Lucinda's case. And I guess that they have spoken to this suspect. I did not see where the suspect was named, but this person refused to talk to investigators at the time and evidence remains too circumstantial. It would be like going on a hunch, Campbell said. If we were to arrest him, it was in this case.
00:36:53
Speaker
Yeah, yes, exactly. And as we mentioned above, you know, Lucinda's DNA was sent out, or not Lucinda's DNA, but the DNA with Lucinda's case was sent out for further testing in 2004, you know, because DNA had advanced enough that that small amount could be tested.
00:37:12
Speaker
And we know at that time in 2004, some suspects were ruled out, but investigators have refused to specify who was ruled out. And I searched and couldn't find anywhere where suspects were officially named in Lucinda's case. Maybe I just wasn't typing in the correct name, but I couldn't find anywhere where they had named a suspect. I'm guessing because that DNA sample was such a small sample size that they keep emphasizing that.
00:37:41
Speaker
I wonder if, like you said, there's just not enough because you know if there's trace DNA or something like that. I mean, that could literally be left by like me touching your backpack that you then are carrying Yeah, or like the person who may be packaged the knife. Right, right.
00:38:02
Speaker
And like, this is probably a very stupid question, but you know, I'm not a professional in this, but I wonder if things are so small and they're tested, like can they, can it come to a point where they cannot, can no longer be tested? Like we have a sample and we just run out of DNA. I'm pretty sure the answer's yes. Cause I know sometimes they save, like it'll, they'll be like, we need to wait until the technology catches up before we test this.
00:38:32
Speaker
Right. And that alone, I guess, indicates that, yeah, that there's a limited, like if I just have a little snippet of a shirt and I can only cut so many smaller snippets off of it to send away for testing. So if it's already a small sample, that could be why they keep waiting. One investigator did say this about the DNA samples the investigating team has. He said, quote,
00:39:01
Speaker
With the change in the tests and the abilities that our lab has, hopefully we can resend some of this evidence from the case to the lab and hopefully can start to steer this case in the right direction.
00:39:13
Speaker
And he wouldn't specify what pieces of evidence may be tested, though he acknowledged that the knife may be one piece of that evidence. Oh, so because they have the knife from the other murderer, they could test it to match the DNA from Lucinda's case.
Ongoing Efforts and Community Impact
00:39:35
Speaker
Yeah, because remember they said that there was blood on that knife, but it was too small at this time to test. So they're hoping that the technology catches up. And while a lot of the evidence may be, like we may be keeping it hush, hush, investigators really did explore a lot of avenues in Lucinda's case. So I read that they interviewed coworkers. They checked out rumors about a drug deal at the Holiday Inn, but those rumors kind of fizzled out.
00:40:03
Speaker
They interviewed a transient spotted in the area, but concluded there was really no reason to suspect him of doing anything. In the early stages, they received phone calls and tips. Many of them were anonymous, but none of them led to much of anything. One investigator said, there's a constant revolving door of suspects and people in this case, but yet
00:40:28
Speaker
Nothing. Now, some oddities I do want to mention about the case before we talk about some possible theories. One odd thing that I read that happened, and I don't remember exactly where I read this, was about a month before Lucinda's death, the strange family home had actually been broken into.
00:40:54
Speaker
The burglar was never found and I read this like they just took little insignificant items like nothing of real value. Okay, that's even creepier to me. Yeah, me too. Like somebody's gonna break into my house and steal like I don't know a lampshade and a bag of popcorn like that's more invasive to me than coming in and like stealing a tv and a laptop. Yeah, they're taking like
00:41:19
Speaker
a t-shirt out of your like dirty laundry. Really weird. Yeah. That creeps me out. Me too. And this one, this second oddity, like
00:41:33
Speaker
Everything I've read in it said it could just be like a miss. I don't want to really say communication, but basically a mistake in timestamps, kind of. So I don't know if you caught it, Allison, but the first report that comes into police
00:41:50
Speaker
Is at 9 p.m. Right? That's when they're saying that the 911 call came in by the motorist that was like believed that there was a body beside of the road, right? And they went up to Jeremy's house.
00:42:05
Speaker
But she began walking at like eight, 10 and someone knocked. Yeah, sorry. Seven, 10 and someone knocked on their front door about the body around an hour later. So like if the 911 call came in at nine, why was it an hour later?
00:42:27
Speaker
Okay. Yes. So here's my mind is racing. Okay. First of all, I also caught that you said it was a neighbor who came to tell Jeremy, but it's a passing motorist who's calling 911. Well, I think that's the same person. I think he's called, they're called different things in different articles than I read because one calls them passing motorist, one calls them a passing neighbor.
00:42:54
Speaker
But if he went to go tell Jeremy at eight, what happened in that hour? So I'm wondering if, so I guess the big thing is, which I didn't read definitively. So if, if he calls 911 then goes and gets Jeremy, which I don't think could have happened if this timeline is correct, right? Because if he gets Jeremy at eight, Jeremy gets to the body, you know, maybe it's like,
00:43:24
Speaker
inconsolable and then finally he's able to pull himself together at nine o'clock for them to make the 911 call. But Jeremy doesn't make the call. Right I feel like we're missing a piece of information here that needs to be covered in we need an update and then in the news so we can figure out this timeline a little bit better. Yeah that doesn't. So maybe a listener out there since this is a local case will know
00:43:52
Speaker
something that was missed in news articles because I feel like that is I don't like it doesn't really make me suspicious of Jeremy I mean he obviously I'm sure was looked into right because he's the last person to see Lucinda right like that doesn't make me suspicious of him it just makes me feel like that information got miss like jumbled around at some point mm-hmm
00:44:22
Speaker
So I mentioned briefly, okay, so obviously briefly we have to say that Jeremy was interviewed by police. None of the investigators ever believed that he was the killer. He's never named a suspect. And that's really the theory of Jeremy. Like we don't believe Jeremy did this. Okay. So I mentioned briefly that drugs were possibly thrown out as
00:44:50
Speaker
like a reason behind this murder. Oh, at the Holiday Inn? Yeah, because many people suspected that like drugs were related somehow. Rumors spread, Ryan, this is a small town, that a big drug bust had occurred at the Holiday Inn only about a week before Lucinda was murdered and she was actually supposedly working the knot at this drug bust.
00:45:14
Speaker
um there's no information that she was a user but she was just there and many people like said that she would have been an informant to the police and you know that if that's the case then i'm sure that's what made her a target yeah it's like april pitzer yeah when the police were like be an informant for us it'll turn out great and then
00:45:43
Speaker
It doesn't turn out great. No. Um, another thing that was brought up in my research was like, could this have been a planned attack? I mean, I'm not really sure why we would plan an attack on, you know, this woman who seemingly kept to herself and was like a loving mother and wife. But I mean, she did only managed to make it 150 yards away from her house. And she was only gone about 10 minutes before the attack occurred.
00:46:13
Speaker
Oh so that's info. I didn't know that. Yeah. So so she's found an hour later but they can tell that the attack occurred that quickly after she left. I mean I'm thinking that they think it almost has to have because she's not far enough away from her house for it to be any much later. I guess in my head I was thinking she could have been walking back.
00:46:37
Speaker
Well, I guess that's true too. But yeah, everything says that it was not like she hadn't been out very long. See. Okay. But then I feel like again, I feel like she would have screamed. And then I just wish Jeremy had not been a deep sleeper or whatever, you know, and that if it happened that soon after that he would have heard it. Yeah. And.
00:47:04
Speaker
You know, we talk about that all the time. The what ifs in cases just like this case last week. I mean, he's driving and he knows she's in that truck and his car breaks down. Right.
00:47:20
Speaker
So, I mean, life sometimes just isn't really sucky. Yeah. But I mean, we know she goes on these daily walks. So someone could have been waiting for her. The only problem I have with this theory is the fact that she walks at all different times of the day. So like, is this person just like circling her neighborhood, waiting for her to come out? Like, yeah, like, I just feel like that's not what would happen.
00:47:49
Speaker
Yeah, it's not like she went at 3.15 every single day. Right, and you would know to be outside the house at 3 o'clock or whatever. It's different times every day.
00:48:02
Speaker
In an interview with WDRB, Jeremy said, and this I thought was kind of like, okay, could this be that he thinks his wife's death could have been a case of mistaken identity, which again, we covered not very long ago.
00:48:21
Speaker
Yeah. What? Like last week, right? And so this theory was only mentioned briefly in that one interview, but I mean, it could be possible. Again, I feel like that far out in the country, if we're that far in this rural area, I hate that word. Y'all already know. I know. I know. I went ahead and said it.
00:48:50
Speaker
But if we're that far out that it's, you know, kind of odd that a neighbor would even happen to be passing by because, you know, you're on a 10 acre tract, just you, then I don't feel like this were necessarily just random. So I don't believe a random theory.
00:49:21
Speaker
I'm not a big fan of the hit and run because again, it's not like this is a well-traveled area either, you know, plus obviously the stab wounds. There's a problem there. I am going to go with the burglar. To me, it's almost like, again, she was targeted for a reason. I don't know what that reason is. I don't know if this was just
00:49:51
Speaker
If it's linked to that other murder, and this is a serial killer, you know, because some of them even some of the ones we talked about last week they stalk their victims first. And the fact that the burglar broke in and stole in consequential things.
00:50:07
Speaker
Like I said, that's invasive. And that, it's almost like to me, they were looking for information. That it was more about finding out about Lucinda than taking anything. And I don't know, something about that burglary gives me the creeps and it makes me think that it has to be tied to her death. I agree with you.
00:50:37
Speaker
The death of Lucinda turned her family's lives upside down. The family would soon move not long after her death. This was the house Lucinda and Jeremy had built together. They'd planned on staying there for a long time, but sadly her daughter was too scared to stay in that family home.
00:50:56
Speaker
Lucinda's family has had to learn to live without her. Her grandkids will never get to know her. Her children have gone through so many milestones without their mother. So much love, so many hugs, so many memories just ripped away. It's heartbreaking.
00:51:11
Speaker
Each year near the anniversary of Lucinda's death, her sister-in-law Lucy places an ad in the Kentucky Standard seeking information about the murder and reminding Lucinda's killer about the brutal death they inflicted upon her sister-in-law. One ad read, quote, 24 years ago on March 25th, 1990, you ended the life of Lucinda Strange by stabbing her more than 40 times in the chest and back.
00:51:37
Speaker
You used your knife to make a deep gash to the corner of her mouth. You dealt a severe blow to her head. You left her to bleed to death on Clarktown Road. You robbed family and friends of having this loving person to be a part of their lives. You are a cold-blooded murderer.
00:51:58
Speaker
Even though Barstown has an estimated population of just over 13,000 people, it has a dark and scary history. It's hard to imagine that in such a tiny town, so many murders have gone unsolved. Lucinda has been dead for over 30 years. In a town that small, someone has to know something.
00:52:18
Speaker
Sadly, even when the family has offered rewards, no calls have came in.
Listener Engagement and Call to Action
00:52:24
Speaker
Lucinda's case is slowly being forgotten and we can't let that happen. We have to keep her case. In the public's eye, we have to find justice for her and for her family. Investigators from Post 4 Elizabethtown are asking anyone with information regarding the murder of Mary Lucinda Strange to contact Lieutenant Ezra Stout with the Kentucky State Police Post 4 Elizabethtown.
00:52:47
Speaker
at 270-766-5078 or email him at ezra.stout at ky.gov and that's E-Z-R-A period S-T-O-U-T at ky.gov.
00:53:07
Speaker
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00:53:29
Speaker
Please tell your friends about our podcast so that more people can be reached to possibly help bring some closure to these families. Don't forget to write our show and leave us a comment as well. We hope to hear from you soon. Stay together. Stay safe. We'll see you next week.