Transcript
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Speaker: This is True Crime XS.
Speaker: It is very strange to look down and see that this is the season six premiere. That is a really long time. That is 300 and some episodes of sitting down and like putting together true crime stories.
Speaker: And 2025, we took a little bit of a break because you had just been editing like a lot of episodes so we could put out the holiday stuff.
Speaker: And then we did, we had an interview and we did one of the trials that you and I had sort of been looking at. But I thought what we would do to kick off this year is well, first of all, we have several things going on in the background, um including a possible series ah for He Was Here, which was, if you haven't listened to that yet, you should go back and listen to the Jay Pohill story.
Speaker: um There may be an update to Jay Pohill's story ah coming. I have ah recently been in touch with the state's attorney's office up in Illinois but that handles Cook County.
Speaker: And they're having a, we'll call it a changing of the guard. Basically someone knew was going to be in that role who seems a little more receptive to what I had to say about his story. had texted with his mom over the holidays and um talked about his case a little bit. well We have another case of ah that we may put into like the limited series, He Was Here.
Speaker: um we have... an older story that you and I already covered that we may have a new perspective on. ah think we're going to be able to cover that in several episodes.
Speaker: ah but the case that was older, it, it caught some people's attention and they left us some messages over the holidays. So I don't know how to explain this part, but whenever somebody has a contradictory opinion to something I've said, i like to take a look at it.
Speaker: and I've kind of brought it to you and I was like, what do you think about this? And I think it makes a good story. I think it gives the opportunity for some folks who are like kind of literally boots on the ground and something to give us their perspective. I don't know how i I like, like view it overall. Cause I haven't had a chance to dive into it, but I'm i'm sure I will as the spring rolls um along.
Speaker: ah What I wanted to do today though, specifically was to cover a couple of things that sort of, either popped up in the news or they had like a press release about them come out, just asking for more attention to the case.
Speaker: And one or two of them, we've kind of talked about on the fringes of things. I thought we would start off with one that like, yeah i wonder about this guy, like what else has he done and been up to?
Speaker: He appears to sort of been caught for everything that he's done. But ah do you remember the, American nightmare story about Aaron and Denise Huskins?
Speaker: Of course. So the guy there, Matt Muller, Matthew Muller, he's already serving 40 year sentence for kidnapping Denise Huskins.
Speaker: And what's interesting is there's an update in that case. I pulled a CBS News article because it kind of synopsized this without us having to go all the way back through it. But ah for those of you who don't know, Matthew Muller was ah a gentleman who committed ah a home invasion. has a very interesting backstory.
Speaker: um He's pretty well educated. he seems to have some kind of mental health issue, but not like on the like disabling ah what you do type of mental health issues, more like ah devious. And i mean, to be quite honest, he's, he's got something inside of him that that's looks pretty evil.
Speaker: His, his mug shots, he's kind of got the dead eye look and I hadn't wondered what else he had been up to. And we know a little bit more about him now from the CBS news article. It just says kidnapper ah Matthew Muller pleads guilty to new sexual assault charges.
Speaker: And it says that he pled guilty Friday, which I would have to do a little math to figure out which Friday they're talking about. I believe this is early January 2025 in Santa Clara County court to new charges stemming from a pair of home invasion, sexual assaults.
Speaker: So Mueller, a Sacramento area native, according to this article was convicted in the kidnapping of Huskins in Vallejo, California back 2015. 10 years ago,
Speaker: He's serving a sentence in Arizona for rape and false imprisonment in what police initially thought was a hoax. um They do mention in this article that the Netflix documentary American Nightmare details this case.
Speaker: came out in 2024. If you haven't seen it, it's ah it's a very interesting watch. They do have a lot of details in that. um But the documentary ended up leading to criticism of the Vallejo police for their handling of the kidnapping, which if you were following the case in real time...
Speaker: To be quite honest, there was criticism all along because they didn't know how to deal with it. They were kind of writing it off as a gone girl type situation.
Speaker: it was sort of ah ah compared to Sherry Papini. i can't i can't remember which one happened first. So Sherry Papini's... kidnapping hoax, whatever you want to call it. She disappeared November 2nd, 2016. So that would have been after, but see, ah the American Nightmare case took place in March of 2015. Okay.
Speaker: And so ah what the, what law enforcement did with the case was it wasn't great. However, with all the research we've done on all the cases that we've covered, it was an unbelievable thing.
Speaker: yeah I'm not giving them an excuse, but... in his it's almost it's a very unique situation because even with Sherry Papini, she orchestrated that, right?
Speaker: Herself. Yes, yes. And this was a case where it defied logic and then she survived. And then they persevered, which is it's the worst thing to watch a victim be...
Speaker: victimized yet again by law enforcement by, because they were told, like, we knew that you were in on this and this was, you know, it was a whole thing, right? Yeah. Until savvy investigator found some DNA. Yep.
Speaker: And, All of a sudden, everything unraveled. And of course, this dear this wasn't his only crime, right? Of course. I'm not even the slightest bit surprised that he's pled guilty to something else.
Speaker: He is exactly where he belongs. Yeah. So the new charges, they get brought forward in December 2024. twenty twenty four And the claims from the Santa Clara County District Attorney there were that Mueller had broken into multiple homes, one in Mountain View and one in Palo Alto, many, many years ago.
Speaker: So one of, ah actually both of these, i was going to say one of these, but both of these, these attacks take place within weeks of each other back in 2009. One's in September, one's in October, and they're unsolved.
Speaker: They had identified Mueller as a possible suspect in one case, but couldn't charge him. And then, like you said, with DNA, they were able to charge him in both of those cases.
Speaker: So the end result of this is that he is now pled guilty. And so basically his m MO, which is a weird one, he breaks into homes.
Speaker: He gives unsuspecting women medication or something to basically intoxicate them or sedate them. And then he sexually assaults them.
Speaker: ah So he's going to have a sentencing coming up in February of 2025 because he's pled guilty to these charges. And like you said, I'm of the mindset he's going to be exactly where he should be.
Speaker: Right. And even it's it's interesting because his MO even changed. Because she was taken, right yeah Yeah, she was abducted. And that's part of... and The craziest thing about that whole situation was how he orchestrated it to look like there were multiple people involved.
Speaker: Yeah. Do you remember that? He had legs and it was just so weird. And something that didn't make sense to me... was yeah I don't think he was ever going to kill anybody.
Speaker: and that's really strange. Yeah, so I think if he did kill over time, I think it would have been he would be killing to dispose of witnesses.
Speaker: It wouldn't be because he got off on killings. Well, and it's fortunate that he was taken into custody before he could he realized that DNA could... identify him right yeah because i feel like you're exactly right he would have killed uh to do away with witnesses he just felt like he had it all figured out so to speak and honestly without like a couple of investigators that were really paying attention like he almost did yeah Yeah, I think this is the type of crime that like potentially, because of the way technology works now in terms of criminology, I think eventually he would have been caught, but i think he would have gotten away with doing a lot more of this had he been able to get it together.
Speaker: Right, and I do think he would have evolved and ended up possibly being a murderer. I'm not sure... ah what I do feel like that goes beyond like being a psychopath to being you know
Speaker: it just really sadistic and messed up. It's just a weird thing. It really is because, I don't know, it's it's unlike anything that I had seen before.
Speaker: Yeah, he's definitely, he's very unique in terms of um how he was operating. ah that he did have some level of intelligence. He had military training. He just wasn't able to keep it up because there was something going on, almost frenzied inside of him, um where he was making mistakes along the way, but we never really ah fully understood I guess the motive behind it, it seems like it's like a straight up sexual motive.
Speaker: ah but, but is it because like he's going to a lot of trouble to medicate these people to kind of knock them out or sedate them and and then to assault them.
Speaker: Uh, there's something deeply, deeply wrong with him. Right. Because the solution to his issue is to like, get some help for his mental illness and get a girlfriend. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: yeah But that's not the route he took, and he won't be able to now. Well, by the time he was in jail, he had a fiancé. i think I understood that that didn't work out. There's a lot going on with this guy. um He would be a fascinating deep dive for somebody out there.
Speaker: Not going to be me, because unfortunately, coming from the defense perspective, I can't stomach like digging through that type of activity.
Speaker: I'm going to use the word insanity, but I'll call it mental disorder because there's such chaos trying to figure out their life that is it's like really, really, really difficult to to sit and look through their story. You feel some empathy and sympathy for them, but you really just can't um understand what they were doing. I don't have a lot more on Matt Muller. He's going to be sending stuff February 21st, 2025.
Speaker: um Did you have more on him right now? No. No. So wanted to switch over to a New York town. Now, in New York, you and I have done a lot of looking all around that state over the years. This is sort of the opposite side of the state. It would be...
Speaker: it would be Southern New York down in Orange County. But we have looked at a lot of cases up there over the years. And, you know, last year i got this update article on this case and ah came out of the, I think it came out of the Mid-Hudson Times up there.
Speaker: um And I got a news release this year that came from one of the NewYork.gov accounts. So I thought I would bring it back up. um This is a small town in New York where um they had a terrible like December crime, and and they talk about it when the anniversary comes up.
Speaker: So the first article was actually from 2020 for kind of addressing it all. It's not the news release itself, which came right after. him But I think they were using the press to kind of talk about it.
Speaker: have Do you remember this case? Do you remember me talking about her before? No. Okay. um The article from Mid-Hudson Times just says, justice for Nancy Smith, it says, 23 years after her murder, search for answers continued.
Speaker: um Alberto Gilman, he did a nice write-up with a couple of pictures of Nancy And it just says, 23 years have passed since Nancy Smith was found murdered in her home on Provost Drive, yet her killer remains unknown and unidentified.
Speaker: Law enforcement agencies, including the New Windsor Police Department, the FBI, and the New York State Police, are urging the community to come forward with any information that could lead to an arrest and a conviction.
Speaker: There's a $35,000 reward in this case. um I have a whole thing about rewards that... inappropriate to bring up now, but like there is a reward here because they think somebody has, you know, some information. They're pushing the adage. Somebody knows something.
Speaker: ah Smith, she was 32 at the time of her death. She was discovered in her living room on December 5th of 2001 after her parents, Edward and Lenore went to her home when she failed to show up for work.
Speaker: She was employed as a manager at pay or contracting for the greater Hudson Valley health system at Horton hospital in Middletown, New York. New Windsor Police Chief Daniel Valeri emphasized the department's ongoing commitment to solving this case.
Speaker: says, this is a case we've not forgotten and will not give up on. We've pursued over 800 leads and continue to give it fresh eyes with help from our partners, including the New York State Police, the District Attorney's Office, and the FBI.
Speaker: Smith's sister, Barbara Stolf, who lives in the area, remembers her younger sibling fondly Barbara described Nancy as lighthearted, witty, and deeply caring with a love for music and a strong bond with her nephew, Adam.
Speaker: She had a way of bringing joy to others, and she was a bright light in our lives. Smith graduated from Newburgh Free Academy in 1987. She earned a bachelor's degree from Sunny Oneonta in 1991, and in January 2001, she had completed a master's degree in public administration at Marist College, graduating summa cum laude.
Speaker: The pain of her loss lingers for those who knew her. Barbara expressed frustration and disbelief that her sister's killer has not come forward. No matter how angry or upset you are, no one has the right to take a life. If you knew her, liked her, or loved her and did this, how can you walk around and not turn yourself in?
Speaker: The misery you've brought to so many people is unimaginable. Investigators believe that Smith likely knew her killer as there were no signs of forced entry. Her case has since been added to the combined data ah combined DNA index system CODIS, which allows agencies to compare DNA profiles and potentially link offenders to unsolved crimes.
Speaker: New Windsor so supervisor Steven Bedetti, who took the initial call from Smith's mother as a dispatcher in 2001, also shared his determination to see the case solved.
Speaker: With today's technology and the dedication of our investigators, I believe this case will be resolved. Detective Kevin Moore of the New Windsor Police Department confirmed that the case remains active and that advancements in DNA technology could provide new leads.
Speaker: Every lead has a purpose and we encourage anyone with information, no matter how small, to come forward. ah You can contact investigators at 845-563-4678, or Detective Moore can be reached at KMORE, that's M-O-O-R-E, and just ah the letter K, Moore, at newwindsor-ny.gov.
Speaker: And New Windsor is spelled N-E-W-W-I-N-D-S-O-R. As the search for justice continues, those who knew and loved ah Nancy Smith hold in the hope that her killer will one day be brought to justice.
Speaker: ah So I wanted to talk about her case. i mean, that's one I think will end up being like ah genealogical solve.
Speaker: It's possible. um It doesn't have like a whole lot of widespread information. press attention, I guess you would say. But I do have a feeling somebody knows who did it. I do think they're probably looking for evidence.
Speaker: This isn't a situation where i think it's going to be a stranger, right? And in the event it's not a stranger, you have a a single woman who lived alone and there was no signs of forced entry.
Speaker: and From everything I can tell, this is a small town type place, right? Smallish town, I guess. Oh, yeah. And so a few questions I feel like would answer this.
Speaker: Okay. Well, because, like, who is she talking to, right? We're talking about 2001. I have a feeling this was
Speaker: it was possibly an unrequited love situation, right? Something to that effect. Yeah. um It's going to have one of the traditional motives. And she was um like, it was like a combination of her being hit over the head and strangled and beaten. Right. And stabbed and stabbed.
Speaker: And that's a lot, right? That's a lot of rage being taken out on somebody. And I assume she has very, very, private life as far as ah it wasn't like this was also a different time. so we don't have social media. You don't have anything to like look and see what she was up to You'd actually have to know her.
Speaker: to have any idea anything that was going on Right. Yeah. And so I think that there's only so many people that it could be.
Speaker: i There are people who don't share details of their life with anybody, which has its own downfall as far as like, if she had a guy she had gone out on a date with.
Speaker: Right. Yeah. But there are ways of finding that stuff. Even back in 2001,
Speaker: it
Speaker: it's I think that it could be solved um with DNA, possibly. But I don't know... Like, I don't know how much more... I don't see how much further technology is going to go in that regard to make a difference here. Like, whatever they have, it seems like they could get the answer from it, right?
Speaker: Well, they you know they throw out there that... the case has been added to CODIS. In my mind, that means there's a profile. So that's why I say DNA.
Speaker: But you're right. Like, there's some good old-fashioned detective work here that probably, probably there's a suspect here. And that's why these press releases are so tight.
Speaker: Otherwise, um and and like I said, she was stabbed. I want to point out that that was on a press release related to this case, but then that I may be in the wrong there because that was that information was later kind of scrubbed from the internet. They don't mention it again. I've seen it say that she was, that there were multiple things that happened to her, but the cause of death was stabbing.
Speaker: Okay. But she was hit over over the head and beaten and, I don't know if I read it or if you said it, but um her mom is the one who found her, right? Correct. there was blood everywhere and she just looked like she was sleeping. um And the reason she was found was because she didn't go into work.
Speaker: And it it isn't something, I mean, they do put these things out, right? And the reward is just for somebody that the perpetrator talked to you and,
Speaker: perhaps had some information that they could give law enforcement. If they don't have a suspect, I would say it's almost impossible if they don't have a suspect, um at least a thought, right?
Speaker: Right. and a lot of times the people that, and I don't think it's a lot of people that would know who it is, Right. But, I mean, even in 2001, like, we still had, you know, landlines with phone records, right?
Speaker: Correct. And I have a feeling that it's a ah situation where, and and don't get me wrong, it may not be somebody that she actually had a relationship with. It could be like a stalker scenario, but you're still going to have somebody who she crossed paths with, right?
Speaker: Yeah. And... The further out we get, I just, I don't see those cases getting warmer, right? no they're not going to. Yeah.
Speaker: And hopefully, though, if it's a situation where they're just sort of waiting on... the evidence, the possibility of evidence, but they don't put it out there widely. And I don't know if they just don't know it's not out there widely, but I think that a little bit, I think that talking to the people she worked with, talking to her neighbors, talking to just about anybody Um, that was, she was close with, there's gotta to be somebody, there's gotta be somebody that was involved in that because that's a typical situation where somebody showed up at her house, either welcome or not. Right. Yeah.
Speaker: And she tells them something that they don't want to hear.
Speaker: Yeah, that's what I think it is too. And, you know, it's i learned a lot from researching her case. ah ah Where I started with her was actually back in like the days of Israel Keys, which is because there was this like big circle I had in a couple of locations in the U.S. and I looked at like loads and loads of unsolved homicides.
Speaker: Eventually, what I kind of decided there was it's probably someone with a connection, but I had to clarify that and say, look, this could be like a coworker. This could be someone from the school that she was getting her master's at. This could be someone that like, she literally had only met at a restaurant or a bar once, or who had only seen her once at a restaurant or a bar and it could feel random. And that's why we're here.
Speaker: um because like it's someone who was like a known quantity but a distant quantity in terms of there never were any actual phone records or emails or anything between them we would have been in the early days of like cell phones so if you had a cell phone at this time it's probably like a nokia brick phone like the ones that were like hefty nokia's but when i look at her case i realized something interesting 30-ish year olds thirty issue rolls being murdered at a certain, a couple periods of time, actually, not just one certain period of time, but a couple periods of time.
Speaker: it's actually very difficult to know what's going on in their life because if they're not married and they're just kind of single, it's actually, believe it or not, kind of a limited a more limited pool of who they might be seeing, which sometimes can involve people who do have partners, either you know someone that they're in a relationship with or someone they're actually married to, and that can lead to situations like this.
Speaker: If this turns out to be something random, in terms of the local community, I think I would be surprised, like, if it's something truly random. If we could have some information with regard to, like, does she leave her doors open, unlocked, ah that I could believe is random.
Speaker: A 32-year-old woman is going to more than likely have pretty tight security her house as far as locking the doors.
Speaker: would think so, personally, yeah. And she's responsible enough that like she's not going to just leave the door unlocked by accident, right? Right. And so she's also smart enough to know that she doesn't want to let random people into her home, right? Yeah.
Speaker: And so that's going to make it a fairly narrowed pool of potential, in my opinion. Now, is it possible that...
Speaker: Someone got in and it didn't look like any signs of forced entry. Well, it's possible, but if they're robbing the place, they're not going to beat her to death and strangle her, right? That's not something robbers typically do if that's their prerogative.
Speaker: And nobody ever says anything about anything missing, right? Yeah. I mean, there's only so many reasons you go into someone's house when you're not welcome. And usually you leave signs of that behind, which aren't here, at at least according to the investigators. And so she had somebody over. And, you know, and i think that
Speaker: it it does go to show like her As far as her age goes, um she didn't she wasn't having to be accountable to anybody, even though we know she talked to her mom frequently. And I believe her mom was the last person she spoke with, right?
Speaker: Yeah. And you know she had her own life happening. But it's she not didn't necessarily tell her mother, like, you know, whoever was coming over or whatever, right?
Speaker: But somebody would have known, I think, or she would have had, there would have been something. I'm not sure exactly what it would have been. But I think that this would be very easily answered just because, and I'm certain that the investigators know this, there's only so many people it could be.
Speaker: yeah And in this particular situation, they just either they don't have the evidence ah to match the person or maybe she really didn't leave.
Speaker: Maybe there really wasn't enough to connect the person, but somebody knows. And it's weird that they wouldn't come forward. And I'm not talking about the perpetrator. I'm talking about. the friend that knows, right? I mean, because it seems like they would know.
Speaker: But it is possible that she didn't tell a soul, I guess. Right. Yeah, I had, um if you go up, you can look up her address. I'm not going to throw it out here. um you You can go and like look around on the street that she lived on.
Speaker: It looks like it's you know a really typical, very green, kind of lower income area. So that made me think, okay, maybe this is like a situation where someone you know someone was Breaking in with the idea that they were going to, I don't know, like I think, you know drugs play a ah big role in things, but it's a cute little neighborhood. You know, it looks relatively safe even today.
Speaker: um it's It's a very strange case and they're clearly looking for some kind of information related to it. So I wanted to mention it on here as we open season six and kind of talk about it.
Speaker: um I have done a little bit of like ah record requesting related to it. So if they were ah if they were to give me some records, it's the type of case I would come back around and I would talk to an audience about it and I would try to interview some people.
Speaker: at some point, they're going to have to open this case up a little bit more. in order to get at the attention, it needs to be closed, I think. Well, right. And i I am not sure it's going to make any difference, honestly. i feel like it is what it is at this point, and it's just a matter of the right person looking at the right thing, I think.
Speaker: Yeah, that could that could be very true. um So i kind of ambushed you. with another cold case for this episode. Did you want to talk any more about Nancy Smith's case, or is that one, you'd just be more happy to come back around if we had more information?
Speaker: Yeah, if something comes up, we can talk about But for the most part, I mean, I hope they get it solved. Okay. um I do too. I do hope that this case closes out at some point.
Speaker: I have a Lane County, Oregon case um that I had pulled that's a weird case. And I thought we would spend... the rest of season six premiere talking about it because, um, it's a very strange one.
Speaker: Um, it's still open today. i have, um, It's one of these cases that it's in this weird period of time that i I take a lot of newspaper clippings of it. I've probably read three or four dozen newspaper articles about it over the year.
Speaker: And for some reason, I was under the impression that there had been a break in the case and that it had been solved. And then i got a notification in you know January 2025 that they're you know asking for information about it because it's still an unsolved double homicide.
Speaker: Had you ever heard of this case before I brought it up here? no Okay, um the sources for today are K-O-I-N.com had a article about it, and that article was written up ah by somebody named Todd Unger, U-N-G-E-R.
Speaker: And then Lane County itself, like lanecounty.org and.gov, they have... ah mentionings of this article more recently.
Speaker: um Unfortunately, they don't date all their press releases and their cold cases in terms of when they release things. ah But they do ask that if you have any information on this, that you send it to soconfidential at lanecountyor.gov.
Speaker: And that's sheriff's office ah so confidential, C-O-N-F-I-D-E-N-T-I-A-L at lanecounty, C-O-U-N-T-Y-O-R dot gov.
Speaker: um That's where they're taking tips on this case. ah You can also contact the Lane County Sheriff's Cold Case team. Their number is 541-682-4513. five four one six eight two four five one three um If you're local Tulane County, you can dial 541-682-4150 and press 1.
Speaker: um you can You can contact them in a number of ways. Now, this case number for them, um you will need it if you use any of those. 70-0646. It's an old case. one those cases January of 1970.
Speaker: it's an old case like it's um it's one of those cases from ah january of nineteen seventy s um And I thought I'd run this case down just kind of in what's available in the press. and And then we talk about it for a few minutes because to be quite honest, I've never seen anything like what's described here. And i I'm curious ah what your thoughts would be on it.
Speaker: ah But that, you know, that date I just gave you guys just just. being upfront, that's 55 years ago. So 55 years ago, um that's going to be the kind of case where you've lost witnesses you know because of time. People have passed away, um even if it's the the safest way to have passed away and died in their sleep.
Speaker: They were 30 years old back then. They'd be 85 years old today. So This is the kind of case, whereas Nancy Smith is older cold case at 25 years. This one's really ah getting some years on it.
Speaker: So the article starts off with ah the the title Cold-Blooded, Unsolved Murders Still Haunt Oregon Town 55 Years Later. And they did a little video piece that accompanies this. If you guys want to check it out, um and the KOIN website has it.
Speaker: But this is technically, this is Junction City, Oregon. And it just says time moves at its own pace in a close-knit community like Junction City. There's a train that still regularly c chugs through downtown, which is a healthy mix of old storefronts, banks, and local restaurants.
Speaker: Drive about four miles outside of the town to a little hillside cemetery, and there are the grave markers of Julie and Terry Dade. We like to keep our eyes open and our blinders off and be open to any possibility because it could be something completely different than what we're thinking, says David Solano, a retired Lane County detective.
Speaker: Julie and Terry Dade are a couple that was brutally murdered 55 years ago. David Solano and a handful of other investigators track Lane County's cold cases, and perhaps no case remains more mysterious than Terry and Julie's killing one chilly January morning in 1970.
Speaker: It feels targeted in that it's pretty violent regarding two people with two locations, said Detective Solano. Old photos from the 1970 investigation can help set the scene.
Speaker: They put a slideshow up that shows this couple like individually and together at their wedding, where they live, their car, their little house. And it says, um i'd say a little house, but it's a little apartment complex.
Speaker: Around 4.15 a.m. on January 21st, 1970, neighbors a few blocks away from the Dade's apartment woke up to Julie screaming and knocking on the door.
Speaker: Witnesses reported that a mystery man chased her down, dragged her and eventually threw her into the back of a station wagon and told the half-asleep neighbor that saw.
Speaker: She was drunk. About a half hour later, in another half mile down Prairie Road, a different neighbor woke up to the sound of an explosion and stepped outside to see a car fire.
Speaker: Under the burning car, first responders found 20-year-old Julie Dade's body. It took them a few hours to piece together a possible identity and address and what might have happened.
Speaker: That's when Solano says that officers rushed to the Dane's apartment, and there they found 19-year-old Terry dead from blunt force trauma. Henry Thompson, Julie's brother, remembers all too well hearing the horrific details.
Speaker: The guy just wailed on him, meaning Terry, with a pickhammer. God, this guy was as cold-blooded as they get. The couple's one-year-old son was left unhurt in his crib, but Henry says the heartache that gripped the family in the days and months to come was almost inescapable.
Speaker: We had had their wedding at the Christian church in Junction City, and 15 months later, after they said their vows and walked on out, they were right back in here, in caskets.
Speaker: Authorities worked the case aggressively from the start by interviewing dozens of neighbors and friends while chasing down leads. KOIN 6 even covered the case, an unheard of crime, for a small farming in Milltown, like Junction City.
Speaker: But in 1970, no one was thinking about DNA or even much about crime scene preservation. And Solano says, although there were different theories and persons of interest in the months and years that followed, there were no arrests.
Speaker: Mental illness existed back then. she could have come She could have had someone that was obsessed with her, stalking her. We're seeing what was missed, what we might have overlooked.
Speaker: Sometimes it just takes fresh eyes. It's even possible more than one mystery man was involved. Henry has his own thoughts about who might be responsible, but doesn't want to jeopardize any potential breaks in the case.
Speaker: For now, he's simply hopeful that detectives learn enough to make some kind of determination. It's what Terry and Julie deserve after five and a half decades. The fear that was in her gets to me.
Speaker: You know what I mean? She was running for her life. It just gets to me. I want her to know that I'll never forget her. So pretty short article, but a boatload of information there.
Speaker: um First of all, have you ever heard of like this kind of double homicide involving a couple? ah Not like this, no.
Speaker: You know, i have to say, I think the first place I found this, I completely ruled this out as being probably an ex until I read this article, but I had found this when I was looking for double homicides where the couple had been seen separated between potentially in the time of death, particularly when the couple, one of the couple was seen running away. Cause that's always interesting to me when you get that kind of witness.
Speaker: Um, There's not a lot about this one on the internet if you go hunting for it. They are asking for information. There is a ah press release that's still up today, and it's on the Lane County site I mentioned earlier. and I'm going to read it here because it's kind of interesting.
Speaker: It says, julian terry day double homicide case number seven zero dash zero six four six It says, on January 21st, 1970, at about 4.20 a.m., neighbors in the area of the Maple Street Apartments in Junction City heard a female yelling.
Speaker: A witness reportedly saw a man dragging a screaming woman into a vehicle before leaving the area. Responding deputies canvassed the area looking for the car or the woman when they were alerted that the Junction City Fire Department was responding to a burning 1962 Buick on Prairie Road with a female underneath.
Speaker: It's unknown whether the female was penned under the vehicle or if she was conscious and not able to get herself out. A neighbor nearby woke to the sound of an explosion, saw the fire from his bedroom window, and attempted to put the fire out with a fire extinguisher.
Speaker: Unfortunately, it was too late. The female, identified as 20-year-old Julie Dade, was pronounced deceased on scene. Julie's husband was later found deceased in the couple's Maple Street apartment.
Speaker: Julie and Terry's infant son was found unharmed in his crib in his apartment. ah Detectives have worked tirelessly interviewing dozens of people, but have been unable to determine who killed Julie and Terry Dade.
Speaker: And they have some of those clippings at the bottom of this that I was talking about. ah One of them is ah clipping that says police seek information.
Speaker: from man seen at scene of crime. um This is undated news article. Well, it's unofficially dated. Someone has scribbled in the corner 82671.
Speaker: But here's what this article says. It says police are seeking information on a man in connection with the brutal slaying of Janet Malacut last Thursday. Okay, so keep that in mind. It's not the same names here.
Speaker: The man was reportedly in the area Five Spot Drive-In, 869 South 1st Street, between the hours of 5 and 9 a.m. m on the day of the murder. Witnesses say that he frightened a woman about 9 a.m. m and apparently chased her up 1st Street until she eluded him by running into Grossman's office supply at 842 South 1st Street across from the drive-in.
Speaker: Police would like to have this woman contact them. About noon, a person fitting the man's description was seen in the Studio Theater 396 South 1st Street. He was reportedly bleeding from an injury.
Speaker: The man is described as 18 to 20 years old, women all of complexion and a slight build, speaking only broken English, and when requesting work repeats the word worky.
Speaker: He was last seen wearing baggy black trousers and a dirty white dress shirt open in the front. He had a one-day growth of beard and shaggy black hair that hung to his collar in the back and down to his eyebrows in the front.
Speaker: Between the hours of 5 and 9 a.m., m he is said to have entered the five-spot drive-in four or five times. At one point, he explained in Spanish that he needed work so that he could return home.
Speaker: The man is wanted for questioning in connection with the murder of Miss Malacut at the office where she worked as a part-time receptionist. the and That's off Key Street, by the way.
Speaker: That's one of the reasons this one popped for me. The pretty 21-year-old San Jose State College co-ed was repeatedly stabbed, then doused with a flammable liquid, and set afire between 10 and 11 a.m. m ah So this is a completely separate crime that for some reason Lane County has latched onto.
Speaker: and they think it's part of this case. I have never seen something like that result in like a really quick answer, but it does make me like wonder what was happening.
Speaker: Another article that they put here that was kind of bizarre and is completely undated ah is pattern begins to emerge in junction city slaves.
Speaker: So, This one says, Lane County deputies were still without fresh leads on Friday in their investigation of the murder of Mr. and Mrs. Terry Dade of Junction City, but also officers were beginning to piece together a probable version of some of the events surrounding the slaying.
Speaker: Miss Dade's charred body was found ah beneath a blazing parked car in a trailer court at 4.50 a.m. m Wednesday, minutes after residents of a nearby neighborhood had observed a girl screaming and attempting to escape from a man in a white station wagon.
Speaker: An autopsy later revealed that she had been beaten and strangled to death. Her husband, who had been bludgeoned, was found sprawled across the bed of their apartment at 151 Maple Street, Junction City, mid-morning on Wednesday.
Speaker: The couple's one-year-old son, Mark, was unharmed at his crib and another room in the apartment. ah The sheriff's captain, Ronald Eggleston, said Ms. Dade apparently was knocked out shortly before her husband's death in the apartment.
Speaker: According to a probable sequence of events reconstructed by officers, Dade had returned about midnight from his night shift job at American Canco's Junction City Plywood Mill.
Speaker: The couple went to bed between 2 and 3.30 a.m., Mrs. Dade was awakened by someone at the front door of the apartment. She entered the door and it apparently was knocked unconscious or stunned almost immediately after opening it.
Speaker: Her husband probably was killed in bed a few moments later. Mrs. Dade apparently was taken from the apartment by the killer who kept her in his car for some time. Officers theorize and she apparently jumped from the vehicle and fled about 4.20 a.m.
Speaker: in a Southwest Laurel Street neighborhood. So then we have this strange
Speaker: reference here. one and a half ah So that is about one and a half blocks southeast of the day's apartment. Witnesses to the incident there said that a woman fled to the door of a house, was dragged into a white station wagon by a husky medium-built man.
Speaker: The man searched the street for her with a flashlight, then drove away. He returned a short time later, searched the street, and apparently found something, which he put into his pocket. Minutes later, residents of a trailer park several blocks to the south were awakened by an explosion and saw an auto blazing in a carport at the park.
Speaker: So this car was parked. Firemen are summoned to the scene, and Mrs. mrs Dade's body was found underneath the vehicle. So I don't know what they're saying in terms of the pattern here. i don't know what the pattern is other than this guy, the white, uh,
Speaker: station wagon. But he does say at the very end of the article, Eggleston said the sheriff's department had been notified of the Lawrence Street incident by a resident. Officers were en route to the area when the explosion and fire occurred.
Speaker: He said Junction City police had been called and were patrolling in the vicinity where the ah two murders had occurred. And he says 10 to 15 officers had worked up to 16 hours a day on this case, questioning friends, family, neighbors, and witnesses.
Speaker: You know, it's a very interesting ah thing. to kind of It's kind of a time capsule to look at these old articles and wonder what they were thinking. Well, and it explains a lot to me.
Speaker: i mean, it is very clear that there's a lot of speculation sort of randomly, right? Yeah. Yeah. And when you have it start like that, i mean, you've got 10 to 15 officers working like tirelessly on this case, right? ah You've got a situation where um ah the husband was killed at home and the wife was taken.
Speaker: right yeah The child was ignored for the most part. i Maybe they didn't know he was there, right? Right. Okay, so why is this happening, right? What prompts a perpetrator to ah kill a husband within the residence and take the wife?
Speaker: It's sexual assault. I mean, possibly, but if he had killed the husband, why would he need to take her to sexually assault her? Oh, good point.
Speaker: So screaming child could make him want to leave. Witnesses having seen him come in could make him want to leave. um The other thing is, i just want to be clear because I was confused, but I believe I've sorted it.
Speaker: and So she's seen approaching, because she, I'm not really sure. She tried to get help from some random people, and it looked like one of the neighbors who saw her at a different neighbor approaching and then being drug away from it, ah they were in a vehicle, right? But that's not the vehicle that was on fire. The vehicle that was on fire that she was found under underneath was just parked at one of the trailer residences. Right.
Speaker: I think she hid underneath and he set the vehicle on fire to kill her. Right. And so that made me think perhaps he um was ah looking for the lighter, maybe. oh interesting. um I wasn't sure. So, okay.
Speaker: without you know I don't want to disparage the victims in this situation, but it's an odd thing, especially... Like, can you imagine witnessing any of that? It would be crazy to see it. Like, you're talking about witnessing the running woman screaming and then seeing the explosion a few minutes later? Well, like, waking up. Well, see, and believe you said it in the article, the neighbor that came forward that sort of heard the ruckus and then saw the man and woman retreating from front door of a neighbor's house, he said, like,
Speaker: hey, what's going on or whatever. And the man said, oh, she's drunk, right? Right. But I'm not going to, ah even a drunk person, i'm not going to watch a man drag a woman down the road, right?
Speaker: It's not going to happen. I'm going to stop. I'm going to get involved, right? and But also, that's never going to happen, right? I mean, that would be crazy.
Speaker: And so, it Now, I had read something briefly that he had been shot. Her husband had been shot. and then That was based on one of the wounds. I know what you're talking about. I tracked this down. One of the wounds in the initial police report was reported to be a hole in his skull.
Speaker: And so that the way that they described it in the police report, it did sound like it was a large caliber gunshot. It is not a gunshot. um That's cleared up later in the autopsy report that it just looks like it's ah it's ah it's essentially pick hammer, like the sharp end of a hammer that has made a hole in his skull. And they mistook it for like a 50 caliber gunshot.
Speaker: And to me, that could make a big difference ah because you're talking about somebody who comes armed with a gun versus not, right? Yes.
Speaker: Okay. And I think that... there was a There was, well, there was certainly a conflict.
Speaker: ah It's possible it's it wasn't a conflict. it Like, it was a case of mistaken identity. like kind of doubt it. I have a feeling that ah either her family or his family probably know exactly who did this.
Speaker: You think that somebody they're familiar with, like an ex-boyfriend or something? Yeah. I would say that without question, it's gotta be, there's gotta be a tie.
Speaker: ah Because i don't think he was going to, i think that the man may have been drinking and i think he was, it's possible it was her ex, right? And I would look, I would explore that angle heavily because
Speaker: He didn't hurt the child. See, I go off on a tangent here, and I want to make this very clear that the next two sentences I say are going to be speculation. I would look at the boy's DNA.
Speaker: Me too. Exactly. That's exactly what I would do. That's just part of how I would think about it from the investigative perspective. Because if his DNA doesn't match, then you have the other half of this person's DNA.
Speaker: it's but It is possible. But the only thing about that is... He left a kid. Well, but he also killed the kid's mom, right? Yeah. And, I mean, granted, you've got somebody coming into a house in the middle of it. i it's It's a horror story, right? having Answering the door. But she did answer the door. Yeah.
Speaker: Right? She did, yeah. Okay. Somebody came and knocked or yelled or something. The apartments are very close together. I don't feel like... Now, we are 55 years out at this point, but...
Speaker: you know I think somebody probably witnessed something. And if somebody was yelling out in the front door and nobody called the police, well, that's because it's happened before and it's nothing, right? Yeah.
Speaker: And so what was the conflict happening? Because it was definitely something and somebody was definitely over their skis emotionally It's an odd thing, though, to be so passionate about, like, let's say it had to do with her and wanting her back or wanting her, like, if it was a stalker as opposed to an ex.
Speaker: You know, they take her, but then, like, he blows up the car. Basically. Yeah. Like the way that he blew up the car was fascinating the way it was described. So she is found in the autopsy to have had massive blows to the head and signs of strangulation.
Speaker: She's under the car. So we don't know exactly how she gets under the car, but the perpetrator. apparently, because ah the car belongs to a third party, by the way. He's not considered... Completely third party. It's like she was running and ended up under some random person's car. Right. And so the guy has used some kind of instrument. They think it's either an owl or a um um Excuse me. They think it's either an owl or a screwdriver.
Speaker: He punctures the gas tank of the car so that it starts leaking gasoline, and then he sets the gasoline on fire. That's an interesting way to, like, dispose of a body, but it's not a low-key disposal of a body. Well, it's rage. it's It's full of rage. And either, i don't know if she was hiding and he killed her under there, or if he killed her and then threw her under there. And also, like...
Speaker: She ends up, according to what was put forth, unconscious several times, right? Yeah. Yeah, she's unconscious at the door ah the house. He's stunned or something.
Speaker: She's dragged away. She gets free of him enough that, like, if she's the screaming woman, which we believe that she is, like, she gets partly away from him and then gets dragged into the station wagon.
Speaker: Now, what's interesting, though, is... she's seen being put in the back of a white station wagon and then we have an exploding white station wagon but it's not one in the same we don't think so no but i mean hopefully they explored that right i i presume that the car that she's found under like that person was accounted for in bed or whatever and it's not that person right I assume so. I thought about looking him up, um but ah allegedly he was asleep when the fire started and they roused them. Well, right. And I don't know how like odd it would be.
Speaker: ah to i don't know how popular white station wagons were back then, but my my thought is we should look and see. Station wagons in Junction City and the surrounding area at that time.
Speaker: That would be an interesting thing. I wonder if they did that or not. Well, I don't know. And the other thing is,
Speaker: it's possible it got muddled, right? Yeah. Because she was found under it. it's At first I didn't realize that the white station wagon was a third party vehicle. Did you?
Speaker: I, at some point digging through the like newspaper.com stuff on this and then digging through the articles, I was able to see a couple of them where they mentioned that it was a separate station wagon, ah allegedly. Yeah.
Speaker: Well, I saw where the the owner of the vehicle had spoke to the press, and I was like, wait, what? And so he was just he woke up because his car was on fire. And he was like, wait, what? And you know at the time, they didn't even know there was a body underneath it.
Speaker: it The car was just on fire. So there's a possibility that the car had been stolen without his knowledge in the night, and it's the same car. There's possibility that two different station wagons. There's a lot of things that come up at that point.
Speaker: It doesn't really make sense for him to have driven the car back to where he stole it from and put her body under it. and i mean, maybe it does, but that's an interesting thought. um I assume they pursued that and it was cleared. um Now, I would be interested to know if there are any ah young adult males that committed suicide shortly thereafter happened.
Speaker: Oh, so you're thinking somebody probably around their age either goes missing at that time or is found deceased at that time. That would be an interesting hunt to go down because then you can kind of connect the dots.
Speaker: I think that if it wasn't some other motive, which he took, I don't know about, I don't know what the thought was in taking away.
Speaker: having killed her husband and leaving the child behind that kind of gets that, that, that is, it's weird, right? It is weird. Yeah. um And
Speaker: it it also, to me suggests that it was somebody who had some really deep emotions that they were, probably for the most part covering up and they exploded right yeah um maybe even in a bout of drinking or whatever other than that you know what are you doing if you're not taking uh the female because you're wanting to take her you're not showing the husband anything you killed him yeah
Speaker: You know, are you going to hold her for ransom? Did somebody else that she might have been important to, did they have a beef with somebody? um You know, that would be the revenge angle.
Speaker: But that that's a stretch, right? it Typically, revenge is directly on the person. It's not It's not it's not a It's thing that you can do with somebody removed, right? Because it would have to be somebody a little bit further out than her husband because he, he and you know, did he know he had killed the husband? Well, I assume so, Right. And.
Speaker: and it It is going to be somebody that somebody knows who it is. And I would say that the family probably knows. They probably don't have the evidence. And depending on the investigators that are working the case, you know, your mileage on getting that evidence or getting that narrative all lined up can vary because...
Speaker: But at this point, 55 years out, I would say that it's time to explore it, right? Yeah, this is the kind of case that genuinely needs to be opened up and like people look at it.
Speaker: i don't think that there's going... So if let's say the perpetrator didn't come commit suicide, right? Yeah. Because I feel like... what it, it tends to show is she had an ex or a stalker.
Speaker: I'll go either way with that. Somebody that was, was pining for her, kills her husband, takes her, then realizes she's not going to go along with him and he kills her. And I feel like all that was like, none of that was planned. Right.
Speaker: Yeah. It just happened. And then he's like, Oh my gosh, what have I done? Right. And I feel like, He would have... Now, there could be some details that would change my mind, but in that situation, everything just exploded, and I think the person would kill themselves.
Speaker: But I don't think the person would be a danger to the larger community unless the same situation with different people repeated itself.
Speaker: Right. And I did find some other violent stuff around this time in that area. That's why I mentioned that one odd article they had put in there. i don't understand. i i feel like that's part of the reason this isn't solved.
Speaker: They were connecting weird things too far away to make it make sense. ah Yeah, I mean, anytime that happens, like because then that becomes part of the story, and they're like, oh, well, you know that doesn't make sense with the rest of it, right? and But it's not really part of it. It's a completely separate thing, right?
Speaker: Well, this is the kind of case, in my opinion, that like the Sunshine Laws just like open the whole file for the most part. You can keep some one piece of information back if you want. like If you know something's going to be... I don't see how that would help it. I mean, I feel like...
Speaker: everything should be released at this point. It's 55 years old. Well, i I tend to agree with you, but I was trying to like split the difference with people who say, oh, no, they've got to hold this back for investigative purposes. But the truth is, the investigators that worked on this case in 1970 to 1975 are all long retired or potentially you have passed away.
Speaker: So you know at this point in time, you should definitely be opening this case file up to whatever you want to call the world of armshare detectives and and amateur sleuths.
Speaker: This is the type of case file that like you could solve if you open the whole thing up, I think. Do you agree with that? I do. I agree. i agree. In fact, I think that, I think the answer lies very close do you that night and the situation they found themselves in. And you're right. There's not going to be,
Speaker: A whole lot... because it like a twenty So a 20-year-old then, 55 years later, would be 75 years old now. Yeah. And it's not a case where um there's this big... I don't think that this case has a big mystery.
Speaker: Somebody knew, and for whatever reason... it didn't come to fruition. And I don't want to be like, well, those are bad investigators, but I mean, if it looks like a duck, right? Yeah.
Speaker: Well, I don't have a lot more information on this case or a lot more thoughts on it at this time. it was just something, we're coming up on the anniversary of it. This this is going to be the 55th anniversary ah this case. And I wanted to mention it in our season opener as we get season six started.
Speaker: If you've got more on this, if anybody knows anything, you can go back. to I would say Lane County is the best website to start with. um Or you can message us and we'll we'll do the heavy lifting for you if you just happen to listen to this.
Speaker: Because we've discovered something recently. When people search on the internet on cases we've covered, sometimes they come across us and they send us messages. It's actually going to... inform some of the way we treat the season six episodes but if for some reason you know something about this and you're an older person or something was passed down from an older person ah you can message us at true crime access at gmail.com and i will actually go and do the legwork for you to figure it out we have quite a few episodes this year that are going to be based on uh tips people sent me we have um
Speaker: We have an an old homicide that has some DNA in it that we're going to be talking to. ah Probably at some point we're going to talk to the creator of another podcast on that one. We have ah a double homicide down in the South that we're going to cover.
Speaker: We have a serial killer who may or may not be a serial killer that we're going to cover. um But we, from time to time, are going to mention these old older unsolved cases. I know one of them 23 years old. going to be 24 years old this year.
Speaker: One of them is going to be 55 years old this year. um Meg and I have a vested interest. and I say that for you, but I assume it's true. and like These cases should be at least closed. Bodies should be found. Perpetrators should be identified.
Speaker: it does get a little weird when perpetrators are sort of identified, on the fringes of something and we can't quite tell if they were involved, but like this case, the case that we're just talking about with the Dades, I definitely believe this case could be solved. I believe so too. And I feel like, ah I'm not really sure. I feel like a lot of times you and I can say things that perhaps investigators aren't comfortable saying, right?
Speaker: yeah everybody deserves to have it uh put behind them right and who knows what the thought behind all of that is but it was a terrible case and you know there was a little boy who was orphaned yep and that little boy would be you know 55 56 years old now right yep and i don't know it's interesting it is interesting ah I do think sometimes that's why they don't get a whole lot of light is because somebody knows what happened. But also if the narrative isn't investigated and evidence provided, a lot of times that gets lost, right? Yeah.
Speaker: And you never know. i'm not really sure. I don't have a whole lot of insight into the like 70-ish mindset mindset. about you know what was it a thing where like they didn't write everything down because it wasn't appropriate they didn't have the i don't know how that worked back then i think it varies depending on the jurisdiction too well sure and that would definitely be the case but in this case i feel like there's a whole lot that could be done i i haven't this case doesn't have any potential dna right
Speaker: We don't know. Like, because the case files closed off the way that it was, and depending on how they did the collection, we don't know that. I think ah the article I pulled from ah at the beginning of this, when just starting to tell the story from the perspective of them doing a look back on it, it didn't mention DNA.
Speaker: And I doubt a 1970 case in Junction City, Oregon. hope... i hope cold case there has like taken a look to see if there's some evidence collected from the scene that exists that could have DNA.
Speaker: But i doubt that it exists and and is not mentioned at all, except for the kid. That is a piece of DNA I would want. Like I would want to like run his genealogy against his parents.
Speaker: Well, sure. And I don't want to imply anything there. um It could be just as, just as likely that an ex was, was mad she had moved on, right? A hundred percent.
Speaker: ah Like there was no question about that. But in this case, one of the things that I found, and i don't know how accurate it is I have to base it on what was put forward at the time, but you actually have a witness who spoke to the perpetrator. Correct.
Speaker: And to me, like that is gold. Yeah. Yeah. And it's something that most of the time cases that go unsolved don't have. Yeah, you don't you don't have a clear i identification of the perpetrator and you don't have interactions with the perpetrator.
Speaker: Like ever. Right. yeah And in this case, I mean, I guess maybe back in the seventies when it happened, they could have said, well, we don't know for sure. That's who did it. But now we do right now. We're like, well, yeah, of course that's who did it. Right. Who, who else would have come into contact with her between that point and the point where the car's on fire and she's underneath it dead. Right. Right.
Speaker: Nobody came into contact with her. And i would say that, um, we, I think that there was a lot of regret ah with this type of passionate case, and I think that shortly thereafter, he probably died as well, would be my guess. That's just a guess there. I think that might be why it ends up in the position that it's in, like,
Speaker: maybe they know that maybe they don't but if he doesn't come commit another crime like this which i don't know that like even a serial predator which i doubt this is would commit the same kind of crime that would have the hallmarks because some of the hallmarks here with the exploding car and the gasoline and the that's not something a serial predator is gonna do no not a lot of attention they're definitely not gonna do it twice Right. that's ah That's a lot. that's a lot that The whole thing just screams like that was a completely unplanned situation, right? Yeah, it's very disorganized.
Speaker: And he just, I feel like he did stupid things. Somebody got tore up and went and acted out like all the emotions they had been suppressing. That's what it sounds like to me.
Speaker: And so in that case, that would fill somebody with a lot of regret. Yeah. Right? Once they were no longer tore up.
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