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E004 Amy Mihaljevic
3.4k Plays6 years ago
Amy Mihaljevic loved her family very much. It was that very love, specifically for her mother, that someone sinister preyed upon. That sinister perpetrator is likely still out there. In this episode, Allison and Maggie delve into the details that could spark a memory with a listener which could possibly lead to justice.
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Transcript
Mark Mahalovic's unsettling return home
00:00:01
Speaker
Mark Mahalovic pulled into his driveway after a business trip to Cincinnati, Ohio. He had just gotten back to his home in Bay Village, just west of Cleveland in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, and was probably so thankful to be back home, as we all are after some time away. Perhaps thinking about sleeping in his own bed, having a nice dinner with his family, hearing about his sons and his daughter's day at school, and finally being able to relax.
Amy goes missing: the search begins
00:00:32
Speaker
but the scene he walked into was the furthest thing from the calm and relaxing evening he likely had envisioned. When he walked into his home around 5.30 p.m. on October 27th, 1989, he found his wife, Frantic. Their 10-year-old daughter had never returned home from school that day.
00:00:54
Speaker
His wife went to file a police report at the local station, a station that she didn't realize at the time was right across the street from the last place their daughter Amy had been seen alive. And Mark took off, flashlight in hand, and still dressed in his business attire, searching desperately for his little girl in the areas around their home and in their neighborhood.
00:01:20
Speaker
Unfortunately, he did not find his daughter in the woods searching for one of the animals that she loved so much, nor did he find her at a friend's house. He never got to feel that flood of relief when you find your child safe and you chuckle to yourself at how much you overreacted at what was merely a miscommunication.
The Mihalovic family's nightmare
00:01:41
Speaker
Mark Mihalovic, with Margaret, his wife,
00:01:45
Speaker
and his son Jason only got to feel the opposite emotions. Anxiety, dread, and grief. Grief that you couldn't imagine.
00:01:59
Speaker
And now, 30 years later, the perpetrator of the crimes we will talk about today is still out there, still harboring the secrets of what he did that day in October 1989, while Mark Mihalovic's daughter is buried in Highland Memorial Park in Wisconsin. This is the case of Amy Renee Mihalovic.
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Speaker
So.
Podcast goals and community engagement
00:02:59
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 these cases will take those tips to law enforcement so justice and closure can be brought to these families.
00:03:19
Speaker
With each case, we encourage you to continue in the conversation on our Facebook page, Coffee and Cases, because as these families know, conversations help to keep their missing family members in the public consciousness, helping to keep their memories alive. So sit back, sip your coffee, and listen to what's brewing this week.
00:03:38
Speaker
Merry Christmas, you guys. I know. Merry Christmas, Maggie. Did you have a good one? I did. I had a really great time just going home and being with my family and it's a lot of traveling for us, but it's good. Yeah. Plus getting to open all the presents. I know. Hey, you guys, speaking of presents, Maggie and I have a little gift that, you know, we would love to get from you. So if you really want to give us the best Christmas present ever, we would really appreciate it if you would give us a five star rating and review.
00:04:08
Speaker
I mean, I would be super grateful. Me too.
Amy Mihalovic's case: A historical perspective
00:04:12
Speaker
Now Maggie, today's case is a super unique one because even though it's been 30 years since Amy Mihalovic disappeared, the case is actually the longest active investigation in FBI history and has never been considered a cold case, even after 30 years.
00:04:34
Speaker
So Anthony and I actually are getting ready to fly out to Washington D.C. and we get to tour the FBI building while we're there. Oh, that's exciting. Maybe you can ask them about Amy's case. Is it still active? Well, I guess they couldn't tell you anything. Yeah, we did get like a big background security clearance.
00:04:52
Speaker
That's really cool. Well, I am happy to report that investigators in this particular case continue to follow up on, because it's an active case, every tip and every lead that still actually comes in every month about this case, which I was shocked to hear. But that means that if anything in today's episode sparks a memory,
00:05:18
Speaker
gives pause or makes you reflect, we urge you to report that feeling. We will give the contact information at the end of this episode and on our Facebook page. Yes. So let me just share with you first Maggie some pictures of this precious little girl. That's her and we're gonna post these on Facebook as well.
00:05:44
Speaker
on Twitter, on Instagram of Amy Mihalovic. Now, how would you describe her sweet little face? So she looks like the just cutest little kid that you would ever imagine, just like she was straight out of like the late 80s, mid 80s era. She's got the cute little side ponytail. She just looks so sweet. Did you ever rock the side ponytail? I still rock a side ponytail.
00:06:10
Speaker
I know she's so cute and she's got like these little dimples and just I mean she just looks like she would be just a sweet part yes and her cross necklace like that oh yeah absolutely
00:06:26
Speaker
From everything I read, Maggie, Amy was vivacious. She had lots of friends. She was fiercely independent and this go-getter. And her father, in one of the interviews that I saw, he basically said, in not so many words, like, I dare you to try to do something for her because she would prove you wrong that she could do it herself instead.
00:06:48
Speaker
And she was super smart. She was in the gifted program at Bay Middle School where she attended. She was in fifth grade. And so, I mean, she was just, not only was she precious, right, when you're looking at her, but she was, like, all of these positive adjectives, you know, to describe her. Like the perfect student, the perfect little girl. Right, exactly.
Personal connections to the case
00:07:13
Speaker
What 720 AM on October 27th, 1989, Amy told her mother that she would be home a little bit later after school because she would be in. And this is according to a timeline provided by an article for Fox 8 Cleveland auditioning for the 5th grade choir and right after she told her mom that she promptly rode away on her blue bike as she always did on her way to school. Now Maggie, this story.
00:07:41
Speaker
this week. It really hits home for me for two reasons. Number one, you know my daughter, she is 10. Yeah, all of these like descriptive words remind me of her. I mean it's so smart like a go-getter. Yeah and so like that's why I I tear up even when I'm
00:08:00
Speaker
I'm reading about this case because I just keep thinking of my daughter and I can totally relate to these parents, you know, and this fierce independence. I mean that is exactly the way my daughter is. I mean she wants to do it all herself and she feels like she's already an adult. But the second reason why it's home for me is because Amy in 1989 was 10 years old. In 1989
00:08:30
Speaker
I was 10 years old and so it's like I can relate to it on all these different levels because you know I think about my own childhood and even though I didn't ride a bike to school and then back home because my school was too far away I rode the bus but I mean I would ride my bike all along the road and this was like a road that was right next to the interstate so it's
00:08:54
Speaker
It's not like it looks like this country road. I mean, we were kind of in the country because it was like this really small town, but like across a fence, across a field is the interstate. And so I would ride my bike by myself. I mean, and I felt like I was, you know, as a kid, you feel like you're going really far away even though it's not really far, but I felt like I was going so far. And I remember just feeling like this sense of like, oh my goodness,
00:09:18
Speaker
I'm like, that's right. I'm like this responsible adult, even though I was only 10. Well, at school that day, Amy's class had a special guest.
Stranger danger and Amy's school life
00:09:30
Speaker
He was then a rookie cop, but he is now the Bay Village police chief, so he's been associated with this case from the beginning until now, and that man's name is Mark Spetzel.
00:09:45
Speaker
When the officer came to Amy's class that day, Maggie, he talked about stranger danger. In fact, a lot of the messages, even back in the late 1980s, was to be suspicious of an adult who's asking for help from a child. For example,
00:10:03
Speaker
You know, be suspicious if an adult comes to you and says, hey, can you help me look for a lost puppy? Or do you want to go play games at an arcade? Or someone saying, your mom has been hurt. We need you to come and help us, and especially to stay away from strangers' vehicles. The message was that it's OK to say no, even if you feel like it's bad manners. And I feel like that's a super important message. Well, it was then and today.
00:10:31
Speaker
And that's the message that Amy heard that very day at school. Did you ever hear that? Like when you were, did you mom? So Amy is a little older than me. I was like, you know, the mid nineties baby, but like when I was in school at her age, but my mom did always read me a book that I'm pretty sure was my brother's. So it would have been right around this time, but it was called never talk to strangers. And it was like,
00:10:56
Speaker
these animals and they basically were approaching this little girl and like hey your mom really needs you or whatever and it would be like but never talk to strangers like it kept repeating that like never talk to strangers and like that book has stuck with me. Right well I mean I feel like we've heard this message and I looked it up actually to see when like the stranger danger message became big
00:11:17
Speaker
And it said it went all the way back to the sixties. Right. Which I didn't realize, but I mean, this is very much in the public consciousness that, that children are often victims because they're so trusting because right. And they're taught, yeah, they're, they're not thinking, Oh, somebody's going to do some horrible thing to me. And then, you know, they've been taught, I have to be polite,
00:11:42
Speaker
We put that into so many kids' heads. You have to be kind, especially to an adult. You don't want your child to ever be rude, especially to an adult who's in your company. But then, at what point does that then carry over? That it puts them in danger instead of them.
00:11:59
Speaker
And that's a hard line. Like I don't even know where to tell my own daughter, you know, at this point you can be nice, but then at this point you can be rude. Yeah. That's kind of like I've seen on social media, the posts with moms that's like around the holidays, they're not going to force their kids because, you know, like,
00:12:16
Speaker
you're like great great great uncle that you haven't ever met and then like you're expected to give him like a hug and it's just kind of awkward when you're that little age and like a lot of parents I've seen are saying things like they won't ever force their child to like show affection to someone that they wouldn't feel that affection for. Right that personal touch. Yeah so I feel like that kind of goes hand in hand like that fine line between being polite and being
00:12:38
Speaker
safe. Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. And what's interesting is when I was reading the story, this message of stranger danger from the officer who showed up at her school that day, it wasn't the first time that she had heard that message. In fact, her mother, Margaret Mahalovic,
00:12:53
Speaker
She stated in interviews that she had always stressed to Amy to stay away from strangers' cars, asking for directions, because that's a big thing. If somebody pulls up and they say, hey, can you come over here and then tell me how to get to whatever? And of course, you think because somebody's in a car, they're not standing up. They can't easily grab you. Oh, it's safe to go near it.
00:13:16
Speaker
And Margaret was like, no, I taught Amy from a young age don't even go close to strangers' cars, and that Amy knew to beware of adults that she didn't know personally. Yet at 204, when classes dismissed at the middle school, Amy didn't go to the choir audition that she had told her mother about. Instead, she left on foot, leaving her bike parked in the bike rack at the school, and walked a quarter mile to the Bay Village Square Shopping Center.
00:13:44
Speaker
and she had to have felt somewhat safe at this point because here at the shopping center there are several of her classmates hanging around literally a police station right across the street. I mean you could see it so if you were gonna feel safe anywhere it's in the middle of the day in a crowded public place that's right next to a police station.
00:14:07
Speaker
Well, at 2.15, two witnesses, both 10-year-old classmates of Amy's, say that they saw her at the shopping center with a man. Now, neither of them thought anything of it. She was walking between the barbershop and the Baskin Robins at the shopping center for a bit. And they remember, and this is so just like a 10-year-old would, she was swinging around the poles outside of the ice cream shop, you know, like,
00:14:34
Speaker
like wasting time, you know, just twirling around. And the two young children who saw her, even though they saw her with this man, again, they didn't think anything of it because these two young children, they had no idea what Amy's father looked like. And because when Amy saw this man and there was some sort of conversation that went on,
00:14:56
Speaker
And the man put his hand either on her shoulder or on her lower back. Different accounts said different things. And they saw her walking towards the parking lot with this guy. I mean, there was no commotion. She didn't scream. It was normal. Right. She didn't fight. So they thought, well, maybe that is Amy's father, right? And he came to pick her up here and now she's riding with him.
00:15:16
Speaker
And even according to an article by Drew Schofield, a barbershop employee, because remember she's walking between the barbershop and Baskin Robbins, this employee recalls literally nothing unusual outside of the shop that day. And that's significant because it means that as the employee in fact stated, there was quote, no screaming, no struggling. So you would think, you know, if this is some like,
00:15:42
Speaker
odd stranger who she had never spoken to, never knew, she would scream when somebody's right. And especially she just heard that day at school. The stranger danger. She had heard this message from her mom, don't go with strangers. So we know now though that somewhere between 220 and 230 p.m.
00:16:05
Speaker
The abduction of Amy Mahalovic occurred in that very open, very public, and seemingly very safe shopping center. Now Maggie, every day when Amy got home from school, she always got home alone and first.
00:16:23
Speaker
but she would call her mom at work at the Trade and Times Magazine to let her know that she made it safely. I mean, I could remember doing that even when I was in college. My mom would be like, okay, call me when you get here. Right. Or even if I visit with my dad, he'll be like, call me when you get home so I know you made it safe. Well, she did that every day because remember she's 10 and she got home alone.
00:16:48
Speaker
Again, I think that's, it's probably very common even today, but I know it was super common when I was younger, like my mom worked. And when you have both parents who work, a lot of kids have to ride home alone. I think the term was latchkey kids. Yeah, that was a very typical 80s.
00:17:07
Speaker
generation thing. Yep because I would ride the bus home, I'd let myself in, I'd lock the door and I wouldn't open it until my mom got home. Well the same was true for Amy until her brother would get home. So she would get home first, close the door, call her mom to let her know that she had made it in safe and just stay quiet until her mom got home. Well remember Amy's mom Margaret wouldn't have worried immediately
00:17:33
Speaker
about Amy you know not being home because Amy had told her she'd be getting home a little bit later than normal because she was going to that choir audition. But when Amy's brother Jason got home at 3 10, I remember school let out around 2 0 4, so about an hour later Amy wasn't home yet. He called his mom to let her know right hey Amy's not here. Well at 3 30, Margaret did receive a call from Amy.
00:18:03
Speaker
In hindsight, we know that Amy's abductor had allowed Amy to call her mom, per usual. And we have to be under the assumption that at this point, Amy herself had no idea that she was in danger because her mom didn't sense any fear in Amy's voice when she talked to her. I mean, it was a very normal conversation. And in fact, when Margaret received the call, she assumed that Amy was calling her from home.
00:18:32
Speaker
So this would mean that Amy's abductor knew her daily routine though. Or at least that she said. How I need to call my mom. Right, I always call her every day. I need to let her know that I'm safe. She'll get worried if I don't and he had allowed her.
00:18:49
Speaker
And we know the fact that Amy's mom wasn't necessarily concerned thinking Amy was at home. And that was according to an FBI Special Agent Vicki Anderson who had let us know that. So as far as Amy's mom is concerned, you know, she's still at work. Amy's at home. She's safe. She's called me to let me know.
00:19:11
Speaker
because remember this was pre-cell phone so Amy's mom would not have had something that would show up like location or exactly something like that right so when Margaret got home and you wouldn't know from what number right yeah yeah is that what you're saying right so all she knows is she's getting a call at work
00:19:34
Speaker
So when marker got home herself at 530, this was right before her husband Mark returned from his business trip and found that Amy was not there.
00:19:44
Speaker
She was in tears. Assuming the worst, as to me it would be natural to do, Margaret called everyone she could think of. She called neighbors, she called friends, she even went by the school. And when she got there, she saw Amy's blue bike that she had ridden to school on that very morning, still parts there. And that's when she knew her fears were valid.
00:20:09
Speaker
And I feel like that's something too with parents. There's this, obviously we feel fear about everything, literally. But I think especially with women, we'll have this sense of dread or this fear, and then we talk ourselves out of it. We're like, oh, I'm just overreacting. Because I feel like there's so much in our culture that says that like, oh, women overreact about these things.
00:20:34
Speaker
I'm just overreacting. Right, and so when she's feeling this fear about Amy being missing, it's not until she actually sees the bike that she feels like there's some sort of right validation for her feelings.
00:20:50
Speaker
At 5.58 p.m., Margaret Mihalovic reported Amy missing at the Bay Village Police Department. According to the Channel 19 news article by Nicole Versanski, the police chief at the time, Bill Garreau had just gotten off work when he received the call. According to that article, Garreau had plans that night to attend a murder mystery party.
00:21:12
Speaker
He never made it to that party because it was another mystery more pressing, the disappearance in this quaint small town of a little girl. By the next day, October 28, the FBI was involved and provided another 50 agents to search for Amy. In their search and inquiries, a story began to emerge about where Amy could be.
The man who lured Amy
00:21:36
Speaker
Amy had told a friend that day before she went to the Bay Village shopping Plaza after school that she was going there to meet someone. This man she was to meet had called Amy at her house. So Maggie, he knew her home number, which again, like back then you're not, I mean, you did have the yellow pages and right that you could look somebody up in.
00:22:02
Speaker
But it felt like you had a list of contacts on your phone. Right. So he knew her home number and I think it's likely that he knew that she would be home alone and home first because obviously some grown man who's trying to lure a child wouldn't call and then ask an adult to speak to the child on the phone. Right.
00:22:23
Speaker
he had to have known. Well he called Amy at her home and on the phone he told Amy that her mother Margaret had been promoted at work which was a true statement and that he needed to choose a present to congratulate Margaret but that he would need help picking it out.
00:22:42
Speaker
According to Officer Mark Spetzel, he even offered to give Amy money of her own to get herself something for this kind favor of helping him. Well, luckily, Amy didn't keep this meeting a secret and she had told one of her friends. And it's only because of that, because of her not keeping the secret. And let me tell you out there, please tell your children, if an adult who is not a parent
00:23:09
Speaker
tells your child to keep a secret, you need to teach your child to tell you immediately that secret. Because that's what I've taught my daughter. I mean, I've said, listen, if anybody says, hey, don't tell anybody about this. You need to tell someone. You need to tell me about it. But luckily, like I said, Amy didn't keep it a secret. And it's only because of that that we know why Amy didn't
00:23:34
Speaker
You know, didn't scream, right, and went willingly with this man. And this is so terrifying to me that this man would prey upon the love a child had for her mother to carry out this horrible crime. And Amy's mother even said in an interview that the only reason Amy would have made an exception to all the lessons that she had taught her about not going with strangers
00:24:02
Speaker
was quote, trying to please me. And that quote, unfortunately, that love, that trust, that caring was her downfall. And I'm telling you, Maggie, when you hear Amy's mom say those words, you feel the personal
00:24:22
Speaker
guilt that she is unfairly placing on herself. Like she's feeling like it is, you know, her fault because Amy would have only done this for her. And that's so sad to me. Oh, absolutely. As a mom or as a parent, knowing that your child was doing something out of love for you that could have resulted in
00:24:46
Speaker
and that did result in her death. Right and that oh I can't imagine that not only that your child missing and the fear and anxiety that you have but then finding out that she left with a stranger and you feeling like it's because of you that she did.
00:25:05
Speaker
Now, because Amy had told what the man had asked her to keep a secret, we know that the man she went to meet, the one that was seen by Amy's classmates, is somehow related to her disappearance. But these young classmates were then asked to remember literally everything that they could about the man that they saw Amy with. Now, the problem, Maggie, is that even in the best case,
00:25:30
Speaker
Eyewitness testimony is not entirely accurate. I watched a television special, I can't remember what channel it was on but it was years ago, where students were in this college classroom in an auditorium and this man came in and he stole something like a bag off of the professor's desk. So literally everyone in this auditorium is staring at the professor because the professor was teaching and saw the person come in steal something off the front desk. Well then the students were asked to describe the person who had done the crime
00:26:00
Speaker
and the descriptions all over the place. And not only that, but there's a reason why if you witness a crime, they tell you don't talk to anybody else who also witnessed the crime because your memories are so fragile. You could see something and you could think, those blue eyes, I'm never going to get that out of my mind. And then all of a sudden somebody else starts talking about it and they say,
00:26:27
Speaker
I will never forget how green her eyes were. And immediately you start questioning your own recollections and you're like, wait, were they green, right? Or were they blue? And you start questioning yourself. In Amy's case, we're talking about not just kids who are trying to recall what this man looked like, but trying to recall a man who they didn't even think committed a crime.
00:26:54
Speaker
And that special that I saw, they clearly saw somebody commit a crime. So in those instances, because it's something out of the ordinary, your mind automatically... You pay more attention. Right. Exactly. Well, in this case, they just thought it was a random guy who was with Amy. And now they're being asked to remember literally every single nitty gritty detail about this person.
00:27:17
Speaker
And it's somebody who they wouldn't have necessarily been paying the closest of attention to. It would be like if I saw one of my students talking in the hallway to somebody and having a friendly conversation, I wouldn't give it a second glance. I would just keep on walking down the hallway. And if somebody came to me the next day or two days later, and then they say, okay, we have to compose a sketch of what the person looked like, who your student was talking to,
00:27:42
Speaker
There's no way. No way. No way that I would be able to do that. Now the sketches that did result from those interviews with the children are fairly similar even though one remembered glasses and the other one didn't. Maggie let me show you those pictures. Now how would you describe and again we'll post these on our Facebook page. How would you describe the sketches?
00:28:05
Speaker
So you're correct, both of them do look very similar, like the one just looks like he took his glasses off, and you know, the other one he has them on, but he looks like literally every white male that you would meet in the 1980s. Like every man. Any white male with shaggy hair. Yeah, any man. With a head full of hair. That's it. Average looking face. Yes. I mean, I don't think he necessarily looks mean, but he doesn't look, he looks average. Yeah, just average. There's nothing special.
00:28:35
Speaker
no identifying marks, nothing about the face that would necessarily stand out. And today, law enforcement actually urges us not to rule anyone in or out because of those sketches.
00:28:51
Speaker
After all, again, like we were just talking about recalling nitty gritty details about someone you gave no second thought to is next to impossible. So law enforcement is like, don't see these pictures and be like, oh, well, you know, the other details sounded like this one person, but he doesn't look anything like that.
00:29:06
Speaker
So don't rule anybody in because of that or out because of that. What we do know about the perpetrator is that he was bold and likely comfortable. He was bold enough to coax Amy out to a public location within yards of the police station and to walk away with her in broad daylight. And he was comfortable enough in Bay Village that he knew the location.
00:29:33
Speaker
knew where to suggest for them to meet. He knew where the school was, so he had to have known it was within walking distance. And he knew enough about Amy, remember we talked about earlier, knowing that she got home alone first. He also knew something about her mom, Margaret, because he knew that she had gotten a promotion at work. But he wasn't well known enough that people at the shopping center would recognize him.
00:30:00
Speaker
So it's almost perfect. He knows enough about her, but people don't know enough about him. Exactly perfect storm. While the police have never stopped investigating this case, as I mentioned at the beginning of the episode, right? This is an active case. It has never been a cold case in the early days. Law enforcement pulled double duty, if not triple duty. A lot of the sources that I looked at stated that the police and the FBI worked 12 to 16 hours a day.
00:30:28
Speaker
to find Amy. According to an article by Drew Schofield, quote, in the early days of the case, investigators had help from the Cuyahoga Regional Information Service, a system of law enforcement computers linked together from across the county and the country. The technology at the time, while advanced, was strained by the amount of information processed through it. The system was designed to handle around 1,000 inquiries per case.
00:30:55
Speaker
and had already surpassed the limit," end quote. And that was in the early days. They'd already surpassed that many inquiries about the case coming in.
00:31:05
Speaker
Does every case get this amount of attention? You know I was Amy's case kind of special because I feel like FBI got involved very quickly with her case. They did get involved quickly and I wasn't aware until we started doing a lot of research for the cold cases how often the FBI actually does get involved with missing person cases because I guess in my mind I always pictured like the movies and FBI only gets involved in like
00:31:29
Speaker
special thing espionage or something like that. But they're involved. They do a lot of work behind the scenes that we don't even we don't even recognize. We don't even realize now Amy's case did get a lot more attention than some of the cases that will cover on the show.
00:31:46
Speaker
Other sources that I read, like the article entitled, quote, who killed Amy Mahalovic, the missing pieces and a killer on the run that was published by Channel 19 News. They cited Chief Spitzel and he said, quote, there were things we did back in the day, investigative wise, that had never been done before. That they used behavioral scientists to create the suspect profile, that they use not only polygraphs, which I think is pretty ordinary, but also hypnosis and even truth serums.
00:32:16
Speaker
Sounds very Harry Potter. Tell us the truth now. Amy's case, and this is what I was saying a second ago, it did get national news coverage. Amy's mother appeared on Sally Jessie Raphael on a three-part episode on the Oprah Winfrey Show and on America's Most Wanted.
00:32:35
Speaker
And a few days after Amy's abduction on Halloween, noticeably fewer children were in the streets. Parents were more cautious. The fear in the community was palpable.
Discovery of Amy's body and forensic challenges
00:32:50
Speaker
Amy's parents, Mark and Margaret, lived in this incomprehensible unknown of having a missing child and no information. The longing and yet the dwindling hope for 105 days until on February 8th, 1990, 106 days after her abduction and disappearance.
00:33:14
Speaker
A jogger was running down an extremely rural road. County Road 1181 in Ashland County, Ohio, about 50 miles southwest of Bay Village. So quite a ways away and saw something that nobody should ever have to see. The jogger spotted the body of a 10 year old girl who had been stabbed to death.
00:33:38
Speaker
Oh no. Based upon the details I was able to find, Amy had been stabbed twice in the neck and then had been hit in the head with a blunt object. According to Ashland County Deputy Chief Carl Reichert, her body was decomposed, so it appeared that she had been there a while.
00:33:56
Speaker
She was dressed in the same clothing as what she had been wearing the last time she was seen, minus turquoise horse head earrings, black ankle boots and a black leather binder. The FBI posted images of these items and asked for the items or any information about them to be passed along to them. Chief Speicel believes that and this is sad, but it's kind of a.
00:34:24
Speaker
customary with crimes like this that the perpetrator might have kept the items like a trophy exactly as a souvenir and that the items could still be in the possession of the person who did this. So let me take a moment to show you Maggie the photographs of the missing items and describe them to you listeners and we will post these on our Facebook page. The first image is of turquoise horse head earrings.
00:34:52
Speaker
Now, you'll see when you guys look at the images on our Facebook page, these are artist renderings of the earrings, but they fit on the lobe of the ear. Yeah, they're not dangling. Right. And they are made of turquoise. The second image, also an artist rendering of the boots that she had on. How would you describe those, Maggie? Like...
00:35:17
Speaker
just you know every day black ankle boot with like studs along the side and I'm assuming that's laces running there with fur down in the like ankle part of the boot. And then the final picture is of a binder that she had been carrying and listeners
00:35:37
Speaker
I want you to pay attention to the details of these items, especially because the police believe the perpetrator may have kept them. You may have seen them in the home of the person who committed these crimes. Look closely at the picture of the turquoise horse head earrings.
00:35:55
Speaker
take a longer look at the black children's boots with silver buttons from ankle down to the toe and really analyze this black binder that Maggie's looking at right now that Amy's father had given her. This was a gift from his own work and so it was not a common item. Do you want to describe the clasp?
00:36:14
Speaker
I feel like this would be like if I saw this after seeing this picture I would easily be able to like link the two because it literally says on it best in class and has like a silver or maybe bronze buckle on it that looks like it would require a key to open. I mean it's like really nice for someone Amy's age to be carrying like I feel like it's very easily distinguishable.
00:36:39
Speaker
Yes, and because he was given this by his work, this isn't something you could just go buy at, you know, Kmart or Walmart or something like that. So, easily identifiable items. Police say that the abductor also, in addition to perhaps having these items in his possession still, is also likely to be familiar not only with Bay Village, as I mentioned earlier before, but also with Ashland County, Ohio, where the body was found. They believe so because
00:37:09
Speaker
As mentioned on a blog that I read, the road where Amy's body was found was so off the beaten path that this blog said nobody would ever just stumble upon it. So you almost have to know exactly where you're going to find this road.
00:37:27
Speaker
Former FBI agent Phil Torsney suspects that Amy was taken out of Bay Village right after her abduction. Due to Bay Village being such a small and close-knit community, not much goes on there without somebody noticing something. Torsney has noted that they quote, still pursue that connection end quote between the two communities because
00:37:49
Speaker
The person seemed to know about the goings on in Bay Village and knew Ashland County enough to find this road. Whereas we just said you basically have to know where you're going in order to find it. So authorities strongly believe that the killer is tied to both. Now, Amy's body was found by that jogger in this field. How would you describe the field that you see Maggie? What do you notice about it?
00:38:17
Speaker
um it is like on like they said a road that you just wouldn't like be driving down it's not like a highly traveled road it looks like it just goes through someone's farm where they have like crops with like
00:38:34
Speaker
dead maybe corn or something. Right. And it's not, I mean from where they're standing they're not very far off the road. No, not at all. And to me it's a lot flatter and more open than what originally I had pictured. I mean I would, I guess in my head when I was thinking of a field and country road I think of taller crops because there's a lot of tobacco and corn. Or like corn.
00:39:00
Speaker
So here though, again, it's kind of flat, but I mean, I guess I should have suspected something like that since the jogger was able to see her just by running by. But was this area really so rural that nobody had seen Amy's body there in the previous three and a half months? Because again, you would easily be able to see something on the side of the road. Especially if you were like the farmer and you were working there because it looks like the
00:39:29
Speaker
land had been previously cloud. Right it does. And the jogger who found Amy's body swore that Amy had not been there the day before. But the decomposition and from what I read on other websites the sapling seeds that were found on her clothing indicated that she had been there the whole time.
00:39:48
Speaker
Regardless of whether Amy's body had been there the entire time or had just been placed there more recently, law enforcement does believe that Amy was murdered elsewhere, not in this field.
00:40:01
Speaker
Phil Torsney stated, quote, somewhere there's a crime scene. It's a vehicle, a house. I don't know the answer to that. I'm not even gonna guess, but somewhere. There's some places we're looking at, re-looking at, with forensics, so that maybe we could identify the scene, end quote. And some of those places, per this FBI agent, are located in Ashland County, but
00:40:27
Speaker
just because law enforcement didn't have a crime scene does not mean that they had nothing to go on. Specifically, police were able to collect some evidence from Amy's body. They found three hairs that did not belong to Amy nor to her family, but the evidence also presents part of the problem. See Maggie, in my naive and ignorant mind, I guess I just lumped all DNA evidence into one big category, but there are different kinds
00:40:57
Speaker
DNA evidence. The more you know. Exactly the more you know. In most other cases that we discuss we have blood from the victim or from the perpetrator which is nuclear DNA. What evidence we have in Amy's case so hairs in this case but it can be hairs or bones is mitochondrial DNA.
00:41:19
Speaker
So I mentioned there's a problem and here's what it is. DNA technology is not advanced enough yet to identify Amy's killer from mitochondrial DNA. And Chief Spatzel has noted that officers have to be super selective about the way the hairs are used because, you know, we don't want to use it all up and then the technology is advanced enough, but there's nothing left to test.
00:41:42
Speaker
One of the reporters I mentioned previously, Drew Schofield, noted that about a year after Amy was found, a witness came forward with information that around 13 hours before Amy's body was found by the jogger, they spotted a 20 to 30 year old male near that area of the field who was driving a blue hatchback car with the hatchback open.
00:42:07
Speaker
From that report, we have another sketch. Now I'm gonna show Maggie this one. Now what would you say about this one compared to the other ones?
00:42:17
Speaker
If you could see my face right now, you would see I'm a little confused because he looks completely different from the previous two sketches. This guy has dark hair. The other one was kind of light. His hair is curly. It's a lot shorter. He has distinctive eyebrows. His eyes are a lot darker. He's got a really defined cheekbone. So the complete opposite of the first two photos.
00:42:39
Speaker
Exactly and Maggie is so right. This is far different from those first sketches. The fact that it is so different can make you feel almost paralyzed like you're making no progress. All of this waiting and the lack of capture took a toll on the family. Amy's mother Margaret died in 2001.
00:43:00
Speaker
Oh my God, that's so sad. Her husband said that she was never able to get over Amy's abduction and subsequent murder. And I think as a mom, we feel like we should always somehow be able to sense when our child is in trouble, to just feel it in our core. But of course that it isn't true. And the person who did this, they didn't just take an innocent 10 year old Amy out of this world. He took something from her mother too. I am sure that she continuously wondered
00:43:30
Speaker
What if I hadn't gotten that promotion? Would Amy still be here? He made Amy's mother blame herself for the unimaginable pain that he caused. I'm not a fan of this guy. No.
00:43:45
Speaker
For years, the police tried to keep as much evidence secret from the public for the purpose of knowing, you know, if somebody came forward with information, that they could quickly identify the veracity of the person's statements because it wouldn't be public knowledge. And a lot of cases do that. However, when over a decade passed with still no arrests, the police released further information about what else they found in that field and on Amy.
00:44:11
Speaker
Near her body police located this unique avocado green curtain Because of its unique nature again listeners, I want you to take a closer look to see if there is any Recognition and Maggie let me show it to you. I have one that's close up where you can kind of see The design and then another to give perspective for the size. So Maggie, what do you notice about those pictures?
00:44:41
Speaker
Again, I feel like this would be something that's easily identifiable. How many people have this color green curtain in their home? Most people, you know, you choose a neutral color curtain, but there's like some stitching around the top. It's a very big curtain. This is like the size of curtain we would use in my home and we have like really big windows. They're really tall.
00:45:05
Speaker
Right. And there's a pattern in the fabric, as Maggie mentioned. Yeah. And that's what a lot of people to feel like this is a homemade curtain that's made out of like a bed covering maybe. And you can even see the hoops on the top. They're not exactly.
00:45:21
Speaker
the same, right, the same evenness in terms of where they're placed. And there's one that's sewn on the front, it looks like, and the rest on the back. So homemade. And because of the size of it, as Maggie mentioned, officers have wondered, this could be a curtain to cover a large window, as Maggie said, or even a doorway.
00:45:40
Speaker
Right, so if you have... I hadn't thought of that, but yeah, that looks like the perfect size. But as Maggie mentioned, it just takes, because it's so unique, the right person to see it and remember a curtain like this one going missing in or around 1989 to break this case open. This curtain they found had hair on it as well, but pet hair.
00:46:04
Speaker
pet hair that match the mihalovic dog, which means that the curtain may have been used to wrap around Amy's body and the pet hair have been transferred from Amy's clothing to the blanket. I identify with that because we have three dogs and I feel like I eat, breathe,
00:46:23
Speaker
Sleep and dog care even though I vacuum almost every day. So that is easily transferable, right? So Maggie I want this week to be different I don't want us to focus at the end of the episode on potential suspects and there are several Instead I want us to focus on the evidence getting it out there and hoping that someone somewhere sees it and it triggers a
00:46:48
Speaker
something. And do not feel like what you recall is insignificant. In fact, the FBI has asked that anyone who remembers and knew Amy's mother, Margaret McNulty-Mahalovic, to come forward with information, even if it does seem insignificant, any strange detail or conversation that they may have overheard. Chief Spitzel said, quote, trust us, we get tips where people say,
00:47:14
Speaker
I didn't recall 29 years ago and I feel weird calling now. That's okay. That happens all the time." End quote.
Profiling the perpetrator
00:47:23
Speaker
While there is evidence in this case, there's also so much we still do not know. Blanks that someone or multiple people out there can help to fill in. What I do know is how easy it is in this world, even if we think we're being savvy and protecting ourselves for someone to find out information about us. For Amy, the man knew her routine of arriving home alone first. He knew her phone number, which we at least believe she had written down in a visitor log.
00:47:52
Speaker
at the Lake Erie Nature and Science Center. He knew what she looked like, enough to recognize her at the shopping plaza. And he knew, again, the distance between the school and the shopping plaza to know it was within walking distance. And how many times have you ever done that? Because I know Rodney and I, we stayed at a condo at the beach last year and we signed a book that was left in the room for all the visitors to leave notes. And now in hindsight, I'm like, oh,
00:48:18
Speaker
You know, now at least people know my name, they know at least what town I live in. So now I'm creeped out and I'm like thinking back about every place I've like, you know, some stores will be like, leave your number in your email and we'll send you a discount for your birthday. And we do. Okay, now people know my email and now they know my number.
00:48:34
Speaker
Or how many times in passing conversation do you mention where you work or other personal information? These scraps of information add up. Luckily for us, just the same as the scraps add up about our own lives, they also add up about a description of what FBI profilers have been able to piece together concerning our perpetrator in Amy's case.
00:48:56
Speaker
According to an article by Eric Tricky in Cleveland Magazine, the killer likely had trouble with normal social relationships and came off to people as strange. He was probably not in a long-term relationship, but could have lived with family at the time. We know that he was likely an underachiever who held a series of menial or low-skilled jobs. He probably suffered with mental health issues, substance abuse, or had a criminal background and likely experienced some stress in his life.
00:49:24
Speaker
in the fall of 1989. So listeners, if you are old enough to recall 1989, close your eyes and think back to people who you may have known at the time whose behavior had changed abruptly. They found religion, began always missing work, or suddenly developed excessive drinking or drug use. If you need more tangible details, microfibers were found on Amy's body that tell us the vehicle she was in after her abduction.
00:49:54
Speaker
had camel colored interior. And Maggie, I love science for this. We know, they've narrowed it down, that camel colored interior came from a General Motors car. So a Buick Chevrolet Pontiac Cadillac that was made between 1975 and 1978.
00:50:13
Speaker
So Anthony and I obviously love anything true crime. Forensic files is something that we were addicted to for a while. We watched all of those, but that kind of began my obsession. But I had no idea until we started watching those how much science can tell us. They can be like,
00:50:29
Speaker
This plastic was made at such and such factory and was sold at this Walmart between the days of this and this. So anybody that bought that plastic during that time could be like a suspect. And I had no idea that science could tell us all that. And luckily it can, especially in this case. We also know that the perpetrator was between 25 and 35 years old in 1989. So this is someone born somewhere between 1954 and 1964.
00:50:59
Speaker
And we think he tried this trick before. At least two additional girls in an area that's just south of Bay Village had received similar calls from a man hoping to prey upon young girls wanting nothing other than to celebrate their mothers.
00:51:17
Speaker
Okay, so again, I feel like we need to urge our children, if something seems out of the ordinary, you need to let someone know. Because I'm wondering in this situation, did they let an adult know that they were receiving creepy phone calls from a stranger? Yes, because we know Amy is the one who had responded and these girls hadn't. My hope is that someone out there can finally help give Amy's family peace.
00:51:46
Speaker
my sleuthounds. I want to close by telling you about a book and a concept called The Gift of Fear by Gavin De Becker.
Fear as a protective instinct
00:51:55
Speaker
Long ago, De Becker went on the Oprah Winfrey Show to share this concept with the world. What he said is this, unfortunately, normally we view the fear we may feel at times as either silly or irrational, but what we need to realize is that fear is actually a gift.
00:52:16
Speaker
In this episode, De Becker focused on what we, especially women, do in an effort to quote, be nice, even in situations that give us the creeps. He tells the story on Oprah of a woman who was raped.
00:52:30
Speaker
Even from the beginning of the interaction, she was creeped out by the voice of the man who offered to help her carry her groceries, but she brushed it off as silliness. She did tell the man no thank you, but he persisted, even grabbing a bag from her hand. And she convinced herself that she was just misreading the situation. He was just really friendly. But her gut had been right. We need to listen to ourselves.
00:52:58
Speaker
Oprah responded to the Becker story with something profound that I think we all need to hear.
00:53:05
Speaker
I know that we've all heard no means no, but I think we tend to just associate that statement with instances of sexual assault and what Oprah says extends that statement. She said, quote, when you say no and you mean no, and the other person, regardless of whether it's a situation where the other person wants to attack you or a situation where somebody wants you to just change your opinion, what I learned from this show
00:53:34
Speaker
is that when you say no and the other person continues to say, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, let me do it or no, no, no, no, no, it'll be okay. You should think immediately not how do I make it nice or make it better, but immediately think why is this person trying to control me? Because, and this is the part of Oprah's quote that I found most profound. Here's what she said, no is a complete
00:54:04
Speaker
sentence. What she means is that the word no or that listening to your feelings of fear requires no justification. Don't just listen to the voices of those around you. Listen to that still small voice inside yourself.
00:54:25
Speaker
Anyone with information in Amy's case can call the following phone number, 440-871-1234. And
Closing and call to action
00:54:35
Speaker
as a reminder, it is fine to leave a tip anonymously. You can also call the FBI with tips at 1-800-CALL-FBI.
00:54:47
Speaker
Again, please like and join our Facebook page, Coffee and Cases podcast, to continue the conversation and see images related to this episode. As always, follow us on Twitter, at casescoffee, on Instagram, at coffee cases podcast, or you can always email us suggestions to coffeeandcasespodcast at gmail.com. Please tell your friends about our podcast so more people can be reached to possibly help bring some closure to these families. Don't forget to rate our show and leave us a comment as well. We hope to hear from you soon.
00:55:16
Speaker
Stay safe. We'll see you next week.