justthetipsters

You may recall, dear Tip-Ster, way back in Episode 8, when Melissa recalled the tragic-yet-amazing story of "Tent Girl," a young woman whose body was  found wrapped in a canvas designed to wrap circus tents, on the side of a road near Georgetown Kentucky in May 1968.  Tent Girl's story is remarkable for two reasons.  The first remarkable fact is that after a couple of years of trying everything that could be tried to learn Tent Girl's identity to no avail, the tiny town of Georgetown essentially adopted her as its own - even paying for her burial and a stunningly beautiful headstone at the local cemetery.  But the most stunning part of Tent Girl's story is how her true identity - Barbara Ann Hackman - was finally revealed by a complete stranger living in a completely different state.  The man who had discovered the young woman's body, it turns out, had moved his family  from Georgetown Kentucky - to Tennessee - kand there his daughter, Lori, found a high school sweetheart - a young 17 year-old boy named Todd Matthews.  When Lori's dad retold his story about finding Tent Girl's body and the subsequent search for her identity back in Kentucky, young Todd - at 17! - decided there and then that he would make it his mission to uncover the woman's name and return her to her family, wherever they were.  Over the course of the years, Todd and Lori got married and raised a family.  Todd got a job at a local plant that manufactures auto parts.  And every night, day off - every waking hour - Todd carried out his mission to find out who the tragically-murdered victim was and where she came from.  In the process, Todd essentially helped invent the modern-day independent Internet sleuth.  At first using the telephone and the U.S. Mail, then gradually using the early rudimentary tool of the Worldwide Web before most of us even knew it existed, he began working with law enforcement on not just the Tent Girl case, but many other missing person and unidentified body cases.  He was a key player in the founding of the Doe Network and NamUs, two online resources that today help hundreds of law enforcement agencies and families identify missing or unidentified loved ones.  Oh - and yes - nearly 30 years after beginning his quest, Todd's hard work paid off - and Barbara Ann Hackman was Tent Girl no more.  Todd Matthews, in short, is a hero.  And Todd Matthews is Melissa's guest on this week's episode.  Listen in as a  true legend in the world of Internet sleuthing, still married to Lori and now a grandfather but still as passionate as ever - retells his story in a fascinating discussion about how one person can change the world by simply deciding to become dedicated.

On a warm summer Oklahoma day in 2008, two best friends - 13 year-old Taylor Paschal-Placker and 11 year-old Skyla Whitaker - went for a walk along a desolate dirt road near Taylor's home in the small town of Weleetka, on their way to a local creek, where they were going to hunt for pebbles and shells.  When they didn't return after darkness fell, Taylor's grandfather went looking for the girls - and came upon a scene no grandparent, parent or decent human being - ever should see.  The girls had been shot in the head and chest a total of 13 times with two different guns, their bodies left along the side of the dirt road.  Evidence later indicated that at least one of them had been sexually violated.  Despite the best efforts of law enforcement, the case went cold with absolutely no clues as to the identity of the monster who took the lives of these two beautiful girls...until three years later - in 2011 - when the monster revealed himself by killing Ashley Taylor - his fiancee - and setting her corpse ablaze on a relative's property.  But it was how the monster - then 25 year-old Kevin Sweat - revealed his crimes that sent a chill down the spines of everyone involved in the case.  Listen as Melissa  details the madness of Sweat's behavior and ponders the very nature of evil itself - are some people just born evil - or is there something somewhere - in an evildoer's past or biology that sets evil loose amid an otherwise sane world?

In the cold early morning hours of February 11, 1987, 37 year-old Peggy Hettrick left the Prime Minister nightclub in Fort Collins, Colorado, heading across the street to an open field, toward her ex-boyfriend's apartment on the other side of the field, where she hoped to get some shelter until she could get back into her own apartment, for which she had lost her key.  As the sun rose a few hours later, a passing bicycle rider saw what looked to be almost a posed mannequin lying in the field - but when he noticed blood running into the street, he called the police.  And what police found was as horrific as it was bizarre: Peggy Hettrick had been murdered and sexually mutilated in an unthinkably grotesque manner.  The cops quickjly latched on to their prime suspect - a 15 year-old high school sophomore named Tim Masters who lived in a house overlooking the field, who was also known to have seen (and ignored as a fake) Hettrick's body that morning - and had a number of dark, teenage-boy illustrations in his personal notebooks that convinced investigators that he must have committed the murder.  Yet it took 10 more years - after Masters had honorably served in the Navy - for prosecutors to finally decide they had enough circumstantial evidence to arrest him.  And it was on that circumstantial evidence that he was convicted and sent to prison...until 2008, when he was released and eventually exonerated after a mound of evidence pointing to a much more logical suspect - the existence of whom was hidden from Masters' defense team - came to light.  Masters finally received his justice when he received a multi-million dollar settlement from the government, but years of his life were taken from him that he will never get back.  What makes this particular case so compelling for Melissa is that the comedy team of Scott Howard and Russ Smith, who called themselves "Elroy Bondo," was playing the Prime Minister nightclub on the night of the murder; were probably the last people to see Peggy Hettrick alive...and Melissa knows Scott Howard from her days as a comedy club manager...and Scott was actually the Tip-Ster who told Melissa about the duo's experience...AND Scott Howard was cool enough to call in to tell Melissa about it as she went over the case!  Join in on the re-telling of this disturbing case of myopic investigation and injuistice with Melissa and Scott - and hear what it's like to realize you may have been witnessed the final moments of the life of a murder victim.

Melissa was lucky enough to be in beautiful Laguna Beach, California a couple of weeks ago,when a longtime friend of the show - "Detective Joe," a law enforcement officer who spent some serious time on loan to the U.S. Marshals, was able to drop by for a chat.  And what a chat it is!  You see,Detective Joe was attached to the U.S. Marshals unit that tracked down and finally caught suspected serial killer (and the world's lousiest alibi storyteller) Peter Chadwick,who spent nearly five years on the run after skipping bail in 2015.  The Chadwick case has been covered a couple of times on "Just The Tip-Sters," once while the cops were still looking for the fugitive millionaire and again when he was apprehended in a small town in Mexico late last year.  In his interview with Melissa, Detective Joe talks about the details of how the Marshals methodically tracked Chadwick, the movie-esque meeting with Chadwick's father at a plush Montecito estate and the nuts and bolts of how an international manhunt operates.  (Special thanks to Greg Krueger at Peacock Plantation for technical assistance on this episode.)

On Valentine's Day 1982, eleven miles west of the traveler-stopover town of Williams Arizona, the body of a beautiful young woman was discovered in a ditch on the side of Interstate 40.  She was impeccably dressed, had not been sexually assaulted, but had - according to the coroner - been suffocated somehow.  What baffled police - and baffles them to this day - is why no one ever claimed her.  Over the years the authorities believed 15 different reported missing girls and young women might have been the body that came to be called "Valentine Sally," who to this day is buried in Williams - believe it or not - with the headstone showing the name of one of the 15 proven to NOT be her.  There is some evidence that she could have been the victim of convicted serial killer Royal Russell Long, but he never admitted to it and died in jail before any real attempt could be made to find out what he knew.  It seems clear that Valentine Sally came from a good home; that she hadn't been away for long; and that it would make sense that someone - somewhere - would know who she is and be looking for her.  Maybe that someone is YOU, beloved Tip-Ster...We wrap up this installment with a recap of a visit Melissa and Producer Mark made to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Homicide Headquarters - quite the fascinating experience - and quite humbling meeting men and women so dedicated to protecting and serving.

In 2019 Melissa covered the 1980 missing person case of 17 year-old Randy Sellers, who disappeared after attending the Kenton County (Kentucky) Fair, becoming drunk and disorderly and after taking a swing at one of the Sheriff's Deputies sent to deal with him.  He was last seen in the company of four officers, who claimed to have dropped him off a mile from his home so he could avoid getting in trouble with his parents.  Uh huh.  Well.  Let's just say that Randy Sellers never made it home.  Or anywhere else.  Since the original "Just The Tip-Sters" episode on this case, Melissa had the opportunity in the early autumn of 2019 to visit Northern Kentucky (where it just so happens she grew up) and visit the area where the Sellers disappearance occurred.  But it was when she returned home from that trip that things got dicey.  Fast.  A message from a Tip-Ster back in Kentucky began a string of events leading to a phone call that shook Melissa - and her perception of a case already shrouded in more shade than light - to her core.  And led her straight to the FBI - where her story actually made the intake officer on duty gasp out loud.  You read that right - Melissa made the FBI gasp.  And now you will gasp too.  Oh yes, yes you will.  The road that leads to the truth about what actually happened to Randy Sellers and whoever did to him what was done to him may never be fully revealed - but when you hear Melissa's story, you most probably won't be wondering what acreage that road runs through.

This is the case that inspired Melissa to start this very podcast.  As she has since the first January of "Just The Tip-Sters," Melissa recaps and updates the "shouldn't-be-a" cold case of Will Cierzan, a regular guy living a simple life with the love of his life in the Southern California suburb of Santa Clarita - whose wife came home from work one early evening in January 2017 to find dinner sitting on the counter, Will's wallet and keys out in the open - and her husband - gone.  Disappeared.  Seemingly without a trace.  Over the next days and months, as his wife Linda and his loved ones fought to keep public attention and law enforcement dedicated to finding him, Will's "disappearance," it quickly became clear, was no disappearance at all - that something sinister happened at the Cierzan home between 5:06 and 5:12 p.m. - six minutes caught on camera that said so much but proved so little  And the two people who were most likely involved almost immediately lawyered up and laid low.  They have yet to be arrested.  But the saddest part of it all is who those people are - family.  Listen in as Melissa details all of the facts known so far, and highlights the most recent efforts of those who have dedicated themselves to bringing solace to a grieving wife and a multitude of friends, loved ones and co-workers whose life this sweet, kind man brought into the world.

In 1988 Diane Sherman Young was a 22 year-old working mother living in rural Indiana.  Diane was married to Scott Young,  whose brother -Mike - was actually married to Susan, one of Diane's sisters.  Diane worked in a local convenience store and seemed by all appearances to be leading a normal, everyday life.  Then, suddenly, everyday became a horror story.  On May 21, 1988 a local man driving his truck on a farm road between the towns of Hebron and Kouts,  Indiana saw a car completely engulfed in flames - on farm land leased to Mike and Scott Young's family.  By the time firefighters put out the blaze, all that was left inside the car were the almost completely incinerated remains of Diane Young - her purse found neatly sitting up 48 feet away for authorities to find - and a melted .22 Ruger on the floor.  Oh, and an empty gasoline can was sitting outside the vehicle, its handle melted off.  For reasons still unfathomable, the authorities originally declared Diane's death a suicide.  Wait.  What?  Now nearly 32 years later,the story of how a few (but certainly not all) family members pressed for, and got, a coroner's inquiry to investigate the matter, and how the facts surrounding the entire affair reveal a surreal and twisted tale of deceit, romantic and familial betrayal, sex (in various and sundry forms), greed and paranoia, leading to only more confusion - and the ultimate conclusion - as is so often the case - that someone knows the truth about Diane's death.  And the truth is just barely beneath the surface.

Terry Brisk was your average Minnesota family man and sportsman - not a big game hunter, but someone who did enjoy deer hunting during Deer Season - and who doesn't like a hot bowl of venison stew on a chilly autumn evening?  So when Terry took off early from work in November of 2016 to spend a couple of hours on his family's 100-acre property hunting for dinner, it wasn't anything out of the ordinary.  And when Terry's 16 year-old son John came home from school and found out his dad was taking advantage of the season, it wasnt unusual for John to head out to meet Terry and join the hunt.  But unusual is exactly what happened.  John eventually found his dad - shot dead in the woods, his Winchester hunting rifle nowhere to be found - and not to be found for months.  At first it was thought to be a self-inflicted wound - but law enforcement - after a full year of saying virtually nothing on the case - now insists that it was flat-out murder,and that the killer was someone known to Terry.  But who?  And why?  And for Heaven's sake - how?  Melissa explores a raft of possibilities - and seeks help from all of you, dear Tip-Sters, on coming up with suggestions on how this baffling mystery might be solved.

Season 3 open with the story of Joe Bryan, a high school principal who lived with the love of his life - his wife Mickey, an elementary school teacher - in (seemingly) idyllic Clifton Texas.  The Bryans were known not only as pillars of their community, but truly good people who cared about their young charges and even spent their own money to buy clothing and lunches for those most in need.  Everyone in town knew them to be God-fearing and deeply in love with each other.  And then the unthinkable happened.  Over and over again.  It started in 1985 when Mickey was shot to death in the master bedroom of the Bryant home while Joe was away on a business trip 120 miles away.  It got worse when Joe became a suspect in Mickey's murder and was arrested.  And it got unbearably awful when the reasoning was revealed for the Texas Rangers' and other law enforcement officials' suspicions - reasoning beyond belief even in the mid-1980s.  Join Melissa as she unfolds this sad and anger-inducing tale of a murder conviction based on completely flimsy circumstantial evidence and a whole lot of bigoted assumptions.

Say what you will about Dan Rather - the famed newsman and former anchor of the CBS Evening News has had an ... interesting ... time of it over the years.  There was that time that viewers of the broadcast in the Eastern and Central time zones saw a black screen instead of Rather because he'd walked out in a huff over a tennis match digging into his time.  Then there was the time a cab driver in Chicago decided he didn't like where Rather wanted to be driven, locked the taxi doors and drove frantically around the city for an extended period of time, with Rather hollering for help out of the cab's window.  But nothing, of course, compares to the day in 1986 when a then-unknown assailant and an accomplice accosted and beat up Rather as he walked home in Manhattan, yelling "What's the frequency, Kenneth?!"  A lot of people  thought the whole thing was a figment of the anchorman's imagination.  No one really knows what happened in Michael Stipe's imagination, but the incident triggered a free-form string of lyrics that Stipe's band, REM, backed with a beat and a melody - and it became a Top 40 smash hit.  Go figure.  But as Melissa describes in this Murdertizer (an appetizer of murder), Rather really was accosted just the way he claimed, and the way the identity of the assailant was discovered is chilling (we don't put "Murder" in "Murdertizer" for nothin', kiddo).

In 1975 a series of murders of young women in Dade and Broward Counties in South Florida baffled police.  They were dubbed the "Flat Tire Murders" because evidence strongly suggested that tires on the victims' cars were deflated as they shopped or were otherwise away from their vehicles - and then "assisted" by the killer when they returned.  But wait just a second.  Officially, the still-unsolved Flat Tire Murder investigation names five - 5 - victims of the killing spree.  But as Melissa discusses in this fascinating episode, there were at least five additional women killed under similar circumstances, all in the same South Florida area during the same period - and there are indications that this same serial madman may have been responsible for up to 30 additional murders.  And to make it all even that much more mind-bending, there's more than just a hint of a suggestion that one or more of the slayings could very well have been the work of a certain truly devious - and infamous - evil-doer.

In 1974 and 1975 five white gay men were savagely stabbed to death by a young African American man who attracted his victims by sketching their likenesses in the bars and cafes of San Francisco's Castro District, eventually luring them away to their doom.  He has never been identified, let alone arrested.  So how do we know so much about this killer and his modus operandi?  We know because three additional victims of the so-called "Doodler" survived to tell their stories - and each of them described that same scenario.  All three of those victims also provided similar descriptions of their attacker  And, tragically, all three insisted on full anonymity - all refused to be named or to step forward into the public light or press charges even if their would-be murderer were ever arrested.  And the reason for that is heartbreaking - and (in today's world) almost impossible to comprehend.  In this fascinating and heartfelt account of "The Doodler" and his serial murders, Melissa also explores San Francisco at a turning point in its history, the hidden heartbreak of being forced to live one's life in closeted fear and shame, and the Castro District businessman-turned-politician who understood that pain, exposed it and ultimately gave his life so that gay men and women everywhere would never be forced into it again.

In 1970 and 1971, the bodies of six girls and young women were tossed onto the side of various freeways in the Washington DC metropolitan area.  Most had been sexually assaulted and then strangled - none were over the age of 18.  Like so many serial killers, the so-called "Freeway Phantom" not only tortured his victims before slaying them - he also taunted police, and worst of all, the families of his victims with phone calls - some from him and some from the girls themselves before he killed them.  But it was what made this monster's atrocities so unlike most other serial murderers that made them so striking:  Most of his victims were almost always found within hours of their abduction.  And most chilling of all - after his sixth murder, they simply stopped.  He vanished.  Or did he?  Nearly fifty years later, the mystery remains - is he still alive?  Is he dead?  Did something inside his warped mind simply switch off the desire to rape and murder?  Join Melissa as she digs in to this fascinating case and asks - as she always asks - does someone out there know something that will finally solve this puzzling puzzle?

Scott Cox is a monster - the question is, how big of a monster - and can the immensity of his monstrosity be proven?  Convicted of the rape and murder of two women in 1990 and 1991, Cox - a trucker who frequented the two major interstates in and around his home town of Seattle - is the ONLY suspect in an additional 20 homicides up, down and across the I-5 and I-90 corridors, some as far north as Canada - cases that are still so active even after more than a quarter-century that law enforcement won't even release the names of all of the victims.  Why?  Because the police want to arrest Cox and put him back in prison...that's right, he's been on modified probation since 2013 on a "post prison supervised life sentence," which is a lot of words meaning he's free during the day but must sleep in prison at night.  Some life sentence, eh?  Join Melissa for a frustrating story of justice gone sideways - and another reason to always keep our eyes open and our minds aware to report any information we might have to  bring creatures like Scott Cox to the justice they deserve.

When your cousin and his best friend are attacked - and your cousin is killed - and his best friend suffers permanent brain damage - by three random thugs - for no reason whatsoever - and then all three disappear into thin air - for THREE DECADES - what would you do?  Well here's what Audry McDonald did:  Audry McDonald never stopped looking, that's what.  And when as the case got colder, she became even more determined to bring justice to the murderer of her cousin Richard "Pookie" Hernandez and the monster who forever crippled Pookie's best friend, Daniel Ontiveros.  Together with a dedicated army of family, friends and some of the finest law enforcement professionals on earth, Audry found the two surviving perpetrators hiding in plain sight - one of whom had actually become a beloved volunteer boxing coach for the local police department! - and saw to it that they were brought before The Law.  But that's where the story gets even better.  Because when the prosecutors tried to hand the two monsters a sweet plea deal, Justice - True Justice - stepped in, in the form of a Justice-loving Superior Court judge who cared about the victims and their families just as much as he cared about the rights of the defendants.  And then THAT's where the story hits home - as in the Homestead Studios...but you'll have to listen to discover that particular surprise!

In the aftermath of the horrific shooting deaths of two innocent high school students on November 14, 2019 - and the suicide of the shooter - in our home town of Santa Clarita, Melissa examines the facts known to date about this tragic incident and celebrates the hero first responders who ran toward the sound of gunshots.  And in a moving dialogue on the causes and lifelong effects of such an event on the young people at the school that day, Melissa reminisces about a tragedy that happened 39 years ago when she was a Junior at Simon Kenton High School in Northern Kentucky - also an awful even that also made national news - and which also had a permanent effect on the lives of the kids who were there.  A candid, thoughtful and moving meditation on the nature of fear, how it affects our behavior - and the importance of facing it down and moving on.

When you kill someone and you're sentenced to prison "for the rest of your natural life," without the possibility of parole, you're done.  Finished.  Kaput.  No more freedom for you, ever.  Right?  Right.  Except.  What does the "your natural life" mean, exactly?  Especially when we live in an age where technology can actually revive someone who has literally died for a few seconds?  And how does that phrase apply in the ostensibly cold, harsh light of legal interpretation?  Enter one Benjamin Schreiber, a nasty fellow who was convicted of a brutal murder and was sentenced to spend the rest of his life in jail - but who is currently placing himself in the middle of a legal battle that could possibly alter how "life" sentences are doled out in the future.  Join Melissa as she unravels the facts behind this case, and Schreiber's bold legal ploy to break free of his jail cell - by dying.  More than once.  SUBSCRIBE, RATE and REVIEW "JUST THE TIP-STERS" today!  And if you like what you hear, give us a five-star review!  Plus - don't forget - if you've got a tip for Melissa, leave her a voice mail message at (832) TIP-STER (832-847-7837) or send her an email at jttipsters@gmail.com

Setting fires is bad.  Setting fires that destroy property and businesses is worse.  But setting fires so recklessly as to take innocent lives in service of some hidden, inexplicable lust for flame and heat is evil.  And the most evil among those fire-starters are those who are sworn to protect us from that very danger - those in the uniform of firefighters.  And the very worst of all is one John Leonard Orr, the former Fire Chief and Lead Arson Investigator for the Glendale California Fire Department - who during the 1980s and 1990s is believed to have set more than 2,000 (that's not a typo) fires throughout California, using his expertise as a highly-respected arson investigator as cover for his sickness.  All that was bad enough - but when one of his fires - that of a hardware store/home center in Pasadena - resulted in the deaths of four innocents (including an infant and his grandmother), his sickness turned him into a murderer.  In this episode, Melissa details the long, often frustrating road that eventually led to apprehending Orr, and the one dedicated Fire Chief in the middle of the state who suspected Orr was the culprit for years and whose determination finally paid off in the arrest of the man widely regarded as the most prolific arsonist in American history.  SUPPORT JUST THE TIP-STERS!  For as little as $2 per month you can become a patron and get some cool swag as our thanks!  Visit www.patreon.com/justthetipsters for more information.

October 1969.  Nighttime in a quiet, leafy upscale suburban neighborhood in one of Cincinnati's toniest conclaves.  A young couple with two young children, and the wife's mother, all presumably asleep inside.  Except when the kids wake up the next morning and go to the neighbors to say they can't rouse mom and dad, what the neighbors find is simply horrific: The stabbed and shot bodies of Martin Dumler, age 29, his wife Patricia, age 27 and Patricia's 50 year-old mother, Mary Wilson.  Looks like the young couple may have been tortured - but impossible to be sure.  Looks like Mary just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time - but that too can't be definitively confirmed.  And for the past fifty years, the Dumler-Wilson murders have confounded authorities and remained one of the Queen City's most notorious unsolved mysteries.  On this episode, Melissa is joined by Cincinnati P.D. Cold Case Unit Detective Kellyanne Best, the tenacious, current posessor of the Dumler-Wilson file, significant portions of which she has provided to Melissa and which provokes some fascinating discussion.  SOMEONE, somewhere knows something about this case - is that someone YOU?  If you think you might be able to help, call Cincinnati CrimeStoppers at (513) 352-3040 or write to Detective Best directly at kellyanne.best@cincinnati-oh.gov - or you can always leave a voicemail message for Melissa on the TIP-STER HOTLINE at (832) TIP-STER (832-847-7837)  or send Melissa an email at jttipsters@gmail.com