5: Her Legacy
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All opinions are their own and not a guarantee of a similar outcome. Novel. Hey, listener. Here we are at our final episode. I just wanted to let you know that we are releasing our soundtrack as an EP. You can listen on all reputable streaming platforms. You can also purchase the EP by going to bandcamp.com and searching for the Girlfriends Our Lost Sisters soundtrack. All proceeds go to our charity partner, DNA Doe Project.

In this final episode, we'll be talking a lot about drug addiction. We'll also speak about parental neglect, sex work, as well as acts of extreme violence, including murder. But in amongst all this darkness, you'll also hear a woman's story brought to life by the people who loved her.

If you feel impacted by any of the themes while listening, I encourage you to check out our charity partner, DNA Doe Project. They work with law enforcement to identify Jane and John Does using genetic genealogy in the hopes of reuniting the bodies of unidentified people with their families. You can find them at dnadoproject.org.

And one more thing, you'll probably hear more bad language from me. I mean, it's the final episode, so why stop now, you know? So far, on The Girlfriends, Our Lost Sister. The whole thing is so horrific. It's almost like it's become this moral obligation to find her.

In '98 did missing persons really want to deal with a 1989 torso that washed up? I don't know. - Hi, it's Dr. Shapiro and I'd like to speak with the deputy medical examiner. - Do you mind if I send a text? - Yeah. - I might get something right away. - What?

Who do you know? Could you say perpetrator for me? Perpetrator. Who is she? Let's bring closure to another family. Let's open this door. Hello? Hi, is this Anne? It is. When Anna reached out to Heidi Balch's family, they were pretty shocked to hear from her. And trust me, I can certainly relate to that. But despite their surprise, they agreed to talk.

So, Anna explains the long, complicated story. How a torso washed up on Staten Island and was buried in Gail Katz's grave for nearly a decade. And how DNA testing eventually proved that it wasn't Gail. And how that torso was then buried on Hart Island until 2013 when it was exhumed once again by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiners.

We asked Heidi's family for records, anything relating to the police or medical examiners that they would be willing to share with us to help us solve this mystery once and for all. They forwarded us an email, which they were sent by the police back in 2013, and included in there, two paragraphs down, is a medical examiner case number, R890563.

which is a number some discerning listeners may recognize because it's the same number that we've had in our files for a year and a half. It's the number that all the way back in 1989 was assigned to our Jane Doe's torso, the one that was misidentified as Gail Katz.

I can't believe I'm saying this, girlfriends, but we finally have the proof. We found our lost sister, and her name is Heidi Balch. I'm Carol Fisher, and from the teams at Novel and iHeart Podcast, this is The Girlfriends, Our Lost Sister, Episode 5, Her Legacy. ♪♪

Okay, I've got a confession to make.

I know I always say I'm a Vegas girl because that's my hometown and I love a little glitz and glamour. But about seven years ago, I fell in love with a man from New Orleans and I found myself in a long distance relationship. Listener, don't fear. This one's a really nice guy.

But the deal was, I would spend more time out of Las Vegas if I could have a lot of animals. So we purchased a home right outside the city. And I'm happy to report that we have a shitload of chickens, two geese, a lot of ducks, five mini goats, one pet pig, two horses, and one pony. Oh my gosh, and we have two cats. Come meet Aunt Anna!

For the past week, I've been introducing my producer Anna to my menagerie. She's here because she looked like she could do with a good meal, but also because, and you're not going to fucking believe this, Heidi's aunt, she lives just 15 minutes down the road from me. I mean, you can't make this shit up.

When it comes to people being connected through the show, this feels like the craziest example, you know, down the road from where you live. We're down the road. We're only four minutes away. This is crazy. Throughout this series, we've said that we want to learn who our lost sister is, but all we could find were gruesome details about her death.

And today, we're hoping to find out about how she lived from the people who knew her and loved her. Or is it this? Oh, it's this. Isn't that cute? Adorable. Oh my God. Look how cute that is. Is that a dinosaur in there? I think that's a bird. Could be a dinosaur. I don't have my glasses on. Okay.

We get out of the car and walk through an old wooden gate towards a clapboard building with a porch and a rocking chair. The front yard is full of luscious greenery that's dripping from the heavy Louisiana rainfall. Hi, I'm Carol. Carol, hello. Nice to meet you, Rita. Hi, Rita. We're greeted at the door by Rita, or Rusty to friends. She's Heidi's aunt by marriage.

Rusty's one of those beautiful older women who just radiates a gentle, calm warmth and understated wisdom. It was a church. It was a church? Was it? You can now tell. I just said it. Yeah.

As if we didn't have enough coincidences, back in the day, this converted church, it was called St. Anna. I mean, come on. Rusty has lived here for decades and is the first person to ever call it home. She says you can feel the energy of people in the building, and I can believe that.

She guides us through the house with its navy floorboards and Persian rugs lit up through the stained glass windows. It's absolutely stunning. As we're taking it all in, we're joined by Anne. I'm Anne. I'm Carol. So nice to meet you. She's Heidi's cousin and Rusty's niece. Her dog says hello, too. This looks like my dog. Yeah, just like my dog.

Ann and Rusty seem to be cut from the same bohemian cloth. Ann's about 11 years older than Heidi. She's in her early 70s now. She's a woodturner, an artist, and talks about driving around in a van for half the year, seeking adventures while she still can. So now we get to where it's warm. Okay. We're coming to the warm area.

There, on a dining room table surrounded by fruit salad, hot coffee, and granola bars, are photos of Heidi and her family throughout the years.

There's one of Heidi as a toddler being cuddled in the backseat of a car. She was two there, and I was 12. This is Lyle. She's Anne's sister and another cousin of Heidi's. Her wavy white hair is effortlessly tied back, and she's wearing a pair of loose-fitting traditional Nepalese trousers. We had a big record of the singing nuns.

And we would dance to this song. And there's one in particular we loved. And little two-year-old Heidi would go over to the record player, very delicately lift up the needle, put it back on the groove where the song, like she never scratched the record. She never missed putting it in the right place. I was just amazed at her dexterity. We must have danced to that song like a hundred times.

I think it was a song called Dominica, and you can tell how much we loved each other. Yeah. This dancing little girl with a family of gorgeous hippies, this isn't the story I was expecting. Here with Heidi's relatives, I get a sense of a life she could have led, full of art and color and music. I wish we could tell that story, but that's not how things worked out for Heidi.

So what happened? To understand that, we first need to learn about Heidi's parents, Tom and Gretchen, who met in California in the early 1960s. There was a 10-year age gap. She was 22 and Tom was 32 or whatever. And he was not living a life that was about having children or finding a wife. My understanding was that he was just kind of a playboy.

And so I think he just liked to have sex and he liked to go out with different women and he wasn't looking for a relationship and she got pregnant. When Tom's mother, who the family all called Nana, found out about the pregnancy, she told Tom that he had to do the right thing and marry Gretchen. She felt like it was the only way to give the baby a proper start in life.

In the photos from their wedding day, Gretchen is six months pregnant in a 60s coat and a beehive hairdo. Tom's in a pale suit holding a glass of champagne. He looks like a deer in the headlights. Heidi's born a few months later in California on January 7th, 1964. But within a few months, Tom and Gretchen's marriage is over and Heidi gets stuck between two miserable parents.

What struck me about Gretchen was how bitter she was, kind of toxic. And Tom became bitter as well. But Tom was bitter about a lot of things. So both parents, full of that bitterness, really created an environment that wasn't even close to the atmosphere a baby needed. There was no nurturing. There was no...

making the baby fly up in the air and catch him, or having fun, or anything like that. At one point, a local woman is hired by the family to look after baby Heidi. But before long, according to Heidi's cousins, this woman takes Heidi's Nana to one side. She tells her that, from what she's seen at Gretchen's apartment, she thinks Gretchen will be the death of Heidi, and that the family should get rid of her to protect the baby. She said, you know...

I have people in my neighborhood who know how to take care of these kinds of things. Oh, my gosh. So let me get this straight. This devout Christian nanny is suggesting that they put a hit out on Heidi's mom? Yeah. Nana was shocked. Of course Nana said no and, you know, it wasn't even a consideration. Nana didn't give up, though. The family tells us that she tried to take custody of Heidi but was unsuccessful.

So in the end, she did whatever she could to make Heidi's life as normal as possible whenever she came to visit. Big family meals with freshly pressed tablecloths, cute girly dresses, riding up and down the curb on a shiny new bike, some money or toys at birthdays and Christmases. But back home with Heidi's mom, things weren't as bright. The family told us they suspected that Gretchen was working as a sex worker from her apartment.

They heard from people that she had different men over while Heidi was there, that she only had beer in the fridge. One time, the cousins say, Heidi came to Nana's house with a cigarette burn on her. It's important to point out here that we can't fact check these claims because we believe Gretchen has passed away. And records show that Tom, Heidi's father, died in 2023.

We do know that Gretchen told the detective who looked into Heidi's case that she was going through a rough patch back then. It all came to a head when Heidi was five. Gretchen turned up at Tom's front door one day and said she couldn't deal with raising Heidi anymore. She then walked away and left the little girl to live with her equally uninterested father.

Tom didn't come home at night, and Heidi had learned by six or seven to take a frozen dinner out of the freezer and turn on the oven and make it for herself. Heidi's cousins, Lyle and Robert, show us some more pictures of Heidi. She's not so old in this picture, and you can see that face as someone's gone through some... Yeah, she was just obviously really lonely.

I mean, you look at these photos and there is like a clear change. Yeah. You know, she is just a normal, happy, cute kid when she's like two, three in these ones. And then there is something about her eyes that just goes. Yeah, that's what I say. I feel like if we put all these pictures in chronological order, you almost see the light go out in her eyes. At school, Heidi's teachers noticed there was something wrong, too.

In one of her report cards from first grade, it says, she almost never smiles. I believe she needs a great deal of affection right now. But there are also signs of Heidi's creativity and potential. One of her teachers says she was an excellent reader who loved the Chronicles of Narnia. They also say she was a talented writer, producing many fine stories and poems with the wit and humor that was unique to her.

There are moments in these reports that show flashes of Heidi's personality, a headstrong young girl who simply wastes too much time doing what she pleases instead of paying attention. One report from 1972, when she was eight, says that if Heidi continues receiving the love, help, and understanding she has seen from school and home, then I believe she will make even greater social progress.

But the love she received at home didn't come from her dad. That was all Nana who continued to play a key maternal role in Heidi's life, especially at Christmas when Heidi would go and visit. There are real sweet photos of her sitting on Santa's knee that feel like glimpses of childhood joy. One time, Heidi's Aunt Rusty remembers when they were all at Nana and Grampy's house.

Grampy was kind of a grumpy. He was the one who decorated the tree every year. That was his tradition. And the tree that he brought in that year had a bird in it.

A live bird. Grampy rescues the bird from the tree and brings it outside. But while he's gone... Nana said, let's have some fun. So they started decorating the tree while Grampy was gone. And Heidi was delighted. It was just wonderful to see her spirit dancing around. Let's be naughty. But then the worst thing that could happen happened.

Grampy retired and decided he wanted to move to Florida, 1,100 miles away from Ohio. Nana just was wringing her hands about moving so far away from Heidi.

But Grampy's word was law in their relationship, and she had no choice but to go. So there was no longer visits to Nana's house where there really was stability and home-cooked meals. By 1972, Heidi loses regular contact with the most important and loving figure in her life. A few years later, in 1976, the family are gathered together for a golden wedding party.

Looking at a photo from the day, you can see 12-year-old Heidi, who looks like a young Jodi Foster. But to her cousins, she seems almost unrecognizable. She's already had several run-ins with the law and is experiencing things that her older cousins can't even imagine. She was worried that she was pregnant and that she might have hepatitis from shooting up with a dirty needle. I went into shock.

I felt like I'd gone from being the cousin who's 10 years older who can lead the dancing to feeling like I was a country bumpkin who had no experience. It was clear to everyone that Heidi was on a downward spiral, and her father Tom seemed to be doing nothing to stop it. Around that time, her Aunt Rusty stepped in. She moved Heidi in with her and her family. You know, I thought, well, I could help her. I don't know how.

And I tried to give her some ground rules while we were at the house. She resisted everything. It was this bubble that she was in, it seemed, that couldn't be penetrated. So she really protected herself, like with a shield of armor around her. She did. Eventually, Heidi was forced to attend a reform school in Ohio. And for a while, she was doing well.

Heidi seemed to thrive with a bit of discipline and structure. She was a naturally bright young girl and started advancing in her education again. And then the story goes that Tom came to visit her. This is Robert. And he took her away. He took her back. Tom had this thing about bucking the system, you know, fuck the man. He hated any kind of authority. And so I think he valued that in Heidi too and encouraged it.

Back in Toledo with her dad, Heidi wanted out. At just 14 years old, she told her dad Tom she was moving to California to follow her dreams of being an actress and a model. She said she could get a ride with some long-distance truck driver she had met. Heidi's family couldn't believe Tom was okay with it. You can't allow your daughter to just go and get in a car with

These are grown men. You can't do it. You can't do it. And he's just like got this dumbass smile and a drink in his hand and a pipe. He was in a weird way proud of her independence. But there was no talking to Tom or to Heidi. And so in 1978, with her dad's consent, 14-year-old Heidi gets in a truck with this random guy and sets off to make it big in California.

Oh, hey, we're invited to the Johnson Summer Pool Party this Saturday. I said we'd bring our famous potato salad. Oh, Saturday? But that's when the Blinds guys come in to give us a quote. Those appointments take forever. Oh, yeah, I meant to tell you. I already found everything we need at Blinds.com. They're totally online, so we don't have to wait around all day just to get a quote. I talked to a Blinds.com designer, and they're sending us free samples.

Oh, Blinds.com? I've heard of them. Yeah, they've been around for over 25 years. But not everyone knows they can also handle the measuring and installation for a fraction of what the other guys charge. Plus, they have a 100% satisfaction guarantee. Well, Blinds.com sounds like a no-brainer. Guess I'll cancel. Already done. That gives you time to make the potato salad. Yes, dear.

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Say yes to those concert tickets to go see that band you were into back in high school. Say yes to that bikini that you are too scared to try in at the store because the lighting might be bad and you might get discouraged, but that you know you'll look amazing in when you try it on for the first time at the resort when you get there.

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Like so many other teen girls, she had aspirations of being a star, an actress, or maybe a model. She didn't have all the details figured out yet. Heidi's family don't know much about her life at this point, but what they do know is that she never made it big in Hollywood.

We're pretty sure that she didn't book any acting gigs, and she decided that at 5'1", she was too short to make it as a catalog model. So, at age 16, Heidi packs up her life, and once again, with her father's blessing, she decides to move, this time, to New York City. ♪

When Heidi arrives in the Big Apple, her dreams have changed. Well, kind of. Because of her height, she thinks she might have better luck as a hand and face model. So, she starts putting a portfolio together. Picturing a 16-year-old Heidi alone in New York, it makes me think of my own daughter. When she was 16, she was still in school. She was learning to drive a car and starting to think about colleges.

As a mother, it's hard for me to understand how anyone could let their child go off alone into a city as dangerous as New York in the 80s. Heidi no doubt considered herself pretty streetwise, and in a lot of ways she was. But she was also just a kid in need of some love and guidance. According to her family, Heidi's dad paid the rent on a studio apartment for her, but he never visited. Heidi was left to fend for herself.

her life became increasingly turbulent. She was falling deeper into the throes of drug addiction, and she got arrested multiple times. According to her cousin Robert, who was living in New York at the time, within a few years of being in the city, Heidi found herself in the infamous island jail Rikers for robbery and assault. Heidi was a tough character by that point, so she prided herself in knowing how to navigate being in Rikers.

And she would ask for different things like socks and cigarettes, whatever, underpants, and she could barter, use them to her advantage. But she took real pride in being able to handle herself. After Heidi came out of Rikers when she was around 21, her family arranged for her to go to Florida for a few months to stay with Nana. While there, she spoke about getting clean and even got her high school GED.

But this brief respite from her life in New York didn't last. Once she returned to the city, she fell back into her old ways. She'd stop by and visit her family who were living in the city every once in a while for dinner or to get a few extra bucks. But they weren't seeing very much of her. A lot of her life was a mystery to them. We knew she was addicted to drugs and using her sexuality in some way.

She was really on the downward spiral. And it may have even been around a discussion about being a sex worker. She just came out with this statement. She said, well, you know I'm a lesbian. But after coming out as a lesbian, Heidi suddenly marries a man. She met this guy who was attempting to get a green card and struck a deal. Allegedly, he gave Heidi $1,500 to marry him.

It seems very much like a business transaction. As far as we know, there was no real relationship. Heidi's addiction continued to spiral. At various points in the mid to late 80s, her family tried to step in. I was living in New York and my parents, Heidi's aunt and uncle, were making one more effort to try to get her into drug rehabilitation.

And the last night before she said she would go and my folks were going to take her, they had gotten a hotel room about a half a block away from where they lived. I remember being in the hotel room and Heidi was going into the bathroom like every 20 minutes. And, you know, it was sort of obvious that she was taking drugs. She was using needles and heroin by that point.

And I remember seeing her legs and her arms in that way that really advanced drug addicts have pustules of sores. And it was already that she had had an AIDS diagnosis. And she wanted a smoothie. And I said, well, I can go over to Orange Julius, you know, one of those corner store places in New York, and get you one. And she said, you know, I'm organic.

That's great. And it was just so funny. Like, it was like, oh my God, she's organic. And she wasn't there the next morning. Tired of routine Walgreens trips? Get rewarded for shopping with Drop. With Drop, you can earn free gift cards on groceries, gas, and more. Download Drop now and use code DROP55 to get $5 in points. Join Drop today.

Hi, this is Nikki Glaser from the Nikki Glaser podcast. Say yes to summer and get cash back on many of your favorite brands with PayPal, which let's face it, comes in very handy during the summertime. Everyone is ready for summer activities, which is why using PayPal is a great way to say yes to summertime fun. Say yes to those concert tickets to go see that band you were into back in high school. Say yes to that bikini that you are too scared to try in at the store because the lighting might be bad and you might get discouraged.

but that you know you'll look amazing in when you try it on for the first time at the resort when you get there. You can also send money to friends via PayPal, which means going halfsies with your best friend when she visits this summer. With even more cash back in your pocket when you pay with PayPal, saying yes to summertime fun just got a whole lot easier. Make sure to download the PayPal app. An account with PayPal is required to send and receive money. Redeem points for cash and other options. Terms apply.

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Heidi's life in New York was, to put it mildly, unpredictable. But in amongst all the chaos, there was one person in her life that she would never bail on, her beloved Nana.

Every January, on her birthday, Heidi would call Nana and they'd catch up a little. And Nana would say, oh, I want to send you a check. And, you know, it's so nice to hear from you. And, you know, it was kind of a way to know that she was alive and well. And it was 1990 when she doesn't call Nana. And now it's been a year almost. And so everybody was knowing something's going on.

Increasingly worrying for Heidi's welfare, Nana reaches out to Heidi's green card husband to see if he's heard from her. And he said, oh yeah, she's fine. You know, she's over on the alphabet land, Avenue A. And I haven't really seen her, seen her, but I know other people have seen her and just led Nana on. That went on for a number of years. And so Nana was not suspecting anymore. She believed it.

And said, oh, well, she's just like in more trouble than, you know, she's on drugs. Because the fake husband was reassuring Nana for his own self-interest that she was alive. Nana died in 1996. So she never knew whether Heidi was really missing or not. And probably it was better that way for Nana? Oh, without a doubt. When Nana died, these calls stopped.

and Heidi's family were left wondering what happened to her. Robert tried to console himself with fantasies of Heidi having turned her life around. My narrative, the thing that I hope, was that she joined a cult, and she was, like, in Arizona and changed her name to Sunbeam, and, you know, she was gotten clean and healthy. But as time went on, nobody had spoken directly with Heidi for several years. The family began to wonder whether something serious had happened.

Throughout the 90s, the family tried to make Heidi's father, Tom, file a missing persons report, but he refused. Because of his dislike of any authority, like that's why he kept telling our mom, no, don't report it yet. Somehow he maybe was scared or just disliked the police so much or something. I can't understand how any parent could go years without knowing if their child is alive or dead and do nothing.

The rest of the family felt torn. They were desperately worried for Heidi's welfare, but they wanted to respect Tom's wishes as her father, so they stood by. Until eventually, in 2001, Heidi's Aunt Robin took matters into her own hands. My mother just couldn't stand it anymore. And so she just decided I have to report her missing. Over the years, the family checked in with the police, but there was no sign of Heidi anywhere.

There also wasn't any media attention, not like there was in Gail's case. Heidi's face didn't appear on the news or on a milk carton under Missing. I have to wonder if it's because Heidi was a sex worker and a drug addict. She wasn't a perfect victim. And maybe she reflected back at people the kind of life they wanted to hide away from.

Given how much Heidi means to me, to Anna, to Mindy, to Elaine, to all of us girlfriends, it's heartbreaking to think that for so long, her story was just ignored. Until 2013, when Heidi's Aunt Robin gets a very important visit. Four Hopewell detectives knocked on her door and said, could this be your niece? My mother took one look at the pictures and she said, that's Heidi.

This was when the family learned that Heidi was dead and that the serial killer Joel Rifkin was responsible for her murder. And then my sister Anne, she got right on the computer and started investigating. And she tells me, you know, Heidi was decapitated. It was all so much darker, so much more heartbreaking than they ever could have imagined. I mean, it was one of those moments of where were you when you found out?

when the towers came down or whatever. It was definitely shocking. It was, I mean, it kind of knocked my breath out. Trying to come to terms with what's happened, the families seek out as much information as they can. They come across old news articles about Heidi's death before she was identified. Articles they may have read a few years previously without knowing the connection they had. I think I saw a headline that said, Head Has AIDS.

And I just felt like I couldn't talk about it or I just didn't, you know, I didn't know how to process it. I didn't know what to do with it. The callous and dismissive way Heidi was spoken about by the press after her death is a fucked up mirror image of the way Joel Rifkin saw her and his other victims. He spoke about it in the book From the Mouth of a Monster. I didn't read the whole book, but

I have it in my mind that he said, "Well, I picked these kind of girls because no one's looking for them. They don't have families that care." And that just felt like a dagger in my heart to be, well, how long did it take for us to report it? We wouldn't have known, like, within a week or two because we weren't-- no one was in that close touch with her. But by that summer, we could have said, "We should get some help in case we can't find her." You know, if we had reported it, maybe

it would have led to him being caught. There'd be 16 other women still alive. Lyle, Robert, and Anne have been trying to figure out how their cousin, the girl they shared Christmases with, who played the dancing nuns on repeat until the record nearly wore out, who had dreams of being a star, how it is that she could have gone down such a different road to them. It makes me realize that intact, consistent, reliable women

love that our parents gave us, how valuable that is, how important that is. Like, I could be right where Heidi was if I had had Uncle Tom. I mean, she did have love for Nana. Yeah. And whatever Tom, in a weird way, there were little pockets of it, you know? So she wasn't completely deprived. We're just still trying to sort it out and figure it out. Like, how does a life go on?

After the 2013 police investigation, all of Heidi's remains, including her torso, were finally reunited and cremated as one. The family had some kind of closure. But what they didn't know until we came along was that Heidi's torso had been buried for nearly 10 years in the grave of Gail Katz.

So we thought it fitting to introduce them to the woman who visited her all those years, Gail's sister, Elaine. Hi. Hi. We have something terrible in common. I am so sorry. Thank you. I am so sorry to you. Oh, thank you. You know, I think that it's only since we got connected with Anna and learned the story of the misidentified torso...

and realized that there was a lot of peace that we have felt knowing that somebody loved her and buried her and that she was cared about for a period of time when for 25 years, it was a total mystery. You know, Heidi's torso gave my family hope.

an enormous amount of peace and closure burying her. We finally felt that, you know, we had some part of my sister back. So thank you for lending her to me and my family. That's a big heart that you have. We know and appreciate that there was loving energy going her way. In Heidi's story, that means a lot.

As we end the call with Elaine, the Louisiana sky is getting dark. Still strewn across the table in front of us are the documents and photographs that gives us snapshots into Heidi's too short life. And it might be the rainstorm or maybe the spirits in the house that Rusty talked about, but the lights start to flicker on and off. And the conversation turns to what Heidi would make of all of this. At one point when she was in her teen years...

She said to me, you know, what I really want is to be on the cover of a magazine and have my mother see me on the cover of a magazine when I'm famous. Like the motivation was to be discovered by her mother. Yeah. And she's not a famous hand model or an actress who's doing brilliant work. But maybe this is the legacy we've been waiting for. Maybe this is her.

being on the cover of the magazine in some weird way. And I think she will be represented now with a story that's more than the blood and gore on the internet. I'm glad that you all are telling it. I also have the sense that the girlfriends are growing in numbers.

Yes. And count me in. I'd like to think that Gail and Heidi are just friends somewhere in the ethers. I was thinking that too, in the ethers. But maybe it was like a destiny kind of thing. And a divine intervention. Yeah.

Today, Heidi's ashes are scattered underneath a palm tree somewhere in Florida. It's nice to imagine her there, soaking up the sun, finally at peace. I'm back on the shores of Staten Island, where Heidi first entered our story. Mindy and Anna are with me. The three of us are gathered here one final time, in this beautiful, slightly melancholy spot, to say goodbye.

We started this journey with one mission, to find our lost sister. And now that we've not only found her, but named her too, we're here to give her a proper send-off. So we're going to do it in the only way we know how. Very Jewish, a little slapdash, but with a lot of heart. In the Jewish tradition, if you visit a grave site, you leave a stone. And I think we should leave a stone here.

I love that. Let's leave a stone. Where are you going to place it? I'm going to go down there. Walking right out to the water's edge, Mindy gently lays down the stone. Is there something you say when you do this normally? You say Yitzkor. Yitzkor is a special memorial prayer for the departed where you say the name of the dead you wish to honor. It means may God remember.

But sadly, and a little ironically, we don't remember the words. Hey Siri, can you say yes score? Okay, how to get your credit report now. We warned you, slapdash. But eventually Mindy finds what she's looking for. So dear listener, we'd like you to join us in taking a moment to remember Heidi Balch. Okay, you ready? Sure can. Yay!

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Heidi. Okay. Oh, that's enough. Yeah, it's enough. There's got to be a shorter one. I'd like to imagine that Heidi and Gail are looking down on us from the ethers, both of them laughing at me, Mindy, and Anna as we awkwardly make our way off the beach, leaving behind two unassuming stones just on the water's edge.

one for Heidi and one for Gail. This story is for all of us. It's for Gail and for her sister Elaine. It's for Anne and Rusty and Lyle and Robert. But most of all, this story is for Heidi Balch, who is no longer our lost sister, because we found you, Heidi, and we will never forget you.

The Girlfriend's Our Lost Sister is produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts. For more from Novel, visit novel.audio. The show is hosted by me, Carol Fisher, and our chief investigator is Mindy Shapiro. To find me on social media, search Carol A. Fisher. That's Carol with an E. The season is written and produced by Anna Sinfield and Lee Meyer. Our assistant producer is Madeline Parr.

The editor is Joe Wheeler. Max O'Brien is our executive producer. Our fact checker is Dania Suleiman. Production management from Cherie Houston and Charlotte Wolfe. Sound design, mixing and scoring by Daniel Kempson and Nicholas Alexander. Music supervision by Anna Sinfield and Nicholas Alexander.

Original music composed and performed by Louisa Gerstein and produced by Louisa Gerstein and Nicholas Alexander. The series artwork was designed by Christina Lehmkuhl.

Story development by Anna Sinfield. Willard Foxton is creative director of development. Our executive producers at iHeart Podcast are Katrina Norvell and Nikki Etor. Special thanks to Cantor Daniela Gessenheit and Leona Hamid, plus Ali Cantor, Carrie Lieberman, and Will Pearson at iHeart Podcast, as well as Carly Frankel and the whole team at WME.

And a special shout out to Vince Hayward, my life partner in true crime, for taking on the role of Girlfriends confidant and lead tech support. The Girlfriends will return with a brand new story and a new host soon. Novel.

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