32 Years Later, And Still No Answers - Who Killed Amy Mihaljevic?
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back. If you're new welcome. So for today's video, we are going to be looking at a case that happened back in the eighties and it is still unsolved to this day. However, it's still open and definitely has the possibility of being solved. There was quite a bit to go over, so let's just jump in. So this is Amy Renee Mihaljevic. She was born on December 11th, 1978 in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Amy also had an older brother named Jason and in 1984 her parents decided that all of them were going to move. They ended up in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio called Bay Village, which was actually named one of the safest cities at the time by Family Circle. It was ranked number six.

So they figured it was a great place for them to raise their family. Some people even referred to Bay Village as the American dream for the easygoing. Her parents were named Margaret and Mark, and they actually met in high school at West Alice in Wisconsin, and the two of them married in 1972. While they were living in Little Rock, Mark worked for Buick as a field rep, and then he was transferred

to ohio they made the move in 1984 and their family settled into a four-bedroom home on lindford drive in bay village now amy was a very hands-on can-do independent type of kid she was also very outgoing and adventurous when she was only five years old she was already jumping off the high dive at the community pool which really impressed people because

Normally, it was much older kids going off of that and adults. And from pretty much birth, Amy loved animals. She always felt very connected to animals, especially horses. She actually spent a lot of her time at this local stable called Holly Hills, and she would ride her favorite horse there, which was named Razzle. She also loved going to the Lake Erie Nature and Science Center.

She was very smart and also incredibly outgoing and kind, especially for her age. Unlike most kids her age, she wasn't shy at all around adults and would just talk to them as if she was an adult. The neighborhood kind of knew her as the kid who would follow behind her mom. And if anyone came up and talked to her mom, she would just jump right into the conversation as if she was an adult too. Amy and her mother Margaret were

very close. Amy was actually referred to as her little shadow. And like I said, she was very smart and she actually was in the gifted program at her school. Now, Amy and her brother, Jason, were what's known as latchkey kids. This is kind of an older term, but it means that they would come home from school before their parents would come back from work.

So they often would have a few hours of the day without any supervision. And of course, this isn't particularly uncommon for the time that they lived in. You know, this is the late 80s. Also, this is Bay Village. It's known as a very safe area. It was really the kind of place where parents just didn't really have to worry if their kids were off playing outside or spent a few hours here and there unsupervised. Amy kind of had that classic rule where...

She could be out with her friends until the streetlights came on and then she had to get home. And Amy did spend a lot of time with her friends, especially one of her friends, Kristen Sabo. She would go to her house all the time and she just lived a few blocks away from the Mihaljevic home. Kristen's mom actually said that she considered Amy to almost be an adopted daughter because she spent so much time at their house and with their family. And they didn't mind at all. They loved having Amy over. She was always a joy to have there and they didn't want her to be alone.

They even nicknamed Amy Ragamuffin because she would often have messy, unbrushed hair. And Amy and Kristen were best friends. In fact, in summer of 1989, the two of them decided to start a babysitter's club.

Do any of you remember that series, by the way? But anyway, they actually made up little flyers and passed them out that had their phone numbers and their services. And this wasn't anything serious. They were in fifth grade, so they weren't actually babysitting, but it was just something fun to do. I mean, I'm sure a lot of you did that. I actually went around trying to sell Girl Scout cookies when I wasn't a Girl Scout, so...

Yeah. They just thought it was fun to create their own little business and kind of get a walk around and advertise it. So that same year, 1989, Amy and Jason were both attending Bay Village Middle School, and they were only two grades apart. Amy, like I said, was in fifth grade and Jason was in seventh.

And at their school, the younger kids were released earlier than the older kids every day. That meant Amy was done with school at 2:05 every day and Jason was done with school at 3:05. So there was a hour every day where Amy was kind of on her own. And normally Amy would end up back at home before Jason got

back and like most kids in the area at the time the two of them would ride their bicycles to get around for the most part Amy didn't have a particularly fancy bike it was actually kind of falling apart and rusted but it didn't seem to bother her so that brings us to October 27th 1989 this was truly a day just like any other a normal school day for Amy the weather was nice it was like

cool and crisp right before Halloween. The community was getting ready for Halloween, planning parties, you know, decorating. It was a Friday and Amy left for school that morning on her bike at 7:20 AM. And Jason that morning had already left. A lot of times they would go to school together, but this morning he left early. So she went on her own. Luckily the school was not far from their house. It was a really quick ride.

So that day school ran from 7:45 AM to 2:05 PM for Amy. And most days she would just leave school right away and ride home this day. However, she told her mom she had to stay late because she had an audition. She was gonna be auditioning for the fifth grade choir and her mom, Margaret was actually a Capella singer back in high school. So.

you know hearing that amy was going to try out for choir made her really happy that day amy left her house in a light green sweatsuit wearing a white windbreaker she also had on her favorite black riding boots and also had some turquoise earrings that were in the shape of a horse head and she also had her backpack which had a black notebook inside with a brass buckle latch on it that said best in class and this notebook actually came from her dad's office so it wasn't like any of the other ones that her friends carried

Now this is incredibly ironic and eerie, but that day the only thing that was different about the school day was an officer from Bay Village Police Department came in and talked to the students about stranger danger. The officer that came in and spoke with them was named Mark Spatzle, and he talked to them about the dangers of talking to someone that you don't know and ways to remain safe in the community. But besides that, it was just a typical Friday.

When the school day ended, Amy did not go to the choir audition like she had told her mom she was going to. In fact, that actually was a lie. There never was a choir audition happening at school. Instead, Amy and her friends left their bikes locked up at the school and walked eastbound on Wolf over the bridge, which led them to Bay Village Square, which was the local shopping center.

bay village square was not this you know huge shopping mall it was a small strip mall that had a couple of stores in there including a baskin robbins which was a popular place for the middle schoolers to hang out after school and it was also less than a mile from their school so getting there was really easy for students

like I said the Mihalovics lived really close to the school they also lived close to the shopping center so all of this was in kind of the same area so even though Amy had lied about what she was doing after school it's possible she thought she was going to be able to go to the shopping center and make it home quickly without her mom ever knowing and that day Amy wasn't just going to Baskin Robbins with her friends or just hanging out at the shopping center

She actually had something that she was going there to do. That day, Amy actually told her friends that she had received a call from this man. He was someone that worked with her mother and her mother worked at the Trading Times Magazine and he told Amy that he called her because her mother had just gotten a big promotion and he wanted to surprise her with a gift. However, he was having trouble picking out the perfect gift and he knew Amy would know exactly what to get her.

So he needed her help. And of course, the man told Amy that all of this had to be secret because this was supposed to be a surprise. He also told her that he knew she was good at keeping secrets. I always taught my children all of the safety rules. You don't talk to strangers. If someone stops and asks for directions, you stand on the opposite side of the sidewalk. Don't go near the car.

Knowing Amy as I do, she wouldn't do anything without asking permission except for trying to please me. Unfortunately, it's that love, that trust, that caring that was her downfall. She was friendly. We were both told not to walk off with strangers. We were both told not to answer the door, go off in cars with other people we don't know. She was naive but not stupid, if that makes sense.

Even though Amy was very smart and well-educated on stranger danger, she also was very close with her mom and loved her so much and was just beyond excited that she was getting this promotion. And she was asked to help pick out a gift. So she agreed to help. And she told this man that she would meet him at Bermuda.

Bay Village Square. So that's exactly what she did. After school, she went to Bay Village Square and waited by a light pole. Amy was at the square between 2:15 and 3:20 PM, but sometime shortly after that, she was approached by the man from the phone call. Witnesses saw Amy talking to him, having a brief conversation by the light pole, and then shortly after, the two of them walked to the parking lot.

And unfortunately, that was the last time that Amy Mihaljevic was seen alive. To the other middle schoolers that were there, it seemed like Amy was talking to someone who could have been her dad, possibly. Amy was seen in the Bay Square shopping mall by some of her school friends. Frank!

talking to an individual at the mall. This conversation seemed to be natural. She didn't seem uncomfortable. This was the last time Amy was seen alive. It didn't really raise any red flags because they figured that's who it was and that she was going home with her dad, but it wasn't her dad. And Mark was actually out of town on a business trip at the time. So Amy and Jason were both responsible for letting their parents know when they got home every day.

This was their typical routine. They would use the landline to call their parents as soon as they made it back in the house. That day, Jason arrived back home at 3:10 and he noticed that Amy wasn't there. So he picks up the phone and calls Margaret and lets her know that he made it home, but Amy was not home yet.

And she told him not to worry because Amy was going to be staying late at school for the choir audition. And then just 20 minutes later at 3:30, Margaret actually received a call from Amy herself, letting her know that everything was fine. And she figured that she was calling her from home.

Obviously back then there was no caller ID for Margaret to confirm where Amy had been making the call from so she assumed it was from their house and then two hours would go by before Margaret would be back home from work. So it wasn't until she walked in the door that day at 5:30 p.m. that she realized that Amy did not actually make it home. When I came home from work her brother told me he said you know mom Amy's not home yet and I said well where'd she go because she always asks me

She immediately starts panicking and calling all their neighbors, all of her friends, seeing if she's maybe at someone else's house. She tried to figure out if any of her friends or neighbors had seen her or had heard from her and no one had.

So she decided to go to the school and see if maybe Amy was still there. But when she got there, she realized that Amy was not there. However, her bike was still outside of the school. And that was the moment that Margaret knew something was really wrong. She knew that Amy would not just have left her bike at the school. So at that point, she decided to go to the police station. Mrs. Mihaljevic came to the police station at 5.57 p.m. on October 27th.

to report that Amy had not come home from school and that her bicycle was in the bike rack at the Bay Middle School. The officers were very concerned and after numerous questions, which they have to go through, they did ascertain in fact that Amy was not a runaway, she was not at a friend's house.

she was in fact abducted. And here's a clip from the officer who was actually at the school on the 27th talking to the students about stranger danger. Well, we kicked it off immediately. So when Margaret came in just before 6 p.m. on Friday night, the day of the abduction, we immediately took it as not just a child who was with her friends, but as a missing child. And so we mobilized immediately, began searching, began contacting, all the things you would normally do in a situation like that.

So we hit the ground running. You had around 11 o'clock news that very night. Yeah. Why? It was because again it's not normal. It's beyond the normal for if this was a 16 year old girl, probably not. 10 year old girl, yeah this is not normal. This is something we need to pay big attention to and then we did immediately. So the kudos to the officers who did that because they got the ball rolling very quickly.

All available units were immediately dispatched and even the FBI was contacted within hours. And at the time that she was reported missing, no one except for Amy's friends knew about the strange phone calls she had been getting from this man. However, it would only take the police a few hours to figure out what Amy's plan had been for after school.

Her family and the community took action immediately. That night, the night of the 27th, there were already search parties looking in wooded areas and areas not well traveled in. And there were as many as 150 law enforcement personnel involved in the search, plus the family and their community who were searching as well. Even the U.S. Coast Guard was brought in to search for Amy. The Bay Village community was just shocked that this happened and wanted to support Amy's family in any way they could. So they, like I said, they took immediate action, but...

in a very strong way. People were volunteering left and right to hand out flyers and continue the search efforts. And I mean, they really rallied behind the Mihaljevic family. Her friend Kristen's mom, who I mentioned earlier, actually drove Amy's fifth grade picture down to the local news station that night, hoping to get it out immediately. And that first night that Amy was gone, Margaret was just...

beside herself with anxiety she actually slept in a sleeping bag that night next to the phone just praying it would ring and there would be some good news mark had come home and he also remembers barely being able to sleep that night i mean how could you i got home and margaret was

semi hysterical. Amy hadn't been home maybe. And I got home about six o'clock. So Amy was nowhere to be found. And that's where it all began. Of course, the police interviewed both of them and had to confirm that they were not involved because unfortunately, with a lot of child abductions, a family member is often involved.

But her parents were quickly ruled out. My one friend and I put on our own search down by the creek in Bay Village and just walked because she liked animals. That would be her type of idea to get lost in the woods that she could. So but it's an all veil, of course. So the first really helpful tip came in that night after Amy's friends started to learn what had happened.

One of them told their parents that Amy had been receiving these strange calls from a mysterious man. So they called the police and let them know. And the next morning there was another call from another parent of one of Amy's friends with the exact same story. We found out from one of her friends and one of her friends also heard that Amy was talking about going with some guy to go buy a present for her mother.

And that call came in late on Friday night, the night of the abduction, and then the next day another one came in. And we realized that, you know, this is more information we had, but it's not good information. This is telling us that some guy met her someplace.

took her and she's missing. Obviously not a good situation. So through those phone calls, the police figured out that Amy had gone to Bay Village Square and stood at the light pole waiting for this strange man who she had been getting calls from. They also learned about the shopping trip

and how he told her he worked with her mom and that her mom just got a promotion. Now, I know a lot of you are thinking, okay, why don't they just pull phone records? But in 1989, things were way different. There were no computerized records of local phone calls, only records of long distance calls.

They did find a few long distance calls that had been made to the Mihaljevic family, but these were all vetted and cleared. So they knew that this strange man who called Amy had been local. So the Bay village police were able to canvas the area that she was last seen and ask better questions about the man that had been seen talking to Amy. Also, unfortunately, security cameras were not very common in 1989 either. So there is no footage of any of this. There was actually only one security camera in Bay village square and it was

inside the bank. So not useful to them at all. And they had to just completely go off of what witnesses were telling them. There were two witnesses who came forward with a description of the man that they saw talking to Amy. They were able to give the police physical descriptions of the man and also help them narrow down the time that she was actually there with him. And based on the timeline that they gave, they were able to figure out that

When Amy called her mom at 3.30, she was with her abductor. After talking to witnesses, police learned that this was a white male between 5'8 and 5'10. Some reports said the suspect was between the ages of 25 and 35, and others say 35 to 45. He had darker hair and was possibly balding.

One witness remembers seeing the man wearing eyeglasses, but the other said that they don't recall any eyeglasses, so we're unsure on that. And because there were two witnesses with two different perspectives, police ended up drawing two composite sketches. The police also said that the sketches should not be the only factor considered when trying to identify this man. The FBI's Behavioral Analysts Unit put together a description of the suspect in terms of their personality.

They believed that this suspect was likely socially marginalized and held a semi-skilled job, but moved from job to job often. And they also said that they believe that this person lived alone or moved around frequently. We are also interested in any person who has displayed behavioral changes. The changes that I'm talking about would be sudden finding of religion, absenteeism from work,

maybe a sudden unexplained vacation, suddenly excessive drinking or drug usage. Any of these kind of changes may be indicative of someone who is having a problem dealing with their conscience.

And we would like to know about that. And we encourage the public to let us have any information, no matter how insignificant they may think it may be. It may be just what we're looking for. So after this, weeks go by without finding Amy. Her parents were absolutely devastated and the whole community was devastated. Everyone was still rallying around them, trying to figure out

any way that they could help. Margaret and Mark did their best to keep Amy's story active in the news. If we could find out who did this and why to such a loving, caring child, a future human being who had so much to give to the world, why? Why? And who? A

Eventually, December 11th, her birthday came and she was going to be turning 11. And it came and went with no sign of Amy. I got to be real honest. At that time, I just realized in my heart that I probably would probably never see her again. Then Christmas passed and New Year's passed and her family was gone.

just aching every single day wondering where she was wondering what could have happened there was so much going on the people of bay village set up a command center at the city hall a lot of volunteer work all the posters that were made were all voluntarily printed by a company a good share of the media lived in bay village and a good share of the fbi and police lived in bay village that

That was our home base, so if there is an advantage, that's the one advantage we had. It was a community effort. And over the span of the next three months, literally tens upon thousands of leads and tips came in that were followed up by the Bay Village Police Department, 60 agents from the FBI, and various other law enforcement agencies. A lot of suspects were developed, a lot of names came up. They were vetted out as much as you could possibly do with any kind of suspect. Unfortunately, it yielded very little.

They held on to, you know, as much hope as they could. But as time went on, they began to feel more and more hopeless. And sadly, eventually everyone's worst fears came true. And Amy's body was found. Her body was actually found 106 days after she went missing in February of 1990. It was February 8th. And this woman named Janet Sebold was actually jogging in Ashland County, which is a rural region just 50 miles from Bay Village and Texas.

As she was jogging, she discovered what she believed to be a pale green rag among the wheat. But as she took a closer look, she realized that this

was the body of a little girl. Janet was shocked, she was incredibly freaked out, so she ran to the nearest farmhouse and called the police. The police went out there and they were able to quickly confirm that this was the body of Amy Mihaljevic. Her body had been dumped in the farm field not far off the side of County Road 1181 in Ruggles Township.

And based on the crime scene, the police indicated that

Amy was killed likely within hours of being abducted, meaning he did not have her alive for very long. This is really upsetting, but her cause of death was determined to be a combination of stab wounds to the left side of her neck and a blow to her skull. Now, one report did say that Amy had been sexually assaulted. However, this has not been confirmed, so I'm not sure, but this is a devastating death.

that no child should ever experience amy was found still wearing the green outfit that she went to school that day in however there were some items that were never found this included her boots her denim backpack the notebook from her dad's office and her turquoise horse shaped earrings investigators combed the area where amy's body was found collecting you know anything and everything that could be related to her death

And among the trash that they collected, the police ended up finding this dirty green curtain and blanket about 300 yards from Amy's body. So it was brought in as evidence. Now, this curtain that was found was not originally believed to be a key piece of evidence. So police didn't disclose it to the media or ask the public for help, you know, identifying it. But finding Amy's body did reveal a couple of things. First of all, there were

found, these gold and tan fibers found in

And they figured out that these fibers were consistent with automotive carpet from General Motors, specifically an Oldsmobile with a tan interior. And even though witnesses didn't actually see Amy getting into a car, now they knew that she probably did. They at least knew what the interior looked like, so it kind of narrowed down the search a little bit. Police also found a piece of tape near her body that had three hairs on it.

And when they tested it, they didn't match Amy or anyone in her family. The hairs also didn't have a hair follicle present, meaning that it wasn't pulled from the root. And it's very important to have the actual hair follicle because the follicle is able to provide the type of traceable DNA that can be run through CODIS. And obviously at the time that Amy was found, technology just wasn't even half as good as it is today.

So they had to be really careful about what tests they chose to run on the little evidence that they did have. So DNA, when you think of DNA today, you think of nuclear DNA, you think of blood, you think of what you can do with that blood. You can get a profile from that DNA, you can put it into a database, and if the person's in the database, you're going to connect. We don't have that kind of DNA. So our DNA does not lend itself to be put into a database for comparison against a known population.

So if we're going to be doing anything, we have to develop a suspect and then try to do a comparison on the back end of that kind of thing. Our DNA is fragile, it's limited, so we have to be very careful on what we do with it and how we do with it. And of course DNA technology has advanced dramatically in the last few years and I anticipate it will continue to do so.

So right now the technology doesn't lend itself for us to just quickly identify a suspect. We're hoping out, we're hoping anyway, that in the future there'll be some test with our DNA that we can do a test and create that. But right now we're not there.

If you did it now, you would destroy, right? And you would only be able to like eliminate a suspect, is that right? Dr. Mitochondrial DNA is not like a one-for-one, this is the person who did it. It can put you in a ballpark kind of thing and eliminate people, but it's not going to give you that one-on-one. You got to do your legwork afterwards. The danger is if you use up your, because in the process of analyzing DNA, you use up that DNA and it's gone, it's gone. So you have to be very careful on when you pick and choose what you're going to do.

Police believe they were looking for someone who was likely a sexual predator and someone who had some degree of knowledge about the Mihaljevic family. It turns out that Margaret was actually getting a promotion.

So how did this person know that? Investigators also believe that this suspect had been familiar with the Northeastern Ohio area and had likely committed crimes similar to this either before or after Amy. And unfortunately, at the time, police were not able to find any evidence that pointed directly to a suspect. Years actually went by before investigators would get any credible

useful leads. This time period was extremely depressing and frustrating for Margaret and Mark. And the two of them ended up getting a divorce only two years after Amy passed away. And sadly, Amy's mother, Margaret passed away in 2001 without any answers about what happened to her daughter.

Margaret actually had a pretty serious drinking problem and she also suffered from lupus, which is an autoimmune disease where the immune system attacks its own tissues and it ultimately killed her. So Mark and Jason are the only two left in their family and they still want answers. So finally in 2006,

the police end up releasing a press release to the public letting them know that other kids had been contacted by random people claiming to be a friend or a relative. All of them were girls and all of them got phone calls from a unidentified male. It's unclear how long the police actually knew about this, but it did not become public knowledge until 2006. And

Get this: in those calls, the girls were also asked to go on a shopping trip, normally to pick out a gift for someone. So it clearly seems like the same person who killed Amy. Luckily, none of those girls actually agreed to help the man. Amy was the only one. But now that there's a possible connection between these other girls and Amy,

maybe it could lead them to a suspect. All the girls who had received the phone call had actually visited the Lake Erie Nature and Science Center, somewhere where I mentioned Amy loved to go. And all of them potentially left their contact information at the logbook at the front desk. And this actually would make sense about how the killer was able to get Amy's phone number, but it's just one theory. Now you would think, okay, why don't people just request a copy of the logbook? So

So that you can see if those other girls wrote down their names and numbers or if Amy did or see if there's any other potential suspects on that list. But the Freedom of Information Act does not apply to private foundations. And unfortunately, the public interest in the case that had been kind of reignited by the police,

update in 2006 had kind of died down and people were losing interest in the case once again. So it quieted down quite a bit. And I do want to point out that over the decades that this case has been open, over 10,000 tips have come into police and most of them were followed up on.

So even though years went by, it seemed like Bay village police and the FBI were following up on leads and doing everything they could to find a suspect. So then in 2016, the curtain and the blanket that was found approximately a thousand feet from Amy's body was reanalyzed.

And obviously the technology for DNA testing was a lot better in 2016 than it was in 1990. So when they tested it again, investigators actually found animal hair that was conclusively linked to Jake, the Mihaljevic's family dog.

And knowing that this hair belonged to Jake was huge for investigators because now they were able to directly link Amy to the curtain and the blanket. Now, back when the blanket and curtain were found in 1990, her mom actually recognized them.

and thought they were items from their home. However, she said she was sure that Amy did not leave the house with them that day. But if any of these items were taken from their home, it is still completely unclear about how that would have happened. Then three years later in 2019, more hairs from the curtain and blanket were tested and it was officially confirmed that the hairs belonged to Amy herself.

And now knowing that these hairs belong to Amy, investigators concluded that she'd likely been killed and then wrapped in them before her body was dumped. So now the importance of the curtain and blanket became a lot bigger. Investigators now say they strongly believe that identifying these items and who they belong to could lead them to her killer. Now, the blanket itself is pretty standard looking, but the curtain is kind of unique and has stitching on it that led investigators to believe that it's homemade.

which could make it easier to identify if it is one of a kind. There was a $50,000 reward that was put forward years ago, and it was re-emphasized in the media recently for anyone that could provide information that would lead them to her killer. A flyer was put out with a picture of the curtain, which they call a homemade curtain, and they believe that it's actually made out of a bedspread.

then in 2019 a lot more information luckily did surface at this point it had been 30 years since amy was initially kidnapped and killed in january police received a call from a woman who was finally coming forward to identify her ex-boyfriend

as a potential and likely suspect. This woman has not been publicly identified, so I will just be calling her "the woman" for credibility purposes. The woman came forward and gave police a very detailed recount of her ex-boyfriend, Dean Runkle.

and his actions and behavior the night that Amy was kidnapped. She said that at the time of the kidnapping, her and her boyfriend were living just about a mile and a half from Bay Village Square, where Amy was abducted from. She also shared with police that her boyfriend Dean had family that worked in Bay Village Square.

So he was very familiar with that area and even had a niece that was the exact same age as Amy. And on the night that Amy disappeared, he didn't come home. She said this wasn't like him at all and that he called her later that night around 10. And when he called her, he started asking if there was any news coverage going on about Amy Mihaljevic.

But she didn't know anything about it because the public didn't really start being informed about Amy till about 10:30, 11ish. So how did he know? The woman also shared that the two of them had been to Ashland County on more than one occasion. And remember, Ashland County is where Amy's body was found.

Based on her description of Dean in 1989, the police believe that he actually did fit the description and could be a physical match for the composite sketches. And the creepiest thing about this is Dean actually had a gold colored Oldsmobile registered to his name in 1989 to 1990. This was the same kind of car that investigators believed that Amy had been led to by her abductor based on the car fibers that were found on her body. And if all that isn't weird enough,

Dean was actually seen in the area where Amy's body was found on the day that Amy's body was found. This is incredibly strange, but I'm sure a lot of you actually know this if you are into true crime. But oftentimes killers will...

go back to a crime scene or hang out around the area where investigators are searching or end up where a body was recently found. Investigators thought there was a chance that the killer would want to see the action surrounding the discovery of Amy's body and would come around that area. So they actually stationed an officer at an intersection near where her body was found and

And they had him write down every single license plate of every car that went through. This is before they had cameras and could just automatically do that type of thing. And sure enough, Dean's car was one of the cars that came through the intersection on that day. And there was no good reason for Dean to be in that area that day.

So later on in the year, November of 2019, Dean actually goes in and talks to police himself. And police said that over the course of two days, Dean made some very suspicious comments about Amy's disappearance and her murder. First of all, when he was questioned by police, he talked about how 1989 and 1990 were very dark times in his life. They also asked about his family.

possible relationship with the Mihaljevic family. Did he know Amy? Did he know Margaret or Mark? And this dude ended up saying that it was possible that he had met Amy's mom, Margaret, at a bar. And he said that if he had ever talked to Amy on the phone, that it would have been because he thought he was talking to Margaret and he just mistook her for her mom.

Which is incredibly strange because she was 10 years old. I mean, come on, who mistakes a 10-year-old's voice for their mother? He also said that if he had spoken with Amy on the phone at a different time, it was just because he had called the wrong number. And it just so happened to be the Mihaljevic's. So the police pressed him further about his car and if Amy had ever been in it. And his response was very strange. He said, "'Okay, but I don't know what the situation would have been.'"

What? So he's not directly saying that she had or hadn't been in his car, but he's clearly trying to answer these questions in a way that doesn't give anyone any answers. Dean was also asked about his DNA and if it were possible for his DNA to be on any of the items that were found at the crime scene.

And that's when he said, yeah, it's possible that my DNA could be on those items. But if it is, it's because someone planted it there. So like I said, the police talked with Dean over two different days. And on the second day he was at the police station, he did agree to submit DNA and take a polygraph test. And the results of the polygraph test came back as deception indicated. The police have not released the questions that they actually asked Dean in the polygraph test. And...

Obviously, a polygraph test isn't enough to make an arrest, but the next day, Dean was supposed to come back into the police station and sign a document giving the police permission to search his storage unit, and he never showed up. However, the police were able to obtain a warrant and search the storage unit without him, and some evidence was seized, but the details about what they found have unfortunately never been made public, and...

Dean has never been arrested. He's 64 years old now. He's said to be homeless, living in Florida, but he still has a cell phone and has a storage unit. And it's likely that police never had enough evidence to actually make an arrest, but it's just so unsettling that this guy is just out there when it's so obvious that he's

he was likely involved. So police have to keep waiting until they find more concrete evidence that connects Dean to Amy's murder because if they arrest him on circumstantial evidence, it could completely ruin the case. And now the investigation is heavily relying on science, specifically advancements in DNA testing. In 2019, there were actually many advancements in this kind of technology.

Dr. Ed Green, who is a scientist from UC Santa Cruz, actually built a new type of technology that would allow for mitochondrial DNA to be sequenced and provide the same information that one could get from nuclear DNA. And I know this can be kind of confusing for those of us whose strong suits are...

not science, but basically what Dr. Green did is build a technology that would allow for something like the hair found on the curtain to be sequenced in a way where they could get a DNA code and it could be run through CODIS. CODIS actually stands for Combined DNA Index System, and it's the database that stores DNA found at crime scenes and is collected from convicted offenders. So like I mentioned, if Ed Green's new technology works, the investigators would be able to run the hairs found

on the curtain through CODIS. But unfortunately, this is new technology. I mean, Dr. Green has said this is in its infancy, and he's also said that it's just far too expensive to be used on a larger level, meaning it just would not be available to be used in Amy's case. So unfortunately, the DNA was not retested.

then in may of 2020 dean was actually picked from a photo lineup twice by two different witnesses who had seen amy with this man back in october of 1989 but again no arrests have been made so i actually found out about this case when i had james renner on my podcast earlier this year and it was a very interesting episode i highly recommend listening to it i will have it linked down below but he told me about this case

And James Renner has really dedicated most of his career to finding Amy's killer. He was actually the same age as Amy when she was killed, and he said he just could not let her case go. When he was only 11 years old, he was out determined to find this man that had did this. And now he's 40 and still working on following leads and offering up as much information to the police as he can find. He was able to find out that Dean Runkle was a teacher in Ohio at the time with a very rocky record.

Some stated that he was a great teacher and extremely passionate about biology, but others said that they always felt uneasy around him. They said that he was creepy and they would often feel like he was watching them inappropriately. And one time Dean was actually caught writing love letters to an underage student. And James Renner is a very dedicated person. So he actually flew out to Key West to confront Dean, who at the

time was living in a homeless shelter. And he also said that he never denied anything. And get this, it also came to light that Dean was a volunteer at the Lake Erie Nature and Science Center, which would have given him access to those logbooks containing the names and numbers of many potential victims, including Amy. But surprisingly, Dean actually isn't the only potential suspect in this case. I also need to tell you about Harold H.B. Bound.

Harold was the son of the farmer who owned Holly Hills, which was the horse stable that Amy would go to all the time. Harold was a Vietnam veteran who lived on the top of the farm's garage in kind of this attic space, and he was around 30 years old at the time that Amy was abducted. Harold was also schizophrenic and was known to have kind of breakdowns here and there. Some reports say that he would come down to clean the stalls, but others say that he was not even allowed down by the

One little girl who used to ride horses with Amy at the stables said that she remembered Harold as kind of like the boogeyman. They would see him from time to time, but he would always creep them out. Harold was also a gun enthusiast. However, a gun was not used in Amy's death. It's unclear exactly how Harold became a suspect,

But the FBI said that when they interviewed him, he could not provide an alibi for where he was on October 27th, 1989. His brother, Greg, did say that he saw Harold coming home late that night, but that doesn't necessarily connect him to anything. So there was really no more evidence than that. And Harold was never arrested. In fact,

He was said to have checked into a mental hospital at some point and stopped communicating with the FBI altogether. There were a few other suspects that actually had confessed, which is so strange when people confess to crimes they do not commit. It is the weirdest thing. It's just...

purely for the attention and the adrenaline rush of it all or some type of strange fantasy, but all the people who confessed to killing Amy were actually cleared and it was proven that they were just trying to get attention. So with Amy's mom dying back in 2001, like I said, her father and brother are all that's left in the Mihaljevic immediate family. Amy's father said in an interview that he has gone on to live

a pretty good life. He got remarried and had more kids. However, he always thinks about how life would be different if Amy was still there. And over 30 years after his sister was killed, Jason said he still thinks about her all the time. It's hard to imagine that she's been gone 30 years. It's hard to imagine what life would be like with her. It's such a big chunk of my life that's gone that I couldn't even describe how it changed it. I know that she probably would have had a family. I think it would have been great to see my nieces, nephews, extended family

I'm sure she would have been doing something with animals or horses. What exactly, I don't know. I mean, I know she would have been bright and happy and successful at what she was trying to do. He actually said before she was taken that the two of them were getting really close, and he misses her every day. We were getting closer, although she had her friends and I certainly had mine.

we could spend the evening together, not argue all the way through it. You know, not at that point. We did earlier. But as we started to both grow a little bit, it wasn't as bad. To this day, Amy's case is still unsolved, but it is open. The Bay Village police and FBI are still following up on leads and strongly believe that identifying this curtain that Amy was wrapped up in will lead them to...

her killer. So please take a close look at this image, especially if you or your family was living in Ohio in the late 80s or early 90s. Of course, if you know anything that can be helpful to this investigation, I will have information in the description box below to get that to the right people. And unfortunately, I'm going to have to leave the video there.

That's all that we know at this point. I definitely want to know what you guys think on this one. I want to know if you feel like there's any possibility that Harold could have been involved or if you are much more looking at Dean. Personally, I feel like Dean is the clear fit for Amy's killer at this point. There's so many reasons why.

But what stands out to me most is the car fibers that just says a lot. Hopefully there is enough evidence to make an arrest one day and that there will be finally some answers for Amy's family. If you want to take an even more detailed look at this case, I highly recommend James Renner's book. It's called Amy, My Search for Her Killer, Secrets and Suspects in the Unsolved Murder of Amy Mihaljevic.

That is going to be it for me today, guys. Thank you for joining me for another episode. And make sure you follow the show on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. It really does help me out. If you want to watch the video version of this show, you can find it on my YouTube channel, which will be linked, or you can just search Kendall Ray. I will be back with another episode soon, but until then, stay safe out there.