MISSING: Reed Jeppson
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High crime junkie, i'm your host, ashly flowers and i'm bright. And day's story is one of those that came to me in the strangers of ways, bright. So years ago, when I was in another state working on a completely podcast, I heard this story.

I was a story I had never heard before, which is rare, yes, but I couldn't figure out how I hadn't heard about IT, because the story that was told to me was so bizarre, so infuriating and chilling that I didn't seem real. But when I google the case, like years ago, there's only a few small articles that came up about this. Missing boy from the IT wasn't quite like the wove in tail, ee was told.

But I could never forget about IT like this was the things like IT is my brain and I kept coming back to IT over and over until I had the right resources to really dig in. And digging in is the key to this case in more ways than one. And IT turns out what I was told all those years ago seems to be true. This is the story i've read, Jackson.

For many so lake city, utah residents, sunday's are a sacred date reserved for faith and family, especially for the city's largest population of latter day. thanks. And that's definitely true for the large jepson clain. So as the morning church sessions come to an end on sunday, october eleven, one thousand and sixty four, they all gather back at their house. Susan, who's among the oldest of the kid's in the house, is in the kitchen, whipped up the family sunday stable of rose beef, mh potaters and gravy, which was my family sundays as well.

Yeah, sunday lunch .

obvious very and fifteen year old read heads outside defeat and care for his german short hair pointers one year old best and little and who's still a little puppy so susie and I, he's like having out. He tells him he needs be back inside and a half hours since the foods going to be ready soon, and he promises that he will be. But by the time the jepsen sit down to eat, read has IT returned and he doesn't come running. When suzann hollers for him in the backyard where the .

dog canals are, are the dogs there?

No like, no read, no dogs. And the jepson's yard is really big for a suburban area like merely an ager. But it's not like there are a million places he can be. So Susann told our reporter, nina, that the family's first assumption is that he's probably still walking the dogs and just hasn't gotten back on time like he supposed to, though they're so kind of expecting him to walk in any minute because he usually just takes the dogs like around the block.

They don't go far, but they end up eating their whole meal and he doesn't show the entire time he's not even mir later in the day when his family head out to go visit brands even though he was planning on going with them and just to know IT might not have been friends. That's what the police reports says. But red's brother john said in his podcast notes from john with a babel from pn that they were actually going to a late afternoon worship service.

He says he even remember thinking like omi and like reads, skipping on a church. Mom and dad are not gona be happy about that. But whatever the deal is, whatever the plans are, IT doesn't sound like anyone's even pannick yet.

So reads parents add, were in Elizabeth head somewhere when they come home that evening and he's still isn't back. That's when alarm bells start ringing. And as they call around to his friends to find out if anyone's seen or heard from him, every know.

just add this new layer of fear. And I assume the dogs .

are still going to still M I A. The thing to notice, they're not really like family pets. They are reads dogs, and his dad agreed to let him get them as long as he was the one that took care of them.

He even had to take on a paper about just to pay for their expenses. So I don't think it's unusual for the dogs view with him, him to be with the dogs like that of a package deal. But again, what is abNormal is for them to be out this long.

So as the families racking their brains trying to figure out where he might be, it's the more innocent explanations that they come up with. First, I mean, solid city is known for its mix of foot hills, rove's mountains. So maybe he fell and hurt himself while he was walking them.

He could be trapped somewhere and need help. Maybe the dogs got trapped to, or maybe they are just staying near him, like good prompts are known to do the thing that their thinking is he could be in real danger. Because as beautiful as the october days are, if you stuck somewhere, the nights can be dangerously cold.

So at twelve forty two A M, on monday, october twelve, reads, parents called salt lake city police. They detail everything from the outfit he was wearing when he walked out the door, blue jeans, White shirt, black and blue parka, jim shoes, to the reasons why they're so concerned because, as they explain, read has never done anything like this before. He's responsible, dependable, literally an eagle scout whose life revolves around church, school and football.

And he has no reason to run away. This is a kid with lots of good friends and a big, loving family, ten brothers and sisters, most of them still at home. His dads a doctor.

His mom's a homemaker. They live very comfortable. Ly, and he didn't even have any arguments with his parents are respect with his siblings, and he has never mentioned plans to leave.

So the responding officers do like come out, talk to them, take this report, they look around, but they not necessarily as concerned as his family. They don't see any signs of foul play or a struggle inside or near the dog canals. And so they're kind of pretty sure at that point that he's just a teen being a teen.

As soon as I knew we are dealing with a missing team from the sixties, I kind of assumed this is where we are going.

To be fair, there are a couple of things that might have pointed police in that direction, but this is where our trail gets. Mary, there so much conflicting information around this case, like the investigators we interviewed, we're on the force at all back then because this is so old. And salt, like C, D, P, D, only gave us a fraction of the records that they actually helps. So we're trying to fit together a puzzle with a bunch of missing pieces. But all that being said, according to the initial reports, one of reads brothers checked sy of reads money was still wherever he kept IT, probably in his Brown, and he told their mom that reads entire stash of sixty dollars disappeared right along with him.

But sixty dollars in the one thousand nine hundred and sixty, I mean that would be like what in today's .

money I mean I think close to like six hundred dollars today.

Oh, so not something you just like Carry around if you're just heading out to feed the dog.

Yeah you're not like walking like local convenient store with that. But that's not also, I assume in talking to the family officers learned this next fact. And that's that over the past summer, read worked at this ranch that belongs to his extended family in this little town in in about two and half hours away.

And while he was there, read metal girl named jana. And I guess both read and this other boy at the range were interested in jana. And read had recently written a letter to the other boy asking for jane's address.

And in late september, the boy responded, sent him the address for her in kansas city, missouri. So when police hear that, they're like, oh, okay, you know, here's a girl that he likes. Maybe he grabbed all of his money and took off to go see this girl.

I mean, with his two dogs. So.

I mean, listen, where are my dog people out? Like, those are his babies. You know, like, I got shock when I was twenty one, and there was in a world where I was going to be leaving him behind for anyone. Plus knowing the arrangement that they had, like the family that we did everything for the dogs, maybe he worried about them getting taking care of if he was gone. I mean, he was their person.

I guess I I get the sentiment, but I can't figure out how. I mean, he left on foot. I don't see him popping on a bus with these two dogs.

That is true. Also, again, we're in the sixties, is olden era for his hiking. So maybe that's a possibility OK.

You gotta be counting on a miracle for someone to actually stop, pick you up and be willing to take your two dogs. And german pointers aren't like little pocket poodles, least older one tire back.

I'm not saying that this makes sense, but I think what i'm getting at is a teenagers do things all the time, they don't make sense. You mar be thrown logic out the window when we're talking about truck like I D D, walk from you, talk to measurable, if that was my only option. And what i'm really getting at above all else is just like these investors don't know him. So even though nothing is maybe the perfect scenario in their minds, IT is still a possibility.

Okay, but did he take anything else with him? He'd need more than just his dogs and his money. I mean, I mean, he's worried about who's going to take care.

The dogs, food for the dogs. hello. I mean, right? If there is a chance he's walking, he needs more than just money and dogs.

Yeah, I think you're paying on something important because, no, he didn't take anything else. All of his stuff is still at home. So when you break IT all down, this theory does not make sense.

But this generally right now, is the only one that police have, so they at least start investigating, even if they have a theory that he ran away. And at first they issue letter to kansas city police with reads description, asking them to check with jana to see if he's there. But right off the bat, this fizzles, I don't think kansas city police ever find jana.

And maybe that's because at the end of the day, i'm actually not sure if jana ever lived in missouri because as far as we could tell, she's in yomei. While all of this is going down, that same area that the ranch was, were read, worked. And Susan re.

Sister told us that red wasn't like in love with this girl. He just like, thought he was cute. They weren't dating.

There was no love triangle. Jana apparently wasn't even interested in him at all. So Susana is adamant that this whole gene, somehow, over time, has just gotten way over hype, over blown over everything.

Okay, William, who else would he have left everything to go see?

That's the thing. No one. And actually, there is nothing to suggest that he did leave because IT turns out, even the idea that he took that money turns out not to be true, because Susan said that he found his savings in a jar in his closet after he vanished.

Okay, then where is he?

Well, there is at least one detective who thinks that read might be a lot closer to home than anyone realizes. A few days into the investigation, a detective drops by the jobs in home and asks, reads, sixteen old brother john, just take a ride with him. He says he wants to question one of reads friend, but he needs help finding the guys' house.

So john hopes into the back of the patrol car, and off they go. But the moment they pulled up to the friend's place, things change dramatically. According to john pod test and youtube video that he made, the detective switches off the car and with the help missing a beat, turns to him and says, okay, john, your actions are breaking your parents of hearts. So just come clean and tell me, where is what actions.

what exactly is he accusing him of? He thinks that john is hiding.

read somewhere, or knows where read is. And he threatens s to take john to the station for a polygraph if he does not admit IT OK.

Where is this coming from? Like, are they grilling? All the siblings are just john.

He's the only one I know about, but I have to imagine that they focus on him out of everyone because he and read were tight. They're like, really close in age. They share a bedroom.

They share that paper out. So I guess investigators figure if anyone, if any, of the ten siblings are going to know where readers like john the most likely. But john maintains that he is totally in the dark, like the rest of the family.

And he finally gets fed up and says, you know what? Bring me to the station. Give me the public graph because I don't know anything about this, but it's all of love.

And IT doesn't work. So the detective doesn't take into the station is a paragraph he just takes him home. Now, when john really thinks about that weird interaction, he realizes that his parents must have given police the Green light to interrogate him like that. And he's mad like he feels betrayed and frustrated.

So far, what he says is the first time in his life he confronts his parents, and they explained to him that investigators wanted to take that approach like he was their idea, and they just went along with that out of sheer desperation tion because they had nothing at this point, even though police chase leads through multiple states. For instance, at one point they had heard read might be colorado with two other boys who ran away from home. But when detectives check that out, there is no sign of read.

The boys have no idea who he is. Then in november, they learned about a teen who'd registered at a motel about fifty miles south of salt lake. But according to the desert t news, when they compare these kids handwriting samples to reads, they say it's not him .

so um I hope they did more than just look at the hand writing I don't .

know earthly like I do to like .

a picture of the person. Perhaps all I have documented .

is that it's about handwriting. I don't know if they check CT with the clerk. Obviously they like C, C, T, V in the of, like motel, but whatever happens, they rule this out. Now they go on to speak with various friends and relatives.

They get some tips, mostly Randy m, potential sighting of read and the dogs, but investigators can confirm any of them, although at some point they hear something from a family friend that starts to change the whole narrative around reads, disappearance, or at least the timelines of IT. This friend says that he saw read sunday, october eleven, around one or one thirty, which would have been after he left the house to take care of his dogs. This person says that he was near a catholic girl school called saint marries of wasatch, which is right at the base of the east foot hills of the wash mountains.

which is like, how far away?

It's like a twenty minute walk away when I google IT. So like, give her take back then. You know I know, but i'm not sure that matters because Susann says that he doesn't think that this guy actually saw read. It's reported that he tells police he saw read walking two dogs, but Susan says that he only mentioned a dog.

And when detectives really drill down and questioned this tipster, he's not a hundred percent IT was read at all but the police at the time seem to take this and run with IT may be because they don't have much else. And by february y of one thousand nine sixty five, police are really targeting that areas surrounding saint marries for searches. Investigators tell the salt like tribune that they want hygd and hunters to be on the look out for unusual earth mounds and of stone, just in case he did meet with file play and someone buried him.

They also tell them to keep their eyes peel for falling trees, club mbs of shrubs, crevices and other formations where he might have gotten trapped accidently. Meanwhile, according to desert t news reporter lowest m. Collins, the family ralles during this time read all his brother who's a pilot conducts erie searches, one of his sisters takes a leave of absence from college to help out, and everyone hands out fires and does what they can to keep efforts going.

A men, a few months in the middle of all these efforts, police in kansas city, coyote a, they say they found, read. In fact, they say he's right there with them at the station. But when they hand the phone over to a boy they have in custody.

As soon as reads, dad starts talking to him. He knows it's not read and he's right. IT turns out to just be another bonteen just around the same age all week.

So is this good telling, please? He's there because he is read or is that just the police were assuming?

I don't know for sure, but I think the boy must have gone along with IT to some because Susan says that her dad felt really sorry for this kid, that he was probably trying to find a new home for himself. So I don't think he was doing anything devious that I think he was potentially going along with .

that out of desperation. Vo, yeah.

So after that, the family's kind of left rocked. I mean, you can imagine they are probably all so ready for this nightmare to be over. And for like a second, they felt like they could break again, but thrown right back into IT.

And you know, on top of all that they're feeling and going through missing a family member, they also have to deal with a lot of judgment from the community. And don't give me wrong, some people are very supportive, like when IT comes time to search the nearby foot hills and reveals there were hundreds of volunteers who came out to help. But that seems like everyone has an opinion or a theory about where read is.

And the predominant one among the locals is that, oh, he just left on his own. They start speculating that the jepsen must have done something to cause is something that would drive their son, their brother, away. And that makes an already horrible situation even worse, especially given how close the family is.

And that harper break takes a toll on everyone. Like reads dad, usually he's someone who always had the answers, like you ve got a problem, he'll know how to solve IT, but he can't fix this. And john says that his dad felt like he was losing his good name and that his wife and kids would basically be Better off without him.

So in december of thousand nine hundred and sixty five, this is just a week before Christmas. He takes his own life. This is more than one family should ever have to bear.

But this is the ripple effect of crime that we have touched on before. IT doesn't just happen to the one person. IT happens to every life that they touch and then the lives that they go on to touch.

Now psychology and mental health experts say that suicide is rarely the result of a single cause or event. And we will have links in our show to the source, plus more for those who may be seeking support. But all that to say, i'm not able to say like he did this because he disappeared.

And Susan, I even told us that he had been taking heart medication that might have affected his mood. But there is no doubt having a missing child is undy ably one of the most stressed and devastating experiences that can happen to a person. So to say that IT wasn't a large contributor would be ignoring how this family was just y're ravick ly changed by reads disappearance.

Ultimately, their mom is to hold everything together. According to john youtube video, SHE tells them that they have to remember the good times. It's tough to do, but they move forward as a family, and they never stop looking for me like literally everywhere they go.

But with a lack of new leads and development, police end up classifying read as a runaway juveniles and may close his case in june of nineteen, nineteen sixty six, and that how his case stayed for nearly half a century until march second, two thousand ten, when hikers looking for antlers just north of milky canyon find a human school. Instead, police dissent on this area, looking for more bones, and they find enough to form nearly an entire human skeleton. In April, they tell desir t news reporter pat rev. That the remains are from a White mail, seventeen to twenty two years old, who would have been tween five, eight, seven, six foot one. And they think that the bones have been there for at least ten years.

and read was 3.

was fifteen and five, six. So we're like a so close, like, right, right. And new create canyon is only about four and a half, maybe five miles, like as the crow flies from the Jason's home.

So when Susana sees this on the news, here's about this discovery. SHE picks up the phone and call salt like city P. D.

And she's able to get on the phone with detective cody logi. And SHE tells him SHE thinks the remains might be her brother read. Now there's some jurisdictional stuff because she's calling sallie city pd, but the bones were actually found in a different police agencies jurisdiction.

But detective logi is still like going to see what he can do about IT. He checks their missing person database and he's surprised to see that there is nothing in their system about really what time he's never heard of the disappearance either, even though he's been on the force four years. So he's like, okay, let me just like dig into this a little more. He asked the records department to find out if they have anything, and that is when they come across, reads along, forgotten case file.

How could he not be in their .

database at all? It's a lack of digital records, limited documentation, limited media coverage. The case just faded into obscurity over time.

I have personally been in departments before where in really honest moments, detectives will tell me they don't even know how many cold cases they have. And again, suck as they're not trying. There's just no centralized database anywhere. There's again, if you got stuff hand written that has never been digitize, how would you know? And the way that like generationally detectives like come and go something from the sixties, like how many detectives have been in there since then, this is why I always tell families, is so important to keep in touch with police, even after years or decades, like you have to stay front of my, because can you imagine what if a tip or tips had come in over the years about read and someone looked IT up, someone who wasn't as diligent and was like.

oh, I don't see anything in our system, not be an actual .

cause throw oh my god. I'm not saying that's what happened here.

but the but IT could be happening to cases .

as we yeah honestly, this is where I think someone needs to a step in and make a programme and departments that utilizes citizen analysts to digit stuff. Cnd, do all the stuff, do the background checks. But like I would volunteer for free for that job all day long, and I could get five hundred crime donkeys to sign .

up in the next hour. 5 is a low number。

Two, ice digress. So long story short, they now know about ree's disappearance again in our national missing children's day, which would have been made twenty fifth. And this is twenty ten solid C, D, P, D officially reopens his case. IT is the oldest active missing person's case in the area, one of the oldest in the entire state, because by now read has been missing for almost forty six year. My god.

all that last time, you're right.

And there's no making up for IT for decades, the only people tirelessly looking for read with his family. But at least with this reopening, there some momentum. Please upload DNA samples from read siblings to law enforcement database, which lets them conclusively determine that the bones found in milky kenyon actually do not belong to read. But with all the advancements in forensic science, everyone is hopeful that something is gonna a shake looks like something soon IT has to.

So if those remains don't belong to read, who do they belong to?

So I actually was able to find this out. It's a little bit of assistance. Ultimately, they belong to a guiding Daniel know, who went missing sometime around september of seventy eight while his hiking from washington to his homestead of ill in way police in cote, cote.

Elinor, I initially thought that Daniel might have been one of johann gases on identified victims actually since he fit the profile, but when they uploaded his parents DNA to check that this match popped up, and from everything I saw online, like Daniel loved hiking, there were no signs of foul play. So IT sounds like his death had something to do with, I don't know he got stuck in the elements or whatever, but that's, I think, what they ruled IT as. But to go back to reads case, even though those bones weren't his, there is now this renewed investigation and is really validating for his family.

Because theyve been listening to people, judge and blame read for supposedly running away for years, and now finally, police and the community are listening to them. And at the very least, even if they don't want to listen, even they still have their own theories. People are paying attention, and they know this because when the case is highlighted for national missing children's day, there is this flu uri of media coverage patch rev reports that the department even launches a new section on their website, dedicated slowly to missing people featured aba new age enhanced image of read created by the national center for missing an exploded children.

And this just goes to show what some fresh eyeballs and the power of the press can do, because be very next day, wednesday, may twenty six, police get a call from a woman. Let's call her muri anda and mariana has quite a story to tell, one that honestly, you're not gonna believe. Maranda says that he and her family moved into a house in the jabs on's od about four years ago.

Her backyard actually puts up against their yard. Now marina has been aware that read is missing because everyone in that neighborhood, again, even if the larger community had forgotten about his disappearance, that was something that lived on in that neighbor. Od people had mentioned that, but he had no idea that his dogs had vanished right along with until SHE saw the recent news coverage.

And that's when he had this o moment, because you see, the year before in August, this would have been two thousand and nine. Marian, then her husband were really uncapable their backyard, and they were letting their son make this like air soft battle field for him and his friends to use. So her sign is like giving these trenches in their yard with a bacco.

When he stumbles upon what appeared to be the remains of two dogs and bread, they were just barry, like you would do if the family dog passed away. Both dogs had been surgically dismember red, like the bones had been sold through with decision, and they were in multiple plastic trash bags, and like five to six feet deep in the ground. What now the family could tell when they first found these, that these were dog bond, is not like they had any question that always this human, or anything like that, but they were still like started by the fines.

Like the circumstances around this are weird. They even show the bones to a neighbor who's a doctor just to, I get a second opinion and maranda says he wanted to call the police because the her was just all too weird. But her husband was like, for what? Like we're going to tell the police we found dog bones. So.

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

yeah. They end up just throwing them away. plastic. I mean, no idea how big of a deal this was, but the one thing i'll say is there is this small saving Grace.

Who knows why? Probably because this was so unsettling, but they photographed everything that they had found before they tossed IT, and they still had the pictures a year later. So they turn them over to investigators, who promptly pass them along to bone experts at the university of utah medical examiners office.

And then on june twelve, while they are waiting for answers, police scored morande's property with ground penetrating radar. I mean, neighbors out excavation equipment and five cadir dogs thinking, I mean, this has to be IT. The dogs and read have always been together in people's mind, so right? If those were his dog v dogs, then read should be nearby. But they do all this digging, penetrating radar and dogs, and they don't find anything. Now, in late july, the experts tell police that is far as they can tell from the photos, the bones are from two dogs, one that is fully grown and one that is a puppy.

Actually, IT has to be best in little in.

I mean, that's definitely the assumption, but there is no way for investors or to prove IT since they don't have the actual bones or even the plastic bags they were in anymore. Also, the problem is they can't determine when they were buried. All they know, based on mariana's families account, is that the bones must have been there before the property changed hands before they had purchased the home.

Okay, so who live there in sixty four?

That the key question, right? The answer is technically no one yet. You see in one thousand nine sixty four, the property was owned by a man that we're gonna call dr.

Hill, he was thirty seven back then, and he was building a house there for his family, the house more, and his family would eventually live in while he's building IT. He and his family live in just a few blocks away. And Susan remembers him visiting the site frequently, like once, twice a week to check on the progress.

Now, police say they moved into the home a few months after a read went missing. That's when, I guess, everything was done. And this doctor, his family, lived in that house, the house that was a neighbor to the Jackson's, for about forty years.

Now doctor hill, during this time, wasn't particularly close with the jetsons. Suzie says that one of the jepson girls was friends with one of doctor hills daughters. SHE remembered her mom like bringing doctor hill a caso when his wife died by suicide in the ninety eighties.

So again, quaintly like neighbor stuff. And as far as I know, he didn't even even talk about reads case with them like suzan doesn't remember him being particularly friendly. But they also weren't suspicious of this guy at all.

He was just doctor hill. And the fact that the jobs's didn't know much about him, IT doesn't even mean he was like a reclusive person. I mean, like you're gotta think about their minds were elsewhere during this time because he moves in after read goes missing.

So who can blame them for not, you know, going out their way to forge new friendships? But IT also means, because their minds were elsewhere, that they weren't necessarily keeping up on the neighborhood gossip. None of that matters when you have a loved one that is missing.

So they didn't start hearing the stories about doctor hill that we're circulating back in the day, stories that doctor hill had a reputation for sexual abuse against miners, including some that were his patients, many of whom were teenage boys. Now, from what our team was able to put together, this was kind of like an open secret. But like I said, the jetsons were in a fog of grief, totally focused on reads, disappearance and everything that came after. So the stories didn't even mentally register with them that I could be like connected.

Was dr. Hill ever convicted of anything? I guess I don't know how the police never put IT together.

what not he wasn't, and that why I am not even calling him by his real name. There are no reports of doctor hill even being violent with anyone, but I know he was previously accused of some type of sexual abuse or molestation by multiple people. However, only one person ever filed a police report, and the statute of limitations was up, so he couldn't be charged for that specific crime.

And the law that removed the statue of limitations for sex crimes against miners was only passed in two thousand and thirteen. And what you really have to think about again, like why this isn't being connected one thousand nine hundred and sixty four potentially is because IT was one thousand nine hundred and sixty four. We're not having the same conversations back then about abuse.

In fact, I don't think we were having any conversations about IT really at all. People did not want to talk about IT and did not talking about IT. That's why I don't think connections were being made that someone who sexually abused children might also have the capacity to kill them.

Plus they were looking for a run away this whole time. So the waste I D viewed all of this really kind of potentially the perfect .

storm exactly. And there's so much more that looks so bad for doctor hill because turns out he's not just any family doctor do is an orthopedic surgeon, a bone doctor? And another interesting thing is, I know is pretty hard to imagine, but plastic trash bags weren't a commonly used household item actually back in one thousand and sixty four.

Oh yeah, this isn't something that like anyone would just like pull out. But they were, however, already being used to dispose of medical. So the people who had quick access to them were often in the medical field.

And those dogs were in plastic trash bags.

in plastic trash bags. And, you know.

their bones had been surgically cut.

Yet they have been dismembered with, like what a surgical precision is, what they said. So obviously, for investigators, when they are really looking at this, these are major streaming red flags. And in April of two thousand eleven, they actually go question doctor hill, who is alive at the time in living in a city about four, our south of the lake. He tells police said he doesn't know anything about the bones buried in his old backyard.

He doesn't even say he had a dog because do you're the only one who live in that house? You have to know something.

I don't know if he had a dog, but even if tried that, according to Susan, one of doctor hills daughters denies that they ever had any dogs of their own, that they buried in the yards. So IT doesn't leave a lot of options. Again, I don't know how he responded, but we know that he couldn't have been one of his dogs.

But the other thing is doctor hill says that he didn't even know read didn't have anything to do with his disappearance. In fact, according to coverage from A, B, C for utah reporter marcos R, T, S, which in this article he also doesn't identify dr. Hill by name, but doctor hill had told investigators that he'd appreciate if they found out who killed read.

A sir who said, someone killed read .

exactly and that's what police jump on. They're like, how do you know read was killed because most of the gossip at the time was about him running away.

This is a run away from the .

neighbor hide and doctor hill response. Quote, well, I know that this length of time they're never gonna find out. And quote, and the most chilling part is that he's like laughing as he says, IT doctor hill ultimately agrees to take a voice stress test, which he does right at his home. Now it's not clearly out right fails or if the results inconclusive, but it's actually not a surprise because bizarre doctor hill seems to be playing games, deliberately lying to basic control questions like, for instance, even investigating, point to a Green wall and say, what color is the wall? Doctor hill says it's blue or red or whatever, like just screwing around with the people who are administering the test.

Why would someone play with the test like that?

Police think that is in line with his personality, like they describe him as being exceptionally intelligent. But also are, again, even to the point, or they use our pumps.

So he's just toying .

with them yet pretty much. But apparently he also asked to take a second boy stress test, which the second one he passes. And if you guys haven't heard to say this before, i'll remind you, the reliability of boys stress test in criminal investigation is something that highly debated among experts.

One, two thousand eight study that question participants on recent drug use found that overall, these tests are really no Better than flipping a coin when IT comes to detecting lies. And i'm going to take a big swing here and say that if I can't detect deception over drug related lies, IT probably isn't any Better at detecting deception about a micio. So it's not like police lost interest in this guy once he passes that second voice stress test. At some point, they even take the cadover dogs over to his old house, the one that he and his family lived in while their home by the jepson's was being built. But even this time, they don't find anything okay to me.

I don't think he could have gotten far with read, right, like the dogs are right there, close to home. If you find the dogs, you find read, he's gotta in that yard too.

I keep thinking the same thing, but logie, who is a utena now, told us that he doubt that reads remains are buried in the yard, like where the dogs were because of how thoroughly they searched OK.

But what about the house itself though? I mean, he was under construction.

All I know is that, like, a month after maranda came forward, police did go search again because he had called them and said they had something like water main break, or some things that they had to dig up parts of their basement, like the actual foundation. And randa said, like, hey, if you want to take a second .

look now your time like we're doing this anyway so yeah and obviously.

the department jumped on IT. They again brought kadidia dogs for a whole another sweep. But every time the dogs hit on something, signaling a potential discovery, the excitement quickly turned to frustration because they dig, hoping to find some evidence, some trace of read, only to come up empty every time. I feel like .

someone's gona know this guy well enough to know where else they should look.

Well, I mean, one of those people I feel like might have been his first wife, but like I said, she's not around anymore. And I know, doctor, he'll did remarry. But detective, he says that his second life was totally stunned when police asked her about the whole thing so they don't feel like he has any insight to his past or what you could have been capable of.

And until someone does come forward with more information on doctor hill, they've had the kind of a limit physical searches to places that tipsters have recommended, like in late september of twenty twelve, after police got a tip about a goal that's just a blocker saw from the jepson's house near a middle school. Whoever called in the tip mentioned something about kids hanging out there back in the day, so that some of weird stuff happened there, although not clear what the weird stuff was, but I know that they brought out a ca dabba dog that did show some interest in the area. So investigators that are full on search, shovel back co, you name IT, according to microbic falls reporting for the salt lick trip.

And I mean, they dig as deep as eight feet, but then when they like, it's like a far that they dig, the dog stopped indicating, oh my god, can adults are supposed to be able to distinguish tween human and animal remains? But police did find some animal bones, possibly from a deer. So again, I don't know how often IT happens that dogs get confused or why they pully indicating, but there is nothing there that they found.

Now they went back in interview doctor hill again in october of two thousand thirteen. And at some point they talk to his former patients and even his kids. But they don't learn anything that leads them to read.

So do investigators think that doctor hill killed, or at least had something to do with this experience?

I mean, they're definitely suspicious. And Susan absolutely thinks doctor hills behind what happened to her brother. But the evidence police have isn't enough to make an arrest at this point.

I mean, technically, they still don't even know that read is dead, even though everyone like family cops, even at this point, believe that he is not a whole law else makes sense. Cordon parks, a retired investigator who worked reads case, says that he doubts someone was just like lurking in the bushes, waiting to snatch, read up his ring. Dom kidnap would have had to camp out in the backyard the entire sunday morning, waiting for the family to come back from church. And then they'd have to know that read was going to go alone to .

feed the dogs. They, we've had to wait for him to get the dogs before grabbing him, right?

I N G danger of duck, someone with two german short hair point, or you mean for a quick grab and .

the dogs don't notice.

right? And you also have to do, like.

how does that make sense? Someone would know something if all this actually went down.

There were people in the house. He wasn't there by himself. This was broad daylight.

And I need to keep reading like, we wasn't a little kid. He was a teenager. He was playing football. IT was a strong fit teenage boy.

I say, I have a fifteen year old boy, I could not kidnap him, went out.

And so I think just a random stranger walking by is rule out IT doesn't does make sense. And detectives say that they don't think in a doctor would have been able to groom him over time and then kidnap him because they say he was really close with his parents, not the type to keep big secrets from them. This one for me, i'm not so willing to rule this out again.

I go back to one hundred .

and sixty four four having and also if someone truly is a grum or and has been doing IT and is good at IT, there's not feeling like a big secret. You will tell your parents, you know, I mean, for sure. So what the detect is kind of keep coming back to is they wonder if read, thinking that he had a little time despair before the sunday meal, went to visit a friend or neighbor, and whatever happened, maybe IT was a crime of PPT unity. Maybe someone used a weapon to force him into a vehicle or a home, or maybe he really did have some sort of accident while walking the dogs. And if no.

if there was an accident, I think he would have been found. The dogs would have been found. This truly does not feel like an accident to me.

And I agree, if there was fl play investigation, think that the motive was likely sexual, because that is true of most non family abductions. We know that now, even if we didn't in one thousand nine sixty four, unfortunately, detectives now won't be able to get many more answers from doctor hill because he died in two thousand and sixteen when he was eighty eight.

But he is still considered a person of interest in reads, case reads, surviving siblings will always breathe for him. They wonder where life would have taken, read, who he would have married, what his kids would have been like, what he would have done for a living. Those are things that they'll never know.

And they trying to keep his memory alive by spending time together at monthly dinners. And they even put a headstone for him at their family's plod. But what they really want is to lay him to rest beside their father and their mother, who died in one thousand nine, nine, before never knowing what happened to her son.

They also want answers to answers that they have been waiting for for far too long. So if you have any information about rejeb son, please contact salt like city police at eight zero one seven, nine, nine, three thousand. And I think there's another important thing to mention. I think there's more information that can be gathered about this. Doctor hill, again, this is in his real name.

I can't give you a ton of identifying information, but if you grew up in salt lake in the nineteen sixty and you had an encounter with orthopedic c or even if it's too late to press charges, even if you don't want to press charges, I would encourage you to come forward and speak with police, because there could be additional information gathered that actually helps read. If read is alive today, he would be seventy four years old. He's White, with medium blond hair and blue eyes. At the time of his disappearance, he was five foot six in one hundred and forty pounds and had braces on his top and bottom teeth.

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Crime junky is an audio check production. So what do you think, chuck, do you prove?