Hey, everybody. Just going to take a quick break from the show to tell you about one of my favorite things in the world, Audible. Oh, audible.com or that app. Oh, I give that app a workout. Let me tell you something. Listening on Audible helps your imagination soar. You can listen to anything. There's so many genres on there. There's more to imagine when you listen. And let me tell you something that makes my imagination soar in a terrible way. I've been listening to Secrets in the Cellar. Oh, boy.
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Hey, everybody. Just going to take a quick break from the show to tell you a little more about Philo. We've noticed, and I think everyone on Earth has noticed, TV's really complicated to try to watch now. Yeah.
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Get in there and do it. Philo's amazing. So go to philo.tv slash smalltownmurder and check it out for a free seven-day trial. That's philo.tv slash smalltownmurder to start watching. Now back to the show.
This week, in Ord, Nebraska, a woman disappears from a small-town bar and everybody seems to know where she went, but nobody can find her. Will the answer lay with a strange man with an even stranger fetish? Welcome to Small Town Murder. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder. Yay!
Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petrigallo. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wissman. Thank you folks so much for joining us today on another crazy edition. And this is wild stuff because there's some stuff I've never heard of today. Is that right? We've been through a lot of weird stuff on this show and there's some stuff in here today where I'm like, I didn't even know that was a thing. We'll get into all that. Before we do, definitely head over to shutupandgivememurder.com.
First of all, tickets for September 20th. Minneapolis, get them while they're still there. It's almost gone. Let's go. It's going to be our biggest show ever. Be a part of the biggest Shut Up and Give Me Murder of all time. And going on sale this week, and if you're hearing this, it's...
I think it's tomorrow. So if you're hearing this, they're out. Tickets for the virtual live show Halloween edition again. Oh, you know you love it. We can't wait for the Halloween edition. It's always a fun, spooky time. We have a blast. We're going to dress up in costumes again. Sure. It's going to be fun stuff. Couples.
Can't wait for it. We can't wait. So that is all shut up and give me murder. Dot com is where you get all of that. Also listen to our other two shows, crime and sports and your stupid opinions. And if you can't get enough of us from all of that, we got more for you. Patreon dot com slash crime in sports is where you get all the bonus material. Anybody five dollars a month or above. You get hundreds of back episodes.
immediately upon subscription that you've never heard before, bonus stuff. Then you get new ones every other week, one crime and sports, one small-town murder, and we're going to give you all of it. Get it all. This week for crime and sports, we're going to talk about the whole Duke lacrosse mess. This has nothing to do with lacrosse and everything to do with frat parties and strippers, and it's a really crazy scandal. And then for small-town murder, we're going to talk about the whole Brian Koberger mess here.
What a guy. Usually we'll wait until the whole thing's played out, but I, this is a guy I really just don't like. I don't know what it is about him. Maybe it's his face. Maybe it's the fact that he's like DNA. What are you talking about? Whatever it is. He's so, he's so arrogant. I can't take it. And I need to talk about him and,
yell at him. Bra guys are wild. Yeah, he just drives me nuts. I don't like the guy. So we'll talk all about that and all about the case here and see where that's at. That is patreon.com slash crime in sports. And you also get a shout out at the end of the show where Jimmy will mess your name up for you, even though he'd love to get it correct. We promise you. So that said, it's time for the disclaimer.
We have to do it. This is a comedy show, everybody. Now, that doesn't mean that the stories aren't real. Unfortunately, every single iota of the stories are real. We wish that we were making some stuff up for comedic effect. Unfortunately, we're not. People are just god-awful to each other. And we're going to talk all about it, and jokes will be made. But we know where to make the jokes. See? We're professionals. What you do is—well, what you don't do is you never make fun of the victim or the victim's family.
Why, James? Because we're assholes. Yeah, but? But we're not scumbags. I mean, that's easy. That's a simple one there. So if you think that sounds good, you're going to hear one wild, crazy story. If you think true crime and comedy are never, ever, should be mingling at all, oil and water, then, you know, maybe we're not for you. But maybe...
But maybe we are, because I'll tell you what, nobody deep dives like us on a case. I'll tell you that right now. So you're going to hear it the best way you can hear it. And for everybody that thinks that true crime and comedy should never go together, I don't know, take a hike. But for the rest of you, you're going to hear a wild story. And I think it's time to sit back. Let's all clear the lungs when you say here. Arms to the sky. Let's all shout. Shut up and give.
Me murder. Let's do this, everybody. You want to go on a trip? I would love it. Let's go on a trip, everybody. We're going all the way to Nebraska this week. Okay, where at? Ord.
O-R-D? O-R-D, Nebraska. Feels like they forgot some letters, but it's just Ord. Well, there's something military about that, isn't there? Yes, there's a Fort Ord also that we'll talk about because that's involved briefly. One of our people in this is stationed there. Ord, Nebraska. It's in central Nebraska. It's about three hours and ten minutes to Omaha if you want to go to the east. Okay.
Bit of ways in about two hours and 40 minutes to Wilbur, Nebraska, which was our last Nebraska episode. The flying vampire Tinder date, which was Nebraska is crazy. We think of it as this, you know, real buttoned up place, basically, where everybody's just, you know, farming and nodding to each other solemnly. They kill each other in wild ways in Nebraska.
This is no exception, that story or this one. This is in Valley County, area code 308. And the motto here, come home to Ord.
Come home. Come home because we have nothing else in Ord, I believe, is the end of that. They're leaving off. You're home. That's it. You're home. There it is. So get comfortable because there's not much else to do. It's like that old sign in front of a apartment complex. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you lived here, you'd be home by now. That bullshit. There it is. Yeah. I've seen it maybe 20 times in my life, and every time I go,
That's pretty goddamn good. It's pretty good. You'd be like, I could stop driving right now. Do you hate driving? Well, if you lived here. Hate your commute? Well, guess what? If you lived here. You make it shorter. A little bit of history. Ord was selected as county seat for Valley County in 1873 and was laid out the next year by the Haskell brothers.
And they had other people, too, who had purchased the land for the town site from the Burlington and Missouri Railroad Company because they owned everything at that time in the 1800s. And the town was laid out by a surveyor in May of 1875. They actually did this like very like planned. They didn't. It wasn't just like, oh, there's someone. Oh, so and so put a general store over there. I guess that's Main Street. Like this was all mapped out. The first building erected was the courthouse. Yeah.
And then a schoolhouse was built as well. And the first residence wasn't built until after the courthouse and the schoolhouse were built. Is that right? Yeah. So this was not this was a planned community. This was not, you know, people came here and spring up and get rushed together. This is shit. Yeah, shit. We got a bunch of kids. We better build a school. They were like, let's build a school. If we build it, they will come.
What are we going to do with all the children? It's a lot of confidence to think people are going to go there enough to build everything. In the 1950s, the Evelyn Sharp Airport was built. It was named after Evelyn Sharp, who graduated from Ord High School in 1937. She was the youngest person in the United States to earn a transport license to fly a plane and flew the first male plane into Ord.
So they named it after her. She's a pilot. She's a pilot. During World War II, she enlisted in the service and transported repaired planes from the west to the east coast. She was killed taking off from a Pennsylvania airport in 1944. So not a great pilot. Well, yeah, and apparently mediocre. Woman driver, everybody. Watch out. You know what I mean? Jeez.
Fucking around. Yeah, she's I mean, she did a lot of flying before that, I guess. It was during the war. You know, they didn't say one time in there that she's a pilot. Why didn't they give her that? She was the youngest. Why not? She earned a transport. I think that means you're a pilot, right? I think you're a first woman pilot. She wasn't the first woman pilot.
Oh, she was the first from for the youngest, the youngest person to earn a transport license to fly a plane. So I guess the youngest woman, she's also the youngest man who cares. Yeah. She's the youngest person. It's impressive. Impressive shit. Reviews of this town. Five stars. Here we go. I love the atmosphere and the fact that everyone knows everyone else. God, people are so jacked by that. They love it. I love knowing everyone at Walmart. That's a nightmare. Yeah.
Is that just the human hubris that you need to be recognized as something? A lot of people, they want to go where everyone knows their name. You know what I mean? It's the cheers effect. I need to be recognized for who I am and what I do. I need to walk in and have everyone go, Norm! And then I feel better, I guess. I don't know. He said, I would like there to be more restaurants and entertainment such as movie theaters, but otherwise, Ord is a great place to live.
There isn't even movie theaters. We'll get to that. We haven't got there yet. Three stars. Ord is a clean, healthy environment. Okay. Clean and healthy. What is it? A restaurant? With smiling, friendly faces every which way you turn. Every which way. Every which way. And loose. And loose. However, just like any other town or city, Ord has its downfalls. Many of those downfalls include constant drama between each class and town.
They don't mean school classes. They mean economic classes. Yeah. The pores are, I don't know. A little restless today. If one is of the lower class, they are treated unfairly and looked at as if they were nothing but pieces of sand in the Pacific. You know, America, you just described. That's every town, city, fucking anything you can imagine here.
That's just called society. Yeah. Sadly, the same goes for the school system. Certain children are treated unfairly. When it comes to safety, I would say Ord is one of the safest places I've ever lived. We'll be the judge of that. We have stats. However, the hospital is a whole different story. It comes down to the people once again. The social system in Ord is not right.
Yeah, poor people are treated badly, which is a common problem. It sounds like it's right on the nose with everywhere else. Yeah, that's what I mean. Three stars. Ord is a companionable environment. Companionable. Companionable. That's a... Wow, you're really...
You had to mash some shit together to make that one. Companionable? I guess, you know, it's a good companion. Friendable? Friendable. Where everyone knows everyone. It is a safe, family-friendly place to grow up and raise a family. If I had to change something about Ord, it would be to include more nightlife. Well, then it wouldn't be a small town that you like.
Then it would have crime and all that and more events that would make Ord more appealing to be. I would also add more activities for teens because Ord currently has no place for teenagers to hang out. That's actually not true because we'll talk about a place where they do hang out in this story. It's not set up. It's just a field, but they hang out there. People in this town, 2,049. There's nobody here. That's why there's not going to be a lot of nightlife in a town of 2,000 people.
I need the Vegas Strip in my town of 2000. So weird. There are more males than females here, which is not normal in the country. It's 51% male. Median age is 43. It's a few years older than the average, but about right. 58% married, which is above the usual 50-50. Lower divorce rate and lower single with children. So people get married and stay married here. Stick with it.
They hate who they're married to. It's 96% white here, 0.6% black, 2.1% Hispanic. It's a Nebraska farming town is exactly what it is. The unemployment rate here is extremely low. It's low in the country right now, but it's 2.3% here.
Holy. Which is nothing. They're all working. Everyone there is working. The median household income, though, is low. Median household income here is $51,694 a year. It is about $69,000 in the rest of the country.
So that's not good. Luckily for these people, though, and I mean luckily because that's a low amount, the median home cost here, well, the cost of living overall, 100 is regular. Here it's 77. Very affordable. Very affordable. Median home cost here. Everybody ready for this one? $117,900. What? That's like 1982 prices. This town. Yeah.
It's like top-of-the-line Ford F-350 money. That's incredible. Yeah, there's trucks that are more expensive than that. They have Dodge trucks that are more expensive than that right now. With a fucking Hemi and all that, you can get a house or a truck. One of the two. So if we've convinced you to make a hard decision between house and truck, we have for you the Ord, Nebraska Real Estate Report. ♪ music playing ♪
All right, your average two-bedroom rental here, and I don't know how available those are, but they go for about $800, which is about $400 below the national average, about two-thirds, yeah. Here's a three-bedroom, two-bath, 1,152 square feet. It's a small little house, but it's very nicely done on the inside. It's a nice little house.
It was clearly recently redone. Everything is very modern and a nice little porch also. It's a nice little house. $195,000 for it though.
For $1,152 on the square feet. It's not a big lot. It's a little house next to other little houses. So that seems like... The sub-200s, that's not bad. That's sub-200, which is not bad. But for around here, it seems like you should be getting more for that. Here's a three-bedroom, three-bath. T-ball for each and every b-hole, everybody. 1,428 square feet. It's a nice house. It is a little bit dated on the inside. It's not...
freshly redone like the last one. There is a bedroom that's very purple, so you're definitely going to have to put a few coats over that to cover it up, especially if you're doing a lighter color. Kids love purple now, though. Yeah, you just know that they had a teenage daughter and they were like, just fine, paint it purple. And then when they go to sell it ten years later, they're like, fuck! I'd call her back from wherever she was and have her repaint this now.
Yeah. You can paint. Remember that room you wanted to paint purple? Yeah, guess what? Get your brushes and your fucking rollers and get back here for the weekend. I'm selling this piece of shit. You got a whole lot of rolling to do. $250,000 for that house. Okay. Again, not bad. How much acreage? None. None. It's less than half an acre. Then here is a two-bedroom, two-bath, so technically T-Bowl for all your b-holes on that one, too. 2,228 square feet.
Wow. So it's a decent-sized house. That's a lot of house for only two bedrooms. Two bedrooms, yeah. It's a lot of living space. It's fine. It's kind of cool. It has a couple of stained glass windows, which are kind of cool, with some colors in them. And it's fine, nothing spectacular, and it's $399,000.
That's outrageous. And again, it's like a half acre. It's nothing major. It's like a decent-sized yard. It's very strange. They're going on square footage price, right? I think so, and I think they're trying to maybe... They looked and saw that home prices are up, so they're like, fuck it, I'll try to sell mine for as much as we can get. Things to do here. We have the North Loup, or Loop, I don't know, L-O-U-P. Sounds like Loup. Loup, I don't know, Popcorn Days.
It says, welcome to Popcorn Days, a North Loop tradition since 1901. Nestled in the heart of central Nebraska, Popcorn Days attracts families from across the Midwest to a weekend of games, carnivals, and great adventure. Is it a popcorn? Where's the popcorn? Also, what's the fucking adventure? Do we have to search for the popcorn? You can join us for team penning. What is that? Is that getting animals in a pen?
It sounds like it. Or is it a version of pegging that they're not going to tell us about? Team petting. Get him down! Competition calligraphy? Yeah, hold his legs. He ain't going to like it, so you're going to have to hold him. Jesus.
He didn't ask for this. So one way or another, somebody's getting roped, I think. Yeah. Team penning and sorting. I guess that's animals. Kids games. A, quote, juvenile parade, which sounds like. Why that word? It sounds like juvenile delinquent criminals, right? Like they got them out of the. Yeah.
Either that or it's a weird sexual thing. I'm not sure. Juvenile. Juvenile. A men's slow-pitch softball tournament. This sounds like what Chevy Chase went to in Funny Farm. Yeah, it's exactly that. Really did. Sand volleyball. Not beach, just sand. It's Nebraska. It's landlocked as fuck. You all get it. We brought in some sand, but we couldn't get an ocean for you. Sorry. And then it ends the weekend with the area's largest parade.
Oh, there you go. Um, so that's, that's the whole thing. And then there's Fort Hart stuffs, Fort Hart stuff, not stuff, heart stuff, uh, it's Fort Hart stuff, heart stuffs, 150th anniversary, uh,
And in 1874, U.S. military soldiers hired civilian workers and they began construction on an infantry outpost at the edge of Nebraska Sandhills, which is there. 150 years later, the original and reconstructed building stand is one of the most complete examples of forts from the Plains Indian Wars.
Great. They've kept it there. With lime and concrete buildings, wide verandas, and white picket fences, Fort Hartstuff has been called one of the prettiest posts on the plane, and they are going to have all sorts of stuff. Here's the schedule. Oh, baby. At 10.30 a.m., Dr. Gene Lukash presents Trooper.
Trooper Lee Heron and Fort Hart stuff. Hart stuff. Keep messing that up. Hart stuff. You want it to be Hart stuff so bad. I want it to be Hart stuff. I really do. And then at the same time at 1030, I don't know how you do these at the same time, but how are you going to watch Dr. Gene Lukash when you're distracted by the kids' military drill at 1030 a.m.? What the hell? That's weird. That's weirder than the juvenile parade. I don't like that at all.
That JROTC stuff frightens me. Yeah. Super creepy. 16 year old kid, super into guns and shit. It's like, calm down, Junior. Just pick up a book or something. Stop it. Strange. A noon. Alan Bartles presents 100 things to do in the Sandhills before you die.
Okay. Which would be stare at them, I think. I don't think there's a lot much more going on there. Run through them, drive through them. What else do you do with them? Kimberly Burazuk presents Daughters of Mars, Women with the Frontier Army, 1870. After that.
Oh, that's going to be a lot of fun. Humanities of Nebraska presents Jeff Barnes' Forts of Nebraska. This sounds like a really exciting... At 9 p.m., we're going to have an artillery demonstration slash night shoot.
Let's check out some artillery that day. Shoot guns in the dark, guys. Fucking crazy. And then they pretty much double that up the next day, except they add Gary Wells presenting the early military occupation of the North Loop Valley. We want to bet somebody was conceived at this point. Oh, for sure. Somebody got real hot. You know, man, that juvenile parade and the fucking kids military thing got me hot. Hot.
Hot, hot. So crime rate in this town, what we are interested in here, property crime is about half the national average. So nobody's stealing shit. And then violent crime, murder, rape, robbery, and of course assault, the Mount Rushmore of crime, is about one-third of the national average. So two-thirds below. It's very safe here. It is the middle of nowhere. There's 2,000 people and all of them know each other. So it's
hard to get away with crime, you know, everybody's just looking forward to that festival next year. That's out there. And I can't wait to get my kid. I've got him drilling out in the backyard. He's been marching back and forth. So that said, let's talk about a murder.
And some very crazy shit. All right, let's start out with a young lady here, Catherine Beard. And beard like on your face. Beard, Catherine's her name. She goes by Kathy with a C, by the way. She's born in 1958, and she was born and raised in Ord. She's an Ord girl from the start. Born and raised in this town, this tiny town, and she will live here her entire life.
Wow. Which is wild. Yeah, her father, William, is going to die in about 1985. Her father and mother had moved there in 1947 to Ord. And then she has two brothers and a sister and Catherine as well. And so that's how that goes. Oh, two sisters. I'm sorry. Two brothers and two sisters. There's five kids total. She's the fifth sister.
Wow. Yeah, five total. And she went to Ord Public Schools. And it says through her sophomore year. So I'm going to assume she dropped out after the 10th grade. That sounds about right here because she's going to be like a part-time small bar waitress is what she does for a living. She's going to stay in town. What the fuck does she need a degree for? Yeah. I guess in around 1980 or so,
She couldn't take it anymore, and she moved to Lincoln for a year. She's like, I'm going to the big city of Lincoln, baby. Oh, man, Perkins as far as the eye can see there, buddy. Can't wait for that shit. And boy, can you see far. Yeah. She couldn't find work there, partially because she has a 10th grade education, which doesn't help. If you come out of the Sandhills, some small town of 2,000 people with a 10th grade education...
You're not really burning up the job market probably at that point. In a three-letter town. Yeah. Couldn't afford a fourth letter over there.
She's not exactly fending off job offers here when she goes to town. So she ends up coming home after she can't find work. So she's there very briefly and then moves home. That's her only attempt of leaving Ord in her whole life. Really? Yep. She tried and then said fuck it. Yeah, she can't. I mean, that's pretty fucking demoralizing. She's like 21, 22. Move to Lincoln and can't make it? You're like fuck.
What chance do I have? That was the big city. So she moved back. And like I said, her dad died in 1985. And then her mom was getting old. So she was living with her mother at 2121 L Street.
in Ord here and basically she does the like household chores her mother can't get around to doing because of physicality issues like the laundry and gardens for her and does all that kind of shit and then she works part time as well and we'll talk about that she's small she's 5'2 100 pounds brown hair hazel eyes she's pretty
And, yeah, she's pretty smart, too, actually. So at school was probably not. It wasn't because she's an idiot at all. It's just because, you know, I had problems in school, too. Happens. She likes to write poetry as well. Oh, she's an artsy gal. She's into writing poetry. But no other artsy stuff I can see except poetry. Yeah. So she seems like the type that probably drew horses on her folders. Yeah.
You know what I mean? And then writes poetry. And you know that girl. You remember that girl. So she does that. So she's living there through the 80s. At about 1989, she's still single, but she has a boyfriend. She's never been married. She has a boyfriend. They don't live together. She still lives with her mother in the same house. And, you know, she's got brothers and sister-in-laws and all that kind of thing. Her one, what is it? It's her brother's wife's brother.
I believe it's a brother-in-law, right? It's a brother-in-law. I was trying to figure out how it was her brother-in-law though, is the chief of police here in Ord.
Oh, and it's going to be the chief of police. His name is Kirby. So that's part of this too. That was his first name. This snow. His last name is Kirby. So that's part of this stew here. Um, so she's got a boyfriend, like I said, uh, her job. Okay. She works at the someplace else tavern. That's the name of it, which is just going to say, you know, that is just people go in, you know, when people leave somewhere, they go, you want to go someplace else. Yeah. Yeah.
That's what they say. So we're the someplace else. It's kind of brilliant actually as a name. I,
I love when bars do that. I like when they call themselves the gym. I enjoy that. The guys tell their wives, I'm going to the gym. That's all that is. That's why they call it the strip club, the library, and they call it, you know, that's why they do that. I like that. Go to the library. Yeah. I think it's fascinating. It is fascinating. So the someplace else, everyone in town knows what someplace else is because it's the bar. And it seems like a main gathering spot for this town where people go. She works as a part-time waitress there. That's right.
That's her job. So she doesn't seem to have a ton of ambition, Kathy. There's no dream of anything else. She doesn't talk about she's trying to open her own business or she's trying to save up money to go somewhere or she's going back to school. She just works part-time and takes care of her mom, and that's that. But she's in her 20s. She's 31 at this point by 89. Once you hit 30, you've got to go, is this what I'm at, part-time waitress forever? At this point... You've got to start figuring out how to...
401k. Yeah. Retirement. Social Security is not going to cut it for whatever she's chipping into this. At this point, it feels like her. It seems to be her plan is to wait till her mom dies and then live in that house because being a part time waitress, I don't know how else you're going to.
You're not going to buy a house or anything. So there's nothing, nothing technically. Fuck. I'd have loved that life. No, it's fine. Ambition to do. It's fine. Yeah. That'd be great. Yeah. I just start worrying at 31. I'd start going, I need health insurance. You know what I mean? Like this is dude, I got, I got an uncle that's almost 60 and he's got nothing, dude. Yeah. No, plenty of people like that.
So Charlene Whitefoot, who has known Beard for 10 years, describes her as a friendly, outgoing person who would never hurt anyone.
She likes to hang out even on her nights off at the someplace else. This is Kathy. So this is the social center of the town. She enjoys playing pool and cards. Also, this is, I mean, they just hang out there and a dice game called zilch, which I don't know what that is. I don't know. I've never heard that one. She also likes country music and dancing. She likes country music and line dancing and all that kind of shit. Her,
Her also loves watching TV. Her favorite shows as of 1989, late 80s are Dynasty, which a lot of the ladies liked and
If I gave you 100 guesses, you'd never fucking guess what her second show is after First One's Dynasty. Is it Cagney and Lacey? No, no, no. That's what I mean. You'd guess that. You'd guess those kind of shows. Nope. Perfect Strangers. No, Perfect Strangers. Oh, yes. Great show. Not Kate and Allie or anything like that. No, Balki Bartokomus and his cousin Larry Appleton, as he would say. Yeah.
I think I've said this before. My cousin Jesse and I chased Mark Lynn Baker, who was cousin Larry. He's from Poughkeepsie, and he went to Vassar College and everything, so he's around Poughkeepsie a lot, this guy growing up. Still got to be there, right? Yeah, I remember my mother brought me home an autograph when he was on TV. She saw him at a bar one night and gave me an autograph. We chased his ass down in the Poughkeepsie Galleria. We saw him from like fucking 40...
We were knocking people out. We were like 10. It was like 1988. We're knocking people the fuck over. What were you guys going to do if you caught him? We caught him. We fucking caught him. Just as he opened the one door to go through the two sets of doors, we grabbed him by the jacket and said, Cousin Larry, Cousin Larry.
And he turned around terrified and then saw we were kids and we were like, you're really funny. Can we have your autograph and stuff? And he was like, okay, sure. What happened to him? He was nice to us. No, where the fuck is Mark Lynn Baker? He was funny. He should be thrilled about that interaction because nobody's looking for you, Mark. Sadly, I'm more famous than him now and that is disturbing because we're not famous. I didn't know. That's what I mean. I just...
That's sad because he was funny. Oh, that's so bad. Anybody who runs into Mark Lynn Baker, tell him we got his back. Holy shit. He kind of looks like Jesus. He looks bad, man. He doesn't look like he would age well because he had those cheeks. No. Yeah. He looks like he grew like gray sideburns. So he looks like a fucking old Western. Cool. Fucking cowboy. Put him in Yellowstone or something. What are we doing? Let's get him work. Larry Appleton. Larry Appleton.
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This show, Small Town Murder, is sponsored by BetterHelp. It's the season of fear. Maybe you have some fears. Maybe you're not Halloween-based. Maybe you're not scared of Dracula. You're scared of real-life things like us. Like, we're both terrified of flying, and we have to fly all the time. So things like that can help with therapy. Honestly, you need it. You're going to hold yourself back with that stuff. So if you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try.
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But she heads to the bar anyway to go hang out, even though it's her night off. There's nothing else to do, I feel like, in this town. There isn't even a fucking movie theater. What are you doing? You're probably right. She's wearing faded blue jeans, a white fuzzy sweater with pink and gray horizontal stripes, which it's May 31st. She's wearing a sweater. Oh, shit. And tennis shoes. It's a little cold still? I guess. It must be. I don't know. Maybe it's...
it's cool in there. Air conditioned, I'm not sure. Tennis shoes, sneakers, a watch, a turquoise ring, and a friendship ring. Not sure what that is, but a friendship ring. In the 80s, is it one of those nylon ones with the speckles all over it? Like a bracelet?
No, they were bright yellow, bright green, bright pink, bright orange, but they had neon colors on them with the black stuff. Oh, yeah, I don't remember. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah, I know what you're talking about. I remember that, but I don't know. They did have the bracelet that was slip-slidy to tighten. Yeah, but then people would make the friendship bracelets, and they'd be out of the little yarn and all that shit, because that was the big deal when we were kids. A girl would just give that to you, and you'd be like, okay, and then you'd have to wear it. I don't know what the fuck she's into. Yeah.
So it's about 730 p.m. She's been hanging out in the evening. So she goes there early. This isn't like it's 930. I'm going out. She's spending her evening there, hanging out with friends and talking. And at about 730, she leaves her keys, her cigarettes and her coat in the bar and steps outside to talk to somebody.
And it's a 23 year old man named John Oldson who she goes out to talk to. And we don't know what it is, too, because if you've ever hung out at a bar, if you leave your shit and go out the back door, it might be, hey, you want to go out and smoke a joint quick. You know what I mean? That's like the usual out the back door type of thing.
So, because you can smoke in bars, obviously. It could be him saying, hey, my friend Frank thinks you're pretty. Wants to fucking plow you, yeah. So, he... Now, the other thing is, he's known this, he's younger than her, but he's known her basically his whole life, and he's been trying to fuck her for years now. Of course. He tries every once in a while, he takes a run at her, and she goes, no, and he goes, all right, it's one of those. Yeah. Yeah.
Now, a man said he saw Kathy get into the pickup truck with this man, this man's pickup truck with John. But a person was sitting inside the truck, but the man did not know if that person was a man or a woman. So this person just saw her get into a truck with another figure, had no idea who, what, when or how.
So it's a dark colored pickup truck parked in the alley behind the someplace else tavern. So if she went out the back door, that's where it would have been in the alley. It's described as being about seven or eight years old with Loop County license plates. And they are identified by the number 88 on them. They have the county numbers. They have them numbered by county in Nebraska. That's a thing in Nebraska.
Got it. So they got a partial license plate number of the truck, but a later check of any truck anywhere will fail to bring up anything that matches this. So they didn't know what to do. But she never comes back in the bar. She leaves her cigarettes, leaves her keys, leaves her coat, leaves all her shit, walks out the back door with this guy. Yeah.
And she's just gone. But we don't know if she left with this guy, if she left whose truck this was or anything like that. She's just gone. And that night people are like, hey, where'd Kathy go? All her shit's here.
But it's not – they didn't know if she just like went to go do something and then got distracted or – Yeah, and she works here. She'll be back for this stuff. That's it. But it's like to leave your cigarettes and your cigarettes. If you're a smoker and you're leaving for more than 20 minutes, you're taking your cigarettes with you. That's just the way it works. Unless there's cigarettes on the way. Yeah. You're going to have yours though. You know what I mean? Yeah. Smokers have their cigarettes on them. So they said at that point they – somebody called the police and said she's –
She's gone. The owner of the bar. And they said they didn't know where to look. The cop said if we had any idea of where to search, we would search. But we don't have a focal point. A search at this point would be random. Like we don't even know what we're looking for. So we don't even know if she just went and hung out and spent the night at somebody's house or something. We have no idea.
So all we know is she was sitting at the end of the bar on a bar stool that night, said Kay Schaefer, who co-owned the bar. She said that Kathy went toward the bathroom. That's what she saw, which is toward the back door and never came back. And she said, I think it's the most ridiculous, unheard of thing. It's like she just vanished.
Like she went to the bathroom, never came back and never seen from these people again. Now she does have a boyfriend. Yeah. So right away they'd like to talk to the boyfriend to see if a, she went to his house or B is he pissed off that she hangs out at the bar all the time is, you know, like what's the,
What's his deal? What's the situation there? Because, you know, obviously when there's a woman missing, we're going to go. We're going to check. Who is she fucking? Who did she fuck before this? And who has been trying to fuck her? That's what we're looking at. Because that's that's who men kill generally. Yeah. You go to the Wikipedia page and find the successor and the predecessor. That's it. There you go. Oh, she was married. What is that? Seventy two to four. Seventy eight. There it is.
So the Ord police chief, John Young, who's the police chief at this point in time, later on it'll be somebody else, he said that she had a boyfriend in Fremont, and they said that the boyfriend, they talked to him, he seemed to be telling the truth, and he does not know where the hell she is. He said he didn't hear from her, and he doesn't know. He knew she was going there that night, and that was it. That's the last he heard from her, too. There's no cell phones, so it's not like they're texting back and forth.
So they're like, OK, let's figure out this truck. Maybe the truck is the key to finding out where she went. Right. So there's no description of a driver available. But they said the truck was seen getting into the truck. She was seen getting into is thought to be, quote, semi-local from the loop Garfield Wheeler County area. So somewhere around us within a couple hours. Yeah, it's it wasn't, you know, Georgia plates or something. It was.
They said the witness stated the pickup truck had 88 county plates. We're checking into this, but we feel he may have been an error on the second digit and it may have been a three. Eighty eight is Loop County. Eighty three is Garfield County. So they said people tend to pick up on vehicle license plates from a great distance away. So it's thought that the pickup might be from the area. And they added that Beard probably was with someone she knew.
And they said, we don't feel she would have got in a car with someone she didn't know just based on her character and talking to people.
Then you don't get in somebody else's car when you're leaving all your shit in the car. That's what's so weird. Yeah, you're going outside for two minutes if you're doing that. You're not going out there for the whole day. And this is back when you could smoke anywhere. So she didn't have to go outside to have a cigarette. No, exactly. She went outside for a specific reason. Specific reason. Someone called her out to talk to her or whatever. So the first guy they want to talk to is the guy that she was seen with outside the bar and seen talking to at the bar that night. And that is John Oldson. Yeah.
O-L-D-S-O-N. Old son. John R. Oldson. He's born in about 1966. Known Kathy his whole life. A little bit about him. His family moved to Ord in 1967. So right when he was a kid. And he's grown up here too. His father is Dick Oldson.
And his mother's name is Ann, and they got divorced. His mom lives in Reno now. I guess when he was a teenager, John's custody was transferred from his father to his mother, and he didn't like his mother. Really? Yeah, didn't get along with his mother. He moved instead to a boy's home called St. Francis Academy. He's got parents. He's got two parents and step-parents, and he's in a boy's home.
My God. Which is fucking wild. That's how much he didn't like his mother. He's, as we'll find out through this episode, he's got some issues with women, boy. And it started with his mom, I feel like. This is it, yeah. That was in October 81. He stayed there until June 83 and graduated from Ord High School in May of 1984.
So he's not a troubled kid ever, doesn't get in trouble or anything like that. He is diagnosed at the St. Francis Academy as socially regressed and socially dysfunctional.
Regressed. Regressed. So I guess at a younger age and he's behind the other kids and dysfunctional socially as well. He joins the army after that. And April of 86, he's in the army, joins that. And he's in the army from April 86 to December 1987. Okay.
Stationed in Fort Ord, California, which is really weird. He's from Ord and they stationed him in Fort Ord, but 1,500 miles away. And he's only in for a year? Well, there's a problem. That's why. He says that, quote, kind of poetic, don't you think, to go from Ord to Fort Ord? Not really poetic, just coincidental. It's interesting, sure. He said he, quote, spent a little too much time in the seedy districts in some of the towns around Fort Ord.
Where the hell is Fort Worth? I don't know, but around any army base, there's seedy stuff around there to take care of the needs of a bunch of 21-year-old guys. There's strip clubs and there's bars and there's all sorts of shit. He ended up tearing a ligament in his knee while doing army stuff, you know, drills and shit, and received a general discharge under honorable conditions because he couldn't walk, really. And the army was like, we're not going to pay for that surgery, so.
You're useless. We're not paying for this. We're not looking for limping soldiers, really. That's not something we're after. Especially not a socially regressed child. Yeah. So he's working at this point in 1989 with his father and his uncle and a couple other people on a work crew where they're doing construction. That's what he does.
On the day of May 31st, 1989, when Kathy disappeared, he was working with his father, his uncle and two other members of a work crew, a guy named Lawrence Kittinger and a guy named Dale Hopps. And they were all laying brick. That's what they were doing this day. Yeah, they're working on a project at the home of Bonnie and Roger McCartney.
And I guess the one guy, Hops, he says that the project lasted about three and a half days. But Roger McCartney, the guy who's paying them, said that based on his review of the bills, the brickwork started after May 29th and took a couple of weeks to complete. So we have some discrepancy here. After work at about 4.30 or 5 o'clock, the crew, all of them who were laying brick, went to the someplace else tavern.
So, you know, blow off some fucking post bricklaying steam. Yeah. You know, to drink away the pain of my fucking knuckles. That's what it is. So they all rode in. This is Olsen. Kittinger hops all road in the father's Olsen's father's two tone cream and brown Ford pickup. Yeah. Olsen's father drove the pickup. Now, Olsen's father parked the pickup in the alley behind the bar.
The back of the pickup is full of masonry tools, which is something that people would pick up on if they saw it. You know, obviously, you go, it looks like this. It's full of tools. Right. You know, so. Lots of troughs and troughs. Yeah. Numerous witnesses testified later that they saw Olsen speaking with Cathy about
who was sitting at the end of the bar at the someplace else. They were acquainted with one another, but they've never had a romantic relationship. Like I said, he's taking his shots and she always shoots him down. They, Kittinger and Hopps will say later that Olsen went over to talk with Kathy almost immediately upon them arriving at the bar.
So Kathy's been at the bar when she takes off at 730. She's been there for a couple hours already because they got there at five o'clock and he made a beeline right to her. People also reported that Oldson and Kathy went to stand close together near the jukebox and the pool table. And they said at some point Oldson had his hand or arm on Kathy's shoulder.
So they were getting along is what they're saying here. Yeah. And he's getting familiar. He's getting familiar. And she isn't the type to let a guy have her hand on her shoulder if she didn't want it there. She is definitely the type to go, fuck off me. And especially she's at her job. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. You know what I mean? So she's or or maybe she's a little more casual with with allowance there because she's known him. She feels comfortable there and she knows that she's safe in that. That's what I mean. She's not afraid of him is what I mean. She's not anything like that here. Hop said that Oldson asked his father for the keys to the pickup truck at one point. Now, several people saw Oldson and Kathy walk out of the bar through the back door into the back alley.
I guess they said that was around 630, but I've heard other people say 730. So it's strange here. No one ever saw either one of them return to the tavern that night. And then Kathy was just gone. So she not only left her cigarettes, jacket, house key and umbrella at the bar, but also Kathy left a half finished drink on the bar.
If you think you're going to be gone for more than a minute, you're going to down that fucking drink and you're going to grab your cigarettes. That's just how a drinker and smoker operates. That's how it works. So she left that there. And when Kathy's sister later checked Kathy's room in the house where she lived with her mother, she found that Kathy's belongings are undisturbed. She didn't pack a bag. It's not like she had a suitcase going and all of her clothes, you know, shit's taken out of her dresser drawers. It looks just like it always does. So they're like, okay.
Now, when Oldson walked out the door with Kathy asking for the truck keys, Oldson's father, Kittinger and Hops, the three work crew guys there to work, crew guys and his father waited for a while to him for him to return to give them a fucking ride because they all drove there together. Yeah, but he never came back. He just left his dad and these workers at the bar. They never came back. So Oldson's father and Kittinger walked. They had to walk back.
After a day of bricklaying and drinking, now they have to walk home from the bar. And he left his dad in his dad's truck. He took all the tools, everything. Bye. So they walk back to Olsen's father's house. Kittinger said that he and Olsen's father arrived at Olsen's father's house about an hour after they saw John and Kathy leave together out of the bar.
Olsen's father said that he and Kittinger left the tavern about 30 minutes after Olsen as well. It takes about 15 minutes to walk from the someplace else tavern to Olsen's father's house. About a 15 minute walk.
So when Olsen's father, so they left, then a half hour later, they leave the bar and it takes about 15 minutes. So they should have gotten home about 45 minutes after John and Kathy walked out of the back of the bar. That's what we're saying here, just to give you everybody a timeline because it's important. So when they arrived at the house, Olsen's father and Kittinger, Olsen was on his way out of the house.
Oh, he's coming out. Hopefully you're coming to pick us up, you asshole. Is that what you were doing? There you are. I was on my way. Thanks a lot. He appeared freshly showered, wet hair, smelling good, new clothes. So Kittinger asked Olsen if he had gotten lucky. Hey, did you get lucky? Is that why you left? And he said, no, I didn't. No, that didn't happen. He's like, oh, damn. Instead, according to Kittinger, Olsen told him that, quote, two guys had hustled her away from him in a pickup.
up he's like I was trying to hook up with that one chick that works there but two dudes ended up fucking taking her from me basically and getting in a truck and leaving okay now Roger McCartney he's the guy paying for the brickwork he said that one evening after he got home from work anywhere between 630 and 7 p.m. he tried to call Olson's father at home but reached Olson instead and
And he said that he had concerns about the brickwork. He said this is the only time he called the Olson house ever. And Roger didn't recall the specific date of the call, but he said it might have been on May 31st. That's possible. So he said he talked to an investigator that week. And in the report, the officer reported that Roger said he made the telephone call at 730 to 830 on May 31st.
So that kind of just throws the timeline off a little bit. And he talked to John and he was there. Now back at the someplace else.
here to go someplace else. Charlene Whitefoot, the employee there that works there, she's the one who discovered that Kathy's stuff is still on the bar, and she called Oldson at his father's home because she saw them together. She was like, hey, where the fuck did you see Kathy? She said she called at about 10.30 p.m. that night. That's when she spoke to John on the phone, and when Whitefoot asked Oldson if he had seen Kathy, John Oldson said he was just getting out of the bathtub when
This guy is a clean son of a bitch. And he indicated that he had no idea where Kathy was. And that's when Whitefoot and the owner reported Kathy is missing. 1030 at night, three hours after she walked out of the back door, she's missing. Jesus, never report me missing that quickly. No? No. I could wander off for two days and just never report me missing that quickly.
Give me a week before you report it to anyone. If the last person that you were hanging out with is taking a bath at 10.30 p.m., I'm calling the police. But that would be normal if he's a guy who works in the morning. Taking a bath at 10.30 p.m.? I'll take a bath in, I don't know.
Saturday afternoon. Saturday afternoon? I don't know. What are you, a Victorian woman? Who the fuck takes baths on a Saturday afternoon? That's the most leisurely shit I've ever heard of. They're not 1030 at night baths. But I mean, if he's a bath, not shower guy... Is that a guy? If you're hanging out with a bath, not shower guy, I'm calling the police. I mean, if you're a bath, not shower guy, and that would be when you would take a bath...
So you could be ready for work the next morning, I guess. That's wild. Makes sense, I suppose. But the bigger question is, why is a grown man taking a bath? Yeah.
Especially if they're common. I take them, but they're like, you know what I mean? It's me pampering myself and being like, fucking, let's have a bottle of wine and a bath. You know what I mean? It's not all the time. Yeah, it's not an every night thing. It's just on Saturday afternoons, apparently. Saturday afternoon. I just gave you the playbook. Afternoon?
I guess. I'm calling. If anyone's taking an afternoon bath, I'm calling the cops. That's crazy. You think it's weird for him to take a bath at 1030 when you're sitting here at 330 in the afternoon?
Shit hammered in a tub. What is wrong with you? Granted, it sounds phenomenal. I'm not going to lie. It's not a bad thing. I'm not disparaging you. Now, the thing they also come up with is there's a robbery that night in the area. And they wonder if this has anything to do with it, with someone just going on a spree.
They're investigating an attempted armed robbery that took place the same night she was last seen and which they say may be related to her disappearance. It was the first of its kind in 14 years, in the last 14 years in Ord. The first, like, strong-arm robbery. Oh, hell yeah.
When was the last time somebody disappeared there? They were around the same time. This is pretty common. Specific. Yeah. This is wild. So that took place at about 1150 p.m. at the Hillcrest Motel on the northwest side of Ord on Highway 11. A man attempted to rob a 45-year-old Colorado man who was staying the night at the motel. And the police chief said the Colorado man answered the door and saw a man wearing a nylon stocking over his head and holding a sawed-off shotgun. Jesus.
My God. Which is terrifying. That's a horrible thing to open the door to. That's why they have those holes to look through. If you see a guy with a nylon stocking over his head, don't open it, I'm going to say. It's probably not the pizza guy. So the Colorado man was reportedly threatened three or four times, but he maintained he had no fucking money. I don't have any fucking money to give you. So the robber took the telephone in the room so he couldn't call the cops and left him alone.
Great. Now I got to pay for that when I check out. I'll sell this for three dollars. OK. Now, the robbery was committed by two guys named Rex White and Glenn Hall. And the victim was from Colorado. Now, the fucked up part is that White and Hall had been hanging out with this guy all day. They were trying to get him laid at the someplace else. That's what they had been at the bar.
So White and Hall and five other acquaintances, including this robbery victim, so seven people all together, went to the bar, had been at another bar in town from 3 to 7.30 p.m. that night.
where the Colorado guy had been flashing around a lot of cash and said he wanted to have a big party in his motel room. And he offered White and Hall $100 each if they could, quote, find him a girl to fuck. You guys hook up a girl. I'll give you $100 each. Will you pimp a woman to me is what they just said, is what he said.
So White and Hall took everyone to the someplace else tavern around 730, right around the time when Kathy disappeared, to try to find who? Kathy Beard. They said, we'll find Kathy. She'll fuck you. That's what they said. Wow. We know a chick who'll fuck you. Her name's Kathy. So we'll go find her. Now, when they got there, White said that they couldn't find Kathy when they got there. They got there at 730, and she was nowhere to be found. That's their story. Okay.
Now, the next and then later on, they went to the moat. They dropped the guy off at the motel, got nylon stockings and a shotgun and went back and tried to rob him, which is wild. Yeah, he's got to at least have 200. We know that for a fact. Now, the next day after Kathy disappeared, the the crew at the McCartney McCartney job site there, the bricklaying crew said they saw a marked police car just hanging out nearby the whole day.
Near the area. Olsen's father asked aloud to other people what the hell this guy might want. What the hell do you think this guy fucking wants? He's not sitting here the whole time. Whereas John Olsen replied, quote, it's probably something I did, which is also workplace humor. I'm sure it's something I did. Ha ha ha ha ha. You know what I mean? That's just how guys joke. But it's also could be true. Now, the next day, Olsen, John goes back to the someplace else tavern.
So he's not avoiding it. This is where he hangs out. He went back to the someplace else tavern to confront the Whitefoot lady. Olsen asked Whitefoot why she and the bar owner reported Kathy missing. Why did you report her missing? The fuck do you care? Yeah. What's your deal? Go lay bricks. What do you give a shit about reporting her missing? So Olsen reportedly said, what's going to happen if her body comes floating down to the river? Who do you think they're going to blame? Me. Me.
Is what he said. They're going to blame me because they saw me walk outside with her. And you got you told the cops that I walked outside with her. And now they're going to they're thinking I did something to her. Interesting. Yeah. He said that. Well, the Whitefoot said, well, what did happen outside with you two? And he said, well, I tried to grab her and stuff her into my truck, actually. That's what he said. He said, quote, I got a quote, got a hold of her arms out in the alley, but she got away.
I tried to kidnap her, but failed. Someone else must have said, I know what I'm doing. I'll take care of that and kidnap her instead.
Why would he say that? That's fucking wild. Now, Whitefoot said, I don't fucking believe you because Olsen's 6'3", 210 pounds. He's a big fucking guy. Oh, and she is tiny. Kathy's 100 pounds soaking wet, 5'2". He could put her in his pocket. Yeah, he could pick her up by the arms and take her places. You know what I mean? He weighs 20 pounds more than me, and he can do... Like, I can pick Sarah up and take her places. So it's...
If I wanted to, you know, if I had to locate her. Yeah. If she said, hey, bring me over there. OK, sure. And I could bring her over there. Not against her will or anything. Yeah. Believe me, she's she's a kicky one. She would be wouldn't be able to do that. So before. So that's how that goes. So she said, I don't believe you that she got away from you. And at that point, in frustration, John Olsen just said and left and left the bar. You're a waste.
I'm out of here. All right. So that's on June 1st. Now June 2nd comes around. Now the cops, the cops basically said, let's take June 1st and wait for Kathy to pop up. Let's see if she just, you know, comes back into circulation here. And she didn't. So by June 2nd, now they're interviewing people.
Now it's an actual missing person investigation. So June 2nd, police sit John Oldson down and interview him. He's interviewed by Gerald Woodgate, who was the Valley County Sheriff at that time, and John Young, who's the Ord Police Chief. So these are the two...
Most in charge guys are going to talk to them. Those are the people that are conducting interviews? That's it, yeah. These small departments, there's probably three cops. You know what I mean? That's the thing. So the guy who knows how to do an interrogation the best, they sit them down. Sheriff and police chief. And the chief are sitting down. So Oldson told them that when he and Kathy were in the alley, he propositioned Kathy for sex.
He said, hey, let's go do something. And she refused him. He said that she said fucking no. So he said that he went to his father's truck with the intention of leaving. And at that point, he didn't mention anything about a struggle or grabbing her or bolting away from him or any of that. He just said, I asked her if she wanted to fuck. She said, no, I shrugged and got in the pickup truck. Which why would you leave your your dad and all the work crew there alone if you were leaving alone? What sense does that make?
I'm so upset. I'm going to go take a bath. Yeah. Weird thing. So upset. I'm going to take a bath. So he said that he went to his father's pickup with the intention of leaving. Like we said, he said as he started to leave, he saw Kathy go to another truck that had just pulled into the alley. He described the truck as a custom F-150 Ford pickup truck, about seven years old, but shiny with fog lights and 88 county plates as well.
He described the driver as having long hair, but he could not tell if the driver was male or female. Okay. Now that's his story. That's where I saw her. I saw her going toward that truck. I tried to fuck her. She said no, and I left. What do you want from me?
An 80-something with fog lights. All right. An 88 with fog lights. So, or the truck's an 80-something. Yeah. Now, June 6th now. So, four days go by. And now the police are, they've done all the interviews. Nobody really has anything to say or any leads. So, now they're just doing searches. And now they're having by air. Yeah. Yeah. They said her sister, Janice, said it was unlike Kathy to go long periods of time without contacting her family because she takes care of her mom.
Right. So she is checks in with her mom all the time. Her sister said if she came if she was late for dinner, she would call home and tell you she's always keeps in contact. They said that they feared that she and the police said they it's feared that Kathy may be injured since she hasn't contacted anybody. So they're worried that, you know, she's I'd say injured is a mild way to put that.
Yeah, she's got a... You're injured. She's got a turf toe. Yeah, if you're... You got a fucking sprained ankle, you're for sure can call home still. Usually death is what keeps you from contacting people. She's missing. She's got a gout flare-up. It's bad. She's not going to be found for a while. Not going to find her for a while. Her colitis is really acting up.
So the police officer said, we all know Kathy. She would have let somebody know where she was at by now. At this point, we're concerned. Really? She's been gone for five days. I'd be concerned, too. Panicked. The police chief said he wanted to keep the search close to Ord in order to do a thorough job. So start in a small area, comb that, and then branch out from there. Yeah.
He said if it's not found, if Kathy's not found today, then the search will be expanded. Now, Kathy's mother said she's very frustrated with her daughter's disappearance. She said, I just wish someone would come up with something. I know she didn't expect to be gone long because she was taking care of the house and garden. And God damn it, I need her to pull some fucking weeds, if I'm being honest here. The dishes are piling up. She's inconveniencing me, understand? And I don't like it. Okay? Just don't like it.
Now, her mom also said that while her daughter has been gone, family and friends have offered to help in her stead. So I'm good. Gardening is getting done in case anyone's concerned about my gardening. I know you're all talking about my missing daughter asking me questions, but if you have gardening questions, also weeds are pulled and the rhododendrons are coming in very nice over there.
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So she said, I even had a friend from Kearney who wanted to come up. Yeah, people in a small town are pretty wonderful, except for whoever the fuck took your daughter. That's not a one. It's strange to go. Everyone's really wonderful. Five days after your daughter's missing and someone obviously took her.
Everybody's so nice, except for at least one guy. At least a guy. So police are going to re-interview John Oldson because really that's the only evidence or the only lead they have. So he's interviewed now by an investigator for the Nebraska State Patrol. Now we're bringing the state he's in. Oh, yeah. He described that he saw a beard at the bar, asked her if she wanted to, quote, play a little touch and feel outside. Wow.
Gentlemen, imagine going up to a lady in a bar that you know and be like, you want to go play a little touch and feel outside? What are the odds that that works? Honestly. Want to go in the parking lot? Why? Touch and feel? Play a little touch and feel. Gross. He said, though, that she said no and told him that she does not think of him in that way.
Oh, probably because she's known him since he was a child and doesn't really think of him like an adult. Some second. How about that? Yeah.
you sat there while i was saying that trying to think of a fucking another one of those i saw your eyes going i just don't know your brain working what's what what's the other options then like if she doesn't see him that way then what what else is he gonna what else are you gonna go have a conversation with what are we about why you don't see me that way yeah about how wonderful his penis is what are we talking about you don't have a you don't have
You don't have another reason to be talking to her then. No, you really don't at that point. You really kind of fucked it. So I don't know. The whole thing is fucked. So he said she said that. Then he said when he continued to ask Kathy, she eventually agreed to go outside, quote, at least to talk about it.
So I don't know. We'll talk about it. I don't want you to feel me up, but maybe I do. I don't know. Let's go outside and really get a round of fucking negotiations and we'll decide here. Put the APR down, see about the down payment. Throw in the rust proofing and we'll talk about it. We'll see if we can get the payment down where we need it to be. We can get it to about $2.45 a month. We'll see what's going on. So Olsen reported that it was about 7.30 p.m. when he and Kathy stepped into the alley.
He reported that he and Kathy stood by the passenger side of his father's pickup. He again asked Kathy if she, quote, would like to do something.
Which he was pointing at his dick when he said it, probably. You want to do something? Or he's unzipping his pants? No? Right. So she again said that she did not think of him in that way. He said he became upset and tried to grab her by her wrist to pull her into the pickup. I tried to kidnap her as his fucking...
He told the cops that. He told the cops that. His story is, I tried unsuccessfully to kidnap her, and then someone else must have done it. They must have saw me doing it and been like, good idea, and then done it themselves. That guy has... Wow. Boy, oh boy. So I don't know if maybe he thought that someone might have seen that happen, so he had to say it, possibly. That's the only thing I could think of why he would admit to that. So he said that she pulled away from him, though, and according to him, she never entered the pickup.
He said that he hopped in the passenger side door, slid over to the driver's side and just drove away because he was so frustrated.
I don't like his story. No, his story is not good. And as he was leaving, he noticed a dark blue or black Ford pickup pull into the alley, and he saw Kathy walk over to the pickup and start talking to the driver. She then walked over to the passenger side of the pickup and got in. That's what he says. He describes the driver. Now he describes the driver as male. Before, he didn't know if it was a male or a female. They just had long hair. Now he says male, possibly with a mustache with long blonde hair.
And he doesn't describe any other documents. He said it was a commercial pickup with 88 county plates. He said he went home and took a bath.
He said he got... This is now... He's reporting two baths within a three-hour span. That's too much bath for anybody. So he said he got out of the tub to answer a phone call from Roger, the bricklayer boss there, at about 7.45. After the brief call with Roger about the brickwork, he finished his bath. He got back in the bath after that. Then gathered up clothes and detergent to go to the laundromat when he was...
on the way out the door, that's when he ran into his father and Kittinger. He just all is cleaning at night. At night. Yeah, he's into nights, not on weekends. He doesn't spend a Saturday afternoon, I'm going to bathe me, wash my clothes. He grabbed his box of detergent and on his way he's going. If you just did something with a woman, you'd probably want to wash the clothes you were wearing and yourself. And your body. Is the problem. Now, at the same time, he only had at...
the most estimation 45 minutes to get her to somewhere, do something to her, lose her significantly to where no one could find her, then get back home, take a bath. He's post-bath. Gather up his shit and be walking outside with his laundry. That's from fucking door to door from in the bar to walking out with the laundry freshly bathed. That is not a long time to do any of that shit. Unless you've already got a whole dog and
It's what I mean. You've got to have so much preparation. You have to and you have to have done this before and know what you're doing and that sort of thing. So that's when he said he ran into them. Then he said that Whitefoot called him later in the night and a state trooper will say that law enforcement investigated the owner's.
A vehicle similar to Olson's description of the pickup truck with the 88 county plates. And all such individuals were ruled out as having any information or involvement in the disappearance. All the people they got from that.
Okay. Any dark colored pickup from that county, basically. Now, sometime around there, some one of these days, a local resident say they saw Oldson's father's pickup truck in the driveway of their house with both doors open and the seat completely removed and lying on the ground. And a water hose ran to the truck and a bucket was nearby. Okay.
They clean the inside of the truck. Under the seat. I've never taken a seat out to clean under it ever in a car. No, to clean under it? No, never. That's hard work. That's a lot. That's at least four bolts. Fuck yeah. Seat belts. That's a lot of work. An 80s- Bench seat? An 82 Ford F-150 bench seat? That thing weighs a lot. Yeah.
Thing is big, man. Yeah. Holy shit. So by June 8th, there's still no luck in finding her. Still haven't found her. Still no clues. They said they did an unsuccessful search for Kathy of Ord and it forced them to go back to the drawing board and talk about where to expand the search to. The police chief, John Young, said the search for Beard, who's been missing since May 31st, may be expanded during the weekend.
They said at this point it looks like it could be a slow, long process. He suspects foul play is involved in the disappearance because of the length of the time she's gone. And they said she wouldn't be gone for 10 days without telling anybody where she's been. They've worked overtime in the search for Kathy, the officer said. I would fucking hope so. I mean, look for her. They should probably know.
of anybody not working on this place. Yeah, let's get everybody all hands on deck here. Always, yeah. For a couple hours the night before, volunteer firefighters walked and canoed the North Loop River outside of Ord looking for any evidence of her and they found nothing. The trip down three miles of the river from Ord was the second unsuccessful search for Kathy here, so...
They're having a hard time. Firefighters trudged through the river and a pilot named Jerry Bauer of Ord flew overhead in his airplane to find evidence. They have all hands on deck, man. Firefighters also searched the Hardenbrook Dam, located a mile east of Ord, and old pilings that once held a railroad bridge. See if someone could shove it in a...
big tube there. And after a while, they're asking everybody to check their wells. Everybody look in your wells. Oh, wow. Everybody look in your wells and make sure there's no young lady in there. Um, they said that the river and dam were searched because of their easy access to vehicles. And many local people use the area for fishing, canoeing, and quote, other entertainment, which means fucking. Um,
I believe. I don't know what else you do there. Well, a lot of touch and feel. A little touch and feel. So the investigation for Kathy continuing and her family doesn't know where the fuck she is. Her brother, Bill, took an emergency leave from work at the Air National Guard in Lincoln to be with his mother to help. You know, he's someone someone's got to do the gardening. Right.
Right. There's a shift being unfilled. We need we need an employee. We need somebody. So a lot of people have come a lot. Oh, by the way, the chief of the Kirby, the future chief of police, is married to his sister or married to Kathy's sister, not Kathy's brother's wife. Oh, so it's Kathy's sister's husband. Straight brother. Straight brother. Yeah. Bill Beard, the brother, said a lot of people have come and said they're praying for her. That's the best we could ask of anybody.
Now, Rex White. Let's talk about Rex White. He's one of the robbers who robbed the Colorado guy and said they were looking for Kathy to find a fuck partner for their buddy there. That's crazy. Now, he gave a statement here about where that Kathy might be. I guess they talked about he had gone to work, I guess. There's a guy named John Hopkins.
Not John Hopkins. Not a doctor? John Hopkins. And he's Rex White's boss on a cement job. According to Hopkins, White told him, quote, I know where she is. I can show you where she's at. No, that's what Rex said. John is just repeating this. Rex told John this. Rex said, I can show you where she's at. We skinned her alive and I think she liked it.
Now, the boss, Hopkins, reported that White seemed to be telling the truth and seemed to be lying. He wasn't joking. He wasn't giving an elbow in the ribs. Furthermore, this Hopkins got the impression from the conversation that Kathy was out in the open somewhere. They just dumped her.
Now, who the fuck tells their boss we skinned a chick alive last week? Yeah. A weird thing to tell your boss. And she liked it, too. You are sick. So Hopkins' live-in girlfriend said that she recalled coming home from work and finding Hopkins sobbing in the living room about this. He felt terrible. The girlfriend said that Hopkins was upset because White had told them that they had killed...
Kathy and white told Hopkins that he skinned her and buried her under concrete under a restroom project North of Ord where, where white was working. So he was like, that's what he told me at the end that he buried her in this thing. And I don't know what to do. So she said, is there any way we can check this out to make you feel better and see if it's not true. So she and Hopkins drove to the job site where this lady was allegedly buried and found a bag of lime missing and,
Oh, shit. Which is not a good thing to find. It's the exact thing you'd need with a body. So that's not good. So he was really, really, really fucking freaked out. And they think they don't trust Rex White anyway because he's a fucking...
attempted pimp slash robber slash strong arm robber you know what I mean very cheap one by the way they came back there's the someplace else in and do you know what other bar they were at that night Rex White and Hall no they were at the y'all come back saloon the y'all come back saloon oh man
Oh, boy. That is fucking hilarious. I've seen dew drop in. I've seen a lot. I've never heard of a y'all come back saloon. Y'all come back saloon. That is fucking ridiculous. And then that was before they went to the someplace else. So they stopped there. Now...
I guess they became victims. Then there was the armed robbery. All of them were questioned. Okay. Hall, White, the guy who got robbed, all of them were questioned. All of them passed polygraph tests. So all those things actually happened. All of those things certainly happened.
But they said that we didn't kidnap Kathy, and that's the important part. So then they go, well, how about a bunch of carnival workers? What about them? Carnies are scumbags. What do you think of them? They must be. They kidnap women and shit all the time. Is there a carnival somewhere? There's always a carnival around somewhere.
kidding me? So it's the summer. It's May 31st. This is carnival season. So Brian Mentzer and a bunch of carnival workers they're going to talk to. One guy named Mel Ellingson who was a boyfriend of Kathy's at one time, he said that Kathy once told him that a person by the name of Brian Mentzer was going to kill her and had threatened her once in a bar. Ellingson also recalled Kathy telling him that two guys from the carnival
Why are you consorting with carnival folk? That's the problem that she was acquainted with, had called her because they were going to be visiting. And this guy, Ellingson, said that the men drove a green pickup truck while they were in Ord. Dark colored pickup. Ellingson also said that the owner of the carnival lived in Taylor, Nebraska, and therefore would have 88 county license plates. OK, so there's that. Now there's Kathy sightings.
That are after her disappearance, which is a problem. I mean, they all think they're helping. They always back. And this happens so much with a sighting because people see somebody's face all the time and it's in their brain and they think they see someone and they're looking for them. They're trying to find them.
So one witness said that the night of her disappearance, he saw an unfamiliar man and a woman at the convenience store on the highway leading to Burwell, Nebraska, about 17 miles from Ord. The woman was approximately beard's weight and stature, but had darker hair. Well, it's probably not her then. And she appeared, quote, drunk or doped.
Two other witnesses reported to law enforcement that on the day after her disappearance, they saw someone who matched the picture and physical description of Beard walk into a cafe in Morrill, Nebraska, which is 360 miles from Ord. Good Lord. She was carrying a jacket and a military green duffel bag, and the bag was, quote, full clear up to the top with clothing or other personal items, and she looked tired.
Now, we know she didn't take her clothes with her, so that can't be her, unless she bought a whole new wardrobe. Yeah, and this person has been traveling a while. She's exhausted. She's beat, man. So the Ellingson guy, her former boyfriend, said in a statement to police that he was traveling back to Ord from Valentine, Nebraska, the day after Kathy's disappearance. While en route there at about 6 p.m., he saw a vehicle traveling in the opposite direction. He said he was traveling 60 and the other vehicle was traveling 90 miles an hour. Wow.
How does he know that? So that's a fast. They're going by quick. He said there was three people in the vehicle and he, quote, could swear that Kathy was seated in the middle between the driver and the other occupant. He believed he recognized the vehicle as belonging to a person who had previously lived across from Beard's house and had dated Kathy at one time.
It's her ex-boyfriend. I could swear I saw her in her ex's truck, man. He got a look at three different people. Yep, that quick. And was able to identify two of them right now. Right now. Going 60 and they're going 90. 90, the other direction. Flying. Yeah. Flying. So none of this is helpful, obviously. No. It's like, where is she now? Because that doesn't help. So June 9th, 1989, they're still searching for
And now they're saying that the search has failed and they're saying that they need a wider search and that they're suspecting foul play now as well. Now they're suspecting foul play. It's about time, guys. About time. By June 11th, 1989, so some time has gone by here. This is 12, 13 days. Now they want to talk more to John Oldson again.
Because, you know, his story is crazy. He's taken lots of baths and he said he tried to kidnap her. He said that, which that's his story. I tried to kidnap her, but somebody else got to her first. What a wild story. What a wild place. If you're in this alley, just multiple people try to kidnap you. If you get away from one, someone else grabs you. Where the fuck are we? Yeah.
What kind of crazy place is this? This is unbelievable. So he said he was in the establishment. There's a cop say that the guy they're talking to, Oldson, this is a quote to the press, said he was in the establishment and left at approximately the same time she did. He's denying any involvement or any knowledge of her disappearance. And that's what he continues to do. But he also some people see some weird shit. One lady named Barbara Dasher.
She said she and John would often talk to each other at the someplace else tavern. And one day while talking at the bar, this is after Kathy disappeared, Olsen suddenly, quote, looked mean and said right in my ear that, quote, they'd never be able to find Beard. They'll never be able to find Kathy. On another occasion, Olsen told Barbara that, quote, Beard was dead and that we'll never see her again. And on top of that, she deserved what she got.
Okay, that's what she says, that he said. Now, July 1989, Oldson is arrested. Not for murder or kidnapping or anything that has to do with Kathy Beard. He's arrested for something completely different. What'd he do? He's arrested for assaulting a woman in Burwell, Nebraska.
This is common for him. He's going to be convicted of this, too. A 51-year-old woman in Bernwell, Nebraska. According to the affidavit, he approached the woman in a gas station parking lot. Gas station parking lot. Walks up to a strange lady who's never seen him before and says, quote, I want to see your belly. Which is the strangest request from anyone I've ever... I probably took her so aback. She's probably like, what? Want to see your belly?
She refused. I don't fucking know you. I'm going to show you my stomach. So he punched her several times in the head, pulled up her shirt, rubbed and pinched her stomach, and then fled the scene. Rubbed and pinched. Gave her a raspberry. Big belly, big belly, big belly. Now this sounds crazy, right? Yeah. Way to read his diary. That's what he's into. He likes bellies. We'll talk all about it. I want to save that for when it comes up here in a minute. Okay, so...
He's arrested, put in jail for assault, and he's in there. Now, while he's in his cell for the next, oh, nine, ten months or so, because he'll be convicted of this. Yeah.
He keeps a diary, a very, very specific journal. And what happens is whenever he leaves his cell to do things every couple of days, the officers go in because they're all thinking he killed Kathy still or at least kidnapped her. So they go in, take his journal and photocopy the pages and then put it back. They do it every couple of days to know what the fuck he's been up to.
Later on, the cops will say they found all the pages in the garbage. I don't know what to tell you. But then it comes out that no, the officers say later, no, we took him every couple of days. We take him out specifically so we could photocopy his journal. That's what we did. That's funny. So they do searches of his cell. Now they perform cell checks every other week. And that's when they would copy a shit.
Now, 1990, he says some very strange shit here. He's got his girlfriend. He's got a girlfriend, by the way, named Minnie Eggers is her name. Minnie Eggers, which sounds like she has small tits, doesn't it?
Vinny like Minnie Mouse Eggers and he'll end up marrying her someday by the way she says that she overheard Oldson this is a woman at the bar around org resident said that she overheard Oldson tell his girlfriend Minnie that quote if she didn't do whatever it was that he wanted he would do the same thing to her that he'd done to Kathy and
This woman said that Minnie seemed scared. How do they have no evidence against this guy? That's what I'm saying. He just keeps telling everybody shit. She said that Minnie seemed scared and Olsen looked around to see if anyone had heard him. And Minnie told Olsen that she loved him and would do whatever he wanted at the time. That's what the lady said.
Now, he's got some woman problems, as we'll talk about. He'll end up later on, he is going to be charged with third-degree sexual assault in another incident. There's another third-degree sexual assault. This happened right around this time where he has allegedly touched a woman's breast. That charge was reduced to third-degree sexual assault. He pleaded no contest, served 60 days in jail.
So a jury found him guilty of the third degree assault of the Burwell woman. Let me see your belly. Let me see your belly. So weird. That's so strange. You wouldn't even think it was strange because you'd be like, what? Did he just it would take you a minute. Did he just ask to see my belly? What a weird thing to say. He's into the bell, though. If you're like nine months pregnant or something, let me see your belly. Even weirder. I don't even know. Was she pregnant?
No, not at all. She's 51. I hope not. That kid would not be in good shape if she was. Rubbing and pinching the belly. So Olsen, when he wrestled with her, pulled up her blouse and touched her stomach, then jumped in his truck and drove away.
So, Oldson, he's in jail. He speaks to the press while in jail. Okay. And he talks about, in addition to talking about Kathy Beard case, he talks about literature, religion, sex, media, law enforcement, family, his time in a boy's home, his military service, and the fact that for some reason that mini broad just married him. I don't know why, but wow.
He said he's just spilling it all. Oh, he's telling him everything. He said he knew Kathy his entire life. And when he was drinking, he tried to be more than a friend with her. So we were friends and we were sober. When I got a couple of drinks in me, she starts looking good to me. Basically, she said he said she always refused to sexual advances.
He said that Kathy would tell him, oh, John, I like you as a friend, but never in that way. No, no. Get away. No, no. But it was very like, yeah, it was very like playful. You know what I mean? Like, I'm going to try to get some. And she's like, no, you're not going to get any. You know what I mean? That's how he describes it. But after a while, it seems like this would probably be uncomfortable for her.
Yeah. I mean, yeah. How many times can you be asked to play touch and feel before you're a little like, okay, that's enough now. Yeah. And you, and you've seen it happen a million times with your friends, you know, you know what it's like. And eventually you go, dude, stop making me uncomfortable. She said, or I'm sorry. He said, John said, every time I approached her, I was pretty well tanked up.
I was real tanked up, as a matter of fact, a couple times. What happens is you get more desperate as the night goes on. Well, yeah, that's obvious. Everyone knows that. Closing time is the prettiest time of the night.
Everybody's beautiful at the light of the newly raised bar. The lights just came on. Everybody looks pretty in that light. Oh, man. It's the worst. Watching all those dudes grabbing a piece of paper and jotting down numbers and shit. It's hilarious. And then I know I used to remember as a bouncer waiting for that to happen at the end of the night. Can I borrow your pen? You can hear that echoing through the bar.
They're like people trying to figure out, are we going to leave together and fuck? Even though we've been talking for two hours, how's this going to work out? And guys trying to close the deal real fast. So he said this, and this is insulting quote. This is, you get desperate as the night goes on. Finally, I just reached the bottom of the barrel. What the hell? We'll try Kathy.
And she wouldn't have anything to do with me. Kathy has a bad reputation in town as being very easy, by the way, at the bar. That's that's the thing. So Olsen said he talked to a beard in the bar on the night she disappeared. He said, I had ridden there with my father after work. I got in his truck and left. As I went out the alley, I saw her enter another pickup and then they left. And then that's it. That's the last time I had seen or known anything about her.
Yeah, I done blew it. I blew it. That's what he said. He he also, you know, he said he knows the they said, well, do you know the area? Do you know, like places in the woods where a body could be, you know, dumped? And he goes, well, yeah, I'm fucking from here. I know everything. But that doesn't mean I did it. So and then he talks about how him and his wife just had a son.
When asked if he had a fascination for women's stomachs, and we'll get to why, because there's a reason for it, he said, I'm not going to deny that that's one of my favorite parts of the body. It's not fixating thing. It's just one of several features of a woman that figures in on it. Okay. Wow. Now, he...
Yeah, that's what he said. He said that he he was working when he was charged with the third degree sexual assault. He's like, oh, that was crazy. I don't know what you're talking about. He said Olson said Nebraska State Patrol investigators have been interviewing his female acquaintances and telling them that, quote, I killed Kathy Beard and that I was a sexual perverse animal. And beware, you're next to try to scare them. So they'll give information. Right.
The sergeant of the Nebraska State Police said that's a fabricated and certainly not the truth. Yeah, they Olson said his faith in God has improved since he met his wife. And, you know, he figures that they'll leave him alone eventually because his faith is telling him that he said, I'd like to consider myself a good Christian. Only God knows how good I'm doing.
He said at one time I wanted to be a priest even. I'm super religious. And they said, well, you know, they asked him if he has done anything that he'll never tell anybody. And he said, right now I would say there's a couple experiences I don't think I'm going to tell anyone for a long time. But that was just mainly about blowing my friend in a tent one time. We were out there. We were like, you know, I never had a blowjob, neither of you. You know what I mean? And we decided, well, fuck it. You know what I'm saying? Yeah.
You know how it goes. But I ain't going to talk about that right now. I'm going to ruin nobody's life or nothing. You know, after all, he's a congressman and everything now. So...
He said his father once said of the beard case, maybe that boy did do it, but I'll tell you something. If you guys haven't any more of a clue as to what happened now than you did then, he's too damn smart for you and you better just give up because you ain't never going to find out. Too smart. Too smart. And I did not shorten any of those words. That is exactly what the quote is, because you ain't never going to find out.
They asked the father. They were trying to ask the father about it, and he wouldn't talk to the press because they were like, did you really say that? John then says, I'm sorry. I'm not going to try to hide my intelligence. Oh, I'm. Listen, I'm not going to dumb it down. I'm not going to dumb anything down for you guys. For you people, all right? I'm up here, okay? If you want to come up to my level, I'll fucking meet you there. You get left behind. That's how it works, Chief.
So he said, quote, I'm not going to try to hide my intelligence. I'm often predisposed to brag about it. I scored a 29 on my ACT. But along with that intelligence comes the idea, oh, hell, he did it. He's just covering up. So he says, my intelligence works against me here. Yeah. You know.
So now he's in jail still, and he's expressing his frustration that he's not allowed out on work release for this jail sentence. And he mentioned Kathy by name, saying that the Valley County attorney was so obsessed with Kathy Beard that they're not going to let him out early at all. He thought that the attorney and other law enforcement, which he calls later on in his diaries the, quote, fried eggplant gang. I don't know what that means. I have...
I don't know what the fuck he's in. So I'm like, are they Italian? Is that it? Is it? Are they just are they just fat vegan? Yeah. Are they fat? Is it some sort of a fucking of a racial slur against black people? What the fuck? Who are you talking about? Exactly. He can fry an eggplant gang. And as his release date approached, he expressed concern that law enforcement did not want to let him out of jail and that he would have to come back.
He says that he wrote about getting rid of something ASAP in his diary. He was incarcerated and therefore could not have any access to what he wished to get rid of. And that was two months from his release. So that'll make sense in a second when we talk about his diaries. These are the diaries they found. Yeah. This is a diary kept between September 89 and late August 1990.
And they made copies of these writings and they made sure they were accurate copies and everything like that. Yeah. In there. Here it is that he says one of the things, quote, love that gut, tummy, belly, abdomen, stomach, midriff, middle torso, et cetera. Holy shit.
He got himself a thesaurus. Wow. Looked up every word he loves. By the way, stomach fetish known as alvenoliginia. Oh. That's a stomach fetish. That's a very specific thing. I am so jealous, by the way, that your fucking fetish is something that you could go to a beach and see thousands of anytime you want. You know what I'm into? Vaginas and boobs.
Chicks just cover that up, man. They're always covering it up. There's nowhere. No one has a bare fucking vaginal area. They have a bare midriff. And then if you have the magazines that show that, you're a piece of shit. Jesus Christ. He could have just been sitting there whacking it to Britney Spears the whole time back then. She didn't have her stomach exposed for a 10-year period. She could be in Antarctica. She had a half shirt on. It doesn't matter.
This guy's a dick. The belly, huh? Maybe that's why I'm not into it, because it's right there. I mean, I'm not against it, but I'm not like, yeah, give me that. I want to see the stuff you're covering. He hit every word that's a synonym. That's all of it. Yeah, he got us thesaurus cranking, man. He also says extensive experience comes with Sandy Dondi CB.
What is that? Just the initials. C.B. What's Kathy's name? Kathy with a C beard. Yeah. And Linda. Other mediocre experiences with Robin, Kathy. There's another mention of a Kathy. Shirley, Shauna, Alice, and KP. Donna H., Irma S., Allison, Rhonda, and then in parentheses, from GI 1980. That's Grand Island, I believe. Yeah.
What was he, 13, for Christ's sake? I think he was born in 67. Mary Jane Teresa 2116, resident upstairs, 1980. Yeah, he's banging neighbors. This guy was slinging fucking teenage dick is what he was doing.
Or he's spying. Man, slinging ding-a-ling from Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn to Beijing, this guy. He's going off on it, like it was once said. Salinas, 1987. Lincoln, 48th and Layton. That must be where he met her, Lincoln. Darlene, Connie, Pam, Tammy S., Cammy G., Bonnie M., Carolyn D., et al. List remains incomplete.
We'll add more as more becomes available or more comes available for now. Must rate CB as most gratifying Sandy as most comfortable Teresa as prettiest. Maybe Darlene just don't know. They're all so nice. And then, yeah, why you H all capital letters with an exclamation point. Go on and get you some G I T C H a get you.
Go on and get you some. And then exclamation point. You'll love pussy too.
He just did an ad for fucking women. For sex. Pussy. It's what's for dinner, if you're lucky anyway. Get you some. In another exhibit later on, he writes, I guess the whole import of this thing with, quote, the missing one has not hit home yet. But it should, as they are now looking for charges. If they do prefer charges, well, and then a dash and a question mark, I don't see how they can hang me for anything.
Then he writes, well, it looks as if this foolishness about the missing do do has reached a point where the end is in sight. That's good. I like it. Perhaps now I can ease my mind. By the way, he calls people do do all the time.
Do-do is a person. That's just what he calls people. I don't know why or how, but that's a thing. Then he writes in another excerpt here. I really have no idea about what to do or where to go. My first priority is to get rid of something ASAP! That is if I can still find them. The only dot dot dot link left between me and dot dot dot.
is what he says. Okay. But after that, I imagine I'll stay in the Midwest and try something. Maybe stick around here to work for Pop. He no doubt needs the help and I could use the dollar sign. Dot, dot, dot. Then he says in another one, maybe the problem has been my making girls too high of a priority and having real problems with accepting rejection.
Which may be how all of this got started. Get it any way you can in quotes and then a question mark afterwards. Like, is that the right thing to do? Doesn't sound like a good attitude. It got me in trouble. Now, is he talking about Kathy or is he talking about show me your belly and then beating a woman and lifting her shirt up? That could go either way. Also, he said, I really have no. Oh, that's the ASAP thing. Okay. Um,
He also says at one point, well, there it is. What's next? I wonder. It's getting closer and G.S. and the fried eggplant gang aren't moving, although they still could conceivably, meaning it's getting closer to me. This is about two weeks before his release. So they're saying it's getting closer to me getting out of jail and these fucking people haven't charged me with anything yet. So maybe it's all going to be cool.
How? I don't know. In fact, and then it's illegible. Wonder if there's any way he could manufacture something. I doubt it. And then the next one, he writes, fried eggplant gang ain't making it. They're going to slip and fall and generally fuck up. That's nice.
He then says, I'm going to get away and I'll bet it breaks their yellow hearts. They're so dead set that I did this and they're not going to look any farther unless they are forced to. Well, now they'd best look somewhere else because I refuse to be a part of the charade any longer. I'm well fed up with this tomfoolery. Tomfoolery. Yeah. Wow. They can stick it in their asses. So there.
He says that, but also says Tom Foolery. Tom, he's 100. The journal entry, again, also reads this one here. I've determined that I'm not going to be physically bullied by anyone any longer. I've determined I'm not going to be physically bullied by anyone any longer. You're a huge guy. You shouldn't have been physically bullied by anyone in at least the last 10 years. And you were getting pussy when you were 13. I mean, you should have been. Yeah, that's unbelievable. People should have been worshiping you at school, throwing flowers at you.
Or at least looking at bellies and beating off about it. You don't know what these names are about. What happened? This guy can jerk off to anything.
Yeah. Stomach's out. Jesus Christ. If you can tug to a tummy, what the shit? That's wild, man. Good for you. You're lucky. I have acquired a great deal of confidence. I can see it in the people around me that they respect that confidence. This is good. Sure. I can now be what I want to be with no fear of any man. Of course, emotional fear of women may still be there. I don't know. I haven't had any interaction with girls lately, obviously.
He's been in jail. Of course, I see little reason to fear any longer. I know pain. I know loss. I know hardship. Nothing that can happen can be as bad as what I've already been strict. I think he means stricken. Stripped. Yeah. Yeah, I think stricken because with is after that. Already been stricken with. He said strict.
Yeah. Like stricken, but with a T instead of a D or a D instead of an N. Um, he says, besides as much as I like being with girls and as much as I want a relationship, I would think that it's in my best interest to plunge in with no fear, show off my best side, et cetera. Maybe the problem has been making girls too high a priority. Then he gets into that. Um,
Now, based on all these writings, they obtain a search warrant and many search warrants for his shit, for that truck, for his house, for anything where he is. Basically, they get shit on because that's all very suspicious. His pickup truck is searched outside the fire department by members of the state police, and they reported that they found nothing and all pick all materials were found inconclusive as relating to Kathy or him.
So they found nothing in his house or his pickup that was incriminating at all. And so that's that's tough. Plus, they said that during the nine month period, he has had no access to the house, the grounds or the pickup truck or had been able to dispose of any evidence located within. He could have done that before he went to jail, but since then he hasn't been able to. May 10th, 1990. They're still looking for her. So this is almost a year now.
Still looking for her. And they're trying to figure out if this is the time when they're really thinking that maybe Hall and White and the guy from Colorado that got robbed did something. They're because of the missing bag of lime they don't like and all that kind of thing. They said they're going to interview them again. And they said, we want our investigators to interview them to obtain more details from them. We've also discovered other things since they were interviewed by Colorado authorities that we just want to talk to them about.
Yeah, how do you make yourself a suspect in a murder? How do you do that? By saying, I went there to look for pussy. And also telling your boss that we skinned a girl alive. Skinned her alive and buried her on a job site. And I think she liked it. And they also said their key suspect, who they don't name in the paper but it's Oldson, has obtained counsel and refuses to take a polygraph test.
That's not good. He's saying you've been bothering me for a year. I'm done with this shit. So he's released from jail in 1990. Okay. August of 1990, 16 days before he was released, he wrote this journal entry. Ha ha! Exclamation point. The Valley County attorney is a stupid slut.
Exclamation point. Is she a gal? No, it's a guy. Oh, really? He's a stupid slut. Yeah. He doesn't use gender specific. Sometimes he calls people doo-doo. Sometimes he calls guys sluts and women big dicks. It's the weirdest thing. He will never find anything no matter how hard he looks because there's nothing to find. He's too stupid to manufacture everything. He's just doo-fah. Doo-fah now, not doo-dah or doo-doo. He's just doo-fah.
And he'll always be scum. I've beaten him! Exclamation point. Of course, there was never any doubt in anyone's mind that I would. If he ever turned it into this kind of thing, so ha! Double exclamation point. He wrote that and then got out of jail. Yes. Never went to prison. Nine months?
That's yeah. And this is he kept writing all this crazy shit that they're reading the day before doing this. You know, he wrote this also right before he got out of jail. Every sound I hear that I cannot directly identify. And every time anything questionable happens with Woody or some other law person makes me suspect they're talking about me or plotting some way to keep me here forever.
I have to imagine that G.J. is working feverishly to prevent my slipping out of here. I bet he can't stand the idea that I'm going to, quote, get away. Too bad. He better leave me the fuck alone. Death is no stranger to me, army and all.
You were in the army for a year and a half in the United States and then had to go home with a fucking torn MCL like you're a fucking punt returner. What are you talking about? You blew out your knee. He acted like he was in Nam. I stepped on the heads of babies. Death is no stranger to me. I burned villages to the ground, goddammit. You're in California. You blew out your knee away from the beach. Yeah, playing beach volleyball. He was doing that.
I've seen death and all. That's because they went to Tijuana one time and saw them throw a dead donkey out of the back of a bar. So I wouldn't fuck to death by a donkey that wouldn't quit. You know, army and all. Oh, boy. So summer of 1990, still searching for Kathy.
Yep. Searches. They searched everywhere. They keep doing it by plane. They encouraged hunters to look all around the woods for anything they may found that could possibly turn up a ring, things like that, a bracelet, a ring, anything. They turned up nothing. Beard's family then posted a $1,000 reward for information leading to her whereabouts. Okay. What time is it? It's...
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Yeah. And then they talk to Charlene Whitefoot, who is the bar friend there. Right. And she says that she's helped search for her and she still has faith that she's alive, though. She says, I don't want to believe she's dead. I want to believe she's alive. Really? I want to believe. Well, two years later, no one is believing she's alive, probably. No. Because by April of 1992, we've all kind of lost hope here. And they've stopped looking for her, to be perfectly frank, because they can't find her. Is that right?
So April of 1992, a woman and her three children are picking up trash on their very, very large and remote property.
Oh, no. The area is called Party Hill. Okay? That's where everybody goes. That's what I'm saying. The teenagers earlier don't need somewhere to go because they all go to Party Hill to drink and finger each other. That's why they're there. That's to do it. Yep. That's it. This is Deanna Petska found it. It was in this area. She owns Party Hill? Her father owns Party Hill. Her father-in-law owns Party Hill. She was picking up garbage. Okay.
She said that she discovered a skull as they were picking up trash along the road. She said they were headed home when she looked to her left and saw the top of a skull partially buried. She dug around it and picked it up and took it.
Okay. And took it to the police station. Tell you what you do, guys. If you find a skull, don't fucking touch it. Okay? Number one, don't disturb human remains. Don't touch it. She showed up, walked in with a fucking woman's skull and said, I have this. Is this anything? With soil under her nails. I dug this.
Have you never seen a crime show? In 92, you've seen crime shows. Come on, man. Don't do that. So she did it, though. She took it there. And then she and the police chief, John Young, and another officer went to where she found it. And she said it was possible that a road maintainer might have scraped the skull is what they figured out. Okay.
Because it's right on the side of the road. She said, my first thought was that it might be Kathy Beard or it might be an Indian gravesite. Either way, don't touch the skull. Do you go to Indian burial grounds, start picking skulls up and going, what's this about?
There's a whole ancient civilization that buried their dead. I'm not touching that. No. I don't know if it could be cursed. Fuck no. I'm not going to find out. I saw that family guy when Stewie did. I'm not going to fucking mess with that. I'm not going to be the guy that experiments in that way. Fuck. So all they will say is, quote, human remains believed to be that of an adult person and other items were recovered on Monday and Tuesday at a site three miles east and two and a half miles south of Ord.
They searched the area after they discovered the skull. And they said I had that one cop said, I have no idea if what we found is related to Kathy Beard. OK, they were found these remains in a pasture beyond a fence alongside a minimum maintenance road about six miles outside outside of Ord traveling the speed limit from the someplace else tavern to the place where the remains were found takes about nine minutes.
traveling the speed limit from the burial site to Oldson's residence is also nine minutes. 18 minutes. So that's 18 minutes combined. We got about 45 minutes for him to drive, kill, get back, bathe, gather his laundry. Yeah.
Yeah. And when's he going to enjoy the murder and whatever the things he's going to do to her belly? Yeah. Right. Or something. So they put up police tape and they said a path leads to this area, which is owned by Ken Petska of Ord. And it appeared as if the investigators were focusing their search in a gully near the road because that's where it was. The site is used for beer parties. Yeah.
And that's what they always say. Wow. Beer parties. So there's been 92. Oh, God. So while this is going on, there's been hundreds of drunken fucking Nebraska teenagers who have traipsed over back and forth over this woman's body. Oh, my God.
Which is fucking ridiculous. Beard's family identifies the personal items found with the body. And yeah, and they all one of the cops said we had some results of some testing that would indicate that the body we have is Kathy. And we also have some items that were found at the site where the body was located. And those were shown to the family members who identified them as being Kathy's.
They said, we're pretty sure of what we have, but we're calling it tentative simply because we have some other testing that will go on to make it more positive, like DNA, dental records and all that shit. So they said that she they said, I don't expect to get any surprises from the testing. I expect the testing to confirm what we already believe we know.
So that's that. They said some of the things that she would have been wearing at the time were found with the body. So there you go. Kay Schaefer, who was her friend and boss at the someplace else, said she hoped the tentative identification would give Beard's family some peace of mind. She said what they've gone through these past three years is terrible. I've suffered, too. Yeah. Her mom, Kathy's mom, said we are sad that Kathy was killed, but relieved that she's finally been identified and can be returned to us and be put to rest.
Well, they don't know that actually because they asked the cops, can we bury Kathy?
You can't. And he said, that's a tough question to answer. He said, I guess I have a presumption that when the testing is done, there'll be no need to hold the body at that time and it'll be released to the family. But I don't want that to sound like a promise to them. I don't know any reason why we would need to keep it for evidence or anything like that. But who the fuck knows? Basically, if we can answer every question we need to answer, then maybe we can release it. But maybe I don't know.
So what the fuck happened to Kathy? How did she end up here? Great question. A forensic anthropologist specializing in bone trauma says that Kathy's remains indicated blunt trauma to the chest, face, and skull. Got the whole body, huh? Before she died. Yep. In addition, the remains indicated stab wounds in the ribs, lumbar vertebrae, sacrum, and wrist.
So they said these together indicated foul play and a violent death. Because at first they said if it's just blunt force, she could have been walking down the street and got hit by a fucking car and ended up over here. They said, well, unless somebody got out of the car and stabbed her a bunch, then no, that's probably not true. If there's tool marks on the ribs and wrists, that's Jesus Christ. That's savage. They said the stab wounds could not have been caused by a pedestrian vehicle accident. Generally not. Generally cars don't have knives sticking out of them. There's not a lot of cars with knives on them.
This isn't Thunder Road at Greece where things are...
So the pathologist testified that when a pedestrian is hit by a moving vehicle, the pedestrian suffers a characteristic basilar fracture of the skull caused when the body lands while in rotation off of the vehicle. Beard did not suffer such a fracture also. They also found the sweater she was last reported wearing buried in the area. Buried separately of her. Oh. Completely. And you know why it's buried separately? It makes a lot of sense when you do it. No. No.
In the sweater, in the abdomen area, over her stomach is a cut out hole. What? Someone cut the hole out of her fucking sweater so you could see her stomach.
That is so creepy. That is fucking weird as shit. The hole did not come from stab wounds. They said this was cut ahead of time. It's a patch of material missing. Yeah, just cut a big hole in the middle. So they collected blood from the sweater, compared it to Beard's mother, and it is Kathy's sweater, they know for a fact, even though everyone said that's the sweater she was wearing that night. So who the fuck would want to see your stomach so bad they cut a hole in your sweater? I can't imagine.
It's so weird. So, Oldson said he agreed to make further statements to law enforcement, but the cops said shortly before he was to give a statement, his attorney contacted them and said that he was not going to give further statements. He is not willing to talk about bellies tonight. Yeah. So, they're freaked out, obviously. They're like, this is very weird. So, they turn their attention back to Rex White and Glenn Hall. Since this guy won't talk, let's talk to them, even though it's obviously...
He's the main suspect. No one else is that in the stomachs. There's a guy who likes that thing. Yeah. So this is interesting. Now, White and Hall again pass a polygraph test. And they said that they said, well, why did they tell their boss they killed this guy? And the state patrol said, quote, basically, we feel that Glenn Hall and Rex White were both trying to sound tough and intimidate people. As far as being suspects, they were discredited and disproved.
So weird. They're guys who will look for local women to fuck for money and strong arm rob people in motel rooms. I think they're just scumbags who want to sound cool. And they take credit for murders? They're like a rapper telling a story about somebody and then putting themselves in it. You know what I mean? So they also cleared the Colorado seed salesman, the guy who got robbed of being involved in the murder. So now they say they have...
One suspect. And one only. One only, and that is John Olson. Back to him. They had a memorial for Kathy. This wasn't until 1993. February of 93. So 10 months after they even found her body, they had the memorial. They had to wait and hold it for testing. Almost four years after her death. That's crazy. More than 200 people gathered, which is 10% of the town, for Christ's sake. It's a lot. It's not bad, yeah. In a memorial service, and they read her poem.
And that the hell it's short. We'll read it. It's called I am richer today by Kathy Beard. And it said, I am richer today than yesterday because of another friend I've made. And maybe because I could laugh with you to help you forget that you were afraid. I am richer today than yesterday because I gladly lent a helping hand. I listened to all your trouble and doubts and I sincerely tried to understand.
I am richer today than yesterday. I helped you take the time to think and pray. We made stepping stones of stumbling blocks. Now every day can be a lovely day. Okay. So they read that. Then they buried her. Now Barbara Dasher, remember her? She's the witness who said. Yeah. Okay. She said that after Kathy's remains were found, John Aldson threatened her and said that if you say anything, she could, quote, get the same thing as Beard.
All right. Now he also heads to, this is fucking weird. A friend of Minnie's tells the cops that when Kathy's remains were discovered, Olsen and Minnie suggested they should go to the site where the remains were found. Why? Why? If you had nothing to do with this, why the fuck would you want to be anywhere near that shit? Um, they said that they were, Olsen was driving like he was really anxious and nervous and was talking very excitedly on the way there. Um,
The friend didn't recall what he was saying a lot of the times, though, because she said part of the time Oldson was speaking with Minnie through sign language. What? Which the friend doesn't do sign language, so she doesn't know. They both know it, though? They both apparently know it. But Minnie says later that he didn't know enough of it to communicate with her. Apparently she knows sign language really well. I don't know if she's deaf or has a deaf family member or what. So the press even talked to Oldson after the remains are found.
He denies being responsible for his death. He said, I was an acquaintance of hers. He then claims to the press that I couldn't have done any of this because until I married my wife recently, I was a virgin. I've never had sex. I was a virgin. Yeah. Now, that's very important that he says that because he's going to maintain that as part of his story. Really? And that's going to make his diaries very much admissible in a court of law.
okay to discredit him to say well you said you fucked all these ladies this is a very big mistake for him to say that he went too far with his life i was a virgin get the fuck you were in the army you were telling me you went to the army and didn't you know what i mean fuck one of these no i'm sorry so he told one of the journalists that he tried to get beard into his truck but didn't happen he said he became um that's when he gave the bottom of the barrel comment here well what the hell we'll try beard um
She said no, and he told the cops I saw her get into another truck. So that's 1993. Time goes by. It's cold. It's cold as shit. They've interviewed the shit out of him, and they got nothing. They don't have enough to charge. They have all the evidence they're pretty much going to get. They have at this point. They have all the physical evidence, which connects him to her zero. The only thing they have is weird journals that,
making a fucking viewing window in her fucking in her sweater and the fact that he um that people saw him go out the back with her but no one saw them leave in the same truck together right and his uh by his own admission and assertion attempted kidnapping and he tried to attempt to kidnap they should at least charge him with that and attempted kidnap you said it so by 1999
It's crazy. The newspapers around there have all sorts of 10 years later stories. Kathy Beard's murder still remains unsolved. It's a big deal in a small town like this. A murder of a resident is a huge deal. So they keep doing it. They said they're still trying to bring her killer to justice. Her family, her mother, who's still alive, said we're all coping pretty well. We're just accepting that it may never be solved. These are very calm people. Yeah, no kidding.
When they found her body, they were like, listen, you know, we're just happy we have closure. Like, they're, wow. The police chief at this point, Ord Police Chief Brian Kirby, who is Kathy's...
Brother-in-law said the police department conducts quarterly meetings with the Nebraska State Patrol investigators. He said they wanted to go through everything again and sit back down with myself and the police department and see if there was the possibility if something was being missed or if any of us had any new ideas on how to approach some things.
Um, he said this too, cause they said, Oh, you must really be into this cause it's your sister-in-law. And he says, when I walk into work, it's personal. No more. It's my job then. Yeah. Right. And when you go home, your wife says, why the fuck haven't you found who killed my goddamn sister yet? Because I mean, dude, everyone nags each other in a marriage. Imagine if you had the power to jail your siblings, fucking your, your wife, your spouse's siblings murder and you don't.
You don't even care about my family. Yes, I do. I'm trying. You haven't even solved my sister's murder. There's no DNA. She's or he went on to say, it's my job. Then you hope that you can see something in there that everybody who looked at it 500 times before missed. And that's all I can hope for. I knew Kathy for 15 years before she was killed. It's always hard, but I still think I have an open mind enough to deal with anything we come up with.
They expressed frustration, though, that they cannot that they haven't solved it yet here. The one other detective who's on it all the time says my emotional side says somebody saw something and they haven't reported it for a reason. They're scared. They didn't think it meant anything. The other side of me says you stop and think about time of night and where it occurred. And, yeah, there wasn't a lot of people out there in that alley. Just wasn't.
That's just how it goes. He said, it's quite possible that nobody did see anything except the perpetrator and Kathy. It's hard for me to fathom how it could have happened that way. He says, though, as time passes, this investigator says he feels less and less optimistic that they'll ever find the murder. Oh, boy.
She he says, I still have some optimism at some point in time. The truth about this will come out. It may not be in my lifetime. Somebody who knows something will come forward and tell us the truth about what happens or what happens. So I thought that about JFK. Yeah, it's someone we're still waiting. It's a long time. 60 years still waiting for that shit. So what the fuck's Olsen been up to?
Well, Oldson has 1989 was his third degree assault for the belly incident. In 1992, he was arrested and jailed for sexual assault, third degree sexual assault as well. What is that? What is third degree? I don't know. It's a plea deal is what it was because I read the thing. Then in 1998, he's jailed for intentional child abuse as well.
They think that he moved to Missouri at this point in 1998 when he's arrested for the child abuse. Then he gets arrested again for child abuse. And in 2005, he was released from a two year prison sentence for child abuse. You know what he was doing? What? Sticking needles into the stomachs of his two stepchildren.
Into the stomachs. Stomachs. Why? There's something sexual involved in this for him. That's gross. Yep. In 2003, he was convicted of felony child abuse and sent to prison for doing that. Only two years? Two years. During a search of his home, they found pornographic photographs of naked women with daggers and arrows drawn onto their midsection. Wow.
He's obsessed with fucking people's stomachs and what's in there and getting stuff out of there or some shit. He loves your guts. Yeah, he thinks it's like the inside of a crab. It's so weird.
So 2008 now, it's been almost 20 years for this shit. They put Kathy's face now on a few details of her disappearance are printed on a set of cards that was part of a deck featuring cold case cold cases and distributed at state prisons by the Nebraska State Patrol.
So they could play cards with victims. So you could see them and remember them. So that's how it works. Now, the investigation into her death is reopened in May 2008 when Sheriff Casey Hulbert was appointed. And he said, let's fucking solve this thing, why don't we? Since there probably isn't a whole lot of unsolved murders hanging around this area. Now, 2010, Oldson's now ex-wife, Minnie...
does a police interview, and she says that after they were married in 1992, when she married John, he admitted to her that he wanted to have sex with Beard on the night she disappeared, but she turned him down. She also told police that he had a temper and an obsession with women's abdomens and that he was sexually turned on by them. What is there to be turned on by? I don't get it.
You can't fuck it. You can't. That's what I mean. Okay, you really crunch yourself. Like...
Hold your legs together. That way I can. OK, now I'm going to put my dick in your stuff. How else would you do it? Is he fascinated by how far up inside there you can go? I don't know. It's not far, sir. Because it's because it's not hairy on a woman. Maybe if it's so different than a man. I don't know what a fucking deal is. It's very strange. This guy is. So 2011 Jerome Walker, we act walk a whack.
is his name. He enters the picture. Who the fuck is this guy? You figure, right? Yeah. Well, in the beginning of this interview, he says that he saw Kathy Beard leave with Olsen out of the back door into the alley. He says he didn't see Olsen or Beard after that. The door to the alley, he said, was solid and there's no window in it, so he didn't see outside. When
I guess that's what he said in 89. And he I'm sorry. In 89, he recalled that there was a window in the door in the alley and that he had watched Beard get into a pickup truck with a man with a red beard. So, like, why are you saying giving us different information now than you said? Now you're saying she walked out. No window. Never saw her again. In 89, you saw her very specifically get into a pickup truck through a window with a red beard.
Um, when moments later, law enforcement assured this guy that he had nothing to fear from John Oldson anymore. Look, you don't have to worry about this guy anymore. He said that, okay, I didn't see anything after Bearden Oldson left through the back door. When they pressed this guy to tell him, uh, who had him make up a story about the 88 county truck there, he denied that anyone told him to tell the story. He said he couldn't recall why he told that story. It was 20 fucking plus years ago. And I don't know.
He said that sometimes he thought the red bearded man story was the truth. And sometimes he thought he might have made it up. He's not sure because so much time has gone by. And also no window altogether. Why would you even make that up at all? Peeking out. That's what I mean. So they tried to focus his attention on, hey, let's get justice for Kathy and closure for her sister. You know, my wife.
Home is a motherfucker. You don't even know. Maybe you fix my house for me. Yeah. They emphasized that they knew Jerome was not involved in the disappearance, but they really needed him to tell the truth. And they're like, it's getting tense in here where they're like, listen, motherfucker, tell the truth. And an officer suggested that there was no window in the back of the bar. So the statement in 89 could not be accurate. And then he said, Jerome said he just did not remember giving the statement in 89. Hmm.
So they couldn't. They said, why did you tell the red beard story? The questioning became more forceful. Eventually, one of the officers told Jerome that there was no window in the back of there. So what are you doing again? We've told you that this guy said, I need a break. He said, all right, we'll take a break. Get a drink of water. Use the bathroom. So they sit back down and he says, the more I think about it, the store that that story comes to mind.
And because he had apparently seen it with his own two eyes, if there was no window in the back door, he must have walked into the alley. He said, I must have. He said, I can't imagine myself making up a story about Kathy leaving with a red bearded man. So that must have been what I saw. I don't remember if it's true now, but at the time, why would I have made it up? So it's they said, did you possibly could you possibly have just heard it around town and maybe repeated it?
And he goes, ah, shit, I don't know. And then he said, maybe that's possible. Then five minutes later, he said, no, that's a lie. I didn't hear it from anybody. God damn it. When one of the officers pointed out what you're about to point out, what everyone in the fucking audience right now is pointing out. Yeah. We're just going in a big circle here, bro. Yeah. He responded. Yeah, I know it. I wish I could get off the circle. I don't want to be in no circle anymore.
I don't want to be in no circle anymore with you people. No more. When asked by the cop what they were supposed to think, he said that I'm a confused person on this. I think this guy probably had six drinks in him that night. Yeah. And he said some shit and now he regrets it. And he doesn't know if he heard it, so he doesn't know what the fuck happened. And now he's like, I wish I just would have said I don't know when they asked me the first time. I wish I minded my own fucking business. So January 2012, Randolph, Missouri.
John Olsen is arrested. Okay. They are arresting him for the murder of Kathy Beard. Really? Yes. They also say they have pending charges involving another sexual assault against a woman in her 40s. Uh-oh. Clay County Sheriff Bob Boydston said, this is a bad man with a very disturbing violent past.
Okay, but how? But how is the question.
That's the thing. I don't know what they're thinking, but while he's incarcerated because they put him in jail, he has conversations with Minnie, who was his ex-wife, but now they're talking again. Minnie Eggers. Minnie Eggers. And they're now recording these conversations because I think Minnie's there at the behest of the police. Oldson speculated that law enforcement may have been able to find, quote, a few molecules of DNA evidence linking him to Beard, he said.
Many question, how could that be possible if you weren't there? Right. And so that's how this goes. These conversations showed that he was concerned that investigators may have found evidence here. He was generally trying to explain why officers had arrested him for murder and speculating that new DNA testing techniques may have shown that his DNA was mixed with Beard's DNA on some item on or in an area of his father's pickup.
So to rationalize how investigators might find a mixed DNA sample in his father's pickup, he admitted that he struggled with Beard and tried to pull her into the pickup. He said, quote, Well, we don't know that they found nothing. They probably found plenty, and they just probably never told anybody what they found because they couldn't attach. They couldn't do anything with it at the time. But you see, with the techniques, they think, ooh, ooh, no, we've got something. I don't know.
Then his wife says, but how could they have found anything if there's nothing to find, Johnny, if you didn't do it? Right. Yeah. He said, that's the thing. See? Okay. Now, you know, that's the thing. What happened was, all they have to do is find a spot, any one spot, anywhere where your DNA and the victim's DNA are in the same place. That's all they've got to find. They don't have to prove anything else anymore. And the wife says, are you saying that's true? Yeah.
And he said, I tried. I wrestled around with Kathy Lee Beard. I tried to pull her into the pickup saying, come on, let's go do it. What? That's a very that's going to work every time. That's like Colt 45 works every time. Come on, let's go do it.
Let's play touch and feel. What do you say? As you grab her. Come on. Forcefully try to put her into a pickup truck full of masonry tools. What chick could resist it? God, so hot. He then said, no, I don't like you. She said, no, I don't like you in that way. And she may have bumped the side of the pickup. She may have put her hand down on the seat. She may have, you know, whatever may have fallen down on the floor. I don't know. Not.
Not fucking 20 years later. Wow. In another excerpt, he speculated about where the investigators might find a mixed DNA sample from Beard and himself. He said, you know what? You know what it could be? This is going to be I would love to hear all of these.
I'm a bricklayer, all right? Oh, now I'm fascinated, sir. I've just, like, made a little, put my fingers together, they're under my chin, and I'm just so ready to hear everything you have to say. What if they say, with Tess, we found her DNA on your brick hammer? Why? What? Why? Why would you have a hammer?
What? Or we found DNA on the bumper of your truck. You hit her with it. You killed her that way. Or you, we found DNA on a gas can. You torched her and set her on fire, you know? Well, we know that didn't happen, so. Right. Or, you know, who knows? I have no idea what. I have no idea what they're going to find because, and here's the thing, it's not going to worry me. He loves to say, here's the thing. Yeah.
It's not going to worry me. I've never was never denying that we mingled, that our DNA would have mingled somewhere. He keeps using the word mingled like that makes it acceptable. We've mingled somewhere or another because I grabbed her by the arm arm and I tried to pull her into the truck and she struggled back. And so I got a hold of her and she was pushing against me. And I think she put her hand down on the seat once to balance herself as she tried to pull away. So her DNA was on the truck. Her DNA was on me. Sure.
He's just explained it away. He said, yeah, they said, well, what happened? He said he insists that all I did was, quote, approach the town floozy at the saloon and say, hey, baby, come on out back. Yeah. Come in here with me and we'll go do something. Yeah. No, I don't like you in that way. They scrambled around a little bit and he said that she may have bumped her head.
How? And then she said he said that she managed to jerk herself away. And he said, listen, the whole thing, I haven't been as upfront as I should have been. He said, I was just embarrassed because the town floozy wasn't even interested in me. And I was garnering fucking sympathy. He said he was upset and angry. And that's why he left, because he was too embarrassed to go in and face his coworkers, saying that even the town floozy turned me down.
He said he went to a job site and, quote, did some things. I don't know what that would be. I guess that means jerk off. Jerk it a little bit to pictures of fucking midriffs. Somebody's belly, yeah. Then he went home, took a bath, and grabbed some laundry, ran to his father on his way to the laundromat. In another conversation, he again wondered what kind of evidence they might have. He talked about, again, he brought a brick hammer, bumper of the truck, gas can, whatever.
His embarrassment over being told no by the girl that evidently sleeps with everybody made him leave his dad and all of his coworkers at the bar. And go back to work after being off for three hours. Yeah. Can't do it. Can't show my face in there. This is when a wrench gets thrown into the whole thing. Okay? Okay. Okay.
The defense, his lawyers, come up with a diary, not one of his diaries, what is called the, quote, sex ranch diary. What? Yes. Okay. The defense suggests that Beard had been with Jean Backus and Wetzel Backus. They're a married couple.
And was ultimately murdered by Jean Backus. The Backus's own 2300 acres in Garfield County, Nebraska, near Ord. And she was their third daughter.
They're saying, well, sort of. That's kind of it. They called, they indicated that in March 2012, the current sheriff for Valley County came in contact with handwritten pages from a diary. The diary contained information regarding the possible death of a woman by the name of Kathy from Ord. The sheriff testified that the diary facially appeared to belong to Jean Backus, who was married at that time to Wetzel Backus. Uh-huh.
The diary included that, quote, Kathy's death as well as the death of three other women had occurred on the Bacchus Ranch. The sheriff said that the other women listed in the diary were Sharon Bald Eagle, Karen Weeks and Jill D. Cutshaw. All these women were known to have disappeared. Bald Eagle disappeared in 84. Weeks and Cutshaw disappeared in 87. So they disappeared, never were found.
The sheriff also says that the diary referred to Kathy as missing from Ord in 1989. No other Kathy's missing from Ord in 89. And the sheriff affirmed that the diary indicated a local man was being blamed for Kathy's disappearance as well. Further, the diary indicated the author of the diary had run Kathy over with a pickup.
Right.
I don't have a lot of confidence in these people and they're searching. Yeah, but what is this diary about? Who did this? The sheriff did not believe the diary was valid. Okay. Now, when they come to John's trial, the defense wants the sex ranch diary in evidence. He's like, this is another suspect.
So the defense was able to adduce at trial testimony that the diary had been found and the diary was purportedly authored by Bacchus. The defense was also able to get testimony detailing the events described in the diary, such as the abduction and sexual abuse of the missing woman and the killing of Kathy from Ord. The defense adduced evidence that the diary's description of the missing woman was somewhat consistent with real events, but the defense was unable to enter the diary pages themselves into evidence. They wouldn't accept them.
At a separate hearing, the court had sustained the state's objection to the admission of the diary pages on the ground of a lack of authenticity. The court explained there's insufficient evidence to support a finding that this is what it says it is. The diary was mailed from an unknown address in Omaha, and they said that the parties had stipulated at the hearing that the purported diary pages were mailed from an unknown address in Omaha, Nebraska, to Oldson's home address while he was waiting trial.
Oh. Okay. The mailing envelope was handwritten and print indicated it was from Lonnie with no return address. Inside were 54 pages of handwritten entries by an unnamed authorship, which appeared to have been torn from a bound diary and are contained in the record pursuant to Olson's offer of proof. So they do a Jean Backus deposition. She's 88 years old at this point. Yeah.
And she testified she never kept a diary or a journal. She did not recognize the leather diary cover or diary pages presented to her and that she did not recognize the handwriting of the inscription or the diary pages. Now, when my grandmother was 88, she didn't recognize her own son. So, you know what I mean? Writing was precarious. Yeah. She might not recognize writing from 40 years ago that she made. So but she would remember killing women probably. You'd think. Yeah.
Now, the defense counsel obtained several samples of Backus's handwriting during the deposition, but no handwriting analysis was conducted, nor did the defense counsel argue at the hearing that a jury might find that the diary was written in her handwriting.
They said the handwriting on the envelope seems to match a handwritten inscription on what was purportedly on the inside of the diary's cover. Although it's not entirely clear where the diary cover was found, the exhibit is a photograph of a leather brown diary with numerous pages torn out. Inside the cover has a handwritten inscription, Mary Xmas Jean, as well as Bacchus' address at the ranch.
Now, a person of some acquaintance with Bacchus, a guy named Douglas Olson, was suspected by all parties of having mailed the diary pages to Olson. Bacchus testified in her deposition that Douglas worked at a sale barn in O'Neill, Nebraska, where she sold her cattle, and sometimes Douglas would work at her ranch hauling and vaccinating her cattle.
So they in support of the authenticity of the diary pages, the defense presented copies of several letters apparently either sent by Douglas to Bowers or found in the boxes of Bacchus related items.
Okay. Okay.
The letters also refer to a man being held for several weeks, drugged in Douglas's basement, and Douglas's attempts to free him. There's no reference in these letters to a diary or to a kidnapped woman kept at the Bacchus Ranch.
Yeah.
What the fuck is this about? Okay. Now, another letter sent to Bowers in 2011 in an envelope with writing similar to the one in which the diary pages were sent to Olson containing a handwritten note. Quote, Kate, they don't know I made copies. The note appears to be in the same distinctive handwriting as the mailing envelopes and diary inscription.
An attached map in what appears to be the same handwriting is written on the back of a 2010 correspondence to Backus from her optometrist. The map refers to a gun. So they just use the paper. They use the back of the paper. The map refers to a gun, Backus, and, quote, it says, burn this when done in all capital letters.
A typed letter from Marie to Jorge and contained in the same envelope referred to the directions on the map for the pickup point for a rifle. It also states this is between Jean and Kate for her dog. Okay. So, yeah, it's basically their defenses are the prosecution saying none of this can be kept as real, right?
But the defense is saying a lot of these entries are corroborated by real events, including the kidnappings of those three fucking women that they named by name in there. They also pointed out that neighbors who were mentioned in the diary were actual Bacchus' neighbors. The diary also described cattle escaping and wandering into the neighbor's property, and Bacchus confirmed in her deposition that sometimes that occurred.
The diary indicated that Bacchus and Wetzel Bacchus preferred Hereford cows and that they had horses and that Bacchus also confirmed those things to be true. One diary entry states, Friday we go to SD, South Dakota, to look for our new guest. We can have three guests stay in there. We have three sets of the shackles but can make more. And Bacchus said in her deposition that they sometimes went to South Dakota to buy bulls.
Now, so shackles are for the bulls. I don't know. Now, in the I don't know why you'd shackle a bull. That's weird. So in September, I don't know, farming that or ranching for the ride home, maybe. I don't know. So September 18th, 1989, the diary states that Wetzel, born in January 1910, had died. Defense Council points out that these dates of Wetzel's birth and death are correct, meaning her husband died.
So thereafter, a diary entry states what to do with Kathy now, then describes that Kathy ran away and will not come back. And that quote, I hit her with a pickup and will haul her to someplace else as they are looking for her. But she was knifed. So that's yeah. The defense counsel emphasized that the blunt trauma found on the remains could be consistent with being struck by a vehicle. But then who cut her up?
Now, they're going to let... So that diary is not allowed into court. They're saying they don't have enough evidence of authenticity, even though there are a bunch of statements. They do let Oldson's diary in, though. Yeah, for sure. His prison diary. They just... They definitely...
They, you know, take they excerpt it a little bit. They definitely block some stuff out here. So the court determined that one of them has reasonable inference that Olsen had sexual contact with Beard the night of her disappearance. And also they let them in to disprove an exculpatory statement made by Olsen that he did not have sex until he was married and that he did not want to have sex with or that he did not have sex with Beard.
They're saying your diary says the opposite. So that's why it's there to impeach him as a liar. That's why they let it in. They do want, they said no creepy fetish reference. So they said that we are unconvinced by Olsen's characterization as character evidence of a creepy stomach fetish. Is it creepy?
Apparently, that's the way they put it. That's in quotes. So that's the way it was put here. To begin with, Olson's perspective on this on this seems clouded by a plethora of evidence and the theory of the prosecution that was never presented to the jury. Although the state sought to introduce evidence that Olson had a fetish that involved cutting the abdomen area and that.
Kathy's abdomen had been cut in the course of her murder because that's all the stabbing took place that went to her back. It was not allowed to do so. Such evidence, had it been presented, would have portrayed Olson's midriff affinity in a darker light. Midriff affinity. That's from a court document. That's great. But the only evidence presented to the jury, even remotely touching upon Olson's sexual preferences, was the first sentence of Exhibit 270. Love that gut, tummy, belly, abdomen, stomach, midriff, middle torso, etc.,
The jury was presented with absolutely no evidence that such an affinity for the midriff area was connected with violence or that Kathy's murder involved her midriff area.
Wow. Reference to a female body part simply clarified the sexual nature of other sentences. This illustrated that the experiences, quote unquote, Olsen referred to throughout the excerpt were sexual experiences, either real or imagined. And even defense counsel noted, you can't understand what this means without seeing the stomach issues and talking about the sexual interests. You have to talk about what dude's into. Yeah.
So they said if the defense was particularly concerned about references to the midriff area, it could have sought a compromise whereby that a sentence was stricken and substituted with a more general explanation of contents of context. I like stomachs.
He loves them. Instead, defense counsel pursued a scorched earth policy saying we will not allow defendants to gain an advantage by an appeal by failing to pursue strategies to minimize prejudice. So basically, if his lawyer just didn't follow that, then we're not going to allow him to get off on that later.
So they said that the logical relevancy of Olsen's affinity toward midriffs did not depend on propensity reasoning. And it's hard to imagine how the jury could derive through propensity reasoning that because Olsen liked women's midriffs, he killed Kathy Beard. Yeah, those two things don't go together. But the way he did it really goes together. I mean, the sweater had the belly cut out.
That's fucking crazy. He made a fucking viewing window. Yeah. Somebody did. So his defense, okay, is you have no evidence against me whatsoever. And they really don't. They have no physical evidence. Yeah.
No physical evidence was found linking him to Kathy, despite several searches of everywhere he's ever been. Wow. They said without stating that Olson was incarcerated at the time, meaning for something else when it happened, the defense emphasized that when law enforcement executed the search warrant based on his journal entries, Olson was, quote, more or less quarantined and had no access to the house or the grounds for the trucks or the trucks for a nine month period. Yeah.
Furthermore, during the time the search warrants were sought and executed, he had limited supervised communication with the house's inhabitants. They also pointed out that Olson indicated in his diary that he knew law enforcement was reading it. So they're like, why would he tell on himself? He wrote in the thing. He knows they're reading this. His ex-wife Minnie testifies for him, by the way, for the defense. Really?
She testifies that there was nothing out of the ordinary in the way Olsen drove out to the site where the remains were found, even though the friend said he was nervous and doing sign language. She said also that she didn't think that John would have been proficient enough in sign language to carry on a conversation with her at the time.
She also denied that Oldson ever threatened to do with her what he had done with Beard, like a witness said in the bar. You'll get it too, right. She also said that he never made any incriminating statements to her concerning Kathy and testified that Barbara Dasher had a reputation in the community for being untruthful. She's a liar? She's going to testify. Well, not only is she a liar, the main defense evidence is, and this is their case, quote, Kathy's a whore is their case.
They literally say that at one point. So they said that the defense adduced evidence that it was common for Kathy to leave the bar with different men.
On a nightly basis. That doesn't mean, yeah. The defense then presented other likely suspects, which is true. That's the first people you look at. Who has she had sex with? One is a former Ord resident named Michael Hawley, who by this time is deceased. Hawley carried in his wallet a picture, quote, a picture from a dirty magazine that
Oh, so what? That means...
Told on her on him for a crime. Ratted her out. Ratted him out. Ratted him out. So that's this guy. So that that's motivation. They're saying Hawley did not have an alibi for the night of the disappearance. And one witness, a former org resident who was also deceased by now, reported to police that Howley had arrived at the someplace else tavern at 630 p.m. on the night of Beard's disappearance and saw Kathy talking to Howley.
Now, this witness left at 645. They said that Howley drove a maroon with white top Pontiac Grand Prix with 56 county plates. All right.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Now, the Hopkins girlfriend testifies also for the defense. Hopkins is the job site supervisor of the guy who said we skinned her. The guy that he left behind. Yeah, and she describes him sobbing and what he was told and that she and Hopkins drove to the job site and found a missing bag of lime.
Now, Jerome, remember Jerome Waka Waka Wack or whatever his name was here? Jerome, the defense counsel requested to declare him unavailable and utilize only his prior statements made to the police in 1989.
Which was that he saw Kathy talking with a man with a red beard and other common looking guys with black beards, quote unquote. The story can't be corroborated. Exactly. The man with the red beard had a ponytail and a knife hanging on his side.
What? This Jerome remembers that Oldson and Beard were also talking, and he saw Oldson and Beard go out the back alley to the restroom. The bearded men had left the someplace else tavern just before that. Jerome looked out in the alley, saw a blue, but not dark blue, truck with 88 county license plates. The same men he saw Beard talking to in the bar were in the pickup. He said that he saw Oldson get into a truck with Beard and the other men.
So now now this guy saying I saw him get it. Both of them get into a truck with other people. Now there's four fucking five, a red haired guy, two common guys, Olsen and her five people in a truck. Now that alley is full. Yeah. So the defense confronted Jerome with a statement from 89 where he told law enforcement that he saw Olsen walk away and that Olsen did not get into the truck with Beard and the other men. And he said, I don't know why I said that.
Well, if you're a defense attorney, you go to give me a lot of reasonable doubt. That's why you said it. Stupid son of a bitch. He also said that he doesn't remember the 1989 interview and that his memory. This is a wild statement to make. It's it's 22, 23 years later. Yeah.
He said his memory of May 31st, 1989 was better now than it was on June 2nd, 1989. Is that right? That is the most scientifically impossible fucking statement ever made ever.
See, I was real drunk for all that time. And now it's all coming back. Your memory is the least reliable thing that you have, by the way. The least reliable. And just because you're confident you remember something doesn't mean you remember it. It just means your brain is filling in spots and blanks. And his is much worse now.
Over 40, 30 years? You're not going to remember anything. Fuck no. After drinking one night 30 years ago, now I remember. Back then, I didn't. Barbara Dasher testifies that both Olsen and Olsen's father had threatened her in order to prevent her from reporting Olsen's comments made concerning Kathy. When Barbara Dasher testified that Olsen's father had threatened her, the defense moved for a mistrial.
The defense argued that the fact that Dasher was mentioning the threat by Olsen's father for the first time at trial indicated her credibility was questionable. So you can't trust her at all. The defense argued that it was not in a position to attack Dasher's credibility the way it fully merited because of legal issues. Now, the defense elaborated outside the presence of the jury that according to past statements, Dasher had heard Olsen also threaten his sister.
Okay. What's he doing with his sister? Yeah. Okay.
The court overruled the motion for mistrial, and when Barbara Dasher continued to testify that she did not report Olson's statement to law enforcement right away because she did not think Olson was guilty, so I kept it to myself, the defense again moved for a mistrial, arguing that the line of questioning was walking down a path or expecting her to say, I didn't say it because I was scared of him, which are...
previous bad act issues where you can't come in. So another mistrial motion was overruled and basically nothing else came out. She was a useless witness is what it came out. A lot of arguing for nothing. Seems like a lot of witnesses that are all useless. A lot of useless. Now the verdict comes in here. Yeah.
And so let's add this up. The evidence they have is... Let's count up that. Because he made it sound like there was some DNA somewhere. Yeah, they said new evidence. And the only new evidence was...
It was actually exculpatory. It's the sex diaries. So otherwise, they have the same exact case they had in 1992 where they didn't pursue it. I thought maybe they found like a jizz rag buried that he wiped his dick off or something. I figured to something. And and also even when they asked him after they found the body and they asked him about that, he goes, yeah, I've been out there before. I grew up around here. I know where it is. Yeah. But I was partying there five, six years ago. I didn't fucking bury her there.
But a guy who was a teenager six years before that or five years before that would have definitely known that area. For sure. So this goes to the jury. If you're the jury, you go, what are we even arguing about? I don't know. Well, they come to a verdict and they find him guilty of second degree murder. Yeah.
Based on what? He likes tummies. That's what it's based on. It's got to be it, right? It's all it is. So the second the sentencing comes around and they sentence him to you, sir, may fuck off life in prison. Oh, Jesus. Nebraska. Nebraska. So, yeah. By the way, after the trial.
They found that Douglas guy that they were looking for before the trial. Remember the Douglas guy? They couldn't find him at all. So they re-interviewed him with defense counsel's private investigator and by law enforcement. And those interviews entered into evidence in support of a motion for a new trial. They also offered a recorded conversation between Douglas and his girlfriend while Douglas was in jail.
And the telephone call with his girlfriend, Douglas stated that he cannot tell law enforcement what he knows or, quote, they will hurt his mother.
Douglas said that he knew Bacchus had a diary. This is the diary guy. And he knew where she buried it and why it did not burn in a fire on her property. That's why when her property burned down, the diary was closed down. Because they said, how is the diary not burned in the fire? And he said, I knew where she buried it. He said he definitely didn't write the diary himself.
He also made reference to how these people have told me everything, what to write and what to do. But that does not seem from the context that he was referring to the diary in the interviews with law enforcement and with defense counsel's private investigator. He denied sending the diary pages or writing the diary. He was confronted with the fact that his DNA was found on the envelope of
Wow, that'd be a huge coincidence. So he also made oblique references to Bacchus' having once told him that she had young girls living with her on the ranch in the past to help with washing and cooking. And Douglas also talked about hauling scrap metal out of a wood shanty built into a hill.
He denied any knowledge of kidnappings at the ranch, though. In the interview here, Douglas referred to having just passed a mental evaluation in Norfolk, and he explained that he had most recently been living at a homeless shelter in Omaha and spent most of his days at the library looking on the Internet at the local news.
Wow. He explained that he previously worked odd jobs for Bacchus and said that Bacchus owed him money. He described that one day three men who said they worked for Bacchus threatened him and told him to forget that he had ever seen them. He thought that Bacchus and these men were moving drugs. It's 80 years, 88 year old ladies moving drugs. Douglas explained that sometime after that, he woke up in the hospital with no recollection of why he was there. I think this guy might be loopy a bit.
It certainly got together. Law enforcement accused Douglas of writing the diary, indicating it appeared to be his handwriting in the diary. And he did not specifically deny the handwriting was his, but claimed that he had never seen the diary pages or the envelope in which they were mailed. Wow. He says that Bacchus owed him over $30,000 for work that he'd done here. And yeah, people have fucking tried to...
strong arm him and everything else. He also says that he did not recognize the diary pages that the defense counsel showed him at the hearing. He also testified that he did not recognize the handwriting in the diary pages as Bacchus's, although he said it's similar.
He also stated that there were balloons in a spot on the ranch where Bacchus told him one morning of her cutting horses was buried, where one of her cutting horses was buried. Douglas also reiterated that he had torn apart a structure built into the hill on the ranch and had found heavy chains and 50-gallon barrels that were inside the structure. He also saw two bed frames in the structure. Sounds like where they store shit.
Yeah, he was saying that's where they store women and the beds attain there. He reiterated that Bacchus once told him that girls have been living on the ranch to help with chores. He also said one day he opened a wood shell box that Bacchus carries around with her. And in the box were, quote, napkins and stuff with writing on them, including several small books. He saw a reference to Barbara and how she had to run away.
Also, once when he proposed digging on the ranch to place a water line, Backus, quote, blew up right away and told me you ain't digging nothing on my land. It sounds like there's some weird people, but I don't think they did. That's the thing. He also brings up Antonio Rodriguez, saying Rodriguez had threatened Douglas several times. Douglas described a dog that became sick after eating white powder that looked like drug stuff in a box in the back of Backus's truck.
I mean, there's a lot of powder on a farm. It's just the cat in Madhouse now. Just going around sniffing a bunch of coke. And being crazy. That's a great movie if you haven't seen it. That cat's crazy. That cat's awesome. I love John Larroquette. He's funny. So Douglas said that Rodriguez made him take care of the dog and keep Douglas' mouth shut so that Bacchus would not get in trouble. Later, Douglas purportedly found a list of names that Bacchus and Rodriguez were, quote, delivering stuff to.
And he was also threatened to be quiet. Now, this amounts to nothing in a motion for a new trial. Yeah, because it doesn't do anything for him. No, it doesn't really help much. And it's very muddy. It's all muddy. Now, on appeal, he appeals and basically argued that the state waited and re-interviewed witnesses until their memories improved to the advantage of the state.
He said, and basically he generally asserts that evolving town gossip turned against him as the subsequent assault conviction became known, and that also affected witnesses' memories once they thought of him as more guilty, which is extremely possible, by the way. If for 30 years everyone's been talking about how that guy definitely killed that lady, and then they bring you on the stand and you're like, yeah, you think in your head he definitely killed her. Well, there's that, but there's also the...
Her sweater has a has a top cut to me. And he loves the belly. He loves the guy. Yeah. I'm talking just legal action like convictive convicting conviction worth worthy bullshit here. He also says lack of evidence. That's the main one that I would point. I would really concentrate on lack of evidence in his conviction are the only evidence are his own statements that.
And the fact that he was last seen leaving someplace else tavern with her. He argues, given the plethora of other suspects, the lack of physical evidence and the implausibility of the state's scant theory, this conviction cannot stand. That's the other thing, too. It is. They get in the car nine minutes out there, carves her up fucking incredibly tight window, beats her to death, carves her up, gets off on looking at her stomach and doing all that shit, gets back in the truck, gets
drives fucking home, gets out, cleans himself up, hides the clothes, takes a full fucking bath to wash up, gets out. A bath, not a shower. You can take a shower in three minutes. You can't take a bath in fucking three minutes. It takes 10 minutes to fill the tub. Just to fill it. That's exactly... Totally right. Nailed it. Just to fill the fucking tub. And then you're going to get in. Then you're going to wash up. Then you've got to collect your laundry, go out to the... It's a tough one. It's got... It would be...
tight window, very tight window, very tight window. They said, we have reviewed at trial, the evidence submitted at trial and find it sufficient to support the verdict. While there's no physical or I with, I witness evidence directly linking him to the crime. Circumstantial evidence is not inherently less probative than direct evidence. And that's in the legal, that's in the legal system. Yeah. Evidence is evidence if allowed in, but jurors don't,
They're told not to weigh it differently, but if you're a human being with a brain, you have to. Okay. Yeah, but also, she was buried. You know what I mean? Yeah. That's ridiculous. So they say it stands. There is a pretty good dissension on this. This guy writes a fucking Justice William Connolly writes a really long dissension to this saying-
You're you're ignoring everything to just say he's guilty. Like you're obviously trying to make this preferable and, you know, you're palatable the prosecution because it's there's no fucking evidence whatsoever. You're closing a case on purpose to get that pesky one out of there. Yeah, exactly. And you think you can get him because he looks like an asshole because of all his priors and everything else. So I think.
And the belly thing. That's so fucking weird. So there you go. That is Ord, Nebraska. And we don't know if we solved it or not. It seems like he probably did it. Probably. Yeah, but not. If I'm on a jury. It's a Scott Peterson thing. Yeah. Yeah. If I'm on a jury. Well, Scott Peterson, there was way more evidence than this for Scott Peterson. Yeah.
There's no pizza in the fridge. There's no pizza in the fridge. This guy didn't go on a fucking boat that morning in the morning that his wife happened to be thrown off a boat. There's none of that shit. He didn't say I drove out near that area then came back, but I didn't kill her. That's what Scott Peterson said. I went out on a boat, but I didn't dump my wife out. I did say I tried to kidnap her, though. I did say I tried to kidnap her.
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Number one, nothing to do with lacrosse, everything to do with frat parties and strippers and false accusations and weird stuff. Just terrible idea. Then for small town murder, we're going to talk about another guy that fucked around near a college and a guy I really don't like, Brian Koberger and his...
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In the court of small-town murder, he's a dickhead. So that is patreon.com slash crime and sports. And you get a shout-out at the end of the show, which is right fucking now. Jimmy, hit me with the names of the most wonderful goddamn people who would never bury us in a shallow grave on a roadside gully. Hit me with them now! This week's executive producer is Jalen Petrie. Thank you, Jalen. Thank you.
Amazing. Yeah, wonderful. Other producers this week are Liz Vasquez, Peyton Meadows, Gary Howard, Emma Reagan. Thank you, Emma. Thank you, guys. All of you. Ethan Preston quit vaping. I don't know how hard that is, but I quit smoking, and if it's that hard, fucking good for you, Ethan. It's all nicotine. Yeah, and who the fuck knows what else is in a vape? That's crazy. You're addicted to some heavy metals or some weird kind. I can't imagine. I'm so glad that I came up with just cigarettes.
Yeah, right? Janice Hill. Continuing. Jody Pettigrill. Pettingill. Pettingill. Yeah. Pettingill. Kyle Gothorp. Jesus. Brendan with no last name. Bree94. Sean Gilbert. Mallory Mottman. Hannah Deott. Deott.
Yeah, Deott. All right. Deott. Danielle. Danielle Hurst. Amanda Sloan. Tina Phillips. Madison Schooneman. Sarah Clinton. Christy with no last name. Guillermo Ramirez. Casey Pakula. Tanya B. Chris Palmier. Leslie Donovan. Henry Wills. Wells. Fucking shit. Yeah.
Gianna with no last name. Kiki with no last name. Shannon Roeder. Patrick Burns. Tad. Tad? T-A-D-G-H? How the fuck do you pronounce that? Is that Todd? Beats the fuck out of me. You're the name guy. I don't know. O'Leary? You never have any answers when I hit you with a town name. You're always like, I don't know. I don't fucking know either. Johnny O. Lillian Lucy. Mackenzie Ortiz. Nicole Paulson.
Oh, boy. Tercillin? T-R-C-I-L-I-N? What is that? Wow. Tercillin. Is that Tercillin that solves something else? I don't know. Tercillin? Is that a real name? Fucking shit. Kelsey Kelly, Colin Kuhn, Marcus Piccola, Jen Bruce, Donna Johnson, Erica Tremblay, Amy Irnese, Jason Warner, Chris Rutt.
I mean, I mean, me, mine. OK. All right. Don. Sure. Vanya. Vanya Stevens. Kel Lamp here. Brandon. Oh, hi. I say Ohio.
A Jaina, like a Spanish girlfriend. You're Jaina. Yeah. Brandon with no last name. Charmalee Asselin. Boobs McGee. No. Old boobs. It's got to be a guy. I'm sure it's a guy. Or it's a really cool chick. There's no way it's a cool chick. What's happening? Boobs McGee over here. 100% it's a dude, right?
He likes boobs, I think, maybe. Yeah, that's what it is. Ezekiel Aho, Cinderella Barbie 72, Emily Bennett, Brianna. Might be a lesbian. What is it? Might be a lesbian. Oh, Boobs McGee? Yeah, it's a chick, but she also loves boobs. It's both. I still think it's a dude. I do, too.
Emily Bennett, Brianna Brown, Pickles with no last name, Abigail Boesler, Sarah Nowicki, Janet Clark, Jessica Page, Kelly Brock, not LaBrock, just Brock, Ashley Libby, Max with no last name, Gabriel Densley, Colin Kerfoot.
Stacey Rose, Trevor Jones, Lindy Lendl, Cy Whitcoe, Elizabeth Ludwig, Giselle De Silva-Martins, Ashton with no last name, Tabitha Santoni, Emily Rounds, Norma DiMaggio, Lisa Chamberlain, Andrew Brunel, Raheem with no last name, Dan Kloppel,
Sharon. Nope. That's Shannon Sellers. Tara O. Christian Gore. Brianna. Nope. That's Brittany. Brandon. Isaiah Powers. Christy Ayers. Lisa Culpepper. Lars Hollander. Erica Martinez Rodriguez. Simp Tam. I guess that's a name. Andrea Champ. Nope. That's just Cam. I guess that's a name. Sarah DiGiovanna. Jessica Odell. Jordan Family 6. Not the fifth one. Robin with no last name. Amy B. Yeah.
Ryan Lindahl, Jordan Downs, Kristen, no, it's Stuart. Stuart Nisley. Why did I say Chris? All right. Suzanne Murphy, Tanya Hill, Liana Corbett, Jamie Wismagalo. All right. I don't know. Lilithan Ann. Bridget would know the last name. Taurus Albert, Share Strong Local Weedia. She's a local weed gal, I guess. Share Strong. Hey. Well, I like it. Or Share Strong Local Weed. I don't know.
Share your strong lead with others. It just may be a lady named Cher. The Leesacks. Caitlin Hallam. David Ramey. Stacey Bissell. Oh, of the fucking vacuum fortune. Jordan Woods. Chris C. Ashley with no last name. Rebecca Serena. Herbert Amaya. Janet. Nope. Yeah, that is Janet. Anderson. Rachel with no last name. Trudy Nishida. Jekica Tower. Okay. Yeah. It may be Jessica. Two C's, though. That's Jekica, right? I don't know.
That's what I would – sounds like it. Yeah. Shauna with no last name. Amanda Lillian. Hope Graddix. Ulysses Moore. Nicole Hess. Emma Patrick. Amy Farrick. Caradade. Caradotti. Wilson. M. This show brought to you by the letter M. Jennifer Bedford. Garrett Catalana. Ashley Alexander. Linnea Kelly. I don't know. Joseph Kilpatrick. Olivia Effin. This show also brought to you by the letter E. Yeah.
Christine, Christine cap, Matthew Vuk, uh, chance parks, Kayla Romani, Romani, uh, Daniel Comer. Also Daniel blower. He combs her and also blows her, uh, call me and blow you babies. Light them up. The old Coleman blow after it. Daniel, uh, Rena, Raina, Rihanna. Uh,
Sharon with no last name. Eric Louders. Melissa Rush. It's Eric Louders and Melissa Rush. Two different people. Same patron. Kara Foxley. Money Wealth 123. That's where I get all my money information. Noxa with no last name. Ryan Christophic. Lionheart091. Joy Coy. That's a fun name. Tom Kohler. Val with no last name. Lorraine Candelario. Terry Barnes. Tammy Becker. Debbie Zasso. Sean...
Nope, that's Sarah. Sarah Burrows, not Sean Burrows. It's definitely Sarah Burrows, and I'm a terrible reader, but I love every patron. Not the old third baseman. Thank you, everybody, so much. Fuck, you're amazing. Thank you for what you do for us. Thank you for supporting the show and being, honestly, the fucking foundation of the show. There could be a fancy window or a thing on top. You're the fucking foundation of this show. We'll fall in without you. By far.
You're the best, honestly. Thank you so much. If you want to follow either of us on social media, shut up and give me murder.com as a drop-down menu that's just gorgeous and you're going to love it. So check that out. Come see us. It's right there. Beautiful. Keep coming back each and every week. See you for Express on Friday. And until next week, everybody, it's been our pleasure. Bye.
If you like small town murder, you can listen early and ad free now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Prime members can listen early and ad free on Amazon music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. In the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Peru and New Zealand, lies a tiny volcanic island. It's a little known British territory called Pitcairn, and it harbored a deep,
dark scandal. There wouldn't be a girl on pit count once they reach the age of 10 that would still have heard it. It just happens to all of them.
I'm journalist Luke Jones and for almost two years I've been investigating a shocking story that has left deep scars on generations of women and girls from Pitcairn. When there's nobody watching, nobody going to report it, people will get away with what they can get away with. In the Pitcairn Trials I'll be uncovering a story of abuse and the fight for justice that has brought a unique, lonely Pacific island to the brink of extinction.
Listen to the Pitcairn Trials exclusively on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify.