CAPTURED: Bay Area Predator

[00:00] This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. For some of us, summer means more juggling, which can lead to overwhelm and worry. BetterHelp makes it easy to get the support you need. Having served over 6 million people globally, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform. They'll match you with a quality licensed therapist so you can focus on your therapy goals. You don't have to say yes to everything this summer. Find support in therapy. Sign up and get 10% off at betterhelp.com slash crimejunkie. That's betterhelp.com slash crimejunkie. [00:29] Hi, Crime Junkies. It's Britt, and I have big news. One of my favorite seasonal shows, CounterClock, is back with a brand new season, and it is wild. Host Delia D'Ambra is digging into the 2008 Lane Bryant murders. I mean, this isn't just a recap. It is a reinvestigation. She's talking to law enforcement, people from the community, even sources who have never spoken publicly until now. And you know I love a show that asks all the questions. Listen to CounterClock Season 8 now, wherever you get your podcasts. [00:59] Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And the story I have for you today, you are never going to believe because it was actually suggested to us by a friend of the victim's family who reached out and asked us to bring attention to a case that for decades, do you hear me? Decades had gone unsolved. So, [01:25] We did what we do. We put together the story. We wrote a script and we were literally about to record. When we get an email telling us that after 32 years,

[01:38] The case had been solved. And when you say about to record, it was like an hour before we were going to record. Yes. So we held off for a couple of weeks, letting the police make their announcement because we wanted to tell you the full story of Michaela Garrett. [01:57] with a brand new ending. [02:00] Thank you. [02:30] On the morning of November 19th, 1988 in Hayward, California, up in the Bay Area, a young girl named Trina is getting super excited. It is the first day of Thanksgiving break, and she's hoping that she'll get to hang out with her best friend in the whole world, Michaela Joy Garrett. [03:00] store alone without their parents. And they've only been allowed to do this since the summer, but it's like a big deal. Yeah. I mean, I remember like what, when we were in fourth grade or whatever, being able to like... 1999-ish? Sure, sure. Butterfly hair clips everywhere. But being able to like walk to even like a friend's house or a neighbor's house by yourself is like, oh, we're independent now. Oh yeah, the independence. It felt amazing.

[03:30] So, [03:31] Trina calls Michaela after breakfast, hoping that since it's break, it's a nice day. Michaela's mom, Sharon, will let Michaela go with her to the Rainbow Market, which is on Mission Boulevard. It's less than like a quarter of a mile from Michaela's house. And sure enough, Sharon says yes. Since Michaela lives right around the corner, she comes over with five dollars from her mom so they can go buy whatever they want. Oh, that freedom. [04:01] scooters to the market. So Trina's brother lends his scooter to Michaela while Trina rides hers and the girls head off. [04:08] They get to the store and they leave their scooters outside while they go in and buy some treats like sodas, candy, beef jerky. I mean, not only vacation breakfast of champions, but I'm pretty sure that's... [04:21] all we ate when we were on tour. I'm pretty sure it's all we ate growing up. We lived off beef jerky. [04:28] True. True. [04:29] Trina and Michaela head out of the store with their food and they're kind of like laughing and talking, getting caught up and just like hanging out with their best friend on this break. And they're so caught up that they realize they're walking and totally forgot about their scooters. So when they remember, they like go back to get them and Michaela's scooter isn't there right where she left it. There's Trina's, but no Michaela's. [04:59] stolen. So the girls decide to split up and look for it. Someone must have taken it. Someone must have moved it. Hopefully it's still around nearby. So Trina goes one way. Michaela goes the other. And shortly after they split up, this is like 10, 15 in the morning at this point, Trina hears something that makes her heart drop. She hears her best friend screaming. Oh,

[05:24] Trina looks up and she's frozen with fear as she watches a strange man grab a still screaming Michaela around her waist, toss her in the backseat of a car and speed off down Mission Boulevard, heading south towards Union City. [05:42] Trina runs back into the rainbow market and tells one of the cashiers what happened. And the cashier calls 911 right away and local law enforcement mobilized to try and find Michaela. Now, luckily for them, the woman who calls 911 for Trina says that she saw the man who grabbed Michaela drive by earlier in the day. And as soon as police arrive at the market, she's able to give them a description. She says the man was white. [06:12] big mustache. And she said he was driving maybe this like burgundy colored car, but she can't say anything about a make or a model. Now, [06:20] I mean, that's not a terrible description, right? I mean, it's definitely a starting point. But as I was researching, I found problems. [06:28] Another description of the suspect dated November 20th, just the day after Michaela's abduction. This description from Walt Gibbs' piece in the San Francisco Examiner says that the suspect is younger, actually between 20 and 28 years old, tall and skinny with pimples on his face and dirty blonde hair.

[06:58] Sharon isn't so sure that that's true. Well, why not? The article doesn't say. According to the Mercury News, though, I guess for the first couple of days, police had gone with the first description of the suspect, the one where he's older with the mustache. Okay, but I guess I don't even understand how there's that much confusion this early on in this case. Like, which description is right? Well, from what I can tell, police believe that the one that's correct is actually the second one, [07:28] guy with the blondish hair, pimply face. From what I can tell, they went with the first one from the market clerk until they interview Trina. And somehow through her interview, they realized that the woman from the Rainbow Market was actually describing the wrong person. And apparently they found that it couldn't have been that man who kidnapped Michaela. Now, nothing in my research says when exactly this conversation happens or why police wait a couple [07:58] But once they do, they feel like they're really able to nail down that second description, the more accurate description and revise what they've been telling the public. So they say there's no mustache. The man's skin problems go beyond just a few pimples. Actually, they say he's got like noticeably bad acne that's been described almost like boils on his face with pockmarks and scars. [08:22] So using this new description from Trina, they put together a composite sketch. And here, I'm going to send this to you. And if you want to kind of give the listeners a little bit of a description. Okay.

[08:34] So the sketch has, like you said, younger male. He has kind of a longish face. You can definitely see a few like. [08:44] like you said, like pimples or pockmarks or acne scars. I mean, it's just a [08:49] pencil drawing in a newspaper from what I can see. So it's hard to determine what's like shading and what's copy, you know, debris and what's actually in the drawing. But he has this kind of long, stringy looking blonde hair. Right. So if the police's first description of the suspect was wrong, then what about the car? Yes. The car description is actually wrong, too. It's not burgundy. They say that the car that they really want to be looking for is either like tan or beige [09:19] gold, like somewhere in that color family. Which is completely different than Burgundy. Completely, which again, I don't think people missaw things. I think they're looking at two completely different people in completely different cars. Right, right. What they are able to say though about the car is that it's an older four-door sedan that looks pretty beat up. But again, just like the Burgundy car, no one knows what the make or model might be. Despite losing valuable time looking for the wrong suspect and the wrong car, [09:49] of the investigation aren't a total loss. And by Sunday night, Michaela's family and a small army of volunteers managed to hand out over 50,000 missing person flyers with her picture on them in and around the Bay Area. [10:03] The FBI joins in on the investigation sometime over the weekend. And together with local law enforcement, they do multiple aerial searches with planes and helicopters looking for any sign of Michaela.

[10:18] Police and the FBI even spend the next week checking out local mechanic shops and scrap yards all over Hayward looking for that car, thinking maybe somebody like ditched it. Or again, it was like old. Maybe it broke down. Right, right. They interview tons of potential witnesses all over Michaela's neighborhood. I mean, we're talking adults, kids, everybody. And law enforcement also questions registered sex offenders nearby. [10:48] Delia has gone and interviewed people who like work in these really dark spaces. And one of the people she interviewed is someone from the FBI who works on their card team, which is their child abduction rapid deployment team. So like when a kid is abducted, they come in. And this is totally unrelated to our story, but I found so interesting is he said that actually like, yes, we have to go door to door. We have to talk to the registered sex offenders. That's a box we have to check. [11:18] Even in case of stranger abductions, which I, yeah, I mean, to me, those would be the first people I would think that you'd be interested in. But I guess not. So see, what do we know? Learn something new every day. Exactly. Now, this case gets a ton of attention in the local press, partly because, I mean, I think at the time, again, this is 88. This was such a brazen crime, you know? Totally. I mean, it's a stranger abduction in a public place in the middle of the morning, total broad daylight.

[11:48] Right. And stranger abductions are super, super rare. Like I know we've talked about so many because, you know, those tend to be the ones that go unsolved for so long. And people in the true crime space hear about these cases so much that you might think it's more prevalent than it really is. [12:18] and 1989, only 511 of those were actually stranger abductions. Yeah. So because this case was like almost inconceivable at the time, the media was all over it. And the tip lines that the police have open are flooded with calls about men believed to be like matches for the composite sketch or, you know, people think someone they know is somehow involved. [12:48] every single day. And according to Don Martinez's piece in the San Francisco Examiner, within a week, police have over 600 leads to go on. [12:59] Now, this is something we have talked about before. We're like getting so much information becomes a bit of like a double edged sword for police. Right. To the point where they almost are getting overwhelmed. Right. Like you have all this information, but it's so much it's hard to even begin to sift through it. Yeah. You only have so many people, so many man hours. Like, how do you decide which is the legit ones, which are going to take you nowhere?

[13:29] through them. They try to go down the right track, but weeks go by and one by one, the leads keep coming up. [13:36] The searches all end up with nothing, and within a month, Michaela's case is just beginning to stall. The investigation eventually loses steam, and within a year, Michaela's trail is gone. [13:51] totally cold. That is, [13:54] until another young girl [13:56] goes missing. [14:00] Thank you. [14:01] Summer breaks should be fun, but it is also important to keep young minds active. Even though my daughter's out of preschool, we are helping her all summer continue to learn and study and just not give up building that muscle. And IXL is a great way to help kids stay engaged and avoid losing progress between school years. IXL is used in 96 of the top 100 school districts in the U.S. And as an award-winning online learning platform, IXL helps kids truly understand what they're learning. [14:31] confidence, or strengthening writing skills. Studies show kids who use IXL score higher on tests. Proven in all 50 states, from pre-K through 12th grade, IXL offers personalized, interactive content for each child's level and pace. It is an easy way to support learning now through the summer and into the next school year. Make an impact on your child's learning. Get IXL now. And Crime Junkie listeners, you can get an exclusive 20% off IXL membership when you

[15:01] ixl.com slash crimejunkie. Visit ixl.com slash crimejunkie to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. [15:10] Three years after Michaela vanished, on December 28, 1991, in Fairfield, California, this is about an hour north of Hayward, a four-year-old girl named Amanda Campbell gets her dad's permission to go down the street and play with one of her friends. Since her middle name is Nicole, now most of her family just called her Nikki. And Nikki is this really outspoken, friendly kid who's super cheerful. [15:40] Just like how Michaela only recently got allowed to go to the grocery store with her friends, Nikki's parents have just started letting her and her big brother Matthew do things like ride their bike around the block. So as long as they're like together, they can do it. Now, on this particular day, Nikki rides with Matthew for a little while. And then at around 4.30 that afternoon, Nikki leaves home on her bike alone without her brother. [16:10] According to the San Bernardino County Sun, Nikki's bike is found that same evening near a gate leading to a vacant lot around the corner from her house. But there is no trace anywhere around of Nikki. Pretty much right from the start, the search for Nikki is huge. Like the FBI is here within two days, but there's nothing for them to go on. No witnesses, no leads, just a missing girl and her abandoned bike.

[16:40] During the investigation, police get wind that another girl who lives in Nikki's neighborhood has been getting some pretty weird attention lately. Wait, what do you mean? [16:52] This other girl isn't named in any of the sources that I read, probably because she's 12 years old. But ABC News reported that her parents had called the police a couple of months before Nikki vanished and said that their daughter had been getting mail from a strange man. Now, this guy's name is Timothy Binger. I mean, he's clearly like signing it or they found out who he was. And he's 43 years old. [17:22] that are like... [17:24] all backwards. And like, and I say backwards, not like they're like weird or strange, like you literally have to hold them up to a mirror to read them. Oh, like literally written backwards, literally backwards. Yeah. As police look closer at Timothy, they keep finding more and more inappropriate behavior towards underage girls. He has a job at a sewage treatment plant, they learn, and he's been using his position to access confidential address information so that [17:54] and birthday cards all over the Bay Area to girls he's never met. Don't like that. No one likes that. And when police ask him about it, they're like, [18:05] Hey, buddy, like... [18:06] what's this about? No normal man does this. And Timothy says that he does it because he thinks these girls are quote unquote,

[18:15] lonely. Which, how would he know he... [18:19] doesn't even know them because he's a creep like they're not lonely and just wait so remember how i told you the community in hayward really like rallied around the garrett family after michaela was abducted yeah yeah so one of the people who was part of that rally who like came to their house the very same day back in 1988 [18:43] was Timothy Bindner. No. Yes. Michaela's mom, Sharon, actually wrote about this on her blog, Seekers Road. Like she clearly remembers him being there. And she told ABC News that he brought his own map and showed her where he wanted to go look for Michaela. So now with this Timothy Bindner [19:13] appearance, police start to wonder if there's a connection between Timothy and these missing girls. And the more they look into Timothy's past, the more they see this pattern developing. Like a girl goes missing from a town near Interstate 80 in the East Bay. And then what do you know? [19:43] Now, the earliest record I could find of this goes back to 1978 when 11-year-old Tara Cossie vanished. Now, I wasn't able to find exactly what Timothy did in Tara's case beyond being connected to the investigation by police. And nothing in my research says what he did in the next five years.

[20:13] Well, what do you know? That's when Timothy's behavior starts to get... [20:17] really out of line. What do you mean? That same ABC news piece reported that Timothy made frequent visits to Angela's grave, like enough visits that people are noticing that he's like going there so often. And more than that, he liked to go there in the middle of the night. So how many times do you have to go for someone to notice that you're there a lot and [20:41] In the middle of the night. Yeah, that's not super normal for anyone. Anyone. No. Five years later, in June of 1988, this is five months before Mikayla was taken, a seven-year-old girl named Amber Swartz Garcia went missing from her front yard in Pinole, California. This is about 45 minutes north of Hayward, where Mikayla lived. [21:06] Within three days, wouldn't you know it, Timothy turned up uninvited to talk to Amber's mom, Kim, and told her that he'd been out in the woods looking for her because he wanted to be the one to bring her home. I don't like that at all. No, like I love a good Samaritan, but this is feeling... [21:27] wrong. And I'm not sure if at first Kim thought maybe this guy was, again, just being a good Samaritan or whatever. But when she heard him refer to the search as, quote, looking for a dead body, again, three days after she's missing, like that was it for her. She wanted this guy gone. But he kept trying to stay involved. Like literally, he called her for years after this. Oh my God.

[21:57] he got arrested for harassing a pair of young girls that he had lured into his van. Like, apparently he drove by in this like big boxy blue van kind of thing. Wait, so that's not the car that Trina saw the day that Michaela was taken, though. No. Yeah. So he's got this big. [22:14] boxy blue van and in Michaela's we're looking for a totally different car but I mean I think this is everyone's like literal worst nightmare on wheels because Timothy covered the walls inside this van [22:27] with pictures of children? Wait, what? Yeah, and as if this isn't creepy enough, Timothy also reached out to police and the FBI, like before Michaela disappeared in 1988. Here's what's so strange. He wrote a letter telling law enforcement that he thought the next girl to go missing would be nine years old. [22:50] Well, wouldn't you know it? [22:51] Michaela was nine years old when she was taken. Right. And it gets weirder because in 1991, days before four-year-old Nikki vanished, Timothy sent the FBI a Christmas card with a picture of a little girl walking. [23:09] Holding up. One, two... [23:12] three, four fingers. Which is how old Nikki was when she disappeared, right? I mean, I want to say that this is just a weird coincidence. And this guy is just a whack job making wild guesses. But how has it happened twice? Well, and beyond that, again, to your point, like, okay, you make one guess. Okay, cool. But to get it right twice, you have to, in my mind, like,

[23:38] know the girl's ages you have to like target them you have to know things right there's like an element of almost stalking and planning and yeah you know expecting to execute this within even a certain amount of days yeah and here's the thing he's not just taunting family or law enforcement this guy is putting himself square in front of media too [24:02] He starts doing interviews with local papers and the things that he says, like he reads his poetry to the media, poetry about a job that he says he really loved at a crematorium where this is like, [24:20] tragic. He talks about having to deal with dead infants. And I'm not reading you excerpts of the poems, which you're going to find, but it is as terrible as you can imagine. Now, what is strange to me, but I mean, shouldn't be a surprise when you learn everything about this guy, is that instead of trying to use the press to make himself look less suspicious, he does something [24:50] wonder if [24:51] Almost if he's trying to get caught for something. [24:57] For decades, some cold cases have been reduced to files in a cabinet, but not anymore. I'm Ashley Flowers and me and my team on the deck have been traveling across the country to report on these forgotten cases. And in some instances, it's resulted in these cases being solved after decades.

[25:16] Join me every Wednesday as we revive these stories one card at a time. Listen to The Deck now, wherever you get your podcasts. [25:27] By the early 90s, a journalist named Linda Goldstone got an interview with Timothy, but not under normal circumstances. [25:36] Timothy insists that if he's going to talk, [25:39] Linda has to come pick him up at 4.30 in the morning. Which, I'm sorry, right there is a hard no from me. Thank you very much. Girl, just wait. So she picks him up at 4.30 in the morning, and he wants to be interviewed. Okay. [25:56] at [25:57] the cemetery where Angela Bouguet is buried. And she does it. Oh my God. They drive out there and Timothy, as they're driving, wants to play Linda his favorite song called Jesus Hears Another Child to Hold. And then when Linda asked Timothy what he thinks happened to the girls after their abduction, actually here, but I want you to read the direct quote. [26:25] Okay. [26:26] He says, quote, "Well, you know, one of them was sweet and shy and didn't say a thing, but the other went kicking and screaming." [26:34] I'm just guessing that that's what they would have said. [26:38] end quote. Wait, my mind is going a mile a minute. [26:43] But my first question is, [26:44] they like [26:46] The missing girls, they? I think so. I mean, at first I thought he meant the perp, but when I reread it, I really think he's talking...

[26:54] about the [26:55] girls. Yeah. And it sends like chills down my spine. [27:00] Now, after this, in a surprise to no one, Timothy is officially named a suspect in Nikki's disappearance in December of 1992, with police pretty heavily insinuating in the media that they think he could be involved in the cases of Angela, Amber and Michaela. [27:19] In some of these cases, police don't feel that they can rule him either fully in or fully out as a suspect, but his name is definitely on their radar. [27:29] According to Maraeva Brown and Wayne Wilson's reporting for the Sacramento Bee, police search his house after a bloodhound found Nikki's scent in Timothy's car and at Angela's grave. This search operation at Timothy's house is pretty unorthodox. Like the police actually invite the media to be there and they make a point of telling them exactly what they're looking for, which I have never seen done before. [27:59] up empty. And so without anything to tie back to like the bloodhound evidence, Timothy actually is never charged with anything related to the girl's disappearances or with anything related to another girl's disappearance that he's sometimes linked to, a 13-year-old Eileen Mishloff. [28:20] So without anything concrete and nobody, Michaela's case once again seems to have hit a roadblock. But little do California police know a new lead is on its way. In late 1992, four years after Michaela was abducted, a prison inmate in Indiana named Roger Haggard comes forward and says that he knows who killed Michaela and that he knows where her body is.

[28:50] to possibly know anything about Michaela. Like, was he out of jail back in 1988? So here's the thing about Roger. He tells the police that he escaped from a work detail and fled out to California in 88. But according to a piece in the Columbus Herald, he didn't actually make the daring escape that he claimed and said he was actually let out of jail because he'd gotten leave from the court to go to this, like, [29:17] vocational rehabilitation appointment and then just like never went back to jail afterwards until he came back to Indiana in 89. And then he was arrested literally two hours after getting back into the state. Cool, cool, cool. Yeah. So Roger tells police that while he was on the run in 88, he met this guy in Hayward named Slam Davidson, who allegedly kind of resembles that [29:47] They used crack cocaine together. And one night after they'd gotten high together at Slam's trailer, Roger alleges that Slam showed him Michaela's body. He said that she was wrapped up in a tarp. And according to Roger, he saw one arm and part of her face and her chest. Now, he says he doesn't know how she died, but he did see that she looked like she'd been stabbed several times. [30:14] After showing him Michaela's body, Roger says slam, put her in the trunk of the car. And together, they drove out to this field outside of Union City that was covered in gladiolas, like flowers just everywhere.

[30:28] everywhere. [30:29] He says that Slam had already dug a hole for the body that was like already there, already ready. But Roger said that he got sick watching him bury Michaela's body and just couldn't watch the rest of it. [30:42] Now, pretty much right from the start, law enforcement is skeptical. And Roger's credibility only gets shakier once he keeps telling his story and every time like inconsistencies are popping up. But Michaela's mom, Sharon, kind of has a different opinion at the time. [31:01] Marcia Ginsberg reported for the San Francisco Examiner that Sharon actually wants to give Roger the benefit of the doubt on the odds that maybe just maybe he has some real answers. Right. Kind of like a mother's hope type thing. Yeah. And I wasn't able to find if her opinion plays any role in law enforcement's decision making here. But whatever their logic, they actually take Roger seriously enough to bring him out to California in January of 93 for questioning. [31:31] driven out to a field where he claims slam buried Michaela so that he can show police where to dig. But after eight hours, he then admits that he made the whole story up because he wanted to, and I quote, [31:43] Give her family peace of mind? I'm sorry, he made up the story... [31:48] To help the family, even though he knew it was a lie? Sounds legit. It's total BS. Yeah. [31:53] And personally, I get a little peace of mind knowing that Roger got six and a half years added on to his sentence after pulling such a heinous stunt. Is it bad to say thank God? Thank God. Okay, cool.

[32:06] After this whole mess with Roger and the false lead, law enforcement are once again just left with a bunch of loose ends without any solid information to help them narrow down the investigation. They keep trying to investigate. And by 1994, this is six years now after Michaela first disappeared, police have checked over 15,000 leads. 15,000? Oh, my God. Mm-hmm. [32:33] The investigations continue through the 90s and into the new millennium without any breakthroughs or progress. In 1997, Timothy Bindner got $90,000 in a settlement after he sues the Fairfield Police Department for defamation over being named a suspect in Nikki's disappearance. And remember how I told you that the police invited the media members to the search? Yeah. [33:03] Maybe why we don't see it today, because Tim's able to argue that the Fairfield police ruined his reputation by painting him as a pedophile and a child killer. Wait, the police ruined his reputation, even though he was the one giving... [33:19] the press like these awful [33:21] Dead kid poems. And taking journalists to graves in the middle of the night. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But since he was never arrested or charged with the crimes that he was being accused of, like he was able to make a case. Yeah.

[33:51] and murder before he died in prison in 2007. And they said because of that, they were closing her case and Tim is no longer a suspect. [34:01] And 2009 is a big year because not only does this happen, but later that same year in August at a parole office in Concord, California. And again, just for context, this is like 40 minutes north of Hayward. Something incredible happens. You see, back in 91, almost three years after Michaela was taken, another little girl was kidnapped in the same area. It was 11-year-old J.C. Dugard. [34:31] name, but at the time in 2009, this is 18 years later since she was taken, she was found alive. According to Robert Salongo's reporting in the San Jose Mercury News, no other kidnapping victim in modern American history has been found alive after being missing for that kind of time. Like, again, this is a huge story, one that I'm sure all of our crime junkies are super familiar [35:01] It's exploding in the news. It opens up all kinds of new possibilities for other long-term missing kids. [35:09] So when they found J.C.'s kidnappers, Philip and Nancy Garrido, and they arrested them, police start to wonder if Philip and Nancy potentially had other victims. Maybe it's a coincidence. Maybe it's not. But if you look at pictures of J.C. as a child next to pictures of Michaela, there's like major resemblances between them. Like here, I'm going to send you two side by sides or two different pictures and you can tell me what you think.

[35:35] I mean, yeah, I mean, Michaela was nine and JC was 11, but they're both these sweet looking blonde little girls. They have these... [35:42] toothy little grins that just break my heart. I can totally see the resemblance between the two of them. And [35:50] Wasn't the abduction MO similar to like, forgive me, it's been a while since I've read about her case, but I'm pretty sure JC was grabbed like in broad daylight like Michaela was, too. [36:20] looks like the guy who took Mikayla. [36:22] And even more than that, Phillip's car at the time looks like the one that the kidnapper was driving. And she's so struck by this car that she calls Michaela's mom to, like, tell her about it. So with this renewed hope that maybe answers are finally on the way, Hayward police launched a massive search operation at Phillip and Nancy's place where JC was held, looking for any sign that Michaela was ever there. [36:53] And after a few days of searching, they think they might have found what they're looking for. Law enforcement find a few bones, and they bring in cadaver dogs the next day to sniff near where the bones were found. The original searches after J.C.'s rescue turn up a fragment. But now, with multiple bones, police are even more intent on uncovering the scale of Nancy and Phillip's crimes

[37:23] one else. But tests on the bone fragments show [37:27] that they're animal bones and not human. Okay, but you said the bone fragment. What about the other bones? So according to Odiseo Martinez's reporting for CBS News, they are human, but they're not Mikayla's. In fact, an anthropologist brought in by police believes that they're actually very old bones belonging to Native Americans. So not even like, not that they're not Mikayla's, they're not even another victim. They were probably there long, long, long before. Like a burial ground situation. Exactly. Exactly. [37:56] So at this point, all police can do is watch as arguably the best lead that they ever had in Michaela's case just disappears and dries up. They interview JC herself, and she says that she doesn't believe Michaela was ever there. So just as suddenly as it appeared, this spark of hope is crushed. More time passes, more birthdays and holidays and anniversaries without Michaela or anything. [38:23] any clue even of what happened to her after she was taken. That is, until yet another infamous case intersects with Michaela, and it offers this strange new possibility. [38:39] In early 2012, a convicted murderer on death row in San Quentin, California, named Wesley Shermantine, one of half of the notorious Speed Freak Killers duo, who may have killed more than 20 people in the 80s and 90s, he writes a letter to the Stockton Record newspaper.

[39:01] In it, he offers to give up more information about where he and his partner, this guy named Lauren Herzog, buried some of their victims. And also announces that Lauren is the man responsible for Michaela's abduction. What? Yeah, according to Chris DeBenedetti's reporting in the Mercury News, Wesley points to how Lauren's family lived nearby, like this place, like a 10-minute drive from Hayward. [39:31] from back in '88. And so I kind of took a screenshot of Lauren's mugshot lined up side-by-side with the sketch. And you can tell me if you think they're similar. [39:41] Like I said in the first sketch, his face is kind of long, which Lauren's mugshot does display that. His skin is definitely better, but he's also older. Maybe outgrew some of those adolescent, early 20s skin issues. But... [39:57] Since you said Wesley's on death row, I'm assuming Lauren is there too? [40:01] So, no, Lauren was actually paroled back in 2010 after this like whole legal mess with allegations of coercion around his confessions. And his convictions actually get overturned as a result. Oh, my God. Yeah, like we could do a whole episode just about the Speed Freak killers and everything that happened with them.

[40:31] prison and he died by suicide in January of 2012 before that could happen. [40:39] So, [40:40] That kind of even sets off alarm bells for everyone because, yeah, he kind of looks like the sketch of her kidnapper. He was in the Bay Area at the time. They're already criminals. And now he's not even around to answer questions about it. [40:54] So unlike Roger Haggard, who, remember, when he wrote in from Indiana, law enforcement didn't trust him right from the get-go. This time, police are looking at Wesley's information pretty seriously. After he writes to the Stockton reporter, this bounty hunter gets involved with Wesley and is like, listen, you tell me where the bodies are. And if you're being honest with me, I will pay you $33,000. [41:24] he and Lauren put their victims, including this old well in Linden, California. And he lists it as Herzog's Bone Well. Oh my God. How far is Linden from Hayward? So it's only about an hour and a half to the east. So it's not as close as where Wesley was saying Lauren's family lived, but definitely with an eezy driving distance. So by the middle of February 2012, law enforcement have [41:54] sites on Wesley's map and have recovered over one person. [42:00] thousand bones, including two skulls that forensic teams are saying could be two known speed freak victims whose remains had never been found until that point. Now, they wouldn't know for sure then until they got the DNA results back. But Wesley's information is looking

[42:18] I mean, at this point, pretty credible, right? Yeah. Along with the bones, searchers find a woman's ring. They find clothes and beer bottles and car parts and shoes. And they're also bringing cadaver dogs to try and locate a second well, which, if Wesley's telling the truth, could have a dozen more bodies. Oh, my God. Yeah. According to the Mercury News, the Hayward police take this pretty cautious approach to all of this because obviously there's a ton going on here. [42:48] want to find Michaela if she's there. They don't want to get in the way of any other investigation. So they keep their focus really narrow. And in the horror of all those bones in the well, [43:01] Searchers find a fragment, a fragment that could belong to a child between the ages of five and 14 years old. Oh, wow. [43:10] As the physical searches wind down and DNA testing takes over to identify the bodies, Michaela's case turns back to just a waiting game. Like, they've got to see who's out there. In March, two victims are named publicly as Kimberly Billy, who was 19 when she vanished in 84, and Joanne Hobson, who was 16 when she disappeared in 85. [43:35] So with other families starting to get answers, police and Michaela's mom, Sharon, kind of just wait on tender hooks for news. And finally, in January of 2013, we are now 25 years out from Michaela vanishing. The heartbreaking truth comes out. The fragment that they found does not belong to Michaela.

[43:58] On her blog, Sharon stated that while she wasn't ruling out the possibility that Lauren did snatch Michaela back in 88, she thinks it's unlikely that her daughter was a victim of the Speed Freak killers. She believes Michaela was too young compared to their other victims and that since Lauren's dead and Wesley's claims about his involvement can't be verified, it is, as she puts it, quote, [44:21] on the far back burner. [44:24] As Sharon wrote, over the years, there have been reported sightings of Michaela in Mexico, even the United Arab Emirates, and theories that Michaela was a victim of human trafficking even. [44:37] Sharon's got a whole section on her blog called Whodunit or Who Didn't Dunit, where she goes over potential suspects and gives her perspective on each one. [44:47] The Rainbow Market in Hayward, where Michaela was abducted from, is now Mexico Super. And for years after the kidnapping, until Sharon moved away, yellow ribbons were laid out every year to honor Michaela's memory. [45:04] A couple of weeks ago, [45:06] That's how our episode ended. [45:08] But then... [45:09] got that email saying that on December 21st, 2020, police would be announcing a suspect in the case. And [45:20] It was no one that we've talked about so far. [45:27] For decades, some cold cases have been reduced to files in a cabinet, but not anymore. I'm Ashley Flowers, and me and my team on the deck have been traveling across the country to report on these forgotten cases. And in some instances, it's resulted in these cases being solved after decades.

[45:46] Join me every Wednesday as we revive these stories one card at a time. Listen to the deck now. [45:53] wherever you get your podcasts. [45:56] So all these years, the Hayward Police Department kept investigating. I mean, they would mark every anniversary in a different way than the rainbow market did, not with ribbons, but they would mark it with a relook at the case. And on the 30th anniversary of Michaela's kidnapping, this was 2018, they decide to reexamine the whole thing, the evidence, possible witnesses, the leads, all of it. [46:22] The department's fingerprint expert gets a full list of every single person of interest. And armed with this list, she starts comparing all of these people's prints with ones that were apparently found on the scooter that Michaela had been using that day. And remarkably, thanks to advancements in technology, she's able to find a match. What? Yes. [46:52] reporting for CNN. The prince on the scooter. [46:55] belonged to a man named David Misch. And on December 22nd, 2020, he's officially charged with the kidnapping and murder of Michaela Garrett. Okay, so he's being charged in December, literally just a few weeks ago. But when was he arrested? Girl, he was arrested? Back in the 80s. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay.

[47:20] Are you telling me that Michaela's killer has been in jail... [47:23] Like pretty much this entire time, like since she was abducted. Yeah, that's exactly what I'm telling you. You see, David's been incarcerated since 1989 when he was convicted and sentenced to 18 years to life in prison for the stabbing death of a 36 year old woman named Margaret Ball at her house in an unincorporated part of Hayward. [47:45] Now, I wasn't able to dig up much about Margaret's murder other than her age and how she died. But I did find that in March of 2018, David was charged with another cold case. So in 2018, he was connected to a double murder in Fremont, California, which is about a half hour south of Hayward. [48:15] with her best friend, 20-year-old Jennifer Dewey, along the side of a road shortly after midnight on February 2nd, 1986. Now, at the time, all police would say was that one of the women had been shot and the other's throat was slashed. And the brutality of the murders really rocked Fremont to its core. But the case remained unsolved until new advances in DNA technology [48:45] Okay, can we back up a little bit, though? Like, obviously, you and I and most of our crime junkies are really familiar with, you know, advancements in DNA technology and genealogy and all that stuff. But...

[48:57] The fingerprints. This guy was in prison. I have spiraled. I don't understand this. And I literally even talked to a former detective that I know. And I think the prince should have been run, right? Yeah, I don't know. I think we have. First of all, there hasn't been a lot of information out there on this new development, right? Like this just happened. So I haven't gotten the full story. Did they not know that the prince were on the scooter? Like were they recently found? [49:27] I think that's something they checked for way early on. Was it like a partial that they were able to get a better reading from? Yeah, we had prints in the 80s. It's hard for me to believe that finding the print was new. It's connecting it to him that I think was new, but haven't been able to verify. But when I talked to the detective, the problem is I think we have this idea as armchair detectives that [49:51] There's APHIS. It's this national database. We have a fingerprint and we put it in there. And when it gets put in there, it gets run against every fingerprint in the world. And we find out if anything else is connected. But it's not like that. It's not really how it works. It's so messy. So there is a national database, but it's not connected to any of the local databases. And you have to have so many points to be able to submit it there. Otherwise, you're going hand by hand. And even if you could submit it, someone has to physically send it. [50:21] Select it from a database. Right, right. [50:23] It's so messy. It's like incredible when you think about the advancements we've made in technology and science and how slow the criminal justice system is to keep up with it. Right. To adapt to it and adopt it as like a basic practice.

[50:53] 32 years ago? And has been there since a year after the abduction. Like, the peace that could have been brought to Michaela's family. I mean, thank God he had been in prison that whole time. I mean, that's, I guess, the one good thing. At least he hasn't been just roaming around. Mm-hmm. [51:09] But to leave the family with unanswered questions, again, there's so much I don't understand about this that I don't know if I'm missing a piece, but... [51:17] there's got to be something we can fix, right? Right. It seems like its own sort of injustice. [51:21] As of 2021, David Misch is 59 years old and remains in a California state prison awaiting trial for the murders of Michelle and Jennifer. Now, as far as I can tell, no trial date has actually been set. So this is the 2018 case that he was charged with. He hasn't even gone to trial for that yet. Right, right. So is there any trial date for Michaela yet? No, like no trial date yet for Michaela either. And who knows how COVID is going to affect that. [51:51] of how those proceedings play out [51:54] Thankfully, it is highly unlikely that he will ever see freedom again. Mm-hmm. [52:00] Meanwhile, the search for Michaela's remains continues. Her mom, Sharon, lives in Iowa now, where she is currently undergoing treatment for stage four breast cancer. So everyone send your thoughts and your prayers and all the good vibes, good vibes to her. Even though Michaela's case has been solved, there's no happy ending here. I mean, nothing I can say or do will ever erase

[52:30] with a piece of Sharon's most recent blog post where she speaks directly to her daughter. And it was on December 19th, 2020. And she wrote, quote, [52:41] I am trying to hold on to what has kept me going for a while now. And that is that I know you are a bright and shining light. [52:50] You were a light to all who knew you when you were here in the world, and you've been a light even to strangers beyond number since you've been gone. [52:59] I will. [53:00] We will. [53:01] Try to keep that light shining for you. [53:04] I love you forever, baby girl. [53:06] Rest well. [53:07] Thank you. [53:09] I have some things to do here yet. [53:11] But I will see you in the not terribly distant future. [53:16] Mom. [53:17] End quote. [53:18] you can find all of our source material for this case on our website crimejunkiepodcast.com [53:37] And you can follow us on Instagram at Crime Junkie Podcast. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode.

[54:11] Music [54:13] Thank you. [54:13] you [54:14] you [54:15] *music* [54:18] Crime Junkie is an AudioChuck production. [54:22] What do you think, Chuck? [54:23] Do you approve? [54:27] Okay, crime junkies, you know I absolutely love a twist and a turn, especially when it comes to people who turn out to be someone they're not. That's why I have been obsessed with the podcast Chameleon. Every Thursday, host Josh Dean deep dives into a scam so bizarre, it will leave you wondering, how did they get away with that? It is truly one of my favorite podcasts right now, and I've been listening for years. [54:50] I think you'll love it too. [54:51] Listen to Chameleon wherever you get your podcasts.