The Evansdale Murders: A Conversation with the Documentarians Behind "Taken Together": Part One

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[00:01:24] and 365 day returns. That's q-u-i-n-c-e dot com slash msheet to get free shipping and 365 day returns. quince.com slash msheet. Content warning. These two episodes contain discussion of the murder of two girls. They also contain discussion about sexual crimes against children as well as drugs. A note for the listeners, in the beginning of this episode, our guests in order of who spoke

[00:01:52] first, Dylan, Christian, and Ned. Just flagging so you can be aware of who is speaking. On July 13th, 2012, two young girls went out to ride their bicycles in Evansdale, Iowa. Eight-year-old Elizabeth Collins and 10-year-old Lyric Cook Morrissey were cousins and very close. They vanished that day. On December 5th, 2012, hunters discovered the bodies of the girls in a

[00:02:18] remote spot in Bremer County, 25 miles from where they were last spotted. To this day, this double homicide remains unsolved. In 2024, a documentary series tackled the case. Dylan Sires, Ned Muhammad Agich, and Christian Day spearheaded, taken together. Who killed Lyric and Elizabeth? The docuseries was an in-depth look that had the blessing of the families of these girls.

[00:02:44] Several months ago, back before the Delphi trial, we got the opportunity to talk to Dylan, Ned, and Christian. One thing that really impressed us in our conversation was how much care they put into their reporting. They ensured they had two or three sources for everything they ran with. They really weighed what details to include. They did not want to be voyeuristic, sensational, or put out new facts that could jeopardize the whole investigation. They balanced the need to inform the public with that sense of caution. We came away very impressed.

[00:03:13] In this episode, we will get the conversation started with Dylan, Christian, and Ned. There will be a second episode finishing up our interview, which we will release on the same day. My name is Anya Kane. I'm a journalist. And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney. And this is The Murder Sheet. We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews, and deep dives into murder cases. We're The Murder Sheet.

[00:03:39] And this is The Evansdale Murders, a conversation with the documentarians behind Taken Together, part one.

[00:04:31] Christian, Dylan, and Ned, thank you all so much for coming to speak with us today. I wanted to start out by just asking you all to tell us a bit about yourselves and your professional backgrounds sort of coming into this project. So I worked as a news, at the time we called them a photog, but what we call now a videographer at KWWL in Waterloo back in 2010 to 2013. So that's kind of how I got my start into using

[00:04:59] the camera and following stories. And then since then, I've been filming documentaries. So I've been in the film industry for 15 years now, starting out making little art house films and some indie docs and had some PBS success there and then got into crewing and kind of like started to make my own thing. And then I went and I worked on shows. I did five seasons on The

[00:05:27] Bachelor and then worked on a lot of true crime as either a researcher, production manager, or a field producer. So a lot of times when you see a lot of the archival material, like crime scene photos, evidence photos, a lot of times that was me going into courthouses and pulling all that material, scanning it, capturing it, et cetera. Dylan and I met actually in 2017. We were on a narrative show.

[00:05:51] I was a coordinator on it. I did extras casting and the show itself rented a bunch of band equipment. It was a pretty big, like a $4 million series back when the streaming wars were at their height. It was a show called Play by Play, you know, big union show, et cetera. Dylan was a set dresser and I was a coordinator and he was returning some of that stuff to my house and he picked me up in his gold orange or gold band van. And in the van, he was telling me about his series that he was

[00:06:19] putting together. I bet it was just a doc and invited me to be a part of it. Me and Dylan kind of, we started at the University of Northern Iowa. That's kind of where we met officially. For the first time, we went to high school together, but we were in different cliques. But then we came out of UNI together and then we both worked at a local TV station and

[00:06:44] I've worked on some films in the area. And Dylan approached me one day. He wanted to go interview one of the investigators for this case. And I knew him and I knew he was serious and that he wanted to do this correctly. So honestly, if anybody else had approached me to do that, I probably would have said no, just because it was such like a real serious, sensitive case. So yeah, me and him,

[00:07:11] we started, you know, doing the legwork early in those days. And then, you know, we met Christian and it just, it was all we needed to, it was a third booster to get us up there, you know? So yeah, we put a lot of years into this together. So it's kind of where we're at. We are often asked about our favorite true crime podcasts. The Silver Linings Handbook with Jason

[00:07:38] Blair is one of our absolute favorites. Jason has become a personal friend of ours and his show is a bright light in the true crime space. Our listeners probably even recognize his name because he's been on our program a number of times. We've been on his as well. We think our listeners would also love Jason's Silver Linings Handbook podcast. He always has meaningful and important conversations with people whose lives have been affected by crime. Just recently, he had Kimberly Loring on to talk about the disappearance

[00:08:05] of her sister, Ashley Loring Heavy Runner, a 20-year-old native woman. Ashley vanished in Montana. With Jason, Kimberly was able to raise awareness of her sister's case. Jason also spoke with Jim Schmidt, whose daughter, Gabby Petito, was murdered. In the middle of the talk, when Jason brought up a friend suffering abuse, Jim leapt into action to give advice. Or Susan Snow, whose detective father was murdered to prevent him from testifying in a robbery trial. These are

[00:08:33] gripping conversations that get to the heart of the human beings at the center of these stories. It's got plenty of episodes for true crime listeners, but Jason also delves into conversations about mental health, underrepresented communities, leadership, and more. You never know quite what you're going to get, other than the fact you're in good hands with an empathetic interviewer and fascinating guests. Subscribe to the Silver Linings Handbook wherever you listen to podcasts.

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[00:10:27] we sent you. Enhance your every day with VIA. Absolutely. With a case like this and with a project like this, I mean, I know how much work it takes to get from the moment that you decide to do a project like this to actually having it come out there and broadcast. And I'm just curious, can you speak to that work and amount of work that it takes to do that and what that process was like

[00:10:56] in this specific project? So I started in 2015, and the idea first popped into my head when I was driving by Myers Lake. I think I was coming home from Easter. It was, you know, every time you drive by Myers Lake, you know, that case at that time in 2015 had only been three years old, but first thing that pops into your mind is Lyric and Elizabeth. And, you know, it being unsolved pisses you off a

[00:11:22] little bit, makes you angry. So I thought, you know, someone should make a documentary about that. But, you know, because at the time there's always rumors and cases, right, that kind of cloud over the facts a little bit, well-intentioned or not. So, you know, I was like, Hey, wait, you know, I got a camera. Why don't I, why don't I try to do a documentary on it? And when I decided to do it, I figured it was going to take five years to get it off the ground, to get it made. And so, you know,

[00:11:51] I reached out to Ned right away because we had worked at KWWL together. And, you know, I first started with, I called Drew and Heather and I met him at a bar at the cellar just to get their blessing. And they said, yes. And so my first interview was just Heather and Drew on a Canon 5D Mark III in their living room. You know, just trying to get a lay of the land,

[00:12:15] the basic facts of the case, because, you know, at that time, you know, you had your news reports and stuff like that, but a lot about the case was unknown other than what you read in the headlines. And it was just like, I'm going to start from square one and establish, you know, the facts from the people who are telling me them and try to interview as many people as possible. So over the years, we accumulated over a hundred interviews, three, I mean,

[00:12:44] I want to say like 500 hours of footage, you know, and it's, it's just talking to everyone that we possibly could. And I suppose before we get started talking about the facts of the case, I wanted to take a moment to ask you about Lyric and Elizabeth, these two kids at the center of this awful story. And what were you all able to learn about who they were as people through this reporting process?

[00:13:11] Elizabeth was eight years old. Lyric was 10. Heather and Drew were Elizabeth's parents. Elizabeth was very bubbly, very happy. She played hockey. She was into sports. And then Lyric, on the other hand, was adventurous. Her parents were Misty and Dan. And, you know, she liked to fish, go swimming, you know, the typical kid stuff,

[00:13:37] you know, just good, good kids. You know, I think they kind of became everyone's kids when this happened, you know, I mean, everyone I've never seen really like a community get so behind trying to find them. And you look at all those volunteers that were there. I mean, everyone, I mean, more

[00:14:01] specifically the Waterloo Evansdale area, everyone kind of took responsibility and adopted them to try to find them. Yeah. And you can see through a lot of the home movie footage in the documentary, just, just like how bubbly Elizabeth really was. She's just like constantly got that smile on her cheek.

[00:14:22] And, uh, and you can just see how the girls were, they were so innocent and lyrics that Dan, he tells a story of like when he came home after one of his court things that he had to deal with and how Lyric just like ran up to him and gave him a hug and like immediately made him feel better because she was just so in that age where they're just so pure. And it was like, all they really want to do

[00:14:50] is just be, be helpful and be happy and see other people happy. And you really get to see that. I think through some of that home movie footage in the documentary. Yeah, you absolutely do. It really shines a light on not just the awful thing that happened to them, but just the impact that they made in their, in their short time, um, on earth. And it's, it's very heartbreaking. I wanted to ask you just zooming out a bit for folks who may not be super

[00:15:17] familiar with Iowa or with the Evansdale area. Can you contextualize this setting of where this happened generally? What is it like there just for folks who may not be familiar? Yeah. So Evansdale is part of like a bedroom community with Waterloo being the major, the major city area there. And you have Cedar Falls. It's cumulatively known as the Cedar Valley.

[00:15:42] And that includes Cedar Falls, Waterloo, Elk Run, Evansdale. Population wise, I think all together, it's a hundred and over a hundred thousand, 130,000 around that neighborhood. But I mean, like you, do you want like what its main industry is? Like, you know, Waterloo is a big, it's a John Deere town. You got Tyson foods there, just your average Midwest town.

[00:16:08] And very blue collar. I mean, Waterloo itself is a pretty substantially large size town in comparison to Iowa as a whole, you know, obviously compared to like a major city, it's going to be small. But again, very blue collar, everyone kind of like, I mean, everyone's hard worker. I used the term work because a lot, because it's like, that's kind of what drives everybody. I mean, that's everyone's kind of into this, you know, I'm gonna take care of my family. I'm gonna come home

[00:16:37] at night and I'm gonna enjoy my weekends and all that stuff. Like weekends are like, it's like the Friday night's sacred to people still, you know, in this world, you know, Dylan's right. When he talks about like the John Deere town, you know, John Deere being the main employer, it's really hard to, that's the town that like, that lives and eats and breathes this one industry. And like when they have like their layoffs, that kills it. And it, and there was some of that back years ago when like the meatpacking plants closed, eighties was really hard on Waterloo and sends people into this really

[00:17:07] like kind of bad, almost like a depression of some sort, you know, we were all kids in the 80s or born in the 80s. So like a lot of us don't really know much about that, but those waves kind of go on for a very long time. And, and when Evansdale kind of became like this kind of escape for a lot of people who lived in the city and moved out there. So there's the Waterloo Cedar Falls area. And in the 40 to 50 mile radius around it, there's like

[00:17:34] another dozen towns or so. And a lot of those people come in to work here and also come in to socialize here. So there's a lot of that. There's a lot of communities just out on the edges that do come into Waterloo Cedar Falls, Evansdale area. I want to add one last thing. I mean, they are still remote enough that there is still that fear of change. If you think about that, you know, it's still, you know, Cedar, there's no airport in Waterloo, the closest airport Cedar Rapids,

[00:18:03] which is like 45 minutes away. So like the influx, there's an airport in Waterloo. Yeah. There's a small airport actually. Yeah. Where is that? It's just north of town, north of Waterloo. Where do you go with that in that airport? No, no, maybe Chicago. That's about it. A little one. I mean, it's very similar. Like I just learned Dubuque has an airport. They finally have an airline after like 10 years of no airline.

[00:18:30] They have one airline, Denver Air, that doesn't go to Denver. I don't know where it goes. Anyways, sorry, we're going, I'm going off on a tangent, but that just kind of shows that just to paint that picture of this world itself, you know, and it's by no means, you know, a fault of anyone. They just, they live in their world, you know, and any, any, any type of city or town that's isolated, like that kind of starts to live in a bubble. And, and that just, that's naturally what happens.

[00:18:59] Yeah. It's still a place that's kind of, I don't want to sound like backwards, but it's like, it's still in, in a time that has passed a lot of the world because of like this idea of, yeah, you just let your kids out to go biking because it's safe. There's not, that's what it feels like, you know? So, and there's a charm too. I mean, Ned still lives in Waterloo, so he still lives up there. So he's around it 24 seven.

[00:19:26] Absolutely. You know, it's heartbreaking because generally, if you look at the numbers, it is safe to let your kids out to play. But understandably, because, because of incidents like this, many parents feel that they can't risk it, even though the, you know, the numbers, the, you know, the likelihood of, you know, you being killed in a car accident are so much worse than sort of stranger child abduction or something like this happening. But, you know,

[00:19:53] how can you tell a parent when they see something so horrifying happen that, oh yeah, you know, you know, spin the wheel essentially. I wanted to ask just before we again, dive into the facts of the case, just Ned mentioned earlier, the sensitivities around doing a case like this for a docuseries. And just as filmmakers, as documentarians going into this, what sort of considerations are you

[00:20:19] taking into your minds as you're looking at this, given that it's unsolved and it involves two child victims? What sort of things do you sort of go into in mind? I guess the first thing that I thought about is one, you want to do no harm, right? You think about that a lot? You're like, because what's the old saying? The road to hell is paved with good intentions. So you can come in there naively trying to do a good job and, you know, maybe screw

[00:20:48] something up. So it was just constantly evaluating and reevaluating why you're doing it and what your goals are. And then just talking to law enforcement and to people in the community and just making sure you're not messing something up. And I repeatedly would ask, you know, if I'm going to mess something up, I'm going to stay away from this, you know, because the ultimate goal at the end of the day

[00:21:14] is to get the lyrical Elizabeth justice and the families, you know, to get them their justice. So it's just constantly evaluating, reevaluating and, you know, double, triple, quadruple checking everything. And you've got to, you run this risk with any type of project when it deals with tragedy is that people, people are going through grief and mourning and they're looking for,

[00:21:42] they, they, they, they, a lot of people tend to, to really turn to you because you're in a way helping them. And there's, there's a risk to that because you're, you are a journalist. You are not, you know, we're not law enforcement. We're not, we're not counselors. We're not, you know, we are, we, we document and report and, you know, you run this line of people kind of attaching or,

[00:22:09] uh, et cetera, you know, something along those lines. And you, there, there's kind of like this, you walk a line with it because there is a risk to that. And as Dylan said, you know, the road, the road to hell is paved with good intentions and you, you don't want to mess anything up and you don't want to, you know, again, we're here to tell it. We're here to get this story out

[00:22:34] to the world to hear about in hopes that this will help the case and this will bring new light to it and possibly bring a break in the case. But you also like, if something big happens because of this stock, that's great. That's what's super important. But like there's sometimes I feel like there's a false hope that we are here to solve the case. And that's not necessarily what we're, that's not

[00:23:01] necessarily within our wheelhouse. I mean, if something happens as a result, that's amazing. And that helps everybody, but you know, you can't go into it necessarily thinking that, or giving that impression that that is what's going to happen. Yeah. To work with families, especially when you go back to like the world that we're in, it's a really, it's a very hard thing to gain trust and to, does everyone's, you know, there's this paranoia now and then there's just stress and then there's this fear.

[00:23:29] So it's, it's, it's a very, it's a, I mean, that's why I think a lot of it, it took so long to tell this stories is just like, if someone tells us, no, if you're on a six month timeline, you know, to in a project, like if, I mean, there was people that took years to like say yes to telling their story. And we couldn't do that if we were under restraint of like, cool, here's your schedule to make this film and you have to be done by this time. And no matter what,

[00:23:57] that's it, you know, it, we couldn't work that way on this project. I think all of this kind of goes back to trustworthiness and how trustworthy Dylan was immediately and how hard he worked to earn these people's trust by, like you said, being very, very careful. And, uh, that's one thing I, in the beginning, I wouldn't want to get involved

[00:24:24] with something like this where we do it just kind of whatever style and see what happens. Cause you don't want to open up all these wounds with these folks, you know, talking about the most traumatic thing that's ever happened to them, just all will and nilly. So like there was, I know Dylan instilled a lot of trust in these folks. And that's one of the major reasons that we were able to accomplish

[00:24:49] this. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm so glad Christian said that about not instilling false hope. I feel like sometimes podcasters, documentarians, journalists, there's this perception of like somebody is going to crack the case and that is so rare, but there's still a benefit to publicizing a case and starting conversations and keeping pressure on to get to answers. Um, so there's

[00:25:16] definitely a benefit, but sometimes a little more indirect than I think people realize. I wanted to ask you all if you could talk me through July 13th, 2012 and just the day of the abduction and sort of maybe just generally what happened that day. Yeah. So July 13th, I think it was a very hot day in the Cedar Valley. I think at some point

[00:25:41] Lyric is brought over to Heather and Drew's house in the morning. And at around, I don't know, say noon, the girls leave on a bike ride, Lyric and Elizabeth leave on a bike ride and they're being watched by their grandmother, Wilma. They go on their bike ride. They, they don't, I think Heather comes home at around 2 PM or so and the kids aren't back from their bike ride.

[00:26:06] So the parents are alarmed and they contact authorities. Um, the authorities start, they come over to the house, they search the house. They then start to search the area. And I think at five o'clock or so around that time, the girls, uh, or four 30, the girls, uh, bikes and purse were found at Myers Lake on the Southeast side. And from there on, that's where the case kind

[00:26:33] of, where it starts to, you know, balloon and get bigger. And, you know, I remember the call coming out on the scanner. It was like, it was had to be like two 40 something because my first thought was like, I'm going to have to work late. You know, um, missing kids means like, it means you're going to be working the five and six news, um, staying late and, you know, kids go missing quite a bit. If you listen to a police scanner, like in a big town and they're

[00:27:03] usually always recovered, you know, within a couple of hours or, or at least a day. So people in a newsroom know when they hear like a missing kid to just kind of wait and see before you jump and start, you know, trying to cover, you know, a potential abduction. But I think at around five or six o'clock, people started to crowd at Myers Lake looking for the girls and the search went on until nightfall. And I think that's when they called off the search because they couldn't find them.

[00:27:35] Dylan, what was that like being on the ground as all of this is unfolding? And as it's becoming clear that this is a little, this is a worse situation than your typical sort of like the kids wandered off and can be easily located afterwards. You know, so the first day I wasn't involved because the night side photographer took over. And so he went down to Myers Lake with Bob Waters, who was the anchor who covered the story for KWWL. I got called in the next day on a Saturday

[00:28:06] and went down to Myers Lake. And by the time I got there, the case had already went from, you know, the last time I was in the newsroom to it not being a very big deal to when I got there the next day, national media was there. You know, there was all the local news outlets were there. And if you've ever been to Myers Lake, they have like a parking area and it was just crowded with

[00:28:30] news trucks and whatnot. And, uh, it was a sight to behold. There was a lot of people there. Just people just showed up. They wanted to help. They wanted to see what they could do to help. And I think at that time, the area where the girls' bikes were found had been quarantined off from the public. And it was just wild to see like, you know, to hear the call come in and then the

[00:28:55] response and how quick it was and how many cops arrived and how quickly and the sense of urgency everyone had. And, um, can you just clarify where were the bikes found? Like what was that area like? So the bikes were found. So there's like a highway, it's called highway 20 in Waterloo and it runs, you know, south of town, east to west. And Myers Lake is just north of highway 20.

[00:29:20] And the bikes were found on the southeast part of the lake in between highway 20 and the lake. There's like a bike trail that runs through there. There's like a little wooded area on the east side of the lake, but that's where the bikes were found. And then, um, unfortunately in this case, there was a long time that passed before Lyric and Elizabeth were actually found. Um, can you tell us about sort of when that happened, the circumstances around it,

[00:29:48] and maybe tell us a bit about Seven Bridges Wildlife Park, what that place is like? Yeah. So there was about five months, I think, when the girls' bodies were found at Seven Bridges. I got a call before work that I needed to come in early that they think the girls' bodies had been found. And if I remember, I don't know what day it was on, but I remember the cops were there for like

[00:30:15] five days to, you know, three to five days searching the area coming through Seven Bridges. And, you know, there's like news archive footage of, uh, someone had gotten in a plane and flown over Seven Bridges. And you can see, you know, the yellow tape of how big of an area they were searching, just massive. And so, you know, we just waited. And I remember, I think KWWL, we were the first

[00:30:38] people on scene at Seven Bridges after the DCI left. And we had just had the first snow of the year that, um, that had hit our area in Iowa. And they sent me out there to go get footage of the area. And it, uh, and I had no idea where it was that I knew kind of the area where it was just based on

[00:31:03] the footage that was shot. And so I just kind of wandered around with my camera, just shooting footage in Seven Bridges. And to give you an idea of Seven Bridges, it's a one way in one way out park. Um, it's extremely rural. Um, I didn't even know about where it was, you know, I grew up in the area. I had no idea about Seven Bridges until the girls were found there. You know, later you come to find

[00:31:30] out that people would have kegers out there. It was like a party spot for, for, for teenagers. Not a very smart one because it's a one way in one way out, you know, cops would show up and here, you're done. It's off the beaten path. I don't know. It's kind of in the middle of nowhere of Iowa, right? You would never happen upon Seven Bridges because you have to take gravel roads to get to it.

[00:31:57] Yeah. There's, yeah, there's a lot of like random twists and turns to get there. It's, it's super, super remote. Like even when we were working on this, getting there was like, all right, wait, which way do we go now? Cause it's, it's really out there in the middle of kind of just next to a river in the middle of field. You kind of have to know that it exists, exists there does like the chances of just wandering there are pretty low, I'd say.

[00:32:23] So it's fair to say that that's one thing that points toward a local being the perpetrator, some sort of highway driving national serial killer or whatnot predator wouldn't necessarily just find this randomly. Yeah. Very unlikely. I wanted to ask in terms of the actual location where the girls were found, was there anything

[00:32:52] remarkable about that? Would it have been a difficult place for somebody to access? Yeah. So there's like, when you drive into Seven Bridges, there's first, there's like a Y and go to the right. And there's like a big, it's like a circle drive out of gravel. And it's like an open area. And then you'd have to walk further East to get to the spot where the girls' bodies were found.

[00:33:16] But it's, you know, like in the summer, we filmed out there in the summer. I didn't make it into the dock, but we had, but it is so buggy in the summer there. It's, it's almost impossible to handle it. Like you're getting mosquitoes all over you and the foliage is pretty thick. Like it's a pretty tough spot to get to in the summer and in the, in the winter, it's, it's not a problem.

[00:33:42] Right. It's pretty easy to get back there. It's so, you know, has its ups and downs, but it's not really hilly at all. But in the summer that would be, you know, with the bugs and the heat and all the foliage that grows, it would be a tough walk there. And has a cause of death ever been publicized about how the girls died or was it, was it, I mean,

[00:34:11] was it too late by the, I mean, like, I guess my question is less, I know nothing has been publicized, but do you think that they actually know or were the bodies too far gone to even determine? Yeah. They've never released the cause of death. That's one of the things they need to identify genuine confession. So that's something that's very important to the case that should never get out to the public. As far as, I mean, I don't know what the police know about that.

[00:34:41] They had something I would assume, right? You want to keep the details as close to the chest. Yeah. You don't want to hurt the case, man. Like, cause you've hurt the cases for those girls to get justice, right? Like I know everyone wants to know all the details. It's just human nature to want that. But if your ultimate goal is justice for the girls, sometimes you have to take information that you have

[00:35:08] and you have to, you know, forget about it. It's like, you know, as long as the cops know that they have that information, right? But you just don't want to get out of the public. So when I came on in 2017, there was, Dylan was getting hit up by a lot of people with potential who this person might have done it. And there's a lot of, I mean, you obviously have like the copycats of the people that pretend like, I did this, arrest me. And then the cops are like, no, you didn't.

[00:35:37] And it's, you know, and it's, first off, that's a whole, I've never understood that, like that type of sociopath. But there was a lot of like, I mean, there was a lot of people. I mean, it's almost like, I'm sure these people were turning these same people into the police, but now they're, they were turning them into Dylan with all these wild facts like that. But it didn't, I mean, it kind of leads you astray down these kind of wild goose chases.

[00:36:03] And, you know, there's, and there's a reason why, what I'm getting at here is because the cops have these certain, the investigators have this, these factual information that prevents stuff like that from getting out of control. Whereas like, we don't know. So, you know, a lot of times, like you're, we're hearing these things just because we don't know some of, some of these facts. The cops can easily dismiss that very quickly. And that's where like, not allowing that stuff, not allowing us to know these things,

[00:36:32] not allowing the public to know these things can very quickly dismiss some of these wild accusations and people getting turned into or maybe just, you know, a meth head or whatever. And they're, or they're weird, you know? I mean, there was, there was a, there's times where you want to point the finger and it's like, no, that's not, that's not the person and in the police can very quickly dismiss that. We've seen the same exact thing in Delphi.

[00:37:00] The only reason you guys get tips from people all the time, talk your ear off. I went and spent like an hour on the phone with a woman who was just going on and on about how there were dolls found at the scene. And it was like, go get help. Don't be doing this crap. Like people will call in like Bigfoot did it a hundred times to Delphi. And it's like, I don't know. It's actually crazy that people become obsessed with these things and are completely useless and have no ability to help in anything.

[00:37:27] But they're the ones who keep tipping things in. And it's like law enforcement shouldn't have to say like, hey, don't do this. If you're like just working through some issues you have, like do it if you have actual information. But I mean, they can't say that. So it's just, we've seen the same thing again and again, but Delphi only got solved because they were, they held back that there was a bullet at the scene. And had that come out, it's very likely that it would never. Got rid of it. Because I would have gotten rid of the gun, you know?

[00:37:56] So it's like, I totally understand. Jumping off of that, you know, I, you all have done such a great job doing such a thorough look at this case. I wanted to ask, what is your sense of the police investigation that's been going on for so many years now? If you can kind of talk us through what you've learned about that. And if you can also contextualize, you know, how many agencies are involved? What does this look like?

[00:38:25] And how much, how many, how much resources are being put into this? So at the, at the top of the investigation, it was a lot. You had the, you know, Evansdale. Then you had the Evansdale Police Department. You had the Waterloo Police Department. You had DCI. And then you had the FBI. And then I believe they flew out dogs from DC. They brought additional FBI out of Omaha. They brought in so many cops to investigate this case.

[00:38:53] The officers did an incredibly good job. I mean, it's pretty easy to, it was pretty normal now to, to criticize investigations, but, you know, in hindsight, but, you know, these guys were, you know, at first people thought the girls might be in the lake because two bikes by a lake. You know, it's probably a very reasonable assumption that the girls might've drowned. So there was a lot of criticism of that.

[00:39:19] But, you know, as I talked to Kent Smock and Larry Headland and Mike Rikasi, these guys worked insane hours and, you know, dedicated their life to figuring out this case and doing everything they possibly could. Actually, it was mentioned when we had some of the LA crew come out to film towards the end of the shooting of the doc. You know, one of the things they mentioned was like, man, these cops really care. They're from LA.

[00:39:49] They're not used to cops caring that much about the community, about the case, about the girls. And it shows, you know, I mean, obviously there's going to be mistakes in every case, right? But nothing, there was nothing that I found that would like, look like the cops messed the case up at all in any way.

[00:40:11] The thing that I kind of saw during this documentary was no matter how good the police work is and just how many resources you have, that the nature of these things are so hard to solve. You need all of this incredible work and all these resources on top of that. You need that luck factor.

[00:40:34] And it's just like the nature of digging up the truth is such a hard endeavor. And like this has been going on 12 years plus now. And, you know, you hear about a lot of cold cases. And after going through this and speaking to so many of these investigators, you kind of see why that is the case. It's just, it's just like finding that needle in the haystack is really what you need. You need that luck.

[00:41:03] And I, it's hard. It's really hard. There's like a term for knowledge. Like when you first jump into something, you think you know everything about it when you learn a little about it. And then the more you learn about it, you realize, oh man, I don't know anything. And then you start your true path to like real knowledge. And that's a lot of hard work. Right? So it's like the case was so big and so massive and so many things were going on all at the same time. At the time, the girls went missing.

[00:41:32] You know, you had like part of Highway 20 at the time was, I think the southbound lane was, was off. And then they also, so they had like a construction crew that was in Evansdale. You know, and then they had like a campground that was on the western side of Evansdale where they had like an RV park where they were like, you know, officers were taking pictures of license plates and whatnot. It was a huge, massive investigation.

[00:41:57] And you think about the search itself that when they started to search the area and how many volunteers they had and to organize that and to make sure you're not, you know, searching the same area seven times. It's, it's massive. If you think about it, it, to coordinate it is a tall task, you know, but they did it and they did a great job.

[00:42:20] Obviously, we spent all these years interviewing and before we actually, you know, the project got off the ground and there's a quote that has stuck with me that Larry Hedlund says. I wish this quote was in, in the series, but it didn't make it, but it was a policeman version of how after you die is finding out there was all the things that you missed. I think that speaks volumes to what all these people did. And obviously years have passed. People have retired.

[00:42:49] People don't have those jobs anymore, you know, and new people are in those positions. And the fact that all those guys, I mean, it's still sticks with them to this day. You know, they, I'm sure a lot of them ask themselves, did we do it all? And I mean, I mean, cause it is still unsolved. And again, hearing that this is like one of those haunting things you could ever hear from someone. Hedlund's just an eloquent speaker, you know, like he, he's a, you know, very smart guy.

[00:43:16] Keep it, keep in mind when we do recreations on our new project, Dylan, make sure we have the exact color work gloves that the bank robber had. I mean, to the, to the T and I'm like, I can't, well, nope, nope. Gotta have them. Gotta have or so specific. And that, and that's, that's too, that's too his, that's, that's one of his strengths is. And detriments. And detriments. So if like that person doesn't have the same chewing gum in their mouth, how can they embody the character when he's robbing the bank? I don't know.

[00:43:47] I love that. No, I, I, Dylan, I think I'm the you of my partnership with Kevin because I'm, I'm definitely the one who's like, we need to include these details about like, you know, what, like what hotel the guy was staying at. And he's like, who cares? So I wanted to drill down on, on something. Oh, actually, Ned, what kind of what you all are saying?

[00:44:12] I think I've seen in true crime, like there's kind of an instinct sometimes to blame the police when there's an unsolved case. And in some cases that is completely fair. And, and, and certainly law enforcement should always be scrutinized in these situations. But I found that sometimes I think the rush to blame actually obscures the fact that some cases are just genuinely very difficult to solve. And there are a lot of unlucky breaks that can happen that can make some sort of solve even more difficult.

[00:44:41] So I was really glad that you said that, because I think it's important to separate those cases from cases where there might be legitimate mistakes or, or malfeasance. I wanted to go into something that I know the answer to this. I'm pretty confident. And, and I, I think the answer is we don't know, or, you know, it's kind of undetermined. But I know my audience will be pretty upset with us if we don't ask about this.

[00:45:04] But we've seen so many cases solved by DNA in recent times, older cases that, you know, the technology improves and then there might be a solve. I was wondering, is there any hope of some sort of DNA evidence coming out of this case that could lead to something down the road? Based on what's publicly available, we don't know. They haven't released any of that information.

[00:45:31] It's been alluded to me, alluded to me that they have something. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And what I try to stress to people is having something doesn't mean that you have a full genetic profile that you can use with genetic genealogy and track down the guy's family. It can, it can mean you have not enough to even test because it would just destroy the entire sample. Thank you so much to Dylan, Ned, and Christian for taking the time to speak with us.

[00:46:00] Thanks so much for listening to The Murder Shade. If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover, please email us at murdersheet at gmail.com. If you have actionable information about an unsolved crime, please report it to the appropriate authorities. If you're interested in joining our Patreon, that's available at www.patreon.com slash murdersheet.

[00:46:29] If you want to tip us a bit of money for records requests, you can do so at www.buymeacoffee.com slash murdersheet. We very much appreciate any support. Special thanks to Kevin Tyler Greenlee, who composed the music for The Murder Sheet, and who you can find on the web at kevintg.com.

[00:46:53] If you're looking to talk with other listeners about a case we've covered, you can join the Murder Sheet discussion group on Facebook. We mostly focus our time on research and reporting, so we're not on social media much. We do try to check our email account, but we ask for patience as we often receive a lot of messages. Thanks again for listening. Before we go, we just wanted to say another few words about Vaya.

[00:47:21] This is really a wonderful product. I think it's really helped both of us get a lot better rest. Vaya is pretty much, I guess you'd say, the only lifestyle hemp brand out there. So what does that mean? It means that they're all about crafting different products to elicit different moods. Kevin and I really like their non-THC CBD products. Specifically, Zen really helps me fall asleep. Some Zen can really just kind of help me get more into that state where I can relax and fall asleep pretty easily.

[00:47:49] And they've been such a wonderful support to us. They're a longtime sponsor. We really love working with them, and they really make this show possible. I'm going to say this. You may not realize this, but when you support our sponsors, you're supporting us, and it kind of makes it possible for us to do the show. So if you or one of your loved ones is interested in trying some of this stuff, you're going to get a great deal. It's very high quality, high value. Anya, if I wanted to get this discount you speak of, what do I do?

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[00:48:44] Can we talk a little bit before we go about Quintz, a great new sponsor for us? I think in one of the ads that we've already done for them, we talked about the compliments I'm getting on my jacket. I know you're a very modest woman, but can we talk about the compliments you're getting on the Quintz products you wear? Yeah, I've got two of their Mongolian cashmere sweaters. They're a brand that just does this sort of luxurious products, but without the crazy costs really well.

[00:49:14] They give you Italian leather handbags. They do like European linen sheets. You have a really cool suede jacket. And I really like the way I look in my sweaters. I like the way you look in your bomber jacket. It looks super cool. You've gotten a lot of compliments when you go out wearing these sweaters. I think I have. And deservedly so. Also, I'm one of those people, my skin is very sensitive.

[00:49:39] So when it comes to wearing sweaters, sometimes something's too scratchy. It really bothers me. These are so soft. They're just very delicate and soft. Wearing them is lovely because they're super comfortable. It's not one of those things where you buy it and it looks great, but it doesn't feel that great. They look great. They feel great. But yeah, I really love them. And you got your cool jacket. I mean, that's a little bit of a – you're the guy who wears the same thing all the time. So this was a bit of a gamble for you, a bit of a risk.

[00:50:09] You got something a bit different. I do wash my clothes. I know you wash your clothes, but I mean – You're filthy. You just made me sound awful. So no, I wash my clothes. But you don't really – You don't really experiment with fashion that much is what I'm saying. So this is a little bit out of the norm for you, but I think you really like it and it looks good. Thank you. Great products. Incredible prices. Absolutely. There you go. So you can go to quince.com slash msheet.

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