Episode 308

<v Speaker 1>Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence, and is
<v Speaker 1>not intended for all audiences.
<v Speaker 2>Listener discretion is advised.
<v Speaker 3>You can start smelling the decomposition. Then it's a smell.
<v Speaker 3>Anybody's ever smelled it. It's a smell that will never
<v Speaker 3>exit their brain.
<v Speaker 1>I think some of you are a little confused. You see,
<v Speaker 1>SNS isn't a tree crime podcast. It's a bus. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>a bus. You can't change its trajectory. You can't change
<v Speaker 1>its makeup, can't make it blue instead of yellow. And uh,
<v Speaker 1>you can't change the driver I'm driving. I mean you
<v Speaker 1>can get off the bus. You can get on the bus.
<v Speaker 1>That's about the extent of your power here, Karen. Basically,
<v Speaker 1>you're not in charge here, So sit the fuck down
<v Speaker 1>and shut the fuck up. Try to listen for once
<v Speaker 1>in your miserable life. Oh yeah, I almost forgot. This
<v Speaker 1>is episode three oh eight. And uh, if you don't
<v Speaker 1>know what podcast you're listening to, I think that's your problem.
<v Speaker 1>The Tyndalls are an ordinary middle class family living in Arlington, Indiana,
<v Speaker 1>which is part of Rush County. Rush County is about
<v Speaker 1>forty miles southeast of the state capital of Indianapolis. It's
<v Speaker 1>a rural area and the town of Arlington is a tiny,
<v Speaker 1>unincorporated community, meaning it's not really a town and it's
<v Speaker 1>not really a village. Doesn't really know what it is.
<v Speaker 1>It's just kind of a place that you might want
<v Speaker 1>to raise kids. Though it gives the vibe that nothing
<v Speaker 1>much has ever changed. The nearest big city is miles away,
<v Speaker 1>and as peaceful as this area is, it's also somewhat isolated.
<v Speaker 3>My name is Riandy Meek. I'm a detective with the
<v Speaker 3>Rush County Sheriff's Department and I've been in law enforcement
<v Speaker 3>for nearly nineteen years, and fourteen of those have been
<v Speaker 3>in some form of investigations, whether narcotics investigations or general investigations.
<v Speaker 3>Rush County itself is a small farming community, so we
<v Speaker 3>have a population roughly seventeen thousand people, and it is
<v Speaker 3>one of those communities that everybody knows everybody and we're
<v Speaker 3>we're you know, we're a proud community. We have a
<v Speaker 3>low crime rate. We still escort a lot of the
<v Speaker 3>basketball teams, football team, and things like that. We have
<v Speaker 3>one high school in our community, and our number one
<v Speaker 3>business here is agriculture, so we have a lot of
<v Speaker 3>farmers and we have far more farmland than we have, Poppa,
<v Speaker 3>And like I said, it's a proud community that everybody
<v Speaker 3>knows everybody. When something happens, everybody's willing to help out
<v Speaker 3>and assist.
<v Speaker 1>For seventeen year old Valerie Tyndall, this quiet life was
<v Speaker 1>all she ever knew. She lived in a modest home
<v Speaker 1>with her parents and her siblings. Valerie always showed a
<v Speaker 1>sense of responsibility. She looked out for her family, often
<v Speaker 1>working odd jobs during the summer months, mowing lawns, babysitting,
<v Speaker 1>and running errands for neighbors just to earn a little
<v Speaker 1>extra money. Because she liked contributing and being independent. She
<v Speaker 1>was practical and hard working, traits that her mother admired
<v Speaker 1>and treits that we all should admire to be quite honest,
<v Speaker 1>twenty twenty three was a pivotal year for her. In
<v Speaker 1>the past, she was an underachiever and didn't take school seriously,
<v Speaker 1>but once she decided she wanted to be a veterinarian
<v Speaker 1>at the end of her junior year, it was full
<v Speaker 1>steam ahead, straight a's and b's. Valerie was about to
<v Speaker 1>start her senior year in high school and the future
<v Speaker 1>was heavy on her mind. She dreamed of leaving Rush County,
<v Speaker 1>going to college, and making something of herself. The thought
<v Speaker 1>of staying in this quiet, unchanging place felt suffocating at times,
<v Speaker 1>and she knew she wanted more, but she hadn't quite
<v Speaker 1>figured out how to get it yet. On the morning
<v Speaker 1>of June seventh, things were normal as ever. Valerie had
<v Speaker 1>breakfast with her mom, talking briefly about her plans for
<v Speaker 1>the day, and mentioned heading out to work later. There
<v Speaker 1>was no reason to think that this day would be
<v Speaker 1>any different from any other. Valerie grabbed her keys, climbed
<v Speaker 1>into her green Honda Cord, and drove off. Hours passed
<v Speaker 1>and evening crept in. She noa waited for her daughter
<v Speaker 1>to return, as she always did, expecting to hear the
<v Speaker 1>familiar sound of her Honda pulling up into the driveway.
<v Speaker 1>But that sound never came. That's how easy it is.
<v Speaker 1>That's how quick it happens your life suddenly turned upside down.
<v Speaker 1>Valerie had not come home. At first, it seemed like
<v Speaker 1>a minor inconvenience. Maybe she was just running late, caught
<v Speaker 1>up in some errands, or spending time with friends. But
<v Speaker 1>as night wore on and calls to her phone went unanswered,
<v Speaker 1>Gina's worry grew. By morning, both of Valerie's parents were
<v Speaker 1>in a state of panic. I unfortunately was at work.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I was here.
<v Speaker 4>I was working in the bathroom and then I come
<v Speaker 4>down for a break and she was in her room
<v Speaker 4>and going down a tray to wash the clothes and
<v Speaker 4>come back. And she then said she was going to
<v Speaker 4>go to work for a couple of hours and she'd
<v Speaker 4>be back. She smiled at me right now when she
<v Speaker 4>said it.
<v Speaker 3>If you don't anything about anybody she can be talking to,
<v Speaker 3>where'd she go with, what she might be in?
<v Speaker 4>Anything to let.
<v Speaker 2>Things know so they can investigate it.
<v Speaker 4>Don't wait, don't hesitate. If you think of something, come forward.
<v Speaker 1>Valerie's mom added a personal message for her daughter, saying.
<v Speaker 5>If you ran away, please please come home. There is
<v Speaker 5>nothing we can't work on and fix as a family.
<v Speaker 5>We all miss you so much, from your mom and
<v Speaker 5>dad to your bullies. I have had people all over
<v Speaker 5>Messenger ask if we found you and tell us they
<v Speaker 5>will pray. That is all I can ask of everyone
<v Speaker 5>else to please just pray. Pray for her safer turn,
<v Speaker 5>Pray that she realizes how much God, family and friends
<v Speaker 5>love her. Her best friend is so torn up. She
<v Speaker 5>misses her so much. We all just miss her so much.
<v Speaker 5>Life just isn't the same. Our home is broken.
<v Speaker 1>On June tenth, the silver alert was issued for Valerie.
<v Speaker 6>Rush County Sheriff's Department is asking for your help finding
<v Speaker 6>a missing seventeen year old. This is Valerie Tindall. She
<v Speaker 6>is missing from Arlington, Indiana. She was last seen around
<v Speaker 6>noon on Wednesday. The Sheriff's Department says she is believed
<v Speaker 6>to be in extreme danger. She is five feet six
<v Speaker 6>inches tall, weighs about one hundred and sixty pounds, with
<v Speaker 6>brown hair and hazel eyes. Valerie was last seen driving
<v Speaker 6>a green two thousand Honda Accord with an Indiana license plate.
<v Speaker 6>It's on your screen zyk eight thirty three. Anyone with
<v Speaker 6>information is asked to call the Sheriff's Department at the
<v Speaker 6>number on your screen or just called nine one one.
<v Speaker 1>In a press release, they asked for property owners between
<v Speaker 1>Shelbyville and Arlington with deep creek beds, low level fields, ravines,
<v Speaker 1>and properties off a roadway to help find her vehicle.
<v Speaker 1>They added that the car could be hidden in barns,
<v Speaker 1>other outbuildings, or along lesser traveled roads. She was last
<v Speaker 1>seen wearing a light blue shirt, jean shorts, sandals, and glasses.
<v Speaker 3>On June eighth, the SHARE's department received a call. Deputies
<v Speaker 3>took a report that morning of Valerie being a reported
<v Speaker 3>runaway or missing person. The road guys took the initial
<v Speaker 3>report and she was entered as a runaway missing person
<v Speaker 3>into the computer system at that time.
<v Speaker 1>Since you're a true crime fan, you know about a
<v Speaker 1>lot of these cases where the victim was reported as
<v Speaker 1>a missing person or as a runaway, but turned out
<v Speaker 1>it was something worse, like a kidnapping or a murder.
<v Speaker 1>But in reality, most missing people get that status because
<v Speaker 1>of their own actions or maybe their families. In twenty
<v Speaker 1>twenty three, eighty to eighty five percent of missing children
<v Speaker 1>ran away or were pushed out of the house by parents.
<v Speaker 1>Of the remaining cases, abduction by an acquaintance counted for
<v Speaker 1>three to four percent, and abductions by strangers totaled less
<v Speaker 1>than one percent of cases. It's really rare to just
<v Speaker 1>get kidnapped out of the blue by a stranger, no
<v Speaker 1>matter what lifetime.
<v Speaker 2>Is telling you.
<v Speaker 1>Unfortunately, it's that one percent, though, of cases where acting
<v Speaker 1>fast is most crucial.
<v Speaker 3>So we received the case. It got into the detective's
<v Speaker 3>office on in June eleventh or June twelfth, and the
<v Speaker 3>one of the things we had talked about was we
<v Speaker 3>have seen investigations done in past, and not any specific agency,
<v Speaker 3>but just done in the past that they wished they
<v Speaker 3>would have done things from the get go that they
<v Speaker 3>needed later because circumstances were different than what they maybe
<v Speaker 3>initially thought. And Sean and I had the conversation that
<v Speaker 3>we were not that was not going to happen. We
<v Speaker 3>were we were from the get go going to do
<v Speaker 3>everything we possibly could have and if we don't need
<v Speaker 3>it later, we don't need it, but we're going to
<v Speaker 3>do everything we can to get all the facts at
<v Speaker 3>the beginning, which later created that environment of a whole
<v Speaker 3>bunch of analysis that had to be done that that
<v Speaker 3>took a long time.
<v Speaker 1>In other words, Detective Randy and his partner Sean didn't
<v Speaker 1>just file a missing person's report and wait.
<v Speaker 3>No matter what on this case here, we from the
<v Speaker 3>get go took it seriously and then the necessary steps
<v Speaker 3>in those initial days to give us later evidence that
<v Speaker 3>built the foundation for this case. And it was important
<v Speaker 3>that we did it in those initial days because that evidence.
<v Speaker 3>A lot of it was digital, so we didn't have
<v Speaker 3>we didn't have any witnesses, which is is kind of
<v Speaker 3>unique in this situation, is you don't we didn't. We
<v Speaker 3>didn't have any witnesses in this case. So we ultimately
<v Speaker 3>had to depend so heavily on data from social media,
<v Speaker 3>cell phones and stuff like that to pieces case together,
<v Speaker 3>to lead us in the direction that we needed her
<v Speaker 3>that it led us in. So the initial days of
<v Speaker 3>it being reported, how it was reported didn't change what
<v Speaker 3>we did. We took it from the beginning days we
<v Speaker 3>were whether she ran away or was abducted, we did
<v Speaker 3>the things exactly the same either way.
<v Speaker 1>The last thing Valerie told her parents before she walked
<v Speaker 1>out the door was that she was going to work.
<v Speaker 1>Valerie worked as a landscape laborer for a company owned
<v Speaker 1>by a guy named Patrick Scott. Patrick and Valerie were
<v Speaker 1>friendly and they sometimes hung out together. In addition to
<v Speaker 1>hiring her, he typically hired one or two other seasonal
<v Speaker 1>workers for the summer. His business was successful, and he
<v Speaker 1>usually paid his workers at the end of every day
<v Speaker 1>anywhere between one hundred to two hundred dollars, But Valerie
<v Speaker 1>never showed up to work that Wednesday, after she went missing,
<v Speaker 1>detectives focused on gathering any clues to her last known movements.
<v Speaker 1>They talked to family and friends, and went through her
<v Speaker 1>social media, bank records and phone activity to trace her steps.
<v Speaker 1>Within just a few days, they issued search warrants for
<v Speaker 1>her phone and Snapchat account, hoping to find a lead
<v Speaker 1>without Valerie or her car. Hope was fading, that is
<v Speaker 1>until Valerie's grandfather was questioned and remembered a sighting that
<v Speaker 1>shed new light. He reported seeing a young woman who
<v Speaker 1>looked a lot like Valerie driving a black Nissan eastbound
<v Speaker 1>on US Highway fifty two towards Rushville, just a few
<v Speaker 1>days after she disappeared. An hour later, the same car
<v Speaker 1>passed by again, but this time with a Hispanic mail
<v Speaker 1>behind the wheel and the girl as a passenger. This
<v Speaker 1>report begged the question was Valerie still out there and
<v Speaker 1>had she run away to be with an new boyfriend,
<v Speaker 1>or had she been kidnapped and maybe even pulled into
<v Speaker 1>one of those human traffic rings we keep hearing about
<v Speaker 1>on Lifetime. I got a step picking on Lifetime they
<v Speaker 1>do have some marvelous Christmas specials. It was the start
<v Speaker 1>of summer in twenty twenty three, and Valerie Tyndall of Arlington, Indiana,
<v Speaker 1>had the rest of her life ahead of her, or
<v Speaker 1>so she thought. Seventeen year old Valerie was a hard
<v Speaker 1>worker and had been earning good grades towards her goal
<v Speaker 1>of becoming a veterinarian. She worked for a landscaping company
<v Speaker 1>and was saving money for car and other things. Young
<v Speaker 1>people save up money to buy on their own, whatever
<v Speaker 1>the hell it is they buy, I don't know anyway.
<v Speaker 1>Valerie was a responsible girl and always told her parents
<v Speaker 1>where she was, but when she announced she was going
<v Speaker 1>to work on Wednesday, June seventh, her parents were curious
<v Speaker 1>since she didn't usually work on a Wednesday. The police
<v Speaker 1>scoured her phone records in social media, and after a
<v Speaker 1>few days, also had an idea of where her vehicle
<v Speaker 1>was last seen, but they still hadn't located it or Valerie.
<v Speaker 1>After a few more days passed, her grandfather remembered seeing
<v Speaker 1>a girl who looked like Valerie in a black Nissan
<v Speaker 1>driving up the highway past his house. When it came
<v Speaker 1>back the other way, he thought he saw a young
<v Speaker 1>Hispanic mail in the driver's seat. At the same time,
<v Speaker 1>investigators were following all leads, including information from her cell phone.
<v Speaker 1>Initial placed her phone in Shelbyville, Indiana, around noon on
<v Speaker 1>June seventh, before her phone eventually went dead. After talking
<v Speaker 1>with her parents more, they discovered she had an old
<v Speaker 1>boyfriend in that area. They checked out the location, all
<v Speaker 1>the woods in that area, and footage from nearby cameras.
<v Speaker 1>They called on their Shelbyville police to help locate her car,
<v Speaker 1>but it wasn't found. All the leads so far were
<v Speaker 1>accounting to a dead end. Just like the information about
<v Speaker 1>the black Nissan and Hispanic mail, nothing really panned out.
<v Speaker 1>The case was getting cold. That's when they decided to
<v Speaker 1>retrace their footsteps and go to the last place that
<v Speaker 1>Valerie was supposed to be at her job. Here's her employer,
<v Speaker 1>Patrick Scott Hight, who's.
<v Speaker 7>Been missing sis June seventh, which was a Wednesday of
<v Speaker 7>this right graphic.
<v Speaker 3>Now you know.
<v Speaker 4>Valerie because a couple of different ways here. Once she's your.
<v Speaker 2>Neighbor, right right, she lives.
<v Speaker 7>There kind of like in front of you, yeah, okay,
<v Speaker 7>And she also works for you right in the summer,
<v Speaker 7>help mowgrass and things like that, and right now part
<v Speaker 7>time okay.
<v Speaker 4>And when she does that grass, when she does mowgrass,
<v Speaker 4>for you and works with you?
<v Speaker 5>Is she usually with you?
<v Speaker 4>Did you drive her from job to job?
<v Speaker 2>Yes?
<v Speaker 4>So you guys rollway together.
<v Speaker 7>Yes, okay, So there's never a time where you have
<v Speaker 7>her meets you at a job.
<v Speaker 4>You just once, just once, just once?
<v Speaker 7>How long goes at before June before?
<v Speaker 5>She wrote?
<v Speaker 4>Right away?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, before she left? Yeah? Right after short dash cool
<v Speaker 2>let out all right.
<v Speaker 4>Okay, Wednesday, Wednesday afterne there? Where did you meet up
<v Speaker 4>with her at South High Gardens? South High Gardens and
<v Speaker 4>show though?
<v Speaker 2>Yes? Okay?
<v Speaker 8>And what were you driving at that point?
<v Speaker 9>My truck car both the truck in the car both
<v Speaker 9>had hands out hot right, So the what did you drive.
<v Speaker 4>There that day with your trailer?
<v Speaker 5>Two?
<v Speaker 2>Yes?
<v Speaker 4>Okay? How did the car get there?
<v Speaker 2>I looked at like day before or two days before?
<v Speaker 4>Why did you do that?
<v Speaker 2>Because she was about to take.
<v Speaker 4>Off, So you're gonna give her a car to use?
<v Speaker 2>No? No, I was just gonna give her a ride.
<v Speaker 5>Okay.
<v Speaker 4>So she so she calls you on Tuesday, on Tuesday, No,
<v Speaker 4>she's telling me to come the day before she was
<v Speaker 4>gonna leave.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, so she I didn't think she'd go through with it,
<v Speaker 2>but she did.
<v Speaker 1>Valerie reportedly didn't get along with her father. He didn't
<v Speaker 1>like some of her past boyfriends, allegedly, and recently she'd
<v Speaker 1>been meeting up with boys without telling her dad again allegedly.
<v Speaker 1>But there was someone she regularly confided in. That's how
<v Speaker 1>we know all this information. That person was her employer,
<v Speaker 1>Patrick Scott. It was like her real father, or maybe
<v Speaker 1>a surrogate father, according to him.
<v Speaker 4>So she planned this.
<v Speaker 2>With you, Well, she planned that. I just you went along.
<v Speaker 2>You just went along.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, okay. So her plan or the plan was, was
<v Speaker 4>for you who had to have the tourists there prior
<v Speaker 4>to Wednesday?
<v Speaker 9>Well, she wanted to ride back, but I didn't want.
<v Speaker 2>To drive that truck. I drove the car on what day? Wednesday?
<v Speaker 4>Okay? But you took the car there the night before, right, Yes?
<v Speaker 4>And you did that because you knew that she was
<v Speaker 4>going to need a ride. Yeah, because she had already
<v Speaker 4>told you that she wanted to meet because you on
<v Speaker 4>Wednesday at those.
<v Speaker 7>Apartments, correct, Right, So you already knew prior to Wednesday that.
<v Speaker 4>You were going to go to those apartments and showed
<v Speaker 4>the god Hi Hi, what was it South hide Guards?
<v Speaker 8>South Hide Guards to meet her, right, right, you knew
<v Speaker 8>that prior to Wednesday right here day?
<v Speaker 4>Did she know that too?
<v Speaker 2>Yes?
<v Speaker 4>Okay, so you're ready there moment? Were you there moment
<v Speaker 4>when she showed up home Wednesday? Yes? Okay. So you're
<v Speaker 4>at South Eye Gardens mowing grass. Yes, and she shows
<v Speaker 4>up in her car or bring on the cord right?
<v Speaker 5>Okay?
<v Speaker 2>You met up with her right right?
<v Speaker 4>And what she got in? Four tourists with you right?
<v Speaker 4>And you guys left South Bye Gardens right left her
<v Speaker 4>car there, yes, along with your truck and trailer. Yes, okay.
<v Speaker 4>From there you came back to Rush County? Is that right?
<v Speaker 2>Right?
<v Speaker 5>Okay?
<v Speaker 4>And on your window Rush County? Was she on her phone?
<v Speaker 2>Using her phone? She texts a lot. She don't talk
<v Speaker 2>on in Russia, but she was using in the phone.
<v Speaker 4>Yes, she's she.
<v Speaker 2>Danks all the time.
<v Speaker 4>She really suns it. Yes, okay. And did you know
<v Speaker 4>where you was taking her before that day?
<v Speaker 2>I thought we was going back to Rushfield, but we
<v Speaker 2>stopped at Homers where we went to.
<v Speaker 4>Okay, So she had to stop at Homer, yes, okay.
<v Speaker 4>And what happened at.
<v Speaker 2>Homer She got out of the car, got in with
<v Speaker 2>the other guy.
<v Speaker 4>Okay, what kind of card she get in.
<v Speaker 2>They's just a kind of a pale blue cars all
<v Speaker 2>I am.
<v Speaker 4>That was the last time you seen her?
<v Speaker 2>Well then when I dropped her off, Yes, that is.
<v Speaker 4>Something you talked to her. That was the last time
<v Speaker 4>I talked to her.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, Yes, she got in another car with some dude.
<v Speaker 1>How many times have we heard that one before? Are
<v Speaker 1>your alarms going off yet? I remind you that this man,
<v Speaker 1>Patrick Scott, the owner of the landscaping company and employer
<v Speaker 1>of Valerie the Missing Girl, wants you to believe that
<v Speaker 1>he and Valerie were so close that she told him
<v Speaker 1>about all her boyfriends from the past and present. This
<v Speaker 1>included a recent breakup that Patrick, for some reason, found suspicious.
<v Speaker 2>Give me his name, you give me I probably know
<v Speaker 2>the one boy I know, you know, I just know
<v Speaker 2>the name. She got into truck runs more in the
<v Speaker 2>company Scotland, and she was pissed. I knew she was
<v Speaker 2>when shot in the track because of the way that
<v Speaker 2>she was taking I mean, she she would final, Will.
<v Speaker 5>You take you?
<v Speaker 2>She then said? I asked her, I said, are you mad?
<v Speaker 2>And she was pitched As the boy dumped her, she
<v Speaker 2>talked to a man to take her back, just so
<v Speaker 2>she could dump him. A week later that he showed
<v Speaker 2>up at their house.
<v Speaker 9>I wanted to say Monday before she disappeared and got
<v Speaker 9>a stub and he was pisched.
<v Speaker 4>She told me the next day. And this is a
<v Speaker 4>kid that tries to tell a.
<v Speaker 2>Blue car, right, No, he had an orange car.
<v Speaker 4>So this is a different kid.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, there's five or six of them all the time.
<v Speaker 2>I didn't even know what he looks like. I don't
<v Speaker 2>want none.
<v Speaker 4>Look like you just he was an orange car.
<v Speaker 2>I'm an orange ee ugly thing.
<v Speaker 7>But you talked her off to somebody in a blue car, right, Okay.
<v Speaker 9>There was another boy she was talking to on Tuesday
<v Speaker 9>that was giving her ship because he thought they were
<v Speaker 9>going to have a relationship.
<v Speaker 2>And she said no, but I can't tell you who
<v Speaker 2>the name is.
<v Speaker 4>And then there's the.
<v Speaker 2>Boy in Arlington.
<v Speaker 4>So she discussed this with you by her wanting to leave.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, she's been discussing it for a long time.
<v Speaker 7>And then she discussed it prior to Wednesday, within a
<v Speaker 7>couple of days before Wednesday, about this idea of what
<v Speaker 7>she wanted to do.
<v Speaker 2>I thought she was leading on Saturday nine because she
<v Speaker 2>said she was leading.
<v Speaker 1>On Saturday Meanwhile, about two weeks after her disappearance, Valerie's
<v Speaker 1>Facebook profile suddenly becomes active. Out of nowhere, is she alive?
<v Speaker 1>Valerie's mom, Shea, was contacted by an acquaintance of Valeries,
<v Speaker 1>who had taken it upon herself to start messaging Valerie,
<v Speaker 1>or at least who she thought was Valerie on Facebook.
<v Speaker 1>This friend asked Valerie's account if she could come see
<v Speaker 1>her to make sure she was okay. The account responded,
<v Speaker 1>I'm okay. The friend retorted with I need to hear
<v Speaker 1>your voice to know you're okay, or I can come
<v Speaker 1>check on you. I just need to know where you
<v Speaker 1>are so I can check on you. The response was no,
<v Speaker 1>I'm fine. I was just stressing a little and took off.
<v Speaker 1>I'm okay. The friend then says, send me a voice
<v Speaker 1>message saying you're fine. The account doesn't, but instead responds, bro,
<v Speaker 1>I'm fine, please, I just need time to myself, And
<v Speaker 1>then the account says this, why did you text me
<v Speaker 1>to see if I was with him? I thought you
<v Speaker 1>would have been, says the friend. Why would I be
<v Speaker 1>with him, says the account. We thought anything could have
<v Speaker 1>happened At this point, you have everyone worried sick. There's
<v Speaker 1>an Amber alert out for you and everything. The response
<v Speaker 1>to that was his girlfriend is pregnant. Why would I
<v Speaker 1>be with him and tell them I'm okay. There's a
<v Speaker 1>question mark at the end of that sentence. Also, what
<v Speaker 1>a weird thing to say, right his girlfriend is why
<v Speaker 1>would I be with them? The police were doing the
<v Speaker 1>best they could, but leads seemed to be coming from everywhere.
<v Speaker 3>We were thrown in all kinds of different directions. First, again,
<v Speaker 3>number one thing, where was her car? A car is
<v Speaker 3>easy to find, and we obviously didn't find that for
<v Speaker 3>I believe going off my memory nineteen days. Also, there
<v Speaker 3>was some communication on our social media that was unusual
<v Speaker 3>with one of the people she was talking to had
<v Speaker 3>made reference to the last conversation said I'm sorry that
<v Speaker 3>I heard you. So this obviously was somebody that we
<v Speaker 3>had to vet out and make sure that they didn't
<v Speaker 3>have a part in it.
<v Speaker 4>And so our.
<v Speaker 3>First move was there we went and spoke to that person.
<v Speaker 1>Another lead involved a friend of Valeries who lived in
<v Speaker 1>another state. She'd been in contact with this person too,
<v Speaker 1>and detectives discovered that this person belonged to an organization
<v Speaker 1>that had an important meeting on the day that Valerie
<v Speaker 1>went missing. He ever showed up for that meeting, which
<v Speaker 1>was highly unusual.
<v Speaker 3>For him, and talk to Patrick Scott. Patrick Scott said
<v Speaker 3>she didn't work. He didn't see her on Wednesday. She
<v Speaker 3>didn't work that day, which matched her schedule. She normally
<v Speaker 3>didn't work on Wednesdays. So we had a few things
<v Speaker 3>at the very beginning that did look like there was
<v Speaker 3>possibility that she had decided to run away. Keep in mind,
<v Speaker 3>we're getting we're getting tips, We're getting tips from psychics,
<v Speaker 3>we're getting tips from I mean, we were getting mass
<v Speaker 3>quantities of tips that led us. I mean, I remember
<v Speaker 3>we had a tip in Fort Worth, Texas. We had
<v Speaker 3>a tip at the Chicago Subway that we had to
<v Speaker 3>follow up on. And we have all these tips coming
<v Speaker 3>in at the same time that were following up on
<v Speaker 3>and not counting just the tips in our in our
<v Speaker 3>our county and surrounding counties that weren't that had some
<v Speaker 3>validity to him that we could have been, you know,
<v Speaker 3>that could have been her, the people seeing her or
<v Speaker 3>possibly knowing she's at a location or whatever, and we
<v Speaker 3>had to follow up on those. So we were we
<v Speaker 3>were obviously we were stretched thin and we were going
<v Speaker 3>all over the place on it.
<v Speaker 1>They even received a call from a psychic claiming to
<v Speaker 1>know where Valerie's car was, but they were wrong. Hippies
<v Speaker 1>are always wrong. All of these leads led exactly nowhere,
<v Speaker 1>and the Facebook account was a hoax. All they knew
<v Speaker 1>at this point was that Valerie may not have had
<v Speaker 1>an ideal relationship with her father. Then again, who does
<v Speaker 1>oh you.
<v Speaker 5>Do, Susan?
<v Speaker 1>Oh, that's great, thanks for piping up in the comments.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, they all knew she was seeing more than
<v Speaker 1>one boy. She was, after all seventeen. She said she
<v Speaker 1>was going to work on Wednesday, but didn't work on Wednesdays.
<v Speaker 1>They knew she disappeared without a trace, that she had
<v Speaker 1>talked about running away to her employer, who was also
<v Speaker 1>her friend and surrogate dad, and finally that no one
<v Speaker 1>could find her car until they did. It's hard to
<v Speaker 1>hide a two ton machine, you know.
<v Speaker 3>So we found her car hidden in an apartment complex,
<v Speaker 3>and it was not your typical apartment complex. And this
<v Speaker 3>was June twenty six, I believe is when we found
<v Speaker 3>in her car. So she went missing on the seventh.
<v Speaker 3>We located her car roughly June twenty sixth, and we
<v Speaker 3>found it because we were checking in the area and
<v Speaker 3>we had been doing surveillance on Patrick Scott at that
<v Speaker 3>point and we had seen him drive in that area,
<v Speaker 3>and so we were doing checking that area and we
<v Speaker 3>came across this apartment complex in Shelbyville that was remote
<v Speaker 3>hidden in this housing addition. You wouldn't expect there to
<v Speaker 3>be an apartment complex in this area, and it's like
<v Speaker 3>a little alley that leads to it. And when a
<v Speaker 3>couple of our detectives went back there, they discovered Valerie's
<v Speaker 3>car backed in with a whole bunch of cars getting
<v Speaker 3>worked on or cars that were broke down. It was
<v Speaker 3>back in there with a license plate off, and were
<v Speaker 3>we were able to determine that that was Valerie's car.
<v Speaker 3>At that time, it was still possible that Valerie had
<v Speaker 3>and away based on the information we were getting, so we
<v Speaker 3>decided to leave the car at the time and not
<v Speaker 3>tow it out of there, and we also kept it.
<v Speaker 3>We also did not reveal for roughly two weeks that
<v Speaker 3>we had the car at that point, just as an
<v Speaker 3>investigative strategy to be able to want eliminate tips, and
<v Speaker 3>then if the car moved, we would have known it.
<v Speaker 9>She never really killed lately. She never talked to me
<v Speaker 9>about boys. We talked about everything else in the world.
<v Speaker 2>But boys.
<v Speaker 7>So you're telling me that you haven't seen her, talk
<v Speaker 7>to her or know anything about hersus JUICEA.
<v Speaker 4>You just went back on Thursday and food your car, right,
<v Speaker 4>she asked you do right? Why specifically you wanted.
<v Speaker 2>Me to move it somewhere else so that way it
<v Speaker 2>would be after seeing.
<v Speaker 4>It was sitting right out on white open.
<v Speaker 8>Did she tell you to move it to Burway, Yes,
<v Speaker 8>so she specifically said moved.
<v Speaker 2>To Burber You had see there was a definitely living
<v Speaker 2>out there. So I don't know why she would want.
<v Speaker 4>And you haven't seen her out and out with your
<v Speaker 4>mown grass or we know you've been over there. She's
<v Speaker 4>been missing because it sounds of the grass.
<v Speaker 2>Is rely rights. I've been over twice and.
<v Speaker 7>You never seen her.
<v Speaker 1>Before they found her car, they were using cell phone
<v Speaker 1>pings and messages to figure out where she was and
<v Speaker 1>where she was headed. Then they used traffic cameras to
<v Speaker 1>look at that car. In other words, they knew her
<v Speaker 1>phone was at a certain location at a certain time
<v Speaker 1>based on the ping, and they were trying to match
<v Speaker 1>that with the car on the surveillance camera at the
<v Speaker 1>exact time to figure out what kind of car it
<v Speaker 1>would be that she might be in, see how that works.
<v Speaker 1>They were surprised at what they found.
<v Speaker 3>So that's when we went to the next thing of
<v Speaker 3>all right, so we've got her coming through here at
<v Speaker 3>this time, So then we start using surveillance cameras well. Again,
<v Speaker 3>this is a farming community. There's not a ton of
<v Speaker 3>businesses along there, but we were able to find some
<v Speaker 3>business in traffic cameras and utilize them to our advantage.
<v Speaker 3>And we don't see her car coming through at that time,
<v Speaker 3>so she goes to show well, she comes back, but
<v Speaker 3>we're not seeing her car on cameras, so that doesn't
<v Speaker 3>make sense. So what we did was we were able
<v Speaker 3>to narrow the time down to that this is the
<v Speaker 3>time within you know, a minute, that she should be
<v Speaker 3>crossing this camera, what car is crossing that camera at
<v Speaker 3>that time, because she is more likely in that car.
<v Speaker 3>And what we got was we got a maroon Ford
<v Speaker 3>Taurus at that time. And so we went back to
<v Speaker 3>her last photo that she had sent, which was a
<v Speaker 3>picture that showed an over the shoulder shot, and that
<v Speaker 3>picture showed a street sign in Chobyville, and we could
<v Speaker 3>see a tan interior, and we could see her fingernails,
<v Speaker 3>and we could see the corner of her shirt was
<v Speaker 3>with the color of VIP And using that surveillance camera,
<v Speaker 3>we were able to say, there's definitely it looks like
<v Speaker 3>a female in the pasture's seat. We were able to
<v Speaker 3>determine that the terior car looks tan and all that. Well,
<v Speaker 3>what we found was that Patrick Scott had a gas
<v Speaker 3>saving car so he didn't have to drive his drug
<v Speaker 3>all the time. He had a little Maroon four Tours
<v Speaker 3>that he would operate and so we then that was
<v Speaker 3>when we first came into realization that Patrick Scott had
<v Speaker 3>driven her back that day to Rush County.
<v Speaker 1>But why were Valerie and her boss aka Superdad even
<v Speaker 1>together on a day that Valerie wasn't supposed to be working. Well,
<v Speaker 1>that's a story within a story. You like stories, right,
<v Speaker 1>Patrick had taken such a fatherly interest in Valerie that
<v Speaker 1>he was using a locator or tracker if you will,
<v Speaker 1>on Valerie's phone. That's normal. There are a few different
<v Speaker 1>versions of these Microsoft three sixty five places that allows
<v Speaker 1>users to share their work location and even schedule GPS
<v Speaker 1>three sixty five to locate vehicles, routes, speeds, and operation
<v Speaker 1>time life three sixty, which is mostly for families with
<v Speaker 1>lots of kids you want to keep track of all
<v Speaker 1>your kids. And there's another one called family through sixty.
<v Speaker 1>They're all pretty similar, They all pretty much do the
<v Speaker 1>same thing. In fact, their names are almost identical. With
<v Speaker 1>the three sixty three sixty five thing going, you know,
<v Speaker 1>it would seem reasonable. I guess that the two might
<v Speaker 1>share one of these apps since he was working for her,
<v Speaker 1>Maybe he was tracking her for work purpose. I don't
<v Speaker 1>really I don't really know. But she didn't seem to
<v Speaker 1>mind her real dad though. Did. Patrick had been calling
<v Speaker 1>Valerie's dad and getting kind of pissed at him when
<v Speaker 1>Valerie wasn't where she said she was going to be.
<v Speaker 1>You know, like, what kind of parent are you if
<v Speaker 1>you don't even know where your daughter is? That kind
<v Speaker 1>of thing. Why would an employer care about how good
<v Speaker 1>the parents of their employees are? Just a little weird,
<v Speaker 1>you know, it's quite the overstepping of bounds. To add
<v Speaker 1>to this, buses are surrogate family dynamic. Patrick's own wife
<v Speaker 1>was jealous of the attention and money that he was
<v Speaker 1>giving to Valerie. Whether she thought it was a sexual
<v Speaker 1>thing or just a fatherly concern over a young neighbor
<v Speaker 1>and employee, who knows. But she knew something was up,
<v Speaker 1>that's for sure. Women always know. Let's just say she
<v Speaker 1>didn't like it one bit, and she didn't like Valerie either.
<v Speaker 1>But Patrick continued playing this role, and the reason they
<v Speaker 1>were together on that day was that he was going
<v Speaker 1>to go buy her a car. Her employer was going
<v Speaker 1>to go buy her a car. Messages between Valerie and
<v Speaker 1>Patrick sent to each other just days before she went
<v Speaker 1>missing confirm a friendly exchange about looking for one. Here's
<v Speaker 1>Patrick's version of events.
<v Speaker 2>When her car wrote down, I had told her if
<v Speaker 2>he could, if Dad couldn't get it running, I would
<v Speaker 2>help her get another.
<v Speaker 9>Car, but a g car, something that she could make
<v Speaker 9>work and make payments on. You know, I got three
<v Speaker 9>down dollar that wasn't sitting her. She wanted a new car,
<v Speaker 9>brand new car.
<v Speaker 5>She wasn't.
<v Speaker 2>Putting up with those three talent dollar car.
<v Speaker 1>It seemed clear that Patrick was meeting up with the
<v Speaker 1>Valerie on that Wednesday afternoon to look at a specific
<v Speaker 1>car that she may have liked, maybe even to help
<v Speaker 1>her run away, since she'd verbalized that to Patrick and others.
<v Speaker 1>It also seemed like the deal didn't go down that well,
<v Speaker 1>since the vehicle was sold to someone else before she
<v Speaker 1>could test drive it.
<v Speaker 4>You're kind of like a father figure to her. Probably
<v Speaker 4>she find those up to you a little bit. Maybe
<v Speaker 4>I don't know, Maybe she does. You shine out of her. Okay.
<v Speaker 1>That's so.
<v Speaker 4>The best way can help her right now is if
<v Speaker 4>you know where's at?
<v Speaker 7>Is a town?
<v Speaker 2>Where's at?
<v Speaker 5>I do not know.
<v Speaker 4>I swear to about any idea at all.
<v Speaker 2>No, I batted you with Tollinoian I really did. I
<v Speaker 2>thought you should off that Wood, Illinois.
<v Speaker 1>By this time, the investigation had been ongoing for weeks.
<v Speaker 1>Aside from the idea that Valerie was planning to run
<v Speaker 1>away or not, detectives had enough data to place Patrick
<v Speaker 1>as the last person to see Valerie alive. He claimed
<v Speaker 1>he was helping her by employing her, being her confidante,
<v Speaker 1>looking for a used car for her, and by helping
<v Speaker 1>her disappear, but detectives had latched onto the distinct possibility
<v Speaker 1>that she really had disappeared forever.
<v Speaker 4>Patrick, over the last five months, you and I have
<v Speaker 4>got to know each other, correct good, Craig, you see
<v Speaker 4>me a lot right again?
<v Speaker 1>Okay?
<v Speaker 2>And every time every time we saw is.
<v Speaker 5>We along?
<v Speaker 4>Good?
<v Speaker 3>Right?
<v Speaker 2>I reckon.
<v Speaker 1>Although Patrick didn't have a criminal history, it sounds like
<v Speaker 1>he listened to a lot of true crime podcasts because
<v Speaker 1>judging by the tone of his voice, he knew what
<v Speaker 1>was coming. Don't think that just because he's from rural
<v Speaker 1>Indiana that he's some kind of dummy. I know that
<v Speaker 1>accent really gets under some people's skin and they love
<v Speaker 1>to lash out, call people stupid and all that political divisiveness,
<v Speaker 1>you know. But this guy was a business owner. He
<v Speaker 1>was able to keep investigators guessing for months, so at
<v Speaker 1>this point he knew the jig was almost tough.
<v Speaker 7>Now, I normally don't do this, okay, but here's why
<v Speaker 7>I'm going to do this, Because here's why.
<v Speaker 4>Here's why. You know, I can play it all like
<v Speaker 4>eighty million things right here.
<v Speaker 7>As you come and sit in this room, your mind
<v Speaker 7>plays tricks on you as an officer, all right, and
<v Speaker 7>it tells you to go all these different directions and
<v Speaker 7>trial this different stuff. But the fact of the matter
<v Speaker 7>is is that I think you're overall probably a pretty
<v Speaker 7>good person. Okay, If I didn't, I would have treated
<v Speaker 7>you probably different over the.
<v Speaker 2>Time, all right.
<v Speaker 4>So the day as we drove in here just for
<v Speaker 4>forty minutes and we just drove in together, in my head,
<v Speaker 4>I'm like, how am I going to talk to Patrick?
<v Speaker 4>And you know what I decided when I walked to
<v Speaker 4>the door.
<v Speaker 7>And then there's times like you sitting this interview room,
<v Speaker 7>and maybe that didn't happen in the past, all right,
<v Speaker 7>But the fact of the matter is that the natural
<v Speaker 7>human thing is when you do something wrong, is you
<v Speaker 7>want to tell.
<v Speaker 4>Us that you did something wrong.
<v Speaker 3>Okay. The other thing is is that.
<v Speaker 4>There's family involved, there's mistakes that's been made.
<v Speaker 3>Okay.
<v Speaker 4>I would like to talk to you today, and I
<v Speaker 4>would like you to tell me what happened to Valerie.
<v Speaker 4>That's the end result of what I want to know, okay.
<v Speaker 4>But here's what's weird about today.
<v Speaker 8>I'm gonna tell you about everything I know, okay, because
<v Speaker 8>here's the deal. In the end, I believe you've done
<v Speaker 8>something to Valerie. I believe you've done something to Valerie, and.
<v Speaker 4>We're going to prove it, all right.
<v Speaker 7>But what I want to know is the why, And
<v Speaker 7>what you want to tell me is I'm sitting here
<v Speaker 7>watching you tear up right now, you want to tell
<v Speaker 7>me the why?
<v Speaker 4>Okay, So does that make sense?
<v Speaker 5>Oh?
<v Speaker 2>Yes, I'm not trying to be insured to you.
<v Speaker 4>Okay, that's what I'm trying to say. I'm trying to
<v Speaker 4>be a person to you that you understand I set
<v Speaker 4>from I set across a lot of people, Okay, in the.
<v Speaker 7>Day one I set across or the times I've set
<v Speaker 7>across from you, you remind me of a common man
<v Speaker 7>that goes to work, that works his butt off.
<v Speaker 4>It is a family man loves his family. That's what
<v Speaker 4>I get from you, Okay. And I may be completely wrong,
<v Speaker 4>but that's what I got from you in the five
<v Speaker 4>months that I had known you.
<v Speaker 3>Okay.
<v Speaker 1>Patrick was for sure a family man. He was in
<v Speaker 1>charge of his own family, and he thought he was
<v Speaker 1>in charge of the neighbors family too. But the detective
<v Speaker 1>was about to uncover this family man's secrets.
<v Speaker 3>And and one of the times when talking to Patrick,
<v Speaker 3>Patrick Scott made a comment that everybody's saying that he
<v Speaker 3>put her in the pond, or that she's in the
<v Speaker 3>ponds up to that form, and that we're going that
<v Speaker 3>the police are going to drain the pond, He tells
<v Speaker 3>us us, Well, we the pond had never came up,
<v Speaker 3>and so when we when the investigators walked away that day,
<v Speaker 3>we said, did Patrick just tell us where she's at.
<v Speaker 1>They had already pulled search warrants for his property based
<v Speaker 1>on the revelation that he had her car on his
<v Speaker 1>property the day she disappeared. Patrick had several properties, including
<v Speaker 1>one next to his house and another separated by a
<v Speaker 1>neighbor's hayfield. In the middle of that hayfield was a pond.
<v Speaker 1>The owner of the property was one hundred percent cooperative,
<v Speaker 1>so detectives sent out four cadaver dogs, one at a
<v Speaker 1>time and independent from each other, to see if they
<v Speaker 1>could sniff out anything. Each dog caught the scent of
<v Speaker 1>something on the north side of the pond, so next
<v Speaker 1>divers checked out the fairly shallow pond but found nothing.
<v Speaker 1>They called on a topographist, who theorized that the water
<v Speaker 1>runoff from Patrick's property into the pond could possibly place
<v Speaker 1>the scent there. Feeling like they were literally looking for
<v Speaker 1>a needle in a haystack, they took aerial photos. What
<v Speaker 1>they found on Patrick's property were areas of debris that
<v Speaker 1>could be hiding something and also areas of disturbed ground.
<v Speaker 1>Finally they hit something.
<v Speaker 3>So we hit the first box fairly early as we're digging,
<v Speaker 3>and what we noticed was this box had osme plywood
<v Speaker 3>on it, and which is what we had seen at
<v Speaker 3>the hardware store purchased. And we said, you know, it's
<v Speaker 3>that moment where it's okay, you know we're going to
<v Speaker 3>have some closure, and it's not good. It's not what
<v Speaker 3>we wanted, but there is. You know, your mind tells
<v Speaker 3>you what it's probably going to be in that box.
<v Speaker 3>So we start the slow, tedious process of hand digging
<v Speaker 3>this box out. And this box is the size of
<v Speaker 3>a skinnier version of a coffin, you know, roughly five
<v Speaker 3>to six feet long, twenty some inches tall. So it's
<v Speaker 3>as soon as you pulled out and you see it,
<v Speaker 3>you pretty well have an idea of what's going to
<v Speaker 3>be in it. We start taking the box apart, and
<v Speaker 3>as soon as we start taking apart, we see VHS
<v Speaker 3>tapes and just trash.
<v Speaker 1>Now, detectives were worried that this was a false alarm.
<v Speaker 1>They had seen Patrick go to a hardware store a
<v Speaker 1>day after Valerie's disappearance and purchased the very materials used
<v Speaker 1>on this box, but this wasn't the box. Patrick was
<v Speaker 1>an extremely routine oriented kind of guy, but they noticed
<v Speaker 1>that he strayed from his usual schedule and headed to
<v Speaker 1>a remote cemetery that very day. Now they would need
<v Speaker 1>permission to excavate the cemetery. They sent deputies to have
<v Speaker 1>a conversation with the presiding priest, but at the same time,
<v Speaker 1>the excavator on Patrick's property wasn't giving up.
<v Speaker 3>The guy running the excavator is a local guy here
<v Speaker 3>and again I revert back to proud community. Anybody bend
<v Speaker 3>over backwards to help us. And he owns a local
<v Speaker 3>record business. His name is Bruce Davis, and he is
<v Speaker 3>one of the greatest people in every community should have
<v Speaker 3>a Bruce Davis. And he was running the excavator for
<v Speaker 3>us that day. And so Bruce says to us, Hey,
<v Speaker 3>this ground has been disturbed. This ground is My excavator
<v Speaker 3>is not bogging down. I am going to I this
<v Speaker 3>has been somebody has excavated here before. My excavators have
<v Speaker 3>no issue moving this dirt. So we decide, hey, keep digging,
<v Speaker 3>keep digging until you tell us you've hit dirt.
<v Speaker 1>That hasn't been moved, and that's what he did. He
<v Speaker 1>kept digging, just knowing in his gut that he was
<v Speaker 1>going to find Valerie. The excavator was practically fully extended,
<v Speaker 1>meaning he wouldn't be able to dig one more inch,
<v Speaker 1>But in that last attempt, he snagged the teeth of
<v Speaker 1>the bucket on another wooden box.
<v Speaker 3>You can start smelling the decomposition. Then it's a smell
<v Speaker 3>anybody's ever smelled it. It's a smell that will never
<v Speaker 3>exit their brain, and you could start smelling it.
<v Speaker 1>When they pulled the box out, they realized it required
<v Speaker 1>a special drill bit to open it. Guess where they
<v Speaker 1>found it? In a nearby shed belonging to Patrick. They
<v Speaker 1>opened the box, and even though they weren't able to
<v Speaker 1>identify Valerie's body, they recognized the orange fingernail polish she
<v Speaker 1>was wearing in the last photo of her, the snapchat
<v Speaker 1>photo of her in Patrick's carn't use you.
<v Speaker 7>Drove Valerie, alt went back to your residence, okay, And
<v Speaker 7>you arrived at your residence at twelve fifty nine PM, okay.
<v Speaker 7>And then between twelve fifty nine and roughly four o'clock
<v Speaker 7>something happened, and our.
<v Speaker 4>Job was to fill the gap and to try to figure.
<v Speaker 2>Out what happened.
<v Speaker 4>As an investigation unfolded.
<v Speaker 7>That led us to a day in which we found
<v Speaker 7>the box with Valerie's body in it behind your shed.
<v Speaker 5>Okay.
<v Speaker 7>Now, I couldn't come in here and say, pasture gino,
<v Speaker 7>what I'm about to talk to you, because that's a
<v Speaker 7>common thing.
<v Speaker 4>And that was the first thought in my head that
<v Speaker 4>I was gonna do to you.
<v Speaker 7>And then I said no, because I did indeed down
<v Speaker 7>you love Valerie and I know you love your family. Okay,
<v Speaker 7>so I decided that when I come in that door
<v Speaker 7>just now, I'm gonna give you an opportunity to explain
<v Speaker 7>the why.
<v Speaker 4>Okay, because we have her in the box.
<v Speaker 1>You would think that Patrick Scott would be shitting his
<v Speaker 1>pants right about now, but not once did he act
<v Speaker 1>like he was nervous. This man has nerves of steel.
<v Speaker 1>Detectives had finally found Valerie in a homemade wooden box
<v Speaker 1>crafted by Patrick himself. This discovery did not come easily,
<v Speaker 1>though Patrick owned several properties next to his house, and
<v Speaker 1>he also mowed dozens of large areas of ground, including
<v Speaker 1>a remote cemetery where his phone pinged the afternoon. Valerie disappeared,
<v Speaker 1>but it was something Patrick mistakenly said in a previous
<v Speaker 1>interview that eventually led them to her body. The only
<v Speaker 1>question that was left unanswered was why why would a
<v Speaker 1>seemingly normal father, grandfather, business owner, neighbor and friend take
<v Speaker 1>the life of someone he supposedly cared about. Police had
<v Speaker 1>a final task ahead in rural Indiana, a search for
<v Speaker 1>a missing teen Valerie Tyndall, had stretched on for months,
<v Speaker 1>filled with dead ends and false leads. After Valerie disappeared
<v Speaker 1>on June seventh, twenty twenty three, the initial investigation focused
<v Speaker 1>on tracking her last known movements, including her trip to
<v Speaker 1>a nearby town, where her car was eventually discovered at
<v Speaker 1>aartment complex. Detectives worked tirelessly, following up on phone pings,
<v Speaker 1>surveillance footage, and interviews with those closest to her. Patrick Scott,
<v Speaker 1>her employer, was questioned early on, but insisted that he
<v Speaker 1>dropped Valerie off in Homer that day, a detail that
<v Speaker 1>initially seemed believable, But as the investigation progressed, new pieces
<v Speaker 1>of evidence started coming out, text messages, surveillance data, and
<v Speaker 1>discrepancies in Patrick Scott's account. The breakthrough came in late
<v Speaker 1>November when detectives, aided by FBI agents, uncovered a disturbing
<v Speaker 1>scene on Scott's property. During excavation, a wooden box was
<v Speaker 1>unearthed containing human remains. Investigators had feared the worst, and
<v Speaker 1>this gruesome discovery confirmed their suspicions. Valerie had been murdered,
<v Speaker 1>and now it was up to detective Randy Meek to
<v Speaker 1>excavate the remaining information from killer Patrick Scott.
<v Speaker 4>What happened to Valerie?
<v Speaker 2>Got carried away? Want do what.
<v Speaker 5>Lay out to it?
<v Speaker 2>Laid out to me? What happens her? She tried to
<v Speaker 2>buy me, o me into buying in her car?
<v Speaker 7>Good?
<v Speaker 4>What happened?
<v Speaker 2>She thought she was going to sedition and it wasn't
<v Speaker 2>going to happen.
<v Speaker 1>Don't forget this is a minor compared to a seasoned
<v Speaker 1>grown man, Dan.
<v Speaker 2>She just got carried away.
<v Speaker 4>It's gonna explain act to me. What's that meaning? Does
<v Speaker 4>Linda know about it? Okay, nobody knows? Yours still WI.
<v Speaker 2>She tried to sedition and I wasn't gonna happen.
<v Speaker 4>But what happened to Valerie? That's where you're saw?
<v Speaker 2>What I mean?
<v Speaker 4>What did you do to her?
<v Speaker 2>What did I do to what you do? So tell
<v Speaker 2>us what you do is strangled her.
<v Speaker 1>A cold blooded sociopath who claimed to devote himself to work,
<v Speaker 1>his family and friends, including Valerie, lied for weeks in
<v Speaker 1>two months, while knowing the whole time that she lay
<v Speaker 1>in a cold box underground, just yards away from the
<v Speaker 1>comfort of her bed and her home and the love
<v Speaker 1>of her family. And why because he wasn't having it.
<v Speaker 1>He wasn't having his wife, who was already suspicious, discover
<v Speaker 1>how carried away things had gotten with this girl. Even
<v Speaker 1>if his claims were true, Valerie was a child of seventeen. Besides,
<v Speaker 1>there was not one shred of evidence that she intended
<v Speaker 1>to blackmail him. That was all bullshit, a bell, Okay,
<v Speaker 1>Then what to do with it?
<v Speaker 2>I moved her into the office?
<v Speaker 4>Okay? How long was she learned?
<v Speaker 2>Till next day?
<v Speaker 4>Where's the belt? It's okay? You left her in the
<v Speaker 4>office till next day? And then what happened?
<v Speaker 5>Then?
<v Speaker 2>When I got home the next day, I just made
<v Speaker 2>that box.
<v Speaker 3>Okay?
<v Speaker 4>What about the hole?
<v Speaker 2>The holes already done. But he wasn't for that. It
<v Speaker 2>was because I was telling comm about to concrete in it.
<v Speaker 4>What about the other box?
<v Speaker 2>Just put shit in it?
<v Speaker 4>We did did you build to that day? No, it
<v Speaker 4>was just about one. So you strangle her? What room
<v Speaker 4>were you when you strangle her?
<v Speaker 2>Backed here by my bedroom, like in that little pintryway.
<v Speaker 4>Had you and Valor been in a sexual relationship ever? Okay?
<v Speaker 4>So you said she tried to seduce you for the car,
<v Speaker 4>We'll explain to me what happened.
<v Speaker 2>She was fun to come on to me.
<v Speaker 4>Did she say she was going to get you in
<v Speaker 4>trouble or yeah, she.
<v Speaker 2>Was going to tell everybody that I was making moves
<v Speaker 2>on her. I wasn't going I was go have.
<v Speaker 3>It, okay.
<v Speaker 2>It's just things got out of hand.
<v Speaker 4>Where did the bell come from?
<v Speaker 5>It was mine?
<v Speaker 2>I had it on, you got it on? Okay.
<v Speaker 4>So explained to me what happened there in that room,
<v Speaker 4>Like how did you get the belt on her?
<v Speaker 2>I was fighting her off, and I took it and
<v Speaker 2>threw it around her.
<v Speaker 4>Why were you guys fighting because she was.
<v Speaker 2>Trying to get she tried to take her clothes off, okay,
<v Speaker 2>And it wasn't gonna do it, okay.
<v Speaker 4>And then you guys got in a fight.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I kind of a pushing a shoving thing right there, okay.
<v Speaker 4>And then you said your belt off, and then what happened?
<v Speaker 2>I put it around her neck and I held on
<v Speaker 2>to it till she quit.
<v Speaker 4>Okay, and what did you do afterwards?
<v Speaker 5>Like?
<v Speaker 4>What did you? What was going through your head at
<v Speaker 4>that time?
<v Speaker 2>I didn't know what to do with her.
<v Speaker 1>Well, here's an idea. Since they were supposedly engaged into
<v Speaker 1>a pushing match, you could have pushed her towards the
<v Speaker 1>door and sent her across the street back home instead
<v Speaker 1>of maybe, I don't know, ending her life.
<v Speaker 4>Was she struggling when you were stroking r when you
<v Speaker 4>were strained on her?
<v Speaker 7>Yeah?
<v Speaker 4>Okay, what were you saying, sir?
<v Speaker 2>They say nothing and lived on Blackmaily?
<v Speaker 4>Yeah? So because of the blackmail?
<v Speaker 5>Did you?
<v Speaker 4>Was that your intention to kill her? To avoid the BLACKMAILINGNA.
<v Speaker 2>Tell everybody that I had my way with her and
<v Speaker 2>that never happened.
<v Speaker 4>Okay, you see you you seem like a good guy.
<v Speaker 4>Explain to me how you have functioned like you have.
<v Speaker 4>Did you hate Valerie?
<v Speaker 5>Yeah?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, you just heard a real sociopath's response, A real
<v Speaker 1>life monster disguised as a human. There's lots of them.
<v Speaker 1>When asked if he hated Valerie, his answer was so nonchalant,
<v Speaker 1>that it's terrifying, so indifferent that it's like he's talking
<v Speaker 1>about a TV show. The hallmark of sociopathy is not
<v Speaker 1>rage or hatred, but a disturbing emotional vacancy, a disconnection
<v Speaker 1>to empathy. Sociopaths commit acts of violence or betrayal without
<v Speaker 1>feeling the gravity of their actions whatsoever. It's like life's
<v Speaker 1>a board game and you're playing it, but the instructions
<v Speaker 1>are in Chinese and you don't really care. You're just
<v Speaker 1>gonna do whatever you're gonna do, regardless of the rules.
<v Speaker 1>In fact, there's nothing behind the rules other than just
<v Speaker 1>a bunch of gibberish.
<v Speaker 5>To you.
<v Speaker 1>Scott's flat no wasn't just a dismissal of the question.
<v Speaker 1>It was a glimpse into his inability to connect with
<v Speaker 1>what he had done to him. The act of murder
<v Speaker 1>wasn't fueled by passion or hatred. It was simply another
<v Speaker 1>moment in time, another problem to be solved, another task
<v Speaker 1>to complete.
<v Speaker 2>So we did all kinds of stuff.
<v Speaker 4>I see clothes as well. I'm asking you know.
<v Speaker 9>We took she'd go out to eat with us, her
<v Speaker 9>and her little sister Boba go It's at different places.
<v Speaker 2>They took her to the movies. They've taken her shopping.
<v Speaker 7>You see a good guy like I don't understand, Like
<v Speaker 7>that's got to bother you ride that you killed the vallerye.
<v Speaker 2>I looked crazy about it.
<v Speaker 1>Wasn't too crazy about it. Taking a child's life.
<v Speaker 3>That is, it was obviously not the outcome we we wanted,
<v Speaker 3>not the outcome the family wanted or anybody in our
<v Speaker 3>community wanted. But we at least had everybody working together
<v Speaker 3>collectively doing our job, and we never lost focus.
<v Speaker 4>I mean we worked hours. I mean, it's our lives.
<v Speaker 3>Ultimately, all the investigators' lives we stopped, you know, in
<v Speaker 3>June that year, and all way up till November twenty eighth,
<v Speaker 3>our lives stopped.
<v Speaker 5>You know.
<v Speaker 3>We all had families at home, and we dedicated ourselves
<v Speaker 3>to this. We worked terrible hours to try to find her.
<v Speaker 3>We had notebooks, We had guys. Some of the guys
<v Speaker 3>had notebooks beside their ben I know, I sent emails
<v Speaker 3>at like two three in the morning. I think of
<v Speaker 3>something when I'm trying to go to sleep, and we
<v Speaker 3>send emails. But we lived this for you know, those
<v Speaker 3>five months, and we did it together, and we never
<v Speaker 3>you know, we never stopped on it. It was it
<v Speaker 3>was Valerie became our kid.
<v Speaker 1>The detective didn't say all that for sympathy. He said
<v Speaker 1>it to remind us about the concept of community and
<v Speaker 1>working together to flush out evil even when we can't
<v Speaker 1>see it. Being a homicide detective must sometimes feel like
<v Speaker 1>being a shadow chaser and priest at the same time.
<v Speaker 1>Every lead feels like looking at something evil moving just
<v Speaker 1>out of sight, looking on the edges of reality. The
<v Speaker 1>average Joe or Joan never truly delves into the fact
<v Speaker 1>that evil is all around us every single day.
<v Speaker 3>And I think sometimes people wonder, like, how did the
<v Speaker 3>parents not see this? How did the parents not understand that? Well,
<v Speaker 3>the thing is is, the parents didn't know any of
<v Speaker 3>this stuff. This is a guy who ran a successful business.
<v Speaker 3>He was a neighbor. We live in an area that
<v Speaker 3>a lot of people go and mow for people, a
<v Speaker 3>lot of people, there's a lot of mowing services, and
<v Speaker 3>people go and mo for them, and that you trust
<v Speaker 3>them to take care of your kids. And here's a
<v Speaker 3>neighbor that they were friends with, Their families were friends,
<v Speaker 3>and they trusted this guy. And so obviously the parents
<v Speaker 3>didn't know all this stuff at the time, and so
<v Speaker 3>I think sometimes we forget that that information isn't given
<v Speaker 3>to you like that, it's trickled in. And so the
<v Speaker 3>family trusted this guy, just like a lot of us
<v Speaker 3>would trust our neighbors, and just like a lot of
<v Speaker 3>us trust our kids to go off and work for someone.
<v Speaker 3>And unfortunately, in this situation here, Patrick Scott was a
<v Speaker 3>monster and he was in disguise.
<v Speaker 1>Fifty nine year old Patrick Scott pled guilty and was
<v Speaker 1>sentenced to basically a whole other lifetime fifty seven years
<v Speaker 1>in prison for the murder of seventeen year old Valerie Tyndall.
<v Speaker 1>Believe it or not, we are all constantly chasing flickers
<v Speaker 1>of movement just outside of our field of vision. The
<v Speaker 1>real monsters, the people capable of these acts, aren't lurking
<v Speaker 1>off in some shed somewhere in the woods. They're right
<v Speaker 1>in the corners of your world, hiding in plain sight.
<v Speaker 1>That's the worst part about it. They don't wear the
<v Speaker 1>darkness on their sleeve. They move among us. They're your gardener,
<v Speaker 1>your door dasher, your grocery store clerk, your gas station attendant.
<v Speaker 1>They cook your meals, haul out your trash, They connect
<v Speaker 1>your calls, they drive your ambulances, they guard you while
<v Speaker 1>you sleep. Well, that's gonna do it for another one.
<v Speaker 1>We'll be here next week if you want to join us,
<v Speaker 1>unless you're a socialist, of course, in which case you
<v Speaker 1>can just fuck off. We don't need you here whining.
<v Speaker 1>That's all you know how to do anyway, all right, patriots.
<v Speaker 1>So oh, if you don't like America and want communism,
<v Speaker 1>get the fuck out.