tristar

Summary: On March 9th, 2000, Leah Roberts left her home in Raleigh, North Carolina. A note to her sister suggested she was going on a free-spirited road trip. But three days later, her credit card would be used for the final time in Brooks, OR (about an hour south of Portland) and then her Jeep Cherokee would be found on March 18th, in Northwestern Washington, badly damaged, but with no evidence that Leah or her cat were in the vehicle at the time of the crash, in fact, not evidence anyone was inside at the time of the crash. Later evidence would reveal that Leah drove I40 to Los Angeles, then I5 to Bellingham, a strange route considering her destination, and possibly rigged her car to crash on its own.

Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Leah_Roberts

Unsolved Writeup: https://unsolved.com/gallery/leah-roberts/

Overview of the Route:

Bank card evidence shows that Leah took I40 from Raleigh, North Carolina, to its terminus near Los Angeles, California. While her exact route isn't known, we know that she then took I5 to Brooks Oregon, which would be the last time her cards would be used. It is assumed she took I5 to Bellingham, as on March 13th, she purchased an afternoon movie ticket there and was seen having lunch by two men. This is a trip of ~3,800 miles, which was completed in less than 4 days.

Timeline:

March 9th, 2000: Leah leaves Raleigh in the early afternoon. She purchases a motel room in Memphis Tennessee. She covered about 750 miles the first day.

Midnight March 12th/March 13th, 2000: Leah's bank card is used a final time in Brooks, OR. Security camera footage shows her seemingly healthy, albeit watching something or someone in the parking lot.

March 13th, 2000: according to a ticket found in her vehicle, Leah saw a matinee showing of American Beauty, and according to eye witnesses, she ate a meal in Bellingham WA.

March 18th, 2000: Leah's vehicle is found in Canyon Creek, Washington. There is a semi-credible claim that Leah was seen in a disoriented state at a gas station in Bellingham.

Context from Leah's Life: Leah had lost both her parents before graduating college, been in an injurious crash that damaged her leg, and dropped out of college the spring before she would have graduated (it's not clear to me if she attended the spring semester partially or not at all.) After dropping out, she hung out at a local bookstore and became fascinated with the Beat Generation, in particular, she was inspired by Jack Kerouac's road trips through the west, and his stint at the Desolation Peak Lookout (fire tower.) After she left, her sister found a note that said "I’m not suicidal. I’m the opposite. Remember Jack Kerouac.” Her family believes that she was going to Desolation Peak as a way to connect to his experience. They also believed, until the discovery of her vehicle, that she intended this to be a free-spirited roadtrip, lasting about a month (based on the fact she gave a housemate money to cover her share for about that length of time.)

Problems with the Timeline:

Author butting in here; as a westerner, I do a lot of long trips, and I used to do a multi-day trip 8-10 times a year. I'm typically able to average about 50 to 55 miles of progress each hour I'm actively traveling. For instance, if I leave my morning location, and arrive my evening location 10 hours later, I will have, at maximum, traveled 550 miles from my starting point. The speed limit might be as high a 75 or 80, but due to stops, slow downs, construction, and congestion, I only make 50-55 miles of progress. Once in a while I can get it up to 60 miles per hour of travel, but that's rare. In the right vehicle, in the right places, it's possible to make better average time, but Leah's vehicle was a 1993 Jeep Cherokee. Oddly enough, I've known two people who owned this vehicle, and both said that they were not good highway cars as they vibrate at higher speeds, and really prefer to cruise at a lower speed, say 60-65. Jeeps also suffer from something called a Death Wobble that slows them down. Anyway, back to Leah's timeline problems:

The first day is a long day of 12-15 hours driving. But the next two days would be utterly breakneck travel, as she covered ~2700 miles in less than 48 hours. This gives her an average speed of almost 60 miles per hour, which as I state above, is difficult to do. If she stopped for even a short break of 6 hours, her average speed would have been a 67 miles per hour. More realistically, the vehicle was traveling almost the entire time, averaging closer to 55 miles per hour. I've done 16 hours of driving in a day. It's exhausting. I've never done 18 that I recall. Not by myself. To do a 12-15 hour day sucks a lot, but then it seems feasible she slept it off in Memphis. But then she got up and did nearly non-stop driving in unfamiliar country, for nearly 48 hours, with any rest apparently being in her car.

On the fourth day, she's up an at it early enough to be in town for a matinee movie. I'll be honest, if I'd just driven non-stop for 2 days, had a short rest, and then done almost 8 more hours of driving, all I want to do is sleep, and a movie theatre isn't a cheap or easy place to do that.

I think it's safe to say, Leah was really hauling ass.

How did Leah achieve this aggressive travel schedule and still arrive well-rested enough to apparently enjoy a movie, and not seem worn out on security footage? And why, on a supposedly free-spirited roundtrip meant to last a month, was she hauling ass?

Personally, I think there's really only three good explanations for this rate of speed:

Leah was using substances to stay awake and alert.

Lead was experiencing mania that was allowing her to stay awake.

There was a second driver.

Of these options, I personally feel that only the second driver makes sense. I believe any drugs she may have taken to stay awake and alert would have probably led to erratic or dangerous driving that would have LIKELY attracted notice on these busy routes. If she was experiencing mania, I believe it's even more likely she would have driven erratically. But we don't have records of police stops. I also think if she were on drugs or experiencing mania she'd have gotten off the main road, spent money, or stopped to pass out somewhere along the route.

I also think her stop in Memphis suggests a second driver. While again, a 12 hour day of driving is a lot of driving, especially for someone who seems to have not done a lot of long haul driving, it's still very doable for a solitary driver. She stopped at a reasonable point and rested on a reasonable human schedule. Her pace only picks up to non-stop after Memphis. Put a pin in this, as a second driver also helps with the next problem. ** Problems with the Route: ** I40 makes sense for a bit, being a direct route west until reaching Nashville but taking it all the way to California added 1000+ miles to the trip. 1000 miles of some extremely repetitive driving, too. It's possible that she wanted to stay off more northerly routes to avoid late season storms, but I80 or I70 would have still been southerly enough to benefit from most of the route experiencing spring. There's only a limited section of possibly dicey driving on that route during the spring, but it seems like if she was on some sort of schedule (and from her non-stop driving habit, it seems she was), it seems like that possibility would have been worth shaving off nearly 20 hours of travel time. But she still took I40 to I5.

Before we argue that it's 2000 and there's no Google Maps, Mapquest existed, as did atlases. Furthermore, road signs would have guided her on a more direct route if that was all she was following. Nothing would have "chosen" this route for her if she was looking for instructions.

The other issue with the route is that if she had intended for it to be a pilgrimage out west, I40 isn't really the classic route for someone headed to Oregon, and then Washington. But, the western portion I40 does overlap significantly with route 66, which may have been her intention. While I think of I70 having the classic pioneer landmarks and stops, the western portion of I40 does have a lot of cachet and charm. But if her intention had been a free-spirited roadtrip on either of these routes, why not you know, stop and enjoy the scenery instead of barreling through like a rocket sled on wheels?

Why did Leah choose this southerly route? And why, if she was on a free-spirited roadtrip that overlapped with famous Route 66, did she never seem to stop to take it in?

Personally, I think this route may have been selected because it was absolutely free of snow, and with a second driver, it could still be accomplished in a tight timeframe. This route also may have suited the second driver. It stands to reason that the second driver appears after the stop in Memphis, but not in Memphis (if they had joined in Memphis, I don't think she would have stopped for the night, because they already planned to swap in and out of driving duties.) I would argue that they joined the trip within 10-12 hours of departing Memphis, because that seems to be when she's too tired to drive again, and if she were alone, she would have again stopped to rest.

It's also possible that this route accommodated the second driver's destination, which may have been in California, or Southern Oregon. Because they didn't report any belongings in the Jeep that didn't belong or feasibly belong to Leah, and Leah appears to have taken a sleep break between March 12th and March 13th that indicated she was again a solitary driver, I think it's safe to say this second driver got out before the Brooks-to-Bellingham leg of the trip. Also, at this point the police mention that if she did have traveling companions at this point, they didn't feel they were in the car with her.

But let me ask the question that isn't directly related to the problems with the timeline or the route, but is tangled up with both: ** Why does Leah seem to be on a schedule?**

I don't have any explanation for why she might have been on a schedule. At best I can say that maybe she wanted to get there fast and then do a slow route home, but that doesn't pay well with the route problems. If there was a second driver, it's possible their own needs contributed to the sense of needing to be as fast as possible, but once Leah dropped them off (which seems to have been in the early hours of the 12th) Leah had no need to maintain the breakneck pace, and yet, she did not stop to enjoy the new Beatnik scene in Portland Oregon, which seemed like it would have been a draw, nor did she enjoy the Columbia Gorge, the Pacific Northwest coast, or anything else, instead beating a fast path to her final destination, only to stop and see a movie when she was less than an hour away from her final destination (and where her vehicle would be found.) I can't say this makes sense to me.

Post Road Trip:

Personally, I feel that if we could answer why Leah chose the route she did, why she took it so fast (and how) that we'd understand where her story seemingly ends. So I think my other questions are more important. But we do have a final sighting, and a vehicle to contend with.

On March 14th, Leah was supposedly seen in Bellingham by two men at a lunch counter. (This is the same day of the movie ticket.) One man claimed he'd seen her but not spoken with her. The other man said that they spike about Jack Kerouac, and that she had a travel partner named "Barry." The police find this man suspicious because the other man claimed that Leah was alone. I'm not sure I find that so odd -- in this subreddit I think we all know that eye witness testimony has flaws, and there's a variety of reasons the man may have believed Leah to be traveling with a partner; Leah herself may have made "Barry" up as a safety mechanism. He may have mistaken the Barry in her story to be the other man at the counter, too. While the man who claimed Leah was traveling with Barry has since left the country, I'm not sure we should consider this as suspicious as some investigators do. (More in a moment.) Investigators still had a sketch artist work up a sketch of "Barry." The sketch is of a remarkably generic white guy. (Does he look like the first guy?)

Could "Barry" have been her second driver?

On March 18th, clothes were found in a tree branch, and further inspection revealed broken branches where Leah's car had darted off the road and tumbled down an embankment. Her clothing, wallet, and jewelry were found in the vehicle. Blankets covered the broken windows as though someone had been staying in the vehicle or protecting the contents. But Leah and her cat were missing.

Why leave money, important mementos, and everything else she'd so carefully chosen to come with her in the car?

The "Accident":

There was no blood inside the vehicle as would be expected after an accident of such scale. A man's fingerprint was found in the vehicle, as was DNA, but the fingerprint did not match the man the police found suspicious. When the case was reopened, the Jeep was reviewed, and it was determined that the Jeep had been "rigged" to accelerate on its own, which suggested that the accident was not an accident. But as Leah's body was not inside, it wasn't an accident that was seemingly designed to cover up a murder or be an actual murder. This also would have required some mechancial know-how, know-how that seems unlikely to have come from Spanish and Anthropology major.

Who rigged the car? If Leah agreed to dump the car, why? Is it possible that this is actually the result of damage the accident caused, and not deliberate?

"Conclusion" and Final Questions:

I believe that Leah was on a schedule of some kind, and I believe she had a second driver who may have added schedule pressures. I believe, however, something happened on the 14th; either she met her schedule or she blew it completely, and that's why she went to a movie. I also believe she temporarily had a second driver, and I'm willing to guess that this was a man. If that's so, she had to have felt safe enough having him driver her car with her asleep, and not deviate from the plan. Either she's very trusting, or she knew him well enough. It's possible the second driver was also female, but that wouldn't play well with the "Barry" detail, nor the male DNA found in the car. (Implied to be spit, but I'm not sure.) I don't know if I think Leah is dead. Honestly, I don't. But I don't know how she could "become" someone else in this day and age, especially since it seems she had neither money nor valuables to sell.

The Gilgo Beach Killer, also known as the Long Island Serial Killer (LISK) has been at large for over 2 decades.

More on the LISK:

The Long Island serial killer (also referred to as LISK, the Gilgo Beach Killer, the Manorville Butcher, and the Craigslist Ripper) is an unidentified suspected serial killer who is believed to have murdered between 10 and 18 people over a period of nearly 26 years, and to have disposed of their bodies in areas on the South Shore of Long Island, New York. Most of the known victims were sex workers who advertised on Craigslist.

The victims' remains were found over a period of months in 2010 and 2011, after the disappearance of Shannan Gilbert resulted in a police search of the area along the Ocean Parkway, near the remote beach towns of Gilgo and Oak Beach in Suffolk County. The remains of four victims designated "The Gilgo Four" were found within a quarter of a mile of each other near Gilgo Beach in December 2010. Six more sets of remains were found in March and April 2011 in Suffolk and Nassau counties.[1][2][3] Police believe the latter sets of remains predate the four bodies found in December 2010.[4]

Gilbert's remains were found a year after the remains of "The Gilgo Four" were discovered. Her cause of death remains contested, with police claiming accidental drowning while an independent autopsy determined possible strangulation.

(Source and additional reading : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Island_serial_killer )

Finally, we may have some answers…

Per the NY Post: “A suspect has been arrested over the notorious Gilgo Beach murders of up to 10 women on Long Island, according to a report Friday.

Multiple sources confirmed the arrest to News 12 Long Island, which said that First Avenue in Massapequa Park was “just flooded with police.”State and Suffolk County police — both at the scene — did not confirm the arrest, the outlet said.

News 12 did not identify the suspect or detail what led to the reported breakthrough in what it called “one of the most intense, prolific searches for a serial killer ever.”

Source: https://nypost.com/2023/07/14/gilgo-beach-lisk-serial-killings-suspect-in-police-custody-report/

Philip Innes Fraser was born on January 3, 1965 in Anchorage, Alaska. Philip's parents, Robert and Shirley, were prominent doctors in Anchorage. Robert was director of the Alaska State Public Health Tuberculosis Control center and Shirley was a neurologist. Philip also had two brothers. Philip was known to like the outdoors and learned to play the violin, according to a friend Philip "danced to the beat of his own drum." After high school, he attended Western Maryland College (his father's alma mater), for one year before realizing that missed the Alaska and the Pacific Northwest. After a few years of various jobs, Philip felt that he needed to get back on track.

So the now 23 year old enrolled in pre-med courses at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. So on June 14, 1988, Philip set off in his car for the 2,300 mile drive to Olympia. Philip drove kind of a beat up Jetta that was packed with all of his stuff, but before he even crossed into Canada, his car broke down. Philip intended to camp along the way anyway, something his parents didn't seem happy about. In fact, Robert and Shirley Fraser didn't seem happy that he was driving all that way by himself at all. But since Philip was 23, they tried to be supportive.

Philip ended up camping in the tiny town of Tok, Alaska, while his car was fixed. Philip called his parents to update them, and Robert "pressed," his son for more details but Philip just said that everything was "fine." Philip's parents let this go, knowing that he had credit cards and checks to pay for things and if worse came to worse he'd call them. After this call, Philip's parents would never hear from him again. On June 17, 1988, Philip's car was fixed and he was finally able to cross the border into Canada. He would cross into the Yukon Territory at the Beaver Creek station, where he declared his two handguns. Since Americans (and other foreigners) weren't allowed to bring guns into Canada, they were seized by Border Patrol Agents. After filling out some paperwork about the seized guns, Philip was again on his way into Canada.

Presumably Philip continued to drive through Canada because he wasn't seen until the next day. On June 18, 1988, a hitchhiker was dropped off at the Forty Mile Flat Café, which was about 600 miles (although another source says 720 miles) from the Canadian/Alaska border. The truck that dropped off this hitchhiker was described as a dark color with a light colored stripe on the side.

The café was owned by Gaye Frocklage and her daughter Tina, both of whom were working on this day. Right away, both Gaye and Tina noticed something off about this hitchhiker, with Gaye telling Tina "we've got a winner here." They would describe him as very overweight (with a "flabby belly") with decaying teeth and terrible body odor. Gaye and Tina also described this man as being in his early to mid-20s, about 5'9 and about 230 pounds with brown hair and eyes. While the two women said he didn't really behave oddly, there was just something odd about him--but clearly he made the women nervous. Gaye did not want to leave Tina alone in the café while this man was there. Tina even commented that maybe this guy had escaped from a mental institution.

A few moments after the odd hitchhiker finished his meal and paid with Canadian money (this will be important later), Philip pulled into the parking lot of the café. Philip didn't get out of the car, but Gaye and Tina would later state that it seemed like he was looking for something inside the car. This café also had a gas pump, and when Tina went out to help another customer, she and Philip exchanged hellos. The hitchhiker also went outside at this time and proceeded to ask Philip for a ride, which Philip at first refused. But when Philip began to drive away, the hitchhiker began running alongside the car. Apparently this running made Philip change his mind, so the hitchhiker got into the car.

Gaye and Tina saw this whole exchange and Tina told her mother something to the effect: "He's going to regret the day he picked that man up." Tina would later tell the police that it was like she had a sixth sense that something bad was going to happen--and this was the last time Philip Fraser was seen alive.

Eight hours later and 200-250 miles south of the Forty Mile Flats Café, married couple Eddie and Pauline Olson saw a stranded motorist that matched the description of the mystery hitchhiker by a car on Highway 37 near their home Kitwanga. Eddie and Pauline stopped to check on him and asked if he needed help. Eddie would later state on Unsolved Mysteries: “You could tell he was nervous, but I thought well you know, he was just scared being out here this late at night. Didn’t want to stay out here because it’s kind of a remote area. At this point I said we’ll just tow ya home and figure it out in the morning." Eddie and Pauline were nice people and would've felt bad if they left this guy out in the middle of nowhere at night, and this wasn't the first time they'd let a stranded motorist sleep at their house for the night. Eddie and Pauline would tow what they later learn was Philip Fraser's Jetta to their home.

Once at the Olson home, Eddie showed the motorist to the basement which a couple of couches with extra pillows and blankets. Eddie told the man to get a good night's sleep and they'd figure out his car in the morning. The next morning the man joined the Olson's for breakfast, where he proceeded to tell them that both of his parents were doctors in Alaska and he was headed to Seattle to go to college, his classes began the next day. The Olson's would later say that the man seemed "secretive," in his answers to them trying to make small talk. Eddie explained that the man seemed "adamant," that he had to be in Seattle the next day, so he offered to sell "his," car to the Eddie for a reasonable price.

Eddie and the man went to go inspect the later, in which Eddie later recalled that while one of the back windows looked broken because it was taped up, the car seemed to be in pretty good condition. Eddie told the man he'd take the car on Monday (the next day) if they'd take it through the bank and declare it through customs, but the man declined, saying he needed to be rid of the car that day because he needed to start school in the U.S. the next day. Eddie thought this was odd, but thought he was just anxious about his class. However, Eddie did offer to help the man fix the car, where it was discovered the issue was a broken fan belt. As the man was leaving, he told the Olson's he wanted to thank them for their hospitality, so he gave them $20 in American money. The couple also recalled that the mystery man also had two wallets for some reason and with that the man left. Eddie Olson would later tell police that after he found out what the man did, he got goosebumps because the basement couches were right next to the Olson's gun case.

June 19, 1988, twelve hours after the man left the Olson's home Philip's car was found burned out in a car wash 300 miles away in Prince George, British Columbia. When local police got the car and checked the vin number, it was linked to Philip Fraser back in Anchorage, Alaska. Local Anchorage police went to the Fraser home to do a welfare check on Philip....only to discover he'd driven away to school about a week before. Robert and Shirley Fraser were panicked, they knew their son was having car trouble but he wouldn't burn his own car.

So at this point, Philip was only considered to be missing. Philip's parents put out "tourist alerts," in local newspapers in the hopes that Philip would see them and call his parents. Philip could've been anywhere, but he hadn't called his parents. The area where Philip vanished is very remote and intersects with Highway 16--otherwise known as the "Highway of Tears."

But on July 27, 1988, Philip's body was found in a gravel turnout near the "The Glacier Highway," which is junction where two highways meet and was 70 miles from where the Olson's lived. He had been shot and his body was severely decomposed so it appeared as though he died around the time he went missing. After Philip's body was found, the Royal Canadian Mountain Police (RCMP) began a full investigation. This is when they discovered the tip called in by Gaye Frocklage and a composite sketch was drawn up. After the sketch was released to the public, Eddie and Pauline Olson came forward with their sighting of the man.

Because the suspect told the Olson's that he was a medical student and that his parents were doctors, the RCMP believes that he attempted to learn as much as possible about Philip in order to steal his identity. The RCMP also believes that the man may still have Philip's passport, checkbook, credit cards and birth certificate because those items weren't found in the burned out remains of Philip's car. The mystery hitchhiker is the prime suspect in Philip's case. One suspect in the case is a man named Michael McGray, a Canadian serial killer who kind of matched the description of the hitchhiker and also killed hitchhikers around Canada. However, nothing could fully link McGray to the case.

It seems unlikely that a serial killer would conduct enough small talk with a victim to learn about their parents and where they were going to college. The hitchhiker/suspect knew too much about Philip's life and travels to just be a serial killer. In an article in American Crime Journal, the author makes a good point: "The location of Philip Fraser’s execution didn’t make any sense. It appeared that the hitchhiker and Philip followed Highway 37 until they got to Meziadin Junction and then took Highway 37A towards Stewart only for about 9 miles. Philip was then killed and dumped at the gravel turnaround. Then the killer turned back around and went back to Highway 37 and proceeded towards Prince George via Highway 16. Highway 37 and Highway 37A merge in Meziadin Junction, British Columbia." The author believes that maybe Philip intentionally took a wrong turn in order to try and get rid of the hitchhiker, maybe near the Canadian/U.S. border so some kind of authority would do something about the hitchhiker. Maybe Philip got the same bad feeling that Gaye and Tina Frocklage did about this guy and wanted him out of the car. Or maybe the hitchhiker tried something, like pulling a knife, and Philip knew he'd told the man too much about himself.

I think it's also important that RCMP should speak to the driver of the truck that dropped off the hitchhiker at the Forty Mile Flat Café. Both witness sightings that are prominently featured in this case describe the man as being...gross. Rotten teeth, smell and apparently he even bit his nails. And Philip Fraser looked like a tall, gangly man so this hitchhiker with a potbelly probably wouldn't have gone far pretending to be Philip. Robert Fraser, Philip's dad, died in 2014 without knowing what happened to his son. The case is still open.

Unsolved Mysteries segment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Df_7oIrgQAk

https://americancrimejournal.com/an-interrupted-journey/

https://thecrimewire.com/true-crime/The-Unsettling-Murder-of-Philip-Fraser-Killed-by-a-Hitchhiker

https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1345&dat=19881216&id=VxhXAAAAIBAJ&sjid=6fkDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6697,19156&hl=en

https://unresolved.me/philip-fraser

https://unsolvedmysteries.fandom.com/wiki/Philip_Innes_Fraser

https://unsolved.com/gallery/philip-innes-fraser/

For the past few months, I've been working on reducing my online footprint. When I search my name in Google image search, the first (and only) result is my old GitHub profile photo and it links to my Github. However, I changed this image months ago to a text based avatar, so in theory it should be displaying that image instead. Is there a way to force Google or Github to update the image?

Cindy James was a 44 year old nurse living in the suburbs of Vancouver, Canada. When police found her body on the front lawn of an abandoned house in 1989, her hands and feet were bound behind her back, and she had been strangled. But how she died, and importantly, who killed her is still a mystery.

Cindy claimed she had a stalker since 1982

Four months after separating from her husband in 1982, she claimed got creepy and threatening phone calls. In the next 7 years, Cindy would contact the police nearly 100 times reporting events ranging from being physically attacked by an unknown person to phone calls in the middle of the night with threats or audible breathing on the other end to strange notes and strange letters. Such as:

In 1983, her friend was visiting Cindy and found her outside of her house with a nylon stocking tied tightly around her neck. She claimed that she was going to the garage and was attacked from behind by someone wearing white sneakers. Cindy moved shortly after.

Cindy had hired a private investigator who had given her a two-way radio to keep with her so she and the PI could speak directly. One night in 1984, the PI heard some strange sounds over the radio and went to Cindy's house. The door was locked, but when the PI looked through the window Cindy was on the floor with a small paring knife that was stabbed through her hand. At the hospital she claimed that the same person who attacked her sometimes showed up with two or three other people to harass her. She also claimed that that night, she remembered being poked with a needle. Here's a picture of her face after this attack.

In 1985 she was found in a ditch disoriented with no memory of what happened miles away from her house. She had hypothermia and cuts and bruises all over. She was wearing men's boots and gloves and had a nylon stocking tied around her neck.

In 1986, Cindy was living with her friend and her friend's husband who were there to provide her a sense of security. One night, they awoke to the basement on fire and the phone lines cut. The husband ran to the neighbors house and allegedly saw a man standing on the curb who later ran away. The police claimed that the fire was set by someone in the house, because everything was locked and undisturbed - if someone had come in, they would have had to break in through a very oddly placed and shaped window which would have surely been damaged while climbing through. No fingerprints were found.

That same year, Cindy's doctor had her committed into a psychiatric ward because the doctor believed she was suicidal. After being released, Cindy's family claims that she told them that she knew a lot more about these events than she was telling everyone and the police. She had an earlier stint in a psychiatric hospital in 1985 for depression and anxiety, but it’s not clear if it was voluntary or involuntary.

In October 1988, Cindy said she was almost murdered in her driveway but did not report it to the police. The source is from Cindy’s sister’s blog.

During this time, the police had extended 24 hour surveillance of her house numerous times but would never see anything. Once they left, Cindy would report that the attacks and calls would happen again.

Cindy is found dead

Finally in May 1989 (almost 7 years since the first strange phone calls), Cindy went missing and her car was later found in a parking lot where there were groceries and a wrapped present inside. Blood was on the outside of the driver's side door, and the contents of Cindy's purse were found underneath the car. I can't find any information on whether the blood was Cindy's or not.

Two weeks later her body was found on the lawn of an abandoned house. Her hands and feet were hogtied behind her back. But her cause of death was an overdose of morphine and other drugs. The case was closed as a suicide, but the coroner made no determination of whether the death was an accident, suicide, or murder. ** Theories on what happened ** If you go the murder route, then the theory is that there really was a stalker who had done all of these things and ended up killing her when the time was right. This would also connect Cindy's memory of being poked with a needle in the first attack and then eventually overdosing on morphine. But who was it? Police suspected her ex husband and also her on and off again boyfriend who was also a cop. If it was her boyfriend, it would explain how no evidence was really found and how the police didn't do much, because he would know how to stage scenes a certain way and dissuade the cops.

If you go the accident route, another theory is that Cindy had a mental condition and was faking all of the attacks for attention. She accidentally overdosed on morphine and died when she was actually just trying to replicate the state she was in when she was found in the ditch years earlier. Cindy's faking would also explain the lack of evidence.

If you go the suicide route, then perhaps Cindy was trying to make her suicide as sensational as possible with the hogtying behind her back and her car being found with blood and her purse items scattered underneath the car. How exactly the 7 years' events factor into this, I'm not sure there is a good explanation.

I personally believe she really did have a stalker, exactly who I'm not sure. But I don't think all of Cindy's reports were legitimate. I think she was frustrated at the lack of progress and fabricated some events to get the police to pay attention to her case again. I don't think the major instances of her being beaten/attacked were fabricated, but perhaps some of the phone calls and threatening letters. Exactly who her stalker was is anyone's guess.

More detail is at the unsolved website.

An excerpt of a book written by Cindy's sister provides more details Here's her sister's blog which provides more details

“It is a wild case of a double life, a stolen identity, and a gang called “the Shotgun Bandits.” It sounds like a Western novel, but it was a stunning revelation. Genetic genealogy uncovered a “John Doe” in Indiana who had lived undercover in Tucson for decades. Colorado authorities were looking into cold cases and thought a John Doe who died in 2012 might match their suspect. The thing is that the man’s obituary said, “Bill Lee Hull.” The problem is the real Bill Lee Hull is still alive.

As far as anyone in Salem, Indiana, knew, the sweet and elderly Bill Lee Hull passed away and was buried in 2012. But soon, they learned he was buried with more secrets than anyone knew. “He wasn’t a liar, he was just a robber,” said Kaycee Connelly, a genetic genealogist with Moxxy Forensics.

Flashback to when he died; investigators learned something odd. “The Social Security number he was using was found to belong to somebody else,” said Connelly. And that wasn’t the only thing. He had burned or destroyed his fingertips and prints on his hands. “When someone removes their fingerprints by unknown means, there’s a reason to that. So we know there were probably some skeletons in the closet,” said Katie Thomas, co-founder of Moxxy Forensics.

So, he became officially known as a John Doe. “There was a lot of speculation of who this guy was,” said Thomas. In March 2023, after Colorado authorities called an Indiana coroner seeking information, Moxxy Forensics got involved, and they exhumed his body, extracting DNA from his femur to see if they could make a genetic genealogy match. And they made one, in just 30 minutes, to a great-niece of a man named Albert Roadhs. “She did not know of his existence,” said Connelly.

And then it gets even wilder. Who is Albert Roadhs? After research, the forensics team learned he lived a life full of crime for two decades and was part of a gang called the “Shotgun Bandits” that investigators said would commit aggravated robberies in Colorado. He was also known as “Pinky,” a name tattooed on his body.

But after he got out of prison in 1967, Roadhs seemingly disappeared, and he became Bill Lee Hull, then met his partner of more than 30 years, Bessie Fields, down in the Old Pueblo. “They lived in Tucson, Arizona. They apparently met at a bar called The Bush Wacker,” Connelly said.

Because Fields died years ago, no one knows if she ever knew Roadhs’ true identity. Her kids told investigators they never knew he was somebody else. And while he never lied about his age, where he was from, or the siblings he had, the Moxxy Forensics team is still trying to piece together where he was from 1967 to 1987, two decades that this mystery man was unaccounted for. “His story isn’t over quite yet. I think there’s still more to come,” said Connelly.

The real Bill Lee Hull is alive, but the genetic genealogist said he doesn’t know that Albert Roadhs stole his identity, and they’re still trying to figure out where and how the identity was stolen. And after all that, Roadhs did not match that Colorado cold case suspect.” -AZ Family

Matt Groening and David X. Cohen’s animated sci fi comedy Futurama is set to return for another revival on Hulu next month after the show’s last revival on Comedy Central ended in 2013, and as a fan of the show I thought it would be a fitting time to discuss a lost media mystery that Futurama fans have been wondering about since the start of the show’s original run on FOX.

Phil Hartman, who was famous for voicing Troy McClure and Lionel Hutz on The Simpsons from season two to season ten and for his work on shows such as Saturday Night Live and NewsRadio, was the original pick to voice the character Zapp Brannigan in Futurama. Sadly, Hartman was killed by his wife in a murder-suicide soon after Futurama began production, and the role of Zapp ultimately went to Billy West instead. West voices Zapp for the entirety of the series and will voice him again in the upcoming revival, but for years fans of the show have been trying to figure out if any audio recordings exist of Hartman’s audition for the role of Zapp or if he recorded any dialogue for the first few episodes that Zapp appears in that later went unused after his death. Even though Futurama first began production twenty-five years ago and much is now known about the production process, we still don’t have a definitive “yes or no” answer on whether or not Hartman ever recorded any lines for Zapp before his death. By a definitive “yes or no” answer, I mean that nobody directly involved with the show has ever come out and straight up said “yes, Hartman recorded lines for Zapp” or “no, Hartman did not record lines for Zapp”.

From what I’ve been able to find online, I believe that Hartman most likely never recorded any dialogue for any of the finished episodes, but his audition could have possibly been recorded and may possibly exist somewhere. Below, I have put together a production timeline for the first season of Futurama and have included excerpts from commentary and interviews in which Matt Groening, David X. Cohen, and Billy West discuss the production process, Hartman’s audition, and how West took over the role of Zapp after Hartman’s death.

The Production Timeline

If Hartman had recorded any dialogue for Zapp for episodes that made it to air, he would have only been able to record dialogue for a max of just three episodes of the series, the three episodes that Zapp appears in and speaks in during season one (which first aired from March 28th, 1999 to November 14th, 1999). The season one episodes were aired in the order that they were produced, with Zapp debuting in the episode “Love’s Labours Lost in Space” (the fourth episode of the series to be produced and aired, first airing on April 13th, 1999). Zapp appears again in “A Flight to Remember” (the tenth episode produced and aired, first airing on September 26th, 1999), and “When Aliens Attack” (the twelfth episode produced and aired, first airing on November 7th, 1999). All other speaking appearances of Zapp in the series are in season two or later, which all began production well after Hartman’s death. Because of how long it takes to make an episode from start to finish and because the episodes were aired in production order, if Hartman did record any episode dialogue I think that it would have only been for “Love’s Labours Lost in Space”, as that is the earliest one in production that Zapp appears in.

According to Groening and Cohen, it takes a long time to produce a single episode of Futurama. In a March 1999 interview with Denver Rocky Mountain News, Groening says that it takes six months to make an episode from start to finish. In an April 1999 online chat for TV Guide Groening says that in order to finish a season on time multiple episodes are being worked upon at the same time. In a 2001 Sci Fi Weekly interview Cohen says that it takes eight to nine months to make an episode and clarifies the timeline further by saying that it usually takes roughly two months for the writers to go from an initial idea for an episode script to the final script, the voice actors do not record their lines until the script is completely done, and once the voice acting is finished the recordings are sent off to the animation studio so the animation can begin. Before Hartman would have been able to record dialogue for any episodes featuring Zapp, the scripts for these episodes would need to have been finalized first. Cohen saying that it usually takes two months to go from the idea for the script to the final script doesn’t necessarily mean that it always takes two months, it’s possible that the scripts for some episodes are finished sooner and some are finished later, but even if the writers had been working on multiple scripts at once and had finished a script for “Love’s Labours Lost in Space” relatively quickly there would only be a very small window of time in which Hartman could have recorded anything before his death.

According to an October 1999 article covering Futurama in The Face magazine, Groening and Cohen first pitched the show to FOX sometime in April 1998, although a specific date in April is not given. The pitch was successful, and the FOX executives ordered the show right then and there. Because of how long it takes to produce the episodes, in order for the first season to be ready to air by March 28th, 1999 I would assume that production began sometime in April 1998, soon after the pitch to FOX. If we decide to be as generous as we can be with the timeline and assume that the pitch was delivered at the very beginning of April 1998, the writers were most likely beginning to work on scripts in early April and the scripts would most likely not have been finalized and given to the voice actors until near the end of May 1998 at the earliest and sometime in June 1998 at the latest.

Comments by Those Involved in the Making of Futurama

In the DVD commentary for “Love’s Labours Lost in Space”, Groening and Cohen talk about Hartman’s audition for the role of Zapp and talk about West taking over the role after Hartman’s death. This is what Groening and Cohen say regarding Hartman:

GROENING: The part of Zapp Brannigan was originally meant for Phil Hartman and, uh, we knew how great he was and we said "you don't have to come in and audition", but he said no he wanted to, and he came in and of course he nailed the part, and he was ready to go and then, you know, was killed just a couple of weeks later. And it was, you know, incredibly sad to see this guy who, when he came in, was so full of life, so much fun. And I don't think I've ever seen an actor enjoy himself as much as Phil Hartman did, not only his own work, but obviously the people who he was playing with.

COHEN: And I said, in regarding Billy West who ended up doing the part, he came into audition also and he does it the way he did when he came in to audition, he never was doing an impression of Phil Hartman. We let him do his take on it, once Phil wasn't available obviously...

Groening confirms that Hartman auditioned for the part and confirms that Hartman’s murder occurred a couple of weeks after his audition, so that would mean that the audition likely occurred sometime in early May 1998, as Hartman was killed on May 28th, 1998. If the script for “Love’s Labours Lost in Space” was finished between Hartman’s audition and May 28th then there’s a very small window of time in which he could have theoretically recorded lines for the episode, but it really depends on whether or not the script was finished yet, and I think that it’s extremely unlikely that it was completed and ready to be given to the voice actors that early on in production. I mentioned earlier that we don't have a definitive "yes or no" answer on whether or not recordings of Hartman voicing Zapp exist, but Groening saying that Hartman was “ready to go” implies that he never recorded anything for the episodes.

Hartman’s page on the Infosphere (the Futurama Wiki) even claims that no dialogue for Zapp had been recorded by him yet at the time of his death, which would seem to solve the mystery, but the page does not provide a citation to back up that claim. Hartman’s Infosphere page links both to the “Love’s Labours Lost in Space” DVD commentary and to an interview with Billy West done by Joel Keller for TV Squad in 2006. The link on the Infosphere page was broken and wouldn’t take me to the interview, but I was able to track it down via the references in Billy West’s Wikipedia page, and this is what West has to say about production and taking over the role:

KELLER: Did they have the script for the first episode ready before you went in for the audition?

WEST: They had pieces of dialogue. And once I got into it and got that part of the show, I began to see what he (Fry) was all about. And I loved the writing; the writing had more layers than an onion.

According to West, while no full scripts were finished at the time the voice actors began auditioning, it does seem like there were bits and pieces of dialogue for at least the first episode of the series that were possibly used later in the episode. Depending on when the script for “Love’s Labours Lost in Space” was started, it's possible that there could have been pieces of dialogue available for that episode as well. West further discusses the process of recording voices for the show with Keller and explains that the voice actors would do a table read first and then record the finalized script:

KELLER: I've always been under the impression that it was more story-oriented, like the early seasons of The Simpsons.

WEST: Yeah, Futurama, they crafted stories very well. And we had to read them on Tuesdays, you know, read the run through with all the actors doing the parts and then they'd record it. And then the writers would bring it back to the office and listen to it and see what played and what didn't and what could be even better, and they do it up until record time, you know, they'll be changing something.

KELLER: So the whole cast got together and did table reads?

WEST: Oh yeah. Well, they treated it like a sitcom because it was in prime time.

KELLER: Would you record together?

WEST: Yeah, a lot of times we would. You know, like, sometimes the whole cast would be there. I like that better than doing all my stuff by myself and then leaving.

Finally, West discusses how Hartman was supposed to voice Zapp originally and how he ended up taking over the role:

KELLER: Did Zapp Brannigan change much? Because I saw the first episode he was in and it sounded pretty much like how he sounded later.

WEST: Did he change? Um, I don't know, I try to keep it pretty consistent. Phil Hartman was supposed to do that character, and I was imitating Phil Hartman. I knew Phil Hartman; when I came to work with him on some commercials and stuff out here in Hollywood, we both had this real fascination and love for these big, old-time dumb announcers. You know, the guys who have their balls in a wheelbarrow and think that every word is so precious that it's hard to give birth to it, like everything comes out in four syllables instead of one. Guys who think far and away that of everything else in this universe, he loves his voice. So that's what was going on with him. He's modeled after a couple of big dumb announcers I knew. Fry was named after Phil. Philip Fry.

I also found a 2005 interview that West did with IGN in which he discusses the audition and production process for Futurama and discusses how the voice actors for Zapp, Fry, and Leela changed between the auditions and the release of the show.

IGN FILMFORCE: When you read for those characters, which ones did you automatically feel didn't click?

WEST: I read for Fry originally, but I didn't get it. My friend Charlie Schlatter got it – and also, my friend from MadTV, Nicole Sullivan, was Leela. It was just this weird turn of events where they weren't going to use them, and they got Katey (Sagal) to do Leela. I read for Bender, Farnsworth – I didn't read for Zapp Brannigan early on…

IGN FILMFORCE: Because that role was still going to be Phil Hartman at that point, right?

WEST: I think so. I'm trying to think of the order of things. We started recording the show and then we took a break, and then they asked me to come in and use my voice, pretty much, and read for Fry. I did it, and they said, "Well, that's what we wanna do."

West saying that Hartman “was supposed to do that character” implies that he never got around to recording dialogue for Zapp, similarly to Groening saying that Hartman was “ready to go”. I would say that based off of what is known about production and what Groening, Cohen, and West have said, it would be theoretically plausible for the script for “Love’s Labours Lost in Space” to have been finished before Hartman’s death, but even if it was finished it’s unlikely that Hartman recorded anything for this episode or for the other two episodes that Zapp appears in during season one.

Possible Audition Tape?

While it’s unlikely that Hartman recorded any dialogue for any of the finished episodes, because Hartman is confirmed to have done an audition I believe that, if the audition was recorded, it’s possible that this recording may still exist somewhere, and it may have used pieces of dialogue that potentially remained in the final scripts for the episodes featuring Zapp. However, if a recording of Hartman’s audition does exist, I would expect it to have surfaced by now. Because of Groening saying in the DVD commentary that the role was always intended for Hartman and the audition only occurred because Hartman himself wanted to come in and do it, it’s also possible that no one bothered to record it since it had already been determined that the role was going to go to him.

Even if Hartman’s audition wasn’t recorded, it’d be nice to get some kind of confirmation that a recording of the audition does or does not exist rather than just the implication that no recordings of Hartman voicing Zapp exist. It would also be interesting to see if Charlie Schlatter’s audition for Fry and Nicole Sullivan’s audition for Leela have recordings too, just so the fans could get a small glimpse of what Futurama could have sounded like if circumstances had been different.

References

April 1999 Online Chat With Matt Groening: https://web.archive.org/web/20000929144303/http://frcr.com/library/april6_matt_g_chat.html

March 1999 Denver Rocky Mountain News Article: https://web.archive.org/web/20000824051917/http://www.frcr.com/library/denver1.html

Billy West’s 2005 Interview With IGN: https://web.archive.org/web/20120517013905/http://uk.tv.ign.com/articles/652/652770p1.html

Billy West’s 2006 Interview With Joel Keller: https://archive.ph/20120918095324/http://www.aoltv.com/2006/06/15/Billy-west-the-tv-squad-interview/

December 2001 Sci Fi Weekly Article: https://web.archive.org/web/20080610080245/http://www.scifi.com/sfw/interviews/sfw7897.html

Infosphere Page for Phil Hartman: https://theinfosphere.org/Phil_Hartman

Infosphere Page for Season One of Futurama: https://theinfosphere.org/Season_1

“Love’s Labours Lost in Space” Commentary Transcript: https://theinfosphere.org/Transcript:Commentary:Love%27s_Labours_Lost_in_Space

Bill and Peggy Stephenson were two halves of a loving elderly couple known in Florence, Kentucky, for their church work and generosity. Bill had founded the Trucker’s Chapel Ministry, a spot where traveling transporters could gather and pray. Peggy played organ at Union Baptist Church.

They led quiet but impactful lives, according to their loved ones – which made the disturbing crime scene police discovered in May 2011 all the more unfathomable.

On May 29, 2011, the Stephensons were slain in brutal fashion – bludgeoned and stabbed – and then, whoever killed them staged a bizarre scene. Detective Coy Cox, who’s headed the Boone County Sheriff’s investigation since Day 1, told me he’s been “guarded and careful” about the details he’s released from the start. What he will say is that the bodies had been posed. Items inside the house had been moved around. “There wasn’t one room in that house that wasn’t staged,” Cox said recently on a podcast called Just the Tip-sters, in which host Melissa Morgan features unsolved cases.

Investigators have long believed that whoever killed the Stephensons knew them. This is based on a few things: There was no sign of forced entry at their condo, and the couple would have had to buzz in any visitors. Neighbors were situated quite close, yet reported nothing out of the ordinary. The killer(s) also seemed comfortable in the environment, staying hours after the couple was killed to inflict a postmortem injury on one of them and stage the scene.

There also was a message left by the killer(s), Cox said, though he wouldn’t share the details.

Detectives state this case is an old case not a cold case. They have continued to work hard and follow up on any and all leads.

Backstory: Detective vows brutal slayings of Florence couple won't go unsolved