Caroline Bolen

Warning. This episode contains graphic crime scene detail as well as talk of sexual assault. Please listen with discretion. Welcome to Primetime Crime. I'm your host, Kylie. Let's talk right now in true crime, and then together we're going to work on warming. Up some cold cases. Let's go. Hey, guys, welcome to a prime time crime. It's Kylie. We are going to get into a little right now in true crime. I don't have a lot to talk about. There's obviously the ongoing Lindsay Clancy trial, but I think I want to kind of do like, once the trial concludes and there is a verdict, I think I just want to talk about all of it after, because there's so much back and forth right now. The jury was actually dismissed early today. I'm recording this on Wednesday, and after lunch, the judge came out and said that they were going to be dismissing the jury for the day and court would resume in the morning. And of course there is a lot of online speculation about why. So, like I said, there's just a lot in this trial. There's a lot going on, and rather than talking about it in little bits and pieces, I kind of just want to talk about it all at once once there has been a verdict rendered. I did hear rumblings that the defense might be resting shortly, so we could be looking at verdict watch sooner rather than later. But I am going to be sure to keep you guys updated, and like I said, probably next week's right now. In true crime, I will do a little bit of a synopsis of everything, all of my thoughts and feelings and everything that's been going on in the courtroom, because it has been a whole heck of a lot. In other news, they officially have set a trial date for Billy Wagner. I did a last year summer series on the Pike County massacre where Billy, his two children, and Billy's wife allegedly planned, plotted, and carried out of the Rodent family. They killed a lot of people. So Billy's trial date has finally been set and it has been set for January eleventh of twenty twenty seven. So we are looking at that. To start off next year, and by the time he goes to trial, it will be more than ten years since the Rodents were brutally killed in their homes while they were sleeping for the most part, while they were sleeping, and Jake Wagner and Angela Wagner are. Expected to testify against him. So it shall be interesting because if we did learn one thing from Summer Series last year, the Wagner family are crazy. In my opinion, there's so much going on there. That dynamic in that family. Is so odd and so off, and it all definitely. Culminated during the different trials that we had to hear all of the fighting amongst them and the way that they talk to each other and a shrill, high pitched, intense yelling that happens between all of them when they have a disagreement. So I think we're going to probably be hearing more of that during Billy's trial, so I will be trying to stay up to date on that as well. Besides the Lindsay Clancy trial, there is a lot of other things going on right now in the courtroom. KIFD is in the process of having his trial for his role alleged role in the murder of Tupac. So kif D is really named Dwayne Davis, and he faces one count of murder with a deadly weapon with a gang enhancement. And again that is in the murder of Tupac Shakur in nineteen ninety six. We also have the trial of Mario Fernandez Saldana. He is one of the key players in the Jared Bridigan case. There was a whole murder for higher plot allegedly by Jared's ex wife and involved some different people and this individual is one of them. He is now on trial for his role in Jared's murder. They have said that the jury is not going to be sequestered in this trial. And I don't really think I've talked about this case much on my podcast. I have been following it ever since the beginning. Jared was a thirty three year old Microsoft executive. He was divorced. He had twins with his ex wife and he was remarried and they had a baby together, so he had a baby with his new wife. So Jared had just dropped off his twins with his ex wife at her home in Jacksonville Beach, and he had his other child in the backseat, a two year old daughter, and Jared saw a tire in the middle of the road, so he stopped his car to get out and move the tire, but before he could get back into the car, behind the wheel somebody shot him dead in the middle of the street and fled, leaving this two year old completely alone. So this happened in twenty twenty two. Obviously, it seemed like a targeted attack, and prosecutors have said that his killer very much knew his routine and had basically planted this tire to allure him out of the car so that way they could kill him. Now, it definitely wasn't a robbery type of situation because Jared had his car that was left behind, his wallet, his watch, and other personal items were untouched, and like I said, his toddler was in the backseat of the car, so nothing appeared to be taken from the scene, So it wasn't like a robbery gone wrong type of situation. But investigators have said that the incident of Jared getting killed in the middle of the street was part of a month's long murder for higher plot that was up by Shanna Gardner, who is Jared's ex wife, and her husband Mario Fernandez Saldana. Now he is the one who is currently on trial. Now. Of course, there had been an ongoing custody battle between Jared and Shana, but there was someone else involved in this whole murder for higher plot, and that was the person who pulled the trigger, who was sixty two year old Henry Tennen. And he is somebody who had rented a property from Shana's husband. So all of this happened in twenty twenty two. It obviously took them a while to kind of figure out what was going on and investigate it. And then Fernande Seldona was arrested in Orlando in March of twenty twenty three, and his charges include a first degree murder and solicitation to commit capital felony. And he is the first one who is going to be standing trial. Shanna Gardner and the other guy, the triggerman, have yet to have their day in court. I do believe Shana or Shanna I don't know how she says it. I don't really care, is going to be going to trial in the next month. And then the shooter, the alleged shooter, Tenan, is scheduled to go to trial in March of twenty twenty seven. So we have a lot of. Trials that are in the process, a lot that are up and coming. We're going to have a busy last few months of twenty twenty six. And busy start of twenty twenty seven for sure. And of course all of that stuff I just talked about is alleged because the trials are yet to come and ongoing, and nobody has been found guilty in a court of law yet. But it does sound like the prosecution has a pretty solid case in their murder for higher idea that they have that they are going with. And I do want to say that I follow the family page that Jared's family has set up on Instagram and they host regularly, and I know that Jared was an amazing guy, an amazing husband, an amazing father, and I really hope and pray that all of this culminates and they get justice for him, for his children who are left without their father, and for the rest of his family. He leaves behind his amazing wife who is left to raise her child on her own, and now having to go through everything with the trial and go through it again and then go through it again. It's going to be a lot on the family. And I hope that they do get the justice that they so desperately deserve a need, and Jared gets that justice. So we are. Going to call it good for right now, in true crime, and we're going to go ahead and get into this week's episode. Alrighty guys, today we are getting into a brand new case. In this week's episode, I'm going to be telling you about the now finally solved homicide of twenty six year old Caroline Bowlin out of Sillsby, Texas in nineteen eighty eight. It took thirty seven years for technology to catch up, but as of recently, law enforcement has identified a suspect with the help of a DNA lab out of Texas Authorum, who I talk about all the time. We also have another familiar name from another case I covered, Texas Ranger Brandon Bess, who played an important role in helping Caroline's case resolution. Ranger Bess is truly one of my favorite people to talk about, seeing how dedicated he is to these cold cases in that part of Texas. We heard about him in the episode I did on Mary Catherine Edwards, who similarly lost her life in Beaumont, Texas, and after decades of being unsolved, was finally solved after he and his team's dedication and hard work. We are going to get into all of that. But first thing is first we are going to get into who Caroline was. We're going to get into everything now. Caroline Susan Nobert Bolin was born on August twelfth of nineteen sixty one in Berlin, Germany. Her mother is named Edie Nobert Graham and was also born in Germany, and she would later spend forty nine years of her life in Georgia. Now, I wasn't able to find anything about Caroline's father or anything really about Caroline's upbringing or her early life, but at the time of her death, she was a mother to two children, a six year old son and a daughter who was around nine or ten years old. She moved into a home. Located at one two eight O Cooks Road in Silsby, Texas. Now. Silsby is described as a small city in Hardin County, Texas, with the population currently of about sixty six hundred to sixty nine hundred. It sits about twenty miles north of Beaumont. Now. Caroline had only moved into the house that she was living in about two weeks before her death. She previously had lived in Lumberton, Texas, which is another smaller town that is kind of nearby that general area, kind of near the Louisiana and Texas border. So Caroline was twenty six years old and was working in clerical and microfiling work at Saint Elizabeth Hospital in nearby Beaumont, Texas. From all reports, it seemed that Caroline was very well liked by all and didn't have any enemies, which makes what happens next all that more confusing. So our story takes us to the day of July twenty eighth of nineteen eighty eight, which was a Thursday. Now. The night before, Caroline had gone bowling with her boyfriend, who she was seeing at the time, but everything seemed normal. There was no altercations, there was nothing out of the ordinary. So Thursday morning, her boyfriend drove by her home and noticed that her car was there, which was unusual because Caroline was supposed to be at work, So he took it upon himself to go inside to check in on her, as he also knew that her young son would also be home with her. Once he made entry into the home, he found the unimaginable. Caroline had been murdered in her own home, the home that she only had lived in for two weeks. Her young son was present at the time of her murder. It was determined that she had been sexually assaulted and asphyxiation was the cause of death, and it was very clear that Caroline had fought for her life. Now, like I said, her young six year old son was left in the home. He was unharmed, but he was left alone in the home with his mother's a lifeless body. And this isn't the first time that we've heard a story like this, and each and every time it just absolutely destroys me to think of a young child trying to navigate what just happened and having the terror of witnessing that, wondering if they were also going to be harmed too. I'm sure Caroline put up a fight in order to protect her son. I don't think it was so much about protecting her I really truly believe she was fighting to try and protect her child. So, of course, in the very beginning of the investigation, investigators had to go the route of questioning those closest to Caroline, including her boyfriend, the one who happened to find her. He was ruled out pretty quickly as a suspect, as were many other people. But it was a very difficult task to try and solve this case because Caroline was very well liked and didn't have any enemies, so it was baffling who would want to harm a young mother inside of her own home, a home that she had only moved into just a couple of weeks before. They did discover that there was no forced entry into the home, which you guys know, I'm not a huge fan of that statement. It basically means that there were no means taken to enter the home, like breaking a window or we're breaking a lock to get inside of a door. It doesn't mean that whoever did this didn't get Caroline to answer the door and then force their way in. Hence why I don't really like the statement, because even though they might not be breaking a window to enter, they still could be coming into her home forcefully, meaning they get her to come to the door, she opens it, and they force their way in. But because there was no actual forced entry, there was no broken windows, the locks were all intact. They very quickly rolled out that robbery was the motive. They didn't think that this was a robbery gone wrong type of situation. They very quickly realized that this was a targeted attack. It was a sexual in nature type of attack, so we are likely looking for somebody that has a history of sexual assaults and physical violence towards women. A man was seen leading Caroline's home as well that morning, so they did have a description to kind of go off of from people who saw him flee, But this again turned up with little to no Lee's and eventually Caroline's case. Would go cold. It was still open and law enforcement periodically review it from time to time, but despite some early leads in the case, it very much sat dormant. In twenty nineteen, the case was reassigned to another investigator of the Sillsby Police Department named Justin Holt. Now Justin was with the. Special Assignment Unit, and he decided that he was going to re examine all of the evidence and everything else. Now around the same time, Texas Ranger Brandon Bess was doing his own thing, working on his own investigations, when he came across a piece of paper in a box randomly that had Caroline Boland's name on it, and he decided that he was also going to start looking into it. So at the time that the case was reassigned to Justin hol Ranger Bess was in the process of actively reviewing the case along with the Texas Rangers Company an Unsolved Investigation Program also known as ICIP. So these two agencies joined forces and began to go back through the evidence. They re examined everything, including the collection and reanalysis of physical evidence, and they also knew that there had been rapid advancements in DNA technology, Especially when we're talking about this case taking place in nineteen eighty eight, it is now twenty nineteen. Things have advanced so much, so there was very much hope that this case was going to be able to be solved because they did have physical evidence. So three years later, in August of twenty twenty two, the Texas Department of Public Safety Crime Lab in Houston went ahead and developed a DNA profile from the evidence left behind and recovered from the scene. The blood collected was from under Caroline's fingernails, was very well preserved and then sent off for testing. They entered this DNA into CODIS, but there were no matches that were found, which basically means that the suspect wasn't in the system for any other offenses. But that doesn't mean that this suspect had never committed any of. The crime similar to Carolines. It just meant that for whatever reason, one reason or another, his DNA was not in. The CODIS database. Spoiler alert. Once we learn who our suspect is, it will be discovered that he had some priors and wasn't a squeaky, clean upstanding citizen. No surprise there. So from there they went ahead and pursued advantage forensic genealogy to try and identify a suspect. They went ahead and submitted the DNA evidence to author them in the Woodlands, Texas, and they specialize in genetic genealogy. They are also the ones who are responsible for identifying Mary Catherine Edwards killer as well. Now, I do want to take a minute and talk about how this was possible because all of this, all of this different DNA testing, sending DNA off to specialized labs costs money, obviously, and despite there being a want and need for this to happen, it's often held up due to costs. But we really do have some amazing organizations in the true crime world that help, and I just want to highlight one of them now because they are part of the reason that this case has been solved. Season of Justice, which is a nonprofit organization that has dedicated itself to support and fundraise for unresolved violent crime investigation. So they are the one that provided the grant to help fund the testing for Caroline's case. They're the ones that helped raise this money and they are a great organization. If you are the type of person that likes to do quarterly donations to some type of nonprofit, they are a great one because they really do help with the funding for the DNA testing. Criminal Coffee is another one that does amazing work. And I know there are so so many others, criminal Coffee is one that just pops out in my mind because they are continuously doing this amazing work as well and helping fund these cold cases. So once the grant and everything went through, AUTHORAM was able to get the DNA and they got to work. So they were able to build an extensive profile based on the suspect DNA profile that was developed by the Texas Crime Lab. They began to compile possible leads based on the suspects familyology, and then the investigative team behind Caroline's case began to sift through the leads from the forensic genealogy analysis. They then were able to officially identify a man named Alan Wayne Moseley as the individual who killed Caroline Bollin. Alan Wayne Moseley was born on August seventh of nineteen sixty and he lived at one oh six Woodward Lane in Sillsby, Texas, which was a street that ran adjacent to Caroline's home. It was about a five minute walk from his house to hers or a one minute drive, so super super close. At the time of Caroline's murder, Allan was on a court ordered supervision for the prior sexual assault in Jasper County that involved him abducting a minor. So the abduction of a minor and the sexual assault, he was on probation never should have been out of jail. In my opinion, I have a super hard time knowing that this menace to society was out on quote unquote quote ordered supervision and not rotting in prison where he should have been. If he had been in jail, none of this would have happened, and Caroline's life wouldn't have been taken. None of this was necessary. Allan was a stranger to Caroline. He was not somebody that ran in her circle or that she knew he was a predator who was allowed to live in her town, right in the vicinity of children, despite the fact that he was a known sexual predator. Authorities believe that Allan, who was twenty seven years old at the time of the murder, went to Caroline's home in the early morning hours of that day and she went to the door thinking it was her boyfriend. When she answered the door, he forced entry into her home and attacked her, all while her six year old son was there in the home. Caroline, like I said, did fight for her life, and Alan left behind DNA evidence under Caroline's fingernails, which eventually would lead to the identification of him in twenty twenty six. In two thousand and six, Alan committed suicide via a self inflicted gunshot wound during an argument with his spouse while living in Oklahoma. He was only forty six years old when he took his own life. Unfortunately, due to his death, charges will never be brought against him, but law enforcement are very confident in their suspect and if he were alive today, they would have enough evidence to charge him for Caroline's murder. Now. Following Caroline's murder, Alan had asked a family member to drive his car to Galveston that same morning, which would basically remove it from Sillsby Texas. Now, I am. Unclear on if drove to Caroline's home, because he was seen leaving Caroline's home. I don't know if that was on foot or in a car. But there were eyewitnesses and the description of Alan back in nineteen eighty eight did match the description of Alan, so Alan is very much our guy. Now. Shortly after Caroline's killing, the family, Alan's family relocated to Oklahoma, where he would spend the rest of his years. Since the break in this investigation, Allan's family has been cooperative of the investigation and it is not believed that they knew anything about this history of his all of the transgressions that he had been into. There are also multiple allegations of sexual assault against Alan Moseley, with at least three of the victims being underage. So while Alan will never pay for his crimes in life, I do believe firmly in my soul that he is paying for them in death. And this is the type of pattern and a prime example of how the pattern continues every single time I do a case like this, And we have a named suspect. There is always priors leading up to the murder of an innocent person, and a lot of the times it starts with a sexually motivated crime. It might be a sexual assault, it might be an abduction with an attempted sexual assault, and then it turns into a sexual assault and a murder. It happens time and time and time again. And I know law enforcement is probably going back through the backlog of cold cases from around that area around that time, because it is entirely possible that Alan is responsible for other deaths in the area, deaths that have been unsolved for decades, and he got away with it for so long. Now, granted he took his life in two thousand and six, but twenty years after he took his life is when the case was solved. And that is just incredible that, first of all, investigators are still actively working on these cold cases that have been so dormant for so long, and the fact that there's DNA evidence that was collected in nineteen eighty eight when I was only two years old, that is now being tested with twenty twenty six technology. I truly say it all the time. Time is running out for these predators because DNA testing technology is rapidly advancing and they are going to be eventually solving all of these cold cases. They just need people that are willing to sit down, go through the evidence, and actually retest and relook at some of the evidence. That's what it takes. That's what Justin Holt did, That's what Brand invested, and that is why Caroline's case now has a resolution. Caroline's mom unfortunately passed away in twenty twenty one having no resolution in her daughter's case, but there is resolution now as of May of twenty twenty six, and I hope that for Caroline's two children they are able to process this and find some sort of peace in knowing what happened. This is another example of DNA technology coming through to name a suspect in a decades long cold case, showing that there really is always hope and it is never too late. And it's also another reason that I'm so glad laws are changing, because it used to be the case that if you were charged or even sometimes convicted of a felony offense, they would not collect your DNA, it wouldn't be entered into codis. Well. Nowadays, in Texas, at least that has changed, and if you are charged or convicted of certain felonies, they automatically will do it cheek swab and your DNA will be put into the database. And that is how it should be, but that wasn't always the law a lot of the times. It would only be if you were officially convicted and found guilty of the felony that your DNA would be taken. So if you were charged with a certain felony, your DNA would not be taken, and it could be dismissed for one reason or another. It happens all the time. Cases fall apart, victims don't feel comfortable coming forward with the story, and the case falls apart, so that person goes back to living their life. Their DNA is not in any database, and if they really are a predator, they are going to keep praying upon people and their DNA is nowhere to trace back to them when something like this does happen. So if this man in nineteen eighty eight who killed Caroline had been swabbed accordingly, I know DNA wasn't super prevalent back in nineteen eighty eight, but it should have been done at some point in time following that offense because he was on supervised probation. He should have been swabbed, his DNA should have been in the database. He was a sexual predator, he abducted and assaulted a child. Mind you, then Caroline's case would have been solved a heck of a lot sooner. Now, the DNA collection upon arrest is so important to me. It's also something that Maggie Zigman, who is Brittany Phillip's mom, is fighting to get past in all fifty states. Now, all fifty states do have the collection of DNA upon a felony conviction, but only thirty four states authorized law enforcement to collect DNA upon arrest for certain felony or violent charges. And this just has to change in my opinion, and I know Maggie is working so hard to make sure that it does happen in all fifty states. So thank you guys so much for listening to caroline story. It's a very important one and I am so glad to be able to share that it is solved after all of this time. I hope Caroline is resting knowing that her killer is not going to be able to harm anyone else and he was likely his own worst enemy for a great majority of his life. It sounded like he had a lot of demons that eventually caught up to him. But I also do feel for his family because they probably did have no idea. I'm sure there might have been things here and there that now, in hindsight, looking back, things might make a little bit more sense, because it did seem like he was involved in a lot of transgressions that weren't the greatest. It sounds like he just wasn't always on his best behavior. So I do very much feel for his family as well. But I do thank you guys so much for listening to Caroline's story. Remember that there is always hope in these decades old cold care and that is why I cover them the way that I do. I do love to sprinkle a solved case in here and there because I think it's so important for the community that consumes these cold cases to realize that there really is power in what we do as a community. We can help fund these cold cases so they can eventually get the DNA sent to a lab so it can eventually be solved. That's what it's all about. We have the power to help propel these cases forward, and that is what we're here for. I appreciate you guys so much. I hope you have a wonderful and safe weekend coming up, and I will see you next week for a brand new unsolved case. Please stay safe and I will see you next week. Bye.