Darlene Hulse: Part 2

All witnesses purchase of interest, and suspects are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Warning. This episode contains graphic crime scene detail as well as talk of sexual assault. It may be sensitive for some listeners. Welcome to Primetime Crime. I'm your host, Kylie. Let's talk right now and true crime, and then together we are going to work on warming up some cold cases. Let's go. Hey, guys, welcome to this week's episode of Primetime Crime. It's Kylie. We're going to go ahead and get into right now. It's your crime. I don't really have a ton to talk about. I think I had previously talked about it on the podcast. Was the Rose Pedal murder trial that was taking place in Greenville, South Carolina. They originally had to postpone the trial because they didn't have enough potential jurors in a jury pool, so they had to re send out summons and they have formed with their jury and we are in the middle of the trial right now as we speak. So this guy, the defendant, is named Zachary Hughes. He is charged with murder and possession of a weapon against the commission of a violent crime in the death of Christina Parcel, and Parcel was stabbed approximately thirty one times in her house in October of twenty twenty one. Now, at the time of this murder, Christina was in a custody dispute with her ex, who is named John Mellow, over their daughter. And although John Mello hasn't been arrested with anything, it is obvious that he and Zachary Hughes knew each other. So it's going to be interesting watching this whole thing unfold. I'm recording this on Thursday. I did watch a little bit of the testimony today and it's just very interesting. There's a lot going on with it. If you want. Daily recap updates, go over to Pretty Lies and Alibis. She is doing a daily episode where she's recapping the trial happenings of the day in an hour or last So please go check her out. She is my saving grace for all things trial coverage and has gotten me through many, many A trials because I unfortunately, as much as I want to be able to sit and listen every day all day, I can't. So if you're interested in that at all, it's a really interesting case. But I'll be sure to keep you guys updated as things start to happen. All right, we're moving on to the Idaho for bk An Taylor, who is Brian's defense attorney, is now saying that there is this other unknown male DNA that was found at the scene, and anyone that knows his case knows that this was a party house, and of course there's going to be other male DNA there. People came and went from this property pretty frequently, so obviously there's going to be other DNA that's been left behind. But that doesn't change the fact that Brian's DNA was on the knife sheet that was left behind at the crime scene. That is a huge, huge, huge blow to the defense. But they are doing everything they can, grasping its straws, trying to bring any little bit of evidence in to obviously take the pressure and take the heat off of their client. It's obviously her job to try to get everything dismissed. But at the end of the day, the DNA was still on the knife sheath at the crime scene, and that knife sheath was not part of the property. It didn't just appear there. Somebody brought it there. And my guess is the person that brought it there is whose DNA is on it just my opinion. He has not been convicted yet. The trial is set to start in August. It's going to be a really crazy, long wild ride, and I think we're going to learn a heck of a lot more once the trial comes. But I'll continue to keep you guys updated. Okay, last thing I want to talk about and then we're going to get into this week's episode is it was announced today that they have identified Jack the Ripper with a hundred percent certainty. This is one hundred percent match. It was, in fact a man named Aaron Kozmiski. There was DNA taken from a shawl that was left at one of the crime scenes, and like I said, they have officially said that it is one hundred percent his DNA. He was twenty three at the time and he suffered from schizophrenia. He did pass away in nineteen nineteen. So obviously we all know the Jack the Ripper. It is infamous. We've heard so many different tales, so many different theories, and it's just so interesting that officially, now in twenty twenty five, he has officially been identified. It just goes to show you that it is never ever, ever too late. I guess they did have some suspicions that it was him. So some distant relatives obviously that are now living in present day simited their DNA to do a comparison and it was a match. So they have completely one hundred percent confirmed that is his identity. And wow, what a crazy story so many years later to know now who is the perpetrator a one hundred and thirty seven years later. DNA technology is so dang amazing. I never get tired of hearing these stories, no matter how old they are. How they come to the conclusion that this person is who they think it is, and then they're able to cross compare it with the DNA. It's just so fascinating to me and I absolutely love it. So we are going to go ahead and get into this week's episode, and I hope that this week's episode eventually has the same type of resolution that we are now seeing in the Jack the Ripper case, and finally DNA eventually comes through and figures out what the heck happened to Darlene Hols. Get ready for Darlene Hols Part two. All right, guys, today we are jumping in to part two of two of the Darlene Hols case. We still have a lot to talk about, And like I said in the previous episode, this case kind of took on a mind of its own once Darlene's daughters kind of started pushing for more information, and once Ashley and her team got involved in things and they decided to kind of take it on themselves and investigate it, go back through all of the case reports and previous witnesses, previous suspects, and kind of dig through everything. So that is kind of where our episode two starts off. So there were some other crimes that happened near Argus in August and October of nineteen eighty six. So in August there was a manager of a dairy queen who ended up losing her life at work, and then in October there was a woman who died in a suspicious house fire. But the main one occurred December eleventh of nineteen eighty six, when an eleven year old named Brandy Peltz was molested and strangled in her home. And the Peltz family home was only a mile and a half from the Holtz home, and in this crime, the upper portion of Brandy's home was set on fire, almost like an attempt to kind of conceal any evidence, and a neighbor saw what was going on, saw that there was smoke coming from the home, entered the home, and that is when they found that Brandy had been viciously attacked. She was in her bathtub, she had been strangled, and she had also been sexually assaulted an eleven year old girl. This is so sad and tragic. So Brandy had stayed home alone that day because she was sick. She was staying home sick from school, and she had received this quote unquote harassing phone call prior to her murder and it was kind of just heavy breathing. She had gotten in touch with her mom and she said that she felt safe. She wasn't really concerned about, you know, being in danger or anything. And she ended up, of course, unfortunately, losing her life that day. The phone was also ripped. Out of the wall, which Brandy likely tried to call for help when her attacker entered the home, and this was very similar to the whole family phone being ripped out of the wall. There had also been some other local women who had reported seeing a strange car outside of different homes also different women saying that they would get some creepy phone calls with heavy breathing and other unsavory circumstances regarding the phone calls. So there was definitely something going on. It just didn't seem like all of this wasn't connected, like there had to be some type of connecting factor here. Back a little bit in nineteen eighty two, there was a break in and attempted rape of a woman who is named Pam, and all of that took place after some harassing phone calls that Pam had received, and all of this was reported to police back in nineteen eighty two. So could all of this have been related in some way, shape or form, And if so, that meant that the killer was very likely living in Argus amongst everyone. So I imagine that the town, being that it was so small, had to be just super on edge and terrified that they could be the next victim. Argus investigators knew at this point in time that they needed help from the FBI. They were able to go back in time and track down the phone call log from the attempted break in in nineteen eighty two to figure out what person was calling Pam before her attempted attack and rape, and they tied it to a man named Kenneth mckune junior. He was definitely the man that made those phone calls and likely definitely the man that attacked her, but of course they needed proof. Kenneth was familiar to law enforcement because he was allegedly kind of creepy and had a habit of indecent exposure. He was also married with children living in the community. In November, they were able to officially charge him in an incident where he had indecently exposed himself where he was physically identified, and then in December of nineteen eighty seven, he was arrested and charged with the break in and attempted assault on PAM. Now, the reason that they were able to finally arrest him in charge him with this was because they had the official phone log that tied him to it, as well as blood evidence because he had cut himself on the doorframe area when he was attempting to to leave, so he left behind blood evidence. They were able to match the two and that was that Kenny ended up taking a plea deal and they ended up overall dropping the rape charge altogether, which is so insane to me that this woman went through what she went through. He came into her home, attempted. To attack her, She fought back, and he just couldn't be bothered, so he ended up leaving. But his intent was to harm her that day in one way or another. But regardless of that, Kenny did serve time in prison until nineteen ninety one and has stayed out of trouble since we're going to talk a little bit more about him in a little while, because Ashley and her team dig into him a little further and they actually get to speak to him. He denies any involvement in Darlene's murder. So with Brandy's murder happening, the murder of this eleven year old child, Darlene's name very much got kind of pushed to the back burner of everyone's minds, and Brandy's murder took the spotlight in Argus and the surrounding towns, and like many cold cases do, Darlene's story just kind of faded into the background. Everyone moved on, everyone pretty much forgot. But the thing about cold cases is that the families of the murdered victims never forget. They always remember, even if something happened when you were too young to remember, I e. Kristen Baby Kristen who was only a little short of twelve months old when her mom was taken. So everything changed. When Kristen started asking questions, she wanted to unravel the mystery of her mom's death and figure out where it stood. Where were things in her mom's case, Were there any leads, any new witnesses, any new suspects. She had all of these questions. Now, meaning that she now how to go back to the place where she was raised. Ron and his family did eventually move out of Argus, and he ended up getting a job that took them to another state altogether, so they left. They had left Indiana, So when Kristin started digging back into her mom's case in twenty sixteen, it meant going back to Argus and having conversations talking to people who could possibly update her on where her mom's case stood, maybe give her some more answers. And when she started this journey, she learned that there had been no movement in the case in years and it was basically just sitting there. The prosecutor, who is named Nelson Chipman, basically dismissed her and said, we're doing all that we can. There's not really anything more that we can do, and that was really it. Marie, Kristen's sister, knew how hard Kristen was working to get their mom's case back to the spotlight. So Marie decided to call the prosecutor up herself and just talk to him. So she did. Marie called up Nelson and just explain to him, Look, my sister is doing everything she can to try to figure out where the case is now, where the case has been, what you have, what you don't have, and you need to give her a little bit. You need to at least try to work with her, because she is really really trying here. So it basically took both of them, Marie and Kristin, to violently push for answers and finally get somebody to talk to them. Years of work and years of fierce adgacy. That's what you have to. Have when you are a family member of somebody whose case has gone cold. So essentially along the line, Kristin and Nelson had a little bit of a falling out, and Nelson said the reason was initially, when Kristin came to him, he gave her a lot of information. He was very upfront, and he was getting a lot of flack for that. I don't know if it was flack from the people that he worked with or what the case was. But that caused this rift. So they basically had to assign a liaison kind of like a middleman essentially, to be the middleman between Kristin and Nelson and discuss the case details with them, because Nelson did not want to talk directly with the family. And I understand if it was a situation where maybe he was a little bit too open, maybe he was getting flack from those on the inside. But still, I think it's really easy for people that work in a field like that, where they're constantly investigating crimes and prosecuting crimes, I think it's really easy to disconnect yourself from the fact that there's real people on the other side of these stories. There's real trauma that's attached. Darlene's daughters were there that day, and no matter how young Kristin was, she was still there. She was covered in blood. She is still part of the story, and I think it's really easy for people to get lost and forget that. So with all of Kristin and her family's hard work. The case was finally reopened in twenty nineteen, and investigators came out and said that they were going to be using the advancing DNA technology to try and solve the case because they did have this DNA. So authorities began tracking down previous persons of interest and reinterviewing people. So Ashley from the Deck Investigates podcast officially gets involved in twenty twenty one, and this is kind of where the case starts getting the attention it needs, and it kind of. Takes on a whole new story of its own. And I want to say, this is why I think podcasters and them taking on stories like this are so so important. When people tell me that they don't like cold cases or they hate not having a resolution, this is exactly why these stories are important. I love resolution too. I understand a hundred thousand percent we all want answers, but this is exactly why it's important, so we can get those answers. Kristin, Marie, Melissa, and Ron have lived more life than not without Darlene, and our killer is likely still out there and they're obviously deranged. They've probably done it before, and they've. Done it since. They deserve. These answers and podcasts like this one or Ashley's podcast, that shine a light on these lesser known and reported on cases maybe the only hope that these families have. I can't tell you how many messages I've gotten from people just thanking me for covering their family member's case. Thanks for covering my mom's case, Thanks for covering my daughter's case. It seems so simple to us, but I really think we have the power to give these stories the attention they need and seemingly breathe new life into them. So I really appreciate everyone that listens to my podcast weekly because these episodes and these stories are so so important. Thank you for letting me go off on that little side tangent. But I just had to kind of put that out there because I think it's super important, and I honestly think that without Ashley taking on this case, Darlene's name and story wouldn't be out there like it is now, and that is so important for these lesser known cases. So Ashley and her team start to dig in, and with the help of Emily, who is one of her reporters, they were able to officially start on Darlene's case, and their first point of contact had to be Nelson Shipman, the prosecutor. They had asked to meet with him, and initially Nelson's answer was why would I meet with you? And you may be asking yourself, why is this prosecutor in charge of this case when there hasn't even been close to an arrest in it, and essentially it really doesn't make a whole lot of sense. But they had kind of attempted to talk to everybody. Ashley and her team attempted to talk to the Indiana Police, they attempted to talk to the county Sheriff's office, they attempted to talk to the crime lab, and all of them told Ashley and her team, you have to go through Nelson. So it is very unusual for a prosecutor to be this close to a case. However, he said that he inherited it from the prosecutor before him, and at some point along the line, across the decades that this case has been unsolved, it ended up going from the sheriff's office to the prosecutor. That is why Nelson is kind of the contact person. He is basically the gatekeeper of all of the information in regards to her story Darlene's case, all of the evidence Nelson is the gatekeeper of. So they had to get in touch with Nelson and have him be willing to meet with them so that they could start to kind of dig in a little bit and figure out where this case stands today. Finally, after a lot of effort, Nelson finally agreed to meet and Emily went to his office and he took her into the office to show her a photo that they kept on the wall, which is a picture of Darlene, and he said that they keep the picture up to remind themselves of why they were there. In September of twenty twenty two, Emily. Had her first official sit down meeting with Nelson and they kind of discussed where the case stands. He talks about shortly after he first met with Christen and they had their little disagreement that he had sent off a piece of evidence for testing and when it came back it was exciting, but of course it wasn't a slam dunk. And he also talked about how his office is very, very busy. They don't have a full time investigator for Darlene's case, so that's really why there wasn't any movement in it. So this was prime time for Ashley and Emily to investigate this podcast and take it on, and that is where season one of the Deck Investigates podcast was born. Season one is amazing. I cannot wait to listen to season two. Shameless plug. I'm plugging it. It's a great podcast. So at this point, Emily is pretty much on Nelson's good side, and she could tell that he wanted to be involved and wanted to help. He just simply didn't have the resources. So she asked him, would you mind taking me to the area of the crime scene. And on their drive out there, it's very, very desolate. It is wooded, There is not a lot out there. Even still to this day it is still pretty rural. And he ended up taking her out there and he opened up a little bit about what he thought could have happened in Darlene's murder. He says he does believe the crime was sexually motivated, but when Darlene put up a fight, it turned violent, very very quickly. But he does believe that the attacker knew the entire time where he was going to take Darlene. He thinks that the attacker has very strong ties to the spot where he left Darlene. Now, there was another piece of property that Nilsen brought up while they were doing their ride along, and it was a property that was used to dump old cars, was owned by a local family, and there was still a buried bus that had been abandoned there as well, had been there for a while. And he went on to say that the family was never suspected Darlene's murder, but they were looked at for the murder of Brandy, and they basically dug through the yard looking for evidence to tie them to Brandy, but they weren't ever able to find anything. But Nelson kept persevering on this triangle. He talked about this triangle Darlene Hols, Brandy Pelts, and this bus. And on the map, it literally makes a triangle the three spots Darlene's house, Brandy's house, and where this bus was dumped. So could it be connected? It very well could be. I think it's a it's a theory worth looking into. Right. So Nelson then went on to say he believes that whoever killed Darlene did harm someone again and maybe even went on to be convicted and rehabilitated. Quote unquote, which sounded a lot like one man Kenneth mcchune junior who I mentioned earlier, will call him Kenny. So Ashley and Emily decide to dig into Kenny a little further, and it led them talking to Pam, who was the woman who was initially attacked and received the harassing phone calls that ended up being tied to Kenny. They talked to Pam in the podcast. You Can Go hear the interview. She says she remembers the attack in detail. She had received a phone call early in the morning asking if her husband was home, and she said, no, please at work, he'll be back later, ended up going back to sleep, and she said before she knew it, there was a crash and she was face to face with her attacker. She fought back. She said he didn't have a weapon, so she fought harder and he ended up running out of the house as she threw a glass of water at his head, which unfortunately messed, but he did cut his hand on the door, which later sealed Kenny's fate. When the DNA matched his she ran to see what kind of car he was driving and said it was a truck with a camper on the back. So before she was attacked, Pam had received some halls earlier that summer, and they thought that it could have been a stalker. In one of the phone calls, the man had called her by her nickname, which would mean that he knew Pam in some way, shape or form, but she did not recognize his voice, and she knew that when Darlene was killed, she needed to remind officers of what had happened to her and what she went through. Although she wasn't killed, she thought that this had to be the same type of situation, like a setup, a break in, an attack, so on and so forth. But nothing really happened, of course with Darlene's case, as we know, and by the time Kenny was brought in and put in jail, Darlene's case was already cold. So if they had maybe investigated and taken her story a little bit more seriously in nineteen eighty two, maybe we wouldn't even be here today. Maybe Darlene's attack never would have happened. We don't know. Oh. Now, it does turn out that Pam did not know Kenny personally, but she did know his sister because they went to high school together. So that's interesting. So moving on from that, Ashley and Emily couldn't shake the feeling that there was something more to Kenny, and they decided to kind of go back to the land that Darlene was stumped on. Her offender, like we've talked about in Part one, had to have known this area. Even Nelson, the prosecutor, believed that there was a tie to the land and the person who killed Darlene. But what was it, That's what we didn't know. So they ended up. Pulling the deeds and right up the road was McCune Farms LLC, Kenny's family farm. Now, the farm had changed hands multiple times over the years, but Kenny's dad and uncle were both farmers and they both lived local and close by. Back in nineteen eighty four, the man who owned the property where Darlene was found was a man named George, and he was known to lease the land to local farmers and timber buyers. And unfortunately there's no record of who leased the property back in nineteen eighty four. Investigators did originally speak with Jim, who was Kenny's uncle, back after Darlene was found, but it was just a very run of the mill conversation, have you seen anything? We have this girl who's been found close to your property, do you know anything? Have you seen anything? And the answer was no. It was a very run of the mill conversation. That was it. But Kenny is such. An interesting character in the story, and I want to preface everything with Kenny has not been ever charged of anything. He's never been convicted of anything other than his original attack against Pam. That is all he has ever been convicted of. So everything I say now is basically just digging back into Kenny because it's part of the story. If nothing else, it's to eliminate Kenny as a suspect and say he. Had nothing to do with it. This is what investigators do, so that is exactly what Ashley and Emily started doing. They wanted to try to dig in a little more to kind of figure out what was Kenny all about. So Kenny worked a lot of different jobs, including being a bus driver. He was a salesman at a used car dealership. He worked at a farm hand So this kind of piqued their interest because he worked at a used car dealership, meaning he had access to used cars. Now, unfortunately, if police had thoroughly investigated Pam's case when it first happened and when it was first reported, then they would have been able to kind of think, when Darlene's case happened, let's just go over to the used car dealership and see if this blue, green, rusted car is there, because Kenny had access to used cars. But unfortunately Pam's case didn't really get dug into until way, way, way after the fact. But this car comes into question so much. And the reason it comes into question is because it's very distinct. The color is distinct, it's old, it's rusty, and the paint job that witnesses describe it as is kind of a really crappy paint job. They say it's very chalky, and it looks like it's hand painted. It just isn't. It's something that stands out. So I think that's a really important part of the story. Is the car. Where did this car come from? And how are they hiding it? That is the biggest question. How are they hiding it? Especially if they still live in town. So all of this right now is super circumstantial. There's nothing that points to Kenny as being guilty. But Emily and Ashley want to talk to him and kind of get his. Side of the story. So they go ahead and go to his house, and surprisingly he answers the door, and he initially says. He doesn't want to talk, but he ended up talking. He spoke on one of the investigators on d Arlene's case and said that this man is a very crooked cop, and Kenny said that he had accused him of being involved in Darlene's murder. Kenny goes on to say that he paid his debt to society and ended up doing the jail time for the attempted assault on Pam, and he's lived a good life. He has a wife that stuck by him, he has kids, he has grandkids, he has done a lot for the community, and he said it's been really hard to be publicly accused of something he didn't do. And he said, just because I've made some mistakes in my past doesn't mean that I've made them all. And he said that he knows what he did to pay was wrong, and he doesn't even have any reason as to why he did it, and he was young and dumb. So then they kind of go in to Darlene's case, and anytime they bring up Darlene's case. He doesn't really want to talk about that, which I understand that. Ashley and Emily also go on to. Tell him that they have some new DNA leads in Darlene's case, and he said that he was really glad to hear this news. And Kenny said years ago that. They have his DNA, so if they needed it to compare it, then they have it. So then Ashley and Emily go on to ask him, well, if they were to contact you to give them a new sample of DNA, would you do it, and he said that he would not because if they lost it, then it's on them, and it is on them one hundred and ten percent. Nelson Chipman did confirm that they no longer have the DNA from Kenny, which is unfortunate. Somewhere along the line they lost the DNA and it was never tested. So Emily and Astley kind of go on about their business, and all that we can hope for is that Kenny is being truthful about everything. I will see in the interview. He does seem sincere and trying to put myself in the position of somebody who has been in the public eye for potentially something he didn't do for decades. That has to be a lot on somebody, has to be a lot on their family. And he talked a lot about that. He said, you know all of this. When stuff is brought up, it really doesn't affect me anymore, but it affects my family. And if he truly. Isn't involved, if we take what he has to say as fact, then it is unfortunate and it is sad. But in these cases, this is kind of what you have to do to get down to the truth. Emily and Ashley go on to uncover some of Kenny's medical records that they assume were going to be used in the trial for the case against Pam, but since Kenny ended up taking a plea deal, there ended up being no trial. So the medical reports go into detail about when Kenny went in following the cut on his hand when he attempted to escape. From Pam's house. And there's also a report from right before Darlene's murder, and this was about two weeks before Darlene's murder. There was one line in the report that shocked them. June eleventh, nineteen eighty four, Kenny came in for stress and reported some breathing difficulty and doesn't feel well when he spray pays cars, which was a new line of business for him. The way that my jaw dropped when I heard this, I was shaken to my core. I can't even tell you reading it now, it is mind blowing, like mind blown emoji one hundred and ten percent. There was another visit five weeks following the murder, which September twenty second of nineteen eighty four. Kenny reported feeling nervous. He had lots of stress, he was working long hours, and the doctor recommended a lifestyle change. Put back on working, try to mellow ow, change your diet, exercise, so. On and so forth. So what was going on in Kenny's life around this time that made him feel this way. There was also a psycho. Belt that accompanied one of the reports, and the doctor that completed it wrote that when Kenny committed crimes like the indecent exposure stuff that he had done in his past, it was typically when his wife was pregnant, whether it be from lack of intimacy, a disconnect in the relationship, whatever the case may be. His wife was pregnant in August of nineteen eighty four, He had also quit his job as a bus driver on June twenty eighth of nineteen eighty four. So it could be Kenny. It's all just CoInc sentences. It could be that Kenny was just going through the stressful time. He had seen a doctor a couple of times about a couple of different things. It could be all super super unrelated. But there's so many coincidences here. Of course, you can't solve a case around that. But what Ashley and Emily were doing, we're digging things up that hadn't really been talked about and again, bringing a fresh set of eyes to things is what this is all about. So with that, they move on to another person that they found kind of in the case file buried way down deep, a man named John Paul Clark, and he was in Darlene's file from nineteen eighty four. Five days after Darlene was adopted, the Sheriff's office received an anonymous letter that said that John p. Clark had allegedly assaulted and stabbed a woman in Rockville. He has sense escaped from the Park County jail. It went on to say that the whole murder sounds like Thereville incident where John posed to somebody needing to use the phone. It said John has dark hair but could have been dyed to resemble dark streaks. I've met John twice and it was signed anonymous. It also went on to say that a check with Park County could get you fingerprints and a picture so they could compare it to the composite sketch. So Ashley and. Emily aren't really sure exactly how much investigators dug into this back in the day, because when this tip came in is when they were trying to get Danny Bender and try to figure out if Danny was involved, and maybe they had a little tunnel vision, which is understandable. So did they even look into this guy? So Emily and Ashley thought it was at least worth it to dig into him a little bit. And I think any tip like this is worth looking into, even if it's decades after the tip was first brought up. So they discovered that he was booked on an attempted murder and attempted rate charge in nineteen eighty four. He went to a woman's house stabbed her multiple times, almost killing her. He was then arrested and was booked into the Park County jail and he was awaiting trial, and his trial was set to take place on August fifth, and he escaped because somebody lazily left a door open and he was able to get out undetected. He ended up going to his parents' house. He stole some. Loose change and also took their car, which was a nineteen seventy four green Dodge. Colt station wagon. So the green color instantly made my ears perk up when I heard it. But none of the descriptions of the car from the Holst case described it as a station wagon of sorts. Now, they could have definitely gotten it wrong. There's always error sometimes in descriptions, especially of vehicles. It's really really easy to mix that up. That could be the case here. We really don't know. But Marie very much stands by the fact that it was not a station wagon that she saw parked in the whole Stamley driveway that morning. And like I said, I think the image of this vehicle is burned into their brains, as is the description of the suspect. So I feel like that's a very reasonable account for sure. So Ashley and her team decided to keep digging. In on John. Now, John now. Present day, allegedly has become a man of God, turned his life around, turned over a whole new leaf. But when they started digging into John a little bit more, they learned that he was known to be very street smart, he had connections. But John very much flew under the radar. And there was also a tip that had come in that he might be trading in his parents' green station wagon for a motorcycle. So from August fifth to August twenty seventh, he very much, like I said, flew under the radar until a tip led to him being captured on a motorcycle in Oklahoma. So this motorcycle tip did end up being true of sorts. So there was a span of twenty two days where John was on the run. So where was he in those twenty two days? How long was he in Indiana? Was he near Argus? They attempted to dig into all of those things and those who had investigated John all those years ago, but it ended up being a dead end because both of the investigators who had worked to look into John had both passed away. So they did end up finding a woman named Sherry, and she was the woman who was attacked by John. They wanted to question her about that time in her life. She ended up giving her account on things and went into detail on the attack. She had just gotten home. Her mom was very ill, basically dying, and she had fallen asleep on the cow, which she heard a knock on the door, and it was a rainy, rainy night. There was John standing there and he said that his car had broken down he needed to use the phone to call his uncle, and she very reluctantly agreed and let him in. And John had attempted. To quote unquote call his uncle and kept saying that the number was busy, so Sherry attempted to do so, and then realized that the number was disconnected or not going through and thought it was probably just from the weather. And she was basically telling him, like, you have to leave, it's time for you to go, and at that point he grabbed her and threatened her and said if she did anything that he would harm her children. And she basically didn't know what to do during this attack, but she knew that John was young and thought, if I just pass out right now, fake passing out, he'll run away. So that's what she did, and at that point in time, he started cutting her clothes off of her, and I know at that point she was absolutely so terrified and she didn't know what to do, but she had no choice but to fight back. She had to do everything she could to protect herself and protect her kids. So at that point she said, please, don't hurt my children. Let's go somewhere else. I think in her mind this was her way to get away from him. So they ended up going outside and she just started to run, but of course, like I said, it was raining, so she ended up sliding in the mud, and at this point he grabbed a hold of her and started to stab her. She continued to fight back, and eventually one of the neighbors came out and was trying to figure out what was going on, and she eventually kicked him so hard that he ended up running off. So this is another example of a man who was capable of a vicious attack and actually pulled off a vicious attack. So John was. Then apprehended at his parents' home that very same night, and Cherry goes on to tell Ashley and her team that John had been stalking her since he had gotten out on probation in nineteen eighty one. Now, he was a minor at that time, so reports have been very minimal as to like what he did to be on probation, but he ended up taking a complete deal for battery. Now, the trooper that worked that case does remember the story and had shared it with Sherry all those years ago after she was attacked. John had been arrested for sexually assaulting a seventeen year old girl. Prepare for it with a fireplace poker. When I heard this again, mind blown emoji. I am speechless. Just when I think I know where the story is going, another twist happens, Another turn happens. Now, they they didn't officially have this information verified. It was just kind of Sherry's word of mouth from what the trooper had. Told her all those years ago. But Ashley and her team decided to dig in and they went way back in time to try to find it, and they officially found it right there in black and white. And there was really no documentation that John was looked into for Darling's murder. The investigators didn't even really know who he was. Ashley and her team attempted to try and place him in Argus around the time of Darling's murder, but they were unable to do so. Now there was also a connection to a man whom John had previously done time with, whose grandma lived in Argus and owned a green car. That's a super super loose connection, but it was a connection. Nonetheless. It was the only thing they could really tie John to. Argus with was through this man that he had at one point in time done time with. So then they found a letter that was written to police. It was an anonymous letter and it was written in October of nineteen eighty four. A woman had said that there was a station wagon that had passed her at a. High rate of speed. There was a woman driving, and there was two men in the passenger seats, and it had out of state plates, and she noticed that it ended up turning basically into a cornfield and then it just disappeared. And then later she saw a motorcycle with a man on it kind of re emerged. So this maybe potentially possibly could have been John. They did say he traded in the station wagon for a motorcycle, so who really knows. Emily and Ashley did attempt to contact John, but they had no luck. So they decided they were going to go look for him. Themselves and they found him and instantly John was very defensive and told them that they needed to just read the police reports and to leave him alone. He was not happy about them being there and basically accused them of stalking him. And he said that he had left on August fifth, which was a Sunday night, and within three hours his car was parked in Northern Indiana. He was very angry, very defensive. It is on the podcast, so you can hear the recording of it. He was not happy and again to play devil's advocate if he truly isn't involved, which he very well might not be. He's never been publicly named a suspect or even a person of interest. Nonetheless, I'm sure being hounded about his involvement is probably frustrating for him. So go listen to the episode for yourself and kind of make up your own thoughts and opinions on it, because honestly, every single suspect or a person of interest or anyone that comes up on the radar in this case, it's so interesting how they all kind of have very similar backgrounds, they run in kind of similar crowds, So yeah, it is worth looking into these people basically to cross them off the list and move on to the next So about a year before Ashley and her team got involved with Darling's case, Darlene's family had worked with a private investigator who was named patrick's Opoli, and Ashley and her team go on to discuss the case with him, and through his private investigation, he came up with a new person of interest. Now this person remains anonymous due to legal reasons. He has never been officially named a suspect or a person of interest by law enforcement. I want to be clear about that, and I'm not going to use a name because I do not know his name. So the PI reviewed Darlene's case file and thought that this guy needed to be looked into more so. He first came on the radar in January of nineteen eighty five. A tip had come in from a woman who worked at Young Door, which is the same place that ron Holst had worked, and she said that this man had come to Argus and was basically staying at a home near the Holes home and was staying with a couple for a few months. He then left in October and ended up ultimately moving to Arizona. Another tip had come in to Ron's brother Randy, and this tip said that the man who killed Darlene was a member of a motorcycle gang. But this person was afraid to go to police with this tip, and the tip initially came from somebody that the woman knew, so it was kind of like third fourth hand information. So by the time it had reached law enforcement, this tip had kind of taken on a life of its own. Now, investigators did end up questioning the couple that are named Larry and Bonnie that the anonymous individual was staying with at the time. Now, they did have the green vehicle that the anonymous guy would bar from time to time, but Bonnie said the day of the murder, she had the car in the morning, so there's no way that he could have been involved, although they did think that he was capable of murder. So that was kind of the couple's story and they were sticking to it. But Larry later came back and said that in October of nineteen eighty four, he attempted to kick this guy out of the house because he was very much trying to gain control over them and basically trying to drive a wedge between the couple Larry and Bonnie, and he even at one point in time was able to convince them to sign over their bank accounts, which again it's such a foreign concept to me that that is something that would happen. But the couple told investigators that he would always carry this Bible around with him, and he wasn't super religious, but yet he carried this Bible around. He also talked a lot about like this underground black market for children where they could sell children and make money. Which is bizarre. And they all also said that whenever they would be with him and they would drive by the holes home, he would get nervous and act weird, and he also acted weird at night, and he wanted to cruise all of these back roads, which they thought potentially could have been him scoping out more people to attack. And they essentially said that they were scared of him, and that's why they didn't come forward with all the information right away, because they did think that he could have been involved. He ended up changing his appearance quite significantly after Darlene's death, and even like started to hurt their children, which is again wild to me, But investigators didn't fully trust where this couple was coming from and thought that maybe they were just kind of out to pin something on this man just because they didn't like what he had done and interrupted their lives, and that he was able to take advantage of them so easily. So from there things just kind of go to the side, and we don't really care much more about this man. It doesn't appear that there has been anything else in his history other than some different drug charges over the years. But the private investigator very much thinks that he could be involved and that he has characteristics of a killer, and I do think that he has a point at least enough to look into this individual more. They did attempt to reach out to him and try to talk to him, but they never heard back. They also tried to reach out to Larry and Bonnie to no avail. Now, they did ask. Nelson Chipman about this anonymous individual and asked if he was ever questioned, and he basically gave us really weird answer, basically saying, I think one of them was, but one of them who What does that mean? Does that mean the couple? Does that mean the anonymous individual? Questions, I just don't understand what that means. So in talking with Nelson about this possible lead. There's this family tree that gets brought up. Now, this is where kind of things get confusing, So I'm going to do my best to try to explain it. I'm not going to go into super detail because this episode is probably going to be an hour long and it stresses me out, but go listen to the podcast for in depth coverage of all of this. So this family tree gets brought into play. Now. One of the things about the family tree is one member of the family tree and this anonymous guy that we've just been talking about, have the same first name, although I do not know what that first name is. But the family tree is about a specific family that actually owns the property where the buried bus and other various cars were. I talked about that earlier. So the family that that belonged to had three boys who would have been in their twenties to thirties when Darlene was killed, and a tip had come in when Darlene was killed that said the suspects could have been one of the brothers and named this brother by name O. Their tips also came in that talked about the other brothers in the same kind of scenario, same kind of way. Basically that they needed to be looked into, and a couple of them also fit the description of the suspect having light hair and long, thin noses. They also uncovered that one of the brothers ran in the same circle with Danny Bender, so again, too many connections. Small town. Everybody knows everybody. So Nelson did confirm that the family was looked at for Brandy Pulse's murder, but not for Darleans. Apparently, one of the brothers had a mental illness for many many years, still has one, and he now lives in an assisted living facility. Ashley and her team aren't even sure if he was ever properly questioned, if he could have been properly questioned because of his mental illness, could he have even sat through an interview and done an interview effectively, We do not know. So Nelson didn't really. Offer much up about the brothers, but he said that they had been looked into and recently they had tracked down a living family member to try to get information. So this is very interesting because there has been no movement on Darlene's case at all. They haven't even gone back and circled through old persons of interest questioned people gotten new DNA anything like that, So why are they going in questioning this random family member. It's really confusing. Besides what Ashley and her team were doing, there really wasn't anything going on actively in Darlene's case. So although the brothers have never been publicly named suspects or persons of interest, it's at least worth bringing them up because there is this whole bus property, the Brandy Peltz story. It all just kind of it just kind of fits together. It's just so bizarre. So in their continued research, they decided to dig in a little bit more and they discovered a little something interesting that there was signs on Darlene's autopsy that she had a fractured hyroid bone, which if you watch a lot of true crime, you know that this is a telltale sign of strangulation. So Darlene was killed by this blood first trauma, but she also had a fractured hyoid bone, so was she also strangled. It kind of opens up this whole new thing about what kind of last few minutes of Darlene's life she had. And obviously she fought like hell to try to get out of the situation that she was in. There had also been varied reports about Darlene being sexually assaulted. It was reported that she was not sexually assaulted, but there was blood found in her underwear, so had she received more lower body injuries? Was she sexually assaulted is one of the main questions here, because that does appear to be the motive for this attack in the first place. So there was actually a witness that saw the suspect driving this green car with Darlene near the area of Olive Trail, which is where Darlene's body ended up being dumped, and the description that she gave very much told us that this was a suspect and this was Darlene. She said she saw Darlene in the front seat, slumped over, she had blown on her, and she kind of had a gray tinge to her skin because obviously, as we know, she had been viciously attacked. She gives the account of seeing this and thinking that it was suspicious. She was driving with her family at the time. She ended up turning back around to kind of get a better look at what was going on, and she saw the car do a weird u turn and head back towards Olive Trail, which again is very interesting because all along we have been under the impression that the suspect knew exactly where he was going to take Darlene and dump her. He had had to have had this connection to this property, or at least he was familiar enough with it to know. But if he was going in a different direction and then suddenly made a U turn once he realized that somebody saw him, I think that's a really interesting tent. And this whole thing is very interesting because Cindy went to the police with this information back after Darlene's body was found, but it really doesn't seem like investigators dug into it very much. So that is kind of that information. So here's where we stand today, and I feel like there is so much open ended information here. There is DNA in this case. There is DNA evidence in this case. Kristin has started a petition. It's on change dot org. I'm going to link it in the show notes. It's called Justice for Darlene Hols. I'm going to read it what we want suspect DNA to be compared to the partial DNA sample that was covered from Darlene's blouse. There are also more items that independent experts recommend testing that may yield an even better profile, and we would like that to be done as well. Then it goes into petition details. On the morning of August seventeenth, nineteen eighty four, our mother, Darlene Holtz, was at home in rural Argus, Indiana, with me and my two older sisters when a stranger came to the door and forced himself on her. My sisters ran for. Help while the man continued to attack my mom on the floor of the living room using a fireplace poker. The attack was so brutal that I was covered in my mother's blood. The man left me but abducted Mom. It's unknown what exactly her captor did to her after they left the house, but we do know he killed her and left her body in a wooded area about six miles west of our home. Her body was found the next day and police got to work, but even with my eight and six year old sisters as eyewitnesses, law enforcement scrambled to find any real leads or ants. Very little investigative work has been done on her case since the nineties, but in twenty sixteen I decided to see what could be done. I pushed for authorities to try new tactics and look for DNA in evidence that had been sitting on a shelf for thirty plus years. Law enforcement did send off Mom's blast to be tested using the ENVAC technique and found a partial mail profile armed with new DNA evidence. We thought the authorities would race to the finish line, but in the last few years since getting the partial profile, they have yet to test any suspect DNA against it. In March of twenty twenty three, a podcast is being released called The Deck Investigates, and season one covers Mom's case. It's bringing light an additional information about viable suspects who still live near Argus. An expert even told the Deck Investigates team that Mom's original cause of death was inaccurate and that if authorities would test her underwear and other pieces of evidence, it would likely tell us who killed her. Our hope is that for you to sign this petition and show the Marshall County Indiana Prosecutor's Office, Marshall County Sheriff's Office, and Indiana State Police how important it is for them to prioritize DNA testing and our mom's case. In addition to signing this, you can also contact the Marshall County Prosecutor's Office, who is the lead on this case, to let them know you are that you stand with Darlene's family and demand answers on their behalf. You can contact them at five seven four nine three five eight. Sixty sixty six. So that is very very powerful. Kristen is really doing everything she can, still to this day to try to get her mom's case more traction. Ashley and her team taking on this case I feel like very much breathe a new life into it. There's so much more information now about it than we ever had before, and I think it's just a matter of time before hopefully things are officially tested and we're finally able to link this to somebody, because the person that did this is out there. I want to end this episode with something that Kristen had said in an interview that she did with WNDU. Quote, I feel like I'm very lucky to be here. I feel like she did the best she could to protect us, and that was the goal, and for that I am eternally grateful. End quote. And I think if there's anything we take from the story is that Darlene did everything she could to protect her children, and she did protect them, and I think they're the ones that are going to keep pushing until her case is solved. And that is very much Darlene's legacy is leaving behind three children that are going to fight like hell to get their mom's case solved, even if it has been forty years. There was some talk in the podcast about. Neilson Shipman potentially retiring, but as of right now currently recording this, it does appear that he is still the prosecutor for the Marshall County, Indiana Prosecutor's Office. So where is this case going to go next? We really don't know. I do think that exposure and getting word of mouth out is super important, and I think that the podcast really did a. Lot for it. That podcast was released in twenty twenty three, so it's been out now almost coming up on two years. So time is running out for whoever perpetrated this horrific crime against Darlene. Like I said, they've probably committed crimes before, and they've probably committed crime since. But whoever this person is, whoever knows anything about Darlene's murder, whoever has had contact with this person, they've probably talked over the last forty years, and whoever knows something about this crime needs to come forward and give this family resolution after all of these years. So that is the story of Darleie Hols. I know that it was super long, and honestly I could have gone on probably for a couple of hours. But I do encourage you guys for more super in depth, detailed coverage to go listen a season one of the Deck Investigates, because there is so much information there and they really did a crap ton of work and research to look into every single potential possible lead in Darlene's case. And I think that is exactly the kind of work that needs to be done by the investigators and the prosecutor's office in Darlene's case. But again, they're short staffed, they're very busy. They have a lot of cases coming in and that is unfortunately what happens in these cold cases that they just kind of get pushed to the side because nobody has time for it. But getting exposure to Darlene's case, her name out there is so important. Signing the petition so they'll hopefully test this DNA evidence and make it a priority to test it to figure out who this person is. Crimes are being solved every single day by advances in DNA technology, and I do believe that this one, hopefully in twenty twenty five, will be solved, because forty years is incredibly too long to wait for justice. Be sure to share this episode, part one and Part two with as many people as you can, because the more exposure the better, and be sure to check out season one of the Deck Investigates podcast. Also, they have a lot of information pictures that pertain to the different episodes as well, so be sure to check those out if you're a visual person like I am. And I will see you guys next week for a brand new unsolved case. Thank you for hanging out for the long haul. That was two parts of Darlene Hols, but her story is important. I wanted to tell. It thoroughly and I hope that twenty twenty five is the year that we find out who took her life and finally get justice for her and get justice for her family. I hope you guys have a fantastic weekend and I will see you next week. Stay safe, Bye,