The Dardeen Family

Warning. This episode contains graphic crime scene detail as well as talk of sexual assault. Please listen with discretion. All witnesses, suspects, and purses of interest are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. 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 poled cases. Let's go. Hey, guys, welcome to Primetime Crime. It's Kylie. I am recording, starting to record this on a Monday, because it has been a day and I just have to talk about what is going on right now. So we are starting off with he who shall not be named. I'm using his initials BK because there is movement going on in the Idaho case. So he has filed this petition for his plea to basically be taken back. So he did a handwritten affidavit of facts in support of post conviction petition. It is really hard to read because he has the handwriting of a third grader. And I say that as somebody with not the greatest handwriting, but his is really really hard to read. So I'm going to do my best here to read this and then we're going to read another statement that was put out today as well. It is hereby declared that during attorney client discussions most of a word I can't read included all members of b c K's immediate family. Petitioner was convinced to falsely confess to capital murder and felony burglary by coercion, disinformation, false promises, and the withholding of exculpatory discovery. The next part I have trouble reading. I don't really know what is going on here. It seems like it says the following is material which doesn't really make sense to the inception of the plea. Counsel's failure to inform petitioner of exculpatory discovery received during plea discussions, namely clumps of unknown hair found in Ethan Chapin's hands, as well as the failure of further a word I can't read. Two. Petitioner was convinced that actual guilt was not an important factor in considering plea acceptance, death row was imminent, and advised to lie. I think petitioner was to gain a legal victory in entering a false plea. Three A gross misrepresentation of and promises regarding what a life sentence was immediately after petitioner and a gross misrepresentation of death Row in Idaho, including an elaborate, fabricated story of counsel horrific experience touring an ache by eight death Row sell. Sorry, guys, I'm not an idiot. I just cannot read his writing. His writing is terrible, and there looks like there's parts where the ink stopped working and he just didn't care and you cannot make out what the word is. I have a literal headache from trying to read any of that. So then there was something that was put out and I'm going to read that now, over a year later, it is self evident that in State versus insert last name here, justice was not served. Unanswered questions seemed to multiply with each piece of discovery unsealed, and the public demands the truth. Unfortunately, the truth shall never be derived from the state's myopic narrative, a work of fiction which has yet to evolve since the PCA was released nearly four years ago, and its faulty premises were never challenged at trial. Circumnavigated by a broken plea, the trial never provided the public the clarity conducive to closure and justice shall remain objectively miscarried unless the plea is withdrawn. I hereby declare my intention to enter a not guilty plea and welcome the state the opportunity to prove their case at trial, as well as to again file for the death penalty. My actual innocence is my truth, and the plea, hinged on false promises and blatant disinformation, must be withdrawn. Must is an all caps thank you for all who believe in my innocence and continue to critically analyze the case. I send my love to my family, who have never wavered in their belief in who I am, their belief in my innocence. This is again very poorly written. There are commas where commas don't need to be. There is a lot of big words that he decided he wanted to use to try to sound smart. There is a lot going on here, but I'll be sure to keep you guys updated on everything going on on that front, because I'm sure there's going to be more coming out. So this week also, the Lindsay Clancy trial started, and there's been a lot going on there as well. The first witness to the stand was her husband, Patrick Clancy, and it is obviously a lot for him to go into detail about everything that happened leading up to his wife taking the lives of their children and then trying to take her own life. I know the nine to one one call was also played in the courtroom today as well. I'm recording this on Wednesday, and that was very emotional. Obviously, this case is very difficult and a lot of people have a lot of opinions on one side or another, and I know the trials expected to last for a while. There is a lot of witnesses that are going to be called forward. Of course, a lot of people in the medical industry that have a lot to do in the mental health aspect of things. So I'm going to try to stay on top of this one. I know Jiji over on Party Lies and Alibis is doing recap episodes kind of taking you through everything that happened in court, so be sure to follow her for daily updates. She always does a really good job at doing all of the recaps of trials, so tune in and listen to her if you want daily recaps. Next up, we have officially the judge saying in the Celeste Revas Hernandez case that David is going to be put to trial for the murder of Celeste and his involvement in all of that. They brought forth all of the evidence, and the judge has granted that there is going to be a trial, so I'm going to stay on top of it. There was a lot that came out in the hearing that wasn't necessarily stuff that we had heard before, So there has been some new information that has been divulged, and all of that led to the judge saying that they are for sure going to go ahead and go on with the trial against David for the murder of Celeste, and that whole story and situation is just so so sad because she was a child. I have a local Houston case to share an update on, and that is the case of Kristin Galvaugh. She went missing out of Spring, Texas in January of twenty twenty. It is believed that she was a victim of sex trafficking. Human trafficking remains were found on January twenty ninth of twenty twenty, which was a few days after Kristen went missing, and at the time they weren't able to identify the remains. They believe that the woman was between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, and they knew that she had been a victim of a homicide. They very much did try to identify the remains, but because of the condition of the remains, they were unable to do so. But of course, as we talk about all the time, DNA testing is forever evolving, and they were able to officially confirm that the Jane Doe remains do in fact belong to Kristin, and they were found near a jogging trail in Missouri City, Texas, And like I said, that was shortly after Kristin went missing. So while this isn't the ending that we wanted, we very much wanted Kristin to be found alive. And well we have answers she was murdered, and now it becomes about finding the person that did this to her and bringing them to justice. Because Kristin was just a child when she was taken, trafficked and then murdered, which is awful, horrible, and the fact that this person is walking amongst us right now is not okay with me. So I'm very hopeful that with the advancements in technology since they were able to officially identify the remains as Kristin, that they're also going to be able to identify the perpetrator and get them off of our streets. These are not people we want walking around amongst us. Upon the announcement that the remains had been identified as belonging to Kristin, the family put out the following statement. For more than six years, we search for our beautiful daughter, Kristin. Through every unanswered question, every lead, every sleepless night, and every heartbreak. We never gave up. We held on to hope that one day we would have answers and be able to bring our daughter home. Today, while our hearts are shattered beyond words, we are grateful that Kristin will finally be home with her family. Nothing can erase the pain of losing her or the years that were taken from us, but bringing her home allows us to lay her to rest with the love and dignity she has always deserved. Now Kristen's case has switched from missing person, missing child to a homicide investigation, I do hope to cover it on my podcast or do it for one of my Unsolved Sunday Spotlight posts that I post every Sunday, I will be highlighting Kristen's case in some way, shape or form. So that is all I have for right now. In True crime, we are going to go ahead and get into this week's episode. All righty guys, today we are jumping in to a brand new unsolved case. So in this week's episode, I'm going to be telling you about the unsolved homicides of the Dardene family in nineteen eighty seven out of Ana, Illinois, Keith and Elaine and their two children, one of whom Elaine was seven months pregnant with, died in the attack. Peter was the Dardine's oldest child, and the new baby was set to be named Ian or Casey, depending on the baby's gender. Despite there being a confession in this case, it still does remain unsolved all of these years later. Let's get into a little background on the Dardeen family and how we got here. I do want to issue a content warning. This episode is going to discuss crime scene detail and it involves the harming of children. So I totally understand if you cannot listen to this episode. It is a hard one. I will tell you now it is a hard one. Let's go ahead and get into it. Russell Keith Dardeen was born on June twenty second of nineteen fifty eight in Mount Carmel, Illinois. His dad was named Russell William Dardeen and his mother was named jo Anne. He was one of two children, and although his parents had split up when he was younger, he remained very close with both of his parents. He went by his middle name Keith, so I will be your referring to him as that throughout the episode. He was twenty nine years old when his life was taken from him. Ruby Elaine Cowling Dardene, who went by her middle name as well. Elaine was born on August tenth of nineteen fifty seven in Fairfield, Illinois. She was one of four children, and I think it's so interesting that both Elaine and Keith went by their middle names. It seems almost fate that they met and would start a family together. Elaine was thirty years old when she passed away. Her parents were Francis and Velma Cowling. Peter Sean Dardene was born on July fifth of nineteen eighty four, and he was only three years old when his life was tragically taken the youngest Dardine child was Casey Elaine Dardene, who was born early at seven months during the murder of her mother. Elaine and Keith met, fell in love, and got married in August of nineteen seventy nine. They were described as a normal, happy couple that shared a deep love for one another. They are described as two of the nicest people you'd ever meet. They were active members at their local Baptist church, and they were also active in the church band. Keith was the lead singer and Elaine played the piano. Elaine and Keith settled down into life in Ina, Illinois, which at the time had a population of only five hundred people. They loved that the town had a small town vibe to it, and it wasn't too far from where Elaine's family lived. In the early stages of their marriage, Elaine and Keith both very much struggled to find work, but they did want to try to make a life for themselves. They purchased a mobile home about a year before they were killed, and they rented some land from a local farming family. In nineteen eighty four, they had their son, Peter, and by nineteen eighty seven, Elaine was pregnant with their second child, who was due in January of the following year, nineteen eighty eight. Elaine and Keith and Peter were very busy planning for the arrival of their newest child, and Peter was so excited to be a big brother. By this point in time, they both have found employment as well. Keith was in training to become a treatment plant operator for Red Lake Water Conservatory and Elaine was going to be working as a secretary at a nearby supply firm office that was located in Mount Vernon, Illinois. Although they had settled into life in Aina, Keith was not happy with the rising crime rate, and he shared all of this information with his family, who lived in Mount Carmel, which was about eighty miles away. So there had been fifteen homicides in the county Jefferson County in the two years prior. Jo Ann, who is Keith's mom, said that they just gus the local murder cases quite frequently with one another, and they very much tried to keep up with them. Most of them had still been unsolved. Keith had shared with Joanne that he was planning to try and move out of Aina. By January. They even went as far as to put their trailer home up for sale. Little did Keith know that he himself and his family would become victims of murder shortly after in November. On November sixteenth of nineteen eighty seven, Keith and Elaine had just returned home from visiting Elaine's family, and they had called them to let them know that they had gotten home safely and that, unfortunately, would be the last time that anybody would hear from Keith or Elane. On November seventeenth of nineteen eighty seven, it was a Tuesday. Keith had failed to show up for work for his night shift, and everybody was concerned because Keith was not the type that would skip out on work. He was typically very reliable and very punctual, and if he did ever need to miss work for one reason or another, he would of course have contacted his supervisor. The people that Keith worked with kind of gave him a little bit of leeway because they knew that Elaine was seven months pregnant and knew that he had a lot going on on the home front. There were attempts made to contact the family, but they were all unsuccessful. The superintendent for the water system actually went as far as to go to the Dardine's trailer in an attempt to make contact with them, but the knocks on the door were left unanswered. Keith's parents contacted the Jefferson County Sheriff's office and headed towards the Dardeen home with the key to the trailer. The police met them at the scene. They noticed that Keith's carr was not there at the scene, and when they went inside of the trailer, they were faced with the unimaginable content. Warning this next part because I'm going to be talking about the crime scene and how everything was found. Elaine was found legend to death with the baseball bat, a bat that had actually been a birthday gift to Peter earlier that year. Elaine had given birth to baby Casey during the attack, who was also beat to death along with three year old Peter. And this just stopped me in my tracks. First of all, you're a horrible person anyway, but who beats a brand new baby to death with the baseball bat and a three year old I have no words. This is just unimaginable. Elaine is also reported to have been sexually mutilated and bound and gagged with duct tape. Law enforcement, of course searched the trailer for clues. There was no forced entry that was noted, there was nothing missing. There was cash and jewelry that was laying out in the open, so basically robbery was ruled out very quickly as a motive. Elaine and Peter were tucked into the same bed as if they had been asleep when they were attacked. One thing that was missing, though, was Keith Dardine. He was nowhere to be found. Law enforcement initially thought that Keith was the number one suspect at this point because he wasn't at the home and the entire family had been killed. Naturally, he became their target and they started the search for Keith Dardine on Thursday, November nineteenth of nineteen eighty seven. All of the residents in Jefferson County, especially in Aina, are on edge because this was obviously a really intense case. The family had just been murdered, including a brand new baby, and law enforcement made it very clear that they were actively searching for Keith, and they were also searching for his vehicle, which at this point in time was still missing. So anybody that was working in law enforcement at the time was obviously on the lookout not just for Keith but for his missing vehicle. Law enforcement was also in the process of interviewing any family members or friends of the Dardines that they could in order to try and figure out what possibly could have happened in this case. Authorities then would discover Keith's red car, and it was actually parked outside of a police station that was located in Illinois, which was about eleven miles from the residence where the Dardens had lived. Now, the interior of this vehicle was spattered with blood, but again there was no sign of Keith. Later that day, some hunters made a gruesome discovery about a mile and a half away from the Dardeene family home. They found the body of Keith Dardeene and it was discovered that he had been shot three times in the head. Once the scene was processed and an autopsy was performed, his death was subst equently ruled a homicide, and based on the status of the remains that were found, they were able to determine that he had likely been killed within an hour of his family being killed. So now we're talking about a crime scene that spans not just one place, but two different places. But also what was really weird about the crime scene and how Keith was found was that whoever had taken his life had also mutilated his corpse. And it is again the type of sexual mutilation. I'm not going to go into detail about what all was done to Keith, those details are out there on the internet, but it was a sexual mutilation of sorts. Investigators very much thought that this was some type of ritualistic or sadistic type of crime, and they did believe that whoever had done this had to have a very personal vendetta against Keith. But what doesn't make any sense in this is that Keith wasn't the type of person that had enemies. He didn't run in any circles where he would be amongst unsavory characters. He wasn't involved in anything that was shady. It just wasn't his vibe. He was in the process of trying to get his family out of the county because he felt like it was unsafe, and that is honestly chilling when you think about it, because I truly think he wanted to get his family out for his safety and theirs. But I truly don't think that he ever would have expected that he would actually become a victim of what he feared the most. Now, the investigation into the homicides was very tough from the start because Keith was found in one county and Elaine and her children were found deceased in another county. So the jurisdiction of who was going to investigate, what and how all of that was going to play out was really very, very tough from the start. It was discovered at the Dardeene home that the back door had been left open, so that easily could have been the entrance point for the intruder or intruders to easily gain access to the home without force. The murder weapon, like I said, in Elaine, Peter and Casey's case, was a baseball bat, and that weapon was left at the scene. So here's my little side tangent. I think it's very interesting because we do have two separate scenes. Here Keith was killed via gunshot and then we have Elaine, Casey and Peter who were beaten to death with this baseball bat. So obviously the perpetrator or perpetrators came into the Dardine home and they had a gun, but instead they decided that they were going to use this baseball bat for one reason or another, and they were really stupid because they left it behind, which I hope one day is going to be the smoking gun that catches these predators, because I'm sure there has to be something on that bat that we can test in twenty twenty six that is going to tie it to a perpetrator. That is my hope in my prayer. And there isn't really much known about the gun that was used to kill Keith. They have never disclosed the caliber or the make of the weapon, and it's obviously something that law enforcement has intentionally kept out of the public to try and protect the integrity of the investigation. Now, there is reports that there was some marijuana found in the trailer home, but authorities have very much refrained from saying that this marijuana belonged to either Keith or Elaine. They do believe that whoever committed this crime are the ones that left to the marijuana behind, because Keith and Elaine were not known drug users, so investigators at this point in time very much believed that the killer had had broken into the trailer that evening they murdered Elaine and her children, and that they had led Keith away to a secondary location where they believed he was killed and then his body was disposed of. Now, like I said, there was blood spatter found in Keith's vehicle, so investigators did believe that it was possible that Keith could have actually been killed in the car, But investigators didn't really know if he had been killed before or after his family. And what's very interesting in this is, whoever did this took a lot of time at the trailer home to seemingly clean things up. All of the evidence, fingerprints, blood, everything was cleaned up. They came to the trailer with the plan to commit this horrific crime and also took the time to clean up. Obviously they came in, they had a gun with them, because that's what was you to kill Keith. Why did they switch them and use a baseball bat that was already in the Dardine home to kill Elaine and the kids. That is something at this point in time investigators don't know the answer to. So this to me makes me kind of question if we are talking about more than one perpetrator here, because if they took Keith hostage and they were holding him hostage, in the vehicle. He's still alive, probably fighting for his life. His family is inside they are unfortunately attacked, and then there is a perpetrator inside that's actually taking the time to clean up the crime scene, so to say, make sure that Elaine and Peter are tucked nicely into bed. It just doesn't make a lot of sense to me that this could possibly be one person, unless, of course, Keith was killed first. But it just doesn't make a lot of sense that they took him to a secondary location unless they were doing this to throw off the investigation and put the attention on Keith being involved, which is exactly what happened. So maybe there is a rhyme and reason to why it was done the way it was done. But regardless of that, whoever did this spent a lot of time at that trailer home cleaning up. Investigators had a really hard time figuring out what the possible motive could be because, like I said, the Dardine family was very well liked and they weren't into anything that would put them into crowds that would make them targets. They weren't into drugs, they weren't into gambling. There was nothing like that that stood out in their past that would make them a target for something like this. Nothing really made sense to investigators, and they thought that the sexual mutilation of Keith might have suggested some of what they call, this is a quote homosexual overtones, and that they thought that they needed to potentially look in this direction and thought that maybe Keith had been involved with somebody outside of his marriage. But despite them very much looking in this direction, there was never anything that suggested this whatsoever. I think it was just a hunch investigators had because they thought, who would do something like this, There has to be a reason behind it. And honestly, if we're talking about an individual that's going to be a brand new newborn to death with the baseball bat, then we are definitely dealing with somebody that doesn't have a moral compass and is just a awful, horrible human. It's also important to note that the Dardine's home was located along Rink thirty seven, which was very easily accessed by Interstate fifty seven. So it's entirely possible that this was random and the killer just picked and stopped and targeted the Dardine family for one reason or another, and they were easily able to escape off of I fifty seven. Now, of course, everybody that lived in the area was super concerned that whoever had done this could come back and strike again. More than thirty detectives had worked on the case, and a lot of different people had been questioned, but there were no charges that had ever been filed in connection with the Dardine's murders, and investigators very much tried to look at this case and this investigation from all of the different angles. They looked at people that lived locally, and they also thought that maybe this could be a serial killer. And there was a lot of rumors going around town, of course, about this being a satanic cult type of murder. And I think that all of that it was the years of the Satanic panic, and it very much did stick from the sexual mutilation aspect of things, and the way that investigators had described the murder of Keith as being a very ritualistic type of murder. So I'm sure over the years those rumors kind of snowballed and spiraled. And again, it's a small town, so people are going to talk. Now. I do want to talk about something because it's reported that Elaine was not sexually assaulted, but I've also seen other reports that say that she was sexually mutilated. I am sure that over the years, different things have been reported, and that is a thing with some of these older cases is you will see two completely separate things reported, and we don't really know exactly what the truth is because I do not have access to the case files to know exactly what is inside of them. So I very much wanted to be transparent about that because I never want to report in that may or may not be true without a disclaimer. Because there is various reports. In one article, you'll see one thing. In one article, you will see another, So I did just want to be very clear about that. So investigators, like I said, they don't have a motive, so they didn't know what direction to go in. They didn't know if they were looking at a total stranger to the Dardines, if they were looking for somebody that was local in town that still lived in town, or if they were looking for somebody that the Dardines actually knew and were close with. But there was some notable suspects in this case, and we are going to get into them now. We're also going to talk about ultimately a confession from a known serial killer, but also a known serial killer that was known to fabricate and lie all of the time, because, as we know, you can't trust what a serial killer says. So one suspect that had come up in the course of this investigation was a man named on hell Rassinda's His alias was Raphael Rassendas Ramirez, and he was known as the railroad Killer. And this guy would basically travel across the United States hopping on freight trains and he would often pick and murder his victims that lived nearby railroad lines. And the Dardine's home was not too far away from the railroad tracks, and since they had been brutally murdered, it was very similar to a lot of his other crimes where he would beat the victims to death. And I remember this guy so well, this serial killer. I lived not too far from railroad tracks, and I remember he was targeting people in Texas and I was terrified that this guy was going to come to my neighborhood and harm either me or my family or somebody I knew. And he is the one a serial killer that to this day absolutely terrifies me. And that is coming from somebody that is very involved in the true crime space, and I have been following true crime since I was young and sitting on the couch drinking diet coke from my baby bottle. The Railroad Killer absolutely terrifies me. So once they did capture him, Illinois investigators were very intrigued by him and the different means that he would go to to target his victims. They checked his different patterns and where he was kind of in nineteen eighty seven, but they were never able to officially tie him to the Dardine family, and investigators ultimately did not believe that he was involved in their deaths. Now we enter one of my other arch nemeses in life in the true crime world, Tommy Lynn Sells, who is literal dirt of the Earth. In two thousand, while on death row, Tommy lind Cells confessed and said that he was the one responsible for the Dardeen family murders. So tommyln Cells originally was a carnival worker and he would go across the country and commit brutal murders with various weapons. He would most often target strangers and kill entire families in their homes. Children included. According to Tommy lind Cells. He says that he had cross paths with Keith Dardene at an Illinois truck stop, and Keith had invited him over for dinner, which therefore put him in the Dardeen family home. Tommy lind Cells then said that an argument ensued and he was able to go into and describe certain details of the scene that weren't details that were necessarily known to the public. And of course, given the violence that we know had taken place in a lot of his other crimes, it very much did match a level of violence that was seen in the Dardine case. But because we can't always trust what a serial killer says, a lot of doubts started to emerge with the account that Tomulin Cells gave. Of course, investigators did whatever they could to try and get Tommulin selves to talk more, and they even pressed him on some more specific details about the case. One of the things that stood out to them was he misidentified how Elaine's body was positioned when she was found. He also disclosed that he had shot Keith while he was seated in a particular spot in his car, which is something that has been proven false by the forensics that were found in the vehicle. The authorities in Illinois actually wanted to bring tomulin Cells to the crime scene in hopes that maybe he could help fill in some of the missing pieces and maybe direct them to exactly what happened, where everything started, and the path that he took. But because of the fact that he was on death row in Texas, officials didn't feel comfortable letting him go out on a field visit, even for the reason of him being potentially connected to this case, which I do really think probably was the best idea, because he is not somebody that you want to let just roam around. He is a dangerous, dangerous person. They ultimately came to the conclusion that they were not going to bring any charges against Tomulin Cells in the Dardine case, just because there were so many inconsistencies in his confession, and again, you can never trust what a serial killer says. Now, this is not the first time that I have to about tommyland Cells on my podcast before. If you go way back in time to almost the beginning of my podcast in twenty twenty three, I cover the case of Joanne Tate, who was murdered in her home while her two young daughters were also there and they were severely injured and assaulted and barely survived. A man named Rodney Lincoln was found guilty of the murder of Joanne and sentenced to prison. Decades later, it became apparent that Rodney was not the perpetrator, and Joanne's daughter, Melissa, fought very hard to help free Rodney, and she has a personal belief that tommyland Cells is responsible for the murder of her mother and the attack on her and her sister. So if you do want to go back and listen to that episode, Honestly, it's probably one of the hardest cases that I have covered, because I did get the opportunity to meet Melissa at Crime con and Lost Vegas several years back. They had done a panel on her mother's case along with the wrongful incarceration of Rodney Lincoln, And it's simultaneously one of the saddest stories but also such a story of hope because it really did become about so much more when Melissa put all of her efforts into helping free Rodney. There is also an entire podcast about this case called The Real Killer. If you listen to season one, it is all about Joanne Tate her murder and Rodney Lincoln's wrongful incarceration. I highly suggest that you guys give it a listen. So tommylyn Sells was executed in April of twenty fourteen, and to this date, no other suspects have been publicly identified. There have been numerous leads over the years, and I'm sure that law enforcement has continued to carry out and go back through evidence and try to figure out what the possible motive here was. But unfortunately everything that investigators have followed has come up as a dead end. Joanne Dardine, who is Keith's mom, did at first believe that Tommy Linceell's was the perpetrator, but shortly thereafter she changed her mind because the inconsistencies started to really come out. Tommy lin Cells said that they had met at a truck stop and Keith had invited him over, but Joanne said Keith was not that person. He was very cautious, especially with people that he didn't know. And if you think back to earlier in the episode where I talked about Keith wanting to move out of Aina because he felt that it was not the safest place for his family, it just doesn't strike me as somebody who would meet a random guy at a truck stop and then bring him back home with his wife and young child. It just doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to me. Do I think that there's a chance that Tommy lind Sells could be involved? Absolutely, because he was heinous, and somebody heinous committed this crime, so there is room to argue that he very well could be somebody that's involved. It's just never been proven either way. But in my opinion, this case is very much solvable because we're in twenty twenty six with upgraded twenty twenty six DNA technology and testing and forensics, and everything is on our side in this case in present day, even though this crime was committed in nineteen eighty seven, there has to be some form of something that they have logged that they can test to be able to lead them to a suspect or suspects in this case. In recent years, Illinois investigators have very much been and using all of the advancements in technology to re examine all of the evidence, including the baseball bat which is the murder weapon, and also different items that were left behind in the trailer. Although it's reported that things were technically cleaned up. There might be something there nowadays that they could test that they couldn't see before. Joanne Dardine has spent to the majority of her life trying to keep the story alive and out there, and she has been the biggest proponent of keeping everything in this case public and making sure that people don't forget about her family and their horrific murders. She is hopeful that keeping this case out there, that one day the case will be solved. In the nineties, Joanne even went as far as to gather signatures to present to Oprah Winfrey basically for Oprah to cover the Dardine family case on her show, but the show declined because they said that it was too graphic. Now, the show America's Most Wanted did cover the Dardine family case in nineteen ninety eight, and it has also been featured in several documentaries in Jefferson County, Illinois. They have very much also tried to keep this case alive and in the public attention, which I really do think is key, and that is the reason that we cover these older unsolved cases, because we have to keep the attention and keep the word out there, and I wasn't all that familiar with this case. I had a little bit of knowledge about it, but I didn't really know the details. And digging into the details, I was absolutely horrified that this case has not been solved and whoever is responsible has been walking amongst us for all of this time. I assume they committed crimes prior and after. There's no way that this was a one and done type of situation, at least in my opinion. But I do believe that with the technology that we have, I say it all the time, time is running out for these perpetrators. If they still are alive and out there, their time is running out. I very much do hope at some point soon I'm able to come to you and give you an update that there has been movement in this case and they finally have a suspect or suspects apprehended or at least identified. As always, I want to thank you guys so much for listening to this episode and listening to the story of Keith, Elaine, Peter, and Casey. They definitely deserve and need justice, and I hope that one day soon I'm going to be on here announcing that they have captured the perpetrator or perpetrators that were involved in the Dardine family's murders, And to jo Anne, I really really hope and pray that she gets some answers after all of these years, she has fought so hard and to be in a position where she has had to take on the role of making this case of utmost importance in her life and make sure that people don't forget about it. It is not something that anyone ever wants to have to do, but the fact that she has done it, I think is the reason that I am here telling you about the story today, because this case pops up from time to time on social media, and I think the reason for that is because Joanne doesn't let the public forget about what happened to her family and talks to the media, which I think is so important in getting these cases the exposure that they need. Thank you, guys, as always so much for listening. Ill I'm going to be sharing some things associated with this episode on my social media my Instagram and Facebook pages. Please follow along there if you are not, and I am going to be seen you next week for a brand new case. I hope you guys have a great Friday, a great weekend, and I will see you next week. Have a good one bye,