Welcome back to the Path within Chili. I'm Robin, I'm Jules, and
I'm Ashley. Let's dive right into this week's case. April sixteenth, nineteen
eighty seven, Union City, Tennessee, four year old Marlena Childress vanishes from
her front yard after her mother, Pamela Bailey, claims she saw a red
car driving away from their house. Two months later, Pam confesses that she
accidentally killed Marlin and tossed her body into a river. Pam soon recounts her
confession and maintains it was coerced and with no other evidence to implicate her,
she's not indicted for her daughter's disappearance. Over the next several years, there
are a number of twists and turns, including eyewitness fightings to suggest Marlena is
still alive and Pam being implicated in another crime, but Marlena is never found.
After that the path went chilly. So today we will be chronicling a
pretty controversial missing children's case, the nineteen eighty seven disappearance a four year old
Marlena Childress. This case was featured on UNSAWD Mysteries, but it's pretty unique
and that the show only aired the segment once and never did so again,
apparently at the request of Marlena's family. I am pretty certain that I saw
this segment on TV when it originally aired in September of nineteen ninety, and
while it is currently not available on the show's official film Rise channel, I
rewatched it when another user upload it to YouTube a few years ago. What's
particularly bizarre about this story is that Marlene's mother, Pamela Bailey, would confess
to accidentally killing her. Pam soon recanted her confession, and there have been
eyewitness sighting some Marlena to support the idea that she was still alive somewhere after
she went missing. I know that when I watched the Unsolved Mystery segment again,
I went back and forth on this case and soon fell down a massive
rabbit hole after doing further research. I covered it on the Trail When Cold
four and a half years ago, but I thought now would be a good
time to revisit it on the Path When Chili. So this sounds like a
case that I'm going to be mesmerized with, because it's almost as if there's
going to be I'm in this identification, which you both know I don't like
I don't like eyewitness testimonies right, in these eyewitness accounts because oftentimes we've been
skewed by so many different factors of what we've actually seen. And I also
it sounds like we're going to talk about a potential false confession, right and
so is it was Pam telling the truth or wasn't she These are the kinds
of things that fascinate me when we look at a case. So you've got
to tell me, Moore. Our story begins in Union City, Tennessee,
in nineteen eighty seven. Our central figure is four year old Marlena Childress,
who lives with her twenty two year old mother, Pamela Bailey. Pam's divorced
from Marlene's father, Kevin Childress, and is currently married to another man,
Johnny Bailey, and the couple will also have a four month old infant son
named Damon. On April sixteenth, Johnny's seven year old son from a previous
marriage, Jerry Bailey, was visiting their home until he was picked up shortly
before at three pm by Jerry's mother, Mona Watts. At around three thirty,
Pam claimed that Marlene was playing outside alone in the front yard while she
was in the house, Pam suddenly heard the squeal of some skidding car tires,
and when she glanced outside the window, she said she saw a two
door red car speeding away. Even though Pam never caught a glimpse of the
driver, she noticed that the vehicle had license plates from mccracking County, Kentucky.
Shortly thereafter, Pam went outside to check on her daughter, who was
surprised to discover that Marlena was gone. After searching the neighborhood and failing to
find her, Pam contacted the police set around four to fifteen to report Marlena
missing. A massive search of the area was eventually organized by law enforcements and
thousands of volunteers, but they failed to turn up any trace of Marlena.
The most promising lead was the red car Pam claimed she had seen driving away
from her house at around two o'clock that afternoon. Pam had dropped off Marlena
and her stepbrother, Jerry, had a grocery store two blocks away in order
to purchase candy. Jerry told police that before they went back home, he
saw Marlena briefly speaking with a man next to a red car outside the store.
Though he didn't hear the conversation. Other witnesses from the store, including
the owner, also saw this and described the man as looking like he might
belong to a motorcycle gang. The witness's description of the vehicle matched the description
of the red car that Pam had scene, and it also had plates from
a krack in County. However, this lead turned out to be a dead
end, as the man scene outside the store was eventually tracked down and ruled
out as a suspect. Marlene's biological father, Kevin Childress, lived in Union
City, but he was cleared of any involvement, as was her stepfather,
Johnny Bailey, who was at work that afternoon. So let me ask you
guys this. You say that Marlina was snacked by this red car around three
thirty, and then mom goes and scours the neighborhood for her and reports her
missing at four fifteen. Okay, fair enough. I guess if you thought
maybe you knew the red car, you might start looking. But it sounds
like there were tires squealing out. They were skinting off like a very hurried
escape with your baby in the car. As a mother, I feel like
I would have immediately contacted nine to one, or at least like some boy
in the home, like help me, help me, something happened. Maybe
I'm not in my right mind to call nine one one, but I would
call someone. I don't think I'd set off on a forty five minute searge
before I asked for help. No, no, not for a car screeching
in your front yard. Your child is gone. I think nine one one
or whatever police hotline they had, because maybe they didn't have nine one one
at the time, would have been the appropriate response. Even running over to
the neighbor and being like she's gone, she's gone, call the police.
But going for a drive around the neighborhood is just something that you would do
if you thought your child that was older might have just wandered off, and
so you're going to look and see, oh, maybe they're at a neighborhood
kids place, not just hoping that you're going to come across this random red
car again. Yeah, I mean her Baker would be totally rational if she
had no idea what happened to Marlina, if she just thought that she wandered
off. But if you hear it, the squealing tires in the sound of
a car that should be a major red flag. And this is kind of
like another red flag here that she gives an accurate description of this car that
she encountered a couple hours earlier, and you're thinking, wow, this sounds
pretty believable. It has the same license plates, this sounds like this,
and this guy did have contact with Marlena. It sounds like this could be
a promising leave. But then they quickly ruled this guy out, and you
seem to wonder could this be part of a fabricated cover story? And Pam
is using details that she recalled from earlier that afternoon. I was wondering if
she and Jerry had actually said on and talked about that encounter, because as
you were describing it, I'm like, this is it, This is it.
I mean, obviously, as a mom, I would have told you
about the red car. Then my little one would have told you about this
red car that Marlena was talking to. And it all lines up, and
then of course you dropped the bomb. Nope, quickly ruled out as a
suspect. And I'm thinking, oh no, oh no, I don't even
have each actual human child, but I know with the dog park, a
couple of times, Winston's got away on me for literally like a second,
and I can't see him anywhere, and that feeling of panic just like rises
up in your gut and you're above to freak out and like go looking.
I don't think you just get in the car and do will leisurely drive around
and see if she's there. It just doesn't seem to line up with the
emotional intensity that you think would happen if you saw a red car, you
heard screeching tires, and now your child is missing. It just seems incongruous.
That's exactly right, Jule. You nailed it. Now. If I
walked outside and Ray wasn't right in the front yard, I might spend five
minutes like panicking and looking around because I don't see her. But Pam witnesses
supposedly this dramatic exit with her kiddo, like you know, something has gone
wrong. That's what throws me off. A little search of the neighborhood because
your kiddo's playing outside. Okay, that's not what happened here. So during
this time period, Pam went on the local news to make a public plea
for her daughter's safe return, but the ordeal took a considerable toll on her.
A month and a half after Marlda went missing, she checked herself into
a hospital for exam ostuen. Pam was soon released from the hospital, but
nine days later, on June eighth, it was revealed that Pam and confessed
to being responsible for Marlena's disappearance. The confession was made to Stan Cabness,
a private investigator who had been hired by Pam's family to work on the case.
According to Pam, she was trying to attend to her infant son,
Damon, but Marlena was misbehaving and running in and out of the house.
In the heat of the moment, Pam turned around and slapped Marlena so hard
that she fell over and accidentally hid her head on a table, causing her
death. Pam subsequently placed Marlena's body in her pickup truck and drove towards the
nearby town of Martin. Along the way, she stopped to phone a sixty
five year old family friend who lived in Martin named P. L. Summers,
in order to request his assistance. Somers then met Pam on a bridge
at Campground Road, and they both proceeded to dispose of Marlena's body by throwing
her into the north fork of the Obayan River. This entire confession was recorded
by Stan Cabness, who subsequently turned it over to the police. Pam would
be arrested and charged with second degree murder and was placed in a mental health
institution for a court ordered psychological evaluation. Hundreds of people performed a massive search
of the Obayan River for five straight days, but they failed to turn up
any trace of Marlena's body. Police questioned p L. Somers, the man
whom Pam had named as her accomplice, but he denied any involvement. He
admitted that he knew Pam personally, but claimed to have not actually seen her
in two years. Following the announcement of Pam's confession, many of her neighbors
gave conflicting statements to the media. Some of them believed Pam was a good
mother and did not suspect any issues in her family, while others requilled having
seen bruises on Marlena's body and wondered if abuse had taken place. So do
we know much about stan Cabness? Was he former police officer. You often
see detectives that will retire and then become private investigators. What do we know
about Stan? I think he may have been a former police officer at some
point, but he was long retired at some point. But this is what
makes this case stick out from others involving supposedly false confessions is that the majority
of them are done under rest, will being questioned by police officers, whereas
Stan Cabinets is a private investigator hired by Pam's own family who should be on
her side. So as we're going to talk about, he would deny that
there was any coersion. He said that Pam made this confession voluntarily, and
it just seems weird to me that he would try to force the woman that
he's technically working for to falsely confess to something she didn't do. Okay,
So that's exactly what I was going to ask, because when you have a
private investigator, they typically are there are a private entity that you're hiring,
just like their name implies. And so the family saying, hey, we
don't think the police are doing enough, or we think we could be doing
more or supplement a police investigation, can you help us? Now? Stan
probably had law enforcement training. A lot of private investigators do, so My
question was going to be, you know, was he employing the read techniques
while he's interviewing her, or quote in quote interviewing her interrogating her? Did
he come in thinking Pam's a suspect and saying, hey, sometimes we make
mistakes. I know you're a good mom, but right or I can help
you get out of this. We know those tactics are used by law enforcement.
But like you said, Stan's gonna later say listen, I'm working for
the family. And Pam comes in and openly confesses to this crime. WHOA
that is wild because, typically, like you said, a false confession is
generated out of you know, eighteen hours of darrest at a law enforcement agency.
Yeah. I'm now going to share more specific details about how this confession
took place, because in two weeks of her arrest, Pam surprised everyone by
recanting her confession. She claimed she was feeling emotional straining and was under the
heavy influence of medication for depression following her hospital stay, and that Cabnets took
advantage of this in order to coerce a confession out of her. According to
Pam, Cabness told her that everyone believed she was guilty He said a witness
had seen her throw Marlena's body into the river, and there was also physical
evidence which implicated her. Cabnet told Pam that she would go to the electric
chair if she did not confess to what she had done, and advised her
to say that Marlena's death was an accident so people wouldn't think she was a
cold blooded murderer. Since Pam was emotionally spent by this point, she said
that she went along with Cabinets and told him what he wanted to hear,
but now claimed that nothing she said was true. Well. Cabnets denied these
allegations and said that Pam spoke to him voluntarily without provocation, because she felt
guilt and remorse over what she had done. In response, Cabness decided to
hold a press conference in which he played a five minute exert from Pam's tape
recorded confession and expressed his belief that she was being truthful about everything she said.
If that's the way it went down, I can't imagine what Stan's thinking.
He is telling her, Hey, listen, this is a piece of
information I got. I'm going to be transparent. I have someone who says
they saw you throw Marlena's body into the river, and there's supposedly physical evidence.
Was there really physical evidence? Oh not at all. Like all this
stuff that Cab mis allegedly said is not true. There was no witness,
there was no physical evidence. But he denies ever saying this. Like he
says that Pam was making this up and that she confessed to him just to
get stuff off her chest. So I guess it depends on which side you
believe. Okay, Okay, fair enough. I was going to say,
now, hold on, those are good tactics to you. I get it.
So Pam is saying I was, I was under darrest, he was
using those kind of tactics, and Stan is saying what we all were implying.
No, my actual clients, one of them came forward and says,
this is what happened, right that, this is what I saw. I
find it fascinating. Right now. I'm very confused as a person who would
be in that position, a mom whose daughter or is missing, possibly deceased.
I can only imagine how upset and emotionally and kind of unsound you would
be in that situation. But I also feel like your private investigator might not
be the one that you're going to open up and confess to Even if he's
using some of these techniques, like you're not fearing that you're under arrest,
you're not fearing that you can't get out of the room because the police said
if you confess now, they'll take the death penalty off the table. None
of that is happening here. So it still feels even if he's talking to
her as a private investigator, and even if he's saying, hey, someone
told me this, there's some evidence there, it would be almost laughable in
that scenario because she wasn't sitting there for eighteen hours without food, she wasn't
being threatened with all these other you know things. I don't know, just
not the private investigator. It feels weird that a false confession would come out
of that situation. I don't think so either. I feel like, what
would be his motivation in trying to get her to confess he's under her employ
Like if he was working for the police, it would make sense. But
I just don't see any underlying motivation there, and like, how could he
compel her to give that type of information. It just it feels like it
has to be genuine. I mean, unless she was delusional or something like
that. I don't know. Is there any diagnosis for her robin or do
we just know that she's psychologically and emotionally very vulnerable. It just said she
was under depression and that they gave her a lot of drugs while she was
hospitalized. And by this point, until she made this confession, I never
got any sense that anyone considered her to be a suspect. So it's not
like she's facing a lot of public pressure because people think that she killed her
daughter. It just this confession just seemed to come out of nowhere. And
that's the point is that you can believe the confession is genuine, but if
she's under a lot of medication, does she really know what she's saying.
Pam then raised some more eyebrows by changing her story again, this time instead
pointing the finger at pl Summers and implicating him as an accomplice who helped her
dispose of Marlena's body, she now said he was the sole perpetrator. Pam
claimed that Somers had sexually abused her as a child, and a lot of
this abuse took place at the same bridge where she had confessed to tossing Marlene's
body into the Obayan River on the afternoon of April sixteenth. Pam accused Summers
of showing up at her home to make sexual advances on her again, but
when she resisted, Somers responded by abducting Marlena. Pam said she never told
anybody about this earlier because Somers had threatened the lives of herself and her husband
once again. Somers denied all these allegations, and since he seemed to have
a credible alibi on the day Marlena went missing, police became satisfied that he
wasn't involved. What It's worth mentioning that in September nineteen eighty seven, Summers
would be charged with aggravated sexual battery for allegedly fondling a nine year old boy,
though investigators maintained that this incident had no connection to Marline's case. It
is weird, though, that Summers gets pulled into this case. I mean,
you have Pam who is coming to her private investigator and talking to him,
and then she says, oh, yeah, this guy Summers actually helped
me dispose of her body. I stopped and called him, went and got
him right, He met me and we dumped this body, and then you
said Summers was actually pretty much cleared by police, like he had an alibi
for that day exactly. Yeah, So it's kind of a kind of a
weird twist and turns here because he's being implicated in the crime and it's like,
Okay, he's definitely innocent of any involvement in Marline's disappearance. But then
they mentioned, oh yeah, he would later get arrested for actually fondling a
nine year old boy, so he may actually be a sexual predator even if
he had nothing to do with this case. Unbelievable. It sounds like those
are unrelated incidents, even if he did help, you know, get rid
of Marline. Marline supposedly hit her head when she was slapped by Mom.
But why brings Summers in if there really was where you know, Summers had
come and made an advance with Pam or years earlier they had had some kind
of disgruntled disagreement and she just latches onto like who in my life, Like
am I frustrated with or do would I not care if they got in trouble?
And she just picks this guy because if it's interesting to me that he
actually has an alibi and the police verify that. But he's a really critical
part of this story when you listen to the details. Well, Pam did
claim that Summers did abuse her when she was a child, sexually abuser,
So I almost wonder if that part of the story is true, and this
is kind of her former revenge that I will falsely implicate you in the disappearance
of my daughter and I don't care if you're interested or not, because you're
still a bad person. And it's almost like a thing. If I'm going
down, I'm going to take you with me. I mean, that would
be some decent kind of revenge because it did seem to bring to light the
potential that he was capable of doing these things. And then when he's later
accused of fondling that nine year old boy, it pretty much lines up with
Pam saying. So it seems like there was truth to potentially both parts of
you know, her story where she's saying that she did kill Marlda it was
an accident, but somehow it just brings in pl Summers because part of her
must have always been seething if that was indeed true, that this man had
gone away with it, and maybe she thought that there were other children that
could have been victims and maybe victims now, so that was maybe a way
to get revenge and maybe a way to mitigate harm on other children. So
Pam's father lawaide Strickland, would point towards another potential lead, as neighbors had
recalled seeing a blue car near Pam's home around the time Marlina disappeared. Investigators
were certain that the blue car belonged to Johnny Bailey's ex wife, Morna Watts,
who had stopped by the house to pick up her son shortly before three
pm that day, but Luade said that at least one witness had recalled seeing
a second blue car in the neighborhood sometime between three fifteen and three thirty after
Mona had all he left. Regardless, this lead never went anywhere, and
after on her going her psychological evaluation, Pam was deemed mentally competent to stand
trial. The district attorney eventually agreed to reduce the charge against her from second
degree murder to voluntary manslaughter, which only would have carried a prison sense of
two to ten years. The case went to a grand jury, but since
Marlina's body cannot be found, and the only evidence against Pam was her questionable
confession. They ultimately decided not to indict her. Pam continued to maintain her
innocence and decided to escape the spotlight by moving back to her original hometown of
Mayfield, Kentucky. So let's dissect that a little bit low Wade Strickland.
So Pam's dad says, listen, guys, there's a lead. There's a
blue car that was in the area. I'm assuming that the private investigator and
police are saying, yes, we're aware there was a blue car that was
Mona Watts. She was picking up the baby right from the house. But
Dad is saying, no, no, no, no, no, there
is a second blue car. This is a different blue car that was suspicious
around the time that she disappeared. What's very confusing. We know that the
witnesses may or may not have been accurate, but we also know that Pam
throughout this red car philosophy, right, So we have multiple suspicious cars that
the police are trying to track down, and it really may be a farce
that Pam was using information from the little boy and Dad's using information that witnesses
misstook for Mona's car. So it's so difficult because Dad's fighting for answers right.
He wants to know where his grand baby is, and you have people
who are feeding him information which just simply may not be related to the case,
and it may be. I mean, look at it from laid Strickland's
point of view. He hires this private investigator who he thinks is in his
corner and is going to help him find Marlena, but instead he winds up
getting a confession from his own daughter who's about to be charged with murder.
So I'm sure that Lais is very desperate here. He's thinking, I got
to find some new evidence that points away from Pam being responsible. And that's
when this new lead comes out about the second blue car, which may not
be true at all. But from Lawaite's point of view, he's clinging to
everything, saying, there has to be all evidence here that points away from
my daughter because I was trying to help her and I wound up hiring a
private investigator who got her charged with murder and got her to confess. It's
also wild here that Pam isn't indicted. I mean, I agree, as
a prosecutor I'd say, hey, I don't know that I have a lot
of information to go on here other than this kind of questionable confession. But
guys, how many crazy confessions have we heard where that's the only piece of
evidence and it still goes to trial and the persons still indicted. Do we
know much about her socioeconomic status, her race, these kinds of things.
Did that play a factor, you think? And why they didn't move forward
when we do see an other wrongful conviction cases just as much evidence being used
to send somebody to for life. Well, she was a white woman,
and she had other children, and I don't think she was from like an
upper class family. I think she was just like solidly middle class. I
think her father, he was like a businessman in town, so he was
a bit prominent. So I think it was kind of a thing where,
well, if we want to indict this woman, like a person who was
accused of murdering her own child, we at least have to find other corroborating
evidence. And all they had was a confession which she wound up precanting,
so they did not think that was a solid case. It seems so crazy
given the climate at the time where it was, so it was a widely
held belief that if you confess to a crime, you're guilty of it.
So, like you said, Ash, I'm just shocked that they didn't bring
an indictment against her. Maybe because she was vulnerable and it was clear she
was dealing with the mental health issues. Maybe they themselves had some doubt about
the validity of the confession. I think that had to be what it was,
right, and she does have other children, like, we better be
darn right that this is what happened. If we're going to take a mom
away from our kids who's a grieving mom, and these kinds of things.
What's fascinating is that there have been these wild cases, Like you said,
Jewels, it wasn't until like even today, if you ask people to people
falsely confess, they say no way, Like, no one would confess to
hurting anyone, much less their child, right. But if you look at
cases like Norfolk four, where up to seven people were tried wrongfully in a
case because of these wild false confessions that don't fit the details at all,
and you still saw the prosecutor moving forward, You saw their own defense attorneys
saying if he confessed, he's guilty. Let me try to just minimize the
charges here. It's crazy that they didn't indict her. I think another factor,
though, is that it was much less common to bring someone to trial
for murder without a body during the late nineteen eighties, and Marlena they still
hadn't founder. She was still a missing person, and I think they were
thinking, well, we can't even prove that she's dead. And as we're
going to talk about, they would have a lot of eyewitness sightings pop up
in the next few years. And I think if PAM was going on trial
at this time and these sightings took place, that could have been a disaster
for their case. So they definitely made the right decision. The investigation would
now focus on eyewitness sightings, which seemed to suggest that Marlena might still be
alive. In November nineteen eighty eight, Social Services received a report about child
neglect which was supposedly taking place at a home in Anniston, Alabama. A
couple lived there with ten children, and believe it or not, their last
name was also Childress, even though they were of no relation to Marlena's family.
A social worker went to visit the home and spoke to a young girl
who apparently said that her name was Marlena Childress. The name sounded familiar,
and the social worker later realized that she had previously seen Marlena Childress's missing poster,
and the girl she spoke to bore a resemblance to her. The authorities
were notified, but by the time they arrived at the children's home, the
entire family was gone. The Childresses were described as having a transient existence,
as they would move around from state to state and live off governmental assistance checks,
and it turned out that the father, Oliver her childress, had a
restaurence on him. Neighbors were shown Marlena's photograph and they identified her as the
same child they'd seen living at the residence, though they claimed she went by
the name Crystal. They believed the family was much more protective of Crystal than
the other children, and that they rarely let her out of the house.
The most convincing piece of evidence that Crystal might be Marlena is that she was
described as having silver capped teeth, which Marlena also had at the time she
went missing. Holy hell, what an interesting turn of events in this story.
It sounds like a couple things are going on here the social worker it
might be slightly questionable because she said, like, oh, I remember seeing
her face on a missing person's poster. Once we start seeing people's faces,
right, everyone who's heard me rant before knows this. But once we start
seeing someone's face and it's in the media, it's on these posters, people
start to resemble that person because we're looking for them, right, We start
to see them in that face on different people in the community, and we
question, is that her? Could that be the person they're looking for?
So we already have this little girl's face imprinted in our mind if someone we're
looking for. But I am more convinced by the neighbors who say, look,
we saw her from time to time, not as much as the other
kids, which is very suspicious, but we saw her and that does look
like the little girl that we saw here at the home near us. So
for me, that's actually a little bit more convincing than that one time stopped
by the social worker. I do find it weird though, that we have
these diffingering accounts that this girl apparently went by the name Crystal, but the
girl, when she spoke to the social worker, said her name was Marlena,
and that makes you think, oh, she might be a kidnaped child,
that even though she's supposed to be going under this new name, she
subconsciously just gave out her old name, and that's what caused the social worker
to put two and two together. But I honestly cannot think of another missing
person's case where a family with the exact same last name as the missing child
were accused of abducting said child. And it's just like, why do the
odds on that? Like Childress does not sound like the most common last name,
So it's a very bizarre situation. So six months after they left Alabama,
the children's family were finally tracked down in Florida, but Marlina was not
with them, and there was a strange discrepancy with the girl known as Crystal
Oliver. Childress believed that Crystel must have been the girl the social workers spoke
to and confused with Marlena. It would turn out that while nine of the
ten children were biological members of the family, Crystal was not. Oliver claimed
that Crystell's mother was from Lubbock, Texas, and had given the child to
him two years ago. He even produced a note which read quote, I'm
giving her to Oliver childress Well. Police were not able to authenticate the note
or verify this story, but Oliver be arrested for sexually abusing two of his
children, all of the children replacing foster care. But as far as I
can tell, no evidence was ever found it conclusively proved that Marlina had ever
been with this family. So you're telling me that they find this family and
that's the only kid that's not with them, even though she had been given
to the family, Like, tell me where this kid was, then there
had to have been a cover up story for oh, yeah, we were
given this kid, and then what do they give her to someone else?
Yeah, it's never been specified here, like what actually happened to Crystal,
because unfortunately this is where this part of the story ends. But it just
seems like quite a coincidence that they have ten kids and the only one who's
not a biological member of their family is the one that everyone believes is Marlena.
And that note is one of the lamest things I've ever heard, where
it's like, oh, here's a note that's someone gave me saying that they're
giving me the trial that must be conclusive evidence that this is true. Okay,
so, and she's the only kid that's not there when the police show
up. I want two letters to be produced, Robin. I want this
jewel Kayler's salad bar letter, and I want this letter exactly. Well,
it's only like five words on a napkin. Yeah. There was another potential
sighting of Marlena, which took place in Leonora City, Tennessee, in September
nineteen eighty nine. This time, a woman named Amy Spoon was shopping with
her own children at a department store when they started playing with a young girl.
Amy briefly spoke to the girl until another woman, whom she assumed was
a child's mother, called her over. Amy said the woman looked angry and
the girl seemed reluctant to go to her. Shortly thereafter, Amy saw a
missing person's flyer with Marlene's photograph and believe that she recognized her as the girl
from the department store. Marlene's case wound up being featured on Unsolved Mysteries in
an episode that aired in September fifth, nineteen ninety. It's worth mentioning that
this was not a new episode, as a show would sometimes film new segments
and insert them into reruns which aired during the summer and early fall, so
Marlena's story was featured alongside some older segments that had already aired before. The
segment mentioned Amy's sighting of Marlena in Lenore City, but its primary focus was
on the even more compelling eyewitness sighting. Was this witness, Amy Spoon?
Was she shown the mother of this other childress family? Like? Could it
have been that? Mom? I do think it was because they actually found
the children's family before the sighting took place, and they were taken into custody.
So I guess they were going under the assumption that if the childresses gave
away this girl, that maybe this woman that she was with could have been
her new caregiver at that time. The sighting in question occurred on April the
twenty second, nineteen eighty seven, only six days after Marlena went missing.
It took place in Memphis, which is one hundred miles from Union City,
at an establishment called Jean's Hair Salon. Gale Reich and Janice Wells, a
pair of hairdresser was working there that day, claimed that a young girl matching
Marlena's description walked into the salon, She was accompanied by a boy who appeared
to be around six years old, as well as two women, a younger
one in her twenties or thirties and an elderly lady who looked like she was
in her fifties or sixties. While Gail was given the girl a haircut,
she started crying out, quote, I want my mommy, I want to
go home. The younger woman barely reacted to the girl's crying and did not
attempt to console her, which made Gail suspect that the woman might not actually
be the girl's mother. The older woman soon spoke out and said, quote,
be a good girl, Marlena, and will take you to the movies.
The group then left in a vehicle which was described as having Maryland license
plates. Later that same day, Gail went out on her break and stopped
by a convenience store where she noticed a newspaper which is running a story about
Marlina Childress's disappearance and had her photograph on the front page. Gail instantly recognized
her as the girl she had seen at the salon, and when Janice Wells
was shown the photo, she concurred, do we know if they were dramatically
changing her hairstyle. By any chance, there's never been specified. They didn't
really say that she was like changing her hair much as all at all.
It just sounded like it was more like a standard visit. But I could
see something like this happening. If you've got like a child that's been abducted,
you want to try to dramatically alter her appearance. Yeah, that's what
I was wondering. So they're taking her to this hairstylist. However, I
will tell you, as much as I wouldness identifications stink. The fact that
these ladies actually spent time with her and they were given this kind of I
mean, imagine when you're in a chair getting your hair cut, the hairstylist
is looking in the mirror and talking to you. You know, they're looking
at your faith. They're right up next to your face, cutting your bangs
or trimming the front of your hair. So there really was a lot of
eye contact on this little one. I could see the influence of like let's
say they had said, you know, hey, Melissa, be a good
girl, will take you to the movies, and then they go read the
newspaper and the names Marlina. I can see where subconsciously facts might change.
But having so much visual exposure to this kiddo, seeing the dynamic between the
parties, this one sounds like a more reputable sighting of the little girl than
anything we've heard up to this point in my opinion. Yeah, especially the
fact that they saw Marlena's photo on break like only a short time later after
this girl had been on the salon, so it was still freshen or memory,
whereas a lot of these mistaken eyewitness sightings are from people who see photographs
of the missing person like days or weeks after the facts, so their memories
playing tricks on them. And if they call nine on one or is there
something in response to the Unsolved Mysteries. No, they'd called nine on one
because I think this was only six days after Marlina actually went missing, so
they decided to call them, And I think Unsolved Mysteries made this the primary
focus of the segment because they believe this was the most believable sighting of Marlena.
Yeah, so far, I would concur Following the eyewitness sighting of the
little girl in the salon, Marlena's maternal grandfather, Luaide Strickland, eventually traveled
to Memphis to perform his own independent investigation into this sighting. He came to
believe that the younger woman seeing at the hair salon might have been a local
waitress who had allegedly left town in the morning after Marlena went missing before returning
a few days later. Laid decided to take Gayel and Janis to the waitress's
restaurant while she was working, and they both identified her as the woman from
the salon. Luaide then showed the two hairdressers a photo lineup featuring six young
boys. Gail and Janis both picked out a photo of a boy whom they
recognized as the boy from the salon, before Lauade revealed to them that he
was the waitress's son. After Lauaide shared this information with the police, they
questioned the waitress, who denied having any knowledge of Marlena Childress. Since she
passed a polygraph and investigators found no evidence to implicate her, they came to
believe that the waitress was probably not involved in Marlena's disappearance. But shortly after
this questioning took place, Gail and Janis claimed they started receiving threatening phone calls
at the salon from an anonymous female so eerie. I love this dad,
whether he's accurate or not. I love how this granddaddy and dad is saying,
like, all right, I hired a private investigator, which got me
a false confession from my daughter, or a confession from my daughter. I'm
going to go out and do an investigation myself. I think I know what
happened, and he's hunting down these people. I'm really trying to make a
difference in this case and figure out what happened to his baby. It is
crazy that these women not only said yes, that's the waitress, which okay,
we're sitting face to face and being asked right, and we're being like
a direct lineup, right, a direct identification of a single suspect is that
her? A lot of times again there's problems with that. It's called a
show up, right, There's just one person, no one to compare them
too, So show ups are really suspicious. But you then have this basically
a police lineup of children, and they also pick out the waitress's son.
Very eerie. I am glad police did follow up on his leads because a
lot of times families are stifled. They're not really taken seriously, but it
sounds like police went above and beyond. They gave a polygraph test, they
investigated this accusation, and they were cleared. Who knew that Gail and Janice
were helping and made these threatening phone calls? Though if it's not the waitress,
well it could be a thing though that if the waitress was angry that
she was being falsely implicated in a missing children's case, she may have been
bitter and decide I just take my child in here for a parsalonapointment, and
now you're accusing me of like abducting a child. And maybe she was just
angry and the threatening phone calls had nothing to actually do with Marlena's disappearance.
But I do think that Luaide Strickland is quite a unique character because he had
no experience in law enforcement. He was not a private investigator. He ran
a shoe repair business, and here he is like doing stuff like photo lineups
and doing them properly in order to do his own independent investigation trying to find
his granddaughter. I really wonder what those other boys did look like, though,
because when you do this like six pack lineup of these kids and you're
doing it as a private investigator, not as the police. You have to
wonder how similar in appearance were they did? They look very different, so
it was like quite obvious that only one fit the criteria. I really would
like to see that six pack of child. I guess it's like a six
pack of boys, right, And I'm curious where he got them from that
he just like randomly take them out of a yearbook or something like that.
And yes to say, and where did he get the photo of the waitress's
son to begin with? Was I in the bushes taking photos of him as
well? So very curious? Yeah, exactly, yea, so did Jules
request for a six pack up young? Yeah, I would just like to
see because I would like to see the similarity in appearance. But then,
yeah, it brings up the more bizarre thing of where did he get these
pictures of children? He had like five black boys and one white one,
and they actually picked out the correct one. Imagine that crazy. The Unsaw
Mystery segment brought in over two hundred tips from viewers, but nothing that brought
the case any close or to a resolution. This would turn out to be
the only time the segment ever aired on the show, as Due to the
controversial nature of this case, Marlena's family apparently asked that it not be shown
again, and on part two of this series, we're going to have a
more in depth discussion about some issues with the alleged sighting of Marlena and Memphis.
The case pretty much faded from the spotlight until a very unexpected new development
took place in two thousand and two. By this point, Pam Bailey was
still living in Mayfield, Kentucky, with her husband Johnny and their son Damon,
and she had since given birth to another son named Casey, who was
now twelve years old. On the evening of April the twenty second, Pam
told Casey that she was taking him somewhere for a quote unquote surprise. As
they were driving, Pam gave Casey a handkerchief and told him to blindfold themselves
until they arrived. They wound up stopping at a rural cemetery, and while
Casey was still blindfolded, Pam led him to a cemetery marker with the words
son inscribed on it. She asked Casey sit down before she suddenly pulled out
a knife and attacked him, stabbing Casey three times. In the neck and
shoulder. Thankfully, Casey managed to kick his mother away and escape before running
to a nearby house to see Kell. After he recovered from the attack,
Casey was released to the custody of his father. Huh yeah, wow what
oh man. Sometimes I really wish we were on video. I would love
to see a reaction to that. That's a lot of information to take in.
Okay, Pam, Am I incorrect that Johnny and her had been separated.
They must have gotten back together. I know she was separated from Marlina's
father, Kevin Childress, and she was married to Johnny at the time Arlina
went missing, so they were still married after fifteen years. Okay, So
Johnny stood by Pam through all this, and then they had their infant son
at the time when Marlene and went missing. Okay, fair enough, I'm
speechless. I mean, she found a grave. I'm assuming that said the
word son. She surprises Casey by trying to take his life, and I'm
assuming we're going to go right back into that psychiatric evaluation stage at this point.
Pretty much. Yeah, Like to this day, nobody really knows what
her motive for doing this was and why she suddenly just decided to do this
in two thousand and two, when she had pretty much put her life back
together because she was no longer under suspicion. She hadn't been cleared as a
suspect, but Marline's case had faded from the spotlight. But I have wondered
that this was very close to the fifteen year anniversary of Marline's disappearance, and
I've always wondered if there's some significance for her choosing this particular date. Pam
was quickly arrested and charged with attempted murder, but she claimed that she blacked
out and had no memory of stabbing her son. She ultimately wound up pleading
no contest a second degree assault. I'm received a ten year prison sentence.
Johnny Bailey filed for divorce from Pam, but oddly, even though she had
stabbed their son, Johnny publicly came to Pam's defense and campaigned for her release.
In two thousand and four, he claimed that Casey was no longer fearful
of her and that he would have no problem with his ex wife around his
children. Pam served her time and has since been released from prison, but
her current whereabouts are unknown. This incident seemed to reaffirm the police's belief that
Pam was responsible for Marlena's disappearance, as her attack on Casey happened to take
place only six days after the fifteenth anniversary. However, even though the investigation
was reopened, no new evidence could be uncovered to implicate Pam, and after
more than thirty five years, Marlene's whereabouts continued to remain unknown. So I
guess you could say the path went chilly. There really is a lot of
sadness surrounding Pam. Let's say that she did not kill Marlena, and that
that was something that she did say in a state where she's really not healthy.
Right. We know that court psychiatric evaluations don't somebody's not struggling with mental
health, right. They're proving is she competent to stand trial and is she
quote insane, which is a legal term. So when we look at the
findings that she was competent and stable with Marline's trial, that doesn't mean she
wasn't struggling with depression and postpartum after having an infant son and these kinds of
things. So let's assume for a second Pam is not to blame for Marlina's
disappearance and then coming up on the fifteen year anniversary, Johnny knows what She's
well aware that his wife has been struggling since Marline's disappearance, possibly before Marline's
disappearance, and now has this this break with reality and attacks her son.
It is either that he is absolutely naive and completely blind to the reality that
his wife is dangerous, or he's empathetic and knowledgeable that she is mightily struggling
and we have never gotten her help she needs because at some point he's still
standing by her, saying she should be released. She's not a danger to
her son. Our son doesn't think she's a danger. So I'm in this
position where I'm you know, part of me wants to hug Pam and get
her mental health help, and the other part of me is going, WHOA,
this isn't voting well for history and kind of recurrent behavior. What are
your thoughts on that, Guys, Like, is this a pattern? It
feels like it could be a pattern. But also if somebody you know is
dealing with a lot of mental health issues, there isn't the same type of
responsibility for their actions. Like just to take for example, the case.
I think it was in Canada with the Greyhound bus where the guy on the
Greyhound bus basically like decapitated one of the people on the bus, and this
individual ended up going in for psychiatric care I think for about eight years,
was stabilized, and then they were released. I do believe that they were
schizophrenic, and so you know, the responsibility that is on the should of
somebody who is dealing with mental illness and whose behavior could be corrected with the
right pharmaceuticals. They then don't pose the risk that they posed when they were
unmedicated. So the fact that he's coming to Pam's defense, I think speaks
highly of the fact that perhaps Pam was going through a very difficult time and
maybe under the right medication and the right treatment, Pam no longer poses that
risk, Because I think that's a bold statement. You have somebody who's essentially
trying to kill the son that you share with Pam, and now you're saying
that she doesn't pose a risk. So that seems like a one eighty from
how he must have been feeling right after the event. Yeah, it makes
me want to know more about Pam's character and her background because We've had these
allegations that perhaps she was abusive to Marlena before she went missing, though this
was never corroborated, and it makes me wonder, like, did she really
treat her children well during that fifteen year gap between nineteen eighty seven in two
thousand and two, Because I don't think Johnny would be acting this way unless
he genuinely believed that Pam was a good mother, or maybe she was abusive,
but he was just completely blind to it, and that's why he was
still standing up for so. Like I mentioned in the intro, I recalled
seeing this segment when it originally aired on Unsolved Mysteries in September of nineteen ninety,
but hadn't really thought about the case that much until I found the segment
on YouTube and rewatched it in twenty eighteen and immediately felt compelled to cover it
on the Trail Went Cold. It was quite a fascinating experience to dive down
into the rabbit hole and follow all the twists and turns, and while putting
my episode together, I changed my mind about certain things multiple times. There
definitely is good reason to be suspicious of Pam Bailey and believed that she was
responsible from Marlena's disappearance. Given that there was no other evidence to implicate her,
it would be easy to believe that Pam's confession to killing Marlena was false.
But once you learned that she stabbed one of her other children fifteen years
later, it's a lot harder to accept that she's an innocent victim. I
mean, one of the original obstacles to be leaving that Pam killed Marlena is
that she didn't seem to have any apparent motive. But as far as I
can tell, there wasn't any discernible motive for her to establish son Casey.
All she ever said is that she blacked out and could not even remember doing
it. I don't know if that's actually true, but if it is,
who's to say that a similar situation couldn't have occurred with Marlena. But if,
by chance, Pam was completely innocent in Marlene's case, could the strain
of losing a child and being falsely accused have caused Pam to snap? Given
that our attack on Casey took place only a few days after the fifteenth anniversary
of Marlene's disappearance, it's not hard to believe there might be some sort of
connection. Well, Robin, ironically, I did not even think about the
fact that you're right. If she claims that she actually snapped and doesn't remember
what happened with Casey and she was capable of mentally kind of snapping in and
out of this psychosis or kind of blacking out, could it have been something
that happened when Marlena was hurt. Maybe, and that's why she made her
confession that maybe she legitimately did not remember it for a couple months, but
then after going under some medication staying in the hospital, it just suddenly came
back to her. She believed that she had harmed Marlena and then just decided
to spill her guts about it. But then maybe couldn't even recall if it
was real or not, and that's why she recanted her confession. It's very
tempting to throw Pam to the wolves, but even after what she did to
Casey, it's quite remarkable how much support she's continued to receive. How many
other cases will you find where a mother goes to prison stabbing her own son,
and the child's father will publicly campaign for her early release. I don't
know what it is, but it seems like even though Pam has harmed one
child and is suspected of harming another, some people out there refused to believe
she's a bad person. Of course, the biggest piece of evidence which might
point away from Pam's involvement in Marlena's disappearance is that there seemed to be a
lot of credible evidence to suggests Marlena was still alive after she was reported missing.
Now, I know we all must sound like broken records since we've said
this so many times on our podcast, but it's worth reiterating. Eyewitness sightings
in missing persons cases can be notoriously unreliable. Whenever a missing person's case gets
extensive coverage in the media, which Marlena certainly did, it's inevitable that witnesses
will come forward who believe they saw the victims somewhere, But more often than
not, it turns out that they were mistaken and only saw someone else who
resembled the missing individual. However, a lot of credence was placed on the
sighting of Marlena from the two hairdressers at the salon in Memphis, which took
place six days after she originally vanished. A particularly convincing detail is that one
of the women the girl was with actually referred to her as Marlena, which
is not an overly common name. There's also the fact that this girl kept
crying and saying I want my mommy. The women of the salon did not
even react to this. So why would this girl be asking for her mother
if she was there with her. I'm still of the minds that of everything
we've heard, these are the two women who likely would have had the best
view of the little one that was sitting before them while they're cutting her hair,
and more than that, while they're interacting with the entire group of people.
There were two women there, Marlena's there and a little boy. They
were able to see this little girl close up. They were able to observe
some really questionable behavior like I want my mommy, meaning she's not present with
them. Kind of odd to take someone else's child to get their haircut,
unless you know it's like someone really close with like I've asked my mother in
law and my parents to help me with my little one, but as stranger
taking her into the haircut place and her saying I want my mommy, them
telling her basically you behave and will do something fun for you. Trying to
bribe her to behave and be quiet. All of that is very suspicious.
And then this hairdresser goes on her break, picks up a newspaper and sees
the story that there's this missing child that she's pretty confident she was just cutting
this little one's hair. I still would love to know. Was it coloring
her hair, cutting it significantly shorter. Was it adding bangs when she didn't
have them, because that would make sense that we would take her to a
hairdresser and try to dramatically change her looks to conceal that we have this little
kid. Unless you have a child in pageants, you're likely not going to
be like bleaching or coloring their hair. So that would be a major red
flag if there was coloring involved. But even if there is a dramatic cut,
right, because you can completely change the appearance of somebody, Like if
somebody has really long hair and you cut bangs and you cut their hair into
a bob, they can look like an entirely different person for multiple reasons because
the hair is framing their face in different ways. But also hair can cover
the body. It can make you look shorter. It can make you look
taller. It can really shift the way that others perceive you. So if
you were trying to disguise the way that this child, potentially Marline, looked,
then changing her appearance by way of her hair would be a good place
to start. And particularly, let's say say theoretically they saw the newspaper that
morning and saw Marlina's photos everywhere, They're probably thinking of themselves, Oh my
god, there's a chance someone might recognize her. Let's get her hair cut
instantly to try to disguise her. Oh that's so true, Robin. There
was publicity that day. That's how the hairdressers no to call the police.
And so you're right, it could have really set them into a panic.
You would think that we would go into the bathroom and cut it ourselves,
but people aren't very smart. So taking her to get professionally have her hair
professionally cut, I think a lot of people would make that mistake and take
her in. Another reason I thought this sighting was more convincing than most is
because the hairdressers saw Marlina's photo in the newspaper a very short time after they
saw the girl at the Salon. This is the thing with mistaken eyewitness sayings.
A lot of the time, these witnesses will see a missing poster or
a photo of the victim in the papers and realize, hey, I saw
this person. But this is usually days or weeks after the fact. Since
a lot of time has passed, their memories may not be reliable. But
when Gayale Reich saw Marlina's photo, it was only about a few hours after
she gave the girl a haircut, so her memory of the incident still would
have been fresh. If the sighting was accurate, and Marlina was still alive
in Memphis on April the twenty second, then this meant that Pam couldn't have
killed her and thrown her body into the Obaide River, so her confession had
to be false. I started to ponder another possibility. Perhaps Pam sold or
gave Marlina away to these other women, as there were unconfirmed rumors in the
community that Pam had once admitted to selling Marlina in order to pay off a
drug debt. Pam could have eventually become so racked with guilt over the whole
situation that she fabricated a story about killing her even though that's not what actually
happened. This has to be incredibly distressing for everybody involved, not just Pam.
I mean, if Pam is innocent, there's so many things going on.
She's alive, She's not alive, right, I think I know who
took her. I am the one who heard her. If Pam is struggling
with mental health, she could partially believe some of the things that she confessed,
right. If she's innocent and yet made this claim, it's possible that
she's one of those people who's rationalizing, could I be a monster and not
remember what I did? Maybe she had had those blackout episodes before. Maybe
she was not sure of the moments around Marlena's disappearance. You also have,
though all of these individuals, her grandfather is actively fighting for answers in this
case. And you have eyewitnesses from all aspects right that actually interacted with the
baby, that saw her in the shopping mall, that are saying that they
saw in another location over in Memphis. All of this is like these false
promises for everybody. These are the cases that break my heart, because Marlena
was never returned home, even as a deceased little one. If they had
her in their care and they were able to bury her. There is a
piece and there is a healing to say she is safe, we know where
she is. We'll get to meet her again one day, right, And
this is where I can come grieve her because this is where a burial site
is. Marlena hasn't been found. If she had been thrown in the water,
ninety five percent of me feels like we would have recovered a body.
Right. That is always very bizarre to me when someone even capsizes a canoe
or you know, there's two missing kayakers right now in Arkansas that have been
missing for twenty days or something. Where are their bodies? Because all the
bodies wash up on shore somewhere, they get caught on a tree branch,
boaters find them. Where is Marlena? So that, to me is that
part of me that my stomach is turning, just wondering how many people go
to sleep every night missing this little one and have no concept if she's safe,
if she's hurting, if she's alive. And there's so many conflicting stories
that it's pitifall. Did either of you follow that case in the UK of
this missing woman named Nicola bully. I have not. I didn't follow it
closely, but it was everywhere, and so for media, yeah, I
was like really interested in, like what happened. They had all these experts
because she was walking her dog. She was on a work call, and
they found her phone. She hadn't closed out whatever chat app she was using,
and her dog was there, the leash was there as well, and
she was just gone. They originally had theorized that she fell into the water
like right there, and so they checked the water like a bazillion times.
All these experts said, if she was in that water, we would have
found her. She wouldn't have floated very far because of the landscape here,
and all this time went by. Eventually they kept searching and I think they
found her a mile downstream, even though all the experts said she couldn't have
moved, and I don't think they would have found her had they not been
looking so carefully. But they were like digging into her personal life and her
partner and like suggesting that she was like this disturbed woman because she was facing
menopause, and like all these British press, they could just eviscerate victims,
but it just shows you that there are situations where I think, had they
not been looking like so thoroughly, they had so many experts in that water,
I don't think they necessarily would have discovered her body. So there are
cases where that happens. So I do think there is a possibility that something
like that could have happened. A lot of people believe in Lauren Spiro's case,
that her body was disposed of in a river and like she was just
never discovered, But that one, I personally don't really know what I think
happened. I think usually you do find a body, but this is an
infant, or not an infant, this is a small child, so it
would be harder to discover the body. Maybe only part of the story that
she's telling is true about where she disposed to the body, because maybe part
of her really doesn't want the body to be found. So if you're only
telling a half truth and that's where you're looking, then maybe you're not going
to find her if it's a completely different location. Yeah, I never thought
about that, that she could be telling the truth about having killed her but
just lied about the location that she disposed to her body because she wants to
get it off her chest. But she doesn't actually want to the fact of
her daughter's body being found. Okay, so well brace yourselves, because I'm
about to debunk this entire Memphis siting we've been talking about, but I will
hold off on doing so until our next episode. That about brings an end
to part one, but join us next week as we present part two of
our series on the disappearance of Marlina Childress. Robin, do you want to
tell us a little bit about the Trail Went Cold Patreon? Yes. The
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until next time. Be sure to bundle up, because cold trails and chilly
pass call for warm clothing. Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers comedy