Welcome back to the Path Went Chili for part two of our series on the
unsolved murder of Tracy Kirkpatrick. Robin, do you want to catch everyone up
on what we talked about in our previous episode? Well, Tracy Kirkpatrick was
a seventeen year old girl who had a job at a clothing store at a
shopping center in Frederick, Maryland, and one night she didn't come home and
when her parents drove to check on her, they found out that she had
been stabbed seven times in this backstoreroom of the clothing store. They found out
that a security guard said that the last confirmed sighting of her was around eight
forty five PM, but even though the store was supposed to close at nine,
the security guard said that when he passed by it at ten forty five,
the lights were still on, so he went inside and discovered that Tracy
had been stabbed to death. A couple of months later, a guy called
a confession hotline calling himself Dawn and said that he was responsible for Tracy Kirkpatrick's
murder, and he left a recording of it that played on Unsolved Mysteries on
a number of other media outlets. They eventually tracked down a guy who went
by the name Sean, who lived in any town that was near by to
Frederick, and he was a guy who was obsessed with the case. He
had a lot of newspaper clippings and was always inquiring about it. But they
would say a few years later that he was ruled out as a suspect,
and it's unclear to me if he was the same man who left the recording
of the confession. In nineteen ninety four, a police inspect investigator tried to
take the case to a grand jury and indict a suspect, but they declined
to prosecute because they felt that the evidence wasn't strong enough, and the suspect's
name has never been released publicly, but I know that the investigator was certain
that they had the right guy and that the case should have been solved a
long time ago. There have been a lot of rumors about the security guard
who found Tracy's body, because his full name was Don Barnes Junior, and
as you know, the person who called to leave the confession, his name
was done and he also happened to be a sheriff's deputy who was the son
of another prominent law enforce an official. So there's been a lot of whispers
that he may have been the killer, and that the reason this case hasn't
been solved is because he hailed from a very prominent family and the police have
either covered things up or they're just too reluctant to prosecute him without rock solid
evidence. And sadly, the case is still unsolved thirty four years later.
So this is definitely one of the more heartbreaking crimes we featured on a respective
podcast, at least when it comes to having a long term negative impact on
the victim's family. Sadly, it sounds like the trauma of Tracy's murder completely
destroyed her parents. In our last episode, we mentioned that Diane Kirkpatrick went
into shock and had to be treated at the hospital after learning about her daughter's
murder. But in addition, she had to quit her job in retail managements
because of the stress. She subsequently suffered from medical ailments and underwent multiple back
surgeries which pretty much kept her confined to one room in her house for years.
In an interview she gave twenty years after the crime, Diane stated that
she hardly went outside. Diane stated that she hardly went outside anymore unless one
of her other kids was with her. Billy Kirkpatrick also had to quit his
job as a trucker because he gave him too much time on the road to
think about what happened to his daughter. The couple eventually moved into an apartment
because they couldn't handle the memories of living in their old house. Decades later,
Billy and Diane said that they were both still on medication to help them
deal with the trauma. You can also find a video on YouTube titled Who
Killed Tracy Kirkpatrick, which was produced in twenty sixteen and features an interview with
Billie and one of Tracy's sisters, Dianda. It's obvious that they are still
in great pain from losing Tracy, and you can see Dionda break down in
tears several times. The unsaw a mystery saying and put a lot of emphasis
on Tracy's fascination with a Christine or Rossetti poem Remember, which was inscribed on
our tombstone. Ironically, the poem's central message is not to grief someone once
they are gone, and it's better to forget them and be happy rather than
remember them and be sad. Well, Tracy's death had the opposite effect on
her family, since they have done nothing but grief her during these past thirty
four years. In cold case homicides, this is one of the things that
really is devastating because, as one family I interviewed put it, when we
don't know what happened to our loved one and who did it, we also
don't know who didn't do it, and so it's that constantly looking over your
shoulder wondering are the people in the boothnecks to you talking about your daughter's case?
Are they the ones who did it? Write what happened, and not
having those answers. There's also this element though, when you don't have someone
to blame for Tracy's death, so there is no offender to say this is
who did it, then you start to try to take your trauma and place
blame on other individuals, and sometimes that becomes yourself as well. Remember that
Diane had gone to take Tracy dinner just a few minutes before you know the
store manager is coming to check on her as well, So in her head
as a mom, I did everything I thought I was supposed to do.
I showed up, I checked on her. You know, I knew another
adult was coming to check on her. But what if I had stayed,
or what if I had sat in the parking lot for a little bit,
actra, What if I had come to pick her up or made sure she
wrapped up that night the first time? Okay? And then of course for
mom and dad, you're not supposed to bear your kids. We hear that
cliche saying all the time, but it's this idea that as a parent,
it is my job to simply protect my baby. And unfortunately, in our
world you don't get that luxury all the time. And that was stolen from
Diane and Billy. And so it is one of those elements why I became
fascinated and driven to help families affected by unsolved murders is because we forget that,
yes, it's been thirty years with this cold case file, but that
files filled with people who have to live with this case every day. And
so Diana and Billy's story after the death of their daughter and their children who
are watching their parents fall apart and break down and struggle as they also are
dealing with trauma and breaking down and struggling, it is. It's devastating.
And they were obviously such good parents too, like the fact that she was
seventeen years old. Like, I couldn't have seen my parents coming and checking
in on me when I worked in a store in the mall an hour before
clothes, being like, are you o, Katie wants some food. They'd
be like, ah, she's fine. So they really did everything aside from
sitting beside her or like sitting on a bench in the mall and watching her,
which as a parent, I think there's a point where you've got to
cut the cord and go, Okay, I've checked in on her. She's
good. She closes in an hour, so she's coming straight home after the
latest is going to take you to do closing, It is probably thirty minutes.
She should be home really shortly, and you're going to trust that nobody's
going to do anything horrible to your baby. And this is just one of
those situations where it's completely outside the realm of either Diane or Billy's control.
Somebody decided to hurt Tracy and there's really nothing that they could have done to
have stopped it, and it's just so sad that you can tell that it
has impacted them so greatly. I'm sure physically mentally, psychologically, and just
you know, I'll always come back to Julie Murray because it's somebody that we
all three of us have spoken to and got to know. And I really
really always remember the way that she referred to it as like her open ended
trauma. It's something that you cycle through over and over and over again.
I mean, Moura's missing and she disappeared and they don't know where she is,
so there's another element to that. But in a case where your child
you know that they've been murdered and you just want to know by whom,
and you want some kind of justice, and then when you don't get that,
there just has to be this incredible sense of like not only loss,
but just like loss of this ability to face the person who did this and
to go, okay, like there's a resolution. Now I know who did
this, and I know who to point all of my hatred at, because,
like you said, Ash, they are cycling through all those emotions and
sometimes the blame will then land on themselves, even when there's nothing that they
could have done to have stopped this. And I remember in this case,
they felt they might be close to a resolution. In nineteen ninety four when
the case was taken to a grand jury, and they never publicly state if
they personally believe that the suspect who was the case was against was the person
they believe did it. But it must be rough knowing that you were that
close to possibly bringing someone to trial and finally getting a resolution in this case,
but that fell through, and here we are twenty twenty three and they
still haven't got any answers. By all accounts, Tracy was a very kind,
generous person with a bright future, and but he seemed to have a
bad word to say about her. This is one of those older cooled cases
which might have turned out differently with today's technology. As nowadays, I'm sure
there would be security cameras all over the sportswear store and the shopping center to
capture Tracy's killer and perhaps dissuade them from going through with a crime. It
also might seem surprising that a seventeen year old girl would be closing a store
by herself at night, which sounds pretty unsafe. It was just a much
different time period, and I'm sure that no one envisioned that something like this
would happen. I can't help but wonder if there's some significance to the fact
that Tracy was killed on the very first night she was working alone, but
if she was willing to do this, that might be an indication that she
never suspected her life was in danger and was taken by complete surprise when the
perpetrator attacked her right from the outset. Investigators believed Tracy knew her killer,
as the lack of sexual assault or robbery suggests that the crime was not a
random attack and was very personal in nature. I have to agree with this.
I think it's somebody who really had a connection to Tracy, or at
least an illusion, you know, this illusion of having a connection with Tracy.
They walked in with a knife, they were they left money in the
cash register and even on the counter, while still taking some of her personal
items like her wallet and her car keys. And there's just kind of no
explanation for why Tracy other than she's vulnerable, she's alone, and she had
this charisma that had captured this person's attention. I do not think it's random.
I also, like I said in episode one, I at first was
like, oh, man, as seventeen year old, like, I'm thinking
of my seventeen year old and this idea you like, rebels baby is seventeen
And would I trust Bella to be working by herself somewhere Yes, in our
little small town. But I'd be like Diane, I'd be running by,
like do you need a drink? Do you need dinner? Oh? Your
boss is coming good? Who? Right? Like there'd be a lot of
anxiety around that because you just don't know, Like even in a tiny town
like we are, you just don't know. And in some ways it's scarier
in a small town because of how close people think they are to you and
your family when you don't really know them that well. I feel like this
person had You've had a lot of knowledge of the mall and some level of
comfortability because in working in a mall when I was a teenager, and like
this was like just coming up on y two k right, like just like
the year before. So basically it was it was just like I grew up
somewhere pretty small. It was like thirty five thousand people, but I knew
all the people that worked in the mall, like in my area, especially
the people that were also teenagers. And so for Tracy, I've got to
believe that there was a little bit of a little bit of comfort in the
sense that you probably knew the people in the adjacent stores. So for somebody
to make a bold move and to feel comfortable enough to do that, it
feels like this is somewhere where it's like they're stomping ground in some capacity.
And maybe I'm reading it wrong, but just my own mall experience in my
teenage years makes me think that. So now let's talk about the confession from
the man calling himself down. If you go to the Unsolved Mystery's website or
watch this segment on Amazon Prime or YouTube, you're going to see a text
update which states that this guy has been cleared as a suspect. But there's
still a lot of confusion here. As you recall, police were contacted by
Martha Woodworth, who claimed she had been corresponding with a guy named Sean,
and after hearing the recording of Don's confession, Woodworth became convinced that it was
Sean's voice. Now, we do know that police tracked this guy down and
found out his name was not Down or Sean and Will. A search of
his residence proved that he had an obsession with Tracy Kirkpatrick's murder. There was
no evidence that he was actually involved at the time. They took blood and
hair samples from him, but I see no indication that they took his DNA,
as this was back in nineteen ninety when DNA profile was still in its
infancy in criminal investigations, so I have to wonder if they tested his DNA
at a later time, which is when he was officially cleared as a suspect.
I'm getting the impression that this young man may have simply been a mentally
unbalanced person who developed an unhealthy fixation with Tracy's case and desperately wanted to solve
it, even though he had no personal connection with her. I'm feeling like
that's more the case here, because if not if really someone's calling, especially
if it was Dawn using his real name, or it's somebody who was the
killer, it seems like there's enough information given location of the call, the
name, the voice, all of that's able to be used with certain witnesses,
people right individuals in the community, and we don't have an arrest based
on that call. So I'm thinking it's more of the vein of someone who
said, wow, there's a seventeen year old girl. Maybe there was even
a physical connection to her picture that's being shown. It's an interesting case,
and so they become there's a need for them to be part of it in
some way, and if that means asserting myself as this post killer, then
maybe that's how I do it. Now, what we do know for certain
is that this man corresponded with psychic Martha Woodworth while using the name Sean since
the return address on the envelope center was tracked back to his residence in Walkersville.
But what's not clear as whether or not they conclusively established if he called
the confession hotline. Remember, this guy pleaded the Fifth Amendment and refused to
answer any questions, so I'm guessing he never admitted to making the call.
I think there's a good chance he was responsible for the call, because not
only did Martha Woodworth recognize his voice, but after the recording of the confession
was broadcast on the radio, no fewer than three people came forward to identify
him. But here's where the complication comes in. If you visit the Unsolved
Mysteries board at the Sitcoms online for him, which Robin always frequents, you'll
find an extensive thread there dating back to two thousand and five. It was
started by a poster with the user name Dino Guy eighty eight, who corresponded
many years ago with a person claiming to be the daughter of Don Barnes Junior,
the security guard who found Tracy's body. This person eventually ceased all contact
with Dino Guy eighty eight. So you'll have to take everything we say here
with a huge grain of salt, since we have no idea if she actually
was Don's daughter or if any of the information she shared was true. But
she claimed that she recognized the voice on the confession tape as her father.
So if the young man from Walkersville did not actually make that phone call,
could this mean the confession was actually genuine? I don't know what person's like,
Hey, Dino Guy eighty eight, I'm the killer's daughter, Like why
him? You're like, why wouldn't she tell somebody else or tell a friend
that tells the police that it seems odd? And I also, I mean,
like how dumb would Don be to make a call say, hey,
my name's Don. There's a lot of us in this town voice my name
Don? Like Don, that guy who found the body and called you.
Um, Like, it just doesn't make any sense. I mean, if
Don's the killer and he's a security guard who would have known the area,
would have known Tracy's whereabouts, would have known she was alone, those kinds
of things. Um, is he really going to call in and use his
own name? And again, like I said before, once you record your
voice, once you give details, how hard would it really be to link
you to the crime. I just don't see. I don't see reaching out
to Dinah guy eighty eight. I mean that doesn't seem like, oh I'd
reach out to Yes, yes, I actually know him. He's a pretty
cool guy. Yeah. But apparently the woman claiming to be a Don's daughter
asked him to send like or a VHS tape of the original Unsolved Mystery segment,
and after you sent it, she apparently ghosted him after that, and
that's when he never heard from her again. Well, okay, let me
change my tune. Then what if she gets it she's like, holy crap,
it's my dad. It is him. Oh. But that's the thing
is that even if she does recognize him, like a lot of people in
the community would have known Don Barnes junior because he was a sheriff's deputy.
He was the security guard there. So, as far as I can tell,
no one ever came forward and said that this guy is the guy on
the confession tape. It's Don Barnes Junior. All the people who came forward
said it's this other guy from Walkersville. So that's why I've always been really
skeptical that Don Bard's junior was the caller. And the wording was so like
laz fair, like, yep, committed the murder, but you know there's
the death penalty in Maryland. You know, we just can't bring her back,
so you know, I'm just gonna do nothing type of ental. It
would just seem like there was no passion behind the words, and if you're
calling it a confession hotline, you'd think there would be some passion and like
some pent up feelings of like there was this great act that I did,
and like how he was Like I realized after that it caused so much pain.
It's like, did you not think beforehand that committing a murder would cause
a lot of emotional ramifications for her family and all of those who loved her
and the community at large. It just seemed very like you just wrote it
one day. I was like, hah, this would be funny if I
called it in. And I'm sure they never expected that it would be broadcast
on national television on Unsolved Mysteries. So maybe it's just been a stupid prank
that escalated out of control, hence the pleading of the fifth Yeah, exactly.
Well, it's worth noting that even though the police seemed to think that
confession sounded convincing, it does not sound like the call it provided any specific
details about the crime, which were not already public knowledge at that time.
And even though this tippet has never been publicly confirmed, Martha Woodword herself once
made a post on the Unsolved Mysteries message board in two thousand and nine claiming
that information about the confession hotline in Las Vegas was found inside the residence of
this young man from Walkersville. So I think the most logical explanation is that
the phone call was made by this guy, but it was nothing more than
a hoax and he had no direct knowledge about the murder. However, here's
the thing I have trouble with. The caller specifically said his name was Don,
and we know that was not the real name of the guy from Walkersville,
So if he was the one who made the call, why did he
choose that particular name. It seems like quite a coincidence that another individual whom
some people believe is the real killer, would also be named Don. For
me, I think it has to be information in the media right that the
last person to be seen with the individual is often the most suspected person.
So, oh, Don Barnes Jr. Finds her body, I'm just gonna
assume as Don, I'm going to use that name and go with it.
So because they didn't keep that information out of the news stories, I think
that could be a simple explanation from why they picked that name. You think
they'd be looking for some kind of guilt knowledge, something that wasn't released publicly
that this caller is divulging. But like you said, there's just nothing that
isn't already released to the media that any you know, Joe Schmo or Larry
or whatever could be like, Hey, I'm just gonna make a prank call
and here's the information. And I mean people did a lot of prank calls
at that time, like it was a pretty popular pastime. Well, we
talked in a last episode, like how we didn't know specific details about how
Tracy was stabbed, like how many times was she stabbed in the front,
and how many times was she stabbed in the back, and was she found
on her front or her back? But they've never released that publicly, probably
to withhold it to weed out false confessions. So I think that if the
caller was the real killer, he would have shared information like that or some
kind of specifics like you said, like why are you so remorseful? Like,
man, you know, when I stabbed her here, it was really
devastating, Like I wish I had, you know, Like I mean,
he seems so nonchalant anyway, So I'm shocked he wouldn't provide some piece of
information of like, you know, this is the part that's really been bothering
me, or something that would go, wow, he really was there,
you know, or even something from her wallet, information that was in her
wallet. But it's such a vanilla and bland confession. I don't buy it.
It's detached and impersonal. Yes, some of the original newspaper articles about
the case did name Don Barnes Junior as a security guard who found Tracy's body
but they didn't give off any impression that he might have been involved. If
John Barnes Junior wasn't the person who called the confession hotline, part of me
wonders if it was someone who suspected Don might be the killer, like we
said earlier, but were too scared to come forward, so they decided to
make a false confession in which they called themselves down in hopes appointing the investigation
in his direction. Of course, I have no idea if the man from
Walkersville would have known Don. But here's another interesting piece of information that was
shared on the Unselvedsteries bored by one person claiming to be Don's daughter, And
once again take this with a huge grain of salt. Apparently, around the
time of the murder, Don lived in Walkersville and had a roommate named Sean.
We have no idea if that's true or not, but if it is,
I find it quite interesting that another guy from Walkersville would decide to start
poking around into this case, using Don and Sean as his false names.
He may have uncovered something which made him believe that they were connected to the
murder somehow, and for whatever reason, decided to convey this information in the
most bizarre fashion imaginable. Whatever the case, it sounds like it's been conclusively
established that the person who received the most attention during the Unsolved Mystery segment was
not the killer. Okay, question, if Don and Sean really lived together,
if this combo really exists and they're in Wakersfield, is it possible that
these are the two guys that were going to be indicted or the one guy
that's going to be indicted, and Sean was the one that was that concern
for them. That is possible because I do suspect that Dawn was the one
that servia Check thought was the most likely suspect. But I know that the
grand jury had concerned about another person they thought was a promising suspect. So
for all we know, maybe it could have been the person named Sean.
I mean, they never revealed this publicly. We don't know if he actually
did have a roommate named Sean, but it could have been someone who maybe
had knowledge or maybe helped Zahn cover up the crime or something like that.
But it is interesting that for the past thirty years we have talked about two
promising suspects who apparently both have like promising evidence against them, but just not
enough to indict either of them. What if Sean liked to hang out at
the mall, because you know, people sometimes do, and especially during that
time period, especially if you're in a small town, he may have liked
to hang out at the mall, especially if his buddy Dawn was a security
guard. And if he was the creepy guy that like maybe it had made
advances towards Tracy, that like we hypothesized him part one, then maybe he
was one that acted impulsively carried the knife, and Don helped him cover it
up. That could be a way that they were both involved. I just
couldn't see any way that two people would have been involved in the crime in
any other way, in that one was the perpetrator and one helped after the
fact, because there was no sexual no overt sexual element, nor was there
a robbery. Oh yeah, Like I definitely think that only one person actually
did the stabbing. But I can see, because there would have been blood
on the scene that if the killer had an accomplice, he could have helped
him clean up himself or something like that, or dispose of evidence to help
cover up the crime. So it appears that we have two unnamed promising suspects
in this case, and neither of them were the guy from Walkersville. The
authorities had never indicated that they believed these two suspects worked together, but that
may be the biggest obstacle against getting an indictment, since there is apparently compelling
evidence against both of them if one of these suspects, If one of these
suspects went on trial, they could simply point to the other suspect to create
moll doubt. And of course, if either or both of these suspects were
acquitted, double jeopardy would prevent the authorities from taking either of them to trial
again. Formerly investigator Bob Servachek had his own ideas about who the correct suspect
was and tried to present evidence against him to a grand jury. Even though
two thirds of them voted for an indictment, The state's attorney's office felt the
evidence was insufficient enough to take the case to trial and secure a conviction.
But it makes you wonder if things might have turned out differently had there not
been a second potential suspect around to create complications. Yeah, I mean,
I definitely think that things would have been different. There's always this this fear
that if there's any element that we think a defense attorney can bring up that
can even put a question mark in our jury's head, we just can't go
to trial because here it's not ninety six percent certain. Do you need to
be ninety nine point certain that the person that you have on trial is guilty
and that there is no other reasonable explanation for what happened in that crime.
And here it sounds like there was at least a handful of people who said,
this is not the time to take a shot at this individual because there's
too much risk if the answer could be not guilty due to insufficient evidence.
And so as sad as that is, and as frustrating as it is and
scary because there's a killer out there right or somebody who suspect of murder,
I agree with their decision if there was a risk of not winning that case.
When you have a murderer, you only get one shot. You gotta
do it right. But in the words of Michael Jordan, you miss one
hundred percent of the shots you don't take. And how many years on is
it now? Are we still just sitting on our hands? I feel like
I understood at the time why they didn't take the shot, But I think
once you get another ten years on from nineteen ninety four or whenever it was
when they were going to do those indictments, then you go, okay,
like we might not have a perfect case here, but maybe we owe it
to the families to give it a try because maybe we're not going to get
any more evidence. It just it feels like we're how many years on do
we know, Robin, thirty four years since the murder took place. Totally
agree with you in that case, the further out we get, and when
it's becoming decades and decades, what people are dying right, like, the
case changes, the urgency changes, and there is that need of like now,
just even as a sentiment, even if he's found let's say, not
guilty, the respect and dignity it would give to the family to say it
was worth taking this case to trial. Jules, I think you nailed it
right there. You're you're right, at a certain point it's worth taking like
this half court shot to try. Well, that's pretty much happened with the
murder, with the conviction of our good friend Steve Pink for the murder of
Janelle Matthews because that was a case they did not have a smoking gun.
All they had was weird statements he had supposedly made. But I think they
felt this case is nearly forty years old. He's seventy years old. He
might not get another shot to indict him while he's alive, so why don't
we take a shot at it. And even if he's acquitted, we at
least tried, and he's not going to live too much longer because of his
advanced age, and wound up paying off. So who knows. Maybe the
same thing would happen if they tried to indict someone for Tracy Kirkpatrick's murder today,
And if only they would do the same thing with Jewel Kayler, Oh
exactly, yeah, Oh my gosh. He's in his eighties. And would
I would pay good money to watch him go on trial and see him testify.
He would be quite an experience. Robin do his voice, tell us
a sentence. I'm here to testify at the trial and maintain my innocence since
I was acquided, things are really pretty good. Do you like salad's jewel?
Oh? Yes, I'm the best salad maker. In fact, I'm
going to spend the next hour telling you what a great salad maker I am.
I get see him doing that, like just going on the way to
stand and rambling on and on and on about stuff that has nothing to do
with the case. His attorney's going to be like, no, you can't
take the stand, sir. He's gonna be like, no, no,
I am taking that stand. It is my right. That's what happened with
Steve Panky. He took the stand and he just would shut up and kept
rambling on, and he got convicted. So was his downfall. Think narcissists
just love to go up there because they really just love the sound of their
own voice. But they think that they can somehow convince other people that they're
correct because they also think of the smartest people in the room. Servicheck has
always been very outspoken about his belief that the State's Attorney's office have made the
wrong decision, and given some of the rumors that are floating around about this
case, some of his comments are pretty interesting in hindsight. Servicheck said that
the whole thing was derailed by quote politics and personal agendas, and that certain
people did not do their jobs well we don't know the identity of the particular
suspect he wanted to indict, but let's just assume it was Don Barnes Junior.
Don's father was a former Frederick County sheriff, and from what we've read
about him online, he seems to be a very well respected figure in law
enforcement. At the time of Tracy's murder. It sounds like Don was attempting
to follow in his father's footsteps, since he worked as a deputy with the
same sheriff's office. Well, Servicheck did not want to elaborate on those comments
he made about politics and personal agendas, it's really easy to read between the
lines and figure out what he was trying to imply there. Servicheck also specified
that the suspect was an acquaintance of Tracy's, and while it's never been publicly
established that Tracy and Dawn knew each other, it's reasonable to assume that they
would have crossed paths since Dawn was a security guard at the shopping center,
for sure, and the fact that even Don's own statement said like he went
in and called for her and things like that, so he likely knew her
she was working there. It is interesting that he'd be super concerned. Like
for me, I don't know if I was closing up my shop. I
wonder would anyone be weirded out if I was there an extra hour and a
half or so here, Because I think he knew that there's a seventeen year
old working there. It was scary to him that, you know, the
store lights are still on and everything's not closed up the way it too too.
But if he really walked in and was like, Hey, Tracy,
are you here, then yeah, he knew her, and yes, he
would likely also know no one else was working with her, and that you
know, she's seventeen and a loan and that's really scary. Maybe we've said
before, but Robin wasn't the same Sheriff's department heading up this case that Don
Barnes Junior was a deputy at or was it the local police department? It
was the local police department, So this was investigated by the Frederick Police Department,
not the Sheriff's office, so they didn't actually handle the case. So
that's why I'm a bit skeptical here. I'm thinking, well, it's two
different departments, and I don't know if they would be willing to cover up
for a deputy with another department. But at the same time, if there's
a lot of politics going around, a good old boy system, and Don's
father is a very respected former sheriff, then I could see why a lot
of rumors have gone through that there was a cover up that took place.
Don't you think there's also just as many people who are like God, I
hated that sheriff, and I don't give a crud who this is, right,
Like we've got a killer in our police force. Like I feel like
in many situations, especially if we're talking about the police department and not the
sheriff's department, our whole teams willing to put our neck on the line like
that. Law enforcement doesn't like to investigate itself. And it might be the
sheriff's office versus the police department, but we don't know how closely intertwined they
were. This was a small place, so I've got to believe that they
all know each other socially, because I think in those situations, law enforcement
puts themselves in a position where if I was going to be in the same
position as Don Barnes Junior, would I want to be investigated like this by
one of my brothers, you know, like the thin Blue line or whatever.
Service check sery seems to be that the killer had feelings for Tracy,
but when she told them she only wanted to be friends, that set them
off. And here's another interesting side story. Tracy worked another shift at the
clothing store on the night before murder, but was late arriving home after the
store closed. Her father decided to drive to the shopping center to check on
her and found Tracy talking to a former boyfriend her well. They had previously
broken up, the two of them had now made a decision to get back
together, but then the very next night, Tracy wound up dead. I've
seen speculation online that Tracy's boyfriend might be the second unnamed suspect in this case,
but there's nothing to substantiate this. But if the boyfriend was not the
killer, and Servicheck's theory is correct, I can totally see how this murder
might have played out. Tracy was killed right before the store closed, and
if the killer knew she was working alone that night, he might have felt
it was an ideal time to stop by and express his feelings for her.
But if Tracy told this person that she was now back together with her boyfriend
again. This could have been the breaking point which caused this man to turn
violent and commit murder. Whoa, whoa. I love this theory. That's
one of the things that I was thinking early on when you guys started telling
me the story was Listen, someone had an infatuation with her. Someone thought
Tracy's kindness and charm and lightheartedness was a sign that she liked them, or
that she you know, there was potential there for them to swoop in and
be with Tracy. And I had this feeling that she had put up a
boundary of some sort, like you're making me uncomfortable no, or in this
case, like you just said, Robin, I'm actually have a boyfriend.
I'm back with my boyfriend. And then that hope and that kind of delusion
that Tracy was going to be with them sets them off. It's and what's
real scary is that they arrive with a knife, like just in case things
go weird, I have a weapon too. Question Ash, have you ever
experienced, and I'm sure most of the women listening probably have, where you've
had a situation where somebody has been intensely hitting on you and you tell them
I've taken I have a boyfriend, I'm married type of a deal, and
they get very angry. Oh for sure, Oh for sure. And honestly,
I've done that a million times when I didn't have a significant other,
you know, or like asked a man next to me to like pose as
someone who cared about me because get this person to stop. But yes,
it's a how dare you? Like? I'm like, I don't get told
no. I've had people say that. You're like, people don't tell me
no, or I usually get what I want or what and you're like,
geez, Louise, very very uncomfortable, like where people fixate and create in
their head that you're going to be with them or at least they have this
amazing shot to be your partner, and then when that's not true, it's
that ego deflation and that kind of dream being popped that you go, WHOA,
I didn't expect you to get angry, like you don't even know me.
It's like an aggressive sense of sexual entitlement where they feel like there is
no other response than to aggressively get angry or to like braate you because they
no longer have a shot and in their minds, they'd somehow crafted this narrative
that you will be together, whether in a relationship capacity or sexually, and
you've gone and burst their bubble and like, how dare you? Well,
we're skeptical that the person who called the confession hot line was Tracy's kill.
I will say that his description on the murder would fit the scenario we just
described. Remember he said, quote one night when she was in the storeroom
and we were talking, our conversation turned into an argument, and so I
took out a knife that I have on me at all times, and I
killed her due If this was a spur of the moment rage killing, it
would explain why there was no sexual assault and nothing was stolen from the store.
It is interesting that Tracy's purse, car keys, and store keys were
missing, and I'm not sure if they were ever recovered, but if the
killer was obsessed with Tracy, they might have decided to keep her purses a
memento. We should also mention that if you believe Don Barnes Junior is the
most promising suspect, well, who would have a better idea about Tracy being
alone in the store that night than the security guard Okay, do police officers
typically carry a knife with them? Because this is where is this Maryland?
Yeah? Yeah, if you told me this was like Arkansas or Florida or
I don't know, other southern states. I tell you that almost every man
I walk by has a like a pocket knife or like a box cutter or
something on their hip because a lot of them do a lot of construction and
things like that. But in Maryland, I wonder if that's the same kind
of culture, and if police officers have a knife other belt, do we
have any idea like what size knife was actually used to stab her? Is
this a small pocket knife? Is this a butcher knife? Is this a
type of knife a law enforce an officer would carry on their belt. That's
a good question. It's never been specified what type of knife it is,
so I don't know if it's a smaller one or if it's it's a much
larger one. I mean, if it was a smaller one, I can
kind of believe like just a random police officer or person just carrying it around
with them all the time it is protection. But if it's something like a
butcher knife, and that would definitely point to premeditation because there's no way they
should just be casually carrying that around when they go to visit a girl at
a clothing store. One thing about this case which has always struck people as
odd is that Tracy was stabbed seven times. She'd assume would cause the killer
to get a lot of blood on them, but nobody reported seeing anything.
We do have one witness who was in the shopping center parking lot around this
time period and didn't see or hear anything, But since blood drops were found
in a rear hallway which led to the loading dock, the killer probably escaped
that way, and once again, a security guard would probably know the best
place to slip out of the shopping center undetected. People who believed Don Barnes
Junior was the killer think this might account for the time discrepancy before he reported
Tracy's murder to the police. Back when I first became familiar with this case
on UNSAWD Mystery thirty years ago, I had no idea who Don Barnes was
or that he worked as a security guard, But I still found it odd
that after the clothing store closed, nearly two full hours passed before the guard
noticed the lights were still on and went in there to find Tracy's body.
I have no idea what Don's schedule was for making his rounds, but that
seems like an awful out of time for him to not notice that something was
amiss. It does, especially when you described to me strip mall that we're
not talking about this outdoor mall center complex right where there's two hundred and fifty
stores and six anchor stores and things like that. If this is really just
a little strip mall, and he was concerned enough to know, like,
okay, this is who works where. I know they're timing. An hour
and forty five minutes is quite a long time to say the lights are still
on. I'm inclined to think okay, he had to have known that Tracy
was working by herself that night, But would he like I wonder how often
he stopped it and checked on people, because like for us, even our
local law enforcement on my street, they'll stop in my store throughout the day
and say, hey, just check in on you. Shoot the crudway some
time. I wonder if he had that kind of dynamic with each of the
people in the shops. Given his age, he was in his mid twenties,
right, if he read in similar circles. He may have been like,
Hey, you know, oh, cute girl working at the store,
I'm going to go chatter up. If he was a social person, then
it would seem natural. The time frame still doesn't seem to add up,
though, but the fact that nobody saw or heard anything doesn't seem that strange,
considering this may have happened after everybody else had finished their closing, and
that might have been by design, and or if it happened in the storeroom,
it might have just been such a snake attack that he could have had
his hand over her mouth. And then when it came to the blood on
the clothing, he's got the cover of darkness working in his favor, and
that it's evening. So if Don was guilty, this nearly two hour window
would have given him plenty of time to dispose of the murder weapon, clean
up all the evidence which pointed to him, and go change into a different
uniform if he got any blood on himself. Once he's covered his tracks,
Don then returns to the murder scene to discover Tracy's body, hoping that this
will make himself look less suspicious. There's also the fact that Tracy was murdered
inside the rear storage room. Judging from the physical evidence of the scene,
it doesn't seem like Tracy was attacked inside the actual store, so she was
either forcibly dragged into the storage room or she went in there voluntarily with her
killer. Anyone who worked in retail can tell you that it was usually a
major no note for employees to allow outsiders into the back rooms, even if
they were close friends or family. But if it was a security guard,
Tracy might have thought it was okay to take him back there. Even if
Don had stopped by the store and made advances towards Tracy on previous occasions,
it may not have raised any red flags with her since it was his job
to patrol the area, and he also happened to be a deputy sheriff.
Even if she took down into the storage room in order to privately rebuff his
advances, she probably didn't expect him to turn violent, exactly. And she's
a seventeen year old girl who at this time was likely trained to trust law
enforcement, to be kind, to basically be a yes girl, because that's
what you do. She's in customer service. She's also seeming to be this
amazingly charming kiddo from a really good family. She's social and driven. So
I could absolutely see almost no matter who it was, But especially if someone
in uniform, especially someone who's a law enforcement agent or to come in and
be kind to you repeatedly, you would instantly have a trust with them and
a bond with them of like, Wow, this person cares about me.
They want to make sure I'm safe. I feel so secure knowing that he's
here, right or I just I could see that'd be in a very real
scenario. Could you, either of you see a scenario where he comes in,
he's chatting with her, and then he's like, oh, hey,
do you mind if I use the restroom in the bath and then he goes
into the restroom, maybe after he's been rebuffed, goes into the restroom and
pretends that he has to go to the bathroom, and then waits for Tracy
to come back and check on him, and then uses that moment to attack
her. That would definitely make sense because they said that the money she had
been counting was still left out on the counter, and I think that if
she wanted to go back there with don Or the killer, she would have
just put the money in the register into a safe place, since the store
was still technically open and unlocked. But if it's a scenario where he goes
back there alone and she wants to go check on him because she's concerned he's
been back there a long time, that maybe she will leave the money on
the counter and then just go back there, and that's when she's ambushed.
Now we must reiterate that Don has never been publicly named as a suspect or
person of interest. Any suspicions you'll find about him online are nothing more than
uncorroborated rumors and hearsay, So we're going to stop short at conclusively naming him
as the killer. But Man Tracy being murdered by the same security guard who
found her body is a scenario which makes a lot of sense. The main
reason I doubt that Don Barnes Junior was the guy who called the confession hotline
is because he was a deputy sheriff and his father was a prominent law enforcement
official. So I think someone from the Frederick Police Department would have recognized Don's
voice if the caller was him. Yes, if you believe the theory that
there was a cover up, you could assume that perhaps the police only pretended
not to recognize Don's voice. But remember they asked a bunch of local radio
stations to play the full recording of the confession, which I don't think they
would do if they were trying to protect the person on the tape. The
listeners who called in to say they recognize the caller's voice all pointed to the
young man from Walkersville, but as far as I can tell, none of
them pointed to Dawn. In addition, if Dawn was the suspect of the
grand jury voted to indict in nineteen ninety four, I think having a recording
of his voice confessing to the murder would have been strong enough evidence to bring
the case to trial. So I leaned towards the color not being the actual
killer. But did he have vulterior motives for saying his name was Dawn.
It's hard to say, as without knowing more specific details about the guy from
Walkersville, I'm not sure if he would have had any inside knowledge of the
crime. Again, the only reason I could think that Dawn would come to
mind is that he saw that that was the last person who was with her
or found her body. It would be really crazy and powerful if someone was
like, I'm going to slip this in because he is the real killer,
and this is how I'm going to do it. But at that point,
why not just actually go say this guy's name anonymously, like it is this
off sir from the police department period in a story, there's my confession,
bity, and do it anonymously that way. It's also worth noting the well
done Barnes and his father worked for the Frederick County Sheriff's Office. Like we
said when I asked Robin if it was the Sheriff's office or the police department,
the actual investigation into Tracy's murder was performed by the Frederick Police Department,
which is a municipal agency, though I'm sure the Sheriff's Office would have had
a lot of influence over them. If the Frederick Pete were involved in a
cover up and trying to protect Don, I do wonder why they would have
allowed the case to be broadcast on Unsolved Mysteries to begin with. But then
again, if they knew for certain that the caller to the confession hotline wasn't
Don, they might have been more than happy to allow false lead like that
to garner attention on national television and take all the focus away from the real
killer. Whatever the truth, it does sound like quite a few people believe
that those in power have played a role in allowing the perpetrator to get away
with it for over thirty years. And that could be someone that's not Dawn,
Like, is it the mayor's son? Is it, you know,
someone who just has a lot of money. Is it a big business developer?
Is it you know who? Is it? Right? A beloved coach?
I mean, we do see where depending on your financial cloud and your
position in the community and what your last name is, that there definitely is
differential treatment. It is like stomach turning to think that you would cover for
someone's murder because of who they are. But I mean, this would not
be the first case where that happened. So does it just have to be
Don who's involved in law enforcement? My god? Know, there's a lot
of people in a community, the son of Blank that could easily be covered
for in the same manner that a law enforcement officer would be covered for.
Don't you want to know more about this potential roommate of Don's name Sean And
maybe who he was connected to, Like, I really wish that we could
confirm that this was a real person exactly. And if I ever met Bob
Servicheck, I would always want to ask off the record who he believed was
the killer and did he believe it was Don Barnes Junior gives you mean all
those cryptic remarks about politics and personal agendas, so it clear. It seems
clear that he believes that people in power are preventing this case from getting solved.
But as you're referring to the Barnes family or could he be referring to
someone else? I know that an articles published about this case in two thousand
and nine, it was mentioned that touch DNA evidence was being submitted to a
private contractor for the Maryland State Police, and that investigators had DNA samples from
the two people they consider to be the most promising suspects. But since it
doesn't sound like anything ever came of this, that suggests to me that either
the DNA evidence wasn't sufficient enough to make a conclusive determination, or the DNA
did not match either the two suspects. But if there is still usable DNA,
perhaps they can submit it to a genealogy website and track down the killer
that way. This process has helped solve a number of cold case these past
few years, so there's no reason it cannot happen again. It's pretty heartbreaking
to watch that aforementioned YouTube interview with Tracy's sister, Dionda, who becomes very
upset over the possibility that our parents might not live long enough to find out
who killed Tracy and see the perpetrator brought to justice. This is one family
that definitely deserves some closure after all the devastation and emotional turmoil they've endured.
So if you happen to have any information on the unsolid murder of Tracy Kirkpatrick,
please contact the appropriate authorities. Jules Ashley any final thoughts on this case.
I think one of the most powerful things we talked about on this episode
and in this case is that it's a prime example of the emotional, physical,
familial community impact of a homicide and unsolved murder on the family, on
the people that cared about Tracy, and on the people who function in a
society where one of their seventeen year old members was murdered at her work.
You see with Diane and Billy that the loss of their daughter, especially the
loss in such an extreme manner right, being stabbed to death in her workplace
devastated their life, right, and it was the inability to know exactly what
happened to her, who did it, and to be able to hold them
accountable. It destroyed them. And so I am so grateful that so many
people are interested in true crime, because the more attention we can bring to
these cases, we're also drawing attention to the physical and mental repercussions of these
crimes for the people that really matter, not the offender, it's the family.
And so I'm grateful you share this case. It truly is one of
the more devastating ones because we are able to document what happened on the day
that Tracy died in Ford that took her family to a place they never imagined
being. None of us are immune from these kinds of crimes, which is
really scary to think about. So my heart goes out to their whole family
and to the community, and my goodness, if there is someone who knows
information a seventeen year old little girl was murdered thirty some odd years ago,
the risks, the consequences of coming forward with information at this point are so
different and reduced after so much time that I pray that if someone knows something,
they say something been thirty four years. This is just so heartbreaking.
Tracy was seventeen years old and had her whole life ahead of her, and
there is just something that just adds an extra layer of atrocity to a murder
when it's a kid. She was a kid and her family never got any
answers. And if somebody has any information, like you said, Ash,
I really hope that they come forward because the clock is ticking. I'm sure
that a lot of people who are related to this case are getting very old
and some people are dying, Like there isn't an unlimited amount of time.
I understand what they were doing in nineteen ninety four when they decided not to
indict, but I feel like at this point, like Robin had mentioned,
with a Steve Panky case, I think that there is a general consensus that
who else would have better access than the security guard. And also Don Barnes
Junior, given his connections, it makes sense with what Serviceeck was saying about,
you know, basically getting blocked politically, that would totally be an alignment
with that situation. I want to know who the second suspect is. Is
it possible that it was a roommate. Is it possible that maybe Don didn't
do it and maybe he helped his friend cover it up, or maybe it
was the other way around, Maybe he had a friend hanging out with him
and his friend was like, Okay, i'll help you out. One thing
that is befuddling to me is if he did, indeed do it. If
you sab somebody seven times, you're going to have an incredible amount of blood
on you. And I don't know how many uniforms a mall will issue.
I would only think one. So if that is the case, maybe he
got multiple uniforms, but usually establishments like malls are going to try to cut
costs and you're only going to get one, and you're just going to wash
it when you finish your shift. So I do find it curious that obviously
he's probably wearing it unless they did their security in playing clothes, but I
doubt it most small security wears a uniform. That one thing is the only
thing that kind of like nags at me. But I still think overall he
is a really promising suspect. I don't think the caller from Walkersvelt had anything
to do with it. They didn't give any guilt knowledge. There's nothing that
wasn't already out there and available in the media, and we'll never truly know
their motivation if they were just somebody who was obsessed with the case, or
maybe they had some kind of knowledge of Dawn and wanted to just put it
out there. Oh yeah, Like I mentioned, like, I watched this
on Unsolved Mysteries back in the early nineties, and it's kind of crazy how
my viewpoint about this case has changed over the years, because when I first
watched it, I was convinced that the guy who made the call was the
killer. But as the years have gone on, this investigation is headed in
a complete different direction. And in the original segment you see a re enactment
with a security guard finding Tracy's body, but they don't mention his name or
give any indication that he could be a potential suspect. But it seems there
have been a lot of rumors around that this is the most likely scenario.
I mean, it is such a heartbreaking situation because you have a seventeen year
old girl working alone on what should have been a routine shift, and as
far as I can tell, she never expressed any concerns to her family or
her co workers that anyone was coming in there harassing her or bothering her,
So she probably never envisioned that anything bad was going to happen to her.
But just a few minutes before she was scheduled to close, someone it went
in there and stabbed her seven times. And it does seem like it could
be a solvable case that there's a lot of people who believe that the grand
jury should have handed down an indictment back in nineteen ninety four and solved this
case a long time ago. But without knowing any specific details, I have
no idea how strong the case really is. But it does sound like possibly
that there are some personal politics involved and this has prevented the killer from being
brought back to justice. And once again I want to reiterate, Don Barnes
Jr. Has never been publicly named as a person of interest or suspect,
and no one in law enforcement has ever given any indication that he might be
the killer. It's all rumors and hearsay that you'll find online. But let's
just say that if he was charged with this murderer would not surprise me at
all if the killer turned out to be him. But after all this time,
time is running out because Diane and Billy Kirkpatrick are getting old, and
Tracy's sister says she fears that they will pass away without seeing the perpetrator receive
justice or receive answers. So I do wish that. I don't know what
kind of evidence they have against either these suspects, but if it's even a
decent sized case, I really wish that they would take a shot at it
and maybe try to bring the suspect to trial if they believe it's a strong
enough case, because enough time has passed and I really would like to see
this one resolved before Tracy's parents pass away. Robin, do you I want
to tell us a little bit about the Trail Went Cold Patreon? Yes,
The Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three years now, and we offer
the standard bonus features like early ad free episodes, and I also send out
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offer is a audio commentary track over classic episodes of UNSAWD Mysteries, where you
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Amazon Prime or YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in the background,
where I just provide trivia and factoids about the cases featured in this episode.
And incidentally, the very first episode that I did a commentary track over
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