Speaker 1: This podcast is based on information sourced primarily from police
Speaker 1: and media reports, but certain names and other identifying details
Speaker 1: may have been changed or altered for privacy and security reasons.
Speaker 1: While the events in cases discussed are based on real investigations,
Speaker 1: some aspects may be simplified for time and for narrative purposes.
Speaker 1: Voice actors have been used to read from statements or documents.
Speaker 1: All information presented is intended solely to inform and raise awareness.
Speaker 1: Hosts may discuss theories regarding the cases examined in this podcast,
Speaker 1: but such discussions are not intended to and should not
Speaker 1: be considered by the listener to be legal conclusions. All
Speaker 1: persons discussed are considered innocent until proven guilty in a
Speaker 1: court of law. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2: This is Chief Anna Lally. Welcome to Somebody Knows Something,
Speaker 2: a podcast from the Elgin Police Department's Cold Case Unit.
Speaker 2: In this podcast, we will shed new light on cold
Speaker 2: cases in the city of Elgin by sharing untold details
Speaker 2: and by encouraging anyone with information to come forward. You
Speaker 2: will come along with real cold case detectives as they
Speaker 2: investigate active cold cases in real time and seek justice
Speaker 2: for the victims and closure for their families. We believe
Speaker 2: that the Elgin Police Department and our community can work
Speaker 2: together to bring closure to cold cases because we know
Speaker 2: that in these cases, somebody knows something.
Speaker 3: Hello, and welcome to Somebody Knows something. The Elgin Police
Speaker 3: Department Cold Case Podcast.
Speaker 4: My name is.
Speaker 3: Detective Andrew Houghton, and I'm a detective Chris Hall. Last episode,
Speaker 3: in part one, we interviewed Barbara Glukert's brother Bob and
Speaker 3: her niece Nicole. They told us a lot about Barbara
Speaker 3: and talked about the impact that her disappearce had on
Speaker 3: her family, her community, and even the officers involved in
Speaker 3: her case. Bob ended our episode with a plead of
Speaker 3: the public to provide as much information as you can
Speaker 3: to help try to bring Barbara home.
Speaker 5: In this episode, you're going to hear the story of
Speaker 5: Barbara's disappearance directly from one of the detectives who worked
Speaker 5: this case for nearly two decades, and you will hear
Speaker 5: from people who actually knew the suspect, Thom Sirlacker, including
Speaker 5: one woman who was nearly another victim of him in
Speaker 5: Elgin in their early nineteen seventies.
Speaker 3: Last episode, we described how dedicated Mike Nelson was from
Speaker 3: the Mount Prospect Police Department when he worked on Barbara's case.
Speaker 3: According to the Gluecrat family, the entire Mount Prospect Police
Speaker 3: Department and Detective Nelson specifically have really done everything they
Speaker 3: can on her case. Now they're even letting us discuss
Speaker 3: this and look at Barbara's case in a new attempt
Speaker 3: to try to bring her home. We want to thank
Speaker 3: the Mount Prospect Police Department, the Gluecrat family, and Detective
Speaker 3: Nelson for allowing us the opportunity to tell Barbara's story.
Speaker 5: Barber's brother, Bob, also described how much Barber's disappearance impacted
Speaker 5: even the men who worked on the case. They had
Speaker 5: sons and daughters and knew the Glucert family. Mount Prospect
Speaker 5: was and still is, to some degree, a small town
Speaker 5: in the suburbs of Chicago. It's a town where people
Speaker 5: look out for one another and the citizens have a
Speaker 5: good working relationship with their police department. Bob had very
Speaker 5: positive things to say about the detectives who worked Barbara's
Speaker 5: case and the family's relationship with law enforcement and Mount
Speaker 5: Prospect speaks volumes about the caliber of the department they
Speaker 5: have there.
Speaker 3: Retired Detective Mike Nelson was gracious enough to sit down
Speaker 3: with me a few months ago to discuss Karen's case
Speaker 3: and Barbara's case. We never aired any of our interviews
Speaker 3: with him because Karen's case went in a totally different direction,
Speaker 3: but back then, Detective Nelson was talking to us about
Speaker 3: both cases, and he's a fountain of knowledge when it
Speaker 3: comes to Barbara's case. So we want to use this
Speaker 3: platform to help highlight that case and continue to discuss
Speaker 3: cold cases in Elgin here in the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 5: Mike Nelson became a police officer in nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 5: He spent over a year and a half with the
Speaker 5: Woodstock Police Department, then joined the Mount Prospect Police Department
Speaker 5: in the town where he lived his entire life. During
Speaker 5: its thirty year career, Mike was a patrol officer, a
Speaker 5: member of the Gang and Tech unit, a detective, and
Speaker 5: even a school resource officer. Mike retired in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 5: but came back as a civilian to help the police
Speaker 5: department as a management analyst until twenty twenty two, when
Speaker 5: he finally retired for good. The officers that Andrew and
Speaker 5: I have talked to about Mike speak very highly of him.
Speaker 5: They describe him as a dedicated officer who spent countless
Speaker 5: hours working for his community. And if you ask anyone
Speaker 5: in Mount Prospect about Barbara Lucre's case, they will immediately
Speaker 5: tell you that you need to talk to Mike Nelson.
Speaker 3: Chris and I both want to say that Detective Nelson's
Speaker 3: relationship with the Gluecritt family is the type of relationship
Speaker 3: that we think is crucial in these types of cases.
Speaker 3: The family knows that he cares about them and cares
Speaker 3: about the case, and he has included them in everything
Speaker 3: that he has done. The way in which he carries
Speaker 3: himself not only as an investigator, but also as a
Speaker 3: human being is something that all investigators should strive for.
Speaker 3: His suggestions to Matt and I in Season one for maps,
Speaker 3: lighting conditions, and other investigative thoughts on Karen's case were
Speaker 3: deeply impactful and deeply helpful for us, and his perspective
Speaker 3: on working cold cases for decades is something that's really
Speaker 3: valuable to us and any other investigator that's about to
Speaker 3: embark on a cold case investigation. Here's Detective Nelson introducing
Speaker 3: himself to yourself.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I'm a retired police officer from more Prospect,
Speaker 4: a Police department, and one of the cold cases that
Speaker 4: I worked with the Barbara Lucker case. She disappeared from
Speaker 4: our town on August twenty first, nineteen seventy six.
Speaker 6: And I'll do the best they can just to give
Speaker 6: a brief synopsis of what happened.
Speaker 4: So Barbara was walking from her home to Saint Raymond's Church,
Speaker 4: which is you know, it's in downtown my Prospect, and
Speaker 4: that was she actually went to Saint Raymonds. But you know,
Speaker 4: Saturday afternoon church was kind of like a lot of
Speaker 4: us teenagers or whatever at fourteen, you know, we would
Speaker 4: go to this Saturday Saturday afternoon you know, churches, so
Speaker 4: we could get on the way just to.
Speaker 6: Just to cover the fact that I went to school.
Speaker 3: With her, Like Detective Nelson said, he actually grew up
Speaker 3: with Barbara, so this case was really personal for him.
Speaker 3: They went to school together and attended church together. And
Speaker 3: so when he got the opportunity years later to work
Speaker 3: on her case as a detective, he jumped at the
Speaker 3: opportunity to try to bring his childhood friend home.
Speaker 5: And a lot like Karen, you look at these missing
Speaker 5: person cases and they just have a huge impact on
Speaker 5: all sorts of people. The impact everyone's lives, the impact
Speaker 5: the family obviously, but all the friends and other people
Speaker 5: in the community, and even the officers who worked these cases.
Speaker 3: Next, Detective Nelson walked us through what happened to Barbara
Speaker 3: that Saturday evening in August of nineteen seventy six.
Speaker 4: So, so, on her way to church, she gets approached by.
Speaker 6: A person who identifies himself as Tom Edwards.
Speaker 4: He's driving a you know, a big brown sit in
Speaker 4: and he asks her if she wanted to go to
Speaker 4: a party in Displains later tonight, and if she did
Speaker 4: want to go, maybe if he could have her number
Speaker 4: and call her later where maybe they could beat up.
Speaker 4: So Barbara ends up giving her her home telephone number
Speaker 4: and goes to church. So anyway, she stops at at
Speaker 4: one of her friend's house and there were like three
Speaker 4: other girlfriends that were there, and Barbara tells them the
Speaker 4: story is, Hey, you know this guy, you guys want
Speaker 4: to go to.
Speaker 6: A party you know with me tonight?
Speaker 4: I met this guy in Wade Church and he said
Speaker 4: to was a party in Displains And they're like, you know, Barbie,
Speaker 4: just some strange guy in a car.
Speaker 6: You can't you can't go to a party with guy. No,
Speaker 6: we're not interested in going at all. So Barbara's like okay.
Speaker 4: So she starts to walk home, and on her way
Speaker 4: she stops at another friend's house.
Speaker 6: She tells the same story. Hey, you know, do you
Speaker 6: you know you want to go to a party tonight?
Speaker 6: You know with me?
Speaker 4: I met some guy and he says there's a party
Speaker 4: in Displaines and she's like.
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, sure, that's detecting. Nelson went on to tell
Speaker 3: us that Tom called these girls on the phone and
Speaker 3: they agreed to meet him in the parking lot of
Speaker 3: a pizza place nearby. Tom also told him about a
Speaker 3: concert out in Huntley, and he said they could go
Speaker 3: do that and said if they wanted to.
Speaker 4: Probably at seven thirty. You know, the girls are waiting
Speaker 4: in the parking lot. He pulls up and you know,
Speaker 4: in the brown car, and they you know, they they
Speaker 4: get in the car and they sit in the front
Speaker 4: seat and off they go. So he says, hey, did
Speaker 4: you want to go to this party Displains or the
Speaker 4: concert out in Dundee, And so they decided to go
Speaker 4: to the concert and Dundee, Well, he drives roughly a
Speaker 4: mile off, stops at the Central and Bussy Roads and
Speaker 4: goes into a.
Speaker 6: You know, like a quick bar, like seven to eleven there.
Speaker 6: I think it was a seven eleven.
Speaker 4: It might have been Southland Liquors at the time, and
Speaker 4: picks up a couple of six packs of six.
Speaker 6: Packs of miicchelo and it gets back in the car
Speaker 6: and off they drive.
Speaker 5: Years later, Mike had the opportunity to interview Barbara's friends
Speaker 5: from that night. We're not going to name her in
Speaker 5: this podcast because we want to respect her privacy and
Speaker 5: because she, like Barbara, was just a young teenage girl
Speaker 5: who wanted to go out to a concert that night
Speaker 5: with a friend. Here's what Mike had to say.
Speaker 6: She's not sure. She thinks they were on the toll way,
Speaker 6: you know, to go out there.
Speaker 4: And she said, yeah, it was around nine thirty or so,
Speaker 4: maybe close at ten o'clock by the time they got out.
Speaker 6: She goes, I don't know what road we got off
Speaker 6: of back then, but.
Speaker 4: As soon as we got off the tollway, he you know,
Speaker 4: he had offered us the marijuana.
Speaker 6: We were drinking a beer.
Speaker 4: He'd reach under the seat and pulled out like a
Speaker 4: couple of pills and gave one to you know, to
Speaker 4: Barbara and I, but you know, we were afraid to
Speaker 4: take them, so we just sort of palm these pills
Speaker 4: in between our hands and the bottles, you know, just
Speaker 4: to kind of hide them, you know, but we didn't
Speaker 4: take them. So ten minutes after getting off the tollway,
Speaker 4: they drove down, you know, a road, and all of
Speaker 4: a sudden there was this concert.
Speaker 6: There were hundreds of.
Speaker 4: People there, and so it's like a farm. Yeah, it
Speaker 4: was a Farman only just off a Krouster the road.
Speaker 4: I was, yeah, I'll get back to that, just to clarify,
Speaker 4: clarify that. But so this this concert, there were two
Speaker 4: bands there and it was actually put on by a
Speaker 4: manufacturing concern out of Crystal Lake. It was almost like
Speaker 4: a factory, like a you know, like a corporate party,
Speaker 4: and you know, so people everywhere and the girls, barb.
Speaker 6: Was kind of interested and just kind of go and uh,
Speaker 6: you know, listening to music.
Speaker 4: But they wanted to get away from, you know, this
Speaker 4: Tom guy. They were just kind of creeped out by him.
Speaker 4: So they went off to the concert area and they
Speaker 4: got separated.
Speaker 5: Detective Nelson detailed that the party was basically packed with people.
Speaker 5: There was a big barn in a field with the stage.
Speaker 5: Two different bands were slated to play, and cars were
Speaker 5: parked up and down the road with a few hundred
Speaker 5: people and joined the late summer weather in some live music.
Speaker 5: Tom reportedly stayed with the car, possibly to sell drugs
Speaker 5: to concert goers. Numerous people saw him there, and police
Speaker 5: later learned that this car was a brown nineteen seventy
Speaker 5: Buick Electra two two five.
Speaker 3: According to media reports from nineteen seventy six, the two
Speaker 3: bands that were playing were Blind Billy Nelson and the
Speaker 3: Cold Winds blues Band, followed by the Bloody Marys, who
Speaker 3: played on that farm stage late into the night. It
Speaker 3: was well above seventy degrees even into the evening hours,
Speaker 3: and the crowd stayed and sang and danced on what
Speaker 3: should have just been another night in roal King County.
Speaker 5: As the concert went on, Barbara's friend eventually came back
Speaker 5: near Tom's car with the boy that she had met
Speaker 5: inside the concert. Barbara's friend and the boy went to
Speaker 5: this boy's car, and so Tom went over to the
Speaker 5: car to talk to her and the boy. That's when
Speaker 5: Tom basically found his opportunity to get Barbara alone.
Speaker 3: Tom approached Barbara's friend and the boy she was with,
Speaker 3: and when she asked Tom where Barbara was, Tom lied
Speaker 3: to her. He told her Barbara had already left with
Speaker 3: somebody else. At that point, Barbara's friend told Tom that
Speaker 3: she was not going with him, she was going to
Speaker 3: leave with this other friend. She hopped in the car
Speaker 3: and left, assuming that Barbara had already done the same thing.
Speaker 5: I think it's important to remind people that it was
Speaker 5: not Barbara's friend's fault that this happened. Tom, by them,
Speaker 5: was a twenty four year old man who lied to
Speaker 5: a young girl so that he could get her friend alone.
Speaker 5: They were just two young girls who wanted to go
Speaker 5: out and listen to some live music a few days
Speaker 5: before childhood ended and high school began. But for Barbara,
Speaker 5: she would never get that opportunity to start a freshman
Speaker 5: year at Prospect High School.
Speaker 3: Shortly after her friend left, Barbara came out of the
Speaker 3: crowd looking for her, but by then she was already
Speaker 3: gone and the only person left was Thomas or Lacker.
Speaker 4: About a half hour later, witnesses that were there say
Speaker 4: that Barbara comes walking down of the crowd, and she
Speaker 4: tells Tom, listen, I gotta go home. I gotta curfew,
Speaker 4: and I got to go home. And it's eleven thirty
Speaker 4: at night, and you're not making it back to my
Speaker 4: Prospect until you know, it's at least from there, it's
Speaker 4: by at least an hour, you know, at least.
Speaker 6: So I gotta go home. I gotta go home right now.
Speaker 6: So she gets in the car, Tom gets in the
Speaker 6: driver's seat.
Speaker 4: He backs up on the Kreutzer Road, drives off towards
Speaker 4: Hamley Road. No one ever sees her again.
Speaker 6: That's it.
Speaker 3: At the time, the police only had an alias of
Speaker 3: Thomas at to work with, but the Mount Prospect detectors
Speaker 3: were really good at their jobs. They quickly identified Tom
Speaker 3: Edwards as Thomas Erlacker, and they began to piece together
Speaker 3: not only Saturday night, but the next few days of
Speaker 3: his whereabouts.
Speaker 5: Police have an idea of a few places he may
Speaker 5: have gone, and know several places that he had access to.
Speaker 5: But it seems like Erlacker killed Barbara disposed of her
Speaker 5: body sometime between late Saturday night and sometime on Monday afternoon.
Speaker 5: And here's why.
Speaker 4: On Monday, his sister wanted to Buick back, so he said, okay.
Speaker 4: So he stops at the Bwick dealership and I can't
Speaker 4: recall the name of the duo dealership, but he stops
Speaker 4: the Buick dealership in Elgin and has the trunk lock repaired.
Speaker 6: So I have a receipt for the repair or whatever that's.
Speaker 4: In evidence, and he takes the car back to his
Speaker 4: sister and kind of lose track of him. Then a
Speaker 4: little bit now in the police reports, Verlocker shows up
Speaker 4: at Chicago Sand and Gravel on twenty five. Now I
Speaker 4: think it was then it became Bluff City, I think,
Speaker 4: and I don't know what it is now, but he
Speaker 4: makes an appearance Tuesday night Tuesday evening where he buys
Speaker 4: a Suzuki two point fifty two stroke motorcycle and a
Speaker 4: union jack helmet.
Speaker 3: Thomas Erlacker was then seen several more times in the
Speaker 3: Elgin area on Wednesday and Thursday. In an odd coincidence,
Speaker 3: He then took off on his new motorcycle and drove
Speaker 3: west to the same city where Karen Schepers was born,
Speaker 3: San Francisco, California. Erlacer rented an apartment using the name
Speaker 3: and identification from a wallet that he found in a
Speaker 3: parking lot and elgend in nineteen seventy five, and he
Speaker 3: started a new life with a new name in a
Speaker 3: new city. I should add that, according to Detective Nelson,
Speaker 3: on Wednesday night before he left, a witness saw Erlacker
Speaker 3: and noticed that he had a rash on his shins.
Speaker 3: I think the general speculation is that Erlacer was walking
Speaker 3: through some poison ivy or poison oak or something like
Speaker 3: that sometime between Saturday night and Wednesday when he saw
Speaker 3: the witness. According to the American Academy of Dermatology, rashes
Speaker 3: from poison ivy and other similar plants typically appear between
Speaker 3: four to forty eight hours after exposure. So it's just
Speaker 3: one more piece of information that could be important, and
Speaker 3: it points again towards him potentially disposing of Barbara's body
Speaker 3: in some rural area.
Speaker 5: Yes back in Illinois, Mount Prospect Police had identified Thomas
Speaker 5: Arlacer as the suspect in Barbara's disappearance, and they started
Speaker 5: interviewing people while looking for Erlacer. Ultimately, they issued an
Speaker 5: arresta warrant for him with the charge of contributing to
Speaker 5: the delinquency of a minor for providing alcohol and attempting
Speaker 5: to provide drugs to Barbara and her friend, and several
Speaker 5: months had passed with no signs of Barbara or Thomas Urlacker.
Speaker 5: Then things got a little strange.
Speaker 4: Just before Christmas in nineteen seventy six, one of the
Speaker 4: tenants of the apartment building named Vincent, had noticed that
Speaker 4: Tom seemed to be writing something. Seeing you're writing a
Speaker 4: letter in his apartment, obviously, didn't really think anything of it.
Speaker 4: A couple nights later, there were even when Erlocker was
Speaker 4: walking back from work, he saw a couple of uniform
Speaker 4: he got a couple of Mark Squad cars out in
Speaker 4: front of the apartment building, and he was afraid that
Speaker 4: maybe they were there for him. So he called Vince
Speaker 4: on the phone and asked him to go into my
Speaker 4: room and then go into the closet. In the closet,
Speaker 4: there's an orange crate. Inside the orange crate is a
Speaker 4: letter that I've addressed to a friend of mine.
Speaker 6: Take it and burn it.
Speaker 4: And so Vincent goes into Irlocer's apartment, goes into his bedroom,
Speaker 4: goes into the closet, sees the orange crate, sees the letter,
Speaker 4: takes it, but he keeps it.
Speaker 5: He doesn't burn it this guy. Vince ended up reading
Speaker 5: Erlacker's letter a few days later, and the things he'd
Speaker 5: read in the letter frightened him enough that he got
Speaker 5: up in the middle of the night and went to
Speaker 5: a police station in San Francisco, where he turned over
Speaker 5: the letter to the police. We have a copy of
Speaker 5: that full letter that Erlacker wrote, and it's over thirty
Speaker 5: pages long. In the letter, Erlacker detailed that he was
Speaker 5: in trouble because he had picked up a girl one night,
Speaker 5: and twenty six pages into that letter, he wrote this.
Speaker 7: I put that girl in the ground because I was
Speaker 7: afraid she was going to tell the law. I made
Speaker 7: her get me off and I didn't want to go
Speaker 7: to jail for that. But now I'm going to jail
Speaker 7: for murder. But I don't know why I did that.
Speaker 7: I guess it was paranoia that made me do it.
Speaker 7: I'm sorry I did it, but I'll pay for my
Speaker 7: penalty when I'm found.
Speaker 3: You know, Chris, One thing that always stuck in my
Speaker 3: mind about the statement is that Erlacker doesn't refer to
Speaker 3: Barbara by her name. He basically dehumanizes her and he
Speaker 3: just call her quote that girl.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he never gives her the honor of calling her
Speaker 5: by her name, which is awful. She had a name,
Speaker 5: a family, friends, but he clearly didn't see her that way.
Speaker 5: Rlacer also wrote in the letter that it was his confession,
Speaker 5: and he asked the recipient not to turn him in
Speaker 5: yet because he was just trying to get some money
Speaker 5: together before he surrendered to the police. This is how
Speaker 5: Irlaker ended that letter.
Speaker 7: I send my love and the truth about the whole me,
Speaker 7: Tom Irlacer the end. What will happen now?
Speaker 3: As you can imagine, the police in San Francisco were
Speaker 3: both extremely interested but also extremely confused by this letter.
Speaker 3: I mean, the guy that turned it in had no
Speaker 3: clue who Tom Irlacker even was. He knew Tom under
Speaker 3: a totally different name, and no one in California had
Speaker 3: any idea what concert or girl this guy was talking
Speaker 3: about in the letter. Here's Detective Nelson detailing a little
Speaker 3: bit more about the letter and what police did with
Speaker 3: it back then.
Speaker 4: The way the letter was addressed. It was crudely addressed
Speaker 4: just to his friend and then just wasco Illinois. It
Speaker 4: was no actual street address or anything like that, and
Speaker 4: the detectives really didn't have much to go on so
Speaker 4: they went through a Rand McNelly map saw that Wasscoll
Speaker 4: Illinois was in Kane County. They called Kane County and
Speaker 4: asked them does this make any sense that a guy
Speaker 4: named Tom Burlocker had picked up girl and went to
Speaker 4: the concert and Kane County.
Speaker 6: They said absolutely, that makes sense to us.
Speaker 4: So on Kane County they gave that information to the
Speaker 4: Texas and San Francisco. They verified that there was a
Speaker 4: warren out for him, and our department said, yeah, go
Speaker 4: and go and get him. So they went over to
Speaker 4: the apartment the following day and knocked on the door
Speaker 4: and he answered the door. They asked him, Hey, is
Speaker 4: your name Tom Baron Locker. He said yes. He told
Speaker 4: him they had a.
Speaker 6: Warren out for him, and the arrested him.
Speaker 4: Our department went out there, picked him up and brought
Speaker 4: him back to our department where he was interviewed. And
Speaker 4: the State's attorney decided in early seventy seven to not
Speaker 4: proceed with the contributing charge because the grand jury was
Speaker 4: convening in Kane County on Barbara's disappearance and they did
Speaker 4: not want any conflict between the cases. The grand jury
Speaker 4: in Kane County ran from January till May of seventy seven. However,
Speaker 4: because there was no body and the venue could not
Speaker 4: be established, grand jury just would not bring an indictment.
Speaker 6: They just couldn't.
Speaker 4: They asked, well, if we do this and he's found
Speaker 4: not guilty and six months later, a year later, you
Speaker 4: find Barbara's body, can be bringing back in charge him.
Speaker 6: And they said, no, we won't be able to do that.
Speaker 4: So after that, he ended up moving out to Oregon
Speaker 4: after that, and that's pretty much that's pretty.
Speaker 6: Much the case.
Speaker 5: What we now know is that sometime in between nineteen
Speaker 5: seventy seven or early nineteen seventy eight, before we moved
Speaker 5: to Oregon again, Thomas Slacker moved into the second floor
Speaker 5: apartment at three to eleven Level Street. When he moved out,
Speaker 5: Karen Scheepers moved in. It's from that connection alone that
Speaker 5: we began looking into Thomas de Lacker and why we
Speaker 5: ultimately ended up getting involved with Barbara's case.
Speaker 3: Since nineteen seventy six, police have considered Erlacer as the
Speaker 3: prime suspect in Barbara's case. There was even a civil
Speaker 3: lawsuit against him back in nineteen seventy eight in which
Speaker 3: he was found civilly liable for Barbara's wrongful death. Even
Speaker 3: after the civil case, police continued to search for Barbara,
Speaker 3: but they were never able to find her. For his part,
Speaker 3: Thomas Arlacer basically recanted all the statements in his letter.
Speaker 3: He never admitted to killing Barbara, and he also never
Speaker 3: disclosed the whereabouts of her body. Then, in two thousand
Speaker 3: and four, Thomas Erlacker went to sell drugs to several
Speaker 3: men in Pueblo, Colorado, and he was murdered. The man
Speaker 3: who police still believe killed and disposed of Barbara's body,
Speaker 3: possibly the last man to know where it would be located,
Speaker 3: was gone.
Speaker 5: Over the past five decades, the Mount Prospect Police department
Speaker 5: interviewed hundreds of people, used fifty scuba divers from nine
Speaker 5: different suburban fire departments to search area bodies of water,
Speaker 5: and ran down countless leads. The original detectives on the
Speaker 5: case even called in helicopters and sixty five green berets
Speaker 5: to search rural King County for Barbara, but they still
Speaker 5: couldn't find her. As the years passed, Mount Prospect Police
Speaker 5: utilized new technology as it became available. Detectives like Mike
Speaker 5: Nelson brought in archaeologists, historical human remains, dogs, and used
Speaker 5: ground penetrating radar and specialized metal detectors and more searches
Speaker 5: for Barbara. So basically they left no stone unturned, but
Speaker 5: sometimes cases still go cold. When Detective Nelson picked up
Speaker 5: Barbara's case as a detective, years had passed, but he
Speaker 5: had this to say about working at cold case, just
Speaker 5: how impactful case like Barber's can be on so many
Speaker 5: different people, even decades later.
Speaker 6: Thirty years later, thirty five years later.
Speaker 4: When you go to interview these people, you sort of think, well,
Speaker 4: you know, am I gonna meet with someone who's gonna
Speaker 4: be pretty hostile? And I found the exact opposite. That
Speaker 4: most everyone, to a man or to a woman, was.
Speaker 6: Really forthcoming and open and honest.
Speaker 4: And you know, quite a number of them felt awful
Speaker 4: because they when you're a kind and compassionate human being,
Speaker 4: you're going to go back and think that there was
Speaker 4: something that maybe you could have done to help. There
Speaker 4: were people at that concert that night, one person in particular,
Speaker 4: who just saying that all I had to do when
Speaker 4: she walked up to the car to go, all I
Speaker 4: had to do is reach out my hand and stop
Speaker 4: her and I was close enough.
Speaker 6: To do it, and I just I just didn't.
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, and that person is punishing themselves
Speaker 4: because there's no obviously, if you had known what was
Speaker 4: going to happen, you would have done something. But people
Speaker 4: still think, you know, maybe I could have, you know,
Speaker 4: and they just didn't. And so I know we've talked
Speaker 4: before about most people when they think about these cold cases,
Speaker 4: and they and they know that, you know, the direct
Speaker 4: family or workers, friends, you know, they're impacted by this,
Speaker 4: obviously devastated by by this.
Speaker 6: When a person disappears.
Speaker 4: And when something horrible has happened to someone, they do,
Speaker 4: but you can't imagine the grenade that goes off, and
Speaker 4: it affects people that really had no connection other than
Speaker 4: just proximity, right just actually having to be at a
Speaker 4: particular place at a particular time. And you know how
Speaker 4: all of us in our social interactions, no matter what
Speaker 4: you do today or tomorrow, and something horrible could happen
Speaker 4: to someone that you're really not connected to. And yet
Speaker 4: human beings are wired that way to sort of the
Speaker 4: in turn lies over the years and they start to
Speaker 4: feel awful. They think that there was something that could
Speaker 4: have done and they wish that there was something that
Speaker 4: they could have done, and.
Speaker 6: You really have to carry that. We have to carry
Speaker 6: that with yourself. So I don't know, that's just something
Speaker 6: I just think it's important to talk about.
Speaker 3: Mike is right, and he's a really insightful guy. The
Speaker 3: impact that these cases have on people, even people who
Speaker 3: didn't really know Barbara that well, can be immense. Detective
Speaker 3: Nelson said something else during one of my interviews with them,
Speaker 3: and it really sat with me. We weren't recording at
Speaker 3: the time, but I want to touch on it here
Speaker 3: because it really is fitting for Barbara's case, and it's
Speaker 3: also something that we thought about with Karen's case as well.
Speaker 3: I had made the comment that people have told us
Speaker 3: that it seems like you're looking for a needle in
Speaker 3: a haystack on these old missing person cases. Mike stopped
Speaker 3: me and said, it's actually worse than that. In cases
Speaker 3: like this, especially Barbara's, Mike was looking for a new
Speaker 3: in a haystack, but he didn't know where the haystack
Speaker 3: even was. Especially with Barbara's case, there's just so many
Speaker 3: places you look at and start to think, oh, this
Speaker 3: place or this person could be really relevant and then
Speaker 3: you kind of just go down the rabbit hole. It's
Speaker 3: really why information from the public is so important in
Speaker 3: these cases. It can help us narrow down locations and
Speaker 3: places and people, and it's the reasonab we're doing this
Speaker 3: podcast in the first place, to reach out to the
Speaker 3: listeners and try to get new information.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 5: One percent. It reminds me of another missing person case
Speaker 5: that we have here in Elgin. Forty five year old
Speaker 5: Watiria Jones disappeared at the end of September in nineteen
Speaker 5: eighty three and she's never been seen since. She was
Speaker 5: reportedly on her way to either Aurora or Juliet, but
Speaker 5: she vanished. Her case in Barbara's case are prime examples
Speaker 5: of cold cases where there's just so many places to
Speaker 5: search and that we really need help narrowing them all down.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, and that's where information from the public
Speaker 3: comes in. More than likely it's going to be someone
Speaker 3: in the public that help us close these area cold cases.
Speaker 3: It reminds me of Eloise, one of Karen's friends who
Speaker 3: we interviewed during season one. We'd asked Eloise for any
Speaker 3: advice that she might have for someone in a situation
Speaker 3: involving a cold case. And her advice was simple. She
Speaker 3: basically said, participate. If there's a chance to participate in
Speaker 3: an investigation or give information, then do it. So if
Speaker 3: there's people out there now who have information, come forward,
Speaker 3: or if police approach you about this case or another
Speaker 3: case seeking information, please at least consider talking to us
Speaker 3: and giving us information. We need your help on these cases.
Speaker 5: Mike also offered some really crucial advice to us. He
Speaker 5: said that the investigators on these types of cases can't
Speaker 5: be afraid to look foolish. You have to look at
Speaker 5: every lead and every tip and just run it down.
Speaker 5: We both wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment, and I think
Speaker 5: that's what you guys did with Karen's case, and that's
Speaker 5: what we're trying to do on all of our active cases.
Speaker 5: As part of this episode, we also want to talk
Speaker 5: a little bit about who Thomas Hurlaker was. I know,
Speaker 5: the last episode we detailed his history of sexual assaults, kidnapping, arson,
Speaker 5: weapons offenses, and drugs. It just so happens that during
Speaker 5: the investigation in season one, you talk to a man
Speaker 5: named James who lived in Karen's building when she disappeared,
Speaker 5: and he knew her lacker James's family owned the building
Speaker 5: on Level Street, and it was James who let Herlaker
Speaker 5: live at the address back in nineteen seventy eight. Here's
Speaker 5: James describing Thomas her Lacker.
Speaker 8: He was a very lean person and he was a
Speaker 8: cute to being involved for a girl and klutherer taste
Speaker 8: or whatever too, and to Gluzer's daughter were missing and
Speaker 8: he and were capell to be painting her up up
Speaker 8: the Andrew company like that and can you ever return?
Speaker 8: And Cody were looking into that page two. You know
Speaker 8: murderer or temple.
Speaker 6: In that.
Speaker 8: I know they've been purged, poor Oregon or whatever her
Speaker 8: dad is and he had been pant Troy.
Speaker 3: James went on to tell us that he suspected Erlacker
Speaker 3: of breaking into the apartment at one point after he'd
Speaker 3: moved out, and that he had a falling out with Urlacker.
Speaker 3: James said he didn't recall if Erlacker made money by
Speaker 3: selling drugs, but if you look back in the interviews
Speaker 3: conducted in the eighties with people like James's wife, who
Speaker 3: has since passed away, she detailed that there were drugs
Speaker 3: and young girls around the apartment building back in the seventies,
Speaker 3: and eighties, and a lot of them had to do
Speaker 3: with Thomas Urlacker. Plus we know from Tom's criminal history
Speaker 3: and other statements from different people that he was certainly using, selling,
Speaker 3: and potentially even manufacturing drugs, both at the Level Street
Speaker 3: address and at other locations. I should note that in
Speaker 3: records we've read and interviews we've conducted, there's information that
Speaker 3: James actually met with the Glucert family when there was
Speaker 3: a reward offered for Barbara's case. When I spoke with him,
Speaker 3: James did admit that he met with Barbara's father back
Speaker 3: in the nineteen seventies, but he denied having any direct
Speaker 3: information about Barbara's whereabouts and denied that Thomas ever told
Speaker 3: him anything about Barbara or her disappearance.
Speaker 6: Well Andrew.
Speaker 5: Since we started this podcast, the public hast provided a
Speaker 5: number of tips to both our email and our tip
Speaker 5: line on various cases, in addition to tips specifically about Karen.
Speaker 5: During season one, several women contacted us and reported that
Speaker 5: they had run ins in Elgin with men who attempted
Speaker 5: to abduct them or rape them in the mid to
Speaker 5: late nineteen seventies. One woman named Donna agreed to let
Speaker 5: us record her account and use it in our episode
Speaker 5: in hopes that the information could be helpful.
Speaker 3: Donna called our tip line during season one after Matt
Speaker 3: and I mentioned Thomas Arlaker in one of our episodes.
Speaker 3: She told us that she knew Thomas Rlacker because one
Speaker 3: of her friends had dated him back in either nineteen
Speaker 3: seventy two or nineteen seventy three when she was sixteen
Speaker 3: years old. Donna met Tom a few times, and one night,
Speaker 3: Tom Erlaker offered to give her a ride home, but
Speaker 3: once Donna got into his car, that's not what happened.
Speaker 3: The following is a portion of our actual police interview
Speaker 3: with Donna.
Speaker 9: He just hit shaky, greasy, kind of looking hair black dark,
Speaker 9: you know, real dark brown black. And he just wore
Speaker 9: casual clothes.
Speaker 6: Just jeans.
Speaker 10: And Okay, about how tall was he, I.
Speaker 6: Don't know if he was six foot or better.
Speaker 9: I couldn't even imagine how tall.
Speaker 6: He would be right now, Okay, well he was a
Speaker 6: little heavy. Yeah.
Speaker 10: Do you recall what type of vehicle he drove.
Speaker 9: When I saw him? What I remember? It could be
Speaker 9: wrong memory, but I remember him driving this light green Rambler. Now,
Speaker 9: since then, I heard from other people that he always
Speaker 9: drove his mother's cars, and she always would buy expensive cars,
Speaker 9: but like old ones, and so he'd be driving around
Speaker 9: a limo and he was always just driving around, scam
Speaker 9: and picking up young girls walking in the street.
Speaker 11: Yeah, and can you share any experience that you had
Speaker 11: had with him by chance?
Speaker 9: Well, I'm not sure if I was at Wing Park
Speaker 9: or where I was, but I was going to go home.
Speaker 9: I was talking to him and he says, I'll give
Speaker 9: you a ride, and.
Speaker 6: I says, oh, okay.
Speaker 9: And my parents we lived in Century Oaks, so it
Speaker 9: was a little bit of a walk.
Speaker 6: So I took the.
Speaker 9: Ride and instead of turning or keep going down McClean Boulevard,
Speaker 9: he took a left on Big Timber and took me
Speaker 9: out to the forest, Rutland Forest.
Speaker 10: Okay. And once you guys were out there, what if
Speaker 10: anything happened.
Speaker 9: Well, he tried to attack me and I fought back,
Speaker 9: and I talked, and I told him he was going
Speaker 9: to go to jail, and I talked to him and
Speaker 9: to give me a ride home. I was going to
Speaker 9: try to get out the door because I saw another
Speaker 9: car there and go up to them and try to
Speaker 9: get a ride home. And he decided to peel out
Speaker 9: and take me home. I couldn't get out of the door.
Speaker 6: That's what it was.
Speaker 9: The door handle was visited with or gone.
Speaker 6: Okay.
Speaker 9: I couldn't get out the passenger door.
Speaker 10: All right.
Speaker 11: So just so I understand it correctly, he's obviously driving
Speaker 11: the vehicle.
Speaker 10: You're sitting in the front seat next to him. Is
Speaker 10: that correct?
Speaker 6: Yes? Okay.
Speaker 11: And that door handle that was either removed or altered
Speaker 11: in some way, that was the front door handle where
Speaker 11: you couldn't get out of right.
Speaker 9: Yes, I couldn't get out, so I was going to
Speaker 9: try to climb out the window, and that's when he
Speaker 9: took off and took me back to Elsin.
Speaker 6: Okay.
Speaker 11: And the vehicle that you were in when this occurred,
Speaker 11: was it the light green Rambler that you described or
Speaker 11: was it a different vehicle?
Speaker 6: It was the same car? Okay? All right?
Speaker 10: Do you recall how many doors it had?
Speaker 9: By chance, it was a four door what you would
Speaker 9: consider now a Pixitan, but it was a smaller car
Speaker 9: deck in the day.
Speaker 10: Okay.
Speaker 11: So you described that he started to attack you. If
Speaker 11: it's okay with you and you're comfortable, would you be
Speaker 11: able to describe in a little bit more detail, like
Speaker 11: what he tried to do.
Speaker 9: He pounced, he grabbed my arms.
Speaker 6: I think he was trying to kiss me.
Speaker 9: I was just fighting him off, and then I started
Speaker 9: telling him how he was going to go to jail
Speaker 9: if he didn't let me go, and I think I
Speaker 9: scared him.
Speaker 12: Okay, and you had you had told him all those things,
Speaker 12: and that you mentioned that there was another vehicle there also,
Speaker 12: and at that point he decided to drive back.
Speaker 6: Is that right? I was going to try to get
Speaker 6: a ride with Dick.
Speaker 9: There was a guy he went to school with us,
Speaker 9: or went to school with me, and I recognized him.
Speaker 9: I didn't know him, but I think I could have
Speaker 9: gotten a ride home.
Speaker 6: He was sitting out there with a gal that was
Speaker 6: had a date or whatever.
Speaker 10: Okay, all right, so there's a there's another vehicle with
Speaker 10: another with a couple in it. Yeah, Okay.
Speaker 11: Do you feel that that probably deterred what possibly could
Speaker 11: have happened by having other vehicle there?
Speaker 9: Yes, because it was Yeah, there was somebody there, and
Speaker 9: you know who knows?
Speaker 6: I don't know.
Speaker 9: I don't know if it was seventy two or seventy three,
Speaker 9: So I'm not sure how far into this this guy.
Speaker 11: Was, yeah, okay, After you guys left that area, where
Speaker 11: did you guys then travel to?
Speaker 9: He went back down Big Timber Road, and instead of
Speaker 9: driving further up where you could have got to my house,
Speaker 9: or turning onto McClain, he just pulled a yui, landed
Speaker 9: halfway in the ditch and he opened the car door,
Speaker 9: and I think I was.
Speaker 6: Yelling at him and he was yelling at me.
Speaker 9: And then he got the door open and I got
Speaker 9: off into the ditch and I stayed in the ditch
Speaker 9: until he drove away.
Speaker 11: Yeah, okay, on your way out Big Timber, when you
Speaker 11: realized you were not going back to your house? Was
Speaker 11: there any type of conversation or did he say anything
Speaker 11: about what was happening?
Speaker 6: He just was I go, you can't, you gotta. He
Speaker 6: wouldn't stop the car, so there was an argument.
Speaker 9: I'm not sure what the words were, but he goes, no,
Speaker 9: we're going out here. Basically, you wouldn't stop it to
Speaker 9: stop saying souse.
Speaker 6: I was ready to jump out the car if I
Speaker 6: could both.
Speaker 10: Once you exited the vehicle and he drove off, what
Speaker 10: did you do next?
Speaker 6: I walked home? Okay, all right?
Speaker 11: And did you bring this incident to anybody's attention at
Speaker 11: the time, not a person, okay, And if you don't
Speaker 11: mind me asking, what was the reason for not telling anybody? I,
Speaker 11: Like I said before, I think I just I wasn't hurt.
Speaker 9: I was, you know, scared, and you know, I was upsetting,
Speaker 9: but I got home and I just figured it was okay.
Speaker 9: I mean, I was gonna it was going to be
Speaker 9: a big It was gonna be a big deal. If
Speaker 9: I told my dad, then he's going to call the police,
Speaker 9: and then it's one.
Speaker 6: Thing after another.
Speaker 9: And at that point, if I would have thought that
Speaker 9: maybe I could have stopped him from hurting people, it
Speaker 9: would have been worth it. But I was just a
Speaker 9: stupid girl.
Speaker 5: We both think that had another car not been in
Speaker 5: the forest preserved, things certainly could have gone very differently
Speaker 5: for Donna and Detective Nelson confirmed to us that Irlacker
Speaker 5: was known to disable the passenger side door of cars
Speaker 5: he used, which matches Donna's statement to a tee.
Speaker 3: I also want to point out that, as Donna said,
Speaker 3: she never told the police about this interaction with Tom
Speaker 3: Irlacker for over fifty years. The nineteen seventies was a
Speaker 3: different time. I spent over ten years working heavily on
Speaker 3: sex assault cases, and even today victims are reluctant to
Speaker 3: come forward. Now, imagine that it's three decades ago or
Speaker 3: four decades ago. The girls in these cases were young.
Speaker 3: They were treated differently by people in society and quite
Speaker 3: frankly by people in law enforcement when they tried to
Speaker 3: report situations of sexual violence. Oftentimes, young girls feared they
Speaker 3: get in trouble for drinking, or being out late, or
Speaker 3: using drugs. In Donna's case, she just didn't want to
Speaker 3: go through all the things that she knew would happen
Speaker 3: if she told somebody, so she didn't because she was
Speaker 3: just a kid.
Speaker 5: Donna is not the only woman to reach out to
Speaker 5: us about similar experiences here in Elgin. Throughout the nineteen
Speaker 5: seventies and nineteen eighties, We've had several other women tell
Speaker 5: us stories like hers as well, and none of them
Speaker 5: ever told the police either. In many cases, these girls
Speaker 5: felt that they wouldn't be believed. I think law enforcement
Speaker 5: has come a long way, and through this podcast and
Speaker 5: media that Karen and her case generated, who've had a
Speaker 5: number of women like Donna come forward to provide us information.
Speaker 5: We really do appreciate them. Trusting us. It's that type
Speaker 5: of information that could be relevant to an active cold
Speaker 5: case here in Elgin or a surrounding jurisdiction, so we
Speaker 5: encourage people to continue contacting us. We absolutely are not
Speaker 5: going to blame you for a situation like that. It
Speaker 5: was not Donna's fault that she accepted a ride from
Speaker 5: person she thought she knew, and like Bob said in
Speaker 5: Part one, it is not Barbara's fault that this happened
Speaker 5: to her. She stuck out with a friend. It's something
Speaker 5: that all of us have done in our youth. The
Speaker 5: offender in these cases is to blame, not the victim.
Speaker 3: That's right, Chris In. As law enforcement, we're here to help.
Speaker 3: If you had a similar situation happened to you in
Speaker 3: the Elgin area in the nineteen seventies, with Thomas Erlacker
Speaker 3: or with anybody else, please contact us. We're not going
Speaker 3: to judge you, and if your case ends up being
Speaker 3: in another jurisdiction, we can put you in contact with
Speaker 3: the right agency. We can also help provide social services
Speaker 3: or any other resources that you might need. Hearing your
Speaker 3: story about a place you were taken or something that
Speaker 3: someone said, or a vehicle or the way someone dressed.
Speaker 3: Those could all be important to a case like Barbara's
Speaker 3: or some other area case. So please consider at least
Speaker 3: contacting us to tell us your story if you experienced
Speaker 3: something like Donna did back in the nineteen seventies or
Speaker 3: the nineteen eighties. Well, here in part two, you've heard
Speaker 3: from Detective Nelson, and you've heard first hand accounts of
Speaker 3: who Thomas Urlacker was. Well, we know that Irlacer is
Speaker 3: not linked to Karen's tragic death. He remains the only
Speaker 3: suspect in Barbara Luker's case, and her case is still unsolved.
Speaker 3: We know that Detective Nelson and Barbara's family just want
Speaker 3: to bring her home, but we can't do that alone.
Speaker 3: Here's what Detective Nelson wants the public to remember when
Speaker 3: it comes to cold cases like Barbara's.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think what's important is that you know there
Speaker 4: are still she still has family members.
Speaker 6: That are alive. And I think that it's natural for people,
Speaker 6: you know, to want want closure.
Speaker 4: You know, in this instance, we're fairly certain, you know,
Speaker 4: based on you know, his own words, his his his
Speaker 4: confession letter, that you know he did what he did,
Speaker 4: and that she is somewhere.
Speaker 6: It's just it's it's.
Speaker 4: I think it's just important that I think for people,
Speaker 4: even if they have a little bit of information and
Speaker 4: if they think that it's of no consequence, but it
Speaker 4: clearly might be. Because no one ever working cold cases,
Speaker 4: really you don't really know all the events that you
Speaker 4: what's going to be pertinent and what isn't. You just
Speaker 4: need to collect every piece of evidence you possibly can.
Speaker 4: You're just trying to put something together. And in this instance,
Speaker 4: we're just trying to find her and trying to find
Speaker 4: her body. But just know the fact that he's there,
Speaker 4: you know, and again, interviewing quite a number of people,
Speaker 4: even from the original reports, a lot of people were
Speaker 4: afraid of him, and I think it's important to know
Speaker 4: that he's that he's not around anymore, and that it's
Speaker 4: if you do know something, it's okay to talk, you know,
Speaker 4: it's okay to talk. And yeah, I think for people
Speaker 4: to know that, I think that's important. You know, it's
Speaker 4: understandable that people are afraid.
Speaker 5: We've said it before. Changes in relationships really matter. While
Speaker 5: we can work to use new technology and cases like this,
Speaker 5: tips and information from the public are crucial in cold cases.
Speaker 5: You just never know what tiny piece of information could
Speaker 5: be relevant and helps solve the case. Someone with new
Speaker 5: information who feels safe now that Irlacker is dead, or
Speaker 5: feels more comfortable providing information now that decades of time
Speaker 5: have passed, might help bring Barbara home. Like Mike said,
Speaker 5: it's understandable and okay to be afraid or nervous about
Speaker 5: reaching out to law enforcement on these cases, but it's
Speaker 5: the right thing to do. One tiny detail can make
Speaker 5: all the difference.
Speaker 3: I would also add that if you have information but
Speaker 3: you want to be anonymous, we can work with that.
Speaker 3: The information you have on a case is more important
Speaker 3: than who you are, So if you know something, say something.
Speaker 3: The Glucrat family deserves an answer in Barbara's case, they
Speaker 3: have waited long enough. Next episode, we jump ahead one
Speaker 3: year to the summer of nineteen seventy seven. The victim
Speaker 3: in our next case is not a fourteen year old child.
Speaker 3: He's a sixty eight year old black man who was
Speaker 3: living in downtown Elgin. Casey d. Kyles had recently retired
Speaker 3: when he walked into an alleyway outside the Douglas Hotel
Speaker 3: on July twenty first, nineteen seventy seven. There in the
Speaker 3: darkness less than a block from the Elgin Police Department,
Speaker 3: an unknown person stabbed him to death. Join us next
Speaker 3: episode as we review Casey's case and seek answers in
Speaker 3: another cold case homicide from the nineteen seventies of Elgin.
Speaker 3: Here on, Somebody Knows Something.
Speaker 2: If you, or anyone you know has information about this
Speaker 2: case or any other cold case in Elgin, please contact
Speaker 2: the Elgin Police Department Cold Case email at cold Case
Speaker 2: tips at ELGINIL dot gov or the cold case tip
Speaker 2: line at eight four seven cold. You can also review
Speaker 2: cold case information on the Elgin Police Department's Transparency Hub
Speaker 2: by going to ELGINIL dot gov and navigating to the
Speaker 2: Elgin Police Department's Transparency Hub, where every cold case, homicide,
Speaker 2: and missing person's case is listed with photographs and information
Speaker 2: about each case.