Speaker 1: On a winter night in a small community near Denver, Colorado,
Speaker 1: Jim Matthews arrived home late. He expected to find his
Speaker 1: twelve year old daughter, who had been dropped off after
Speaker 1: a Christmas concert, but when he called out, hey, John Ell,
Speaker 1: the house was eerily quiet. His daughter's shoes were on
Speaker 1: the floor, but she was gone, and it would be
Speaker 1: thirty five years before she would be found dead. After
Speaker 1: the discovery of John L. Matthew's body in two thousand
Speaker 1: and nineteen, the police turned their attention to a man
Speaker 1: who had told law enforcement years ago that he knew something,
Speaker 1: but they dismissed him. The man did seem obsessed with
Speaker 1: the case, but is that all He was? A true
Speaker 1: crime fanatic or a killer wondery. In Campside Media's shocking
Speaker 1: true crime podcast, Suspect is back for a second season
Speaker 1: with a story that attempts to separate fact from fiction,
Speaker 1: compulsion from guilt, and one man's true crime obsession from
Speaker 1: a motive for murder. I'm about to play a clip
Speaker 1: from Suspect Vanished in the Snow while you're listening. Follow
Speaker 1: Suspect on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: You can start listening to suspect vanished in the snow
Speaker 1: early and add free by subscribing to Wondery Plus in
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app.
Speaker 2: Well County is a desert feels relatively warm outside for
Speaker 2: Colorado in December, and the sky is just this Caribbean blue.
Speaker 2: It's winter, but it's hot out, dry and dusty. The
Speaker 2: snow capped rocky mountains are all behind us. Ahead, it's flat.
Speaker 2: The horizon goes on forever. I feel like we're in
Speaker 2: the Wikipedia of Tumbleweeds.
Speaker 3: Don't you feel rich? And Tom Bridge, it's help.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Oh shit, people tear ass down this road. A
Speaker 2: few of the trucks passing us are souped up, brand
Speaker 2: new tires, jacked high oil and gas workers apparently unbothered
Speaker 2: by speed limits. If there is a speed limit out here,
Speaker 2: we're relieved to turn into a dirt driveway of a
Speaker 2: lone rambling house.
Speaker 3: Hi guys, Hello, nice to meet you.
Speaker 2: I'm Jody Vance and Jody Gillilin lives so far from
Speaker 2: most of their neighbors that it's easier to drive to
Speaker 2: see them. Across from their house is a field that
Speaker 2: stretches about a thousand acres. It's full of brush and weeds,
Speaker 2: the kind of place where people often well abandon things,
Speaker 2: old mattresses, washers and dryers, even boats.
Speaker 3: It's like, wow, almost tended to hook that up and
Speaker 3: take it home and see what I can do. But no,
Speaker 3: I mean, people still still do dump things out here,
Speaker 3: but it's usually quick and rout and quick and run.
Speaker 3: I mean what they can show up the back with
Speaker 3: truck in two seconds.
Speaker 2: In the summer of twenty nineteen, Vance and Jody were
Speaker 2: in their kitchen when they saw blue and red lights
Speaker 2: flashing across the perimeter of their property. All of a sudden,
Speaker 2: there was cop cars going by, and I was like,
Speaker 2: uh oh.
Speaker 3: Up until it was dark. Actually they were out there, and.
Speaker 1: They were out there forever.
Speaker 2: Vance and Jody soon learned those oil and gas workers
Speaker 2: and their fancy pickups. They'd unearthed a small human skull
Speaker 2: with a single bullet hole in it, and authorities knew
Speaker 2: exactly who the remains belonged to. It is a cold
Speaker 2: case that has baffled the Greeley community for nearly thirty
Speaker 2: five years, but denied. Police may be closer to figuring
Speaker 2: out what happened to Janelle Matthews. The twelve year old
Speaker 2: disappeared from her home in late nineteen eighty four. Her
Speaker 2: remains were discovered this week by a construction curR in
Speaker 2: rural Weld County. Gone for thirty five years, today, human
Speaker 2: remains founded an oil and gas fighting Greeley give investigators
Speaker 2: new leads on a decade's old cold case. Like a
Speaker 2: lot of Colorado residents who had been following Janelle's case
Speaker 2: since the nineteen eighties, Vance and Jody watched the news
Speaker 2: reports with fascination. They waited to hear what would happen next,
Speaker 2: hoping that the remains in the field would finally lead
Speaker 2: investigators to the killer. As it turned out, it wouldn't
Speaker 2: be nearly so simple. This is a story about obsession
Speaker 2: my own. Sure, So I am working on a podcast
Speaker 2: about the Janelle Matthews case. I know you know about
Speaker 2: that case, right, I assume you're probably well versed. I
Speaker 2: thought i'd try you one last time. But also the
Speaker 2: obsession of a community that pushing to find Janelle, to
Speaker 2: get her name into the national spotlight and all the
Speaker 2: way to the White House.
Speaker 1: For example, I learned about Janelle Matthews of Greeley, Colorado,
Speaker 1: who would have celebrated a happy thirteenth birthday with her
Speaker 1: family just last month.
Speaker 2: And it's about the obsessions of a self described true
Speaker 2: crime junkie, a man who had started talking about the
Speaker 2: Janelle Matthews case just a few days after police responded
Speaker 2: to a distress call from her home, and over the
Speaker 2: next thirty five years he kept talking and talking.
Speaker 3: It was just me trying to be a big man
Speaker 3: in the case.
Speaker 2: He's a busybody.
Speaker 3: He gets himself in the middle of murder cases, but
Speaker 3: that doesn't necessarily mean he actually was involved in them.
Speaker 3: People are like, Oh, he's just crazy and he's just
Speaker 3: he's just a being bad or whatever else, and he's harmless.
Speaker 2: He wouldn't hurt anybody.
Speaker 3: It's a good liar that he can convince the juror
Speaker 3: that he wasn't involved, so you know he's a liar.
Speaker 3: He is.
Speaker 2: He is a good one. I turned around and I said,
Speaker 2: you're going to be arrested for obstructing if you don't
Speaker 2: get back in your car, and he says, don't fuck
Speaker 2: with me. Officer Edgerton. I've buried more people than you'll know.
Speaker 2: When you shut Janelle Matthews in the forehead.
Speaker 3: Was she begging for her life never happened.
Speaker 1: Listen to Suspect Vanished in the Snow early and ad
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Speaker 1: the Wondery app.