0:00

The views and opinions expressed in this podcast

0:02

are solely those of the authors and participants

0:05

and do not necessarily represent those

0:07

of iHeart Media, Tenderfoot TV, or

0:09

their employees. This series contains

0:11

discussions of violence and sexual

0:13

violence. Listener discretion is

0:15

advised. Previously

0:20

an algorithm. I feel I should have

0:22

got locked over them. Yeah, I'll beat her,

0:24

I rape you, rape

0:27

you. I standard y'all call it right, but

0:29

we don't call it ran in streets like

0:32

you pay here? So what is she complaining about?

0:34

After Vaughan's release from prison in August,

0:38

he moved back to Gary first

0:40

time. He really didn't go over okay

0:43

and true

0:45

World War for for

0:47

a couple of days, and in

0:50

January, Vaughan appears

0:52

to have committed the first of his confirmed murders,

0:55

killing twenty eight year old Tierra Baby and

1:01

Way call it never happened. Her

1:04

fiance, Marvin Clinton, investigated

1:07

her disappearance and discovered a

1:09

man, likely Vaughan, had stolen

1:11

her cell phone and was using it to call

1:13

prostitutes, and Marvin says

1:15

he took that information to the police.

1:18

He didn't have me thank but from

1:20

that point on it what he did would director.

1:23

I have no idea. And around

1:25

that same time, another woman

1:27

had a run in with Vond. She was

1:29

one of the very first person that

1:32

ever weighing into HOW, but she happened

1:34

to get away from HOW. From I Heart

1:37

Radio and Tenderfoot TV. This

1:39

is Algorithm and I'm ben

1:41

Key Brick at eleven

1:44

am. On February,

1:47

just over a month after Tierra Batty disappeared,

1:50

Darren Von contacted a woman who

1:52

placed an ad as an escort on backpage

1:55

dot com. That's the same site

1:57

that Von would later use to contact Africa

1:59

Hardy. The woman who

2:01

will call Sarah, came forward with her story

2:04

after Vaughn was arrested and she saw

2:06

his picture on the news. Detective

2:08

Ford looked into it. He found the

2:11

report that Sarah had initially filed,

2:13

and then went out to interview her. How did

2:15

it make you feel when you saw him on the news?

2:18

Ford recorded this interview. With the way

2:20

it's recorded, you can hear him well and

2:23

how do you spell your last name? But many of Sarah's

2:25

responses aren't audible. Luckily

2:30

I got access to Detective Ford's report

2:32

about this interview, so try to fill

2:35

in some of the gaps. When the audio isn't

2:37

clear. I'd prefer to hear

2:39

things firsthand from Sarah, and I

2:41

reached out to her for comment, but I couldn't

2:43

get in touch. You can tell from

2:45

the get go that she doesn't trust police,

2:48

which makes sense given her story. And

2:50

I know it's hard for you to believe, but we're here to

2:52

try to help himself. Okay,

2:55

how did you wind up meeting

2:57

this guy? You

3:00

had a back page ad, so

3:02

you were in Chicago, you drove the Gary.

3:06

Okay, so you met him at one house and he asked

3:08

you to drive to another one. Now,

3:11

how did you find it? Did he give you directions

3:13

to it? Or did you put it like in your phone for

3:15

GPS? So he

3:17

just told you kind of how to get there. Now,

3:19

in the report, do you say that it's

3:22

fourteen East

3:25

Court? East fifty Court

3:27

was the street that von lived on with his brother,

3:30

and the address Sarah had given police was

3:32

just across the street from where Vaughan was staying.

3:35

What happened when you get to the house. When you when

3:37

you meet him the first time, Sarah

3:40

says that as she was getting out of the car,

3:42

Vun ambushed her. He put a knife

3:44

to her neck, and he told her, you're

3:46

going to listen to me. Get in the fucking

3:48

house. What did he look like the

3:53

guys? Sarah

3:56

says that because of Von's facial ticks,

3:59

the way he ground his teeth, she thought

4:01

that he used to be addicted to crack, used

4:03

to be okay, So he put a knife to your next

4:05

and he said, you're gonna listen

4:07

to me. Sarah

4:09

says Von took her to a back room

4:12

in the house. He made her hand

4:14

over her cell phone and car keys and

4:16

told her that if she did what he said,

4:18

then he'd let her go. But she

4:21

didn't believe him because she saw duct

4:23

tape and gloves in the corner of the room,

4:25

and he started asking her questions. He

4:27

was asking about your car, who knows you're

4:29

there? And he took your cell phone

4:32

right so you're saying that these

4:34

are all science and NFL like

4:36

you were probably wind up dead. Okay.

4:40

I used to work in narcotics a lot, and I did undercover

4:42

words. I have the same sign as you do. When

4:44

things started going weird, I

4:47

started going, okay, it's time to get out of

4:49

here. Sad's about and half behind. Sarah

4:52

says that Von then repeatedly raped

4:54

her. He seemed to be toying with

4:56

her. He would stop and

4:58

tell her he was going to let her go, only

5:01

to then begin again. At

5:03

one point, she tried to escape, but

5:05

he caught her and started beating her

5:07

and tighter wrists behind her back with a

5:09

small rope any other weapons

5:12

against jubisides tie you off. After

5:16

hours of holding Sarah at knife point, choking

5:19

her and raping her, Sarah says that

5:21

Von gagged her through a coat over her

5:23

head and drug her outside to her own

5:25

car, some of the staff and outside with him

5:27

punching you and choking you. This

5:31

part of the story reminded me of something.

5:33

It reminded me of an incident that Vaughan's

5:36

brother, Reginald, had described police.

5:38

Reginald said Vaughan had once called

5:41

him at work out of the blue. It

5:43

was like like the only time he's ever calling

5:45

me over. And when he said,

5:47

you say, you know he brought a chap back to the

5:50

house and they got your food

5:54

anything doing it, I

5:56

think it really told me is because of the neighbor

5:59

across the street. So now

6:03

to be clear, Vaughan just told his brother

6:05

that he'd gotten into a fight with a woman. He

6:08

didn't tell his brother about any crimes.

6:10

And I don't know for certain that the incident

6:12

Reginald was describing has anything

6:14

to do with Sarah, but I wonder Regardless,

6:18

Vaughan forced her into the car and started

6:21

driving, and she felt certain

6:23

that he was taking her somewhere to kill

6:25

her. They got

6:27

the t Brawway

6:29

and he got stuck at a red light and

6:32

it's a pool hall. We got on twenty

6:35

Broadway and there was two

6:37

old guys, two old gentlemen that was

6:39

standing outside. Sarah

6:42

managed to get the gag out of her mouth and

6:44

she screamed for help. They say

6:46

what they heard was somebody in distress,

6:49

and they looked and they see a woman

6:52

tied up in the back feet of the car.

6:55

The men snapped into action. They

6:57

were armed, so they pulled out their guns

6:59

and stopped Vaughan at the intersection. They

7:01

helped to call at the light, and

7:04

they were trying to make him get out the car

7:06

so they can get the young lady out, and

7:09

one of the guys shot off his

7:11

pistol. One of the men fired

7:14

a warning shot and Vaughan ended up

7:16

bailing out of the car and running away.

7:32

So basically, these people

7:34

intervening for you shoot a shot in

7:36

the air. He takes off, run in and

7:38

the police show up. Sarah

7:40

told police what had happened. She

7:42

gave them the address where she'd met Vaughan and

7:45

the fact that he'd said that his name was Darren.

7:47

And after she finished up with the police, she

7:49

met up with her boyfriend and it was

7:52

actually while she was talking to her boyfriend

7:54

that she decided to go to the hospital and

7:56

get a rape kit because victim went

7:59

through several hours in an exam.

8:02

They had someone swabbing intimate

8:04

parts of their body and taking pictures

8:07

and you know it's not done for fun. My

8:10

name is Dr Rachel Lovell. My area

8:12

of expertise is around gender

8:14

based violence and I am a

8:17

research assistant professor at Case

8:19

Western Reserve University. So

8:22

a centual assault kit is a set

8:24

of items collected by healthcare

8:26

professionals, primarily in a hospital

8:29

setting. The items can be swabs,

8:31

combs, hair, photographs,

8:34

any number of things. Level

8:37

says that about six of sexual

8:39

assault kits will have enough DNA

8:42

to be analyzed and submitted to a

8:44

database. It has

8:46

to meet a certain number of criteria

8:48

to be uploaded into CODIS that's

8:51

the us IS Federal DNA database.

8:55

When a new sample is uploaded to CODIS,

8:57

it's compared against all the other samples

9:00

sun Vaughan's previous crimes. His DNA

9:02

should have been in the federal database. So

9:05

if Gary police had analyzed Sarah's

9:07

rape kit and it had enough DNA, they

9:09

should have been able to link the kit to Vaughan. They

9:12

would have discovered he was a registered sex

9:15

offender living just across the street

9:17

from the address that she had provided, And

9:19

they also would have found out that Vaughan had

9:22

been convicted for an almost identical

9:24

crime to the one Sarah described.

9:27

Now, to be clear, we can't know for certain

9:29

what would have happened if police had tested

9:31

Sarah's sexual assault kit, but it seems

9:33

quite plausible that they would have been able to arrest

9:36

Vaughn before he committed any more murders.

9:39

But that's not what happened. Did

9:41

the police ever follow up with you or take

9:44

any steps to to investigate

9:46

this? Is

9:49

there any reason you didn't want to prosecute

9:51

him for it? Well,

9:54

heage you, right. Sarah

9:57

is saying there that she didn't press charges

9:59

because police told her quote, if he

10:01

had paid you then it wouldn't have been rape.

10:04

Right. That's the exact same

10:06

logic that Vaughan had used to justify

10:08

his rape in Texas, And according

10:11

to Sarah, that same logic was

10:13

now coming from the Gary Police Department.

10:16

You can hear Detective forward Si after

10:18

he heard that, well,

10:22

and like you said, I'm sorry, is

10:24

that happened. I'm going to continue

10:27

to work on this, and i am

10:29

going to check the rape kit. It's

10:32

actually a Gary Police department. I'm going to get

10:34

that. I'm gonna send it down to the state Lab. So

10:37

if there is any you know, DNA evidence

10:39

will be trying to put

10:42

that together. Instead of analyzing

10:44

Sarah's sexual assault kit, police

10:47

let it sit on a shelf for over

10:49

a year. Sarah's

10:51

kit was part of a backlog that's

10:53

frustratingly common across the US.

10:56

They are thought to be hundreds of thousands

10:58

of untested kits. The exact

11:01

numbers are hard to come by.

11:03

This victim, how a sexual assualt kit collected,

11:06

and the idea that nothing would be done

11:08

from that, that that would just be put on a shelf,

11:10

I think is painful to think about.

11:14

Dr Lovell says that many people

11:16

are shocked when they find out how many

11:18

sexual assault kits never get tested.

11:21

How can you have so many rape kits

11:23

that were not tested, Like, how could you not

11:25

test those? And that's a, you know, a very

11:28

understandable, legitimate question. But

11:30

the problem is even worse than many

11:33

realize. The kit is

11:35

a symptom of a much larger problem.

11:38

Doctor Level was part of a project called

11:40

the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative. The

11:42

initiative was to analyze all the backlogged

11:45

rape kits in Cuyahoga County, Ohio,

11:47

where Cleveland is located, and Level

11:49

and her team then look through all the police records

11:52

from when these kits were submitted. What we

11:54

really found through our research is that many

11:57

things as part of those investigations were

11:59

not completed. It that includes

12:01

taking victims statements, offender

12:03

statements, running someone's criminal

12:05

history, you know, all the sort of traditional

12:08

investigative practices. Kids

12:10

weren't tested because lots of things weren't done on

12:12

these cases. These cases were close pretty

12:15

quickly. I think one of the most

12:17

important things that people should understand is

12:19

that the investigations are often not

12:21

what you see in TV. People

12:24

have a sense that law enforcement has

12:26

the resources to thoroughly

12:28

follow up on all of these leads

12:30

and test whatever they want. And

12:33

you know, do all these sorts of things. You

12:35

sexual assaults in particular, the

12:37

departments are under resource, they're not followed

12:40

up on. And this is what happens

12:42

when you don't follow up on them,

12:45

sexual offenders continue to offend. I

12:48

was curious what had led Cleveland to analyze

12:51

all the rape kids in its backlog. Why

12:54

did they decide to go test their

12:56

untested kids, Like many

12:58

things came out of something really bad.

13:01

On Halloween in two thousand and nine, they

13:04

found the bodies of eleven

13:06

decomposing women in the house

13:08

of this man named Anthony soul so

13:10

Well was under investigation by Cleveland

13:12

police for rape. In two thousand and

13:15

nine, so Well killed eleven women

13:17

and buried them in and around his Imperial

13:19

Avenue home. Neighbors remembered

13:21

that stench of rotting flesh

13:24

so wrongly attributed to raise

13:26

sausage store next door. When

13:28

they were sort of following up on these

13:31

women's bodies, they identified

13:34

that several reports had been made from women

13:36

who were able to escape from Anthony Sowell

13:39

and said that he had raped them and that they

13:41

had taken him back to this house, and one

13:43

of these women, maybe more, had a sexual salt kit

13:45

collected that wasn't tested at the

13:47

time. Ohio saw a backlog of

13:49

thousands of untested rape

13:51

kits. The plain Dealer reported that

13:53

one from two thousand nine was later

13:56

linked to so well, but by then he

13:58

had killed at least four or more.

14:01

You never know sort of the counterfactual,

14:03

So what had happened had they done that? However,

14:06

if those cases had been followed up on, you

14:08

know, there's a strong likelihood that he might not

14:10

have been able to murder the subsequent victims.

14:13

You know, the story I'm working on right now actually

14:16

has a lot of eerie similarities.

14:19

People reporting it to police, reporting

14:21

the house, and you know it wasn't

14:23

followed up on and led to more

14:26

sexual assaults and murders. I

14:28

don't know, it's really hard looking from the outside

14:30

kind of understanding how this

14:32

stuff can happen, or how someone can kind

14:34

of throw so many obvious red

14:36

flags that don't seem to get caught. You

14:38

know, the departments are under resource, they're

14:41

under reported, they're not followed up

14:43

on, and when you don't solve

14:45

those crimes, they continue to go on.

14:48

And commit sexual assaults as well as other

14:50

crimes. The Sexual Assault CAN initiative

14:52

is sort of pulling off a band aid and showing

14:54

actually, there's much worse under here

14:56

than what we thought, and really trying

14:59

to transform the way we think about

15:01

sexual assault and how to investigate

15:04

it. I

15:06

asked Dr Lovell how we ended up with this

15:08

rape kit backlog in the first place.

15:11

You have to start with the fact that DNA testing

15:13

wasn't really available until the late

15:15

nineties, but earlier on

15:18

police did collect biological samples,

15:20

not for DNA testing but for blood

15:23

typing. When DNA testing

15:25

did become available, it was expensive,

15:28

it was very cost prohibitive, so police

15:31

departments only really tested

15:33

kits where there was a very strong likelihood

15:36

that it was going to go to prosecution and

15:38

the testing could take sometimes years to get

15:40

the DNA evidence back. So

15:42

by and large, most jurisdictions may

15:45

have started to test the kids

15:47

going forward when it became cheaper,

15:50

or primarily those where the victim wanted

15:52

to prosecute and the offender was a stranger.

15:55

That's the only kids that they were really testing.

15:58

They never really thought about going back to the old

16:00

ones. To be fair, they

16:02

didn't know what was going to be in there.

16:05

They didn't know how many would have hits.

16:07

Would it be worth it to test these kids?

16:10

And there was a lot of conversation about should

16:12

we only test the stranger ones or the non

16:14

stranger ones, because the idea is

16:17

that DNA will help you identify someone,

16:19

But if you already know who raped you, what's the point

16:21

of testing. What they didn't foresee

16:23

from that is that kids can hit to each

16:25

other. So here's one

16:27

person who might have sexually assaulted

16:30

for acquaintances, and

16:32

although each person had

16:35

their own police report, the kids

16:37

have now linked them together. We

16:40

also have a strong research to show that

16:42

because offenders often sexually

16:44

assault strangers and non strangers,

16:47

one person's known offender is

16:49

somebody else's unknown offender. So

16:51

when the kids hit to each other, you

16:54

now have a name suspect. They

16:56

didn't really have a larger sense either about

16:58

how many of these kids would be hitting

17:00

to each other. Here's these seasoned

17:03

law enforcement officers and I would be sitting in meetings

17:05

and they would be, you know, just shocked

17:08

at the number of rapes that this person

17:10

had been connected to and how different

17:12

the rapes were in terms of victim

17:15

preference and age and gender

17:18

and raise and all these sorts of things. They're

17:20

like, how did we never would have put these

17:22

together had it not been for DNA because they're

17:24

so different? Was this a shock to researchers

17:27

as well? I think the number

17:29

was a little shocking when you started

17:32

to pull the ball together. I mean, in Kyoga

17:34

County, a fourth of these cases are linked

17:36

to known serial sex offenders,

17:39

so they know that they're connected to some other

17:41

sex crime or they're connected to another

17:43

rape kit. Almost a quarter of the

17:45

kids that were analyzed contained a DNA

17:47

sample that matched the sample in another

17:50

kit or a sample from a noon sex

17:52

offender. Can we say then that

17:55

of these offenses are serial

17:57

offenses or does that work

18:00

for some reason? I think you can extrapolate

18:03

to that. There's also researchers from the

18:05

Detroit Sacchi Project about a third

18:07

of their's were connected

18:09

to more than one sexual assault, so we

18:12

estimated at being at and

18:14

then in terms of absolute numbers,

18:17

how many are we talking about with? So

18:20

as of December, there was about eight hundred

18:22

and fifty known serial sex offenders.

18:26

And again that that's the ones you know. Don't

18:28

forget though, that sexual assault is the most

18:30

underreported violent crime and

18:33

still eight hundred and fifty

18:35

known people who are connected to some other rape.

18:38

Yeah. It's it's kind of like if you compared

18:40

it to like murder something like that,

18:42

right, if you thought about eight hundred

18:45

serial killers active in

18:47

this county, that that would sound completely

18:49

insane. Uh, And it does

18:52

sound completely insane with serial

18:54

rape to right, right, you

18:56

know, to what extent has this actually

18:58

led to, you

19:01

know, opening back up investigations

19:03

or convictions? So u

19:05

Kyoge County started completely

19:07

new investigations for

19:10

seven thousand rape kits from

19:12

nineteen three through two

19:14

thousand and eleven UM.

19:16

They just finished testing and investigating all

19:18

of those. Over eight hundred

19:21

defendants have been indicted. It shows

19:23

that you can get convictions from old

19:25

sexual assault cases when there are sufficient

19:28

resources for victims in terms of victim

19:30

advocacy and victim support, and

19:32

there's sufficient um political

19:34

will to make sure that these cases are

19:36

investigated and prosecuted. Cuyahoga

19:39

Counties investigation into their rape

19:41

kit backlog has been an enormous success,

19:44

in part because they had buy in at the county,

19:47

state, and national level after

19:49

they'd begun addressing the problem at the county

19:51

level. They got federal funding from

19:53

the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative, a

19:55

national initiative to end the rape kit backlog,

19:58

which launched in tw Cayuga

20:00

County has the most number of convictions

20:03

relative to the number of kids,

20:05

and there's several reasons for that. Most notably

20:08

is that Calga County is one

20:10

of the first ones to do this, so it's an early

20:12

adopter jurisdiction is before the

20:14

federal money was available to do this,

20:17

so they kind of got a head start. And

20:19

the other head start that they got was that the state

20:21

Crime Lab paid for the testing

20:23

of all the kids, so they didn't have

20:26

to use resources to pay for the testing,

20:28

but instead put those resources towards

20:30

investigation and prosecution. So they

20:33

really got a large number of

20:35

staff and personnel. So they've

20:37

seen a very large number. Over eight hundred

20:40

defendants have now been indicted.

20:42

Do you know how many of those eight hundred were

20:44

kind of already in prison

20:47

for something else? For sure,

20:49

some of them were in prison for long periods

20:51

of time, But for all indicted

20:54

defendants, we looked at their criminal

20:56

histories and the median amount of time that

20:58

they had been in cars rated that

21:00

could be jail or prison was around

21:03

six months. Some of them, you

21:05

know, were convicted of murder and had life

21:07

sentences, but overall

21:09

they weren't incarcerated for long

21:12

periods of time. Yeah. I was speaking

21:14

to another researcher about how

21:16

you assess the threat of recidivism

21:20

given that so many of these

21:22

crimes go unreported, so

21:24

that kind of makes it hard to figure out how much

21:26

people are reoffending. Do

21:29

you have a sense of how the

21:31

data from rape kits is

21:33

changing, or or should change

21:35

the way we think about reoffending.

21:38

Yeah. I think that's a great question, and in fact, sachy

21:41

data the connection is made when the victim

21:43

reports and there's DNA collected,

21:46

not at the time of conviction, so you

21:48

have a much more representative sample

21:50

of sexual assaults. I think the Sexual

21:52

Thought Kit initiative is telling us that

21:54

serial offending is much more common than

21:57

previously assumed, because now

21:59

we're getting a less biased view

22:01

of what that actually looks like, and that

22:03

in fact, law enforcement should start

22:06

with the assumption that that they've done this before.

22:09

I guess I was just shocked at kind

22:11

of what people can do and

22:13

how light that punishment seemed to

22:16

me as someone not familiar with this

22:18

stuff. Yeah, I think one of the sort

22:20

of larger existential problems with

22:22

this is that individuals have to

22:24

come back to the community, right most

22:27

of them. The problem is, oftentimes

22:29

the offenders will come out of prison worse than

22:31

what they went in, and there's no good

22:33

treatment for sexual offenders adult ones. There

22:35

is some stuff around juveniles, but for adult

22:37

male sex offenders, the research is pretty

22:40

consistent that treatment is not very effective.

22:43

What are we supposed to do when these individuals

22:46

are out? I don't have the answer to that,

22:48

but I think it's an important conversation to

22:51

have. I know that. For example, in Washington

22:53

State, there's this place called sex Offender

22:55

Island. The first time I heard someone talked about,

22:57

I was like, sex Offender Island. That sounds

22:59

like a place I certainly don't want to

23:01

go, you know, like that sounds terrible, and

23:04

it's a it's a place where they have civilly

23:07

committed individuals who

23:09

are the worst of the worst sexual offenders,

23:11

and so this is kind of like they've served their sentence.

23:14

You can't legally keep them in prison, but

23:16

you can involuntarily commit them kind

23:18

of like a psychiatric condition. But it's

23:20

essentially an extra judicial prison

23:23

or something. Yes, And sometimes

23:25

some offenders say, you know, put me in this

23:27

because I will continue to offend.

23:29

And sometimes they're just civilly

23:31

committed by saying, you know, we've deemed you

23:34

as being too dangerous. I'm

23:36

not suggesting that's the right answer,

23:39

but you know, I think these are conversations

23:41

that should also be had as well, like

23:43

what do we do with individuals who

23:46

may have a hard time being reformed

23:49

and they are still a danger to society.

23:51

I don't want myself for my children to live

23:54

next to that person. But at the same time, that

23:56

person has served their debt to society,

23:58

at least according to the core. Yeah,

24:01

it seems to me that like our kind of intuitions

24:03

about these crimes don't match up

24:06

with the laws and the sentences.

24:08

But then it seems to me from your research

24:11

that also the reality of the

24:13

crimes doesn't match up with our intuition

24:16

either, you know. So I don't know, just

24:18

everything is kind of messed up right now, I

24:20

know, I know, Yeah, I have no read you

24:22

know, some of the other things I could provide recommendations,

24:25

I don't know what to do. I think it's those

24:27

are sort of philosophical questions, But

24:29

I think there is a larger story about,

24:32

now what how do we as a society

24:34

handle violent sexual predators.

24:54

Dr Lovell's research shows that Sarah's

24:56

story with a rape kit that went

24:58

unanalyzed, in a rap ape that went uninvestigated,

25:02

that story is far from unique to Gary.

25:04

It's part of a bigger problem occurring

25:06

all across the country. But when

25:09

Marvin Clinton says that he heard about

25:11

Sarah's story and how the police hadn't

25:13

followed up on the information she'd given

25:15

them were analyzed her rape kit, it

25:17

didn't shock him. I was surprised

25:20

at all. They

25:22

may have feel like she was the words

25:24

this person, so

25:27

she just stopped and the bell with

25:29

them. It

25:31

seems like, again, if they had

25:33

just taken her seriously, she

25:36

could have taken them to the house. They

25:38

would have seen that this guy was a registered sex

25:40

offender who had almost killed

25:42

a woman in Texas, and they could

25:44

have stopped all of this from happening. Exactly.

25:48

Yeah, that's so fu exactly,

25:52

But they would have took up seriously instead

25:54

of making her feel that her life was

25:57

worth nothing, like we're

25:59

not noting what you're doing. We

26:01

might travel had judging

26:03

on you, but we just want to

26:05

know what's happened and

26:08

let her know that her life missed

26:10

something. Clinton

26:14

said that Sarah's story reminded

26:16

him of his own experience. It

26:19

kind of go inside with each other.

26:22

After Von's arrest, Marvin says he

26:24

learned police had lost the phone records

26:26

he provided them. They looked

26:29

through the foul they didn't have it, So

26:31

we don't know what the other detective deal with

26:33

it, if you just threw it away or whatever the

26:35

case may be. But you told

26:37

them this whole story about how you had

26:40

gotten the records and called and spoken

26:42

to this woman, and that a man

26:44

had called exactly that I had told him

26:47

all the novels did I called. I

26:49

mean, it feels like at least once

26:52

you had told them that he had her cell

26:54

phone, you know that they should have been able

26:56

to track down where

26:58

he was or something exactly.

27:03

It seems from both Marvin and Sariah's

27:05

stories the police ignored crucial

27:07

leads early in and

27:10

these errors may have left Vaughn free

27:12

to commit more murders. Personally,

27:16

I think if police had investigated either

27:18

of these leads thoroughly, they could have

27:20

caught and arrested Vaughn and

27:22

Africa Hardy and many of the later victims

27:25

would be alive today. But

27:29

could Vaughan have been stopped even earlier?

27:33

He inclaimed he had been doing

27:36

this for twenty some years.

27:39

If that's a true analysis,

27:41

death should have been more than seven

27:44

victims. Do you wonder

27:46

if there are other victims out

27:48

there? We have a lot of

27:50

missing females out here,

27:53

some of them uh center cold cases,

27:56

but I mean they've been missing

27:58

for years. To think back

28:00

when he said he'd been doing it for twenty years,

28:03

we got some people that have been missing almost

28:05

that long now, and

28:08

then just a coincidence that

28:10

he said he'd been doing it all this time and

28:12

we got all these people still missing.

28:15

Possible or could

28:18

actually be something to it that we

28:20

don't know. We can only go about

28:22

what he said now. They

28:24

dismissed some of the ideas that he had

28:27

that they found not to be true, but

28:31

we don't know what else and what ain't see.

28:33

There were some stuff that he said that they

28:35

looked into and they weren't sure if it was true.

28:39

Yeah, yeah, they had

28:41

their doubts about it. I mean even

28:43

detective Board say he had been looking

28:45

at couple of cases that

28:48

he was trying to link to their van, but

28:50

he just had been able to

28:52

link him. I know of three

28:55

cases man him was talking about, but

28:57

he found victims that were angle.

29:01

His probably as was to try to link

29:03

the cases to damn man right

29:06

now, he just ain't been able to do that. But if

29:08

they do link some of all cases to him,

29:11

I wouldn't be surprised. Could

29:14

Vaughan have been stopped even earlier

29:17

before any of these crimes?

29:22

Was Von responsible for the murders

29:24

the algorithm had detected? And

29:27

could police have caught Vaughan if

29:30

they had heated hard Groves warnings? How

29:34

many change gears here and switch

29:36

the focus away from von crimes

29:40

and back towards hard Groves algorithm.

29:43

I reached back out to Hargrove to let

29:45

him know what I found out about Von and

29:48

Von's confessions. Were

29:50

you able to get any audio out

29:52

of the Gary police farm?

29:54

You did? Next

29:57

time? On algorithm?

30:00

You know I have tried over cases,

30:04

um, there are some cases that stick in your mind,

30:07

and this was a case that stuck in my mind because

30:09

number one, we had a we had a good defense to the

30:11

forensic evidence. If you can call it friends of evidence,

30:14

and his defense was

30:17

that he had been dealing drugs

30:19

and that he owed the person he was

30:22

dealing with a lot of money. That's

30:24

one of the critical needs for

30:26

law enforcement. There needs to be a

30:29

national, updated data

30:31

set for homicide. All

30:34

right is seven three

30:36

pm. I just checked my

30:39

mail. I was looking for wedding

30:42

invitation and instead

30:44

I found a piece of mail from

30:46

Darren Fond. I had written to him

30:48

a couple of months ago seeing if he had any interest

30:50

in talking. Open

30:53

this up. Never gotten a piece of mail

30:55

from a serial killer before. This

31:03

episode was written and produced by me ben

31:05

Key. Brick Algorithm is executive

31:08

produced by Alex Williams, Donald Albright

31:10

and Matt Frederick. Production assistants

31:13

in mixing by Eric Quintana. The

31:16

music is by Makeup and Vanity Set

31:18

and Blue Dot Sessions. Thanks

31:20

to Christina Dana, Miranda Hawkins,

31:23

Jamie Albright, Rema l k

31:25

Ali, Trevor Young, and Josh

31:27

Thane for their help and notes. Next

31:31

week we're gonna have a bonus episode where we address

31:34

some listener questions. If you have any questions,

31:36

if you have any tips about the investigation,

31:38

really anything at all, please call and

31:41

leave a voicemail at a D eight five

31:43

zero one three zero nine.

31:46

That's a D eight five zero one

31:48

three zero nine, or reach out to me

31:50

on Twitter. I'm at Ben Underscore

31:52

keybrick kue b R I

31:55

c H. Would really love to hear from

31:57

any of you, even if it's just general thoughts

31:59

about the show. We're doing that to both

32:01

address your questions and also we've

32:03

gotten some interesting tips already that

32:05

we want to look into, so we just need

32:07

a little extra time to research and

32:09

then work on the next episode.

32:11

Thanks.