MISSING: Kerry O’Brien-Krueger

When Kerry O’Brien Krueger vanished in 1989, her husband claimed she left for a work trip that never existed. Decades later, investigators are still untangling shifting stories, missing evidence and some crucial clues that could help reveal what happened - and they need Crime Junkies’ help.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  If you know me, you know I love stories that make me go, "Wait, what?" The kind that stop you in your tracks and send you straight down a rabbit hole. And my friend Delia DiAmbrera tells stories just like that on Park Predators. Every Tuesday, Delia investigates true crime cases that unfold in the world's most beautiful places. From national parks to hiking trails, she reveals the shocking crimes, mysterious disappearances, and unsettling encounters hidden beneath the postcard-perfect scenery. If you're ready to discover what's beyond the trailhead, listen to Park Predators wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:33Speaker 01

  Hi, crime junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers.

• 0:36Speaker 00

  And I'm Brett.

• 0:37Speaker 01

  The story I have for you today is one I can't believe I'd never heard of. But it came to us straight from the investigator who's trying to solve this mystery. And he needs your help. Because the truth of what happened to one Wisconsin woman back in 1989 might be right in front of him in two important clues he holds. But he needs the help of our crime junkies to interpret them. One of you might be able to help solve the mystery of what happened to Carrie O'Brien Kruger.

• 1:43Speaker 01

  It's December 1989 in Wisconsin. And with the holidays right around the corner, 19-year-old Molly O'Brien is getting into the spirit. She's spending the chilly night curled up in her Milwaukee dorm room watching The Nutcracker with her roommate and her boyfriend. Suddenly, her landline rings. And it's her brother-in-law Tracy Kruger, which isn't strange. He's married to Molly's 32-year-old sister Carrie. And Molly's close with both of them. But what he's asking is odd. He wants to know if Carrie is with her. Now Molly spends plenty of time with Carrie, Tracy, and their three-year-old daughter. But it is always at their house, an hour away in Burlington, Wisconsin. Carrie doesn't just randomly stop by her dorm room.

• 2:27Speaker 01

  So she tells him no. And that's when Tracy starts laying it all out, why he's concerned. The night before, this would have been Tuesday, December 5, 1989, he says that Carrie got this call at around 8:30 PM. Tracy thinks it was maybe her manager Jim calling. Carrie works in PR for Gander Mountain, this hunting and sporting goods company. And when she hung up, she told Tracy that she had to fill in for somebody the next day at this trade show in Wyoming. And that would have been this day, like the day that he's calling Molly, Wednesday, December 6. Now Jim was supposed to swing by and drive them both to Chicago so they could catch an early flight. Tracy says that Carrie got up super early,

• 3:10Speaker 01

  left before dawn, like 4:00 or 4:30 in the morning, after a goodbye kiss and a reminder to take good care of their daughter while she was gone. But a few hours later, after Tracy had gotten their daughter off to the babysitter and he was at work, he got a message that Jim was trying to reach him. And what Jim said was really weird because he wanted to know where Carrie was. She had pulled a no-call, no-show at work for the first time ever. And Tracy says that he's confused. He's like, "What do you mean, where is she? Like, she's with you in Wyoming."

• 3:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:43Speaker 01

  But Jim had no clue what he was talking about. Because it turns out, there was no trade show. And Carrie would know that. Tracking the trade shows is literally part of her job. Now, the more Tracy talks, the sicker Molly feels. Because there is one thing that Molly is sure of. Carrie would never leave her daughter. So if no one can find her, she's sure, right then and there, that something bad happened. But Tracy tries to keep her calm. He's like, "Listen, don't worry. Maybe she just went somewhere. I'm gonna start calling around. I'm gonna start checking with everyone." And he's already sounded the alarm to another O'Brien sister, Kathy. And even though she lives far away in New Orleans, she knows what to do because she's a prosecutor.

• 4:29Speaker 01

  So Thursday morning, the moment she hears that Carrie still isn't home, Kathy brings their parents in the loop and instructs them to make Tracy file a missing persons report with the Burlington Police Department. Like, do it now. Do it today. So Carrie's parents bring Tracy to the station, where he runs through it all again. The 11th-hour work call, the early trip, and how nobody can reach Carrie now. But while her family seems to be frantic, officers are like, you know, meh, not so much. They put out a BOLO for her, but you know, she's an adult. She might just need some space. So they give it to her. Until they realize that space might even be dangerous. Because a couple of days later,

• 5:12Speaker 01

  Tracy brings them a note from Carrie's doctor saying that she had been treated for depression and she might be suicidal. So that is what escalates things. At least enough so that she gets entered into the NCIC database. Now, what the doctor's note didn't mention, though, is the real health problems she had been suffering from over the last year and a half. Severe, unexplained stomach pain, including nausea, vomiting, weight loss. And nobody could figure out why. At one point, her sister Kathy even asked her point-blank if she thought she was being poisoned. And Carrie had joked to a friend that maybe Tracy was the one doing it.

• 5:55Speaker 01

  That's a joke that nobody is laughing at now that she's gone. But at the same time, nobody could look at Tracy and be like, "Yep, saw this coming." If he did something to her, it would be a huge shock. I mean, don't get me wrong, their marriage definitely wasn't perfect. Like, before she worked in PR, she was a journalist, which is how she met Tracy. And in the early 80s, they both worked at a local newspaper. And the two got engaged fast. Then Carrie called it off. I'm sure if this is really what she wanted. But Tracy kept pursuing her. And in 1985, they tied the knot. She was already pregnant with her daughter Megan at the altar,

• 6:36Speaker 01

  which caused a rift with her conservative Catholic parents, especially her mom. But they had patched things up since then, and everything seemed to be fine. But the couple's relationship had been rocky lately. Carrie had confided in loved ones that she and Tracy weren't having sex and that he'd been cold and distant. She suspected that he was cheating. He was always pulling late shifts at the same paper where they met. He ran circulation and worked in the darkroom. Sometime in the past year, I guess Carrie had drawn a line. Fix things, or she was gonna be done, done. And Tracy agreed. He told Carrie that he was seeing a counselor. But then she found out he wasn't.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  And when she confronted him, her family says that he deflected, claiming that he had a brain tumor, which he did not.

• 7:29Speaker 00

  I'm sorry, no. There are little white lies. And then there are big life lies. If you can lie about a brain tumor, like, you're willing to do anything but the right thing.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 7:42Speaker 00

  Girl, get out.

• 7:43Speaker 01

  Carrie didn't. And as bad as those lies were, there's also a big difference between a lying husband and a dangerous one. And to what I was saying earlier, nobody had ever put Tracy in that column, the dangerous column. Like, to Molly, Tracy's basically another brother. She told our reporter Nina that he had taught her how to drive. He was there to cheer her on at her grade-school basketball games. And after all that time together, Molly trusted him completely. But even still, his story isn't sitting right with the family. Like, it's just too bizarre. And every time they poke at it, another hole opens up.

• 8:28Speaker 01

  Including a big one that opens up on Monday, December 11, when Carrie's family searches the Kruger house for themselves.

• 8:44Speaker 01

  According to Racine County investigator Tommy Sherret, who's working the case now, when Carrie's family goes to search her house, they see that Carrie's purse and her ID are gone. But damn near everything else she owns is there, including a bunch of stuff that Tracy said she had taken with her. Her briefcase is tucked under a desk. Her wedding ring is there in this like dish on the dresser. And her curling iron, her new makeup, her stomach medication is there. She didn't even bring a winter coat, just her all-weather jacket. And I mean, it's heavy removable lining is still hanging in the closet.

• 9:23Speaker 00

  So even though she like brought a coat, she didn't actually bring the part that like keeps you warm? And she's in Wisconsin, she's going to Wyoming, and all of this is happening in December?

• 9:35Speaker 01

  Well, but I mean, she obviously isn't going to Wyoming, right?

• 9:39Speaker 00

  Right, there was no trade show.

• 9:40Speaker 01

  Somebody invented that trip. But more concerningly, of all the things I mentioned, there is this big brown suitcase that Tracy said she packed. That's in the attic, along with all of her other luggage. But when Kathy points that out, Tracy kind of backpedals. And he's like, no, no, no, no, she didn't take her suitcase. She took one of mine. Meanwhile, the only money missing is $500 that Tracy says they kept in an emergency stash hidden in a basement air duct. But say she grabbed the $500 and his suitcase and a light jacket because she was maybe headed somewhere warmer. How did she get there?

• 10:24Speaker 01

  There is no flight record that they can find in her name. She didn't take her car. And no one saw her leave that morning with anyone. Although there is one thing. Their next-door neighbor noticed a small black car outside her own house at around 4:00 or 4:30 a.m. This is about the time that Tracy says she's leaving. And outside of that car, there was this man standing beside it. But this neighbor can't say for certain whether it was for sure Wednesday, the 6th, or maybe it was like some other morning that week. And importantly, she never saw Carrie get into that sitting car.

• 11:07Speaker 01

  So even if this was the same day, it might not mean anything.

• 11:11Speaker 00

  Right.

• 11:12Speaker 01

  And with so little to go on, the question shifts from where Carrie went to whether she went anywhere at all. And her family can't help but look squarely at Tracy for answers. I mean, his story just isn't adding up. And investigators are fully asking those questions now, too. Problem is, the more times they ask, the more versions they get of the same story. Tracy can't seem to keep straight, who called Carrie that Tuesday night? Or what exactly they said? I mean, at one point, he says maybe the trade show was actually in Montana, not Wyoming.

• 11:55Speaker 01

  In some versions, her manager Jim was supposed to pick her up, right? But like, in at least one version, Carrie apparently wanted to borrow his truck to get to the airport because her car was in the shop.

• 12:06Speaker 00

  How would he have gotten anywhere while she was gone?

• 12:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's why he said that he couldn't lend it to her. And sometimes Tracy like half remembers hearing a car outside that morning. Other times, no car, because he was like, you know, sleepy or whatever. And depending on who he's talking to, Carrie was due home anytime from Saturday, December 9th, to Tuesday, December 12th. And listen, maybe you could chalk all that up to a foggy memory. Last-minute plans, a husband who is distant and half-listening. But here is the real clincher for me. It's what Tracy's own father tells police, which is that Tracy mentioned to him Carrie's Wyoming trip on Monday, December 4th.

• 12:52Speaker 01

  This is a full day before Carrie supposedly even got that late-night call telling her that she needed to fill in. So that alleged Tuesday night trade show call is looking less and less like the start of all of this. And more and more like something Tracy constructed as he worked backwards to build a timeline of Carrie's movements.

• 13:16Speaker 00

  So can anyone verify if Carrie got any calls that night?

• 13:21Speaker 01

  Well, no, because in 1989, their phone company only itemized long-distance calls. And Jim's call, if it came in, would have been local. So that ends up being a dead end. But detectives can still try to pick apart Tracy's other claims about that night to see where else they might find gaps, starting with Carrie's car. So Tracy had left her car at the shop in early December, claiming that it wouldn't start. But mechanics couldn't find anything wrong with it. He also told the dealership not to release the car to anyone without calling him first, even though it is Carrie's car.

• 14:04Speaker 01

  Now, at the time, Tracy had been driving a new Ford pickup. And he had told pretty much everybody that that truck was a loaner from a buddy. And that seemed to be even what he told Carrie, because the weekend before she disappeared, she and her sister Molly were in the truck with Tracy when he got in a fender bender. And afterward, Carrie worried how his friend was gonna react to this. Well, come to find out, when police run the plates, they learn that Tracy actually bought the truck back in June, in both his and Carrie's name.

• 14:39Speaker 00

  This is too many lies.

• 14:41Speaker 01

  Now, when he is pressed on the truck, he said that Carrie did know, and keeping the purchase secret was her idea. Trouble with that is, investigators learn that she wasn't with him when he bought it? And so they think that her signature on the paperwork doesn't match her other signatures.

• 15:01Speaker 00

  So they think it was forged?

• 15:03Speaker 01

  That's the implication. And Carrie's family doesn't think that she would have wanted a new truck, anyway. The Kruegers were already stretched thin financially, and Tracy had just made it worse. Detectives find out after that he had been skipping shifts and padding his time cards. The paper had also recently knocked him from salary to hourly. So he was one warning away from getting fired.

• 15:27Speaker 00

  Did Carrie know that?

• 15:29Speaker 01

  I mean, she knew money was tight, but Tracy's job troubles, all the rest of it, I don't know.

• 15:35Speaker 00

  Also, where is he going if he's not going to work? Like, he said he was like padding his time card and stuff.

• 15:41Speaker 01

  No idea. But I can tell you an excuse that he leaned on when he wanted out of something. He would tell people, Carrie is away for work. He has to watch their daughter. Interestingly, a few different people reportedly heard some version of that excuse. And they only learned it wasn't true later when they would apparently ask Carrie, like, hey, how was Alaska? And she would be like, what do you mean Alaska? She had no idea what they were talking about.

• 16:09Speaker 00

  So that lie was unraveling like before she was even gone?

• 16:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. And Tracy actually pulled the same stunt days before she vanished. When Carrie wanted to cancel a December 4th doctor's appointment, he suggested, like, just tell them that you're gonna be out of town. So investigators have every reason to doubt Tracy, which is why they work backward from the last time anyone besides him saw Carrie. And that would have been Tuesday, December 5th. Gander Mountain kept its own phone records. And unlike the phone company, which only logged those long-distance calls, theirs show that Carrie made a string of short calls home that morning. Now, it's not clear why, since Tracy was supposed to be at work.

• 16:57Speaker 00

  I mean, maybe that's why. She's trying to make sure he's where he's supposed to be, which is not at home.

• 17:02Speaker 01

  Well, you know, maybe that's that, or like for him going hourly, maybe she knew he was home. I don't know. But at some point, I do know that he does go to work, because she eventually did reach him at the newspaper. Now, this next bit comes from Tracy, who didn't explain it until after the phone records came to light. But he claims that Carrie asked him to bring over an envelope that she had forgotten at home. So he says he drops it off at her job, but he isn't sure what was in it, because it was taped shut. And he can't remember if he left it with Carrie or if he left it with a receptionist, except no one from her job remembers him stopping by that day. So like TBD to all of that. But we know for sure, though, through her coworkers,

• 17:46Speaker 01

  that Carrie is at work that afternoon and didn't leave the office until 5:30, maybe 5:45. Which, by the way, contradicts part of the story Tracy had already given them. According to him, Carrie got home at 5:30. And then five minutes later, they ate dinner, spaghetti that he'd made earlier. And at 6:05, he had left to run errands. And he can rattle off every stop, hardware store, grocery store, liquor store, two trips to his office. And he was home by 7:30. Megan was in bed by 8:00. And then he took out the trash. And then at 8:15, he heard Carrie on the phone gushing about how beautiful Wyoming is.

• 18:27Speaker 00

  I mean, or maybe Montana.

• 18:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, so she then tells him about the trip. So then at 8:30, he got her suitcase for her from the attic, maybe.

• 18:35Speaker 00

  But he didn't?

• 18:37Speaker 01

  She showered, packed, and then was in bed by like 10:05.

• 18:41Speaker 00

  And he's got it down to like a five-minute window? That's like really specific.

• 18:46Speaker 01

  I know, especially for what should have been like a pretty ordinary night.

• 18:50Speaker 00

  Right.

• 18:51Speaker 01

  Right? But then he gets to Wednesday, and his black box becomes just like a blur. He sort of remembers Carrie leaving, but he like didn't get up to see her off. Can't tell you the exact time, only that it was still dark. Thinks maybe he heard the back door close. And that's it. Not a word from her since.

• 19:10Speaker 00

  So did anyone say how she was at work on that last day? Like, was she upset? Was she happy? Like, was anything like happening in her life? Could they tell?

• 19:18Speaker 01

  Well, it sounds like it was kind of a crappy day for her. She had been upset about a mistake in an ad, and a colleague noted that she seemed distracted. And then she left later than usual, late enough that one of her coworkers teased her about like her watch being broken. But Carrie just said that she'd been busy and told her, I'll see you tomorrow. Except, there is no tomorrow. At least not one anyone can account for. Now, when Christmas passes with no word from Carrie, it seems like detectives are coming around to what the family has feared all along, that Carrie met with foul play and Tracy might be behind it.

• 20:00Speaker 01

  So as 1989 winds down, they bring their top suspect in for a polygraph. But the morning of the polygraph test, Tracy says that he's not feeling good. Carrie's sister Kathy babysitting Meghan while he is at the station isn't buying that. To her, it is a flat-out act. But he takes the test anyway, and the results are inconclusive. So they schedule a second test, one for January 5th. But then Tracy cancels. And they would never get another chance to give him an additional polygraph because something unbelievable happens.

• 20:45Speaker 01

  Something I haven't seen play out in any other true crime case ever.

• 20:55Speaker 00

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• 23:05Speaker 01

  The day after Tracy's never-taken second polygraph, he is at work when he glances at a newspaper article about his missing wife. And he just collapses. He's taken to the hospital. But the Tracy who arrives there says that it's 1979 and that the last 10 years of his life are just gone.

• 23:35Speaker 00

  What do you mean, "gone"? Gone, gone how?

• 23:39Speaker 01

  The way he tells it, in his mind, it is literally 1979. He's a teenager, which means... What wife? He and Carrie didn't meet until 1982.

• 23:49Speaker 00

  And their daughter...

• 23:50Speaker 01

  What kid? Meghan wasn't born until 86. But it is only that one decade he lost. Everything before and everything that is to come picking up at the hospital, he says, is perfectly intact.

• 24:04Speaker 00

  So, to be clear...

• 24:08Speaker 01

  No, you got it. You can repeat it, but you got it.

• 24:10Speaker 00

  The only part of his life he can't remember is the part that actually matters to this case and this missing woman who he was married to but doesn't remember.

• 24:21Speaker 01

  Doctors run a battery of tests, but they can't find any physical cause of this memory loss. There is no sign of a stroke, nothing. They do notice Tracy seems to think that he's getting treated for a crushed finger, like that's why he thinks he's at the hospital. And it was an injury that he had gotten like years earlier.

• 24:41Speaker 00

  Years like, I don't know, 1979?

• 24:43Speaker 01

  Literally, it was. But believe it or not, the people evaluating him are mostly in agreement that he's not faking it. They think he has what they refer to as hysterical amnesia. And they're hopeful that his memory will return in time, basically. And they say it's already starting to, like a couple stray flashes of him, Carrie, and Meghan. And to one of his counselors, that's exactly what makes it seem so real. Like, the way that his memories are surfacing tracks so closely that the counselor believes that he would have had to research like how this type of memory loss would work for like thousands of hours to fake it so convincingly.

• 25:28Speaker 00

  I mean, to be fair, he apparently had a lot of time off of work, so like...

• 25:34Speaker 01

  But she doesn't, she doesn't think that he's capable of hurting Carrie either. Like, to her, he just seems sad and confused by the whole situation. But Tracy himself isn't even totally ruling out the possibility that something happened or he was involved.

• 25:51Speaker 00

  What?

• 25:52Speaker 01

  According to police reports, he tells a doctor that like maybe he was involved in Carrie's disappearance. He just can't remember. But it's not like he's confessing. The doctors read on it is that Tracy is just like afraid of that possibility because he can't remember.

• 26:06Speaker 00

  Because he can't remember.

• 26:07Speaker 01

  Right. Now, investigators, despite what doctors are saying, like, they're not buying a word of this. Medical staff can insist all day long that this kind of amnesia is real, that after something traumatic, the brain can shut down to protect itself, and police still land in the same place. The timing of this is just too convenient.

• 26:31Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:32Speaker 01

  But they put Tracy's hospital stay to good use, and they finally get a search warrant for the house.

• 26:38Speaker 00

  Wait, what have they been doing this whole time?

• 26:41Speaker 01

  I don't know why this part took so long. But by the time they get in there, Tracy had already done some redecorating. So, you know, because they waited, he had swapped out their barely-used mattress for a water bed. Never mind that they had redone that whole bedroom like months earlier. Never mind that Carrie hated water beds. He had talked about getting the carpets cleaned, too. But you can't scrub a whole house. And detectives cover every inch with a camera rolling. We actually got the video of this. Now, you don't see much that's like, you know, incriminating.

• 27:24Speaker 01

  And the walkthrough is almost entirely silent as they pan across a very lived-in house frozen in time, highlighting anything that they think is important, like a Hustler magazine that hit newsstands after Carrie vanished with an article about a hitman who refused a polygraph and a couple of shotguns in the basement, one loaded. They also scrape a red sandy residue off the ceiling of Tracy's truck. They grab some documents. And in the bedroom, they peel away strips of wallpaper marked with suspicious reddish-brown colored stains.

• 28:06Speaker 01

  But more important than what they find is what they can't find. So remember the $500 that Tracy says Carrie took from their emergency stash on her way out? That money that they kept in the basement air duct? It's not there.

• 28:23Speaker 00

  I mean, so that tracks the money isn't there.

• 28:26Speaker 01

  No, no, not the money. There is no air duct. The hiding spot doesn't even exist. And you know what else is missing? Any sign that Carrie was planning to leave. It is the opposite. There is the decorated Christmas tree, a half-finished pine cone wreath that she was making, and a long handwritten list of gifts that she still wanted to buy for everyone, including her daughter Meghan. And speaking of Meghan, while Tracy is hospitalized, the O'Briens are trying for temporary custody. But he won't sign off on it.

• 29:02Speaker 00

  Who's he?

• 29:03Speaker 01

  Like, Tracy won't sign off on it. Like, he says that he's just a teenage boy, basically, and he needs his parents to help him handle this complicated adult situation.

• 29:12Speaker 00

  I mean, he doesn't even remember having a child. So like, why does he have any say in who's taking care of her, where she lives?

• 29:20Speaker 01

  Amnesia or not, he's still legally her father. And so like, by the book of the law, that apparently outranks anything that the O'Briens can claim. So he gets supervised visits. And once he's out of the hospital and back at his parents' place in late January, Meghan is with him. Carrie's family tries to stay in her life. But the few visits they managed were rare, brief, and honestly awkward. So within a couple of years, even those stopped. And they don't just lose Meghan. As time drags on, they also lose faith in the Burlington Police Department.

• 30:01Speaker 01

  And I'm not trying to Monday morning quarterback, but during our reporting, I kept noticing this bizarre dichotomy. On paper detectives were clearly suspicious of Tracy, but there was a lack of urgency with certain things, as if they had already decided that he was telling the truth. Like, for instance, a second mortgage, they find out, was taken out on the Kruger home in October of 1989. We're talking just like months before she goes missing. And it was taken out in both Carrie and Tracy's names. The paperwork was slow, so it didn't hit Carrie's social security number until after she vanished.

• 30:45Speaker 01

  That was a heart stopper, because activity like that, like, could have signaled that she was actually out there using it. But then the police, like, traced it to the loan, and they figure, like, okay, mystery solved. But it seemed like they breezed past the obvious question, did Carrie actually sign it? Did Carrie know about it? The O'Briens don't think so. They believe that her signature might have been forged. But they will probably never know, because Burlington PD didn't pull the documents or even bother to talk to the notary.

• 31:18Speaker 00

  Well, and they had a forgery suspicion already about the truck paperwork. Like, why would you not follow up on this?

• 31:25Speaker 01

  It is baffling. And by the way, the truck is a whole nother problem, because by the time the department requested those sales documents from the DMV, it was too late. The originals had been shredded, so they were stuck with copies of them. So handwriting analysis were all inconclusive. You generally can't authenticate a signature off of a copy.

• 31:48Speaker 00

  Right, you didn't know, like, how hard it was pressed, there was, like, a lot of, like, specific things.

• 31:52Speaker 01

  And paperwork isn't the only thing that was fumbled. A few months after Carrie vanished, deputies in a neighboring county found bloody men's clothes, including pajamas and a pullover. This is, like, 16 miles from Burlington. The PJs had two bullet holes near the underarm, and the crime lab determined a gun had been fired at close range. Now Carrie's sister thought that the top looked like one that Tracy might wear, and she believed that Carrie sometimes wore his pajamas. Although, I don't think that was ever actually confirmed, to be fair. Either way, that evidence is gone too.

• 32:36Speaker 01

  There is no record of the blood being tested, and it doesn't seem like Burlington, like, even kept the evidence. Oh, and you know what else is gone? That red sandy substance that police found on the ceiling of Tracy's truck. But this one is different, because we know exactly how it disappeared. A detective just threw it out.

• 33:00Speaker 00

  What?

• 33:01Speaker 01

  He said he was cleaning house, getting rid of things that police didn't need for the investigation.

• 33:06Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 33:07Speaker 01

  Don't eat it.

• 33:08Speaker 00

  How would he know what they need or don't need? It's an unsolved case.

• 33:13Speaker 01

  And it hadn't been tested.

• 33:15Speaker 00

  Like, literally, anything could be important, anything could be relevant.

• 33:20Speaker 01

  You know, to add to this, there is a rumor that that same detective was a family friend of the Krugers, like Tracy's family. So you can imagine how that sits with the O'Briens. Especially since, like I said, he tossed it before it was ever tested, and the family had actually lined up a soil expert to test it.

• 33:43Speaker 00

  So the family lined up the soil expert?

• 33:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, because they're basically working the case themselves. They spearheaded search efforts. They keep an eye on Tracy. Kathy even puts her prosecutor job on hold and moves home for months to run point on this. They hire a PI. And Carrie's mom collects thousands of signatures, petitioning the Attorney General to move the case to a different agency. And they do get some help from the state, but it doesn't sound like it was much of an upgrade. According to Carrie's sister, Colleen, an agent suggested Carrie ran off to join the Circus or the Icecapades, because women do stuff like that.

• 34:29Speaker 00

  You know, Ashley, we've covered a lot of missing persons cases, and a lot of those missing persons are women. Have we ever considered looking at, like, Icecapades rosters?

• 34:41Speaker 01

  We should. I hadn't thought of it. What a brilliant idea from this man.

• 34:45Speaker 00

  I'm sorry.

• 34:45Speaker 01

  I'm assuming it's a man. Sorry.

• 34:48Speaker 00

  But also, what?

• 34:50Speaker 01

  I know, I know. Now, listen, tips do come in occasionally that will get looked at. And there actually was one tip about Tracy's brother that I thought was interesting. Apparently, he had been telling people that Tracy, quote, "blew her away." And when police confront him about this, because you gotta.

• 35:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:14Speaker 01

  He admits he said it. But he swears it was just a tasteless joke. He agrees to a voice stress test, and I know it's not the most reliable tool, but I think it's worth noting. They ask him if he helped get rid of Carrie's body, and if Tracy ever told him that he killed her. He says no to both. He passes the first one, "Did you help get rid of her body?" He fails the second one, "Did Tracy ever tell you that he killed her?" Now, this next thing isn't, like, a tip. In fact, I don't really know what it means.

• 35:56Speaker 01

  But every so often, something strange lands in the O'Briens' mailbox. Most of it's like harmless junk. But one delivery, they get this fake severed finger.

• 36:10Speaker 00

  I'm sorry, what?

• 36:11Speaker 01

  Whether this is a sick prank or a real threat, nobody can say. But even, like, with this stuff coming in, like, nothing moves the needle. So years pass. Tracy and Meghan get a fresh start eventually a few hours away. He remarries, life keeps moving forward for him, while Carrie just stays frozen in time. The O'Briens have no doubt that she was murdered. But Tracy tells Journal Times reporter Jane Ryder that he thinks Carrie is out there somewhere, although he still can't remember the disappearance or, like, anything from the decade before it.

• 36:55Speaker 00

  So his memory never came back?

• 36:57Speaker 01

  He says no. And he blames it on a stroke. Which, by the way, like, to be clear, I said this earlier, but in case you missed it, a stroke was ruled out by the doctors.

• 37:08Speaker 00

  I don't get how he's saying anything if it's, like, all a blank. Like, how do you know she ran off, even if you truly don't even remember knowing this woman?

• 37:17Speaker 01

  Well, with his, like, memories gone, or no memories of his own, he says that he's relying on what his loved ones have told him, and he basically just doesn't think that he's capable of whatever they're accusing him of. And listen, his daughter Meghan believed that. I mean, she still does, as far as I know. And listen, honestly, I cannot begin to imagine what it's like to walk in her shoes. She declined to speak with us for this episode, which I understand, because there is no good outcome for her in this case. And it's not a case to her, this is her life. And I just want to give that a moment for everyone, because I think it's really easy to judge, and that's not what's needed here, empathy is.

• 38:01Speaker 01

  You are innocent until proven guilty. I don't want to sugarcoat the facts, but, like, try to put yourself in someone else's shoes for just a minute. She is up against a world where most people don't see this case the way that she does. And it's not her job to fight. She has to do what is best for herself, and I believe that with every fiber of my being. Like, as a mother myself, if I were Carrie, if I were gone, all I would want is for my baby to be okay. So Meghan has to do what will make her be okay. And listen, she was really little when this happened, so I don't know if they were even able to talk to her or any of that, but I know that as she gets older, she does speak with investigators.

• 38:43Speaker 01

  Because around 2013, the O'Briens finally got their wish. A Burlington officer transferred to the Racine County Sheriff's Office and ultimately took Carrie's file with her. Now unfortunately, Carrie's mom didn't live to see it, neither did her father, or some of her siblings. But at least now, there are real resources behind her case, and a team ready to dig in, like Lieutenant Brian Van Sock. And if that name rings a bell, it's because we have worked with him before. He's the reason that you are hearing this story now. He asked if we would cover it. The way he sees it, Carrie's family deserves answers.

• 39:28Speaker 01

  So, to go back to 2013, one of the first things these investigators do is they go back to the people closest to Carrie. And that means sitting down with Meghan. And she tells them that she barely remembers her mom, but she had a childhood full of love with her dad. Tracy was a good father, she says, and that's what she has to base things off of. And according to police reports, the little her dad did share with her about her mom wasn't good. He told Meghan that her mother was cold and uncaring, that she got tired of being a parent and walked out. And Meghan didn't question it. He rarely brought Carrie up at all beyond that, and Meghan didn't push.

• 40:13Speaker 01

  So most of what she knows, she has pieced together online. Meanwhile, the one consistent in her life was her dad, Tracy. He is the one who took care of her and moved them somewhere new when Burlington got to be too much. But I will say, that move wasn't random. They landed in the same spot as Tracy's old counselor, that woman who was so sure that his amnesia was real.

• 40:44Speaker 01

  Here's what the Racine County Case Review Report says about that interview with Meghan. Quote, Meghan said that Tracy had moved to La Crosse a few years after Carrie went missing to get away from it all. Also, his therapist slash friend was moving up there, and he moved up there to be closer to her. In fact, they have homes on the same piece of property to this day. Meghan says she even called the counselor "mom" for a while.

• 41:19Speaker 00

  Okay, and a homes on the same property?

• 41:23Speaker 01

  Yes, but it does not seem like they were romantically involved. And just to be clear, she is not the woman that he like went on to marry later. They described the relationship more like a surrogate family. But Carrie's family didn't get that kind of place in Meghan's life, though. Tracy told Meghan that the O'Briens had stalked and harassed him. He even claimed that they'd broken in and stolen her mom's wedding ring. But here is the lie we can outright catch him in, because in 2015, on the 26th anniversary of Carrie's disappearance, Tracy speaks with a sergeant, and he admits that he pawned

• 42:04Speaker 01

  both of their rings when he needed cash. Now, we reached out to Tracy for this episode, and he never got back to us. But I want you to hear him tell his story in his words. So let me play parts of that 2015 interview for you.

• 42:24Speaker 01

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• 43:09Speaker 01

  of up to $200. Join the millions who are already banking fee-free with America's number one choice for banking. Head to chime.com/crimejunkie. That's chime.com/crimejunkie. Sign up now. It only takes a few minutes. Chime is a fintech, not a bank. Banking services and Chime card provided by Chime's bank partners. Qualifying direct deposits required. Terms and limits apply. Go to chime.com/disclosures for details.

• 43:36Speaker 00

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• 44:25Speaker 02

  My impression is that she was a very wonderful person.

• 44:29Speaker 03

  Okay. And where did you get that impression from?

• 44:32Speaker 02

  From friends and family.

• 44:34Speaker 03

  Okay. So where would Meghan have gotten the impression that she was kind of a cold, uncaring, and selfish person?

• 44:43Speaker 02

  Um, that I'm not sure. I don't know. You'd have to ask her.

• 44:48Speaker 03

  Well, we did ask her.

• 44:50Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 44:51Speaker 03

  And she said that that's kind of the impression that you had given her.

• 44:56Speaker 02

  Well, I don't know how she interpreted that, and I'm not gonna sit myself against my daughter. Everything I know about the case is after the fact.

• 45:05Speaker 03

  Right.

• 45:05Speaker 02

  There's nothing, I have no memory from before that. So everything has had to be relearned.

• 45:13Speaker 03

  When you were getting a handle back, that that was your reality, what were you thinking? What were your feelings about that?

• 45:22Speaker 02

  Um, very overwhelmed.

• 45:25Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 45:25Speaker 02

  You know, it was all suddenly, I mean, just even the fact that I had a wife and child was astounding.

• 45:33Speaker 03

  And do you think that you kind of recalled some of that? Or is that stuff that you're saying that you only, people told you?

• 45:42Speaker 02

  Well, after I had the stroke and everything, everything that was told me was astounding.

• 45:49Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 45:50Speaker 02

  You know, I was just baffled, you know, because I didn't believe I was at that age. And I mean, this is all in your reports, all in the interview.

• 46:01Speaker 03

  I know.

• 46:02Speaker 02

  You know.

• 46:03Speaker 03

  I know that it's all in interviews, but it's been 26 years. I'm sure that you've been asked this question repeatedly through the years. What do you think happened?

• 46:15Speaker 02

  As I mentioned before, probably 10 times to Sunday, I believe she left.

• 46:21Speaker 03

  Why, why would she leave?

• 46:24Speaker 02

  We don't know. Looking back and talking to people after the fact, I think there were some psychological issues that she was suffering from.

• 46:35Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 46:36Speaker 02

  Um, I think maybe manic depressive. And granted, psychologists cannot diagnose a person without seeing that person. But getting opinions from people in the field, they raised that as a strong possibility that, yes, she did have issues.

• 46:56Speaker 03

  Okay. But, but what do you think happened to her after she left? I mean, she's never used her social security number, she's never used a credit card, she's never gotten a driver's license.

• 47:07Speaker 02

  I don't know if, but obviously if she did, she didn't use that given name. I mean, I, if, at that time, it was so easy to do. My feeling is, if she were dead, somewhere that body would have shown up someplace or another.

• 47:22Speaker 03

  Right.

• 47:23Speaker 02

  Somewhere, there would have to be a body.

• 47:26Speaker 01

  Now, again, we know that doctors confirm Tracy did not have a stroke in 1990. But that is the story he's sticking with. So investigators decide that they're gonna put this to the test. Again, they hand his old hospital records to a new neurologist for a fresh read. And she agrees with the 1990s clinicians. No stroke, no medical reason for any of it. But she disagrees in another part. She thinks that he could be faking. A forensic psychiatrist goes even further. To him, this all sounds like BS. Sure, trauma

• 48:08Speaker 01

  can do a number on a person, but it doesn't just reset a grown man's memory back to his teens and keep it blank for now decades. And the amnesia isn't the only thing back under a microscope. Because Tracy's also still leaning on this idea that Carrie was in the middle of a depressive episode.

• 48:28Speaker 00

  A manic depressive, he said.

• 48:30Speaker 01

  Right. Though, these days, we would call that bipolar disorder. And remember, after she went missing, he had brought police a note from Carrie's physician saying that she was being treated for depression, and she might be having suicidal thoughts, right? Like, that's what cranked everything into high gear. Well, guess what? Apparently, nobody ever asked that doctor if he actually wrote that note, because when new investigators go check, he's like, no, definitely not. I never treated anyone for depression. But Tracy won't let this idea go. Even before he lost his memory, he was telling Carrie's family that she was depressed. And then there's the counselor, who would go on to live on

• 49:14Speaker 01

  the same property as Tracy. Back in 1990, she told police that she had Carrie's diary, and that it showed a lot of anger towards Carrie's family, her mom specifically, going all the way back to when Carrie was younger.

• 49:28Speaker 00

  And when is this diary from?

• 49:30Speaker 01

  That's the thing. Tracy actually hands the diary over himself eventually, like, he wants police to have it. He thinks it proves that Carrie was unhappy with her family. But when they look at the diary, it's from Carrie's senior year of high school.

• 49:45Speaker 00

  Uh, so, we have grown older.

• 49:48Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 49:49Speaker 00

  But I would love your read on this. I just had a senior in high school in my home.

• 49:55Speaker 01

  Drama. Everything is drama. And I know you know this. We were reading my Granite sophomore journal.

• 50:02Speaker 00

  Oh, my God.

• 50:02Speaker 01

  On the plane, when we were on tour, not senior year, but pretty damn close. And there is literally our favorite part.

• 50:09Speaker 00

  There's one page that says, like, oh, my God, I had the best day ever. Like, things are amazing. My life's gonna be amazing. I am like, I am on such an upward trajectory. And you literally turn the page, and what does it say? Ashley Flowers?

• 50:22Speaker 01

  I?

• 50:24Speaker 01

  Saying I, without any reservations, wish I was dead.

• 50:29Speaker 00

  In like, sharpie.

• 50:30Speaker 01

  That's the only thing on the page.

• 50:31Speaker 00

  And then you just turn the page and you're like, so I was talking to so and so the other day.

• 50:35Speaker 01

  But that's what I'm saying. Can you imagine if like, I go missing and Eric takes that to where he's like, obviously she wanted to die. Like, that's, what?

• 50:42Speaker 00

  It's, it's bonkers.

• 50:45Speaker 01

  So, the note from the doctor is not real.

• 50:48Speaker 00

  Strokes ruled out.

• 50:49Speaker 01

  Stroke is ruled out. The amnesia is now in serious doubt.

• 50:53Speaker 00

  Which, to be honest, has been for me since day one, but okay.

• 50:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. And still, Tracy won't budge from the theory that he has pushed since day one. His wife left on her own. The way I see it, there are two versions of Tracy that cannot be reconciled. One murdered Carrie, faked amnesia, then raised their daughter on the cruelest possible lie, that her own mom abandoned her. The other is a man who is innocent, but has been unfairly living under a cloud of suspicion ever since she disappeared.

• 51:31Speaker 01

  But across that divide is Meghan, who's slowly reconnected with some of Carrie's siblings. And they have gotten to show her a different side of Carrie. Not a mom who got tired of motherhood and left, but one who loved her daughter more than anything.

• 51:48Speaker 00

  I mean, talk about a rock and a hard place for her. I mean, either Tracy killed her mom and lied to her her entire life, or Carrie really did choose to leave.

• 51:59Speaker 01

  Or, not so fast, there is a third option, that somebody else could have murdered Carrie. And that might sound like, out of the blue, like some kind of hail Mary pass, where like, sure, anything's possible.

• 52:12Speaker 00

  Right.

• 52:13Speaker 01

  But, is it probable? Well, hold your horses. Because it turns out, there was a man who lived just a few doors down from the Kruegers, who police believe may have been a serial killer.

• 52:35Speaker 01

  Most people pick a bank at 16 and never look back. Well, traditional banks love to gatekeep the best rewards and pile on hidden fees unless there is a massive balance. At 23, I was paycheck to paycheck, trying to make sure I didn't get charged fees just to have my own money. Like, make that make sense. Well, Chime says it doesn't. And they're changing the way that people bank by offering a rewarding, fee-free experience. There is no monthly fees, no minimum balance requirements, and no overdraft fees. Instead, Chime maximizes every dollar. And everyday spending helps build credit safely with no credit check required. Savings grow faster too, thanks to an interest rate that is nine times the national average. Also, if things ever get tight,

• 53:19Speaker 01

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• 53:47Speaker 00

  College is a lot like Halloween. You can become whatever you want to be. The difference? A costume lasts one night, but a college degree lasts a whole lifetime. Try on something new with Southern New Hampshire University. They've got over 200 online degree programs for all kinds of career goals. Business, healthcare, technology, you name it. Plus, with no scheduled class times or live lectures to attend, you don't have to quit your day job to work toward your dream career. And get this, SNHU has some of the lowest online tuition rates in the US, which means you can still be that house that gives out full-size candy bars. So instead of pretending to have your dream job, why not earn a degree that helps you get there for real? Start your free application today at SNHU.edu/crimejunkie. That's SNHU.edu/crimejunkie.

• 54:35Speaker 01

  I want to back up, because this thread started decades ago, back in January of 1990. We're talking weeks, a month tops after Carrie disappeared. That is when police got a call from a state parole slash probation agent. She had been watching the news segment about Carrie when this familiar face just like flashed across the screen. It was Carrie's close friend and neighbor, this woman named Audrey. And this agent knew Audrey, because she was shacked up with a violent felon on this person's caseload, this 48-year-old man named Philip Andrew Fox.

• 55:15Speaker 01

  And Phil was no joke. His record stretched back to the early 1960s in California, when he shot and killed his own uncle during an argument. Then, according to the Torrance Herald, he abducted a teen at gunpoint. And he got caught, but while out on bond, he tried to rob a gas station and shot the attendant, who survived. And he pled guilty to manslaughter and attempted robbery and got out of prison in the early 1970s. But by the time Phil moved in down the block from Carrie, he was a suspect in five other murders, including his wife's.

• 55:54Speaker 01

  She, his wife, had been killed in what looked like a robbery in Dayton, Ohio, in 1988. But police strongly suspected Phil and his nephew, because nothing about the robbery seemed random. Phil's wife managed this fast food restaurant, and she had been robbed before while making a deposit. And she told friends that she thought Phil was behind it. So her company moved her to a new location, but then months later, she was dead. Shot multiple times in the chest and face. And by the way, no one is pulling this stuff out of thin air. Phil's nephew actually admitted to pulling the trigger on what he said was Phil's orders. But the confession got tossed out on a technicality.

• 56:39Speaker 01

  Now, the O'Briens didn't know most of this back then. The world was a wild place without the internet and your ability to Google your neighbors. But Phil was a hard guy to miss. He was quiet, but he dressed loud. He and Audrey spent time at the Kruegers. And Carrie's sister Molly still remembers his three-piece suits and the rings that he wore on every finger. But it wasn't Phil's personality that made the parole officer wary, not even his criminal record. It was what Phil did on December 5th, the last day anyone saw Carrie alive.

• 57:21Speaker 01

  This officer said that when she called Phil, he sounded nervous. And he said that he had to get to Virginia right away to take care of his mother. But then a couple of days later, that story shifted. Now it was Ohio and Virginia, for like, some business deal. So Phil left that night, came back within the week, and then spent months bouncing between Wisconsin and other states. Carrie's brother Pat told us that Phil and Audrey even showed up at his parents' house around New Year's while the family was deep in the search for Carrie. Now Phil eventually landed in West Virginia, where he married an older woman with serious health problems,

• 58:07Speaker 01

  sealing the deal with his dead wife's wedding ring. And before long, her kids were convinced that Phil was after the family's money. Allegedly poisoning their mother to get it. And they all noticed the same pattern, like she would get violently ill, go into the hospital and recover, and then crash again the moment she came home to Phil. Now she eventually had a heart attack, survived though. And after Phil attacked one of her daughters, she divorced him. Then he took a job at an adult daycare.

• 58:39Speaker 00

  Do they not run background checks?

• 58:41Speaker 01

  And a 63-year-old woman went missing from that same center. Phil wasn't on staff by then, but he had worked there while she was a resident, so, I mean, they probably crossed paths, which puts him on police's radar for that too. Now in 2016, Phil got arrested in West Virginia on something totally unrelated, an arson and insurance fraud scheme. And that is when Racine County sees their opening. With Phil already in trouble, they make this trip down south to ask him about Carrie face-to-face. But he's no help. He claims he barely remembers her or Tracy, that it was all just so long ago.

• 59:26Speaker 01

  Still, he swears he never hurt Carrie, and turns it around on police, accusing them of trying to just like, pin another crime on him. But Racine has one last move to play, an extraordinary offer for him. If Phil will show them where Carrie's body is, they will make his arson and fraud charges go away. And, they won't charge him with anything related to Carrie's death.

• 59:54Speaker 00

  That's like, two major get out of jail free cards.

• 59:58Speaker 01

  It's a sweetheart deal. Immunity in Carrie's case is no real gain, right? Like, he's not like, charged with anything there, but like, to make the fraud and arson stuff go away, like, that would be huge for him. But through his attorney, Phil turns that deal down. He says, "Look, I wish I could take this deal. I wish I could help, I would if I could, but I didn't kill Carrie, so I don't know where she is." And that's when the Phil Fox door swings shut, or at least, on this case, anyway. If he was involved, I think he probably would have jumped at the chance to help himself. But if Phil does have any answers about Carrie,

• 1:00:39Speaker 01

  those died with him in 2025, which for Law Enforcement Today, puts them right back where they started: Tracy. As investigator Sherret told us, every road leads back to him. Carrie's surviving siblings feel the same way. They don't doubt that Phil was dangerous, but to them, he was a red herring. And the real threat to Carrie was inside her house, not a few doors down. And most everyone seems to agree with them, at least the people we spoke with. They just can't settle on a how or a why. Some wonder if Carrie's flu-like symptoms meant that she could have been slowly poisoned

• 1:01:23Speaker 01

  over time, or maybe there was a fight that boiled over. Her sister Molly overheard them arguing that last weekend. It was low intense. Maybe Carrie found out about the truck that was bought in her name, or his troubles at work. Maybe she confronted him. But that's all speculation. Her remains have never been found. So for now, no one can prove what happened or who's responsible. But Carrie's case is still active. Officially, she is a missing person, even though she's been legally declared dead.

• 1:02:02Speaker 01

  And since nearly every Tracy-related theory centers on his truck or the Kruger's house, that is where investigators have largely focused their recent efforts. They have searched the family's former home, and they've even tracked down Tracy's old Ford pickup. They actually brought out the, like, goodest little boy with the best little sniffer to check out the truck. This is a cadaver dog, mind you. His name is Taser.

• 1:02:32Speaker 00

  You have a picture of him.

• 1:02:33Speaker 01

  I will do you one better. The sheriff's office actually gave us the footage of, like, when they brought him out. You can tell how excited Taser is to be on the job. He's, like, circling around the truck. And right at the front wheel well, he alerts. He's letting his handler know, like, hey, I can smell human remains here. Lieutenant Van Sock called this hit the strongest indication he's ever seen. And Taser does it twice more in the same spot. Meanwhile, cadaver dogs also alerted inside the house, once in the stairs leading up to the attic, and then again down in the basement.

• 1:03:17Speaker 01

  And this past January, there was this tip from a guy who used to work for a flooring company. And that tip sent them back to the same basement. So get a load of this. Around the time Carrie vanished, this contractor guy, he was sent to Burlington to lay carpet in a basement for Tracy Kruger. When he got down to the basement, he says he saw something odd. There was this, like, fresh patch of concrete, about three feet by six feet. And Tracy told him that it was like drainage repair. But drain tiles run along the walls, like this guy knows. And this was, like, smack dab in the middle of the room.

• 1:04:02Speaker 01

  Now, the carpet guy reported this to Burlington PD back in 1991, but they brushed it off at the time because the company's records dated the job to November 1989, which is nearly a month before Carrie disappeared. But here's the thing, even decades later, the tipster recalls what happened vividly. And he still remembers how antsy Tracy seemed to just, like, get the floor covered, how Megan wandered downstairs and got into his tools. And when he hollered for Tracy to come grab her before she hurt herself, Tracy apologized and explained that he was busy cleaning out his bedroom because he was having a new bed

• 1:04:47Speaker 01

  delivered.

• 1:04:48Speaker 00

  But Tracy didn't buy the water bed until after Carrie was already gone.

• 1:04:52Speaker 01

  Which makes investigators question those company records. Maybe they're wrong. Maybe the November date is when Tracy, like, first called for an estimate, or maybe it's when he booked the job. Who knows? All they know is they need to go back to the basement, which they do. This time, they bring a cadaver dog and ground-penetrating radar. The dog alerts in multiple places, including two in the basement, and the radar gets a hit near one of them. Something is there, just a few feet beneath the concrete. Watching it unfold, Lieutenant Van Sock and investigator Susan Conley are on pins and needles.

• 1:05:35Speaker 01

  Years of bad leads, dead ends, searches that turn up nothing, but like, here they are, possibly standing right above Carrie. But when they pull up the carpet, the floor is solid. There's no patch, there's no repair, there is nothing that looks like what the man described. So they bring the guy back to the house, just to, like, see it for himself. And he takes one look, and he goes, well, like, well, there's your problem. This isn't the basement that I worked in.

• 1:06:05Speaker 00

  Then, then sir, what basement did you work in?

• 1:06:09Speaker 01

  That is the mystery everyone's trying to solve right now. It's part of the reason that they were willing to share so much information with us so we could pass it on to crime junkies. They think that there might be a house out there that they never knew to look at, maybe a relative's place, somewhere that police had no reason to search. If this guy's memory is solid, that slab of concrete is out there somewhere, we just don't know where.

• 1:06:39Speaker 00

  Okay, but how does that align with the whole Tracy upstairs clearing out the bedroom thing?

• 1:06:45Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:06:46Speaker 00

  That only makes sense if it's their house.

• 1:06:47Speaker 01

  I keep spiraling on that. The bed says that he's in the Kruger house. The floor says he wasn't. Both can't be true.

• 1:06:55Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:06:56Speaker 01

  So Lieutenant Van Sock went and checked the basements at Tracy's parents' house, grandparents' places.

• 1:07:01Speaker 00

  Right, start with those.

• 1:07:02Speaker 01

  No match. He even sent the contractor photos of another relative's house. Still, nothing. Wherever that basement is, they haven't found it. So I had an idea. I was like, have him, like, sketch out the layout of the basement that he remembers. And I actually have it to show all of the crime junkies. I need everyone to spread this far and wide. It'll be on the blog post, I'm gonna put it on social too, so it'll be easy to share. Maybe this will jog someone's memory. Because it does not match the Kruger's basement. So their basement is like a square that is, like, cordoned off into, like, four sections with areas of carpet, concrete, and vinyl tile.

• 1:07:46Speaker 01

  And the stairs kind of come, like, right down in the middle of the room. The basement that the contractor remembers is simpler. Like, there are just two areas. There is concrete on one side, carpet on the other. The patch he keeps coming back to is inside that carpet at half. And the stairs aren't in the middle at all. They're like in the very corner with a washer and dryer and sink right beside them. Like I said, I'm gonna put these pictures up everywhere, blogs, social, I need you guys to share them. And I need everyone's help with one more thing. So Tracy's whole story hangs on this idea that Carrie's supervisor, or someone, called her that Tuesday night.

• 1:08:29Speaker 01

  And for years, they always thought that those records wouldn't exist, like the phone records of that, because the phone company only recorded long-distance calls, right?

• 1:08:37Speaker 00

  Right. And the manager's call, like, would have been local, he was, like, right there.

• 1:08:41Speaker 01

  Except, what they learned recently is that back then, the phone company drew its billing lines by municipal boundaries, not the distance. So two neighbors could land in separate zones.

• 1:08:56Speaker 00

  It sounded like how it was zoned.

• 1:08:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, and a call between them could count as long distance, meaning it would show up on the phone bill. Problem is...

• 1:09:05Speaker 00

  I mean, they can't get the bills anymore, it's been so long.

• 1:09:08Speaker 01

  That's not the problem, no. They actually still have the bills. The problem is they can't decipher them. Those old bills basically read like hieroglyphics. So they're looking for somebody out there who worked for Wisconsin Bell in the late 80s and know their way around these bills. So if that's you, or if you know somebody, this is your time to shine. You could help the Racine County Sheriff's Office solve a case, and they want to hear from you. Actually, they would appreciate any information you have about Carrie. And so you can call them at 262-930-8254. And you can also call the Crime Stoppers of Racine County if you want to remain anonymous

• 1:09:53Speaker 01

  at 888-636-9330.

• 1:10:11Speaker 01

  You can find all the source material for this episode on our website, crimejunkie.com.

• 1:10:16Speaker 00

  And you can follow us on Instagram, at Crime Junkie Podcast.

• 1:10:19Speaker 01

  We'll be back next week with a brand new episode.

• 1:10:58Speaker 01

  Crime Junkie is an AudioChuck production. I think Chuck would approve.

• 1:11:07Speaker 04

  When the nights grow longer, the shadows start to stir, and that can only mean one thing: Full Body Chills is back. This season, step inside original tales where every doorway leads somewhere darker, every stranger carries a secret, and nothing is ever quite what it seems. Each story takes you somewhere new, but be careful, you never know what might follow you home. So gather round, listen close, and stream Full Body Chills wherever you get your podcasts.