Pod Insights Criminology Ilene Misheloff About this episode On January 30th, 1989, the soon to be fourteen-year-old Ilene Misheloff vanished from Dublin, California. She left school early to head home and then attend ice skating lessons, but she never made it. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the disappearance of Ilene Misheloff. Ilene's case has been linked through the years with other girls who have disappeared. Some of those were later solved and proved to not be linked. Still, there has been no shortage of persons of interest in Ilene's case. Some have been ruled out, but others have not. You can help support the show through Patreon. We'd love to connect with listeners on social media. We are available on the following platforms: Facebook - Facebook Discussion group - Instagram - Threads - X Formerly Twitter - Blue Sky - Twitch - Tik Tok Criminology is an Emash Digital production hosted by Mike Ferguson and Mike Morford.
Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised.
0:37 Speaker 01 Hello everyone and welcome to episode 366 of the Criminology Podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson.
0:43 Speaker 00 And this is Mike Morford.
0:45 Speaker 01 Mr. Morford, how you doing this week?
0:47 Speaker 00 I'm doing pretty good. How you doing?
0:49 Speaker 01 I'm, I'm doing really well. I just got done with another birthday. You know, it was a low key, but nice. Had a nice steak dinner with the family, came back, had some bund cakes. You know, that's all I need.
1:05 Speaker 00 Nice. It's the little things that make you happy on your birthday.
1:08 Speaker 01 Yeah, absolutely. And we're recording early, but by the time this episode comes out, we'll have celebrated the 4th of July. So happy 4th to everybody who celebrates it.
1:20 Speaker 00 Yeah. Happy Independence Day, everyone.
1:22 Speaker 01 We had some great new Patreon support from Mike Miles. So we really appreciate that.
1:28 Speaker 00 Yeah, thank you, Mike, and thank you to everyone else that helps support the show. If you want to help, you head over to patreon.com/criminology to get started.
1:37 Speaker 01 All right, we're jumping right in. And this week we're talking about a missing persons case, that of Eileen Beth Misheloff. It's a puzzling one that has often been connected or intertwined with other cases that we've covered in the past, but most of those cases have been solved. And when they were solved, it seemed unlikely that Eileen's case was actually connected to any of those. While it's great to see some of those cases solved, Eileen's loved ones are still sad that there are no answers in her case.
2:12 Speaker 00 Eileen Beth Mishlaugh was born on March 12th, 1975, to parents Mike and Maddie Mishlaugh. She had a twin brother Brian and an older brother, Robert, who was born about two years earlier. From the time she was about one, she and her family lived in Dublin, a city in the Bay Area of California. It's near San Francisco, but it's a much smaller area with just over 20,000 residents. It was a perfect place to raise a family, safe and close knit, but near enough to commute to larger cities for work opportunities and top-notch education. In January 1989, the soon-to-be 14-year-old Eileen was an eighth grade student at Wells Intermediate School. On January 30th, Eileen's father, Mike, dropped
2:56 Speaker 00 her off at school. She had a normal day there, and she left school early, which was her regular routine.
3:02 Speaker 01 Eileen was dismissed directly from her gym class that afternoon since she was enrolled in a program that allowed her to fulfill her gym requirement by skating. She had time to go home and get her equipment for evening ice skating lessons. She lived about two miles away from the school and set off on foot around 2:30 PM. About a half an hour later, several classmates recalled seeing her walking near the Shamrock Village Shopping Center on Amador Valley Boulevard. She didn't have much farther to go, but her mother Maddie, who was at work in Pleasanton, never received a call from Eileen letting her know that she made it home safe. She did this every day as soon as she walked in the door, except
3:47 Speaker 01 for that day, January 30.
3:51 Speaker 00 Maddie didn't worry much because Eileen had ice skating practice that afternoon at Dublin Iceland, the local rink. Sometimes, Eileen walked straight to the rink from school, and her father would drop her practice bag and skates off. So Matty figured that this must have been one of those times and that there was just a miscommunication. At 5:00 PM, Matty arrived at the rink expecting to pick Eileen up, but she wasn't there. And after asking around, Matty learned that Eileen hadn't made it to that day's practice. Then, after talking to her coaches, it didn't seem like she had even made it home from school. At around 3:30 PM, her coaches arrived to pick her up at the Misheloff home and take her to practice, but she didn't come out to the car.
4:34 Speaker 00 When they knocked on the door, Eileen's twin brother, Brian, told them that she wasn't home from school.
4:39 Speaker 01 This was now very concerning to Matty. She thought to herself that maybe Eileen didn't have time to call home before leaving for practice, or maybe she forgot to call in her rush to get ready to go, but she would never miss ice skating practice altogether when she could help it, or at least, as she would later tell the San Francisco Chronicle, "not by choice." Matty called home, hoping that Eileen had just fallen asleep after school. Maybe the ringing of the phone would wake her up, but there was no answer. Matty called her husband, Mike, who was still at work at a semiconductor company in San Jose. He drove straight to the ice rink.
5:22 Speaker 01 On his way home, police were already there when he arrived. So more if we have a situation here that is really nightmarish for a parent. You know that your child is supposed to be somewhere, and then you find out that she didn't make it there and you can't get a hold of her. And remember, it's 1989. No way is Eileen going to have a cellphone. And there certainly were no apps to track people. Back then, it was a much different time. I mean, you were left trying to make phone calls to different people, to try to figure
6:06 Speaker 01 out where someone was. I'm trying to put myself in Matty's shoes, and it's a very, very scary thought.
6:15 Speaker 00 Yeah, I think the whole leaving early to go skating and get some credit for it. Get out of school early is a pretty cool thing. I've never heard of that, but certainly interesting. But it adds maybe to the confusion of the situation because you don't know. Is she walking? Was she supposed to get a ride? She forgot, sort of. Don't really know what's going on. Adding to the confusion a little bit more was that her brother was home when the coaches came to pick her up. And he said she was not home from school yet, but then later on, when Maddie called home, he didn't answer, which led to her concerns a little bit more. Now, maybe he went out with friends. We don't know all those details.
6:57 Speaker 00 But at that time, I don't think her brother even knew that there was anything really wrong. And he probably just went on with whatever he had planned.
7:05 Speaker 01 Yeah, back to your point about getting gym credit for doing something that you really like to do. That's an amazing idea. I had never heard of that either. You know, I was into all kinds of different sports back in the day. If I could get out of gym and go play basketball or, you know, go to baseball practice, but still get my credit, that would have been awesome.
7:33 Speaker 00 Yeah, the closest thing I had to that was my senior year, leaving school early to go to work.
7:40 Speaker 00 And you'd have to, you know, I'd leave five days a week early, but I didn't work every day. So it was kind of like a bonus day off, just going home and hanging out. But this was something, she was actually doing some activity here, something she really liked. Eileen had been reported missing by 6:00 PM. Her parents searched the local area for her for hours that night, but there was no sign of her. Eventually, Eileen's keychain was discovered near the entrance to John May Memorial Park.
8:08 Speaker 00 It's believed that she walked in this area on her way home that day, taking a shortcut and going off of the major roads. She would have cut through the park and followed the creek for some way. This was her regular route, especially when she was in a rush to skate practice. This cut out nearly two blocks, saving precious time. When she was seen around 3:00 PM walking, her classmates said she was walking alone. If she ran into some kind of trouble, it would have happened between their sighting and the entrance of the park, where she apparently dropped her keychain. This was less than a half mile away from her home. She was nearly there when something happened. Investigators searched the park multiple times, but found no sign of her.
8:47 Speaker 01 There are some reports that Eileen's backpack turned up in the bed of Martin Canyon Creek sometime later, but there is some doubt about how accurate these reports are. Many sources state that her keychain was the only item belonging to her that has ever been found. The backpack would be a great lead as to her whereabouts, except that none of the authorities and neither of Eileen's parents who searched the area had spotted it. It's always possible that because they were looking for Eileen and not her belongings, everyone missed it. But it doesn't seem extremely likely. Mike Misheloff searched the creek
9:28 Speaker 01 area that night until the batteries in his flashlight died. If there is any validity to the backpack being found, some people believe that someone deliberately placed the backpack there sometime after the initial searches. So there's two things that jump out to me here. One is Eileen's dad, Mike, right? Searching this creek area so long that the batteries in his flashlight died. And, you know, that's heartbreaking to me. I mean, I think that is the epitome of a worried
10:08 Speaker 01 parent not wanting to give up. Searching until basically he can't search any longer because he doesn't have light. And then there's this backpack and the thought by some that, you know, maybe it was deliberately placed in that area sometime later. And it made me think of the show True Detective. And especially season three, there's a very similar situation that occurs in that season where a little girl's backpack is found underneath the home of a suspect, but it's found out that it was planted there sometime later.
10:53 Speaker 00 Yeah, it's definitely an odd clue if it was indeed found. And if it was placed there, maybe by somebody that had kidnapped her and it had been searched previously. And then to throw it back in that area, is that like a slap in the face to police? Some kind of game they're playing? And it seems like, you know, if you've gotten away with abducting this girl, why would you want to leave any more clues for police to possibly link to you? Maybe there's a witness that saw you dumping that bag there. It seems, you know, very risky to throw that backpack out there to be found.
11:34 Speaker 01 Yeah, the only thought that I had was that somehow they, someone thought it was going to misdirect the police. Other than that, I'm with you. There, there seems to be more reasons not to do it than to do it. Right? You could ultimately get spotted, get caught. But again, we're theorizing on a number of things.
12:00 Speaker 00 And it's also frustrating because some of the reports say that there was nothing found besides her keychain. Some say this backpack was found. And in older cases, especially like this. The details are just not always there, not always clear. But if that bag does exist and it was put out there, maybe one day that could reveal some clues, some DNA, something like that from the person that dumped it there. To the credit of the Dublin Police Department, they took Eileen's case serious from the beginning. Like Eileen's family, they don't believe that she willingly ran away. She was a dedicated student who was planning to become a pediatrician one day and took ice skating very seriously as well.
12:42 Speaker 00 Eileen had won multiple awards and had reportedly competed against big and talented names like Christie Yamaguchi. She wanted to become a coach one day. Skating was a lifelong passion. She also wore braces at the time of her disappearance, which would need special maintenance and care. This pretty much left the worst case scenario that Eileen met with foul play and was likely abducted and was either being held against her will or had even possibly been killed. Matty would later tell the San Francisco Chronicle, Eileen was not street smart. She wouldn't question authority. If somebody jumped out of a vehicle or van, pointed a gun at her and said, either you or your parents are dead unless you get in this vehicle, she would have gone.
13:26 Speaker 00 She would not have questioned that.
13:28 Speaker 01 Eileen's disappearance was also alarming because she was the third Bay Area girl to disappear in two years. Seven-year-old Amber Schwartz was abducted in Pinole, California on June 3, 1988. She was snatched out of her front yard in broad daylight. Her abductor also managed to take the jumper she was playing with at the time. It has never been found. The morning after her disappearance, a pair of pink children's socks were found on the baseball diamond at the park near Amber's house. They hadn't been there during previous searches.
14:06 Speaker 01 If Eileen's backpack was found after multiple searches, this could link their cases and perhaps be a sign that their abductor was toying with the families and authorities by dropping items of theirs in spots that had already been searched.
14:25 Speaker 00 In Amber's case, it clearly seems like this was somebody trying to mess with the police, leaving those socks right in the middle of a baseball diamond. You know they're going to be found. And when they're looking for this little girl, it's most likely going to be theorized that they're hers. So, you know, that's pretty scary that her abductor might have dropped those there just to mess with police.
14:51 Speaker 01 Yeah, this is also very scary because, you know, she wasn't walking alone to some destination. She was snatched right out of her front yard in broad daylight. All these are scary, Morf. I mean, there, there's no doubt about it. Anytime that, you know, a child is abducted. But to think that, you know, your daughter is out front of your house skipping rope, and then someone brazenly snatches her right out from under you. That's a very scary thought.
15:27 Speaker 00 Yeah, anyone brazen enough to do that, is there anything that they won't try? That's what's really frightening. Just five months after Amber Schwartz disappeared, nine-year-old Michaela Garrett was abducted outside of the Rainbow Market in Hayward, California on November 19th, 1988. She and her friend had ridden their scooters to the nearby convenience store that day to buy some candy. They left their scooters by the entrance of the store and went inside. Sometime later, Michaela noticed that one of their scooters had been moved. It was now in the parking lot. She went to get it and was pulled into a car. Her friend watched helplessly as Michaela's captor, described as a white male, sped away with her in the vehicle. She's still missing to this day. It was just over a month after
16:10 Speaker 00 Michaela's abduction that Eileen would disappear. People in the area were certainly on edge. Parents began to carpool their children so they didn't have to walk to or from school alone. Local newspapers published a list of precautions for children, advising them to avoid shortcuts and not to wear any clothing with their name on it, as well as suggesting walking in groups and warning against getting into a car with a stranger.
16:35 Speaker 01 I feel as though, Morf, we are freaking a lot of parents out with this episode because it's hitting me, you know. This is scary, scary stuff. Now, we've talked about it many times before, you know, in the, in the eighties, you remember, I remember, some people listening will remember, it seems as though we were, most of us, given a lot more freedom back then. I know I was riding my bicycle all over town, either by myself or with my friends. I never let my kids do
17:16 Speaker 01 that growing up. I'm not sure if it was the fact that everyone was a little more naive back then about some of the dangers that existed, because it's not like some of these crimes are new. You know, crimes against children have been happening for a long, long time.
17:40 Speaker 00 And I think maybe more of it now is that with social media and the news and so much stuff coming right on your phone immediately, there's a ultra awareness of this stuff happening and that it can happen and does happen. So I think nowadays, it's just more in your face and, and people are aware of it and probably take precautions. But I'm with you, when I was a kid, my mom, my grandma would tell me, go out, have fun and be home by supper time. And I always came home, thankfully, there was nothing that ever happened to me. But, you know, I think a lot of kids were the same way. And, you know, it's just, it's frightening when you hear this. And I
18:23 Speaker 00 think because of what we do and the stuff we cover, you and I are probably hyper vigilant over what our kids do, especially, you know, yours are adults now, so they probably know all this stuff and know what to look for and how to be aware of their situations. But, you know, I have still younger kids and for me, I'm always telling them, don't do this, make sure you do this. I'm always giving them warnings because I'm always. Hyper aware of this kind of stuff happening.
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20:17 Speaker 01 To get started and learn more, including important safety information, Wegovy clinical study information and restrictions, visit for hers.com. Amber Schwartz's father and Michaela Garrett's mother rushed to Dublin to be with Eileen's family to lend their support. The families ended up joining forces, pooling their resources to send flyers of all three girls to businesses up and down the state of California. Hundreds of missing posters were plastered around the city and more than 500,000 flyers were printed in the first week after Eileen's disappearance.
20:57 Speaker 01 On the afternoon of February 16th, police conducted a traffic stop on Amador Valley Boulevard at the intersection of San Ramon Road. Investigators believe that Eileen was spotted between 2:50 and 3:20 p.m. on the median there shortly before she disappeared. And we're hoping that other motorists who routinely drove in that area around that time would have seen something. Officers were there for half an hour, handing out flyers to drivers and questioning them. They were also hoping to gain information about a potential suspect vehicle due to a phone tip about a van in the area that day.
21:40 Speaker 01 Unfortunately, none of the motorists had any important information.
21:45 Speaker 00 Within the first year of Eileen's disappearance, investigators received more than 3,000 tips, but there was never one that seemed to be a solid lead, and families with children in that area stayed on edge. Two years after Eileen vanished, four-year-old Nikki Campbell disappeared on her way to a friend's home in Fairfield, California. She was last seen on December 27th, 1991, riding her bike just eight houses down the street from her own house. It was the middle of the afternoon, two days after Christmas. She should have been able to quickly ride her bike to her friend's house around the corner, but she never made it there. Her bike was found that evening just blocks from her home. Tracking dogs followed her scent down the street, through a McDonald's drive-thru,
22:28 Speaker 00 and finally to the westbound on-ramp of Interstate 80. Her scent trail paints a chilling picture of the scenario. She was snatched from her bicycle not far from her own home, pulled into a vehicle, and was still inside while the driver ordered and waited for food at McDonald's. Whether she had been killed, incapacitated, hidden, or was just so scared she was quiet, going through a drive-thru takes time, and her abductor must have felt sure that they hadn't been spotted and that the stop wouldn't matter in the end. And they were right.
22:59 Speaker 01 But my thought is, you know, when you're talking about a four-year-old and you're telling them, hey, we're going to McDonald's, I'll get you a Happy Meal, there's a, there's a toy in the Happy Meal, you know, at four years old, I'm not even sure that she would have had an inkling about what was going on. I don't know. But what is amazing to me, Morf, is what these scent-tracking dogs were able to do. You know, a lot of times you hear where the dogs lose the scent once someone gets inside of a vehicle. But in this instance,
23:42 Speaker 01 they were able to track it through the McDonald's drive-thru, all the way to the interstate. That is quite remarkable.
23:53 Speaker 00 Yeah, it really is. And, you know, this particular instance of this McDonald's drive-thru, it seems like another case of brazenness. Here's somebody that abducts a child and then seems to drive right through this McDonald's drive-thru like it's no big deal. And I think your point's a good one, that maybe she wasn't panicking, she was excited, and she might have looked just like any other little girl going through the drive-thru with her family. So it might not have stood out to McDonald's employees that were serving her, were serving that vehicle. And I don't know what the status of CCTV back was at that time at a McDonald's drive-thru, but it seemed likely that there wouldn't have been any video.
24:38 Speaker 00 And if there had been, maybe they'd have a suspect vehicle to have, to have looked into.
24:44 Speaker 01 Yeah, I'm not sure how much there would have been back in 1991.
24:52 Speaker 01 In March of 1991, a segment aired on America's Most Wanted, featuring the digital reconstruction of a Jane Doe, found near Madison, Wisconsin. The woman or girl was obviously the victim of a homicide. She had been sexually assaulted, badly beaten and stabbed. There was also evidence that she had carried a pregnancy deterrent. In the past, multiple people, reportedly almost 200 of them, called in, thinking that it looked a lot like Eileen Misheloff. However, her family were doubtful that Eileen was the Jane Doe from Wisconsin,
25:33 Speaker 01 who seemed older than her and who was listed as about four inches tall. Dental records confirmed their suspicions. It was not Eileen, despite the resemblance. And we've talked many times about the incredible reach of America's Most Wanted back then. You know, a lot of people watched that show. And the amount of tips that flooded in on certain cases, I'm sure was staggering. The thought that goes through my mind is, okay, you're getting exposure from these different cases that are profiled. In this instance, you had a lot of people calling in,
26:18 Speaker 01 thinking that this could be Eileen. What a roller coaster of emotions. That must have been for, you know, her family and many other families who had missing people who were either profiled on the show or had tips called in, thinking that the missing person was them.
26:42 Speaker 00 Yeah, this. Body that was recovered, it must have looked a lot like Eileen for that many people to have called in. So that is really interesting and you can't blame them for wanting to help and calling it in. But I, I think of today with sites like Reddit and Web sleuths and, and those kinds of sites. People spend hours and hours every day looking at missing persons, trying to fit them with, you know, unidentified remains. Uh, it's really fascinating and, and sometimes they hit pay dirt and there have been cases where, you know, they're solved because of the public helping out like that and providing tips about suspicions they have about some of these remains.
27:27 Speaker 00 Eventually, a man named James DeVegio became a suspect in Eileen's disappearance. He was arrested in December, 1997 for the murder of 22-year-old Vanessa Lee Sampson. Her body was dumped down in a bankman off of Highway 88 in Alpine County. The cases don't seem to have much in common, but authorities were looking at everyone who was in the area with a record of kidnapping or murdering women and girls. It seems that nothing ever came of this potential suspect and Eileen's family's search continued. Eileen's family was still hopeful a decade after her disappearance. In 1999, her mother, Maddie, explained to the San Francisco Gate, "Some days it's hard to get out of bed, but we just put our feet on the floor every day and say,
28:12 Speaker 00 "This is the day she's coming home." Eileen's father, Mike, added, "I will never give up hope." Despite Eileen's parents hoping for answers, in 2002, on the 13th anniversary of Eileen's disappearance, authorities admitted they had no new leads, but they kept the case open.
28:30 Speaker 01 There is another man who seems to have been suspected in a number of child abductions in that area for many years, simply because some of his odd behavior has led to coincidences that seem too strange and too specific not to mean something more. Timothy Benner, a sewage treatment worker local to the Bay Area, seemed to insert himself in each of the investigations. Before he started working for the East Bay Sewer District, Binnner worked for the Social Security Administration as a claims authorizer.
29:08 Speaker 01 He used the databases there to pick out orphaned girls to send $50 to on their birthdays. He was caught sending letters to at least 39 different young girls and spent at least $1,950 in this way. According to upi.com, he said, "I've always wanted to give away money to people who needed it, and I finally got the chance to do it." He insisted that he didn't leave a return address on any of the envelopes, not because he was up to no good, but because he didn't want to hear from the girls. He just wanted to help them a little bit.
29:48 Speaker 01 He was fired for improper use of the social security databases and information.
29:55 Speaker 00 It turns out that Nikki Campbell lived just two blocks from a 12-year-old girl that Binnner sent a card and money to in 1991. Binnner also briefly worked at a crematorium. This job, and a sewage job, could potentially give him avenues to dispose of bodies. Three days after Amber Schwartz was abducted from her front yard, Binnner went to her home and told her mom, Kim, that he had been searching the woods for her. According to ABC News, he told her mom, "I wanted to be the one to save her. I wanted to be the one to bring her home to you." Investigators asked Kim to befriend Binnner so that they could keep closer tabs on him. Binnner was also given a polygraph test regarding Amber's disappearance, but the results were inconclusive.
30:38 Speaker 01 Shortly after Makayla Garrett was abducted, Binnner showed up at her house and talked to her mother, Sharon. Sharon told ABC News, he said that he wanted to go out and look for Makayla, explaining that he brought a map and showed us where he wanted to go. Binnner sent a Christmas card to an FBI profiler in 1991 that many linked to the disappearance of Nikki Campbell. On the card was a picture of a little girl holding up four fingers. Then, two days after Christmas, four-year-old Nikki was abducted.
31:16 Speaker 01 This happened in Michaela Garrett's case too. Binner sent the police a letter shortly before her abduction, claiming that the next young girl that would go missing would be nine years old. Michaela's age.
31:31 Speaker 00 Binner reportedly visited the grave of a young girl he wasn't related to, named Angela Begay, and he went there often, possibly at least 80 or 90 separate times in just one year. He had even agreed to sit for an interview as long as it took place at 4:30 in the morning at this particular grave at Oakmont Memorial Park. Five-year-old Angela Begay vanished from her apartment in Antioch, California in 1983. Unlike Michaela, Eileen, and Amber, Angela's body was found a week after she disappeared. She had been sexually assaulted, strangled to death, and left nude in a shallow grave about three miles from her apartment complex. Her gravestone at the cemetery had her picture on it, and Binner admitted that he liked to look at it.
32:16 Speaker 00 Apparently, he didn't just sit solemnly at Angela's grave. According to SF Gate, an FBI surveillance unit saw him kissing the headstone and simulating a sex act.
32:27 Speaker 01 We have got to talk about this Binner guy. First and foremost, it's well-known, right, that a lot of perpetrators try to insert themselves into the investigations, whether that's the searches. But this guy went way beyond that. So for one, he's showing up at families' houses, talking about wanting to search for their lost loved ones. And then you have, you know, him sending cards and different things to the families and FBI profiler. There is just a lot going on with this guy.
33:13 Speaker 00 Yeah, initially, when I was hearing what he was doing, I was like, okay, maybe this is a a guy that's just over the top committed to trying to help in some of these cases, and it's coming across as weird. And, and there's been cases before we've talked about where weird guys insert themselves, but they don't turn out to be involved. So I was kind of approaching him with an open view until we got to this part where he's kissing the headstone of this little girl and simulating a sex act. Now we're, you know, that's really disturbing. And I think that, you know, for him on police radar, that probably was very alarming to them too. So I can understand why they would look at
33:58 Speaker 00 this guy with a very cautious eye.
34:01 Speaker 01 Yeah. I mean, how can he not be at the very least a, a person of interest? My assumption is they had their antennas up and this guy was very high on the list. You think about it being reported that he visited this young girl's grave at least 80 or 90 separate times in just the span of one year. And then, as you said, kissing the headstone, simulating a sex act. I mean, this is some extremely morbid stuff.
34:40 Speaker 00 And even going back to where he used the social security database, breaking the law, doing that, using it for improper reasons and going to this grave 80, 90 times. It just, it seems to point to some kind of compulsion, some kind of unhealthy activity. I'll put it that way.
35:01 Speaker 01 Despite the odd behavior surrounding Angela's grave, Benner was never a suspect in her case. Authorities pretty immediately had their suspect. Her mother's ex-boyfriend, her casual boyfriend at the time, Larry Graham. He was a resident of the same apartment complex and met Angela's mother, Susan, at the community pool. Larry had a criminal history that included molesting young girls and exposing himself to them. Two weeks before Angela was killed, Larry asked Susan to marry him, but she said no. Eventually Graham's
35:40 Speaker 01 ex-wife, who he had been divorced from for just four days when Angela disappeared, told authorities that he didn't have an alibi for the time of the murder, had Angela's photo in his apartment and that he had a master key to all of the apartments.
35:58 Speaker 00 Angela's case also differs from the others because hers has been solved with solid DNA evidence. Larry Graham was convicted of Angela's murder in August 2002 and sentenced to death. He took his own life in prison just under five years later. As for the delay in Graham's arrest, Deputy District Attorney Barry Grove explained at San Francisco Gate, "We had to wait until the science was solved and the court had accepted the science, and then, and only then, we were able to go forward." So there was never a real question about whether Tim Bender had abducted and killed Angela B. Gay, but the question remained, why was he so obsessed with her grave in particular? This is one of those points where on paper, this guy certainly seems like he could have
36:43 Speaker 00 been responsible, but then we find out another guy is and he has nothing to do with the murder, even though his behavior is strange and disturbing. So I think it's a reminder not to jump to conclusions when somebody looks good on paper doesn't always mean that they're responsible.
37:01 Speaker 01 No, but you'd have to admit that his actions were extremely odd. And, you know, I had a thought that, okay, let's say he wasn't involved in the death of Angela B. Gay. Does that necessarily eliminate him as being a suspect in some of the other murders? I don't think it does. You know, maybe he did commit some of these other crimes, or at least one other crime, but was fascinated with Angela, knowing what had happened to her.
37:43 Speaker 01 And maybe he was living out some type of sick fantasy, even though he hadn't been the one who killed her. There are reports that four days after Nikki Campbell disappeared from Fairfield, tracking dogs followed her scent to Angela Begay's grave. Now, obviously, this is very creepy. It makes you think of a killer abducting girls and taking them to the cemetery, or visiting a grave after each of his crimes. The only information we have is that they found the scent, but not where it started. Were the dogs released and started their search at or near the cemetery?
38:26 Speaker 01 Or did the dogs make their way for miles and wind up there? With four days between the disappearance and the reported scent tracking in the cemetery, there was plenty of time for Tim Bender to visit Nikki's family and end up getting her scent on him, or being a familiar scent at her home that the dogs could then also detect at one of his favorite hangouts, Angela's grave. This may be the more likely scenario, even though the whole thing is strange. A week after Nikki disappeared, Bender was apparently found in a ditch near her home, claiming to be searching for her. A dog, maybe the same dog or a different dog, we're not sure,
39:11 Speaker 01 appeared to detect Nikki's scent in Bender's Toyota station wagon. According to Amber's mom, Kim, Bender also had a van, and dogs indicated that her scent was inside of it, too. Despite the possible alternate explanation, Bender was publicly named the primary suspect in Nikki's disappearance, the only suspect, actually. During a search of his home, officers found items indicating he was obsessed with the missing girls, like dog tags with their names on them, but nothing to actually link him to any crime or particular case.
39:54 Speaker 00 In June 1993, 44-year-old Timothy Binder filed a defamation lawsuit against the Fairfield Police Department, seeking $25 million. The police hadn't just publicly named him as their only suspect and searched his residence. They let the media film the search. According to the Fresno Bee, Binder said at a press conference, "I didn't have anything to do with the abduction." His lawyer, John Burris, explained the lasting impact on his client, saying, "As a consequence of the publicity, his name will be forever linked to the kidnapping." In this case, the presumption of innocence was cast aside. It wasn't just the public scrutiny getting to Binder either. There were incidences as a result of the media attention on his potential involvement.
40:39 Speaker 00 After mother called the police because he was at Oakmont Memorial Park at the same time as her young daughter, he was pulled over and charged with driving under the influence. This charge was dropped after a judge ruled that there was no legitimate reason to pull him over after he left the cemetery. He had been called a murderer and kicked out of establishments when he was recognized in public, despite not being arrested or charged with any serious crimes.
41:03 Speaker 01 The defamation lawsuit never made it to trial. Instead, the police department settled for $90,000. Binder apparently continued to insert himself into cases somewhat recently. Erhan Kayak, a man convicted of killing his 16-year-old son, filed a motion for a new trial after finding out that Binder was one of the jurors in his case. According to the East Bay Times, "A judge found that Binder did give falser and complete answers, twice, during the jury selection process, but also found no evidence of any bias on his part during deliberations."
41:46 Speaker 01 The request for a new trial was denied in 2009. Binder had previously been removed as a prospective juror in another case involving a teenager.
41:58 Speaker 00 So with Timothy Bender repeatedly inserting himself in the cases and turning up time and time again, the authorities clearly knew who Timothy Bender was. After all, they even searched his home. If he was responsible for any of these disappearances, would they have really found nothing? Not one tiny shred of actual evidence to link him to anything? Maybe at the end of the day, Timothy Bender is just a weird guy with an unhealthy focus on these cases, but it doesn't prove he's a murderer or involved in any of these cases. As strange as it seems to discount Bender as a suspect, it might be more likely that the person or people actually responsible for these disappearances was never on police radar.
42:37 Speaker 01 But I don't blame the authorities more for, you know, focusing in on this guy. I mean, look at all of the strange things that he was doing. Now, should they have come out and, you know, publicly said some of the things they said about him? I don't know. But I will say this, it had to have been pretty tough for them to hand this guy $90,000. I get it. Settling was probably in their best interest, but not an easy thing to do with
43:16 Speaker 01 someone who I'm sure they believed could potentially be a kidnapper, a murderer. Hey, here you go. We're giving you $90,000.
43:30 Speaker 00 Yeah, if I had been in his shoes, hopefully it wouldn't be because it's just weird stuff he was doing. And I don't think I'd ever do that kind of stuff. But if I really believed my reputation had been damaged, I don't think I would have settled for $90,000 if I was seeking $25 million. That sounds kind of weird, but maybe he just wanted to put it behind him and move on. Maybe his attorney wanted a quick settlement. I don't know the situation. But at the end of the day, I think at the very least Bender is somebody that, you know, I'd never leave my kids alone in the care of. And I think a lot of people probably feel the same way because he's so weird and has all this strange stuff going
44:13 Speaker 00 on. But to be fair, there was never any physical evidence tying to any crimes. And, you know, being strange, being weird and being creepy.
44:24 Speaker 00 Doesn't make you a murderer. And we've seen that time and time again in a lot of cases.
44:30 Speaker 01 No, you're, you're absolutely right. It doesn't, but it will put you on police radar. I mean, that's just, uh, that's just a fact. You know, when you look at all of the strange things that he did, there's no way that police are not going to keep tabs on you.
44:50 Speaker 00 Yeah, it was really Bender who put himself on police radar. It wasn't like they got a tip about him. He sort of inserted himself and reached out to police, the FBI, these families. And, you know, I think he elevated himself in the, in the eyes of law enforcement.
45:07 Speaker 01 Yeah. My thought is he was never going to win $25 million. But this happens in a lot of situations, not even, not just with the police, but in business. Right? A decision is made that giving the person a certain amount of money is actually more cost effective than going through with the trial and paying these high-priced defense attorneys, probably more money than what you would to settle. That, that's just a fact of business. It happens all the time. Every year, Eileen's family, other loved ones in the community held the vigil on the anniversary of her disappearance.
45:51 Speaker 01 Talking with the San Francisco Chronicle, her mom, Maddie, said of these events, "It's heartwarming to see these people come year after year." Eileen's family continued hoping for answers. In 2007, a man named Curtis Anderson confessed to the 1988 murder of seven-year-old Amber Schwartz, who was the first in the string of disappearances in the area. He claimed that he saw her in her front yard and decided he wanted company on a road trip. So he pulled her into his van and used root beer schnapps to keep her from fighting back or trying to escape. He claimed that he took her all the way to a hotel room in Tucson, Arizona,
46:36 Speaker 01 where he killed her before dumping her body somewhere in the desert off of Highway 10, near the town of Benson. Anderson died one month after his confession. So investigators were not able to thoroughly investigate or interrogate him.
46:53 Speaker 01 Despite this, the case was closed. Pinole Police Chief Paul Clancy told ABC 7 Los Angeles, "We're closing it because we believe Curtis Dean Anderson is the killer of Amber Swartz." It didn't seem like a stretch for him to be responsible at the time of his confession. He was already serving a 300-year sentence for other crimes, including the abduction of two young girls, one of which he murdered. Aside from the crimes he was convicted of, Anderson said he kidnapped 11 more girls.
47:29 Speaker 00 Authorities believe that Anderson was truthful, and none of the information he gave contradicts the known facts of the case. Still, it's hard not to wonder. No evidence was found linking him to any of the missing girls. Amber's mother, Kim Swartz, told ABC 7 Los Angeles, "We don't have anything of hers. Her jump rope, shoes, clothing, a bone out of finger. We have nothing. So for me and the rest of Amber's family, it's sort of the same for us." Amber's case was reopened in 2013. There's still a chance that her abduction and Eileen's disappearance are related, but there's really no evidence one way or the other that they are or aren't linked. After J.C.
48:10 Speaker 00 Dugard was found alive in 2009 after 18 years of captivity, authorities worked to investigate Phillip and Nancy Garrido, who had abducted her in 1991 when she was 11 years old. Their actions were brazen. They used a taser in broad daylight to incapacitate J.C. and kidnap her with her stepfather chasing them. Could they have had other victims? The Fairfield Police Department was unable to find any evidence linking them to Nikki's abduction.
48:38 Speaker 01 A new suspect in Eileen's disappearance emerged in late 2020. David Emory Mish was arrested in December of 2020 for the abduction and murder, though nobody was found, of nine-year-old Michaela Garrett in 1988. His fingerprint was finally matched to the print left on her scooter at the time of her abduction. We couldn't find any update on Mish regarding Michaela's case. We do know that he could not have kidnapped Nikki because he was in prison at the time of her disappearance. He's been in prison since sometime in 1989. So we mentioned it upfront more.
49:22 Speaker 01 You know, some of the cases have been solved and that's a great thing. But it's also scary to think that, you know, so many young girls went missing. And that there were at least thought to be, you know, multiple people responsible for these abductions. This is the type of stuff that just, you know, it scares me badly. The thought that you have people out, whether it's walking, driving in a car, constantly scanning, looking for prey.
50:05 Speaker 01 I don't know how else to say it, but it's a very frightening thought.
50:10 Speaker 00 And it makes me think about what we say all the time. What's more frightening? One monster doing all this, attacking all these girls or several out there? And, you know, there's still a possibility some of these cases could be linked together or connected to each other, but there's just no evidence so far. In some of the cases, we know that certain cases can be excluded as not being connected, but there's still a possibility some may be. And maybe if one of these unsolved cases is solved eventually, maybe it'll present hope for some of the other cases.
50:48 Speaker 01 And I want to go back to this Curtis Dean Anderson. Obviously this was not a good person. You know, he confessed to murdering seven-year-old Amber Schwartz. And at the time of his confession, he was serving a 300-year sentence.
51:08 Speaker 01 You're a bad guy if you've received a 300 year sentence. And those crimes included the abduction of young girls. One of the girls he murdered. So, you know, I think police are pretty certain that he did it. But they they closed it pretty quickly. Number one, they weren't really able to talk to him. He died fairly quickly after his confession. So he's an interesting, you know, person in that if he was able to do that, murder seven year old Amber, we already know that he was convicted of
51:52 Speaker 01 abducting two other girls, murdering one of them. Could he be responsible for some of these other cases that we've talked about?
52:01 Speaker 00 Yeah, so it makes me wonder if there's some kind of doubt in the minds of investigators or something else that we're not aware of that they're considering for them to have reopened the case? Because it seemed early on, they were they were pretty set that he was the guy that was responsible for Amber's murder. But to reopen the case along after that seems to make me think that there's there's something else that they might be aware of. Maddy Misheloff passed away without ever finding out what happened to Eileen. She was 71 years old when she died on April 11, 2020, due to bladder cancer.
52:41 Speaker 00 After her death, her husband, Michael Misheloff, could not hold the annual vigil for Eileen. It was just too painful. Maddy's death was a painful tragedy on top of what they had already gone through since Eileen's disappearance. Because COVID-19 restrictions were in full force at the time, Maddy's health began to quickly decline. Michael had to drop her off at the emergency room at Stanford Healthcare. He was not allowed in with her, and he never saw her again. They were only able to speak on the phone a few times, but because Maddie was so sick before she passed away. Also due to COVID-19 restrictions, Michael couldn't hold a funeral for Maddie. So he decided to have her body cremated. Her ashes are at home with him. She died wondering
53:25 Speaker 00 what happened to her little girl. Eileen's room remained untouched at the time of Maddie's death. She always kept it exactly how Eileen left it.
53:34 Speaker 01 Two aged progress photos of Eileen. It ages 30 and 43 were released in 2022. Just in case she is still alive. Before she passed, Maddie never lost hope. In 2019, she was still concerned with the state of Eileen's room, telling the San Francisco Chronicle, "When she comes home, we're going to find somewhere for her to sleep until we can get a hazmat team in there and get rid of about 10 feet of dust." Her parents didn't allow for memorial plaques or anything of that sort, refusing to grieve for Eileen, calling it premature. Instead, they maintained their hope that she was out there somewhere. The Misheloff
54:19 Speaker 01 never moved. They never changed their phone number, hoping that one day Eileen would walk through the door or be the voice on the other end of the phone. In fact, they turned their home phone line into a tip line for Eileen's case. Maddie told the Chronicle, "This house has to be here when she comes home." And I think you see this morph in quite a few cases, but it can go both ways. You know, oftentimes I think parents or the family of a missing loved one doesn't want to move, doesn't want to change their phone number. They are expecting
55:00 Speaker 01 at some point in time for their loved one to either walk through the door or to call. And then you have the other end of the spectrum, which is some people just find it too incredibly painful to live in that house. Just a constant reminder of what happened to their loved one. Obviously, that is an individual choice, but we know what Maddie and Michael chose. They weren't leaving. They weren't changing a thing.
55:32 Speaker 00 After Maddie's death, though, it seems like Mike had a hard time being optimistic. He told the Independent News, I just recognize what's the odds of her being found after 32 years? Adding, it's possible, but it's not very likely. He also got rid of the landline, ending his connection to the phone number Eileen would have known from when she was a teen. Eileen's twin brother, Brian, stopped celebrating his birthday after her disappearance because it was too painful of a reminder. Eileen's case still weighs on the Dublin Police Department as well. In 2021, Dublin Police Captain Nate Schmidt told the Independent News, this is one of the ones I take personally.
56:11 Speaker 01 And we really didn't talk about, you know, Brian all that much. But being a twin, I can only imagine how Eileen's disappearance affected him. I mean, the disappearance of a sibling is going to be tough, no doubt about it. But I think there's that added element of being a twin, which is going to hit even harder.
56:37 Speaker 00 Yeah, a lot of twins have that extra special bond that, you know, a lot of siblings are close, but twins sometimes are just very, very close. So to not have his twin sister in his life growing up, that had to be tough on him.
56:53 Speaker 01 If you have any information about the whereabouts of Eileen Beth Misheloff, or who is responsible for her disappearance, you can call the Dublin Police Department at 925-833-6670. There is still a $95,000 reward in this case. If you have any information about the abduction of Nikki Campbell, you can call the Fairfield Police Department at 707-428-7300. And finally, if you have any information about the disappearance of Amber Swords. You can call the Pinole Police Department at 510-724-8950.
57:35 Speaker 01 So Morph, as we wrap this episode up, you know, obviously a lot of tragedy that we've talked about. A number of young girls who have gone missing, some who have been found to have been murdered. And then you have a number of individuals who have either confessed to one of the crimes, been linked to one or more of the crimes through some of their own actions. There's just a lot going on and that's on top of trying to figure out which, if any of these cases, might be connected.
58:19 Speaker 01 But I think specifically in talking about Eileen Misheloff, in the, the authorities know what time she left. They know what her ultimate destination was. What they don't know is exactly what happened to her and where, and who was responsible. Clouding that a little bit is this backpack being found? If it was found later on, after searches had already been done? You know, if it really was found, what does that mean?
59:02 Speaker 01 Is this a person who was trying to throw the police off? Or maybe there was no backpack found at all? I just can't help going back to Timothy Bender. The stuff that this guy did to me was so strange. The, the mere fact of inserting yourself into multiple investigations of missing young girls seems like a really bad sign to me. Or a sign that, that this guy had some other stuff going on.
59:37 Speaker 00 Yeah, I think the police in these cases we've talked about have so much to consider. You know, you've got these weird guys like Timothy Bender. Connected to multiple cases by inserting himself into the case, mailing letters to the FBI, to police, going to families' homes. You have these other guys that are confirmed hardcore criminals that are, have histories of, of crimes. And you've, don't know at the end of the day, if any of these crimes are connected, if one or more of these people is responsible for more than one of these crimes. So the police really had a lot on their plate trying to sort through this, I think.
1:00:21 Speaker 00 And again, going back to 1989 and that timeframe, when these things happened back in the eighties, they didn't have the technology that we have today of cell phones ping in areas, tracking apps, surveillance cameras all over the place. Things that might make a string of disappearances like this harder now for criminals to get away with. They didn't have, the police didn't have that stuff to help catch these guys back then. I, I tend to think that a string of disappearances like this, it would be harder to happen nowadays without being solved.
1:00:58 Speaker 01 The one thing I will say though, is I don't think there's any doubt. The police worked this pretty hard and they jumped on it quickly. And they continued to work it.
1:01:10 Speaker 00 Yeah, it's refreshing because we talk about so many cases where they automatically say, nope, she's a runaway, she's hanging out at her friend's party and she'll be home in a couple of days. They didn't do that here. They, they took Eileen's disappearance seriously from day one.
1:01:25 Speaker 01 But even with that, they still, you know, weren't able to solve it, haven't been able to solve it. I think it just shows you how tough some of these cases really are. You know, how much do police have to go on? You know, they're, they're getting tips, they're, they're checking into people.
1:01:49 Speaker 01 The cases leading them in all types of different directions, but very little of that, or maybe none of it, is paying dividends. And sadly, that's happens in, in many cases that go unsolved.
1:02:07 Speaker 00 It'll be interesting to see if Eileen's remains are one day found and identified as hers, because maybe that will lead to new clues, new evidence that's found with her remains. And, you know, one interesting thing we talked about was people on websites like Web sleuths or Reddit that spend time trying to connect these unsolved remains. In Eileen's case, she had braces, which maybe unless they were removed after she vanished, maybe that would make identifying her remains easier. So if anyone out there listening is someone that likes trying to connect these dots and identify these Jane and John Does
1:02:49 Speaker 00 out there, maybe you can remember that she had braces and that'll help you think of a case that who knows that those remains in that case might be Eileen's.
1:02:59 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's a good point. That is something that could help in possibly identifying her if remains are found. But that's it for our episode on Eileen Misheloff. As always, if you love the show but haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, leave us a review, a rating. Also, keep telling your friends. Word of mouth about the podcast really helps us out.
1:03:25 Speaker 00 If you want to find us on social media, we're on every major social media platform. So just look for us on your favorite under Criminology Podcast. We also have our website, criminologypodcast.com. And if you want to join a discussion with other listeners, join our Facebook group, Criminology Podcast Discussion and Fans.
1:03:44 Speaker 01 So that's it for another episode of Criminology, but Morph and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So until then, for Mike
1:03:53 Speaker 00 And Morph.
1:03:54 Speaker 01 We'll talk to you next week.
1:03:56 Speaker 00 Take care, everyone.
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