Pod Insights True Crime All The Time Larry and Connie Van Oosten About this episode In February 2017, Larry and Connie Van Oosten were abducted from their home by a masked man and held in a makeshift dungeon inside a basement. Authorities were shocked when they learned the suspect was someone from the Van Oostens’ small, peaceful town.
Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss the abduction of Larry and Connie Van Oosten. Connie and Larry were both in their early ‘60s and retired. Connie once owned a flooring store, and Larry operated a pest-control company. They did well for themselves financially and were abducted because someone thought they had enough money to earn a big payday.
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Transcript 0:05 Speaker 00 Hello everyone and welcome to episode 477 of the True Crime All the Time Podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my partner in true crime, Mike Gibson. Gibby, how are you?
0:16 Speaker 01 Hey, I'm doing pretty good. How about you?
0:18 Speaker 00 I'm doing great.
0:18 Speaker 01 That's good.
0:19 Speaker 00 Having an amazing week, to be honest with you.
0:23 Speaker 01 Why does it have to be amazing?
0:24 Speaker 00 Uh, cuz that's how I roll.
0:26 Speaker 01 Yeah.
0:26 Speaker 00 You know?
0:27 Speaker 01 You could say I'm having a mediocre week.
0:30 Speaker 00 I work in superlatives. That's just, that's just how I am.
0:34 Speaker 01 Throwing your big words out again.
0:35 Speaker 00 All right, buddy. We're jumping right in.
0:38 Speaker 01 We are.
0:39 Speaker 00 We're talking about the abduction of Connie and Larry Van Uston. And I found this to be just a fascinating case. In February 2017, Connie and Larry Van Uston were abducted from their home by a masked man and held in a makeshift dungeon inside a basement. Adores were shocked when they learned the suspect was someone from the Van Uston's small peaceful town. And we're going to get into all the details, right, as we always do. But, you know, I, I think, and you and I have touched on this before, your home, kind of your, your safe place, your sanctuary.
1:22 Speaker 01 For sure.
1:23 Speaker 00 Right? When that is invaded, I don't know, for me, there's like an extra element to it. Now, it would be horrible to be snatched up on the street, but there's something about a home invasion that I think really scares people.
1:39 Speaker 01 Well, because after that, if you survive, where would you ever feel safe again?
1:44 Speaker 00 Right, because that home is the place where you are supposed to, to feel safe.
1:50 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:51 Speaker 00 Connie and Larry Van Uston are a married couple from Erie, Illinois, a small town in Whiteside County. They have two children, Amy and Jeff. Connie and Larry were both in their early 60s and they were both retired. Connie once owned a flooring store and Larry operated a pest control company. Now their daughter Amy took over the flooring store after her daughter was born. Jeff didn't want to take over the pest control company because he was already pursuing a career in farming.
2:25 Speaker 01 Okay.
2:26 Speaker 00 Larry sold that business and it was said that he made enough money to, you know, invest, live off of that and retire.
2:36 Speaker 01 There you go.
2:37 Speaker 00 And I'm kind of viewing this as like the dream, right? You have a couple of businesses, you made money, you're able to pass one of them down, sell the other, but you're in your kind of golden years, your retirement years, and you have enough money to live on.
2:57 Speaker 01 You can do those things you've been wanting to do.
2:59 Speaker 00 Yeah, absolutely. And he and Connie did some traveling. They also dedicated more time to their church and volunteering in the community. They also loved being grandparents to Amy and Jeff's children. My wife and I keep dropping subtle hints to our daughters, you know?
3:19 Speaker 01 Yeah.
3:20 Speaker 00 Especially our oldest daughter, not our youngest yet, but my oldest who is getting married this year, you know, we, we keep saying, oh, we can't wait to be grandparents.
3:30 Speaker 01 Oh, man. To have a true crime all the time grandchild.
3:35 Speaker 00 Yep, I will have onesies made up. I'll go, I'll do it all.
3:41 Speaker 01 Yeah, I, I think.
3:42 Speaker 00 A pacifier that says T cat.
3:44 Speaker 01 Why do I feel like you have the diaper stamp with Gibby on them?
3:47 Speaker 00 Man, this one's full of Gibby.
3:50 Speaker 01 Yeah.
3:53 Speaker 00 This one's been used. So, I mean, that's good, right? We work essentially our whole lives, if you think about it.
4:02 Speaker 01 Yeah.
4:03 Speaker 00 Now, we are living longer, right? People are living longer than they ever have before, but you work, work, work, work to get to the point where you can retire and then hopefully still be in good enough health to do some of the things you want to do.
4:19 Speaker 01 That's the plan, right?
4:20 Speaker 00 I think the other thing that goes along with that is you have to have the money.
4:24 Speaker 01 Yeah, you do.
4:25 Speaker 00 So that means during all of that working time, you have to have saved enough to have a nest egg that you can live off during retirement. At 4:45 PM on February 8th, 2017, the Whiteside County Sheriff's Office received a call about a possible kidnapping at First Trust and Savings Bank in Albany, Illinois. What happened was Connie Van Oosten entered the bank and she requested $350,000. She passed a note to the teller indicating that she and her husband Larry were being held against their will and they needed help.
5:07 Speaker 01 I mean, that would be an interesting note to receive as a teller. I mean, one, $350,000. I don't know if most banks even have that type of cash on hand without a fair notice ahead of time.
5:23 Speaker 00 I think most banks do.
5:25 Speaker 01 Do you?
5:26 Speaker 00 Yeah. But how many people actually walk in and say, you know, by the way, I need $350,000 in cash?
5:34 Speaker 01 Yeah.
5:35 Speaker 00 Not many, and you're going to be questioned.
5:37 Speaker 01 Oh, for sure. I mean, you can't even get $3,000 out without them saying, what's this money used for?
5:43 Speaker 00 Yeah, and we know, having worked in, you still work in the financial industry, but you know, anything over what, 10? Then you're getting into the area of like suspicious activity report and there's, there's protocols around that. $350,000 is definitely going to make the alarm bells go off.
6:04 Speaker 01 For sure.
6:05 Speaker 00 But then on top of that, right, you have this note.
6:08 Speaker 01 Yeah.
6:08 Speaker 00 And it was said that Connie wrote the note on a church bulletin that she had in her purse. So, you know, you've seen that before in movies, you know, pass a note to the teller, hey, we're being, we're being held up. Bank employees tried to talk Connie into staying, but she said she was afraid her husband would be killed if she didn't leave. The bank tellers agreed to give her the check because they didn't want anything to happen to her. And, you know, I thought, okay, a check seems strange. If someone is holding you for ransom or holding you against your will for money,
6:52 Speaker 00 normally they want cash because a check is fairly easy to trace.
6:58 Speaker 01 It's very traceable.
7:00 Speaker 00 Yeah.
7:00 Speaker 01 Even if it's made out to cash, right? You're going to at least know where, what bank it was cashed at.
7:07 Speaker 00 And what, uh, well, who's gonna, who's gonna cash a $350,000 check? And if you deposited it, obviously they're gonna know where it was, you know, what account it was deposited into. But I also understand, okay, Connie's hesitant to stay. On the one hand, she could be safe if she stays in the bank. But then she's leaving her, her husband. And, okay, most spouses wouldn't want to do that.
7:38 Speaker 01 There's some spouses that might do that, but.
7:40 Speaker 00 Well, yeah, my wife probably would.
7:42 Speaker 01 Yeah, maybe.
7:43 Speaker 00 She's like, I know I'm safe. Um, hopefully he's, everything goes okay with him, but.
7:50 Speaker 01 Good luck to you.
7:51 Speaker 00 If not, we'll make it through.
7:53 Speaker 01 Yeah.
7:55 Speaker 00 Um, Connie left the building and the staff called the police. Connie was captured on surveillance, leaving the bank, walking down the street and getting into a vehicle that then drove out of the area. The problem was the license plate wasn't visible in the video. Jeff Van Oosten called his sister Amy around 5:30 PM to tell her that their parents had been abducted. A friend in the police department told Jeff what had happened. And that's a tough call to make to your sibling.
8:29 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah.
8:30 Speaker 00 You know, hey, mom and dad have been abducted. I don't have all the details. Let's say I don't know what's going on, but hey, it's not good. Amy then soon received the call from the police asking her to meet them.
8:45 Speaker 01 Well, I'm sure the police want to try to. Gather as much information that maybe the kids can help with, you know, maybe fill in some, some blanks or a lot of blanks, right?
8:58 Speaker 00 Yeah.
8:58 Speaker 01 In the process of what happened.
8:59 Speaker 00 Well, and depending on what the police know, they have to rule the kids out, right? Because the kids are most likely heirs.
9:10 Speaker 01 Yeah.
9:11 Speaker 00 To the money. At 6:15 PM deputies went to the Van Houston's home and found Jeff already there. Jeff said that he'd been away from home on a, a business trip in Washington and hadn't heard from his parents. Deputy searched the property and discovered that a basement window had broken or had been broken from the outside.
9:35 Speaker 01 Okay.
9:36 Speaker 00 So.
9:37 Speaker 01 Point of entry, most likely.
9:38 Speaker 00 Yeah, I think, you know, if you're the authorities, you kind of have to go that route. Inside the house, they found taser confetti and a few drops of blood on the carpet.
9:53 Speaker 01 So maybe where the taser hit somebody?
9:55 Speaker 00 Mm hmm. I don't know if there's, you know, stuff that comes out.
9:59 Speaker 01 Yeah.
9:59 Speaker 00 Along with the probes.
10:01 Speaker 01 Typically, I mean, you have not been tasered, have you?
10:03 Speaker 00 No.
10:04 Speaker 01 Yeah.
10:05 Speaker 00 No, that's something I try to stay away from.
10:08 Speaker 01 It doesn't feel good.
10:09 Speaker 00 Yeah. It doesn't look like it on the body cam videos that I watch. Now I did learn that there is a very distinct difference between when they press the taser onto you.
10:22 Speaker 01 Yeah.
10:23 Speaker 00 Which does cause pain.
10:24 Speaker 01 Right.
10:25 Speaker 00 Versus when they shoot you with the taser and the barbs stick in.
10:29 Speaker 01 Right.
10:30 Speaker 00 That's where you really get the like involuntary muscular incapacitation.
10:36 Speaker 01 Right.
10:36 Speaker 00 The other one just hurts.
10:38 Speaker 01 Yeah.
10:38 Speaker 00 I did not know that.
10:39 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's when I wet myself that one time.
10:41 Speaker 00 Mm hmm.
10:41 Speaker 01 Yeah.
10:42 Speaker 00 It happens.
10:43 Speaker 01 Yeah.
10:44 Speaker 00 Stop doing.
10:45 Speaker 01 Control yourself.
10:45 Speaker 00 Stop doing questionable stuff and you won't have that problem. So, you know, what we have is a, a bad situation, right? From what we know so far, Whiteside County authorities reached out to the FBI for assistance. Both Jeff and Amy were questioned to rule out their involvement, which we talked about, right? They have to do that.
11:08 Speaker 01 Protocol.
11:09 Speaker 00 Jeff faced more scrutiny because he'd been out of town. And was at the house before the police arrived. He was asked if he was having financial trouble or if he'd borrowed money from his parents. Jeff was more than willing to answer all of their questions. And he and Amy were cleared of any involvement in their parents disappearance.
11:30 Speaker 01 That's the best way to get cleared. Be upfront, honest about everything going on. No surprises.
11:36 Speaker 00 Yeah, be truthful.
11:37 Speaker 01 Yeah.
11:38 Speaker 00 Right? Well, if you haven't done anything wrong, it's very easy to be truthful.
11:42 Speaker 01 Well, that's true.
11:44 Speaker 00 The FBI determined that the vehicle captured on surveillance was a Chevy Caprice from the early 1990s. So, all right, we're talking about 2017 here. By 2017, how many early 1990s Chevy Caprices are still operating?
12:06 Speaker 01 Probably, uh, not very many.
12:09 Speaker 00 Yeah, I, I would think it would narrow, um, the number quite a bit. We're not talking about a 2015 F Ford F-150.
12:19 Speaker 01 Right.
12:20 Speaker 00 Where there'd be.
12:21 Speaker 01 Oh, my God.
12:22 Speaker 00 Tons and tons of them. But nothing showed up in the computer system. So the surveillance video was just distributed to the media.
12:30 Speaker 01 Those Caprices were huge, the 1990 ones.
12:33 Speaker 00 Yeah, were they the rounded ones? Cause in the old days they were boxy.
12:38 Speaker 01 Yeah, really boxy.
12:39 Speaker 00 And then I thought today went, they went to more of a rounded look, but I don't know if that was the early 90s or not.
12:45 Speaker 01 I think that was like mid 90s.
12:46 Speaker 00 Okay.
12:47 Speaker 01 They finally went to that look and short, and they were shortened up too, a little bit.
12:51 Speaker 00 Hmm.
12:51 Speaker 01 Yeah.
12:52 Speaker 00 They were boats there for a while.
12:53 Speaker 01 They were.
12:54 Speaker 00 But I, you know, to me, that's a smart thing, right? You have surveillance video, get it out to the media. Kind of reminds me of the Nancy Guthrie case that is.
13:05 Speaker 01 Very current.
13:05 Speaker 00 Dominating the media right now. And you know, like that, the FBI received multiple tips in this case. One witness saw the vehicle in Geneseo, Illinois, or as you like to say, Illinois's.
13:22 Speaker 01 And I would say Genesosi, Illinois.
13:25 Speaker 00 Okay, I'm not sure I said it correctly, but I know for a fricking fact, you, you didn't say it correctly.
13:33 Speaker 01 Uh, I would love it.
13:35 Speaker 00 Genesosi?
13:37 Speaker 01 Somebody from Genesos, Genes, Genes, Genesesol.
13:43 Speaker 00 You've said it four different ways now, and none of them have the correct number of consonants to support that.
13:50 Speaker 01 That's true. That's true. But maybe somebody would go, hey, actually, that's how we say it here.
13:54 Speaker 00 Yeah, maybe.
13:55 Speaker 01 I'd love it.
13:55 Speaker 00 People say that just because they want to be on your side, though, too. So a witness saw a vehicle, the car was heading northbound. The FBI learned that Connie obtained the $350,000 in the form of a cashier's check. It was made out to a company called the Store Edge LLC.
14:16 Speaker 01 Which I find very strange because you can search LLCs.
14:23 Speaker 00 Oh, absolutely. Find out who owns it.
14:26 Speaker 01 Yeah.
14:27 Speaker 00 Um, all of that. An older model Chevy Caprice was registered to an individual connected to the business. A man named Chad Skipper. And investigators, you know, what they had to do was establish some type of connection, right? Between the Van Oostens and Chad Skipper. Jeff and Amy were completely shocked and they couldn't believe that Chad would be involved in abducting their parents. They had both known Chad for many years. He attended their church, he was in their youth groups. Chad was a year ahead of Jeff in school. They didn't have the same friend group, but they were friendly with each other and said hello in passing.
15:12 Speaker 01 Okay, but somebody they knew.
15:14 Speaker 00 Yeah, somebody they knew, but also back to some of the things that you've been talking about. Didn't take authorities very long to figure out who this was.
15:25 Speaker 01 Right.
15:25 Speaker 00 Where you had the kind of, I don't want to say odd, but not very plentiful car. The Chevy Caprice. You've also asked for the check to be mailed out to a business that you actually have a connection to.
15:44 Speaker 01 Yeah, you had the check made out to this LLC. Doesn't seem like you're very smart about this.
15:51 Speaker 00 So what does that mean? Either the person is, like you said, not very smart, or it wasn't planned out well, was, you know, spur of the moment, and they just didn't know what to do.
16:03 Speaker 01 Yeah, didn't think it through.
16:06 Speaker 00 Chad was valedictorian of his class. Jeff looked up to him because of his intelligence. And this Chad guy seemed like he had it all together.
16:16 Speaker 01 So he's not somebody that's dumb.
16:18 Speaker 00 No, no, he obviously must have been smart, and I think he was popular as well. Chad and Larry were both elders at their church. A couple of years prior, Chad was starting out as a financial advisor. And Larry decided to seek him out and, you know, meet with him about potentially becoming a client.
16:40 Speaker 01 Yeah.
16:40 Speaker 00 When Larry reviewed Chad's proposal, he decided not to work with him because he didn't think it would benefit his investments. They discussed their investments with Chad during the meeting, which is important because that means he was acutely aware, right, of just how much money they had.
16:59 Speaker 01 Yeah, at that point, he knew there was 350,000 sitting in the bank.
17:04 Speaker 00 Well, and they could have had a lot more than that.
17:07 Speaker 01 But he knew that, right?
17:08 Speaker 00 At least they had that, yeah, probably. Jeff and Amy recalled their parents mentioning this meeting when it happened. In the early hours of February 9th, 2017, the FBI linked Chad Skipper to two properties in Genesee. One of the addresses was a large rental home with a four-car garage. Agents went to the property, but they didn't find anything out of the ordinary, unusual from the outside. So they didn't have probable cause to conduct a search.
17:41 Speaker 01 Which I find strange, right? I mean, you know that, uh, where the check was made out to, you know about the Caprice. You have some other knowledge around it, but you know, obviously the courts must need a lot more information than that before you can enter the home.
17:59 Speaker 00 Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, you know, it's one of our protections that we have. And I get it. I don't want police coming into my house for no reason.
18:11 Speaker 00 Just because they think I might have done something or know something about something.
18:16 Speaker 01 Well, you do.
18:17 Speaker 00 I know some stuff about things you've done.
18:19 Speaker 01 Well, I didn't want to say that on camera, but yeah.
18:22 Speaker 00 Let's go ahead and throw it out there. Agents split up and they conducted surveillance on the rental home and the Van Usten home in Erie. A deputy watching the Van Usten house saw a silver Caprice in the area and they attempted to pull the driver over. The driver acted like they were going to stop, but then they sped off. And I see this actually quite a bit on my body cam videos.
18:48 Speaker 01 Love that stuff.
18:49 Speaker 00 I do love the videos, but people will pull over and it's like they wait for the police officer to get out of the car and maybe get about three fourths of the way to their car. And then they take off because they know it's going to give them a little bit of lead time. The officers then got to race back to their car, get in.
19:12 Speaker 01 I guess if you stole the car, it might work for you. But if you didn't steal the car, well, they see your license plate. They have your license plate. They know who you are, where you live.
19:22 Speaker 00 Well, and also look at the technology today with helicopters. You know, you can't outrun a radio. You know, so, you know, there's night vision. There's just so much technology. Also, if I'm being honest, I don't know that a early 1990s Caprice is the best vehicle to choose to try to get away from police.
19:49 Speaker 01 Yeah, probably not. I'm sure it had a big V8 in it probably, but still.
19:54 Speaker 00 It also weighs a ton, you know? We're not talking about a Hellcat. Or you know, a Corvette, a Lamborghini or something like this. You're, you're basically driving a
20:06 Speaker 01 A tank.
20:07 Speaker 00 A tank down the road. Now, if you want to ram into some people or you want to try to not get like pit maneuvered.
20:14 Speaker 01 Yeah.
20:15 Speaker 00 That might be a good car for it, but
20:17 Speaker 01 Could be.
20:17 Speaker 00 I, I just don't know. I don't think you're outrunning anybody.
20:21 Speaker 01 I don't think you're going to be able to get away.
20:22 Speaker 00 It's kind of like Jason Bateman in Horrible Bosses when he's driving the Prius. And they're talking to the police and he says he drag races and he says, I don't win a lot.
20:33 Speaker 01 Yeah, of course not.
20:34 Speaker 00 Which I thought, it's just the way he delivers the line.
20:37 Speaker 01 Yeah.
20:37 Speaker 00 That to me is so funny. Um, so obviously a high speed chase ensues. And it ended on Illinois Route 84. The driver swerved into the opposite lane as another car was approaching. They were, you know, going fast. Obviously it's high speed and crashed into a guard rail. Luckily the other driver only had minor injuries and the driver of the Caprice was identified as Chad Skipper.
21:10 Speaker 01 Okay.
21:11 Speaker 00 So you talked about probable cause before, um, you know, I, I think, you know, the burden's high, right? To enter someone's home, but pretty obvious what we're dealing with here.
21:26 Speaker 01 Yeah.
21:27 Speaker 00 Why does this guy not want to pull over? Why does he not want to stop? And then why are you trying to run away from police? And he pretty readily admitted that he was holding the Van Ustens. And he even gave the address that FBI agents were already staking out.
21:48 Speaker 01 He came sort of clean or he came clean.
21:51 Speaker 00 Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I'm always fascinated by. Interrogations, right? They can go a couple of different ways, a few different ways. You have the people who, no matter what you say to them, no matter what mountain of evidence you throw at them, they're never going to admit to what they've actually done. Then you have the people who, you know, right out of the gate, they say, nah, you got the wrong person. It wasn't me, but they wear down.
22:24 Speaker 01 Sure they do.
22:25 Speaker 00 And then they kind of fold as time goes on. And then you have some people who just like right off the bat are like, yeah, you got me.
22:33 Speaker 01 I just, I think Chad was going to have a hard time explaining some items that were in his car when they did finally get a hold of him.
22:41 Speaker 00 Yeah, yeah. No doubt about it because when they searched his car, they found a shovel. They found plastic sheeting, duct tape, a saw. I mean, basically this is some Dexter type stuff, indications that he was planning on burying a body or multiple bodies.
23:05 Speaker 01 I mean, a saw means he was planning on cutting them up.
23:10 Speaker 00 Yeah, potentially. Yeah, no doubt about it. But I mean, we all carry things inside our vehicle. What most people don't carry is essentially a hit kit or an after a hit kit to bury a body. Yeah, you might take a shovel if you're going to do some work. People might have duct tape just for general repair or whatever, but it's, it's all of it together, right?
23:40 Speaker 01 You know, before I leave here tonight, I need to leave something in your garage.
23:45 Speaker 00 Yeah, I would prefer you didn't.
23:49 Speaker 00 That's kind of a standing rule that we have. No leaving stuff in my house.
23:53 Speaker 01 That's right. Take my stuff with me.
23:54 Speaker 00 You've tried multiple times.
23:56 Speaker 01 A few.
23:57 Speaker 00 So at 3 a.m., agents kicked in the door of Skipper's property. They cleared the entire house, but they couldn't find Larry or Connie. During the second round of searching, they discovered a TV monitor on the floor of one of the rooms that showed a surveillance video feed. And they could see footage of two people lying on a mattress in a room with no windows or doors. Agents had a feeling that, you know, Connie and Larry were inside the house. They just weren't looking in the right spot. They just couldn't find them. This gives me a little bit of like Saw vibes.
24:39 Speaker 01 It does, yeah.
24:40 Speaker 00 Right? You have the surveillance video that, um, you know, the Saw guys is looking at, or whoever is the Saw person at that point. Those movies get a little convoluted.
24:53 Speaker 01 A little bit, yeah.
24:54 Speaker 00 At times. Um, but how do you have a room with no windows or doors? Then that's an interesting concept. It also makes it kind of hard to find people. You don't think about searching that.
25:11 Speaker 01 No.
25:12 Speaker 00 Right? But during the search, the agents noticed that it looked like a wall had recently been put up in the basement. In an upstairs closet, an agent removed a piece of plywood covering the floor, revealing a solid steel hatch. Agents cut the lock and opened the hatch, which then led to a secret room in the basement.
25:35 Speaker 01 Wow. I mean, some of that planning.
25:39 Speaker 00 Well, what does that tell us, though? This guy didn't abduct these two people and then all of a sudden install all this.
25:48 Speaker 01 Right.
25:49 Speaker 00 This was done ahead of time.
25:51 Speaker 01 Definitely pre-planned.
25:52 Speaker 00 Yeah, there's no doubt about it. Now, whether it was specifically for them, you know, we'll have to talk about, but it's a little bit, I don't want to use the word ingenious, because I don't want to give this guy credit. But, you know, if you're searching, let's say, my basement here, right? The studio is in my basement. You look over and you see that wall, there's no door, there's no nothing. You just assume there's nothing behind it.
26:20 Speaker 01 But little do they know, there is.
26:25 Speaker 00 Uh, there isn't because that's concrete, but.
26:29 Speaker 01 Is this when we go, it's concrete?
26:31 Speaker 00 It's concrete. But it's, it's a little bit of an ingenious plan, although I hate to give this person credit. Inside that room were Connie and Larry, who were lying on a mattress. Larry recalled that it was a very joyful moment.
26:50 Speaker 01 I bet it was.
26:51 Speaker 00 When they were rescued.
26:52 Speaker 01 Yeah, I'm sure you thought things were going to be over soon.
26:56 Speaker 00 Yeah, I, I can imagine in a scenario like that. Whether you're by yourself and, and in this case, husband and wife are together. You are probably, I would think Gibbs, at the very least, making right with the situation that you may not come out of this.
27:19 Speaker 01 Yeah.
27:20 Speaker 00 A lot. So to all of a sudden have law enforcement show up and save you. I, I can't even imagine what that feeling would be like, cause obviously I've never been in that position.
27:34 Speaker 01 I think you would definitely be happy.
27:38 Speaker 00 That's your adjective?
27:39 Speaker 01 Happy.
27:40 Speaker 00 Yeah.
27:40 Speaker 01 Yeah.
27:40 Speaker 00 I'll go with happy.
27:43 Speaker 00 There are a lot that you could use, but yeah.
27:45 Speaker 01 Yeah.
27:46 Speaker 00 Happy. So, you know, I, I again joyful, happy, whatever you want to call it. Larry said, they told us it was the FBI and they were here to rescue us and that we were safe. And I, again, at that moment, it had to be one of the, the better feelings that they'd probably experienced in their lives.
28:10 Speaker 01 Music to my ears.
28:11 Speaker 00 But Chad Skipper had created basically a makeshift dungeon, right inside the basement. The walls of the room were reinforced with steel.
28:22 Speaker 01 Okay.
28:23 Speaker 00 Which they'd have to be, cause if you think about just putting drywall up, well, you can bust through drywall.
28:28 Speaker 01 Kick your way out of that.
28:29 Speaker 00 Yeah. You just kick in between the studs. You just walk right through like the.
28:34 Speaker 01 Yeah.
28:34 Speaker 00 Like the Kool-Aid man. So something's going to have to be reinforced. And then the metal hatch could only be opened from the outside. And we mentioned it, right? He had installed cameras connected to monitor the room.
28:48 Speaker 01 I mean, he did put some planning into this.
28:51 Speaker 00 Yeah, quite a bit, I would think. There were stacks of ramen inside the room as well as a shower and a toilet. On the other side was a locking mechanism for handcuffing.
29:03 Speaker 01 Oh.
29:04 Speaker 00 So my assumption would be, you know, if he needed to come down.
29:10 Speaker 01 Right.
29:11 Speaker 00 He would maybe handcuff one and handcuff the other. There's got to be a system to where you're not putting yourself in jeopardy that you're going to be overpowered.
29:20 Speaker 01 Right. He'd have them go to that wall, put their hands through.
29:23 Speaker 00 Maybe.
29:24 Speaker 01 Chain them up, then go down and do whatever. Restock the ramen.
29:28 Speaker 00 Yeah, something like that. Hopefully chili ramen, because that's my very favorite.
29:33 Speaker 01 I don't know. If it's spicy and you're in a dungeon.
29:37 Speaker 00 With only one toilet. You're right.
29:39 Speaker 01 You might want to rethink that.
29:42 Speaker 00 The room obviously had been designed to hold people against their will. And it was clear, like you said, that Skipper had put significant effort into building this room and also planning the abduction. In his post-arrest interview, Chad admitted that he had been thinking about the abduction for a long time. He said, "I wanted to do it, and I did do it. Money was tight, and I kept trying to find a way to push it and push it." It was said that he was low on money due to some bad investments.
30:20 Speaker 01 Okay, so your fix is to kidnap this couple, take their money.
30:29 Speaker 00 Well, sure.
30:30 Speaker 01 And then, because you can't have them remain alive, you're going to kill them.
30:35 Speaker 00 Most likely.
30:38 Speaker 00 Also, he can't manage his own money. Probably good that Larry didn't invest his money with him.
30:44 Speaker 01 That's what I was thinking, the same thing. And then I'm thinking, so you're going to get this money? You suck at managing your own money.
30:53 Speaker 00 Probably gonna lose that too.
30:54 Speaker 01 Yeah.
30:55 Speaker 00 And then you're gonna be back to square one, where you gotta, what, rob somebody else?
31:00 Speaker 01 Yeah, how many people are in this town that you can pull this off with?
31:03 Speaker 00 But you know, this is what strikes me about a lot of these types of crimes. You have somebody who will call it being in a, in a pinch, right? During a bad situation. And I get it, nobody wants to be broke. Or nobody wants to, when, when you're kind of riding on top, let's say stumble. You make some bad investments, you lose a bunch of money, but there are ways to dig yourself out.
31:31 Speaker 01 Of course there is.
31:32 Speaker 00 Of any of those situations. But I think so often, people want to find the easy way out. The quick solution, even if it involves stealing from or hurting other people.
31:48 Speaker 01 I'm thinking this guy here, I mean, if you file bankruptcy, isn't that better? And you'll be out of it in, I don't know, four, five, six, seven years versus robbery?
32:01 Speaker 00 Taking the chance on spending maybe the rest of your life in jail?
32:04 Speaker 01 Yeah, especially if you're gonna have to kill the, the, the, the people.
32:07 Speaker 00 I would think so. It's just, you know, on the one hand, you have Larry and Connie, who had essentially worked their entire lives to support their family, raise their kids, and put enough money away to, you know, live well during retirement.
32:25 Speaker 01 They did everything right. They did everything they were supposed to do to get to the point that they could retire and do the things they wanted.
32:33 Speaker 00 Yes, absolutely. And then you have their captor, who basically wants to skip all of that part and, and go straight to the money.
32:43 Speaker 01 Yeah.
32:44 Speaker 00 And, and it just, uh, could it work? I guess you could get away with it, but you know, you could also just put in the hard work like the rest of us.
32:54 Speaker 01 Exactly.
32:55 Speaker 00 To get what you want.
32:58 Speaker 00 Chad told investigators, I asked Larry and Connie for money a few years back. If they had helped me out then, things might have been different.
33:07 Speaker 01 Probably not, because you were not good at investing your own money.
33:12 Speaker 00 But also, what kind of sense does that make? You know, okay, they wouldn't give me any money, or loan me money, or whatever the situation was. So this is how it had to turn out? No, it didn't have to turn out that way. Uh, you know how rich people stay rich? By not giving away their money.
33:34 Speaker 01 Exactly.
33:37 Speaker 01 Exactly.
33:37 Speaker 00 Or not investing it with people who they don't have a good feeling about.
33:43 Speaker 01 I mean, they work hard for that money. They have their money. Why would they give it to him? I mean, it doesn't make any sense.
33:51 Speaker 00 No, not at all. Chad admitted that he knew the police could track him through the LLC. But said, I was only thinking about the moment and getting the money.
34:03 Speaker 01 There you go.
34:03 Speaker 00 It goes back to what we were talking about earlier. He had planned all of this out, but then he doesn't plan that part?
34:12 Speaker 01 Just doesn't make sense. And I get it, he was the top of his class, but.
34:17 Speaker 00 He's also a financial guy.
34:19 Speaker 01 Well, but we know he's not a very good financial guy.
34:22 Speaker 00 That's true. That's true. He claimed he was disassociated during the commission of the crime, saying, I looked at it through, as if I was someone else, looking through what I was doing. The demon inside me.
34:38 Speaker 01 The demon, huh?
34:39 Speaker 00 Frog demon.
34:40 Speaker 01 Frog demon.
34:41 Speaker 00 Which we haven't actually talked about in a long time. He's talking about his frog demon.
34:45 Speaker 01 Yeah, there was a different demon here.
34:47 Speaker 00 Well, you have a couple of frog demons that people have sent in.
34:51 Speaker 01 Yeah.
34:51 Speaker 00 To you over the years.
34:52 Speaker 01 That's the one I know mostly, though.
34:54 Speaker 00 But you know, you hear this from criminals from time to time. It's like I was standing above myself, seeing myself do this. It wasn't really me. No, it was you.
35:06 Speaker 01 Yeah, it was you for sure.
35:08 Speaker 00 Larry and Connie recounted the abduction in an interview for the show Feds. Larry said, it was about seven o'clock in the morning. I was sound asleep. I thought I was dreaming. I felt a presence in the room and I saw this person standing next to the bed, dressed in black and with a gun. Finally, I realized this is real and I yelled. And the next thing I knew, he shot a taser at me. Connie said, the first words that I spoke were, oh, Lord, please help us. Please help us. And his first words to me were, where's your God now?
35:44 Speaker 01 Okay.
35:45 Speaker 00 Pretty rough for a couple of very religious people.
35:49 Speaker 01 Including him, he attended the same church.
35:52 Speaker 00 That is true. I forgot about that. But again, as I've said often, you know, these home invasion type scenarios are very scary to me. You know, you're, you're supposed to be all bundled up, safe in your home, you're sleeping. We've talked about how vulnerable people are when they're sleeping. You wake up to see a man all in black with a gun. Very scary.
36:17 Speaker 01 It would be scary.
36:19 Speaker 00 Connie was forced to handcuff Larry and the masked man handcuffed her. He put tape on their eyes and mouths and they were ordered to keep quiet. They were forced into the trunk of the Chevy Capri and were in the car for about half an hour. Now, those cars did have a big trunk.
36:36 Speaker 01 They did, kind of, probably kind of roomy. I mean, if you're going to be put into a trunk.
36:41 Speaker 00 That, that's not a bad car to.
36:43 Speaker 01 Yeah.
36:43 Speaker 00 For it to be.
36:44 Speaker 01 Stretch your legs out a little bit.
36:46 Speaker 00 Connie said that once they arrived at the house, he took me out first and led me to what I thought was going to be a small room, but it turned out to be a closet. And then I had to climb down a ladder. Connie asked Chad, why are you doing this? He said, he would keep them until he got all their money and then he would have to kill them.
37:08 Speaker 01 Oh, he's being upfront about it.
37:10 Speaker 00 Yeah, which I guess to me is kind of a strange way to go about it. Maybe you might want to give the person some hope. I'm not telling abductors how to do their business, obviously, but you know, when you tell someone that you're going to kill them ahead of time, what do they have to lose?
37:29 Speaker 01 What's their incentive to help? You get what you need?
37:32 Speaker 00 And be cooperative and, and all that. Connie knew that writing the note at the bank was their last chance to be rescued. They believed that God helped them through their ordeal. Larry recalled the fear he felt when Connie was taken to the bank. He said, when he took her through the bank, I kept going through different scenarios. What should I have done? What could I have done? What can I do? How do I help her? And just being tied up there and knowing there was nothing I could do to help her. I'll never forget that. And that must have been a sense of helplessness that, you know, would just drive you, drive you crazy.
38:13 Speaker 01 It would. It would.
38:15 Speaker 00 Connie said Larry never thought that he protected me, but he did. He stood by me the whole time and he was there and did everything in his power to protect me and he's continued to do that. And let's face it, what else could the guy do? You have a guy with a gun.
38:32 Speaker 01 Right.
38:33 Speaker 00 You're tied up. You don't have a lot of options. Not just tied up, you're handcuffed.
38:39 Speaker 01 Very limited.
38:40 Speaker 00 Yeah, you're limited in, in what you can do.
38:43 Speaker 01 But at least, you know, he's letting her know, I'm here with you, we're in this together.
38:48 Speaker 00 Yeah. And Larry called his wife a hero, saying she didn't have to come back. She could have stayed right there at the bank and sent the police, but she didn't do it. She came back on her own free will, just so they could find me. She came back to save me.
39:05 Speaker 01 Yeah, she really did.
39:06 Speaker 00 Yeah.
39:07 Speaker 01 And that says a lot.
39:08 Speaker 00 It does. I mean, you really have to give her credit for that because I'm sure that must have been a scary thing to do. But I think it also shows you, you know, how much she loved her husband.
39:24 Speaker 01 Yeah.
39:25 Speaker 00 I mean, she wasn't going to leave him alone.
39:27 Speaker 01 Some wives or partners would have stayed. Some might not have even went to the bank to get the check.
39:35 Speaker 00 Just taking off.
39:36 Speaker 01 Yeah.
39:37 Speaker 00 And left forever. On February 9th, 2017, Chad Skipper was charged with home invasion, kidnapping, and two counts of aggravated kidnapping. Chad's parents, Marlin and Linda Skipper, sued him in July 2017. They found evidence that Chad lied about several investments he made on their behalf. According to the suit, in September 2010, while Chad was working as a financial advisor, his parents invested $160,000 from their 401k into a principal annuity account. Chad closed that account without telling his parents. It was worth
40:17 Speaker 00 about $221,000 by that time. His parents claimed Chad took the money for himself.
40:24 Speaker 01 He's just a thief.
40:25 Speaker 00 Yeah. Not only is he bad.
40:28 Speaker 01 Yeah.
40:29 Speaker 00 At investing, he, he just takes the investments as well. They also alleged that between February 2013 and February 2017, Chad led them to believe he had invested $10,000 in annuity and $77,000 into a CD. He took that money and $600 a month he received as part of the CD.
40:55 Speaker 01 He is just not going to get the, uh, son of the year award.
41:00 Speaker 00 No, I mean, bad enough to do this to other people, but to do it to your own parents and steal their hard earned money, their retirement savings? I mean, that's pretty low.
41:10 Speaker 01 He's a scumbag.
41:11 Speaker 00 He also allegedly cashed a check on one of their credit cards and charged over $13,000 to a card he opened in their name.
41:20 Speaker 01 Wow.
41:21 Speaker 00 Between September 2012 and March 2013, Chad allegedly rolled money from his parents' 401k into a company called Skipper Financial Services. He allegedly stole around $97,000 during that period. In total, Gibbs, his parents accused him of stealing around $444,000 from that.
41:45 Speaker 01 Almost a half a million dollars. How do you do that to anybody, let alone your parents?
41:51 Speaker 00 Well, it's a ton of money, but let's look at what the money represents, right? Most likely their life savings and what they're going to be relying on to live the rest of their lives after retirement.
42:07 Speaker 01 Yeah, now, now the, because you did that, what do they have besides maybe social, social security?
42:13 Speaker 00 Easy, easy for you to say.
42:17 Speaker 00 Yeah, I mean, this probably forced them to keep working longer than what they wanted to. And it's just terrible. They discovered the theft shortly after law enforcement searched the desk in his home after he was arrested. In September 2017, First Trust and Savings Bank filed for foreclosure on a house in Erie, owned by Chad. The bank attempted to recover $44,000 on the line of credit Chad took out against the house in 2013. And it's kind of ironic, right? This is the same bank where Chad attempted to cash the $350,000 cashier's check.
42:58 Speaker 01 Okay.
42:59 Speaker 00 On November 15th, 2018, Chad Skipper pleaded guilty to three charges, two counts of aggravated kidnapping and concealing identity, home invasion with a dangerous weapon. So, you know, aggravated kidnapping, brutal. Concealing identity, all right.
43:20 Speaker 01 Yeah.
43:21 Speaker 00 You know, maybe not at the top of the list, but home invasion with a dangerous weapon, that's up there as well. He was previously charged with harassment and witness tampering, but those charges were dismissed with his guilty plea.
43:35 Speaker 01 I'm just trying to figure out what the heck did he do with all this money that he stole from his parents? Like, did he have a, I don't believe the research ever said, did he have like a
43:46 Speaker 00 A drug habit?
43:46 Speaker 01 Drug habit or gambling problem or?
43:49 Speaker 00 Yeah, it didn't say that. What it did talk about was bad investments.
43:53 Speaker 01 Yeah.
43:53 Speaker 00 So is it possible that, you know, he made some bad investments?
44:00 Speaker 00 And then he was, cause this is a vicious cycle, right? It's like gambling. You lose a bunch of money at the track. So you go get a bunch of money from somewhere else and try to make it up gambling on something else. And you just keep getting deeper and deeper in debt.
44:16 Speaker 01 What do you do? Did he invest it with, uh, uh, what's that? Leo DiCaprio's, uh,
44:23 Speaker 00 Wolf of Wall Street.
44:25 Speaker 01 Penny stocks and just didn't pay it out?
44:27 Speaker 00 Maybe, we don't know. On April 3rd, 2019, Chad was sentenced to 60 years in prison without the possibility of parole. He was 40 years old at the time of his arrest. According to the Illinois DOC website, Chad's projected discharge date is 2071. He would be in his eighties by that time.
44:53 Speaker 01 I don't feel bad for the guy.
44:54 Speaker 00 I don't either.
44:55 Speaker 01 His parents are gotta be struggling because of what he did to them. Um, and then obviously what he did to this other family, but, um, and who knows who else he stole money from.
45:07 Speaker 00 Right. There could have been other people as well.
45:10 Speaker 01 If you can steal money from your mom and dad, you can steal money from anybody.
45:14 Speaker 00 Oh, I, I would say that's absolutely correct. But you and I just got done dropping a Patreon episode on Saturday night, this past Saturday night. And in that episode, now granted, we were in Australia, right? But somebody got like six years or so.
45:37 Speaker 01 Yeah.
45:38 Speaker 00 For doing some really bad things. Now, I'm not saying this is not bad, but what it does show is the difference between countries. And we talk about that quite a bit as far as it come, as far as it goes, um, with sentencing and things like that.
45:55 Speaker 01 Big difference.
45:55 Speaker 00 Yeah, I'm, I'm happy with 60 years.
45:59 Speaker 01 Oh, I am too. He would have probably killed these two individuals.
46:05 Speaker 00 There's a good chance.
46:06 Speaker 01 If he didn't have the accent that he had and they, you know, were able to locate the mysterious dungeon.
46:15 Speaker 00 Yeah, yeah, you're, you're probably right. But that's it for our episode on the abduction of the Van Oostens. And you got anything else?
46:27 Speaker 01 No, did I? At one point, I was gonna be Rex Van West.
46:31 Speaker 00 Uh huh.
46:32 Speaker 01 Cause like Von Van West, you know, like.
46:36 Speaker 00 Like Van Helsing?
46:37 Speaker 01 Yes, exactly. Go around and chase vampires and stuff.
46:41 Speaker 00 So we didn't, I don't know if everybody noticed, but I got a couple of new signs here.
46:49 Speaker 00 Yeah, yours, yours has your alter ego on it. But if anybody likes the signs and you know, you can get these little things made up. They're not very, they're not very expensive at all. But if you'd like to go out to our website, we have our mailing address on there.
47:06 Speaker 01 We do.
47:07 Speaker 00 Uh, send us a couple. As long as they're not too vulgar, you know, we'll put them up for sure.
47:12 Speaker 01 Yes, you will. Especially if they have something funny about me. I know.
47:16 Speaker 00 Absolutely. Or if they're funny about me, I can, I can, I can take it as well. All right, buddy. That is it for another episode of True Crime All The Time. So we'll talk to you all next week. And for Mike and Gibby.
47:30 Speaker 01 And Gibby.
47:32 Speaker 00 I messed that completely up, didn't I?
47:33 Speaker 01 You, you do that now and then.
47:35 Speaker 00 And for Mike.
47:36 Speaker 01 And Gibby.
47:36 Speaker 00 Stay safe and keep your own time ticking. I think it's weird because we don't do the music and we don't do all of that. So I get out of my natural rhythm.
47:46 Speaker 01 Intro, intro and outro?
47:47 Speaker 00 Yeah, to get technical.
47:50 Speaker 01 Yeah.
47:50 Speaker 00 All right. We love you all and we'll see you next episode.
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