Keith Byrd (5:54)

There to this day? There's a rumor mill that flows.

Eva Pilgrim (5:58)

The first time I interviewed him, I was like, oh, my God, this guy did it. This guy did it. Why speak up now? Because it's been years. I've always spoken up. Nobody's ever asked me. From ABC Audio In 2020, this is what happened to Holly Bo Episode 1 A Scream on Swan Johnson Road. To understand the Holly Bobo case, you have to understand Decatur County, Tennessee. It's the kind of place where locals can tell you're not from there. Literally my first day there, my producers and I went to a restaurant and they asked me, where are you from? And we laughed because it was just so obvious we weren't from there. Not because our clothes were different, but because it's rare in a place like this for a stranger to walk in, let alone a whole table full of them. I grew up in South Carolina and it reminded me of the small southern towns I knew. There is a tangible warmth that comes from a history between people that goes back generations. Neighbors truly help neighbors. They care about each other. And even if you don't like someone, you know them. Decatur county runs right along the Tennessee River. If you look up the county on Google Maps, you'll see mostly green. The vastness of the woods is interrupted just once in a while by a church, a sawmill, or maybe a gravel company. There are two main roads and then a few smaller ones that pass by farms and big towering pine trees. The county has a lot of creeks which look like long, skinny fingers on the map. And then there are the few small towns in the county which stand out as gray splotches from above. Keith Byrd is the former sheriff of Decatur County.

Keith Byrd (7:59)

It's rural. Our eastern boundary is along the Tennessee River. That's probably our biggest natural resource and people move there to retire.

Eva Pilgrim (8:10)

The biggest employers in the county include the local government, a construction company, a manufacturing company, and a trailer company that employs 36 people. Many people in the county also work in agriculture and logging. According to the U.S. census, 94% of the county is white and nearly 20% of its residents live in poverty. That's almost double the national average. Decatur county is small. The population of the entire county is just under 12,000 people.

Keith Byrd (8:46)

Everybody pretty much knows everybody. Recently we've had an influx of people from other states moving in. Our property values and taxes are pretty low and the new people that have come in, it won't be long till a lot of people will know them. And you know, it's small town. Everybody knew Holly and her family.

Eva Pilgrim (9:09)

When Holly went missing, people were shocked that this kind of crime, a kidnapping, could happen in a place like this.

Keith Byrd (9:18)

This case is probably the most serious news creating case that's been in that county for probably two or three generations.

Eva Pilgrim (9:32)

I know it's a trope to talk about a place where people trust their Neighbors and say, nothing this bad ever happens here. But the setting of holly's disappearance is surprising for reasons beyond that collective sense of security. This isn't a place where you could just stumble upon someone's home by accident. You'd have to know how to get to the house.

Keith Byrd (9:57)

The area around their home was forest. Some of it was agricultural land, Some of it was pastures.

Eva Pilgrim (10:06)

In the town of darden, where the bobo house is, There aren't many street signs. The roads are largely one way, unlit. There are also unmarked logging roads used to haul trees out of the forest. Cell phone reception is spotty, and without gps, it would be very easy to get lost if you haven't driven around here before. Houses can be miles apart from each other. The best directions to get around come from landmarks. That bright mailbox, that little furniture store. Investigators said to find the bobo house, you'd really have to know the area. You'd have to basically be targeting the house, targeting holly. Their house is at the end of a long driveway. At the time, it was marked by a black mailbox with a green wooden sign under it that read, the bobos.

Keith Byrd (11:04)

It's a ranch style house. Sit back in the woods. There wasn't a lot of residences on that road. As a matter of fact, their house was the last house on that road. My wife at that time was the rural mail carrier for that area. She carried their mail for years before and after holly's abduction.

Eva Pilgrim (11:26)

The house is on 23 acres of land and has a private pond for fishing. It's normal to see wildlife. Deer, turkeys, and squirrels. The house has a carport that's basically a garage, but without a door, a back deck, and a pool. It has dark brown siding and brick with white window shutters. Holly's parents, Dana and karen bobo, built the house with Dana's father in 1982. Karen and Dana raised their two kids, Holly and Clint, there. My former colleague Elizabeth vargas interviewed karen and Dana back in 2017.

Karen Bobo (12:04)

Holly was an absolute joy. From the day she was born. It just seemed like there was something special about her. She was always kind to people and appreciated the small things in life.

Eva Pilgrim (12:16)

She was real caring of other people. I think that's why she wanted to be a nurse. Dana bobo worked for a tree cutting company where he operated the mowing machine. Karen bobo was a teacher at scotts hill elementary school. She had holly and her brother in her class.

Karen Bobo (12:37)

I taught clint in the sixth grade, and I had holly in the fourth grade. Well, holly was the perfect student. Always wanted to get her Work finished and had everything ready ahead of time. Clint I had to tap on his desk just about every day. And then when we'd get in the car, he'd say, why are you always tapping on my desk and no one else is? And I said, because everybody else is paying attention.

Eva Pilgrim (13:01)

Holly had an especially close relationship with her mom.

Karen Bobo (13:05)

If something went wrong, she would always call me. We shared a bond that she would sometimes look at me and say, that's scary because we could finish each other's sentences.

Eva Pilgrim (13:16)

You were always that close?

Karen Bobo (13:17)

Always that close.

Eva Pilgrim (13:18)

From the time she was born.

Karen Bobo (13:20)

Pretty much from the time she was born, we enjoyed doing the same things.

Eva Pilgrim (13:25)

Like what?

Karen Bobo (13:26)

Riding horses? Listen to the radio.

Eva Pilgrim (13:30)

When Holly got her driver's license years earlier, she would drop her mom off at the elementary school and then head to the high school.

Karen Bobo (13:38)

She said, well, that's silly for us both to drive. You can just ride with me. It was kind of a joke around school, like carrying your rides here.

Eva Pilgrim (13:47)

After graduating high school, Holly attended a local community college and then began her nursing studies at the University of Tennessee At Martin Parsons Center. Karen says her future was bright. She planned to get her nursing degree and marry her boyfriend Drew, who had given her a promise ring the Christmas before she disappeared.

Karen Bobo (14:09)

You know, even talked about could they live close to us and things like that.

Eva Pilgrim (14:14)

But on April 13, 2011, Karen left for work and she would never hear from her daughter again. The morning Holly disappeared, Karen and Dana got up around 5:30 for work like they usually did. Karen went to check on Holly, who was preparing for an upcoming test in one of her nursing classes.

Karen Bobo (14:37)

She was sitting up against the wall on her bed and had her books in her hands. And she said that she'd been up since about 4:30 studying for the test.

Eva Pilgrim (14:47)

It was Wednesday, which meant Holly had class. Later that day, Karen made Holly's lunch. A sandwich, some bite sized candy bars to satisfy Holly's sweet tooth and water. She packed it in a white lunch bag with black polka dots and a blue H sewn on the front. Before Karen left for work, Holly came to the kitchen to eat breakfast.

Karen Bobo (15:12)

So that morning I got her muffins out of the refrigerator, put them on a plate and stuck them in the microwave. She was sitting at the kitchen table studying and I kissed her goodbye and told her I loved her. Just like every other morning.

Eva Pilgrim (15:25)

Holly's parents went off to work. Karen Bobo was with her class of second graders in the cafeteria when the school secretary came up to her and told Karen something that would change her life forever.

Karen Bobo (15:40)

She didn't want to alarm me, but the neighbor had called and thought they heard screams coming from the house.

Eva Pilgrim (15:49)

The neighbors weren't close to their house. In the spring, with the trees blooming, they wouldn't even be able to see each other's houses. So the fact that the neighbor heard screams and that he then called his mother, who was alarmed enough to call Karen at work, it says something. It was undeniably a sign of trouble. Karen didn't bring her phone with her to the cafeteria. She had left it in her classroom. The nearest phone she could think of was in the school's office. But she thought she saw too many people there to make such a frightening call. So she went to the library instead to call Clint, who was home. He tells her he saw Holly in the carport with a man he assumed was her boyfriend, Drew. But Karen knew it couldn't be Drew. Karen had spoken with him that morning, and he was turkey hunting around 20 miles from the house. So when Clint told you on the phone, Holly and Drew just walked off into the woods.

Karen Bobo (16:57)

I said, that's not Drew. Get a gun and shoot him. And Clint said, you want me to shoot Drew? And I think that's when I hung up and called 911. You know, when things like this happen, everybody's like, oh, I would have done this. I would have done that. The truth is, you don't know what you would do or say. So I never got the words out. I've talked to Drew on the phone because I am in a full fledged panic by then.

Eva Pilgrim (17:23)

There wasn't enough time for you to turn in my text?

Karen Bobo (17:25)

No, I was just trying to get someone over to the house.

Eva Pilgrim (17:29)

So she left the library and ran to the school's Office to call 911, but it went to the wrong county's.

Karen Bobo (17:35)

Dispatcher and I collapsed to the floor. And everybody trying to say, it's okay, Karen, this is all just a mistake. But see, they didn't know what I knew that morning, which was Drew was not in our house. It couldn't be Drew. And that the neighbor had heard a scream. No one in that office knew that.

Eva Pilgrim (17:55)

Karen's co worker helped her off the floor and walked her to the parking lot so that she could drive Karen home. Karen called 911 again. This time it went to the right dispatcher in Decatur County. Somebody has my daughter. They have kidnapped her. Karen and her co worker sped through the county's winding roads.

Karen Bobo (18:19)

I'm trying to take her the fastest route. So I'm up all in the window you know, saying, hang a right, hang a left. I don't know how fast we were going, but fast.

Eva Pilgrim (18:30)

Fast as in what's usually a 25 minute drive took only 15 minutes. When they pulled up to the house, Karen says a couple cop cars were already there.

Karen Bobo (18:41)

When I get there, I don't remember what order. Everything went in. Ran through the woods, calling her name, and then more people come up.

Eva Pilgrim (18:53)

One thing that has been described is that that scene in those first moments outside your home was chaos. You had people showing up. You had police arguing with other police from over who had jurisdiction. You, you were running through the woods yourself. At one point, you even told the police she was younger than she was in the hopes of getting an ambulance.

Karen Bobo (19:20)

I did because I kept asking them to put out an Amber Alert, and they're like, we can't. And I did not know the stipulations for an Amber Alert.

Eva Pilgrim (19:30)

Someone told Karen Bobo that law enforcement doesn't issue Amber Alerts for people over 17. Holly was 20.

Karen Bobo (19:39)

So I do remember when a TBI agent got there, I ran straight to him and told him she was 17.

Eva Pilgrim (19:51)

Investigators from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, local sheriff's offices, and police departments showed up to the House. The FBI, the U.S. marshals Service, FEMA, and Homeland Security did too. Everyone was asking the same questions. Where is Holly and what happened to her? By the time Dana Bobo made it home from work, about 40 minutes away, he remembers between 50 and 100 people being at the house already. They filled the property. The driveway and the road were full of cars.

Clint Bobo (20:31)

When I got there, I had to.

Eva Pilgrim (20:33)

Pull way past the driveway of the house. And what stuck out to him as he ran up the driveway is that his son Clint was in the back seat of a patrol car. And I was trying to talk to him and asked him what went on. We talked for just a few seconds.

Clint Bobo (20:52)

He said he seen somebody walk Holly into the woods or walking out of.

Eva Pilgrim (20:55)

The yards toward the woods.

Keith Byrd (20:57)

And that's about all I got out of him.

Eva Pilgrim (20:59)

He was writing his statement. He said, dad, I've got to write my statement out. Clint was the only one who caught even a glimpse of what happened. He was the last person to see Holly before she went missing and the person who saw her disappear into the woods. Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile with a message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop with Mint. You can get premium wireless for just $15 a month, of course, if you enjoy overpaying, no judgments. But that's weird. Okay, one judgment anyway. Give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment of $45 for three month plan equivalent to $15 per month required intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See full terms@mintmobile.com this episode is brought to you by Lifelock. Not everyone is careful with your personal information, which might explain why there's a victim of identity theft every five in the US. Fortunately, there's LifeLock. LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats to your identity. If your identity is stolen, a US based restoration specialist will fix it, guaranteed or your money back. Save up to 40% your first year by visiting lifelock.com podcast terms apply. Did you know that parents rank financial literacy as the number one most difficult life skill to teach? Meet Greenlight, the debit card and money app for families. With Greenlight, you can send money to kids quickly, set up chores automate allowance and keep an eye on your kids spending with real time notifications. Kids learn to earn, save and spend wisely and parents can rest easy knowing their kids are learning about money. With guardrails in place, Try Greenlight risk free today@greenlight.com Spotify the cultural phenomenon the.

Karen Bobo (22:56)

Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is back.

Eva Pilgrim (22:58)

With an all new season coming to Hulu May 15th. Where is everyone at?

Karen Bobo (23:02)

Mom Talk has gotten to a really hostile point.

Eva Pilgrim (23:05)

Demi is willing to kick Jessie out of the group.

Clint Bobo (23:07)

I feel like I'm walking into a lion's den.

Eva Pilgrim (23:09)

It's gonna get messy for sure. Mom Talk is turning on each other left and right. The police are here. I can't see this going any other way but a pure bloodbath. This is so toxic. The Secret Lives of Mormonwives Streaming on Hulu May 15th. Marvel Studios Thunderbolts is an MCU game changer. Look what you unleashed. A must see in imax. That's what they to a home run. I should have seen this coming. It's perfection.

Clint Bobo (23:41)

Thank you.

Eva Pilgrim (23:42)

We needed this and it's the best Marvel movie since Endgame. Marvel Studios Thunderbolts now playing. Rated PG 13. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13. Yeah, the NBA playoffs are here and it's about to be. Ridiculous. Unbelievable, Unfair, Downright nasty. Straight up, can't miss, don't blink. Grab your popcorn and strap in. Cinema this isn't about who's next. This is about who's now. This time it's different. The NBA playoff is presented by Google Continue on ESPN and ABC on April 13, 2011. Clint Bobo had the day off. He was working part time and studying to become a social worker at the University of Tennessee at Martin. In 2017, he told ABC News that his plan for the day was to sleep in and spend the day doing homework.

Clint Bobo (24:47)

Well, I woke up, heard our little house dog named Rascal, and I heard him barking, and his barking is initially, I believe, what woke me up, but I was able to fall back asleep.

Eva Pilgrim (25:00)

Clint says he did not hear screams, just Rascals barking. And Rascal kept barking.

Clint Bobo (25:08)

So that was a little bit unusual. I thought that enough time had passed that whoever was there, you know, whatever, had had time to check the meter or deliver the package and then leave or if it was someone driving by. But he just continued to bark. So I decided to get up, you know, to see what he was working at.

Eva Pilgrim (25:25)

Groggy and disoriented from being woken up earlier than he expected, Clint says he walked from his bedroom on one end of the house to the living room at the other end, where Rascal was barking. He looked out the windows to the front of the house and didn't see anyone. Then he walked to the back of the house and didn't see anyone there either. But he did see Holly's black Mustang was still in the carport, which was strange. She should have left for school already. He called and texted his mom to ask why Holly's car would still be there, but didn't get a response right away. What he didn't know was that his mother didn't have her phone on her. She was at school and had just been told that the neighbor heard screams. Glenn says he went to a different window to see the carport more clearly. He still didn't see anyone, but he says he heard people talking.

Clint Bobo (26:23)

So I listened just briefly, and I could tell it was a male and a female voice.

Eva Pilgrim (26:27)

He says he believe he heard the voices of Holly and her boyfriend Drew. That's when his mom called him back and confirmed Holly did have school and that nobody should be coming to pick her up. Clint says he then told his mom that Holly and Drew were outside.

Clint Bobo (26:45)

And then I believe it was at that point that I had raised up the blinds slightly, and I could see a silhouette of what looked to be Holly and a man dressed in camouflage. Well, I knew that I expected Drew to be dressed in camouflage because Drew and I had talked the night before, and he told me he was going turkey hunting that morning.

Eva Pilgrim (27:07)

His mom said it couldn't be Drew outside, but didn't explain how she knew that before she Hung up. So Clint kept thinking the man in camouflage was Drew. But minutes later, his mom called Clint again and reiterated that man was not Drew.

Clint Bobo (27:27)

She said, that's not Drew, Clint. Get a gun and shoot him. And I said, so you want me to shoot Drew? And I think that's when she hung. She must have hung the phone up again.

Eva Pilgrim (27:37)

Clint got a.38 Colt revolver and went from the window to the back door. That's when he says he saw Holly and the man in camouflage walking into the woods behind the house. He says Holly was walking on her own and did not appear to be hurt.

Clint Bobo (27:54)

And there's a trail that Holly and I are both very familiar with. There's a trail in the woods right there. And this. That trail leads you to a logging road.

Eva Pilgrim (28:01)

Clint stepped outside and saw a pool of blood by Holly's Mustang. It was right where he says he had seen the two silhouettes. He wasn't panicked. He wasn't sure something horrible had happened to Holly. He just figured the blood may have been from a turkey Drew killed and brought back with him. But while Clint was outside, the neighbor showed up. That's when Clint called 911, too. But he was still confused, still thinking there was a chance the man he saw with Holly was Drew. And if not, maybe it was their cousin Richie. Richie also hunted and could be wearing camouflage. As Clint tried to figure out what was going on, police cars started arriving. And then his mom made it back to the house. How did your mom look when she showed up?

Clint Bobo (28:53)

Very panicked. She was very panicked. I remember her coming up to me and shaking me, and she said, clint, why didn't you do something? To be honest, I'm expecting Holly and Richie to come back to the house, and Holly's gonna be so mad at me because I've called 911, the police, police, you know, she's. We've made such a big deal out of nothing. That's what I was expecting to happen. But that didn't happen.

Eva Pilgrim (29:17)

The man in camouflage was not Drew and was not Richie. Clint ended up spending the rest of the day with law enforcement, answering questions and writing down everything he remembered for the police. That's why his dad saw him in the patrol car when he first got back to the house. Former sheriff Keith Byrd was at the Bobo house when the search for Holly began.

Keith Byrd (29:44)

The day that it happened, we had some small search teams that were put together to look into the woods where she was led away from her house. You know, that was probably a couple hundred people that day, and we were scattered out 10 yards apart where you could see the people on either side of you. And we were sweeping this area of woods.

Eva Pilgrim (30:08)

Over the course of the search, the Tennessee bureau of investigation sent pilots to fly over the woods to look for holly. Water teams went into four different ponds and parts of the Tennessee river. Dogs were sent out to search for her. 75 wells were checked. And every day more and more local volunteers signed up to look for Holly too. Eventually, thousands of them were part of the effort. An army of volunteers have searched every day for the missing 20 year old nursing student, on foot and on four wheelers, hoping to find a sign. The community was shocked. It's kind of like we're all living this nightmare with them. We've just come together as a community, Even people outside the community, from Memphis, Jackson, everyone surrounding, because it's just brought.

Clint Bobo (30:57)

Us closer and just shows that we.

Eva Pilgrim (30:59)

Really care about each other. A command center was set up for volunteers with tents and long plastic folding tables for passing out food. Lines of people in camo and boots stood in parking lots to sign up for the search.

Keith Byrd (31:16)

You drive by the fairgrounds and you would, except for the carnival rides, you would think the fair was going on. There were so many people there. And you know, Tennessee's known as the volunteer state, and that's what happened. Everybody volunteered and, and came to help and, and you know, granny and her, her church ladies, you know, they couldn't go out and beat the bushes looking, but they kept everybody well fed and, and I mean, everybody pulled together.

Eva Pilgrim (31:50)

When Hawley disappeared, the weather was mild. But weeks into the search, violent storms flooded Decatur county and caused widespread damage to roads and buildings. The storms brought the search to a temporary halt. Eventually, volunteers were able to go back out in the foggy and damp weather. They put on yellow ponchos and raincoats that fell beneath their knees. They brought binoculars, walking sticks, and their dogs. There was so much land to cover, and much of it had tall grass and thick mud. I asked U.S. marshals Agent John Walker about what the search was like. You know, anytime you come up with an area that you thought something might be in, it would be.

Keith Byrd (32:38)

Volunteers show up by the hundreds to.

Eva Pilgrim (32:39)

Go search to see if they could find something else, see if they could find something. A few days into the search, they did find something. It was hanging off a big stick in a creek. Holly's lunch bag, the one her mom had packed for her the morning she disappeared. The sandwich her mom made her was still inside. It was a potential breakthrough. Was this something that could lead to more of Holly's belongings or to Holly. Agent John Walker decided to follow the Creek. And within 30 minutes, he came upon another clue. Holly's school notebook. But investigators didn't find anything else that day. The lunch bag and notebook seemed to be dead ends. The massive investigation has turned up nearly 300 new leads, but still no Holly. Volunteers say they don't plan on stopping until she is found. The searches went on for weeks. They covered over 200 miles of roads in Decatur county and over 1,000 square miles. They canvassed six neighboring counties as well. While the volunteer army continued their search, investigators from local, state and federal law enforcement agencies were gathering leads. As those leads poured in, the agents were just trying to wrap their heads around the basics of the case. They sent the blood in the carport for DNA testing to see if it was Holly's. They found a shoe print on the floor and a handprint on Holly's car. And they hoped this might lead them to answers. But their attention also turned to a range of people in the area who they considered potential suspects. Everybody was a suspect at the time. We did not know all. While the Bobo family was waiting for answers.

Karen Bobo (34:38)

It was like our whole life became an open book and we were just. Everything just totally changed.

Eva Pilgrim (34:47)

That's next time on what happened to Holly Bobo. What Happened to Holly Bobo is a production of ABC Audio and 20 20. Hosted by me, Eva Pilgrim. The series was produced by Camille Peterson, Julia Nutter, Kiara Powell, Nora Hannah and Meg Fierro with help from Audrey Mostek and Amira Williams. Our supervising producer is Susie Liu. Music and mixing by Evan Viola. Special thanks to Liz Alessi, Janice Johnston, Michelle Margula, Sean Dooley, Christina Corbin, Kieran McGurl, Andrew Paparella and Emma Pisha. Josh Cohan is our director of podcast programming. Laura Mayer is our executive producer.

Keith Byrd (35:42)

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Eva Pilgrim (35:43)

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Karen Bobo (35:45)

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