Britt (4:49)

Matt, I need your help. Sharon has got my keys and isn't home. No answer. If I have to knock on Your door at 2, please don't be a grump. I don't wanna spend the night sleeping in the hall. Peg. But this note is in Peggy's bag. Like, Matt doesn't have it.

Unknown (5:08)

No, no, this is in her bag.

Ashley Flowers (5:10)

And so Matt actually lived even closer to the prime minister than Peggy. Peggy did. So there are, like, you know, two possibilities here. Either she goes and, like, puts this on Matt's door and then she goes out. She ends up getting back into her place and then goes back to Matt's and collects the note because she no longer needs to show up at his place at 2am or she writes the note, goes out, ends up getting back into her place before she ever drops the note off.

Britt (5:36)

Doesn't need a note at all.

Ashley Flowers (5:37)

She's in. It doesn't even matter anymore. And it's like a moot point. It's like living in her purse. And maybe she forgot about it, I don't know.

Britt (5:43)

And did Matt see the Note, like what did he say about it?

Ashley Flowers (5:47)

That. Well, that's the thing. So based on the files that I've seen, it doesn't appear like they ask him about it, which, like maybe they're just writing it off. But to me it feels like. It feels really interesting. Like did. Did she plan on coming to your place? Did you know she was planning on coming to your place?

Britt (6:01)

Did she mention it to you? Like something. Yeah.

Ashley Flowers (6:02)

And we know they spoke and that like him, her coming to his house was never a part of the story he told when they spoke. So just a reminder of his story. So Matt drove that night because he was kind of bopping around to different places. And he said that when he got to the prime minister, Peggy was arriving at the same time. They are like at the bar, they're chatting for a little bit, like everything's normal. And then his date, this girl he's supposed to meet up with, comes again. Maybe Shawn is, he thinks is her name. They just met that night. And he says that he offered Peggy a ride. She said yes originally. But then like at some point in the evening he went to the bathroom, he's coming out, Peggy's leaving. So he's like, oh, she must have changed her mind, whatever. He stays till last call with maybe Sean and then they go back to his place till 3 or 3:30. Now he does tell police though that even though their conversation was normal, it was great. She made mention, Peggy did. That she was seeing someone new during this time, which he thought police should know.

Britt (6:59)

You haven't mentioned that at all. So my question is like, was she actually seeing someone or was she seeing her on again, off again boyfriend Matt with someone new? She's like, oh, I too am newly in love. He's so hot and so rich, so.

Ashley Flowers (7:16)

Tall, better looking than you.

Britt (7:18)

Don't even worry about me. Like, was she bluffing?

Ashley Flowers (7:20)

I don't know. I don't know. So there's like some indications that maybe she was seeing someone like casually. I think it's also important to know that like Matt is that guy she would always go back to there in Colorado. And so much so that I found out that earlier in that week, I mean, they had had dinner together also. Apparently though as far as I can tell, not something that police asked him about, which is like, seems like a miss to me because like, like they're very much in each other's lives. And like what did you talk about? What were the days leading up to it? I don't know.

Britt (7:51)

Well, and the police don't ask about the note. They don't ask about this dinner within, like, the week before she died. Did they even ask about his alibi?

Ashley Flowers (8:00)

They did. They did check his alibi. They found maybe Sean and our reporter Emily actually found her all these years later and spoke to her. Turns out, maybe Sean. Her name is actually Dawn.

Britt (8:15)

Matt, you were so close.

Ashley Flowers (8:16)

So close. And her story is interesting. It adds a little bit of context, a little bit of color. She says that they really did just meet earlier that night. They had saw each other in another bar, and she said they recognized each other because Matt, like, a while ago, had sold her a car. So, like, they'd been in the same orbit before, but didn't even know each other's names clearly. Yeah, she said Matt came over to her and was like, hey, you know, when you're done with your friend, you should come to prime minister and hang out with me. Which is what she did. She says she shows up later in the evening, and when she walks in, Matt is talking to this other woman who she figures out later is Peggy. Didn't know Peggy at the time. And she said she kind of hangs back for a little while and waits, but a couple minutes go by, he's still talking, so she decides to approach him. As soon as she approaches Peggy, like, turns at the bar and starts talking to the guy next to her. And so dawn just made the assumption that Peggy was with that other guy. And Matt doesn't introduce dawn or anything. He just is like, hey, go get a table. So dawn goes to get a table for four, thinking that maybe the other couple is going to join them, but just Matt comes back, and she said she didn't ask him about it. She didn't even ask him about the woman. When she realized Matt's, like, kind of keeping an eye on her all night. Like, they just met. She doesn't know the history, but, like, she's not going to dig too deep. They're, like, having a decent time, and they do. They stay till last call. She goes home with Matt, they talk, they kiss a little. She says the night ends for, like, a combination of reasons. Like, you know, he's doing the like, oh, like, I gotta work in the morning. And then he also makes this comment about how he hates kids. Like, not like, dislikes kids. Like, hates them. And dawn is like, well, I have one of those, so this probably isn't going to work out. And so she ends up leaving. But when she talked to us, there was something else that she told us that really stood out to Her. She said that when she was in his apartment that night, it felt strange because she said it was so clean. Like, not just clean for a boy kind of apartment, but, like, she's like, I couldn't find, you know, a piece of clothing on the closet floor. I. There was not a fork to be found in the sink. Like, it felt like no one lived there, which was weird at the time. Whatever. But she said what was really strange for her was that police brought her back at some point years later, and they were asking her questions about Matt's apartment specifically. And they were asking her, like, had you seen a broken coffee table? Had you seen some spots on the floor? And they're, like, showing her pictures of the apartment. And we're gonna have one of these pictures up. I. I think, like, you. We talked about this. We're, like, originally imagining, like, a shattered coffee table.

Britt (10:54)

When I hear broken table. It is a broken table, very obviously.

Ashley Flowers (10:57)

It's like this, like, piece of wood propping up one of the legs.

Britt (11:00)

Like, one of the legs is broken. And now it has a piece of wood fully.

Ashley Flowers (11:04)

Something my husband would, like, do and then be like, it's fine for years if it was his apartment.

Britt (11:09)

Yes.

Ashley Flowers (11:10)

So. And then the spots, like, they're not, like, overtly blood or anything. There's just a couple of them. I don't know if they ever get those tested. And again, dawn is saying, no, I never saw any of that, because, again, it's so clean. But she said that wasn't even really the takeaway for her. As they're showing her these pictures, the takeaway for her is like, that's not the apartment I was. In, which it was like, full body chills when she was telling us that. And it's not like it was a completely different. She said it looked the same, the layout was the same.

Britt (11:38)

But this one looked lived in.

Ashley Flowers (11:40)

So lived in. I mean, if you see the pictures, there's, like, laundry everywhere. There's, like, stuff on the counters. Like, make no mistake, this dude lives here.

Britt (11:47)

Which I don't want to discredit Don's memory at all. But, like, we know human memory is incredibly flawed. There's a million statistics on it. I won't go through all of them. But there's one from the Innocence Project that's something like 70% of wrongful convictions come down to witness misidentification or misremembering. And that's, like, in the most perfect of circumstances. Right. Like, in this case, like, it's in the middle of the night. It's dark, they'd been drinking like this.

Ashley Flowers (12:14)

And when they're showing her these pictures, I mean, this is like years later, right, too. So. Yes. I mean, there could be, like. And I don't even know what to, like, make of this memory other than it's just so strange. But there were other strange things about Matt as well. Like when they went to talk to him the first, like, day or two after they found Peggy, they did search his car in his place, and apparently they seized some wet clothes and shoes from his car and wet clothes from his apartment. And not like damp. I mean, they said it looked like he'd gone swimming in these things. But strangely, like a couple of days later, Matt comes asking for those things back and they just give them back. Like, sorry we didn't like, wash and fold them for you.

Britt (12:53)

I mean, you say strangely, but a couple days later, they were all in on Tim.

Ashley Flowers (12:57)

I know, I know. But when you think about, like, at some point, I don't know what was happening years later. I think it was like the. Probably the grand jury, they're looking at these pictures, they're asking dawn about them. I think the implication was, did something happen in Matt's apartment after Don left?

Unknown (13:12)

Right.

Ashley Flowers (13:12)

Like, we got this maybe one and a half to two hours. Did a table break? Did these spots come after you left the house? And I point that out specifically because there's one other thing that they collected early on that I think is important.

Britt (13:29)

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Ashley Flowers (15:38)

Outside of Matt's apartment, they also found some footprints that matched the shoes Peggy was found in when she was killed and a pile of of like 11 cigarette butts in the brand that Peggy was known to smoke outside of his place, which the shoe.

Britt (15:53)

Prints I can kind of like excuse, right? Like she has this note. She might have been there to drop it off, then pick it up. So she was in her purse. Like, okay, but the cigarette butts, like that is a stakeout amount of cigarette butts.

Ashley Flowers (16:06)

11. I know, I know. And when they talk to her friends and this is like the little piece that comes out in that, like when I talk about the 2D image of her in the newspaper when they talk to her friends, her friends did say, you know, it wouldn't have been that unusual. She gets jealous. Like, when it comes to Matt, it wouldn't have been weird if she saw him with another woman that night. And then she went to his place to. We know she left ahead of them. Did she stake it out to see if he brought dawn home? Did she stay and see if dawn stayed or if dawn left? And if she was still there when dawn left, then did something happen? Was there a confrontation at Matt's apartment? The problem with that is it doesn't.

Britt (16:46)

Fit the theory that the attack happens in the field.

Ashley Flowers (16:48)

I know, like There's. There's pieces that are missing because in my mind, like, if something happens with Matt, like, it is a heat of the moment, like, passion thing. It's hard for me to imagine a world where either something happens in his apartment or even he, like, gets her in the car and then takes her to this place where someone could see something, takes her out of the car, stabs her, drags her. Like. Like, I can't. I can't make it up.

Britt (17:13)

It doesn't make sense. And I guess my question too is, was Matt a violent person? Was their relationship volatile because they've been on and off for a while? Like, was there a history of that?

Ashley Flowers (17:24)

There's nothing like, reported that I can find in Matt's, like, criminal history. He doesn't have anything violent. I mean, there's like some DUIs and stuff like that, but no, like, domestic charges, nothing like that. Which is why I go back to. I think if something happened between them, it was heat of the moment. But, like, it's hard for me to imagine it happening at Matt's. And then if not, it's hard for me to imagine how Matt gets her in the middle of that field.

Britt (17:47)

I mean, the biggest question, Does Matt have Tom McCann shoes?

Unknown (17:51)

No.

Ashley Flowers (17:52)

So they didn't find any Tom McCann dress shoes. They. They did take note of like a pair of boots that were like, propped up against his couch. But Don says those were the boots he was wearing the night Peggy died. They're not the prints that match anything in the field.

Britt (18:06)

Right.

Ashley Flowers (18:06)

And I get the sense that, like, those were his nice shoes. Like he. He didn't have a dress shoe guy. Right. And so maybe for all of those reasons, he didn't have Tom McCann's. He maybe had an alibi. He was acting how they expected him to act early on. People wrote him off, even though he too, like Tim, failed a polygraph and he failed the question, do you know who killed Peggy Hetrick?

Britt (18:33)

Like the question.

Ashley Flowers (18:34)

Yeah. But the polygrapher decided that he was probably telling the truth. And so that's Matt. Now, the other person we came across in the case file was a guy named Donnie Long. So the same year that Peggy was murdered, there were two more murders. 39 year old Linda Holt was stabbed nine times, bound, gagged, tied to a tree. Now, like Peggy's case, there was no sexual assault. But unlike Peggy's case, there was no mutilation to Linda. Then a couple of months after her 30 year old, Mana Hughes is murdered, she's stabbed 14 times. No sexual assault. Again, though no mutilation. Now, pretty quickly, police kind of pull Peggy out of this. Even though you've got three cases that happen within nine months of each other, within 30 miles in an area that doesn't really see violent crime. Well.

Britt (19:31)

And all the victims are, like, kind of in the same age range. 37, 39, 30. My crime junkie brain goes. Their last names all start with H. Hedrick Hughes Holt.

Ashley Flowers (19:42)

That's DEC Investigates Brain. I know, but, like, I. I think it's the. About the mutilation. I think that's the why. Very early on, they were like, peggy doesn't fit in this pattern. And they end up finding the guy responsible for Linda and Mana. They end up getting this Donnie Long guy. Donnie ends up confessing to Linda and Mana's murders. So they at least do the bare minimum, though. And, like, when he confesses to these, they, like, circle back and they're like, hey, you're saying you did these two things? Did you do this other thing? He's like, no, I didn't. And they're like, okay, thank you. Bye. Like, truly the bare minimum.

Britt (20:14)

And we're just out here, like, believing serial killers. Like, this is not the first time we've seen this happen. No, it always confuses me, shocks me.

Ashley Flowers (20:22)

This happened recently where I'm, like, working on this case out of Washington that I've been working on for, like, two years. And me and one of our reporters, Emily, we had a call with the FBI because we're like, listen, we're not saying it's Israel Keys, but here's, like, 20 things we find very odd that we, like, feel like someone other than us should know. And the agent was like, yeah, like, okay, we'll talk to you, but, like, don't need to hear it. He only killed four people in the state. And I'm like, wait, how do you know he only killed four people in Washington? I feel like that's, like, news.

Britt (20:52)

Yeah.

Ashley Flowers (20:52)

And he's like, but he told us that. And I was like, israel Keys told us so.

Britt (20:56)

Of all the bad guys to believe, we're believing Israel Keys. Israel Keys.

Ashley Flowers (21:00)

Okay, so he said he didn't do it. So they think he didn't do it. We tried to write to him when he was in prison just to see if he would talk to us. We haven't heard back from him. Which brings me to the third person I want to go deep into. And I told you, everyone has, like, their person, like, detectives. And for Ray Martinez, this next one is his. And for me, he's the person Whether or not he had anything to do with Peggy's case, I am very interested in because I think there is a much bigger story behind him, and that is local ophthalmologist Dr. Richard Hammond. Now, in 1987, this dude is raising no red flags. He has a thriving practice. He has a wife, two teenage kids, like, living the American dream. Except for, you know, the one red flag they raised about Tim in that he lived really close to the crime scene. In fact, you could see the crime scene from his primary bedroom window.

Britt (22:00)

But he wasn't doodling.

Ashley Flowers (22:02)

No, God forbid. So, I mean, he was a part of the initial canvas where they, like, came around. Did you see anything, hear anything? Him and his wife were home that night, but they didn't see or hear anything. And so they moved on. Again, no red flags. Plenty of red flags, though, come March of 1995. That's when a young woman at Colorado State University found this note card on their, like, job board for someone who needed a house sitter. The Hammonds were going out of town. She was going to come house sit. She brought her friend with her, and, you know, she's getting the tour of the house. Your room will be in the basement. You can use this bathroom, but, you know, make yourself at home, use the house, whatever. So her and her friend are there hanging out. There's something weird about the basement bathroom. Like, they keep hearing something. Now, I imagine if it were me and I was by myself, I would be like, I'll just use the upstairs bathroom.

Britt (23:01)

But she's not alone. She has a friend with her, right?

Ashley Flowers (23:04)

You got your crime junkie BFF with you, and you're like, today's the day. Going to solve the mystery?

Britt (23:08)

Absolutely.

Ashley Flowers (23:09)

So they start snooping around, right? Like, they get a flashlight. They're going all around the bathroom, and it's like they turn the light on, they hear the sound, they turn the light off. There's no sound. On, off, on, off.

Britt (23:19)

And I imagine that, like, one of them is, like, at the light, and the other one's like, okay, shh. And, like, kind of darting around the room to hear the sound from, like, where it's coming from.

Ashley Flowers (23:27)

Well, they end up getting a flashlight, and they realize that there are cameras in the vents.

Britt (23:35)

Plural. Cameras.

Ashley Flowers (23:36)

Cameras. But the cameras aren't set up like, in the bathroom. They're set up from the room next door. So they go out the hall and go to that room. But the door, the knob is, like, won't turn. It's locked. And again, if I were alone, I'D be like, is this where I stop? But you have your BFF with you.

Britt (23:56)

I don't know how to pick a lock, but I'm about to find out.

Ashley Flowers (24:00)

So they get their paperclips, whatever, and as they're like getting ready to pick this lock, what they realize is that even though it was locked, the knob wouldn't turn when it was pulled shut. It didn't latch all the way. So all they have to do is push it open. And when they go inside, they see cameras, they see recording equipment, they see filing cabinets, and a, quote, uncountable amount of videotapes. And that's when the one girl freezes and she's like, I think we need to phone a friend.

Britt (24:33)

Yeah.

Ashley Flowers (24:34)

Like, I think they're hoping that this isn't as bad as they think it is. But when they phone this friend and they call somebody who used to be a cop, he, quote, knows a lot about videotapes, very 1995. But he gets here and he's like, no, this is worse. We need to call the real police quickly. The real police descend on this place, and it's just worse than you could have imagined. I mean, they even find this index on top one of the filing cabinets. And it's like, got ages, names, dates. Is it a shower shot? Is it a toilet shot?

Unknown (25:09)

Is it a close up shot?

Ashley Flowers (25:11)

And when I say close up, this isn't just someone sitting on the toilet. I mean, this is zoomed into their genitals. And many of these names on the list are minors, like kids his kids go to school with.

Britt (25:26)

Well, and with the close ups, it, it makes me think of like Peggy. I mean, she was. She had genital mutilation.

Ashley Flowers (25:32)

I know. And that's not the only, like, thing they're piecing together. So, like, because this is happening in the same place, it's a lot of the same people who were called for Peggy's case, one of them being Sergeant Ray Martinez. And he says when he first gets his call to respond, he's like, Hammond, like, why do I know the name Hammond? And then it hits him. He's like, during our canvassing, we went.

Unknown (25:54)

To his house and then all of.

Ashley Flowers (25:56)

A sudden he's like putting the pieces together.

Britt (26:03)

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Ashley Flowers (27:08)

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Ashley Flowers (27:52)

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Unknown (27:55)

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Unknown (28:28)

So I'm tying this together. Weird cameras. Crime scene near the crime scene back then and he's a doctor and guess what we find in his closet? We start looking through his closet and we find Tom McCann's shoes. Boy, does that ever ring a bell. And so we called up Broderick, this other detective did, and he refused to come out. He wouldn't come to the scene. He said no, we already know who done it. That's a moot point. Basically, when Jim Roderick said that and the officer told me about it, I was angry about it because me As a past detective, you don't overlook anything. You flip over every stone that you can. You might be wrong where your lead was. Maybe this is something different. Why not look at what's it gonna hurt, right? But he refused to come out. So I told the officer that I said, let's just seize everything. Sees the tapes, sees the camera, sees those Tom McCann shoes, you know? So we did. We collected our own evidence and turned everything in, and it never went anywhere. And I think a day or two days later, he's found dead in a hotel in Denver. They said from what I've learned, that when they found him, his whole body was shaved. He shaved all the hair off his head and his body, complete body, and disposed of it. So that, to me is weird. Other than he didn't want any trace evidence linked to him. Why would you do that if he didn't think you might have left something behind at a scene?

Britt (30:13)

That, to me is also weird. Full on naked mole rat in a hotel room.

Ashley Flowers (30:21)

Dude, I don't know what to think of this. I. If you, like, look at what the people around him said who were, like, supportive of him in a way, saying, like, he couldn't do anything violent, they would say that he was very into bodybuilding. I, you know, I still try and find, like, old archives of, like, were there competitions? Like, was this something he was actively doing for how long? Because, like, I want to know, is this guy Nair smooth all the time or just on this day that he died?

Britt (30:49)

Feels important.

Ashley Flowers (30:50)

I don't know. But the people who supported him and supports the wrong word because nobody was like, well, we'll get there. But his wife basically was like, I didn't know, like, any of the videotape stuff was happening, but he's not capable of something violent.

Britt (31:05)

But how would she even know? Like, she didn't know about the tapes. Like, how would she even have any idea of what he's capable of?

Ashley Flowers (31:12)

And that's the thing I, like, I have such a hard time understanding. Like, we tried reaching out to her. We weren't able to get in touch, but I, I don't know how. Like, she was, because she said she was totally blindsided. She, like, didn't have any idea what was happening in her home, which is just like quick PSA to people. Like, if your husband has a locked room in the basement, maybe go in it. Of. Yeah, of the home you share, you're allowed to ask questions. But I don't know what their dynamic was. Like, you know, when they gave her immunity deal to Talk. She paints, like, a very vanilla picture of their life. She says that, like, she would make dinner from scratch. He'd come home at 7pm they'd eat dinner together as a family. Their kids would do homework, and then, like, they wouldn't even watch tv. Like they were, you know, all American family.

Britt (31:51)

I don't know. PBS was showing what Hammond was into.

Ashley Flowers (31:53)

I don't think so either. But anyways, it seemed like, again, she didn't, at least from what I've seen, didn't give any indication that there was, like, dark parts of her marriage. She was surprised by this. So he gets arrested, he gets released on a $5,000 bond, and it's when he's released that he goes to that Denver hotel and he dies by suicide. He has a cyanide drip to his leg that, I mean, is so corrosive, it gets, like, down to the bone. And it's interesting the way that things play out after he dies, because when I say, like, people, like, supported him, there were people who kind of came out of the woodwork, and there was, like, this battle when you look at the newspapers, of, like, reporters reporting on what happened and then people saying that they shouldn't because it's just making things worse. And it kind of all starts with. With Richard's suicide notes. I'm gonna have you read that the.

Britt (32:45)

Media frenzy surrounding my arrest has caused immeasurable harm to many people, especially my family. I've lost everything, but I cannot survive the loss of my wife and son and daughter. My death should satisfy the media's thirst for blood, so that hopefully everyone else who has been affected by this case can truly begin the process of healing. I love redacted family names very much. I am truly sorry for hurting you so deeply, Rich Hammond.

Ashley Flowers (33:15)

So he puts it on the media that, yes, I did this thing, but, like, I have to die because they're so bloodthirsty. They, like, they're making this bigger than it has to be, and they're hurting people. And, like, I'm just going to go away because of what they're doing.

Britt (33:27)

Well, and not even what he did, he says, like, who has been affected by this case, not by what she did.

Ashley Flowers (33:34)

That's true. So then this is when the back and forth comes, and there are people who come out in support of what he said, and, like, the media should just stop. We should drop it. Like, there's this active campaign to just make this go away. And just to prove the point, I want you to read something. Not the whole thing, but Part of what was written by a woman named Pam Hurley Nagle in the paper.

Britt (33:55)

It saddens me that the Coloradan and other media flits chose to feast on Richard Hammond's tragic plight. I don't condone his alleged behavior, which was limited to the privacy of his own home.

Ashley Flowers (34:09)

Collective gasp. That is like the craziest part to me.

Britt (34:12)

Yeah, but the media exploited a man and his family's vulnerability. Don't think anybody else's vulnerability was okay. Okay. Rich Hammond was a man and doctor who took time to replenish his society with quality medical care. What he allegedly did was wrong. But in the scheme of things, the hurt he caused was exaggerated. After the media got its predatory claws in it was it.

Ashley Flowers (34:41)

Here's the thing. I don't think that's a question we can answer because of how things unfold. Next. So after his arrest and his death, they continue to find more things. They find a secret storage unit no one knew about with Rubbermaid tub after Rubbermaid tub of more videotapes, pornographic materials, receipts, sex toys. They find out he had a secret bank account that people didn't know about. They find this like waist belt contraption that like hooked onto his belt and had all these little like sharp instruments that came out of it. Like what do you need that for? But the reason I say we don't know the extent is because after all this is collected everything from his home, from this storage unit. It is all taken and over the course of like eight hours burned, like completely destroyed. And Jim Broderick, like, like some people were at least asking questions about this. And our guy Jim Broderick is back to give a quote to the Denver Post about why they destroyed all of this evidence in this case. And he said, quote, should we re victimize all these women by telling them they are victims? So really it's an effort to protect them, to preserve these victims rights.

Britt (36:03)

Oh, Ashley, words are important to me. They're important to you. They're important to our crime junkies. What he's saying here, like, I cannot make sense of it. Like re victimizing them by telling them they're vic. That's not how that works.

Ashley Flowers (36:19)

No, the math isn't math thing. And the thing I have the biggest problem with is this idea, the last line to preserve these victims rights. That's why we destroyed this by destroying it. And not like with their permission or.

Britt (36:31)

Anything I say like I get as a victim like wanting those tapes to be destroyed. If that existed of me, I wouldn't feel safe even with a Tape like that locked in an evidence locker. But I'd want the choice.

Ashley Flowers (36:44)

Yeah, they didn't have it.

Unknown (36:45)

They made the choice for them to.

Ashley Flowers (36:46)

Preserve their rights, but by destroying it, what they did was actually take away any future right they might have for repercussions. They can no longer go after Hammond's estate. Were there other people on those tapes that they could go after? We'll never know. Because, by the way, when they destroyed everything, they had not viewed most of it. Like, they just took it all away without knowing what was on the majority of those tapes, which is bananas to me. And the whole way that these were destroyed, when they looked into this, this went against every policy and procedure they had in place about how to deal with evidence. It just all goes up in smoke. Literally burned it. Yes. And listen, Jim Broderick would have you believe that they did this for a noble reason. And I do think there are people out there doing noble things for noble reasons. I haven't seen a whole lot of them.

Britt (37:40)

I'd love to meet more.

Ashley Flowers (37:41)

Yes. But in the theme of always going a layer deeper, which is our new crime junkie life rule, I like to ask not just what happened, but why do we think it happened? Well, here's a fun fact. In the couple of days between when Hammond was arrested but before he died, they were having to think about, like, taking this to a trial. Like, there could be a case around this, and they were going to have to appoint a special prosecutor because they quickly found out that members of the DA's office, quote, had been guests at Hammond's home and may have been videotaped.

Britt (38:19)

Oh, I think we have our reason for why all of that evidence was destroyed.

Ashley Flowers (38:25)

But they are quick to write this off. Like, same way when. Like, when Tim, right when he gets exonerated, they're like, let's just make this go away. And when this happened, they wanted this to go away. So much so that they were even writing off stories that made no sense. Like, people were like, oh, he wouldn't have hurt Peggy, because, like, he didn't even use a scalpel. Yes, he was a doctor in surgical precision, all that, but he didn't even use scalpels. But, like, a guy who he ran the practice with is like, yeah, we absolutely do. And there's an affidavit from a woman who's like, he literally use a scalpel on me. And just to show you how far under the rug they were pushing this thing, everything in the paper, like, at the time was about the videotapes or Whatever. Nobody publicly was connecting this guy to Peggy Hetrick in 1995, and nobody was telling Peggy's family about him, even behind the scenes. Tom didn't find out about Dr. Hammond until years later. And the way he found out was bananas.

Tom Hetrick (39:22)

I remember a few years ago, they talked about a doctor. I was coming out of the Village in with my friend, and he looked at the news box, Rocky Mountain News, and had Peggy's picture on the front cover of the newspaper. And he said, hey, Tom, that's your sister. And so he got the newspaper. We went back into the Village Inn. I read it, I skimmed over it and went, what? Who is this doctor? You know, nobody's ever told me about this guy.

Ashley Flowers (39:50)

So the defense never knew about any of that. Not just the Hammond stuff, but, like, so much of what we've talked about. And in looking at the file, when I say there's more to be done, I mean, I also was coming across names of people it doesn't seem like they really dug into. A guy named Greg Case, who she was, like, dating at the time. Derek Cordova, who she had gone out with in the past, a guy named Tim Matthews, who apparently liked Peggy and was jealous of Matt. And I'm not saying those guys had anything to do with anything, but to me, those are people who were clearly close to her, who hung out with her, who maybe were with her in, like, times leading up to her death.

Britt (40:30)

They were in her circle.

Ashley Flowers (40:31)

I know. And so when I say that more can be done, like, I don't think we can just rely on DNA and, like, call it quits. I think there's gonna have to be legwork, and I think there's still a lot of legwork that can be done even decades later.

Britt (40:43)

Right. But we know that Tim was exonerated in part by the DNA evidence. So, like, whatever happened to those partial matches?

Ashley Flowers (40:51)

So we did get some partial profiles, and none of those matched him. So there were some important ones. There was one on the front waistband of Peggy's underwear. And everything we have comes from touch DNA, Right? There was no, like, semen or bodily fluids. And I think their thinking was that the killer likely was the one who pulled her pants down, so maybe they'd get touch DNA. Then they got some samples from under her arms, coat, boots, pants. There was a single full profile on her sleeve. But, like, guess what? It turned out to be the police who weren't wearing gloves.

Britt (41:25)

So. Cool.

Ashley Flowers (41:25)

Cross that one out. And while it hasn't been on record that they've gotten DNA from Like all three of the people I've talked about, right? Matt Zollner, Donnie Long, Richard Hammond. I do know that they got one person's DNA for comparison and it is comparison, right. There's no full profile to put into codis. And one of those three people did match the touch DNA on the underwear. Not all the places, but the touch DNA on the underwear and that was Matt Zollner.

Britt (41:58)

So we have this partial match on one of the samples. Why isn't that DNA alone enough to charge him?

Ashley Flowers (42:07)

Right. Like if it was Tim's right, It totally would have been.

Britt (42:09)

Yeah.

Ashley Flowers (42:09)

That's the question a lot of people are asking. And for Linda, she thinks it should be enough.

Linda (42:16)

I want Matt Zollner to know that I'm still after him. I want him to know, to make up some little hiccup or something that in his life that he'll make a mistake that we can catch him on. But it's like I just, when I know who did it and he's not held accountable and he's been free for 30 some years, that the Attorney General did all they could and I really felt that they did. But it's like, but I'm not done and I, I don't, I don't want to be silenced. There's still a wrong that was done and I still feel like something might, good might come out of, of this case getting reopened and refocused on that there's somebody might come up with something that's said or done that we didn't know about that allows us to take this case further and keep it open.

Unknown (43:05)

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Britt (43:40)

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Ashley Flowers (44:47)

Now I think it's important to note, I don't think that at this point you can take a case to trial just based on that one piece of DNA. There's a lot that has to be explained at this point. I mean, and again, it's touch DNA. You don't know how it got there, when it got there.

Britt (45:02)

And it's only one of the profiles that was found on her.

Ashley Flowers (45:06)

Yes. And we know that they had contact, right? Like they're going to dinner. They like they saw each other that night.

Britt (45:10)

Night.

Ashley Flowers (45:11)

I think it is important. I think it is meaningful. And I think that is like when you talk about a lead that tells you where to focus, I, I think that's telling you where to focus. However, there is other DNA that's going to have to be explained away. There is. You're going to have to prove it in a court of law and there's legwork that can be done. You also have, when you, when I think about DNA, the Missy woods of it all. If anyone remembers our JonBenet Ramsey episode, there is a DNA tech in Colorado who from like was there from 90s to 2023. Her name's Missy woods and she was.

Britt (45:46)

Like not following protocol, mishandling evidence, not storing things correctly, like not necessarily falsifying things, but really mucking up the system.

Ashley Flowers (45:55)

So all of her cases are getting called into question. I don't know if she touched this and I know we sent some stuff to Holland, but stuff was stored in Colorado. Some of it was tested in Colorado. Again, I'm only saying all of this because while I think this DNA is important, you are going to have to back it up with legwork.

Britt (46:11)

Well, and for me, like, Matt doesn't have this history of violence, even if it was something that happened in the heat of the moment. She was mutilated with surgical precision. I know that doesn't. Like, you don't learn that in, like, a heat of the moment situation.

Ashley Flowers (46:27)

We asked about that, and people who believe that Matt did this, they think that maybe he was trying to, like, throw people off his trail by doing that.

Britt (46:34)

But the precision of it.

Ashley Flowers (46:36)

I know, I know. And listen, who's to say there isn't a world where someone killed Peggy and then someone else came along and did something right? Like, Richard Hammond had insomnia and could see that feel from his bedroom window. I don't think he wants to call police and alert them to what he's doing in his. You know what I mean? And I'm not saying I don't know.

Unknown (46:54)

I don't know.

Ashley Flowers (46:56)

The reason that a lot of things might not fit is because maybe there isn't just one answer. And another problem that we're gonna face when it comes to, like, making a case is that, like, you will have this Richard Hammond thing that is, like, very open ended again.

Britt (47:11)

It can never be buttoned up. Right.

Ashley Flowers (47:12)

We don't know if Peggy was on one of those tapes because some powerful people made sure we would never know what was on those tapes, who was on those tapes. And if you came to the live show, this is where we started to wrap things up. Up. But, I mean, as a lot of people might have noticed by now, like, the theme of these stories is going a layer deeper. So while Brit and I were on tour, I sent some of our reporters back to Colorado to do some more digging, some more door knocking and, like, boots on the ground work. Mostly because I couldn't shake the feeling that there is more to this Dr. Hammond story, like, as it relates to.

Britt (47:48)

Peggy or like something else.

Ashley Flowers (47:51)

I don't know. The way that everyone made it go away so fast. And like, the operation we learned he had set up feels so much bigger. So we got our hands on some investigative reports from Hammond's case. And I was disappointed to see that police just straight up stopped investigating after he died.

Britt (48:08)

I mean, not surprised, but disappointed Again.

Ashley Flowers (48:11)

At the time, they said it was all to protect the victims, blah, blah, blah. But the question I have is, like, no one can say for sure that Hammond didn't sell or share the tapes. What we learned is that his video setup was professional. It was elaborate, and his tape catalogs were organized like a library. And Hammond would even label the tapes by, like, date, by victim's initials. But some of the tapes were also labeled ready.

Britt (48:40)

Ready for what?

Unknown (48:43)

I don't know distribution to go somewhere.

Ashley Flowers (48:48)

Our reporting team tracked down one of Hammond's victims, and she filled in some blanks for us. And prepare to be disappointed yet again, because she told us that not only did police never ask their opinions on destroying the evidence, which we assumed, but when detectives were interviewing the victims, they were asking these victims if they were in on it.

Britt (49:12)

Like, in on it how exactly?

Ashley Flowers (49:16)

The cops were asking these teenage girls if they were performing for the cameras. Like, did anyone tell you where to stand? And, like, what to do? And on top of that, she said that Fort Collins PD never once offered to let these teen girls have a parent or trusted adult in the room with them during their interviews. So it just feels like the victims have never once had a voice in that case. Like, every decision was made for them, even after the cops basically treated them like suspects. Oh, and remember how I told you, like, we found out that, like, there was a file that said some of the DA's office had socialized at Hammonds might be on the tapes, whatever. Well, when we finally got to track down Judge Terry Gilmore, that was obviously one of the things we asked him specifically about. We weren't able to talk to anyone else. And he confirmed that the destruction of the tapes did go against regular policy. And he admitted to knowing Dr. Hammond personally before his arrest. But he says that he only socialized with him one time and that he was never at the doctor's home, and that's kind of where that ended. Okay, and then there's one more thing that I want to mention before we wrap things up on Hammond. So we got a hold of a woman who, in 1988ish, went to the eye clinic where Hammond worked for an emergency. Like, her son got, like, sandy snowball lodged inside or whatever. Now, Hammond is not the regular doctor, but he was the one on call that weekend. So they're alone in the eye clinic with him. And Dr. Hammond was treating the boy. He's like, nine or ten.

Unknown (50:42)

And his mom had to use the restroom.

Ashley Flowers (50:44)

So she went to the closest one that she could find, which was the men's stall. But Dr. Hammond came and, like, physically blocked her from using the men's restroom. And he insisted that she had to use the women's restroom. And she's like, okay, like, whatever, dude. And when she got inside and flipped the light switch on, she heard this, like, whirring.

Britt (51:07)

So this is in 88. No one knows and won't know for years about Heman's secret taping hobby and.

Ashley Flowers (51:15)

What they Ended up determining at his house is, like, it's the light switch. So, like, when you turn it on, that triggered it to start recording, so he didn't even have to be there. And she's hearing this at his office now. She says in the moment, she was certain it was a camera. Not even, like, years later, but in that moment, like, specifically one of those big cameras from the 80s that had that distinct sound when it turned on, specifically when it focused. And she even flipped the light switch off because she was, like, so freaked out. She was, like, looking for a red light or any sign that she was being recorded.

Britt (51:43)

Wait, did police find cameras at his practice? I mean, did they even search it?

Ashley Flowers (51:49)

So it depends on who you ask. Ray Martinez told us that they didn't, but our reporters found an old article at the CSU archives that said they did search the doctor's office, but that article also had some other wrong information in it. So I don't really know for sure.

Britt (52:05)

If we even know.

Ashley Flowers (52:06)

Yeah, yeah. I mean, Ray Martinez, what worked the case. So, like, I want to trust him, but, like, it's also been so many years. You never know. So, anyways, fast forward seven years, and this woman is, like, seeing the headlines about Dr. Hammond's cameras in his basement, and she's like. She has this, like, oh, my God moment. Like, what. What I thought was real.

Britt (52:23)

Did she tell the police about her encounter?

Unknown (52:26)

No, not right away.

Ashley Flowers (52:26)

She said that once she realized Dr. Hammond had died, she wasn't sure what could even be done. But as years went by, she kind of got curious as to whether she was on any of the tapes. Then, obviously, she found out Fort Collins PD had destroyed them, and then there was no way of knowing. Which tells me, again, that they burned all those tapes. Like, it's more proof to me that they did that before identifying all of the victims, that they didn't want to re victimize by telling them they were victims. Now, the only thing she was told by police was that there was some tapes that looked to be in a different room than the bathroom. So clearly somewhere else was being filmed. They never followed up with her after that. So who knows how many victims there were. And when Dr. Hammond died, the case just got tossed. And even though he had been arrested and charged, when you go to the justice center in Fort Collins in District Court, it basically looks like Richard Hammond never even committed a crime. Which is, like, one of the most bananas part, I think, about the whole thing. Yeah, it just went away.

Britt (53:30)

Literally disappeared.

Ashley Flowers (53:31)

And I think it might take friends in High places to make that happen. So still looking into Hammond. I will forever be looking into Hammond. But there was one other thing that came up as we were touring. So another man named Randy Anglin, his name popped up because there was a note on one of Tim's lawyers, like papers or something, that just said anglin cut off nipples too.

Britt (53:58)

Which feels like an important note in.

Ashley Flowers (54:02)

This case especially, is what we're looking for. Right. So we're looking into him still kind of actively. We found out that he was on this crime spree from 77 to 87 in northern Colorado, specifically, really active in 87 for burglaries, sexual assaults. I haven't found any cases where a nipple was removed yet, but we did get some records and those. He's like, clearly escalating. And there is a tip in Peggy's case about a car with Wyoming license plate plates, like, near the area at the time she died. And he had a car with Wyoming license plates. So again, more to be done on him, more to be done on everything, which is the whole point of this story, is to tell people that I think it'd be really easy for. For police to say, like, oh, or the DA's office, whatever. Like, it's. We tried everything we can. It's a closed case. There's still more that can be done. And it's so obvious. But for some reason, after Tim was released, after he won his, like, settlement, it just stopped. Now, Tim did go on to write a book about his case that he self published. And I mean, in all these years, he's been trying to make up for lost time. He likes to work on cars, he works with horses. He's spending time with people he loves. He's making up for lost time with them. And he even has an unexpected confidant these days.

Tim (55:23)

I think it is really ironic that the. The former lead investigator in the case who came to arrest me in 1992, is actually one of my dearest friends. Now, Linda Holloway. Turns out she's a really good person. She put herself out there so much. Linda Holloway put herself out there so much to do the right thing. It just for one, it greatly endears me to her. I'm not good at words, but it's very endearing that she did that. She put herself out there for me. And it just speaks volumes to her integrity. She's just one of those people that she'll do the right thing regardless. She does the right thing. That's a rare person in this world. I mean, a lot of people wouldn't go out on a limb like she did. They would just go with the grain. Life would have been a lot easier for her if she had just gone with the grain and not gone against everybody else.

Ashley Flowers (56:26)

As for Peggy's brother Tom, he was diagnosed two and a half years ago with stage four colon cancer, which he said is what has made him so vocal. He is one of Peggy's only remaining family members fighting for her, and now he needs us to, like, take up that torch and fight for her.

Tom Hetrick (56:45)

I said, you guys have had 30 some years to do your job. And I said, obviously at this point you're telling me the case is closed. And I said, but the fellow upstairs is gonna. They're not getting by him. He already knows who it is and he'll take care of this problem. And they just. All their faces just turned white. And I said, he will get the final say. You've had your chance. And I said, what's it going to take to reopen this? Because they told me it was closed. And they said, short of a full confession, nothing. I said, what? And they said, unless somebody actually comes forward and admits to it completely and fully, we can't reopen this case. And I just. I was. As far as I was concerned with that meeting, I was done. I wanted to get out of there because for over 30 some years we. I waited around for something to take place for this. And then they take somebody and they put him in prison for nine years and he's innocent as the driven white snow, and they ruin his life to a certain extent. And then he gets out, and rightfully so. And here we are, here we are today, right now, doing this interview, and still nothing has been done about it. And it's like everybody just wants to turn a blind eye to it and move on. What? What move on? Well, you're. I don't have much longer to go because I have a disease that'll take my life soon. And I want something done about it. I want the people that have the ability to do their job to get busy and do their job. That's what they need to do instead of just turning a blind eye. Well, you know, it is what it is. Case closed. There've been a lot of mistakes in this case that I've learned through media, through the newspaper, from Linda, quite a bit from Linda. And I'm not happy, very upset about this. So I don't have longer to go. So I want something done about it immediately.

Ashley Flowers (59:15)

So, crime junkies, this is where you come in. Our team has spent months reporting on this case, producing this live show. We've taken it to 17 different cities with a shared goal in mind. Justice for Peggy Hetrick. So we're asking you to join us in asking the Colorado Attorney General's office to reopen Peggy's case, assign a new investigator, and explore new DNA testing. And we've made it super easy for you. All you have to do is click the link below, fill out your information, and we're going to send an email on your behalf. Literally. It could not be more simple. This is why we do this show, and we know this is why you guys listen. So please take a moment. I know a lot of you who went to the show were experiencing technical difficulties. We have crashed the Attorney General's website more than once. So this is your reminder. If you were at the show and didn't get an email through, please do that now. And if you're listening, please either stop what you're doing and do it now. Set a reminder. This is so important, and Tom is really looking for your help. And then after your email is sent, we have a special surprise for you. For those of you who weren't able to make it to a Crime Junkie Life Rule Number 10 Tour Stop, or if you did, join us and you just want to relive the experience as much as we do, we are actually sharing a video version of our very first stop here in Indianapolis, the hometown show. It's in the Crime Junkie fan club. You can see us present this case on stage, watch the interviews with Tim, Tom, and others involved, see maps and portions of Tim's interrogation, and so much more. So to watch the Crime Junkie Life Rule Number 10 Tour and Learn more about the Crime Junkie fan club, visit.

Unknown (60:57)

Crimejunkiepodcast.Com.

Ashley Flowers (61:14)

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

Britt (61:17)

Crimejunkiepodcast.Com and you can follow us on Instagram at crimejunkiepodcast.

Ashley Flowers (61:22)

Britt and I are actually off next week, but we will be back the following week with a brand new episode. SA.

Unknown (62:00)

Crime Junkie is an audio Chuck production. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?

Chuck (62:09)

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Ashley Flowers (62:41)

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