The Pocatello Babysitter Murders Replay

Summary

---

Criminology Podcast: "The Pocatello Babysitter Murders" (Replay)

Hosts: Mike Ferguson & Mike Morford
Original Air Date: Episode 54 (2019); Replay June 14, 2026

---

Overview

This episode centers on the chilling, unsolved "Pocatello Babysitter Murders"—a series of disappearances and murders of teenage girls in Pocatello, Idaho, between 1978 and 1983. The cases share striking similarities: the young victims attended the same junior high, vanished in the summer, and were all babysitting (or scheduled to babysit) when abducted. Despite decades passing, no one has been brought to justice. The episode traces the stories of the victims, local investigation missteps, and the lingering impact on families and the community.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Series Introduction & Case Background

• Diversity of Cases: The hosts highlight their blend of famous and lesser-known crimes and tease their intent to revisit deep-dive series (03:16).
• The "Pocatello Babysitter Murders" involve four teenage girls—Tina Anderson, Patricia Campbell, Linda Smith, and Cindy Bringhurst—who disappeared under suspicious, often similar circumstances in Pocatello.

Pocatello: Setting and Context

• Small city in Idaho (pop. ~45,000 in late 70s/early 80s), home to Idaho State University, with a scenic yet deceptive sense of safety (06:08).
• Notable dark events in Pocatello's history referenced, such as the 2006 Cassie Jo Stoddart murder (07:00) and the Jan Broberg case featured in "Abducted in Plain Sight" (09:33).

---

Victim Profiles and Disappearances

1. Patricia "Patsy" Campbell & Tina Anderson (July 22, 1978)

• Both attended Alameda Junior High, loved music, and had typical teenage interests (10:01).
• Patricia, age 15, and Tina, age 12: Both were at the Pioneer Day parade and picnic, a community festival (13:08).
• Last seen together; Pat’s younger sisters last spotted her with a man in a blue hooded sweatshirt, described as "unbalanced or intoxicated" (14:23). Tina was set to babysit that night but never arrived (15:45).
• Police initially treated them as runaways—despite no history or signs of preparation; their clothes and money left behind (20:27).

2. Linda Smith (June 13-14, 1981)

• Also an Alameda Junior High student, babysitting her brother while their mother was out (22:14).
• Her younger brother Ben, 9, witnessed a bearded, hooded man abducting Linda in the middle of the night. Despite his detailed description (including a van with flames on the side), police doubted him, thinking Linda ran away (25:26).
• Linda's clothes were found tossed from a car a week later; still, abduction was not immediately acknowledged (28:12).

3. Cindy Bringhurst (June 5, 1983)

• Age 14, recent junior high grad. Disappeared while babysitting for a woman whose keys had been stolen earlier that evening (45:22).
• When Cindy vanished, only the baby was left behind and the apartment untouched (45:22).
• The community rallied to search; parents even enlisted psychics. Cindy’s body was found a month later at Mink Creek, close to where a psychic had directed police, cause of death: strangulation (48:29).

4. Unidentified Victim (1986)

• Partial skull of a Black teenage girl found near the Anderson/Campbell site (49:59). No local missing reports—possibly a migrant worker’s daughter.

5. Lynette Culver (May 6, 1975, prior to others)

• 12-year-old from the same junior high, confessed victim of Ted Bundy (49:59). Police remain unconvinced and have not closed the case on Bundy’s confession alone (59:57).

---

Investigative Shortfalls and Oddities

• Police Response Critique: Initial reluctance to treat cases as abductions; crime scenes often not secured, evidence lost (25:26, 29:59).
• Civilians, including victims' parents, were allowed to join police canvassing (18:23) —strange for a city of Pocatello’s size.
• Multiple pieces of evidence, including bones and a bullet casing, went missing for decades (55:31).
• Forensics was limited (pre-DNA era), and missteps likely hindered possible early resolutions, e.g., no early crime scene processing, missing evidence, and dismissed witness statements.

---

Theories, Patterns, and Possible Linkages

• Most victims were babysitting at their disappearance, attended same school, and vanished during summer months (06:08, 63:14).
• Similarities suggest a possible serial offender, possibly someone local with summer-only access (teacher, seasonal worker, or transient), though no suspect has been definitively linked (63:37).
• Discussion about connections to bars—the perpetrator in one case was drunk; in another, the babysitting mother’s keys/purse stolen from a bar (66:16).
• Ted Bundy’s possible link to Lynette Culver questioned due to unreliable confessions by serial killers and lack of corroborating evidence (60:24).

---

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On treating the girls as runaways:

  "Neither one of them had attempted to do so before... I mean, that's pretty thin to base your runaway theory on."
  — Mike Ferguson (20:27)

• On law enforcement's unusual methods:

  "I started to think maybe this is a small town where everyone knows each other and maybe they do things a little differently."
  — Mike Morford (18:59)

• On the impact of lost evidence:

  "So what type of extremely valuable evidence was lost? We don't know."
  — Mike Ferguson (29:59)

• On possible connections:

  "The fact that they all went to the same school, the fact that, you know, the majority of them were babysitters, that's more than a coincidence to me."
  — Mike Ferguson (61:30)

• On victims’ family trauma:

  "I just don't think anyone is spared. In a case like this..."
  — Mike Ferguson (65:49)

---

Important Segment Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment / Topic | |------------|---------------------------------------------------------| | 04:32 | Case introduction and overview | | 10:01 | Victim profiles: Tina Anderson & Patricia Campbell | | 14:23 | Last seen details, suspicious male described | | 22:14 | 3rd disappearance: Linda Smith, babysitting abduction | | 25:26 | Ben's witness report and police skepticism | | 28:12 | Linda's clothing found, police finally appeal to public | | 41:29 | Linda's remains found and confirmed | | 45:22 | 4th victim: Cindy Bringhurst’s disappearance | | 48:29 | Cindy’s remains discovered in Mink Creek | | 49:59 | Unidentified Jane Doe; Bundy confession re: Culver | | 53:43 | Linda Smith suspect, evidence lost | | 54:29 | 2007-2008: Re-excavation, FBI evidence, and missing items| | 59:57 | Bundy confession doubts, police keep Culver open | | 63:14 | Discussion of patterns: summertime, babysitting, etc. | | 65:49 | Impact on families |

---

Unresolved Mysteries & Modern Developments

• Forensic Discoveries: 2007–2018 saw recovery of old evidence, efforts to re-identify remains, but no major breaks.
• 2016–17: Persistent lack of prosecutions; official statements suggest a suspect is known, but admissible evidence is lacking (56:23).
• 2018: Police continue to scrutinize the Ted Bundy link and express reluctance to close cases on confession alone (59:57).
• Continual hope for DNA breakthroughs.

---

Conclusion & Takeaways

• The Pocatello Babysitter Murders remain one of Idaho’s most haunting unsolved cases.
• Despite apparent patterns, police have not officially connected all the cases. Serial killer activity is considered possible, especially given overlapping victim profiles and abduction circumstances.
• Decades of investigative missteps, lost evidence, and the passage of time have complicated chances for closure.
• The impact on surviving families is profound and enduring.

---

If You Have Information

Contact: Pocatello Police Department
Phone: [phone]

---

Criminology continues to probe such cold cases, giving voice to victims and hope for overdue justice. This episode stands as a testament to thorough, empathetic storytelling and the importance of never forgetting these lost girls or the lessons their cases offer.

---

Transcript

[Mike Ferguson]

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the name your price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try [e-mail] Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates Price and coverage match limited by state law not available in all states.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

A burst pipe, A dead water heater, the AC calling it quits. Who do you call? Homeserve is an easy way to handle unexpected home repairs with plans covering stuff basic homeowners insurance usually won't. Instead of scrambling for a contractor, you make one call to get the repair process started. Join the millions of customers who trust HomeServe right now go to HomeServe.com podcast for 50% less your first year. That's HomeServe.com podcast savings compared to renewal

[Mike Morford]

price void in Florida hey everyone, it's Morph here. Just wanted to give you a heads up. Since we just got back from Crimecon and since Mike had to turn around and travel for his daughter's wedding, it's going to be hard to bring you a new episode this week. But rather than not bring you any episode at all, we decided to re air one of our older episodes, one of my favorites, the Pocatello Babysitter Murders, which we originally aired in episode 54 way back in 2019. This is a pretty strange case, one that I think listeners will find fascinating. I hope you enjoy it and don't worry because Mike and I will be back next week with an all new episode. So we'll see you back here then. Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised.

[Mike Ferguson]

I'd like to welcome everyone to episode 54 of Criminology. I'm Mike Ferguson and this is Mike Morford. Mr. Morford, how are you doing?

[Mike Morford]

I am doing good. I am pumped up, no complaints. And I'm ready to roll. How about you?

[Mike Ferguson]

Yeah, I'm right with you, man. When you and I get together, I am ready to record an episode.

[Mike Morford]

I think we've got a great episode lined up today, so I'm excited about it.

[Mike Ferguson]

Yeah, I like the selection that and hopefully the fans do too. I believe they do from the feedback that we're getting. But the selection of cases. Right. Some of these are a little off the map. Some of the ones that we do are a little more well known. I think it's a good mix and more if you and I have been talking about and we have plans to do more of an extended series like, like we did with Zodiac and Golden State Killer may not be that long, but a case that, you know, has to be told over so many episodes. So I think people will like that, too. That's how we started. A lot of people like that format.

[Mike Morford]

Yeah. I think we've got a nice mix of solved and unsolved cases, too. So I think we can really keep listeners on their toes and keep it. Keep it fresh for them.

[Mike Ferguson]

Got to keep them on their toes. All right, we have some new Patreon support, so let's give some shout outs. We had Heather Churchiarelli, Crystal Dobson, Joanna Hendricks, Debbie Duffy, Aaron Sutton, Heather Perry, Jeff Reddy, Kim Grime, Brianna o', Haver, and Kelly Howard Beyer. So a lot of new support Morph. You and I talk about this a lot. Big help for us and defraying costs of putting out this podcast. It goes a long way.

[Mike Morford]

Yeah, it's every week. It blows me away how much support we get, and it's really appreciated. And speaking of Patreon, if you'd like to be a Patreon supporter, you can go to patreon.com criminology to sign up to help the show. For Patreon supporters, we have a nice interview with Pat Pistiglione, who's the star of the discovery ID show, Deadly Recall, and that conversation with him will be up this week in our Patreon feed, and we'll play a little preview of that at the end of this episode.

[Mike Ferguson]

Don't forget, Crimecon is coming up very quickly. June 7th through 9th in New Orleans. If you're planning to go or if you're thinking about going, I can't stress strongly enough. It's a great time. You'll love it. Don't hesitate if you make that decision and you're going to go on the Crimecon website to purchase your badge, make sure you use our promo code, criminology 19. You'll get 10% off the standard badge price. All right, Morph, let's dive right in to this episode. And like you said from the beginning, I think this is going to be an episode that fascinates the listeners. We're talking about the Pocatello babysitter murders. So between 1978 and 1983, four teenage girls disappeared from Pocatello, Idaho, and were later found deceased. The girls all attended the same junior high school in Pocatello. That was Alameda Junior High School. The four disappearances all took place during the summer months of June and July. But so many decades later, these cases remain unsolved. And what's extremely striking is that three of the four victims were either babysitting when they went missing or were set to babysit the day they went missing.

[Mike Morford]

Pocatello, Idaho, sits on the eastern side of the state and is approximately 165 miles north of Salt Lake City, Utah, and 240 miles southeast of Boise. With the Rocky Mountains in the background, this picturesque town had a population of around 45,000 in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Pocatello is the county seat of Bannock County. It's also home to Idaho State University. Pocatello was founded in 1889, and it's known as the Gateway to the Northwest. It received its nickname back then when trappers, gold miners, and pioneers on the Oregon Trail traveled through the area to proceed west along the Snake River.

[Mike Ferguson]

All right, so morph, not to get on a tangent, but back in the day, Oregon Trail was by far my favorite computer game. I don't know if you ever played it.

[Mike Morford]

I never did.

[Mike Ferguson]

This was early days of computer, right? Maybe think Commodore 64, maybe early Apple Iigs, something like that. But Oregon Trail was a great game, had a little bit graphics, if you want to call them graphics, back when to me, games were games. Now, if I showed that to my daughters, they would laugh, right? Because the games on their phones are much more intricate than what that was back in the day. But anyway, when I hear the words Oregon Trail, you, it always takes me back to that game. And maybe it'll take some of the listeners back as well. Now, despite its beauty and seemingly safe appearance, as we all know, looks can be deceiving. The crime rate is high, and Pocatello has been home to several murders and other types of crimes, some of which have made the national news. In 2006, Cassie Jo Stoddart was brutally murdered in Pocatello by two of her fellow male students. She was house sitting at the time. And this was one of those cases that was picked up nationally. It was featured on at least one major true crime show. The two boys that killed Cassie Joe are currently serving life sentences in prison. And one of the things that makes that case so eerie is that, you know, it comes out that the two boys that murdered Cassie Jo Stoddart were inspired by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who committed the Columbine High school massacre in 1999.

[Mike Morford]

It's hard to believe it's been 20 years already since that happened.

[Mike Ferguson]

It really is. I mean, I remember it plain as day. You know, to me, it's kind of like 9, 11 in the sense of, I'm not old enough to remember the JFK shooting, but you always hear people talk about these seminal moments in history, Right. And because of the shock and the traumatic effects on everyone, you remember where you were, you remember who you were with, and you remember what you were doing.

[Mike Morford]

The kidnapping and sexual abuse of Jan Broberg that was documented in the controversial Netflix documentary Abducted in Plain Sight happened in Pocatello in 1974. But it was during the time between the Broberg and Stoddart cases in which the Pocatello babysitter murders would strike fear into the community and leave parents keeping a close eye on their children. It all started when two teenagers vanished in broad daylight from a popular local festival.

[Mike Ferguson]

Tina Marie Anderson was born on September 9, 1965, to C.R. and Maro Anderson. She had two brothers, Donald and Frederick, and one sister named Wilma. Tina was a member of the Church of Latter Day Saints and a student at Alameda Junior High School in Pocatello, Idaho. Tina loved the outdoors. She loved music and art. Patricia Campbell, who would later become friends with Tina Marie Anderson, was born on November 27, 1962, to Bud and Jeanette Campbell. She had two younger sisters, Melissa and Elizabeth, and. And a brother named Dale. Patsy, as she was known by friends and family, loved country music. Some of her favorite artists were Ronnie Millsap, Crystal Gale, and Loretta Lynn. Patsy also attended Alameda Junior High School. So I know more. If you don't listen to country music, no way.

[Mike Morford]

I listen to some here and there.

[Mike Ferguson]

Do you?

[Mike Morford]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

Okay, so that surprises me a little bit, knowing you're from Joyce. I assumed it was. I don't know what I assumed you listened to up there.

[Mike Morford]

Thanks.

[Mike Ferguson]

Yeah, sorry. But when you hear the names Ronnie Millsap, Crystal Gale, Loretta Lynn, I mean, that is 80s country right there. I mean, that's. That's a pretty far leap from where country is today. So I just wanted to throw that out there because I wasn't sure how much you knew about country music. I grew up listening to country music just because where I live, my parents listened to it. So I remember a lot of car rides with Ronnie Millsap, and my grandparents

[Mike Morford]

listened to it as well. So I grew up with that same music.

[Mike Ferguson]

Okay. All right, so I'm not educating you on anything you didn't know.

[Mike Morford]

You're not. You're not schooling me on the old school country.

[Mike Ferguson]

Yeah, I'm not schooling you, but maybe some folks in the audience who either don't listen to country music or aren't Old enough to remember people, you know, like Ronnie Millsap. I mean, Loretta Lynn was. Goes way back. I still watch that movie, Coal Miner's Daughter. It's one of my all time favorite movies.

[Mike Morford]

On the morning of July 22, 1978, Bud and Jeanette Campbell dropped off Patricia, who was 15 at the time, Melissa, who was 9, and Elizabeth, who was 4, near the bannock County Courthouse so they could attend the Pioneer Day parade on Centre Street. The parade started at 11am Bud originally planned on watching the parade with the girls, but at the last minute he got called away for work to take care of an emergency repair at a customer's home. Bud told the girls to walk to the Alameda park after the parade for the celebrations picnic. At 1pm the girls were supposed to call their parents for a ride home before dinner.

[Mike Ferguson]

That same morning, Tina Anderson's older sister asked if Tina could babysit for her. But Tina already had a babysitting gig lined up for that evening. Tina's mom, Mariko gave Tina some money to take to Pioneer Day. A friend of Tina's arrived at her home and the two headed to Pioneer Day where hundreds of people gathered at this park. It was a typical small town festival, as many of us have experienced. Hamburgers, hot dogs, cotton candy, dunking booths, carnival rides, that, you know, that type of thing. When Bud Campbell, Patricia's father, hadn't heard from her about her needing a ride home, he sent her brother Dale to pick her and her sisters up. But when Dale got to the park, he only found the two youngest girls, Melissa and Elizabeth. They said that Patsy went to get some food. Dale became concerned and he called up his dad because he couldn't find Patsy. So that prompted Bud to come out and help look for her as well.

[Mike Morford]

Patricia Campbell and Tina Anderson met up at the park and they took turns pushing Patricia's younger sister Melissa on the swing. Afterwards, they went to buy hot dogs for everyone. Melissa told her parents that Patricia was alone with a young man she didn't recognize. The man was leaning against a tree and Patricia appeared unbalanced, as if she might be intoxicated. She said the man wore a blue hooded sweatshirt and had a large ring on his hand. The blue sweatshirt stood out to Melissa because it was extremely hot that day and it seemed unusual for someone to be wearing a hooded sweatshirt. According to at least one source, Tina and her friend met up with Patsy, and according to this source, the three were hanging out smoking marijuana. The friend was grounded and had to come home by 2pm Tina asked her if she could come by the Nortons house later on and the friend said yes. Tina told the friend she would call her around 5pm the friend later told Tina's family that the last time she saw Tina, she was talking to another friend, Mary Edwards. Tina's friend and family didn't approve of Tina hanging out with Mary. Tina told the friend that alcohol and drugs were available at Mary's older sister's home. Tina's parents were worried that her grades would slip if she started hanging out with the wrong crowd. The friend left Alameda park around 1:45pm and Tina never wound up calling her at 5pm as planned.

[Mike Ferguson]

Tina was supposed to babysit for her neighbors, the Nortons, who lived across the street from Alameda Park. She was supposed to be there at 7pm she arrived at the Nortons at 6.30pm but they weren't ready for her. Mrs. Norton asked Tina if she wanted to wait or if she wanted to come back and Tina told her that she would come back later. But Tina never showed up. Mrs. Norton later searched Alameda park for Tina but didn't find her. And she called Tina's mother to tell her that Tina never returned to babysit their son Jake, who was 2 years old at the time. Around this time, Janette Campbell called Tina's mom, Maro, and told her that Patsy never came home. So both families are extremely worried at this point. They called the police officers went to the park to look for the girls and they questioned people at the park to see if anyone had seen them, but no one did. And because of this, because there were no witnesses, no one saw the girls being abducted or anything like that. Police told the families they had no reason to suspect foul play.

[Mike Morford]

Bud Campbell returned to Alameda park every two hours that day searching for his daughter. He visited her friends and drove all over Pocatello looking for her but never found any sign of her. An official missing persons report was filed that night. Two days later, on July 24, Officer Fenwick of the Pocatello Police Department and Tina's father, C.R. anderson, visited Holmes asking people about the girls. Officer Fenwick wrote in his report along with the father of the missing juvenile, CR Anderson. I checked with a Carol Edwards at her home, 451 Warren. She stated that Tina, Patsy and her sister Mary Edwards came to her home on Saturday afternoon at around 2.30pm they all went for a car ride to what she described as the Moonlight Mine. The girls were taken back to town and Tina and Patsy were dropped off at the Alameda park at about 6:30pm as Tina hinted that she had a babysitting job. At 7pm I talked to Mary Edwards at her home, 1317 East Bridger. She stated she was with the two girls on Saturday, but they did not talk about leaving. She did state that about two weeks ago, Tina had a fight with her father and stated she was going to run away.

[Mike Ferguson]

So, Morf, I want to go back to something that I found very odd. You have Tina's father, C.R. anderson, going around with this Officer Fenwick, and they're going to people's houses to question them. Not strange at all for police to do that. But in my mind, that's pretty strange for a civilian, even though they're the father of a missing girl, to be allowed to go to these people's houses while they're being questioned.

[Mike Morford]

Yeah, we don't see that in too many cases. And I started to think maybe this is a small town where everyone knows each other and maybe they do things a little differently. But then again, that town had a population of 230,000 people. So it's not that small.

[Mike Ferguson]

No, I'm right with you. It sounds like what you might find in a small town, but that's not what we're talking about. So, again, I don't know. I can't make sense of that. Now. Obviously, I'm not saying that there's any malintent or I'm not reading anything into it. It's more of just one of those things that, as you know, as you're researching a case, certain things just jump out at you as odd. And this is one of those things. So I do think one thing that comes out is that when you talk about Patsy and Tina, they had no reason to run away. Neither one of them had attempted to do so before. Now, we just heard from someone that said Tina had said to them that she was going to run away. But is that just a typical teenager heat of the moment? I've had a fight with my parents. I'm not taking this BS anymore, Morph. I'm packing up my stuff and I'm hitting the road.

[Mike Morford]

Yeah, most of the time those are empty threats and people never follow through with them.

[Mike Ferguson]

So add on to that, the fact that none of Patricia's clothes were missing and she had $300 in savings that she hadn't touched. If you were making a plan to run away, you would pack some clothes. You would want to scrape together every penny that you had because you don't know where cash is going to be coming from. Right. As you're on the road. And then when you get to Tina, pretty much the same thing, right? All of her clothes are still there except for what she was wearing that night. And much of the cash that she kept in her bedroom, it was still there. So police listed the two girls as missing persons. And during the first few years of the investigation into the disappearances of Tina and Patsy, police essentially turned up nothing. Some people claim to have seen Tina as late as October 17, 1978. Some people claim to have seen Patricia several weeks later. But police were never able to confirm any of these sightings. There was no indication that Tina and Patricia left Alameda park together. They were school acquaintances. They, they were friendly. They were not very, very close friends. I think at the very least, these girls were not the type of friends that would make a plan to run away together. They didn't have that type of bond.

[Mike Morford]

Three years after Tina Anderson and Patricia Campbell went missing, another Alameda Junior High student, Linda Smith, was abducted from her home on 8th Avenue in Pocatello. And it just so happened she was babysitting at the time. Linda Smith was born on June 3, 1967 to Larry and Noreen Smith. She had two sisters, Lori and Michelle, and one brother, Ben. Linda also had three stepsisters, Karen, Terry and Tammy, as well as a stepbrother named Bradley. Her parents divorced in 1977 and Noreen got custody of the children. Noreen and the children moved to Idaho Falls, Idaho, and then to Pocatello in 1978. Linda attended Alameda Junior High and was a member of the Church of Latter Day Saints.

[Mike Ferguson]

Noreen Smith struggled to raise the kids on her own, but with the assistance of welfare, she did the best she could. When the family moved to 8th Avenue in Pocatello, she thought it was a safe town. She thought, you know, this is a place where you don't even have to lock your doors at night. But on the night of June 13, 1981, 14 year old Linda was babysitting her 9 year old brother Ben, while her mom went out with friends for the evening at a bar. At some point, Linda and Ben fell asleep while watching tv. Ben was on a lounger and Linda was on the couch. Linda later got up and moved to the bedroom and went to sleep. Then between 2 and 3am this is early on the morning of June 14, Ben woke up and he woke to his sister's muffled screams. And this is a nine year old kid, right? He wakes up in the middle of the night, he's groggy, but he saw a white man with a beard forcing his sister out of the bedroom towards the front door and marched her out of the house. And nine year old Ben gets up and he chases after this man, but he's nine years old. Morf, what is this kid going to do? The man pushed Ben to the ground and yelled, get out of here before you get hurt. The man forced Linda into a dark van with orange red flames on the side and then sped away.

[Mike Morford]

The Smiths didn't have a phone, so Ben ran across the street to a neighbor's house to call police. Noreen had no idea what was happening at her home. She was actually heading home. At about 2:30am Noreen had a CB in her car that she used often. Her handle was White Angel. As she was driving home, she heard someone break for White Angel. It was the police and they told her that she needed to get home right away. When police arrived at the Smith home, Ben told the responding officers what happened and described the intruder. The man wore a hooded sweatshirt with the hood on. He was Caucasian, in his 30s and had Sandy blonde hair and a beard. Ben also said there could have been another person in the van waiting on the intruder.

[Mike Ferguson]

So Borf, you and I are a little older, to put it delicately. In my very first car I installed a CB radio and all of my friends had CBs. So you go back to the. This is the late 1980s. We didn't have cell phones. You know, if somebody was out riding around and you needed to get a hold of them, there were not many options. There was no pagers, no cell phones. Well, there weren't pagers for regular people, let's put it that way. I think doctors probably had pagers, but. So we had CB radios and this is how we kept up with each other while we were driving around in our cars. So I just wanted to throw that out there. I mean, I know we're talking about, you know, early 80s in this story, but it was not that uncommon for people other than truckers to have CB radios in their cars. Police took Ben down to the police station the to question him, but he had trouble keeping everything straight. Remember this was a 9 year old kid who had just witnessed his sister being abducted. But these contradictions in his story led to police not believing Ben's statement. Police also said that people close to the Smith family had seen Linda in town after Ben reported her abduction. And officers flat out accused Ben of lying about the whole incident. They said that he and Linda made up this story to cover up for Linda running away. But Ben Was insistent about what he saw that night and he gave the officers a number of details about the man. He said that the man smelled heavily of alcohol, as if he had been drinking a lot. But I just don't think the police were buying his story. A police spokesperson told the Pocatello Journal. Fairly early on, there was no evidence Linda was forcibly taken. So what you had was the fact that the house was not treated as a crime scene, meaning that any potential evidence that was left behind was lost. It wasn't collected, it could never be used. And Noreen Smith knew her daughter had not run away. Linda was very close to her family, but especially close to her mother, Noreen.

[Mike Morford]

A week after Linda's abduction, a driver found a pair of white slacks and an orange and brown long sleeve shirt beside the road at the Pocatello Creek exit on Interstate 15. Police confirmed the clothing to be Linda's and they determined the items were thrown from a moving vehicle. Despite her clothes being found, police still didn't believe foul play was involved. In July 1981, police made a public appeal for the driver of the dark van with flames on the side. The make and model were unknown. A report at the time said police were looking for a man with dark curly hair and a chest length beard. The man was wearing blue Levi's, a blue shirt and black cowboy boots. Police said Linda had been missing under very suspicious and unusual circumstances, but did not classify it as a kidnapping. It seems like a contradiction that police aren't treating this case as an abduction, but rather as a runaway case. Yet they're appealing to the public for information about this man in the van he was driving.

[Mike Ferguson]

No, I agree. I think it's very strange that number one, they don't believe this nine year old kid. He seemed to provide some pretty specific details about this intruder, One of which you just mentioned.

[Mike Morford]

Right.

[Mike Ferguson]

A dark van with flames on the side. So they don't believe him. But like you said, they're going to go out to the public and say, hey, if anybody knows anything about a dark van with flames on the side, please come forward. It seems very strange and I wonder

[Mike Morford]

if they lost any time going down that avenue and if that wound up hurting the case.

[Mike Ferguson]

Well, I think two things probably hurt the case. That that was the first, that they didn't immediately pursue this as an abduction. The second angle that I would look at is because they didn't, we mentioned it. Right. They did not treat the house as a crime scene. So what type of extremely valuable evidence was lost? We don't know. Not long after this appeal by police, a man called the local Crime Stoppers number after seeing a reenactment on TV of Linda's disappearance. So again, you have to wonder, how did they do this reenactment if it wasn't based on the story told by Ben? But this man said that he saw a man driving a dark blue van with flames on the side in the Ross park area. The caller described the man that he had seen as a white male, early to mid-20s, with ear length blonde, kinky hair. He said that he was between 5:9 and 5:11. And he described this guy as a loner. Now, obviously, to describe the man as a loner, the caller had to have known him in some way. But morph, we just never could get the details on that, how they were connected, how he knew this man. But to call someone a loner, you can't do that by seeing them drive by in a dark blue van with flames. You have to have some knowledge of the person. Police put out another public appeal asking any teenage girls who might have been confronted in city parks by a man driving this van to call detectives. But this didn't lead anywhere. There were no teenage girls that came forward and said, oh, I saw the van. I saw this guy. He tried to get me in the van. Nothing. Police brought in Linda's father, Larry Smith, to take a polygraph, which he passed. But there's no doubt that this event was traumatic on Noreen and the kids. The kids didn't want to live in the house on 8th Avenue after the abduction. So Noreen packed them up and went to live with her parents in Basalt. And I don't blame them one bit. Morph. I think anytime you experience something like this or a murder or, you know, just something devastating, I've never been in that position, but my assumption is that would be very difficult to remain in the house where that horrible thing happened. How could you not walk around all day long inside that house and be reminded of something bad, be reminded of the fact that your daughter, your sister, is still missing?

[Mike Morford]

Plus, you would think that you just wouldn't have that safety, that feeling of safety, maybe thinking someone's going to come in at any time. I can't even imagine living with that.

[Mike Ferguson]

No, that's a good point too. You know, I. I don't know if you feel safe anywhere after that, but you certainly wouldn't feel safe in the house where someone broke in.

[Mike Morford]

And I also thought it was kind of sad the way the investigation seemed to shift to an abduction and Then immediately the family becomes the focus, you know, with lie detector tests and things like that, that seems unfortunate. On October 15, 1981, four months after Linda's abduction, two hunters found a human skull near a gorgeous in the Trail Hollow area near Mallet, Idaho, while hunting. This is in an area about 55 miles southeast of Pocatello. A forensic team was brought in and spent a couple of days collecting evidence. The bodies had been left outside in the elements, so no trace evidence was found. The team found more human bones, clothing, and a necklace. Dental records confirmed the skull belonged to Tina Anderson. There was a small hole above her right ear, and a.22 caliber bullet casing was also found at the scene. Some other clothing and human bones were found close by, and they were believed to possibly have belonged to Patricia Campbell. Because only Tina's skull was found and Patricia's wasn't, they had no way of positively identifying Patricia in 1981. Since DNA hadn't come online yet and dental records were the best way to make identifications.

[Mike Ferguson]

You know, there are a lot of headaches in running a business. One of the biggest ones is fixed by the sponsor of today's episode, and that's Square. Now. Starting a business is exciting. Running it is where things can get really complicated. You're juggling a lot of things, payments, inventory, reports, and then somehow you're still supposed to serve customers. Square brings all of that into one place. And it doesn't matter what you're selling, Square helps you run your business without running yourself into the ground. And right now, listeners can get up to $200 off Square hardware. When you sign up at square.com go/criminology. That's S Q U A R E.com go/criminology. Visit Square to get started because the right tools make all the difference. And every time I interact with a business that uses Square, I just know it's going to be a seamless experience. If you're starting a business or running one that deserves better tools, Square helps you sell, manage and grow without slowing down. Right now, you can get up to $200 off Square hardware at square.com go criminology. That's sq u a r e.com go/criminology. Run your business smarter with Square. Get started today. You know, everyone is talking about GLP1 and I actually take a medication for my diabetes, which is along those lines. But if I could, I would prefer not to use needles. Not a big fan. I also prefer natural options over injections. This podcast is sponsored by Verasity. Welcome to an all natural way to slim down, get energized and sharpen your focus. Veracity is revolutionizing health by tackling the root cause of so many issues and and that's metabolism. With Veracity's drug free, clinically proven and doctor formulated solutions, you can support your body's needs to live your healthiest life. And if your goal is weight loss, you have to try Metabolism ignite. The number one doctor recommended GLP1 Booster and GLP1 Alternative Metabolism Ignite is sold out 10 times for a reason. There's no side effects, no allergens. It's a natural, safe plant based aid that results in an 85% reduction in hunger and is clinically proven to lose on average £9 in 90 days. If I wasn't already on my diabetes drug, I would definitely be using Metabolism Ignite from Veracity. So before Metabolism Ignite sells out again, make the switch to GLP1s the natural way. Head to VeracityHealth Co and use code CRIMINOLOGY for for up to 65% off your order. Once again that's V E R A C I T Y Health Co for up to 65% off and make sure you use our promo Code Criminology so they know we sent you this episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the name your price tool from Progressive you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try [e-mail] progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates price and coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states. I'm Serena Williams and I'm healthier on ROE.

[Mike Morford]

I've lost 34 pounds in a year.

[Mike Ferguson]

With GLP1's diet and exercise. On RO you can access GLP1 options including the first FDA approved GLP1 pill for weight loss.

[Mike Morford]

Go to ROURNEY to see if you qualify.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

14 to 20% average weight loss in

[Mike Ferguson]

one year in non diabetics with obesity or overweight with a weight related medical condition versus 2.2% to 3.1% in placebo arm RX only. To stay informed about serious side effects go to RO Safety. Nine days later police did a follow up with the last people who saw Tina and Patsy alive and it was Officer Finley again. That was the officer that did the follow up and he reported the following. I proceeded to 1317 East Bridger in an attempt to contact 16 year old Mary Edwards. I contacted her there and asked if she could recall any facts or rumors that might assist in the investigation. She stated that she was very good friends with Tina, but that Tina never confided in her that she was going to run away. And after her disappearance, Tina had never called her to inform her of her whereabouts. She stated that she had heard a rumor that a female named Candy had received a call from Tina and that Tina was allegedly in Salt Lake City at the time the call was made. Mary could supply no further information and was not familiar with Candy's identity. I requested that she check with old friends and if information came to light, to relay it to me.

[Mike Morford]

Officer Findlay continued writing in the report about others he spoke with. At 8:30pm I called Carol Webb, formerly Carol Edwards, and requested to speak to her and her husband Monte. I contacted them at their residence, 394 Warren, and asked if they could add any more information to the original report. They reiterated that they had driven to the Moonlight Mine with both victims and had later in the afternoon dropped both victims off at Alameda Park. Carol Webb thought that Tina had to babysit for one Levon Walker, who allegedly resides across the street from Alameda Park. In essence, they both gave the same chain of events they had given on the original report dated 1978. Monty Webb indicated that since the disappearance of the victim in 1978, the subject came up now and again as to their whereabouts and that his brother Rich Hodges had mentioned once that his girlfriend Candy, who I assume is the same Candy mentioned earlier in the report by Mary Edwards, had allegedly received a phone call from Tina. Monty stated that if contacted, Rich will probably resist questioning because he does not want to become involved. Monty stated that Rich does not have a telephone, but that he resides on Pershing in a white house just south of the Fish and Game office. I inquired as to whether they were familiar with Candy and they could supply no further information in regards to her identity. Candy's identity has never been confirmed.

[Mike Ferguson]

A few months later, another skull was found. In May 1982, three young girls were playing near the Sagewood Hills area of East Pocatello when they found the top portion of a skull and upper jaw with teeth. This was found at the base of a ravine several yards below the intersection of Hospital Way and East center streets. The location was about 200 yards from the Pocatello Regional Medical center, which was brand new at the time. The girls took the remains to one of the girls homes and this girl's mother called police. It was around 8:41pm so police officers arrived at the scene. They did a search and found several miscellaneous bones. They also found the Remnants of three pairs of jeans and a fair amount of hair. But they didn't know if the hair belonged to the victim. The skull appeared to be full sized, possibly that of a teenager or an adult. By 4:30pm the next day, searchers had filled a small cardboard box with bone fragments. Police could not determine how long the bones had been in the ravine, but they suspected at the very least several months.

[Mike Morford]

A few days later, dental records confirmed the skull belonged to Linda Smith. Finally, police believed her younger brother Ben Smith's account of the night of June 14, 1981. Police were not able to find a cause of death and concluded that where Linda was found was a dump site, not a murder site. Police spent at least 100 hours investigating Linda's case, but eventually the trail went cold. Then police chief Norman Probst told the media the trail is a year old. As months go by in any investigation, an eyewitness may forget things, and frequently stories will change. If he was insinuating Ben Smith, well, his story never changed. Ben never forgot. Seeing his sister abducted, Linda Smith's family was finally able to bury Linda on September 10, 1982 at Fielding Memorial Park Cemetery in Idaho Falls.

[Mike Ferguson]

In May 1983, Idaho Falls Police contacted Pocatello police to investigate the theft of a marker from Linda's grave. The marker was last seen in late April by her mother, Noreen. And this marker was 8 inches by 10 and a half inches. And it had Linda's name on it. It wasn't an expensive thing, you know, it cost around $20. That wasn't the point. It was the to the family, it was the desecration of Linda's grave site. Police didn't know if this was related to Linda's death, but they considered it suspicious under the circumstances. Two years after Linda Smith's abduction, another Pocatello girl vanished. And like two of the three girls before her to go missing from Pocatello, she too was a babysitter. Cindy Bringhurst was born on August 21, 1968 to Larry and Nancy Bringhurst. She had one sister named Sherry. Cindy graduated from Alameda Junior high school in May 1983. During high school, she was active in the French Club. She enjoyed cooking, dancing, music, and she likes sports. She likes swimming, basketball and football.

[Mike Morford]

On June 5, 1983, when Cindy was 14 years old, she was babysitting for a single mother of a 2 year old at an apartment in the 100 block of Highland Boulevard. The mother was working at a bar called the Oasis Bar. During the night, the woman called her home to see if Cindy and the baby were doing okay. And Cindy answered and talked with her. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. When the woman returned home around 1:30am the front door was unlocked, the TV was on and Cindy was nowhere in sight. The baby was unharmed and sound asleep in her crib. At 1:45am the woman reported Cindy missing. When police arrived, the woman that Cindy was babysitting for told them that her purse was stolen earlier that night from the bar while she was working. The keys to her house were in her purse. There was nothing out of place when she returned home except for Cindy being gone. She told the officers that she last spoke with Cindy on the phone at 11:45pm on June 4. There was no sign of a struggle at the apartment right away.

[Mike Ferguson]

In Cindy's case, and this is different than some of the other cases we've talked about, police suspected foul play due to the circumstances. 150 volunteers, including Linda Smith's mother Noreen, participated in a search of the neighborhood looking for Cindy. The town was actually expecting about a thousand volunteers, but there was a heavy rainstorm so only about 150 people showed up. They didn't find any trace of Cindy. Cindy's parents offered a reward for information about their daughter's disappearance and they even hired a psychic. This was a 38 year old California woman named Judy Bell. This woman charged $100 an hour and reportedly spent 35 hours in Pocatello, Idaho working on Cindy's case. However, the woman didn't provide any valuable information regarding Cindy. So I think Morf at that point the family is frantic. They're frustrated. They would do anything to find their daughter, including hiring a psychic. They spent $3,500 and it led them nowhere.

[Mike Morford]

Police also accepted help from an elderly Blackfoot woman who claimed to be a psychic as well. The woman asked for nothing in return. She just wanted to help find Cindy. She took police to the hills outside Pocatello and directed them to mink creek, about 13 miles southwest of Pocatello. The psychic told police that Cindy was murdered there. But police didn't find any evidence in that location of the missing girl. The woman Cindy was babysitting for moved out of the apartment shortly after Cindy's disappearance. But the apartment had already been processed by police and she was not considered a suspect in the case.

[Mike Ferguson]

At one point, a 19 year old man made a prank phone call saying he dumped Cindy's body in the Portneuf river. And police figured out who this 19 year old was. They arrested him. But as they Started looking into it, you know, they realized that it was a prank. He didn't have anything to do with Cindy's death disappearance, so nothing else came out of it. But then a month later, on July 7, 1983, a teenage boy was fishing with his father at Mink Creek when he spotted a body partially submerged underwater. This was only about 75ft from where the Blackfoot psychic had taken police. The clothes on the victim matched what Cindy Bringhurst was wearing when she vanished. A blue and white striped T shirt, blue jeans and white tennis shoes. Police searched the entire area, but they didn't find anything else. An autopsy later confirmed that the body was Cindy. The autopsy also showed that Cindy's hyoid bone was broken, meaning that she was strangled. No trace evidence was found on the body. The medical examiner reported that Cindy's body had probably been submerged since the day she went missing.

[Mike Morford]

In 1986, police were once again digging in the area where Tina Anderson's and Patricia Campbell's remains were found. They found the partial skull of another teenage girl a few hundred feet away in a gorgeous. Police did not believe the girl was from the area. A forensic pathologist determined she was African American. But no girls matching that description were reported missing from southeast Idaho. The victim died from repeated blows from a blunt object. Initial reports stated she was between 12 and 16 years old. Prior to the 14's disappearances. Another girl went missing from Pocatello. 12 year old Lynette Culver disappeared on May 6, 1975, after leaving Alameda junior High school on lunch break. She has not been seen since. Three months later, serial killer Ted Bundy was arrested in Utah and ultimately convicted of murdering several women across the United States. Right before his execution in 1989, he confessed to killing Lynette Culver.

[Mike Ferguson]

And I think anytime you can bring Ted Bundy into the mix, Morph, you have to do it. And this is not a. As it oftentimes is, a serial killer was somewhere in the area and could have done X. This is an infamous serial killer confessing to a murder of a teenage girl in the same location where the circumstances are very similar, right? This girl went to Alameda Junior High school, as did the other victims. She was young. I mean, Bundy's fascinating, right? Morph, you and I have already done a number of episodes on him. He led a very transient lifestyle. He crisscrossed the country. He was all over the place. He was arrested, he escaped. Now, the one thing I think that's pretty obvious is that Bundy didn't have Anything to do with the disappearances of the other girls that we've talked about. 78, 81, 83. His movements are pretty well documented. He confessed to killing Lynette culver, But there's some skepticism around that as well that we'll talk about later. In 2004, an unknown female came forward and reported to police that she was at the pioneer day celebration and saw tina anderson and Patricia campbell Walking around with a young male wearing a hooded sweatshirt on the day they went missing back in 1978. This additional information didn't lead to any new breakthroughs, but it did back up what authorities had been told back in 1978. In 2007, Patricia Campbell's remains Were finally positively identified. And that same year, Police reopened Linda Smith's case. Detectives drove to Ben Smith's home in brigham city, utah. By this point in time, Ben was around 35 years old. I mean, that's how old these cases are. He provided detectives with names and phone numbers of his siblings and other people who might have been able to help in the investigation. And it was around this time that one of their siblings told the pocatello journal that the family believed back then they knew who killed linda.

[Mike Morford]

Prior to Linda going missing, Linda's family had turned a man that they knew in for a crime he committed while in jail. The man wrote a threatening letter to the family. Ben later picked that man out of a photo lineup in 1991 as being the man that kidnapped linda. The family gave the letter to police at some point, but in 2007, the detectives claimed they no longer had it. Ben added that early on in the investigation, the family didn't make those details public. At the request of detectives, the man who sent the threatening letter had spent time in Idaho prisons and was living in the Boise, Idaho area as of 2007. While this man was an interesting suspect, Police have never been able to link him to Linda's disappearance.

[Mike Ferguson]

In May 2007, the Oneida county sheriff's office task force, Forensic experts, and Idaho state university anthropology students re excavated the site at the gorge Where Patricia's, Tina's, and a third unidentified girl's remains were found. They announced they had uncovered damning evidence, but they didn't release any of the details to the press. A year later, in 2008, it came out that the key evidence they found Was a rock with what appeared to have a white fingerprint on it. The FBI was said to have been analyzing it At a lab in quantico, virginia, but there's been no further mention of the rock, at least publicly. So it's one of those interesting details that you just don't hear any more about.

[Mike Morford]

In 2008, the piece of the partial skull belonged to the Jane doe found in 1986. Some of Patricia's items and bones and the.22 caliber bullet casing all went missing. Ten years later, in 2018, they were found in an evidence locker and sent to the FBI for analysis. Originally, this victim was thought to be an African American female, But according to Namus, the gender, race, height, and weight of the person the skull belongs to is still unknown. Authorities believe it's possible that this person was abducted and murdered with Tina and Patricia. Police wouldn't comment on whether the other items missing have been found. Police believe the skull may have belonged to the daughter of a migrant worker, which would explain why her disappearance was never reported, Possibly that the family feared deportation.

[Mike Ferguson]

In 2016, the Oneida County Sheriff's Department was confident they had solved the case of Tina Anderson and Patricia Campbell. And they even posted it on their Facebook page, saying investigators are confident in who the perpetrators of the murders are, what the motive was, and how the murders occurred, Even though physical evidence has been lost through the years, and investigators have done multiple interviews with suspects and witnesses that have led to conclusions of what happened. Even though the evidence is circumstantial, it is very strong evidence. So that was their quote. That's what they posted. But Oneida county prosecutor Cody Brower handed Tina's and Patsy's case back to the Sheriff's office in 2017. He said circumstances have risen where some of the evidence we had is no longer available to us. So I'm returning it back to the sheriff's office for further investigation. The problem is that he didn't elaborate on what these circumstances were, but he went on to say, I have ethical duties to only file a case that I believe I can prove. And so it's a tough situation in a case like this where we want justice, we need justice, but at the same time, have to provide it within the restrictions of the law. And morph. I get everything that he's saying there. All of that makes perfect sense. What I don't understand is how a year before this, you can come out and say that with such confidence, you are sure that you know not only who killed Tina and Patricia, but how and why.

[Mike Morford]

Yeah, that lack of full explanation is disheartening. And I can only imagine for families involved of these girls, that it really must be a big letdown.

[Mike Ferguson]

So then a year later, you're saying that something has changed. And I think that the biggest point of the quote that jumped out to me is some of the evidence we had is no longer available to us. What does that mean? That you lost it or that what you thought was this damning evidence turned out not to be? And this is what always frustrates me in some of these cases where you just don't get those details. So you're left to wonder. But we've seen time and time again prosecutors trying individuals on very thin circumstantial evidence. I mean, you can point to how many different documentaries are out there right now, more of questioning the validity of the state's case. I respect this guy for that, for recognizing that everybody wants justice, and I'm sure this guy wants nothing more than to put someone away for these murders, but he's not going to push it if the evidence doesn't prove that someone did it.

[Mike Morford]

In August 2018, the Pocatello Police Department announced it doesn't entirely believe Ted Bundy killed Lynette Culver. They were quoted as saying, we don't have a body, and Culver is still a missing person. During the initial investigation, there were multiple individuals who came forward with conflicting information. And until we can find her remains or there is absolutely nothing else we can do, we are going to continue to look into this.

[Mike Ferguson]

So I guess what I would say about that is the easy way out would be to accept Ted Bundy's confession, call the case close, and move on. Right? That's the easy thing to do. But they're not doing that. My assumption is because they can't prove, they have no evidence proving that Ted Bundy, outside of his confession, actually murdered Lynette Culver. And the problem with that, morph, as you and I are very well aware of, serial killers like to confess to crimes and murders that they didn't actually commit. It happens all the time.

[Mike Morford]

It seems like if Ted Bundy wasn't responsible for Lynette Culver's disappearance, maybe Lynette Culver is connected to the series of abductions and murders of these other girls, and it just hasn't been officially connected. And that would mean that there was likely a serial killer in that area during that stretch.

[Mike Ferguson]

And one thing that I always think about is in a situation like this. So just take Ted Bundy confessing to killing Lynette Culver. Has that over the years, removed her case from the others? Right. They've made a separation because at a certain point, okay, Ted Bundy was responsible for this. We know he wasn't responsible for the others. But if you take his confession away or you prove that it's not true. Now, is Lynette Culver, like you said, somehow linked with the others? And maybe it's somebody tied to Lynette Culver that could undo this whole thing. But that person hasn't been looked at maybe as closely as they should have because of Ted Bundy. It can really throw a huge monkey wrench into the works. The Pocatello PD does not have any information or evidence linking any of the cold cases together, but it remains a possibility. They've also said it's possible that an unknown serial killer murdered the girls. I guess for me, though, it's really hard to think there's not some type of link. Maybe it's not all of them, but there's some type of link with some of these girls. The fact that they all went to the same school, the fact that, you know, the majority of them were babysitters, that's more than a coincidence to me. It's too much to ignore.

[Mike Morford]

And I think even the. The months they went missing were all during summer months as well. Oh, that's. Yeah, that seems to jump out, and it makes you ask, was someone coming into that area just during the summertime? Or maybe that was the only time they had available? Maybe a job kept them busy the rest of the year. But that's one thing that seems to stand out as well.

[Mike Ferguson]

Yeah, I totally forgot about that, Morph. You really can get into some conversations about that. You know who's off during the summer? Teachers. My wife's a teacher, so I'm well aware of that. But you could also get into jobs that take people outside during the summer. Tree trimmers, landscapers. There's all kinds of avenues that you can go solely based on the fact that the murders were committed during the summer months. Or like you said, is this a trucker or a business traveler that only comes in during certain parts of the year?

[Mike Morford]

Ben Smith, Linda Smith's brother, who witnessed her abduction, suffered psychologically from the events of that night. In 1997, he was checked into a mental hospital for a short time. He now lives with his family in Utah and struggles daily with the memory of watching his sister get kidnapped and not being able to save her. Noreen Smith, Linda's mother, felt guilt for many years for not being home at the time her daughter was kidnapped. But Noreen truly believed that the kidnapper would have taken Linda anyway. Knowing there wasn't an adult male in the home, Noreen passed away.

[Mike Ferguson]

In 2000, Patricia Campbell's sister Melissa, who was. Was at Pioneer day with Patricia, and their younger sister passed away in 2015. She was only 45 years old. And I think this is something, morph, that often gets forgotten. Is the toll that these crimes take on the families of these victims you talked about been psychologically, it has affected him and will affect him for the rest of his life. Noreen died with probably what is a massive amount of guilt that she lived with for the rest of her life. Patricia's sister Melissa, dying at a fairly young age. I just don't think anyone is spared. And a case like this, and I

[Mike Morford]

think we touch on it from time to time in some of the cases that we discuss, is it better to know what happened to someone, or is it more painful to go without ever knowing what happened? And in the cases of these girls, they did find their bodies, but that doesn't lessen the pain that they suffered all these years and the tolls that it took on them decades later.

[Mike Ferguson]

No, I agree with you. You and I talk about that quite a bit. The one thing I will say is that so they know what the ultimate fate was, but they don't know what happened, truly. Right. They don't know why. They don't know who. And again, I think that that would eat at me from the inside. So, Morph, you and I have talked about the. The similarities in these cases where they went to school, the fact that the majority of them were babysitters. They all went missing during the summer months. One of the things that we mentioned, but really didn't spend a lot of time on is that one of the victims was abducted by a man who smelled like alcohol while her mother was out at a bar. And then another victim had ties to a bar as well. She was babysitting for a woman that was working at a bar when that woman's purse went missing. Inside the purse was keys to her house. And then all of a sudden, the babysitter goes missing again. Are those ties? I mean, everything is something in my mind, when you start to break down these cases, you have to look at

[Mike Morford]

everything and you wonder if there are some kind of clues there. Between one person working at a bar where her purse was stolen from and the assailant in one of the other abductions smelling like alcohol. You wonder if there's some clues there that police might be able to go on to connect these cases together. If it includes bars in that area.

[Mike Ferguson]

Yeah. I mean, you would think so. But again, we're 40 years later in these cases, I think very tough when you get this far along to try to solve it that way. I think if, if these cases are going to be solved, it's going to be some type of DNA. But as far as we're aware of, they don't have any DNA in evidence, but they could. And that's just not something that has been released. But I think very difficult to put the connection together 40 years later. Not saying impossible, just very difficult. But that's the case of the Pocatello babysitter murders.

[Mike Morford]

If you have any information about the cases we've discussed in this episode, you're asked to call the Pocatello Police Department at 208-234-6100.

[Mike Ferguson]

Please take a minute, go out, give us a five star rating. If you love the show, you can leave us a review if you want to. All that goes a long way towards helping other people find the podcast.

[Mike Morford]

And if you want to find us on social media, we're on Twitter with the handle riminologypod. You can also find us on Facebook by searching for Criminology Podcast or by joining our Facebook discussion group Criminology Podcast Discussion and fans.

[Mike Ferguson]

And as we mentioned at the top of the show, we're going to leave you with a preview of a special Patreon exclusive interview that you'll have access to as a Patreon supporter. So until next episode, this is Mike

[Mike Morford]

Ferguson and this is Morph.

[Mike Ferguson]

And we'll talk to you next week.

[Mike Morford]

Take care, everyone.

[Detective Interviewee]

I was transferred to Homicide and I stayed in homicide from 1987 literally to the day of my retirement in 2013. So I was in homicide for 25 and a half years. The last 12 years in homicide, I was the sergeant over the Homicide Co case unit. 100 homicides per year, sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less. So you can't help it. Over 25 years, you're going to be on a lot of crime scenes.

[Mike Morford]

And I think that all detectives we know have to be intuitive and really pay attention to details. But you had a skill that allowed you to really take that to an extreme. Tell us a little bit about that skill that you have learned.

[Detective Interviewee]

Soon after that, I also could recall everything this person's telling me. If he tells me something at 1 o' clock and then interviews continuing 1:45, he tells me something different. I mean, I'll remember without looking at notes or anything like that, exactly what he told me 45 minutes ago. So I was able to recall everything he, you know, I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. It's helped me over the years. You know, some detectives actually call me and they inquire about old cases and they'll ask me about this case or that case. And I'm usually, for whatever reason, I'm able to remember who the victim is, how the victim was killed, the location of the homicide, and for some reason I'm able to remember all that where these other detectives, they'll remember some of their cases, but in some cases, if it's 20 years old or an older case, some reason I'm able to record those details. So,

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Sam, Most people overpay for car insurance not because they're careless, but because switching feels like too much hassle. That's why there's Jerry, your proactive insurance assistant. Jerry compares rates side by side from over 50 top insurers and helps you switch with ease. Jerry even tracks market rates and alerts you when it's best to shop. No spam calls, no hidden fees. Drivers who save with Jerry could save over $1,300 a year. Switch with confidence. Download the Jerry app or visit Jerry AI Libsyn today. That's J E R R Y AI Libsyn. When it's time to scale your business, it's time for Shopify. Get everything you need to grow the way you want. Like all the way. Stack more sales with the best converting checkout on the planet. Track your cha chings from every channel right in one spot. And turn real time reporting into big time opportunities. Take your business to a whole new level. Switch to Shopify. Start your free trial today. We all prefer things a certain way, like groceries. If you want groceries just how you like them, you gotta try Instacart. They have a new preference picker that lets you pick how ripe or unripe you want your bananas. Shoppers can see your preferences upfront, helping guide their choices. Because when it comes to groceries, the details matter. Instacart. Get groceries just how you like.