← MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories
MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories
We're Going In (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)
00:31:41
On a morning in 2012, a young man was looking out at his backyard in West Virginia. A few days of heavy rain had opened up a sinkhole in the garden, and he was trying to fill it in... when suddenly, he noticed something plastic. He knelt down and pulled a plastic grocery bag out of the mud. He opened it, and as soon as he looked inside, he dropped it and backed away.
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One morning in 2012, a young man was looking out his backyard in West Virginia when he noticed something in his garden. So over the past couple of days there had been really heavy rainfall and it had basically turned his backyard into like a swamp. But in particular in the garden in his backyard, there was almost like a sinkhole forming from all the water and he noticed there was something in the hole and it almost looked like it could be plastic. And so, feeling curious, the young man left the house and yeah, sure enough, there was what appeared to be the top of a plastic bag that had been tied up that was in this hole. And so he reached down and he pulled this bag out of the ground and it was pretty heavy and he opened it up and looked inside and he dropped it and backed up in horror. But before we get into today's story, if you're a fan of the strange, dark and mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right place, because that's all we do. So if that's of interest to you, the next time you're over the Follow Buttons house watching their favorite show together, be sure to constantly tap them on the shoulder and interrupt them and order to ask completely meaningless questions. Okay, let's get into today's story. Adobe Firefly is the all in one creative studio with AI powered image and video generation for today's creative process. Built for creators of every kind, Firefly helps you generate, edit and experiment fast because the asks aren't getting smaller, the budgets aren't getting bigger, and the timelines. Ugh. Yeah, still tight. With all the best creative AI models in one place, Firefly brings your ideas to life. Unlock a better way to make With Adobe Firefly, insurance isn't one size fits all. That's why drivers have trusted Progressive's name your price tool for years. Just tell Progressive what you want to pay and they'll show you coverage options that fit your budget. Visit progressive.com to find a car insurance rate that works for you. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates Price and coverage match limited by state law around noon on Saturday, April 24, 2010, a 64 year old sales clerk named Kathy Goble grabbed a suit jacket off the rack at a high end men's store in Charleston, West Virginia. She carried it over to a customer and then she helped him put it on in front of the mirror. And after he was dressed, the man smiled at his reflection and said it looked great. So Kathy had worked at the store now for 10 years and she really loved working there. I mean, everything about it was great. The staff was like family. You know, she herself was very people oriented and was great at building relationships with customers. In fact, she was so good at, you know, building relationships that men from all over town would come to the store specifically to see Kathy when they needed a new suit. However, this man she was currently helping wasn't like all the other customers. His name was Dr. Harry King and he was a radiologist. And he had been a regular at the store for many years. And even though he was married and even though Kathie herself was in a long term relationship, these two were actually having an affair. Harry had a lot of money and he really enjoyed showering Kathy with expensive gifts. In fact, he had even paid to have her kitchen redone. And just a couple of weeks ago, he'd taken her on a trip across the country to San Francisco. Now, when Kathy went on that trip, she had told her longtime boyfriend, Fred Farrell, that it was actually just a girls trip to visit an old friend. And even though she did feel bad about lying to him, Kathy really didn't know how long her relationship with Fred was gonna last anyway. So it sort of seemed like maybe it's not worth trying to protect it. Kathy and Fred had been dating for about two years, and Fred was definitely a nice guy. But recently he had asked Kathie to marry him. And, you know, she definitely was not sure about that and told him, you know, I don't know, I have to. I have to think about it. So the big reason why Kathy was definitely on the fence about marriage in general was actually because Kathy had been divorced twice already. She also liked having her own house and her own life and not being tied to just one man. But she couldn't bring herself to actually break up with Fred when he proposed. And so she was sort of in this holding period now. And she figured that, you know, as long as her affair with Harry stayed a secret, nobody would get hurt. So Kathy carried Harry's new suit over to the cash register. And as she rang it up, Harry leaned over the counter and asked if she wanted to go grab lunch. And Kathy smiled and said, sure. About an hour later, Kathy came back to the store after her lunch break. And inside she saw there was a young woman standing at the back of the store by a rack of shirts. The woman's clothes were a bit ragged and she just. She looked outta place, like she wasn't the typical clientele for the store. And as Kathy got closer to her, she realized it was her coworker's daughter, Jessica Fisher. And Jessica really put Kathy on edge because Jessica had a drug problem. And every once in a while she would come into the store and. And she would ask Kathy for some of Kathy's Xanax. And Kathy felt bad for her. So even though she knew it was a bad idea and it was wrong to do this, she usually would give Jessica some of her Xanax. But today, Jessica looks so sick and so agitated that Kathy really had to face the truth here. Jessyca had a serious addiction and she really had to stop enabling it. So when Jessyca invariably asked Kathy if she had any pills on her, Kathy put her foot down and said no. And Jessyca did not take that well. She started screaming at Kathy. It caused this huge scene. There were other customers inside looking over, and at some point, Kathy's manager came running over to see what was going on. Eventually, Jessica did sort of give up and she ran out of the store. But the whole encounter really left Kathy feeling shaken up. And for the rest of her shift, it was all she could think about. That night, just after the men's store closed at 5pm, Kathy came out the front door accompanied by one of her male coworkers. She was afraid that Jessica might be out here waiting to confront her. And so she had asked one of the other shoe salesmen, a guy named Charles March, to just walk her to her car. And so now the two of them, Charles and Kathy, as they exited the store and made their way across the lot, they both were sort of on high alert, waiting, waiting to see if Jessica was gonna pop out somewhere. But Kathy didn't see Jessyca or anybody else lurking around. So eventually she got to her suv, she said goodnight to Charles, and then she climbed into her car. Once inside the car, she locked all the doors and then exhaled in relief. She felt safe. And then as she started the engine, she called her longtime boyfriend, Fred. Fred was actually out of town on a fishing trip. And when he answered, Kathy told him that she was going to stop by his apartment that night and just clean it up for him before he came home. Now, Fred told her that she really didn't have to do that, but she insisted. She said she would head over there later that night, and then she hung up. But before she went to Fred's, Kathy actually planned to make another stop at the home of her ex husband, or one of her ex husbands, David McCartney. So Kathy and David had been divorced for 20 years now, but they had had two kids together, so they stayed in touch. A few years ago, David had actually had a stroke. And, and you know, while he survived the stroke, his health still never fully recovered and he wasn't remarried and didn't have anybody taking care of him. So Kathy would often stop by to help him out whenever she could. And so that was her plan for tonight, to just swing by, see if he was doing okay. So after hanging up with Fred and putting her phone in her purse, she threw her car in gear and she drove off towards David's house. A few Hours later, around 8:30pm, Kathy was chatting on the phone with her friend Laura while she drove toward her boyfriend Fred's apartment. She had just been at David's house and she had helped him with some chores. And then after she had left, she had swung by Walmart to pick up some food and cleaning supplies. And now she was telling Laura that she was actually sort of looking forward to cleaning up Fred's apartment and then just having some alone time, you know, that night. Afterwards, Kathy eventually reached Fred's apartment and so she parked her SUV in the driveway and she's still on the phone with Laura and she walked up towards Fred's apartment, but as she was unlocking the door, she looked and noticed there was someone walking towards her. And so she told Laura that she had to go. Then she hung up and she pushed the apartment door open. Two days later, on the morning of Monday, April 26, Kathy Goble's 36 year old son, Jason McCartney, knocked on the door of her house, which was located on a quiet suburban road. That morning Jason had gotten a call from Kathy's boss saying that she hadn't come into work and she also wasn't answering her phone, which just was not like her. Jason had tried calling his mother too, but she hadn't answered him either. So now he was at her house to make sure she was okay. But no one was answering the door. So Jason pulled out his own key and he let himself inside. And then once he was inside, he began walking all around, calling out for his mom, searching every room, but there was no sign of her. She wasn't there and there was no sign of her purse, which she brought with her everywhere. And then when he went into the garage, he saw that her SUV was also missing. So at this point Jason pulled out his phone and he called his mother's boyfriend Fred to see if maybe she was with him. But Fred said no. And in fact he said he hadn't heard from her since Saturday evening. Fred said he'd gotten home the day before on Sunday from his fishing trip, but when he got home, he'd found Kathy's cell phone, her spare car keys and her medication just sitting on his kitchen counter. But Kathy herself was not there, and also neither was her car. And so at this point, Jason had a really bad feeling that something wasn't right here. But he knew who to call. His childhood friend, Detective Brian Carper of the Kanawha County Sheriff's. 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Banking services for Chime card provided by Chime's bank partners. Optional products and services may have fees or charges. Some stated cash back for Chime prime only. No minimum balance required. For more information on travel perks go to chime.com disclosures later that morning, Detective Carper walked up to the door of Fred Farrell's apartment, which was on the other side of town from Kathy's house. Carper had spoken to Jason and he had found out that his mother had left her belongings here at Fred's apartment on Saturday night and no one had heard from her in the 40 hours since then. Also, her silver Honda SUV was nowhere to be found. So Carper had been friends with Jason for decades, and in that time, not only did he become close, obviously with Jason, but also with Jason's mom. So because he knew Kathy fairly well, he knew this whole situation was just very out of character for her. And so right away he's thinking, this has gotta be something serious. And so with a sense of urgency, Carper knocked on Fred's apartment door and and a few seconds later, a spry, active looking man in his mid-70s answered the door and he invited Carper inside and they sat down at the kitchen table. Carper began by asking Fred when was the last time he had spoken to Kathy. And he told him that Kathy had called him on Saturday night while he was off on a fishing trip, and that she had told him that she was going to go over to his apartment while he was away and clean it for him so that when he got home it would be, you know, nice and tidy. And when Carper looked around the apartment he was in, he did notice that it was clean. In fact, it was like spotless, as if the entire apartment had been scrubbed top to bottom. But Carper didn't call attention to that. Instead, he just told Fred to go on. And so Fred said that when he'd come home from the fishing trip on Sunday, so the day before, Kathy hadn't been there. But several lights in his apartment had been left on. A window was open, and some of Kathy's things had been left out on the counter. And also the apartment was clearly very clean, so it seemed like she had been here at least for a while, but she was not there anymore. And so Carper glanced over at Fred's counter, and he did see there was a phone, a pill bottle, and a set of spare car keys that clearly belonged to Kathy. And Carper, he turned back to Fred and he said, you know, did it strike you as odd that she was gone but left behind these really important items? And Fred just said, no, it actually wasn't odd that Kathy was sometimes quite forgetful. However, when Fred said this, he distinctly looked away from Carper, like he wasn't meeting him eye to eye when he said that Kathy was forgetful. And so Carper began to think that Fred seemed pretty nervous. And it also definitely had not escaped him that Fred had also just referred to Kathy in the past tense, that she was forgetful, not that she is forgetful, almost like he already knew that she might be dead, even though at this point she was only missing. And so to Carper, you know, all of this seemed really suspicious. So he told Fred that he would have to come down to the station right now for additional questioning. Fred agreed to it. And as the men stood up from the table and headed for the door, Carper grabbed Kathy's car keys off the counter and put them in his pocket. Later that afternoon, back at the Kanawha County Sheriff's Office, Detective Carper looked over a copy of Kathy's phone records. By this point in the day, they'd already interrogated Fred, but he was sticking to a story about the fishing trip. Carper had also gone to the men's store where Kathy worked and had spoken to her coworkers. But none of them had any clue where Kathy could have gone. One of the shoe salesmen confirmed that he had walked Kathy out to the parking lot around 5pm on Saturday, and he had watched her drive away. But that was the last time any of them had seen or heard from her. But now, as Carper scanned the list of calls that Kathy had made and received that Saturday, he saw that after she had left work that night, she had answered two incoming calls. One was from a woman named Laura Henderson, and the other was from her ex husband, David McCartney. And so Carper wrote down both their names and then looked up their addresses. He was hoping that one of them could help fill in the gaps of what Kathy had done after work that night. A short while later, Detective Carper was sitting in the living room of Kathy's ex husband, David McCartney. And David told the detective that he had heard about Kathy's disappearance from their son Jason. And he was shocked to hear about it because he'd actually seen Kathy on the night she vanished. He told Carper that on Saturday, after Kathy had gotten off of work, she had come over to his house, and when she was there, she had helped him pay some bills that he had forgotten about, in part because his memory was not that great ever since his stroke. But he said Kathy hadn't really stayed very long at his house before she said she just had to leave and then she had gone. And Carper really didn't know what to make of this because now it was clear that David, at least so far, was the last person to have seen Kathy in person. But Carper really wasn't seeing a motive here. I mean, if anything, all he was seeing is that David felt an enormous amount of appreciation and gratitude toward his ex wife. And then on top of that, I mean, David was not exactly young, and also he had some pretty serious mobility issues from the stroke he had had. And so Carper really wasn't even sure that somebody in David's condition would be able to hurt or kidnap Kathy, even if he had really wanted to. And also, Carper had to remind himself that he still wasn't even sure if anyone had hurt or kidnapped Kathy. After all, it's only been a couple of days now, and it was entirely possible that maybe she was safe somewhere and she would turn up and that this was just a big misunderstanding. However, there was still one more person that Carper really wanted to follow up with before he drew any initial conclusions, and that was the last person on Kathy's call records, Laura Henderson. And so later that same day, Carper sat down across from Laura Henderson in her living room. And Laura seemed really upset when Carper told her that Laura, she may have been the last person to speak to Kathy before she disappeared. At some point, he asked Laura whether Kathy had said anything on that last phone call about what she was up to that night or if she had had any recent issues with anyone or, you know, anything, anything odd. And Laura, she shook her head and said no, but then she stopped and she said, well, actually, there was one thing about that call that had stuck out to her as being a little bit strange. She said the last thing Kathy had said before hanging up was, was, we're going into Fred's apartment. Not I'm going into Fred's apartment, but we're going into Fred's apartment. We like she was with someone. Carper was sort of surprised by this because his understanding is that Kathy had gone to Fred's apartment to clean it by herself, based on what she had sort of communicated to Fred. And so we asked Laura if she had any idea who this other person was that she could have been with. And Laura said no. She said that Kathy had made no mention of there being another person with her on the entire call. In fact, the first mention of there being this other person was basically right at the end of the call when she had hung up. She basically had said to Laura up, we're going in. And then she had hung up. And so Carper spoke with Laura for a few more minutes. And then shortly after he left her house, his cell phone rang. And when he answered it, it was an officer on the line who said he had found Kathy's SUV. It had been abandoned on the highway about 15 miles outside of town. Carper said he would be there right away later that same Monday afternoon. So we're still just 48 hours after the last time anyone had seen or heard from Kathy. Carper parked on the side of the highway in a wooded area outside of Charleston. And through his windshield, he saw a silver Honda SUV parked a few yards ahead of him, right next to an exit. And right away, he recognized the license plate as being Kathy's. And so Carper got out of his car, and as he approached Kathy's suv, he saw there was a white towel hanging out of the driver's side window, which was normally a signal that a car had broken down. All the doors were locked. So Carper pulled Kathy's spare key that he had grabbed out of Fred's apartment out of his pocket, and he used it to unlock the driver's side door. There was nobody inside the car, and there was no sign of a struggle. There was no blood anywhere. And also, Kathy's purse was not inside either. So Carper had to wonder if maybe Kathy had been driving along this road, and then her car ran into some trouble, and she walked off to get help. When nobody had stopped, however, just to make sure, Carper sat in the driver's seat, and he used his spare key, and he tried the engine just to see if it would work. And as soon as he turned the key, the car started the car was running just fine. And he also saw there was a half a tank of gas left. So at first glance, it appeared like, you know, this didn't really make any sense. You know, why is this car abandoned here with the white towel in the windows signifying that this car has broken down when the car works just fine or appears to work just fine? And so Carper, at this point, he began to think like, this is a sign that Kathy likely had not disappeared by choice here. There was just no good reason why, why she would have driven 15 miles out of town without her phone in the middle of the night. Tell no one, abandon her car on the side of the highway and just walk off. Like, why would she do that? And so to Carper, it seemed like the most plausible explanation here was that Kathy had been abducted and whoever had done it also dumped her car out here with the towel in the window just to throw off investigators. Pet parent guilt isn't something that's talked about much, but it's a feeling we all know well. When daily life gets in the way, it can feel impossible to measure up to our beloved pet's unconditional love. Traveling for work is never the hard part. Leaving behind my six cats and three dogs is my daily routine goes from loud and chaotic to way too quiet. But one thing I never compromise on is their health and nutrition. 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There are no set class times, so learning fits around your schedule and and courses are career focused to help strengthen your skills. But the best part of the story SNHU's online tuition rates are some of the lowest in the entire country. This could be your next chapter. Visit SNHU. Edu Mrballin Today, two days later, on the morning of April 28, 2010, Detective Carper walked into the men's clothing store where Kathy worked. Now, by this point, he had already spoken to Kathy's co workers once on the day that she was reported missing. But now that he had learned from Laura that there was apparently someone else with her on Saturday night, he now really wanted to question everybody again to see if they had any idea who this other person might have been. So he tracked down Kathy's manager and he asked her if he could speak to her and ask her a few more questions. And she said, sure. And she led him over to a. A quiet part of the store where the customers wouldn't hear them. And so Carper, he pulled out his notepad and he asked her, the manager, to walk through what Kathy did during her final shift and be as detailed as possible. The manager said it had been a pretty normal day. Kathy had come in around 9am and helped out a few customers. The only thing that stuck out to her was that at some point in the afternoon, another coworker's daughter had come into the store and Kathy and this daughter had gotten into a really big argument, like a very public, nasty argument. Now, the manager said she really had no idea what the fight was even about, but just if they wanted to follow up. The daughter's name was Jessica Fisher. And so Carper, he wrote down Jessica's name and made a note to look into her. After that, he asked the manager if she had seen Kathy interact with basically anybody else that day, like any other meaningful interaction that he should know about. And the manager thought for a second and said, actually, yes, there was someone. She said that Kathy had gone out to lunch with a friend who also happened to be a regular customer at the store. She said his name was Dr. Harry King. Later that same day, Carper sat down inside of an interrogation room with Harry King. And Harry seemed really nervous. When Carper asked if he knew why he was there, Harry said yes. Harry then put his head in his hands and he said, you know, I know I should have come in sooner, but I was just afraid of what was gonna happen. He explained that he and Kathy were not just friends, they were having an affair. He said they'd even gone on a trip to San Francisco together a couple of weeks ago, and they'd both lied to their respective partners about It. Carper was really surprised by this. And right away he wondered if maybe Kathy's boyfriend Fred had found out about the affair and killed Kathie out of jealousy, or maybe things had gone bad between Harry and Kathy. You know, their affair had gone south and Harry had killed her. I mean, it did seem really suspicious that Harry clearly knew Kathy was missing but hadn't come forward to the police. He had to be asked to come in. So Carper asked Harry to just go ahead and explain where he had been on Saturday night. And Harry said he'd been at home all night with his wife. And so Carper asked if he could speak to Harry's wife to verify his alibi. And immediately, Harry pleaded with the detective not to bring his wife into this. You know, doesn't want to give up that he's having an affair here. But eventually he seemed to understand that without an alibi, he was the primary suspect here. So he agreed and gave Carper his wife's phone number. A few days later, on May 1st. So a week after Kathy was last seen, and she's still missing, Carper walked up the steps of a cheap motel on the edge of town. He'd finally tracked down Jessica Fisher, the co worker's daughter, who had gotten into a fight with Kathy at the men's clothing store on the day she disappeared. And this motel was apparently where she was staying. And so Carper figured out which room was Jessyca's. And then he knocked on the door. And then a moment later, the door opened and there was Jessyca. And Jessyca did not look well. She was unbelievably skinny, like, gaunt skinny. She looked sick. In fact, you know, Carper basically assumed that based on her physical appearance, she very likely was struggling with addiction. And so Carper, after introducing himself and confirming that this was in fact Jessica Fisher, he explained to her why he was there. He said that Kathy Goble is missing, and we know you got into a fight with her on the day she vanished at the store where she works. And so he asked her to explain what the fight was about. After hearing all this, Jessica's eyes went wide, and she insisted that she had no idea what had happened to Kathy. And when Carper pressed her again about why they had fought in the store that day, Jessica was kind of evasive at first, but then finally she just broke down and she admitted that she had been asking Kathy for drugs, and Kathy had said no, and they had fought about it. She said that sometimes Kathy would give her Xanax, but That day, Kathy had refused. So Jessica said she got mad and sort of freaked out, and that was the fight. But Jessyca swore that once another worker had intervened, she had just left the store and gone home and never seen Kathy again. Like that really was all it was. Now, Carper's reaction to this is it sounded an awful lot like Jessyca was telling the truth, but he still asked her if she would take a polygraph test just to be sure, and she said yes, of course. And so Carper gave her his business card, and they agreed on a date and time for her to come into the station for that test. But when that date and time rolled around, Jessyca never showed up in May of 2010. So a couple of weeks after Kathy Goble disappeared, Detective Brian Carper was looking through a forensics report at his desk. Kathy's car that had been found on the side of the highway had been processed for evidence. But as this report showed, no DNA or fingerprints had been found inside or on it from anyone other than Kathie. Now, this didn't mean that, you know, someone could not have dumped Kathy's car on the side of the road. It just meant that if that happened, whoever did it was very careful to cover their tracks, and forensic evidence was not going to help pin them down. And this was very frustrating for Carper because so far, all his leads were sort of coming up dry. Dr. Harry King's wife had confirmed his alibi, and when Carper had spoken to her, she had seemed very upset to learn that her husband was having an affair. So Carper didn't think she would want to lie for him. She probably was telling the truth, that he really was there with her. Carper had questioned Kathy's two adult sons, Jason and Paul, but they both came in and passed polygraph tests and were ruled out as suspects. As for Jessica Fisher, the young woman who had gotten into a fight with Kathy in the store over Kathy not giving her Xanax pills, well, she had agreed to come in and take a polygraph, but she hadn't shown up. And currently she was still mia. And even though Kathie's boyfriend Fred and ex husband David both still seemed pretty suspicious, there really was nothing concrete tying them to Kathy's disappearance. And so as the weeks passed by, Carper just had no idea what happened to Kathy. There hadn't been any activity on her bank accounts or credit cards since the day she vanished. So it seemed pretty clear that she had not just run off because you'd see transactions. However, it probably meant then that she was being held captive or something, or. Or maybe she was dead, but Carper just didn't know. And so this was a pretty unusual case because Carper did have several pretty solid suspects, but no actual evidence that a crime had even been committed. And so, unless Kathy was found dead or alive or some new evidence was uncovered, it would be impossible to charge anyone in connection with her disappearance. And so, as weeks turned to months and years, Kathy just continued not to turn up. The case ultimately went cold. Two years later, on April 25, 2012, Detective Carper trudged through the mud and puddles in the parking lot of the police station and then wiped his shoes on the mat outside the front door. It had been raining for days now, and the rivers and the creeks around Charleston had all flooded, and the whole city was basically a swampy mess. As Carper walked to his office, an officer suddenly ran up to him and said that a 911 call had just come in and Carper would definitely want to hear about it. The officer said that according to this caller, all the rain they had been having had unearthed a human body that clearly had been buried at some point on the edge of town. And as he explained where this body had been found, Carper's heart began to race. He understood why the officer had brought this to him specifically, because that body had to be Kathy Goble. Based on the place of burial and other forensic evidence, this is what police believe happened to Kathy Goble. On the night of April 24, 2010. Around 8:30pm the killer was waiting outside of Fred's apartment. They knew Kathy would be coming by that night, and soon they saw the headlights of her SUV coming up the street. As Kathie got out of her car with a plastic grocery bag and a phone to her ear, the killer approached the doorstep and waved. And Kathy, who was still on the phone, she sort of seemed surprised to see the killer. But, you know, nonetheless, she continued talking on the phone and she didn't say anything to the killer as she just continued to unlock the door, open it up, and sort of gestured for the killer to come on in with them. Once inside, Kathy set the shopping bag and a few of her other things down on the counter. And then once she'd hung up the phone, she asked the killer, what were they doing there? And the killer just asked her if she would take a drive somewhere with them. And Kathy seemed a little confused by the request, but said okay. The killer waited for a few minutes while Kathy cleaned up the apartment, because that was something she said that she wanted to do. And then once she was done, they both left the apartment. They got in the killer's car, and the killer drove them to another house way out on the edge of town. And once they were there, they went inside and the killer asked Kathy if she wanted to have sex with them. And Kathy said no. And this rejection sent the killer into like, an instant rage. And they grabbed her, they tied her up, and they strangled her. And then when she stopped moving, they dragged her lifeless body into a bathtub and they grabbed a saw and they cut off her arms, her legs, and her head. Then they took her severed body parts and they buried her in a shallow grave in their backyard. But two years later, the killer's son noticed something in their backyard after all this heavy rain. And when he went out there to see what was in the middle of the yard, he found her body. The shoe salesman, Charles March, who, ironically, had been the one to one, walk Kathy out to her car on the day she vanished to keep her safe from Jessica Fisher. After that fight, he was the person that she trusted to keep her safe. He was her killer. It would turn out Charles, who at no point was even considered as a suspect in this case, actually had a history of stalking women. And investigators believe he'd grown obsessed with Kathy while working with her. And then he eventually killed her when she rejected his advances. Charles March was arrested on April 25, 2012, and charged with Kathy's murder. He pled guilty and was sentenced to life in prison. However, he died of cancer in prison just two years later in 2014. A quick note about our stories they are all based on true events, but we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes. The Mr. Ballin podcast Strange, Dark and Mysterious Stories is hosted and executive produced by me, Mr. Ballin. Our head of writing is Evan Allen. Produced by Jeremy Bone and Cole Locasio. This episode was written by Kate Gallagher. Research and fact checking by Shelly Shue, Samantha Van Hoos and Evan Beamer Abigail Shumway Camille Callahan Alex Paul Ben Faciano Research and Fact Checking Supervision by Steven Ear Audio Editing and post produced by Whit Locascio and Jordan Stidham Production support by Antonio Minotta and Delaina Corley Artwork by Jessica Claugston Kiner Theme Song Something Wicked by Ross Bugden thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin podcast. And just a reminder, every new and exclusive episode we put out on the Mr. Ballin podcast, you can also now watch on the Mr. Ballin YouTube channel that very same day. And trust me, some of these stories you truly have to see to believe. Again, my YouTube channel is just called Mr. Ballin. If you want to listen to episodes one week early and ad free, you can subscribe to SiriusXM Podcast plus on Apple Podcasts or visit siriusxm.com podcastplus to listen with Spotify or another app of your choice. So that's gonna do it. I really appreciate your support. Until next time. See ya. Y Maxing is so maxing right now bro. Get ready for spicy chicken maxing because Carl's Jr. Is saving you big with a 5.99 maxed out double stack double stack Double stack Spicy chicken sandwich. Seriously, just 5.99 double stack spicy chicken. This is unreal value in the bromosphere. The new Spicy Chicken Max Wallet Friendly Max Tasty only at Carl's Jr available for a limited time at participating restaurants. Tax not included. Not valid for use within a combo or a combination with any other offered discount. Hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co founder of Angie. When you use Angie for your home projects, you know all your jobs will be done well. Roof repair done well. Kitchen sink install done well. Deck upgrades done well. Electrical Upgrade done well. Angie's been connecting homeowners with skilled pros for nearly 30 years, so we know the difference between done and done well. Angie the one you trust to find the ones you trust. Find a pro for your project@angie.com.