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Sleep number does that cools up to eight times faster and lets you choose your ideal ideal comfort on either side your sleep number setting. Enjoy personalized comfort for better sleep night after night. And now during our President's day sale, take 50% off our limited edition bed shop now for a limited time only at a sleep number store or sleepnumber.com I'm Anya and today we're going to talk about the Ohio counties where 17 year old Haley Busby of Fishers, Indiana was believed to be murdered and the one where her body was just discovered. Content WARNING this episode contains discussion of murder, including the murder of a child and the sexual abuse of children. So this is a case we've been carefully monitoring. It's incredibly disturbing. A 17 year old girl named Haley Busby disappeared on the night of January 5, 2026, early morning hours of January 6, and she was believed to have left her home in Fishers, Indiana on her own accord. Police initially said she was a runaway and then they upgraded or changed that status to Endangered missing juvenile, indicating an extreme concern for her safety. A big investigation was launched. Haley's family was out there raising awareness of her case too. I think it caught a lot of national attention. People were extremely disturbed by the mysterious circumstances of her vanishing. And all around the country this story resonated with people. It resonates with parents. It's, it's a scary situation. And they shared this story on social media. We talked about the case a few times on our show so far. Unfortunately, the case has reached a devastating conclusion because on Sunday, February 1, 2026, officials in Fishers, Indiana called a press conference during which they announced that they believed that Haley was dead. And then on Monday, February 2, 2026, news broke that investigators had found Haley's body. And today, February 3, 2026, it's come out that Haley was found specifically on Sunday in Ohio's Perry county in the Wayne National Forest. Now this is a case that has understandably and certainly really, I think gripped a lot of Indiana. People were hoping that Haley would come home safe and it's Devastating that she won't. But what I wanted to do with this episode, because we heard from a really helpful source in Ohio, is contextualize where this all took place, because I think that's important. It's hard to understand a case or what happens in a case without knowing that area where it happened. And this is just some additional information that people who are following along the case can have in order to better follow it and perhaps understand, even if they've never been to that part of Ohio. So we're going to get into it. My name is Anya Cain. I'm a journalist.
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And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney.
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And this is the Murder Sheet.
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We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews, and deep dives into murder cases. We're the Murder Sheet.
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And this is the murder of Hailey Busby, Hocking county and Perry county in Ohio.
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A
I wonder if before we start talking about Ohio, if it would make sense to talk a little bit about where Haley lived in actually Fishers, Indiana, Because I'm not sure if that is a community that many people are familiar with.
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B
That's a great idea. Fishers is probably somewhat well known in Indiana, but I don't think outside of Indiana anyone knows it to that extent. And Fishers is a. Is a great town. I mean, this is a. It's kind of an interesting place because it's frequently cited as one of the best places to live in America. It also happens to be the. I think. I think I'm right about this. It's like the fourth largest city in Indiana. It doesn't feel like a big city. It feels like a suburb. And it is a suburb of Indianapolis. It's the north. It's one of the northern suburbs of Indianapolis in a way, but just has that small town vibe in a way. I know when we've talked to people who knew about Fishers years ago, it's changed a lot in two decades. It used to be just very small, you know, a couple of houses, a couple stores, and now it's like a big thriving concern. People are attracted to the very good schools in Hamilton County, Indiana. People are attracted to the safety. And it's got a very good police department, and it's just kind of considered a very good place to live. And I think that's justified.
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Yeah, you're talking about the safety, I think, is important because I think one reason why this attracted so much attention is Fishers is a safe area. And you don't expect something like this to happen in a Place like Fishers.
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No. And like, I think we probably, as a genre and, you know, as a community within true crime, probably need to get away from the idea that there's a place where crime happens. I mean, on some level there is. We can look at crime and violent crime statistics and rates and see, oh, this city is per capita has more violent crime than this city. So I'm not saying we can't talk about that. We should. But when it comes to stranger luring, sexually motivated type crimes, those can happen anywhere, and they do happen anywhere, because predators are not, you know, necessarily going, especially in this modern age, going to their own communities to do this. They predators who are after children can connect with those children online and then just come in. And that's seemingly what the police are saying happened here. So I think we need to get away from this idea that there's a truly safe community. Back in the, you know, back in the day, in the, in the 20th century, right, there was no Internet. So there was this idea that, you know, the predator was going to be in your town potentially and that maybe there was a creepy guy you could watch out for. That's just not the case anymore. Today, kids are more vulnerable to predators than ever because they have smartphones, because they have Internet access. And it's. The onus is typically put on the child and on the parents. And I think as a society, there's more we should be doing to fix some of the systemic issues.
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A
Certainly the people in Fishers really seem to be taking this case to heart. I see pink ribbons when I visited Fishers. I understand that in the Fishers city hall there's actually a painting of Hayley Busby hanging that was actually painted by one of her art teachers. And there's even a blank space where people can leave messages of support and love to Hayley's family and those that are left behind.
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Yeah, I've seen so many outpourings on social media, people talking about this, and there's just a lot of collective grief. And I imagine there's an incredible amount of grief, especially associated with the young people in Fishers who may have known Haley, may have been friends with her. And this kind of tragedy and this kind of horrific crime can just have such a widespread impact, especially on young.
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People who are, you know, especially on young people. You know, there's the cliche that parents are not supposed to bury children. And of course that is a terrible tragedy when that happens. It's also true that people in high school are not supposed to bury their friends when you're that age, you're supposed to be at the beginning of life and looking forward to. And having to be confronted with the death, especially under these circumstances, of someone that you knew and cared about is really a challenge.
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Yeah, it's not. It's not even. It's the death, and it's not an accident. It's not this, you know, thing where it's just this kind of random tragedy. It's the horrific circumstances of what appears to be, at least from the police account, to be some kind of crime that involved a sexually motivated predator. Yeah, we don't know all the specifics about what happened yet, and frankly, I don't think it's responsible to speculate about those. All we can say is that there. There's a sexual component to this, and it's horrible. I, I want to talk about the. The. It's actually spread beyond Fisher's, though, because Indiana Governor Mike Braun weighed in on Twitter today to talk about this case. And I'll read a quote from him that he boasted, or this is what he wrote, quote, my prayers are with the family and loved ones of Hailey Busby during this heartbreaking time. No family should ever endure loss like this. This tragedy raises serious questions about how we better protect our kids in the digital age. Stronger tools for parents, including limits on social media and a more responsive alert system, are important. I'm working with the Indiana State Police to identify solutions to gaps in our alert system. I urge our legislature to take action to prevent further tragedies, and I call on Big Tech to stop selling their product to children. End quote. So this is. This is kind of. And we're going to get into this, but this is something that has been the thrust of what Haley's family has been calling for. And actually our friend Megan, who's been on the show to talk about the murder of her own mom, Leslie Hope Houston. She has founded this organization called Silver Linings of Hope. She's been helping them. She's been running some of those pages and the petition and whatnot. And what they're saying is there are a couple of things they would like to see change because perhaps it could save the next kid. And one of those things is creating a pink alert. So pink is the color that we're associating with. Hal Hailey. I think this was her favorite color. That's why there's pink ribbons. But the pink alert would be essentially for missing kids and I think missing people in general, where there are some serious and credible risk indicators. But they don't merit the. Or they don't get to the criteria of an Amber or a Silver Alert. So when we talk about Amber Alerts, sometimes there can be a lot of consternation in the public of, like, why wasn't an Amber Alert issued in this case? And I understand that because we see it as an opportunity to possibly save somebody. So the frustration is understandable. But Amber Alerts are set up the way they are in order to give the public actionable, specific information, oftentimes about vehicles. So there are specific criteria that have to be met in order for that to be issued. The feeling is that if the criteria of an Amber Alert is expanded too far, then the alert essentially becomes meaningless because you're getting bombarded with different things so often that you tune them out, and there's also nothing you can do because, you know, saying, hey, look out for this car with this license plate is a lot different than, oh, we. We think they went missing from this town, but we don't really know, like, when exactly and the circumstances. So that's why that is. I. I think Amber Alerts should be kept narrow. But I think the pink alert is a great solution because it can put this out there. And in a case like Haley's, it was very clear from the beginning that she was lured. She couldn't have gotten away on her own. Police knew this pretty early on from all. From all accounts. So knowing it's suspicious and knowing that there's some really concerning stuff going on here, it makes sense for there to be another system where we can get the word out quickly. What do you think, as. As. As an attorney, as someone who follows true crime, what are your thoughts on this proposal?
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Uh, I would be curious about the criteria for it. I would also be curious. I heard a lot about this. This case pretty early on. Uh, I'm not sure if having a special alert would have gotten information about the case into the. The. In front of more people than already we're getting it. Am I mistaken there?
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I don't know. I feel like we heard about it relatively early on. That may just be because we are in Indiana and cover true crime. So that might be just our algorithms feeding us that. I don't know if it would have made a difference in this case. I don't. I don't know that. It sounds like whatever happened to Haley happened pretty quickly. Pretty quickly. I. I do, though, think there is a gap between Amber and Silver Alerts and some things that the public maybe should know from official sources quicker. I think there is. There is A, there is a space there. And I think if families are able to, like, because what would happen now is like, you know, I think like, families can feel like, oh, now I have to go out and just do all the awareness raising at the worst moment of my life where I'm already freaking out. If we can kind of give them that support through a pink alert, I think that's worth doing in most cases. But yeah, I think it could be helpful in some instances. I could see it being helpful and I would be curious. I mean, it sounds like it would be the risk indicators of they were lured or they were going to meet someone and, you know, disappeared. I think there would have to be something like that for sure. Certainly a lot of kids run away and we even had a couple run away. There were a couple who ran away in Hamilton county recently, but all of them were recovered safely and everything was working out except for, unfortunately, Hailey, if you're like us, you're trying to save money right now. One major personal finance hack we've discovered is investing in clothing staples that hold up over time and never go out of fashion. That is why we love our sponsor, Quince.
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- [17:03]
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So into true crime that you kind of get extra careful about stuff, making sure you're not followed. For instance, staying situationally aware. And of course, checking the locks on your doors and windows before bed. Better safe than sorry, right? Because we all know bad stuff can and unfortunately does happen.
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- [18:28]
A
So I think you were doing some research and talking to people about the part of Ohio where Haley is believed to have been killed.
- [18:37]
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Yeah, and I'll just say the. The thing about the pink alerts also came with an element of teaching more about online predators being a mandatory thing in Indiana. That petition has gotten 78,000 signatures so far. So, yeah, I went. We actually heard from a wonderful source in. Well, actually, I wanted to talk about some other things first. I just. Before we get into this, currently in Franklin County, a man named Tyler N. Thomas is being held. He's been so far charged with tampering with evidence and pandering sexually oriented material involving a minor, which unfortunately was Hailey Busby in this case. He is on a 1.5 million cash surety bond. His lawyer is Sam Shemansky and his. He, his lawyer has talked about how he helped. Not helped, but like he went and pinpointed Haley. The location of Haley's body with the law enforcement officials looking into this. She was found on Sunday in Wayne National Forest near Trailhead in Perry County. So that is where things stand. If anyone knows more about this Tyler Thomas person, I would really like to hear from you and please email me@murdersheetmail.com we protect our sources. So the person I spoke to who was able to kind of fill in what this whole area is like, to give you a sense. Police say that they believe that Haley was murdered in a short term rental property in Hawking county in, in Ohio and that then she was, her body was left in Perry County. So I kind of wanted to know what, what are, what is this area like? And the person we spoke to does not live in Hawking County. They live a county over. We verified their address and who they are. They're very familiar with this whole area and they the kind of whole Fairfield County, Perry county and Hawking county area, these are all adjacent counties in Ohio. This person grew up in this part of Ohio and continues to live there as an adult. So let's talk through where this is specifically. If you start out with Columbus in Ohio, that's in Franklin county. That's toward the center of Ohio. If you drive southeast out of Columbus, you will hit some lake towns and then about 45 minutes southeast is Fairfield County. The two biggest cities in Fairfield county are Pickerton and Lancaster or Pickerington and Lancaster. Our source said that Lancaster is one of the sort of last big cities in southeastern Ohio. And this is a part of south, you know, this is a part of Ohio that starts getting down towards West Virginia. So Fairfield county is quite suburban in parts. But when you get past Lancaster, things start getting more rural. You can go down Route 33 and you'll get from Fairfield county to Hawking county. And then to the east of Fairfield county is Perry County. So they're all kind of smushed together. Fairfield County's got these kind of almost like stair step thing of a county line on the bottom. Perry county and Hawking county are kind of squeezed up next to it. Perry county is more toward the east of Fairfield county as I mentioned and Hawking is more to the south. And then Hocking county and Perry county also share a substantial border. So this is southeastern Ohio at this point that we're talking about. And actually Perry county and Hawking county are considered part of Appalachia. So let's talk about Perry and Hawking in particular, because of course, these are the two locations that are relevant toward the case. Perry county is quite rural. The county seat is of the village of New Lexington. That's where the courts are, some stores. The county has a population of about 35,000. They have a single Kroger in the county, and they're just a couple of little towns here and there. It's, it's agriculture is, is still big there. Hocking county also is quite rural. The county seat is the city of Logan. And again, that's where the courts are, some stores, a historic Downtown Park. About 7,200 people live in Logan. Hocking county is well known for the Hocking Hills region. So the population is small, but there are a ton of properties, homes, cabins, offered up as rentals to visitors. Have you. I'm just curious because you're a Midwesterner. I'm from New York. Have you ever heard of Hocking Hills? No, nor had I, but looking into it, it's very popular to go there. And it, I can see why. It looks beautiful. Hocking county has the Hocking Hills State park, which has a bunch of hiking areas, lots of rock formations, caves, waterfalls, very scenic. That's right next to the Hawking State Forest, which is a nature preserve. And actually looking at some of the news articles about this area, like you can see them using the pictures from the state park. There are lots of little cabins, places people can rent just deep in the woods and kind of get out there and people are drawn to the natural beauty. Our source told us that there used to be a seasonality to visitors coming to Hawken County. Like people like to really come in the summer or the fall to see the beautiful leaves. But after the COVID 19 pandemic that went totally out the window, people are coming year round. People go for special events, weddings, bachelor bachelorette weekends, hunting outdoors, just even just getting out and decompressing. When you live in the city, sometimes you might want to just go out in the woods and just chill out for a while. So lots of property owners have bought up land around there. They renovated existing old cabins, they built new ones. And many of these owners are actually from out of state and don't live in the area. So that rental property landscape has also even spilled over into adjacent counties. And just because they're all so close to the Hocking Hills region. And then of course, you and I know, like, you know, we've used Airbnb and VRBO in the past, those sites like that, where you can just easily access properties online, book them very simply. Those have made this whole thing even easier. So one thing I wanted to know about because again, Tyler Thomas is accused of murdering Haley and a short term rental property in Hawking County. I wanted to know, would he have had to have a lot of money to do that or, you know, are there any indications about that? And our source told us that some of the rentals are indeed very fancy going for thousands of dollars a night. Think hot tubs, nice amenities, others are dirt cheap. It just depends. There's something for everybody if you want to go out there. So it's not, it's really not. It doesn't really say. It doesn't tell us anything. And in all the reporting I've seen, I've not really seen anything so far about where this property was specifically in Hawking county. Nor should we know that because they're going to be wanting to really go over that forensically. I know they have been going over that forensically and you know, they, they were going to want to keep that private for the time being. So those are, those are some. So this is not the only place though with a state with a big park associated with it. Wayne National Forest, as I mentioned, is part of, that goes into Perry county and that is a huge Park. It's 240,000 acres. That is where Haley was found. And again, as I mentioned, Hawking county and Perry county share a border. It's pretty, they're very close by. I talked to the source about this law enforcement landscape because I was curious about that. Like what is law enforcement like out there? And they said that most of the like towns or cities have a, maybe have a small police department, but law enforcement is predominantly the domain of county sheriff's offices in this part of Ohio. I think that sounds pretty familiar to us being in Indiana. You know, there's lots of places in Indiana, they're rural, there might be a small city, but the, the county sheriff is going to have more of the resources. And then again, this may not shock anyone in Indiana, but it's not like a very high crime area. Although there is a problem with drugs. Methamphetamines are a problem. Opiates. There used to be pill mills in a lot of southeastern Ohio. There's a drug problem, but it's not. How do you say this sometimes, like a place can have a drug problem and it doesn't really spill out beyond the people directly affected by that in the community. Does that make sense?
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Yes.
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Like it's not. It's like something can be a problem and then certainly crime and should be counted as crime, but it's not necessarily something that's going to like affect just everybody in the same way. And you know, things like drunk driving, gun related offenses, hunters trespassing, non criminal calls like car crashes involving deer, th. Those are kind of the things that the sheriff's offices are typically looking at. And I wanted to know like, had anyone, this person knows a lot of people in the community, had anyone seen Tyler Thomas and they were not aware of anyone. But that's not surprising because again, when you realize how rural this place is, it is incredibly easy to just disappear into the woods to go to whatever rental property you're going to. You're not going to. It's not like a resort community in the sense that like there are some places where it's very tourist based and everyone's going to be in town and you might catch a glimpse of them at the store or something. And that's just not necessarily going to be the case here. One thing that our source noted that, you know, all this going on recently, authorities will have had to contend with the weather. Like Indiana, Ohio just got hit with a massive snowstorm. They got a foot or more of snow around these parts. They were under snow emergencies, school was out. Some of the roads were cleared pretty quickly. Others were more gravel roads or more twisty roads. Rural roads took a while to dig out. And, and this is a place where even beyond that you could drive around local roads, not see another car for an hour or two. You know, there are spots where our source talked about losing cell phone service for hours before getting back to the highway. So I mean we're, we're talking about a pretty rural situation here. Um, our source actually noted that Sam Shymansky, who is the attorney representing Tyler Thomas, he's pretty well known in this area. He's pretty well known because he's, I believe he's based in Columbus, Ohio. But you know, he's, he's known in the surrounding parts. And our, our source predominantly wanted to clear up something for us because they've seen people online talking about this case. They've seen people online saying, how can no one have seen Hayley Busby? How can someone kidnap a child like this with no witnesses in this day and age? How could no one have seen her at the rental property or things like that? And what they wanted to clarify is that parts of Hawking county and Perry county are so rural that it's actually would have been possible to do that without running into witnesses or anybody. It's not like Columbus, Ohio, which is a city environment, densely populated. Nearby neighbors or passersby might hear screams, yelling, a struggle, gunshots. And when we're in. When we're talking about the woods, when we're talking about these kind of inaccessible areas that are just deep out there, you know, that's just not. Hunters are around, you know, but, like, other than that.
- [30:23]
A
And then one thing I thought was interesting from your conversation with our source was, you know, I was talking earlier about how I saw a lot of information about this case pretty early on. The area we live in got a lot of information and publicity about this case. But our source, who actually lives in the general vicinity where Haley was killed, did not actually hear about the case until. Well, she believes she heard about it when we covered it on our show. And so that's also something that's interesting to me when you talk about pink alerts or things like that in this day and age, where it is so easy to travel and where it is so easy to travel from one state to another, one city to another, I think if you want to have something like a pink alert, you have to take that into consideration to make sure that people in areas where people might end up might also get that information.
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So maybe like, adjacent states, even, not just adjacent counties, adjacent states, you know, if you talking about 24 hours later, how far can you get? And maybe take it out to that point something.
- [31:48]
A
Because I was just struck by how information about the case was not widespread in the area where she was actually murdered.
- [31:58]
B
Yeah. And I think it's like. And that's understandable, you know, because no one knew where she was. But personally, when we were hearing about this case, I was kind of thinking, like, oh, gosh, they're gonna have to really pay attention to, like, Indianapolis, because that's directly to the south of Fishers, and it's a big city, and you could disappear there and maybe, like, hide out or whatever if this is a runaway situation. So I wasn't even thinking, like. I mean, again, like, I. It's not like it shocks me that she went to Ohio, but it's just more like it's. It's like, you know, you think of what's near you, and in a case like this, it's, you know, got expanded if we're going to do something like a ping alert.
- [32:36]
A
Yeah. And I want to. I hasten to add that information about this case was not widespread in that area after Hailey went missing. But now that her body's been recovered, I believe it is pretty big news there and that people in that area, including our source, really feel terrible for the Busby family and express a lot of sympathy.
- [32:59]
B
And the media landscape, as far as these rural parts of Ohio that we've been talking about, they don't. Our source was, you know, pretty clear. It's not like they have, you know, like many rural areas, they get their news, the mainstream news is coming in from usually the nearest city, which in this case is Columbus. So that's where the. The Columbus media is going to be, certainly on this. I would imagine they're going to be the people, you know, doing a lot of this, but it's not. Yeah, I mean, for. For this. For this source that we talked to, I mean, it was a situation where it's like everyone's horrified. The parents in the area are having conversations with their teenagers. It's a very scary thing. And they're expressing the sympathy with Haley's family because I think everybody understands what a horrifying outcome this is. And when your community is touched by some kind of evil like this, I think it makes an impact. You know, I think it just kind of. It's a reminder that there is some really awful stuff out in this world. And we all have to, as a society, take ownership for dealing with it and. And protecting children in. In a meaningful way. And I really do think that I see a lot of stuff, unfortunately, sometimes in cases like this, that everybody wants to explain something like this. Everybody wants to explain it in a way that makes us feel safe. But the thing is, nobody's really safe from this. As long as there are people who are willing to prey upon and murder children, nobody's safe. I mean, we all have to take ownership and we have to look at what companies are allowing predators to proliferate on their platform. And we need to hold them accountable to. There needs to be accountability from companies that are making money off of having children on there and having children play their games and buy their products and, you know, suck up ad money and all that stuff. We need to look at them and look at what are they doing to protect these children, you know, and what are they doing to ensure that adult predators aren't flocking to their sites in order to find a victim? Because this is happening all too often. And again, people treat it like it's this individualistic thing and. Oh, the. What were the parents doing? Listen, parents. Parents are trying their best everywhere to deal with this stuff, but it is hard to Keep up with. And kids are good at hiding things. So without knowing what happened in this situation, those are two things that are generally true. And it's gotta be. We can't just put the onus on kids and families. We've gotta. We've got to look at the companies, too, and we've got to look at, frankly, I think in some cases, you know, upping charges and upping sentences for people who do stuff like this. You know, not. Not. I'm not even talking about just when it ends in violence, but when it ends. When it ends in a child being traumatized because they've connected with a predator and been coerced to sending child sexual abuse materials to them. You know, if we could be nailing people for things like that quicker and taking some of those people off the board and putting them in prison for long stretches, I think that would be a good thing as well. But, yeah, I really appreciate our source talking to us about this area. It's definitely cleared up a lot for me, and it's made me better able to picture this setting. As somebody who's never been to this part of Ohio is not familiar with it, I feel like I find this stuff helpful. I hope you did, too. We'll continue to stay on the case, but in the meantime, if you know anything about this case, if you know something about Tyler and Thomas that you want to share, we protect our sources. We will not just take whatever you give us and run with it. First of all, we're going to have to verify it. But second of all, we also don't want to burn anyone. So if you'd rather just keep it between us, that's fine too. We're not going to push you to go on our show or something, but we really. We really do appreciate this source, appreciate the information, and would just ask anyone else who has information to email us@murdersheetmail.com I will include the link to the petition if people would like to sign that or review it. And you know, I would just say again, our heart. Our hearts break for Haley, for this young woman who was obviously taking way too soon in really horrific circumstances. And our hearts absolutely break for her family who are now left picking up the pieces of this tragedy. And it is just a very sad time, I think, for the city of Fishers as a whole. Thank you. Just adding in that a few minutes ago, we actually received some information from the Hocking County Sheriff's Office. I'm just gonna go ahead and release that and just kind of read that into the end of this episode. This is a statement from that we received a written statement from Lanny E. North, the Sheriff of Hocking county and I'll just go ahead and read that quote. On January 6, 2026, Haley Busby, 17, was reported missing to the Fishers Police Department in Indiana who initiated an investigation into her disappearance. Through their investigation they were able to identify Tyler Thomas, 39 of Columbus as a suspect in her disappearance. On January 16, 2026, Columbus Police detectives began assisting the Fishers Police Department in their search for Hayley Busby who had been tracked to Columbus detectives assisted Fisher. Fisher's PD detectives in making contact with Mr. Thomas at his residence located in the 900 block of Hunter Avenue. Thomas admitted to picking Haley up at her home and stated he dropped her off on the side of the road in Western Ohio. However, through continued investigation, his initial story was determined to be untrue. Columbus Police Department homicide detectives have assisted in the investigation by serving search warrants and Mr. Thomas's property which led to evidence being recovered that resulted in Mr. Thomas being charged with pandering, obscenity involving a minor and tampering with evidence. According to Hawking County Sheriff Lanny e. North, on January 20, 2025, the Hawkin County Sheriff's Office was contacted by the Fisher's Police Department and by using technology resources tracked Thomas to a short term rental located in Hawking County, Ohio. Hawking county detectives obtained and executed a search warrant for the rental property assisted by agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. During the course of time, Thomas has contacted an attorney from Columbus, Ohio regarding his role in the disappearance of Busby. He indicated he buried her remains in a location in Perry County, Ohio. The evening of February 1, Thomas, who was incarcerated in Franklin county, was transported to the Perry county location where he showed authorities where he had buried her. Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Hocking and Perry County Sheriff's offices, the U.S. forest Service and the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation were then able to recover the remains which is believed to be Hailey Busby. The remains were sent to the Licking County Coroner's Office for an autopsy and identification. On February 2, Hawking County Sheriff's detectives executed another search warrant for the short term rental property assisted by agents from the FBI and the FBI's Evidence Recovery Team or ERT. During the search, forensic evidence was recovered which may indicate that a crime occurred in the rental. The FBI, the Hawking County Sheriff's Office, the Columbus PD and the Fishers PD are working closely together and any additional information should be requested from the FBI's Cincinnati office. So that was that statement. And yeah, that is, that is what we received. And they noted that the, that is the information that is available for release at this time as the crime remains under investigation, and that the FBI Cincinnati headquarters office will be kind of handling further requests for information. So that is something to note. You know, the FBI remains heavily involved in this case as, as is proper because Haley was transported across state lines and is a juvenile. So that makes sense. But anyways, thank you all so much for listening.
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A
Thanks so much for listening to the Murder Sheet. If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover, please email us@murdersheetmail.com if you have actionable information about an unsolved crime, please report it to the appropriate authorities.
- [41:53]
B
If you're interested in joining our Patreon, that's available at www.patreon.com murdersheet. If you want to tip us a bit of money for records requests, you can do so at www.buymeacoffee.com murdersheet. We very much appreciate any support.
- [42:16]
A
Special thanks to Kevin Tyler Greenlee, who composed the music for the Murder Sheet and who you can find on the web@kevintg.com if you're looking to talk with.
- [42:28]
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Other listeners about a case we've covered, you can join the Murder Sheet discussion group on Facebook. We mostly focus our time on research and reporting, so we're not on social media much. We do try to check our email account, but we ask for patience as we often receive a lot of messages. Thanks again for listening.