Episode 3: “The Skull in the Creek Bed”

Summary

Paper Ghosts: The Texas Teen Murders

Episode 3: “The Skull in the Creek Bed”

Release Date: March 6, 2024
Host: M. William Phelps

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into the heartbreaking discovery of Dana Stidham's remains in 1989, explores the impact on her family, and traces law enforcement’s pursuit of suspects—particularly the intense focus on a young man named Mike McMillan. Host M. William Phelps guides listeners through witness accounts, autopsy findings, and the complex web of rumor, grief, and suspicion that surrounded the case as it entered a new investigative phase.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Family’s Grief and Loss

• The Stidham Family’s Ordeal:
  • Georgia Stidham, Dana’s mother, recounts the day authorities notified her of Dana’s fate and shares the lasting pain of her daughter’s loss.
    • Quote: “I'm thinking they're lying like hell because my little girl wasn't dead.” — Georgia Stidham (03:02)
  • Dana’s father, Lawrence, was devastated by Dana’s death, which Georgia believes contributed to his own declining health and early passing.
    • Quote: “It was the beginning of the end for him.” — Georgia Stidham (04:47)
• Search Efforts:
  • Cousin Christy Smith details the family’s desperate efforts to locate Dana, posting flyers and personally combing the surrounding area, only to realize they had unknowingly passed the site where Dana’s body would be discovered. (05:12)

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Discovery and Crime Scene Details

• Finding Dana’s Remains:
  • Lt. Hunter Petrae and journalist Brandon Howard describe the initial discovery: a hunter finds a skull and bones in a remote, wooded creek bed (06:24–08:59).
  • The scene was isolated, difficult to access, and likely chosen by someone familiar with the area—possibly someone strong enough to carry a body deep into the woods.
    • Quote: “I don't think that anyone just stumbled across that spot.” — Brandon Howard (08:59)
• Physical Evidence and Autopsy:
  • The autopsy revealed a nick on Dana’s collarbone, likely from a knife, and suggested she was murdered violently and possibly sexually assaulted. Key evidence included her cut bra straps and duct tape found on her shorts (15:27–16:30).
  • Baling twine, tied in various knots, was found at the scene, but its connection to the murder could not be definitively established.
    • Quote: “DNA testing was possible but also unreliable since the material had been out in the elements for so long.” — M. William Phelps (19:03)
  • A single Caucasian hair with root was found in Dana’s car (20:06).

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Community Reactions & Shifting Suspicions

• Aftermath and Rumors:
  • The case dominated local news, generating fear and suspicion in the community.
    • Quote: “Benton county was eager to put a face on evil… Fear breeds accusation, reaction and a rush to judgment.” — M. William Phelps (22:24)
• Dana’s Life and Relationships:
  • Georgia recalls Dana as “laugh a minute,” sociable, and universally liked. Her mother and cousin dispute rumors of her being in a serious relationship with Mike McMillan, insisting Dana saw Mike as only a friend.
    • Quote: “She wanted everybody to be her friend.” — Georgia Stidham (23:52)
  • Christy Smith shares a story of Dana’s father running Mike off when they were young teens, hinting at Mike’s persistent but unrequited interest (39:36–40:15).

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Focus on Mike McMillan

• Law Enforcement’s Obsession:
  • Mike was “an easy target” for investigators due to weak alibis, emotional behavior, and his possession of Dana’s grave marker (25:24–32:57).
    • Quote: “If I'm a BCSO detective, I'm wondering why in the hell lie about where you were.” — M. William Phelps (26:20)
  • Mike failed to produce a solid alibi and was witnessed visiting Dana’s grave repeatedly, even taking the temporary grave marker—behavior that, while odd, may also reflect grief rather than guilt.
    • Quote: “For someone that they never dated other than just being classmates, he had the most intimate feelings for her that I've ever seen of somebody that wasn't physically in a relationship.” — Hunter Petrae (31:08)
  • Mike admitted to taking the marker, describing it as “the stupidest thing I ever did in my life” (32:57).
• Interviews and Public Scrutiny:
  • BCSO subjected Mike to multiple polygraphs, searches, and an intense “marathon interview,” but he never confessed to the crime and no physical evidence conclusively tied him to Dana’s murder (36:36–37:44).
    • Quote: “From that moment forward, I was the guy. No matter what anyone said or additional evidence pointed in any other direction, people looked at Mike as Dana’s killer.” — Mike McMillan, via Phelps (37:44)
  • Mike’s future wife, Cindy, describes him as upfront, charismatic, and open about the investigation. She never felt he was capable of violence (42:04–44:22).
    • Quote: “But he was a nice guy.” — Cindy McMillan (42:34)

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Alternative Theories and Leads

• Party Spot Connection:
  • Investigators considered that the body’s location had previously been a teenage party spot, which was abandoned after a prior incident, possibly expanding the suspect pool to people in Dana’s age group familiar with the area (14:05).
• Rumors of a Police Officer’s Involvement:
  • Some accounts suggest a married local police officer showed undue interest in Dana, stopping her under pretenses. While not directly implicated or named, this thread has lingered in community suspicion and police interviews (44:31–45:32).
• Eyewitness at Wonderland Cave:
  • An anonymous woman describes seeing Dana with a suspicious, unfamiliar man at Wonderland Cave the night she went missing. She reported her unease to authorities, who reportedly dismissed her concerns—until Dana’s disappearance was made public. She later learned the man’s name was “Mike,” further muddying the waters (46:18–50:42).
    • Quote: “Something in my mind told me that this guy is fixing to kill this girl. Oh, my God. This is some kind of a murder.” — Anonymous witness (47:32–48:34)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Georgia Stidham, on hearing the news:
  • “I'm thinking they're lying like hell because my little girl wasn't dead.” (03:02)
• Brandon Howard, on the crime scene:
  • “It's a place you go from a paved highway that sees thousands of cars to dirt road really quickly... I don't think that anyone just stumbled across that spot.” (08:24–08:59)
• Hunter Petrae, on Mike’s grave visits:
  • “He would... just say things like, he's talking to her. Just weird, man. Like, to me, that screams guilt.” (31:08)
• Mike McMillan, on his reputation after being named publicly:
  • “From that moment forward, I was the guy. No matter what anyone said or additional evidence pointed in any other direction, people looked at Mike as Dana’s killer.” (37:44)
• Christy Smith, on Mike’s persistence:
  • “He would write her notes about, you know, wanting to go out with her and stuff, and she would tell him that she just liked him for a friend, and he would just keep trying and asking.” (41:05)
• Anonymous Cave Witness:
  • “Something in my mind told me that this guy is fixing to kill this girl. Oh, my God. This is some kind of a murder.” (47:32)

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Key Timestamps

• 01:50–05:12: Georgia Stidham and Christy Smith on grief & the search for Dana
• 06:24–10:16: Discovery of Dana’s body & remote crime scene explored
• 13:13–15:27: Suspicion about the hunter and the autopsy findings
• 15:56–19:12: Twine, bindings, and early evidence
• 22:16–23:52: Impact on the community; remembering Dana’s personality
• 25:24–32:57: The investigation’s focus on Mike McMillan
• 36:36–37:44: The marathon interrogation and media pressure on Mike
• 39:36–41:14: Family and friends on Mike’s relationship with Dana
• 42:04–44:22: Cindy McMillan on Mike’s character
• 44:31–45:32: Suspicion of local police officer involvement
• 46:18–50:47: Anonymous Wonderland Cave eyewitness account

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Episode Tone & Style

M. William Phelps maintains an empathetic and methodical approach, mixing narrative urgency with sensitivity to victims’ families and skeptical, evidence-focused investigation. The tone is probing, often tragic, and highly personal, especially as Phelps relates his own experiences with unsolved murder within his family.

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Summary

In “The Skull in the Creek Bed,” Paper Ghosts peels back the layers of a decades-old murder case, revealing the pain endured by Dana Stidham’s family, the labyrinthine search for a perpetrator, and the hazards of focusing intensely on a single suspect without conclusive evidence. The episode captures the atmosphere of suspicion, grief, and unresolved loss that pervades both the case and the community—and sets the stage for yet deeper revelations to come.

Transcript

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[M. William Phelps]

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[Georgia Stidham]

Go.

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[Witness/Source]

Pressure is coming down.

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[M. William Phelps]

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[M. William Phelps]

I've been interviewing the families of murder victims since 1999. It's one of the most profound and. And personal aspects of my job because, well, I'm one of them. In 1996, my brother's wife, five months pregnant, was strangled to death. Her case remains unsolved. So when families tell me how difficult this is to talk about, I can empathize. Opening up old wounds, digging back into the past, is not always worth the pain and vulnerability of exposing yourself for the sake of keeping a memory alive.

[Georgia Stidham]

I hate to get into this. We heard the rumor and we got a hold of Danny and Mike, the cops that were on the case. And they came to the house and.

[M. William Phelps]

Told us there was that knock on the door no family member of a missing person ever wants to hear.

[Georgia Stidham]

I'm thinking they're lying like hell because my little girl wasn't dead.

And that's really all I can talk about, that.

[M. William Phelps]

The anguish in Georgia Stidham's voice truly emphasizes how murder violates the core foundation of. Of what family represents. When the victim is your child, your world is not only shattered, but everything from that moment on is different.

Dana Stidham's family had been in emotional purgatory for nearly two months, not knowing, wondering and waiting. But then on September 17, 1989, the Benton county sheriff's office shows up to deliver the the worst news imaginable. As you heard Dana's mother, Georgia Stidham, explain, the mere memory of all that she'd lost that day was still too difficult to talk about in any detail some three decades later. I also wanted to ask you about Lawrence. Tell me about your husband.

[Georgia Stidham]

Oh, he was so sick. He had rheumatoid arthritis real bad. And all the drugs had eaten up his insides pretty much. And he was just. Dana was his everything. She went to the stores for him. Anything she thought he needed, she'd go pick up and bring to him. And they were home a whole lot together.

Lawrence got to where he couldn't work, so he stayed with the kids while I worked.

[M. William Phelps]

So this crushed him then?

[Georgia Stidham]

Yes, it did it. It was the beginning of the end for him.

[M. William Phelps]

Georgia believes Dana's murder contributed to the death of her husband, who died in the years after Lawrence was only 50 years old.

Dana's cousin and best friend, Christy Smith, recalls how harrowing those days leading up to finding Dana's body were.

[Christy Smith]

Well, this whole time we have been driving around, we have been posting flyers. We went all over Missouri, the bordering cities of Missouri, all over Fayetteville, everywhere we can think of. At every store that would allow us, we posted flyers and never got a response. In the back of your mind, you know that if you haven't heard something by now, then she is either no longer alive or somebody has her and you don't know who it is. And then in September, we had actually driven by where they found her body, going to a place to put out some flyers. And I believe it was the next day they found her remains.

[M. William Phelps]

For bcso detectives, as horrible as the situation was, the discovery of Dana's body gave the investigation a much needed boost. They now had a crime scene to process. Justice for Dana Stidham and her family could begin as the hunt for her killer entered a brand new phase.

Previously on Paper Ghosts.

[Hunter Petrae]

So I stopped there and did a.

[Witness/Source]

Little squirrel hunting and I saw in a dry creek bed and saw a.

[Hunter Petrae]

Skull and some rib bones.

[Brandon Howard]

And it became somewhat alarming when they found a dirty magazine with some of Dana's clothing. So now you have a suspect that.

[M. William Phelps]

Worked at the store with Dana, had.

[Brandon Howard]

An issue with female employees sexual harassment, and also instead had a proclivity for a dirty magazine.

[Hunter Petrae]

You know, hey, we've got three or four suspects. Why not add another fifth suspect.

[M. William Phelps]

My name is M. William Phelps. I'm an investigative journalist and author of more than 40 true crime books. This is season four of Paper Ghosts, the Ozarks.

All right, so here. This is leading to Beale Road.

Woods, dirt road.

Definitely driving a truck. Investigators enter a crime scene hoping to collect fingerprints, footprints, tire tracks, blood and additional bodily fluids, along with hairs, fibers, fire debris, a cigarette butt, or any other item that might lead them to a killer.

Back to his vehicle. Truck parked up here.

And off he goes. I have seen murders solved with the most obscure, smallest piece of evidence. Lint from a blanket, sweat, DNA unseen by the naked eye, even a single cat hair. The crime scene itself, where it is, what the terrain is like, how it looks, can say a lot about a killer. Here's investigative journalist Brandon Howard.

[Brandon Howard]

I went there a few years ago. I was shocked to see that it's super rural, still almost forgotten in time. It's a place you go from a paved highway that sees thousands of cars to dirt road really quickly. Uneven, deep into the woods opens it to a large clearing, sort of circular, basically a cul de sac without any pavement. Yet despite being so far off the beaten path, you can see, not far, the liquor store just up the road that's across the state line.

[M. William Phelps]

And then, so you get out, you walk through the woods, and there's a creek bed there where she was found, right?

[Brandon Howard]

Yeah. I had one detective mention that they thought it was done hastily. And then they realized other items of hers, remains. They went back and tossed those and left. But I would think that you'd have to be somewhat strong or able bodied to carry a person down into that area of the woods and know about it. I don't think that anyone just stumbled across that spot.

[M. William Phelps]

In June 2023, I made my way from the Phillips grocery toward the crime scene where Dana's body had been discovered. And what struck me first was how remote it is. We're talking about a densely wooded section of Bella Vista. To get there, you travel along these narrow, winding roads, zigzagging through the northern part of the state on the southern edge of the Ozarks. Houses are few and far between. One would have to have prior knowledge of this area, I imagine, to commit a murder here and or dump a body. I was guided by GPS and had the global satellite coordinates of the exact location where Dana's remains were found and still had trouble finding it. The dry creek bed he's talking about. And she would have been found about right here.

I parked in what was A dirt road cul de sac not yet developed into housing. Walking down the steep embankment into a thickly forested valley that the road where I had parked disappeared. From my view cover here is remarkable. The hill in front of me, she's screaming. No one's hearing her.

Standing where Dana's body had been found. The immense sadness of this place had an overwhelming effect on me.

[Hunter Petrae]

You're talking about an 18 year old that just graduated high school like two months prior to. She's got her whole life ahead of her and all that gone in the blink of an eye. Her mother. For her to have to live with this, I can't even, you know, put myself in her shoes. And what she's had to go through.

[M. William Phelps]

Over the years, that was BCSO Lt. Hunter Petrae, Georgia Stidham told Brandon Howard in an article he published in 2015, quote, an arrest will never bring closure. I'll never get her back, but I'd like to see her kill or caught so it wouldn't feel like I just let my daughter die and I walked away.

Sadly, Georgia would not live to experience justice. On October 26, 2023, she passed away at 73 years.

[Hunter Petrae]

You know, I talked to her and just kind of revisited because I had not met her again. You know, this was not my case to begin with. So I had not met her and basically just went over to her house and grabbed it and spoke to her for about 30 minutes to an hour. And just it's always, man, it's iffy because you don't want her to have to relive. Sure, bring all these things back up.

[M. William Phelps]

And so September comes.

[Hunter Petrae]

No Dana, I think at that point in time, you're talking about six to seven weeks since she disappeared and nothing. And then all of a sudden there's a guy who was squirrel hunting in an area clear on the other side of town, basically on the east side of Bella vista. Ran across some remains. Pretty much at that point in time, they had been skeletonized. So I don't want it to sound like it's a body. Remains is, I think, probably the proper term.

[M. William Phelps]

Many thought it was strange, if not suspicious, that the hunter had waited a day before calling police about the discovery of a body.

[Hunter Petrae]

Again, it's unusual and it's weird because he doesn't report it right away. He waits a day. He actually sees it, looks at it, leaves because he says he was in a hurry. Goes and talks to a friend, tells the friend, hey, I found some human remains. Friend kind of didn't really believe him at first, but basically told him, hey, you need to report that. So the next day he does report it.

[M. William Phelps]

He saw the skull. Let's talk about where this is. This is not a place that you would put a body unless you knew.

[Hunter Petrae]

Of the place, probably unless you were driving around, which you would be really high risk driving around with a body in your car looking for a place. So, yeah, probably, you know, the statistics and the odds are that somebody who ever did this, one person, two persons, was familiar with the area. Bella Vista has a lot of cul de sacs, a lot of dead end roads. A lot of them are undeveloped.

[M. William Phelps]

Hunter Petrae then mentioned something quite interesting, if you recall from a previous episode. I began to wonder about a group of friends Dana hung around whom she hadn't discussed much with. Her family. Georgia and even Christy knew most of the people within Dana's circle, but not all of them.

[Hunter Petrae]

I don't know if you know this or not, but prior to this, maybe a year or two prior, that area was kind of a party spot for kids. There was a shooting that took place there and a kid died after that, kind of everybody was afraid to associate with that area. So there were people that were familiar with that area as a party spot. So again, things start running through your mind. Are these people that same age group as Dana that knew about this area? Again, unknown, but that's a possibility. But yeah, it was a party spot for a while there at that cul de sac.

[M. William Phelps]

Did they try to find those people and interview any of them?

[Hunter Petrae]

They talked to some people that had been out there before, but they said that they had not been out there, you know, since that kid got killed out there with the shooting.

[M. William Phelps]

As Dana's body was sent in for autopsy, investigators hoped to learn something about her killer. They theorized she had been out in the elements since the day after she went missing, nearly eight weeks. Her body was skeletonized, torn apart and spread by animals over an area about the size of a football field.

One particular discovery by the coroner gave a possible explanation as to how Dana might have been murdered.

[Hunter Petrae]

When you have passage of time and its remains, that also complicates autopsies because you don't have an intact body. But they found there was a nick on the collarbone that they felt like was from a knife. Now, whether she was stabbed, you know, in the neck, throat cut, we don't know for sure because we can't tell. But there was a nick in the collarbone that suggested that it was some type of knife attack.

[M. William Phelps]

So that would be the inside Part.

[Hunter Petrae]

Of the collar, correct? Yeah. Close to the neck, the throat area, basically. So they did note that and noted that that was ante mortem, which would have been prior to death. They ruled it a homicide. There was also some things that suggested that this was possibly a sexual assault.

[M. William Phelps]

Like what?

[Hunter Petrae]

The bra, the over the shoulder straps were cut with some type of sharp instrument. Down near where they connect with the back strap. It appears that the bra had been cut with a sharp instrument.

[M. William Phelps]

Several facts discovered during the autopsy become important. For one, Dana's clothing, white shorts, white shoes, bra, white T shirt, were all found in a hole about one foot deep, 10 or more yards away from where her skull was recovered in the creek bed. Her underwear, however, was found close to her skull. The coroner noted, based upon the presence of a sharply cut inner aspect of the left clavicle. There was a violent injury through a cut throat or a stab wound to the area. Two rings later identified as Dana's were found near her buried clothes. Hairs believed to be pulled out of her head were also recovered, A lock of which showed heavy damage to the roots from all the decomposition. It was also reported that the right and left sleeves of Dana's shirt had been severed at the armpit. Jagged cuts as if made crudely with the knife. On the upper left front thigh area of her shorts, the crime lab found a piece of duct tape.

Was there any bindings or anything like that found?

[Hunter Petrae]

Yeah, there was some twine. Orangish. Orangish red twine that was there. There was also some found up at the cul de sac. They sent a lot of that down. Now, there was some knots in it, but the lab could not determine or specify that any of those knots were used for any type of ligature or binding of Dana.

[M. William Phelps]

The amount of bindings seemed significant. One section was 19 inches long with a 2 inch diameter loop tied in a double strand overhand knot. 43 and a half inches of baling twine was recovered directly next to her body and divided into two pieces, tied together with a clove hitch slip knot with a binding knot at the end. That type of knot is indicative of binding one thing to another and clearly intentional.

Still, were the bind connected to Dana's.

[Hunter Petrae]

Murder, that was never conclusively determined that any of that twine had been used to tie her up or bind her or anything of that nature. But it's interesting, and again, you know, it's complicated because that area was a party spot. There were people that drove by there and dumped things, you know. Is this twine involved in this? Or is it just unknown?

[M. William Phelps]

Up on Beale Lane, along the embankment of the cul de sac leading down toward where dana was found, 10 additional feet of baling twine divided into six pieces and joined by intricate different types of knots were located.

The crime lab concluded that none of the cuts or knotted regions indicated that these twines had clearly been used in ligaturing, restraining or binding a person. A statement I kind of have a problem with because there is no definitive way to answer that question by studying the twine alone. After all, an inability to prove something doesn't automatically disprove it. DNA testing was possible, but also unreliable since the material had been out in the elements for so long.

Near the same time, the lab came back with another find. They'd located a single Caucasian strand of hair 3.3 inches long with the root still attached inside a cup and Dana's car. A potentially significant discovery because they knew immediately that one hair was not dangerous.

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10 athletes will face the toughest job interview in fitness that will push past physical and mental breaking points.

You are the fittest of the fit. Only one of you will leave here with an IFIT contract for $250,000.

[M. William Phelps]

This is where mindset comes in.

[Trainer Games Announcer]

Someone will be eliminated.

[Witness/Source]

Pressure is coming down.

[Trainer Games Announcer]

This is Trainer Games.

[M. William Phelps]

Watch it on prime video starting January 8th.

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[M. William Phelps]

After the discovery of her remains, Dana Stidham's murder dominated local news reports.

Benton county was eager to put a face on evil. You take away someone's sense of safety, fear seeps in. Fear breeds accusation, reaction and a rush to judgment.

That's just human nature.

In order for me to get a clearer picture of what could have possibly led up to Dana's murder. It was important to look at the dynamics of Dana's life from different perspectives. Here's Dana's mother again. Georgia, can you just talk to me a little bit about Dana as a child growing up? What kind of child she was?

[Georgia Stidham]

She was laugh a minute. She was the happiest kid you've ever met. She was always being silly and snickering, and she had us laughing all the time.

[M. William Phelps]

What did she talk about as a young kid that she wanted to do?

[Georgia Stidham]

You know, boys, boys, boys, boys.

[M. William Phelps]

And when she was younger, what was she like? What did she like to do?

[Georgia Stidham]

She was into all kinds of stuff. She painted and she did ceramics, and she did all kinds of stuff. She was really talented.

[M. William Phelps]

And how was her relationship with mom and dad over the years?

[Georgia Stidham]

It was good.

[M. William Phelps]

She had a lot of friends.

[Georgia Stidham]

Yes. She wanted everybody to be her friend.

[M. William Phelps]

Three days after Dana's body was found, the BCSO brought in a classmate whose name was given to them by several of Dana's friends. I'll call him Stan. For the purposes of the podcast, he was never named as a suspect, but he did provide some rather compelling information. He referred to himself as Dana's best friend, but made it clear he'd never had a sexual relationship with her. He had seen her the weekend before she disappeared. During Stan's interview, Detective Mike Sidoriak asked about Dana lending a friend a pair of boots, which she had wanted back on the day she disappeared. Stan corroborated this information.

Sidoriak asked Stan if he would have pulled up behind Dana as she drove, Would she have stopped? Stan said yes.

So you have the body, the body's released, the body is buried. What happens next?

[Hunter Petrae]

So, you know, the big thing back then was they, you know, they took people when they interviewed them, they polygraphed them, they took their fingerprints, hoping that something would come back off the chip bag or her clothing that was sent down. Latent hair follicles, you know, something to try to tie somebody as far as physical evidence to the homicide and the.

[M. William Phelps]

Abduction or murder, and nothing came back.

[Hunter Petrae]

Nothing came back, really.

[M. William Phelps]

Detectives Mike Szdoriak and Danny Varner had been up the ass of a local kid, Mike McMillan, since almost the day Dana went missing. Several people I spoke to, including police, said Mike was an easy target. Mike, however, didn't help his own cause.

[Hunter Petrae]

Well, he was interviewed. He was given several polygraphs, but initially he was. He was confronted a couple of days after her disappearance. He could not give. Well, he tried, but it was kind of blown out. Of the water. He tried to give an alibi that he was visiting a girl down in Farmington, which is down by Fayetteville, you know, 30 miles away or whatever. But she basically said, I don't remember that. You know, I don't think that I was with you. I'm not going to. I'm not going to lie for you. I'm not going to come up with some story for you.

[M. William Phelps]

If I'm a BCSO detective, I'm wondering why in the hell lie about where you were.

Then this.

[Hunter Petrae]

You know, he was seen that night, and I'm talking about that night. I'm talking about the 25th into the early morning of the 26th. He was seen around 3 o' clock that next morning. And I want to say it was at the Bentonville Mercantile. Somebody had seen him there and he just didn't really have a good alibi other than just driving around. His mother said that he had left home earlier that day on the 25th and did not come back until, you know, way later the next morning. So I don't know about you, but I know, like, I probably can't tell you what I had for lunch yesterday, but I can tell you where I went if I thought about it. And you know, just two days later to not be able to come up with any valid alibi of where you were at other than something you come up with which was blown out of the water.

[M. William Phelps]

And what's the connection to Dana with Mike McMillan? School.

[Hunter Petrae]

Schoolmates.

[M. William Phelps]

He was in a line of schoolmates that were questioned.

[Hunter Petrae]

Yeah. And he was also really good friends with. Well, I say really good friends. They kind of lived together.

[M. William Phelps]

I think I bleeped out his name, but Hunter Petrae is referring to Dana's ex boyfriend. So he starts looking suspicious.

[Hunter Petrae]

Well, from people that were talked to, he was somewhat infatuated with her and had tried to make advances on her and she had rejected him because she was seeing some other people at the time and basically didn't want anything to do with him. You know, there's some people that said that, you know, he was kind of infatuated with her, wanted to go out with her, and she just kept rejecting him and he would get upset about it.

[M. William Phelps]

So there's a motive there.

[Hunter Petrae]

Yeah. Could be strong person of interest for sure.

[M. William Phelps]

Right. As were others.

[Hunter Petrae]

As were others, yeah. At this time, you know, again, there's no physical evidence, there's no witnesses to ty, but there's a lady that saw him driving supposedly and saw a brunette girl in the truck with Him. Now, we don't know necessarily if it was that day, the day before. It's kind of vague, but we. It makes it seem like it might have been that night. He didn't deny it. Now, he didn't say. He said that, you know, obviously he didn't admit that it was Dane in the truck, but he didn't really deny that somebody could have been in his truck. He didn't deny that when he was questioned. Did he go to Bella Vista? Could have. You know, you're this person saying that you didn't go down to Farmington and see her. Is she a liar? Well, you know, if she said that, I'm not calling anybody a liar. So it wasn't real. Hard denials. The only hard denial that he gave was that he didn't kill Dana. So he did deny that.

[M. William Phelps]

Was he one of the kids who partied in that spot up by Beale Road?

[Hunter Petrae]

According to him, no.

[M. William Phelps]

Most everyone was polygraphed, including Mike McMillan.

[Hunter Petrae]

The first polygraph he passed, but later on, he was given another polygraph because things just wouldn't go away.

[M. William Phelps]

I spoke to Mike. He didn't want to appear on the podcast because he said, quote, talking about this now just keeps it going and fans the flames. The best thing for me to do is live my life. I don't live in the past. The bcso, however, hyper focused on Mike after he revealed some rather odd behavior. That December, just after Dana is buried, before there is even a gravestone on her plot, the BCSO finds out Mike McMillan is going out to her grave every other night and talking to himself.

[Hunter Petrae]

While out there, people that were talked to said that he was supposed to leave for basic. He was basically adamant that he didn't want to go to the Navy. You know, Dana turns up missing, and then all of a sudden he's, okay, I'm ready to go to the Navy. It's fine, you know, let's go. So he leaves and goes to basic. There's issues that happen there, quite a few. He goes awol, but he comes back at one point in time, this was prior to going awol, but he's on leave, I guess, and comes back and he goes out to the cemetery and steals her temporary grave marker and keeps it in his house, keeps it in.

[M. William Phelps]

His bedroom, which makes Mike an even bigger target. Now for the bcso, he was out.

[Hunter Petrae]

There with another juvenile female who witnessed this. And man, it even gets stranger than that. For someone that they never dated other than just being classmates, he had the most intimate feelings for her. That I've ever seen of somebody that wasn't physically in a relationship with somebody. Made statements like, he loved her, went out to the cemetery, like, six or seven nights and would stand out there and according to this other witness, would just say things like, he's talking to her. Just weird, man. Like, to me, that screams guilt.

[M. William Phelps]

Mike had indeed left for the Navy right after Dana went missing, but he had signed up long before he told me he didn't go awol. He finished boot camp and returned home. Likewise, it wasn't as if he backed his truck up into the cemetery and loaded Dana's gravestone and took it away. He stole a plastic grave marker with her name on it, where the stone was would later be placed.

But when the BCSO heard about Mike stealing the grave marker, of course they were eager to get him on record, lock him down to a statement. Still, as Hunter Petrae points out, so far, all of this is nothing more than circumstantial evidence.

[Hunter Petrae]

Not enough to arrest somebody, but again, you're putting the spotlight on yourself. Now, being a thief doesn't make you a murderer. But you steal her temporary grave marker. You also carry around a photograph of her in your wallet. For somebody that doesn't want to be in the spotlight, I guess you're not helping yourself.

[M. William Phelps]

Under a subpoena, Mike is brought in after the BCSO hears about the grave marker theft. He tells detectives he never dated Dana and never even asked her out. He admits, however, to seeing her the day before she went missing. A casual how you been, fine, take care type of thing. He then claims he took the grave marker quote, just to have something to remember. I wasn't trying to hurt anybody. During a phone call, Mike told me it was was the stupidest thing I ever did in my life. Because now every move he made was scrutinized by the bcso. He had a target on his back. And after Mike confessed to stealing the grave marker during his interview with detectives, they stopped the interview, read him his rights, and arrested him.

[Trainer Games Announcer]

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[Narrator/Announcer]

Pressure is coming down.

[Trainer Games Announcer]

This is trainer games.

[M. William Phelps]

Watch it on prime video starting January 8th.

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[M. William Phelps]

Dana's ex boyfriend was brought back in for questioning right around the Same time Mike McMillan was charged with stealing the grave marker. The BCSO had spoken to a new girlfriend Dana's ex was dating at the time Dana went missing. Detective Mike Sidoriak explained to her where Dana had been found and wanted to know if Dana's ex had ever taken her, the new girlfriend, out to that Beale Lane area to have sex. She said no. Sidoriak pushed harder, asking if he was ever violent, to which she repeatedly and emphatically answered no. Sdoriak and Varner then went back to focusing on Mike McMillan. I asked journalist Brandon Howard why he believed the BCSO became so fixated on Mike. A large part of it, of course, was the grave marker theft, but there had to be more.

[Brandon Howard]

They find what appear to be several hairs and what they think is enough evidence to move forward with testing it against hairs from Dana's mother, I think to try and prove that maybe she was in that vehicle.

[M. William Phelps]

Those hairs were found during a search of Mike's truck. Mike McMillan told me, quote, by then it wasn't whether I did it or not, they wanted me to have done it. The BCSO ends up interviewing Mike again later on and are convinced Mike is their guy.

[Brandon Howard]

I would call that a marathon interview of probably six to eight hours where they try and essentially break him to admit to what he's done to Dana, which he never does. I would say he's actually kind of adamant compared to other suspects that he has no involvement and it goes on and on and he has his statements and they do their best to get him to admit to something that he feels he didn't do and that's the end of it. And he's named publicly. The newspapers report that his hair was being tested in the case, one of only Two publicly named suspects.

[M. William Phelps]

So during my interview with Mike, I asked him about his name being published. He said, quote, yeah, they put my picture on the front page of the newspaper next to Dana's. On with a story. And from that moment forward, I was the guy. No matter what anyone said or additional evidence pointed in any other direction, people looked at Mike as Dana's killer. Here's Hunter Petrae.

[Hunter Petrae]

Again, you can't rule him out just based off the sheer fact that he can't come up with an alibi, you know, that he took the grave marker. And again, that makes him a thief, not a murderer. He sure hasn't helped himself any, you know, by doing some of those things. But, yeah, you can't rule him out. And if you had to make a list, you would probably put him at the top. You know, sidoriak, he had McMillan at the top of his list. And I think they had actually consulted or collaborated with the FBI profilers, and they kind of came up with the same conclusion as far as who did this. But again, you're talking about, you got to have enough to make an arrest.

[M. William Phelps]

I wondered if Georgia Stidham could offer any insight into Dana's thoughts about Mike.

[Georgia Stidham]

Said he was creepy. They got along good. They seemed to. But Mike wanted what he wanted, and he was spoiled and thought he ought to have it.

[M. William Phelps]

And she just wasn't interested that way in him?

[Georgia Stidham]

No, no, she liked him real well as a friend, but that was all.

[M. William Phelps]

So she didn't really talk about Mike a lot then?

[Georgia Stidham]

She didn't have a lot to say about him, just that he was. You tell him.

[M. William Phelps]

Christy Smith, Dana's cousin, was sitting nearby when I spoke to Georgia. After Georgia encouraged her, Christy told me a story.

[Christy Smith]

Well, there was one time, and it was probably we were in junior high or just starting high school. It was the summer, and I was staying with them during the summer. And Mike walked down because he, you know, he just lived up the dirt road from her, and he walked down the dirt road to come and see us or come see her. And her dad did not like that at all. Boys didn't come to see Dana when she was at home and that young. So he ran him. He made him leave. He ran him off. I mean, she was always his friend, but. And I don't remember him ever saying anything or.

Doing anything. And she never complained too bad about.

[Georgia Stidham]

Him, but he just wouldn't take no for an answer.

[M. William Phelps]

I must say, hearing this, Mike's actions feel more like those of a lovestruck kid than a Brutal killer. When you put yourself in the shoes of a teenager in the throes of unrequited love, and then the person you love is murdered, visiting her grave every night makes a little more sense.

On the day Dana disappeared, we know that she needed to go to the store for her dad. There was a general store right there in Hiwassee down the road she could have gone to. Yet Dana made the extra trip into Bella Vista out of the way. Several sources had told me Dana avoided that Hiwassee store because Mike McMillan hung around there all day long. His parents owned it.

[Christy Smith]

He would write her notes about, you know, wanting to go out with her and stuff, and she would tell him that she disliked him for a friend, and he would just keep trying and asking.

[M. William Phelps]

Cindy McMillan married Mike in 1994, five years after Dana was murdered. At the time, the BCSO was still pursuing him as its main suspect. I spoke to Cindy in order to get an overall picture of who her husband was. Behind closed doors. I was in the minority of those unconvinced that Mike was involved with Dana's death. Look, I found it very hard to believe that Mike McMillan had something to do with Dana's murder, which was methodical, organized, and very well planned out. I can't help but feel that if Mike killed her, he would have left behind some sort of physical or trace evidence. What kind of guy was he?

[Cindy McMillan]

So he, when I met him, very charismatic, very handsome, very charming, funny, you know, fun to be with, all of that. He did tell me about Dana. So the fact that he talked about her, you know, and told me, because obviously I told him about my ex husband, my first husband, I didn't think anything of it. He did tell me that he'd been investigated because he took the grave marker, which I would have never known that was a crime.

[M. William Phelps]

Right.

[Cindy McMillan]

But he was a nice guy.

[M. William Phelps]

Mike was upfront about his history. He didn't hide anything. This sort of description of Mike was something I had heard from several others who knew him. When he talked about Dana's case, what did he have to say about it? Anything in particular?

[Cindy McMillan]

Just. It was terrible. It was really hard for him because he left for the Navy, and he was sad that he didn't get to go to our funeral. That was why he went to the grave and took the grave marker. But he didn't know. And when they. When they started talking about it, you know, someone stole her grave marker, he turned it in because he didn't know you weren't supposed to take out.

[M. William Phelps]

So the public image Is that of a teenager who was allegedly infatuated with Dana and had chased her romantically throughout their youth. According to Mike, this is, quote, just not true. Everyone from that time knows this. After high school, Mike says he hardly ever saw her.

In talking to family and friends, I learned that Dana had never, ever felt threatened by the guy. He had never done anything violent toward her. And then he's shipped off to boot camp and misses her funeral. He comes home, goes out to her grave night after night, which he admits during an interview. And on one of those nights, he takes her grave marker. His easy admission of this to me says that he was wanted to be forthright, but didn't think these facts would be incriminating. Instead, he was arrested and charged. Yet that case went nowhere and was eventually dropped. Then Cindy McMillan tells me this.

[Cindy McMillan]

He, you know, I think that there was a policeman or a sheriff, and he really felt like he may have done it.

[M. William Phelps]

That's what Mike thought. That some sort of police. Law enforcement, yes.

[Cindy McMillan]

It was a young guy close to his age, and maybe he dated Dana. I don't remember exactly.

[M. William Phelps]

This was not the first time I had heard of this same local police officer. And Mike confirmed from me that he and others had heard Dana was dating a married police officer around the time she went missing.

Certain Stidham family members told me a different story. That a cop had stopped Dana on occasion, and she'd complained that the guy creeped her out. He had a wife and kids, but would pull her over as an excuse to hit on her. It's not Mike Sidoriak or Danny Varner. I want to be perfectly clear about that. But I've repeatedly seen this cop's name on reports associated with Dana's investigation As someone who had even interviewed suspects in this case.

As I developed sources into 2023, I spoke to someone who had grown up in the Bella Vista area and knew Dana socially. She was also familiar with the crowd around Dana at the time and hung around some of them. She doesn't want to be identified, so I am disguising her voice. What she has to say is disturbing, but also, I might add, problematic. I asked a detective I know who's spoken to the same source about her quote, don't discount what she says.

My source claims she was out one night during the summer of 1989 at a place called the Wonderland Cave, a bar in Bella Vista. Underage kids sometimes snuck into.

[Witness/Source]

Well, when I got there, I walked in, and the first thing I noticed was there was this guy standing in the middle of the dance floor that I'd never seen before with his arms crossed. And he kind of had this smile, like a smirk, like something was going on with him that night. And then I noticed there was a girl with him. And then I looked at him, and I. The first thing I thought was, he's got this funny look on his face.

[M. William Phelps]

What did he look like?

[Witness/Source]

5, 9, 5, 10. And he was a little bit muscular, Kind of a husky. I would call him husky. And he appeared that he didn't really ever go out to dance, so it seemed like that it was unfamiliar for him to be at a dance club, and that it was something new to him. And then I noticed there was a girl with him. And it was so strange because she was kind of in the background. And I thought. I looked at. Looked at the situation, and I thought, well, who is she? And then I realized.

I know who that is. That's the girl that works up at the grocery store down the road here at Bella Vista. Because I had briefly met her and talked to her, I thought, that's that Dana Stidham girl. And I looked at him again. I thought, well, what's he doing acting that way? I could see her, but it was like she was just. Just dancing around everywhere behind him, Just fluttering around and dancing, kind of out of control, like. Like maybe. I thought about it later, and I thought, well, maybe he had given her something to drink or something. And when I looked at him again, this was just in a matter of, you know, a minute or two. I thought, something's not right here. Something in my mind told me that this guy is fixing to kill this girl. Oh, my God. This is some kind of a murder.

[M. William Phelps]

My source claims that she went home, called the local police, and explained that this girl she casually knew, Dana Stidham, was with a guy whose name she didn't know. But she sensed that Dana was in.

[Witness/Source]

Big trouble and that something was wrong there. And something told me that he was fixing and plotting and planning to kill her.

[M. William Phelps]

Well, let me just stop you right there. So do you recall the date, the exact date of this?

[Witness/Source]

No, I don't. I think it was either. Right around the time of when she was reported missing. It had to have been the time, because after I talked to the police, they were like, no, there's nothing going on. You're just. That's. That's crazy. There's nothing going on.

[M. William Phelps]

I spoke to law enforcement, and they verified she called them. Also, the wonderland cave is four miles south of the Phillips grocery. Remember, Dana was seen Heading south on Route 71 the night she disappeared and just a two minute drive from Blowing Springs Park. If you recall, in the previous episode, Dana was supposedly seen at the park with Orville Mitch Goodwin on the night she went missing.

[Witness/Source]

I told him I thought something was going on and that it seemed like this guy was. That something had told me, you know, so, you know, I think I also then called the Bella Vista police station and told them and they were like, oh, okay. Then the next thing I know is somebody says that Dana girl, she did go missing. I said, I told y'.

[Cindy McMillan]

All.

[Witness/Source]

I tried to tell y' all there's something going on.

[M. William Phelps]

The entire scene had a major impact on this woman. She could not shake it. And so she started asking around, trying to find out the name of the guy she allegedly saw at the cave that night with Dana Stidham.

[Witness/Source]

You know, we were maybe at somebody's house and just somebody had mentioned it to me. Somebody that knew the guy.

That told me his name was Mike.

[M. William Phelps]

Coming next on paper, ghosts. The Ozark.

[Georgia Stidham]

All of a sudden he says, linda.

[Cindy McMillan]

I see a skull.

[Narrator/Announcer]

I says, surely not.

[Georgia Stidham]

But I went back there with him.

[M. William Phelps]

And we saw the skull.

[Witness/Source]

I said, y' all know Dana Stidham? Didn't she go missing around here somewhere? And she says, yeah, you better leave here right now, she says, because if you don't, the same thing's gonna happen to you.

[Georgia Stidham]

I think the bitch had a lot to do with it. And that a is exactly what she was.

[M. William Phelps]

Please listen and subscribe to my other podcasts. Crossing the Line with M. William Phelps and White Eagle. Wherever you get your favorite shows. Paper Ghost Season 4 is written and executive produced by me, M. William Phelps, script consulting by Rose Bacci, sound design by Matt Russell, executive production by Kathryn Law and audio editing and mixing by Brandon Dicker. Takaboom Productions. The Series theme number 442 is written and performed by Thomas Phelps and Tom Mooney.

[Trainer Games Announcer]

10 athletes will face the toughest job interview in fitness that will push past physical and mental breaking points.

[Hunter Petrae]

You.

[Narrator/Announcer]

You are the fittest of the fit.

[Trainer Games Announcer]

Only one of you will leave here with an IFIT contract for $250,000. This is where mindset comes in. Someone will be eliminated.

[Narrator/Announcer]

Pressure is coming down.

[Trainer Games Announcer]

This is Trainer Games.

[M. William Phelps]

Watch it on prime video starting January 8th.

[Narrator/Announcer]

Then the space hamster flew his hot.

[Georgia Stidham]

Air balloon all the way to the.

[M. William Phelps]

Bottom of the ocean.

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Where did that story come from?

[Narrator/Announcer]

Book Dream? Nope.

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It came from a conversation. Meet Mikomini, the AI companion that co creates personalized story adventures with your child in real time.

[M. William Phelps]

What color was the hamster's cape and.

[Narrator/Announcer]

What did he pack for lunch?

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[Narrator/Announcer]

Exclusively at Costco. Come for the Black Friday seasonal savings. Stay for the award winning Reporting for a limited time access to the Washington post is just 99 cents. That's unlimited access to all of the posts for only $0.99 every four weeks. That's a great deal for the first year. After that, it'll cost $12 every four weeks. You can cancel anytime. But don't wait. This Black Friday seasonal offer won't be here for long. Go to washingtonpost.com iheart and grab this deal before it's gone. That's washingtonpost.com iheart this is an IHEART podcast.

[M. William Phelps]

Guaranteed human.