
On this week’s SIDEBAR, Susan Simpson, Jacinda Davis, and Kevin Fitzpatrick answer listener questions from throughout the season of Proof: Murder at the Bike Shop.
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Susan
Hey, Sal.
Hank
Hank.
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Susan
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Jacinda
Too easy.
Hank
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Susan
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Hank
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Susan
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Hank
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Susan
Yeah, you're right.
Hank
Case closed.
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Susan
Hello and welcome to this week's sidebar. You may have noticed there was no episode this week. We are taking a break, but we'll be back Monday, I promise. However, we're still here for a sidebar. Hi, Jacinda in Kevin.
Kevin
Hey, Susan.
Jacinda
Hey, Susan.
Susan
And this week we are here to answer some listener questions.
Kevin
So we thought it would be a good opportunity to go back through and answer some listener questions from throughout the season. Here's one that came in from an anonymous person. How did Earl accumulate multiple hoards of things if he did not leave the house?
Susan
That is a great question. And the answer is his teenage employees. So the teenage employees that, like, worked at the bike shop, most of them didn't do anything with bikes. Most of them were just, like, sent out to go collect stuff from alleys to bring it back to the bike shop.
Kevin
Yeah, even Scott told a story. Scott didn't work there very long, but he told a story that one of his jobs was just to go out and collect cardboard boxes that had been discarded. Corrugated boxes had been discarded.
Susan
Earl o' Byrne always called it corrugated, not cardboard. And he was very particular about saving all the corrugated he could.
Jacinda
That's just from another time. Wow.
Susan
Yeah.
Kevin
Yeah.
Susan
So in times past, Earl did go out. He must have gone out because they had a very large hoard of things beyond, like you wouldn't find in a dumpster. But as by the 80s, he wasn't going anywhere. And most of what he collected came just from, you know, the kids he sent out to to grab things. Most stories I've heard about Earl leaving the shop because he basically never did. It's only when, like, a kid came back with too little stuff from a dumpster, once in a while, he would go out to, like, a dumpster and check it himself. That's about it. Yeah.
Kevin
But not towards the end, I don't think.
Susan
Not towards the very end, but he
Jacinda
had a lot of stuff in there.
Kevin
Yeah. Which leads us to the next question from a listener whose handle is Brimonco. Was there any information available about what happened to the buildings full of bikes and hoarder things? Were they torn down? Was it given away at an auction? Just very curious.
Susan
Another great question, because I spent way too much time looking into this. It never came up on the show. So he had seven buildings in all in this little area of sort of downtown Kalamazoo off of Harrison and East Michigan. And there was a whole drama, a whole saga where the city was trying to condemn a lot of these buildings because they probably, honestly should have been condemned. And then mysteriously, a lot of them, like, go down in arson right before they get torn down. And that's never fully resolved. I've talked to a couple employees who were actually accused of doing the arson and who did not. But, yeah, so there was. There was a lot of bad feelings in the city, a lot of, like, arguments over the years. In fact, there was a city inspector that was a suspect purely because of this sort of conflict over the other buildings. However, they were full of stuff, and not just junk. They were full of bikes from literally the 1800s, like, wooden bikes, bikes from, like, the very earliest times of bikes. And we did hear from people who were involved in the auctioning off of them, and apparently they made some serious money because there were some collector's items, some classics in there that were just you couldn't find anywhere else in the United States. So this hoard was actually very valuable if you knew who the buyers were.
Jacinda
Jacinda, did you have a wooden bike?
Kevin
Yeah. Yeah. It's still out in my garage if you want to borrow it. Kevin?
Susan
Yes, Max. And there's an interesting story we'll probably not get into on the show, but. So at some point, it's not clear exactly when. It's not when Earl died, but some years, a couple years before that, James Long, one of the bike shop employees, was actually living in one of the buildings, like the ones without heat, without power, no Hookups. For whatever reason, he found himself out of home and was staying in these bike shops, using candles for light. And we talked to an ex employee who had the story of being sent out by Earl to go collect stuff in the old buildings. These two boys walk into this building and see this like ghost zombie, like getting up from like a pallet somewhere and then like screaming, literally jumping out of windows to escape.
Hank
The big shocker was, is me and Earl Nix was checking the houses and then the property and we seeing a candle lit in, in one of the houses. I think it was a white one. We went in there and the shocker was he sat up out of bed and looked at us. I was like, jumped out the damn window and started running.
Susan
You didn't know he was there?
Unidentified Advertiser 3
No.
Susan
Did Earl know he was there? No, Earl didn't know he was there?
Hank
I don't believe so.
Susan
What did Earl say?
Hank
I don't. I, I went around with Earl next Nat Earl o'.
Jacinda
Byrne.
Hank
Oh, we were checking everything and I jump. I, I seriously about my pants and jumped out the window and started running.
Kevin
That's so funny. It was James.
Hank
Yeah, it was James. Now that you say James Long. Scraggly. Yeah, he. He stayed in the house for a while.
Susan
Do you recall what James Long was like at all? He worked there forever. He been there.
Hank
He worked there forever. He, he even taught me how to drive a stick.
Susan
How'd that happen? He just decided to.
Hank
Well, well, I worked there and he said, you wanna go to the store? Well, yeah, I'll go to the store. He goes, I'll show you how to drive. He showed me how to drive the stick.
Susan
Why was he taking you to the store?
Hank
We were going to Harding so he could get some food.
Susan
He had a car. Whose car was.
Hank
He had a Honda. That was his boyfriend's car.
Kevin
Yeah, they hadn't expected to find anyone up there. And they went up there and there was James. James was staying up there and they had no idea and it scared the out of them. And I think he said he, they don't know if they told Earl, like they didn't know if Earl knew that James was sleeping up there, they just
Susan
ran and lost their minds. But apparently Earl did know he was staying there. It's not well documented, but, like, he definitely. We know for a time, anyway, James Long was living one of those outbuildings
Jacinda
and they're all gone now. All those buildings?
Susan
Yes, they're all, all gone. Including the bike shop.
Kevin
We went out there to visit the site where the bike shop Was and walk around. There's nothing there. You know, it's just a grassy field now.
Susan
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Kevin
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Susan
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Susan
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Kevin
Okay, we have another question from a listener named Kelly McCalem regarding the money bag Scott had in his possession. Allegedly. Any chance those items were described in media covering the case at the time, or were they a holdback from police? Was any info held back from media that was later substantiated by witnesses.
Susan
So for the bank bags, yes, they were mentioned in news articles, but actually, I tend to think Stacy was not aware of that. We can't know for sure, but my sense from the files and from her is that she personally was not aware of that being mentioned in the newspapers. However, they were mentioned, as we touched on in one episode, they actually first reported that the money bag was found. It was checked and, like, it was all accounted for. So that mention was in There and then we're not sure why, but every article after that. So every article after the very first one that went in the paper says that the money bag was stolen. They don't give a color. They don't talk about safari. Safari. The writing. They don't talk about the contents.
Jacinda
All the details aren't there. And it certainly wasn't in her first statement.
Susan
Yeah. So even though that was public record, I don't think Stacy saw it for real. And her first statement does not mention it.
Jacinda
Yeah. Or any of the specifics of it.
Susan
Yeah. But it is very strange that again, the very first article in the local paper, the Kalamazoo Gazette, literally explains they found the bank bag and had the exact contents. Should have had. And yet somehow that just is, by the next day in the paper, it's just totally forgotten. And they talk about it being stolen
Jacinda
and somehow it seems like nobody involved with the case ever read that first article because, yeah, it was the theory that he stole it and Scott stole it and it was actually there the whole time.
Susan
Yeah. It makes no sense. I mean, again, there's notes in the police file where they're clearly like, they found the bag, they're counting out the amount of money in it. There's no typed up report, but there is a, you know, just a handwritten notes about it. So it's. I think it's just a failure of process. Like they just had too many officers not reporting what was happening and they lost track of shit.
Jacinda
It's one of those terrible moments in cases like this, and terrible for Scott, where something like this sort of falls through the cracks. And then for the next several decades, everybody assumes that the bank bags are actually stolen.
Susan
Yeah. And this gets some stuff we can't really prove. Exactly. But my suspicion or my sense from the files is that it may have been known by some investigators on the cold case team that there were bank bags in the images. Like there's suggestions they knew that happened. I don't think they ever put together two and two and realized those have to be the same bank bags that were supposedly stolen. I don't know. Like we can't read. We don't know for sure. They subjectively knew. But it could just be that such tunnel vision that they assumed that the big bags showing up in those photos were not the ones missing from the
Jacinda
bike shop, even though Karen and or Lori had said those were the only ones.
Susan
They said that back in 1988. By the time they talked to in 2001, they don't clearly remember what they were. They couldn't identify exactly what the bank bags look like.
Hank
No.
Jacinda
Right. But they had said back then that they were the only ones.
Susan
Yes. However, we do know that this cold case team, for whatever reason, seems to have a history of our pattern of not talking to original investigators. Like, in Jeff Titus's case, the cold case team did not involve the original investigators or, like, fully debriefed from them. They were either not talked to at all or just very dismissively contacted. They were not considered, like, a resource to be used for the investigation, which
Jacinda
would seem to be, you know, important.
Kevin
Yeah, I. I would think it'd be important.
Susan
So if they're not spending a lot of time with the old case file, with the old personnel, they're having these new interviews, and they're assuming that's fact and not realizing these people have forgotten mundane details that are critical and they don't hear them for themselves. Yeah.
Jacinda
The picture of the bank bag right there.
Kevin
Yeah.
Hank
Yeah.
Jacinda
That moment still breaks my heart. And this whole story, like, it would
Susan
be easy to miss stuff in that shop. I could almost totally see how you could have some bank bags tucked away and maybe visible in a photo, and it'd still be hard to see. No. Even in the hoard, like, these bank bags were front and center.
Kevin
It's almost like they were laid out there, displayed just so the crime scene person could take a photo of them, potentially. We have another question from a listener named Kristen who wrote in about the flowers on the grave. She says that my immediate reaction to the few days after the murder suggestion was surely there can have been a grave already. To put flowers on a body in a murder case surely can't be released in time and an arrangement for a burial, all in a few days. So that timeline goes straight out the window in my book.
Susan
Yes. Like, he was buried, I think, within five days. However, there were, in fact, flowers on his grave after he was buried. There would have been nothing notable of the flowers then because there were, in fact, a lot of flowers on the grave at that time. So it's only a year later that the flowers being placed there would have even seemed noticeable. But, yeah, when he was freshly buried, there were flowers on the grave, so nothing about that would have stood out. There's nothing about it that would have connected Scott to the case. Unless you say that the flowers were placed a year later, and then you could hypothetically say that no one else could have placed the flowers there.
Jacinda
Well, you know, as said in court, the flowers alone are evidence enough for me.
Susan
Like there's like, there's flowers on the grave in several photos. Like, I mean, obviously someone was putting flowers on the grave even after Scott's in prison. Like, flowers show up on the grave. So it's just a ridiculous idea to begin with. Yeah, we put flowers on the grave. Are we somehow, like, involved in the murder now? Like, it's. It's just a. It's an idea. I guess it sounds poetical or like he. Fenton makes a big deal of it, but it just. Even from the start, it make no sense. No.
Jacinda
Certainly not evidence of a crime.
Kevin
Right. There were so many people who had a story about the bike shop, who had worked at the bike shop, or who had bought their first bike or were given their first bike. It doesn't seem that strange to me that someone would just stop by and put flowers on a grave.
Susan
And the flowers are placed in the middle. So Johnny and Earl, the brothers, were buried together. And these flowers are placed like, and a little spot between the graves. So it's not even like, necessarily focused at Earl.
Kevin
Our next question is from a listener named Paula, who asks what would it take to get genetic genealogy to help identify the killer?
Susan
So Paul is asking about the DNA found under Erla Byrne's fingernails. There was DNA under both sets of fingernails, left and right hands, and it belonged to the same unknown male. Unfortunately, it was a partial profile. So there's enough there where you can say, whoever this is, it's not Scott Baldwin, it's not Alan Nutter. But we can't use that to identify someone through genealogy. Like, there's not enough of a profile there to extrapolate beyond that. If you have someone's known profile, you can compare against it and say it's not them or maybe it is them. But that's as far as it goes.
Jacinda
Unfortunately, it starts getting into the realm of probabilistic genotyping.
Susan
Not even. We're not even there. It's. It's a. It's a pretty partial profile. It's enough to, you know, exclude people, but it's not going to be enough to get you to, you know, track down family trees.
Jacinda
It's enough of a profile. You're saying, Susan, though, that if you ran James Long's DNA against it, you
Susan
could see if you ran James Long's profile against that, and it was not an exclusion. It would be highly interesting.
Jacinda
Yeah.
Kevin
Okay. Our final question is from Margaret, who is a librarian and true crime aficionado from Cincinnati, who wrote in and asked, I wanted to know what else you've uncovered about the rumors that Earl stashed a large sum of money in a shop. Has anyone you've talked to so far been able to produce hard evidence that there was a large amount of cash on the premises?
Susan
That's a good question. In fact, the question of whether or not there was money hidden in the bike shop. That answer may or may not come from Alan Nutter himself. But you'll have to tune in next week for episode 10 to find out.
Kevin
You've been listening to Proof Sidebar A podcast by Red Marble Media in association with Glassbox Media. Send us your questions and comments@proofcrimepodmail.com follow us everywhere with the handle at Proof Proof Crime Pod and on our website proofcrimepod.com thanks so much for listening.
Susan
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Proof: A True Crime Podcast
Episode: Murder at the Bike Shop | Sidebar Q&A
Date: March 26, 2026
This special Sidebar Q&A episode, hosted by Susan Simpson with co-hosts Jacinda Davis and Kevin, takes listeners behind the scenes of Season 2's investigation into the murder at the "bike shop." With no new investigation episode releasing this week, the hosts field listener questions about the case, unraveling hidden details and addressing enduring mysteries—ranging from eccentric hoarding habits and forgotten bank bags, to the unresolved fate of crucial DNA evidence. The episode is rich in anecdotes from former bike shop employees and provides key insights into investigative oversights, the fate of the bike shop property, and lingering rumors of hidden cash.
The hosts’ tone is conversational and at times wryly humorous, especially when recounting odd anecdotes from bike shop history. The Q&A structure keeps things lively and informal, but the gravitas of wrongful conviction remains ever-present, especially when evidence handling is discussed.
For listeners and new fans, this sidebar episode provides crucial context, answers open questions, and previews developments to come—balancing quirky community lore with sharp, critical analysis of investigative missteps.