Ashley Flowers (10:32)
True Crime Podcasts There is no shortage to consume. And if you're like me, you've consumed them all. I'm Ashley Flowers, creator and host of the number one true crime podcast, Crime Junkie. Every Monday we cover a case in a way that's not like you've heard before because I have built a one of a kind team of investigative journalists dedicated to conducting original reporting, making sure that you get the inside scoop. Listen to hundreds of crime junkie episodes now, wherever you get your podcasts. Back In June of 1985, a prosecutor flagged Danny Riehl as a potential suspect in Ada's case. Dani had a history of bad behavior, including burglary and forgery. Danny, who was 32 then, had recently been arrested for stealing furniture from an Amish family's home. And he was suspected of shooting at a car on a local highway. He was actually in jail when his name came up in Ada's case, but not because of any of the things that I just mentioned. This time, he had been caught breaking into a couple's home twice. At first, the homeowners didn't notice anything missing, but then they found something chilling. Literally. Danny had allegedly stashed the wife's underwear in their freezer. And it gets stranger. He had found nude photos of the wife and tried to extort money from her over the phone. Police traced the calls back to his mother's home in nearby Goshen, Indiana. Now, besides two brief reports, there is nothing about Danny in Ada's case file, so whether investigators looked into him at all is anyone's guess. But those reports got me and Nina thinking about something that has always bothered us and detectives. That sound Ada heard in her home the day she went missing when her niece Susan was visiting, Like a thud, like if you ran into the wall. That's what it sounded like to me. I can't stop wondering, was someone already in Ada's house? Were they lying in wait for her? Maybe they were there to take something and got caught off guard when Ada and Susan returned. Maybe they fumbled and knocked something over while they were inside or when they were hiding or trying to leave. So, for all those reasons, this Danny guy definitely stood out to us. Tracking him down wasn't easy, though, because real is not his real name. He was born Danny Ray Aaron, and at some point, he must have changed his name. But once we connected the dots, we found some interesting details. Records show that Danny was married, but split from his wife sometime between 1983 and 1990. I can't tell exactly when, since we haven't been able to find any divorce documentation, but we did find the date that they got married. And what are the odds he and his wife tied the knot in the late 70s on May 8th. And then we even found a tenuous link between him and Ada. Danny's stepfather's family owned a septic company, the same one that likely serviced the Harrodynes home shortly before Ada went missing. Now, this is not exactly a Smoking gun. And we don't have any documentation from police or anywhere else showing that Danny ever worked there. If they ever existed, they're long gone by now. So maybe he never went near the business. But it's not hard to imagine that his stepdad could have asked the family to throw some work Danny's way. In which case there would be a slim chance that he and Ada's paths could have crossed. But no one we've spoken to remembers him coming up in the original investigation at all. And unlike the lead that we were at least able to somewhat follow on Gene and Doug, we just hit a straight up brick wall with Danny. Because in 1990, he was killed with his own gun during a scuffle with law enforcement. According to articles in the South Bend Tribune, he was intoxicated more than three times the legal limit. When he threatened to shoot himself and officers who responded to a disturbance he was causing in a rural field. During the struggle, the gun went off, shooting Danny in the head. One of the officers was injured, but survived. Danni's death was ultimately ruled an accident and the gunshot wound deemed self inflicted, with no wrongdoing found on the part of police. So while Danny's connection to Ada remains unclear, this next person's link to her seems a bit more tangible, at least on paper. The mysterious Dean Letterman. In June of 1988, Larry found that name scribbled in Ada's handwriting in the Haradines phone book, along with an address in Watervaleet, Michigan, about an hour from Elkhart. Intrigued? Back in the day, investigators had tried to track this Dean Letterman down. They spoke with locals in Watervliete, and they were contacting the city's police department, but their search led nowhere. No one recognized the name and the address. It didn't even exist. So they never did find him. When we first met with Detective Gizzi, he told us Dean was still a ghost to them today. But our research turned up a couple of potential Deans, both of whom have since died. Although, keep in mind when I'm telling you all of this, we don't even know if this guy is real, let alone if he's mixed up in all of this. But the first Dean was 21 in May of 1985. Later that same year, in November, this Dean pled guilty to a felony charge of selling weed and received a four year prison sentence. As part of his plea deal, charges of criminal mischief and receiving stolen property were dropped. He later became a habitual DWI offender, but never had any violent crimes on his record. He also lived pretty far from Ada, about five hours away. So I don't know how he would have come into her orbit. Although he was apparently a woodworker, and the Haradines were deep into home renovation projects at the time. But I think the second Dean is more interesting. He lived somewhat closer to Ada, about two and a half hours away. He was 32 at the time. And like other Dean, had no record of violent crimes, just alcohol related convictions. But an article I found about him in a local paper from 1979 caught my eye. This Dean was charged with public intoxication after he allegedly tried to enter a doctor's house late at night while the doctor and his family were home. The doctor got his gun and fired warning shots, one of which ricocheted and hit Dean in the foot. I imagine there's a ton of context around that story that we just don't have, but it was interesting to come across. Another interesting tidbit was that he worked in construction, which made me wonder if there could be some connection there, but also not something I was able to follow. So our next move was to try and see if we could cross a guy named James off the list. Now, we've mentioned a James before, like way early in this series, but this is a different James. And this James didn't come up until after Ada's remains were discovered. It was actually Connie, the D's former housekeeper who brought this guy up. And remember, she's the same woman who apparently pointed investigators towards Steve. But Connie had also told Detective Gizzi that she thought James was odd and she was suspicious of him because his family knew the dies. In fact, it was James mother who we're gonna call Maura. She was the one who got Connie the housekeeping job in the first place. Plus, James was very familiar with the area where Ada was found because he used to live just down the road from it, about a third of a mile away. Although he and his parents had moved to Elkhart before Ada went missing. Now, when another Cass county detective caught wind of this tip, it actually got his attention way back in 88. Cause he remembered that back in the late 70s or early 80s, James had been accused of trying to sexually assault a young woman that he worked with at a local gas station. As far as we can tell, based on police records, the story went that James had been making unwanted advances during their shift. And things escalated. When she drove him home. He allegedly groped her and tore her shirt before she managed to get away from him. Now, this incident never actually made it to law enforcement because the woman never reported it. Instead, her father took matters into his own hands and confronted James mother Maura about it. So it's not clear how the detective even got word of it, but it had stuck with him. So he brings this up to detectives, they decide to dig a little deeper into James. And they do this by speaking with school officials and a former employer. And the general consensus was that James was a loner, an average student who was often absent, Especially after a serious motorcycle accident when he was a teen. And he seemed down at times, Possibly because of a rough patch in his parents marriage. And speaking of his parents, Mora had a bit of an interesting reputation herself. People describe her as very religious and quote, unquote, radical when it came to her son. When she was confronted by the girl's father after the alleged attack, Mora flat out refused to believe he had done anything wrong. And she had done the same thing when James was implicated in a series of break ins at various Cass county based businesses. That is, until he confessed and police recovered a bunch of stolen property from their house. Given her history of denial and protecting her son, Investigators were curious to see how Maura would react to questions about a homicide when they spoke with her. Maura said that she knew Ray die through professional circles, and she had recommended Connie as a housekeeper because Ray told her she needed one. And Maura knew Connie did that type of work. But as for Ada, Maura said she had never met her. All the intel she had about the situation came from Ray, who had mentioned that her husband Tony, and their younger son, Steve's half brother talked to Ada just before she went missing. And later, Ray relayed that she was helping Ada's husband Ed by taking his son Jeff school shopping. Maura also had some insight into Ray's personal life. She was aware that Ray and Tony's marriage was falling apart because of Tony's infidelity, But she insisted that their families didn't socialize. She didn't think James even knew Ray, let alone the rest of the dies. When detectives spoke with James a day later, he said the same thing as his mom. He only knew of Ray through Maura, and he had no clue about any house cleaning arrangements that she helped facilitate for the dyes. He admitted that he was well acquainted with Birch Road, near where Ada was found. He had lived nearby for almost two decades, Even gone parking on the very switchback that she was found near, which he described as a local lover's lane. He even remembered visiting the area a few days after Ada's body was found, prompted by a friend who told him about the police activity. He said he knew of some sketchy people that lived around those woods, but he didn't think that anyone truly familiar with the area would have left a body there, since there was a big swamp right around the corner that he said would make a much better hiding spot. So he speculated that the killer stopped around the woods with the intention of having sex with Ada. But then something went awry. I can't quite tell you what police took away from that interview. It doesn't translate in the reports because I hear all of that and think, okay, let's keep digging. But it seems like this is where their work on James just stopped. Even though he agreed to take a polygraph, it doesn't look like they ever gave him one. And although he is still mentioned as a potential suspect in later reports, we couldn't find anything tying him to the Herodynes or even the Dyes, except for his mom's acquaintance with Ray. But like so many others we'd like to question, we can't ask James. He died in 2018. We tried contacting his mother, who, as far as we can tell, is still alive, and we tried his wife, but we weren't able to reach them by the time of this recording. And while we waited to see if we'd hear from them, I was eager to get to another lead. One that actually felt like it was warming up. One that even got Detective Dave Gizzi's attention. It's better over here.
