Cabins by the Lake /// Part 1 /// 765

Summary

True Crime Garage: Cabins by the Lake /// Part 1 /// 765 – Summary

Podcast: True Crime Garage
Episode: Cabins by the Lake /// Part 1 /// 765
Date: June 11, 2024
Hosts: Nic and the Captain
Case: Belinda Van Lith, missing since June 1974, Eagle Lake, Minnesota

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Overview

This episode launches a two-part deep dive into the nearly 50-year-old unsolved disappearance of 17-year-old Belinda Van Lith from Little Eagle Lake, Wright County, Minnesota. Hosts Nic and the Captain unravel the timeline around Belinda's last known days, the context of her disappearance, the early investigation, and the complex dynamics of lake communities during the 1970s. The episode’s tone is thoughtful, detailed, and occasionally light-hearted, reflecting the hosts’ distinctive balance of seriousness and banter.

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Main Themes

• The mysterious vanishing of Belinda Van Lith: last seen house-sitting for a neighbor in a close-knit lakeside community
• The complexities introduced by the transient "lake cabin" lifestyle of the area
• Early investigation missteps, local confusion, and emerging police theories
• The short list of physical clues: a missing pink blanket, a troll necklace, and minor signs of forced entry
• Alibis and early suspects: neighbor Duane Cornwell, the boy from the lake, and wider speculation

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Belinda's Background and the Setting

Timestamp: 03:32 – 09:58

• Belinda Van Lith: active, social 17-year-old described as 5’5”, 110 lbs, with blonde hair and blue eyes; lived with a large family in a lakeside community.
• Community Context: Unlike typical suburbs, Eagle Lake was surrounded by cabins, many owned as seasonal homes; kids rode horses, swam, and frequently took on house/babysitting jobs.
• Belinda was house-sitting for Duane Cornwell, a local musician—an arrangement her family later found odd as he was not close to their family.

"The weird thing about this was that Duane Cornwell had no real connections with the Van Lith family that they are aware of. ...so today when they look back retrospectively on their sister's case, they wonder how it came to be that she took this job house sitting for this man..." (Nic, 11:04)

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2. The Days Leading Up to the Disappearance

Timestamp: 12:31 – 23:03

• June 13, 1974: Belinda called her father about unsettling noises and a possibly blown fuse. Her father checked in, found nothing amiss, and returned to fix the fuse the next day, though Belinda was out.
• House-sitting arrangement: Belinda did stay overnight at the cabin for several days, but specifics about duration/responsibilities remain murky.

"So Belinda was at Little Eagle Lake in Wright County, Minnesota. Belinda was house sitting for a neighbor at the time... She is house sitting for a man named Duane Cornwell." (Nic, 07:57)

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3. Last Known Movements: Piecing Together the Timeline

Timestamp: 16:12 – 28:32

• Key Sources: Police files (released to the family decades later), interviews with friends conducted many years after the fact, notably by investigative journalist Trisha Turonaskas (recommended podcast: Inform).
• Friday, June 14, 1974:
  • Friend Diane Schleif recalls speaking to Belinda; nothing strange was reported.
  • Belinda mentioned swimming that day with “a boy from the neighborhood.” His identity remains ambiguous and unconfirmed.

"Diane Schleif...said that Belinda did mention to her that she had gone swimming in the lake that day with a boy from the neighborhood." (Nic, 18:42)

• Saturday, June 15, 1974:
  • Friend Debbie Hulth House called Belinda in the morning; they made plans to meet later that day, but Belinda never showed.
  • This call happened before she vanished, narrowing the timeline of her disappearance.

"Not only is it a person who's saying, I spoke with her on the morning of June 15th...they made plans to see each other to meet up later that day." (Nic, 23:59)

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4. Discovery of Her Absence and the Immediate Aftermath

Timestamp: 29:40 – 39:23

• The Family’s Red Flags: Belinda's absence from her older sister’s going-away party on the night of June 15th was highly out of character, triggering concern by the following morning (June 16, 1974). Some ambiguity remains about when the authorities were first called.
• Cornwell's Mother's Discovery: Upon returning, Duane Cornwell’s mother found the cabin’s door open, Belinda absent, with her belongings still inside.
• Physical Evidence: Only missing personal item was a pink blanket (Cornwell’s property) and Belinda’s distinctive troll necklace, both never recovered. Her wallet and license remained in the cabin.

"They go to check on his [Cornwell's] alibi...The problem here becomes when they go to check on the hotel reservations and the hotel stay, he's not staying alone...they confirm that he did stay at the hotel. However, he's returning a day or a night later than when the hotel says that he checked out." (Nic, 48:52)

• Police Observations: A 12” x 12” cut in a window screen (but window not accessed) and an open/unlocked door were noted, but there were no clear signs of a struggle or forced entry.

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5. Early Theories and Police Response

Timestamp: 39:43 – 56:13

• Initial Focus: Police suspicion briefly centered on Cornwell due to inconsistencies in his stated timeline (his return from Nashville, hotel check-out date, small time gap), but he was ultimately cleared—though details on this clearance are vague.
• Alternative Theories: Initially, authorities considered that Belinda may have run away (an attitude not uncommon in the 1970s), but later recognized the improbability: she left her money/cards behind and was known to be responsible and close with family.

"I think all of us can agree... some people... go off and live a whole new life and they never come back. ...But I would put that in the 1 or 2% chance because... it’s starting to seem very highly unlikely that she just took off." (Nic, 54:48)

• Items of Interest: The missing pink blanket and troll necklace took on heightened importance over time, being personal and potentially traceable.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• Regarding the 1970s rural lifestyle:
  • “Can you imagine being on the phone with a friend, and saying 'yeah, I'll be over in a little bit. You might see me pull up on the horse.'” (Nic, 08:33)
• The ambiguity of the “boy from the neighborhood”:
  • "Was it a boy that lived there? Was it a boy that the family had a summer house? Is it a boy that was just visiting somebody else's summer house with his family? It becomes a little more complex." (Captain, 19:26)
• On the culture of running away:
  • “Remember every...movie that, that takes place in the...late 60s, almost always has some teenager, 17, 18, 19 year old...‘What are you doing?’ 'We're...heading out to California. Far out, man.'” (Nic, 41:13)
• Father’s Day heartbreak:
  • “So poor Clifford, this poor man had to spend Father's Day searching for his daughter.” (Nic, 43:38)
• On the subsequent shift in the investigation:
  • “At some point they're going to go back and say, not so fast. Maybe there was foul play involved here. And that will slowly matriculate into, we do strongly believe that there is foul play here.” (Nic, 44:19)

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Important Timestamps

• 03:32 – Introduction of Belinda and her background
• 07:57 – Description of Eagle Lake and the house-sitting arrangement
• 12:31 – Night of June 13: Belinda’s call to her father
• 16:12 – Timeline and police file discussion
• 18:42 – Testimony about the boy from the neighborhood
• 23:59 – Phone call and failed meetup with Debbie on June 15
• 29:40 – Family's concern grows, search begins
• 36:53 – Belinda’s belongings left behind; missing items outlined
• 39:43 – The cut window screen and lack of evidence of a break-in
• 48:52 – Investigation into Cornwell’s alibi and police clearance
• 54:48 – Shift from runaway theory to foul play as focus

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Episode Tone & Style

• Nick and the Captain maintain their signature balance of immersive storytelling, critical thinking, and humor (much of it self-deprecating), especially in lighter asides about 1970s lifestyles and sibling dynamics.
• They encourage armchair detective thinking, frequently walking listeners through the logic behind police and family actions then and now.
• The episode closes with anticipation for Part 2, promising deeper exploration into suspects and police follow-ups.

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Takeaway

This episode meticulously constructs the timeline of Belinda Van Lith’s disappearance and marks crucial points where investigation and local action may have diverged. The hosts make clear that in retrospect, the likelihood of foul play is high, despite institutional inertia in the early days. The story is made especially haunting by the close-knit, apparently idyllic lakeside community that failed to keep Belinda safe—or to solve her disappearance for the last half-century.

End of Part 1. To be continued in Part 2.

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For more details and investigative reporting, the hosts recommend checking out the Inform podcast series on this case.

Transcript

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[A]

Welcome to True Crime Garage. Wherever you are, whatever you're doing. Thanks for listening. I'm your host, Nick, and with me, as always, is the man who has the script for the 2024 NBA Finals. Here is the captain.

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All right, everybody, gather round. Grab a chair, grab a beer. Let's talk some true crime.

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Belinda Van Lith has been missing now for almost 50 years. Belinda was a smart, outgoing young lady with blonde hair and blue eyes. She and her family were well known in their neighborhood. But the neighborhood where the Van Liths lived was very likely quite different from the city streets or suburbs where most of us grew up. A lot of us spent time during the summer months hanging out at the community pool in Belinda's neighborhood. It was the lake that kept everyone busy. Back in 1974, Belinda Van Lith vanished from her neighborhood in Eagle Lake, Minnesota. This is in Wright County. Unable to account for some of the minutes and hours in the timeline have added to the complex nature of this case. There have been several suspects over the years, but there is one who has managed to find himself atop of that list. This is a sexual predator who was living about one football field's distance from Belinda's last known whereabouts. This is the still unsolved missing persons case of 17 year old Belinda Van Lith. And this is is true crime garage. This week Captain, we head out to the great state of Minnesota and once again we are brought to task with another who done it. But this one has a different kind of twist to it as you will see as we go through this week's true crime story. Now at the center of our story we have 17 year old Belinda Van Lif. Belinda has been missing for almost 50 years now. In fact it will be 50 years this weekend. Belinda lived with her family, a large family with a gaggle of siblings in Wright County, Minnesota. Belinda was born in 1957. She was an active, outgoing and social teenager at the time of her disappearance. At that time she was described as 5 foot 5 inches tall, about 110 pounds with blonde hair and blue eyes. Now, depending on the source, Belinda was last seen at 8pm on Friday, June 14. But other sources state that her last known whereabouts were from the morning of Saturday June 15th. And we will go through all of the minutiae of that weekend and try to sort those details out as we go. But what is not in question is her whereabouts when she was last known to be safe and sound. So Belinda was at Little Eagle Lake in Wright County, Minnesota. Belinda was house sitting for a neighbor at the time. Also not dispute is most of the activities of that weekend. While Belinda was house sitting. Her family is preparing to host an outdoor going away party at their home on June 15, 1974. There were seven Van Lith children and the way that their childhood and where they grew up sounds amazing. With the very big exception obviously of Belinda having vanished. They grew up in a lake house. During the summertime the children had use of the lake and the beautiful park camp like setting on occasion. The kids would even ride horses to their friends homes to visit their friends. Now this Little Eagle Lake setting is very different from most childhood neighborhoods. Here we have a setup where some of the cabin owners are only present in during the warm months. For a decent portion of the cabin owners there, these were often their vacation homes where they left the cabins, buttoned up for the cold winter months and then would return in the summer or the warmer months to enjoy this beautiful setting and to enjoy the lake. It was very common for teens to babysit for neighbors and it was common for persons to house situation for neighbors as well. I won't go so far to say that it was common for someone as young as Belinda to be house sitting. She's 17 and in fact had just recently turned 17. But that is the situation. She is house sitting for a neighbor.

[B]

Well, that sounds like a dream childhood for some. Personally, I, I would not want to have that many siblings. Think about all the hand me downs and then the problem with horse. Horse shit.

[A]

Well, sounds like they were horse people. It sounds amazing to be like, can you imagine being on the phone with a friend and saying yeah, I'll be over in a little bit. You might see me pull up in the horse.

[B]

Yeah, but if you have, if you have six other siblings, you're not going to get a chance to be on the phone.

[A]

That's true. One of the big events for that weekend was going to be a going away party. We will say it was a big event for the Vanlith family. Belinda's older sister was packing her bags and heading to the great state of Texas. This because she had joined the Air Force. So the family was going to celebrate together that weekend with friends invited over. And some of these friends are persons living in cabins near the lake. So we have. I would imagine this would involve some adult friends of their parents. But this should be including some of the, the child friends as well.

[B]

Right.

[A]

The cabin that Belinda was house sitting. This is why. This is one of those situations, right Captain where you look at it and I think when you look at it from 20, 24 eyes, it seems strange that someone who you know less than a year from being 18, but also still a minor would be house sitting for someone else. So you can look at that and go, that seems strange.

[B]

We don't know the details of what her responsibilities were to house sit. It could just be simply that you went over twice a day. It was, it's not like she had to stay there.

[A]

Well, actually she, she was staying the night at the. For, for Several nights at the. The home.

[B]

Great. I'm wrong again.

[A]

Some of the details are a little murky. All of these years later, we don't know if she had any actual task or job duties to perform other than simply watching the house and let's say protecting the house. And we'll get into that here in a minute. When you look at this, maybe from 1974 eyes, it might not seem as strange as it would today. And let's talk about and not forget about the setting. Right. So this cabin that Belinda was house sitting was just a quarter of a mile down the road from the Van Lith house. And anytime you have these communities where people leave for seasons at a time, yeah, you do have a lot of people keeping their eye on their neighbor's properties. That's pretty common in these types of setups. So she's house sitting for a man named Duane Cornwell. Dwayne was a musician who was going to be away on a work trip with his band. They were visiting Nashville, Tennessee. Duane Cornwell had. This is where the part I think makes it seem a little more unusual. Dwayne Cornwell, by every resource that I could find and in fact, the Van Lith family, the siblings today, sadly, the parents have passed away as, you know, time drug on. In this case, her siblings said the weird thing about this was that Duane Cornwell had no real connections with the Van Lith family that they are aware of. Right. Aside from living down the road, he didn't associate with any of the Van Lith children or other Vanleth children or the parents. So today when they look back retrospectively on their sister's case, they wonder how it came to be that she took this job house sitting for this man that, as stated, the family did not know very well.

[B]

Yeah, like you said, it was a different time in the, in the 70s, once you graduated from high school is commonplace. A go to college or get a job, start your life.

[A]

And the thing here too is keep in mind the distance, right? These are. This is a tight community and mom or dad with, with a quick phone call, mom or dad could be, could arrive at the house that she's sitting on foot within three, four minutes. You know, if she needed to, she could walk or run home and be home in no time at all. So I think the distance plays a part in the decision making here. I am a little unclear on how many days it was arranged that she was going to be staying and watching the place. It was several nights. We do know that to be fact, but I Am yet to see anywhere where it says she was due to start staying there on this date and expected to be done with the job on this other date. What we're going to hone in on here, Captain, though, is the known events for Belinda on June 13th, 14th and 15th. And we can circle back to Duane Cornwell, the. The owner of the home where she's house sitting here in a little bit. Now, we do know on these nights, well, at least on the 13th and 14th, Belinda did stay the night there. And from what I gather, and the way that some of the reports read, it sounds like she had already been there prior. Right. May have stayed there the 11th and the 12th, but that's neither here nor there. Because what I think is most important in this case are the events of the 13th, 14th and 15th. So let's go back to June 13, 1974. On this day, Belinda calls her father. She tells him that she's concerned because she was hearing some noises, some noises at night that were unsettling to her, right. But she tells her father that she thought that maybe a fuse had gone out. According to the police file, which was later released to the family, Belinda's father, Clifford Van Lith, he went to check on Belinda that night after getting this phone call. He says that while there, he didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. He says his daughter didn't say that she was frightened. Didn't seem like anything strange was going on. He did say he checked and the fuse did need to be repaired, as confirmed by dad and the what he's telling the police later. But he says that that night he didn't have the tools that the job required. So he told Belinda that he would be back the next day and he followed through on that. He did come back the next day and he fixed the fuse, however, the next day. So we're at the 14th. Belinda wasn't there at this time.

[B]

Right.

[A]

He goes on to tell the authorities that this did not concern him. It's summertime at the lake. During the day, she was likely just out and about. She had a bunch of friends. You know, she grew up and lived here. She wasn't one of these people that left for the winter. So she had friends. And according to the police file, which was released to the Vanlith family many years after Belinda went missing. When interviewed after the disappearance, her father and family told police that they just assumed on the day that dad went and fixed the fuse that Belinda was either out with friends or went down to the lake at some point. That day or possibly both, as we will see going through this timeline.

[B]

Well, do we have anybody coming forward saying that they hung out with her that day? Because it's possible that she could have just visited the lake on her own?

[A]

Yeah, we have some of her words as she had conversations with some friends that took place that day. And the reason why I think that there's, there's a little bit of, of a little bit of a disconnect here on exactly when she went missing is her, her actual movements on the 14th and the 5th, 15th. So one of the biggest pieces and parts to this case is that police report. The, the police file that was released to the family. Now we do need to point out this was not released to the family until many years, in fact, we should say many decades later. Right. So the family then shares this police file with inform. So check out inform.com inform. Not only did Gangbusters work on writing up a long form investigative journalism story on this case, and they've done it with many other stories as well, obviously, but they did a seven part podcast dedicated to this missing person case. And, and that will be our recommendation to all of you this week. I believe, Captain, that Trisha Turonaskas not only did the write up and a great job on the write up for Inform and she hosted the podcast, but I truly think that she has helped to actually greatly further this investigation with her work that she's done in recent years. Times. Right, so this is from inform, who again can base all of their information on what they read straight from the police file. We have Belinda's friend, her name is Diane Schleif, who later told investigators. This is during a 2008 interview though. Right. We're, we're talking about a long period of time that has gone by. During a 2008 interview, she tells investigators that she spoke to Belinda that Friday night. So that would have been June 14, 1974. Shalif didn't recall anything bizarre about that night or anything strange about their conversation. Right. There was nothing that, that told her, oh, I should be worried about my friend. However, she said in this interview decades later that Belinda did mention to her that she had gone swimming in the lake that day with a boy from the neighborhood. Now, the question mark here will always be, did Belinda ever name this boy? Did she know the boy's name? Right. And if she did, did she tell the name to her friend? And the friend just forgot over the years. What we do know though, Captain, is that I am yet to hear or see a Name put to this boy that her friend recalls decades later that Belinda told her she was swimming with at the lake.

[B]

Well, I think the community and the setting, the lake setting makes this case more difficult. Today they say the population is just a little over 3,000. So what's the population back in the 70s, I'm guessing at least a thousand or so less than that. But also, what do we know about lake communities? It's not just, hey, I have a lake house and I'm the only one that uses it in the summer. If you have a lake house, some people use that as almost like a bartering system. Like, hey, why don't you go up to my lake house for the week? Or hey, why don't you take your family to my lake house for the weekend? So the amount of people that don't live in that community, that could be in that community at any set time makes things difficult. All she was swimming with a boy. Was it a boy that lived there? Was it a boy that the family had a summer house? Is it a boy that was just visiting somebody else's summer house with his family? It becomes a little more complex.

[A]

It is quite complex. And I think though based off of. And again, this is an interview that's taking place decades later, but the detail in there is her friend telling the authorities that she went swimming with a boy or was swimming in the lake that day with a boy from the neighborhood. And we do know that Belinda grew up in this neighborhood, this community. So again, it's weird because the complexity of it is, well, why didn't she, if it was somebody that she knew, why didn't she say his name? Or maybe it was just not important at the time. You know how conversations flow. Maybe it just wasn't something that she expressed and wasn't asked of, of her for. Oh, what boy was it? You know, that maybe that question just never came up. But the detail there would be that her words of that it was a boy from the neighborhood. I can only think back to like our days. Like we weren't lucky enough to grow up right by a lake in a lake community, but we were lucky enough to go down to Lake Cumberland several times. And it was like you were constantly saying hello to people because that was a vacation type setting, right? That was like more of what you were describing of people coming and staying for a week or for a long weekend. And I just remember constantly like saying hello to people, having chit chat conversations with people. And I don't ever remember asking anybody, anybody's name you might swim with somebody for a while. You might hang out with them on the playground or in the barbecue area, and you might have a lengthy conversation with somebody and never exchange names.

[B]

But think about what she said. A boy from the neighborhood. That doesn't necessarily imply that it's a boy that lives there all year round just like she does. A boy from the neighborhood could be a family that visits every summer, and she's just accustomed to him being there in the summertime.

[A]

Yeah, that could exactly be the. The situation. What we do know, though, in comparison is she's not saying a boy from Michigan or. Or a boy from Wisconsin or giving or providing a city. And if she did, her friend is not recalling that information all of the years later. Now, also from this police file.

[B]

But wait, hold on. On top of that, though, he could have been Uggo has a great personality, but he's a little. Little on the fugly side. And so she doesn't want to tell her friend that she's hanging out with Uggo McFuggo, you know what I mean? And then so she just omits the name.

[A]

Also from the police file, following Belinda's disappearance, another friend told investigators that they spoke on the phone the following morning on June 15th. That morning, Belinda's friend, her name is Debbie Hulth House called Belinda. The two made plans to meet up for a brief meeting later that day. So this, to me, this statement is very interesting to me. Okay, so not only is it a person who's saying, I spoke with her on the morning of June 15th.

[B]

Right.

[A]

While we don't have anybody saying that I hung out with Belinda that day, we don't have anybody saying that she came to my house or I saw her walking around. What we do have is this person, Debbie, her friend, who says, I called her, I spoke to her on June 15th. So this means a, that Belinda was alive and well and of course, had not vanished by this time on the morning of June 15th.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So whatever happened to Belinda, whether she took off and that was some police speculation at one point, or whether there was foul play involved. Whatever happened with Belinda took place obviously, after this phone call. And this is also a situation where this person, Debbie, she's saying the same as what Belinda's father, Clifford, had said about his interaction with his daughter on the. The. The night of the 13th, saying that, you know, there didn't seem anything to be out of the ordinary. Belinda seemed fine. She didn't seem worried about anything. Same situation with Debbie. So, a, it tells us she's alive and well and hadn't vanished by the morning of June 15th. But this is interesting to me too, because it also tells us something else. It tells us B, that this is proof positive of something that I was wondering about from the very beginning of looking at this case. The call to Belinda from her friend. Remember Belinda's house sitting, she's at Duane Cornwell's house. This tells us that other persons outside of Belinda's family were aware that she was staying there at Cornwell's house.

[B]

Right.

[A]

That's going to be key here. And here's the thing too. I'm assuming I would make the assumption here, I don't like to assume, but I would make the assumption here that with other persons knowing that she's staying at Cornwell's house, that she's house sitting, that they likely, very likely knew that she was staying there alone. And that's where this whole thing could get into some big trouble for this young lady.

[B]

Yeah, she's a young attractive lady on her own. Like you said, people, not just her family, but friends. And then who did they talk to? How many people know that she's there by herself? My only problem with this phone call is do we have any indicators that would make it definitive that her friend knew it was the 15th, the morning of the 15th, and not the 13th or 14th?

[A]

Other than this person's word, no.

[B]

Right. I'm just saying there's sometimes that people get confused and you talk to somebody a couple weeks later and they go, yeah, remember I called you last Thursday and you go, no, actually that was Wednesday.

[A]

Right. The reason why I feel very confident in this statement is twofold. One, this is not an interview that took place a year or two or decades later. This is from the police file from somebody that they spoke to on the 17th or 18th. So this is relatively quick turnaround on getting this information to the authorities. The other reason why I believe this to be some pretty solid information is remember the detail in there. Remember they had made plans to see each other to meet up later that day. So it's not just a hey, a check in or hey, how you doing? It's a we're also, we made some plans. Now, what is missing from this report is the two actually connecting and meeting up for that day. Right. So they make plans to do so via a phone call that morning. But whatever happened, I think with. With all the mystery that's left in this case, I think we have to start making some little leaps here ourselves to fill in some of these blanks if we make plans to hang out and then later someone doesn't show up. Whatever happened to Belinda, I think happened at some point between that phone call and when that meetup was supposed to take place.

[B]

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All right, we are back, you filthy, filthy animals. Cheers to you. Talk. Hands in the air.

[A]

Cheers to everybody out there. And cheers to everybody that stopped by our booth. There was so many of you. It was wonderful meeting every single one of you. But Nashville was great. CrimeCon was great. And thank you to everybody who stopped by our booth to say hello, stop by for a picture, and everybody that picked up some True Crime Garage merchandise from the store there. It was wonderful to see all of you. And that's. We kind of look at that as an opportunity for us to shake hands, give a hug, take a picture, and say thanks to you for listening to us and putting up with us, some of you, for years now. So thanks to everybody. Where we left off here, Captain, we're Now at Saturday, June 15th. Remember we had that phone call earlier that day? We have a meetup that doesn't take place between Belinda and the person that she had the phone call with. Right, Debbie. The other important part of Saturday, June 15, this is. This is an important date because this is the day of the going away party. It was to be that evening, and everyone was expecting Belinda to be at the going away party. And why wouldn't they?

[B]

Well, anytime we have a missing person case, it's these. These major points, okay? You make some arrangements to hang out with your friend, and you don't show up. That might be a little bit of a red flag, but not the end of the world. But this going Away party, big deal. So when she doesn't show up, I think this is when everybody really starts going, what's going on here?

[A]

Exactly. And this is we're kind of left with some varying opinions on her not appearing at the going away party. And part of that, I believe, Captain, is due to just the situation. Like we said, she's been missing now for almost 50 years. A lot of time has passed. Her parents are no longer with us. And so what we have today in the reports and interviews that are taking place in current day, it's some of her siblings relaying information or relaying their thoughts and opinions of what Belinda's parents may have been experiencing or thinking at the time. They're not here to tell us exactly. But again, everyone was expecting Belinda to be at the party. She doesn't show up for the going away party. This does raise the alarm. And at some point the sheriff's office was called in. Now, I have some varying information on that. Some sources say that the sheriff's department was called the following morning on the 16th. And some reports state that it was the 17th. It seems to be. And the thing Here is, while Inform.com has access to the very large case file, and while the family does have access to that very large case file as well, I don't have anything in front of me telling me what date that report was taken. The other thing too, and we've seen this time and time again, especially when you go back to the 70s and we're talking 1974 here is oftentimes there's a situation of a call is made. Okay, we'll send out an officer and there's a brief conversation. Officer drives around, does some looking, maybe goes and checks on the cab and talks to a couple people. And it's a. We gotta wait 24 hours to file an official report or to make it official that she's missing. And so.

[B]

Right. So basically there could be a call on the 16th and then law enforcement says if she doesn't turn up by tomorrow, give us a call again.

[A]

Yes, this could be a 24 hour process and that. But what, what we do know to be fact based off of everything the family has said and this, you know, they're missing their daughter, I would guess they're probably a little upset with her. On Saturday evening you didn't show up for your sister's going away party, maybe you chalk it up to just, oh, she's a teenager. Maybe she ran off with some friends, got busy and she's being kind of disrespectful here. Nobody thought that of her personality. So I think there were plenty of people that were concerned that night. But what we do know is at the very least at the earliest, the morning of the 16th, the alarm was raised because we have her father and family, they're out looking for, actively searching for Belinda on the 16th. So before we get to that in our timeline, let's cover a few other bases here. So let's go back to the 15th that same day. The report that I have in front of me is that Dwayne Cornwell, the owner of the house where Belinda was house sitting, returns from his trip from Nashville, Tennessee. Also included in this information, it states that before he arrives to his place, even before the time that he was expected to arrive, his mother showed up at the house. Right. So she shows up. I don't know if she was going to be waiting on her son to return or what that situation was. But the report states that his mother arrived at the home before he did. She says, and this is going to be important because if something happened at that, at that cabin where lake house, she likely may have first eyes on the scene. So she says that when she arrived, her son wasn't there, Belinda wasn't there, and she says that she found the door open. I always want more description when we get into any of these details. Right. Does that mean it was. It was just looked like somebody had let it close behind them and it didn't close all the way, or was it. Was it fully ajar or. Some people will even refer to an unlocked door as an open door. But the report is she says she found the door open, but Belinda was nowhere to be found.

[B]

And is it the type of door that when you shut, if you don't lock it, it could be blown open by the wind or whatever.

[A]

Now it sounds like, according to all the reports that they found the home other than the door, and no Belinda again, for Cornwell's mom showing up, or even Cornwell arriving back to his own place, not to see Belinda there probably wouldn't raise any concern.

[B]

We know that her job isn't to be at the house 24 7.

[A]

Exactly. Thank you. Exactly. But then you fall into a situation where time goes by, she doesn't return, and, oh, there are belongings of hers still here. The house appears to be as it was left by Duane, other than finding some of Belinda's belongings there.

[B]

Right.

[A]

It did take some time because I think this is one of those situations that once the police are there that they, they take a Look around, there's nothing that's obvious. They're asking the homeowner, is there anything out of the ordinary, Is there anything missing from your home? I don't know if it was reported to them there on that. The first day that they are in Cornwell's home, or if it was a day or two later. But at some point, Dwayne Cornwell reports that the only item belonging to him that he believes to have been missing his cabin was a pink blanket like, like one that you would spread out on a bed. So I don't have a, a size to report here, but it sounds like it's a fairly large blanket. It's one that he noticed to be missing. Now we sit here 50 years later and we know that Belinda has never returned to this cabin. We know that people are still looking for her. Now, those belongings of Belinda's that were left behind seem so much more important than they likely seem that first hour or two.

[B]

Right.

[A]

One of those items was her, her driver's license. So from my understanding, Captain, she did not own a vehicle, did not possess a vehicle, but did have a driver's license, slash identification card, and her wallet was left behind as well. I will say this, in the 70s, especially the, you know, this is 74. So one could make the argument that this is the early 70s. Police are looking at this scene and they don't see any obvious signs of foul play. They do find that at the rear of the home, a screen. And from my understanding, this is a screen that goes to a window, not like a screened in porch or anything, but a screen to one of the windows was missing a roughly, let's say a 12 inch by 12 inch square that had been cut.

[B]

Do we have any comment by the homeowner about this?

[A]

Well, thank you. I, I'm assuming based off of the limited information in the report that Dwayne is saying. Yeah, that wasn't like that before I left. Right. That, that's an, that's a easy yes and no answer or easy yes and no question for police.

[B]

Well, then I think the other question becomes, is this damage that could have been done by animal or done in some other way other than a human making this damage to this screen?

[A]

Well, you want a description, but when I hear the short description is 12 by 12, that sounds like a pretty clean cut to me. The, the thing here, though, that really complicates matters is included in their notes about that screen being cut, they say that the window was not accessed. I don't know how there's no rhyme or reason as to how they arrived at that conclusion. Right. We've seen some, some cases where they're like, oh, there's cobwebs that were never disturbed.

[B]

Right.

[A]

We've seen other cases where there's windows that are painted shut that even if someone were to have cut or removed a screen, they wouldn't be able to open it or nailed shut. What seems pretty definitive is their, their understanding that when they observed this, they wrote the detail in, included the detail in on this, that the window was not accessed. They go on to say that this, the door being open, whether it was locked or sorry, unlocked, a jar or what have you, that they're looking at a scene and they're going, well, we can kind of, there's no obvious signs of foul play to us here. We can see a likely scenario. Again, this is the cops saying this, a likely scenario of someone came over and she left with somebody or she decided to leave. And I get it, it's, you could argue it's the early 70s. Remember every, like every movie that, that takes place in the 60s, almost, especially the late 60s, almost always has some teenager, 17, 18, 19 year old. That's. What are you doing? We're, we're heading out to California. Far out, man, you know what I mean? Like that's, that was a thing in this country at the time. And maybe they just chalk it up to Here's a young 17 year old, blonde hair, blue eyes, good looking girl, very, very popular with lots of friends. Maybe she, she and somebody else just chose to take off. And again, they are making these notes in the moment. Right?

[B]

Right.

[A]

So we, looking back on it retrospectively, we have to stay water. We have to understand that they, this is something that they decided to include in the police file then that day. Now what they, what it doesn't say is you can't ask that person in the same moment to include in your notes, hey, if she doesn't come back in five days or two weeks or three weeks, would you change your whole opinion of the scene or your thoughts or theories on to where she is or what happened to her? Because when I look at it, it's easy for us to go retrospectively and go, I don't think she's leaving her wallet or her driver's license behind. The other thing too is she only took this job to get paid. Right. She only took this job to make some cash. If she was intending to or wanted to leave for any reason at all with anybody, it would stand to reason that she would have stayed the extra couple of hours to collect from the homeowner that she had been house sitting for.

[B]

Yeah, this gets complicated. Did she invite somebody over? Did she leave with that person? Did the person that she invite over have a weapon and force her to leave the property? Or did she simply go, hey, I'm going to go to the lake and go sunbathing. Something happened there, or I'm going to go to the lake and I'm going to go swimming and something happened there.

[A]

What we do know, and this just makes a very mysterious and sad story even all that more sad, was her, her father, Clifford, was upset with his daughter that she hadn't shown up the night prior to wish her older sister well to, you know, have a celebration before we send her along her way. Now, that year, Captain, just as it shall be this year, Father's day was Sunday, June 16th. So poor Clifford, this poor man had to spend Father's Day searching for his daughter. And he's doing that with other family members and likely other persons of this community as well. They're all looking for this young woman. They're not seeing any signs, obvious signs of foul play. Again, as, as a armchair detective, I think maybe I always expect the worst has happened. And that's pretty easy for us to do given the number of cases that we've looked at. And we're only obviously looking at the bad ones. Right. We're not covering cases where somebody's reported missing and then they turn up alive and well 36 hours later. And it's just a misunderstanding. People don't tune in for those shows. But this woman's been missing for almost 50 years now. And what we're going to see here is a change in opinion of the authorities. It's going to take a while. It's going to take several months, in fact. But at some point they're going to go back and say, not so fast. Maybe there was foul play involved here. And that will slowly matriculate into. We do strongly believe that there is foul play here. And we, we have some people that we are concerned about. And you first have to look at the homeowner, Dwayne Cornwell. So he's gone on this trip. Now, one thing that is great for his alibi, as said, he's traveling with friends with, with people, other musicians, and he is states away. He's, he's in Nashville, Tennessee. Our case is taking place in Wright County, Minnesota. So they check into his alibi and of course, they have his mother to interview as well. She's confirming. Yes, I arrived at the, the house beforehand. They want to know why he's having somebody bother to house sit at all. Right. Why not just lock up the place and go on your trip? It wasn't from my understanding this wasn't. He was going to be gone for months. This was. He was going to be gone for a handful of days, maybe a week at the most. But he did have some concerns. So he's, he's telling police, look, it's common here in this area for people to house sit. Of course, Belinda's family's backing up that information with law enforcement, but he says, look, I have, I have chickens that need to be taken care of. So that's one explanation. Again, he's a musician, so he's saying, look, I own a lot of expensive instruments and I have other items that are of value, expensive items in my home. And I was more so having her house sit to. To keep an eye on my belongings, not necessarily the house itself. This stands to some reason, right? I mean, these cabins are. They're out there and some people are, some of them are. Are owned, but not completely occupied every day of the year. If you were looking to steal some stuff from a house, this would be easy pickings, in my opinion. The report, though, is that none of these items, other than this pink blanket, are missing from the house. So it doesn't seem like somebody went there with the intent of stealing any of his belongings and then turned out to. To be in a situation where Belinda's there. It appears like whatever happened to Belinda either happened without a whole lot of force or a whole lot of struggle in his home or that she was elsewhere when whatever happened to her took place. We'll expand on this a little bit, though. So from my understanding, too, Dwayne Cornwell had been married a couple times, and he unloads the detail on the police that, like, not only was I worried that somebody might take or steal some of my expensive instruments or valuables from my home while I was gone, he was specifically worried that one of his exes may come to the house to either do something to the house or to steal something. So it sounds like whatever relationships he had with these, you know, with woman A, woman B, or whomever. I've not seen their names. It sounds like it was a pretty messy breakup in that he had some concerns.

[B]

Yeah, his relationship with Tammy one and Tammy two were toxic. Now, this might be a captain obvious question here, but I'm guessing when law enforcement, the family, people in the community are searching for her around the lake that they never found this missing pink blanket.

[A]

You're exactly right. And in fact, there's a little bit of a hang up with the items that we should be looking for. Right. So we're looking for Belinda, we're looking for the pink blanket. We do know that some of her belongings and what we just described for you earlier is probably a shorter list of, of the list of items that they have that she left behind or that were left behind before she vanished. But one item that they never found, that she was never without is a troll necklace. And in fact, there are some pictures online of her, you know, with friends or hanging out, what have you. And you can see her wearing the stroll necklace in some of these pictures. So right away, police say, like, we're looking for Belinda, we're looking for the pink blanket, and we're looking for this troll necklace. Because if we can't find Belinda, the pink blanket in the necklace are, are probably some of the best leads we could get when looking for her. They're not going to find any of this stuff. It's 50 years later. They don't find the blanket, they don't find the, the troll necklace. What they do find in their investigation, and this is going, this is very problematic for Dwayne Cornwell. They go to check on his alibi. Again, he's traveling with other people. He's staying in a hotel. They get the name of the hotel from him. Where were you staying? And he says, you know, we were staying there the whole time. And I think he said that we don't know the route that, that they would have taken. So I, I don't know if this was a straight shot or not, but he said it was about 14 hours to travel from Nashville back home. Okay, again, there's other people on this trip. The problem here becomes when they go to check on the hotel reservations and the hotel stay, he's not staying alone. There's at least one person that's rooming with him. They confirm that he did stay at the hotel. However, he's returning a day or a night later than when the hotel says that he checked out. So even with the drive, even with the return, now we have this window of time where his story doesn't match up. I won't go so far as to say that he was unaccounted for, because we do know that he wasn't traveling alone.

[B]

But the question becomes, when did he drop off that other person and what is this time gap that he has? Because if he Has a time gap. It's very possible he comes back home, he does something, he does something to Belinda and then discards her body.

[A]

Yes. This, this missing time would in my opinion and, and everyone else's should mean that this allows for time for him to have been involved in her disappearance, to be responsible for her disappearance. Now the thing though is here Captain, for whatever reason, the police, even though they tracked down this lead and they were looking at it, they were looking at him, it seems like, it seems like they were able to move on from that because again this is a 50 year old investigation. We have different agencies that have investigated this over the years. We have different detectives that have, have reviewed this case and worked this case over the years. So we don't have detailed information as to how they came to this conclusion, but at some point they move off of him. In fact, it's, there's a note in the police file that says that Dwayne Cornwell was cleared and this is within days of her having gone missing. Is this just as simple as. They spoke to multiple people that could confirm that hey, I was with him from the time that we left. Whatever time that they, that hotel said we checked out or, or date that we checked out. Not a big deal. I was with him the entire time or the overwhelming majority of the time.

[B]

It could be as simple as we took a detour and then we, we stayed in the van or, or when he went to drop me off, he stayed at my house for a little bit. I don't think we know exactly what it was that made the cops move off of him.

[A]

No. And it, it would seem to me like it's got to be something very solid because isn't he your obvious lead, he's your obvious suspect right out the gate. Especially when you confirm that oh his, his story is not 100 spot on. We, we, we check the facts of his story. They don't line up with what he's telling us now. That could just be in the moment. He was shocked, he was surprised, he gave bad information. He does. We do know that he tells police it was roughly like a 40. Oh, sorry. Roughly a 14 hour travel time from point A to point B. I can tell you this, it's a quick map search tells me that it's roughly 13 and a half hours. So he's, he's very close on, on his time timing with that. But I'm, I'm again, pardon me for making a leap. I'm not saying we trying to stay water and looking at this retrospectively that we collectively look back and say, oh, yeah, move off of Dwayne completely. But I'm saying, looking at their investigation and the notes that were included, that's been released to the public, the information states that the police moved on from him. So again, here making the leap that there must have been something solid for them to move off of Dwayne. And then now they're back at the idea of she probably left or she left and whatever happened to her didn't take place at the cabin and Dwayne's not involved.

[B]

Yeah. Because even though we have some of her items left behind, we don't have any signs of a struggle.

[A]

No signs of a struggle. And the problem here, though, is the. The notes in that case file indicate that the police, that the investigators at the time believed that there was not much of a case to work here, that there was no real crime committed, that she took off on her own. And I think that all of us can agree that, look, some people do, yeah, they go off and they live a whole new life and they never come back. They never make. They never reach out or make communication with. With anyone. So that's always going to be a possibility. Right. But I would put that in the 1 or 2% chance because I. With all this time that has expired and all of the information that will come out later in this investigation is starting to see. It's starting to seem very highly unlikely that she just took off. In fact, as said, the police at some point will change their opinion and they will say, look, we now believe that there was foul play involved.

[B]

So much more to get to in this case. Join us back in the garage. And until then, be good, be kind, and don't litter. Sa. Sam.