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David Glenn Lewis /// Part 1 /// 816
00:55:28
David Glenn Lewis /// Part 1 /// 816 Part 1 of 2 www.TrueCrimeGarage.com 39 year old David Glenn Lewis was reported missing by his wife on February 1, 1993. Mrs Lewis and the couple’s daughter had been away for an out of town weekend shopping trip. When they returned home instead of finding the husband and father, they found a mystery. Police and family quickly uncover strange sightings of the man compounded with strange activities. None revealing how, when, and where he would actually be found. This is a true crime mystery that starts with a missing man and very quickly we find more and more questions. Remember, things are not always what they seem and people don’t always do what you would expect. Tune in as we try to make sense of the riddle of David Glenn Lewis.
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- [00:00]
The Captain
Sa.
- [00:32]
Nick
Foreign welcome to True Crime Garage wherever you are, whatever you are doing. Thanks for listening. I'm your host, Nick and with me as always is a man who.
- [00:48]
The Captain
Never mind who I am. I know who I am. Do you know who you are?
- [00:53]
Nick
I do. I say to everyone, thanks for listening.
- [00:57]
The Captain
Thanks for telling a friend.
- [01:01]
Nick
This week we are very excited to be featuring Eye Wide Open by the fine folks at Third Eye Brewing Company. This style is sure to pull anyone through a cold winter's day. Heavy on the coffee and heavy on the delicious stout flavor. Eye Wide Open is packed with incredible flavors. Roasted caramel, chocolate, malt and vanilla all perfectly paired with light roasted coffee. 6.3% ABV garage grade four and three quarter bottle caps out of five. And let's give some thanks and praise to our good friends. First up, we have a cheers to Marta in Glenview, Illinois.
- [01:43]
The Captain
And a big we like your jib goes out to Melissa C. From Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
- [01:48]
Nick
Cheers to Jackie from Blackstone, Massachusetts.
- [01:51]
The Captain
And a big tall cans in there. It goes out to Natalie from Boulder, Colorado.
- [01:55]
Nick
And last but certainly not least, we have Chelsea Willis from Templeton, Calif. California, who says she's been a listener for eight years. Well, no matter how many years all of you have been listening, the people that we just mentioned, they contributed to the beer fund and for that we thank you.
- [02:11]
The Captain
Yeah, BWWAN Beer Run. Make sure you go to the website, make sure you sign up on the mailing list and colonel, that's enough of the business.
- [02:20]
Nick
All right everybody gather round. Grab a chair, grab a beer. Let's talk some true crime.
- [02:52]
Detective Pat Ditter
This is the true crime story that sounds like it was written for the show Unsolved Mysteries. It's a mystery that is true and truly stranger than fiction. Back in 1993 in Amarillo, Texas, everyone was looking for the missing lawyer. In fact, one of the first headlines reporting this story was titled Unsolved Mysteries. The Abilene Reporter News said baffling trail frustrates search for missing Attorney. The article reads in part, he was a small town quarterback, a graduate of Texas Tech University and a former judge. Friends described David Lewis as the ultimate nice guy and family man. But the 39 year old attorney vanished super bowl weekend amid a baffling trail of clues. I change my mind a lot on this, said police detective James Smith, saying, I wake up at two in the morning thinking, whatever happened to David Lewis? Smith worked full time on the case in the months following Karen Lewis reporting her husband missing in Amarillo. They were looking for a missing man 1600 miles away in Moxie Washington, police were working to identify a hit and run fatality victim.
- [04:21]
Nick
It would take over 10 years to.
- [04:23]
Detective Pat Ditter
Connect the two cases. This is True Crime Garage.
- [04:43]
Nick
Foreign Today we have a baffling true crime story on tap. This is one that is sure to leave you scratching your head. You will want to go digging after these episodes to see what you can find and I hope that you do. But I think most will agree that this baffling story filled with mystery and question marks that will only leave you with more and more questions. To start this story off, we need to give a big shout out to two mystery solving partners. And I would say mystery uncovering partners. First up we have the Seattle Post Intelligencer, a fine newspaper in the great state of Washington. Today people typically say Seattle PI and a newspaper reading Detective. This is Washington State Patrol Investigator Pat Ditter. Ditter, as one online report puts it. At the time he was a 13 year veteran with a reputation for tenacity and attention to detail. His boss is Detective Sergeant Ken Harkham of the Washington State Patrols Yakima office. Refer to Pat Ditter as smart and very computer savvy. All of this is going to play a big role in uncovering a portion of this week's mystery. So how did the detective in a newspaper team up to solve a mystery? Simple Detective Ditter was Inspired by a 2003 Seattle Post Intelligencer series that critiqued law enforcement's handling of missing persons cases, specifically problems involved in investigating long term missing person cases in the greater Seattle area. One of the problems that was cited by the Seattle PI was simply that these cases, especially in a big city that catches a lot of cases, not just missing persons, but all kinds of cases, robbery homicide, drug related offenses, missing persons cases, specifically missing adult cases and unidentified remain cases were low priority for some agencies with heavy caseloads. Another problem for these cases at the time was simply that law enforcement databases of such cases did not communicate, making for fewer matches between missing persons and unidentified decedents. There was little cross referencing and the other bigger problem was connecting missings from other jurisdictions, especially when you go outside of state lines, connecting a missing person to an unidentified set of remains. So at the time, even at 2003, the success rate was quite low and thankfully we have grown from this, evolved from this and we've made great efforts in the last two decades to bring more answers and give more people their names and find more missing people. The series of articles run by the Seattle PI the Detective followed the series and the portion that really hit Home for him was focused on the unreliability of ncic, the National Crime Information Center. He was concerned about the unreliability of getting computer hits within this specific database. So he got to thinking, if it can be wrong there, meaning Seattle, it can be wrong here. So time for a little outside of the box thinking they had an unidentified from their jurisdiction that was on his mind. This is an unidentified adult male who died 10 years prior to ditter reading these articles. But no one knew who this guy was, so they named him Moxie John Doe. Until they could give this person his name back, this would be his temporary name. He was named after the town where he was found. Moxie and anonymous. As a John Doe, it's really sad, quite sad. Even more so when you really dig into it. I know for a lot of you listening out there that there is a missing person's case that is on your mind. Maybe it's somebody from your area. Maybe it's somebody that you read about online and have followed their case since. Maybe you heard about their story here on True Crime Garage and you just can't shake it. It's on your back all the time. You're thinking about it and you hope that someday they find this individual. Well, there is a probability that states and says statistically anyway, that that missing person could be simply an unidentified remains case from another jurisdiction. Especially if we're talking about something very far away in distance. I know for somebody like the captain, one of his passion cases is the Brian Schaefer case. 27 years old, born in Pickerington, Ohio, went missing from right here in Columbus way back in 2006. He's not been seen ever since. We covered the case a couple times and, and have revisited the case multiple times on, off the record.
- [10:34]
The Captain
And in this John Doe case, he's found with no identification on him and he's found dressed in army fatigues.
- [10:43]
Nick
Yeah. So there are many people out there, not just listeners or not just people who read or follow true crime with these cases on their brain. But the sad part of it is think about Brian Schaefer. He's got a brother you think of like the Asia degree case from North Carolina, missing since 2000. She's got a mother, a father and a brother. All of these people wondering whatever happened to their loved one? Where could they be hoping and praying that they're all right, that they're safe and that maybe someday they come home. And then as the captain pointed out, we have this mox, this Moxie John Doe, who the detective always Wanted to put a name to this guy. So the story that the Washington State Patrol had on Moxie John Doe is as follows. On the night of February 1, 1993, we have several persons driving on State Route 24. This is east of Yakima, Washington. A lot of times this is reported. This situation that we're about to go through, this incident is reported as occurring in Yakima, but it's actually in Moxie, in the town of Moxie, which is nearby. So this adult male is seen wandering on the highway near Rard Road in the town of Moxie. One of the drivers on the state route says that he turned around after seeing this. This man. Again, air quotes, wandering. And I want to get into that in a bit. Wandering on the road. This is dangerous. This is a state route. These are high speeds. This is at nighttime. Vision can be impaired. He was concerned that someone is going to hit this, a vehicle is going to hit this guy. I don't know if anybody out there listening has been in this situation. I can think of twice in my lifetime where I've called highway patrol or police because there is a incredibly dangerous situation with a, a child or a youngster that is in the middle of a road. This individual decided to turn around because he wanted to warn, be able to try to warn the passing cars, like, hey, there's a, there's a guy up here. Don't hit him. Or maybe even stop and talk to the person, offer them a ride, ask them if they need help. Hey, buddy, get out of the road.
- [13:07]
The Captain
Yeah, it's an abnormal situation. Even when you're just heading down the freeway and you see somebody walking on the side of the road, that's abnormal.
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Nick
He turns around. This motorist, by the time he can return to the spot where he saw the guy walking, he found that the man had been struck by another vehicle. Whatever vehicle hit this guy was not present, didn't stop, kept going. He didn't see the vehicle. This man was quickly pronounced dead. And as the captain pointed out, there was no identification. In fact, if had there been identification on this man, we wouldn't be sitting here telling the story. Very likely that we wouldn't.
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The Captain
John Doe case.
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Nick
Yeah, well, it gets difficult, right, because there's a whole lot of mystery here. This is the first part of it. So there's no identification on this person, and then they have no missing person reports anywhere, even somewhat local, that match up with this man that they find in the road. I do want to. Before we get too far down the road, I do Want to point out a few things. And Captain, I'm sure you, you share this thought with me because one thing, that was a head scratcher for me, and I think this could play a key into people's thoughts and theories and speculation about the case when we get to the appropriate time for that. But some of the reports that I've read over the last couple of months read differently. Some say that this guy was walking in the middle and down the center of State Route 24. A couple of the reports I read say that he was running. There are some reports that say that he may have been crossing the road. It seems to me like the, the majority of the reports state that he was, quote, wandering down the middle of State Route 24.
- [15:09]
The Captain
We know with cases, a lot of eyewitnesses, they're just wrong, but you can't blame them in this situation because like you said, many eyewitnesses that probably came forward afterwards are seeing this individual and passing them as they're driving pretty quickly on the freeway.
- [15:29]
Nick
Well, and I think that that's, I'm not calling out any of the potential eyewitnesses or especially the man that turned around to try to help prevent this from happening. What I'm pointing out is that it's simply reported differently and that may, it may be due to the person that penned the article or typed up the article online, or it could be that there's varying degrees and as you point out very correctly that you're only seeing this guy very briefly. So I, maybe you. It's not, it doesn't set up for a good situation to describe what it is, what actions you think that this unknown was doing prior to being struck by a vehicle. Now, of course, it was determined that the cause of death, unfortunately, was injuries from being struck by a vehicle. The decedent was wearing military style camouflage fatigues and work boots. Okay, so here we have our first mystery and what will be a long laundry list of mysteries. Who is this dead man? The second is that this was a hit and run on a state route, but neither the vehicle nor the driver have been identified. So it would be impossible in 1993 for the police to determine. Was this a horrible accident? This poor man was hit and killed and the driver panicked and just fled. Or did the driver intentionally run this man over? If so, that's a homicide, an intentional murder One.
- [17:05]
The Captain
How did this individual kit to this part of town?
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Nick
Yeah, so when you are at this scene, you're responding to the scene, the first thing you are looking for is identification. You're checking the guy, checking the fatigues for a wallet, hoping to find a state id, a driver's license, a paycheck, anything in there that may have a name on it or an address that is not found on your John Doe. And then from there, immediately when you don't find that, you go, okay, well what's he doing on a state route? First off, we need to point out that Yakima and Moxie, as far as the great state of Washington goes, this is kind of out in the middle of nowhere. So now you're hoping, well, he had to get here somehow. He could have got here by foot, but might not. One would think the most likely scenario would be that his car broke down somewhere, he had car trouble somewhere and he was walking, maybe going to get gas or maybe going to look for a pay phone or walk to a gas station to try to call a tow truck or get some help or whatever. They don't find any kind of abandoned vehicle or broken down vehicle near where they find this man either. And nothing to suggest how he got to where he was other than the boots that he was found in. Reason why I point out that there were different reports of was he running, Was he walking? If he's running, you wonder if something else is going on. Was there a car intentionally chasing him down? Was he fleeing from something? But again, with no identification, no. No car belonging to him found nearby. These are all questions that the detectives that the state patrol are simply not going to be able to answer at that time. That was 1993 when Moxie John Doe was killed on Washington State Route 24. Our newspaper reading Detective read the news articles that we previously discussed. In 2003, Moxie John Doe was still unidentified 10 years now. Any good gumshoe will tell you that most often cases are solved with hard shoe leather and a tough sole. The detective, Pat Ditter, decided to hit the pavement of the information superhighway, the Internet. The Google online search engine was very popular at the time. So he thought about doing an extensive search on Google. He typed in details about Moxie John Doe, like height, weight, information that he knew about his unidentified. That led him to several missing persons websites and databases that were online. One included a picture of a man named David Glenn Lewis. So this was on a site that was posted by the Doe network. He found some information on the Texas Department of Public Safety Missing Persons Clearinghouse database as well. And as the Seattle PI newspaper put it, after a week, Detective Ditter had done what expensive law enforcement databases were unable to find for 10 years by this point. This guy is now armed with a list of possible matches of persons who could possibly be his Moxie John Doe. So now he's focusing in on these different persons that he's pulled up that, that for one reason or another, they are matching up with his description of the John Doe that they have from their jurisdiction. The one that he really hones in on is this David Glenn Lewis, amongst others. This one seems to stand out to dinner for one reason or another.
- [21:06]
The Captain
But we should say this David Glenn Lewis is not from the area, not close.
- [21:14]
Nick
Right. And I, and I think that, you know, the, the detective has to be thinking along those lines. That's what's why he's searching Google to begin with. He, he knows the probability of our John Doe being from the area slim to none because we would have, we would have identified this guy by now. But as you're pointing out that he's focusing in on this missing man from Texas, David Glenn Lewis, who is he finds to be very close in height to Moxie John Doe. And he's listed as practically the same weight. Oddly enough, he is reported missing roughly only 24 hours or so before moxie John Doe is hit by a vehicle on State Route 24. We should note here that a lot of reports about the hit and run reference a Chevy Camaro either spotted in the area, some reports say seen leaving the location where the John Doe was hit. So maybe it's a Camaro that's responsible for hitting this individual, or maybe it was just simply a car that was driving the state route at the same time. We've never had anybody in a Camaro come forward with additional information or saying that they've, they've seen anything to add to the story of this John Doe on the highway. So let's circle back here because we said Texas. So let's circle to the Texas connection. If this John Doe is David Glenn Lewis, how did this guy, this unidentified person, if it is him, how did he get, how did this dude get from his home near Amarillo, Texas, to Moxie, Washington in the course of about one day?
- [23:09]
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- [28:38]
The Captain
All right, we are back.
- [28:40]
Commercial Voiceover
Buckle up buttercups.
- [28:42]
The Captain
It's about to be a bumpy ride. Cheers to you, Colonel.
- [28:46]
Nick
Cheers to you, Captain. Cheers to all the people in the back, especially those with the balcony seats. Yeah, cheers to you. Paid extra 2025 with the addition of a balcony in the true crime scary garage, Moxie, Washington and Amarillo, Texas. So as the crow flies, Captain, it's 1240 miles from Amarillo to Moxie, driving northwest. But that's as the crow flies, it's 1620 miles by car following Interstate 84 following that route. So if he got there via vehicle, it takes a lot longer. Obviously, not just because it's flight versus vehicle, but also the miles that are involved driving from Amarillo to Moxie, the routes I found it's like 23 hours 40 minutes. 23 hours 45 minutes. Somewhere in the in that ballpark, roughly, let's say 23 to 24 hours apart. And that we should know would be a non stop drive. Driving that amount of distance, you're stopping for gas and unless you have a what do they call it a truck, buddy, in the back of your car, you're, you're stopping to, to urinate as well?
- [30:12]
The Captain
Not me, my friend. I just pee my pants. And if peeing your pants is cool, then call me. Miles Davis flying.
- [30:19]
Nick
I couldn't find any NonStop flights from a.m. there is a airport in Amarillo. I couldn't find any nonstop flights from Amarillo to Seattle, which would be, I would argue, is probably the closest commercial airport. So the fastest fly time today, 30 years later is six hours because you do have to make a stop. And the same is true if you were to go from Amarillo to Portland, Oregon, which is. These are the two largest cities nearby where we have commercial airports with commercial airliners. We should also note that there is a time difference though too. One thing that aggravates me when we talk about some of these cases that span across multiple time zones is let's say for instance, that they, in a particular case that they say, oh, it was 24 hours between, between the time this event happened in Texas and this event happened in Washington. Well, was it 24 hours factoring in the time difference or not? We don't get those specifics and we, we are handicapped by a lot of times word of mouth and reports that are out there. So it is a two hour difference going from Texas out west to where this John Doe was eventually found in moxie. Now from the Seattle PI newspaper, Ditter noticed that the, he noticed a resemblance. Right? We already talked about height and weight, but there's also a resemblance with the face of the corpse in the photos that they had in their police file from the Yakima area collision scene from 1993. But he says, you know, one thing when he pulled up David Lewis's profile and found him online was that Lewis was wearing very distinctive glasses. Anybody that's ever looked at this case or, or people out there right now, they're pumping into the search engine this guy's name. The first thing that you will notice that pops up is a, a picture of David Lewis smiling and he is wearing very large glasses.
- [32:31]
The Captain
Would you say there are Dahmer esque glasses?
- [32:36]
Nick
I don't think that was the look he was going for, but yes, I would put them in the, for, for those that can't look him up at the moment, they're, yeah, they're large glasses.
- [32:45]
The Captain
That might not be the look he was going for, but it's the look that he gave us.
- [32:50]
Nick
And look, I hate to say this, but it's, hmm, it was hard for Me to see past those glasses the first few times I looked at pictures of David. And that's just, that's just a perception thing, but. So the detective noticed the same thing. The distinctive glasses, eyeglasses. Ditter consulted with an evidence list of items recovered from the collision scene. Eyeglasses were among them. So in his photos of the decedent, he doesn't have a man, a John Doe, wearing eyeglasses. So he goes to the evidence list and he's. He goes, boom, I hit on something. We did find glasses with our John Doe. The eyeglasses were on the inventory sheet. And I guess from my understanding, the glasses were found in one of the pockets in the clothing that the John Doe was wearing. So when he, when he looks at these glasses, he goes, not only does this guy look like my John Doe, the eyeglasses that he's wearing look like the glasses that we found with the John Doe. And they're distinctive.
- [33:55]
The Captain
Yeah. Bingo. Boingo got the right guy.
- [33:59]
Nick
So Dinner retrieves the clothing that the dead man was wearing. The camouflage military style clothing and the work boots. He searches them, and of course, we have, we have glasses that were found amongst these items. He says his words, well, Harkham, his boss's words say that the eyeglasses were identical to the ones worn by David Lewis in the missing persons photos. The detective thought, wow, is it a coincidence we got to figure this thing out? Because again, keep in mind the distance.
- [34:32]
The Captain
Yeah.
- [34:32]
Nick
Ditter learned that Lewis was 39 years old when he disappeared 1600 miles away in Amarillo, Texas, and that his wife Karen reported him missing a day after he failed to come home. The same day. Roughly that. Not roughly. The same day that John Doe was found near Moxie, east of Yakima.
- [34:55]
The Captain
Yeah. I mean, let's just ponder this for a little bit. You're sitting there, you're in Washington, you got a missing person. They've been missing for, what do you say, 10 years? I think it could be this guy.
- [35:06]
Commercial Voiceover
You go to your boss, I think.
- [35:09]
The Captain
It could be this guy, because this guy has some weird looking glasses. And guess what we discovered with our John Doe? These weird glasses. The glasses match. And then your boss says to you, the chief says, all right, well, where's he from? Texas? He probably said, yeah, right. The chances of this being the same guy are slim to none.
- [35:35]
Nick
Well, and I think what really underlines that thought is the short amount of time that between him being reported missing and him being found dead, I, I don't think it's so much the Distance. Because having him unidentified For 10 years, you go, well, all right, let's dig into this. And. And we have reported on several cases, right. Where somebody is reported missing by family, friends, people that had nothing to do with their demise, where they're not reported missing for three days, for six days, seven days. I think we had one case where it was like two weeks. So sometimes people are slow to report because they. They are just not aware that the person is missing.
- [36:18]
The Captain
Yeah.
- [36:19]
Nick
But here you go. Okay, well, he was reported missing about, you know, the same day as that we find him dead. Okay, well, maybe they just. Maybe it just went unnoticed for several days. Nope. When you start going through the details of this, there is a short amount of time between he is last seen alive or believed to be last seen alive in Amarillo, Texas, to the time that he ends up in the middle of State Route 24 in Moxie, Washington.
- [36:47]
The Captain
Yeah. Being hit by a car.
- [36:48]
Nick
We'll go through this in short, and then get into some of the detailed information. So the short of it is David Lewis's wife left on January 28 for a shopping trip to Dallas. So for our international listeners, Texas is a gigantic state. It is absolutely huge.
- [37:10]
The Captain
That's what she said.
- [37:11]
Nick
Amarillo, Texas, and Dallas, Texas, they aren't anywhere close to each other at all there. It's about, I believe, it's more than five hours driving distance between the two. They live in Amarillo. She goes for this shopping trip in Dallas, and she takes the couple's daughter with them. She returns on January 31st. Three days later, when she returns, her husband, David Lewis, was gone. According to reports, the last time anyone had seen David Lewis alive was at or near his home the day prior January 30, 1993. So just to break this down real quick, the short of it is wife and daughter leave on the 28th to go shopping. The last that David is seen alive in amarillo, Texas, is January 30th. Two days later, wife and daughter return. The next day on the 31st, husband and father, David Lewis is gone. He's missing. They report him missing. February 1st. February 1st, Moxie John Doe is found dead on State Route 24 in Washington state. A whole lot of stuff going on very quickly. David Glenn Lewis's disappearance, to me, Captain, is equally, or really, I believe, even more puzzling than his death.
- [38:41]
The Captain
I would say they're equally as puzzling. And I'm sorry if I keep on laughing, but it's. This case is just so bizarre.
- [38:50]
Nick
It's a case that you, when you try to apply reason and logic to it, it unravels very quickly. And so I think that there is a natural reaction to, I think that your laugh is, is maybe indicative of some anxiety or a touch of anxiety about the mystery of this case and what could have happened to this guy in such a short period of time. And we're just touching on it. So now I want to point out here, Reddit can be a great source at times for these true crime cases. And I know a lot of people like to go there and look at true crime cases there. Mind you, just like tuning into True Crime Garage, you are handicapped by the persons delivering the information to you. So you can't take it with Reddit, with, with individuals posting things. You can't take it as fact or as absolute truth. Just know that I personally believe that the majority of people posting things are attempting to post the truth. But what I find Reddit to be far greater for is for speculation about these unsolved cases.
- [40:07]
The Captain
And it's a speculation machine.
- [40:10]
Nick
It is in regarding this case, there is a fountain of speculation about this case on Reddit. And for most of what I have read now, this is just what I've read. There's a, there's a lot to consume and a lot to go through on Reddit regarding David Glenn Lewis. But the, the posts that I were reading I found to be some pretty interesting and quite smart speculation. So facts a little different there. Speculation often. Great. So what I wanted to do here, Captain, I thought this. I, I wanted to go through a couple of exercises with this case. The first being I have squared up a news article versus what I think is probably the best post about this case on Reddit. Compare the two. And the reason why I wanted to compare the two is the news article is from. It's local, right? Okay, so it's local to where David Glenn Lewis went missing from where he and his wife and daughter lived. And I want to make another thing clear. The news article is from when he was still missing or unidentified. However you want to look at it, they've not connected Lewis to the moxie John Doe at this time. The news article is from August 19, 1993. So 10 years before they identify him, just a little more than six months after he vanished from Amarillo, Texas. Let's square that up to a Reddit post that is filled with great detail from a poster who uses the handle Honey Bertram, who posted extensively and quite thoroughly about the David Lewis case. So I have cherry picked from their, their timeline so we can compare the 1993 article to a post from 2022. The news article was run by the AP and I found it in the Tyler Courier Times out of Texas. The headline reads, baffling trail stumps Amarillo detectives. Police have exhausted all leads in their search for missing attorney. It does give us a little bit of background here. So the first part gives us some good background about David Lewis. It reads, he was a small town quarterback, magna cum laude graduate of Texas Tech University and a former judge. Okay, so he's an athletic guy. He's a smart guy. Far smarter than yours truly. I won't say anything bad about the captain. Friends describe David Lewis as.
- [42:48]
The Captain
The captain is a dumbass.
- [42:50]
Nick
Well, I don't know about that, but I mean to graduate Magnum cum laude.
- [42:56]
The Captain
Texas Tech from Texas ain't no judge.
- [42:59]
Nick
Friends describe David Lewis as the ultimate nice guy and a family man. But the 39 year old attorney vanished super bowl weekend amid a baffling trail of clues. Relatives insist he wouldn't just up and leave. Police say they're stumped by conflicting signs. Lewis was abducted, killed himself or simply walked away from his high profile civic and professional life. I do want to quote one of the detectives here, as did the newspaper says, quote, I changed my mind a lot on this. This is from detective James Smith. He says, I wake up at two in the morning thinking whatever happened to David Lewis? Smith was working full time on the case since Karen Lewis, that's the wife, reported her husband missing February 1st. Months of investigative legwork has yielded few tips and no leads is what he tells the newspaper. Now this is what the police know at the time. Right. Months into the disappearance, Lewis left the law firm where he worked. This is Buckner, Laura and Swindark. Sorry, not swindler. That would be a terrible name for.
- [44:10]
The Captain
An attorney or a great name.
- [44:11]
Nick
Buckner, Laura and swindle law firm at about noon on January 28th. This is a Thursday. So David Lewis tells his co workers around noon that he's not feeling well. I'm not feeling well. I'm going to go home now. His credit card statements list that he purchased gasoline using credit card that same afternoon. That same day Mrs. Lewis and 10 year old daughter, their 10 year old daughter left for a weekend shopping trip in Dallas. So wife and daughter are going off to Dallas. They left fairly early in the morning and from my understanding here, Captain David Lewis is getting ready for the day or left early for work that day. He didn't see see them off. But we know he was at his job that day up until noon. And we know that that same afternoon, even though he wasn't feeling well, he stopped and purchased gasoline with his credit card. David Lewis is a very busy man. He also teaches a government class at Amarillo College. Even though he wasn't feeling well, he showed up to teach that class. The information I have here, Captain, states that that class lasted till 10pm on January 28. So other than him not feeling well and leaving early from work, it seems everything is as it should be up till at least 10pm on that. On the night of the 28th.
- [45:42]
The Captain
Right.
- [45:43]
Nick
The Reddit poster lists this. On January 28th, 1993, David's wife and daughter leave their home in Amarillo, Texas and head to Dallas, Texas. David is at work at his law firm, Buckner Law and Swindle. Swindler. Sorry, Swindell, you're fucking stupid. He tells his coworkers he's not feeling well. He's heading home. That afternoon. He purchases gas on his credit card and teaches a government class at Amarillo College. This class ends at 10pm that all lines up the next day. So now we're at the 29th. Friday, January 29th. A church friend from Dumas says, which is nearby Amarillo, Texas, said she saw David Lewis rushing through the Southwest Airlines terminal at Amorello's airport. She says he's not carrying luggage. And a police officer says that on this day they noticed a red Ford explorer parked at 10:30pm outside of the Potter county courts building. Okay, so a couple things here. This woman says that she sees David or somebody that she believes to be David rushing through the airport at, at the Amarillo airport.
- [47:03]
The Captain
No luck.
- [47:04]
Nick
Specifically the Southwest Airlines terminal, which is one probably the major airline, I would guess, in Texas. I believe they started in Texas. And his vehicle, his red Ford Explorer or a red Ford Explorer may not be his, is spotted this Same day at 10:30pm by a police officer. Now here, here's one thing that I would note here, and I don't know this to be true. I'm going to make an assumption here. My guess is that time of day at 5:00, a police officer noting noticing a vehicle parked outside of the county courts building that may have to do with somebody may have had to pay for parking and didn't. Or. Or a meter had expired or it was the only car in the lot. There's a reason here why this officer noticed this specific red Ford Explorer. Now what is missing from this newspaper report and also the Post, the Reddit poster is. We don't have confirmation that the officer wrote down the license plate to confirm that it is 100% David Lewis's vehicle. But it's part of the story and it's part that we need to keep and examine.
- [48:19]
The Captain
Well, just to be clear, the eyewitness didn't make contact with David, so we just have to assume that she saw a person that she knows.
- [48:30]
Nick
Correct. And then on top of that, the, the Reddit post is almost identical, but with the additional information that the Potter County Courts building is on Fillmore street in Amarillo. Now, he's an attorney, he's a one time judge, it wouldn't be weird to spot his vehicle outside of the county courts building. Let's go to Saturday. Now we're at Saturday, January 30th, someone deposited $5,000 into David Glenn Lewis's bank account.
- [49:09]
The Captain
Weird.
- [49:10]
Nick
Now we, yeah, well, and when we say someone, that doesn't mean that it wasn't David. Yeah. In fact, there's a lot of reports out there that state that he deposited this now 1993. And I would, I would argue that even on some occasions up to recently or even to this day, depositing money into someone's account, you may not have to give a great deal of identification. You, you were a banker, you were in high finance, their captain. How does this finance, how does this work? Because I know that personally I have deposited money into someone's account and sometimes they ask me for id, sometimes they don't. Because you're right, you're, you're giving money, right? Nobody, nobody really cares what you're giving money. They want to know who the heck you are when you're taking money out. And this was not a withdrawal, this was a deposit.
- [50:02]
The Captain
Well, sometimes if somebody's giving money, you wouldn't ask for their information if they knew the information. Meaning if an individual went into David's bank and said, hey, I want to put $5,000 into this account, here's the account number, I'm not going to question them. You want to give money to this individual? So I guess that would be my question if I was law enforcement. Was the deposit slip made out? Was all the information filled in? That's something. During this time period, most people did, you know, cut to 25, 30 years later. Now, we don't fill out the information so much ourselves. The teller will do it for us. But that's also why they have to ask for our identification. So it's very possible that somebody went in with a deposit slip with the information filled out and just gave the deposit to the teller. If I'm also in law enforcement, I'm asking the teller, did you recognize the individual that made this deposit?
- [51:07]
Nick
Yeah. Do you remember seeing somebody? Do you remember who it was? Even if you can give a vague description, because if the, if the banker, the teller is certain that it was a woman or that it was an African American male or somebody that doesn't look like David at all, right then, then that's very easy to go, okay, that wasn't David. And look, if, if the person. $5,000, you think that it would be in check form, right? That it would be a check and well, that would help our story out quite a bit here, but it's not, it must have been $5,000 straight cash, homie, because we don't seem to know who did, who made this deposit. But the thing we do know is whoever did it, David or otherwise, the person knew enough information, even if it's just simply knowing that that's his bank, be it bank, brand or franchise, the person went to the right branch or the, or maybe not the right branch, but the right bank to access the account to put a deposit in there.
- [52:11]
The Captain
A $5,000 cash deposit, not so weird at that time period, I would say it would probably throw up some more red flags in today's world to have a large cash deposit as opposed to.
- [52:27]
Nick
A check, meaning more people carried cash back then.
- [52:31]
The Captain
And yeah, a lot of people would sell their cars to individuals in cash. So $5,000 wouldn't throw any red flags up from, for me. But the other question is, a lot of these tellers might not know their regulars names, but they would know their look and especially David's look with those goofy ass Jeffrey Dahmer glasses.
- [53:00]
Nick
Well, the other thing here too is let's throw this out there. And this is why I wanted to square up this particular Reddit post with the reports that made it their way to the newspaper at the time that he was still missing, versus the time that after he was identified as being the man in Washington, which if anybody out there knows zero about this case, it is definitive. They, they, they know that that was David that they found there. Because of DNA comparison, they had saved a tissue sample from that 93 unidentified case and later compared it to DNA that they took from David's mother, who, who assisted law enforcement in making the identification. So the Reddit post says January 30, same date that this is the last confirmed sighting of David. But the poster says I couldn't tell you who saw him. So the newspaper report states a neighbor saw Lewis's red Explorer parked at his home on the same day. Right. But never. But doesn't say I saw David, just that I, I saw his vehicle. And I'm assuming it's his vehicle because it's the one he drove all the time, and it was parked in front of his house. And then it's also noted in the newspaper report that the, the vehicle that was similar, the red Ford Explorer that was seen prior, parked downtown at the Courts building, was no longer there. So we don't know if it's David that's moving this vehicle around, but it's. It stands to reason, at least we, that the vehicles are one in the same. And we don't have definitive proof, but we also have nothing saying that they're not the same vehicle. So the poster put $5,000 was deposited into his joint bank account. Again, I can't tell you which one's more factual. Maybe the word joint is just left out of the newspaper report, but the joint bank account, according to the Reddit poster, was shared with his wife. And so that made me wonder, you know, in, in some relationships, husband and husband, wife and wife, husband and wife, you have different persons sometimes have different, let's call them jobs, right? Like, you may be the husband may be the one that always goes and does the grocery shopping, because maybe he likes it or maybe he doesn't like it, but his wife really hates it. Other married couples, I know, I know some friends that say their wives will tell me, joking, like, he doesn't even know what bank we have, you know, and they're joking, obviously, but what they mean is, like, he doesn't go to the bank. I go to the bank, or I'm the one that, that gets online and pays the bills. And so I wondered with this joint bank account, were they both actively participating in deposits and withdrawals inside the bank, or was just the wife? And maybe the teller or tellers were clueless what David Glenn Lewis looked like to begin with, Right? So it gets. It gets very dicey very quickly. Now, also, if what gets tricky to pull apart here is all of these movements, we can only truly say up to this point that the movements that we've discussed were carried out by David himself on that Thursday when he went to work, went home sick, his credit card's the one that fills up the tank for his vehicle, the red Ford Explorer. And then later he goes and teaches a government class at Amarillo College, which ends at 10pm These other movements, the sighting at the Southwest Airline terminal, we can't say 1,000% that that's David, but the, the friend believes that it was. With the vehicle being parked outside of the court building, we can't say 100%, 1,000% that that's David's vehicle. Most people seem to believe that it was. And then we see the vehicle reported by a neighbor as parked at his home on January 29th. The neighbor doesn't see David, so we don't know that it's David that moved that vehicle to the driveway of his home. Sunday morning, a sheriff's deputy noticed a man who looked like David Lewis standing across the street from the Courts building. The officer, the deputy, says that the man was photographing a red Explorer, Ford Explorer. This again, parked out front of the Courts building.
- [57:39]
The Captain
So if it was David, why would David be taking a picture of his car parked in the same spot that it was? Was it left there Friday? Was it moved at all? And why the hell would he be taking pictures of his own vehicle?
- [57:57]
Nick
Yeah, and again, the statement is parked out front or parked. Parked again, out front? I. I don't know. We shouldn't say the same spot, but I get what you're. You're getting at. It's from, from what these reports are, this vehicle is either in the same spot or very near where had been spotted prior. This is also the day that Mrs. Lewis and their daughter returned. And then the Reddit poster says, January 31st, David goes missing, because remember, this is when wife and daughter returned and he's not home.
- [58:31]
The Captain
Yeah, but again, we have no confirmation sighting of him since Thursday. So to sum this up, I know we went through a bunch of details, but to sum this up, on Thursday, his wife and his daughter leave to go on this shopping trip to Dallas. He's going to stay behind because, one, he has to work, and then two, it's Super Bowl Sunday and the Dallas Cowboys are in the Super Bowl. So he's going to stay home and watch that. We have a confirmation sighting of him teaching his class Thursday night. Come Sunday, his wife and daughter return, and he's nowhere to be found. And like you said, we now have it confirmed through DNA that we know where he ended up at over 1600 miles away, dead because somebody hit him with a car. And we have no evidence of how he got to that road in the first place. I told you, it was bizarre.
- [59:35]
Commercial Voiceover
You want to get nuts?
- [59:36]
The Captain
Let's get nuts.
- [59:37]
Nick
Captain, we have more details to go through. We have more known facts to get into, as well as some speculation about this case in part two.
- [59:58]
Commercial Voiceover
Join us back in the garage for part two. Same bat time, same bat channel.
- [60:02]
Nick
And until then, be good, be kind, and don't litter. Sa.