Gretchen Fleming /// Part 1 /// 807

Summary

True Crime Garage: Gretchen Fleming – Part 1 (Episode 807) Summary

Release Date: December 18, 2024

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Introduction

In Episode 807 of True Crime Garage, hosts Nick and the Captain delve into the mysterious disappearance of Gretchen Fleming from Parkersburg, West Virginia. This detailed exploration unpacks the timeline of events, the investigation's progression, and the emergence of a person of interest, offering listeners a comprehensive understanding of the case.

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Background on Gretchen Fleming

Gretchen Eve Fleming was born on December 24, 1994, in Warrenton, Virginia. Raised in Parkersburg, West Virginia, she pursued higher education at Marshall College and William Peace University, studying political science. Post-college, Gretchen resided in Raleigh, North Carolina, before returning to West Virginia in December 2022 following a year-long relationship breakup and the illness of her biological mother.

Notable Quote:

"Gretchen was a musician, a writer, someone who made a statement with her clothing and hair, who didn't look like everyone else."
— Nick (05:00)

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Timeline of Gretchen's Disappearance

• December 3, 2022 (Saturday): Gretchen was last seen leaving her workplace at H&M in Parkersburg around 1:15 PM. She informed her grandmother she would be out with friends after work, a common occurrence.

• Post-Work Night Out: Gretchen frequented local bars, including the Front Row Sports Bar and Grill. That night, she was accompanied by a man named John. Around 11 PM, they left the bar together for another establishment, the My Way Lounge, known for karaoke.

• December 4, 2022 (Sunday): John reported finding Gretchen's purse at the Front Row bar. The purse contained her phone, ID, wallet, and other personal items. Gretchen had not responded to any communications since December 3.

Notable Quote:

"She's the last person to see her, or the last person we think was seen with her in public was John."
— Captain (16:23)

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Investigation Details

Upon Gretchen not returning home for over a week, her grandparents reported her missing. The Parkersburg Police Department promptly initiated an investigation, leveraging social media to disseminate information. Surveillance footage from the Front Row bar indicated that Gretchen left with a man identified as John.

Notable Quote:

"Detective Zimmerman actually appeared on the Disappeared TV show talking about the case. He said that the video footage they obtained showed the man and Gretchen leaving through the front door with her following behind him at approximately 03:10 hours on December 4th."
— Nick (46:19)

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Emergence of a Person of Interest: Preston Pierce

As the investigation unfolded, police identified Preston Pierce as a person of interest. Surveillance footage traced Pierce's vehicle, a black Nissan Rogue adorned with Darth Vader stickers, moving through Parkersburg between early morning on December 4th and noon on December 5th. Search warrants were executed at Pierce's residence, vehicle, and a storage unit, yielding undisclosed items sent for forensic analysis.

Notable Quote:

"Detective Zimmerman, much later, flat out said that he believes foul play has occurred and that Pierce was the last person to see Gretchen."
— Nick (45:52)

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Police Actions and Search Warrants

On December 14th, police obtained additional surveillance footage linking Pierce's vehicle to areas near Gretchen's last known movements. Subsequent search warrants executed on December 15th led to the impoundment of Pierce's car and the collection of evidence from his properties. Despite these efforts, no conclusive evidence has yet been made public.

Notable Quote:

"We have video footage that captured headlights heading down the alley towards 6th Street. We believe that to be the person of interest's vehicle."
— Nick (40:32)

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Community Response and Ongoing Efforts

Gretchen's family mobilized the community through vigils and prayer meetings, garnering significant public support. Parkersburg Police Chief Matthew Board emphasized the department's dedication to the case, urging the community to assist by reviewing personal surveillance footage that might capture Pierce's vehicle.

Notable Quote:

"I just want to reassure the community that the Parkersburg police department is dedicated to helping Gretchen and Gretchen's family."
— Chief Board (56:00)

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Current Status and Future Developments

As of the episode's recording, police continue to analyze collected evidence and pursue leads related to Preston Pierce. The investigation remains active, with authorities awaiting forensic results that may shed light on Gretchen's disappearance. The community remains vigilant, and the case underscores the challenges law enforcement faces in missing persons investigations.

Notable Quote:

"All leads, tips, information, every one of them is getting vetted. The agency was also reaching out to other law enforcement agencies throughout the state."
— Nick (58:00)

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Conclusion

Episode 807 of True Crime Garage presents a thorough examination of Gretchen Fleming's disappearance, highlighting the complexities of missing persons cases and the intricate efforts of law enforcement. The hosts skillfully navigate the timeline, evidence, and ongoing investigation, providing listeners with an engaging and informative narrative.

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Remember: If you or someone you know is missing, contact your local authorities immediately. Early reporting can be crucial in resolving such cases.

Transcript

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[Nick]

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 a man who has music in his hands. Ladies and gentlemen, the Captain.

[Preston Pierce]

It's good to be seen and good to see you.

[John]

Thanks for listening. Thanks for telling a friend.

[Nick]

This week we are very happy to be featuring Buckeye Lager. This is the special harvest edition Buckeye Lager. Cheers to the brewers at Mommy Bay Brewing Company. The can says the lager of the nation. Buckeye Nation, that is. Buckeye beer is light bodied with a sparkling dry taste. ABV 5.2% garage grade. Three and a half bottle caps out of five. And let's give some thanks and praise to our good garage friends that helped us fill up the old garage fridge for this week. First up, a shout out to Stephanie from Payson, Arizona.

[John]

And a big we like your jib goes out to Carrie from Yellow Springs, Ohio. Oh.

[Nick]

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[John]

Yeah. B double E double R U N Beer run. We've been putting some of the old off the record episodes on YouTube. So if you're not subscribed to True crime garage on YouTube, what are you doing with your life? What are you doing?

[Preston Pierce]

Get it together.

[John]

It's almost the New year. New Year's resolution. Subscribe to True crime garage on YouTube. And that's enough of the business.

[Nick]

All right, everybody gather round. Grab a chair, grab a beer. Let's talk some true crime. Parkersburg, West Virginia. A young woman goes out for some late night bar hopping. As the night goes on, she becomes more and more inebriated. She finds herself without her purse, her phone or her wallet. But a friendly good Samaritan comes to the rescue and offers her a safe ride home. However, she has never been seen since. This is True Crime Garage and this is the case of Gretchen Fleming. Gretchen Eve Fleming was born in Warrenton, Virginia on Christmas Eve. That's December 24, 1994. I'm making a guess here, but that could be why her parents chose the middle name Eve for their Christmas Eve baby. Gretchen had a younger sister. Her name is Emma. But when the girls were young, their parents split up. It's unclear why their mother did not seem to be involved, but their father, David raised the two girls in Parkersburg, West Virginia. David remarried a woman named Jennifer who brought three year old twins into the family. And David and Jennifer had a child of their own. The family now numbered seven, with Gretchen being the oldest of those children. Gretchen graduated from Parkersburg high school in 2013 and went on to Marshall College in Huntington, West Virginia as well as some schools in North Carolina. She apparently studied political science at William Peace University and also attended Shaw University there. After college, she lived in Raleigh, North Carolina. But things weren't as rosy as they should have been for a young woman in her mid-20s living and working independently. When our story begins In December of 2022, Gretchen is 27 years old and had returned home to West Virginia. She had experienced a recent breakup of a year long relationship in North Carolina. Then there was this, and this is some very rough stuff here, Captain. Gretchen was in a way reunited with her bio mom. But this was when her mother became very ill. Gretchen tried to take care of her mother. She, at this point, due to the divorce, is the next of kin. And because she's an adult, she is going to have to make the very tough decision that very few of us are even somewhat equipped or prepared to make. She was in charge with the decision to take her mother off of life support. Needless to say, it was a traumatic time for Gretchen and those who knew her described her as a bit lost. Back at Parkersburg, she moved in with her father, David's mother and dad. This is Luis and Phil Fleming. This is in Vienna because David and Jennifer still had four kids at home and it was, I'm sure, a little chaotic in the household. With a child centric lifestyle and household, I'm sure a young woman in her mid-20s is not going to love that setup. So she's living somewhat out on her own, if you will, but technically with David's mom and dad, her grandparents. Now Vienna is right next door to Parkersburg, so to speak. It's just a short drive north from Parkersburg. Gretchen was basically hitting the reset button on life and trying to figure out what to do with her young adult life. She was considering being a flight attendant, but in the meantime she was working at an H and M store. This was located at the Grand Central Mall. She didn't drive as she had no driver's license. So her grandparents, her friends and Ubers and Lyfts drove her practically everywhere. Gretchen was definitely the moody artist type. Her Facebook page shows a soulful looking, slender young brunette with huge dark eyes and quite a few selfies. But her profile photo is a cat. Gretchen was described by those who knew her as a musician, a writer, someone who made a statement with her clothing and hair, who didn't look like everyone else. She was creative, smart, well traveled and educated. Her father told WTAP that Gretchen was very unique. She loved her fashion and she was a thrifty fashion girl.

[John]

Yeah, very artistic. And it seems like she put that not just into songwriting and music, but she also put that into her own personal style.

[Nick]

Gretchen was about 5 foot 1 inches tall and 110 pounds. She was quiet, but not a wallflower or doormat types. This from West Virginia Metro News quoting her father, David. Quote, she went to Washington, D.C. for the women's March when she attended Marshall University. She sent me one picture. She was on some kind of stage in with Marshall with a megaphone talking to the crowd. She wasn't afraid to stand up for what she believed in, end quote. And Gretchen's grandmother, Louise Fleming, said her granddaughter had been living with her and her husband in Vienna for the past six months leading up to her disappearance. Gretchen, Louise said, was a joy to have in the house. She brought new life into the older couple's lives. Gretchen came and went, spending a lot of time at work or with friends. But most of her childhood friends were gone from the area. By this time, having moved away, she was meeting new people, not a lot of them whom were known to her family. Now I want to hone in on Something real quickly here before we move into the days and events in question from that statement from Grandmother Louise. She's saying when she says Gretchen came and went, what she meant was, was not that she came to live with us and then she left.

[John]

Right.

[Nick]

What she's stating is that because of Gretchen's age and because of the rules of their household, Gretchen was free to come and go as she pleased with the exception of this. Like there was a cutoff time, not necessarily a curfew. She didn't have to be home, it was just if you're going to arrive after this hour, just stay with your friends. You know, these are, these are folks that, that didn't want to be, you know, don't wake us up in the middle of the night when you're coming and going. And this was something that was pretty regular as we will see when we go through our timeline here. Now in early December of 2022, this is when Gretchen Fleming went missing. So let's start with December 3rd. This is a Saturday, Captain. Gretchen's grandmother drops her off at the mall. She's going to work that day. That's where she works. Gretchen's grandmother says this was at 1:15pm and Gretchen told her that she was going out with friends after work, which happened often. And so it was expected by all that Gretchen would be staying with friends that night after going out after work. Luis didn't give it a second thought when Gretchen didn't come home that night. Gretchen's stepmother Jennifer later told the TV show Disappeared that Gretchen's grandparents had strict rules in the house, including not really a curfew, but as said she would stay with friends and according to the stepmom, couch surfing, sometimes for three or four days at a time. So she basically popped in and out of her grandparents house using it as a bit of a home base.

[John]

Right.

[Nick]

But it was common for her to be gone for several days at a time. Unfortunately this is what everybody thought was going on and Gretchen does not ever come home. When Gretchen didn't come home for over a week, her grandmother began to get very worried. So now we're going to go to December 11th. Luis drove over to Jennifer and David's house and told Jennifer she's worried. I've not seen Gretchen and I've not seen Gretchen since December 3rd. So we're like seven, eight days later, right. By this point. When she dropped Gretchen off at work on Saturday afternoon, the previous Saturday, that's what she's telling Jennifer and David. This is the last time that I'VE seen her, by the way. I've sent her some text. She's not responding, and her phone is going immediately to voicemail by this time. So now everybody's kind of alerted, and they all agree something was wrong. David gets in his car. Dad gets in his car and went to the bars in the area that he knew that young people liked. They knew that Gretchen liked a bar called the Front Row. So David went in with a photo of Gretchen that he had on his phone, and now he's asking the people that work there, have you seen this girl?

[John]

Right.

[Nick]

The bartender working that day says, yes, I've seen her. Not only have I seen her, she was here last weekend. And, oh, by the way, we have her purse. It was dropped off by a male friend last Sunday morning. Okay, this is weird. And not in a good way.

[John]

Yeah. So Gretchen's been missing for almost a week. She's not returning anybody's texts or calls. Like you said, the. When you call her, it's going straight to voicemail. So we can almost assume that her phone is dead at this point. They go to this local bar. Have you seen my daughter? Yes, we have. And by the way, we have her purse. I mean, this is many red flags.

[Nick]

That's exactly right. We don't know Gretchen's whereabouts for approximately eight days now. There's no communication since. Now, dad, in an attempt to track down his daughter, or at least possibly find a lead as to where he may find his daughter, he finds her purse instead at the front row bar, Sports bar and grill.

[John]

Do we have a list of what items are in the purse?

[Nick]

Yes, we do. So this is to be clear here, if I'm. Dad, this is not a lead. This feels more like a dead end. A bad, bad omen. Yes. All right, so what we do have inside of this purse, Captain David finds Gretchen's phone, her id, wallet, credit cards, her tablet, and so on. Like, the list is actually longer than that, but it's. To sum it up nice and short, it's everything he expected to find in her purse. In fact, we could probably phrase it this way. It's everything he didn't want to find in her purse. Right. You. Yeah, you would hope to maybe. That she has her phone on her.

[Preston Pierce]

Her.

[Nick]

That she has her credit cards. She had none of this stuff on her. All this stuff is in her purse, and her purse has not been with her since last Sunday. So this is beyond bad news for a father with a missing daughter.

[John]

Yeah, if all the important items, her phone, her IDs, her credit cards. If those weren't in the purse, then that'd give you some kind of hope. But when you're finding all these items that, you know, that she uses daily, you know, you. Your heart breaks for this guy.

[Nick]

Yeah. He said that he panicked, which is a natural reaction, and in the moment, he kind of lost touch with reality. He was hoping that maybe finding the purse meant that his daughter had been at the front row very recently and had left her belongings there on accident. But remember, the bartender said that Gretchen was last in the previous weekend, eight days ago. The same day that her grandmother had dropped her off at work. But it gets even more mysterious than that. The bar staff said Gretchen left the bar last Saturday night with some guy, and she had her purse with her when they left.

[John]

And it seems like there's not a guy in her life as far as, like a. There's no solid boyfriend. Like you said, she broke up with somebody. She's coming back to town, she's resetting her life. And so when you hear. I mean, it's not that weird to hear that she was in the bar with a guy that could be a guy friend or that could be somebody that she's been seeing and she's not telling, she doesn't live with her dad, so. But still not a great sign.

[Nick]

No, I wouldn't. I mean, she's in her mid-20s. It would almost be weird if she wasn't hanging out with friends, so.

[John]

Right.

[Nick]

I don't find it strange at all, and especially when we're talking about she's out at a public place.

[John]

But maybe a lead for the dad, you know? Well, you said is he finds these items. It's not a good sign, but. Okay, so now do we know who she was with?

[Nick]

Yes, and I think you're tapping into something important here, because in this moment, in this very crucial moment, he finds the purse at the bar. He's. He's informed that she had left that Saturday night with some guy. But guess what? Her phone is in the purse. So maybe the phone could provide the lead. And her phone was not password protected, so rather quickly, it. He could access the phone. Unfortunately, the first thing that dad notices is that Gretchen had not responded to any communications since December 3rd. David spoke with Gretchen's friends, his friends. Her friends tell him that Gretchen was with a guy named John that night. He was driving her around. Gretchen's family did not know him. The DJ that was working at the front row bar also confirmed that Gretchen was there with a guy that the DJ knew The guy's name to be John.

[John]

Right.

[Nick]

So the DJ confirms, the bartender confirms, the staff confirms that from what everybody's eyeballs saw that Saturday night, Gretchen left with this guy, that they all believe or know him as John. Now, the next morning, after finding the purse at the bar, this is when the missing persons report was filed with the police. Because of the circumstances here, captain, the police jumped on this immediately. By this point, it's been over a week and they have her purse. So the investigation went into high gear very quickly.

[John]

This is something we scream at the top of our lungs, especially these small law enforcement agencies. What else are you going to do? Write some tickets? We have an emergency here. Let's get all hands on deck. And they do so. And we should applaud them for that.

[Nick]

Yeah. The Parkersburg police department posted about Gretchen's disappearance on Facebook immediately stating that if anyone had any information on the current whereabouts of Gretchen Fleming, age 27, please contact Detective Zimmerman. This Facebook post was shared over 1000 times in the first 24 hours. Behind the scenes, police learned that Gretchen went to a number of bars on the evening of December 3rd. Here are her movements. To the best of everyone's knowledge, Gretchen arrived at the front row sports bar and grill at located at 4000 Emerson Avenue in downtown Parkersburg in the company of a young man. This could be the John person or the person that is known as John, according to two female employees at the front row who went to high school with Gretchen. This is helpful because these are people that actually know her.

[John]

Yeah.

[Nick]

And so you're not getting. You're not getting some strangers going. Yeah, I think I saw that. That young lady. These two female employees are telling police in the family Gretchen was regularly in the establishment. It was said that Gretchen was at the bar with a male friend until about 11pm when they left together. Gretchen's family said on the show disappeared. The guy named John and Gretchen headed to a bar called my way for some karaoke. Some late night karaoke.

[John]

Not my thing, but I'm not a hater either. If you want to sing some T. Swift or some black street, I'm down.

[Nick]

Oh, if it's late enough, baby, it is my thing. I'll hit you with some. I'll hit you hardcore with some Billy idol.

[John]

There you go.

[Nick]

Face. So this bar, the my way carry. I. I shouldn't define it as a karaoke bar. I've never been there. But they. That's what they went there for is what we're told. And remember, Gretchen is a musician. She's she's likes to perform. And so this makes a lot of sense, right? She's into karaoke. This bar is located at 501 Julianne street in Parkersburg. Now, when this John fella learned that Gretchen was missing, he contacted the Parkersburg police to help them fill in some of the blanks about this night in question. So this is helpful, right? Where somehow this information gets back to this John character. Might have been the Facebook post, might have been any of these employees or staff at these two establishments. But somehow this information gets to John rather quickly that she's missing.

[John]

Well, I guess it's a positive thing that he finds you and you don't have to find him. But we've seen in other cases that doesn't mean much. But now we have made contact with John, so we can figure out who John is and is he involved in her disappearance.

[Nick]

And if he. Even if he's not, Right. He could likely provide some information. Because you're looking for a breadcrumb trail. Right. And right now, the breadcrumb trail led to John. And then we learned from other people that, oh, well, that John person and Gretchen went to this other bar. So now your breadcrumb trail takes you to the My Way bar. Now this dude's calling you. He's reaching out to police, and so. So you're hoping to get some more information. So to fill in some of the blanks here, John tells police that he and Gretchen, they were. He was the one that was with her at the front row. And he said that Gretchen was the one that wanted to go to the My Way bar for karaoke, and John was the driver. So they went together. He said that Gretchen left her purse in his car. Now, we don't know if this was accidentally. Maybe she was intoxicated. I don't know. Or could be simply on purpose. Right. Perhaps thinking it was better to leave it in the car rather than to maybe accidentally leave it in the bar. Or maybe she didn't want to take it in the bar for any other reason.

[John]

If you're law enforcement at this point with John telling you the story, you don't know if John's telling you the truth.

[Nick]

Of course not. No. If. If you're a good detective, you think everybody's lying to you.

[John]

Yeah.

[Nick]

So. But. But the thing that we need to focus in on here is it sounds to me. I can't speak for John or Gretchen, of course, but it sounds to me that the general thought was that they arrived at the second bar together, and they were probably going to leave together. Now John said that he got caught up talking with some friends of his. So these are people he knew that Gretchen didn't know.

[John]

We have eyewitnesses saying that they came into the bar, but they basically sat on opposite sides of the bar.

[Nick]

Yeah, he says that once he's hanging out with these other folks, he kind of loses track of Gretchen. And he said that she must have left the bar because he couldn't find her. And he says, I didn't see her leave the bar. At closing time, John says he looked for Gretchen to attempt to give her a ride home. And again he couldn't find her.

[John]

He was actually kind of freaking out a little bit and all he can think is, well, at some point I went to the restroom and when I came back out I, I never saw her after I came back from the restroom.

[Nick]

And in fact, one thing that we know that is backed up by some of the security camera footage in the area is that when he's looking for her, he not only appears to be looking for her in the bar, but he goes outside, he looks around for her out there, she's nowhere in sight. And he actually went to other bars or other, other places very close, within walking distance to see if maybe she was there as well. He never finds her that night. Now let's fast forward to the next morning. We're on Sunday, December 4th. John turned Gretchen's purse into the bartender or the owner of the front row bar. Now this was verified by several employees. So he left her purse at the front row. He tells police, look, I know that she goes there on occasion. I don't know her. I have no way of getting in touch with her. I mean, she doesn't even have her phone. He simply said, my thought was that she would be at this bar before I would have an opportunity to get in touch with her. So he leaves the purse at the bar, assuming that they might even be able to contact her and she would just come and pick up her, her bag. And as said, John didn't know Gretchen very well and he didn't know to drop her things off at her grandparents house. So he may not even known that she lived with her grandparents or where that was located. I do want to point something out though. I don't know what time this cutoff was for arriving home. But one thing I find strange about John's story and it may just be that he doesn't have the information. Yeah, it's implied that he was going to drive her home that night. The Witnesses are saying they left the front Row at 11pm and then went to another bar. If there's a cutoff point. What, was he really going to drive her home? Were there other plans?

[John]

Yeah. Or is home just a relative term? Hey, we're going to go to this other bar and I could drop you back at home when we're done. Oh, yeah, great.

[Nick]

Yeah. What I'm saying here is there's something missing from this part of the story.

[John]

Right.

[Nick]

But again, it could be simply that John does it. He doesn't know Gretchen very well. This is backed up by other people. He may just not have all the information Gretchen may have had. What we don't have is anybody coming forward saying that, oh, yeah, Gretchen was going to go out and have a good time and then get dropped off at my house. That that's kind of what's missing here. Because it would seem to me that she's probably already past the cutoff point of going back to Grandma and Grandpa's house.

[John]

I totally agree, but it is very possible that she just thought, I'll figure this out when we're leaving.

[Nick]

Oh, yes. I mean, we've, we've all been in our 20s. Sometimes you're just flying by the seat of your pants. What I'm sure at least one or two of the beautiful listeners are out there thinking is, all right, well, here's this missing young woman. John must have did it. He must have had some. He must be responsible for whatever happened to Gretchen. But to be clear here, Gretchen's parents don't agree with that thought. In fact, they told Disappeared that John was very upset and worried and they feel he has nothing to do with what happened to Gretchen. And police agree for reasons that we will soon get into foreign.

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[Preston Pierce]

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[John]

Bombas.

[Preston Pierce]

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[John]

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[Preston Pierce]

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[John]

All right, we are back, you filthy animals.

[Preston Pierce]

Tall cans in the air.

[John]

Cheers to everybody in the back. And cheers to you, Colonel.

[Nick]

Cheers to you and merry Christmas, you filthy animals.

[John]

So this is change.

[Nick]

Yeah, Keep the change. This is from News Nation. Now again we have that delay in when she is last seen to when she's reported missing. And from News Nation, it says, quote, authorities were not concerned about the delay in reporting. She was close with her family, says Parkersburg Police Chief Matthew Board. Sometimes you just go a few days without speaking to family. So they didn't really feel it was strange. But the delay in reporting was, of course, disastrous for what would end up being a missing person's investigation.

[John]

Yeah, but we have a couple things working for us, a couple things working against us. The thing working against us. And this happens with any young adult. They're not in constant contact with their family. They don't have set schedules. I Mean, if she's working at H and M, she probably doesn't have a Monday through Friday schedule. So their schedules are constantly changing. So it's really hard. Unless she was supposed to be somewhere and didn't show up. And that's my big question is, you know, people can question the family and go, well, why did it take you so long to report this? But my question would be for her employer. At some point, I'm sure she was.

[Preston Pierce]

Scheduled to show up to work that.

[John]

Week, and she didn't show up. And why didn't you contact anybody?

[Nick]

Yeah, that's a good point. And so one of the things that we don't have that we're not equipped with is what was on her phone. What did dad see on her phone when he accessed it? Could it have been missed calls from her employer that maybe they. The only number that they knew of to attempt to contact her was her cell phone, which we know, unfortunately, was sitting in her purse, basically in the lost and found at the front row day after day, waiting for their owner to come back who would never return to retrieve it.

[John]

Yeah, but normally you have some kind of emergency contact person, and maybe they just didn't fill out that paperwork correctly. I mean, I'm sure I gave false information on some of those forms when I was younger. But what we do have working for us, if we're law enforcement, if we're the family, the search for Gretchen is the last person seen with her, or the last person we think was seen with her in public was John. He's cooperating with law enforcement. And that's a good thing because we've seen in so many missing person cases, the last person that they're seen with or the last group of people somebody's seen with, where they get scared and they lawyer up and they. They don't give us information that could be vital to figuring out what happened to the individual.

[Nick]

Well, and we're going to be able to move on from John rather quickly because as said, our breadcrumb trail now takes us to the My Way lounge. We have several witnesses there that remember seeing Gretchen. Remember, we have several witnesses that say they saw Gretchen with this John person arriving there. However, we get some other people at the bar that say, well, we saw her without John. A lot of these people are not going to know who Gretchen is.

[John]

Right.

[Nick]

Some of these people are not going to know who John is. But what. What these witnesses are saying is, yeah, I saw that young lady at the bar that night, but she was with an older man with A guy with gray hair.

[John]

Hey, there's some young men with gray hair as well. They call us silver foxes.

[Nick]

This is very true. However, what we're getting is the description of this person that she's seen with does not match the description of John.

[John]

Yeah, I believe the bartenders says that he, he bought her a drink maybe, and they were sharing or they were sharing a drink, not sharing the same drink. Not like one cup, two straws, but that this individual was sitting at the bar with her and chatting.

[Nick]

Yeah. So police will actually technically see her with this older man as well because the My Way Lounge provided all of their surveillance footage from that evening, as we had mentioned prior. So on this surveillance footage, they're seeing her talking with this guy who is not John. So John was, not to be clear, not the last person to see Gretchen on this night.

[John]

And why is it so important to report somebody missing as soon as you can is because of many reasons. But one of the major reasons is like you're saying here, they're able to go to the bar and go, do you guys have cameras?

[Preston Pierce]

Yeah, we do.

[John]

Okay, can we get that footage from this time? Great. Now we have her outside of the bar on surveillance footage with this older gentleman. And then they're able, law enforcement is able to go to other businesses and say, okay, well if they're leaving this bar, if they left together, which direction would they go in?

[Preston Pierce]

And they're able to reach out to.

[John]

Other businesses, especially in a small town. And so now we're going to get all this surveillance footage of this guy's movements after he leaves the bar.

[Nick]

Yeah, so let's, let's back it up just a bit.

[John]

I'm sorry, I got excited because what.

[Nick]

We, we have statements from her parents. You know, the, the police have, are going to be tight lipped about certain information. Parents, if they have the same information, they may or may not be so closed lipped about it. And her father David watched the videos from the surveillance footage as well, and he says that it showed Gretchen was sitting at the bar alone while John was standing talking to other people. This is backing up John's story. Now, attached to this bar or attached to this room that they're in is a gambling room. So David says that at some point on the surveillance footage, an older man came out of the gambling room, stood beside Gretchen and then bought her a drink. Then they went into the gambling room together. This Is for about 30 minutes when they come back into the main bar area. Then the man walked out the front door and Gretchen Walked out behind him. The video verified that John was not around when Gretchen left.

[John]

Yeah, I believe he was in the bathroom.

[Nick]

Shortly after that, the bar closes, and then John has to leave. This without Gretchen. Detective Zimmerman actually appeared on the disappeared TV show talking about the case. He said that the video footage they obtained showed the man and Gretchen leaving through the front door with her following behind him at approximately 03.10 hours on December 4th. They believe that the man, the only person of interest in this case, was parked in the parking lot near the News and Sentinel offices at 519 Juliana St. But the car and the people who got into it were not captured on video. Let's go to December 14th. The police obtained surveillance footage from numerous locations, as the captain had said, around the city. On the 14th of December, Detective Zimmerman explaining, quote, from there, he's talking about that parking lot. We have video footage that captured headlights heading down the alley towards 6th Street. We believe that to be the person of interest's vehicle. Footage from a nearby gas station showed what they believe to be the same vehicle on Ann street heading toward south side Parkersburg. The vehicle continued on various surveillance footage snippets continuing in the direction of the person of interest's home. Yes, they quickly found out who the man was whom Gretchen was believed to have left the bar with. The police called him the person of interest. The media reported his name as Preston Pierce. Now everybody's saying Gretchen did not know this guy. David guessed that perhaps Gretchen left with him only because she was inebriated. Perhaps the older man promised to give her a ride, or perhaps she was.

[John]

Drugged or he tricked her to going outside. And, you know, if he has a gun or something, is there a way that he could make a threat and go, hey, you better get in the car with me?

[Nick]

Back to the reconstruction of the route Pierce's car was believed to have taken. Police traced the route visible on surveillance footage. They conducted a search in the area under the fifth street bridge because the car went in that direction. And police unfortunately, thought that this was a logical dump site. They tried to figure out from the timestamps if the car stopped anywhere. And they looked to see if Gretchen was seen walking anywhere along the route. They found nothing.

[John]

Well, something that's also going to be helpful or should be helpful for law enforcement, is this Pierce's guy's car? It's all black, small suv, but he has these Darth Vader stickers on it. So it's a car that you would be able to recognize if you. If you saw it.

[Nick]

So Detective Zimmerman, he drafts three search warrants, and a judge found probable cause existed to search Preston Pierce's home, vehicle, and a storage unit he had access to for any evidence relating to Gretchen Fleming. All three warrants were executed on 15 December. The police refused to release any more information in the active investigation, but it got out that the search warrants were executed by the West Virginia State Police on at least one private property, which was a small home on the 1300 block of Division street owned by Preston Pierce.

[John]

Yeah.

[Nick]

The police collected some undisclosed items and sent those to the state police lab. They impounded Pierce's car and started a forensic examination of the vehicle, and they hauled Pierce in for questioning. Detective Zimmerman, much later, flat out said that he believes foul play has occurred and that Pierce was the last person to see Gretchen.

[John]

Yeah, one of my first questions when reading about this case is, do we have any eyewitnesses that saw them together going into his house? And if not, does he have a garage that's connected to the house that you could, you know, pull in the garage, shut the garage door, and then. Then walk into the house and nobody would have seen her? But he has no garage on the house. But I also think what makes this difficult is if you just look at the footage of the house in this guy's backyard. The backyard is a bunch of woods. I mean, that's dumping grounds in itself.

[Nick]

Yeah, most certainly. While all of this is going on, of course, we have her family and all the people that loved and cared for Gretchen. So they organized vigils and prayer meetings, gathering to pray that Gretchen would be found safe. DATELINE spoke with Gretchen's father. This was on Friday, December 23, one night before Gretchen's 28th birthday. He said, quote, we love her. Something happened to her. I don't know what to say. Tomorrow would be her 28th birthday, which will be hard. She's an amazing little girl. I just want her home. Gretchen did not come home for her birthday. And then on December 29, police announced that they had a person of interest. They did not call him a suspect and did not release his name. On that same day, DATELINE spoke with Parkersburg Police Chief Matthew Board, who provided an update on Gretchen's case, saying, we have a person of interest that we believe has information in regard to this case pertaining to Gretchen. This person we know was at the Myway Lounge the evening that Gretchen was there, and we have cause to believe Gretchen left with this person. Gretchen's father, David, told DATELINE that the community had been extremely supportive of their Family during this very tough time. He said he was also extremely grateful to Detective Zimmerman, who was working around the clock on Gretchen's case. So this part here, to me is rather interesting because it's a little bit of a different statement coming from the Parkersburg police. This is from Fox Digital News. Now, keep in mind what we have going on at this time, this might be a little unclear for some of the listeners, so maybe we should clear it up here. Captain?

[John]

Yeah.

[Nick]

The police have identified Preston Pierce as their person of interest. They decided not to release his name to the media. But at some point, what is happening in this case is the media gets this name out somehow gets figures out the name. It's probably not very hard. Right. If you. If you know that they're executing a search warrant, you get that that documentation will happen.

[John]

I think somebody at the bar knew him or knew of him. And so then that gets out to the media and. But this guy is strained.

[Nick]

Yeah. So this. This bit of information from the police, as said, is. Is a little bit different because it takes it a step forward where they've not announced his name yet to the media. But this is a direct statement from police Lieutenant James Stallnacker. So he. Lieutenant Stallnacker says, quote, he is a person of interest in this investigation. We know she left with him. We believe that she traveled back to his residence with him. He's given inconsistent statements. It turned out that in his interview with police, Preston Pierce admitted that Gretchen had been in his vehicle on the night in question, but then he stopped cooperating with the investigation.

[John]

Yeah, I think his story was, I headed home, but in the process of heading home, I dropped her off. And I think he was very unclear or maybe even claims. I don't remember which part of town that I dropped her off. And like I said, we have surveillance footage, so we know that his car was heading in the direction of his house from the bar. We don't have every second of his traveling back to his house on record. So it's possible, and law enforcement knows it's possible that he could have just stopped at a stop sign. And she said, okay, let me out here. None of that makes any sense, because why would you leave your purse behind? Why would you leave your phone behind? And that's why I question was there some ruse or some threat or some way that he got her into the vehicle? Because I just don't think, even if she was intoxicated, I don't think she would leave her. Her purse and her phone. And this doesn't make A lot of sense.

[Nick]

Yeah. But I could line up a hundred people for you rather quickly who have been. Have had enough drinks to leave a bar without their credit card or leave a bar without their cell phone or their coat.

[John]

Possible.

[Nick]

Or their keys. So she. It may be as simple as she left the. The purse in the other man's vehicle and totally forgot all about it by the time she's leaving this bar at 3am yeah. Now here's the. Here's the very difficult thing. Let's go inside the investigation and get into the heads of the detectives here and really break this down and explain it to the public. How difficult, just how difficult this job can be. A lot of times you are in a catch 22 situation, and I believe the detectives, unfortunately, were in a catch 22 situation here. Why? Because if this is my case, you're trying to figure out, what do I do here? Do I go in, I've identified this person. Do I go and try to get a statement from him and then move forward with these search warrants, or do we try to catch him so that he doesn't know that we. We've identified him before he can get rid of any evidence and just execute the search warrants? Okay, why is that important? Because of this next. This next bit. Remember, he. Once he's brought in, he admits that, oh, yeah, I gave her a ride that night. His statement is that I dropped her off at a location downtown in downtown Parkersburg. Now, he named, according to the information I have, he named the location, but police have not released it. The part here, though, that I want to hone in on is this is why It's a catch 22, Captain, because Pierce admitted he gave Gretchen a ride that night. So on one hand, he puts himself as the last person known to be with her or potentially, which is not good for him. However, on the other hand, this provides an explanation for why evidence of her presence in the vehicle might be found in his vehicle. So if you have no statement, the problem for the detectives is this. If you go and get the statement from him first, you've now clued him in that you're looking at him. And if he needs to get rid of evidence, he may have that opportunity. If you execute the search warrant without getting a statement. Well, now he knows that, well, you're probably asking him some questions that you may already know the answers to. Thus, I will admit that she was in my car, but I dropped her off somewhere where before you might have been able to catch him with the statement of, yeah, I'VE never seen that girl before in my life. Right. And then you go, yeah, but we found her hair in your vehicle. So explain that.

[John]

Well, on this Preston Pierce, this is, this is what they say. He has a dubious reputation and unsettling demeanor. This guy was known as a local creek.

[Nick]

Yeah, that's the general consensus. So the, the vehicle was processed by police. Some things that the captain was talking about earlier will, will give a little detail here. It was a black Nissan Rogue with matching Darth Vader stickers in the mini triangular rear passenger windows and an oval OBX sticker on the right rear near the top of the back window. The plate holder was a Pittsburgh Penguins frame. This is from the Sun. Quote, police are asking all residents in the area to review home surveillance footage for a vehicle that has been connected to Fleming's disappearance. They believe the vehicle may have traveled through the Parkersburg area between the early morning hours of December 4th to noon on December 5th. Well, and this is very troubling to me because if you're telling, if you're asking the public for help and you're saying specifically, here's the description of the vehicle. Does anybody have any information specifically surveillance footage, ring doorbell camera, simplisafe home security camera footage of a vehicle matching this description traveling between the early morning hours of December 4th to noon on December 5th. If you're, if you're giving me that time frame, yeah, that means they have something that's telling them that whatever was done to Gretchen was done by the 5th of December. Correct again, 3am on the 4th to noon on the 5th is a significant 33 hour window in which Preston Pierce had plenty of time to get rid of anything that he may need to dispose of. A 33 hour window to hide, conceal, bury, burn the evidence. Later, police returned to Pierce's home with a second search warrant looking for unspecified evidence. They did not specify whether anything was collected with this second search warrant. So by the 31st of December, Chief Board told WCHSTV, things have been collected as standard, sent to the state laboratory for analysis and just awaiting results there. That's commonplace in a lot of investigations and when that comes back, hopefully that provides fruitful. But in the meantime, this is not a waiting game. Our detectives are still following leads because as I keep reiterating, the community really stepped up. The leads, the tips, the info, the phone calls, the Facebook messages, the emails, every one of them is getting vetted. The agency was also reaching out to other law enforcement agencies at this time throughout the state, sending missing persons bulletins and so on. But everyone knew that Gretchen most likely had not gone far at all. Right, you, you can, you can reach out, you can send out this information and hope that something comes back and maybe that just you get lucky and she's just in another city. I mean, we just had a case here out of California where a missing woman was located safe and sound in Mexico that she had willingly went off on her own. But by the one month anniversary of Gretchen's disappearance, chief board give gave an on camera interview with WTAP saying, I just want to reassure the community that the Parkersburg police department is dedicated to helping Gretchen and Gretchen's family. And just because we are not releasing some aspects of information that some people would like does not mean that we don't have information. That does not mean that we are not actively and aggressively pursuing the case. But while looking for Gretchen, we also have to protect the integrity of the investigator.

[John]

So much more to get to join us back in the garage. Same bad time, same bat channel.

[Nick]

And until then, be good, be kind, and don't litter.

[Dexter Morgan]

Miami Metro catches killers. And they say it takes a village to race one.

[John]

If anyone knows how powerful urges can be, it's me.

[Dexter Morgan]

Catch Dexter Morgan in a new serial killer origin story. Hunger inside of you.

[Nick]

It needs a master.

[Dexter Morgan]

Featuring Patrick Gibson, Christian Slater. Special guest star Sarah Michelle Geller. With Patrick Dempsey and Michael C. Hall as Dexter's inner voice. I wasn't born a killer.

[John]

I was made.

[Dexter Morgan]

Dexter original sin. New series now streaming on the Paramount plus with Showtime plan. Go to paramountplus.com to try it. Free terms apply.