
This week in the Garage, we take an in-depth look at the longstanding disappearance of Kent State University student Judy Martins. Although many years have passed since Judy was last seen, her case remains active and continues to be investigated by law enforcement agencies. Judy was 22 years old at the time of her disappearance, and investigators are still seeking information that could help determine what happened to her and provide answers to those who knew and loved her.
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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 that tried to amend his carnivorous habits. Here he is, the captain.
Captain
Yeah, it's good to be seen. It's good to see you. Thanks for listening. Thanks for telling a friend.
Nick
This week we are very excited to be featuring Hellcat by our friends over at Brewdog. The brewers at Brewdog and death metal great Iron Maiden have joined forces to create Hellcat, a 6% ABV India Pale Lager. Hellcat is where the power of citrus and hops collide on the top of a multi backbone garage. Grade three and three quarter bottle caps out of five. And a big cheers goes out to our friends that join forces with us here in the garage this week. First up, cheers to Michael driving slow on the motorway in Bochum, Germany.
Captain
And a big shout to Tom in Santiago.
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Captain
A big shout to Diane and Erie, Pennsylvania.
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Yeah, BWR you in beer run. Sign up for off the record but only if you're nasty. And that is enough of the business.
Nick
All right everybody gather round. Grab a chair, grab a beer. Let's talk some true crime.
Captain
Sam.
Nick
This week in the garage we tell the tale of a promising and popular college student. One that has seen Plenty of academic success. In our true crime story, a holiday is coming up, which means a break in the college action. So this will be a chance for our successful student and their classmates to take some time off, finally getting the opportunity to take some time and spend it on oneself with a trip. This is a chance to take a break and get away. Excited for the break and for their trip out of state, our student decides to spend an evening out to celebrate. Going out to dinner and then a little drinking and partying afterward. Evening drinks turn into late night fun and late night fun turns into the small hours of the next day. It's 2am and things are wrapping up, winding down. It's time to go home. And then, poof. Just like that, our college student disappears, some say into the night, and others say into thin air. Longtime listeners of this show are most certainly thinking of Brian Shaffer, a promising Ohio State med student gearing up for a vacation with his girlfriend, out with his friends and having a great time, when suddenly he's gone. And now it's been over 15 years. He's still gone, still missing. One night he walked into a bar and 15 years go by and his name and photos of him are still listed on the Charlie Project's website and the all missing persons database maintained by the Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost office. But we won't be telling you the tale of Brian Schaefer again this week because sadly there is another student that very strangely experienced a quite similar fate. A fate of possibly never being seen alive again or simply put, lost but never found. This week we will be covering another missing student from another Ohio college campus. Judy Martens went out partying with friends on the night of May 23, and come morning she was gone and quite possibly lost and never to be found. This is true Crime Garage and this is the case of Judy Martens. Judy Martens was born on July 15, 1955 to proud parents Arthur and Dolores. She would be the eldest of three children. All three children were pretty close in age and Judy and her sister Nancy had a tight bond. Judy was born and raised in the nice community of Avon Lake, Ohio, which is up near the Cleveland area on the shores of Lake Erie. Judy graduated from Avon Lake high school in 1973 and she enrolled to go to school at Ohio University in Athens. But things changed a couple years in and she transferred to Kent State University.
Captain
Yeah, the rumors were that she was getting homesick.
Nick
Sadly, Kent State University is mostly known for the notorious Kent State shootings, also known as the May 4th massacre. This was the killings of four Kent State students and the wounding of nine others, all unarmed, when 28 Ohio National Guard soldiers fired approximately 67 rounds at the group of students. Ten soldiers and Nixon. Come in there, Captain, I'm not a crook. But as said, Judy enrolled in Ohio University where she completed two years of college. After that she moved back home and eventually enrolled at Kent State where she moved into one of the dorms. Judy was seeking an art major minoring in Women's Studies. And she told her parents and fellow students she wanted to be a therapist or Counselor. And in 1978 she was well on her way. She was completing her schooling at Kent State and she was a resident staff assistant at one of the all female dormitories. This is the Engelman hall dorm and she was a volunteer counselor at the campus's Pregnancy Information Center.
Captain
And that brings us up to the details of when Judy went missing.
Nick
Yeah, so the night in question here, Captain, or the days in question here will be the later part of May 23rd or the early hours of May 24th, 1978. Now here is the disappearance as reported by the Columbus Dispatch, which is one of the bigger newspapers here in Ohio. And we will pause periodically to add in our own $0.02, or in my case, $0.01. But the Dispatch article says Judy was last seen at about 2:30am May 24, 1978. Witnesses told police she left a party headed for Engelman hall only four to six minutes away on foot. Okay, stepping in here, Captain. She was at Dunbar Hall. This is an all male dormitory building, all dongs. She was living alone at Engelman hall, an all female dorm. Now the article that we are citing says four to six minutes on foot. The best report that I think I could find out there states that it was 215 yards from door to door. So two football fields. Ish of a walk late at night by herself.
Captain
Now this might be conflicting information. Information I get is it's about 100 yards. But the issue becomes that there's two entrance ways. There's a front entrance and a back entrance. So maybe that is why there's a discrepancy on how many yards away it is.
Nick
Yes, and neither of us have made this walk ourselves, so obviously we're going off of different reports from different people.
Captain
But I have been on the campus though.
Nick
The information I'm citing here came from the chief of police at Kent State University. But again, this is an old case and some of this information is 30, 40 years old.
Captain
Either way, a very small distance.
Nick
Correct? Well, and one critical thing here that I think we should point out, regardless if it's one football field or two football fields in distance, is that we have a situation where Judy made this trip before. You know, this is a, a common thing that she would have done. She was an evening outgoing person. She was very sociable. One thing that I think we should also mention here is a very general statement of her personality. And I think this really sums her up very nicely is it was said by her friends that Judy was very sociable and very much the life of the party after hours. But she was incredibly responsible. She was never late to school, never missed school, never missed work, never late to work. She was top notch go getter during the day and sociable in the evening time. So again, a short walk by herself the middle of the night and a trip that she had done on foot several times. She was also known to ride a bicycle around on campus. And the bike is mentioned throughout our story and will be mentioned throughout our story, but it was never mentioned. I could never find any mention of this bicycle on the statement of how she was getting home that night. It's always been stated that she was walking home that night. Now Judy was wearing a curly red wig over her long dark hair. She was wearing, I believe you call it gaucho style jeans, a brown and yellow blouse, beige trench coat, brown boots, and carrying a large white imitation leather shoulder bag. Okay, so the wig and her get up for that night, she was out and she was partying with friends. So she was definitely playing dress up here that night. Later, after she was reported missing, several people would say that they saw her that night and Judy was dressed like a hooker. These are their words and I don't think that they mean that to paint Judy in any kind of negative light here. Captain, again, I believe she was just playing dress up that night. So maybe she was telling people that she was dressing like a hooker that night.
Captain
Well, in that style, jeans would have been popular in the 70s. Think of a bell bottom, but instead of them being tight and then flaring out at the bottom, they just, they're
Nick
just flaring out all over.
Captain
They're flaring out all over, but they kind of look like bell bottoms at the bottom.
Nick
And that's a good description. And another good description is that when we say or she said, or her friends said she was dressed like a hooker that night. This is not like the movie, Pretty Woman, street walker type clothing stuff. That is very revealing. This is basically funny looking jeans and a button up shirt. The following Day Judy was supposed to travel home to Avon Lake to get her new car. When she didn't come home or didn't call home by that Friday, Dolores, her mother, called Judy's room every hour without success.
Captain
Yeah. So she was supposed to go back to pick up her car, but she was going to go on a trip.
Nick
Yeah. So that is one thing that I wanted to jump in here with on that story. Right. Because this is one of the confusing portions of the story. Let me finish up the next two sentences of this article real quick. This again is from the information from the Columbus Dispatch. It says a fellow student officially reported Judy missing on May 26th. Please note that date, May 26th, which would be two days after the last sighting or supposed last sighting of Judy when her room was searched. Nothing was missing. So she left behind her glasses, clothing, books and cosmetics. Now back to the double story there of picking up the car and or going on a trip. So again, Captain, I found this to be a little troubling the how the how it was noticed that Judy was missing because I've seen these two different stories or different versions of what Judy was supposed to be doing on the 24th or the 25th. And this was one of my questions when I met with one of the law enforcement agencies still investigating Judy's case. So there's some good news there. Right. This case is still very active. You mentioned a trip to New York. So there was two stories. One that she's going home to pick up a car. The other story is she was going with two of her friends from Kent State to go to out of state to go to New York. And I asked law enforcement, since we know that Judy didn't have a car on campus. She rode that bike most places. And her family says her family's words were that she was returning home to get her car or a new car. So my question for law enforcement was, well, who was going to drive her to get to Avon Lake to retrieve that vehicle? Because obviously I think that would be my number one suspect because whoever that was was not the same person that reported her missing, to my knowledge. Now, the Memorial Day weekend was coming up and Judy Martins had planned a trip to New York with two friends. And I believe some of the confusion here is possibly that maybe both stories are accurate, that she would be doing both, as we are talking about having five or six days when she could achieve both of these events. Yeah.
Captain
So possibly my schedule's lighter at this point. Let me go pick up my car. I'll bring it back to campus. And then when we go on the road trip, we're going to take my vehicle.
Nick
Yeah. Because what I was told was no, we didn't have any information that she was coming home. But again, the article in the Dispatch, those are the family's words. So that portion, there has to be some truth to that, to me. And then the law enforcement version is that New York trip has always been something that they were, they were investigating. The thing here, though, we need to remind the listeners that are not familiar with the state of Ohio, we're talking about an hour and 15 to maybe an hour and 30 minute drive from the college campus to Avon Lake. So this is something that she would, if she was going to go home, she would need someone to drive her there. Now we have Judy's siblings weighing in in the article and, and saying wearing contact lenses when she vanished, they say no way would she have left her eyeglasses behind. This is Steve Martins, her younger brother, and saying that she rarely went anywhere without makeup, according to her sister. So remember, it was quickly and easily determined that nothing was missing from Judy's dorm room, leaving behind her glasses, clothing, books and cosmetics. Now, anywhere you would see Judy's case, you will absolutely see this portion of the case information repeated as there were several outside sources that would later say Judy left on her own. The family says no. Her family says no, and I say no. But we will examine the mysterious details of those claims as our case unfolds.
Captain
Okay, so she's at this party and when we say party, loose terms. Right. Because it wasn't like there was hundreds of people there. She was in another dorm having a couple drinks with people and hanging out there.
Nick
Correct. And I think to call it a party really is something that just confuses the matter a little bit more. I would not describe any of these goings on to be any type of party. They may have had a drink or two and may have called it that, or maybe she went to the dorm thinking she was going to a party and it was just as you said, hanging out with a couple of people. It was a little bit of room jumping or going from dorm to dorm. And we have some more details on that. Now the article goes on and says the week after she goes missing, her family, the Martin family, had a sit down meeting with Kent State President Brad Golding. And they say that they left this meeting unimpressed. Judy's sister Nancy said she believes that the university was still rebuilding its reputation after the May 4, 1970 incident and didn't want any type of negative PR about their college campus or their college.
Captain
Right.
Nick
And Steve Martins agrees, saying, quote, what was disappointing was the way that the investigation played out. The university didn't want a whole lot of press, end quote.
Captain
And we've talked about this with Brian
Nick
Schaefer's case, but it's more obvious here, isn't it?
Captain
No. Well, no, because it's different time period. Obviously, back then, they're going, hey, we don't want, if we talk about this too much, we're going to get more newspapers. We don't want the big newspapers to talk about this. In Brian Shaffer's case, when you looked up medical student missing Ohio State, it was flooded with the first few pages of Google. That's all you could find within a few days. Once you typed in Ohio State student missing, it didn't show up. The university was able to bury it in Google searches. And so just look, if you're in a state and you hear about a college student going missing, Google it and you'll find within a week that university has took control of the Google searches to make sure that those stories get buried. So when Johnny from Iowa gets a letter saying he can go to the Ohio State University, they want to make sure when that parent Googles or searches for the Ohio State University, that something from the actual university pops up.
Nick
Well, yeah, your kid's going to go off and be living elsewhere for the first time, not under your roof. You don't want mom and dad or mom or dad separately or together. Don't want to send, you know, their, their little, their young, their daughter or their son off to what they believe might be a dangerous place. Right.
Captain
And if the first thing that they Google about that college is missing or murdered, then some red flags get thrown up there.
Nick
Arthur and Dolores, speaking of parents, the Martins kept faith, according to this article, kept total faith in the police, Nancy said, and never hired a private investigator because they thought it would make the police upset. Nancy believes investigators assumed Judy left on her own and, and broke contact with the family.
Captain
That's a mistake. I'm going to say this. I base my reputation on this. You have a missing person case, immediately hire a private investigator. You're not trying to hinder the investigation at all. You're just going to be doing your due diligence.
Nick
And the thing here in this case, Captain, I see a situation where the case got hindered. The investigation got messed up very early on, and it became a confusing and complicated case very early on. Unnecessarily, like there were steps that could have been made that, that would have made this investigation a little easier. And speaking of which, let's dive into the investigation and search for Judy because Judy leaving a party at 2 or 2:30am to walk a short distance home and never making it there is obviously not the whole story. There is much, much more detail to it than that. But the investigation really was just a poorly conducted investigation from the beginning. And this was for several reasons. The first was this was really an uphill climb in my opinion for the Kent State Police because years later, and this would have been from information I found from 1983, so five years after she went missing, we have Kent State Police Chief Robert Malone saying on record this is the only case that we have had at Kent State of a missing person who could not be accounted for. He says, I know it's the only one since 1973 when I came on board. So now a 10 year span, 73 to 83 according to Robert Malone. Now we need to keep in mind Robert Malone was not the police chief in 78 when, when Judy went missing. But he goes on to say with 17,000 students we get a lot of missing persons reports here but there always seems to be an explanation. So think about that 10 year period when this man has worked there, 17,000 students, we get a lot of missing persons reports. She's the only one in 10 years that we couldn't find out where she went or what happened to her. So what happened to Judy on the night of May 24, 1978 when Judy apparently left the party at Dunbar hall on her way home to Engelman Hall? First, Judy lived alone so that caused a delay to report her missing. She was missing and unaccounted for, but just no one knew. So she was not reported missing until the 26th. So that's two days. Now, local police went to Judy's dorm and they find everything as it should be. Nothing's missing, no sign of foul play, no sign of a struggle, no forced entry. In fact, there are a lot of theories out there in this case but I could not find one single source. I spoke to three different people that know this case better than anyone else. No source says that Judy returned to her dorm that night. No case expert says that she made it home that night. And I could not find anything to suggest that she, in my opinion, made it home that night after going out. So whatever happened to Judy that night, it looks like it happened sometime after this party and before she could arrive at her dorm. She's not reported missing for Two days. And then her family is notified after she's reported missing. Judy's mom says she was calling Judy's dorm often looking for her. So at least we have the night in question narrowed down to a matter of a couple of hours. Yeah, and Captain, I would put that window of time when something went down, something bad happened to Judy between 11pm on the 23rd and maybe as late as 3am on the 24th. So some additional issues with the initial investigation. As we said, the Memorial Day long weekend.
Captain
Yeah.
Nick
Was the weekend after she went missing. Most of the students have left the campus by the time police start looking into this. So they have no one to question or they're missing a lot of the people that they could question and not really anyone to help fill in the blanks here within the first couple of days. And they just didn't take it seriously at first. And look, often we all become products of our environment. And the environment at Kent State in the late 70s, according to the police chief said that they were receiving two missing persons cases a week on average. And in every case up to Judy's case, the person was accounted for within hours or days of the report. So you can almost see how the police themselves fall victim to this environment. And the police likely thought that this would be the case here as well. Usually someone turns up, they stayed with a boyfriend or a girlfriend or they went home, back home unexpectedly. Now, regardless, because think about how many missing persons cases turn into homicide cases. Right, Right. Well, your homicide investigation will go much better if you are not starting from scratch once you figure it out or decide that it is in fact a homicide case rather than a missing person's case. So what sort of things can one do? Well, it's interviewing persons and properly recording their statements. You can take photographs of her dorm and belongings, take photographs of all of the last known places she is believed to have been and photos of the people she was with. Did any of them have any noticeable scratches or injuries? None of that happened in this case. So really this is just an all out difficult situation for the investigation as we can view it 40 years later. And to make matters worse, according to Kent State, they lost or destroyed the case file. This is due to some records protocol.
Captain
Hey now.
Nick
And it's believed in the year 2000 that they got rid of the file. Now sometimes too in these older cases, Captain, you find that the lead detective took the file home or the police chief took the file home, but for whatever reason when the case was being looked at again, and this would have been in the last 10 to maybe 15 years when they were looking at this case again by a different agency other than Kent State Police. Well, that's when they learned that the Kent State Police file no longer exists on this case. But some smart people did do some smart moves. One, Judy was reported missing in two jurisdictions, right? She was reported missing where she was going to school. And two, she was reported where she was from. So she's reported missing in Avon Lake as well. So Avon Lake was investigating this case as well. And they had a file of their own that in air quotes survived and we managed to get a copy of the file that still exists.
Captain
Foreign.
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Captain
All right, we're back. Cheers mates.
Nick
Cheers to you Captain. Cheers to all the fine, fine people out there. So the investigative timeline as laid out in the police file is as follows and it's going to start as early as late April or early May. And that's their exact statement here that in late April or early May of 1978, Jim Young visits Judy at KSU. They are intimate per Jim. Jim Young is or was Judy's long time on again and off again boyfriend. He was considered a suspect in this case. Now we need to note that Jim is Judy's boyfriend from Avon Lake, not Kent State. He does not attend Kent State.
Captain
Right.
Nick
He says their breakup was pretty much mutual and it basically involved that they didn't see each other very much. They lived in two different locations and so they both agreed to break up. It sounded like that Judy had some other concerns. Maybe Jim partied too much or drank too much. But according to Jim, the breakup was mutual and I couldn't really find any family or friends to go against that idea that the makeup, the breakup was mutual.
Captain
Yeah, but just because it's mutual at one time doesn't mean it stayed that way.
Nick
He did say that he would visit her on occasion at Kent State and when she was home on break or during the summertime, the two of them would hang out. This is probably information backing up the idea that everybody puts forward that they were on again, off again.
Captain
Well, and also because she's resident staff, that means she has her own room and she would have been basically the hall monitor for her floor or a section of her floor. So it does suck that we don't have a roommate that is able to back up Jim's claims.
Nick
What we do have though, I, I want to kind of go out of my way to point this out is it sounds to me, Captain, like her family, her remaining family and the friends that she had at the time are backing up to police what this young man was saying. Now, we should, though, make mental note of two things. One, his name, because we're going to be going through different names and different people during this timeline. But we should also make mental note that he was considered a suspect very early on in this case. So the things that he says or suspicions around him, as you're pointing out, Captain, are important to this story.
Captain
But this brings us to May 19th. Now, this will be the last day that Judy's mother talks to her daughter on the phone.
Nick
And then we have May 23rd. So note she disappeared on either the 23rd or 24th. This is the last time that Jim Young, the former boyfriend or John Young, says that he talked with Judy on the phone. Now, at 1:00 o', clock, 1:00pm Approximately that afternoon, James Kratchik reports seeing Judy in the Prentice hall cafeteria sitting with a another student named Kevin Greer. Greer states that they were sitting and eating with Steve, another classmate named Steve, no last name given, and that Kratchik borrowed coupons or meal tickets at this time from Judy. Judy told him to pay her back as she would be needing them by the end of the year. I do want to point this out like this is just another one of those little tidbits One of those little indicators along the way that she was making plans she probably wasn't planning on taking off. Or at least a statement of hey yeah, I'll give you a meal ticket or two to cover you for today but I need these back before the end of the year.
Captain
Well it's similar like with the Brian Shaver case. A lot of people go well why would Brian go missing from a bar? When you look at the Judy Martins case, okay, she leaves this party let's say roughly around two but nobody was in her dorm room for multiple days.
Sponsor Voice
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Captain
So we don't know if she made it back to her dorm room. So maybe she made it back and maybe on her answering machine if there was one, she had a message from some guy that she had a crush on that said come out to California and she decided to leave without a car. But we don't know that. All we know is that there wasn't really anything disturbed in her dorm room.
Nick
Right. And just pointing out that there's nothing to indicate up to this point that she wasn't planning on doing anything other than attending school for the remainder of the year.
Captain
Right.
Nick
So this brings us to about 3pm that day when Judy leaves a note for Charles Neville in his room. And the note says that she stopped by when he was not there. Now I'm not certain here Captain, but from what I gather Charles is a popular dude and may have been considered quite the catch back then. So I'm not sure if they were just friends or if there was something there. But according to the investigation she dropped by roughly around 3pm that afternoon leaving a note for Charles. That evening Judy goes to dinner with one of her good friends and her name is Robin. After dinner, this is approximately 8:30pm Judy leaves her friend Michelle Morgan's room telling her that she was going to see Charles Neville. She said she might stop back at the room after leaving Charles's place. Now Charles lives in the dorm rooms as almost everybody that we're going to be mentioning did at the time.
Captain
Right. Kent State for example is not a highly commuted college. A lot of a good majority of the students live on campus.
Nick
At approximately 11pm this is where I think I really start to call things into question. But this is the information that the police have collected over the years. At approximately 11pm Judy leaves her friend Robin's room in Engelman hall dormitory. She tells her that that she is going to Charles Neville's room. After that Judy arrives at 2:33 Dunbar hall, stays there with Charles Nevilles and John Beckony. This is in John's room. Judy removes the wig, sunglasses and trench coat at this time. Remember, she's playing dress up that night again around 11pm approximately. This is per Kevin Greer, who we've already mentioned. Judy stops by to see if Bernie Caffrey would be there, but he's not home. So she talks to Bernie's roommate, Leo Robe for a minute or two and then goes to Charles Neville's room. Leo Robe says Judy was dressed, quote, like a hooker. Okay, so the important thing here though, to me, Captain, is now we have multiple independent witnesses placing our missing person in Dunbar Hall. In the Dunbar hall building. This is the male dormitory.
Captain
Yeah, this is an all male dormitory.
Nick
So that doesn't seem to be really in question. Right. We can question what was going on or how things went down after this, but it's not a question that she was there in that building at 11 o' clock and a little bit afterwards.
Captain
Yeah, but here's what we don't know is we, we're getting this information from Robin, right?
Nick
No, this information is coming from all kinds of different sources, independent sources. So these, this is statements from Charles, from Robin, from James. Every person that we've mentioned so far on the 23rd. All this information is coming from them.
Captain
Yeah, but if you, that's why you should let somebody finish talking. But this information is coming from Robin, it's coming from Charles. Right. What we don't know is what were Charles initial statements. I'd be interested to know that, I'd be interested to know if they said, hey, well, we believe that she visited you on the night she went missing. And he said, I don't remember. Or no, I don't think she did. And then they got information from Robin and said, hey, well, we got information from Robin that she headed towards your dorm and then we got information from this other person that she was here. And then he comes forward. You see what I'm saying? Like we, we know what their statements are, but we don't know exactly how they got them.
Nick
Yeah, that's, that's cool. And the thing here is it's not really them coming forward. You know, I, I know what you mean by that, but I always kind of hate that statement. Right, right, right. Because it sounds like they went up and called the police station or knocked on the front door and said, hey, I got a story to tell. This is Kent State Police going around and asking people, did you see anything on the 23rd? Did you see anything on the 24th? And you're right. We don't know the exact wording of questions that were first fired at any of these individuals. But from my understanding and the way that the information that we received reads to me is that these are all their initial statements when first asked about that night and if anything changed when they were questioned at a later date.
Captain
Right.
Nick
It's noted in the information as well.
Captain
But also what's interesting too is we have this isolated space that you would think, and we're kind of talking about this off air before we started recording was this is 78 smoking in the 70s you could smoke in the hospital buildings. Not all hospitals, but a lot of them. You could.
Nick
You were smoking in a lot of the schools. So I, if I had to bet, make a wager here, I would put my money on smoking was allowed in the dorms.
Sponsor Voice
Yes.
Captain
And I think that becomes a big key here because if it wasn't allowed, but there were still a lot of smokers, that you would have a gathering outside of the male dorm room even though it would be late. But college students stay up pretty late. So I think there would have been more eyewitnesses. So if somebody would say, hey, there was smoking in the dorm rooms, I'd go, well, there's probably not going to be a bunch of people gathered outside or less people gathered outside to be eyewitnesses once she left the all male dorm room.
Nick
Well, smoking or non smoking aside, you're really hitting on something I think that's important here, Captain, where you're right. This is May. It was a warm night that night. She wasn't the only one going out and having a good time that night. There's a lot of people going out and having a good time that night. And who knows how late they stayed up. We know that there was not much schooling or academic activity that was going to be taking place over the next several days. So this was a time to kind of let loose. And if you were going to stay up or stay out till three or four in the morning, this sounds to me like this was a good night to do it. At approximately midnight, John Beckony, who we've mentioned already, says that he knocks on Charles Neville's door. He and a friend are going to the 7 11. For those that don't know what a 711 is, it's like a little convenience store, a little gas station also.
Captain
People know it as heaven.
Nick
There you go. Beckony returns the wig, sunglasses and coat to Judy. At this time, per his statement, Beckony reports that Judy is in good mental and physical Condition at this time, May 24, at approximately 2:30am Charles Nevills says that this is the time that Judy leaves and his room. Now, a weird note in our timeline, and there are going to be several of these as we get further from her disappearance, but this is the first one. And this takes place on May 24th. So by all of the stories, the information that we've received in every story out there, she goes missing sometime after leaving that male dormitory at 2:30am Right. This brings us to 1:30pm on that same day. So if all those stories are right, she's already missing, just not reported missing at this time.
Captain
Right.
Nick
We have another individual who is named David Horning. David says or reports to police. And this is where I think it's appropriate to say comes forward. It sounds like this man came forward and reports seeing a girl who matched Judy's description and clothing at the bus stop near a sandwich shop. He says a large yellow car pulled near the stop and the girl either got in or was pulled in. He was not sure. The car then abruptly pulled from the curb and went to the far left lane. It was then heading westbound on Route 59.
Captain
And I'm not saying that this individual is lying whatsoever, but it's not clear that he's stating that he knew her before she went missing.
Nick
Right.
Captain
There's a guy that came forward after when they're going, hey, we're looking for this girl. He goes, well, I saw a girl that looks similar. I would hold a lot more weight to this eyewitness if he said, I'm friends with her. I'm friends with Judy.
Nick
Yeah.
Captain
And I saw her get into a car. Then at that point, what do we know? What we know is that she went back to her dorm. She probably felt she slept in her own bed the next day. She took off with somebody around 1:00pm 1:30pm but this guy doesn't know her. He's not friends with her, so he's going, hey, well, she looks like the similar person. And so we have no clue if she ever made it back to her dorm room.
Nick
Well, and one thing that's really tricky in this case here and again, I mean, we can keep circling around this, but. But I've not seen any information to suggest that she ever made it home that night ever. Anywhere by. By any of the investigating agencies, any of her friends or family. No one's. That seems to be one of the furthest things from speculation.
Captain
Well, I remember at some point, and I could be wrong, but some of my buddies would Live in like an all male dorm and then you'd have the all female dorm and then you have a co ed dorm. But some of the dorms you actually had to sign in, even though, like you live there. Like you had to sign in because it was past like midnight and they didn't have maybe somebody on guard to see who was coming into the buildings.
Nick
Yeah, and that is very smart of you because that's one thing I was thinking as well. Like, would, would there be a curfew? Because this was during the week, Would there be a curfew to get in? Or would you at least have to sign in or sign out? And what I was told now again, we're being told this 40 years later, so we can't hop in the DeLorean and know 100%, but from what I was told was that it was a pretty casual, laid back atmosphere on campus that year and maybe even years after that. I don't know if her going missing changed some of that here becomes the
Captain
problem with her going missing was like I said, she's basically like the chaperone on her floor. So she would, she would be one of those individuals. If some other girl went missing on her floor, they'd be going right to her, right, right to Judy and saying, hey, what did you see? What do you know? Can you talk to these other girls?
Nick
Well, not only that, if there were someone to get away with not signing in, she would be able to do that.
Captain
Right.
Nick
The statement about this, this young man seeing somebody matching Judy's description either getting into a vehicle or maybe she was pulled in. He doesn't know for certain. As you pointed out, Captain, you're very right. He's coming forward after the, you know, he's seeing missing persons flyers. And one thing that I thought was amazing about this case, you know, we always have these little, very unique details in each one of these cases. You would think that at some point here in the garage, after you've covered several hundreds of cases, that at some point they just start becoming carbon copies of one another. Where in Judy's case, it was interesting to me that the story on the surface is very similar to Brian Schaefer. But then here we have this interesting, unique portion to her case where she's playing dress up the night that she goes missing. How freaking weird is that?
Captain
So they all become an amalgamation of like a bunch of different cases.
Nick
So she, when he says the, the statement in the police file is someone matching or someone matched Judy's description, that this vehicle, which description is It. Is it the description of her playing dress up that night?
Captain
That's a great point.
Nick
Or is it the description of her? Because she, she looks very different that night than she does the rest of the days. And that is one thing that I found bizarre about this case because some of the missing persons flyers only had the picture from her from that night where she's wearing a freaking wig. You know, like, I mean, this is a young, beautiful college student and she
Captain
looks quite a bit different.
Nick
She looks quite a bit different in both of those images to me. That's my opinion.
Captain
And we'll post all those photos on social media. So follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, truecrame Garage if you want to see those photos.
Nick
The missing person's flyers in this case that I liked the best or that I thought carried the most weight were the ones that had a recent photo of her as she would regularly look and a photo from that night. Because I think it's crucial here when you're looking for someone, this is how she looks when she's not in her little disguise or playing dress up that night. But these are the items that we expect to be with her or items that we might want to find because we can't locate her.
Captain
Well, and like you said, in her dorm, there's no wig, there's no glasses,
Nick
no fake leather purse.
Captain
Right. To me, that's more evidence that I can lean towards the fact that she never made it back to her dorm.
Nick
Right. She's wearing contacts at night, she's wearing sunglasses. None of those things are ever found in her Dorm. Now, it's two days later, as we said earlier, but it's at 4:35pm when the actual missing persons report is filed by a Michelle Shabbat, I believe is how you say her last name. I probably got that wrong. The report was taken by Detective Brandon of the Kansas. The report was taken by the. The report was taken by Detective Brandon of Kent State University pd The then Judy is reported missing to Avon Lake PD at about the same time. This is a weird part to the case as well. May 27, the day after she's reported missing, Judy's camera is secured. This is by the Kent State pd they obtain her camera. Pictures show how Judy was dressed that night. So this is interesting because we have the photos of Judy from the night that she went missing. So how she looked that night and what she was wearing, the wig and all that. And what is missing from the police information here, though, Captain, is, and this is really anyone's guess where and from whom did they get the camera? Again? You know, we. Everything we have says that she didn't come home that night. So did she leave this camera with one of her female friends or a male friend after dinner, or was it recovered from, you know, a female friend's dorm or a male friend dormitory room?
Captain
Well, like, we just don't know.
Nick
It's, It's. It's an answer that I would love to have.
Captain
Yes. And I think there's a couple things. One, it could have been our dorm room, or it could have been when she left her wig and other items in that other kid's dorm room and he returned those items. Maybe he just didn't notice that she had a camera there. Here's why I question that. It could be from her dorm room. Is it possible that she had this outfit, took some pictures of her in this outfit at some point in time, and then just went, hey, I'm going out to have fun tonight, have a couple drinks with my buddies before I go on this trip, and I'm going to put on my zany outfit?
Nick
Right. I'm with you. I think that from the information that I've seen, it sounds to me like there's a high probability this wasn't the first time that she wore that outfit or the wig or some version of such. But the other thing, too, is we know she was back at her dorm building after dinner, hanging out with different friends that she didn't go to dinner with. So when we say she didn't go back to her dorm that night, I really want to underline and echo what we were saying earlier. That, I mean, that. That once she went to the male dorm building that she didn't go back to her dorm that night. I believe that after dinner, she probably went back there because we know she was in the building. So why not stop by her own if you need anything? Or she may have dropped off her camera at that time, not wanting to carry it around already, taking pictures of her and her friend hanging out before, during, or after dinner.
Captain
That's a very good point. And also maybe it's part of her responsibilities to then go and check on her floor and make sure there's nobody reporting anything, because that's part of their job. I mean, I. I believe, like, I believe they actually get paid to do that.
Nick
Well, on the following day, on the 27th, Judy is officially entered as a missing person. So this is technically now three days after she's gone missing. The county jail, the hospital, and campus health center are all Contacted to see if she would be there for any reason at all. And of course they received negative results. Friends Michelle and Robin. So this is the one friend that reported her missing, the one friend that went to dinner with her that night. And Judy's mom, along with Sergeant Hunt of the Avon Lake Police Department on the 27th, they have like a group call, a group phone call that goes to Kent State PD and they basically ask what the f is going on in the investigation. My guess here is because they probably don't think that KSPD is doing anything or actively investigating the missing person's case, that they think it's just another person that will turn up in a few hours or a couple days.
Captain
Well, no. And you see this look we always talk about, oh, this happened in a small town and this, this law enforcement agency is not equipped to handle this. Right. Well, that's what a campus is, is a small town. And yes, Kent State police will know more about the nooks and crannies of their little community than state police or the local law enforcement. But they're not equipped to handle a missing person case like this. Like once you don't find her, and I'm not even saying the 24 hour rule, I'd say on a campus you don't find an individual in 12 hours. This needs to be handed over to the big boys.
Nick
Well, this is when Judy's mother says that she is going to call the media. And I don't, I imagine this is like a threat of hey, I don't think you're doing enough or doing anything. And we're not, it's not gone unnoticed by the.
Captain
And ask yourself this question. If you are questioned by Kent State police or the sheriff department, which one are you going to be more intimidated by?
Nick
In this case it would be the sheriff's department.
Captain
You know what I mean? It's like there's a lot of people when they're on campuses, they don't take, even though they have what they are calling a police department and they can't arrest you, people don't take them as serious. They look at them more as like security guards than they do police officers.
Nick
Look, most of their work is going to be busting up underage drinking parties or breaking up drinking parties, especially back in the late 70s, catching people smoking pot, smoking doobies, that kind of stuff. So you're right. You're absolutely right on that. Now we said that there are going to be some weird things in the timeline and here's another strange1. On May 30th time unknown. There's no time mentioned here. I imagine this is a person coming forward after the fact, after they witnessed this. Deborah Helmick claims to have seen Judy on Merrill Circle near Engelman. And that's as far as that statement goes. Again on May 30, this is at approximately 9pm Bill Jones, a resident of College Towers, says that he saw a tall girl with long dark hair being led out of the main door of the complex by two males. He said that the female seemed spaced out and heard her saying, quote, I haven't been home since Tuesday, but she
Captain
wasn't all that tall.
Nick
Yeah, you're, you're right. Five foot four.
Captain
I would not consider that to be tall.
Nick
Correct. Again, I think with some of these sightings of Judy, what I think we need to keep in mind is I don't think. I think that they're seeing young ladies that look similar. They're just not seeing Judy. And I think that these are just people that are, you know, they see a missing person's flyer and they're trying to help. You know, I, I saw this and it's probably nothing, but I want to make sure that I at least report it to the proper authorities.
Captain
And what did you call them? Groucho pants? Is that what they're called?
Nick
No, I called them gaucho pants. And I don't know if that's correct.
Captain
They're probably not called groucho pants. But I also wonder because if somebody said to me, oh, well, this guy went missing and he had a navy blue hoodie. And then three days later I'm like, oh, I saw this guy with a navy, navy blue hoodie. But he wasn't. He wasn't shorter, he was a little bit taller. I would report it, like, where I feel like I had to because he had a similar item. And like I said, these were kind of. These were popular pants at the time. So I wonder if there was some sightings just based off her clothing. Oh, I saw a girl with, you know, flannel shirt and in these gaucho pants.
Nick
On May 30, again, no time given for this one. Jim Young, the former boyfriend, is contacted. He agrees to an interview and is told to make an appointment ASAP with a detective. At 2pm on that same day, an attempt to interview Charles Nevills is made, but he isn't in his room. Detective Stanley instead finds John Beckaney, who he then interviewed. Also on May 30, officers interview Bernie Caffrey in the hallway at 3:30pm on the same day, officers go to Jim Kratchik's room. They, they re interview him. Officers state it takes several minutes for him to answer or open the door. The officers requested to go into the room for privacy purposes and find an unidentified female in his room. He repeats that he last saw Judy at 11:30-12:30 on May 23rd, 24th, along with Kevin Greer.
Captain
Well, we know why it took him so long to answer the door and
Nick
put his pants back on. Also on the 30th, Captain, this is at 445. Officers stopped by Charles Neville's room. Remember we already mentioned that they went there to speak with him again earlier that day. They don't find him. He's not home. And they speak to Bernie Caffrey and Jim Cratchit in the meantime. So now they're going to circle back to talk with Charles Nevilles again. He is home at this time. At 4:45, they enter Charles's room again. They probably asked if they could come in for privacy purposes, privacy of the questions that they're going to ask. And they don't want.
Sponsor Voice
Right.
Nick
When you're interviewing people that may have been the last person or one of the last people to see a missing person, you don't want their story being broadcast to everybody else now, do you?
Captain
No.
Nick
So they're in Charles's room and officers stated that he repeated the same story that he told another detective. So this would be the second time that they spoke with him per this statement. And they said that Charles, during this visit, speaks with his mother and his brother. Of course, this is going to be via phone. I believe that his mother and brother are not only in another state, but I believe that they are in two different states themselves. He states that his brother is an attorney at the time or will be an attorney soon. And after speaking with his family, he agrees to a polygraph test with the police department. And Charles was read his rights at that time and given a statement form. And he stated that he would complete these later as he was cooking dinner. So he agrees to the polygraph, but it's not going to be administered. Right. Then obviously they're in his room. They give him a statement form to fill out. This would be like, what's your official statement? Right. Write it out and sign it. This is kind of your sworn statement.
Captain
Right. Basically, we know you've talked to detectives, but now we want you to write down that same story.
Nick
And here we go with back to the old casual atmosphere of the campus. We have a missing person here's your statement form that I need you to fill out, but it's okay if you get to it later. Right, right. Like, we don't want you to burn your dinner here, Charles, or your dong. Why don't you finish cooking, have your dinner, have a nice night, and give us a call when you've completed the form.
Captain
And my problem with this is he's a person of interest because we're talking about what's happening two days after she possibly goes missing. What we do know is that she went out to dinner with a friend, Robin. She comes back, she's in her, her dorm building.
Nick
We know that because we have two different individuals stating that they spoke with her there at that building. And these are two people that didn't go to dinner with her.
Captain
Yeah. So is it possible that she stop by her room to freshen up or to change clothes or to grab something and then head over to this Charles guy's dorm? And look, anybody that's been a part of dorm life, when you're going to go visit with somebody, you could just be walking past a room and somebody pops out because they spot you, hey, what's up, captain? What are you doing? And you sit there and talk to them for a while or you past a couple people that you are in class with and you go, hey, did you get homework done for the day? Or whatever. So she runs into some other people. So we know she's in the all male dorm room. And then we know that at some point she's in Charles room. We know at some point she's in somebody else's room. And then she goes back to Charles's room.
Nick
Yep. And this is per Charles Neville's and per these other individuals as well. And, and those were the good old days when you just open up the door to your room. And on a night where there's a lot of activity and people out and about, you never know who's going to drop in, who you're going to see, or when a party is going to bust out in your place.
Captain
Yeah. Until, you know, you get labeled icky flicky flicky and nobody wants to talk to you anymore. So again, she's in the male dorm room. We don't have anybody that places her back into her dorm. We don't have anybody that places her outside heading towards her dorm room. So look, then these individuals, Charles, John, Jim, Bernie and Kevin, they all become persons of interest. And we need to know if their stories line up or if any of them have any nefarious background. I think those that's the starting point of the investigation. But like you said, they're already going about it in such a, such a lackadaisical manner.
Nick
And to top that off, here, Captain, that will not be. This will not be the end of the weird activities or the strange events that will take place in this timeline.
Captain
So much more to get to. To check out our blog, go to truecrimegarage.com and please join us back here tomorrow in the garage.
Nick
Until then, be good, be kind, and don't litter.
Narrator
Sa.
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Podcast: True Crime Garage
Hosts: Nic & the Captain
Episode Date: July 7, 2026
Case Discussed: Disappearance of Judy Martens, Kent State University, 1978
This episode marks Part 1 of a deep-dive into the unsolved 1978 disappearance of Judy Martens, a promising college student who vanished after a night out at Kent State University. Nic and the Captain walk listeners through Judy’s background, the crucial timeline of her final hours, early investigative missteps, and the perplexing evidence and social circumstances that make her case eerily reminiscent of other campus vanishings, notably Brian Shaffer.
The case of Judy Martens is emblematic of the dangers faced by college students, institutional reluctance to invite scrutiny, and the obstacles family and investigators encounter when reacting to missing person cases after crucial early hours are lost.
Through detailed timeline reconstructions and candid discussion, Nic and the Captain shed light on how bureaucratic delays, ambiguous witness statements, and lost evidence can derail the search for answers. Part 2 promises more on the investigation's direction, suspect interviews, and theories about Judy’s fate.
Part 2 will continue breaking down evidence, police actions, and theories in the disappearance of Judy Martens.