← True Crime Garage
True Crime Garage
Missing Paperboys /// Chapter 2 /// Nebraska Nightmare
01:01:17
In the early eighties middle America experienced tragedies that no parent could imagine. Newspaper boys were disappearing. They would step out into the dark of the early morning hours to deliver the daily news to their neighborhoods and some of them did not return. It started in Iowa and then moved to Nebraska. Kids were plucked off the street just a few steps into their routes and some have vanished forever. One year after Johnny Gosch went missing, Danny Joe Eberle was abducted during his early morning paper route.
Loading summary
Transcript84 lines
- [00:01]
Sponsor Announcer
This episode is brought to you by Nordstrom. Ready to refresh your wardrobe? Nordstrom has all the latest styles for spring, from elevated dresses and denim to standout tops and accessories. Discover the trends and essentials you'll reach for again and again. We've got brands you love like Waif, Princess Polly, Mango, Adidas and Favorite Daughter. Plus free shipping, free returns and quick order pickup. Make updating your closet effortless. Shop in stores@nordstrom.com or download our app.
- [00:30]
Host 1
Picture this. It's the end of a long week. You're unwinding in the tub, listening to your favorite true crime podcast and then chronic hives come back again in the middle of the episode. What a wet blanket looks like another spell of itchy, swollen, red or skin colored hives. If you have chronic spontaneous urticaria or csu, there may be a different treatment option. Worried about your chronic hives interrupting our next episode? Learn more@treatmyhives.com Garage.
- [02:32]
Narrator
In September of 1982, 12 year old paper boy Johnny Gosh disappeared. Plucked off the street in the early morning hours and in the early portion of his paper route. Paper boys were not safe in Des Moines, Iowa. And months later, almost exactly one year later, another kid vanished from another street. This time it was in a suburb of Omaha, Nebraska. He was the next paperboy. 13 year old Danny Joe Eberly vanished from his paper route on a Sunday in September under very similar, eerily similar circumstances. He was carrying the Omaha World Herald. For 65 cents you can read all the news that the paperboy can deliver. Or for the price of a broken heart in an empty home, you can stand by the window watching the street and wondering why your little paperboy never came home. This is True Crime Garage and this is our look at the missing paper boys. Chapter 2 Nebraska Nightmare.
- [04:11]
Host 1
We started off Chapter one by talking about the case of Danny Jo Eberly. So let's go back to the 18th of September 1983 Bellevue, Nebraska, just south of Omaha, Nebraska. And that September day in 1983 was in fact a Sunday. When 13 year old Danny Joe Eberly got up early. He headed down to a nearby convenience store to pick up his supply of Sunday newspapers to be delivered. He rolled the papers and he put the entire load in a delivery bag and on his bicycle he went off to get to his route to make the first delivery. What we would later learn, Captain, is that this boy only made three stops on that delivery. When some people on that route didn't receive their papers, they started calling Danny's parents home. And after receiving more than one call, his parents headed out to the route to look for Danny, finding his bike inside a gated yard. So inside the gate of a fence of a home, on his paper route now, they find his bicycle, they find his newspaper delivery bag with a bunch of papers still stuffed inside. But Danny Joe was nowhere to be found. His parents drove along the route, they drove back beyond the route hoping to find their son, but they could not. And they very quickly called the Bellevue Police Department and a search began for the boy right away. So that's a little bit of a difference here between these two cases. But as said, things that were put into place shortly after the time that somebody like Johnny Gosh went missing. And there were others too, unfortunately, that there were grieving parents who had been fighting to change the way that law enforcement receive and react to a missing child call.
- [06:17]
Host 2
Yeah, this is something that families are still fighting for to this day.
- [06:22]
Host 1
And we talked about as well, those families meeting with people in power, especially the, at the time, President Ronald Reagan, who changed the way that FBI, the FBI, the Federal Bureau of Investigation would be involved in cases of missing kids, but also murder cases. And today it's just commonplace. But back then it was very new and it changed the way that the federal law enforcement officers were involved in such cases. So the Sheriff's department is directly involved. This is the Sarpy Sheriff's Department in Sarpy County, Nebraska. But of course we have the Bellevue Police Department. That is the initial phone call that was made by the parents. And it was the Bellevue Police Chief, as I understand it, that said, you know what, we got to contact the local FBI field office here in Nebraska. Agents were immediately assigned to help with the search for the little boy. And which would, it would at some point shift from a search to an investigation into the boy's disappearance. And a lot of that has to do with the circumstances of the boy's home life, school life. They found no problems, no reasons for him to run away. And immediately they started getting suspicious that this could be, and hopefully not that it wouldn't turn out to be something exactly like the Johnny Gosh case. Now keep in mind, this is almost exactly one year later. In fact, it's about 13 days beyond the one year anniversary that Johnny Gosh went missing from Des Moines, Iowa. And they had no clue as to where that little boy, where Johnny had gone. As we had stated, we have Special Agent in Charge Herb Hawkins gets the call. He's running, I believe, two states at this time with, and there's Varying various investigations going on with that branch of the FBI at the time. So he's going to get his assistant, assistant Special Agent in charge, John Evans, to be the lead on this, which Evans was heavily involved in organized crime and in other investigations typically conducted by the FBI. He wasn't so experienced in murder cases, and that's why they wanted to bring in somebody like Peter Klisman Jr. Who had Quantico training. He had received the FBI profiler training courses. He was. But he was still getting acclimated to that type of investigative work. So he's still wet behind the ears here, Captain, when he gets this call. And in fact, in his book, he openly expresses saying, like, look, I feel like I've had the right training, that I was trained by some of the best, but I didn't feel like they're calling me an expert when I arrive on the scene. He goes, I didn't feel much like an expert arriving to the scene of a missing child case. He was very thankful that they also notified Quantico, wanting to bring in one of the big guns, as we had said yesterday, one of the original Mindhunters, somebody that has done this before. But this was also going to be a bit of a transition period in Robert Ressler's FBI career as well. Now, the short of it is, sadly, Danny Joe Eberly was found. It was a short time later, just days later, that he was located, but he had obviously been murdered. So at the time of. It's the fall of 1983, Robert Ressler is at the Michigan State University. He's there to teach at an annual homicide seminar. Keep in mind, he's a graduate of Michigan State University. He says once he gets back to his hotel, mind you, it's 1983, so he's not walking around with a cell phone. Once he gets back to his hotel, the front desk hands him a message. And he said, as soon as I read it, I didn't need any. It didn't need any explaining. It just said, call the office immediately. Look, that means something has happened. It's something urgent, something ugly, something that cannot, will not wait. He makes the call. And that is when Robert Ressler was told about a young paper boy named Danny Joe Eberly that had been abducted and later found murdered in Bellevue, Nebraska, near Omaha. So they needed Ressler in Omaha to help identify the killer. He is going to be receiving this call and then en route to Omaha shortly after they find the body. In fact, by the time he gets there, they still have to wait for the autopsy results. Now, longtime listeners of this show know what it means when these cases the an abducted child missing and then later found murdered. Our listeners know what it means when these cases are not handled with speed and coordination. There will be more victims. Wrestlers initial reaction to being told as to what was going on there in Bellevue, Nebraska, he says. I couldn't help but think of the case that had already scarred the country's conscience, he says. Almost precisely a year earlier in Des Moines, Johnny Gosh had vanished on a Sunday morning while delivering newspapers. He was never found. I, meaning Wrestler, had spoken with Mr. And Mrs. Gosh, and I had heard the anger directly. The FBI had been slow to become involved, Ressler says. Technically, the bureau could not. They could point to jurisdiction being an obstacle, he said, with no clear evidence that the crime crossed state lines, with no ransom note, there was no real federal hook there for them to become involved, especially right away. But he said, look, those type of technicalities do not comfort grieving parents.
- [12:54]
Host 2
Absolutely not. So in this case, we have paperboy goes out, is abducted. We find his bike. The Johnny Gosh case, we find the wagon. But this case is different because we find a body. We don't find a body in the Johnny Gosh case, but in the Johnny Gosh case, we have a lot of eyewitnesses. Do we have any eyewitnesses in this case?
- [13:18]
Host 1
We do end up with some potential, let's say, potential witnesses. So we don't get any witnesses to the actual abduction.
- [13:26]
Sponsor Announcer 2
Right.
- [13:26]
Host 1
But we get some witnesses that might be able to provide some insights that could end up being a lead. Okay, so it was two and a half days after what would later be known to everyone as an abduction, that Danny Joe Eberly's body was found. And wrestlers brought in at that time. Once the body is found, and Wrestler says, at this time, you know, we've talked about this plenty of times on the show that, that at one point in the career, his career, he and John Douglas are out busy doing what they called their road schools, going around and teaching different police departments and then assisting in cases if they happen to be there or via phone when they would get back to Quantico and then receive calls from a detective or a police chief that had something very strange, something very difficult to deal with. They would become involved, but they would do that remotely from Quantico, Wrestler says, up until about this time period in his career, so we're at 1983, he says much of his work had been conducted through phones and teletype paperwork and Secondhand descriptions. This call puts him in Omaha, Nebraska. Bellevue, Nebraska. And this is a chance to be on the ground in the middle of an unfolding murder investigation. Called in and what we will see is this will become more commonplace after an investigation like this, where you send an FBI or team of FBI agents to another city to work a case.
- [15:08]
Host 2
Right.
- [15:09]
Host 1
He says it this was stepping out of the classroom and onto the front line. So the Bellevue police headquarters, there had been a task force set up. It's already assembled by the time Ressler gets there. He says the building had the charged atmosphere of true urgency. Phones are ringing, voices are constant, people were moving quickly, information ARR faster than it could be absorbed and sorted through. He said Bellevue was the kind of suburb people imagined when they imagined stability, modest incomes, routines, neighbors who assume their streets are safe and their children will come home. And of course, this case, a kid going missing and then later found dead. That normalcy was broken, was forever broken. Crimes like this don't just take a life. They puncture a community. And that community's belief that life is predictable. So let's go back just a couple days here, Captain, as you were asking, to the day. The morning that Danny vanished. Before dawn on that Sunday morning, Danny Joe Eberly woke to start his route. He got dressed, apparently everything except his shoes, which I found very odd because all reports state it was quite cold there that fall in 1983. But it's reported that he liked to go barefoot even when his parents told him not to. Danny did what he always did. He climbed onto his bicycle, pedaled to the local convenience store, picked up his stack of newspapers, started the folding process, and then went out to deliver them along his route. Danny was 13 years old, blondish, bright eyed, about 5 foot 2 inches tall, about 100 pounds. He's the son of a post office employee. His older brother delivered papers as well in that same neighborhood. And folks would say, you know, seeing the Eberly boys out very early in the morning was usual. It was part of daily life. At 7am Danny's route supervisor began getting calls. Papers hadn't arrived. One missing paper might have been a delay. He thought several calls meant something else was going on. So the supervisor, in this case we have, the supervisor goes out to check. He's looking for Danny or for drop papers or something like, I would guess if your mother, father or route supervisor, you're getting calls like this, if you're going out, what would you think would probably happen? Kid got into some kind of bicycle accident. Maybe he's laying there on the, you know, side of the road or sidewalk somewhere or next to somebody's driveway, having wrecked his bike, gone over front of the handlebars, what have you. That's what this supervisor is looking for. He doesn't find Danny, so he calls the Eberly household. They're already receiving calls, too, about missing papers or undelivered papers. And the Eberly family says, you know, we've. We've gotten calls too. He's not home now. Very quickly, what the parents and supervisor realized. The first three newspapers had in fact been delivered. So Danny did start his route as normal. He had made it to three houses. And then something happened after that third delivery and near what should have been the fourth drop. That's where they found Danny's bicycle propped up beside a fence. The remaining newspapers are still inside the bag. No signs of a struggle at the scene, though. No scattered papers or anything like that. No obvious disturbance. In fact, the bicycle looked like it was just propped up against a fence, like. Like neatly. Like the way that the owner, the carer of the. The person caring for the bike would set it in that manner.
- [19:14]
Host 2
Well, this is just not commonplace either. It's. If you have a paper route, it's every day, rain or shine, sleet or snow, you deliver the papers. But I'd say maybe once a year there's a situation that the papers might be late, but you're not missing.
- [19:34]
Host 1
No. And the paper's late is almost always the. The kids overslept or did the alarm didn't go off, or in some cases, maybe the paper drop off the bundle didn't show up on time.
- [19:48]
Host 2
Right. And what would happen as a paper boy is if they dropped off the papers late, you would contact your supervisor and they would tell you, well, deliver them if you can, but don't make yourself late for school. So if you can't deliver them in the morning, well, then right after school, deliver them then.
- [20:08]
Host 1
Yeah. The police were notified, as we had said earlier, very quickly. And in turn, they contacted the FBI's Omaha office. And those early hour searches by just a few people, it would grow very quickly to many people looking for this little boy. And of course they're looking for explanation as to why that they can't find him. That. That do not require a predator to play out the equation. Right. There was some brief talk or speculation that maybe Danny might have taken off. That theory was, as I understand it, quickly checked, quickly disproved, and they moved on from that.
- [20:51]
Host 2
Yeah. Because it just again, doesn't Make a lot of sense, deliver a couple papers, and then decide to run away. Ah, this is too much for me.
- [20:59]
Host 1
Today, a massive building to building search began. Doors were knocked, Yards are checked, Streets are combed. Investigators and volunteers again, we get a lot of volunteers in this search as well. They're hunting for anything, any trace of the little boy they were looking for. Maybe somebody who had spotted someone talking to the boy. Maybe had somebody seen a car stop and talk to the kid while he's on his bicycle. They, they, they're not finding any of that. No. No leads really at all at this point. And I'll circle back to what you had asked in just a minute, But I want to get into this because as we had said, it was just a couple days. That same week, Danny's body is found in high grass along a gravel road. This was just about 4 miles from where his bicycle was located, Just a few miles from the Iowa state line. After arriving in Bellevue, Robert ressler wanted to see the location where Danny's body was found. And he said, standing there, he's standing there with agent Klismet at his side. And he says, we could see the gravel road. This would be the obvious spot where a vehicle would stop. We could see how close the tall weeds were to the gravel road, how visible the site still was from the road, the major road. If a passerby or if a passerby looked carefully. Now, wrestler noted that there was a nearby crossroads and one road led to a river. And he said that raised questions immediately for him.
- [22:43]
Host 2
Right.
- [22:43]
Host 1
He said, look, if somebody put a body here, why not just go to the river where you would place the body in the water and it might drift off or be better concealed.
- [22:57]
Host 2
At least one also destroy evidence.
- [23:00]
Host 1
And we get this expert mind there that is already informing detectives, local detectives of what he's seeing and what his experience is telling him about what they are finding. And he's telling the detectives right away. He's like, I think that the, the offender or offenders made that choice simply out of fear. You know, why, why not put them in the river? He said the person or persons dumping this body would have to be worried about headlights from other vehicles, about being seen, about being caught in the act, lit up by headlights exposed. So he believed that the killer killers were in a hurry to leave the body and get out of this location unseen. The public was told Danny had been killed with a knife. That was technically true, but it really didn't explain the severity of what they found or the extent of what they found. Which is not uncommon. They're not going to release all the details to the public. But Danny, in all reality, unfortunately, wasn't only killed. He was mutilated. He was found face down in the weeds. His hands and feet were tied behind his body, so behind his back with rope. His hands were taped as well, and there was tape covering his mouth. He had been stripped down to his undershorts. He had suffered multiple stab wounds to the chest and back. His neck had been slashed. There was a wound on his shoulder that looked as if a slice had been taken away on his left. Some reports say calf, but other reports say that it was up on the thigh area. There was some sort of crisscross pattern, almost like. Like picture. Like a tic tac toe pattern that. That investigators found to be odd. And again, they wondered if this was something that was done postmortem to cover up something else, to cover up some detail of the crime or the attack. And his face was battered, so he had been punched or beaten prior to being killed.
- [25:31]
Host 2
Yeah, it was a brutal mutilation. But it also makes me wonder, too, because, yes, you said he was 5 to 100 pounds, probably soaking wet. Vulnerable situation, because they're out on their own. But where are paper boys? There are neighborhoods. And normally neighborhoods have houses that are closer together, so there's more of a chance that somebody might see you, more of a chance that somebody might hear the abduction. But even though, like I said, he's small, he's a young boy, a responsible boy that's waking up every day to deliver papers. So there's a possibility that he's going to put up a fight. And then it makes you wonder, like what Ressler was saying, well, why wouldn't you just dump them in the river? Is that because of fear, or is that because they didn't have a great concept of the location?
- [26:34]
Host 1
Well, and you asked about witnesses, and while we don't have any witnesses to the abduction or the placement of the body, what we do have is several witnesses who have accounts that tell police about accounts, experiences that they had that could be possibly connected to this murder case. And the one witness account that's going to stand out among the others is Danny's older brother. So Danny's older brother reported that on his own route, prior to his brother going missing, he believed that on more than one occasion, he had been tailed or followed by a young white male in a tan car. Now, that's the best description he could provide. But what we do get is other witnesses who come forward with even less details, but some of them believing that either they were being tailed by somebody similar similar description or had seen a man in a vehicle trailing teenage boys from time to time and some of them even describing it as watching them, pacing them.
- [27:52]
Host 2
Yeah, then I'd also want to know if I'm law enforcement, has there been any suspicious activities in the weeks leading up to this abduction and murder? Foreign.
- [28:21]
Sponsor Announcer 3
This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Take it from me, a struggling musician, Financial stress can affect more than just your money or your budget. It can affect you emotionally and mentally. And talking about our mental health is so important. And that's why I love Better Help. Better Help connects people with licensed therapists who can help them to manage the emotional weight that comes with financial stress. Financial stress impacts more than a budget. At the start of this year, 88% of Americans reported feeling some form of financial stress. Money worries can disrupt sleep, increase anxiety, and create tension in relationships. BetterHelp works with over 30,000 licensed therapists. A short questionnaire matches you with somebody based on your needs so you can focus on your goals instead of navigating the search process. With more than 12 years of experience and an industry leading match rate, BetterHelp typically gets it right the first time and if it's not the right fit, you can switch at any time. BetterHelp has served over 6 million people globally and may help if financial stress is weighing on you. When life feels overwhelming, therapy can help. Sign up and get 10% off@betterhelp.com Garage that's better H lp.com Garage this show is proudly sponsored by Better Help.
- [29:52]
Host 1
This is the time when kids benefit from reviewing key concepts and strengthening skills before assessments. IXL helps reinforce what they're learning right now so they feel ready and capable. IXL is an award winning online learning platform for Pre K through 12th grade with personalized interactive lessons in math, reading, writing and science. The that adapt to each child's level and pace. Proven in all 50 states to improve grades, students who use IXL score higher on test. IXL is used in 96 of the top 100 school districts in the US. I have friends, I have family who use and love ixl. Why? Because they see the positive impact that it is making on their children's learning experience and their education. It's about catching up for some kids. It's about getting ahead for other kids. I get it. It's difficult as parents to strengthen the areas that challenge our children and that's what IXL can do for you. It gets you organized and it gets you progress for your children and their learning experience. Make an impact on your child's learning. Get IXL now and True Crime Garage listeners can get an exclusive 20% off IXL membership when they sign up today at ixl.com garage. Visit ixl.com garage to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. So many people are focused on where their money is today. Acorns is the financial wellness app that cares about where your money is going tomorrow. And with the Acorns potential screen you can find out what your money is capable of. Acorns is easy. You can sign up in minutes and start automatically investing your spare money even if all you've got is spare change. Sign up now and Acorns will boost your new account with a $5 bonus. Investment join the over 14 million all time customers who have already saved and invested over $27 billion with Acorns. Head to acorns.com garage or download the Acorns app to get started. Paid non client endorsement compensation provides incentive to Positively promote Acorns Tier 2 compensation provided potential subject to various factors such as customers accounts, age and investment settings does not include Acorns fees. Results do not predict or represent the performance of any Acorns portfolio. Investment results will vary. Investing involves risk. Acorns Advisors LLC and SEC registered investment advisor. View important disclosures@acorns.com Garage Mint Mobile Baby Are you tired of spending hundreds on crazy high wireless bills, bogus fees and free perks that cost you more in the long run then a premium wireless plan for mint mobile for 15 bucks a month might be right for you. Bring your own phone and number, activate with ESIM in minutes and start saving every immediately. No long term contracts. No hassle. I love Mint Mobile. I've been using it saving money. My family have been saving money as well because everybody I talked to they were paying more than 15 bucks a month for their wireless service and guess what? Make the switch you get the same great service that you currently have. I would argue in cases it has been even better. If you like your money you Mint Mobile is for you. Shop plans@mintmobile.com tcg that's mintmobile.com tcg upfront payment of $45 or 3 month 5 gigabyte plan required equivalent to $15 per month new customer offer for first 3 months only then full price plan options available, taxes and fees. Extra cement Mobile for details.
- [34:48]
Host 2
All right we are back. Cheers mates. Cheers to you Colonel.
- [34:52]
Host 1
Cheers to you Captain. The best part about Peter Kismet's book, FBI Diary Profiles of Evil, is in a case like this. So there. There are many cases that are discussed in that book. But when we're talking about the Danny Joe Everly case, Klisman is talking about how he's pretty much receiving on the job training with Robert Ressler, working hand in hand with Robert Ressler on this particular homicide case. And he's. But he's also in a scenario where the local detectives are looking at him as being some kind of expert. And so this task force made up of these FBI agents and detectives are working together, really, with Robert Ressler, the mindhunter, being the lead and teaching as he's investigating the case as well. After the body's found, we already discussed the injuries, the mutilation to our victim here. The FBI, everybody involved, have already been to the crime scene. Now they're back at the headquarters, and they're looking at photographs that were taken from that crime scene, photographs of the victim and how he was found. Robert Ressler pointed at the ropes on the boy's wrist and ankles, saying, quote, people with sadistic inclinations tend to want to completely immobilize their victim. It gives them a feeling of control, power over their victim, and it lets him do exactly what he wants without any resistance, end quote. Now, this might seem to our listeners who have been in the garage looking at these cases for years now as an obvious statement in 1983 to some of these detectives that are there working this case. It's not such an obvious statement. It's actually an education. And he told these detectives, he says, here's what I want you to do. I want. I want to understand how this happened. He says, and I definitely know what happened, but I want to understand why and how this happened. And that was not such a big portion of any murder investigation at this department at this time. They were always so worried about what happened, right? He's letting them know, if you. If you can concern yourself and figure out how it happened, why it happened, that might tell you who did this, right? So he's putting emphasis on the ideas of, we know who it happened to and where the body of the boy was found. What we need to know is why all of these things happen. So he tells the agent, he tells the detectives, all right, here is what I want you guys to do. Every one of you has a good understanding of the case, but I want to know, why did this guy do what he did? Did he take a big risk when he grabbed the boy off the street? If he Did. What does that tell you? Did he have to use. Did he have to use physical force on the boy, or did he have a weapon with him?
- [38:00]
Host 2
Right.
- [38:00]
Host 1
What does that tell us?
- [38:01]
Host 2
Right. Where he doesn't have to use the weapon. He's using the weapon as a threat.
- [38:06]
Host 1
How long did he keep the boy?
- [38:07]
Host 2
Well, you know, I'm. I'm going to our. Go to our. Our standby, round up the perverts.
- [38:13]
Host 1
Yeah, and one detail that we did go through, he says to his team, look, apparently there wasn't any sex involved, no rape involved, sexual assault involved. And. But he believes. Wrestler believes. Look, that doesn't mean that it's not sexual in nature, that the crime isn't sexually motivated. And he's asking these guys, are we looking at a crime that was impulsive, spur of the moment, or did this guy do some prior planning?
- [38:40]
Host 2
Yeah, like I said, what was happening in the weeks before the abduction, but it could be a little bit of both. This individual is heading to work or heading home from work or heading home from the bar, sees this paper boy, just notices. Sees him multiple times, maybe follows him a little bit on one of the times, and then starts getting these ideas. Or is this somebody that's from a whole different location and not local to the crime?
- [39:08]
Host 1
Well, and the light bulb is going off for these detectives that are essentially learning at the foot of Robert Ressler. And he says to him, he goes, you know, look, maybe he didn't tie the boy up this way for complete control or domination. Maybe he did. But if he didn't tie him up that way for complete control and domination, then why did he do it? Why did he tie him up that way? He's. He's essentially hogtied. And Peter Klisman says, you know, that was a pivotal moment for his career and for him, being a young FBI profiler, to think a little bit differently. When you're looking at a crime scene, when you're looking at a victim, and immediately he says to wrestler, he goes, you know, maybe this. Maybe this killer used that because it was something familiar to him. Maybe he grew up on a farm. Maybe he was used to doing this. Maybe he had experience slaughtering animals.
- [40:01]
Host 2
Well, we've talked about this before, too. If you have certain bindings, does that make it easier to move the. The body?
- [40:10]
Host 1
Exactly. Exactly. There is a reason why most of these things happen, why the killer or killers made certain choices. There's not always an absolute reason. It's not always all well thought out, but most of the time, there's A reason why somebody chose something over other options. So simply why did the killer do what he did at any given point? Wrestler tells the guys, that is, if we can figure that out, that's going to give us some serious clues into the motivation behind this guy, what motivated this guy and who he is. Now, the medical examiner's report suggested Danny might have been kept alive for as much as a day after his abduction and killed close to the time when his body was eventually discovered. And as we said, there was no sexual assault in the usual sense as it was put by the detectives on this case. I want to circle back to the. Because I have the benefit, we have the benefit of knowing some of the future events and results of this investigation. I that whole statement of that Danny might have been kept alive for as much as a day or killed very close to the time of when his body was discovered. The later reports suggest something completely different. And actually it falls into the statistics, the unfortunate statistics that we know that oftentimes the, a young victim, especially if it's a child abduction, when murdered there, it's, it's relatively quickly after the abduction. So they kind of go back and forth. When you examine this, the entirety of this investigation, they're really all over the, the shop on their idea of, well, was he killed quickly, was he kept for a couple days, was he killed right before he was found? They kind of go all around on that idea, and I don't think they ever really came up with a great understanding of that.
- [42:24]
Host 2
Now, well, like you said, though, this is extreme violence. And then you have to question, was this done postmortem or not? And then I think that plays into the psychology too. Was this victim similar to the, the killer and was that the reason for the extreme violence? Or was this, was this victim some kind of representation of something negative in this killer's world, if that makes any sense.
- [42:58]
Host 1
Well, and we don't get a great breakdown of what they determine to be post mortem wounds.
- [43:08]
Host 2
I'm guessing that's a little bit to do with just the lack of technology.
- [43:13]
Host 1
Yes. Or if they do know that they've chose not to release some or most of that information to, to the public. One, one thing that kind of cracked me up here when reviewing this case and going through all of Robert Ressler's information on this case. Again, it's the time frame, right. 1983. And he says that when he's there collecting information at the crime scene and about the victim and the wounds to the victim, he says he's putting all of that into ViCAP computer. We've talked about ViCAP system on the show many times, but he's saying because of technology at the time and because of the limited resources at the time, he's not actually plugging it into the ViCAP computer. He goes, I'm putting this information into the ViCAP computer. In my head, he said, I'm comparing this case and what I'm seeing here to all the other cases that I've worked, some that have similarities and some that don't. And in trying to figure out what have I learned in those previous cases that I can apply to this case. Because as said, he says this right away, and our listeners know this. You get a call like this, you know that there's a very high chance that there's going to be a future victim or future victims. So you are working not just against the clock of a typical murder investigation, but you are working against the clock of when, if this guy does act again or these people act again, when will that be right? And I got to beat that clock.
- [44:52]
Host 2
Well, because what we. We've heard so often is when these people kill an individual, especially if it's the first time they kill the individual and they think that the cops are going to reign down on them right away and that that doesn't happen, and they go through this time period where they're a little scared that they might get caught. And then that wears off. And. But that seems to wear off faster the more victims that the. This killer has.
- [45:23]
Host 1
Well, and the information that we talked about with the other boys saying that they thought they had been followed or thought they may had seen somebody following a boy, that information must have carried a lot of weight with Agent Wrestler, because within just a day or about 36 hours of him arriving on the scene, he starts to put together a preliminary profile of the likely offender or offenders. And that information is a. Is part of his profile. So his profile, his initial profile reads as such, saying, I, Robert Ressler, believe the killer is a young white male, likely in his late teens or early twenties. The body dump looked risky and imperfect, suggesting inexperience. He says the offender likely had access to a vehicle and a license, but the crime did not show the practiced competence associated with a seasoned offender. He says, I think it's possible the killer may have known Danny, but only casually. He may have known him enough to approach him without triggering any type of alarm. And he could have talked him into a vehicle voluntarily or, he says, a car or possibly a van. He also says at this stage, he could not rule out multiple offenders or the possibility of more than one offender. He said if it is more than one, he would believe that it would be all young males to be involved, no more than three total. He also said in considering a sexual motive, he says perhaps an attempted assault was met with resistance. But he did state that the absence of defensive wounds complicated this picture or that. That being likely. He said that the body's disposal suggested panic, remote, but not carefully concealed, as if the offender needed the body gone quickly rather than to be hidden. Well, he also states that the bindings mattered. The ropes and tape indicated control, but the overall event suggested partial planning mixed with improvisation.
- [47:58]
Host 2
Yeah, I don't know how much they released on these bindings, but I'd want to know, are they consistent with each other?
- [48:06]
Host 1
He says that he. He suspects that the offender is local, likely single, not educated beyond high school, possibly in menial work or unemployed. The rope work suggested someone used to tying and handling practical materials. So tying knots or experience with rope and maybe specifically this type of rope.
- [48:30]
Host 2
Well, location matters. And so thinking that it's local, that makes sense to me because of the time period. Because this individual either had to stay up and stay awake.
- [48:41]
Host 1
Yeah.
- [48:42]
Host 2
For this time period. Or they had to wake up early. And like we said, if we believe that these other paper boys are saying that, hey, I had a situation where I thought somebody was following me. If we think those are connected again, that's multiple times that the person is either staying up or getting up early. And then it would also make you wonder what kind of shift. If this person had a job, what kind of shift were they working? Were they first shift employee? Were the second shift employee? Because then you could go. Was the panic for the disposal of the body because they're afraid they're going to get caught, or is the panic because they have to get somewhere? And whether that. Now, wrestler said he believed that this person was probably single, but it's like, did he have to get somewhere to go to work? Or do you have to get somewhere to go back to, to be with his family? Or it could be an individual that's living, you know, like a late teen, early 20s guy living with his family. And to go, well, if I'm not back by the time everybody wakes up, they're going to be suspicious of what I'm doing.
- [49:51]
Host 1
Well, and for. Look, I understand that sometimes these likely offender profiles are not very satisfying or in some, not very detailed. But what I think is so fascinating about this particular profile is, as we said, by this point, when he's delivering this profile, this, this is him telling the detectives that are going to be working this case. This is him telling the police chief, the sheriff, the people in power, not just not some deputies, not some beat cops, not the newspaper, not the parents. And this is not some. You're looking for a single white male and he's a loner.
- [50:38]
Host 2
Right.
- [50:39]
Host 1
It's not that. This is, this is pretty detailed information. In fact, it's over a page long. And he's delivering this within 36 to 48 hours at most to after having arrived on the scene. I mean, the case is completely new to him until he steps off that, that airplane. Right.
- [50:59]
Host 2
But sometimes you just have to jot down these notes and thoughts in the moment and you can then go back and edit later.
- [51:06]
Host 1
Well, true. I mean, the. Like John Douglas says that the profile is living, breathing. It can be altered and should be altered when new information or better information is found. But in this case, as said, he's. He's there a day and a half in delivering this information to the people that will be working the case, the police and the sheriff's department, and, And I'm not done with the profile. He goes on to say, continue, please. He says one detail remains central to the case. The boy stripped to his undershorts without conventional sexual assault. He says, in my experience, that combination often pointed to a young male offender with little genuine sexual experience. Someone driven toward domination, humiliation and fantasy rather than adult sexual completion.
- [51:56]
Host 2
Right.
- [51:56]
Host 1
He says the mutilation on the victim suggests deviate fantasies that didn't erupt suddenly. He says the offender likely had chronic sexual problems, a history of devy, and might be an avid consumer of pornography. The offender might have experienced recent stress such as a breakup, job loss, being dropped from school, family trouble, and might have been absent from work for days before or after the crime.
- [52:29]
Host 2
Right.
- [52:29]
Host 1
The abductions early hours suggest a person not accountable to a spouse or attentive household. That's a long way of saying this guy lives alone. And he goes on to say sometimes offenders act early after being awake all night, drinking, building courage. He also talked about what he referred to as something that every investigator learns the hard way. He says the abduction site is often not the murder site and the murder site is often not where the body is found. He says the place where the body is discovered becomes the crime scene because it yields the most evidence. But the mechanics of the abduction and the killing remain hidden. He says in Danny's case, he believed that the victim was killed elsewhere and Dumped near the river. And he also warned the investigators about offender behavior that he said he had seen before. He said the killer might insert himself into the investigation, hovering around the dump area, going to the funeral, going to the gravesite, going to the neighborhood, seeking proximity and information. Somebody that wants to be close to the investigation, so that wants to know what the investigators know or what they know. And he advised that the artist conceptions should not be made public. So this is. This is interesting because in the Gosh case, we have that composite sketch that they choose to hold back based off that they didn't know how accurate it would be, but they eventually release it to the public. Right here. What Wrestlers saying is what I think it means. I'm kind of reading between the lines here, Captain, is I think what he's saying is, you know, those witness reports of. Of some guy, a young man, in a vehicle following other kids. He's putting a lot of weight and credibility into those statements, and so much so that they. They put together a composite sketch or started to build one at the very least. He's saying two things. Don't release my profile to the public and don't release a composite sketch yet to the public, he said, because the chance that the killer or killers would want to insert themselves into the investigation, you need to give them time to come forward. That if you do this now, it
- [54:55]
Host 2
could scare them off.
- [54:57]
Host 1
Yes. He's forewarned that he might be recognized.
- [54:59]
Host 2
Well, and I know we bring up the Delphi case a lot, but it's like, if you hold certain things back, then even though this perpetrator or killer might insert themselves, they might insert themselves again. Because when you hold back, the more evidence that you hold back, the bigger the question mark is to the killer of what do they know and what don't they know? And then what you were saying is like, well, he's not killed in the location that he was disposed of. So. But that. What makes me wonder then, well, is the crime scene inside of a vehicle, a car, van, creepy camper truck?
- [55:43]
Host 1
Well, you mean the murder scene. Because what we. What we're going to have here is something we've talked about plenty of times. Multiple crime scenes, right? The crime scene is going to be where the kid was when he was abducted, right. Whether. Whether that was violently or not violently, the vehicle used to transport him from the abduction site. And if he was killed anywhere other than that vehicle, now we have an additional crime scene, and whatever vehicle moved him from where he was killed to where he was found. So multiple Crime scenes. And what I love about when you get a. When Douglas and Wynn wrestler are able to provide law enforcement with such a detailed profile of the likely offender that they don't just give them that, oh, here's my profile. This is the guy that you're looking for. They usually give them some strategy, some. Some things that they can use to either find the guy, locate the guy, figure out who it is, or draw them out things that they could use with during the course of their investigation that would be to their advantage later. So, like, one item would be, don't release the composite sketch. Don't release my profile yet. Give him a chance to come forward and talk to you. Give him a chance to come forward and insert himself into the investigation. Now, here he also said, so in Bellevue, one of the big things that you have in Bellevue is an air force base wrestler told the task force two things. He goes, I think the rope is extremely important. He goes, I don't know this, but I believe the rope to be unique, to be rare. And if it is, if you figure out where that rope came from, you might be able to find your guy. He said, at the very least, if you can find more of that rope with somebody, then that's probably your guy. And then two, he also told them that he thought the air force base had very much to do with the offender. And he told them, he said, you need to start going back through the records and find out who arrived here within the last six months, who got transferred here, who started working there within the last six months. He, he. And he told them. He goes, I really think he goes, I don't know what that number will be. That's for you guys to sort out. It could be a few people, could be hundreds of people. He goes, but I think you're going to find the guy in that list. On that list.
- [58:22]
Host 2
Well, what would that base have? It would have males in the age range that wrestler was looking for. So you. You go in there yet, you line them all up, you have them drop their pants, you look for a bruised banana, you look for all the perverts, and you go, okay, let's. Let's question these guys.
- [58:43]
Host 1
Yeah, I think one of the problems became here that that number of transfers or airmen coming into that base was. Was a significant number within the last six months. The other thing, because what you. What you would think to do and what wasn't done early on in the long island investigation, the Long island serial killer investigation, that seemed to be the big break in the case that Seemed to be the moment too where everybody goes, oh really? That's what they did. That's how they found the guy. Wouldn't. Why didn't they do that to start with? You know, in that case, you had a couple things to cross reference. You knew a general area where he had gone to pick up one of the victims and that a male, a very large male was described to police as being a John. And that very large male drove a unique vehicle.
- [59:37]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [59:37]
Host 1
And really the big break in that case was after other investigators and better investigators took over that case. They went back to that idea and said, you know what, let's, how about we just, just to check a box. Even if it's not, let's run down this lead and see if it's something or nothing. Let's find a really big guy that owns a unique truck. And they did. And it turns out that was their killer. Now here, well, allegedly we have to say, right, he's not been kid backed.
- [60:06]
Host 2
Well, I mean he will look. Well, they're suspecting that he's going to plead guilty. So to seven of the murders in
- [60:16]
Host 1
this case, you have more than one. I would like to know if those, if those kids, those teenagers were all describing and giving a very similar description of the vehicle of the young white male in the tan car tailing kids. Because if they're giving a very similar description and you're, and you're hearing it time and time again, oh, it's a four door vehicle, it's a sedan, it's a, you know, don't know what model it is, but it might be this make or that make. You have, like you said, the age range of the majority of the folks at that air force base are going to be in the age range of wrestlers likely offender. Now you have a tan vehicle, you could cross reference that information and go, well, even though we've had hundreds if not a couple thousand people in and out in the last six months, how many of them had a vehicle that matched that description or access to a vehicle that matched that description?
- [61:19]
Host 2
Yeah. And I look, I think wrestler is a genius. I think John Douglas is a genius. The only thing here is when he talks about a transfer, I understand where he's coming from. Because the idea is, well, one, why were they transferred? Was it for some deviant reason? So, you know, it wouldn't be the first time that the military swept under the rug an evil individual. But where I would kind of go against this idea and it might be somebody that's been there longer is we don't know how because he said inexperience. So if there is inexperience, how long did the escalation take to go from curious mind to killer? And what I mean by that is, okay, well, I went out drinking, so now I drive around a little bit. Oh, I spotted some. Some paper boys out on their routes. Then at some point, now I'm following them. Right. And. And what's the escalation? And then also, you know, no brainer. Did any of these individuals feel threatened or did. Was there any action other than being followed take place?
- [62:38]
Host 1
Yeah, other than one. One version of a story where the mail may have got out of the vehicle, I don't recall there being anything than kids being suspicious of seeing a car. Because here's the deal. Look, you're on a bike or you're walking. You're not traveling very fast. Cars are much faster than bicycles. And. And people walking bipeds, as they call them. Yeah.
- [63:03]
Host 2
Depends on who's riding the bike, though.
- [63:05]
Host 1
I guess it depends on the clunker, too. But, yeah, the. It. I think what would be obvious, these are teenagers. These are. These are kids that are not toddler. It. I think it look, can be fairly obvious when a car is tailing someone on a bicycle, especially somebody walking. You would have to be traveling at a very low rate of speed. And then to circle back to what you had just mentioned about the deviate behavior. Okay, so that's part of the profile. That's interesting. And where I think you have to read between the lines. And I don't think wrestler made any of these detectives read between the lines, because he's there to catch this guy and catch him with the quickness. So part of that profile says the mutilation suggested the deviate fantasies didn't erupt suddenly, meaning they had been there for a long period of time. He said the offender likely had chronic sexual problems, a history of deviancy, and might be an avid consumer of pornography. And then goes on to say the offender might have experienced recent stress, breakups, job loss and so on. Family trouble. What he's saying is, even though his profile. He's telling you that this guy lives alone, he's not. What you would be looking for is somebody that at some point lived with this guy. Or if he is somebody that lives on the air force base, he likely has a roommate. And this is behavior that would be recognized by somebody that lived with this offender at one time.
- [64:45]
Host 2
Yeah. Which again, if you're on this base, your superiors have the right to check Your property. And if you have a roommate that won't stop molesting himself, this might have been reported to the higher ups.
- [65:02]
Host 1
Yes, and we're looking for a knife that the killer may have kept. We're also looking for additional rope that matches the bindings on our victim. The evidence that was collected at the body discovery scene, of course was sent off to the lab for testing. The rope is going to be something that they will be testing. They the immediate response and findings was the rope that was analyzed did not match like known samples that they had on hand. They couldn't. So they the scientific findings were lining up with wrestlers suspicions that the rope could be unique, that it was possibly rare. And again, that's going to be key evidence in your investigation. We do know that Danny's older brother and some of those other witnesses were hypnotized. A hypnosis team was brought in from Texas to hypnotize these witnesses to try to recover additional details. But the report is little new information emerged from that technique. And eventually Robert Ressler returned to Quantico. And eventually Agent Klisman returned to Iowa. While the task force continued their work looking for the killer of Danny Joe Eberly. But it was in early December when Robert Ressler was in the state of Alabama, he was doing some teaching in Alabama. He receives a second call related to this homicide. This time it is a call from the assistant agent in charge. We mentioned his name prior, Captain. His name's John Evans. And John Evans is reporting to Robert Ressler that another boy had been abducted again near Omaha, Nebraska. And the fear that Robert Ressler warned the task force about that the killer of Danny Joe Eberly, that he will do it again, seemingly had now become fact.
- [67:22]
Host 2
Foreign. Thank everybody for joining us here in the garage for this series Missing Paper Boys. Thanks for telling your mother. Thanks for telling your brother. And join us back here in the garage for the conclusion of this series next week.
- [67:45]
Host 1
And until then, be good, be kind and don't.
- [67:51]
Host 2
Sam.
- [68:24]
Host 1
So good. So good.
- [68:26]
Host 2
So good.
- [68:27]
Sponsor Announcer
New markdowns, up to 70% off are at Nordstrom Rack stores now. And that means so many new reasons to rack.
- [68:34]
Host 1
Because I always find something amazing.
- [68:37]
Sponsor Announcer
Just so many good brands because there's always something new. Join the Nordic Club to to unlock exclusive discounts. Shop new arrivals first and more. Plus buy online and pick up at your favorite rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you rack.
- [68:54]
Sponsor Announcer 2
It's tax season and at Lifelock, we know you're tired of numbers, but here's a big one. You need to hear billions. That's the amount of money in refunds the IRS has flagged for possible identity fraud. Now here's another big number. 100 million. That's how many data points LifeLock monitors every second. If your identity is stolen, we'll fix it. Guaranteed. One last big number. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com specialoffer for the threats you can't control. Terms apply.