Hey, Prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin' podcast one month early and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music.
Download the Amazon Music app today. On a night in 1984, a college freshman listened to the music blaring through a nightclub.
A moment later, she grabbed her date's hand and rushed out onto the dance floor.
Her first year of college so far had had its ups and downs, but it was nights like these that she'd grown to love.
Nights when she could stay out as late as she wanted with whoever she wanted.
She and her date danced for hours and then finally headed outside to his car, exhausted and happy.
But this young woman had been having so much fun at the club with the guy she was with that she hadn't noticed somebody else who had been standing in the shadows the whole time watching her dance.
And now that same person was following her.
But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday.
So if that's of interest to you, please tell the follow button that you're going to leave your entire fortune to them when you die, but in your will, actually leave it to the share button.
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Service is not available in all states. On Sunday, May 27th, 1984, 18-year-old Laura Salmon left her dorm at Middle Tennessee State University, got into her beige Oldsmobile, and headed down the main road that cut through the college town of Murfreesboro.
About 10 minutes later, Laura parked her car at a movie theater, stepped outside, and then waved to a young man who was waiting for her over at the box office.
The young man, whose name was Dan Goodwin, was one of the new friends Laura had made since starting her freshman year of college about eight months earlier.
And this was the first time they'd gone out together, just the two of them.
Laura wasn't sure if this was a date or not, but Dan's invitation for dinner and a movie definitely made it seem like it could be.
She and Dan said hello, and Dan told her he had not gotten the tickets yet, because he didn't know what movie she wanted to see.
Laura smiled. A lot of guys she knew would have just picked whatever movie they wanted and not worried about what she wanted at all.
The two of them settled on The Natural, a new baseball movie, and they bought some tickets.
Dan was a gentleman the whole time, opening doors for Laura, paying for everything, and getting the snacks that she wanted.
And when they walked out after the movie ended, Laura was having a good time and was looking forward to dinner.
Laura and Dan ate at a restaurant in the same shopping center as the movie theater, and they spent most of the meal getting to know each other better.
Laura said college had been a big adjustment from high school, even though she still lived pretty close to her mom.
But for the most part, she had enjoyed her newfound freedom.
She asked Dan if he had plans for what he wanted to do after college.
Laura knew this was still a long way off, but she was already set on her career.
She loved performing in plays, and she wanted to be an actress.
Dan said he wasn't quite sure, but whenever he thought about it, he always came back to law enforcement.
He thought maybe he could be a police detective.
Laura laughed. She couldn't think of two more opposite careers than theater actor and cop, but despite their different life ambitions, they got along really well and had a great night.
After dinner, Dan walked Laura back to her car, and they said they'd see each other soon.
On the drive home, Laura kept laughing to herself.
After a whole night out with Dan, she still had no idea if what they'd just done was actually a date or not.
But she didn't want to worry about it. Dan was nice and they were friends, and that was not always the case with some of the guys she met in class or at frat parties.
And she wasn't necessarily looking for something serious.
She'd had a long-term boyfriend for most of high school, but college was different.
She didn't want to tie herself down. Early on May 30th, 1984, three days after Laura had gone to the movies with Dan, she woke up to the loud beep of her alarm clock.
She wanted to yell at herself for staying up so late the night before.
She'd had a great time dancing at a local club and hanging out with her date, but now she was going to pay for it.
She had an early shift at the supermarket where she worked part-time.
Laura barely pulled herself out of bed and then got ready.
She put on a pair of blue jeans, a T-shirt, and a black jacket, and then headed out the door for work.
The following day, around 5 p.m., a farmer in Murfreesboro drove his truck down a road that ran across the acres of property that he owned.
He looked out into a large hayfield near a rock quarry, and he saw something that immediately annoyed him. somebody had left a pile of clothes out in the middle of the grass.
Finding stuff like this had actually become routine because local college and high school kids had turned this part of the farmer's land into a place to party.
Now, at least once a week, he had to go pick up trash and collect empty beer cans.
The farmer parked on the side of the road and got out of his truck.
He slammed the door behind him and walked through some tall grass towards the clothes on the ground.
But as he got closer, he stopped and just began shaking his head.
He hoped his eyes were playing tricks on him and he wasn't really seeing what he thought he saw.
The farmer took a few steps closer and then ran right back to his truck.
He sped down the road to his house and he called 911.
About a half an hour later, Detective Bob Asbury and two deputies from the Rutherford County Sheriff's Department pulled up to the hayfield and got out of their cars.
The farmer had come back and was waiting for them.
The farmer ominously pointed to a spot a few yards out in the high grass.
The deputies stayed back to ask him some questions, and Detective Asbury put on his gloves and walked out into the field.
And there, lying in the grass, he saw the dead body of a young woman.
She was nude, except for a bra, and her legs were spread open.
A woman's black jacket covered most of her face, and lying on top of the jacket were two pairs of blue jeans.
Asbury couldn't be sure, but the amount of bugs crawling nearby and the condition of her skin made it look like she'd been out there for a while, maybe overnight.
Asbury crouched down next to the young woman's body.
He could see deep wounds on the side of her head, the kind that usually indicate blunt force trauma. and the detective saw something clutched in her right hand.
It was a pair of women's underwear. That detail, along with how her body was laying and the fact that she was almost naked, made Asbury think that this young woman had very likely been sexually assaulted before someone killed her.
Asbury eyed the jacket covering her face, and that didn't seem too strange to him.
Sometimes killers covered their victims because they couldn't bear to look at what they'd done.
But the detective had no idea why somebody had also laid two pairs of jeans on her body.
He carefully removed the jeans and then lifted the jacket to get a look at the woman's face.
He saw deep bruises that looked similar to the other ones on her head.
And it didn't take long for Asbury to find a potential murder weapon.
He scanned the grass around the body and he saw a couple of rocks caked with what looked like dried blood.
Asbury was confident that one or both of these rocks had been used to beat this young woman to death.
The detective stood up and picked up the jeans off the ground one pair at a time.
The first pair were men's jeans. Based on the length, they appeared to belong to someone who was at least six feet tall.
The second pair were women's jeans, and they looked like they could be the victims.
Asbury reached inside one of the pockets, and he pulled out a student ID from Middle Tennessee State University.
The photo on this ID matched the victim.
This young woman was Laura Salmon. Detective Asbury and the deputies worked with a Tennessee state forensics team for hours out in the field.
But the only major forensic evidence they found was the blood on the rocks and also the blood spatter on both pairs of jeans.
This was 1984, so DNA testing was not used by police yet.
But the forensics team would take the jeans and the samples from the rocks to the lab to determine blood type and to see if they had samples from one or potentially more than one person.
That night, when Asbury returned to the station, he found a message waiting for him on his desk.
Laura's car had been located at the supermarket where she worked, a few miles away from where her body had been found.
It was already getting late, but Asbury had no intention of stopping yet.
So he headed across town to the supermarket and found a couple of deputies waiting for him next to a beige Oldsmobile.
The detective shined his flashlight into the driver's side window, and immediately something caught his attention.
The driver's seat was pushed all the way back, like someone very tall had been driving.
Asbury knew Laura was relatively short, and he knew the men's jeans he'd found near her body most likely belonged to someone much taller than her.
So Asbury wondered if maybe the killer had sexually assaulted and murdered Laura, left his pants at the scene, and then driven Laura's car back to the supermarket.
If that was the case, it indicated that Laura's killer knew her, or at least knew enough about her to know where she worked.
The detective and the deputies did a full search of the car, but nothing else really jumped out.
So, after the search, Asbury headed inside the store, and he quickly found a cashier who said she had worked with Laura the previous day.
She said that she and Laura had both clocked in at 8 a.m. and worked a five-hour shift.
Afterward, they walked outside together, where Laura got in her car and drove off.
Asbury asked this cashier if someone had maybe been waiting by Laura's car for her, but the cashier said she didn't see anybody, and Laura had not mentioned to her that she was meeting up with anyone.
Detective Asbury walked back outside and headed to his car.
If he was right, a tall man who knew Laura was the last person to drive her car, so he needed to speak to somebody who might know who that man was.
The following morning, Detective Asbury met with Laura's mother at her house.
Laura's mom had gotten the news about her daughter the night before, and Asbury could tell she hadn't slept since.
He didn't want to stay long or push Laura's mother too much, so he offered his condolences and then got right to the point.
He said he was looking for a tall man who knew Laura well enough to know where she worked.
In his opinion, this guy was probably Laura's close friend or a current or past romantic partner.
Laura's mom didn't hesitate. She said she knew someone who fit that description perfectly.
A 17-year-old named Kyle Gilley, who had been Laura's high school boyfriend.
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Rules and restrictions apply. Hey, it's Mr. Ballin.
I'm excited to tell you about something special.
For the first time, my show, Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, has joined forces with Redacted, Declassified Mysteries with Luke LaManna, to tell a story so complex it required our combined storytelling styles.
This special episode is called A Redacted Medical Mystery.
In it, unexplained symptoms after a routine surgery quickly unravel into something much darker, leading straight to classified government operations hidden for decades.
To listen and uncover the truth alongside us, head to either the Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries or Redacted show pages right now.
Or search for A Redacted Medical Mystery in the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.
If you're fascinated by unexplained medical stories, well, stick around on Medical Mysteries.
Every week, we dive deep into cases that will leave you questioning everything you know about the human body.
And if government conspiracies are more your style, Redacted is your go-to for stories that unravel secrets never meant to see the light of day.
Remember, you can listen to both shows early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus.
That afternoon, still less than 24 hours since Laura's body had been found, Detective Asbury led Kyle and his stepfather into a conference room at the sheriff's station.
Since Kyle was a minor, Asbury had made sure he had a guardian with him when he came in for questioning.
Asbury noticed right away that Kyle looked to be at least 6'2", and he was a big guy too, filled out, not skinny and gangly like a lot of teenagers.
He was also very quiet. But without much prodding, Kyle said he'd heard about Laura's death and he was upset about it.
The two of them had been together a long time in high school, and they were still close.
Asbury asked him what he meant. Were they still a couple?
Kyle shook his head. They were friends, and they hung out sometimes, but they were not together anymore.
The detective quickly followed up and asked if that made Kyle angry.
But Kyle said it didn't. He was still in high school and Laura had gone off to college.
He understood why after she had graduated, she had wanted to break up.
Asbury sized Kyle up again. Physically, he was the perfect fit for this.
So he asked him if Kyle had ever left a pair of jeans out on that piece of farmland where kids in town went to party.
Kyle got a confused look on his face. He knew about the spot on the farm, but he had no idea about any genes of his that had gone missing out there.
Detective Asbury finished by asking Kyle where he had been on May 30th, which, as far as the detective knew, was the last time anyone had seen Laura alive.
Kyle said he'd come home after school and he'd stayed there the rest of the day.
And his stepfather corroborated that. He said he and Kyle had grilled a bunch of steaks together out on the patio and then had a barbecue with the family.
Following his meeting with Kyle, Asbury continued to fixate on the pair of men's jeans he'd found covering Laura's body.
He was convinced those jeans were the killer's, so he just had to figure out who they belonged to.
So he sent members of his team to meet with some of Laura's family and high school friends, and he drove to Laura's college campus to see if there were any other tall men in her life.
Asbury walked up to the dorm room that Laura had shared with two other students.
He knocked, and eventually a young woman answered.
He showed her his badge, and she let him inside and said that she was one of Laura's roommates.
Asbury looked around the room, and it looked like a typical dorm room shared by three young teenage girls.
And this just made it hit home how tragic this murder really was.
Laura was so young. The detective asked the roommate when she'd last seen Laura, and the roommate said it was the night before Laura had gone to work and never came back.
That night, Laura had left the dorm to go dancing at a club with a guy she'd met.
And before Asbury could even ask, the roommate said she did not know who that guy was.
Detective Asbury spent the day talking to more of Laura's friends and classmates, and none of them seemed to know who she'd gone to the club with on that night.
But a few of her friends pointed the detective to another young man, Dan Goodwin, who had taken Laura out to a movie and dinner a few days before she had died.
Asbury tracked Dan down on campus, and the young man proved to be completely cooperative.
He walked the detective through the entire day he and Laura had gone out.
He said they were friends and the date was totally casual.
Nothing romantic or physical at all had happened between them.
He also said he had not gone dancing with Laura at the club and he'd never gone out to that farmland with her.
By the time Detective Asbury left the campus, he had two potential suspects he at least knew something about.
Dan, the casual date, and Kyle, the high school boyfriend.
He also had a third potential suspect who was a total mystery, the guy Laura had gone to the club with.
Asbury would follow up on alibis and keep trying to identify the man at the club, but he was already desperate to find some new piece of evidence.
The following morning, three days after Laura's body was found, Detective Asbury sat at his desk going over Laura's autopsy report.
The official cause of death was blunt force trauma, which didn't surprise Asbury at all.
But there was something in this report that came as a total shock.
There was evidence that Laura had recently had intercourse, but there were no physical signs that usually accompanied cases of sexual assault.
This meant there was a strong chance the sex had been consensual and could have happened hours or even the day before the murder.
This was not what Asbury had suspected when he'd first seen Laura's body, because she was naked from the waist down, her legs were spread, and she had underwear in her hand.
So now, Asbury wondered if her killer had simply staged the scene to make it look like Laura had been sexually assaulted just to throw off investigators.
If that was the case, the men's jeans might not belong to the killer at all.
They could have been placed there by somebody else.
In fact, if the crime scene had been staged like that, Laura's killer might not even be a man.
On June 4th, four days after Laura's body was found, Laura's mother sat in the chapel crying as mourners filed out of Laura's funeral.
Dan, the young man who had gone out with Laura just days before she died, walked up to Laura's mom and said how sorry he was and how wonderful a person Laura had been.
Laura's mother instinctively pulled Dan in for a hug, and she told him to please help her find who killed her baby.
Dan gave her a big hug back and then looked her in the eye and said he would.
He would find Laura's killer. Over the next month, Detective Asbury and members of the Tennessee State Police continued to interview Laura's friends and acquaintances, but they weren't getting any closer to identifying her killer.
And then one afternoon, Asbury got a call from police in Nashville, Tennessee, 40 miles away.
The Nashville cop said a woman had just accused a man named John Taylor of raping her, and she claimed that John had told her if she resisted, he would do to her what he did to Laura Salmon.
Asbury almost couldn't believe it. It was like the huge tip he had been waiting for had just fallen into his lap.
Talking to the Nashville officer, Asbury quickly learned that John had a history of violence, and he went to Middle Tennessee State University just like Laura.
Asbury hung up and took off for Laura's campus.
When he got there, he looked up John's records and began sifting through those, and then he also spoke to some of Laura's friends he'd already met, and it would turn out that Laura and John went to the same fitness center on campus, and they'd gone to a bunch of the same fraternity parties.
At this point, Asbury didn't waste any time.
He and a state police officer drove right to Nashville to interview John, who was still in custody on the rape charge.
John insisted that the sex between him and the woman accusing him of rape was consensual, and he claimed he never said a word about Laura that was a total lie.
And like Asbury's other suspects, John said he'd never gone dancing at a club with Laura, and he said he barely even knew who she was.
Asbury left Nashville later that day feeling frustrated, but despite John's claims that he was innocent, the detective thought he made a very strong suspect.
However, unless he could find something concrete connecting John or the other young men who were suspects directly to the crime scene on the farmer's land, then he couldn't go after any of them.
Over the next several weeks, Detective Asbury continued to work the case every day.
But he never felt like he was getting any closer to solving it.
Soon, months passed without any new evidence coming in, and Asbury had other cases he had to start focusing on.
During this time, Laura's mother came to the sheriff's station often.
But every time she asked for an update on her daughter's case, she got the same reply.
There was no new information at this time.
And Laura's mom got that same response for years.
She watched as Laura's friends graduated college and went on with their lives.
She saw the young men who had been suspects in her daughter's murder grow up and start families of their own.
And she saw Detective Asbury retire and Laura's case go completely cold.
Hey, it's Mr. Ballin. For the first time, my show, Medical Mysteries, has joined forces with Redacted for a special episode.
A Redacted Medical Mystery uncovers how routine surgery leads to classified government operations.
Listen now on the Medical Mysteries or Redacted feeds, or search A Redacted Medical Mystery wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey listeners, Mr. Ballin here. What if I told you that some of the strangest, darkest, and most mysterious stories happening right now are all connected to what might be the biggest crime of our generation?
You know I'm always on the hunt for the most chilling and perplexing tales out there.
Well, I've discovered a new podcast that uncovers real-world mysteries unfolding right now. much like how another Ballin' Studios podcast, redacted Declassified Mysteries, brings hidden government secrets to light.
And it's called Lawless Planet. Host Zach Goldbaum reveals how shocking tales of murder, cover-ups, and mysterious deaths are all part of something bigger. the systematic destruction of our planet.
From activists who vanish in the Amazon to whistleblowers uncovering billion-dollar environmental crimes, these aren't just stories about the environment.
They're real-life thrillers about people caught between powerful forces willing to kill to keep their secrets buried.
Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can listen to new episodes of Lawless Planet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery+.
Fast forward to February of 2000, almost 16 years after Laura's murder.
Two detectives with the Rutherford County Sheriff's Department stood over a conference table, staring down at a stack of file folders.
These detectives had been assigned to handle cold cases, and their first big case together was Laura Selman's murder.
The lead detective was Lieutenant Bill Sharp, and the detective assisting him was none other than Dan Goodwin, the same young man who had taken Laura out for a movie and dinner shortly before she died, and the same Dan who had promised Laura's mother he would find Laura's killer.
Dan, who was now in his 30s, flipped open one of the folders and saw a photo of Laura.
Then he began flipping through pages of notes from the original investigation, and as he did, he felt Lieutenant Sharp standing over him.
Sharp leaned down and wrote three letters across the top of one of Laura's files, DNA.
Dan nodded. Technology had come a long way since Laura's murder, and now DNA testing was commonplace and effective and could potentially solve this case.
So the first step the investigators took was to connect with the state crime lab.
They arranged for a series of tests to be conducted on the blood samples taken from the rocks found at the murder scene and from the two pairs of blue jeans that had been left on Laura's body.
All the samples had been well-preserved, so the lab felt confident they would find something.
However, they informed Dan and Lieutenant Sharp that the lab was pretty backed up and it might take a while to get results.
So while they waited, Dan and Lieutenant Sharp began working their way through the files and re-interviewed everyone they could.
They also tracked down Laura's old high school boyfriend, Kyle Gilley, and secured a DNA sample from him.
And they did the same with John Taylor, the man who had been accused of rape by that young woman in Nashville.
And on a day not long after those samples had been sent to the lab, Lt.
Sharp approached Dan at the station. Sharp tossed a file folder onto Dan's desk and told him, now it's your turn.
Dan flipped open the file and saw it was a record of his interview from the original investigation.
For a second, it threw Dan off. He'd been so caught up in his work that he hadn't thought about himself as being a potential suspect.
But he told Sharp that of course he would provide a DNA sample.
Despite the fact that Dan was a suspect in this case, he was allowed to stay on the investigation.
Because after he had provided his DNA sample, he was cleared of any wrongdoing.
He was not Laura's killer. In the spring of 2000, a couple of months into this new investigation, Dan and Sharp sat at the conference table, digging through Laura's files like they did almost every day.
They had conducted interviews, revisited the crime scene, and they had secured DNA samples, but they were still waiting on DNA test results.
And they were starting to feel like the original investigators had felt.
There were several solid suspects, but not enough evidence to point to any one of them.
But that particular day, something in one of the files jumped out at Sharp for the first time.
It was a witness statement from a young woman that seemed to have just gone overlooked during the original investigation, and it was potentially a huge break.
Lieutenant Sharp pointed it out to Dan, and Dan just stared in shock.
Suddenly, he felt like he was close to solving the murder of his friend and keeping his promise to her mother.
Both detectives meticulously went through the other files to see if anyone had ever followed up with this witness, but no one ever had.
So Dannon Sharp tracked her down. And even though so much time had passed, this witness said she still remembered that day very clearly, and she stood by her original statement.
The detectives knew a single statement from over 15 years earlier would not be enough for the district attorney to take a murder case to trial, but they felt like their investigation finally had a clear direction.
Then on May 31st, 2000, 16 years to the day from when Laura's body was found, DNA test results came back from the lab.
Dan and Lieutenant Sharp sat at the table and read the report.
And both felt completely energized and like they were almost at the end of this investigation.
The test results confirmed that the blood on the rocks and on both pairs of jeans was Laura's. but the blood pattern found on the men's jeans could only have occurred if the person wearing them had been on top of Laura when she was struck in the head.
So there was now strong evidence that Detective Asbury had been right from the moment he saw Laura's body back in 1984.
The men's jeans belonged to the killer. Dan and Sharp kept reading through the results, and as they did, they kept feeling more and more like the witness they had spoken to must have been telling the truth.
And then finally, they saw test results that said DNA samples from bodily fluids had been found in the men's jeans.
And they had a match for those samples. Dan stepped back from the table and he felt like he wanted to collapse, like a huge burden had finally been lifted.
After all this time, Laura's murder had just been solved.
Based on DNA tests, the witness statement, and evidence collected over 16 years during two investigations, the following is what police believe happened to Laura Salmon on May 30, 1984.
That afternoon, Laura walked out of the supermarket with her co-worker, said goodbye, and then got into her car.
As soon as she began driving, she felt like she might fall asleep.
She was exhausted from her night out at the club the night before.
She drove a few minutes across town and saw her killer waiting for her right outside of their place.
Laura parked, got out of the car, and told the killer how exhausted she was.
She also said she could only hang out for a little while.
The killer said that was totally fine and they offered to drive since Laura was tired.
Laura tossed her car keys to the killer, and then they both climbed into her beige Oldsmobile.
The killer immediately had to move the driver's seat way back so they could fit, and then once they were comfortable, they began driving down the main road in town.
But a few minutes later, the killer suddenly pulled onto a road that cut through some farmland.
Laura asked where they were going, and the killer said it was a surprise.
Killer drove a bit longer and then parked the car on the side of the road by a hayfield that was near a rock quarry.
Laura looked out the window. She knew the spot from some parties.
It was a beautiful day and Laura was still feeling pretty sleepy, so sitting outside in this field seemed like a nice way to spend some time.
However, before Laura could get out of the car, the killer snapped at her and started yelling at her about the night before.
Laura yelled right back and said the killer was way out of line.
And then she told them to just turn the car around and drive her back to her dorm.
But the killer didn't. Instead, they lunged across the front seat, grabbed Laura, and punched her in the face.
Laura's eye and her head immediately began throbbing, but she managed to break free from the killer.
Then she threw the car door open and began running into the field.
The killer rushed out of the car, caught up to Laura, and tackled her to the ground.
Laura tried to fight back, but the killer was too strong, and they climbed on top of her and pinned her down.
Then the killer reached over, grabbed a rock off the ground, and slammed it into the side of Laura's head multiple times.
Blood sprayed from the wounds, and Laura stopped moving.
But the killer wasn't done. They dropped that rock and picked up a bigger one, and they raised it up and then slammed it down right square in the middle of Laura's face over and over again.
Finally, the killer stopped. They dropped the rock, stood up, and looked down at what they had done.
Laura lay there, dead in the grass. The killer began to panic, but they quickly came up with a plan.
They ripped off Laura's jacket, her shirt, her jeans, and her underwear, and then stuffed her underwear into Laura's right hand.
And then they deliberately posed her legs so her legs were spread open.
When the killer stepped back and took a look at their work, they saw Laura's eyes were staring up at them. so they grabbed the jacket and covered most of Laura's face with it.
The killer was about to head back to the car, but they looked down and noticed Laura's blood on their jeans.
So without thinking, they just took off their jeans, they also grabbed Laura's jeans off the ground, and they laid both pairs across Laura's body.
After that, the killer ran back to Laura's car and drove back to the supermarket where Laura worked.
After parking the car, the killer scanned the parking lot.
When they saw it was all clear, they hopped out and took off running in their underwear.
And when they got there, they found their stepfather waiting for them.
Laura's high school boyfriend, Kyle Gilley, was her killer.
It turned out Kyle was not okay with their breakup, like he had told police.
In fact, the idea of Laura seeing anyone other than him filled Kyle with jealousy and rage, so much so that he had begun stalking Laura. and on the night before her murder, he followed her and her date, a man who was never identified, to the club.
Kyle hid in the shadows and watched Laura dance all night, and then he followed Laura and her date back to the guy's apartment, and then waited outside while they had consensual sex, and then followed them when Laura's date drove her back to her dorm.
The following day, Laura and Kyle had plans to hang out like they still did sometimes.
And when Laura handed Kyle her keys, he knew this was his chance to take her out to the middle of nowhere and make her pay for seeing other men.
Like a lot of kids in town, Kyle had been to the farmer's land for parties, and he thought it would be a perfect place to confront Laura because nobody else would be around.
But as soon as she yelled at him, he couldn't stand it and he punched her.
And this was not the first time he had done that.
In fact, during the second investigation, Dan and Lieutenant Sharp had discovered Kyle had regularly beaten Laura throughout their high school relationship.
This of course raised a huge red flag, but it was the overlooked witness statement that enabled them to fully focus their investigation on Kyle.
Because back in 1984, a young woman had told police that on the day of Laura's murder, she passed by Kyle driving on the road, and he was driving Laura's beige Oldsmobile, and Laura was not in the car with him.
Dan and Lieutenant Sharp never understood why that lead had not been followed up on, and why Kyle and his stepfather's story about grilling steaks together had just been accepted.
But with that witness statement, Dan and Sharp were almost positive Kyle was the killer, and DNA test results soon confirmed that theory.
In a moment of desperation, Kyle had staged the murder to look like a sexual assault.
He hoped it would lead police to the man Laura had gone to the club with and slept with the night before, but when Kyle saw Laura's blood on his jeans, he panicked and left them behind.
Because there was no DNA testing at the time, Kyle would never have imagined that remnants of his own bodily fluids inside those jeans would someday allow police to trace the jeans right back to him.
Kyle was ultimately sentenced to life in prison, but with a chance for parole in 2042.
Kyle's stepfather, who had covered for him in 1984, was deceased by the time Kyle was arrested.
Dan had ultimately kept his promise to Laura's mother.
He had found her daughter's killer. Dan also said that if he and Kyle are both still alive in 2042, he will be front and center at Kyle's parole hearing, and he'll do everything he can to make sure Kyle never gets out of prison.
A quick note about our stories, they are all based on true events, but we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes.
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