What we lose in the Shadows (A father and daughter True Crime Podcast)
Runaways: Two teens found safe.
The bravery of two young girls who faced life-threatening dangers and their incredible rescues are the heart-pounding narratives we share in a chapter you won't forget. From the streets of Long Beach to the quiet town of Mount Vernon, these stories of survival remind us of the power of community awareness and the ever-important role of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. We wrap up by inviting you to join our ongoing conversation on unsolved mysteries, engage with our community on Instagram, and tune in next Tuesday for more gripping tales from the shadows of true crime. Your courage to confront these chilling accounts with us is what keeps the darkness at bay.
"Help me note" News Nation 7-22-23.
Fox 4 Dallas kidnapping in North Texas
CNN.com "A Texas man pleaded guilty in kidnapping 1-20-2024.
Contact us at: whatweloseintheshadows@gmail.com
Background music by Michael Shuller Music
The bravery of two young girls who faced life-threatening dangers and their incredible rescues are the heart-pounding narratives we share in a chapter you won't forget. From the streets of Long Beach to the quiet town of Mount Vernon, these stories of survival remind us of the power of community awareness and the ever-important role of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. We wrap up by inviting you to join our ongoing conversation on unsolved mysteries, engage with our community on Instagram, and tune in next Tuesday for more gripping tales from the shadows of true crime. Your courage to confront these chilling accounts with us is what keeps the darkness at bay.
"Help me note" News Nation 7-22-23.
Fox 4 Dallas kidnapping in North Texas
CNN.com "A Texas man pleaded guilty in kidnapping 1-20-2024.
Contact us at: whatweloseintheshadows@gmail.com
Background music by Michael Shuller Music
Good morning and welcome to what we lose in the shadows.
Speaker 2:A father, daughter true crime podcast.
Speaker 1:My name is Jameson keys.
Speaker 2:I'm Caroline Hello how are you?
Speaker 1:I'm good, caroline. How are you? I am very tired. Yeah actually but is this weather more than you're liking?
Speaker 2:No what? It's still cold. It's 50. That's pretty cold. It's February, I know I just I'm waiting for the cold months to to pass. They're great reading weather, great writing weather, great podcast recording weather, but it's not. It's not my weather.
Speaker 1:It's podcasting season. I like that.
Speaker 2:Did you hear? Actually, I do have something I wanted to mention to you. Did you hear about the high school students who helped with a cold case?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I did. I didn't know the particulars about it, but I saw that briefly and thought that's awesome.
Speaker 2:It was. It was really cool. So it was in Tennessee. It was a group of high school students and they were looking at a mid 80s string of murders. So they were trying to see if they were linked or not. Like if some of them were linked, and they found that some of them were, some of them weren't. So six out of the 12 are potentially connected, which is crazy because they didn't know that before. Like they thought like one or two here, one or two there, you know what I mean. And so they've they've seen like a potential pattern with six out of the 12.
Speaker 1:And so Are they, just like resonant geniuses. Were they part of the Scooby-Doo fan club? I mean, how did they? How did they?
Speaker 2:Well, that's a good question. I mean, I think there's a lot of. I think we overlook a lot of like our young community, but you know, they have a lot to give and they have a lot of like bright ideas and also they are literally like raised on the internet, so they probably have seen a lot of like different, especially if they have an interest in, like you know, solving crime or, like you know, just listening to you know, scary situations. I think they probably may have used, like some of the things that they just grew up learning about, you know, to help with this case. I mean, so they potentially linked the six murders to Achiller, but he did die in prison.
Speaker 1:It's not the worst thing in the world. It's not.
Speaker 2:But you know it's tough to to really. I mean they will never be able to charge him with it.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So they I mean, yeah, I think they're still like looking into it, but they gave like that great lead to actual investigators, so hopefully they can find more.
Speaker 1:Was it a teacher that kind of led this? Did they just do this on their own?
Speaker 2:A teacher was leading a group, and then also they invited a former FBI agent to come and teach them, you know, more structured, like how to profile cases and stuff, which is super cool that, like you know, someone donates their time to the school, like that to you know, kind of give them a taste of like a future possible career.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, Because you know we need really smart forensic investigators and that sort of thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and also we need people who are passionate about, you know, fighting for those who don't have a voice.
Speaker 1:Right, absolutely so. No, I really I think that's a great idea.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is, it's really cool and you know I think a lot of people may see it as like morbid for high schoolers and so that's something tough to kind of to grapple with. But you know, I think the right group they kind of are interested in that anyways and you know, as long as they're, I would say, probably like 15 up you know, yeah, yeah, sure.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, as long as the parents are groovy with the whole thing about groovy Jesus.
Speaker 2:So old.
Speaker 1:As long as the parents are, you know, okay with them. You know, delving into obviously mature topics, I mean that's, that's great.
Speaker 2:I think I know a lot of women are interested in true crime, so some of them probably share that interest, like with with their moms or with their older sisters or something you know. But then there's you who likes to run, so there's a few men out there.
Speaker 1:Right, but but I do remember we did a case not long ago. It was a murder case and the they spoke to this group of folks that were in the criminal justice department at a local university and they actually did some really solid work and investigation and helped the police solve that case as well.
Speaker 2:I mean that makes sense too, because they're like in that field already. But high schoolers really threw me off.
Speaker 1:Because I'm like.
Speaker 2:Wow, you guys aren't studying this. You know what I mean, because you know young professionals, people who are like looking for internships, that have like base level skills of things, like yeah, that makes sense, you know that they would be able to do that, but high schoolers, it was just. It was shocking. When I read it I was like, wow, that's so impressive. But that's great that they did that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, kudos to you guys.
Speaker 2:Trigger warnings for today are kidnapping, pedophilia and sexual assault.
Speaker 1:Caroline, I remember when you were a teenager, right, you occasionally had arguments with your mother.
Speaker 2:I don't remember that I was a perfect angel teenager.
Speaker 1:Right and even on very, very rare occasions, with your saintly father.
Speaker 2:I also don't remember those, just kidding. Yes, of course everyone argues with their parents, especially trying to form an identity as a young.
Speaker 1:You know about to be an adult, yeah it happens all the time and it's a natural process of you know, growing up as children and their parents try to figure out and negotiate boundaries and that sort of thing, mm-hmm. I remember also that a couple of times you, even you know were saying that you were going to run away.
Speaker 2:I remember trying once when I was like six and literally it was you or mom standing outside the door and I just kept walking around the corner and I think it was you who came running after him was like get packer.
Speaker 1:Unfortunately, the far that you ever normally got to was Rose's house, so oh yeah, that's so funny.
Speaker 2:That was before that, though. When I was six, it was at a different location.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, but sometimes, though, you know children, you know do choose to run away for real, and there are a lot of different sources in terms of the number of runaways in the United States, and they range somewhere between 500,000 to 2 million, depending on what site you use. A year, a year? Yes, Wow. And there are a lot of reasons right. So Definitely there's physical and sexual abuse.
Speaker 2:Of course, yeah, that's a big one.
Speaker 1:Family conflict, a lack of acceptance for gender identity and sexual orientation, mm-hmm Struggles with mental health, substance abuse, and then there are some really dangerous things like online enticement yes Gang activity, child sex trafficking, which we've, you know, talked about before, and, of course you know, social rejection and bullying. Some of the common stats of those who run 66% are female, 24% are male, 5% are non-gender conforming and 5% are transgender. We're going to look at a couple cases today that are similar and sound similar in the way that they kind of came about, and the recent cases. But, you know, they have some real eerie similarities and some definite differences.
Speaker 1:So, not so long ago in Texas, right outside of San Antonio, a 13-year-old girl was walking to a bus stop in San Antonio. She just had an argument with her mom and decided what she was going to do was run away. Now her goal was to go to Australia to live, where she had a friend. And you know, as she was walking around from Texas, from Texas, okay, I'd say it's a realistic plan that you know that's okay, children, it happens.
Speaker 1:But as she was walking, she was pulled over by this guy in a car. Oh no, and he held up a gun and told her, if she didn't get in that he was gonna hurt her. That's horrible. Now, that happened in broad daylight and mom is this. This was about six months ago.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:He allegedly asked the girl how old she was and she told him in and she told she was, you know, 13 and at one point she mentioned that she was trying to get to a friend in Australia. The man apparently told her that he would take her on a cruise there. Of course he was lying In the days and weeks that followed. He drove her almost 1300 miles away from Texas to California and unfortunately he raped her several times on the drive out.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:On July 9th in Long Beach, california, that's just south of Los Angeles, they were at a laundromat. The guy had gone into the laundromat to tell and told her to stay put in the car, that he was watching her To scrunch down and that sort of thing, and he chose the first wash machine right beside the door. So he kept looking at her. Mm-hmm. Now the young lady yeah, basically was sitting there and he was watching her very closely and a Nice woman who had just gotten her clothes out of the laundromat walked past the car and the little girl held up a sign that she had made in red letters that said help me.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:The lady was like wow, what did I just see? And the little girl you know kind of shot her a look like please don't go Mm-hmm. And she went to her boyfriend and said I think that little girl needs help. Yeah and the guy got out of the car and he and she mouth the words help me right, Mm-hmm. And so they went into the laundromat and they told the manager there and the manager called the police.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's great. That's really brave. I feel like a lot of times people just walk away being like I must have seen it wrong or I don't want to get involved. But that's amazing that they actually stepped in right.
Speaker 1:So so on July 9th in Long Beach, the police officers were called and they jumped into action and they closed off the entrance just as the guy was Walking back up to the car. Wow, and they were able to, you know, to save the little girl. Now, through the investigation, the officers learned that the Good Samaritans Were in the parking lot and they saw the victim in the parked car and hold held up that piece of paper with help me Written on it and of course, they called 9-1-1.
Speaker 2:You know, it's crazy. It must be. It must have been so terrifying for her to like know she like got someone's attention and to be waiting to see if they did anything because she didn't know Absolutely. Like how long must that take? Like have taken like 10 minutes, 15, like that's so scary.
Speaker 1:And I wonder like if she had tried that before and someone else just walked away right, it's so scary right, because and they found out later that the guy did have a gun in the car, but it was actually like a BB gun or a pellet gun. But it looked very realistic, looked very much like a gun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, also like if you don't know what. Like you know, a lot of teens especially, or even I, like I don't know what a gun actually looks like up close and even if it did looks very similar, I probably even if it didn't look very similar I probably be like Looks like a gun. You know what I mean. It's better safe than sorry.
Speaker 1:Well, scary and in addition he had in the car with him. He also had a switchblade. He also had handcuffs. So detectives detected, determined that a little girl was sexually assaulted While she was being brought to California. They found the firearm that in the in the car and they found the switch played in and the handcuffs, the. The guy was a 61 year old, his last name was Soblin and right now he's being held in the federal Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown LA. It was not immediately known if he hadn't turned yet. The girl was placed in protective custody in Los Angeles until her family Could get out there and the FBI has taken over the case because he crossed eight lines.
Speaker 1:He crossed eight lines and cross eight lines with the thought of committing sexual acts with a teenager.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you, if you commit any crime, I think, over state lines like that, like kidnapping, abduction, anything they can't, yeah, that's awesome, but they stepped in, I mean yeah, but this was especially heinous. Yeah, it is of course.
Speaker 1:Her name has been, you know, withheld.
Speaker 2:Yeah, of course, cuz she's a minor because she's a minor. That's good. I hope she's healing. I hope her and her family are, you know, together healing. That's. I'm so happy that she, you know, left that and was able to, you know, get out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because I mean well, and I'm super happy for the Samaritans there because you know they were people there at the laundromat doing their clothes to right. Yeah, you know, and they weren't so preoccupied with what they were doing that they didn't take notice of this poor little girl. Absolutely and because they decided to jump in there. Now I'm not saying it's safe to do that every time.
Speaker 2:Or ever it's not there's. There's inherently a level of risk with that right and they decided that. You know, they wanted to be good Samaritans and help out. You know, another child I mean they I probably didn't know if she was a child or not, but you know, I'm so glad that they did that right. It's crazy.
Speaker 1:So so. So that's, that's one, one of the cases. The second case a 14-year-old. This just happened really recently. Oh my god, 14 year old. She disappeared, was last seen on January 6th in Mount Vernon, washington area. Mm-hmm. The Mount Vernon police believe that she voluntarily left her house using a rideshare service.
Speaker 2:Washington state.
Speaker 1:Washington state Okay and investigators said she was missing. The 14 year girl was found in South Haven, Michigan, In the home of a registered sex offender.
Speaker 2:Oh my god, that's a long way right.
Speaker 1:It's how the police were able to kind of piece this together. The family got in there. They really got active, they started putting signs up and so on, and someone had said that they had seen the girl talking to you know an older person online and that they saw her getting into a you know like a like an uber style car. But because it's a smaller area, there weren't that many ridesharing services, so they were able to track it down and kind of piece it together.
Speaker 2:So he was in an uber like a rideshare he was.
Speaker 1:He was in a, he was in an uber and picked her up oh my god and then drove her across the country, 2000 miles, this time To Michigan so he parked his car somewhere else, got an uber over there and then it's not clear if he either did that or called a new before her. She got in the uber and came to him, okay okay. So we don't know which way that happened, but they end up in South Haven, michigan. That's insane more than 2000 miles away.
Speaker 1:That is crazy now the guy on the other end, his name. He's 30 year old, keith, where Frick it's Frickinson, I believe, is the way it's actually pronounced the pedophile. He's the pedophile. Okay, he's 30 years old and for 30. Yeah, he was previously convicted on the possession of child pornography out of Florida Back in 2017.
Speaker 2:That's horrible.
Speaker 1:He's now encusted in facing similar, really serious charges, you know something, such as kidnapping and that sort of thing and even though she came of her own free will, can't do that with you can't do that with a child and also you can't contain someone. Right, right. So the suspects is now facing charges in Michigan, including criminal sexual conduct, first-degree sex offender, failure to comply with registration with the registration act and with children contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
Speaker 1:Wow, that is Intense because these alleged crimes span many states. Once again, they're working with the FBI.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, the FBI is definitely a very useful tool to, you know, local police with these Cases. So I'm glad that the FBI is jumping in on both of those because but I'm glad that they found both girls. Right that's crazy.
Speaker 1:There've been a couple of other cases recently where things didn't end up so well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they found the bodies of 15 year old, I would say most, most don't end up like that. So you know.
Speaker 1:My question is the first guy, right. Yeah, so he drives her. He's from Texas, she's from Texas, right, and he drives her to California.
Speaker 2:She's just driving then big city. He was probably gonna kill her. Probably, yeah, I mean don't play the ocean to keep someone for a long time. I think typically that's why you know these pedophiles do kill the people that they assault. Yeah, cuz they just don't want to deal with them anymore. They don't want to risk like Getting in trouble and letting them go, so they just kill them. Isn't that crazy? It's insane.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the girl's mother, who was a mama three. The second girl, the fortune. Yeah, she's a mother of three and she told a local news station and out in Washington state that she believed that her 14-year-old daughter was speaking with someone over social media. Wow, and a couple of kids, her brothers and sisters, saw her speaking to an adult on the computer screen. Oh, so scary. So she said that her daughter reportedly met the guy on a social media platform called oh megal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it was popular back in the day when I was growing up. Really it's like a video chat or just text chat site when you it's like a chat room.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's a chat room. Okay, chat room.
Speaker 2:Yeah, video or just text, like just Back and forth chats right there?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, because I guess one of the children said that they heard her say the name Keith, so they started with that and oh wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good memory Right so wow, and that was his name.
Speaker 1:Keith.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I guess I don't know much about this chat site, but I guess it's very random you can talk with it's literally random.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they match you with the random people all over the world.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's terrifying.
Speaker 2:It is really terrifying and it was really popular to use, like back in the day right, Well right, I had no idea. You even knew about a site like oh, yeah, yeah, no, they were really popular. Yeah, isn't that insane? Like what the hell. And I guess you don't have to register for no. Do you just go on it and chat with random people?
Speaker 1:Well, so in that sense it's tailor-made for pedophiles.
Speaker 2:No, it's not. I think it's made for people to you know, get to know other people all over the world and like learn from each other, but I don't think it's actually made for pedophiles.
Speaker 1:Well it may be not made for, but I mean it's used very much by pedophiles yeah and, as a matter of fact, in November last year it had been Suited by so many people, wow, that had had that exact thing happen, that they, they shut down operations and one of the.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they should have done that a long time ago, because there have been a lot of crimes that have come from Omegle. It's insane. There was another one just like that, though it was Omegle, something else, and I forgot there was someone just like it.
Speaker 1:Well, you remember that. They remember the case of the young girl that was talking with someone. She was gonna meet this young guy that she thought it was, and this was very early on. This was like in the night.
Speaker 2:This was the first one. Yeah, yeah, we did, we did cover that and this was the first of its kind. And they found her.
Speaker 1:Right, right, but but yeah, so that's. That's just so terrible when your home circumstances kind of make you think I wanna leave here, and understandably so in certain times right yeah.
Speaker 2:But also some people do just wanna run away to spite their parents. Literally it happens, I mean. But then there are definitely cases where I understand their desire to leave, like in an abusive household.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:You know it's not healthy. No one wants to be there.
Speaker 1:Well, and that's where an organization like the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children come in right, because they have outreach programs. You know they have the ability to help a child that's in peril. You know whether they're still in the home or whether they're actually on the run. Because so many kids that run away, they had this great plan are they gonna go and be with their friends? They're gonna do this, they're gonna see the country and so on. But it doesn't turn out that way because that requires planning and money and all kind of things, right? So a lot of those kids that do run away for those circumstances even end up on the street.
Speaker 2:Yep, it's horrible, it's so sad, it's, yeah, but you know organizations like that. There are other organizations who focus on, like you know, teen and child homelessness and you know, helping out in cases of abuse in the home, which is really great.
Speaker 1:If you or someone you know is in that sort of a scenario, I would highly recommend the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. They're available 24 and seven many different languages. The telephone number's 1-800-843-5678. That's the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, 1-800-843-5678.
Speaker 2:Follow the show on whatever streaming site you're listening on.
Speaker 1:And remember. All of the source material will be available in the show notes.
Speaker 2:And follow us on Instagram at whatwelewsintheshadows, and let us know if you wanna hear a specific case.
Speaker 1:Or if you just wanna give us some feedback.
Speaker 2:Okay, join us in the shadows next Tuesday. Bye.