MISSING: Bonnie Lee Schultz Part 2

15:47Ashley Flowers:I realized she wasn't there. So then I was trying to find out, again, who she might have been with or a phone number or whatever. But it took me a while to find some stuff around the house. Right. That was really kind of before everybody had a cell phone. Well, actually, she did have a phone. Did she? She did have a cell phone. And again, we tried to call that and got no answer. And I don't remember who the service was with, but for several weeks after that, I called them on a daily basis to see if there had been any activity on the line. Because first of all, they said, well, you have to wait till you get your statement.

16:31Ashley Flowers:I said, well, I don't want to wait a month. then I could explain the situation and then I was calling every day or every other day to see if anything or if anybody had used the phone during the course of that time. It hadn't been used at all. Hold up. Was Detective Byron playing dumb about the cell phone to see what he said or did no one look at the cell until 2007?

16:56Brit Prawat:I'm not sure if she's playing dumb or if she hadn't reviewed like the old notes yet and like wasn't up to speed.

17:01Ashley Flowers:Yeah, but he brings it up. Like, why bring it up if you're lying? Right.

17:06Brit Prawat:Why point it out?

17:07Ashley Flowers:Yeah. And it seems like he's going out of his way to check the cell. Also, he's saying that he called Anita on the fourth and talked to her before he reported Bonnie missing. He didn't call her until the next day, though.

17:18Brit Prawat:Right. So this is a small inconsistency, but this is 10 years later and he's a day off. Like, maybe it's a slip. But to me, it doesn't change the facts that much.

17:28Ashley Flowers:Yeah, but the slip-up does give him the reason to know where the timeout lounge is now, which is what back then they said the big mess-up was.

17:38Brit Prawat:Sure, but I mean, they can just go back and listen to his recorded interview from 97 and then be right back where we started. So to me, it's not like he's fooling anyone. I don't know. We could go round and round and round, so let's just go back to the tape. Okay, and the car?

17:54Ashley Flowers:Never found as far as I can, as far as I know. That's what Sergeant Kelly, Mike Kelly, that's what he said was his biggest surprise. Bodies are much more easy to hide than a big car. So, and that was his biggest surprise after the last time we talked, which I don't even remember when that was, was the efforts that he had gone through to try and find the car. But, uh. And did you ever talk to Sergeant Ryan? Sergeant Ryan. That's actually who I took the case from? You know, I believe I got a phone call at some point in time that he, I think it was a he, had taken the case. And when I moved up here, I called him, got his answering service and said that I was, you know, for job reasons, was moving up here.

18:44Ashley Flowers:And left him, at that point in time, my new office number, because I didn't have the home number yet. When did you move up here? August of 2000. But he never called. It's been at least that long since I've heard from anybody. Right. That was probably kind of shocking when you get my phone call. Yes, because I think I, as I think I told you on the phone conversation, you know, I had a meeting with five or six different people. From the sheriff's department, deputy chief. I'm sorry, the names escaped me. That's okay. Because, you know, I wasn't real happy with the way I was being treated. I mean, I understood, or I still understand, I guess, that I'm a suspect.

19:32Ashley Flowers:But I'll often thought, you know, I'm a victim too. And nobody was telling me anything. Right. And not that I, I mean, I watch too much TV, I know. Not that I expect to get all the inside information, but it would be nice to at least have been told some of what was found out or whatever. But at that point in time, they told me that they had pretty much done everything that they could do. And again, I got assurance from, you know, two or three levels up from the people that I had been talking with that everything was being done that could be done. And that they were just going to wait for something to happen.

20:13Ashley Flowers:Either they find the car or they find Bonnie or somebody comes forward and says I get something or I know something. And if something like that ever happened, they would contact me. Quick pause. I gotta be really honest here. Ten years on, Rick is seeming pretty reasonable.

20:37Brit Prawat:I know.

20:37Ashley Flowers:Like, no one seems to be doing much outside of just thinking he's kind of sus. And they're basically like, well, we hope we find her or her car or someone confesses. And we'll just let you know if that happens.

20:51Brit Prawat:It's very much like a like don't call us. We'll call you vibes.

20:55Ashley Flowers:Yeah. And have they done any actual searches for her or the car? I mean, the past 10 years, like I know the family did. But what about the actual detectives on the case?

21:05Brit Prawat:So they did extensive searching like they did multiple air searches. I know with like a helicopter looking for signs of her car. I know they also did several water searches over the years, but they didn't have sonar back in 1997. So they had to use a police dive team. And when they did that, they didn't find anything. And they did a lot of legwork, too. But all the legwork was very much like around this, like any idea that could help them prove like the Rick did it theory. So they went to all these storage units in the Indianapolis area, I think looking for her car. They checked all of the bus records and cab records, thinking that if Rick got rid of her in her car, he would have had to get a ride back home.

21:46Brit Prawat:But they never found that he was on any bus or took any cab. No storage units either. So going back to the tape, in this interview, they ask Rick what he thought could have happened.

21:59Ashley Flowers:What is your theory? Ten years. What is, what is, what has gone through your mind in ten years? You know, the TV guy, Scott, asked me that over the phone, and it's like, you know, I don't know. I guess, you know, it's as I told him originally. I said, I don't think she would just voluntarily leave, especially her children. If she encountered something that she couldn't get herself out of, I mean, you'd think again, the car would have been found by now. if she had an accident. I mean, the car would have been found right away. So, I mean, I don't know. I don't know how you hide something like that for that long a period of time.

22:46Unless, and I still don't think,

22:48Ashley Flowers:I don't think she voluntarily ran away. And if she did, I don't think she would stay away this long. Right. It'd be pretty hard for someone to conceal herself and a car for this amount of time. But the other thing is, is if somebody took her, how do they hide the car for this long, a period of time? I mean, I watch TV and stuff like that. That's based on real events, but, you know, it gets stretched or whatever. I mean, you could park a car in your garage, but would you leave it, sit there for 10 years and nobody else would see it? That doesn't seem to make any sense. So I don't know. I guess inside, I don't think that she would have voluntarily run away.

23:32Ashley Flowers:So I think, again, either she had too much to drink that night and encountered a situation that she couldn't get herself out of. But what that could be, I don't know.

23:44Brit Prawat:So just like a quick behind the scenes real quick. So in the transcript, the part where he says you could leave it in your garage, but like, would you do that for 10 years and nobody would see it? that is actually highlighted and starred like someone found it important. I don't know who, but it kind of seems like someone was like, ah, maybe he's like slipping up and telling us what he did.

24:03Ashley Flowers:Which like, sure, too bad they didn't look in the garage right after she disappeared. They waited like, what, a decade for that to actually happen?

24:13Brit Prawat:Three years. It was three years when they went back to check. But like, also, there's no way it was in the garage. Gretchen was there. She lived there. Josh was there. He lived there. Yeah, her family, Bonnie's family. came the next week. Like they're all driving around the cars that they had. And I don't know. Again, I don't know what it means. I only brought it up because I feel like it just gives you a little bit of context and a sense that I think that they might have come into this interview with a strong opinion. And this is really, you know, what Josh has been saying, that all the work that they're willing to do is to try to look at Rick, try to get Rick to slip up.

24:42Brit Prawat:And it doesn't seem like they're really looking for other investigative avenues, even 10 years later when she and the car still haven't been found. um and there were some marital problems right yeah there was uh and who doesn't i mean what

24:59Ashley Flowers:what marriage is without problems what were the issues do you remember you know i i spent a lot of time thinking about that over the years and um you know bonnie i think and again in thinking back You know, she changed quite a bit after her mother died. Her mother died two years before this happened, I believe. And she died of some type of cancer. But, I mean, it was two months after being diagnosed. Oh, it was quick. I think it hit her pretty hard. And then I started getting things, you know, we don't have anything in common. And I was comparing again over the years. That's what I saw in her parents.

25:46Ashley Flowers:Her mother was a genealogy person, and her dad was a fisherman and stuff like that. They had nothing in common. And I said, well, we're not unlike anybody else. I mean, we each have our own interests, but what we have in common is the family. And it just seemed like she just started getting more and more unhappy with lots of things. She said a couple of times she wasn't happy because her family didn't come to visit her often enough. She always had to go see them. And just, she had changed. And again, I don't know if it was her mother or she just became unhappy with me or life in general. But she just things that didn't bother her before seem to start bothering her.

26:45Ashley Flowers:Did she ever talk about suicide? Never. Never? Again, she talked about thinking about wanting to get a divorce. I said, well, you know, you should. There should be some intermediate steps. between going from I'm unhappy to a divorce, which is what I was trying to talk her into before she disappeared. And she seemed to be listening to that after a while. You know, we had a fairly long conversation that night before she left about if we did divorce, what would happen? She wanted to keep the kids and the house, and I said, well, I don't know if I can do that.

27:23Brit Prawat:Now he goes on to say some of the same things he did in 1997. That financially, he didn't know if they could swing two places, but he was willing to try. Like his gesture to see if she wouldn't completely throw in the towel. He reiterates that they weren't shouting that night. Nothing got out of control. They were out on the front porch in the view of Gretchen inside and close to other neighbors. They don't live out in the country. They like lived in a subdivision. So at this point in the interview, that's when Detective Byron asks him about Bonnie's affair. Point blank. It's 10 years later. Was Bonnie having an affair?

28:00Ashley Flowers:Not that I know of.

28:02Brit Prawat:Not that you know of?

28:03Ashley Flowers:I'm sure you've heard that over the years. Several people have asked, but not that I know of. And you didn't remarry? No. Over the 10 years? No. Gone about on a few dates, but it just doesn't feel right. Still that hope. Really? Tell me about that. I'm hoping she'll come back. It's not very likely, but I hate to give up hope. Has this been weighing on you for the last six weeks? I mean, not to mention ten years, but has it? No. Has my phone call brought it to service again? No. No? Because it's always there. It never goes away. You know, the kids are, you know, Gretchen's out on her own, more or less.

28:51Ashley Flowers:Josh works or whatever. He's gone. I'm sitting here with the dog at night and, you know, that's it. It never goes away. And, yeah, we haven't sat down and had a face-to-face contact with anybody outside of the three of us for a long time. But, again, I, you know, I've been up here for six and a half years. I haven't had any desire to date anybody or whatever in that period of time. Went out a couple of times when I was in Indy, right? Not right away, but after a while. But it just wasn't right. And I still feel that way. It's like, you know, you just do what you have to to get by day by day. And I know I had nothing to do with her disappearance, so that's what gets me through day by day.

29:50Ashley Flowers:I would love to know what happened. And sometimes I'm leery about wanting to find out how it happened, because I don't know if I want to know the details. But I would sure like to know what happened. When you say the details, what do you mean? Well, I mean, if somebody murdered her, I don't know what. I want to know all of the details. Okay. You know, did she suffer? That type of stuff. I don't even know that stuff. I'm not a tabloid type of person or whatever. I mean, I watch the major news events or whatever, but the gory details don't really interest me, like the Virginia Tech stuff. I mean, obviously you want to know that stuff is going on, but the tapes or whatever that were released, which I never did see, I don't really need to know all that type of stuff.

30:46Ashley Flowers:But, again, I think we all like to know what happened, but how or I'm not sure who. We'd like to know who if something like that did happen. That's the most difficult part of it all is not knowing what happened. The lack of closure. Although, you know, I've thought about that over the years, too. I don't know that there, in a situation like this, that there ever is closure. I think there's, again, you know what? Resolution? Yeah. And close. I know what most people mean. When they say closure, it gives you, you know what happened. And I guess going forward from there and dealing with that is easier than what we've been dealing with for 10 years.

31:37And that's, we don't know what.

31:41Ashley Flowers:is there anything you found out that you can tell me or us? No, not yet. Like I said, I was just recently reassigned to the case. So I'm starting over looking at it with fresh eyes. So I'm in the process right now sorting through everything and seeing what I can do. So unfortunately, no, I don't really think I have anything new to tell you. I wish I did. I'm confident that this case can be resolved. I do believe that. What is that based on?

32:15Brit Prawat:Detective Byra basically just says, based on the facts of the case, she thinks it's solvable and everyone deserves that, especially Bonnie's family, her kids. She wants them to know that their mom didn't leave them. And then she hard pivots back to the morning of July 4th, asking what his first thoughts were. But he just says more of the same that he said back in 97.

32:39Ashley Flowers:It does feel like he's a little all over the map, though. Like, he said earlier in the interview that he doesn't believe that she just walked off, that she had to have encountered some kind of situation that she just couldn't get herself out of. But then he talks about her, like, maybe coming back someday, even if that's, like, some slim possibility.

32:57Brit Prawat:But maybe we're just getting a bite-sized version of what his mind has been doing for the last 10 years. Like families of the missing say that ambiguous loss is the hardest. Without knowing what happened, everything is a possibility. And listen, I'm not out here trying to be like the defender of Rick. I'm just saying that like I've gone back and forth more times than I can even count on cases we've covered over the last eight years. I've gone back and forth more times than I can count on this very case alone over the last few months. And I'm not the one living with it day in and day out. But like Rick, this is something he actually says.

33:31Brit Prawat:He tells Detective Byron he is living it every single day. He and the kids still talk about her. He sees things all the time that remind him of Bonnie. And he is much more emotional, he says, as he's gotten older. Just very sentimental. And it's at that point that Detective Byron brings the conversation back to a more focused question. She asks Rick if there is anything that he thinks she should know. And it's not new information that he brings up. He's like, you know, I'm pretty frustrated with Detective Mike Kelly. He was the OG detective. Because apparently he went on a local TV segment about Bonnie's case and talked about her leaving the bar the same time as that John guy we talked about.

34:14Brit Prawat:But he's like, that's how I had to find out about this John guy Mike Kelly never told me.

34:21Ashley Flowers:Oh, it was on a TV show. That's what bothered me is why he felt he could disclose that on, what was it, national TV on TV. but he never felt that he should tell me that beforehand because again i kept calling and asking if if he was coming up with anything or whatever obviously i was curious and wanted to know but he for the longest time he wouldn't call me back and that's what kind of triggered my i think i wrote a letter to the sheriff saying you know i just don't think i'm being treated right Again, from my naivety, and I just thought people should at least be telling me what's going on. But as far as what I can tell you, it's like I said.

35:05Ashley Flowers:She left home that night at 8.30, and I haven't heard or seen a thing from her since then.

35:12Brit Prawat:Now, at first, this was like one of the only things I couldn't wrap my head around from his whole second interview. Was this like time when he's asked if he thought Bonnie was having an affair, and he says he doesn't think so. because it seems like such a big part of the narrative now. But maybe he really had no idea. I mean, remember, her friend Anita and John, I mean, they clearly knew. I mean, John's in the affair with her, but they're not talking to Rick. And if I go back to news reports from those very early days, even early years, an affair is not mentioned. So it's possible he really was in the dark, even when police weren't.

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39:08Brit Prawat:Now, a year after that interview with Rick, the case ends up getting transferred again to a new lead detective, Sergeant Daniel Kisner, who he's the one who we talked to for this episode. And he and another detective decide to go back up to Michigan in 2008. And in that time, they did a nearly seven-hour interview with Rick. Now, we don't have the transcript of that one, and Sergeant Kistner wouldn't give it to us, but he told us that Rick had vivid memories of his whole life, except for the weeks leading up to Bonnie's disappearance. He kept saying that he couldn't recall many of the details, and Sergeant Kistner said that the interview got pretty tense when he called him on it and suggested that he knew more.

39:52Brit Prawat:And after that, IMPD ended up getting a search warrant for Rick's place up in Michigan. And they collected all the electronic devices in the house. And Sergeant Kistner says they were also looking for that number one mom necklace, which now all these years later was nowhere to be found.

40:06Ashley Flowers:So they take these devices. What were they looking for on them? Because I assume that like they weren't the same phones or computers they had in 97.

40:14Brit Prawat:Literally anything. I mean, Sergeant Kistner said they were looking for anything that could have like had a connection to Bonnie's disappearance, like maybe in messages. in documents or browser search history. Sergeant Kisner says they did find out that Rick was keeping an eye on local Indianapolis news, but not for anything specific. And they didn't find anything else that could have been connected to Bonnie's disappearance. So nothing comes of that search. And Josh told us that IMPD returned their computers and phones a couple of years later, but they returned everything broken. and, and this is the real kicker to me, I get why the relationship is strained between them and police because I guess when they were doing the search of the house, they found like a tiny amount of weed when they were searching in Josh's room or somewhere on Josh, whatever.

41:03Brit Prawat:And he legit got charged for it. Sergeant Kistner said that he had no idea that happened. He said that would have been done by like Michigan police and he never would have done that. He was just there to find out what happened to Bonnie. Like he wouldn't have had any interest in busting a kid for weed.

41:16Ashley Flowers:Listen, I'm not saying the police are wrong about their theory, but I genuinely still don't know what I think. But I fully get why the kids would be frustrated with them. Like this whole scenario that's unfolding feels really frustrated and pointed and not backed by much.

41:35Brit Prawat:Yeah. And like at least from the way that Rick tells it, like or from what I've seen from his transcripts, right? Like he's the one asking for updates and not getting much. Josh and his dad and relatives are the ones out there searching for the whole weekend before the sheriff's office put anyone on the case. They are learning stuff through the media. And now even the kids are treated like criminals. And Josh's wife, Crystal, told us that part of the reason Gretchen doesn't like talking to people is because they always accuse her of knowing more. That, like, she was in the house that night. And, you know, maybe it's not as big as her covering up for something, but that she has to have like some secret piece of information locked away in her brain about whether her dad left the house that night or if she heard her mom come home and something happened.

42:15Brit Prawat:And listen, we heard this from multiple sources in our reporting. We heard it from investigators, even their own uncle, Mike. But this is where I'm saying, just like, hold on for one second. I get so many things look bad. But for one second, if we kept an open mind, if we believed Gretchen, that she doesn't know anything more. Her mom left. She went to bed. When she woke up, her mom wasn't there, but her dad was and everything was normal. What if there is nothing more to tell? What if we don't know what happened to Bonnie because her family truly doesn't know and that is the only place anyone has really looked?

42:50So, remember Diane?

42:52Brit Prawat:Bonnie's like neighbor, friend or like who lived close to her? Yeah. She was one of the people who instantly became suspicious of Rick. This is, can I tell you something spooky that happened? Always. It was my like full body chills when I was going through the file and like all of the interviews. So losing her friend and never knowing what happened, obviously, it's just something that never left her. And when our reporter was interviewing her, she said that over the years at like all different stages of life, she had gone to mediums, three different ones, all separate. And each one told her the same thing.

43:27Brit Prawat:They all said, it's not who you think that did it.

43:32Ashley Flowers:What? What is that?

43:33Brit Prawat:Maybe nothing. What does that mean? I know.

43:36Ashley Flowers:If not, because she thinks, like she said, as soon as.

43:39Brit Prawat:She's always thought that. She's always thought it's right. And listen, even, she's asking the same question I like you started to ask because she was like. If not him, then who? Yes. She's like, if not him, then who? If it's some random person, you don't need to make her car and her purse and her credit cards and all that disappear. Yeah. Diane thinks it had to be someone she knew, which is why she just like kept coming back to Rick, then kept going to mediums who kept saying she was wrong.

44:01Ashley Flowers:Like, I mean, OK, but what if it is someone she knew, just someone else? Yeah, what if? Or an accident.

44:09Brit Prawat:Or what if she walked off? Like, I know it's almost unheard of, but recently I came across the case of Brenda Heist. I was not familiar with this before, but her daughter reached out to me. and she is who I've had in the back of my head as I've been telling this story because I know the easy answer is the husband. But it wasn't that way in her case. Brenda, very much the same scenario. She was divorcing her husband and on the day she disappeared, she was supposed to go look at apartments after dropping her kids off at school and then she just vanished. And just like Rick, her daughter told us that her dad lived under suspicion for years.

44:45Brit Prawat:Everyone said Brenda would never leave her kids. She has to be dead. And then guess what? 11 years later, Brenda was found alive and well. She just left. Didn't plan it. Just like that morning said, you know what? I'm going to start over. And sure, yes, accident is still an option too. But accident feels less likely the more bodies of water that are searched over the years. Which bodies of water is like what people have always said. Like it had to have been a body of water that she went into. And that's why the car has never been found. But the currently detective on the case, Nicholas Hubbs, says that there have been more than 20 water searches for Bonnie's car in the past 10 years.

45:23Brit Prawat:Lots with sonar now that they have it, including some done by a private group. And while cars have been found, none of them are Bonnie's blue 1990 Mercury Sable with plate number 99G9645. But I have to wonder, are we like making a wrong assumption there?

45:42Ashley Flowers:About what?

45:43Brit Prawat:about the car being in water because like on its face you read about this case and it's like oh like her car you know it was entered into like whatever whatever database the license plate or the vin number it's never popped up so like it has to be in water because that's why nobody's ever found it maybe not so i was shocked when i talked to josh and we learned that investigators actually messed up in 1997 now he's telling us this and we're like there's no let's double check

46:13Ashley Flowers:Yeah.

46:13Brit Prawat:Turns out he's right. You see, the way it used to work in 1997 was that an officer would make the report, make a phone call to the autodesk to have a vehicle entered into NCIC. And it would either get entered as stolen or they would give information to have someone entered as missing. So it looks like in Bonnie's case, when a deputy called it in here, they only entered Bonnie as missing. Now, they noted that her car was gone too, but I don't think they actually entered the vehicle into the system at the same time. It wasn't until some point in 1999 when another detective comes across this case and is doing all of his, like, checks and balances that he discovers the vehicle is not in the system as missing or stolen.

46:54Brit Prawat:Now, when this was realized, they were able to go back and see if any agency had run the plate in the missing two years. But no one had. But to me, it also means that maybe no one was actively looking out for it, which the detective admitted to us was a missed opportunity.

47:12Ashley Flowers:So if the plate is never run, then the car is hidden somehow, right?

47:18Brit Prawat:Which is why I think people keep coming back to water. But like, I don't know, I just like, but we know it's not in the water. So like if it's an accident, I just have a hard time believing the accident thing. Like when you think about the route from the bar to her home, it's not a super rural area. An accident on land would have been noticed in like almost all the routes she went home. And the bodies of water on her way home have been searched. So like someone hid the thing. Okay, so let's just play this out. So like that's not an accident to me. You know what I mean?

47:50Ashley Flowers:Let's just play this out for a second. How would Rick get rid of his wife's body and car in like kind of a short amount of time? We're talking about like, what, four or five hours maybe?

48:01Brit Prawat:This is what I'm saying. Show me how it happened. Like the easy answer is a body of water. That's why everyone keeps talking about water. But which one? I don't know if anyone's been to Indy recently. Like we don't just have like massive remote bodies of water.

48:14Ashley Flowers:Not really known for mass bodies of water. Yeah.

48:16Brit Prawat:We have like plenty of little ones all over, but most of them aren't open access. There are like houses around them where people would see. You might even see tire tracks that would stand out. Or there's like guardrails if the water is close to the road. And like I said, the ones that have places that you could easily drive something into between Broad Ripple, that area, and her house, those have been searched.

48:37Ashley Flowers:Okay, but again, the focus is on the area between the bar and her house. The person we have saying she was headed to her house was the guy she was having an affair with, right? Yeah. But that's how we know she's going, no, in air quotes.

48:55Brit Prawat:Everything is based on that. And investigators, they've always said they deem him credible and not involved in her disappearance. But I mean, since I don't have their records, I don't know all the ins and outs of why, other than the fact that they say he passed a polygraph. And unfortunately, he died in 2006, so we couldn't talk to him now. But we did get in touch with John's daughter, Kim. And what she told us was brand new information to us and to investigators when we passed it along to them. So she was 16 back in 1997. She didn't live in Indy. She actually lived in Texas with her mother. But by some stroke of cold case luck, she was visiting Indianapolis to see her dad that 4th of July weekend.

49:41Brit Prawat:She told us that her dad was actually planning to introduce her to Bonnie at an outdoor concert on the 4th called Uncle Sam Jam. I guess the concert had one of her favorite bands, the Barenaked Ladies. We actually checked this. The concert did happen that weekend. So she is spot on. And she said that her dad hadn't introduced her to other women. And so she took this as him.

50:01Ashley Flowers:This was big.

50:02Brit Prawat:Yeah, this was like he's like very smitten with her. She knew. But she says that Friday, Bonnie never showed up. And she remembered her dad getting really worried and him saying that this wasn't like her. She said it pretty much ruined the entire day because he seemed so worried about it.

50:17Ashley Flowers:Wait, I thought John gets told that she's missing on Saturday by Anita.

50:23Brit Prawat:That is what John told police, yeah.

50:25Ashley Flowers:But his daughter is saying that he knew something was wrong on Friday.

50:27Brit Prawat:Yes. Now, it's not like he could call her house or show up to get her, right? Like they're having a secret affair.

50:35Ashley Flowers:But she had a cell.

50:36Brit Prawat:Like he could have called her. So, and this is the thing. Kim told us that she thinks he did try her cell, but he couldn't reach her, which brings me back to those cell phone records. Yes, it feels even more likely to me that no activity means that, like, calls didn't connect. Not that no one tried calling.

50:55Ashley Flowers:But why didn't he try calling Anita or anything, though? Like, there were other people that he spent time with that knew Bonnie that he could have...

51:02Brit Prawat:Like, seen what happened?

51:03Ashley Flowers:Yeah, like, have you heard from her? Whatever.

51:05Brit Prawat:I've thought about this. The innocent explanation, which I do think is very believable, is that he didn't think that she was like missing, missing. I mean, he knew things at home were tough. She was about to leave her husband. He might have just assumed that things got complicated at home. But the thing that I can't wrap my head around is in that scenario, though, why not tell police that you were supposed to meet her on Friday and she didn't show up?

51:31Ashley Flowers:Yeah, that feels like kind of a big piece of like the timeline puzzle, right?

51:36Brit Prawat:When we told Sergeant Kistner about this, he said he had never heard anything about Bonnie not showing up to meet John at the concert on Friday. And he doesn't know why John wouldn't have mentioned that. And like this was one of the moments where he's like, you know, it's really frustrating to have come on to this case so many years after when it's already too late to get questions answered from John, who again died in 2006. Now, he said he did go door knocking at one point and talk to one of John's good friends. And this was recently just about a year ago. The guy's name is Brad Beach. And Brad told him that John took Bonnie's disappearance really hard.

52:10Brit Prawat:Kistner said that Brad told him that John carried guilt, that he should have followed her home or like he should have done something to protect her. Like we tried talking to Brad ourselves, but we never got a response. We also reached out to Kim's two half brothers, who are John's sons from a previous relationship, but neither of them responded to our messages. So we really only had Kim to talk to about who her dad was. And I mean, she said that he was, quote, a drinker even before Bonnie went missing. So she doesn't know, like, how much Bonnie's disappearance impacted him in the following months and years.

52:41Brit Prawat:Because really after that, they didn't talk often.

52:43Ashley Flowers:Was she staying with him, though, that night? Like, can she at least confirm that he came home and was there after he, like, said he waved goodbye to Bonnie?

52:52Brit Prawat:No, she actually stayed with a different family member while she was in town. Which, like, listen, I'm not saying that John's story isn't true or that he had anything to do with Bonnie going missing. What I'm saying is, like, the double standard is wild. Like, you have John with no one to verify his story. And you have Rick, who has his daughter at home saying nothing happened. And Rick's the liar. John might have called Bonnie on Friday. We know Rick says that he did. But there's no activity on her phone. But Rick is the liar. Like, it doesn't seem fair. Right. Now, we also tried talking to Anita because, like, I have a million questions for that woman.

53:29Brit Prawat:But she ignored us. Know who else she ignored? Bonnie's kids. Josh said that he has tried a bunch of different times to talk to Anita over the years, like even reached out to her daughter and said that she pretty much just hung up on him. And I was talking about this with one of our reporters and they were like, well, you know, she made it clear to detectives that she was suspicious of Rick. She's always thought that the kids were very much on his side. So, like, maybe she wouldn't want to talk to them. OK, I get it. Maybe. But then I found out that Diane tried to reach out to her, too. I mean, everyone right now is looking for answers and clues.

54:05Brit Prawat:And the same way people are like, oh, Gretchen must know something. I think everyone wants to talk to Anita, thinking there's some hidden clue, like, locked away in her brain if they can dissect every word Bonnie said that night or her exact movements, like, whatever. So Diane got Anita's name from one of the detectives. She called her and she's like, hey, I know everything about Bonnie and Rick and what was going on.

54:27Ashley Flowers:And Diane's like, at this point, still pretty hardcore. Yeah.

54:30Brit Prawat:But she's like, I would love to know more about what happened before Bonnie came to the party that night. And this is what Anita told her. I would never betray her trust. And Diane's like, no, like, you don't understand. Like, I want to know so we can figure out.

54:46Ashley Flowers:She trusted me too. We're on the same team.

54:48Brit Prawat:I want to know if Rick's involved and maybe this will help. And her response was, I would never tell anything about Bonnie to anyone. What? Listen, girl, if I am missing and there is even a chance that I did not walk away and someone killed me, spill my secrets. Like, what are we doing here? You know I love to yap.

55:07Ashley Flowers:You don't have to worry. But, like, is Bonnie gonna know you shared something? Right. And sharing it, again, like, with another friend of hers that she was clearly confiding in. Like, again, like I said, like, she trusted me too. We're on the same team. Right. Feels like the safest person. And, like, also someone who can identify with what you're feeling, like, as someone who, like, has their friend missing. And, like, they confided in you. They trusted you.

55:34Brit Prawat:It's really odd. I don't know if Anita still feels this way almost 30 years later. But again, like, I mean, to us, she definitely didn't seem to want to talk about Bonnie even now. And if you want to say she's scared or whatever, Rick died in 2022. So if she was keeping quiet because she was afraid of him, that shouldn't be a problem anymore. And I don't know if it was ever a real problem to begin with, because I did a thing.

56:00Ashley Flowers:I know the thing you did, but I don't actually know what came of it yet. So I'm actually like dying to hear.

56:07Brit Prawat:So, okay. So as some of our listeners may know, I have become friends with Alison Dubois over the last like year or so. And some people will recognize her name because of the show Medium. That's based off her life and the actual work that she did to help law enforcement solve cases. That's what I knew her from. Some people will know her from Real Housewives where she was the guest at an epic dinner party and predicted the downfall of a marriage. We all love her for different reasons. Anyway, something in this case just really stood out to me. So that moment where I read the transcript of what Diane told our reporter, or I listened to it as well, but she's telling our reporter that over the years she went to three different mediums and all three said the same thing.

56:48Brit Prawat:It's not who you think. So I got this idea. I know a medium. Yeah. What if I asked the medium? I know. I know. Listen, guys, I know it doesn't prove anything. But like, I don't know. What if? It's 30 years on. Like, what do we have to lose? Police are only looking at Rick. I'll try anything at this point. So I first asked Josh if it would be OK. He gave us his permission. So I flew Allison out to Indy and I had her do a reading. And let me preface this by telling you how she works. When she came to Indy, she had no idea what case we were going to talk about. There is no way she would have known.

57:25Brit Prawat:Even if she would have known. Like, there's, like, very little. This is the most in-depth story that's ever been done on Bonnie's case. So when she does a reading, what I give her is someone's picture and their first name. Not, like, a picture of them and their family or, like, I mean, just them and their first name. So she takes it. She goes into a room. And, like, we had cameras and stuff. Like, she does, like, this, like, weird scribble thing or whatever. and she's able to make a connection, which I asked her before, I'm like, hey, if someone's missing.

57:56Ashley Flowers:Like, what do you get if someone's missing? Yeah, and she's like,

57:59Brit Prawat:I cannot connect if they are not dead. So the fact that she was able to make a connection told me that Bonnie is not out there alive and well somewhere. Now, when she started talking about Bonnie, she said that she was very nurturing. She would have never walked away and whatever happened to her wasn't an accident either. Someone targeted her and it was someone she did not know. What? Girl, I'm telling you, I did not tell her anything about Bonnie's family or husband or kids or affair. She knew nothing about her life, but she said that someone had been watching her.

58:32Ashley Flowers:And isn't that something that John had mentioned?

58:34Brit Prawat:Mm-hmm. Everyone has always just assumed that someone is Rick. Yeah. But when she's telling me this, and again, I'm not even like at this point confirming for her anything.

58:41Ashley Flowers:You're just listening.

58:42Brit Prawat:Yeah, but she's saying that this person who was watching her targeted her And she said this was someone who has a record for burglary. She said he lived nearby Bonnie, but not in a house, which was like very specific. And she thinks her remains are more likely in a wooded area, somewhere with walking paths. And she kept saying that she kept seeing this scene where there were birds flying over this wooded area near a housing development. That she said was, it was built up, but it still had some homes under construction. which sent me into like a property record spiral because I was like, okay, where would have been wooded in 97 with houses being built, but still undeveloped almost 30 years later?

59:25Brit Prawat:Long story short, my best guess is the Eagle Creek area. It's like a big city park.

59:31Ashley Flowers:There's tons of walking paths.

59:32Brit Prawat:And that's like on the west side, like out where she would have lived. And I did this kind of like vague call out on social media a few weeks ago about like asking people to send me housing developments that would have been under construction around like late 1997, early 1998. And to be honest with you, I don't even like know my next steps or what searching these areas would entail. I know at a minimum, I think I'll be doing a lot of hiking when the weather warms up.

59:57Ashley Flowers:So if it really is someone that Bonnie didn't know, not Rick, not John, how does this person encounter her? Because John waves goodbye to her while she's in her car headed home.

1:00:09Brit Prawat:So I have this like kind of theory and I kind of talked it out eventually with Allison after she did her whole reading because one of the things she said in her reading before she knew anything was that she was like seeing someone walking in between the homes. Like she's like Bonnie keeps showing me someone walking in between the homes. And I wonder if she did make it home but not inside. I think about them sitting on the porch having this talk about their marriage. They're trying to like not probably not be around Gretchen and have her hear everything. Not in the house. Right. But if they're sitting outside, she's telling Rick outside what her plan is.

1:00:47Brit Prawat:She's going to like go away. She's not going to be home till late. So say there was somebody who had seen her, targeted, watched her. I mean, if they were there earlier, they know that she is going to be alone pulling into the drive very late at night, early morning hours. If they were following her somewhere else, they see her pull in. There is a world where she gets attacked in her driveway. And yes, there are houses very close. But if it is swift, if it is quick.

1:01:13Ashley Flowers:And it happens in her car and he leaves with it.

1:01:16Brit Prawat:He leaves with it. What like.

1:01:18Ashley Flowers:How would you know? How would anyone know?

1:01:19Brit Prawat:It's not like she has to stop. It's like she made it almost all the way to like, again, this is just nothing to base this on.

1:01:25Ashley Flowers:Her car stops in the driveway of her own volition. He's not flagging her down. She doesn't have to pull over. It's where she's supposed to be stopping.

1:01:31Brit Prawat:Right. And so as the conversations kept going with Allison, there's like, there's so much more that she told me, but I'm trying to keep it brief. But I did eventually give her Rick's picture because he died too. And like, she was like, this man, no, she's like, he is not violent. She's like, he is a perfectionist. He probably could be verbally like mean to Bonnie, but he has never killed anyone in his whole life. And listen, I know people are going to think whatever they want to think of this. I believe in stuff like this. Some people will not. And that's OK. The thing that I like think about though is Allison aside, if that's true, if Rick did nothing, it would be really sad to think that he had to live the rest of his life painted as a murderer by so many people.

1:02:18Brit Prawat:He never got remarried. He said he thought about Bonnie all the time. I don't know. And listen, you guys, I'm serious. There is so much more that Allison said about Bonnie. But again, I realize there's skeptics. I'm trying to keep it brief. So if you want to hear the whole thing, even the stuff that I gave her a moment to say, does she have anything to say to her son? I mean, it was fascinating. I'm going to drop the entire conversation as a fan club extra for anyone who's interested. Again, I'm just trying to give you the big takeaways here. But I will leave you with something else that gives me like little tiny chills.

1:02:53Brit Prawat:Like I've always seen about the critics. They're like, oh, Ashley, Irel. And like, I know it's a little bit generic, but it was like the last little like moment I had when putting together this episode. So I asked our reporter, like, as I'm finishing up, like, hey, go to Josh. See if he has just any final thoughts that he wants to share when we close out our episode. At the same time, I was about to go like do my stuff with Alison Dubois. You know, it's different places, different times, whatever. So I go do my thing with Allison. And when I ask her to, like, say, does she have anything to say to her son?

1:03:21Brit Prawat:And the first line out of Allison's mouth was, she said he never stopped looking for me. And then she called him baby boy. She said a bunch more stuff or whatever. And so I come back to finish, you know, the outline for this episode. And the first line I get in my note from the reporter was, Josh has never given up searching for his mom.

1:03:39Ashley Flowers:Oh, my God.

1:03:40Brit Prawat:Chill. Like, and it's, it is a true statement. Although he and his wife Crystal moved to Florida in 2023, they worked with dive teams before they left. They were looking for any sign of Bonnie. They scoured maps for any bodies of water that could be hidden or that could hide a car. Now, one place he says he hasn't been able to search are quarries north of Indianapolis, but he's not even sure if there would be access to put a car in the water there. He says not knowing what happened to his mom has been brutal. It has made it harder for him to trust people, and it's only compounded by the unanswered questions of whether his father, his own father, was involved in her disappearance.

1:04:19Brit Prawat:Now, Josh doesn't believe that he was. He doesn't think that his father was capable of that kind of violence and he thinks that if he had done something, like the guilt would have eaten away at him. He thinks someone else out there might hold the answers and he hopes that one day they'll come forward to give him and his family the relief of finally laying Bonnie to rest. And I don't know, I really do believe that there's hope for that. So if anyone out there has information about Bonnie's disappearance or her missing vehicle, please contact the current lead detective, that's Detective Nicholas Hubbs, at Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department.

1:04:56Brit Prawat:The phone number is 317-327-6160. Or you can email us, tips at audiochuck.com.

1:05:18Brit Prawat:You can find all the source material for this episode on our website, CrimeJunkie.com.

1:05:23Ashley Flowers:And you can follow us on Instagram at Crime Junkie Podcast.

1:05:26Brit Prawat:We'll be back next week with a brand new episode.

1:06:05Brit Prawat:Crime Junkie is an Audio Chuck production. I think Chuck would approve.

1:06:14Brit Prawat:Some cases fade from headlines. Some never made it there to begin with. I'm Ashley Flowers, and on my podcast, The Deck, I tell you the stories of cold cases featured on playing cards distributed in prisons designed to spark new leads and bring long overdue justice. Because these stories deserve to be heard, and the loved ones of these victims still deserve answers. Are you ready to be dealt in? Listen to The Deck now, wherever you get your podcasts.