Angela Hammond

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1:59Voices for Justice is a podcast that uses adult language and discusses sensitive and potentially triggering topics, including violence, abuse, and murder. This podcast may not be appropriate for younger audiences. All parties are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Some names have been changed or omitted per their request or for safety purposes. Listener discretion is advised. My name is Sarah Turney, and this is Voices for Justice.

2:31Today I'm discussing the case of Angela Hammond. Out of the over 1 ,300 segments of Unsolved Mysteries co-creator Terry Dunmuir helped produce, when asked to create a list of his top 10 creepiest episodes, he named Angela's case as number one. In 2020, he told Vulture, quote, Random crimes tend to be the scariest. The ones that frighten me the most are when these people are doing everything right. All she's doing is talking to her boyfriend on a payphone. She's not engaging in any kind of risky behavior or anything. Then suddenly, this happens. End quote. This is the case of Angela Hammond. On the night of Thursday, April 4th, 1991, 20-year-old Angela Hammond was doing what a lot of young adults here in the U.S.

3:21tend to do on any given boring night. especially in smaller towns like Clinton, Missouri. She was just driving around in her friend's car listening to music and talking. Earlier that day, she'd gone to a barbecue at her mom's house with her fiancé, 18-year-old Rob Schaefer. Angela and Rob met at the end of 1990. She was very well-liked and popular, and he was a star athlete. They fell in love, got pregnant, and then in 1991, Rob proposed, promising to take care of Angela forever. Angela worked nights at a bank. and Rob had plans to advance through the military. They even managed to get their own home.

3:58By all accounts, it seems both Rob and Angela were really excited about creating this new life together, and their families were happy for them. After the barbecue, around 10pm, Angela drops Rob off at his parents' house so he could watch his younger brother. Then she drove to the nearby food barn about seven blocks away, where she parked her car and was picked up by her best friend Kyla. The plan was for Rob to come meet her in town after his mom got home and he was officially relieved of his babysitting duties. But at four months along, the pregnancy was weighing on Angela. After driving around town for about two hours, she's ready to call it a night.

4:36So Kyla drops Angela back off at her car in the Food Barn parking lot at the corner of 2nd and Jefferson around 11pm. Angela doesn't have a home phone, so she uses one of the payphones at Food Barn to call Rob and tell him that she's canceling their plans and just going home for the night. Angela calls Rob at 11.15pm, and as expected, he's at his parents' house watching his younger brother. Angela tells Rob she's too tired to stay out, and Rob says he understands. They end up talking for about 20 minutes. Then, Angela tells Rob that a strange truck is circling the block. She describes it as a green, older model Ford pickup truck.

5:13Angela is aware, but not really concerned. But then the truck pulls up next to the phone booth. As this is happening, Angela is describing what the driver looks like to rob. A white, very dirty-looking male, possibly in his 20s or 30s, with a mustache, beard, and glasses. And he's wearing overalls. She also describes more about the truck, saying it has a transparent decal that covers the entire back window. It's basically just a fish jumping out of water. The man then uses the phone next to Angela, gets back in his truck, and begins looking for something with a flashlight. Now again, Angela's describing all of this to Rob as it's happening over the phone.

5:55And at this point, Rob tells her to just turn around and ask the guy if he needs to use the phone, thinking maybe the other phone was broken. So Angela asks. but the man said no, he was just going to try to make his call again in a few minutes. At this point, Rob just offers to go down there. He's only 7 blocks away but Angela says no, it's fine and they just continue their conversation. Then it happens. Rob hears Angela scream and what he assumes is the receiver hitting the side of the phone booth. Rob says that in that moment, he didn't even think. He just dropped the phone, got into the car, and started driving right toward Angela.

6:35On his way to the payphone, he sees what looks like a yellow truck speeding toward him in the opposite lane, and a woman struggling in the front seat. When they pass by each other, he hears Angela yelling, So Rob slams into reverse, turns around, and follows the truck for about two miles. But when it makes a sharp right turn, Rob tries to make the same turn, and feels the car start to die. And then the transmission fails. He comes to a complete stop, and just watches the truck, Angela, and his unborn baby get further and further away from him. He says from here, all he sees are brake lights and dust.

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10:09Now, we don't know a lot about how her car or the scene was processed, or what if any evidence was taken and retained. But we do know that her purse was still on the seat. And after searching the car, the only items identified as missing appeared to be her keys and her driver's license. Which, according to Angela's father, Chris Hammond, she was known to keep in her pocket. Right off the bat, it doesn't seem like burglary was the motive. Which means detectives had to act fast. Who was driving that truck and where are they now? When they went to look for registrations of similar trucks, they found 1 ,600 potential matches.

10:48So they knew this wasn't something they were going to solve that night. By the time the news about Angela got around the next day, people were terrified. Angela's family had been in Clinton, Missouri for three generations. Clinton was the definition of a small American farm town. The population was just under 9 ,000, and they'd just never had anything as horrific as this happened before. Angela's mom, Marcia Cook, told the Kansas City Star that Angela probably didn't even know enough to be afraid of this man when he approached her. But despite this immense shock and fear in the community, they came together to help.

11:27On Sunday, around 250 volunteers searched the woods and fields of Clinton and Henry County for Angela. Though nothing of note was found, Marcia said that she was touched by how many people came out to help, saying you just don't realize how many friends you have until something like this happens. Overall, the searches for Angela were extensive. Officers and volunteers searched by land, air, and water. Residents were also asked to search old barns, sheds, and abandoned buildings on their property. But when those searches slowed down and eventually stopped, Both of Angela's parents kept going for weeks.

12:06Angela's father, Chris, told the Olay the Daily News, quote, We searched creek beds, all old houses, barns, and wells every day from daylight to dark. After two weeks of doing that, the leads started drying up. While the community was more than willing to lend resources or just a helping hand to help find Angela, rumors began to swirl about what could have happened to her. And we know how these things go. Rob is her fiancé and the last person to have seen her. The story of what happened to Angela was also just so insanely horrific that people had a hard time believing it. By April 11th, the Kansas City Star reports that the FBI interviewed Rob for five hours, and also Angela's 17-year-old ex-boyfriend Bill Barker for three hours.

12:52Polygraph exams were administered to both. Damon Parsons, the detective working on Angela's case, is quoted saying that at this point, everyone is considered a suspect, but Rob and Bill were interviewed as quote, primary witnesses, end quote. Within a week, Rob and Bill are cleared. This appears to be in part because three witnesses eventually come forward and corroborate Rob's story. One woman said she drove by the parking lot right before Angela went missing and saw the truck being described. The other two women apparently got much closer. These women say that they saw Angela using the phone and actually thought it was a friend of theirs.

13:32So they pull into the parking lot next to the truck, and they see the driver kind of lean back in the driver's seat, but they don't really think much of it. And when they look at Angela and realize it's not their friend, they drive away. While Angela's father had the same concerns most people did with Rob's story at first, Angela's family does not believe either Rob or Bill was involved in her abduction. So detectives look outside of Angela's inner circle and begin looking at other unsolved crimes in the area looking for any connection. And they find not one, but two crimes within an 80-mile radius that they want to look further into.

14:10The first was 42-year-old Trudy Darby. She worked as a clerk at K &D Convenience Store in Max Creek, Missouri. On the night of January 19th, 1991, at about 10pm, she was preparing to close down her store when she noticed a strange man outside. So she called her son and asked him to come down to the store and sit with her while she finished her shift. He gets there in about 10 minutes, and sees his mom's car in the parking lot and her purse and coat in the window. Everything appears normal, but when he enters the store, he calls out for his mom. Then he sees the cash register open and the money missing.

14:48Trudy's body was found two days later at the Niangwa River. She'd been sexually assaulted and shot twice. The second unsolved case investigators looked into was that of 36-year-old Cheryl Ann Kenney. Cheryl was last seen working her shift at a convenience store when she went missing on the night of February 27, 1991. She was scheduled to work until midnight at the quality convenience store in Nevada, Missouri. But it was apparently a slow night, so she decides to close down the store early. Records show that she clocked out at 10pm, and then set the alarm and locked the doors at 10.17pm. Her car was later recovered from the parking lot of the store.

15:28There was no evidence of a struggle or a break-in, and nothing was missing from the store. There was also no trail of where Cheryl went. Police have been quoted as saying it's as if she just vanished. Now, while the police are investigating a possible connection between the three cases, they reiterate to the public that they're just covering their bases, and so far, no definitive connection has been made. They were basically just slamming their heads against the wall and trying to do anything they could to help find Angela. By mid-April, the Missouri Rural Crime Squad is called in to help. Their focus is finding the truck.

16:06This is a group of officers from several different counties in Missouri, and they tell the media specifically that they will not be investigating any possible link between Angela, Trudy, and Cheryl's cases. In my research, I found that basically the way that this squad works is they have five days to come up with some actionable lead they think will help move the case forward, or they have to pack it up and go home. So they are digging through the 1 ,600 possible matches to the truck, the witness statements, the interviews, I have to imagine, really, the entire case file. but after five days of investigating, they don't find anything they can move forward with and are taken off the case.

16:48But the Clinton police are not alone in this investigation. They have help from the FBI and Henry County authorities. By May 4th, one month since Angela was taken, the reward for information is up to$11 ,000, with$5 ,000 of that coming from Angela's grandparents. Investigators say that they've followed about 500 leads, but they haven't been able to find a lot of new information. And that's how the case sits for a while. By October, Angela's loved ones are just trying to navigate how to start picking up the pieces of their lives. Rob begins his training as a National Guardsman in Virginia, and Angela's mother is planning to finally use a Florida vacation she'd won at work.

17:30She said it was really hard to leave town, but she knew she had to take a step back from it all. At this point, investigators say that they've exhausted all leads in Angela's case. The reward is now up to$16 ,000. They need someone to come forward with information. And someone actually does.

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18:44A front payment of$45 for three-month plan equivalent to$15 per month required. New customer offer for first three months only. Speed slow after 35 gigabytes of network's busy. Taxes and fees extra. See mintmobile.com. In December 1991, Angela's case is back in the news again, when a man named Russell Smith from Lebo, Manitoba in Canada says he saw Angela leaving a drugstore in Selkirk. Now, this apparently happened three months prior in September, but the news is just breaking in December. He says she got into a green pickup truck with a white top and a mural in the rear window. This sighting was not confirmed by anyone else.

19:18But Russell says that he's certain that the woman he saw was Angela. He told the Kansas City star, quote, I know I saw that girl. I know that for a fact. I may not remember someone's name, but I never forget a face. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police showed Angela's picture to residents in the area, but said that after exhausting all leads, they weren't able to locate Angela or whoever Russell may have seen that day. But even though this lead didn't pan out, it got people talking about Angela again. And as the new year began, the whole town was buzzing around the news that Unsolved Mysteries planned to feature the case.

19:57While Angela's case did get quite a bit of media attention, this would be the largest feature by far. When the episode premiered in February 1992, Angela's segment reenacting the phone call and hearing Rob speak about that night left a lasting impression on viewers. Which is really what you want. You want people to remember these cases, so they talk about it, tell a friend, and hopefully generate some leads. And investigators were ready for this. They called in officers from 11 different counties, all to work the anticipated onslaught of leads after the episode aired. And of course, the show did generate quite a few calls, approximately 700.

20:41But authorities say that in the end, none of them ended up giving them anything substantial. I mean, obviously, it's just a rollercoaster of emotions for Angela's family, and the world is seeing it all unfold. By the fall of 1982, the case catches the attention of someone who knows what Angela's family is going through. Janice McCall. She's the mother of missing 18-year-old Stacey McCall. If you're a longtime listener of Voices for Justice or just very familiar with true crime cases, that name should ring a bell. Stacey McCall is one of three women who went missing from Springfield, Missouri in June 1992.

21:22You may know the case as the Springfield Three, which I covered back in September 2022. I'll have a link in the description of this episode if you want to learn more. So, Janice reaches out to Angela's mother, Marcia, and at first, Marcia says she didn't really want to connect. She didn't want to admit that she might be in the same boat as Janice, and Janice told the Springfield news leader that she understood.

22:01But they do link up, and in November 1992, both women appeared on an hour-long episode of Oprah discussing unsolved crimes. And this was huge. At this time, Oprah reached about 14 million viewers daily. Throughout the program, an 800 number flashed on the screen, urging viewers to call in with any tips they may have. But just like Unsolved Mysteries, nothing really came of this for Angela's case. Despite this, Marcia and Janice kept in touch, and even planned a joint prayer vigil for Angela, Stacey McCall, and the two women who went missing with Stacey, Suzanne Streeter and Cheryl Levitt. In April 1993, another search for Angela was conducted.

22:47This was actually prompted by the editor of the Clinton newspaper. He used to be a police officer, and he said that in his time in law enforcement, he had success utilizing psychics to help get some answers. So he calls up one of these psychics and asks her to work on Angela's case. This leads them to a farm in Lafayette County, about 40 miles north of the phone booth. Now, the odd thing about this is police had already interviewed the man living on the farm. He was renting a house on the land. They'd received a tip that the truck seen with Angela that night was abandoned either on or near the farm.

23:23They'd also received a tip from an informant that a green pickup truck and body were buried on the farm. Now, apparently the abandoned truck appeared to be a blue Chevy, not a green Ford. and after the initial search of the property, they didn't find a buried truck or body. But in March 1993, the psychic picks out this farm and says that she spoke to Angela's spirit while walking the land. She believes two men were involved in Angela's death and that Angela knew one of them. She also says that Angela was kept on this farm for six weeks, then moved to another location, and is now by some type of rock wall, like a bridge or a basement.

24:05But the Clinton Police Department immediately dismissed these claims. Police Chief Bob Pattinson tells the media, quote, I don't have any faith in psychics. The particular person that's being looked at as a possible suspect, we've 95 % cleared him. He has a pretty good alibi. He took a lie detector. And we feel like he passed it. End quote. But this doesn't really do anything to calm the public down. The rumors about this psychic are swirling around town so heavily that the Clinton police finally say, fine, we'll bring cadaver dogs to the farm and either find a body or put these rumors to rest.

24:43So the first weekend of April 1993, five dogs and 20 officers searched the farm, and all they find are a few dead animals and exactly zero evidence of what happened to Angela. So again, the case just sits. In May 1995, half-brothers 20-year-old Jesse Rush and 34-year-old Marvin Chaney were arrested for the kidnapping and murder of Trudy Darby. This ignites more fire in Angela's case as people try to connect these brothers to her abduction. And then another lead comes in. In June 1995, a man in Sioux City, Iowa says Angela and her child sat next to him at church. and on top of that, he says Angela told him that she wants the police to stop looking for her.

25:31Now, while it was confirmed that this man was in church that day and sat next to a woman with a small child, no one else could confirm his story that the woman was Angela. And after investigating the possible sighting, the police don't consider it to be credible. In my research of Angela's case, this is really where most of the investigation stops. Trudy Darby's killers are convicted for their crimes, while Sheryl Ann Kenney's disappearance remains unsolved. In the end, investigators never find a definitive link between the three cases. From here, there's almost nothing for over 25 years. And then, in 2021, Angela is back in the news.