Episode Six: The Confidential Informant

This episode contains explicit descriptions of murder and crimes against children.
It is intended for mature audiences. Listener discretion advised.


A late-night phone call.

A confession.

And potential answers in a decades-old murder investigation.

In this episode, ATF agent John Rotunno recounts the moment a confidential informant reached out with a chilling admission about the disappearance of Helen Brach—25 years after she vanished.

We trace Rotunno’s path from deep undercover operations inside Chicago’s most dangerous gangs to the cases that followed—where informants, incentives, and human intelligence drove some of the largest federal prosecutions of their time.

Then, we turn to the informant at the center of it all: Joe Plemmons.

A horse trainer with deep ties to the world surrounding Helen Brach.
A key witness in multiple federal cases.
And a man who now claims to know exactly what happened the night she disappeared—because, according to him, he was part of it.

Why come forward after all this time?
What did he say when he finally decided to “get it off his chest”?

In Episode Six, the investigation pivots—through the voice of a man who says he was there the night Helen Brach vanished.

Be sure to follow us on instagram and hop on over to Substack where you will find bonus content AND the podcast in one place. https://themissingcandyheiress.substack.com/

We would love to hear from you if you have questions, comments or information related this story - DM us on instagram or email us hello@themissingcandyheiress.com.

The Missing Candy Heiress is produced, directed, and written by Jonathan Rocks and Beth McNamara. All material is copyrighted.

Legal Disclaimer:  All individuals referenced in this podcast are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law in the United States.

Transcript

SPEAKER_10 0:05

This is Chicago's number one news, KBC 7 News and 10.

unknown 0:11

A final flurry on the campaign trail in the Illinois race for the city.

SPEAKER_08 0:15

I'm watching TV and my goddamn phone rings on my G phone, my government phone. And I see it's Joe. So I I open it up, I start talking to him, and this guy is crying his eyes out, talking to me about Brock.

SPEAKER_04 0:39

This is ATF agent John Vertono. And the call he received that night in 2002 was about Helen Brock, the missing candy aris who vanished 25 years earlier.

SPEAKER_08 0:51

So I put him on speaker. And I motioned to my wife, like, get over here.

unknown 0:58

And now I'm worried about my family.

SPEAKER_08 1:00

You gotta listen to this thing.

SPEAKER_04 1:02

The caller had a lot to say about what happened the night Helen disappeared.

SPEAKER_02 1:06

What I'm telling you is now it's putting me in jeopardy, and it's putting my family in jeopardy, and it's putting my barn in jeopardy, it's putting everything in fucking jeopardy, and I've got to figure this out.

SPEAKER_08 1:17

And so he's laid it out for me about who's involved, about what they did, about what he did, and I don't have a tape recorder, and I need to record this thing, okay? I said, let me call you back. All right, I'll call you back tomorrow at this time. Be ready. So tomorrow comes. I'm seated at my kitchen table with my recording device. I dial in to Joel, and much to my surprise, he answers the phone. And he bears his soul to me about what he did, how they did it, who was involved. Then he's got my interest.

SPEAKER_04 2:04

This is the Investigative Podcast, The Missing Candieris. Episode six, the Confidential Informant.

SPEAKER_08 2:17

You know what, John? I had a horseshoe up my ass because it things just sort of fell into my lap on cases.

SPEAKER_04 2:26

From the late 80s into the 90s, ATF agent John Rotuno worked undercover in some of the most dangerous gangs in the country. He was assigned to cases focused primarily on the illegal gun and drug trade, first in California and then in his hometown of Chicago.

SPEAKER_08 2:43

My career was very blessed and very successful because I had intelligence. I had informants. And I currently teach school now, and I tell my students that information is power. Information enabled me to get into locations because I would use the name or I would be there on someone else's word, which would be my informant.

SPEAKER_04 3:12

One of Rotano's informants connected him to someone inside one of the most dangerous gangs in Chicago.

SPEAKER_08 3:19

Hank says, you know what? My sister-in-law has got a lot of uh information about uh the street gang, uh, the vice lords, a faction called Undertaker.

SPEAKER_04 3:33

Throughout the 80s and 90s, the Vice Lords were notorious in Chicago, one of the city's most entrenched street gangs. Their influence extended beyond neighborhood street corners and deep into the drug and gun trade.

SPEAKER_08 3:47

They were making improvised explosive devices, and they were blowing up, you know, cars and buildings, and of course, ATF. I mean, that's right up my alley. I want to get to the guy who's making the bombs because he's a vice lord. So he introduces me to his sister-in-law. We'll call her Big Debbie. Big Debbie said, My boyfriend is in the gang. I want nothing to do with the police. I don't want to get involved. So I gave her my business card. I said, if you change your mind, here's my name and here's my phone number.

SPEAKER_04 4:26

Rotano targets Big Debbie, someone with access inside the gang, as his next confidential informant.

SPEAKER_08 4:33

There's several reasons why people become informants. Number one, they think there's a police sometimes. Number two, they want to exact revenge. Number three, they're in trouble. Okay, they need to get out of the situation that they're in. Number four, they want money. The payment would go depending on the information. When I got to ATF, it was different. You buy me a gun, you introduce me to a guy who's going to sell me a gun, we'd pay top end, especially if it was a machine gun or a sought-off shotgun, or if they got us into a gang, we would be paying cash to individuals for rent for car payments, for groceries, like I said, operating expenses and subsistence.

SPEAKER_04 5:19

Several months later, Retono's phone rings. It's Big Debbie.

SPEAKER_08 5:24

And she says, I want to go to work for you. And I said, What made you change? She said, My girlfriend just had a baby. Someone threw a bomb like that through her front window and it blew my girlfriend up and killed her kid. So I I want to get even with every motherfucker that came to my girlfriend's door that was involved with throwing that hand grenade through my girlfriend's front window and killing her.

SPEAKER_04 5:59

After hearing that, Rotano went all in.

SPEAKER_08 6:02

She introduced me to the gang. I was in this gang for three fucking years. I was in this gang. I must have bought, I'm lying to myself, but I thought I had bought every every gun imaginable on the west side of the city of Chicago. I thought I had done that.

SPEAKER_04 6:20

While undercover, Ratunna was known by the nickname Red.

SPEAKER_08 6:24

They called me Red because I drove around the neighborhood in a red 5-0 Mustang.

SPEAKER_04 6:31

He carried cash and lots of it. It was the only way to keep the information flowing, all of it funded by the government. After all, this was the era of the war on drugs.

SPEAKER_08 6:41

When they saw me coming, they would chase me to buy their crack cocaine. They didn't call it crack, they called it rocks. They would like to deal with me because like I would I would come at them and I'd I'd buy essentially their whole pack. And of course, the crack led to the guns. And that's how I got in. I really did. They they invited me to weddings, they um invited me to birthday parties, christenings, uh repasses. Um they took me in and trusted me.

SPEAKER_04 7:19

What kind of wear and tear does that take on you? Like, do you feel no? I mean, you're living two lives, essentially. I mean I am.

SPEAKER_08 7:26

And I don't I don't want to say that I began to identify with them. I I will say this, John. At the end, I got to be friends with a lot of them.

SPEAKER_04 7:39

But they weren't his friends. Retano had a job to do.

SPEAKER_08 7:43

They dubbed it Operation Trigger Lock.

SPEAKER_04 7:47

After three years of deep undercover work, Rotano is pulled in by his ATF bosses, who said, Okay, it's been three years.

SPEAKER_08 7:56

You've spent like a gozillion dollars on on guns and drugs and on Big Debbie. We're ready now. Let's let's take it down. And I was ready. I I was I was I was getting burned out.

SPEAKER_04 8:10

300 ATF agents raided multiple locations. There were 120 arrests over three days. Multiple bank accounts were seized, as were properties connected to the drug and gun operations run by the gang.

SPEAKER_08 8:24

We seized apartment buildings, we seized car dealerships, we seized race cars, um houses. It took us a good a good two or three days to arrest everybody and to and to seize bank accounts and and money. And it at the end uh it got it for some for some of them, it was hard for me to essentially say I'm I'm the police, I'm the police. Um no hard feelings, but you're going to jail. But in the end, we convicted everybody, we were very successful, and it was all because of an informant.

SPEAKER_04 9:13

For Rotano, one case always seemed to lead to another, and some of those cases went back decades.

SPEAKER_08 9:21

I could not work one more fucking gang member or buy one more gun or buy one more bag of crack or heroin or whatever. I didn't want to do any more undercover, so I wanted to get transferred. So they transferred me from a gang group into the bomb and arson group, where late one evening I'm sitting getting ready to go home, and my boss walks up to me and he says, I got a case for you. And I said, Okay, what is it? He says, I got a I got an informant down in Florida who's got information about a guy who murdered three little boys in 1955, and I want you to work it.

SPEAKER_04 10:13

The Peterson-Schusler murders are one of the most infamous cases in Chicago history. In August 1955, three boys, 13-year-old Bobby Peterson and brothers John and Anton Schusler, aged 11 and 9, vanished after seeing a movie in downtown Chicago. Three days later, their naked bodies were found in a drainage ditch near a farm outside the city. The murders shocked Chicago, fueling fear and raising questions about whether it was still safe for children to move freely through the city. Decades passed. The Peterson-Schuzler murders became one of the oldest cold cases in Chicago history. Nearly 40 years later, ATF agent John Rotuno traveled to Florida to meet a man named Red Wimette.

SPEAKER_00 11:06

From 1971 until 1988, Red Wimet served as a paid informant to the FBI. For nearly 20 years, he lived a double life. To the Chicago mob, he was a porn shop owner, doing business in an area controlled by the outfit. To the FBI, he was an informant, willing to provide valuable information on several dangerous figures.

SPEAKER_04 11:40

Wimette said he often drove Hansen, who didn't have a license at the time, and this sometimes involved picking up young male hitchhikers.

SPEAKER_08 11:48

Ken Hansen would pick up hitchhikers, which is what he did with the three murder victims.

SPEAKER_04 11:56

Wimette says Hansen confessed to picking up the Peterson-Schusler boys. He then described what came after: disposing of the bodies, relocating the Chicago South Side, and arranging for the stable where this happened to be burned down. Kenneth Hansen was arrested in 1994, eventually found guilty, and given a sentence of over 200 years in the Peterson-Schusler case. The story of the Peterson-Schusler investigation was the basis for author Gene O'Shea's 2005 book, Unbridled Rage.

SPEAKER_08 12:30

I was done with the Schusler Peterson, all right. And we were getting ready to work on Sherry.

SPEAKER_04 12:38

By Sherry, Retunno means Cheryl Rudy, the 22-year-old equestrian you heard about in episode 4, who died by car bombing at George Jane's Tricolour Stables in 1965. And it's while he's investigating the Rudy case that Rotunno receives the call you heard him describe at the top of this episode. It's from another confidential informant from the Peterson Schusler case, who now claims to have information about the disappearance of Helen Brock.

SPEAKER_08 13:05

And then I get that phone call from Joel about the Brock thing.

SPEAKER_04 13:10

It's a horse trainer named Joe Clemens.

SPEAKER_05 13:15

Richard Bailey asked Kenny and I to get rid of um Helen Brock. And this was in 1977.

SPEAKER_04 13:25

By Plemens' account, Bailey approaches him and Kenny Hansen weeks before Helen Brock disappears. According to his testimony, Bailey offers them$5,000 for Helen's murder. Clemens says they refused the offer. Reportedly, Kenny Hansen denied the conversation with Bailey ever even took place. At the time he said that, Hansen was in jail, awaiting trial for the murders of the three boys in the Peterson-Schusler case. Clemens instructs his lawyer to contact Stephen Miller, the attorney leading the Rico case with Ronald Sayer.

SPEAKER_05 14:00

I said, I know about Helen Brock. I was solicited to kill Helen. And that brought Steve Miller running.

SPEAKER_04 14:10

At the time, Clemens was in a California prison on federal fraud charges. In exchange for his testimony, his sentence was cut in half. Clemens was also paid$6,000 and given assistance in obtaining a surgery he needed for a hernia. The prosecution appears to have considered Plemens a necessary witness because of his long history in the local horse world. Born in 1949, Clemens first found work on horse farms in North Carolina, then New Mexico, and by 1970, in suburban Chicago, specifically in the North Shore suburbs at Sky High Stables, owned by Frank Jane Jr., Silas Jane's nephew and second in command of the so-called horse mafia. Clemens began by mucking out stalls, but he quickly moved up, first becoming a trainer and eventually buying and selling horses himself. Small in stature, around the stables, Plemens looked more like a jockey than a trainer. But he was charming and always wanted to flirt with the female riders. How is it that you first met Joe Clemens?

SPEAKER_03 15:16

I had a horse for sale in Pennsylvania, and he came and looked at the horse.

SPEAKER_04 15:22

This is Christine, Joe Plemens' former girlfriend.

SPEAKER_03 15:26

He was living with his friend Carol. I had just broken up with my boyfriend, and he moved in three days later. We just instantly hit it off. He was so nice and sweet and fun and a good trainer.

SPEAKER_04 15:37

And where was Joe originally from? Originally, North Carolina. Because when I spoke to Beth, she had mentioned that you said he left home at a young age.

SPEAKER_03 15:45

Yes. I'm going to say he left home at 13. And that's how it winded up with the wrong crowd because his father was an abusive alcoholic. So he went to the racetrack. That's how we met so many bad people. When I met him, he said, You're going to hear a lot of bad things about me. I used to be a bad person. I said, Are you a bad one now? And he said, No. I said, Then you're fine. People can change. And he he was great. I mean he was very good to me. And we had a lot of fun. I rode since I was a little girl and never had a horse until I bought my own at 21, and then got my farm at 23, and then met Joe at 26, I'm gonna say. So he taught me he taught me everything I know.

SPEAKER_04 16:26

Clements taught Christine how to buy low and sell high in the thoroughbred horse industry, specifically show horses, the hunters and jumpers.

SPEAKER_03 16:36

Here's the deal when it comes to horses, this is something I've learned through Joe. There's no blue book value on a horse. A horse is only worth as much as you're willing to pay for it. But I mean she could have done research. See, we've we've sold horses for tons of money where like I would buy horses because I could ride. I could buy a horse for six hundred dollars and sell it in twenty days for six thousand. We've sold horses to the people who own Walt Disney and like Jennifer Osler Roy, who owns the Tavern on the Green. We've bought horses and we've made profits on them because I could ride them. And the reason I could ride them, I I had natural talent, which Joe spotted, and it's probably why he stuck with me. But he he taught me so well. He's a really good trainer. So with him working me every day, he made me go from like nothing, never riding in a recognized horse show, to a Grand Prix rider in four years. I won a ribbon in my first Grand Prix. That doesn't happen. Like Stacia Klein, Calvin Klein's daughter, when I won a ribbon and she didn't win one, she's like, Who the F is that?

SPEAKER_04 17:52

In addition to ribbons, Christine was taking home considerable prize money from the competitions, often between ten and twenty-five thousand dollars per show. Prize money and selling horses for profit goes back to everything that Clemens was involved in in Illinois in the 1970s.

SPEAKER_03 18:08

Well, Joe sold the horse to Richard Bailey that Richard Bailey sold to Helen Brock.

SPEAKER_04 18:17

Did Joe ever talk to you about Bailey in any way? Did he ever say anything about him?

SPEAKER_03 18:22

Just that he didn't like him. He thought he was a slime ball. And he's a con artist and he believes his own crap. Joe was in the wrong place at the wrong time when they killed Helen Brock.

SPEAKER_04 18:36

Christine was in the room right beside Joe when he made that first call to ATF agent John Rotano in 2002.

SPEAKER_08 18:44

Oh, he was one of the main witnesses in the Hansen case. And then I get that fucking phone call from Joe, who's crying his eyes out about I've got these demons, these ghosts are chasing me, and I gotta get this off my chest.

SPEAKER_04 19:01

And of course, Clemens was a crucial confidential informant and testifying witness for the assistant U.S. attorney in the Rico case against Richard Bailey.

SPEAKER_08 19:09

During the Bailey trial, Joe Clemens had already walked the walk and talked to talk on the witness stand. And you know what? To this day, I have no idea what Joe testified to in that trial.

SPEAKER_04 19:22

Rotano's interest is in what Clemens has to say now. Seven years after his testimony sent Richard Bailey to prison for life. Does Clemens give a reason for why he's confessing to this now and what his motivation is behind calling?

SPEAKER_08 19:38

You know what, John? He had fucking demons. He had he had ghosts chasing him. I'm seated at my kitchen table with my recording device, then I'm ready to go.

SPEAKER_04 19:52

The calls from Clemens keep coming, and Martano records every one. These recorded phone calls with Joe Clemens have never before been made public, and we have them exclusively.

SPEAKER_02 21:31

No.

SPEAKER_10 21:35

Oh, absolutely. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 21:36

He's talking about Kenny Hansen, whose conviction in the Peterson Schusler case had just been overturned. Prosecutors were actively planning to retry the case.

SPEAKER_02 21:49

No, I don't I don't know anybody else.

SPEAKER_10 21:51

Tuning into.

SPEAKER_02 21:51

All I know is the ones I saw.

SPEAKER_10 21:54

Joe, did you see her?

SPEAKER_02 21:57

Jesus Christ, you asked me these things on the phone, John.

SPEAKER_04 22:01

By her, he means missing candy aris, Helen Brock.

SPEAKER_10 22:06

The problem is this. If you have made any contradictory statements about this, there's there's none. I can guarantee you that never calling the FBI and none of our people to meet the lower and never talk to you about her.

SPEAKER_02 22:22

Oh, absolutely. But they never ever asked me what happened.

SPEAKER_04 22:26

Some of the calls come in late at night.

SPEAKER_02 22:28

You know how much this bothers me?

SPEAKER_04 22:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_11 22:35

No, no, no. I know what you're doing. I believe you're trying to atone for these things you've done in your past. And you know what that word means, right, Joe?

SPEAKER_02 22:46

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 22:47

Some calls are fraught with emotion.

SPEAKER_02 22:49

The whole fucking thing with this. That was just the wrong place at the wrong time. And met a guy named Kenny Henson. None of this would have ever come my way.

SPEAKER_04 23:02

Many of the calls mention Joe's mental state and specifically his alcohol consumption. For over two years, Clemens and Retunno continue this extended phone conversation. Retunno records every one of them, with the plan that Clemens' account will solve the puzzle about who killed Helen Brock and what happened to her body.

SPEAKER_08 24:16

We gave him immunity and um based on the confession. Based on what he was telling you? Yes. Can you describe him for me? He's deviously dangerous. He um he's well organized, he plans things out well. Trust me, John, I tried to trip him up. I tried to uh catch him in fabrications, but he for everything I would throw at him, he would come back at me with a plausible explanation and an answer. Um but when I say dangerous, I mean his fucking mind was like a steel trap. His mind was incredibly quick, and he remembered names, he remembered events, he remembered everything. He would be a perfect witness, and that's why I liked him.

SPEAKER_04 25:17

What is he confessing to? Like, what is he actually telling you over the course of these calls? What is he implying or or directly stating happened to Helen Brock?

SPEAKER_08 25:27

She never got on that fucking airplane, okay.

SPEAKER_04 25:31

According to what Clemens tells Ratano, Helen Brock never left Minnesota after checking out of the Mayo Clinic.

SPEAKER_02 25:38

In all of the Chicago investigations, you never found anybody that ever saw her.

SPEAKER_07 25:44

Well, you're probably right.

SPEAKER_02 25:46

I don't think I'm probably right. I guarantee she didn't get off that fucking plane. And nobody, nobody ever saw her get off a plane in O'Hare. Somebody approached her at the airport that she knew and said, We have another transportation forum for you.

SPEAKER_08 26:10

We believe that Matt Lick drove down there under the premise that one of her dogs was sick and she needed to return back home. So she got into the car. She was driven to her home in Glenview, where they were waiting for her.

SPEAKER_04 26:27

By they, Clemens means Silas Jane's nephew, Frank Jane Jr., Kenny Hansen, and his brother Kurt, and even a local police officer he believed to be in the pocket of the horse mafia.

SPEAKER_07 26:40

Did Bailey arrange this thing with him?

SPEAKER_02 26:43

Absolutely not. He had nothing to do with this. I mean, he really truly didn't. You know, and there's nobody should try to put that on his head.

SPEAKER_04 26:50

What Clemens then describes is the murder of Helen Brock.

SPEAKER_11 26:55

Do you know how they kill her?

SPEAKER_02 26:57

Yes. Her face was really blue.

SPEAKER_11 27:01

Yes, that's what she said.

SPEAKER_02 27:02

And it seemed strange to me. But it was strange to strangle. Yeah. I've never really seen a strangled person.

SPEAKER_08 27:10

They essentially um beat her within an inch of her life.

SPEAKER_04 27:16

Believing Helen was already dead, Plemens says they moved her.

SPEAKER_08 27:20

They put her into a car thinking that she was dead and transport her down to Kenny Hanson's stable. Hanson is in a frantic fright, calls up Plemens, and says, I need you to get down here right now. So Joe goes down, and the car arrives from Glenview with the body in the truck. They open up the truck, and there's this poor old lady that's that's beaten to a pulse.

SPEAKER_07 27:50

How do you know it was her, first of all? I saw her at the Racing Horse Show. Okay, but he didn't have her wrapped up in anything, or she was in a in a blanket.

SPEAKER_08 28:00

Jesus. So they're gonna transfer her into Kenny Hansen's station wagon.

SPEAKER_02 28:07

They drag her out of the backseat, throw her into the trunk gun. I mean, throw her.

SPEAKER_08 28:12

As they're moving the body, she moans. She's still alive. They drop the body.

SPEAKER_04 28:18

At this, Fleming says Kurt Hansen tosses him a gun, saying, put holes in the blanket she's wrapped in, or I put holes in you.

SPEAKER_08 28:27

Kurt Hansen grabs a gun, says, Okay, everybody that's here is going to shoot a bullet into the body. You're here, you're part of it, you can't leave. So everybody gets the gun, everybody shoots Helen's body, she dies.

SPEAKER_04 28:47

Fleming says Helen's body was then placed into another vehicle and driven across state lines.

SPEAKER_08 28:53

They put the body into the station wagon, they drive the station wagon to a steel mill in Indiana.

SPEAKER_02 29:02

Flemmons says there were two guys there. I'll guarantee you were part of it that knew what was happening there.

SPEAKER_08 29:10

Two guys unlock the gate, they direct them on where to go, they go into an area of a blast furnace. They uh open up the truck, they open up the door to the blast furnace, they throw the body into the steel mill furnace, and that is where she wound up. That's how they disposed of her body.

SPEAKER_04 29:37

Christine remembers that Joe did have concerns.

SPEAKER_03 29:40

Yeah, he was worried that they would come and get us at at the farm. Like, there was one time they slipped all the tires in our horse band. He was worried that people were gonna come and find him because of him testifying.

SPEAKER_04 29:55

Because of him testifying against Hansen.

SPEAKER_03 29:57

Yeah. No, maybe not Hanson, maybe it was Bailey. I don't know. I don't know how they're wrapped up together, I'll be honest with you.

SPEAKER_08 30:04

Joe was smart. Joel was he was a con man. He was a con man. I had to be very careful, which is why I had to show that he was telling the truth. I didn't take his word for it.

unknown 30:23

Mr.

SPEAKER_01 30:23

Bailey, how are you? I'm all set. Okay. He's gonna ask me something about Ken Hansen.

SPEAKER_04 30:29

This is a phone call Ratuno made to Richard Bailey at Coleman Penitentiary in Florida.

SPEAKER_08 30:34

He said, I'm ready to talk to you guys. So we packed up our information and we flew out to the penitentiary where Bailey was.

SPEAKER_09 30:45

This is John Rettuno, Mr. Bailey from ATF. Just I know it's hard to talk on the phone, especially when you're in a federal facility. Let me pose the question this way. Can you help us with the conversation between you, Ken Hansen, and Joe Clemens? Just say yes or no. I can help you. There was no conversation though. I really didn't know Ken Hansen from Low De Cole.

SPEAKER_08 31:16

It was a complete and total waste of time because when all was said and done, Bailey essentially said, uh, tell me what you want me to say, and I'll say it so I can get out of here. Tell me what you guys need. And we refused. We refused to tell him. All we wanted from him is to say the truth. And he he wouldn't he wouldn't come off it. He wouldn't end the story with Richard Bailey. Do you think he knew anything? No. Well, yeah. Of course not. We wanted him to say he solicited Hanson in Plummet, and he wouldn't say it.

SPEAKER_04 31:59

Retunno then went to Pennsylvania, where he paid a visit to Helen Brock's former houseman, Jack Matlik. Well, let's talk about what happened with Matlick. If you could just kind of give me a rundown of that situation.

SPEAKER_08 32:15

That everything he did was on the up and up. And then this is what really pissed me off. We had the best handwriting expert in the world who said Jack Matlik forged Helen Brock's name to a bunch of checks. Okay, he he wouldn't come off anything. Matlick was trying to portray himself as this tough guy. I went to prison for my brother, you know, and I'm like looking at him. I said, What'd you do, Jack? Like nine months somewhere. He he took exception to that and he sort of challenged me. And it got a little testy, so to speak, between Jack and I in the jail cell in in PA. And um trust me, at the time Jack was no match for me. The detective from Pennsylvania certainly didn't want a beatdown of uh of a of a witness or a prisoner in their jail cell. So we just let that lie. But he he he gave up nothing. And I said, fuck him. I said, fuck this guy.

SPEAKER_04 33:24

Clemens tells Ratano he has something. Proof, he says, of what happened the night Helen Brock died. It's a ruby ring.

SPEAKER_08 33:34

He told me about this ring. It was something that an equestrian rider would be wearing. And Joe believes the ring fell off the finger of Helen Brock when they were transporting her from one of the cars to the other. And he found it in the riding ring of the Hansen stable. So I get the ring and I give it to the Glenview PD for forensic testing for DNA. There was no DNA found, or anything significant was found on the ring that would connect the ring to Helen Brock, other than Joe Clemens uh saying that it was hers.

SPEAKER_04 34:19

The investigation is known only to a small group of law enforcement, ATF, State's Attorney's Office, and Glenview PD. But somehow information leaks. This is former reporter David Heinsman, who spent over 30 years at the Chicago Tribune.

SPEAKER_06 34:44

In late 2004, we heard that there was new information that had come from a witness. And it was not clear initially whether it was a new witness or an old witness who had provided new information in the case. A handful of us reporters who did cover crime at the time started to compare notes and look back at the old things that had happened in the courts related to the Brock case. And we understood that this new witness had testified in Richard Bailey's case. And it became kind of a parlor game in Chicago media circles of trying to figure out who this witness might be. Our longtime federal courts reporter came to the conclusion that it was a guy named Joe Clemens who had testified in that case. We knew he had a significant past. We knew he was a he was a longtime CI of the ATF.

SPEAKER_04 35:36

Heinzman begins to look for Clemens.

SPEAKER_06 35:38

Joe was a lifelong con man, lifelong grifter. And so the paper trail on a guy like that, like the public records, the credit reporting, was already pretty sketchy on Joe. And so it was a difficult task. And at the same time, we were talking to federal agents on background. And at that point, they confirmed off the record or didn't deny that Joe was the guy, but they were telling me, you know, you'll never find him. He's not findable. You can't find him.

SPEAKER_04 36:07

A tip sends Heinzman to Florida, where Clemens and his girlfriend Christine are said to be wintering their horses and competing in shows.

SPEAKER_06 36:16

So then we sat on the on the stable staking it out, waiting for him to show up.

SPEAKER_04 36:21

After three days of going to stables and horse shows, Heinzman finds Plemens.

SPEAKER_06 36:26

So finally I called him and he picked up and I explained who I was and what I was doing. And he said, he just kept saying, Oh, really? Uh-huh. Oh, really? And then he asked to call me back and he clicked off. And about 30 seconds later, I get a phone call from a federal agent in Chicago screaming at me to back off, lay off, go away, and um and that Joe was not going to come and talk to us.

SPEAKER_04 36:57

The investigation had been brought up the ladder to the prosecutors who would determine if the case would move forward with indictments. Heinzman came to an agreement with the ATF agent. He would hold off on publishing the reporting while the status of the case was being determined. But once that decision was made, the Chicago Tribune would get first crack at interviewing Clemens. As he waits for the Greenlight to interview Clemens, Heinzman begins to make phone calls and dig into court records.

SPEAKER_06 37:47

And I think this is in the 80s. He concocted this scheme where he got this girl's father to invest in a bull semen business where they would harvest semen from prized bulls and then sell it to create other prized bulls. And the whole thing was uh a fraud and a scam. And he he got arrested for it.

SPEAKER_04 38:11

And there was another case in California.

SPEAKER_06 38:13

He had had this fairly significant fraud case uh where he had swindled a family or a couple of families in Sacramento, California, over horses that weren't worth what he said they were worth.

SPEAKER_04 38:27

Meanwhile, ATF agent John Rotono gets an update from prosecutors.

SPEAKER_08 38:32

The state attorney himself, he went to the Glenview Police Department and they go through all the evidence, and he's on board. He's ready to go. What's our timetable? Let's get this thing done. And I'm thinking, okay, this is gonna happen. The next thing I know, the the uh the chain of command at the Cook County State Attorney's Office decides to brick the case. Nope, we're not gonna do it.

SPEAKER_04 38:59

With the case not moving forward, Heinzman gets word that Clemens is ready to talk. He and a photographer fly into Philadelphia and drive two hours into the rural horse country to meet Joe Clemens.

SPEAKER_06 39:11

Joe did not want to meet us at the farm where he lived with his girlfriend. She wanted nothing to do with the story. So we met at a little restaurant, kind of a nice little crossroads place where it was kind of horse country, and so it was uh it wasn't really a diner, it wasn't, it was a nice place. We met for an early lunch. Joe ordered a cheeseburger and a glass of Cabernet, and then had a second Cabernet while we were talking. You know, we had gone over his court testimony, you know, we had sort of constructed him as a slightly larger than life character in our heads. But we sat down with him. Um he was small. He was kind of, I I think described him as sort of wiry with a bit of a paunch. Um, but he had been a sort of slender, small framed man. He was still a handsome guy. He still had a full head of uh kind of reddish blonde hair. He was 57 and he looked older than 57. So he he looked pretty weathered. He looked like somebody who had perhaps uh had an alcohol problem. But he was also, you know, part of the story that we had been told by many people about him was that he was a just a talented con man who could talk his way into anything. And that's not the kind of person we found. He was he was quiet and subdued and maybe maybe felt a little tired. His his story was persuasive and it's got a lot of detail, but you're also also questioning which part of this might be true, which part of this is definitely not true, uh, which part of this is embellished to protect his version uh of events. He was cooperating with us and he just would keep talking. And so when pieces of the story didn't add up, he would just kind of you would ask about it and said he would loop around to a, you know, trying to connect dots that that maybe didn't fully connect. As as far as writing the story, it was it was the thing that everybody was paying attention to. This was what the new information was, and it was a fascinating tale.

SPEAKER_04 41:16

The front page of the Chicago Tribune on April 10, 2005, reads, Haunted by the night Brock died. Horseman says he was forced to shoot Eris. On the left, the story has a cropped color photo of Helen Brock, taken in Florida before she disappeared. On the right, Joe Clemens at the restaurant where he was interviewed. He's wearing a light green striped dress shirt, his gaze focused off-camera, an expression meant to read as serious. Heinsman's two-page story gives Clemens' full background and the details of what he attested to in his proffer agreement with the ATF and State's attorney's office. According to the story, all of it recounted by Plemens over a few glasses of Cabernet on the morning they met in Pennsylvania.

SPEAKER_06 42:01

You know, the story ran. It got you know quite a bit of attention in Chicago, and nothing really happened with the case. And then months later, I think it was that summer, you know, I was in a parking deck in in Chicago, my phone rang, and it was Joe. Joe had come forward for a bunch of reasons. He said part of his motivation clearly, but he was looking to get paid for some version of his story, and there just weren't any takers. And so he was asking me if I would consider uh writing a book or a screenplay or both uh with him, collaborate with him. So I explained to him that it would be unacceptable and unethical for a reporter covering the story to collaborate with the subject of the story seeking money. So I think that was the last time I actually spoke to Joe.

SPEAKER_04 42:50

According to Plemen's girlfriend, Christine, he continued to shop his life story, believing it would be the next bestseller or blockbuster movie. The focus, of course, being his version of what happened to Helen Brock.

SPEAKER_03 43:03

And then somebody else was going to publish his book. And then I remember Sylvester Stallone wanted to make a movie about Joe's life, and he flew us to Florida. They wanted Kevin Cosner to play Joe in the movie, but they only offered him$300,000, and Joe owed like$250,000 in restitution, so it would have made no sense for him to do it.

SPEAKER_04 43:26

So when they flew you to Florida, where did you go?

SPEAKER_03 43:29

Hollywood, Florida.

SPEAKER_04 43:30

And was that like a lunch meeting or to go out to dinner or something?

SPEAKER_03 43:34

I didn't go. I I went to I went to Florida, but I let him handle it. I I stayed by the pool.

SPEAKER_04 43:40

Clemens' book goes nowhere. But just three hours north, 75-year-old Richard Bailey sits in his federal prison cell, working on a book of his own. As his lawyers file appeals, Bailey continues to proclaim his innocence in the murder of Helen Brock. He even reaches out to Chicago reporters hoping to be able to do it. Someone will pick up his story. In our final episode, premiering Friday, April 17th, you'll hear from Richard Bailey himself in our exclusive interviews. And we return to where the story began, Glenview, Illinois, where we'll take you inside the estate of Helen Brock.

SPEAKER_11 44:29

Oh, see, that's the ice cream parlor there. It's on the first floor.

SPEAKER_04 44:33

Wow, I'm like very overwhelmed. We have spent several years pouring over this case, and we've virtually been to this house and this property so many times it feels surreal to be here. Then to the Glenview Police Department to find out what really happened the night Helen vanished and who was involved.

SPEAKER_01 44:49

Hi, Commander Jan Smith. Hi, nice to meet you. Are you recording?

SPEAKER_10 44:53

We have our loves on. Is that okay? Is that alright? No, no.

SPEAKER_01 44:56

This is for a podcast. We were told this was going to be recorded.

SPEAKER_04 45:00

That's in two weeks on the final episode of the missing candy iris.