The killing of Heather Church

Heather Dawn Church was only 13 years old on the night she was taken from her home. Except in the beginning no one knew that she had been taken. Some thought her a possible runaway, her mother knew that this was impossible. Heather was so level headed. She would never have left home on her own accord. So what happened to her and why? The Heather Dawn Church story is similar to the Jon Benet Ramsey case for many many reasons. Who was Heather Church? Who is Lou Smit? And Robert Brown....and how do all of these people tie (possibly) all together? 

Transcript

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Good afternoon This is Debbie Sue and you're listening to the right shoe. Yes I am trying to oh gosh I still got it on the background I love this part Okay, that's enough for that. Okay Debbie Q was originally started because when I first started this podcast everything was so new to me Everything was so I don't know I did not know what to name myself I'd like names I like drama and whether you call it you know just surprise and whatever and I thought you know the right shoe was gonna be it because of my first episode being pipe is the wise and they could never find his right shoe. And I did name that for Matthew Larson and there is a actually a video it's about his life. If you Google pipe is the wise it'll come up. I think his partner made the movie. Somebody let me know that it was coming out that day. So whoever that was, thank you and I really enjoyed it. I did I don't think it was his partner that told me I don't even think he knows who I am. But um I feel bad for his partner because I think they were going to make it big. Okay, I'm trying to do this we are battling and there's a movie out now about papers the wise by his partner, I believe and it's really good. He was gonna make a big so anyway when I made this I was saying into the microphone. And my last name begins with a p by the way. And Debbie p with the right shoe did not rhyme so I was talking I said Debbie q with the right shoe and then the other day I was thinking my middle name is Susan. Why can I be Debbie Sue with the right ship? You can call me whatever the hell you do Be honest. I it doesn't matter does Debbie is fine. But when I say something I have to have it rhyme I don't know why I don't know why it feels good when I'm saying it. Hi, this is Debbie Sue with the right shoe welcome. You know you get it you dig so I you know in the meantime, I this is I want this to be a relatively quick one because I had the brilliant idea of that. I was going to redo these two bedrooms. I don't even know why I did this. I can't even tell I took everything out and I am currently swamp I will put on my Instagram shopaholicDeb44. It i absolute madness. I am yes I a. I guess I am a hoarder. B cause it's craziness when I f und so I wanted to do a quick s ory. And now the JonBenet R msey case, as we know is out n w just you know, when when she d ed when she was murdered. In 1 96. I had just gotten out of s hool. And I never thought in a m llion years that she would b come the iconic person that s e's become. I mean, JonBenet i the true mystery. I never you k ow, even back then I'm telling y u when Susan Smith killed her k ds, I could see it right away i her. I was like that girl is l ing. I mean, I could see t ough it's not me saying that I g nuinely thought that I am a v ry good reader of people. I r ally am. I'm not just saying t is is Susan Smith. I just was l ke, Oh my god, that girl's l ne when things happen. I r ally try to read people. I d n't know from the beginning. N w this sounds goofy because n body agrees with me. A parently. I never thought the p rents had anything to do with i. I know that is an incredibly u popular voicing of what h ppened to dominate the note. Y s, that ransom note is Patsy t rowing throw so I can't e plain it. It's you know, I j st can't explain it. It's like t at Allen Greenberg case. That w kes me up at night. Do you k ow it's it says suicide to me. H w do you explain someone s abbed in the back of their n ck? You can't. There's That are unexplicable. And yet I just feel this feeling inside me. I definitely know that jaren had nothing to do with it. The father. I mean him without a doubt in my mind. Patsy is the one person because of it. No, that note makes no sense. I completely agree with that, that people just start opinionated about it, which is fine. But you got to say like, Look, none of us knows what really happened. None of us knows because we don't know. I mean, there was strange DNA. And Rhonda, where there was a you know, this guy, Lou, but FBI profiler, loose met was in on this case, and he is also one of the ones that believe. Well, I'll get to that. There's two FBI profilers that I really like one is Luke Smith. He passed away sadly, in 2010. But I really liked him a lot. He was a good man. And I like Paul holes. I do like him. I like how he talks and I, he doesn't come off like because some FBI profilers do come off. Very egotistical. It's just the truth. I am not, you know, I understand. Okay. You're the top dog. I see why you would be a little egotistical. But anyway, if he is he hides it. Well. Were loose met. I hate really came off as just a really good hearted man. I mean, Paul's is so good luck, and that it kind of it interferes with my judgment. I have but loose Smith, I just like him. He's a good guy, Google him if you get a chance. So anyway, so this story is about Heather church. And if you're a Forensic Files junkie, like myself, Heather churches, somebody, you know, well, what I was kind of thinking of this in reference to the JonBenet Ramsey case, because what happened was one night, her mother's name was Diane, and her father's name was Michael. Now Michael, when he was being interviewed did come across as very, very despondent that he was not there for his children. He seemed very despondent of the breakup of his marriage. And, and I really think he had a lot of guilt in himself. So it starts out It's September 7 1991. And Diana has that she she has I believe she had four children. They lived in a small town in and Colorado. And in fact, they lived on five acres of land. So there was a lot of, you know, there was a large area, Colorado Springs, El Paso County, Colorado. That is where Heather church. She was born July 7 1978, says she was 13. At the time, she was an eighth grader at Falcon Middle School. That night, her mother had to go to a Cub Scout meeting with her other children. And sage, age nine, Heather aged 13 did not want to go she asked her mother if she could stay home. And Diane said her daughter was a very and you could see if you wanted to ever check out the Forensic Files episode. It's called screen pass. And you can even see loose Schmidt in there. This story always stuck in my head because she did seem ahead of her years. So she said everything was great. She went to the cub scout meeting. She called her at 830. And she said How is everything and she said, Oh, I I was just gonna put stage to bed but I did it. She was giggling and everything was great. So everything was fabulous. She got home not too much longer, you know, maybe an hour and a half and Bs I believe was around 10 o'clock. She gets home. She said it was weird because the door was unlocked. And she said right away. She felt that something was off because Heather would not leave the door unlocked. But she went upstairs locked into the bedroom. Heather was so tiny. She thought perhaps that she was underneath the blankets. She goes over to check and she's not there. Now, as a mother. I cannot imagine the horror already. I would be in complete panic mode. She goes and sage is there. That was baffling. Then they struggle running around the house. She can't find her anywhere. She can't find her daughter. She calls the police right away. And they said well, 98% of the time the children come right home and she said well, this is the 2% of the time that it's different. She knew right away. And it was just very traumatic for both of them. The dad still looked completely unhinged. You can tell D deeply, deeply, I mean, of course, but also I think, even lose, Smith said, you go in and work your way out. So the first thing that happened is they went to the family. Now this is I hate to keep comparing it to JonBenet. But it just always sticks in my head with JonBenet. I do believe that they finally was rich. I think they were a little intimidated by that. And the family. So they, they didn't square off the scene, there was so many error, they told the dad to look for the kid. I mean, that that in itself is baffling. It just wasn't a you know, done properly. They zeroed in on the family. And some people didn't like the fact that she was like in the beauty pageants. And that no, you know, and loose. Smith had always compared this case to the Heather church case. I don't want to go too much into German a, I just want to say that there. There's similarities here between the cases at their church, they have a look at the Family First, they asked the dad questions, which he said, were just awful. And then the mother said, you know, the lie detector test was all fall and in the meantime, they don't know where Heather church is. They The thing is, though, they both had rock solid alibis. I mean, she was at the cub scout meeting. And the dad, my goal was that a parents of divorce meeting, the amount of time the window was just impossible for it to be them. They really, they don't know what happened, she just vanished. Two years go by. I mean, they're, they're like I said their land was five acres long. I mean, it became a cold case very quickly. And then a hiker was in a deep ravine, it was approximately 10 miles away from their house, he finds his skull. They they call the mother and said, you know, we found a skull somewhat in your area. And she said, it really just them finding the skull. She said, I wasn't too hopeful, because it didn't happen so many times before. She says In fact, if anything, it makes you very depressed, knowing just how many people go missing each year. Well, lo and behold, they check the dental records, and it is Heather church, Heather dawn church, they call the mother and they say, you know, it's Heather Lena, I mean, that must break you because she said the whole time the mother kept holding on to this. Maybe their children had passed away and they wanted a child and they took Heather and she kept holding hope that that Heather was alive somewhere. And now that bad hope was over. So now Who did it? No. m. So in the meantime, Lou Lou, I mean, there was FBI profilers who pontificated in the beginning that it had to be somebody close to the family, because there was no, there was nothing amiss, you know that besides the unlock door, there was no scenes of violence or chaos. So they said she must have known her attacker. That's the what the FBI profiler said that he thought was possible. And we know very soon after, I mean, in the beginning, she that Diane had found the window open, it had three smudge marks on it. So they took that fingerprint. And the aphis is the The FBI is the automatic fingerprint identification system, stores all of the fingerprints in there, and they kept running it through and running it through. And everyone was under the assumption loose Smith at the time, in fact, said he was under the assumption that all fingerprints went into the aphis system. He said at that time, I did not realize that it was only a major crime. And some people there was some there was actually 92 offices, they found they did not put their fingerprints into the aphis system. So you know, this is going over the course of two years, but they had had this fingerprint since the beginning. Just no match that there was a guy now there was another there was a El Paso elected a new sheriff. And he was deeply concerned about this Heather church case. So he calls in Lou Smith, and he says, What do you think we should do? How do you You know? And he said, Well, the only thing we have is these, these fingerprints. There's this guy named Thomas Carney. And he's, he was the aphis manager, who was the one who discovered that 92 offices did not have their aphis system updated. So he writes 92 letters, he says, I need 92 stamps. I'm going to mail to each and every one. Can you please Provide your fingerprints to me. So that you know of anybody that's involved that anybody who has their fingerprints on file, even if it's not, you know, like a murder or per se. And what do you know, they get a match. I mean, it was unbelievable. They they got a match to a guy named. And this is where the story just gets absolutely bizarre. Robert Charles Brown, he, which blows my mind, he lived only a few miles away. And he had been in jail for car theft, and you know, not a big deal. He moved to Colorado in 1987. And, you know, so he, you know, the thing is, is these things come up after parole, he got out of jail, but he had never been in jail for anything massive. They his fingerprints remained in these little small towns that did not provide they, his fingerprints never made it to the aphis system. And now it's a lot different. I asked homicide, I said is the Ava system updated? He said, it's pretty rare that they you know, we find out that that's, that was long ago that that happened. That was like a big goal. He said that they're pretty aphis is pretty updated in every town. Now there might be some still scattered, but for the most part, they're all updated. And it's all fingerprints, not just major felonies, so and computers can handle so much more now, you know, back then it was a lot harder. So his name was Robert Charles Brown. He seemed like a real piece of work. I mean, first they pull him in and he's they said, Robert, why are your fingerprints? And you know, they didn't tell them why they just had him come in and he bright thought it was a parole violation. Who knows? He comes in and they're they said, Why is your why were your fingerprints at the Heather church house. And he's arguing back and forth. Finally, they figure out that it was Robert Brown. But he had come into that house that night. He with the intent on burglarizing. He was on drugs or he came in with the intent on burglary. Heather surprised him because he did not see any cars or anything in the driveway, lights out all that. So he walked in, and she had died from blunt force trauma, one hard blow to the head. So he must have got startled when he saw her hit her in the head. They said the reason the fingerprints were on the window was because he had he had gloves on, but he couldn't get the window open. Fortunately, for everyone else, and the parents and the police, he went he went to push the window open he had to take off his glove for a second. And those three fingerprints is what saved everything. And I keep thanking One more. One more imagine. What if there's some little thing in that JonBenet I you know, I a I don't know who killed her. I'm just saying it sounded so similar to me. I can't get it out of my head. So this guy's a jerk. Regardless, let's put everything aside. Let's get back to Heather church, sweet little girl. And this guy ruined. And he was he had a wife and a child himself. I don't understand how you can do that when you have a child. How do you kill a child knowing what that does to a parent unless he has no soul once he apparently doesn't, but it really broke my heart for that family. Both of them but the dad always crushed me. It's called screen pass. It really is a good episode because it I just did children parents should not lose their children ever. It's a tragedy. I don't under I you know, I guess you have no choice but to get past it. But I don't know how you get past that. And they should burn this guy. I mean, he got life in prison. Then he started confessing then he started blabbing. And actually, there was another famous case. He started I guess when you're in jail. He got nothing to do. He started blabbing his mouth. He said he actually confessed to the death that he had a plea agreement. A round was arrested on March 28 1995 for the first degree murder of the September 17 1991 killing of Heather dawn church, although he initially pleaded not guilty in a plea agreement, he changed his plea to guilty. So the prosecutors when seeking the death penalty trying to save his own ass, they should hit him in the head with something sharp and kill him that that's eye for an eye. But okay, so on July 27 of 2006 and a similar plea agreement, he confessed to the death of Rocchio Dell PR. Sperry age 15, who was killed on November 10 1987, and an apartment complex sperrys body has never been recovered. Unbelievable. Then he started saying he killed, you know, up to 48 people with Juno's now he's on a tear, but um, he definitely did kill other church and Rocchio Sperry. I mean, that is just tragic. I believe. She was also missing from Colorado Springs. I guess Hispanic, yeah, I thought she was Hispanic. She was driving a grand way. Pontiac. Her husband his soldier was stationed at Fort Carson and was visiting family in Florida. Her husband said Rocchio call

them at 4: 21:15

45am to tell him she loved them and she couldn't wait to see him when he got home. He asked her if everything was okay. She said everything was fine. He was gone for six days. She was supposed to meet her husband at the airport, but she never showed up. He attempted to report our missing and they theorized that she left a while people theorize it she either left him or he murdered her the husband. He never believed his wife left on her own accord, and he found broken glass and blood inside their apartment. None of Rokia his belongings were missing, except the car and the TV set. So this guy was a burglar who were if a person just happened to be there, you would kill you. He certs for her himself, the husband Joseph and he thought she was kidnapped and forced into prostitution. He stated that his life had been miserable after rokeya advantage. He lost custody of his daughter and became addicted to heroin. He is now in recovery. Until Robert Brown confessed to Rokia his death. He stated that he took Rokia to the movies and strangled her afterward, dismembered her body and put it into a trash bin. He also stole her car or wedding ring and a television set. He had already been incarcerated at this time for the death of Heather dawn church. At is unbelievable. Now there's other murders, but they're the two definite positive one. So I don't want to get into other ones so much. wanted to add? No, I mean, not only that, but it's got to really suck to be accused of something that you didn't do. I hope Charles, he looks terrible. Thank goodness. Jail hasn't been kind to old Charlie, which nothing makes me happier. Now. That is a shorter one. There is a Robert Brown summary. Ah, I should have done our brown because it's apparent that this guy really you know what, the reason I did Heather church today is because it's a it's a brief story. But I was always somewhat fascinated by it for several reasons. Because Initially, it was so strange that she had went just missing flat out. It was interesting how they found her. That guy, you know, Thomas Carney's, a real hero, because he without him, I don't think they ever would have found them and the fact that lose Smith's and he's just that, you know, he held out hope. So that's really cool. Plus, I wanted to i, maybe one day, I can do the Robert Brown story and get to maybe go through because there's a lot of things and I'm reading, and I would like to put them all together. I just have to get this room done. But as so in the future. I this was a short one. I also have I'm going to do another one with Linden. They seem to be popular Rachel Nicole Now that is a British woman and that we decided to do a British woman, British crime next. And also I'm going I'm currently reading about Natalie Wood and that is taking a little bit of time that's a more of obviously complex case only because she lives such a full rich life. Then she had died. She had drowned on a boat and I wanted to go through that story. I definitely am going to do the caddy cabin murders because I I was always fascinated by that story. I know it's been done ad nauseum. But I did the Zodiac. And I thought that was ad nauseum. And that's gotten more clicks on YouTube than any of the other things I posted. I am on YouTube, by the way. It's the pictures with the story in the background. If you're interested in that, please like and subscribe. If you can give me a Hey, hi. Oh, on Apple podcast. That's where Apple kind of rules the podcasting world. So if you can give me a shout out there, that would be fantastic. Otherwise, it's shopaholicDeb44. And those are s me of the projects I'm working o. I just had to take a short b eak to get through this n ghtmare I call reconstruction. A d then I'll be back with my l ng, rambling ways. Thank you. A d this is Debbie Sue and y u're listening to the right s oe.