SERIAL KILLER: David Meirhofer

Hi, Grime junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And today, I'll be taking you on a trek through the mountains of Montana, where a little-known serial killer went undetected for years despite his brazen crimes, murders that he likely would have gotten away with had it not been for the surprising investigative combo of a mother's unrelenting determination for answers, and this brand new thing that the FBI was developing. A little something that you might be very familiar with now, but at the time, no one had heard of, criminal profiling. It was still in its infancy at the time, but this would be one of the very first cases where the FBI put their learning to work to catch serial killer, David Meyerhoffer. It's summer 1973, and 12-year-old Heidi Jager wakes up to a breeze on the back of her head. She might have had this brief hazy moment where she embraces the Montana mountain air, but then she realizes that's all wrong. Yes, she's outside. She's camping with her family, but she's inside a tent there shouldn't be a breeze. When she opens her eyes, it is pitch black, so she starts to like feel around, and her hand actually touches grass. And when her eyes finally adjust to the darkness, she notices that there is this gaping hole sliced through the back of her tent, and her little sister Suzie, who had been sleeping right next to her, is gone. Now, Heidi doesn't hesitate. She runs to wake up her parents in their nearby camper. Bill and Maryetta Jager hurry out with flashlights hoping to see seven-year-old Suzie wandering their campsite somewhere, may be using the restroom, but what they find causes even more panic. Suzie's stuffed animals that she'd been sleeping with are in the grass outside the back of the tent near where the hole was. They figure that she couldn't have been gone very long. It's just after 5 a.m. now, and Heidi tells them that she last laid eyes on her sister at 1.30 a.m. They'd both like woken up, chatted for a little bit before then falling back asleep. Did something wake them? Not that she remembers, but it's something that I've wondered about because their parents had put them to bed earlier before going to their camper to sleep. So I know that they were asleep earlier. But it seemed unlikely because it wasn't just Suzie and Heidi in the tent, two of their brothers were actually in there too. You see, the Jager family had an order about their campsite, so for this month-long excursion that they were on from their home in Michigan to Montana, the four youngest kids slept in the tent. Their oldest son, Dan, had a sleeping setup in the family van. Parents, Bill and Maryetta have their own camper, and even the grandparents Maryetta's parents, who are on this trip, they also have their own sleeping quarters. And no one else reported hearing anything strange in the night. They all stayed asleep until the family started waking them up one by one to help search for Suzie. In the book The Lost Child, which was written by Suzie's mom, Maryetta, she describes the moment that she saw Suzie's stuffed animals on the ground and the hole in the tent. In her and I'm actually just going to have you read from the sentence so people can hear directly from her. As I stumbled around the campground searching, I was gripped by a terrible sense of separation, panic, and hopelessness in my inability to see. I remember looking up at the black night's sky and begging God to send the sun. The darkness was unbearably frustrating. And in that moment, like desperate for a logical explanation, Maryetta and Bill are asking Heidi if there was anything inside the tent that Suzie could have used to cut the hole herself, but of course there wasn't. Right away, Maryetta knows in her heart of hearts that someone has her daughter. She just hopes that they haven't gotten too far. Using flashlights, they all start searching for Suzie around the campground, even waking neighboring campers, but there is no sign of Suzie. So Suzie's dad and grandpa drive to the closest town to alert police. The Gallatin County Sheriff's Office, an FBI special agent Pete Dunbar out of the nearby Bozeman Montana office, rushed to the campground and right away they see what Maryetta sees. They search every car and building and question all the campers of volunteer search party forms to help look for Suzie. And as the crowd of helpful people begins to grow, the Yeager family overhears something that must have made them even more worried for their little girl. One of the volunteers is talking to another one about the other child that was attacked at that very campground while asleep in his tent just a few years prior. So Maryetta goes right to law enforcement and asked them about this and what are they talking about. And they confirm this is true. Five years before in May of 1968, 12-year-old Michael Rainey was stabbed in his tent at that same state park. He'd been on a boy scout trip and was sleeping right next to another kid. That case was never solved. And now, this seems like way more than just a coincidence that Suzie went missing from the same place. So finding her might mean actually solving two cases and preventing more, which makes the stakes all that much higher. When the light of day begins slowly creeping in, the sun reveals one more clue. Where Suzie's stuffed animals had been, they can barely make out a footpath in the dew of the grass leading away from the tent toward the parking area. There's also a rock with reddish brown stains. This is by no means comforting to anyone, and this ramps up the urgency of the search. The FBI sets up a command center at the campground. Authorities start working on a bolo for Suzie, and they rush Suzie's sleeping bag her stuffed animals, the rock that cut part of the tent all to their lab for testing. And they also widen the search area to include rivers, the local dump, and the nearby towns of three forks and Manhattan, Montana, where they start going door to door. And all of those efforts do result in some suspect names being tossed around, mostly local oddballs, and any of them who didn't have a solid alibi for the early morning hours of June 25th were brought in for questioning and polygraphs. They even dispatched police to the Yager's home in Michigan to check their house and mail to see if anyone made any threats. And they go door to door there to find out if any neighbors had any information about Suzie or somebody who could be a threat to her. But no matter how much, or where they search over the next several days, nothing is found. And mind you, this case is getting some real headlines around Montana. And Marietta is giving local reporters interviews in case it could help, thinking that someone out there had to know something. Her desperate please just had to reach the right person. It takes five full days before the first big development comes in. And strangely, it comes to the Denver field office of the FBI, like Denver Colorado. Yeah, they get a call at 7 p.m. on June 30th from a man who says that he is Suzie's kidnapper. And he says, tell someone the ransom is $25,000, but he hung up without giving any more information. Where should they take the money? When? Yeah. No one knew if this was a hoax or if they should be expecting another call, but the phone didn't ring again until July 2nd. This time, not in a Denver field office, not actually in any office at all. The phone rang at the home of Gallatin County deputy Ron Brown. The thing is, Ron Brown isn't home. Even though it's 11 16 p.m. he's still out helping with Suzie's search. So his wife, Jane, answers. And the man says to her, the Denver FBI must think I'm a crank. I'm raising the ransom to $50,000. And this time he gives real instructions. He demands that the ransom be put in a suitcase in small bills and placed in the end stall of the men's restroom at the Denver bus stop. The Denver Colorado connection. We're back to Denver again. And this time it feels legit because he says that he can prove he has Suzie by telling them something about her that a random stranger wouldn't know. He says that Suzie's fingernails, like on her index fingers of each hand, are hummed a little, like slightly deformed. And this is true of Suzie. And it's also true that a stranger wouldn't know that. I mean, wasn't put on any of the press bulletins about this case. Actually, Marietta writes in her book that in the chaos and fear after Suzie first disappeared, they were like giving her description to the authorities and stuff, but they had like totally forgotten this detail about her. Like it was barely noticeable. And Suzie was born with it. So like, again, literally, she's born with it and they never thought about it anymore. So this caller, this is either someone who knows Suzie knows the family and would play some kind of, not some kind, the cruelest hoax on them, which seems absolutely out of the realm of possibility. Or this is really the man who kidnapped her. So once authorities are made aware of this call, they send an urgent teletype to the Denver field office to get someone to the busty to do surveillance. They also launch a plan to get some dummy bills together to fill a suitcase because the Yeagers don't just have $50,000 in cash laying around. And they also put a tap on Deputy Brown's phone in case the kidnapper calls back. But whoever was that called never comes to the busty bow, never picks up the cash, or I don't know if they saw the police or what, but like that pickup never happens. No, and in the time that the Sheriff's Office is waiting, another crime in the area happens. And actually, it's one that I've already covered on my other show The Deck. 20-year-old nurse Donna Lemmon goes missing after last being seen buying a can of beer at a bar in Gallatin Gateway on July 5, 1973. So this is just 10 days after Susie and 30 miles south of Headwater State Park. Now her case ends up seeing slightly more resolution than Susie's because within four days they end up finding Donna's body on the banks of the Snake River down in Idaho. And I say all that to say like while this may pull on some resources take away from Susie's case, that investigation happens like much smaller. It's much quieter as it plays out. And honestly, the most distracting part for police at the time is like they start getting tips from locals suggesting that maybe Susie's case and Donna's case are somehow connected, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense to officials. Like the circumstances, the victims themselves, everything about the two cases felt very different. And none of the tips had anything concrete to point to. They were all just basically saying like, this is a really weird coincidence. Like in such a small place having two cases like this back to back. How could they not be connected? Right. But the investigators aren't bringing the cases together. They have a kidnapping right now and all of their effort is going into locating Susie. Hopefully alive. And the Yeager family is doing anything they can to support. In order to feel like they're doing something helpful, they start fundraising for actual cash should the kidnapper call back and want to follow through on the ransom demand. They also make calls and organize a reward fund for information. It's like the 1970s version of GoFundMe and Marietta writes in her book that thanks to a major donation from an anonymous person, they actually do raise $50,000. So they are quickly ready for a call. A call that just never comes because July becomes August and as summer comes to an end with very little in the way of legit leads, the Yeager family has to think about heading home. They have been living at the campground this whole time fueled by locals who brought them food and other necessities. Marietta has a whole chapter in her book titled God's Good People about how nice everyone was to them in their time of need. But I can't imagine that feeling like packing up that long drive back to Michigan. I mean on their way out west, everyone had been buzzing with excitement for their family adventure. Marietta had taken to doing a head count after each pit stop. So on the way home, not only was the tone in the van just sad, but Marietta's head count was down by one. Montana had stolen their youngest child and they were returning home without her. The other kids needed to return to school. Bill has to go back to work. Authorities assure them that they'll still be working the case though, and they hatch a plan for the Yeagers to get a tape recorder so that if they get any calls from the kidnapper at home, they'll be recording. So the Yeagers eventually settle into a new normal in Michigan without Susie. But I don't even know that normal is like the right word because Marietta barely leaves the house just in case the kidnapper calls like tape recorder at the ready. And the house phone does ring constantly with well-wishers and psychics even offering visions and Marietta answers every single one. It is her job now, her post, and she will not abandon it. But on September 24, her youngest son Joe calls from Catechism class. He unexpectedly needs a ride home. I guess Bill's at work. Marietta, I mean she's at home on phone duty, but Joe is only five minutes away. So that's the moment when she rushes out to get him. And in the 10 minutes, she is gone. The phone rings. Now luckily, the oldest of the Yeager kids, 16 year old Dan, he is home and presses record before answering the phone. And of course, this is the call. It's the kidnapper. The call from the kidnapper lasts only two minutes in total and the recording no longer exists. But a transcript does. So I'm going to have voice actors read part of it so you can hear the exact words that the man said. Now you're Susie's brother, huh? Yeah, you like to know where she's at? Yeah, I would. Well, you're going to have to wait a while. Why? You've had too much police and FBI activity. You may think I'm a hoax, but I know something about Susie that nobody knows. Oh, why don't you tell us? Okay, fingernails of her first fingers are humped. I know that. Why don't you tell us where she is? Because I can't hardly do that. It's a pretty dangerous situation, you know. Well, can you just drop her somewhere and let us pick her up? Do you want to come west quite a ways? Yeah, no problem there. Well, we'll make arrangements one of these days. But for right now, you're going to have to wait a while. Why do we have to wait? Because that's the way things have to be. Why? Well, because the person does things like this, he can't get caught. He's got to figure out ways not to get caught. Just drop her somewhere a day ahead of time and just leave that place. Yeah, sure. I don't want to drop her just for nothing. Anyway, I just want to tell you to wait a while. You will be contacted. It may be another week. It may be a month or two months or so, but you'll get contacted. He's keeping them in like suspended torture. Maybe a week, maybe a month. This feels way less like finding a way out and more like he's screwing with that kind of screwing with the eye. I know. Were they able to trace calls like this back then? Like in the 70s? They actually were, but I guess in 73, this, I mean, it takes like a few weeks to do. But the FBI finds a receipt of the call through a phone company and traces it to a pay phone at a gas station diner near Cheyenne, Wyoming. But by the time they get there in like October, I mean, not only is the guy not there, but like so many people have used that pay phone. Yeah, it's public. It's impossible to actually get like usable fingerprints. And nobody reports seeing any kidnapper looking guys using that particular phone. Now around the same time is also when the lab results come back in of like all the stuff they sent off to the FBI, but all of that stuff is a dead end to no prints on anything. Now they do confirm that the substance that they saw on that rock, that like reddish brown stuff, that was human blood, but the sample wasn't even suitable for any further testing. And the only hair that they collected from the sleeping bag turns out to be consistent with Susie's. And the cut didn't tell them anything either other than it was cut with a sharp instrument which like it was cut. So there is nothing physical that is going to tie back to their guy. And if he was still looking for a way to let Susie go and get something out of it, he hasn't found it because he never called back like he told Dan he was going to. So the family endures the holidays without Susie. And the end of 1973 also marks the end to any solid leads or action in the investigation. And while I'm sure nobody wants to say it out loud, there is less and less hope of finding Susie alive. If they were to do more searches, it would probably be for remains. They just don't even know where to look. But the truth is remains are what they would end up finding, but in the strangest way possible. Come February 1974. This is now over seven months since Susie's kidnapping. The Gallatin County Sheriff's Office is faced with another missing person's case. Now on its surface, this case looks closer to Dawn Elements remember her than it does Susie's case because the missing young woman Sandy Dyckman was 19 years old and living on her own in Manhattan, Montana, which is like this small town like 10 minutes from the state park. So her dad, John Dyckman reported her missing on Monday, February 11th. He said that Sandy hadn't been seen since Saturday night. She wasn't answering her door or her phone and her car. This little white Ford Cortina was missing. All of this totally not normal behavior for his daughter. Now Manhattan is a small town. So deputies taking this report are even familiar with Sandy who waitresses at the bowling alley cafe. So after they can't seem to find anyone who knows where she is, the sheriff organizes a search for her and her car which aren't anywhere in this small town. So their search has to expand to the far reaching corners of the county, which is how deputy Dawn Houghton and town marshal Ron Skinner end up at this old abandoned ranch about a week after Sandy was last seen. And as Dawn and Ron are like walking around the property, something white catches their eyes in the sagebrush. It's a pair of women's underwear and they look like they've been recently worn. So the men bagged the underwear and they continue their search to a nearby barn where they have to force their way inside. And peeking out from under a tarp and some hay. is Sandy's little white car. Now when Don and Ron approach, they're probably expecting to find Sandy's body, but the only thing they see when they peer through the windshield is some clothing. No sign of Sandy, not even a bloody crime scene, but this is still highly suspicious. So they bring in reinforcements to process this place over the next several days. And the FBI in the rest of the Sheriff's Office search almost every inch of the property, to house the barn, the outbuildings, and it is just red flag after red flag, both in what they find and in what others bring to them. Like one day during crime scene processing at the ranch, this local guy shows up saying that he found a woman's red blouse nearby. And then they find more clothes in a suitcase in Sandy's car, all of which seemed to belong to her, but they don't appear to have been packed up the way that she would if she had left bone terribly. And then in the abandoned house, they find melted candle wax in like various places, and they discover a closet that looks as if it had been nailed shut with a pile of feces in it and a bloody whip is found in the barn, or at least they think it's blood on this whip. And then it's on February 19th that they find bones in a burn pile near the old ranch house and scattered around outside. They collect over a thousand pieces of bone fragments, including some teeth. The picture that's getting painted is that something very bad happened to Sandy here, but there was still a twist yet to come for investigators. When the pathologists and anthropologists review the biological materials and bones from the ranch, they conclude, without a doubt, that some of the remains belong to Sandy Digman, yes. Specifically, it's the teeth that they compare and match to Sandy's dental records. Here's the twist. Experts say that not all of the remains belong to Sandy. There are at least two people who were reduced to a pile of ash because some of the bones belong to a girl between the ages of five and eight years old. Suzy. It is everyone's first thought, but they have nothing as definitive to ID Suzy yet. But if it's her, this is the biggest development Suzy's case has seen in months. And it without a doubt connects Suzy and Sandy's cases. And if Sandy's killer is Suzy's killer, there is one name that actually appears in both investigations. David Meyerhoffer. David Meyerhoffer is a 20-something-year-old lifelong Manhattan resident, a former Boy Scout and Marine who served in Vietnam. And he is back home now, working as a self-employed carpenter in town. And David is someone who is known to them. This guy's always eager to help. He's curious, constantly asking the deputy's questions about the kidnapping investigations that they were working when he sees them at the local cafe. He was one of those local oddballs that actually came up in Suzy's case. One of the guys that witnesses told the cops they should just look at early on. And they did. But David had been pretty cooperative, so back then he's like kind of annoying, but not really suspicious. But his name came up in Sandy's case too, for two different reasons. One, he is actually the local man who just happened upon that blouse that he turned over to police by the ranch. And two, apparently he had gone on a date with Sandy just a few months ago. And when he asked for a second date, Sandy turned him down. Okay, so there's a connection to Sandy, but how does he connect to Suzy? I mean, only by her bones, or probably her bones being found with Sandy and Sandy being socially connected to David. Like it's not solid. Yeah. But it's something. And they got to start somewhere. So agents actually go and pay David a visit at his warehouse in Manhattan, which is only like a half block from where Sandy lived. And he acts as if he has nothing to hide. He agrees to even take a polygraph test and he passes. So the agents move on. But there's nothing to really move on too. The case is both just kind of hit a dead end, and they only heat back up because agent Dunbar ends up going to Quantico, Virginia for this routine FBI training that following spring. And he happens to attend this session that's being put on by some agents who have psychology backgrounds. And they're talking about this like brand new idea. How studying a crime scene could give insight into the killer themselves. And with nothing to lose, Dunbar asked them if they will take a look at Sandy in Suzy's cases. Yeah. And they must see it as a worthwhile challenge because they start to put together a psychological profile of the probable killer. They say that Suzy was probably murdered within two days of her abduction by a man who likely is white and in his 20s. He has to be at least modestly intelligent they say. He's a loner, unmarried, and has little experience with women. They think he's a local guy, but has military experience and would be physically fit. He most likely has killed before and from those murders, he's probably kept souvenirs. And he's likely the type that would try to insert himself into an investigation, which the blouse hits two of those, right, like a souvenir and inserting himself into the investigation. Also, the calls taunting the Yeager family. Actually, they say he probably isn't even done doing that. Even though it's been a while, like this is their like prediction, if you want to say, they think that he is going to call again. And they think it's going to be on a significant date. So with the one year anniversary of Suzy's kidnapping coming up, agents work with Marietta to make sure that she is prepared. Wait, they know this is David, right? Like, I'm like checking everything off on the whole profile. Again, like profiling isn't proven at this point. It's exact, right. Not even that it's not exact. These local agents, it's almost like, whoy, right? It's like, there's no way you can know this. It's not a proven thing. And so like, they're listening to them and they're willing to like, you know, be prepared, but they are less convinced because in their mind, the thing that they know is polygraphs. Right. David passed a polygraphs. They are known science. Right. Cleared him. But they're still. They're going to move along with the plan. They let the press have access to Marietta for anniversary headlines, knowing that that might trigger the kidnapper to call her. And Marietta is prepared to play her part, though she has been haunted over this dream that she had. Like, it is so vivid. She says it's like watching a movie. And in this dream, she says she sees Suzy being taken from her tent, put in a truck, and waking up afraid because she's with a strange man. And the man takes her somewhere, undresses Suzy, and then strangles her before dismembering her. But maybe it's just a dream. Maybe those bones of a little girl they found aren't her little girl. They still haven't proven it. She has to have hope, especially as the phone rings on the morning of June 25th, 1974. Not only the transcript of this has survived from this call, and it is heartbreaking to read. The caller asks if it's Suzy's mom that he's speaking to. And when she says yes, he says, "Well, I'm the guy who took her from you exactly a year ago to the minute." He says that she's alive, but he can't give her back because he's gotten used to her. And Brit, I don't know how. But Marietta keeps the kidnapper talking for an hour. And in that time, he says that he and Suzy have been traveling west and sightseeing. And Marietta is like sobbing and begs the man to give Suzy back saying they will pay any amount. But he says it's too late for that because if he gives Suzy back, she's going to be able to identify him. But Marietta says, like, no one is going to make a child testify. Like, you don't have to worry about her identifying you because it would never make it to court. But it would just never happen. Yeah, I can't believe she's able to basically negotiate with this man. I know. And at one point, she actually does call his bluff saying that she doesn't actually believe that he still has Suzy. She's like, prove it to me. Like, prove to me that she's alive, but he can't. He says that he has been using psychotherapy to wipe her memory. And Marietta goes, "How are you qualified to do something like that?" Now, it doesn't give a real reason. So she switches tactics and she asks how he knew that Suzy was even in the tent. And he said that he'd been lurking around the campsite that night and he had come by hurt her and her sister talking, but then he waited till they fell back asleep and then he took her. Okay, maybe we should never go camping to our, like, list of life rules. Honestly, putting your kids in a different tent is one of mine. This is not the only time something like this has happened. And something like this even happens, like, in recent memory of mine, like, it made headlines. It is rare, but it is legit nightmare fuel. Keep your kids close camping. Just because you're out in the middle of nowhere doesn't mean you're out in the middle of nowhere alone. So this man tells Marietta that he has been good to Suzy and that he took her because he always wanted a little girl, which is not what a mother wants to hear. And when Marietta asks where Suzy is at that very moment, he says that she is up in his cabin sleeping. And when she asks again if Suzy's okay, the kidnapper says yes and talks about how he could never kill a little girl like that. And like, the man even gets emotional on the phone before hanging up. Now investigators, Study every detail of this call. This guy had a Western accent. There was no background noise But it sounds like he's outside and the FBI tries to trace the call But for technical reasons for some reason like this time it doesn't work However a few days later they catch a lucky break because this Montana rancher notices a suspicious call on his phone Bill so suspicious because it was over an hour long and placed at 3.25 in the morning So he goes to the telephone company in Bozeman to dispute the charge because he knows like it's not He's not my call. I'm not paying for it right and when the employee makes a copy of the bill She notices the recipient of the call was William Yeager of Farmington Hills, Michigan Remember Susie's case was huge there in Montana She recognizes the Yeager name immediately. She knows this is the father of the missing girl So she reports it to police. I mean, you said lucky break. This is like a one and a million Chance of this happening. It's not even done the odds get more wild from here because the farmhouse where this call was placed from That ranch is right next to the old abandoned ranch where the human remains and Sandy Dykman's car had been found Now an agent Dunbar interviews the rancher. He swears that his whole family had been asleep when the call was made And he has no idea how that call got made because all the doors were locked So no one could have come in and used their house phone and there wasn't even a break in or anything like that But come to think of it the rancher had recently seen some Suspicious tire tracks out on some land where he had another phone line Now it wasn't like an actual phone receiver that you could just like pick up and use It would take someone with no how to be able to tap into the line But it was a possibility now. He's not thinking about that back then But he had been so bothered by the tracks on their own that he had inspected them closely and noticed that they were made by a specific Good year tire tires that he knew were on the truck of his former ranch hand David Meyerhoff Agent Dunbar doesn't want to jump to conclusions. I mean, I don't think anyone's doing any Jumping at this point all roads are leading to David But he doesn't want to go right to him. So first he goes to a manager of the local phone company to figure out how Someone could have tapped into the phone line. Basically he finds out it could be done Honestly with an ordinary phone as long as the person was familiar with phone lines and wires and Guess who has telecoms experience from his military service? David So this convinces him enough that he now needs to talk to David again And he wants to get right to the point. We know David already passed one polygraph But agent Dunbar convinces him to do another one this time using truth serum Hello 1974. I know and by now by the way, David has a lawyer But he doesn't stand in the way and Brit he passes again again Yes, so they let David Meyerhoffer leave and once again Agent Dunbar is convinced that David is probably not the man Who killed Sandy and Susie but those FBI profilers? They are not so convinced They try to make local authorities understand something about a true psychopath like those kind of people can pass polygraphs all day long Even under the spell of truth serum. So it's them who pushes agent Dunbar just keep that David So agents pay him another visit the next day asking if they can search his property and David and his lawyer say Like sure have at it. Which shocks me though because what agents find is incriminating and downright creepy It turns out David is a record keeper Investigators find a receipt time stamped for this same day in location Remember that first call that was made to the Yeager House like the one from the gas station diner in Wyoming There's a receipt next they find sheets with blood stains two Unused Disneyland tickets one of which is for a child. They find a tube of lipstick They find a little girl's blouse and a necklace David also has cut out a ton of newspaper articles some about the criminal investigations in which he's now the center of and Others that seem almost like a to-do list and there actually was one in particular that stands out There was this article about upcoming Girl Scout camps their dates and their locations Including a hand-drawn map of camp silver cloud now It's so interesting about that is during the time when they had been looking at David There had been an attack on two girls who were at that camp They were like on a walk in the trails when this man jumped out at them tried to strangle one with a rope before being scared off by the other And they were never able to determine who that guy was, but now they're pretty sure they know. Yeah Then there is the actual to-do list on stationary labeled things to do today and he wrote Easiest ways to access the camps and wrote things like densely wooded and good cover He even had a checkmark next to camp silver cloud like dude Marked it off his list, which makes the next clipping that they find scary David had cut out a newspaper photo of a little girl named Karen Smith who was photographed Fishing with her dad, but what was the date? So around the 4th of July, which means they weren't too late Karen Smith was okay and actually even though this is an old case our reporter Emily Got a hold of Karen Smith and interviewed her for this episode. She's a grandma now living her best life But she says she was like five years old at the time and the FBI sent an agent to basically be her bodyguard after this because Keep in mind David is not in jail. Yeah, this dude is free to roam So she wasn't allowed to go out to recess with her friends and this agent even crashed on the family's couch Basically around the clock protection from David Meyerhoffer. Wait, I'd like do he wasn't in jail But how is he not in jail after this search? I couldn't tell you because nothing in the case file tells me But Karen says she basically felt like she survived a serial killer thanks to that agent Yeah, but like I'm sorry in what world are bloody sheets and a little girl's shirt not to mention a crime to do list Honestly, not enough to arrest the sky like this kind of gets me conspiratorial because like Why did he even let them search so easily knowing what they would find? It's almost like he felt untouchable Exactly what I was going to say and for some reason he was Apparently David just like talks his way out of all of that stuff saying like oh those sheets those clothes like those are there when I bought the place Now I don't want to make it sound like they were just not interested in him anymore They're still very interested. They just I guess don't feel like they have an airtight case. I mean it to do a list I know so they what they do next is they arrange a voice lineup for Marietta and Bill because remember they've talked to the kidnapper on the phone They separately ID David Meyerhoffer as the man who had been calling their house Still police want more The FBI flies the Jagers to Montana and arranges a face-to-face meeting between Marietta and David Meyerhoffer Again his lawyer allows this because according to author Ron Fransell who wrote the book Shadow Man which was a valuable resource when looking into this case David's lawyer still genuinely believes in his client's innocence and David says straight to Marietta's face that he is not the man who abducted Suzy But Marietta knows in her gut. She like she knows she was just face-to-face with the guy who kidnapped her daughter However, because he denies it they tell her they can't do anything. I mean What do you do like you come all the way to Montana and they're just gonna like Let him walk out of there. I don't know how I don't know how I don't know how they went back the first time and like to go back again to not like knowing you know No, you saw him. I don't know. I don't know but they send them back to Michigan And the FBI profiler says that if David is their guy He will want to regain power over the situation. He's gonna call Marietta again soon That's what they say and they say in the meantime They're gonna be surveilling him watching his every move and they do a pretty good job But one day in late September agents somehow lose track of him and of course That's exactly when the phone rings at the Yeager house and Marietta didn't come to play When she accepts the long distance call she gets right to it and she literally says Hello, David and listen. He tries to play dumb like who's David I don't know what you're talking about but Marietta is like David. I just sat across from you I know it's you and he won't admit anything But he tries to tell her he still has Susie and he's saying that Susie is saved and so she says the same thing She said all along prove it and that's when the voice of a little girl comes on the phone and says This guy he's nice and I'm sitting on his lap Now Marietta knows her daughter's voice even after all this time she would recognize it That was not her daughter This call triggers an intense reaction from authorities. They swarm Manhattan Montana But David's in the wind even his lawyer doesn't have tabs on him and now that he seems to be be on the run, the county prosecutor agrees to an arrest warrant. But within 18 hours, David reappears in town, swearing that he's just like been there the whole time. But they find a piece of paper in his pocket from the motel in Salt Lake City where they determined that last call to Marietta was made from. So now it's over. And it's almost as if he wanted to get caught. And when investigators go back and tear apart his property looking for more, they realize they must have missed something the first time. And the most damning piece of evidence is actually packed away in David's freezer. David Meyerhoffer's freezer is filled with many normal things, packages of tear, elk, frozen dinners. But among them is a package wrapped in butcher paper with the letters SMDS on the outside. And inside is Sandy Dyckman's hand, fingers with nail polish severed from the palm. Wait, why didn't they find this when they searched before? I don't know. I guess this is their first foray into the freezer. I get the sense that like the first search was pretty surface lover. I don't know if it's because they found a decent amount of stuff. They were like, I mean, actually, it's all out in the open. Maybe that's why he was fine with them looking like, you know, they didn't find in the first search. What are you going to find this time? Well, they have it now, and there is no more talking his way out of this situation. And David knows it now too. He tells his lawyer that he will confess to killing Sandy and little Suzy. But, if the state agrees not to pursue the death penalty, they'll also tell them about two other murders that he got away with. On September 29th, 1974, more than a year since Suzy's kidnapping, agent Dunbar and the county attorney sit down with David Meyerhoffer. He admits to abducting Suzy from her tend and taking her to his truck and then to the abandoned ranch. He says that he undressed her, but when he started to sexually assault her, Suzy fought, so he strangled her. I mean, that's just like Marietta's dream. I know. He says that he ended up cutting her up and scattered their remains and then burned them except for her head, which he put in the outhouse. They end up finding it just like he said. This monster tossed this little girl's head into an outhouse, which happened to be the one place at the ranch that they'd never searched. As for Sandy, he says that he went to her apartment while she was sleeping and jumped on her, strangled her, tied her up and put tape over her mouth. He says that she must have suffocated under the tape because while he was packing her car, he came back and just found her dead. So he took her body to the abandoned ranch and proceeded to conceal it in the same way that he had Suzy's dismemberment and fire. Those two confessions weren't really a surprise to anyone. I mean, even the dismemberment part, they had kind of determined that based on the remains that they had found. The next confession, though, that one was a surprise. David said that he was the person who killed Michael Rainey, the 12-year-old boy scout who was found stabbed in his tent at the same state park but five years before Suzy was taken. The thing is, he gives no explanation for this other than he wanted to take a kid, but he didn't take him. Exactly. It doesn't make much sense. And then the fourth murder that he confesses to is another curveball, because it's not like any of the other cases, and it was one that they really hadn't even been considering a homicide. It was the death of a teenage boy named Bernie Pullman back in 1967, so Bernie had been on a bridge above the river in Manhattan, Montana when he was shot. And it had sort of been deemed an accident, like maybe Bernie caught like a wild or stray bullet from someone's hunting rifle or something. And at the time, David was just a senior in high school when that happened, and he doesn't give investigators any reason for that murder, either. Not that there would like be a good one. And listen, Agent Dunbar asks David about a few other missing and murdered Montana girls and women, including Donna Lemon. But David says he had no involvement in any of the other cases they bring up. He even denies being the hooded guy who tried to take the girls from Camp Silver Cloud. Even though that was literally on his, like, murder to do less. Which, like, to me makes everything else, he's saying, like, less credible. Yeah. And then he wouldn't even entertain the idea of talking about cases outside of Montana, even though he had lived in California during boot camp and Vietnam during his service. So who knows if David left a trail of cases in his wake? Wait, so who was the little girl on the phone? This is what I'm like spiraling on. He refused to talk about that, too. They don't know if the voice Marietta heard was like a kid talking in real time. Maybe it was a recording. I mean, either way, doesn't that prove that he was at one point in time with another kid? That is still a mystery. They talk to people at least at the hotel, right? We know he, like, calls Marietta at that time from a hotel in Salt Lake. And they said they talked to people, but nobody remembered seeing anything odd or like they don't really point out him. So we don't know if he was like even with a kid there was he solo there, I lean more toward the idea that this was maybe recorded because he was only at a site for 18 hours and I would assume that if another kid went missing in that time and between those two locations. It's also 1970, right? Like maybe they don't know, like if something, but like, I don't know, to your point though, when, how he got that recording, I don't even know, where is it now? He would have had to had it at the hotel, like maybe a recording makes even less sense, like the thing is I'm fully convinced this man had more victims that we just don't know about. Because remember the blouse and the necklace, like the lipstick found at his house? Here's the thing, Sandy and Susie's parents were shown those items and they say that they didn't belong to their daughters. So those are probably souvenirs from other girls and women, which means there might have been hope to get answers for other families. Maybe they could do some kind of like plea to close out other cases that he was like most certainly connected to, but that never happened because just a few hours after his confession, David's found dead in his jail cell. He died by suicide. This man's method of murder was essentially random, which is why it is so astonishing to me that FBI profilers were able to peg him so well. I mean, they predicted the phone calls, you know, it might have been partially luck, but it paved the way for all of the criminal profiling that came after this because it made some of the doubters respect their craft a little bit more. You know, something that really bugs me about these cases is that David only called and taunted the Yeager family, like he didn't, as far as we know, torment any of the other victims' families with phone calls. And nobody seems to know why. And actually in the Donna lemon case, like when they were early on, like, oh, these are so separate. They're not connected. I think that was one of the reasons why they never connected them or why he wasn't considered a serious suspect because he never called her family after her murder. But then I go back to like, well, if he really only did that once, that we know of, why would it matter if he did it? Why aren't we considering him in Donna's case? You know, David traveled a lot, he was delivering machinery for his dad's company. He could have easily taken Donna to Idaho where she's found and left her there. And did they ever compare the stuff they found at his place to Donna or like, showing any of that to her family? And that's the thing, like, not that I know of. No. And like, I kind of get maybe all these years later, where people don't. You would think that he would have taken Donna to the same abandoned property that he took Sandy and Susie to. And maybe that's why they're like, oh, well, they're found together. The other cases he confessed to her so long ago, like Donna was like, at that same time frame, he would have just taken her there. But like, I think that's looking at that, like, yeah, sure, logically that makes sense. But that's not what we're dealing with. Right. We interviewed Ron Fransell for this episode, the author of Shadow Man. And he reminds us that it is a waste of time to try and apply logic and reasoning to the actions of a psychopath. It has a crime junkie. It's hard not to think about these things because somehow I think answers to other cases are in there somewhere like, why Susie, why then, and who else? Marietta wrote in her book that in the months leading up to their vacation that summer, as she planned their trip to Montana, she developed a healthy fear of snakes and bears invading their campsites. Never in her wildest dreams did she think that a man on the hunt for a child would be far worse than any animal she could ever dream of encountering. But in the end, Marietta forgave David. She went on to become an advocate for forgiveness and speaks openly against the death penalty. You can find all the source material for this episode on our website, crimejunkie.com. And as you can follow us on Instagram @crimejunkiepodcast. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode. (upbeat music) - Crime Junkie is an audio check production. I think Chuck would approve. (crow cawing)