MISSING: The Gospel Trio

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Hi, Crime Junkies.

I'm your host, Ashley Flowers.

And I'm Britt.

And listen, the story I have for you today, girl, you know I love a deep dive and this one was a true dive because originally when I came across this like blip of a story, there was almost nothing to it.

Two women and a little girl vanished on their way home from a gospel concert, the end.

Not a lot of coverage, not a lot of theories.

One of those articles that will honestly fool you into thinking that maybe there is no story there.

But no one can disappear without a trace and not leave behind a complicated web just waiting to be unraveled.

And after our team spoke with absolutely everyone we could get in touch with about this case, from family members to law enforcement, we can finally bring you the details that haven't been reported on anywhere else.

And we can slowly start to unravel this mystery if the right person who hears this is brave enough to finally come forward.

So if you're that right person, listen closely.

This is the story of Sarah and Kimberly Boyd and Linda McCord.

For Tiffany Ross, April 5th, 1987 begins like many other lazy Sundays, hanging out at her grandmother's house in Dorchester, South Carolina.

Tiffany's family is really tight-knit, so people are always in and out of the house.

And on this day, it is her uncle, Philip, who stops by.

Tiffany's only eight, so she's not part of her uncle and her grandma's conversation, but she can hear clear as day when Philip says that his wife, 32-year-old Sarah Boyd, Boyd, and their two-year-old daughter, Kimberly, are missing.

Phillip hasn't seen them since Friday, April 3rd, when they left to go to a gospel concert with Sarah's 32-year-old friend, Linda McCord.

Now, it was supposed to be a quick thing.

I mean, like, to the concert was only like a 30-minute drive from where they live in Dorchester.

And in that moment, when she hears this, this sparks a memory for little Tiffany.

maybe a sign that everybody missed a day earlier that something was wrong.

You see, Sarah stopped by her mom's house every day after work.

So Tiffany was standing in that same kitchen on Friday when Sarah asked her mom if she wanted to come with them to that gospel concert.

But she said no.

And so mom and daughter agreed that they would see one another the next day.

But they didn't stop by the house the next day like they said they would.

After Sarah and Kimberly got into Linda's 1977 Blue Lincoln and drove off, no one had gotten so much as a phone call from Sarah.

But now that everyone is talking, they are beyond beyond worried.

Sarah's not someone who would just go off somewhere without telling anyone, especially with her daughter.

So the family rallies together with the help of friends and neighbors, and they all start driving around in pickup trucks, looking everywhere they can think of, just trying to make sense of a situation that doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

And this is low country, South Carolina.

So there are dirt roads, tons of open space, which you might think would make it easy to see like far and wide.

But according to an officer that we spoke to, it's like looking for a needle in a haystack because without any information to narrow down a search area, there is just so much remote ground to cover.

Now, as they're looking, right around this same time, there's somebody who's sounding the alarm about Linda being missing as well.

Police get a call from her husband, John McCord, and he tells them that last he knew, Linda was on her way to a gospel concert with Sarah and Kimberly.

Now, granted, Sarah and Kimberly's family, they're still doing their own search.

They haven't even told police yet.

So this is the first police are hearing of it.

So John goes into a little more detail based on the police report that was filed.

He tells the police that he hadn't seen Linda since she left at around 6.30 p.m.

on Friday to pick up Sarah and Kimberly.

And, oh, by the way, he's extra worried because he'd found Linda's abandoned car already that morning.

John says that a witness spotted Linda's Blue Lincoln at around 9 a.m.

It was stalled and abandoned in Orangeburg, which is just one county over from Dorchester.

The spot where it's found is this intersection that like three of the major highways cross, one of them being Highway 15, which is the road that the trio would have taken to the concert.

But problem is the car is found like 20 minutes in the wrong direction from where Linda was supposed to drop Sarah and Kimberly off on the way back.

I mean, it's not even on the way to Linda's mom's house either, where she and John are living.

But it doesn't even really matter because no matter where it was, John tells the police it's not even there anymore.

Then where is it?

John said he already had the car towed to an auto shop.

Well, before calling police.

Yes, but also no.

So this is where things get a little messy.

So the police were technically told about the car before it was moved.

Like the witness who actually found it called the police in Orangeburg County where the car was.

And that makes sense.

Like, why would the witness call a different county?

Like, they don't know, right?

Right.

They're here in Orangeburg.

They're going to call Orangeburg.

Right.

So when Orangeburg County police ran the car's registration, John is listed as the owner.

And lucky for John, Lieutenant Martin with Orangeburg County is his buddy.

So Lieutenant Martin just called John up and is like, hey, your car's here.

And the two of them basically like drove out and moved it together.

So like,

on one hand, what the hell, people, right?

Like, let's just hold up a minute and take stock of the situation.

On the other, you have a police lieutenant agreeing to help move the car.

Like, if you're John, like, so John probably thought it was okay to do.

Yeah.

And I mean, I assume John told Lieutenant Martin that he hasn't seen his wife since she drove away in that car now that they're finding an abandoned car.

I don't know how much Lieutenant Martin knows right off the bat.

The officers that we talk to believe that Lieutenant Martin honestly just thought he was helping a friend move his car and that he didn't learn about Linda being missing until after they had already moved it.

But anyways, they claim that the reason they took the car to the auto shop is because once they got into it, they discovered that a freeze plug had popped out of the engine, which can happen when a car is sitting out in the cold for a while and like the water inside the engine freezes.

And if that happens, like a car might run for a little while, but eventually the engine is going to die.

And what month did you say this happened in?

This is April of 87 in South Carolina.

So it's like, it's not the summer months.

I did look it up.

And while it was cold that night, it was like around 39 degrees.

We know water freezes at 32.

So like question marks.

I don't know.

Here we are.

And this is where the investigation really begins.

Police go down to the auto shop and they bring the state law enforcement division or SLED to process the car.

But it looks pretty unremarkable.

I mean, there's nothing broken or torn.

There's no traces of blood or anything to suggest foul play.

And even if there was evidence to find that was invisible to the naked eye, like fingerprints or something, By now, there are a few people besides Lieutenant Martin and I'm assuming John or whatever, who have been in the car, like mechanics, whatever.

Right.

So since that's no longer a viable lead, that's where their work on the car seems to stop.

An officer we spoke to said the police never actually went under the car to see what was wrong with it.

He just remembers someone, possibly Lieutenant Martin, telling him about the freeze plug being the issue.

And then another, a different officer remembered potentially seeing a photo of the plug, but never actually checked out the engine either or even talked directly to a mechanic, it seems.

So with the car being a bit of a bust, police turn back to the area that it was found in, that place where all the highways came together.

This place is called Wells Crossroads, and it's pretty remote.

Now, there is a church and a Department of Transportation office there, but they would have been closed by the time the trio was driving back from that concert, which would have been at around 10.30 p.m.

So do they know by this point that the women actually made it to the concert?

Like people saw them?

I don't know if they know that just yet because they're still like literally just checking out the area where the car was found, but they do confirm that the trio made it to the concert pretty early in the investigation.

I'll actually come back to that, I promise.

But for now, there is no sign of them in this area anywhere.

Like if they had walked to get help after their car broke down, you would think there would be something for them to see.

So police aren't sure what to make of this without knowing what actually brought Linda, Sarah, and Kimberly to Wells Crossroads.

They first want to talk to witnesses and they start with John, not just because he found the car and reported the trio missing, but because this is a small community where everybody knows everybody, which means everybody knows everybody's business, even police.

And according to an officer we spoke to, police already knew a thing or two about John.

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The officer we talked to remembers police being called to John and Linda's house for what he described as a domestic dispute on more than one occasion.

And he remembers Linda filing at least one police report against John accusing him of domestic violence.

And while the officer doesn't remember exactly what was in that report, and don't worry, I fully offered to look for them, but our FOIA was denied, womp, womp, Linda's family filled in some of the blanks for us about her marriage to John.

John and Linda met at a picnic and they hit it off really fast.

I mean, like they got married within a year.

But Linda's family told us that Linda was someone who sought out friendships with who her family describes as the wrong people.

And from the jump to them, John was the wrong people.

Like bad vibes right off the bat.

He didn't like being challenged by women and implied that he liked Linda because she was kind of meek.

And Linda's family felt like they saw Linda less and less and less over the about 10 years that the couple was married.

At least until recently.

Because not long before she went missing, Linda and John actually had to move in with Linda's mom because their house had burned down in a mysterious fire that I would love to know more about, but like again, could not get a ton of information on.

Okay, yeah.

Yeah, I have questions too.

So I don't know if John was on better behavior while they were living there.

Linda's mom has passed away, so we couldn't ask her.

But I doubt it because we heard from one of Linda's cousins that the last time she spoke to Linda on the phone, Linda sounded really scared.

And she confided in her that John was abusive and had threatened to kill her multiple times.

Linda's cousin also said that John allegedly put a gun to Linda's head once to make her lay her head on her pillow and then he tore her hair out.

Oh my God.

Another one of Linda's cousins remembers a time when Linda came over with a black eye.

Both cousins told Linda to leave John, but she was afraid of leaving John.

And on top of everything going on, John allegedly would often follow her when she left the house.

And listen, her cousin hadn't even known that Linda ever reported the abuse because she barely opened up to her own family about it.

So I can't imagine how bad it must have gotten for her to finally go to police.

So police go into their interview with John knowing all of that, but he seems willing to talk, at least initially.

He talks to them for almost an hour, giving them a rundown of everything he did the night that Linda went missing.

He says that he got home from a job laying concrete at around 7.30 p.m.

And then he noticed that Linda wasn't home yet.

So then after that, he went.

How did he know that she left at 6.30 to pick up Sarah and Kimberly if he wasn't home then?

He was still at work at 7.30.

He was.

Based on what I put together, I think he was going off of what she told him her plan was.

I don't think he's saying that he saw them leave.

But anyway, so he got home.

after work and he sees that she isn't there.

So he says he goes back out to a store, buys buys some beers, which he drinks in his truck to just kill time and relax.

And then he apparently drove all around at night looking for Linda.

Does he go home at any point or does he drink beers and just know

she's missing?

His wife is missing and goes out drunk driving looking for her.

If he goes home, he does not mention that to police.

So he's that worried, but oh, by the way, doesn't report her missing for another full day.

Right.

Correct.

Okay.

Now, an officer remembers him claiming he didn't call police right away because he thought Linda would come home eventually.

Which, like, doesn't drive.

I like it, but then why are you driving around looking for her?

Looking for her, like, immediately.

Yeah, like, both things can't be true.

I know.

And listen, he's like, listen, she left me before to stay with friends after we fought, but she always came back.

And he's not saying that there was any kind of fight in this instance, but just that, like, Linda was known to stay with friends.

Right.

So I just am assuming she's gonna come home, which again, to your point, is like, wait, which version is true?

Yeah, and all this is verified by no one,

yeah, because he says he is alone all night.

So, in his mind, nothing's really wrong until her car is found abandoned.

Well, not even then, because he said that the idea she was at a friend's house was still something that he was considering when he came across the car, which really doesn't make sense to me because why would she just leave her car at this crossroads?

And hi, there is still no sign of her or the two other people she went missing with.

That's what I was just about to say.

Like, I can see her trying to leave him.

Like, I understand that.

Like, you gotta take any out you can get, but it doesn't make any sense that Sarah and Kimberly would be missing too.

I know.

And here's the thing.

At the time, there was this rumor going around that maybe both women ran away from their husbands.

But like, there's not.

quite the same history in Sarah's marriage to really give that rumor weight.

We actually talked to her family about her marriage to her husband, Philip, and we learned that, I mean, the two had known each other forever.

Their families were close.

I mean, the pair had even grown up basically next door to one another.

They were childhood sweethearts who eventually got married.

And Kimberly was Sarah's pride and joy.

And from what we heard, Sarah seemed to be really happy before she and Kimberly went missing.

But one of her sisters did mention feeling like there was some tension in her marriage to Philip.

Not any type of abuse, but like maybe something closer to emotional distancing and that Philip, this person said, could be cold.

But Tiffany remembers her uncle Philip as a firm person, like in his tone of voice, but she said that to her, he had this like huge heart underneath it all.

Now, all that being said about their relationship leading up to Sarah's disappearance, there was something off about the way Philip acted after.

One of Linda's cousins, who, by the way, was actually a distant relative of Philip's, like I told you, small town.

She told us about an incident that stood out to her in the days after the three went missing.

She said that Phillips seemed almost dismissive when another family member was trying to give him advice on how to help the investigation.

And he basically just said that, well, sometimes women just like go off.

And Linda's cousin describes everyone's jaw kind of like being on the floor when he said that.

And he doesn't even talk to law enforcement until three or four days after Sarah and Kimberly go missing.

Though, to be fair, I don't know if they were like beating down his door trying to get to him.

Because while it does seem like Philip drags his feet on working with law enforcement, he does look to them for help eventually.

I mean, he stops authorities on the street, in the grocery store, anywhere he can find them asking for updates on the case.

So even if he wasn't a super emotional person in general, it does become clear to people like he seems devastated by this.

And in fairness to him, I can see how him saying they'll come back could be like wishful thinking or denial on his part.

Like, yeah, I don't, like, he has to believe that, or it's just like too much to carry, like losing your wife and your daughter, like that's your whole family.

I don't know how I would process it.

I can, I can see myself being like, well, sometimes this happens.

Maybe I missed something.

Maybe they're, you want them to be alive and out there, right?

Yeah.

Okay.

So I'm still trying to wrap my head around this.

If Linda's family is distantly related to Philip, does that mean that John and Philip like know each other?

They do.

And actually more than just like through this distant family connection, both of them actually worked at the same cement plant together.

And And

listen, I know what you're thinking.

I knew where this was going.

Like a very strangers on a train situation, but like simplified.

Two guys work together, both possibly having issues in their marriages.

Both wives go missing, both saying they'll probably turn up.

Could they have been in on it together?

Well, the investigators we talked to all told us that they were never as suspicious of Philip as they were of John.

And maybe that's partly because of the lack of documented physical abuse, and maybe because Philip agreed to take a polygraph and passed a polygraph.

Though, interesting tidbit we heard from Sarah's family, they say that he got a passing grade, but he did fail one question, which was about whether or not he was having an affair.

We obviously asked law enforcement about this, but they wouldn't confirm that with us.

So if there was an affair, they would not talk about it.

Maybe no one even talked about it to him.

Maybe there was no affair.

I don't know.

But police feel like they know Philip isn't their guy and they rule him out entirely early on in the investigation after they search both the cement plant and a dump site that he works at, and they don't find anything incriminating.

And so while Philip is over there being Mr.

Cooperative, John is clamming up and doing himself no favors.

Police make it clear to him that he is a suspect and taking a polygraph would be in his best interest so that they can clear him and move on.

But John says, no way, not now, not ever, especially not after the last time he he took one.

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John tells police there was another incident that he got caught up in where he agreed to take a polygraph.

Now, he says in this case, he was innocent.

TBD, what was poly results, and what was cold hard facts, but he wound up being found guilty.

And the officer we talked to remembered that it was related to some kind of vehicle theft or something of that nature in Orangeburg County, but we couldn't get those case files and nothing like that appears in John's court records.

So I don't know.

And listen, I know crime junkie life rule number four is never take a polygraph, but this is the latest in a long list of reasons why John's looking really sus to police.

If he's not talking and he's not taking the poly, they're going to need something else on him if they wanna try and prove that he's their guy.

So they spend a lot of time really trying to nail down the trio's last movements the day they went missing.

So Linda's mom tells police she saw Linda earlier the day that she went missing, actually in the same parking lot of the school where the gospel concert would be that night.

And when she saw her, Linda was talking to somebody in a beat up blue car, and it was a car that she didn't recognize.

And then we know that Tiffany confirmed she saw Linda and her car in the driveway when Linda came to pick Sarah and Kimberly up.

So we know she's okay after talking to whoever that was in the blue car, but like, sure would be good if police could find whoever was in that blue car.

So Linda picks up Sarah and Kimberly around 6.30 p.m.

and all of them take off for the gospel concert.

Like I told you earlier, we know they made it.

Police interview witnesses who were there at the concert who saw the trio, but no one seemed to report anything out of the ordinary about them.

But somehow a rumor comes up that maybe one of the missing women possibly had a thing with someone in the gospel choir.

But according to Linda's family, when we talked to them, that might have come from John's own jealousy.

I guess he hated that Linda went to see gospel quartets, which were made up of two men and two women.

because that meant she was around other men, God forbid.

And it sounds bananas because that is bananas, you guys.

But Linda's family found out just how deep John's jealousy ran when they discovered yearbooks of Linda's.

So I guess in pictures of her with dates to like school dances or whatever, John had fully scratched out the men's faces.

Woof, like that is not cool, John.

I know.

And everyone we talked to was clear that they don't believe there's any truth to the rumors of like extramarital romances or whatever.

And like, again, this is a John thing.

This seems like a John thing.

But to go back to the timeline, so after the concert ended, the three piled into Linda's car to head home.

There is a couple who actually sees Linda's car later on on the highway headed back toward Dorchester County.

This couple is a preacher and his wife who knew Linda.

They knew Sarah.

They went to the very same concert they were all just at.

Well, guess what they notice?

They see Linda's car and they see an old beat up blue car following Linda's car.

And it all stands out because the cars weren't traveling at a normal speed.

Both were driving really slowly, which makes sense if Linda's engine was overheating because of the freeze plug popping out.

But here's the kicker.

The couple couldn't tell who was actually driving the car.

So while we see Linda's car, this isn't necessarily the last sighting of the trio, just the last sighting of the car.

The car that they were in.

Right.

There's just one more sighting of Linda's car after this.

This is a sighting of the car sitting empty at at the Wells Crossroads the next day.

So this is now Saturday at 10 p.m.

So police realize that Linda's car must have been sitting there for at least 10 hours before it gets found by that witness and then moved by John and the lieutenant.

And then now there's this 24-hour window between them leaving the concert and then the car even being spotted there abandoned, where we don't know where they are or even really where the car was.

So the theories, it's like help gone wrong.

They have car trouble, and whoever was inside this beat-up blue car, who Linda apparently might kind of, maybe know, or at least like met before because her mom saw her talking to someone in the car earlier, like is helping them.

And then something like takes a turn, or their car broke down on the side of the road and the wrong person stumbled upon them.

Right.

I mean, to me, those theories make way more sense than them just running off, which is like without a car.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But there might actually be another theory.

So one officer dropped a bomb on us, and this is the part that has never been reported before.

Even the family didn't know this when we interviewed them.

Apparently, there were some additional witnesses from the gospel concert who reported seeing a man who kind of like walked in and just hung around the back of the room for a few minutes before leaving again.

And the officer remembers that the description of this man matched John McCord.

And when I found this out, a story that the family told us just like clicked into place for me.

Like one time, I guess Linda's relatives say that she caught John in a parking lot under Linda's car, tampering with the engine so that he could play hero by like fixing the problem so she could get back home.

I'm sorry, what?

I know.

My eyes were like popping out of my head when I heard this.

So when you put that story together with the sighting of someone who looked like John, and then what Linda's family told us about him following Linda places, this potential other theory of like what could have happened starts to emerge and starts to make sense to me.

Yeah, this is like classic stalker behavior.

I know.

But without witnesses being able to confirm that John was that guy at the back of the concert or that he was the guy driving the beat up blue car, there still is no concrete concrete evidence directly pointing to John or anyone for that matter.

What kind of car does John drive?

So, police and family that we spoke to said that it was a green pickup truck that he drove, but I don't know if he had access to other cars.

I mean, I know he worked at a dealership at one point in his life.

Also, did he have a friend or like, you know, again, did he have access?

I don't know.

And as far as I can tell, police never connect him to a beat up old blue car.

By now, in the investigation, it's been almost three weeks since Linda, Sarah, and Kimberly have gone missing and the investigation is hitting wall after wall.

So Linda's and Sarah's moms meet for the first time to try and share information.

Linda and Sarah had gone to elementary school together, but they lost touch before reconnecting as adults.

So like these two moms, while they were, again, small town might know who each other are, they don't know each other super well before this.

And so they kind of exchange what they're hearing from police.

They try and stay in contact because all all they really have to go on is what they're able to find out themselves, especially because Orangeburg County isn't doing much to help with the investigation, even though Linda's car was found there.

Like by that point, the three week mark, there hadn't even been an official search of the Wells Crossroads area.

What?

I know.

And like looking back, some family members wonder if Sarah, Kimberly, and Linda, who were black, they wonder if they had been white.

Would there have been more resources, more news coverage, more pressure to get something done quicker?

Different skin color, different access to resources.

These are like real things that there are very real statistics about.

I know.

And some of the family are clear that their criticism is for Orangeburg County, even more than Dorchester County.

But either way, like things are just not moving at this point.

So the family and those close to them push even harder, pressuring law enforcement every way they can.

So that search of Wells Crossroads finally happens on April 26th, three long weeks after they went missing.

But after hours of searching, nothing is found except for a few marijuana fields, which police do look into.

Like maybe they came across these fields when they got lost, then something happened.

Like, were they in the wrong place at the wrong time, came across the wrong person or weed farm or whatever?

But like, that doesn't go anywhere either.

And to me, like, that boils down to like, it doesn't make sense for them to be in that area in the first place, right?

Right.

We're not on their way home anywhere.

Yeah.

So once again, the investigation hits a wall.

The next thing that moves it is Dorchester County police get an anonymous phone call that leads to them searching a completely different area.

This anonymous caller urges police to check out a local racetrack where he claims the women and Kimberly were murdered.

Now, what he says exactly, police are keeping under wraps, like still to this day.

But even then, they told local media that the caller had information that only someone with close knowledge of the case would have, whatever that might be.

So the first weekend in May, just a week out from the last search, 75 people, police and volunteers, scour 50 acres around that said racetrack.

But again, they come up empty-handed.

Police hold out hope that maybe this tipster will call again.

Like maybe they just didn't have enough information or the right information or whatever.

But as far as we know, that never happens.

So where is this

racetrack?

And are there any like specific ties to like suspects or other theories?

I mean, this racetrack is in Dorchester County, like where like they live and stuff.

But if there's any ties to a specific person or suspect or whatever, like we weren't told about that.

Now, after this, smaller searches go on for another month.

Police even bring in an FBI plane with radar capabilities.

Like the radar can help find buried bodies in like the woods and swamps and stuff.

But even then, nothing.

Okay, so this case sounded so familiar to me and I could not put my finger on it until you mentioned searching for bodies in woods and swamps.

Didn't we talk about this case in another episode where a mom and daughter disappeared in like the same place?

This is how I found this case.

Okay.

Karina Malinofsky and Annette Sagers.

That's the case that you're thinking of.

So like, just so people know, the short version of that case is that it's another mother and young daughter who go missing in the low low country.

This is just a few months after Sarah, Kimberly, and Linda.

They lived about 45 minutes away.

And we actually did ask officers about whether they ever thought these cases were connected.

They said they looked into that possibility, but they didn't find anything to suggest any kind of connection.

And if I remember correctly, the connection sounds like like...

awful husbands show up in both cases, but like that's kind of it.

That's kind of it.

Yeah.

So like there is a strong suspect in that other case, Crime Junkies.

I'll link out to the episode if you want to hear it.

The one that it's in is the episode missing from a bus stop.

But back to Sarah, Kimberly, and Linda.

Not connected to that case or any other case, and all roads are dead ends.

As the years go on, their families feel the chances of finding their loved ones alive slowly starts to slip away.

But what's even worse is that there are so many leads they feel have gone uninvestigated by police.

Leads that police claim they haven't even heard about until recently.

Like Linda's family told us about something that Linda's mom remembered about the night Linda went missing.

Something that she was too scared to share with police before she died in 1989 because she was too terrified of John.

So if you remember, Linda and John were living with her, Linda's mom, after that mysterious house fire.

So the morning after Linda had gone missing, Linda's mom saw John and a nephew of his come through her front door at around 6:30 a.m.

Both of them were super sweaty with like mud all over their work boots.

And she was like a very like super tidy person.

So she noticed it.

And I bet she wasn't even happy about it.

Right.

But she also didn't think much of it at the time because they did work in construction.

But remember, John told police that he was alone all night.

Right.

And so if he had nothing to hide, why didn't he just tell them that he was with his nephew?

Especially because having a witness to back up your story, an alibi, like that just could could be good.

It helps you.

I don't know.

When did they finally hear about this?

So according to police, it wasn't until Linda's family shared it with a journalist, Mel Orlands.

Mel had done some reporting on this case for ABC News 4 in 2024.

Was everyone else just too scared to say anything after her mom had passed?

Like, that's such a long time.

Well, I mean, I think that they probably had some of the same fears that like Linda's mom did.

Like, I don't know also how much they felt like police could even help help because like after she was gone, right, everything's hearsay, right?

And by the way, the thing I haven't told you, or maybe you've picked up on, there might be all the reason in the world not to have gone right to police with this.

You see, at some point down the line, when the case really starts to go cold, Linda's family brings in a PI, this retired sled agent that they know.

They're trying to see if he can like track anything down.

And they told us that the private investigator had reasons to believe that John was allegedly a police informant.

And the PI believed that John would allegedly buy alcohol, sell it to underage kids before they went out to the local clubs and bars, and then he reported their underage drinking so that those kids would get arrested.

Didn't you just describe entrapment, basically?

Definitely has that air of entrapment.

Yeah.

And it's like, it's messed up any way you slice it, if it's true.

Now, that PI has since died.

So beyond what the family told us, like we couldn't verify this but both families feel that john seemed to be protected by law enforcement specifically in orangeburg or like he just seemed untouchable there which by the way we started this episode being like his friend lieutenant martin at orangeburg who called him up was like your car is here

so while it feels to them like john is being protected sarah's family told us that they continued to have their own strange encounters with john in the years after the disappearances one of sarah's sisters says that she saw John following her home in his car one day.

Another day, she claimed that he walked through her backyard, and they feel like his behavior, it felt threatening, like his way of intimidating them into not looking any deeper.

Oh, and one more reason Sarah's family never came forward.

So get this.

The day Sarah's mom went back to work as a seamstress after Sarah and Kimberly disappeared, this woman in the sewing room all of a sudden like burst into tears when she saw her, telling her that she knew something that she couldn't tell her or quote unquote, they'd kill her.

What?

Now, Sarah's mom like pleaded with this woman to tell her something, anything that would lead her to her daughter or her granddaughter, but the woman would not say anything.

And the wildest part of this story is that Sarah's mom says that John was the one who picked this lady up from work that day, and then she never saw this woman again.

Okay, I was going to ask who they are, but I think we just answered that question.

I know.

What?

I know.

For real, is this like another missing woman?

Do we know who she is?

I don't know that because Sarah's living family doesn't remember her name.

Police didn't know anything about this until the ABC4 story came out either.

In 2024.

I know.

And the problem is, Sarah's mom has passed away.

She died in 2016.

So I don't know.

I'm still trying to dig and look and like ask questions.

Like, again, for a small community, you would think that we should have a name of this, but like, I don't know if anyone out there listening knows, would love to hear from you is like if this is real.

Yeah.

But all in all, I mean, you can see it seems like everyone in this community was just so scared of John that they were terrified to cross him.

So for Sarah's family, like, this is another lead that seems promising, but they don't feel like it went anywhere.

Although, again, I don't know that police knew to look at it.

Right.

Now, things went kind of silent for a while.

There's like a very small blip in the case in 1990, a weird one, though, because in 1990, police get alerted that Sarah's credit card had been used at a local mall.

But when they pull the signature from the receipt, it's like indecipherable.

So they can't use it to find the person who actually swiped the card.

Okay, but like.

It's the 90s.

Security cameras existed in stores.

I know.

They did.

They actually had some, but like back then, I mean, they were garbage.

You know what I mean?

They're barely not garbage now, so I know.

So, when they did look at him, they tried to pull it, they at least did their due diligence.

But Sarah's sister says that police could tell that the person who used the card was a woman and she used the card to buy luggage.

But, like, that's it.

That's it.

And listen, Sarah's family can't help but

wonder or hope that the woman might actually have been Sarah, right?

And

to me, it's kind of weird that it would be like 1990, like three years

of nothing and then this card just pops up and gets used for like the first time in that long for it to be her i know like well her or not her like i was surprised it was even still active i was actually gonna mention that or like not expired i i think that they probably kept it active just in case someone did use it right like i don't know if i told you this but their purses and stuff were missing from the car so i kind of wondered if it wasn't her maybe the purses wound up somewhere you know maybe they were found maybe they were donated years later someone buys it they're like oh my god a credit card inside like what would happen if I used it?

The fact that it's a local mall too, though, makes me, would she really just be like buying luggage now if she was running away three years later?

Like for it to be her just seems kind of unimaginable.

Right.

And I guess it depends on the reason she's gone if she, quote unquote, left.

But listen, like whoever it was that used the card, that person never comes forward to clear this up.

I don't know if police went to the public with this lead.

Like it wasn't in any of the reporting that we saw before like around 2023 so listen i don't know it might be a worth a call out now i'm no legal expert but the statute of limitations on credit card fraud has to be up so if you are out there watching and you used sarah boyd's card to buy luggage in 1990 at a south carolina mall like i don't know you might have the missing piece to this puzzle it might seem insignificant to you but like where you got the card could be incredibly meaningful.

Come forward to police.

I'll have the contact information at the end of the show.

But until she comes forward, if she ever does, like mall Woman is kind of a bust.

And it would be another decade before Sarah's family gets another rush of hope.

This is in like 2001 or 2002.

And this is another like really weird blip.

A man claiming to be an FBI agent knocks on Sarah's mom's door, telling her that he's gone undercover to investigate John and he is going to help them find out what happened to Sarah and Kimberly once and for all.

Then two weeks later, this man comes back to Sarah's mom's house, this time with a woman he says is his wife.

And during that visit, he drops a bombshell.

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According to Tiffany, the man tells Sarah's mom that one night he sat around a fire with John and a few other people.

Everyone was drinking and John made a confession that he, quote, killed two birds with one stone.

Now, we don't know what that vague statement means, but this guy goes on to say that John said he killed Sarah first and then he tortured Linda for a long time before finally killing her.

But the thing is, he never said anything about killing Kimberly.

So he drops this bomb on her, on Sarah's mom, telling her that her daughter and possibly her granddaughter are gone.

And then the man's like, okay, listen, we're going to come back to you as soon as we make an arrest.

Like basically, it almost feels like a heads up.

So they leave her a business card and they take off.

But here's the thing.

Tiffany told us that when she called the number on the card a week later, because she hadn't heard anything, it was just like a busy tone on the other end.

And when the family checked with Dorchester and Orangeburg PD,

neither had any idea who those people were that showed up.

I mean, okay,

my head is spinning.

Like, who were these people?

What did they look like?

Did they look official?

Like, and also, like, obviously this feels super hoaxy, right?

But like, why?

But yeah, like, but what's the point?

What's the end goal of doing this?

And to go there twice and then come back with an additional person and leave a card.

Like, I wish it was, this was stuff that they had like kept.

I mean, not that we could even do anything with it now, but like, but it's like so much work has to go into like making that feel official and coming back multiple times.

And like, again, years later, yeah, I don't get it.

But obviously, the arrest that the family had been waiting for and that they were promised, that never comes.

Right.

Police indicated to us that to this day, they think John likely had something to do with the trio's disappearance, but there just was never enough evidence to charge him.

Though in the years since the disappearances, John has faced other charges.

In 1988, he was charged with pointing firearms at a person, and in 1993, he was charged with assault and battery.

But the chance of getting real answers in regards to John's possible involvement becomes slimmer because in 2018, he died.

That doesn't mean the end of the line, though.

If anything, I feel like people should finally feel safer coming forward with information.

Yeah, they might, because in June, 2020, police actually get a tip.

A caller tells them that Sarah, Kimberly, and Linda's bodies might be buried in concrete, specifically concrete that John laid for a house in Santee which is about eight miles from Wells Crossroads.

And this isn't the first time that police have followed a tip about concrete.

I mean, they had searched one of Linda's cousins' house early on in the investigation because John laid concrete there, but they originally found nothing.

And then this tip leads them to search a house that once belonged to one of John's family members, but it's not clear exactly who that person was.

When the new owners decide to renovate, police get permission to demolish the place, tear apart the concrete that John laid.

But three days of hard work passes, and sadly, once again, nothing is found.

Have police tried getting to that nephew who came in all muddy with John?

Allegedly.

Allegedly.

I know.

So here's the thing.

So the family has a theory about which nephew this could be, but they're not 100%

sure.

And remember, this information came out not until 2024, and Linda's mom was already gone by the time it came out, and she's the one who had the encounter.

And Orangeburg County Sheriff's Office didn't respond to our multiple requests for an interview.

So I couldn't even ask them.

And the officers we did speak to, They're long retired now.

But even though he retired earlier this year, former Dorchester County Sheriff Sheriff El Cnight told us that he still investigates this case on his own time because to him, it is far from cold.

But over the years, these disappearances have gone from a community tragedy to a literal small town ghost story.

Sarah's nephew told us these days locals speed through Wells Crossroads at night because they've heard about sightings of a person standing in the road who disappears as you drive closer.

A person locals believe is Sarah or Linda.

But for these two families, this case is more than a ghost story.

I mean, it is very real and it does haunt them day in and day out.

Linda's family believes it's unlikely that an arrest will be made in this case now.

It's been too long.

But they also believe that someone out there knows what happened that night in 1987.

And they want whoever that is to know that Linda, Sarah, and Kimberly were human beings with family who loved them.

families who have never stopped looking for them.

According to Tiffany, Philip has stayed close to Sarah's family over the years, making sure that they knew he never forgot them or Sarah, or especially Kimberly, the daughter that he never got to see grow up.

Tiffany is grown up now, and she's had to live almost four decades without her aunt and her cousin.

And she finds herself thinking about how their lives would have turned out.

Tiffany said she is sure someone out there can give them closure, and she told us that person needs to put themselves in her family's shoes.

How would you feel if this was your loved one?

She knows that John terrified a lot of people, but he's gone now.

He can't hurt anyone anymore.

But Sarah, Kimberly, and Linda's families have not been able to lay them to rest.

So, if someone out there knows something or has any information about Sarah or Kimberly or Linda's case, you can contact the Dorchester County Sheriff's Office at 843-832-0300.

You can find all the source material for this episode on our website, CrimeJunkiePodcast.com.

And you can follow us on Instagram at Crime Junkie Podcast.

We'll be back next week with a brand new episode.

Crime Junkie is an audio Chuck production.

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