MURDERED: Linda Sherman

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Speaker 1 Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers.

Speaker 2 And I'm Britt.

Speaker 1 And the story I have for you today is one that for a long time would have fallen into our missing category.

Speaker 1 But a strange discovery and a mysterious letter would reveal that this wife and mother didn't just disappear into thin air.

Speaker 1 And that truth begins to unravel unravel a web of stories that will make you wonder who we can trust.

Speaker 1 This is the story of Linda Sherman.

Speaker 1 The official investigation into Linda Sherman's disappearance began on Wednesday, April 24th, 1985. That's when her husband, Don, filed a report with police in St.

Speaker 1 Louis County, Missouri, where he and Linda live. And he tells them he hasn't seen his 27-year-old wife since Monday night when she left for work.

Speaker 2 And it's Wednesday now.

Speaker 1 Right, yeah. So he says he waited this time because she's pieced out on him before and they've been having problems recently.
He thinks that she's been seeing another guy, one of her coworkers.

Speaker 1 So at first he thought maybe she just ran off with him.

Speaker 1 But even if that's the case, he says that he's still really worried about her and he's already been checking with friends and family trying to find her.

Speaker 1 She hasn't even so much as called to check in on their nine-year-old daughter, Patty. So he gives police a play-by-play of the last day that he saw Linda.

Speaker 1 Now, Linda works nights at the National Personnel Records Center, which is basically like this facility in St. Louis that stores U.S.
military and other federal files.

Speaker 1 And Don says that Linda got home from work early Monday morning. So this would have been around 3 a.m.

Speaker 1 They argued for a little bit, like probably like an hour, and then she went to sleep on the living room couch.

Speaker 2 And what did they argue about?

Speaker 1 What took her so long to get home. So I guess the drive from the record center to their house on Monroe Avenue is like less than 10 minutes.
But he says it took her like 45 to get there.

Speaker 1 And he's already suspicious, right? That she's seeing someone else. So I'm sure he was just like there stewing, waiting for her.

Speaker 1 And like their fight probably started the second she walked in the door. Right.
Anyways, he does not work nights. He works days.
So he goes to bed after the fight.

Speaker 1 And a couple of hours later, she tries waking him up to go to work. He's too tired, you know, from all that like staying up and stewing.
So he called in sick.

Speaker 1 He says that Linda drove Patty to school that morning, like she always did, since he usually was at work by then she would do drop-offs and then linda was sleeping when he got up in the early afternoon and he woke her up but she had drifted off again by the time that he went to pick patty up from school he says that he then dropped off patty at his mother's house before going to an hour-long counseling session with this woman who i'm going to call dr w

Speaker 1 she's basically the therapist that he and linda have been seeing both individually and as a couple.

Speaker 1 Now, when he got home Monday evening around six, he says that Linda was there and she's agitated that she'd overslept.

Speaker 1 She had actually missed her own counseling appointment and was running late for work. So she's hustling out the door at around 6.45 p.m.
And he says that is the last time he saw her.

Speaker 1 She's wearing blue jeans, tennis shoes, and a blue jersey with the number 76 on it. She also had a necklace with the same number, which was her graduation year.

Speaker 1 He says she drove off in her yellow 71 Volkswagen Beetle, presumably to start her shift. But weirdly, that wasn't the last time he claims he saw her, kind of.

Speaker 1 So Don says that he went outside to talk to a neighbor at around 8 p.m. And while they're standing there chatting, Linda's car pulled onto the street and then just like left.

Speaker 1 And after that, Don says that he went to get something to eat. And then later that night, he called Linda at work, but then was told she never came in.

Speaker 1 So that's when he drove to her job and checked the parking lot for her car. That wasn't there.

Speaker 1 And when he got back and looked around the house, he noticed that some of her things were missing, like a suitcase and some toiletries and clothes and shoes.

Speaker 1 Hence, why he thought that she maybe just like left him on Monday. Now, the timeline gets murky here because the information that's available is limited.

Speaker 1 But we pulled what we could through records requests from like multiple police agencies and our reporter Nina interviewed everyone she could get to.

Speaker 1 But still, what we don't know could fill a book, and I'll get more into that later. But I'm not sure how seriously the agency, the Vanita Park Police Department, took this at first.

Speaker 1 But according to Riverfront Times reporter Laura Higgins, Linda's family begins their own search right away. And two more days pass where they just get nothing.

Speaker 1 So by Friday, April 26th, Linda's sister and her brother-in-laws, this is Fran and Sam Miller, They're starting to grow desperate. They feel like they've searched everywhere.

Speaker 1 And that's when Don suggests that they check this hotel near the St. Louis Lambert International Airport.
He's saying that sometimes Linda stays there with her boyfriend.

Speaker 1 So, I mean, again, they'll do anything at this point. They go there.
Her car's not in the hotel parking lot. But when they come up empty there, they figure like, we're already out this way.

Speaker 1 We might as well have a look at the airport too. And lo and behold, they pull into the airport's short-term parking.
And there it is, Linda's yellow beetle.

Speaker 1 Now, nothing appears disturbed, but they don't want to go poking around, so they call airport police to take over. Officers arrive and check the doors, which are locked, but the trunk isn't.

Speaker 1 And as they lift it open, Fran and Sam brace themselves because as they told Unsolved Mysteries, there is this sinking feeling in their stomachs that Linda's body is going to be inside.

Speaker 1 The trunk pops open and they breathe this sigh of relief, even if it's just momentarily because she's not in there. But now they're also no closer to figuring out where she actually is.

Speaker 1 And here's where things get weird. While all of this is happening at the airport, Don is over at a local 7-Eleven talking with a cop.

Speaker 1 And he's asking if maybe police at the airport can check there for Linda's car. An idea that he says Sam gave him, not the other way around.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And literally, as they're discussing this, Dispatch radios the officer that they found the missing woman's car at the airport.

Speaker 2 Well, isn't that convenient? Yeah.

Speaker 1 And just in case you're not like fully sick of me bringing up that coroner's conference I went to, I'm just going to do it like one more time because one of the things they covered were staged scenes for legal reasons.

Speaker 1 Let me put a disclaimer. I'm not saying that this scene is stage, just sharing interesting info that I found.

Speaker 1 But they said that a telltale sign of a staged scene oftentimes is that someone will lead you to the evidence they want you to find. Like they think you're too stupid to piece it together on your own.

Speaker 1 So they make it it overly obvious. Like, oh, my wife is dead in her room.
And right here in a place that no one keeps their pills is a prescription bottle of pills. Like, here are all the pieces.

Speaker 1 It must be suicide. Right.
Anyways, whether this is sus or not to them, finding the beetle does seem to light a fire under the Vanita Park PD.

Speaker 1 They finally assign a patrol supervisor, Michael Webb, to work the case. And in the early days, they do confirm parts of Dawn's story.
Linda's time card shows that she clocked out at 2.16 a.m.

Speaker 1 on Monday, April 22nd. And Don's suspicions were right because she did hang back after work to talk to a guy named Randy for a few minutes.

Speaker 1 He's the coworker that Don says she's having an affair with, which is probably why she was late coming home.

Speaker 1 But Randy tells police that the conversation was normal and he expected to see her at their next shift, which is later that same night.

Speaker 1 And even though she wasn't at work Monday night, he actually spotted her car out early Tuesday morning when he left work. He saw her beetle parked at the strip mall less than two miles from her home.

Speaker 1 And Randy said that he recognized it instantly because the back bumper was missing. And he even pulled up next to it to check it, but no one was inside.
And police also talked to Dr. W.

Speaker 1 She confirms that Linda did miss her appointment that day, but they connected later that Monday. Linda called sometime between like 3.30 and 4.15 to apologize for being a no-show.

Speaker 1 She explained that she'd been sick, she slept through it, and like said she was heading to work soon. And then not long after that call, Dr.

Speaker 1 W, I guess, got a second call, but she was busy or like her receptionist took a message or whatever, but the only thing the message was was just Linda's work number.

Speaker 1 And then finally, there's that neighbor who says that he saw Linda's car drive back onto their street Monday night at 8 p.m., more than an hour after she supposedly left for work, just like Don said.

Speaker 1 Webb also documents a couple of unconfirmed sightings in the days after Linda is reported missing.

Speaker 1 Like this woman named Vicki, a neighbor of the Shermans, she apparently tells police that she saw Linda take off with a suitcase and a man that she didn't recognize wearing the same blue jersey that Don had described.

Speaker 1 And then Don says that he saw her riding in a van with somebody and she ducked when he spotted her.

Speaker 2 So does that mean that Don's telling the truth and she did just run off with someone?

Speaker 1 Yeah, not so fast. I didn't say that.
Yes, a lot of things on the surface look good for Dawn, but if you go one layer deeper, always go a layer deeper, it stinks to high heaven.

Speaker 1 Starting with the car at the airport.

Speaker 1 According to Laura Higgins reporting, Officer Webb pulls the parking log from the lot, which shows that the car had been sitting there since either Tuesday, April 23rd, or maybe even Wednesday, April 24th.

Speaker 1 And there is no record of her taking a flight. So was it her driving from home to the mall to the airport? And even if it was, why park at the airport if you're not taking a flight?

Speaker 1 Also, was it even her driving?

Speaker 1 Because that neighbor witness who was outside at eight o'clock talking to Don when the car, her car came and went from the street, not as strong of a sighting of Linda as you might think.

Speaker 1 He later tells police that he actually couldn't see who was driving, didn't even know if it was a man or a woman, because I guess the driver seemed to be intentionally like hiding their face.

Speaker 2 So it's probably not her at eight. Yeah.
We only have Don saying he saw her leave at 6:45.

Speaker 2 So, really, that last confirmed time that she was alive at was whenever she called her therapist when she overslept, right?

Speaker 1 Well, let's talk about that call to her therapist. If it happened as Dr.
W said, then yes, Linda was fine as of late afternoon.

Speaker 2 Right, that was like 3:30 to 4:15. Right.

Speaker 1 However, I don't know if that call was even real because the whole dynamic with this counselor, therapist, whatever, is super strange.

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Speaker 1 Now, I mentioned that Dawn and Linda weren't just seeing Dr. W like together.
They also spoke to her individually. And that happened in person, but also over the phone.

Speaker 1 They were actually on the phone with her a lot, especially Dawn and at like all hours of the day and night. For instance, according to Dawn, he was on the phone with Dr.
W from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m.

Speaker 1 the night that he reported Linda missing.

Speaker 2 That seems unorthodox.

Speaker 1 To say the least. But she obviously had a front row seat to what was going on between them, like whatever that call was.

Speaker 1 And she does agree to speak with Officer Webb, at least about Linda, given the circumstances. Now, she describes Linda as sentimental and steady, this loving mother to Patty.

Speaker 1 And despite Don's accusations, she says that Linda denied having any kind of affair.

Speaker 2 Okay, so maybe Don is just being paranoid?

Speaker 1 Well, no, he was actually right. So when Officer Webb interviewed Randy, the coworker,

Speaker 1 he was pretty open about the whole whole thing.

Speaker 1 He said that he and Linda had been involved for about four months and he really cares about her, but he'd been clear with her that he wasn't planning on leaving his wife, even though Linda had been telling him about her intentions to leave Dawn.

Speaker 1 Oh. Yeah.
And not in like a vague, you know, maybe someday kind of way. She had a plan in place, one that her sister Fran knew about.
So.

Speaker 1 I mean, it didn't take long for Fran's alarm bells to start going off because she had been there for the whole tumultuous ride of their relationship, which started when Linda and Don were just high schoolers.

Speaker 1 Linda got pregnant with Patty when she was like 17 and she had to finish high school with a baby and her and Don were struggling to make ends meet and things didn't improve as they got older.

Speaker 1 Linda's family says that Don became physically and mentally abusive. And court records show that Linda tried to leave him multiple times.

Speaker 1 She filed for divorce in 1977, though that ends up getting dismissed when they reconcile a couple of years later. But by 1982, they reached a breaking point and they split again.

Speaker 1 Linda even moved out with Patty that time. And according to Laura Higgins reporting, she filed for an order of protection that September, alleging that Don had threatened her and Patty.

Speaker 1 Now, she told the court that he was mentally unstable. But then just a few weeks later, Linda informed the judge that she and Don were trying to work things out.
So the two of them started seeing Dr.

Speaker 1 W around that time. But it seems like Linda was finally trying to break the cycle because she actually filed for divorce again on April 11th.

Speaker 1 And this time her family felt like it was different, that Linda seemed determined to leave him for good.

Speaker 2 And we know that leaving is one of the most dangerous times for people in abusive relationships.

Speaker 1 And yeah, and this one was serious. I mean, she was trying to find an apartment.
She was having her mail rerouted to her sister Fran's house.

Speaker 1 Police also end up finding a bunch of personal records in Linda's work locker, things like Patty's birth certificate and report cards stretching back to kindergarten.

Speaker 1 She had letters, mementos, family financial paperwork.

Speaker 2 All things you'd want to take with you if you were starting over.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, it was all stuff that she had cleared out of her and Don's joint safety deposit box.

Speaker 1 And Patty, her daughter, thinks that Linda was stashing things there so that Don couldn't get to them.

Speaker 1 Although, I will say, Don actually knew, I guess, that she had moved all of her stuff to the work locker. And even after she went missing, he never tried to go get any of it back.

Speaker 1 all of that to say she was being cautious and she was planning because she knew that don wasn't going to take her leaving well but she never got the chance to leave even though patty is pretty sure that her dad knew the split was coming dawn wasn't actually served with the divorce papers until after linda went missing now all of this started with randy right like he told webb about the divorce but he also added some color to just how controlling Don was with Linda.

Speaker 1 According to what Linda told him, Dawn had been recording her phone calls. And she told Randy that she found the device rigged to a phone line in their basement.
And it didn't even stop there.

Speaker 1 She said that Don had been spying on the both of them, even using this thing that he called a big ear, which is basically like this long-range listening gadget. And when they talk to Dr.
W, Dr.

Speaker 1 W backs that story up.

Speaker 1 In fact, she tells investigators that Linda had brought some of the recording equipment that she found in their house along with some cassette tapes to her office and she still has them to turn over to police.

Speaker 1 But they don't even need to press play to confirm that Don was monitoring Linda because when they confront Don about this in late May, he just straight up admits it.

Speaker 2 What?

Speaker 1 Yeah, but I think in his mind, like he's very nonchalant about it. He's just like, you know, marriage.
And like he even brings Officer Webb down to the basement and like shows him his setup.

Speaker 1 And at that time, he also walks Webb through some items that he claims are missing from the house. Items, I assume he's like, oh, look, she took these with her.

Speaker 1 But the thing that Webb notices most is that most of Linda's belongings are still there. And Don has already boxed some of it up.
He then pulls out this short journal that he's been keeping at Dr.

Speaker 1 W's suggestion, detailing everything he can remember about the days around Linda's disappearance. And so this is like when Webb presses a little bit.

Speaker 1 He tells Don, like, listen, Linda's family thinks that you did something to her. So would you take a polygraph to prove them wrong? Don declines.

Speaker 1 He says that he had a bad experience with one during a burglary investigation. This is a charge that he was later convicted of.
Plus, he says that his lawyer told him not to.

Speaker 1 I didn't even know he had a lawyer. I don't think investigators knew that either.
So.

Speaker 1 Working backwards, we don't know how her car got to the airport or who was driving because the neighbor's sighting means pretty much nothing. Right.
It's TBD what we think about Dr.

Speaker 1 W's account of getting a call from Linda.

Speaker 1 So if we take that out of the mix for a second, then really the last time anyone who isn't Don put eyes on Linda is when she is leaving work in the early morning hours of Monday, headed home where she has a fight with her husband.

Speaker 2 Wait, didn't her daughter Patty see her mom that morning when she took her to school?

Speaker 1 Well, kind of, but in a way that is actually pretty disturbing in hindsight.

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Speaker 1 In Don's version of events, he claimed that Linda drove Patty to school that Monday like she did most mornings. But Patty told us that's not true.

Speaker 1 Dawn actually brought her that day, which was basically unheard of, she said. And the moment that is burned into Patty's mind now is her mom on the couch as she heads out the door to school.

Speaker 1 She says that her mom's face was turned towards the back cushions. She didn't stir.
She didn't say goodbye. And that is the last image she has of her.

Speaker 1 Because remember, when Don picks her up from school, he takes her to his mother's house and she ends up staying there for a couple of nights.

Speaker 1 So by the time Patty gets back to her own home, her mom is a missing person.

Speaker 1 Now, As sus as Don's behavior and his stories are, it's the Patty of it all that has people so convinced that Linda didn't just walk away. Everyone agrees that Linda was not going to leave Patty.

Speaker 2 I mean, yeah, you said that she had brought Patty with her last time she left. Dawn, she was storing all those documents.
Like, why wouldn't she bring her? Exactly, exactly.

Speaker 1 And Officer Webb is keenly aware of this after talking to everyone. So the more that he learns about Linda, the more certain he becomes that she didn't just run off.

Speaker 1 and that something is very, very wrong. And that's what keeps him so invested in the case, even after he's promoted to lieutenant.
He follows up on tips.

Speaker 1 He checks out anything that might lead somewhere. He even subpoenas Don's phone records.
Nothing really useful comes there.

Speaker 1 So he subpoenas his bank records, where he does note that the day after Linda went missing, Don filled up his gas tank and spent almost $16 at a hardware store, although it's not clear what he bought.

Speaker 1 But it's like, All smoke and no fire, because no matter how they try, what they cannot find is Linda.

Speaker 2 Did they ever get anything from searching the car or the house? Like, I imagine if something happened to her, like it had to have happened in the house.

Speaker 2 And it seems like someone else was driving her car all around town, not her, right?

Speaker 1 So as far as the house goes, Don won't give them permission to search.

Speaker 1 I mean, he lets them inside that one time when he's showing them like the stuff and the recording equipment, but he won't let them just like have at it.

Speaker 1 And they must not be able to get a search warrant, or maybe they don't even try then because like it ends up being years before they get the chance to look through the house.

Speaker 1 As for the car, they never impounded it or even secured it after it was found at the airport. So make of that what you will.

Speaker 2 They just like left it there, like in the airport parking lot?

Speaker 1 That's my understanding. I guess the next day they let like Don, Linda's dad, and Sam just pick it up and drive it to the station themselves.

Speaker 2 So I'm sorry, they let her husband, the last person to have like confirmed to have seen her, have access to the car.

Speaker 1 I know. So part of me is like, you know, perhaps all this smoke and no fire was a beast of their own making.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 But a whole year ends up going by with no developments because of all of this. And during that time, Don isn't exactly a grieving husband.
He stands firm that Linda just left him and Patty.

Speaker 1 And so he takes a big step to sever ties with Linda about a year after she disappeared. That's when he files his own divorce petition claiming that Linda abandoned him.

Speaker 2 Oh, so now he's divorcing her.

Speaker 1 He's trying to.

Speaker 1 He's got the same guy, the same lawyer who advised him not to take the polygraph. That guy's representing him now, and he's this well-known local criminal defense lawyer named Frank Anzalone.

Speaker 2 I'm sorry, Ashley.

Speaker 2 When do criminal defense attorneys, like local, well-known criminal defense attorneys, do divorce cases?

Speaker 1 That's what Linda's own lawyer was wondering. Now, in fairness, the guy who helped her file for divorce before she went missing wasn't a divorce attorney either.

Speaker 1 Frank Vaterott, her lawyer, specialized in real estate. So I guess he took Linda on as a client through a referral.
So, like, you know, we're all stretching our skill set here.

Speaker 1 But as he told Nina, in his experience, criminal defense attorneys don't typically handle divorces unless there is some, you know, crime involved. Right.

Speaker 2 Yeah. That's like, I don't know, the whole purpose of a criminal defense attorney.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 Or maybe they'll take the case if they're like family friends. And I don't know if that's what you would call Frank, Anzalone, and Don, but they definitely had a connection.

Speaker 1 Because you see, Anzalone had represented Don's mother, Audrey, when she killed his father. What?

Speaker 2 Okay, I need like a pause sign here. I need details on that right now.

Speaker 1 I don't have a ton.

Speaker 1 What I know is that in February of 1974, police were called called to the Sherman home and they found 47-year-old Charles Sherman shot to death at the breakfast nook there in their house.

Speaker 1 Audrey and the kids told officers that they'd all been asleep, woke up to the sound of a gunshot, and his death certificate says that he was shot in the back.

Speaker 1 So I doubt anyone even tried to like push suicide or anything.

Speaker 1 But if they were trying to say intruder, like that didn't stick either, because when police searched the house, they found a gun hidden inside of a heating duct.

Speaker 2 And Don was like in the house when this happened.

Speaker 1 Yeah. As far as I know, all of the Sherman kids who still lived at home were there.
So his mom, Audrey, got indicted for first-degree murder.

Speaker 1 She ended up taking a plea deal and she only served six months in jail.

Speaker 1 And it seems like prosecutors may have taken like possible family dynamics into account because Don said that the shooting happened during one of their arguments and that they both struggled with alcohol use disorder.

Speaker 1 All of that to say, Don's choice of attorney strikes Vaterat, Linda's lawyer, as odd. Like he remembers Linda coming to him scared, genuinely afraid of her husband.

Speaker 1 But he also does have this part of him that wonders if she really did just take off to get rid of this guy or get away from this guy.

Speaker 1 Either way, Vaderat is not about to let Don end the marriage while Linda is nowhere to be found.

Speaker 1 So when Don's lawyer, Anzalone, moves to finalize the case as uncontested in 1988, Vaderott pushes back. And the following year, in June of 1989, the whole thing just gets tossed.

Speaker 1 So on paper, the Shermans stay stay married. Right.
In practice, Don has already moved on long before he even filed for divorce, by the way.

Speaker 1 And guess who his first girlfriend is after Linda disappears? Vicki. You remember Vicki, right? Wait, Vicki, who?

Speaker 1 Vicki is the neighbor who had the like supposed sighting of Linda after, where she's like, oh, yeah, I saw Linda and a man together. Oh.
Yeah, one and the same.

Speaker 1 But I mean, his relationship with Vicky doesn't last long. Don goes through a few girlfriends over the next few years.

Speaker 1 But by the late 80s, he wanted to settle down and get remarried, which must have made his legal tie to Linda pretty inconvenient.

Speaker 2 Hard to plan a wedding when your wife is still missing.

Speaker 1 If only she could turn back up, even if it was just part of her, that would sure be helpful for Don, right?

Speaker 1 And what do you know? After more than five years of Linda being considered a missing person, a skull pops up in the strangest of places, but you won't believe people's reaction to it.

Speaker 1 On Thursday, June 28th, 1990, two TWA flight attendants are having lunch at this restaurant called Casa Gallardo, which is this Mexican restaurant in Bridgeton, which is 20 minutes away from Bonita Park.

Speaker 1 And that's when they notice something outside the window laying under a bush. Clear as day, it is a skull.

Speaker 1 The restaurant manager calls the Bridgeton PD, but according to police records, he he also moves the skull. I know, because customers are like crowding around it.
Oh, okay.

Speaker 1 So he shows officers the original site about three feet from the window on the east side of the building. Everything looks neat and undisturbed.

Speaker 1 And the landscaper who like works that area tells police that he was there nine days ago. Definitely didn't notice any skull.
You would remember that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So it seems like someone wanted this to be found. It's not buried.
It's barely even tucked under the bush that it's found by.

Speaker 1 So, I mean, it's so so deliberately placed that officers wonder if it's some kind of youthful prank. Like maybe somebody dug it up and set it up there just to mess with people.

Speaker 2 Wait, do they think it's fake?

Speaker 1 No, no, no. They definitely know that it's real.
There is even dirt on it. Like they can tell that it had been dug up.
Okay.

Speaker 1 But a police official told reporters at the time that I guess bodies were being exhumed from a nearby cemetery to make way for a Lambert Airport extension project.

Speaker 1 And so seemingly because of that, everyone just decides that there's no reason to suspect foul play. Okay.

Speaker 1 And the problem I have with that explanation is that from everything we could find, which is like a ton of media reports, that airport project that he's like writing this off for, the one where like supposedly graves from the cemetery were being uprooted, that didn't actually start until 1993.

Speaker 1 We're in 1990. Oh.
Yeah. I mean, to be clear, Washington Park, this cemetery was in trouble long long before the airport project.
I guess it's one of St.

Speaker 1 Louis's oldest historically black cemeteries, and it had been the center of complaints about neglect and mismanagement for years. In fact, according to St.

Speaker 1 Louis Post Dispatch reporter Yvonne Samuel Kirkwood, bones had resurfaced there the year before the skull was found. So like not out of the picture, but the weird part is nobody seemed to like.

Speaker 1 like frame that as a prank. If anything, what was happening there was very serious.
Families were raising alarms about everything from overturned markers to bodies getting dumped in unmarked plots.

Speaker 1 The then state attorney general ended up filing a civil fraud suit against the cemetery owner who ended up taking her own life before any of it could be resolved.

Speaker 2 Okay, all of this background only makes this feel like less of a prank, Ashley.

Speaker 1 I know. And I didn't find anything in official records or reporting that supports the idea of a prank.
I mean, unless I'm missing something, this just seems like a huge leap to take.

Speaker 1 Huge leap. Someone must have dug this up.
No, it's a prank. It's not even worth looking into to find out who this is, how this got here, or if there's a mystery here to be solved.

Speaker 2 And like, this prank like didn't happen before, didn't happen after, just a one-off silly prank with nothing to go on. Okay.

Speaker 1 Either way, they at least do the bare minimum and officers canvass the area to see if, you know, is there anything, like anything else they can find? Did anyone see anything?

Speaker 1 But there is nobody who saw who left the skull or even when exactly it got placed there. So they photograph it, they bag it, they send it off to the St.

Speaker 1 Louis County Medical Examiner, who is really only able to determine that it is the skull of a female of quote recent origin, but that is pretty much all they can tell.

Speaker 1 So it gets shelved at the morgue, unclaimed, unidentified. Nobody connects it to a missing woman from Vanita Park until September 1991.

Speaker 1 That's when someone is clearly tired of waiting. If police can't see what was put right in front of them, then someone's going to make them see it.

Speaker 1 So on the morning of Friday, September 6th, this clerk at the Bonita Park Police Department is flipping through the mail when she notices something odd.

Speaker 1 It's this unsealed envelope with no return address on it. And, you know, curious, isn't like the normal mail she gets, she peeks inside.
and she sees this bright orange flyer.

Speaker 1 It's from the Casa Gallardo restaurant advertising Super Bowl Sunday specials for the 1991 game back in January.

Speaker 2 Like the kind of promotional thing you'd find sitting on a table next to

Speaker 1 chips and guac. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So on one side, happy hour deals, drink promos, whatever.

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Speaker 1 In all caps, it reads: quote: The Bridgeton police have L. Sherman's skull.
And what?

Speaker 1 When Lieutenant Webb sees this, he is blindsided because as he told Laura Higgins, he hasn't heard a word about Bridgeton police recovering a skull. So he honestly figures that it must be a mistake.

Speaker 1 But he heads over to their station to ask them anyways, thinking that they're going to look at him like he's lost his mind.

Speaker 1 And instead, they're like, oh yeah, that skull that was found last year outside that restaurant. Like, come right this way, we'll show you.

Speaker 1 So Lieutenant Webb brings Linda's dental records in for comparison. And the very next day, it is confirmed.
That skull is Linda's. Their case is now a homicide.

Speaker 2 Can they tell how she died from her skull?

Speaker 1 No. I mean, I mean, like I said, was only able to tell that it was female and like of recent origin.
So her death certificate just lists homicidal violence as the cause.

Speaker 1 Actually, an anthropologist said that parts of the skull were broken. But it's not clear whether that damage came before or after death.
And if police know more than that, they're not sharing.

Speaker 1 Now, by the time this is all happening, Patty is a teenager. So during the week, she lives with her paternal grandmother so she can go to a school in a different district.

Speaker 1 And on the weekends, she stays with Don, who still lives in the same Bonita Park house that he once shared with Linda. Same address, same furniture.
New serious girlfriend there.

Speaker 1 But not the woman that he was with when the skull was initially found.

Speaker 2 So maybe he wasn't trying to get remarried.

Speaker 1 Oh, no, Patty told us that he definitely wanted to get married to that woman that he was with at the time the skull was found. Okay.
Something must have happened.

Speaker 1 The relationship fell apart, whatever. In my mind, that woman dodged a bullet, but he's with someone new now.
Okay.

Speaker 1 Now, Patty stayed connected with her mom's family, but it's like a complicated situation. They can't stand her father since they think he killed Linda.

Speaker 1 And Don's relatives won't talk about Linda at all.

Speaker 2 So Patty's really caught in the middle in all this. Totally.

Speaker 1 And like, by this point, she said she really had learned just to like keep her feelings to herself.

Speaker 1 When she was younger, she said she used to like run to the mailbox hoping that this letter was going to come from her mom. And she would look for Linda everywhere she went.

Speaker 1 But every time she tried asking her dad about this, all he would say is that he didn't know where she was, or he would imply that she just ran off with a boyfriend.

Speaker 1 And so it didn't take long for her to realize that mentioning her mom made things tense. But she never let go of the hope that one day Linda would come back to her.

Speaker 1 But that hope got shattered on Sunday, September 8th of 1991. That is a weekend where Patty is at her dad's house for a visit, and there's this knock on the door.

Speaker 1 And the moment that she sees police standing outside, she said this wave of dread just washed over her.

Speaker 1 So instead of answering it herself, she like runs to wake up her dad and his girlfriend from a nap.

Speaker 1 And after Don talks to the officers for a few minutes, he comes into Patty's room and basically tells her, they found your mom. And then he turns around and goes back to his bedroom.

Speaker 2 That's it? That's it.

Speaker 1 That's all he told her.

Speaker 2 No explanations, no comfort.

Speaker 1 I mean, nothing. He doesn't even tell her that the only thing recovered was Linda's skull.

Speaker 1 Patty actually has to learn that from her cousin, who picks her up and brings her to Aunt Fran and Uncle Sam's house, where there, like for the first time, she hears the full story and she is angry because, in her mind, she knows exactly why Don left out the detail about where her mother was found.

Speaker 1 You see, Casa Gallardo isn't just some random restaurant. It is like Dawn's second home.
Patty told us that he went there five nights a week. He knew all of the staff.

Speaker 1 They literally had a hat rack set up for him with his name on it. And Patty spent much of her childhood there, like looked after by bartenders while her dad drank just a few feet away.

Speaker 1 And get this, police learn that Don was at the restaurant on the same exact day that Linda's skull was found, but he denies having anything to do with her death.

Speaker 1 He tells reporters that someone might be just trying to frame him, that whoever left the skull there must have known that he was a regular.

Speaker 1 And he maintains that Linda just left with someone else and that whatever happened to her happened to her after that. and it wasn't his doing.

Speaker 2 Okay, genuine question here. If he's trying to get away with murder, murder, why leave her skull somewhere that points directly back to him? I mean, that's practically gift-wrapping an arrest, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I don't...

Speaker 1 Again, I go back to this, like, this idea of like, you, you have an intention, right? Like, if you, if you wanted her to be found, you make sure it goes somewhere where you like know it will be found.

Speaker 1 You can like witness it being found. You know it will be.

Speaker 2 But it can confirm it.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean, like, maybe that's it if it's just all too contrived.

Speaker 2 Well, and also there's like the, like the red red herring that's too obvious, right? Like, how could it have been? Like, he goes here all the time.

Speaker 2 Like, there's no way it could be him because he wouldn't have left it here, right?

Speaker 1 Like, it feels too stupid to be calculated.

Speaker 2 Like, yeah, it feels like too.

Speaker 1 Maybe it's, maybe it's arrogant. Like,

Speaker 1 nothing has happened so far. And it feels pretty obvious that, like, he is lying about some like major points in seeing Linda, right?

Speaker 1 He has this girlfriend who potentially gave a sighting of her that may or may not have been real.

Speaker 2 And he hasn't been caught so far.

Speaker 1 Right. Why would that happen now? I don't know.

Speaker 1 I keep coming back to the fact that, like, usually, like, in cases where someone goes missing and then they're found, all the detectives I've ever talked to have always said, like, look at where the thing happened or where they're found because that's where someone feels most comfortable.

Speaker 2 Like a regular hangout.

Speaker 1 So I don't know why it's down there. I don't know, like, again, it could mean a million things, but instead could be nothing.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but instead of getting lost in the what-ifs or trying to psycho-analyze Dawn, what investigators do then is they try to focus their attention on something more tangible.

Speaker 1 Webb believes that the note was sent by somebody who really wanted police to connect the dot between the skull and Linda Sherman.

Speaker 1 So he sends the note and the envelope to the FBI lab, hoping that there's some evidence on it that might tell them who sent it. But according to Laura Higgins, nothing useful comes back.

Speaker 1 No fingerprints, no saliva. Even the stamp kit used to mark the message is like the kind anyone could buy at any office supply store.

Speaker 2 Then I think you still have to like keep looking backwards. Like, who wins, if that's even the word you want to use, like if Linda is dead versus just missing?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, the only one that it changes things for is Don.

Speaker 1 But only in the sense that he could get remarried, which he ultimately does a couple of years later, and then he goes on to have another daughter.

Speaker 1 But police still aren't letting go of things just because they don't have anything physical, like no physical evidence. They at least now have proof that she was murdered.

Speaker 1 More than just their suspicions, more than even the stories they'd heard in the years before her skull was found.

Speaker 2 Wait, what stories?

Speaker 1 Yes. So at one point, there was this ex of Don's who told investigators this bizarre story.

Speaker 1 She says that when they were living together, she had asked him to box up Linda's photos and belongings because, right, he's telling everyone she ran off and she didn't want there to be any drama if Linda ever came back.

Speaker 1 She, I guess she figured like having everything ready to go would just make it easier.

Speaker 1 But Don told her, you don't need to worry about that because I know that Linda's not coming back since I killed her with my bare hands.

Speaker 2 He just came out and said that?

Speaker 1 That's what she said. Claims he even showed her this like green and white aerial photo map thing.

Speaker 1 And he pointed to a spot near a river or stream and said that Linda was buried there under a concrete slab.

Speaker 1 And listen, back then, police did even have this woman like try and wear a wire, have her go to Don to get a confession. But when she did, Don wouldn't confirm or deny anything.

Speaker 1 And unfortunately, she couldn't tell police exactly where it was that he pointed to. But in that time, investigators had started focusing on this stretch of land, which was about 90 miles south of St.

Speaker 1 Louis. And it's where Don's mother side of the family is from.
You know, it's a place that he spent plenty of time hunting like turkey and deer, just like a remote wooded terrain.

Speaker 1 And interestingly, when Lieutenant Webb paid Don's aunt and uncle a visit down there, they mentioned that Don had actually showed them the exact kind of map, this detailed aerial view of the area, which included their property.

Speaker 1 So they've always kind of wondered, is that somewhere in there where the rest of Linda is? So now that her skull has been found, investigators have like at least like some like momentum, right?

Speaker 1 Right, like proof, right? We're looking for something real. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So they make a few trips to the area, even search it with cadaver dogs, but they never end up finding anything, which like kind of got me wondering, going back to like, is Don too stupid to do this?

Speaker 1 Like for a second, I was like, do you think there's a chance that someone else, I mean, he's, he's talking about this.

Speaker 1 He's showing people that someone else knew where she was and put it there, like knowing he would be there that day.

Speaker 1 Like, I don't, again, nobody wins, but like, did someone just like, was this their way of getting people to know? But then, like, nobody, nobody knew.

Speaker 1 It'll literally be like a quiet nod only to Dawn.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but like bringing up like a different person also makes me think about like, I know it's, it's very unsure, but like this hiding of her car on the street. Yeah.
He isn't driving the car. Right.

Speaker 1 Because he's there.

Speaker 2 So who, like, we can't confirm it was Linda.

Speaker 1 We can't confirm it wasn't Linda, but is there someone else that he was like ever working with?

Speaker 2 Because like, is there a second person? Yeah. I'm not saying it, I'm not saying not him, but what about

Speaker 2 plus someone? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Like, I actually, this kind of like unravels later. I don't like, I don't 100% believe this, but I do wonder if there's someone else.

Speaker 1 Even if there was, though, police are confident that like Don's at the heart of this, right? Like Don's responsible. Yeah.
But in an interview with Laura Higgins, Don insists that he's innocent still.

Speaker 1 He insists that he loved Linda. He mentions an ex-girlfriend who told police he confessed, but he's like, oh, she just wanted the reward money.

Speaker 1 And bottom line, he's like, I just have no idea what happened to Linda. Although he does throw out that he heard this rumor that she was killed because of a cocaine ring at her workplace.

Speaker 1 Which is, hold up.

Speaker 2 Did I miss something?

Speaker 1 No, like. What cocaine ring? Everyone is like, where did this even?

Speaker 1 come from yeah lieutenant webb has never heard of a cocaine ring don has never said anything like that to him the lead investigator So it sounds like nonsense.

Speaker 1 Now, they're not finding the rest of Linda. They do eventually have to release her skull, but Don doesn't even want it.

Speaker 1 So it gets released to Linda's mother and the family arranges a burial, which Patty isn't invited to. Oh my God, why? She said that like she still isn't sure.

Speaker 1 Like maybe it was the tension between like Don's family and Linda's family. Maybe they thought it would just be too painful for her.
It's going to be painful. It's her mom.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, you wouldn't know it was her mom from the gravestone, though. I guess it only identifies Linda as a daughter.
And somehow even like the birth year is wrong.

Speaker 1 But Linda doesn't even stay buried for long. Webb is desperate for a real break, which isn't surprising.

Speaker 1 Like he has this suspicion that she, the rest of her, is probably buried somewhere in this like general area, but like no specifics. Like every search they've done hasn't turned up anything.

Speaker 1 So when he learns about this new advanced type of soil testing at this crime scene archaeology conference in the late 90s.

Speaker 2 So specific.

Speaker 1 Yeah, like it's one that might actually help pinpoint a specific burial site, he just jumps on it.

Speaker 1 So in August of 1999, Linda's skull is exhumed and shipped to a college in Pennsylvania along with soil samples collected from places that police think Linda might have been buried.

Speaker 1 Now, the first batch of samples is examined that fall, and it helps like to start at least narrowing down the scope of where they're looking.

Speaker 1 Although Webb won't say to what extent it narrows it down in the media interviews.

Speaker 2 But I mean, at least there are eliminating areas, right? Like that's progress.

Speaker 1 It's progress, but it's slow and it's frustrating. And all the while, Patty has been living with her own growing suspicions about her dad.

Speaker 1 Over the years, she does end up becoming convinced that her father killed her mother. And it's beyond just the like obvious bright red flags that we've already talked about.

Speaker 1 There's something about the anonymous letter and more specifically the materials used, the purple individual letter stamp text pad and the pre-stamped envelope.

Speaker 1 She says that those are the same kinds that her father kept.

Speaker 1 And she also learned that some of Linda's personal belongings that Don swore Linda took with her, like that 76 necklace, were actually still in the house.

Speaker 1 And what really haunts Patty is that morning, the last time she saw her mother, she started having dreams that dragged that scene back into focus.

Speaker 1 Linda laying silently on the living room couch, perfectly still, her face pressed into the cushions. An account that Don doesn't contradict when he even appears on Unsolved Mysteries later.

Speaker 1 But Patty now believes that Linda was already dead before she walked out the door for school.

Speaker 2 So who do we think called Dr. W that afternoon then?

Speaker 1 We asked Patty. She suspects that maybe either Dr.
W either had the dates mixed up or straight up lied.

Speaker 1 And like, Patty got the same weird vibe from the whole situation of like her, as you call it, unorthodox relationship, I suppose.

Speaker 1 And if what Dawn relayed about their communication is true, like the frequent phone calls at all hours, the level of involvement, Patty thinks that their relationship was,

Speaker 1 what she would say is abnormal.

Speaker 2 So what does Patty think happened?

Speaker 1 So Patty thinks her theory is that if Linda was killed at home, that it was quick and it was quiet. Maybe Don strangled her during the argument.

Speaker 1 And then she thinks that maybe he got some of his relatives to help cover it up.

Speaker 1 And strangulation is significant here in my mind, because Patty told us that around the time Linda's remains were exhumed, Don's second wife, who was Patty's stepmother, got a restraining order against Don because she alleged that he strangled her.

Speaker 1 And remember how I said said that police couldn't actually search the Vanita Park house for years, like a long time? It is this incident, this assault that finally opened that door.

Speaker 1 Literally, once investigators heard about it and realized that Dawn was out of the house, they figured that this second wife might be willing to let them in. They were right.

Speaker 1 They ended up collecting a few things, like the living room couch cushions.

Speaker 2 What?

Speaker 2 He still had the same couch after all those years?

Speaker 1 Well, he did not change a thing about the place. But, you know, they collect it.
Nothing comes of anything that they collect. Nothing incriminating.

Speaker 1 I mean, the most incriminating thing that they could find would be Linda's remains, but Patty doubts that those will ever be found.

Speaker 1 She believes that her father eventually dug up the skull from wherever he originally buried Linda and planted it outside the bar.

Speaker 1 And she thinks that he either moved or scattered the rest of her remains, which could explain why searches keep coming up empty. But that is all just speculation.

Speaker 1 The only people who really know what happened are whoever killed Linda and anyone else who helped them.

Speaker 1 And the investigator who basically devoted his life to trying to solve this, Lieutenant Webb, he died of pancreatic cancer in 2009, while Don maintained his innocence until his own death in 2015.

Speaker 1 So both the lead detective and the only suspect are gone, along with Don's lawyer and the Bridgeton Bridgeton investigator who chalked that whole skull thing up to like cemetery relocations and probably a whole lot of other people are gone too.

Speaker 1 The only people left fighting for Linda are her family and more recently us, because we actually tried reaching out to police for this episode, but right away we hit a wall.

Speaker 1 And it's a wall I'm really concerned about because No one is claiming this case.

Speaker 2 What do you mean no one's claiming it? It's an unsolved homicide. Like it's listed as a homicide now.
Like there must be some police agency in charge of it.

Speaker 1 You think. But apparently about a decade ago, Vanita Park PD was absorbed into the North County Police Cooperative, which is this like shared department that serves multiple small cities.

Speaker 1 And for some reason after that, jurisdiction over Linda's case just becomes murky. The co-op says that they can't find a full case file.
Their attorney insists that the co-op is not the lead agency.

Speaker 1 And in fact, against all evidence to the contrary, he told us that he would be surprised if Vanita Park was ever the lead agency because a department that small wouldn't have the resources. Okay.

Speaker 2 How would it basically be Lieutenant Webb's life's work with two drawers full of files, like his passion project?

Speaker 1 He worked on this his, like, even after he got like promoted to Lieutenant, like his whole career. Yeah.
With Vanita Park PD. And, but he, there's no, but, but it wasn't theirs.

Speaker 1 It's like, that doesn't make any sense. It's infuriating.
Patty has even tried going to the Vanita Park mayor. She's tried going to the Missouri Attorney General's office.

Speaker 1 And everyone would meet with her and tell her they cared, they wanted to help.

Speaker 1 And then communication would just stop after that, which is to Patty like this slap in the face. Like her mother has just been forgotten or maybe worse, like doesn't even matter to people.

Speaker 1 And the fact is, this case should still be open. Yes, the prime suspect is dead, but no one was ever charged.
And most of Linda's body was never recovered.

Speaker 1 So even if it's too late to get justice in a courtroom,

Speaker 1 like Patty's like, I still deserve answers. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So she's hoping, like the goal of this and talking to us and still pushing for her mother, she is hoping that someone close to Dawn, maybe an aging relative, a friend who has kept this secret for decades, will finally speak up.

Speaker 1 And this is when I would normally tell you which police agency to contact if you know anything about Linda's murder. But as you just heard, that's complicated.

Speaker 1 A co-op captain suggested routing tips through the St. Louis regional Crime Stoppers, but like we know how Crime Stoppers work.
Girl, like that's how this got started. Like they're a conduit.

Speaker 1 They take the things and then they have to pass it along to law enforcement. They don't investigate themselves.
So I don't know how helpful that'll actually be.

Speaker 1 I'm going to put their info in the show notes for people, but I also think it's worth reaching out directly to the co-op's general number if you know anything. That is 314-428-7374.

Speaker 1 Maybe even like a few calls or emails or letters from our crime junkie showing them that people are still paying attention to Linda's story will convince them to take up the case, even if they don't believe it's their responsibility.

Speaker 1 Like someone just needs to care enough. And you guys can always email us if you know anything, tips at audiochuck.com.

Speaker 1 And just a reminder: if you or someone you know is experiencing abuse, help is available. You can contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 or text START to 88788.

Speaker 1 You can find all the source material for this episode on our website, crimejunkie.com.

Speaker 1 And if you want to listen to more episodes like this and all of our episodes completely ad-free, be sure to join the fan club.

Speaker 1 You'll get early access to new episodes every single week, bonus content every single month, all the perks.

Speaker 2 And you can follow us on Instagram at Crime Junkie Podcast.

Speaker 1 We're going to be back next week with a brand new episode, but if you want, stick around. We have some good for you.

Speaker 2 Okay, Ashley, give me some good. Our favorite time.
This one is so cool. Hey, Ashley and Britt.
I've been a big crime junkie since high school.

Speaker 2 I hate it when people are like, since I was a kid.

Speaker 1 Like, we just started this cute little podcast. Sorry, I just got out of high school.

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Eventually, I got tired of living in fear.

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Slowly, my fear turned into inspiration.

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Speaker 2 The world can be incredibly scary, but through my programs, my jiu-jitsu gym, and the community of crime junkies, I've learned that there is so much good to counteract the bad.

Speaker 2 The women I met in shelters showed unimaginable strength and resilience, and the women who complete our courses are some of the bravest people I've ever known.

Speaker 2 I wanted to share my gratitude with you both, Ashley and Britt. Thank you for the awareness, protection, and hope you bring through your work.
You are truly changing the world one story at a time.

Speaker 2 With gratitude, a big fan.

Speaker 1 I feel like it's people ask us all the time, like, how do you do this dark stuff day in and day out? And I'm like, it's like she figured out what we figured out.

Speaker 1 It's like, you do it because you're doing something to make it better. Yeah.
To me, like, the biggest, the thing that it would be terrifying to walk through the world and not do anything about it.

Speaker 1 It is scary. And it's like having a way to counteract it and feel like you're doing something about it.
Like, that's what, that's what gives you the strength and what makes it less scary. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And like, she started listening to us in high school and then got her bachelor's degree and it's in grad school now.

Speaker 2 Like, that's such a journey that like, I'm so excited that we got to be on with her.

Speaker 1 Thanks, girl.

Speaker 1 Crime Junkie is an audio chuck production. I think Chuck would approve.

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