Mystery at Mars Hill College

Hi, I'm Holly. And I'm Hayley. Welcome to Mountain Mysteries, Tales from Appalachia. Sippy coffee.

Sorry, I just, you know, need a little coffee. I know, we're recording in the middle of the day, so we're not like drinking, we're drinking coffee. I wish I were drinking. Me too.

Day drinking is that, that's kind of unacceptable, isn't it? It's not so much like acceptable. And you have the Jesus mug. I do.

You have the Jesus mug. I have a Jesus mug. He is with me as I tell this story. We, you know, I mean, Jesus.

Yeah. I need Jesus. I need Jesus. I need Jesus.

I need Jesus. You try to burn my esophagus with a Jesus mug. Please don't. So tell me, Hayley, what's been going on this week, gotten into any mischief?

Um, no, I have not gotten into any mischief. That's good. I had some friends over on Friday and one of my very good friends, Hannah, who loves the podcast, by the way. Hannah, you're a new BFF.

She actually asked me and sent my friends to be at her wedding. Oh, we're friends. That is super exciting. Yeah.

So she's, we've actually known each other for a long time. Callie. Sorry, my dog is whining. And she's an early giant treat that she's doing.

I know. All right. You got a story for me? Oh, yeah.

That's why I'm here today. I kind of forgot about that. Well, welcome back listeners and subscribers. Thank you again for joining the Halster.

That's right. That's my nickname for myself. So this week, Hayley, we are traveling back 47 years to October of 1973, actually October 11th, 1973, which if you guys are listening, you're listening to this on the 22nd of October, but we're actually recording this on the 11th of October. So this is the anniversary of this story.

Really? Indeed. So October 1973, the number one song on the charts is half-breed by Cher. Do you know that one?

I don't know that one, but I know other Cher songs. So this is half-breed. It's all over her. It's a great song.

It really is. Oh, I got his... In fact, too. I was thinking...

Yeah, that's all I got. So you're a little ahead. That's like the late 80s. Okay.

So we got to bring it back a little bit. She's no longer with Sonny. She's just Cher. Anyway, that's the song that's number one on the radio.

So Spiro Agnew, who was the vice president at the time, he resigned from being vice president. This is at the point where Watergate is going on. Nixon was president. A lot of stuff is happening.

And he actually, Spiro Agnew, pled no contest in federal court to income tax evasion. Yeah. Yeah. There's so many directions that could go with that that I'm not going to go.

Exactly. We're not going to get too political here. But also on the music side, the American top 40 countdown from years on the radio, which is where they go from 40 to the number one song. It's pretty cool.

I always like listening to that. Meanwhile, in Mars Hill, North Carolina, a college sophomore by the name of Sally Bell Moffatt, is asking a friend of hers to switch shifts with her. They both work at the local pizza hut where they're servers. And she just kind of wants to spend the day hanging out with her friend.

She's thinking later that night she'll maybe meet up with her boyfriend. Did you ever work in food retail or like food or retail? Retail a little bit. Same.

Never did food service. Definitely. Never wanted to work in food service. I think I would drop something on someone.

That was my thing. It's like, I'm way too clumsy. Me too. I would burn so many people.

Exactly. I can barely walk. Yeah. I cannot imagine walking and holding a tray.

I just don't think I could remember people's orders. Like I've had waitresses that literally take a drink order for a table of eight and don't get it perfect. I would be like, no, wait, wait, slow down. Now what did you say again?

Say it to me slowly. Was that water? Okay. Yeah, that wouldn't work well for me.

But she was apparently pretty successful at this. She was working there because she was raised by a single mother. Her dad had actually passed away when she was 11 years old. So she was the youngest of two kids.

Her mother worked as a teacher. She was actually from High Point, North Carolina, which is about three hours east of Marzhill. She was enrolled as a elementary ed major, which so this little insight to the Hollster here, I actually went to Marzhill College and I was an elementary education major. I went to Marzhill University.

So Marzhill College transitioned to Marzhill University when they got master's level programs. I don't know when that was exactly. I remember it happening by darned by the exact year, but I went to Marzhill University and got my bachelor's in social work. So she was attending Marzhill College, which we talked a little bit about.

At this point, Marzhill College is a private Baptist school in the rolling hills of Madison County, North Carolina. This is about 30 minutes north of Asheville, the city of Asheville. So she was working, like I said, to earn a little bit of money. She was a very good worker.

She was a very good student. She had asked her friends, which was me and her friends had, yeah, sure. No problem, I'll switch with you. So Sally was last seen around 10-05 on October 11th.

This is a Thursday, leaving her dorm in strap dormitory. Strap also spelled Stroup, S-T-R-O-U-P. I know I hear it both ways. Yeah.

And if you, I never lived there, so I don't get an opinion, but if you lived in that dorm, you called it strap. It was strap, but if you didn't live in that dorm, it was like, oh, that's Stroup. Yeah, she lives in Stroup. No, I don't.

I did live in Strap. Anyway, so she was last seen at 10-05, leaving the strap dorm. She didn't sign out. So back then, if you didn't sign out, that meant that you were coming back before midnight.

Okay. But if you did sign out, that meant that you were gone for the night. Which, what year is this? 1973.

So this is when they still had women's elements. Yes. Well, it was still that way when I was there. Oh, it was really?

Yeah, because I'm pretty old. So she left the dorm. The last folks who saw hers and friends within the dorm said that she was headed towards the main part of the campus. That was the last time anybody saw her.

So cut to the next morning. This is Friday morning, the 12th of October. We're about 8-30 AM. Two construction workers are working on this widening project at the 1923, now the I-26 Freeway juncture.

So they look down in embankment and they do a double take. And they look at each other and say, is that what I think it is? So they walk down the hill and show enough. It is a body of a female.

It's never a mannequin. Yeah, exactly. Well, I mean, even if you saw a mannequin at the bottom of embankment, wouldn't you just be like, what the hell is a mannequin doing here? I would.

Yeah. Don't love that. Yeah, no, no matter what, it's freaky. So they described the body as a female, wavy brown hair.

They stated that she was wearing blue jeans, a blue flannel shirt, and a windbreaker. Some reports state that the flannel shirt that she was wearing was actually pulled up, exposing her bra. But I think it makes reports on this. But she was fully clothed for the most part.

So they actually go to the local store to call the police because, of course, Bethanyone had a cell phone. Yeah, that's just didn't happen back then. So the police come. They find that there were some footprints in the dirt because the dirt was very soft.

So of course, the ME, the medical examiner comes, his name was Otis Duck. Love that. Yeah, yeah. He doesn't give a.

Anyway. No, I'm sure he did give a. So anyway, Otis Duck comes and he is right there looking at the body. Things that he noticed was that it appears she'd been dragged across the road before she'd been thrown down the embankment.

And part of the reason why he was thinking that she'd been dragged was because she had bruising only to the left side of her body. Okay. So she had bruising on her cheek, bruising on her left shoulder and arm and then down her leg. Okay.

So she was pulled by her left arm and dragged or maybe her right arm and dragged. I haven't really dragged anyone ever in my life. No, no, no, I've never dragged. I feel like I'm learning a lot of things about you, Haley.

Yeah, I've apparently stabbed things now. I know. That was that last episode. Maybe I should maybe distance myself even more than social distancing here.

Yeah, murder distancing. Anyway, so that was his theory that perhaps that she was actually dragged across the street and thrown down the embankment. So once the autopsy was performed, he said that her cause of death was caused by internal bleeding due to three broken ribs, one of which had severed the pulmonary artery. And so yeah, and death happened very, very quickly.

He felt like it was pretty instantaneous. So a couple of things. He asserted that due to the evidence, there was no sexual assault that was present. Oh, so we're learning.

Exactly. She hadn't been beaten and he felt like she hadn't been hit by a car. Okay. So there was blood force trauma to her back.

Yes. Which he stated felt that she had some kind of severe impact. It was either from falling from a high from somewhere that was very high or she was actually thrown out of a car out of a moving vehicle. Okay.

They felt that that was the rationale for these injuries. She also had a fractured skull. She had bruises and scrapes, like I mentioned, just on the left side of her body from being dragged. Now, this individual was identified as Sally Bell Moffat by two of her close friends who went to the school with her.

They determined it was her because of the rings that she was wearing. She had two particular rings that she always had on her finger. And she also had a pretty prominent scar on her thigh, which is how they realized it was her. So news traveled really fast across the campus and across Mars Hill, which is a very small town.

And this was the first incident like this for the 118 years at this point that the college had existed. Never had there been any kind of murder like this. So really everybody was pretty frazzled. Students were on lockdown.

Wow. And back in the 70s, like lockdown wasn't really a big thing. No. No.

I wouldn't think. No. So they told everyone that they needed to stay in their dorms, classes were actually canceled. They were getting ready to start Fall Break too.

So you had a lot of students who were packing up for Fall Break and there was just a kind of stay in place order. So apparently I think some murder to get classes canceled at Mars Hill because classes were never in place. So I was going to say even when there was like a blizzard, we still had classes. Yeah, it was like this.

You live on campus. You can walk. Get going. Slide down that hill.

Exactly. Oh, and I did it many times. Many times. It's fine.

I'll just break my leg trying to get to class. They really were mourning. You know, this is about this college. So they had some services for her.

But meanwhile, 1500 of the student body were extensively interviewed about Sally, her 1500. 1500? Yeah. So I don't know.

I didn't know that. That's about 60 in our last episode was a lot. Yeah. I know 1500.

Yeah. Can you imagine how painstaking that would be? A lot gave mixed feedback. A large part of it is because when you interview 1500 people, you're not going to get the exact same story.

But the consensus was that she left the dorm somewhere between 10 o'clock and 10 20 in the evening. They stated that she actually had a red canvas shoulder bag that she would toss across her that she never went anywhere without it. But they actually did not find that with her. So they didn't find the bag and they didn't find any of her ideas.

So that was missing. Okay. So this could lead to maybe, oh, was it a robbery gone back? Exactly.

Exactly. They also interviewed some residents who lived in the area. One man stated that he saw a parked car and a man fleeing from the area. Didn't give much of a description of what he looked like just that he was a white male.

Friends stated that earlier in the day she had hung out with some buddies, went ashville, they went shopping and just kind of had good old time. So the police continued to investigate this crime. Flash forward to the new year, 1974 January. They don't have any leads.

The newspapers are reporting that it's still an active investigation, but there really hasn't been any leads. Nothing to go by. No one's been arrested for the crime. It's still unsolved.

Okay. So this was the first time that he was arrested for the crime. It was announced to all the newspapers that Sally's boyfriend of two months, Wayne Schilling, the gentleman whom they said Sally had switched shifts at Pizza Hut to hang out with that night, was charged with her murder. Wayne was a 21 year old junior.

He went to Marcell. He was a biology major and hailed from Mount Holly, New Jersey. They described him as a very smart right guy. He was very good looking with dark wavy hair, blue eyes.

Everybody said that he had an engaging smile. He was just a nice guy to be around. Now he was arrested due to physical and chemical evidence. Physical and chemical?

Okay. What would chemical evidence be? Like blood? I mean maybe.

Okay. Sure. Okay. So this was collected by the SBI.

Okay. A lot of this physical and chemical evidence. And somehow during the process of investigating this crime, they ended up finding her red canvas bag. The red canvas bag was not found where the body was, however.

Yeah. It was found several miles away. And when they found it, it had her ID inside and the dirt on it matched the dirt that was at the crime scene where the body was found. So the bag had been at the crime scene at some point?

Exactly. Exactly. So it was probably removed from her body. Right.

But nothing was missing from the bag. Here. So money was still there. ID was still there.

Yeah. I mean they were getting rid of it, getting rid of it too, like they're off IDing her. But why not take the ID out of the bag? Right.

If anything. Right. I mean it's a small town, like somebody's going to know who's great. Right.

Exactly. Although, you know with 1500 students. I mean. Sorry.

Hit me with more. All right. Bam. July 1974.

So he's arrested in May. So by July he goes in front of a judge and the attorney says, yep we've probable cause has been found and he was bound over for trial. What probable cause they did not get into. But obviously some physical and chemical evidence.

That will do it. Exactly. So fast forward April of 1975, his trial begins. So Wayne has a defense attorney from Asheville and he actually takes the stand along with three other college students who are friends of his.

These are actually witnesses who get up on the stand and testify that on that night October 11th, Wayne wasn't even with Sally that he was actually 10 minutes away at a tavern having some drinks with some buddies. Now, a man, a local resident, the one who said that he'd saw a man running away actually gets up on stand and he testifies. This man, Walter Honeycup was 43 at the time and he says, no, I saw Wayne. I know it was him.

He was jogging near the intersection where Sally was found. This was like 11 30 p.m. So I'm taking a night jog. Yeah.

Here's okay. So some things that I find a little tricky with this. Right. So he says, oh yes, that's him.

He points in court. That's the man. He looks exactly the same as he did two years ago when this crime happened. Right.

Almost two years ago. So problems with this. Two years prior, Wayne actually had a mustache and a goatee. He had shaved it off about a year after that.

So now he's been clean, clean, shaving for over a year. So he doesn't actually look the same. And at 11 30 at night when it's pitch black, you can tell the absolute facial details and have all that of somebody who's jogging. He's moving.

I know. I don't know. There's a lot of people, like I say a lot of people jogging and I probably couldn't tell you what they looked like other than like maybe ponytail or hey, that was a white guy. I probably couldn't tell you anything else.

No, no, I couldn't either. So that's the part where it gets a little mucky and a little like, I don't know. But he did stand up in court and say yes, that is the guy. Now when Wayne gets up and testifies in his own defense, he says, actually, this is what went down during the day.

He confirms that yes, Sally had been in Asheville seeing her friends. He says that around six in the evening, Sally came by his off campus apartment that he shared with his roommate. His roommate was there. They all kind of hung out.

About 745, his roommate says, I'm going to hop in the shower at which time Sally gives Wayne a kiss. She says, hey, I'm going to head back to my dorm. I'm going to change clothes and then maybe I'll see you later tonight. And so he's like, yeah, sounds good babe.

See you later. And off she goes. So he explains that his roommate left around 8 p.m. His roommate was going to attend a lecture on campus about JFK.

So from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. Wayne is in the apartment alone and he is watching TV. Around 10 p.m.

He decides, you know what, I want to go see Sally. So he decides that he's going to walk to Sally's dorm. Keep in mind, a lot of college students don't have cars on campus, particularly in 1973. You know, cost a lot to own a car.

So he is walking to her dorm. As he's walking, he actually runs into his roommate who's coming back from the lecture. That's a pretty late night lecture. But I mean, still, still plausible, you know, so 10 p.m.

So runs into his roommate and they come up with the idea, why don't we just hitchhike to that local tavern? So abandoned all thoughts of one to say Sally, we're going to go to the right. Yeah, that's a really committed relationship. It sure is, but you know, that's true.

Okay, so they decided they would hitchhike. So they actually walked to Main Street on campus and they were picked up by three other students who were on the way to a party themselves at this place called the Cliffs, which was a rock quarry. I'm not burning at the rock quarry. I feel like nothing good ever happens when there's a rock quarry involved.

It's like, you know, the body was found on the rock quarry. There was some type of illegal activity happening in the rock quarry. Like, that just doesn't seem like a big deal. It doesn't.

No, I guess. But maybe they advertise it as this party rocks. Good fun. It's got a good fun there.

You're on the bench. Oh my gosh. I'm here all week, folks. Anyway, so the guys decided, yeah, we'll pick up, we'll pick up Wayne and his buddy and we'll drive him to the tavern because we want to pick up some beer for this party at the quarry that's going to rock.

Okay. So that's what they decided to do. They dropped them off around 1030 p.m. At the tavern, the guys who pick them up get their beer and they leave and Wayne and his roommate have a couple drinks.

They hang out, socialize for a little bit. And there were at least 12 witnesses, including the bar maid and the owner of the tavern who testified that they saw Wayne there that night. So Wayne and his roommate decided to leave around 1145. They hitch a ride again with some other students.

It's just, there's so many people out and about in this area that just blows my mind. You're just going to rock quarries and taverns and, I mean, there's not a whole lot to do. No. I don't think I really rock is.

Rock is anyway, rock is campus. I don't know. I don't know what was going on in the 70s and more. I apparently want that.

I guess so. So Wayne and his roommate hitch a ride with some folks who are coming back to campus. They actually have a pickup truck. So Wayne and his roommate just get in the back of the pickup truck.

The Ken, Ken owns the pickup truck. He's driving. He was like, listen, I'm going to drive to our apartment and something weird. He actually gives Wayne and his roommate the keys to his truck.

I don't know if they know each other. He gives him the key to his truck and says, listen, I'm going to stay here at our apartment. You guys can take my truck back to your place. I don't even think if I would loan my own mother my car.

You know, I have loaned my brother my car and I've been a nervous wreck every time. My brother, he can't even touch the steering wheel. My brother's a really good driver, but it's just something about you don't give your car to somebody else. Right.

Especially something you don't know. I do want to state you guys, just because this shows our generation, they were also drinking and driving, which I also have an issue with. Yeah, that's not great. Yeah, no, definitely not.

No, no drinking and driving, kids. Don't do that. Be cool. Be rock-less.

Exactly. Right. Take a Uber. Now these.

Yeah, exactly. They should have taken a cat back then. Yeah. So anyway, that's kind of strange, but they took the truck back to their apartment, got home a little after midnight, and watched a movie they said on TV until about one o'clock in the morning at which time they went to bed.

So Wayne states that he didn't learn about Sally's death until the next day at noon when he was questioned for over an hour by cops. Okay. Okay, okay. Okay.

So, Marshall's a tiny town. Right. There is no way that not every single person in that town did not know about this murder by like that I am the next morning. Right?

By like 15 minutes after that body was found at half the town. Do you think though it took a hot minute though to identify that it was Sally? Maybe. So, it was that.

Yeah. Okay. I can see that over. Like there's a dead body found at the long time.

Well, okay. But think about it. He was up until one o'clock in the morning. He was probably sleeping, let's be honest.

Okay. Okay. I don't. Yeah.

Another thing I do want to throw out. Okay. Didn't you have class? So, he was out like, living it up, you know, didn't you have class the next day?

I mean, maybe he did it just didn't say that he went. Maybe it was late classes or something. I mean, it could have been maybe he just had Friday afternoon classes, which sounds painful. Yeah.

So, I'm not going to do class that day. You know, I haven't been in undergrad in at least 150 years. So, I've got to remember how it works. Yeah, then a hot minute.

So, anyway, the defense made a motion to dismiss the case on total lack of evidence, which makes sense. Yeah. I mean, it doesn't seem like they have a lot. It doesn't seem like it, no.

Right. Which the judge said no to. Oh, so he said no to dismissing the case? Yes.

Okay. He said no. We're going to move forward with this. The trial lasted five days.

Five days. Five days. How do you have a trauma for five days with no evidence? Well, I guess that's why.

And it seems like most of the people who were going to testify were actually for the defense. Okay. Yeah. So, the jury was made up of three women and nine men.

Okay. All Caucasian. No. They deliberated for 20 minutes.

Okay. Very short amount of time. That is shorter than I can eat to work currently. Right.

Me too. And, you know, usually when you hear that 20 minutes is how long they deliberated, it's like, okay, well, guess what buddy, you're going down the river. Yeah. Like that's...

Yeah, it's usually like we know for sure you did it. And some of the charges weren't only first to remurder they were going after. They were also going after a secondary murder charge and a manslaughter charge. So, you had all three at one time?

All three at one time. Were they just going to run them all in there? I guess something would stick. Yeah.

Yeah. And I could see why they would go with a manslaughter if it were an accident. Like something were to happen and he freaked out, he didn't know what to do, kind of thing. Maybe she fell or there was something.

Right. Or it got to be freaked out. Okay. And something I do want to mention is that Sally's friend stated that she actually liked to climb like trees and she really liked to be in high places.

Okay. So, this could lead to something that was accidental. Maybe she was hanging out and something happened. You know, she fell.

She fell. Anyway, so after the jury came back, they found him innocent of all the charges. I mean, it doesn't sound like the prosecution did great job. I mean, but they didn't have a whole lot of evidence to work with.

Right. So, I mean, they did be fair. They did the best of what they had. Exactly.

And you know, I think there's always pressure to get a conviction and solve this crime, you know, especially in this town where nothing like this had happened before. Right. So, he was released and free to go. He stated that he wanted to finish his education but wasn't necessarily sure he wanted to do it at Marzell.

Don't blame him? Yeah. I can see that. Yeah, you've been like, you know, tried for murder.

I don't know how I feel about going to math class. Yeah, me neither. Yeah, I don't know. And he was actually doing an internship at Asheville High School as a biology teacher and that was suspended once he was arrested, of course.

I mean, he didn't do it. Then like, that really sucks. Yeah. Maybe he did do it then.

Totally. Glad that he didn't get to teach children. Exactly. That's a good thing.

Yeah. Well, so Wayne ended up going on. He lived in Raleigh for a little while. I wasn't able to find a whole lot about him.

But he got into the real estate business. He was actually involved in a lot of those, gosh, what do you call those ventures for they? Time shares. He was involved in time shares.

And so he worked as an executive. He actually ended up marrying and having two sons. Okay, so he slept for a little bit of life. Yeah, so he was found innocent.

You know, if he wasn't innocent, I'm so glad to hear that he was able to live his life. You know, if he wasn't, oh my, you know, that's tough because Sally didn't. She was so young. He actually recently passed away.

So Wayne died May 3rd of 2020 in Orlando, Florida. Oh wow, I was so excited. Yes, he was 67 years old. I'll see young.

Yeah, definitely. And there was no like death, death confession or anything? No, no. Nothing I know of.

And Sally's mother, you know, mourned the death of her daughter for a long time, obviously her whole life. Sally's mother lived to be 100 years old and passed away in 2015. Yeah, so her mom had a really long life. That's where the story somewhat ends.

But I wanted her to send to you several theories. Oh, I love a good theory. Okay, so here's some possible theories. Okay.

Now, this was not the only murder that was happening at the time in the area. Okay. There were three other college coeds who were killed within several months span. They weren't from Mars Hill, but one was from UNCA, which is another university in the area and Western Carolina University, which is another university in the area.

Somewhat similar in detail of how they were killed. So it could be that there was some type of serial killer. Wow. I lived in Western Carolina my entire life I've never heard.

Neither have I. That's wild. Yeah, yeah. This is what you find when you start digging.

Yeah. So that's one theory that there could have been some kind of serial killer who was, you know, on the hunt speaking of serial killers. Another theory is Ted Bundy. Did he have any victims in that area?

So not that we know of. However, Ted Bundy did travel to various states. Right. And around this time the first murder that we know of that he committed was actually in 1974.

And this was 73. So this would have been a couple of months before. But he went after college coeds. So now the only thing that could make this not plausible is that he liked to have sex with corpses.

Right. Yeah. And right. Right.

And as we know, Sally had not been sexually assaulted. Well, this was earlier, right? This was earlier. So this could have been just a trial.

Exactly. Like maybe he didn't know like a feeling was a thing. Right. I like it.

Yeah. So it is certainly plausible. Small area. You know, maybe he saw her walking and said, Hey, you need a ride?

You know, you know, good looking, good looking guys. Good looking guys. Smart charming. Maybe she said, Hey, I'm headed to my boyfriend.

And he said, I'll give you a ride. We don't know. We just don't know. Thanks.

So that's a theory. And my final theory is several days before Sally went missing, there was a murder of a girl in the Great Smoky Mountains. Okay. And then we got to the stage.

She was suffocated and stuffed into a plastic duffel bag and thrown down an embankment. Now, the Great Smoky Mountains is west of Marsel, probably a good, what, hour, hour and a half, hour and a half, maybe somewhere in that area. Yeah. If you're trying to get to like some of the main parks places like that.

Right. Now they did determine that she had been raped. But the girl in the bag had been sexually assaulted. But again, it's like, wow, these are, you know, this could be totally unrelated or it could be, you know, related, we don't know.

And then, you know, finally it could have just been an accident. It could have been Wayne. Yeah. I think somebody would have had to put her body there though.

Totally. So did. And it was obviously someone who didn't want her to be identified because they took the purse or did they want this to look like it was a robbery. But why throw the, if it was supposed to look like a robbery, why not take the stuff out of the bag before you fell asleep?

So maybe it was somebody who had it in their car and they were scared that somebody would see it because they traveled fast and so they ditched it. Maybe. I would be like, are there fingerprints on this purse that we can pull? Like, I mean, I recognize this is 73.

We're not looking at DNA evidence that doesn't exist yet. But, and even, oh, so this is still a cold case actually. So it's still open. If they were to open up this case again or just, you know, look at it, take a new look at it, could be pulled DNA evidence.

Do they still have the bag? Do they have her clothes? I mean, what is it that they may have that could help? Did she put up a fight that they think?

I mean, I've read cases and research cases back in, you know, the 70s where they knew that DNA evidence was going to be a thing at some point and they check scrapings from under fingernails. Did she put up a fight? Did, you know, did anybody think to do that? I don't know.

I don't know. But, you know, that is the $64 million question and possibly, you know, since it hasn't been solved, you know, maybe they're still looking. And 1973, 47 years ago, but these were young people. So we're talking about people who are in their 60s now.

Yeah, I mean, there could be somebody out there that knows something still. Absolutely. So you just never know. Yeah.

So that's sort of where we're leaving it here. But I do want to throw out that this is going to tie in to our Halloween episode. I'm not going to get into how exactly that's for you to find out. What?

Anyway, it's the Jesus coffee, I think. Anyway, so that's the end of our story. But please join us next week when we do our Halloween special large booktacular. Anyway, I get too excited.

We will be telling some creepy stories. Yes, we will. And if you haven't already sent in your stories, we have well, I've gotten all of our stories for the Halloween episode, but we want to do some future listener stories episodes. So feel free to send us to our email at mountainmysteries.appelachian at gmail.com.

And you can follow us on Facebook at mountainmysteries.appelachian at mountainmysteries.appelachian. And please subscribe, rate, and review us on Apple Podcasts. If you have a minute, it really helps us to reach some more folks. And I'm excited to tell some ghost stories next week.

And if you just want to be our friends, just to know, because we're pretty cool. Yeah, you can email us just to say hi. Holly and Hailey Rock. Or you can give us your constructive feedback.

What are you implying? You were looking at me when you said that. Give us some constructive Holly feedback. We'll see you next week.

All right. We're cutting it now. Sorry, guys. Bye.

Bye.