Dave Cawley:Each swing of the pick brought a loud clank of metal against stone. Sweat dripped from the faces of the detectives who took turns heaving shovelfuls of dirt into an orange bucket. Next to them, standing over a blue tarp, CSI workers sifted loose dirt through a mesh screen, pausing to peer at any odd roots or rocks. What they really hoped to find were fragments of bone. Roy City police and Weber County crime scene investigators, along with search and rescue staff, conducted an excavation of a possible clandestine grave near Causey Reservoir in mountains of northern Utah on August 23rd, 2023. They were looking for skeletal remains, possibly those of Sheree Warren.
Jason Romney (from Aug. 23, 2023 recording):How many years has it been, Dave?
Dave Cawley (from Aug. 23, 2023 recording):Since Sheree?
Jason Romney (from Aug. 23, 2023 recording):Yeah.
Dave Cawley (from Aug. 23, 2023 recording):38.
Jason Romney (from Aug. 23, 2023 recording):38? Yeah, I would think after that time we might just be getting long bones, big bones.
Dave Cawley:Sheree Warren’s case, and these mountains that may hold secrets about her fate, have consumed my attention for quite some time. You’ve heard the result: the story of the search for Sheree is chronicled in COLD season 3. Through months and years of research, I honed in on this specific spot as a possible place to look for Sheree Warren’s remains. Circumstantial evidence suggests one of the two named suspects in Sheree’s disappearance could’ve known this place very well. There was also an outside chance this site could hold evidence related to the murder of Joyce Yost, the subject of COLD season 2.
These two cases, Sheree Warren’s and Joyce Yost’s, are likely unrelated, but they occurred in close proximity to one another, in space and time. Over the last nearly 40 years, they’ve bled into one another. We’ve now taken detailed looks at both in this podcast, and heard repeated references to Causey Reservoir.
Shane Minor:The Causey area’s about 20 miles east of Ogden, there’s a Causey Reservoir.
Stan Olsen (from May 24, 2004 police recording):Yeah, this is Causey Estates up here.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Did you ever hunt in the Causey Reservoir area?
Rod Layton:Causey is a area up the canyon.
Jared Briggs (from December 15, 2006 Utah State Prison recording):And he scooped her body up and they drove to Causey.
Jack Bell:You got two reservoirs up there that are deep, Causey and Lost Creek.
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):There’s some really steep trails going up to the righthand side off Causey.
Dave Cawley:That’s why Roy City police invited myself and several of my colleagues from KSL-TV, the Salt Lake City-based news station I work for, to watch as they excavated this site.
Dan Spindle (from August 23, 2023 KSL TV archive):Breaking news happening right now. Law enforcement agencies in Weber County are digging right now what appears to be at a burial site that might be connected to a four-decades-old murder case.
Dave Cawley:But if you’re not in Utah, or don’t watch the news here, you probably didn’t hear anything about this. So let me bring you up to speed. In this episode, we’ll review the evidence that points to the possibility of gravesite near Causey. We’ll go to the site of this dig, and I’ll share where the search for Sheree Warren stands, now that the dust has literally settled.
This is a bonus episode of COLD, season 3: The Causey Search. From KSL Podcasts, I’m Dave Cawley.
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Dave Cawley:Let’s begin with a recap of the Joyce Yost and Sheree Warren cases. Both had their start in the area of Ogden, Utah back in 1985. Joyce’s case came first. That April, a man Joyce had never met followed her home from a club late one night. Doug Lovell confronted Joyce in the carport outside her apartment in the city of South Ogden. Lovell sexually assaulted Joyce, kidnapped her and held her captive.
Joyce, fearing for her life, promised not to tell anyone what Lovell’d done if he just let her go. He did. When Joyce made it safety at home in the early morning hours, she called her sister. This is Joyce’s voice, explaining what her sister said.
Joyce Yost (from April 4, 1985 police recording):She says “well you call the police.” And I said ‘I really don’t want to be put through the humiliation.” … She said, in fact the more she heard from me, the angrier she was getting and she says “well, you call the police right now,’ or she said, “if you don’t, I will.” So, I said “I will.”
Dave Cawley:Joyce soon met with detective Bill Holthaus. She told him her story. Holthaus believed Joyce, and he arrested Doug Lovell that same morning on suspicion of rape.
Bill Holthaus:He looked at me with an expression that got my attention. … But it just was like it froze the moment. And he said “this will not go to trial.”
Dave Cawley:Through a series of mistakes and mishaps, Lovell found himself out of jail while awaiting trial that summer. He tried to hire two hitmen, but both fell through. So, in August, 10 days before the scheduled start of the trial, Doug Lovell crept into Joyce Yost’s apartment through a window, startled her awake and slashed her with a knife. Lovell then took Joyce away in her own car and hid her body.
Weeks later, at the start of October, Sheree Warren walked out of her work at the headquarters office for the Utah State Employees Credit Union in Salt Lake City. She told a coworker she was going to meet her estranged husband at nearby car dealership. Afterward, Sheree planned to take her young son to her parents’ house in the city of Roy. She never made it.
Carole Mikita (from October 5, 1985 KSL TV archive):Right now police say they’re investigating the disappearance but have very little to go on.
Ben Glover (from October 5, 1985 KSL TV archive): What we’re asking for is just to locate where she may be. Or any evidence to show that it, or indicate that there is maybe some foul play involved so we can do a, a different type of investigation rather than missing persons.
Dave Cawley:Roy City police at first focused on Sheree’s estranged husband, Charles Warren, thinking he might’ve killed Sheree over their ongoing divorce. Charles told Roy police detective Jack Bell he’d canceled his planned meeting with Sheree at the dealership on the evening of her disappearance and instead went jogging, a weak alibi detective Bell was never able to corroborate.
Jack Bell:I wish he hadn’t looked so guilty to start with, but he did.
Dave Cawley:Charles Warren wasn’t the only suspect, though. Police also came to wonder if a former Ogden City police reserve officer named Cary Hartmann might’ve had something to do with Sheree Warren’s disappearance. Cary and Sheree had been dating.
Six weeks into the investigation, Sheree’s car unexpectedly surfaced behind a casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Jack Bell:That opened up a whole new can of worms. How did it get there? Which one of these two birds that I’m looking at have the opportunity to get it down there?
Dave Cawley:As Roy police were trying to answer that question, Doug Lovell revisited Joyce Yost’s body somewhere in the mountains, burying Joyce to prevent anyone from finding her. Then, snow fell, blanketing those same mountains. In December, Doug Lovell stood trial for raping Joyce Yost. She didn’t show up to testify. The jury convicted Lovell anyway and sent him to prison, but not for murder. Without a body, South Ogden police were unable to link Joyce’s disappearance to Lovell. Without a body, Roy police were unable to say what might’ve happened to Sheree Warren.
These two separate cases were still both under investigation when, in April of 1987, an anonymous man called Roy City and the Weber County Sheriff’s Office to report finding a woman’s body in the mountains near Causey Reservoir.
Sheli Tracy (from April 3, 1987 Weber County dispatch recording):—a body?
Anonymous caller (from April 3, 1987 Weber County dispatch recording):Yeah, a body that I, that I, that I just happened across way up, y’know it’s way out, y’know it’s not in the communities or anything. It’s way out in the hills.
Dave Cawley:Causey is way out in the hills, about 20 miles east of Ogden and its suburbs of South Ogden and Roy. But the land around Causey is rough and remote. Investigators needed more specific information if they ever hoped to find the body. The anonymous caller wasn’t willing to help.
Sheli Tracy (from April 3, 1987 Weber County dispatch recording):Can I get your name?
Anonymous caller (from April 3, 1987 Weber County dispatch recording):No, I’m not interested in leading search parties or anything like that.
Dave Cawley:Weeks later, a witness told police he’d bumped into Sheree Warren’s boyfriend, Cary Hartmann, on the mountain behind Causey four days after Sheree disappeared. And detectives learned several of Hartmann’s close personal friends owned property in Causey Estates, a cabin community near the reservoir.
Dave Moore:We had to have a key. There was a gate down right at Causey Reservoir.
Dave Cawley:One of those friends, Dave Moore, was Cary’s alibi for the night Sheree disappeared.
Dave Moore:At the time I didn’t, had no idea that he was using me as a alibi.
Dave Cawley:Another those friends, Brent Morgan, told police Cary had borrowed his key for the gate at Causey Estates shortly before Sheree vanished.
Brent Morgan:Back then there wasn’t a lot of people up there.
Dave Cawley:Police searched around Causey during the spring and summer of 1987, hoping to find the body the anonymous caller had mentioned. Those searches came up empty.
Brent Morgan:You take where he had my key, if he had access up there and could go up and down the roads, you can find the right place where you can 1-2-3 heave-ho and it’s gonna be in a spot where people aren’t gonna go.
Dave Cawley:Cary Hartmann, I should note, ended up in prison but not because of anything to do with Sheree Warren. Ogden City police arrested him as a suspect in a series of home invasion sexual assaults around the same time as the anonymous call and the searches around Causey. A jury convicted Hartmann in one of those cases.
Years later, another clue emerged pointing toward Causey, this time in the Joyce Yost case. In 1991, Doug Lovell’s ex-wife Rhonda Buttars told police on the night Lovell killed Joyce Yost, he took her “up by Causey.”
Rhonda Buttars (from May 1, 1991 police recording):And he said he made her drive up the canyon and they went up by Causey. … And got her out of the car and walked up this hill and if wasn’t very far off the road. … And he said he buried her the best he could.
Dave Cawley:Rhonda Buttars’ confession helped prosecutors secure a capital murder charge against Doug Lovell. Buttars wore a wire into the Utah State Prison and captured audio of her ex-husband as he described burying Joyce Yost in the mountains, covering her with leaves.
Doug Lovell (from January 18, 1992 recording):The only thing I’m nervous about is that one time that caller called it. I remember seeing it on TV. … The way they projected this was “we think we know where the body of Joyce Yost’s remains are.”
Dave Cawley:Lovell cut a plea deal, hoping to avoid the death penalty by promising to take police to Joyce Yost’s grave. In the summer of 1993, he led police to a mountainside east of Ogden. It held no signs of human remains. It was also nowhere near Causey.
Former South Ogden detective Terry Carpenter told me he believes Lovell lied about where he buried Joyce Yost.
Terry Carpenter:She is someplace else and honestly to this day, I believe Sheree Warren’s with her. Otherwise, if we go up and dig and find Joyce and find Sheree, that negates all the agreements that we’ve had with him and not executing him. And he knows that. So he’s not going to take us to Joyce.
Dave Cawley:I’ve looked for evidence that might link Doug Lovell to Sheree Warren. I’ve not found any. Lovell himself denied having ever met Sheree Warren when this speculation first surfaced 30 years ago. But there are those who hold to this theory, even today.
In 2004, Weber County investigators flew over the mountain behind Causey in a state helicopter. They were operating on the assumption Cary Hartmann had killed Sheree Warren and left her body somewhere near Causey.
Shane Minor (from May 25, 2004 police recording):This would’ve been the road I think he had access to … there’s unlimited places where he could’ve dumped her along here.
Kent Harrison (from May 25, 2004 police recording):Hard to think like a bandit, y’know. Would you’ve, you’ve picked a characteristic turn or rock or tree or something to, as a landmark?
Dave Cawley:A year-and-a-half later, a detective named Shane Minor questioned Cary Hartmann about Sheree Warren’s disappearance. Minor asked Hartmann directly if he’d killed Sheree and taken her body to Causey.
Shane Minor (from October 20, 2005 police recording):Did you kill Sheree?
Cary Hartmann (from October 20, 2005 police recording):No.
Dave Cawley:Hartmann said he didn’t have any idea what’d happened to Sheree.
Shane Minor (from October 20, 2005 police recording):Do you know if she was placed in an area above Causey Estates?
Cary Hartmann (from October 20, 2005 police recording):No, I don’t have any idea.
Dave Cawley:A year after this, in 2006, a prison informant started talking to police about Joyce Yost. He said Doug Lovell had drawn him a map of the place where he’d left Yost’s body.
Jared Briggs (from December 15, 2006 Utah State Prison recording):This is the lake, there’s some gates up here and some property.
Dave Cawley:The informant claimed Lovell had taken Joyce Yost to Causey Reservoir.
Jared Briggs (from December 15, 2006 Utah State Prison recording):See these circles here? Uh, he’s telling me this is Huntsville here, the Huntsville area. Uh, and this is Causey.
Dave Cawley:Your head’s probably spinning by this point. It’s so much to keep track of, I know. Not all of these leads are credible. Sorting fact from fiction remains a major challenge in these two cases. But what I hope you’re seeing is a lot of circumstantial evidence points toward Causey Reservoir as an important landmark in the disappearances of Sheree Warren and Joyce Yost.
My job involves taking scattered fragments of a story, spreading them out and putting them in order. Sometimes the individual puzzle pieces don’t look like much on their own. It’s only when they’re assembled that a picture emerges. If done well, the story that comes out of this process should draw as close to truth as I can possibly get it.
Perfect truth is nearly impossible to find. Often, holes remain. Unanswered questions. Like, where is the body the anonymous caller reported finding near Causey, and why couldn’t anyone find it?I’ve struggled to come up with a satisfactory answer. I’ve studied a century’s worth of old maps, seeing the gradual development of trails and roads in the mountains around Causey. I’ve read newspaper archives about the generations of sheepherding families who owned those hills. I’ve hunted down aerial photographs of Causey from the 1930s, ’40s, ’50s, ’60, ’70s, ‘80s to 1990s, even paying to have old film scanned at ultra-high resolution.
I’ve gone up into the air myself, by plane and helicopter, to study the thousands of acres of inaccessible private land behind Causey.
Dave Cawley (from October 2, 2021 flight):This big flat top—
Richard Cawley (from October 2, 2021 flight):Yeah.
Dave Cawley (from October 2, 2021 flight):—when it narrows down on the eastern edge, we just want to stay to the right of the ridge—
Richard Cawley (from October 2, 2021 flight):Ok.
Dave Cawley (from October 2, 2021 flight):—and then we’ll cross over.
Dave Cawley:Through all this, I became very interested in a stretch of old jeep road. In the 1980s, this trail linked Causey Estates, where Cary Hartmann was known to spend time, to the spot on the mountain top where a witness said he saw Hartmann four days after Sheree Warren disappeared. Much of the jeep trail falls within the radius that anonymous caller referenced to when he described finding a woman’s body.
Sheli Tracy (from April 3, 1987 Weber County dispatch recording):Is it in Weber County?
Anonymous caller (from April 3, 1987 Weber County dispatch recording):It’s over there by, uh, Causey Dam.
Dave Cawley:As my focus narrowed onto this old trail, I came across something unusual in the aerial images and video I’d collected. The trail climbs a hill heading east out of Causey Estates. At the top of that hill I saw a pile of rocks, about six feet long and three feet wide: roughly the size and shape one might expect for a clandestine grave.
It wasn’t clear from the images I’d collected if the rock pile existed before the 1980s. Those older pictures just weren’t clear enough to tell. But I was able to determine the rock pile had sat undisturbed since at least the early ‘90s.
Dave Cawley (from May 29, 2023 recording):And as we come up on the anomalous rock pile—
Dave Cawley:I was able to visit the rock pile myself.
Dave Cawley (from May 29, 2023 recording):—you should see how it stands out from the surrounding environment.
Dave Cawley:I carried a camera with me, to document the site and the old jeep trail nearby.
Dave Cawley (from May 29, 2023 recording):And as you look around you can see there are rocks on this trail, but there are no other piles of rocks of similar shape and size. So that is unique.
Dave Cawley:This discovery presented a bit of a conundrum. The code of ethics that guides my work as a journalist says I need to act with independence. I don’t work for the police, and I don’t automatically share everything I know with them. But if this rock pile did mark a possible grave, it felt irresponsible to simply ignore it, or to publish that speculation without taking steps to find out for sure.I shared images of the rock pile with a handful of trusted colleagues and sources, who all agreed my eyes were not mistaken. It did look like it could be a grave.
Dave Cawley (from May 29, 2023 recording):Again, unnatural. Unnatural rock pile.
Dave Cawley:So, I provided this information to Roy City police detective John Frawley, the lead detective on the Sheree Warren case. He thanked me for it. Some time passed. Then, in August of 2023, I received word Roy police had news to share.
Mike Headrick (fro August 22, 2023 KSL TV archive):Good evening, breaking news out of Weber County where police plan to conduct a major search related to an Utah cold case dating back to the 1980s.
Deanie Wimmer (fro August 22, 2023 KSL TV archive):It’s a case we’ve covered extensively right here at KSL as part of the Cold podcast.
Mike Headrick (fro August 22, 2023 KSL TV archive):We plan to be on the mountain with police as they explore this site tomorrow. Stay with KSL TV throughout the day for any breaking developments.
Dave Cawley:I had an exclusive invite to come along as police went to Causey to dig below the rock pile, looking for possible human remains.
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Dave Cawley:Don’t make yourself the subject of your own story. This mantra is foundational for journalists. It’s drilled into our heads by professors and editors. But college didn’t prepare me for a career in which journalism would take me on the hunt for human remains. Finding this odd rock pile while looking for a clandestine grave around Causey made me a subject in my own story. My managers at KSL recognized this. They decided to assign a different reporter to cover the story of the dig. I would still be there to watch and provide comment and context, but reporter Dan Rascon would put the story on the air.
Shara Park (from August 23, 2023 KSL TV archive):News Specialist Dan Rascon giving us exclusive access to this site and the operation. So Dan, tell us where you are, what you’ve been seeing there. This is a big operation.
Dan Rascon (from August 23, 2023 KSL TV archive):Dan Rascon “Yeah, this is a major operation undergoing right now.
Dave Cawley:This wasn’t the only ethical consideration. KSL also took a few steps to safeguard our independence. We decided we would provide our own transportation to and from the site, which meant finding someone with four-wheelers available on short notice. We told police if we came along, we’d have the freedom to share anything we saw or heard with you. They agreed.
We met in the morning, as low clouds settled in the mountain valleys, catching sidelong rays of the rising summer sun. Our caravan of SUVs headed east from the small town of Huntsville, driving up Utah state highway 39, following the South Fork of the Ogden River to Causey. One by one, we drove across the dam to the gate for Causey Estates, drawing curious stares from fishermen and paddle boarders. Another mile or two on dirt and gravel brought us to the bottom of a steep hill.
We parked, doused ourselves in sunscreen, and loaded equipment onto ATVs: cameras, coolers, pop-up shades and shovels. There weren’t enough seats for everyone. Some of us donned backpacks and hiked the remaining mile to the rock pile, grunting up steep switchbacks. We reconvened up top, on a saddle overlooking Causey Estates. The CSI team set up a laser scanner, a 40-thousand dollar piece of equipment designed to make a 3-D model of the site. It sat on a tripod, rotating and beeping as we all waited.
Jason Romney (from August 23, 2023 recording):We were trying to buy newer ones that don’t take as long.
Dave Cawley:They launched a small drone to collect more imagery from above. If evidence of a murder came out of the ground, this would be crucial to show what the site looked like prior to its excavation. Another member of the team used a small handheld saw to cut back overgrown brush and branches around the rock pile. With the ground clear, the CSI team set down their tarp and raised an awning over the rocks. As they did so, my KSL colleague Dan Rascon went to work conducting interviews. He asked Roy police detective John Frawley what would happen next.
Dan Rascon (from August 23, 2023 recording):What are you gonna, this seems like a very methodical process. It’s not like you just bring out the shovels and start digging.
John Frawley (from August 23, 2023 recording):No, we want to be very respectful, also. There’s a proper way to do this. And so, the Weber County CSI team is very professional and they’re going to handle this.
Dave Cawley:I think what John was getting at here was if the search about to get underway turned up human remains, we all needed to remember what it might mean. My mind turned to all the people I’ve met over the last several years who would be watching live coverage of this search on TV.
Dave Cawley (from August 23, 2023 recording):We know there are families of victims, missing women—Sheree Warren, Joyce Yost, another person who could potentially be up in this area—and they have for the last four decades wondered where are their loved ones. And they’re today watching and waiting to see what comes out of this. So that’s very difficult.
Dan Rascon (from August 23, 2023 recording):So, we could find a body today.
Dave Cawley (from August 23, 2023 recording):We won’t know until Weber County CSI starts doing their work, but I don’t think you get this team up here unless they think it’s a reasonable possibility that they might recover human remains here.
Dave Cawley:At the same time, none of us wanted to presume an outcome that hadn’t yet happened.
Dan Rascon (from August 23, 2023 recording):And if you find anything?
John Frawley (from August 23, 2023 recording):If we find anything, we will slow down at that point and figure out what we have and what needs to happen then. … We would obviously follow where the evidence leads us. We wouldn’t want to make any pre-determinations. If we did find something, we want to keep an open mind and see where the evidence would lead us at that point.
Dave Cawley:A low roar began to rise from the south.
Jason Romney (from August 23, 2023 recording):Is that the Chopper?
Dave Cawley:It grew louder, drawing near until a helicopter crested above the mountain and began to orbit overhead.
Jason Romney (from August 23, 2023 recording):There will probably be some Arnold Schwarzenegger jokes going on. Get to the choppa.
Dave Cawley:It belonged to KSL: Chopper 5. The very helicopter that’d helped find this odd rock pile in the first place. Over the sound of the thrumming helicopter blades, the investigators began removing rocks from the pile and tossing them to the side. Stone by stone, they worked to expose the bare ground beneath. They sent spiders scurrying and even disturbed a hornet’s nest.
Jason Romney (from August 23, 2023 recording):To the pilot we look like we found something. He doesn’t know that it’s wasps.
Steve Haney (from August 23, 2023 recording):Yeah, everybody runs when it—(laughter)—he’s like “something’s going on, something’s going on.”
Mark Horton (from August 23, 2023 recording):Game on.
Steve Haney (from August 23, 2023 recording):Game on.
Dave Cawley:With the rocks removed, we could see the pile had covered a divot, or depression. The ground under the pile sat 8 to 10 inches lower than the surrounding soil. This, I’d learned, could be a clue because when a buried body decomposes, the ground above it may settle. I felt a sense of guarded optimism as the investigators began removing soil. They passed the loose earth off to be sifted. The idea here is dirt will fall through, while larger items like teeth, bone chips or cloth fragments will be caught by the screen. It’s not as easy at it might sound, because each bucket load of soil held hundreds of small pebbles too large to fall through. The CSI team had to visually inspect them.
Jason Romney (from August 23, 2023 recording):After this long, teeth look like these little rocks.
Dave Cawley:The closest analogy I can think of for this is it’s like looking for a single tiny piece of Lego in giant heap of bricks that are all a similar size and color. While this work was unfolding, the KSL team went live on the air to share it with the public in real time.
Dan Rascon (from August 23, 2023 KSL TV archive):Yeah, we’re high on a ridge right now just outside of Causey Reservoir. This, possibly a burial site for Sheree Warren. She disappeared back in October of 1985. We’re going to go ahead and bring in Dave Cawley here, of course with the Cold podcast. And Dave, tell us the significance of what is happening here right now.
Dave Cawley (from August 23, 2023 KSL TV archive):We’re seeing the detectives are using shovels and picks to pull soil off of this site, to see if there is anything of evidence related to Sheree’s case coming out of that. They’ve taken just a few inches off the top and it will be a really slow process over the next several hours.
Dave Cawley:I wasn’t surprised when no skeletal remains surfaced beneath the first few inches of dirt. It stood to reason if anything or anyone was buried here, it wouldn’t be right at the surface.
Jason Romney (from August 23, 2023 recording):Steve, you just decide with Dave when you think you guys are at your limit.
Dave Cawley (from August 23, 2023 recording):Not my call, so you guys make it.
Jason Romney (from August 23, 2023 recording):You’re not running the show?
Danny Hammon (from August 23, 2023 recording):Let’s go another four inches.
Kyle Curtis (from August 23, 2023 recording):Let’s dig it. Let’s dig it. We’ve got enough to dig right now.
Dave Cawley:Load after load of soil went through the screen. Only once or twice did the searchers pause, like when an old .22-caliber shell casing, maybe a century old, caught up in the mesh.
Jason Romney (from August 23, 2023 recording):.22 number 2, Jess.
Danny Hammon (from August 23, 2023 recording):Another .22 that deep?
Jess Pontius (from August 23, 2023 recording):Really?
Jason Romney (from August 23, 2023 recording):Is it the same?
John Frawley (from August 23, 2023 recording):Another .22 shell?
Kyle Curtis (from August 23, 2023 recording):I’m still going to say it could be falling off the higher shelf up here and rolling in.
Dave Cawley:Hour after hour passed. Scattered clouds crept across the sky, casting shadows that sat on the landscape like spots on a Dalmatian. The hole sank progressively deeper.
Kyle Curtis (from August 23, 2023 recording):I’d be pretty mind-blown if they could dig this far.
Dave Cawley (from August 23, 2023 recording):Yeah.
Steve Haney (from August 23, 2023 recording):Yeah, no.
Kyle Curtis (from August 23, 2023 recording):I mean, I guess if you’re motivated, though. (Laughs)
Dave Cawley:The excited, nervous chatter that’d pervaded earlier in the day faded away. A specter of disappointment loomed.
Dave Cawley (from August 23, 2023 recording):Y’know, in another 40 years, someone’s going to find this rock pile and a whole other team’s going to come up here and do this all over again.
Jason Romney (from August 23, 2023 recording):You’ll be the old retired person.
Dave Cawley (from August 23, 2023 recording):I know, right?
Jason Romney (from August 23, 2023 recording):You’ll like, say your war stories.
Dave Cawley:By midafternoon, the hole reached a depth of between two and three feet. The detectives who were taking turns with the shovels noticed a change.
Danny Hammon (from August 23, 2023 recording):So that color of dirt has been consistent all the way across and we’re at least 3 to 4 inches into it.
Jason Romney (from August 23, 2023 recording):No disturbance in the layer?
Dave Cawley:They reached a layer of soil that’d not been disturbed before.
Steve Haney (from August 23, 2023 recording):Yep. Let’s uh, let’s even that out to where—
Kyle Curtis (from August 23, 2023 recording):That level there?
Steve Haney (from August 23, 2023 recording):Yeah.
Kyle Curtis (from August 23, 2023 recording):‘Kay, I agree with that.
Dave Cawley:Proof no one had previously dug a hole that deep at the site.
Danny Hammon (from August 23, 2023 recording):I was so optimistic.
Dave Cawley:It might’ve looked like one, but detective Frawley said the rock pile didn’t mark a grave.
Dan Rascon (from August 23, 2023 recording):Your reaction to that? I mean, I guess you were hoping to find something, maybe?
John Frawley (from August 23, 2023 recording):You’re always hoping to find something but I think like we’ve discussed as investigators, we keep going. Y’know, if there’s a place to dig, we’re going to dig. If there’s a place to search, we’re going to search. And we’re just not going to stop. So we will follow every tip and every lead.
Dave Cawley:I’m not going to lie. This outcome left me feeling deflated. In the time between my discovery of the rock pile and its excavation, I told myself not to build up any expectations. It was far more likely someone’s dog was under those rocks than a murder victim. Even if human remains were buried there, they could’ve belonged to a sheepherder, a pioneer, a fur trapper or an indigenous person. I knew this. Still, I couldn’t ignore the possibility no matter how low the probability. Maybe this would be a break. I’m human, so yeah, I allowed a little hope. But there was nothing. No bones of any kind.
Sweeping my eyes across that mountain as the police packed up their gear and raked loose dirt back into the hole, seeing the brush and trees spanning to the horizon, I felt a sting of futility. If Sheree Warren or Joyce Yost are up here, can we ever really hope to find them? Maybe not.
This is the real nature of cold case work. It’s perpetual disappointment. And yet, I refuse to accept a fatalistic view. This search mattered, for many reasons. It took one more location off the list of possibilities. It prompted new discussion about what happened to Joyce Yost and Sheree Warren. And it sent a message to their killers: we will not stop.
Detective Frawley said it well: if there’s a place to search, they’re going to search. If there’s a place to dig, they’re going to dig.
Dan Rascon (from August 23, 2023 recording):And is that what you do, too, on the Cold podcast?
Dave Cawley (from August 23, 2023 recording):Yeah absolutely. So, for the Cold podcast, our job is to tell these stories, to tell Sheree Warren’s story. To let the public know about what’s happened in the past and what’s happening right now. But that doesn’t mean that this case ends when our podcast ends, or that we stop paying attention. So, I myself, KSL, the Cold podcast, we’re dedicated to continuing to follow Sheree’s case and if we come across any new information, we will be out on the next mountain, doing the next search.
Dave Cawley:In every setback, I see progress. In every hole excavated, we plant a seed of new opportunity. A fruitless search is not defeat, it’s a step on the path toward truth. This will not be the last search.
A mound of rocks sat undisturbed on a narrow mountain ridge, as it had for many years.
Human hands had stacked these rocks, but for what purpose? The dimensions of the mound were notable: roughly six feet long by three feet wide. About the size one might expect to see for a makeshift memorial placed over a clandestine grave.
This pile of rocks, unremarkable on its own, stood out when considered in context with evidence from two 1985 missing persons cases: the disappearances of Joyce Yost and Sheree Warren.
COLD discovered the Causey rock pile while researching the Yost and Warren cases. The appearance of this unexplained pile of rocks on a mountain ridge a couple of miles southeast of Causey Dam prompted speculation among investigators.
Could it mark a burial site for one of these missing women?
Joyce Yost and Sheree Warren
Joyce Yost disappeared from her apartment in South Ogden, Utah on the night of Aug. 10, 1985. Evidence would later show a man who’d previously sexually assaulted Joyce, Douglas Lovell, killed her to prevent her from testifying at his upcoming trial. Lovell admitted to driving Joyce east into the mountains and leaving her body at an undiscovered location.
Several weeks later, on Oct. 2, 1985, Sheree Warren left an office building in Salt Lake City, Utah. She reportedly told a coworker she was headed to meet her estranged husband, Charles Warren, at a nearby car dealership. Sheree then planned to take her 3-year-old son to her parents’ house in the community of Roy, a suburb of Ogden, Utah.
Sheree didn’t make it home that night, or ever again. Six weeks later, her maroon Toyota Corolla surfaced behind the Aladdin Hotel and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip. Police couldn’t say how the car ended up there, or what might’ve happened to Sheree.
Roy police, who led the investigation into Sheree Warren’s disappearance, harbored suspicions about two men. They investigated her estranged husband, Charles Warren, who had a history of domestic violence against his first wife. Detectives also wondered if Cary Hartmann, a former Ogden Police reserve officer whom Sheree had been dating, might’ve been somehow involved.
But why would investigators presume to look for either of these women near Causey, a small and somewhat obscure reservoir tucked into a narrow canyon 20 miles east of Ogden?
The Case for Causey
An anonymous man called Roy City on April 3, 1987, roughly a year-and-a-half following the Joyce Yost and Sheree Warren disappearances. The man told a dispatcher he’d located a body. Upon learning the body sat outside Roy’s boundaries, the dispatcher instructed the man to instead call the Weber County Sheriff’s Office.
The anonymous caller did so. In a stammering voice, the man explained he’d been searching for “rock sediments” in the mountains near Causey Dam when he’d stumbled upon the decomposed remains of a woman.
“I didn’t touch the body or anything because I didn’t want to get fingerprints on it,” the man said according to a recording of the call, “but I noticed there was a purse there.”
Dispatcher Sheli Tracy pressed the anonymous man for details, but the man remained vague. He said only that to reach the spot he’d parked at the dam and gone 2 or 3 miles back, crossing a “couple of ravines” to an area that very few people go into. Tracy asked the caller to remain on the line while she grabbed another person more familiar with the area. The caller agreed to wait, but hung up when briefly placed on hold.
Winter snow still covered the mountains around Causey at that time in early 1987. Police made a preliminary search within days of receiving the anonymous call, but were not able to go far beyond Causey Reservoir.
Searchers tried again two months later, in June. By that time, police in Ogden had identified Sheree Warren’s boyfriend, Cary Hartmann, as a suspect in a years-long string of sexual assaults. In May of 1987, the Weber County Attorney’s Office filed felony charges against Hartmann in connection with four of those cases. Ogden police arrested Hartmann on a warrant, and word of his arrest made the news.
As the story of Hartmann’s arrest spread, new witnesses began coming forward. Some of them claimed Hartmann and Sheree Warren had been together on the night Warren disappeared.
Detectives from Ogden and Roy also learned Hartmann had at least three close personal friends who owned lots in Causey Estates, a cabin subdivision adjacent to Causey Reservoir.
A brief history of Causey Estates
Access to the mountainous area surrounding modern-day Causey Reservoir has long proved difficult.
The first known vehicle crossing of the mountain south and east of Causey occurred in September, 1924. A story published in the Ogden Standard-Examiner described a journey by two surveyors who were seeking to find a shorter route between the cities of Ogden, Utah and Evanston, Wyoming.
“In the county truck they turned off the main highway at Devil’s Slide, went up Lost Creek and then north to Magpie Flat,” the story read, “westward across the flat and down Magpie Canyon to South Fork Canyon, just above Ogden.”
Ten years later, in 1934, an engineer-turned-rancher named Irvin Jacob purchased the majority of that same mountain. Jacob managed the land through his company, Basin Land and Livestock. In the years that followed, Basin Land and Livestock improved the primitive route through Magpie Canyon, using it to shuttle sheep herds to summer range high on a plateau known as Magpie Flat.
Historical maps and aerial photographs show as far back as the 1940s, an unimproved ranch road crossed Skull Crack Canyon, which is today home to Causey Estates. That road traversed Skull Crack from west to east, climbing out of the canyon by way of an unnamed ridge.
In 1962, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation began construction of Causey Dam, near the confluence of the South Fork Ogden River with its tributaries of Skull Creek and Causey Creek. The reservoir impounded by the dam was first filled in 1966.
A couple of years later, Basin Land and Livestock cut a road from the newly constructed Causey Dam into Skull Crack Canyon. The company began charging hunters a small fee to use this new road to access prime deer and elk habitat on the hills and canyons behind Causey Reservoir.
By the early 1970s, Basin Land and Livestock had secured permission from Weber County to subdivide a portion of its property in Skull Crack Canyon. The new subdivision was named Causey Estates.
Development of Causey Estates occurred in three phases. Lots in phase 1 first became available in 1974. Phase 2 followed a short time later, in 1976. The third and final phase was not opened until 1983.
By the time Joyce Yost and Sheree Warren disappeared in 1985, many cabins dotted Causey Estates phases 1 and 2.
Phase 3, tucked in a side canyon on the far eastern edge of the development, remained comparatively primitive. But lot owners at Causey Estates would often use the old ranch road that departed from phase 3 going toward Box Spring and Magpie Flat to access hunting ground in the vast, undeveloped Basin Land and Livestock property.
Cary Hartmann’s connections to Causey
Police gathered evidence in the Sheree Warren case during 1987 that showed Warren’s boyfriend, Cary Hartmann, knew the Causey area well. Hartmann had several friends who owned lots in Causey Estates.
C. Brent Morgan had known Hartmann since childhood. They’d grown up together in the Uintah Highlands area of Weber County. Morgan, a taxidermist by trade and an avid hunter, had been one of the first buyers when lots became available in Causey Estates.
For Morgan, a primary perk of owning land in Causey Estates was the promise of hunting access on the adjacent Basin Land and Livestock property.
“In the early years, the advantage was it was very isolated,” Morgan said in an interview for COLD.
Morgan began construction on a cabin in the early 1980s. The work progressed slowly over the course of several years. By 1984, Morgan was ready to install plumbing at his unfinished cabin.
“Guess who did the plumbing work. Cary did,” Morgan said.
Hartmann came from a family of plumbers and was himself a licensed plumber.
Hartmann’s own 1984 daily calendar, obtained by COLD from police evidence, showed he spent several days during September of 1984 at Morgan’s cabin in Causey Estates. Hartmann also attended Morgan’s wedding at Box Spring, just outside Causey Estates near Magpie Flat, on Oct. 7, 1984.
Box Spring sat along the old ranch road that connected Causey Estates phase 3 with Magpie Flat.
“He knew the gate system,” Morgan said. “He knew how to get to my place, he could drive the roads.”
Following Hartmann’s arrest in 1987, Morgan told police Hartmann had borrowed his key for the gate at Causey Estates in September, 1985, a couple of weeks prior to Sheree Warren’s disappearance. Handwritten detectives noted obtained by COLD show Morgan told police “that he did not get his key back until Oct. 11, 1985,” more than a week after Warren vanished.
Another of Hartmann’s friends, an elk hunting guide named Allen Fred John, told police he’d bumped into Hartmann and another man in a clearing at the head of Guildersleeve Canyon on Sunday, Oct. 6, 1985. John had reportedly questioned Hartmann, wondering why he was trespassing on private property during the opening weekend of the annual elk hunt.
The location at the top of Guildersleeve Canyon described by John sat east of Magpie Flat and could’ve been accessed through Causey Estates.
Police spoke to yet another of Hartmann’s friends in 1987, a former Ogden police officer named Bill Thorsted, whose family owned a lot in Causey Estates phase 1. Records detailing that conversation have been lost by the Ogden City Police Department.
Most significantly, Hartmann’s friend Dave Moore owned a lot in Causey Estates phase 3. Hartmann had told Roy police he’d spent the evening of Warren’s disappearance with Moore at a bar in Ogden. But when police questioned Moore, they learned his timeline and Hartmann’s conflicted.
Doug Lovell and Joyce Yost “up by Causey”
In 1991, a South Ogden detective named Terry Carpenter questioned Douglas Lovell’s ex-wife, Rhonda Buttars, about the disappearance of Joyce Yost. Buttars told Carpenter that Lovell had murdered Yost to prevent her from testifying at trial.
Buttars provided a recorded statement to police, in which she described what Lovell had told her about Yost’s murder.
“[Lovell] said he made [Yost] drive up the canyon and they went up by Causey and he said he didn’t go far off the road,” Buttars said. “He just stopped the car and got out of the car and walked up this hill and it wasn’t very far off the road and grabbed her neck and was choking her and then I think he stepped on her neck and stomped on it and smashed it.”
Buttars said Lovell had tried to bury Yost’s body as best he could.
“He said he didn’t bury her very deep. He just, you know, like put leaves or shrubbery or dirt over her,” Buttars said. “She had her purse at the time, he said, and he dumped all her stuff out by her, her purse and then just left it.”
“I am the only one that knows where she’s at,” Lovell said in one of those recordings.
Lovell said he’d revisited Yost’s body some time later, better concealing Yost and stealing a wristwatch he’d initially left with her remains. Lovell expressed confidence no one would find the gravesite.
“The only thing I’m nervous about is that one time that caller called in,” Lovell said, in reference to the anonymous caller who’d reported finding a woman’s body near Causey Reservoir.
Prosecutors used Buttars’ confession and Lovell’s recorded statements to obtain a capital murder charge against Lovell in 1992. Lovell entered into plea negotiations, hoping to avoid a potential death sentence. During the summer of 1993, Lovell led police to a site along the Old Snowbasin Road east of Ogden where he claimed to have buried Yost. Searches of that site failed to turn up any human remains.
The Old Snowbasin Road site was nowhere near Causey Reservoir, where Buttars had told police Lovell claimed he’d taken Yost the morning following the murder.
Lovell’s failure to produce Joyce Yost’s remains invalidated his plea agreement. A judge sentenced Lovell to death. Lovell’s case remains under appeal.
COLD began collecting historical maps and aerial images of the Causey area while researching the Joyce Yost and Sheree Warren cases. COLD also tasked Chopper 5, a news helicopter operated by KSL 5 TV, with gathering video of specific sites around Causey.
On Dec. 9, 2019, Chopper 5 recorded video of an unnamed ridge east of Causey Estates phase 3. Close examination of the video revealed the presence of a rock mound, located about 40 yards to the side of the disused Basin Land and Livestock ranch road that once connected Causey Estates with Box Spring.
KSL Chopper 5 video showing an anomalous rock pile on a ridge near Causey Reservoir on December 9, 2020.
COLD conducted further research in an attempt to determine when the rock pile was first constructed. A review of historical aerial images showed the mound was present as far back as the early 1990. Images generated prior to that time were not clear enough to conclusively show the mound.
Chopper 5 collected additional video of the rock pile during flyovers of the Causey area in May and September of 2022.
KSL Chopper 5 video of an anomalous rock pile on a mountain ridge near Causey Reservoir on September 22, 2022.
The rock pile sat less than half a mile as the crow flies from the lot in Causey Estates phase 3 previously owned by Cary Hartmann’s friend, Dave Moore.
It was about 2.5 miles from Causey Dam, which was consistent with the description provided by the anonymous caller in 1987.
As a result, COLD provided images and GPS coordinates for the rock pile to Roy City police.
Police search of the Causey rock pile
Roy police, in cooperation with Weber Metro CSI and the Weber County Sheriff’s Office, conducted an excavation at the site of the rock pile on Aug. 23, 2023. COLD accompanied the investigators to the site and observed their work.
Over the course of several hours, detectives removed the rocks and scraped out the soil beneath them. They painstakingly removed the earth a few inches at a time. CSI staff then passed the dirt and pebbles through a mesh screen, watching for any items of evidence.
The mesh was designed to capture any bone fragments, teeth or cloth scraps that might be expected to come out of a clandestine grave. Bucketful after bucketful went through the screen. Fine sifted dirt collected in a growing heap on a blue tarp beneath the screen.
By midafternoon, the excavation reached a depth of roughly 2.5 feet below ground level. The detectives at that time noted they’d entered a soil layer that had not been previously disturbed. No evidence of human remains had been located. The investigators concluded the site was not a clandestine grave.
Roy police detective John Frawley told KSL TV it was a disappointing result, but worth the effort.
“You’re always hoping to find something,” Frawley said. “We keep going. If there’s a place to dig, we’re going to dig. If there’s a place to search, we’re going to search. And we’re just not going to stop.”
Hear what happens next for the Sheree Warren investigation in a bonus episode of Cold season 3: The Causey Search
Episode credits Research, writing and hosting: Dave Cawley Audio production: Aaron Mason Audio mixing: Ben Kuebrich Cold main score composition: Michael Bahnmiller Additional scoring: Allison Leyton-Brown KSL executive producer: Sheryl Worsley Workhouse Media executive producers: Paul Anderson, Nick Panella, Andrew Greenwood Amazon Music and Wondery team: Morgan Jones, Candace Manriquez Wrenn, Clare Chambers, Lizzie Bassett, Kale Bittner, Alison Ver Meulen Episode transcript: https://thecoldpodcast.com/season-3-transcript/causey-search-full-transcript/
Dave Cawley:Serial killer Ted Bundy spent years denying what he’d done. From his initial arrest in Utah…
Reporter (from November 21, 1975 KSL TV archive):You said you were surprised when you went to jail. For better or for worse?
Ted Bundy (from November 21, 1975 KSL TV archive):Hey listen, uh, we do have to go. Surprised? I don’t know. I didn’t know what to expect. I’ve never been in a jail before, never been arrested before.
Dave Cawley:…to Ted Bundy’s murder convictions in Florida…
Ted Bundy (from July 24, 1979 KSL TV archive):Police officers, they want to solve crimes and sometimes I don’t think really, they really try to think things through. … And they’re willing to take the convenient alternative. And the convenient alternative is me.
Dave Cawley:…Ted Bundy maintained his innocence. But Bundy wasn’t innocent.
John Hollenhorst (from January 24, 1989 KSL TV archive):The Ted Bundy story is in part a historical odyssey stretching thousands of miles from one corner of the country to the other. It’s part crime drama, spanning most of two decades.
Dave Cawley:In Cold season 3, we heard how Cary Hartmann, one of the two suspects in the disappearance of Sheree Warren, had been fascinated by Ted Bundy.
John Hollenhorst (from January 24, 1989 KSL TV archive):But most of all, it’s a psychological mystery about a man who lived in two worlds: an everyday world of shining opportunity and a dark world of madness and violence.
Dave Cawley:Ted Bundy was a charismatic young law student with a promising future in politics when he moved from Washington state to Utah at the end of summer in 1974. At that same time, police in and around Seattle were looking into a string of disappearances and deaths.
John Hollenhorst (from January 24, 1989 KSL TV archive):The press began talking about a lookalike killer who seemed to select women simply because they were young and pretty.
Dave Cawley:By his own later admission, Bundy killed at least 30 women during the 1970s. To this day, many remain unidentified and in some cases, were never located.
Bundy’s final murders, in Florida, landed him on death row in 1979. A flurry of legal appeals followed but by 1986 it appeared Bundy would be executed. As the scheduled date approached, investigators from across the country traveled to Florida in the hopes of interviewing him about their unsolved cases.
Richard Bingham (from February 5, 1986 KSL TV archive):Here in Utah he’s a suspect in the murders of Melissa Smith and Laura Aime. Also the disappearance of Nancy Wilcox and Nancy Baird. Salt Lake County Sheriff Pete Hayward has been involved in the case from the beginning.
Pete Hayward (from February 5, 1986 KSL TV archive):There’s no doubt in my mind that he’s responsible for the Smith girl and the Aime girl that was found in American Fork Canyon. Uh, we have two other girls that we feel strongly that he’d have to be considered as a prime suspect in and that would be the Wilcox girl and a young lady that was taken out of a gas station up in, I believe it was Layton.
Dave Cawley:It’s that last young woman we’re going to focus on in this episode. Bundy was only willing to talk if it played to his advantage. He intended to barter information about his crimes as a last resort to stave off execution. But he didn’t have to do that in 1986 because the courts granted him a reprieve.
Pete Hayward (from June 27, 1986 KSL TV archive):Bundy at that time made the comment that it wouldn’t be in his best interest to talk to us at this time. But did not say that he wouldn’t talk to us at all.
Dave Cawley:That narrow escape from the electric chair only added to the Bundy mystique.
Mary King (from July 2, 1986 KSL TV archive):Florida State Prison.
John Hollenhorst (from July 2, 1986 KSL TV archive):Bundy’s notoriety has prompted many hundreds of phone calls to the prison in recent weeks, mostly from women.
Mary King (from July 2, 1986 KSL TV archive):They want to talk to him, or they want to know his address so they can write to him, or they want to congratulate on us on having nerve enough to try to burn him.
Dave Cawley:This building of a serial killer into a cultural icon was gross then and it remains so today. And I’m hesitant to play into that by talking about Ted Bundy in this podcast. But it’s important to understand just how pervasive Bundy was in the minds of police and the public during the late 1970s and through the 1980s for the story you’re about to hear.
Florida scheduled a new execution date for Ted Bundy, in January of 1989. This time, Bundy’s legal challenges were swept aside. And so, with no other option to forestall his appointment with the electric chair, Bundy started to talk. He spoke with investigators in the hopes of delaying his impending death.
Dennis Couch (from January 22, 1989 police interview recording):Ok, I’ve turned the recorder on.
Ted Bundy (from January 22, 1989 police interview recording):We’ll do what we can.
Dave Cawley:That’s how a detective named Dennis Couch from the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office in Utah ended up sitting down with Ted Bundy on January 22nd, 1989. This audio comes from that interview.
Dennis Couch (from January 22, 1989 police interview recording):That’s my first and foremost reason for being here, for those three girls that are missing and—
Ted Bundy (from January 22, 1989 police interview recording):And some more.
Dennis Couch (from January 22, 1989 police interview recording):From Utah?
Ted Bundy (from January 22, 1989 police interview recording):Yeah.
Dave Cawley:The tape recording of this interview is sometimes difficult to understand. But during their 90 minutes together, Bundy told detective Couch he was responsible for five murders in Utah.
Joel Munson (from January 24, 1989 KSL TV archive):Along with the Kent and Wilcox murders, Couch says Bundy gave useful information that should help investigators solve the murders of Melissa Smith and Laura Aime.
Dave Cawley:Police had already found two of the bodies: those of Melissa Smith and Laura Aime. Bundy tried to tell them where they might find two others: Debra Kent and Nancy Wilcox. But that left one victim unidentified.
Ted Bundy (from January 22, 1989 police interview recording):Sorry—
Dennis Couch (from January 22, 1989 police interview recording):No, that’s ok.
Ted Bundy (from January 22, 1989 police interview recording):—you’re catching me when you are—
Dennis Couch (from January 22, 1989 police interview recording):Yeah, I’m just getting quite anxious myself, y’know.
Ted Bundy (from January 22, 1989 police interview recording):I hear you, I hear you. We’re all up against some deadlines.
Dave Cawley:I don’t bring all this up simply to relive the past. I want you to hear what Ted Bundy said when detective Dennis Couch asked him about a specific unsolved case.
Dennis Couch (from January 22, 1989 police interview recording):Further up was Nancy Baird who worked at a gas station. July 4th.
Dave Cawley:The disappearance of Nancy Perry Baird.
Joel Munson (from January 24, 1989 KSL TV archive):But Couch did not get the answer he was hoping for regarding another Utah murder, that of Nancy Baird of Layton. Bundy insisted he had no part in that killing.
Dave Cawley:Nancy Baird’s name might sound familiar. It came up in passing during our discussion of the Sheree Warren case in Cold season 3, but I couldn’t take too deep of a diversion into it then. So, we’re going to do that now.
Nancy Baird vanished from a gas station where she worked in East Layton, Utah on the evening of July 4th, 1975. In the years that followed, many people came to the conclusion Ted Bundy abducted and killed her.
Dennis Couch (from January 22, 1989 police interview recording):Do you recall, umm, what type of place it was she was working at or where it was located? On which highway?
Ted Bundy (from January 22, 1989 police interview recording):No, I didn’t have anything to do with that.
Dennis Couch (from January 22, 1989 police interview recording):Nancy Baird?
Ted Bundy (from January 22, 1989 police interview recording):No.
Dave Cawley:Even today, Nancy Baird’s name appears in online lists of suspected Ted Bundy victims. Many of Nancy’s own relatives even believe Bundy killed her. But Bundy said he wasn’t responsible.
Ted Bundy (from January 22, 1989 police interview recording):Well that, no. I don’t know anything about that disappearance.
Dave Cawley:Nancy Baird’s body has never been found. The detective who interviewed Bundy, Dennis Couch, is retired now. I’ve talked to him. He declined my request for a recorded interview. But he told me he hadn’t been personally familiar with the details of the Nancy Baird case back in 1989, when he’d questioned Bundy. Nancy Baird’s disappearance had happened in a different county and deputies there had just asked detective Couch to show Nancy Baird’s picture to Bundy and ask what he’d done to her. Bundy’d seemed not to recognize the photo, or the name Nancy Baird.
Dennis Couch (from January 22, 1989 police interview recording):Can we go back to Nancy Baird? You, you indicated that—
Dave Cawley:Days after the interview, on January 24th, 1989, Florida executed Ted Bundy by electrocution.
John Hollenhorst (from January 24, 1989 KSL TV archive):The prison was shrouded in darkness when smoke began to pour from the backup electrical generator used during executions. By then, demonstrators were arriving by the hundreds to watch the spectacle of a killer’s death.
Demonstrator (from January 24, 1989 KSL TV archive):I would like to be right in there and see him fry.
Dave Cawley:Public attitudes about Ted Bundy were broadly negative, for obvious reasons. Yet many people who hated Bundy found themselves fascinated by the story. Bundy embodied a strange duality: an outward charisma protecting a depraved core. His execution was a major news event.
John Hollenhorst (from January 24, 1989 KSL TV archive):The demonstrators invaded the media center. Some, wearing costumes, waving frying pans, sporting gruesome slogans. Songs about the despised serial killer added to the carnival atmosphere.
Crowd (from January 24, 1989 KSL TV archive):(Singing) Now we’re all ecstatic Ted Bundy is dead.
John Hollenhorst (from January 24, 1989 KSL TV archive):So the Bundy saga is over now, except those who will pick through it to figure out what it all means.
Dave Cawley:“What it all means.” It means a lot for the still-unsolved disappearance of Nancy Baird. In season 3 episode 6, I shared the story of a jailhouse informant who claimed Cary Hartmann had been seeing Nancy Baird around the time she disappeared. That informant was probably not credible, and I’ve not found any direct evidence linking Cary Hartmann to Nancy Baird.
But that story thread started me down a new line of investigation into Nancy Baird’s case. In the process, I obtained never-before-released case files. I spoke to relatives, witnesses and investigators. And I came to the conclusion Ted Bundy was probably telling the truth when he said he didn’t know anything about the death of Nancy Baird.
But Ted Bundy cast a long shadow and because of it, no one did any significant work on Nancy Baird’s case for decades.
This is a bonus episode of Cold, season 3: The Convenient Alternative. From KSL Podcasts, I’m Dave Cawley.
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Dave Cawley:The 4th of July fell on a Friday in 1975. It marked the start of a long, hot holiday weekend. Many Utahns hit the road, hoping to escape the heat by heading to the mountains. Denzle Williams, on the other hand, spent the day at home with his wife and kids. He lived in a town called Kaysville, midway between the cities of Salt Lake and Ogden.
A little after 5 p.m. on the afternoon of July 4th, Denzle drove from his house to a gas station a couple of miles up the road, in the neighboring town of East Layton.
David Williams:We had to get gas for a rototiller.
Dave Cawley:That’s the voice of Denzle’s son, David Williams. He was a few weeks shy of his 14th birthday when he accompanied his dad on this errand in 1975. They drove together to the gas station which sat alongside U.S. Highway 89.
David Williams:The Fina station, I remember, it was, y’know, green and white.
Dave Cawley:Denzle pulled his Dodge Dart to a stop next to one of the pumps. David stepped out onto the blacktop, followed by his little sister, nine-and-a-half-year-old Jana. David and Jana told me as kids, the Fina station was a favorite stop for…
Jana Williams Grow:Pop and—
David Williams:Chips.
Jana Williams Grow:—chips and candy.
David Williams:Candy.
Dave Cawley:Jana dashed into the store, while David retrieved a small gas can from the car’s trunk. He filled it, then handed the hose off to his dad. Denzle started filling the car. He planned to take his son David golfing the next morning and wanted to start their trip to the golf course with a full tank.
David Williams:I was excited because I was a teenager able to go play golf with my father at that time, because we didn’t get out and do that very often together.
Dave Cawley:Denzle gave David his credit card, and told him to go inside and pay for the gas. This was long before technology allowed for pay-at-the-pump. David followed his little sister Jana through the door into the Fina station’s convenience store.
Dave Williams:As, as you walk in there were, I recall, two men at the end of the counter talking to Nancy.
Dave Cawley:Nancy Perry Baird, the clerk, was 23 years old. She was petite, standing only five-foot-two, and had long, strawberry-blonde hair. She appeared younger than her age and she caught David’s eye.
Dave Williams:I believe she had a halter top on and shorts. I’m like “oh, she’s cute.”
Dave Cawley:David stood there for a moment, holding his dad’s credit card, looking at the two older guys who were talking to Nancy.
David Williams:I didn’t want to interrupt this conversation they were having. The one guy, he did have kind of longer hair. Umm, like a, a Levi jacket that was faded. I think they both had longer hair.
Dave Cawley:Jana, meanwhile, wandered down between the shelves of candy, toward a case of chilled drinks.
Jana Williams Grow:And I do remember walking through the store and I just remember seeing one man.
Dave Cawley:After a moment, Nancy took notice of David. She paused her conversation with the two men at the counter and took the credit card from David.
David Williams:And as I was doing the transaction they were just kind of there.
Dave Cawley:Nancy placed the card on a device known as an “imprinter.”
David Williams:She takes it, puts it on a little uh, yeah machine.
Dave Cawley:In the days before tap-to-pay or even magnetic stripes on credit cards, clerks used imprinters—or click-clacks as they were sometimes called—to make physical rubbings of the raised letters and numbers on each customer’s card.
David Williams:And then she writes down how much it was. And if you bought anything else, she would add that to it. And then you had to physically sign the paper. And she gave you a copy and then she kept a copy.
Dave Cawley:As Nancy imprinted the card for David, Jana approached her brother carrying a bottle of raspberry soda.
Jana Williams Grow:I was getting a drink. You wouldn’t pay for it.
David Williams:Nope.
Jana Williams Grow:So I had to pay for my own. And I remember she was a very nice clerk.
Dave Cawley:David headed back outside into the heat with the credit card receipt, while Jana handed Nancy Baird the chilled bottle of soda. The total came to 29 cents. Jana counted out her pennies and she only had 28. With a smile, Nancy told her young customer not to worry about the extra cent. She’d take care of it.Jana then followed her brother outside, not realizing she would be the last person known to ever see Nancy Baird.
Except, I can already see the emails and DMs I’m going to receive from people who Google Nancy Baird’s name, then message me to say I’m wrong on this fact. Jana Williams wasn’t the last person to see Nancy Baird, they’ll say. If you look up Nancy Baird on NAMUS, the U.S. government’s missing and unidentified persons database, you’ll read Nancy was last seen by a “patrol officer” 15 minutes before her disappearance. There’s no mention in the database of David or Jana Williams. So which account is correct? They both are, sort of.
East Layton was a town with a population of about a thousand people in 1975. The little bedroom community, speckled with cherry orchards, sat against the foot of the Wasatch Mountains. U.S. Highway 89 crossed through East Layton from north to south, linking it to larger cities nearby.
The highway was the only reason East Layton had any tax base to speak of. There were only three businesses in the town, two of them being gas stations on opposite sides of the highway at a cross street called Cherry Lane. One of those gas stations was the Fina where Nancy Baird worked.
Nancy spent the first part of her life in the nearby city of Ogden. The Perry family moved to East Layton in about 1964. Nancy attended high school in Layton City proper, graduating in the class of 1970.
Toward the end of her senior year, shortly after her 18th birthday, Nancy became pregnant. The father was a young man named Floyd Dee Baird, who was about six months older than Nancy.
Floyd and Nancy married in April of 1970. They welcomed their son that October. The young Baird family spent a few rough years together and ultimately divorced around the start of 1974. Floyd would later tell police he and Nancy remained on good terms after the split, finding they got along better as exes than they had as husband and wife.Nancy maintained custody of their son. She divided her time between caring for him and working to support herself and her child.
Going back through old newspaper archives, I found a help wanted ad for the Fina station from 1973. It advertised an hourly pay rate of $1.70. That’s about the same as a job offering $11.30 an hour in early 2023. Nancy probably made less than that, considering even today U.S. Census Bureau data shows adult women working full-time in Utah earn, on average, only 72% as much as their male counterparts.
And there’s evidence in the record to support the idea Nancy Baird was underemployed. Case files show she told an employment counselor in March of 1975 she felt unhappy and wanted a better opportunity for herself. But that opportunity hadn’t yet materialized when she headed to work at the Fina station on the afternoon of the 4th of July, 1975.
She’d spent that morning with her parents, siblings and son at the house in East Layton where she’d grown up. Just before 3 p.m., Nancy left her four-year-old boy with her parents and drove to the Fina station a mile down the road.
She was scheduled to stay at the Fina until midnight, running the register on what promised to be a busy holiday evening. With any luck, she might catch a glimpse of fireworks out over the valley after dark.
(Sound of distant fireworks)
Dave Cawley:Nancy’d been on shift a couple of hours when, just after 5 p.m., a familiar face came through the door. It belonged to a guy named Dave Anderson, East Layton’s lone full-time police officer.His primary responsibility was writing tickets to lead-footed motorists on the highway. He often parked his patrol car outside the Fina station, as it provided an inconspicuous place to monitor traffic.
According to a report officer Dave Anderson later wrote, he stopped into the Fina station around 5:10 p.m. on the 4th of July to buy a drink. He chatted briefly with Nancy, and said everything seemed “10-4.” That’s police dispatch code for “roger” or “understood.” In the context of this report, it appears Anderson meant “ok,” as in, he didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary.
The report says officer Dave Anderson then received a radio call about a situation at the other gas station, just on the other side of the highway, kitty-corner from the Fina station. So, at about 5:20 p.m., Dave went to his car, drove across the four lanes of traffic, and confronted two men suspected of driving drunk. He reportedly pulled their licenses and radioed their information to dispatch.
This timeline provided by officer Dave Anderson in an official report put him at the Fina station during the same period of time David and Jana Williams, the two child witnesses, were there with their dad. But the Williamses never mentioned seeing a police officer.
David Williams:I’ve never read the report but what did surprise me when I, I heard is that there was an officer across the street and I don’t recall if they have a timestamp on that.
Dave Cawley:The two timelines conflict with one another. And when the story of Nancy Baird’s disappearance first made the news, it was officer Dave Anderson’s version that was publicly reported. But based on my review of the records, it seems likely officer Anderson left the Fina station before the Williams family arrived, because they did not see a police car there.
Jana Williams Grow:I remember thinking it was a, not very many, it was a quiet time.
David Williams:No, it was, there weren’t many vehicles there.
Dave Cawley:At about 5:30 p.m., while officer Dave Anderson was still across the highway dealing with the suspected drunk drivers, a woman named Bonnie Peck dropped by the Fina station. She was the manager, Nancy Baird’s boss. Bonnie went to the cash register to grab a few bucks, only to find an irritated man waiting there.
“Did you go for a beer or something,” he quipped.
Bonnie shot the man a quizzical look.
“Isn’t she here,” Bonnie asked, referring to Nancy.
Bonnie looked around and realized Nancy was not at the station.
Officer Dave Anderson reported he looked back across the highway at the Fina station at about 5:35 p.m. He saw a green van parked out front, with several “hippie types,” as he described them, milling around. Anderson said he drove back across the highway to the Fina station to “check it out.”
It’s not clear why he believed a van parked outside a gas station amounted to a situation that needed checking out. And officer Anderson’s report doesn’t say anything about these hippie guys and their van after that. Instead, he described stepping inside the convenience store to see a frazzled Bonnie Peck standing at the register.
“Have you seen Nancy,” Peck reportedly asked officer Anderson.
“Yeah,” Anderson said. He’d seen her about 15 or 20 minutes ago, when he’d bought a soda from her. She wasn’t around?
“No,” Bonnie said. But Nancy’s purse and keys were both still inside the Fina station, so it didn’t appear Nancy had left on her own. Officer Anderson peered outside and saw Nancy’s car. Another clue suggesting Nancy had not driven away by herself.
Officer Anderson picked up the telephone and dialed his chief, a man named Ray Adams. It rang with no answer. Anderson wrote in his report he then dialed the phone number of Floyd Dee Baird, Nancy’s ex-husband. Anderson didn’t explain how he knew who Nancy’s ex was, so this could be an indication he knew Nancy as more than just an acquaintance. In any case, Floyd Dee Baird didn’t answer, either.
Anderson keyed his radio, connecting with dispatch in the neighboring city of Layton. He asked an officer there to call the local hospitals, to see if Nancy Baird might’ve had a medical emergency. Then, with no better idea of what to do, officer Anderson stepped outside and started to search the area around station for any sign of Nancy.
The Fina station faced east, toward the highway and the Wasatch Mountains. To the north was Cherry Lane, a quiet street lined with single family homes. To the south…
David Williams:South was just an orchard.
Jana Williams Grow:Just vacant, yeah, it was an orchard.
Dave Cawley:A few small outbuildings sat on the edge of the orchard. Anderson poked around them, as well as a set of storage sheds tucked behind the Fina station. He didn’t report finding anything.
At around 7 p.m., an hour-and-a-half from when Nancy Baird was last seen, Nancy’s older half-sister Norma dropped by the Fina station to talk to Nancy. She instead ran into officer Anderson, who was still searching the grounds. Norma asked where Nancy’d gone. Officer Anderson didn’t have an answer.
Norma took officer Anderson up to her parents’ house. Anderson asked Nancy’s parents if anything had seemed amiss that day. They said no, Nancy’d been in good spirits. And they were still tending her four-year-old son. They didn’t think Nancy would’ve taken off without him.
Dave Anderson was out of his depth. He didn’t have the training or experience to know how to investigate a case like this. So he drove down to his police chief Ray Adams’ house and picked him up.
Ray Adams wasn’t much more of a cop than officer Dave Anderson. But Adams lived around around the corner from a Davis County Sheriff’s deputy named Bud Cox. Adams briefed Cox on the situation and asked what he and officer Dave Anderson ought to do about it. In a report, deputy Cox wrote he thought the situation warranted “serious investigation.”
“What if she doesn’t come back by morning,” chief Ray Adams reportedly asked.
Deputy Cox said in that case, they should perform an all-out search. Assume the worst and hold nothing back.
[Ad break]
Dave Cawley:Early on Saturday July 5th, 1975, the morning after Nancy Baird vanished, a group of deputies and detectives from the Davis County Sheriff’s Office received a page. One of them was a man named Kenny Payne.
Kenny Payne:All the sudden we got a notice that says that Lieutenant Egbert wants a meeting with these people at 9 o’clock in the morning down at the Sheriff’s Office.
Dave Cawley:Kenny arrived at the sheriff’s office to find a group of about 10 of his colleagues there. East Layton’s police chief Ray Adams and the town’s lone full-time officer, Dave Anderson, were there, too.
Dave Cawley (to Kenny Payne):What was your opinion at the time of the East Layton Police Department?
Kenny Payne:Well, umm, inexperienced would be one.
Dave Cawley:Many of the Davis County deputies did not hold their colleagues from East Layton in high regard, for reasons we’ll explore in more detail a bit later. It’s enough to know for now East Layton lacked the manpower and know-how to run a major missing persons investigation. And that’s why the Davis County Sheriff’s Office stepped in to help.
Officer Dave Anderson briefed the deputies about the circumstances of Nancy’s disappearance. He told them she’d left her car keys and purse behind, with 167 dollars in cash still in her wallet. That struck Kenny as odd.
Kenny Payne:Then her just disappearing, you say “well ok that’s,” y’know, “something’s happened.”
Dave Cawley:Officer Anderson said the night prior, he’d gone to Nancy’s house and retrieved an address book containing names and numbers of Nancy’s friends. He’d also obtained a photo album, which included pictures of Nancy and some of the men she’d dated since divorcing her ex-husband, Floyd Dee Baird.
Sheriff’s lieutenant Dean Egbert handed out assignments. One of the deputies would go up in a helicopter to visually scan for any sign of Nancy along the highway. Others would make contact with Nancy’s friends and romantic partners, past and present.
Two names had risen to the top of that list: Floyd Dee Baird, Nancy’s ex-husband, and Dennis Forsgren, a recent divorcé Nancy’d spent time with. Deputies soon learned both men had alibis. Floyd Baird had gone to Jackson Hole, Wyoming with a friend for the 4th of July holiday weekend. Dennis Forsgren was traveling as well, with his parents in Phoenix, Arizona. They’d both left the state at least a day before Nancy vanished.
Floyd Dee Baird and Dennis Forsgren are both deceased, so I can’t talk to them. But it’s clear from the case records they didn’t remain persons of interest very long. Their alibis were quickly verified.
The sheriff’s deputies did hone in on a third man though, whose alibi wasn’t quite as solid. His name was Monty Torres. So now, I’m going to tell you how deputies identified Torres as a person of interest.
Sheriff’s detective Kenny Payne received an assignment as well on that Saturday morning.
Kenny Payne:My assignment was to go up to Park City where Mr. Williams and his family were playing golf.
Dave Cawley:Earlier, we heard from the Williamses, David and Jana.
Kenny Payne:Apparently they were the last persons to see anybody in the store.
Dave Cawley:But how did investigators know this? The credit card receipts. East Layton police had retrieved receipts from the Fina station. They found the imprint of Denzle Williams’ card that Nancy’d made, using that imprinter device, mere minutes before she vanished. They’d called Denzle, only to learn he and his son David were not at home.
Kenny Payne:I asked the lieutenant, I said “ok, now what are they doing?” “They’re playing golf.”
(Sound of a golf swing)
Dave Cawley:Young David Williams was on the golf course with his dad when someone approached.
David Williams:The assistant or person up there came out and said “there is a detective who would like to talk to you about about, uh, a missing persons.” And we’re like “who?” And they indicated that it was this, this girl from the Fina gas station and we were the last people to see her.
Dave Cawley:Detective Kenny Payne joined the Williamses.
David Williams:Rode with us in the golf cart and interviewed my father and I. He would just talk to us after every shot.
Kenny Payne:18 holes, y’know, and I didn’t want to give any golfing advice, ‘cause I don’t golf.
David Williams:We’d get in and he’d ask questions and that’s kind of what I remember.
Dave Cawley:It all seemed surreal to David Williams.
David Williams:And I was thinking “that’s got to be a mistake. I just saw her. I was just, I saw her, she was fine,” and I couldn’t believe, really, that she was gone.
Dave Cawley:I have a copy of a report Kenny Payne wrote about this interview. It says Denzle Williams described pulling up to the pump and seeing an older man entering the restroom at the Fina station.
David Williams:The restroom was a separate building.
Dave Cawley:The guy came out a couple of minutes later, while the Williams children were still inside paying for the gas and a soda. The restroom guy was tall, skinny, dark-haired and wore cowboy boots. He walked a bit funny, and might’ve been drunk. Denzle wasn’t sure where that older man ended up, but he didn’t recall seeing this cowboy enter the convenience store.
David Williams told Kenny Payne about the two men he’d seen inside the store. Kenny pressed for specifics about their appearances.
Kenny Payne:Y’know, we’d talk about eyes and then they’d get off and go hit the ball and then get back on. We’d talk about more eyes or more ears, hair.
Dave Cawley:David described them. The word “hippie” came up. I can’t believe I have to explain this, but for younger listeners, hippies were part of a counter-culture movement in the 1960s and 1970s. Think tie-dye, psychedelic rock, free love and anti-war sentiment.
The two men seen talking to Nancy Baird might not have been actual hippies. But they were bearded, with long hair and wore a lot of denim.
David Williams:Yeah, what they would say a hippie vibe that they—
Dave Cawley (to David Williams):Not uncommon.
David Williams:—right.
Jana Williams Grow:Right, right.
David Williams:Not uncommon in the ‘70s, right?
Dave Cawley:Kenny Payne learned Jana Williams had likely seen these two men as well. He asked Denzle if he could meet with the kids later that evening, so they could put together composite sketches of the men, to assist in identifying them. Denzle agreed.
Jana Williams Grow:I just remember he and my mom coming to me and saying “we have to go because you were the last one to see her.” Which really stuck in my mind, ‘cause that was a scary thing. I, I didn’t know how someone could take a pretty lady like that and she’d just gone missing.
Dave Cawley:Jana sat with her brother, parents and sheriff’s detective Kenny Payne on that Saturday night. Kenny brought a wood box with him. I brought a similar box when I went to interview Kenny.
Dave Cawley (to Kenny Payne):So Kenny, tell me what we’re looking at here.
Kenny Payne:This is an Identi-kit.
Dave Cawley:Identi-kits were invented in the 1960s. Police agencies could use them to create composite images of suspects, without needing to hire a sketch artist. Each Identi-kit composite started with an interview.
Kenny Payne:Did he have any particular facial features that really stood out?
Dave Cawley:Kenny posed this question to young Jana Williams.
Jana Williams Grow:I remember explaining his eyes. So I must have looked at his eyes and his eyebrows.
Dave Cawley:Each Identi-kit came with a booklet that served as an index for each part of the face. Kenny handed the booklet to Jana, while asking another question.
Kenny Payne:Can you look through some of these and find some eyes that look like what you remember? What they’d do is they’d say well “hey yeah, I really like this one.”
Dave Cawley:Each image in the booklet was coded by letter and number. E for eyes, L for lips, H for hair and so on. The investigator would take note of those codes, then dig into that wood box I mentioned a moment ago. It held a few hundred sheets of transparent plastic. Kenny calls them “foils.”
Kenny Payne:The foil is numbered down here at the bottom, if you look right here. See this is 01. Y’know, eyes.
Dave Cawley:By stacking and aligning the transparent foils, an investigator could build a two-dimensional face, feature-by-feature.
Kenny Payne:When you get all of this done, then you’ll be able to read a code across the bottom of it which is just a composite of all the, all the numbers that come across there and I umm, obviously wrote down the codes in my report.
Dave Cawley (to Kenny Payne):Mmhmm.
Kenny Payne:And I commend you for, y’know, tracing down an Identi-kit ‘cause that’s almost an impossibility anymore.
Dave Cawley:I failed to mention, when I first obtained the Nancy Baird case files, they included Kenny Payne’s report about building three Identi-kit composites based on the descriptions provided by the Williams family. His report had the codes, but not the images.
I soon learned I could recreate the images using those codes, if I could find an old Identi-kit. But that’s not easy, because they’re antiques and most were long ago destroyed. I spent months waiting for one to pop up on eBay.I can now tell you what those three composites Kenny Payne built back in 1975 looked like. There’s an old, craggy-faced fellow. He was the cowboy in the parking lot outside the Fina station.
Kenny Payne:But the ones who were talking, actually talking to Nancy were these two.
Dave Cawley:The composites of the other two “hippie type” men look very much alike. They used the same nose, lips, beard and age lines. Only their hair and eyes set them apart.
Kenny Payne:Y’know, I told the lieutenant, I said “they, they could very well be brothers.”
Dave Cawley:Davis County deputies compared the composites to the pictures in Nancy Baird’s photo albums. They noticed one of the two “hippie type” composites looked an awful lot like a man in one of Nancy Baird’s pictures. And that photo was marked with a name: Monty Torres.
I’ll stress here, Identi-kit composites were far from exact. They might get an investigator in the general neighborhood, but were far from photorealistic.
Kenny Payne:I wish they would’ve had better technology back in the, in the days. But they, we had what was best at the time.
Dave Cawley:I’m publishing these three Identi-kit composites from the Nancy Baird case at thecoldpodcast.com, so you can see them and judge for yourself.
Case files say deputies showed the photo of this man, Monty Torres, to their witness, Jana Williams. Jana “positively identified the picture of Monty Torres as one of the hippie type individuals.” Clearly, the Davis County detectives needed to talk to Monty Torres. They quickly learned Torres was at that time staying in Pocatello, Idaho, about two-and-a-half hours away. The deputies reached out to a detective in Bannock County, Idaho and asked him to find Torres and interview him. The detective did, and according to a report, the Idaho detective described Torres as acting “quite jittery.”
Monty Torres reportedly told the Idaho detective he had an alibi for the evening of July 4th. He said he’d been vacationing at Lava Hot Springs, a resort and waterpark just outside of Pocatello. Torres gave the detective a name of someone who could supposedly confirm his story. But by the time deputies in Utah brought that man in for questioning, they learned Torres had already called him and coached him on what to say.
Here’s what Davis County sheriff’s lieutenant Dean Egbert told the Deseret News about it, his words read by a voice actor.
Aaron Mason (as Dean Egbert from July 10, 1975 Deseret News article):We are not satisfied with this deal in Idaho, and we are considering asking the man to undergo a polygraph test next week.
Dave Cawley:That’s exactly what happened. Deputies hauled Monty Torres in for a polygraph examination about two weeks following Nancy Baird’s disappearance. I’ve searched for records that would reveal the specific questions asked, as well as Torres’ responses, but I’ve so far been unable to find them.
All I can tell you comes from old news reports, that say all of the persons of interest in Nancy Baird’s disappearance had alibis or passed polygraph examinations. In other words, investigators believed Monty Torres excluded himself as a suspect by passing a polygraph.It surprised me to see how much weight the investigators placed on this single polygraph exam. Polygraphs are not fool-proof.
Kenny Payne:Your biggest thing is if I get to interview you face-to-face and umm, y’know when I start talking to you, I’m usually talking to you when I’ve got a loaded question and I, I know what the answer is. I’s just going to see what your answer is.
Dave Cawley:I can’t judge how convincing Monty Torres’ responses were during the polygraph, because I don’t even know what investigators asked him. But Kenny did tell me he recalled some division among investigators afterward.
Kenny Payne:Some people they ruled him right out and other people said “no I, I don’t think so.” And so I, y’know I, I haven’t given up on that one either.” (Laughs)
Dave Cawley:The story of these two “hippie type” guys seen talking to Nancy Baird just before she disappeared matters more than you might realize. What I’m about to say has never been publicly revealed. It’s been secret of the Nancy Baird case file for nearly 50 years.
Nancy had a friend named Deloris Drake, who lived in the city of Ogden. A Davis County sheriff’s deputy interviewed Deloris early in the investigation. Deloris said on the night of July 2nd , less than 48 hours before Nancy Baird disappeared, she, Nancy and a friend of theirs named Peggy went out on the town. Davis County sheriff’s lieutenant Dean Egbert summarized Deloris’ account in a report. Here’s what he wrote:
Aaron Mason (as Dean Egbert from July 14, 1975 police report):Deloris mentioned Rigos and the Iron Horse.
Dave Cawley:Those were two bars in Ogden, where Nancy, Deloris and Peggy stopped that night. Peggy headed home around 10:30 p.m., but then Nancy and Deloris went back out…
Aaron Mason (as Dean Egbert from July 14, 1975 police report):…and had driven in the area of Washington Boulevard until approximately 2:30 and Nancy had taken Deloris home. At approximately 0300 on the morning of the 3rd, Nancy had returned to Deloris’ apartment and appeared to be quite shaken and frightened … that this fellow named “Tom” in a yellow van had followed her home and was molesting her.
Dave Cawley:The report doesn’t say if the word “molesting” was a direct quote from Deloris, or the lieutenant’s interpretation. In this context, the word carries some ambiguity. “Molest” means to pester or harass, but it can also mean to physically sexually assault. It’s not clear which meaning lieutenant Egbert intended. In any case, he continued:
Aaron Mason (as Dean Egbert from July 14, 1975 police report):Deloris reported that Tom had said that “you’re going to [expletive] or else” as she opened the door. Deloris ordered this Tom from the premises and during the commotion, Deloris’ father, who lives across the street, had come from his home and that this time Tom had left in the yellow van.
Dave Cawley:This fellow “Tom” wasn’t alone.
Aaron Mason (as Dean Egbert from July 14, 1975 police report):There was also another individual who was riding a motorcycle.
Dave Cawley:Two men, one driving a Volkswagen van. Remember, East Layton police officer Dave Anderson reported seeing a van parked outside the Fina station moments before discovering Nancy Baird had disappeared. Earlier, you heard from David and Jana Williams, who as children were the last people known to have seen Nancy Baird alive. David told me he remembered reading the newspaper reports recounting officer Anderson’s version of events.
David Williams:The officer looks over and sees that there’s people that are trying to buy gas or trying to pay for snacks.
Dave Cawley:When I interviewed David and his sister Jana, I pressed them, asking if they remembered seeing any other cars outside the Fina station.
Jana Williams Grow:I don’t remember a lot of vehicles there.
Dave Cawley:David appeared lost in thought for a moment, as if seeking back through the fog of distant memory.
David Williams:I think there, there may have, like, a van, brown in color. Umm, that kind of looked like a hippie van which is, kind of, that was parked on the, uh, north side.
Dave Cawley:My ears perked up when David said this. He hadn’t mentioned a van when interviewed by detective Kenny Payne on the golf course back in 1975. And I’d scoured the archives of several Utah newspapers from the time. The articles published back then did not include officer Anderson’s detail about seeing a van. That tidbit was a guarded piece of the investigation, not publicly revealed. So I don’t think it’s possible for David Williams’ memory to have been tainted by news reports.
This is significant, for two reasons. First, it bolsters East Layton police officer Dave Anderson’s story of having seen a van from across the highway. But more significantly, this van at the Fina station could be the same one a man used to chase Nancy Baird to the doorstep of her friend Deloris’ house, less than 48 hours before Nancy disappeared.
Deloris told a deputy she recognized this man, “Tom.” She gave investigators his last name, Stone, and said he lived nearby. A solid lead and yet, the investigators appear to have done nothing with it.
There’s no indication in the Nancy Baird case files I’ve obtained East Layton police ever followed up on this lead Davis County uncovered about Nancy being stalked and potentially sexually assaulted two nights before she disappeared. In fact, on July 28th, 1975, East Layton police chief Ray Adams told the Deseret News his department was “at a dead-end” in the search for Nancy Baird. The chief said they’d exhausted their leads and would have to brainstorm a new “route to travel” in the investigation.
That’s absurd. Less than a month had passed since Nancy’s disappearance and already East Layton police were ready to throw in the towel? What the public didn’t yet know was the tiny department with a staff of just four—a part-time chief, a full-time officer and two part-time reserve officers—was on the brink of meltdown.
Chief Adams needed an alternative explanation, other than his own department’s incompetence, to explain what’d happened to Nancy Baird. Only a couple of weeks later, a trooper 30 miles south on the outskirts of Salt Lake City would arrest a young law school student named Theodore Bundy.
John Hollenhorst (from July 24, 1979 KSL TV archive):For a long time, residents of Utah, Colorado and Washington have been following an incredible mystery story: a story of murder, imprisonment and escape. And all along there has been one fascinating question: could a handsome, articulate, intelligent law student—with a promising career in politics—could Theodore Bundy be a crazed sex killer, responsible for the brutal murders of perhaps dozens of young women all across the West?
Dave Cawley:Serial killer Ted Bundy’s downfall began in the state of Utah. In November of 1974, Bundy tried to abduct a woman named Carol DaRonch from a shopping mall in the suburbs of Salt Lake City. Carol fought back and managed to escape, still carrying the handcuffs Bundy tried to place on her.
Richard Bingham (from February 5, 1986 KSL TV archive):Bundy is also a suspect in the disappearance of Debi Kent from Viewmont High in Bountiful.
Dave Cawley:On the same evening as his failed attempt to abduct Carol DaRonch, Bundy drove north to the city of Bountiful, Utah. He kidnapped a teenage girl named Debra Kent, plucking her from the parking lot outside Viewmont High School. Police found a handcuff key on the asphalt there. It matched the cuffs from the Carol DaRonch case. But no one could find Debra Kent.
Ted Bundy wasn’t arrested until many months later, in August of 1975. He stood trial for the attempted kidnapping of Carol DaRonch in early 1976. Bundy wasn’t charged with the murder of Debra Kent because police hadn’t been able to find her body. I attended the same high school as Debra Kent, though many years later. I remember hearing whispered conversations among classmates even then, in the late ‘90s, full of rumor and exaggeration about Ted Bundy.
Tiffany Jean:And it’s become such a big story, that there’s even become kind of a mythology built up about the case.
Dave Cawley:That’s the voice of Tiffany Jean. She’s a government archivist, based in Texas. In 2019, Tiffany watched a Netflix documentary called “The Bundy Tapes.”
Tiffany Jean:And I’d heard the name before. I think everyone’s heard that name before. I didn’t really know much about the case.
Dave Cawley:Tiffany found herself fascinated, particularly by cases like Nancy Baird’s, where Ted Bundy was suspected but never proven as the killer.
Tiffany Jean:Because he confessed to at least 30 murders, but only 21 have been identified. And that’s always been a special interest of mine is seeing if I could shed any light on who those other women could be.
Dave Cawley:Earlier, you heard clips from an interview Ted Bundy gave days before his execution. He admitted in that recording to killing Debra Kent.
Dennis Couch (from January 22, 1989 police interview recording):Was she in any way dismembered? Was she buried whole, or?
Ted Bundy (from January 22, 1989 police interview recording):Yeah. I mean, yes. You should find all of it.
Tiffany Jean:As far anyone can tell, all of his final confessions right before he was executed were truthful. And that’s because he had some self-interest. He was trying to keep himself alive by giving investigators true information to buy himself some more time. It was his bones-for-time strategy, is what it was called.
Dave Cawley:Bundy hoped police would search where he indicated, find Debra Kent’s remains, then pressure Florida into delaying his execution so they could look for other victims.
Tiffany Jean:He gave a pretty detailed description of where he buried her.
Dennis Couch (from January 22, 1989 police interview recording):Did you go back down through Salt Lake again?
Dennis Couch (from January 22, 1989 police interview recording):Oh did you?
Ted Bundy (from January 22, 1989 police interview recording):Yes.
Dennis Couch (from January 22, 1989 police interview recording):And you went farther south?
Ted Bundy (from January 22, 1989 police interview recording):Yup.
Dennis Couch (from January 22, 1989 police interview recording):Past Provo?
Ted Bundy (from January 22, 1989 police interview recording):Yup.
Dave Cawley:Florida never had any intention of delaying Bundy’s execution. Bones-for-time was a bust for Ted Bundy. Police did later search in the area he’d indicated.
Searcher (from May 6, 1989 KSL TV archive):Ok, let’s go.
Joel Munson (from May 6, 1989 KSL TV archive):Serial killer Ted Bundy said he buried the Bountiful youth somewhere in this area nearly 15 years ago. So with shovels in hand and metal detectors humming away, search and rescue crews went back to work. This is the sixth time they’ve combed the area.
Dave Cawley:It took several tries, but in the end they found a single human bone: a patella, or kneecap.
Allison Barlow (from July 29, 1989 KSL TV archive):They did find some unidentified human remains at the site where Bundy claimed he buried Debra Kent.
Dave Cawley:Years later, DNA analysis would confirm that patella belonged to Debra Kent. Ted Bundy had told the truth in his final days. And, as we’ve already heard, Bundy denied any knowledge of Nancy Baird during that interview.
Tiffany Jean:So when he denies Nancy Baird, that makes me think maybe he was actually telling the truth in this situation.
Dave Cawley:Over the last few years, Tiffany Jean has filed public records requests for case files in the states where Ted Bundy is known and suspected to’ve murdered women.
Tiffany Jean:And some of those turned into a fight. (Laughs) And I just, it was more on the principle than anything else, that they weren’t going to turn over these records that I really felt like they should.
Dave Cawley:In Utah, Tiffany repeatedly won the release of records, many of which had never before been shared publicly. She feels strongly, and I agree, it’s important these records be preserved and studied, with an emphasis on the unsolved cases. Records are a matter of putting facts ahead of mythology.
Tiffany Jean:I want to know what the real story of what happened. And when you’re reading only secondary sources, you don’t really get the whole picture. And that’s what I wanted to do. I wanted the whole picture.
Dave Cawley:Tiffany’s developed a repository of well-sourced, factual information about the crimes of Ted Bundy. She’s published portions of that on her website hiimted.blog.
Tiffany Jean:I just want the most complete archive of the case that exists, just kind of a, that’s kind of my goal at this point.
Dave Cawley:I reached out to Tiffany in 2022. I knew she’d requested the Nancy Baird case file from the Davis County Sheriff’s Office, and been refused, because it’s technically still an open case. I’d also requested the Baird case file and likewise been refused.
Tiffany Jean:I didn’t write a GRAMA appeal like you did, though.
Dave Cawley:GRAMA is Utah’s open records law. After my initial denial, I appealed by arguing Nancy Baird’s case was open, but not active. The public interest for transparency weighed in favor of releasing the records. That argument proved persuasive, and I became the first person outside of law enforcement to review the Nancy Baird case file in nearly 50 years.
Tiffany Jean:So you beat me. (Laughs)
Dave Cawley:I shared what I’d obtained of the Nancy Baird case file with Tiffany. We both knew the public consensus has long been Ted Bundy was somehow responsible.
Tiffany Jean:Which is interesting, because in that case file that you shared with me, his name doesn’t appear at all.
Dave Cawley:This is true. But it’s worth noting all of the files in the records I obtained are dated July of 1975, weeks before Bundy’s first arrest.
Tiffany Jean:And that’s another thing that jumped out at me was how they really didn’t do enough work on this case, or maybe the record’s incomplete. But it doesn’t seem like they followed all the leads that were there at the time.
Dave Cawley:Former Davis County Sheriff’s detective Kenny Payne collected evidence from Nancy Baird’s apartment in the days following her disappearance.
Kenny Payne:Y’know, I remember going down to her house and umm, things that I was really interested in was trying to find something that would be identifiable to, to her.
Dave Cawley:Where East Layton police were tossing up their hands in defeat, Davis County detectives like Kenny Payne were thinking ahead to some day in the future when they might come across Nancy Baird’s remains.
Kenny Payne:And so what I wound up recovering was, uh, two hair brushes.
Dave Cawley:With strands of Nancy’s strawberry blond hair still tangled in the bristles.
Kenny Payne:They’re still in evidence down at the sheriff’s office.
Dave Cawley:Several weeks later, after Ted Bundy’s arrest, police in neighboring Salt Lake County worked with the FBI to scour Bundy’s car. The items they gathered also ended up in evidence boxes.
Con Psarras (from January 24, 1989 KSL TV archive):In the boxes, clues to two killings and a glimpse of a bigger picture: hundreds of hair samples vacuumed from the interior of Bundy’s little green Volkswagen. The hair of at least 100 different people. How many of them victims?
Dave Cawley:Davis County sent Nancy Baird’s hair to the FBI for comparison to the hairs collected from Bundy’s Volkswagen Beetle. The lab did not come up with a match. None of the hairs from the car belonged to Nancy Baird.
Tiffany Jean:So that kind of made me think maybe it wasn’t Bundy maybe it was someone that she knew she was willing to go with.
Dave Cawley:Who might Nancy have trusted? Perhaps a familiar young man dressed in a police uniform.
[Ad break]
Dave Cawley:One of the people I’ve most wanted to talk to about the Nancy Baird case is former East Layton police officer Dave Anderson, the man who first reported Nancy missing.
Dave Anderson is one of the only people who could’ve successfully lured Nancy Baird out of the Fina station during the narrow window of five or ten minutes between when she was last seen by David and Jana Williams and when her manager showed up and discovered she was gone. The chief should’ve sidelined officer Anderson until he could be cleared as a person of interest. But that didn’t happen. And I can’t confront former officer Dave Anderson about this, because he’s dead. Regardless, let’s explore officer Anderson’s background so you can see why I view him in such a critical light.
David Ray Anderson was born in May of 1951, the third of three children in his family. He never knew his older sister, because she died after being accidentally backed over by her father. But Dave Anderson did grow up with a brother, Earl, who was two years his senior.
When Dave was 8, his father moved their family to the city of Layton, Utah. Dave attended Davis High School, graduating in the class of 1969. That’s a different school and one year ahead of Nancy Baird, so I’m not sure if they would’ve crossed paths at that point.
A year later, in April of 1970, Dave married a woman he’d gone to high school with named Marilyn. He attended basic training for the United States Marine Corps that summer and in the fall, he and Marilyn welcomed their first child.
Dave’s parents moved away from Layton a short time later. They bought an old farm house 100 miles away, in the rural town of Nephi, Utah. Dave followed them, dragging his reluctant bride and their baby out to the countryside. The Andersons had a second child while living in Nephi. But all was not well behind the scenes. Dave Anderson’s marriage was on the rocks. His wife hated living in the sticks. And his older brother was about to throw the whole family into turmoil.
In June of 1972, Dave’s older brother Earl and a few other guys burglarized a business. Earl and his companions stole cash, credit cards, liquor and a handgun. Earl landed in the Utah State Prison on a felony conviction. Newspaper archives show while in prison in August of 1973, Earl set another inmate on fire, leaving that man with serious burns over most of his body. Prosecutors charged Earl with attempted homicide, and moved him out of the state prison to a county jail, for his own protection. It wasn’t enough. Retribution came in January of 1974, when a group of jail inmates jumped Earl. They allegedly forced Earl to swallow tranquilizer pills, then smothered him until he was dead.
Dave Anderson was just 22 when he buried his brother. I don’t know exactly how this experience impacted him, but it’s notable Dave immediately turned his career aspirations toward becoming a cop. And this was just a year-and-a-half before Nancy Baird disappeared.
Dave’s wife, meanwhile, had reached her breaking point. She separated from Dave and moved back home to Layton. A short time later, she filed for divorce. Dave followed his estranged wife and kids to Layton, finding a place of his own nearby. He enrolled in a criminal justice program at Weber State College and, in October of 1974, landed a job as a police officer for the town of East Layton. That was just 10 months before Nancy Baird disappeared.
As I said before, the majority of Dave’s hours were spent patrolling U.S. Highway 89. And he spent a lot of that time parked at the Fina station where Nancy worked. Anderson was a young, inexperienced cop with a complicated home life when he spoke to Nancy at the Fina station minutes prior to her disappearance. We have only his word that their conversation was polite.
It’s jump to go from there to seeing officer Dave Anderson as a suspect. But what piques my interest is what happened next: Anderson abandoned his budding law enforcement career just a couple of months after Nancy Baird disappeared. I’m not sure why.
Requirements to become a certified police officer in Utah during the 1970s were a lot more lax than they are now. Under the law at the time, a prospective officer was supposed to complete 200 hours of training at the academy within 18 months of being hired by a police agency. So when East Layton hired Dave Anderson as its only full-time police officer in 1974, it started a countdown clock ticking. He had a year-and-a-half to get certified, or he was out of a job.
Landing a spot at the police academy wasn’t easy. Prospective officers needed to be sponsored. So guys like Dave Anderson would often get hired by a small town, attend the academy on the town’s behalf, then quit the small town job to take a better-paying position at a bigger city department. Anderson’d probably hoped East Layton would sponsor him to the academy. But that never happened. I can’t find any record of him getting a police job anywhere else. He just walked away.
Anderson becomes very difficult to track after that point. Court records show his ex-wife, Marilyn, filed a lawsuit against him in 1989, seeking thousands of dollars in unpaid child support. Dave’s name appears in both of his parents’ obituaries during the early ‘90s. Then, he’s a ghost. I know he ended up just over the state line in Mesquite, Nevada during the early 2000s. But there, records show “officer” David Ray Anderson died in August of 2010. There’s no record to suggest he was ever challenged on the story he’d told about the disappearance of Nancy Baird.
Dave Cawley:It’s a windy day in the spring of 2023. I’ve spent the last few hours in the car with my boss and collaborator, Sheryl Worsley, headed to a remote community along the Snake River.
Dave Cawley (to Sheryl Worsley):Sheryl, for the record why don’t you state where we are and what we’re doing.
Sheryl Worsley:Well, we are, I’m not sure where we are, Dave. (Laughs)
Dave Cawley:Buhl, Idaho.
Sheryl Worsley:We are in Buhl, Idaho.
Dave Cawley:We’ve come, unannounced, in the hopes of talking to one of the other men who worked for the East Layton Police Department in 1975.
(Sound of seat belt click)
Sheryl Worsley:We’ll see. (Laughs)
Dave Cawley:See what kind of reception we get.
Dave Cawley:His name is Thomas Jackson, Junior. As we walk toward his door, a tall white-haired man steps out.
Dave Cawley (to Tom Jackson):Hi, how you doing? Are you Tom?
Dave Cawley:Tom Jackson can see the microphone in my hand. He asks “uh oh, what did I do now” with a bit of a laugh.
Dave Cawley (to Tom Jackson):You did nothing.
Sheryl Worsley:You didn’t do anything. (Laughs)
Dave Cawley:We’re doing a history project on the Nancy Baird case. From way back in—
Tom Jackson:Oh, Nancy Perry Baird?
Dave Cawley:You got it.
Tom Jackson:When I was a cop? Yeah.
Dave Cawley:Yeah.
Sheryl Worsley:Yeah.
Tom Jackson:Oh, that’d be great. Uh, you want to come in?
Dave Cawley:Is that ok?
Sheryl Worsley:Is that alright?
Dave Cawley:He ushers us inside and makes space on the couch.
Tom Jackson:I’m glad you’re here. Man, this is, just been exciting to know that her case is still open and is, I’m tickled.
Dave Cawley:Tom Jackson was about four years older than Nancy Baird. And he confirms, they knew each other as kids.
Tom Jackson:She was a pretty gal.
Dave Cawley:Tom’d lived just down the street from Nancy. In fact, he’d even married one of Nancy’s friends, a neighbor girl. They’d stayed in the neighborhood, living just off Cherry Lane, a little ways behind the Fina station where Nancy’d worked.
Tom worked a full-time job, but around the start of 1975 also accepted a part-time position as a reserve officer for the East Layton police department. His reserve role was a little different than Cary Hartmann’s, which we heard about in Cold season 3. East Layton was a lot smaller than Ogden City, so it asked much more of its reserves. As a result, Tom worked a more regular schedule, received a paycheck, and wrote a lot of tickets.
Tom told me on the day Nancy Baird disappeared, he’d been driving around in one of the town’s two police cars.
Tom Jackson:I didn’t even hear anything on the radio about it.
Dave Cawley:Which is a little strange, since officer Dave Anderson did describe radioing dispatch about Nancy in his report. In any case, Tom said he’d stopped by the Fina station that evening and found his chief, Ray Adams, and officer Dave Anderson there.
Tom Jackson: I pulled in, I was like “what’s going on?” And they said “Nancy’s gone.” I said “what the crap, what?”
Dave Cawley:Tom remembered going to Nancy’s house and helping retrieve her address book. According to a report, Tom and the chief then went and looked around a place called Fernwood Park, as the dark of night descended. Why Fernwood? Well, it was home to a sort of “lover’s lane,” a place in the hills where couples would park their cars and make out. The police found no sign of Nancy there.
Records show Tom Jackson didn’t have any involvement with the Nancy Baird case after that. He intentionally opted out.
Tom Jackson:At that time, I don’t think I was, I don’t know, I wasn’t a good cop, I would say. I wanted to, I wanted to let someone else handle it. I didn’t want to mess it up.
Dave Cawley:In spite of this, East Layton sent Tom Jackson to the Utah police academy in September of 1975. That’s only about two-and-a-half months after Nancy Baird disappeared. Why did Tom go to the academy, instead of officer Dave Anderson? I’m not sure. Tom didn’t remember.
I’ve talked to one of Tom’s academy classmates. He said Tom struggled a bit, but Tom did graduate the academy and was certified to work in law enforcement. He replaced Dave Anderson as East Layton’s full-time police officer. At some point in the middle of all this, Tom talked to the Davis County Sheriff’s Office about next-steps in the Nancy Baird investigation. East Layton had jurisdiction. It was their call.
Tom Jackson:The county asked me, says “you want to handle this?” And I says “no way! All we are is just little hick town cops here so if we’re gonna find her, you guys is the ones that’s gotta do it.”
Dave Cawley:Tom knew the county had already tracked down several of Nancy’s boyfriends, working off her address book.
Tom Jackson:They had the book and whatever name was in there, they went after ‘em.
Dave Cawley:But the boyfriend leads ran dry, right around the time Ted Bundy entered the picture.
Tom Jackson:Yeah, there was suspicion of him.
Dave Cawley:Tom’s mind didn’t settle on Bundy, though. He figured Nancy’s abductor could’ve been much closer.
Tom Jackson:This person must’ve been someone she knew and had some trust in him. That’s the other reason why I thought it was one of the cops, that one cop.
Dave Cawley:Former officer Dave Anderson. Tom remembered Dave Anderson spending a lot of time at the Fina station.
Tom Jackson:He spent too much time looking at women, too.
Dave Cawley (to Tom Jackson):Thinks he’s a lady’s man, maybe—
Tom Jackson:Yeah.
Dave Cawley:—a little bit?
Tom Jackson:He was a good-looking guy, so I’m sure he thought so.
Dave Cawley:This description of former officer Dave Anderson reminded me of Cary Hartmann and his brief time in the Ogden police reserve corps, which we talked about during Cold season 3. There are some people who are drawn to law enforcement jobs for all the wrong reasons. Dave Anderson, it seems, might’ve been one of them. This idea was overlooked though, probably because the East Layton police department was itself in crisis. Its chief, Ray Adams, shouldn’t have been chief. He’d wasn’t a cop. He’d secured his position through the good ol’ boy system. State law required he attend the academy, but he wasn’t willing to take a leave from his full-time job to do that.
So, in April of 1976, Ray Adams vacated the chief of police position. He instead became a justice of the peace for the town, a form of low-level judge, a job for which Adams was also not qualified. Officer Tom Jackson departed the East Layton police department not long after that. He decided to leave law enforcement entirely, and went into private security work. So within about a year of the disappearance of Nancy Baird, the entire East Layton police force turned over.
Tom Jackson:Real Mayberry thing. (Laughs)
Dave Cawley:There is one other point I need to acknowledge here: former officer Tom Jackson has a criminal record. In 1986, 11 years after the disappearance of Nancy Baird, Davis County prosecutors filed a criminal charge against Tom. He stood accused of sexually abusing two young girls. He pleaded guilty to a second-degree felony, which made him eligible for a sentence of up to 15 years in prison. But the judge only placed Tom on probation.
Tom’s wife divorced him in the years that followed. He left Utah, remarried, and then, in 1995, police arrested Tom Jackson again, this time on charges of lewd conduct with a child under 16 years of age. He again pleaded guilty, but the Idaho judge showed none of the leniency the Utah judge had. Tom received a life sentence. But Tom’s no longer in prison, clearly. He won an appeal that reduced his sentence to 15 years. He served that time, a fact he and I discussed at the start of our interview.
Tom confided he felt a bit nervous going on tape. He hoped I wouldn’t make a monster of him. I promised to treat him fairly. And Tom acknowledged his past complicates how we might see him.
Tom Jackson:I wouldn’t doubt if I was a suspect and all that. And that’s ok with me.
Dave Cawley:Because, Tom says, he’s taken polygraph after polygraph as part of his probation.
Tom Jackson:And one of the questions in there is “you committed any other crimes that we don’t know about?” And when I said “no, not at all.” And it come up true, so.
Dave Cawley (to Tom Jackson):I mean, it’s—
Tom Jackson:Y’know, that pretty much cleared me right there.
Dave Cawley:—it’s a lot of years, right? You would think if you were a suspect, someone would’ve come and talked to you a long time ago—
Tom Jackson:Yeah, yeah.
Dave Cawley:—right?
Tom Jackson:That’s true.
Dave Cawley:After Tom Jackson left his job at the East Layton Police Department a year following Nancy Baird’s disappearance, the town hired a new officer, a guy named Dave Davis. Town leaders quickly promoted Davis to chief. Davis told The Salt Lake Tribune he was “working wonders” with the small budget provided to him in a 1977 newspaper story comically headlined “Yes, East Layton has a police department.”
Gary McFarland:They just did not have the funding to take and keep somebody.
Dave Cawley:Chief Davis also inherited the Nancy Baird case. He did nothing with it until, in 1979, four years on from Nancy’s disappearance, Davis hired a new patrol officer named Gary McFarland.
Gary McFarland:And it came down to where it was just me covering 12 hours and the other, the chief would cover the other 12 hours. And there was a promise from the city that if I did that, they would send me to the police academy.
Dave Cawley:Chief Davis gave Gary former East Layton police officer Dave Anderson’s report about the disappearance of Nancy Baird.
Gary McFarland:There just wasn’t a lot. We were, y’know, a very small community. There was very few things going on. Property disputes, loose cows, loose, loose horses. (Laughs) That kind of thing. It just, that was, that was a pretty big case.
Dave Cawley:At this same time, Ted Bundy was standing trial for murder in Florida.
John Hollenhorst (from July 24, 1979 KSL TV archive):As the verdict approached, reporters, editors and photographers prepared for the climax of the trial. The Bundy case has generated vast amounts of publicity all over Florida and in the western states of Utah, Colorado and Washington. In all those places, Bundy is suspected of murders. All involving young women.
Dave Cawley:Gary, and many others, believed Ted Bundy might’ve killed Nancy Baird. It wasn’t much of a leap: Bundy had been in Utah the summer Nancy disappeared.
Gary McFarland:She had the appearance of some, the females that he preferred. That’s all we had, is the method of operation fit.
Dave Cawley:But that suspicion didn’t give Gary any direction as to where to look for Nancy’s remains.
Gary McFarland:It was becoming a cold case, basically.
Dave Cawley:A little kerfuffle erupted in East Layton around this same time. The mayor fired police chief Davis, who responded by telling the news media it was an attack on the entire department.
Dave Davis (from March 24, 1980 KSL TV archive):They may be looking into an outside agency to contract to and dissolve the police department as a whole.
Dave Cawley:I suspect you probably don’t much care about this small town political squabble, but I promise you, it’s relevant to the Nancy Baird case because of what happened in the end.
Gaylen Young (from March 26, 1980 KSL TV archive):Nearly 400 angry residents were in attendance at the city council meeting because mayor Delin Yates was not going to keep police chief Dave Davis on the job.
East Layton resident (from March 26, 1980 KSL TV archive):We don’t want a contract with Davis County. We don’t want a contract with Layton City. We want the police force we have with the responsible, interested service that we get from them.
Dave Cawley:This protest proved ineffective. East Layton dissolved its police department. Officer Gary McFarland, fresh out of the academy, no longer had a job. But it didn’t stop there. The residents of East Layton voted to disincorporate at the end of 1980. Their town ceased to be and neighboring Layton City swallowed it whole. The records of the East Layton police department were lost to time. All except for the report of former police officer Dave Anderson about the disappearance of Nancy Baird. Gary McFarland still had it.
Gary McFarland:It ended up with me. No direction as to what to do with it. But it was in my custody.
Dave Cawley:But with East Layton gone, who would inherit jurisdiction over Nancy Baird’s case? Did it belong to Layton City, which absorbed East Layton? Or did the Davis County Sheriff’s Office bear responsibility, given the work deputies there had done assisting East Layton early on?
Gary McFarland:Davis County provided a lot of the crime scene investigations because small communities could not provide that service.
Dave Cawley:As we saw with the Sheree Warren case in Cold season 3, victims fall through the cracks when police agencies fail to communicate. And that’s what also appears to have happened with Nancy Baird. No one took the initiative. It wasn’t Gary McFarland’s case, but he felt duty-bound to safeguard the reports.
Gary McFarland:Because it was one of those cases that you knew someday would have a lead.
Dave Cawley:Gary ended up taking another police job at a different agency. Year after year, he waited for a phone call that might break the case.
Gary McFarland:Nobody ever came forward. Nobody was ever found. Not one tip, not nothing.
Dave Cawley:Gary McFarland retired in 2012. He turned the East Layton police report on Nancy Baird over to the Davis County Sheriff’s Office.
Gary McFarland:They’d come up with some other theories, besides the only one that I ever came up with.
Dave Cawley (to Gary McFarland):Bundy?
Gary McFarland:Yeah.
Dave Cawley:Is that what you mean?
Gary McFarland:Yeah, ‘cause I’m stuck on it. It will, until I’m proven different.
Dave Cawley:Gary still believes Ted Bundy is the most likely suspect in Nancy Baird’s presumed murder. But he knows that’s not the only theory.
Gary McFarland:The theories were that it was possibly a law enforcement officer that worked in East Layton.
Dave Cawley:The story we’ve heard so far leaves me deeply skeptical about any conclusion regarding Nancy Baird’s death being the work of serial killer Ted Bundy. To my mind, there are too many other plausible scenarios. And, Tiffany Jean, the archivist, told me she’s unsure as well.
Tiffany Jean:I, I looked at the case a little bit. And I thought that it didn’t quite fit his M.O., with what I know about how he operated.
Dave Cawley:What was different? For one, the location. Ted Bundy was never known to abduct a woman from a gas station during daylight hours.
Tiffany Jean:And while Bundy was capable of doing that, he mostly operated at night. And he mostly avoided places where he could be seen or picked out.
Dave Cawley:In his early crimes in Washington state, Bundy sometimes approached women while claiming to be injured, needing help to put something in his car. Would Nancy Baird have taken that kind of bait?
Tiffany Jean:It seems unusual that she would have been willing to leave her post to do that when there was no one else at the station.
Dave Cawley:Bundy liked to lure women to his car—a light tan 1968 Volkswagen Beetle—then handcuffed them or knocked them unconscious. If he’d done something like that with Nancy Baird, it probably would’ve happened right in the parking lot outside the Fina station.
Tiffany Jean:And that seems like kind of a big risk for Bundy to have taken.
Dave Cawley:None of the witnesses from the Fina station reported seeing a Volkswagen Beetle like Bundy’s. And the descriptions provided by the Williams children didn’t match Ted Bundy, either.
Tiffany Jean:So, that’s another reason that seems unlikely that it would have been him.
Dave Cawley:Nancy Baird vanished from the Fina station within the space of just five or ten minutes.
Kenny Payne:Yeah I mean she’s just, she’s just gone.
Dave Cawley:No signs of a struggle, no indication she ran away.
Kenny Payne:I mean she’s got a, a child at home.
Dave Cawley:So retired sheriff’s detective Kenny Payne gets why even some of his former colleagues believe to this day Ted Bundy abducted and murdered Nancy Baird.
Kenny Payne:But then you have to try and figure out whether or not the first thought of “it’s gotta be Ted Bundy” well no, what can you find that tells me a story?
Dave Cawley:What Kenny’s saying is the elements necessary to build a narrative about Ted Bundy killing Nancy Baird just aren’t there.
Tiffany Jean also shared another, more compelling reason why she questions Ted Bundy’s supposed involvement. Bundy, she told me, might have an alibi for the day Nancy Baird disappeared. And Tiffany could be the first person to ever piece it together.
Ted Bundy first moved to Utah in September of 1974, having come from Washington state to attend law school at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.
Tiffany Jean:He had a steady girlfriend who lived in Seattle who was originally from Ogden. And she was probably the reason why he came to Utah in the first place, because she had roots there. And eventually they planned on settling down there, if they ever got married. But y’know, he was not a good person. (Laughs) So in addition to everything else bad that he did, he also cheated on her quite a bit.
Dave Cawley:In June of 1975, just a few weeks before Nancy Baird disappeared, Ted Bundy met a young school teacher named Leslie Knudsen at a party in Salt Lake City. Bundy and Leslie started seeing one another.
Tiffany Jean:And they dated until August, she saw that he was arrested and didn’t want anything more to do with him.
Dave Cawley:Leslie spoke to investigators back in 1975, but she was never called as a witness in court and has kept a very low profile all the years since. Her story is not well known, even among Ted Bundy experts.
Tiffany Jean:But I was able to find her phone number, and an associate of mine called her. And this was back in 2019. And it took a little while for her to warm up and agree to, to speak at all. But she gave some, y‘ou ‘know, some kind of overall arching details about her time that she spent with him. And she mentioned that he had visited her family, and she’d introduced him to her entire family at a family reunion on the 4th of July, 1975. And that struck me immediately because Nancy Baird disappeared on 4th of July, 1975. And if Leslie Knudson was accurate in her recall, then Ted probably could not have done that, if he was with her, and being introduced to her entire family at their July 4th family reunion. But it doesn’t seem like anyone else has ever put those together that he was with her on the day that this crime occurred.
Dave Cawley:I’ve listened to a recording of this interview with Leslie Knudson. There are legal and ethical considerations that prevent me from sharing the audio with you, but I can tell you what Leslie said: she and Bundy had “gone to the family ranch” on the 4th of July. Leslie didn’t say where the ranch was, and she’s not responded to multiple messages I’ve left for her. But I did some genealogy research and can tell you Leslie’s maternal grandfather was a prominent sheep rancher in an area of Utah called the Uinta Basin.
When Leslie’s mother died, the obituary described how she’d spent “many summers in the Fruitland, Utah area on the family ranch.” Fruitland is in the Uinta Basin. This is likely where Leslie Knudson took Ted Bundy on the day Nancy Baird disappeared.
Tiffany Jean:And so it’d be pretty difficult for him to have done both things on that day because it would have been quite a drive.
Dave Cawley:More than 100 miles. Quite the drive, indeed. But once investigators in the Nancy Baird case honed in on Ted Bundy as a suspect, all efforts involving other persons of interest came to a halt.
Tiffany Jean:I was amazed at how many people went through that gas station in that tiny frame of time, within like 15 minutes. And nobody saw her leave?
Dave Cawley:My look into the Nancy Perry Baird case came about because a jailhouse informant once told the FBI Cary Hartmann had known Nancy. I haven’t seen any sign that tip was ever shared, investigated or corroborated. What I’ve learned, is there are other, more likely leads still left unexplored. But after nearly 50 years, so many people important to solving this puzzle are gone. And former East Layton officer Tom Jackson told me his health is on the decline.
Tom Jackson:One of the first people I want to see, other than my parents when I get to the other side, is Nancy. ‘Cause she has bugged me for so long. What could I have done to have been there for her? ‘Cause she’s, she was not the type, to’ve just bugged out and said, y’know, “I’m tired of the world.”
Dave Cawley:“She was not the type…” This is a common refrain we hear in so many cases of missing women, and to be honest, it’s getting under my skin. Because who is the type? Sure, people do run away, but in this podcast we’ve repeatedly heard how more sinister circumstances often surround the disappearances of women. It happened with Sheree Warren. Her disappearance, 10 years after Nancy Baird’s, bore many similarities. Both were young mothers, just out of unhappy marriages. Both were last seen at work. Neither just walked away. But in both cases, speculation about about serial killers distracted investigators, drawing attention away from more probable suspects.
Tom Jackson:And boy, whoever did it, he’s another Bundy.
Dave Cawley:Against the backdrop of turnover and jurisdictional dysfunction we’ve explored, it’s easy to understand how Ted Bundy filled a vacuum. His entrance to the scene took pressure off East Layton police. Nancy Baird’s friends and relatives were placated by the belief Bundy did it, even though no proof ever emerged to support that. But there are too many unexplored avenues of investigation for me to accept that conclusion. Like the man who stalked, “molested” and threatened Nancy a couple of nights before she disappeared. Or the two “hippie type” guys chatting with her at the Fina station moments before she vanished. Or even an East Layton police officer with a troubled past.
Until these other leads are closed, how can anyone accept taking “the convenient alternative?”
Serial killer Ted Bundy spent most of the summer of 1975 in Utah. That same July, a young woman named Nancy Baird disappeared from the gas station where she worked in the town of East Layton, Utah.
Baird was never located. For nearly five decades, speculation has swirled that Bundy abducted and killed her.
It made sense to investigators, at least on the surface. Theodore “Ted” Bundy later admitted to abducting and killing multiple women and girls in Utah. His first arrest came in August of 1975, just six weeks after Nancy Baird disappeared, 30 miles south of where Baird had last been seen.
But no direct evidence has ever emerged to definitively tie Bundy to Baird.
The informant William Babbel
Nancy Baird’s name came to my attention during research of the Sheree Warren case for COLD season 3. Although Sheree disappeared in 1985, a full 10 years after Nancy, their stories bore some striking similarities. They were roughly the same age at the time of their respective disappearances (25 for Sheree, 23 for Nancy). Both were recently divorced from or in the process of divorcing their husbands. Both were primary caretakers for their young sons. And both were last seen at their workplaces.
What most piqued my curiosity about Nancy Baird though, were the claims of an FBI informant named William Babbel.
The Sheree Warren case files show Babbel began communicating with an FBI special agent in February of 1989, just a couple of weeks after Florida executed Ted Bundy. Babbel told the agent he was incarcerated with Warren’s former boyfriend, Cary Hartmann.
Special agent Gregory Hall referred to Babbel only as “source” or by the pseudonym SU 1815-C in his reports. Hall wrote Babbel “was able to provide this writer with information regarding [Sheree Warren] for only a brief period of time.”
Most of Babbel’s information had to do with Hartmann, who was at that time serving a sentence of 15-years-to-life in prison for an aggravated sexual assault that’d occurred in Ogden, Utah a few years prior. Babbel reportedly said Hartmann had been “openly talking about [Warren’s] disappearance.”
Cary Hartmann and Ted Bundy
William Babbel also told the FBI Cary Hartmann had followed news coverage of Ted Bundy’s execution.
Days before Florida put Bundy to death, a detective from the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office interviewed the serial killer. Bundy told the detective he’d killed five people in Utah. The detective wanted to know if Nancy Baird was one of them.
This January 24, 1989 story from the KSL-TV archives details Salt Lake County Sheriff’s detective Dennis Couch’s interview with serial killer Ted Bundy two days earlier. Bundy admitted to five murders in Utah during the pre-execution interview, but specifically denied involvement in the disappearance of Nancy Perry Baird.
Speculation about Bundy’s possible involvement in Baird’s disappearance was featured in TV and newspaper stories at the time.
The FBI reports show Babbel told the agent “Hartmann questioned why Ted Bundy was blamed for the disappearance of Nancy Baird.” Babbel reportedly said “on one occasion, Hartmann was looking at a newspaper article depicting Ted Bundy along with photos of many of his victims. Hartmann placed a X by the photos of five of Bundy’s alleged victims.”
Special Agent Gregory Hall later added Babbel “learned that Cary Hartmann was an acquaintance of Nancy Baird. Baird’s disappearance allegedly occurred while Hartmann was experiencing a divorce.”
Hartmann had been between his two marriages during the summer of 1975. So Babbel’s information had an appearance of credibility. But the FBI later stopped using Babbel as an informant, determining he was unreliable. Babbel also attempted to inform, less than credibly, in the disappearance of Joyce Yost.
The FBI reports do not say whether anyone ever looked into Babbel’s claim of a link between Cary Hartmann and Nancy Baird.
The Nancy Baird case file
COLD submitted a public records request to the Davis County Sheriff’s Office seeking copies of the Nancy Baird case files in January of 2022. The goal, in part, was to determine whether investigators in the Nancy Baird case had ever been informed of the William Babbel information.
The sheriff’s office denied the request, saying the Baird case remained open. Releasing the case file, they argued, could hamper the ongoing investigation.
COLD filed an appeal, arguing while the case was technically open, it had not been active for quite some time. In fact, the investigation had been all but abandoned after Ted Bundy was identified as a suspect.
Davis County agreed to release a partial and redacted copy of the Nancy Baird case file in May of 2022. Cary Hartmann’s name didn’t appear in those records. Neither did Ted Bundy’s. The story, it would turn out, was much more complicated.
Identi-kit
The Nancy Baird case files obtained by COLD cover only the first days and weeks of the investigation. They detailed how, on July 4, 1975, Nancy had gone to work at the Fina gas station near the intersection of Cherry Lane and Highway 89 in the town of East Layton.
At about 5:10 p.m., two children arrived at the station with their father, Denzle Williams. The children, David and Jana Williams, briefly interacted with Nancy inside the Fina station’s convenience store. They became the last people known to have seen Nancy Baird.
The following day, a Davis County detective interviewed David and Jana Williams. They told the detective they’d seen two men in the Fina store, talking to Nancy Baird minutes before she disappeared. The young siblings provided physical descriptions of the men they’d seen.
Those descriptions allowed the detective to use a tool called Identi-kit to build composite images of the two men. Police labeled the men “subject #1” and “subject #2” and described them as “hippie type” individuals.
Subject #1 was skinny, had shoulder-length hair, a beard and mustache and wore a denim jacket with frayed edges.
Subject #2 also had a beard and mustache, but his hair came only to the bottom of his ears. He’d been dressed in a yellow long-sleeve shirt.
Denzle Williams also told the detective about a third man he’d seen outside the Fina station while his kids, David and Jana, were inside the convenience store interacting with Nancy Baird. The third man was about 55 to 60 years old, very thin and had prominent veins on his arms.
Denzle Williams reportedly told the detective he did not see the older man go into the convenience store. It is unknown whether the older man ever interacted with Nancy Baird.
Tom in a yellow Volkswagen
The Nancy Baird case files show detectives compared the composite images to photos from an album that belonged to Baird. They believed one of the photos showed “a very similar likeness of one of the Identi-kit composites.” Investigators identified the man in Baird’s photo album, but that man provided an alibi.
As a result, it’s not clear whether the two “hippie type” men seen by David and Jana Williams in the Fina station with Nancy Baird minutes before she disappeared were ever definitively identified. Neither of those men shared a resemblance with serial killer Ted Bundy.
The Nancy Baird case files also include an account from one of Baird’s friends, a woman named Deloris Drake. She told a detective that on the night of July 2, 1975, she’d visited a few bars along Ogden’s Washington Boulevard with Nancy Baird. Those included Rigos, a restaurant and bar, and the Iron Horse.
Drake told investigators Nancy Baird had dropped her off at home around 2:30 a.m. on the morning of July 3, 1975. Baird then departed for her own home in Layton.
About 30 minutes later, Baird returned to Drake’s home on 36th Street in Ogden. Davis County Sheriff’s Lt. Dean Egbert wrote in a report Baird “appeared to be quite shaken and frightened” because a man named Tom in a yellow van had followed her home.
This man, Tom, had allegedly pursued Nancy Baird to her friend Deloris Drake’s home and was making a threatening comment toward Baird as Drake opened her door. Drake told investigators she’d seen a second man with “Tom,” on a motorcycle.
The case files do not include any further mention of these two men, or suggest investigators at the time in 1975 made any further effort to identify, contact or interview them in regard to Nancy Baird’s disappearance.
Hear why Ted Bundy may also have an alibi in Cold: The Convenient Alternative
The photo scanner tucked under my arm tipped precariously toward the concrete. A power cable dangled behind, skittering as I stepped up to the door of a home in the suburbs of Davis County, Utah. I’d come in search of Sheree Warren photos.
The door opened inward before I could knock. I found myself whisked inside with an exchange of introductions. “Hi! How are you? Nice to meet you.” A few strides brought me into the home’s kitchen, where a renovation project seemed to have paused for my visit. Sheets of plywood and plastic surrounded an island topped with a gleaming new countertop.
I placed the scanner down on the glassy smooth surface, connected it by USB cable to my laptop and pulled a stool up to the kitchen bar. Then, looking up at several of Sheree Warren’s relatives, I asked if we might take a look at the photo albums sitting on the counter between us.
In her own words: Susan Powell
In season 1 of Cold, we heard the story of Susan Powell’s unhappy marriage to her husband, Josh Powell. When Susan disappeared in 2009, the circumstances suggested foul play. Police spent the next two years digging up all manner of materials: medical and financial records, personal journals, private social media messages, thousands of Powell family photographs.
Susan’s own words were captured among all that evidence, detailing the descent of her relationship with Josh into ever-deeper levels of domestic abuse. Susan’s narration of her own story, told piece-by-piece in every frustrated email and journal entry, offered unusual clarity about her life in the days, months and years that preceded her presumed murder.
Susan Powell’s experience was one of domestic abuse and coercive control. The story shared in Cold season 1 turned a spotlight on the controlling and narcissistic behaviors of Susan’s husband, as well as the pattern of generational grooming present in Josh Powell’s family.
In her own words: Joyce Yost
With season 2 of Cold, we turned to an older case: the 1985 disappearance of Joyce Yost. I came across an audio tape while researching Joyce’s case. It held a recording of her, telling the story of how she’d been raped by a man she didn’t know.
That man, Douglas Lovell, killed Joyce in order to silence her. Lovell intended to hide what he’d done by preventing Joyce from testifying at trial. It didn’t work. Joyce Yost had spoken her truth. Her words were powerful and honest. Even when read by a proxy, Joyce’s voice came through.
Joyce asked an officer just hours after being assaulted “how safe am I?” In sharing that audio recording, I hoped to illustrate how too often the unspoken response to that question is “not enough.” Because a series of oversights and errors left Joyce exposed to unnecessary risk.
Taboos around discussion of sexual violence and victim-blaming attitudes can drive survivors into the shadows, making them more vulnerable to fatal violence.
Searching for Sheree Warren photos
Cold has served as a megaphone, amplifying the voices Susan Powell and Joyce Yost.
I’d hoped it might do the same for Sheree Warren, when I turned to her unsolved disappearance for Cold season 3. Sheree experienced an unhappy marriage to her husband, Charles Warren. She shared a brief fling with a boyfriend, Cary Hartmann, prior to her disappearance.
What had she thought or felt about these relationships? How had each man treated Sheree in private? If I could find a clip of her voice on an old cassette tape, or uncover a dusty journal in the hands of a sibling, perhaps I could give voice to her experience.
For months, I reached out to anyone who might’ve known Sheree. Her older brother told me their parents hadn’t owned a home movie camera. He wasn’t aware of any journals.
Even Sheree Warren photos proved rare. A sister suggested maybe their mother, Mary Sorensen, had kept some pictures, but Mary passed away several years prior. It wasn’t clear where her albums had ended up.
No one seemed to have kept any old letters in Sheree’s handwriting. Anecdotes about her were offered infrequently, if at all.
How could I tell the story of what happened to Sheree Warren, if I knew hardly anything about her?
Meeting Sheree Warren’s relatives
A cousin of Sheree’s, after some gentle prodding, invited me to come and review a collection of Sheree Warren photos among Polaroids and scrapbook pages. That’s how we ended up together, along with some of Sheree’s other relatives, in the unfinished kitchen of that suburban home in the fall of 2022.
I placed the photos on the flatbed scanner, one by one. The technical aspects of the task consumed my attention: pixels-per-inch and bit depths, file paths and metadata. Once everything looked correct, I’d click the button to start the scan. The scanner would light up and, with a robotic whir, begin making a digital copy of the selected photograph.
The process took time. As the scanner worked, we talked. Sheree’s relatives asked most of the questions. How did you get into investigating cold cases? (Kind of by accident, with the Susan Powell case.) Have you talked to Sheree’s ex-husband? (Not yet, not sure I can, he has dementia.) Is it true Cary Hartmann is out of prison? (Yes, he was paroled in March of 2020, I went and talked to him.)
They shared memories about Sheree’s early life. She’d worked at the Burger Bar in Roy before getting the job at the credit union. Or wait, maybe it was that other burger place half a block away, Warren’s. They wondered what she’d ever seen in Charles Warren, the stocky rail yard worker she’d married just after her 21st birthday.
After Sheree disappeared, they said, Cary Hartmann had showed up at a family prayer meeting, conspicuous and out of place.
I shared tidbits from the case files I’d obtained, insights from old investigators I’d interviewed, inconsistencies in the statements of both Charles Warren and Cary Hartmann.
A root question seemed to underlie it all: what do you think happened to Sheree?
Sheree Warren photos
It wasn’t until I’d completed the scans and returned home that I was able to look at the photos in any detail. Most dated back to Sheree’s early childhood, in the 1960s. There were tender studio shots of Sheree and her older brother, as well as Christmas candids where Sheree was surrounded by relatives.
One of the Sheree Warren photos among the collection stood out to my eyes. It showed a young Sheree Sorensen, from around 1970, when she was about 10 years old.
The picture pre-dated Sheree’s disappearance by 15 years. It held no value as evidence in her case. And yet, something about Sheree’s expression struck me. Her eyes, open wide, were fixed straight ahead. Her closed-mouth smile was restrained, with none of the “cheese” hamminess often captured in children’s portraiture.
Sheree grew up as the daughter of hard-working parents. She performed well academically, often appearing on lists of honors roll students. One of her cousins told me Sheree wasn’t exactly a scholar, but she had a way with people. Sheree had an aptitude for management. Had she lived, she might’ve advanced far in her career. Her life held boundless potential.
In that childhood photo, Sheree seemed to stare straight ahead into that future. What hopes and aspirations did she hold as she moved into early adulthood? We will never know, because someone stole that future from Sheree on the night of October 2, 1985.
The last man standing
As I write this in April of 2023, Charles “Chuck” Warren has been dead for about six months. Sheree’s ex-husband’s final years were marred by a descent into dementia. I’d learned of his illness while preparing to reach out in the hopes of securing an interview.
Chuck’s illness meant I was never able to speak with him myself. His death left lingering uncertainty about his actions and whereabouts on the night of Sheree’s disappearance. Some investigators, I knew, still considered Chuck the prime suspect. They couldn’t shake the stories from Chuck’s past, how he’d once attacked his first wife with a tire iron and left her for dead.
Others viewed Cary Hartmann as a more likely suspect. Cary, they told me, failed a polygraph examination about Sheree’s disappearance after his release from prison in March of 2020. The Weber County Attorney’s Office had even taken the extreme step of offering Cary immunity from criminal charges, if he would only lead police to Sheree’s remains.
Cary, I was told, had taken a few days to consider that offer before rejecting it. When I attempted to speak to Cary myself, he cut me off and referred questions to his lawyer. That lawyer did not respond to a phone message or email seeking comment.
So this is the state of the Sheree Warren case: two plausible persons of interest, one silenced by disease and then death, the other silent by choice.
The truth of Sheree Warren’s disappearance
Sheree Sorensen Warren should be alive today. She should exist to her family, most of all her son, as more than a few photographs and the subject of a true-crime podcast.
I wish sharing the story of the search for Sheree in Cold hadn’t been necessary. I wish I’d had an opportunity to meet Sheree, to talk to her, to learn from her. Her silence hangs over Cold season 3. It rings in my ears.
Sheree can no longer speak for herself. She can’t tell us the story of her life. But it’s my sincere hope sharing the story of what happened to her can lead to truth.
Abuse in relationships doesn’t always lead to murder, but there are stories like Sheree’s where everything escalates until there’s no coming back.
We have to do better than this. This is my truth.
Hear Dave Cawley’s theory of the Sheree Warren case in Cold season 3, episode 10: Last Man Standing
Dave Cawley:The world had gone into lockdown. Covid-19 had exploded into a full-blown pandemic. Schools and businesses were shuttered. Streets in cities across the United States were eerily quiet.
It was the spring of 2020, but at least one business in Ogden, Utah remained open: Dave Moore’s sewing machine repair shop. Dave and his brother, who co-owned the business, were trying to keep up with a sudden surge in demand for their services.
Dave Moore:We were extremely busy during when Covid broke out because everyone was staying home making masks.
Dave Cawley:Dave’s shop was still located right where it’d been in October of 1985, on the night when Sheree Warren had disappeared. The bar on the other side of the parking lot, where Dave’d gone for a drink with his friend Cary Hartmann that night, was still there too. But it’d changed names and owners several times over the decades. There’s a small office tucked in the back of Dave’s shop. Dave was working in the office one day that spring of 2020 when he heard someone come through the door onto the sales floor.
Dave Moore:My brother was down on the floor and uh, Cary came in and my brother’s not real fond of Cary, said uh “let me see if he’ll see you.” So he came up and I just walked down real briefly, said “hi,” y’know, “what’re you doing?” And he basically gave me the story that he was living in a halfway house and somebody donated a bed and a small TV to him and that was basically the conversation.
Dave Cawley:A modest new beginning for Cary Hartmann. Cary had just returned to Ogden after spending 32 years in prison. Dave had struggled over those years to reconcile the charming Cary he’d once known with the secretive man Cary’d revealed himself to be.
Dave Moore:To be honest with you, I didn’t believe he did it until he was convicted.
Dave Cawley:They’d remained in contact for awhile, but fell out of touch during the ‘90s. Years later, Dave wrote a letter to Cary.
Dave Moore:Just to see how he was doing. Just to see what the situation was and I basically wanted to know what, “what’s wrong with you?” Y’know?
Dave Cawley:Cary had not responded. So when Cary dropped in unannounced on Dave at work in early 2020, Dave hadn’t felt too eager to renew their old friendship.
Dave Moore:Yeah. We’d both changed.
Dave Cawley:Cary and Dave had been together at the bar on the evening of Sheree Warren’s disappearance, almost 35 years earlier. Cary’d tried to use Dave as an alibi. So it’s interesting one of the first things Cary did after getting out of prison was check up on his old friend. Cary’d told the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole before leaving prison he’d anticipated a tough transition.
Cary Hartmann (from October 29, 2019 parole board recording):I know there’s going to be rejection when I go out there in one form or another. Now, when I can’t handle that, that’s a risky situation for me. I know who I can call to say “whoa, my self-esteem is in the dirt.”
Dave Cawley:I wonder if Cary’s self-esteem took a hit when he realized he could no longer count Dave Moore as a friend. Another old friend of Cary’s, Brent Morgan the taxidermist, told me he also wants nothing to do with Cary. Which is saying something, because Brent and Cary grew up together.
Brent Morgan:If you go back to friends, I can remember him the farthest back because of the association of my parents and his parents.
Dave Cawley:Cary’d written letters to Brent’s mom for years after his conviction. And Cary’s own mother, Donna Hartmann, had kept in touch with the Morgans as well.
Brent Morgan:Donna was always after mom and myself to go and visit him and there was a couple of time I thought about it and I just didn’t want to.
Dave Cawley (to Brent Morgan):Hmm.
Brent Morgan:Didn’t want to.
Dave Cawley:Cary’s mom, Donna Hartmann, had attended her son’s parole board hearings. She’d heard him say under oath he’d lied to his family about being innocent.
Cary Hartmann (from September 21, 2010 parole board recording):I was in denial. I couldn’t face up to what I’d done. I was wracked with guilt and shame.
Dave Cawley:But Brent Morgan told me Cary’d privately held to a different story: he hadn’t raped anyone and was only admitting to the crimes because otherwise, the parole board would never let him out of prison. Donna Hartmann died in 2013.
Brent Morgan:His mother went to her grave believing that he was innocent.
Dave Cawley:Cary’s dad, Bill Hartmann, had defended his son from the start. He’d paid Cary’s bail, put up his own money to fund DNA testing and also attended his son’s parole board hearings. But Bill Hartmann didn’t live to see Cary regain his freedom, either. Bill died in January of 2020, just two months shy of Cary’s release from prison.
Sheree Warren’s friend and former coworker, Pam Volk, hadn’t realized Cary was free when she and I met a year-and-a-half later.
Pam Volk:Is he out?
Dave Cawley (to Pam Volk):He is
Pam Volk:Oh, I didn’t know he was out.
Dave Cawley:Yeah, yeah.
Pam Volk:That honestly makes me a little nervous. Hmm, ‘kay. Well, interesting. And he lives in Ogden?
Dave Cawley:Yeah, he does. I know, because I paid Cary Hartmann a visit myself.
This is Cold, season 3, episode 10: Last Man Standing From KSL Podcasts, I’m Dave Cawley.
[Ad break]
Dave Cawley:Sheree Warren’s dad, Ed Sorensen, told Salt Lake City TV station KTVX in 2019 he hoped to someday learn what happened to Sheree.
Ed Sorensen (from October 16, 2019 KTVX TV archive):Sure I’d love to know what happened, but I don’t think we’ll ever find out.
Dave Cawley:Roy City police were at the time actively investigating Sheree’s disappearance. The cold case remained in the hands of detective John Frawley, who still has the case today. John told me meeting Sheree’s family had changed his perspective.
John Frawley:Kinda sobering feeling that this family they didn’t get any answers.
Dave Cawley:Those conversations were driving John and his fellow detectives to keep digging. They wanted to at last be able to tell Sheree’s dad, Ed Sorensen, they were bringing his daughter home.
John Frawley:I don’t know how to explain that other than we want answers just as much as anyone else. It’s important to us.
Dave Cawley:John had come to believe Cary Hartmann held those answers. And he’d wanted to ask Cary about it.
John Frawley:So, I went down to the prison twice and then I met with him at AP&P. So three times.
Dave Cawley:AP&P is short for Adult Probation and Parole. It’s a state agency in Utah responsible for supervising people after they’re released from prison. John told me these interactions with Cary hadn’t proved very fruitful.
John Frawley:You know, I’ve been in a room with some, with some interesting people during this career and he’s one of them. It’s just very different.
Dave Cawley:We’ve heard several people over the course of this season describe Cary has having two personalities. He could come across as debonair or devilish, depending on the moment. John didn’t tell me which Cary he encountered. Cary’s release hadn’t come without strings. He had to abide by conditions set by the parole board.
John Frawley:As part of his parole agreement he was mandated to submit to random polygraph.
Dave Cawley:A lie detector, about whatever police wanted to ask him about. Random polygraphs are a standard condition of parole in felony sex offense cases in Utah. The results aren’t typically admissible as evidence in court, but they can help investigators figure out if they’re on the right track. Cary Hartmann had never taken a lie detector test about his relationship with Sheree Warren. He might end up back in prison on a parole violation, if he refused to cooperate now. John Frawley had Cary in a corner.
John Frawley:Oh man, yeah. He does not, he’s not happy with me.
Dave Cawley:John called in an FBI agent with decades of experience as a polygraph examiner. The agent sat Cary down and asked him a series of questions about Sheree’s disappearance.
John Frawley:And he did fail that polygraph test.
Dave Cawley:Spectacularly, or so I’ve heard. Roy police have refused to give me any records related to the polygraph. The FBI won’t even acknowledge such a report exists, which would be comical if it wasn’t so frustrating. This put John in something of a tight spot. He’s told me the polygraph report is important, but he’s also not at liberty to discuss it in detail. He could only give me this three-word summary without getting into trouble.
John Frawley:It shows deception.
Dave Cawley:Cary’s performance at the polygraph went so poorly, it made John rethink his entire take on the Sheree Warren case. From that point forward, he no longer saw Chuck Warren as his prime suspect. I asked John if that was so, why hadn’t he just arrested Cary?
John Frawley:It doesn’t give me what I need because I have two persons of interest.
Dave Cawley:Chuck Warren’s unwillingness, or inability, to provide a clear story about where he’d been after Sheree disappeared meant John couldn’t completely count Chuck out.
John Frawley:Yep. The two persons of interest are still Charles Warren and Cary Hartmann.
Dave Cawley:Chuck Warren never showed much interest in what’d happened to his estranged wife Sheree in 1985. He’d just moved on with his life. In the last episode, we heard Roy police detective John Frawley’s 2015 interview with Chuck.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):You say you can’t remember too much but, y’know, you’re doing pretty good. You—
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Well as you’re bringing it up, I can remember a few things.
Dave Cawley:John’d asked Chuck about Cary Hartmann.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Did you know about him at the time. I mean, did you know that she was dating him or?
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):(Exhales) I can’t remember.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Can’t remember that?
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Uh, I, yeah, I just can’t remember if she—
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Ok.
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):—uh, when he got arrested it seemed like, then I heard something about that she’d been dating him.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):That she’d been dating him, afterwards.
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):And I think that’s how I found out, but I don’t know.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):After—
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):She’d never said anything to me about it.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):‘Kay.
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):And I’d never asked her—
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Right.
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):—so, y’know, ‘cause I was dating a lot of girls at the time.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Right.
Dave Cawley:In case you didn’t catch that, Chuck said he’d been “dating a lot of girls” when Sheree’d disappeared. But we also know Chuck’d reunited with his first wife, Alice, during that same period.
By the time of John Frawley’s interview with Chuck 30 years later, Chuck was living with his third wife, a woman named Willow. She’d sat by Chuck’s side while John questioned him. Willow’d interjected at one point, saying she wasn’t surprised to hear Chuck’d acted unconcerned when Sheree didn’t show up looking for her son on the night of her disappearance.
Willow Hendricks (from June 23, 2015 police recording):He’s been a pretty easy-going guy, too. So when she didn’t actually come pick him up at that time he probably wasn’t too worried about it. She’d be there eventually.
Dave Cawley:The first time I heard this audio recording, I thought Chuck and Willow shared an odd dynamic. Chuck and Willow had lived together for about 10 years, but had only been married a year or so at the time of the interview. And they didn’t stay married long. Three years later, in 2018, Chuck filed for divorce. Court records show Willow tried to lay claim to a lot of Chuck’s property, including stuff he’d bought well before they’d married. Willow also refused to move out of Chuck’s house. He twice filed eviction lawsuits against her. She left under protest in early 2020, but didn’t stay gone. Willow soon convinced her ex-husband Chuck to let her back into his heart, his life and his house.
You might be wondering who you’re supposed to root for in all this. Neither Chuck nor Willow seem very sympathetic. But there’s a revelation I found in the court records that puts their squabble in a different context. Chuck filed a third eviction lawsuit against Willow in September of 2020. It says:
“Willow was supposed to help Chuck as he had been diagnosed with dementia. Willow has not been giving Chuck his medications.”
Looking back, the beginnings of Chuck’s mental decline seemed apparent five years earlier, during his interview with detective John Frawley.
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Well, I have trouble remembering how to say different words.
Dave Cawley:In the last episode, I told you how Willow was 27 years younger than Chuck. They’d met and moved in together years before the onset of Chuck’s memory problems.
Willow Hendricks (from June 23, 2015 police recording):He never used to be like this. “How do I do this, how do I do that.” Then he’d get frustrated with it.
Dave Cawley:But Willow had only married Chuck in a spur-of-the-moment Las Vegas Elvis chapel wedding after Chuck’s memory started failing. Willow Hendricks went to court herself. She asked a judge to appoint her as Chuck Warren’s legal guardian. That hadn’t sat well with Chuck’s brother and two sons, one of whom was also Sheree’s son. Court records show they intervened, trying to block Willow from taking control of Chuck’s assets. On February 1st, 2021, a judge declared Chuck “incapacitated.” Under the legal definition, that meant Chuck could no longer provide for his own protection, health or safety. His ability to evaluate information, make decisions and provide for the necessities of life were impaired.
Chuck’s dementia meant whatever he might’ve known about Sheree’s disappearance was locked away where even he couldn’t get to it. And if evidence were to somehow emerge proving Chuck’d killed Sheree, no prosecutor would ever charge him. Chuck wouldn’t be able to aid in his own defense, or even understand what he was accused of doing.
I learned about Chuck’s condition early in my research for this season. I realized I wouldn’t ever have a chance to interview him. I couldn’t, in good conscience, knowing Chuck lacked the cognitive ability to understand the questions I would ask. And it’s a terrible lost opportunity. From February of 2021 onward, Chuck Warren was off-limits in the search for answers about Sheree’s disappearance.
A couple of months later, in April of 2021, an investigator for the Weber County Attorney’s Office brought Cary Hartmann to an office in downtown Ogden. The investigator, Steve Haney, introduced Cary to a criminal defense lawyer named Michael Bouwhuis. Michael was a public defender, who’d represented thousands of clients over the years. Haney’d called both Cary and Michael here as part of a plan he’d conceived. He hoped he might coax Cary into admitting to Sheree Warren’s murder, by making Cary an offer he couldn’t refuse.
What I tell you next has never before been revealed: Steve Haney, the investigator, handed Cary a letter from the county attorney. It offered Cary immunity from criminal charges, if he revealed the location of Sheree Warren’s remains. A promise: take us to Sheree and we won’t charge you with her murder. This is what’s known as “transactional immunity.” It’s sometimes used to obtain testimony from witnesses or accomplices — see season 2 of this very podcast for an example — but it’s almost never provided to the primary target in a major criminal investigation like this.
The wording of the immunity offer was broad. There were no hidden “gotchas.” It was a literal get-out-of-jail-free card for Cary Hartmann. The letter even said this promise of immunity did not depend on the successful recovery of Sheree’s remains. So long as Cary told the truth about what he’d done and made a good faith effort to show where he’d left her body, he wouldn’t face any consequences. The county attorney had already signed the letter. All it needed to become binding was Cary’s own signature.
Cary, I’m told, seemed suspicious and skeptical. He didn’t know Michael Bouwhuis, this lawyer the cop Haney said was supposed to represent him. Besides, Cary already had his own lawyer, a fact Haney hadn’t realized. Cary called his attorney on the phone. They talked, then informed investigator Steve Haney they needed time to discuss the offer. Cary then left, taking the immunity letter with him.
About a week later, Steve Haney received a follow-up phone call from Cary’s attorney. The lawyer reportedly said Cary was not going accept the immunity offer. But here’s the thing, as far as I know Cary still has the immunity letter. And he could at any time sign it, walk into the Weber County Attorney’s Office, admit to killing Sheree Warren and face no consequences. But maybe Cary doesn’t need to do that. After all, why would he need immunity for something he’s insisted he didn’t do? Maybe Cary just doesn’t like talking to cops. Perhaps he’d feel more comfortable speaking with a reporter. Let’s find out.
[Ad break]
Dave Cawley:The air feels stifling. I sit in the driver seat of a small Honda crossover, pulled into a parking stall at an apartment complex not far from the mouth of Ogden Canyon. It’s the same place where Cary Hartmann lived at the time of his arrest in 1987. It’s the apartment complex where police’d found a gray suede jacket, possibly belonging to Sheree Warren, when they’d searched Cary’s unit in the rape investigation.
For some reason, Cary Hartmann chose to move back here in 2020, after he left prison, following a short stint at a halfway house. I step out of the car…
(Sound of car door)
Dave Cawley (from May 5, 2021 recording):Let’s go knock.
Dave Cawley:…and walk toward one of the three-story buildings. It’s the start of May, 2021 and Utah’s experiencing a spring swelter. Air conditioners whir as I pass by. I look at the numbers on the doors, counting up until I find the right one, stop and knock.
(Sound of door knock)
Dave Cawley:No answer. I look at the unit number again, comparing it to Cary’s public listing in the Utah sex offender registry. It’s the right place, I’m sure. But Cary doesn’t seem to be home. Or at least, he doesn’t answer the door. I expected this, and I’ve come prepared with a pen and notepad.
Dave Cawley (from May 5, 2021 recording):Ok, what is our date today?
Sheryl Worsley (from May 5, 2021 recording):It’s the fifth, Cinco de Mayo.
Dave Cawley:That’s the voice of my boss, Sheryl Worsley, who’s joining me on this outing.
Dave Cawley (from May 5, 2021 recording):Alright, let’s see. What do we want to say here? Uh, “Mr. Cary Hartmann”…
Dave Cawley:This isn’t the first letter I’ve written to Cary. I’d reached out to him once before, when he was still incarcerated. At that time, I was researching the murder of Joyce Yost for season 2 of this podcast. I’d come across the recording of William Babbel, aka Charlie the FBI informant. We heard from him back in episode 6.
William Babbel (from December 19, 1991 police recording):I was in a therapy group with Cary Hartmann. And I know Cary Hartmann’s story very well.
Dave Cawley:William Babbel had told the FBI Cary Hartmann killed Sheree Warren. But Babbel later switched up his story and told a South Ogden police detective a different guy, Doug Lovell, killed Sheree.
William Babbel (from December 19, 1991 police recording):He mentioned somebody, that he was afraid he was going to get questioned in a rape-kidnap-murder of somebody named Sheree Warren.
Dave Cawley:I’d wanted to know what Cary made of Babbel’s contradictory claims. Was William Babbel a liar? But Cary never responded to my first letter. So this is why I’m standing at Cary’s door. I’m carrying a transcript of the William Babbel police interview with me as I knock at Cary’s apartment. When he doesn’t answer, I tuck the transcript behind his screen door, along with the following note.
Dave Cawley (from May 5, 2021 recording):Mr. Cary Hartmann, my name is Dave Cawley. I am a reporter with KSL. I previously wrote you while you were still incarcerated, hoping to set up an interview regarding a story I was working on about the Joyce Yost case. I never heard back but would still like an opportunity to speak with you. I will be publishing a story next week that includes a claim Doug Lovell had some involvement with the disappearance of another woman whom you knew, Sheree Warren. I’ve included a copy of a police interview with a prison informant named William Babbel. I’d love to hear your thoughts about what William had to say. I look forward to hearing from you, Dave Cawley.
Sheryl Worsley (from May 5, 2021 recording):There you go.
Dave Cawley (from May 5, 2021 recording):So be it.
Dave Cawley:Then, Sheryl and I walk back to our car and crank up the A/C. I’m about to put the car in reverse when I glance at the rearview mirror and freeze.
“Act cool,” I say to Sheryl, “but take a look to our left.”
As she does, I reach down and switch off the ignition.
Dave Cawley (from May 5, 2021 recording):So we’re sitting in the car outside Cary Hartmann’s apartment, having just left a note in his, uh, door, telling him that we wanted to speak with him and Sheryl, what happened?
Sheryl Worsley (from May 5, 2021 recording):And he pulls up, backs into a parking spot and we’re like “we think that’s him.”
Dave Cawley (from May 5, 2021 recording):Yeah. I recognized the car driving past in the rearview, being a Chevy Avalanche, which was what was listed as one of his vehicles on the Utah sex offender registry and, and you watched him get out.
Sheryl Worsley (from May 5, 2021 recording):Yep. It looks like it’s him. So we’re going to give him a second to get our note and we’ll try again.
Dave Cawley (from May 5, 2021 recording):Give him a door knock.
Sheryl Worsley (from May 5, 2021 recording):Yep.
Dave Cawley:We decide five minutes seems fair: enough time to read letter and skim the transcript. We wait, watching the clock, then go knock on Cary Hartmann’s door a second time.
(Sound of door knock)
Dave Cawley:The door opens just a crack. I can see the lights are off inside. It’s dark, cave-like, as if blackout curtains cover all the windows. But enough light shines through the crack in the door to illuminate a face I recognize in the shadows.
Dave Cawley (from May 5, 2021 recording):Hey Cary—
Cary Hartmann (from May 5, 2021 recording):(Unintelligible)
Dave Cawley (from May 5, 2021 recording):Dave Cawley from KSL. I left you a note, uh, but then I saw you pulling in as we were getting ready to leave. Umm, can I talk to you for just a second?
Cary Hartmann (from May 5, 2021 recording):No, I don’t have anything to say.
Dave Cawley (from May 5, 2021 recording):Ok.
Cary Hartmann (from May 5, 2021 recording):You want to talk to me, you have to talk to my attorney.
Dave Cawley (from May 5, 2021 recording):Oh, who’s your attorney? I’d be happy to reach out.
Cary Hartmann (from May 5, 2021 recording):(Pause) Johnathan Porter’s my attorney.
Dave Cawley (from May 5, 2021 recording):Johnathan Porter? Ok, thank you, sir.
Sheryl Worsley (from May 5, 2021 recording):Thank you.
Cary Hartmann (from May 5, 2021 recording):(Unintelligible)
Dave Cawley (from May 5, 2021 recording):Got it.
Dave Cawley:And that’s the entirety of my communication with Cary Hartmann. It struck me as odd Cary’d referred me to his attorney. At the time, I wasn’t aware Weber County had offered Cary immunity just a couple of weeks earlier. I did reach out to Cary’s attorney, by the way, but I received no response. Cary Hartmann won’t talk to me.
I did talk to former Ogden police detective Chris Zimmerman, the guy who’d made the rape case against Cary in 1987, around the same time I went to knock on Cary Hartmann’s door. Zimmerman told me he believes Cary’s paid his debt to society and deserves a chance to prove he’s a changed man. Zimmerman’s position surprised me. He’s not someone I expected would show Cary much sympathy. Zimmerman’s notes and reports include a lot of detail about what Cary reportedly did to his suspected victims back in the ‘80s. I haven’t shared all of what’s in them, mostly to avoid being salacious and to protect the innocent from additional trauma.
Zimmerman declined my request for an on-the-record interview, but I shared what he told me with former Roy police detective Jack Bell, the original investigator on Sheree Warren’s disappearance.
Jack Bell:What Zimmerman said about him doing his time is true. Because he has done more time for the rapes than he would for a manslaughter.
Dave Cawley:Cary’d spent 32 years in prison, more than double the 15-year minimum on his sentence. Over the course of this season, we’ve heard how the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole kept Cary in for a few reasons. They included Cary’s own refusal to accept responsibility for what he’d done.
Heather Nelson Cooke (from January 17, 1992 parole board recording):There is tremendous repression and denial going on. So strongly … that therapy would be completely a waste of time until there’s a change of, of your perception.
Dave Cawley:The parole board had at times feared Cary might revert to his past behaviors. And there was the matter of Cary’s possible involvement in the disappearance of Sheree Warren. But in the end, the parole board decided to send Cary back out into society. Jack Bell told me he doesn’t believe Cary Hartmann’s squared his debts.
Jack Bell:No I don’t feel like he’s done his time.
Dave Cawley:I also asked former Weber County Attorney Reed Richards, the prosecutor who’d first put Cary away, if he believes Cary’s paid his debts.
Reed Richards:Well, that’s an interesting discussion and I don’t know that I have an opinion on it.
Dave Cawley:Reed said he’d felt surprised, not that the parole board let Cary out, but instead that it kept Cary in as long as it did.
Dave Cawley (to Reed Richards):Why so? Tell me—
Reed Richards:Well, because it was 15-to-life. So generally people were doing 15 years and getting out. But I can say that if he had been convicted the same time of homicide and the rape cases, he probably wouldn’t have spent any more time than he spent.
Dave Cawley:You could make an argument Cary’s already received punishment for a crime he’s not been charged with. Would that mean Cary no longer bears responsibility, if he killed Sheree Warren?
Reed Richards:And I guess the other question is what would a court do with it anyway? Y’know, if you were to convict him now, he’s probably what, 75 or so?
Dave Cawley:Cary is 74 years old, at the time I’m recording this.
Reed Richards:Yeah. So what are they gonna do with him?
Dave Cawley:If prosecutors today charged Cary Hartmann with Sheree Warren’s murder based on the evidence at hand, and if that case went to trial and you ended up on the jury, odds are you wouldn’t hear a word about lingerie survey phone calls, the Ogden City Rapist investigation or the lies Cary told to the parole board over the years. Courts operate under rules of evidence. Those rules spell out what kind of information prosecutors can use to try and prove their case. The stuff I just mentioned would likely not be allowed, because it doesn’t directly tie in to Sheree Warren’s disappearance. And even if it did, a judge might still not allow it because of the risk it could prejudice the jury against Cary. This explains why the Weber County Attorney’s Office offered Cary Hartmann immunity. They were willing to give up on ever charging Cary, if it meant they might recover Sheree’s remains, for her family.
Reed Richards:Like with any person who’s lost a loved one, to have the body and know where the grave is pretty important. So yeah, I think there’s value in doing that even if you don’t prosecute.
Dave Cawley:But as we heard, Cary rejected the immunity offer.
Reed Richards:I’m not sure where you go at this point, unless you find the body somewhere. Umm, and even if you find the body, that doesn’t necessarily tell you who killed her.
Dave Cawley:That would depend on where. We have two likely suspects: Chuck Warren or Cary Hartmann. Finding Sheree Warren’s remains somewhere in the desert partway between Ogden and Las Vegas wouldn’t directly tie her death to either of them. On the other hand, finding Sheree’s remains buried in the back yard of Chuck’s house would clearly point toward him. Finding her remains on the mountain behind Causey Reservoir would point to Cary.
Most of my attention has so far focused on Causey, because we have a confluence of evidence all pointing that direction: it’s near where Cary Hartmann lured Heidi Posnien at the start of our story. It’s where his friends owned land and liked to hunt. It’s where the elk hunting guide Fred Johns spotted Cary four days after Sheree disappeared. And it’s where an anonymous caller reported finding a woman’s body…
Anonymous caller (from April 3, 1987 dispatch recording):I’m reporting a body that I found.
Dave Cawley:…remains that to this day have not been located. Let’s imagine that changed. Pretend somebody found Sheree’s remains on the mountain behind Causey, where the elk hunting guide sighted Cary Hartmann. How would we then interpret everything we’ve learned so far this season?
I’m now going to walk you through a step-by-step of what Sheree Warren’s murder could’ve looked like, based on the evidence and witness testimony we’ve gathered. There are gaps, which I will bridge with some speculation. Keep in mind: I’m not saying this is what did happen, I’m saying it’s one possible explanation of what could’ve happened.
On the evening of October 2nd, 1985, Sheree Warren walked out of an office building in Salt Lake City. She told Richard Moss, the man she’d been training, she was headed to Wagstaff Toyota to pick up her estranged husband.
Richard Moss:It was about 6:25 that we finally balanced and left the office. We got to the parking lot, she went to the west. I went north.
Dave Cawley:But Sheree’s husband, Chuck Warren, wasn’t waiting for her at Wagstaff. He’d changed his plans at the last minute and decided not to take his Toyota Supra from his home in Ogden to the dealership in Salt Lake City.
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):I remember calling her to tell her I wasn’t coming.
Dave Cawley:Around that same time, Cary Hartmann dropped in at his friend Dave Moore’s shop in Ogden. Cary suggested they go grab a couple drinks at a bar across the way. Cary and Dave spent a couple hours at the bar, from about 6 to between 8 and 9 p.m. So Cary was at the bar when Sheree left her work 40 miles south in Salt Lake City.
Sheree would’ve headed toward Ogden, either straight from work or after realizing Chuck wasn’t waiting for her at Wagstaff Toyota. Given the drive time, Sheree would’ve arrived in the Ogden area around 7:30 p.m. at the earliest. Her daily routine was to meet Chuck at the Denny’s restaurant just off the I-15 freeway in Roy. But she’d been late getting out of work, so I don’t know if she would’ve gone there or not on this particular night. She didn’t have a cell phone, making it difficult to change plans on the fly. Chuck wasn’t at that Denny’s, in any case. He later told police he’d gone out for that “jog.”
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Uh, yeah. Yeah, I was out jogging. That’s what I was doing.
Dave Cawley:Maybe Sheree stopped at the Denny’s in Roy looking for Chuck. We know she didn’t go home because her mom, Mary Sorensen, said Sheree never showed up for dinner. Everything I’ve heard about Sheree suggests her top priority would’ve been picking up her son. So I believe she would’ve headed toward Chuck’s house. If you today ask your phone for directions from Roy to Chuck’s house in Ogden, it will route you up Ogden’s 7th Street. That’s where Cary Hartmann lived at the time.
Give a little more drive time to get from Roy to Ogden and we see Sheree could’ve driven past Cary’s basement apartment around 8 p.m. or a little after. That’s around the same time Cary’s friend Dave Moore told me they’d left the bar, meaning Cary could’ve already been home by the time Sheree hypothetically drove past his place. She could’ve seen his yellow truck parked in the driveway at the top of the stairs that lead down into the basement.
The two women who’d lived above Cary, the teachers Kaye Lynn and Mary, later told police they believed Sheree’d stopped there that night. They told detective John Frawley they’d overheard a loud argument.
John Frawley:And the argument was Sheree had found out Cary Hartmann was dating someone else. And then during this argument they heard a loud thud. And then Cary Hartmann cusses and then they don’t hear anything after that.
Dave Cawley:Cary had a history of using physical force against his romantic partners. He outweighed Sheree by at least 50 pounds. It’s possible a single blow could’ve knocked her unconscious or even killed her. I can imagine Cary then in a panic, wondering who else knew Sheree was at his place.
Sheree’s mom, Mary Sorensen, told police Cary’d called her at around 8 p.m. Cary’d asked where Sheree was. She told Cary Sheree’d intended to meet Chuck at the car dealership, then come home for dinner. But Sheree hadn’t showed up yet. As far as we know, Mary didn’t say anything to Cary about Sheree having plans to stop off at Cary’s apartment that night. So Cary would’ve presumably known he was safe, at least for a little while.
After hanging up with Mary, Cary could’ve wrapped Sheree in his black parka before taking her up the stairs from the basement apartment and placing her in his truck. Where to then? He would’ve needed somewhere dark and remote. Maybe Lost Creek, where Cary’d spent time deer hunting with his brother and cop buddies in the past. Lost Creek was an hour-and-a-half drive away, most of it on the interstate. Too far, and too risky. How about Causey? The secluded confines of Causey Estates were only 45 minutes from Ogden. The route, along Utah state highway 39, wound through dark canyons. And Cary knew his way around Causey Estates. He’d spent time there with friends, like the taxidermist Brent Morgan.
Brent Morgan:And, uh, there’s a locked gate.
Dave Cawley:Brent just happened to have loaned Cary his key to the gate at Causey Estates a couple of weeks earlier.
Dave Cawley (to Brent Morgan):Once he’s past the gate to get into Causey Estates, he can go up top.
Brent Morgan:That’s correct.
Dave Cawley:Ok.
Brent Morgan:That’s correct.
Dave Cawley:There’s no proof Cary visited Causey Estates on the night of Sheree’s disappearance. This is speculative and you should treat it with due skepticism. I don’t think it’s likely Cary would’ve spent too long at Causey Estates, if he’d gone there that night. It’s not likely he would’ve gone all the way up the mountain, because in this hypothetical scenario, Sheree’s car would’ve still been sitting on the street outside his place in Ogden. Every second it remained there, he would’ve been exposed. He would’ve needed a quick but safe drop site.
Brent Morgan:The thing you gotta understand about Cary is, he’s lazy, y’know, he’s not gonna do anything that’s too hard.
Dave Cawley:Cary’d spent the first part of that evening at the bar with his friend Dave Moore and Dave had owned a lot in Causey Estates at the time.
Dave Cawley (to Dave Moore):Pretty quiet back in those days?
Dave Moore:It was. Real quiet.
Dave Cawley:Cary would’ve known Dave’s lot at Causey Estates was unoccupied that night, making it a safe place to temporarily stash Sheree. Cary could’ve driven from his apartment in Ogden to Dave Moore’s lot in Causey Estates and been back home before 11 p.m.
Sheree’s mom, Mary Sorensen, told police she’d received a second call from Cary on the night of Sheree’s disappearance between 10 and 11. He’d again asked if Sheree’d made it home. Mary’d said no. In this hypothetical scenario, Cary could’ve made this second call to Mary Sorensen after returning from dropping Sheree’s body, using it to bolster his story: he hadn’t seen Sheree at all that night.
Next, Cary would’ve needed to get rid of Sheree’s car. He would’ve taken her keys and gone out to her Toyota Corolla.
Chuck Warren liked to go to Las Vegas. He’d honeymooned there, more than once. His brother told me Chuck’d gone to Vegas regularly. It seems plausible Sheree might’ve shared that detail with Cary. If so, it’s conceivable Cary might’ve chosen to take Sheree’s car to Vegas as part of an effort to frame Chuck. If Cary’d driven through the night he could’ve arrived in Las Vegas just before sunrise. A quick jog to the airport, a false name at the ticket counter and a breeze through the pre-9/11 security process could’ve put Cary on a plane and back in Salt Lake City by 9:30 a.m.
He would’ve then needed to get from Salt Lake to Ogden. A taxi cab’s one possibility, but I don’t think someone sneaking home from dumping murder evidence in another state would want to leave a random cab driver as a witness, if it could be avoided. A trusted friend or relative seems more likely to me, but to my knowledge no one’s ever come forward to say they picked Cary up at the airport. That’s one major hole in this hypothetical scenario.
Sheree’s mom, Mary Sorensen, reported her daughter missing to Roy police around noon on October 3rd, the day after Sheree’s disappearance. Her report landed on the desk of detective Jack Bell. Jack’d first tried to get ahold of Chuck Warren but couldn’t find him. Jack’d then turned his attention to Cary, placing a call to Cary around 2:30 p.m. Cary would later claim he called Jack, not the other way around. Cary said he made that call from work, but his timecard told a different story. It said Cary’d taken that day off. In any case, Cary’d arrived at Roy police headquarters around 2:45. He’d told Jack he’d gone to the bar with his friend Dave Moore the prior evening. Cary’d said he hadn’t realized Sheree was missing until that morning, when he’d supposedly talked to her mom on the phone. This contradicted what Mary Sorensen described, about getting two phone calls from Cary the night prior.
In this first interaction between Cary Hartmann and Jack Bell, Cary didn’t say Sheree was supposed to be waiting for him at his basement apartment while Cary was at the bar. That implausible story came later.
The first newspaper report of Sheree’s disappearance published the next day — Friday — two days after Sheree was last seen leaving her work. Cary’s upstairs neighbors saw the article, and recalled the loud fight they’d heard. One of them, Mary, taped a sympathy note to Cary’s door. Cary responded by grilling Mary about whether she’d seen Sheree at the house at any point during the last couple days.
Kira Hoffelmeyer (as Mary Courney from May 13, 1987 statement):He had been so convincing about how he felt about losing her.
Dave Cawley:Those are Mary’s words from her written statement, read by a voice actor.
Kira Hoffelmeyer (as Mary Courney from May 13, 1987 statement):He told us at that time that he was sure it was her ex-husband.
Dave Cawley:The next day, on Saturday — three days after Sheree was last seen — Cary dropped by the home of his TV reporter friend, Larry Lewis. He asked Larry to go on a 3-wheeler ride looking for Sheree’s body. They’d taken the 3-wheelers into the foothills above the city. Larry would later say Cary’d said they didn’t need to look around Chuck Warren’s house because police had already done that, which wasn’t true.
Cary’d showed up at gatherings after Sheree disappeared, where her family prayed for her safe return. Detective Shane Minor had talked to people who said Cary’d claimed to be spending all his time searching for Sheree and handing out missing persons fliers.
Shane Minor:But then the question is, is he really, or is that just he wants people to believe?
Dave Cawley:He did pass some of the fliers around, to his friends and even his own brother, but remember, Cary’s upstairs neighbors ended up finding a full box of those fliers abandoned in his closet after he moved out, a year following Sheree’s disappearance.
Shane Minor:It seems like that would be pretty common. You would hear one side from Cary on what he’s doing, who he’s doing it with and everything they’re doing but then when you’d talk to the person he’s referring to, they’d describe it as quite a bit different, like none of that was taking place.
Dave Cawley:If Cary had left Sheree Warren’s body at Causey Estates on the night of her disappearance, he might’ve felt nervous in the days that followed, as he put on this ruse of searching for her. It was opening weekend of the annual elk hunt. Cary would’ve known many of the cabin owners of Causey Estates would be headed up the mountain. Cary might’ve decided to move Sheree deeper into the backcountry. It’s a theory his former friend, the taxidermist Brent Morgan, told me makes sense.
Brent Morgan:If he had access up there and could go up and down the roads, you can find the right place where you can 1-2-3 heave-ho and it’s gonna be in a spot where people aren’t gonna go.
Dave Cawley (to Brent Morgan):But it’s gotta be a place that he can—
Brent Morgan:Get to.
Dave Cawley:—hypothetically get a body to, right?
Brent Morgan:That’s exactly right. And there are places up there where roads go to those type of areas. But it’s a big area.
Dave Cawley:Cary at this time still possessed the key for the gate at Causey Estates he’d borrowed from Brent. Back in episode 4, Brent told us he’d tried to get his key back, but Cary’d dodged him for days, not wanting to return it. So Cary could’ve gone back to Causey Estates early on Sunday, October 6th — four days after Sheree disappeared — with his ugly yellow truck and another man. A man who resembled his younger brother, Jack. Because this is when the elk hunting guide, Fred Johns, would later say he saw Cary Hartmann trespassing on private property.
Cary could’ve retrieved Sheree’s body from Causey Estates and driven farther up onto the mountain behind Causey, to the middle of nowhere. Cary might’ve backed his truck into some trees off the side of the primitive dirt road. It would’ve provided cover as he transferred his his payload from the back of his truck to one of his 3-wheelers. From there, Cary might’ve gone off into the brush until he found a protected, private place to once again abandon Sheree’s body, this time for good.
Back in episode 4, we met a former Weber County Sheriff’s detective named Rod Layton. He’d led the search for the anonymous caller who reported finding a body near Causey.
Rod Layton:I was the lieutenant over investigations division when I left.
Dave Cawley:Rod told me in his experience, most crimes, and most criminals, are not complicated.
Rod Layton:Don’t give these people more credit than they deserve for being smart or being motivated ‘cause they’re not.
Dave Cawley:Rod said this same logic applies to killers who try to cover their crime by concealing the victim’s body. They tend to act irrationally, out of fear.
Rod Layton:And they’re not smart and they’re lazy.
Dave Cawley:This assumption is common in law enforcement circles, and for good reason. It keeps investigators from wasting time on fantastical theories. Keep it simple.
Rod Layton:Do I think that this guy went up there, y’know, carried the body back a mile? No.
Dave Cawley:But the assumption might break down if your suspected killer is a person who knows this is how cops tend to think. A person with police training. A person who knows to take that one bit of extra effort. So I’m going to challenge Rod’s assumption here, because evidence suggests Cary Hartmann had the training, the means and the mindset to be an exception to the rule.
We’ve now explored a hypothetical scenario involving Cary killing Sheree, then later enlisting the help of an accomplice to move Sheree’s body to a place it wouldn’t be found on the mountain behind Causey.
Moving a body is not a trivial task. I wasn’t sure if the 3-wheeled ATVs Cary owned in 1985 would’ve been up to the job. If the answer is no, the whole hypothetical falls apart. If the answer is yes, it suggests Sheree’s remains could be on that mountain today, in a place where no one’s yet bothered to look.
I decided to buy a 3-wheeler and conduct an experiment. I wanted to know if it was feasible for someone to use a machine like the ones Cary Hartmann had owned to move a body off-road, into the backcountry behind Causey. But first, some context. Three-wheeled ATVs hit the market at the start of the ‘70s. By the ‘80s, they were exploding in popularity.
Announcer (from 1981 Honda TV advertisement):Eleven years ago, Honda invented the ATC 3-wheeler and ever since, folks have been inventing new ways to use it.
Dave Cawley:Many hunters today will quarter a deer and haul it out of the forest on a four-wheeler. But I didn’t know if that would’ve been so simple with a more primitive 3-wheeler. Vintage 3-wheelers are narrower, weigh less and are more maneuverable than four-wheelers. People took them everywhere, cutting new trails and ripping up vegetation.
Richard Bingham (from February 24, 1986 KSL TV archive):It’s mainly the small all-terrain-cycles or ATCs that are at the heart of the problem. Popular with kids and adults alike, they’re fun to ride and go almost anywhere. They’re also dangerous.
Dave Cawley:Most 3-wheelers didn’t have suspension, meaning they couldn’t carry much weight and were rough to ride. They also had a tendency to tip, causing injuries or death. That’s why manufacturers stopped making them in 1987. But you can still buy old ones second-hand, which is what I did.
Former South Ogden police detective Terry Carpenter, who I met while working on the Joyce Yost case in season 2 of this podcast, was able to secure permission for me to access the private land on the mountain between Causey and Lost Creek Reservoirs: the slash in the percent sign. Terry and I met at Lost Creek one morning in July of 2022. I unrolled a large map of the area across the tailgate of Terry’s truck.
Dave Cawley (to Terry Carpenter):’Kay. So we’re going to come up Killfoil all the way up to the corral, right?
Terry Carpenter:Right.
Dave Cawley:Then we’re going to hang a left.
Dave Cawley:Our target established, we headed up the mountain. Terry had the key to open the gate.
(Sound of chain rattling and metal gate hinges)
Dave Cawley:It was a long ride, nearly 15 miles one-way from Lost Creek. We came to the spot on the mountain where Fred Johns, the elk hunting guide, had told police he saw Cary Hartmann and another man — possibly Cary’s younger brother Jack — on the Sunday after Sheree Warren disappeared. Terry Carpenter and I stepped out into the clearing on the ridge.
(Sound of bird song)
Dave Cawley:Standing there in the summer sun, I tried to imagine what reason Cary might’ve had for coming to this isolated spot four days after his girlfriend vanished. He’d reportedly told Fred Johns, the hunting guide, he was looking for elk. But as we’ve heard from Cary’s own brother…
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):What did he hunt, to the best of your—
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Deer.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):—present recollection. Just deer?
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Just deer.
Dave Cawley:So was Cary stalking elk or had he harbored more sinister intentions? To test whether an old 3-wheeler could’ve carried a human body from this roadside clearing deeper into the forest, I needed an object similar in size, shape and weight. I pulled three bags of rock salt out of Terry’s truck. Each one weighed 40 pounds. I spread a set of painter’s coveralls on the dirt, then poured the 120 pounds of rock salt into the coveralls through a zippered opening on the chest.
Dave Cawley (from July 1, 2021 recording):(Grunts)
(Sound of salt pouring)
Dave Cawley:Sheree’s driver’s license listed her as five-foot-five and 115 pounds.
Dave Cawley (from July 1, 2021 recording):So this is about as much as a human body would weigh: 120 pounds of rock salt. And it is not easy to move.
Dave Cawley:Terry and I lifted the simulated body onto the rack mounted on the back of my 3-wheeler.
Dave Cawley (from July 1, 2021 recording):One, two, three.
Dave Cawley:I’m a reasonably fit guy but this task felt more difficult than I’d anticipated…
Dave Cawley (to Terry Carpenter):I’ll come around this side. You got it?
Dave Cawley:…not just because of the weight. The simulated body proved unwieldy.
Dave Cawley (from July 1, 2021 recording):Ok. That is a two-person job. You are not doing that alone.
Dave Cawley:I’ve never moved an actual deceased human body, so I’m not sure how well this approximated reality. But a second set of hands made a huge difference. I’m not sure I could’ve managed on my own. With the simulated body in place, I fired up the 3-wheeler’s small engine and headed down the dirt road.
Having so much additional weight over the rear axle took pressure off the single front tire, which in turn made steering less effective. The engine felt sluggish. The rear tires rubbed on the plastic fenders. But the frame didn’t bottom out. And with enough extra throttle, the 3-wheeler did go.
I rode about a quarter mile to a place where I knew from my research an old Jeep trail forked off from the road. Maps from the ‘80s show the trail descending into a canyon called Pete Nelson Hollow. This was one of the places I believed it was plausible Cary Hartmann might’ve gone on that Sunday so many years ago. It appeared evident the Jeep trail hadn’t seen use in a long time. Trees had fallen across the path and the underbrush had reclaimed the old tire tracks. I decided not to try and ride down it myself, because of the risk of getting stuck. Instead, I scouted the old trail on foot.
Dave Cawley (from July 1, 2021 recording):This would be a pretty tough path to get a 3-wheeler down. You could do it, but you’d need to be a pretty good rider. And with the extra weight from a body, it would not be a fun ride.
Dave Cawley:That might’ve been different in 1985, when the path wasn’t so overgrown. The old ATV trail ended at a set of springs, where water rose out of the ground and created a series of murky pools. These springs feed into Causey Reservoir. They were surrounded by thick fields of a poisonous plant called false hellebore. I crashed through it…
(Sound of footsteps through underbrush)
Dave Cawley:…finding it so dense I couldn’t see down past my own waist.
Dave Cawley (from July 1, 2021 recording):You might walk by a human body in this kind of environment and be 10 feet away from it and not ever see it.
Dave Cawley:Emerging on the other side of the hellebore patch, I saw meadows of dandelions and clear views farther down into the canyon. If I’d been on the 3-wheeler, I could’ve easily kept riding.
Dave Cawley (from July 1, 2021 recording):It’s hard to describe without being up here and seeing this landscape just how futile it feels if you were trying to find a human body up here.
Dave Cawley:Still, I found myself getting sucked into the moment. I wanted to abandon my experiment and instead wander, searching for Sheree. I knew the odds of finding anything were slim. But irrational hope sometimes leads the mind astray. What if, I wondered, I just happened across a chip of bone or fragment of cloth? Some remnant. But no. No delusions of grandeur. I hiked back to the 3-wheeler with a newfound knowledge of what I’d only suspected before: human remains could easily go undetected in these mountain meadows.
Dave Cawley (from July 1, 2021 recording):And it’s possible, I believe, somebody could have driven a 3-wheeler down from the ridge into this opening.
Dave Cawley:If Cary Hartmann killed Sheree Warren, my experiment suggests it’s plausible he could’ve used one of his 3-wheelers to move her body into the backcountry on this mountain, beyond where police might bother to look. But maybe there’s another explanation for what Cary was doing here, four days after Sheree Warren disappeared. It’s a question I would very much like to ask him. And Cary, if you’re listening, you have an open invitation to come give your answer.
[Ad break]
Dave Cawley:When I first met former Roy police detective Jack Bell, we didn’t start off talking about the Sheree Warren case. Instead, Jack opened our conversation by talking about another case I wasn’t familiar with from the mid-‘80s.
Jack Bell:(Laughs) It’s a, a strange story. We had a, we had a serial bank robber.
Dave Cawley:This robber had committed hold-ups at a few banks and a pharmacy. He was a smooth operator, who’d worn a suit and trench coat. He didn’t make the ignorant mistakes many novice criminals do.
Jack Bell:We knew, had a pretty good hunch that this bank robber was an ex-cop, or a cop, y’know? He knew too much about how we did business.
Dave Cawley:Detectives hadn’t had much to go on aside from a photo that didn’t show the man’s face and a brief audio recording of his voice. Jack’d began to look — and listen — suspiciously at his fellow officers. He honed in on one particular guy he often saw working out at the city’s gym. One day, Jack made a surreptitious tape recording of this suspect.
Jack Bell:Taped this guy and turned it over to the FBI and their voice comparisons and, yeah. “I think you’re on the right track, this is, sure sounds like it.”
Dave Cawley:Jack’d grown more and more certain he had his man. But he had no evidence to support that, just a theory.
Jack Bell:Lo and behold.
Dave Cawley:The guy from the gym was not the bank robber. Jack’d been wrong. Hard evidence, including a confession, ended up pointing to a different guy, a former Roy City police officer named Boyd Wilcox.
Jack Bell:And his voice was perfect.
Dave Cawley:I didn’t at first understand why Jack wanted me to know about the mistake he’d made in the search for this bank robber, since it was unrelated to the disappearance of Sheree Warren. It wasn’t until more than two hours later in our conversation Jack came back to it.
Jack Bell:It’s like I told you about that bank robber. I mean, I left that gym that day convinced I had the right guy.
Dave Cawley:Jack was trying to warn me: be careful about what you think you know. Don’t let your theories get too far in front of your facts. The hypothetical scenario we’ve discussed in this episode probably does that. It requires some assumptions that go beyond the available evidence.
Jack Bell:You’ve gotta be broad. You can’t narrow it down, unless there’s absolutely evidence that somebody is guilty and it’s right there.
Dave Cawley:But narrow it down is exactly what Jack’d done at the start of the Sheree Warren case. He’d focused so much attention on Sheree’s estranged husband, Chuck Warren, he hadn’t seen the subtle signs Cary Hartmann might instead be responsible. Jack and I have talked several more times since our first meeting. He’s admitted he loses sleep after each of our conversations.
Jack Bell:None of us like to fail. And I feel like I failed.
Dave Cawley:Jack hadn’t at first noticed how Cary’s story shifted a little with each retelling.
Jack Bell:All Cary’s stories about her waiting there for him with candles and wine.
Dave Cawley:Jack hadn’t caught the significance of Cary slipping in references to Sheree staying over at his place in the middle of the week, even though that contradicted what Sheree’s parents said about her routine.
Jack Bell:He wants everybody to know this is her normal procedure and how much this lady’s in love with him, supposedly.
Dave Cawley:Cary’d made repeated references to Sheree wearing his black parka on the morning of her disappearance, but Jack hadn’t picked up on the potential significance of that. I’ll admit, that one’s not super obvious. It hadn’t seemed suspicious until police later found a gray suede women’s jacket in Cary’s apartment. It’s the “tale of two coats” we’ve discussed multiple times this season. And it leaves Jack wondering what other clues might’ve slipped under his nose during those critical early days.
Jack Bell:What did I miss? What did I miss? What did I miss? How many times have I asked myself that question?
Dave Cawley:Former Ogden police detective Shane Minor shared a similar sentiment with me, when we spoke about the search for Sheree.
Shane Minor:You’d hate to miss it and there’s been cases where I’ve worked and I’ve missed things and then you go back and when you realize what you missed, it’s like “I won’t make that mistake again.”
Dave Cawley (to Shane Minor):Do you think this case is solvable?
Shane Minor:I think it’s a long shot but, hate to say it’s not. I think there’s a chance.
Dave Cawley:What would solving it look like? Is it just getting the answer? Is it getting a conviction? Is it finding a body?
Shane Minor:Well, my opinion on that would be, I think it’s solvable but an effective prosecution I think would be extremely difficult at this point in time.
Dave Cawley:We might someday get a definitive answer to the question “what happened to Sheree Warren.” But the window of opportunity to hold anyone accountable is rapidly closing.
Consider what might happen if a prosecutor were to try and charge Cary Hartmann with murder today, based on the current evidence. They would first have to clear the hurdle of convincing a judge probable cause existed to believe Cary committed the crime. The circumstantial evidence we’ve uncovered in this podcast likely achieves that. But it’s not likely to meet the higher standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt required for a criminal conviction.
In the U.S. justice system, the accused are presumed innocent unless and until they’re proven guilty. It’s up to the prosecution to present that proof. It doesn’t have to be absolute proof, but it must be enough to convince a judge or jury no other reasonable explanation exists. Apply that standard to what we know of Sheree Warren’s disappearance. Could a serial killer have abducted Sheree off the streets of Salt Lake City? Unlikely, but not impossible. That’s doubt, but maybe not reasonable doubt. Could Chuck Warren have killed Sheree in anger over their stalled divorce? Maybe he set up their meeting at Wagstaff Toyota as part of a plot. That’s doubt, and it’s reasonable, given what we know about how Chuck attacked his first wife with a tire iron during their divorce.
Convincing a judge or jury beyond a reasonable doubt Chuck Warren or Cary Hartmann killed Sheree would require more than just good a theory. It would take hard proof. Investigator Shane Minor spent years trying to find that proof.
Dave Cawley (to Shane Minor):I’m not going to ask you to say a name but do you feel like you know who is responsible in this case?
Shane Minor:I think so. I think there’s one person knows exactly what happened. And I don’t think that person’s gonna admit to it. Maybe on his dying death bed. But I doubt it.
Dave Cawley:I don’t think Shane was talking about Chuck Warren. Sheree’s ex-husband Charles “Chuck” Warren died on October 22nd, 2022, as a result of his dementia. Chuck’d lived most his life in Ogden, aside from a brief stint in Roseville, California during the ‘70s, working for the railroad. He had one brother, Richard, but they hadn’t been close for much of Chuck’s life. They only reconciled in Chuck’s later years. Richard told me Chuck’d been a car nut, whose favorite pastime had been taking long road trips all across the American West.
Chuck Warren’s death occurred very late in the reporting process for this podcast. It underscored to me Sheree Warren’s case runs a very real risk of soon becoming unsolvable. Earlier in this episode, you heard Sheree’s dad, Ed Sorensen, say he didn’t think he would ever know the truth of what happened to his daughter. Ed was right. He passed away in December of 2021.
John Frawley:People involved in the case are passing away. That’s, that’s happening.
Dave Cawley:That’s again the voice of Roy police detective John Frawley.
John Frawley:So yes, I, the clock is ticking, absolutely.
Dave Cawley:At the time I’m recording this, Cary Hartmann is still alive. He is the last man standing. And the evidence suggests Cary has never been fully forthcoming about his actions during the days surrounding Sheree Warren’s disappearance. Detective John Frawley told me he’s not giving up, but he needs our help.
John Frawley:If someone interacted with Sheree Warren, Cary Hartmann or Charles Warren on October 2nd, 1985 and maybe they haven’t spoken to law enforcement, I would love to speak to them. Our ultimate goal is, y’know, getting a case filed and prosecution.
Dave Cawley:My job as a journalist is a bit different than a detective’s, or a prosecutor’s or a judge’s. I’m not trying to make an arrest, to prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt, or to decide guilt or innocence under the law. My role is to uncover and report truth. So as we bring our story to a close, allow me to share the truth I’ve found while investigating Sheree Warren’s case.
As I speak to you now, I’m looking at a picture of Sheree from 1970 or so, when she was about 10 years old. Sheree is staring into the camera lens. I see youthful curiosity and determination in her eyes. Sheree’s life held so much potential. She grew up and was just finding her own path when someone stole that life from her.
I’ve had a few people say to me “boy, Sheree sure knew how to pick ‘em” or “she had poor taste in men,” as if her murder was somehow her own fault. We have to stop doing that. Stop putting the blame on women when they’re lied to, manipulated or abused by the people who are supposed to love them.
More than half of the women who die by homicide in the United States each year are killed by a man who’s either their current or past intimate partner. Sheree had both a current partner and a past partner who became plausible suspects in her death. So I can’t tell you who killed Sheree, but I can say she’s not responsible for the heartless actions of the two men in her life. Sheree’s estranged husband, Chuck Warren, should’ve shown a bare minimum of human concern about her welfare. But he didn’t. He acted as if her disappearance came as a favor.
Sheree’s short-term boyfriend, Cary Hartmann, role-played the part of a respectable man while steering the investigation away from himself and terrorizing an entire community of unsuspecting women. We can only imagine what he subjected Sheree to during their brief time together.
Abuse in relationships doesn’t always lead to murder, but there are stories like Sheree’s where everything escalates until there’s no coming back.
The search for Sheree Warren had sat cold for nearly a decade. But an unexpected discovery reignited the investigation at the start of 2015. A man walking his dog along a busy Utah highway spotted a human skull in a patch of oak brush.
Deputies from the Davis County Sheriff’s Office responded to the site and soon located a shallow grave at the top of a nearby hill. From it, they recovered the skeletal remains of an unidentified woman.
The discovery led to police across northern Utah reviewing their cold case files, looking to see if the Jane Doe might be one of their missing people. A detective in the city of Roy named John Frawley did the same. He took a dusty box of Sheree Warren case files off a shelf and began to read.
“I just became fascinated with it,” John Frawley said in an interview for COLD. “I felt like there was more I could do on it.”
Roy City police detective John Frawley talks about missing woman Sheree Warren, who disappeared from Salt Lake City, Utah on Oct. 2, 1985.
John met with Sheree’s family to collect DNA for comparison purposes. He learned Sheree’s mom, Mary Sorensen, had died just shy of two years earlier.
“What we’re driven for is to get the family some answers,” John said.
Remains identified
Detective John Frawley only had the Sheree Warren case for a few weeks before the Utah Bureau of Forensic Services obtained a dental record match on the unidentified remains. The bones did not belong to Sheree Warren.
Instead, the remains located alongside U.S. Highway 89 were those of Theresa Greaves. Like Sheree, Theresa had disappeared in the 1980s. Police had long suspected she’d been murdered, but no suspects were ever identified.
For Roy police and the Sheree Warren investigation, the news came as another in a long line of setbacks. John’s supervisor told him he could return the box of old case files to the records department. But John wasn’t ready to give up on the case and soon discovered he had an ally.
In March of 2015, Roy City hired Carl Merino to serve as chief of police. Merino told his detective to forge ahead with the Sheree Warren investigation.
“That’s what I wanted to do,” John said.
Interviewing Sheree Warren’s ex-husband
The initial investigation of Sheree’s disappearance on Oct. 2, 1985 had fallen on the shoulders of a detective named Jack Bell. By 2015, Bell was on the road to retirement. But John Frawley studied Jack’s notes and reports. He learned Jack had initially suspected Sheree’s estranged husband, Charles “Chuck” Warren, might’ve killed her.
Jack Bell told COLD he’d interviewed Chuck Warren one time, but Chuck stopped cooperating once he was asked to submit to a polygraph examination.
Former Roy police detective Jack Bell describes Charles “Chuck” Warren’s story about the day Warren’s estranged wife, Sheree Warren, disappeared on Oct. 2, 1985. Bell conducted a Charles Warren interview on Oct. 4, 1985.
John Frawley felt the time had come to try and interview Chuck Warren again. So, on June 23, 2015, John went to speak with Chuck at his home on the eastern end of Hudson Street in Ogden. He was met at the door by Chuck Warren’s wife, Willow Hendricks.
COLD obtained an audio recording of the interview John conducted. What follows is a transcript of the Charles Warren interview.
June 23, 2015 interview transcript
John Frawley:Hi, how are you?
Willow Hendricks:Good.
John Frawley:Good, can I come in?
Willow Hendricks:(Laughs)
John Frawley:(Laughs)
Willow Hendricks:I’m assuming you’re the detective?
John Frawley:Yeah, I am. My name’s John. John Frawley. Nice to meet you.
Willow Hendricks:Nice to meet you. He was just getting his shirt buttoned up.
John Frawley:Awesome.
Willow Hendricks:Come on in, Chuck.(Cat meows) What? No, you’re not going outside. (Cat meows) But, yeah? You’re not going outside. No. (Unintelligible)
(Willow in next room with Chuck, before Chuck enters)
John Frawley:Hello.
Charles Warren:Hey (unintelligible).
John Frawley:Doing well.
Charles Warren:(Unintelligible)
John Frawley:Oh, you’re fine, sir. My name’s John Frawley. I’m one of the detectives in Roy.
Charles Warren:Uh huh.
John Frawley:Appreciate your time, appreciate you letting me come over and talk to you. Uh, is, is there somewhere we could talk for a couple minutes?
Charles Warren:Sure.
John Frawley:It’s your house, I’ll follow you.
Charles Warren:Go where?
Willow Hendricks:I’d say go to the front room. (Laughs)
John Frawley:(Laughs)
Willow Hendricks:It’s the cleanest house, the cleanest room in the house.
Charles Warren:Ok. Come on and sit down.
John Frawley:Thanks.
Charles Warren:Oh.
John Frawley:Should I call you Charles or—
Charles Warren:Sure.
John Frawley:‘Kay. I’ll just put my radio over there ‘cause, in case somebody calls me on it.
Charles Warren:Ok.
Charles Warren interview: Jack Bell’s notes
John Frawley:Umm, so uh, I’m here to talk to you. I’ve just, I was assigned a case a few months ago. Umm, Sheree Warren. Umm, what’d happened is, uh, some remains were found in Davis County. I don’t know if you saw that on the news or not.
Charles Warren:I didn’t.
John Frawley:Ok. It came down to, umm, a few different possibilities. Umm, and anytime something like that happens a lot of old cases are kind of re-opened and so the case was assigned to me. Umm, and I read through it and, uh, these, what they’d found turned out to be someone, y’know, obviously someone else but the case is reopened and, umm, I read through it and was wanting to know if I can just talk to you and help me answer some questions and clear some things up. I know that you’d talked to, (noise) umm, detective Bell, what, that was about 30, not quite 30 years ago but—
Charles Warren:Damn near.
John Frawley:(Laughs)
Charles Warren:Yeah.
John Frawley:Yeah.
Charles Warren:I—
John Frawley:And so, yeah. Go ahead Charles.
Charles Warren:I, (laughs), his notes would probably be the best source.
John Frawley:(Laughs)
Charles Warren:I, I uh [medical information redacted by Roy City Police Department].
John Frawley:Sorry to hear that.
Charles Warren:And uh, sometimes I can remember, uh, things of—
John Frawley:Yeah.
Charles Warren:—but, what I said at that time, I, y’know, he’d have it all down, I would think—
John Frawley:Yeah.
Charles Warren:—with how good he was at taking his notes—
John Frawley:Yeah.
Charles Warren:—y’know.
Willow Hendricks: [Personal information redacted by Roy City Police Department]
Charles Warren:Well, that’s what I was telling—
John Frawley:Yeah, he was just telling me.
Willow Hendricks:Some of the things are kind of.
Charles Warren:Well, I have trouble remembering how to say different words.
John Frawley:Oh, ok.
Charles Warren:Y’know?
John Frawley:Yeah.
Charles Warren:And sometimes I don’t. But it’s really funny how all this, like, I can’t remember, uh, stuff like that, y’know?
John Frawley:Yeah.
Charles Warren:But, that far back, I, I, I was worried about my son because of the thing out in, in Roy, the shooting out there.
Charles Warren:And it’s right close to where he lives, him and his grandfather.
John Frawley:Oh, really?
Charles Warren:And so I went out there yesterday—
John Frawley:Oh.
Charles Warren:The reason I drove out there is ‘cause I couldn’t remember their phone number. And I used to have a photographic memory where I could remember, I had a phone number—
John Frawley:Right.
Charles Warren:Y’know—
John Frawley:Right.
Charles Warren:I could remember it forever.
John Frawley:Yeah.
Charles Warren:Or even numbers off of cars.
John Frawley:Yeah.
Charles Warren:(Unintelligible) [Personal information redacted by Roy City Police Department]
John Frawley:Well I’m sorry, sorry to hear that. But I was wondering if, y’know actually reading through that, through that report I, I have, I, I, more questions, actually. I, and so that’s why I, y’know, it’s like “I’ll call Charles and—“
Charles Warren:Yeah.
John Frawley:—“and maybe talk to him.”
Charles Warren:Well, ask me and I’ll see what—
John Frawley:Yeah. Well, I’d like to, if we could, maybe just go back to, umm, start from, start from the day that Sheree disappeared. Umm, October 2nd, 1985, I think that was a Wednesday. Umm, in the notes, umm, it says that, uh, you, you had, you had a child [personal information redacted by Roy City Police Department] at the time and that, uh, you guys did kind of a custodial exchange—
Charles Warren:Yeah.
John Frawley:—early, early that morning. Do you remember that, Charles?
Charles Warren interview: Sheree Warren’s last day
Charles Warren:Yeah. What I remember is we, every day, she went to work at, during the day and I, I went to work at night. And I, I would, uh, I would uh, (laughs), drop him, or, I’d go to, we’d go to Denny’s—
John Frawley:Ok.
Charles Warren:—is where we would go. She would drop him off at Denny’s. We’d have coffee together and she’d go to work.
John Frawley:‘Kay.
Charles Warren:And then, the same in the afternoon. Uh, that was just the Monday through Friday of her—
John Frawley:‘Kay.
Charles Warren:—y’know.
John Frawley:Uh huh.
Charles Warren:Unless she had to work Saturday, too. But—
John Frawley:Ok.
Charles Warren:Y’know, I don’t remember whether she ever worked Saturday or, seems like she did but I don’t remember.
John Frawley:And so she was working down, she just got her new job down in Salt Lake?
Charles Warren:Yeah, she was becoming a manager, was gonna become a manager, something like that.
John Frawley:Yeah. To start training down there.
Charles Warren:Yeah.
Roy City police detective John Frawley describes the morning of Sheree Warren’s disappearance and her custody exchange meeting with her estranged husband, Charles Warren.
John Frawley:Umm, and then that, you had asked her to pick you up at Wagstaff Toyotas, or something like that?
Charles Warren:Yeah, yeah.
John Frawley:Ok. Can you tell me more about that?
Charles Warren:(Sighs) Well, I don’t, I never made it down there—
John Frawley:Yeah.
Charles Warren:—and I called and told her—
John Frawley:Ok.
Charles Warren:—that uh, y’know, I wasn’t going to make it—
John Frawley:Yeah.
Charles Warren:And uh, (pause), but I just never made it down there.
John Frawley:You never made it down there.
Charles Warren:Yeah. All I remember’s I, just never went down like I was supposed to but I did call her and uh, so I, y’know, I uh, I, I don’t know whether I talked to her or not. Seems like I did, but I can’t remember.
John Frawley:‘Kay. You called down to the, you called I guess the bank?
Charles Warren:The bank, yeah.
John Frawley:But you’re not sure if maybe you talked to her or not or maybe?
Charles Warren:Uh, I, I think I did. It seems like I did, but—
John Frawley:Ok.
Charles Warren:—I’m not positive.
John Frawley:Ok. Umm—
Charles Warren:What, y’know, I probably told him what I did then, y’know?
John Frawley:Yeah.
Charles Warren:He should, it should be in there.
John Frawley:Ok. And so, and I understand at the time, umm, she was also dating, umm, a man named Cary Hartmann.
Charles Warren:Yeah.
John Frawley:How, how do you know Cary Hartmann?
Charles Warren:I don’t.
John Frawley:Oh, ok. (Laughs)
Charles Warren:I’ve never seen him before—
John Frawley:Ok.
Charles Warren:—I don’t, uh, I don’t know what even he looks like.
John Frawley:Ok.
Charles Warren:So, where is he, by the way?
John Frawley:Cary Hartmann?
Charles Warren:Yeah.
John Frawley:I think he’s incarcerated right now, so—
Charles Warren:Still?
John Frawley:Yeah. Had uh, but had she ever, did you know about him at the time. I mean, did you know that she was dating him or?
Charles Warren:(Sighs) I can’t remember.
John Frawley:Can’t remember that?
Charles Warren:Uh, I, yeah, I just can’t remember if she—
John Frawley:Ok.
Charles Warren:—uh, when he got arrested it seemed like, and uh, then I heard something about that she’d been dating him.
John Frawley:That she’d been dating him, afterwards?
Charles Warren:And I think that’s how I found out, but I don’t know.
John Frawley:After—
Charles Warren:She’d never said anything to me about it.
John Frawley:‘Kay.
Charles Warren:And I’d never asked—
John Frawley:Right.
Charles Warren:—so, y’know, ‘cause I was dating a lot of girls at the time.
John Frawley:Right. ‘Kay.
Charles Warren:So—
John Frawley:I’ve just got to make sure I can hear this radio. Umm, in the, do you, do you remember, in, in uh, detective Bell’s report he said that, umm, Alice [personal information removed by COLD] had picked you up, somewhere. Do you remember that at all?
Charles Warren interview: Out for a jog
Charles Warren:Uh, yeah. Yeah, I was out jogging. That’s what I was doing, I was out jogging.
John Frawley:Ok.
Charles Warren:I, I went too far—
John Frawley:‘Kay.
Charles Warren:—and, uh, she picked me up at Denny’s—
John Frawley:Oh, ok.
Charles Warren:—on 12th.
John Frawley:12th and?
Charles Warren:Washington.
John Frawley:Oh, ok.
Charles Warren:12th Street and Washington. I was in there—
John Frawley:So you were in the Denny’s. Did you call her from the Denny’s to come get you?
Charles Warren:Yeah. Or, yeah I think I did. I must have. (Laughs)
John Frawley:‘Kay. It’s a long, I’m brining you back pretty far here, Charles.
Charles Warren:Yeah, I must have—
John Frawley:(Laughs)
Charles Warren:I can’t remember whether I had a cell phone or not then. I know I was, don’t think, I don’t know. I don’t think I did—
John Frawley:‘Kay.
Charles Warren:—but maybe I did, I don’t know.
Willow Hendricks:Oh, you had a lot of the first ones that came out so you might’ve but—
Charles Warren:Yeah.
Willow Hendricks:—I don’t know.
John Frawley:What, so you did have a cell phone a long time ago?
Charles Warren:I, I did a long time ago but I don’t know whether I had it that time. That was, uh, ’85?
John Frawley:Yeah, ’85.
Charles Warren:Yeah.
John Frawley:Did you have a cell phone in ’85?
Charles Warren:I don’t know for sure.
John Frawley:Possibly?
Charles Warren:Seems like, I don’t know. I can’t remember what year I actually got it.
John Frawley:Would’ve been one of the first ones coming out, and—
Charles Warren:Yeah, yeah.
John Frawley:—I mean, I remember those big ones.
Charles Warren:Yeah.
John Frawley:(Unintelligible)
Charles Warren:Well, see and, that’s when they were out and I didn’t get one until they come out with the StarTac.
John Frawley:Ok.
Charles Warren:So—
Willow Hendricks:(Unintelligible)
Charles Warren:—that was the first one I had.
John Frawley:StarTac?
Charles Warren:Yeah, it was a Motorola—
John Frawley:Ok.
Charles Warren:—think it was StarTac. Or star, wasn’t Star Trek but it was StarTac. They were playing off it, and — I think, I don’t know. But it was, it was still about that big—
John Frawley:‘Kay.
Charles Warren:—and uh, but it was round and about that long.
John Frawley:Uh.
Charles Warren:And I don’t know what year I had it.
John Frawley:Ok.
Charles Warren:If I, and it had to’ve been later. I know I had it in ’88.
Willow Hendricks:Is it the one I still have down the hall?
Charles Warren:Might be, yeah. Might be.
John Frawley:It’s your very first one and you still have it?
Willow Hendricks:(Laughs)
Charles Warren:Yeah.
Willow Hendricks:He, he keeps everything.
Charles Warren:I saved all of ‘em except the ones that got stolen.
Charles Warren interview: A change of plans
John Frawley:Can you, can you tell me, Charles, how, what changed, what changed your plans. Why didn’t you go to Wagstaff? Do you remember that?
Charles Warren:Uh, I was looking at cars, I think and uh, I uh, or something was wrong with my car. I can’t remember. And, umm, I don’t know. Shit. I don’t know.
John Frawley:‘Kay.
Charles Warren:I remember calling her, I think I was calling her to tell her I wasn’t coming. Yeah, seemed like it was right around 4 o’clock or something that I called. I’m not sure.
John Frawley:‘Kay.
Charles Warren:Somewhere in there.
John Frawley:‘Kay.
Charles Warren:And he should have a record of that.
John Frawley:‘Kay.
Charles Warren:Uh, ‘cause I’m sure he checked phone numbers, phone calls.
John Frawley:‘Kay. Umm, so you [personal information redacted by Roy City Police Department] then, right?
Charles Warren:Uh, no. Her parents [personal information redacted by Roy City Police Department].
John Frawley:I thought you guys exchanged early in the morning.
Charles Warren:We, we usually did but I was busy doing something else.
John Frawley:Oh, ok.
Charles Warren:Oh wait a minute, I [personal information redacted by Roy City Police Department]. Yep. That’s sure. Yeah.
John Frawley:Did you find it strange that she didn’t come and pick [personal information redacted by Roy City Police Department] that night?
Charles Warren:Well, that’s when I called her parents about 9 or 10 o’clock at night. Somewhere in there.
John Frawley:Is that when she was supposed to pick him up?
Charles Warren:No, no. She was supposed to come pick him up, uh, when she got off work.
John Frawley:So that’s—
Charles Warren:So—
John Frawley:—that’s odd, then, right? I mean, that would’ve been strange.
Charles Warren:Yeah. Well, yeah but, y’know, uh, you had no other way of getting ahold of her, so—
John Frawley:She didn’t have a—
Charles Warren:—y’know, you have to wait ‘till she comes. I don’t think so.
John Frawley:She didn’t have a StarTac. (Radio noise) 10-4, thanks.
Charles Warren:Yeah, I didn’t [personal information redacted by Roy City Police Department]. I remember that.
Willow Hendricks:Was Alice helping you out—
Charles Warren:Alice was here, too.
Willow Hendricks:—helping you with the boys at that time?
John Frawley:So did Alice also watch, watch the boys?
Charles Warren:Yeah.
John Frawley:Ok. But, but the plan was that Sheree would [personal information redacted by Roy City Police Department] —
Charles Warren:Right.
John Frawley:—and bring him back to Roy, right?
Charles Warren:Yeah, ‘cause that’s where she, she was living with her, or she had an apartment, didn’t she?
John Frawley:She was living with Ed and—
Willow Hendricks:Mary.
John Frawley:—Mary.
Charles Warren:Mary.
John Frawley:Yeah.
Charles Warren:I remember her having an apartment, though. Somewhere.
Willow Hendricks:But was that at that time?
John Frawley:I think, I think—
Charles Warren:I don’t, I don’t know.
John Frawley:—I think for a short time, she did but at that time she was living with Ed and Mary.
Charles Warren:Ok.
John Frawley:Umm.
Charles Warren:Must’ve been, ‘cause that’s why I called them.
Charles Warren interview: Putting pieces together
John Frawley:‘Kay. Alright, so this, this helps quite a bit, Charles, actually put these pieces together because, umm, y’know, I’m working off of a report from a long time ago—
Charles Warren:Yeah.
John Frawley:—y’know, you, you say you can’t remember too much but, y’know, you’re doing pretty good. You—
Charles Warren:Well as you’re bringing it up, I can remember a few things.
John Frawley:Awesome.
Charles Warren:Umm, but I’m not positive about, y’know.
John Frawley:Yeah.
Willow Hendricks:He’s been a pretty easy-going guy, too. So when she didn’t actually come pick him up at that time he probably wasn’t too worried about it. She’d be there eventually.
John Frawley:She, if she didn’t come right after work she would probably come—
Willow Hendricks:Just because he’s, y’know, because so easy-going, if you go do something it’s ok, just, but that’s, that’s probably why he didn’t worry at that time. Because he’s that kind of a person.
Charles Warren:Well, I (unintelligible) worrying about it one way or the other. But uh—
Willow Hendricks:Because that’s how you are.
Charles Warren:Yeah, until it got around 9, 10 o’clock.
Willow Hendricks:Yeah.
Charles Warren:So.
John Frawley:So what did you do when you started worrying about it, Charles?
Charles Warren:Well, I got on the phone and called her mom.
John Frawley:Oh, you did. ‘Kay.
Charles Warren:And umm, talked to her and she didn’t know anything or, so.
John Frawley:Did she become concerned?
Charles Warren:Uh, yeah, yeah. She was. She was, I believe, yeah. I don’t remember what I said to her, but, umm, I just don’t know. Umm, it was like, uh, I don’t know. I don’t remember—
John Frawley:Yeah.
Charles Warren:—what I said to her.
John Frawley:Yeah.
Charles Warren:I remember calling her to find out where she was at—
John Frawley:‘Kay.
Charles Warren:—that’s what I was interested in.
John Frawley:Because generally, [personal information redacted by Roy City Police Department], stay the night with, with them? Correct?
Charles Warren:Yeah, yeah.
John Frawley:‘Kay.
Charles Warren:Because I’d be going to, normally I’d be going to work at uh, what time did I go to work? Midnight.
John Frawley:Oh, ok.
Charles Warren:Midnight to 8.
John Frawley:You worked 12 to 8, midnight to 8?
Charles Warren:Yeah.
John Frawley:Oh, ok.
Charles Warren:Yep, and then uh—
John Frawley:So there’s no way you would’ve—
Charles Warren:—it was just 8 straight hours. I’d be off at 8, just right at 8 and then I pick him up.
John Frawley:Ok.
Charles Warren:She didn’t have to be to work until 9 or 10. I can’t remember which. 9 I think. And I think it was 9.
John Frawley:She had to be there at 9?
Charles Warren:I think so. I don’t know. Anyway, we had an hour to, ‘cause we usually sat in Denny’s and I had coffee there with her—
John Frawley:Ok.
Charles Warren:—y’know, so.
John Frawley:That makes more sense. ‘Cause if you met there, what time did you say you met there that morning? Would’ve been like—
Charles Warren:Well, it would’ve been right after 8 o’clock.
John Frawley:Oh, ok.
Charles Warren:A few minutes after 8, ‘cause I worked on 28th Street and I always got off right on time or a little early, y’know, and so I’d just go down to wherever we were gonna meet and, and then uh, just sit there and drink coffee.
John Frawley:Oh, ok. So, so when she doesn’t come up, what did, what did you end up [personal information redacted by Roy City Police Department] and Adam. What happened with him?
Charles Warren:Well, he stayed with me.
John Frawley:He did stay with you.
Charles Warren:Yeah.
John Frawley:Ok.
Charles Warren:I kept him until her parents, I can’t remember what the deal was. Umm, I just don’t remember.
Willow Hendricks:He had Alice here with [Charles and Alice’s son] George though—
Charles Warren:Yeah, and Alice was with George.
Willow Hendricks:—and he’d probably stay with Alice.
Charles Warren:Yeah.
John Frawley:Because you had to work.
Charles Warren:Yeah, I worked at midnight, yeah.
John Frawley:Yeah.
Charles Warren:But I wouldn’t have him then, see. She’d, she’d have him.
John Frawley:Yeah.
Charles Warren:But after that, y’know, uh, Alice didn’t work ‘till 8 or 9. I can’t remember if she was even working at the time. I don’t remember—
John Frawley:‘Kay.
Charles Warren:—whether she was even working at the time.
John Frawley:So, so Charles, it sounds like, umm, she was driving that Corolla.
Charles Warren:Yeah.
John Frawley:Umm, by the way, where’s that Corolla now, do you know?
Charles Warren:I don’t.
John Frawley:Ok. So she’s driving that Corolla and then the Corolla’s found, uh, November 11th in, at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas. Umm, did you go down and pick that up ‘cause wasn’t it still registered to you?
Charles Warren:Yeah.
John Frawley:So you go down to pick it up. When did you go to pick that up?
Charles Warren:(Sighs) I don’t know. Can’t remember, uh, it was awhile, y’know? I had to, y’know, go down on my days off.
John Frawley:Oh, ok.
Charles Warren:And uh—
John Frawley:So it wasn’t right when they—
Charles Warren:No.
John Frawley:—told you it was there.
Charles Warren:No, no. Umm, but I wanted to get down there as soon as I can ‘cause they were charging storage and I can’t remember what it was.
John Frawley:Ok.
Charles Warren:But it cost 300 or 400 dollars. Something like that, to get it out.
John Frawley:That was a lot of money right then.
Charles Warren:It was.
John Frawley:Umm, did you take any time off work after she’d been reported disappeared?
Charles Warren:No, I don’t remember doing that.
John Frawley:Ok.
Charles Warren:I don’t remember doing that. But I, no I don’t think I did.
John Frawley:Ok.
Charles Warren:The only time I took off work is, uh, is uh, when I was going partying. If I was sick, I went to work, y’know?
John Frawley:(Laughs) Yeah.
Charles Warren:So, I used my sick leave to go partying, not—
John Frawley:Ok.
Charles Warren:—y’know.
John Frawley:Umm, and you worked for the railroad. What did you do for the railroad?
Charles Warren:I was a clerk at that time.
John Frawley:Was that kind of in an office or was that traveling around?
Charles Warren:Uh, 28th Street yard office.
John Frawley:Ok.
Charles Warren:Basically.
John Frawley:Ok.
Charles Warren:I was the chief clerk there and, uh, on the afternoon shift for awhile and uh, for awhile on the midnight shift and, y’know, ‘till I got bumped and stuff like that. Umm, I think I only worked one day shift. But uh—
John Frawley:But this wasn’t like you getting on a train and traveling around—
Charles Warren:No, no.
John Frawley:—this was you working in an office.
Charles Warren:Just right there on 28th.
John Frawley:Ok, ok.
Charles Warren:So.
John Frawley:Ok. Umm, so you hadn’t heard about Cary Hartmann until actually after he is arrested.
Charles Warren:Right.
John Frawley:That, that Sheree had been dating him.
Charles Warren:It seems like somebody come up and asked me questions about him. Maybe it was [Jack] Bell.
John Frawley:Oh, ok.
Charles Warren interview: Cary Hartmann’s psychic stories
Charles Warren:He had a dream or one of his friends had a, he didn’t right that down, huh?
John Frawley:I’ll have to review that one. Umm, that she’s up in the mountain? He had a dream that she’s up in the mountain?
Charles Warren:That, yeah. Yeah. That they’d find her up there.
John Frawley:Hmm.
Charles Warren:And they was, I, I don’t know. You ought to, if he didn’t put it in there, then—
John Frawley:‘Kay.
Charles Warren:—I don’t think I dreamed that up.
John Frawley:(Laughs)
Charles Warren:I remember him telling me that, though, about some sort of a dream. Umm, something to do with a 4×4 pickup and uh, but I don’t know.
John Frawley:Ok.
Charles Warren:I don’t, I can’t remember. That thought just jumped in there.
John Frawley:‘Kay. Umm, he did, he did write that, I guess you went and talked to him on the 4th, would’ve been just a couple days after. He said that, in his report he said that, umm, so Sheree disappears on the 2nd. On the 3rd, you’d left work early ‘cause you weren’t feeling well or something like that. About 11:30 a.m., that you left work early and you, I guess he’d tried to call you. Did he, did he leave messages for you to call him?
Charles Warren:I wouldn’t have left work in the middle of the shift.
John Frawley:Ok.
Charles Warren:Uh, not unless somebody called me and said they were in the hospital. And I don’t remember that. Umm, might’ve went to lunch. We had, supposedly a 20-minute lunch but sometimes I took an hour or so.
John Frawley:Take a little longer lunch.
Charles Warren:Yeah. Nobody, well everybody did. Everybody took an hour and a half. I tried, most the time I tried to stay under an hour.
John Frawley:Under an hour. ‘Kay.
Charles Warren:Uh—
John Frawley:So about 11:30’s probably the time you, is that, does that sound like the time—
Charles Warren:No—
John Frawley:—you took a lunch?
Willow Hendricks:He wouldn’t—
Charles Warren:—yeah, I could’ve, could’ve went to lunch at 11:30. But I don’t remember working days back then. And see—
Willow Hendricks:He wouldn’t have been at work at that time.
John Frawley:Do you keep any, uh, timecard records from that time? Do you have any records like that?
Charles Warren:No. (Laughs)
John Frawley:I know, she said you keep everything, so. (Laughs)
Charles Warren:No, no. Just phones.
Willow Hendricks:I have lots of checkbooks.
Charles Warren:(Laughs) Uh, let’s see here, uh, I can’t remember leaving work except (unintelligible) my dad once when he was in the hospital. I, oh, y’know Willow Hendricks:at I did one (sigh) ’88, ’89, ’89—
Willow Hendricks:So that wouldn’t have been—
Charles Warren:—no, it would’ve been ’90, ‘cause my mom died (unintelligible). My dad died in ’90 and I think the only time I ever left work, and I wasn’t working days then, but I was the agent.
Willow Hendricks:It wouldn’t have been the same time period, though.
Charles Warren:No, but that’s the only time I remember leaving—
John Frawley:So you weren’t—
Charles Warren:—go pick my dad up.
John Frawley:—you weren’t working 8-to-5’s in 1985? You weren’t working days?
Charles Warren:No, no. I don’t think so. I could’ve had one shift in there somewhere.
John Frawley:Oh, I see.
Charles Warren:I was, y’know, I worked, I bid jobs in but I couldn’t hold dayshift.
John Frawley:What were your days off?
Charles Warren:Uh, (laughs) depends on which jobs I was on.
John Frawley:Oh, I see.
Charles Warren:(Laughs) Most the days off I had was (unintelligible). Uh, shit.
Willow Hendricks:(Unintelligible)
Charles Warren:Monday and Tuesday or Tuesday and Wednesday. Stuff like that. I couldn’t hold weekends at all.
John Frawley:‘Kay.
Charles Warren:Uh, and let’s see, I, uh, I, uh, like I said, I do remember leaving on a day shift one time to get my dad but back then, I wouldn’t have, I wouldn’t have left unless it was a total emergency.
John Frawley:‘Kay.
Charles Warren:Uh, and if I was working a day shift at that time, it would’ve been extra, would’ve been overtime. I used to work, umm, I used to work 8, uh, how does it work? I worked, uh, 16 hours (unintelligible) I have 8 hours off. I’d go back to work again, I’d work another 16 and 8 off. Then I’d work 32, err, 24 straight and 8 off. And uh, uh, then I, uh, anyway, it amounted to I had, uh, a 32-and-a-half day half. In other words, I’d have, I got paid for equivalent of 32 shifts, uh, and, of overtime.
Willow Hendricks:Is that during the time (unintelligible).
Charles Warren:No that was, that was before she was gone.
John Frawley:But it seems like you remember—
Charles Warren:I remember certain things, yeah.
John Frawley:(Radio noise) 10-4, thanks. But it, but you’re, it sounds like you’re positive that you were working 12-to-8s, is that, is that what you’re saying? At that time?
Charles Warren:No, I’m not positive. What I remember—
John Frawley:Oh, ok. Ok.
Charles Warren:—no, I said if I, but I was, but y’know if I was working 24 hours, I worked days. That day, I’d be, uh, and I never, when I was working like that, I uh, never took off to lunch because I was really tired and the only way I could stay awake working that kind of hours is working on a computer, keeping my mind busy. And without doing that, that’s out right there. ‘Cause I can sleep just like this.
John Frawley:(Laughs)
Charles Warren:Y’know? But uh—
John Frawley:But, but you’re sure that she was, you’re sure that Sheree was supposed to come back and pick Adam [personal information redacted by Roy City Police Department].
Charles Warren:Oh yeah.
John Frawley:Ok.
Charles Warren:Yeah, there was no question about that. That’s why—
John Frawley:Yeah.
Charles Warren:—I would’ve called.
John Frawley:And it was around, I’m sorry, forgive me, tell me again, 9 or 10 that you’re like “ok.”
Charles Warren:I know it was after, it was before 10 o’clock and after 9:30. That’s all I remember—
John Frawley:Ok, between 9:30 and 10 p.m. You’re—
Charles Warren:—somewhere in there.
John Frawley:—you call Mary and—
Charles Warren:Yeah.
John Frawley:—say “hey, where’s she at?”
Charles Warren:Yeah.
John Frawley:‘Kay.
Charles Warren:And that’s, I don’t know what she did after that.
John Frawley:Mary?
Charles Warren:Yeah. If she got her kids out looking. (Laughs)
John Frawley:I, I think, y’know, I’ll have to review the case again, I think, y’know, I think she does call around, yeah, try to figure out where she’s at because I’ve talked to Ed. Ed said that she told them that morning “hey, don’t worry I’m not, I’ll be a little late, I’m supposed to meet Charles at Wagstaff Toyota”—
Charles Warren:Yeah.
John Frawley:—so she wanted to let ‘em know that she was going to be a little later getting over there.
Charles Warren:Mmhmm.
Charles Warren interview: Plan to meet at Wagstaff’s House of Toyota
John Frawley:Was that something you’d talked to her before that day?
Charles Warren:Oh yeah.
John Frawley:Ok. That was planned the whole—
Charles Warren:Set up.
John Frawley:—set up?
Charles Warren:Yeah, before. And uh, and uh, then it didn’t happen, so—
John Frawley:Yeah.
Charles Warren:—I called and told her I wasn’t gonna make it. So.
John Frawley:Ok. You don’t remember why you didn’t go down though, right?
Charles Warren:I don’t.
John Frawley:Yeah.
Charles Warren:Nope—
John Frawley:Was it—
Charles Warren:—it might’ve been a shift that came up or, no, it couldn’t have been a shift. Nope. I don’t remember.
John Frawley:Is this the Supra right out here on your driveway? Is that the one you were gonna go bring down to get fixed, that’s Toyota’s—
Charles Warren:No.
John Frawley:—oh, ok.
Charles Warren:No, it was a black, uh, ’85.
John Frawley:Oh, ‘kay.
Charles Warren:Yeah.
Willow Hendricks:(Unintelligible)
Charles Warren:That’s the one I should’ve kept.
John Frawley:Is that a Supra, too?
Charles Warren:Yeah.
John Frawley:Ok.
Charles Warren:And then the other one I should’ve kept was an ’88 turbo I had—
John Frawley:Oh wow.
Charles Warren:—I really should’ve kept. It was leased—
John Frawley:Oh.
Charles Warren:—I couldn’t afford to pay double for it.
John Frawley:Right. They kind of get you on that—
Charles Warren:Yeah.
John Frawley:—the whole lease program.
Charles Warren:And then after that, Supras got too expensive and I couldn’t afford. (Laughs)
John Frawley:(Laughs) Well, you’ve got this one out here still.
Charles Warren:Well, I was only paying 8 and $10,000 for it—
John Frawley:Ah.
Charles Warren:—or no, I was paying 12 to $14,000 for it. For maybe ’83 to ’85 and then after that the price went way up—
John Frawley:Oh did it?
Charles Warren:—after the—
John Frawley:For like what?
Charles Warren:—yeah, I paid $25,000 for my, my uh, turbo, ’88 turbo.
John Frawley:Oh.
Charles Warren:And that was a lease, y’know. So, y’know they went up above $30,000 to buy. (Laughs)
John Frawley:Yeah, yeah.
Charles Warren:By ’88, so, that’s the reason I leased it.
John Frawley:Well I appreciate you talking with me. Like I said, this case, y’know, it’s open. It’s an open case but I, questions come up, y’know and—
Charles Warren:I can’t help you with ‘em.
John Frawley:Oh you did, actually. You helped me quite a bit. Umm—
Charles Warren:Like I say, there are bits and pieces but, of everything.
Willow Hendricks:Alice might be able to fill some in, too. ‘Cause she was around helping [personal information redacted by Roy City Police Department] too. Especially after she went missing.
Charles Warren:Yeah, and that was after.
Willow Hendricks:Yeah, but she was still [personal information redacted by Roy City Police Department]. You told me that.
Charles Warren:Well, she was actually living down the street at that time.
John Frawley:At that time, Alice was just down the street?
Charles Warren:Yeah, (unintelligible) house. Then she come up after that. And uh, stayed here. Or, I think that’s how it went. Can’t remember whether she came up here first or went down there first. I can’t remember. But anyway, she was here, uh, watching uh [personal information redacted by Roy City Police Department] that night for sure. Y’know. Uh, because she came and picked me up—
John Frawley:After your—
Charles Warren:—at Denny’s.
John Frawley:—after your jog.
Charles Warren:Yeah.
John Frawley:She picked you up at the Denny’s.
Charles Warren:Yeah. And then, uh, let’s see, what’d I do? I don’t remember doing anything that night after that. Went to bed early. I don’t remember when I went to work the next day or if I did. I don’t know. (Laughs) That I can’t tell you.
John Frawley:It’s a long time ago.
Charles Warren:Yeah, but uh, (sighs) I remember when I start talking to [Jack] Bell, whether it was a week after or, and uh (noise) can’t remember. What day did, did it show he interviewed me the first time.
John Frawley:October 4th.
Charles Warren:So—
Willow Hendricks:Two days after.
Charles Warren:—two days after, then.
Charles Warren interview: Chuck’s whereabouts
John Frawley:Yeah, so this is his, in his report he said that, umm, uh, he, he’d been, uh, calling, leaving messages on your phone. He actually even stopped by, you lived here, right? You were here—
Charles Warren:Yeah.
John Frawley:—so he stopped by here, couldn’t get you at the door. Uh, that was on the 3rd, October 3rd. Umm, he, he, he’d, he was under the impression you left work early and then, you went to the police department on the 4th and talked to him.
Charles Warren:I see.
John Frawley:And uh, in his report, he says that, umm, you, you and Sheree met at the Denny’s at 7 a.m., around 7 a.m.
Charles Warren:Couldn’t have been 7.
John Frawley:Couldn’t have been 7?
Charles Warren:No, I’d be, I worked ‘till 8.
John Frawley:Ok.
Charles Warren:I wouldn’t have left an hour early. (Laughs)
John Frawley:So, so he’s saying it’s around—
Charles Warren:So he’s off there if it’s what he wrote down.
John Frawley:—it’s around 7 a.m., umm, you guys do a custodial exchange, you talk to Sheree about Wagstaff, picking, picking you up at Wagstaff Toyota down in Salt Lake, giving you a ride, she agrees to that. She drives to Salt Lake, you bring, umm, [personal information redacted by Roy City Police Department] to the Denny’s in Ogden, I guess, and have breakfast at the Denny’s in Ogden.
Charles Warren:Uh, no she brought [personal information redacted by Roy City Police Department] to Denny’s and I picked him up there.
John Frawley:No, in Roy.
Willow Hendricks:In Roy.
Charles Warren:Oh, in Roy. Yeah. Yeah and that’s—
John Frawley:—I’m just—
Charles Warren:—that’s the way we’d go—
John Frawley:—I’m just telling you what—
Charles Warren:—I didn’t remember Roy but I think that’s right.
Willow Hendricks:I remember you telling me Roy.
Charles Warren:Ok. I must’ve, I must’ve used to drive out to Roy and, and drop him off there, exchange him back.
Willow Hendricks:Because it’s close to her house.
John Frawley:Umm, so I’m just telling you what’s in the report.
Charles Warren:Yeah.
John Frawley:And so, and then—
Charles Warren:Well, I must’ve, because I, I don’t remember it but I do, it must’ve been—
John Frawley:The report—
Charles Warren:—that way.
John Frawley:—the report says you actually drop [personal information redacted by Roy City Police Department] house.
Charles Warren:No, no. Uh, once in awhile I would but—
John Frawley:But actually, Alice said she had [personal information redacted by Roy City Police Department] so does that—
Charles Warren:Yeah.
John Frawley:—does sound more correct to you?
Charles Warren:Yeah.
John Frawley:Ok. Uh, then it, it actually says that you and Alice go to lunch.
Charles Warren:Uh, that day?
John Frawley:Yeah.
Charles Warren:I don’t remember that, but—
John Frawley:‘Kay.
Charles Warren:—but we could’ve, I don’t know.
John Frawley:Then, you called the bank at around 4:30.
Charles Warren:Somewhere in there.
John Frawley:Yeah, 4:30. And uh, after that you go for a jog and you actually give your whole jogging route to him.
Charles Warren:Mmhmm.
John Frawley:Told him where you jog and how you ended up down on 12th and Washington. I didn’t know it was a Denny’s but—
Charles Warren:Yeah.
John Frawley:—that probably, that sounds about right.
Charles Warren:Yeah.
John Frawley:That you’re saying the same thing. Umm, so, and then Alice picks you up at 12th and Washington and brings you here.
Charles Warren:Mmhmm. Yeah. And I can’t even remember what time that was, though. It was probably around 6? I don’t know. I don’t know. 7 or, 7 or 8. Somewhere in there.
Charles Warren told Roy police detective Jack Bell he’d jogged this route on the evening of Oct. 2, 1985. Warren’s estranged wife, Sheree Warren, disappeared from Salt Lake City while he was on this supposed jog.
John Frawley:That she picked you up at 12th and Wash?
Charles Warren:Yeah. Might’ve been before that. Seemed like it was dark, though.
John Frawley:It was dark when she picked you up?
Willow Hendricks:Well, it would’ve been getting dark about 6 or so then.
Charles Warren:Yeah, it was dark or something but, I umm, yeah. That’s why I decided I didn’t want to walk home.
John Frawley:Yeah, yeah. I was just going to say, do you always run in the dark? (Laughs)
Charles Warren:No, no. No, it seemed like it got dark and that’s why I went to Denny’s and had coffee and then I called her and had her come pick me up.
John Frawley:Oh ok, that makes, that makes, so you go, you go for a jog and then you’re there at the Denny’s having some coffee and she picks you up.
Charles Warren:Yeah, I drank a lot of Denny’s coffee.
John Frawley:(Laughs) Do you still drink it?
Willow Hendricks:He does. Yes, he does.
Charles Warren:Yeah. That’s where I’m going.
John Frawley:For lunch?
Charles Warren:Yeah.
Willow Hendricks:You’re going to meet a friend.
Charles Warren:Yeah, Joe.
John Frawley:Ok, well I don’t want to, I don’t want to hold you up. I—
Charles Warren:What time is it? Uh, oh it’s (unintelligible) time.
John Frawley:Awesome.
Charles Warren:(Unintelligible)
Charles Warren interview: Save the detective’s number
John Frawley:Awesome. Umm, you’ve actually helped me quite a bit. Uh, Charles, would you mind if I, if I have other questions could I call you? Would that be ok?
Charles Warren:Yeah, yeah.
John Frawley:Umm, it’s a lot to, to go through, as you can probably imagine.
Charles Warren:(Laughs)
John Frawley:(Laughs)
Charles Warren:Yeah I, let’s see here. Umm—
Willow Hendricks:Are you looking at—
Charles Warren:—I got to put his phone number in my—
Willow Hendricks:—save his number?
Charles Warren:—phone book.
Willow Hendricks:Save it so that you know who’s calling.
Charles Warren:Yeah.
Willow Hendricks:Yeah, that’s the other thing. Sometimes when we don’t know who’s calling we won’t answer it.
John Frawley:I don’t blame you.
Charles Warren:Well, it’s always these God damn salesmen. Yours is the 10-0, 1066?
John Frawley:Yeah, 1066. Yeah, I called your phone like you said and it said “this phone number’s no longer in service” and I remember you saying call it again so I tried it again.
Willow Hendricks:That’s when he was in the shower, so. I don’t usually answer his phone. He doesn’t answer mine.
John Frawley:When I heard you worked for the railroad, I thought you were like actually traveling from state to state on the railroad. But that’s not what you did?
Charles Warren:No, no, no.
John Frawley:Ok.
Charles Warren:And your name is?
John Frawley:John.
Charles Warren:John, eh?
John Frawley:Yeah, you can call me John. John Frawley, is my last name.
Willow Hendricks:This is one time that I, like, ‘cause he’s just (unintelligible).
John Frawley:You want to grab it and do it for him. (Laughs)
Willow Hendricks:‘Cause he, he never used to be like this. “How do I do this, how do I do that.” Then he’d get frustrated with it.
Charles Warren:Think I got it saved now.
John Frawley:‘Kay.
Charles Warren:And I better put a ringtone on it.
Willow Hendricks:Just let it ring normal, honey.
Charles Warren:Well no, ‘cause it’ll indicate that it’s one of them guys calling, y’know.
John Frawley:(Laughs)
Willow Hendricks:He’ll be another 10 minutes now.
Charles Warren:(Unintelligible)
Willow Hendricks:(Laughs)
Charles Warren:Let’s see, you’ve got to find it in here.
Willow Hendricks:Yeah, he’s a real easy-going person, so.
John Frawley:Well I appreciate it.
Charles Warren:Make sure it saved it. It should be right there.
Willow Hendricks:Just go to your call logs.
Charles Warren:Huh?
Willow Hendricks:Right there.
Charles Warren:Oh, ok.
John Frawley:(Radio noise) 10-4, thanks.
Charles Warren:Ok. Let’s see. Let’s give you—
Willow Hendricks:Those phones down there, the phones there, the old radios they used at the railroad, the two-way radios.
John Frawley:Oh the, yeah, like this right here?
Willow Hendricks:Yeah.
John Frawley:Motorola?
Charles Warren:Yeah.
Willow Hendricks:Heck, they’re still doing that thing, too.
Charles Warren:Oh, they’re bigger than that.
Willow Hendricks:One’s about that size, the other two, they’re a little bit bigger. I thought that’s where we had the brick phones too but it’s not. I know I’ve seen ‘em down, probably in your other closet.
(Ringtone music plays)
Charles Warren interview: Picking up Sheree’s car
John Frawley:There we go. Alright Charles. So, so, but you didn’t take any, you didn’t take any time off from, from October to November. Is that what you’re saying, or do you remember that?
Charles Warren:Uh, I don’t remember taking any time off. Oh, I took some time off to go get the car.
John Frawley:Yeah.
Charles Warren:But you says that was how long after?
John Frawley:So, November 11th is when, is when I have the car being found.
Charles Warren:And it was some time after that. I don’t know exactly whether it was one or two days, uh, it seemed like I was in a hurry to get down there and get it, to get it out of impound.
John Frawley:Yeah.
Charles Warren:Umm.
John Frawley:But up until that time, were you still, you were still here though. Is that what you’re saying?
Charles Warren:Yeah.
John Frawley:Did you travel at all? You didn’t travel at all?
Charles Warren:No, no. The only travel I made was to get the car.
John Frawley:‘Kay. ‘Kay.
Charles Warren:Let’s see. That was ’85. Oh, y’know what?
Willow Hendricks:You don’t have (unintelligible)
Charles Warren:I eventually had to go to California.
Willow Hendricks:And that was later on that year.
Charles Warren:Yeah, it was later on.
Willow Hendricks:It was ’86, wasn’t it?
Charles Warren:Yeah, maybe it was ’86.
Willow Hendricks:I think it was beginning of ’86 you went to Roseville.
Charles Warren:I don’t remember.
John Frawley:What did you have to go to California for?
Charles Warren:—so I just bumped that job down there and I actually had to work days on the ramp. I loved it. Yeah, umm, worked 10 to 6 with the weekends off. Couldn’t believe it.
Willow Hendricks:I almost want to say that was ’87 or ’88.
Charles Warren:I don’t know—
John Frawley:Would that’ve been, did you—
Charles Warren:—that was, that was that year. ‘Cause see I went to, what year did I, I went to Hawaii. Oh, I can’t remember what year I went to Hawaii.
Willow Hendricks:I think it was before.
Charles Warren:Yeah, oh it was, it was July. (Sighs)
John Frawley:Yeah, you’re—
Charles Warren:—it was June. ‘Cause Richard and I went camping at the end of May and somewhere around the 31st I flew to Hawaii with, uh, six other people. Well, five other people. There was six of us. And then—
Willow Hendricks:‘Cause I seem to remember you telling me you were down in California for Christmas, or right after Christmas.
Charles Warren:—yeah, I can’t remember—
John Frawley:So, so Charles, did—
Charles Warren:—then after I come back—
John Frawley:—did you go to California between October and November of that year?
Charles Warren:I can’t remember.
John Frawley:Is it a possibility?
Charles Warren:Well, no because I was up here in October. I think I was still, I’m sure I was still working. Y’know, I just don’t remember how it worked out.
John Frawley:Could you have gone to California just before the car was reported found?
Charles Warren:It might’ve been that way, yeah. But anyway, I went to California to work.
Willow Hendricks:That was clear up in Sacramento.
Charles Warren:Yeah, Sacramento. And Alice was bringing the kids down to, to see me. And uh—
Willow Hendricks:(Unintelligible)
Charles Warren:—I traded the old Corolla in on a new Corolla. An ’86. Brand new ’86. I think that one was an ’84. And bought a brand new Corolla and she was driving that to bring the kids down to see me in Roseville and they, she crashed, wrecked it and she rolled it over about the, the police said about 10 times.
John Frawley:Oooh.
Charles Warren:Left the road at 70.
John Frawley:Alice did?
Charles Warren:Yeah.
John Frawley:Was that in ’85?
Charles Warren:Yeah, well—
Willow Hendricks:I think that was ’86. I think you were down there in ’86, honey.
Charles Warren:—it may’ve been ’86. I don’t know, I don’t know. But it seems like it was right—
John Frawley:Well—
Charles Warren:—it had to’ve been when I had the new Corolla. Uh, it had to’ve been ’86 or ’85. It was towards the end of the year because, well, y’know—
John Frawley:It was after you got the Corolla back, is what you’re saying.
Charles Warren:Yeah, it was after that because I traded that Corolla in on a new ’86.
John Frawley:And I’m trying to, I’m just trying to lock in October and November, just right there. So you, you’re talking afterwards because you hadn’t even picked the Corolla up yet, right?
Charles Warren:Yeah.
Willow Hendricks:Yeah.
John Frawley:So—
Charles Warren:So, I probably went down, I’m just guessing, two or three days after I was told it was down there.
John Frawley:Ok.
Charles Warren:Whatever the date was. I worked it out to go down there. I went down and, and got it and drove it back. I don’t remember how I got down there. Somebody’d have to drive me down there. Might’ve been Alice, I don’t know. Anyway, I went down and picked it up. I got it out of, and drove it home. And uh, drove for, ’round town for awhile to make sure everything was ok.
John Frawley:Ah.
Charles Warren:And uh, then I uh, I uh, took it down and traded it in.
John Frawley:That same, in ’85 you traded it?
Charles Warren:Yeah, ‘cause I bought, yeah ‘cause it’s sort at the end of the year. The ’86’s were out.
John Frawley:Oh ok.
Charles Warren:See, so I bought the ’86—
Willow Hendricks:He has to have, gettin’ a new car about every two years—
John Frawley:Ok.
Willow Hendricks:—if not every year.
Charles Warren:I used to do it every year, but. ‘Cause I was actually selling ‘em for Menlove Dodge Toyota. So I’d buy a Supra and sell that one to somebody and then buy another one.
John Frawley:‘Kay.
Charles Warren:So—
Willow Hendricks:And he’s still that way.
Charles Warren:—now—
Willow Hendricks:—we’ve, we’ve gotten about every two years now.
Charles Warren:Yeah.
John Frawley:Gotten back to every two?
Willow Hendricks:Can’t afford it as much anymore.
Charles Warren:But uh—
Charles Warren interview: A transaction in Elko
John Frawley:I did notice, umm, in the report there was, uh, you had a financial transaction in Elko, Nevada. In the, in the beginning of, of November.
Charles Warren:November in Elko?
John Frawley:And that’s why when you say you were going down to Sacramento, maybe that’s, is that a possibility?
Charles Warren:Financial transaction in Elko?
John Frawley:Elko, Nevada, yeah. Used your, your credit, your Visa card. Or your deb—whatever kind of card it was.
Charles Warren:Well, I drove back and forth between here and, uh, Roseville, uh, every two weeks.
Willow Hendricks:When you got transferred down there or when—
Charles Warren:Yeah, when I got transferred down there, when I bid down there. Or bumped down there, actually bumped down there. Umm, so I drove back and forth every two weeks because, uh, Alice was here with uh, George [personal information redacted by Roy City Police Department]—
John Frawley:Yeah.
Charles Warren:—and uh, she had her sister living with her, too.
John Frawley:Oh, ok.
Charles Warren:And her sister’s kid was a thief which, I really don’t know how much I lost because I didn’t care to look. But uh, I figured all my cell phones would’ve been gone and—
John Frawley:Oh.
Charles Warren:—and anything he could sell, uh, but anyway.
Willow Hendricks:But he’s trying to figure out would you’ve been in Elko the first of November.
Charles Warren:Yeah I would’ve, I would’ve been down there.
Willow Hendricks:Had you been transferred by then?
Charles Warren:Yeah, yeah. I was down there, sure. I was driving back and forth.
Willow Hendricks:But you didn’t pick up the car from Vegas until November 11th.
John Frawley:After the 11th. Couple, few days after.
Charles Warren:November 11th. Well yeah, but, I would’ve been down there, so I’d be driving back and forth in that Supra.
John Frawley:Yeah.
Charles Warren:Y’know, uh—
Willow Hendricks:But were you already down in Sacramento—
Charles Warren:Yeah.
Willow Hendricks:—at that time?
Charles Warren:—I was in Sacramento. I would’ve had to’ve been. ‘Cause I used all my vacation time and all my, uh, I had some other type of leave—
Willow Hendricks:But you were working in October?
Charles Warren:—whatever it’s called.
Willow Hendricks:You were working in October when she went missing?
Charles Warren:I can’t remember whether I was here.
Willow Hendricks:Did you maybe at that time go down to set up your trailer and your living situation with your uncle or whatever that was down there?
Charles Warren:No, no.
Willow Hendricks:Before you started working down there?
Charles Warren:Let’s see, I went down there. I, I took my dad’s trailer and uh, and put it in my uncle’s, or my cousin’s back yard. He had hooks up—
John Frawley:In Sacramento?
Charles Warren:—well, yeah. It’s actually in, uh, what’s the—
Willow Hendricks:It’s a suburb of Sacramento.
John Frawley:Roseville? You said Roseville.
Charles Warren:Well, it’s not even Roseville. It’s a—
John Frawley:Suburb.
Charles Warren:—suburb of that. Uh, actually but—
Willow Hendricks:He always refers to it as Roseville because that’s what the railroad refers to it as.
Charles Warren:Yeah.
Willow Hendricks:Just like Roper.
Charles Warren:That was a—
Willow Hendricks:It’s not Salt Lake, it’s Roper.
John Frawley:‘Kay.
Charles Warren:But anyway, uh, I, when I got, when I got the job, I, when I bumped on the job I had to be there a certain date. So I took the truck and everything down a little bit ahead of time because all that time before, uh, I uh, was getting ready to, to go, see.
John Frawley:So, late October, early November you were, you were traveling between Utah and Sacramento to get set up down there.
Charles Warren:Uh, no. Like I say I can’t, I don’t think we, seemed like, God, I don’t know. I don’t know. Umm—
Charles Warren interview: Chuck’s railroad timecards
Willow Hendricks:Who’s one of the railroaders that worked with you at that time that would remember when—
Charles Warren:They’re all dead, honey. (Laughs)
Willow Hendricks:Want me to call (unintelligible) to see when it was?
Charles Warren:He wouldn’t know. He was a, he was not even working at that time. He uh, got fired or something.
John Frawley:Is there any way to go back and look at records from, from the railroad, or—
Charles Warren:Not that I know of, I don’t think they kept that, that old.
Willow Hendricks:But he’s retired now from it.
Charles Warren:Well, it was a different railroad. It was Southern Pacific. Sure Union Pacific didn’t keep any of their records. I wouldn’t think.
Willow Hendricks:How far back do your checkbooks go in the closet?
Charles Warren:Uh, I don’t know. I think just the ‘80s.
Willow Hendricks:(Laughs) That’s the time period honey. Want me to go look for a minute—
Charles Warren:No, no.
Willow Hendricks:—see if there’s anything?
Charles Warren:Well, this is what I know. I know that when I went, let’s see, seemed like Alice [personal information redacted by Roy City Police Department] everybody went with me in the truck when I went down there.
John Frawley:At the end of October?
Charles Warren:Might’ve been. I don’t know. I just can’t tell you.
John Frawley:Maybe I’ll, I guess Alice is the only other person I can ask.
Charles Warren:Yeah, that’s the, (pause) yeah.
Willow Hendricks: [Personal information redacted by Roy City Police Department] remember that year.
Charles Warren:Let’s see if she’s around.
John Frawley:Oh, I can give her a call, Charles.
Willow Hendricks:‘Cause you said you’ve talked to her before?
Charles Warren:She can probably help you figure it out.
John Frawley:Yeah, I did. I can talk to her again, Charles.
Charles Warren:Ok, well, you can figure it out. What we did (laughs) and, and what time she had the accident.
John Frawley:Ok.
Charles Warren:Y’know, and uh, ‘cause I can’t even remember, I’m sure I got a new Corolla, ‘cause it was totaled out after the accident. And, but they were seat belted in so none of ‘em got hurt.
John Frawley:Oh boy, I’ll tell you what, that’s—
Charles Warren:But.
John Frawley:—that’s lucky.
Willow Hendricks:I seem to remember you telling me that was sometime, that you went down there, right around Christmas or the New Year. But I—
Charles Warren:I don’t, I don’t remember. Nevada was hot and dry because I, y’know, I come across there—
Willow Hendricks:Nevada’s always hot and dry. (Laughs)
Charles Warren:I drove really fast to get there and got, picked them up out of the Elko hospital. I do remember that.
John Frawley:You had to pick them up at—
Charles Warren:Alice and—
Willow Hendricks:After the accident.
Charles Warren:—after the accident, yeah. Picked them up out of the Elko hospital. I don’t remember what date that was.
John Frawley:(Radio noise) 10-4, thanks. So that would’ve been—(radio noise)—negative. Umm, so that would’ve been Elko, then—
Charles Warren:Yeah.
John Frawley:—hospital.
Charles Warren:I drove from Roseville to Elko, picked them up—
Willow Hendricks:When they had their accident.
Charles Warren:—yeah. And brought ‘em—
John Frawley:But you were already in California at that time?
Charles Warren:But I can’t even remember bringing them, whether I brought ‘em back to California with me or brought ‘em here. Must’ve, I’m pretty sure I brought ‘em, feels like I brought ‘em to California. But maybe.
John Frawley:I’ll give Alice a call—
Charles Warren:Yeah.
John Frawley:—and talk to her.
Charles Warren:She, she can probably remember better than I can.
John Frawley:‘Kay.
Charles Warren:So, that’s the only think I can think.
Charles Warren interview: A friend in failing health
John Frawley:Ok. Alright, Charles. Well, I appreciate you talking with me. I don’t want to take your whole morning here. I know you’ve got to meet your friend there.
Charles Warren:Yeah.
Willow Hendricks:That’s all he’ll do is talk with him, so.
John Frawley:(Laughs)
Charles Warren:Yeah he’s dying [personal information redacted by Roy City Police Department].
John Frawley:Oh, boy.
Willow Hendricks:Getting worse and worse.
Charles Warren:Yeah, I can barely understand him over the phone now. It’s only been, what, two weeks since I’ve seen him?
Willow Hendricks:Yeah, keep trying to—
John Frawley:Just degrade, just getting worse?
Willow Hendricks:—he keeps degrading, gets worse and worse.
Charles Warren:Goes fast.
John Frawley:Fast?
Charles Warren:Most people, most people [personal information redacted by Roy City Police Department].
John Frawley:Wow.
Charles Warren:And he’s 65 or 6, 66 or 7.
John Frawley:Sorry. He beat the odds then, sounds like.
Roy City police detective John Frawley describes his efforts to locate missing evidence in the Sheree Warren cold case homicide investigation after conducting a Charles Warren interview in 2015.
Charles Warren:Well, he really didn’t start getting it until, what, 6 to 8 months? Might’ve been a year ago it started hitting him where he started slurring speech like he had a stroke. And that’s what I thought he’d had ’til he finally told me it’s [personal information redacted by Roy City Police Department]. Because his hands started deforming.
John Frawley:Oh.
Charles Warren:He’d lose all the muscles.
John Frawley:Uh huh.
Charles Warren:And eventually it, your muscle, heart muscle and all that kinda just, so that’s how it kills you. Just degenerates it, y’know.
John Frawley:Yeah.
Charles Warren:So, but it starts in the hands.
Willow Hendricks:I think he’s the only one that puts up with him so—
John Frawley:Ah.
Willow Hendricks:—he calls every other day almost, says “lets go get coffee.”
John Frawley:He needs, he needs somebody to talk to, probably.
Willow Hendricks:Yeah, he’s a good guy.
John Frawley:Hey Charles, is it ok if I come by and talk to you or call you again if I have any questions?
Charles Warren:Yeah.
John Frawley:Is that alright? I do appreciate your time and talking with me.
Charles Warren:Yeah, ‘cause I hope I can, y’know I just don’t remember, y’know. (Laughs)
Willow Hendricks:If you do remember something I’m sure you could call him, too.
John Frawley:Yeah, you have my card, or my number, so if something jogs loose and you’re like “whoa,” please call me and—
Charles Warren:Yeah.
John Frawley:—and talk to me.
Charles Warren interview: More on Cary Hartmann’s psychic stories
Charles Warren:Well, I’m sure I told him everything. If he just wrote it down, y’know? Umm, then it should all be there—
John Frawley:‘Kay.
Charles Warren:—y’know, because, umm but, I don’t know. He may, I don’t know. ‘Cause I remember that something about Cary, uh, him or his buddy had a vision of something, y’know, about a pickup it seemed like. And then he told me, I remember him saying now that, uh, that, the pickup that this guy envisioned was Cary’s pickup, basically. And supposedly the guy that was driving that pickup did it. Whatever they did. So I don’t know. And that’s what he told me. I never got that from anybody else. And I can’t remember if he told, told me something else but I can’t remember what it was. It was about Cary. That was after they caught him and was trying to convict him. Or it might’ve been after they convicted him, I don’t know. But uh, but they, he said it was something like he was trying to confess to it (unintelligible) y’know, but I don’t know. Never worked out because him and another cop that worked there stayed friends with, I don’t know if he was an Ogden City cop or not—
John Frawley:Hartmann, or the friend?
Charles Warren:—uh, the, what was Cary’s name?
John Frawley:Hartmann, Cary Hartmann.
Former Roy police detective Jack Bell gives his theory on the source of several psychic tips in the Sheree Warren cold case. Bell believed an anonymous letter that recounted a dream about Warren’s murder came from her boyfriend, Cary Hartmann.
Charles Warren:Uh, and the friend was an Ogden City cop and they used to, he used to ride around with him after he, well, I guess before he went in prison. But they stayed good friends and I don’t know if they did after, I don’t know.
John Frawley:Hmm.
Charles Warren:They told me about, or Bell told me about him and this guy, him and this Ogden City cop, I’m pretty sure it was an Ogden City cop. I don’t think it was a Roy cop. But, anyway. I don’t know.
John Frawley:Yeah.
Charles Warren:I can’t remember. But so, if he didn’t write it down but I’m sure he probably didn’t now—
John Frawley:I’m not saying that, I’m just saying there’s a lot of, it’s, back then it was paper, y’know?
Charles Warren:Yeah.
John Frawley:And it’s, I’ve got to go through the paperwork. It’s not—
Willow Hendricks:Digitalized.
John Frawley:—it’s not all digitalized.
Willow Hendricks:They don’t have the cameras on the gas thing to say “yes, we can see you were here this day.”
John Frawley:Y’know, so I’m not saying that didn’t happen. I’m just—
Willow Hendricks:And it might be in Cary’s files instead of the Warren file.
Charles Warren:Well, y’know when, the thing about it is, I was driving, uh, back and forth every two weeks. Uh, from the time I got down to the Roseville area, uh, come home to, y’know, so whatever that was in Elko, I probably would’ve stopped there for gas. That was that waypoint, y’know? If you looked every two weeks you’d probably see a receipt there. Y’know? Uh, probably not at the same station but you would’ve seen it.
John Frawley:‘Kay.
Charles Warren:And then once I got [personal information redacted by Roy City Police Department] stopped and we, uh, we didn’t live in the trailer very long because my dad come and got it to go down south to Phoenix with my mom and then we lived in a, or in a—
Willow Hendricks:Apartment.
Charles Warren:—apartment complex there. I almost remember the name of the town. Anyway, uh, yeah, uh, we lived in that apartment complex, uh, the first one I ever lived in and uh, we had a room on the bottom floor and it was, I think it was two bedrooms, so we had a bedroom and the kids had one and uh, that uh, that’s basically when we, she came down. Well, I know what it was. It was right after the accident. I must’ve brought them back with me and she went looking for (unintelligible). She’s the one that, she’s the one that got me to get this house and get an apartment, so, she went and got the apartment and—
John Frawley:‘Kay.
Charles Warren:—so, uh, but (sighs) I just don’t know.
Willow Hendricks:I don’t remember the time of year it was ‘cause—
Charles Warren:Nope.
John Frawley:Yeah.
Willow Hendricks:—Sacramento doesn’t have real seasons too much.
John Frawley:Right, it’s hard.
Charles Warren:Yeah, it’s like—
Willow Hendricks:A little bit, but not much.
John Frawley:Yeah.
Charles Warren:I wanted to stay down there, actually. But I didn’t, but uh, if I could’ve sold this house in that time, I probably would’ve ended up down there, ‘cause uh, it, it’s just the, I like the, the summer all year round—
John Frawley:Yeah.
Charles Warren:—and the heat was, at 100, it’d get up to 106 every day down there. And 106 felt like 95 here. Y’know?
John Frawley:Yeah.
Charles Warren:And uh—
John Frawley:I’ve got a brother living down there right now, in that area.
Charles Warren:Real dry, uh—
John Frawley:Yeah.
Charles Warren:—real dry heat. But anyway, it felt like it. And matter of fact, when I came back here, this area was so much more humid I couldn’t believe it.
John Frawley:Huh.
Charles Warren:But we had the (unintelligible)—
John Frawley:Yeah.
Charles Warren: —everything and uh, I remember that. I just felt terrible and I hated the lights. I run more red lights than—
John Frawley:(Laughs)
Willow Hendricks:(Unintelligible)
Charles Warren:I hated it. You’d be sitting there and nobody’s in sight you have to wait for a red light. In California you don’t do that.
John Frawley:You just go?
Charles Warren:Well no, in California the light’s always green for you if there’s no other cars on the road.
John Frawley:Oh, uh huh.
Charles Warren:It changes for you. That light system down there is 100 years ahead of ours up here.
John Frawley:Yeah.
Charles Warren:100 years ahead of ours as it is today, y’know. Geez.
Charles Warren interview: Sheree’s daily routine
John Frawley:Well you have helped me quite a bit, Charles, because it sounds like that day, I’ll try, I’m trying to figure out what her plan was that day. It sounds like her plan was, uh, leave work. You guys met in the morning, sounds like maybe you had time for coffee or something.
Charles Warren:Yeah. We usually had at least 30, 40 minutes before she left.
John Frawley:Umm, she was supposed to get you at Wagstaff Toyota but that didn’t happen. You were expecting her [personal information redacted by Roy City Police Department] and around 9:30 or 10 when that didn’t happen, you become concerned.
Charles Warren:Well she, she would always call me. Y’know?
John Frawley:And then you call Mary. Is that right?
Charles Warren:Yeah, I called her ‘cause (unintelligible).
John Frawley:Yeah.
Charles Warren:So, she want, it seemed like she wanted to get Adam that night and “well that’s ok, I’ll just hang onto him,” y’know? ‘Cause I had Alice there with me.
John Frawley:Let me ask you this, would Sheree’ve, do you, what would make Sheree deviate from that plan? ‘Cause it sounds like, was that more of a routine? It sounds like a routine.
Charles Warren:Yeah, it’s a routine we had every day.
John Frawley:That, that routine that I just explained is what you guys did every day?
Charles Warren:Right, except for that particular day, uh, I wasn’t working so she was just gonna come here and pick him up I would guess, I, but I just don’t know. I can’t remember talking to her about that.
John Frawley:‘Kay. Alright, well, thank you.
Charles Warren:That was, that was a day I was off.
John Frawley:You were off that day?
Charles Warren:I was, or maybe I’d worked that night and got off that morning.
Willow Hendricks:You’re daytime.
John Frawley:So 12 to 8?
Charles Warren:Well yeah, 12 to 8 at working. So I would’ve got off—
John Frawley:Midnight to 8, or not, but you didn’t work ‘till 8, you’re saying. You’d leave—
Charles Warren:No, I’d go to work at midnight, get off at 8, meet her and then I’d wake up, I’d sleep, uh, if I could with the baby and I couldn’t then I’d sleep after I, after I dropped him off to her in the afternoon when she got Adam.
John Frawley:‘Kay.
Charles Warren:But then I’d come back home and go to sleep until midnight.
John Frawley:Ok.
Charles Warren:So.
John Frawley:Alright Charles. Thank you, sir.
Charles Warren:Ok.
Willow Hendricks:I can get it.
John Frawley:Oh, you don’t have to get up. I’m going to get out of your hair. (Unrelated talk about cat furniture) Alright, well you have a nice day. And uh, I might call you with a question or two. Or stop by.
Charles Warren:Ok, sounds good.
John Frawley:Take care.
Hear where detective Frawley went next in Cold season 3, episode 9: A Picture in the Lobby
Episode credits Research, writing and hosting: Dave Cawley Audio production: Aaron Mason Audio mixing: Ben Kuebrich Cold main score composition: Michael Bahnmiller Additional scoring: Allison Leyton-Brown KSL executive producer: Sheryl Worsley Workhouse Media executive producers: Paul Anderson, Nick Panella, Andrew Greenwood Amazon Music and Wondery team: Morgan Jones, Candace Manriquez Wrenn, Clare Chambers, Lizzie Bassett, Kale Bittner, Alison Ver Meulen Episode transcript: https://thecoldpodcast.com/season-3-transcript/a-picture-in-the-lobby-full-transcript/
Dave Cawley:A human skull rolled down a brushy hill between a suburban neighborhood and a busy Utah highway. The cranium came to rest in a litter of decaying leaves, at the base of a barren scrub oak tree. It sat there for some time — hours, days, months — before a man walking his dog caught a glimpse of it.
DeAnn Servey (from February 5, 2015 KSL TV archive):The man who initially found it, uh, walks along this Frontage Road every day and noticed something in the bushes.
Dave Cawley:He wasn’t sure what it was at first, just that it appeared round and off-white: out of place amid the drab remains of last autumn’s long-fallen foliage. But it’d captured his curiosity. So, he went in for a closer look. Only then could he see the unmistakable shape of the hollow eye sockets, the six teeth still stubbornly lodged into the maxilla. This was once the head of a living human being. But judging by the brittle appearance of the bone, this person had been dead for quite some time. The man, recognizing the skull as the partial remains of a person, recoiled, then pulled out his phone and called 911.
Davis County sheriff’s deputies rushed to the site. They put up crime scene tape as the frigid dark of the February night descended. A sergeant fielded questions from curious reporters, her face lit by the hard lights of the TV cameras, her breath turning to fog in the chill.
DeAnn Servey (from February 5, 2015 KSL TV archive):You don’t know if an animal could’ve brought it from a different location. There’s so many factors that we’re going to try to piece together and find the origin of this skull.
Dave Cawley:In other words, they didn’t know much. In the days that followed, crime scene technicians scoured the hill for more bones. They uncovered a shallow grave at the top of that hill, just a few feet behind the backyards of several homes. The grave contained the skeletal remains of a young woman.
Guy Beynon (from February 6, 2015 KSL TV archive):It was a little disturbing to, to realize that there’s a, parts of a, remnants of a body there.
Dave Cawley:This discovery of a clandestine gravesite in early 2015 along U.S. Highway 89 between Salt Lake City and Ogden resulted in police agencies all across Utah questioning if the bones belonged to one of their missing people. Police in the city of Roy hoped the skull might belong to Sheree Warren. The grave sat midway between where Sheree had lived, and where she’d disappeared.
Jack Bell, the original investigator on the Sheree Warren case, had retired six years earlier, in 2009, as assistant chief for the Roy City Police Department. He’d never stopped wondering what’d happened to Sheree.
Jack Bell:The last time I talked to anybody out here about that case, they had a pretty good size cardboard box full of stuff.
Dave Cawley:That “stuff” included Jack’s handwritten notes. Jack told me he’d at one time tried to type those chicken scratches into a computer.
Jack Bell:‘Cause I wasn’t very proud of the work and I know my handwritings terrible. But, uh, I didn’t get very far, so…
Dave Cawley:…so the notes had gone back into the box and the box had gone onto a shelf, all but forgotten. It’d collected dust, until that skull rolled down a hill next to a busy highway between Salt Lake City and Ogden.
John Frawley:I was just in my office one day and my supervisor comes in with a box, one of those cardboard boxes and he said “hey they found, uh, remains in Davis County. So we’re reopening this cold case.” It was Sheree Warren and I didn’t, I honestly didn’t know much about the Sheree Warren case at all.
Dave Cawley:That’s the voice of detective John Frawley. He’d started with the Roy City police department in 2008, meaning his and Jack Bell’s paths crossed only briefly. John’d only been a cop about six years when he ended up with Jack Bell’s old box of Sheree Warren case files. He was still relatively new to investigations, but had a sharp, analytical mind.
The box contained Jack Bell’s notes, a copy of the statement Cary Hartmann had given to his private investigator, reports from Las Vegas police about the discovery of Sheree’s car and a few other tidbits. John told me he’d seen Sheree’s face hundreds of times, without ever realizing it.
John Frawley:Sheree Warren’s picture was actually in a display case in our lobby and, uh, I never made the connection.
Dave Cawley:John’d never stopped to study that old missing persons flier. It looked a lot like the one Cary Hartmann had carried into Jack Bell’s office almost 30 years earlier. The box also contained one of those old fliers Cary Hartmann had printed. John looked at it, seeing again the photocopied picture of a smiling Sheree Warren. He picked through rest of the cardboard box, pulling out Jack’s notes, struggling to decipher the former detective’s handwriting. John read the original missing person’s report. It described how Mary Sorensen had called police the day after Sheree failed to return home from work one October evening.
John Frawley:Mary really kept her finger on the pulse of the case, y’know, and was involved.
Dave Cawley:John decided Roy police needed to reconnect with Sheree’s relatives.
John Frawley:I met with some of Sheree Warren’s family members and just to collect some DNA so we had something to compare to.
Dave Cawley:In the process, he learned Sheree’s mom, Mary, had died about two years earlier.
John Frawley:Umm, I was, I was never able to meet her and talk with her.
Dave Cawley:But he did meet Sheree’s dad, Ed Sorensen, as well as her son.
John Frawley:In talking with, with her son, he asked about that. He said, y’know, “is her picture still out in the lobby?” And I was, I said “yes.” And y’know, it’s important to them.
Dave Cawley:These interactions drove home to John just how frustrating the years with no answers must’ve been to the people who cared most about Sheree. So, John went back to that banker’s box of old case notes and reports.
John Frawley:Yeah, literally. Taking it off the shelf, yeah.
Dave Cawley:The box didn’t have everything, only a fragment of the Sheree Warren case, covering the first year-and-a-half of the investigation. That’s because, as I’ve mentioned before, the case had been split between investigators from Roy, Ogden and Salt Lake City. So, John didn’t yet have a full picture of the case but he found himself fascinated by what he’d seen.
John Frawley:I was taking it home and reading it, y’know it was just, I was hooked on it.
Dave Cawley:Yeah, I know the feeling, John. Meanwhile, the Office of the Utah State Medical Examiner was trying to identify the bones found on that hillside. John sent the medical examiner one of the items he’d found in the box — Sheree’s dental records — for the sake of comparison.
John Frawley:Everything sort of fit. Meaning, the timeframe, it was a female, it was the same stature that Sheree Warren was.
Dave Cawley:Sheree’s case had been dormant nearly a decade when the discovery of these skeletal remains infused detective John Frawley with a desire to find answers for Sheree’s family.
John Frawley:And I felt like, I felt like there was more I could do on it. As an investigator, that’s what you’re driven to do, y’know, dig in.
Dave Cawley:This is Cold, season 3, episode 9: A Picture in the Lobby. From KSL Podcasts, I’ve Dave Cawley.
[Ad break]
Dave Cawley:Roy police detective John Frawley had picked up the Sheree Warren cold case in February of 2015, after the discovery of unidentified skeletal remains in a clandestine grave.
John Frawley:I started reading through this information in this box, and that’s how the cold case started.
Dave Cawley:John couldn’t get Sheree’s case out of his head. He’d done some preliminary research and re-established contact with Sheree’s family, but he wanted to do more. So, he’d gone to talk to his boss.
Carl Merino:Carl Merino. C-A-R-L and Merino, M-E-R-I-N-O.
Dave Cawley:Carl Merino served as chief of police for Roy from March of 2015 to May of 2021. We’re going to spend a little time diving into Carl’s background now, to help you better understand his philosophy on cold cases. It’s important because it shows why he was willing to green light John Frawley’s continued work on the Sheree Warren case. And he’d bumped up against the Sheree Warren case — and one of the two suspects, Cary Hartmann — several times over the years.
Carl Merino:It’s been really interesting to think how that case and my career have interacted.
Dave Cawley:So let’s look at Carl Merino’s history with the Sheree Warren case. Carl started as a cop in 1983, when he took an unpaid, volunteer position as a reserve officer with the Ogden Police Department. He signed onto the reserve corps right after Ogden police brass kicked Cary Hartmann out of it. Carl told me he’d known Cary back then, from his day job.
Carl Merino:He would come in where I worked as an industrial supplies sales rep and so I knew him from there. We had talked a little bit, but not much. He was a really outgoing guy. Uh, came across always as very confident. You got the feeling that he thought he was better than everybody else. And kind of that feeling of he had a scam going everybody. You know how somebody’s always getting over, that was kind of the way he came across.
Dave Cawley:It wasn’t until a few years into Carl’s time as an Ogden reserve officer that he came to see Cary Hartmann in a different light.
Carl Merino:I was at work the one day and I got called by our coordinator who coordinated with the reserves and he said “I need you to come to the police station and bring your gun.” And that usually means you’ve done something wrong and y’know, they’re taking your gun away and y’know, not let you volunteer anymore. And I thought “I can’t think of anything I could’ve done that would’ve done that.” So I went home and got it and took it up to Ogden Police Department and he said “your gun was issued to Cary Hartmann when he was a reserve with Ogden. And he has intimated that he used a gun with several of his rapes and we’re thinking it was probably this gun so we’re taking it back to use as evidence in case we, we can actually prove something with that.”
Dave Cawley:He only knew from reading the newspaper Cary’d also been dating Sheree Warren when she’d disappeared.
Carl Merino:Y’know it’s easy to imagine that something happened between the two of them that got out of hand.
Dave Cawley:Two years later, Carl took a full-time, paid position as a police officer.
Carl Merino:August of ’89, I got hired with Roy PD.
Dave Cawley:By that point, the Sheree Warren case was already four years old and well on its way to going cold. Five more years went by before, in 1994, Carl switched departments. He became a detective for Salt Lake City.
Carl Merino:I was assigned to homicide. And while I was assigned there we started to, to work cold cases.
Dave Cawley:Carl had arrived in Salt Lake right at the end of that department’s search for a suspected serial killer, a search that’d soaked up a lot of money and manpower without much to show for it.
Carl Merino:Nothing was getting solved.
Dave Cawley:As we’ve already seen in past episodes.
Carl Merino:I was assigned to, to look into some of those cases from the mid-‘80s. And that’s the same time that Sheree Warren went missing from Salt Lake.
Dave Cawley:Carl saw how jurisdictional politics had made Sheree’s case a hot potato from the start.
Carl Merino:The last place she was known that people knew where she was was Salt Lake so the case should’ve been handled out of Salt Lake, uh, but they said “no, she’s a Roy citizen and so we’re not gonna work it.”
Dave Cawley:Roy police detective Jack Bell had worked Sheree’s case for a few years, before handing it off to the Ogden Police Department, where it promptly went cold. Ogden detective Shane Minor had picked Sheree’s case up again in 1998, honing in on Cary Hartmann as his lead suspect.
Carl Merino:And so they thought that there was a connection there since he was, y’know, a convicted rapist as well.
Dave Cawley:But Shane’s investigation had itself stalled in 2006, leaving Sheree’s case cold once again. All the information Shane’d gathered up to that point remained with him. His report didn’t find its way into the hands of Salt Lake detectives, like Carl Merino. Shane told me he’d taken part in a few cold case conferences over the years. He’d presented the Sheree Warren case, hoping to drum up some help.
Shane Minor:You put a bunch of guys together, a bunch of cops especially and everybody’s gonna have great ideas but then there’s the follow-through of “ok, who’s gonna do what?” And “make sure this gets done.”
Dave Cawley:It’d felt like doing a group project in school: a lot of people had great ideas, but no one seemed interested in doing the actual work. Years passed. Carl Merino was approaching retirement from his job in Salt Lake City when one day he saw yellow crime scene tape out of the corner of his eye while driving home from work.
Carl Merino:The body on the east side of the, of 89.
Dave Cawley:The spot where the dog walker had found that skull.
Carl Merino:I was still in Salt Lake they found her.
Dave Cawley:Carl followed the news of the discovery, wondering if the bones might belong to Sheree Warren.
Mike Headrick (from March 12, 2015 KSL TV archive):Deputies aren’t saying who they’ve questioned in this current case and they’re not disclosing the cause of death at this time.
Dave Cawley:Dental records allowed the medical examiner to identify the skeletal remains as those of a missing woman, who’d disappeared during the 1980s. But the medical examiner told detective John Frawley the bones did not belong to Sheree Warren.
John Frawley:The remains were later identified as Theresa Greaves.
Mike Anderson (from March 12, 2015 KSL TV archive):She was 23 years old when she disappeared back in 1983 and right now deputies here in Davis County are investigating this as a homicide case.
Dave Cawley:If this sounds familiar, it’s probably because the discovery of Theresa Greaves’ remains also came up in Cold season 2. We don’t have time to repeat Theresa’s story here, but I’ll note her case still remains unsolved.
Mike Headrick:Greaves had left her home in Woods Cross and told a roommate that she was taking a bus into Salt Lake City for a job interview.
Dave Cawley:Salt Lake detectives had at the time declined to work Theresa’s case, leaving it to investigators in the much smaller suburb of Woods Cross, where Theresa’d lived. Why did the Salt Lake detectives turn their back on Theresa in the 1980s? Perhaps a mixture of big-city cop elitism and a desire to keep their crime stats down. The majority of missing persons cases resolve quickly with the missing returning home. But those that don’t, like Theresa Greaves’ case, can linger for decades.
Carl Merino told me Salt Lake detectives did the same thing two years later, with Sheree Warren’s case. They pushed that investigation off onto the Roy police department. But Roy did not at the time have the resources to conduct a robust investigation 40 miles away.
Carl Merino:I wonder if they spent the time in Salt Lake to gather all the evidence down here that they could have.
Dave Cawley:Carl’d started out in Roy, then gone to work in Salt Lake City. He’d seen both sides of the coin over the course of his career. But that career took an interesting turn in March of 2015, just weeks after the discovery of those skeletal remains on a hillside next to the highway. Carl Merino returned to the Roy City Police Department.
Carl Merino:They had an opening for Chief of Police and I applied and, uh, they selected me.
Dave Cawley:And so that’s how Carl became detective John Frawley’s boss, just weeks after Frawley’d re-opened the Sheree Warren cold case.
John Frawley:I did have one supervisor say, y’know, after, after the remains were identified “well ok, well we’re, we’re done, we can kind of just move on.” But there was a separate supervisor said “y’know, you don’t have to put that back on the shelf, you can still work it.” And that’s what I wanted to do. I just felt like there was more to do on it.
Dave Cawley:Carl told me he believes cold cases matter. And as chief, he vowed to put money and manpower behind that belief.
Carl Merino:Detective Frawley came to me and said “are you ok if I work this Chief?” And I said “yeah, y’know, let’s get going.”
Dave Cawley:Detective John Frawley had both a personal desire and a mandate from his new boss to dig into the Sheree Warren case. He started by examining the facts: what did he know for sure about Sheree’s final day?
John Frawley:What did she plan on doing? She planned to meet Charles Warren at Wagstaff Toyota and give him a ride back to Ogden.
Dave Cawley:John knew from reading detective Jack Bell’s notes Chuck Warren had talked to Jack a couple of times.
John Frawley:He told detective Bell he never made it to Wagstaff’s. He became ill, he went for a jog. At the end of that jog he was too tired to go home and he called his previous wife, Alice, to come pick him up. Umm, to me that, that makes no sense at all.
Dave Cawley:It seemed like a shaky alibi. In John’s mind, Sheree’s ex-husband also had motive.
John Frawley:There’s a divorce. They’re in the process of a divorce. So there’s a house, a pension, a child. All these things are involved.
Dave Cawley:John could see a hypothetical scenario in which Chuck Warren killed Sheree in an act of domestic violence, seeking to put a quick end to their fight over alimony and child support. But did Chuck have opportunity?
John Frawley:The last person to see Sheree Warren was a co-worker whose name was Richard Moss.
Dave Cawley:We met Richard in episode 2. He was the credit union manager Sheree’d been training the day she disappeared.
Richard Moss:I never saw what car she got into or, her own car or another car or (laughs). I never saw her again.
Dave Cawley:John called Richard in June of 2015.
Richard Moss:And he wanted to know or refresh or see if, what I could remember.
Dave Cawley:It marked Richard’s third round of questioning over a span of nearly 30 years: first by Jack Bell, then by Shane Minor and now by John Frawley.
Richard Moss:Three conversations over the telephone.
Dave Cawley:Richard lived in Richfield, a rural community about 200 miles from Roy. He told me I was the first person in nearly 40 years to come interview him face-to-face about Sheree Warren.
John Frawley:Interestingly enough, I did speak to Richard Moss. He never did see Sheree get in her car.
Dave Cawley:Richard’s story remained consistent from the start, through his telephone conversation with detective John Frawley and my eventual meeting with him in 2021.
John Frawley:He was of the understanding that Sheree was gonna leave work and pick up her ex-husband give him a ride back home to Ogden.
Dave Cawley:Chuck Warren had said he’d called off that meeting. But that’s not what Sheree’d told Richard as they’d parted ways that evening in the garage behind the credit union office.
John Frawley:I need to get past this plan that she had to meet him.
Dave Cawley:John came across a report in the box of Roy police records. It talked about a tip that’d come in about four months after Sheree disappeared. A credit union employee had told police Chuck Warren’d made a cash advance on his credit card, in person, in Salt Lake City, on the day of Sheree’s disappearance. If that was true, it would mean Chuck’d lied about where he was that day.
John Frawley:Charles Warren was asked by detective Bell, if he would submit to a polygraph regarding his alibi.
Dave Cawley:And as we know, Chuck Warren’d refused that lie detector test. The tipster had told police she’d also heard Chuck’d made credit card transactions in Nevada, days before Sheree’s car surfaced in Las Vegas. I mentioned this tip in passing, way back in episode 2. But here, in 2015, detective John Frawley couldn’t find any indication his predecessor, Jack Bell, had ever verified it.
John Frawley:So, umm, that needs to be looked into.
Dave Cawley:John wrote a search warrant targeting Chuck Warren’s financial records. He wanted account statements, copies of checks or any details of transactions posted to Chuck’s account during September, October or November of 1985. A judge signed off on the warrant and John sent it to the credit union.
John Frawley:And a lot of that information was gone because of the timeframe.
Dave Cawley:The credit union no longer had Chuck Warren’s checks. But it did have his credit card statements. I haven’t seen them, so I can’t tell you everything they revealed. But I do know the statements showed Chuck’d made a purchase in Elko, Nevada on November 4th, 1985 followed by another at the Circus Circus hotel and casino in Reno, Nevada on November 8th, 1985. That’s a little over a month after Sheree disappeared, and a matter of days before staff at the Aladdin hotel and casino in Las Vegas found her car abandoned in their back lot.
John Frawley:I felt that it was a significant development.
Dave Cawley:Because, John suspected, Chuck might’ve made those transactions while riding the train back to Ogden, after dumping Sheree’s car in Las Vegas. But, there were some problems with this idea. Las Vegas sits at the far southern tip of Nevada. Elko and Reno are in the north. They’re both nearly as far from Las Vegas as Ogden, Utah is. And there are no railroads directly connecting Elko or Reno to Las Vegas. And consider the timing. John’d read the Las Vegas police reports about the car’s discovery.
John Frawley:They say it looks like it’s been there for some time based on dirt, debris.
Dave Cawley:Chuck’s transactions occurred on November 4th and 8th. Sheree’s car turned up on the 11th. So that’s a week, a most, not long enough for the car to’ve gathered a thick coat of dust. So, Chuck Warren’s credit card transactions in Nevada probably didn’t have anything to do with dumping Sheree’s car in Las Vegas. But John still found them suspicious. So did I, frankly, when I first found out about them. I wondered if Chuck’d gone on gambling jaunts just weeks after his wife disappeared. If so, I didn’t expect to get a straight answer about it. In fact, I thought I’d never hear Chuck Warren’s side of the story. Turns out, I was wrong.
[Ad break]
Dave Cawley:Roy city police detective John Frawley drove into Ogden on June 23rd, 2015. He carried a small voice recorder in his pocket, and he started it rolling as he pulled up to the curb outside an orange brick house. John stepped out of his car and walked past the driveway, noticing an old Toyota Supra parked there. He headed to the front door.
(Sound of knocking on a door)
Dave Cawley:John had come alone to the house belonging to Chuck Warren. The same house Sheree Warren had herself called home for a few brief years back in the early ‘80s. But it was a different woman who greeted John at the door.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Hi, how are you?
Willow Hendricks (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Good.
Dave Cawley:The microphone on John’s audio recorder sometimes rubbed against his clothing as he moved, making a lot of noise. So I’ll just tell you, the woman who answered the door identified herself as Willow, Chuck Warren’s wife. A cat slinked between Willow’s legs as she told John Chuck was in the other room.
Willow Hendricks (from June 23, 2015 police recording):He was just getting his shirt buttoned up, so.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Awesome.
Willow Hendricks (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Come on in, Chuck. (Cat meows) What? No, you’re not going outside. (Cat meows)
Dave Cawley:The house looked much the same as it had when Sheree’d lived there more than 30 years earlier: same carpet, same everything. Only now, Willow lived there as Chuck’s wife, instead of Sheree. Chuck had met Willow Hendricks at a restaurant in Ogden called “The Stagecoach” in the late 2000s. He was a regular customer, she was working there as a server. They had a significant age gap — 27 years — but hit it off and began dating. Willow’d soon moved in with Chuck. They were married in 2013, and soon after held a ceremony at an Elvis impersonator “chapel” — if you can call it that — in Las Vegas. So, Chuck and Willow’s wedding had come just a couple of years before detective John Frawley showed up on their doorstep in 2015. Chuck stepped into the room after a moment to meet the detective.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Is, is there somewhere we could talk for a couple minutes—
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Sure.
Dave Cawley:This is the first time you’re hearing Chuck Warren’s actual voice in this podcast. None of his prior interactions with police in this case were recorded.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):I’m here to talk to you. I’ve just, I was assigned a case a few months ago. Sheree Warren. What’d happened is, uh, some remains were found in Davis County. I don’t know if you saw that on the news or not.
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):I didn’t.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Ok … and anytime something like that happens a lot of old cases are kind of re-opened and so the case was assigned to me. I read through it and was wanting to know if I can just talk to you and help me answer some questions and clear some things up. I know that you’d talked to detective Bell, what, that was about 30, not quite 30 years ago but—
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Damn near.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):(Laughs)
Dave Cawley:John said “I know that you had talked to detective Bell not quite 30 years ago.” Chuck replied “damn near.”
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):And so, yeah. Go ahead Charles.
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):I, (laughs), his notes would probably be the best source.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):(Laughs)
Dave Cawley:In case you didn’t catch that, Chuck said detective Jack Bell’s notes from 30 years earlier would be the best source for his story. Chuck said he’d recently suffered a stroke. It’d impacted his memory.
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Sometimes I can remember, uh, things of—
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Yeah.
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):—but, what I said at that time, I, y’know, he’d have it all down, I would think—
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Yeah.
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):—with how good he was at taking his notes. … I used to have a photographic memory where I could remember, I had a phone number—
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Right.
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Y’know—
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Right.
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):I could remember it forever.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Yeah.
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Or even numbers on cars.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Well I’m sorry, sorry to hear that. But I was wondering if, y’know actually reading through that, through that report I, I have, I, I, more questions, actually. I, and so that’s why I, y’know, it’s like “I’ll call Charles and—”
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Yeah.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):“—and maybe talk to him.”
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Well, ask me and I’ll see what—
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Yeah. Well, I’d like to, if we could, maybe just go back to, umm, start from, start from the day that, that Sheree disappeared.
Dave Cawley:They went through the child custody arrangement Chuck and Sheree had worked out during the summer of 1985, after they’d separated. Chuck said he’d worked graveyards at the railroad and Sheree’d worked days at the credit union. They’d met each morning to trade custody of their son.
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):She would drop him off at Denny’s. We’d have coffee together and she’d go to work.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):‘Kay.
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):And then, the same in the afternoon.
Dave Cawley:Chuck told John he’d worked midnight to 8, and he’d gone to meet Sheree at the Denny’s shortly after that. But Jack Bell’s notes said something different.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):In his report, he says that, umm, you, you and Sheree met at the Denny’s at 7 a.m., around 7 a.m.
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Couldn’t have been 7.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Couldn’t have been 7?
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):No, I’d be, I worked ‘till 8.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Ok.
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):I wouldn’t have left an hour early. (Laughs)
Dave Cawley:There were other small inconsistencies between Jack’s notes and what Chuck Warren told detective John Frawley in this interview. Jack’s notes described Chuck taking his and Sheree’s son to breakfast, before dropping the boy off with Chuck’s parents for the day. But Chuck told John he didn’t remember doing that. He thought he’d given the boy to Alice, his first wife.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Then it, it actually says that you and Alice go to lunch.
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Uh, that day?
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Yeah.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):‘Kay.
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):—but we could’ve, I don’t know.
Dave Cawley:John asked what Chuck’d planned to do later that day, on the afternoon of Sheree’s disappearance.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):You had asked her to pick you up at Wagstaff Toyotas, or something like that?
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Yeah, yeah.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Ok. Can you tell me more about that?
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):(Exhales) Well, I don’t, I never made it down there—
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Yeah.
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):—and I called and told her—
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Ok.
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):—that uh, y’know, I wasn’t going to make it—
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Yeah.
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):And uh, (pause), but I just never made it down there.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):You never made it down there.
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Yeah.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Can you, can you tell me, Charles, how, what changed, what changed your plans. Why didn’t you go to Wagstaff? Do you remember that?
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Uh, I was looking at cars, I think and uh, I uh, or something was wrong with my car. I can’t remember. And, umm, I don’t know. [Expletive]. I don’t know.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):‘Kay.
Dave Cawley:“I can’t remember, I don’t know.” Not a very satisfying answer. Chuck said he’d called Sheree at the credit union sometime around 4, which was consistent with what he’d told detective Jack Bell back in 1985. Chuck told detective John Frawley he couldn’t remember what he’d done after making the call to Sheree. John said according to Jack Bell’s notes, Chuck’d gone for a jog. Chuck said that was right. He’d jogged from his house into downtown Ogden, but the sun’d gone down so he’d stopped.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Yeah, yeah. I was just going to say, do you always run in the dark? (Laughs)
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):No, no. No, it seemed like it got dark and that’s why I went to Denny’s.
Dave Cawley:A different Denny’s, not the Denny’s where he’d picked up his son from Sheree earlier that morning. Chuck said he’d ordered a cup of coffee and called his first wife, Alice, asking her to come pick him up.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Oh ok, that makes, that makes, so you go, you go for a jog and then you’re there at the Denny’s having some coffee and she picks you up.
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Yeah, I drank a lot of Denny’s coffee.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):(Laughs) Do you still drink it?
Willow Hendricks (from June 23, 2015 police recording):He does. Yes, he does.
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Yeah.
Dave Cawley:Chuck Warren’s story left him with a roughly two-hour window on the afternoon of Sheree’s disappearance for which he had no real alibi. He’d told Jack Bell in 1985 he spent those two hours jogging. Just jogging.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):And you actually give your whole jogging route to him.
Dave Cawley:That route took Chuck four miles from his house into the heart of downtown Ogden, then another mile-and-a-half back to that Denny’s restaurant. Chuck hadn’t provided any specific destination for his “jog” back in 1985 and he didn’t volunteer one now, either.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Well I appreciate you talking with me. Umm, like I said, this case, y’know, it’s open. It’s an open case but I, questions come up, y’know and—
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):I can’t help you with ‘em.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Oh you did, actually. You helped me quite a bit.
Dave Cawley:Detective John Frawley asked Chuck what he’d done that night, after his jog. Chuck said he’d spent the evening at home with his first wife, Alice.
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):I went to bed early.
Dave Cawley:“I went to bed early.” But wait, didn’t Chuck work graveyards? John asked about this inconsistency and Chuck became confused. He said he couldn’t remember whether he’d gone to work that night, or if he’d stayed home with Alice.
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):That I can’t tell you.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):It’s a long time ago.
Dave Cawley:But Chuck remembered wondering where Sheree was, why she hadn’t come to pick up their son. He said he’d called Sheree’s mom, Mary Sorensen.
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):It was before 10 o’clock and after 9:30. That’s all I remember—
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Ok, between 9:30 and 10 p.m. You’re—
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):—somewhere in there.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):—you call Mary and—
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Yeah.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):—say “hey, where’s she at?”
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Yeah.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):‘Kay.
Dave Cawley:This was different from what Chuck had told detective Shane Minor in 1999. Back then, Chuck said Mary’d called him looking for Sheree, not the other way around. And there’s no record in the case files Mary ever mentioned talking to Chuck on the phone that night.
John moved on, to the day after Sheree disappeared. He said according to Jack Bell’s notes, Chuck’d gone to work that day, on the dayshift.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):And you worked for the railroad. What did you do for the railroad?
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):I was a clerk at that time.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):But this wasn’t like you getting on a train and traveling around—
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):No, no.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):—this was you working in an office.
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Just right there on 28th.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Ok.
Dave Cawley:Jack Bell’d tried to call Chuck at the rail yard that day. Chuck hadn’t been there. A coworker had reportedly told Jack Chuck’d come in that morning, but left sick a bit before noon. Detective John Frawley asked Chuck if he had, in fact, left work sick that day.
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):The only time I took off work is, uh, is uh, when I was going partying. If I was sick, I went to work, y’know?
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):(Laughs) Yeah.
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):So, I used my sick leave to go partying, not—
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Ok.
Dave Cawley:Chuck didn’t explain what he meant by “partying.” John pressed: why hadn’t Chuck gone to police detective Jack Bell about his missing wife?
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):I guess he’d tried to call you. Did he, did he leave messages for you to call him?
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):I wouldn’t have left work in the middle of the shift.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Ok.
Dave Cawley:But according to Jack’s notes, Chuck’d described leaving work and going into downtown Ogden the day after Sheree disappeared, to more or less the same place he’d gone while out “jogging” the afternoon prior. That seems a bit strange to me. I know from talking to police who worked Ogden in the ‘80s, the area where Chuck said he’d jogged to the evening of Sheree’s disappearance — then returned to the following day — happened to be a hot spot for prostitution.
I bring that up, because while researching Chuck Warren, I learned Salt Lake police cited him for sexual solicitation in April of 1993. That’s a fancy way of saying he got a ticket after being caught in a prostitution bust. The court record doesn’t provide much detail, beyond saying Chuck pleaded guilty and paid a $200 fine. All in all, a pretty petty crime. But embarrassing, the kind of thing a guy might want to keep hidden from a nosy detective.
Now think back to that tip I mentioned several minutes ago: a credit union worker’d told police she’d heard Chuck took a cash advance on the day Sheree disappeared. Why would Chuck have needed cash? This all leads me to wonder if Chuck might’ve met someone while out for that “jog.”
Detective John Frawley needed to pin down as much of Chuck’s timeline as possible, but Chuck said he couldn’t remember anything specific about that day after Sheree disappeared. His wife, Willow, interrupted to ask if any of his old coworkers might remember.
Willow Hendricks (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Who’s one of the railroaders that worked with you at that time that would remember when—
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):They’re all dead, honey. (Laughs)
Dave Cawley:No one could say for sure where Chuck Warren was or what he’d done the day after his wife disappeared.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Do you keep any, uh, timecard records from that time? Do you have any records like that?
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):No. (Laughs)
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):I know, she said you kept everything, so. (Laughs)
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):No, no. Just phones.
Willow Hendricks (from June 23, 2015 police recording):I have lots of checkbooks.
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):(Laughs)
Dave Cawley:I wasn’t in the room, but I can just imagine detective John Frawley’s face when Chuck Warren’s wife, Willow, said she had Chuck’s old checkbooks. Those were just the kinds of records John wanted.
Willow Hendricks (from June 23, 2015 police recording):How far back do your checkbooks go in the closet?
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Uh, I don’t know. I think just the ‘80s.
Willow Hendricks (from June 23, 2015 police recording):(Laughs) That’s the time period honey. Want me to go look for a minute—
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):No, no.
Willow Hendricks (from June 23, 2015 police recording):—see if there’s anything?
Dave Cawley:Checkbooks weren’t all Chuck had in his closet. He said he still had his very first cell phone.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):It’s your very first one and you still have it?
Willow Hendricks (from June 23, 2015 police recording):(Laughs)
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Yeah.
Willow Hendricks (from June 23, 2015 police recording):He, he keeps everything.
Charles Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):I saved all of ‘em except the ones that got stolen.
Dave Cawley:“He keeps everything,” Willow said. But Chuck couldn’t remember if he’d had that cell phone in 1985.
Willow Hendricks (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Oh, you had a lot of the first ones that came out so you might’ve but—
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Yeah.
Willow Hendricks (from June 23, 2015 police recording):—I don’t know.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):What, so you did have a cell phone a long time ago?
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):I, I did a long time ago but I don’t know whether I had it that time.
Dave Cawley:John didn’t let this go.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Did you have a cell phone in ’85?
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):I don’t know for sure.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Possibly?
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Seems like, I don’t know. I can’t remember what year I actually got it.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Would’ve been one of the first ones coming out, and—
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Yeah, yeah.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):—I mean, I remember those big ones.
Dave Cawley:The Motorola DynaTAC was the first commercially-available cell phone. Today, most people just know it as “the brick.” It hit the market in 1983, two years before Sheree disappeared. Chuck said he’d for sure had a cell phone in ’88. But he wasn’t sure about ’85. John Frawley wondered what evidence a digital forensics lab might be able to scrape from a device that primitive, if Chuck Warren had owned one when Sheree disappeared.
I can tell you from my work on the Susan Powell case in Cold season 1, cell phone forensics are a critical tool in many modern investigations. But cell phones of the 1980s are dinosaurs compared to the smartphones of today. The Motorola DynaTAC didn’t have a camera, GPS or SIM card, let alone apps or a web browser. Still, you never know what you might find, unless you look.
Willow Hendricks (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Is it the one I still have down the hall?
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Might be, yeah.
Dave Cawley:John didn’t tell Chuck he’d already obtained his old bank statements with a search warrant, but he tipped his hand just a bit to ask about something specific.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):You had a financial transaction in Elko, Nevada. In the, in the beginning of, of November.
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Financial transaction in Elko?
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Elko, Nevada, yeah.
Dave Cawley:Chuck said he’d started commuting between Ogden and Roseville, California, just outside of Sacramento, at some point after Sheree disappeared. He’d driven I-80 across Nevada every two weeks. Elko sat on that interstate.
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Whatever that was in Elko, I probably would’ve stopped there for gas. That was that waypoint, y’know? If you looked every two weeks you’d probably see a receipt there.
Dave Cawley:But he couldn’t say for sure. And Chuck’s own brother has told me this timeline doesn’t match up. He said Chuck was living and working in Roseville, California during the 1970s, not the ‘80s. So what were those transactions in Elko and Reno? I don’t have a good answer. Maybe Chuck’d gone “partying” one month after his estranged wife disappeared.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):When I heard you worked for the railroad, I thought you were like actually traveling from state to state on the railroad. But that’s not what you did?
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):No, no, no.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Ok.
Dave Cawley:This seemed to further discredit the theory Chuck might’ve used his railroad access to hitch an untraceable ride home from Las Vegas after dumping Sheree’s car there. But Chuck hadn’t managed to allay many of detective John Frawley’s other suspicions. And he certainly hadn’t cleared himself as a suspect. To the contrary, his actions on the day of Sheree’s disappearance and the day after remained questionable.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Hey Charles, is it ok if I come by and talk to you or call you again if I have any questions?
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Yeah.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Is that alright? I do appreciate your time and talking with me.
Dave Cawley:Chuck apologized for his faulty memory and again said he believed Jack Bell’s notes were the best source for his story. John tossed another question at Chuck, almost as an aside.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):How do you know Cary Hartmann?
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):I don’t.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Oh, ok. (Laughs)
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):I’ve never seen him before—
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Ok.
Dave Cawley:Chuck said detective Jack Bell had dropped by to talk to him once, after Cary’s arrest in the rape case. Jack’d reportedly told Chuck how Cary’d come in a week or so after Sheree disappeared. At that time, Cary’d described a coworker of his having a psychic dream.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):He had a dream that she’s up in the mountain?
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Yeah, yeah. That they’d find her up there. You ought to, if he didn’t put it in there, then—
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):‘Kay.
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):—I don’t think I dreamed that up.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording):(Laughs)
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording):I remember him telling me that, though. ‘Cause I remember that something about Cary, uh, him or his buddy had a vision of something.
Dave Cawley:Enough. Chuck was just regurgitating the same stories we’ve heard before: Cary’s coworker had a dream about Sheree’s death, an anonymous psychic sent KSL a letter about it. Only now, it’d gone a few steps through the rumor mill and was being fed back into the investigation. This how misinformation poisons investigations. Detective John Frawley wasn’t going for it.
John Frawley:Could be great information, could be very interesting but does it get us to our goal?
Dave Cawley:John did not intend to entertain psychics and seances.
John Frawley:We’re gonna stick to the evidence and what we can absolutely say we know and filter everything else out.
Dave Cawley:Jack Bell, the original investigator on the Sheree Warren case, had tried to put the screws to his lead suspect — Chuck Warren — working the human angle.
Shane Minor, the former Ogden cop who’d taken up the Sheree Warren cold case in 1998, had focused on trying to find her remains on the mountain where the second suspect — Cary Hartmann — might’ve dumped her.
John Frawley brought a new approach. He wanted to prove the case by the record: show who had motive, means and opportunity.
John Frawley:Really, uh, dissect the involved parties’ stories.
Dave Cawley:And John suspected there was more to Chuck Warren’s story than Chuck was willing to admit.
[Ad break]
Dave Cawley:Roy City police detective John Frawley had found several inconsistencies with Chuck Warren’s story about the disappearance of his ex-wife, Sheree Warren. John wanted Chuck’s old timecards, to see if they might shed light on where Chuck was the day Sheree turned up missing.
John Frawley:That was, that was difficult.
Dave Cawley:The railroad Chuck’d worked for, Southern Pacific, had merged with Union Pacific in the mid-‘90s. By 2015, the old railroad’s daily employee records were long gone.
John Frawley:There’s things that we couldn’t get that were lost like uh, persons of interest, their, their timecards. Y’know, things like, y’know were they at work?
Dave Cawley:Chuck’s timecards might’ve revealed whether he’d gone to work at all the morning after Sheree vanished. Without them, John could only wonder.
John Frawley:You’re really behind.
Dave Cawley:If Chuck’d gone to work on the dayshift that morning, as he’d originally told police in 1985, he would’ve started around 8 a.m. In a past episode, we did our math homework, the story problem about how much time it would’ve taken to get Sheree’s car to Las Vegas on the night of her disappearance, then return home to Utah. Making to Ogden by 8 a.m. would’ve been nearly impossible. But we can’t say for sure if Chuck did or didn’t go to work that day without his timecard.
John Frawley:Her car is found at the Aladdin Hotel and Casino on November 11th and, uh, it’s processed by Las Vegas police.
Dave Cawley:“Processed” means scouring the car for evidence. Today, forensic technicians would vacuum the car for hair or fibers, use chemical reagents to look for blood, check for fingerprints or maybe even use a cadaver dog to sniff for a whiff of human decomposition. Collecting DNA evidence wasn’t yet standard practice in 1985. The Las Vegas police records I’ve obtained only mentioned searching for fingerprints.
John Frawley:There is a print on the window and they collect that print.
Dave Cawley:The Las Vegas police records say it appeared the print came from a woman. But they’d never linked them to anyone specific. In fact, detective Jack Bell had never seen those prints.
John Frawley:Because like I said, my bosses didn’t want me to go down there.
Dave Cawley:Jack’d tried to find a copy of Sheree’s fingerprints to compare against way back then, but had come up empty.
Jack Bell:Y’know, I got a lot of faith in Las Vegas’ PD.
Dave Cawley:It’s baffling to me police didn’t show more interest in Sheree’s car at the time.
Jack Bell:There’s paperwork in one of the reports of what they found.
Dave Cawley:In an alternate universe, Jack would’ve written a search warrant for the car, then had a wrecker haul it back from Las Vegas. Sheree’s car would’ve ended up in evidence and crime scene technicians here would’ve torn it apart. Who knows what they might’ve found. Maybe they would’ve kept the car all these years, giving John Frawley an opportunity to examine it again today, with better techniques and technology. Instead, the car just sat in a Las Vegas impound lot.
John Frawley:And then the car is later given back to Charles Warren.
Dave Cawley:Records show Chuck picked the car up on Christmas Eve of 1985. Six months later, he’d traded it in to a dealer. John wanted to know where Sheree’s car had gone from there. He ran the car’s VIN number and was able to follow it for a few years before losing the trail.
John Frawley:We tried to track it down and it’s long gone.
Dave Cawley:Whatever secrets Sheree’s car might’ve held, they’re lost to us now.
John talked to Chuck and Sheree’s son, Adam, in October of 2015. Adam remembered his dad visiting casinos in Reno when he was a kid. Adam also specifically recalled going to Las Vegas one time with Chuck, when he was about seven years old.
John Frawley:And he told me that the Aladdin Casino was a place that his father frequented.
Dave Cawley:The trip Adam described would’ve happened in 1989, four years after Sheree disappeared.
John Frawley:And Adam actually remembered his father taking him there on a vacation to the Aladdin.
Dave Cawley:Why would Chuck Warren have taken his and Sheree’s son to the Aladdin, of all places?
John Frawley:So I found that significant.
Dave Cawley:John kept thinking about those old checkbooks squirreled away in Chuck Warren’s closet: decades of financial documents that might reveal where Chuck’d gone, and when, in the fall of 1985. He again went to talk to his chief, Carl Merino.
Carl Merino:We found out that there were a lot of mistakes made early in the investigation.
Dave Cawley:Carl told me, in his experience, cops often resist sharing information with the public, victims, witnesses and even with other officers. And there can be good reason for that. Giving out too much info can tip off suspects or taint an investigation.
Carl Merino:It’s a balancing act. You’ve got to know what you can release.
Dave Cawley:But Carl told me “police egos” sometimes cause investigators to be overprotective. That can lead to turf battles that stymie investigations.
Carl Merino:When you’re trying to solve crimes, it’s not a competition. Except between law enforcement and whoever committed the crime.
Dave Cawley:Carl believed jurisdictional squabbles were part of what’d gone wrong with the Sheree Warren case. There wasn’t a big, flashing neon sign saying “murder” with an arrow pointing to a body in Salt Lake, where Sheree’d last been seen. So, the Salt Lake City police department had declined to put much effort into what it viewed as a Roy City missing persons case.
Carl Merino:I think there should’ve been more pressure put on Salt Lake to, to help with it. I have no idea even what evidence might have been collected there.
Dave Cawley:There are no witness statements in any of the Sheree Warren case files from employees at Wagstaff Toyota, where Sheree’d planned to meet Chuck on the afternoon of her disappearance. Likewise with patrons of the bar where Cary Hartmann supposedly spent that evening. No one identified or questioned them. The dealership was in Salt Lake City. The bar was in Ogden. The Salt Lake and Ogden police departments could’ve helped the much smaller Roy police department by gathering those statements.
Carl Merino:There were opportunities for evidence gathering.
Dave Cawley:But both Salt Lake and Ogden had at first wiped their hands of the Sheree Warren case. It wasn’t their problem. Carl agreed with his detective, John Frawley: they needed to chase the evidence. And they now knew at least some of that potential evidence was sitting in Chuck Warren’s closet. With his chief’s blessing, John wrote up another search warrant. This time, he asked a judge for permission to go into Chuck’s home, the same house Sheree’d once lived in, and hunt for any financial records from 1985. John also wanted Chuck’s old cell phones.
Willow Hendricks (from June 23, 2015 police recording):Those phones down there, the phones there, the old radios they used at the railroad, the two-way radios.
Dave Cawley:Chuck’s wife, Willow, had told John she and Chuck kept everything, including his old cell phones, amid all her clutter in the basement.
Willow Hendricks (from June 23, 2015 police recording):I thought that’s where we had the brick phones too but it’s not. I know I’ve seen ‘em down, probably in your other closet.
Dave Cawley:John served the warrant on December 14th, 2015. He and others from the Roy Police Department scoured Chuck’s house, taking five checkbooks, a pile of floppy disks, bank statements, mortgage papers and more. But they didn’t find any old cell phones. Where those had gone, I can’t say. I also don’t know what Roy police learned from looking through all of Chuck’s old financial papers. Chief Carl Merino told me that evidence has to remain private.
Carl Merino:You’re right. You do have to keep certain things back.
Dave Cawley:What I can tell you is the search warrant didn’t lead to an arrest. Nothing police found provided probable cause to book Chuck Warren into jail for his ex-wife’s presumed murder. Detective John Frawley was learning just how crushing the Sheree Warren case could be.
Carl Merino:And then detective Frawley got transferred to undercover narcotics.
Dave Cawley:Frawley’d had Sheree’s case for about a year. He’d done more than anyone else had in a decade. And he’d only just started getting some momentum, when he’d had to turn away.
John Frawley:Yeah. It is tough because your day-to-day caseload doesn’t stop.
Dave Cawley:John handed the box of Sheree Warren case files back to chief Carl Merino.
Carl Merino:The box would get passed and it just kept getting overlooked and so the case moved on to another detective, Ryan Reid. And he worked it some but he was, y’know, it was, again, he had all of his other duties and so it didn’t get worked a lot.
Dave Cawley:The Sheree Warren case lapsed into inactivity once again. For Carl Merino, it felt like going back on a promise.
Carl Merino:It’s not ideal, but for a smaller department, you can’t task somebody with just working an old case like that. You just don’t have the staffing to do that.
Dave Cawley:Former Ogden City detective Shane Minor had himself spent years driven to find answers about what’d happened to Sheree Warren. He’d picked up that torch in 1998. But his flame had sputtered in 2006, after a series of setbacks.
Shane Minor:Like I said a lot of stuff I did on this case was when I had time to work on it and—
Dave Cawley (to Shane Minor):And that time got more and more precious?
Shane Minor:Right.
Dave Cawley:Shane’d documented all his contacts, building a list of potential witnesses. He’d kept notes, newspaper clippings and all sorts of other records. And he’d compiled a 30-plus page summary of the case, making it ready for any future investigator who might one day take over.
Shane Minor:It’s who’s gonna pick up that case on the shelf and start looking into it, because of the time that’s involved and costs that could be involved, so.
Dave Cawley:By the time the remains of Teresa Greaves emerged on a hillside in 2015, Shane was deep in preparation for a capital murder trial.
Shane Minor:There’s a couple other cases I was involved with that was very demanding.
Dave Cawley:One of them was the case we covered in Cold season 2, the disappearance of Joyce Yost. At the start of 2015, Doug Lovell, the man who’d killed Joyce, was asking a Weber County jury to take him off death row. Shane had spent months working with prosecutors, helping them prepare for Lovell’s trial. The Joyce Yost case consumed Shane’s time and attention, so he didn’t take part in Roy City’s renewed Sheree Warren investigation in 2015, though he was aware of it.
Shane Minor:They did pick it up and assign a detective to start doing some stuff on it.
Dave Cawley:“Doing some stuff like” interviewing Chuck Warren.
Shane Minor:They were just kind of reiterating, re-doing the same stuff that had been done.
Dave Cawley:And getting nowhere. Then, Roy detective John Frawley moved into undercover narcotics. As I said, the investigation went dormant for two years. John returned from his undercover assignment with a renewed desire to close the Sheree Warren case.
John Frawley:What our goal and what we’re driven for is to get the family some answers, y’know?
Dave Cawley:So, in February of 2018, he invited Shane Minor to come brief the Roy City Police Department about his work on the case.
Shane Minor:Yeah, I took it over to them and I’m like “y’know, I’m done” and I felt uncomfortable about (sighs) just looking for that one piece.
Dave Cawley:John Frawley’d operated under the assumption Chuck Warren was his prime suspect, and for good reason. That’s the conclusion most people would draw by reading Jack Bell’s old case notes. The notes do mention Cary Hartmann, first as a witness and then later as a serial rapist, but Jack’s notes don’t give the impression Cary had any motive to murder Sheree. Shane Minor had learned a lot more about Cary during his years working the case. Shane told John about Cary’s ties to the Ogden Police Department.
John Frawley:He’s a reserve police officer, y’know, he understands police work more than your typical person.
Dave Cawley:Shane told John about the two women who’d lived above Cary at the time of Sheree’s disappearance, who’d reported Sheree coming to their house one night in early October, 1985.
John Frawley:They heard her voice, they knew her voice. They saw her car outside, they knew her car.
Dave Cawley:Shane told John about how Cary’d met up with his TV reporter friend Larry Lewis a few days later.
John Frawley:They were actually riding 3-wheelers up in the foothills.
Dave Cawley:And Shane said just one day after that, the elk hunting guide Fred Johns had seen Cary and another man on the mountain behind Causey Reservoir.
John Frawley:Fred Johns was positive that this was Cary Hartmann. He knew him.
Dave Cawley:Shane told John he’d confirmed Cary knew his way around that mountain.
John Frawley:It was private land but he had a key from a friend, he had access to that area.
Dave Cawley:The same general area where an anonymous caller had in 1987 told police he’d stumbled across a body…
Anonymous caller (from April 3, 1987 police recording):I’m reporting a body that I found.
John Frawley:He described this, this decomposing body, uh, with a purse next to it.
Dave Cawley:…human remains which had still not been found. Shane told John about how he’d served a pair of search warrants at Cary’s apartment, after Cary became the key suspect in the Ogden City Rapist investigation.
John Frawley:A gray leather suede jacket was found and placed into evidence at the Ogden Police Department.
Dave Cawley:Shane told John how, years later, he’d pulled that gray suede jacket out of evidence and showed it to Sheree’s mom, Mary Sorensen.
John Frawley:And Mary identified that jacket as to what she was wearing on October 2nd when she went to work.
Dave Cawley:Or at least, that’s what Mary thought Sheree might’ve worn that day. There’s some ambiguity on this point.
John Frawley:And that jacket was located in Cary Hartmann’s closet.
Dave Cawley:John was coming to understand the potential significance of the gray jacket. If it’s what Sheree left the house wearing on the morning of her disappearance, it couldn’t have ended up in Cary’s possession, unless Cary and Sheree had met at some point later that day.
Shane Minor passed the baton of the Sheree Warren case over to John Frawley. That meant Roy police assumed custody of the gray suede jacket. I told John I wanted to see it for myself, hoping I might be able to match it an old family photograph of Sheree. I could only do that if I knew what it was I was looking for.
It’s September of 2022 and I’m in the basement of Roy City police headquarters. I follow an evidence technician named Chelsea Scott through a locked door…
(Sound of key in door lock)
Dave Cawley:…into a small room. It stinks of marijuana. Metal shelving lines the walls. Chelsea points to a box on the top of the shelf in the back of the room. It says Office Depot on the lid.
Chelsea Scott:This contains the jacket.
Dave Cawley:The jacket police seized from Cary Hartmann’s apartment way back in 1987. Chelsea points to another, smaller box on the next shelf down.
Chelsea Scott:We have miscellaneous items here, we have fingerprints from the vehicle that was located, her vehicle that was located in Las Vegas.
Dave Cawley:And I can see a plastic case containing floppy disks off to the side, which I suspect came out of Chuck Warren’s house.
Chelsea Scott:I can bring this up. Anything you want me to bring up I’m happy to. Then you can get like, different shots.
Dave Cawley:Oh yeah, I’m carrying a still camera. And I’m accompanied by a TV videographer. Chelsea carries the boxes out of the evidence room and sets them on a conference table. Detective John Frawley’s there, and I invade his personal space while clipping a small microphone to his shirt collar.
Dave Cawley (to John Frawley):John excuse my uh—
John Frawley:No, go for it.
Dave Cawley:—familiarity here.
John Frawley:Uh, yeah. Not a problem.
Dave Cawley:John sits down in front of the Office Depot box, which is sealed by red plastic tape printed with the word “evidence” in black letters. John tears open the box…
(Sound of tape tearing and cardboard rustling)
Dave Cawley:…then pulls a brown paper bag out of it. I can see numbers written in red and black marker on the bag. I recognize them. They’re the Ogden police department’s case numbers for one of Cary Hartmann’s rapes and the Sheree Warren homicide. The words “coat” and “test fire bullets” are written on the bag as well, along with a barcode label from the Utah State Crime Lab. John pulls another item from the box.
John Frawley:So this was the hangar that the jacket was on.
Dave Cawley:Then, he opens the paper bag…
(Sound of paper bag opening)
Dave Cawley:…and removes the jacket. He sets it on the table, and I lean in for a closer look.
Dave Cawley (to John Frawley):That is not a men’s jacket.
John Frawley:No, it is not.
Dave Cawley:My first impression: the jacket’s smaller than I’d expected. It has a crop body and pinches in a bit toward the waist. There’s a tag on the inside that says 8. It’s on the smaller side of medium.
John Frawley:Yeah this, this is not gonna, in my opinion, not gonna fit a, even a medium-build man, let alone a larger-build man.
Dave Cawley:The jacket has a stand-up collar and ruffles that run vertically over each shoulder, a decidedly feminine touch. There are five buttonholes down the lapel, but only four buttons on the opposite side: the button that should be second-from-the-top is missing.
The suede leather fabric is colored a medium gray. It’s a neutral color that makes the jacket versatile. It would’ve coordinated well with a variety of outfits. But now, it’s crumpled, having spent decades wadded up in a bag. At some point, someone’s used a Sharpie to make markings on the inside of the jacket, toward the bottom of the front flap. John tells me he thinks it’s from when Ogden police sent the jacket to the crime lab 22 years ago.
John Frawley:And it was tested for any evidence of blood or hair or any sort of fibers that could be found on it.
Dave Cawley:We heard about that in episode 6. The crime lab hadn’t found anything.
John Frawley:Based on the technology of that time and, uh, that’s correct. It didn’t yield any results.
Dave Cawley:But I also know John recently re-submitted the jacket for another round of testing.
John Frawley:Yeah, I mean it’s 22 years, y’know?
Dave Cawley:He doesn’t tell me what, if anything, was different this time around. I’ve now gone back and looked at every photo I have of Sheree. There aren’t many, and the gray suede jacket’s not in any of them, but it does fit her style. It strikes me as perfectly plausible Sheree Warren might’ve worn that jacket to work on the morning of October 2nd, 1985.
John Frawley:But the whole hang up is that, Mary’s the only one that can say.
Dave Cawley:Again, Sheree’s mom, Mary Sorensen, told police she thought it was the jacket her daughter left the house wearing on the day of her disappearance. If that’s true, the jacket is evidence that potentially puts Sheree and Cary Hartmann together after Sheree was last seen. Mary’s since died. Police asked Sheree’s dad, Ed, and sister Marcie about the jacket.
John Frawley:Nobody can say whether she was wearing that or not. So the only person that could is now deceased.
Dave Cawley:Maybe not the only person. There’s one other who might know if Sheree was wearing it on that day. His name is Cary Hartmann. Detective John Frawley needed to pose this question to Cary. But Cary hadn’t said a word to police about Sheree Warren since 2005. And Cary had no incentive to talk to Frawley now.
John’d found himself mired in the middle of the Sheree Warren mystery, like all of us are now. He’d walked past Sheree’s picture in the police department lobby hundreds of times without giving it a thought. That’d changed once he’d looked inside the box.
John Frawley:It’s not just a picture in the lobby. It makes it very real.
Dave Cawley:Cary Hartmann had gone to prison at the end of 1987 on a sentence of 15-years-to-life.The prosecutor who’d put him there had expected Cary would only serve the minimum: 15 years. But as we’ve heard this season, Cary’s own unwillingness to take responsibility for what’d done resulted in a much longer stay.
Bradley Rich (from October 29, 2019 parole board recording):How long have you done in prison?
Cary Hartmann (from October 29, 2019 parole board recording):32 years, sir.
Bradley Rich (from October 29, 2019 parole board recording):And how old are you?
Cary Hartmann (from October 29, 2019 parole board recording):I’m 72.
Bradley Rich (from October 29, 2019 parole board recording):Yeah, y’know you’ve thrown away a big chunk of your life. Just, I mean it’s just, it is sad.
Dave Cawley:This comes from a recording of Cary Hartmann’s hearing before the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole, on October 29th, 2019. If I had to describe Cary’s first trip before the board in 1992, I’d say “Cary, Cary, quite contrary.” You heard it yourself back in episode 6.
Cary Hartmann (from January 17, 1992 parole board recording):Cary Hartmann didn’t do it. There’s no way on this Earth.
Dave Cawley:But 27 years and a few more rejections from the Board had taught Cary how to speak to those who held his freedom in their hands, like parole board member Bradley Rich.
Bradley Rich (from October 29, 2019 parole board recording):Why do you think you were in here as long as you have been?
Cary Hartmann (from October 29, 2019 parole board recording):My choices.
Dave Cawley:Cary had learned to swap contrary for contrite.
Cary Hartmann (from October 29, 2019 parole board recording):It was a blessing to come to prison, sir.
Bradley Rich (from October 29, 2019 parole board recording):Yeah.
Cary Hartmann (from October 29, 2019 parole board recording):I deserved what I got.
Dave Cawley:Bradley, the parole board member, asked Cary what’d been happening in his life prior to his arrest, all those years ago. What had led him to break into women’s homes, to threaten to kill their children and to sexually assault them?
Cary Hartmann (from October 29, 2019 parole board recording):I operated on thinking distortions that, that were troublesome.
Dave Cawley:Troublesome thinking distortions. How wonderfully vague.
Cary Hartmann (from October 29, 2019 parole board recording):When I can’t sort out these distorted thinking errors, which I have learned to do at this point. I’ve worked really hard throughout these many years to correct those distorted thinking errors.
Bradley Rich (from October 29, 2019 parole board recording):Mmhmm.
Cary Hartmann (from October 29, 2019 parole board recording):I met my needs in unhealthy ways.
Dave Cawley:Like, he said, by impulse spending. Bradley said that answer didn’t quite hit the mark.
Bradley Rich (from October 29, 2019 parole board recording):You had, to my way of thinking, a very peculiar and dangerous response to stress. I mean, others might go out and get drunk or revert to the use of drugs or, y’know, binge spend or whatever it is. Y’know, go through a gallon of ice cream. Uh, you chose to violently rape under stress. And, and, and so I’m, I’m trying to make heads or tails of that.
Cary Hartmann (from October 29, 2019 parole board recording):Those were, those were parts of my life that were surrounded by pornography in those days.
Bradley Rich (from October 29, 2019 parole board recording):Mmhmm.
Cary Hartmann (from October 29, 2019 parole board recording):I described that as my drug of choice. When I, when I felt lowly and had no self-esteem, when my life was falling apart, I turned to pornography and masturbation. That led to cruising for women and choosing women to make victims.
Dave Cawley:Low self-esteem led to pornography, which then led to rape.
Cary Hartmann (from October 29, 2019 parole board recording):I wish to be defined as who I am now and not who I was. I’m a different man now than I was 40 years ago.
Dave Cawley:Cary’d lived nearly half his life in custody.
Bradley Rich (from October 29, 2019 parole board recording):As much sympathy as I feel for your victims, at the same time you’ve made yourself a victim as well and you’ve paid a heavy price for it.
Dave Cawley:But had he paid in full? That was up to the parole board to decide. Bradley went over the latest memo from Cary’s sex offender therapist. It said if paroled, Cary stood about a one-in-10 chance of committing a new sex offense, a three-in-10 chance of carrying out a violent crime, and a five-in-10 chance of committing any crime. In other words, 50-50 Cary would do something that might land him back in prison.
Bradley Rich (from October 29, 2019 parole board recording):And that makes you a, still kind of a, of a risk.
Dave Cawley:But, on the other hand, Cary’d obtained a new, more favorable treatment memo just a few months earlier. He handed it over to Bradley.
Cary Hartmann (from October 29, 2019 parole board recording):Treatment summary, Justin Clark. Right there.
Dave Cawley:Sure enough, the updated report said Cary now presented a below-average risk to re-offend. The parole board had repeatedly teased Cary with a promise of release. But to earn it, he’d had to admit to rape. The board’d cajoled him into taking part in a police interview about Sheree Warren. And the board demanded Cary make several trips through sex offender therapy. Cary’d complied and now, the parole board seemed mollified.
Bradley Rich (from October 29, 2019 parole board recording):You’re going to get an opportunity to succeed or fail — my prediction — umm, in the not-too-distant-future.
Dave Cawley:No more fake-outs, no more demands: the parole board had nothing left to ask of Cary.
Bradley Rich (from October 29, 2019 parole board recording):Then all we can do is, is, is wish you the best. You have done a big chunk of your life, 32 years, in here. And uh, you’re not a young man.
Dave Cawley:Can you see where this is heading?
Bradley Rich (from October 29, 2019 parole board recording):I wish you well and like I say, with or without a further hearing I think you’re going to get an opportunity. And then we’ll see if you’ve acquired the skills you need to stay out of trouble.
Cary Hartmann (from October 29, 2019 parole board recording):Thank you so much.
Bradley Rich (from October 29, 2019 parole board recording):Alright.
Dave Cawley:Cary Hartmann left prison in March of 2020. His release escaped public notice, due to Covid-19 pandemic that was sweeping the globe. Cary quietly headed back to Ogden, to the same community he’d terrorized three decades before.
Dave Cawley:Investigator Shane Minor was on a road trip, driving from the city of Ogden toward a small town in south-eastern Utah to talk with Cary Hartmann about the suspected murder of Sheree Warren.
Dave Cawley (to Shane Minor):He’s potentially a suspect and you’ve not been able to interview him.
Shane Minor:No, nope.
Dave Cawley:It was October 26th, 2005. Twenty years had passed since the evening when Sheree Warren disappeared.
Shane Minor:Sheree went missing in 1985.
Dave Cawley:Shane’d had the cold case since 1998. He’d learned a lot about Cary Hartmann in those years.
Shane Minor:But I didn’t really know nothing about Sheree Warren.
Dave Cawley:I ran into this same problem when I started looking into this case. It’s frustrating there are so few people willing to share their memories of Sheree.
Shane Minor:When I started looking into this, it was difficult just because of all the years that had gone past.
Dave Cawley:Some of the people I’ve reached out to have told me privately they won’t talk on the record because they’re afraid of Cary Hartmann. Shane Minor believed to crack the case, he’d have to find Sheree Warren’s remains. But experience told him Cary wasn’t likely to give up that location, if Cary’d in fact killed Sheree. Shane and another detective had tried to question Cary about Sheree once before, in 1988, after Cary’s rape conviction.
Shane Minor:He wouldn’t talk to us. Walked in the room, seen we were sitting there, turned around and walked out.
Dave Cawley:Denial was Cary Hartmann’s default. He’d lied to his parents, siblings, children, friends, therapists and others about his crimes. But he hadn’t fooled a jury. Cary’d continued the lies once incarcerated. He’d even proclaimed his innocence in a letter to the President of the United States. But over time, the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole had pushed Cary to accept responsibility. By 2005, Cary’d admitted to everything the board asked him about, except any involvement in the disappearance of Sheree Warren, 20 years earlier.
Shane Minor:That’s what he would admit to. He would never admit to anything else.
Dave Cawley:In the last episode, we heard how Shane’d sent a letter to the parole board, letting them know Cary remained a suspect in Sheree’s case. Cary’d been on the verge of winning a release from custody then. But an officer for the board had put him on the spot.
Shane Minor:Asked him some specific questions about Sheree Warren and how cooperative he was regarding that investigation.
Kent Jones (from September 20, 2005 parole board recording):Are you willing to talk to some of the law enforcement officials about her disappearance?
Cary Hartmann (from September 20, 2005 parole board recording):Oh absolutely, I had nothing to do with it.
Dave Cawley:Cary’d had little other choice than to agree to a police interview, if he wanted the parole board to grant him his freedom. So, that’s how Shane Minor ended up in the car, heading to the San Juan County Jail, where Cary was then being held. A Roy City police sergeant named Mike Elliot was riding shotgun.
Shane Minor:Because Roy still had their active missing person case.
Dave Cawley:The jail’s in a small town about an hour drive south of Arches National Park, as far from Ogden as one can get while still remaining within the borders of the state of Utah.
Shane Minor:So we went down and interviewed him, recorded it.
Shane Minor (from October 26, 2005 police recording):Ok, I’m Shane Minor. I’m with Mike Elliott and Cary Hartmann. We’re in Monticello at the San Juan County Jail.
Shane Minor:Had to go through Miranda, which he agreed to talk to us.
Shane Minor (from October 26, 2005 police recording):Right now I’m going to give you your rights, ‘cause you don’t have to talk to us unless you want to. So if you just listen to me for just a second. You have the right to remain silent.
Dave Cawley:The quality of this audio tape is really rough. So I’m going to repeat the most important bits where necessary. Before we dive in though, we should talk about Shane’s strategy.
Shane Minor:I was about 100% sure that he wasn’t gonna say anything as far as a admission goes.
Dave Cawley:Shane needed to put Cary Hartmann’s story of Sheree’s disappearance on the record. Otherwise, all Shane had were a few pages of Roy police detective Jack Bell’s handwritten notes and a transcript of Cary’s statement to his private investigator.
Shane Minor:My memory of Hartmann is, if you confront him, he’s gonna get closed up and not answer your question. He’s a smart person. He’s very cautious and careful with what he says to you and how he says it. So I laid it out for him, why were down there, what we wanted to talk to him about. Told him that I would ask him some questions.
Shane Minor (from October 26, 2005 police recording):I’m going to ask you some direct questions—
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):Ok.
Shane Minor (from October 26, 2005 police recording):—just because no one has asked you those questions.
Dave Cawley:Cary said he was willing to answer questions, to help any way he could, but first he wanted to make a statement.
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):I absolutely did not have anything to do with her disappearance.
Dave Cawley:“I absolutely did not have anything to do with her disappearance.”
Shane Minor (from October 26, 2005 police recording):Ok.
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):I just want to state that right now up front.
Dave Cawley:“I just want to state that right now up front.” Shane started by asking Cary if he remembered when it was Sheree first came up missing.
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):That’s October 2nd or 3rd, 1985.
Shane Minor (from October 26, 2005 police recording):Ok.
Shane Minor:And he thought it was October 2nd or 3rd of 1985.
Dave Cawley:Which is correct. Sheree disappeared the evening of the 2nd and Sheree’s mom reported her missing on the 3rd. Shane asked Cary what’d been going on that week.
Shane Minor (from October 26, 2005 police recording):What had been going on that week?
Shane Minor:And he could tell you about that day, but then the next day or the day after, he can’t tell you anything.
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):I just can’t remember.
Dave Cawley (to Shane Minor):He seems to remember what he wants to remember in the moment.
Shane Minor:Absolutely.
Dave Cawley:Yeah. Uh, he’s not the first person I’ve encountered in my work who acts that way. It’s a Josh Powell-esque move—
Shane Minor:Yeah.
Dave Cawley:—if I could say so. Right?
Shane Minor:(Laughs)
Dave Cawley:This is Cold, season 3, episode 8: Fool Me Once From KSL Podcasts, I’m Dave Cawley.
[Ad break]
Dave Cawley:Investigator Shane Minor sat with Cary Hartmann in Utah’s San Juan County Jail, 20 years on from the disappearance of Cary’s girlfriend, Sheree Warren.
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):We got along fantastic, just fantastic. We were in love.
Shane Minor:He laid out the fact how him and Sheree was madly in love. He’d been going out with her.
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):Never had a harsh word or a cross word between us, not one.
Shane Minor:They never had harsh words.
Dave Cawley:Which isn’t true, based on the report of the two women who’d lived above Cary at the time Sheree disappeared. You heard their account in episode 4.
Shane Minor:Sheree had gone over to his apartment, it was the first part of October and she was upset and crying and saying “how can you do this to me?”
Dave Cawley:On the other hand, Cary said Sheree’d traded plenty of harsh words with her estranged husband, Chuck Warren, prior to her disappearance. Cary repeated the story about Chuck going to the credit union where Sheree worked and threatening her over child support.
Shane Minor (from October 26, 2005 police recording):Did, did Sheree tell you anything about that or say anything about that? Or say anything to you about it?
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):Yes she did. Said it scared her.
Shane Minor:Hartmann kept referring to, uh, Sheree’s ex-husband and kind of like pointing the finger at him.
Dave Cawley:Shane’d previously asked Sheree’s former boss, coworkers and even Chuck Warren himself about this story of Chuck threatening Sheree at work. Chuck confirmed the argument had happened.
Shane Minor:He told me about an event where he went in, he was, he was upset.
Dave Cawley:That encounter remained a major reason why police couldn’t rule Chuck out as a suspect. It spoke to a possible motive for murder: Chuck’s anger over Sheree’s push for increased alimony and child support.
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):So she was dragging him through court, or back into court again, and he was really upset.
Dave Cawley:Cary told Shane he heard Chuck’d brought a handgun into the credit union branch.
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):He had a gun tucked in his waistband.
Shane Minor (from October 26, 2005 police recording):And who’s telling you this?
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):Credit union manager.
Dave Cawley:If you couldn’t make that out, Cary said he’d heard about the gun from Sheree’s boss, the credit union manager.
Shane Minor:But when I to talked the people at the credit union, they didn’t describe anything that unordinary.
Dave Cawley:I talked to Sheree’s former boss myself and she told me she doesn’t remember seeing a gun.
Shane Minor:Nobody corroborated that. Nobody verified that. That’s coming from Hartmann but nobody else.
Dave Cawley:So, did Chuck Warren confront his estranged wife Sheree with a gun, or was that an exaggeration planted by Cary Hartmann? Cary said Chuck Warren was a “violent kind of person.” Shane seized on that opportunity and asked what Cary thought might’ve happened to Sheree.
Shane Minor (from October 26, 2005 police recording):What you think happened to her?
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):I’ve asked myself that every day for the last 20 years.
Dave Cawley:“I’ve asked myself that every day for the last 20 years.”
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):I don’t have a clue.
Dave Cawley:“I don’t have a clue.”
Shane Minor (from October 26, 2005 police recording):Have any ideas?
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):I don’t have an idea, no, not one.
Dave Cawley:“I don’t have an idea.”
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):Not one.
Dave Cawley:“Not one.”
Shane Minor (from October 26, 2005 police recording):Who do you think is responsible?
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):I don’t have an idea in the whole world. I don’t have a clue.
Dave Cawley:Cary’d had plenty of time to think about it — 20 years — but said he had no thought about who might’ve killed Sheree. Shane honed in on the days leading up to Sheree’s disappearance. He asked Cary if he and Sheree’d had any arguments of their own that week.
Shane Minor (from October 26, 2005 police recording):But no fights, no arguments—
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):Never—
Shane Minor (from October 26, 2005 police recording):—nothing like that?
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):—never had one.
Dave Cawley:“Never had one.” This again contradicted the two women who’d lived above Cary at the time, who’d reported hearing a loud argument between Cary and Sheree. They believed the argument had happened on or around the night she disappeared, but they weren’t certain of the exact date.
Shane Minor:At some point in time they heard a loud pop or thud and then everything went quiet.
Dave Cawley:Shane’d ever-so-subtly provided Cary an opening, an opportunity to say that argument had happened on a different night. Had Cary taken that opportunity, he could’ve undercut testimony that placed Sheree at his apartment the night of her disappearance. But he didn’t. Shane asked about Sheree’s schedule. Cary said she’d spent most nights with him.
Shane Minor:Spent a lot of time together, spent four to five times a week together, that she would stay at his house.
Shane Minor (from October 26, 2005 police recording):Weekends or during the week?
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):Both.
Shane Minor:She had spent the night with him the night before and left from his house to go to Salt Lake.
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):She stayed with me and then commuted back and forth to check on her young son all the time, like every day, before work and after work and stuff like that, but she slept over at my house a great deal of the time.
Dave Cawley:“She slept over at my house a great deal of the time.”
Shane Minor:Which is inconsistent with what her ex-husband had said, which is inconsistent with what the Sorensen’s not only told to me, but what they originally reported.
Shane Minor (from October 26, 2005 police recording):And her son Adam would stay at her parent’s house?
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):Yes.
Shane Minor:But he was adamant that she was at his house the night before and the night before that, probably.
Dave Cawley:Cary said Sheree’d left straight for work from his place on the morning of her disappearance, departing around 5:30 a.m. That was a full two-and-a-half hours before she was supposed to be to work. This differed from what Cary’d told detective Jack Bell the day after Sheree disappeared. Back then, he’d said Sheree left his place at 7.
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):We got up, she got dressed, put her work clothes on and we kissed goodbye and says “I’m goin to work, see ya” and I says “bye, bye.”
Shane Minor (from October 26, 2005 police recording):And did she drive straight to work?
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):Uh, I don’t know. I believe she did. I think she went right straight to Salt Lake from my place.
Dave Cawley:Cary said “I think she went right straight to Salt Lake from my place.” No mention of meeting her estranged husband Chuck Warren, or exchanging custody of her son. Once again, this was different from what Cary’d said in the past.
Shane Minor:And I think that was a slip-up.
Dave Cawley:Because it contradicted what both Sheree’s parents and Chuck Warren had told Shane.
Shane Minor:According to Hartmann, she spent the night with him the night before, but according to the Sorensens, she was at their house and left from their house and dropped off Adam to his father at the Denny’s and went to work.
Dave Cawley:This discrepancy gets to the heart of our tale-of-two-coats conundrum. Cary had been telling police since the early days of the investigation Sheree left his apartment that morning, wearing his black parka. But police had later found a gray, suede women’s jacket in Cary’s apartment. Sheree’s mom thought Sheree had left her house the morning of her disappearance in that gray suede jacket. Two conflicting accounts about two different coats.
If Sheree’s remains were ever found with Cary’s black parka, Cary would have to explain how she ended up in his coat. This could be why Cary insisted Sheree left his apartment that morning — not her parents’ house — and went straight to Salt Lake City. He needed to establish he’d seen Sheree off that morning in his black parka, because otherwise Sheree turning up with it would place Cary and Sheree together on the night of her disappearance. But this is one of those clues that only comes into focus when looking back, with hindsight.
Shane Minor:And it was just one of them things that just kind of got overlooked.
Dave Cawley:Overlooked in 1985, but not here in 2005. Shane was making careful notes. Cary said he’d gone to work himself, then returned home around 4 that afternoon to shower. He said he’d then headed to his second job at the NICE Corporation call center. But his phone rang as he was walking out the door. It was Sheree.
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):She says, uh, “what you doing?” And I says “well, I’m just headed to work, out to NICE.” “Oh, ok.” I says “how are you?” “Fine.” “How was your day?” “Good, I’m training this guy.” She says “what are you going to do after work?” And she meant after NICE. And I says, “well,” I says I was going to stop down to Sebastians and have a drink with Dave.
Shane Minor:He talked about, uh, going to Sebastians to meet a friend.
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):She said “are you’re going to stay down there drinkin’ all night?” I said “oh, no, no. I’m going to have a drink with Dave and I’m coming home.”
Shane Minor:Talked about how she would come to, was gonna come to his house after work and wait for him to leave a bar and come home.
Dave Cawley:To recap, Cary said Sheree’d called him around 4:30 on the afternoon of her disappearance and told him she’d meet him at his place in Ogden later that night.
Shane Minor:Instead of go to her parent’s house like she normally would do, so it just didn’t make sense, that portion of what he’s saying, it just really didn’t make a lot of sense to me.
Dave Cawley:It didn’t make sense, because the women who’d lived above Cary never mentioned Sheree having a key to their house. To the contrary, they’d said Sheree would sometimes wait at the back door for Cary if he wasn’t home when she’d dropped by. Cary told Shane he’d then gone to work at his second job, before heading to the bar a bit after 9 p.m. to meet his friend, Dave Moore.
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):He knew I get off at 9 so he was waiting at Sebastians when I got there.
Dave Cawley:“He was waiting at Sebastians when I got there.”
Dave Moore:It was a bar restaurant. But it was pretty nice.
Dave Cawley:We’ve already heard from Dave Moore in this podcast. He’s the friend of Cary’s who’d served in the police reserve with him.
Dave Moore:We went through the, uh, course together.
Dave Cawley:Dave previously told us Cary’d stopped by his sewing machine repair shop just before 6 and they’d gone to the bar then. Dave said they’d had a few drinks, then he’d headed home.
Dave Moore:I’m guessing 8ish.
Dave Cawley:I’ll remind you, we’ve gone through this timeline discrepancy a couple of times already, starting in episode 2. Cary’s very first version of the story, provided the day after Sheree’s disappearance, had originally aligned with what Dave described. But Cary’d revised his story in the days and weeks that followed, shifting the time of his meeting with Dave at the bar until later in the evening. Dave’s told us he and Cary’d left the bar an hour before Cary was telling Shane he’d first arrived, at 9.
Dave Moore:No, 9 o’clock, that’s definitely wrong.
Dave Cawley:The shift in Cary’s story revolved around his second job. In the revised version, Cary said he’d gone to work at the NICE Corporation call center from about 6 to 9, before meeting Dave at the bar.
Dave Cawley (to Dave Moore):He worked at Weber State during the day and then, uh, he had the second job at the call center, at uh, NICE Corp, right?
Dave Moore:And I didn’t know that, either.
Dave Cawley:Ok.
Dave Moore:To be honest, well, if I did I don’t remember that.
Dave Cawley:Cary’s timecard from the NICE Corporation could settle this question, but I don’t believe investigators ever obtained it. And the company had long since gone belly-up. So, this boils down to who do you believe: Cary Hartmann or Dave Moore? There’s a three-hour difference in their stories. Which made this bit of what Cary had to say of great interest to Shane Minor.
Shane Minor:And that’s because I think that’s that three or four hour window we’re looking at.
Dave Cawley:The window of time just after Sheree Warren left her work in Salt Lake City and disappeared. Let’s set aside Dave Moore’s account for the moment and remain focused on the version of events Cary was providing. Cary said he’d told Dave he couldn’t stay at the bar long, because Sheree would already be waiting for him at home.
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):He says “ok,” he says “well, why don’t you call and have her come down here?”
Dave Cawley:In this scenario, Sheree is just sitting alone in Cary’s basement apartment, twiddling her thumbs. Cary said Dave’d suggested he call Sheree and instead invite her to join them at the bar.
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):It rang four or five times.
Dave Cawley:Cary said he’d dialed his home number, it rang several times with no answer, so he went back and told Dave “something’s wrong.” Cary said it was Dave’s idea for him to then call Sheree’s mom.
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):I called Mrs. Sorensen in Roy and I says “is Sheree there?” She said “no, I thought she was with you.”
Dave Cawley:By Cary’s timeline, his first call to Sheree’s mom, Mary Sorensen, would’ve happened after 10 p.m. But this contradicted what Mary’d herself told police. She’d said Cary’d first called her around 8:00. So again…
Shane Minor:…his timing’s kind of off on that a little bit, didn’t make sense.
Dave Cawley:Shane asked what Cary’d done the next day. Cary said he’d gone to work. But he couldn’t remember having any specific conversations with anyone.
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):No, I can’t remember one person.
Shane Minor:He talked about how he called Roy PD. He called the parents once.
Dave Cawley:Cary said he’d made the call to Roy police around noon, within earshot of his boss and a coworker. But Cary’s timecard showed he’d taken that day off work. And neither the boss nor the coworker had mentioned overhearing that phone call when they were each interviewed by police after Cary’s arrest in 1987. And what’s more, detective Jack Bell’s notes from the day after Sheree disappeared say he called Cary, not the other way around. More inconsistencies.
Shane Minor:I wanted to confront him about those, but my concern at that time was he’s just gonna shut up. He’s not gonna say anything.
Dave Cawley:Shane hoped he might someday get a chance to interrogate Cary a second time, perhaps once he’d secured an arrest warrant.
Shane Minor:So I was hoping to be able to go back and say “well, you’re wrong this, you’re wrong about this.”
Dave Cawley:Again, this was a matter of strategy. Shane was a spider spinning a web. He didn’t intend to use venom until the time was right. Shane asked what Cary’d done the weekend after Sheree disappeared. Cary said he’d picked up his sons from his ex-wife that Saturday.
Shane Minor (from October 26, 2005 police recording):Do you remember anything else about that weekend?
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):I don’t, no.
Dave Cawley:No mention of going on a 3-wheeler ride with his TV reporter buddy Larry Lewis, or of going up on the mountain behind Causey Reservoir with another man — possibly Cary’s younger brother Jack Hartmann — as the elk hunting guide Fred Johns had reported.
Shane Minor:So some things he could remember. But then when you start talking about specifics, it’s kind of like missing information.
Dave Cawley:These aren’t just small gaps. Cary said he couldn’t remember anything significant happening between Sheree’s disappearance and his arrest a year-and-a-half later.
Shane Minor:Then it would divert to “well that next year-and-a-half was just a blur.”
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):Next year and half is a blur.
Dave Cawley:No mention of Sheree’s car turning up in Las Vegas, or the psychic letters. Nothing about talking to the two women who’d lived above him, Kaye Lynn and Mary. Roy police sergeant Mike Elliot hadn’t said much so far in this interview, but he mused aloud about whether Cary would’ve discussed Sheree’s disappearance with his upstairs housemates.
Mike Elliot (from October 26, 2005 police recording):Maybe they saw her come that night and then left. That might be something you might ask ‘em.
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):I didn’t even consider it.
Dave Cawley:I’ll remind you, police had found the note Mary’d described taping to Cary’s door. It proved he had, in fact, talked to his landlady and the upstairs renter after Sheree disappeared. Now, he told Shane Minor he hadn’t. Or at least, couldn’t remember it. It seemed all Cary could remember was one time, Sheree’d made him fried chicken for a picnic at Lost Creek Reservoir.
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):I said “let’s go buy some chicken.” And she said “no, let’s make it.”
Dave Cawley:Cary said “the chicken was so good…”
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):The chicken was so good.
Dave Cawley:…as if he could still taste it. At least that memory seemed vivid. Shane decided to cut to the chase. He had a series of questions to ask.
Shane Minor (from October 26, 2005 police recording):And like I said, it’s just a simple yes or no.
Shane Minor:Then when it got down to questions it was…
Shane Minor (from October 26, 2005 police recording):Do you know who is responsible for Sheree’s disappearance or death?
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):No.
Dave Cawley:Tough to hear, but Cary said “no.”
Shane Minor (from October 26, 2005 police recording):Did you have anything to do with Sheree’s disappearance?
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):No.
Shane Minor:“Did you do anything to her?” Everything was “no.”
Shane Minor (from October 26, 2005 police recording):Did you kill Sheree?
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):No.
Shane Minor (from October 26, 2005 police recording):Do you know where she is now?
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):I do not.
Shane Minor:Had no responsibility, nothing to do with her disappearing, has no idea what happened to her, had no idea where she’s at.
Dave Cawley:Shane finished off the questions by asking about two specific locations: Lost Creek…
Shane Minor (from October 26, 2005 police recording):Do you know if Sheree was placed in the area of Lost Creek?
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):I don’t have any clue.
Dave Cawley:…and Causey.
Shane Minor (from October 26, 2005 police recording):Do you know if she was placed in an area above Causey Estates?
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):No, I don’t have any idea.
Dave Cawley:Cary trailed off there, but he said “no, I don’t have any idea.” Shane told Cary the reason he’d asked those questions is because he’d talked to witnesses who put Cary and Sheree together on the night of her disappearance, after she left the credit union office in Salt Lake City.
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):That’s absolutely incredibly false. Ain’t no way on this planet. That is a lie.
Shane Minor:Denied her coming over to his house.
Dave Cawley:Cary’s exact words were “ain’t no way on this planet, that’s a lie.” He insisted the bar’d been packed full of people who’d all seen him there that night. But Shane knew no one had ever come forward to verify that. And after 20 years, no one ever could.
Shane Minor:Time has really compounded figuring some things out.
Dave Cawley:On the other hand, Shane told Cary multiple inmates who’d served time with him had come forward over the years to say Cary killed Sheree Warren.
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):That’s bull[expletive]. That’s a, that’s an inmate with a grudge of some sort.
Dave Cawley:Cary said “that’s bull[expletive]. That’s an inmate with a grudge.”
Shane Minor (from October 26, 2005 police recording):Do you know who that would have been?
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):I don’t have a clue.
Dave Cawley:Cary didn’t “have a clue” who might’ve held a grudge against him. He didn’t mention Nathaniel Bell, the inmate who’d punched him unconscious during a game of handball and who Cary’d then testified against in court. He didn’t name William Babbel or David Westmoreland, who’d both snitched on him, even if less-than-credibly.
If Cary’d said Babbel or Westmoreland hated him for some reason, it might’ve served to discredit what they’d told police and the FBI. But Cary didn’t mention them. Cary said any prisoner who claimed he’d made incriminating comments about Sheree Warren was a liar.
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):I just wanted to be absolutely clear on that fact. No way on this Earth did I tell anyone that I was involved with because I’m not.
Dave Cawley:Shane pivoted, asking Cary if he’d been a hunter when Sheree disappeared.
Shane Minor (from October 26, 2005 police recording):Did you do any hunting that year?
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):Uh, I, I think I did.
Dave Cawley:Cary said he’d gone out every deer season, which in Utah started the third week of October. But Shane wanted to know about an earlier date, during elk season: the Sunday after Sheree disappeared.
Shane Minor (from October 26, 2005 police recording):Were you in the area of Causey Estates, up above Causey Estates, the weekend after—
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):Never, absolutely not.
Shane Minor:He denied basically that.
Dave Cawley:Cary insisted he’d never gone into Causey Estates, except with his friend Dave Moore.
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):I never ever, ever, ever in my life went to Causey when I didn’t go through the gate that Dave didn’t open it, never.
Dave Cawley:Cary said he, Dave Moore and another of their friends — a former Ogden cop named Bill Thorsted — used to rip around Causey Estates on their three-wheelers during the winter. Dave Moore and Bill Thorsted both owned lots in Causey Estates. Cary’d visited both of them. Shane knew another of Cary’s old friends, the taxidermist Brent Morgan, also had a cabin up in Causey Estates.
C. Brent Morgan:In the early years, the advantage was, it was very isolated.
Dave Cawley:Brent’s the guy who had his wedding on that mountain a year before Sheree disappeared.
Dave Cawley (to Brent Morgan):So you’re holding that event up there. Umm, one of your guests is, is Cary Hartmann.
C. Brent Morgan:That is correct.
Dave Cawley:Which means Cary’s assertion he’d only ever gone in to Causey Estates when Dave Moore let him through the gate was not true. Brent told me Cary’d been into Causey Estates multiple times without Dave Moore.
Brent Morgan:Well, when we were doing our cabin, guess who did the plumbing work? Cary did. Now, he wasn’t up on top like when I got married but he had, he knew the gate system, he knew how to get to my place, he could drive the roads. If he left my cabin and he wanted to go to the top of Skull Crack, he could drive up there.
Dave Cawley:We don’t have to just take Brent at his word on this. I have a copy of a daily journal Cary kept during 1984, the year before Sheree disappeared. It contains notes in Cary’s own handwriting about Brent owing him money for the work he did on Brent’s cabin. It’s documentary evidence what Cary told Shane about never going into Causey Estates without his friend Dave Moore was not true.
Shane Minor:He said he really didn’t have access to it, but we’d been told he had a key to it.
Dave Cawley:You might remember from earlier episodes, Brent the taxidermist loaned Cary a key to the gate at Causey Estates during the fall of ’85.
C. Brent Morgan:That is correct.
Dave Cawley:Shane asked Cary about this.
Shane Minor (from October 26, 2005 police recording):Did you ever have a key to Causey?
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):Oh, no, never.
Shane Minor (from October 26, 2005 police recording):Did you borrow a key from anybody?
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):Never.
Dave Cawley (to Shane Minor):So you’ve got him staunchly denying what your witness is telling you. And those are two things that can’t be reconciled.
Shane Minor:Right.
Dave Cawley:The inconsistencies were stacking up.
Shane Minor:Asked him if he’d ever been up on top hunting, he said he hadn’t.
Dave Cawley:Cary said he’d never hunted the Causey side of the mountain, only the Lost Creek side.
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):I hunted at Lost Creek. I never hunted at Causey, ever.
Dave Cawley:I’ve described Causey, Lost Creek and the mountain between them as looking like a percent sign: Causey is the circle in the upper left, Lost Creek’s the circle in the lower right, the mountain is the diagonal slash between them. There’s a dirt road that goes south from Causey, up the mountain to the bottom of the slash. That’s where the cabins of Causey Estates are. The road then turns, going up and to the right, along the mountain top — following the slash — before dropping down to Lost Creek.
It’s on that road where the elk hunting guide, Fred Johns, reported seeing Cary four days after Sheree disappeared. Shane knew Cary had the borrowed key for the Causey side. He wanted to know if Cary’d also had access from the Lost Creek side. I read aloud from a transcript of Shane’s interview with Cary when we sat down to talk, repeating what Cary’d said about hunting at Lost Creek after Sheree disappeared.
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):I hunted with my brother…
Dave Cawley (reading from transcript):“I hunted with my brother, we all put our truck and campsite right there in the cul-de-sac. People all over the place.” And then you said “which cul-de-sac?”
Shane Minor (from October 26, 2005 police recording):Which cul-de-sac? I’m not very familiar.
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):By the boat ramp.
Dave Cawley (reading from transcript):“By the boat ramp. There’s only one, you get on the road, there’s only one that’s paved. That’s the only one I know of.” “Where is it? By the boat ramp at Lost Creek?” “Yeah.”
Shane Minor (from October 26, 2005 police recording):…at Lost Creek?
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):Yeah.
Dave Cawley:Cary saying he’d hunted around Lost Creek with his younger brother Jack Hartmann after Sheree disappeared also seemed to line up with what Shane’d heard from the elk hunting guide, Fred Johns. Fred had reported seeing another man with Cary on the mountain behind Causey. Fred told police he thought the second man was Jack Hartmann.
Shane asked Cary if he’d be willing to take a new type of lie detector test called a voice stress analyzer. Cary seemed cautious, and asked…
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):How accurate is it?
Dave Cawley:“…how accurate is it?” Shane said he wasn’t sure. He just wanted to use it to eliminate Cary as a suspect. At this, Cary balked. He said he didn’t understand how Sheree disappearing from Salt Lake while he was 40 miles away in Ogden didn’t already do that.
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):You’ve got to see my position.
Shane Minor (from October 26, 2005 police recording):I understand your position.
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):I mean, I’m dubious as hell about—
Shane Minor (from October 26, 2005 police recording):I understand.
Cary Hartmann (from October 26, 2005 police recording):—this or whatever, thinking “oh man, what do I have to do?”
Dave Cawley:Cary said “I’m dubious as hell about this … thinking ‘oh man, what do I have to do?’” He decided no, he wasn’t going to take a lie detector test. So, Shane wrapped up the interview. He packed away his notes and tape recorder. He hadn’t expected a confession and he hadn’t got one.
Shane Minor:But at the same time he’s giving you some information he doesn’t realize he’s giving to you.
Dave Cawley:For example, Shane’d confirmed Cary’d hunted the mountains around Lost Creek Reservoir with his brother Jack after Sheree disappeared. And Jack Hartmann had never been questioned about the disappearance of Sheree Warren. So that’s where Shane Minor headed next.
[Ad break]
Dave Cawley:Weber County investigator Shane Minor had finally, after 20 years, questioned Cary Hartmann about the disappearance of Sheree Warren.
Shane Minor:And I was just trying to get as much information as we could from him.
Dave Cawley:Cary’d denied any involvement. But he’d also made several statements contradicting what other witnesses had said over the years. Most importantly, he’d denied having gone up the mountain behind Causey Reservoir the weekend after Sheree vanished.
Shane Minor:I don’t think I asked him about a conversation he had with Fred Johns up on top.
Dave Cawley:Shane’s memory is right. He hadn’t revealed to Cary the elk hunting guide Fred Johns had seen Cary and another man parked on a mountain ridge behind Causey, just four days after Sheree vanished.
Shane Minor:I think he would’ve clammed up.
Dave Cawley:Fred’d said he thought the other man was Cary’s brother, Jack Hartmann.
Shane Minor:We didn’t have contact with the brother during that period of time of the rape cases.
Dave Cawley:Roy police detective Jack Bell had once tried to interview Jack Hartmann, in May of 1987.
Jack Bell:I never really got to talk to Jack on the record in the office.
Dave Cawley:Jack Bell’s notes say Jack Hartmann had cancelled their appointment after talking to Cary’s defense attorney. When Shane Minor’d taken over the Sheree Warren case a decade later, he’d learned Cary’s family had never been questioned.
Shane Minor:So that information was that his brother and all of his family was told not to talk to us by his attorney. So having that in mind, you think “well, they’re gonna, they’re gonna resist talking to you so let’s avoid that.”
Dave Cawley:Shane met with a seasoned criminal prosecutor named Bill Daines. They brainstormed a plan.
Shane Minor:It was probably his suggestion, “well we’ll just do this. We’ll compel him. Put him under oath and, uh compel him by subpoena.”
Dave Cawley:Under Utah law, prosecutors can ask a judge for subpoena power. If the judge approves, the prosecutor can force witnesses to testify under oath at a secret hearing.
Shane Minor:And then offer transactional immunity, some type of agreement if that comes into play.
Dave Cawley:Investigators could’ve tried this tactic early on, after Cary’s arrest in the rape case in 1987. I’m not sure why they didn’t. It was a major missed opportunity.
Shane Minor:Looking back, we’re going off of the information that we have.
Dave Cawley:What I’m going to tell you next has never before been publicly revealed, because of the secret nature of these types of subpoenas. Shane Minor personally served Cary Hartmann’s brother, Jack Hartmann, with an investigative subpoena in January of 2006. Shane told me Jack’d seemed surprised.
Shane Minor:I, I think his attitude is like “what’s this all about? Just ask me.”
Dave Cawley:The subpoena ordered Jack Hartmann to appear for questioning at the Weber County offices. Jack did as ordered, and met prosecutor Bill Daines.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):The individual who is presently in the courtroom and who was just sworn in, his name is Jack Hartmann. Is that correct, sir?
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Yes.
Dave Cawley:The existence of this audio recording has been a secret for more than 15 years.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):This is a secret proceeding and so you are asked not to divulge the contents of this proceeding to anyone other than a lawyer that you might want to talk to. Do you understand that?
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Yes, I do.
Dave Cawley:Bill told Jack anything he said might be used against him. But…
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):We do not, uh, view you as a target.
Dave Cawley:A target of what? A murder investigation.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):And what I will tell you is, uh, although I’m assuming you’ve already guessed this, is that this involves the disappearance on October 2nd, 1985 of a young woman by the name of Sheree Warren, uh and the fact that she has never subsequently been found.
Dave Cawley:Bill explained police had gathered a great deal of information over the past 20 years. Most of it had never been made public. That information pointed to a suspect: Jack’s older brother, Cary.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Did Cary ever talk to you about his relationship with Sheree Warren?
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):No.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):He did not?
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):No.
Dave Cawley:Bill worked through the questions he’d drafted with investigator Shane Minor, while Shane and Roy police captain Jack Bell sat in the back of the room, listening.
Shane Minor:We asked him questions about his relationship with his brother and I think he was quite open with us. I think he was honest with us about it.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):You are his younger brother.
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Correct.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):How much younger than Cary are you?
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Eight years.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Alright. And were you close growing up?
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):(Pause) No.
Dave Cawley:In our first episode, I told you how Cary and his second wife had gone to Oceanside, California with another woman, Jack Hartmann’s fiancé, in the summer of 1980. Cary’s ex-wife later told police Cary’d tried to rape Jack’s fiancé after they’d arrived. Bill asked Jack about that story.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):He had attempted to rape your wife?
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):He attempted or did and I’m not sure. My wife held information from me.
Dave Cawley:Jack said he’d only learned what’d happened on that day in California seven years later, in 1987, after Cary’s arrest. Another instance of people not coming forward for fear of Cary.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):You’ve had problems with your brother Cary at least as of 1987.
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Oh, yes.
Dave Cawley:But why had Jack Hartmann not shared that information about his brother with police at the time?
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Do you remember as Kevin Sullivan, as your brother’s attorney, ever advised you not to talk to the police?
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):He, he might’ve—
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):He might have told you don’t talk to the police about anything?
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):—maybe he thought I would say something, I don’t know.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Alright.
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Maybe I, I don’t know. Maybe I’d speak honestly and he didn’t want to hear it. (Laughs)
Dave Cawley:So, Jack and Cary’s relationship had been on the rocks since at least ’87. What about before that, when Sheree Warren had disappeared?
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Did you have good relationship with your brother at that time?
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):No.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):You did not?
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):No.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Why was it at that time that you weren’t seeing him very often?
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Well it was even prior to that. Him and I just, he changed. He got, he was, he was like two people. He would, he would disrupt family gatherings terribly and at one time I caught him, y’know, making obscene gestures towards my girlfriend at the time which became my wife. That really irritated me. He just, is, he, it was either do what I ask you or do it when I ask you or you’re a—
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Ok.
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):—SOB. And I didn’t like the lie, I just, we would argue at get-togethers where everything’s supposed to be great. He would, it’d turn into a fight. I got sick of it.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Did—
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):So that was years before. So our relationship never was great.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Alright.
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Especially at this time. We were seeing each other (pause) very seldom, at best.
Dave Cawley:Seldom, but not never. Bill showed Jack one of the missing persons fliers Cary’d had printed in October of ’85, shortly after Sheree disappeared. The same style flyer that still hung in a display case in the lobby of Roy City police headquarters.
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):I remember these. My brother had us helping him pass ‘em out. I remember that, uh, story.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):You’re saying that Cary told you nothing about this disappearance at the time?
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):No, I’m sure he didn’t. I can’t remember him ever coming and saying “look, so-and-so’s gone, I don’t know.” He, he did say that, I remember, because then he started this poster that, flier thing, so—
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):And that’s number two. What I’ve marked number two is the poster you’re referring to.
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Yeah, yeah.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):He, he was responsible for creating these, in so far as you know?
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):He, yeah, as far as I know.
Dave Cawley:Bill pivoted.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Do you know if your brother liked to go to Las Vegas?
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):That’s a good question. I don’t know. Like I told you, our relationship was very sketchy, at best, so a lot of his life I didn’t know about. I don’t know that, for sure. I know he never went to Wendover that I know of and that’s a gambling place which is similar, that I know of—
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Alright.
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):—so I don’t know—
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Did you ever go to Las Vegas with Cary?
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):No.
Dave Cawley:Bill described Sheree’s car, the maroon, 1984 Toyota Corolla that’d turned up behind the Aladdin casino in Vegas several weeks after Sheree disappeared.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Did you ever hear Cary speculate as to how Sheree’s car might’ve ended up in the city of Las Vegas?
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):No.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Did he ever tell you that he had driven that car to Las Vegas or anything of that nature?
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):No.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Did you ever in the days after Sheree Warren disappeared, pick your brother up at the Salt Lake airport?
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):No, sir.
Dave Cawley:Bill also showed Jack a photo of Cary’s old truck, a Chevy pickup from the 1970s with a shell over the bed.
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Oh, I remember that truck. The yellow one.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):The yellow one.
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Ok, yeah. Ugly, terrible yellow. Yep.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):(Laughs)
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Now I remember.
Dave Cawley:Bill didn’t say it, but this was the truck Fred Johns, the elk hunting guide, had described seeing with Cary on the mountain behind Causey.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):This truck that I’ve shown you in number 3, you’ve agreed is an ugly yellow truck that Cary—
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):(Laughs)
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):—in case I didn’t record over there.
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Yes.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Uh, did you ever ride in this truck anywhere?
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):I’m sure I did.
Dave Cawley:Bill was laying foundation.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Do you hunt?
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Yes.
Dave Cawley:As he worked toward a point.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Were you hunting in 1985?
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):I’m sure I was, I don’t miss a year.
Dave Cawley:Seeking to put Cary on that mountain days after Sheree Warren disappeared.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Do you know if Cary had access to Causey Estates?
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):I don’t. I don’t.
Dave Cawley:Jack said he’d hunted the mountains around Causey himself a time or two, but never with Cary. He said Cary’s friend Brent Morgan, the taxidermist, had once let him into Causey Estates for a day.
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Scratched the heck out of my truck. I remember that.
Dave Cawley:But Jack said he’d done this on his own. Fred Johns, the elk hunting guide, had told police he’d seen Cary and Jack Hartmann together on the mountain behind Causey Estates on the opening weekend of the annual elk hunt.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Did Cary hunt back in 1985?
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Probably.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):What did he hunt, to the best of your—
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Deer.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):—present recollection. Just deer?
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Just deer.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Alright. You’re not the first person who told us that. You don’t remember Cary hunting elk?
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):No.
Dave Cawley:Fred Johns had shown investigator Shane Minor the exact spot where he’d remembered seeing Cary and Jack on the mountain. As I mentioned in the last episode, the land belonged to a sheepherding family named the Wildes. Fred Johns paid the Wildes for the right to take his clients in pursuit of elk on their land, and Fred did not like trespassers.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Now, do you know of property above Causey Estates known as Wilde’s property? And I believe that’s a family name?
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):I’ve, I’ve heard of it—
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Have you ever been there?
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):No.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Are you certain?
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Not that I know of. I know that it, uh, I’ve always heard that it’s good hunting in there but I’ve never gone in there.
Dave Cawley:Bill talked Jack through the various ways one could reach the Wilde property. The two most important for us are through Causey Estates or by way of Lost Creek Reservoir. Again, picture that percent sign: two circles, separated by a slash. Two reservoirs, separated by a mountain, but connected by a rough dirt road running along the mountaintop.
The Wilde property where Fred Johns had seen Cary and another man sat right in the middle of the slash in the percent sign, midway between the two reservoirs. Gates blocked the road at both sides. Cary’d borrowed a key for the Causey side, but what about the Lost Creek side?
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Right at the back of Lost Creek I think everybody who hunts elk knows is the road into Deseret Land and Livestock.
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Yes.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):The Lost Creek area was an area you were very familiar with?
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Yes.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):And as far as you know, Cary was very familiar with it?
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):(Pause) Somewhat, not like me.
Dave Cawley:Their conversation of the geography went into a lot more detail than we need to hear. But Jack had no confusion over where it was the elk hunting guide Fred Johns claimed to have seen Cary and Jack on the mountain.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Did you, within a few days after Sheree Warren disappeared ever go elk hunting or deer hunting with your brother Cary?
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):(Pause) I can’t remember. I, I, I gotta say no.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Did Cary ever take you into the mountains within that period of time, for any other reason that you can now think of?
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):No.
Dave Cawley:So what’d Cary been doing up there, if Fred Johns was to be believed?
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Do you know a person named Fred Johns?
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Yes.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):How do you know him?
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Through my brother.
Dave Cawley:Jack said he’d first met Fred in the mid-‘70s. This was probably around the time Cary’d briefly lived with Fred while Cary was between his two marriages. Jack remembered having gone into the mountains with Cary and Fred a time or two back then. But that’d been years before Sheree Warren disappeared.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Would, in 1985, Fred Johns have known what you look like?
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):I’m sure. I, I’m pretty sure.
Dave Cawley:Bill turned to the critical question.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):He indicates that on that day, you and Cary were on his leased land backed into those trees in this truck. Is that true?
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):This is in ’85?
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):This would’ve been four days after Sheree’s disappearance.
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):(Pause) I can’t remember but I guess it’s possible.
Dave Cawley:It wasn’t a “no,” but it wasn’t a “yes,” either.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Do you remember coming across Fred Johns one day asking you what you were doing on his land?
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):I don’t remember that.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Could you have been up there on that date?
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):I’ll say I could have because I can’t remember for sure.
Dave Cawley:Investigator Shane Minor was still watching from the back of the room, his detective’s senses alert, listening for any lie.
Shane Minor:I think he gave some pretty honest answers. He couldn’t recall, he’d been up there but he couldn’t remember what date it was.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Could you have been approached by Fred Johns and asked “what are you doing here?”
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):I guess but I can’t remember that to be perfectly honest.
Dave Cawley:Bill, the prosecutor, didn’t leave any room for ambiguity.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Did you ever help Cary put anything in a canyon up on that ridge?
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):No.
Shane Minor:But when we asked him specifics about dropping anything or, or that first week, he’s like “no, I, I wasn’t, wasn’t me.”
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Did he ever tell you of any problems he was having with Sheree Warren?
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):No.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Do you by any means whatsoever have any idea where Sheree is?
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):No.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Has anybody told you where she might be?
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):No.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Has Cary ever mentioned this to you?
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):No.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):At all?
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):No, sir.
Shane Minor:I think I was hoping that he would give us that one little piece that we didn’t have. And when we got done, there was just nothing.
Dave Cawley:Shane’d figured Cary Hartmann wasn’t going to confess, if he’d killed Sheree Warren. But Shane’d hoped Cary’s accomplice — if he’d had one — might feel the sting of guilty conscience. Fred Johns, the elk hunting guide, had told Shane Cary’s little brother, Jack Hartmann, could’ve been that accomplice. Shane’d pinned all his remaining hopes of finding Sheree Warren on reaching a breakthrough with Jack. Jack Hartmann was the last, best lead Shane had.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Alright. I have, don’t, I don’t have any further questions at this time, Mr. Hartmann. You’re free to go.
Dave Cawley:Shane interjected in an act of near desperation, trying to keep the conversation going, asking if Jack had any questions he’d like to ask them.
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):I do have one.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Alright.
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Why now? I’m just curious. Has my brother, y’know, ‘cause all I did was read about this in the paper and was like “holy moly”—
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Well—
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):—so then I’m wondering why 18 years later, or, has he said something, y’know?
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Well, and here again—
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):We’re just curious.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):—what I’m telling you is that some of the information we have may not have been 18 years old. That’s why I—
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):True. Ok. That’s true.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):—informed you straight out in the beginning—
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Ok.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):—we may have information over the years but, umm, when you’re saying “why now,” that’s, that’s why—
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Yeah, that’s just—
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):—we have evidence here, obviously. I just asked you a series of questions—
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):Right. I understand.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording):—that, that we have information about.
Dave Cawley:They stopped the recording, but Jack stayed a little while to talk off the record with Bill Daines and Shane Minor. Their conversation only reinforced Shane’s gut feeling, his belief Jack’d told them the truth: he hadn’t helped his brother Cary conceal the suspected murder of Sheree Warren.
Shane Minor:I didn’t get that drift that he was involved with him and didn’t really want anything to do with him.
Dave Cawley:But Fred Johns, the elk hunting guide, had said he’d seen a second man with Cary Hartmann on the mountain behind Causey.
Shane Minor:And he thought it was his brother.
Dave Cawley:So if that second man wasn’t Jack Hartmann, who was it?
Shane Minor:Bill and I talked about it after, we all felt the same way about him and, just like it wasn’t him. I don’t think he was with him. Had to’ve been someone else.
Dave Cawley:Someone else who resembled Cary and Jack Hartmann.
Shane Minor:I know Cary had a cousin that, Hartmann had a cousin that looked a lot like him that was used in the line-ups from the rape cases.
Dave Cawley:When Cary’d stood in that police line-up in May of 1987, he’d brought his brother Jack and cousin David with him. Back in episode 5, we heard how the woman I called Caroline had tried to pick Cary out of the line-up. But Cary and his cousin David had looked so similar, Caroline couldn’t tell them apart. So I wonder: could the second man on the mountain with Cary have been David Hartmann?
Would the resemblance of Cary’s cousin have been enough to confuse Fred Johns? It’s a question I’ll never be able to answer because Fred Johns is dead, and so is David Hartmann. David died in 2004. He was never interviewed by investigators. His life after Cary’s arrest was marred by alcoholism. Court records show David was repeatedly convicted for driving under the influence.
He’d been married twice and I’ve talked to his second ex-wife, who only met him years after Cary went to prison. She told me David wasn’t an outdoorsman and, to her knowledge, never visited Causey Reservoir. She could only remember David mentioning Cary one time, in reference to having helped him at the police line-up. David Hartmann’s obituary said his love for his family was “surpassed by nothing on this Earth.”
Jack Hartmann hadn’t provided answers that brought investigator Shane Minor any closer to finding the remains of Sheree Warren.
Shane Minor:And so it was just like, getting the wind kicked out of you. It’s like, you’re just, now what? Where do you go from here?
Dave Cawley:Shane’d spent more than six years grinding out a case, building a better record, hoping along the way to find Sheree Warren’s remains. He’d done the work when no one else would, not because he had some deep emotional connection with Sheree, but because his sense of justice demanded it. He’d dragged cadaver dogs up the mountain, squeezed his broad frame into a small helicopter and hovered over the spot where he believed Cary Hartmann might’ve dumped Sheree’s body. But in the end, all that effort left him right back where he’d started. He felt like he’d missed something, one critical piece.
Shane Minor:Trying to get somebody to remember something or someone we hadn’t talked to, maybe point us in a direction.
Dave Cawley:Now, Shane was rudderless. He had loose ends, not leads. He hadn’t been able to find Shauna, the woman Cary’d dated and married after Sheree disappeared. Maybe she harbored information. I’ll note, I’ve reached out to Shauna myself, but she didn’t respond to my message.
Shane wondered about William Babbel, aka Charlie, the FBI informant. He’s the snitch we heard about in episode 6, who’d been in Cary’s sex offender therapy group and who claimed Cary’d been infatuated with Ted Bundy.
Shane Minor:Thought about trying to get back and go with Babbel but he had died.
Dave Cawley:Shane’d hit one too many dead ends. He’d sacrificed so many of his own nights, on his own time, chasing answers. He just couldn’t do it anymore.
Shane Minor:I didn’t want to give up on it, but at the same time it’s like there’s got to be that one thing that somebody knows something, maybe they just don’t know what they know.
Dave Cawley:Vultures smelled Shane’s desperation. A group of self-described clairvoyants swooped in, offering to “work” the Sheree Warren case on his behalf. Having no better options, Shane was willing to entertain it. The clairvoyants held viewing sessions, then sent Shane emails full of vague, nonsensical notes. Stuff like “water or the smell of wet earth. I can hear crickets. I feel that night is important.”
Yeah, try planning a search off that and let me know how it goes.
The clairvoyants even enlisted the help of a California woman named Aann Golemac, who’d made a name for herself as a ghost hunter on cable TV shows in the early 2000s.
Narrator (from October 16, 2003 Weird Travels, Investigations of the Unexplained):To put it frankly, Ann claims she sees dead people.
Ann Golemac (from October 16, 2003 Weird Travels, Investigations of the Unexplained):I may see them very clearly and I will then ask them what they need or if they have a story to tell or if they need help.
Dave Cawley:Golemac performed her own psychic reading and, in notes I’ve obtained, claimed to have herself talked to Sheree’s spirit. Golemac said she saw a 14-year-old girl with a connection to New Jersey. “I am being shown a doll as I talk to Sheree.” Golemac wrote. This is all bogus and the fact it even ended up in investigator Shane Minor’s case file shows just how desperate he’d become.
Shane Minor:Well, you keep thinking that you’re gonna find something that you missed and it’s gonna point to something and, uh—
Dave Cawley (to Shane Minor):If it was easy, it wouldn’t be a cold case.
Shane Minor:No. Yeah, yep. And if the person that done it’s not talking and was careful not to say too much, then it just make it that much more harder.
Dave Cawley:Meanwhile, other cases landed on Shane’s desk. One of those involved a new lead in the search for another missing woman: Joyce Yost. You can hear about Shane’s work on that case in season 2 of this podcast. In another case, Shane ended up searching for the body of a teenage girl who’d disappeared from the home of a couple who’d hired her as a babysitter.
Mike Anderson (from October 19, 2011 KSL TV archive):At first, police believed that 16-year-old Alex Rasmussen could’ve been a runaway. Rasmussen, never came home after she left to babysit for Eric and Dea Millerberg September 11th.
Dave Cawley:The girl, Alexis Rasmussen, was missing five weeks before a prison informant broke the case open. The informant provided police with the name of a witness who’d helped the killer bury Alexis off to the side of Interstate 84.
Sandra Yi (from January 31, 2012 KSL TV archive):Prosecutors say Eric Millerberg gave the drugs to Alexis Rasmussen. When she died, he and his wife Dea moved the teen’s body to Morgan County, where investigators would find it five weeks later.
Dave Cawley:The Alexis Rasmussen case demanded years of Shane’s attention, dragging him away from the search for Sheree Warren.
Sandra Yi (from January 31, 2012 KSL TV archive):The discovery changed the course of the investigation, which began as a missing persons case.
Dave Cawley:The parallels between Sheree Warren’s disappearance and the murder of Alexis Rasmussen struck me: both were first reported as missing persons. Both involved jailhouse informants who claimed the victims were buried off the side of the interstate. Both scenarios included a suspect possibly soliciting help to hide the victim’s body in the mountains.
In one case, Shane had been able to help secure an arrest, conviction and the return of the victim’s body. In the other, well…
Shane Minor:Y’know, it just kind of takes a, another back seat.
Dave Cawley:Newer crimes always seem to take priority over old ones.
Shane Minor:Got to be very demanding in time, so—
Dave Cawley (to Shane Minor):Mmm.
Shane Minor:—I just didn’t get back to it.
Dave Cawley:No one stepped forward to pick up where he’d left off. The search for Sheree Warren once again went cold.
[Ad break]
Dave Cawley:Cary Hartmann once again went before the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole in September of 2010.
Duane Kaneko (from September 21, 2010 parole board recording):Alright. Mr. Hartmann, I’m going to take testimony today so I’d like you to raise your right hand so I can swear you in.
Dave Cawley:That’s the voice of parole board hearing officer Duane Kaneko. We’ve already heard four of Cary Hartmann’s prior hearings before the parole board in this podcast. But notice in this one how much better Cary had grown at telling the board what it wanted to hear.
Duane Kaneko (from September 21, 2010 parole board recording):Tell me why the board should let you out.
Cary Hartmann (from September 21, 2010 parole board recording):I’ve changed my thinking and I’ve changed my life.
Dave Cawley:It’d been five years since Cary’s interview with Shane Minor, 25 years since Sheree Warren disappeared.
Duane Kaneko (from September 21, 2010 parole board recording):At this point, I guess my question is, tell me how many victims you’ve had.
Cary Hartmann (from September 21, 2010 parole board recording):I have four charged and five uncharged.
Duane Kaneko (from September 21, 2010 parole board recording):So nine total.
Cary Hartmann (from September 21, 2010 parole board recording):Yes sir.
Dave Cawley:Cary claimed five sexual assaults for which he’d never faced criminal charges.
Cary Hartmann (from September 21, 2010 parole board recording):Three of those were my ex-wives, sir.
Duane Kaneko (from September 21, 2010 parole board recording):Ok.
Cary Hartmann (from September 21, 2010 parole board recording):That I was married to. That was sexual abuse. I was married three times. Two of them, not very long. They were very short. And then one of them I was married for five years and it wasn’t an ongoing basis, it happened on occasion.
Duane Kaneko (from September 21, 2010 parole board recording):Mmhmm.
Cary Hartmann (from September 21, 2010 parole board recording):One was a date, was an attempted rape.
Dave Cawley:Ogden police had in 1987 collected multiple reports from women who said Cary’d assaulted them. Those never resulted in criminal charges, but there were more than one and the conduct they described went beyond “attempted.”
Cary Hartmann (from September 21, 2010 parole board recording):And the fifth was a 10-year-old girl when I was 14 years old. I sexually abused her.
Dave Cawley:Let that sink in. Cary admitted he’d sexually abused a 10-year-old child when he was himself just 14. This obliterated the idea Heidi Posnien, who Cary’d tried to lure up to a remote mountain campground when he was 22, was his first victim. It undercut the idea his experience in Vietnam, or later financial troubles were the root of his behavior.
In episode 5, we heard how Cary told a therapist when he first entered sex offender treatment he’d learned about sex at age 15 from some kids at school. This admission contradicted that.
Duane Kaneko (from September 21, 2010 parole board recording):And there’s been no one else.
Cary Hartmann (from September 21, 2010 parole board recording):No sir.
Dave Cawley:No mention of Sheree Warren. Over the course of this season, you’ve heard Cary Hartmann go from making outright denials, to partial admissions, to this supposedly full confession of his crimes.
Cary Hartmann (from September 21, 2010 parole board recording):Because I wasn’t clearheaded. Because I was deviant in my thinking. I sought out pornography and masturbation. And deviancy was what I delved in and I, I didn’t think clearly and I wasn’t using clear thinking at the time.
Dave Cawley:I’ve come to think of this as Cary’s progression of accountability. He only ever admitted to what he had to, denying everything else. As a result, he’d made many contradictory claims while under oath over the years. He’d proven himself untrustworthy, leaving one to wonder if this version of his story represented the entire truth.
Cary Hartmann (from September 21, 2010 parole board recording):I didn’t have empathy for people at that time. I didn’t consider people’s feelings. I was selfish and self-centered. I wanted instant sexual gratification.
Dave Cawley:Cary touched on a significant idea with this statement.
Duane Kaneko (from September 21, 2010 parole board recording):Are these things that you’d fantasized about previously?
Cary Hartmann (from September 21, 2010 parole board recording):Yes sir.
Dave Cawley:There’s a growing body of academic research surrounding the psychology of rape and sexual assault. Much of it seeks to answer the question: what drives some men to commit rape?
Duane Kaneko (from September 21, 2010 parole board recording):And then, you figured because of that it was ok.
Cary Hartmann (from September 21, 2010 parole board recording):Yes sir, that’s correct.
Duane Kaneko (from September 21, 2010 parole board recording):And it didn’t matter what they thought.
Cary Hartmann (from September 21, 2010 parole board recording):No sir, it didn’t at the time.
Dave Cawley:Cary said he’d just wanted “instant sexual gratification.” But that’s an probably oversimplification, because rape isn’t just rooted in the rapist’s physical desires.
Cary Hartmann (from September 21, 2010 parole board recording):I’ve learned to control my emotions and my impulses.
Dave Cawley:The origins often touch on the rapist’s own narcissism, lack of empathy, hostility toward women or desire to dominate another human being.
Cary Hartmann (from September 21, 2010 parole board recording):I’ve learned to, to counter the things that drive me, which are objectifying women and my red flags and triggers.
Dave Cawley:Cary said he’d unraveled all his issues, this deep-seated psychological stuff, in therapy, over the space of a few short years. He was all better now.
Cary Hartmann (from September 21, 2010 parole board recording):I can go out and be a happy person. Deviant-free and not a harm to anyone.
Dave Cawley:The parole board hearing officer, Duane Kaneko, didn’t ask Cary about Sheree Warren. He could have, if he’d wanted. But the parole board’s job wasn’t solving crimes. Without an investigator pushing the board to ask, as Shane Minor had done five years earlier, it had little reason to intervene.
Cary’d minded his manners in the time since. He’d done everything the board had asked of him. As a result, he was on track for a release from custody. Kaneko said he just wanted a little more assurance Cary wasn’t a threat to re-offend before taking that major step. But, Kaneko said if Cary kept playing by the rules, release could be just a year or two away.
Duane Kaneko (from September 21, 2010 parole board recording):What do you think will be the biggest thing that you’ll have to contend with?
Cary Hartmann (from September 21, 2010 parole board recording):Staying in contact with my support group, always being open and honest, being truthful in every single thing that I do.
Dave Cawley:But he looked forward to seeing how the world had changed in the more than two decades since his arrest, conviction and incarceration.
Cary Hartmann (from September 21, 2010 parole board recording):I imagine technology’s changed just a little bit.
Duane Kaneko (from September 21, 2010 parole board recording):Just a little.
Dave Cawley:One can imagine what might’ve happened if Cary’d had access to a smartphone back in the days of his lingerie survey phone calls.
Cary Hartmann (from September 21, 2010 parole board recording):I no longer have any desire whatsoever to be involved in anything like that.
Dave Cawley:The parole board had to decide: had Cary Hartmann really changed?
Duane Kaneko (from September 21, 2010 parole board recording):Tell me what you think is going through the minds of your victims.
Cary Hartmann (from September 21, 2010 parole board recording):I believe they were scared to death. I believe that they feared for their lives. I believe that they probably will feel fear in many, many areas of life, of their lives for the rest of their life.
Dave Cawley:A fear that might well grow if the board decided to set Cary free.
Weber County investigator Shane Minor had reason to believe Sheree Warren died at the hands of her boyfriend, Cary Hartmann, on the night of Oct. 2, 1985. But Shane had not been able to corner Cary Hartmann into an interview.
Cary initially cooperated with investigators in the Sheree Warren case. That changed after Cary’s arrest and conviction in 1987 on counts of burglary and aggravated sexual assault. Cary’s crimes earned him two 15-years-to-life prison sentences. Once incarcerated, he’d stopped talking to police.
Police suspected Sheree met with violence on the night of her disappearance, but they could not locate her remains. As a result, the investigation had gone cold for nearly a decade before detective Shane Minor picked it up again in 1998.
“I kind of had to start at the beginning,” Shane said in an interview for COLD.
Shane spent the next several years re-interviewing witnesses, compiling reports and evidence and honing in on a single suspect: Cary Hartmann.
A letter to the parole board about Sheree Warren
By 2005, Cary Hartmann was headed before the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole for a hearing. He’d served 18 years on the sexual assault conviction, three more than the 15-year minimum mandatory term required by his sentence. That meant Cary was eligible for release.
Shane Minor realized the members of the board did not know Cary Hartmann remained a suspect in an unsolved, cold case homicide investigation.
“I felt maybe the board should be aware of that,” Shane said.
Days ahead of Cary Hartmann’s parole hearing, Shane sat down and typed out a letter to the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole. The letter summarized the circumstances of Sheree Warren’s disappearance. It also described Cary’s lack of cooperation with investigators since his arrest.
Shane told the parole board about emerging information from witnesses and informants that possibly placed Cary Hartmann and Sheree Warren together on the night of her disappearance.
“Some of this information has been consistent with information known only to a handful of investigators,” Shane wrote.
He concluded the letter to the parole board by saying his investigation would continue, but only at a slow pace.
Cary Hartmann’s parole hearing
Cary Hartmann stood before Kent Jones, a hearing officer for the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole, five days later. They discussed the details of the crimes that sent Cary to prison. Then, Jones blindsided Cary with a question about Sheree Warren.
“I’m a little concerned about that,” Jones said. “I just wonder as to whether or not she’d dead somewhere and you had anything to do with her death or disappearance.”
Cary denied the accusation. He said he had “nothing to do with it.” Cary said he’d assisted investigators early on in the case.
Jones told Cary he did not believe that answer was entirely honest. He said an investigator from Weber County had been in contact with the parole board. The investigator, Jones said, might want to conduct an interview about Sheree Warren.
“I would encourage you to talk to the Weber County people,” Jones told Cary. “I get the information from this investigator that they’ve got a lot more on you than what you think.”
Cary said he would “absolutely” agree to an interview.
Cary Hartmann agrees to talk about Sheree Warren
Investigator Shane Minor and Roy City Police Detective Sergeant Mike Elliott arranged to interview Cary Hartmann on Oct. 26, 2005. Cary was at that time housed in the San Juan County Jail in Monticello, Utah.
“There was just some basic information that we wanted to get from him,” Shane told COLD.
The Cary Hartmann interview was audio recorded. COLD obtained a copy of that recording through an open records request. A complete transcript of the interview follows below.
Transcript of the Oct. 26, 2005 interview
Shane Minor:Ok, I’m Shane Minor. I’m with Mike Elliott and Cary Hartmann. We’re in Monticello at the San Juan County Jail. Uh, today’s date is October 26, 2005, and it is about 12 o’clock. Ok Cary, I’ve just explained to you that we’ve come down here and we’re here to talk to you about Sheree Warren.
Cary Hartmann:Yes.
Shane Minor:That’s the only thing we’re here to talk about. Uh, you’re in custody. Right now I’m going to give you your rights, ‘cause you don’t have to talk to us unless you want to. So if you just listen to me for just a second. You have the right to remain silent, anything you say can be used against you in court. You have the right to talk to a lawyer for advice before we ask you any questions and to have one with you during any questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be appointed for you before any questions if you wish. If you decide to answer questions now without a lawyer present, you’ll still have the right to stop answering at any time. You also have the right to stop answering at any time until you talk to a lawyer. Do you understand each of those rights?
Cary Hartmann:I do.
Shane Minor:Ok, what I’d like you to do is let him read this Waiver of Rights. I would like for you just to read that and if you understand these rights, and everything, just sign here, and we’re going to sign this too, as witnesses.
Cary Hartmann:Ok. (Sound of pen scratches)
Mike Elliott:It’s about the furtherest corner of the state you can get to with still being in the state.
Cary Hartmann:Well, I started out in Ogden, and I keep moving (unintelligible).
Shane Minor:So you’ve been moved around quite a bit?
Cary Hartmann:Oh boy, my next move I guess is Arizona. And I don’t know—
Mike Elliott:Arizona?
Cary Hartmann:—I’m being facetious.
Mike Elliott:Oh. (Laughs)
Cary Hartmann:I couldn’t get farther from Ogden.
Mike Elliott:Yeah.
Cary Hartmann:So.
Shane Minor:Ok, uh, I guess to start with, what would help us out, and like I’ve explained to you, we’re looking into the Warren case, her disappearance and everything.
Cary Hartmann:So what, you’re lookin’ into old cases, is that it?
Shane Minor:I’m looking into—
Cary Hartmann:Twenty-year anniversary or something?
Shane Minor:No, I’m looking into, we’ve got several unsolved murder cases. You were familiar with Ogden in the early ‘80s. You was a reserve up there. Uh, we have murder cases up there that are still unsolved, have nothing to do with you, ok? But as part of that, part of that group of cases that we’re working this is one of them that’s thrown in ’cause it’s an old case, it’s never been resolved—
Cary Hartmann:An old missing person case.
Shane Minor:—and it’s an old missing person case. This is one of the cases of several others we’re looking into.
Shane Minor:Ok, so this is the only one we’re talking about, and I’m not saying you had anything to do or know anything about the other cases but, there’s other cases we’re looking into, this is just one of them.
Cary Hartmann interview: Cary makes a statement
Cary Hartmann:‘Kay. I need to, I need to, right at this time, make a statement.
Shane Minor:Ok. Sure.
Cary Hartmann:I absolutely, like I’ve stated a about a hundred times from [Roy police detective] Jack Bell on down, I absolutely did not have anything to do with her disappearance.
Cary Hartmann:Absolutely in no way, shape or form—
Shane Minor:Ok.
Cary Hartmann:—did I, do I have any knowledge of her disappearance, up until surrounding the case, and I helped Jack as much as I possibly could, as a civilian, every single day for a year and a half to look for her. So, I have knowledge of that, but I do not have anything to do with this case.
Shane Minor:Ok.
Cary Hartmann:I just want to state that right now up front.
Shane Minor:That’s fine.
Cary Hartmann:But I’m willing to help in any way I can—
Shane Minor:Well—
Cary Hartmann:—and answer anything that—
Shane Minor:—like I said—
Cary Hartmann:—I possibly can.
Shane Minor:—there’s two reasons, two things that we’d like to talk to you about. One is, to gather whatever information we can from you that might help—
Cary Hartmann:Sure.
Shane Minor:—because you were her boyfriend at that time.
Cary Hartmann:Absolutely.
Shane Minor:And another time is, there’s gonna be a time I’m going to ask you some direct questions—
Cary Hartmann:Ok.
Shane Minor:—just because no one has asked you those questions.
Cary Hartmann:Ok.
Shane Minor:And, uh, if you agreed to talk to us, I was committed to, I’m going to ask you the questions.
Cary Hartmann:Ok.
Shane Minor:I won’t know the answer ’til we ask you.
Cary Hartmann:Alright.
Shane Minor:Ok, so that’s how this is going to work.
Cary Hartmann:Ok.
Cary Hartmann interview: Relationship background
Shane Minor:To start with, if you could give me a little bit of background about you and Sheree, you were her boyfriend—
Cary Hartmann:Right.
Shane Minor:—and do you recall that period of time? I know it’s been a long time—
Cary Hartmann:Pretty much.
Shane Minor:—but that’s something that usually sticks in a person’s mind, like, something like that happens—
Cary Hartmann:Right.
Shane Minor:—that type of an event you remember things. Do you still remember that period time and, like the date? Do you remember when she was reported missing, the year or stuff like that?
Cary Hartmann:Uh, now that’s October 2nd or 3rd, 1985.
Shane Minor:Ok. Uh, the missing, according to the missing person’s report generated by Jack Bell at Roy City—
Cary Hartmann:Right.
Shane Minor:—uh, she was last seen leaving her work around 6:15 and it’s a Wednesday on October 2nd, ok? At some period of time you had talked to Jack. I know you talked to him a few days later, according to, uh, just a brief synopsis in the missing person’s report. But what I would like to do is, start with, can you describe my relation, your relationship with Sheree at that period of time? Like, how long have you gone out with her? ‘Cause a lot of that stuff I have no idea. I’m trying to find old reports and old information that does not exist.
Cary Hartmann:Uh, we had gone together quite awhile. She was legally separated from her husband.
Shane Minor:She wasn’t divorced yet.
Cary Hartmann:Not quite. This guy was, uh, her ex-husband, he was a piece of work. (Unintelligible)
Shane Minor:Umm, how long? You say quite awhile. Can you remember about how long you went together?
Cary Hartmann:Oh shoot, I’d say, it seems to me we went together about a year.
Shane Minor:Ok.
Cary Hartmann:Yeah, pretty much.
Shane Minor:Alright.
Cary Hartmann:Ok. Uh, we got along fantastic—
Shane Minor:Ok.
Cary Hartmann:—just fantastic. We were in love. We talked about getting married. Never had a harsh word or a cross word between us through the whole time we were going together, not one. Not one argument, not anything whatsoever. It was just a sweet—
Shane Minor:No arguments.
Cary Hartmann:None whatsoever. Umm, even though her place of residence was in Roy with her folks, she had little Adam, a little boy.
Shane Minor:Mmhmm.
Cary Hartmann:She stayed with me and then commuted back and forth to check on her, her young son all the time, like every day, before work and after work and stuff like that, but she slept over at my house a great deal of the time.
Shane Minor:Do you remember how, much when you say a great deal of time, how often would she be over at your house?
Cary Hartmann:Uh, four or five times a week.
Shane Minor:Weekends or during the week?
Cary Hartmann:Both. It wasn’t really a set time.
Shane Minor:Did she have any clothes at your house?
Cary Hartmann:Uh huh. Yeah, she had a few. Overnight things and a few things. A couple changes.
Shane Minor:And her son Adam would stay at her parents’ house?
Cary Hartmann:Yes.
Shane Minor:Mmkay. So you described that you were pretty close with her.
Cary Hartmann:Yes.
Cary Hartmann interview: Cary’s timeline
Shane Minor:Now, this week of October 2nd, October 2nd was on a Wednesday. And I printed out, just to help, help explain (unintelligible) it’s a map that I had printed out, it’s just a blank calendar—not a map, sorry—of October 1985. It shows the 2nd being on a Wednesday. To help maybe refresh your memory (unintelligible) if something pops up that you can remember. So, during this week, do you have any recollection at how much she was staying at your place that week or—
Cary Hartmann:No.
Shane Minor:—what had been going on that week?
Cary Hartmann:I can’t remember anything significant that indicates anything was going on during this week. Umm, I just can’t remember (unintelligible)—
Mike Elliott:Did she stay at your house the Tuesday night?
Cary Hartmann:Yes, let’s see, yes. Because she got up, we got up, she got dressed, put her work clothes on and give me a kiss goodbye and says “I’m going to work, see ya” and I says “bye, bye.”
Shane Minor:‘Kay, now we’re talking Tuesday morning, from the first?
Cary Hartmann:Right.
Shane Minor:And where did she work at?
Cary Hartmann:She worked in Salt Lake at the credit union. I can’t remember the name of the credit union.
Shane Minor:The credit union in Salt Lake City. And that was on Tuesday?
Mike Elliott:Or no, Wednesday morning—
Cary Hartmann:Wednesday morning.
Mike Elliott:—she got up that morning?
Shane Minor:Ok, what’s—
Mike Elliott:—Tuesday night she stayed over.
Shane Minor:Tuesday night, Wednesday morning.
Cary Hartmann:Right.
Shane Minor:Ok, so Wednesday night, or Wednesday morning, Tuesday night, she spent the night with you—
Cary Hartmann:Right.
Shane Minor:The day before. Was there any problems Tuesday night or—
Cary Hartmann:Nothing whatsoever.
Cary Hartmann interview: A story about Charles Warren
Shane Minor:Now, did she have any concerns? Do you remember having any conversation, of having any kind of concerns about anything or having any problems with anybody?
Cary Hartmann:Umm, previous to this, she’d told me about her ex-husband, that he was extremely violent [personal information removed by COLD]. Later on he lured, can’t remember his name, he lured—I can’t remember his name—he lured [Chuck Warren’s ex-wife] Alice up Ogden Canyon, uh, on the pretext that his car was broke down, this is in a police report, and he beat her with a tire iron. Put her in the hospital. They tried to get Alice to take a polygraph test, and she got up to it and decided not to.
Shane Minor:About being beaten by the tire iron?
Cary Hartmann:About everything about her ex-husband. About the whole, I don’t think she filed a police report about that, but I think there was a police report made. But that’s what happened. Sheree told me that’s what happened.
Mike Elliott:Mmkay.
Cary Hartmann:So in that, Sheree’s credit union in Ogden, her husband walked, ex-husband at that time—
Shane Minor:Same ex-husband?
Cary Hartmann:Same guy.
Shane Minor:Ok, I think, was it Charles Warren, Chuck Warren. That—
Cary Hartmann:Chuck—
Shane Minor:—is that the person you’re talking about?
Cary Hartmann:Yeah.
Shane Minor:Ok.
Cary Hartmann:I couldn’t remember his name. Walked in the credit union, and the reason I know it is the credit union manager told me this at the time. I can’t remember her name. But he was upset that Sheree, I think he was paying her alimony, and she was going to take him to court and up the alimony or get child support because she was unable to make ends meet at that time. So, she was dragging him through court, or back into court again, and he was really upset. He went into the credit union, had a suit coat on, the manager was behind the counter or at her desk nearby, and it was also the credit union was right near the college and so I was in there often and knew the, a couple of the ladies and stuff. And his coat come open, and he had a gun tucked in his waistband.
Shane Minor:And who’s telling you this?
Cary Hartmann:Credit union manager, at that time. I can’t remember her name. And it scared her and scared the teller that was behind the counter. I think she indicated to the manager “look at that, he has a gun tucked” and wanted to know where Sheree was. Uh, I can’t remember if she was there or not. It seems to me that she was there, and they all saw this. And he made a few statements about you taking me to court, and it’s causing me grief and anguish and a few bad words and out the door he went. And this all come down from the manager of the credit union at this time.
Shane Minor:Did, did Sheree tell you anything about that or say anything about that? Or say anything to you about it?
Cary Hartmann:Yes she did. Said it scared her. She confirmed what the credit union manager had said. And she said this is like him. He’s a violent kind of person, anyway.
Shane Minor:Ok but, when would she have said that stuff to you? Prior to—
Cary Hartmann:Prior to.
Shane Minor:—this, would it’ve been like a week before or was that a month before the incident, the summer, or spring?
Cary Hartmann:Weeks before this so—
Shane Minor:Ok.
Cary Hartmann:—August.
Shane Minor:And then, when you talked to the credit union manager, what period of time was that?
Cary Hartmann:Within a short period of time after Sheree told me so within August, September.
Shane Minor:Ok. So it again—
Cary Hartmann:—I’d say—
Shane Minor:—you’re talking about a few weeks before.
Cary Hartmann:—right, right. And I can’t be positive about that.
Cary Hartmann interview: “Not a clue” about Sheree Warren
Shane Minor:Ok, that’s fine. ‘Kay uh, maybe what I’d ask you then, uh, let’s put this on hold for just a second as far as the 2nd. You’re talking about her ex-husband. Now, you remember that date, do you remember the time, uh, what you think happened to her?
Cary Hartmann:(Laughs) I’ve asked myself that every day for the last 20 years. I don’t have a clue.
Shane Minor:Have any ideas?
Cary Hartmann:I don’t have an idea, no, not one, not one. She was so responsible, so sharp and so smart that they, uh, the credit union chose her to go to Salt Lake to train managers, to train people to be managers, and she wasn’t even a manager. That’s how smart she was. She was working (unintelligible) So if she said that she was going to meet me at the corner of 12th and Vine, just a figure of speech, she would be there. That’s the kind of gal—
Shane Minor:She was reliable.
Cary Hartmann:—she was so reliable and so, uh—
Mike Elliott:Pretty good?
Cary Hartmann:Yeah.
Shane Minor:Who do you think is responsible for her disappearance?
Cary Hartmann:I don’t have an idea in the whole world. I don’t have a clue.
Shane Minor:So you, you don’t, you don’t have any, any opinion? And that’s all I’m asking you is—
Cary Hartmann:I can appreciate that. I know where you’re coming from, I know.
Shane Minor:Alright, let’s back, let’s go back up then ‘cause I want to just ask you and I didn’t ask you that at the very beginning. She stayed overnight with you on Tuesday night.
Cary Hartmann:Mmhmm.
Shane Minor:You guys, you guys didn’t have any arguments, any fights—
Cary Hartmann:None whatsoever.
Shane Minor:What about that Monday night. Did she stay over with you that night? Or what can you remember?
Cary Hartmann:Probably.
Shane Minor:That would have been, like uh, September 30th?
Cary Hartmann:Yeah, I would say yes only because I can’t remember. I just can’t remember. ‘Cause like I say, sporadically she would run home and check on Adam, and this was pretty often. She was a very responsible little gal. She would run home and check on Adam and mom and dad. And uh, make sure things were ok there, and sometimes she would stay at home, and then sometimes she would stay with me.
Shane Minor:Ok. But no fights, no arguments—
Cary Hartmann:Never—
Shane Minor:—nothing like that?
Cary Hartmann:—never had one.
Cary Hartmann interview: Sheree’s last day
Shane Minor:Ok, tell me about that morning. She gets up, and where are you living at the time?
Cary Hartmann:On the bottom of 7th Street, below two ladies, rented the basement apartment.
Shane Minor:Do you remember what the address is?
Cary Hartmann:I don’t, I don’t.
Shane Minor:You rented the basement part?
Cary Hartmann:I did.
Shane Minor:She left there and went to work. What time did she leave?
Cary Hartmann:Now, that’s a good question. She got up and she got showered and stuff and got dressed and it was, seems to me it was a little before I went to work at Weber State [College]. And I worked at Weber State and I had to be there at 6 or so-so. Call it, it wasn’t too long before, so call it 5 to 5:30ish, something.
Shane Minor:Weber State at 6?
Cary Hartmann:I think it was at 6.
Shane Minor:And so Sheree would have left around 5:30?
Cary Hartmann:5 to 5:30, somewhere in there.
Shane Minor:And did she drive straight to work?
Cary Hartmann:Umm, I don’t know. I believe she did. I think she went right straight to Salt Lake from my place. I don’t think she made any stops, not that I’m aware of.
Mike Elliott:‘Kay.
Shane Minor:Alright, and then you went to work at 6:00 up at Weber State?
Cary Hartmann:I did.
Shane Minor:Alright, so, tell me about your day first. You went to work at 6:00 in the morning up to Weber State.
Cary Hartmann:Uh huh.
Shane Minor:How late did you work there ’til?
Cary Hartmann:Ok, I worked there till about 4:30, about 6 to 4. I can’t remember, I can’t remember the exact hours. About 4:30 I went directly home because I had another job to be to so I got home, I got showered quickly. The phone rang.
Shane Minor:About what time was that that you got home at?
Cary Hartmann:Umm, call it between 4:00 and 4:30 because I can’t remember exactly.
Cary Hartmann interview: An alleged call from Sheree
Shane Minor:You got a phone call?
Cary Hartmann:I did, about 4:30.
Shane Minor:Who from?
Cary Hartmann:Sheree.
Shane Minor:Ok.
Cary Hartmann:She, she was in Salt Lake at her work. Telephone records verified that. You can check on that.
Shane Minor:Ok, and you were showered and you were on your way to another job.
Cary Hartmann:I had my keys in my hand and I was just headed out the door. I was going to NICE Corporation where I worked on the phone.
Shane Minor:Can you tell me, do you remember the context of that conversation?
Cary Hartmann:Yeah, pretty much. She says, uh, “what you doing?” And I says “well, I’m just headed to work, out to NICE.” “Oh, ok.” I says “how are you?” “Fine.” “How was your day?” “Good, I’m training this guy.” Says “it’s been going along ok. Been working with him for the past couple, three, four days.” She says “what are you going to do after work?” And she meant after NICE because that’s where I was heading and got off there about 9.
Shane Minor:Ok, what time were you, do you remember what time you were supposed to go to NICE, work at NICE? I mean, you’re leaving about 4:30.
Cary Hartmann:Yeah so, so maybe, maybe 5.
Mike Elliott:Ok.
Cary Hartmann:‘Cause the hours were different there. You pretty much got there when you checked in, but you had to be there by a certain time.
Shane Minor:Do you remember what time that was?
Cary Hartmann:It took me 15, 20 minutes to get there, so call it 5 o’clock—
Shane Minor:Ok.
Cary Hartmann:—I think, because I had to really hustle to get there.
Shane Minor:Did you have to be on time or was it the type of place to where you could be a few minutes late—
Cary Hartmann:No, you had to be on time, but you could be there early. Up to the hour you had to be there.
Shane Minor:Ok, and she asked? I’m sorry—
Cary Hartmann:She says, uh, “what are you goin to do after work?” And I says “well,” I says I was going to stop down to Sebastians and have a drink with Dave, my best friend. Dave Moore.
Shane Minor:Dave Moore?
Cary Hartmann:You know Dave.
Shane Minor:Ok.
Cary Hartmann:And she says “oh, ok.” And I says “well what are you,” y’know, “what’s your plans.” She says, “I’m coming right directly home, I’ll be waiting for you when you get home at the house.”
Shane Minor:So she was coming, she was going straight to your house on 7th Street?
Cary Hartmann:Right. That’s what she said.
Shane Minor:Ok. And then what time did you get off? What time were you getting off work at NICE?
Cary Hartmann:About 9 o’clock.
Shane Minor:Ok.
Cary Hartmann:Mmhmm.
Shane Minor:And that’s what time you were going to meet Dave Moore at Sebastians?
Cary Hartmann:No, I told Dave “I’ll meet you after work.”
Shane Minor:After—
Cary Hartmann:After NICE Corporation. He knew I get off at 9 so he was waiting at Sebastians when I got there.
Shane Minor:But you get there after 9?
Cary Hartmann:Right.
Shane Minor:‘Cause you worked until 9, and then you left and met him after that.
Cary Hartmann:Yes sir.
Shane Minor:Ok. When you left work at NICE, did you drive straight to Sebastians?
Cary Hartmann:Straight there. I got there about 9:15, 9:20.
Shane Minor:Ok, and Dave Moore was already there?
Cary Hartmann:He was. The place was filled. Dave was there.
Dave Moore tells KSL’s COLD podcast about meeting with his former friend, Cary Hartmann, at a bar called Sebastians in Ogden, Utah on the evening of Oct. 2, 1985. Hartmann told police Moore gave him an alibi for the disappearance of Sheree Warren, but Moore’s timeline differed significantly from Hartmann’s.
Shane Minor:How did your conversation end with her? She said she was coming straight to your house?
Cary Hartmann:Uh, she says “so you’re goin’ to be all night down there drinkin’.” I said, I remember this, I said “nope.” I said, “I’m going to have a drink with Dave, and I’m coming right straight home.” She said, “ok, great, I’ll be waiting for you at home.” She was kidding, of course.
Shane Minor:About what?
Cary Hartmann:She said, “are you going to stay down there drinking all night?” Said “oh, no, no. I’m going to have a drink with Dave and I’m coming home.” “Ok.” And that’s exactly how it went.
Shane Minor:(Unintelligible) And that, was that the conversation? Or—
Cary Hartmann:That was it. “Love you.” “Love you, too.” “See ya, bye.”
Cary Hartmann interview: The night Sheree disappeared
Shane Minor:Ok, so then I take it, that’s around 4:30 or so.
Cary Hartmann:Uh huh.
Shane Minor: You leave house?
Cary Hartmann:Right.
Shane Minor: And you drive out to?
Cary Hartmann:NICE.
Shane Minor: NICE Corporation. You remember how you drove out there?
Cary Hartmann:Went out and got on the freeway at 21st ‘cause that was the quickest way. Zipped on the freeway and was right there, off the freeway exit.
Shane Minor:Which exit?
Cary Hartmann:Oh I don’t even remember. Right there at the Ogden Airport Exit? Which one’s that?
Shane Minor:31st Street?
Cary Hartmann:Probably (unintelligible).
Shane Minor:Thirty, I think 31st Street would be the Ogden Airport.
Cary Hartmann:Yeah. That’s, that’s exactly how I went. Puts you on, close to Pennsylvania Avenue.
Shane Minor:Yeah.
Cary Hartmann:Went down the the Airport (unintelligible).
Shane Minor:What did you drive at that, that period of time?
Cary Hartmann:My pickup.
Shane Minor:What kind of pickup was it?
Cary Hartmann:Umm, half-ton—
Shane Minor:Was that the yellow or—
Cary Hartmann:—gold.
Shane Minor:—gold one. And you you stayed at work until 9:00?
Cary Hartmann:Yep.
Shane Minor:Did you talk to her after 4:30 that day?
Cary Hartmann:Nope.
Shane Minor:On the phone, you didn’t call her? She didn’t you at work?
Cary Hartmann:I never talked to her again.
Shane Minor:Ok so, she left your house that morning around 5:30 and from what you know she drove straight to work—
Cary Hartmann:Yeah.
Shane Minor:—in uh, Salt Lake. What was she driving that day?
Cary Hartmann:Her car.
Shane Minor:And I might be wrong but does Toyota sound?
Cary Hartmann:Somewhere, yeah.
Shane Minor:Do you remember what color it was?
Cary Hartmann:Maroon Toyota, I don’t remember the year.
Shane Minor:And then you talked to her that one time that day around 4:30. And that’s when you were on your way to NICE Corporation. You worked ’til 9:00 and then after that you go down to Sebastians and meet Dave Moore?
Cary Hartmann:Right.
Cary Hartmann interview: A drink with a friend
Shane Minor:Do you remember anything about that? About going down to Sebastians that night?
Cary Hartmann:I arrived. When I got there, Dave was there and the place was really busy so I ordered a drink, and I drank that. And he said “well, how’s it going?” “Fine.” Y’know, “is Sheree come home from work?” And I says “yeah, she’ll be home from the credit union, she’s gonna meet me at home.” And I said “I’ll have one drink and I gotta go. That’s what I told her, and that’s what I’m going to do, period.” He says “ok,” he says “well, why don’t you call and have her come down here?” Well, that’s a good idea so I went to the phone. Called home. It rang three, four or five times.
Shane Minor:Do you remember what time that would have been about?
Cary Hartmann:Uh, about 45 minutes later. I don’t, I don’t remember exactly. It could have been an hour.
Shane Minor:Thirty, thirty minutes to an hour later.
Cary Hartmann:Yeah.
Shane Minor:So you called your house on 7th Street?
Cary Hartmann:Right. To ask her if she wanted to come down and have a drink with us.
Shane Minor:And asked her? Or didn’t ask her, but—
Cary Hartmann:No one answered. It rang four or five times. I hung up, I went back and said I said “Dave, she’s not there. Something’s wrong.” And I had this sick feeling because when she says she’s going to be there, she’ll be there, period. But whether she had extreme car trouble, or something weird happened (unintelligible), she should have been there, period.
Shane Minor:And then what happened after that?
Cary Hartmann:I went back and I told Dave, I said “Dave, something’s wrong.” And he said “what do you mean?” And I told him what I told you. And he says “well, maybe you ought to call her mom.” So I did. Right then.
Shane Minor:Ok.
Cary Hartmann:I called Mrs. Sorensen in Roy and I says “hi is,” y’know, “Sheree there?” She said “no, I thought she was with you.” I said “no, she’s supposed to come right home from work, supposed to be at my house.” “Ok, maybe something,” uh. “Did she pick up Adam, or did she have to go somewhere or meet someone?” And Mrs. Sorensen said “not to my knowledge.” And I said “me either.” I didn’t have any knowledge she didn’t have any other meetings planned or she’d have told me.
Shane Minor:And Adam, her son, was at the mother’s house?
Cary Hartmann:Right.
Shane Minor:Did Sheree have to stop by there?
Cary Hartmann:No. Not that her mom indicated (unintelligible).
Shane Minor:And the mother knew she was going to house after work?
Cary Hartmann:I don’t know that. I don’t know that at all.
Shane Minor:Ok, so she hadn’t seen or heard from her. Do you, what time would have that call been about?
Cary Hartmann:To Mrs. Sorensen?
Shane Minor:Yeah.
Cary Hartmann:Oh God, after I called home so within an hour and half-ish.
Shane Minor:So we’re looking around 10:30 or something, 10:30 or 11:00?
Cary Hartmann:Yeah, about. That’s pretty rough. I can’t remember exactly.
Shane Minor:Do you remember how long you stayed at Sebastians?
Cary Hartmann:Yeah, I stayed there for a while. Uh, had a few drinks. Actually I was thinking maybe Sheree would call, or, because she knew where I was from our previous conversation so she knew where I was. I figured maybe I’d get a call from her. Nothing So, I can’t tell you what time because I just don’t know.
Shane Minor:Thought she might call you there?
Cary Hartmann:Well, I thought the possibility was that she that she would call me because she knew that I was there. If something was wrong, something was up, then she would give me a call. She just wouldn’t leave me hanging, or anyone else for that matter.
Shane Minor:And what time would you guess that you went home? Or what did you do after you left Sebastians?
Cary Hartmann:11:30, drove straight home, about. I’d say, about 11, about 11:30. Drove straight home.
Shane Minor:How did you drive home? Do you remember?
Cary Hartmann:Uh.
Shane Minor:I know it’s been a long time.
Cary Hartmann:Probably like, probably straight down Washington, I’m thinking.
Shane Minor:Ok. Did you do anything once you got home? Did you make any stops on the way?
Cary Hartmann:Not one. Drove straight home.
Cary Hartmann claimed he’d gone from his full-time job at Weber State College, to his basement apartment, to his part-time job at NICE Corp. before heading to Sebastians on the night of Sheree Warren’s disappearance. The routes for those trips are displayed here.
Shane Minor:And then what did you do once you got home?
Cary Hartmann:Uh now, mind you, my, truck had a, had a noisy muffler system on it. Big old glass pack. So, the ladies upstairs told me “we hear you coming in and out” because I have to traipse up and down the steps and they always heard my trucks in the driveway, leaving or coming or right after in the morning, come at night, whatever. I tried to be as quiet as I could but it was just too noisy. So they knew when I come home. They know when I leave and when I go to work in the morning and stuff like that. I come home. I park the truck right in the driveway, right, right next to the house and go to bed. I didn’t do anything else, washed up. I did nothing else. Went to bed. I had to get up early.
Shane Minor:Ok, so if you left 11:00, 11:30 you’re probably back home and in bed by midnight or so?
Cary Hartmann:11:00 or 11:20. It doesn’t take long to drive home.
Shane Minor:Ok.
Cary Hartmann:So—
Shane Minor: So just as a window we’re talking anywhere from 11:20 to 11:45. I mean, you tell me what sounds fair. I’m not, I’m not trying to tie it to the exact time but just—
Cary Hartmann:It’s not—
Shane Minor:—we’re talking—
Cary Hartmann:—‘cause I, I ‘cause I never, ever considered the timelines. How long was I there? When the phone call was made? I never have ever even considered those. Things just happened, y’know, so—
Shane Minor:Ok.
Cary Hartmann:—so I don’t remember, but that sounds right.
Cary Hartmann interview: The morning after
Shane Minor:Ok. So now Thursday morning. What do you recall that day?
Cary Hartmann:I got up early, same schedule.
Shane Minor:What time?
Cary Hartmann:Five, 5:30 I believe. I think that’s what it was. I had to be at work at 6. I want to say 6, ‘cause I was on an early, early schedule. I had to be there and monitor the computers to punch in and all that stuff.
Shane Minor:So you got up 5, 5:30 and went to work?
Cary Hartmann:Right.
Shane Minor:Did you leave work during the day or?
Cary Hartmann:No, nuh-uh.
Shane Minor:You work all day?
Cary Hartmann:About noon is when I called Roy City and filed a missing person’s report. I was getting worried, worried, worried. It was about noon ‘cause they, I remember trying to call them previously, and they said you can’t file a missing person’s report until the person’s been gone 24 hours. I thought “man.” I was just sick from worry.
Mike Elliott:Did you call her mom or her work before noon that day or?
Cary Hartmann:Well, I called her mom that night, and, uh, believe I called the next morning.
Mike Elliott:Did you think maybe she’d come home and maybe gone to work or?
Cary Hartmann:No (unintelligible), no because she like, like I said she’s so responsible she she’d have either been at my house, been at her mom’s house and called me, or called me from wherever she was at. I knew that would absolutely happen. I could rely on her.
Mike Elliott:You think she was in trouble by then?
Cary Hartmann:Yeah, she wasn’t home, hadn’t called in, absolutely. I thought something’s up. This gal, oh no. If she hadn’t been dependable, every single thing she said was absolutely the way it was. I mean, her work (unintelligible) the epitome of that, too. She was sharp enough to train managers—
Mike Elliott:Yeah.
Cary Hartmann:—she was line, in line to be a manager when she was 27. Sharp, so.
Shane Minor:Did you talk anyone else, say Wednesday night? She called you at 4:30. You went to work and is that, that NICE Corporation. Is that a telemarketing type of thing or—
Cary Hartmann:Right. Both. People everywhere.
Shane Minor:So you went and did that until about 9 and then you went and met Dave Moore.
Cary Hartmann:I did.
Shane Minor:Do you remember, did you talk to anybody else, call anybody else, talk to them about it?
Cary Hartmann:No. Nuh uh. I did my job. I was worried, uh, that uh, get to Dave, you know. I thought wow, ‘cause I thought, we just loved each other to death, and I didn’t want to disappoint her so I thought, I get, after our phone call if I meet Dave at the bar is it going to be too long, is she going to be upset, am I going to disappoint her, I better hustle home. I even considered telling Dave “look Dave I gotta go.” So I said “well, I’ll have one drink with you, period” ‘cause that’s what I told her. But I didn’t, I don’t, I don’t believe I talked to anyone else.
Cary Hartmann interview: Coworkers at Weber State
Shane Minor:Thursday you go to work up at Weber State. Who did you work with? Do you remember who you worked with that day by chance?
Cary Hartmann:Oh, sure. I had a partner, Denis Kirby. I worked with him all day.
Shane Minor:Denis who?
Cary Hartmann:Kirby. D-E-N-I-S K-I-R-R-B-Y [sic].
Shane Minor:And what was your job up at Weber State?
Cary Hartmann:I was, umm, in charge of HVAC.
Shane Minor:HV—?
Cary Hartmann:HVAC. Heating, Ventilating, Air Conditioning.
Shane Minor:Oh, ok.
Cary Hartmann:I was an automation and, and uh, control technician. So, I run around the offices and dial in thermostats and work on compressors and all this.
Shane Minor:And you worked with Denis Kirby, was like somebody you worked with all the time?
Cary Hartmann:Yeah, he was in the same department. And Boyd Hirschi was my boss, and he was in that same office with me. Him and I met periodically all day long.
Shane Minor:Mmkay. So you go to work, work with Denis Kirby. Boyd Hershey is your boss.
Cary Hartmann:Correct.
Shane Minor:Did you run into anybody else or talk to anybody else that morning? Do you remember?
Cary Hartmann:Oh, it was Weber State College campus. It was filled with people, saw ‘em everywhere. (Laughs) I can’t—
Shane Minor:I mean, anybody that you remember having conversations with. Other than a casual “hi, how you doing,” you know, people that were working up there or seeing (unintelligible) something like that.
Cary Hartmann:Uh, no, I can’t, I can’t remember one person. There’s plumbers and maintenance people and we worked with them all day long. And we’re all over in the buildings. But I can’t remember—
Shane Minor:Did you have a conversation with Denis Kirby or Boyd Hirschi about Sheree?
Cary Hartmann:Sure, sure. I said I was worried that she didn’t show up and what should I do? And I discussed with them the whole thing. I was supposed to meet her and related the story just I related to you guys. But I got (unintelligible). Expressed concern because the cops said you can’t call for 24 hours and I’m like “gosh, what am I gonna do” and stuff like that. So I was worried, worried about it. So they knew when I, when I called and what was up. Were right there. Called right in front of them.
Shane Minor:So you call Roy City about noon—
Cary Hartmann:Uh huh.
Shane Minor:—ok, uh, tried to make a report. What happened, did you make any other phone calls to anybody that day—
Cary Hartmann:No.
Shane Minor:—do you remember?
Cary Hartmann:Not that I remember.
Shane Minor:So you finish, go back to work that afternoon, I assume.
Mike Elliott:After your, noon, I, I assume that you’re that taking, your, you’re on your lunch break when you’re making your phone call because you say it’s at noon?
Cary Hartmann:No, I made it right in the office.
Mike Elliott:Ok.
Cary Hartmann:Right, it was right in the office.
Mike Elliott:But that was right—
Shane Minor:Did you have lunch that day? I mean would you leave the campus or would you stay and have your lunch?
Cary Hartmann:No, if we left the campus most of the time it would be over to Hardee’s which was just on the corner of the campus. But I went with these guys to lunch most of the time.
Shane Minor:You do, all of you would go to lunch together?
Cary Hartmann:Or we’d go to the Union Building or we’d go to Hardee’s and grab something, come back, but I didn’t leave. Sometimes I’d bring my lunch. Most of the time I didn’t. (Unintelligible) I didn’t like packing a lunch.
Shane Minor:So how late did you work ‘til that day?
Cary Hartmann:Same shift.
Shane Minor:‘Til four o’clock?
Cary Hartmann:Yes, yeah.
Cary Hartmann interview: Just a blur
Shane Minor:And then what happened? What did you do after that?
Cary Hartmann:Next year and half is a blur. I think I went home and got cleaned up went to work at NICE.
Shane Minor:How often did you work at NICE?
Cary Hartmann:Oh brother. Seems to me it was four or five days a week, I want to say.
Shane Minor:And was it the same shift, too? You worked Weber State from six in the morning ‘til four, go home clean up and then you’d be at NICE from 5 ‘til 9?
Cary Hartmann:Uh huh.
Shane Minor:And that was four or five days week. Do you remember was it during the week, on weekends too, or?
Cary Hartmann:I think it was during the weekdays, as I recall.
Shane Minor:Monday through Friday?
Cary Hartmann:I believe. Sometimes it was on a Saturday. You know I just can’t recall. (Unintelligible)
Mike Elliot:Ok. So you have no idea of how many hours you worked or you say you worked there part time does that mean you worked there once a week or was it more of a—
Cary Hartmann:Well, I think—
Mike Elliot:—part-time job it sounds like.
Cary Hartmann:Part-time job of like four hours, four or five hours a shift. They wouldn’t allow you work eight hour shifts all the time.
Shane Minor:So you would’ve went to work. Do you remember, did you make any calls, inquiries about her? Did you receive any information?
Cary Hartmann:I didn’t receive any information at all. I think, I can’t remember how, how quickly I went out and started talking to Roy Police. ‘Cause I knew Jack [Bell], went to school with him and found out he was out there. Uh, but it was pretty soon after that I wanted to find out what they found out, what they knew, what was going on, called her folks.
Shane Minor:Do you remember when that started?
Cary Hartmann:I don’t. It was that day, the next day, and it continued on. That day, that evening, after I got home. “Have you heard from Sheree?” Over the phone.
Shane Minor:Did they say anything?
Cary Hartmann:Nope.
Shane Minor:The worried about (unintelligible)?
Cary Hartmann:And I know either I called her work or her mom says “I’ll call her work right away and find out if they’ve heard from her” or anything like that. I can’t remember exactly what she said. (Unintelligible)
Shane Minor:Ok. What about that weekend? Uh, ‘cause we’re now at Thursday. So you went to work Thursday night and back to Weber State on Friday?
Cary Hartmann:Mmhmm.
Shane Minor:And then would you work at NICE on Friday night?
Cary Hartmann:Uh, yeah, there again I can’t remember the exact shift.
Shane Minor:‘Kay.
Cary Hartmann:So when I say “yes,” I’m thinking you’re thinking “well if he says this, and it isn’t,” then he’s—
Shane Minor:No I, and I understand that, I’m just trying to get an idea of the days that you best remember.
Cary Hartmann:Ok. There again, I can’t remember a full shift, whether it was four days or if it was five days. But if I worked a full shift, either four or five, then I’d be back to work on a Friday night.
Shane Minor:You think, what would be your best guess? Take a, just take a minute and think about it. She leaves work on Wednesday night, the 2nd, you had a drink with Dave that night and then you go home. You go to work the next morning, on Thursday. You work all day—
Cary Hartmann:Mmhmm.
Shane Minor:—you go to work. Do you remember having conversations with anybody, other than the people you’ve mentioned? Did you call anybody else, do you have any other friends, uh, family anything at all that you talked to?
Cary Hartmann:Oh, sure I did. I called, let my folks know, my, my kids. See, most of the time on Friday nights at that point I picked up my two boys from my ex-wife, and I had them most of the time Saturday and Sunday, Saturday and Sunday, Saturday and Sunday.
Shane Minor:(Unintelligible)
Cary Hartmann:So they knew. They were old enough to understand what was going on. So my kids knew. Uh, I don’t know if my ex-wife did. I don’t recall calling her and saying anything to her at all. We didn’t—
Shane Minor:Ok. But you have them on Saturday and Sunday then?
Cary Hartmann:Uh huh.
Shane Minor:Was that every weekend or every other—
Cary Hartmann:Pretty much, y’know pretty much every weekend. My ex at that time worked retail and so it was convenient for me to pick them up Saturday and Sunday, plus I loved it. It’s just something I did.
Shane Minor:And what was her name?
Cary Hartmann:My ex?
Shane Minor:Uh huh.
Cary Hartmann: [Personal information removed by COLD]. So I don’t know if she had any information. And I didn’t call and tell her purposely. I don’t remember that at all.
Cary Hartmann interview: The weekend after
Shane Minor:You think you would’ve had your kids that weekend?
Cary Hartmann:Probably.
Shane Minor:Do you remember anything else about that weekend?
Cary Hartmann:I don’t, no.
Shane Minor:Do you remember when you went out and talked with Jack Bell, uh, about this? ‘Cause you talked to him at some time.
Cary Hartmann:Yeah, I can’t remember if it was in the first few days, here or the first couple days here. But it was right after. I wanted, called him, wanted to know what he knew and stuff like that. So, I don’t know if it was here, here, here or here, I just don’t remember the exact day, but it was, it was within the first week or two or something. First week or a few days or day. I just can’t be exact on it.
Shane Minor:Think of anything extra at this point?
Mike Elliot:No.
Shane Minor:Can you think of anything else at this point?
Cary Hartmann:No.
Shane Minor:Is there anything you can think of up to this point? Anything unusual or strange?
Cary Hartmann:Uh—
Shane Minor:Or anything different that you remember, that you might have been (unintelligible).
Cary Hartmann:No, not, not at all, whatsoever. The only thing I can, that I can remember is—
Mike Elliott:I wonder, did you speak with the neighbor ladies and asked them if they’d seen her come to your house that night or seen her car around since she was missing?
Cary Hartmann:Oh no, nuh uh. No. That didn’t even cross my mind. She would have no reason to do that, whatsoever. If she was coming, she would be there.
Mike Elliott:But I wondered, maybe they saw her come that night and then leave or something. Maybe she did make it to your house and then left. Y’know, that might be something you might ask ‘em.
Cary Hartmann:I didn’t even consider it. Like I say, she was so dependable I just figured for her to be there or not.
Mike Elliott:Yeah.
Cary Hartmann:I didn’t even consider that option.
Shane Minor:Tell me, what was your schedule like around that period of time? And I’m talking about this whole month. You’d been staying with her quite a bit, I mean you’d described she’s been at your house, uh, almost on a daily basis or pretty regular.
Cary Hartmann:Uh huh, uh huh.
Shane Minor:Uh, what did you do?
Cary Hartmann:You mean from then on?
Shane Minor:Yeah, after you went to work and that weekend.
Cary Hartmann:Yeah, I went to work, got my kids, come home, spent time with my kids, went to work.
Cary Hartmann interview: Sheree Warren’s friends
Shane Minor:Did you have any ideas where she might be or hunches or anything like that that you went and explored yourself or looked in to?
Cary Hartmann:No. Uh, the whole (laughs), so I did this for a year and a half with Jack [Bell]. I was out bugging Jack every day until he, I’m sure he thought I was just driving him crazy at Roy City police.
Shane Minor:When you say you was out bugging everyday, when would you do that?
Cary Hartmann:On the afternoons after work.
Shane Minor:Between jobs?
Cary Hartmann:Right, or after I got off work with, if my schedule did permit at NICE.
Mike Elliott:She have any friends or anything that she’d maybe hang with or—
Cary Hartmann:Her—
Mike Elliott:—we could go and check?
Cary Hartmann:Her work people. Uh, and they’re—
Mike Elliott:Like maybe usually someone has one good girl friend or one strong girl friend they see quite a bit.
Cary Hartmann:Right. She had the people she worked with mostly were her friends, and she saw those gals all the time. She was extremely friendly. But she didn’t have, I don’t recall one best girl friend. She had a lot of friends, ‘cause she was so friendly with people and stuff and lots of cops, lots of officers stopped in the credit union.
Mike Elliott:Oh, where she worked?
Cary Hartmann:Oh yeah, she was friends with lots of, of officers and stuff, and she would mention that, and I’d say “hey, that’s cool.”
Shane Minor:Do you remember the names of some of her friends? Her, that were her, say, closest friends, or—
Cary Hartmann: I don’t, I don’t. She was friends with and really close with her sister, her younger sister, and her mom and dad were really close to her. I realize that’s family but she was really close with them. And I became close with them also. I’d spend a lot of time out there picking her up and her and Adam then we’d go fishing, and just camping, not necessarily camping but, umm, picnicking and stuff like that.
Cary Hartmann interview: Cary remembers the fried chicken
Shane Minor:Where would you go?
Cary Hartmann:Uh, well we went fishing up to Lost Creek once, her and I, my two, my two boys and her son.
Shane Minor:That was, that was once, you say?
Cary Hartmann:Mmhmm, just once.
Shane Minor:Where was the other places you’d go? You said you went—
Cary Hartmann:Uh, to the parks, to just different parks. We’d throw out a blanket and one time her, her and her mom, I said “let’s make, let’s go buy some chicken.” And she said “no, let’s make it.” So her and her mom made, spent a lot of time and made homemade chicken. The chicken was so good. She was so proud she did that.
Shane Minor:But you can’t recall the names of any, any of her friends or close friends?
Cary Hartmann:I can’t, I can’t.
Shane Minor:And you said there was often cops that were stopping at the credit union?
Cary Hartmann:Oh yeah, lots.
Shane Minor:Do you remember who those guys were?
Cary Hartmann:Uh, I think like Carpenter, was it Rob Carpenter? I think he was one. The only reason I mention that is because she mentioned it once. Sometimes when it was close to her lunch time she said that they would say “hey, what’s up? What are you doing for lunch?” And she’d say “nothing, you wanna go?” “Sure.” So she would, y’know. She was just that kind of a gal, real friendly. And she (unintelligible). Officer (unintelligible) I don’t know if he was a road officer at that time or not (unintelligible). Officer Carpenter took her to lunch once.
Shane Minor:Do you know where he worked at at the time?
Cary Hartmann:I don’t. Is he South Ogden?
Shane Minor:There was a couple of different ones. (Unintelligible)
Cary Hartmann:Oh. (Laughs) Sorry, I’m not much help. I just can’t remember. Washington Terrace, South Ogden. And I‘m sure she mention some others, but I just can’t remember their names. It just wasn’t important.
Shane Minor:‘Kay. Nothing stuck out about it?
Cary Hartmann:No, nothing whatsoever. I thought it was really cool that they would do that, to go up there. And I always thought that it was really neat that she’d be protected and (unintelligible).
Cary Hartmann interview: Returning to Charles Warren
Shane Minor:She never talked about having any problems with anybody?
Cary Hartmann:She didn’t. The only one that she ever had problems with that made me hinky was her ex-husband. This guy, tell you a little story about him, he had a black Supra at the time, Toyota Supra, black sports car.
Mike Elliot:Oh man.
Cary Hartmann: Well, one was stolen from him which could happen to anybody. The insurance bought him a brand new one, and that one got stolen.
Shane Minor:An insurance thing?
Cary Hartmann:I don’t know. Sounds weird to me. So he had this big, pretty red brick, double red that, y’know, red brick home up on the hill in northeast Ogden, and burglars came in one time and took everything he had, including his carpet.
Mike Elliott:That’s some good burglars taking carpet.
Cary Hartmann:I’m telling you.
Mike Elliot:(Unintelligible)
Cary Hartmann:He was in, he worked at the railroad and he was investigated — Jack Bell told me — he was being investigated constantly by UP&S or UPR&R for drug trafficking. They never could quite arrest him.
Mike Elliott:Huh.
Cary Hartmann:So, therefore, that’s why I say he just give me a buzz. (Unintelligible) I haven’t followed up and don’t care to.
Mike Elliott:Makes you wonder how such a nice girl would end up with him, huh? I guess she must have been young, hooked up with him.
Cary Hartmann:(Unintelligible)
Mike Elliott:Was she was pretty nice, did she get along with your landladies and stuff?
Cary Hartmann:Oh yeah.
Mike Elliott:I guess they were your landladies, you rented from them and—
Cary Hartmann:Right.
Cary Hartmann interview: Two women who’d lived upstairs
Mike Elliott:What’d they say when they found out she was missing?
Cary Hartmann:Oh, they felt terrible, terrible. They were really nice ladies.
Mike Elliott:Did you tell them, or do you remember talking with them about it?
Cary Hartmann:I think I did. Yeah, I says “Sheree was really supposed to be here and she’s not.” Called the missing persons. They felt terrible about it. They were worried.
Mike Elliott:Was that the same week, you imagine or?
Cary Hartmann:Probably.
Mike Elliott:Remember when it was?
Cary Hartmann:I don’t.
Mike Elliott:Did they have anything to say about, y’know, the last time they saw her, or?
Cary Hartmann:Nuh uh. Not that I recall. I don’t even recall the exact conversation.
Mike Elliott:Couldn’t offer you any kind of information or anything?
Cary Hartmann:No, nuh uh, no.
Cary Hartmann interview: Shane Minor’s direct questions
Shane Minor:Well, I told you that I had a series of questions I wanted to ask you.
Cary Hartmann:Ok.
Shane Minor:Uh, and the main purpose of the questions are elimination, uh, type of questions you’re going to be asked about everybody, very similar type of questions. And all you have to do is simply yes or no answers. But the reason I’m asking you these questions is because of different information that has been turned in at different periods of time over the years. And it’s hard to kind of go back and go through some of that when a lot of it you don’t know exactly where it came from or you’re trying to put it together. So the only way I know how of doing this is just ask you straight up.
Cary Hartmann:Ok, let me ask you something. How can you put—I don’t know what it is, and I have no problem answering whatever—how can you put credibility then to these series of—
Shane Minor:Well, that’s, that’s exactly it. That’s, that’s, that’s the problem. It’s hard, it’s hard to put credibility to those things.
Cary Hartmann:Sure.
Shane Minor:I mean, I’m sure you know enough, you’re a smart enough person, you know you just can’t take the rumor, go out and y’know? You gotta do your, your homework and you gotta be able to match things out. And you’ve gotta be able to verify, you gotta corroborate, and you’ve gotta do all that. So you might be told a lot of different things. But we’ve gotta be able to do that.
Cary Hartmann:Over the years I heard from second-hand, third-hand rumors from this person, just the most outlandish things concerning me and “were you here?” I says “are you kidding me? Are you really kidding me?” That he said, how can you—
Shane Minor:Let me, let me, uh, let me ask you these questions—
Cary Hartmann:(Unintelligible)
Shane Minor:—let me ask you these questions—
Cary Hartmann:Ok.
Shane Minor:—and then let’s go back to what you’re just talking about. Because maybe some of that will tie in to what I’m gonna to ask you. And like I said, it’s just a simple yes or no. Uh, but I wrote down a series of questions, based off of that information that I wanted to ask you. Do you know who is responsible for Sheree’s disappearance or death?
Cary Hartmann:No.
Shane Minor:Do you think it’s possible her death was an accident?
Cary Hartmann:Sure, it’s possible.
Shane Minor:Did you have anything to do with Sheree’s disappearance?
Cary Hartmann:No.
Shane Minor:At your hearing last month, you agreed to talk to us. Is that right?
Cary Hartmann:Absolutely.
Shane Minor:Did anyone help you get rid of Sheree’s body?
Cary Hartmann:Absolutely not. I didn’t, nothing, nothing to do with it.
Shane Minor:Did you see Sheree after she left work in Salt Lake on the 2nd of October, 1985?
Cary Hartmann:I never have.
Shane Minor:You didn’t see her any place or any time after that date and time?
Cary Hartmann:Never.
Shane Minor:You reported her missing?
Cary Hartmann:I did.
Shane Minor:I think this is a redundant question I wrote down. I think you already answered it because I asked you if you did you have anything to do with Sheree’s death.
Cary Hartmann:Nuh-uh.
Shane Minor:Did you kill Sheree?
Cary Hartmann:No.
Shane Minor:Do you know where Sheree is now?
Cary Hartmann:I do not.
Shane Minor:Do you know if Sheree was placed in the area of Lost Creek?
Cary Hartmann:I don’t have a clue.
Shane Minor:Do you know if she was placed in an area above Causey Estates?
Cary Hartmann:No, I don’t have any idea.
Cary Hartmann interview: Rumors and innuendoes
Shane Minor:Now, before I asked you those questions, you said she heard some rumors about what was said. Tell me about that.
Cary Hartmann:Well, someone once said to me, to a girlfriend, “were you involved in her disappearance? Were you, were you arguing with her? Did you get rid of her?” I says “are you kidding?” I says “absolutely not. We were in love. We were gonna get married and never had one, not a one cross word.” That’s absolutely untrue. So that died off. That just died off.
Shane Minor:Ok, but there’s, somebody’s asking you about that?
Cary Hartmann:Yeah.
Shane Minor:And you say it was a girlfriend. Who was the girlfriend?
Cary Hartmann:That was Sheree’s, uh, umm, she worked at Weber State.
Shane Minor:A girlfriend of yours?
Cary Hartmann:Well, she was, she worked right next door in the building. So she was a girl friend. She worked in the landscape department. Uh, that I haven’t seen or heard from in 20 years (unintelligible). That was just a rumor—
Shane Minor:Not a date type of girlfriend.
Cary Hartmann:Oh no.
Shane Minor:But just a female friend, an acquaintance.
Cary Hartmann:She worked right next door so we, we knew the whole crew.
Shane Minor:Ok. What were some of the other rumors that you’ve heard?
Cary Hartmann:Well, uh, Steve Bartlett, my oldest friend on this Earth in Salt Lake, said to me once “what did you do with her body?” And I said “Steve,” I said “are you kidding me?” I said “has our friendship come to this?” I said “I did nothing, nothing with her in any way, shape or form. I know nothing about it.” I was shocked that he would say that.
Mike Elliott:He asked you that directly, huh?
Cary Hartmann:In a letter, actually. We wrote back and forth—
Mike Elliott:Oh, ok.
Cary Hartmann:—‘cause we’ve known each other since we were kids. He was a, he was a special investigator, at least he was, for the district attorney’s office in Salt Lake.
Mike Elliott:Oh.
Cary Hartmann:(Unintelligible) He is a great guy.
Cary Hartmann interview: Shane Minor challenges Cary
Shane Minor:The reason I ask you this is because of people, there’s a couple of people that have said that you and her, put the two of you together after she left work.
Cary Hartmann:That’s absolutely, incredibly false. Ain’t no way on this planet. That is a lie, absolutely direct lie.
Shane Minor:There’s no way she could have come to Sebastians and talked to you? (Unintelligible)
Cary Hartmann:Let me tell you, let me tell you, Shane. Dave’s sitting there and the bar is filled with people, filled with people.
Shane Minor:Ok, but the reason I’m asking you because this is what’s been told to us.
Cary Hartmann:No.
Shane Minor:That’s why I’m asking you.
Cary Hartmann:No, that’s bull, that’s bull crap. And anyone that, that, that, I’m telling you the bar was full of people, and Dave would’ve said “hey, if you come down to the bar with us (unintelligible).” ‘Cause they knew me. I’d gone down a lot, too much. No, that’s absolutely untrue, that’s a downright lie. No way on this planet. The last time I saw her was when she left that morning.
Shane Minor:Left your house?
Cary Hartmann:Yep. Said “see you honey, I love you. Go to work. Have a good day. Bye, bye.” That was that. The last time I talked to her was about 4:30ish that afternoon when she called from her work—
Shane Minor:In Salt Lake—
Cary Hartmann:—and said I’m workin with this guy, and—
Shane Minor:—when she called your house—
Cary Hartmann:Yeah?
Shane Minor:—I mean, now everybody’s got cell phones, but I assume that when she called you on that day, it was to your house, your house phone.
Cary Hartmann:Right. And there, there’re records. And I remember them checking that out. “Oh yeah, she did. We remember her calling.” (Unintelligible) She walked out—I’m sure you know this—she walked out of the credit union with this dude and uh, he says “do you want me to walk you to your car” or something. “No, I’m ok.” And he eyeballed her as she walked away, and she walked over to her car, and he walked over to his. She was going to go down to Wasatch Toyota and take her car and pick up, her ex-husband was coming from Ogden, if I have this correct, and he was going to bring Adam. And then she was goin to pick up her ex ’cause he was going to drop off that Supra—
Mike Elliott:Oh, ok.
Cary Hartmann:—for servicing, and she was going to pick him up and drive them back and drop him off and then take Adam. That, I think that was the plan. Well, the dude never made it. He didn’t show up.
Mike Elliott:Oh, at Wagstaff?
Cary Hartmann:Yeah. And this was what Wag, Wasatch or Wagstaff? It’s down the street on the right. Big old, grand old place. Because I went down there later with my boys and talked to every salesman and person in that place. I think they said “we never saw her or her car come in.” Because she was the, she was the kind of gal that would go in and bop in and say “hey, have you seen my husband or a black Supra and a little boy, a cute little boy. I’m the mom, I’m waiting for them.” That’s the kind of gal she was. She wouldn’t park out front and just wait to look. She’d make herself known, walk right in and talk to them. They told us, the police first of course, that they never saw her car. So, I went down days later, weeks later, took my boys and went into the dealership and said “have you seen a black Supra? Have you seen this guy? Have you seen this gal?” I had her picture. And “nope, haven’t seen (unintelligible). Didn’t see it on the night of.” “The night of, was she in here, did she stop?” What’s his face, dude had a, an appointment to bring it in. “Oh yeah, yeah. He never did show, never did show.”
Shane Minor:Hmm.
Cary Hartmann:I just thought that was odd.
Cary Hartmann interview: Causey Estates
Shane Minor:This is hunting season and are you a hunter?
Cary Hartmann:Yeah, oh sure.
Shane Minor:Did you do any hunting that year?
Cary Hartmann:Uh, I, I think I did. I went out most, most hunting seasons.
Shane Minor:Do you know when you would’ve gone out hunting?
Cary Hartmann:Well, it would have been opening morning. Generally it’s the third week in October so probably here. (Points to calendar)
Shane Minor:Were you in the area of Causey Estates, up above Causey Estates, the weekend after—
Cary Hartmann:No.
Shane Minor:—she turned up missing?
Cary Hartmann:Never, absolutely not.
Shane Minor:And I’m talking, when I say Causey Estates, there’s a road—
Cary Hartmann:Oh, I know where it’s at.
Shane Minor:—that goes up, and it goes up on top and it kind of borders that Deseret Land and Livestock up on top and I’m talking about on top of there, that you have access to—
Cary Hartmann:Y’know, you can’t get in there through the gate unless you’ve got a key. I never ever, ever in my life went to Causey when I didn’t go through the gate that Dave [Moore] didn’t open it, never.
Shane Minor:Did you ever have a key to Causey?
Cary Hartmann:Oh, no, never.
Shane Minor:Did you borrow a key from anybody?
Cary Hartmann:Never, never, never.
Shane Minor:So, Dave [Moore] had a key to Causey and that’s how you—
Cary Hartmann:Well sure. He had property. And I hunted at Lost Creek. I never hunted at Causey, ever. And I hunted with my brother. And we always put our truck and our camping site right there in the cul-de-sac. People all over the place.
Cary Hartmann interview: Hunting at Lost Creek
Shane Minor:Which cul-de-sac? I’m not very familiar with it.
Cary Hartmann:Right at, by the boat ramp. There’s only one. You get on the road, there’s only one that’s paved, there’s only one that I know of—
Shane Minor:Where is it?
Cary Hartmann:By the boat ramp.
Shane Minor:At Lost Creek?
Cary Hartmann:Yeah.
Shane Minor:And that’s where you guys were camping, that’s where you hunt—
Cary Hartmann:Yep.
Shane Minor:—that area?
Cary Hartmann:Yep, yes.
Shane Minor:And what’s your brother’s name, which brother?
Cary Hartmann:Jack.
Shane Minor:How many, you got more than one? Did the two of you ever go up and hunt that area up above Causey?
Cary Hartmann:Never. Never. I’ve never hunted it with Jack. He might have hunted it. But I’ve never hunted it. Number one, it’s private and two I couldn’t get through the gate.
Shane Minor:But you’ve been up in that Causey area with Dave Moore before?
Cary Hartmann:Yeah, Dave [Moore] and Thorsted and all those guys.
Shane Minor:Pardon me?
Cary Hartmann:Dave and Thorsted, Bill Thorsted and all those guys. In the winter time on our three-wheelers, mostly. Dead of winter, cruising around up there.
Shane Minor:Dave and Bill Thorsted?
Cary Hartmann:Mmhmm.
Mike Elliott:Why does that name sound familiar? Bill Thorsted?
Cary Hartmann:He was a SWAT team officer. He was a cop for a while.
Mike Elliott:Oh, was he? Ok.
Cary Hartmann:He worked for NAPA last time I heard.
Mike Elliott:(Unintelligible) sounded familiar.
Shane Minor:And you’ve never been up in that Causey area with your brother?
Cary Hartmann:No, never.
Cary Hartmann interview: The inmate informants
Shane Minor:Have you ever talked about this to anybody you’ve been locked up with? Because there’s been some people that have given statements that would indicate on the statements that they’d give that you talked about what happened to Sheree.
Cary Hartmann:I think I’ve probably mentioned it to a few. It’s not a secret.
Shane Minor:But, but what they’re saying is that you were responsible for her. That’s what, that’s—
Cary Hartmann:That’s bullshit.
Shane Minor:—these people told law enforcement.
Cary Hartmann:That’s bullshit. That’s a, that’s a inmate with a grudge of some sort.
Shane Minor:Do you know who that would have been?
Cary Hartmann:I don’t have a clue. Being an ex-cop in prison would tend to make not everyone your friend.
Shane Minor:I understand. I understand. But, uh—
Cary Hartmann:But that’s absolutely bullshit.
Shane Minor:—but I’m not, but that, that has happened, ok?
Cary Hartmann:That’s bull crap.
Shane Minor:Ok. Over the years that has happened two or three times with a couple of different individuals.
Cary Hartmann:That’s somebody, somebody looking to gain—
Shane Minor:But if it’s somebody you’ve had a problem with, then, then who would that be? Who do you think you would have been that you had a problem with?
Cary Hartmann:I don’t know.
Shane Minor:‘Cause I can tell you right now: one person called the FBI, and they made several calls to the FBI. And that’s what was, that was the context of their conversations was, uh, about your involvement with this. I mean, that’s one of the reasons why I wanted to, to talk to you.
Cary Hartmann:I can tell you this being, having been down so long. It’s someone looking for something to gain, favoritism, a break on their sentence, somebody with a grudge, somebody who’s pissed off, somebody who hates cops, somebody who doesn’t like me, somebody who doesn’t like the way I look or my face or—
Shane Minor:Ok. But can you—
Cary Hartmann:—and it’s absolutely wrong—
Shane Minor:—do you know who you’ve had problems with?
Cary Hartmann:Yeah, probably one: Eddie Monteiro.
Shane Minor:And who is he?
Cary Hartmann:He’s just a punk in, uh, Iron County, uh, looking to make a name for himself, looking, I think he told me he was sent in by someone to be an informant.
Shane Minor:Do know you anything, do you remember anything about him? Where he was from or what his charge was, what he was doing time?
Cary Hartmann:Everything he told me was false and fake and bull crap. But I, regardless of him as a person, I never, ever, ever, ever, ever said I had any involvement with her disappearance because I don’t, I didn’t, absolutely no way under the sun, no way have I had anything to do with Sheree’s disappearance. So what he said, I don’t care if he said it to the FBI or—
Shane Minor:I’m just telling you that’s—
Cary Hartmann:—well—
Shane Minor:—‘cause there’s some reports that I have read that a person called and that, those exist. ’Kay, I’m not making that up. I’m not—
Cary Hartmann:Well I—
Shane Minor:—I’m not trying to tell you something.
Cary Hartmann:(Unintelligible)
Shane Minor:But I have read that. That’s what led to the questions that I wanted to ask you.
Cary Hartmann:Sure, I, I just wanted to be absolutely clear on that fact, ten times. No way on this Earth did I tell anyone that I was involved with because I’m not. So it’s a, like I said, it’s an inmate looking to feather his nest, get a break on his sentence. Eddie Monteiro, later, later got a—he said he was in on car theft but I know that was a lie because most of what he told me it was a lie—later he was the inmate that was caught threatening to drive a tanker full of fuel into the Board of Pardons building. And he from there went to max. He got out and got himself in trouble, I remember him doing it, he got out and got himself in big trouble. And uh, the last I heard he was cooling his heels in max.
Shane Minor:Hmm. How long ago would that have been? I mean—
Cary Hartmann:Oh, good question. Ten years.
Shane Minor:Ok.
Cary Hartmann interview: A hard time for Cary
Cary Hartmann:Other than that, I can’t think of anyone with a hard enough grudge. Shane, when I come in this system it was, I’m not going to whine to you or cry about it, but—
Shane Minor:It would‘ve had to’ve been hard for you.
Cary Hartmann:You have no idea. You have no idea. I’m, I’m safe here.
Mike Elliott:Down in this, down here in Monticello? A little better than the others?
Shane Minor:Did you ever have any detailed conversations with anyone about Sheree?
Cary Hartmann:Eddie Monteiro.
Shane Minor:I mean, that’s a personal, that was your personal relationship and I would imagine what you just described to me, you’re not, and I’ve never heard about you, you kept your distance away from other inmates and you don’t really associate that much with them.
Cary Hartmann:I try, I’m very focused. I try and do my time and leave people alone, stay out of their face and do my own thing. Keep my mouth shut.
Shane Minor:Sure. But Eddie Montero is the only person you can think of you’ve had conversations with.
Cary Hartmann:Right, right. Working—
Shane Minor:And what would have the context of the conversation have been?
Cary Hartmann:Oh, I can’t (laughs) remember. He’s the only one that I can think of that, at that time and later on, struck me to be vindictive enough to do something like that. If there’s someone else that come out of the woodwork and there’s plenty (unintelligible). I’ve tried really hard to change my life and to demonstrate the fact that I know that I made huge, huge, giant mistakes in my life, hurt a lot of people, caused pain, agony and grief to my victims and their families, (crying) my family.
Shane Minor:Oh, I would think it would be, it’s been very hard for them, along with you.
Cary Hartmann interview: Chasing therapy
Cary Hartmann:It’s killing my folks.
Mike Elliott:Do they still live up in the Ogden area or?
Cary Hartmann:They’re real supportive and they’re wonderful. They’re both 80. I’ve got a good support system and I’ve made changes in my life and I’ve demonstrated that I’ve made changes in my life.
Shane Minor:And that’s one of the things that Mr. Jones indicated to me when I talked to him on the telephone.
Cary Hartmann:And I wanted to tell you that down here, I come down, I chased therapy around three or four different places. When I get in that, in therapy, it gets sent to Purgatory. Then I go to Purgatory, and, and uh, therapy gets sent to Duchesne. So I go to Duchesne and therapy goes back to the prison. And then they literally take the program out and sent it.
Shane Minor:So your therapy is, the structure’s so that it’s at this place and you can be over here, so then if you go over here then the therapy changes? Is that why you’re—
Cary Hartmann:No.
Mike Elliott:You’ve got to get moved with the therapy.
Cary Hartmann:If you want therapy, you’ve got to go where the therapy is.
Shane Minor:Oh.
Cary Hartmann:It’s only in two places, here and Draper [at the Utah State Prison].
Mike Elliott:Huh.
Cary Hartmann:And I, got me an IPP [Inmate Placement Program] and they got me out of Draper for a reason. So I come down here to get my therapy done. It’s important to me to finish therapy, learn and discover the things that I can do to stop the fantasy buildup, and the things, the thought processes in my head, in my heart to cause me to do what I’m doing. I know that. So I come down here to get therapy, to get it done and to be involved in the therapy program. To go to college, to go therapy and be in a population down, this is the cream of the crop.
Shane Minor:Ok.
Cary Hartmann:This is not the knuckleheads. I’m safe back here, I don’t have to worry about watching my back every five minutes. So I want to stay here. I want to be left alone here. And, and that’s, that’s what I’m doing.
Cary Hartmann interview: A new kind of lie detector
Shane Minor:Ok. Uh, I don’t know how you feel about this but from our position, taking this old case, it’s 20 years old now. Believe me, this isn’t the only case that it’s impossible resurrecting and trying to make headway. With the changes in the police departments and I know you’ve been incarcerated for, what 18 years now or something like that? I’m sure there’s been a lot of changes since what you remember. Umm, things have gotten lost so we have to take, we have to take it from the beginning and rebuild everything.
Cary Hartmann:I was kinda won, kinda wondering why you had to rebuild all this when they have all of this—
Shane Minor:It’s taken me a couple a, it’s taken me a couple of years of tracking some people down and trying to, what you pointed out, verify and corroborate things that have been said. Uh, that’s one of the reasons why when I got a call that said you were willing to talk to us, it was worth the drive down here just to see. Just because no one, these questions have never been asked and there have been no answer to them. There’s, there’s a new thing out there. I don’t know how you feel about it. I can imagine how you can feel about it because of your situation, but I’m going to ask anyway. Uh, it’s not a polygraph, it’s called a voice stress analysis. Have you heard of that or anything about that?
Cary Hartmann:No.
Shane Minor:It’s a test they run. It’s not, I don’t think it’s a very, nothing is an exact science or conclusive, but it’s just an indicator. It works on the same concept of polygraph except for it’s based off of your voice. How would feel about doing something like that as a process of elimination?
Cary Hartmann:I don’t care. I told Jack Bell I’d volun, I’d volunteer for a polygraph.
Shane Minor:This isn’t, uh, it’s not a polygraph and it’s based—
Cary Hartmann:How accurate is it?
Shane Minor:—it’s based off your verbal (unintelligible).
Cary Hartmann:How accurate is it? I don’t know anything about it.
Shane Minor:It’s fairly new, and I can’t answer that other than what I’ve been told. There’s a couple of people I know that have gotten certified. It’s pretty intensive for them to certify on it. You go through, they ask you a series of questions, uh, nothing more than what we’ve already talked about. There’s no secrets or I’m not hiding anything, y’know, or trying to surprise you with anything. I just don’t understand completely how it works other than it’s one of the things that they use these days, and I asked about that, and the kind of questions you’ll be asked will be the same questions that we’ve already talked about, and all it is an indicator.
Cary Hartmann:Hmm.
Shane Minor:And while you’re here I thought we could ask you about it. It’s up to you.
Cary Hartmann:Yeah, I don’t have any problems with any of that stuff.
Shane Minor:If you would do that, I might look in to setting that up. Again, as part of, it would help us in the process of elimination.
Cary Hartmann interview: Eliminating Cary as a suspect
Cary Hartmann:You mean after all this time, me being in Ogden, and her being in Salt Lake City, 40 miles away, at the same exact time, and my whereabouts have been verified that whole time, it doesn’t eliminate me?
Shane Minor:It, it does except for, Cary, one of the things that have happened since you were arrested and, that’s information that came that can’t be accounted for conclusively. That’s, that’s—
Cary Hartmann:My position exactly. How can you verify the source of information?
Shane Minor:—and that’s, and that’s what has led us to this. It’s just one way or the other to do something with it or just shit-can it and move on to the next.
Cary Hartmann:You’ve got to see my position.
Shane Minor:I understand your position.
Cary Hartmann:I mean, I’m dubious as hell about—
Shane Minor:I understand.
Cary Hartmann:—this or whatever, thinking “oh man, what do I have to do?”
Shane Minor:I understand, that’s why I’m asking.
Cary Hartmann:So—
Shane Minor:If you want, I can leave you my name and address, if you want to write me, tell me to shove it or whatever, you can do that. If you want to think about it, that’s fine. All I’m telling you is I’m laying it on the table right now for you—
Cary Hartmann:Well I—
Shane Minor:—and the reason that, that we’re down here is because of that information that came in, that had that been known or come up in 1985, you probably would’ve been asked about it at the time. It would have been taken care of. It would have been resolved at that time. But because it come years later, you see the predicament that I’m in, picking this thing up, uh oh, I think it was 15, 16 years after the fact when I started looking into it, just trying to find police reports and, and find the other stuff. Y’know, the documentation of her car being found in Las Vegas, trying to find all that stuff and put it together so that all that information is in one place which has taken me some time. So that’s, that’s the why.Had it been known at the time, it would’ve, I guarantee you, most likely been asked. A lot of these—
Cary Hartmann:And I would probably have given you the same answer then that I give you now.
Shane Minor:—I mean, I don’t know—
Cary Hartmann:—and I didn’t contact—
Shane Minor:—I didn’t talk to you back then, and I didn’t know you back then, y’know, so I don’t know exactly what was said. You talked to Jack Bell, you worked with Jack Bell a lot, and there was some of, a little bit of a report, a missing persons report, and that’s about all. So there was a lot of information that, that we’re just trying to put together.
Cary Hartmann:Yeah. I can understand that.
Cary Hartmann interview: Sheree Warren’s family
Shane Minor:Just out of fairness for her and out of fairness for her family.
Cary Hartmann:I can only imagine what her folks go through every time there’s a missing person, every time there’s someone found, or found as a hint, it just kills me.
Shane Minor:Yeah, and I’ll tell you when I talk to them, I re-contacted them and started this that was a very hard thing for me to do because how do you, how do you approach an older couple like that? They’re just like your parents. They’re getting—
Cary Hartmann:They’re the sweetest people.
Shane Minor:—older, and they’ve got a daughter that doesn’t, uh, and all they want to do is, is put closure to it. And the only way to do that is whatever remains there is if they can ever recover that. That’s the only way they’re ever gonna be able to obtain closure or, y’know, they’ll just take it to the grave. And that was very hard for me to talk about with them—
Cary Hartmann:I hate that, hate that. I just love them to death.
Mike Elliott:I think there’s a lot of people that it stays with. One, the two, uh, y’know, ladies that lived upstairs of you. They still remember her, y’know, and remember her coming there that week and stuff. And, y’know, uh, they still remember about her.
Cary Hartmann:It’s the saddest story, it is just a heartbreak.
Shane Minor:Is it, I’ll try to set that up, like I said, it’s just to try and narrow out some of these questions to get an idea so we can move on.
Cary Hartmann:Uh, give me your name and address and stuff in case I change my mind or have a change of heart.
Hear what happened when investigators questioned Cary Hartmann’s brother in Cold season 3, episode 8: Fool Me Once