Shownotes Transcript
Hi, everyone. Ashley Flowers here. If you love the mystery, twists, and investigations you hear on this podcast, then you are going to absolutely love my new novel, The Missing Half. Set where I grew up in northern Indiana, two young women go missing within weeks of one another. The only trace of them left behind are their cars. Left abandoned on the side of the road, door open, key in the ignition, they're
And police are convinced that their cases have to be connected. But they can't solve them, and the cases go cold for years. That is, until these girls' sisters team up and do what police never could. But learning the truth sometimes has grave consequences. And this book will have you questioning how far you would go for someone you love.
The Missing Half hits shelves May 6th. Be the first to solve the mystery by pre-ordering your copy now at ashleyflowers.com or wherever books are sold.
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Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And the story I have for you today is a doozy. Around every corner, there's a twist. After a woman goes missing, it's up to law enforcement and her children to make sure justice is served. But listen closely, because we think that there might be more crimes out there connected to this case that are yet to be solved. This is the story of Charlotte Grabby.
It's around 8 p.m. on July 24th, 1981, when 21-year-old Jenny Grabby gets a call saying that her 39-year-old mother, Charlotte, hasn't come home after working in the fields on the family farm. Now, Jenny's brother, Jeff, and his wife, Cindy—Cindy's actually the one calling—they also live on the property with Charlotte, which is how they realized that she was MIA so quickly.
So Jenny hops in her car, drives the few miles to the farm in Marshall, Illinois. And together, she, Cindy, and Jeff head to the soybean field where Charlotte had been working. Now, even though she's nowhere to be seen, when they show up, they know she was here because they look in the shed that's nearby and they find Charlotte's tractor. They find Charlotte's lunchbox sitting on it. And inside the lunchbox, they find Charlotte's migraine medicine. But again, no sign of Charlotte.
And no sign of her car, which like you could say would be all the more reason to think maybe she left on her own. But if she did that, why not take the medicine that she needs with her? I get that. But like farm kid here. Truly sounds like your episode. Sometimes stuff happens fast and you've got to move like just as quickly. I can totally see her popping out, leaving everything to take care of whatever emergency farm thing happens.
And you're going to say all of this. And yes, you are not wrong. But I haven't given you the full context for why everyone is so worried. Charlotte is actually in the middle of a really nasty divorce with Jeff and Jenny's dad, Fred, which should be marking the end of years of abuse that Charlotte's endured at his hand. I mean, even shortly before the filing, he'd recently been charged with battery for assaulting her.
So Fred's clearly not been willing to let go of Charlotte. And while not many people outside of the family know what's been going on behind closed doors, Charlotte doesn't hide these ugly truths from her kids. They're grown adults and she looks to them for support. In fact, she had just told her family like days ago that if she ever didn't come home for any reason...
Something was up and they should come look for her. Ashley, I feel like you should have led with all of that information. I'm trying to tell a story here. So to add to their worry, a couple of neighbors tell Jeff and Jenny that Fred was actually spotted in the area around 4 to 4.30. So the kids set off to find Fred at this point. One of our reporters, Emily, spoke to Jenny for this episode and she said that they looked around for him a little bit, specifically at a couple of bars in the area where he was known to spend a lot of time. But
But when they couldn't find him, Jenny reached out directly to the Clark County Sheriff, James Thompson, known to the family and others in this small town as Red. And by the next day, Red enlists the help of the state police, who are able to track Fred down. They end up finding him on the farm in the very place that his wife might have disappeared from, that shed.
Per the records, Fred tells police that in the early afternoon on the 24th, he showed up at the shed with a woman named Vicki McAllister because she wanted a burn barrel. So Fred began to load one up just as Charlotte started to pull up on the tractor. So I guess he instructed Vicki to hide in the front seat of his truck because, oh, by the way, Vicki was his new girlfriend. Oh. And he wanted to avoid some kind of blow up.
But it sounds like that didn't really matter because then he admits that when Charlotte got off the tractor, they started arguing about his and Vicky's relationship anyways. And Fred says that the fight ended with him telling Charlotte to go to hell and then he hopped in his truck and drove away. And he says that Charlotte actually followed him in her car, racing up behind him to give him the finger.
And the last time he saw her is when he crossed over I-70 while Charlotte went right heading towards Terre Haute, Indiana, which is like just over the state line, about 20 minutes from Marshall. And the Grabby property is super close to the border near the Wabash River. Convenient that she just left on her own. Very convenient.
And Fred also tells police that Charlotte has done this before. And you know what? Like, she might be gone. We might not be able to find her, but she's going to come back. She's playing some kind of game. And did he say where he and Vicky went after this altercation? He says that he went to a trailer, which I think belonged to Vicky. And he said he got there around 4 p.m. and then he stayed there till the next morning. Okay, Fred. I know, but like at least...
Part of what Fred told police seems to be true because police follow up with the grabby neighbors who indicate that they did see Fred driving in his pickup truck down the road with Charlotte's car following right behind him. Just like he said. One of those neighbors said that this happened between 4.15 and 4.30.
But this is where Fred's narrative starts to fall apart because both neighbors that they end up talking to tell authorities that they don't believe it was Charlotte driving Charlotte's car. One of the witnesses describes the driver as a woman who had blonde curly hair. Charlotte is known to have straight, short, dark hair. And
And both witnesses know Charlotte super well. So these accounts, like, have some real teeth to them. So the big question now is, did Vicki McAllister have blonde curly hair? This is my first question. We asked Jenny, and all these years later, she says she couldn't exactly remember. She remembered it being, like, frizzy. But according to police records we got our hands on, Cindy did tell police that Vicki had blonde curly hair. And also, we did get our hands on some pictures of her from back in the day. And, like...
Definitely it looks light colored, definitely curly. So I don't think it's a mystery as to who could have been driving Charlotte's car.
Now, if I were Red or the state police, obviously I'm going straight back to Fred, calling him a big fat liar and pressing him to tell me why witnesses spotted someone who looked an awful lot like his girlfriend driving his missing wife's car the day that she went missing. Yeah, but I don't know if they did any of that. Like there's nothing I can see in the files that we have that shows they went and pressed Fred. And I'm not saying they didn't.
But what we do know is that on July 26th, this is now two days after Charlotte was last seen, this is when police interview Vicky. Except there's nothing about them pressing her on if she was the one driving that car, not like the thing I want to know the most. Yeah.
Vicky pretty much just tells them the same story that Fred did. She says that she was hiding in the truck. She could hear Fred and Charlotte arguing. Fred eventually jumped in the truck and then they drove away, arriving to her trailer between like four and five. So police don't get a whole lot from Fred and Vicky. Because it feels like we're not asking any of the important questions. Fair. But maybe they wanted to find Charlotte's car before they go making accusations. Right.
And luckily, that is exactly what happens next. Like, the very same day that they interview Vicky. Charlotte's car is discovered parked and locked at a bar in Terre Haute. And unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, there's nothing super alarming about the condition of the car. Like, when police finally get inside and search the vehicle, there's no signs of a struggle or blood or anything. The only thing of interest that we do know they find in the car is a gun.
But in rural Indiana, it's like honestly not weird to find that in someone's car. This is my PSA about road rage people. Like you do not know who is behind that wheel or what kind of day they have had or life or what they have under their seat. One thousand percent. Yeah. And Jenny told us that in her mom's case, she thinks that this gun that they found was actually one that her dad purchased before.
But he never took it with him when he moved out of the house after the split. So her mom was keeping it with her and on her like for protection, basically. Is there any testing they can do on it to see if it was used recently or anything? You know, I don't think there's any testing they can do on the gun itself.
I mean, I know they could test Fred for like GSR gunshot residue to see if he'd fired a gun. Right. We know like that exists. Yeah. Nothing says that they did this, though. But I don't think there's like a test you can run on a gun to know if it was fired within the last couple of days. So I know the car eventually gets returned to Marshall for further examination. And then things like hairs and fibers and fingerprints are found in the car. But none of these things that are found seem to tie directly back to Fred or Vicky.
So while the car didn't appear to provide a ton of new information, finding that gun that Charlotte kept closed for protection just reinforced how truly terrified she was of Fred. And if there was any doubt about that, Charlotte cleared that up in her own words.
Right.
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Police found that Charlotte kept a safety deposit box at a local bank. And when investigators got access to that box, they found a three-page signed letter dated July 10th. This is about two weeks before she disappeared.
And in this letter, Charlotte accuses Fred and his business associate, this guy named Dale, of doing some shady stuff like stealing from other farms. And Charlotte's letter also describes a scheme where Dale and Fred would remove serial numbers from oil pump jacks, which seems to indicate that they were like maybe stolen or stealing them or whatever. So essentially, these two were getting into all kinds of things.
But even more damning, Charlotte says in her letter, quote, Fred and I are getting a divorce, and I'm not sure I will not be killed through all of this. End quote. You know, it's always so, like, chilling but devastating to me when a victim, like,
sees it coming. Coming, I know. You know, like, it's like a train barreling towards them that they can't stop. They can do nothing to stop. You want to, like, reach back in time and be like, you're writing this letter for a reason. Like, you're not crazy. You need to... Do some, like...
reach out for help do something right and this is like you know the PSA we do to everyone like if you're having those feelings like you so many times people are like well it's not going to happen to me and I just I'm going to write it down just in case just in case I'm overreacting just in case is like you're at a line that like it's already gone far too far so like we're going to have a ton of links to resources in the show notes but like there are plenty of people out there like Charlotte who are like doing things like this writing this letter
So the signs that Charlotte was in danger before she vanished were very real, not just in the form of assaults from Fred. Jeff tells police that actually the day before Charlotte's disappearance, she got a strange call from a woman.
And this woman told Charlotte that she had some documents that would get Fred in trouble and she wanted to meet up at a bar. No. Obviously no. Charlotte's not even falling for it either. And when the woman refused to give her name, Charlotte refused to go meet her. But like this is another big mystery within a mystery. Who was this woman? What was this all about? It only adds to like all of the questions they're already asking.
And what, if anything, this has to do with Charlotte's disappearance, police don't know. Because like a lot of things in this case, it's all too vague. But Charlotte's kids don't need the same evidence maybe even the police do or the jury would. They are convinced from the jump that their own father murdered their mother. But not everyone is on that train. There are at least a few people who are on Fred's side.
Police interview a friend of Fred's named Estill, and he tells police almost exactly what Fred told them. He thinks that Charlotte is playing some kind of game, that she would come back. And he doesn't think that Fred would ever harm Charlotte. Police also talk to Fred's business associate, Dale. And according to a Forensic Files episode, he, oddly enough, tells police...
That he, you know, thinks Fred didn't do it because Fred was with him at his house on the night of the 24th. Okay, get your story straight, Dale. Right, because like Fred's saying he's at Vicky's, right? Right, and also like I feel like we should take anything Dale says with like a grain of salt. Like he was probably doing illegal stuff with Fred. Precisely, and worth noting that Jenny told us that Charlotte was afraid of Dale too.
Now, Dale is unfortunately no longer alive or like I would have just gone and asked him about all of this. Also, even if Dale is telling the truth, Fred being at his place at night kind of means nothing, right? Like we don't know when Charlotte actually went missing. Right. No, not really. So according to Jenny, her mom usually went out to the field like really early in the morning, often at daybreak, like as farmers are known to do. Yes.
Sometimes she would work till like late in the night. The only thing we have to even kind of give us a timeline are those neighbors who saw Fred and not Charlotte driving away. So like, remember, one of those neighbors puts this between 4.15 and 4.30 p.m. Another neighbor actually puts Fred's truck at the shed between 3 and 4. But by 4.30, both the truck and Charlotte's car were gone. So if something happened to her at the shed...
And like at this time frame, we're looking at 3 to 4.30. And then like who knows where Fred really was and when after that. Now, as August rolls in, authorities and locals form search parties to look for Charlotte, including searching the Wabash River near the Grabby property.
But it is a needle in a haystack because Marshall is located in rural Illinois, and the area is quite literally thousands of acres of corn and soybean fields. Our reporter Emily actually was able to interview Fred for this episode, and he said that they had over a thousand acres with most of it being in Illinois, but like some of the land crossed the state line into Indiana. And this...
feels so similar to where I grew up. Oh, yeah. I just remember like miles and miles of fields with like these little houses peppered here and there, some wooded areas. Sometimes they're like separating the fields. Sometimes they're just like
In the middle, hanging out. Right. It's not like there's a lot out there. And when you think about, like, even, like, cornfields and stuff, too, like, the corn is high this time of year. Yeah. It's not like you can just, like, peer far and wide. Yeah. And again, like, there's not much going on. There's not a lot out there. But if you're looking for something, the land can just seem endless to a point.
And for everyone who did not grow up on a farm like you, Emily actually went out there with Jenny to look at the property where she was last seen. So we're going to have photos up there today. It's still even very rural today. So you guys can kind of get a sense of what we're talking about for our city folk.
Now, by September, probably feeling a tug of desperation, the police actually call in a psychic to make sure they're just leaving no stone unturned. But even then, they have no luck locating Charlotte. Or should I say Charlotte's remains? Because Jenny and Jeff are sure, sure, sure, sure that their mother is gone. And they're so sure who is responsible. So it's like,
salt in the wound for them when their father does an interview with the Herald and Review and now publicly says that he thinks his wife is alive. Okay, Fred. And this just pushes Jeff and Jenny even more and they pressure authorities to convene a grand jury. In fact,
And in October of 1981, they get their wish, sort of. What's a sort of grand jury? There's a regular grand jury, not a sort of grand jury. But the problem is when Fred and his girlfriend Vicky appear before the grand jury, they just plead the fifth. So like the people they believe know something that they're like pushing this grand jury for aren't saying a word. Well, and it's also not like this is just a suspect off the streets for Jenny and Jeff. Like this is their...
Yeah, I know. Are they like totally estranged by this point? Are they still trying to talk to him, convince him to like tell them what happened? Jenny told us that she was for sure by that time, like she was done, but she can't speak for her brother Jeff.
She said that she has reasons to believe that Jeff was still speaking to their dad back then. But in the end, after this grand jury, the prosecutor informed her that they didn't have enough evidence for an indictment coming out of that. And when Jenny asked the prosecutor what they would need, he pointed to two things. He said, if this is going to move forward, we either need a body or we need a witness. But neither of those things were materializing.
Then months turn into years. And by August of 1984, with her mother's case now three years old, Jenny hires a private investigator named Charles Pearson. And technically, at least according to a single source, like he's actually the second PI hired. Like another brought on a few years earlier, didn't really make any real progress like finding answers in the case. So this is the second one. Charles, though, has this idea that he thinks could help Jenny get what she needs.
He discovers that by this point, Vicki McAllister and Fred Grabby are no longer together. Okay, I feel like this is one of your favorite little reminders. Years change things. Relationships. Yeah, nobody wants a case to go cold. But there is like this point before you lose everyone in the case where it could actually be a huge benefit if you didn't make progress before. Yeah, time makes people maybe change their mind about talking. Like this could be huge for this case. Right, and so this is what Charles is thinking too.
Now, at first, he wants to be sly about this. So he doesn't just, like, go straight to Vicky. He starts hanging around some bars where Vicky is known to drink, play pool. The Chicago Tribune reports that they meet at one of the bars. They become kind of friendly. And after he, I don't know, weasels his way in, gains her trust, whatever, he eventually drops the charade, explains that he's a P.I., and then presses Vicky on what she might know about Charlotte's disappearance. And to his surprise,
Girl just tells him the truth, like admitting, yes, she drove Charlotte's car that day. And yes, she knows exactly what happened because she witnessed it. And she goes on to tell him the horrific details of what Fred did to Charlotte on that July day back in 1981.
And her story is pretty similar to what she told police back then. She said she and Fred arrive at the shed to pick up that barrel. And at some point, Charlotte came in from the field on her tractor. Vicki hides, just like he said. But when Fred and Charlotte get into this argument, this is where Vicki's story changes from her original one and from what Fred originally said.
She says that now Fred, who's like 6'4", 280 pounds, becomes violent. And he attacked the much smaller Charlotte and ultimately strangled her to death. And Vicky watches all of this? Brit, she is like...
Not just hiding in the truck, she's like peeking out from behind the truck. And she says that after Charlotte was dead, Fred loaded her body into that barrel that they like came to get, put it on the back of his truck, and then told Vicky to drive Charlotte's car. He even gave her some gloves to avoid prints, even a bandana to try and cover that hair that might be recognized.
And then they dumped Charlotte's car in Terre Haute. Then they went to Vicky's place about 20 minutes away in Rosedale. And if murdering his wife wasn't bad enough,
Vicky says that once they got to her place, Fred stripped Charlotte and then sodomized her corpse. Oh my God. The horror show kept going when he took a grease gun. Like, I don't know if you've ever used like a caulk gun. Like, think of that. He filled Charlotte's body with grease. And Vicky said he did this because it would make Charlotte's body easier to burn.
Basically, as the Forensic Files episode points out, the grease would be flammable. Like, clearly, Fred had a plan in mind. Honestly, this whole thing seems kind of premeditated. Like, you're going to a shed to pick up a barrel and you end up putting your wife's body in the barrel after you kill her? I know. This dude is sick. And I don't know how, like, did it happen even this way? Like, did Vicky know everything? I think there's a lot you can't know without being Fred. Yeah.
But she does know what happened next. So he loaded Charlotte's body back into the barrel. Then around sundown, they took it to the banks of the Wabash River and under the cover of darkness. And maybe just as her kids were realizing their mom didn't come home that day, Fred poured diesel fuel into the barrel and lit it. And over the next two days, he burned Charlotte's body.
And after that was through, Fred dumped the rest of her remains into the river, telling Vicky it would make for good fish bait. Jesus Christ, it's awful. Now, she said that the reason she had her fake story the first time is she was always too terrified to say anything, which like, I mean, I kind of get like if he's going to do that to the mother of his children, like, who are you, Vicky, to this guy? Yeah.
Somehow, now, again all these years later, Charles convinces Vicki to tell this story to authorities. In 1932, one man opened a two-room business school above a nondescript storefront in downtown Manchester, New Hampshire. How did it become one of the largest universities in the country?
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Vicky takes the police to the scene where Charlotte's body was burned, even pointing to the tree that the barrel was up against. The problem is it's been too long. They even try, like, testing the soil to see, like, what's there, but they don't find anything. Not even so much as evidence of diesel fuel left behind. But the prosecution asked for a body or a witness. They do. And now they have a witness. They do. They do. They do.
And because they have a witness, true to their word, in November 1984, both Fred and Vicki are arrested. Now, Vicki, they need her. She's the witness who's like all this hinges on. They offer her a deal of immunity to testify against Fred. There's even some talk of her possibly receiving the reward for this, which was like $25,000 at that point if Fred got convicted.
Big if. Because prosecutors know convicting Fred isn't going to be easy. Right. Like even with this witness, it's still a no body case. A no body case. I know. And those are just notoriously tricky. Yeah. And it's basically just Fred's word against Vicky's. So they need to figure out how to find a way to corroborate what Vicky is saying. Like show that her version is the truth.
So in the spring of 1985, with the trial just around the corner, prosecutors get creative. Since any physical evidence connecting Fred to Charlotte has, I mean, basically been destroyed when he burned her body, prosecutors turn to the one thing still literally standing. That tree that Vicki said the barrel was set against while Charlotte's body burned.
Now, knowing they didn't find anything when they tested the soil, they wondered if maybe that tree might still hold some evidence. So they call in, wait for it because I've never heard this term, some plant pathologists from the University of Illinois. You know, every day in this job, I learn something new. I know. Plant pathologists. Plant pathologists.
Now, what this guy discovers, Britt, is wild. He takes some samples of the tree and then looks at the growth rings. And then he can see somehow that in 1981, most likely in the summer, that's literally how detailed they can get, some kind of damage to the tree took place. And when his colleague examines things further, he can pinpoint some trace of petroleum, a.k.a. diesel fuel. Yeah.
And like it is that petroleum or that diesel fuel that caused the damage. They didn't stop there, though, because they can even tell that branches on the other side of the tree, away from where Vicky said that the barrel was placed, those are totally fine. They didn't have the same damage. So unless someone else just happened to be randomly burning a barrel next to this same side of this tree in the summer of 81. Like she's telling the truth. Yeah, our girls...
Story's spot on. Yes. And the truth can be dangerous when you're up against Fred Grabbe. Because according to the police files that we have, this is where Fred's old buddy Dale suddenly comes back on the scene.
Police get a tip from a guy named Jim who says that Dale approached him and was feeling him out for a murder-for-hire job on Vicky. What? Did Dale get arrested for this? Doesn't sound like it. I don't see... Cool. I know. I don't see anything about him being arrested or, like, what came of this. Like, maybe we have to take all of this with a grain of salt. Yeah.
Because it should be noted that Jim had a long criminal record himself. He'd just been arrested for counterfeit or counterfeiting something, whatever. So, I mean, he could be making all of this up to get himself out of trouble or like get himself a deal or whatever. I don't know. And again, Dale's no longer alive, so I can't ask him.
Either way, possible murder for higher plot or not, the trial does go on as planned. Prosecutors are able to prove their case to the jury by putting those tree experts on the stand along with Vicky and Fred's own children who do not hold back.
The Journal Gazette and Times Courier reports that Jenny describes at times seeing bruising on her mother's arms and her face. And it appears that all of this is enough for the jury because in June 1985, Fred is convicted of Charlotte's murder.
But that is not where our story ends. Not even close. Because just a few weeks after his conviction, a mother of three named Barbara Graham walks into the Clark County Jail and whips out a gun because she's there to break her boyfriend Fred out of jail.
Barbara fires off five shots, one of which hits a deputy in the leg. Another shot literally goes through a second deputy's pant leg, nearly wounding them too. It is just total chaos before deputies are finally able to wrestle the gun from Barbara and end this bananas breakout attempt. Did Fred put Barbara up to this? Well...
Fred told us that Barbara basically informed him of her plan while he was behind bars. Fred's like, no, babe, it's a bad idea. Don't do it.
But of course, like when you talk to anyone who's not Fred, like the story is very different. When authorities interview Barbara, she told them that Fred was instructing her on things to do, like making sure she practiced with the gun, making sure she packed clothes for him. And he was pressuring her to spend all of her time working on getting him out.
And the whole thing gets even wilder when she tells authorities that the getaway plan was to hop on a private plane and fly to Florida, pick up new identification there, and then fly to South America, which, like, how?
And, like, to really drive any suspicion home, authorities think that the gun used in all of this was actually the same gun that was found in Charlotte's car back when she was missing, when they found her car. Like, so apparently after the grand jury, like, let down back in 81, they gave that gun back to Fred.
What? I know. I mean, again, like, Jenny told us that he was the owner of it. So, like, I mean, technically, it would be his if that's true. Okay, okay.
If I were cops suspecting a guy of murder, top of my to-do list after he skirts an indictment isn't return gun to rightful owner. Like, especially when that man is the person who possibly just got out of a murder charge. I know, and I don't know if they have to because there was no indictment. In my mind, I've seen people hold evidence forever. Yeah, like, it's still evidence. I know, I don't know. Does this little jailbreak attempt plot twist result in, like, additional charges for Fred now? Um...
Well, so because he was just convicted of his wife's murder and prosecutors figure he's, I mean, I'm assuming this is what they're thinking, like he's going to be away for a long time, like though he still has yet to be sentenced at that point. They don't actually pursue charges against him for all of this. Barbara, though, is another story. So per the Journal-Gazette and Times Courier, she's charged with attempted murder and two counts of armed violence. I'm sorry, Ashley, I feel like I need to see...
like a picture of Fred or something like what kind of power does he have over these women to get them to do this like truly wild stuff I literally had the same thought when I was researching this because I was I didn't look at a ton of pictures like off the bat and I was like okay he's like getting women to do a ton of like wild stuff for him who is this cult leader it's not what you're gonna expect I truly don't know what to expect here's our guy okay okay
Yeah, so, I mean, whatever, whatever. Like, but again, not the, like... Not the beautiful, handsome, charismatic-looking, charismatic being. Maybe in his younger years. All right. Moving on. Now, whatever hold he had over them, whoever he found that he was able to manipulate, like, it's not...
It's not just like his wife that he killed that suffered. Like, I feel like there were so many devastating consequences to these women. Like, Barbara, who, reminder, mother of three, ends up getting sentenced to 16 years in prison for this stunt. But with Fred sitting in jail, breakout attempt thwarted, and his sentencing on the horizon, authorities have to be ready to get this guy locked up for good and move on.
But in early September, less than two months after this breakout attempt, authorities have their hands full with another crime that maybe could be connected to Fred. On September 4th, 1985, authorities get a call that they probably can't believe.
As reported by the Herald and Review, it's from a truck driver who, while passing the Grabby property, sees not one, but two homes on fire. One is the main house where Charlotte lived, and the other is a smaller house once occupied by her son, Jeff, and his wife, Cindy.
Thankfully, when this all happens, no one is inside. But immediately, authorities suspect that this is arson. And it's not long before they get proof of it when they discover that some kind of flammable liquid was used to start these fires or, like, get them going. I mean, it's Fred, right? Yeah.
Not like Fred Fred because he's in county lockup, but like it's Fred, someone for Fred. So in the Forensic Files episode, Dan Crumrin, the acting sheriff at the time, suspects just that. But we actually dug a little deeper on this. My new favorite saying, always go a layer deeper. And Jenny told us something else that has been suggested by law enforcement, but never actually proven. She says that it was actually her brother Jeff who burned down the homes.
And she said that he admitted this to her. It was maybe an attempt to get the insurance money, possibly with Fred, maybe on his own. Like, that's not totally clear. According to her recollection, though, that was never actually paid out. And it sounds like, at least according to the Journal Gazette and Times Courier, these homes were caught up in some kind of legal mess at the time anyway. So whatever the plan was, I'm not sure that it worked for whoever had that plan. But
But it's important to point out that it doesn't appear police could ever connect Fred or anyone else, not Jeff, to these fires. All they could do was speculate at the time. About a week after this fire, this is when Fred does get sentenced and he gets sentenced to life in prison. So at this point, for law enforcement and the Grabby family, justice is finally served. But that feeling is short-lived.
Roughly a year after his original sentencing, Fred's case gets overturned on appeal. This is in September of 1986, and a new trial gets ordered. According to the Journal Gazette, it's overturned because the courts find jurors were given improper instructions concerning Vicky's testimony specifically. I mean, all a good defense attorney needs is to find one small crack, and it
It sounds like they found one. Well, that and get the right judge in the right county. Because, I mean, I've seen like other cases where there's like a gaping hole you could run a truck through and those get denied. But here, overturned.
So while prosecutors wait to retry Fred for Charlotte's murder, they decide to go after him for his possible involvement with the escape attempt back in 1985 to keep him locked up. Now, initially, they knew Fred would go away for a long time. So remember, they didn't see the point in taking him to court on those minor charges. But now with his ruling overturned, like, OK, let's get him on something.
But their plan doesn't work. First, there's a mistrial for that. Then Fred is acquitted for that. So the stakes in Fred's retrial for Charlotte's murder hold even more weight now. In March 1988, the new trial is about to begin. And much like the first time, Fred's children, Jenny and Jeff, are supposed to testify against their dad. But there's a problem.
Jeff's wife, Cindy, hasn't heard from Jeff in days. He's like fully MIA, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Like he was scheduled to testify again. Wait, is he like missing, missing or just like hiding out, avoiding the trial? I don't think anyone really knows. At least one source at the time reported that he might have been trying to dodge his creditor. So I think everyone is just really confused at first.
Jeff's wife Cindy tells authorities that Jeff had taken a business trip to California. She last talked to him on February 28th when he called her from there. And then a couple of days later, after he's like a no-show back home, that's when she reports him missing.
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No one can find Jeff in Indiana or California until June when authorities announced that they have found Jeff in Seal Beach, California. But it's not a happy development because they find him dead. And not just dead, Jeff has been murdered. What? He was shot multiple times and found floating in the water by some boaters. Now, what?
Authorities technically found Jeff's body on March 22nd, but they couldn't identify him right away. They had to actually go get his dental records. So we're thinking that Fred killed Charlotte and his son? So Fred, of course, denies any involvement in his son's murder. And
And actually, in this one, he might not be lying because California authorities did seem to have a pretty detailed idea of what happened to Jeff. Like, I guess he had gotten caught up in some kind of money laundering and bank fraud thing.
In a Los Angeles Times article, police described Jeff as double-crossing the people that he was working with. So Jeff was shot and his body was then dumped in the ocean, weighed down by an anchor. And then eventually as his body decomposed, that's when it like floated to the surface. Did anyone get charged in Jeff's murder? No. So even though they had a pretty good idea of what they think happened and even some of the people involved, it sounds like prosecutors never actually felt they had a strong enough case to be able to bring charges in that one.
Now, the very smallest piece of solace and good news for Jenny in this like mountain of tragedy that is her life now is that even though her brother wasn't around to testify, Fred's trial did move forward as planned and he was convicted again. This time he's sentenced to 75 years and this one sticks despite Fred's
Best efforts to once again have it overturned in 1989. It doesn't work and he remains in prison until very recently, July 15th, 2022, when he gets released almost 41 years exactly after he murdered Charlotte in July of 1981. And did Vicky end up with any of the reward money? Jenny told us that she got part of it. So...
Yes-ish. Now, as far as her father, Jenny told us that she long ago forgave him. She said what was most difficult for her was not knowing what happened to her mother when she first disappeared. And she talked about how bad she feels for families who still don't have those answers. We've talked about it before, like how it's one thing to, like, grieve something and know what you're grieving, but to, like, not know. But not knowing. Right. And as we were talking to her about this...
This was like originally all the episode was. We were like this was going to even potentially be a mini. But she said something as we were talking to her, something she thinks about her father, something that if true might mean we don't know the full extent of Fred Grabby's crimes. And it opened up this like Pandora's box for us.
Jenny believes that her father could be behind as many as six other killings. I'm sorry, six other people? Are you kidding me? What makes her think that? She thinks this because one of them, she says she witnessed herself when she was about seven years old. And then the other ones are based on what people told her over the years because she
she didn't stop digging once her father went to jail. I guess she pressed on for more answers. And from what she was told, it sounds like wherever Fred Grabbe went, death seemed to follow. And this wasn't a totally new idea. Like, Vicky was also vocal about Fred allegedly having other victims. According to the Journal Gazette and Times Courier, Vicky testified in Fred's trial that he told her about other murders he committed.
Two of the other victims were women and their killings happened at an apartment in Indianapolis and were connected to some kind of union dispute that he was in charge of taking care of. And she alleged that Fred also killed a man who shot his dog when he was younger. But like Fred told Emily when she confronted him about this, that like it was one of his buddies who did this and it got pinned on him. So he's not like...
Saying it didn't happen. Were any of these ever investigated? So this is the thing. I'm saying it's a Pandora's box. We don't know. Like details on these are super scarce. Believe me, we still have our team digging, like still going. It's part of why I wanted to put this episode out now as opposed to waiting because there's a lot of power in our audience and someone out there might have information for us. And I think we're running out of time because Fred is 85 years old.
Jenny told us that she doesn't think he's in good health. Obviously, she doesn't go visit him. I get forgiving him and having a relationship with him are very different things. But we went and visited him.
When our reporter Emily interviewed Fred at the retirement facility he's currently living in, she asked him about these alleged other murders that people like Jenny and Vicky point to. And she asked him about Charlotte's murder, too. And while Fred admits that he was a violent man at times, involved in numerous fights back in the day, he denied murdering anyone, including Charlotte, despite being found guilty by two separate juries. He claims he was never even abusive to Charlotte.
And you would think that the least Fred could do at this point in his life is face what he's done, if not for himself, then for his surviving daughter. But no. And we asked him about the house fires, too. He conveniently put that all on Jeff, his dead son, never implicating himself. But I think it is important to know that those house fires, not the only ones somewhat connected to Fred.
Charlotte's stepmom, Ethel Gore, was found dead in a barn fire. A barn fire that had one single witness, Fred Grabby. And according to a single source, Ethel's leg was broken and there was a lighter near her body. But Ethel's family told the Terre Haute Star back then that a lighter is not something she would normally carry around with her. Now, when we asked Fred about this, he told Emily that Ethel smoked in the barn all the time.
So who knows? But wait, there's more. So Charlotte's best friend, Judy Lindley, she was found dead of a gunshot wound to her chest just four months to the day after Charlotte went missing. And Emily got the inquest records for Judy's death. And get this, no autopsy was done. And the results of the inquest were, quote, probable suicide.
But this is the thing that I have a problem with. Like, Judy was found in her bed on top of the covers. The gun that she allegedly took her own life with was under the covers. That can't happen. That's not possible. I can't figure out how. It doesn't make sense. I know.
Now, it bears repeating that Fred has never been arrested or charged in anyone else's murder, and he's never been named a public person of interest or even a suspect in another murder either. We reached out to the former Clark County Sheriff, Dan Crumren, but he wasn't interested in talking. If he changes his mind, like, I'd love to listen to what he has to say.
And like I said, we are still going to keep digging to see what else we find. I mean, again, there are like potentially alleged victims that like we can't even necessarily find cases that match too. So we're trying to figure that out as well. So this is a great reminder for everyone to make sure you hit the follow button, subscribe wherever you're listening to make sure that you get update episodes. And also follow us on social. We have a newsletter on our website as well. Like all of these are ways to get updates on cases that like we don't
just can't let go of even after we talk about them on Monday. Yeah. And obviously you said we're still digging. We're still working on this. But was Em ever able to track down Vicky? Like she's who I have all the questions for. Girl, same. So this is wild. So we tried. Emily actually went to Vicky's house and it was so strange. So this woman who looks a whole lot like Vicky answered the door, but she said she wasn't Vicky.
So I don't know. I mean, I can't really blame her for not wanting to talk after all these years. If that was her. If it was her, it seems like she possibly would have a lot to lose. Like she's never faced any jail time. She had immunity. Yeah. But so it wasn't her. Right. So if Vicky hears this, if you're listening somewhere like I would still love to talk, please reach out.
But I kind of want to end on this. So Jenny told us that her mom Charlotte was a loving mother and grandmother. Most of all, she was a hard worker. And Charlotte grew up in a farming family that instilled the same work ethic in her. And whether Jenny realizes it or not, that work ethic, her continued push for answers in her mother's case, is maybe the best way she could have honored her mother's memory.
You can find all the source material for this episode on our website, CrimeJunkiePodcast.com. You can follow us on Instagram at Crime Junkie Podcast. And we'll be back next Monday with a brand new episode. Crime Junkie is an AudioChuck production. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve? No.
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