[SPEAKER_02]: morning. [SPEAKER_02]: This episode contains details that some listeners may find disturbing. [SPEAKER_02]: Good evening listeners, I'm Michael May, and I just returned for my summer vacation while I'm hard at work recording some new episodes of the show. [SPEAKER_02]: Here is an old one. [SPEAKER_02]: This is a re-release of the murder of Leo de Camp with my good friend Bill Weirdy. [SPEAKER_02]: July tenth, nineteen sixty-seven, Des Moines, Iowa.
[SPEAKER_02]: Twenty-five-year-old mother of three Leota Camp is found by her young children stabbed and bleeding in a small bedroom of the family's home. [SPEAKER_02]: The case is confusing because there's a lack of evidence and motive and the attack had to have happened in a matter of minutes between Leota being in the backyard with her children [SPEAKER_02]: in the short period of time she stepped inside the house before her body was found.
[SPEAKER_02]: The one piece of evidence that gives hope to this brutal, unsolved crime is a neighbor seeing a man driving a dark Mustang who walked up to the camp home around the time of the murder. [SPEAKER_02]: What has become one of Iowa's most infamous cold cases, the murder of Leo de Camp still haunts her family and friends to this day. [SPEAKER_02]: This is a study of strange [SPEAKER_02]: Welcome to the show, I'm Michael May.
[SPEAKER_02]: And with me again, I've got through my roller decks now and going back to people is Bill Weirty of filmmaker. [SPEAKER_02]: And overall very good is storyteller. [SPEAKER_02]: I guess I'll say. [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks. [SPEAKER_00]: How you say it? [SPEAKER_00]: My name is Weirty. [SPEAKER_00]: It makes it sound a little stranger. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, nice. [SPEAKER_02]: I didn't do that on purpose.
[SPEAKER_02]: I always question how to say your name and if you have an ask you multiple times. [SPEAKER_02]: And so I feel like I get it right, but if that's your own inflection. [SPEAKER_00]: It's probably weirdity because I think it's Irish or something like that, but we always just say wordy like W-O-R-D wordy. [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so I put like a weird in there.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay. [SPEAKER_02]: This is what happens every time we talk about your name, though, is you're like, it's probably this, but it's your name, Bill. [SPEAKER_00]: You should try to look at that. [SPEAKER_00]: I was trying to look up like family history when I was doing all my Italian citizenship stuff and you're probably going to cut all this, but I found all these weird spellings and like a lot of more W-H-E-I-R. [SPEAKER_00]: There's all this weirdness.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, no, no, I'm going to keep that in. [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, Billy is going through a process of becoming a dual citizen, right? [SPEAKER_02]: You're going to try to, yeah, you're working on his Italian citizenship, which is really, is really exciting because I want to come visit you when you're over there and drink. [SPEAKER_00]: It's impressive. [SPEAKER_00]: It needs some pasta. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: Exactly. [SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, our story today has nothing to do with Italy or pasta. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, unfortunately. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, there's a great story in Italy that I would love to do an episode on. [SPEAKER_00]: Okay. [SPEAKER_00]: This old UFO one, we're, I don't know. [SPEAKER_00]: I'll tell you about it later though. [SPEAKER_02]: No, no, now you got to tell me now you got to keep this. [SPEAKER_00]: I got to look it up.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like it was like a woman who had this UFO experience in Italy where like the actual aliens came out of the ship. [SPEAKER_00]: It's like a whole thing. [SPEAKER_00]: It's from a long time ago. [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe [SPEAKER_00]: sixteen or seventeen hundreds. [SPEAKER_00]: It's like one of the first story kind of things. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: There's like drawings of it that look like those like wood block art pieces kind of.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: I'll find the link and send it to you. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, please, please do. [SPEAKER_02]: I've actually I want to do a lot of UFO episodes this summer and on that note, people I have been collecting some stories from people that have seen unidentified flying objects or unidentified aerial phenomena. [SPEAKER_02]: So please continue to reach out, send me an email at a study of StrangerGmail.com.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you've experienced one, because I am putting together some episodes for later this year. [SPEAKER_02]: So on that note, none of that relates to our story today. [SPEAKER_02]: This is very much a true crime cold case that involves murder and a lot of just strange mystery. [SPEAKER_02]: So it's very much a different episode than even your last episode that you were on [SPEAKER_02]: with a study of strange, which was the ghost of the mortal plantation.
[SPEAKER_02]: So check that out if you like ghosts, but yet today is very different. [SPEAKER_02]: I hadn't done a true crime story in a while that at least was like more modern because my interest had to take me farther back in time, but this story today takes place in the nineteen sixties. [SPEAKER_02]: So yes, this is a the story of Leo to camp.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know that you've done a little bit of research since I told you about the episode bill, but had you heard about this case at all before today? [SPEAKER_00]: No, like when you mentioned the name of it, I assumed it was going to be, I thought Leo to camp was going to be like a military base and there was like murder on it. [SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, I looked it up. [SPEAKER_00]: I was like, oh, that's the woman's name. [SPEAKER_00]: So no, yeah, I did not familiar.
[SPEAKER_00]: Although it is from the Midwest where I'm from. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you go. [SPEAKER_02]: There you go. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, this case reminds me of some other of my favorite sort of cold cases, which is there's the Veliska Axe murder house, which is a murder from like the early, nineteen hundreds. [SPEAKER_02]: And it's super weird in this whole entire family was brutally killed with with an axe and there really wasn't a motive that anybody can ever figure out.
[SPEAKER_02]: No one was ever caught. [SPEAKER_02]: There's a bunch of theories that connect and don't connect. [SPEAKER_02]: There is a person that's written a book. [SPEAKER_02]: There's also been a podcast on it where someone actually has connected the murders to a series of murders from someone that was obviously using the trains.
[SPEAKER_02]: I wasn't going to talk about this, so I don't have any of those names in front of me, but everybody should actually, I think the guy that wrote the book is Money Ball. [SPEAKER_02]: Is the guy that started doing the Money Ball stuff in the seventies with baseball? [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I forget his name right now. [SPEAKER_02]: It looks like Bill's looking it up, everybody. [SPEAKER_02]: He was in the computer.
[SPEAKER_02]: Bill James, Bill James, guy that came up with a sort of the [SPEAKER_02]: Saber metrics is what somebody somebody in bills in the story I know somebody bills in the story. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and I wasn't even gonna talk about that at all today. [SPEAKER_02]: We've gone on a big big tangent at the stop here.
[SPEAKER_02]: So Anyway, there's the Velisca story which has led this weird series of what the vilus guys at one family that was brutally murdered, but there's potential tie into other murders with that one What stick was that in? [SPEAKER_02]: That, uh, I think Iowa as well as Felisco. [SPEAKER_02]: Okay. [SPEAKER_02]: I think so. [SPEAKER_02]: Don't, don't get mad world out there if I got that wrong. [SPEAKER_02]: Today's episode is not about that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I could be getting my facts wrong. [SPEAKER_02]: But that story reminded me of this where it's bizarre. [SPEAKER_02]: There's a lack of evidence. [SPEAKER_02]: There's a lack of motive. [SPEAKER_02]: But I still feel like it's solvable. [SPEAKER_02]: But it just, we don't have the right stuff to quite get there yet. [SPEAKER_02]: So it's, it's very bizarre.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was, but when I was like researching the story, and it's the thing is I couldn't tell if I had heard it before, or if it was brand new, because there were so many details that were similar to other stories, and we'll get into that. [SPEAKER_00]: But when they start talking about the neck tie thing and some other stuff, like, have I heard this? [SPEAKER_00]: There's just such a common [SPEAKER_00]: kind of thing because some of it was reminding me of the golden state killer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, series. [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, that's perfect. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I hate to say things and always sound excited when we're dealing with brutal death and murder, but like I am excited to talk about those things. [SPEAKER_02]: So hang on to that. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: All right. [SPEAKER_02]: So let's get into it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay. [SPEAKER_02]: So it was on July, tenth, nineteen, sixty seven and Leo to camp was a twenty five year old woman who lived in Des Moines, Iowa. [SPEAKER_02]: which is in Polk County, Iowa, and I'm from Polk County, Florida. [SPEAKER_02]: So there's a nice tie-in. [SPEAKER_02]: And she was married to Raymond Camp, who went by Ray. [SPEAKER_02]: He was also a twenty-five years old. [SPEAKER_02]: They were renting a small home, three to one, three flaming Avenue and Des Moines.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have used Google Maps and checked it out. [SPEAKER_02]: It is a very little cute home with a nice black guard space. [SPEAKER_02]: Still there. [SPEAKER_02]: Still there. [SPEAKER_02]: It still looks like the same windows, too. [SPEAKER_02]: And it doesn't look like there's been any additions or anything over the years. [SPEAKER_02]: The neighborhood itself was very small and quiet, especially in the sixties, everybody knew everybody.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it wasn't normal to have a lot of traffic or through traffic on the street. [SPEAKER_02]: It was very much just like its own. [SPEAKER_02]: It's own quaint nice neighborhood. [SPEAKER_02]: Now I had been raining the night before and this morning seemed to be kind of a normal day and it was going to get hotter throughout the day was the summer after all. [SPEAKER_02]: And in the morning race, I'd goodbye to Leota and he headed off to work.
[SPEAKER_02]: He worked for the Iowa Employment Security Commission. [SPEAKER_02]: He was a tabulating equipment operator. [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know exactly what [SPEAKER_02]: That means. [SPEAKER_00]: But it sounds awesome. [SPEAKER_00]: I still can't get all the fact that his name is Ray and his wife's name is Leona. [SPEAKER_00]: I just keep thinking. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh my goodness. [SPEAKER_02]: I never thought about Leona. [SPEAKER_02]: Ray Leona. [SPEAKER_02]: Here we go.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's amazing. [SPEAKER_02]: So Leona was a stay at home mom. [SPEAKER_02]: They had three children. [SPEAKER_02]: So I mean, I make sense. [SPEAKER_02]: They had a baby Christine who was about three months old at this time. [SPEAKER_02]: Kevin who was four and Brenda who is three. [SPEAKER_02]: And in the middle to the late morning, Brenda and Kevin, the two kids that were not the baby.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're in the backyard playing, and they were soon joined by Leo to who came out to hang the laundry on the clothes line to dry. [SPEAKER_02]: Now, some articles I've read from papers back then mentioned that Brenda and Kevin were playing with some of the other neighborhood children in the backyard. [SPEAKER_00]: When I said, it was the story they mentioned. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, not every article says that, but enough so that I do think that that was probably true.
[SPEAKER_02]: And here's where things take a dark and strange turn. [SPEAKER_02]: Leota, she goes back in the house after hanging the laundry, presumably to feed the baby and prepare lunch for the kids. [SPEAKER_02]: And just minutes after noon, Brenda and Kevin, they're still outside. [SPEAKER_02]: They're still playing in the backyard, but they're getting hungry. [SPEAKER_02]: It's around lunchtime. [SPEAKER_02]: So they go inside to find their mom. [SPEAKER_02]: and they didn't find her.
[SPEAKER_02]: They found their three-month-old sister Christine on the Living Room floor drinking a bottle of milk. [SPEAKER_02]: You always read this as well being a warm bottle of milk. [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know how they know that or if they were testing that, but there was no mommy. [SPEAKER_02]: So they continued to look around and they eventually find their mother in the home's front bedroom and she was lying face down on the bed. [SPEAKER_02]: There's blood all over.
[SPEAKER_02]: There was a knife sticking out of her back. [SPEAKER_02]: Her hands are tied behind her back, her legs are tied together at the ankles. [SPEAKER_02]: There's something around her neck, I believe, and there's also a gag in her mouth. [SPEAKER_02]: All of those things were done by ties, neck ties. [SPEAKER_02]: So she was tied up by a neck ties and gag with a neck tie.
[SPEAKER_02]: And Kevin, you know, you never know how you're going to react in a situation like this, especially a four year old. [SPEAKER_02]: Kevin removes the knife from her back, probably thinking he's helping his mom. [SPEAKER_02]: and he sets it down, and I just can't imagine how terrifying it would be in this situation. [SPEAKER_02]: And the two kids actually seem to act very smartly. [SPEAKER_02]: They run out of the house, they go to their next door neighbor's house for help.
[SPEAKER_02]: Her name was Mary Grove. [SPEAKER_02]: And they tell her that mommy's bleeding and she runs, she runs next door to the camp's house. [SPEAKER_02]: She finds Lyota in the same state. [SPEAKER_02]: The kids find her in obviously, she runs outside to get more help.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was another neighbor named Nell Edwards, who apparently was in her front yard when this was all happening, which is probably why [SPEAKER_02]: Mary Grohl even thought to ask for help because she probably saw Nella Edwards that she was running into the camp house. [SPEAKER_02]: If I have this correct and I'm pretty sure I do all three of these houses are next to each other. [SPEAKER_02]: So this isn't like the catty corner across the street neighbors that came over.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the story that I was watching on YouTube kind of showed a map and there are pivotal initials of people moving and they kind of got the whole thing out and they're really close houses. [SPEAKER_00]: It's not like a big Iowa sprawling. [SPEAKER_02]: No, no, and that's a good point because it's kind of like I don't think at the time that they had fences up between the backyard.
[SPEAKER_02]: So all these neighbors that are now involved in this, they all kind of share that backyard area. [SPEAKER_02]: So they probably have dinner together. [SPEAKER_02]: They probably see each other every day. [SPEAKER_02]: Like these are these are very close neighbors, both in proximity and probably socially as well. [SPEAKER_02]: Now, the two of the women they come in together, they see Leota on the bed. [SPEAKER_02]: And apparently she's still alive barely and she's groaning.
[SPEAKER_02]: She can't talk. [SPEAKER_02]: They're trying to talk to her. [SPEAKER_02]: She's just kind of gasping for breath. [SPEAKER_02]: They called the authorities police fire show up. [SPEAKER_02]: Fire probably shows up for paramedic reasons. [SPEAKER_02]: And they try to take care of Leota as they rush her to the Broadlands, Pope County Hospital. [SPEAKER_02]: and she was pronounced dead on a rival, so they were not able to save her life.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, according to quotes from Ray Camp, Mary had her husband Chuck, call Ray at work, and Ray said, he didn't want to tell me. [SPEAKER_02]: He told me there had been an accident with Leota and I should go to the broad lawns. [SPEAKER_02]: So Chuck couldn't even, it was so brutal and terrifying and obviously emotional that Chuck didn't even want to tell Ray what had happened. [SPEAKER_02]: Just something's wrong, go to the hospital. [SPEAKER_02]: And so here's what we have, Bill.
[SPEAKER_02]: We have, it's actually a very kind of short story, but one filled with a lot of details and a lot of mystery [SPEAKER_02]: We have a murder. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: And there's a woman stabbed in a quiet neighborhood, kids are nearby, a baby on the floor in the home when this happens. [SPEAKER_02]: Neighbors are nearby. [SPEAKER_02]: Now that Nell is even in her front yard, just minutes after this takes place, it's, it's a true mystery.
[SPEAKER_02]: And yes, I guess the first question that even just pops into my mind is who killed Leota and why? [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: And now, did you read about the details that there was actually two knives? [SPEAKER_00]: Is that stuff you want to get into? [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I'm going to get into that. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: And that's funny that you bring that up because you've looked at it so quickly.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I actually didn't read about two knives until like way into my research process. [SPEAKER_02]: And I came across. [SPEAKER_02]: I was like, wait, what? [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that one, you don't normally see. [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, I'll get into that in a second. [SPEAKER_02]: So the first thing I want to say though is, you know, when there's a murder, [SPEAKER_02]: Most times you can kind of figure out motive right away, right? [SPEAKER_02]: Like there's a robbery.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's sexual assault. [SPEAKER_02]: There's a husband who finds out his wife is cheating on her and decides to kill her or the boyfriend or whatever. [SPEAKER_02]: You can tie those motives together. [SPEAKER_02]: That's a very, I mean, it's almost the most important thing in investigations is putting together the motive. [SPEAKER_02]: There's really no motive. [SPEAKER_02]: here at all.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have my own theories, I think police had their own, which we'll get into in a minute. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so not only is there no motive that we can conclusively say, but no one has even been close to being arrested. [SPEAKER_02]: I could not find any information about like prime suspects. [SPEAKER_02]: We'll get into the witness accounts. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: I was going to say there was the witness account of the witness account.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is the plaid shirt or plaid pants? [SPEAKER_00]: Yep. [SPEAKER_02]: And we don't know who he is. [SPEAKER_02]: And I'll get into that a second. [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, there's no like, oh, it's Jim. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, there's no like prime suspect that we can we can nail down in terms of like name and motive or anything like that. [SPEAKER_02]: And she was found not sexually assaulted. [SPEAKER_02]: Nothing was missing from the home, so it's not robbery.
[SPEAKER_02]: And one of the first ideas I had was that it almost seems like an assassination in a way, like a hit job. [SPEAKER_02]: very brutal for a job and also all the neck ties. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I was going to ask do they say if the neck ties like did the person bring those or were they from the home or they raised neck ties like did they I didn't hear anything about I think they're their raised next ties.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and you don't normally see that either and I took me a while of fine, but I did find a comment from okay. [SPEAKER_00]: because I was wondering if it was like premeditated where the person brought that or just grabbed stuff with them. [SPEAKER_00]: No, no. [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't see anything about if the knives were from like missing from her butchers block or if they were brought from somewhere else. [SPEAKER_02]: They were apparently from her butchers block.
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, well, yeah, both of them. [SPEAKER_02]: Okay. [SPEAKER_02]: So Dr. Leo Luca, who is the Polk County Medical Examiner, he found that Camp had died from four stab wounds in the back and the wounds had penetrated her lungs and she died because of that from internal hemorrhaging [SPEAKER_02]: He commented to newspapers back then that he thought the murder was some cook or pervert that killed him. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm sure he didn't sound like that apologies to Iowa people.
[SPEAKER_00]: I also read that they were trying to like do was it I don't know if it was CPR back then but they're trying to revive her they were on the way seven minute ride to the hospital and yeah, yeah, she was she was too far gone unfortunately I wonder if if they would have not taken the knife out if that would have [SPEAKER_00]: help. [SPEAKER_00]: Usually when you have a puncture wound, you're not. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you don't want to take that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, plug and if it's in her long, I wonder if that would have helped. [SPEAKER_00]: You know, that's a good question. [SPEAKER_02]: And I don't know, especially it's only four stab wounds. [SPEAKER_02]: And I say only four stab wounds. [SPEAKER_02]: But like there are other murders that out. [SPEAKER_02]: There's even one I'll bring up later at the end of this. [SPEAKER_02]: It happened in Iowa that where someone had twenty two stab wounds.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so four is an interesting thing, which I'll circle back to with my own. [SPEAKER_00]: Technically two of them were clogged because the knives were. [SPEAKER_02]: With the knives were in there. [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, and to specify this, so deboiled police said the wounds were inflicted by two different knives from the kitchen set. [SPEAKER_02]: So there you go. [SPEAKER_02]: One was found on the bed side, which is presumably the one Kevin took out.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the other one, the body of the knife was stuck in her back in the knife's, the handle had been broken off. [SPEAKER_02]: which shows a lot of force, which is an important little fact there. [SPEAKER_02]: Now, a neighbor, I think her name was Mrs. Dowell.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was actually hard to find because I think they purposefully don't say her name normally, told police of seeing a man in his twenties about five foot nine wearing a white and brown plaid shirt and spills already said. [SPEAKER_02]: Some newspaper say jeans, some just say dark pants or trousers, and driving a black or dark blue Ford Mustang.
[SPEAKER_02]: He had parked [SPEAKER_02]: sort of down the street just a little bit and then walked kind of diagonally across the yard to the camp home. [SPEAKER_02]: Some article say he was a handsome fella. [SPEAKER_02]: Some other article say he was stocky. [SPEAKER_00]: I heard stocky. [SPEAKER_02]: Yep. [SPEAKER_02]: Yep. [SPEAKER_00]: So it could be both. [SPEAKER_00]: It was at sixty six or sixty five every the five sixty five sixty six Ford Mustang.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: So there were the numbers on the side. [SPEAKER_00]: Louvers on the sides, which is not that inset on the door panel. [SPEAKER_00]: I was looking at a picture that a picture of the car. [SPEAKER_02]: It's it's kind of like on a diagonal angle on the back kind of door. [SPEAKER_02]: It's the part of the the like roof that goes down from the roof to the back that angleing down. [SPEAKER_02]: There's like loops on that.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's hard to describe without showing you a picture. [SPEAKER_02]: I apologize. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I had a picture of the video, but I was looking at the door panel because they had like this inset. [SPEAKER_00]: It almost looked like gills on the side. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, no. [SPEAKER_00]: No, no. [SPEAKER_00]: And there's fins. [SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of like fish stuff on cars. [SPEAKER_02]: There's like gills on the upper side.
[SPEAKER_02]: So not like on the door itself, but okay. [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm trying to use my hands to to just articulate an angle for Bill because I'm not sure how to say it verbally. [SPEAKER_02]: He's looking up a picture, though, and I will have pictures. [SPEAKER_00]: of a little lovers on, oh, okay, those got you. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: But gills are a good way to describe them, I think. [SPEAKER_02]: I think gills.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, then the lovers on the back windshield are like the Delorean style, like those like slabs. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: It's a good way to say it. [SPEAKER_02]: I'll have pictures of appropriate Mustangs for everybody in my show notes or links to pictures and I'll put up some photos on Instagram as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, that's an important distinction because [SPEAKER_02]: You're trying to figure out who this was that went to the house. [SPEAKER_02]: the big key piece of the witness testimony there is the Mustang, which was a very popular car. [SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot of Mustangs at the time. [SPEAKER_02]: So people do recognize them. [SPEAKER_02]: They know Mustangs and those lovers are important because that helps specify the year.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's why it's sixty five or sixty six. [SPEAKER_00]: And probably there was a down if that's like an added on feature. [SPEAKER_00]: If that's not unless that's a stock feature. [SPEAKER_00]: I think there was a stock. [SPEAKER_02]: I could be wrong. [SPEAKER_02]: I feel like I'm back on my TV shows autobiography, Codecases, right? [SPEAKER_02]: I think that's a stock feature on those years, which is why. [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, no. [SPEAKER_02]: So it's going back to fast.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because in many words, like, the pass attraction and, like, pass attraction. [SPEAKER_02]: No, and actually, I should say, I think it's a Ford Mustang fast back. [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, it would chad the louvers. [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, it does specify it down a bit there. [SPEAKER_02]: So that is important. [SPEAKER_02]: As police found out, though, there were hundreds of those cars in the area. [SPEAKER_02]: So it actually didn't narrow it down enough because they did.
[SPEAKER_02]: That was like, that was the main piece of investigation. [SPEAKER_02]: Evidenceiary, you know, sort of stuff that they had to go by investigating that. [SPEAKER_02]: So they did go down that rabbit hole. [SPEAKER_02]: Police sound like they really researched.
[SPEAKER_02]: and investigated that Mustang angle as much as they could and it just didn't lead to anybody that kind of fit the description or wasn't the area at the time or would have had motive or wasn't seeing somewhere else like it just didn't it didn't end up helping and you would think it would have now another neighbor saw this man leave the camp home just a little after noon so he shows up right around noon or a little before
[SPEAKER_02]: Cross is diagonally across the yard goes to the door. [SPEAKER_00]: Lee's part in front of the house next door next door. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: And no one knows if he knocked on the door. [SPEAKER_02]: If the door was unlocked and he snuck in, if he picked the lock and broke into the house or if, you know, if he did knock in the door, did Leo to open it and let him inside.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this connects to to a plausible theory that I don't know if it's true or not. [SPEAKER_02]: that I'll get to later if he did knock on the door and she opened it and started talking to them, which brings up a couple of things we'll get into. [SPEAKER_02]: First, I just, it is in my notes here. [SPEAKER_02]: So apparently there were hundreds of calls with tips in the days after the murder and none of them led to anything substantial.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they did look at hundreds of cars and car owners that also did not lead to anything substantial. [SPEAKER_02]: Detective Robert Weikman of Des Moined PD helped create a sketch using the witness testimony of the potential killer. [SPEAKER_02]: However, this did also not lead to anything substantial at the time. [SPEAKER_02]: So there is a police sketch, which I will also try to link to in my show notes. [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, it looks like Bill's looking.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to see the sketch. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I think I'm really old photocopy. [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: There's the most of them are bed photocopies every now and then you can't find it. [SPEAKER_02]: There's I think there's a couple newspaper articles from back then. [SPEAKER_02]: I found that have a better quality image.
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, I'm going to have you, if you don't mind Bill, I'm going to have you read an article from the Des Moines Tribune published on July eleventh, nineteen sixty seven. [SPEAKER_02]: So this isn't that first block I gave you. [SPEAKER_00]: Okay. [SPEAKER_00]: The more in police Tuesday, we're attempting to establish a motive to aid in the search for the slayer of a young housewife, fatally stabbing her home. [SPEAKER_00]: Here about noon Monday.
[SPEAKER_00]: The victim, Mrs. Leo de Camp, twenty-five, was near death when a neighbor woman found her lying face down on a bed, gagged with her hands and legs bound with necktacks. [SPEAKER_00]: Police Tuesday declined to say whether any fingerprints were found on the murder weapon or elsewhere in the camp hall. [SPEAKER_00]: Captain Cletus Leaming, chief of detectives, said evidence was still being sifted Tuesday and that no motive has been deterrent.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is not a peer to be a sex crime and from all appearances nothing was taken. [SPEAKER_00]: So interesting how they word things back then. [SPEAKER_00]: It's so like. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, to everything senses field backwards. [SPEAKER_00]: Anyways. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it language, you know, it evolves and changes. [SPEAKER_02]: So it is always, but even though it was in the nineteen sixties, I do want to make one correction.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think you said it does not appear to be a sex crime, but he actually said it does. [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, it does. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I was projecting that because I. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, because she was not sexually assaulted.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I wanted to share that article specifically because of that that line because we talked about lack of motive and still this day we're not sure of we can't be a hundred percent sure of a motive, but police did appear to be leaning towards a sex crime. [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, it's got all the hallmarks of that and that's worthy of our attention.
[SPEAKER_02]: And and thinking and one piece of evidence that does point to that sex crime motive is that she could have had the stalker type person or someone that had a sort of his his eye on her with [SPEAKER_02]: bad intentions. [SPEAKER_02]: And the theory behind this stems from a phone call that you even mentioned before that they can't family receive just a few weeks prior. [SPEAKER_02]: So this I'm going to have you read this article.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is the second one I gave you, which refers to this phone call. [SPEAKER_01]: All right. [SPEAKER_00]: On July, fourteenth, nineteen sixty-seven, the Des Moines Register reported that Mrs. Camp had received an obscene phone call a few weeks prior to her death. [SPEAKER_00]: Raymond Camp told the Register his wife received the anonymous call about one and a half or two weeks before the Fourth of July, and that when she answered a man asked, [SPEAKER_00]: Where are you Ben?
[SPEAKER_00]: Thinking it might be a friend kidding her. [SPEAKER_00]: Leo told the college she'd been feeding the baby to which he replied. [SPEAKER_00]: I thought maybe you were blank and obscene expression. [SPEAKER_00]: Camp told authorities. [SPEAKER_00]: He didn't want to repeat the word the man said. [SPEAKER_00]: Their home phone number Mr. Camp said wasn't even in the phone. [SPEAKER_00]: What is that? [SPEAKER_00]: What is that obscene expression because they said the same thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I would guess something sexual is what I'm going to assume. [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, so they did not recognize the voice of that caller. [SPEAKER_02]: And they talk with neighbors about it. [SPEAKER_02]: They told friends about it, but the the color never did call back. [SPEAKER_02]: Now, I will be quick to point out, that doesn't mean whoever called did this. [SPEAKER_02]: But it is interesting. [SPEAKER_02]: It is close in time to the murder.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it does bring up some questions that will go into some potential theories that I have or you may have or people out there may have had over the years of this case. [SPEAKER_02]: Before we get into that, though, [SPEAKER_02]: Over the years, the family has offered rewards for any information that may lead to an arrest.
[SPEAKER_02]: And even though there were hundreds of tips over the years, none of them have led anything remotely getting close to solving this crime or even a good suspect. [SPEAKER_02]: So here's where I'm at. [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know where to go next because there really isn't a lot of evidence to consider that we didn't go over here today that I'm aware of anyway.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have some questions and that's what I was about to say is we can ask questions about this and start to find tunes of things and I do have some some theories, but yeah, what's your first question? [SPEAKER_02]: My first question is [SPEAKER_00]: So the phone numbers and publish, but they got a call. [SPEAKER_00]: So at least, either it's somebody who's randomly dialing numbers or someone who knows their number.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: But obviously he said he asked for her, right? [SPEAKER_00]: Like they're asking for the wife. [SPEAKER_02]: Yes. [SPEAKER_02]: And this is a good question because if you take what you're talking about right now, which is someone presumably knew their number. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: Or newly owed a and wanted to call her.
[SPEAKER_02]: The person that came to kill her part, just not right in front of their house, but nearby, cross the yard went straight to the camps house. [SPEAKER_02]: He didn't park in front of somebody else's house and go to that neighbor first. [SPEAKER_02]: He parked and walked straight to the house. [SPEAKER_02]: If we believe everything the witness says anyway, he somehow gets inside the house, whether it's door unlocked, which may have been the case, or broken, or she let him in.
[SPEAKER_02]: If she let him in, [SPEAKER_02]: That also may tie to her knowing him. [SPEAKER_02]: So not only is that the phone number that the person may have known walked straight to the house, meaning he knows where he's going, could have been let inside. [SPEAKER_02]: Whoever killed her may have been somebody that she knew, she may have known him intimately, not intimately could have been acquaintance, but somebody that could have gotten inside.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, because that is the one screens, you know, before he gagged, obviously she was gagged, but there had to be a moment where, and if those neighbors were out on the front lawn, like the one store, I mean, the houses are very close. [SPEAKER_00]: You would kind of hear very close. [SPEAKER_02]: Also the kids would have said they were in the backyard. [SPEAKER_02]: They would have heard a scream.
[SPEAKER_02]: a no one heard a scream and there is another way to look at that which I'm going to just jumping around here because that's part of part of kind of formulating these thoughts. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but some people think maybe she came inside after hanging up laundry and whoever this was was already in the house and surprised her and caught her. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's why she could scream. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, something like that, which could that could have happened too.
[SPEAKER_02]: But when I think when you combine it with [SPEAKER_02]: the way the guy walked up to the house and thinking about the potential phone call tie and I do think somebody may have targeted her and maybe she knew who he was. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, which leads to my next question, did they cross reference people that they knew with people that owned that car?
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, there's hundreds in the area, but did anybody they know appear on that list of [SPEAKER_02]: So I don't know because I never came across that I've had that same question too. [SPEAKER_02]: I can assume yes because it seems like they really went down that rabbit hole of that car and because of all the things that we're talking about, I think even very [SPEAKER_02]: unexperienced police investigators would be asking the same question.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, like, I'm not a detective. [SPEAKER_02]: So I'm thinking of these things. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm sure actual real investigator is going to think of these things that go down that rabbit hole. [SPEAKER_02]: So I'm going to date like with let things, I mean, I don't feel like as we're as dialed in, you know. [SPEAKER_02]: That that may be true, but I still think that full effort was given.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I think this was a this is a place I actually read the stats of murders in the area and I can't remember how far and but there were like six unsolved murders from the last ten years previous to this, which isn't that's a lot. [SPEAKER_02]: But that's not a lot. [SPEAKER_02]: When you consider this is, I think Des Moines, the largest city in Iowa. [SPEAKER_02]: So they, they're trying their best.
[SPEAKER_02]: I really haven't read or heard or come across anything that seems like the police department wasn't giving their full attention that was necessary to this. [SPEAKER_00]: And was there anything similar that happened in the area like to lead towards this being like a serial yes yes so okay so that'll lead into something I read before we go down that right now I also just want to fit out the comment that like to you know what happened to the knife handle and also point out that
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, back in the fifties and sixties, things were just made so much better like built to last like all of my tools that I have that are vintage tools like are still around and still running. [SPEAKER_00]: And so the thought of like snapping the handle off of a knife assuming the knife words like the blade goes into the handle and there's like what handle around that would take a lot of force. [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, we're doing where that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I, you know, I never, that's the big thing that's been standing out to make is I never read anything that was like, oh, and the handle was on the floor or whatever. [SPEAKER_02]: So I never read that they found the handle. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, he probably took, I mean, if that has fingerprints on it, although I never even mentioned if there was fingerprints on them. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think they found fingerprints. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think they found fingerprints.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if anybody knows more than we're saying today, please reach out to me a study of StrangerGmail.com. [SPEAKER_02]: I love to find out when I'm wrong or when I need to know more. [SPEAKER_02]: So please reach out. [SPEAKER_02]: Especially in case like this, this is important. [SPEAKER_02]: This is still, I think, solvable. [SPEAKER_02]: So if you have any information that can help lead to anything, please reach out to us or the Des Moines Police Department.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'll have links in my show notes for that too. [SPEAKER_00]: Now, you imagine someone like buying like a used sixty five Mustang at auction and finding the handle like in the past. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, something like that's it. [SPEAKER_02]: We're we're things have happened and what are the things I was going to save to the end, but I'll bring up right now before I go into this other theory.
[SPEAKER_02]: is DNA like it is there still stuff from this crime scene that's in possession of the police or in storage somewhere where we might be able to extract DNA from something that could lead to somebody else because obviously they weren't they weren't doing that in nineteen sixty seven and that goes into the golden state stuff that we're talking about yeah yeah so here's the here's something interesting that popped up in my research that does tie into
[SPEAKER_02]: Just inkling into some of the the theories that we've already briefly kind of touched on Iowa cold cases there's a website where you can read about a bunch of Iowa cold cases and a lot of states have have websites like this because they want you know potential information that can help them solve things and on Iowa cold cases this is a [SPEAKER_02]: relatively well-known story. [SPEAKER_02]: Like you can find other articles and blogs and all sorts of stuff about this case.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's nothing new. [SPEAKER_02]: So there's a lot of commenters. [SPEAKER_02]: And I hate reading comments on anything because it's terrible. [SPEAKER_02]: However, I do force myself to do it when I'm researching because every now and then you get a nugget of something that leads you down something else. [SPEAKER_02]: And there is a commenter on Iowa cold cases that has a theory [SPEAKER_02]: And I think he's even written a book or something like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't want to say who he is because I feel weird doing that without permission. [SPEAKER_02]: But everybody can go on Iowa cold cases and I have links to it so you can read about them. [SPEAKER_02]: But this person claims that [SPEAKER_02]: Leo da was a target from a and arrested person who's convicted rapist and counterfeiter to be specific. [SPEAKER_02]: So a name John Mike DeBardo Lebin worked on saying his name and now I can't say it right DeBardo Lebin DeBardo Lebin.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's DeBardo Lebin and like I said he's convicted rapist and counterfeiter. [SPEAKER_02]: He was arrested by the secret service in nineteen eighty three. [SPEAKER_02]: He died in two thousand eleven in prison. [SPEAKER_02]: He was found or suspected you have committed [SPEAKER_02]: A lot of very serious sex crimes. [SPEAKER_02]: He was not brought to trial for any murders, though he is a suspect in many murders.
[SPEAKER_02]: And his modus operandi was apparently to pretend he was a real estate agent and knock on doors, which is interesting when you think about the guy in the Mustang. [SPEAKER_02]: Now, was he an Iowa at this time? [SPEAKER_02]: Did he drive a Mustang? [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know. [SPEAKER_02]: I can't find out those things. [SPEAKER_02]: The sketch of the potential criminal does appear to be somewhat similar to Debutterle Ben. [SPEAKER_02]: Um, however.
[SPEAKER_02]: You've got DMV records? [SPEAKER_02]: Is that something people can do? [SPEAKER_02]: To a certain extent, yes, yes, you can. [SPEAKER_02]: I have not done that myself, but there is a way to do that. [SPEAKER_02]: And he is a suspect in another Iowa cold case from nineteen sixty nine, a Dorothy Miller and Miller was found raped and stabbed twenty two times in her home in Des Moines County.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's no direct tie to Debuttler bin to Leo to Camp that I can find outside of this commenter who's done his own interest interesting research. [SPEAKER_02]: He does seem to have confirmation bias. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm just taking it from from the comments because it seems like he has his own work. [SPEAKER_02]: He's trying to draw attention to. [SPEAKER_02]: But it is interesting. [SPEAKER_02]: Debuttler bin was [SPEAKER_02]: It was a criminal.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is a convict that has a crazy story that I read all about. [SPEAKER_02]: Like he could be an episode of this show on his own. [SPEAKER_02]: And just the idea of like this someone knocks on the door, they're real estate agent.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey, I'm [SPEAKER_02]: interested in buying or home and selling it or are you selling the home or you know all those different ways that you can knock on a door and get somebody to trust you right away yeah and and that brings up something to I meant to mention this earlier talking about all the theories but the reason there may not have been sexual assault is because the kids came in the house [SPEAKER_02]: And that could have scared him off or he heard the kids in the backyard.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was like, oh, wait, there's too many people nearby. [SPEAKER_02]: I thought it was just the baby because they would have seen the baby. [SPEAKER_02]: But like, oh, give the baby milk, leave the baby alone. [SPEAKER_02]: So I think he could have been interrupted by the kids and ran out of the house. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, or he could have, if she was struggling and he had to stab her beforehand, that might have led him to then try to flee early.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like maybe he was planning to do it, you know, yeah, assault first and then murder. [SPEAKER_02]: Possibly, possibly. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that is, that's a good, that's a good question. [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, if you, it departed a little bit since he's a suspect in this person that was sexually assaulted and stabbed in Iowa, two years later, that is, it's an interesting connection. [SPEAKER_02]: It's no more than that, but it's an interesting connection.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, now I want to know what kind of cars he had registered in his name around that time. [SPEAKER_00]: If it wasn't even his name, if he's a counterfeit or even if he also, you know, able to, yeah, me too. [SPEAKER_02]: That's definitely worth looking into. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so I have all these other notes bill, but a lot of them just already kind of comment on things that you've brought up.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just to kind of debunk it right away, a lot of people, not a lot of people. [SPEAKER_02]: When there is a murder, and it's involves a spouse. [SPEAKER_02]: The first suspect is always the other spouse. [SPEAKER_02]: And to me, Ray does not seem like a suspect at all. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm sure they can confirm he was at work too. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, they definitely were literally punching in and out. [SPEAKER_02]: And yep, they obviously they also called him at work.
[SPEAKER_02]: So he wasn't there. [SPEAKER_02]: Did he hire somebody to kill her? [SPEAKER_02]: He seems like a very loving, loving father, the family are all still close to this day. [SPEAKER_02]: They are alive today. [SPEAKER_02]: I don't think he'd be like, yeah, let me hire somebody to kill my wife while my three young kids who can't take care of themselves are home alone. [SPEAKER_02]: That doesn't seem to be something that makes a lot of sense.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just because I know a lot of people will jump to that without knowing magic, but the case. [SPEAKER_02]: But Ray was not in my mind.
[SPEAKER_02]: a suspect in this north should he be now did they test blood in the room like could the killer have scratched himself for kind of self and could that blood still be around on some evidence that's in a locker somewhere I'm not sure I don't know the state of all that kind of stuff but that could be interesting to do to especially when it comes to the department [SPEAKER_02]: We could see if we could tie blood or DNA to him. [SPEAKER_02]: However, I don't think anybody's done that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not sure there's enough. [SPEAKER_02]: There's enough there to make that happen with law enforcement, but I could be wrong. [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, that is that's the mystery of the cold case of Leo to camp. [SPEAKER_02]: Like I said, it's really not a long story, but it is it's bizarre. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: And it reminds me of other cases like I mentioned the Veliscax marker. [SPEAKER_02]: And you mentioned the Golden State Killer, too.
[SPEAKER_00]: So do you want to talk about that a little bit? [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, it just reminded me of how, I mean, the thing we were talking about was, you know, we sort of touched upon how back then maybe they didn't have the best procedures.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's where the Golden State Killer was because you had these two areas within the same state of California up in the north and down in the south where similar crimes were happening, but they weren't [SPEAKER_00]: talking to each other. [SPEAKER_00]: The departments weren't interconnected back then.
[SPEAKER_00]: So just being able to even trace this to other things like again, back in the day, there was drifters like you talked about the railroad murders, like inner states were kind of getting built out more. [SPEAKER_00]: And so the ability for people to kind of murder a Lana trail, but in these districts where people aren't talking to each other and checking out what other stories are happening nearby, so much more probable.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you ever do a golden state, [SPEAKER_00]: Killer episode, by the way. [SPEAKER_00]: You should have my mom on because she was living in Sacramento when that was going on. [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I remember we were talking about the show and she's like, oh, yeah, you know, I was living there when that was happening. [SPEAKER_00]: I remember like all that stuff and like all the craziness of like what was going on. [SPEAKER_00]: I was like, I didn't know this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then recently she's been talking about how all she wants to do is start a podcast and how do you do it and all this that so she would just go nuts to be on. [SPEAKER_00]: That's okay. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm so let's do it. [SPEAKER_00]: If you ever, if you ever get into that, yeah, have her on for sure. [SPEAKER_02]: Well, now I need to do that. [SPEAKER_02]: That's a really good idea. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, thank you so much, Bill.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think there's much more to go over in this. [SPEAKER_02]: If anybody does have information about who potentially killed the owner camp, I will have links in my show notes on how you can get in touch with the appropriate authorities to pass on that information and distill an act of cold case. [SPEAKER_02]: They are still hoping to be able to solve this.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I know the family, the camp family itself is still [SPEAKER_02]: actively trying to figure out what happened to Lyota as well. [SPEAKER_02]: It's a very sad story. [SPEAKER_02]: It's very brutal. [SPEAKER_02]: It's very terrifying.
[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, by sharing something more modern, which has not been my usual type of episode, yeah, I do want to say the part of the reason why you want to explore stories like this is you never know what may lead to actually solving it. [SPEAKER_02]: So take an interest in things like this if you're into true crime, everybody. [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you, Bill, for being on. [SPEAKER_02]: Do you want to plug any of your stuff where people might find you?
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I don't have anything new to plug, but yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: If we get the movie, we'll have to do an episode on some real life vampire stories. [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely. [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely. [SPEAKER_02]: All right. [SPEAKER_02]: Well, thanks a lot, Bill. [SPEAKER_02]: I'll talk to you soon. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, no problem. [SPEAKER_02]: And that's our show. [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much for listening. [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you to Bill Weirdy.
[SPEAKER_02]: Please support the show by following or subscribing wherever you listen in the podcast. [SPEAKER_02]: And if you can take a moment to leave a review, that would be much appreciated. [SPEAKER_02]: You can also support the show by checking out our Patreon account, which you can find there are a website, a study of strange.com, where you can find exclusive additional content episodes that are unedited and all sorts of fun goodies there.
[SPEAKER_02]: we have some more true crime episodes coming up in the near future so check in check back often you can follow us at Instagram to get updates on releases and that'll do it thank you and good night