Hell and Gone Murder Line: Dana Stidham Part 2

stomach was upset and he needed some medicine. She went to the Phillips food store, which, by the way, is now a Harp's grocery store, the one in Bella Vista. She checked out at three seventeen PM. We know this because the receipt was later found in her car, and because the cashier and a lot of other people working in the store confirmed that Dana was there that day. Dana knew everyone because she had worked there for three

years in high school. We're going to talk about Dana's case, a lot of the contradictory clues that have been explored over the years, and we're also going to talk about other unsolved murders in the Ozarks. I'm noticing as I compile these cases that there are a lot of unsolved murders that happened along Arkansas Highway seventy one. We're also going to explore all the theories that have come up over the years and try to answer the question, was

this someone Dana knew or a stranger? Could it have been a serial killer? I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the past five years of making my true crime podcast, Helen Gone, I have learned that there is no such thing as a small town where murder never happens. I have received hundreds of messages from people all around the country asking for help with an unsolved murder that's affected them, their families,

and their communities. If you have a case you'd like me and my team to look into, you can reach out to us at our Helen Gone Murder Line at six seven eight seven four four six one four five At six seven eight seven four four six one four five. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. So let's go back to what we know. Back to the timeline. According to the police report, which we got a copy of from the Benton County Sheriff's Office, Dana left home at around two forty five pm. She went to the Phillips food

store in Bella Vista. This would have taken her about fifteen minutes. When she left her parents' house that day, she was wearing white shorts, a white top with red lettering, and red sox with white tennis shoes. Dana got out at the Phillips store and did her shopping. Now remember this store was where she had had a high school job, so people knew her there. Several people remembered talking to her that day. She bought her dad's medicine, Alka Seltzer,

as well as some dishwashing soap and sugar. She checked out at three seventeen PM, according to the timestamped receipt. After that she walked out into the parking lot. She talked to an older guy, who, by the way, has not been identified publicly. Then a landscaper reportedly saw Dana drive out of the parking lot, but told police they did not know which way she turned. Dana never came home that afternoon. Her brother Larry called the police at nine to fifteen pm to report her missing. A bolow

was put out right afterward. The next morning, July twenty sixth, at around six thirty am, a sergeant from the Benton County Sheriff's Office saw a parked car on the side of US Highway seventy one. We talked about this last week. It turned out this was Dana's nineteen eighty four gray Dodge Omney. The car was found near Wellington Road. The keys were stealing the ignition. The driver's side window was

halfway down and the left rear tire was flat. Now a lot of people have pointed to that half down window as potential evidence that Dana could have pulled over and rolled down her window to talk to somebody, But the tire was not totally flat, and Dana was only four miles from home, which is why I find it less likely that she would have pulled over for someone she didn't know or caught a ride with a stranger, because she could have driven on a half flat tire.

Or she could have turned around and gone back to the Phillips parking lot. She knew a ton of people there. She could have gotten a lot of people's help changing that tire. There was no obvious sign of a struggle inside the car, but the driver's seat was pushed back. Dana was petitue only five foot two, but the seat was adjusted for a much taller person. Dana's Denham purse was missing. As we said before, there was a receipt found inside the car for her groceries, but the groceries

themselves were gone. Days later, some of her clothing was found scattered near the road. Then, on August fifth, searchers discovered more of Dana's items, including her bank checks, her driver's license, and several other items, a few miles north of where the car was found. Then someone's pet dog came home with Dana's wallet between its teeth. So the first obvious question is where was the actual crime scene? Because you have several potential areas where it could have been.

You have the area where the car was parked on the southbound side of US highly seventy one. You have the place where the bank checks and license were found, and where the clothes were scattered. Was Dana abducted from where her car was parked, or was the real crime scene somewhere else. We're going to look at both of these possibilities. Let's consider the possibility that she could have been abducted. I did some digging and I found out a couple more details about Dana's autopsy and her remains.

We mentioned that her remains were found in a creek bed. There were some bones missing. The skeleton was only about ninety percent complete, and the missing bones included a very important bone, Dana's sternum. That sternum was never found, and without that bone, according to the medical examiner's report, authorities could not figure out whether the nick that was on

her left shoulder blade was the fatal wound. The theory that detectives had was that Dana had been stabbed in the neck, but without the sternum, they said they could not be sure. There was an article in the Springfield Newsleader from February eighteenth to nineteen ninety one. The Springfield Newsleader did a lot of research into unsolved killings in the Ozarks, and they asked if some of these killings

could have been linked. The paper pointed out that if there were links between some of these killings, especially back then, these police departments might not have figured that out because, as you may know from listening to this podcast and others, agencies often don't share information. Even though the killings were

happening in the Ozarks region, different agencies had jurisdiction. Bodies were found in different counties, some in Missouri, some in Arkansas, so the newspaper did its own investigation into these unsolved deaths. It found similarities in four cases. Side note this still happens even today, with all the technology we have, you still see so many cases where a body is found in one county, but the person has gone missing in another one, and there is such a lack of communication

even today. Back to Dana, the Springfield Leader mentions the April nineteen eighty seven disappearance of a thirty one year old woman named Deborah c Lewis. Deborah went missing from her car near Springfield. Her body was found eight months later in Newton County. Then in June of nineteen eighty nine, there was another abduction a twenty four year old woman named Kelly Anne Workman. She disappeared from a church parking lot in Douglas County where she had been mowing the lawn.

Then in nineteen ninety there was a killing of a woman who was known for many years as Jane Doe. Her body was found in December of nineteen ninety one in McDonald County. The fourth victim the newspaper mentioned was Dana Stidham. The paper pointed out that all of the victims had at least on the surface some similar injuries. Detectives suspected that all these women had been strangled or

their throats had been cut. Police found evidence that some of the victims were tied with some sort of twine. Three of them were found near US Highway seventy one. Again, there could have been a serial killer working US Highway seventy one, and authorities might not have linked the cases back then. The Springfield Leader pointed out that even though Danis Didham's case and Debbie Lewis's case were only forty five miles apart, the agencies who investigated may not have

compared notes because they were in different states. Now there have been some suspects and leads in some of these cases. I wanted to take a closer look at them. Debbie Sue Lewis vanished on April twenty seventh, nineteen eighty seven. Debbie had two jobs. She worked as a nurse for the US Medical Center for Federal Prisoners. She also had a second job at the Ozark Mountain Concessions. Debbie was working the night she went missing at Ozark Concessions. She

clocked out at eleven oh five pm. Her yellow Volkswagen convertible was found a few miles north of the Springfield Branson National Airport. The lights were on, the motor was running, and all of her stuff was inside the car, including her money in her keys, but she was gone, and the way the car was left it looked like someone had just grabbed her. But again detectives had no real leads.

Eight months later, a family looking for a Christmas tree was out in rural Newton County when they found Debbie's body. There were some clues. Like in Dana's case, there was very little soft tissue and investigators had trouble determining the cause of death. Also, you may remember from last week that in Dana's case, investigators found some twine near the body with some knots in it. It was the same store. In Debbie's case, investigators found a knotted cord near the

bones of her hands. So the Springfield Newsleader the newspaper, did another story in twenty fifteen. They interviewed the former prosecutor, and the prosecutor stated they believed Debbie had been kidnapped, bound and murdered. That was the exact phrase they use. But again, like deja vus with Dana's case, because of the lack of tissue found with the body, they could

not figure out how she died. Both cause and manner of death were undetermined, but they did have a potential person of interest in Debbie's case, a guy named Gerald Carnahan who apparently dated her at one point. Now, Gerald Carnahan was from a wealthy family. He was a local businessman, but he had a history of disturbing behavior. Police suspected him, but they didn't have enough evidence to prosecute, so the case went cold. Both of Debbie's parents passed away, never

knowing what really happened to her. Then, in twenty ten, the name Gerald Carnahan came up again. He was convicted of another rape and murder that happened two years before

Debbie disappeared. Jackie John's, a twenty year old former beauty queen from Nixa, Arkansas, who worked in a local cafe, went to seven eleven one night and then disappeared without a trace on June eighteenth, nineteen eighty five, in Nixa, Arkansas, about sixty five miles from where Danis Sidham's body was found, also by the way along US Highway seventy one, Jackie left work she stopped at a local seven eleven at approximately eleven PM. After that, she disappeared. The next day,

a delivery driver saw her vehicle. It was very distinctive. It was a black Camaro with personalized license plates that had Jackie's name on them. They found the car on the side of the road off of US one sixty. The car looked like it had been abandoned. Similar to Dana's case and to Debbie's, the door or was open. Her purse and her clothes and her things were all there. But there was one difference because this time there was

a sign of a struggle. There was blood in that car, and unlike in Debbian Dana's cases, Jackie's remains were found quickly. Her body was dumped in Lake Springfield. Two local fishermen found the body four days after Jackie disappeared. So because of that, investigators were able to find more information about what might have killed Jackie. Forensic testing showed she had blunt forest trauma. She had been hitting the head multiple times.

This time there was proof Jackie had been sexually assaulted. Investigators found traces of seamen and they had a good lead. Someone had spotted another very distinctive car near the seven eleven at around the time Jackie was there a nineteen sixties white and blue Chevrolet truck. Now this was a small town, so everyone knew that vehicle. The guy who who owned it was Gerald Carnahan. Gerald Carnahan said he had an alibi, but law enforcement very quickly found some

holes in it. Gerald said he had dinner with his stepdaughter and got home at around ten forty five PM, but Jackie was killed later than that, so the alibi was always a little bit shaky. Police continued to be very suspicious of Gerald Carnahan. There was an Oxygen show called in Ice Cold Blood about this case. According to that program, police figured out early on there were connections between Gerald and Jackie. She had done some work for Gerald in the past and told a friend that he

made her uncomfortable. She thought he was a creep. Law enforcement had their suspicions, but they couldn't make a case, so nothing happened. Also, it did not help that Gerald's family had money, so he was able to hire good lawyers, so he wasn't arrested. He went out of town. He lived his life and apparently kept assaulting women. In nineteen ninety three, Gerald Carnahan struck again. He tried to kidnap a woman from a road in Springfield. She escaped and

he was arrested. This time he got caught pretty much red handed, but he only got two years in prison for that attempt at kidnapping. Side note, he burned down a building, so he ended up getting convicted of arson also in nineteen ninety three, and for the arson charge he got four years, but for the attempted kidnapping he got two years. That absolutely blows my mind. In two thousand and six, investigators took another look at Jackie's case.

They looked at the seamen sample because by now there was some new technology that didn't exist when she was murdered. They were able to determine that the seaman was a match to Gerald Carnahan. An undercover state trooper followed him and apparently got his DNA off a cup of coffee that Gerald threw into the trash while he was visiting an auto dealership. Arrested and convicted in twenty ten, he was sentenced to life in prison without parole. So could

Gerald have been around when Dana disappeared. It's possible that Dana Stidham was abducted from her car that day. But I want to back up, what if she wasn't abducted. I want to take a look at some other scenarios because so far, a lot of the theories have focused on someone following her out, someone forcing her to pull

off the road, or somehow disabling her tire. So I would like to look at some alternative scenarios, because if we're looking at comparable cases, this assumes Dana's abandoned car was the primary crime scene. We're assuming she pulled over there to park, whether because she felt that her tire was low, or because someone maybe signaled her or pulled her over as a ruse. Let's come back to what we know about the car. Remember, Dana was only five

foot two, very petite, around one hundred pounds. When instigators got to the car, they found no signs of foul play. But and this is the clue that really throws me off, they were able to push the seat back really far back, like a much taller person was driving. So if that's the case, that leads me to believe someone else drove the car there and parked it and chose to park it in that spot, which means the crime scene was staged.

That's not the real crime scene. The more I look at this case, the more I think that's a distinct possibility because again, I know there was an abandoned car, but all of these other cases that involved abandoned cars, kidnapping, and abductions, they all happened at night. Dana's was in the middle of the day. It's of course possible that she was kidnapped, but in my mind this makes it much more unlikely. So if Dana didn't park there, if her killer parked the car there, we have to figure

out where the real crime scene was. The one thing that we have is the exact time when she went to the Phillips food store. That's why keep bringing it up over and over. She talked to people there. I also found out more about what Dana's plans were after she did her laundry. It turns out after buying the medicine for her father, Dana Stidham had a date that night. Police spoke to the guy she was supposed to go out with. He and his family both said she never

showed up that night. He was very cooperative with investigators, so to me, even though we have seen some reports that Dana was spotted out at a local party spot that night. I find those hard to believe. It's reasonable to assume she would have wanted to get home, give her dad his medicine which he needed, get her laundry, and get ready for her date. But what if she drove somewhere else after she left that parking lot. What if she made another stop? What if she went to

visit someone who no one knows about. Which brings me back to people's alibis not to say that any of these people did anything wrong, but as an investigator with an unsolved case, we always have to go back to the timeline. One of the biggest things we do is look at everyone's alibi and try to find any potential areas where we can explore further where was everyone on the day and at the time when Danny went missing. Police interviewed Danny Daney's ex boyfriend, who lived in Bentonville.

According to the police report, he had a job, but on that day he called in sick. Then he drove to his girlfriend's house in Bella Vista and stayed there until round five pm. He had a brother who also lived in Bella Vista. He told police that he drove to his brother's house next, but Danny's brother apparently wasn't home, So at that point, Danny said he drove to another friend's house, but that friend was also not home. Then Danny said he drove back to his own house in Bentonville.

A friend of Danny's, according to the police report, visited him in Bentonville at around ten pm that night. So what that means, if that's all true, is that from around five pm to ten pm, there could potentially be some missing time. We talked about another man, someone Dana knew from high school, Mike McMillan. We know that, according to Dana's family, Mike had a crush on Dana, but his feelings for Dana were apparently not reciprocated. We know

that Dana was supposedly avoiding him. His parents owned a convenience store in Haiwassee that was closer to Dana's house than the ones she shopped at the day she disappeared, but her parents told police that because Dana wanted to avoid Mike, she drove a few extra miles to the Phillip store. Police were definitely suspicious of Mike. There was an article in two thousand and seven talking about the case. The newspaper interviewed Detective Sidareac, one of the lead detectives

on the case. He said police basically knew who did it. The paper described a spurned suitor who Dana declined today clearly they were talking about Mike, and it seems as though reading between the lines, police were suspicious of Mike, largely because of Mike's weird behavior, the fact that Mike joined the Navy after he supposedly delayed for months right

after Dana died. Then he came back. He missed her funeral, and then he came back to town, and according to a girlfriend he had at the time, would go to Dana's grave and talk to her late at night. He was also seen driving around Bella Vista in the early morning hours on the day of Dana's disappearance. Police believe that Dana's car was moved in the middle of the night, So again we have a person who doesn't have a rock solid alibi. Investigators followed other leads. They got all

kinds of tips. A lot of people were talking about Newborn Lane near Highways three forty ninety, where a lot of people would get together to party, but again. Dana was getting medicine for her dad. Her family said she planned to go right back home, so her showing up at a park without dropping off her dad's Alga Seltzer really doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. Police remained focused on Mike McMillan. Apparently, Mike told investigators he was with a girl at the time when Dana went missing,

but then detectives talked to the woman. She said she hadn't seen him that day, so reportedly he gave them another name. Then that woman said she was with him, but then later apparently told detectives she wasn't actually with him. Police questioned the guys whom Mike had served with in the Navy. They talked to his family, they talked his friends, but they didn't come up with anything. Mainly, they seemed suspicious because of circumstantial reasons. Mike had this fixation on Dana.

Then he left town, then came back and stole her gravestone marker. Detectives were unable to prove Dana had been sexually assaulted, so it's very unlikely there's any usable DNA in her case that could help lead to her killer. In nineteen ninety eight, there was another newspaper article, another interview of detective Mike Sedoriak, another interview where he talked about the case. He said he had a rock that he had taken from Danis Didam's grave. He had it

on his desk. It was very clear he still felt super strongly about solving the case. He seemed very frustrated with the lack of progress. In that same article, the paper talked about more unsolved murders in the area. Sometimes when police hit a wall, they do look at other murders in the area to see if they fall with pattern. A lot of people have wondered could Dana have been

the victim of a serial killer? The paper pointed out there were seven murders that were unsolved in that area, including one from February of nineteen ninety seven, nicknamed the Suitcase murder. Authorities found the body of a woman named Sakoro Moran in a suitcase near p Ridge. Sometimes after so much time has passed, it can seem hopeless. It seems like detectives and everyone out there in the true crime world are kind of just beating their heads against

a wall. But I just want to remind everyone that cases are solved all the time by tips that one person out there who knows something and hears something that makes them come forward. Remember when I talked about the murder of Kelly Ann Workman, the twenty four year old woman who was reported missing on June thirtieth, nineteen eighty nine. She was mowing the lawn at Dogwood Cemetery in the back of Pleasant Southern Baptist Church in Douglas County. In

February of twenty twenty four, police solved that case. Kelly normally mowed the grass at night. When they found her car at six fifteen PM, a lot of grass was still uncut. The keys were in the ignition. Her body was found eight days later in Christian County. She was decomposed and authorities were unable to figure out her cause of death. There was something else here that I found

kind of interesting. Kelly was fully clothed, so investigators formulated the theory that rape had been the motive, but they thought that Kelly, who was six foot one, might have fought back against her attackers. Investigators believed she had been strangled. I'm not sure how they determined she was not sexually assaulted. There seemed to be a lot of cases where law enforcement determined that someone was not sexually assaulted just because

they were fully clothed. I don't know all the details here, but when these men go to trial, I'm hoping that we'll get more information about this case. So now, in twenty twenty four, after all this time, police have made three arrests. Two brothers, Bobby Banks and Leonard Banks, and another accomplice named Wily Belt, have all been charged with

first degree murder, kidnapping, and rape. According to CNN, the prosecutor, Matt Weatherman said, quote, there was a person that came forward after almost thirty years of holding this inside and finally told us the last piece we needed to slide it all together. End quote. Steve Pokin, a journalist for the Springfield Daily Citizen, wrote about the case over the years. He did a great story about how this witness ended

up coming forward. So the interesting thing is that two of these guys, Leonard Banks and Wily Belt, have talked to the media a lot over the years, and they've sort of talked about how they were innocent, but also, in my opinion, if you read between the lines, taunted the media a little bit. They admitted that they saw Kelly near the time she went missing. Leonard Banks told a reporter from the Springfield News Leader that he said he had killed Kelly, but that he was just kidding.

He made some kind of comment along the lines of, I'm paraphrasing here, but if I said that, I must have been wasted. So he seemed to be kind of hinting he had something to do with it, but not admitting it. We will have to see how this plays out. But again, there's always someone out there who knows something. I believe that Danis Didham's murder is solvable. If you look at the mugshots of the three men who were arrested in Kelly's case, they're all in their sixties. Their

mugshots look like someone's grandpa. But as I've said before, investigating murders is the closest I'll ever get to time travel. For the victim's family and for the entire community, they are still reliving July twenty fifth, nineteen eighty nine, the day when Danis Didham disappeared. Over and over. Dana's killer may be still out there, but so is potentially the person who has the information that could solve this case.

I'm Catherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen Gone Murder Line is a production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated by me Catherine Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts and Miranda Hawkins. Music contributed by Ben Salek. Special thanks to Amy Tubbs for her research assistance. Noah camer mixed and scored this episode. Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and Else Crowley. Listen to Helen Gone ad free by subscribing to the

iHeart True Crime Plus channel on Apple Podcasts. You can follow the show on Instagram at Helen Gone pod. If you have a case you'd like me and my team to look into, you can reach out to us at our Helen Gone Murder Line at six seven eight seven four four six one four five. That's six seven eight seven four four six one four five. School of Humans