Hell and Gone Murder Line: Tyler Smith Part 1

According to his family, he was one of only fifty candidates out of five thousand who were selected for that program. Tyler's mom, Sandra, said that Tyler loved California. He loved everything about it, especially surfing in outdoor sports. He was super excited about his upcoming move. Once he entered law enforcement. Tyler hoped to eventually possibly become a DEA agent or work with a canine unit. He was starting his life and chasing his dream, and he was actually making it happen.

Tyler had also been in the Army National Guard since twenty thirteen, and he had come back to Illinois to fulfill his commitment because the next day, September fifteenth, Tyler was due to report for drills. Tyler and his friends, a guy named Evan and Evan's cousin Robbie, were out drinking that night. They were blowing off some steam and taking advantage of their last night of freedom. According to Tyler's mother, Sandra Halsney, who has been working on a timeline,

they went to several bars in the area. He and his friends left a bar at ten thirty and were seen at a nearby atm at around ten forty two. Then at some point Tyler got separated from his friends, and what happened next is kind of a mystery because later his friends told his mother that they were all intoxicated that night and they can't remember exactly how they separated. I will say I think that one of the things that first got to me about this case was the

fact that, in my opinion, we've all been there. We've all gotten separated from our friends, maybe had a little bit too much to drink, and not known where we are. There are all times in our lives when we've been a little bit vulnerable and in a strange place. I know it's definitely happened to me. But Tyler was five foot eleven and weighed just over two hundred pounds. He was very muscular and fit, so it's not surprising he

probably felt like he could take care of himself. Tyler started walking around lost and made several phone calls starting at eleven oh five pm. Then at some point he stopped answering the phone, and the next morning he never showed up at the National Guard Armory to report. At seven thirty am, around twelve hours later, his body was found in the Cedar Fort Creek area, just two blocks away from where he was last seen the night before.

Since then, Sandra Tyler's father, Keith Smith, and the rest of his family have been desperately trying to find out what happened to him. How did Tyler end up in that drainage ditch, did he fall, did he drown? Or could he have been murdered? I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the past five years of making my true crime podcast, Helen Gone, I've learned there's 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. That's six seven eight seven four four six one four or five. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Sandra and her son Tyler

have always been close. In fact, Sandra said she was going to drive with him to start his new life in California, but before he left town, Tyler made those plans for a night out with some of his old friends. Sandra said that Tyler told her and his father, Keith, that he was planning on staying at a friend's house. Here's Sandra.

he didn't show up for Drill. And I didn't even know this until about Saturday, at about four point thirty. I got a messenger. I got a phone call from Evan, who was this guy that he was supposed to stay with.

red flag because Tyler always showed up on time. Sandra and Keith made the drive to Gilsburg. They found Tyler's car in the driveway of the house where he had been staying, but there was no sign of their son. They talked to his friends, Evan and Robbie about the night before. Basically, the guys said they had all been pretty drunk and that after they left the last bar, they got separated from Tyler, and they said they hadn't seen him since. At some point, Tyler ended up with

Evan's car keys. They were found in Tyler's Jean's pockets. Sandra claims that Evan told her at some point, I guess they must have decided that of the three of them, Tyler was the most sober, and so he apparently was going to drive at one point. Obviously this is not a great choice, which I guess they must have realized,

because in the end none of them drove home. Evan said he woke up at five thirty am the next morning he realized that Tyler wasn't there, but his stuff was there, and his car was parked in the driveway, and he knew Tyler still had his car keys. Evan started trying to call Tyler. He called him at five thirty eight am five forty five am, but Tyler never picked up and never responded. Evan texted again a little

while later, but that text stayed unread. Evan immediately reported Tyler missing to the police that morning and also called Sandra. Sandra said that she has no reason to doubt any of the story that Evan and Robbie told her, and that they seemed very cooperative and helpful, but she did wonder, just being human, if there could be more to that story, maybe they got in some kind of argument, maybe even just a minor dumb, drunken argument that can we sometimes

get into after a long night out. And then she wondered if some reason Tyler decided to leave suddenly, and maybe he was going to stay somewhere else. That was just a possibility. It's also possible that after they split up, he went on into another bar by himself. Because it seems so weird that he had just randomly disappeared into the darkness.

Forensic testing would reveal that Tyler's body had been lying there since early that morning or the night before. He was lying face down in about two inches of water. Sandras said that from the beginning she thought the case should have been investigated as a homicide until proven otherwise, but the police very quickly concluded. She said that this had been an accident. She said the autopsy was done in just thirty one minutes, which she was later able

to figure out. And I'll get into this in much more depth a little bit later and next week through her own investigation.

able to advocate for themselves. I want to learn what we can from this case, and in my opinion, Sandra has done an amazing job of getting information when she got frustrated with the police. Because we always struggle with that balance. I talk a lot about this. We're always trying to ask ourselves, how do we find information and do our own detective work and support the police investigation, but not interfere with it. We're always trying to get

that balance right. Tyler's phone was found pretty intact. The screen wasn't even cracked. According to Sandra, there was no password protect on that phone. So initially this would seem like a really good piece of evidence. It seems like you'd be able to trace where he was the night before using GP. Yes, but there were some complications with that. And this is where the difference between what we see

on shows like CSI and reality really coming to start contrast. Because, first of all, at some point in the evening, Tyler's battery died, but that wasn't the problem. The data was still there. Really, the bigger problem was that apparently Tyler, when he was walking around in that neighborhood, that area was kind of a dead zone, so GPS tracking apparently

didn't really work there. Sandra said she was prepared to assist with the police investigation, but she said she was very surprised when police ruled so quickly that this had been what they described as an accidental drowning, even though Sandra said she later learned that Tyler had several wounds on his body that made her believe that he had been viciously assaulted. Sandra told me about the reaction she had from police when she came to their office and

asked to see her son's body. At Lasse came in and gave Sandra Tyler's belongings, including his wallet. They told her that Tyler smelled of alcohol and that he had been found in a creek bed. Now at the time, according to Sandra, police said there was no way that Tyler had fallen from the distance to where he was found. They told her bodies don't just end up there side note this would change later, because police later told Sandra that they did believe that Tyler had fallen from above

the railing. Initially, though they said he must have gotten down in there somehow fallen and knocked himself out from the train tracks above. Just for clarification, there are train tracks in the area where Tyler's body was found. The

ground there is very rocky and uneven. Police told Sandra and Keith they believe Tyler had possibly fallen over the railing and then drowned, but Sandra questioned that because Tyler's body was found face down, her arms were stretched behind him and his palms were facing up, So she wondered how could he have gotten himself into that position? Why would he not try to reach his arms out and somehow break his fall if this was an accident, and

she had other questions about the scene. There were marks in the muddy water near one of Tyler's hands that to her looked like drag marks, looked like the hand impossibly the whole body had been pulled a few inches.

She also saw marx on Tyler's wrist. Police later told her they believed those were from the zip ties when they had zipped Tyler into the body bag, but Sandra wondered about that post mortem lebidity would normally have settled in by the time Tyler's body was found, so could those marks she wondered have been from something else, perhaps handcuffs. There was also a beer can next to Tyler's body.

Sandra said that it was never tested for fingerprints. She began to suspect that Tyler did not fall into that position she believed he was placed there. Police did not let her identify Tyler's body.

everything's evident. And then Steve and I had to drive back home to two two and a half hours, you know, after finding on our son's dead in this concrete canal and with no answers and refusally even see him. So, you know, it's just it's just been a nightmare.

Tyler to Peoria for an autopsy. After that, Sandra said she did have a conversation with the coroner, Mark Thomas. She said that she got a call from Mark Thomas on Sunday, September sixteenth, twenty eighteen, and at that time, she said, Mark told her that Tyler's autopsy would be performed the next day by forensic pathologists from Peoria who was going to do a thorough exam.

did it. Let me look at so I guess they did it. It's the corner. You didn't even know you're putting this stuff on a death certificate. You don't even know if he got X ray. Like, I just closed my mind.

minor injuries. To Sandra, the investigation seemed rushed. She said she was also shocked when she discovered the extent of the injuries on her son, injuries she said that were much worse than what she had been led to believe. She said she was told that Tyler had a small scratch on his face, most likely from falling and knocking himself out. The funeral home director told her Tyler had much more than just a scratch. She finally saw her

son for the first time on Tuesday, September eighteenth. She had his visitation scheduled for the following Friday.

She learned they were going to list the cause of death as drowning, manner of death undetermined, but police told her they did not suspect foul play. According to reports by the Knox County Corner in the Galesburg Police Department, they believed this was an accident. One of the factors that led them to believe that was the fact that Tyler's blood alcohol level was er point two four to six percent. Now, this is very high. In fact, it's

almost three times the legal limit. He was clearly intoxicated, and he was wandering around in an area he was unfamiliar with. So we do have to consider the possibility that he did have some sort of accident and no one else was involved. Sandra doesn't discount that, but she believes that police closed the case much too quickly.

Like the officer in Tyler's case was horrible. Every time I gave him information, He's like, what's that going to tell me? How's that going to tell me? I said, it's going to give us something, you know, like did you look at video to see if you could find Evan walking? Did you look at street video? Did you look at the bar video? Did you look at surveillance video around? You know? Did you even do like a you know, you go and knock on people's doors. Did

you hear anything, see anything? You know, There's a whole list of stuff they were supposed to do, and they were supposed to call in the state police to help them with the investigation, and they just didn't do that, And so they didn't follow any protocol at all, not one single bit of it.

digital trail. She started going through his bank account. Sandra went through Tyler's email. She found a receipt that showed that Tyler had used an ATM at ten forty two pm on Friday, September fourteenth at a Wells Fargo bank in Galesburg. He withdrew one hundred dollars. She asked the police to get video surveillance from Wells Fargo, but says she was told that it could take up to six

weeks and that Wells Fargo were very hard to deal with. Again, Sandra said she was made to feel that Tyler's case was not a priority. Sandra said where Tyler's body was found was in a pretty dangerous area with a high crime rate. There are people out on the streets late at night, so it seemed to her that it was very possible that he encountered someone who assaulted him.

did they tell you where I lived? I'm like no, I'm like, I found you on my own, and he's just like, oh, because Keith and I showed up at the house, and then that's when he shared his wife took a video of what she saw down there, and then I had the nine one one call and so but I've never really spoke to him since I went to his house, and I know the police never even followed up with them.

in cash that was in his pocket. Now, Sandra thought this was very strange because he had gone to the ATM at around ten forty two and withdrawn one hundred dollars. She had the receipt for that, and she said he used his debit card at the bars he was at that night, So where was this missing twenty eight dollars? Then there was the beer can. She wondered why they would just assume that it was unconnected to Tyler, Why

they wouldn't test for fingerprints. And Sandra also found herself wondering if the case was so quickly dismissed because of her son's race. Tyler is by ray, half black, half white. She wondered if that could have factored into the police's decision to, in her mind, dismiss this case so quickly. The last place where Tyler was seen having drinks was the Corner Connection Bar, just a few blocks from where his body was found. After he left the last bar,

Tyler started trying to call his friends. The calls started at around eleven oh five, so the phone records lead Tyler's friends who remember are also trying to remember exactly what happened, his mother and everyone else to think that

they probably separated just after that. And again, Sandra was frustrated by the fact that police waited two months to talk to Tyler's friends, because even though, as we said before, and I want to make this clear, there's absolutely no reason to believe they were in any way involved in his disappearance. They were his friends. They did the right thing,

they immediately reported it to police. But as an investigator, I would have wanted to talk to them anyway, because they may re tiny details about the night before that could end up being crucial. We're all human, and to me it seemed like potentially these young men might have given more evidence to police at that time when their memories were fresh, simply because it must have been hard, much as they wanted to be helpful, it's hard to talk to someone's mom sometimes about a night of heavy

drinking and what they might have talked about. In my opinion, police detective should have questioned these guys immediately for several different reasons. After getting separated from his friends, Tyler walked the streets for the next forty minutes or so. During this time, he was making phone calls and sending snapchat messages. At eleven forty six pm, Tyler sent a snapchat message to another friend. It read quote, I don't know where

I am end quote. His final call was to a friend at eleven fifty After that, the friend called him back, but Tyler didn't answer. He never made another call. Something happened at around eleven fifty pm. When Sandra came back in to talk to police, she started to get the feeling that the detectives were kind of blowing her off and that something wasn't right. Sandra said they told her

to quote move on from this end quote. She said she felt as though she'd done something wrong by investigating, like the detectives were angry with her, and unfortunately, this is a reaction that we have all seen far too often in these kind of cases. She came back to the Gailsburg Police Department and had another meeting with the sergeant.

Sandra said that she was following up on some ATM footage. Remember, she had found the receipt saying Tyler had withdrawn some money from Wells Fargo on the night he went missing. She wanted to know if the detective had looked for it yet. And if they had, if Tyler had shown up on that footage. So Sandra was sitting there when the detective played this video, and even though he said that he had watched it and that Tyler was not on the video, Sandra said she was shocked when about

twelve minutes in, Tyler showed up on that video. Sandra was shocked when she saw that video, the one that the police detective insisted that he had seen, and also that Tyler was not in.

to get money? Could they have been planning to call a cab or were they going to go on to another bar or buy something else. Now at this point, I'm trying to put myself inside Sandra's mind. She's done her own detective work. She's fought to get this video after finding the receipt of her son going to an ATM. They assure her they've got the video, that they've looked at it and that her son is not on it.

And then right there in front of her eyes after the detective she claims, got a little bit of an attitude with her. She's finally sitting there and sees her son on that video. I cannot imagine how it would feel at that point. Of course, you're gonna wonder if they insisted they had looked at it and he wasn't on it, and you find out that's not true, what else did they miss did did they look at the video and just missed Tyler on it, or did they

never really look at it at all? Not surprisingly, at this point, Sandra explained that her relationship with the police department pretty much completely deteriorated. Detectives told Sandra their theory that Tyler had been black out drunk and that he drowned. Case closed, Sandra went through the process of filing a formal complaint. Sandra, along with her family, opened their own

tip line. They offered a five thousand dollars reward, which was eventually raised to ten thousand dollars for any information that would help lead to an arrest and conviction. She started a Facebook page, Justice for Tyler Smith, which led to over twelve thousand followers and hundreds of comments and tips. Sandra said that she and her family asked about other

surveillance videos from other businesses in the area. They were heartbroken to learn that a lot of the videos had been overridden after around two weeks after Tyler's death, So, she says, pull waited too long. Again, this is devastating and happens in so many cases, and this, in my opinion, is something that should never happen. That surveillance footage should have been a requested The next day. Sandra said she and her family did not give up. They tried to

retrace Tyler's steps. They knew he had been seen at several establishments around town, including the Cherry Street Bar. They talked to the manager, and the manager of Cherry Street Bar told law enforcement that Tyler was seen leaving there with his friend Evan at around ten thirty. Sandra was also trying to figure out under what circumstances Tyler got separated from his friends. She said that she asked police if they looked for Tyler's friends or their cars separately

from Tyler in that surveillance footage. She said she was shocked when they asked her, why would we do that? She said she was further discouraged when she learned that police had not contacted many nearby businesses. Casey's on Northwest Main Street Now Casey's was very close to where Tyler's body was found, and the manager there was willing to give Sandra six hours of footage between ten pm on the night of the fourteenth and four am the next day,

September fifteenth. This was the crucial time period when Tyler went missing. Sandra said she also saw her son on that tape. This was the last video surveillance footage of her son alive that we know of. We're going to get more into the health app in a minute, because, as it turned out, Tyler's phone had a wealth of information on it that was not pulled by the police and not related to anything involving as GPS. In fact, I think this is pretty genius and could have impacts

in a lot of cases. So I'm going to talk about that in a second. Sandra was getting closer. She still didn't know what happened to her son, but the window of time when it happened was getting smaller and smaller. She reached out to other members of the community for help. This included Gee Wright with a Missing Person's Awareness network. That organization made a Facebook live. In that Facebook live, they followed the steps that Tyler took on September fourteenth,

when he was last seen alive. They released the surveillance video from Casey's General Store on Maine and West Streets. That footage showed Tyler walking past there toward the direction of the canal where his body was found. Sandra said she saw something else on that final video of Tyler. She saw several cars following her son at around eleven fifty, including a police car. Sandra and her family went for a meeting on January third, twenty nineteen with the city manager,

the city attorney, and the chief of police. She said, quote, they told us that they failed us and communication could have been better and our treatment could have been better. They said this had been a learning experience and that the investigation was still open and active.

on a project. He told me a little bit more about it, and we met with Sandy and Keith and gush. Within a half hour looking over the stuff that she had, I realized that it was a really, really bad investigation. I can't even describe how bad the investigation was. I mean, it was really really bad. And what amazed me about it is, you know, these were the parents of a kid, and she had everything. She had the autopsy photos, she had,

the police report, she had everything. And I told her, I said, well, give me the information and I'll get back to you.

So Mitchell Drake was literally able to trace how Tyler took his last steps. Sandra said, Mitchell Drake talked to Robbie and Evan, Tyler's friends. He was a fresh set of eyes with a balanced approach, and she felt that's what the case needed. Mitchell analyzed the health app data. He also walked the area where Tyler's body was found many times. According to Mitchell Drake's report, Tyler's body was found about nineteen hours after he stopped moving. Tyler Smith

was last seen at the corner Connection Tavern. This was about eleven thirty. He was walking northbound along that road right by Casey's General Store. That's at two twenty three West Main Street in Galesburg. He was walking along Northwest Street. Then that street dead ended at an iron fence. This is about two blocks away from the place where he was last seen. So what Mitchell Drake did was basically

break down Tyler's average step length. He figured out from eleven twenty to eleven fifty two, Tyler was walking at basically an average walking speed. He stopped a couple times for around one minute and forty five seconds each. This is when he was walking around lost, calling his friends, and sending snapchats. In the time period from eleven twenty to eleven fifty, so thirty minutes, Tyler walked two thousand,

nine hundred and three feet. But then just before eleven fifty one, in what we now know were the last couple of minutes of his life, something changed. Something happened. At that point, Tyler started taking much larger step links, which means, according to Mitchell Drake, Tyler started running. For the last four hundred and seventy nine feet, Tyler was running at full speed. So why was he running? Did he get scared for some reason? Did he see someone

or something that scared him. Tyler's mom had seen a police car pass at eleven fifty. Now, there's no suggestion that Tyler had any kind of encounter with the officer, but maybe just seeing a police car frightened him for some reason. That does seem a little bit logical because remember he was literally about to become a police officer. But who knows, maybe in his mind somewhere he didn't want to get picked up for being intoxicated. This is

all pure speculation. Mitchell Drake pointed out that there was a railroad bed and railroad tracks out there, very rocky uneven tern did someone grab Tyler out in the darkness. She and Mitchell Drake asked the Illinois State Police to do some more investigation, and they were successful because in September of twenty twenty, the Illinois State Police Department of Criminal Investigations said they become involved and they were able

to request and get a second autopsy. Sandra said she's not totally sure what the state of the investigation is right now, but she does believe that police are still following up on Leith. We're going to get a lot more into it next week. There's a lot more to this case, including leeds about a potential white supremacist and his friend who were allegedly bragging about beating Tyler up.

They're also working to decrypt Tyler's phone, and more work is apparently being done at a cold case institute in South Carolina, and Sandra says despite her difficulties with the police in the past, she is continuing to pass along all really of an information to them. Mitchell Drake has said that in his opinion, the investigation by the police was mismanaged from the very beginning. He said police did

not follow the proper investigated protocol. He said no crime scene technician was sent to the scene, and after they pulled the metadata from the photos that were sent of the autopsy, Mitchell and Sandra say they figured out that autopsy had been done in just thirty one minutes for a potential homicide, for the unexplained death of a twenty three year old young man with absolutely no health problems.

Then there were the marks on Tyler's wrists and the other injuries on Tyler's face, the fact that Tyler's feet were very close to the wall of the canal. Mitchell and Sandra both feel that he just couldn't have landed that way naturally, And we've already talked about the fact that his poems were facing upward. Mitchell said, in addition to that, the authorities did not look for DNA underneath

Tyler's fingernails, which he considers a huge oversight. He said that there are marks on Tyler's head, around his wrist, and on the back of his hand and on his back, many injuries that he said just are not explained. He also criticized the first autopsy. He said no X rays were taken and that Tyler's neck had not been dissected to see if there were injuries there that could have

contributed to his death. According to Mitchell Drake's report, his conclusion is that the most likely explanation is that Tyler Smith was beaten by persons not yet known, and that that beating had directly led to his death. And Mitchell wrote, quote he was likely unconscious prior to his final placement

in Cedar Fort Creek end quote. In July of twenty twenty, Tyler Smith's body was exhumed and a second autopsy was performed, and this time the results were completely different because the second autopsy found that Tyler had not drowned, but that he had died directly as a result of catastrophic injuries sustained in the fall.

Catherine Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts. Special thanks for the research assistance provided by Amy Tubbs. Music contributed by Ben Sale. Executive producers of Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and LC Crowley. 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 or five that's six seven eight seven four four six ' one four or five. School of Humans,