Marlena Childress Pt. One

Welcome back to the Path within Chili. I'm Robin, I'm Jules, and I'm Ashley. Let's dive right into this week's case. April sixteenth, nineteen eighty seven, Union City, Tennessee, four year old Marlena Childress vanishes from her front yard after her mother, Pamela Bailey, claims she saw a red car driving away from their house. Two months later, Pam confesses that she

accidentally killed Marlin and tossed her body into a river. Pam soon recounts her confession and maintains it was coerced and with no other evidence to implicate her, she's not indicted for her daughter's disappearance. Over the next several years, there are a number of twists and turns, including eyewitness fightings to suggest Marlena is still alive and Pam being implicated in another crime, but Marlena is never found.

After that the path went chilly. So today we will be chronicling a pretty controversial missing children's case, the nineteen eighty seven disappearance a four year old Marlena Childress. This case was featured on UNSAWD Mysteries, but it's pretty unique and that the show only aired the segment once and never did so again,

apparently at the request of Marlena's family. I am pretty certain that I saw this segment on TV when it originally aired in September of nineteen ninety, and while it is currently not available on the show's official film Rise channel, I rewatched it when another user upload it to YouTube a few years ago. What's particularly bizarre about this story is that Marlene's mother, Pamela Bailey, would confess

to accidentally killing her. Pam soon recanted her confession, and there have been eyewitness sighting some Marlena to support the idea that she was still alive somewhere after she went missing. I know that when I watched the Unsolved Mystery segment again, I went back and forth on this case and soon fell down a massive rabbit hole after doing further research. I covered it on the Trail When Cold four and a half years ago, but I thought now would be a good

time to revisit it on the Path When Chili. So this sounds like a case that I'm going to be mesmerized with, because it's almost as if there's going to be I'm in this identification, which you both know I don't like I don't like eyewitness testimonies right, in these eyewitness accounts because oftentimes we've been

skewed by so many different factors of what we've actually seen. And I also it sounds like we're going to talk about a potential false confession, right and so is it was Pam telling the truth or wasn't she These are the kinds of things that fascinate me when we look at a case. So you've got to tell me, Moore. Our story begins in Union City, Tennessee, in nineteen eighty seven. Our central figure is four year old Marlena Childress,

who lives with her twenty two year old mother, Pamela Bailey. Pam's divorced from Marlene's father, Kevin Childress, and is currently married to another man, Johnny Bailey, and the couple will also have a four month old infant son named Damon. On April sixteenth, Johnny's seven year old son from a previous marriage, Jerry Bailey, was visiting their home until he was picked up shortly

before at three pm by Jerry's mother, Mona Watts. At around three thirty, Pam claimed that Marlene was playing outside alone in the front yard while she was in the house, Pam suddenly heard the squeal of some skidding car tires, and when she glanced outside the window, she said she saw a two door red car speeding away. Even though Pam never caught a glimpse of the driver, she noticed that the vehicle had license plates from mccracking County, Kentucky.

Shortly thereafter, Pam went outside to check on her daughter, who was surprised to discover that Marlena was gone. After searching the neighborhood and failing to find her, Pam contacted the police set around four to fifteen to report Marlena missing. A massive search of the area was eventually organized by law enforcements and thousands of volunteers, but they failed to turn up any trace of Marlena. The most promising lead was the red car Pam claimed she had seen driving away

from her house at around two o'clock that afternoon. Pam had dropped off Marlena and her stepbrother, Jerry, had a grocery store two blocks away in order to purchase candy. Jerry told police that before they went back home, he saw Marlena briefly speaking with a man next to a red car outside the store. Though he didn't hear the conversation. Other witnesses from the store, including the owner, also saw this and described the man as looking like he might

belong to a motorcycle gang. The witness's description of the vehicle matched the description of the red car that Pam had scene, and it also had plates from a krack in County. However, this lead turned out to be a dead end, as the man scene outside the store was eventually tracked down and ruled out as a suspect. Marlene's biological father, Kevin Childress, lived in Union City, but he was cleared of any involvement, as was her stepfather,

Johnny Bailey, who was at work that afternoon. So let me ask you guys this. You say that Marlina was snacked by this red car around three thirty, and then mom goes and scours the neighborhood for her and reports her missing at four fifteen. Okay, fair enough. I guess if you thought maybe you knew the red car, you might start looking. But it sounds like there were tires squealing out. They were skinting off like a very hurried

escape with your baby in the car. As a mother, I feel like I would have immediately contacted nine to one, or at least like some boy in the home, like help me, help me, something happened. Maybe I'm not in my right mind to call nine one one, but I would call someone. I don't think I'd set off on a forty five minute searge before I asked for help. No, no, not for a car screeching

in your front yard. Your child is gone. I think nine one one or whatever police hotline they had, because maybe they didn't have nine one one at the time, would have been the appropriate response. Even running over to the neighbor and being like she's gone, she's gone, call the police.

But going for a drive around the neighborhood is just something that you would do if you thought your child that was older might have just wandered off, and so you're going to look and see, oh, maybe they're at a neighborhood kids place, not just hoping that you're going to come across this random red car again. Yeah, I mean her Baker would be totally rational if she had no idea what happened to Marlina, if she just thought that she wandered

off. But if you hear it, the squealing tires in the sound of a car that should be a major red flag. And this is kind of like another red flag here that she gives an accurate description of this car that she encountered a couple hours earlier, and you're thinking, wow, this sounds pretty believable. It has the same license plates, this sounds like this, and this guy did have contact with Marlena. It sounds like this could be a promising leave. But then they quickly ruled this guy out, and you

seem to wonder could this be part of a fabricated cover story? And Pam is using details that she recalled from earlier that afternoon. I was wondering if she and Jerry had actually said on and talked about that encounter, because as you were describing it, I'm like, this is it, This is it. I mean, obviously, as a mom, I would have told you about the red car. Then my little one would have told you about this red car that Marlena was talking to. And it all lines up, and

then of course you dropped the bomb. Nope, quickly ruled out as a suspect. And I'm thinking, oh no, oh no, I don't even have each actual human child, but I know with the dog park, a couple of times, Winston's got away on me for literally like a second, and I can't see him anywhere, and that feeling of panic just like rises up in your gut and you're above to freak out and like go looking. I don't think you just get in the car and do will leisurely drive around

and see if she's there. It just doesn't seem to line up with the emotional intensity that you think would happen if you saw a red car, you heard screeching tires, and now your child is missing. It just seems incongruous. That's exactly right, Jule. You nailed it. Now. If I walked outside and Ray wasn't right in the front yard, I might spend five

minutes like panicking and looking around because I don't see her. But Pam witnesses supposedly this dramatic exit with her kiddo, like you know, something has gone wrong. That's what throws me off. A little search of the neighborhood because your kiddo's playing outside. Okay, that's not what happened here. So during this time period, Pam went on the local news to make a public plea for her daughter's safe return, but the ordeal took a considerable toll on her.

A month and a half after Marlda went missing, she checked herself into a hospital for exam ostuen. Pam was soon released from the hospital, but nine days later, on June eighth, it was revealed that Pam and confessed to being responsible for Marlena's disappearance. The confession was made to Stan Cabness, a private investigator who had been hired by Pam's family to work on the case.

According to Pam, she was trying to attend to her infant son, Damon, but Marlena was misbehaving and running in and out of the house. In the heat of the moment, Pam turned around and slapped Marlena so hard that she fell over and accidentally hid her head on a table, causing her death. Pam subsequently placed Marlena's body in her pickup truck and drove towards the

nearby town of Martin. Along the way, she stopped to phone a sixty five year old family friend who lived in Martin named P. L. Summers, in order to request his assistance. Somers then met Pam on a bridge at Campground Road, and they both proceeded to dispose of Marlena's body by throwing her into the north fork of the Obayan River. This entire confession was recorded

by Stan Cabness, who subsequently turned it over to the police. Pam would be arrested and charged with second degree murder and was placed in a mental health institution for a court ordered psychological evaluation. Hundreds of people performed a massive search of the Obayan River for five straight days, but they failed to turn up any trace of Marlena's body. Police questioned p L. Somers, the man

whom Pam had named as her accomplice, but he denied any involvement. He admitted that he knew Pam personally, but claimed to have not actually seen her in two years. Following the announcement of Pam's confession, many of her neighbors gave conflicting statements to the media. Some of them believed Pam was a good mother and did not suspect any issues in her family, while others requilled having seen bruises on Marlena's body and wondered if abuse had taken place. So do

we know much about stan Cabness? Was he former police officer. You often see detectives that will retire and then become private investigators. What do we know about Stan? I think he may have been a former police officer at some

point, but he was long retired at some point. But this is what makes this case stick out from others involving supposedly false confessions is that the majority of them are done under rest, will being questioned by police officers, whereas Stan Cabinets is a private investigator hired by Pam's own family who should be on her side. So as we're going to talk about, he would deny that

there was any coersion. He said that Pam made this confession voluntarily, and it just seems weird to me that he would try to force the woman that he's technically working for to falsely confess to something she didn't do. Okay, So that's exactly what I was going to ask, because when you have a private investigator, they typically are there are a private entity that you're hiring,

just like their name implies. And so the family saying, hey, we don't think the police are doing enough, or we think we could be doing more or supplement a police investigation, can you help us? Now? Stan probably had law enforcement training. A lot of private investigators do, so My question was going to be, you know, was he employing the read techniques

while he's interviewing her, or quote in quote interviewing her interrogating her? Did he come in thinking Pam's a suspect and saying, hey, sometimes we make mistakes. I know you're a good mom, but right or I can help you get out of this. We know those tactics are used by law enforcement. But like you said, Stan's gonna later say listen, I'm working for

the family. And Pam comes in and openly confesses to this crime. WHOA that is wild because, typically, like you said, a false confession is generated out of you know, eighteen hours of darrest at a law enforcement agency. Yeah. I'm now going to share more specific details about how this confession took place, because in two weeks of her arrest, Pam surprised everyone by

recanting her confession. She claimed she was feeling emotional straining and was under the heavy influence of medication for depression following her hospital stay, and that Cabnets took advantage of this in order to coerce a confession out of her. According to Pam, Cabness told her that everyone believed she was guilty He said a witness had seen her throw Marlena's body into the river, and there was also physical

evidence which implicated her. Cabnet told Pam that she would go to the electric chair if she did not confess to what she had done, and advised her to say that Marlena's death was an accident so people wouldn't think she was a cold blooded murderer. Since Pam was emotionally spent by this point, she said that she went along with Cabinets and told him what he wanted to hear,

but now claimed that nothing she said was true. Well. Cabnets denied these allegations and said that Pam spoke to him voluntarily without provocation, because she felt guilt and remorse over what she had done. In response, Cabness decided to hold a press conference in which he played a five minute exert from Pam's tape recorded confession and expressed his belief that she was being truthful about everything she said. If that's the way it went down, I can't imagine what Stan's thinking.

He is telling her, Hey, listen, this is a piece of information I got. I'm going to be transparent. I have someone who says they saw you throw Marlena's body into the river, and there's supposedly physical evidence. Was there really physical evidence? Oh not at all. Like all this stuff that Cab mis allegedly said is not true. There was no witness, there was no physical evidence. But he denies ever saying this. Like he says that Pam was making this up and that she confessed to him just to

get stuff off her chest. So I guess it depends on which side you believe. Okay, Okay, fair enough. I was going to say, now, hold on, those are good tactics to you. I get it. So Pam is saying I was, I was under darrest, he was using those kind of tactics, and Stan is saying what we all were implying. No, my actual clients, one of them came forward and says, this is what happened, right that, this is what I saw. I

find it fascinating. Right now. I'm very confused as a person who would be in that position, a mom whose daughter or is missing, possibly deceased. I can only imagine how upset and emotionally and kind of unsound you would

be in that situation. But I also feel like your private investigator might not be the one that you're going to open up and confess to Even if he's using some of these techniques, like you're not fearing that you're under arrest, you're not fearing that you can't get out of the room because the police said if you confess now, they'll take the death penalty off the table. None

of that is happening here. So it still feels even if he's talking to her as a private investigator, and even if he's saying, hey, someone told me this, there's some evidence there, it would be almost laughable in that scenario because she wasn't sitting there for eighteen hours without food, she wasn't being threatened with all these other you know things. I don't know, just not the private investigator. It feels weird that a false confession would come out

of that situation. I don't think so either. I feel like, what would be his motivation in trying to get her to confess he's under her employ Like if he was working for the police, it would make sense. But I just don't see any underlying motivation there, and like, how could he compel her to give that type of information. It just it feels like it has to be genuine. I mean, unless she was delusional or something like that. I don't know. Is there any diagnosis for her robin or do

we just know that she's psychologically and emotionally very vulnerable. It just said she was under depression and that they gave her a lot of drugs while she was hospitalized. And by this point, until she made this confession, I never got any sense that anyone considered her to be a suspect. So it's not like she's facing a lot of public pressure because people think that she killed her

daughter. It just this confession just seemed to come out of nowhere. And that's the point is that you can believe the confession is genuine, but if she's under a lot of medication, does she really know what she's saying. Pam then raised some more eyebrows by changing her story again, this time instead pointing the finger at pl Summers and implicating him as an accomplice who helped her

dispose of Marlena's body, she now said he was the sole perpetrator. Pam claimed that Somers had sexually abused her as a child, and a lot of this abuse took place at the same bridge where she had confessed to tossing Marlene's body into the Obayan River on the afternoon of April sixteenth. Pam accused Summers of showing up at her home to make sexual advances on her again, but

when she resisted, Somers responded by abducting Marlena. Pam said she never told anybody about this earlier because Somers had threatened the lives of herself and her husband once again. Somers denied all these allegations, and since he seemed to have a credible alibi on the day Marlena went missing, police became satisfied that he

wasn't involved. What It's worth mentioning that in September nineteen eighty seven, Summers would be charged with aggravated sexual battery for allegedly fondling a nine year old boy, though investigators maintained that this incident had no connection to Marline's case. It is weird, though, that Summers gets pulled into this case. I mean, you have Pam who is coming to her private investigator and talking to him, and then she says, oh, yeah, this guy Summers actually helped

me dispose of her body. I stopped and called him, went and got him right, He met me and we dumped this body, and then you said Summers was actually pretty much cleared by police, like he had an alibi for that day exactly. Yeah, So it's kind of a kind of a weird twist and turns here because he's being implicated in the crime and it's like,

Okay, he's definitely innocent of any involvement in Marline's disappearance. But then they mentioned, oh yeah, he would later get arrested for actually fondling a nine year old boy, so he may actually be a sexual predator even if he had nothing to do with this case. Unbelievable. It sounds like those are unrelated incidents, even if he did help, you know, get rid of Marline. Marline supposedly hit her head when she was slapped by Mom.

But why brings Summers in if there really was where you know, Summers had come and made an advance with Pam or years earlier they had had some kind of disgruntled disagreement and she just latches onto like who in my life, Like am I frustrated with or do would I not care if they got in trouble? And she just picks this guy because if it's interesting to me that he actually has an alibi and the police verify that. But he's a really critical

part of this story when you listen to the details. Well, Pam did claim that Summers did abuse her when she was a child, sexually abuser, So I almost wonder if that part of the story is true, and this is kind of her former revenge that I will falsely implicate you in the disappearance of my daughter and I don't care if you're interested or not, because you're still a bad person. And it's almost like a thing. If I'm going

down, I'm going to take you with me. I mean, that would be some decent kind of revenge because it did seem to bring to light the potential that he was capable of doing these things. And then when he's later accused of fondling that nine year old boy, it pretty much lines up with

Pam saying. So it seems like there was truth to potentially both parts of you know, her story where she's saying that she did kill Marlda it was an accident, but somehow it just brings in pl Summers because part of her must have always been seething if that was indeed true, that this man had gone away with it, and maybe she thought that there were other children that could have been victims and maybe victims now, so that was maybe a way

to get revenge and maybe a way to mitigate harm on other children. So Pam's father lawaide Strickland, would point towards another potential lead, as neighbors had

recalled seeing a blue car near Pam's home around the time Marlina disappeared. Investigators were certain that the blue car belonged to Johnny Bailey's ex wife, Morna Watts, who had stopped by the house to pick up her son shortly before three pm that day, but Luade said that at least one witness had recalled seeing a second blue car in the neighborhood sometime between three fifteen and three thirty after

Mona had all he left. Regardless, this lead never went anywhere, and after on her going her psychological evaluation, Pam was deemed mentally competent to stand trial. The district attorney eventually agreed to reduce the charge against her from second degree murder to voluntary manslaughter, which only would have carried a prison sense of two to ten years. The case went to a grand jury, but since Marlina's body cannot be found, and the only evidence against Pam was her questionable

confession. They ultimately decided not to indict her. Pam continued to maintain her innocence and decided to escape the spotlight by moving back to her original hometown of Mayfield, Kentucky. So let's dissect that a little bit low Wade Strickland. So Pam's dad says, listen, guys, there's a lead. There's a blue car that was in the area. I'm assuming that the private investigator and police are saying, yes, we're aware there was a blue car that was

Mona Watts. She was picking up the baby right from the house. But Dad is saying, no, no, no, no, no, there is a second blue car. This is a different blue car that was suspicious

around the time that she disappeared. What's very confusing. We know that the witnesses may or may not have been accurate, but we also know that Pam throughout this red car philosophy, right, So we have multiple suspicious cars that the police are trying to track down, and it really may be a farce that Pam was using information from the little boy and Dad's using information that witnesses misstook for Mona's car. So it's so difficult because Dad's fighting for answers right.

He wants to know where his grand baby is, and you have people who are feeding him information which just simply may not be related to the case, and it may be. I mean, look at it from laid Strickland's point of view. He hires this private investigator who he thinks is in his corner and is going to help him find Marlena, but instead he winds up getting a confession from his own daughter who's about to be charged with murder. So I'm sure that Lais is very desperate here. He's thinking, I got

to find some new evidence that points away from Pam being responsible. And that's when this new lead comes out about the second blue car, which may not be true at all. But from Lawaite's point of view, he's clinging to everything, saying, there has to be all evidence here that points away from my daughter because I was trying to help her and I wound up hiring a private investigator who got her charged with murder and got her to confess. It's

also wild here that Pam isn't indicted. I mean, I agree, as a prosecutor I'd say, hey, I don't know that I have a lot of information to go on here other than this kind of questionable confession. But guys, how many crazy confessions have we heard where that's the only piece of evidence and it still goes to trial and the persons still indicted. Do we know much about her socioeconomic status, her race, these kinds of things.

Did that play a factor, you think? And why they didn't move forward when we do see an other wrongful conviction cases just as much evidence being used to send somebody to for life. Well, she was a white woman, and she had other children, and I don't think she was from like an upper class family. I think she was just like solidly middle class. I think her father, he was like a businessman in town, so he was

a bit prominent. So I think it was kind of a thing where, well, if we want to indict this woman, like a person who was accused of murdering her own child, we at least have to find other corroborating evidence. And all they had was a confession which she wound up precanting, so they did not think that was a solid case. It seems so crazy given the climate at the time where it was, so it was a widely held belief that if you confess to a crime, you're guilty of it.

So, like you said, Ash, I'm just shocked that they didn't bring an indictment against her. Maybe because she was vulnerable and it was clear she was dealing with the mental health issues. Maybe they themselves had some doubt about the validity of the confession. I think that had to be what it was, right, and she does have other children, like, we better be darn right that this is what happened. If we're going to take a mom away from our kids who's a grieving mom, and these kinds of things.

What's fascinating is that there have been these wild cases, Like you said, Jewels, it wasn't until like even today, if you ask people to people falsely confess, they say no way, Like, no one would confess to

hurting anyone, much less their child, right. But if you look at cases like Norfolk four, where up to seven people were tried wrongfully in a case because of these wild false confessions that don't fit the details at all, and you still saw the prosecutor moving forward, You saw their own defense attorneys saying if he confessed, he's guilty. Let me try to just minimize the

charges here. It's crazy that they didn't indict her. I think another factor, though, is that it was much less common to bring someone to trial for murder without a body during the late nineteen eighties, and Marlena they still hadn't founder. She was still a missing person, and I think they were thinking, well, we can't even prove that she's dead. And as we're going to talk about, they would have a lot of eyewitness sightings pop up

in the next few years. And I think if PAM was going on trial at this time and these sightings took place, that could have been a disaster for their case. So they definitely made the right decision. The investigation would now focus on eyewitness sightings, which seemed to suggest that Marlena might still be alive. In November nineteen eighty eight, Social Services received a report about child

neglect which was supposedly taking place at a home in Anniston, Alabama. A couple lived there with ten children, and believe it or not, their last name was also Childress, even though they were of no relation to Marlena's family. A social worker went to visit the home and spoke to a young girl who apparently said that her name was Marlena Childress. The name sounded familiar, and the social worker later realized that she had previously seen Marlena Childress's missing poster,

and the girl she spoke to bore a resemblance to her. The authorities were notified, but by the time they arrived at the children's home, the entire family was gone. The Childresses were described as having a transient existence, as they would move around from state to state and live off governmental assistance checks, and it turned out that the father, Oliver her childress, had a

restaurence on him. Neighbors were shown Marlena's photograph and they identified her as the same child they'd seen living at the residence, though they claimed she went by the name Crystal. They believed the family was much more protective of Crystal than the other children, and that they rarely let her out of the house. The most convincing piece of evidence that Crystal might be Marlena is that she was described as having silver capped teeth, which Marlena also had at the time she

went missing. Holy hell, what an interesting turn of events in this story. It sounds like a couple things are going on here the social worker it might be slightly questionable because she said, like, oh, I remember seeing her face on a missing person's poster. Once we start seeing people's faces,

right, everyone who's heard me rant before knows this. But once we start seeing someone's face and it's in the media, it's on these posters, people start to resemble that person because we're looking for them, right, We start to see them in that face on different people in the community, and we question, is that her? Could that be the person they're looking for? So we already have this little girl's face imprinted in our mind if someone we're

looking for. But I am more convinced by the neighbors who say, look, we saw her from time to time, not as much as the other kids, which is very suspicious, but we saw her and that does look like the little girl that we saw here at the home near us. So for me, that's actually a little bit more convincing than that one time stopped

by the social worker. I do find it weird though, that we have these diffingering accounts that this girl apparently went by the name Crystal, but the girl, when she spoke to the social worker, said her name was Marlena, and that makes you think, oh, she might be a kidnaped child, that even though she's supposed to be going under this new name, she subconsciously just gave out her old name, and that's what caused the social worker

to put two and two together. But I honestly cannot think of another missing person's case where a family with the exact same last name as the missing child were accused of abducting said child. And it's just like, why do the odds on that? Like Childress does not sound like the most common last name,

So it's a very bizarre situation. So six months after they left Alabama, the children's family were finally tracked down in Florida, but Marlina was not with them, and there was a strange discrepancy with the girl known as Crystal Oliver. Childress believed that Crystel must have been the girl the social workers spoke to and confused with Marlena. It would turn out that while nine of the

ten children were biological members of the family, Crystal was not. Oliver claimed that Crystell's mother was from Lubbock, Texas, and had given the child to him two years ago. He even produced a note which read quote, I'm giving her to Oliver childress Well. Police were not able to authenticate the note or verify this story, but Oliver be arrested for sexually abusing two of his

children, all of the children replacing foster care. But as far as I can tell, no evidence was ever found it conclusively proved that Marlina had ever been with this family. So you're telling me that they find this family and that's the only kid that's not with them, even though she had been given to the family, Like, tell me where this kid was, then there had to have been a cover up story for oh, yeah, we were given this kid, and then what do they give her to someone else?

Yeah, it's never been specified here, like what actually happened to Crystal, because unfortunately this is where this part of the story ends. But it just seems like quite a coincidence that they have ten kids and the only one who's not a biological member of their family is the one that everyone believes is Marlena. And that note is one of the lamest things I've ever heard, where it's like, oh, here's a note that's someone gave me saying that they're

giving me the trial that must be conclusive evidence that this is true. Okay, so, and she's the only kid that's not there when the police show up. I want two letters to be produced, Robin. I want this jewel Kayler's salad bar letter, and I want this letter exactly. Well, it's only like five words on a napkin. Yeah. There was another potential sighting of Marlena, which took place in Leonora City, Tennessee, in September

nineteen eighty nine. This time, a woman named Amy Spoon was shopping with her own children at a department store when they started playing with a young girl. Amy briefly spoke to the girl until another woman, whom she assumed was a child's mother, called her over. Amy said the woman looked angry and the girl seemed reluctant to go to her. Shortly thereafter, Amy saw a missing person's flyer with Marlene's photograph and believe that she recognized her as the girl

from the department store. Marlene's case wound up being featured on Unsolved Mysteries in an episode that aired in September fifth, nineteen ninety. It's worth mentioning that this was not a new episode, as a show would sometimes film new segments and insert them into reruns which aired during the summer and early fall, so

Marlena's story was featured alongside some older segments that had already aired before. The segment mentioned Amy's sighting of Marlena in Lenore City, but its primary focus was on the even more compelling eyewitness sighting. Was this witness, Amy Spoon? Was she shown the mother of this other childress family? Like? Could it have been that? Mom? I do think it was because they actually found the children's family before the sighting took place, and they were taken into custody.

So I guess they were going under the assumption that if the childresses gave away this girl, that maybe this woman that she was with could have been her new caregiver at that time. The sighting in question occurred on April the twenty second, nineteen eighty seven, only six days after Marlena went missing. It took place in Memphis, which is one hundred miles from Union City,

at an establishment called Jean's Hair Salon. Gale Reich and Janice Wells, a pair of hairdresser was working there that day, claimed that a young girl matching Marlena's description walked into the salon, She was accompanied by a boy who appeared to be around six years old, as well as two women, a younger one in her twenties or thirties and an elderly lady who looked like she was

in her fifties or sixties. While Gail was given the girl a haircut, she started crying out, quote, I want my mommy, I want to go home. The younger woman barely reacted to the girl's crying and did not attempt to console her, which made Gail suspect that the woman might not actually be the girl's mother. The older woman soon spoke out and said, quote, be a good girl, Marlena, and will take you to the movies. The group then left in a vehicle which was described as having Maryland license

plates. Later that same day, Gail went out on her break and stopped by a convenience store where she noticed a newspaper which is running a story about Marlina Childress's disappearance and had her photograph on the front page. Gail instantly recognized her as the girl she had seen at the salon, and when Janice Wells was shown the photo, she concurred, do we know if they were dramatically

changing her hairstyle. By any chance, there's never been specified. They didn't really say that she was like changing her hair much as all at all. It just sounded like it was more like a standard visit. But I could see something like this happening. If you've got like a child that's been abducted, you want to try to dramatically alter her appearance. Yeah, that's what I was wondering. So they're taking her to this hairstylist. However, I

will tell you, as much as I wouldness identifications stink. The fact that these ladies actually spent time with her and they were given this kind of I mean, imagine when you're in a chair getting your hair cut, the hairstylist is looking in the mirror and talking to you. You know, they're looking at your faith. They're right up next to your face, cutting your bangs or trimming the front of your hair. So there really was a lot of

eye contact on this little one. I could see the influence of like let's say they had said, you know, hey, Melissa, be a good girl, will take you to the movies, and then they go read the newspaper and the names Marlina. I can see where subconsciously facts might change. But having so much visual exposure to this kiddo, seeing the dynamic between the parties, this one sounds like a more reputable sighting of the little girl than

anything we've heard up to this point in my opinion. Yeah, especially the fact that they saw Marlena's photo on break like only a short time later after this girl had been on the salon, so it was still freshen or memory, whereas a lot of these mistaken eyewitness sightings are from people who see photographs of the missing person like days or weeks after the facts, so their memories playing tricks on them. And if they call nine on one or is there

something in response to the Unsolved Mysteries. No, they'd called nine on one because I think this was only six days after Marlina actually went missing, so they decided to call them, And I think Unsolved Mysteries made this the primary focus of the segment because they believe this was the most believable sighting of Marlena. Yeah, so far, I would concur Following the eyewitness sighting of the little girl in the salon, Marlena's maternal grandfather, Luaide Strickland, eventually traveled

to Memphis to perform his own independent investigation into this sighting. He came to believe that the younger woman seeing at the hair salon might have been a local waitress who had allegedly left town in the morning after Marlena went missing before returning a few days later. Laid decided to take Gayel and Janis to the waitress's restaurant while she was working, and they both identified her as the woman from

the salon. Luaide then showed the two hairdressers a photo lineup featuring six young boys. Gail and Janis both picked out a photo of a boy whom they recognized as the boy from the salon, before Lauade revealed to them that he was the waitress's son. After Lauaide shared this information with the police, they questioned the waitress, who denied having any knowledge of Marlena Childress. Since she passed a polygraph and investigators found no evidence to implicate her, they came to

believe that the waitress was probably not involved in Marlena's disappearance. But shortly after this questioning took place, Gail and Janis claimed they started receiving threatening phone calls at the salon from an anonymous female so eerie. I love this dad, whether he's accurate or not. I love how this granddaddy and dad is saying, like, all right, I hired a private investigator, which got me a false confession from my daughter, or a confession from my daughter. I'm

going to go out and do an investigation myself. I think I know what happened, and he's hunting down these people. I'm really trying to make a difference in this case and figure out what happened to his baby. It is crazy that these women not only said yes, that's the waitress, which okay, we're sitting face to face and being asked right, and we're being like a direct lineup, right, a direct identification of a single suspect is that

her? A lot of times again there's problems with that. It's called a show up, right, There's just one person, no one to compare them too, So show ups are really suspicious. But you then have this basically a police lineup of children, and they also pick out the waitress's son. Very eerie. I am glad police did follow up on his leads because a lot of times families are stifled. They're not really taken seriously, but it sounds like police went above and beyond. They gave a polygraph test, they

investigated this accusation, and they were cleared. Who knew that Gail and Janice were helping and made these threatening phone calls? Though if it's not the waitress, well it could be a thing though that if the waitress was angry that she was being falsely implicated in a missing children's case, she may have been bitter and decide I just take my child in here for a parsalonapointment, and

now you're accusing me of like abducting a child. And maybe she was just angry and the threatening phone calls had nothing to actually do with Marlena's disappearance. But I do think that Luaide Strickland is quite a unique character because he had no experience in law enforcement. He was not a private investigator. He ran a shoe repair business, and here he is like doing stuff like photo lineups and doing them properly in order to do his own independent investigation trying to find

his granddaughter. I really wonder what those other boys did look like, though, because when you do this like six pack lineup of these kids and you're doing it as a private investigator, not as the police. You have to wonder how similar in appearance were they did? They look very different, so it was like quite obvious that only one fit the criteria. I really would

like to see that six pack of child. I guess it's like a six pack of boys, right, And I'm curious where he got them from that he just like randomly take them out of a yearbook or something like that. And yes to say, and where did he get the photo of the waitress's son to begin with? Was I in the bushes taking photos of him as well? So very curious? Yeah, exactly, yea, so did Jules request for a six pack up young? Yeah, I would just like to

see because I would like to see the similarity in appearance. But then, yeah, it brings up the more bizarre thing of where did he get these pictures of children? He had like five black boys and one white one, and they actually picked out the correct one. Imagine that crazy. The Unsaw Mystery segment brought in over two hundred tips from viewers, but nothing that brought

the case any close or to a resolution. This would turn out to be the only time the segment ever aired on the show, as Due to the controversial nature of this case, Marlena's family apparently asked that it not be shown again, and on part two of this series, we're going to have a more in depth discussion about some issues with the alleged sighting of Marlena and Memphis. The case pretty much faded from the spotlight until a very unexpected new development

took place in two thousand and two. By this point, Pam Bailey was still living in Mayfield, Kentucky, with her husband Johnny and their son Damon, and she had since given birth to another son named Casey, who was now twelve years old. On the evening of April the twenty second, Pam told Casey that she was taking him somewhere for a quote unquote surprise. As they were driving, Pam gave Casey a handkerchief and told him to blindfold themselves

until they arrived. They wound up stopping at a rural cemetery, and while Casey was still blindfolded, Pam led him to a cemetery marker with the words son inscribed on it. She asked Casey sit down before she suddenly pulled out a knife and attacked him, stabbing Casey three times. In the neck and shoulder. Thankfully, Casey managed to kick his mother away and escape before running to a nearby house to see Kell. After he recovered from the attack,

Casey was released to the custody of his father. Huh yeah, wow what oh man. Sometimes I really wish we were on video. I would love to see a reaction to that. That's a lot of information to take in. Okay, Pam, Am I incorrect that Johnny and her had been separated. They must have gotten back together. I know she was separated from Marlina's father, Kevin Childress, and she was married to Johnny at the time Arlina

went missing, so they were still married after fifteen years. Okay, So Johnny stood by Pam through all this, and then they had their infant son at the time when Marlene and went missing. Okay, fair enough, I'm speechless. I mean, she found a grave. I'm assuming that said the word son. She surprises Casey by trying to take his life, and I'm assuming we're going to go right back into that psychiatric evaluation stage at this point.

Pretty much. Yeah, Like to this day, nobody really knows what her motive for doing this was and why she suddenly just decided to do this in two thousand and two, when she had pretty much put her life back together because she was no longer under suspicion. She hadn't been cleared as a suspect, but Marline's case had faded from the spotlight. But I have wondered that this was very close to the fifteen year anniversary of Marline's disappearance, and

I've always wondered if there's some significance for her choosing this particular date. Pam was quickly arrested and charged with attempted murder, but she claimed that she blacked out and had no memory of stabbing her son. She ultimately wound up pleading no contest a second degree assault. I'm received a ten year prison sentence. Johnny Bailey filed for divorce from Pam, but oddly, even though she had stabbed their son, Johnny publicly came to Pam's defense and campaigned for her release.

In two thousand and four, he claimed that Casey was no longer fearful of her and that he would have no problem with his ex wife around his children. Pam served her time and has since been released from prison, but her current whereabouts are unknown. This incident seemed to reaffirm the police's belief that Pam was responsible for Marlena's disappearance, as her attack on Casey happened to take

place only six days after the fifteenth anniversary. However, even though the investigation was reopened, no new evidence could be uncovered to implicate Pam, and after more than thirty five years, Marlene's whereabouts continued to remain unknown. So I guess you could say the path went chilly. There really is a lot of sadness surrounding Pam. Let's say that she did not kill Marlena, and that that was something that she did say in a state where she's really not healthy.

Right. We know that court psychiatric evaluations don't somebody's not struggling with mental health, right. They're proving is she competent to stand trial and is she quote insane, which is a legal term. So when we look at the findings that she was competent and stable with Marline's trial, that doesn't mean she wasn't struggling with depression and postpartum after having an infant son and these kinds of

things. So let's assume for a second Pam is not to blame for Marlina's disappearance and then coming up on the fifteen year anniversary, Johnny knows what She's well aware that his wife has been struggling since Marline's disappearance, possibly before Marline's disappearance, and now has this this break with reality and attacks her son.

It is either that he is absolutely naive and completely blind to the reality that his wife is dangerous, or he's empathetic and knowledgeable that she is mightily struggling and we have never gotten her help she needs because at some point he's still standing by her, saying she should be released. She's not a danger to

her son. Our son doesn't think she's a danger. So I'm in this position where I'm you know, part of me wants to hug Pam and get her mental health help, and the other part of me is going, WHOA, this isn't voting well for history and kind of recurrent behavior. What are your thoughts on that, Guys, Like, is this a pattern? It feels like it could be a pattern. But also if somebody you know is dealing with a lot of mental health issues, there isn't the same type of

responsibility for their actions. Like just to take for example, the case. I think it was in Canada with the Greyhound bus where the guy on the Greyhound bus basically like decapitated one of the people on the bus, and this individual ended up going in for psychiatric care I think for about eight years,

was stabilized, and then they were released. I do believe that they were schizophrenic, and so you know, the responsibility that is on the should of somebody who is dealing with mental illness and whose behavior could be corrected with the right pharmaceuticals. They then don't pose the risk that they posed when they were

unmedicated. So the fact that he's coming to Pam's defense, I think speaks highly of the fact that perhaps Pam was going through a very difficult time and maybe under the right medication and the right treatment, Pam no longer poses that risk, Because I think that's a bold statement. You have somebody who's essentially trying to kill the son that you share with Pam, and now you're saying that she doesn't pose a risk. So that seems like a one eighty from

how he must have been feeling right after the event. Yeah, it makes me want to know more about Pam's character and her background because We've had these allegations that perhaps she was abusive to Marlena before she went missing, though this was never corroborated, and it makes me wonder, like, did she really treat her children well during that fifteen year gap between nineteen eighty seven in two thousand and two, Because I don't think Johnny would be acting this way unless

he genuinely believed that Pam was a good mother, or maybe she was abusive, but he was just completely blind to it, and that's why he was still standing up for so. Like I mentioned in the intro, I recalled seeing this segment when it originally aired on Unsolved Mysteries in September of nineteen ninety, but hadn't really thought about the case that much until I found the segment on YouTube and rewatched it in twenty eighteen and immediately felt compelled to cover it

on the Trail Went Cold. It was quite a fascinating experience to dive down into the rabbit hole and follow all the twists and turns, and while putting my episode together, I changed my mind about certain things multiple times. There definitely is good reason to be suspicious of Pam Bailey and believed that she was responsible from Marlena's disappearance. Given that there was no other evidence to implicate her, it would be easy to believe that Pam's confession to killing Marlena was false.

But once you learned that she stabbed one of her other children fifteen years later, it's a lot harder to accept that she's an innocent victim. I mean, one of the original obstacles to be leaving that Pam killed Marlena is that she didn't seem to have any apparent motive. But as far as I can tell, there wasn't any discernible motive for her to establish son Casey. All she ever said is that she blacked out and could not even remember doing it. I don't know if that's actually true, but if it is,

who's to say that a similar situation couldn't have occurred with Marlena. But if, by chance, Pam was completely innocent in Marlene's case, could the strain of losing a child and being falsely accused have caused Pam to snap? Given that our attack on Casey took place only a few days after the fifteenth anniversary of Marlene's disappearance, it's not hard to believe there might be some sort of connection. Well, Robin, ironically, I did not even think about the

fact that you're right. If she claims that she actually snapped and doesn't remember what happened with Casey and she was capable of mentally kind of snapping in and out of this psychosis or kind of blacking out, could it have been something that happened when Marlena was hurt. Maybe, and that's why she made her confession that maybe she legitimately did not remember it for a couple months, but then after going under some medication staying in the hospital, it just suddenly came

back to her. She believed that she had harmed Marlena and then just decided to spill her guts about it. But then maybe couldn't even recall if it was real or not, and that's why she recanted her confession. It's very tempting to throw Pam to the wolves, but even after what she did to Casey, it's quite remarkable how much support she's continued to receive. How many other cases will you find where a mother goes to prison stabbing her own son,

and the child's father will publicly campaign for her early release. I don't know what it is, but it seems like even though Pam has harmed one child and is suspected of harming another, some people out there refused to believe she's a bad person. Of course, the biggest piece of evidence which might point away from Pam's involvement in Marlena's disappearance is that there seemed to be a lot of credible evidence to suggests Marlena was still alive after she was reported missing.

Now, I know we all must sound like broken records since we've said this so many times on our podcast, but it's worth reiterating. Eyewitness sightings in missing persons cases can be notoriously unreliable. Whenever a missing person's case gets extensive coverage in the media, which Marlena certainly did, it's inevitable that witnesses will come forward who believe they saw the victims somewhere, But more often than not, it turns out that they were mistaken and only saw someone else who

resembled the missing individual. However, a lot of credence was placed on the sighting of Marlena from the two hairdressers at the salon in Memphis, which took place six days after she originally vanished. A particularly convincing detail is that one of the women the girl was with actually referred to her as Marlena, which is not an overly common name. There's also the fact that this girl kept crying and saying I want my mommy. The women of the salon did not

even react to this. So why would this girl be asking for her mother if she was there with her. I'm still of the minds that of everything we've heard, these are the two women who likely would have had the best view of the little one that was sitting before them while they're cutting her hair, and more than that, while they're interacting with the entire group of people. There were two women there, Marlena's there and a little boy. They

were able to see this little girl close up. They were able to observe some really questionable behavior like I want my mommy, meaning she's not present with them. Kind of odd to take someone else's child to get their haircut, unless you know it's like someone really close with like I've asked my mother in law and my parents to help me with my little one, but as stranger taking her into the haircut place and her saying I want my mommy, them

telling her basically you behave and will do something fun for you. Trying to bribe her to behave and be quiet. All of that is very suspicious. And then this hairdresser goes on her break, picks up a newspaper and sees the story that there's this missing child that she's pretty confident she was just cutting this little one's hair. I still would love to know. Was it coloring

her hair, cutting it significantly shorter. Was it adding bangs when she didn't have them, because that would make sense that we would take her to a hairdresser and try to dramatically change her looks to conceal that we have this little kid. Unless you have a child in pageants, you're likely not going to be like bleaching or coloring their hair. So that would be a major red

flag if there was coloring involved. But even if there is a dramatic cut, right, because you can completely change the appearance of somebody, Like if somebody has really long hair and you cut bangs and you cut their hair into a bob, they can look like an entirely different person for multiple reasons because the hair is framing their face in different ways. But also hair can cover the body. It can make you look shorter. It can make you look

taller. It can really shift the way that others perceive you. So if you were trying to disguise the way that this child, potentially Marline, looked, then changing her appearance by way of her hair would be a good place to start. And particularly, let's say say theoretically they saw the newspaper that morning and saw Marlina's photos everywhere, They're probably thinking of themselves, Oh my god, there's a chance someone might recognize her. Let's get her hair cut

instantly to try to disguise her. Oh that's so true, Robin. There was publicity that day. That's how the hairdressers no to call the police. And so you're right, it could have really set them into a panic. You would think that we would go into the bathroom and cut it ourselves, but people aren't very smart. So taking her to get professionally have her hair professionally cut, I think a lot of people would make that mistake and take

her in. Another reason I thought this sighting was more convincing than most is because the hairdressers saw Marlina's photo in the newspaper a very short time after they saw the girl at the Salon. This is the thing with mistaken eyewitness sayings. A lot of the time, these witnesses will see a missing poster or a photo of the victim in the papers and realize, hey, I saw this person. But this is usually days or weeks after the fact. Since

a lot of time has passed, their memories may not be reliable. But when Gayale Reich saw Marlina's photo, it was only about a few hours after she gave the girl a haircut, so her memory of the incident still would have been fresh. If the sighting was accurate, and Marlina was still alive in Memphis on April the twenty second, then this meant that Pam couldn't have killed her and thrown her body into the Obaide River, so her confession had

to be false. I started to ponder another possibility. Perhaps Pam sold or gave Marlina away to these other women, as there were unconfirmed rumors in the community that Pam had once admitted to selling Marlina in order to pay off a drug debt. Pam could have eventually become so racked with guilt over the whole situation that she fabricated a story about killing her even though that's not what actually happened. This has to be incredibly distressing for everybody involved, not just Pam.

I mean, if Pam is innocent, there's so many things going on. She's alive, She's not alive, right, I think I know who took her. I am the one who heard her. If Pam is struggling with mental health, she could partially believe some of the things that she confessed, right. If she's innocent and yet made this claim, it's possible that she's one of those people who's rationalizing, could I be a monster and not remember what I did? Maybe she had had those blackout episodes before. Maybe

she was not sure of the moments around Marlena's disappearance. You also have, though all of these individuals, her grandfather is actively fighting for answers in this case. And you have eyewitnesses from all aspects right that actually interacted with the baby, that saw her in the shopping mall, that are saying that they saw in another location over in Memphis. All of this is like these false promises for everybody. These are the cases that break my heart, because Marlena

was never returned home, even as a deceased little one. If they had her in their care and they were able to bury her. There is a piece and there is a healing to say she is safe, we know where she is. We'll get to meet her again one day, right, And this is where I can come grieve her because this is where a burial site is. Marlena hasn't been found. If she had been thrown in the water, ninety five percent of me feels like we would have recovered a body.

Right. That is always very bizarre to me when someone even capsizes a canoe or you know, there's two missing kayakers right now in Arkansas that have been missing for twenty days or something. Where are their bodies? Because all the bodies wash up on shore somewhere, they get caught on a tree branch,

boaters find them. Where is Marlena? So that, to me is that part of me that my stomach is turning, just wondering how many people go to sleep every night missing this little one and have no concept if she's safe, if she's hurting, if she's alive. And there's so many conflicting stories that it's pitifall. Did either of you follow that case in the UK of this missing woman named Nicola bully. I have not. I didn't follow it closely, but it was everywhere, and so for media, yeah, I

was like really interested in, like what happened. They had all these experts because she was walking her dog. She was on a work call, and they found her phone. She hadn't closed out whatever chat app she was using, and her dog was there, the leash was there as well, and she was just gone. They originally had theorized that she fell into the water like right there, and so they checked the water like a bazillion times. All these experts said, if she was in that water, we would have

found her. She wouldn't have floated very far because of the landscape here, and all this time went by. Eventually they kept searching and I think they found her a mile downstream, even though all the experts said she couldn't have moved, and I don't think they would have found her had they not been

looking so carefully. But they were like digging into her personal life and her partner and like suggesting that she was like this disturbed woman because she was facing menopause, and like all these British press, they could just eviscerate victims, but it just shows you that there are situations where I think, had they not been looking like so thoroughly, they had so many experts in that water, I don't think they necessarily would have discovered her body. So there are

cases where that happens. So I do think there is a possibility that something like that could have happened. A lot of people believe in Lauren Spiro's case, that her body was disposed of in a river and like she was just never discovered, But that one, I personally don't really know what I think happened. I think usually you do find a body, but this is an infant, or not an infant, this is a small child, so it

would be harder to discover the body. Maybe only part of the story that she's telling is true about where she disposed to the body, because maybe part of her really doesn't want the body to be found. So if you're only telling a half truth and that's where you're looking, then maybe you're not going

to find her if it's a completely different location. Yeah, I never thought about that, that she could be telling the truth about having killed her but just lied about the location that she disposed to her body because she wants to get it off her chest. But she doesn't actually want to the fact of her daughter's body being found. Okay, so well brace yourselves, because I'm about to debunk this entire Memphis siting we've been talking about, but I will

hold off on doing so until our next episode. That about brings an end to part one, but join us next week as we present part two of our series on the disappearance of Marlina Childress. Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit about the Trail Went Cold Patreon? Yes. The Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three years now, and we offer the standard bonus features like early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers and sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up with us on Patreon if

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the episode featuring this case. So if you want to download a commentary track in which I make more smartass remarks about Jewel Kaylor than be sure to join Tier three. So I want to let you know a little bit about the Jewels and Ashley Patreon, so there's early ad free episodes of The Path Went Chili. We've got our Path Went Chili minis, which are always over an hour, so they're not very many, but they're just too short to turn

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pass call for warm clothing. Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers comedy