Welcome back to the Path with Chili. I'm Robin, I'm Jules, and I'm Ashley. Let's dive right into this week's case. March fifteenth, nineteen eighty nine, Frederick, Maryland, Seventeen year old Tracy Kirkpatrick spends the evening working alone at a shopping center clothing store. Nearly two hours after the store was supposed to have been closed. A security guard discovers Tracy's body in the
storage room and she's been stabbed seven times. Three months later, a man calling himself Dawn phones a national confession's hotline and claims that he's responsible for Tracy's murder. Police track down a promising suspect and are unable to link him to the crime, but as the years go on, rumors start circulating about another suspect being the killer and to cover up was orchestrated to protect him. After
that, the Path went chilly. So on this episode, we're going to be covering a crime which was featured on Unsolved Mysteries, the nineteen eighty nine murder of Tracy Kirkpatrick. This is the horrific story of a well liked seventeen year old high school senior who was brutally stabbed at death during her shift at her place of employment. A very unexpected development would take place in the investigation when a man calling himself Dawn voted a national confession hot line in the months
following Tracy's murder and left a message of himself admitting to the crime. The actual recording of this man's call is easily available online, and we'll be sharing a word for word description of what he said later on in this episode, police did track down an individual who seemed to have a major obsession with the case and ultimately ruled them out as a suspect, but it's not entirely clear
if he was the same person who made the phone call and confessed. If the caller wasn't the killer, an alternate possibility is that they were attempting to
lead the investigation towards the real perpetrator. This is a complicated case because it seems like a lot of people in the community believe they have a pretty good idea about who the killer is. If you do any research online, you'll find a lot of rumors and hearsay about the perpetrator's identity and allegations that a cover up took place to protect them regardless of whether or not these rumors are
true. We have just passed the thirty four year anniversary of Tracy's murder and it is still a cold case, though there are some who believe it should have been solved a long time ago. Well, this case is wild. So we're talking about Tracy being seventeen years old, she's working alone at this shopping center, and its found stabbed to death seven times. So for me, the first thing I think about is that this is very personal and there's
some kind of rage or anger inflicted in it. That's always where my mind goes when I see a stabbing, especially multiple stabbings, stab wounds, and so I'm thinking in my head, a seventeen year old little girl who has such a need for a personal killing like that. It's very, very confusing because it sounds like there's going to be a lot of complicating factors that go into this and not something like let's say a lust kind of killing or a
young teenage lover who you know wants to be with her. And Tracy says, no, tell me this. What do you guys think about the idea that so many people quote know the identity but no arrest has been made, because I get really stressed when I listen to these stories or I watch a documentary and for an hour they'll fixate on this one name of a suspect, and then you know, two hours later you learned they had nothing to do with the crime. I wonder what their life is like when their name is
plastered everywhere. Now, in this case, I don't know, maybe they are the one who did it. But does that ever bother you guys when you're listening to a true crime story and you go, oh, god, wait, he had nothing to do with it, and I've painted him as a horrible human for an hour. Oh yeah, Like that sort of thing happens all the time, where some people become fixated as potential suspects just because they might be weird or they display bizarre behavior, but there really isn't any
evidence like pointing them towards the crime. And then later they use DNA or something to prove who the real perpetrator was. But this person, even though they've been exonerated and proven innocent, they've still had their reputation destroyed and no one looks at them the same way again. And with the Tracy Kirkpatrick case, like this person that a lot of people believe is the killer, Like he has never been named as a suspect or person of interest from law enforcement,
and he's never spoken to the media or anything. So for all we know, maybe this guy has been the brunt of false accusations just because people like to gossip on fortunately about crimes, and sometimes innocent people get caught in the crossfire. And Joels, what do you think about what do you think about the stabbing aspect of this case. I always think of stabbing is really intimate, regardless of if there is any sexual elements to the crime, like
if she's been raped or sexually assaulted in any capacity. I always think there's something so intimate about that, and it can be like, you know, if somebody has a rectile dysfunction or something, they may choose stabbing, but I think it often indicates that you know the person in some capacity. There's
a familiarity there. And then to answer your other question that you asked earlier about cases where somebody is basically within a community thought to have been the perpetrator, whether they've been charged or not, I always think of I can't remember the guy's name but there's that Texas Killing Fields documentary and they go into him in great detail, and I think he used to work for Nassau. He was incredibly brilliant and accentual, and he had some strange things in his home
when it was searched. But he was basically debunked as being the guy who had committed all of these murders. But he ended up taking his own life. His life was changed for the worst. The stigma followed him everywhere. Even one of the fathers who would originally believe that he had murdered his daughter had changed his tune and feels a great deal of regret, and so did the sheriff. I think it was the sheriff or the detective who was in
charge of the case, who's incredibly old. Now he looks back and there's a lot of regret there, and you can tell that he feels very emotional about the case, because so many lives are destroyed when these murders occur. And then when fingers are pointed at somebody just because they're strange or they're odd, we see that in so many cases. Our story begins in Maryland in
nineteen eighty nine. Our central figure is seventeen year old Tracy Lynn Kirkpatrick, who lives in a small community of Point of Rocks with her parents, Billy and Dianne Kirkpatrick, and has two sisters and a brother. Tracy is a senior at Brunswick High School who also happens to be an honor student and is very passionate about poetry. In fact, a poem she wrote had recently been
published in the New American Poetry Anthology. Tracy is hoping to attend Mount Saint Mary's University in the fall in order to study accounting, and once she gets a job in that field, she plans to save up enough money to attend law school. She currently holds down two part time jobs at the Westbridge Square shopping center in the town of Frederick, which is about a twenty minute drive
from Point of Rocks. One of the jobs is at a shoe store, while the other is at an adjacent clothing store called Eileen Ladies Sportswear, where Tracy works as a sales clerk. Even though Tracy's parents told her it was not necessary for her to work, she insisted on taking his jobs to help
pay her own way through college and avoid burdening her family. On the evening of March fifteenth, Tracy was assigned to work the closing shift at Eileen Ladies Sportswear, and it would mark the first time she ever closed the store alone. That night, Diane visited Tracy at the store in order to bring her some food, and that around eight PM, the store manager also stopped by to check up on her. The last time anyone recalled seeing Tracy alive was
at around eight forty five, fifteen minutes before closing time. She was scheduled to come straight home immediately after her shift ended, but when eleven PM rolled around, Tracy had not shown up. Her parents became concerned, as Tracy had told them that if she did not return by that time, they should assume something was wrong and come get her. So Billie and Diane drove to the shopping center, but when they arrived, they were horrified to discover that
the police were there. When Diane approached them, she immediately cried out, quote, tell me nothing happened, Tell me there's nothing wrong with her. But unfortunately, the police told her that Tracy's body had been discovered inside the backstorage room of the clothing store. She had stabbed at at a total of seven times in both their back and chest. This news caused Diane to go into shock and she had to be treated at the hospital. I cannot even
imagine what Diane and her husband were going through. So at first I was thinking, Okay, Tracy, is this really responsible kid? She's going to get these jobs to help her parents, and who's letting a seventeen year old close a store at night? And then I thought, well, I mean, you're an employee, and it sounds like she's incredibly mature, and it also sounds like her mom and the store manager are very kind of leary as well, of like, should a seventeen year old be closing late at night?
I don't know, So they're all checking on her, and there's this what fifteen minute gap before closing where we I mean, maybe it happened after this nine o'clock time, but there's only fifteen minutes before closing that we don't know what happened to Tracy. And the next thing we know, her parents are pulling up and they see the police the lights and are begging for or their worst nightmare not to be true. And it is so correct me you
says she was stabbed seven times in the chest and the back. So at some point either they rolled her over or she rolled over still alive, trying to defend herself. Correct possibly, Yeah, it's never really been specified, but that would make sense to me that maybe she fell down on one side and then rolled over and then they stabbed her more times on the other side.
But like we've said many times already, it seems like this was some sort of crime of passion where you wonder, why would someone have so much hatred towards a seventeen year old girl to stab her that many times at her
place of work, and which makes it even more brazen. Could you see the scenario being that this person somehow got behind her, stabbed her in the back those couple times, and as she fell to the ground, then kind of straddled her around the front and then continue to stab her in the chest. That would make sense, and for all we know, like maybe they stabbed her in the back in the store, and then she crawled to the storage room and that's when they followed her there and stabbed her the other times.
Because a lot of times employees are not going to bring like outside people into the storage room or the place of employment. They're generally not allowed to do that. But if she went there to try to escape or attacker, then that would explain why she was found there. Were she found on her back or on her front. They never really specified that the discovery of Tracy's
body had been made by the shopping center security guard. He claimed that he'd passed by the store at around nine pm and noticed the lights were on, but just assumed Tracy was inside totaling the receipts and finishing her shift. However, the guard would pass by the store again at around ten forty five and was surprised to see that the lights were still on since the front door was unlocked. The guard went inside and called out for Tracy, but he received
no response. He then proceeded to walk into the storage room and found Tracy's body before he contacted the police. There were no signs of forced entry or signs of a struggle, and Tracy did not have any defensive wounds, which seemed to indicate that the killer might have been someone she knew. The murder weapon was to be found, but there was a ladsmere on the store's rear door, as well as a partial print, and blood drops were discovered in
a rear hallway, which led to the loading dock. So, Tracy, I really do feel like when you talk about a stabbing case, it often is someone that the victim knows here. What's really disturbing is that unless there were scissors or something else in the store that we're used, the killer walked in with a knife with the intent to harm and or kill Tracy or whoever
was there. And so in this case, when you talk about no defensive wounds, my original idea maybe she rolled over and was fighting for her wife. Maybe Jewels, you're right, maybe this person stabs her in the back when she falls to the floor, stabs on the front. But it's terrifying to think the murder weapon's not there. It's likely not a pair of scissors or something from the store. So this person had a clear intent to do
something incredibly intimate and violent. And then there's these blood drops that lead to the loading. Is it Tracy's blood or is it the perpetrator's blood? Didn't Recci specified that. I'm assuming it's Tracy's, but I have to assume though, that if they found blood that belonged to the perpetrator, then they may have matched it to someone already and would have announced that publicly, so at the outset. The police were left completely baffled by the crime, as there
didn't seem to be any apparent motive. Tracy was not sexually assaulted, and nothing had been robbed from the store. The cash register, which recorded its last sale at around eight pm, still had sixty dollars in it, and there was even money lying on the counter, which Tracy had presumably been counting right before she was killed. But Tracy's car, keys, store keys, and purse which contained very little money, we're missing. At the approximate time
the shopping center closed. A man had been waiting on the front parking lot for his girlfriend, but told police he did not see or hear anything unusual. Since Tracy was an incredibly well liked person and didn't have any known enemies, the crime had a devastating impact on her family in the community. Five thousand dollar reward would be offered for information leading to an arrest. When she was buried, Tracy's tombson would be inscribed with one of her favorite poems,
Remember, written by the famous Victorian poet Christina Rosetti. This is so bizarre that there's money left in the in the till and there's also money line on the counter, so clearly robbery was not the motive here. Again, this person comes in with a knife, which is such a unique choice of weapon. Right, what it requires the perpetrator to do to their victim, how close they have to be to her, and so the money's there, yet you take her wallet and her keys, perhaps to remove some of her identity,
make it harder for police know who she is. Very confusing that you would take that and not actual valuable things if you're going to take anything at all. Yeah, that part of the case is always confused me that they decided to steal their car keys, store keys, and purse and they've never been found. So did they just want to keep those as mementos or something? Because it's weird, Like you said that they would leave the money behind
but take those other items. Three months after the murder, there'd be a surprising development when the Frederick Police Department were contacted by an attorney who represented a nationwide television confession hotline in Las Vegas. The hotline was set up to charge callers to record confessions of their deepest secrets for strangers who would call and pay to listen to them, but they were taken aback when they received a call
from a man who confessed to murder. The full audio of this recording was played on Unsolved Mysteries and is available online, but here's an exact word for word transcript of what the caller said. Hello, my name is Dawn and I'm calling from Frederick, Maryland. I know this is going to sound surprising, but three months ago I stabbed a girl to death. And you might think that by making this tape, I'm setting myself up to be caught, But there are a lot of guys named Don and Frederick. The girl I
killed was working in the Ladies sportswear store. I often came by and talked to her while she was working alone, and one night, while she was in the storeroom and we were talking, our conversation turned into an argument, and so I took out a night that I have with me at all times, and I killed her. And a few days later I realized I created a lot of sadness, and I've thought about turning myself into the police, but whatever they do to me, they won't bring Tracy back. So I've
decided by better keep free because we have the death penalty in Maryland. Thanks for listening. I'm sorry about what I did, but nothing can change it. Bye, love the sarcastic voice. Yeah wow, okay, so clear this up for me. Is this a law enforcement confessions line or is it something like the apology line? Have y'all heard that podcast where people would just call in and say things that they were remorseful for or confess things that they
were hiding and then like just ta get it off their chest? Was it that? Or is this a lie for motivated No, it sounds like it's a confession line that's used exclusively for entertainment, like kind of a lightweight thing where they expect people to leave recording saying that, oh, one time I got drunk on a party and got naked or something light weight like that.
But this one they were just taken by prize when a guy literally confessed or murder and they said, no, we better turn this over to law enforcement because they're specifically referencing a cold case which took place here in Maryland only a few months earlier. There's also a confession one I know because she's a fellow podcaster and she's like my friend's list is called in Bed with Nikki, where people like confess they're you know, deepest, darkest sexual things that they've done
and things that they've never told anybody else. So people like confessions thing. I guess We've got two podcasts for them, in Bed with Nikki and what is it? The apology podcast. Okay, so the apology line is fascinating.
I'm just I'm a true crime fan as well as a criminologist, but the apology line is basically this guy who became mister Apology and he just for fun was like I'm gonna set up my answering machine and have people call and say I'm sorry to people or like you know, kind of reveal these things they're remorseful for, and it takes him down to like a really dangerous path when he be friends one of the people who may or may not be criminals.
So it's fascinating, but his was really for entertainment purposes, and then he started to get these darker, heavier apologies that it's kind of like what do you do with that information? Like when does it not become entertainment and it becomes dangerous in unburdening all of them he's getting burdened with all of this information and it's like dark, insidious presence in his life. I am so checking that out. It's so good. Okay, Now let me ask you
this. Have you guys seen have you seen Blackbird on Apple TV? With Larry the serial killer who's befriended in prison and they try to get him to confess to his crimes. Oh, Larry Dwayne Hall. We talked about him on previous episodes. Yes, okay, So when you listen to this guy's call and he's talking about how, oh, I used to visit her a lot, like we were really friendly. One night we were talking and it wasn't friendly anymore. Reminded me of some of the things that he would say
in real life. But talking about these thirteen fourteen year old girls and how they would be so nice to him and then all of a sudden they weren't. It almost sounds like this man is saying, listen, I'm this older man, I'm having this inappropriate kind of intrigue with this seventeen year old girl. And she entertains it because she's at work and she's a kind naive, sweet kid who's talking to this grown man and then when it crosses the line
and she says, I don't like this. You make me uncomfortable, Please stop back away. Once that child puts up a resistance and these adults who are infatuated with him turn into this rage and anger because of the rejection, Like do you think it could be something like that? Oh? Yeah, that would make sense to me because you mentioned earlier that the idea that she was stabbed and there was no murder weapon means that the killer brought the knife
into the store with them. But the way this guy on the confession says that, it says, well, he just happens to carry this knife on him at all times, and he wasn't intending on killing Tracy. But because add an argument and thinks escalated out of control, that's when he took out the knife and stabbed her. Don't you remember being that age, ash and like inappropriate uncomfortable situations that you would get into with adult males, where like
you're conditioned when you're younger, especially like we're both older millennials. We were conditioned to be nice, always being nice, and now I think younger girls are being conditioned to be rude when you need to be you don't need to be kind to these adult creepy men who are crossing boundaries and making you feel pressured in some situation to like flirt with them or be nice to them.
And so I can totally imagine a situation that you set up ash where this guy's being an effing creep and he probably has been there a few times and tried to, like in his own mind, lay the groundwork to some potential relationship, and when she kind of thwarts his efforts by being like, hey, no, this isn't going to happen, he then gets angry, like that's really the only plausible scenario that seems to make sense in my own mind unless there was some kind of like thrill kill element. But I just I
just don't really think that's the case here. No, I think it was more rejection motivated or some kind of like I stood up for myself and you didn't like it. And what's really freaky is that it doesn't stop with like when we're older women. Like today in my store, I had a man walk in who was very intoxicated and wouldn't stop with inappropriate comments, and I told him like, hey, I mean my personal space, Please back up, and then he said, I just want to hug you. I just
want to touch you because you're so nice. And I had called rebel the moment he walked in, because he gave me really uncomfortable vibes and just left it kind of on speaker phone so he could hear. But it took me a good thirty minutes and he got a more aggressive the more I asked him to please back away. And so it's like this idea of when you don't comply and when you put up a boundary someone who has that kind of anger
insecurity, I don't know mental health issue. I really do think it causes them to become very motivated to get you to be quiet and to stop being mean and ugly. And do you find that as you've gotten older, Like my husband and I were discussing this the other day, and I think when young women who are like seventeen years old haven't yet learned to do this,
But I think as I think it happens to all women. But like my husband will always notice when you know we're out in public, He's like, everybody stares at you, and I'm like, he's like, but you don't
even clock it. You don't even notice. And I'm like, it's something over the years that I've personally conditioned myself to just block out because I'm somebody that feels very uncomfortable with too much attention, and so it makes me just want to like hide in a ball and never go outside if I actually pay attention. But I don't think when you're a teenager you've built that armor.
Is that your experience as oh, for sure? And even as an adult, I think it's hard because we are so ingrained to be kind and I'm a people pleaser and I'm an entertainer and I'm a you know, especially at my store that's my domain. So people come for a little piece of me out of a loving way, I hope often, do you know what I mean? But I also think they'll take whatever they want out of you.
Two. So yes, I think it's it's very uncomfortable. I actually had Rebel come picked me up at work three hours early because I just I went, I feel gross, do you know what I mean? Like I don't like it? And so but yes, as a kid, I can remember like being you know, fifteen and having someone who worked with me who is twenty eight or thirty five, like at that age, that big of an age gap, not appropriate doing things, and me always going like can I
stand up for myself like they're a superior of minor. I don't want to get in trouble at my little summer camp job, you know what I mean, and being scared to stand up for myself. And even now it's hard to say you've crossed a boundary. I'm uncomfortable because it makes people angry to
be called out on that. I just listened to a while ago High Low with em Rata and she had Bella Thorne on her podcast, and it just stuck with me because Bella was saying when she was thirteen years old, she was doing an audition and the director accused her of flirting with him, and
it's like, she's a child. The fact that you, as a grown man, would see something sexual in the way that she was playing this role or smiling or anything sexualizing a child like that is just so uncomfortable, and it feels like there's a very real possibility that in this case, somebody was doing that to Tracy. That's literally where my gut feels right this second. They thought there was something that wasn't there. She eventually said I'm uncomfortable and
that wasn't okay. So since the caller never mentioned Tracy's name, it seemed obvious he was referring to her. Investigators became convinced that the confession side is genuine and that the man calling himself down really was Tracy's killer. They were able to trace the call to a payphone outside a supermarket in the town of
Walkersville, located only eight miles outside of Frederick. In response, the police decided to publish a letter in the local newspaper, the Frederick News Post, on October the tenth, nineteen eighty nine, urging don to come forward a during him that they were available if if you needed someone to talk to. The Frederick County State's attorney also publicly announced that the state would not seek the death penalty if an arrest was made. However, the police never received any
response from Dawn. So I'm thinking one of two things, This truly is the killer who's making this phone call, because they are so centrally located to this area, right like they're only a couple of miles away from where she
was murdered. Or is it all the coverage and all of the attention makes this person want to be a part of the case, and therefore they assert themselves into like we've seen many times before, into the case, so that they are somebody, or they have some link or get some kind of energy going in the community. So I think it could be either holy cow, he's eight miles away from the city making this call on a pay phone, it's him, or it's again some creep who just wants to be a part
of it. What's your gut tell you, Robin. I'm curious because you know this case better than both Ashley and I. I want to know what you think. Well, back when I watched this segment back on Unsolved Mysteries during the early nineteen nineties, I was inclined to think that the caller was the killer. That when you hear the audio, it just sounds too genuine.
It does not sound like your standard hoax prank call. But as we're going to talk about later on, it seems like as the years have gone on, police have said that we do not believe that the person who made the call who is the real killer. They seem to have other people in mind. So, but just some of the ways the phrases that he uses in the call, Like he says that, well, I want to turn
myself in, but I better not because we have the death penalty. Like that almost sounds like he's justifying himself where he wants to confess and get something off his tech chest, but he doesn't want to face any actual consequences, so he's coming up with this rationale saying that, well, if I turned
myself in, I'll be executed, so I better keep free. It's sort of like the is that the Axe Man of New Orleans or Jack the Ripper or you know BTK, all these people that or Zodiac, all these people that communicate with law enforcement, but this is different because it's not rectly with law enforcement. I just think it's so bizarre that people would pay to call a hot line to confess. You'd think that, like, if other people are going to be listening to this, they're paying to listen, so to
confess it should be for free. Yeah, it's so weird. I guess that's the only option they have back then in the pre pre podcast days, where if you wanted to make a public confession, you would have to call these hotlines. Either that or you go sneak into a Catholic church and go into confession. I oh yeah, yeah, that's a much better chance that the priest will not turn you in. Which case was it that we covered where it was like somebody was going to do a confession and then they were
like ended their own life. Yeah, the William L. Toomey case where he was the unidentified Ja Joe who was waiting for confession and then he jested Sinai before it could happen. But two weeks after going public about Don's phone call, the Frederick PD was contacted by Martha Woodworth, a self proclaimed psychic from Massachusetts. Woodworth claim she'd repeatedly been contacted by a man calling himself Sean, who seemed to have an obsession with Tracy Kirkpatrick's murder and catching the person
who killed her. When Woodworth asked for more information about the case, Sean sent her an envelope filled with newspaper clippings. However, she said that Shahn's handwriting gave her a bad feeling and made her believe that he was more involved in the crime than he led on. When Woodworth contacted the police, they played her a recording of Don's confession. She said that she recognized his voice
and was convinced that Dawn and Sean were one and the same. The envelope Sean sent to Woodworth also happened to have a return address in Walkersville, the same town where Don's phone call originated from. Police checked into the address and found out there was a young man living there, and even though his name was never released publicly, it was not Don or Sean. Now that would
not be crazy. Do you guys remember the guys who had the boat and claimed that they had crashed this boat for an insurance claim, and it was like their real name was Don Johnson. So they said, like, I'm Johnson Dawn or yeah, yes, yes, just like completely, like hey, let's say my same name, so like I'm you know, Smashley, not Ashley. But it's like, you know, they did John Russell and Russell Johnson, like yes, So I mean that that would make sense.
And I do find it really interesting that you have not just a psychic saying hey, I've seen this person in my mind, but she actually had interactions with this guy who's saying like, I'm basically this super fan of the case, and I'm this couch sleuth who's trying to help catch somebody does make it a little bit kind of uncomfortable where you're going. Okay, but why why are you so fascinated with this? Um? Do you find it ironic that
she said their voices sounded the same. Yeah, like you listen to the voice, it's not the best quality. But and I've never actually heard Sean's voice, so I can't say that one certainty that he's the same person who made the call. But she seemed to think though, that they were the same person. But I mean, if being as to the case, it's like they could come for you, Robin, on all these unfold bases, if that qualifies you as being somebody who is a likely perpetrator, like we
are all in trouble. Yeah. They always say that, never let the FBI seize our computers and see our Google searches, because they'll think really bad things about us. Man. I used to really worry when I and I did a lot of research on homicide and sexual assault. I would type in the most horrific descriptions, do images and all kinds of things, and I'd go, oh, shoot, I need to really be on the radar because it's such inappropriate stuff. That I'm searching all relevant, but man, my
Google search used to be quite disturbing. Oh, I'm sure you're on a watch list. We probably all are, totally so. In March the fifteenth, nineteen ninety, the one year anniversary of the crime, four local radio stations agreed to simultaneously air the recording of Don's confession and hopes that someone listening might recognize his voice and come forward. Well, sure enough, three people soon called in, who all said that they recognized Dawn as the aforementioned a
young man from Walkersville who called himself Sewan. This prompted a police to question him and get a warrant to search his home. Samples of the young man's blood and hair were taken for analysis, but ultimately failed to link him to the crime. As it turned out the only blood found at the murder scene
belonged to Tracy. While a search of this man's residence turned up a lot of newspaper clippings and material to suggest he had an obsession with the case, there was no direct evidence to implicate him in the crime and no indication that he even knew Tracy personally. He decided to plead the Fifth Amendment and refused to answer any questions. It's not entirely clear how or when they came to this conclusion, but police would eventually rule out the young man from Walkersville as
a suspect. The case would be featured on Unsolved Mysteries in January of nineteen ninety one, as well as an episode of a Current Affair, but the investigation eventually came to a standstill, so the police completely ruled him out. They said, this is not our guy, pretty much like I don't know if they could say with one percent certainty that he couldn't have been the guy, but their gut instinct told them that he's probably just a guy who's obsessed
with the case and not the actual killer. For me, when I was when I was listening and he said, you know, he pled the fifth the fifth, so he doesn't have to incriminate himself. I totally understand where people come from. But immediately people go see it told you he's guilty, and it comes to a point like my husband and I talk all the time where we say, listen, you pull me into a police interrogation room, you come in to search my property. I'm quiet till I have an attorney,
and I'm not guilty of anything. So I often like once you find yourself in that hot seat and you go, oh, shoot, this is serious, right, Like my newspaper clippings have turned into a legit, like I must suspect. I don't blame him for saying I'm not going to say anything to you, your husband. I love that for you. It's the first time I've heard you refer to rebel like that, and I love it. Yeah, you know, we do top seeker things like go get married
in our favorite date spot and things like that. A Frederick police detective named Bob Serviceeck took over the case, and, by all accounts, it completely consumed his life until he became convinced he figured out who the killer was. While the evidence against the suspect was circumstantial, Serviceick decided to submit it to
a grand jury in June of nineteen ninety four. While the suspect's name was never made public, Serviceeck said that he was in his mid to late twenties, lived in the Frederick area at the time of the murder, and was an acquaintance of Tracy through a mutual circle of friends. Serviceick believed that the crime was driven by jealousy, anger, and revenge, theorizing that the killer had feelings for Tracy and could not handle it when Tracy told him that she
only wanted to be friends. After examining all the evidence, two thirds of the grand jury voted to indict the suspect, but the Deputy States Attorney's office ultimately decided not to move forward with an arrest in prosecution, as they feared there was still not enough evidence to bring him to trial and secure a conviction with a jury. According to Billy Kirkpatrick, the Deputy state Attorney told her, quote, I can get indictments on both of them with the information we
have. I can get an indictment on each of them, but it would end for each of them the same way. If it went to trial, a defense attorney will say, well, the other guy is there and you can't prove he did it. End quote. This decision left service Check so frustrated that it helped influence his decision to retire from the police force the following year. Okay, so I am in total agreement here with a murder case.
One of the biggest things and one of kind of the scariest things at that moment when you say do we make an arrest, do we actually indict a suspect or not? Because we know in America, good luck. You get one shot to make an arrest, indict somebody with a crime, take them to trial, and hope that you get a conviction, right, and then reveal the truth. If you miss, you don't get to do it again. Right, even if after they walk out of the courtroom they say
they right, if you miss, you don't get a second shot. So I've worked so many cold cases with law enforcement where we're sitting there going it is so obvious, this is so obvious that it's this person, but we cannot take it to a trial. I don't care what anyone else says, Right, we don't have that silver bullet, that kind of key piece of evidence that is going to ziplock and completely make sure this case results in a
guilty verdict. And because I'm so confident that this person is actually dangerous, I don't want to miss our shot. I always think of law abiding citizen, doesn't you say something like, it's not what you know, it's what you can prove in court. And I always think about that because there's so many cases where you absolutely think this is the person. There seems to be
like nobody who's debating that. But yet there just isn't enough to indict them for the murder and to have that case fall apart, because if you take a shot, you best not miss. You only get one bite of that apple. And I can understand why prosecutors do that for multiple reasons, because you know their position will depend upon how many successful prosecutions they have. And then number two, you want to be able to secure that conviction and get
this potential killer off the street. And if you're a case that falls apart, it looks bad on so many different levels. You can't get justice for the family. And then you know your record of nine percent convictions falls apart as well, and so your averages go down, and those things do matter.
And judify those comments from the Deputy States Attorney. It's hounds like that they had another potential suspect in mind, which maybe had an equal amount of evidence or even more evidence than the suspect that Servicheck was trying to indict, and pretty much said that we don't know if this other person did it, but his presence alone generates reasonable doubt that if we take servicheck suspect to trial, then they can just point to this other person and say this is the
person who really did it, and it could lead to an acquittal. So I can see why they would be reluctant to bring either of these people to trial without more damning evidence. Do you think it could have been the security
guard as a second suspect. Possibly. We're going to talk more about the security guard later on in the episode, but a lot of gossip is around that the person who found Tracy's body could have been the person who killed her, but it's never been specified if the security guard was the guy that Servicheck had in mind, or if he adds someone else in that he thought was
the killer. In two thousand and nine, the Frederick News Post published a series of articles about the twentieth anniversary of Tracy's murder, and Bob Servicheck gave a very outspoken interview in which he outlined his frustration, stating, quote, this case was solved in nineteen ninety four. As far as I was concerned, what derailed the process was politics and personal agendas. Certain individuals did not do their jobs and derailed the case end quote. Around the same time,
period. The commander of the Frederick Police Department's Criminal Investigation Division confirmed that two promising suspects had developed over the years, and DNA samples were taken from both of them, but he just lacked the final piece of the puzzle to conclusively determine if either of them committed the crime. Well, DNA testing was performed
on evidence found at the crime scene. The size of the DNA samples proved insufficient enough to develop a genetic profile of the killer, while TOUCH samples were submitted to a private contractor for the Maryland State Police in two thousand and nine. It doesn't sound like this lead anywhere. So after thirty four years, the murder of Tracy Kirkpatrick continues to remain unsolved. So I guess you could
say the path went chilly. Well. I have not done any research into this case, of course, But when you're talking to me about the fact that online there's a name that often gets circulated, is that the individual that he's referring to. He's never specified that, But as we're going to talk about, this individual is from a family that might has connections in the area.
So I kind of if you rebuilt between the lines, think that he might be referring to them, and that when he mentions politics and personal agendas, he feels that either the deputy States Attorney was too scared to indict this guy because he had a lot of power, or maybe his family was stepping in and ensuring that there was a cover up and that he wouldn't be charged with the murder. He's one of these people that Servicheck is one of these
people that I love. I mean, we've had many prosecutors, law enforcement officials, investigators where we always talk about, you know, hey, somebody dropped the ball, that's why this case isn't solved. But then there's these heroes and say like, listen, I keep fighting, I keep telling you what you know, what I think I know, and I need to get justice in this case. I love when we have people in our cases where they're really driven and emotionally charged to capture whoever did the crime. So it
makes me smile when I hear how passionate he is about this case. Oh yeah, especially the fact that he said that it pretty much consumed his whole life when he was investigating it, and from what I can tell from the Kirkpatrick family loved him saying that if you want a family member's murdered to be solved, this is the guy that you want on the investigation. But unfortunately it was out of his hand because he presented all the evidence he had to
the grand jury, but it just wasn't enough to indict. You gotta feel like the game is rigged at some points, especially when if he's correct, and if there is politics and you know, cover ups because of an influential family, you feel like you do all this work and because you presented the wrong suspect from the right family, I guess that nothing is going to go forward and that is influencing the outcome. Like I had to be so frustrating, and like, how old was he? Do you know when he retired?
I'm not entirely sure. I think he was regular retirement age, but I think he probably, under normal circumstances, would have wanted to work for a couple more years. But he just found the whole situation frustrated that he pretty much said, I'm done now before we go any further, I'm going to have to address the elephant in the room with this case, and that's the fact that the security guard who discovered Tracy's body just happened to be named
Don. His full name is Don Barnes Junior, and at the time he was a deputy for the Frederick County Sheriff's Office and doing some moonlighting as a security guard. Numerous media outlets have published his name since he is the person who found Tracy, But even though he's never been publicly named as a suspect or person of interest by law enforcement, there are a lot of unsubstantiated rumors
online that Dawn was Tracy's killer. It's also worth noting that Don's father, Don Barnes Senior, was a very prominent law enforcement official in the area. He had served two terms as Frederick County Sheriff, though he was out of office by the time this crime took place and passed away in twenty ten. So bizarre. I wonder if a caller who was calling to confess would actually use their own name, though, because once he says, hey, this is Dawn, you think, okay, listen, you found her body,
right, the guy named Don found her body. So would it be that blatant you think on the phone call itself to say, this is my real name. I'm going to call eight miles from where she was killed, Like, doesn't that just seem like a come get me? Although we have seen that with other killers in the past, where they are foolish enough to provide information and to taunt the police in a way that is pretty wild. But
the thing with this guy is that he was a sheriff's deputy. So if he was the one who made the call and left that recorded confession, you'd think that someone would be able to recognize his voice and solve this case.
But the fact that this hasn't happened leads me to believe that Don Barnes Junior was not the person who made the call, But also make you wonder is there a reason that the callers selected the name Don, Like, did he have some idea that Don Barnes Junior might be the killer and this was his way of putting his name out there, or or was some of the media coverage did it say, you know, security officer Don Barnes Junior located the
young victim, and you know, and then because they were someone who was following the case, they were able to pick that name, which seems quite at the heart of the case. That's only possible because they did publish his name as the security guard who found Tracy's body. So and like you said, this guy Sean who had the obsession with the case, he had a ton of newspaper clippings, so he probably would have read on Barnes his name, and maybe while he's making the call, he's thinking to myself, Okay,
what name should I use? Don? We'll go with Don. I think that's a high possibility. What if it was the real killer and they were trying to use misdirection, knowing that Don was the security guard, trying to point the finger and be like, hey, over there, over there, Dawn is my name. Oh yeah, that would make sense as well, that it's the ultimate misdirection. And it almost seems to have worked because a lot of online SLUSA pointed out it's the same name as the security guard,
So maybe the security guard was the killer. I just don't think you'd use your same name, Like he's like, oh, there's lots of Dawns in the city, so no one's going to know that it's me. Well hello, Like, it just doesn't seem like a smart bet. You would just pick another common name like Brad or Bob or Steve or something. You're not going to choose Dawn. It just feels a little too intentional. So the Unsolved Mystery segments primary focus was a confession from the caller named Don and
the young man from Walkersville who called himself Sean. But it's possible that this entire lead was nothing more than a red herring. Don Barnes Junior's name was not mentioned at all during the segment, as they simply present a re enactment of a security guard discovering Tracy's body and treat him as a complete afterthought, so there's no indication that he was ever considered a suspect. But even if you watch the segment without any knowledge of who Don Barnes Junior is, there
still seems to be something off about the security guard's version of events. The store but Tracy was working closed at nine pm, and she was last seen at eight forty five. Yet even though the store's lights never went off, he did not go inside until around ten forty five PM. If the guard's job was to patrol the shopping center, it is a bit odd that two
hours would pass before he noticed something was wrong. We may be overthinking things here, but since there always been a number of rumors surrounding Don Barnes. We'll revisit this angle later on. Now, is Don only patrolling this area or was he kind of hired to patrol the like the shopping center or the vicinity of that neighborhood, like, was it multiple spots he needed a patrol?
Or are we literally saying he sat and watched this store for an hour and forty five minutes before saying, Hey, I should probably go check on her. I don't think I've read anything about him patrolling an entire area. It's just this one shopping center, and it's not like a mall or anything. It sounds like it's more like a strip mall where a bunch of stores
are out in this parking lot. So if that was his entire job to patrol just this one area, that, yes, it is pretty odd that it would take him two hours to circle around and come back to Tracy's shop and notice the lights are on and go inside. But I've never seen any confirmation that his responsibilities required him to like drive elsewhere, which could account for this two hour gap. Do we know how old he was? He would have been I think in his twenties at that time, and like Servi check
said. He said that the person he believed was the most primary suspect was in his twenties. So when you see some of the comments that serve check mate, then Don Barnes Junior being the killer would fit, would fit the scenario. It's also this is morbid, but it's also possible that if you waited an hour and forty five minutes, you knew for a fact she was dead. Like, yes, you stabbed her seven times, but if you waited and at ten forty five, like, you would know for a fact
she was no longer going to be breathing at that point. And there might have been an element of panic and wanting to dispose of the murder weapon as well. Oh yeah, like and it's also been speculated that if he got blood on his uniform, then he may have needed some time to like clean himself up or change his clothing or something before he discovered Tracy's body. Then that time window completely makes sense. My first job was in a mall.
I don't know, Robin, did you have this store? Like? I don't think they exist anymore, but when I was a teenager, they were called San Francisco and they sold like gag gifts and stuff like a spencer. Yes, yeah, like you know, like the like fake fart smelling like
liquid stuff and like woby cushions, like stupid stuff like that. But I remember when I was sixteen, I would close the store alone, and if you were the last person there, you would be sticking out like a sore thumb because everybody else lights would be off, And I would think that even if you were like a half hour overclosing time, the mall security guard would
have noticed and come to check on you. Like that's just my experience, but that time frame just seems a bit off to me, unless it's like the biggest mall ever where they've got, you know, five hundred stores or something, and so he's walking around on foot and may not get to her by that time, or maybe took time to have a cigarette and a meal or something, you know, talk to a friend on his phone. I don't know. It just seems like a huge amount of time to go if
this was a regular size shopping area. Yeah, and this is Frederick, Maryland. It's not a particularly large town, so I don't think they're going to have one of the largest shopping malls ever. So yeah, Yeah, definitely seems unusual. I was just thinking like West Demonton mall size, you know, like it used to be like one of the biggest malls in Canada. I don't know if it is anymore, but I remember going as a kid and being like totally overwhelmed two sides of the mall, and like it
would take you all day to walk around it. It was like a city unto itself. Yeah, I've always heard about that mall, but I've never actually gone there. I nearly died when I was about trapped under a very large individual in the wave pool and I could not get out, and I remember when I came out, I was like shaking. I thought I was going to die. Joel, that's another podcast episode, certainly is so.
I think that about brings an end to Part one. Join us next week as we present part two of our series on the Unsolved Murder of Tracy Kirkpatrick. 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 you join our five dollar tier Tier two.
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