Transcript

How Did Two Girls Vanish from San Miguel’s Streets Without a Trace?

From Crime Junkie · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 1 h 2 min · 11,180 words · 146 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "How Did Two Girls Vanish from San Miguel’s Streets Without a Trace?", an episode of Crime Junkie published November 10, 2025 (1 h 2 min, about 11,180 words). It mentions 61 people, works and ideas, including San Miguel, Mission Street, Fabiola Christina, Henry Lee Lucas, Selenus Riverbed.

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 10:00: San Miguel, Fabiola Christina, Mission Street, Kristen Smart
  2. – 20:00: San Miguel, Camp Roberts, Mission Street, Selenus Riverbed
  3. – 30:00: San Miguel, Cal Owens, Eugene Capers, Yolanda King
  4. – 40:00: San Miguel, Henry Lee Lucas, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, Jacksonville, Florida
  5. – 50:00: San Miguel, T-Mobile, Cal Owens, Greg Hickey
  6. – 1:00:00: Richard Benson, San Miguel, Cold Case, Eugene Capers
  7. – 1:01:52: San Miguel, Detective Clint Cole, Fabiola Christina, Fan Club

Notable quotes from "How Did Two Girls Vanish from San Miguel’s Streets Without a Trace?"

  • Went missing when two little girls vanished off the street in broad daylight in the middle of San Miguel, a town with only 800ish residents.
    about San Miguel · at
  • Flowers, a card, a gift. And when I say like go into town, I really mean like Mission Street, this one block in San Miguel where everything is. We're talking about kind of an…
    about Mission Street · at
  • Our reporter Nicole Kagan spoke to Terry's older sister Christina and she said that it wasn't unusual at all. She said San Miguel was a small community. I said at the top of the episode like 800 people small and not like where.
    about Fabiola Christina · at
  • They even drove to the nearby Selenus Riverbed because that's where the girl's older siblings had gone to play earlier in the day. and they knew that Terry and Marty were apparently upset that they.
    about Selenus Riverbed · at
  • Searching, including members of the National Guard from a nearby army base called Camp Roberts, plus multiple helicopters and people on horseback.
    about Camp Roberts · at
  • To and vet, but I am going to take you through the people who I think seem the most suspicious. And first up is Greg Hickey. He's a 16-year-old who lives near Terry and…
    about Greg Hickey · at
  • Sure. So, Henry Lee Lucas is a murderer from Virginia who is convicted of killing 11 people, including his own mother. And then when he went to prison in Texas, and was ultimately put on.
    about Henry Lee Lucas · at
  • The Henry Lee Lucas jig is up, investigators quickly move on to another man, Richard Benson. Richard is a serial child molester from Selenus, which is about 90 miles from San…
    about Richard Benson · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Fabiola Christina — Person · 6 mentions · first at
  • Henry Lee Lucas — Person · 6 mentions · first at
  • Richard Benson — Person · 5 mentions · first at
  • Greg Hickey — Person · 3 mentions · first at
  • Cal Owens — Person · 3 mentions · first at
    Left the riverbed that morning and then he got into the fight with Frank, he and his friend Cal Owens went up to the wrecking yard where Cal works. And Cal vouches for Greg…
  • Eugene Capers — Person · 3 mentions · first at
    Aside and they keep making their way through the lists and they hit another regular at the Elorn named Eugene Capers who is former military and he apparently lived in the house just behind the Mezos.
  • Kristen Smart — Person · 2 mentions · first at
    It. The strangest case that the sheriff's office is tasked with solving is from 16 years before Kristen Smart went missing when two little girls vanished off the street in…
  • Teresa Flores — Person · 2 mentions · first at
    This is the story of Teresa Flores and Martha Mezo.
  • Detective Clint Cole — Person · 2 mentions · first at
    When then all of a sudden they're just gone. So, here's what we know. According to Detective Clint Cole, the current detective on the case, the night before both girls had a…
  • Yolanda King — Person · 2 mentions · first at
    Actually moved to San Miguel to get away from him because he'd been abusive to Terry's mom, Yolanda. But the reason they suspect him is mainly just because they can't find him.…
  • Ashley Flowers — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Hi, crime junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers.
  • Billy Sunday — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Missing. Cuz when the girls didn't show up at Marty's, her mom, whose name is Sunday, she just assumed that they were still over at Terry's. But when she drove over there…
  • Angie Gomez — Person · 1 mention · first at
    And everything they could to find these two girls. And what's so interesting is that Terry's cousin Angie Gomez said that there was typically no police presence in San Miguel.…
  • Chad Michael — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Looking for suspects. Early on, investigators actually set their sights on Terry's dad, Michael. He'd been estranged from the Flores family. They actually moved to San Miguel…
  • Lauren Gonzalez — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Investigators Association earlier this year. He just so happened to sit next to a detective named Lauren Gonzalez, whose name people might recognize if they listen to the deck.…
  • Crypto Megan — Person · 1 mention
  • Oscar Isaac — Person · 1 mention

Books & papers

  • Santa Maria Times — Book · 1 mention · first at
    They're pretty public about their concerns. On May 19th, Sergeant Joe Little tells the Santa Maria Times that they've searched the whole town three times over, and without any…
  • Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery — Book · 1 mention · first at
    Is finally Hobson's turn, he's briefed by Texas Rangers on how to approach this meeting. And according to the San Francisco Examiner, there are like all these rules. Like they…

Companies & orgs

  • Camp Roberts — Company · 5 mentions · first at
  • T-Mobile — Company · 3 mentions · first at
    Ashley and I make important connections thanks to another partner in solving crime, T-Mobile 5G home internet. With T-Mobile 5G home internet, getting set up, and online is…
  • St. Louis Abyspo Sheriff's Office — Company · 2 mentions · first at
    And the story I have for you today is one of the St. Louis Abyspo Sheriff's Office most enduring mysteries. And it's not the one that you're probably thinking of. for most crime junkies, when you hear St. Louis Abyspo,.
  • National Guard — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Down. The next day, there are 150 people searching, including members of the National Guard from a nearby army base called Camp Roberts, plus multiple helicopters and people on horseback.
  • Camp Roberts Army base — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Out 2 days later on May 29th. That's when deputies get a call from some men on the Camp Roberts Army base. They said they'd been taking their break parked down by a bridge near…
  • Frederick's of Hollywood — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Grocery bag, a blue towel with hairs and a blood stain on it, and a pair of black thonglike underwear from Frederick's of Hollywood with this like silver dragon emblem. And as…
  • Atascadero State Hospital — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Out of proximity. See, just 20 minutes south of San Miguel is a city called Atascadero, which houses the Atascadero State Hospital, a maximum security facility for sex…
  • Texas Ranger — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Guy about their cold cases. So when it is finally Hobson's turn, he's briefed by Texas Rangers on how to approach this meeting. And according to the San Francisco Examiner…
  • Sacramento DA's Office — Company · 1 mention · first at
    He has presented it at cold case conferences across the country. He sent the entire file to the Sacramento DA's office and actually it was Detective Cole who reached out to us which is not usually how this happens.
  • International Homicide Investigators Association — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Yeah. He was at basically was at this training for the International Homicide Investigators Association earlier this year. He just so happened to sit next to a detective named Lauren Gonzalez, whose name people might recognize if they.
  • The Deck — Company · 1 mention · first at
    A detective named Lauren Gonzalez, whose name people might recognize if they listen to the deck. And it was Detective Gonzalez who suggested partnering with us to get Marty and…
  • San Miguel Fire Department — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Followed up. And in 2021, Christina was able to get a billboard put up for the girls near the San Miguel Fire Department, but she wants to get word out even beyond San Miguel.…
  • Instagram — Company · 1 mention · first at
    And you can follow us on Instagram @rjunkkeyodcast.
  • audiochuck — Company · 1 mention
  • Crime Junkie Podcast Website — Company · 1 mention
  • Elorn Bar — Company · 1 mention

Products & tech

  • T-Mobile 5G Home Internet — Product · 2 mentions · first at
    Ashley and I make important connections thanks to another partner in solving crime, T-Mobile 5G home internet. With T-Mobile 5G home internet, getting set up, and online is…
  • Sexual Assault Kit — Product · 1 mention · first at
    DNA, but too little to work with. They have slightly better luck with the sexual assault kit swabs. Those do contain a trace amount of DNA, but again, so little that it's not…
  • GoFundMe — Product · 1 mention · first at
    Any of our listeners want to help her out with that, we're going to put a link in the show notes to that GoFundMe that she's put up. Since the start, Detective Cole has worked…
  • Fan Club — Product · 1 mention · first at
    Episodes like this and get all of our episodes completely adree, be sure to join our fan club. You'll also get early access to new episodes every week and bonus content every month.
  • audiochuck Fan Club — Product · 1 mention
  • Cadaver Dogs — Product · 1 mention
  • COTUS — Product · 1 mention
  • Crime Junkie — Product · 1 mention
  • Polygraph — Product · 1 mention

Concepts & topics

  • Cold Case — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    He has presented it at cold case conferences across the country. He sent the entire file to the Sacramento DA's office and actually it was Detective Cole who reached out to us which is not.
  • True Crime — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    That they have been trying for years to get more attention. They have been reaching out to loads of true crime shows, even talk shows, but nobody ever followed up. And in 2021…
  • Reward for Information — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Currently trying to raise $10,000 for a billboard on Highway 101 and $25,000 to create a reward for information. So, if any of our listeners want to help her out with that…
  • Billboard Campaign — Concept · 1 mention
  • DNA Profiling — Concept · 1 mention
  • Genealogy Work / IGG — Concept · 1 mention
  • Sex Offender Registry — Concept · 1 mention

Places & events

  • San Miguel — Place · 36 mentions · first at
  • Mission Street — Place · 6 mentions · first at
  • Selenus Riverbed — Place · 5 mentions · first at
  • Atascadero — Place · 1 mention · first at
    Out of proximity. See, just 20 minutes south of San Miguel is a city called Atascadero, which houses the Atascadero State Hospital, a maximum security facility for sex…
  • Jacksonville, Florida — Place · 1 mention · first at
    Country. And what they found for this case specifically is that Henry had signed a receipt in Jacksonville, Florida on the 19th and 20th of May, 1980.
  • Highway 101 — Place · 1 mention · first at
    Out even beyond San Miguel. So, she is currently trying to raise $10,000 for a billboard on Highway 101 and $25,000 to create a reward for information. So, if any of our…
  • San Miguel District Cemetery — Place · 1 mention · first at
    Her, it was during Christina's visit back to San Miguel to make arrangements for her own burial at the San Miguel District Cemetery, right next to her little sister, Terry. She…
  • Paso Robles — Place · 1 mention
  • Salinas — Place · 1 mention

Sponsors

Full transcript with timestamps

Hi, crime junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Brit. And the story I have for you today is one of the St. Louis Abyspo Sheriff's Office most enduring mysteries. And it's not the one that you're probably thinking of. I mean, for most crime junkies, when you hear St. Louis Abyspo, one thing comes to mind.

Yeah. Kristen Smart. Exactly. But her case now solved was never the most baffling one. Far from it. The strangest case that the sheriff's office is tasked with solving is from 16 years before Kristen Smart went missing when two little girls vanished off the street in broad daylight in the middle of San Miguel, a town with only 800ish residents. Everyone is a suspect and every theory is still on the table even after their bodies were discovered and there were plenty of strange clues and physical evidence. The only reason you don't know about this case is because it's never been told in full before, not until today.

And this is one that you're going to want to pay attention to because even though this case is 45 years old, big things are about to happen. The current lead detective on this case literally came out of retirement just to solve it and he just so happens to be the same guy who solved Kristen Smart's case in 2022. and he has fresh leads and DNA on his side now for this case. And it's closer than ever before to being solved. But now it's a race against time to make sure that justice comes while the girls families are still alive to witness it.

This is the story of Teresa Flores and Martha Mezo. Saturday, May 17th, 1980 would be the start to a mystery that has endured for the St. Louis Abyspo Sheriff's Office for 45 years. That is the day that 4-year-old Martha Mezo and 5-year-old Terresa Flores, known to their families as Marty and Terry, just vanished off the face of the earth. And I know people say that a lot when it comes to missing person cases, but this time it is not an exaggeration. It's really the only way to describe it. Over the course of the investigation, sheriff's deputies put together a detailed timeline of Marty and Terry's movements that morning.

Basically, a minute-by-minute record of what they did, where they were, who they were with up until around 11:30 a.m. when then all of a sudden they're just gone. So, here's what we know. According to Detective Clint Cole, the current detective on the case, the night before both girls had a sleepover at Terry's house. And then the next morning at around 10:45 a.m., Terry's aunt Virginia took them into town to run some errands. Now, Marty and Terry had a birthday party to go to later that day. So, they wanted to go to the market, pick up some flowers, a card, a gift. And when I say like go into town, I really mean like Mission Street, this one block in San Miguel where everything is. We're talking about kind of an unincorporate, not kind of, it is an unincorporated community with one main road, one school, one post office. Everything is pretty much within walking distance. So Virginia, Terry, and Marty walk to

Mission Street. But before the market, Virginia has to stop at the post office, which, as you can imagine, the kindergarteners were like not exactly thrilled about, right?

They have plans to do in the post office is boring AF. So Marty and Terry ask if they can go ahead to the market by themselves. It's like just a few doors down. Virginia agrees. Says she'll meet them there. And by about 11ish, she finishes up there and finds the girls outside of the store candy. they bought in hand. They're like already done at the market and certainly did not want to stay while Virginia did her shopping for the day.

Again, the boring things. Yeah. So, they ask if they can walk to Marty's house since her mom was going to take them to lunch at noon. And again, Virginia says yes.

And just to confirm, they're four and five. They are, which is like almost my daughter's age.

But this is nearly half a century ago, remember? Like I know that feels foreign to us now, especially for crime junkies who are on high alert for everything. But it was a way different time then. Our reporter Nicole Kagan spoke to Terry's older sister Christina and she said that it wasn't unusual at all. She said San Miguel was a small community. I said at the top of the episode like 800 people small and not like where everybody knew everybody here. Everybody did. No, everybody. The little kids would go places by themselves once in a while if there was somewhere they needed to be and no one available to take them there. So the last Virginia saw the girls. They were headed down Mission Street to Marty's, which was also, by the way, on Mission Street, like just beyond the stores. But on the way there, Detective Cole says that they made a little pit stop and popped into the local bar called the Elorn, which

Christina said was pretty normal, too. I call it a bar, but the Elorn was really more of a hangout. People would regularly bring their kids in there. Now, kids wouldn't have been able to sit at the bar, but they could go get a soda or chips or, in true 1980s vintage fashion, buy a pack of cigarettes for their parents. Now, the local hangout spot is where everyone in the community got to know each other. So, the girls go in, they get a Coke, but according to witnesses, they didn't have enough money. So, one of the patrons offered to buy it for them, chatted with them for a little bit, and then the girls left.

When they stepped outside, they ran into Terry's uncle on the sidewalk with some friends. They speak for a bit and then they set off telling him that they're going to go head to Marty's. That was the girl's last known interaction. As they walked off in the direction of Marty's house, somehow on this busy main road at 11:30 in the morning with witnesses everywhere, they just vanish. And the fact that it happened that way so quietly and unnoticed, that resulted in a delay of them being reported missing. Cuz when the girls didn't show up at Marty's, her mom, whose name is Sunday, she just assumed that they were still over at Terry's. But when she drove over there, Terry's family says they thought the girls were with her,

right? And even then, everyone's first thought is that Marty and Terry might have been lost. So both families begin trying to retrace their steps. They drove to Mission Street, to the store, to the Elorn. Everybody seemed to be saying the same thing, like, "Yes, we saw them earlier. Yes, we saw them, but they left. Yes, but and the family is going to the school, the park, the old grainery building, vacant properties. They even drove to the nearby Selenus Riverbed because that's where the girl's older siblings had gone to play earlier in the day. and they knew that Terry and Marty were apparently upset that they weren't allowed to join them, but they're not there either. They searched for hours before finally deciding to call the sheriff's office. Within a couple of hours, about 20 officers are in San Miguel. The sheriff's office borrows agents from a neighboring police department and highway patrol. They set

up a command post at the girls school and they get the whole town searching for Marty and Terry. Everyone knows them and anyone who is available is lending a hand. And I assume at their age they weren't known for like running off before or anything.

No, I mean they're just your typical happy little kindergarteners. Like their families were two of the only three Hispanic families in San Miguel at the time. So they sort of gravitated towards each other. They liked candy. They liked roller skating playing. Life was simple for them. And Christina, who was eight at the time, said she wasn't even worried because she was so sure that her sister Terry was going to come home. In fact, her main thought at the time was how much trouble Terry was going to be in with their parents when she did come home. But when the sun goes down that first night after police had been searching for hours, Terry still wasn't home. And that's when the fear began to creep in. And with no sign of the girls anywhere, detectives decide to double down. The next day, there are 150 people searching, including members of the National Guard from a nearby army base called Camp Roberts, plus multiple

helicopters and people on horseback. They're searching the riverbed across the freeway in surrounding towns. I mean, they turned San Miguel upside down. Detective Cole told our reporter that investigators were doing things that wouldn't even be allowed today, like searching people's homes without warrants. This was a huge operation and they were basically like a bulldozer running through this town doing anything and everything they could to find these two girls. And what's so interesting is that Terry's cousin Angie Gomez said that there was typically no police presence in San Miguel. She said the example she gave was that in less than 24 hours, a town where she said you could walk around with a shotgun in your hand and nobody would say anything became then the command center for a massive police operation. But even with this colossal effort, another day goes by without so much as a new sighting of

the girls, and investigators begin to lose hope that they're going to find them, or at least find them alive. And they're pretty public about their concerns. On May 19th, Sergeant Joe Little tells the Santa Maria Times that they've searched the whole town three times over, and without any sign of either girl, everything is pointing to the assumption that their disappearance was not accidental. So, while searching continues intermittently, now with cadaavver dogs, the strategy essentially changes from looking for the girls to looking for suspects. Early on, investigators actually set their sights on Terry's dad, Michael. He'd been estranged from the Flores family. They actually moved to San Miguel to get away from him because he'd been abusive to Terry's mom, Yolanda. But the reason they suspect him is mainly just because they can't find him. He doesn't have any listed address or phone number and no

relatives seem to know where he is. So, investigators are thinking, okay, maybe this is a parental abduction. And I don't even know if they had the statistics for this back then, but like that would have been the most likely. We know that now.

However, they do eventually find him 10 days into the investigation and he not only has a strong alibi in a different city at the time the girls went missing, but he passes multiple polygraphs. And if there was any doubt left for investigators about whether or not he had the girls, that was completely wiped out 2 days later on May 29th. That's when deputies get a call from some men on the Camp Roberts Army base. They said they'd been taking their break parked down by a bridge near the Selenus Riverbed. And when I say riverbed, this is more of like a shallow sandy bank than like a full flowing river. Most of the people from San Miguel go there to just like hang out. They like take their breaks there all the time, whatever. But on this day, something was different.

There was this unusual number of flies buzzing around and this weird smell coming from under the bridge. And when they follow it to try and see where this smell is coming from, they see what looks like a small hand sticking out of the sand. Now, everyone in this town knows that Marty and Terry are missing, including these guys. So, they say that once they saw the hand, they backed off and made the call to the sheriff's office right away. And when investigators get to the scene and start brushing away the sand, they find the girls two small bodies surface buried, meaning like no hole had been dug. They were just sort of laid on top of each other and then sand was pushed over to like cover them. They're unclothed. Both have liatures around their necks. And though investigators can't know the exact timing for sure, the level of decomposition that they see makes them believe that these girls have

been dead the entire time that they'd been looking for them. I thought the Selena's riverbed had been covered during the massive search operation.

It had with cadaavver dogs and people on foot and helicopters. So, Detective Cole said that even an untrained dog would have smelled surface burial there after like four to five days like with decomp especially in that May weather which is when the dogs would have been out there like a couple of days later. So, this tells investigators that whoever killed Terry and Marty likely killed them early on and then held on to their bodies for at least a couple of days before then taking them to the riverbed. Now, there isn't much else found near the girls except for an empty wine bottle which is like slightly under one of the girls' necks and a rock about the size of someone's hand or maybe a little bit bigger. They collect both because according to the autopsy, both could be relevant. Detective Cole says it's determined that neither girl had any defensive wounds and both died from asphixxiation due to strangulation from

those liatures around their neck and those were pieces of maroon colored cloth. though they don't know like what from. Now, at least one of the girls also had severe head trauma and one was sexually assaulted, but out of respect for the victims and their families, we're not going to attribute those particular injuries to either girl by name.

So, with the head trauma, they're thinking that rock they collected might be related to it.

Well, so that's what they thought at first because of the head trauma. It was like something that was visible while they were there and collecting stuff. They just wanted to make sure. But the rock didn't actually have any blood on it. And at the end of the day, like when all is said and done, they don't think that that was actually used. So, they collected it, but it ends up not being relevant. Now, the wine bottle becomes very interesting to investigators for a time after they get tox results back. Now, the corner tried to do tox screens on both girls, but given the state of decomposition, only one was possible, but the one that came back had a blood alcohol content of 0.07, 07, which for years investigators took to mean that the girls must have been given something when they were kidnapped, which like I said got them excited at first when they had this wine bottle. But they end up getting that bottle tested and they

realize the bottle is totally unrelated to the crime. It was just trash that happened to be in the same area. And as it would turn out, the girls probably weren't given any alcohol at all. Because decades later, when Detective Cole presented this case to an expert pathologist, he learned that the BAC doesn't necessarily mean that the girl was drinking cuz in some cases during decomposition, natural chemical processes can actually produce alcohol internally, which I know we've come across in other cases.

Yeah. But does that rule out them being given alcohol completely though? In this case, no. But one detail that Detective Cole told our reporter kind of sticks out to me. I guess the girl that they did the talk screen on still had a piece of chewing gum in her mouth during the autopsy, which it doesn't negate her drinking or anything, but I don't know. I think the I just think demp is probably more likely. And even if it was alcohol, it doesn't really change anything or give investigators anymore to go on.

Right. Really, when all is said and done, pretty much all they have to work with are those liatures until the next day. That's when one of the crime scene techs decides to head back out to the riverbed to do a perimeter grid search, hoping maybe they missed something the first time around. And about 50 yards away from the dump site, hidden in some bushes, he realizes they did. The tech finds what looks like a green trash bag. And inside are the shoes and clothing that Marty and Terry were last seen in, plus some other weird things that definitely didn't belong to the two girls.

I am popping on to start a conversation about a case. I cannot get it out of my head. A true mind bender. A huge twist your way. You gut check all your assumptions cuz this is a case that starts like so many before.

Hi fry junkies. Inside the bag along with the girls things, there is a potted plant, a paper grocery bag, a blue towel with hairs and a blood stain on it, and a pair of black thonglike underwear from Frederick's of Hollywood with this like silver dragon emblem. And as you can imagine, it's the items that didn't belong to the girls that are most interesting to investigators.

Yeah, there could be some connection to whoever owned these items. and the person who killed the girls if they aren't just like one

right now DNA testing obviously doesn't exist yet and when they test the items for fingerprints they don't get anything conclusive back but that doesn't mean that the items don't tell them somethingly they were found on a military base remember

wouldn't that narrow down the list of suspects pretty quickly technically no so it's publicly accessible this area and people like actually live along this riverbed so anyone could have gotten there. So, naturally, investigators try to get a list of people who would have been on the base from May 17th to the 29th. But Camp Roberts doesn't cooperate. Basically, they say this list doesn't exist or they don't have a way to get said list. Early on though, even without the Camp Roberts list, it's not a lack of suspects that plagues investigators.

It's that there were way too many. Because here's the thing about San Miguel. It was a lowerincome neighborhood with a handful of residential paroleles and according to Detective Cole, a quote astonishing number of documented sex offenders who committed crimes against minors. Christina and Angie both told Nicole it felt like the town was infested. They said that they used to get harassed all the time and when they would walk home they'd get harassed. Cars would like slow roll beside them. Guys would lean out of their windows yelling things sometimes like banging on their car doors. And they had a name for these guys. They called them the sidewalk commandos. And the ones who came and went from Camp Roberts, they had a name for them, too. Army dogs. So this 800 person town was just what, like a magnet for sex offenders? Kind of, but I think out of proximity. See, just 20 minutes south of San Miguel is a city called

Atascadero, which houses the Atascadero State Hospital, a maximum security facility for sex offenders with mental health conditions. And when those individuals get out, there are only so many places for them to go. According to Detective Cole, not only were they known to frequent San Miguel, but specifically they were known to frequent Elhorn Bar on Mission Street. Well, yeah. It sounds like it's kind of the only place around like too frequent,

right? So, investigators have a big list to say the least. And not just the sex offenders, they also get a list of all the people living in and around San Miguel who had a subscription to the Fredericks of Hollywood magazine, that brand of underwear that they found. And then they have all the people who knew the girls, the people who interacted with them on Mission Street that day. So, for time's sake, it is not even possible to touch on everyone they talk to and vet, but I am going to take you through the people who I think seem the most suspicious. And first up is Greg Hickey. He's a 16-year-old who lives near Terry and sometimes babysat for both girls. Now, he's the one who took their older siblings to the riverbed the morning of the 17th. And apparently, Greg is a very hot-tempered person.

He's like known to fight. And actually, according to Detective Cole, the reason he's in San Miguel is because he'd gotten into some trouble in Washington. And he was supposed to either go to juvenile jail or a boarding school. But this deal was arranged for him to avoid both if he were to move in with his older sister, who I'm going to call Megan, and her husband, who I'll call Isaac, and they live in San Miguel.

Just out of curiosity, what do you mean by trouble? Uh it was mostly like substance use related like arrest, nothing violent, but I mean he is known as a volatile guy. He's actually known around San Miguel as Crazy Greg. I mean that's a a quote. And even that morning at the riverbed, he apparently told the girl siblings not to get wet or something. And then so when they like jumped in some puddles, he like like is just sent off. And according to Detective Cole, he started screaming and cursing. And the girls ended up running home to tell their parents. And when they go back to Terry's, her mom's new boyfriend, Frank, who, by the way, this is like small town, but Frank also happens to be Marty's half brother and a close friend of Greg's.

Oh, yeah. That's some that's some small town. Yeah. So, Frank ends up getting into an argument with Greg and even a brief fist fight before Greg finally takes back off to his house down the road.

Can we pause for a second? Why is a 16-year-old kid friends with an adult man? So Frank is is technically an adult. Like you're not wrong. But he is only four years older than Greg.

Okay. He's he's 20. Got it. But the most important part of the story is Greg has connections to both girls and was already like

short fuse running hot that morning. Right. And actually even though Terry's dad was police's first suspect, Greg was who Marty's dad was looking squarely at. Like pretty early on. Even when they were still just missing, Marty's dad was so certain that Greg was involved somehow that he actually went to Greg's sister's house, kicked the door down looking for him. So, if Greg is such bad news, why did both families let him watch their kids? I think they just needed help. I mean, Marty was one of eight children, and Yolanda was a 24-year-old single mom raising Terry and her sister in a mobile home after fleeing an abusive relationship. Greg lived in the area. He was free. He was willing. Plus, he was friends with Frank, but obviously things are different now. And for detectives, like you're suggesting, he is a pretty strong suspect. Now, when they interview Greg, he admits that he was drinking and using

drugs the morning that the girls went missing, and that he definitely had a fight with Frank, but he denies having anything to do with Marty and Tererry's disappearance or murder. And he says that he has an alibi for the time that they were taken. He says that after he left the riverbed that morning and then he got into the fight with Frank, he and his friend Cal Owens went up to the wrecking yard where Cal works. And Cal vouches for Greg, but like side eye like your friend's word only goes so far. And according to Detective Cole, they only grow more suspicious when a couple of weeks later, Cal Owens car burns to the ground on the side of the freeway while he and Greg were supposedly together.

Now, he says they're just driving along when like poof, car mysteriously catches fire out of nowhere. They pull over, they get out, and then the car is just like incinerated right there. And I assume police hadn't looked at Cal's car for evidence. Well, they did. So, when they when they found out Greg was hanging out with Cal, they looked at Cal's car, but Cal had two cars, and they only impounded one, which is obviously not the one that ended up getting burned,

right? But the one that they had, they searched and didn't find anything. Okay, that makes the fire even more sus to me. Like impounding the first car could have

tipped them off that police were eventually going to get to the second one. And then oh darn, now it's gone.

Yeah. And after that, Greg gets arrested on some unrelated charges. He ends up having to spend a couple of weeks in juvenile hall during which time his sister actually tells the court that she wouldn't be surprised if Greg was involved in Marty and Terry's case. But even though there is all of this literal and figurative smoke around Greg, there is no fire and not enough to charge him with anything. I mean, do they ever search his house? Well, as it turns out, Greg's sister's house where he lives is known to be this quote unquote party house. According to Detective Cole, he said that there were always a lot of people coming and going from it.

Substances are in the mix, possibly sex work and even sex trafficking, though there never any official arrests or charges around that. And that's the house that was supposed to be keeping Greg out of trouble.

I know. So, the lead investigator at the time, that's Sergeant Larry Hobson, he does he goes to that house. He asks Greg's sister Megan what color her linens were

because of the blue towels. Yes. So, they're not searching the house, but he's like, "Hey, do you like what color are your letters?"

Curiosity. Hers are blue. And I feel like if I were the investigator and I got that answer, I would probably ask to see them

or like then get a warrant to search this house or maybe ask any follow-up questions at all. But if he does, there is nothing in the file to show that. And it seems like he just moves on.

Why even bother asking the question if there's not going to be like a follow-up plan for when she says, "Yeah, my towels are blue."

Listen, today, Detective Cole is just as baffled by this as you are. But even though this thing should have prompted more of an investigation into Greg, it seems to have done quite the opposite. Greg's name just seems to slowly disappear from future reports as they focus on other people. Other people like Mario Escalante. He is a frequent flyer at the Elorn with multiple arrests for public intoxication. And according to Detective Cole, many people say he is the guy who bought the girls the Coca-Cola that they drank in the bar the morning of their disappearance.

But strangely enough, when interviewed by investigators back then, Mario adamantly denies even buying the girls the soda. And they actually interview him multiple times, and every time he says that it never happened, and that he had never seen Marty or Terry before.

I mean, try to distance yourself much. It's It's strange not to want to admit that.

Yeah. And Detective Cole seems to believe he definitely did buy them the soda. He told us that he confirmed it with the bartender. Now, the only excuse that I could see perhaps is like, okay, this guy has arrest for public intoxication. Is he already drunk at 11:00 a.m. and like didn't remember?

But is he saying he doesn't remember or he's saying he remembers that it didn't happen?

Yeah. So, the latter. I can't even make excuses for the guy. Like, it's it's weird for sure.

Mhm. because he would be one of the last people that they interacted with, but that is the only thing that makes him stand out. He's not on their sex offender list or their Fredericks of Hollywood list. He has no history of violence. And it would be a pretty severe escalation to go from public intoxication to kidnapping, aggravated assault, and murder. So they put him aside and they keep making their way through the lists and they hit another regular at the Elorn named Eugene Capers who is former military and he apparently lived in the house just behind the Mezos.

Interesting. Now he's not on lists either, but his name comes up because of what some considered strange behavior when the girls were found. Detective Cole says that Eugene was just like beside himself. Like he was seen sobbing and crying and going to the mission by himself to pray. And people are kind of like, "No, yeah, this is a terrible thing." But also, did you even know them? Like, why are you having this overly emotional response? Like, what does he say when he's interviewed?

Well, here's the thing. We really don't know. So Eugene gets interviewed by one of the sheriff's investigators who Detective Cole says was an army guy. Like Eugene, he used to be in the military. And apparently that guy ends up independently clearing Eugene. And so after that, the sheriff's detectives move on to a man named Roy Hash.

Not move on. That's it. Like who is this Army guy investigator? No idea. Uh, Detective Cole says that the interview of Eugene in the files isn't thorough at all because in his opinion, that investigator sort of gave Eugene a quote little military pass, like kind of good old military boy thing," unquote. How is that allowed? It just was. Um, again, how is a lot of the stuff in this case happening? I don't know. But anyways, Army Buddy clears him. That works for them. On to Roy Hash. He is a San Miguel resident who lives near the Flores, owns a van, knew the girls, and was also known to have driven them from place to place on occasion.

So, they could have jumped in his car, no questions asked. Yes, probably. And he is on one of their lists. He is a known child predator with sexual assault accusations from his own family members, according to Detective Cole. So, he becomes a strong person of interest, but he also seems to just be super elusive. Like, Detective Cole says that if this guy came up today, he would be trying everything to get in front of him for an interview. But at the time, Detective Cole says they quote kept missing him. And when one detective finally does catch him, the interview is super brief. Like, there is one paragraph in the files about talking to this guy. And Roy basically says he knew the girls, loved the girls, and would never have hurt the girls. And with that, as has become routine in this case, investigators drop it.

Are they just expecting the killer to be honest with them about it and confess to everything when they ask him the first time? Like, what is going on here? I don't know what they were expecting for the 3 years that this went on, but if a confession is what they were waiting for, then come 1983, that is exactly what they get. Let's play a little game. I'm going to set the stage.

Okay, you guess who confessed. It's 1983 and the sheriff's office hears about a serial killer who says that he Henry Lucas.

You are correct. 1983 commission. Yeah. Do you want to set the stage for the newbies?

Sure. So, Henry Lee Lucas is a murderer from Virginia who is convicted of killing 11 people, including his own mother. And then when he went to prison in Texas, and was ultimately put on death row, that's when he basically started confessing to

pretty much every unsolved murder in America. Like, no joke, hundreds of cases, men, women, kids. And at first, investigators from all over are like clamoring to get their case in front of this guy. And when they do, they start closing unsolved homicides like left and right. But everyone was

wait before you keep going. So a little eager, right? So, okay, you guys know who Henry Lee Lucas is. Now, let me jump back in for a second. So, in 1983, Henry tells Texas authorities that he assaulted and killed a little girl just north of Paso Robels, which is where San Miguel is. But just one girl.

Yeah. So, from the jump, things aren't adding up. But Sergeant Hopson schedules a time to go down to Texas and talk to Henry himself. And when I say schedules a time, I mean it literally because like you kind of insinuated, Henry's schedule is packed to the gills with meetings.

He's a busy dude. Yeah. I mean, investigators from all over the country want to speak to this guy about their cold cases. So when it is finally Hobson's turn, he's briefed by Texas Rangers on how to approach this meeting. And according to the San Francisco Examiner, there are like all these rules. Like they tell him, you know, don't approach the meeting like a cop. Like try not to argue with Henry. You know, basically let Henry conduct the interview. And they tell him to start by showing Henry photos because though he doesn't deliberately claim homicides that aren't his, like he's just committed so many murders, they all kind of blur together.

Yeah. So they suggest keeping him supplied with cigarettes and coffee. And please do not call him a liar. So

okay, Hopson comes equipped with maps and photos and sketches and cigarettes evidently

probably. And Henry is apparently unable to pick Terry or Marty out of a lineup. But using the map, he does point out the area by the Selenus Riverbed as the crime scene. Problem is, he says the girl he assaulted was 15. Now, when Hobson reminds him that the victims in his case are much younger, that's when Henry apparently ends the interview. Again, don't call him a liar, but like also don't point out that he's wrong.

Yeah. So some months later, all of a sudden, Hobson gets a call from Henry, who basically says, "You know, I've been thinking a lot about the case, and I do have the details figured out now." And that's when the decision is made to bring Henry out to San Miguel to walk Hobson through his crime. This visit, by the way, is just one stop on a tour of nearly three dozen other California crime scenes.

Yeah. I mean, he was basically a celebrity at the time. He was getting flown like all this was basically like a tour for him, right?

When he was like gonna be on death row, like he was getting flown all over the country to meet with different enforcement agencies, go on ride alongs, to like his crime scenes, like

wonder why he was confessing. Yeah. But his story goes that while in San Miguel, all these memories start flooding back to Henry and he ends up describing in vivid detail what he and his partner did to Marty and Terry and how they kidnapped them from Mission Street and took them to the riverbed. I mean, he is giving details down to the length of the liatures, which on its face, like oh wow. Mhm.

But Marty and Terry's murders had been covered extensively in the news. And also, Detective Cole says that during Hopson's initial interview with Henry, he'd shown him all of these photos from the case file that would have given Henry loads of information.

Right. Memories question mark. Right now, our reporter Nicole spoke to Hobson, who retired in 2005, and he says that he doesn't recall ever giving Henry like that much credence. But a report that he filed with the DA's office in 1984 makes me feel like that's not quite the case. And I actually got a copy of it. So in his report, he says, quote, "After watching and listening to Henry Lucas's confession in San Miguel and at the Bridge area, there is no doubt in my mind that he is responsible for the death of Terry Flores and Martha Mezo. I request that a criminal complaint be filed against Henry Lee Lucas and that a warrant be issued charging him with murder, kidnap, and child molest. End quote. That sounds like credence.

Yeah. The only problem is at this point when he's like wanting this, there is a whole task force looking into Henry Lee Lucas, which is I think where I interrupted your story if you want to finish.

Yeah. So basically, all these different agencies start comparing notes, and it becomes clear pretty quickly that the timelines don't add up. Henry had confessed to crimes that happened hundreds of miles away from each other, but happened on the same day. And the more they dig into his stories, the more it appears like he just made everything up. So basically he went from being potentially one of the most prolific serial killers in history to basically a fraudster that we now know as the confession killer.

Right. And how you know him like in 2 seconds when I say two things. Yeah. Exactly.

And really so all of that I mean that was his undoing here. The timeline of his movements were based mostly on signed receipts from his scrap metal business which brought him all over the country. And what they found for this case specifically is that Henry had signed a receipt in Jacksonville, Florida on the 19th and 20th of May, 1980.

And the girls were abducted on May 17th. 17th, right? And their bodies are disposed of, we know after that the drive from San Miguel to Jacksonville, like straight through without stopping on the roads available at the time in 1980, would have taken at least 3740 hours. So, it is physically impossible for Henry to have killed them, dumped them, and then made it to Jacksonville in time to sign that work receipt. There's also no information at all to support that Henry was ever in San Miguel at the time. And that is why the DA takes a look at everything and immediately rejects the request to file charges. What's so wild to me though is that Terry's family said because of all this Henry Lee Lucas noise, loads of people in and around San Miguel believed for years that Marty and Terry's case had been solved. I mean, there were headlines like case closed in San Miguel slaying and SLO investigators say Lucas

their man. And looking back today, Detective Cole can't help but wonder about the headway investigators could have been making if it weren't for this nearly 2yearong distraction. I'm sorry. They spent 2 years on this

pretty much. But as is routine with this case, as soon as one suspect door closes, another one does open. And when the Henry Lee Lucas jig is up, investigators quickly move on to another man, Richard Benson. Richard is a serial child molester from Selenus, which is about 90 miles from San Miguel. And he had been arrested multiple times for his offenses. He'd get convicted, go to prison, get released, offend again, then get sent right back. Why did they keep letting him out? That's the question. I mean, according to Detective Cole, at least once, he literally broke into someone's home, took their child, and left. He was caught later driving him around while drunk. And while out in 1986, he breaks into the home of a mother and her three young children.

They are 1, three, and four years old in a town just south of San Miguel. He holds them captive for several days and then kills all of them, setting the house on fire and fleeing on foot.

Oh my god, that was finally the end of the line for him. He ends up getting the death penalty for those crimes. But when these charges are announced, given the victimology and the proximity to San Miguel, that's when investigators go full steam ahead on Richard. There is a problem, though. No matter how hard they try, detectives cannot place him in San Miguel. He is in and out of the surrounding towns, but never San Miguel itself. Right.

According to retired Sergeant Larry Hopson, they first interviewed Benson right after the girls went missing on May 20th, and he gave an alibi. And though Hobson said it turned out to be a load of garbage, it looks like, guess what? Investigators kind of moved on.

Wow. until until he came back on the radar in 1986, of course, when he commits those like that horrible quadruple murder. According to Detective Cole, after that, investigators try to interview Benson again, but the DA won't let them because they don't want it to interfere with their investigation or somehow jeopardize the death penalty case that they're working on. And it's still being adjudicated at that point when like our investigators in San Miguel learn about him. And then by the time his other case is like all said and done, I don't know, nobody circles back around. And normally, like in our story, this would be the point where I was I would say, you know, like there's just so many dead ends. They were out of options.

But I mean, you've been listening to the same story. It's they aren't dead ends. They just stopped walking down streets,

right? There were things that I think could have been done, but two investigators then they would say that there wasn't much more they could do. By that point, both the Flores and the Mezo families had left San Miguel. The media is no longer covering the girls' cases, and new tips weren't coming in. So, by 1987, Terry and Marty's case officially goes cold. In 2005, we know Larry Hobson retires, and he retires firmly believing that Richard Benson was responsible for the crime, but that they just didn't have enough to charge him. And it would take nearly 20 years for new investigators to realize that this case had a whole lot more potential for being solved, not by more interviews or door-nocking, but through new science.

And what they find changes everything. From 2006 to 2009, an investigator begins sending off evidence that they do have. The liatures come back with minor DNA, but too little to work with. They have slightly better luck with the sexual assault kit swabs. Those do contain a trace amount of DNA, but again, so little that it's not even suitable to create a profile for direct comparison, let alone enter into any database at the time. The blue towel that had been found near the scene did have enough blood on it that they could pull a working profile from it, and the blood turned out to belong to one of the victims. But the hairs on the towel do not. The science just wasn't available to do full DNA testing on them. All they can say for sure is that the hairs don't belong to either Marty or Terry.

But the black thonglike underwear that is found to have traces of semen on it. And this time, investigators finally get the break that they've been desperate for, a full DNA profile, one that is even suitable for Cotus. Now, off the bat, this sample clears a bunch of suspects who have criminal records because there are no hits of any existing profiles in Cotus, but a whole bunch of the people who were looked at back in the 80s were never swabbed, which means now investigators have to trace those men back down. the Elorn regulars, the sex offender registrants who aren't in COTUS, and all of the people who had been cleared for one reason or another, or at least that's what it should have meant. But at this time, this 2006 to 2009, because the case is technically still cold, there's no lead detective assigned to it. The investigator who decided to send off the evidence for testing was only looking at cases like in his spare

time, thinking like, okay, maybe evidence could lead to a quick, easy solve. someone's enotus or whatever, but this would neither be quick nor easy. So, even though all the right pieces were there, it is not until almost a decade later in 2018 that anyone goes back to the original suspect list. That is when Detective Cole gets assigned to the case. And when he does, Detective Cole is determined to leave no stone unturned. From 2018 to 2020 with the help of his partner, Jeff Roashadotti, he swabs everybody he can that is mentioned in the case files. He swabs some of Marty and Terry's family members. No matches. He goes to prison and swabs Richard Benson, the serial child molester on death row. Not his DNA.

Did he actually talk to him this time, too? He did. And this was the first time that Benson is spoken to since the girls bodies were discovered in 1980. He tells Detective Cole that he doesn't know anything about the girls. And given that he could still not even be placed anywhere near San Miguel and it's not his DNA, Cole clears him. He also swabs Mario Escalante, the man who said that he didn't buy the girls the Coke, but probably did buy the Yeah. He swabs Greg Hickey, the teenager who got into a fight with Terry's mom's boyfriend. and a different serial child predator on death row. No matches to any of them. He even gets samples from San Miguel sex offender Roy Hash's sons because Roy Hash had died and had been cremated.

Not connected to them either. The only people Detective Cole says that he doesn't get DNA from are Eugene Capers, that former military man who was overly emotional, and Cal Owens, Greg Hickeyy's friend. and he doesn't because both men had died by the time he goes looking and there wasn't enough evidence to justify exuming them to get their DNA. Detective Cole also tries again to get a list of names from the Camp Roberts military base which is still there in San Miguel by the way because actually one of the things that he focuses on, it wasn't like a big deal back in the day but when he's looking at the case file I told you that the girls clothes were found in that green trash bag.

They weren't just like shoved in a garbage bag. They were really neatly folded and like one of the notes they make is like oh you know it's the way like a woman I mean it's like very stereotypical 198 a woman would fold the clothes or somebody who's like in the military like

that like rigidity and like straight lines like very tidy. Yes. So he's like, "Okay, should I be looking at the military as I'm taking a second look at this and knowing all these DNA profiles are getting ruled out?" But in trying to get this list, like they just kind of give him the same goaround that they did in like 1980,

which like that's all interesting, but is he really leaning towards this being a military guy or is he like looking at any other new angle too?

He's keeping an open mind. I mean like military is a possibility also because in addition to the clothes, the fact that they're found on a base,

the proximity, right? He said the liatures, the the the maroon cord that was around their neck, to him it resembled military rip cord.

Oh. So again, a lot of reasons to look that way, but the truth is he's not leaning away from anything else. He definitely thinks the crime involved somebody who knew the girls or at least someone who was familiar enough with San Miguel to know about the Selenus Riverbed as a hangout spot, but all he's focused on now is just not getting tunnel vision. And is Detective getting any new information when he's tracking down all of these people?

Well, most people's stories are the same as they were in the 80s. There is one interesting thing that happens after Greg Hickey gets interviewed in 2020. So, Greg is living in Bakersfield when detectives Cole and Robashadotti pay him a visit. Cole says that he'd aged quite a bit, couldn't really get around well, and he seemed generally a bit out of it. The first thing he says to them is, "Am I a suspect again?" And Cole explains that he's just trying to cover all of their bases. And Greg volunteers his DNA. But when Cole asks him who he thinks is responsible for Marty and Tererry's deaths, he points to his sister's husband, Isaac. Greg says that Isaac never treated his sister well, and he always hated him for it. So if it was going to be anyone that Greg knew. His guess is Isaac.

Was Isaac ever questioned back then? He was in the 80s and again by Detective Cole. And Cole says that he has a crummy alibi. And we know, right, Megan is asked about the color of her linens, but then like that was the extent of it. And though Greg is cleared from the DNA on the underwear, Detective Cole says that he's not totally convinced that he wasn't involved in some way. See, in a bizarre turn of events, Greg ends up passing away from natural causes shortly after the interview with detectives. And a couple of weeks after that, Detective Cole gets this really strange phone call from Greg's girlfriend.

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Guarantees monthly price of fixed wireless 5G internet data. Exclusions like taxes and fees apply. Service delivered via 5G network speeds vary due to factor affecting cellular networks. Guarantee exclusions and details at t-mobile.com/home internet. This woman tells Cole that she doesn't think Greg was being totally honest with him because after their 2020 interview when the detectives left, Greg told her that back in 1980, someone asked him to get rid of some bloody carpet for them. So, he and Cal Owens drove to an overpass and threw it over.

Follow-up question for Greg's girlfriend. who who told them to get rid of this bloody carpet.

If Greg ever told her who, she doesn't remember or doesn't say. And they never found a bloody carpet back then.

And Cal's car is the one that mysteriously caught flame and burned up, right? M. So, even though there's not really any way to verify this whole bloody carpet story, this phone call really gets Detective Cole thinking that maybe Marty and Terry's disappearance and assault and murder involves multiple people. When he first started reading the case, given everything he knew about San Miguel, he thought that the girls had just happened to cross paths with a child molester that morning who took advantage of them being alone. But the more work that he's been doing, the more he's starting to believe that there's more to it than that. He comes up with this theory that somebody who knew the girls might have taken them as some kind of twisted way to scare the Flores and Messo families and not like taken them with the intention to harm them. But then when this massive search operation came into town with helicopters and

horses and search dogs, they freaked out spooked and that's when things went sideways. Okay, but how does an innocent prank is the wrong word, but how does that as a prank at least escalate to sexual assault and murder?

I don't know. You'd have to ask the killer. But in this scenario, there's multiple people involved. Basically, when the person or persons who took Marty and Terry panicked, they could have leaned on someone else to help them handle the situation. And any number of people in this small town could have been called on to cover the tracks.

Like getting rid of a bloody carpet. Exactly. Okay. I feel like this is a jump. So what does Detective Cole know that he's not sharing?

It's just a theory. Like he over the years has played out dozens of scenarios like this in his head and right now he's like this is just the one that seems to connect the most dots.

Right. But there's still there's still dots that don't connect, right? Like that's most the dots, not all of them.

Yeah. And I mean, I think one of like the this isn't like a dot you can connect. It just like kind of helps explain the unconnected ones. Like in his eyes, if there were multiple people involved, the DNA from the adult underwear might not even necessarily belong to the killer,

right? But he does believe that whoever it belonged to could lead him to the killer. And this I can clearly see like how he got there. And honestly, the first time I heard from Detective Cole about where Greg was living and about the underwear, I was like, "Oh, you you have possible sex work. You have possible trafficking happening out of this house." Like, underwear was seaman probably around, right? Like it could be anyone's, but like could it connect to that house. But again, because we're like

but but because of all those reasons, he's not ruling anyone off the list, even if their DNA didn't necessarily match except except for Henry Lee Lucas and Richard Benson who he say that investigators never should have wasted a minute on in the first place.

So with a full profile in Cotus, my mind just jumps to I mean obviously genealogy work. Can they do like more testing?

So Detective Cole's mind goes there too. The first thing he learns from genealogy work that he starts getting done is that the DNA belongs to a man who is 75% black. Does that match any of the men that we've talked about in this episode?

There is one black suspect, Eugene Capers. And remember, his DNA was never collected before he died.

Okay. Did he have kids? I mean, how can we find out? What are we doing? I feel like we need to do something. We're doing things or detective Cole is doing things with genealogy

person who needs to be doing things, right? But I'm telling you like the answers like you can feel it. They're within reach. But this is what I was saying at the top of the episode. Like things are going to happen soon. He's still working on it. The problem is he's been having a lot of difficulty getting people to give reference samples to build out a family tree from the underwear DNA profile. So like the point that he's at right now, he's hit a bit of a roadblock. But never count this man out. He solved the Christian Smart case after over 25 years and like I said literally came out of retirement to see this thing through.

But are you ready for the curveball? Sure. I think so. Eugene, to answer your question, did have two kids. He had a son and a daughter. But all the IGG work that Cole has had done so far, none of it is pointing back at Eugene or anyone even close to him.

What? So, we're looking for someone who wasn't even on their radar. Could be. Again, the underground DNA. We don't know how it's connected.

Might be a connection, not the person. Now, according to Angie, there were only two black families living in San Miguel at the time. But you have to remember, people were constantly coming and going from that military base and coming and going from Greg's house for that matter, according to Detective Cole. But the good news is that underwear profile is not the only DNA that Detective Cole has to work with. Now, in 2020, he also retested the liatures and Marty and Terry's clothing, and he found unknown DNA on those items. Now, that unknown DNA wasn't suitable for Cotus, but it was suitable for direct comparison.

And did it match the profile from the seaman? It did not. And this DNA obviously to me is like way more important. This is like a onetoone tie to the crime.

So it's suitable for one-on-one comparison. It's not what was in the underwear. But through one-on ones, he is able to rule out some of the same people again. Richard Benson out, Mario Escalante out, a handful of sex offenders and the girl's family members. Now, Greg's comparison came back saying it quote cannot be included or excluded. End quote. But that's not enough for Detective Cole to jump to any conclusions. And unfortunately, he couldn't compare Roy Hash's son's DNA because there wasn't enough in the unidentified sample to be suitable for a comparison with a relative.

Okay, so let's look at what else we have. Remember the unknown hairs from the blue towel found at the crime scene. So when they were tested in 2006, they were determined we know not to belong to the girls, but at the time pretty much it.

Yeah, at the time they couldn't tell anything else. So when Detective Cole takes on the case and he's reading through all of the lab reports from the Department of Justice, he's like, "Hm, I wonder if we can send these hairs off again." Like especially could we compare the semen sample or the DNA on the liatures or even if it belonged to someone else, but it's like someone else in Cotus. like they're one step closer.

But he and his partner turn their evidence room upside down looking for the hairs and they cannot find them.

So they call the lab to ask them to check if they still have them. And the lab basically swears up and down that they do not. They're like, "We return those to you after the testing in 2006." But God bless Detective Robotti. He refuses to accept that answer. He keeps going back to the lab and putting pressure on them until finally in April of 2025, they call him and they're like, "You know what?

Crazy thing happened. Guess what we just found? We actually do have those hairs and they've been sitting here for 19 years."

How does that even happen? I feel like this happens way more often than it should with cold cases.

Yes, but I feel the same way every single time. I know. Detective Cole said that the evidence report clearly stated that the hairs were going to be sent to Virginia to be stored at the Richmond DOJ facility. So, I guess the lab just like made a mistake on their end or they didn't look thoroughly enough. Like the police's paperwork was right. And this is my PSA to law enforcement. You guys got push. Always push. I mean, you remember the James Rails case? The evidence that got him exonerated, they said for years was lost. But it was there. You guys, it is busy humans who have bad days who are looking for this stuff. It is okay to check, to recheck, to triple check, to push on people. So, they now have the hairs and Detective Cole sent them off to be retested.

and and he is currently waiting on results as of this recording, but literally he said it could be any day now. He also I mean again this man's like not quit. He's like, "Okay, while I'm waiting for that, I'm also going to retest the black underwear to see if there's any additional non-sperm DNA because it's very possible the person who wore them isn't the person who left the sperm." I feel like there is actually so much work with like this case started as a real downer but

it was like everything was going like it was everything went wrong. It felt like a terrible.

Yeah. It wasn't happening, but this this doesn't happen often in the cases we cover. My like my faith is being restored.

I know. Detective, listen, I'm going to wait until we get the sol, but Detective Cole might make the hero wall. Like things are definitely moving. and he says this case is his highest priority and there is very little he won't try. He has presented it at cold case conferences across the country. He sent the entire file to the Sacramento DA's office and actually it was Detective Cole who reached out to us which is not usually how this happens.

No, I mean you guys hear how often we say like we reached out and they didn't call us back.

Yeah. He was at basically was at this training for the International Homicide Investigators Association earlier this year. He just so happened to sit next to a detective named Lauren Gonzalez, whose name people might recognize if they listen to the deck. And it was Detective Gonzalez who suggested partnering with us to get Marty and Terry's story out there to all the crime junkies, which is, by the way, a big deal because Marty and Terry's case has not gotten any real coverage since 1986. And Terry's sister Christina and Terry's cousin Angie said that they have been trying for years to get more attention. They have been reaching out to loads of true crime shows, even talk shows, but nobody ever followed up. And in 2021, Christina was able to get a billboard put up for the girls near the San Miguel Fire Department, but she wants to get word out even beyond San Miguel. So, she is currently trying to raise $10,000 for a

billboard on Highway 101 and $25,000 to create a reward for information. So, if any of our listeners want to help her out with that, we're going to put a link in the show notes to that GoFundMe that she's put up. Since the start, Detective Cole has worked this case from every angle he could think of, and he is not planning on slowing down anytime soon. But recently, this case has taken on a new sense of urgency because Detective Cole found out that Christina was diagnosed with a terminal illness. And actually, when our reporter met with her, it was during Christina's visit back to San Miguel to make arrangements for her own burial at the San Miguel District Cemetery, right next to her little sister, Terry. She hates that her mother and both of Marty's parents died before they ever got answers about what happened. And so, her hope is that no one will be able to say the same about her. So, if you have any information

about the 1980 murders of 5-year-old Teresa Terry Flores and 4-year-old Martha Marty Mezo in San Miguel, California, please speak up. You can reach Detective Clint Cole directly at 805781-4940 or at his email c.sllo.ca. us. You can find all the source material for this episode on our website crimejunkkey.com. And if you want to listen to more episodes like this and get all of our episodes completely adree, be sure to join our fan club. You'll also get early access to new episodes every week and bonus content every month.

And you can follow us on Instagram @rjunkkeyodcast. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode.

Questions about this episode

What is discussed in "How Did Two Girls Vanish from San Miguel’s Streets Without a Trace?"?

In order: 0:00 San Miguel, Fabiola Christina, Mission Street, Kristen Smart; 10:00 San Miguel, Camp Roberts, Mission Street, Selenus Riverbed; 20:00 San Miguel, Cal Owens, Eugene Capers, Yolanda King; 30:00 San Miguel, Henry Lee Lucas, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, Jacksonville, Florida; 40:00 San Miguel, T-Mobile, Cal Owens, Greg Hickey; 50:00 Richard Benson, San Miguel, Cold Case, Eugene Capers; 1:00:00 San Miguel, Detective Clint Cole, Fabiola Christina, Fan Club.

What is mentioned in this Crime Junkie episode?

61 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including San Miguel, Mission Street, Fabiola Christina, Henry Lee Lucas, Selenus Riverbed, Camp Roberts. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "How Did Two Girls Vanish from San Miguel’s Streets Without a Trace?"?

The episode runs 1 h 2 min; the transcript is about 11,180 words in 146 timestamped sections.

More from Crime Junkie

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated November 17, 2025.