AlgorithmAfter Vann returns to Gary, Marvin Clinton's fiance Teaira Batey disappears. Frustrated with the police, Marvin starts investigating on his own.
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The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the authors and participants and do not necessarily represent those of iHeart Media, Tenderfoot TV, or their employees. This series contains discussions of violence and sexual violence. Listener discretion is advised. Previously an algorithm, we dug into Darren Bond's past crimes, like how he terrorized his ex girlfriend in two thousand four the Girl Fire, Beat on Fire and go to Building of All It. After serving time and Gary, Von moved back to Austin where he's sexually assaulted and almost killed a young woman Papa. But prosecutors in Austin say they were unaware of Von's violent past and labeled him as a low risk offender. Von pled guilty and served five years in prison, and after his release he went straight back to Indiana. This episode what happened when women started disappearing in Gary? But I really thought we caught longs half ago the first personal right in here. I don't want to say how I am no now states where this is everything from my Heart Media and Tenderfoot TV. This is algorithm and I'm ben Keye Brick. After Vaughan was released from prison in Austin he needed somewhere to stay. Von ended up going straight back to Gary and moving in with his brother, Reginald Beard. It's unclear exactly when Von started killing after he returned to Indiana, but Von's confirmed murders, the ones where he took police to the bodies, those appeared to have started six months after Vaughan was released from prison, when on Januen, Tierra Batty disappeared. She was kind person. Either if she can't help a person right then and this she would find a way to make something that happens for you know. She was like putting a smile on a person's face. My name is Marvin Clinton and gl was fiance. And how did you guys first meet? I'm in her on a cold winter night in the winter of two thousand and eight. I was dripping down the street and it was snow on the ground, and I just seen the person walking that the election was stressed to be outside in the wintertime instead of having on the winter coach on like a thin jacket. So I pulled up and acts she needed ris somewhere and she said yeah, but I in mind. We shaid and talked for a minute, then we exchanged from my birth and then it took off from there. Marvin liked how kind Tier was and they had more in common, and then he would have guessed her thing was football. My thing was basketball. But it was fun, you know, because she talked the way to get me interested in it and last a verse with me. Susan kind of like you could teach her about basketball, and she would teach him about football exactly. Tira and Marvin continued to date over the next four years, and in January they had a son together, tray Von. You'll actually hear him some in the background of this phone call. Tira and Marvin lived separately, and their sons stayed with Marvin, but if Tira wasn't around, she would always call. She made it a habit to talk to him three times a day. She had talked to him before he go to school, she had talked to him when he come home from school, and then she had talked to him before I put him in a bid and that was assisted with her. She never was a minute earlier. She never was a minute make On January thirteentheen, Tira disappeared. She was only twenty eight years old. We got up that morning we went around. We did a lit shopping, and I think around noon we went in Peppy Tacos's, just like a little local Mexican place. Yeahs complaining heavy tacos with Margarita's. I had a burrito squeeze and she hid full tacos two crush intoksal and then we just hung out for the rest of the day, watch TV, and I left and went to my house. She told him she's gonna call me later and wait on a call. It never happened. This wasn't normal for Tierra. She never missed her checking calls with her son, no matter what was going on. She went calls. I went on and I wait the world. Maybe she looked up out. I thought she probably fell asleep or so and round good night. The one in the morning, I tried to give him her a call, but I couldn't get an answer. And then I know, I texted her a couple of times, still no answer. I didn't think too much of it, you know, but then the next morning she didn't call. Then she didn't call that afternoon after you bout in school, and then she didn't call that night. You know, were by a house. Let myself in she want nowhere in the house. The second day not here from a contacted police and they said, well, you have to wait StEB me two hours to report the person missing to Marvin waited another day and then went back to the police, but he still couldn't convince them that something was wrong. They what they were telling enough that she probably want to be bothered with nobody. But we knew it that wasn't the case. But you n the work off with it because she called every day at the same time on the die. So a week and a half went by still having heard from him, Seeing that nobody talked to us, she had called anybody phone. We kept pounding them about the miss a person thing, and about two weeks and two that's when they finally came out and did a report. Marvin had been calling to his cell phone over and over. He says, her phone would ring and then get a voicemail, and he left her message after message until the mailbox was full, and then he started noticing something unusual. Sometimes voicemail before and then sometimes it was like somebody was going in that empty in the voicemail to the point where you can leave messages. In January, Marvin Clinton's fiancee, Tierra Batty, disappeared. Marvin called her repeatedly and never got through, but he noticed something strange. Sometimes it would tell him the voicemail was full, but other times there would be room to leave a message. What did you think was going on with the voicemails? I'm thinking somebody had not a pass code, or maybe she had gave him her pass called because she would let people use her phone, or maybe she lost the phone, or somebody just stole the phone. Whatever was going on, Marvin realized that the phone was a clue. If Tira still had it, maybe they could use the phone to locate her, and if she didn't, whoever was using it would be able to tell him something about how they'd gotten the phone. Marvin went to the police and asked them to investigate it. They were like, well, you know, we gotta get the warn we got this that it's gonna take time. So I said, okay, I'm gonna cut out the little man. So Marvin went to the Boost Mobile store, where he and Tira both had phone subscriptions. I knew the guy at the full store, he knew both of us, and he knew I would come in and pay both phone bills. So I talked to him I tone was going on. He gave me the print out of phone records. The phone records showed that Tira's phone was being used to make outgoing calls, but they weren't to any numbers that Marvin was familiar with. It was numbers with different area codes like Chicago, the suburbs of Chicago that was at least an hour hour and half away from where we were staying. So I said, well let me start. It's best gating myself. I started callings from the numbers, and a lot of numbers had became connected, but there was maybe five numbers that someone asked the phone and will always be a female that would ask them the phone. So I would say, hey, I'm calling and see if you know this person. Then they'd be like, well, how did you give my number? I said, well, this person is missing and it showed that her phone called your number, so I want to know if you know her or have you seen her? And then when I tell them it's a female, they respond to me, is that out on associate with females? M hm? So I said, well, do you remember who would call you from this number? And I would give them the number. They all would say that it will be a guy call it m hmm. It became clear that some man was using tirast phone, but Marvin had no idea who it was. One of the women Marvin spoke to seemed sympathetic to a story and offered to help man her got more into talking about what was going on, and she told me. She said, well, I don't associate with women. And I say, so, what do you mean? So she asked me, what do you need me to spell it out for you. I said, no, I understand what you're talking about. Nowt for me that she was more of a working woman to prostitute. And we talked a couple of times, and then it got to the point where she actually tried to help me find out who had the phone. She said, well, I know I talked to the guy a couple of times from that number and he was trying to pick me up, you know, he was trying to go out on a date with me. And I said, well when I called, no one answer. So she said, okay, well let me see what I could do. So she told me she was going to call it not before me, and see if she could get anybody answer, So we were the sworman since he had been calling her that if she called the number back, you know, he would ask them because she has spoke to him on that nomber before. But then she finally called me back and said, well, I'm not getting the answer. So that was the end of that. And so at that time, what were you thinking, like might have happened to her? I just knew something one right. I didn't have an idea what may have happened. I just knew something wasn't right. Marvin didn't know exactly what was going on, but he felt like he was onto something. So he went back to the police and told them that a man had been using Tira's phone to call prostitutes. I gave the detective a copy of the phone records. You seemed like he was interested in it, and he didn't tell me thanks. But from that point on what he did with the record, I have no idea. And do you remember around when that would have been. That would have been in mid February. Marvin says that after he'd given the Gary police hear his Foon records, he would regularly call to check in on their investigation. I was calling in maybe twice a week every week. If I would talk to him on Monday, I'll make my attentions to call him by Friday. Let's see what happened between Monday and Friday. Because it felt like nothing was being done. That's always we actively looking for. We're trying to gather what information we could gather, same old thing every week. And were you trying to like hold him accountable, like let him know, like, hey, I'm I'm gonna keep on you until you do something. Well he kind of figured that out. He mentioned to me, you do call a lot, and I'm like, yeah, I do. But my thing is I'm trying to get answers. Yeah, so you're going to hear from me until we do get asses. Unsatisfied with the lack of progress that police seemed to be making, Marvin continued investigating Tira's disappearance on his own. I would go to different nightclubs, different bars and stuff. Actually, hey, have you seen this person in here? I will leave a picture with information on the back of it. If you see her, here's my phone novel or calmed now one one because she's been reported missing. And then around March, somewhere between March April. I started in romas a woman who went by the name China was saying that she knew where Tira was. China was going around telling people that she's in a band of building on the west side of the town, and then she was the scene. So did you hear it straight from China or someone told you that she had been going around saying that I heard it from different people that this was China was saying. So, I mean, if it would have just been one person, I could have just kind of brushed it on. But when you're here from multiple people, different people, you know, then it starts to sink again. In the spring of Marvin Clinton went to the detective working on terrabetes missing person case. So I told him, I said, this is what I'm hearing on the streets. So he actually went and picked China up. He picked up on another charge, and he helped her in jail for three or four days. And he said he's been with a couple of times trying to get information out on for but she would used talk to him. So that made me start thinking, what she a part of this? That she helped with this, you know, because a person only knows so much unless they there, and for her to say that she's dead on the west side of town, that's knowing an awful lot. Yeah, do your China's real name? No? And have you ever ever met her? I've seen her a couple time of physically met her. See you've never like asked her for more information. Are you curious about that? Like how she found that out? I've been I've been curious about that from day one when I first started hitting it, you know. But then the detective was telling me, you know, he said, well, hey, let me do my job. This is my job. You know, you gave me the information, Now let me do my job. And I was like, okay, fine, you know, do you know did the police look into that? Did anyone search for the body? Yeah? He said they did those some active searches and some buildings on the west side and the east side of the town. But the buildings that they searched, they all came up empty. But remember Gary's population had been shrinking for decades, so the city was riddled with abandoned buildings. They're about seven thousand. Marvin knew from talking to the police that there was no way that they've done Thorist search, so he and some of Tira's friends decided to start searching through abandoned buildings themselves. The first building I went in to it was black of singing from a horror movie gang side stuff on the wall and old ragged couch that was sitting in a little wrong that had with the bottles, beer camp not cart it baggies, um use needles and stuff like that. And as I moved through the house, it was kind of scary because I didn't know what I would finding there. Were you worried about like running into someone, like someone who is like squatting or or something like that. No, not really, I was more worried about running into or being in there. That was the scariest part about it. You know. Then I stumbled in the house that I be had her in the house. Yeah, you're trying to find her, but at the same time, you almost don't want to find her exactly exactly, you know, because then you have that immature how you found her. Yeah, and and you don't know what you would look like. When's the founder if if somebody you're recognize, somebody won't recognize. So in a way, I always said to myself, Okay, I'm glad I didn't find because I want to be the one to find a person that way anyway, But I felt, you know, it was something I had to do because I felt that game police department one't doing enough. Marvin says that when he told police he was investigating abandoned buildings himself, they told him to stop. And I was like, okay, why you should want all the help you can't search you. And this explanation for me not doing it was because he said, I hate for you to be and when the houses, I know what you're not looking for. You know what you're not looking for. But just say another police drive up and see you coming out of his house, he gonna want to know what you're doing in there. So he said, I would hate to have to come and get you out of jail for being an these abandoned builders. And then he said, also, it's not really safe to do it because you don't know what the condition of the buildings before you go in now hm. So I kind of backed off of doing that, but I continue to go around with the pictures and things like that. You know, you wanted the more, but your hands really tied as far as what you can do. So the angle part come in because you felt like when none being done, you know, when none being done. And as the case went on, the more angry you got, because now it's turned from one month to months, six months and nothing that's being done. Do you remember where you were when you learned that Tira had died? Yeah? I would. Actually I was at home watching CNN and the story about Afric hardy Head came on, and they put up four of the seven names that they had identified. One person they had on there. They didn't have her name, but they heard what she was wearing, blue jeans, a blue hoodie under brownish colored coat, and right then I knew it well, because that's exactly what she had on left day. I seen her, and I picked up the phone and I called the Corners office and I said, I know who that person is. So I gave them the name of the dinners that I took it too, and they typed up a warning. They went to the dinnerst office and poor to Dentner records. The first couple of hours was really anxious because they they had called me right back. But you know, after three hours went by, I kind of relaxed because I like, well, maybe it wasn't her. Somebody just said on the same clothes she had on. And then my phone from the corner office and he told me he just wanted to confront that the dental records matched up and it was her. Now the hard part about it where her body was found. It's only like about nine blocks from where I stayed, So she was basically around the corner from where I lived. And what strikes me about it. Once everything came to a head, I got curious about the information China was putting out there, because everything she was saying was correct except for one detail. She was to see she was something in banded building, But China was saying she was in a banded building on the west side of town, But she was actually in a banded building on the east side of town. And see that brings back the point I was making earlier. You know, how would China know she did she in the band and building, But there any difference is what side of town she was found on. Yeah, see, what what do you think it's going on there? Like do you think the body got moved or do you think she was the body didn't get moved, she was killed where she was found. Mhm. You know, I had a scenario where I thought, well, maybe trying to hurt it from somebody else, and then she was just freading, you know, with with her. A lot of things came to mind that could have been this, could have been that. How you know because she's been involved or did you know who did it? We don't know, and and still today we don't know because she stopped talking to the police. Now it's possible that she could have knew Damn Van herself because as things came out, China New Tierra and they hung out in the same area together and come and find out vand head frequency at area. He was the regular around that area. Because once this picture came out, a lot of people in that area came up and say, hey, they have seen him in that area before. I think I read somewhere that um one of the other victims, maybe Tracy Martin also New Tierra. Yeah, who's that kind of like that same group or that same area where China was or yeah, let's say areas same group. It wasn't just Martin was full out of sea. Well, they knew each other. This is another place I'd like to reach out to the listeners. If you knew China or Tierra or we're part of the same group, please do you reach out. I'd love to talk to you. Contact information is in the show notes and at the end of the episode. Gary is a pretty big place, right, So so that's kind of surprising that four of them would have known each other. No, it's not that big area together, you know. I mean they all heard their own different habits that they had, so it wouldn't be strange for them to know each other because Gary is not that be What do you mean when you say they all had their habits. They all had their own problems that they was going through. They all had their different drug habits that they were trying to kick. Somen was able to kick it, song wasn't you know. So I just used the word habits, you know, because when some people get ideas of what other people do, a lot of people like the stereotypele I think they're a bad person. You know, they're not a bad person at all. You know, it's just someone was fighting their demons. Someone was able to kick us on what and van thing was because they had these habits, they wasn't worth living mm hmm. Because accring him. They didn't mean nothing to nobody becoming the things that they do, what the things that they did, you know, yeah, I mean I hear that, and I think that's probably the twisted way that he tried to justify it to himself, you know, right, So you know, it was one girl. She stayed out north in the suburbs of Chicago. She was one of the very very first person that ever weighing into him. But she happened to get away from him. She talked to the detective, but because of her line of work, they didn't have time for her. Next time on algorithm usually, you know, he brought a cheep back to the house and they got he's asking about your car, who knows you're there? And he took your cell phone. So you're saying that these are all science like you were probably wind up dead. They say what they heard was somebody in this dress and they look and they seen the woman taed up in the backroom of the car. Of sexual assaults in particular, the departments are under resource, they're not followed up on, and this is what happens when you don't follow up on them. Sexual offenders continue to offend this episode was written and produced by me Ben Key Brick. Algorithm is executive produced by Alex Williams, Donald Albright, and Matt Frederick. Production assistance in mixing by Eric Quintana. The music is by Makeup and Vanity Set in Blue Dot Sessions. Thanks to Christina Dana, Miranda Hawkins, Jamie Albright, Rema l k Ali, Trevor Young, and Josh Thane for their help and notes. Hey, thanks for continuing to listen to Algorithm. If you're enjoying the show, please do you leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. We've gotten some great messages from you guys already and we're going to do a Q and A episode soon. So if you have any questions you want me to address, or if there are parts of the story that I brushed over and you want more details, or especially if you have any tips, please reach out. You can call and leave a voicemail at eight five zero one three three zero nine. That's five zero one three zero nine, where you can reach out to me on Twitter. I'm at ben Underscore Key Brick. That's B E N Underscore KU E B R I C H and you can find all of that information in the show notes, thanks,
