Terri Lynn Hollis' Brother Encourages Others Not To Give Up After His Sister's 1972's Murder Was Solved This Year.

Terri Lynn Hollis

She too was blond, very open and curious, and genuinely nice. She was an innocent little girl. Terri was everything you could hope for in a daughter. She was lovely. She was the spark of life and excitement. She was someone special in her love for people.

Terri was born on April 4th, 1961, in Los Angeles County, California to Ronald John Hollis and Shirley Ruth Pearce.  

She was a sixth-grade student at Hillside Elementary School. She often led prayers and made requests for prayers at church

On November 23rd, 1972 at 3 p.m., 11 year old Terri left her home at 2600 block of Dalemead Street to go bike riding in her Torrance neighborhood. She never returned. The local police were alerted and Terri was officially reported as missing. Officers arrived at the girls home at around 9 p.m. and searched throughout the night to no avail.

The next day her body was found dumped on a rocky beach near the Pacific Ocean in Southern California. She was naked with the exception of a white T-shirt. An autopsy showed she had been strangled and sexually assaulted.

Police canvassed the local and surrounding areas and conducted over 2000 interviews, including known sex offenders. They arrested their first suspect a month after Terri's murder, 29 year old Ronald Paul Kozack. Although Kozack did have a history of child molestation, there was no evidence to connect him to Terri Lynn’s murder and the charges were later dropped. 

The only thing that authorities could surmised is that Terri might have rode her bicycle to a nearby park where she was likely abducted.

In 2000, Torrance police detectives open Terri Lynn Hollis’ murder case file and find a DNA swab taken from Teri Lynn’s body when it was found in Ventura County. The sample was sent to the Los Angeles County Crime Lab.

In 2006, Torrance detectives received word the DNA swab did not match any profiles in CODIS.

In 2015, Torrance police contract with Virginia-based Parabon-NanoLabs, which conducted a genetic-genealogy analysis on the DNA to create a profile.

In 2018, The analysis returns a match to a potential relative of the suspect. Detectives find the relative and discover the suspect had died and was buried in Maricopa County, Arizona.

In 2019, After exhuming the body of the potential suspect for bone evidence, Florida-based DNA Labs International tested the DNA from the bones to the swab taken by Ventura County Sheriff’s Department and discovered it was a match for Jake Edward Brown, who was 36 years old at the time of the crime. Brown had an arrest history that included two other rape allegations in April 1973 and April 1974. He also had been arrested on suspicion of robbery and narcotics possession. Brown was also known as Thomas Tracy Burum. He was not in custody when he died.

Terri Lynn’s parents did not live long enough to see the case solved, but her brother did. He encourages the family members of victims lost to unsolved crimes not to give up hope of resolution.

Who Killed Rebekah Gould And Dumped Her Body In The Ozarks? Update #2 on 11/19/2020 Arrest Made

Update# 2 on 11/19/2020:  William Alama Miller, a resident of Cottage Grove, Oregon was arrested Saturday night (November 7th) by a Special Agent of the Arkansas State Police Criminal Investigation Division. Miller will remain in the Lane County Jail in Eugene, Oregon pending an extradition hearing

Updated on 11/19/2020: According to neareport.com a arrest has been made. No more information is available at this time.

Rebekah Christian Gould

"One night I dreamed a dream.

As I was walking along the beach with my Lord.

Across the dark sky flashed scenes from my life.

For each scene, I noticed two sets of footprints in the sand,

One belonging to me and one to my Lord.

After the last scene of my life flashed before me,

I looked back at the footprints in the sand.

I noticed that at many times along the path of my life,

especially at the very lowest and saddest times,

there was only one set of footprints.

This really troubled me, so I asked the Lord about it.

"Lord, you said once I decided to follow you,

You'd walk with me all the way.

But I noticed that during the saddest and most troublesome times of my life,

there was only one set of footprints.

I don't understand why, when I needed You the most, You would leave me."

He whispered, "My precious child, I love you and will never leave you

Never, ever, during your trials and testings.

When you saw only one set of footprints,

It was then that I carried you."

-Footprints In The Sand

Rebekah was a unique, beautiful, smart young woman. She had her whole life ahead of her. She was like an angel on earth.

In 2004,  she was a 22-year-old college student and was studying to become an ophthalmologist. Rebekah had traveled to Casey McCullough's house from Fayetteville, Arkansas where she was attending college, and spent time with him periodically throughout the weekend before September 20th. 

On Sunday the 19th, Rebekah had been talking to her mom, Shirley Ballard, on her cell phone when she realized that it was running out of minutes. She told her mom she'd call her back after she was able to top it back up. That was the last time Shirley would hear her daughter's voice.

On Monday morning, Rebekah dropped McCullough at his place of work in Melbourne at approximately 8 a.m. Casey did not have his vehicle at his house that morning and needed a ride.

After driving McCullough to work that morning, Rebekah stopped by the Possum Trot convenience store in Melbourne. That was the last confirmed sighting of Rebekah. She then allegedly returned to McCullough’s house. Rebekah's sister, Danielle, who had driven with her from Fayetteville and was staying with her boyfriend nearby, was expecting Rebekah to pick her up around noon for the return trip, but Rebekah never showed up.

When police searched McCullough's house, they found Rebekah's Chevrolet Cavalier, cell phone, purse, keys and dog named "Lady." Her uneaten breakfast sandwich sat on the bedside table in the room were she was staying. Significant quantities of her blood were also found in the house, particularly on and around a flipped over mattress. Pillows with blood on them were found stuffed under the bed. And there was blood stained sheets found in the washing machine. Traces of  were discovered on the floor as well as on the baseboards and back porch. A leg from a piano in the house was missing and never found. This piano leg is reported to have been loose before and fairly easy to detach.

On September 22nd, the family received permission to form a search party. The family was angry that it took so long to get permission for the volunteer search. The sheriff's department never called the family to coordinated the search. The department also didn't contacted the local police until that Thursday, to inform them that Rebekah was missing.
A week after Rebekah was last seen, at the bottom of an embankment off a rural highway, a few miles from McCullough’s residence her body was found, She was wearing only a t-shirt and pair of panties. There had been no attempt to bury or cover the body.

The autopsy report cited blunt force trauma to the left side of the head as the cause of death, likely from a piano leg. No defensive wounds or bone bruising were found on/in her body, although there was decomposition that may have hindered the coroner’s ability to detect external wounds that had been on her skin. There was no evidence that she had been sexually assaulted. 

Police believe that Rebekah could have been taking a nap before her trip back to school when she was woken up by her attackers. Authorities also believe Rebekah was very familiar with her killer(s) and that people who knew Rebekah at least casually have not been completely forthcoming with information.  

Rebekah met McCullough when she was a car-hop at Sonic. Police ruled him out as a suspect. He said he stayed with a friend after work on September 20, and assumed Rebekah had gone back to Fayetteville. McCullough also took and passed a polygraph.

There were rumors that Rebekah might have been involved in small-time drug dealing, or that a jealous girl dating one of her ex-boyfriends may have decided to assault her.  A party had reportedly took place at McCullough's house over the weekend before her disappearance. At least one of Rebekah's ex-boyfriends and his new girlfriend were said to have attended.

In 2016, Rebekah's father received a letter from someone who said they overheard at least four people talking about her murder at Ozarka College in Melbourne before it was widely known that Rebekah vanished. The writer claimed to be able to identify three people involved with the killing, who were described as two women and a man who approached another man with dirty blond hair, who asked them, "Did you get it?"

The three people responded. The alleged killer said that Rebekah was dragged through the house, adding that "blood was everywhere" and "she put up a fight" and "screamed a lot." They then allegedly said they were not able to retrieve "stuff" from Rebekah before dumping her body.

In 2017, Rebekah's sister Danielle was diagnosed with an aggressive metastatic form of brain cancer.

In 2018, Christopher B. Cantrell arrested for allegedly threatening Rebekah's former boyfriend, Justin Gullett, if he continued giving statements to law enforcement about Cantrell’s possible involvement in Rebekah's death.

Earlier this year, Cantrell was sentenced to 96 months in prison for terroristic threatening.

Charges were dropped for residential burglary, intimidating a witness, and interference with emergency communications per conditions of a negotiated plea.

Cantrell was fined $1,500 plus court and other associated fees in addition to the eight-year prison sentence.

Cantrell was given credit for 142 days spent in jail awaiting his plea bargain.

In September of this year, a billboard was put up just inside Melbourne city limits, offering a $25,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction in Rebekah's death.

Anyone with information about the Rebekah Gould case should call either the Izard County Sheriff’s Department at (870) 368-4203 or the ASP at (800) 553-3820. Emails may be sent to info@asp.arkansas.gov.

https://justiceforrebekahgould.com/

https://www.facebook.com/pg/teamdaniellesfight/posts/

The Pima County Jane Doe, Brenda Marie Gerow Linked To Dianne K Van Reeth Through A Serial Killer.

Brenda Marie Gerow

She was born on February 18th, 1960 in Nashua, Hillsborough County, New Hampshire to  William Joseph Gerow and Brenda Louise Harriman. She was the oldest of her siblings. 

The last time Brenda's family heard from her was on July 20th, 1980. She had left three months earlier with John "Jack" Kalhauser, her boyfriend at the time. Brenda met Jack in a nightclub. He was a wanted felon and was supposedly on the run. 

Brenda had worked at a convenience store as well as a bartender at a biker bar in Dracut, Massachusetts.  She remained in contact with family and had at one time called home stating she would be returning, yet she never did. Her family attempted to report her missing, yet local police declined to cooperate, due to the fact that she was 20-years-old when she vanished.

On April 8th, 1981, a group of hunters driving through the Arizona desert saw a denim jacket hanging from a tree near Houghton Road and Interstate 10. The hunters then looked through the area and discovered a body lying on the ground. The body was clothed in denim jeans, white socks with pink pom poms, a white bra, blue underwear, brown suede shoes and unique blouse that was a dark blue and had "puffy reddish-colored sleeves" with a flower design.

To investigators theorized that by their clothing that the person could have been involved in the local county fair that had occurred at the time of the murder. Scratches on the victim's body suggested the victim had been walking or running through a wooded area before their death.

After medical examiners conducted an autopsy, it was deduced that the remains were of a young woman between the ages of 18 and 22 who was strangled to death. It was determined that she died one-and-a-half to two days before her body was discovered. She had been severely beaten, in addition to being sexually assaulted.

Even though the body was in an advanced state of decomposition, which left her facially unrecognizable, fingerprints and dental records were obtained. Sadly, no missing person cases were a match.

While trying to identify Jane Doe, police were investigating and compiling a case against John Kalhauser. He was responsible for the murder of his wife and a 52-year-old man, as well as numerous other violent offenses dating back to 1979. In 1995, while building the case against Kalhauser, a photograph of a young woman with light hair holding a bouquet was found in his possession.

After a 2012 exhumation of the body, the victim's face was digitally reconstructed after her skull was examined via a CT scan. The scan was sponsored by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

Fast forward to 2014, the investigating team matched the lady in the photograph with Jane Doe. On December 23rd, her brother, Bill Gerow Jr., received a notification from police that the female in the picture could be his sister.

On September 28th, 2015, authorities were able to publicly announce that Jane Doe was Brenda. 

Kalhauser is considered a person of interest in the murder; police have asked for information from anyone who knew Kalhauser and Gerow in the late 1970s or early 1980s.

Kalhauser has past ties to Arizona and is believed to have murdered his wife, Diane K. Van Reeth, in Nevada in 1995; he was living under the name, Don Stecchi, at the time of his wife's disappearance.

Diana was born on November 16th, 1959 to Richard Wade Van Reeth and Ardythe Celia Van Reeth. 

She was a research coordinator in the tax services office of Tucson Electric Power. Diana was last seen during the morning hours of August 10th, 1995 in Tucson, Arizona. She departed from her family's residence in the 2800 block of east MacKenzie Street in the Winterhaven area and was en route to her job. Diana never arrived and has never been heard from again.

Her Ford Aerostar minivan was discovered abandoned two days after her disappearance. The vehicle was parked in the 2800 block of east Fort Lowell Road in Tucson. The keys were inside the minivan, but there was no other evidence of her at the scene. Authorities stated no indication of foul play was discovered.

Kalhauser's fingerprints were located on the vehicle, but i don't necessarily know if that proves anything.

Investigators don't know if Dianne was aware of Kalhauser's criminal history. However, she was in the process of divorcing Kalhauser at the time of her disappearance, and was seeking custody of their two sons.

Dianne's body has never been found, but Kalhauser was later convicted of her murder in 1999.  Kalhauser's was also convicted for the 1974 murder of Paul Chapman and indicted for the attempted murder of a man in 1979. Following his indictment, Kalhauser jumped bail and fled. 

Kalhauser was sentenced to 20 years in prison in Arizona following his conviction of second-degree murder. He completed his sentence on May 8, 2019.

Investigators are still compiling as much information and proof in attempt to put Kalhauser away from Brenda's murder.

An Arrest Has Been Made In The 1978 Murder Of Shelley Connolly.

Updated on July 1st, 2014: In December of 2023 Donald McQuade now 67, was of first- and second-degree murder and sentenced to serve 50 years in prison.

Shelley Connolly

She was petite with dark black hair. Shelley was pretty and didn't know it. She was a loud, spunky teenager, born and brought up in Alaska.  She liked to roller skate, have sleepovers and occasionally break the rules to party. She camped and fished with her family and doted on her younger brother. 

Shelley was born in 1961 to Judy Connolly. 

In 1978, Shelly had dropped out of Service High School and was set to begin cosmetology courses. She was engaged, at 16, to a man a few years older in the military.  

In the evening of  January 7th, Shelley set out to an Anchorage bar called Chilkoot Charlie's. She frequented the bar enough to have been giving a nickname "Snow." It was a Friday and a think fog had rooled in. Shelley was wearing a top that her mom thought showed to much and a ski jacket she had received for Christmas. At some point that night, she was seen with several men at the bar.  At least one person reported seeing her at Leroy's a diner on C street.

The following morning, two female hikers, who’d stopped to take pictures of Turnagain Arm, found Shelley's body next too train tracks, along the Seward Highway, 10 miles south of Potter Marsh. Her sleeveless blouse was up around her neck and her jeans were zipped up and closed. An autopsy revealed she had multiple abrasions, lacerations and contusions on her face, neck and abdomen. She also had internal injuries, including a lacerated liver. And there was evidence of rape. The official cause of death was ruled as a combination of internal bleeding and hypothermia.

It was surmised that Shelley has been raped and beaten and was alive when she was thrown out of a vehicle, her hand getting stuck in the door. At first they didn't know they were dragging her, but once they did, they stopped and opened the door and threw her over the side. She rolled down near the train tracks. There was evidence in the snow that suggested that she tried to crawl back up the hill. 

The men Shelley was talking to at the bar were possible suspects. The police were also looking for a man who went by "Pinkie" who may have lived in the Kenai area.

In May of 2018, DNA evidence was submitted from Shelley's crime scene to a public database called GEDmatch. By June, a potential match was found. An investigating genealogist built a family tree from the results. It was all traced back a ancestor born in Ireland in 1858. From there, a complicated genealogical trail led the investigators to a link to Alaska, a woman from King Cove who was the mother of three McQuade brothers who had enough genetic material in common with samples taken from Connolly’s body to be suspects.

The youngest brother was Donald McQuade. He lived in Alaska at the time of Shelley's murder. He had moved from Seattle to Anchorage with his mother in 1971. He was a high school dropout, and worked as a laborer and spent a few short stints in jail for theft, burglary and carrying a concealed firearm. In 1978, he was on probation and living with family friends in Anchorage. Just a few weeks after Shelley’s murder he told a probation officer he wanted to move out of town, to Kenai.

Investigators learned that Donald had moved to Oregon and was living for years with his brother, Richard in Gresham. The Gresham Police Department surveilled the McQuades and picked up discarded DNA samples. 

Investigators got a warrant and asked the Anchorage man that Donald had lived with around the time of the murder to call Donald. Donald said he “made many mistakes when he was drunk,” but didn’t admit to killing Shelley. 

On August 30th at 2:20 p.m, 62-year-old Donald was arrested by Alaskan State Troopers and charged with first- and second-degree murder  He is expected to be extradited and will be arraigned in Anchorage upon his return to Alaska. For now, Donald is in police custody in Oregon.

Moonshine Or Mayhem? The Disappearances Of Dan Brasher, Billy Howard Dye, And Robert Earl Dye.

The rain was pouring down in Alabama, somewhere between 2 and 3 a.m. on Saturday, March 3rd, 1956. Brothers, 19 year-old Billy Howard Dye, and 23-year-old Robert Earl Dye, were with their cousin, 38-year old Daniel Alec Brasher. 

They were in Billy’s dark green, 4 door, 1947 Ford truck headed down Crooked Creek Road between Morris and Bucksnort Road. They were on their way to a party in and looking forward to a night of dancing and drinking. Unfortunately, they never returned home.

The three men were avid drinkers and party goers. Sometimes they would disappear on drinking binges for days before returning home. So, it came as no surprise when the trio hadn't returned the next day. But when the brothers, who had been working on the construction of the new four-lane Highway 31 north of Birmingham, failed to pick up their paychecks and Dan was a no show for his construction job on the Monday following his disappearance, family members became concerned. 

Curtis Brasher and his father checked the jails between Morris and Decatur, but there was no sign of the men. So, on Thursday, March 8, they contacted the Sheriff’s Department and reported the men as missing. Over the next several days, search parties combed a 25-square-mile area in the Morris vicinity, searching roadways, wells, woods, abandoned mines, creeks, and caves. An aerial search covering three counties was also done.  Not a trace of the men or the car was found.

There was a wall of silence put up by many of the locals hindering the investigators ability to uncover the truth. I was able to construct a time line of events of sorts from when they went missing.

Allegedly, the three men were at Dan's mother's cabin in the woods in Sardis. Some reports call his mother Bessie and some call her Sarah. Robert's wife Audrey was also at the cabin as well as another married couple. Moonshine and whiskey flowed and a minor scuffle broke out. 

After the scuffle, at about 1:30 a.m, they headed to Robert’s home and dropped off Audrey. From there, they drove another couple to their home in Robinwood. 

Some articles claim that Dan's mother heard the trio come back to her house before leaving again between 2 and 3 a.m. to go to Billy's girlfriend's house to a party. Some articles say that after they drove the couple to Robinwood, they then went to a party at Billy's girlfriend's house in Jefferson County. So, i'm not sure on the exact timing of things.

There were reports of gunshots that morning in the area of Billy's girlfriend's house. Also, a man who lived next door to the girlfriend’s house, where there was no running water, said some men inside the home came out at about 2 a.m. and formed a bucket brigade to take water into the home. As if there had been an accident that had to be cleaned up. Shortly after, several men left the house carrying pickaxes and shovels and piled into two cars, one of which was Billy’s truck. Later, the first car came back, but Billy's truck did not.

A clerk of a nearby store told authorities a man had come into his store following the the men's disappearances asking for “anything that might remove blood from a floor.” The clerk recommended Red Devil lye, which the man bought.

Allegedly, a Blount County man had seen a bulldozer being used to bury a car in a construction site where US Highway 79 was being built. In the mid-1970's, investigators dug up parts of the highway and bored holes looking for evidence. Using sonar, they saw a mass of metal beneath the highway but it turned out to be scrap metal.

In 1984. An ex-convict from Louisiana named T.J. Chamblee confessed to participating in murdering the men, saying he wanted to clear his conscience. Chamblee said he helped disposed of the bodies and the Ford in an abandoned mine near Trafford. Authorities went to Louisiana to question Chamblee and discovered his story held inconsistencies. He was never charged.

Many theories about the men's disappearances have been discussed over the years. One of them is that the men stole moonshine from a bootlegger called "Redbird."  Law enforcement supposedly knows it's him, but yet to have adequate proof.

Some people claim that the men were fed to pigs at a farm.

Anyone with information on the disappearance of Billy Howard Dye, Robert Earl Dye, or Dan Brasher should call Captain Steve Green of the Jefferson County Sheriffs Department at (205) 325-5069.