Hell and Gone Murder Line: Christopher Revak

SPEAKER_1 (0:02)

School of Humans.

Hell and Gone Murder Line actively investigates cold case murders in an effort to raise public awareness, invite witnesses to come forward, and present evidence that could potentially be further investigated by law enforcement. While we value insights from family and community members, their statements should not be considered evidence, and point to the challenges of verifying facts inherent in cold cases. We remind listeners that everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing in the podcast is intended to state or imply that anyone who has not been convicted of a crime is guilty of any wrongdoing. Thanks for listening.

Catherine Townsend (0:46)

On June 10th, 2006, 21-year-old Deidre Harm was headed to a night out with friends. She had a four-month-old daughter named Vegas, and had hired a babysitter to watch her. She and her friends went out downtown in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin. They stopped at a couple of bars, including the finish line and the body shop. What happened toward the end of the night is unclear. Witnesses said Deidre was talking with a man who none of her friends knew. It's also not clear which bar Deidre was at last, but the bartender at the finish line said she saw Deidre leave. The bartender also said she saw a man leave shortly after Deidre did. And then Deidre never came home. She never called her babysitter. She simply disappeared. The bartender helped the Wood County Sheriff's Department make a composite sketch of the stranger. He was described as having shaggy, dark hair, being clean shaven and having a large tribal tattoo on his left forearm. For months, Deidre's friends and family looked for her. They shared her missing poster all around town. But they found no trace of Deidre. Five months later, hunters were walking through the town of Seneca, a wooded area around five miles away from downtown Wisconsin Rapids. They found part of a human skeleton, including a skull. And on November 22, 2006, dental records confirmed these remains were Deidre Harm. There had been a lot of deterioration, too much for the medical examiners to determine a cause of death. Deidre's skeleton had injuries and trauma, but they couldn't tell if the damage to her remains happened as a result of her murder or if it happened afterward, since this was in a wooded area with animal activity and the animals could have been responsible for the bone scattering. Police seemed to hit a dead end very quickly. They had no suspects and they didn't even know whether Deidre had been attacked and killed near the bar where she was last seen or if the killer kidnapped her and killed her at another location and then dumped the body where it was eventually found. The trail went cold and Deidre's murder was unsolved. And then, in 2007, another woman was leaving a bar late at night, thousands of miles away from where Deidre vanished and she also disappeared. Police eventually began to believe that they were on the trail of a serial killer. This investigation spanned 19 years and several states and focused on a man living a double life. A man who police believe is responsible for at least three murders. And there could be other victims out there. I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the past seven years of making my True Crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned that there is no such thing as a small town where murder never happens. I have received hundreds of messages from people all around the country asking for help with an unsolved murder that's affected them, their families and their communities. If you have a case you'd like me and my team to look into, you can reach out to us at our Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145.

That's 678-744-6145.

Or you can send us a message on Instagram at hellandgonepod. This is Hell and Gone Murder Line.

Less than a year after Deidre Harm went missing, another woman also vanished. This time, the woman vanished about 700 miles away in Missouri. 36-year-old Renee Williams was a server at the Eagles Lodge Bar in Ava, Missouri. And on March 13th, 2007, she was closing up for the night. According to the Douglas County Sheriff's Department, Renee was last seen at around 1:30 a.m. The night had started out as completely ordinary. Renee lived with her boyfriend, Tim, in Mansfield. They had been together for 12 years and had three children together. And Tim told police that before leaving the lodge that night, Renee had called him to say she was on her way home. He said she sounded calm. There was no sign of distress. Everything seemed completely normal. But then Renee never came home. Tim knew immediately something was wrong, especially after he drove by the lodge and saw Renee's red Chevy Lumina still parked outside. But again, there was no sign of Renee. So Tim reported her missing to the Douglas County Sheriff's Office. Police released information stating that they were treating Renee's disappearance as a stranger abduction. Renee was white with blonde hair and blue eyes, five feet two inches tall, weighing around 130 pounds. She also had some distinctive tattoos, two feathers on her right arm, a unicorn head on her right ankle, and the letters KSA on her left fingers. Police quickly came to the conclusion that the evidence did not support Renee leaving the bar on her own. First of all, she had called her boyfriend and specifically said she was headed home. It seemed as though she had closed up normally. The doors to the bar were closed and locked, and the receipts from the night sales had been locked in the safe. Also, nothing seemed to have been taken from inside the bar, and her car was left there in the parking lot. The only thing missing was Renee's purse, and Renee was just gone. According to an incident report from the Douglas County Sheriff's Office, there was some blood found on the sidewalk near Renee's car. They sent the evidence in for DNA testing. A volunteer search party showed up with trained dogs, who alerted on a dirt road behind the bar. The canines followed the trail, which ended about a mile away from the Eagles Lodge on some private property. But there was no trace of Renee, any of her belongings, or any other DNA. Renee's family and friends made public pleas for information, but they got no credible leads. They described her as a devoted mother who would never have left her children. And as the weeks and months dragged on, they lost even more hope, because Renee never appeared again. No one heard from her. Records showed her phone was never used again, and her bank accounts and credit cards were never touched. There was no sign anywhere that she was alive after she closed up the bar that night. So what happened to Renee Williams?