Unraveling Amber Hoopes's Case: A Community's Search for Answers

On this episode of We Share, we dive into a gripping case that resurfaces every year in East Idaho. Our guest, a Bonneville County law enforcement officer, Bryan Lovell, recounts his experience investigating the disappearance of Amber Hoopes, who went missing on September 14, 2001, just days after the world-shattering 9/11 attacks. He describes the eerie night Amber vanished, the meticulous investigation that followed, and the emotional toll it takes on those seeking closure. From chasing leads to uncovering a suspect connected to multiple crimes, the officer details the twists and turns that still haunt the case today. Despite ongoing efforts and evolving technology, Amber remains missing, but the hope persists that someone, somewhere, holds a vital clue. Tune in for a compelling discussion about perseverance, community support, and the quest for answers.

Transcript

It's it's kind of human nature. People go along with life and they see something, you know, and it's out of the ordinary. And then they're distracted and we all do it. We keep going. We're in a direction, and then later on we go, oh, I heard there was a thing that happened over here. And I just noticed that I might have saw that happen and have a bit of information.

We get it that life happens and distractions happen. We would rather know about it than go over a long period of time and wish we had that information. It might bring a conclusion to something a lot quicker, you know? When in doubt, I would say call it call and ask.

Today on the We Share podcast, we're joined by Sergeant Brian Lovell with the Bonneville County Sheriff's Department. He'll update us on the Amber Hoopes case and community security. Welcome to the We Share podcast I'm Julie, I'm Alex. We share ourselves and we provide a platform for others to share. We believe everyone has a purpose and a story to tell.

And we're back on the We Share podcast. I'm Julie and I'm Alex, and we have, as always, in studio with us, a great guest. Joining us today is Sergeant Brian Lovell from the Bonneville County Sheriff's Department. Good morning. Hi. Good morning. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I just said the wrong thing. It's actually afternoon. I don't know what time.

Well, if morning, if people are listening to it right now in the morning, it probably would get released in the morning. You're listening to it in the afternoon. Good afternoon. Good day. Yeah. Want make it work? Yeah, yeah. Thank you for being here with us. We invited you into studio today for the We Share podcast to chat about, a case that comes around every year in East Idaho.

The Amber Hoopes case. Yes. But more importantly, the things that we can learn from that case and the things that we can do as a community to help law enforcement. Yeah. So let's just jump right off, Brian, why don't you refresh our memories about that night you took the call on that night? Yeah, I was working that night.

And that call, came up in my beat in the area that I was working. I'd worked for at the age of 26. Yeah. Okay. Oh, I got to backtrack. Yeah, yeah. Simple math. You did the math. Yeah. And, that's good. I went I don't know if I could figure that this point today, but yeah, I work I worked for Bonneville County for, since July of 2001.

And so when I started here, I had worked in, Jefferson County and in Rexburg and Fremont County a little bit before that. And but I, you know, I'm familiar with the area. Of course, I grew up around here and, was just getting started in my time here, Bonneville, and ended up being on and took this call on, September 14th and, and of course, that was, you know, three days into, you know, world, world life changing events for a lot of people, you know, a lot of, things going on with the nine, 11 attacks and stuff like that.

And, you know, people were kind of tuned into those things, of course. And, you know, at the same time, life goes on and the world still turn, you know, three days later. So, I got called to, the the Bergner residence on Lincoln Road, next to majestic Auto. And that was, the business owned by the Bergner and the UPS family.

And, was somewhere one 1:00 in the morning, 130 in the morning when this call came in and, and I spoke with, grandparents of Amber, their, Norris and Kathleen, and they had discovered that, Amber had been living with them in their house, and, they had seen her. Kathleen had talked to her earlier in the evening around ten something.

But before she went to bed and, Kathleen woke up in the middle of the night, saw that, you know, the light was on and Ambers bedroom, she wasn't there. Went looking for, couldn't find her. Went out and in the shop next to the house there and, couldn't, couldn't locate her there. And so they began.

You know, calling family and friends and people, this is very out of the ordinary for Amber to, you know, just take off for no reason or without saying something to them. She's not young, by the way. She's 21. Yeah, so she could go into her own thing, but that just wasn't her personality. Yeah, that just wasn't, you know, she would, you know, talking with them there, she would get someone to go with her or, you know, tell someone where she was going when she'd be back.

And there really just wasn't any reason to leave at that time and night for her on a normal basis, you know, so, you know, they, they started calling around and checking things through that process. Norris had discovered, one of their, business vehicles, a pickup that was in their shop there was missing, on their on the footprint of where their business was.

Their, and so that was concerning as well, because, you know, Amber, wouldn't, you know, if she was going to borrow a car and say, I got to run to the store and get a pop or something. You know, she would say something, you know, and and likely wouldn't have to go get this pick about and, and taken out of the shop or the locked yard or wherever it was, you know.

But that's what they discovered. And once they started kind of, you know, not finding her or not not finding anyone in the knew where she was, you know, they, decided to call the sheriff's office, and that's when I, got the call to respond. There. So talking with them there, they they, Norris and Kathleen, you know, told me what had been going on that night, you know, their kind of routine.

In the evening and getting ready for bed and dinner and watching TV and whatever, and, kind of giving me this overview of, why they called for us there and their worries and concerns and, you know, and so, you know, our normal routine, there would be start, you know, checking off boxes here. Okay, we've checked with family, we've checked with friends, we've checked the house.

You know, we've checked the business. We've checked everywhere. We can check, you know, is there boyfriends, is there friends? Is there, you know, we're going through the things of. Does this Amber routinely take off without telling anybody? No. You know, we're checking all these things off the list, you know, as possible explanations or reasons why she may go somewhere or someone come, would come and get her and take her somewhere.

And, so as we're going through this, you know, it it, it just the same sort of, sort of maintained through the conversation there that this was just very, very out of the ordinary. And I could see they were very worried, you know, because, you know, just them telling me the background of Amber and what she was like and her social life, you know, was was, you know, not super wild or anything like that.

And, just, just very out of the ordinary for this to occur with her. And so we, we, going through that and initially kind of checking those boxes and not, coming up with any explanation or any contacts of anybody that, would know where she's at. I got Ahold of the other deputies on the shift in the sergeant and said, hey, this is what I got going on, put this information out on the radio.

You know, and the information about the missing pickup and what it looked like, and, and, it was it was pretty. Recognize the ball? A little pick up, you know, it was branded. It had the logo on it. And, you know, something I was used to seeing as patrol patrolling the area and running around, but, another deputy, Al Thompson, ended up coming over towards the to help me on this call and start diving deeper into this.

And on his way there, he located that pickup parked down at, there's a place called Arnold's, an old store that wasn't open at the time, but they had Ammon and Lincoln at the intersection. There's a maverick and a whole neighborhood and a school and everything back in there. Now, at the time, there wasn't anything there but the Arnold's building.

So this pickup was parked there, and. And Albert found it, you know, found it there and let me know about it. And we kind of started, you know, he he was looking at that pickup and kind of seeing if there's any indication there of why it was there and where foul play going on. Yeah. All of that.

But you know, ultimately as the night went on, really all we had was the pickup went from, you know, the shop to there, which is a very short distance. So that was it. Yeah. It was, it's a very short geographical distance just over half mile. You know, there's a lot of businesses and houses and things that are built up since that time.

The roads a whole lot wider than it was then. And, we ultimately found where, out the back of that property in the back of that shop to pick up had been taken out of the shop and driven across the field kind of pasture field that runs belong, along behind all of those residences. And you could see it was kind of wet outside, not Murphy's Rain or do or whatnot.

You could see the tracks, through that field. There was some sprinkler pipe we found that was run over and then out onto a little dirt lane. Between there and the and the Am and the Lincoln intersection and through some mud and out onto the road. And then from there it ended up at Arnold's, you know, down the way.

So, you know, we started, you know, getting more help and more resources there and, and, you know, through the night. This was, you know, by then, it's 230, 3:00 in the morning and so on. And, you know, we're we're putting information out and gathering what we can. You know, morning comes in, the day shift comes into play, and, and, you know, those of us that were working on it that night from the shift kind of hand that off to day shift and, and they're starting to, you know, put detectives and other resources into play there.

And, you know, more family by then is getting involved and friends and things like that as well. And it kind of went from there. Can I, can I ask a quick question at that point? This is 2001. Did Bonneville County Sheriff's Department had a have a policy that a lot of police departments have had in the past and have gotten rid of, which is, well, we got to give it 24 hours.

So we got to give it 48 hours because she's an adult. No, I mean, I as long as I've worked in law enforcement, we've never really had that set line in Idaho anywhere that I know of. I mean, it's kind of dependent on the circumstances. There. So, you know, I, I'd been to places where people said, hey, so-and-so is missing or my, my juvenile son or daughter is missing or whatever.

So you've got runaway situations, you've got, adults, you know, even that take off and don't tell anybody where it's not against the law to, well, you can disappear if you want. Tell anybody. Right. And and you're talking 2001 there's, you know, not that many cell phones around. You don't have the internet. You don't have, quick mass communication other than landline phones for the most part.

And, so there are some differences there. And, so, you know, people may wait a little longer to if someone goes, you know, and doesn't have a way to communicate until they get to point B and say, by the way, I left and went over here. You know, sometimes you give that a little bit longer depending on the information that you have.

And most of the time, you know, we go and take runaway calls and even still to this day, you go to a runaway call and or missing person call and you start checking off those boxes whose their friends, you know, were they upset? Were they fighting with anybody? Were they planning to run away? Did they take their clothes with them?

Did they pack you know has is their bank accounts been used? You start diving into what you can die on signs. Well with the car being taken or the check. That was kind of like, oh, we better hop on that. Yeah. So there is enough, you know, just unique things that, you know, I felt comfortable in what, Kathleen and Norris were telling me, and the family was telling me that.

Yeah, this is way out of the ordinary for Amber. This is. We don't know of any boyfriends or relationships or secret boyfriends or anything like that. And those are easy things to hopefully quickly eliminate, as we've been to these calls before, where there's secret relationships that family didn't know about, and someone's climbing out the window and come for adults and juveniles like.

So, you know, we're considering those are possibilities, you know? But what stood out to me is why why would the truck go from there to there? You know? Yeah. Why did it take you know, did and you know, there's a million different reasons. Maybe she went there, met someone, they went in their car. She's planning on coming back, you know.

So it didn't really make sense, but still possible. You know, we're you know, that's our job to just kind of consider all of these possibilities and start eliminating the master list. And, you know, a lot of those were in Ambers case, were eliminated really quickly. You just didn't have that. Well, you know, that's there's a problem that she just wasn't the problem child that had a history of shenanigans.

And she she didn't. None of her clothes and things were missing. Her purse was wasn't missing or anything. You know, I don't remember a purse exactly, but those things that normally appear to have packed up and left. Yeah. The only thing that appeared to be gone is whatever she had on to go to bed that night, which was a bathrobe.

Yeah. Robe and a shirt and shorts or something. And, you know, we did talk about she had a routine where she very frequently went from the house out to the shop and was on the computer listening to music, and, and, she had email pen pals from, overseas way well out of the area. You know, we talked about that.

And of course, those were things that got dove into deeper to, to make sure of, you know, as time went on and, and, you know, we couldn't find her, and there, there were a lot of other deputies and stuff doing that, you know, as I kind of transitioned to time off and back on that night, take another calls and that was my function there.

So, but, you know, as a whole sheriff's office, kind of what you begin doing, you know, until until you find her or until you find a result that says maybe it's this or maybe it's that. And, you know, as time went on, we just didn't have a definitive thing, you know, you know, started examining the truck further and detectives started developing, you know, suspects and talking to anybody that had, you know, connections to the business there in the family and to Amber and and started just going down that list, which takes a little time, you know, to run down and do so that that was kind of the process

that was going on in the days, to follow days, weeks, months to follow, and still kind of goes on, you know, up to this point. Now, as soon as we find new information. But, so, I'm going to ask you a question before we carry on with the timeline, because there's more to this story.

She disappeared, but there's so much more to the story. Yeah. How discouraging was that? Did it, did it feel I mean, yeah, as somebody who does this for a job and it's such an important part of your life, what's that emotion like when you can't help resolve this for her grandparents and her family? Yeah, it it's, it's weird and unexplainable.

And you don't have an answer for them, right? Here we go to these calls. You take a runaway call or someone that wanders off for having some issue. And, you know, eventually most of them all are resolved. You find them, they come back. So they figure percentage. If you weren't a percentage in this one, there was just nothing.

Right? And just continued to be nothing. We just got to a certain point. I know that our detectives and the people that were designed to that I was, wasn't, tied to that very heavy at all. I kind of knew that was going on, had bits and pieces, but, you know, I though they were looking into people and suspects, you know, one of which was Keith Hiscock or Marcus Cox.

He went by, Keith Mark Glenn Hiscock, I think. I don't know what order, but, one of those he he fit in as a suspect and and subsequently June, fifth of 2002, he had kidnaped another girl in our county and, you know, coincidentally, was the same day Elizabeth Smart was taken down in Salt Lake and, day shift when they can't find her.

You know, I'm on that day shift and went to help on that call, and, she ultimately got away from him and, you know, resources targeted towards him to get him apprehended. And, the result was a pursuit that went, you know, a long ways into the hills through Jefferson and Madison County. And, came to a dead end and ended up in a shooting that we were in, that they'd killed one of our K-9 dogs and injured, one of our deputies that, was next to me, and we ended up shooting, Hess cock, and he ended up taking his own life and, which, you know, we really would have

preferred not to do that so we could get some answers from him or try to. So, you know, between that day and when Amber went missing, you know, I know that he was spoken to and and, alibis and information was given. I don't know, was he was he wasn't cleared or anything like that as a suspect.

I don't think, there was other people they were looking at and concerned about as well. And, and, you know, that was the direction they were headed basically take, you know, based off what information they had going in the best possible direction they could they could do in attempting to to find Amber and figure out what happened. So 24 years later.

Yeah. Are you 100% confident that Keith Haskell is the one who took Amber? Whoops. Yeah, I 100% 90 something percent. Yes. You know what? What has always been frustrating, troubling to me is that we've just never been able to finish connecting that last dot. You know, after that shooting in June, after that whole incident in June of 2002, I know a lot of our detectives and people from various agencies did a lot of backtracking in history on Hess Cock and and all things from Ambers case point to that.

You know, pieces of him and his history point to other cases around, I don't know, is those have ever really been confirmed, except for that incident in June of 2002. And other things he had been convicted of, you know, and over time, more information is comes to light and, you know, things that were told to us.

Then stories changed. People are, you know, after he was gone, people were unafraid to, you know, to cover for him in a lot of ways and, and whatnot. And, and of course, they, you know, applied that to the whole situation and tried to backtrack that, and connect that last piece. There's to me, there's kind of two things there.

There's that last dot that would for sure connect Hess cock to Ambers disappearance. All things point to that. Or just missing one little piece there that could finish confirming that. Right. The other piece of that is we've never found the skeletal remains. And maybe if we do, my hope is that we do in my lifetime that if I had a wish for, anything, it would be that, and, and maybe that would tell us something and connect those dots there.

Yeah. Because maybe there's evidence with it. Yeah. With skeletal remains. Yeah. Yeah, it may line up with other pieces of information that you just couldn't confirm. But I think for the most part, everything points there. There's no in my knowledge it's an active case. Still, my knowledge of it is that there's nothing else that really would point everywhere but you really.

You just can't eliminate everything until you connect that last piece and, so it's kind of frustrating, but, you know, talking about it and remembering it year after year, getting that information out, you know, you never know when someone hears this, that forgot about it or didn't didn't recognize they were around at the time or something some little piece of information might spark and they say, hey, you know, I was around here and saw this or did that and, you know, and we'll put that in the pile, you know, the deputy that carries that case mean it gets handed over over time, you know?

So it's because it stays active and it's, you know, significant. You know, they'll put that in there and apply it, to the evidence in there and see if that produces a result or gets us closer to connecting that dot. You know, you never know when somebody, some piece of information comes out there and at the same time on other cases, you know, technology's evolved.

And, you know, we've been able to take and apply evidence to new technology. And that gets us closer and has solved some of those cases. And, so we don't know what's going to be invented tomorrow. That would, help us in this case, you know, in 20 years. I know that, when we've gotten tips and leads and information relating to this case, you know, our detectives are taking that and going as far as they can with it and trying to verify, as much as they can.

I think they continue to verify the things that haven't been confirmed. Right. And neither you're doing a process of elimination or a verification that it applies to the case. Right. And that process is continued. I mean, to the point of searching areas, searching areas where he may have been, you know, they use technology to, you know, radar and such, you know, to that's been around for a long time, that's helped locate remains and stuff that have been buried for a long amount of time.

You know, they're using that kind of stuff in areas they, think might be viable as information comes to light. And, but, you know, it, it's a big county. It's a big state. It's it's like a needle in a haystack. We're going to keep looking for that needle. Absolutely. For sure. But, but it is difficult when it's a needle in haystack.

You know, I have I have two things to ask here. First, if someone was to come forward who used to maybe hang out with Hess cotton, you as a department, you're not looking to charge anyone within like you're. If they were, if they were drug buddies or whatever, you're not searching for that. But I think, you know, our big interest is in connecting that last doc right now.

I can't, I don't know, maybe maybe someone has involvement in that to the point where they are down here. Yeah, I don't know. I, to my knowledge, I, I don't know if there's been any anything that points that direction. It it appears to be, solely in, in, with Mr. Hiscock right there, you know, but but maybe they could lead you if they used to hang with it.

Maybe they could lead you to an area that maybe they went camping or. Yeah. And that would be even if we don't connect that last, that finding Amber would be, you know, ideal. That would be the greatest. Right. So, you know, someone may have information that knows that and hopefully they would, come forward and, and be willing to, talk with investigators and work through that.

We've had family of of, from the Hiscock family and people and friends and associates. They've come forward and given that information over time. And, I don't know, I haven't been directly involved in that. I just know that it's happened. And I don't know if they had some fear of something. But, what's important is finding Amber.

And, like, holding on to that information, and not helping connect the dots or not helping find her. I hope that I, I hope that someone's out there not doing that in fear of some sort of right ability or repercussions or something, you know, I don't think there's anything that we couldn't just work through in this case at all.

It would be nice to to bring an end to that. And, and, I guess the easiest way I refer to all time is just connect that to then. Barb. Yeah. And then my second part of that is it's super trendy right now. I've been known to say it on the radio is if you see something, say something.

It's a very trendy phrase. What does that look like for law enforcement? What are you asking people to look for in their everyday lives? Not just for Amber, but in every day? Well, yeah, that could apply to a whole lot of things, you know? I mean, after nine, 11, you know, that kind of come. I got really popular, and it still is.

And that's good, because that's the easiest way to say, hey, don't you know if something's really out of the ordinary and you're not sure if you should report it or who to report it to, you take it. Take a minute. Think about whether you should be holding that in or not. Right. It's it's kind of human nature. People go along with life and they see something, you know, and it's out of the ordinary.

And then they're distracted and we all do it. We keep going, we're in a direction, and then later on we go, oh, I heard there was a thing that happened over here, and I just noticed that I might have saw that happen and have a bit of information. Now, I'm not sure if they need it or not. I can't I don't know if I'm bothering people or not.

We're we get it that life happens and distractions happen. We would rather know about it than go over a long period of time and wish we had that information. It might bring a conclusion to something a lot quicker and and be a little more efficient with our resources and things. Right. So, you know, when in doubt, I would say call it call an ass, call and talk to us with the Non-Emergent line.

Yeah. You're not sure if this is something I should report or not? Call and ask us. We're happy to talk to people and let them know because what they may not know is we we need to know just that little bit of information, even if what they saw can't be confirmed or verified. We may need to know that and put it with a stack of other pieces of information that might make a difference in a case, might save somebody's life.

It might help us bring someone, to justice or hold them accountable for something. You know, and, and anything from, you know, big things, major, major violence and things and, to neighborhood crime and vandalism and stuff, you know, it doesn't it doesn't matter. That's I tell people all the time, the great thing about East Idaho is our communities are real supportive of each other.

They take care of each other. They're not afraid to call, and they do things in. Yeah. What we see is people that are just I'm not sure if that's something worthy of calling in or not. And, lean on the side of safety. They're lean on the side of this may matter. That reminds me of that two year old I found walking in a diaper on my walk.

Yeah, like you shouldn't be out here in the dark. That's kind of all right. And, and, you know, and when you live in your neighborhood, you live in, you work in your square, you get your every day commute, you know, what's kind of out of place and, and what's not. And, and you guys are going to sort it out.

Don't. Our listeners shouldn't care. That's their job. Yeah, yeah. So if they call the Bonneville County Emergency Non-Emergent line. Yeah, you're going to redirect it of needs redirected. Our dispatch there is they're dispatching emergency services, you know, for every one in the county, for every agency entity that's in the in Bonneville County. And they're going to they're going to take that information.

They're going to take your perception of whatever's going on. They're going to sort that out and send the appropriate resources. Now, we do get busy and dispatch gets busy and and information is only as good as it comes in and, and gets transferred back out. Right. And and we have to prioritize a lot of those things.

And so that a lot of times that's what, you know, we hear on the street, people's frustrations. Well, I said it was this and you didn't get here right away. Or they may not understand that we were there all along. We just were doing stuff till we could come talk to you about that thing, you know, and we're reacting based on what information you sent and, and it's okay if people give the wrong information and it was misunderstood or misperceived and we missed something, that's okay.

They need to understand that that could happen. You know, and we just, you know, we that's some human nature. There's what I would call that happens all the time. I use the example of if there is a crash at 17th and hit, you know, then our dispatchers are getting dozens and dozens of phone calls. Right. And everything from, yeah, there's a crash.

Someone is come take care of it. Oh. It's the worst thing ever. There's a fire and a tornado and a sinkhole and aliens. And bring that to the Coast Guard. You know, everything in between. And, so all the resources go there in the first ones. Get there and go. Everybody slow down. It's a fender bender in the parking lot.

You know, it's not even on the road. And then they go talk to eight people that saw two on each corner. And you still have eight different perceptions of what happened. And so, you know, really we're collecting those perceptions. They're going through a dispatcher to someone. They're sorting that out, getting resources there. We're taking what we hear and and trying to go and find out what's going on and, and track whatever it is down.

You know, and, and things that hinder us, our speculations of things. Well, I heard this is going on. I heard that happened over there. So-and-so told so-and-so that posted in a social media group that it was this or that. Those take time for us to go and run down when they're not factual, you know, and rumors and and we get it.

There's some human nature there. Misinformation travels faster than ever, faster every day. And, that's an obstacle that we're just faced with in this perception, a whole lot more than, than 30 years ago. And I got to say, how much does your job change? Oh, yeah. So in that respect, it's evolved so much. You know, the the just and that's that's a good thing.

You know, that one of the other things I tell people all the time is this you get into this career, law enforcement and public safety, you'll never learn everything there is to know about this job. Laws change, society changes. Things evolve. Training changes. You know, I think our sheriff's office, we're really good at evaluating what we're doing.

We want to be evaluating, how we're doing business so that we can be more effective and more efficient the next time that might come around or as we go along, you know, and so as technology comes in, is that the best technology that works good for us? Can we, you know, realistically plug that into our systems and be more effective and more efficient for our community that we're serving?

So, that's one of the things that I like about that I've enjoyed about my career is constant evolution of things. You never learn everything there is to know. But you can continue to keep learning, you know, you can continue to keep evolving with that, with your with your community. That's just one of those aspects that probably gets missed, probably gets missed.

Everybody get right there a little fire. So let's let's, share with our audience what we're doing as a community this Saturday. So Saturday on on the 14th. And we, we did this same thing last year on the 14th at noon on the 14th, which is, a Saturday right in front of the Bonneville County Courthouse on the steps.

Weather should be good. We are going to have a little ceremony there. And, a few words and talk about Amber and, remember Amber? Her aunt Audrey Bergner is part of who's, spearheading these efforts with us. And, we're going to take a moment. We have a couple of speakers. It's it's not, a real long thing, but, the purpose of that is to, you know, bring awareness, of course, to, to Ambers case and, and the missing people that are still missing in Idaho.

And remember that they have families and friends and, and circumstances, and there's dots that need to be, you know, connected there in those cases as well. And so we it doesn't hurt to have a reminder for that. And earlier this week, we were part of, a proclamation signing that Mayor Casper and our county commissioners signed that, recognize this day recognizing Idaho or, recognize Ambers case, recognize the, the, the cases in Idaho and across the country, that are still unsolved and and unresolved and making that, you know, declaring that day a as a missing persons day here in our area.

And so we're going to talk about that proclamation and, and, read it, and we're going to read off the names of some of Idaho's missing, and, and just take a moment to think about that and hopefully, bring some awareness to that. And, and just like talking about it here on, on your show and, talking about to the public, maybe that maybe someone knows something or it sparks some memory that, some bit of information is out there that someone's going to stumble on that might make a difference there.

Do you are is part of the county currently working? Any other cold cases? Obviously there's Amber here. She would love to find her remains, but what else are you working? There's, several of them. Some that we've helped out. Helped out with. Of course, in the in the region. I couldn't name them. All right. Now we have 2 or 3, unsolved murder cases from, one from the early 2000.

One from the 90s, one from the 60s. There's, East Idaho cold cases is, some for media, page, and Crystal that's tied to that has done a lot of work on collecting information for these cold cases. And one of the first things she done is, create a deck of cards.

And they sold those in the prison system in the jails. A lot of states have done. Yeah, yeah. And, so it has those cold cases and that information on those cards for people to see and, she's done a great job getting those out everywhere and getting that information out. And of course, since then, you know, podcasts and shows and things like that and true crime stuff, of course, is still that, you know, and that that helps.

And of course, you know, they're active cases and you can't always, dive into every bit of information there. We always got to make sure we're preserving the integrity of the case and safety of people that might be involved, but, I think it's a good thing to do just exactly this, because, you never know when someone's going to say, well, I this piece of information, it just occurred to me, it applies to this case here.

But we have, four or 5 or 6 of those, K through three that I can think of there probably a couple other missing. Well, there was one with, bones up in Palisades that, were found in the 80s and, over time, there was a company that did a lot of DNA research and stuff with those bones.

They we applied that to them, and they tied that to a family. And tied that to a missing person case in, Teton County. In the whole bag, people that fell in the river and were tried, they tried to rescue them, couldn't float it all the way down and clear down in the Palisades and, and, you know, just only that far away.

But not enough information to tie one to the other. And through science and technology, you know, lo and behold, they were able to connect that and affirm that and close that out, you know, now, okay, you said that was East Idaho, east cold cases. Did they have a Facebook group in case their listeners wanted to go there?

Okay. Yes they do. And the Dec podcast is one that covers a lot of the cold cases in Idaho and across the country. I know, they came and, did 2 or 3 of us listening to that case and. Yeah, Dorothy Houston, I can't think of the other one right now. There's another one that.

Lemons. Lemons, is lemon case from 1960 something or 70. And we can try and share those when we post campus and drop this. Yeah. All right. What would you like to leave with our listeners? It can be like current requests for them or anything to do with your position in your driving, I don't know, okay.

Oh, that's okay. Now we've got some road construction. Not really. I think, Audra, that's put this together and, and, you know, making sure that awareness is still there. I mean, realistically, yeah, you can't, you know, be 101% on this all of the time, all year long, any of us, we've got a lot of other things going on.

But we have we had a great community and that it was a great place to live. And compared to other places, and talking to my counterparts in other places were were, pretty great place with a supportive community. And that's why, you know, you can feel comfortable coming out and talking like this about it and, and hopeful that maybe someone knows something.

If they don't, that's okay. But you never know. You know, we we want to keep we want to keep trying to connect the dots, trying to find the needle in the haystack. And so I, I really appreciate you guys talking about it. Well, let me throw that back at you. We have a great community. I know that based upon our listeners here, we share.

And the other that your job and and my day job and but we also have great law enforcement and we're we're incredibly grateful for the sacrifices that are made. We do. If someone really wants to, challenging career and they want to make a difference, I, I'd like all of all of law enforcement is hiring right now.

And, you know, Idaho, especially because we're growing there's there's a need for it. And where, you know, there's attrition and things like that. And, but, I'll tell you it specific to our sheriff's office, top to bottom, we're doing some amazing things that people don't realize. How much on the detention side of our house, in the jail, some of those things that we're doing there, I think they're just getting rank graduate, their 18th GED out of there, you know, so we're we're trying to help people that come in there.

People have problems. People get in trouble. Some learn, some don't. Right. And, the goal would be that they correct their mistakes and be productive to society and not victimize people or whatever. And so it's awesome to see resources like that evolve and develop over time. And, really people, those are behind the scenes things that our deputies in there are doing.

That, people should realize there there's a unique opportunity to get into this profession in that capacity. And change the course of somebody's life for the better. They're in a great position to do that. And we most everybody sees our deputies out on the street and patrolling and and talking to them, and a lot of times interacting with them on their not so best day.

And, and we're there to referee or solve a problem or whatever. And we do our best to do that. And that's challenging. There's a lot of dangers out there. And, we work real hard to maintain safety for ourselves and others. But but I'll tell you, it's, been real fulfilling for me, you know, in, in the time I've been at it, even if it's just little pieces where you see that someone that you work with has made such a huge difference, you know, that's just that's just awesome.

I think people should, you know, think of that more so than you just to drive around with a badge and a gun, a cop car, whatever. Yeah. It's it's a whole lot more than that. Yeah, yeah. Give us that website. In case people wanted to go apply for a job. Bonneville sheriff.com. Easy peasy. Bonneville sheriff. Now hiring us on our show.

You know, when I am doing my true crime can now say, when I'm doing my true crime podcast, and I'm writing out my script and doing my research. Sheriff is a word I misspelled all of the. Really it is. Sheriff, how do you spell it? I took I put two hours into FS and it's not both. Yeah.

Oh, I screw that one up a lot. Thank goodness. For certain. We may or may not have printed big stickers on the Dare Hummer at one point, and didn't spell check real good. As may or may not have been my fault. We run it through the 4th of July parade and then we corrected it. Right? Yeah. See, you're a nobody.

I don't even know. Look, because everybody else is spelling it wrong to that word. Yeah. So. Yeah. So. All right. Yeah. Well, spell checkers a whole lot better these days. Yeah. Sergeant level, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it. Oh thank you I appreciate it.

Thanks for joining us today on the We Share podcast. If you've loved what you've heard, please give us a five star rating. Tell your friends and share this show. You can also follow us for recipes, lifestyle and fashion tips, book reviews and more on our podcast.com. Join our share squad and sign up for our newsletter there. We would love to connect with you.

We share on TikTok, Pinterest, Facebook and Instagram. Give us a follow a big goodbye squeeze and sending you all our love from Alex and Julie! Join us next week on the We Share podcast.