Yeardley: Hey, Small Town Fam. It’s Yeardley. How are you guys? I’m so happy you’re here with me. We have an amazing case for you today which has all the elements of why we love true crime. In this episode, returning guest, retired detective Aaron is tasked with solving a decades old rape and murder. I was surprised to hear Aaron say along the way that he often, if not always, promises the families of murder victims that he will solve the crime. There are so many variables in any investigation, even more when it comes to cold cases, but that’s what Aaron tells this victim’s family and he delivers. However, before that collective sigh of relief, you, my friends, you’re going to gasp, you’re going to rail at the device you’re listening on today because this story is rife with missed opportunities.

I’m talking about the victim herself trying to flag people down in the middle of the road begging for help and people driving around her to the justice system basically giving the suspect a slap on the wrist the first time he’s caught committing a violent sexual assault. Women are often the ones on the receiving end in these horrible stories. And I think that’s part of the reason why we make up the majority of true crime listeners because when we hear a story like this and all the things that went wrong before they went right, it’s hard not to think, God, that could have been me. Here is “No one called.”

Hi there. I’m Yeardley.

Dan: I’m Dan.

Dave: I’m Dave.

Paul: And I’m Paul.

Yeardley: And this is Small Town Dicks.

Dan: Dave and I are identical twins-

Dave: -And retired detectives from Small Town, USA.

Paul: And I’m a veteran cold case investigator who helped catch the Golden State Killer using a revolutionary DNA tool.

Dan: Between the three of us, we’ve investigated thousands of crimes, from petty theft to sexual assault, child abuse to murder.

Dave: Each case we cover is told by the detective who investigated it, offering a rare, personal account of how they solved the crime.

Paul: Names, places, and certain details have been changed to protect the privacy of victims and their families.

Dan: And although we’re aware that some of our listeners may be familiar with these cases, we ask you to please join us in continuing to protect the true identities of those involved-

Dave: -out of respect for what they’ve been through.

[unison]: Thank you.

[Small Town Dicks theme]

Yeardley: Today, on Small Town Nicks, guess what? We have most of the usual suspects. We have Detective Dan.

Dan: Hello there.

Yeardley: Hello. Hello. So, happy that you’re here.

Dan: Great to be here.

Yeardley: [laughs] We have Detective Dave.

Dave: Hey, hey.

Yeardley: Oh, oh. Hey, hey, Dave. [laughs] Stumping for the one and only Paul Holes, who is the only one who’s not here. Paul is missing the party. Don’t worry, my friends. Paul will be back next week. He is off saving the world, doing DNA things as Paul does, even though he’s retired. I know. I’m just going to leave that right there. But we’re so very lucky because we have fan favorite retired detective Aaron on the microphone with us today.

Aaron: Hey, guys.

Yeardley: Hey, Aaron. For our longtime listeners, not even that long, if you’ve been listening for the last couple of seasons, Aaron’s given us a couple of cases. He’s the most wonderful storyteller. And obviously, because he’s on this podcast, his work is top notch. And so, Aaron, it’s always a delight to visit with you again.

Aaron: Thank you, Yeardley. I appreciate being here.

Yeardley: Thank you. And, Aaron, let’s promote your own podcast because it’s great and people should know about it.

Aaron: Yeah, great, thanks. So, I’ve got my own podcast. It’s called Murders to Music. It can be found on any streaming platform. And it is a podcast that talks about life. And I obviously approach it from the law enforcement side, what it was like to transition from law enforcement into this new world. I retired from law enforcement about two and a half years ago with some PTSD, mental health stuff, eleven years of homicide and child abuse detective took its toll. And in this podcast, I just talk about the things in life that nobody else wants to, like losing your identity or what it’s like to be a man and break down in tears to American Idol.

[laughter]

We talk about all those kinds of things. Educational, provides value, entertaining and I approach it in such a way that no matter what walk of life you’re in, you can totally get something out of it. So, Murders to Music, all streaming platforms.

Yeardley: I love it. What a great premise. And I really think that, again, that vulnerability is, it can feel so scary. But I also think that it’s one of the things that really joins us as human beings because we all have it. So, thank you for doing that.

Aaron: Of course. Thank you.

Yeardley: So, Aaron, you’re an old pro at this now. Please tell us how this case came to you.

Aaron: Sure. The case we’re going to talk about today is the case of Barbara Mae Tucker. Barbara Tucker is a victim who was murdered in my city back in 1980. And I want to tell her story from the beginning to the end. So, this case came to me on January 16th of 2015. The case came to my desk months before that. But I never opened the case book to look at it. I knew it was a cold case murder. I was involved in my own current cases and didn’t have time to look at the cold case. The first time I cracked the book on this cold case was at about 08:15 in the morning on January 16th of 2015.

The reason that date is important is the first line of the report is on January 16th of 1980, at 8 o’clock in the morning, officers responded to a dead body that was found on the grounds of a local community college. So, literally, almost to the day and time, 35 years later, I’m opening this book for the first time. So, when I go through the book and the case files, anybody that’s ever worked a cold case investigation, especially one that’s now pushing 35, 40 years old, there’s a lot of hands in that investigation from day one. First, I needed to start by collecting up all of the data and all of the material, all of the reports. But as we all do, we all have our own way of doing things.

So, throughout the years, as different sets of detectives put their hands into this case, they all made their own set of case books. And what that does is that creates duplicative information, multiple reports saying the same thing. Sometimes reports get missed in those case books. And then we got to take a look at the evidence. So, that’s what I did originally. I started taking a look at this case and taking a look at all the different case books that had been developed over the years. And it was overwhelming. I think there was 18 case books, 19 different case books in this case. They were all three 4-inch binders. There was literally boxes of evidence that it looks like at one time, back in the early 80s, they’re like, “All right, we’re done.” And they just shoved all of their paperwork into these banker boxes and hid them in a corner somewhere and they just disappear.

Yeardley: That sounds like they’re making hope a strategy.

Aaron: Yeah.

Yeardley: Which, you know, word on the street is hope is not a strategy.

Aaron: It is not. [Yeardley laughs] It is not indeed. So, I got to go through and take all this, and this is overwhelming. So, I get this, I start sifting through it and I start taking a look at building my own set of case books. So, I go through all of those 18 binders. I report, report, report for report, page number for page number. I make up a single set of books. I go through all of the boxes of evidence and reports that were just thrown into these banker boxes, and I take a look at those and I make sure those get filed where they need to be digitize that entire process that way I can have digital copies of everything and then go through and do a reconciliation on the evidence in this case.

So, there’s a lot of work on this front end of this before we can even start talking about suspects. And I’m assigned to this case alone. It’s just me doing this. So, once I’m assigned to this case and I get all of this stuff done, now I can start taking a look at the list of suspects that they developed starting on January 16th of 1980. And it’s important to understand that our term for suspect today in my city is different than the term for suspect back in the day. Back in the day, the suspect was anybody that could be capable of committing this crime. And because the crime that we were looking at was a female who had been bludgeoned to death. She had been raped and left out in a wooded area just outside the parking lot of this community college.

So, we knew were looking for a male. In this case, the suspect list was very long with anybody that was a male in my city or even close to my city name was on this suspect list. So, it didn’t mean that they necessarily had anything to do with the case. Maybe there was no reason to point us towards them other than they had a penis and they were somewhere within the vicinity of my city. So, I start taking a look at this and I needed to take a look at the crime scene. And here’s what I found on the crime scene and here’s what I found with my victim. So, my victim is a young lady. She was 18 years old.

Yeardley: Is this Barbara Mae Tucker?

Aaron: Yeah. She lived about 1,250ft from the college. It’s a straight shot from her apartment to the college. On January 15th of 1980, the day before she was discovered, it was a rainy, snowy, sleety, cold night in my city. There was approximately 2 inches of snow on the ground and there was slushy rain falling. Barbara had night classes that night. She needed to be at class at about 7 o’clock. So, at about 6 o’clock, she leaves her house to walk the 1,250ft to the college campus to go to class. When she got to the major intersection, which is on the east side of our town, and at that time it was very rural. The only thing out there was the community college.

Other than that it was surrounded by a couple of houses, a couple of apartments, and a lot of strawberry fields. So, it was a rural part of our city. When she got to that intersection, Barbara crossed the intersection and we can piece together what occurred next based on the witness interviews, which I’ll talk about in a moment. But what we know next is she never made it to class that night. The next morning at 08:00 AM thereabouts, when people start to show up for school, they found Barbara’s body laying about 10ft off the paved portion of the parking lot.

She was laying face down. Her shirt and jacket were pulled up over her chest. Her pants were pulled down, and she was laying in a figure 4 position with one knee higher than the other. Her pants were pulled down around her ankles, and one leg was out of the pants. Her shoe had been pulled through the pant leg and the pants were remaining on that other leg. When officers responded to this, by the time they got there, they found the victim, and they found that somebody had taken a pink towel, like a hand towel, and covered up Barbara’s buttocks. And they did that to preserve the victim’s dignity was their idea.

You got to understand that finding Barbara in this position and you’re dealing with anybody, I mean, but in this case, young kids, they were embarrassed and they wanted to do something to try to preserve her final moments. So, they put a pink towel over her buttocks. That pink towel will come into play down the road.

Yeardley: What you’re saying is that you don’t think the suspect put the pink towel on Barbara’s buttocks. You think people who found her were like, “Oh, God, we have to do something?”

Aaron: That is correct. Yeah. And we’ve actually spoken to the people who put the pink towel there. One of the teachers who arrived first just shocked her conscience to see what she was seeing. And she went to her car, got a pink towel, handed it to a student, and the student went and placed it on the victim’s buttocks.

Yeardley: And that means also that Barbara was lying face down.

Aaron: She was face down in a figure 4 position with one knee higher than the other. Again, pants pulled down, shirt pulled up. Obvious signs of a sexual assault. So, when we start taking a look at the victim, the victim had been bludgeoned to death on her head. Significant injuries to her head, crushing injuries to the bones and structures of her head, lacerations and cuts. The lacerations didn’t look like lacerations from a knife, rather skin splitting because of the impact with the hard object.

So, Barbara was taken to the medical examiner’s office and an autopsy was performed. Now, in 1980, DNA was not something that we were looking at when it came to collecting physical evidence. But in this case, during the autopsy process, a couple of things were noted. There was some discharge and fluid that they collected during the sexual assault exam. At that time, they had no reason to necessarily collect it. They had no testing that could be done with it. But they collected it and they went ahead and processed the rest of the body. And the method of death was bludgeon, trauma and homicide. So that’s what we know.

So, now as the investigator taking this case over 35 years later, I’m looking through these autopsy reports and trying to put the pieces together. I start looking at that list of suspects. And what can we do with the evidence we have? Well, in 1994 is about the time that DNA came onto the scene for criminal investigative purposes. So, in 1994, sample that was collected during the beginning of Barbara’s autopsy was sent off to the Oregon State Crime Lab for analysis and a DNA profile was formed and seminal fluid was detected.

So, we knew we had seminal fluid and we had a DNA. When we ran that DNA through our DNA database, we were unable to locate anybody with a match. And you have to understand that in 1994, this is a new process, not everybody’s getting entered, not all the samples are getting entered. It’s not 100% well-oiled machine. Things fall through the cracks. So, as we continue to progress from 1994 to 2015, when I take the case, this DNA continues to get checked against our CODIS database and we continue to get negative results. We can’t find anybody in the database with this DNA profile.

So, in 2015, we partnered with Parabon Labs. Well, about that time, two things happened. I continued to go out and check people off this list of probable suspects. And I would take a look at their criminal histories and take a look at what would make this guy a higher likelihood of a suspect than the next one. People with criminal histories, sexual assault convictions, those types of things. And I’m connecting the dots with those people and interviewing them all across the nation and collecting DNA samples from everybody. And each time I would compare that DNA sample back to our evidentiary standard and getting zero results.

Yeardley: How long does that reinterviewing process take?

Aaron: So I would say I had several hundred suspects on that list, and I did it consistently from 2015 to 2021.

Yeardley: Oh, my God.

Aaron: So, I knocked a lot of people off that list. And that process takes a long time because sometimes you’re traveling, sometimes you’re having Las Vegas Police Department go and pick up a surreptitious DNA sample for you, so there’s a lot of things and elements in there, logistics that you have to work through. And then there’s lab time, because no lab is quick anymore. So, it takes a long time at the lab, but that process is ongoing in the background.

Dan: Paul’s not here to defend himself. But you work way faster than Paul Holes.

[laughter]

Aaron: I appreciate you. I’m going to let him know you said that. So, we go through this DNA process, and I tell you that because that’s working in the background as I’m doing some other things, I’m trying to attack this case simultaneously to try to get the best results faster than Paul Holes.

[laughter]

Yeardley: I can tell you that his wife listens to this podcast. Paul, of course, doesn’t listen. Heavens no. But Sherry will get a good chuckle out of us ribbing him. [laughs]

Aaron: So, I have a criminalist named Deanna. Deanna sunk her teeth into this case and really wanted to try to find justice for our victim, Barbara Tucker. In 2015, Deanna and I partnered together to send the DNA profile we had to Parabon Labs, an outside third-party lab, to try to get a phenotype. A phenotype is where there’s a prediction of what the person will look like based on their DNA sample. So, in this case, we send the DNA sample, they send us back a phenotype that says your suspect likely has red hair, light freckles, hazel eyes, Western European origin and descent, and they actually give you a picture as to what they think your suspect might look like.

For us, this is cutting edge technology. In 1980, we didn’t even know what DNA was. And now 2015, we’re getting a picture based on the DNA sample. So, with that, I take that and I go back through the crime reports and I try to compare who looks like this guy. And this phenotype is nothing more than a tip. It’s just a tip generator. It’s somewhere for us to start. And I look through, and there’s one guy who looks like the dude in the picture in the phenotype. So, I go and I eliminate him. He’s actually in law enforcement in the State of Oregon in another part of the state.

So, at first we’re trying to do surveillance on another cop, and it was weird, but we eliminate him. So, good news.

Dave: You guys are just pulling each other over. He’s like, “Hey, what are you guys doing out here?” And then you pull him over.

[laughter]

Aaron: What are you doing? Can I get your DNA? So, we end up working with him and he was great, but eliminated him. So, now we’re back to square one again.

Yeardley: Why is a cop even on the suspect list?

Aaron: So, back in the day, the cop was a college student. This is 1980, so he was going to college, he was going to school and happened to be enrolled in some classes there. And this cop knew the victim in this case and had dated her or there was some question of him dating her at some point. So that’s why he was on the list.

Yeardley: I see. Okay. Interesting.

Dave: In our report writing for the agency that Dan and I work for, to get away from this, where you had these extensive lists of suspects you have mentioned or contacted or a witness and suspect and victim, so we’ve gotten a little bit better about filtering how a person fits into a case.

Aaron: Yeah, Dave, thank you for that. I started to mention that earlier. Our ways of doing it today is different than yesterday and you’re absolutely right. We have a way of narrowing and filtering down person of interest, suspects mentioned, whatever it may be. But back in the day, if they get the title suspect, then we have to look at it through today’s filter. And if that’s the case, we can’t just be like, “Yeah, this guy’s just registered to the school. He’s got a vehicle registered to the school.” We actually have to check it out and eliminate that person. So yeah, it was a process for sure.

Yeardley: Interesting. The evolution of DNA is so significant and what it’s done is really made these investigations incredibly granular. What surprises me is that the note taking has taken that long to evolve as well. Do you know what I mean? Like you would think if you don’t have a tool that’s going to be able to zero in on somebody to the one trillionth degree like DNA, that you would then take even more copious notes in terms of description, how they fit into the picture, all of the things to sort of do a little bit what DNA is able to do in a split second.

Aaron: Yeah, Yeardley you’re absolutely right. And I think that as we progress through law enforcement over the years, we learn from our mistakes. In 1980, a lot of these notes were literally pencil written notes on a three by five card.

Yeardley: Right [laughs].

Aaron: And it says “John Smith” and that’s it. [Yeardley laughs] John Smith with a partial date of birth, suspect. And you’re like, “Where the hell did this come from?” So, yeah, we do things differently, we learn from our mistakes. But I’m sure that Dan and Dave can contest to even the people you work with today, some of them take those same pencil notes on a piece of paper and you’re like, “What the hell were you guys thinking? How’d you even get up and get yourself dressed this morning?”

Dave: We have always said on this podcast, you are at the mercy of the detective assigned to your case.

Aaron: Absolutely, you are.

Dave: Their competence, their effort, all that.

Aaron: Absolutely.

[]

[Break 1]

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So, we get this phenotype back, and the phenotype points us in this direction. I take a look, can’t find anybody, but at least I have some physical descriptors. I have the red hair, the light freckles, the hazel eyes. And when you start looking at the probabilities of people who have red hair, light amount of freckles, and hazel eyes, that really narrows down your pool, because those aren’t common characteristics or traits that one person would have the combination of all of those. So, as we start looking, we keep coming up with dead ends. So, I partner with Parabon again. And now we’re going to use genealogical DNA to try to narrow down who our suspect might be. And this is in that 2016ish timeframe.

So, we send it off to GEDmatch, which is a genealogical DNA profile database. We send it to GEDmatch, we get some very, very distant connections, but so far removed that my genealogist said it’s not worth digging into because we’re not going to make heads or tails of them. They’re just very, very far removed. If you look up at the sky, you want to try to find the brighter stars. This is the weakest star in the sky. You can barely see it. And that’s what we were looking at.

Yeardley: It’s like 12th cousins twice removed.

Aaron: Yeah, exactly. So, between 2016 and 2021, we continue the efforts of genealogical DNA, we continue the efforts of eliminating people and trying to develop a suspect in this case. And in March of 2021, I received a phone call from my genealogist, and she says, “Hey, I was doing a routine check and we have some relatives that are closer matched to your suspect profile.” She says, “Typically, I wouldn’t even look at them because they’re still so far removed that I don’t think they’re going to be viable for us. But if you will authorize it, I’ll go through and I’ll take a look and see what I can find.” So, I authorized it. And 24 hours later, I don’t believe she had slept. She calls me and she says, “Hey, this is preliminary, but you’re looking at one or two people.”

Yeardley: Oh, my God.

Aaron: You’re looking at somebody based out of Florida who has got a name. She gave it to me. And then she says, “Or you’re looking at a guy named Robert Plimpton who happens to live in your city.” So, when I took a look at the two, and these are first cousins, but they’re removed and they’re on opposite sides of the family, so they don’t know each other. So, when I look at the guy in Florida, well, I wanted to take my partner and go there because this guy owns a yacht club, [Yeardley laughs] and it was going to be awesome. I’m like, “Here’s a boondoggle. Let’s go.”

[laughter]

Yeardley: Road trip.

Aaron: Yeah. So, I wanted to go there. But when we took a look at that guy’s criminal history, there was nothing in his criminal history. I believe he had a previous DUI 20 years earlier or something. There was nothing really there, substantial. So, now we got to take a look at Mr. Robert Plimpton. When I take a look at him, the first thing I notice is that he currently and has always lived about a mile and a half from the crime scene. So, he’s very, very close. In 1980, he would have been 16 years old. And when I take a look at his physical descriptors, he has red hair, his pictures have light freckles, he has hazel eyes, he’s short and stocky. And so far, things are looking up. [Yeardley laughs]

So, then I take a look at his criminal history. And while you can’t judge a book by its cover or its past, you have to consider that. And what I saw was between about 1985 and 1990, he was convicted of several different violent crimes, including attempted kidnapping, rape. He was caught with a prostitute in the middle of a sexual assault. On Valentine’s Day, he was driving down the road, a young lady had just went to the store to buy M&M’s and a gallon of milk to celebrate Valentine’s Day. It was a rainy day. He pulled over. He asked her if she wanted to ride out of the rain. She said “Yes.”

When she got into the truck, he drove her about a block, pulled into a paint store parking lot in the middle of the afternoon, told her he was going to kill her, tried to duct tape her hands, and she was able to fight off and roll out of the car, roll out of this truck with duct tape hands. She shed the duct tape on the ground, and the truck takes off. She remembered that license plate number, went inside to the open business, called the police. This is about 1985. The police came, took the report from there, got the license plate number, went out and found the duct tape that had her hair in it. Went to the guy’s house, found the vehicle, searched the vehicle, found her hair wedged into the floorboard and the gear shift on the floorboard.

Ultimately, Robert is arrested and he was convicted of at that time, I believe it was attempt to kidnapping, attempt to sexual assault, something like that.

Yeardley: Does Robert serve time in prison?

Aaron: He does, yep. He serves a few years in prison and then he’s out of prison.

Dave: And you think about the 80s who was stalking around Washington and Oregon and the Pacific Northwest.

Yeardley: It was serial killers central.

Dave: Right. It was the serial killer club up in the Pacific Northwest. So, I mean, the behavior is the same as what we talk about, Bundy and some of these other guys, where you’re just stalking and trolling all the time. But I think about this when I think about all that shit that Paul has worked on, and you’re like, at the same time, you had six serial killers all dumping bodies in the same county. Like, how do you figure that out? And I imagine Aaron’s going to get us there.

Aaron: Yeah, totally.

Yeardley: That’s a terrifying time.

Aaron: So now that we know that we have Robert Plympton as a possible suspect in this case, who has actually, at this point, earned the title suspect based on his criminal history and his match to the phenotype, I want to pause there, and I want to take you back to the night of the murder. Going back to the night of the murder, when they did their initial canvas and when this hit the media, there was witnesses that came forward. And I think it’s important that we talk about what those witnesses saw and heard that night. Remember, I got us up to that intersection, that major intersection at 23rd and Kane, and I said, nobody knew what happened after that. Here’s what the witnesses said. There was a total of seven witnesses that were interviewed.

One witness says, “I see a tall, slender female walking across the street that was later identified as Barbara Tucker, our victim. A man came out of the woods, put his arm around her, and walked her into the wooded area adjacent to the parking lot.” That would be the wooded area where we found the body. Another witness says, “I heard a scream, female scream, coming from the wooded area. I looked over and I saw a man peeking from around behind a bush looking at me. And I thought it was a prank, so I walked on and went to school.” A woman says, “I’m walking through the parking lot and I see a man in the wooded area who’s paralleling me and stalking me, if you will. “She said, “It scared me, so I ran away and ran off towards the school and my house.”

Another witness says, “As I’m driving on Kane in the snowy, dark, rainy night, I see a woman come out of the wooded area towards the street, waving her arms like she’s asking for help. When the cars passed her, she actually jumped in front of a moving vehicle to try to get their attention. The car slammed on its brake and then drove away.” We spoke to the driver of that car. The driver of that car says, “I thought it was a prank. I thought kids were messing around and I didn’t think to do anything.” Another witness says, “I’m driving down the road and a woman comes out of the woods. She’s covered in blood and mud. She jumps in front of my car, waving her arms. And I thought it was a prank, so I drove around her and moved on.”

Yeardley: What the fuck?

Aaron: And then the next morning is when the students and teachers arrive and find Barbara deceased off the edge of the parking lot. So that is what we know that occurred on the evening of January 15th into the early morning hours of January 16th of 1980. That is some of the stuff that we were looking at and investigating over the years as to why these witnesses didn’t take action, why they didn’t do anything. And ultimately, I was able to talk to all of these witnesses and reinterview them. And at the end of the day, they all have terrible survivor’s guilt and they all thought that it was a prank or that somebody else was going to do something. And again, understanding that in 1980, we don’t have cell phones, there’s not payphones on every corner in rural city.

The Strawberry field does not have a payphone for you to stop and call from. So, everybody just moved on with their life. And 40 years later, during the trial process, this was very impactful and painful for these witnesses when they came back and testified for this case.

Dan: This case just it harkens back to the Kitty Genovese case that happened in New York 1964. The woman who’s being murdered and she’s screaming for help. And multiple, several witnesses watched this happen down on the street below, and they did nothing. And it’s been labeled the bystander effect, where people don’t intervene. It’s one of the things that my FTO tried to coach out of me, saying, “Hey, if something seems off, your job as a cop is to investigate. Don’t try to justify it with some circular thinking or whatever like, oh, I can explain that away. No, your job is to get out of your car and go check it out.”

Aaron: Yeah, totally.

Dan: It’s sad. It’s just sad.

Dave: I think we’re all frustrated, but it is one of the dynamics that you deal with in these investigations. People don’t want to get involved or they think it’s a prank, or they don’t have time to deal with that because they’re late to class or they’re late getting home. And we talk about it on the podcast a lot. Like, if the hair on your neck is standing up, it’s time to start listening. If something happens that is so out of the ordinary, at least take a moment to consider. You don’t have to stay in the same place, but get an observation point and check it out. Like, it could be a big deal.

Dan: I said several witnesses. I just looked it up, 38 witnesses.

Yeardley: In the Genovese murder.

Aaron: Yes. Wow.

Yeardley: Holy shit.

Dan: And it was a series of attacks. At some point, the attacker runs off, but nobody goes to help Kitty. The attacker comes back and repeats this a couple times and finally murders her.

Aaron: Wow.

Yeardley: It’s brutal. There’s a documentary on it that’s interesting and infuriating.

Aaron: So, I’m going to go back to that pink towel that was covering Barbara’s buttocks. In 2019, during the evidence review, we determined that towel had never been sent off to the lab for seminal fluid or DNA or anything like that. So, we sent the pink towel off to the lab and the pink towel– couple things about it. There were some crusties on it. And when I say crusties, I want you to picture maybe white out or a light paint kind of a crusty on the fabric. It’s stuck to it. It’s hard. It won’t really chip off. And then there was some discoloring and staining on this pink towel as well. And this is what we saw in 2019 when we took a look at it. In 2019, we got a lab report back saying that seminal fluid was detected on the towel.

And the seminal fluid, the DNA profile matched that of the DNA that was collected during the autopsy from 1980. So, now we have two sources of information. We have the DNA from inside the vaginal vault, and we have DNA from exterior, on top of the buttocks. That is going to come in very important down the road during this trial process.

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[Break 2]

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So, now we have Mr. Robert Plympton, who we’re looking at as a viable suspect in this case. And we need to be able to get a DNA profile from Mr. Plympton to truly recognize and understand if he is going to be the contributor and the murder suspect in this case. But we take a look at Mr. Plympton and Mr. Plympton is now living a normal life. Robert spent years working in the logging industry.

In his most recent years, he drives a repo tow truck and he drives a riverboat on the Columbia River in Portland and it is a tourist jets boat. So, all the tourists get on and they drive fast and spin circles. That’s what he’s doing as a real-life adult. We have his wife who actually works in the law enforcement field in the records division. They’ve been married 25 years. He has a nice house and a nice neighborhood and a nice yard, coaches at the local wrestling club. He’s got a lot of things going for him that don’t make him look like a killer from 1980, but you can never really tell. So, I conduct several rounds of surveillance on him, trying to collect a surreptitious DNA sample, all of which fell short.

So, I put a team together and we followed him around on a bicycle ride one day. And Mr. Plympton leaves his house on a bicycle and within a mile or so, his right hand goes into his front right pocket, goes to his mouth, and he is chewing gum at this point, he chews gum on his five- or six-mile bike ride. And at some point, he stops to overlook the Sandy River and just kind of gaze out over the Sandy River.

Yeardley: That’s the name of a river.

Aaron: It is, yeah. The Sandy River is just east of the Portland metropolitan area. So, he stops to gaze over this river and he spits his gum out on the ground and then he continues his bicycle ride.

Yeardley: Thank you, Robert.

Aaron: Thank you.

Dave: It’s difficult to do surveillance in cars. I can’t imagine what it’s like on like a bike path.

Aaron: Yeah, totally. I believe there was six or seven of us that morning, all in our own vehicles and on foot doing this surveillance. Robert left his house on his bicycle and most of the places he went were on city streets. So, really, we’re able to keep a long eye on him and watch him through binoculars and just leapfrog up behind him and go ahead of where he’s going. So, if he hits an intersection, we’ll go ahead, we’ll put somebody on each leg of the intersection and wait for him to pass and pick up that next eye. But it was very difficult.

The one thing about the surveillance that I found super creepy was every time Robert would pass a woman who was out jogging or walking, he would stop and weirdly flirt and interact, engage with the person, and it was really, really creepy. And then ultimately, when he finally made it, kind of the tail end of his loop, he’s making a ginormous loop. And when he makes the tail end of the loop, that’s when he stops to gaze over that Sandy River. And the timing was perfect because I’ve got the long eye, So, I am 250 yards behind Robert pulled over on the shoulder of the road. It’s a straight line. He is directly in front of me, and he has stopped at a little car pullout, a little overlook over the Sandy River.

And another detective passes me and passes by him. And at the exact time Robert spits the gum out is when that other detective passed him and said he spit something on the ground. And that is what keyed it off. So really, I mean, the timing was absolutely perfect in the coordination of events. And then once he got back on his bicycle, he took off. The surveillance team peeled off with him, continued to follow him and put him to bed at home. And that’s when myself and another detective went over and searched the area and found the chewing gum there in the grass. It was tough. Robert’s head was on a swivel. And trying to surveil somebody at seven miles an hour is really hard.

[laughter]

Dave: Right? Yeah.

Yeardley: That’s funny.

Aaron: The morning we did this, it was cold, it was about 31 degrees outside. And I went and collected his gum, and his gum was still hot, still smelled like spearmint, and still wet. These are all indicators. This is fresh gum, not frozen old gum. So, we collect the gum, ultimately send the gum off to the crime lab, and the crime lab comes back and says, “Yes, the DNA on this gum matches the DNA from the evidentiary sample collected at autopsy and the DNA collected from the pink towel off of Barbara’s buttocks.” Now we have a suspect. So, on June 8th of 2021, we put a surveillance and arrest team together to arrest Robert Plympton.

We followed him from his house, he left his house, and he got to the next major intersection. And that intersection is literally on the same corner that the community college is where the abduction occurred. Robert took a lefthand turn, which is now putting him directly in front of the community college, and headed towards the intersection of where Barbara crossed the street. The police officers turned on their lights and he continued to travel southbound. He didn’t stop, and he finally pulled over along the curb. Where he pulled over and ultimately was arrested was about 100 yards away from where Barbara was murdered.

Yeardley: Wow.

Aaron: That is poetic justice. So, when the patrol officers, and it was actually detectives dressed up as patrol officers, they got to play dress up that day.

Yeardley: Why would you do that?

Aaron: Well, we wanted the detectives there because we didn’t want anything to get leaked out to Robert as to what this was about. There was a ruse. So, while we had an arrest warrant at this point for Robert, we didn’t want to tell him that we had the arrest warrant for him. So, the detectives stop him and tell him that there’s an old warrant that needs to get cleared up, and he gets taken into custody and gets taken to the police department and put into an interview room, where ultimately, he’ll meet me for the first time. So, at this point, Robert hasn’t asked what the warrant is for. He has been contacted by some plainclothes detectives that are wearing exterior vests. He’s been contacted by some detectives that are wearing uniforms. He’s got multiple police cars, both marked and unmarked, on this traffic stop. And he hasn’t asked a single question as to what his warrant is for. So, Robert comes to the police department, and he’s put into an interview room, and he’s handcuffed to the wall.

Yeardley: He’s handcuffed to the wall? I’ve never heard of that.

Aaron: Yeah. So, we have a grab bar in our interview room, and we handcuff people to that just to keep them secure while we’re out of the room. Our tables in our room, our chairs in our room are not bolted down, and we have a large plate glass window there. So, to keep them safe, to keep us safe, we handcuff them to the wall. And then once we’re in for that interview, we unhandcuff the suspects in this case, Mr. Robert Plympton, and then we can conduct our interview there. Or if things get froggy in there, we handcuff them to the wall, and that way we at least have a little bit of them controlled.

Yeardley: Right.

Aaron: So, I’m set up to do the interview. So, I go in and I do the interview. I unhandcuff Robert from the wall, and I introduce myself to him. I get all of his basic information, where he lives, confirm his address, confirm his family, his wife, etc. And then I start talking a little bit about the case. But I need to be very careful when I jump into this because I don’t want to shut him down too quickly. So, I asked Robert about growing up in the area and his logging history and what he did in school and where he went to school. And then I started talking to him about when he lost his virginity, and he says he lost his virginity, 14 to 15 years old, and told me who it was with.

And he said that he’s been with his current wife since 1978, but he wasn’t always faithful to her. He spoke about, not attending the Mt. Hood Community College, that he was never a student there, but he was a student at a local high school close by. I asked about his girlfriends at that time. He tells them to me. I threw out the victim Barbara Tucker’s name. I said, “Have you ever dated Barbara Tucker?” And he says, “No.” And I said, “No, I want you to think about it. You were 16. She would have been 19.” “Yep. Never dated her.” I said, “Did you ever have sex with her?” He’s like, “No, never had sex with her.”

Dan: Perfect.

Dave: Aaron has locked Robert into a story, and he asked clarifying questions. “Hey, like, you were 16, would you remember all the girlfriends?” And Robert says, “No, I don’t know Barbara. And I wasn’t messing around with her, and never had sex with her.” He’s locked Robert in, and at trial, inevitably they’re going to come back and say they had consensual sex. I would think that’s probably what a defense attorney would do. Now you can say, “Oh, well, your story has changed.” Right?

You were asked specifically about this. And tell me how, if you never had any sexual contact, why do I have your seminal fluid in two different pieces of evidence?

Aaron: Exactly. And I really hammered home wanting to lock him into that consensual relationship sex act. The first point of defense is going to be whether the relationship was consensual or not, whether the acts were consensual or not. And in this case, it’s he said, she said, and she is now deceased, being Barbara is deceased. So therefore, you only have one side of the statement. So, I wanted to determine if they had some kind of consensual relationship, and if so, then maybe that would eliminate Robert as a suspect. Because our job isn’t to focus on what we want, our job is to follow the evidence. And if the evidence says that they did have a consensual relationship and, yes, they were dating, then therefore, that would take Robert off of our suspect pool and we’d have to start over.

Because now there’s a justification and a reason why his seminal fluid is in two locations. However, Robert says, “No, no, no until he gets frustrated with me.” He’s like, “Aaron, I have never done anything with this. I don’t even know this person.” So, I show him a picture. “Have you ever seen this woman?” Never seen her. Never dated her?” “Aaron, no. Okay, got it. No.” And he’s like, “Well, what is she saying that I did?” And this is where I messed up, right? I mean, we don’t always do things, right? I made a critical error right here, and I should have went a different route, hindsight being 2020. But what I said to Robert was, she’s not saying much of anything. She’s not saying much of anything.

And Robert looked beyond me and he saw another picture of her where somebody had written the note deceased across the top of her picture. And I saw him look at that and see that note. And I said, “Robert, this victim was found deceased on January 16th of 1980 in the Mt. Hood Community College parking lot. And your seminal fluid is inside of her vagina and we need to talk about it.” And he says, “If you’re saying that I did something” he said, “I got nothing else to say.” So, he wants to talk to family members. So, we allow that conversation to go on. And without getting into too much detail, there’s conversation about how he’s going to go to prison for the rest of his life and that, somebody else should step up and be the man of the house.

And while that doesn’t mean a whole lot, it tells me his mindset as to where he is in that critical moment. He’s being reactionary to the information I gave him. And these are his initial thoughts. And there’s a lot of truth in these initial thoughts, I believe. So, he went off and Robert was lodged into jail for the murder of Barbara Mae Tucker. Then we start the trial process. And earlier I mentioned the pink towel that was on Barbara’s buttocks would come important. When we’re talking about the consensual sex theory, consensual sex would have not happened on the sidewalk. It would have happened probably in a home. Any woman out there. I’m not a woman, but I can draw the conclusion in my mind. If there’s seminal fluid deposited inside over time, could potentially leak out and would be found on the underwear.

In this case, Barbara Mae Tucker’s underwear did not have any discharge or seminal fluid on it. What it did have is seminal fluid high on the buttocks outside. So therefore, we were able to place the act that occurred on that fateful night was not an act of consensual sex that occurred at her home. Like the defense was trying to say, this is an act that occurred on the scene during the incident. So, that was a critical part in this trial process. The trial process lasted, I believe it was a six-week trial. I was on the stand for, I want to say 19 hours. The defense attorneys in this case, I have zero love for. The defense attorneys in this case are a father-son duo. And they are absolutely, in my opinion, unethical. They make stuff up, they create lies. And it was a very tough trial for everybody involved. A lot of victim blaming, a lot of pain and suffering that didn’t need to happen on behalf of the family that was witnessing this trial.

Yeardley: How are these defense attorneys allowed to lie and make things up? Is it a situation where they make up a lie? They say it out loud, now the jury’s heard it. The prosecution objects. The judge says sustained, but the jury’s already heard it. So, there’s a strategy there right? I can still get the information out, even though it’s struck from the record, but the information’s out. You can unsay it. Like, I don’t understand it. I thought you’re not allowed to lie in court.

Aaron: So a couple things I just want to say. This ended up being a bench trial, so there was no jury in this trial. This was a judge only. So, I want to clarify that. But as far as the ability to lie, a defense attorney’s job is not to tell the facts of a case. It’s to create confusion. Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story so you can have an ounce of truth in that statement. For example, during the trial, I got asked on cross, Aaron, “Isn’t it true that somebody else admitted to this murder?” And I said, “Nobody else has admitted to this murder.”

And what the defense attorney is talking about is buried in the 16,000 pages of my report is a line where somebody says, “There’s a picture on the news and somebody says, “Hey, that looks like so and so. And I think he might have done it.” Well, that is the truth. Yes, somebody identified another person as a potential suspect, but nobody admitted to it. So, there’s an ounce of truth in that question that he asked. Is there a potential for another suspect? Yes, there is, but nobody admitted to it. But once he gets that out there, you can’t unring that bell. So, now anybody listening has heard it. The bell is still resonating in their head, and he’s moved on to the next question.

So, it plants that seed of doubt. And in this case, the defense attorney was putting on a show. The judge wasn’t buying into his antics at all, but he was putting on a show for everybody in that gallery. This was a packed courtroom and lots of people watching this case. This case has absolutely shook our community for 40 something years. And has got international attention. There was a lot of media and news on this case.

Yeardley: So, even with a bench trial that doesn’t of a jury, there are spectators in the gallery.

Aaron: Absolutely. It was packed.

Yeardley: I see.

Dan: And probably reporters in there who are going to write a story and say the defense attorney brought this up and the detective admitted that there’s a possibility there’s another suspect.

Aaron: That’s correct.

Dave: Which refuses the context of 35, 40 years of investigation.

Yeardley: Unbelievable.

Dave: But like Aaron said, don’t let facts get in the way of a good story.

Aaron: That’s right. But at the end of the day, Mr. Robert Plympton was found guilty of this murder.

Yeardley: Oh, thank goodness.

Aaron: So, one of the things that we needed to consider and one of the factors during the sentencing portion was because this case occurred in 1980, he needed to be sentenced to the 1980 standards and guidelines. So, there was potential that Robert could get a very, very low sentence. But in this case, the judge found him guilty. It was sentenced by the judge and he got 25 years to life. And that is where this case currently stands.

Yeardley: Oh, good. And how old is Robert by the time you catch up with him and basically goes to trial-ish.

Aaron: He was 60 at the time of the arrest and I believe he was 62 at the time of the conviction.

Yeardley: All right, so he’s got some thinking to do. [Aaron laughs] Yeah.

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[Break 3]

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Dan: What’s it like to break the news to Barbara’s family about solving the case?

Aaron: There’s no other moment in my career like that. So, after we arrested him that night, we sent him to jail. Robert’s going off to booking about 8 o’clock and my partner Lindsey and I, we get in my car and we drive across town. It’s about a half hour, 45-minute drive from the police department to the victim’s family. I originally met the victim’s family in 2015. When I introduced myself and that I was a new detective on this case, they had very little hope and I told them I was going to solve their case. I haven’t met with a single victim’s family that I didn’t promise them I was going to solve the case. And I promised them that day. And they’re a good family. They’re good people. They want to see justice for their sister.

Barbara’s mom has passed away and I met with the two sisters of the victim, Barbara Tucker. That night when I went to their house, I cold called them and I knocked their door at 9 o’clock at night, didn’t tell them I was coming over. And they opened the door. And at first the family was shocked. And they looked down and saw the badge. I was in plain clothes. They saw the badge and they invited me in, and I sat down and told them that we had made an arrest. And we all sat there and cried together.

And the next day, I came back and we did a news conference. And I’m on the news crying. And at some point, it’s a way to humanize the badge. But it’s not intentional. It was the most impactful moment of my entire career. And I’ve solved lots of murders and lots of bad cases and brought justice to people. This was the most impactful moment of my entire career. And to sit there with that family, ultimately strangers, and we are all crying and holding each other and just thanking God for justice. It was a moment I’ll never forget.

Dave: I’m glad you got that moment. Really glad.

Dan: Me too.

Dave: Thirty five years of asking what happened and why and who, all that. I mean, you think of the sleepless nights in that family, not to mention the detectives who are working it early on. It doesn’t just impact a couple of people. It hits dozens of people.

Aaron: And when we made the arrest, it was 41 years, 42 years to the conviction, I believe.

Yeardley: Wow. Aaron, do you think that Robert’s motive was this was a crime of opportunity. He’s a violent offender, but he’s also only 16 when Robert encounters Barbara, which is really young, and he just saw this young woman walking across the street and was like, “Eh, I’m going to give it a try.”

Aaron: So, in speaking with some of Robert’s family, we learned that prior to this, that he was abusive to animals, killed animals, fire starting, a lot of the stuff that we see in the traits of serial killers. So, I do believe that this case was a crime of opportunity with Barbara Tucker. However, I think that the predisposition for this crime occurred long before the night of January 15th of 1980. There was writing on the wall and it went unchecked. And this was the first that we know of time that he struck out on a victim.

Yeardley: Right?

Dave: Yeah. I’m thinking about most police officers have a couple in their archive of where you come out of an interview with like a 12, 13, 14, 15-year-old, and everyone goes, “How’d that go?” And other detectives are asking, you go, that’s a budding serial killer or that is straight evil. That kid is evil. I know it. And it’s hard for people to think, well, that’s just a kid and you’re like, “Well, I fucking know evil when I look at evil.” I just talk to it. I know what evil is. It’s hard to get over that hump of looking at a kid and us seeing a fucking hardened criminal or somebody who’s capable of it.

Aaron: Yeah. I think you’re absolutely right, Dave. I think that until you’ve been there and you’ve sat in that seat and you’ve looked in those eyes, you don’t really get it, and out of the thousands of people that I’ve interviewed in my career, and a lot of them are murder suspects and child molesters and the worst of the worst out of all of them, Dave, I would say that a handful to me would represent true evil, only a handful.

Dave: Yep.

Aaron: The rest of them, they’re people that got cross with the law. There are people that made a split-second decision to take somebody else’s life and if they could go back and unwind it, they totally would. That true evil for me is reduced to a handful of individuals and Robert Plympton is one of those people.

Dave: Yep. And I agree there’s only a handful of true fucking evil in my career, but you know it when you see it.

Aaron: Absolutely.

Dan: I’m thinking about the psychology of Robert, that he never really moved away from where this crime occurred and where you first encounter Robert the day he’s arrested. You wonder how many times, like, did Robert ever pull into that parking lot and park right there where it happened. And it’s too bad that Robert didn’t want to talk anymore. These are all these questions that you ask, like, I wish I could just creep inside his mind. Give me everything. Robert, tell me how this case has lived with you for all this time.

Dave: Yeah. Or did you notice all these witnesses the night of the murder who are tracking you? A witness who says, “I noticed this creepy guy in the wood line, paralleling me,” those types of things, he’s aware of all that because he’s dialed into everything. He’s chosen where he wants to grab a victim. So, I have the same questions as Dan. It’s that insightful stuff like what we were you thinking at this moment? Or what we were you seeing as opposed to what the victims were seeing from you. That kind of stuff really fascinates me, which is why I like talking to Paul Holes and folks like that because they just have this depth of understanding of that.

Yeardley: But also, it’s great insight for further investigations. You go, well, I remember I investigated this guy Robert, and his reasons were this, and maybe some thread of that leads to the conclusion of a different case down the line.

Dave: Patterns, right?

Yeardley: Yes.

Aaron: Yep.

Dave: Yeah.

Dan: Aaron, talking about the takedown of Robert, where you’ve got plainclothes detectives wearing tac vests, you’ve got uniformed detectives on scene, there are multiple cars. That’s not a typical normal traffic stop. And Robert doesn’t ask any questions. I think Robert, deep down, he always knew this day would come.

Aaron: Yeah, I agree with you. I think he knew this day was coming. And he never asked what he was arrested for and never asked what the warrant was for. Up until the point where he said he didn’t want to talk to me anymore. He never asked. The closest he got was, “What is she saying I did?”

Dave: Right. I want to go back to the situation where you have these multiple witnesses at the area where Barbara was initially taken and then murdered. For listeners, if you come across something like that, that’s 100% a what we call in law enforcement, like a suspicious conditions type call that. If you call the police and say, “Hey, this just happened at this intersection, just do a patrol check or these are suspicious conditions. This is weird. You guys might want to check it.” That’s really all it is. You’re not bothering the police department to call in suspicious conditions.

You articulate what you saw, and we go out and investigate, and it closes the loop on, “Hey, I was worried, but I just passed it off as kids doing a prank” call in a suspicious conditions, and then you don’t have to live with, should I call that in or not? It really is something that the police deal with 10 times a day at most police departments. Suspicious conditions call.

Aaron: I think that if anybody, even by the time it took them to drive home, would have driven home and called the police, police would have responded and found Barbara Mae Tucker deceased or dying and potentially saved her life. We don’t know where she was in that condition, but we would have been on this a lot sooner or maybe even caught them in the act of committing the murder, and then we’d have saved a life and got a bad guy. But nobody called that night.

Dave: Yeah.

Yeardley: Yeah.

Dave: You think about between 1980 and 2020, how many times Robert has had a really awkward or right on the edge of committing a crime or did commit a crime, and it was never discovered. All those moments that Robert had in the 35, 40 years.

Aaron: Yeah. The fact that Robert committed a kidnap in 1985, was convicted of several other types of crimes of similar nature, and ultimately convicted of [unintelligible ] murder. I don’t believe it’s coincidence that we found other dead bodies all over the place in our county. I think anybody listening to this is going to ask the question, “Well, is Robert a serial killer? Are there other bodies out there?” I don’t know of any. I know that I can look at it with a commonsensical point of view and be like, “During this timeframe, there’s a lot of dead bodies laying around that match the MO of my Barbara Tucker murder. But I’m out of law enforcement now. That’s somebody else’s ball of wax. But we’ll see what the future holds.

Dave: Yep.

Yeardley: I bet if Paul was here, he’d be like, “Oh, no, 100%” [Aaron laughs] because he’s seen so many of them.

Aaron: Right.

Dave: Paul’s like, give me his height, weight, sosh, his scars, marks, tattoos, I’m going to run a little.

[laughter]

Yeardley: [laughs] Totally. Paul is our favorite. Glass is half empty when it comes to this subject. Aaron, that’s such good work. I just again, as Dave said earlier in this episode, really, as a victim, you’re at the mercy of the detective who is assigned to your case to investigate. And even this case took 41 years to solve. But that fucker was not getting away from you. So, thank you.

Aaron: Thank you, Yeardley.

Yeardley: Amazing.

Aaron: Nice work, Aaron.

Dave: Yeah, great job. Great job.

Aaron: Thank you so much.

[music]

Yeardley: Small Town Dicks was created by Detectives Dan and Dave. The podcast is produced by Jessica Halstead and me, Yeardley Smith. Our senior editor is Soren Begin and our editor is Christina Bracamontes. Our associate producers are the Real Nick Smitty and Erin Gaynor. Logan Heftel is our production manager. Our books are cooked and cats wrangled by Ben Cornwell. And our social media maven is Monika Scott. It would make our day if you became a member of our Small Town Fam by following us on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube at @smalltowndicks, we love hearing from you.

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The transcripts of this podcast are thanks to SpeechDocs and they can be found on our website, smalltowndicks.com. Thank you SpeechDocs for this wonderful service. Small Town Dicks is an Audio 99 Production. Small Town Fam, thanks for listening. Nobody is better than you.

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