Bring a little optimism into your life with The Bright Side, a new daily podcast from Hello Sunshine, hosted by me, Danielle Robé. And me, Simone Voce. Every weekday, we're bringing you conversations about culture, the latest trends, inspiration, and so much more.

I am so excited about this podcast, The Bright Side. You guys are giving people a chance to shine a light on their lives, shine a light on a little advice that they want to share. Listen to The Bright Side on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app and search The Bright Side. In the '90s, New York Detective Louis Scarsella locked up the worst criminals. Putting bad guys away. There's no feeling like it. Then Jailhouse Lawyers took aim, led by Derek Hamilton.

Scarsella took me to the precinct and died.

20 men eventually walked free. Now, in the Burden podcast, after a decade of silence, Louis Scarsella finally tells his story, and so does Derek Hamilton. Listen to the Burden on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Jon Stewart is back in the host chair at The Daily Show, which means he's also back in our ears on The Daily Show, Ears Edition podcast. Join Late Night Legend, Jon Stewart, and the best news team for today's biggest headlines, exclusive extended extended interviews, and more. Now, this is the second term we can all get behind. Listen to The Daily Show, Ears Edition on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I've been interviewing the families of murder victims since 1999. It's one of the most profound and personal aspects of my job because, well, I'm one of them. In 1996, my brother's wife, five months pregnant, was strangled to death. Her case remains unsolved. So when families To tell me how difficult this is to talk about, I can empathize. Opening up old wounds, digging back into the past, is not always worth the pain and vulnerability of exposing your sofa the sake of keeping a memory alive.

I hate to get into this. We heard the rumor, and we got a hold of Danny and Mike, the cops that were on the case, and they came to the house and told us.

There was that knock on the door. No family member of a missing person ever wants to hear.

I'm thinking they're lying like hell because my little girl wasn't dead. That's really all I can talk about that.

The anguish in Georgia Stidham's voice truly emphasizes how murder violates the core foundation of what family represents. When the victim is your child, your world is not only shattered, but everything from that moment on is different. Dana Stidham's family had been in emotional purgatory for nearly two months, not knowing, wondering, and waiting. But then, on September 17, 1989, the Benton County Sheriff office shows up to deliver the worst news imaginable. As you heard Dana's mother, Georgia Stidham, explain, the mere memory of all that she'd lost that day was still too difficult to talk about in any detail some three decades later. I also wanted to ask you about Lawrence. Tell me about your husband.

Oh, he was so sick. He had rheumatoid arthritis, real bad, and all the drugs had eaten up his insides pretty much. He was just... Dana was his everything. She went to the stores for him. Anything she thought he needed, she'd go pick up and bring to him. And they were home a whole lot together. Lauren got to where he couldn't work, so he stayed with the kids while I worked.

So this crushed him then?

Yes, it did. It was the beginning of the end for him.

Georgia believes Dana's murder contributed to the death of her husband, who died in the years after. Lauren Laurence was only 50 years old. Dana's cousin and best friend, Christie Smith, recalls how harrowing those days leading up to finding Dana's body were.

Well, this whole time we have been driving around, we have posting flyers. We went all over Missouri, the border cities of Missouri, all over Fayetteville, everywhere we can think of. At every store that would allow us, we posted flyers and never got a response. In the back of your mind, you know that if you haven't heard something by now, then she is either no longer alive or somebody has her, and you don't know who it is. And then in September, we had actually They driven by where they found her body going to a place to put out some flyers. I believe it was the next day they found her remains.

For BCSO detectives, as horrible as the situation was, the discovery of Dana's body gave the investigation a much-needed boost. They now had a crime scene to process. Justice for Dana Stidham and her family could begin as the hunt for her killer entered a brand new phase. Previously on, Paper Ghosts.

So I stopped there and did a little squirrel hunting, and I saw a dry creek dead, and saw a skull and some rib bones.

It became somewhat alarming when they found a dirty magazine with someone being in his clothing. So now you have a suspect that worked at the store with Dana, had an issue with a female employees, sexual harassment, and also, had a difficulty for assessment and also instead have a liquidity for 30 magazine.

Hey, we've got three or four suspects. Why not add another fifth suspect?

My name is M. William Phelps. I'm an investigative journalist and author of More Than 40 true crime books. This is season 4 of Paper Ghosts: The Ozarks. All right, so here this is leading to Beale Road. Woods, dirt road. Definitely driving a truck. Investigators enter a crime scene hoping to collect fingerprints, footprints, tire tracks, blood, and additional bodily fluids, along with hairs, fibers, fire debris, a cigarette butt, or any other item that might lead them to a killer. Back to this vehicle. Truck parked up here. Off he goes. I have seen murder solved with the most obscure smallest piece of evidence, lint from a blanket, sweat DNA unseen by the naked eye, even a single cat hair. The crime scene itself, where it is, what the terrain is like, how it looks, can say a lot about a killer. Here's investigative journalist, Brandon Howard.

I went there a few years ago. I was shocked to see that it's super rural still, almost forgotten in time. It's a place you go from a paved highway that sees thousands of cars to dirt road really quickly, uneven deep into the woods, opens it to a large clearing, circular, basically a cul-de-sac without any pavement. Yet, despite being so far off the beaten path, you can see not far the liquor store, just up the road that's across the state line.

Then so you get out, you walk through the woods, and there's a creek bed there where she was found, right?

Yeah. I had one detective mention that they thought it was done hastily, and then they realized other items of hers remained, so they went back and tossed those and left. But I would think that you'd have to be somewhat strong or able-bodied to carry a person down into that area of the woods and know about it. I don't think that anyone just stumbled across that spot.

In June 2023, I made my way from the Phillips grocery toward the crime scene where Dana's body had been discovered. And what struck me first was how remote it is. We're talking about a densely wooded section of Bella Vista. To get there, you travel along these narrow winding roads, zigzagging through the northern part of the state on the Southern edge of the Ozarks. Houses are few and far between. One would have to have prior knowledge of this area, I imagine, to commit a murder here and/or dump a body. I was guided by GPS and had the global satellite coordinates of the exact location where Dana's remains were found and still had trouble finding it. The dry creek bed he's talking about. And she would have been found about right here. I parked in what was a dirt road cul-de-sac not yet developed into housing. Walking down the steep embankment into a thickly forested valley, the road where I had parked disappeared from my view. The cover here is remarkable. The hill in front of me. She's screaming. No one's hearing her. Standing where Dana's body had been found, the immense sadness of this place had an overwhelming effect on me.

You're talking about an 18-year-old that just graduated high school, like two months prior. She's got her whole life ahead of her, and all that gone in the blink of an eye. Her mother, for her to have to live With this, I can't even put myself in her shoes and what she's had to go through over the years.

That was BCSO Lieutenant Hunter Petre. Georgia Stidham told Brandon Howard in an article he published in 2015. Quote, An arrest will never bring closure. I'll never get her back. But I'd like to see her kill her caught so it wouldn't feel like I just let my daughter die, and I walked away. Sadly, Georgia would not live to experience justice. On October 26, 2023, she passed away 73 years old.

I talked to her and just revisited because I had not met her again. This was not my case to begin with, so I had not met her. Basically, just went over to her house and grabbed it and spoke to her for about 30 minutes to an hour. It's always Man, it's iffy because you don't want her to have to relive, bring all these things back up.

So September comes, no Dana.

I think at that point in time, you're talking about 6-7 weeks since she disappeared. And nothing. And then all of a sudden, there's a guy who was squirrel hunting in an area clear on the other side of town, basically on the east side of Bella Vista, ran across some remains. Pretty much at that point in time, they had been skeletonized. So I don't want it to sound like it's a body. Remains is, I think, probably the proper term.

Many thought it was strange, if not suspicious, that the hunter had waited a day before calling police about the discovery of a body.

Again, it's unusual and it's weird because he doesn't report it right away. He waits a day. He actually sees it, looks at it, leaves because he says he was in a hurry, goes and talks to a friend, tells the friend, Hey, I found some human remains. The friend didn't really believe him at first, but basically told him, Hey, you need to report that. So the next day, he does report it.

He saw the skull. Because he saw the skull. Let's talk about where this is. This is not a place that you would put a body unless you knew of the place.

Probably unless you were driving around, which you would be really high risk driving around with a body in your car looking for a place. So, yeah, probably the statistics and the odds are that somebody, if you ever did this, one person, two persons, was familiar with the area. Bella Vista has a lot of cul-de-sacs, a lot of dead-end roads. A lot of them are undeveloped.

Hunter Petre then mentioned something quite interesting. If you recall from a previous episode, I began to wonder about a group of friends Dana hung around whom she hadn't discussed much with her family. Georgia and even Christie, knew most of the people within Dana's circle, but not all of them.

I don't know if you know this or not, but prior to this, maybe a year or two prior, that area was a party spot for kids. There was a shooting that took place there, and a kid died. After that, everybody was afraid to associate with that area. So there were people that were familiar with that area as a party spot. So Again, things start running through your mind. Are these people that same age group as Dana that knew about this area? Again, unknown, but that's a possibility. But yeah, it was a party spot for a while there at that cul-de-sac.

Did they try to find those people and interview any of them?

They talked to some people that had been out there before, but they said that they had not been out there since that kid got killed out there with the shooting.

As Dana's body was sent in for autopsy, investigators hoped to learn something about her killer. They theorized she had been out in the elements since the day after she went missing, nearly eight weeks. Her body was skeletonized, torn apart, and spread by animals over an area about the size of a football field. One particular discovery by the corner gave a possible explanation as to how Dana might have been murdered.

When you have passage of time and its remains, that also complicates autopsies because you don't have an intact body. But they found there was a nick on the collarbone that they felt like was from a knife. Now, whether she was stabbed in the neck, throat cut, we don't know for sure because we can't tell. But there was a nick in the collarbone that suggested that it was some type of knife attack.

So that would be the inside part of the collarbone? Correct.

Yeah, close to the neck, the throat area, basically. So they did note that and noted that that was an antemortem, which would have been prior to death. They rolled it a homicide. There was also some things that suggested that this It was possibly a sexual assault.

What?

The bra, the over-the-shoulder straps were cut with some type of sharp instrument down near where they connect with the backstrap. It appears that the bra had been cut with a sharp instrument.

Several facts discovered during the autopsy become important. For one, Dana's clothing, white shorts, white shoes, bra, white T-shirt, were all found in a hole about one foot deep, 10 or more yards away from where her skull was recovered in the creek bed. Her underwear, however, was found close to her skull. The coroner noted, quote, Based upon the presence of a sharply-cut inner aspect of the left clavicle, there was a violent injury through a cut throat or a stab wound to the area. Two rings, later identified as Dana's, were found near her buried clothes, hair nerves, believed to be pulled out of her head, were also recovered, a lock of which showed heavy damage to the roots from all the decomposition. It was also reported that the right and left sleeves of Dana's shirt had been severed at the armpits, jagged cuts as if made crudely with a knife. On the upper left front thigh area of her shorts, the crime lab found a piece of duct tape. Was there any any bindings or anything like that found?

Yeah, there was some twine, orangeish red twine that was there. There was also some found up at the cul-de-sac. They sent a lot of that down. Now, there were some knots in it, but the lab could not determine or specify that any of those knots were used for any type of ligature or binding of Dana.

The amount of bindings seemed significant. One section was 19 inches long with a two-inch diameter loop tied in a double-strand overhand knot. 43.5 inches of bailing twine was recovered directly next to her body and divided into two pieces tied together with a clove hitch slip knot with a binding knot at the end. That type of knot is indicative of binding one thing to another and clearly intentional. Still, were the bindings connected to Dana's murder?

That was never conclusively determined that any of that twine had been used to tie her up or bind her or anything of that nature. But it's interesting, and again, it's complicated because that area was a party spot. There were people that drove by there and dumped things. Is this twine involved in this or is it just unknown?

Up on Beale Lane, along the embankment of the cul-de-sac leading down toward where Dana was found, 10 additional feet of bailing twine, divided into six pieces and joined by intricate different types of knots were located. The crime lab included that, None of the cuts or knotted regions indicated that these twines had clearly been used in ligaturing, restraining, or binding a person. A statement I have a problem with because there no definitive way to answer that question by studying the twine alone. After all, an inability to prove something doesn't automatically disprove it. Dna testing was possible, but also unreliable since the material had been out in the elements for so long. Near the same time, the lab came back with another find. They located a single Caucasian strand of hair, three 8.3 inches long with the root still attached. Inside, a cup in Dana's car. A potentially significant discovery because they knew immediately that one hair was not Dana's.

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I am so excited about this podcast, The Bright Side. You guys are giving people a chance to shine a light on their lives, shine a light on a little advice that they want to share. Listen to The Bright Side on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app and search The Bright Side. In the 1980s and '90s, New York City needed a tough a cop like Detective Louis Scarsella. Putting bad guys away. There's no feeling like it in the world.

He was the guy who made sure the worst killers were brought to justice.

That's one version.

This guy is a piece of Derek Hamilton was put away for murder by Detective Scarsella.

In prison, Derek turned himself into the best jailhouse lawyer of his generation. My lawyer was my girlfriend.

This is my only way to freedom.

Derek and other convicted murderers started a law firm behind bars. We never knew we had the same cop in the case.

Scarcella.

We got to show that he's a corrupt cop. They could go themselves. I'm Steve Fishman.

And I'm Dax Devlin Ross.

And this is The Burden. Listen to new episodes of The Burden on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive bonus content, subscribe to True Crime Clubhouse on Apple Podcasts. After the discovery of her remains, Dana Stidham's murder dominated local news reports. Benton County was eager to put a face on evil. You take away someone's sense of safety, fear seeps in. Fear breeds accusation, reaction, and a rush to judgment. That's just human nature. In order for me to get a clearer picture of what could have possibly led up to Dana's murder. It was important to look at the dynamics of Dana's life from different perspectives. Here's Dana's mother again, Georgia. Can you just talk Talk to me a little bit about Dana as a child growing up, what child she was?

She was a... Laugh a minute. She was the happiest kid you've ever met. She was always being silly and snickering, and she had us laughing all the time.

What did she talk about as a young kid that she wanted to do?

Boys, boys, boys, boys.

When she was younger, what was she What did she like to do?

She was into all kinds of stuff. She painted and she did ceramics, and she did all kinds of stuff. She was really talented.

How was her relationship with Mom and Dad over the years?

It was good.

She had a lot of friends?

Yes. She wanted everybody to be her friend.

Three days after Dana's body was found, the BCSO brought in a classmate whose name was given to them by several of Dana's friends. I'll call him Stan for the purposes of the podcast. He was never named as a suspect, but he did provide some rather compelling information. He referred to himself as Dana's best friend, but made it clear he'd never had a sexual relationship with her. He had seen her the weekend before she disappeared. During Stan's interview, Detective Mike Zdoriak asked about Dana lending a friend a pair of boots, which she had wanted back on the day she disappeared. Stan corroborated this information. Sedoriak asked Stan if he would have pulled up behind Dana as she drove, would she have stopped? Stan said yes. So you have the body, the body is released, the body is buried. What happens next?

So The big thing back then was they took people when they interviewed them, they polygraphed them, they took their fingerprints hoping that something would come back off the chip bag or her clothing that was sent down, latent hair follicles, something to try to tie somebody as far as physical evidence to the homicide and the abduction or murder.

And nothing came back.

Nothing came back, really.

Detectives Mike Zdoriak and Danny Varner had been up the ass of a local kid, Mike McMillon, since almost the day Dana went missing. Several people I spoke to, including police, said Mike was an easy target. Mike, however, didn't help his own cause.

Well, he was interviewed. He was given several polygraphs. But initially, he was confronted a couple of days after her disappearance. He could not give... Well, he tried, but it was blown out of the He tried to give an alibi that he was visiting a girl down in Farmington, which is down by Fayetteville, 30 miles away or whatever. But she basically said, I don't remember that. I don't think that I was with you. I'm not going to lie for you. I'm not going to come up with some story for you.

If I'm a BCSO Detective, I'm wondering, why in the hell lie about where you were? Then this.

He was seen that night, and I'm talking about that night. I'm talking about the 25th into the early morning of the 26th. He was seen around 3:00 that next morning, and I want to say it was at the Bentonville Mercantile. Somebody had seen him there, and he just didn't really have a good alibi other than just driving around. His mother said that he had left home earlier that day on the 25th and did not come back until way later the next morning. So I don't know about you, but I know I probably can't tell you what I had for lunch yesterday, but I can tell you where I went if I thought about it. And just two days later to not be able to come up with any valid alibi of where you were at other than something you come up with which was blown out of the water.

And what's the connection to Dana with Mike McKmillon.

Schoolmates.

He was in a line of schoolmates that were questioned.

Yeah, and he was also really good friends with me. Well, I say really good friends. They lived together, I think.

I bleeped out his name, but Hunter Patre is referring to Dana Zec's boyfriend. So he starts looking suspicious.

Well, from people that were talked to, he was somewhat infatuated with her and had tried to make advances on her, and she had rejected him because she was seeing some other people at the time and basically didn't want anything to do with him. There's some people that said that he was infatuated with her, wanted to go out with her, and she just kept rejecting him, and he would get upset about it.

So there's a motive there?

Yeah, could be. Strong person of interest, for sure.

Right. As were others.

As were others, yeah. At this time, again, there's no physical evidence. There's no witnesses to tie. But there's a lady that saw him driving, supposedly, and saw a brunette girl in the truck with him. Now, we don't know necessarily if it was that day, the day before. It's vague, but it makes it seem like it might have been that night. He didn't deny it. Now, he didn't say... He said that, obviously, he didn't admit that it was Dane in the truck, but he didn't really deny that somebody could have been in his truck. He didn't deny that when he was questioned, did he go to Bella Vista? Could have. You're this person saying that you didn't go down to Farmington and see her. Is she a liar? Well, if she said that, I'm not calling anybody a liar. So it wasn't real hard denials. The only hard denial that he gave was that he didn't kill Dana. So he did deny that.

Was he one of the kids who partied in that spot up by Beale Road?

According to him, no.

Most everyone was polygrapht. Including Mike McKmillon.

The first polygraph, he passed. But later on, he was given another polygraph because things just wouldn't go away.

I spoke to Mike. He didn't want to appear on the podcast because he said, Talking about this now just keeps it going and fans the flames. The best thing for me to do is live my life. I don't live in the past. The BCSO, however, hyper-focused on Mike after he revealed some rather odd behavior. That December, just after Dana is buried, before there is even a gravestone on her plot, the BCSO finds out Mike McMillan is going out to her grave every other night and talking to himself while out there.

People that were talked to said that he was supposed to leave for basic. He was basically adamant that he didn't want to go to the Navy. Dana turns up missing, and then all of a sudden, he's, Okay, I'm ready to go to the Navy. It's fine. Let's go. So he leaves and goes to Basic. There's issues that happen there. Quite a few, he goes AWal, but he comes back at one point in time. This was prior to going AWal, but he's on leave, I guess, and comes back, and he goes out to the cemetery and instills her temporary grave marker and keeps it in his house, keeps it in his bedroom.

Which makes Mike an even bigger target now for the BCSO.

He was out there with another juvenile female who witnessed this, and it even gets stranger than that. For someone that they never dated, other than just being classmates, he had the most intimate feelings for her that I've ever seen of somebody that wasn't physically in a relationship with somebody. Made statements like he loved her, went out to the cemetery like six or seven nights and would stand out there, and according to this other witness, would just say things like he's talking to her. Just weird, man. To me, that screams guilt.

Mike had indeed left for the Navy right after Dana went missing, but he had signed up long before. He told me he didn't go AWal. He finished boot camp and returned home. Like Likewise, it wasn't as if he backed his truck up into the cemetery and loaded Dana's gravestone and took it away. He stole a plastic grave marker with her name on it where the stone would later be placed. But when the BCSO heard about Mike stealing the grave marker, of course, they were eager to get him on record. Lock him down to a statement. Still, as Hunter Patre points out, so far, all of this is nothing more than circumstantial evidence.

Not enough to arrest somebody, but again, you're putting the spotlight on yourself. Now, being a thief doesn't make you a murderer, but you still her temporary grave marker. You also carry around a photograph of her in your wallet. For somebody that doesn't want to be in the spotlight, I guess, you're not helping yourself.

Under a subpoena, Mike is brought in after the BCSO hears about the grave marker theft. He tells detectives he never dated Dana and never even asked her out. He admits, however, to seeing her the day before she went missing, a casual How you been? Fine. Take care type of thing. He then claims he took the grave marker, Just to have something to remember. I wasn't trying to hurt anybody. During a phone call, Mike told me it was the stupidest thing I ever did in my life, because now every move he made was scrutinized by the BCSO. He had a target on his back. And after Mike confessed to stealing the grave marker during his interview with detectives, they stopped the interview, read him his rights, and arrested him.

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The program starts soon and registration is now open. Sign up today at aware. Ie. In the 1980s and '90s, New York City needed a tough cop like Detective Louis Scarsella. Putting bad guys away. There's no feeling like it in the world.

He was the guy who made sure the worst killers were brought to justice.

That's one version.

This guy is a piece of Derrick Hamilton was put away for murder by Detective Scarsella.

In prison, Derrick turned himself into the best jailhouse lawyer of his generation. My lawyer was my girlfriend.

This is my only way to free them.

Derrick and other convicted murderers. Started a law firm behind bars. We never knew we had the same cop in the case.

Scarsella.

We got to show Say he's a corrupt cop. They could go themselves. I'm Steve Fishman.

And I'm Dax Devlin Ross.

And this is The Burden. Listen to new episodes of The Burden on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive bonus content, subscribe to True Crime Clubhouse on Apple Podcasts.

Bring a little optimism into your life with The Bright Side, a new daily podcast from Hello Sunshine, hosted by me, Danielle Robay. And me, Simone Voce. Every weekday, we're bringing you conversations about culture, the latest trends, inspiration, and so much more.

I am so excited about this podcast podcast, The Bright Side. You guys are giving people a chance to shine a light on their lives, shine a light on a little advice that they want to share. Listen to The Bright Side on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app and search The Bright Side. Dana's ex-boyfriend was brought back in for questioning right around the same time Mike McKmillon was charged with stealing the grave marker. The The CSO had spoken to a new girlfriend Dana's ex was dating at the time Dana went missing. Detective Mike Zdoriak explained to her where Dana had been found and wanted to know if Dana's ex had ever taken her, the new girlfriend, out to that Beale Lane area to have sex. She said no. Zdoriak pushed harder, asking if he was ever violent, to which she repeatedly and emphatically answered no. Zdoriack and Varner then went back to focusing on Mike McKmillon. I asked journalist Brandon Howard why he believed the BCSO became so fixated on Mike. A large part of it, of course, was the grave marker theft. But there had to be more.

They find what appeared to be several hairs and what they think is enough evidence to move forward with testing it against hairs from Dana's mother, I think, to try and prove prove that maybe she was in that vehicle.

Those hairs were found during a search of Mike's truck. Mike McMillon told me, quote, By then, it wasn't whether I did it or not. They wanted me to have on it. The BCSO ends up interviewing Mike again later on and are convinced Mike is their guy.

I would call that a marathon interview of probably 6 to 8 hours where they try and essentially break him to admit to what he's done to Dana, which he never does. I would say he's actually adamant compared to other suspects that he has no involvement. It goes on and on, and he has his statements, and they do their best to get him to admit to something that he feels he didn't do, and that's the end of it. And he's named publicly. The newspaper's report that his hair was being tested in the case. One of only two publicly named suspects.

During my interview with Mike, I asked him about his name being published. He said, Yeah, they put my picture on the front page of the newspaper next to Dana's with a story. And from that moment forward, I was the guy. No matter what anyone said or additional evidence pointed in any other direction, people looked at Mike as Dana's killer. Here's Hunter portray again.

You can't rule him out just based off the sheer fact that he can't come up with an alibi, that he took the grave marker. And again, that makes him a thief, not a murderer. He sure hasn't helped himself any by doing some of those things. But yeah, you can't rule him out. And If you had to make a list, you would probably put him at the top. Sadoriac, he had MacMillan at the top of his list. And I think they had actually consulted or collaborated with the FBI profilers, and They came up with the same conclusion as far as who did this. But again, you're talking about you got to have enough to make an arrest.

I wondered if Georgia Stittam could offer any insight into Dana's thoughts about Mike.

Said he was creepy. They got They were doing good. They seemed to. But Mike wanted what he wanted, and he was spoiled and thought he ought to have it.

She just wasn't interested that way in him?

No. She liked him real well as a friend. But that was all.

She didn't really talk about Mike a lot then?

She didn't have a lot to say about him, just that he was… You tell him.

Christie Smith, Dana's cousin, was sitting nearby when I spoke to Georgia. After Georgia encouraged her, Christie told me a story.

Well, there was one time, and it was probably… We were in junior high or just starting high school. It was the summer, and I was staying with them during the summer, and Mike walked down because he just lived up the dirt road from her, and he walked down the dirt road to come and see us or come see her, and her dad did not like that at all. Boys didn't come to see Dana when she was at home and that young. So he ran him. He made him leave. He ran him off. I mean, she was always his friend, and I don't remember him ever saying anything or doing anything, and she never complained too bad about him, He just wouldn't take no for an answer.

I must say, hearing this, Mike's actions feel more like those of a love struck kid than a brutal killer. When you put yourself in the shoes of a teenager in the throes of unrequited love, and then the person you love is murdered, visiting her grave every night makes a little more sense. On the day Dana disappeared, we know that she needed to go to the store for her dad. There There was a general store right there in Hiawasi, down the road she could have gone to. Yet Dana made the extra trip into Bella Vista out of the way. Several sources had told me Dana avoided that Hiawasi store because Mike McMillon hung around there all day long. His parents owned it.

He would write her notes about wanting to go out with her and stuff, and she would tell him that she disliked him for a friend, and he would just keep trying and asking.

Cindy MacMillan married Mike in 1994, five years after Dana was murdered. At the time, the BCSO was still pursuing him as its main suspect. I spoke to Cindy in order to get an overall picture of who her husband was behind closed doors. I was in the minority of those unconvinced that Mike was involved with Dana's death. Look, I found it very hard to believe that Mike MacMillan had something to do with Dana's murder, which was methodical, organized, and very well-planned out. I can't help but feel that if Mike killed her, he would have left behind some a physical or trace evidence. What guy was he?

When I met him, very charismatic, very handsome, very charming, funny, fun to be with, all of that, he did tell me about Dana.

So the fact that he talked about her and told me, because obviously, I told him about my ex-husband, my first husband, I didn't think anything of it.

He did tell me that he'd been investigated because he took the grave marker, which I would have never known that was a crime. But he was a nice guy.

Mike was upfront about his history. He didn't hide anything. This description of Mike was something I had heard from several others who knew him. When he talked about Dana's case, what did he have to say about it? Anything in particular?

Just it was terrible.

It was really hard for him because he left for the Navy, and he was sad that he didn't get to go to our funeral.

That was why he went to the grave and took the grave marker.

But he didn't know. When they started talking about it, someone stole our grave marker, he turned it in because he didn't know we weren't supposed to take it.

The public image is that of a teenager who was allegedly infatuated with Dana and had chased her romantically throughout their youth. According to Mike, this is, quote, just not true. Everyone from that time knows this. After high school, Mike says he hardly ever saw her. In talking to family and friends, I learned that Dana had never, ever felt threatened by the guy. He had never done anything violent toward her. And then he's shipped off to boot camp and misses her funeral. He comes home, goes out to her grave night after night, which he admits during an interview. And on one of those nights, he takes her grave marker. His easy admission of this, to me, says that he wanted to be forthright but didn't think these facts would be incriminating. Instead, he was arrested and charged. Yet that case went nowhere and was eventually dropped. Then, Cindy MacMillon tells me this.

I think that there was a policeman or a sheriff, and he really felt like he may I've done it.

That's what Mike thought, that some police law enforcement? Yes.

It was a young guy close to his age, and maybe he dated Dana. I don't remember exactly.

This was not the first time I had heard of this same local police officer. Mike confirmed for me that he and others had heard Dana was dating a married police officer around the time she went missing. Certain Stidham family members told me a different story, that a cop had stopped Dana on occasion, and she'd complained that the guy creeped her out. He had a wife and kids, but would pull her over as an excuse to hit on her. It's not Mike Sedoriak or Danny Varner. I want to be perfectly clear about that. But I've repeatedly seen this cop's name on reports associated with Dana's investigation as someone who had even interviewed suspects in this case. As I developed sources into 2023, I spoke to someone who had grown up in the Bella Vista area and knew Dana socially. She was also familiar with the crowd around Dana at the time and hung around some of them. She doesn't want to be identified, so I'm disguising her voice. What she has to say is disturbing, but also, I might add problematic. I asked the detective I know who's spoken to the same source about her, Don't discount what she says.

My source claims she was out one night during the summer of 1989 at a place called the Wonderland Cave, a bar in Bella Vista underage kids sometimes snuck into.

Well, when I got there, I walked in, and the first thing I noticed was there was this guy standing in the middle of the dance floor that I'd never seen before with his arms crossed, and he had this smile like a smirk, like something was going on with him that night. Then I noticed there was a girl with him. Then I looked at him, and the The first thing I thought was he's got this funny look on his face.

What did he look like?

5'9, 5'10. He was a little bit muscular, a husky, I would call him, husky. And he appeared that he didn't really ever go out to dance. So it seemed like that it was unfamiliar for him to be at a dance club and that it was something new to him. And then I noticed there was a with him, and it was so strange because she was in the background. And I looked at the situation and I thought, Well, who is she? And then I realized, I know who that is. That's the girl that works up at the grocery store down the road here at Bella Vista, because I had briefly met her and talked to her. I I thought, That's that Dana Siddam girl. And I looked at him again, and I thought, Well, was he doing acting that way? I could see her, but it was like she was just dancing around everywhere behind him. Just fluttering around and dancing, out of control. Like maybe I thought about it later and I thought, well, maybe he had given her something to drink or something. And when I looked at him again, This was just in a matter of a minute or two, I thought, something's not right here.

Something in my mind told me that this guy is fixing to kill this girl. Oh, my God. This is some a murder.

My source claims that she went home, called the local police, and explained that this girl she casually knew, Dana Stidham, was with a guy whose name she didn't know, but she sensed that Dana was in big trouble.

And that something was wrong there, and something told me that he was fixing and plotting and planning to kill her.

Well, let me just stop you right there. So do you recall the date, the exact date of this?

No, I don't. I think it was either right around the time of when she was reported missing. It had to have been the time because after I talked to the police, they were like, No, there's nothing going on. That's crazy. There's nothing going on.

I spoke to law enforcement, and they verified she called them. Also, the Wonderland Cave is four miles south of the Phillips grocery. Remember, Dana was seen heading south on Route 71 the night she disappeared, and just a two-minute drive from Blowing Spring Park. If you recall call in the previous episode, Dana was supposedly seen at the park with Orville Mitch Goodwin on the night she went missing.

I told him I thought something was going on and that it seemed like this guy was that something had told me. I think I also then called the Bella Vista police station and told them, and they were like, Oh, okay. Then the next thing I know is somebody said that Dana girl, she did go missing. I said, I told you all. I tried to tell you all there's something going on.

The entire scene had a major impact on this woman. She could not shake it. And so she started asking around, trying to find out the name of the guy she allegedly saw at the cave that night with Dana Stidham.

We were maybe at somebody's house, and just somebody had mentioned it to me, somebody that knew the guy. They told me his name was Mike.

Coming next on, Paper Ghost, The Ozards.

All of a sudden, he says, Linda, I see a skull. I said, Oh, surely not. But I went back there with him and we saw the skull.

I said, You all know Dana Stitt? Didn't she go missing around here somewhere? And she says, Yeah, you better leave here right now. She says, Because if you don't, the same thing is going to happen to I think the bitch had a lot to do with it, and that a bitch is exactly what she was.

Please listen and subscribe to my other podcasts, Crossing the Line with M. William Phelps and White Eagle, wherever you get your favorite shows. Paper Ghost Season 4 is written and executive-produced by me, M. William Phelps. Scrip Consulting by Rose Bocce, Sound Design by Matt Russell. Executive Production by Katherine Law. And audio editing and mixing by Brandon Dicker. Taka Boom Productions. The series theme, Number 442, is written and performed by Thomas Phelps, Tom Moon. Grow with Golden Garden Care this spring. Guaranteed Irish and five-star rated by customers. The Golden Garden Care range encourages healthier, more vibrant plants and vegetables, as well as greener, moss-free lawns, available at leading garden centers and home stores nationwide.

Bring a little optimism into your life with The Bright Side, a new daily podcast from Hello Sunshine, hosted by me, Danielle Robé. And me, Simone Voce. Every weekday, we're bringing you conversations about culture, the latest trends, inspiration, and so much more.

I am so excited about this podcast, The Bright Side. You guys are giving people a chance to shine a light on their lives, shine a light on a little advice that they want to share. Listen to The Bright Side on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app and search The Bright Side. In the '90s, New York Detective Louis Scarsella locked up the worst criminals. Putting bad guys away. There's no feeling like it. Then Jailhouse Lawyers took aim, led by Derek Hamilton.

Scarsella took me to the precinct.

In a ride. 20 men eventually walked free. Now, in the Burden podcast, after a decade of silence, Louis Scarsella finally tells his story, and so does Derek Hamilton. Listen to The Burden on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.