Hey everybody, are you Always Talking Crime? If you just said yes, well, you are in luck.
My name is Kimmy and I am the host of the Always Talking Crime podcast. It's available
on all the platforms everywhere and each Sunday I'm going to bring you a new episode. We'll
talk about serial killers, spree killers, those black widows, and everything else true
crime. Can't wait for you to join me. Hi everyone, this is Deb from Dying to be Found.
Before we get started, I just wanted to say that episodes contain disturbing discussions
on harmful acts and crimes against animals and or humankind. Recordings are not intended
for young or sensitive audiences due to the content nature of this podcast. Listener discretion
is strongly advised. Hi everyone, this is Deb. Welcome to the Dash, a DB2F mini episode
series that I put together to practice my solo storytelling or better yet to showcase
some fabulous podcasters that I've met from around the world in our true crime community.
The Dash is still new to me and I'd like to know what you guys think about episodes so
far. Some of the things I really love about the podcasts that I listen to is the host
personalities and storytelling. And today I've got the best of both worlds because Kimmy
from Always Talking Crime is here to get tangled up in my little web of tales today.
And I started listening to Kimmy a while back and really you guys, she is as real as they
get. So Kimmy, welcome. Thank you for joining me on the Dash. Hello. Thank you for having
me. I'm so excited. Yeah, me too. Thank you so much for being here. This is so exciting
that I have so many people that are willing to come on here because I'm just experimenting
here and I'm feeling the love. Well, I'm like a little bit nervous, honestly, because this
is the first time I've done a collaboration of any kind and the first time I've been interviewed.
So I'm like, oh my gosh. Oh, you're going to do great. The more I listen to your podcasts
though, I'll tell you something. I see that we have so much more in common and you right
now live a little bit further south than I do. My listeners know that I'm from Canada
originally and I live in Georgia, but you're a little bit further south than me and I have
to tell you a story because I really love the ocean, but I'm terrified to get in it
because Lake Huron was my ocean when I was growing up and they don't have jaws there.
Oh, right. And the same way I have had nightmares of sharks since I was a child. Like I will
literally, I will literally dream. I'm not always being attacked by a shark, but I'll
just have a shark dream like once a month still in my adult life. Wow. When I go out
in the ocean, I love the golf here in Pensacola, but I'll like go to my waist and if I go any
further out or if I spend any length of time, I can't relax because then I have to run out,
run back to the beach and be in the sand because it's not my home. It's their home. That is
so true. And I respect that. Last summer I was in your town in Pensacola and my husband
is a water baby. He loves going out in the ocean. Me, I don't go past my ankles or calves
because Lake Huron has no sharks that I know of, but I was watching him. We're having a
conversation probably 20 feet apart because I will not get out there. And I saw a wave
starting to form coming at him. There was a huge shadow in that wave. And of course I'm
having a panic attack. I turn and run back to shore. I turn around and look and that
wave is crashing on him. Do you know what that shadow was? What? The sun. Oh, it was
the sun. I was going to say either a dolphin or seaweed, depending on the weather. It was
the sun. That was crazy. It's still, that is hilarious. I just can't do it. You can't
do it. Well, I'm the same way. I like, I stare into the waves too. I have some friends that
go surfing and I don't know how they do it. I just, I could not. Nope. No way. I get it.
Well, let's change gears here. Kimmy, I have a few Dash episodes under my belt and I'm
giving my guests an opportunity to showcase their own podcasts. So that's where you come
in. And I wanted to give our listeners a chance to check out a new true crime podcast. This
is one that I highly recommend. Kimmy is a great storyteller. So are you up to doing
a mini episode with me on the Dash today? Cause you're on my territory. Yes ma'am.
Okay. I thought I'd start with some questions. Okay. Now I've listened to you, but maybe
we have some new listeners who've not heard your podcast, Always Talking Crime yet, but
what made you decide to start the podcast and why by yourself? You don't have a cohost.
I do not. Mainly I began podcasting because I've been such a true crime fan and binger
for quite a few years now. And it just seemed like kind of like one of those obsessive type
of things that I'm always talking about. I'm the person at dinner or at the party that
no matter what the conversation is, somehow I managed to bring in a serial killer or a
crime or something where it's so like people are looking at me like, really? Like that's
what she like is going to talk about right now. So I figured I may as well start a podcast
of my own. I did a little bit of research. I don't edit. I just, however I recorded is
how I record it. And I can do that because I'm the only person. Another reason that I
decided to just be a single host podcast is because I'm so busy. So many people are busy,
but my schedule is so crazy and I didn't want to have to rely on what somebody else's schedule
is as well. So that was a big reason. My boyfriend, like I was telling you before we started recording,
my boyfriend keeps begging to be on an episode. So maybe one day, but yeah, that's kind of
like scary. It would make me have to edit so much. And I like not having to do a lot
of that. Yes. What you hear is what you get with me. I just, you know, you heard me, I'm
swearing, I drop F bombs, I say whatever I'm thinking. And that's what I love about it
is that, I mean, even without editing, it's a great storyline and I just feel like I'm
there in the room with you. So you do a really good job. Thank you so much. You're welcome.
How do you choose the storylines that you tell? Oh my gosh, girl, I wish I had a rhyme
or reason, but I don't. Like I'll be doing notes for one and researching one case. And
then all of a sudden I'll hear about something else and I'll switch gears. So it's pretty
much just what I feel like talking about, but I normally have notes. I'm working on
like maybe five or six cases at a time. And it's just kind of like whichever one I finished
first, I finished the one that is just speaking to me more at the time. Wow. That's a great
concept. I mean, I could probably do more if I could just focus on one, but my ADHD
is all over the place. I've heard other podcasts where I had just finished telling a story
about something and then all of a sudden I'm listening to another podcast and they're talking
about not the story that I was telling, but somebody that was associated with the story.
I was like, Oh my God, you can't, I just did that one. So it's kind of neat to connect
those dots, but do you find yourself developing a certain way in how you communicate? Do you
have a specific niche as far as your storylines? Are you still getting there? I'm still getting
there. If you are a new listener, do not start with number one, not that number one is bad,
but it's the first episode I ever did. So whenever I'm like searching for a new podcast,
I always like to listen to a couple of their newest episodes. And then I go back to the
beginning and I can usually tell a huge difference, but you know, it's really developing honestly.
And I try to focus on the victims as much as I possibly can because there's so much
sensationalism out there with serial killers and people putting serial killers on merch
and it's just so, I don't, I don't want to be that podcasters. Oh yes. I always keep
in mind that somebody from the victims family is probably listening or could potentially
be listening. Yeah. If I was a family member of a person that was murdered, I'm not so
certain I would seek it out, but maybe some people do. So I always try to be as respectful
as possible because you know, that's somebody's family member. And sometimes, sometimes even
the killer's families of course are still victims as well. So sometimes, I mean, it's
just, it's a weird line, you know, because there's victims from both sides. So I try
to be as respectful as I possibly can. Yes. But I still drop that bombs. And that's okay
because they're not directed towards the family members. They're directed towards the psychology
behind all that, I guess. Absolutely. So what keeps you motivated to keep putting out your
episodes? Well, I love it. It's just such a fun hobby. I agree. It is. Sometimes, you
know, I mean, I was really proud of myself for the longest time because I started just
last February, and I was never ever late on an episode. And then all of a sudden, the
holidays hit me and all the construction going on on my front porch, and I didn't have any
control over it. And I just had to be like, Okay, Kimmy, just do what you can do. And
like, don't try to worry about it. Oh, yes. But yeah, it did at first bother me. It stressed
me out a lot because I just really prided myself on always dropping my episodes, you
know, same time, same day every week, consistently. Yeah. And it kind of went downhill the last
couple of months. But hey, I still love it. And I'm still going to continue to do it.
Just have to be flexible a little bit. I'm learning. Yeah. And I see a lot of people
out there around the holidays. Hey, we're taking a week off me personally, I did take
a week off because I too started in February. And I thought my finale was going to be a
two parter, but it did not turn out to be that way. And so I said, You know what, why
not take a week off in between sometimes when you're doing this? Yes, I have a full time
job. I think you have a full time job. And it is a hobby. Yes. But we have listeners.
I know you're loyal. I appreciate that. But we're going to drop as consistently as possible.
But that's not always the case. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So I have a question for you real quick,
because you talked about two partners. Yeah. Do you notice that your listenership is less
on part two than it is on part one? Yes. Why? I want listeners to tell us why don't they
want to hear the ending? That is a great question. So listeners, DM us, email us, let us know.
And that's a great question because I did end up doing a three parter and I took it
from three different perspectives. And I'm going to say more people listen to the third
part than even the first or the second. But you're right. There was a second parter that
I had done a while back too. And I don't know why that is. Maybe they haven't reached us
back in the rotation because they have other podcasts they're listening to. Maybe. So which
is your favorite podcast episode that you've done? Do you have one? Oh gosh. Well, I think
it's so hard. I think that I would have to say Israel Keys. Okay. That man haunts me
very, very much. And I could not get him out of my head after all the research. I was researching
him for about three months before I did the episode before I did my recordings. And oh
my gosh, he haunted me for so long. He still haunts me literally. I think of him just randomly.
I'll be at my house and I'm like, it freaks me out that he just did everything randomly.
You could just be a random person in a random house. You know, you don't have to be any
type female, male age, whatever. It was just totally random. And that freaked me the hell
out. And it freaked me out that he spent a lot of time in like New Orleans, which is
only like two and a half fish hours away from me. Wow. So just creepy things. That's my
favorite. But then also anytime there's something like stalking or domestic violence, because
I've been a victim of both like Bianca Devons. That's another not I don't want to say you
know, it's a favorite podcast episode because this young girl died. But just things like
that that I can bring to light because if we bring these stories to people, maybe some
other you know, women or people that are in domestic abuse situations, sometimes it's
men as well, they can hear the podcast episode and kind of think of things that they can
do to shift and maybe avoid being in that situation. So it's an awareness or even educational.
Yes, absolutely. I completely agree with that. I'm going to throw it just something at you
that was not in the questionnaire that you may have prepared for. Oh, no. What was the
last thing you googled? The last thing I googled? Oh, the effects of antifreeze poisoning because
I'm right now getting ready to record the Stacey castor episode. Oh, I added some notes,
I had everything and then at like four in the morning, I googled it, I woke up and I
couldn't fall back asleep. And I was like, Hey, I want to put like really what happens
to the body how it shuts down instead of just talking about antifreeze poisonings. Right.
So that's the last thing I googled. So if somebody were to get my phone and do a search
on my search history, they'd be like what? It's called Duck Duck Go. Make sure you're
using that browser. Exactly. When your new episodes drop, where can we find you online?
Well, you can find me on all the platforms by the time everybody listens. I'll be dropping
on Tuesdays, I drop one time weekly, and I'm just starting my Patreon. I'm going to do
the buy me a coffee, I believe I heard you talk about that. So I researched it. Yeah,
we do that. So I don't want to do anything with Patreon, but I still want to do bonus
content. By the time y'all are listening to this, I'll be dropping an episode every month
the last day of the month on buy me a coffee if you want to be a member. Otherwise, you
can just support me there however you'd like if you'd like to. Sure. And I'm on every
every platform that I know of I think. Okay, and you're on Instagram. I see you there.
Yes, yes. It's always talking crime podcast. I'm on Instagram a lot. Yeah, and I just started
tik tok. So if you're not doing that one, believe it or not, I've gained some listeners
that way. So as long as you can expand your reach there. Oh, I need to. I just started
using it recently. And I'm just like overwhelmed with the amount of people that are starting
to follow. So push me girl push me I have an account but I I always forget to use it.
So Kimmy, are you ready to dash? I am. Go. Let's go. Now, I first want to start off with
an observation. I feel like there are a lot of people who are either a cat person or a
dog person. And I've listened to you enough. I know what kind of person you are. But if
you were to tell our audience if you're a cat person or a dog person, what would that
be? Oh my gosh, initially dog person, but I'm becoming a black cat mom. I have so many
dang cats here. It's crazy. But I'm a dog. I am a dog person. I am too. And if you guys
have listened to me, you know, Dennis likes to chime in occasionally. That's my big bear
knees Mountain Dog border Collie border knees mixed dog. He's just the sweetest in the world.
I do love him. And I love your cats too. I told you if I live closer, I'd probably bring
one home. John wouldn't be happy about it. But or to give you to they do need a partner,
don't they? Yeah, they're they're super sweet. And they get bonded after a while. Oh, yeah.
Hopefully I can find them home soon. Yeah. Well, I'm asking you this because approximately
68% of Americans own pets and that's 85 million people, which opens the door to a huge opportunity
for unsolved crimes, believe it or not to be solved by pet DNA. How about that? Isn't
that cool? Yeah, that's super cool. Yeah. So that's what we're going to be talking about
today. All right. So I will tell you ahead of time, I'm going to at least let you know
that the cat's the hero here. Oh, all right. So today's story is that of Lori Ocker, who
at the age of 19 disappeared from Northumberland County, Pennsylvania on May 24 1989. Lori
had been separated from her husband Robert for about 18 months and was now living with
her parents, her son and her two cats. Robert moved in with his parents and maintained visitation
rights. Usually that's how it goes, right? Yeah. Well, Lori was a loyal and reliable
employee at the local pet shop. So when she did not show up to work one day, everybody
seemed to get worried, including her boss. Lori's car was discovered parked at the Susquehanna
Valley Mall, which was where the pet shop is located. Okay. Naturally Lori's husband
Robert became the number one suspect because we know it's usually the person that's closest
to you, right? Yep. From the get go, Robert had a few things stacking up against him.
The police weren't really looking anywhere else. Number one, he and Lori were separated
and they were having a custody battle over their son. And then secondly, Robert had recently
taken out a life insurance policy on Lori, his estranged wife by now, and on March 16th,
1989, approximately six months after he and Lori separated and two months prior to her
disappearance, he had that policy in place. So he got that life insurance policy after
they were apart. Yes. Okay. So here's the deal. I know that you do insurance. I do.
Do you want to talk about that or no? Yeah, yeah, I can. I've been a licensed life insurance
agent here in Pensacola, well in Florida, since 2013. And I don't really do it a lot.
It kind of falls into my lap if somebody wants to get some insurance. But so this guy does
have insurable interest because they are still married. Yes. Okay. So he is able legally
to get a policy on his wife, but it's super suspect because they're estranged and getting
divorced. So right away that throws up so many red flags. So that would be probably
one of the things that they would be looking at. Why didn't you get this while you were
still living in the same house? Exactly. And it might be where if he got a policy for himself
and had his soon to be ex-wife as the beneficiary of his policy, that would make sense as far
as taking care of their son if something were to happen to them. That would make sense.
Okay. But if it's only one sided, then it seems very, very suspicious. Sure. And I'm
sure she didn't even have any knowledge whatsoever. Nope, probably not. I'm guessing not. Well,
since Lori's car was discovered at the mall where she worked, police began an investigation
of surveillance videos from the surrounding areas of the mall. They discovered that a
nearby ATM camera had a direct view to where Lori had parked her car, which was good and
which was bad. Because if you remember back in the eighties, or I don't even know if you
do. I sure do. I miss those days. I kind of do too. I mean, let's go back to the simple
life. But what do we know about that era? Nothing was digital yet. No. They used VHS
tapes, not digital recordings. For any of our listeners who ever picked up a popular
VHS tape back in the day at the video store. I don't know if this has happened to you,
Kimmy, but I know I've picked up a very popular tape where thousands of people have watched
it before me, or at least it's been run thousands of times. So the quality actually gets worse
the more you watch it. Right, right. And then sometimes people don't rewind it. That is
right. And we got charged for that, by the way. Oh yeah. You didn't rewind your video.
All right. So the quality does deteriorate and authorities turned to a recording company,
Eastman Kodak. Not even sure they're still in business, but they sure were popular back
in the eighties. They turned to Eastman Kodak to see if they could get any more information
from that video and what was on the ATM footage. Eastman Kodak was not able to help, but they
did direct authorities to NASA. Wow. Which I thought was really cool. That is super cool.
It is because there was a rocket scientist who specialized in enhancing spy surveillance
at the time. He was able to zoom in on that video in a certain way where he was able to
pick up on the vehicle in the very background of that ATM surveillance. Wow. That was really
pretty cool. Yeah. He was the same scientist who was able to zoom in on the space shuttle
explosion from the 1980s and determined exactly what happened during that disaster. And that's
how they knew that O-ring had exploded. Oh, gotcha. Yeah. The scientist was also able
to discover that Lori had gotten into a 1982 to a 1985 model Chevy celebrity, which happened
to be the same model that her father-in-law had loaned her estranged husband, Robert.
So nothing suspicious there, right? Robert's just passing through the parking lot. No,
nothing. Nothing to see here. The camera footage captured Robert Ocker pulling up alongside
of Lori as she tried to walk from her car to her job inside the mall. And you could
see her leaning over to talk to somebody from the passenger side. Well, according to the
video, the passenger side door was open, but in the next frame, the car had torn away and
Lori was nowhere in sight. So back in the day, there was like a 10 second delay when
the video would capture movement or anything. It would just, you know, every 10 seconds,
click, click, click one minute she's there. The next minute she is not even in sight.
If you go to the link in my show notes and take a quick look at the forensic files video
that I provided, it shows everything. Oh, okay. So yeah, do that in your spare time.
Definitely. The car that Robert had been driving had recently been traded in at a local car
dealership and police were able to track it down to the new owner pretty quickly. And
of course, once they confiscated the car authorities performed DNA analysis and discovered cat
hairs inside the vehicle that belonged to one of the two cats that I had mentioned that
Lori had when she went to go move in with her parents. Obviously they're going to start
analyzing that hair. Yeah. But here's the clincher back on May 27th of 1989, Robert's
father observed him vacuuming out the car and scrubbing the trunk of the car. He had
just loaned his son. There's nothing wrong with that, right? They're about to trade that
vehicle in. Okay. Let me just jump ahead for just a moment because I did want to let you
know that two and a half weeks after Lori disappeared, her body was discovered by a
young woman out for a jog. Oh my gosh. I know. And she was positively identified through
dental records. So as police began to investigate Robert a little bit more here, they didn't
have enough evidence to arrest him for her murder. Although I had mentioned that he was
pretty suspect. Now I'm going to move on to the DNA evidence because this is where that
comes in. Robert knew that his parents were actively looking to trade their vehicle into
the local car dealership that I had mentioned. And he took full advantage of this because
he knew the car was not going to be around for very much longer. Right. This is where
experts believe that he used his parents' vehicle deliberately to abduct Lori instead
of using his own vehicle. And I suppose that makes sense from a criminal's perspective.
It does. After the late 1980s model Chevy celebrity car was sold to the dealership and
sent off to auction, it was purchased by a state trooper who bought the car for his daughter.
The chances of state supervisor. I love that. Yeah. And guess what? She wasn't even driving
age yet. So the state trooper had the car in his possession, but it was parked because
she didn't know how to drive yet. And it was sitting in the garage for quite a while. So
when police actually located the vehicle, they were able to pretty much perform an analysis
without too much interference. Yeah. I was just thinking that because that teenage girl
wasn't driving it around with all her friends and all her stuff in there. Yeah. Yeah. Great.
How cool. Yep. And so when the car was taken in for analysis, police conducted forensic
science on the front passenger door and the upper door jam, plus the door seal. Because
remember when I had mentioned the ATM footage captured all of that, they saw Lori leaning
in to the passenger side door so they were able to do that analysis. And they also went
through the trunk and discovered those tiny strands of hair. Lab experts examined the hair
and determined that it was not from a human being. Ongoing analysis included hundreds of hair types.
What they determined Kimmy was that the hair found inside the trunk belonged to a cat and not just
any cat. It was microscopically matched to one of the cats that indeed belonged to Lori and her son.
Oh, that's so great. Isn't that amazing? Yes. You know, this is back in the 80s and we didn't have
a ton of DNA. This was microscopically compared and they came up with a match. So I love talking
about these cases. If you listen to even a lot of the dash episodes, we talk a lot about familial
DNA and it doesn't always have to be from human beings. It can be from animals. I've seen other
stories and I was trying to decide which one am I going to do because I know you have animals and
that's why I went with this one. I love that. Do you know that they also can do DNA on trees? No,
I did not know that. Yeah, you know, with the pollen or if they grow a certain type of nut or
whatever it is, they can actually match stuff that way too. That is phenomenal. Oh my gosh,
that's fantastic. Going back to the ATM footage of Lori getting into that vehicle and cat DNA
found once it was located, police had enough evidence to arrest her husband Robert. He was
found guilty of kidnapping plus Lori's murder and sentenced to death. Oh no. However, on July 31st,
1996, Robert appealed this case and the death sentence was vacated. He is currently serving
life in prison at the State Correctional Institute in Collegeville, Pennsylvania. Okay, well, he's
never getting out. No, he is definitely not getting out. So there's no chance of parole. Not that I
could find. Okay, that's great. All right, that's good. Yeah. So that's the story of Lori Ocher and
I do love it because authorities can analyze DNA in so many different ways like I had just mentioned
and there you have it, Kimmy. We've met the finish line. I love that. It's so great too because there's
so many times that I get to work and I have like cat hair or dog hair on me and I'm like trying to
get it off and I'm like, maybe I don't want it all off. Maybe I need some of it on me.
In case somebody abducts me and murders me, they can catch them faster.
I hope that never happens, Kimmy. I like listening to your episodes. I hope not too. Well, you have
my permission to do a podcast episode about it one day if that were to happen. Oh, thank you so much.
I appreciate that, but we're not even going to go there. Oh, goodness. Well, there you have it.
We have dashed to the finish line. Kimmy, you have been amazing and I can't wait to hear your
next episode. You can always find Kimmy, always talking crime wherever you get your podcasts.
While you're here though, click on the links in our show notes to find out more about Dying to
Be Found. There you have it. Talk to you next time. Thanks for listening to Dying to Be Found,
true crime podcast and our dash mini series. Every week, we'll bring you a variety of true
crime episodes, a little dash of hope, plus special bonus episodes with some really cool guests.
Before we go, we'd love for you to share this podcast with your friends and give us a five star
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or visit our website at Dying to Be Found dot com spelled just like you see in our logo.
Better yet, click on our Linktree account found in the show notes where you'll find
all the information in one place. Be sure to dash in every Wednesday for our mini episodes,
plus every Thursday when I get together with some of my family members.
Thanks again, everyone, and we'll talk to you soon.