She never returned from lunch. We considered her h us may have known her wife is having an affair. Where was she . Nearly 30 years, 60 investigators and it all kept coming back to one elusive suspect. Just very calmly said i know how to get rid of a body so it would never ever be found. To him, i think murder is something that can be done over a lunch hour. Just a heart beat away from not having a case. It was now or never situation. Hello and welcome to dateline. When kathy didnt appear, they didnt know if they were dealing with cold blooded murder. With little evidence, the trail was cold. They dusted off the old files. Investigators couldnt solve her case then, could he help solve it now . Is josh with she didnt come home. Time can be like a river, events streaming by. Most barely make a ripple but a few like the sudden loss of a close friend, a child or parent have a way of circling back upon us in a loot of memory and regret. Thats the way it been for john heckle and his sister eli salis since that completely normal morning in 1991 when their mom kathy heckle kissed them goodbye, left for work and never returned. Do you remember her leaving that morning . Yeah. I mean, like any other day. Same routine all the time, every time she left us, he kilssed us goodbye. A july morning, alisha 13 and john then 9 were home for summer vacation. A little after 9 00 a. M. , alisha says her mom called from her job. We discussed having dinner and having pork chops. Uhhuh august. Yeah, because that was one of my favorite things she cooked. Later, they tried to contact their mom at work. One of the times we tried to call her was around lunchtime and she had left for lunch. Yeah. And then we waited and called after lunch and she still wasnt back to work yet. At 40, kathy heckle spent half her life working at the local paper plant in lock haven, pennsylvania s pennsylvania. I cant remember who i was speaking to but you can hear in their voice there was concern she hadnt come back yet. You picked that up . Yeah, it was not typical for her to not come back and not tell anybody. With their dad out of town, they kept trying to reach their mom. Nothing. At about 6 30 that evening, alisha called her grandparents, clearance and margaret. I answered the phone. It was alisha. She said gram, can you get us some milk. I said what do you mean, can i get you some milk . She said mom didnt come home yet and we dont have any milk. I said alisha, i will be right there. And youre thinking what . I didnt know what to think, but as a mother, you know this is something bad. Something very bad. That night, kathys mother and father contacted everyone they could think of. No one had heard from her and that was i remember picking up on that, that they seemed worried. I mean, you could just tell. Your grandparents were acting differently. Uhhuh. Their dad john was in upstate new york that monday training with his National Guard unit. He didnt learn his wife was missing until the next day. You get that phone call. Its your mom. Yeah. What did she say . Just the conversation was kathy didnt come home from work on monday night and they didnt know where she was. And now its tuesday. Now its tuesday evening. You think what . I said time to call the state police. With the permission of his commanding officer, john heckle immediately left for home. He had menplenty of time to thi on the 5. 5 hour ride. He thought about when kathy donated a kidney to save her brothers life and the december day in 1972 when he first gazed at kathy. She just had the biggest brown eyes you could look into. Six months later, they were married. Like any marriage, i think we had our ups and downs but overall, i was happy about the fact i didnt have to worry about my family with kathy. You thought you were going to stay married forever . Yes. The problem was, john was already married to the military. Johns career frequently took him away from home. Sometimes for weeks at a time. Kathy didnt like that. And john says his wife of 18 years seemed to have that on her mind when she dropped him off for his latest guard assignment. She asked me why i had to be there so early, which didnt make sense to me because i was always the first one there. And i said its my job. She didnt want you to go . She didnt say i dont want you to go. But you felt it . I could feel that something was wrong. The look on her face when she said it, it just didnt sit right with me. Now kathy was missing and her disappearance would eventually drag into the open secrets that some in and around lock haven would have rather kept hidden. There was no doubt kathy took good care of her family, but as investigators soon learned, this wife and mother was also a woman who was sometimes lonely. Coming up. I ask her mom was she seeing anyone . She said she reestablished contact with an old friend from school. And that old friend had a confession to make. He did admit they had had a physical relationship and had only been a few days before she disappeared. When dateline continues. E disappeared. When dateline continues broken windshield. Take 1. Hey guys, my windshield just got broken, i feel like i need to blow off some steam. Lets go. 1, 2, 3, 4. Mr. Blanks . Theres no need to be stressed. Geico makes it easy to file a claim online, on the app, or over the phone. Yeah, but what if i never hear back . Thats gonna make me want to go jab. Jab nope your geico claims team is always there for you. That makes me want to celebrate with some fireworks. 5,6,7 go. Boom, boom, boom, boom boom boom boom boom boom, yeah geico. Great Service Without all the drama. Our most advanced formularonamel repair. Helps you brush in Vital Minerals to actively repair and strengthen enamel. So you dont just brush to clean, you brush to build. 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If your financial situation has changed, who invented were car vending machines and buying a car 100 online. Now weve created a brandnew way for you to sell your car. Whether its a year old or a few years old. We wanna buy your car. So go to carvana and enter your license plate answer a few questions. And our techno wizardry calculates your cars value and gives you a real offer in seconds. When youre ready, well come to you, pay you on the spot and pick up your car, thats it. So ditch the old way of selling your car, and say hello to the new way at carvana. By the time john heckle returned from National Guard training, his wife kathy had been missing about 36 hours. When my dad came back, he was the one who told us we cant find your mom. We dont know where your mom is. And that was the first time ive ever seen my dad cry. And i knew the worst had definitely happened. That was the first time i saw my dad cry, too, and you know, he was always this big strong man and when you see that, you its like okay. This is not good. Thats good to be a terrible thing to tell your kids because they want you to tell them this is going to be okay. Dad always had all the answers. And you cant tell them this is going to be okay . No, you dont want fabrication. Across town that morning, Pennsylvania State trooper fred was on the case. His first call was to margaret dolan, kathys mom. I remember asking if she noticed any changes in her or her demeanor, in the last four to six weeks she wasnt herself. Then the trooper asked one of those probing and indelicate questions cops have to ask. I ask her mom if she had any indication that she was seeing anyone and she said she reestablished contact with an old acquaintance, an old friend from school. That mans name was Dennis Taylor. He and kathy recently reconnected at a wedding. Taylor was singing and playing guitar. The trooper jotted down the name Dennis Taylor with the idea of calling him later. Next, he dialled the paper plant where kathy was last seen. One of kathys coworkers picked up the phone. She corroborated what her mom said, she had been different in the last few weeks, personality seemed quieter, maybe. Then he asked question number two. I also asked if she thought she may have been having an affair or seeing anyone and she said she had no evidence but she suspect the she may have been. The coworker wasnt talking about kathys friend Dennis Taylor, she was talking about a man at the plant named lloyd groves. They played on the same Volleyball Team and spent sometime after hours together and i think the closeness of the two suspected they may be. The trooper learned groves was the quiet type, married with children. Sometimes he led plant tours and gave paper making presentations at local schools. A call to groves office revealed he wasnt in yet so the trooper left a call back message and not long after the trooper says, mr. Groves showed up in person at the state mpolice barracks. He was calm. He said he knew her and they worked in the same office areas. He said they were friends. I did ask him if he had any type of physical relationship with her and he said no. Shortly after lloyd groves left the state police barracks, the other man on trooper caldwells list walked in. Dennis taylor. The guitar man like groves, taylor was a married man with children and right off the bat he told the trooper he had a confession to make. He did admit that they had had a physical relationship briefly and it had only been a few days before she disappeared, as i recall, the First Physical contact. Like a bamusician that knows audience is hanging on every lyric. The guitar man kept singing to the cops. Taylor told the trooper kathy called him at work the day she disappeared. Her voice had a strange tone. She called him just before lunchtime and was upset or anxious and said that she had something she wanted to talk to him about and he was busy and said he cant talk and hed call back. He tried to call back sometime later but zshed gone to lunch. Taylor played golf that afternoon and planned to meet up with her later that night. Then he goes to the location they were going to meet. Kathy doesnt show up. He was concerned something may have happened. It was then the guitar man struck a familiar chord. Kathy heckle he said had also been seeing another man, a guy named lloyd groves. According to taylor, this fellow groves was a bit of a stalker. He said he had met kathy at a park, a nearby park. He said that there was a gray van parked near by and recalled seeing the man and the next time he talked to kathy, did you see that van . That was lloyd and he was following her. Was the guitar man being helpful or was he trying to implicate a rival to save his own skin . The trooper knew this much, if kathy heckle had been juggling simultaneous affairs with married men, there could be a lot of people who might have wanted her to disappear including her husband. He was definitely a person of interest. Exactly how much did john heckle know about what was going on in his wifes life . Coming up, were Police Looking for a run away wife or her killer . There were no answers and that was the worst part. Did you feel like you were ever a suspect . Never worried about it. I knew they were trying to find where ckathy was and what happened and if that included questioning me, i have no problems with that. When dateline continues. H when dateline continues advil targets pain at the source. While acetaminophen blocks pain signals. The future of pain relief is here. New advil dual action. This is my body of proof. Proof of less joint pain and clearer skin. 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Powerful relief so you can restore and recover. Theraflu hot beats cold. Powerful relief so you can save without evenver. Leaving your house. Just keep your phone and switch to xfinity mobile. You can get it by ordering a free sim card online. Once you activate, youll only have to pay for the data you need starting at just 15 a month. There are no term contracts, no activation fees, and no credit check on the first two lines. Get a 50 prepaid card when you switch. Nationwide 5g is now included. Switch and save hundreds. Xfinity mobile. Any investigation in which someone goes missing or turns up dead just about guarantees family members will be considered suspects. Cat thou kathy heckles husband john was no exception. We considered john may have known his wife was having an affair and he may have taken some action on his own. Did you feel like you were ever a suspect. Never worried about it. I knew they were trying to find where kathy was and what had happened and if they included questioning me, i have no problems with that. At some point you said we believe she was having a relationship with some other people. Was that shocking to hear . It was surprising because that wasnt the way kathy was. In his interview, he noticed a change in his wifes demeanor and wondered if she was having an affair. He was emotional. There was times john and i sat together with my arm around him and he would cry and he was concerned about his wife and i felt very bad for the man. John heckles alibi checked out and police found in evidence hed paid anyone to hurt his wife. By now, kathy had been missing for two full days. And john heckle feared the worst. Kathy heckle would never on this earth abandon those two children. Trooper caldwell still didnt know if she was working the missing persons case, abduction or homicide and on the evening of the third day, investigators got a big break. They found the car parked behind the local hospital. The keys were missing. I think they recovered one point but i dont know it was identified. It was from the exterior of the car. Investigators were pretty sure someone, possibly her killer had moved her car to the hospital parking lot and then the case hit a dead end. Days turned to weeks. Those weeks stretched into months. Kathy heckle was somewhere in the wind. We had cadaver dogs come down often and we had troopers come out and look for retamains or whatever. While some investigators focused on finding kathy heckle, others focused on finding evidence of a crime. As far as investigators could tell, the guitar man Dennis Taylor had been honest confessing his affair and lloyd groves seemed dodging. Troopers served lloyd groves home, office and van and while some items of interest were found, the local prols cal pros didnt think police had enough for an arrest. There was a big hole. Ted mcknight was Clinton CountyDistrict Attorney at the time. If you can imagine a yardstick and probable cause is probably at the twoinch mark and beyond a reasonable doubt is probably the 34inch mark, and Everything Else in between is the difference between are you going to get a conviction or arent you . Which means you dont go forward unless youre reasonably sure you have evidence for a conviction . Correct. He said the fact her body had not been found is a big problem. How do we prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she is dead if she was killed . Where did the killing occur . County did it occur in . Maybe its not your jurisdiction . Correct. The disappearance was a defining event. I remember being depressed. I didnt know what that meant when i was 9 years old but just thinking about how low and sad i felt all of the time. I think people deal with things differently and i certainly chose, i think, the avoiding method. Not think about it. Not think about it. There were no answers and that was the worst part. In 1998 seven years after kathy disappeared, john heckle had his wife declared legally dead. That did not make the mystery any easier for him to understand. Can you accept the idea there were needs maybe she felt she had to meet with men who were not you, but that she still loved you . Oh, no, i believe she did love me. She had a secret life that she wasnt showing anybody else. You dont know how long that secret life was and feeter nei i. I wont hate her for being human. Do you blame yourself . A it wilittle bit. 22 summers came and went. John heckle remarried. The kids grew up. They started new lives out west. Alisha became a ski pro. John a fishing guide. But through it all, their mother was never far from their thoughts. She missed all those childhood memories. I mean, things like going to the prom and boyfriends and kisses and just everything. She missed our weddings. I mean, she missed our graduations. She doesnt know her only grandchild. And you probably thought about her each one of those. Uhhuh. Auguuhhuh. Clinton county never forgot her. Shed become a part of history that wouldnt go away and as one generation of law men retired, another rose to take up the Unfinished Business and discovered enticing details buried in a very old file. Coming up. When i obtained this case, it was 22 years old. And had passed through a lot of other hands. 60 other investigators. He was 8 when kathy disappeared. Now, he was in charge of her case. What i remember growing up is where was she . Where was kathy at during all this time . And a leading suspect suddenly leaves town. About three weeks after the disappearance of kathy, he moved his family back to beaver p. A. When dateline continues. We with our almond trees in our blue diamond orchard in california. My parents job is to look after them. And its my job to test the product. The best almonds make the best almond