dennis murphy: tonya priest had gone to the authorities authorities with an explosive allegation. she said a man nicknamed thumper had confessed to her that he had two bodies had abducted and murdered heidi allen back in 1994. she was devastated when the prosecutor checked out her story and ultimately chose not a believer. i was doing it because i was a good person. and that is how i felt. but tony would not give it up. she was convinced that an innocent man, gary was in prison. she made kohl s and was eventually put in touch with a new york federal public defender named lisa somebody who had ties to the defense lawyers who had worked on his failed appeals. tanya felt as though things were on this by the time she called our office. lisa, the lawyer, listened
showing up for the newspaper, a few gallon of gas at the pump i.d.s boyfriend was there with her to help her get things running for the day. he would take her so that she wasn t alone until people, you know the traffic was picking up and then he would go. that s what happened that day? right. richard thibodaux original or lived a few miles down the road and saw heidi that morning. i asked her for two packs of basic cigarettes, paid her, i said have a nice day. a few more cars pulled up to the m w, reporter covered the case for syracuse.com. some customers had come in and didn t realize she wasn t there until they had been there for a while, flag down a deputy and know heidi. heidi s sister lee so woke up that morning to very bad news. in my aunt was on the machine and she said, heidi is missing. missing. we saw her the night before. when she delivered our easter baskets and she had her usual
come and gone since heidi s disappearance. and now with johnny s story, everything was new again. the dea starts looking into the evidence, tanya helped gather. but, what will it mean for the case? coming up. when the investigator talked to jennifer westcott she explained that, look, my statement to tanya were not true. when dateline continues. ne continues this is a cranberry. full of ancient, antioxidant, taste bud blasting power.
then a couple of months past, they had brought in a criminal profiler with the fbi behavioral science unit, someone who would litter correctly profiled the oklahoma city bomber. but in this instance, clint van zandt was the agent of the unit who was assigned to the heidi allen case in upside new york, his case look for someone with a history of violence and someone obsessed with the case. the person who committed this is somebody who was really interested the community was interested in the case but this is more interest obsessed. could not let it go. this is somebody who would be saving newspaper articles. and there would be many newspaper articles decades of them at that, the case of heidi allen was just getting started. coming up a stunning twist, the killer seems to out-himself. he says yes, i killed this girl. he gives it up? he gives it up. when dateline continues. when dateline continues
heidi allen it had a code name julia roberts. a teen with a secret identity, did she also have the secret enemy. they wanted to shut her up, permanently. welcome to dateline. secrets, everybody has them, but some are more dangerous and take longer to be revealed and others. like the curious case of how the allen, why did she disappear one fateful easter morning and how would it come to be that years later to women heidi never knew would help uncover her secret and tried to bust a case wide open? now here s dennis murphy with rear window. tanya priess never wanted to be a star witness least of all a murder investigation, but after that guy blurted out what he did she felt she had to come