00:01
The following is a true story that happened in Twinsburg, Ohio, population 18,754. A town a lot like any other. A town a lot like yours.
00:15
The Twins Day Festival kind of put Twinsburg on the map, because when you talk to anybody and say you're from Twinsburg, oh, is that where they have that Twins Day Festival? I'm like, yeah, that's it. You got it.
00:30
But I gotta say, Charlene's death changed my whole opinion on life. I became this paranoid freak. I was afraid of everything. My children, my poor children were just raised with a paranoid freak mother.
00:47
Murder destroys families. It's hard on my wife, how I acted towards her.
00:55
She was killed in front of her children. That would have tore me up.
00:58
No one should have to go through a life losing a mom to where she can't be with her boys. They're always wondering, what's my mom like? Something they'll never know.
01:12
What happened? Why did it happen? How did it happen? It didn't make any sense.
01:17
Nothing is safe. Nobody's safe. You're not safe.
01:24
This is the story of Charlene Puffenberger, a young single mother of two toddler boys. Charlene and her boys lived in a modest apartment complex. Her neighbors knew her as someone they could trust and rely on to babysit their own kids, until the day that Charlene was brutally murdered in her own home.
01:43
From ID and Ample Entertainment, this is Murder in the Heartland.
02:01
I lived here for a lot of years, since 88.
02:07
Apartment complex, it was a lot of single mothers, and everybody cared about each other and their kids, you know, like family.
02:16
It's just very twinkle and quiet until that day.
02:22
On January 20th, 1992, at 6.15 a.m., Michelle Smitherman knew something wasn't right at her neighbor Charlene's place.
02:30
My neighbor next door, Charlene, babysit for a lot of mothers in our complex. She was with her boys, Dustin and Derek, all the time.
02:41
And we became friends. I would come over and visit her, and she would come over to my house and visit me. And she used to cook, and she made the best snickerdoodles.
02:52
That day, I would knock on her door to see how she was doing that morning.
02:58
No answer.
02:59
Michelle went to ask her brother Mitchell for help. He also lived in the neighborhood.
03:04
My sister came over to my house that Monday, and she said, Charlene ain't waking up.
03:11
It's early in the morning, so I'm like, oh, what the hell are you talking about?
03:16
So I got dressed, and I go over there. I open up the door.
03:28
The mom was laying on the couch.
03:31
And she was just, you know, laying up here like that.
03:35
Mitchell finds Charlene lying face up with her eyes open.
03:40
She was like a ghost.
03:42
I picked up Dustin and Derek and got them out and shut the door and took them all to my sister's house.
03:52
And that was it.
03:54
Ain't nobody went back up in there until the police came up in there.
03:59
Police officer Eric Breeding was first to answer the call.
04:03
At that point, I was with the Twinsburg Township Police Department.
04:06
I had under five years of service.
04:09
I wasn't a rookie status, but might as well be.
04:12
It came out as an innocent call of an unknown injury.
04:16
Got the address. I may have been in the car for two minutes. And I'll never forget the dispatcher came on the radio. She just said, Eric, this sounds bad. Hurry. Hurry.
04:36
As I approached that February, at this time, I'm the only one here as far as worker bees.
04:46
Here's where Charlene lived. Charlene lived in a two-story apartment complex surrounded by a neatly trimmed lawn.
04:54
You first walk in the apartment, the apartment wasn't ransacked.
04:59
And obviously, you see the body and you see what it had gone through.
05:03
Crime scene photos show the inside of Charlene's apartment, a plush recliner, a wicker rocking chair, a plaid couch, and a large gray velvet couch where she was found lying motionless under a blood-soaked blanket.
05:15
She was laying on the couch under a blanket, dried blood on her face.
05:24
She had a belt wrapped around her neck. It was early morning, and she had been on the couch for a while.
05:33
So obviously it had happened the night before sometime in the overnight hours.
05:41
Her arms and hands had some defense wounds.
05:47
It was the first murder scene I'd ever even seen in real life.
05:51
Your initial reactions, it was an uh-oh moment. It wasn't panic. It wasn't fear. It was just like, I got to get this right. I got to be perfect. I got to be good.
06:15
I got a call from one of her neighbors.
06:19
Charlene didn't have a phone in her apartment.
06:24
And they said, you know, come over to Charlene's apartment.
06:28
Phyllis Puffenbarger is Charlene's mother.
06:31
And they says, don't rush, you know. But they said, Charlene's been hurt.
06:37
I just felt, you know, just worrying. I says, well, you know, how bad was Charlene hurt?
06:44
And, like, her two boys were there. Were they okay?
06:50
Did she need help, you know, for me to, like, watch the, you know, the boys?
07:00
You know, I had no idea what I was...
07:06
walking into.
07:12
When I got there, they wouldn't let me into Charlene's apartment. I said, I want to see her.
07:19
And they said, you can't.
07:24
And that's when, yeah, the police said, you know, that she had been, you know, murdered.
07:35
I was, like, stunned. It was just, you know, this can't be.
07:46
I was in college, so unfortunately I was out of state when I got the news.
07:51
And I ended up calling my mother.
07:53
Ken Puffenbarger is Charlene's brother.
07:56
He chokes back tears talking about Charlene.
08:01
And she's the one who told me.
08:09
So she just basically said she was gone.
08:13
And then, you know, flew back up to town. And, you know, the hardest challenge was she had two kids.
08:22
One was three, the other one was two. And there was no father figure for them to lean on.
08:31
Officer Breeding starts the first stages of the investigation.
08:35
Throughout the day, our chief started calling in other officers of ours.
08:40
Because there's work to be done, there's interviews to be done, there's searching to be done for evidence, for clues, for whatever.
08:50
The evidence we collected, I want to say, there was over 150 items.
08:56
We took cut-out carpet.
08:58
We basically disassembled the couch and collected each piece. We went through the sink drains and the tub drains.
09:08
It was reported to us that the house was locked. The neighbor discovered it when she went over to get the kids.
09:15
We did not find any forced entry.
09:18
The deadbolt was locked.
09:21
I don't think I've ever had a case where somebody's locked the door behind them, honestly, in the 28 years I've been around. I mean, it's just rare.
09:30
Detective Patricia Kungel recalls various details that stand out about this case.
09:35
It was obvious their concern was keeping those kids inside.
09:41
The sad part is, is those kids spent the night with their mom, who was gone. That was the tough part of the case for everybody, is those kids had to endure that through the night.
09:55
These kids, two and three, spent the night in the apartment with their dead mother.
10:00
I mean, that's, that doesn't happen, right?
10:06
I just, I don't know how they did it.
10:08
A lot of cases, boyfriends are usually the number one suspect, depending on what the situation is. They're your top tier from the beginning.
10:19
In interviewing the family, we found out Charlene's kids had two different fathers.
10:25
Dustin, the oldest boy, his dad is Alan Redman.
10:31
The father of the youngest child was Willard McCarley.
10:37
Our chief started calling in other officers of ours.
10:40
One of our other officers had just showed up.
10:44
And when the older boy saw him, he just pointed and said, he did it. He hurt my mommy.
10:51
What I thought at that moment was, why him?
10:55
He's not the first officer he's seen today.
10:58
So it was very strange and very suspicious.
11:04
It didn't cross my mind that the person he pointed at had anything to do with it specifically, so it had to be a characteristic that he shared with the person who did do it.
11:16
Was it somebody dressed up as a cop?
11:19
It's possible.
11:28
On the Crime House original podcast, Serial Killers and Murderous Minds, we're diving into the psychology of the world's most complex murder cases.
11:37
From serial killers to cult leaders, deadly exes and spree killers, we're examining not just how they killed, but why.
11:45
Is it uncontrollable rage, overwhelming fear, or is it something deeper? Listen to and follow Serial Killers and Murderous Minds, available now wherever you get your podcasts.
12:07
in my 25-year-plus career as a reporter. I love the fact that you never know what you're going to do on any given day.
12:16
Stephanie Warsmith is a reporter with the Akron Beacon Journal.
12:19
As soon as I heard about this case, I delved into it and talked to the family.
12:26
I wrote a couple of stories.
12:28
This type of murder in a place like Twinsburg is very rare and obviously very disturbing to the people that live there because they're not used to reading about, you know, a woman who's been strangled and bludgeoned to death.
12:46
So the first time that I actually heard about the whole Charlene Puffenberger murder case was when I was working at the auto plant that I was at. Charles Kincaid is an auto plant employee. The plant was horrible about gossip. There were people that acted like they knew what was going on.
13:01
You'd get little snippets of comments, you know, different places. You know, they think somebody that works here is involved in it. All kinds of different stuff.
13:09
News of Charlene's murder rattles the residents. Jake Ruggles is another auto plant employee.
13:14
You can't help but think that, you know, maybe this guy's the guy that did it. Or maybe this guy knows who did it, but he's not telling anybody. Maybe you're helping somebody inadvertently by fixing their car.
13:31
This was my first saddle I ever bought. And I used it for years.
13:37
Detective Kungel's love for horses helped shape her career.
13:41
And then I got into the sheriff's mounted unit, a horse unit.
13:45
and then eventually in the Detective Bureau.
13:49
Anything where somebody got hurt, that was my case.
13:55
In looking back at Charlene's case, during that time I was on edge and you just want to do it for the family and for Charlene and even the residents there that were so afraid, you know, that that person was going to come back.
14:12
Dustin was her three-year-old son.
14:14
And there's no doubt in my mind when Dustin was pointing at this deputy, you had to believe that maybe it was a police officer involved. You can have very good witnesses with kids, especially in a traumatic event. They remember things. They may not be verbal, but they can point them out.
14:37
They can tell you to a certain degree what went on.
14:43
for an officer to be involved, that'd be not a good case scenario. But he was only pointing out this black tuff jacket that we had back then, the winter jacket. And I know it was the buttons. If I wish I had my tuffy coat, I could show you. They stand out.
15:00
Now we need to look for a suspect with a police jacket, tuffy jacket, black one.
15:07
Charlene's mom, Phyllis, enters a wood-paneled restaurant.
15:14
Hello. Hi, Skye. How are you doing today? Good, how are you? I'm good, thank you. Everything going okay? It is. Are you ready for dinner? I'm ready.
15:23
When it happened, my first thought was Emma.
15:30
Charlene and Emma White went to school together, and they lived in the same apartment complex.
15:39
She came to Charlene's apartment And I think Emma was wanting some money, which, you know, Charlene didn't have it.
15:49
Charlene offered her some food, but she wouldn't take it.
15:54
Emma threatened her after Charlene wouldn't give her any money.
15:59
And then, of course, Charlene was afraid of Emma.
16:07
When we got called in for an investigation, they kept asking me, we want to know about Emma White.
16:15
Emma lived in one of the apartments and went to high school with Charlene and I.
16:21
She's mean.
16:22
Missy Greenle is Charlene's best friend.
16:25
In school, she was just constant fighting with somebody.
16:30
So everybody knew to stay away from her.
16:34
Miss Emma made me feel kind of nervous. And that's all I know. And I go in my little world, and she be in her little world.
16:46
Up in the complex, there was a huge drug bust up there.
16:51
I think Emma thought Charlene was the narc and got him busted for drugs.
16:56
So then every time Emma saw Charlene, she would just jump in her face and yell and just be belligerent. And Charlene was just so nice. And she would tell her that she's not the one who narced. She would never do that. And whatever you're doing is your business.
17:13
But Emma didn't believe her.
17:16
Detective Kongol pursues Emma as a potential suspect.
17:20
Emma White, we did track her down.
17:24
Emma and Charlene, they argued all the time. They just did not get along.
17:30
She did have a criminal history involving an assault back in high school.
17:37
Emma White had denied any wrongdoing. And so, you know, obviously we had to confirm her alibi because she was high enough up on the list of suspects to have that done.
17:49
But for the time being, we wanted to talk with Alan Redmond. He was the father of Dustin.
17:56
We also really wanted to talk to the father of the younger son, Willard McCarley.
18:05
On January 21st, 1992, detectives visit the residence of Willard McCarley, Derek's father.
18:15
When we got to McCarley's residence, they let us in, but Willard wasn't there. So we talked to his mom and dad, Larry and Sarah McCarley.
18:27
They sat down and talked to us.
18:29
My initial impression of the McCarley family, I didn't have a lot of trust for Larry for some reason.
18:36
Charlene's mother has a mistrust for Larry as well.
18:39
Charlene, she told me, once Larry tried to pin her down and force himself up on her, And she said, you're supposed to be, you know, the grandfather of this, you know, baby. I said, you know, how can you do, you know, such a thing?
19:02
Detective Kungel shifts her focus to the McCarleys.
19:05
Larry McCarley worked with Willard at a local auto factory.
19:13
Larry did have a sexual history where he had touched his cousin.
19:22
No charges were filed.
19:27
But regarding the assault that Shirlene had talked about with Larry, Larry just vehemently denied it.
19:38
that it didn't happen, she's making it up, and it just, it kind of went nowhere.
19:47
It was her word against his.
19:49
When they continued interviewing Larry's family, Sarah, Larry's wife, was interviewed.
19:59
Her reaction when she heard about the death of Charlene is not, oh my God, you know, Charlene, it's, I want to adopt my grandson.
20:11
We would just completely bypass Charlene and went and decided that, you know, this is what she wanted to do, which was kind of unusual. She wanted to adopt Derek, which is kind of strange.
20:26
I thought, well, was it them Carlys that killed Charlene? You have to go with it until you can prove it otherwise.
20:38
by January 21st, 1992. Two days after Charlene's murder, Officer Breeding has a number of suspects, but no clear direction.
20:48
It wasn't long going to the investigation. We get this pool of potential suspects, these names, including Willard, the father of one of the boys. Could have been Larry, who was Willard's father, and Alan Redmond, the father of Charlene's other son. It could have been a neighbor.
21:06
Emma and Charlene just did not like each other. Could have been, you know, all of them, but not one piece of physical evidence.
21:17
It was the all-inclusive game of Clue because anybody had the opportunity to do it.
21:24
We knew it was solvable. We're still trying to find that one thing.
21:34
Charlene and Alan, the father of her first son, probably lived together for about a year.
21:41
And then things just weren't going that smooth.
21:46
Alan, he was sort of like controlling.
21:50
One time he came to the house and he came to the door, it was late, but he was wanting to see Charlene. And I said, no, I said, you know, she's already in bed.
22:03
It was something about him. It was hard for me to put my finger on. I just didn't care for him.
22:10
Charlene didn't stay with Alan very long.
22:14
I guess it was just tension.
22:17
She said that was enough, so she came home.
22:20
And then Charlene, she started dating a guy, Willard McCarley.
22:26
She went out with Willard on her birthday, and she was very happy.
22:32
She was wanting to form a family.
22:35
And so she got pregnant with her second baby, with Willard. But when Charlene told Willard she was pregnant, he denied it.
22:47
And he says, well, you know, it's not my baby.
22:51
She had no doubt because when she was seeing him, it was strictly him.
22:58
She did have a paternity test because I think Willard's mother, Sarah McCarley, wanted to make sure that it was her grandson. And then it came back, Willard was the father.
23:19
Officer Breeding and Detective Congel investigate Willard McCarley.
23:23
When I met Willard, he lived in the basement of his parents' house.
23:28
By 10, he was nonchalant, very carefree.
23:32
You know, he kind of had that...
23:35
that aura about him of he can do no wrong.
23:42
Willard, as far as the last time he had seen Charlene, he advised it was two days before the murder.
23:48
It was at the complex that Charlene lived at, and they had a conversation, and according to him, it was fine. There was no issues, and he was only there for a few minutes, and then he left.
24:05
He claimed that she called him to discuss the results of the paternity test.
24:13
So he knew that she had him. He knew what her next step was.
24:17
She had been trying to get child support.
24:21
That night of the murder, he said he was with his girlfriend. We talked to the girlfriend. She verified that they were together that Sunday night.
24:30
But you kind of take that with a grain of salt.
24:35
Police also investigate Charlene's oldest son's father, Alan Redman.
24:39
In the investigation, when talking with Alan Redman, he advised that he had last seen Charlene probably about a week before. And Alan was very timely with his child support. There didn't appear to be any problems with him as far as relationship with Charlene.
24:59
Mr. Redman had stated that the night of the murder,
25:04
he was at his house with his girlfriend and so you know obviously we had to look at his alibi on this particular case there's just a lot of legwork in verifying all of their alibis because again at that point in time nobody was the hardened suspect you don't have physical evidence right now so everybody's in play we just we were lost
25:35
On January 27, 1992, it had been seven days since Charlene's murder. Phyllis is taking care of Charlene's sons.
25:44
After my daughter was murdered, when Charlene's oldest, Dustin, first got here, he seemed okay.
25:55
And then a couple of days later, Dustin, he was sitting there in a chair and playing around.
26:07
He picks up this toy telephone, and he just starts talking, saying all these things. I said, stuff is just not normal.
26:23
He hurt my mommy.
26:25
The policeman did it.
26:28
The purple stick.
26:30
Just all different little sayings that were just not right.
26:38
You know, where she just kept kicking, trying to get, you know, away from him. You could see tears in Dustin's face.
26:55
I just grabbed papers, and I just kept scribbling whatever he said.
27:13
It was suggested, rather than try to interview Charlene's son, Dustin, that they would let the child psychologist, Dr. Lord, interview him.
27:25
They're more well-versed in interviewing young people like that.
27:29
On January 28, 1992, Charlene's three-year-old son, Dustin, is brought in to meet with a child psychologist.
27:36
Dr. Lord got a lot out of Dustin.
27:40
There was some mention of the blood, the pillow.
27:46
The fascination with the gold buttons on this police officer's jacket. The argument between two people back and forth.
27:58
And the comment, I will kill you. I mean, he really started to come out with almost a play-by-play. And the floodgates opened.
28:15
I want to show you something.
28:20
This photo, the last photo of her being at my son's birthday party in Burger King.
28:29
Just how happy she was and her son, Dustin, that day.
28:34
She was a loving, caring mom.
28:36
Michelle, Charlene's neighbor, shows the only photo pinned to her refrigerator door. It's a photo of Charlene smiling gently. Her brown straight hair sweeps past her shoulders and her eyes are cast down at her son sitting on her lap.
28:49
After Charlene's death, I had family stay with me. It made me feel kind of nervous not knowing who did it. I figured that it might not get to be solved, but I wanted it to be solved because of her kids. They deserve that.
29:11
And her mother deserved, I mean, because it took a toll on her.
29:18
Detective Kungel breaks down the investigation.
29:21
As far as the investigation with Emma White, she was a resident at the complex where Charlene lived. They didn't get along. Her story that was given of her whereabouts during the time Charlene was killed was verified by those detectives.
29:37
And plus, Dustin said that it was a policeman and not a woman.
29:42
And also she passed a polygraph.
29:46
So she was taken off the list as far as suspects.
29:50
There was a lot of polygraphs given in this case.
29:53
Everyone that they polygraphed passed...
30:00
But the Carlis, Larry and Willard, none of them agreed to a polygraph.
30:10
All of them interviewed with our detectives. But whenever somebody denies taking a polygraph, it will send a red flag up as far as we need to look into this a little bit more.
30:24
Willard McCurley, his alibi was he had been out with his new girlfriend, left her place about 11 o'clock, went home, fell asleep on the couch, and then his brother come in later.
30:41
In interviewing Willard's girlfriend, she pretty much confirmed his alibi that he left about 11 o'clock and he bought her flowers the next day and delivered them at work for her. And she thought it was kind of unusual, but nice.
30:56
Larry McCarley, his father, had been at home and Sarah came in later on that evening.
31:04
On February 1st, 1992, after two weeks of investigation, police run out of leads. Years go by.
31:12
Stephanie Warsmith, a local reporter, tries to keep interest and hope alive in Charlene's case.
31:17
It was a long time.
31:20
It went unsolved for so long. It really did have an impact on the community, and they never forgot about it.
31:27
We did a story on one of the anniversaries of Charlene's death where the family and community members were out and they were putting flyers up around asking for people to come forward with any information they had. And so even though this case had grown cold at that point, they had not given up hope that it would someday be solved.
31:50
City officials and Charlene's mother, Phyllis, keep pushing for justice.
31:54
There's a murderer running around. Let's be factual about it. Some place there's a murderer and we need to get him off the streets.
32:02
Knowing that they're still out there and they have their life and hers was taken.
32:10
It's just not fair.
32:13
The most frustrating part about this case is we never could find that one piece of physical evidence that actually amounted to anything which proved who the murderer was or even allowed us to make an arrest. You know, this thing went on even long after I left the department.
32:38
This is a book of all the newspaper clippings that we put out of Charlene, you know, asking for information.
32:50
I had these posters printed up almost every year, you know, to where if some people would have some information just for someone to come forward.
33:02
Phyllis leafs through a large photo album of yellowed pages.
33:06
Who murdered my daughter?
33:10
Charlene Huffenbarger's life was cut too short in Twinsburg. On January 20th, 1992, information wanted.
33:24
My mother was determined, and she was always determined to make sure we got this assault. And she never gave up on the case. She constantly was in contact with the sheriff's department.
33:34
Charlene's mom, Phyllis,
33:36
The things that she has dealt with, and obviously just being the mother when your daughter was murdered, just a strong, strong woman.
33:47
She has the strength of 17 tractors.
33:52
I think she had more faith probably than anybody.
33:56
Charlene's family persists in trying to find her killer. Charles Kincaid remembers seeing flyers about Charlene at the auto plant.
34:03
When I was working at the auto plant that I was at, somebody had been coming into the plant and posting up on our hallway bulletin boards, they'd been posting up these posters talking about how they were looking for their daughter's murderer. And there was a little bit of information on the poster, but I never thought anything of it.
34:20
I...
34:26
I felt for the girl's parents. I did.
34:30
It was important for me to keep this in people's minds. I didn't want Charlene forgotten. We just needed information to get this solved. I didn't want to let it go.
34:41
Someone had to pay for what they'd done to Charlene.
34:46
On February 22nd, 2002, 10 years after Charlene's murder, there's a break in the case.
34:53
The auto manufacturing industry was really big in that Twinsburg area.
34:58
There were a huge employer in Northeast Ohio. There's a reason that most of these towns took off the way they did.
35:04
Every week, I and a couple of other guys would hop in a car and we would drive to Canada on Monday.
35:09
And Friday, we would come back.
35:12
And while we were up there, we would work on getting the lines straightened out, getting everything working so that we could sell them to the company.
35:21
One of the days we were driving up to Canada, one of the guys made a comment, like, I killed somebody and it didn't bother me.
35:28
You'd make a comment like that, like, I don't know if this guy's making stuff up, but when he mentioned that, you know, he had actually known Charlene, I worked with this person for at least 10 years.
35:39
It was kind of a shock, but, you know, there was so much boisterous talk and everything all the time. You didn't know if he was just, you know, playing it off or whatever, but that's kind of, you know, a big deal to hear somebody say that they killed somebody.
35:53
But when it kind of all gets, when that puzzle gets put together and you kind of recognize it like, oh, this really could be the guy that really... killed this person.
36:03
Charles Kincaid decides to give this information to the authorities. The following is the actual audio recording of Charles' interview by the police.
36:11
The thing that made me come here, if he did what he did, if this guy choked the woman to death in front of his kids, I'm just hoping that any information that I could give you would be something that you could use and put towards your case.
36:28
I first met Willard in 94.
36:32
We ended up working in the same area in the plant. Willard had mentioned that he had known Charlene and that she was claiming that her child was his, you know, and he did tell me that. So I didn't really put two and two together and think that it was anything bad like that. But probably a couple years later, one of the things I had told him was in the Army, some of the ranges, they will use targets that have human faces.
36:58
And the thinking behind it is they want you to...
37:01
to get used to shooting at something that's looking back.
37:04
I had mentioned that to him and he says, ah, that's not true. He said, I killed somebody and looked into their eyes, you know, and it didn't bother me, you know, and I didn't have any problem with that.
37:12
And that's not something you hear from everybody.
37:15
Charles Kincaid was a very valuable asset. He had worked with Willard and he helped focus the investigation.
37:24
The following is the actual audio recording of Charles conveying his suspicions to Detective Kungel.
37:30
He said, I looked at somebody's eyes and they died as I killed them. And you don't remember the eyes.
37:37
And that was something that, to me, struck me.
37:41
It would always circle back around to Willard. It just kept coming back to him. But it just wasn't enough for the arrest warrant.
37:52
On February 20th, 2002, the police receive an anonymous call.
38:01
We got a call one night of a domestic issue at Willa McCarley's house on Foghorn Lane.
38:08
Upon our guys walking into his garage, there was a police jacket hanging in the garage.
38:17
And so this officer, immediately upon seeing that coat, knew our victim's son, Dustin, kept saying, you hurt my mom, and he's pointing at the deputies and the Twinsburg Township officers at their jackets.
38:33
This was exactly the same, and in fact, it had side patches on it too, identifying it as a sheriff's jacket.
38:41
So that jacket got confiscated and it really set the tone of, hmm, you know, there might, we might have something here.
38:54
With the jacket in police custody, investigators look for a DNA match to the evidence collected at the crime scene in 1992.
39:01
As technology increases, different testing increases. Well, there was a new type of DNA testing that was made available and the big break finally came in.
39:13
Off of the leather belt that was wrapped around her neck, we got the physical evidence that we finally needed.
39:20
They had retested the evidence and it was a match between the DNA that was taken from the belt and Willard's DNA.
39:31
Detective Kongol can finally put an end to a decade-long search for Charlene's killer.
39:36
When it come back positive, I was like, thank you, God.
39:43
You know, and you don't want to arrest somebody that's not guilty. So Alan Redman and Larry McCarley, they were dropped as far as the suspect.
39:54
We all know in our hearts, we got the bad guy. It was a high-five day, there's no doubt in my mind.
40:01
Patty Gungle, she called me that early in the morning when she found out, and she says, we got good news.
40:07
Says, you know that the DNA, it came back to be Willard's.
40:13
I just felt so happy. I mean, it's just a feeling you can't explain.
40:18
I was watching the news, and I seen that they arrested Willard.
40:26
I was in relief that they had got the guy.
40:31
Phyllis relays the news to Missy, Charlene's best friend.
40:34
Phyllis called me and said, guess what?
40:38
We get to go to court.
40:40
I said, what?
40:41
She's like, they arrested Willard.
40:44
I said, you little bastard, you don't get away with it. You're not going to get away with it.
40:51
Willard McCarley told Charlene Puffenbarger over her dead body was he going to pay child support.
41:01
On April 14th, 2017, 25 years after Charlene Puffenbarger's murder, Willard McCarley is sentenced to life in prison. He'll be eligible for parole in 2037. Phyllis describes her relief at a news conference.
41:15
Right now, I'm just totally elated.
41:18
He's in jail where he totally belongs.
41:22
I'm just totally relieved. It's done.
41:25
I'm done.
41:28
It's been a challenge for everybody, you know.
41:31
It's hard enough losing your sister. It's hard enough losing your daughter.
41:35
I mean, it is unexplainable how hard that is to go through.
41:42
Once there was a conviction, once it was done, can't help to wonder why. Why it ever happened? How senseless.
41:51
This was a murder over a couple of dollars of child support. Now, Willard had a good job. He was making good money.
41:59
How selfish can one person be that A, they're not gonna support their child, and B, they're gonna kill the mother to avoid that.
42:10
She was a beautiful mom.
42:12
Those babies missed out on so much.
42:15
They'd be so different today if she was just in their lives and she wasn't taken away from them.
42:25
No one should have to go through losing their daughter.
42:31
a mom where she can't be with her boys. And then to see them, you know, they're always wondering, well, what's my mom like?
42:45
Something I'll never know.
