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Helen Got Murder Line actively investigates cold case murders in an effort to raise public awareness.

Invite witnesses to come forward and present evidence that could potentially be further investigated by law enforcement.

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Nothing in the podcast is intended to state or imply that anyone who has not been convicted of a crime is guilty of any wrongdoing.

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On June tenth, two thousand and six, twenty one year old Deirdre Harm was headed to a night out with friends.

She had a four month old daughter.

Named Vegas and had hired a babysitter to watch her.

She and her friends went out downtown in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin.

They stopped at a couple of bars, including The Finish Line and the Body Shop.

What happened toward the end of the night is unclear.

Witnesses said Deirdre was talking with a man whom none of her friends knew.

It's also not clear which bar Deirdra was at last, but the bartender at the finish line said she saw Dedra leave.

The bartender also said she saw a man leave shortly after Deirdre did, and then Deirdre never came home.

She never called her babysitter.

She simply disappeared.

The bartender helped the Wood County Sheriff's department make a composite sketch of the stranger.

He was described as having shaggy, dark hair, being clean shaven, and having a large tribal tattoo.

On his left forearm.

For months, Deirdra's friends and family looked for her.

They shared her missing poster all around town, but they found no trace of Dedra.

Five months later, hunters were walking through the town of Seneca, a wooded area around five miles away from downtown Wisconsin Rapids.

They found part of a human skeleton, including a skull, and on November twenty second, two thousand and six, dental records confirmed these remains were Dedra.

Harm There had been a lot of deterioration, too much for the medical examiners to determine a cause of death.

Dedra's skeleton had injuries and trauma, but they couldn't tell if the damage to her remains happened as a result of her murder or if it happened afterward.

Since this was in a wooded area with animal activity and the animals could have been responsible for the bone scattering.

Police seemed to hit a dead end very quickly.

They had no suspects, and they didn't even know whether Deirdra had been attacked and killed near the bar where she was last seen, or if the killer kidnapped her and killed her at another location and then dumped the body where it was eventually found.

The trail went cold and Deirdre's murder was unsolved.

And then in two thousand and seven, another woman was leaving a bar late at night, thousands of miles away from where Deirdre vanished, and she also disappeared.

Police eventually began to believe that they were on the trail of a serial killer.

This investigation spanned nineteen years and several states and focused on a man living a double life, a man who police believe is responsible for at least three murders and there could be other.

Victims out there.

I'm Catherine Townsend.

Over the past seven years of making my true crime podcast, Telling Gone, I've learned that there's no such thing as a small town where murder never happens.

I have received hundreds of messages from.

People all around the country asking for help with an unsolved murder that's affected them, their families, and their communities.

If you have a case you'd like me and my team to look into, you can reach out to us at our Helen Gone Murder Line at six seven eight seven four four six one four five.

That's six seven eight seven four four six one four five, or you can send us a message on Instagram at Helen Gonepod.

This is Helen Gone Murder Line.

Less than a year after Deirdre Harm went missing, another woman also vanished.

This time the woman vanished about seven hundred miles away in Missouri.

Thirty six year old Renee Williams was a server at the Eagles Lodge bar in Ava, Missouri, and on March thirteenth, two thousand and seven, she was closing up for the night.

According to the Douglas County Sheriff's Department, Renee was last seen at around one thirty am.

The night had started out as completely ordinary.

Renee lived with her boyfriend Tim in Mansfield.

They had been together for twelve years and had three children together, and Tim told police that before leaving the lodge that night, Renee had called him to say she was on her way home.

He said she sounded calm, there was no sign of distress.

Everything seemed completely normal, But then Renee never came home.

Tim knew immediately something was wrong, especially after he drove by the lodge and saw Renee's red Chevy Lumina still parked outside.

But again there was no sign of Renee, so Tim reported her missing to the Douglas County Sheriff's Office.

Police released information stating that they were treating Renee's disappearance as a stranger abduction.

Renee was white, with blonde hair and blue eyes, five feet two inches tall, weighing around one hundred and thirty pounds.

She also had some distinctive tattoos, two feathers on her right arm, a unicorn head on her right ankle, and the letters KSA on her left fingers.

Police quickly came to the conclusion that the evidence did not support Renee leaving the bar on her own.

First of all, she had called her boyfriend and specifically said she was headed home.

It seemed as though she had closed up normally.

The doors to the bar were closed.

And locked, and the receipts from the night sales had been locked in the safe.

Also, nothing seemed to have been taken from inside the bar, and her car was left there in the parking lot.

The only thing.

Missing was Renee's purse, and Renee was just gone.

According to an incident report from the Douglas County Sheriff's office, there was some blood found on the sidewalk near Rene's car.

They sent the evidence in for DNA testing.

A volunteer search party showed up with trained dogs who alerted on a dirt road behind the bar.

The canines followed the trail, which ended about a mile away from the Eagle's Lodge on some private property, but there was no trace of Renee, any of her belongings, or any other DNA.

Rene's family and friends made public pleas for information, but they got no credible leads.

They described her as a devoted mother who would never have left her children, and as the weeks and months dragged on, they lost even more hope.

Because Renee never appeared again.

No one heard from her, records showed.

Her phone was never used again, and her bank accounts and credit cards were never touched.

There was no sign anywhere that she was alive after she closed up the bar that night, So what happened to Renee Williams.

One name that came up early in the investigation into Renee's disappearance was Christopher Revak.

His name apparently got mentioned when police were investigating the regulars at the Eagle's Lodge.

Christopher was someone who occasionally stopped by.

The bar at the time.

Christopher Reevak was a thirty five year old EMT who lived in Ava, Missouri.

He worked in Forsyth, which was about a sixty minute commute down a two lane country highway.

This area is rural.

Ava had a population of around twenty nine hundred people in two thousand and seven, and it's the only incorporated town in that county.

Along that highway, there are several even less populated communities.

But there was no evidence, at least from what police could figure out early on, that Christopher knew Renee or had ever even talked to her.

Police had nothing concrete to Lincoln, so it seems.

That they dropped that lead.

Police scoured a huge area looking for Rene's body eighty acres in total, but this was an area with a lot of rough terrain, so it was very hard to search.

Police suspected that her body could have been dumped in a wooded area nearby.

There are a lot of places where a person could hide a body and it would be difficult to search the whole thing.

Several other bodies have been.

Found in or near the Mark Twain National Forest.

They have included some cases that made national news, including the two thousand and three murder of nineteen year old Becky Sutton.

Her remains were found in that forest.

Eventually, her killer, Philip Dodd, was caught and claimed that he strangled Becky after she refused his sexual advances.

In twenty sixteen, the area made news again.

John McLachlan murdered and dismembered his wife Linda McLaughlin and dumped her body in the forest.

Police have found other bodies there that did not make national news, and many others have gone missing in that neck of the woods.

As police investigated Renee's murder and focused more on Christopher Reeback, a lot more came out about his history, though there's not a ton of information about.

His early life out there.

We do know he's from Wisconsin.

In high school, he met his future wife, Jennifer, and around the year two thousand, they moved together to Missouri.

Was a volunteer firefighter in Strafford from two thousand and one to two thousand and three, and then he became a paramedic.

He worked as an EMT for the Teiney County Ambulance District for six years.

Eventually, Jennifer and Christopher divorced and he met another woman named Joanna, who was also from Wisconsin Rapids.

Joanna and Christopher got married in December of two thousand and six.

According to media reports, She also worked as an EMT.

The ambulance director, Jeff Hawkins, who worked with Christopher, told reporters he was shocked by the investigation into Christopher.

He said Christopher was a good worker and that he had no idea that his employee could be hiding any kind of dark secrets.

Jeff said, quote, he never gave us any indication there were any problems.

He was reliable and we didn't have any problems with him.

This was a big surprise end quote.

And Christopher Reevak wasn't just from Wisconsin.

He was from one Washington Rapids, the same area where Deirdre harm was murdered, and when police got the DNA test back from the blood found at Renee Williams crime scene, they found that it was a match to Christopher Reevack, So they started reinterviewing some people they had talked to in the initial stages of the investigation into.

Renee Williams murder.

They had already searched Christopher Reevack's house in two thousand and seven and reportedly found blood that was a match to Renee Williams on Christopher's vehicle, as well as on a pair of pants taken from Christopher's home.

At the time, Douglas County deputies felt like they needed more evidence, so they talked to Christopher's wife, Joanna, and she had some shocking information to give them.

When they confronted her with the DNA evidence, Joanna told them quote, I did not kill or help kill Renee Williams end quote.

But she did submit a twenty six page handwritten letter to the police.

In that letter, she admitted she had seen Renee's body and that she had helped get rid of crucial evidence.

She said in the letter that Christopher got home at around three forty five am on Tuesday, March thirteenth, two thousand and seven, and that when he came home that night he had an injury.

His finger was bleeding.

She wrote that Christopher told her that he'd slammed his finger in the door of his truck, so she helped put a bandage on it.

Joanna told police that Christopher admitted to hurting Renee A few days later.

She said Christopher told her that after the bar closed, he met up with Renee outside.

He claimed they were talking about having sex.

Christopher said he suggested taking Renee home to meet Joanna, possibly to have a threesome.

Now, at that point, he said, Renee got very angry at him and started hitting him and screaming and threatening to get him fired.

Christopher claimed at this point he was just trying to calm her down and restrain her, so he said he put Renee in a choke hold until she passed out.

Christopher claimed this was all an accident.

He said he checked Renee's pulse and tried to give her CPR, but that it.

Was too late she was already dead.

He claimed he then panicked and instead of calling the police.

He decided to get rid of the body, so Christopher put Renee's body into the bed of his truck and started driving home along that route.

He said he threw her things out of the truck's window.

When Christopher got home and told Joanna what he claimed happened, she said Christopher asked her for help.

Christopher told her to drive their other car, a Jeep two, in nearby area and turn the headlights off, so Joanna said she did that.

She said she waited for Christopher there and that when he arrived, he forced her to help him get rid of Renee's body.

Joanna wrote in the letter quote, I knew that if I said no, he was going to hurt me or possibly do to me what he did to that girl.

I was terrified.

I agreed to do as he said.

End quote.

Joanna also described what Renee was wearing.

She said that the body was face down with only light colored underwear or tights on.

This is purely my opinion, but this detail jumps out to me a little bit because it seems to defy logic.

If this whole thing had been some kind of an accident, as Christopher claimed, when and how exactly did Renee become undressed.

However, it's important to note here Joanna has never been arrested or charged in connection with Renee William's death or in connection with any of Christopher Reevac's crimes.

Joanna said when she saw the body, she was horrified, but she said she did help Christopher put Renee's body into the back of their jeep.

After that, Christopher covered Renee with a tarp and Joanna went home.

She wrote in her letter that she wanted to tell police what she knew, but she felt that she couldn't because she was in fear of her life.

Joanna wrote in the letter quote, I held Sergeant Wieman's card in my hand and told myself I have to call, but I couldn't.

My whole world was crashing in on me.

I was terrified that Sergeant Widman wouldn't believe me that I had absolutely nothing to do with her death, especially after helping him get her in the car.

I couldn't bring myself to call him.

I was terrified.

End quote.

Joanna also confessed to having helped Christopher after the fact.

She said she drove towards Springfield and dumped some evidence tarps and a piece of carpeting from the jeep in two two separate dumpsters.

According to media reports, authorities did act on this information that Joanna gave them and searched in the area.

She described.

They even rented a back hod to dig up the ground, but they never found any evidence of Rene's remains.

Would the County Sheriff's.

Department Detective Lieutenant Scott Goldberg told Channel seven News that police are open to the possibility there may be more victims out there.

He said he believes it's possible that Christopher killed other women, but also he believes there could be other victims out there who Christopher attacked who may still be alive.

If there are, he said he hopes to be able to find them.

Lieutenant Goldberg also told the news channel the information obtained from Joanna made the authorities believe there was a quote sexual element to Christopher's crimes end quote.

On July twenty fifth, two thousand and nine, Christopher Reevac was arrested at his home and charged with Renee Williams's murder.

Police tried to question him, but he reportedly stayed very calm and quiet and asked for his lawyer.

But then there was another shocking development in the case when the very next day, July twenty six, two thousand and nine, Christopher for Revac hanged himself from his prison uniform in his cell.

Christopher Revac was dead on July twenty sixth, two thousand and nine, a few days after he'd been charged with Renee Williams murder.

Christopher Revac died by suicide after hanging himself in his cell.

Police believed they had enough evidence to convict him, but now he never had to face justice, and Renee's family didn't get any of their questions answered.

But in two thousand and nine, a new sheriff took over in Douglas County.

His name was CHRISTA.

Gase.

Even though the Renee Williams case was closed, he began looking into similar cases that he believed Christopher Revac may have been involved with.

Christa.

Gase told a local news station that he took what he did described as an unconventional approach by doing a ton of research on his own.

Chris To Gase discovered three unsolved killings in two different states, killings that he believed were strikingly similar to the one in Ava.

So CHRISTA.

Gase got in touch with law enforcement in both states.

An found connections between Christopher Reevak's known movements and the dates when the victims disappeared.

One of the cases that Christa Gase looked at was Dedre harm.

That case, as we said, seemed to have hit a complete dead end in Wisconsin.

Wood County Sheriff Shaan Becker told New Channel seven in November of twenty twenty four that back in the day, police considered several suspects, including someone who Didre had bought drugs from, but he admitted the leeds had basically dried up when they got that call from Chris to Gase, and Christa Gase was able to establish that not only was Christopher Reevac from that area in Wisconsin, but Christopher Revac had been in the same bar as Deirdre on the night she disappeared.

Christa Gase wrote on Facebook quote, as I was working on the Renee Williams homicide, I did not believe this was the first time Christopher Revac had committed a murder.

After obtaining Revac's history and places he had lived, I began Google searching women abducted from bars.

That Google search for women abducted from bars in Wisconsin Rapids resulted in an article about Dedra Harm's abduction with a composite drawing of the last person she was seen with.

There was no doubt in my mind that it was Christopher Revac.

I contacted the Wood County Sheriff's office and was Conson Rapids PD and provided.

Them with the suspects.

I was able to obtain records from Revac's work that placed him in was conson Rapids at the time of Deedra's abduction.

Now nineteen years after her murder, Revac has been identified as her killer.

Quote.

In addition to these circumstances surrounding the disappearances, we should also note that the Renee Williams composite sketch looked almost identical to Christopher Reevack.

Christopher's wife, Joanna, was also able to fill in some of the gaps around the Dedra Harm investigation.

Joanna had told police she and Christopher had traveled back to Wisconsin, where they were both from several times, and she was also able to confirm some dates and confirmed a police that they were on a trip back to Washington Rapids with their daughter during the dates.

When Deirdre Harm disappeared from the bar.

Joanna told investigators her husband had gone out by himself one night during that trip.

She said he left around sunset and didn't come home until around five am, and when he did finally come home, Joanna said, Christopher was covered in mud.

He told her his truck got stuck in the mud and he had to dig it out.

Joanna said that his truck and his clothing were both so filthy that he washed them twice, and there was something else she said that was weirdly memorable.

Joanna said there was a family party during that visit and that after the party, Christopher insisted Joanna cut his hair short so he had a totally different look, and then he dressed up in the same clothes they'd been out at the party and made all of their relatives retake all of the photos with his new haircut, and she said he.

Made them delete the originals.

Joanna said Christopher had anger issues and that when he drank, he got aggressive.

Police also talked to one of Christopher's friends from high school, who said that Chris was triggered when women rejected him and that he could become very angry.

Could that have happened in the case of Dedra harm The area where Deirdre's body was found may also provide some clues.

News Channel seven did an interview with Sheriff Beck, who told them that the remote area where Dedra's body was found was a party spot for teens and a place for hanging out, but also for dumping trash.

He said that it was also.

An area where people regularly ride ATVs.

Apparently Christopher had partied there in the past and also had an ATV that he liked to borrow from his brother.

News Channel seven reported that the ATV had, according to the sheriff, been seen around town on the night Deedre disappeared.

Chris de Gay says he believes there is a very high probability that Christopher Reeback was involved in even more murders than the ones he's already found.

He can't say exactly how many.

Or give details because a lot of them are still ongoing investigations, but we do have some details for at least one, a nineteen ninety five murder in Mason City, Iowa.

The disappearance of twenty seven year old Jodi Housenttrute had been a mystery for decades.

Jody was a local news anchor.

She anchored the six am news, so her day started early.

On June twenty seventh, nineteen ninety five, she didn't show up at her usual start time three am, so Jody's producer, Amy called her to wake her up.

This was at around four am.

Apparently Jody did sometimes oversleep, so this part wasn't totally out of the ordinary.

But what was out of the ordinary was when Jody didn't answer her phone at all, when Amy made a second phone call, and when she didn't arrive for work.

Jody's apartment was only five minutes away, so Amy knew something was very wrong.

Sometimes Jody would be a little.

Bit late, but she was always there with her act together by the time she was on the air at six am.

At first, police didn't immediately suspect foul play.

They reportedly believed that maybe she had.

Gone somewhere on her own, but when police arrived on the scene at Jody's apartment complex, they found on signs of a potential struggle.

Next to her red Miata.

They found Jody's.

Shoes, a blow dryer, and her car key, which was bent.

They treated Jody's case as a kidnapping, and they searched for her everywhere.

Jody was beautiful and friendly and had a public facing job, so a lot of people knew who she was.

That meant police were dealing with a large pool of potential suspects.

Police were trying to figure out if Jody's abductor had been someone she knew or a stranger, But despite a lot of tips and police investigating several leads, including a friend of hers who was hanging out with her the night before she disappeared, nothing ever panned out.

No sign of Jody was ever found.

For three decades, the case was still unsolved, but then Chris Degas in his investigation, showed that Christopher Reevak had ties to Mason City.

Chris de Gaze told KYFE three news that Christopher had previously been a person of interest in Jody's disappearance.

He said at that time Christopher had a girlfriend, someone who lived very close to Jody, and that after his investigation, he believed it's highly likely, based on just Christopher's proximity to her.

That he killed Jody.

In December of last year, Sergeant Terrence Perchaska, the lead investigator on the Jody Housen truth case, traveled to Wisconsin to meet with investigators overseeing the dedre harm case and to compare notes on Christopher Revack.

The most compelling thread that tied Christopher Reevac to Jody Housen truth is the fact that Christopher's first wife, then his girlfriend, Jennifer, was living in Mason City in nineteen ninety five when Jody disappeared.

Jennifer and Chris, as we said before, got married and eventually moved down to Missouri, but Jennifer didn't stay there the whole time.

At one point, according to what Christopher's his brother said, Jennifer lived in Mason City, the same town as Jody, and Jennifer apparently lived in the same duplex as Jody's close friend John, the last known person to see Jody alive.

According to Sergeant Prechaska, Jennifer moved out of John's building three months before Jody disappeared, and Jennifer also told police Christopher never visited her during that time.

So there's no definitive proof that Christopher Reevac was in Mason City, but investigators have said they believe Christopher may have traveled there to look for Jennifer.

At that time.

Apparently they had split up, and they believe he may have been looking for her at that address, maybe because he didn't know she had already moved out.

Investigators believe if Christopher was hanging around that apartment complex, there's a possibility that he could have run into Jody at some point and started stalking her.

It would not have been hard to figure out Jody's work schedule, she was on a very regular routine.

Christa Gase, the investigator, said that he didn't believe in coincidence.

Christopher was a suspected serial.

Killer and he had a connection to the address next door, So just based on that, Christa Gase thought there was a high probability that Jody.

Was another one of Christopher Revac's victims.

The only thing that's an outlier in Jody's case was the time of day.

She wasn't abducted late at night after closing time in a bar.

She was abducted at the crack of dawn.

But presumably her killer knew that the parking lot would be fairly deserted in the early morning hours of June twenty seventh, nineteen ninety five.

So what's next with these investigations?

What's next with.

These Investigations instigator CHRISTA Gase said that he is following police protocol to move toward the Renee Williams case being officially closed.

I think that this investigation is a great example of how a police officer, CHRISTA Gase went.

Above and beyond.

His case was already officially closed, but he went that extra step to try to bring justice and closure to family members desperately in need of answers, which I'm sure they will never forget.

Deirdre Harm's case is also on its way to being officially closed.

On Monday, October twentieth, twenty twenty five, the Wood County Sheriff's office posted a letter on Facebook from the local district attorney, Jonathan Barnett.

He wrote, quote, I consider this case closed.

I believe I had enough to charge and if mister Reevak was still alive to win at trial.

End quote.

CHRISTA.

Gase also talked to reporters about his insights into Christopher Reeback.

He said he was interested in the way that Christopher had covered things up and the extent he went to hide things.

He said quote, it was obvious he was leading a double second life end quote.

Christa Gase told the news channel KY three.

Quote, We're dealing with what's possibly a serial killer.

During his day, he's doing his deed to society and helping people and saving people.

But there was a dark side to Christopher Revac end quote.

Douglas County Sheriff CHRISTA.

Gaze has said he is happy that they have been able to identify some of Christopher Reevack's victims so far and hopefully to bring closure to their families.

He wrote on social media, quote, this is why I do this job.

I am happy that I could be a small part of this investigation to bring justice and hopefully some closure.

End quote.

But the investigation into Christopher Reevac is still continuing.

Investigators still don't have concrete proof about when or if he was in Mason City around the time when Jody disappeared on June twenty seventh, nineteen ninety five.

It has been reported that they do have evidence indicating he was in Wisconsin on June seventeenth and on July ninth, nineteen ninety five, but there are a lot of dates missing in between that police just aren't sure about.

So Jody's investigation is still open.

Finally, could there be more victims?

Out there.

Police and social media sleuths have been going through past cases looking for similarities.

Two of Chris's victims were last seen either in or outside bars at closing time.

Renee was an employee of the bar, Deirdre was a customer.

As we said before, Jody was the only outlier.

She was leaving for work, but it was once again in a deserted parking lot.

Some online commenters have pointed to another case, a twenty year old woman named Crystal Ehrensdorff, who went missing after a night out with friends at a bar in downtown Dubuque, Iowa.

They were watching fireworks because it was July fourth, two thousand and one, and then she never came home.

Police questioned Cristel's boyfriend and some of her friends, and apparently they were all cleared.

Christopher Reevac would have been twenty eight years old at the time.

The news channel KCRG reported on the similarities between Crystal's disappearance and Christopher's other victims and stated in an article that they had contacted the Dubukee Police Department with the information they compiled.

There's a lot we still don't know about Christopher Reevac's life and a lot of missing years.

The Wood County Sheriff's Department has publicly stated that they would like any victims of Christopher's or anyone who encountered him to come forward, and Sheriff CHRISTA.

Gase told The Columbia, Missouri that Christopher Revac could be tied to as many as four other cases in several different states.

There could be more dead bodies still out there.

I'm Katherine Townsend.

This is Helen Gone Murder Line.

Helen Gone Murder Line is a production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts.

It's written and narrated by me Catherine Townsend and produced by Etaly's Perez Special thanks to Amy Tubbs for her research assistance and James Wheaton.

For legal review.

Noah Camera mixed and scored this episode.

Our theme song is by Ben Sale.

Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and ELC.

Crowley.

Listen to Helen Gone ad free by subscribing to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel on Apple Podcasts.

If you are interested in seeing documents and materials from the case, you can follow the show on Instagram at Helen Gonepod.

If you have a case you'd like me and my team to look into.

You can reach out to us at our Helen Gone Murder line at six seven eight seven four four six' one four.

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