WTBL - Walking the Blue Line

WTBL Walking The Blue Line (00:12)
Hello and welcome back.

we are

glad to have everyone tuning in again this week well for those who are following us We just did a little mini live on Facebook and it was our first one so bear with us because It was a little stressful. Yeah, I don't know why going live shouldn't be a big deal It really isn't any different than this. But the fact is that you're kind of hoping some people will tune in

Zero but we we did show some stuff that we are working on we are giving the consideration of starting our own merch store just like many other podcasters do and we wanted to Produce some things just kind of as a little test market

And we'd like to hear from you, our audience, as to whether you'd be interested in any of this. So first of all, I'm sporting a t-shirt, a Walking the Blue Line t-shirt, actually. A little star with our logo through it. And then we had some coffee cups made up. And if you can see that, Walking the Blue Line, WTBL. And what did I just do with, well, we've got baseball caps.

We have a couple of different kinds. These are the ones that are just like a blue jean material and they're a little bit smaller. The reason I did that is because I have a really small head and most baseball caps don't fit me.

But we did have some larger ones and I ended up giving them to our kids. So they're wearing them. Well, they've been sporting them at the rodeo events and such. And then I made up a few koozies because everybody likes to have a soft drink or something of that nature, you know? So we've thought about a few other things, we thought we'd.

Show you guys see what you think if anyone's interested or if no one's interested Yeah, well we do look for you guys's feedback in the comments and try to respond to everything Yeah, exactly so a lot of our Comments might come in through Facebook and of course for those of you that are listening to just our voice podcast audio podcast we are

video on YouTube and on rumble and soon to be on Spotify you said they're gonna start doing yeah the the service that we use to transmit our podcast is soon gonna be able to I think they're calling it VOD casting now okay so we will be able to put the video out there on Spotify and I think Apple as well and such so be looking for that

I mean in the future, if you only are interested in the audio, we do put a lot of photographs or some photographs and such in the video version. Most of them we do. We have done a few that are just all audio. Yeah, yeah. We usually, I think we usually say if it's just audio in the title or something. Either way,

That is kind of what's new with our podcast other than that. we've been working around the mini ranch but man the weather went from beautiful to It was 72 and sunny it's been cold and rainy. I love hummingbirds and I like to feed them and we had

We've had two so far and I feel so bad for them because it went from beautiful weather to this. think they would be freezing right now. Right. Yeah. It is cold out there and the wind is blowing. Lots of branches have fallen and that kind of thing. So I've got lots of yard work. We had to trim up the apple trees and we've been doing a lot of stuff. Yeah. in our free time, we have been researching

this week's podcast. Yeah, this is sort of a missing persons with a twist. Yeah. I went looking for missing persons cases that had a Washington Pacific Northwest connection because obviously that's where I've spent most of my law enforcement career and wanted to have something that had a little bit of a connection. And I came across this interesting case. It's a little bit older because most of it happens

the late 80s and 90s and probably got the most publicity early 2000s but yeah the the girl that it's about is just a little bit younger than me she was born in 69 yeah and we're calling this forever 15 forever

WTBL Walking The Blue Line (04:47)
what I thought was a case of a missing person but it's also deception and what I mean by that is like have you ever known someone to say they're one person but really they're something else?

I've actually known two. I've known a few people that have obviously given me false ID over the course, but I mean, doesn't that seem so weird that you really think you know this person? yeah. When I found out what was being said and how they were representing themselves. Yeah, I was kind of floored. ⁓ And the unfortunate part also was that I knew people that it had been. ⁓

presented to them that way and I actually was the person of the bearer bad news and I said well I'm sorry to tell you this but that's not accurate at all. That's not who they are and ⁓ you knew the one person and he was floored. He was like no you're lying that can't be true and I was like no I'm sorry that is the truth. Yeah they were completely believing this tale. Yeah many people were completely believing that tale.

today's case is going to take us down where can you imagine like being a 15 year old high school student and finding out that your girlfriend really was completely different age than you thought she was? completely different person than you thought she was. Yes. You know, so let's go back to the beginning.

We're going to talk about Treva Thromberry and she wasn't much younger than I am. She was born in 1969 in Texas. Yeah. in Wichita Falls? I believe it is. And she grew up in a small town close to their Electra, Texas. Right. And so she had a mother and father and hold on. can't read Carl and Patsy. Yeah, I'm blind old and blind. So, but she did have four sisters and one brother.

And they also, the family had an uncle that lived near them, Billy Ray, which reminds me of Billy Ray Cyrus. No, no, no. So anyway, ⁓ and the uncle was in their life quite a bit. Yeah. But the parents were known as very down to earth and very loving people. No real problems. All of the siblings reported that their upbringing was ⁓

Loving family is how they described it and peaceful Although the uncle was a point of contention. Yes for all of the sisters ⁓ I don't think the son was affected but all of the

sisters

even Treva said that he had ⁓ Assaulted them,

the sisters found a way out of this by getting married. Her older ones. Yeah, I think almost every one of them got married from 16 years, you know, pretty young and they all got married and moved out of the house except for Treva. it was so bad that she didn't really know how to get out of the situation since she didn't have anyone to marry. So she told,

authorities that her father had assaulted her. Right. So I think because she's the youngest, she is left to bear the brunt of her uncle's

her way out is to get taken away from the house. they charge the father. I don't know if he actually got arrested or anything, but.

From that, she was removed from the house and placed in foster care and therefore into the foster system.

The person that she got placed with was by the name of Sharon Gentry. And Sharon described Treva as kind of being a very solemn and problematic teenager, wanted to be left alone, was basically very unhappy. But between the years of 1985 and 87, Treva stayed in the foster care system while she completed high school.

But as we've mentioned before in our podcast, when these kids are in the foster system, when they're 18, they're just automatically kicked out. And so she was, so then she was no longer living with the teacher and she did get a job and she got an apartment, but she wasn't dealing with being an adult very well. Right. So one day she just up and disappears. She doesn't say anything to anyone.

She doesn't leave any clues that she's gonna take off. And so by all accounts, she's a missing person. Although I don't think her family filed any missing persons reports, but she was gone for so long, like years, that everyone just assumed that she was no longer alive. Yeah, the family kind of described the...

departing as the fact that when she accused her father of making this assault on her She's removed from the family and the distance between her and the family continues to grow well and all of her sisters Came to her and said, you need to recant this, know, we don't think dad did this He didn't do anything to us. You need to you know

reverse her story and she said, no, I'm not going to do that. And her parents even came and visited her and said, if you take this back, you can come home. But I don't think she wanted to do that because of the uncle. And ⁓ that was her way out and she wasn't gonna change her story. Yeah, and so the gap grows wider and wider between her and all of her family. And so when she goes missing,

No one seems to really do too much about it. And then she happens years later to resurface. Right. Although no one knows her as Treva. No. At this She's all of a sudden come up with a new identity. So she starts this ⁓ pattern of reappearing in different locations around the United States. And each time she reappears,

She is not She tells the people that she's like 14 or 15. And the story generally is my dad killed my mother because he was in the satanic cult. I was subjected to all this abuse and she presents herself as very disturbed, ⁓ needing help. And she usually goes to a church. Right.

one thing about treva is she did seem to have a religious interest and she traveled with a bible So a lot of times when she's going to present herself she would go to a church group where she'd have her bible with her and she would talk about ⁓ Being in need and such and so these Christian families were more than happy to try to help her out and take her in

So they would give her a place to live, provide her with food, and then seemingly try to guide her through whatever help they could give in order for her to live. Well, in most instances, since she presented herself as a young teenager, they got her into school. Yeah, so she started attending a lot of different high schools in different towns. Well, how many, do you recall how many states? It was quite a few states that she jumped around.

I think it was Ohio and was it North Carolina and

So one of the first days she shows up in is Pennsylvania and she goes to this church and she Makes a plea for assistance

they of course offer her assistance and they try to get her put into a school so that she can continue her education. Of course being 14 years old, she goes into a high school. Yeah, and she does this in numerous different states because she'll go into a school but as soon as they need some better form of identification,

then she realizes they're going to catch on. And so she'll just disappear and go to another state. Normally it's sometimes when they need a shot record or they need her social security number to help her get something lined up. ⁓ And so she'll just disappear and go to another state. And she starts the same thing all over and she tells these stories. Right. So one of the places that this becomes problematic is that

When she tells these stories of like her father killing her mother and such, as well as the fact that she is reporting herself to be under 18 years old, the local authorities start various investigations. Well, yeah, they start looking into this. tons of people go out and do ⁓ research. Right. So in Pennsylvania, she actually ends up getting arrested for filing a false report. And during this, she...

her fingerprints taken. ⁓ She is identified as Treva and as soon as she's able to she slips away from there and heads further west. At one point she ends up in Oregon and then in Washington and it's in Vancouver Washington where she actually probably stays the longest. Over this period of time she uses approximately 10 or so aliases.

WTBL Walking The Blue Line (14:08)
Her given name is Treva Joyce Throneberry and she was born May 18th, 1969. The aliases that we were speaking of I'll read them off There was Brianna Kinsey, Brianna Stewart, Kara Leann Davis, Kara Lewis, Kara Williams, Emily Kara Williams, Kelly T.

Throneberry-Smitt, Stephanie Lewis, and Stephanie Williams.

if you Google Brianna Stewart, which is the one that she was famous for arrested here in Washington you'll come up with someone that's a basketball player and it's a similar name, but that is not her when she's living here in the Oregon and Washington areas when her real legal troubles start to catch up with her and it's probably started with

this relationship with this 47 year old security guard and then she ends up accusing him of a sexual assault. So he ends up pleading guilty to a lesser crime because she says that she's under the age of 18 and so the crime that he pleads guilty to has to do with her age having relations with a minor. Right, so he's found guilty and he's put in jail for 50 days.

then this comes to light that she's not a minor, that she's darn near 30 years old. And so he is expunged from the crime, but he's already served his 50 days. So he gets it taken off his record, but it's still unfortunate that this man who really didn't do anything wrong gets thrown in jail for

almost two months. for something that's false, it doesn't end there. So a year later in 1998 she starts Evergreen High School in Vancouver, Washington and during the time that she spent in high school She was between the ages of 27 and 31 years old, right? But she's telling everyone that she

she is 15 to 16 years old. she likes to go to churches or something like that because she figures she can tell these people all these alleged horrible stories that have happened to her and they help her. They give her money, they find her a place to stay. And so they do. They find this family or at least this husband and wife that take her in. she stayed with a few different ones, but this one

particular family ends up again being on the end of her false accusations. she makes something up that the guy was spying on her putting cameras in the light fixtures it wasn't true at all. So they say we don't want any part of this. Right and but he gets investigated this

whole thing is looked at by the police and found not to be true. Well, other people are starting to wonder about how

Honest she's being because even her boyfriend so she's going high school. She ends up with a a 16 year old boyfriend. they actually date for a year and a half, That's a long time. It is a long time. They go to prom together. Yeah, I mean they have there's pictures of them at prom and she's told her boyfriend of all of these horror stories that have happened to her about the abuse and the satanic cults and

her father killing her mother right which none of its true she's Got a problem with lying and she obviously doesn't want to grow up. She wants to stay 15 forever and spend her days in high

She's been dating this boy for a year and a half and and she's getting ready to start trying to go to college she's still telling lies this whole time. So she goes to the dentist and the dentist is looking in her mouth and what he notices is that she's had her wisdom teeth removed Which isn't too uncommon but the her mouth and the scars have healed to the point where he's like there's no way you're

16 to 17 years old and he tells people this right he's a community member Small area where they're living and it gets noticed that she's putting out this information that she's 16 and he's looking from a medical standpoint saying No, she's got to be older than that So her boyfriend, I'm not sure if it's at this point, but he they break up they break Yeah, but he was questioned

As well as like they've been dating for a year and a half and he's starting to think there's something wrong here, right? Well as she's preparing to go to college she has to file for financial aid in order to file for financial aid. She needs this social security card and they've asked a number of People to kind of pull some strings for her in order for her to get this But even though that she does have these people trying to help

or she still has to do this the legal way and they need to take her fingerprints. Well, she's been fingerprinted before. Yeah, those fingerprints come back to a prior arrest in Pennsylvania from a number of years previously.

Which comes back to her real name, Treva Throneberry. now getting into real trouble because she has committed fraud. She's taken money. She's made false ⁓ applications. She's made false reports to the police and all of these things start to accumulate. So she gets arrested and is tried in a court in Washington State

ends up being sentenced to three years in the women's correctional

after she gets out of prison she disappears out of sight, which is her method of operation. And she doesn't resurface until 2016. And at that time, she resurfaces as Brianna Kinsey. She gets a job at a local hotel, and once again, she decides to accuse a local man of sexual assault.

so during the investigation the hotel administration finds out about her record and all of her prior false accusations and they fire her.

WTBL Walking The Blue Line (20:26)
still to this day She doesn't recant a lot of the stuff that she said She always wants to present herself as not being an adult right not being an adult as well as being a victim And not ever using her true identity, right?

She has never used the name Treva Throneberry. To this day, think that's one of the things that she says, I am not Treva. She will not admit to being who she really is. So this was the missing person that really wasn't missing. Yeah. And a

Lesson I guess in deception is that do you ever really know who that person is? Especially even when you're dating them. I mean I can't imagine the shock of Some parents out there when they found out that their 15 16 year old son was dating a 28 year old almost a 30 year old lady. Yeah Well, you know, I just got a little parting shot there. What was kind of funny is when you and I met

You were very young looking. Yeah, your mom, when you took me over to your mom's house, she's like, pulls you aside. What are you doing dating this teenager? And only by a little bit, but she's older than I am. I was 29 at the time. Your mom thought I was a teenager. Yeah. So, ⁓ you know, obviously in

Going back to Treva, like you had pointed out, she always puts herself in pigtails, makes herself look young. Some of the photos that I saw show that, I mean, she's probably fairly petite. She's short, you know, so she pulled it off obviously very well and fooled a lot of people over the years. Well, I will say this when I had to be the person that told a few people, this person that you know is somebody else is not that person.

Was very genuine. I mean they were truly stunned and could not believe it Right and we see headlines out there about you know, like we've already said vets ⁓ people that are what do they call it stolen valor? people that Press push themselves off to be some type of a war hero or something. Well, watched a visit their dateline or some kind of special where this lady did that and she actually ends up

having her husband killed and assuming a different identity saying that she was big into the government had held this position.

Remember that story I do somewhat remember that one and there's all kinds of and such out there but this one was ⁓ I guess caught my attention because of the connection to Washington State and the fact that having worked missing persons reports and such It's very difficult to track someone down when they don't want to be found But then when you add in the complications of someone passing

themselves off to be someone else, obviously avoiding detection. And we just saw in the headlines here a couple of weeks ago of a woman who had not been seen for 32 years. Almost a similar situation. She had assumed a different ID. ⁓ and her family have asked for privacy, so we don't know what the details of that situation are,

WTBL Walking The Blue Line (23:54)
For our podcast today, we had multiple sources of information. We looked at Texas Monthly, Willamette Week a news story from the New York Times called Forever Young, and a 2020 podcast under Female Criminals. As well as I looked numerous other internet sources to come up with information for this

WTBL Walking The Blue Line (24:16)
we hope that you all have enjoyed this little tale Little twisty-turny tale here of deception and that ⁓ our storytelling makes sense ⁓ Until next time God bless take care and we'll see you later. See you later.