WTBL - Walking the Blue Line

WTBL (00:11)
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode on WTBL, Walking the Blue Line. We have a real mystery on our hands today's episode. So what do we know about it? Well, this is a missing persons case that like we said is yet to be solved. Her name is Angel Dawn Wilson and she went missing in the year of 2007 and

just sort of vanished into thin air. Yeah, she disappeared. And I mean, I can only imagine how that would make a family member feel or someone close to them. You your friends, one day you're there and the next day you're gone. That's true. What would you do? Well, her father, you know, was very upset and ⁓ he feels personally that the police didn't do their job. But there were some complications in the police doing their job. And part of it was is

She was a habitual runaway. Yeah. So, well, let's go back to the beginning a little bit. You know, I mean, she's 17 years old. She's going to Ferris High School and likes to roller skate. Yeah. Actually, I guess she had at the time she went missing, dropped out of high school and 10th grade. Right. But, you know, I mean, she had a lot of friends. She kind of ran around with a rough crowd on the streets a little bit.

she did hang out with the wrong people she used drugs Like I said her family had had her you know go missing she disappeared for two three days and then she'd show back up and so on this day when she went missing

Her family was concerned and they were going to report her, but no one actually reported her for three days. Well, she what happened was her. got married when she was 17. Her father said it was OK. He thought maybe.

The guy she met was a stable guy and he thought that this would maybe help her get out of her bad life. Yeah, well her husband as he would come to be. I mean he's 21 years old and he seems like he's got it really together. He's already got a good career. He's got a house. He's moving forward in life and after a whirlwind romance of about four months he asked Angel to marry him.

And her dad agreed, hoping, like I said earlier, maybe this would pull her out of her, you know, troubled life. Yeah. And I mean, her life had become troubled not only because of the drugs, but I mean, she had come from a broken home. Her father left early. Yeah. Yeah. Mom had a drug problem of her own. She had a younger brother that she wasn't very close to. think she was a bit older than him, wasn't she? Right. Yeah. And dad.

just couldn't control her. So when Will comes along, they met at the skating rink Yeah, at the Valley roller skating rink. They were out there at the same time and kind of hit it off. And the romance took them towards marriage. And I imagine Angel saw, you know, this guy that seems to have it all together. And that's got to be attractive a little bit for someone in her shoes.

Yeah, because she had been as well as hanging out with a rough crowd. She had a dealer that she repeatedly went to, and he was an older guy, like 30 years old. And so when she would run away, sometimes she would go to his place and crash there. But like most things like that, he would beat the crap out of her a lot of times. Even one time, didn't he put her in the hospital? Right. I mean.

Who knows whether it was over money she owed him or just his personality, the effect of doing drugs himself, something to that effect. But he definitely showed himself to be kind of violent. yeah, so she ends up in the hospital at least once from him. So it's not a good path that she's going down. No. And so she marries this nice guy, Will, who has it kind of all together pretty good at his age.

even though it was good, she kind of went back to her old habits, you know? And so one day, while he was at work, she invites a bunch of friends over and they decide to start smoking some meth. ⁓ this is not okay with Will.

He doesn't see that. doesn't do drugs. Right. It's not an acceptable lifestyle. And so this definitely causes some friction between the two of them. And they end up having a pretty big argument. Right. At which he has to go to work the following day. So he's going to go to bed and she decides to leave the house. Yeah. So when he wakes up in the morning, she's gone. She leaves her wedding ring there on the table.

So he's looking at that going, boy, you know. So he kind of waits because he doesn't, you know, she's ran away before. And so he's afraid to like call this in right away. Yeah. I mean, I think he's kind of halfway expecting her to come back to the house and show up or, know, he's thinking, hey, she's going to go home, see her dad or or hang out with any number of her friends. Yeah. So.

I'm sure that he's upset, but he's not overly worried about her well-being. mean, she's proven herself up to this point to be a pretty smart street kid. Yeah. But after three days, and her father and him had talked, no one had seen her. And so they decide, we need to call this in. So they call the Sheriff's Department. Right. And they file a report. A person's report, yeah. Well, it's supposed to be a missing person's report.

But here's where it gets complicated because of the system. That's right. Oh, yeah. She's 17. She's a juvenile, technically. And so what do they do? They list her as a runaway instead of a missing person, even though she's married and living, you know, with her husband. Yeah. So so runaways get handled just slightly different. Well, the majority of runaways and she's one as a perfect example, they run away.

they show back up in a couple of days. And so that not a lot of effort is put into runaways that are the 16, 17 age. Right. Because typically they are able to take care of themselves to some degree and they run away to a friend's house or something like that. And then they show up. And as we already mentioned, she's kind of gotten the label of habitual runaway. Yeah.

So that's one of the complications. Right. But when no one actually sees her, then the Sheriff's Department, as well as most departments, and by state law, have some things that they have to do in a certain amount of time. Well, when she doesn't show up and there's a 30-day clock ticking, you know, the department has to start an investigation. What has happened to this young girl?

Right. so there was Detective Henderson, right? Right. Assigned to the case. Yes. So detectives in the sex crime unit typically worked on juveniles and runaways and they would try to track them down and return them to home and work with the juvenile facility and that kind of thing. So he's assigned to it and he starts following it up.

Well, one of the big problems is, though, is since she left at night and her husband was asleep, nobody knew what she was wearing. So they couldn't say, hey, she has like, you know, blue jeans, blue top hoodie, something like that. They didn't know. Of course, they had her description. She was, you know, 17 years old, blonde hair, green eyes, weighed 100 pounds, which is pretty tiny. Yeah, because I think her height was five, six. So, I mean, she's really skinny. Right.

⁓ young girl and like you've already said they don't know what she's wearing you know a lot of street kids will have a backpack or something so maybe she has some clothes with her at that effect so the clothing description isn't real helpful here right she did have though a couple of distinguishing marks she had on her right hand she had a heart tattoo and she had like a scar on the middle of her chest so those were

things the police did know about and the heart tattoo is that's a pretty good description because you see your hands all the time unless you got gloves on. Right. And so I mean, since Angel did get around, there were people about town that knew her not only just from Ferris and such. And I think another thing that kind of complicates or makes it not seem so urgent is some friends report seeing her a few weeks after the runaway.

Yeah, they see her get on like a city bus and and that no one talked to her though. They just thought they saw her and so they said they saw her but then when they were questions it was like well we think it was her we didn't talk to her right? Yeah, so this is kind of a uncertain confirmation as to whether she's still around or not because they didn't have direct face-to-face contact or talk to her. They just thought it was her.

So it could have been someone that looked similar getting onto an STA bus, a local transit bus. But that nevertheless gets reported. So it seems like she's maybe still around. so the investigation marches forward somewhat slowly. Yeah. Unfortunately though, since she was 17, she turned 18

after she disappeared and guess what what happens when you're 17 you turn 18 in the system Well, you're no longer a runaway now You should become automatically a missing person, right? But that didn't happen. It was a big mistake for some reason the Database the national system kicked her out of the system it appears and that was the NCIC Yeah

National Crime Information Center is basically the major database that connects all police agencies across the U.S. with information on not only criminal information like who has warrants but how to identify a body as well. Like so your DNA your your fingerprints. Right. And dental records keeps all of the records actually for.

Even like vehicles, you know, if your vehicle is stolen, it's entered into NCIC. So it's the main highway for communication between police agencies. if Angel would have been found by another police agency, they would have seen her in the system as either a runaway or a missing person and contacted the sheriff's office here in Spokane. unfortunately, since, you know, she got dropped out of the system for it was just a it was a mishap.

And so for several years, if she would have been found dead or something, I don't know that they would have known who she was. It's hard to say whether they would have connected the dots. But a detective that was working on her case, at some point, this gets noticed that she's not listed in the National Crime Information Center database. And now she has re-entered.

as a missing person. Right. So and one of the systems is NamUs, N-A-M-U-S. Right. And NCMEC, N-C-M-E-C. Right. So those are two of the ones that she was entered into. Right. So NamUs actually works not only with law enforcement agencies, but medical examiners. And so it's like missing persons and unidentified bodies.

And they try to use DNA and those kind of things. then NCMEC is the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. And they keep a running total. And since Angel was 17 when she first disappeared, they have kept a case file open on her. Well, and also didn't they start like they entered her name into like the public like, know, where you sit in your.

swabs or spit or whatever and they'll tell you who your family members are. So then she was also entered into that where they were trying to find like distant family members that you know maybe there was some way they could find some connection there. Yeah so NamUs is connected with the University of North Texas and they send all of those DNA samples there and they compare them and then if a family member shows up you know then

they'll have a record of that DNA and they can cross reference it and make an identification. And actually a lot of murders have been solved through that same situation, I mean system. Exactly. I mean you see it in the headlines all over today. A genealogical DNA basically is connecting people from ancestry.com. Yeah. All of these different. I've personally seen shows where we have both seen where

they find a murder just by tracing this person's DNA trail and going back and making a connection somehow and finding out. Sure. I mean, so the same thing can happen here is that if a deceased or remains were found somewhere, they can use the DNA from that and trace it to determine who is the family. Yeah. So yeah, at some point in there,

A number of detectives had worked on this case. even yourself and I did too. Yeah. And although it wasn't publicized a lot, there was always a worry or a suspicion that something foul had happened to Angel. Well, because she had ran away so many times and always turned back up. So the fact that this time she didn't turn back up, you know, obviously the worst is suspected. Exactly. And so.

out of an abundance of caution, number of locations that were thought to have possibility of crime scene evidence or something to that effect, were looked and they were searched over the years. And fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you want to look at it, there was no over any evidence.

found in the Spokane area. No crime scene, no blood, no smoking gun. mean nothing was found. It was like she just disappeared in a thin air. So, you know, as a lot of crime shows go or murders, know, the the number one suspect is the last person that saw him, right? this time it didn't seem like. Yeah. Will was looked at.

very hard and he was interviewed a number of times. In fact, I interviewed him once and he just did not appear to have anything to hide. And then just a few years ago, the house where he and Angel had been staying, it was slated for destruction. as a lot of houses were in that area in Spokane, they were putting a highway through there and so they bought up a lot of houses. A friend of ours

had his house bought up and so it was tore down, but not before it was kind of looked through, wasn't it? Right, yeah. A detective in the forensic team went out there and it's actually kind of surprising in some of these old houses now you can pull baseboards away wall or you can rip up carpet and you can find blood stains if there's ever been much shed there. Because if anyone's cleaned up, you'd...

generally don't go behind baseboards or under carpets. So even though this was a number of years ago that Angel disappeared, all of that was done to the house where Angel was last seen at and they didn't find anything. No. It was pretty consistent with what Will said.

The story actually then has a couple of other little hiccups where some individuals have been kind of misidentified as Angel. And that's right. There's two, people, that have the same name or almost the same name. And one of them was from Canada. Right. And she actually is listed in a missing persons.

report that actually turns out to be a homicide. and she's actually been found dead. So if you go look up this case, be aware that that lady was actually murdered and that case has been resolved. So her name was Hillary Angel Wilson. Was she like a year or two older as well? I can't remember what her age was.

Hillary Angel Wilson, I believe was of Indian descent as in native.

And then the second one that we know of actually came out of a newspaper article

WTBL (16:43)
this lady that had the same name or said she had the same name as the angel was in moon township in Pennsylvania

Yeah, the newspaper is called the Beaver County Times and the way their article is written it makes it sound like she's been found. it does. It really does. I read the whole article and I was like, my gosh, if you read this, you would stop looking. Right. But it in fact was not her. That gal went by three different names and not sure where she came up with Angel Dawn Wilson's name. I would like to have talked with her, but never did get that chance.

Actually, didn't you say that when you read it, you were excited that she had been found? Yeah, you know, I was like, ⁓ my gosh. many years? But one of the things that ⁓ law enforcement agencies do when they find a missing person is they send what's called a settle and no settle slip ever came through. And then I believe we reached out to the agency there and they were able to confirm that it was not Angel. Right. Unfortunately. Yep.

WTBL (17:45)
So where does this bring us? Well, I mean, we're still looking for Angel. By all accounts, we don't believe that Will had anything to do with her disappearance. And you actually played a part in finding or getting some of the information entered into this. You got swabs from her family members, right? Right. So.

At one point when I was doing cold cases and missing persons, one of my duties was to make sure that all the files were up to date. And so I went out and contacted family members in order to get DNA reference samples. And so we made sure all the photographs that. Well, yeah. And didn't you have a help in getting a age progression photo drawn up or?

Yeah, well, we did a lot of things ⁓ working with other agencies. Washington State Patrol put her picture like on the side of a semi truck and it was kind of advertisement that was going across the entire US, you know, on the side of a truck saying, hey, have you seen Angel Wilson? Yeah. And then we got an age progression photograph made. Yeah, we've done a number of things over the years to.

to see if we could locate Angel. Yeah, it's just sad that this happened. And I mean, there's just not a lot to go on right now. But not all hope is lost. I mean, it has been 17 years. And I know a lot of people want to say, well, she's just dead. But we have some names here of people that have been found that have been missing for many years. Right. mean, one of the.

more publicized ones, was Elizabeth Smart. Right. And she was missing for around a year. Right. Which, mean, that's no small thing, but I mean, she was found. And then there was those three ladies in, wasn't it Ohio? Right. And their names were Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus Yeah. And I mean, they were

missing for nearly a decade. And yeah. And all three of them in the same place. Right. And you know, and then one of the longer ones is Jaycee Dugard. mean, she is missing for 18 years. You know, so right. Right where this one is right now. Exactly. You know, maybe one of you guys out there find something or know something and we can if not find her, find out what happened to her. Right. Because it's it's

It's heartbreaking. Yeah, it is. Well, so there's all of these agencies out there, you know, and actually I mentioned a couple of these like NCMEC and NamUs and such. But you as a private citizen can go online and look up these, you know, these cases and see photographs of the people. If you were to go to NamUs, like we're in Spokane County, there are 49 missing persons on NamUs.

And you can go in there and you can see every one of their photos As well, you know Going kind of back a little bit to the beginning. Yeah, we failed to say one of the reasons why this wasn't delved into Immediately was during that year. There was eight hundred and sixty thousand Reports filed of missing people. Yeah runaways and missing. I mean, yeah

You know, that's nearly a million people in one year in one year. And so a majority of those people all turned back up, probably over 50 percent of those all turned back up, within a short amount of time, whether they're in jail or the hospital or just needed a mental break to get away for a little while. Yeah, whatever the.

took an unexpected spontaneous vacation. know? spontaneous. Right. They went to Greece. But I mean, you know, we don't want to say like all hope is lost. mean, there is a chance that she could be found, but it would be nice. The sad thing is, is her father has now passed away. And I think her brother is still around, though. Right. Her brother is still around.

Her mother is last I heard was still alive ⁓ although she hadn't been really involved Will is still around I talked with him a couple of years ago, of course, it's been 17 years He has moved on and such but I'm sure that there's still a part in his mind that wonders, you know What happened to Angel? I'd still wonder Absolutely. You'll always wonder

I'm only the detective that worked on the case and I wonder I mean as part of the reason why we're bringing this Story to you guys today is that if anybody knows anything? Yeah, you know it would be great to come forward or you know even anonymously if you Contact your local law enforcement agency or there's a couple of 1-800 numbers for NamUs and neck Mac that are all over the internet

for you to be able to contact them, or you can even submit tips and such anonymously, like you said. Right, yeah. So if you don't want to get your name into the picture, it would be great if somebody does know something out there. And it would be nice to either get some closure or find out what happened. Yes. So that is the story of Angel Dawn Wilson.

and we appreciate you guys coming along for the ride on this. like we said earlier, if you go on that site and you look, There is her picture. There's several pictures of her on there with the age progression one. Or any of the other cases that you might look at. mean, there's just it's never ending. Right.

There's a lot of ⁓ cases in there still that have actually been solved, but the person's information will stay in the system because perhaps there are dismembered body parts out there or something to that, and they have to keep the DNA in the system. Or it can help solve another one. Right, exactly.

Either way, it is somewhat interesting if you are interested in such things, if you want to help out, if you're an amateur sleuth. know there's tons of people out there that are really good at digging up information. And I mean, that's been proven. Right. Absolutely. so many cases, outsiders have helped solve the case. Yeah. So.

I know that when you go and you look at some of the websites, there have been a couple of people that have made comments on angels, ⁓ whereabouts, ⁓ friend of hers had or an acquaintance of hers had posted that they thought the drug dealer that she had gone to may have been responsible. So there's definitely people out there with opinions as to what has happened. ⁓ We just need some hard proof. Yeah, that would be great. so thanks for.

joining us on this, you know, mystery. And let us know what you think about any extra questions that we didn't answer. Right. Especially as to whether you would like to see more of these missing persons highlighted, the homicides or conversations, you know, let us know what you're interested in. Thanks for watching. Please do.

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and we'll see you on the next one. Bye.