Thinking Sideways: The Disappearance of Zebb Quinn

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Think Team Sideways. I don't. You've never known stories of
things we simply don't know the answer to. Hey, guys,
welcome Thinking Sideways, the podcast Team Sideways here to solve

(00:26):
a mystery for you. I'm Devin, joined this time by
Joe and Steve, as opposed to the other times, which
is where I am Joe, I'm Steve. Yep, that's true.
You're gonna have to adjust the way you talk to
you too. Now I'm gonna have to lower my voice
and way slower. I can't help the rate I have

(00:51):
my speech patterns at this week, we're going to talk
about something that was requested by a number of people. Uh,
lots and lots of people. It's pretty much since we
started doing the podcast, it's been a pretty constant stream
and we've been saying no, no, I wouldn't say we
said to tackle not tonight, but a kind of hurts.

(01:17):
But there's been a recent development there has so we're
gonna yeah, it's good, it's good. Yeah, this is we
do wait sometimes, and this is this is a good
reason why we're gonna talk about the disappearance of zeb
Quinn nine pm on January two, two thousand, Zeb Quinn
finishes his shift at Walmart. He's eighteen years old, and

(01:38):
he and his friend Robert Jason Owens decided to go
look at a car that Zeb has been thinking about buying.
They converse about it quickly for a minute in the
parking lot, and then they take They each get in
their own cars, and they stop at a gas station
at about nine pm, after which Owen's reports that Zeb
flashed his lights at him. Zeb was mind yeah, and

(02:02):
he flashes his lights, which I guess is like universal
signal for hey, pull over. I didn't know that, but
you really Yeah, No, I've had I've had cell phones
as far as long as i've you just text the person, say,
stopped making me feel old. So they pull over and

(02:23):
Zeb hops out of the car and he says he's
gotten a page, so he's going to go walk over
to the pay phone to make a phone call. Okay,
Now I read that he actually drove back somewhere to
make the call, that there wasn't a pay phone where
they pulled. Yeah, I read that too. I've seen it
both ways. That's why I bring it up, because I
don't know that he wouldn't necessarily back to the gas station.

(02:44):
Where they because we know that the time that the
gas station, because he were on camera, but there was
no camera of him coming back, so I suspect it
wasn't the They would have mentioned that. There could have
been phones. Oh, I'm sure there were. There were lots
of payphones in those days. I remember that. I don't
see so many of them anymore. That's because nobody has pages.
When Zeb returned, Owens described him as kind of frantic,

(03:07):
and Zeb said he needed to cancel their plans to
go look at the car and drove off, re ending
owens car on the way. That's how much of a
hurry he was in. I guess again. That's another another
inconsistent one between various accounts of the story, because the
one that I heard is that after he took out,
after he said he needed to go return the page,

(03:28):
he rerended his car then and then came back ten
minutes later after making the phone call and apologize and
said he couldn't go look at the car. That's interesting.
I actually hadn't seen that anywhere, so he either did
it as he went to answer the page or after. Yeah,
it's kind of a trivial thing, but somebody's going to
call us on that, probably but probably. Yeah. Around midnight,

(03:51):
Owens shows up at a hospital with a couple of
fractured ribs and a head injury. He says he was
in a car accident, though of note, there was no
car accident reported, And by the way, is I never
I was not able to find this out anywhere? Was
that was? Was that a single car accident or I
don't think that anybody knows because I guess what wasn't reported.
Whoever else was involved didn't ever come forward, or if

(04:14):
he ran into a poll was a single car? He said?
You know, he told the I guess the police. I
guess the hospital called the police or something like that.
But the report was that it had happened near the
waffle house on Interstate Love the waffle house house waffle house. Yeah,
So anyway, so that's that's an interesting thing. It's like,
maybe the police have more more detailed records, but it

(04:36):
hasn't been released. So yeah, that's the thing. It has
been released, So it's just frustrating. I have a lot
of questions about this. Yeah, I I totally agree with that,
and I do want to pause here for a second.
I think some of our listeners are going to be
excitedly sitting and listening driving. I think most of you drive, driving,
commuting in some way, going I know that name? Why

(04:56):
do I know that name? Why does Robert Jason Owen
sounds so familiar? Well, friends will talk about that. Not
quite yet, but not yet, So just chill for a second.
Can't get there. We will get there, I promise. Two
days after Zeb disappeared, a phone call was placed by
someone claiming to be Zeb to his place of work, Walmart,
claiming to be sick so he wouldn't be into work.

(05:19):
The coworker that he spoke to the call the Yeah.
The coworker that was answering the call knew Zeb pretty
well and decided that the voice didn't sound like him,
even if he was sick, so he called the cops.
Because by this point, it should be noted I just
totally glossed over this. By this point, Zeb's mom had
reported him missing it. And by the way, another version

(05:43):
I heard of this is said the guy was suspicious.
He didn't call the cops, but he did a star
six nine on. Somehow him back and somebody answered, and
then later on he told the police. But somehow the
call was traced to a Volvo factory that happens that
Owens worked at, and and uh. The cops questioned him
and said, hey, dude, like was that here, Like what's

(06:05):
going on? And Owen said, oh, no, zeb called me
and he said he he needed me to call in
to work for him, which like, if you're if you
can use a phone, why don't you just call Walmart
yourself and say, hey, I'm sick, I won't be in.
I don't know why you call your friend to call
the place. But I actually have an idea on that.

(06:26):
I've had jobs where you had to call in within
X amount of time of the before your start of
your shift. So you couldn't call in four hours before
your shift, but you could you had to call in
at least you could call in two hours before your shift.
So let's say you started ten early. You can't call

(06:47):
in and say I can't come in is eight, So
that I mean, I don't know what Walmart's policy is
or what it was at that time, but I've been
in jobs where you couldn't call You couldn't go out
and have too much to drink and call in it
two in the more so that you could keep drinking
kind of situation, which is why those policies were in
place so people don't pull that garbage. Sure, that's fair. Okay,

(07:07):
that's a good thought, thanks Steve. Yeah, it doesn't make
any sense to me. Still, I agree. But hey, two
weeks after he disappeared, his car showed up. It was
parked in a parking lot of a restaurant called The
Little Pigs Barbecue Barbecue. Which is that a Is that
a franchise? Is that what you're saying or do you
know of it? No? I have no idea. I just

(07:28):
Little Pigs Barbecue. I like barbecue. Anyways. This restaurant is
right next to a hospital that happens to employ Zeb's grandma, mom,
and sister. They all worked in a neonatal care unit there. Nurses,
I'm guessing, okay. A hotel key card, uh, several plastic
empty drink bottles, hair, a jacket not belonging to Zeb,

(07:51):
and a three month old Labrador mixed puppy were found
in the car by the puppy. Yeah, on the rear windshield,
somebody had drawn large lips with two exclamation points in lipstick,
and the driver's side seat was adjusted for someone who
was much shorter than Zeb. How how do you know

(08:12):
how tall Zeb was? He was like six two, I
think I want to say, Okay, I never saw I
never remember seeing it specifically, you know what, No, maybe
he was like five ten. There's not much a taller
guy taller, not taller. By the way, the jacket that

(08:32):
was found, was that a man's jacket or a women's jack.
I wasn't able to find that information. Again, it's always
listed as a jacket, yep, just as a jacket not
belonging to him. I also wasn't able to find any
height information for any of the people who have been
implicated in this case. I've actually found a little bit
on that. Okay, great, we'll talk about that in a minute.
Then too. Forensic evidence was collected at um from the

(08:53):
car at the scene, but nothing ever really came of it.
And don't worry. Don't worry unless we get side tracked.
One of the investigators adopted the puppy, so the puppies okay,
well that's good, but don't worry about when shining spot
in this story, one of the puppy. Though they find
any any pooper or urine in the car, there's no
mention of that. Yeah, I haven't seen any either, but

(09:15):
that would indicate how long the dog would be. Yeah,
I don't think there wasn't any mention of that. The
implication that I had that it was fairly recent and
it's it's the thing is I think that it's the
dog could have been in the car. The car could
have been there for hours without an issue. Because we're
talking January Asheville. It's going to be cold, but it's

(09:38):
not freezing cold, so therefore it's not like it would
be a hot summer day where in an hour and
a half a dog would expire. Yeah, luckily for the puppy. Yeah.
Another interesting thing that we're going to talk about as
it pertains to this story is Zeb's aunt and kind
of girlfriend. Not they're not the same person. I'm sorry

(09:59):
the wa clarification. Yeah, yeah, Yeah. The relationship with the
sort of girlfriend is kind of nebulous. Yeah, a relationship. Yeah,
Apparently Zeb had kind of started a relationship slash friendship
with this girl named Misty. Misty had a boyfriend who,
according to Zeb, was abusive. There's not a whole lot

(10:20):
of information about Misty out there. I did read that
she had a kid with her boyfriend, but I can't
confirm that through other sources. On the Wikipedia page it
says her boyfriend's name is Wesley, which just that's what
I've heard too. But I also I always this is

(10:42):
one of my hard things with retellings of stories, and
then they go through like forums and whatnot, is everybody
says the boyfriend was abusive. That could have been as
simple as he was a jerk, and the way that
it was described as ZEB he then translates that into
abusive or some low variant that, and then the retellings

(11:04):
turns out that he's basically a wife beater. Like I
wanted people to keep that in mind. We don't know
really what this guy did. For all we know he
swore at her, and ZEB equated that to something else. Yeah,
next up, is I a you tish anyways that Zeb's aren't.

(11:25):
And though he she hadn't spoken to him in years,
is that true? I thought they just didn't speak often.
I read years, but often could be possible to the
description that I read most frequently is that they were
kind of estranged. They weren't. Again, this is the same
thing as the abuse. This thing has been retold so

(11:48):
many times that it's easy to read something like that
and believe that's cast iron. They haven't talked in years,
and it could be they just talked once in a
while when they see each other. On the night in question,
January second, apparently I know was having dinner with her
friend Tamara, who happens to be Misty's mom. And it's unclear,
but it's possible that Misty and Wesley were also at

(12:12):
the dinner at Anna's house. I started to do this.
I've heard it was dinner elsewhere, not her house. I've
actually seen that. I've seen it. Well again, it's I've
seen it both places. This is yeah, this is the
hard it's a hard. Part of this case is yeah,
I think I think, you know on balance, having seen
it both ways. But I know that she also the
next day report that place has been broken into. So

(12:36):
if there were four people there, so that's why I
think that probably they were, she was not home, and
they were all having their dinner else It does make sense,
based on circumstances that I know. Joe started to go
into it, it would make sense that they weren't at
her house, but having dinner. Having dinner could be anywhere
The reason that it's interesting to mention this, this whole

(12:57):
family girl family conundrum, is the they were able to
track the phone that the page to Zeb's pager where
that came from, and it came from Mina's landline at home.
So whether they were home or not is a fairly
important question, but one that I was never able to
pin down, and apparently near the regain. And I had

(13:21):
heard that it was at a later date that she
filed the police report, not she didn't do it, it
was I heard that it wasn't I didn't. I didn't
understand it to be that evening or the day after
I I understood it to be a few days later.
But agree with that and the police report that she filed,
she said, somebody broke into my house and they said, oh, well,
what's missing, and she said nothing, There's just a few

(13:42):
pictures moved around. That's a little strange, yeah, which could
literally mean somebody that has a key to my house
in the family came over to see me, came in
the house. I wasn't there. They bumped some stuff around
and then they left, or I bumped into something when
I was drunk one night on accident and forgot had happened.
I noticed that it was different, and then they said, hey,

(14:03):
somebody paged you're missing nephew from your phone? You know
anything about that? And you go, Now my house was
broken into. I don't know anything. Yeah, that's that's that's.
It does seem a little strange, the thing about her
putting up such a stone wall about the phone call.
To me, it's so funny is that in this is
two thousand. Of course we've got phones that have memory,

(14:25):
so it very easily could have been that Zeb's phone
pager number was the last would have been with a Z,
the last thing in her phone book, and she went
too far, scrolled too far, and then hit the send
button and then realized what was going on and and
stopped the call. I mean, that's do you know what
I'm saying? Yeah, But I think the way he reacted

(14:46):
to the page indicated that something there was something more.
Usually your page comes up with the number and then
some kind of me the input message was if there was,
I don't think anybody knows that, and not I don't
think all pages are even capable of having actually additional anything,
So it could have just been the number. That's that's fine,

(15:08):
and that's what that's where I'm leading to, is that
there wasn't anything input. It was just a crap I'm
calling the page er and Zeb of course doesn't understand that,
so then he immediately, well I never hear from her.
I gotta go figure out what's going on. Yeah, that's fair.
The you know, the the other I guess not to
you know, really go too far into it. But the

(15:29):
suspicious part to me about her finally, that police report
was I understand she specified it was around nine pm
that her house got broken into that night. The window. Yeah,
although you know, because if somebody just moved the pictures around,
I don't know how you would know when somebody broke
into your house. But it just depends on how many
hours you've been gone. I mean, if you were gone

(15:50):
from eight thirty to nine thirty, then obviously not. Yeah,
but it seems like it would take a little long,
short dinner. That's pretty brief dinner. Yeah. Miss and Wesley
deny involvement in the case at all, which you know,
if they were at the home, there's a smart thing
to do. And they did both give samples for DNA
testing against the samples that were found both in the car. No,

(16:11):
just in the car, because that was the only place
there were samples that were found in the car, and
there were no matches in the puppy. No, they did,
but they did. No. Apparently they kept like clippings of
the dog's hair just in case, in case there was
some trace evidence on him they could find out later.

(16:32):
Investigators agree that there was probably more than one person
involved in the disappearance of zeb Quinn, and his family
is pretty sure that he was He was murdered that night.
According to his mother, he didn't have anything extra with him,
no money or clothes or he wore contact lenses. He
didn't have any contact lenses or anything like that. Yeah,

(16:54):
it's and it's certainly possible that he had gotten some
He did have a job, but we worked at Longart
because a shoplifted tons he could have that's true. But
I from everything I've read about zeb I'm willing to
believe her. Well, he seems like a pretty upright kid. Yeah,
and it seemed like a good kid. No, I mean, yeah,
why I run away? Yeah No, No, that makes sense,

(17:15):
absolutely no sense. So that's that's the story. That's literally
everything we know. Theories since Joe's kind of going there already. Yeah,
well I was, and in fairness, I was kind of
setting up for that. Yeah. The first theory is that
Zeb ran away, which actually I I totally believe it
because he worked at Walmart. He would have been able

(17:36):
to keep me to the lifetime supply of food and
other stuff. He was definitely in the black market contact
lens solution probably, Yeah, totally totally makes sense. No, I
don't think. I don't think Zeb had any reason. As
far as I can tell, he was a happy kid,
and he had nothing in the kate he had a
reason to know. Okay, ready, next theory is that Zeb

(17:58):
and Misty ran away to get the lover's got it.
So if you choose to believe what Owen says at
face value right that he had two car accidents in
one day somehow, then it could it could make sense
that Misty and Zeb ran away together. The theory kind
of goes that, you know, Misty had been being abused

(18:20):
by Wesley. She had had enough, so she paged Zeb
from Aina's phone because they were there, and said, come
get me, come get me, basically, and so Zeb hurried off,
really ready to just do whatever she shining armor, picked
her up, took her to a hotel, explains the hotel

(18:41):
car key or the hotel card key not. Have you
ever seen a card keeper hotel. It didn't have the
hotel's name on it. I have, yeah, the really cheap
one about to say they are the super cheaper at
the white key. They don't have a number on them,
they don't have anything, just a white card. Yeah, so

(19:04):
Ze picked her up. They hold up in a hotel
for a couple of days. Wesley finds that he buys
her a dog. I don't know. I don't know how
the dogs involved. I gotta be really the biggest mystery here. Yeah,
he he buys her a dog, I guess, or something,
or she already had the dog maybe. I think that
would have mentioned that, you think so. I think she
would have said, oh my dog maybe, or somebody would

(19:25):
have said, yeah, missy had a dog for a while
and now she doesn't. If if where we're heading in
this theory is correct, she would have shut her mouth
about her missing three month old puppy because it would
have been in the car. Yeah, well, she wouldn't have
said anything if if if the theory were running through
is correct, she wouldn't have, but somebody else would have
probably mentioned to somebody, Hey didn't Missy's dog went missing,

(19:48):
and that like miss dogs bad. They didn't have Facebook,
and ye kind of incriminating pictures out there. We did have.
My Space sucked, well, people didn't. People didn't post of
my Space is often because camera phones were not as common.

(20:08):
That's true, I remember, and you never could tell what
the picture was. That's true. Anyways, The theory continues on
that Wesley either found out of his own volition or
Misty decided, oh I miss my kid who somehow was
being taken care of by parents, or if the kid
even existed, or she called Wesley and was like, yeah,

(20:32):
I think so too. I'm sorry, baby, I take you back.
Come save me from zeb he's holding me hostage or whatever.
Wesley comes, so they tell there's an altercation. He kills
zeb In somehow, somehow accidentally or intentionally, They together Misty
and Wesley disposed of the body. Then they take the
car and drop it in really super weird mysterious circumstances

(20:56):
for reasons unknown, instead of just like leaving it in
the middle of the forest or the hotel or something. Well,
that's that's intriguing because if you if you're driving around
a car for two weeks it belongs to somebody who's disappeared,
presuming murdered, that's kind of risky, don't you think. At
the same time, it couldn't have been in that parking
lot for a full two weeks with the puppy. It

(21:17):
couldn't have probably even for a couple of days. To
be honest with you, people notice if a dog's in
a car. Yeah. Well, And and the other weird thing
that I I came across and I couldn't I couldn't
find the source of this. I found it repeated in
some other places, but can never find the initial source.
Is that there are reports that Misty was spotted in
Zeb's car in Nashville. Yeah, I've heard that. Nashville is

(21:41):
three hundred miles away, which is a four to five
hour drive one way. How she was spotted I don't
know in a city the size of Nashville. Yeah, but
that's weird. I kind of discounted that. Oh yeah, no,
I don't, but it's a weird. It's one of those rumors.
I guess it is the best way to put it, Huh. Yeah,

(22:03):
I don't. I don't play any side, which you know,
Misty is a very common name. The other part, the
other variant, yeah, variant on this theory is that Zeb's
interest and advances were misinterpreted by Misty or by Wesley
as kind of stalking behavior. Because we've all we've all

(22:25):
been there. Do you remember when you were like an
old like a you know, seventeen eight year old kid,
you would get obsessed with somebody and you would be like, well,
it would be so romantic if I would just go
stand outside their door all day to show them how
much I love them, and you know, the other parties
standing there like, oh my god, he's back, like what
is going on right now? Again, in the movies, it's

(22:46):
always like, it's always romantic in the movies. It's not
in real life. Just gentlemen and ladies who may be
thinking about this. It's not a good idea. It's never
a good idea. Yeah, don't do it. Not not a
good idea. But I guess it's it's possible that you know,
he was smitten with her and she was being friendly
but not necessarily flirty, or even just being a little flirty,

(23:10):
but wasn't actually interested. I would say, probably more nice
than anything, because if it is a misinterpreted love, then
just being nice is really all it takes. Yeah, so
he was She wasn't blatantly saying no freak get away
from me, so he interpreted that for whatever reason, and
then you know, Wesley thought, well, I'm just gonna take

(23:33):
care of this guy, beat the crap out of this weirdo,
and beat him too hard. Whatever happened, it does happen.
I mean, there's lots of times where guys get into
fights and somebody dies in a simple fist fight. It happened.
So that's actually the I might have mentioned this before,
but the FBI has got a whole separate category in
their homicide table by murder weapon, and the category is
called hands, fists, feet, And I checked the most recent

(23:57):
time I checked that not too long ago, and for
the past five years, there's about averaging about eight hundred
deaths a year, eight hundred homicides a year just bare hands.
That's crazy. Yeah, it actually that's you know what I mean,
rifles death by all kinds of all rifles of all kinds,
including those deadly assault rifles, is more like in maybe
three hundred a year something like that. Yeah, more people

(24:21):
just get beaten to death. Especially people don't don't think
it's super dangerous. But you don't think that of your
body when you're using it as a weapon. Yeah, no,
it's Yeah, you can have a cerebral hamor rage and everything.
Although you know, again I've mentioned before, I'll mention again,
I don't have any information on Wesley's size versus zeb side.
I don't know if that would have been something that

(24:43):
would have been possible or even probable. I don't know
very I know very little about Wesley and his temperament.
I don't know. You know, again, if he just interpreted
Wesley being a little bit of a jerk to Misty
as being highly abusive behavior, or if he was actually
physically abusive, or if he was just emotionally abusive, or
what that situation is, and the kind of mitigating factors

(25:06):
that would go into this being a likely theory. The well,
the other thing that I'll throw in since we're on
this theory is that I did come across chatter on
the internet about that Zeb and Misty had had a
several hour long conversation on the phone the night before,
which would have been the January one, New Year's Day. Well,

(25:28):
if that was true, I would be interested to know
where that call was placed from. In other words, did
it come from Zeb's aunt's house, did it come from
her mom? Like, you know, to try and try and
tighten up the circle a little bit on on some
of this. Yeah, I've never been able to Again. This
is another one of those ones where he I see

(25:50):
it in places, but I never can find where it
originated from. Yeah, it really would be nice to be
able to get ahold of the police files because I
I assume they've checked all this stuff out. Well it's
I mean, it's an active case. Yeah, I know that's why,
because I don't think we said it yet. But a
body nothing, Yeah, nothing, although somebodies have recently showed up.

(26:13):
We'll talk about that a minute. The next theory is
that Zeb was lured to the aunt's house by an
angry Wesley variant another variant, Yeah, and I think it's unlikely,
particularly because all Wesley would have had to do is
pretend to be misty, and it seems that Zeb would
have gone anywhere for her. He could have learned him

(26:34):
out into the middle of the four I mean it
could have been anywhere. Why picked the aunt's house. Yeah,
that is a little a little strange. I mean I
could see where she could she hear that. Somebody could
could have broken in and the and then dial this
page or and that. Way. You don't have say, say
you're Wesley, you want to murder, beat beat him seriously
or talk to him? Yeah, start out talking to him. Yeah,

(26:57):
maybe you don't want to have you die les page
from your number. Yeah, but pay phones are a thing.
The thing, though, is that if if you want to
lure somebody unsuspecting into a confrontation, you lure them somewhere
that you entice them to go somewhere that's familiar. You've

(27:18):
thought about this before, haven't you? Oh? Of course, of course.
I mean I never was going to tell you guys
to meet me at the rock Quarry. But no, I
mean you you would say, okay, Well I could say
meet me at the Piggly Wiggly, which is on the
exact opposite side of town. Or I could say, hey, come,
you know, just do it from this phone number, Come

(27:39):
meet me. Zab doesn't know exactly who it is, but
he knows the phone number, so he would go there.
Because this is the day and age when you still
knew phone numbers, so he would automatically he may not
know who it was and just go be an easy
way to get somebody there. Yeah, that's fair, that's a
fair point. You're ready to go into the next area. Oh,

(28:00):
let's have this one. As I mentioned that Robert Jason
Owens has been in the news a little bit lately,
right that there's some cheering from the people who are listening.
I can hear it. I hear it. So this theory
is Zeb was killed by Robert Jason Owens. And the
reason this is a pretty good theory is a lot

(28:22):
of reasons. There was a check in at the hospital
with the broken ribs and the head injury. Well, to
start with Owen, the counting of the events that led
up to Zeb's disappearance are questionable at best, and also
only of his own words. Yeah, he's the only one.
He's only with the exception. The last time anybody can
corroborate where Zeb was is with the surveillance tape at

(28:47):
nine fifteen at the gas station. So the whole and
he did he did get a page the truth about
the truth about that, But you can't corroborate that zeb
went anywhere. Can't corroborate anything else. You can definitely can't
corroborate the fact that Owens got into a separate car accident.

(29:08):
There's there's a whole host of questions that I have
around Owens that I know we're unanswered, and I don't
know if you want me to ask those questions now
or later. Let's do it later, because I want to
say that not only is this questionable accounting a thing,
but it turns out that Robert Jason Owens is an
actual total murderer, kind of documented, an actual convicted murderer.

(29:33):
He's not convicted yet. I think they only they only
arrested him in March, right, Yeah, trial is not done
yea as of the day of this recording. Yeah, but
the evidence and he's not convicted. I doubt that he's
going to get off because it's kind of admitted to
one of the killings, and they found some pretty damning

(29:53):
evidence they did. Do you. I don't know if either
of you know who Christie cod is. You did not know? Okay.
Christie was a finalist on the Food Network competition The
Next Food Network Star, and she and her husband j
t Cod as well as her unborn child, were murdered
by Owens. Not I won't go I won't go into

(30:16):
too much brutally, by the end of it, they fit
into a fireplace, wood stove, what stove, and they didn't.
They didn't fit all at once, And reportedly he murdered
them on a Thursday and then broke into their house
and stole a laptop, jewelry and a handcun I think

(30:37):
it was on Friday or Saturday. Yeah, something like that
A while after yea, so basically hack hack hack. Oh
hey yeah, not quite the whole thing about breaking into
their house. I mean, because he would have had access
to their keys, right you would assume, but did he
just did he access the house through the key? I

(30:58):
have no idea super active investigation happening right now. Yeah.
He also spent I think it was twenty three months
in jail within a few years after zeb disappeared for
unrelated charges. I was never really able to to be fair,
I didn't like go access his actual criminal history and
all that. It wasn't like no, no, and it wasn't

(31:21):
like a murder or something. It was all kind of
there's a drunk driving thing and then there was one
where another one where was driving drunk and he got
in the chase with the police and he was shooting
out of him. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, he shot at the cops.
Brilliant not a model citizen. So I guess the question
is kind of asked, could he I mean, could they

(31:41):
have gotten into a fight? Could Zeb kind of what
I was saying, could Zeb of you know, accidentally reinded
him and hopped out and said, oh my gosh, I'm
so sorry, and he It seems like this guy has
a little bit of a temper, maybe a little bit.
Could he have flown into a rage? Yeah, flown into
a rage? Would that explain also his injuries? Well that's yeah.

(32:03):
Kind of what I'm thinking is that Zeb, you know,
he attacks zeb Zeb pot back and broke a few
ribs and dipped him in the face a few times.
But then then he picks up a big rock and
hits Zeb with it. You might not even even have
intentionally killed him. Yeah, as we talked about, you can
punch somebody, one punch just the wrong way, and that's

(32:25):
all it takes. Yeah, I think the key to solving
that mystery is to go for the police to go
look at their files, and I don't know if they
ever looked at this. You would hope that they did.
But what was the status? Uh, I once was driving
a pickup truck that night, correct, thank you. I believe
he was driving a pickup truck. So he got in
a serious enough wreck to go to the hospital with

(32:45):
broken bones, et cetera. So there's that truck. Should have
been pretty racked up, you would think. So did the
police ever look at that? Not as far as I
could tell. To dovetail on that question. When Zeb's car
was found to the barbecue joint, what condition was it in?
I mean, rear ending somebody can be as simple as
backing up and touching them, kissing bumpers, or wailing into

(33:10):
them at you know, at full throttle. So I never
saw anything that describes the damage to his car. I mean,
you can, like you said, you can just kiss a car,
you know, discuff some paint. I don't have the impression
that the car that Zeb was driving was in particularly
good condition. But you know, if if it's going to

(33:31):
be uh, correct me if I'm wrong, But I think
where Joe was kind of leading this was maybe it
was more of they had more than just a little
rear ending. But one of them hit the other and
caused an accident. Well, if one of them has broken
ribs and knocked up skull, both cars should show a

(33:55):
significant damage and be paint scrapings from one should be
on the other. I don't think that was what Joe
was saying. I thought he said that he meant the
injuries were sustained during a fight and so and so
that you know, it could have been as simple as
a little scrape, and that would have been like, oh
my gosh, I'm so sorry, and Owen's the fight could
have happened later on after But yeah, but I'm also

(34:17):
asking That's what I'm saying, is that is that if
you've got in the wrecked, it should be all His
truck should be wrecked up. Did the police look at it?
Because if you said he got in I wrecked, but
his truck is perfectly straight and looking pretty good and undented, Well,
obviously you got the injuries somewhere else. Yeah, I presume
they looked at the truck, but I don't. I didn't
never see a record of it. I think that, you know, Actually,
I'm going to tell you the truth. I'm optimistic that

(34:38):
this is going to be going to be solved. I
am too, and I'll tell you why. But I wouldn't
wait till the end if you want, or I can
tell you now, you can tell us now, I'll tell
you now. I think that I think that he's he's
murdered three people Owen. That is he very likely it
is going to get the death penalty. And if I
were to judge in the case, I think I would
I think I would tell him, look, offer him a plea.

(34:58):
Here's your deal. You can have life in prison rather
than death, but you gotta you gotta come clean on
zeb Quinn. Yeah, I think that seems to be the
general feeling. And you know, we're not done with this
episode because there's still lots of questions. Because I do
have some serious questions about if he did it. There
are a lot of other questions of things that happened
in the night that I don't understand why that happened.
But I am also optimistic that in a plea bargain

(35:22):
sort of situation, he will come clean about what happened
to Zeb at the very least, even if he didn't
do it, he will be able to provide many more
details or something like that, because I think the one
thing we haven't talked about is that he was sort
of cooperative in the first day that after zeb disappeared,
and then he shut down and he was completely uncooperative

(35:45):
after that. So to kind of dovetail off of this.
The things that concerned me about the Owens did it
theory is there there's no connection between Owens and Aina
or Misty or or Wesley or Tamarra. So why did
the page happen or was it just coincidental? Was it

(36:06):
just coincidental or did accidental or accidental? But then why
would Iina lie and say somebody broke into my house
at that time? Again? I can I can tell you
is that people are weird about the cops. They don't
like the cops around their place for whatever reason, and
they'll just start coming up with excuses. I've seen people

(36:27):
do that a million times. Do I think that's what's
going on? No, but I can see that as oh
the five oh or here again, just tell him somebody
broke in, get him out of here. You know, maybe
somebody did break into but she didn't. But she it
was my impression that she she voluntarily submitted a police
report that her house was broken into. It wasn't my

(36:49):
impression that the cops showed up and she said, oh,
somebody broke into my house. It was that A couple
of days later she said, oh, you know what, somebody
broke into my house. So that's weird. I don't know.
I don't know. I mean, the timing doesn't change my
my idea. But but you're right, I mean that the
timing of when she decides to come forward with the
I've been broken into, he's a little weird. Yeah. And

(37:11):
if she was indeed broken into, and somehow, for some
reason or somehow Owen's broke into her house, even though
that seems super unlikely because he was with Zeb when
the page there, wouldn't. I don't have the impression that
there was time between the time that the page came
in and the time that they were seeing at the
gas station for him to go break into a house.
Page the guy unless Zeb didn't tell Owen's he had

(37:34):
to go on his own, but he went with him
and they both go to the aunt's house. The aunt
has since left to go to dinner. Zeb's got a key.
I'm totally making this up. As I go, they walk
into the house. Owen's is just kind of walking around
poking things, just you know, killing time, while Zeb's looking
for everybody. And then they locked the place up and leave,

(37:55):
and whatever happens after that happens. But of course the
house is now slightly different than when she left it
after a day or two of looking around. Go wait
a minute, that picture is facing the wrong way. But
then she again said, I accidentally paged Zeb and then
I left, and then she may not have realized that

(38:16):
she page Zeb. I mean, how many people do you
know that that butt dial? That's not butt dialing, though
it is. If the phone is in the couch and
you're sitting on the couch and it's hitting the buttons,
that's a that's basically that's a couch dial. It's the
it's the old nineties for a two thousand phone version
of a butt dial. Maybe I guess it could happen

(38:40):
because the call would go through, it would hit the pager,
and then the pager would terminate the call and and
then give it a dead signal, and eventually the phone
would I presume, would have to shut itself off with
no signal. They usually just beat I'm thinking it was
more of not accorded phone. But why your list photos?

(39:01):
So the battery died? Is that what we're sorry? We're
I know we're so we're really going down. But um okay,
so okay, fine, And the next and the next big
question right is why dumped the car, particularly with a
bunch of stuff in it? Like what happened to the car?
The car might not have been dumps you might have
the person who was driving the car might have been
inside the little piggies. That's true. Yeah, that's definitely. Yeah.

(39:23):
Gally speaking, when I have in a restaurant, you know,
I have a nice dinner and I know its police
swarming around my car outside that I've stole. You're not
going to go out, just go out the back door. Yeah, yeah,
I guess the question. It seems like the lipstick note
on the back of the car. That seems like a note, right,
That doesn't seem like, Hey, I've stolen a car, so
I'm gonna write some stuff on it and all that

(39:44):
that seems weird or more of a teenage gag. Well,
even then, you stole a car, you're not going to
draw on it. But if but if friends are walking
by and or young people and they think they know
that car. They would do that as it not two
weeks after somebody has been reported missing. The person in
possession of the car, I might not know that the

(40:05):
owner of the car because because let's say, oh it
was killed killed zeb and then sells the car. No
even sell it. He just leaves it in the parking
lot somewhere and with the keys in it, and then
somebody else comes along and steals it and just drives
it around for a week or two, because that's what
people you know, people around in a lot of places
where car theft is basically treated like you know, they
give you a tap on the wrist, you're not even

(40:27):
likely to go to change. Yeah, I guess my. My Still,
my argument is the lips with the exclamation points, like
why why why if you've stolen a car, even if
you've just stolen it out of a parking lot, you
don't decorate it like that. So then because why it's
not going to get The only thing that matters is
what's going to get you noticed by the police, are
pulled over by the police, and something like that. No,

(40:47):
I won't necessarily get you, but you are going to
get more noticed. I don't think that that's going to
put you on the red flag, I mean on the
cops radar, because we all see cars driving around with
stuff written on the windows from the volleyball team or
the basketball team or whatever or whatever it is all
the time. I see that. I never read it. I

(41:08):
don't care. It doesn't It doesn't make anybody stand out
to me, that's fair. But there's also not like a
man hunt happened, like if if if like there could
be a man hunt going on right now, and the
one that I went by today, I have no idea
because Asheville is not a teeny tiny town. No, but
I guess I would. I would to put it in
like local perspective, I would say that the disappearance of

(41:30):
zeb Quinn is probably on part with the disappearance of
Karen Hormon. Yeah, you knew about that. And if somebody
were like, hey, keep an eye out for this car,
it's like associated with Again, how long did it take
for the Kiren Hormon story to gain enough traction that
everybody knew about it? Was it three days later? Was
it a month later? I don't remember how long. Kids

(41:54):
are much quicker, but I'm just saying there's there's a
time scale here. So all right. The next question is, then,
if you have killed this guy, why, or even if
you haven't killed the guy, why two days later make
the phone call the Walmart. Yeah that's kind of inexplicable,
I know, and I don't understand that at all. So
that those are my big three questions. Know, there's a

(42:16):
few more too, Well, those are just just pertaining specifically
to this theory. I have a lot of other questions
for this case, but that's that theory. Well, there's also, uh,
one of your other questions, I know is why they
why were they going to look at a car at
nine pm? Yeah, and I don't know that we got
that from any anybody other than Robert Owens? Did we
that they were looking at they're going to car? I

(42:38):
don't know that the source was anybody but him. I
don't think that it was. But it's also possible I
didn't see, but it's totally possible that it was corroborated
with by his coworkers, like his CoA like I'm gonna
go look at a car, or even his mom. I
can't remember if his mom ever knew where he was
going after work. Yeah, I want some kind of second
source confirmation of that. He didn't report him missing until

(43:01):
the next morning, so I'm not given to understand that
she was expecting him right after work. Yeah, but you
know what it's funny is I've seen a lot of
people saying, why why were you looking at a car
at nine o'clock? At nine Oh my gosh, what the
hell possible? People have lodges, but like your lights. Yeah,
you're eighteen, and you don't work full time, like a

(43:22):
nine to five Monday through Friday. Find a different day
to go where you can actually take a look at
the car or take it on the drive, or it's
not dark out and like weird in the middle of
the winter. I don't know. But if but if you
if you go to somebody's house and they say, hey,
I've got yeah, the cars in the garage and you
turn on the light, it's the same thing as coming
over there nine o'clock in the morning when the sun

(43:43):
is shining, you can see the car, you can still
take it for a test drive. All these things are
still viable scenarios. Os. Yeah, but this isn't a huge
part of the mystery. It's just kind of like a
weird I don't find the going to look a car
at a car at nine o'clock in that weird. But
again I don't know. Maybe because I'm a lady, I

(44:04):
don't I don't like doing things. I think that's it's
probably part of it. As a guy, i'd be like, oh,
it's eleven o'clock a night, Yeah, let's go look, let's
check out that carver? Not interested? Thank you? If it's
dark outside and there's not a lot of people around me, no,
thank you. My next question is where did that dog
come from from? Yeah? You guys are the worst, But seriously,

(44:29):
like what like I think they I think they made
some inqu is trying to figure out, like they talked
to breeders and shelters and and they couldn't track it down. Yeah,
I don't know. There's a lot of puppies being born though,
it could just come from somebody, but it's still a weird,
a weird bit. And if it came from somebody, right, Like,

(44:51):
it's not as though again it's not as though there
weren't inquiries. It's not as though people weren't on the
news all the time saying hey, do you guys know
where this dog came from. It was weird put it
on the news, but you know it might not everybody
watches the news. It's fair, I understand, but but I mean,
this might be I might tie in with the hotel
key to the other question, and am I tieing with

(45:12):
the fact that they were driving this car around for
two weeks and didn't get pulled over and busted, which
is that they might have been on it. They might
have been like out of town. They might have been trip.
They might have been road trip into god knows where,
and at some point along the way they stayed in
a hotel, and sometimes at some point along the way
they picked up a puppy not in that town. So
that explains why no no breaders or shelters or anybody

(45:33):
else in that town would recognize the puppy. Although at
the same time, of course, if it wasn't just a
black lab puppy, then well sorry, yeah, it's all alike. Yeah,
that's true. I guess I don't know. I one of
the things that I wish I knew about this case
was things as simple as odometer readings, right that, granted,

(45:53):
his mom probably wouldn't know exactly what the odometer was
on his car. He's eighteen, he was a zone free kid.
But she would probably know like, oh, we had the
oil changed this longer and go to the place that
did the oil change or even I don't know it
had about this much on it. If he's driving, you know,
to Nashville. If he's driving, if it's this long road trip,

(46:16):
that's happening, those miles are being racked up much quicker
than he would have just driving around normal day to
day life. I wish that was information that we had
because it would sign some light on what was going on,
at least with the car, if not with zev Man.
It might be it might be information that the police have,
at least, you know, if they're confident, because I'm sure
they have the o'dominant reading, but I don't know if

(46:36):
they have like a difference or anything like that. It
just depends on things like did he get his oil
change to Jiffy versus doing it himself. Um, you know
that's changing now. You got to change there, and they
had that little sticker they stick in the windshield, you
got the odometer reading. They also keep records. Yeah, might
also changed his oil because especially when you're young, and
you know, young kind of broke. It's a lot cheaper

(46:58):
to change your road yourself. Yeah, lots of people don't
know how to do it. I mean again, I don't know.
Maybe maybe he did. It's yeah, I can see a guy,
you know, knowing how to do that. It's not rocket
sign it's yeah really yeah, I mean I know how
to do it. I just choose not to because put
the bolt in, undo a thing, put the thing in

(47:20):
phil or use synthetic oil and never change it. Whatever
you want to do. Actually, I mostly go to Jiffy
Live these days. But it's not because it's that hard,
but just because I don't want to deal with getting
rid of the old oil. Yeah, that is. My next
question is about the hotel, right, is that you know
they couldn't ever figure out where the key card was from.

(47:41):
I don't know how key card technology works. None of
our experts are experts in the hospitality business, unfortunately. Yeah,
I don't know if there's so. In other words, you're
saying there's no there's no way that they could have signature. Yeah,
it's a generic thing. I've I've seen him do it.
They they punched something and it just it's a magnetic

(48:02):
impression that then the card reader at the door knows
to pick up youation, does this frequency code, and does
the next one, and that there is, but there's nothing
unique like about the hotel itself. It's a it's a
magnetic signature that is probably in every card reader or

(48:27):
whatever the machine that that puts it into it, because
I've watched them just grabbing out of the stack that
was probably discharged and just stick it into the machine
spits it out. It's yeah, so and but you know,
it's not that puzzling really because it's very likely the
hotel is not even in Asheville, North Carolina. Yeah, that's

(48:47):
that's a fair point. You know, as we've talked about that.
While I was asking these questions, I kind of was like, oh, yeah,
that's right. It could have been from not local. Yeah,
it's not that many hotels that don't, you know, some
how put their name on the cards or anything like that.
It seems like, hey, let's do a three hundred mile
search radius for the hotels that don't have these specific

(49:11):
key cards. And to be fair, right, because it's a
very specific, especially in two thousand, it's a very specific
set of hotels because many of them still had the
actual physical keys that you have. It wasn't full key
card technology yet. And then most of the ones that
had key cards were the nicer, more expensive hotels that
you've got their image on the back or whatever. So

(49:33):
it seems like it again this is because I'm not
a police officer, it seems like it would have been
at least worthwhile to figure out which of those hotels
were and see if you could pass a picture of
zeb around and say, hey, did you see this car
or did you see this guy. I'm gonna guess that
the pool of hotels that you are thinking is rather

(49:54):
small is quite large, because there is a lot in
any town. There is a huge number of cheaper hotels
that don't necessarily have the best clientele and therefore going
to go to the magnetic system because they can't use
a true key because you know, they're getting stolen all

(50:15):
the time. But you know what, I'm not going to
also invest in getting custom keys printed because that's not cheap.
And if they're stealing the regular keys, you're gonna steal
the electronic keys trying to use them on whatever. You know,
I I'm not gonna go into cultures, but in terms
of drug culture stuff. But people do this kind of
weird stuff. So it's just screw it. We're going with

(50:38):
the cheapest one possible. Shut it down. Yeah. But the
other thing, and I'm sure you guys don't know this,
the police know that they didn't. They didn't lift any
fingerprints off the hotel card. I've never seen anything like that.
They must have they did print it, but I didn't.
I didn't ever hear that. But the thing about it,
I mean, they could have lifted prints that just didn't
match anything. That has to be it, because I mean,

(51:00):
this is this is the other thing that will tell
you something significant about the whole thing. That is, if
they lifted no prints from the hotel key card, that
means it was planted there deliberately. Yeah, it's a false clue.
Yeah yeah, but they Yeah, Well, hopefully the police are
smart enough to figure that out there are no prints
on and hopefully they figured out that this is following
this thing as a waste of resources. That is scary. Actually,

(51:21):
that's a really scary thought. I hadn't thought about that.
I hadn't thought about somebody think taking the time to
white everything just plant stuff, plant stuff, you know, grab
a jacket from somebody off the bus and then drop
a key card that's generic, and then wipe the car down. Gosh,
it would explain why it's such a random assortment of

(51:42):
stuff in the car, right, I'll throw up puppy in here,
and here's some drink bottles, and here's a key card
and some weird random message on the back of the
card and then drop it where. You know. The thing
is is that it was dropped in a very strategic location,
a stu. It was dropped, right, It's fair Maybe it

(52:03):
wasn't dropped. Maybe it's that that person happened to be
at that restaurant. It's a pretty large coincidence. In fairness though,
that his car was found right next to the place
of work of three is of his relatives. That's a
huge coincidence. It was one of his relatives. It's not
just kidding. Would have parked in the hospital parking lot, Yeah,
they would be smarter than to do that. I mean,

(52:25):
you know, so, I think the senses that it was
deliberately dropped to be found. If it was, then like,
why with all that stuff in it? Was it? Oh?
My gosh, was it? That's actually not a fantastic amount
of stuff to leave in a car. It's not, but
it's a weird assortment of stuff. It's not that it's
that much. It's just a lot of random stuff. And

(52:46):
somebody has said that the the combination of the puppy
and the and the lipstick message actually was a was
a message in it of itself, which was a puppy
love I mean, the originally that one about you got
the lips on the exclamation points and then I mean,
it's possible. Yeah, I don't know. I don't even know

(53:07):
what that means. But okay, all right, okay, so yeah,
I guess all we can do is really hope that
this case will be solved in the next year or
two as the trial of Owens continues. If Owens did it,
if Owens did it, certainly he might not even know
anything about it. I mean, he's certainly after after what happened,

(53:29):
and after what happened in March, she's certainly my favorite
candidate now. But he also he also must know at
least a little more given the call that he placed
two days later, right because either zeb was truly alive
and called him and said, hey, dude, call in for me,
or he wasn't and he just decided to place the

(53:50):
call for whatever reason. Right. I think if somebody says,
I know I'm on death row, but no, I'm sticking
to my story about what happened to zeb you, but
probably trust what they're saying. Well. The other hard part though, this,
this is my my concern with this offer of a bargain,
is he may just fess up just to get off

(54:12):
a death row. That's true too, they usually require proof, like, hey,
tell us where you buried the body, right, You've got
to be able to prove something. But it just it
always I always am hesitant with those things because it's
I mean, that's what I would do if I got
convicted and went to death row. Not that I'm going
to do something I swear you too don't do here

(54:33):
have those drinks. But if if I was going to
do something that I did go to death row and
they said, oh, hey, you know, Steve, we think you
did this other thing and if you admit to it
will totally give you a life. Oh yeah, I totally
did it, absolutely well. I did it. I killed the stuffalophagus.
I totally did it. But again, now they'll probably demand
a no worry dispposed to the body and stuff like that,

(54:53):
you know. So yeah, oh yeah, I shredded him and
I recycled him. He's made him nothing, but felt that's
totally recycling. He certainly one of the long ways towards
disposing of those other bodies. Yeah, So I don't know. Yeah,
that's kind of my feeling is that all I can
do is hope. Honestly, I hope that Owen's did it
and that he confesses and that that's what happened, because

(55:15):
I want to know what is going on. Yeah, I
think that I'm more than that this is going to
be solved, not to not too sure. I hope that's true,
so people find out the way. Yeah, just there's so
many damn questions. Yeah, there really are. I don't know
what I feel. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And again I don't

(55:35):
think it's not necessarily true that Owen's even murdered him deliberately.
It could have been a fight and then actually death.
You know, it could have been you know, and that
happens happens to the best of us, and you know,
you just hide the body and get on with your life. Right,
So that's yeah, totally normal. Well, if you want to
see some of our research that we did for this episode,

(55:56):
you can find that as well as stream or download
mode our episodes on our website. That website is, of
course Thinking Sideways podcast dot com. Uh. You can also
leave a comment there. You can get merch on the website.
There's a cool little merch icon. It's right above the
donate button on the right hand side. Is this the

(56:18):
right hand side, the right hand kind of the page,
that's whatever the side is. You're probably listening to us
on iTunes though. If you are, go ahead and leave
us a comment in a rating, you're probably already subscribed.
If you're not, you should do that. You can find
us on Facebook if you want to connect with us,
there's the page and the group. You can just search

(56:39):
Thinking Sideways Podcast. They'll both pop up if they don't
send us a message. And we had somebody this last
week they were lost. Yeah, well it actually sending us
search results. We're getting it, so we had to help
them out. But we'll totally help you out. We will.
We were accessible people. You can find us on Twitter
Thinking Sideways There's been some interesting activity on that recently. Also,

(57:03):
just send us an email if you want to talk
about this or any other cases you have suggestions, if
you're an expert in something, send us an email, or
if you just want to tell me that I'm awesome
or me what Alright, Okay, don't worry about don't worry
about that. Email address is Thinking Sideways podcast at gmail
doc Sorr. Yeah, still still on Twitter. Excuse me, I'm

(57:25):
texting that. Having been said, we're going to get out
of here. Bye, everybody, See you next week