You. Our card this week is Belinda van Lith, the queen of hearts from Minnesota. Belinda's story has held a special place in my heart for a very long time. Over a year, in fact, because in August of 2022, her family reached out to our team here at Audiochuk requesting that we cover her case because it had never really been told in full before now, we told Belinda's family that we would try, and for months we did try. We reached out to the investigating agency on multiple occasions, asking them to partner with us for this episode. But crickets. And we've still never heard back about an interview. But thankfully, through a records request, we were eventually able to obtain hundreds and hundreds of pages of reports spanning the nearly 50 years since Belinda's disappearance. And when we started digging into these records, let me tell you, our team had so many jaw drop moments, but the overwhelming sense I felt was heartache. Because this girl deserved so much better. And she deserves justice. Hopefully, maybe by bringing her story to you, we can accomplish just that. So without further ado, here is part one of Belinda Van Lith's story.

I'm Ashley Flowers, and this is the deck.

The small twin cities suburb of Monticello, Minnesota, was a beautiful backdrop for the 60 degree summer weather on Saturday, June 15, 1974. But 38 year old Dwayne Cornwell had other things on his mind as he was returning home from a week long cross country trip. He'd made the 13 hours one way trek to Nashville, Tennessee, with a bandmate of his to sell some songs to record labels. But things hadn't gone as he'd hoped. Regardless of how Dwayne was feeling, though, he had things to do. It was around 06:00 p.m. When he was rolling in, and he needed to pay his house sitter, 17 year old Belinda van Lith, and he needed to spend time with his mother, who was coming to visit for the weekend. But when he pulled up to his cabin, tucked into a beautiful multiple acre, nearly lakefront property, he only saw his mother. No Belinda. And come to find out Belinda hadn't just taken off once his mom had arrived. His mother said that she'd arrived at the cabin some 2 hours ago, and there was no Belinda at any point, just an unlocked house. Now, this alone wasn't too terribly alarming to Dwayne.

He didn't know Belinda all that well, and she was almost an adult. Maybe she'd just gone back home earlier than discussed. But that theory no longer made complete sense when Dwayne entered the house and looked around. Because Belinda's stuff was still there. Her cosmetics, tampons, even a class ring. They're all laid out on the bathroom counter. So maybe she was planning to come back. And Duane just went on with his day. But Belinda wasn't back that night or the next morning. But on the morning of that second day, Sunday, someone did come knocking on his door. It was Belinda's father, Clifford. Clifford was there to summon Belinda back home to join the rest of her seven siblings in celebrating their oldest sister, Pam, whose graduation party was that afternoon. It was kind of like a going away party, too, because Pam was supposed to be leaving that Monday to join the military. Confused, Dwayne explained to Clifford that he thought she already was home. Thought she had been for a whole day. Now, hearing that made Clifford's stomach drop. He knew something was wrong immediately, so he asked Dwayne to phone the police. A deputy came out to take the report, and the limited narrative they had was mostly filled in by Dwayne.

He said that he'd left town on Monday with his home in the capable hands of Belinda. But when he returned from his trip the day prior, which would have been Saturday, she was nowhere to be found. He'd said they'd even checked all the buildings on his property and hadn't found any sign of her. Now, it seems that right off the bat, the deputy was getting bad vibes from Dwayne. Since we didn't get an interview with the sheriff's office, you'll hear voice actors throughout this episode quoting the original police reports. Here's one from that first visit to Dwayne Cornwell's place.

Due to the fact that we had received several calls or complaints from Cornwell in the past, I felt it necessary to get some personal information from Cornwell.

I can only assume the deputy was referring to the domestic disturbance calls that they had gotten either from or involving Dwayne in the past. Because even though Dwayne wasn't married at this time, he'd been involved in several domestic disturbances with an ex in previous years. Now, to be honest, I'm not entirely sure what the implication is here, though. I don't know if he's saying, like, this guy calls in all the time, like, boy, who cried wolf situation, or if the deputy is implying that this dude is sketchy, let's keep our eye on him. But either way, while the deputy was gathering Dwayne's personal information, something caught his eye from across the residence. Dwayne's mom, Mrs. Cornwell, was cleaning. Specifically, she was cleaning the screened in back porch of the home. And when he asked Dwayne and his mother what was going on there, Dwayne explained that he'd left several young chickens on the back porch while he was gone for Belinda to take care of. So his mother was just cleaning up the mess that they'd left behind, which seemed to be a good enough answer for the deputy because he just dropped it. After talking with Dwayne, the deputy moved on to Clifford, who was just beside himself with worry.

Clifford told the deputy that the last time he had contact with Belinda was on Thursday at around 08:00 p.m. She called home to tell him that she heard some funny noises at the house and that a fuse had blown. She said she checked around and didn't see anything amiss at the house, but she didn't have a way to replace the fuse. So Clifford agreed to come over the following evening, which would been Friday, and replace it for her. But Clifford said that when he had gotten there Friday evening as planned, Belinda was nowhere to be found, though he didn't pay too much attention to it. The lake was nearby, so he figured maybe that's where she was. Plus, everything at the house seemed okay. So with no reason for alarm, Clifford replaced the fuse and left. And here he was now, coming to get her for a going away party. But she was MIA. After getting Clifford's statement, the deputy checked around the house for a bit and didn't notice anything terribly unusual. He noted Belinda's personal effects in the bathroom, though I'm not sure if Belinda had any clothes laying around the house. The reports don't say.

They only mention a pair of bibbed overalls, but they don't clarify whether those were Belinda's or not. And it does say that Dwayne mentioned he was missing a pink bedspread and three pairs of jeans. Nothing else, though, but that in and of itself was pretty od because Dwayne had quite a bit of expensive items in his home. Band instruments, recording equipment, stuff like that. And all of that was accounted for. And there was one particularly peculiar thing that the officer made note of. One of the windows on the back porch where the chickens were being kept. It had its wire screen cut. A whole 20 inch square was cut out of it. But for some reason, the deputy was determined that no one had entered the home through that window. This is all the report says.

Entry had not been made through the window.

That's it. No more info. I don't know if Dwayne said he'd cut the screen himself for whatever reason, or if it just didn't look disturbed, as if someone had shimmied their way through it. But whatever it was, this deputy was convinced that no one had gotten into the house that way. In fact, it didn't look like anyone had broken in at all. Looking around the house, the deputy didn't see anything to make alarm bells go off, so he wasn't ready to call in the search dogs and bring out the helicopters just yet. Belinda was, after all, 17. Teenagers do stupid things sometimes, like go hang out with friends without telling their parents. And that's the theory that this deputy was coming to. Especially because earlier, he had been called to a report of a mailbox vandalism and learned that there had been an all night party nearby, about 2 miles from Dwayne's place. So the deputy suggested to Clifford that maybe that's where Belinda had run off to. Clifford said he'd check around with all of Belinda's friends to see if they knew her whereabouts. And he also agreed to go through Belinda's room to see if she was missing any clothing.

Because if she was, then maybe this was a runaway situation. The following day, the deputies stopped by the van Lith residence to see if Clifford or his wife, Beverly, had any updates for him. But they said no. They still hadn't heard from or seen Belinda. And much to the deputy's surprise, they said they'd looked through her room, and she didn't appear to be missing any clothes. In their search, though, they had located Belinda's little address book. Where she kept her friend's names, numbers, and addresses. Maybe the deputy could take it and start talking to her friends to track her down. So Belinda's parents handed that book over to law enforcement. But before getting the whole community riled up, police decided to check around, you know, knock on doors and see if anyone there could fill in the gap of time between when Clifford last talked to his daughter on the phone and when Dwayne's mom showed up at the house. And they found that some of the neighbors had seen her. The last sighting was on Friday, at some point when she'd walked across the street to another cabin that belonged to a family of one of her friends.

Her friend wasn't home, though, so Belinda left without saying much. Although that was the last physical sighting of Belinda, it wasn't the last time someone had heard from her. When police began contacting her friends from that little address book, they learned that she had tried to call one of her closest friends, Debbie Holthouse. And that was around 05:00. P.m. On Friday. But when she called, Debbie wasn't home at the time. So Debbie returned Belinda's call at around 08:00 a.m. On Saturday morning. Debbie said that Belinda picked up the phone and there wasn't anything unusual about their conversation. She told police Belinda was just trying to reach her to let her know that she had a pair of earrings to give her. That's it. And that was just a mere 8 hours before Dwayne's mom had gotten to the cabin. When police were following up with Belinda's friends, her family was doing what they wished. Police would take the time to do foot searches. Since the onset of the investigation, Belinda's relatives questioned investigators'thoroughness and some family members felt that their concerns were ignored. Belinda's aunt, who asked to be referred to as Aunt Dee, told our reporter JC just how frustrating it was to feel like police weren't putting the time and energy into the investigation that they should have been.

The officers at that time did not do any media search. Why wouldn't they? Look, they had a belief that she had ran away. If a young girl ran away back in the day, you're going to take your class ring, you're going to take your personal affected. So why would she leave without those? So that would have been my first clue that she didn't go willingly. There was no reason to believe that she had left on her own. She was currently very involved with family things she was working on. She liked to sew and do things for the family. Just a very gentle, quiet soul. She would not have been running away or running to anything. She wasn't that kind of a person. So we never believed that she ran, ever.

The family's foot searches didn't turn up anything, much to the dismay of Belinda's relatives. But little did they know, investigators were slowly coming around to the possibility that maybe Belinda hadn't disappeared of her own accord and they already had started checking people's stories, beginning with Dwayne. Like I mentioned earlier, Dwayne didn't have the best track record with law enforcement. So if there was a person of interest list, Dwayne was going to be on it, and they wanted to vet his story, which was that he had left for Nashville on Monday, June 10, and then he left Nashville Friday the 14th, and returned home the evening of Saturday the 15th. So to start, investigators reached out to the hotel Dwayne claimed to have stayed at in Nashville. And it quickly became clear that something wasn't adding up because the hotel said, yeah, they had record of Dwayne staying there, but he checked out on Thursday the 13th, not the 14th, as he claimed.

This did not gel with Cornwell's previous statement. At the time, I felt that foul play could possibly be involved and that Cornwell was a definite suspect.

Before going all in on Dwayne, the detective asked the hotel to just double check. And while they were at it, to see if Wayne Hoffman, the bandmate Dwayne claimed to have gone to Nashville with, had stayed at the inn, too. While waiting to hear back, the detective checked in with Belinda's parents to see if they had any updates. And they did, but not anything good. Beverly told the detective that they had been through everything, and Belinda definitely wasn't missing any clothing. The only thing unaccounted for was her signature necklace, which was a troll on a leather strap that she always, always wore. They said even Belinda's bill fold was still at the house. With all of her money and her driver's license, there was no way she would have run away without that. But just when it seemed like there was foul play afoot and they had a promising suspect at their fingertips, police heard back from the Nashville hotel. Now, I don't know what news the hotel had, but this is what the deputy wrote in his report.

There was a clearance of Cornwell at.

That time, and he just doesn't elaborate. I don't know if the hotel was like, oh, yeah, we're totally mistaken. Dwayne did check out on Friday, not Thursday. Or if something else happened, or maybe he was staying in his bandmate's room. I just don't know. Now, what I do know is that at some point, police spoke with Wayne Hoffman, who was that bandmate, and he did confirm Dwayne's timeline. So maybe that is what led police to checking him off their list. Either way, with him essentially cleared, police were scratching their heads because if Dwayne wasn't responsible, then who was? They were hopeful that the answers were at Dwayne's house. Maybe there was something that the deputy missed in his initial once over of the home. So with the support of Belinda's family, investigators went back to Dwayne's place and did an area search, which proved fruitless. They didn't uncover any physical evidence, but one investigator did discover something interesting, and that was from a conversation he had with one of Belinda's relatives named Mark Van Lith. Now, truly, I don't know how exactly this Mark guy is related to Belinda. All I know for sure is that he was the same age as Belinda and that he's not a brother.

So I'm assuming maybe he's a cousin. But the police reports don't clarify, and Aunt Dee wasn't able to provide any more information for us either. Anyway, Mark said that he'd spoken with Belinda about a month prior, and she asked him an odd question. She asked what he would take with him if he wanted to take off. Mark said at the time he didn't think that she was for real, so he gave her some smart answer, and then that was that. She didn't bring it up again, and neither did he until now. So after this conversation, police were pretty well convinced of their initial theory.

My opinion of the missing girl is as follows. She could have taken off with a friend and set the disappearance up as has been described. This could have possibly explained the unlocked doors at the Cornwell residence and the no signs of violence at the Cornwell Place. However, this does not explain the fact that Belinda was not missing any clothing from the van Lith home or the Cornwell place. Nor does it explain the missing bedspread or the three pair of blue denim pants from the Cornwell residence. There is a possibility that on Friday evening or Saturday morning early, she could have been visited by a close friend and left the Cornwell house willingly.

Conveniently enough, right around the time of this report, Dwayne suddenly and magically located those missing blue jeans. But he still hadn't found the pink bedspread, though that didn't seem to mean much to investigators, given what they perceived to be a pile of evidence at this point, that she'd run away. And that so called evidence continued stacking up a couple of days later, which is now a full week after Belinda's disappearance, because that's when a local teen called into the station and dropped a bombshell. He said he saw Belinda on the Monday after she went missing. She was allegedly hitchhiking with another girl heading toward the Twin Cities. This kid said he was sure that one of the girls was Belinda, said he saw her face, but he wasn't 100% sure who the other person was. He thought maybe it was another girl named Diane Schleife, but he couldn't say one way or another. According to the police reports that we obtained, investigators reached out to Diane, which wasn't hard since her contact information was in that little address book Belinda's parents had handed over to them. Now, it doesn't appear that police asked her directly about this hitchhiking thing, but they did ask if she had any idea where Belinda was, and she said she didn't.

So maybe the second hitchhiker wasn't Diane. Or maybe the whole tip was bogus. I'm not sure what investigators'opinions were about that at the time, but it seems like they just dropped it. And after that, things seem to go a bit quiet because there's a gap in time where no reports are created, no tips are added to the file. And in that time, the divide between law enforcement and Belinda's family widened. The sheriff's office was firm in their stance that she ran away, but her family was sure she didn't, especially because of the timing. You see, that Sunday, the day everyone realized she was missing, it was her father's birthday. On top of it being her sister's graduation and going away party, her sister.

Was leaving for the military. She was joining the reserve. So again, Belinda would not have left that weekend. She would have stayed for the party. If this was a choice to run.

It seems so clear in hindsight that it wasn't her choice to run. And it took another horrific crime to shock police out of their theory and get them to reconsider everything they thought they knew. Around the holidays that year, 18 year old Timothy Crosby, who went by Tim, was arrested in St. Paul, Minnesota, in connection with a horrific, violent crime. He had picked up a hitchhiker in St. Paul, kidnapped her, taken her back to his parents cabin, made her put on another woman's clothes that he brought with him, and sexually assaulted her. And believe it or not, that cabin he took her to was right across the street from Dwayne's residence, literally a hundred yards away. After taking the victim to that cabin, Tim drove her to a nearby park, which, by the way, just so happened to be the park where investigators had found some abandoned women's clothing a few months prior. Now, this clothing hadn't been officially connected to Belinda's case, but it seems that police were eyeing it as something to consider because it's in her case file. Now, there's no mention of this clothing after they find it in the case file, but JC and I can't shake the feeling that there's something there, especially considering Tim's connection to this park and the fact that he made this other girl wear another woman's clothes.

Now, naturally, once Tim's horrific kidnapping case came to light, he was immediately considered a suspect in Belinda's disappearance. And although this was the first time Tim was coming on their radar as suspicious, it wasn't the first time his name was in Belinda's case file. Because remember that neighbor that police talked to in the early days of the investigation who said Belinda had come over and asked to talk with one of her friends? Well, that neighbor she talked to was Tim. Before going to talk directly to Tim, police wanted to see what his neighbors remembered about his behavior the week Belinda vanished. And those neighbors didn't disappoint. One said they knew Tim had been staying at the cabin alone that week, and at one point, they knew that Tim had gotten stuck in a pile of mud or something. Another neighbor said the same thing. Tim had gotten stuck in mud or something like it, and his car reeked of cow manure. That same neighbor also said that Tim didn't speak well of the van lith girls, even though police would learn from talking with the van liths that Tim knew their family well and often went fishing with them.

Naturally, Tim quickly rose to the top of their suspect list. But before reaching out and talking with him, investigators wanted to see what they could find as far as physical evidence. Now, personally, if I was a detective looking for evidence, I'd be like, well, let's check his parents'cabin. The one right across the street from Dwayne's place, where Belinda was last known to be. The same cabin that he himself said that she came to looking for his sister shortly before she vanished. But for some reason, police decided to get a search warrant for his primary residence in St. Paul, his parents'house. And maybe this is worth noting, tim's dad was at the time a sergeant with the St. Paul PD, so I'm sure that complicated matters. Regardless, investigators were successful in getting a search warrant for Tim's parents'place. And what they found was interesting, to say the least. In Tim's parents'house, they found a stack of detective magazines. And in Tim's room, specifically, they found two metal padlock boxes, inside one of which, they found a canceled check to someone named Kramer with the date of Belinda's disappearance. And get this. A list of about 50 ways to dispose of a body, and one of those listed methods.

Putting the body in a manure pile. Did your jaw drop a little just then? Yeah. Mine, too, when I first read it. I mean, deputies had just been told that Tim had mud or some kind of manure caked on his car that week. Either this was the biggest coincidence of the century, or Tim was their guy. So now it was time to talk to Tim. And on January 14, they sat him down for a brief interview.

On this date at 05:00 p.m.. I had a short discussion with Tim Crosby. I gave him the Miranda warning, which he said he understood, and informed me that he had a lawyer who advised him not to say anything about the incidents in which he was charged. I told him that I wished to discuss another matter with him and that was the Belinda van lith case, that she was missing under unusual circumstances. Tim stated that he would talk about that case as he had nothing to do with her disappearance, but that he certainly understood why we would be suspicious of him under these circumstances. I asked him how long he had been staying at the cabin around the 15 June, and he said he was there for sure on Friday, which would be the 14th. He said he couldn't remember but may have been there all week. He said he saw Belinda on Friday when she came down and asked Tim if his sister was coming out this weekend. Tim said that he told Belinda that he would call home and see. He said he did not see Belinda again. He said that on Saturday night, he went to Silver Creek where he got blasted and got lost on the way home and got stuck in a manure pile.

He said he could not remember the name of the farmer who pulled him out and that his uncle helped him find this farmer so that he could pay him for pulling him out. He said he paid him by check and would have the canceled check at home. He said he got out early Sunday morning and got back to the cabin about the same time his parents arrived. I told him that in the light of the seriousness of his charges and the mysterious disappearance of Belinda van Lith on the weekend when he got stuck, that I would like him to take a polygraph test. He said he would have to talk to his attorney about that, that he has had so many tests lately that he does not care to take anymore.

Tim was right in his statement. Police would and already had found that canceled check in his house, which, by the way, back in the 70s, if you paid someone with a check, the bank would actually mail that check back to you once the person deposited it so you could keep it basically as a receipt for your records. So that's what they meant by canceled check here. But anyway, after chatting with Tim, police tracked down his uncle, who was able to help them figure out where this manure farm was that Tim got stuck at. It ended up being about 8 miles away from the Crosby family cabin. Investigators went and spoke with the farm owners, who recalled the incident with Tim. Well, even though it was months prior by this point, they said the poor guy veered off the road trying to pull a yui and got stuck in their manure pile. Now, the farmers couldn't give police an exact date that this happened, but said that it was roughly mid June. After getting stuck, Tim had flagged down the farmers and they were able to get his car freed from the pile. And interestingly enough, the farmers didn't mention anything about Tim appearing intoxicated.

But after getting unstuck, Tim then got stuck in the cornfield and had to be rescued again. The farmers say they didn't recall seeing anyone else in the car with Tim, but they also weren't paying attention. They were focused on getting the teenager out of their field. Not long after meeting with the farmer, investigators got some surprising news. Tim was agreeing to be polygraphed, so they got a test set up ASAP before he changed his mind.

Have you told me the complete truth about your knowledge of Belinda's disappearance?

Yes.

Do you know if someone caused Belinda's disappearance?

No.

Did you cause Belinda's disappearance?

No.

Were you with Belinda when she disappeared?

No.

Do you know if Belinda is alive?

No.

Did you assault Belinda at the time she disappeared?

No.

Do you know if Belinda is dead?

No.

Did you cause Belinda's death?

No.

Were you with Belinda when she disappeared?

No.

Are you responsible for Belinda's disappearance?

No.

Do you know if someone buried Belinda's body?

No.

Did you bury Belinda's body?

No.

At your request, Timothy Joseph Crosby was examined on the polygraph, a detection of deception technique. The subject was examined for the purpose of ascertaining if he possessed any undisclosed knowledge of the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of Belinda van Lith on or about June 15, 1974. After careful analysis of this subject's polygrams, it is the opinion of the examiner that he did not tell the complete truth.

Today, we know that polygraphs aren't the most reliable. And modern day investigators use the test just as conversation starters. But back in the 70s, these things were as good as gold. But here's the weird thing. I can't find any immediate follow up with Tim after this polygraph. Like, I see no interview where he was confronted with these results, and I have no idea why. Maybe they wanted to get more physical evidence against him before shoving the results in his face. Maybe we just didn't get some of the records because they were held back or lost. Or maybe things with Belinda's case were put on the back burner because the legal proceedings for the other horrific crime he allegedly committed were heating up. Later that spring, Tim ended up taking a plea deal and was convicted of aggravated kidnapping while possessing a firearm. Because of his psychological evaluation. He was sentenced to a specialized treatment program at a local health facility, and sadly, after all the hubbub surrounding the kidnapping case died down, things continued to fizzle with Belinda's case, and eventually it went ice cold. With each passing year, Belinda's case faded deeper and deeper into the background.

Before anyone knew it, the 70s gave way to the there was still no sign of Belinda, nor her case being solved, and there were glimmers of hope here and there, like in 1992, when investigators decided it was high time to revisit their prime suspect, Tim, and they actually sat down with him for another interview. For seemingly the first time, investigators officially informed Tim that he was a suspect in Belinda's disappearance, and he acted kind of weird. He didn't deny his involvement, but he didn't admit to anything either. He just said, when you find her.

Are you going to apologize?

After that cryptic statement, Tim claimed one of his acquaintances saw Belinda in Monticello after she was reported missing, and he.

Then said, there's no law saying I have to talk to you, so I'm ending this.

He was right. They couldn't force him to talk. With their lead suspect clamming up, Belinda's file went back on the shelf to collect dust until a decade later in 2002, when a relative of Belinda's came forward to police and brought an entirely new suspect on their radar. Next week in part two of this episode, I'll tell you everything we know about this new suspect and where the investigators went next in a desperate attempt to find Belinda or her killer. So please tune in next week when I'm back with the rest of Belinda's story, which couldn't be further from over. Until then, if you know anything about the disappearance or murder of Belinda van Lith in 1974, please call Crimestoppers of Minnesota at 1802 two Tips. That's 1802 28477. You can also submit a tip online through Crimestoppers. I'll put a link to that in the show notes and on the blog post. Belinda was five, 5110 pounds with blue eyes and light brown hair. She was last seen wearing a leather strap necklace with a troll pendant. She would be 66 years old today. The deck is an audio Chuck production with theme music by Ryan Lewis.

To learn more about the deck and our advocacy work, visit thedeckpodcast.com. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve.