Jillian Dee "Jill" Cutshall was a young girl living in the Midwest. Born to Joyce and Roger Cutshall, her parents had since divorced and Joyce was granted full custody, though she worked out a custody-sharing agreement with Roger allowing Jill to spend time living with him. In the summer of 1987, Jill was staying with her father and stepmother at the McNeely Apartments in Norfolk NE. She was 9 years old.

(images courtesy of the Charley Project)

At 6 AM on the morning of August 13, Roger Cutshall and his wife left their home, leaving Jill by herself. According to the stepmother, Jill was awake and in her pajamas (with street clothes also laid out nearby) when they left. The stepmother also said that there was an "arrangement" for Jill to leave the apartment around 8 AM and walk to a babysitter's house around 4 blocks away; if the babysitter wasn't there to let her in, Jill would "let herself in" using a key in the mailbox.

For whatever reason, Jill appears to have left much earlier than usual. Two witnesses saw a girl resembling her "walking down a Norfolk street" around 6:30 AM. Then at some point between 6:30 and 6:45 AM, a separate witness who passed by the babysitter's house saw a girl that looked like Jill sitting on the steps outside. This same witness passed by the house going the opposite direction about 5 minutes later and did not see the girl. If that girl indeed was Jill, it should of course be asked why Jill didn't go inside despite knowing how to let herself into the house. Sometime between 7:30 and 7:50 AM, the babysitter's boyfriend left the house and did not see Jill at any point.

When Jill's stepmother clocked out at 3 PM, she went to the babysitter's house to pick up Jill, only to find that Jill had never made it. She and Roger both contacted several friends and relatives to see if any knew Jill's whereabouts; none did. Finally, they reported her missing to the Norfolk Police Department.[1]

Numerous searches by multiple police agencies and private citizens were conducted, all coming up empty. Then on November 7, 1987, a hunter in the Wood Duck Recreation Area (in Stanton County NE, slightly southeast of Norfolk) stumbled onto clothes, shoes, and keys that were identified as belonging to Jill. The clothes were the same ones that Jill had laid out that morning and also matched what she was seen wearing in the "last firm sighting" of her, sitting on the babysitter's steps. Purportedly, no forensic clues ("fingerprints, semen, blood, hairs, or fibers") were found in an FBI inspection of this evidence, and a search of the wildlife preserve turned up nothing either, least of all Jill herself.[1][2]

Norfolk police investigators turned their attention to tenants at the McNeely Apartments who might be suspects in the case. According to Joyce Cutshall, her daughter was afraid of staying in the apartment by herself because it was "seedy, noisy, filled with transients". That gives a bit of a hint as to who might have been in close proximity to Jill, and explains why she would have left so early that morning...though it doesn't explain why Roger saw it fit to leave his 9-year-old daughter in such a place by herself.[3]

One of the suspects who made it to the top of the pile was Kermit Baumgartner, who resided at the McNeely Apartments during the same timeframe that Jill did. Baumgartner, who was days away from turning 61 at the time of Jill's disappearance, had served about a half-year sentence for 2nd degree sexual assault before being released on March 21, 1987. His name had come up in multiple tips to police and he had been interviewed several times without any real results. On March 24, 1988, Det. Steve Hecker interviewed Baumgartner for the fourth time, in a much more accusatory fashion than before. Nothing directly incriminating turned up in the interview, but Baumgartner promptly thereafter quit his job and moved out of his apartment, seemingly attempting to vanish from the police's radar.

Trying to locate Baumgartner again, Hecker eventually managed to find his car at a new residence in Norfolk, where Baumgartner was hanging out on the porch with a woman and a man. Then, for some reason, despite his intention being to speak with Baumgartner, Hecker decided to call over the man with Baumgartner and treat him like a suspect. This man, David Phelps, allegedly responded by connecting himself to the Cutshall case unprompted, stating that he had lived in the McNeely Apartments and knew Jill's father and stepmother. Later investigation found they did know him "by a different name".[4][1]

While Phelps was undoubtedly known to the Cutshalls who resided at McNeely, the exact nature of the connection is less clear. Phelps' clearest connection to McNeely was through Baumgartner, with whom he had been in a sexual and romantic relationship; it would therefore not be surprising for him to have spent a fair amount of time at the apartment complex. (Note that Phelps was just 23 years old at the time of Jill's disappearance, much younger than his partner.) If Hecker's various interviews of Phelps throughout April are to be believed, Phelps repeatedly evolved his story about his living situation, only claiming by the end of the month that he had ever resided at the McNeely Apartments (with individuals other than Baumgartner) during the time Jill disappeared. But him being known to the Cutshalls suggests that his initial claims to Hecker at their first meeting were the truest; indeed, the Lincoln Journal Star claimed in 1990 that he and Baumgartner were living together at the time Jill resided there and both "reportedly met Jill then". Phelps volunteered to Hecker in their first encounter that he had babysat Jill as well.[1][3]

Before his April 29 interview in which he at least admitted to staying at the McNeely Apartments, Phelps had claimed to be living in a tent on the property of a Norfolk resident named Ray Schoen. Indeed, Phelps had supposedly moved onto the Schoen residence immediately before Jill's disappearance, on August 12. When Phelps was ultimately charged for kidnapping Jill, Schoen testified at the trial to provide him an alibi, as did Brian Pinkelman, a former sex partner of Phelps' who had allegedly been staying with him on the Schoen residence during this time. As the supposed alibi goes: Schoen met Phelps for the first time on August 12 and allowed him to sleep in his home that night; the two men were joined by Pinkelman for coffee the next morning (when Jill vanished) and then moved lawns for Schoen's lawn service business until noon; and Phelps and Pinkelman stayed together in a tent on Schoen's yard for 2 weeks after that. Pretty good alibi, but wholly reliant on the credibility of the two witnesses.

Curiously, in the period immediately following Jill's disappearance, both Schoen and Pinkelman showed suicidal ideation: Schoen threatened it and Pinkelman wrote a suicide note.[1][5][6]

Perhaps the most disturbing of Phelps' statements were his rather candid admissions of pedophilia in April 22 statements to Hecker. He spoke openly about his sexual preference for girls between the ages of 4 and 6, discounting the notion that he would have done anything to the 9-year-old Jill Cutshall because she was "too old" for him (🤮). And he related multiple sexual assaults that he committed on young girls, some that Phelps kept vague but some with enough specificity to perhaps identify the victims if investigators were willing to dig. Yet there is no indication that the Norfolk police investigated his offenses or even reported them to the law enforcement agencies where the assaults occurred.

After speaking to Phelps throughout April 1988, Hecker was convinced that he had something to do with Jill's disappearance.[7] Proving it to the point of being able to arrest and charge Phelps, however, was another matter. In the fall of 1988, Joyce Cutshall was interviewed by a journalism student at a local college that happened to be Phelps' sister, who informed Joyce about how her brother was a suspect. Joyce gave the lead to private investigator Roy Stephens, who had been "on the case since the beginning" providing investigative services to her.[3][1]

Roy Stephens was a curious figure, and it gets more interesting considering the obscure but important role he would play in the Franklin scandal only a couple years later. He worked for the Interstate Bureau of Investigation (IBI), a PI firm based in Omaha, but he had lied to get his PI license by omitting a 1976 burglary conviction from his application; this ultimately came out during Phelps' trial. When John DeCamp (a mightily suspicious figure in his own right) began representing Franklin victim Paul Bonacci, he hired Stephens "to check out Bonacci's story on [Johnny] Gosch and on other things". DeCamp's book calls Stephens a "former safecracker who went straight" but makes no mention of him lying about that history, and lauds him for helping to solve the Jill Cutshall case but omits all of the highly problematic things done by Stephens that I'm about to describe below. The hilarious cherry on top is that DeCamp cites an accolade given to Stephens by none other than Watergate burglar G. Gordon Liddy.[8]

Stephens' involvement in the Johnny Gosch investigation undoubtedly turned up a lot of valuable information that helped bring his mother Noreen Gosch closer to the truth. But Stephens also seems to have initially been complicit in keeping Noreen in the dark about the investigation on behalf of her suspect then-husband Leonard John Gosch. Back in 1990, not long after Bonacci confessed involvement in Johnny's abduction, LJG came to visit him in the prison and kept in contact with Stephens as he looked into Bonacci's story. Noreen, however, didn't learn about Bonacci until multiple months into 1991. When she became aware of the full extent of what had been going on behind her back, she demanded an answer from Stephens, who became "sheepish" and "kept looking at John Sr. for an answer".[9]

Noreen later discovered that LJG met several individuals from the Franklin investigation (such as John DeCamp and Judianne Densen-Gerber) with a woman by his side who pretended to be Noreen but was not her. When Noreen herself met these people for the first time, they made references to past meetings with "her" and LJG that she was not a part of, revealing her ex-husband's subterfuge. Ultimately, Noreen received a tip from an Omaha resident on who this impersonator was. It turned out to be another PI who had worked alongside Roy Stephens. Noreen included a photograph of this impersonator in her book, and my own investigation has identified the woman as Roy Stephens' partner at IBI: Diane Robinette.[10]

It was Stephens' involvement in the Cutshall case while working for IBI that first helped him carve out a name for himself in the world of missing children investigations. Sometime around the summer of 1988, the Missing Youth Foundation formed in Omaha, with Joyce Cutshall becoming a director and spokeswoman.[11] By winter of that year, they had hired Stephens as a Foundation investigator "to aid families and law enforcement officials in missing-child cases", almost certainly a result of his prior involvement with a pivotal member of the Foundation.[12] Stephens soon became the public face of the Missing Youth Foundation, rising to executive director by no later than the early 90s and even being identified as the "founder" (unclear if that's sloppy/revisionist history or a sign that he was involved behind the scenes from the beginning) in a 1998 news article.[13]

In October 1988, Stephens met with David Phelps for the first time. Phelps was reportedly very cagey on that occasion and denied even knowing Jill, contradicting his prior statements to law enforcement. Stephens met with Phelps again in December, this time for a recorded interview. On the audiotape, Phelps admitted his past sexual assaults of children, and mentioned his relationship with Kermit Baumgartner but denied knowing him at the time of Jill's disappearance.[1]

And it is here, entering into the new year of 1989, where Stephens' tactics towards Phelps became extreme. On January 4, 1989, Stephens and his partner Diane Robinette drove up to Phelps in public, asked him to accompany them to help with something, and then took him to the Wood Duck wildlife preserve where Jill's clothing had been found. Upon their arrival, Stephens handed Phelps a shovel and directed him to use it to find Jill's buried body. Phelps denied any such knowledge, and they began walking around the preserve, with Stephens periodically yelling at Phelps to ask where Jill was. Stephens purportedly even made direct threats as they walked around, intimating that they would not leave without finding Jill and stating "I could kill you right here and nobody would ever find you".

Finally, Stephens outright lost his temper. He grabbed a handgun that he had given to Robinette at the start of their walk, fired it into the air, and remarked "300 pound men don't like nature walks". Phelps then immediately began to supply information in line with what Stephens seems to have wanted, claiming that he "heard" Jill's body was buried in a particular area of the Wood Duck preserve. They drove to the area and Phelps dug for about 20 minutes without success before breaking down and telling Stephens he was ready to confess. He told a story, captured on audiotape, of how Baumgartner already had Jill captive in his vehicle and asked him (Phelps) to assist. They drove to Wood Duck, where Phelps held Jill down as Baumgartner molested her. Phelps claims that he got "aroused" but also nervous, so he left in Baumgartner's vehicle while Baumgartner stayed at the preserve with Jill.[1][14]

Returning to Norfolk that afternoon, Stephens and Robinette brought Phelps to a motel to meet with representatives of KMTV in Omaha, who had come at Stephens' request that morning. On the way back, Phelps is said to have acted relieved to have finally told the story but scared of what Baumgartner might do to his wife and daughter; as a result of this, Phelps waited at the motel with Robinette and the KMTV personnel while Stephens moved Phelps' family to Phelps' half-sister's residence. Phelps then repeated the story he had told Stephens on a videotaped interview with the KMTV crew. The cameraman insisted that no threats were made to Phelps at any point, but it should be noted that Stephens and Robinette "also were in the room" throughout the entire interview. And Stephens had his gun on him at the time, which he claimed was only for "protection".[1][15]

Stephens contacted Joyce Cutshall, who in turn contacted the Norfolk police. Police detectives Steve Hecker and Herb Angell arrived at the motel and picked up a consenting Phelps for questioning. Originally, Phelps told the same story he had told Stephens and KMTV, but then he recanted and claimed he fabricated the story under duress from Stephens. He requested an attorney, who arrived and met with Phelps, but somehow, questioning was then able to resume and Phelps once again made the same self-incriminating statements. Even Hecker seemed dubious enough to ask Phelps "what really happened", at which point Phelps adopted his earlier denial of involvement from his initial interviews with Hecker. Phelps began to talk about his memory issues surrounding August 13, and said he might have done something he couldn't remember, which was finally enough to make his attorney put a stop to the questioning.[1]

It certainly does seem like Phelps was the victim of a coercive interrogation by PIs operating outside the restrictions of law enforcement procedure. Without a doubt, Stephens and Robinette were far from forthcoming about their interrogation of Phelps. It was noted by the appellate court that the pair "consciously omitted any reference to the gun in any of their reports to the Norfolk police". Stephens testified, as did Robinette, that he only fired his gun out of "frustration" over their fruitless search for Jill. Yet I (while tracking down the Noreen impersonator story) had a chance to speak with Robinette, who gave me a different account. She claimed that Stephens had only fired the gun because he had lagged behind her and Phelps and wanted to signal them to slow down. Not only does this contradict the motivation stated at trial, but it contradicts Robinette's testimony of how Phelps was in the lead with her and Stephens following behind, as well as her testimony about how Stephens took the gun from her just before firing it (which he obviously could not have done if he was lagging behind her).[1][16][14] When Stephens and Robinette weave such a contradictory web about their interrogation of Phelps, it becomes pretty clear that something shady happened, even if they won't admit it.

Stephens' tactics were still not enough to push the case forward officially. In July 1989, the Norfolk Police Department reclassified the Jill Cutshall investigation as inactive, which outraged her mother Joyce.[17]

Then in April 1990, a story came out indicating that the Norfolk police had seemingly failed to investigate a substantial and credible lead about Jill's abduction. Sherrie Taylor, the wife of former Osmond NE police chief Gailyn Taylor, recalled something strange that she and her husband witnessed on the night of August 13, 1987. They were living in Omaha at the time, and while driving near the downtown around 11:30 PM, they noticed a car with Madison County NE (of which Norfolk is the largest city) plates. A young girl was in the passenger seat — which Taylor thought was unusual that late at night — and a man in his late 20s who seemed to be unnerved by the Taylors' presence was the driver. The next day, news broke about Jill Cutshall's disappearance and Taylor recognized Jill as the girl she had seen the previous night. She reported the sighting to Norfolk police, who never followed up.[18]

Sighting reliability is always a mixed bag, but the close correspondence in dates and the fact that the car was registered in Jill's home county of all places lends a fair bit of credence to this instance. Of course, if Jill was still alive by the night of her abduction and was transported as far away as Omaha, that points less towards a lone pedophile seeking a victim to later dispose of and more towards human trafficking.

In the meantime, Joyce was hard at work trying to force the state to act against David Phelps. Starting in December 1989, she had been collecting signatures on a petition to impanel a grand jury. Her efforts succeeded, and in June 1990, Phelps was indicted for abduction with intent to commit sexual assault. Phelps had since moved to Iowa and was extradited back to Nebraska to face these charges.[3]

Before the trial began, Phelps' defense lawyer David Domina asked the court for funds to check out numerous sightings of Jill Cutshall that had occurred elsewhere in the Midwest. He stated that the sightings were "apparently credible" and in a "chronologically and geographically significant cluster" around Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illinois. Domina harbored a strong suspicion that Jill might still be alive or at least had been alive and outside of Nebraska for some time after her abduction, either of which would undermine the lone predator narrative. In asking for the funds, Domina also attacked the prosecutor for "tardy disclosure" of police reports and indicated an intent to delay the trial which was initially set for December 1990. The judge granted half of the requested funds.[19][20]

Phelps' trial began in March 1991. One of the most pivotal pieces of evidence introduced at trial was the KMTV interview of Phelps on January 4, 1989 after his "nature walk" with Roy Stephens. Domina unsurprisingly argued that the statement was a result of intimidation by Stephens and therefore illegitimate.[21] Jurors, however, would be struck by how Phelps seemed to accurately describe Jill's clothing down to her underwear, which was the "nail in the coffin" for him.[22] Whether he actually did, though, I'm less sure of. The description of her shirt was public knowledge since 1987 when it was first found at the Wood Duck wildlife preserve.[2] He claimed her underwear was white with "[l]ittle swirls and stuff on them", when it was indeed white but had "numerous clown face or ice cream cone designs"; it is not clear that his description matched anything other than the color (which could have been guessed). And he described her as wearing shorts when the clothing she had on was "jeans"; technically it could be jean shorts, but again, it is far from clear that his statement truly lines up.[1]

The KMTV cameraman, Diane Robinette, and Roy Stephens all testified for the prosecution to back up the legitimacy of how Phelps' statement was obtained.[15][16][14] Unfortunately for Stephens, it also came out on cross examination that he had lied to the grand jury which indicted Phelps. Stephens testified under oath at the grand jury that he had informed police about his plan to bring Phelps to Wood Duck and interrogate him, but admitted this was untrue during the trial.[23] Of course, there is also the possibility that Stephens' initial story to the grand jury was the truth, and the police preferred not to be tied to an unhinged vigilante who had coerced a confession out of their suspect.

Kermit Baumgartner, who had since moved to Lodi CA, testified for the defense. He confirmed having been in a relationship with Phelps, but denied any involvement in Jill's kidnapping.[5] While this testimony did serve to poke a hole in the version of events that Phelps related to Stephens and KMTV, many on the prosecution's side already thought that Phelps had acted alone. In that case, Baumgartner's inclusion in the story would have just been a way for Phelps to "confess" while shifting most of the blame. Det. Steve Hecker claimed to have been convinced that Phelps acted alone since December 1989, conveniently just as Joyce Cutshall began working to impanel a grand jury.[7] The prosecutor claimed to believe the same after Phelps was ultimately convicted.[24] But Joyce herself believed as late as 2012 that Baumgartner was involved too, even though he purportedly had an alibi.[25] And some of Baumgartner's testimony was questionable, such as his claim to not know Jill at all[24] even though he lived in the same apartment as her and "reportedly met Jill then" per the Lincoln Journal Star[3].

Domina then brought on the aforementioned Ray Schoen and Brian Pinkelman to testify as alibi witnesses for Phelps. How much good this testimony did for Phelps is unclear, as both witnesses exhibited fuzzy memories. Pinkelman actually, believe it or not, claimed to have been suffering memory loss issues due to being hit in the head with a frying pan.[5][6][1]

While there is not much detail on this in news accounts, Domina also maintained his strategy of raising doubt as to whether Jill truly was abducted and disposed of by a lone predator in Nebraska. Jurors remembered hearing testimony from "people who claimed to have seen Jill alive and living in Iowa". Such evidence, however, was not enough to sway them from their belief in Phelps' guilt.[22]

The trial came to an end and went to the jury on March 19. Prosecution closing arguments focused on Phelps' multiple inconsistent stories, while defense closing arguments focused on what they deemed a coercive interrogation by Roy Stephens.[26] Just a day later, the jury handed down a conviction.[24]

Phelps appealed on two main points: the improperly-obtained confession and prejudicial evidence about his past child sex offenses being admitted. It should be noted that his appeal did not deny any of these offenses, but rather argued that they were too far in the past and involved "consenting children" (🤮). His appeal was rejected on October 16, 1992.[1]

The news surrounding Jill's case wasn't over yet, though. A strange epilogue occurred a couple years later when none other than Roger Cutshall was arrested for child sexual assault. In June 1995, Jill's father was charged for "having sexual contact with a 14-year-old girl".[27] Roger pleaded guilty that October, facing a maximum potential sentence of 5 years. Madison County District Judge Richard Garden (who had also presided over Phelps' trial) gave him between 2 and 5 years with eligibility for parole after just 1 year.[28][29] Roger was paroled after just 22 months.[30] And that was that.

David Phelps has remained in prison to this day. Multiple appeals of his since then have all failed:

• He tried to get court-ordered DNA testing on the evidence found at Wood Duck, but his request was denied all the way to the Nebraska Supreme Court.[31]

• In March 2012, the family of John Oldson, who was being charged in Valley County NE for the 1989 murder of Cathy Beard, received a diary with supposed exculpatory evidence. It detailed a ranch near Chambers NE where four women and girls had been imprisoned and raped by the diary author, her husband, and his brother. Aside from "Kathy", another victim named in the diary was "Jill Dee" (the first and middle names of Jill Cutshall), whom they had picked up from Fremont NE where she was walking without any clothes. Incidentally, one Cutshall case witness did see "a girl resembling Jill leave a Fremont hotel with an older man the day after her disappearance". The diary was labeled a hoax by authorities, who also claimed to have found nothing while searching the ranch in question; Oldson's defense lawyer, on the other hand, maintained it had too much accurate and obscure information about the women/girls. Phelps filed an appeal based on the diary, which was rejected by the state because he ran out of time to introduce new evidence in his case. Asked for comment, Phelps' trial lawyer David Domina did not believe the diary was genuine, but found the idea that Jill "was kidnapped and sold to an unpleasant life" to be plausible.[32][33]

• Starting in May 2014, Phelps began seeking post-conviction relief at the federal level. He introduced multiple pieces of evidence, including the aforementioned diary (the alleged author was identified as Jean Backus) and a supposed jailhouse confessor who "had bragged about the Cutshall abduction and how he had gotten away with it". All claims were rejected by the Senior US District Judge for the District of Nebraska, Richard G. Kopf.[34] Those who have studied the Franklin scandal might recognize Kopf as the former federal magistrate who stashed Larry King in a mental health facility just as Franklin was heating up, thus protecting him from media scrutiny and subpoenas during that time.

All the while, Jill Cutshall has never been found, alive or dead.

Given his extreme creepiness and contradictory stories, I have little doubt that Phelps was connected to Jill's abduction in some way. But I harbor serious doubts that he was the only person involved, and suspect that Roy Stephens came in to force a simple resolution that would prevent further examination.

Some pertinent questions to ask:

• Why was Jill sitting on the babysitter's steps instead of letting herself in with the key, as she knew how to do? Had someone, with knowledge of her routine, misplaced the key in advance to leave her vulnerable out in the open?

• Did Jill's father, Roger Cutshall, have connections to the predators like Baumgartner and Phelps who lived at the McNeely Apartments? The Cutshalls did know Phelps and maybe Baumgartner as well, and Phelps might have even been allowed to babysit Jill at one point. And of course, Roger turned out to be a pedophile, making him fit right in with the sleazy McNeely crowd. If (per the above) there was any complicity among Jill's inner circle in arranging her abduction, I know who the first person I look at would be.

• To what extent was Kermit Baumgartner involved? Different pieces of evidence point towards and away from him. Nothing directly incriminating came up in his police interviews, but they did spook Baumgartner enough to quit his job and move out of his apartment. He seems to have been dishonest under oath by claiming he never knew Jill at all. On the other hand, it is rather convenient for Phelps to place most of the culpability on Baumgartner in his confession, especially when Baumgartner reportedly had an alibi. But Phelps also expressed seemingly-genuine fear for his and his family's safety from Baumgartner. The major age gap does raise questions about the power dynamic between the two. I find myself wondering if Baumgartner was some kind of behind-the-scenes orchestrator even if he wasn't directly involved.

• Why did Phelps' friends Ray Schoen and Brian Pinkelman both exhibit suicidal intentions shortly after Jill's disappearance? It sure seems like consciousness of guilt to me, and given how important they were to providing Phelps an alibi, I can't help but suspect they were involved in whatever unsavory activities he was. Schoen's alleged hospitality towards Phelps on August 12 certainly seems implausible if, as Schoen testified, they had only just met that day.

• How come no one tried to investigate any of the past child sexual assaults that Phelps freely admitted to? And come to think of it, why was Phelps so freely admitting them unless he had a reasonable amount of confidence that he would never be held responsible?

• Was Jill a victim of human trafficking? The sighting of her in Omaha on the night of her disappearance lends credence to her being trafficked; indeed, the fact that it was Omaha of all places suggests a possible Franklin scandal connection, which Roy Stephens would coincidentally be involved in investigating later. And those additional sightings of Jill throughout the Midwest once again point to an interstate pedophile network's involvement.

• Who did Roy Stephens really work for? Was he just a misguided and unprofessional investigator trying to solve a case? Or was he an even shadier figure, say a cover-up artist on behalf of a network like Franklin? His later actions on the Johnny Gosch case would seem to point to the latter, which could in turn (if the above point is true) explain his actions towards Phelps. I have heard from one source that Stephens was exactly this kind of fixer, and that he had a tendency to ruin every case he touched. More research needs to be done on him.

Until they are resolved, Jill Cutshall and her family remain without justice. And through the Roy Stephens connection, this is a dark cloud hanging over the Johnny Gosch abduction as well.

The weirdest thing I have discovered, which needs to be approached very delicately, is that Jill Cutshall might in fact be alive under a new identity. An individual looking into protected drug and prostitution activity in their Midwest city of residence ended up coming into contact with an adult woman in this network who looked uncannily like what Jill might look like as an adult. Past court records for this woman show that she suffered from schizophrenia and an attachment disorder. Looking into this individual, I found that not only she did indeed look oddly similar to Jill, but she goes by a variety of surnames and one of them is Cutshall. I am still deliberating where to go next with this information.

List of sources:

1. Nebraska Supreme Court, no. S-91-577: State v. Phelps, decision on appeal, 1992/10/16

2. Lincoln Star, "Hunter finds clothing worn by missing girl", 1987/11/09

3. Lincoln Journal Star, "Norfolk mother seeks justice in daughter's disappearance", 1990/08/19 (pages 1, 9)

4. Norfolk Daily News, "No body, weapon or witnesses", 2012/08/14

5. Lincoln Journal Star, "Witness gives Phelps alibi", 1991/03/14

6. Des Moines Register, "Witness: Phelps mowed on day of kidnap", 1991/03/15

7. Omaha World-Herald, "Detective Says He Suspected Phelps Spotted in '88", 1991/03/21

8. John DeCamp, The Franklin Cover-Up, p.231

9. Noreen Gosch, Why Johnny Can't Come Home, p.128: "I called Roy Stephens to let him know that the TV coverage was everywhere concerning Bonacci. He decided to drive to Des Moines. When he arrived, I confronted him with the information I had just learned about Bonacci, John Gosch, and the visit to the prison. Roy acted very "sheepish" and kept looking at John Sr. for an answer. I knew there had been some type of collusion between them but neither one of them would talk about it."

10. Noreen Gosch, Why Johnny Can't Come Home, p.85-89

11. Lincoln Journal Star, "Iowan dedicates song to plight of missing kids", 1988/07/14

12. Lincoln Journal Star, "Missing youth group hires investigator", 1988/12/23

13. Greenville News, "Most victimized kids know attackers", 1998/08/10 (pages 1b, 5b)

14. Des Moines Register, "Witness: Phelps spoke about missing girl in interview", 1991/03/12

15. Omaha World-Herald, "Cameraman Tells Court Phelps Not Threatened", 1991/03/11

16. Lincoln Star, "Investigator fired gun in questioning Phelps", 1991/03/12

17. Lincoln Journal Star, "Mother still grieves for missing girl", 1989/08/13 (pages 1e, 5e)

18. Lincoln Star, "Woman says she saw Jill Cutshall in Omaha", 1990/04/04

19. Sioux City Journal, "Lawyer wants funds to find Jill Cutshall", 1990/11/20

20. Beatrice Daily Sun, "Judge grants funds to search for Jill Cutshall", 1990/11/23

21. Des Moines Register, "Jurors to watch video of suspect admitting his role in kidnapping", 1991/03/06

22. Norfolk Daily News, "No doubts in jurors' minds", 2012/08/16

23. Des Moines Register, "Investigator testifies he lied to grand jury", 1991/03/13

24. Sioux City Journal, "Cutshall trial won't help find body", 1991/03/28

25. Norfolk Daily News, "Where’s Jill? After 25 years, question still unanswered", 2012/08/13

26. Omaha World-Herald, "Prosecutor Says Defendent Gave Four Stories in the Cutshall Case", 1991/03/19

27. Lincoln Journal Star, "Father of Norfolk girl who disappeared accused in sexual assault", 1995/06/18

28. Lincoln Journal Star, "Cutshall pleads guilty to sexual assault", 1995/10/07

29. Lincoln Journal Star, "Missing child's father sentenced", 1995/11/18

30. Sioux City Journal, "Cutshall's father paroled", 1997/09/19

31. Sioux City Journal, "DNA testing requested by kidnapper denied", 2007/02/03

32. Norfolk Daily News, "New information dismissed as hoax", 2012/08/15

33. Omaha World-Herald, "Despite mysterious diary, court refuses to revisit kidnapping conviction", 2013/06/14

34. United States District Court for the District of Nebraska, Phelps v. Frakes, memorandum and order, 2016/09/30