Crime Junkie - MURDERED: Danielle "Gabby" Akers

Episode Date: September 10, 2018

In April of 2016, Danielle "Gabby" Akers's body was found in a creek bed 60 miles from her home. She had no clothes or personal belongings with her and its still unknown how she got so far from home without a vehicle. The family believes that someone murdered Gabby, but the investigation has stalled and no major media outlets are covering the case. The family is looking for some kind of closure and we hope someone listening to this episode may know something about what happened to Gabby. For current Fan Club membership options and policies, please visit https://crimejunkieapp.com/library/. Sources for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/murdered-danielle-gabby-akers/    

Hi, Crime Junkies, I'm your host, Ashley Flowers, and today is a little bit different because I am writing solo, but don't worry, Britt will be back next week. Today's case is one of the ones I like doing the most because you guys know how much we love covering cases that don't get coverage other places, and this is one of those.

We're gonna be talking about a local story that got barely a fleeting mention in the news. We're talking about the story of Danielle Gabby Akers. Gabby was a daughter, a sister, and a mother to two young kids, so when her body was found, 60 miles from her home, completely nude and in a creek, her sister knew something sinister had happened to her, but no one was taking the case seriously.

It's two years later and no one is talking about it, so we're gonna do that here today. Where does that daughter come from? How does that play out? Yeah, well, we just need to get through that, at least we'll be CONその blended time. Hi great and happy! We'll be right back.

Thank you. Let's go stop on a path we've been through while looking at each other on high ground. It's last time again that I noticed that void was right in this office, and I got kinda upset that I predicted that there would be a lot of polish on another rental. So that might be a good feature.

I Jin said this has been just like a whole concert You guys, like I mentioned, this case has never been done by any other podcast or radio station or TV station, and in fact there are barely even any news articles about this case. And the only reason I'm able to tell you Gabby's story is because her sister Brittany reached out to me. She said that after a couple of fleeting mentions in the paper about finding her sister's remains, no one else would cover the story again. She said they almost got a follow-up story on the anniversary of her death, but the story

ended up getting cut for something flashier and nobody is talking about it again. So like I mentioned in the intro, Gabby is found 60 miles from her home completely nude in a creek bed, but before I go deeper into how Gabby was found, I want to take you back a little and tell you about the days leading up to her disappearance. And I do want to note that I'm going to be changing the names of some of the people in this story because no one has been convicted of a crime or publicly announced as a person of interest, so we are going to try and protect the identities of these people until something more is known.

In late April 2016, Gabby's sister Brittany had just started a new job. About a week in, she gets a call from her brother wanting to know if she's heard from Gabby, and she says no, why? Gabby's gone missing. And I said, well, I said, no, I said, there's no way. I said, you know how Gabby is, she takes off every couple of days and you don't really get to, I was like, you know, most people don't really hear from her or talk to her, you know, for a couple of days, it's kind of normal.

But her brother told her this time was different. You see, Gabby had her cell phone service turned off, so she was only using her phone when she could get on Wi-Fi. So getting a hold of her was pretty spotty, and that wasn't abnormal for her family not to talk to her, but she always kept in touch with her best friend. And her brother said, see, this is the thing, even her best friend hasn't heard from her since April 20th. Brittany at this point is like, okay, it's not abnormal for her to drop off the grid

for a day or two, but an entire week had gone by and no one has heard from her. So something wasn't right. What we knew is that on April 15th, 2016, Gabby was with her very best friend. They actually went to the Shawshank prison because there are all kinds of rumors that it's haunted, and they were both super into stuff like that. But after she was with her friend on the 15th, Gabby told her, hey, listen, my cell phone service is spotty, but I'll be in touch. However, she wasn't hearing from her like she normally did.

So I contacted her aunt, I contacted her uncle, I talked to my dad, I mean, just everybody I could possibly think of, and there was nothing, and I said, okay. And so I had talked to my brother a couple of days later, and I said, or about, I think maybe later on that day, the next day, and I said, hey, I said, we've got nothing. I said, nobody knows where she's at. I said, has somebody filed a police report? Brittany is told, yes, Gabby's friend, who we're going to call Corey, did file a police report.

Corey was a friend that Gabby had known for some time, and Gabby used to say he was like a brother to her, and he thought of her in the same way. And he said, you know, she's like a sister, and I'm always looking out for her, and I wanted to protect her. Well, Brittany messages not his real name Corey on Facebook, and he says, yes, I did file a report. So Brittany calls IMPD, the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, to see if they have any updates, because really, it's a little weird that she's listed as a missing person, and

no one has even reached out to her or interviewed the family. So I had called IMPD, and I said, hey, you know, what's the, you know, my, this is my sister's name, you know, this is her date of birth. I heard that there was a police report, you know, missing persons report made, and they looked into the system, and they said, no, one's never been filed. And I said, well, what do you mean a police report was never filed? And she said, well, she said, we had an officer dispatched to the location where they were going to take the report, but the report was never made.

At that point, Brittany said she was in full panic mode, and she goes to see Corey. He said he basically called the police, tried to file, but when they showed up in person to take the report, he wouldn't let them into his house. You see, Corey had a history with drugs, and he had run-ins with the law. So he didn't want to entangle himself into this. But when police left, he just dropped it. He didn't let her family know that she was missing. He didn't get someone else to file the report.

In fact, he goes on telling people that the report is already filed, which confused and frustrated Brittany. And he always told me that she was like a sister to me. I love that girl. I would do anything for her. And it wasn't like a love relationship. It was like a sibling kind of thing is what he said. And the fact that he had claimed all these things, but lied to me and everybody else

saying that he filed this report and never did. To me, I said, OK. I said, this isn't right, and I'm done talking to you. Once Brittany realizes that her sister doesn't have a report on file, this becomes her number one priority. Brittany doesn't live in Marion County where her sister did. So right after work one day, she goes to meet an officer at an old restaurant off of Highway 31.

And the officer is taking the report, and then something happens. Brittany mentions Corey's name. And the second the officer pulls him up in his system, his entire demeanor changed. And his response was, well, maybe we'll find her in a traffic stop. Brittany said her sister's association with Corey immediately made them suspect that she was involved with drugs. And then that's why she was gone. So for the first few days, she had the report filed.

Not a lot happened from an investigative standpoint, but Brittany and her family were still trying to find Gabby. They got her picture and posted it all over Facebook. And she got a lot of people to share this, but no one was saying they knew where Gabby was. Then that Sunday, Brittany got a call from an unknown number down in Owen County, which is about 60 miles away from where Gabby lived in Marion County. We were kind of in the process of moving.

So, you know, and of course, I wasn't really thinking anything of it. And then I got a phone call. And my boyfriend at the time had come to me and he said, he said, hey, your phone's ringing. And I was like, just ignore it. I don't care. And he's like, no, you're going to want to take this call. And I was like, what are you talking about? And of course, you know, I'm not really in high spirits, but at the same time, I'm like

not too concerned that my phone's going off because I'm busy doing other things. And then I get on the phone and it's Stan Frank from Owen County Sheriff's Department. He was the corner. And he had said, hey, we believe that we may have found your sister. And at that point, my everything, I mean, I had stuff in my hands and everything just came crashing down. And I just fell to the floor and I said, what do you mean you found my sister? He said, well, do you know where Owen County is?

And I said, no, he said, well, it's in Spencer. And I was like, well, hold on a minute. I said, Spencer. I said, how much? I said, no, I said, no, no, no, no, that can't. That's not right. I said, where is Spencer? And he said, it's down by the Bloomington area.

And I said, OK, I said, now I think you're messing with me because how would she have even I was like, it just I had no words at that point. I was just like, your kid, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I think you've got the wrong person. And he said, well, he said, we looked at all of the pictures that you had posted. And we are 99.9 percent sure it's her. He said, is there any way you can come down and possibly make an identification? After Brittany got this call, she calls her brother to let him know what's going on and that she's going to be going down to Owen County to see if she can identify the body.

Well, her brother calls his sister and like a game of telephone, it spreads quickly until before Brittany has even left for Owen County, there's a post on Facebook saying that Gabby was found dead. And this leads to other posts within that period of time. A couple of other people had said that Gabby was found dead. She had rope burns on her arms and she was found on the side of the street. Now Brittany says, hold up, that is not the story. The coroner has told me nothing about how she was found.

So what do you know about all of this when I don't know anything? And she said that she had talked to more and more people and the rumor was spreading that these messages were basically originating from Gabby's boyfriend, who we're going to call Mark. Brittany had known about this boyfriend. They had been dating for a while and were even living together. But leading up to Gabby's disappearance, they had been fighting a lot. And Gabby had actually taken some stuff out of their place and anytime things would get

too bad, she would go stay with a friend who people called Sarge. The day she was last seen was actually one of those times when she was staying with Sarge. So with these rumors coming out, supposedly stemming from Mark, it makes Brittany very uncomfortable. And she's starting to think maybe someone who's posting this on Facebook knows what's going on. They know something, but we didn't know the whole story. I made a big post on Facebook and I said, look, I got a call, we're going to investigate

it. We're going to find out. But as of right now, this is all just speculation. We don't know if it's Gabby. So everybody just please stop, you know, for our family's sake, for Gabby's friends and family's sake, you know, just stop. We don't need this right now. Brittany eventually got down to Owen County and when she finally gets there, she isn't

allowed to see her sister's actual body. The coroner tells her that she's so badly decomposed that the only way they were able to recognize her was by her tattoos. They had actually compared those to pictures that Brittany had posted on Facebook. The coroner showed Brittany pictures of Gabby's tattoos in hopes that she could identify her sister just by those. The one that I knew for a fact was hers was this little heart that she had just below her neck and it had her daughter's name in it.

Another tattoo that she had was of her son's name and it didn't take anything for me to make that connection. Brittany knew that they had found her sister and she said when she saw those pictures, it took everything in her not to just run out of the building. But what she learns about the way her sister was found makes her all the more confused. It wasn't a scene like people were painting on Facebook. There were no restraints, but it did look very sinister. They found Gabby lying naked in Mills Creek, which is really in the middle of nowhere Indiana.

She had no ID, no clothes, no purse, nothing. She was actually found the same day that she had officially been reported missing by Brittany on the 29th, but it took them some time to actually make the connection. The coroner determined that she had likely died on the 26th and she had been in the creek for three days, which is part of the reason that she was so badly decomposed. And it's not surprising that she wasn't found for three days. Mills Creek is not a place you just stumble onto. You can't just find it on you can't just go to it.

If you don't know where it's at, if you don't live in that area, you're not going to know. It's on a road, but it's kind of like out in the middle of nowhere. The only people that really know that area are people that live in that area. According to Brittany, Gabby's cause of death was an overdose. And this was a little surprising to the family because Brittany said Gabby didn't mess around with hard drugs. It just, it didn't make sense that they had ruled her death as an overdose because Gabby didn't do drugs.

So I had asked my dad, I said, okay, I said, well, what drugs did they find in her? And he said 22 different combinations of drugs. According to what the family says, they were told by the sheriff's office that that kind of combination should have killed her very quickly. So there's no way a woman could take that many narcotics, strip naked and travel 60 miles. That kind of combination would knock you out in your tracks. And I got to thinking about that.

And I'm just like, okay, well, I mean, I understand that you can smoke pot, you can do meth and heroin all at the same time. And yeah, you're going to overdose. But the thing of it is, you're not going to take all your clothes off. You're not going to walk to the creek and just die. It just doesn't happen that way. I mean, you don't walk just 60 miles away from home. So the question becomes, who was she with?

And how did she end up alone, naked in a creek so far from home? Since Gabby was found, there have been more questions than answers. Over the last couple of years, Brittany and her family have slowly pieced together Gabby's final days. Now what we know is the last time anyone saw Gabby was on April 20th. Gabby had gotten a ride from her daughter's grandmother. Now that's not Gabby's mom, but rather her daughter's father's mom. So are you with me?

Now Gabby needed a ride back to Sarge's place on the 20th, because remember, that's where she was staying while her and her boyfriend at the time, Mark, were on the outs. But Gabby doesn't go right to Sarge's house. Instead, she asked to be dropped off at a gas station near his home, presumably because she wanted to pick something up from there. And Brittany said it wouldn't have been anything specific. It could have just been like a snack or a drink. She's not 100% sure.

Now Gabby isn't at the gas station long, when on surveillance video, she can be seen getting into a maroon colored car and leaving. Now a lot about this feels wrong to me, because if you remember, Gabby didn't have cell service on her phone, so she wouldn't have been able to call anyone to come pick her up. She wasn't seen using a phone inside the gas station. So who picked her up that day, and how would they have known when she was going to be there? Gabby's boyfriend, Mark, did have a maroon car, but it has never been confirmed that it was him who picked her up, or if it was even the same car.

But whoever that was that picked Gabby up, however long she was with them, we do think that she ended up getting back to Sarge's house somehow. Because after she went missing, all of her stuff was found there. And not just the stuff that she had taken there from her home when her and her boyfriend were fighting, Sarge was also in possession of her purse and the clothes that she was wearing when she was last seen on that surveillance footage on the 20th. He was trying to just get rid of all her clothes, and when they had done an investigation at his house, he had gotten rid of almost everything.

It wasn't only her clothes that he was emptying out of his house. Shortly after Gabby went missing and was later found, Sarge decided to move to Northern Indiana. Our other sister, Tina, she had said that she had saw Sarge prior, and he was in the process of moving to Northern Indiana, which is where he is now. And she said that when she saw his van, he had it lined with plastic. And she had asked what the plastic was for. And he said, well, I'm moving, and I don't want to get the van dirty. And I'm like, well, who lines their vehicle with plastic?

And so she had saw him a couple of days later, and all the plastic was gone. Now, another very interesting thing to note about Sarge is he actually has ties to the area where Gabby's body was found. And if you'll remember, we said that that area is very, very remote and kind of in the middle of nowhere. It's not something you stumble onto. Gabby's family thinks it's very likely that she was taken there by somebody who was familiar with the area.

In addition to Sarge's departure from the area and the plastic in the van, there are rumors going around in this area that he was part of some kind of drug operation. There are unconfirmed reports of IV bags being around his home, which would fit well into the story we're telling today. But unfortunately, I can't find anyone who would confirm this for me. And that's part of the problem with cases like these. A lot of Gabby's case revolves around people who ran in the same circle and who were connected to drugs.

A local detective once told me that in cases involving people linked to drugs, the only way you get answers are if people get clean. Even if they have nothing to do with the crime themselves, they are terrified to talk and be known as the snitch because they're terrified of getting their supply cut off. Nothing to them is more important than getting their necks fixed and they will stay quiet forever. And I think we see this firsthand in Gabby's case when Corey failed to complete the report. Everyone in this case seems to be tied together or to the drug scene, but it's not a linear

connection and it's hard to draw a straight line. Because you see, Sarge isn't the only suspect in this case. I, in my heart, I believe that he had something to do with it. But there was also other people that were suspects, but whether or not they were investigated, we don't know. There was another man in Gabby's life who we will call Sal for this episode. Who had constantly threatened to kill Gabby. And Gabby even had a restraining order on him.

And he also has tie, the same ties as Sarge does. And it's just this, this is just massive amount of people that are all tied together that all knew Gabby. Brittany says Gabby was actually frequently paranoid about what Sal might do to her. He had an obsession with Gabby. He had an absolute obsession. This thing was, if he couldn't have Gabby, nobody could. You know, she had said, well, you know, my ex-boyfriend is constantly trying to kill

me all the time. You know, this and that. And I'm just like, Gabby, seriously, come on. Like, why would somebody be trying to constantly kill you? And I never really took that into legitimate consideration. But now Brittany thinks anything could be a possibility. She said although she thought Gabby might have been just over exaggerating at the time, she always thought that Gabby had a poor choice in men and she was constantly getting into

relationships that just weren't safe. And her latest relationship with Mark seemed to be just another example of that. He's another person that looks like a really good suspect and who has ties to the same kind of scene. Shortly before Gabby went missing, her best friend even got a voicemail that she ended up turning over to the sheriff's office. It was a voicemail that documented one of the last fights they had. Here's Gabby's friend, Addie.

I can't remember the day, it was March, they were 15th or 17th, but she had called and I was on the highway and I texted her and told her that I was about wherever I was going. Because we had the windows down and I couldn't hear in the car and I told her that I'd call her back as soon as I got to wherever I was. And at the time I didn't even listen to the voicemail yet. I got there and listened and most of it you couldn't understand what was being said. It was almost like she butt dialed me and but as you could hear I was just screaming.

You could hear him screaming and then her and she was talking about some girl that she knew he was cheating on her with some girl and that all she would have to do is call me and I'd come pick her up and kept in that she should just leave and it was just like back and forth just constant yelling. So just a month before Gabby went missing she believed her boyfriend was cheating on her. We know she went to stay with another man and it's rumored that Mark even confessed to having something to do with her death.

According to Brittany back in March, Mark was out on a date at a bar and he supposedly got drunk and confessed to killing Gabby to his date. Well the way the story goes is that this woman who was on the date with Mark told her daughter who told Gabby's best friend Addie. Now there was apparently another man there who goes by the nickname Pizza Bob. Gabby's friend texts Pizza Bob and told him the story she had heard and asked him to verify it and in a very roundabout way Pizza Bob tells her yes I was there I heard it but she has the details wrong but don't go to the police though because I want to go to the

police to see if I can get a reward. Well weeks go by and Pizza Bob never did go to the police and when police finally get around to coming to him he changes his entire story. So Brittany and her family are left to wonder either is Mark lying or did he kill her and Pizza Bob is changing the details to make a cover for Mark or make it seem like he was just drunk and had nothing to do with it. So we've got Mark as a suspect. We have Sarge as a good suspect we even have Sal as a suspect.

I need to take you down another rabbit hole though. If you'll remember from the beginning of our story the last night we know Gabby's whereabouts she was dropped off at the gas station by her daughter's grandmother who we're going to call Gail. Gail has two sons one of which dated Gabby for some time and was actually the father of her daughter. Well it is rumored that Gabby was supposed to testify against the brother of her baby's father in a drug case.

Now this could be very plausible but Brittany finds it a little hard to believe because when people would talk about this they would say how Gabby was basically going to get a big chunk of money recovered from what police had seized. They'd said you know they got all this drug money from the case and they told Gabby they would give her a part of it if she would testify against them. Anyways that's not how it works but there is something that makes Brittany think twice about this story of maybe Gabby testifying and this connection to this family. If Gabby was a threat to either of Gail's sons she could want her out of the picture

and Gail did something really odd right before Gabby disappeared. We also found out that her daughter's grandmother a few weeks before Gabby was killed took out a hundred thousand dollar life insurance policy on her. Like Sarge Gail also moved out of the area after Gabby's death and she's now living in Florida. When we found out that the life insurance policy was taken out on her it's like well what for so was this premeditated because I mean you're not going to take a life insurance policy out on somebody you know two to three weeks prior if you don't plan on killing them.

So that's when that theory of her supposedly supposed to be testifying against somebody which would have been her son that that's where that kind of comes into play but of course we just we never got any answers as to who they investigated you know what came of the investigation it just it was an absolute nightmare. If this was a string board like the ones you see on TV we have all of these very suspicious people connected to Gabby with reasons to hurt Gabby and some of them even intertwining but they all lead to dead ends I think the most frustrating part of this whole thing for the family is not really knowing where the case stands there was a lot of confusion

in the beginning about jurisdiction and who has the case. You see Gabby was found in Owen County but went missing in Marion County so technically Owen County has her case but a lot of the action around this is going on here in Indian apolis where they have no one on the case and from what Brittany has been told no one is passing off leads to Owen County. I tried reaching out to the Owen County Sheriff's Office myself to find out some very basic information like is the case considered open is it considered closed the cause of death was overdose but is it considered to be foul play and is the case still active but I could not get a response

from the Sheriff's Office or the coroner I also reach out to a lot of players that we talked about today but no one wanted to talk so I really feel for Brittany she's trying desperately to keep her sister's case going when they aren't getting a ton of communication from the Sheriff's Office no one involved is talking and no media outlets have any interest in publicizing the case for a long time Brittany was worried for her own safety and worried that pushing this case forward would make her and her family vulnerable but she says she has no other choice someone has to get justice for her sister. I think a lot of times there's people that know the actual story and they don't want

to say anything because they don't want to target on their back putting myself out there and trying to get people to come forward and you know get justice for her I almost worry if it's going to put a target on my back there was one time whether or not it was caused by me being out there and you know talking to the media and things like that but the date of Gabby's Memorial there was a bunch of people there that were being investigated and obviously they knew who I was and after the service and everything we left went home and we continued to pack and our car had sat in our yard for the entire day after that and so we didn't we didn't move it we didn't touch it and the neighborhood that we lived

in we didn't have we didn't have crime so what ended up happening is that Sunday it was the other I believe it was that Sunday we were driving to our new house I was the only one in the car my son and my boyfriend at the time were in the truck and I was driving behind them well suddenly out of nowhere as soon as I turned the corner to go down Smokey Row the entire wheel came off of the car and sheared the wheel studs off of the car and the wheel went flying into a field and my car was all over the road and thank God there was nobody coming because I would have gotten into a major accident and the only thing I could think of at that point in time is that somebody's trying to kill me but Brittany

hasn't let this stop her she will do anything to find out what exactly happened to Gabby back in April of 2016 because I mean even even two years later I'm just like you know I'm I'm always constantly trying to get something to happen get something somebody to come forward and so every day I'm always you know looking over my shoulder I'm always making sure that nobody's following me and my son even told me that I have a problem because he always wants to go do a lot of things and I'm like no I'd rather you didn't I don't trust them I don't know them and he finally he finally went off on me and he said mommy you don't trust anybody and I had to stop and think and I'm like oh my god you're right so I mean

it's just it's one of those things it's just one of those situations where you know it it's it's dangerous but it's worth it and you know and to me Gabby wasn't that kind of person you know she always she always had a smile on her face she wouldn't and if she got to a point where she was kind of getting down and out about things she didn't let that bother her and that's what I loved about her the most. Brittany is still looking for answers for her sister but she needs help she needs people to talk about Gabby care about Gabby and care about what happened to her so please share this story with your friends and if you live in the Indianapolis area and know anything

or have heard anything please contact the Owen County Sheriff's Office at 812-829-4874. There is also a GoFundMe that the family is putting together to build up money for a reward leading to the arrest or conviction of the person responsible for Gabby's death we're going to put a link to that on our website and if there is no arrest or conviction the money will be placed in a trust fund for her two children. This week's episode of Crime Junkie was written and hosted by me all of our editing and sound production was done by David Flowers and all of our music including our theme comes from Justin Daniel crime junkie is an audio Chuck production so what do you think Chuck do you

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