Going West: True Crime - Tracey Lynn Kirkpatrick // 52

Episode Date: January 8, 2020

In March 1989, a 17 year old girl went to her job in Frederick, Maryland at a clothing store after school. Hours later, she would be found dead in the shop. After a few months passed, an anonymous man left a message for a confession hotline stated that he was the one behind the crime. Yet to this day, people believe that the investigation was purposefully botched to cover up a suspicious police officer. REMRISE Remrise is a personalized formula based on YOUR sleep issues and patterns. After taking a short quiz, Remrise will recommend the perfect blend of amino acids plus Eastern and Western herbs ground and placed in convenient capsules to get you to sleep - and keep you asleep. Click this link to get your first week FREE!! https://tinyurl.com/remrisegoingwest ___ PUFFY From pillows to comforters to mattresses, Puffy has everything you need to upgrade your bedroom. Puffy's Cooling Cloud helps draw heat of their mattresses to ensure that your body stays at an optimal temperature- which equals optimal temperature. Puffy is also designed for every type of sleeper and has amazing spine alignment support- meaning you can start waking up without aches and pains. Click this link to get your Puffy mattress today! https://tinyurl.com/puffygoingwest ___ DEATH WISH Death Wish uses USDA Certified Organic and Fair Trade Coffee Beans - meaning you're getting the highest quality beans on the market. Because of this, the taste is smooth, never-bitter, and noticeably better than what you'd usually buy from the store. It's also low in acidity- which makes us all feel better. This 100% natural, incredibly delicious coffee is available in bags either ground or whole bean. But it's also available as Cold Brew in cans, and even in K-cups for your convenience! Use code 'GOINGWEST' at checkout to receive 10% off your order! https://www.deathwishcoffee.com Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on true crime fans, I'm your host Heet and I'm your other host Daphne and you're listening to Going West. Happy New Year everybody hope you had a safe and fun holiday. Heath and I are both sick, so bear with our nasty voices this week. Before we get into this story, we'd like to give a shout out to everyone who gave us a five-star review on Apple Podcast this week. So thank you so much to Hunter from Phoenix, Arizona, and Aaron from Fort Worth, Texas. And the big thanks to Gabrielle from Crosby, Texas and Sydney and Charlotte, North Carolina. Thank you so much to Angela from Richmond, Virginia and Ben in Boston.

And then we have Taylor from Colorado Springs and Erica from Nashville, Tennessee. Big thanks to Lindsay from Bakersfield, California and Michelle from Overland Park, Kansas. Big thanks to Denise from Germany and Trisha from Ontario, Canada. And last but not least, we have Tina from Alberta, Canada, Deandra from Sherwood Park, Alberta, Canada, and Sarah and Rita from Melbourne, Australia. Also, we want to say big thanks to a girl named Fabby. Heath pronounced her name Fabby. I think it was last week that you did that and she messaged us and she was laughing, but sorry Fabby.

You're absolutely fabulous, Fabby. Oh God. Never stop being you. Oh God. And we also want to give thanks this week to our newest patrons. There's a lot of them. We're so excited that you guys are enjoying Patreon. But big thanks to Nancy, Bailey, Erica, Simone, Emily, Melinda, Crystal, Diane, Ashley, Kristen, Sarah, Crystal, Lindsay,

Peter, and Christina. All of you folks are fucking awesome. Yes, thank you so much to all of our new patrons. If you are not yet a patron, head over to patreon.com slash going west podcast. You get bonus episodes every month. We just released one last week on Robert Durst. We talked about the jinx. We talked about the Jinx, we talked about the crazy stories and that series on HBO.

So go check that out. And we'll also have a new one for you guys in the next coming week. So definitely subscribe. It really helps out our show. All right, guys, this is episode 52 of Going West. So let's get into it. In March 1989, a 17-year-old girl went to her job in Frederick, Maryland at a clothing store after school.

Hours later, she would be found dead in the shop. After a few months passed, an anonymous man left a message for a confession hotline stating that he was the one behind the crime. Yet to this day, people believed that the investigation was purposefully botched to cover up a suspicious police officer. Tracy Lynn Kirkpatrick was born on June 9, 1971 in East Liverpool, Ohio, to her parents Diane and Bill Kirkpatrick. She had an older brother named Jack, older sister named Deonda, and a younger sister named Angie. In the mid-1980s, the family picked up and moved to Point of Rocks, Maryland. Point of Rocks is a very small town that nearly borders Virginia and it has a population of just around 1,000 people. So it's a very small town and has a super small town feel, obviously, which gave a nice sense of community to the family. Tracy's mom Diane worked in retail

until she eventually became a manager while Bill worked as a truck driver. Tracy and her siblings all attended Brunswick High School, and as a teenager, Tracy had a lot of great friends, but she was known to be very shy. She loved writing poetry and worked very hard in school, and at the age of 17, while she was a senior and an honor student, she even worked two jobs so she could save up money for college. Her mom, Diane, actually didn't want her to work at all, she even worked two jobs so she could save up money for college. Her mom, Diane, actually didn't want her to work at all. She just wanted her to focus on school, but Tracy was very adamant about helping get herself into college.

Tracy was planning on going to a small local college to study accounting and then eventually begin law school. And since she wanted to help pay her way, while in her final year of high school, she was working part-time as a sales associate at a woman's sports store called Ileens, while she also worked part-time at the shop right next door which was Barnett Shoes. Both shops were located at the outdoor strip mall called Westridge Shopping Center and Frederick Maryland, which is a beautiful and historic city in Western Maryland that had a population of around 40,000 people. And at this time, it was known to be a bit more rural.

But now it's slightly more bustling, but it's still relatively small. The shopping center in which Tracy worked currently has around 20 shops, but we're not sure how many there were in the late 80s. Tracy spent most of her time at home riding poetry, and just after her and her boyfriend broke up in early 1989, she wrote a poem called Hands of Time. It read, as I sit to remember, I see the good times we shared that are no more. It seems now that time is running out, and the love that I feel is drifting away. The love is gone. I'm alone now with no place to go.

The hands of time have stopped. She usually wrote poems when she was in a darker, more sad state like most people do, so that isn't unusual. I mean, I used to write a lot of poetry and I was pretty much incapable of writing poetry when I was happy. Yeah, I mean, I know that there are beautiful, happy poems out there, but me personally, I always wrote poems when I was sad. On Tuesday, March 14, 1989, Tracy and her boyfriend decided to get back together.

They hadn't been broken up for very long, and they had school that day, so their friends knew that they were back together. The following day, which was Wednesday, March 15, 1989, Tracy went to school as usual. Afterwards, she headed to work at Eileen's sports store, where she had the closing shift that night. It wasn't often that employees, especially high school students, would close up shop alone. The boss was usually there, or it was two employees since the store closed at 9 p.m. just like many other stores in the shopping center did. But that evening Tracy was scheduled to close all by herself. So around 6 p.m. her mom Diane came by the store to find Tracy at the counter reading a book.

It being a Wednesday evening, it wasn't very busy. Diane had brought her something to eat since she knew that Tracy wouldn't be able to leave and get her own food since she was alone that night. And I think that also just kind of shows how carrying her parents were, that her mom was gonna go bring her food. My mom used to do that kind of stuff for me when I worked closing shifts at a bakery when I was in high school and that just kind of shows how close they were and how good of a family she had. The kind of the strange thing for me here is the fact that a high school student is closing

alone by herself. Well, I used to do that too, so like I said, just said I used to work at a bakery when I was in high school. That was my first job. And it was a cupcake shop and we closed at seven. And so, you know, during the winter time, it would get dark before closing and I was always really scared to close alone So I remember sometimes I would have my friends come by and we would get dinner after and they would kind of hang out with me

because it's creepy closing up shop by yourself when you're 16 or 17 years old and you know It's a sleepy shopping center. Everybody else is gone like it's just not safe I've never actually been in that position myself But I know a lot of people that have been in that position, and I'm sure a lot of you guys have been in that position as well during your high school years working at a, you know, a little shop or something. I mean, I still wouldn't want to do that. I think a lot of us can kind of relate to that, but anyway, so Diane remembers that Tracy

mentioned that she was tired that night and that she couldn't wait to go home So that she could go to bed and remember the next day she would have school So she's working late. She probably just wants to go home and get some sleep since she has to wake up pretty early So a couple hours later at 8 p.m Tracy's manager came by the store to check on things and noted that there were no other people in the store And it remained that way until she left. At 9pm, the security guard on duty at the Westridge shopping plaza, whose name was Deputy Don Barnes, Jr., noticed that the light in Eileen's sportswear was on at 9pm.

Now, that wasn't too alarming at all considering closing down a retail shop usually takes between 10 to 30 minutes depending on the store. So this is a fairly small shopping center, and it's unknown if Don Barnes had a post he usually remained at throughout the evening. And I kinda doubt he did since like I said it's a small shopping plaza, but regardless, he apparently didn't pass by Eileen's sportswear again for around an hour and a half, which was at 10.30 pm. It was then that he noticed the light in the store was still on, which was very unusual. Deputy Don Barnes, Jr. went inside to make sure everything was okay, but when he didn't see anyone in the store, even though the door was unlocked, he called out to see if anyone would respond, but no one did.

So he walked to the back where the stock room was, and he found Tracy Lynn Kirkpatrick laying on the floor dead. She had been stabbed multiple times in the chest, back, and head. Don called the police, and when they showed up, he was explaining what happened while they examined the crime scene. Originally, they thought it may have been a robbery gone wrong, but nothing seemed to have been taken from the store, and there wasn't any money missing from the register. At this same time, Tracy's parents were leaving the house to come look for her.

The night before, she had been at work late too. Her boyfriend had come to visit and she lost track of time, so her dad, who was worried that something happened to her, went to the shopping center before 10pm and found them they're talking. So on this night, Diane and Bill were worried, but they figured that the same thing had happened. Even though the night before, they were basically like, don't do that again, you worried us, and Tracy said that she wouldn't, so at this point they were like, why would she do this again?

But also, Tracy didn't have a very reliable car, so they had thought that maybe her car broke down, or even worse, Diane had a hunch that her store was robbed. They thought of every scenario on their way over to her work after 11pm, but they didn't think anything this bad would have happened. It takes about 15-20 minutes to drive from where their home and points of rock was to the shopping center in Frederick, so it wasn't a very long drive. When they got to the shopping center, they saw the swarm of police cars and ran out to make sure that everything was okay.

But when Diane asked the police officer if her daughter was alright, all he did was shake his head no. Diane immediately went into shock and had to be taken to the Frederick Memorial Hospital. After checking the receipts at the shop, the police noticed that a sale hadn't been made after 8pm that evening. Meaning it was possible that Tracy was alone in the store for the rest of the night and that no one would have seen what happened to her. They also figured that it was likely that she was killed by someone she knew, which would explain why the door was unlocked. Her parents didn't understand why anyone would do this. Tracy didn't have any known enemies, she was nice to everyone.

The only thing her dad thinks that could have pissed someone off is that Tracy was very blunt. She always told her how it is. She didn't hold back on the way she felt if you were bothering her, so it's not like she was just mean to people. It's just like she didn't take shit from people. So soon after, a witness came forward and said that he had been waiting for his girlfriend to finish shopping at a different store in the shopping center that night. And he had been waiting in the car very close to Eileen's before 9pm and said he didn't see anyone exit or enter the shop. And this of course doesn't mean that that's true, but it's worth mentioning that it

appeared to be a very slow evening. One of the most obvious persons of interest would be Tracy's boyfriend, but nowhere in our research could we find anything on him, not even his name, so it's widely believed that he either had a good alibi or was ruled out pretty quickly for other reasons. We do know that he was in high school and that Tracy didn't really hang around with a rough crowd, so it's unlikely her boyfriend had anything to do with her death, especially since they had just gotten back together and things between them appeared to be going well, but that doesn't mean that everybody was pleased with them getting back together.

Tracy had been stabbed seven times and some reports even stayed over 20 times, so whoever did this likely had something against her in some way. Some also speculate that it was someone who was interested in her, kind of like Heath was just insinuating, and maybe she rejected them since she had just gotten back with her boyfriend. Again, her dad said she was pretty blunt, so she's not the kind of person to beat around the bush with that sort of thing. The police that reported to the scene all agreed that the scene was incredibly brutal,

and there was no sign of forced entry at all. The only thing that was unusual in the whole store was Tracy's body. I had read on a few threads that nothing was missing from the store, but that Tracy's purse had been taken, so I'm kind of wondering if her purse was taken as some sort of memento or something that the killer could keep. Don Barnes Jr. was a 25-year year old male moon lighting as a security guard, but by day he was the sheriff's deputy. His father had previously been a sheriff, so he was well known among the rest of the officers.

But because of this, many people believe that this was an injustice, because deputy Don Barnes Jr. was never properly questioned by police. It's believed that he and Tracy knew each other since they worked at the same property and he would do routine checks, but this hasn't been confirmed. dawn's car was never searched and on the night of Tracy's murder, he didn't have a real answer for where he had been between 9 p.m. and 10.30 p.30pm when he found Tracy's body. So since the shopping center was so small and people around this time stated

that you could walk around the whole thing like 10 times an hour and a half, again, I don't think he had a security post, but it doesn't really make sense why he wouldn't have walked past Eileen's sportswear in that hour and a half. I mean, I know a lot of people nowadays just sit on their phones and wear, but this is 89, so I don't know what he was doing. Especially if someone was brutally

murdered, I'm honestly just surprised that no one saw or heard anything. I get imagine like if he had like an office and maybe he's watching security cameras or maybe even just screwing off and watching TV and that's why he didn't notice, but I highly doubt that he kind of had a post. Like, I feel like the fact that the light was still on at 10.30, like you said, you could have walked that thing multiple times and seen that the light was still on, so why was it never checked before 10.30?

So here's what we know. The state police were never called to the scene or to help investigate this crime, which is also suspicious to a lot of people considering they would have likely investigated Don further, whereas the sheriff's office didn't. The police said that only Tracy's blood was found at the scene and that there didn't appear to be a struggle. There was no evidence of sexual assault.

The receipts were still on the counter at the store, meaning that Tracy hadn't done her closing procedures before she was killed, so it was likely very close to 9 o'clock, I would say. And crime rates were very low in this area at the time and murder almost never happened. And I also wanted to go back really quick to when we were talking about the unlock door situation. So I don't necessarily believe that the person had to have known Tracy, I think that it makes more sense, but it always could have been a situation of the killer had to unlock the door to get out.

Like most doors you have to unlock it to leave, except for those push bar ones, but I wish that we knew where the key was. If the key was in the door, was it on Tracy, was it on the desk? Because I think that would make a little bit of a difference to maybe what door the killer left out of, or if it was someone she knew because the door was unlocked the whole time, was it a customer that never left, I think that key would probably say a lot. Yeah, and there's definitely a possibility that she didn't know her killer and that this was just a crazy crazy scenario. I mean that could have happened absolutely and I think the reason why people believe that she may have

known her killer is because of the brutality of the attack. When we look at this attack she was stabbed almost what some people think 22 times. So this was definitely a crime of passion. I don't think and also at the same time if this was just a random act of violence which it could have been i feel like there might have been a robbery involved in things might have been taken so the fact that there was money still in the cash register the crime was very very brutal leads me to believe that she may have known her attacker and this was definitely in the heat of the moment crime of passion. Well, in a lot of cases like this, when it's, you know, and especially with a knife, something that's so intimate, it usually is someone that they know. So I think that's definitely a safe observation to make. But unfortunately, at the time that this happened, there really wasn't, there really didn't

have any idea who it would be. And so it took a few months for them to get any kind of clue. And another unfortunate thing is that the police did receive many tips and it didn't seem that they really followed up on any of these leads or questioned any of the people that were named for whatever reason. But also one more thing, I, for those of you who are saying to yourself, well, why didn't they just check the CCTV or, you know, the security cameras? I, at this time, I don't believe

that there were security cameras at this strip mall. And that's not hard for me to believe because I worked at a sports store literally last year in Oregon and we had just recently got security cameras last year. So it's not hard for me to believe that there weren't security cameras in 1989. Oh, definitely. I mean, we know that there weren't because that didn't come up in any of our research and a lot of people did bring that up in forums like, well, why didn't they check the security cameras? But you have to remember, this is 1989 in a little town in Maryland, so definitely

makes sense, and unfortunately that would have made a big difference. So three months after Tracy's murder, a Las Vegas confession hotline received a message from a man claiming to be Tracy's killer. music So just three months after Tracy was found murdered, in June 1989, a man left a message for a Las Vegas confession hotline stating that he was the one who killed Tracy. This message was left around the time Tracy would be graduating from high school and getting ready to head to college, which she had been working so hard to do. Here's the recording of that message that was left on the hotline. I know this is going to sound surprising, but three months ago I stepped across the tunnel and I think that if he's making mistakes, I'm resetting myself up to the car, but there

a lot of times he's gone and fluttered. I told my child what's working, a lady's footwear store. I often came by and talked to her when she was working alone. And one night when she was in the store room and we were talking, our conversation started to an argument. And so I took out a night that I had with me at all times and I killed him. And a few days later I realized that I have pleaded a lot of said. I thought about turning myself into a police. But whatever they do to me that will be crazy back.

So I decided to set a three because we have the death penalty in Maryland. So the man in the call states that his name is Don, I think most of us can't agree on that, which is suspicious off the bat considering that Don Barnes was the person who found Tracy and a person who has fallen under suspicion. Since the man on the phone stated his location and Tracy's name, the Vegas Hotline company turned the message over to police, hoping that it would help with their investigation. The police really believed that the man in the voicemail was the same person who killed Tracy because of the sincerity in his voice.

The police were able to trace the call to a grocery store, which was a safe way, in Walker's ville, Maryland, which was just a few miles northeast of Frederick. The call had been made on a payphone. On October 24th, yet another call came into police. This time, it was a psychic named Martha Woodworth. She told them that a man named Sean had been contacting her constantly and obsessing over Tracy's case. Martha had been very disturbed by this, and Sean had even sent her newspaper clippings of the crime. Apparently,

he had a lot of these. And Martha was really weirded out by the things he wrote to her regarding the case, so she knew she had to call the police. The chief decided to play her the confession message that was sent to the Vegas hotline to see if she thought that this voice sounded like this shawn that she spoke of, since dawn and shawn are so similar. Martha described in an interview that her heart dropped when she heard the man's voice. She was confident that it was the same man who had been contacting her for the last few

months. Thanks to this confirmation, police were given his address that they found on one of his letters to Martha. Police went to the man's house and discovered that his name was neither Sean nor Don. So he had been using a fake name on the call to Martha and to the Las Vegas hotline. But police never released the man's name to the public since he was never officially considered a suspect. They didn't have any evidence to charge him with the murder, so they had to let him go. And I did want to mention that originally when they went to his house, they couldn't search it

because they didn't have a warrant and he refused to let them in, and he pled the fifth. So, hmm. So it's possible that this guy did do it, of course, but there's no way any of us can prove it since we can't do any investigating of our own, but he also could have just been some guy who was invested in the case and therefore wanted to implicate himself for attention.

Or, he believed that Don Barnes did it, so he wanted to make an anonymous confession and hopes that it would lead police to Don Barnes. I also wonder why this person called a Las Vegas confession hotline and how he even knew it existed. Because it's not like today where you could just Google stuff. Like, this is 89, where do you find a Vegas confession line?

Like, that's just so random. Yeah, I'm really not sure how he got that information for the number. But to me, it sounds like if he wanted to confess and get something off of his chest, maybe he called the lost Vegas hotline in hopes that they wouldn't be able to connect it back to him. Which is weird because they did end up tracing the call, so they did end up finding him because of it, so it's just still kind of weird. But since this guy had been ruled out, police wanted to air the confession tape

on a local radio station to see if they could get any other hits, just in case it was the Sean Guy after all. And they actually received three calls from people saying they knew whose voice it was. Interestingly enough, all three of them said the name of this Sean person who we don't know the real name of. So, police looked into him again and even searched his house after finally obtaining a warrant, but they still couldn't find anything that would implicate him since there wasn't even any DNA at the scene of the crime. All they did find though was a bunch more of those news clippings in his house which is just very interesting to me.

Supposedly, like we said, there was only Tracy's blood found at the scene and there was no seam in the found. So finding the killer in general would be a really tough task. And didn't he plead the fifth a second time when they went to question him again? Yeah, he did. He wouldn't give any answers. So he sent in this confession. He sent in a bunch of random shit to a psychic,

and then he's saying nothing now. Yeah, so if you're that deeply invested in a case and you wanna help try and solve a case, you would probably wanna cooperate with police and like, I don't know, you would probably want to cooperate with police and like, I don't know, and then just talk to them. Well, I just wonder what his point was, because like I said, I mean, a lot of people confess to murders they didn't do to gain attention, but they don't then deny it. It's like, if you're

going to confess, then confess. But if you're like, what's the point of confessing and sending all the stuff to a psychic, just so the police come to your house and you can say, I'm not answering any of your questions. Like, what? And trust me, guys, I know what a lot of you guys are going to say that he could have been pushed towards a false confession or something like that, and I get that, but it's not... he's the one that's implicating himself in the case.

He's the one that made the call, he's the one that sent all these clippings to the psychic, so it's just strange to me that he wouldn't want to talk to police about it. But it's also really hard for us to say anything about this because we don't know who he is. We don't know if he knew Tracy, we don't know if he knew Dawn, like we don't know who this guy is, so we can't even investigate any of this part. Yeah, and that's the hardest thing is that this person's name was never released, so it's just strange to me that it was never released. I know they do that with a lot of people who aren't officially suspects just to like be respectful to them because they don't want people bothering them if they're not really someone that should be bothered, you know? So I get that. It's just frustrating for us because we want to know more.

So let's dig into Don Barnes Jr. a little bit more since he's the only real person of interest in this case at this point. In fact, it's known that many locals believe that he's guilty of this crime. But it's all based on circumstantial evidence. And apparently, Don Barnes Jr. had a roommate named Sean at the time of Tracy's death. Some people are pretty curious of this because this other man said that his name was Sean to Martha Woodward the psychic. Don Barnes Jr had a daughter when all of this happened as well and a bit down the line she came forward stating that she even believes that Don is guilty.

She said that during that hour or so that Don's time is unaccounted for, he went to his wife's house who he was separated from at the time and changed into a clean uniform before leaving to return to work. There is absolutely no evidence proving that this happened, it's just her word. It was also known that they didn't have a good relationship so it's not necessarily the most credible statement. But again, it's worth mentioning. Shortly after Tracy's murder, Dawn moved to Egypt. Now, a lot of people move all the time, but many will point out that,

although Egypt and the United States have an extradition treaty, it's apparently on a case-to-case basis. So in a lot of our research, many people were saying that maybe he moved to Egypt because he did kill Tracy and he didn't want to be Extra-dited for the crime if they found out it was him

But it's really not clear why exactly Don made the move to Egypt But after some time he moved to Florida in 2010 Don's father Don Barn senior died at the age of 68 after suffering health complications He had stepped down from his role of Sheriff after serving two terms just seven years before Tracy's death when he was the age of 41. He then went on to work in real estate. So while Tracy was killed, he was not the Sheriff. But I think the whole reason people still speculate that his son Don Jr. was a part of the murder, is because all everyone like all the officers and everyone at the Sheriff's Office knew Don well because he was a

deputy, but once Don moved to Florida, he continued being a police officer and we don't really know much other than that. Although many people think that Don is incredibly suspicious, it's also been pointed out that many investigators and officers have looked at this case over the years and none of them have further questioned Dawn about the events that happened that evening. And these are people who aren't connected to him at all and therefore wouldn't be inclined to keep any secret for him. I do think this is kind of a red flag in general that no one else has questioned the guy who discovered the body and the guy who didn't have an alibi, especially because so many of the locals feel like Don is

likely guilty, it just seems like a bit of an injustice not to question him at all if you're examining this case. And not only that but the biggest thing for me is the fact that his car was never searched. I just don't understand why the car was never searched for potential just don't understand why the car was never searched for potential blood. Well, one of the lead investigators on the case, who was on the case originally, his name was Honour, he admitted that the crime scene was totally botched and hadn't been thoroughly investigated due to politics and personal agendas, whatever that means, and he also stated that quote, people

didn't do their jobs. And it just sucks when this happens because this is a real person we're dealing with who has a real family and they deserve answers. So to botcha crime scene and for people who are on the crime scene to know that that's happening, like, yeah, it's very, very frustrating. I feel like there was a little bit of some shotty police work being done here, and that ultimately has led to Tracy's case being unsolved. Also, like we said, they didn't find any other blood at the's like, her killer could have been caught by now and he's not. And maybe it's because of their bad police work and maybe it's not, but it's just frustrating.

One thing that we can tell you is that when Tracy was found, she was fully clothed. So we know that by that, that she probably wasn't sexually assaulted since they didn't find any seamen at the scene. Well, suspicion also fell under one of Tracy's classmates weirdly enough. So unfortunately, there wasn't very much information released on this person either, but according to an investigator who re-examined the case in 1994,

someone else who went to Brunswick High School caught law enforcement's eye. Apparently, they had enough evidence against him to consider him a person of interest, but not enough to convict him of the actual crime, because again, there was virtually no physical evidence left at the scene. This case is tough because we have a very intimate murder that took place while a security guard was on the premises and no one saw anything. There's a few things that stand out here with this murder.

There was a lot of blood at the scene, and from what we all know about murder by knife, it's messy. Blood Spatter is very much a thing, and she was stabbed over seven times and even potentially up to 20 times. The killer would have absolutely gotten blood on them. And then there's the murder weapon which wasn't left at the scene. So my main thing about Don Barnes is that he was supposed to be patrolling the shopping center, yet someone was able to enter Eileen's sportswear, stab a young girl to death, and escape completely unseen, and Don knew the ins and outs of that place. So I just think for someone to leave

the center covered in blood and wielding a bloody knife just sounds crazy. Yeah, I definitely think that that sounds pretty crazy. You know, the more I think about Don Barnes, the more I believe that either he's involved in this crime or he just really wasn't doing his job that night because if he had been patrolling, like we had mentioned earlier, he probably would have been able to patrol that whole strip mall a dozen times. So like we also mentioned earlier, we don't know if they knew each other, but a lot of people who believe that Don is guilty think that maybe the reason that he killed Tracy if he even did is because, you know, she closed often and she worked in

that shopping center and so did he, so maybe he patrolled the area often and would even stop in to say hi to check on her when she was by herself. I mean, that would make sense. And maybe he kind of developed a crush on her and she rejected him or he found out that she got back with her boyfriend. And the same thing could go for that classmate that they think could have killed her as well. So a lot of people just think maybe this was just murder by jealousy or murder by rejection. And I also kind of tend to believe that as well. Also I saw on a couple threads that some people had mentioned well it very well could have been a jealous girl as well. It doesn't have to be a male. But I think

given the nature of the crime, the 20s, the 7 to 20 stabs to her body, to me kind of indicates more of a male-driven crime, but not to say that it could not have been a female. Right. That's a good point to bring up, but obviously I didn't know Tracy, but she doesn't seem to have been a very drama-oriented person. She was very into school. She was very into poetry. She seemed to be very independent and kind of like an on her own kind of person.

Yeah, definitely. And also Tracy's father Bill also explained that that she was kind of the daughter that kept the other siblings in line and in check. So to me, I mean, she has two part-time jobs and she's in high school and she's trying to use the money from her jobs to go to college. She's a girl. Yeah, she's a good girl. She seems responsible, so I don't know if she would get herself into something like that. So Tracy's family still celebrates her life every year with a

gathering at the shopping center she worked at on the anniversary of her death, and they still pine for answers. At the time of Tracy's murder, her older brother Jack was 21, her older sister Deonda was 19, and her younger sister Angie was 16. Tracy was just a few months shy of turning 18, graduating high school, and achieving her dream of going to college. Tracy's parents, of course, struggled immensely with her death and both eventually had to leave their jobs because it just got

too hard. With Diane having worked in retail management, it reminded her too much of her daughter, and with Bill working as a truck driver, he had too much time on the road to think about Tracey. This also really affected her siblings. When they went on to have children, they always feared for their safety and never felt good about leaving them on their own. It's been nearly 31 years since Tracy died and her family is still desperately seeking for answers. They're all incredibly frustrated with the fact that this case has never been closed, but a new detective on the case named Detective Alcorn has actually been working at creating a new method

to solve Tracy's murder, where he gathers different investigators all into one room where they can talk about it instead of just having one investigator look into this case. If you have any information on this cold case, you're asked to contact Sergeant Andrew Alcorn with Frederick Police Department at 240-674-2612. Let's help find some justice for Tracy and her family. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West.

Yes, thank you so much everyone, and next week we'll have an all-new case for you guys to dive into. We still love merch on our website head over to goingwestpodcast.com and hit the SHOP button to get some good merch. And also, make sure if you guys want some bonus episodes, head over to patreon.com slash going west podcast. Subscribe, it's only 5 bucks a month and you get bonus episodes, it is awesome so check it out.

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