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Episode: Case Review: Danny Violette

Author: Tenderfoot TV, Resonate Recordings & Audacy
Duration: 00:39:08

Episode Shownotes

17-year-old Danny Violette was the star of his high school wrestling team, and known to be a very strong and determined individual. When the teen stormed out of his house one morning, after a dispute with his parents, they never imagined it would be the last time they'd see him

alive. Eventually his body would be found in a field just miles from his home, and an autopsy would provide some alarming details surrounding his death. But after 25 years, Danny's case remains unsolved. His brother is ready to get to the bottom of it, no matter the cost. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Full Transcript

00:00:00 Speaker_02
Introducing a new podcast from Tenderfoot TV. It all begins with the grim murder of Cindy Coe's dad in Triangle Park. The 29-year-old was shot twice, killed, and left for dead in a park shelter.

00:00:14 Speaker_03
It was a pair of shorts, women's shorts, and they were covered in blood and brain matter.

00:00:21 Speaker_01
In that moment, you thought he was... A serial killer.

00:00:25 Speaker_02
This girl had to hold her down by the torture. They were torturing her. And Tim was laughing as he was torturing this lady.

00:00:33 Speaker_03
Tim should be looked at for any murders that happened in any area that he lived in at that time. How do we know he's not a serial killer? How do we know he's not murdered other people? So Tim had a tattoo on his arm that was just letters. It said LOD.

00:00:47 Speaker_03
I was told it stood for Lords of Death. And in order to get the tattoo, you had to take someone's soul.

00:00:55 Speaker_04
I'm Thrasher Banks, the host of the new Tenderfoot TV podcast, Lords of Death, available now.

00:01:02 Speaker_03
I'm convinced that we were living with a serial killer.

00:01:07 Speaker_01
Culpable Case Reviews is released every Friday and brought to you absolutely free. But if you want early access to next week's episode and ad-free listening, subscribe to Tenderfoot Plus. For more information, check out tenderfootplus.com.

00:01:23 Speaker_01
Enjoy the episode. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the individuals interviewed and participating in the show, and do not represent those of Tenderfoot TV or Resonate Originals.

00:01:37 Speaker_01
All individuals described or mentioned in the podcast should be considered innocent until found guilty in a court of law.

00:01:43 Speaker_01
This podcast contains subject matter such as violence, drug use, and other graphic descriptions which may not be suitable for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised.

00:01:57 Speaker_04
So I was in, I believe, seventh grade when this all happened, and Danny was found in the field outside of our town. It's kind of been a he said, she said for 25 years.

00:02:08 Speaker_01
This is Drew Violet, the brother of Danny Violet, the victim in this story. Danny was just 17 years old when he was found dead in a cornfield just a few miles from his home in Willard, Ohio.

00:02:21 Speaker_01
He was a star wrestler at his high school and on his way to earning a spot in the state championship. But back at home, life had become quite a challenge, even combative at times.

00:02:32 Speaker_01
When Danny stormed out of his house on Saturday, October 24th, 1998, his family never thought it would be the last time they'd see him alive. In the years since his death, countless theories have run through the rumor mill.

00:02:46 Speaker_01
For Drew, it's been hard to sort fact from fiction.

00:02:50 Speaker_04
I've not known who to trust over the years on what I should and shouldn't say to these people. I've been very disappointed to the point where I just stopped looking into it because it's like, I'm not getting anywhere.

00:03:02 Speaker_04
So this is the first time that I've had any kind of resurgence of, okay, let's, let's get into this again. Let's try to unearth something.

00:03:13 Speaker_01
After more than two decades, Danny's case remains unsolved, with virtually no leads. But Drew has never given up hope that the truth will be discovered.

00:03:23 Speaker_01
Through some digging of his own, he's learned more about the events surrounding Danny's death, and he's convinced that someone knows more than what they're sharing.

00:03:32 Speaker_01
He's ready to get to the bottom of this, and get justice for his brother, once and for all.

00:03:38 Speaker_04
It's frustrating in a lot of different ways, and I'm done with being hey, this is a, we might figure it out. I am done with not knowing.

00:03:51 Speaker_01
This is a culpable case review of Danny Violet.

00:04:18 Speaker_04
I've had every intention to do some research and look into... A short time ago, Drew received a message on Facebook from a stranger.

00:04:28 Speaker_01
Well, technically not a complete stranger. It was from the wife of one of his high school friends. She had messaged him to express her frustration that after all this time, Danny's case hasn't been solved.

00:04:40 Speaker_01
she told Drew that she'd sent information about Danny to some podcast producers in hopes that they could help. And that's how I first heard about this. It's an interesting case, nearly 25 years old, yet very little is known about it.

00:04:54 Speaker_01
I couldn't find any articles about it, just one single newspaper clipping from 1998.

00:05:00 Speaker_01
But while there may be nothing to draw from the media, after sitting down with Drew, I could tell that he had plenty to share about the circumstances surrounding his brother's death.

00:05:11 Speaker_04
I've got, you know, this whole binder full of names and stuff I've come up with over the years. There's a lot of names and kind of background on how each of them are involved in the case or how they knew Danny or whatever.

00:05:25 Speaker_01
Right out of the gate, Drew was eager to tell me everything he's learned about his brother's case over the years.

00:05:31 Speaker_01
But I encouraged him to hold those thoughts so we could start at the beginning and discuss Danny's life growing up and their family dynamic. Danny was the oldest of four kids.

00:05:41 Speaker_01
Drew tells me that their lives growing up were very much dictated by their father and his career.

00:05:47 Speaker_04
My father was in the military, so all of us kids were born in different places. Danny was born in San Diego, California in 81, I believe. And he and my mother and my father moved to Japan when Danny was three.

00:06:05 Speaker_04
And then I was born a couple years later in 85. And then my dad got stationed in San Pedro, California. So then my younger brother was born, and then my sister. We're all basically four years apart.

00:06:19 Speaker_01
After years of picking up and moving, eventually the Violet family landed in Willard, Ohio, which is where this tragedy took place. Looking back, all the moving around was probably hard on Danny, Drew, and their two younger siblings, Ross and Carolyn.

00:06:36 Speaker_01
But Drew doesn't remember seeing it that way as a child. They became accustomed to the reality of wherever their father's military service was needed, that's where they went.

00:06:45 Speaker_01
Much of their childhood was spent with their mother, who Drew tells me was very different from their father.

00:06:52 Speaker_04
My father wasn't in the military. He was in the Navy since he was 18. So he would be gone for long periods of time when I was younger, at least. And as I got older, I think he did less and less of that.

00:07:01 Speaker_04
That's why he stepped back and got into the Navy Reserves. My mom was a very passive woman who would think of the biblical sense of the wife kind of listening to the husband and his way goes.

00:07:15 Speaker_01
I've heard a similar theme with other military families, so it doesn't really surprise me that their father ran a tight ship. With a handful of kids running around, I imagine things got a little rowdy at times. An order was needed.

00:07:28 Speaker_01
The family dynamics made for an interesting home life, to say the least. But if there's one thing that can be said about the family growing up, it's that Danny was always there for his siblings.

00:07:40 Speaker_04
I mean, he was truly a fantastic person and brother. He was a really genuinely good guy that just looked out for his friends, looked out for me, and my brother and sister. I think his best quality was his protective nature.

00:07:55 Speaker_04
Being a very small town, word gets around about little things that occur at school, and if I was picked on, or if Ross was picked on, or Carolyn was picked on,

00:08:03 Speaker_04
He would always confront each of the perpetrators of whatever, like no matter how big or small.

00:08:09 Speaker_04
Being four and a half, almost five years separate in age, you would think that an older brother would not have his younger, uncool brother come around, but he would bring me to his friend's house.

00:08:21 Speaker_04
And I was part of the group, you know, just the younger brother who would hang out. So Danny and I were very close. People couldn't separate us from each other.

00:08:31 Speaker_01
As Drew reflects back on the memories of Danny, he casts a smile. They were always by each other's side. Drew looked up to Danny as an older brother and was influenced by him in many ways. This is especially true with their shared love for wrestling.

00:08:46 Speaker_04
Danny was crazy athletic, crazy strong. That's one thing his friends would always talk about, how nobody could ever touch him physically. He was a really good wrestler himself. He wrestled two years and he had gotten really, really good.

00:09:02 Speaker_04
His all-time goal was to be the state champ. We had kids on the team that were state placers, state qualifiers, and Danny would just throw them around like rag dolls.

00:09:11 Speaker_04
After he passed, the wrestling coach named an award after him called the Danny Violet Most Improved Wrestler Award because he went from like never doing it to becoming basically the best kid on the team like within a year or two.

00:09:24 Speaker_04
And his goal, he wrestled as freshman and sophomore.

00:09:26 Speaker_01
Drew tells me that he was actually a pretty good wrestler himself, having learned a thing or two from Danny, but he admits he had nothing on his older brother.

00:09:35 Speaker_01
By all accounts, Danny was a very strong and rugged individual, a force to be reckoned with. None of his peers could compete with him physically. But according to Drew, that competitive spirit had another side within the four walls of their home.

00:09:50 Speaker_01
Danny was always a handful and had a certain edge to him, but the older and more confident he got, the more friction there was between he and his dad, and it only compounded over time.

00:10:01 Speaker_04
My dad had the very militaristic background of being authoritative. So he and Danny butted heads quite drastically, especially as Danny got older.

00:10:12 Speaker_04
So, you know, my mom said and did whatever she could to kind of simmer things down a little bit and talk to him, but didn't really get anywhere.

00:10:21 Speaker_04
So Danny ran away multiple times and I'm sure he just went to a friend's house and stayed for a couple of days. And back then there was not like a cell phone you can call.

00:10:30 Speaker_04
So there's a lot of tension there, and I'm sure that that didn't help anything when it comes to Danny getting into drugs and alcohol and being pissed and then going to his friend's house and saying, screw it, and just be a rebel to my dad in some way, shape, or form.

00:10:46 Speaker_04
Who knows how much that had to do with his death or leading down that road.

00:10:52 Speaker_01
I'm not exactly sure what to make of Drew's comment, but from what I'm gathering, it seemed that Danny's rebellion was a slippery slope from the time he was a young kid all the way up until his death.

00:11:03 Speaker_01
Despite the care and affection he maintained for his siblings, Danny had many internal struggles he was dealing with, and oftentimes, they manifested within the home.

00:11:13 Speaker_04
He was one of those kids who just got into a lot of trouble. As he got older, he would experiment with drugs and alcohol. He'd have parties at the house, my parents were gone, I was around for a lot of it. Cops would be over our house here and there.

00:11:27 Speaker_04
It wasn't like a lot, it wasn't like he was an awful kid, but he was definitely troubled in the sense of didn't really give a shit about much. He wasn't the best student.

00:11:39 Speaker_04
He cared about wrestling, he cared about girls, and he cared about his friends and partying. One thing that really affected me for a very long time was I was in probably sixth or seventh grade.

00:11:52 Speaker_04
Danny sat me down and said, he goes, it looks like I'm the cool guy, like I'm the really cool popular kid. He goes, but I'm not. These drugs and alcohol and everything that I'm doing, he goes, I can't help it.

00:12:03 Speaker_04
And he said, don't do any of this, like ever. So I went until I was 35 before I had a single sip of alcohol based specifically on that conversation that he had with me. So he'd always look out for me.

00:12:24 Speaker_01
Danny's words always resonated with Drew. How could they not? Danny clearly cared about his brother. It was hard for Drew to watch as Danny's life became more rocky and tumultuous. A strict upbringing certainly didn't aid Danny's rebellious attitude.

00:12:40 Speaker_01
But Drew wonders what other factors may have played a role in Danny's downward spiral.

00:12:46 Speaker_04
Willard was a very drug heavy town. When I was in high school, it was number one heroin use per capita in the country. If you wanted to get drugs, you just go to the east side, which is one of the last places Danny was seen.

00:13:01 Speaker_04
There's different tiers of drug users and whatnot, but I feel like Danny and his friends were the ones who were like, they weren't like awful people, but they just got into the wrong crowd.

00:13:12 Speaker_01
While Danny had a tight-knit group of friends, their shared interest led them to cross paths with some less-than-upstanding people. And the older Danny got, the more he turned to drugs and alcohol as an escape from life's problems.

00:13:25 Speaker_01
But Drew tells me it was more than just teen angst that pushed Danny to act out. He was navigating real mental health issues, which only complicated things.

00:13:36 Speaker_04
Danny was bipolar. He was on lithium. So not only was he a wild person in general, but he was also bipolar. So he'd have highs and lows.

00:13:46 Speaker_04
He'd have massive fights and then like really, you know, depressed at other times where he'd just be in his room and nobody could talk to him. He'd just be listening to music and sleeping for days.

00:13:58 Speaker_04
And then obviously my dad being who he was, didn't know how to deal with that. And so I didn't help anything that he was bipolar.

00:14:04 Speaker_04
And I don't know how long, to be honest with you, he was on the medication of lithium, but he was for at least a couple of years and he didn't like it. He didn't like the way it made him feel.

00:14:14 Speaker_04
From what I can recall, he would feel dull and didn't feel anything. He didn't have any good or bad emotions. He just kind of was like bland and he hated that feeling.

00:14:25 Speaker_01
While Danny's parents tried their best to get him professional help, the medication he was prescribed only seemed to make matters worse.

00:14:33 Speaker_01
Sometimes he'd find solace in isolation, but often he'd find it while hanging out with his closest friends, Steve, Adam, and Judd. The four were very close, spending long days together, escaping life's difficulties.

00:14:46 Speaker_01
And that's exactly what the group was doing the night before Danny went missing.

00:14:51 Speaker_04
He was with Judd Dickerson, Steven Ames, and Adam Castle the night prior. His circle was friends were really tight.

00:15:03 Speaker_04
You know, I'm sure they got into stupid stuff, but again, I don't think any of those, any of his close friends were bad guys and still aren't bad guys. They don't, you know, they just were experimenting on drugs.

00:15:16 Speaker_04
He would drink and he would smoke a lot of weed, and that was pretty much it. My only knowledge of him using any other drugs outside of those was from Steve, who told us about the LSD.

00:15:29 Speaker_01
According to Drew, Danny and his group of friends took the psychedelic drug known as LSD the night before he went missing. This information was recently shared with Drew by Danny's old friend Steve, who was there that night.

00:15:43 Speaker_01
While this story may have no bearing on Danny's eventual death, it did seem to play a part in his disappearance, which we'll get into in a moment.

00:15:52 Speaker_01
As was explained to Drew, on the night of October 23rd, 1998, the group of friends, Danny, Steve, Adam, and Judd, had gotten together at Judd's house, and the three of the friends took LSD. Judd was the only one who did not partake.

00:16:10 Speaker_01
Apparently, sometime in the night, Danny started experiencing a bad trip, and things kind of went downhill from there. Judd, the only sober one, fell asleep at some point, leaving Steve and Adam to watch over Danny. Steve eventually left around 5 a.m.

00:16:25 Speaker_01
to go home, and Danny decided he was also going to return to his home.

00:16:30 Speaker_04
So according to the story, he went home to my parents' house. They were having breakfast. Danny and my dad got into it. They had a big fight. My mom tried to settle him down. They knew Danny had something wrong with him.

00:16:43 Speaker_04
They didn't know that he had taken drugs the night before. So they decided that they would call the police and have him come over to try to calm Danny down and whatever. So they went into the other room to discuss that or whatever.

00:16:55 Speaker_04
And then Danny went out the back door. So my parents never saw me again. My brother Ross, who was only, you know, really young at the time, saw Danny go out the back door and went down the alley and down the block.

00:17:08 Speaker_04
So that must've been Saturday morning when he went missing.

00:17:13 Speaker_01
When Danny left his home on the morning of Saturday, October 24, 1998, his family assumed he would eventually return. But as the hours turned to days with no word from him, they decided to file a missing persons report.

00:17:28 Speaker_01
While there's been rumors of people seeing Danny in the days after his disappearance, the only reported account, according to the Mansfield News Journal, was that Danny was seen later that day, on the 24th, near the local YMCA, which was on the east side of town.

00:17:43 Speaker_01
The bad part of town, as Drew puts it. And there was no specific time given for this sighting.

00:17:49 Speaker_01
Drew claims that another local reported seeing Danny later that night, around 7 p.m., walking by a Missler's IGA, a grocery store on the south side of Willard. and that he supposedly wasn't wearing any shoes.

00:18:02 Speaker_01
Either way, it seems that the last time anyone saw Danny alive was on Saturday, October 24th, the same day he went missing.

00:18:10 Speaker_01
The next sighting would come 11 days later, on Wednesday, November 4th, when his deceased body was found in a cornfield not far from his home. Drew was at the house when his parents were given the news that would turn their world upside down.

00:18:28 Speaker_04
I heard a knock on the door. I went up and I answered the door, and it was two police officers on the porch. I believe it was the Willard Police Department. I'm pretty sure it was Officer Rick Sexton, and I don't know the other gentleman's name.

00:18:45 Speaker_04
So they had asked me to get my mom and dad. My parents went onto the porch and shut the door, so I don't know what was said there, but basically they just told my mom and dad that they found Danny.

00:18:57 Speaker_04
maybe a quarter mile outside of city limits is where they found his body in the cornfield. The guy who owned that cornfield was running his combine or whatever and saw him and then reported it.

00:19:10 Speaker_04
He had a pair of jeans on and no shirt and I believe no shoes.

00:19:18 Speaker_01
After receiving this devastating news, Danny's parents were left with the tall order of explaining it to the rest of their kids.

00:19:25 Speaker_01
While many of the details remain a blur for Drew, after receiving the news, he just remembers the overwhelming confusion and grief that quickly filled their home.

00:19:36 Speaker_04
My mom and dad came in and they just sat us all down and they knew that I would understand more than Ross and Caroline would. I mean, Ross was seven or eight at the time, Caroline was like four, so she didn't get it.

00:19:46 Speaker_04
So they told us in whatever way they could as far as that Danny wasn't coming home and he passed and I just shut down. I didn't say anything to anybody for a long time.

00:19:59 Speaker_04
He had just tons of friends coming over in support, and so I'm sure that was hard on my mom.

00:20:04 Speaker_04
I remember the only times I would come out of the room was to go to the bathroom or something, and my mom's room was right next to the bathroom, so I'd hear my mom crying frequently. Almost every time I'd come out, I'd hear her crying in the room.

00:20:16 Speaker_01
Danny was just 17 years old when he died. He had his whole life ahead of him, and sadly, it was cut short. Drew and his siblings had lost their protector, their big brother.

00:20:29 Speaker_01
Their parents had lost their strong and determined son, and ultimately, the ability to reconcile their differences. The family was rocked, and it took an especially hard toll on Drew.

00:20:42 Speaker_04
I just didn't talk to anybody about anything, including my mom and dad. You know, it was really tough on me to lose him.

00:20:52 Speaker_04
And then all of a sudden become the alert, you know, the big brother who had to kind of take the role of him as a 12 year old, which was too much to handle at the time, which is why I went kind of in hiding for a long time. So Danny had his own room.

00:21:07 Speaker_04
So when Danny passed, naturally I got that room, but I basically camped out in that room. All day, every day. I hardly came out to eat or shower or do anything for a really long time. His friends would come in.

00:21:20 Speaker_04
I would just act like I'm sleeping or something. I didn't talk to anybody. I remember going to his funeral and I didn't even shed a tear at his funeral. And then going to school. Rumors, people talking, you know.

00:21:35 Speaker_04
I don't recall when I stopped going to school, but it wasn't long after. So yeah, those were hard days, obviously. My parents were very down and depressed. Like, every day that would go by, things were very edgy around the house.

00:21:51 Speaker_01
Drew says he can't remember what all his parents learned in the days following Danny's death, or what steps they took to uncover what happened to him, understandably, as he was a teenager dealing with unimaginable grief.

00:22:04 Speaker_01
While he tries to assume the best, that like any parent, they were working hard to gather information and put the pieces together, ultimately, he worries that they may have just accepted things and put their trust in the authorities.

00:22:19 Speaker_04
You know, my mom's a very yes person. Like, if the police say, we have this information, that's all we can give you, like, she just accepts it. She's a very intelligent person, but she just is very,

00:22:30 Speaker_04
just very passive like she doesn't have any kind of mean bone in her body so it's like if a police officer says hey i'm sorry we don't have any information like okay well just let me know if you guys find anything instead of like pushing way harder than that you know it just wasn't her nature and then my dad i don't i don't know what he did

00:22:49 Speaker_04
But putting myself in their shoes, I feel like I would go nuts. Whatever it took, yelling, screaming, getting myself thrown in jail, talk to the police in a nice way, in a mean way, give me some information, give me something.

00:23:03 Speaker_04
They just kind of accepted whatever they were told.

00:23:06 Speaker_01
As Drew has continued to put the pieces together, he says he's tried to learn more from his parents, thinking maybe they'd remember some important details all these years later, but he hasn't been able to get anywhere.

00:23:18 Speaker_01
After losing Danny, eventually his parents would divorce, and Drew says the loss affected each of his siblings a little differently. As the years passed, they each kind of took their own path in life.

00:23:30 Speaker_01
But whether it's a result of time and distance, or grief, or a combination, Drew regrettably tells me that Danny's death has always been a hard subject to broach with his family.

00:23:42 Speaker_04
It's been probably five plus years since I've even spoken to them, any of them about it. You know, we'll say our few words on his anniversary of his birthday and his anniversary of his death, but that's about it.

00:23:56 Speaker_04
You know, not much we could say about it. My dad and I have had big fights. You know, anytime we have any kind of conversation of substance, he'll end up saying, you've always blamed me for Danny's death.

00:24:08 Speaker_04
Particularly, we had one blow-up fight in the kitchen in my house in Toledo. This is the first and only time I had ever really gotten emotional in front of him. And I had started, you know, crying.

00:24:21 Speaker_04
And he had said that again, where he says, Drew, you've always blamed me for Danny's death. But I was genuine with him when I said, Dad, you've said this many times, and I've told you every time that I've never told you that.

00:24:35 Speaker_04
I've never told him or said anything of that effect. So I just basically broke down, and I started crying to him. And I just told him heartfelt that I did not think that way and that he never needs to say that again.

00:24:49 Speaker_04
So that was, I don't know, 10 years ago. And he had not said it again up until recently. I was on the phone with him, we got arguing like we always do, and he said it again, and I just went off on him about it.

00:25:05 Speaker_04
And I had to remind him about that talk in Toledo. I said, well, that really stuck with me. That was a big moment to be able to say and do that. And he said he didn't even remember it.

00:25:25 Speaker_01
At this point, Drew has all but given up on talking about Danny's death with his family. While he may never learn what all they know or don't know about this case, it hasn't stopped Drew from seeking answers.

00:25:38 Speaker_01
He's instead resorted to other means of gathering information. Most everything he's learned over the years has come from Danny's closest friends, the group we discussed earlier, Steve, Adam, and Judd.

00:25:51 Speaker_01
They were always determined to learn the truth about what happened to their friend. Sadly, Adam passed away some years ago. And over time, they've lost touch with Judd.

00:26:02 Speaker_01
But Drew says that Steve remains diligent and has become quite a source of information. He was the one who told Drew that the group had taken LSD the night before Danny's disappearance.

00:26:12 Speaker_01
And even though Danny experienced a bad trip and eventually stormed away from his parents' home sometime during the morning of October 24th, it does not appear that drugs played any direct part in his death.

00:26:24 Speaker_01
According to a news article from the Mansfield News Journal from November of 98, the year Danny died, Huron County Prosecutor Russ Leffler said the coroner ruled out several causes of death involving foul play, stating, quote, there was no apparent blunt force trauma, no stabbing, and no shooting.

00:26:45 Speaker_01
Because this was the only article I could find, I can't say whether or not his actual cause or manner of death were ever reported to the public.

00:26:53 Speaker_01
But it's my understanding that while his manner of death remains unknown, his cause of death has been established through his autopsy report. And Drew adds that some of the reporting in Danny's case has raised some serious questions.

00:27:07 Speaker_04
His cause of death was asphyxiation, according to the autopsy report. What the autopsy report ruled out is that it was not a suicide because he was not hung.

00:27:20 Speaker_04
So if you have the rope hanging from a beam or whatever and you hang yourself, the way that the lacerations go up and around behind your ear and they determined that it was not that because of the way the marks were around his neck.

00:27:35 Speaker_04
It looked like it was from behind. It was not from hanging from an object. From my recollection, it was either he choked on vomit and was left alone too long and passed, or somebody strangled him with a rope of some sort or belt or something.

00:27:55 Speaker_04
I don't know if it was on the police report or the toxicology report, but he had rat poison that was not in his blood system. that was apparently shoved down his throat. Basically, it made it look like it was a suicide.

00:28:12 Speaker_04
Whoever brought him out there must have tried to cover up their tracks in some way. He had ATV tire marks across his chest. They were able to show that that was after the fact as well. So after he had already passed, then he was run over.

00:28:29 Speaker_01
After learning that there was in fact significant information and evidence gathered in the investigation into Danny's death, Drew is now left wondering, if authorities knew all of this, why haven't they been able to resolve this?

00:28:42 Speaker_01
The way they've handled Danny's case has always bothered Drew. He's had a really hard time trusting his local police.

00:28:50 Speaker_04
Whenever that person called 911, I don't know if he got put to the sheriff's department. I don't know if he got put to the Willard Police Department. But all I know is that Rick Sexton was a part of the investigation right away.

00:29:04 Speaker_04
And it was not his case. It was not Willard's case. Just from my personal experience with Rick, he was one of the officers at like the basketball games at the school and whatnot. He had a very strange relationship with me after that.

00:29:19 Speaker_04
I caught him looking at me often. And it was just like he'd be watching the game or like looking at the crowd and then he would like pinpoint on me and he never said anything to me.

00:29:29 Speaker_04
But I just felt very like he wanted to say something to me but never did. And as far as the police reports go, I've always been directed to the sheriffs. And the sheriffs are also not very forthcoming. It's an open investigation.

00:29:43 Speaker_04
They can't say certain things. And that's just all I get from everybody. I actually went to the Willard Police Department just to kind of see if I can gain any information from them, since I wasn't getting anything from the sheriff's department.

00:29:56 Speaker_04
And I was not treated very well and basically asked to leave after 10 minutes. said we can't help you, we're not involved in this. So I don't know if Willard even has anything on the case at all.

00:30:13 Speaker_01
Even after all this time, no person of interest has ever been publicly named in Danny's death. Our team submitted FOIA requests for any documents available on Danny's case, but received the following response.

00:30:26 Speaker_01
If the case was unsolved and no criminal action was filed, the clerk's office would have no records on Danny Violet. Contacting our Area Law Enforcement or County Prosecutor's Office may provide additional information.

00:30:41 Speaker_01
Heeding the advice, we additionally reached out to the Willard Police Department and the Huron County Sheriff's Office for comment on the case, but have not received any response.

00:30:50 Speaker_01
Drew laments that at this point he sees his brother's case stuck in limbo and that it's going to require someone doing their own digging or someone speaking up to crack this.

00:31:01 Speaker_01
It's his understanding that while Danny's body was found outside of Willard City limits, the Willard Police Department has taken responsibility for the case, which remains open.

00:31:10 Speaker_01
Although Drew isn't really sure who's leading the investigation or if the case is even being investigated for that matter. And this has been the story since day one in Drew's eyes.

00:31:21 Speaker_01
But in the recent years, he's taken matters into his own hands, hoping to get to the bottom of this and put an end to the 20 plus years of suffering. He tells me he's more committed than ever to solving his brother's case.

00:31:34 Speaker_01
But without assistance from authorities, he's had to rely heavily on the rumor mill and is now trying to determine which information, if any, is fact.

00:31:44 Speaker_04
Let's see. One note that I have here was that Danny apparently had a torn shirt and did my mom and dad see it? Let's see here.

00:31:56 Speaker_04
According to my best friend's half-brother, who I grew up with and knew really well, and he said that he saw Danny at a church party that was in a barn. I'm not sure what that's about.

00:32:11 Speaker_04
According to this, DNA was found in and around the crime scene and we don't have any answers of what that was. It says here they're definitely hiding something and they don't know what they have to gain from it, but that's definitely something.

00:32:27 Speaker_01
As we talk, he starts thumbing through his binder again and glancing over his scribbled notes.

00:32:32 Speaker_01
It's like the proverbial corkboard investigators use, and it's where he's been tracking down leads and jotting down anything that could help him piece together the clues about his brother's death.

00:32:42 Speaker_04
Well, I've got a lot of contacts to reach out to, you know, old names that come to mind. And so if I hear the same name from four or five different people, then I can maybe focus on those names that it funnels down to.

00:32:57 Speaker_04
It could break open the case a little bit. I've not known who to trust. So this is a nice, I guess, different route for me to be able to speak a little bit more openly. Something like this will either rile people up or get them talking more.

00:33:12 Speaker_04
I mean, it happened in 98, technology was not there. It doesn't seem to be nearly what it is now. So I don't know if there's tests they can run on old samples and things like that, but I'd like to get the case closed.

00:33:27 Speaker_01
Drew was willing to open up to us about his brother's case because he believes that telling Danny's story in this way could be the thing that finally helps make a difference.

00:33:36 Speaker_01
No matter what comes of it all, Drew is advocating for his best friend and brother. Danny died far too young, and his family has been left without answers for far too long. No matter what the future holds, Drew says he hasn't given up hope.

00:33:53 Speaker_01
In closing, I asked him, what's been the hardest part of all this?

00:33:58 Speaker_04
What I miss is the potential of what his life would have been. I could see him being married with kids, for sure, and having more nieces and nephews. I just don't know what his life would have turned out to be.

00:34:13 Speaker_04
If anybody did know something about my brother's case, I would hope that after this amount of time that's passed, that they would have the decency, I guess, to come out and tell our family

00:34:27 Speaker_04
what they know, whether it would solve the case right away, or if it would help us lead to solving the case to help us kind of have the closure that we're looking for.

00:34:40 Speaker_01
If you have any information about the death of Danny Violet, please call the Willard Police Department tip line at 419-933-6110. Or you can contact the Huron County Sheriff's Office at 419-668-6912. Thanks for listening.

00:35:13 Speaker_01
Culpable Case Review is a production of Resonate Originals and Tenderfoot TV, in partnership with Odyssey. Written and hosted by me, Dennis Cooper. Executive producers are myself, Mark Minnery, Jacob Bozarth, Donald Albright, and Payne Lindsey.

00:35:31 Speaker_01
Our senior producer is Jon Street. Additional production from Jamie Albright and Taylor Floyd. Editing, mixing, mastering, and sound design by Dayton Cole, Pat Kicklider, and Adam Townsell of the Resonate Recordings team.

00:35:46 Speaker_01
If you have a podcast or are looking to start one, check us out at resonaterecordings.com. Our theme song and original score is by Dirt Poor Robbins, with additional scoring by Dayton Cole. Our cover art is by Drew Bardana.

00:36:02 Speaker_01
Sources for this episode include the Mansfield News Journal. You can follow us on social media, at culpablepodcast. Additional content can be found on our website, culpablepodcast.com.

00:36:15 Speaker_01
If you enjoyed this episode, please take time to subscribe, rate, and review. Your feedback is greatly appreciated. Thanks again for listening. Till next time.

00:36:44 Speaker_00
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00:36:51 Speaker_00
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00:37:04 Speaker_00
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00:37:40 Speaker_00
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