transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:02] Hey, true crime besties, welcome back to an all-new episode of Serial Sleuths. Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to an all new bonus episode of Serialously with me, Annie Elise, your true crime bestie. And you know how it goes for bonus episodes. Not only are they ad-free, but they also are uncensored. They are exclusively for you. And it's just, you know, a time where I can talk with my besties about a case that is bugging me. And today's case takes us to Bloomington, Indiana, home of Indiana University, where, as we know, college life usually means late night parties, football tailgates, cramming for finals in between all of that. But in April of 2015, that sense of normalcy was completely shattered when a student vanished after a night out with friends. It was supposed to be a celebration, a night to remember the last of her college years and days since graduation was coming up. But instead, today's case ends with a body that was found in a remote field about 10 miles from campus. A body that was completely bludgeoned to death. The news completely rocked the entire Indiana University community and it left everybody asking the same question. How the hell could this even happen? So today's case is the story of Hannah Wilson, a young woman who did everything right, but unknowingly crossed paths with someone who had nothing to lose and no intention of letting her get away from him alive. Now, Hannah Wilson was your typical beautiful bubbly college student. She had dark hair and blue eyes and one thing that her friends always said about her was that if you needed a smile or a laugh, Hannah was the one to call. In fact, her laugh was so unique, everybody called it the Hannah Wilson laugh. That's a direct quote. Hannah was super close with her family, including her mom Robin, her dad Jeffrey, her younger sister Haley, and her beloved cat named Mack. Even though her parents were divorced, it didn't change the bond that she had with her mom and dad. She also absolutely adored her younger sister. The two of them were pretty much as close as can be. Take a quick listen to how Haley described her relationship with her sister Hannah.

Speaker 2:
[02:36] Whenever she came home from school, she'd always just be so obsessed with me.

Speaker 1:
[02:39] Always, can I sleep with you?

Speaker 3:
[02:40] Can we watch all my Netflix shows?

Speaker 1:
[02:42] In 2011, Hannah graduated from Hamilton Southeastern High School, where she was a cheerleader for all four years. After graduation, she got into Indiana University, and she was so ready to take on the next chapter in her life. I mean, it was college, new friends, parties, finding yourself, all the good stuff. Hannah was gorgeous. She was full of energy. She had this sharp sense of humor. Really, it's no surprise that she was a pretty popular girl from the get-go. At Indiana, she decided to study psychology, and even rushed into a sorority. Now, as we all know, college goes by super quick, right? I mean, after four years, Hannah had become a senior, and she had gone from living in this cramped dorm to this beautiful sorority house off campus. Her and her chosen sisters were all gearing up for finals, which meant that college was finally coming to an end. And if you went to college, you know what that feels like, right? It's literally the end of an era, and it feels like the rest of your life is just dangling right in front of you. It can be exciting, sad, scary, I mean, all the things all at the same time. And Hannah was feeling all of these emotions as she was cramming for that last final exam. And there was a lot hanging on this final exam for Hannah too, because if she didn't pass, she wasn't going to graduate. So she studied incredibly hard, and you can imagine her excitement when she found out that she totally aced it and was gonna graduate, and like, what a sigh of relief, and just a huge weight lifted off of her shoulders. Now by now, it was April 23rd, 2015, just two weeks before Hannah was set to walk across the graduation stage and collect her diploma. That weekend on campus, there was also something scheduled called the Little 500 Races. This is basically a bicycling race that happens every year at Indiana University, and with that competition happening, it brings a ton of wild parties to campus. So Hannah and her friends saw it as the perfect night to celebrate, to just be young, wild, and free, the last big party weekend of the college years. So that's exactly what they did. The night started in the off-campus house that Hannah was living at with her two roommates. They were sipping on some drinks, getting ready for their night out, just pre-gaming, if you will, and the three girls drank for a little bit, and then around 8:30 PM, Hannah got into an Uber that took her to a hotel that was nearby called the Hilton Garden Inn. Now, the reason that she went there is she was going there to meet up with some friends who had graduated the year before, but happened to be in town, so they all were planning to have some drinks together. When she got to the hotel, the party was just continuing, and while she was there, Hannah kept drinking, may have had one too many, because she did end up pretty drunk, which, hi, we've all been there, especially when we're younger and in college, right? Yet still, Hannah was well enough to keep hanging out with the group, and she joined them for their next stop at a place called Kilroy's Sports Bar, which, this place is quite the hot spot for Indiana students. So at this point, it was a little past midnight, and once they all got to the bar, Hannah's friends, at that point, started to realize that maybe she had too much to drink. They felt like she was a little bit too intoxicated, it probably was not in her best interest to continue drinking, and it probably was in her best interest to go home and sleep it off. But Hannah didn't want to go home. She wanted to stay, she wanted to hang out with her friends and celebrate finishing college. She just aced her finals, she was ready to graduate, it was her night. Despite that, at around 12:45 AM, two of Hannah's guy friends called a cab and they put her into the taxi to take her home. The cab driver even said that Hannah kept on trying to stay and party more, but her friends had put her in the cab and he drove her home despite her wanting to keep partying. Which, I have to say, this was pretty good on her friends to send her home. I mean, it probably was the right move knowing she was too intoxicated, knowing that she needed to call it a night. Although I will say, probably would have been better if somebody had gone with her. But in any event, the cab driver drove Hannah home. But once the cab had reached the intersection next to her house, she got out of the car. The driver said that he watched Hannah weave between a few cars, and then once she finished crossing the street, she stepped back onto the sidewalk. So at that point, he was like, okay, this drunk girl just got out of my car, is like drunk walking to her house, she's finally safe between all the cars, she's on the sidewalk, like, fuck this, I'm out. And so he drove away. So Hannah, despite being wasted, had made it home, and she should have been safe. But what no one could have predicted was what was going to happen next. Hannah's roommates had gone home much earlier in the night. So by the time that Hannah was walking inside, they were already back home. And according to them, they heard the front door of their house open at around 1 a.m. But the weird part was that they never heard it close. According to Hannah's phone records, she made one last phone call that night at around 1 o 5 a.m. This call was to a friend of hers that was still back at the bar. The friend in the bar said that the music was way too loud. She couldn't hear Hannah, so she hung up. So they didn't exactly have much of a conversation. I mean, nothing noteworthy at least, but there was at least some sort of exchange. But that was the last time that anyone heard from Hannah. When Hannah's roommates woke up the next morning, Hannah was nowhere to be found. They checked her bedroom first, but the only thing that was there was Hannah's purse and cell phone just sitting on the bed. No Hannah. And I want to point out, like most of us these days, Hannah was the type of girl to never go anywhere without her cell phone. So this was definitely a red flag to her roommates. Another red flag was that her bed looked like it had not been slept in. It looked like she hadn't even touched it. So Hannah's roommates started retracing her steps. I mean, obviously, they knew that she got a little drunk the night before. They were with her pre-gaming before she left to go to that hotel and bar, but they didn't know exactly how she got home. Remember, it was different friends who she was out with that night that then sent her home in the cab. So when her roommates made their way to the front door, they found something that was super creepy. The front door was wide open and it likely had been wide open the entire night. So these girls wake up. Their third roommate is nowhere to be seen. Her purse and phone are sitting on her bed and their front door was just left swung open. I mean, what happened to Hannah? And even though all of that was scary, no one was prepared for what they were going to find across town that day. At around 830 a.m. on the morning of April 24th, a woman dialed 911 to report something that she saw in a field. Apparently, this woman was just driving down the street and in the corner of her eye, she saw something, or rather someone, lying face down. She immediately called the police and she told them what she saw. And once the police arrived on the scene, what they found was absolutely devastating. There, in an isolated field, less than 10 miles from Indiana University, was the dead body of 22-year-old Hannah Wilson. This young, beautiful girl with a contagious laugh was just gone. The girl who had just passed her final exams and was about to graduate college, a girl who had her entire life ahead of her, she was now just lying there. Lifeless. I mean, needless to say, it absolutely rocked the community. Now, when Hannah was found, her blood alcohol content was a.225%, which, just to put that into perspective, the legal driving limit is.08. So, she was very, very intoxicated. Her body was found fully clothed. There were no outward signs of sexual assault, thank God. However, she was bloody and brutally beaten. And I mean, brutally. It was like her head was completely bashed in, leaving her beautiful long hair matted, full of blood. Police also believed that the blows to her head were the cause of her death. An autopsy later confirmed that theory. The coroner found that Hannah had been hit three to four times in the back of her head and that she had died from blunt force trauma. They also found a lot of defensive wounds on her body. However, whoever did this to her was much stronger and determined to end her life. Now, when Hannah's family and friends heard the news, obviously they were devastated, they were heartbroken, they were in shock, and they just couldn't believe it. I mean, just hours earlier, she was out partying with her friends, gearing up for graduation. How could this have happened? Hannah's mother Robin was of course in just disbelief beside herself. Just a few days before taking her last final, Hannah had actually made a trip home to surprise her mom and to check in on her pet cat, Mac. Robin remembers this visit so clearly, too, because it turned out to be the very last time that she ever spoke to her daughter. And she remembers her last words to her as well. Take a listen.

Speaker 3:
[11:41] She kissed me goodbye, she kissed Mac goodbye, and the last words I said to her was, just don't get in a car wreck, because it was raining. And I said, if you're late, you're late, it's nothing is ever that important. Just, just stay alive.

Speaker 1:
[11:57] So cops now had a mission. They needed to find out how the hell Hannah ended up like this and who did such a horrible thing to her. In this case, the police actually had a decent jumping off point for the investigation, because there was also a major piece of evidence found near Hannah's body. A cell phone. The phone was lying there, right by her feet. And because her roommates had already found Hannah's cell phone in her bedroom, police knew that this didn't belong to her. And it didn't take the cops very long to tie this phone to a man. And his name is Daniel Messel. But who was this guy? Well, Daniel was a 51-year-old man living in the Bloomington area. But the investigators were very surprised that none of Hannah's family or friends knew who Daniel was, because they seemed to have absolutely zero connection whatsoever. So how on earth did his phone end up lying next to Hannah's dead body? It was a question that the police knew that they needed answers to ASAP. And after doing some digging, the police learned that Daniel was single, living with his father-in-law in a trailer park, and he worked at a printing shop. He also had a knack for trivia. He would regularly play at a local place called Yogi's Grill and Bar, and he had some trivia teammates. So, I mean, it doesn't exactly sound like a killer in that description, but we also know that people surprise us, right? And it's not really boating well for him here. But when the authorities went to Daniel's house, they found him in a pretty unforgiving situation. He was actually holding a bag of clothing, and when the officers took a look at that bag and the clothing, the clothes were full and covered in blood. And it turns out that these were the clothes that he was wearing the night before. Then, when the cops looked inside Daniel's car, a Kia Sportage, they found even more blood. Now, obviously, they needed to do some tests on it, but it obviously was not looking good for Daniel because all signs were currently pointing to the blood belonging to Hannah. And between the phone, the bloodied clothing, I mean, it was enough for the cops to have serious suspicions of Daniel. And they ended up arresting him that very day. Which, I mean, it's insane because this was some totally random guy with no connection to Hannah. So if his phone hadn't been left at the scene, it probably would have taken the police so much longer to make this arrest. Or, I don't know, maybe it wouldn't have happened at all. So after Daniel's arrest, more details kept coming out. First off, a guy named Matthew Brighton came forward and wanted to talk with the police. It turns out that Matthew was a co-worker of Daniel's and also played on his trivia team. So Matthew told the investigators that he and Daniel played trivia the night of Hannah's disappearance. When trivia was over, Daniel gave him a ride home, which was just after 11 p.m. But on their way to Matthew's house, they decided to make a pit stop to Killroy's Bar, which remember, it was packed because of that bicycle race that had been going on that weekend. And that was also the sports bar that Hannah had gone to, to drink with her friends after the hotel. Then Matthew said that when they left the bar, Daniel dropped him off at home. Now, that's not all that Matthew spilled to the cops, okay? Because Matthew also said that when he saw the news of Hannah's murder on TV, the broadcast was covering how badly she had been beaten and that the object was still unknown at this point. But Matthew told the cops that after hearing that, something jumped out in his mind because he told the police that he knew that Daniel owned a Maglite flashlight because he had mentioned it to him before, apparently saying that Daniel kept it in his car for self-defense, which, I don't know if you're familiar with these types of flashlights, but they're the kinds that are made of a very heavy metal. They're really big. I want to say they're almost a foot long. The diameter is probably the same as that of, gosh, I don't know, I'm making a gesture with my hand, a golf ball if it was flattened, pretty big, okay? And they're just heavy-duty flashlights. Now Matthew admitted he had never actually seen this flashlight, but once he saw how Hannah was killed and the fact that the police didn't have any sort of murder weapon, he's like, I think it's important to tell you this, you know, it could be that flashlight. And here's a statement from one of the detectives on the case about that flashlight.

Speaker 2:
[16:13] We never found a murder weapon. We were able to draw conclusions as to what we think the murder weapon was, and we believed it to be a maglite flashlight.

Speaker 1:
[16:22] Even though the evidence against Daniel was certainly stacking up by this point, detectives continued to comb through all of the security footage that they could find that night from the bar and from the other places that Hannah and even Daniel had been, whether together or separately. I mean, they wanted to build a full timeline. They wanted to have as much evidence as possible. And sure enough, security footage confirmed that Daniel was in the Yogi bar playing trivia until at least 1130 PM on April 23rd. However, his movements after dropping off his co-worker at home can all be determined by security cameras. See, at 1130, Hannah still would have been at the Kilroy bar. The Yogi bar and Kilroy bar were directly across the street from one another. And when Hannah got put into that taxi by her friends around midnight, a bed and breakfast a few blocks away picked up Hannah's taxi driving past. And right behind that taxi was a Kia Sportage, the same car that Daniel drove. So between the security footage, the bloody clothes, owning a heavy object capable of bludgeoning someone, and finding his cell phone next to her body, I mean, it was a hell of a lot of incriminating evidence. Just stacked high, right? Which obviously this was not very well thought out because this alleged killer just like left their cell phone at the feet of their victim. Yet still, everyone was wondering why Daniel would have done this. I mean, he was a guy with a job, friends, even teammates that he hung out with regularly. However, as his name and face started making its way out into the public with the news of his arrest, more and more people started coming forward with stories about Daniel. And it turns out that he did have a pretty violent criminal history and was kind of just generally an all-around creep. See, Daniel had been convicted of literally whacking a woman over the head with a 2x4. In another instance, one time he hit his own grandmother so hard that he broke a bone in her face, which who the fuck hits their grandma, right? Daniel also had a bit of a reputation for just being a total creep, specifically with Indiana University girls. He allegedly admitted to a friend once that he would pose as somebody who worked on campus just so he could stake out the dorms. And sometimes he would even go inside, probably to like look at the college girls, which is seriously just so freaking gross of him. Another time, he told a friend how he was driving home and he saw a drunk girl leaving the bar. He convinced her to let him give her a ride home, and he told his friend how she was so drunk that he could have, quote, done whatever he wanted to her. Now, whether he did or not is unclear, but he ended up leaving her on the front lawn of her home and then just drove away. Another Indiana law student also came forward accusing Daniel as the man who tried to rape her quite some time prior to Hannah's murder. She said that one night, Daniel persuaded her to get into his car after the bar and he attacked her and tried to assault her. She ended up getting away by jumping out of the moving car. Now, this law student was never able to identify him because she didn't know him by name, but when she saw his picture in the paper, she had a literal gut reaction to it, almost like she threw up seeing his picture and immediately knew that it was him. In total, Daniel had eight prior convictions, which that's so scary to think how such a danger to society could have been in and out and about and living next door to such young vulnerable women just preying on them. I mean, it's awful. Now, before we go any further, for some of you true crime junkies, this case may remind you of another one, one that we have talked about over on 10 to Life before, which is my YouTube channel that focuses on true crime where it's videos. So if you didn't know I have that, I do. It's a bunch of cases you've never heard before. Serialously and 10 to Life are totally different podcasts, so different cases, and you can get those episodes either via podcast or on my YouTube channel, which is just Annie Elise, and that's the case of Lauren Spearer. Now, if you remember this case, it is one that still haunts people more than a decade later. So once the case of Hannah Wilson started to gain some attention, people couldn't help but think about how everything that happened to Hannah was reminding them of an unsolved case from just a few years before. Lauren was a 20-year-old student also at Indiana University. She was petite, blonde, she had blue eyes and she was very popular and a beloved student. But on June 3rd, 2011, she went missing. Now what is really jarring about her disappearance is the fact that Lauren was also out a night on the town drinking and celebrating with her friends and her friends ended up at Kilroy's Sports Bar, the exact same bar that Hannah was at the last night that she was seen alive. Lauren also got super drunk that night, and I mean, highly intoxicated. On the last night that she was seen, she had left her cell phone and her shoes at the bar before leaving with her friends to go walk back to her apartment. Once she got home, she wanted to keep drinking, so she went back and forth between her and her friends' apartment a few different times, and while that was going on, she lost her keys and her purse in one of the alleyways nearby. Now, Lauren's friends had tried to convince her to sleep at their apartment until she sobered up, but Lauren wanted to go back to her own apartment, despite still being very intoxicated. A friend of Lauren's said that for some reason, Lauren left her apartment at 4:30 a.m. and she was last seen walking across the street. That was the last time that anybody saw or heard from Lauren. After that, she literally just vanished. Several hours later, her friends tried to find her, but since she didn't have her phone, her purse, her keys, or even her shoes, they couldn't find any trace of her. She was reported missing, and a massive manhunt began to find her. But to this day, Lauren has never been found, and no one knows exactly what happened to her. However, when Hannah was found and found beaten to death, people couldn't help but notice the similarities. I mean, these two college girls from the same school, the same age, seen at the same bar, both highly intoxicated on the last night that they were seen alive. They were also both beautiful, kind, like bubbly, popular girls. It was just eerily similar, and honestly, a little bit chilling. So everyone started to point the finger at Daniel Messel, wondering if he could be behind the disappearance of Lauren. But despite all the similarities, authorities to this day maintain that the two cases are unrelated. They have said multiple times that any similarities in these cases simply come down to coincidence, which unfortunately means that Lauren's case remains cold. I have to say though, those are some crazy coincidences, and the fact that it happened so similarly twice is just heartbreaking. I mean, these two young girls lost their lives way too soon. They were just partying and having fun, and it's just awful. So going back to the case we're talking about today, Hannah Wilson. In June of 2016, Daniel's trial officially began for the murder of Hannah. Throughout the trial, Hannah's friends testified about her movements that night, and the last time that each of them spoke to her. The jury was also shown all of the graphic photos of Hannah's dead body in the field and how it was just completely covered in blood. They were shown pictures of the red cell phone found at her feet as well, and the bloodied clothes found in Daniel's possession when he was arrested. They were also shown the security footage of what looked like Daniel's car following behind the taxi that Hannah was in. Hannah's family members also testified during the trial, and as you can imagine, it was very emotional. Hannah's mother said, quote, You robbed Hannah of a lifetime ahead of her. You robbed me of knowing how beautiful she will look on her wedding day. Why Hannah? What did you really have to lose, Daniel? Why my daughter? Where did your paths cross? How did you get her in the car? Did you feel pleasure when you heard my daughter's skull crack? Was Hannah your first or did you kill before? Here's a clip of Hannah's mother speaking after the trial.

Speaker 3:
[24:21] Addressing him was the hardest thing that any mother should ever have done. Certainly harder than even sitting through the trial, but I needed to say certain things. As Hannah's mother, I have had my own feelings about the fact that she was probably not the first IU student. I have no grounds or basis for that other than a mother's intuition. He's probably wishing today that he would have made a different choice. Somebody that might not have been able to put up much resistance. And Hannah was not that girl.

Speaker 1:
[25:16] During the entire trial, Daniel was said to have just sat very calmly and quietly. Towards the end of the trial, the judge asked him if he would like to address the court, and this is what he said speaking directly to the Wilson family. Quote, I didn't kill Hannah. I'm sorry for the Wilson family's loss, but I didn't do it. And if it was my daughter, I would want to know who did it. Which I feel like that is such a classic statement of deflection, right? I mean, hello, her DNA was found all over your car. Your cell phone was there. Her blood was there. Like, what an idiot. Obviously, you did it. And his words didn't do much because after five hours of deliberation, the jury found Daniel guilty of murder. The judge sentenced Daniel to 60 years in prison and to an additional 20 years for being a repeat offender. He's currently serving out his sentence, yet he still denies killing Hannah. Hannah's mother said that if it wasn't for Hannah putting up the fight that she did, that they probably would not have even gotten Daniel off the streets, which, take a listen.

Speaker 3:
[26:15] By putting up the fight that she did and causing his cell phone to go, that left at the crime scene, we have a killer off the streets.

Speaker 1:
[26:28] In the end, there are still so many unanswered questions. How exactly did Hannah end up in Daniel's grasp? Did he have his sights just set on her the moment that he laid eyes on her in the bar that night? What led him to killing her? Did he plan on sexually assaulting her and then she fought back? I mean, was the flashlight the murder weapon? How did he leave his cell phone at the scene? If he hadn't left his phone there, would he have ever been caught? There are so many questions. And what I'm really hung up on through all of this is whether or not there is any real chance at all that Lauren and Hannah's cases are related. I mean, I know that the police maintain that they're not, but even so, there are just so many similarities that it freaks me out a little bit and breaks my heart. These were two girls who had so much to live for, but it was all taken away so senselessly. Both Hannah and Lauren's families have put so much effort into healing and moving forward, but I mean, of course, there's absolutely nothing that can make up for the loss of a child. And I'm curious to know what you guys think. Have you heard about the Lauren case? You can definitely, again, find it on my YouTube, and her last name is spelled S-P-I-E-R-E-R. Do you think they're related? I mean, it is certainly a cautionary tale of always using the buddy system, not getting too intoxicated, never getting into a stranger's car, I mean, heck now, even it's like, can't even take Ubers without feeling like you're in jeopardy of being assaulted, right? It's just really sad, so I am curious to know your thoughts. Thank you for listening to another bonus episode of SERIALously, and as a reminder, for those of you who are signed up for these episodes via Apple, if you go to my 10 to Life podcast, you're gonna get access to a whole bunch of other bonus episodes too, because by being signed up for the Annie Elise Plus subscription, you get access to the bonus episodes on both feeds. It's just for whatever reason, I don't know why Apple does this, they don't put them all in one feed together, so you have to toggle back and forth. But right now on this feed, we have well over 100 episodes, so if you haven't listened to all of those bonus episodes yet, what you can do is I'm gonna pull up my phone here to walk you exactly through it. You go to my podcast page, then where you see episodes with the little drop arrow, press subscriber episodes, and then it'll show you all of the subscriber episodes in case you've missed any of them. And you can binge listen to all of them. Then make sure that you toggle back to all episodes so that you don't miss other episodes as they drop. And then if you search 10 to Life, 102 Life, that's my other true crime podcast with totally different cases, you not only can have access to all the free episodes over there, but you also get access to all of the bonus episodes too. And you can find them in the feed or you can again sort them and just toggle down to subscriber episodes. So anyway, thank you so much for being here. I love you guys. I hope you have a fantastic weekend. I will be back with you on Monday with an all new case, a deep dive. It's a wild one, but until then, be nice. Don't kill people. Watch out for your friends and do not get into any stranger's car. All right guys, take care, bye.