Sister of Colorado girl who went missing at 14 became investigator in already bungled case

close

Video

Genealogy is only a 'tip, not evidence': CeCe Moore

DNA Detectives founder CeCe Moore joins 'Fox News @ Night' to break down how genealogy led law enforcement to the identification of Idaho murders suspect Bryan Kohberger. 

On Aug. 16, 1983, teenager Beth Miller left her Idaho Springs, Colorado, home for a jog and never returned.

For weeks, there was a massive community search effort for the 14-year-old as neighbors and law enforcement came together to bring her home, but that never happened.

"I'm not young anymore, and I'd like to know what happened to Beth," Miller's sister, Lynn McLaughlin, told Fox News Digital. "And I want to be able to tell Mom, who's not a spring chicken, either — I'd like to be able to tell her, 'This is what happened to Beth, and this is where she's buried. Let's go get her and give her a good Christian burial.'"

McLaughlin was so determined for answers after her sister's disappearance that she became directly involved in the case in the 1990s when she joined local law enforcement, and doing so led her down an even more complicated path toward answers.

ALABAMA SERIAL RAPIST MUSICIAN TIED TO ‘HORRIFYING’ ATTACKS THROUGH DNA RESEARCH

Beth Miller, 14, went for a run on Aug. 16, 1983, and never returned home. (Lynn McLaughlin)

"That's really why I got into law enforcement. I wanted to find my sister," McLaughlin said.

But when she began sorting through the evidence in her sister's case, she was confronted with an unsalvageable mess.

VERMONT COLD CASE MURDER SUSPECT FLED COUNTRY, BECAME MONK AFTER STRANGLING WOMAN

"When I went to the Idaho Springs Police Department, I was told that I was about a month too late — that most of the reports and everything they didn't think was important had been destroyed," she said. "There was very little left of this case."

Leads that would have previously taken up a "bathroom-sized room" full of papers — pre-computers — now only took up two drawers, she said.

Beth Miller's sister, Lynn McLaughlin, became an investigator for the Clear Creek County Sheriff's Office, which was investigating her 1983 disappearance. (Lynn McLaughlin)

McLaughlin began her law enforcement career with the Idaho Springs Police Department and then went on to the Clear Creek County Sheriff's Office (CCCSO), which told Fox News Digital it is still actively investigating the case but could not comment further on developments at this time.

"When I started working on the case, and that publicity drew a lot of new leads to us. So, we were able to take a lot of that information … and investigate those leads. And through that, we found a couple of very good suspects that we dug a lot further into," McLaughlin explained. "…It's frustrating."

Another girl said she saw Miller jogging on Aug. 16, 1983 and waved to her. That witness told investigators that she saw a red pickup truck drive by Miller near the same area where search dogs eventually lost her scent, according to McLaughlin.

McLaughlin named two potential suspects in Miller's disappearance who were never charged as Edward Apodaca, a former law enforcement officer, and his former girlfriend, Viola Moya. Apodaca lived nearby and owned a red pickup truck similar to the one the witness described at the time of Miller's vanishing.

The Miller family home in Idaho Springs, Colorado, where Beth Miller was last seen on Aug. 16, 1983. (Google Maps)

Moya apparently gave a statement to an investigator in 1993 saying they had dismembered the 14-year-old and buried her remains.

So McLaughlin, as a CCCSO investigator, went to the alleged burial site with other investigators, began to dig and eventually found a "t-shirt similar to the one Beth was wearing at the time of her disappearance." 

FBI FINDS WASHINGTON BOY IN MISSOURI 7 MONTHS LATER; GRANDPARENTS FACE CHARGES

She went to the sheriff at the time and told him what she had discovered. When she returned to the scene, a large piece of equipment had been moved over the apparent burial site, obstructing McLaughlin's access to anything of potential importance in her sister's case. The man operating the equipment told McLaughlin that he was taking "orders from the sheriff," she said. 

"I can't remember if it was a bulldozer or a backhoe or what it was, but it was covering up everything, and it completely — the trees, bushes, everything was gone where we had markers [that] the bloodhounds had alerted," she recalled. 

A girl saw Miller jogging on Aug. 16, 1983 and waved to her. That witness told investigators that she saw a red pickup truck drive by Miller near the same area where search dogs eventually lost her scent, according to McLaughlin. (Lynn McLaughlin)

When McLaughlin confronted the sheriff, she was told she "would be charged with interfering with an investigation, with trespass and a list of charges" if she "ever went back to that site again."

"That was the end," she said.

In 2006, a grand jury was called to investigate several witnesses over the course of 10 months. 

NEW YORK WOMAN GETS 4 ½/ YEARS FOR ROLE IN SARAH LAWRENCE SEX TRAFFICKING SCHEME

Apodaca's wife and her mother killed him in New Mexico in 1990, according to The Denver Post. Moya had grown old and was considered too incapacitated to be questioned or charged, McLaughlin said.

The grand jury concluded that there was a "clear lack of professionalism and cooperation in the investigating bodies," including the Idaho Springs Police Department, CCCSO, the Denver Police Department, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the FBI. They also found a "lack of meaningful investigation at the outset of this case." As a result, the jury could not formally indict any suspects.

"Jurisdictional disputes were particularly at fault in slowly and eventually sabotaging the investigation. During the [then-24-year-old] investigation involving five agencies many documents and statements became hard to corroborate, and others were destroyed," the grand jury stated.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Now, more than anything, McLaughlin says she just wants to find Miller's remains and give her a proper burial.

"I know whoever did it — they'll still face their best judgment time when they die," she said.