Jon WebbEvansville Courier & Press
A person who wants to remain anonymous has pledged a $10,000 reward for information that leads to the whereabouts of Heather Teague – the Kentucky woman who was abducted from Newburgh Beach almost 29 years ago.
The Courier & Press has spoken with the person – who requested anonymity for their own safety – and confirmed their identity. Sarah Teague, Heather’s mother, also said she’s met and talked with the person multiple times.
It’s Sarah Teague’s latest effort to bring closure to a case that’s remained unsolved since Aug. 26, 1995 – when an eyewitness said they saw a bearded, scraggly haired, gun-toting man emerge from a line of trees along the Ohio River and drag the sunbathing 23-year-old Heather away.
She hasn’t been seen since.
“There are answers. There are people who have known for 28 years, five months and seven days today where Heather is,” Sarah Teague told the Courier & Press on Friday. “And what really happened … on Newburgh Beach.”
Anyone with information should email sarah.teague5@gmail.com or call 270-836-7643.
The Courier & Press reached out to Kentucky State Police for comment. Spokesman Trooper Corey King said he'd forward it along to the investigating officers. They hadn't responded as of Monday.
The disappearance of Heather Teague
In the days after Heather’s disappearance, KSP focused on their main suspect: Marvin Ray “Marty” Dill. Thirty years old and with a criminal record, Dill had sported a mountain-man look in the past. He also owned a red Ford Bronco that matched the description of one seen at the beach that day.
, however, Dill’s attorney told KSP on Aug. 31, 1995, that Dill no longer had wild hair and a beard. And he hadn’t for quite some time.
“He’s shorter. He’s lighter. He does not have a bushy beard. He does not have bushy hair,” Henderson County attorney William Polk told multiple officials. “His beard is very short. And his hair, I’m told, is now very short.”
Polk, who died in 2018, also warned police against raiding Dill’s home in Poole, Kentucky. The suspect was holed up inside, he said, and was a danger to himself. If police came at night, Dill might commit suicide.
KSP went ahead with their plans. By 3:15 a.m. on Sept. 1 – five days after Heather’s disappearance – Dill was declared dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
In the years since, Sarah Teague has repeatedly said the police sketch of the alleged abductor was based on Dill’s driver’s license photo.
Disputed calls to police
Then there’s the matter of the call that first alerted authorities to Teague’s disappearance.
In the version that’s since been released, the caller says he was looking through a telescope at his home on the Indiana side of the Ohio River when he saw a woman sunbathing face down on the Kentucky beach.
“About this time a guy come running out of the trees on the lefthand side and he ran down and grabbed her by the head of the hair and jerked her up,” the caller says. “And she grabbed her towel and he walked her up into the trees up in the riverbank over here. And I been watching now for 25 minutes, and I ain’t seen her come back.
“… I swear this guy looked like he had a gun,” he continues. “He come down, he had a chrome-plated – I could see it glistening in the sun. And it looked like a revolver.”
He described the man as white and “kinda heavyset” with cut-off jean shorts and black sneakers.
“I couldn’t tell if he had a full beard or if he just had real shaggy hair or something over his face,” the caller says. “… Maybe it’s nothing, but god**** it scared the s*** out of me.”
Sarah Teague and attorney Chip Adams, though, that they’ve heard a second call to police.
In 2008, they went to KSP headquarters and had KSP play them a tape. In it, the caller speaks to a female dispatcher – not a male like in the released call – and says the abductor could have been wearing a wig or mosquito netting: a detail that would possibly explain the discrepancy in the suspect and Dill’s appearances. That description is never mentioned in the released audio.
That mosquito-netting call has never been made public. And when Sarah Teague successfully sued to obtain KSP’s entire case file, it wasn’t included there, either.
The Courier & Press also filed a records request last year for “audio of all calls made to KSP Post 16, as well as any 911 audio the KSP has in its possession related to the disappearance of Heather Teague.” KSP eventually sent several snippets of audio. None of them matched the description of that 2008 call.
In a November Courier & Press story, Adams said he now doesn’t believe the unreleased audio was “genuine.”
“They maintain there’s only one. So the explanation is you fabricated the first one to bolster or validate the story they were trying to sell Sarah Teague from day one,” Adams said. “Or two, there were two calls, but you lost one. That’s also a possibility, to just be objective about it. … And then the third possibility is we’re wrong. But I’m not.
“I’m 1,000 percent sure: that first call I heard had mosquito netting and wig, and the sexes between the two dispatchers were different,” he said. “I’ve signed an affidavit to that extent. It is in the record.”
The Courier & Press reached out to KSP for comment then.
“I was told Sarah and Chip (have) the entire case,” spokesman Trooper Corey King said in response. “And they can share it with you as we don’t have anything more than what they do.”
Sarah Teague believes she could have “had Heather back” as quickly as four days after her disappearance if police had listened to Polk or expanded their search. Now she’s lived longer without Heather than she ever did with her.
"Any information will come to me," Sarah Teague said. "And I will find her."
