The Heartbreaking case of Joshua Walden

what's up you guys and welcome back to at my channel since this is the first time I'm posting since Halloween I just wanted to say thank you to every single one of you that watched every video that I posted I do apologize I missed today I was so dang sick you guys I tried so hard to keep up but I completely lost my voice and it just was not in my cards but just like last year I loved every single second I loved spending every single day with you guys in the comments and hearing your thoughts and opinions and theories it always does something for me when I do holla week where I just feel so much more inspired to keep creating this content and look into cases that I typically wouldn't cover on my channel and different subjects that I wouldn't typically cover so my mind is turning right now and I've got a few ideas going in my head and things I'd like to accomplish from here on out so we'll see how that goes but let's go ahead and jump right into today's video now today we will be speaking about the unsolved murder of Joshua Walden and there is not a lot of information out there about this case it did happen in 2000 so it's been 20 years at this point and I don't know sometimes articles will still be up from cases that old I've seen articles up from cases even older than that obviously I've covered cases way before that but every time I clicked on a link with his name on it half the time it said page not found so a lot of this information is coming from kailia Lisa's video on her channel which makes me sad to say because I miss her so much in the true-crime community and the rest of the information is coming from the few news articles that I could find and a couple of different blogs that seem to be following this case fairly closely and have contact with the family so if you are someone local or if this is something that you've been following for quite some time now feel free to share any information you may have down below just make sure you source it if you do so now let's get into these circumstances Joshua was 10 years old when he was murdered on December 8 2000 he lived in Chattanooga Tennessee with his family in a house off of 14th Avenue he was just a typical kind ten-year-old little boy he went to East Lake Elementary which was I'm pretty sure maybe even across the street from his house he had a ton of friends there and he was known to just be a very kind and giving young boy he would always help friends if they needed it he would always help his neighbors during the spring in the summer he would mow their lawns help with any yard work he also loved to play football he loved to play video games but probably one of his favorite things to do was bike around the neighborhood with his friends he had the 16 inch Magnum bike he loved this thing it was probably his most prized possession he took care of it like it was his car or his baby he actually had just painted it this really dull kind of faded red so you get the gist here just an average kid he was also very very close to his family he was a huge huge mama's boy but the one person I think he seemed to be closest to was his older sister named Krystal she was I believe about seven years old when he was born and I don't think there were any other siblings yet so she was so excited to have a little brother when he came he basically became her baby she changed all of his diapers she got him dressed she took care of him rocked him to sleep she always wanted to feed him the older they got the tighter their bond got and unfortunately days before Joshua was murdered Krystal had her first baby and this was something that Joshua had been looking forward to since he found out that she was pregnant he was so excited to be an uncle and to love on this little baby from what I understand Krystal was still living at their parents house and he was excited and then on top of that Christmas was coming and it was supposed to be one of the greatest times of the year but unfortunately someone took that away not only from Joshua but from every single person that cared about him on Friday December the 8th school was out for Joshua and I believe Krystal was still home just taking care of her baby they spent the day the way that they typically would I don't know if either of the parents were home at the time I haven't seen a lot of information just in general about his parents but at one point crystal decided to go and change her babies diapered and while she was doing it she just so happened to call out to Joshua after a couple of minutes because she hadn't heard anything and she received no response now when she went to go and look for him she couldn't find him in the house and she checked outside and his bike was gone so she believed that he had taken his bike to go and look for a friend apparently one of his tires was flat so I'm assuming he wasn't riding his bike to find a friend he was likely just walking it along the road but she wasn't too alarmed because this was something that Joshua did Joshua was always out on his bike always out with his friends this was not abnormal but after a few hours Joshua had not come home now this wasn't normal Joshua was a mama's boy and he always made sure that he came home at a reasonable time and if he couldn't make it home for any sort of reason he always called from a friend's house he knew pretty much everyone in the neighborhood so it wouldn't have been hard for him to get to a phone just to ring his home real quick but there had been no contact from him whatsoever finally around midnight they knew something was wrong so they were called in to authorities to report Joshua missing since there aren't many articles that are still available I'm unsure exactly how fast authorities came and searched the area I'm hoping and assuming they came to search that night but I do know for a fact that at least by the next day everyone possible was searching this was a very close-knit community so all of the neighborhood was there all of Joshua's family was there authorities were there and they were searching top to bottom now authorities were going around door to door and asking if anyone had seen Joshua the day before Friday the 8th and a lot of different neighbors claimed to have seen him they remembered seeing him with his bike and I believe the last place they were able to pinpoint that he was for a fact scene was on the 4,500 block of 14th Avenue and that's roughly about half a mile away from his house and then after that Joshua simply vanished despite extensive searches and speaking to as many neighbors as possible they couldn't find any sign of Joshua no one had really thought the day before to take note of anything when they saw him because it was such a typical thing to see him riding his bike all around the neighborhood or walking with his bike so no one really thought to think about what direction is he going in is he with anybody so unfortunately despite so many people seeing him no one witnessed anything out of the ordinary or could remember anything by Sunday the 10th Joshua's brother Jonathan I believe this was his younger brother decided to head out with all of the boys in the neighborhood to keep looking for signs of Joshua they knew all the favorite places that all the kids in the neighborhood like to hang out they knew all the places they would all go and bike so they wanted to check all of those areas off the list and one place they wanted to check was East Lake Park now it didn't take long at all for Jonathan to end up spotting something a foot was just barely sticking out of the leaves while he was walking around in the woods authorities arrived on the scene and they discovered something heartbreaking when they arrived there was this small depression in the ground and it was covered with leaves and in those leaves there was a small foot with no socks no shoes sticking up the rest of the body had been completely covered with leaves in an attempt to hide it when authorities started to uncover the body they for the most part knew that it was Joshua's body but they noticed that the only kind of wounds were very superficial scratches on the side of his face and his nose there was nothing at all other than that that gave them any idea as to what the cause of death could be but the most puzzling thing about the state that they found his body in was despite there being no you know massive cuts or scrapes or gashes or wounds on his body he did appear to be covered in some kind of burn now when they searched the rest of the area around where they located Joshua's body they were never able to locate the socks they were never able to katehis shoes and they also could not locate his bike so someone either had to have taken all of these items or maybe they had been left somewhere and he ended up at a different location but without any proof at all so far a foul play they had absolutely no idea what to think but upon hearing this news his family decided right away something was not right Joshua was very very very particular about his socks and his shoes he refused to be barefoot and not just he like had to have socks on only Joshua constantly wore shoes he even wore shoes to bed his parents would have to go in at night after he fell asleep take them off and then the next morning he would always wake up angry and upset that they had been taken off he did the same thing when he went to sleepovers it did not matter where Joshua was he had to have his shoes on it was just one of his things so there essentially was no way that he would have willingly taken his shoes and socks off of his body so they believed something had to have happened to him that was beyond his control and the physical examination of his body proved this the autopsy showed that there was absolutely no sign of sexual assault or much physical trauma other than the scrapes on the side of his face but the cause of death was from mechanical asphyxiation which means that his torso had been compressed until suffocation either by the weight of someone else or by the weight of something very heavy some other type of object now I'm sure at this point you're wondering the same thing I was wondering what about these burns that's something that's so bizarre and sticks out the most when it comes to the state his body was found in it actually took a whole entire year for authorities to release to anyone that Joshua had burns on his body and what caused the burns I don't even believe his family knew about this I could be wrong but from what I got from the information I read I don't think they knew now they likely did this to protect the integrity of the case this is obviously a homicide all of his items were missing so I believe because that's such an unusual and defining piece of information that only the killer would know I'm sure that's exactly why they kept it to themselves but unfortunately holding that information back led them absolutely nowhere an entire year had passed and someone had they known prior could have maybe noticed something so they finally decided to release the information realizing that this was not benefiting the case whatsoever and they revealed that the burns were caused by a myriad ik acid now this acid had been poured on Josh after death they found evidence of it underneath his body on the leaves on leaves surrounding his body so it was poured on him right then and there likely as an attempt to get rid of his body faster maybe slow the process of identification just kind of seemed like this last-ditch effort and really excuse my language but half-assed effort to try to cover up the crime that had been committed but instead of progressing the decomposition or anything like that all it did was really burn the skin and it kept away the animals and the insects now when this information came out everybody was shocked muriatic acid is not something that you just commonly find it's usually only used in very specific circumstances by someone who knows what they're doing it can badly burn skin the fumes from it can badly burn your esophagus when using muriatic acid it's suggested that she wear gloves and goggles and you know chemical resistant gloves and clothing it's used for very serious cleaning cleaning things like metal and brick and concrete sometimes it's heavily diluted to clean pools or take stains off of pools I know some people will use it in household cleaning but typically the people that do are very aware of how to use it safely and dilute it properly and they usually only use it to get things like stains out of grout or if there staying on a tile just very very random things like that it's just not commonly used except for in very very heavy-duty cleaning and the production of some detergents and things like that they were basically hoping that since it was such a specific item someone would remember something did someone that worked at a pool remember a container of this acid going missing around the time maybe did a wife or a husband noticed that in the trunk of their spouse's car there was an empty bottle of muriatic acid just anything like that but unfortunately because it had been a year at this point I don't believe anyone came forward with any helpful information Joshua was such a loved young boy and his family authorities the neighborhood his friends nobody had any idea why anyone would want to harm him and then try to destroy his body with acid afterwards at this point a sexually motivated crime had for the most part been ruled out because there was no sign of a sexual assault that doesn't mean that it wasn't a sexually motivated crime that kind of accidentally got stopped in its tracks or maybe it was of a different kind that didn't leave a trace but then there wasn't much physical trauma either but then this very dramatic use of acid it just wasn't making sense and authorities were not being led in any specific direction the FBI and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations were brought into the investigation along with a few other organizations I know that the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children came in they were coming together and creating posters and spreading word about what happened to him and the FBI and the tnb I also decided to profile the potential killer because if you think about it they have nothing at this point they don't even have half the items that Joshua had on him when he left his home so they had to rely on someone maybe recognizing what this person might have been like they believe that since Joshua's body was found in his neighborhood that this person likely either lived in the neighborhood or was very familiar with it meaning they more than likely lived in the Chattanooga area they also believed that this could have been an accidental killing that was very sloppily covered up with the mechanical asphyxiation there's a multitude of things that could have possibly happened to him one accident and then someone panicked and tried again very sloppily to dispose of the body and they also believed that whoever did this to Joshua had this muriatic acid on hand this was not something that they went out and got after the fact they used whatever they had but that makes it a lot easier to kind of narrow things down because again very specific things are done with muriatic acid not just everybody has muriatic acid this person may have worked at a job that frequently used it potentially in construction or heavy-duty cleaning some sort of factory work potentially worked at a pool they also have stated that they think it's very possible they've come in contact with Joshua's killer since this happened and they just don't know it yet they believe the killer also may still have Joshua's bike or maybe it was given away or disposed of unfortunately given the items that they were being socks shoes and a bike that wouldn't be anything that was really a red flag to anyone if it ended up in a dumpster or anything like that those are common items that are kind of tossed but to this day none of those items have been found so for all we know they could be in a landfill somewhere or someone could be saving it as some sort of souvenir now this is kind of where I get confused when it comes to the shoes and the socks I cannot figure out what on earth a motive would be and I want to lean towards accidental killing that was covered up maybe one thing led to another a joke was taken too far or something like that but why would his socks and shoes beat off like I understand maybe hiding the bike because that right there is a big red bike that could say hey a body's over here this is where the person you're looking for is but the shoes and the socks especially because the that was something that got to him that was something that I feel like may have been done to purposely bother him which gets me thinking about people close to him people that knew him people that might have known that one of his quirks was not liking his socks and his shoes off and that his bike was his most prized possession that was everything kind of of value to him and of importance to him taken from him before death I honestly start to wonder in that scenario I think about bullies were there any bullies living in the neighborhood that wanted to make fun of him for being weird about his socks and his shoes or just had any issues with him maybe something went a little bit too far but the only issue I have with that is that most young kids aren't going to be carrying mhairi attic acid or even know what muriatic acid is I also know and I hate to even bring this up that there are a lot of people out there with a foot fetish and you know people that are very interested in children unfortunately and it kind of gets me thinking along those lines as well I know that they've kind of ruled out a sexual assault just because there was no evidence of it but again what if this was an assault that was meant to go a different way and an accidental death happened and things kind of stopped before anymore happened there's just too many red flags to me with these three things very specific things missing that make me really think it was someone that knew him there is a man named Earl Teague that has been working on this case I have absolutely no idea who he is if I'm being really honest again there's no information on this case really at all online and I found this information and specific on a blog and that is also linked down below but apparently he's looked through all the autopsy reports all the police records he's spoken with a ton of different people he's put up his own posters and he actually came together with a list of 19 different suspects and since he started working on the case he narrowed it down to one and this one person is a known sex offender in the Lee East Lake area so I have no idea what to think about the I don't know how he came to this information I don't know what evidence he found to get there but I figured since there's not much being done or spoken about on this case anymore I would add it in there just in case maybe it jog somebody's memory because he clearly had enough reason to believe so according to Earl he is looking very specifically at one house in the area there's a house that used to sit on the corner of 39th and 14th so very very close to where Joshua lived and days before Joshua's death the house burned down according to the people that owned the home at some point afterwards they gave a man that was wandering the neighborhood some of their son's clothing that was smoky and gross from the fire that's all the information I have I don't know why they gave it to him I don't know why this is suspicious I don't know if they believed there was maybe some drifter walking around that could have been potentially dangerous at the time I have absolutely no idea but they think it's a possibility other than that authorities from what I know don't seem to have any other theories and everyone is pretty much just hoping that someone eventually comes forward that's essentially all that's left in this case there is no more physical evidence that they could possibly find they've already done an autopsy unless maybe the bike or the socks or the shoes showed up somewhere but again first of all the chances any day and air left on that are slim to none and second of all I just don't know how likely it is those things are going to be found so they're really pushing to just keep this information out there and hopefully eventually push someone to come and tell them what exactly happened Crystalis said that she is forgiven whoever did this to her brother but it has drastically altered the way that she lives her life and how she raises her children and despite forgiving this person the one thing she asked them is to come forward to not be a coward come and confess to what they did so that she can have some peace because keep in mind a ten year old boy was suffocated and then burned with acid that person that did that is still out there somewhere they could be sitting on a couch right now watching TV or sitting with their family who has apps no idea what they've done they're out there and this is something that's constantly on their mind we don't know if this person has done it again or could do it again we have absolutely no idea so she has lived in a constant state of fear ever since her children don't spend the night anywhere they are not allowed anywhere off of their own Street it's just been a horrifying experience for everybody involved Crimestoppers is offering a one-thousand dollar reward to anyone that has information on who killed Joshua again I have all of that information that listed down below if you have any information that you would like to share Crimestoppers is completely anonymous I get comments all the time asking how just trust me it is I've been on there before I've had to use it before it is anonymous and you are safe the blog's that I have listed down below again I don't know how accurate their information is but I do know that they are or they've stated they are working closely with a few members of the family I've seen some of them are working with crystal some of them are working with Joshua's dad and potentially I think Jonathan I can't remember that for a fact but there are people out there that are just everyday people trying really really hard to keep Joshua's name alive and whoever did this is still out there and I applaud them and I hope you guys help in their efforts and my efforts as well as law enforcement efforts and Joshua's family I know that one of the original detectives on this case or one of the first officers that arrived when this all happened he actually retired and then came back to help on a new cold-case unit in the area because he just couldn't handle knowing that there were all these cases just like Joshua's and Joshua's that remained unsolved but that's all I have for you guys today I want to thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to listen to Joshua's story again every phone number anything you could need will be linked down below if you have any information please remember to be respectful and kind in the comments families do end up down there they see what you are saying think twice before you say something if you haven't already hit the subscribe button to become a part of the Holland fam so we can hopefully bring them home together and I will see guys in my next video by [Music] you

Channel: Danelle Hallan

Views: 394,216

Keywords: mekayla bali, unsolved, solved, missing person, missing person cases, christian andreacchio, little gabriel, George Smith, Ember Graham, Laura Ackerson, Egypt Covington, Phoenix Coldon, Harold Shipman, Skylar Neese, Jaryd Atadero, Natascha Kampusch, Kiplyn Davis, Katelin Akens, Faith Hedgepeth, Edward Bryant, Danelle Hallan, where is, mystery, Aliza Sherman, true crime, Bain family murders, david baine, robin bain, TODD GEIB, Juliane Koepcke, Joshua Walden

Id: MqF5uQvcgnE

Length: 24min 49sec (1489 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 16 2019