Texas Wine and True Crime
We review Texas wines and discuss Texas true crime.
Texas Wine and True Crime
Erica Botello & Heidi Seeman - San Antonio
What happens when the safety of a community is shattered by the unthinkable? Join me as we navigate the haunting mysteries surrounding the unsolved abductions and murders of Heidi Seaman and Erica Botello. I will explore the unsettling details of Heidi and Erica's disappearance and murder and the broader implications this case had on the San Antonio community 35 years ago.
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Welcome all of you wine and true crime lovers. I'm Brandi and this is Texas Wine and True Crime. Thank you for being here, friends, for this week's episode the Heidi Seaman and Erica Poteo cases. Tonight I am sipping on a 2022 Sweet Muscat from my friends at Texas Wine Collective. The Texas Wine Collective is the home of the renowned Texas wines vineyards, including Brennan Vineyards, lost Oak Winery and McPherson Cellars. Brennan Vineyards was founded in 2001. Their love of wine has brought them to where they are today. Brennan Vineyards is located at one of the oldest remaining homesteads in Texas and is committed to authenticity from ground to glass and consumer transparency with all of their products.
Speaker 1:Lost Oak Winery near Burleson, texas. Gene Estes began his winemaking career in 1963 in his family's garage. After years of determined focus and education in US and France, he perfected both his grape growing and winemaking skills. Lost Oak Winery was founded in 2006 with the purchase of Lone Oak Vineyards. Now, although Kim McPherson has painted the modern portrait of high quality winemaking in Texas, his father, clint Doc McPherson, provided all the requisite tools needed. What started out as an experimental vine planting in the 1960s, at a time when there were virtually none in the entire state, evolved into an extraordinary framework that has since shaped the Texas High Plains landscape. Today Doc is, and always will be recognized as one of the founding fathers of modern Texas wine. So please go visit our friends in the heart of Fredericksburg at Texas Wine Collective and tell them your friends at Texas Wine and True Crime sent you. Or, for easy shopping and shipping, hop on their website at texaswinecollectivecom to browse their wine and cider shop.
Speaker 1:Tonight I want to discuss the unsolved tragic murders of both Heidi Seaman and Erica Botteo in San Antonio. So it has been 35 years since both of these girls were abducted and murdered within weeks of each other. Both of these cases, unfortunately, are a stark reminder that something terrible can happen even in the safest of environments. Heidi disappears within yards of her home and Erica is taken from the playground area at the apartment complex where she lived with her family. On August 4, 1990, heidi was at a friend's house enjoying a slumber sleepover with friends. When it was time for Heidi to go home the next day, the friend walked her about halfway home and then Heidi was to walk the rest of the way. She was supposed to be home by noon. She was last seen walking west on Stahl Road. Now there is an elementary school where she attended, called Stahl Elementary. So this is a neighborhood school. It's a familiar area, familiar streets to her and I looked at a map of this and it is shocking that this young girl is taken so close to her home. There's a level of trust in this community, there's a level of comfort in this community and I can see by looking at the map why they would feel comfortable with her walking home from this location, based on where the family was living. So the Seamans were at home that day just doing things around the house when they noticed at 1230, heidi had not come home yet. Her mother would later say that they knew immediately something was wrong, since she was always home on time. So she was supposed to be home at 12. It's now 1230. They're worried.
Speaker 1:Heidi's mother calls the friend's house where Heidi had been spending the night before and once she finds out from the friend that she had walked Heidi to the halfway point and that, based on the timeline, heidi should have already been home by then. So mother is panicked and she immediately calls the San Antonio Police Department. Heidi is 11 years old at the time, so the search for her begins immediately. Police officers arrive, neighbors, the seamen, they're starting to drive around looking for Heidi. So during this preliminary investigation officers did confirm that heidi's friend walked with heidi to a halfway point between the girls's house. So they went and spoke to the girl. They spoke to the family, um, the friend also told police that while she was walking back to her home she looked back to check on heidi and noticed that she was no longer there, um, but she didn't hear anything like screaming or any frantic voices coming that made her turn around. She just looked to see if her friend was still there.
Speaker 1:Now the friend also will tell police that she saw a red car slowing down and looking at the girls. She tells police that she sees this car pass her and Heidi at least three times. Now she can provide some details about what this person driving the red car may have looked like. And they did come up with a composite sketch of the driver. You know this reminds me similarly of. You know, with the car passing back and forth.
Speaker 1:There was something that had happened in Richardson, texas, not that long ago and thankfully it was caught on the ring camera. But there was a young girl who was walking with her phone and coming home from school and she saw the same vehicle passing her multiple times. She ends up hiding behind a truck. Now this is all caught again on ring camera. She's hiding behind a car that is sitting in a driveway and you see her, because eventually this will come out in the news and we'll be able to get to see the footage of this camera. You see the car going back and forth and you see her ducking down and then trying to get a look at the car and then ducking down. So thankfully the person who owned the home had the door open but the screen door closed and the dog was jumping on the screen door because he saw the girl hiding behind the vehicle. So the owner comes out, she tells them what's happening, they call police and thankfully this young lady was able to hide. So you know, parents, we're here to teach our kids to pay attention to things and this is this is one of them.
Speaker 1:So the San Antonio community got very involved very quickly. Heb actually put up a reward to help find Heidi. The San Antonio Spurs offered their assistance. The mayor at the time designated August 11th 1990 as to be find Heidi day. Um, and that day they encourage residents all to come out and that day they encouraged residents all to come out help with the search. At one point they said there were over 300,000 people searching on that day for Heidi.
Speaker 1:Now, during the time people are searching for this young girl, another girl goes missing on August the 23rd from the front yard where she was playing at the apartment complex where she lived with her family. This was seven-year-old Erica Botello. Now you have two missing girls in San Antonio. So the volunteers, families, neighbors, they asked the community to expand their search efforts for not just one girl but for both girls. Right, so the community is you already have Heidi gone, they're looking for her, but now you have a young girl that is also abducted and you, you've got to now focus on both you. They didn't want all the resources used just to look for Heidi.
Speaker 1:So the community of San Antonio was in sheer panic at this point. Both girls were taken within feet of their homes by presumably, presumably sheer panic. At this point, both girls were taken within feet of their homes by presumably total strangers. At this point you have two disappearances in the rarest of forms, because stranger abductions of children are extremely rare. You know, sadly, we are more likely to be abducted and killed by someone that knows us. So this is, I can just imagine what the San Antonio community was thinking. You know, we have someone out here who's taking kids.
Speaker 1:Sadly, the search ended for Heidi on August 25th 1990, after her body is found by a landowner in rural area of Wimberley, texas. This is about 60 miles from San Antonio. Her body had been wrapped in a blanket and she was covered basically in plastic trash bags. An autopsy determined Heidi had most likely been strangled to death, although decomposition had set in at that time. So her exact manner of death could actually not be determined. It was also reported that restraints may have been used on her, which tells me they may have seen marks on her, on her wrist or something to give them that idea. The blanket, the bags, the idea of the restraints being used, the location of her body. This tells us that the perpetrator may have not immediately killed Heidi.
Speaker 1:You have to drive a significant amount of way, so where are you taking? You're not going to be able to drive 60 miles with a girl you just abducted in the car, unless you've incapacitated her somehow or you know. But this is a long way to go with someone that you've just abducted in the car, unless you've incapacitated her somehow or you know, but. But this is a long way to go with someone that you've just abducted that is fighting for their life and wanting out of this vehicle. So was she brought somewhere else and then this happens to her? Is the perpetrator living, living in Wimberley Texas? We know that one of the suspects in this case actually owned property in Wimberley Texas at the time, so you know this was. Finding her body in that location may also just be a signal of the comfortability of the perpetrator in this area. You know, maybe they live near the location they wanted her taken away from the search. Right People are out there looking for her and this is going to make it harder to find her.
Speaker 1:Within a day of Heidi being found, seven-year-old Erica was also found in a storm drain less than a mile from her apartment complex. Police believe she was taken, possibly put in a vehicle and then her body dumped in the storm drain. Her autopsy determined she had been beaten and strangled. Both cases remain unsolved. Now police know very early on in this investigation that these two cases are not related and were not committed by the same person. There seems to be more of an effort I would say to conceal in Heidi's abduction, in my opinion, whereas Erica is taken, killed and her body is found close to her home. So this tells me that the perpetrators are probably from that immediate area where Erica is taken and they have done something terrible and need to get rid of her quickly, which is why they put her in the storm drain not far from where she actually lived.
Speaker 1:Now police actually make an arrest in Erica's case within days of her body being found. They arrest 17-year-old Roderick Springs, 31-year-old Sherman Bedford III and 31-year-old Kenneth Earl Pope. Now all three are arrested and charged with capital murder in the death of seven-year-old Erica and held on a million-dollar bond for each of them. Now we know these cases are still classified as unsolved, which means these capital charges are eventually dropped. In December of 1990, a Bexar County grand jury declined to indict the two men, sherman Bedford and Kenneth Hope, for the death of Erica. Both men are mentally disabled with less than an average IQ, and the grand jury said there just isn't enough evidence to charge these men with her murder. Now one of the suspects, sherman Bedford, was said to have had made statements to the police during questioning that implicated himself and the others in her abduction. But the court actually found and felt that this implication of guilt may have been coerced during questioning by police.
Speaker 1:The only eyewitness to Erica's abduction was a seven-year-old, who identified eyewitness identification right. One of the best pieces of evidence you can have is an eyewitness who identified 17-year-old Roderick as the last person seen talking to Erica. That same child tells police they heard a scream, looked out the window again and Erica was gone. So this is interesting. You have three people arrested on capital murder. They are going to be charged with capital murder, brought to a grand jury. Okay, da wants to make sure there is enough evidence before bringing this to a grand jury for the fear of this happening. Right, that they're going to be let off because there's not enough evidence to indict them. And this is exactly what happened. So did they jump the gun on this? Were they? You know, were there mistakes made in the interrogation room and the kind of questions that were being asked? And, you know, was there misleading information that the police are offering up to these individuals as they're questioning them? So grand jury thought so. So they decided not to indict because of the lack of evidence.
Speaker 1:Police believe to this day that Springs and Bedford were responsible for Erica's abduction and murder. Unfortunately there just wasn't enough evidence at the time. I can only assume there isn't enough evidence today, but we also know that that can change in a blink of an eye when someone has information that they can call in and share and bring justice to Erica's case. Now police feel like they are making some headway into finding out who abducted and murdered Heidi Seaman. In fact they did announce a prime suspect and that suspect is Major Robert Eric Duncan. Now this is someone in the military working with Heidi's father. At the time he was also helping lead search efforts and helping in the investigation very early on search efforts in helping in the investigation very early on. And now they are saying he had the motive and the means to abduct and murder this young girl. And what is that motive? There was beef between him and Heidi's dad and because of that incident between the two this was his way of getting back at the Seaman family family. He is arrested by the military police in 1992 for the abduction and murder of heidi. Now there was also another um longtime suspect considered in this case and his name is jerry neighbor um. He's a convicted drug dealer drifter living in the area at the time, um, but there just wasn't enough.
Speaker 1:I would say in my research, these are probably the most likely suspects. Are these two men? One thing that really kind of hit off on police was when Eric Duncan, you know when they're looking for Heidi, he makes a phone call to his wife, who's actually working for the Dripping Springs newspaper at the time, and he's asking her questions about. You know, are they? What are they looking for? Are they in the area? You know, police thought this was a little strange. I mean, he is really intersecting himself into this investigation, asking you know he's in the military, he has access to people and he starts really, you know, putting himself in the middle of this investigation and he supposedly hates her father, and so much so that you know he's overheard where they worked in the military base and building that he's heard talking about Heidi's father very poorly. So for him to sort of lead this search, get involved. You know, it was a little strange for some people and then it seemed a little strange for police.
Speaker 1:So back in 2010, he said he was working on a book about this case. Now I don't know if I don't know the progress of that book. I did not see a book out about this case. If you do, please let me know, because I could not find it. I don't see that. You know it's interesting. This kind of reminds me of like an OJ Simpson book. If you haven't read OJ Simpson's book, I don't know, you might want to. But it's basically well if I did it, if I did do it right. Here's how it happened. And so was this book sort of a confession, sort of a soul, you know, pouring out the soul of what could be a burden on it because of what he's done. And again, I haven't seen that this book has been released. But you know he was going to write a book.
Speaker 1:Again, pretty strange, pretty awkward, considering that there was, you know, no good blood between Major and the father. Now there is just no physical evidence in this case tying either men to this crime. Jerry Naber, several people came forward and said that they actually saw Jerry neighbor with Amanda seaman, but these, you know these, were basically dismissed since the people coming forward with the information were mostly ex-cons. So I'm sure police really looked into this and tried to see whether or not Jerry neighbor did see Heidi seaman or have any sort of interaction with her, but they just actually could not confirm that information. Now, robert Eric Duncan, you know, would he be? You know, you have to think about this, right.
Speaker 1:So we talk about the two abductions. I say police are probably I don't want to say they're further ahead on one case than the other, because that's not what I want to say, but what I do want to say is because of where Erica Botello was found. She's found within, you know, not far from where her apartment complex. She's found in a storm drain. That was a, you know, a crime of opportunity. They took the young girl, they did what they did and then they left her and then they wanted out quickly, right? So they didn't go far from where she's taken, which tells me they're probably in the neighborhood, in the apartment complex, and had access to her.
Speaker 1:Heidi's is a little more difficult. You have a girl who is in her neighborhood, but is this also a crime of opportunity? Because you have to wonder, you know, in order to abduct her from the point of leaving the house with her friend to the point of getting to her home, if you were waiting on her, you would have had to know where she is, if somebody, if this was a planned abduction. Okay, if this was planned, robert Eric Duncan or Jerry Naber would have had to know that she was going to be walking from that friend's house home. And how would they know that? We know that they were both seen, or at least relatively close to where the Seamans lived. We also know that there was a red vehicle that was in the possession of Robert Eric Duncan. Also know that there was a red vehicle that was in the possession of Robert Eric Duncan.
Speaker 1:So this is the piece for Heidi's case. That's hard because you have then her body found 60 miles away and you know now you're having to leave the immediate area of where she's taken and then go to the area where she's found and figure out what happened in between. There were some signs that maybe they believed that Heidi had been tortured a little bit or, you know again, with the restraints. So you know, was she taken locally, kept locally and then moved to Wimberley because of the days that passed? You know, I just don't know if police have those answers. I definitely don't have a police record.
Speaker 1:These cases are still considered unsolved, so we wouldn't be able to get any of that information. But I can tell you that Amanda or Heidi Seaman's family. They absolutely 100% thought that Major Duncan was responsible for this crime. So right now both of these cases are unsolved, but if you have any information about the abductions and murders of either Heidi Seaman or Erica Boteo, please contact the San Antonio Police Department. Both of these cases remained unsolved, but it just takes that one person to come forward to help get justice served for these two girls. Until next time, friends, stay safe, have fun and cheers to next time. Bye.