April Stone
Appearances
Dark Valley
Chapter 13 | A Good, Quiet Girl
I believe that my sister was murdered by my father. I believe that I know why my sister's case has been different. Circumstantially, all the evidence points to him being the person that did this.
Dark Valley
Chapter 13 | A Good, Quiet Girl
The argument thing I've heard from many people over the years, and Aaron actually confirmed that, that, you know, that they had gotten in a spat and he had told her he had hoped she died and that he's always lived with that, you know, with that guilt. I do know that part. And so that was my theory was that my dad had no idea that she left.
Dark Valley
Chapter 13 | A Good, Quiet Girl
And then when he found out, got pissed that she wasn't watching the kids. Yeah, that was how I was trying to explain, OK, well, like if you knew she went, why would he get mad about her leaving?
Dark Valley
Chapter 13 | A Good, Quiet Girl
With my sister, the person was definitely present the day of her death. The person was never questioned by the police, which that in itself is very strange. The person has a lifetime history of angry outbursts, intimidation, abuse, can be endearing and seem harmless sometimes. on the surface, but to anyone that spends any amount of time with him, you know that he's not... right.
Dark Valley
Chapter 13 | A Good, Quiet Girl
There's something off. The pathological lying is huge. Definitely what I perceive as a low self-esteem, so all stories are making this person bigger and better and smarter and greater than everything. Having to constantly boost himself up. The other thing is control. I think over the years I've seen a lot of behavior that lead me to believe that this person definitely has...
Dark Valley
Chapter 13 | A Good, Quiet Girl
some issues with women in general, you know, definitely does not like assertive women, definitely does not like to be challenged, definitely likes to be the alpha male. I think that this person definitely has a history of sexual assaults that have been secreted away. You know, I think that This person has given a lot of free passes in life for his odd behavior.
Dark Valley
Chapter 13 | A Good, Quiet Girl
But I can tell you that there have been many stories over the years. There's, you know, many stories that he has shared not only with me, but other members of our family and other friends outside of the family of hunting experiences where it's,
Dark Valley
Chapter 13 | A Good, Quiet Girl
you know, Hey, you know, I, you know, one of my favorite parts of hunting is, you know, when you get a deer, but you don't kill the deer and the deer runs, and then you got to chase after the deer. And then I love it. Cause then you can jump on the back of the deer and you can slit its throat. And, you know, to me, a, that's just implausible. Nobody, nobody's Rambo, right? Like nobody's Rambo.
Dark Valley
Chapter 13 | A Good, Quiet Girl
And so, um, I've never bought into that. That person actually did those stories. Um, But I also know that a lot of the murder victims have their throats lashed. So are you really talking about a deer to me? There was another story where this person, not only to me, but to other people, has bragged about the fact that, you know, there have been times where...
Dark Valley
Chapter 13 | A Good, Quiet Girl
Just breaks my heart saying this because when I hear these stories, I'm not thinking of a deer. I'm thinking of a woman. But where this person is, you know, there's a deer and it's bleeding, not bleeding, but bleating. And, you know, it's not dead and he's had to physically hold its head underwater to drown it. Who does that with a deer?
Dark Valley
Chapter 13 | A Good, Quiet Girl
If you're a hunter, if it fell down in the water trying to get away from you and it's making horrible noises, why wouldn't you put it out of its misery and shoot it? Why would you then go and hold its head underwater? So again, there are a lot of these just bizarre stories that you have to remember the context too. A lot of these stories were told to me when I was a teenager.
Dark Valley
Chapter 13 | A Good, Quiet Girl
They're not age appropriate and they're not appropriate to share anyway. And, you know, when you're hearing these stories and the person's getting animated and really into telling you these stories and you're looking at this person, it'll give you the chills. because they're into it.
Dark Valley
Chapter 13 | A Good, Quiet Girl
But there's also that I'm smarter than you personality, where you just feel like they're not telling you about a deer. They're telling you about a victim. And I firmly believe that the story about holding the head underwater is my sister. Because for any of you that know anything about the case,
Dark Valley
Chapter 13 | A Good, Quiet Girl
She was found face down in the water, and she had sand, silt, stuff, I think some, you know, like deposits, like leaves or whatever. She had them in her mouth and in her throat, in her airways, which means that somebody held her head underwater.
Dark Valley
Chapter 13 | A Good, Quiet Girl
So there was a huge Rick Springfield poster right next to her bed. Actually, if you laid down in the bed, it kind of looked like he was laying with you in bed.
Dark Valley
Chapter 13 | A Good, Quiet Girl
I don't remember how well she could play. She could have just been sounding horrible. We'd still rock out to it, man. We loved it. But she also had a microphone on a stand in her room. Her and the neighbor kids and all her little friends, they would put on, like, news broadcasts. And they would record tapes and tapes and tapes upon these news broadcasts.
Dark Valley
Chapter 13 | A Good, Quiet Girl
And my younger brother and I would go in and we'd join them for the news broadcasts. We'd make up silly songs. She'd play her guitar and make up lyrics. But she recorded everything. Recorded everything. And those tapes still exist. We're trying to find them.
Dark Valley
Chapter 13 | A Good, Quiet Girl
Yeah. I was so, I think I told both of you, I was so hopeful and excited about this meeting.
Dark Valley
Chapter 13 | A Good, Quiet Girl
And if you can imagine how mucky it is right now in the middle of winter, right? Yeah. And imagine in the spring when everything's way muckier, how hard this would have been with the branches and the muck to run through. Yeah. To escape from. John said she was quite muddy. She was quite muddy? Yeah. Yep. I mean, this is almost like a swamp. Yeah, it's really muddy.
Dark Valley
Chapter 13 | A Good, Quiet Girl
I mean, I can imagine that even if she gained headway on him, she would have lost all that right here. I mean, this is slow going. Look at all the branches and trees and the muck. Yeah. I do remember hearing about swamp.
Dark Valley
Chapter 13 | A Good, Quiet Girl
And there was steep... Steep embankments on both sides. Steep embankments, yeah. So from up here, there's not a steep embankment on that side. Yeah, right, right, right. So it's got to be... It's got to be between here and the school because if it was between here and the bridge, they would have just used a logging road to pull her out. Right? You'd think, yeah. Is that a road right there?
Dark Valley
Chapter 13 | A Good, Quiet Girl
I don't know. Let's go see. Do you want me to just run up there and see? Yeah, go for it. I'm going to have a smoke. You're going to smoke. I'm going to run. Okay, perfect. See, we'll keep each other healthy. I just ripped my pants. You ripped your pants? Yeah.
Dark Valley
Chapter 13 | A Good, Quiet Girl
Heidi, where were you? I just need to see it. Now, we need to call the Discovery Channel because I don't know if you watch Finding Bigfoot, but they see those type of teepee wooden structures on the base of all the trees in Bigfoot country. So we might have a Yeti. I mean, this podcast may take a left turn. I know. We might run into a Yeti today. You thought this was a murder mystery.
Dark Valley
Chapter 13 | A Good, Quiet Girl
But it's really all about Bigfoot. Because right now, that's about the only thing that makes sense to the whole story. Bigfoot. I hold faith that before I die, we will have answers. In seriousness, not about Bigfoot? Not about Bigfoot, but in all seriousness. Because we're just... You're too close to so many other things. And I really have always felt that if we solve one, we solve the rest.
Dark Valley
Chapter 13 | A Good, Quiet Girl
And you, my dear, and your brilliance and your hard work and your tenacity, you could have done the impossible. Oh, wait. Is this the river? This is the only place following the river where there are steep ravines on both sides. See, now, to me, this is a fucking ravine. Yeah, this is a ravine. This you're trapped in. You can't climb up or down.
Dark Valley
Chapter 13 | A Good, Quiet Girl
Thank God I took my meds today, but I do feel like I should have double-dosed because... Because I'm afraid I'm... You know, if... Here's my problem. If I feel resistance on their part at all, I'm probably going to lose my shit because I'm just so sick of resistance. I want action. I want empathetic listening.
Dark Valley
Chapter 13 | A Good, Quiet Girl
I am April Stone, and I'm Heidi Martin's sister. When you contacted me several months prior wanting to interview me, I sort of had already decided, like in my mind, fine, I'm going to do the standard interview. I'm going to answer the standard questions. But I'm not going to go in depth with her.
Dark Valley
Chapter 13 | A Good, Quiet Girl
I'm not going to share any of the secrets, quote unquote, that I have uncovered over the years, the evidence that I've gathered, because I'm not ready yet. For some reason, when I saw you, within 20 seconds in my head, I just went polar opposite. And in my head, I was like, I'm doing this now. I'm telling her everything.