Heidi Allen
NEW HAVEN, NY – It was twenty-two years ago now when 18-year-old Heidi Allen disappeared early Easter Sunday morning in 1994 from the D&W convenience store that she worked for in New Haven.
Despite the years that have passed, this particular case has recently caught national attention when it aired on Friday (May 20) as an episode on Dateline NBC entitled ‘The Informant.’
Dateline NBC spent the past year interviewing all the key players in the case, including Heidi’s sister, Lisa Buske, District Attorney Greg Oakes, Sheriff Reuel Todd, defense attorney Lisa Peebles, the Thibodeau family, and even featured the only man ever convicted for Heidi’s disappearance, Gary Thibodeau as well as others.
The one-hour episode summed up the mystery case of Heidi Allen and provided insight from all sides of the case.
Lisa Buske, sister of Heidi Allen appeared on the show with only one goal.
“My hope and goal in participating with the Dateline interviews was to ensure Heidi had a voice and people would hear who Heidi, the energetic, smart, and determined 18-year-old was as a person, not a statistic. I shared who my sister was and hoped others would understand someone’s daughter, sister, family member, friend, and neighbor is the victim in this case and remains missing to this day,” Buske told Oswego County Today.
For Peebles and the Thibodeau family, the goal was focused on showcasing their fight to free what they believe to be, an innocent man.
“I think the national attention is good to show the injustice in our county, perhaps it will force our county to do their job. I hope it will encourage others with information to come forward,” said Gary Thibodeau’s niece, Amanda Crawford.
From the inside of Clinton Correctional Facility, Thibodeau, now 61, sat down with Dateline NBC to continue to profess his innocence as he has done unfaltering since the very first day he was questioned.
Dateline recapped where it all started, in the early hours of Easter Sunday in 1994 when customers showed up to find an unattended D&W Convenience Store and quickly flagged down law enforcement which then launched a missing person’s case for the store’s young cashier, Heidi Allen.
Buske said that while watching the Dateline episode, as flashes from the original 1994 news coverage hit the screen, she was seeing much of it for the first time ever.
“I didn’t watch much television or news coverage in those days, I was at the Heidi Allen Command Center, waiting and hoping Heidi would be found, not at home watching television. It was overwhelming to see the footage that so many watched decades ago,” said Buske.
Upon seeing the news that day that Allen was missing, Richard Thibodeau, brother of Gary, claims to have called the Oswego County Sheriff’s Department to admit his being in the store the same morning to buy cigarettes and offer any help he could provide.
Instead, this confession with a receipt to prove he had been there showed that Richard Thibodeau was the one of the last people known to have seen Heidi Allen. Later, when someone reported having seen Richard Thibodeau and his brother involved in the disappearance of Allen that morning, so began the arrest and further, two trials for two separate juries to decide the Thibodeau brothers’ fate against the kidnapping in the first degree charge they faced.
A jury found Richard Thibodeau not guilty of the kidnapping of Allen, the man whose receipt proved he was in the store just before the report was made.
However, a separate jury found Gary Thibodeau, who claimed to be at home and in bed at the time, guilty of the kidnapping of Allen for which he has now served 21 years of his 25 years to life sentence.
Both Thibodeau brothers have maintained their innocence except, as prosecutors point out as prevalent evidence, when Gary Thibodeau allegedly told two other jail inmates that he had kidnapped and killed Heidi Allen.
These jail house informants were the center of evidence against Gary Thibodeau and District Attorney Greg Oakes stated to Dateline that they were credible sources.
However, a local reporter covering the case for many years, John O’Brien has since sat down with one jail house informant who released to him on record that he never said Gary Thibodeau had admitted to kidnapping Allen.
The episode continued to focus on Tonya Priest, the woman who reintroduced the case in 2013 when she brought forth knowledge that she had been holding onto for years to the District Attorney’s office.
Priest claims to have had a conversation with a man, James Steen, in 2006 when speaking with friends in which Steen admits to Priest that he and two other men, Roger Breckenridge and Michael Bohrer were responsible for Heidi’s disappearance.
Bohrer was admittedly obsessed with the Heidi Allen case and had a prior conviction for false imprisonment in 1981, both characteristics that fit the mold for the profile of the suspect that FBI profiler, Clint Van Zandt predicted as he outlined to Dateline.
Despite a secretly recorded phone conversation in which Priest reaches out to Jennifer Westcott, former girlfriend of Breckenridge, in which Westcott confesses that the men brought Allen to her house in a van, Oakes told Dateline that he did not believe Priest after waiting so many years to bring forth the information she claimed to have.
At that time, Priest contacted federal defense attorney, Lisa Peebles to hear the case against Gary Thibodeau and Peebles quickly filed a motion to overturn Gary’s conviction based on new suspects and withheld evidence after finding out Allen was a confidential informant for the Sheriff’s Department, a fact that defense attorney’s claimed to have been withheld during the original trial.
A judge ultimately denied this request and both Oakes and Sheriff Todd remain confident that they have convicted and imprisoned the right person, as does Lisa Buske.
“There hasn’t been new evidence to prove his innocence,” said Buske, who values the local law enforcement who have worked on Heidi’s case for more than 20 years now. “My faith in God as the all knowing in this case remains steadfast, as does my faith and belief in our law enforcement and district attorney. They are dedicated and determined to keep the convicted in jail and find all involved in Heidi’s kidnapping. I value their integrity to Heidi’s case as they investigate and do their jobs without playing games in the media. They put the victim, Heidi Allen, and her investigation at the fore front and I appreciate and value this.”
For the Thibodeau family, the vast opposite is believed of the same law enforcement.
“Oakes saying the jail house informants are credible because they have stood by their statements and have not changed anything in their statements in 20 years but then one went on record and did in fact change their statement is huge,” Crawford pointed out in her belief that law enforcement has wrongfully imprisoned her uncle.
Richard Thibodeau admitted to Dateline his skeptical reception to law enforcement since the trial for himself and his brother all those years ago, saying that he now lives in fear and regrets most making that phone call to the Sheriff’s Department that ultimately landed his brother in prison.
Gary Thibodeau continues his sentence, awaiting a response from a higher court after Peebles recently filed to an appeals court, he has found a new sense of hope, a reason to live he told Dateline NBC.
While Heidi Allen has yet to be found, Buske told Dateline NBC she will die fighting for her sister.
And despite both families realizing there is only so much that can be aired in one hour, leaving a lot of other important information out, each family has still taken something valuable away from this local case reaching national attention.
“I personally walk away feeling confident with my family. Sometimes going places we would feel uncomfortable. You are so used to people talking down to you after the years and thinking such negative about you, your family,” Crawford said, adding that the day after the show aired, the entire family was able to go to a local park feeling somewhat renewed. “Normally we would have avoided everyone and my dad probably wouldn’t have even went but we all went and walked with our head a little higher, we had a sense of confidence, it felt good. It was like the truth was shown a little to the world with that episode.”
And for Heidi Allen’s family, resolve can never be brought to this case, but the hope can and does remain that she will be found all these years later.
“Personally, to know people in Canada and on the west coast watched the same episode we did and were sharing it on social media, hope for Heidi and all our missing to be found is increased,” said Buske. “There is no resolution or closure, our family, Heidi’s friends, and this community are forever changed … My goal and hope is the same twenty-two years later, to find Heidi and bring her home!”
To watch the full episode of Dateline NBC ‘The Informant’ click here. (Available until 6/24/16)
To watch Dateline NBC’s special, ‘Remembering Heidi’ click here.
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the jail house snitch did change his story and said Gary Never said he had kiddnapped or killed Heidi so Mr Todd And Mr Oakes was caught lieing AGAIN
I feel bad for everyone involved. Uncle Gary for having to do another mans jail time. For my father who has lived in fear and harassment for most his life. I feel sorry for the Allen family in many different aspects. For one they lost a loved one so young. For two, they put their trust in an Oswego county sheriffs department to find the truth, when in fact their objective is to do the opposite. I feel sorry for sheriff Todd because now everyone can see how his whole department is a joke. (I actually have to take that last one back). I feel sorry for Greg Oakes, for being a puppet and having to deal with the injustice that others left on his plate before him. It seems this case will forever be unsolved because they are not looking or don’t care to look where they should. Also my biggest fear in this life is that my old man and uncle G will never be alive to see the end of this fight. But at least now with this dateline airing they can feel some relief knowing the public now can see what we have.
Thank you Mikayla Kemp for this well written article.
If all of the new information will not change the outcome of another trial for Mr. Thibodeau then why not let him have his new trial?! Hmmm.
I do not know how a jury found Gary guilted with no eidence except two jail house inmates and one has already recanted his statementm. I have lost all faith in our Oswego Co justice. I wish the state would come in and investigate how things are done here. Isn’t a guilty verdict suppose to be without a shadow of a doubt? This man has lost his whole life without a fair trial and looks innocent. Should not even have been arrested without better evidence. Rhule and Oakes do not believe all these other people but believe The jailhouse snitches? What.is wrong with this picture? I understand Ms Priest asked for a lie detecter. No results on her request. Guess they do not want the truth.
The program left more questions than answers! Where is Heidi’s remains? What activity was Heidi reporting on to the Sheriffs office, suspicious activity around the store, drug deals, exactly what? Why would they want an 18 year old to be a drug informant witness, dangerous at best. Is the body they found in a car at the bottom of the river in Fulton somehow connected, was she a drug informant also? How inept was the officer who dropped a card with Heidi’s name on it at the store? Finally this story is an embarrassment to the whole community, the sheriff investigators, the prosecutors, the jurors, the court system, and the huge ongoing drug problem in the county! It presents the area as a bunch of hayseeds and druggies!
I followed this case on the news and in newspapers back then. It was around the same time as the OJ case. In the OJ case, they had a mountain of physical evidence. In this case they had not one iota of physical evidence against Gary or Richard… not one tiny drop of blood, not one strand of hair off of Heidi’s head. Nothing found in the van that would connect Heidi to the Thibideaus. I remember seeing Gary’s face when the guilty verdict was handed down. It was a look of utter shock. I recall turning to my husband and said “that is the reaction of an innocent man”. I’m so horrified by this injustice, angry at the DA, sympathy for Gary and Richard and their family and also for Heidi’s. It’s absolutely heart breaking and the dateline expose really sickens me that they won’t release him immediately. The prosecutors are an embarrassment to the cause of JUSTICE! SHAME!
Rumor has it she was a confidential informant and that the brothers were involved in drug sales.
Rumor has it Brett Law testified at Richard’s trial that Heidi was afraid of Matt Duell. Rumor has it that neither brother were mentioned in Heidi’s diaries. Both are verifiable Facts.
Rumor has it that Heidi was still giving information to police up to the time she was abducted. Rumor had it that Heidi volunteered to give police information about drug dealers. Rumor has it Gary told fellow inmates that he was involved in Heidi’s abduction. As per the Hearing, Mrs. Burr stated to police that she KNEW Heidi was informing up to the abduction. As per the Hearing, Brett Law stated to police that Heidi was afraid of a “coke head” that lived near the D&W. (Curious both were not permitted to testify!) Mr. Baldasaro, one of the inmates, stated to a news reporter that he did not testify to Gary telling him he abducted Heidi which is confirmed by reading the entire original trial transcript and not just the biased summary of Oakes’ Statement of Facts and annexed Exhibits.
Rumor has it that Oakes gives plea deal after plea deal to drug manufacturers.