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everyone.

1:28

This is the storage unit number B32. I

1:33

could see the bottom of a green metal

1:36

steamer type trunk. Within

1:39

about six seconds, you

1:41

could smell a strong odor. Distinct

1:44

odor of death. I

1:47

looked at Detective Doyle and I said, Peggy's

1:49

going to be in there. In 1990,

1:54

Gerilyn Rheome lived at home in Syracuse

1:56

with her mother, Peggy, and her mother's

1:58

boyfriend, George. On

2:00

the surface, they may have seemed like a happy family,

2:03

but that was tragically far from the truth.

2:06

I'll tell you now that this story ends

2:09

with a murder and a dead body, but

2:11

it starts with a little girl and the

2:13

villain who lived in her own home.

2:16

Geraldine Rione was 13 when

2:18

her mother's boyfriend, George Geddes, began

2:21

to abuse her. And in the

2:23

way that one bad deed usually breeds

2:25

another, George's abuse kicked

2:27

off a chain of events that led to the mysterious

2:30

disappearance of Geraldine's mother, Peggy

2:32

Rione.

2:35

Peggy would remain missing for another 12 years

2:37

while

2:39

her daughter hoped against all odds

2:41

that her mom was alive somewhere and

2:44

would someday come home.

2:48

From A&E, this is Cold

2:50

Case Files, the podcast. I

2:53

am Brooke, and this story adapted

2:56

from a classic episode of Cold Case Files

2:58

is told by the unparalleled Bill

3:01

Curtis.

3:11

We're here at the Sheriff's Office inactive records

3:14

file. We're heading down to the case file

3:16

where Peggy Rione case was kept.

3:19

Detective Keith Hall works Cold

3:21

Cases for the Adondaga County Sheriff's

3:23

Office. Spring of 2002,

3:26

I was assigned to Peggy Rione case. At

3:29

that time, it was classified as a missing person investigation.

3:32

She was 31 when she disappeared

3:34

without a trace.

3:41

In 1990, I was in the

3:43

sixth grade. I

3:46

was living with my mother in George Geddes.

3:50

And wasn't

3:52

a happy time.

3:54

In 1990, Jerri-Lynn Riam is 13

3:56

years old and living

3:58

in fear of her mother's boyfriend. George

4:00

Geddes. George was sexually

4:03

abusing me repeatedly. There

4:06

was a time that he

4:09

got caught

4:11

by another adult. And that's when I

4:14

told. So I knew that

4:16

somebody was there behind me to say, yes,

4:19

I've seen this.

4:20

Jerry Lynn runs away to

4:22

her biological father, Jerry Rion,

4:25

and reports the abuse. First thing

4:27

I did was call the police, I

4:30

told all of us, don't let Peggy or

4:32

George know what she was just told. Because

4:35

George would have probably skipped.

4:41

Police arrest George Geddes in early February.

4:44

A few weeks after that, Jerry Lynn

4:46

turns 14 and expects a

4:48

visit from her mom. She

4:51

didn't come around, no phone

4:53

call, no nothing. So February 26,

4:56

I was calling, reporting her missing.

4:59

Detective Lenny Storto picks

5:01

up the missing person's case. It's

5:03

a long time, a long time to go without knowing what

5:06

happened to your, you know, to a loved

5:08

one. Storto visits George Geddes

5:10

in the county jail and asks about

5:13

Margaret. Geddes claims he last

5:15

saw her the day before he was arrested.

5:18

George said that they got into an argument. It

5:21

got heated and he left and went to get a

5:23

pack of cigarettes. Upon his

5:24

return to the apartment,

5:27

he saw one set of prints leading out in

5:29

the snow to the road and that's the last

5:32

he saw of Margaret. Storto doesn't

5:34

believe Geddes and suspects Margaret

5:37

Rheome might have

5:39

somehow caught wind of her daughter's alleged

5:41

rape. I knew from talking to Jerry Lynn and

5:45

talking to her grandmother, Margaret's mother,

5:47

that she was very protective of her children

5:50

and that she was very protective

5:52

of her children. And I knew that when

5:55

she found out about the abuse with Jerry Lynn that

5:57

she was going to confront George.

5:59

They probably got physical, and that

6:03

was always in the back of my head. Starto

6:07

has a murder suspect, but no evidence,

6:09

or even a body to examine. He returns

6:12

to get us his apartment,

6:13

hoping to catch a break. When

6:16

he asked me where things were and what

6:18

was in the apartment and what I had done with it, he wasn't

6:20

too happy when I told him that I'd disposed

6:23

of almost everything.

6:24

Bill Waltos is Peggy Rehomes' landlord.

6:27

With her apartment vacant more than a month, Waltos

6:30

tells Detective Starto he threw everything

6:33

out of the unit, including a mattress stained

6:35

with blood. Maybe

6:37

six, eight inches. It almost looked

6:40

like

6:42

that time of the month for a woman, so I

6:44

just didn't, I never gave it another thought.

6:50

Very frustrating when you're trying to

6:52

determine what happened to somebody who's

6:54

missing and kind of just like dropped off the

6:57

face of the earth. Try to start

6:59

back where the last person saw her. And

7:01

then she had her car here, and you come back and get

7:03

her car.

7:04

Starto knocks on a few more doors and

7:07

finds a downstairs neighbor named

7:09

Butch Oka. He tells his story that

7:11

is right out of rear window. How about

7:13

George Gettys and a rather large and

7:15

heavy trunk? And

7:21

we heard this big banging coming down the stairs,

7:23

like bang, bang, bang. I

7:26

came out the door to see what it was. He

7:28

was coming down these stairs here, and he had

7:30

a steamer trunk, like a blue steamer trunk coming

7:33

down, all the way down. And his

7:35

truck was parked out here, and

7:37

he came down and he put

7:39

it into the back of his trunk. Oka

7:41

asked George Gettys if he needed help carrying

7:44

the trunk, but Gettys seemed to be in a hurry.

7:47

Normally, he would talk, but he didn't even talk.

7:50

He just went and got there as fast as he could,

7:52

and he left as fast as he could. George

7:55

Gettys' trunk appeared around the

7:57

time Margaret Rheome disappeared. that

8:00

is not lost on Detective Storto.

8:03

George was asked about the trunk, and he

8:05

was a contractor, and

8:08

said that the trunk was heavy

8:11

because he had his tools, saw blades,

8:14

his tools of trade. When I asked

8:16

him what he did with the trunk, he said that

8:19

he sold it to some guy in a bar and

8:21

couldn't give us any of the information on who the recipient

8:24

was or what bar it was, and he

8:26

said he was pretty wasted.

8:28

Geddes is convicted of raping

8:30

Jerry Lynn Rium. The

8:32

investigation into Peggy Rium's

8:34

disappearance, however, goes cold. Meanwhile,

8:38

Jerry Lynn Rium faces life without

8:41

a mother. This

8:47

is my mother's wedding day. I

8:49

wrote back on here, Mom,

8:52

I hope you're happy wherever you're at.

8:54

Remember, I'll always love you. I

8:56

hope you come back real soon. Love,

8:59

Jerry Lynn. My

9:01

mother knew where we were living, and

9:03

then we moved, and then when we moved, I

9:05

remember sitting in my bedroom crying because

9:08

if my mother came back, she wouldn't know where we moved

9:10

to.

9:11

For 12 years, neither Peggy Rium

9:14

nor the mysterious steamer trunk can

9:16

be located. That is, until

9:18

a cold case detective happens upon a woman

9:21

with a story about George. What

9:24

is the one thing you've always scratched

9:26

your head, wondering about George? And

9:28

that's when she looked at me and said, well, I don't know. Well,

9:31

there's that storage shed.

9:33

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11:50

Twelve years after Peggy went missing, investigators

11:53

were as frustrated as ever that they can't pin

11:55

her disappearance and suspected

11:57

murder on her ex-boyfriend, George

11:59

Geddes. While they may not

12:01

have been able to try Gettis as a murderer,

12:04

he was convicted in 1990 of raping

12:07

Peggy's 13-year-old daughter, Jerilyn.

12:10

While his conviction stood alone as the

12:12

single victory in this case so far, it

12:14

provided little peace to Jerilyn, who was

12:16

still searching for her missing mother.

12:19

By 2002, Gettis had served his

12:21

time for Jerilyn's rape and

12:23

was released from prison, now a free man.

12:27

Cold case detective Keith Hall was convinced

12:29

that Gettis was Peggy's killer and that he

12:31

belonged back behind bars, but

12:34

he had little to go on.

12:36

Then, a conversation with Gettis'

12:38

most recent abuse victim

12:40

finally gave Detective Hall some hope and

12:43

a solid lead.

12:49

This is where Peggy was last seen. She lived

12:51

in the upstairs apartment. Keith Hall

12:53

is a cold case detective. In 2002,

12:56

he walks a street in Mattydale, New York,

12:59

where Margaret Peggy Riom disappeared

13:01

12 years prior. Riom

13:04

is presumed dead,

13:05

the number one suspect, her ex-boyfriend,

13:08

George Gettis. Witnesses

13:11

saw George Gettis dragging a trunk down

13:14

a flight of stairs. They actually were drawn

13:16

to this action by hearing the

13:19

loud banging noise of the trunk bouncing

13:21

off the steps.

13:22

Original detectives thought the trunk might

13:25

contain the body of Peggy Riom. I

13:28

was motivated. Getting this case was

13:30

a challenge. I knew it when I was

13:32

assigned the case. From

13:34

that point on, it became personal.

13:38

Detective Hall meets with the victim's daughter, Cherry

13:40

Lynn.

13:41

After it fell on Keith's lap,

13:45

from day one he was telling me he was giving his 110%.

13:49

I still remember the look that I saw in Jerilyn's

13:51

eye. She wanted to believe me, but

13:54

it had been so long since

13:56

her mother had disappeared

13:58

that she... looked

14:01

like a little hopeless. In 1990,

14:04

George Geddes went to prison for raping

14:06

Jerry Lynn. He's now out. His

14:08

conviction reversed on appeal. I

14:11

talked with his ex-wives. I was able to

14:13

develop his personality. He

14:16

was a violent individual. He would

14:18

punch him, strike him, choke

14:21

him.

14:27

George Geddes' most recent punching bag is

14:29

a woman named Alicia Geddes.

14:32

The two have recently divorced.

14:34

Hall calls her up to see what she knows.

14:37

He was very controlling. He

14:39

had a very bad temper. Possessive,

14:41

even? Yes, very possessive. He

14:43

got violent a couple of times. And

14:46

I had domestic violence. He hit me. Alicia

14:49

provides valuable background on George

14:51

Geddes. Then Hall steers the conversation

14:53

toward Peggy Reum. You

14:56

had just told me little differences of what

14:58

George had said. That Peggy

15:00

had taken off to, I believe it was Arizona

15:03

with a cab driver. Yeah, with a cab driver.

15:05

Right. Keith was very

15:07

easy to talk to. He got me thinking way back, you

15:09

know, bringing out things that I

15:12

was trying to forget.

15:13

And the last question I asked

15:15

Alicia before, you know, walking

15:17

her to the door was, what is the one

15:19

thing you've always scratched your head wondering

15:22

about George?

15:24

Alicia thought for a few moments, said,

15:26

geez, well, there is that storage

15:28

shed he's always rented.

15:33

He had a storage unit that he had.

15:36

And he would call me from jail to make sure

15:39

that the payments were made all the time. Alicia

15:42

once asked what was in the storage shed.

15:44

George said it was tools. And

15:47

if you push the issue about it. He

15:49

would get angry. He would get very

15:51

angry. It's like, you know, we really have to skip

15:54

this payment. No, we can't do that. It

15:56

would mean that I could get a lot of time in jail.

15:59

Alicia.

15:59

tells detectives, Geddes has rented

16:02

the shed since 1990.

16:04

Now I'm able to piece together the time

16:06

frame. Peggy's missing since 1990.

16:10

George has been running a storage shed since 1990.

16:17

At some point, I'm going to need to obtain

16:20

a statement from her, but. Detective Hall tries

16:22

to obtain a search warrant for the shed. The

16:24

county prosecutor, however, says Hall lacks

16:26

probable cause. Then the cold case

16:29

detective tries a different tack.

16:31

And initially, I wanted to know if you had the

16:33

authority to go in there and search the storage

16:35

shed. Lori Albright is a

16:38

federal probation agent supervising

16:40

George Geddes on a recent firearms violation.

16:43

As part of his probation, Geddes

16:45

must file a report with Albright every month.

16:49

There is one question on the front here where

16:51

it asks, do you rent or have access

16:53

to a post office box, a safety

16:55

deposit box, or a storage space? And

16:58

on this report, Mr. Geddes had

17:01

checked no for all three

17:02

of these things. And

17:04

that's when I said, we need to get into that

17:06

storage shed. That's right. There's

17:08

a reason why he's lying about this. He doesn't want you to know,

17:10

doesn't want anybody to know. He's

17:13

renting the storage shed. At that

17:15

time. Geddes's lie constitutes probable

17:17

cause for a search.

17:19

The order is issued.

17:20

And Hall heads out to the shed.

17:27

Storage unit that George Geddes rented

17:30

in number B-32. It's

17:33

the storage shed that we opened up on April 1, 2004. Armed

17:37

with a federal search warrant and a pair

17:39

of bolt cutters, detectives

17:41

opened storage unit B-32. Upon

17:45

doing that, I could see the bottom

17:47

of a green metal steamer

17:49

type trunk, the same trunk

17:52

that was described by witnesses in 1990. I

17:55

looked at Detective Doyle and I said,

17:57

Peggy's going to be in there. Agent

17:59

Bragg. unclip the has blocks, picked

18:02

up the lid. At that point I could see a stained

18:05

blanket with two

18:07

decomposed feet sticking out from underneath.

18:10

Within about six seconds, you

18:13

could smell a strong odor, distinct

18:16

odor of death. It was

18:18

time to go find George Geddes and

18:21

bring this case to a close.

18:22

I said, George, tell me about the storage

18:24

shed out in Cicero.

18:28

Detective Hall gets right down

18:30

to business with George Geddes. George looked at me for approximately 10

18:32

seconds, didn't say a word, just

18:35

staring.

18:36

At that point he broke down, started crying, started

18:40

flailing his fists, pounding on the

18:42

table, saying he'd been keeping a secret for such a

18:44

long time. I was in the middle of the night,

18:47

I was in the middle of the night, for such

18:49

a long time.

18:55

George admits his ex-girlfriend

18:57

Peggy Reome is in the shed. Geddes

19:00

claims her death was an accident.

19:02

His final version of what happened

19:04

to Peggy was that they

19:06

got in an argument. He

19:09

punched her, she fell down,

19:11

hit her head on a wood buffet and died.

19:15

Not knowing what to do with Peggy, he went

19:17

into Geraldine's room and

19:19

the trunk that Peggy was entombed in was

19:22

actually Geraldine's toy chest. He

19:24

put her inside the chest

19:27

and

19:29

transported her out to the storage shed. The

19:31

story didn't make sense from the beginning. Joe

19:34

O'Donnell is an assistant DA for Unandaga

19:36

County. Here's a guy who

19:40

accidentally kills his

19:42

girlfriend, stuffs her in the trunk,

19:45

puts her in a storage shed for 14 years. He drives past the

19:47

police station, he drives

19:49

past the fire department, he drives past the

19:51

ambulance corps. It

19:54

was preposterous from the beginning.

20:02

We're looking at the skull of the decedent.

20:05

This is her skull. Mary Jambelik

20:07

is the chief medical examiner for Onondaga

20:09

County. This is the mastoid process,

20:12

portion of the temporal bone. It's a very thick, hard

20:15

portion of skull. And you can see

20:17

a very distinct and dramatic

20:20

fracture through the mastoid.

20:23

Jambelik rules out Geddes' contention

20:25

that Peggy Riom hit her head on a table.

20:27

It was our conclusion that this

20:30

is a forceful blow,

20:33

probably with an instrument to the

20:35

skull to cause this type of damage.

20:38

It's not a simple fall from

20:41

a standing height

20:42

or a fist. One of

20:44

the lead suspects into the disappearance

20:46

of Peggy Riom has been her former

20:48

boyfriend, 52-year-old George

20:50

Geddes, arrested Friday afternoon

20:53

on charges of violating his federal parole.

20:55

It was charged in 1993 for raping a 13-year-old girl. I

20:59

am the 13-year-old at George's rate.

21:02

After George Geddes' arrest, Jerry

21:04

Lynn goes public with the tragedy that

21:07

was her childhood.

21:08

I got out of that situation and somehow

21:12

my mother found out and that's

21:15

what led to her being gone.

21:17

The drama is heightened at Geddes'

21:20

murder trial. When prosecutor Joe

21:22

O'Donnell brings in a green steamer trunk

21:25

and places it before the jury. There's

21:28

been an odor in this courtroom all week and it's

21:30

the smell of death. And it's

21:33

Margaret Riom. And

21:35

I pointed him and said, and he brought her in here.

21:38

He did not intentionally cause the death of

21:40

Peggy Riom and that he will- Geddes sticks

21:42

to his story.

21:43

Peggy Riom's death was an accident.

21:46

It's a theory the jury dismisses.

21:48

Their verdict, guilty of second-degree

21:51

murder.

21:52

George Geddes is sentenced to the maximum, 25 years

21:54

to life.

21:56

I would best describe George Geddes as

22:00

a waste of humanity. I

22:02

think there were dregs left over that God had nothing

22:04

to do with and he dumped them in George Geddes'

22:06

body.

22:08

He was one of my mom

22:10

and my dad and the three of us.

22:13

After the trial and sentencing, Jerry Lynn Riom

22:16

is finally able to grieve for

22:18

the mother she lost at age 13.

22:26

It

22:26

was weird. We even

22:28

had a service for her. It's

22:30

not like I was really crying

22:33

and everything. I was happy. And then

22:37

there came anger. Just

22:40

all this emotion.

22:43

This is a case I'll never forget. I took

22:46

this case personal because I like

22:48

a challenge and this type of case certainly

22:51

was a challenge.

22:52

He did find my mother. He gave his 110 percent.

22:56

And I always have

22:59

a place for him in my heart. I

23:01

love him. Jerry

23:04

Lynn Riom endured a tragedy that I could

23:06

not imagine. Not only did

23:08

she suffer terrible abuse at the hands of

23:10

George Geddes, a man living in her

23:13

home, but he also took her mother

23:15

from her in an extremely violent way. By

23:18

all accounts, this story should end with justice

23:21

and retribution and even revenge

23:23

for Jerry Lynn. And in many ways

23:25

it does. But the fact

23:28

that there was some friendship and love found between

23:30

Jerry Lynn and the detective who kept his promise

23:33

makes me think that there's more to this case than

23:35

justice served.

23:45

All Case Files the podcast is hosted

23:48

by Brooke Giddings, produced by McKamey

23:50

Lynn, Scott Brody and Steve

23:52

Dolomiter. Our executive

23:55

producer is Ted Butler. We're

23:57

distributed by podcast one. The

24:01

Cold Case Files TV series was produced

24:03

by Curtis Productions and presented

24:05

by Bill Curtis. Check out

24:07

more Cold Case Files at AETV.com

24:11

and by downloading the A&E app.

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See what hit blockbusters are streaming

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24:53

You're about to hear a preview of the Jordan Harbinger

24:55

show where we expose how patent trolls shake

24:58

down innocent victims using legal

25:00

loopholes and abuse of the system.

25:02

Hello I notice you've been sued for patent

25:05

infringement. I'd be happy to represent you for

25:07

a price. Just remember your defense cost

25:09

is gonna run around three million dollars. Wow.

25:12

The patent we were sued on had as I recall a hundred

25:14

and thirteen

25:15

claims and every claim

25:17

was almost the same. In other words one

25:19

claim would say a computer accessing

25:21

another computer to unlock software and

25:24

the next thing would be software unlocked

25:26

by one computer accessing another computer. That

25:28

was just the same thing over and over a hundred

25:31

and thirteen times phrased a little bit differently

25:33

each time. Since it took us four

25:35

years and two million dollars to overturn one

25:38

of those sentences they could put

25:40

us through this for the rest of our lives.

25:43

For more with Austin Meyer including the details

25:45

of his investigation into patent trolls and why

25:47

none of us are safe check out episode 326

25:51

of the Jordan Harbinger show. When

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