The community of Overland Park, Kansas, came together in the spring of 1980 to look for 13-year-old

Kristen Hobson. His father and stepmother were beside themselves with worry after the boy apparently

ran off. But when the truth came out over the next few months, the community was stunned.

I'm Charlie and welcome to Crime Lines.

Hello and welcome. I hope everyone has had a good week. It has been a long month and we're

in what the second week now. I've been working really hard on getting this new episode

put together in between checking the news, looking at election updates, looking at COVID updates.

It's been a lot. But let's go ahead and jump right into this case because tonight's case is a

local one to me. It takes place in the Kansas City Metro area. We will be on the Kansas side of the

state line in this case in Overland Park, which is a very nice suburb of the city where 13-year-old

Kristen Hobson was living in a townhouse with his father Ed and his stepmother Suen, as well as his

step sister Suzan. And one of the goals of this episode is not to mix up Suen and Suzan's names.

We'll see how it goes. Ed and Suen were each other's second spouse, so this was a new blended family

in 1980. Ed had previously been married to Shirley Wilson, who was Chris's mother. Ed was 25 when

Chris was born and Shirley was 41. Though Chris was their only child together, Shirley did have two

daughters, Tanny and LaLani, who were several years older than their new baby brother when he was

born in 1967. And this little family endured more than their share of tragedy in the years to come.

In February 1973, while away at college in Central Missouri, 20-year-old Tanny had been out at a bar,

she was drinking, with a friend named Gary Hollinsworth. There had been some sort of argument

between the two as they were driving home. And Gary got out of his truck saying that he was going

to walk. Tanny started driving the truck and according to her, she struck Gary with the truck

on accident when he walked out in front of it. Gary died in this accident. Tanny's statement to

...