He Called 911 for Help but Help Never Came: The Timmy Dees Story

(This Blog Post Is An Excerpt From the Book Madhouse Madison County)

In the cold early morning hours of February 28th, 2022, a 911 call came to Madison County operators at approximately 4:40 AM. A young man named Timmy Dees told the operator he was being threatened by a friend who had brought him to Fredericktown earlier that evening. 

Sadly, this phone call was not recorded because the recording equipment went down the December before, and they wouldn’t get new equipment installed until mid-March. But whatever the reason for the equipment malfunction, it does not excuse the fact that they didn’t follow standard procedure and keep an operator on the line with Timmy until police arrived on scene. If they had, Timmy might still be alive today. We would at least have a better idea of what happened to him on that cold winter night. 

According to the 911 incident report, the officer showed up at the scene at 4:48 AM, but Timmy was nowhere to be found. Strangely, the officer didn’t even look for him. The friend that was supposed to be threatening him was there. (We will call him Mr. C.) Mr C. and the other two men at the house all said Timmy left a short time earlier. 

Mr. C. had warrants out for his arrest for unrelated issues. The officer decided to arrest him on the spot and took him to jail. No one went out into the night to look for Timmy. Later, the officer would give an interview and claim that he figured the conflict was over because the man told him Timmy wasn’t there. 

Timmy’s mother, Barbara, would become concerned after not hearing from her son for a few days. He had been talking to her nearly every day since his brother had died several months before. Now she hadn’t heard from him in days. Barbara called in a missing persons report for her son on March 2nd. 

Timmy Dees was last seen at 1:30 AM on surveillance video at a local gas station. He withdrew $160 from the ATM and bought a round of Gatorades for his friends. They played the slot machines at the station for a while and then disappeared from video. Strangely, Barbara was able to dig up a receipt from Timmy’s card. I don’t know how she acquired the receipt, and frankly, I didn’t ask. This receipt shows Timmy’s card was tried three times at 9:11 AM that next morning, approximately four and a half hours after the 911 call. At first, it was theorized that someone had tried to use it with the wrong PIN number, but I doubt it. The receipt says, “failed to read EMV card. (3 failures)” That makes me think someone swiped the card, but the machine couldn’t read it. Whatever the case, it was used several hours after Timmy was last seen, and no one knows who tried to use it. 

Over the next few weeks and months, Barbara would fight and organize six searches without the police department’s help. They even brought in search dogs, which the local PD was not happy about. Just across the side road from the property where Timmy called is a set of storage units. During one of the searches, one of the search dogs alearted at two units, numbers five and six. 

One storage unit was opened and searched, but the police wouldn’t allow the other one to open even though they had the owner’s permission. While everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon here and shout “police corruption,” I suggest you wait for a minute. There’s a difference between a civilian search and a law enforcement search. In order to do a “lawful” search without a warrant, police must have permission from not only the owner but also the renter. If they did not have both, then the police couldn’t have lawfully broken into that storage unit. Barbara was told the high school resource officer had rented the second storage unit. I just want to know why a warrant wasn’t pursued so they could legally get into that unit. 

Five months later, on July 21st, 2022, Timmy’s body would be found 184 yards away from the house where he made the phone call. That is slightly over half of a football field away. Just to be fair here, I must note that the exact location of the phone call was never determined. The basic location was surmised from the cell tower his phone pinged off of. Either way, it was less than a football field away from the house the police were called to that morning. 

His remains were skeletonized by this point. He had some strange things in his pocket, including a yellow device, which some people claim to be a tracking device. To me, it looks a lot like the key fob I have to get into my local gym. Barbara said it’s not his, whatever it is. Just to add to this mystery, his wallet and debit card were in his pants pocket when he was found. How could someone have used it nearly 5 hours later, and it winds up in his pocket?

Barbara is called in and she snaps pictures of her son’s bones. One of his teeth was missing, and his permanent retainer was gone. By the time she sees him in the funeral home, his tooth has been replaced, and everything looks good. And yet, on the report, they do not report that he ever had a tooth missing. Also, there’s a small, unusual hole right behind his front teeth. Of course, no one seems to care about that either. Or the fact that his lower jaw is a completely different color than the rest of his skeletal remains. I contend if they were in the same environment, deteriorating at the same time, they would have all been basically the same color. I’m curious to see if that lower jaw even belongs to Timmy. If it doesn’t, why would someone change it? I contend if it was changed, it was to cover up the truth. 

Despite all of this, the police still cannot tell Barbara what happened to her son in the early hours before dawn. They said they didn’t see any stab wounds on the bones. They didn’t see any bullet holes in the bones. So they’ve just left it undetermined. 

Barbara is still fighting for justice in this case. She got some help from an ex-CSI named Mr. Steve. Together, they are still gathering evidence and have presented it to the prosecuting attorney in hopes of getting him to reopen the case. But how can this case be solved now? I have four different things that I think they can do to help solve it.

One month after Timmy went missing, someone logged into his Facebook page. It shows a “check-in” at Fredericktown on March 27, 2022. Someone should check the IP address and see who logged into his account and what device they used. That might generate leads. 

Next, I would like someone to really investigate the tiny hole behind his top teeth. It’s suspiciously placed right behind that tooth that was missing for a while. Could that have been made by a small caliber handgun? 

Thirdly, I think someone should run down the lead and see where that card was used at 9:11 AM. Where was it used? Are there any surveillance cameras in the area? 

Fourth, I think someone should run a DNA test on those reappearing teeth and make sure they are Timmy’s. Maybe they aren’t, and this case could be taken down another path. 

I don’t know if law enforcement will pick up this case again or follow these leads, but I can guarantee you one thing. Barbara will continue to fight for answers until the day she leaves this Earth. 

Photo courstesy of Timmy’s family

Barbara has a petition with Change.org to gather signatures in the hope of getting Timmy’s case reopened. Please follow the link in the back of this book and sign the petition. Together, we can make a difference for this grieving mother. 

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Check Out Synova’s Chasing Justice Video On This Case:

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