Heidi Allen was the 18-year-old convenience store employee who went missing from the store in 1994. A man named Gary Thibodeau was convicted of kidnapping Allen, but he continues to claim his innocence. Now new evidence and testimony has surfaced twenty years later. Witnesses, including Bill Pierce, say they saw James “Thumper” Steen argue with Allen that morning, hit her over the head and drag her into a van.
Steen is already serving a life sentence in jail. He murdered his estranged wife and her boyfriend (his cousin) in 2010. Wearing a t-shirt that read “It’s all fun and games until the cops show up,” Steen pointed his shotgun at the police when they arrived at the crime scene. In jail, the police recorded his calls. In one conversation he said: “I don’t think I’ll have many people fighting and arguing with me.” One witness says Steen bragged to him about kidnapping Allen. Dateline NBC will air its investigative report on May 20 at 10pm.
