The Caller Who Said "You're Talking to Him Right Now - Episode 24

The Caller Who Said "You're Talking to Him Right Now": The Murder of Reese Pocan

A man called a sheriff's dispatch at 2:30 in the morning, described exactly how Reese Pocan was killed, named the person responsible — and then paused when the dispatcher asked if he was the killer. The investigation traced the call to a phone number within hours. Then it stopped. Thirty-four years later, no one has been charged in this homicide, and the man who answered his door when detectives played that recording back to him did not deny knowing exactly what it was.

In this episode, we explore how Reese's headless, handless body was found eighty miles from where her hands were recovered — and why it took nine years to confirm they belonged to the same woman, why a boyfriend sold his truck within weeks of her disappearance and admitted to hunting in the exact marsh where her skull turned up, and how at least seven people were approached for polygraphs in 2022 and 2023, with four refusing and one showing deception. Was Reese killed by someone she trusted, someone she met that night, or someone who has been hiding six houses from where she was last seen alive?

Case Details

Victim: Reese Pocan, 35, administrative assistant at the Bradley Center and mother of four daughters.

Date: On or after August 10, 1989.

Location: Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA — body recovered in Sheboygan County, Wisconsin.

Case Status: Officially open homicide. No arrests have been made as of 2024. Detective Nathan Hatch of the Sheboygan County Sheriff's Office and Special Agent Michael Potter of the Bureau of Indian Affairs are actively investigating.

Episode Key Points

- Reese's body was found in September 1989 without a head or hands; the medical examiner originally theorized animal predation removed them — then later admitted that was not possible and he would now classify the death as homicide.

- Her hands were found eighty miles away in Waukesha County in October 1989, but were not definitively linked to her body until 2018 — nearly thirty years after her death.

- Her boyfriend at the time of her disappearance gave two contradictory accounts of the last time he saw her, sold his truck weeks after she vanished, and admitted to hunting in the Vernon Marsh area where her skull was later recovered.

- A man who called dispatch in 1990 described the killing in specific detail, identified a suspect by name and address, and when asked directly if he was the killer, said "you're talking to him right now" — the call was traced, a name was identified, and the investigation stopped.

Reese Pocan, Sheboygan County Wisconsin homicide, Milwaukee missing persons 1989, indigenous women missing Wisconsin, MMIW cold case, true crime, murder, investigation, homicide, forensic science, criminal minds, unsolved mysteries, true crime English.