For this Action Oriented Advocacy episode we will be traveling to Forsyth County, Georgia. This county is within the Atlanta Metropolitan Area, and has about 250,000 people living in it. It is the fastest growing county in all of Georgia, I can understand why, this place is absolutely beautiful. The reason we are using the county and not the town is because this crime occurred in a rural area, lots of small towns around and more people would know of the county and hopefully remember something that happened versus a small town most people had not heard of.

Little Mill Road is a curvy, two lane road without sidewalks or much of a shoulder. There are many random hills in this area that would give any biker or walker a workout. This is a roadway that goes through a few towns and from what we could see of it a few weeks ago it has large, beautiful houses and trailer homes along it. These houses are sometimes surrounded by trees while others are free from an obstructive view. Today’s story takes place in 1997 so I am sure the area looked different 26 years later but it still has that step back in time feel.

The crime rate in Forsyth county is under the Georgia and national average. However, this county does have a sordid past when it comes to racism.

Levi Dillon Frady was born on March 6th 1986 and was your typical 11 year old boy. He loved riding his bike, hanging out with friends, and playing outside. He had a twin sister named Lacey, his parents were divorced when the twins were just three years old and they lived full time with their mother, Marilyn Parkman.

Levi’s favorite food was pizza and his grandmother’s pancakes. He may have been a thrill seeker, one of his cousins talked about how much he loved roller coasters, especially the one called Typhoon, at the Forsyth County Fair. He was into science experiments, fishing, but most of all riding his bike down Little Mill Road waving at all the neighbors. He was an active kid and everyone knew him well. With halloween coming up, Levi wanted to dress up as GI Joe, he even took his report card money to buy the family pumpkins to carve, but he would never get the chance to make those memories with his twin sister and mom.

Levi and sister were in sixth grade and attended North Forsyth Middle School where he was pretty popular with the other kids. He didn't make the grades his twin did, and would much rather spend his time outdoors exploring than studying like his sister. Laci was one minute older than Levi and she took her job as his big sister very seriously. Levi was a bit on the shy side so Laci would look out for him quite a bit. I want to mention Levi 's extended family lived in this area of Forsyth county for generations. The park down the street from Levi’s house was named after his grandfather, a road was named after a great-grandmother, so it is safe to say people in this area knew this family well, even 11 year old Levi. Of course we will put photos of Levi Frady on our social media sites but honestly he looks like an outdoorsy 11 year old boy that had his whole future ahead of him.

Our timeline will start right after school on October 22nd, 1997. Levi rode the bus home without his sister Laci, she stayed at school on this particular day. He would have arrived home sometimes between 3:30 and 4:12, we know this because Levi would call his mother at work at 4:12 to ask if he could go to a friend’s house to do homework, he also tells her they would be going to another friend's house to play with him as well. Marilyn says yes he can go and tells him to be home by 6:30 that evening. Levi grabs his backpack and heads for his bike. There are multiple witnesses along Little Mill Road that state they saw Levi riding his bike between 4:15 and 5pm. Levi will arrive at the first friend's house somewhere between 4:40 and 5:45. Yes the timeframes are not exact, people didn't have cell phones so they most likely didn't know the exact time. So Levi is at friend one’s house, they both now head to friend number two so they can all jump on the trampoline.

*Photo credit: Levifrady.com 1) Levi’s home, 2) Levi’s friend’s house, 3) Levi’s bike is found*

Sometime between 5:45 and 6pm friend number two and his family leave to go out to dinner. They asked Levi and friend number one if they wanted to come with but friend number one didn't have any money and Levi went to call his mom to see if he could go since he had money. His mom doesn't answer because she is not home from work and picking up Laci from school.

Friend one and Levi leave and head back over to Friend number one’s house. At 6:38 Levi calls his house phone to speak with his mother but she is in the bath so Laci answers the phone. Marilyn tells Laci to tell Levi to come straight home, because it is after 6:30 already. Levi would then state he doesn't want to because he is scared of the dark and the dogs that are on the way home. By 6:50 Levi leaves his friends house to head home. He takes a different route to avoid the dogs he was afraid would chase him. A neighbor sees Levi riding his bike in the direction of friend number two around 6:50, this neighbor also tells police a little black dog is following behind Levi.

A lost motorist is traveling down Little Mill Road when he sees a male between the age of 35 and 60 years old, scraggly and unkempt hair, the motorist tries to ask this man for directions but he would not respond to her when she spoke to him. This man then walks into the woods. This is all very close to the location Levi’s bike would eventually be found. This witness stated she did not see a bike on the ground at that time.

By 7pm Levi should be home and when he is not his mother Marilyn calls his friend’s house but no one answers so her and Laci load up into their car to go search for Levi. As they are pulling out of their long driveway Marilyn’s boyfriend pulls up, she tells him what is going on and make their way around the neighborhood. Laci spots Levi’s bike laying on the ground by a driveway to someone’s house. She tells her mother and for some reason Marilyn doesn't hear her and continues her drive to the friends house. This is under a five minutes drive. When they can't find Levi the mother daughter heads back home by 7:35. Marilyn assumes her son is with a friend, and goes to sleep. She wakes up at 2am and goes to check on him but he is still not home so she sets out to search for him again.

By 6am a woman is leaving for work and sees the bike right next to her driveway, her husband had seen it the night before when he got home from work. She doesn’t move it, but just continues on her way to work. At 6:45 the children of the woman who went to work, leave to walk to the bus stop and the bike is still there, they pick it up and move it closer in the ditch next to the driveway. Back at the house Laci speaks with her father at 7:02 am but never mentions Levi didn't come home and is currently missing.

At 7:30, Marilyn calls the houses of Levi’s friends to let them know she is looking for Levi and if they have seen him. She then travels over to their houses and other family members are searching for him as well at this point. These other relatives find Levi’s bike in the ditch and take it back to Marilyn’s house but then think better of that and return it to where it was found so authorities will know exactly where it was. At 8am Levi is reported officially missing by his mother to the Forsyth County Sheriff's office.

By 10:30 am ground searches are underway in the area that Levi went missing off Little Mill Road.

*Photo: Anybodyseenmyfocus.blogspot.com*

At 2pm a couple of hunters were out on Dawson Forest Wildlife Management Area in Dawson County this is about 19 miles from Levi’s house. This was the opening day of the hunting season and these men were itching to get a buck. They ended up finding Levi Frady’s body and alerted authorities.

Late that night a witness comes forward that says he was out hunting and he saw a blue truck with a white camper in the area around 10 am that morning. This witness also gave authorities a description of what this man looked like and the fact he was wearing dress clothes out in the woods was weird.

Now for the crime scene details that are known Levi was driven out to the site and he was shot three times once in the chest and two times in the head out in Dawson Forest Wildlife area. He was then dumped in a rain filled pit just a few yards from where he was killed. Police state he was not sexually assaulted. His backpack was found in the area his body was found.

A few things we know happened but no details have been released, Levi called 911 twice in the weeks leading up to his murder. The call transcripts have never been released and zero information out there reveals what these calls were about.

Let’s start with Marilyn Parkman, Levi’s mother, for possible people involved. She was obviously questioned by police. She even took a polygraph test which she states she passed. Many people on the internet are against Marilyn because she fell asleep after searching for Levi the first time and didn't wake up until 2am. There could be a million scenarios why this happened and maybe it has something to do with the 911 calls, could she have narcolepsy or some other type of medical condition. Most of us have never been in her shoes and we should all be thankful for that so we would like to throw the stone saying we would never act that way. We don't have all the information, the police have kept this one pretty tight lipped.

Marilyn stated her boyfriend and an ex- boyfriend were questioned and given polygraph tests similar to her. I don't feel the need to say their names, even though the outcome of their tests if they had them were not revealed.

The next person of interest that seems to be a viable option initially came from a police interrogation of a man by the name of Tommy Samples. Tommy was being interviewed because he was accused of stabbing Marshall Tallant in 2013, this was actually the second time Tommy was involved in an altercation that led to a stabbing with Marshall. The first time occurred in 1997, just 39 days after Levi was killed. However, during the 2013 interrogation Tommy made a comment about Marshall hitting or stabbing him with the gun that was used to kill Levi. His exact words were it was a long gun, the same one they shot Levi Frady with. I am obviously not a detective but I would have followed up with some questioning about the murder of an 11 years old that has been cold for over a decade. However, this is not what the police do; they gloss right over that statement and do not ask about this gun. The man that was stabbed, Marshall was interviewed in the hospital and those recordings are online, Marshall tells police ``There ain’t no tellin’ what he’s coming out of his mouth with, He said I had something to do with the Levi Frady murder.” Two investigators tell Marshall and I quote “We ain’t worried about that,”. “We ain’t talkin’ about that.”

*Photo from interrogation with Tommy Samples. Photo credit: levifrady.com*

An article came out in Dawson County Advertiser and News that stated there was a rumor that a man by the name of Jackson Tallant nicknamed Jackie confessed to the murder while he was in jail, authorities state this is untrue and Jackie was only in custody because of some drug offenses. Do you recognize the last name of Jackie, he is related to the guy that was stabbed. Apparently Jackie was friends with some of Levi’s family. Police stated that Jackie was interviewed in Levi’s murder but so was 600 other people.

There have been two men that police have tried to get in contact with over the last 25 years. They say these men are not suspects just possible witnesses but let's be real, if these men have not been identified and police are still looking for them, they could have something to do with this awful crime.

Witness 1

The first person in question was seen walking along Little Mill Road in Forsyth County at 6:30 p.m. on October 22, the day Levi was reported missing. Based on witness descriptions, the sketches below - profile and front views - of the man were made by GBI forensic artist Marla. He is described as a white male in his late 50's, with a scruffy, gray beard. He was wearing a faded blue baseball cap. He walked in a stooped fashion.

Witness 2

The second person or potential witness was seen in the Dawson Forest Wildlife Management Area. He is described as a white male, 45 to 55 years of age, clean shaven, 6' 0" to 6' 1" tall, slim build with white or gray hair. He was driving a 1980 to 1985 medium blue Toyota, 2 wheel drive, pick-up truck with a white camper shell over the bed of the vehicle.

Video: Navigating Advocacy Podcast

If you are a regular listener you know Whitney and I travel to the location for our deep dives also known as our Action Oriented Advocacy Episodes. If you are a new lister welcome and to give you a brief overview, once a quarter our smaller indy podcasts puts action oriented advocacy into our podcast and we have a boots on the ground approach.

This is our eighth deep dive but the first time we chose a child. A few months ago while searching for a case Levi’s name came up and the fact that I have a son named Levi who is 12 years old and loves the outdoors hit very close to home so of course we had to help anyway we can to shed light on this horrific crime against an innocent child.

Once the case was chosen we got right to work, sent off FOIA (freedom of information request) and read everything there was to read about the case. There is a lot out there about Levi. A man’s name came up in our research that might know more about this crime so we wrote to him in prison, first time for everything is the saying and this was a bit out of our comfort zone but if this guy has any answers, we were going to ask the questions. We will get more about this man later on in this episode. After all the research and requests for interviews the only thing left was to go to the location. We do this to not only get a feel for the area so we are able to explain things better to you all but to also help the family, case advocates or law enforcement with anything that needs to be done. Unfortunately this time we did not hear back from any of the people working on the case we reached out to but we moved forward with our plans for visiting the area.

December 3rd, 2022 Melissa, her husband Chris and I drove to Dawson Forest Wildlife Management Area in Dawson County. The weather was raining on and off throughout the drive and every now and then we would come across a fog patch. The sun was covered by all the clouds and it gave us all an ominous feeling.

This was the area where Levi's body was found. We were not able to drive or even hike to the exact location because there are no trespassing signs everywhere and we are not the type to break the law but we got a feel for the dense woods, very few inhabited houses and quite a few abandoned homes covered in weeds and vines. We are talking about the actual houses, not just the yard or surrounding land. We could tell these places have not had human contact in years. About 20 yards before we came to a gate that prevented us from going forward was an old cemetery, this only added to the eerie feeling we all had. We sat in the car at the end of the road and took a minute to get lost in thought about a little boy that was taken way too soon.

We wanted to retrace Levi’s bike ride the night he was kidnapped so off to Little Mill Road we went. This was about a 20 minute drive and because of the curvy roads it took us a few minutes to figure out the lay of the land. We learned there were multiple routes Levi could have rode his bike that day. He had his normal route that was the quickest from his house to his friends house. Then there was the route he took the night he went missing. This route took us twice as long to drive as the first one. Like we had said before there weren't any sidewalks or even a paved shoulder for him to ride his bike on. He would have to ride in the road or on the grass, I would assume he bicycled in the road because the hills would be difficult enough on pavement, the grass would be way too difficult to ride on. This isn't a high traffic area but, because of the hills and curves it is very difficult for a driver to see if someone is up ahead. Levi’s house was set back from the road and had many tall trees surrounding it; you can barely see the house from the street. I have never lived in a cabin in the woods but this is what I would expect it to look like. Neighbors are on both sides of this house and houses right across the street. We were able to tell which houses most likey were there in the 90s and which ones were built after Levi disappeared. Not a word was said while we were leaving Forsyth county. All of us were deep in thought about how a pre-teen can be doing something that millions of kids do everyday, something that brings them joy only to be taken and killed by someone.

The route Levi took home from his friend’s house. Video: Navigating Advocacy Podcast

Levi Dillion Frady was kidnapped and murdered over 25 years ago, and authorities are no closer to solving this than the very day Levi’s body was found face up in that water filled pit. There are people that know who did this, do not let another day go by without telling authorities what you know. Do it for the boy that will never grow up. Do it for Levi.

Who killed Levi Frady?

Anyone with information on the murder of Levi Frady or on the identity of the persons in the sketches is asked to contact the GBI Tip Line at 1-800-597-8477 or by writing:

Levi Frady Case

189 Highway 53 West, Suite 201

Dawsonville, Georgia 30534

Levi Frady

Who killed Levi Frady?

Laresha & Wanda Walker

Laralee Spear