Podchaser Logo
Home
S3 Eps 47: Safety, Secrets, and Starting Over

S3 Eps 47: Safety, Secrets, and Starting Over

Released Saturday, 18th November 2023
Good episode? Give it some love!
S3 Eps 47: Safety, Secrets, and Starting Over

S3 Eps 47: Safety, Secrets, and Starting Over

S3 Eps 47: Safety, Secrets, and Starting Over

S3 Eps 47: Safety, Secrets, and Starting Over

Saturday, 18th November 2023
Good episode? Give it some love!
Rate Episode

Episode Transcript

Transcripts are displayed as originally observed. Some content, including advertisements may have changed.

Use Ctrl + F to search

0:00

Hey guys, Bella

0:02

here. Welcome

0:04

to the bonfire. Hey

0:07

guys, Hide and Seek is now on Patreon.

0:10

If you'd like to learn how to support the work we do, please

0:13

visit www.patreon.com

0:17

backslash hideandseekpodcast.

0:20

For as little as $5 a month, you

0:22

can get access to exclusive rewards. Rewards

0:25

include live events, early access

0:28

to video trailers, ad-free episodes,

0:31

never-before-seen videos, behind-the-scenes

0:33

video and photo content, along

0:36

with extended and never-before-heard interviews.

0:39

My team and I would be honored to have you. Again,

0:43

visit www.patreon.com backslash

0:46

hideandseekpodcast.

0:48

Thanks guys. Do

0:54

you want to try making your own podcast? I did.

0:58

When I started a small podcast for our

1:00

listeners, I had no idea where

1:02

to start. After I did a little

1:04

research, I found out that Spotify

1:06

has a platform that lets you

1:09

make your own podcast and it's super

1:11

easy. You can distribute

1:13

it everywhere and you can even earn

1:15

money.

1:16

All the tools you need in one place

1:19

and it's free. With options

1:21

like video podcasting, Q&A

1:23

and polls, I can be as creative

1:26

as I want. From

1:27

your phone or your computer, no

1:29

matter what your setup is, you can

1:31

jump right in.

1:32

Check it out. It's called Spotify

1:35

for Podcasters.

1:38

The views and opinions expressed by guests

1:40

on the Hide and Seek podcast are their own

1:43

and do not necessarily reflect the views,

1:46

opinions or positions of the host

1:48

or contributors.

1:52

Hey everyone, this is Sarah. Would

1:55

you like to take a more active role in the Hide

1:57

and Seek community? Would you

1:58

like to share your thoughts? your thoughts with

2:00

other listeners, join us

2:03

in the Hide and Seek Podcast Discussion Group

2:05

on Facebook. You can find us

2:07

by searching Hide and Seek Podcast Discussion

2:09

Group on Facebook. This

2:13

podcast deals with mature topics that

2:16

may not be suitable for all listeners. Material

2:19

heard on the Hide and Seek Podcast is intended

2:21

for adult listeners. Listener

2:23

discretion is advised.

2:45

This

2:54

podcast is intended

2:56

for adult listeners.

2:58

This podcast is intended for adult listeners.

3:22

Lunatic regular

3:35

television

3:45

audio continue

4:09

Last week in a 2-4 episode you heard from Zach Age.

4:14

Zach Age was connected to a number on Britney's short

4:16

call log of outgoing calls that Christina

4:18

M and Jessica obtained shortly after Britney disappeared.

4:21

We checked out the numbers on the call log and one of

4:24

those numbers led to an AT&T customer named

4:26

Zach Age. His name

4:28

was one we saw in comments in different places but

4:31

it wasn't until we reviewed Britney's rejected

4:33

friend request that his name seemed

4:35

a little bit more intriguing. On

4:38

November 28th at 4.15am Britney

4:42

rejected a friend request from Zach Age.

4:45

Zach's name came up again when we received the case

4:47

file. In 2020

4:50

a witness named Tracy came forward to law enforcement.

4:55

He told law enforcement that while both she and Zach

4:57

were passengers in the vehicle, he confessed

5:00

to the homicide of Britney's shame. Law

5:03

enforcement requested an interview with Zach Age

5:06

after he was released from jail. He

5:09

told the detective that he didn't know Britney and had nothing

5:11

to do with her disappearance. I

5:13

asked Zach about the phone number that he had previously

5:15

attributed to him, the same one

5:17

that showed up on Britney's call log and

5:19

in her notebook and the same one we'd

5:21

seen comments about. He

5:24

agreed. This number previously

5:26

belonged to him. I

5:31

asked him about his relationship with Ashley.

5:34

Did he know her? He told me he didn't know her

5:36

very well and he didn't have much of a relationship

5:38

with her outside of being acquaintances. She

5:41

purchased narcotics from him and he dated a friend

5:43

of hers. He told me the last contact

5:45

he had with her was 78

5:48

months prior to our interview. And

5:56

when I hung up with Zach, the

5:58

number I spoke to him about... The

6:00

number he confirmed used to be his, was

6:03

calling me. When

6:06

he answered, it was in Michigan State

6:08

Prison, with

6:11

a call from an inmate whose name I didn't recognize.

6:14

Unfortunately, I couldn't speak to the

6:16

caller. While I was trying to add funds to my account

6:18

in order to accept the call, the call

6:20

was disconnected and the caller

6:23

never called back. That

6:27

is the Britney Wallace case. In

6:31

part 2 of episode 46, we

6:34

heard from the nation's leading expert on nobody

6:36

homicide cases. He had

6:38

the bias. Dad

6:40

had a lot to share with us. His

6:43

experience and knowledge is priceless. Dad

6:46

talked to us about circumstantial evidence and

6:48

the bad rapid gets, and his unique perspective

6:50

on this gave us hope. So,

6:56

if you're unsure what circumstantial evidence is,

6:59

Dad explained it like this.

7:04

Most nobody murder cases are

7:07

circumstantial cases. That it is rare,

7:09

not never, but it's rare,

7:12

to have someone come forward and say, oh

7:14

yeah, I was there when Dad killed

7:16

so and so. But most of the time

7:18

in a nobody case, there's really what I call

7:21

three types of circumstantial

7:23

evidence. And I always give them the analogy

7:26

that let's say when

7:28

you go to bed, you look out your window

7:30

and it's snowing. You

7:33

go to bed, you wake up the next morning and

7:35

there's snow covering your lawn, there's snow covering your

7:37

sidewalk. You knew that it snowed

7:39

because you saw it last night. You saw direct evidence

7:41

of that. But let's say in fact on

7:44

that night, you go to bed, you look

7:46

out your window, it's not snowing. You

7:48

get in the bed, go to sleep, you wake up the next

7:50

morning and there's snow on the ground. There's

7:52

circumstantial evidence that it snowed. It's not

7:55

direct. You didn't see it snow, but you

7:57

see the snow on your sidewalk and your grass. Now,

7:59

is it? possible in some crazy

8:02

world that a Hollywood company came

8:04

and spread snow all over your

8:06

yard. That's possible, but that's

8:09

not reasonable. That's not likely.

8:11

And that's how you show people that in your

8:13

everyday life, you use

8:16

this circumstantial evidence, and it's

8:18

just the same as direct. And that's

8:20

a jury instruction in most jurisdictions,

8:22

right? They say you are to treat circumstantial

8:25

evidence the same as direct. So that's

8:27

why I spend a lot of time talking

8:30

to prosecutors is they don't fear

8:32

circumstantial evidence. You're going to

8:34

learn when you pitch it

8:36

this way to a jury, they're going to understand it's exactly

8:39

the same as direct evidence.

8:44

In this era of rapidly advancing technology,

8:47

the significance of circumstantial evidence needs

8:49

to evolve to keep up with it. What

8:52

was once deemed less compelling is now recognized

8:55

as equally valuable direct evidence. Furthermore,

8:59

the lies told by suspects in nobody homicide

9:02

cases could serve as compelling evidence

9:04

and should not be underestimated. These

9:08

lies often work in conjunction with circumstantial

9:10

evidence further strengthening the case against

9:12

the suspect. While we're here addressing

9:14

this subject, I'd like to follow

9:16

this up with an example of a case where a significant

9:19

amount of circumstantial evidence played

9:21

a crucial role in securing a conviction. One

9:24

example is the case of Scott

9:26

Peterson. Detective

9:29

Rokini went into the house immediately started

9:31

going. Scott was convicted of the murder of

9:33

his wife Lacey Peterson in 2004. There

9:37

was no evidence of force entering

9:38

into the house. There was no evidence of

9:40

a struggle. There was

9:41

no evidence of bloodshed or anything like that. Although

9:43

there was no direct evidence linking Scott Peterson

9:46

to the crimes for that afternoon. The prosecution

9:48

presented a substantial amount of circumstantial

9:51

evidence, including his affair, his

9:53

behavior after Lacey's disappearance and

9:56

the discovery of Lacey's body in the same area

9:58

where Scott had been fishing.

9:59

Okay, so you finished 90 minutes,

10:02

did you troll? A little

10:04

bit? You have no idea where

10:06

this is.

10:08

That's right. You

10:11

guys haven't had any problems. Um,

10:13

their problems. Everything's

10:16

good. I know. When did it occur to

10:18

you that the police really reserved

10:20

you?

10:21

Uh, what's the key to

10:23

the street? The

10:25

driveway to the house. Of

10:27

Christmas Eve. I heard

10:29

an officer from the radio, named the Hudson.

10:37

This combination of circumstantial evidence was

10:39

instrumental in the jury's decision to find him

10:41

guilty. That

10:44

explained how advancement in technology

10:46

today affects missing person cases. Today's

10:49

technology has far exceeded

10:51

our expectations. From

10:54

triangular pinging to GPS cellular

10:56

data. Modern

10:58

day cell phones have made it possible to track our whereabouts.

11:01

Social media platforms allow for tracking

11:03

your phone, while banking capabilities straight

11:05

from your device leave little room for going off

11:07

the grid. And

11:09

it's become difficult to disappear without a

11:11

trace. Most of us rely

11:13

on Google Maps or something similar, for navigation

11:16

when traveling distances. Unless

11:18

one's willing to live off the grid, it is challenging

11:21

to completely vanish. In 2002,

11:25

Michelle Whittaker, a Waffle House employee,

11:28

left her family home following an argument with her mother.

11:32

Michelle didn't come back.

11:34

I got a phone call, and it was

11:36

from a gentleman 10

11:38

miles away that apparently

11:41

she had been staying with. And

11:43

he called me and he said something's wrong,

11:46

that he can't find her or reach

11:49

her. And I'm not sure why I

11:51

took him seriously, but

11:53

I did. In the weeks before her disappearance, the

11:55

police were contacted and they began looking into

11:57

her disappearance.

11:59

doubled their efforts when Heather Sellers,

12:02

another Waffle House employee, disappeared

12:04

just a few weeks later.

12:08

Police feared that Sellers boyfriend, a suspect and

12:10

another murder, may have killed both women. Six

12:13

years later, the boyfriend's story showed

12:15

up on a true crime TV show where his

12:17

suspected victims were shown. The viewer

12:20

recognized one of the victims as

12:22

her neighbor. Whitaker

12:24

simply had enough of her old life and walked. She

12:27

was ultimately reunited with her family. The

12:30

widely recognized story of Stephen Stainer

12:32

captivated audiences. In 1979,

12:37

Kenneth Parnell pulled up six again and he moved

12:39

with Stephen to a small cabin in Manchester,

12:41

California, which is in the middle of nowhere

12:43

surrounded by almost nothing. Particularly

12:45

through the 1989 TV miniseries

12:47

adaptation of the story. At the age of seven,

12:50

Stainer felt victim to Kenneth Parnell. It

12:52

was a one-room shack,

12:55

very old and cold. The notorious

12:57

pedophile who subjected him to years of abuse.

12:59

At some point, Parnell and

13:02

Stephen

13:02

together realized that Stephen

13:04

was growing up. Parnell cunningly manipulated

13:07

Stainer, convincing him that he had been granted

13:09

legal custody due to his family's financial

13:11

constraints. And that he was no

13:13

longer going to be able to be controlled by Parnell.

13:16

However,

13:17

when Stainer was 14, Parnell committed

13:19

another kidnapping. Parnell wanted

13:22

another kid. The victim's name

13:24

was Timothy. So

13:26

in February of 1980, Ken Parnell goes back

13:29

to the exact same memo that he used

13:31

to get Stephen Stainer. He

13:34

paid a local kid to survive with them to the little town

13:36

of Ukiah, California.

13:38

So he's going to get out on

13:40

the street and go find him a boy.

13:43

And he finds five-year-old Timothy White

13:45

walking home from school. Fueled by his deep

13:47

concern for Timothy's safety, Stainer

13:49

found the courage to escape

13:51

with him. Ultimately reuniting

13:54

with his long-lost family. The

13:56

path can almost prove to be difficult

13:58

for Stainer in the years out. after his escape.

14:00

I was not going to let that child go

14:02

through what I had already been through.

14:06

And if I didn't take care of it now, it

14:08

would just get worse. He struggled with the challenges

14:11

of readjusting to life he had been deprived of

14:13

for so long.

14:14

Tragically, in 1989, after

14:18

building a family of his own, Stainer's

14:21

life was cut short by a devastating motorcycle

14:23

accident. These

14:26

stories are powerful reminders that people

14:28

disappear for a variety of reasons. Even

14:31

walking away from one's own life is possible. Leaving

14:34

behind family, friends, and

14:37

a job is possible.

14:40

Is it probable? No.

14:44

This raises the question of law enforcement's protocols

14:47

and the potential need for updates

14:49

to stay in the race of technological advancements.

14:53

I know we've heard it. It's not a crime to

14:55

go missing.

14:57

But, call me.

15:00

How many missing persons you've searched? And the

15:02

conclusion was that they disappeared on their

15:04

own accord.

15:08

In rejecting an appeal by Charles Manson in 1977 for

15:10

the 1969 murder of Donald Shea,

15:14

a California appeals court wrote, the

15:17

fact that a murderer may successfully

15:19

dispose of the body of the victim does

15:22

not entitle him to an acquittal. This

15:24

is one form of success for which society

15:27

has no reward. Murderers

15:29

shouldn't be rewarded for doing a good cleanup. Where

15:33

are we at in the timeline? Well,

15:37

it's about time to go back to Sturgis. He

15:40

nearly caught up to the present day. It's

15:43

just weeks before I returned to Sturgis in June

15:45

of 2023. And Sarah

15:47

and I walk away from an interview with Tad filled with

15:49

a renewed sense of purpose. The

15:51

interview had a profound impact on the way I look

15:54

at this case and probably all

15:56

cases from here on out. Listening to

15:58

Tad transform my perspective. It gave

16:00

me a newfound depth of understanding. We

16:03

learned that nobody homicide cases have

16:05

increased, especially since the year 2000. Advancements

16:09

in DNA technology and the ability to

16:11

track electronic trails make it easier

16:13

to prove that a missing person is

16:15

likely dead. I

16:17

asked Sarah to do a roundtable talk with me, and

16:20

how we want to prepare for our return to Sturgis

16:22

and our meeting with Detective Otten.

16:34

All right, so I think Sarah

16:36

taking the approach that Tad, his

16:38

advice, if we look at the

16:40

case and let's say they were to go

16:42

to court or a prosecutor was

16:45

to look at this case, first thing

16:48

is how do we know that this person didn't leave

16:51

under their own power, you know, on their own accord?

16:53

The question is, did Brittany leave on her own

16:55

and what evidence do we have to prove that?

16:58

So let's start with forensic evidence.

17:02

I don't think that we have a lot of forensic

17:05

evidence. I think we have things

17:07

like electronic footprints, financial

17:10

obligations, but I

17:13

don't think that we have a lot of forensic evidence

17:15

in that category.

17:17

If you look at

17:18

Brittany's activity prior

17:20

to her disappearance, her

17:23

history, and then you see after

17:25

November 30th that there's

17:28

zero activity unless it's

17:30

done by Ashley. Brittany

17:32

was someone who was active always on social

17:34

media really. Very,

17:36

very, yeah.

17:38

If we look at her banking financial

17:40

records, we see only

17:42

a subscribed base to transactions that take

17:45

place afterwards, but there's

17:47

zero activity from Brittany's account to

17:49

show that she's using any of the funds.

17:52

Right.

17:54

Given that Brittany's history of being active,

17:56

she didn't have a ton of

17:58

money, so what was in there was... all that she

18:00

would have, right? So there is zero

18:03

in going in now. There's no other accounts

18:05

that are being made up under her name that

18:07

show that she's alive and she's

18:09

out there, right? So

18:11

looking at the lifestyle history, her social

18:13

media, her finances,

18:15

this isn't someone who's going to disappear. I

18:18

consider her to have been very active

18:21

on social media. So those

18:23

things all cease to exist

18:26

after November 30th. And

18:29

I think

18:30

those things

18:33

for me point

18:35

to her no longer being

18:39

alive.

18:40

Evidence based shows she's not active

18:43

and this isn't normal.

18:46

Right. I think

18:48

for Tad,

18:50

you know, a no body homicide

18:54

prosecutor, what

18:56

he's establishing and what, you know,

18:58

any prosecutor would be establishing is

19:01

the likelihood that the victim no longer

19:03

is alive. And I think the

19:05

things that we've just discussed demonstrates

19:09

that pretty well

19:12

after looking at her established

19:17

history.

19:18

I think those things demonstrate it

19:20

pretty well. Relationships

19:24

and the people that she was connected

19:26

and close with. Grandma.

19:29

Yes. The kid, the girl's mother. These

19:33

were people who said this is how she normally

19:36

behaved. These were the choices

19:38

that she made. This is the routine that she was

19:40

in after Britney has gone missing. Those

19:43

individuals said they never heard from her. But

19:45

grandma's passing specifically is like

19:49

Logan choosing not to show

19:51

up because when his grandpa died, you know,

19:53

that was important to him. He was

19:56

cared about. Same thing with me and grandma.

19:59

very strong relationships. So for

20:55

instance,

21:00

pretty strong evidence, I think, of

21:02

her desire to make that connection

21:04

and to reestablish

21:07

that relationship.

21:09

I'm really curious on what

21:11

the listeners think about this. Do

21:14

they feel, yes, that's enough evidence

21:16

to say she's not here or is that

21:19

or is it not? I'd be really curious to see what the

21:21

listeners have to say,

21:23

what their opinion is. I think

21:25

in this

21:27

day and age, you know, in the 80s and

21:29

the 70s, early 90s, we're talking about

21:33

a different story walking away from your life. But

21:37

in 2017, it's not as easy. It's

21:40

not as easy.

21:42

Look at the reasons why. There are situations

21:44

where people do walk away. Yeah.

21:47

Some of the examples that I've seen, they

21:50

have a medical history. Yeah, mental health,

21:52

medical. It's hard to

21:55

disappear in today's day and age with technology.

21:58

It's difficult.

21:59

difficult and it's

22:02

not only is it very difficult as an established

22:05

adult but as a young adult

22:07

at 23 you know

22:10

you're barely barely getting your own feet

22:12

under you. I'm

22:13

really curious on what

22:16

the listeners think about this. Do

22:18

they feel yes that's enough evidence

22:20

to say she's not here or is that

22:23

or is it not? In this day and age

22:26

you know in the 80s and the 70s

22:29

early 90s we're talking about a

22:31

different story walking away from your life but

22:34

in 2017 it's not as easy it's not

22:37

as easy.

22:38

No and like if you if you look

22:40

at the reasons why in situations where people

22:42

do walk away yeah I

22:45

don't see any of those

22:47

reasons being applied here for Brittany's

22:49

situation. It's hard yeah it's

22:51

hard to I mean yeah

22:54

to disappear in today's day and age with

22:56

technology it's difficult. It's

22:58

very difficult and it's

23:01

not only is it very difficult as an established

23:03

adult but as a young adult

23:07

at 23 you know you're barely barely getting

23:09

your own feet under you let alone

23:12

trying to establish a new identity and

23:14

you know let's be honest Brittany didn't have a ton

23:16

of money it's gonna take money you're

23:19

you have to fund that new life.

23:21

Detective Frawley in season two for Logan

23:23

said that there's he had his experience of a

23:25

girl who was you know a guy left disappeared

23:28

and his wife supposedly was looking for

23:30

him and ended up a girl who was just kind

23:32

of stalking him. Yeah.

23:35

As we were talking about this before I made

23:37

a comment or a point to say how

23:40

many individuals have you gone and found who

23:42

said I didn't want to be found compared to individuals

23:45

who have gone missing and ended up

23:48

gone.

23:49

Yeah. I would think that there's more of the people

23:51

who are the individuals who have just disappeared

23:54

starting a whole new life.

23:55

Also you know

23:57

as you're talking about that and as we We

24:00

are discussing established

24:04

routines and, you know, just walking

24:06

away and starting a new life. If

24:08

we're being honest here, Brittany

24:12

was struggling with addiction. And

24:16

it is very possible that

24:19

even had she walked away and just

24:21

started a new life elsewhere, let's just

24:23

play that card for a moment, she

24:25

would need to fulfill

24:29

that addiction, that need for the

24:31

drug. And that

24:34

means she's got to get it from somebody.

24:36

So walking away and having to find,

24:39

you know, somebody to buy from, somebody's going

24:41

to see her. This means

24:43

she's having dealings with somebody, somebody's going

24:45

to see her. That's going to come up eventually.

24:47

I mean, you don't walk away

24:50

forever and just disappear into thin air

24:52

and nobody ever sees you.

24:55

Take the scene into

24:57

consideration. If she chose to leave

25:00

in this fashion or this type of way,

25:02

this doesn't

25:04

really make sense. She's calling 911 for them

25:06

to come to the situation. Yeah, for

25:08

sure. She's saying, I need help

25:11

and it's 31 degrees. I'm barefoot.

25:14

I don't take this as a situation

25:16

or seeing that someone would want to leave and

25:19

try to disappear in this sort

25:21

of fashion. There is a

25:24

story that I was researching before

25:26

this and it was about a young kid who

25:28

went missing after

25:31

walking his two dogs one day and they found

25:33

the dogs and he ended up being,

25:37

they found him at a church, I think it was seven or eight years later.

25:40

Tonight, a sunny update

25:42

in the case of a missing teen who

25:44

vanished eight years ago near his home in Houston.

25:48

All this happened, we believe in miracles and this

25:50

certainly was a miracle. The

25:53

family of Rudy Faria is confirming he was

25:55

found alive last Thursday and

25:57

a good Samaritan spotted the now 25-year-old. unresponsive

26:01

at a church and called 911. The

26:04

last time she saw her son was in the spring

26:06

of 2015 when he left the house

26:09

with his two dogs and never returned.

26:11

Rudy was just 18

26:12

when he went missing.

26:14

At the time detectives did not suspect

26:17

foul play and classified his disappearance

26:19

as a missing persons

26:20

case.

26:22

I'm scared because he's out there alone.

26:25

The recent break in Rudy's story

26:27

putting a national spotlight on a troubling

26:29

statistic. According to

26:31

the FBI just last year alone

26:34

there were nearly 360,000 reports of missing children.

26:37

In 2015

26:40

with no

26:40

sign of Rudy family members told

26:42

NBC News that he had been suffering from depression

26:45

after losing his brother to a motorcycle

26:47

accident. I can't even tell

26:49

you how many times we searched and how many

26:51

leads and tips came in. In

26:55

the very beginning, you know, I

26:57

met with a family and detectives out there

26:59

by his house where he disappeared and we found

27:01

a backpack. We actually talked to somebody,

27:04

had one of the catering trucks which fell

27:06

to that day. So then there was different

27:08

hospital sightings in different places.

27:11

Tonight Rudy is recovering at the hospital.

27:14

His mom saying he's

27:15

non-verbal while receiving care to

27:17

overcome his trauma. His

27:19

brother had passed away. He was dealing with depression.

27:22

Even in that situation for him just to leave the dogs and

27:24

go. One, he was a male.

27:27

Two, he's not barefoot in

27:29

the winter out in the middle of nowhere. And

27:32

he didn't call 911. Right, right.

27:35

I mean, to

27:36

your point, if she

27:38

was going to choose to walk away I

27:40

don't think it would be leaving

27:43

Sheldon's car on the side of the road

27:46

and then walking away barefoot. You'd

27:48

just walk away without having

27:50

the car accident, without calling 911, without

27:53

any of that stuff. A little extra for

27:55

a while. You have a family member

27:57

just moments before this all takes place

27:59

who says... Yeah, she was, she was

28:01

on something. Not thinking

28:03

clearly right now. And if you want

28:06

to, if you want to say like, part, that's

28:08

part of the reason she's walking away is because she's

28:10

not thinking clearly. Well, at some point

28:12

she's going to come back to her senses,

28:14

you know, the next day, the day after,

28:16

whatever you want to say. And the likelihood

28:19

is she's going to return. She's not going

28:21

to keep disappear. She's

28:23

not, it's not going to keep going. Yeah.

28:26

During our interview with Tad, um,

28:28

there was a point in there where you had made a comment about

28:31

how defendants in nobody homicide cases

28:34

are a rare breed because they typically

28:36

do not have a history of committing crimes. And

28:38

the act exposing of a body as Tad was

28:40

explaining, it requires a different mentality

28:43

and a level of control over the situation. In

28:46

this case, we have a lot of individuals

28:48

who have a history of crimes.

28:50

Yeah. So I guess I'm curious

28:53

on what your opinion is of, of

28:56

that. Is this a anomaly? Is this a very

28:58

unique situation?

28:59

So

29:01

my opinion is kind of twofold

29:03

on this. There's exceptions

29:06

to every rule, right? But

29:08

also, I think we

29:11

can be discussing two

29:13

different, two different things here. There

29:16

is an element of a murder where there is

29:18

the intention of murder.

29:25

But also there

29:27

are

29:28

murders where there wasn't the intention.

29:33

The case that is never in the history

29:35

of mankind been in nobody murder cases.

29:37

I'm a burglar. I break into

29:39

someone's house because I think they're not

29:41

there. Maybe the intention was

29:44

a robbery. They're

29:46

actually there. I shoot and I kill

29:48

them and I say, Oh shit, I

29:51

got to get rid of this body. And

29:53

something goes, you know, terribly

29:56

wrong. Well, no, no one

29:58

knows you broke into their house.

29:59

there's no way you're going to hang around

30:02

and try and dispose of a body in

30:04

a strange location. That never

30:06

happened. Or maybe

30:09

the intention was a sexual assault

30:11

and something goes terribly wrong. So

30:13

I think this is kind of

30:15

deeper. This is kind of a deeper issue

30:18

than

30:18

it just appears to be on the surface.

30:21

I think for the most

30:22

part, yeah, yes. I

30:24

completely agree that defendants

30:28

in no body homicide cases

30:30

don't typically have a history of

30:33

criminal activity. But then

30:36

you have this other

30:38

subset of defendants

30:41

who have instances

30:44

where the murder

30:46

wasn't a plan. That's

30:48

not what was going to happen. What

30:51

was going to happen was a robbery. But then this

30:54

happens and then, you know,

30:56

we have this fateful incident and somebody

30:58

loses their life. It's twofold

31:01

for me. I do agree that

31:03

that is most of the time. But

31:06

you can't always.

31:08

Not everybody in every incident

31:11

fits into a statistic. I

31:12

love statistics. I

31:14

think they can explain

31:16

a lot of things, but I don't think,

31:19

especially in an instance like

31:21

this, where there's so many

31:23

variables, I don't think it

31:25

can always be explained that way. Do

31:28

you know what I mean? Yeah.

31:31

I think the other challenge that you're dealing with,

31:34

you don't have a ton of cases. There's

31:37

over 500. I think was the

31:40

number. And if you think about every situation

31:43

for all, we don't have a huge

31:45

pool of like data. Yeah. Here's

31:49

there's a lot of I think there's room for direction. For

31:51

error. Yeah. And

31:53

what that what that looks like. But one

31:57

of the comments he made was the

31:59

boyfriend.

31:59

the husband, the family, whoever

32:02

it is, if you know them, the

32:04

length that you will go to try to cover it up because you

32:06

know they're going to... Yes. I

32:08

think that's a very important

32:11

point for people to hear and

32:13

understand. If you're talking about

32:16

a spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend,

32:18

parent, child, whatever the relationship

32:20

is, if that person commits

32:23

a crime, the

32:26

offender will go to

32:30

extraordinary

32:33

lengths to

32:35

dispose of, to hide whatever you

32:37

want to call it, the evidence, the

32:39

body, because like you said, they

32:41

know they're going to be looking at them. Does

32:45

that affect how you think

32:48

about Brittany's case? Is

32:51

this why Brittany's

32:54

remains, we're assuming here

32:56

that she's no longer with us, does

32:58

this affect the way you think... When you

33:00

heard that, does this affect the way you think about

33:03

Brittany's case? Is this why her remains

33:06

have not been found in five years?

33:11

That means a definite impact

33:13

to the case. Weather conditions

33:15

also into consideration. Not

33:18

only did she leave the

33:20

young kids' house and then probably dart

33:22

it across the field, then

33:25

there had been some sort of altercation, I

33:28

imagine, and then they had to

33:30

take her and go through all

33:32

those steps. To that extent, you

33:34

have to deal with the ethics of

33:36

this, which happened.

33:40

Think about the mentality of,

33:42

I've just killed someone that at some point

33:45

in my life, presumably I loved, and

33:47

now I've got to cut them up. I've got to put them in a

33:50

bag, I've got to dump them, bury them, throw

33:52

them in a body of water. That's

33:54

a tough

33:57

type of mentality to be able to do

33:59

that. It's a difficult mentality. Most

34:02

of us could not do that, could

34:04

not dispose of the body of a

34:06

loved one even if you got so

34:09

angry. And so that does say

34:11

kind of what that mentality is like. It's different

34:13

than most of us are wired. Whether

34:16

it was your intention or not, like he said,

34:19

sometimes a guy strikes a girl,

34:21

accidentally hits her two car in the wrong spot and she

34:23

goes down then, oh shit. And

34:26

you're not digging into ground when it's 70 degree

34:29

weather.

34:29

It's 31. It's hard. Yes. So

34:32

you know digging that far down. So is that

34:35

what has you know, is that what happened?

34:38

I don't know, but I think the

34:41

fact that she hasn't been found kind

34:43

of adds some weight to okay, someone went

34:45

to great lengths to really make sure

34:47

that she wasn't found.

34:49

Because of that, does it change

34:52

your perspective about

34:54

where she would potentially be found. You

34:57

know, like you

34:59

said, we're talking about 30 degree

35:01

weather as opposed to you know, weather

35:04

where there's soft ground. So does

35:06

that change your perspective about where

35:10

she could potentially be found?

35:15

That's a hard question my guy because of what

35:17

I, you know, we know about certain things

35:19

that we haven't shared. Because

35:22

of the conditions and where they were at

35:24

and what was going on, I imagine

35:27

that they stayed nearby.

35:30

Yeah, and they were

35:32

in, they didn't do this

35:34

in some place where I think they were in control

35:37

of the scene.

35:39

What would you do? What lengths would you go to,

35:41

right?

35:42

I think most people think I would drive

35:44

out to the middle of nowhere. I think

35:46

for me when I think

35:48

about this, it

35:51

does impact my

35:53

thought process and where she may be found.

35:56

If we're talking about one

35:59

location,

35:59

where an offender

36:02

has

36:02

not moved the

36:05

remains. If we're talking

36:07

about just one time, it does

36:10

influence my thoughts about

36:12

where she may be found. And, yeah,

36:15

no, it does influence my thoughts about that.

36:19

And, you know, Tab mentions the weather

36:22

as being, you know, something

36:24

to consider here. If we're in Florida,

36:26

we're talking about a completely different

36:28

climate. We're in Michigan

36:31

at the end of November. And so

36:33

I think that that kind

36:36

of limits your possibilities. But

36:38

again, that's if we're

36:41

strictly talking about one, you know, one, like

36:45

they don't ever move the remains. They don't

36:47

ever, it's just a one, one and

36:49

done. So it does

36:51

influence. But again, I think

36:54

there is an element there

36:57

of just how desperate

37:00

you are. Desperation

37:04

causes people to do things that

37:06

are superhuman. Oh, it's 100%

37:08

I was about to say it's a drug. Yes,

37:11

absolutely. It takes over

37:13

like a drug. You're willing to

37:15

go to extreme lengths that you're

37:18

not normally behaving at like and you're... Absolutely.

37:21

And I guess, you know, that really comes

37:23

back to Tad's point. And

37:26

in that, you know, these

37:29

defendants typically are

37:33

people who don't have a criminal history. But

37:35

this one incident, that

37:39

desperation and

37:41

somebody knowing that you have this relationship

37:44

with this person drives

37:46

you to do

37:48

things that you would never. Right.

37:51

Have you ever been in a position of

37:53

desperation, which I think we probably all

37:55

have at some point in our life? Yeah,

37:57

certainly. It was a lie you didn't want to get out.

37:59

out or there was something that you did that

38:02

you didn't want it to come back on, whatever it was.

38:07

Yes, there are cases

38:09

where people lie about things when they weren't involved

38:11

in the murder and the best case for that

38:14

is the murder of Shondra Levy.

38:16

And some new revelations tied to

38:18

the disappearance and death

38:19

of Washington intern Shondra Levy, although

38:21

he denied any involvement and was quickly

38:23

dismissed as a suspect.

38:25

It was a young intern

38:27

in D.C. that happened and

38:29

the police suspected a congressman did a

38:31

Gary Condit, right? Well, Gary Condit lied

38:33

about his relationship with her. Well, he lied

38:35

because he was a politician who was having an extramarital

38:37

affair. Speculation

38:38

was rampant then that Congressman

38:41

Gary Condit was somehow involved. Well,

38:43

now 15 years later, he is

38:46

finally speaking out and NBC's Joe Fryer has

38:48

more on that story. Joe, good morning. Savannah,

38:50

good morning. That's right. Shondra Levy

38:52

scandal ended the political career of Congressman

38:55

Gary Condit. Now for the first time in 15

38:57

years, he's sharing his thoughts on this. In 2001,

39:01

the married congressman was accused of having

39:03

an affair with government intern Shondra

39:05

Levy. He developed a friendship with

39:07

her and you saw her

39:09

outside the office, correct? I saw

39:12

her

39:12

one time outside the office at a

39:14

restaurant and she came by Naconda

39:16

once. You

39:18

found her once? I found

39:21

her twice. So I think that's why she came by. Okay. The

39:23

development shocking to Condit considering

39:26

he helped launch the investigation. Well, you

39:29

know, you'll

39:31

do crazy things to make sure, you

39:33

know, whatever that is, you'll go to great lengths. Now

39:35

imagine it being about

39:37

someone's life. Desperation

39:40

is a deeply driving force. So

39:43

another point that Tad makes is

39:46

he advises police to always look for a body

39:48

in a murder case as, you know,

39:51

having a body is preferable, of course.

39:54

However, if the evidence is strong

39:57

and there's a likelihood of a high

40:00

likelihood of conviction, waiting for

40:02

a body may not be necessary.

40:04

Why do you think that is? What's

40:06

your take on that? The likelihood,

40:09

right? So

40:10

how much circumstantial evidence

40:12

do you have? As we've done our own

40:15

cross-course research and trying to figure out,

40:17

okay, what are our examples of circumstantial

40:20

evidence? You have fingerprint

40:22

evidence, which can be found at the

40:24

crime scene but doesn't imply that the person

40:27

was present, right? So yeah,

40:29

my fingerprints are there, but I live there. That

40:33

doesn't mean I killed her or killed

40:35

it. Specifically, I focus

40:37

on in this situation that will make it like the

40:39

likelihood, right, or the digital

40:43

circumstantial footprint that's left there.

40:46

And then you have motive as

40:48

well. There are a number of people who said, Eric

40:51

wasn't happy that she was wanting to get a divorce.

40:54

You have the digital footprint

40:56

of Ashley continuously

40:59

getting into Britney's accounts and being

41:01

the only person in control of those accounts as much

41:03

as she wants to blame others. If

41:06

you look at the digital footprint,

41:09

it's going to show it's only been

41:10

this person. Then you have to say, okay, well, why

41:12

is this part of Britney's

41:15

message history and yours

41:17

missing? Why are

41:19

things being deleted, right? What's

41:22

the motive? And I think that you

41:24

brought up a good point. It was just being able to also

41:26

know the difference between, okay,

41:29

circumstantial and direct. Right.

41:31

So I think it's good

41:33

to point out and explain

41:35

which is, you know, the differences.

41:39

So direct

41:40

evidence is

41:42

directly proving a fact without requiring

41:45

any interference or presumption. And

41:48

circumstantial means that

41:51

there is room for

41:53

presumption. So implying

41:57

something occurred without having

41:59

access.

41:59

evidence that it occurred. So

42:02

like you said, fingerprints

42:06

at the scene, sure, the

42:08

fingerprints are there, but I live there. Implying

42:12

that something happened rather than

42:14

having the direct evidence,

42:16

like a video, that it happened. The

42:19

knife with blood on it, the victim's blood

42:21

on it with your fingerprints. That's, you

42:23

have to explain that now, right? That's not, I live

42:26

there. One

42:30

of the other things that they pointed out in this, the

42:32

alibis inconsistencies. Was

42:35

he with you? Was he not with you? Yeah.

42:38

You were home all day? Was he there

42:40

all day? You know, that

42:42

to me as it's continually changing

42:44

is a big red flag. So

42:47

you have digital footprints, you have alibi

42:49

inconsistencies. One, another

42:52

individual has a motive. When

42:54

you stack them together, what's the likelihood of this

42:56

conviction?

42:58

And so

42:59

not waiting and pushing forward,

43:01

I think once someone in that position

43:04

knows the cards are stacked against you. And

43:06

as Chad said, there's a high success rate when

43:09

it comes to prosecuting these cases.

43:12

Some people might fold.

43:13

They're not directly

43:15

involved.

43:16

So he does mention that there's

43:19

a high success rate in prosecuting

43:22

no body homicide cases. And that's because

43:25

prosecutors have to go that extra

43:27

step, that extra length to

43:30

get that evidence circumstantial

43:34

or otherwise. So

43:38

the work that they're putting into these

43:40

cases is

43:43

extra, two-fold, three-fold, whatever.

43:46

And that contributes to the reason

43:48

that there is a high success

43:50

rate.

43:51

So

43:54

when we were talking to him and

43:57

we're talking about circumstantial,

44:00

direct evidence and we're

44:02

thinking, you know, you and I know, I know we're

44:04

both thinking back to everything that

44:06

we've accumulated over the past two

44:09

and a half years. Was that a changing

44:11

moment for you?

44:13

A hundred percent.

44:16

It feels like you're not reaching,

44:18

you're not crazy, you're not on the

44:21

wrong path. There are lots of times

44:23

that I really try to question

44:26

myself and when we had all

44:28

of this information stacked in front of us and

44:30

we're just looking at it saying, doesn't

44:33

that make sense to say look there? Doesn't

44:35

this make sense to say motive? Doesn't this say circumstantial

44:38

evidence? Talking to him was just a

44:41

hammer hitting the nail perfectly. It just

44:44

felt like confirmation. It really did. It

44:46

really did. I just didn't think I was crazy,

44:48

honestly.

44:49

It kind of gave stability to the

44:51

ground underneath you, right? Yes.

44:54

In that interview, as that

44:56

particular part of the conversation

44:58

was happening, I could see the

45:00

change for you happening

45:03

and so that was, it was

45:05

cool to witness that there was

45:08

some validation here from Tad in

45:11

the work that we've done over the past, you know,

45:13

two and a half whatever years. There

45:15

was some validation from him and that was really

45:19

eye-opening, helpful. What about you?

45:22

I think that because

45:24

I've had interactions

45:27

with Tad before and the combination

45:29

of hearing this before in

45:31

other cases and then hearing it in

45:37

connection to Brittany's case, sometimes

45:40

for me, I

45:42

doubt that

45:45

this past interaction,

45:49

you know, with Tad, how can

45:51

I apply it to this case? You

45:53

know, I worked with him for Murray's

45:56

case and I have to

45:58

think like, okay, This

46:00

applied in many ways to Morris's.

46:03

This conversation I had with him, this interview, whatever,

46:05

applied many ways to Morris's case. But then I

46:08

have to think, does it – can I apply

46:10

it to Britney's case? How can I apply it? And

46:13

I doubt myself. But hearing

46:15

him talk

46:16

again about this

46:19

kind of connected

46:21

things for me. And it

46:24

was validation for me too that

46:27

we're not just

46:29

throwing a bunch of stuff in a pile.

46:33

It's circumstantial. But circumstantial

46:36

evidence

46:37

is not

46:39

the circumstantial evidence of 1985

46:41

anymore. The

46:44

circumstantial evidence of 2023, 2018, 2000, whatever, is very,

46:46

very different. It

46:52

was like a, aha moment, you

46:55

know? So yeah,

46:58

it changed it similarly, I guess, for me.

47:01

In the interview with Taddie, he mentions,

47:03

you know, he pushes for prosecutors

47:06

not to fear pushing for circumstantial

47:08

evidence as part of their key evidence,

47:10

right?

47:12

And considering everything that we have with Britney,

47:16

from our Facebook, text messages,

47:18

thinking, receipt, cell

47:21

phone history, he mentions, you

47:23

know, they need to learn how to pitch this to

47:25

a jury the way that they need to do it so that they

47:27

understand it's exactly the same as evidence,

47:30

direct evidence. So let me ask

47:32

the question.

47:34

In your opinion, do we

47:37

have enough evidence that there's

47:39

a likelihood of a conviction?

47:45

Explain. Okay. Bye.

47:48

Okay.

48:02

Do I feel that there is enough

48:04

evidence that there would be

48:06

a conviction if this went to court

48:08

today?

48:10

Right. Yes.

48:16

I do not.

48:20

And

48:24

that's actually

48:27

really hard for me to say.

48:31

That's

48:34

harder for me to say than I thought

48:36

it would be.

48:39

It's hard for me to say because of the time

48:45

and effort

48:47

we have invested here.

48:50

So it's

48:52

really difficult for me to

48:57

look at all of that and

48:59

all of the work that we have done.

49:05

All of the people who have come

49:07

forward and provided help,

49:09

it's hard for me to

49:12

look at

49:12

that and say, no, I don't think there

49:14

is. Because that makes me feel like

49:16

we haven't done enough.

49:19

But I do not think that the

49:21

amount of circumstantial

49:25

evidence we have today is enough

49:27

for a conviction. That's

49:30

not to say that I don't think we have some

49:33

really strong circumstantial evidence

49:36

because I think that we do. Looking

49:39

back on everything that we

49:41

have, some of it, a

49:43

lot of it is known to our

49:45

listeners. Some of it is not. I

49:48

do think that

49:52

there would be enough for a civil case. And

49:55

there is a difference between a criminal case

49:57

and a civil case. Even

50:00

if there is enough for a civil case,

50:04

it is unfortunately

50:08

extremely expensive. It is extremely

50:11

time consuming, which lends itself

50:13

to being extremely expensive. It

50:16

is hard. When

50:20

I say hard, I mean on family

50:23

who would be the ones to bring a civil case. It

50:26

is emotionally trying. It is emotionally

50:28

hard. It is difficult.

50:32

If we're just talking about evidence,

50:35

circumstantial evidence, I think

50:39

no for criminal, yes for civil.

50:43

What do you think? What's

50:47

your take away here?

50:55

I think you do. Really?

50:59

Man, I'll be honest, it's hitting me right

51:01

now.

51:03

It hit me too, yeah.

51:08

If you go down this list, we

51:11

break down the digital footprint in Britney's

51:13

social media, emails, cell

51:15

phone. We've brought the key

51:18

pieces to the light.

51:20

We have proven that

51:22

there's been only one person in

51:24

her account. The information that we

51:26

have was provided by her. We

51:29

have proof that you were the

51:31

person with that receipt. She

51:33

acknowledges having it, but she can't explain

51:35

how she came into possession of it. When

51:38

you're telling Sheldon, I'll

51:40

fake cry, it's the cost of there. I asked her why.

51:43

She says, because I didn't want them to know I was there

51:45

to get the passwords. What's your motive behind

51:47

that? You look at motive from Eric's

51:49

position where there are multiple individuals

51:51

who have said he was upset and

51:53

angry, that she wanted to get a divorce.

51:56

Could have been influenced by her signing

51:58

off the kids too. state you know what

52:01

if that was something that was upsetting to him you have

52:03

alibi inconsistencies things

52:06

aren't lining up could

52:08

we have had surveillance footage

52:10

at the gas station

52:12

recruiting

52:15

it was there

52:17

so for those who were wondering if what

52:20

whatever came from that it was

52:22

there yeah it

52:24

wasn't there in time Ashley was a drug

52:26

supplier who also turned into someone

52:28

who was having an affair or not affair

52:30

but having a relationship with Brittany's husband

52:33

and I

52:36

think if you put all of this together

52:38

I think

52:40

you make a hell of a case if

52:44

someone was willing to put the time to put that together

52:47

of course but there are

52:49

three three of those things that stick out to me

52:52

motive

52:53

digital footprint all

52:56

about inconsistencies and

52:58

I would even argue direct if she had the

53:00

receipt in her possession what she's already admitted to I

53:03

would say if Eric

53:05

had her to Samsung 337 he's in possession

53:07

of her other phones

53:10

he's already admitted to that I

53:13

think you make a hell of a case I

53:16

I do think that there would be a hell

53:18

of a case

53:21

I you know and in a civil

53:23

case what you're looking at is having

53:26

to prove you know a preponderance

53:29

of the evidence showing more than you know a 50% chance

53:32

that one of the parties is is

53:34

at fault mm-hmm

53:37

and I think that would be a

53:40

same tone

53:43

so I guess the question goes back to do

53:45

we feel like we have enough evidence that

53:48

feel that we feel that there's a likelihood of a conviction

53:51

if you're a juror you're sitting there is

53:54

that enough for a jury to say

53:56

we agree

53:58

you know when I'm thinking about it But

54:01

I think about something

54:03

that Tad said, but also something

54:06

that we saw at CrimeCon. And

54:09

you know, Tad mentioned taking

54:12

all the lies and putting them

54:14

on a sticky note and putting them up

54:16

on a board. And at CrimeCon,

54:18

we saw this huge

54:22

wall display

54:24

of sticky notes with names

54:27

of victims. When you look

54:29

at that and you see

54:31

it's an actual visual

54:34

and we're not just talking about evidence

54:37

or circumstantial evidence, whatever, and

54:40

I think about everything that we

54:43

have, putting each thing on a sticky

54:45

note and putting it up,

54:46

that visual

54:48

is really freaking impressive.

54:51

There is a lot. Yeah,

54:53

I mean, I teeter right on the line.

54:55

I teeter right on the line, but I

54:58

guess, yeah,

55:01

I teeter right on the line. That's my

55:03

best answer.

55:06

That's my best answer. Another thing

55:08

he brought up was how it's important

55:10

for police to show that they made good faith over

55:12

the search for the victim.

55:14

Yeah.

55:15

Which means you have to document

55:17

all that, you know, grid maps,

55:20

following up on tits. We can say, hey,

55:23

great job, St. Joe.

55:25

We can say... Yeah, round of applause in that

55:27

arena.

55:28

Definitely tell you, you know, first that

55:30

they've gone out and searched

55:33

the wild tips too. If this

55:35

were to go to court, they were to

55:37

say, okay, are you fixated on just this one person?

55:40

That's why, because you don't even have a body. So like show that you've

55:42

gone and done all this work elsewhere that you're

55:44

not just focusing on. And I can

55:46

tell you that for sure, they're probably not because they didn't even

55:48

question the dude that I'm referring to. Yeah.

55:52

They did. They did a great job searching. And

55:54

that was one of the things that, you know, Detective

55:56

Otten brought up to me when we had our interview

55:59

was...

56:04

He wanted to make sure it was done thoroughly and

56:06

he felt like there can be more things that needed to be done

56:08

and he was doing so. I

56:11

think in that arena, I

56:13

think that

56:14

they have done a really

56:17

great job, you know,

56:20

going to lengths of searching septic

56:24

systems and bodies of water and

56:26

like you said, getting a blow towards the

56:30

frost or thaw out some

56:32

earth and, you know, and like

56:35

you said, chasing down the leads that

56:38

they know are unlikely

56:42

to turn up anything but they go

56:44

and do it. They went and did it and

56:48

that I got to give them props

56:50

for that.

56:51

Yeah,

56:52

they did good. They did good. Yeah,

56:57

they did their due diligence there for sure.

57:01

Okay, so there's no shortage

57:04

of lies in this case

57:07

that we've been working on for Brett that

57:10

I've been told, you've been told and

57:13

Tad talks about it's how it's crucial in the

57:15

no body case, you know, body homicide case that you

57:18

emphasize and pointing that out. You mentioned that a little

57:20

bit earlier and how you

57:22

put this up on the board and you make them

57:25

explain all these lies. And

57:29

I mean, if we stick to just the facts and the numbers

57:32

and we were to look at all the individuals who have lied

57:35

and specifically, if we look at just the numbers

57:39

from the suspects and what

57:42

we've learned over the season, call forward is

57:44

I think Ashley's lied to me the most. If

57:46

you think about those specific lies,

57:49

right? When's

57:51

the last time you saw her?

57:55

It changes.

57:56

Her relationships with individuals

57:59

and when she's...

57:59

started the relationship or didn't start the relationship.

58:02

It's overwhelming.

58:06

Let's say you're on, you're the prosecuting attorney,

58:08

Sarah, so put the hat on for a second. What

58:12

key things are you pointing out to

58:15

a jury? Let's say you're putting up

58:17

the lives, which ones stick out to you the most?

58:19

Well, I think starting

58:22

very early on first and foremost

58:24

was the alibi

58:27

for Eric. That

58:30

really sticks out to me.

58:32

And then we'll go with

58:35

the wavering of dates for

58:38

when she last saw her. This

58:41

one isn't just something where

58:44

the dates wavered when she spoke to

58:46

you, because I understand that

58:49

memories change as time goes on. And you interviewed

58:51

her in 2021, but

58:54

the dates wavered substantially

58:56

when she spoke

58:58

to police in 2019. And

59:01

kind of along the same line as when she

59:03

last talked to her,

59:04

you know, that that has changed

59:08

too. You know, when

59:10

you were getting

59:12

ready to sit down for the polygraph with

59:15

her, or she was getting ready

59:17

to sit down for the polygraph, she

59:19

told you that morning that she

59:22

spoke to her on the 30th. And

59:24

that was a significant change

59:27

from what had previously been said.

59:30

So those three things really have

59:33

stuck out for me.

59:35

There's many more. But

59:37

those three things have really stuck out for me. Which

59:41

ones have stuck out? I

59:44

think those are great points. I think that those

59:46

are great ones right there. And I would say

59:48

those definitely fall in line with what I would point

59:50

out. I think some of the ones are

59:54

her lies to law enforcement themselves.

59:56

This is your best friend. So the relationship status,

59:59

how it changes.

59:59

from that's my sister, we're

1:00:02

really close, best friends to

1:00:04

very barely met her. Those

1:00:06

are lies to law enforcement.

1:00:09

And this is your third time interacting

1:00:12

with them. The relationship went from sister

1:00:14

to hardly knew. Why are you

1:00:16

lying about this? Yeah. What's

1:00:19

the reason and motive behind you

1:00:21

lying? And if

1:00:23

the relationship was real, it

1:00:26

wouldn't have gone from like

1:00:28

sisters to hardly knew each other.

1:00:30

You would maintain the

1:00:33

true relationship status. Yeah, the

1:00:35

true dynamic, yeah.

1:00:38

She needs

1:00:39

somebody else in Britney's account. She

1:00:43

needs them to be in there because that

1:00:45

is the only reason that it can explain why

1:00:48

certain things are missing to her benefit. You

1:00:51

have to prove

1:00:52

by digital footprint,

1:00:54

no one else was in that account based

1:00:57

on the information you provided when

1:00:59

you did it. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

1:01:01

right. Why is this key

1:01:03

information missing?

1:01:08

Those are, I think those are two I would stack

1:01:10

on top of that. You

1:01:13

know, Eric was here all night to,

1:01:15

maybe he wasn't. Two, he was gone

1:01:18

at 1 a.m. or 1.30, whatever it is. There's

1:01:22

so many lies and inconsistencies here.

1:01:24

I think that the amount of

1:01:27

lies and inconsistencies, I mean, even

1:01:29

if we threw out being

1:01:32

generous and just threw out 50%

1:01:34

of them as chalking it up to

1:01:38

poor memory or whatever,

1:01:42

we're still working with a lot there. I

1:01:45

think the lies about the

1:01:48

dates of the data download and

1:01:50

the dates of when she stopped getting

1:01:52

in the account and then she was in the account and

1:01:54

then we see that she's in there in 2021 or

1:01:58

whatever it was with Chris. I

1:02:00

mean, that's a big deal for

1:02:02

me also. The lie about

1:02:05

when she met Eric, she says that she

1:02:07

met,

1:02:07

that she met Shank before

1:02:09

she met Brittany, but then she says to

1:02:11

Brittany in a text message, I

1:02:14

just met your husband. Actually, I just

1:02:16

met him the other day, but yeah. Why

1:02:19

are you...

1:02:20

That's

1:02:22

odd to me. Why are you lying about that? And

1:02:25

I think something else that was really

1:02:28

moving, and I think for the both of us, was

1:02:31

her lies around accessing

1:02:34

Brittany's Facebook accounts, because when

1:02:36

I came into this, she told me she

1:02:39

did get access to it. She told me someone

1:02:41

else was in there, and then when I got the massive

1:02:45

dump of files, and I'm looking at

1:02:47

the Facebook, and we eventually get there, and we're looking at

1:02:49

the IP address, and we're looking at who's access. It's

1:02:52

very clear. No one else accessed

1:02:55

the account.

1:02:56

When we were going to the polygraph, I remember

1:02:58

sitting in my car driving there thinking,

1:03:02

she's not going to pass. You know that she's not going

1:03:04

to pass. I was very confident,

1:03:06

which I know for you, the Facebook

1:03:09

dates and when she accessed was a big one for you as

1:03:11

well.

1:03:12

We see the access

1:03:15

of Facebook, you know, on

1:03:17

July 7th, there's some wavering

1:03:20

between July 7th, July

1:03:22

9th, you know, which

1:03:25

is it. But then stretching

1:03:28

further out, we know that there's

1:03:31

access all the way up to,

1:03:32

I think it was 20, was it 2020 or 20?

1:03:38

Yeah, 2021 when she's in

1:03:41

the account, and Chris M actually catches. Yeah,

1:03:45

Chris

1:03:47

catches it. But then,

1:03:48

because of what happened recently, I can tell you she

1:03:51

had been in the account in 2023.

1:03:53

Forgot about that. You

1:03:55

know, there's so much that I

1:03:57

cannot hold it all.

1:03:59

I'm the one who depends on you when I

1:04:02

can so I know. Trust me that

1:04:04

I'm like, wait did I or did I talk to that person?

1:04:07

It's a lot. It is a lot of information.

1:04:10

It's funny sitting here thinking about

1:04:12

it. Man, she's so lucky. The

1:04:14

first time and the only time I've ever sat down in

1:04:17

an interview with her was that first where

1:04:19

I was totally like tell me everything. I don't

1:04:21

know what's gonna stick but just give it to them. I

1:04:23

want it all and never

1:04:25

to have the opportunity to sit down and ask the

1:04:27

real questions I want to.

1:04:29

So frustrating. Well, that

1:04:31

first time for you was like putting your mouth on a

1:04:33

fire hose. You know, you had

1:04:36

no chance. Going

1:04:39

back and looking at conversations,

1:04:42

you know, just the amount

1:04:45

of access accounts

1:04:47

that have been accessed here is

1:04:49

something else that does stick out to me. May

1:04:52

6th, she's of 2019,

1:04:54

I'm sorry. She's gotten into

1:04:57

four of Brittany's account. July,

1:04:59

she's in the Facebook. She has

1:05:01

her Amazon photo account. She

1:05:04

admits to being in there as early as July

1:05:07

7th but then, you know, it's 2019 and

1:05:09

we talk about all the way up to 2021. She's

1:05:13

in JPay account, her JPay account. Her

1:05:15

text now, she's in Eric's

1:05:18

accounts which, you know, isn't Brittany

1:05:20

but we establish a pattern here. She

1:05:23

goes on to tell the PI that she

1:05:26

has the IMEI for Brittany's

1:05:28

phone, the amount

1:05:30

of accounts and, you know,

1:05:32

Samsung accounts and JPay accounts and Facebook.

1:05:35

She's accessing her credit account or

1:05:38

her credit report account.

1:05:40

You don't have to say anything because

1:05:43

accessing those accounts alone speaks

1:05:47

loudly to me and

1:05:49

I think probably to listen to us. Back

1:05:54

in 2021 when you interviewed her, she was speaking to you.

1:06:00

And her trade that

1:06:03

she was kind of having an epiphany about,

1:06:06

you know, having been—when she was speaking

1:06:08

about Brittany being afraid of

1:06:10

Daniel being caged, she

1:06:14

had an epiphany and thought, oh, you know, maybe

1:06:16

it's Daniel Walters. But

1:06:22

we know that she knew at that

1:06:24

time it actually wasn't Daniel Walters. And

1:06:27

this can be kind of corroborated through

1:06:30

the conversation with the PI, but

1:06:33

also in her own words, because

1:06:35

the whole story behind her—behind

1:06:38

Brittany being afraid, I should say, is

1:06:41

Daniel Cage, you know, threatening

1:06:44

her, having, you know, this tumultuous

1:06:46

relationship, and Brittany was going to move

1:06:48

in with her. So she knew that

1:06:50

the Daniel that she was afraid of

1:06:53

was actually Cage and not

1:06:55

Daniel Walters. Not

1:06:57

sure why his name got thrown in here, but

1:07:00

in her own words, she actually

1:07:02

says that it was Cage. We

1:07:05

have never really seen any proof that

1:07:08

Brittany even knew Daniel

1:07:10

Walters. I feel

1:07:12

like she does that on purpose, of course, when she tries to

1:07:15

confuse people, right? And I've watched the polygraph,

1:07:18

and I watch her doing it with Brad, and

1:07:20

I see what she's trying to do in other conversations

1:07:22

that people have had with her. You

1:07:25

see it where you're like, you know in

1:07:27

that moment that that's not the case, so why are

1:07:29

you going with that? Or why are you steering it

1:07:31

in that direction? And you're, of course,

1:07:34

you're intentionally doing it. So again, it goes

1:07:36

back to motive. Why? The

1:07:39

duplicate names here really

1:07:41

plays into that for her. You know, the Eric's

1:07:44

and the Daniel's and, you know, the Zach's.

1:07:49

Bill Reynolds. He lies. Now

1:07:51

Bill's not even supposed to be involved in this

1:07:53

situation because Daniel Walters

1:07:56

is not the person leaving the voicemail.

1:07:59

Bill lies. When you think back

1:08:02

on what Tad said when he was talking

1:08:04

about why would you lie, well you had one

1:08:06

person who, you know, let's say he's

1:08:08

cheating on his wife and doesn't

1:08:11

want out that information, that

1:08:13

would be an example. With Bill Reynolds,

1:08:16

I don't want to say I was buying drugs and

1:08:19

I think we both agreed whether that was

1:08:21

weed or not. He's covering

1:08:23

his own, worried about you

1:08:26

know just like Tad mentions

1:08:28

the Chandra Levy case in Gary Condit,

1:08:29

he didn't murder

1:08:32

Chandra Levy but he

1:08:34

lied because like you said

1:08:36

he's married as a congressman. I

1:08:39

do think that people lie not because

1:08:41

they're guilty but because

1:08:43

they may be guilty of something that has nothing

1:08:45

to do with the case but they're covering

1:08:48

their ass because they have this

1:08:50

other thing going on like

1:08:53

Bill has this addiction

1:08:55

going on and you know he

1:08:58

doesn't want people to know that he

1:09:00

was purchasing narcotics and

1:09:04

I think that has probably

1:09:07

been the case in more

1:09:09

than just Bill's interview. I

1:09:11

guess one that sticks out to me

1:09:13

that either this is part

1:09:15

of the truth, some of it's the truth

1:09:17

or it's all a lie and

1:09:20

then you have to really ask why the hell would you do that

1:09:23

and that is what do you

1:09:25

think about Skyler's testimony then?

1:09:29

You know there were

1:09:31

a lot of things in Skyler's

1:09:34

testimony for me that

1:09:37

didn't line up with

1:09:40

what we know and when I

1:09:42

say with what we know I'm saying

1:09:44

with what we know to be true. So

1:09:48

there were a lot of things that didn't line up and

1:09:51

then I look at you know the flip

1:09:53

side of that there were some things that did line

1:09:56

up and I gotta say

1:09:58

either

1:09:59

this

1:10:01

Either this guy deserves an

1:10:03

Academy Award or he

1:10:05

had some true fear

1:10:08

because listening to him

1:10:11

in that moment, not just recorded,

1:10:13

listening to him in that moment, he was scared.

1:10:16

He was scared. You know, whether we're

1:10:18

talking about something that he just believes,

1:10:21

that isn't true because, you know, we both

1:10:23

know that can happen. You believe something

1:10:25

is true, but it's not. So either

1:10:27

he believed what he was telling you

1:10:30

or there's some truth somewhere in

1:10:32

there. You know, we discussed this a little

1:10:34

bit yesterday. I feel like I'm 80-20. That 80%

1:10:39

is doubt, like

1:10:41

some real doubt, like

1:10:42

I'm not sure that I believe him. But

1:10:44

that other part, I think

1:10:46

that there could be things in there that are

1:10:48

true.

1:10:49

Like

1:10:52

I said,

1:10:53

I gauged the truth on things that we already

1:10:56

know and his emotional

1:10:59

reaction to what was happening. That

1:11:02

was impactful for me. I guess

1:11:04

the same question I'm going to throw to you. How

1:11:08

truthful do you think

1:11:10

that was?

1:11:13

It's hard for me to believe him. I

1:11:17

leave room for it being true. Like you said, 80-20,

1:11:19

80-19.

1:11:21

Yeah, I'd say there's some room on the table for

1:11:23

it to be, you know, the truth. I

1:11:26

struggle with his testimony at times where I

1:11:28

feel like you're not

1:11:30

being consistent and this isn't a type

1:11:33

of situation where you're not going to remember

1:11:35

specific things. Having a gun

1:11:37

held to your head. Certain individuals

1:11:40

in this testimony of his,

1:11:43

not all of them, but there are certain ones who

1:11:45

are not with us today who can't defend

1:11:47

themselves.

1:11:48

If he's not telling the truth, then what's the reason?

1:11:51

I know people in this situation,

1:11:53

I imagine there can be people who are selfish

1:11:56

and try to, which we've seen in the case of all plenty

1:11:58

of times.

1:12:00

go to jail. I have something to say about this. And

1:12:03

so do I think that that could be the what's

1:12:05

going on with Skylar? It could be, yeah,

1:12:07

very well fucked up.

1:12:10

Yeah, if that's what happened, yeah, 100%. We've

1:12:13

seen it in the case files many times and there's plenty

1:12:16

of leads and tips that we

1:12:18

didn't cover in the case file episodes.

1:12:21

At times where I'm like, who the heck is that?

1:12:24

And then you can say the same thing. Like, I don't know who that

1:12:26

is. And so we would dive into it. But when

1:12:29

you see this overwhelming

1:12:31

of tips that come in,

1:12:35

would Skylar's testimony, would

1:12:37

it be a surprise to me that he took advantage

1:12:40

of maybe a system to get out

1:12:42

of jail type of approach or go

1:12:44

get off on something? Yeah, that wouldn't surprise

1:12:47

me. I wouldn't be shocked by that. I don't agree with it.

1:12:49

Of course, messed up for you to do that, but it

1:12:51

doesn't surprise me. And

1:12:53

so, you know, the 80% portion,

1:12:56

one of the things that sticks out to me was that

1:12:59

a lot of the information he was providing

1:13:03

was things that were public

1:13:05

and were things that were on

1:13:07

her missing poster. So

1:13:09

that kind of stuck out to me. But

1:13:12

again, 80-20. And like

1:13:14

I said to you yesterday, do you gamble that?

1:13:17

Do you gamble that? And

1:13:19

do you give into

1:13:22

the 80 and walk away or do you give

1:13:25

into the 20 and you follow it?

1:13:28

And I think any good investigator follows

1:13:30

it. Yeah. This is why this case has taken

1:13:32

two years for us to like continue

1:13:35

to work leads. And I've told

1:13:37

you time and time again, like season one and season two,

1:13:39

we're not like this. And so this

1:13:41

is taking a lot of legwork.

1:13:44

Extra effort.

1:13:46

You know, the question was asked, do you feel like you have enough circumstantial

1:13:49

evidence? You feel like you got this good stuff,

1:13:52

but you could be moving too quickly to

1:13:54

go to trial.

1:13:57

You've run that risk of double jeopardy. I

1:14:03

don't know if this is a question to say

1:14:05

for you because I know earlier you said you don't feel like we

1:14:07

have enough. If the decision was yours

1:14:11

as a listener, would we be

1:14:13

running the risk of double jeopardy and is that something that

1:14:15

we're willing to do and say, okay, you

1:14:17

get one swing at this, you don't get it?

1:14:20

I am not really a gambler.

1:14:24

So no, no, I would not.

1:14:28

I think it's definitely on the table for me and

1:14:30

here's why.

1:14:33

I think that again, if

1:14:35

you're weighing out the percentages here and you're looking

1:14:37

at evidence direct,

1:14:40

circumstantial, there

1:14:42

is an overwhelming amount

1:14:45

of evidence

1:14:47

from testimonies,

1:14:50

digital footprints,

1:14:52

indirect, motive, alibis

1:14:55

and consistencies. You

1:14:58

have to explain why Eric, you have the back of

1:15:00

her J3. You're the person

1:15:02

who found it in the field. No

1:15:04

one else. So you have the

1:15:06

back plate to her phone. What happened

1:15:08

to it? Ashley,

1:15:10

you had her receipt from the night she went

1:15:13

and got gas.

1:15:15

What happened to it? It got taken away. It

1:15:17

just disappears. We

1:15:20

have all the digital footprints. I

1:15:23

think you can show motive. If

1:15:25

this was 49, 51, I

1:15:28

wouldn't be like, okay, I'm not that type

1:15:30

of gambler either. I'm not going to run that. I

1:15:32

want some more cushion there to say, yeah, I feel

1:15:35

confident. The likelihood again, the word that

1:15:37

he used was what the likelihood. And

1:15:40

I think with today's technology

1:15:43

evidence, I think you can, you have

1:15:45

a really strong case here. And

1:15:50

if you can imagine a wall full of

1:15:52

sticky notes of this lie, this lie,

1:15:54

this lie, and not just lies in general,

1:15:57

like just random ass shit I'm talking

1:15:59

about. lies pertaining to

1:16:02

relationship with Britney. I

1:16:04

won't swing unless I'm confident. Not a guarantee,

1:16:07

but I'm confident. And I can tell you, I'd be confident

1:16:09

if you, if I

1:16:11

wish I could argue that case. I mean, I

1:16:13

really do. I mean, I

1:16:16

can put every freaking lie on there and

1:16:18

I can point and I can say, we don't

1:16:20

have the proof of what they did. And I know

1:16:23

that that's a really, you sure you wanna swing that

1:16:25

bat? You sure? Where

1:16:27

else? And

1:16:30

I'm not saying, well, then we have to pick something. I'm

1:16:32

saying, look at the evidence, look

1:16:34

at the lies, look at the motive, look

1:16:37

at those sexual relationships that they had.

1:16:39

There's jealousy, anger from Eric,

1:16:41

divorce. He's not happy with Britney.

1:16:44

We have evidence of that. When

1:16:46

you go back to him having the back of her phone and

1:16:49

that's that plate that has the barcode

1:16:52

on it, that's the J337, whatever

1:16:55

happened to that. And that wasn't out there in that field

1:16:57

for that long. And thanks

1:16:59

to John crimes, he pointed that out.

1:17:02

That don't look like a phone has been sitting there since November 30th. That

1:17:05

looks pretty clean. Was not weathered. I

1:17:08

think you're always gonna run the risk of double jeopardy.

1:17:11

There's always that risk. You

1:17:14

ran that risk and this person's

1:17:17

convicted guilty.

1:17:19

What if you were wrong?

1:17:21

That's a big burden to carry.

1:17:24

I don't ever want that on my conscience.

1:17:27

I don't ever want that to ever be the situation.

1:17:31

But I spent

1:17:33

hours upon hours, not

1:17:35

just with Britney's case but other cases

1:17:38

that we have studied, watched

1:17:40

time and time and time again.

1:17:43

This is wild. This

1:17:48

case has been wild.

1:17:51

I've never seen anything like this before.

1:17:55

I'm gonna post something here pretty soon. I'm

1:17:57

waiting for the question. Do you hire

1:17:59

a... these people? I

1:18:01

know, I know.

1:18:02

And I would just like to say now, like I would never mess

1:18:05

with the family members heartstrings like that, fabricate

1:18:08

and make something up.

1:18:10

This is the wildest case I've ever seen

1:18:12

and certain things aren't just being done like questioning

1:18:14

the husband or following up

1:18:16

with video surveillance, looking at baking

1:18:19

history or ordering the right credit

1:18:21

history for the victim, using the right

1:18:23

social security number, not labeling the

1:18:25

husband as a brother. I look at and I say, if you

1:18:27

clean this up, you're gonna figure this out real

1:18:30

quick. You start applying pressure

1:18:32

and questioning people and interrogating

1:18:34

them the right and applying that pressure. I bet you,

1:18:36

I bet you, I'm not grasping

1:18:39

at straws. What I've challenged

1:18:41

Ashley to provide, she cannot provide.

1:18:44

I don't care how many times she wants to go on social

1:18:46

media, Reddit, YouTube, Facebook, whatever

1:18:48

you want to call it, doesn't matter how many times

1:18:50

she's confronted, she will always deflect,

1:18:53

redirect the conversation with a long-ass post

1:18:57

and never really answer the questions. And

1:19:00

so if you get her in a position where you

1:19:02

say no, we don't want to hear the rant

1:19:04

and the tangent of this relationship that led to this

1:19:06

rabbit trail of this person and this person being related,

1:19:09

we're done. We want the

1:19:12

facts. We don't care about your opinion. We don't care

1:19:14

about the relationships that you develop. We don't care about

1:19:16

what you have found. We want to ask the

1:19:18

questions because she knows you can't

1:19:21

take these questions. You'll go

1:19:23

on, you'll rant on with anybody else's one to

1:19:25

listen but you can't answer these questions.

1:19:30

Sorry I got hot there for a second.

1:19:33

I agree. I

1:19:36

think that, you know, back

1:19:39

to the original question, are you willing to

1:19:41

risk double jeopardy? I think

1:19:45

you're saying you are.

1:19:47

Yeah, I'm swinging in at that.

1:19:49

The hard part is that there's

1:19:52

all these other testimonies from other individuals.

1:19:55

Skyler, oh how do you know that's not true?

1:20:00

understand the certain are being done in the areas

1:20:02

where Skyler said she was supposed

1:20:04

to be. Yes. Places that he

1:20:06

said she was supposed to be. Yes.

1:20:09

I see less proof of these relationship

1:20:11

with some of those individuals

1:20:14

and who she was hanging out with at the time that

1:20:16

she went missing.

1:20:18

Yeah. And who she was getting her drugs from.

1:20:20

I see less relations, you know, less interactions or

1:20:22

even any relationships between those individuals and

1:20:24

Brittany which one's far which one's more likely,

1:20:26

right? It's

1:20:29

relationships that she has already that she's getting her drugs

1:20:31

from and that's Eric and Ashley.

1:20:36

I'm swinging, dude. I

1:20:37

am. What

1:20:41

are they doing now? Part of me, I don't

1:20:44

want that to be a part of my decision making, but part

1:20:46

of me also says, I

1:20:48

mean, maybe at this point they've questioned Eric, maybe they

1:20:50

haven't. He was supposed to do a polygraph

1:20:52

and as far as I know he didn't complete it. So

1:20:55

was Ashley. She didn't complete it. And

1:20:58

I hate even to be using the word risk. I'm

1:21:01

swinging with my odds right now. And,

1:21:04

you know, can that change?

1:21:08

Yeah.

1:21:09

Well, yeah. This

1:21:12

is one of the rare instances we don't agree. Yeah,

1:21:15

I know.

1:21:16

I really

1:21:19

think there's a case here. I

1:21:22

guess another thing that stood out

1:21:24

to me was Eric's own words to Sheldon. I'm

1:21:27

going to give that paperwork to the cops.

1:21:33

How many times are we going to look the other way

1:21:35

and say, oh, it's just being on drugs. How

1:21:37

many times are we going to do that? You know what I'm saying? Like,

1:21:39

well, how many times are we going to say that this is

1:21:41

just someone on drugs? Like, I

1:21:43

don't know. I don't see it that way. I think that in

1:21:46

an odd way, that's how Brittany is being on drugs. In

1:21:48

an odd way, that's how Brittany is being treated.

1:21:51

I guess that's a good point to wrap up.

1:21:54

You know, I was just thinking, you know,

1:21:56

as we were

1:21:58

discussing,

1:21:59

hanging, you know, Brittany, maybe,

1:22:02

you know, walking away from her life, running away,

1:22:05

choosing to disappear. I was

1:22:08

thinking about how

1:22:11

Ashley has kind of routinely

1:22:15

portrayed the

1:22:17

victim, Brittany, as

1:22:19

kind of being reckless, as

1:22:23

often being reckless. And when I

1:22:25

say reckless, I mean in her behavior, using

1:22:28

drugs, sleeping with multiple men, having, you

1:22:30

know, relationships

1:22:31

with multiple people, doing

1:22:34

things that are reckless. So

1:22:36

why,

1:22:37

why would you portray somebody,

1:22:40

especially a friend, as

1:22:42

routinely being reckless?

1:22:45

If you disappeared tomorrow, and

1:22:47

I had something to do with your demise, or knowledge

1:22:50

of it, or what have you, and I didn't

1:22:52

want to come clean about that, would

1:22:55

I portray you as a reckless person?

1:22:57

Yeah, probably. James was using

1:22:59

drugs. James was sleeping with all

1:23:02

of these women, and they were all

1:23:04

mad at him. So all of these women have a vendetta

1:23:06

against him, and they want to get back at him. And

1:23:09

maybe it was one of them. And, you

1:23:11

know, she was spending money,

1:23:13

he was spending money wildly and,

1:23:16

you know, whatever, whatever it is, portraying

1:23:18

the victim as reckless, acting

1:23:20

irresponsibly. That

1:23:22

kind of hits me differently

1:23:25

now that we're talking about somebody walking

1:23:27

away from their life. Because the

1:23:30

facts show, facts

1:23:32

and circumstances indicate a strong

1:23:35

possibility of

1:23:37

foul play.

1:23:38

And as your

1:23:40

friend,

1:23:41

if you disappeared tomorrow,

1:23:43

what I'm going to

1:23:45

put out there, knowing that there's this strong

1:23:48

possibility of foul play, we haven't heard from you

1:23:50

in five years. What

1:23:52

I'm going to put out about you is my best

1:23:54

efforts to

1:23:55

recover

1:23:58

you.

1:23:59

And that's not going

1:24:01

to include a

1:24:03

list of your dirty

1:24:05

doings

1:24:06

to the public. Portraying

1:24:08

the victim as living this reckless

1:24:11

life prior to their disappearance gives

1:24:14

a great illusion that

1:24:16

there may be a lot of

1:24:18

other reasons why

1:24:20

you disappeared other than what I know

1:24:23

or what I did. It almost

1:24:25

removes

1:24:27

my feeling

1:24:30

of guilt. James was doing

1:24:33

all these things. He was using

1:24:35

drugs. He was ripping

1:24:37

people off. He was stealing from people.

1:24:40

It didn't have to do with me. It wasn't really

1:24:42

me.

1:24:43

It was his lifestyle that

1:24:45

led him to this. There's two comments

1:24:48

that she makes and what reminds

1:24:50

me of the way that you just explained

1:24:52

that she was her mother's daughter.

1:24:55

Yes.

1:24:55

With the polygraph examiner.

1:24:58

And then there's a moment where she says, who knows?

1:25:01

And it's the way that she says it. When you're talking about

1:25:03

it could have been one, who knows?

1:25:06

And she says it and that's running

1:25:08

in my mind right now.

1:25:11

Whoever

1:25:15

said,

1:25:15

motivation is what gets you started.

1:25:18

Habit

1:25:20

is what keeps you going. It

1:25:22

may not have been fully on point. Motivation

1:25:25

certainly got us started, but it's not just habit

1:25:28

that keeps us going. Motivation

1:25:31

definitely has a big hand in keeping us going,

1:25:34

but so does justice.

1:25:38

Over the next several weeks, Sarah

1:25:40

and I prepare a PowerPoint presentation for

1:25:42

the sheriff's department, Detective Otten

1:25:44

and under sheriff Binghamton. We'll

1:25:47

be presenting it on the trip back to Sturgis.

1:25:51

Weeks of work solely focused

1:25:53

on making this presentation understandable,

1:25:56

cohesive, and maybe mis-presently.

1:25:59

PENETRIBLE There's

1:26:02

a lot to prepare for outside of the presentation as

1:26:04

well. Making sure everyone's

1:26:06

scheduled aligns, does Ethan have time,

1:26:10

will Shane be able to make the trip? Like

1:26:12

I said before, traveling with a crew is never really

1:26:14

easy to prepare for. Especially

1:26:18

in a circumstance like this. All

1:26:21

the equipment has to be accounted for, and some

1:26:23

have to be purchased. Pausing

1:26:25

arrangements need to be made, vehicles

1:26:28

need to be secured, and plane tickets need to be purchased. Ground

1:26:31

equipment needs to be available. Boots,

1:26:34

always the waters, shovels, and other tools. But,

1:26:38

most importantly, what's on

1:26:40

my mind is that I

1:26:42

need to make sure that everyone is safe. Safety

1:26:45

equipment. All of this

1:26:47

needs to be considered.

1:26:49

And once all of that's completed, I'm

1:26:52

straight back to preparing the PowerPoint with Sarah.

1:26:57

We

1:26:57

have multiple locations to visit. Plan

1:27:00

is to meet JJ, Skyler, Person

1:27:02

C. We'll visit the property where

1:27:04

Skyler claimed Brittany was taken, and

1:27:07

we'll circle our way back to the couple places we need to follow up

1:27:09

from our last trip at the cemetery, and

1:27:12

the homeowner who spoke to us about Eric. If

1:27:15

we get lucky, I might run into pocket.

1:27:19

Jeffrey K.

1:27:22

Ashley, or Eric. These

1:27:24

trips are hard to pull on.

1:27:27

And sometimes, you just might be surprised

1:27:29

who you run into.

1:27:32

But sometimes, the

1:27:35

people we run into are more surprised than we are.

1:27:41

Trip four.

1:27:42

And the return is surges.

1:27:45

Any next time,

1:27:46

I'll hide and save the movie.

1:28:02

Would you like to show your support

1:28:04

for the Hide and Seek podcast? Find

1:28:06

our Instagram and Facebook page by searching

1:28:09

Hide and Seek podcast.

1:28:10

And I can follow to

1:28:12

hear updates on past seasons as they become

1:28:14

available and stay up to date on

1:28:16

season three. Find our discussion

1:28:18

group by searching Hide and Seek discussion

1:28:21

group on Facebook.

1:28:25

The Hide and Seek podcast is hosted,

1:28:27

directed, edited, and

1:28:30

produced by James Basinger.

1:28:33

Written, edited, and produced

1:28:36

by Sarah Jo. Engineered,

1:28:39

mixed, and mastered by

1:28:41

Newdon's Audio Engineering.

1:28:44

Director of photography is Ethan

1:28:46

Schatz. Our graphic

1:28:48

design is created by Jordan Robinson.

1:28:54

Special thanks to all

1:28:55

those involved in our ground team and

1:28:57

to our Patreon supporters.

1:28:58

Thank you for helping make our investigations

1:29:01

possible.

Unlock more with Podchaser Pro

  • Audience Insights
  • Contact Information
  • Demographics
  • Charts
  • Sponsor History
  • and More!
Pro Features