Erika and BJ Sifrit and the murders of Geney Crutchley and Joshua Ford - Part 1

WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.120 --> 00:00:02.720
Hi. I am Rich and I'm
Tina. If there's one thing we've learned

2
00:00:02.720 --> 00:00:05.759
in over twenty years of marriage,
some days you'll feel like killing your husband,

3
00:00:05.879 --> 00:00:09.279
and some days you'll feel like killing
your wife. Welcome to love,

4
00:00:09.400 --> 00:00:27.640
Mary Kill Hey Tina, Hey Rich, How are you? I'm pretty good

5
00:00:27.640 --> 00:00:32.240
today? Yeah, yesterday was a
little I wasn't feeling great some fall allergies

6
00:00:32.280 --> 00:00:34.640
were seeping in and you took very
good care of me. You wouldn't got

7
00:00:34.640 --> 00:00:37.560
me a sandwich and a soda and
it was very nice. And I feel

8
00:00:37.560 --> 00:00:40.920
better today. Good. I'm glad
you feel better. Yeah, how are

9
00:00:40.960 --> 00:00:44.759
you? Did I ask you that
already? I can't remember. I'm afraid

10
00:00:44.759 --> 00:00:47.679
people are going to be saying,
oh, I don't think Tina cares about

11
00:00:47.719 --> 00:00:50.240
Rich at all. She didn't ask
how he was. Oh that's not true.

12
00:00:50.280 --> 00:00:53.600
You care about me a lot.
I do you take care of me?

13
00:00:54.000 --> 00:00:58.079
Yeah? Well you know what today
is? I do know you do.

14
00:00:58.280 --> 00:01:03.239
Yeah. It's a or official Tober, first official start of Spooky season

15
00:01:03.319 --> 00:01:07.319
and our official potroversary. Yeah,
happy potversary, Happy podiversary. I couldn't

16
00:01:07.319 --> 00:01:11.519
do it with you. Literally,
I couldn't do it you literally you could?

17
00:01:11.680 --> 00:01:15.519
You actually could? Like I don't
know all the buttons. Theoretically I

18
00:01:15.560 --> 00:01:17.920
could, but it wouldn't be the
same. It would be interesting. I

19
00:01:17.920 --> 00:01:19.359
think people would really like it.
They'd be like, Oh, this episode's

20
00:01:19.400 --> 00:01:25.120
so quiet and no one's interrupting.
It's quite pleasant. We don't need her

21
00:01:25.159 --> 00:01:27.920
at all. April Fool's Day,
we should do one of those. Maybe

22
00:01:27.920 --> 00:01:33.280
you should edit that out. Whatever
happened to the blooper reel? I destroyed

23
00:01:33.280 --> 00:01:36.200
it. No, I don't really
have a blue I have like a bloopers

24
00:01:36.200 --> 00:01:38.799
here and there that I've saved,
but I don't have really a real and

25
00:01:38.840 --> 00:01:45.840
they're ninety nine point nine percent me. Yeah, yeah, I am super

26
00:01:45.840 --> 00:01:51.000
excited to announce that we made our
first charitable contribution today to the Kim Wall

27
00:01:51.040 --> 00:01:53.239
Memorial Fund. You know, Kim
Wall touched my heart. Yeah, and

28
00:01:53.640 --> 00:01:59.519
we had committed to twenty five percent
a minimum of twenty five percent of any

29
00:01:59.719 --> 00:02:02.640
pro seats that we make from Patreon
and our ads. So it's not a

30
00:02:02.680 --> 00:02:06.560
huge amount, but seventy five dollars
is going to go to the Kim Wall

31
00:02:06.599 --> 00:02:09.960
Memorial Foundation. We couldn't do it
without you, our listeners. I'm actually

32
00:02:10.000 --> 00:02:14.240
tearing up because you know me,
it means a lot to me to be

33
00:02:14.240 --> 00:02:15.599
able to do this, and so
thank you, thank you, thank you

34
00:02:15.639 --> 00:02:19.800
from the bottom of our hearts.
Yeah, thank you really touched. And

35
00:02:20.439 --> 00:02:24.879
we will hopefully continue to grow and
our donations will continue to grow. Yeah,

36
00:02:24.879 --> 00:02:29.439
and every month we will pick a
new charity and let us know if

37
00:02:29.479 --> 00:02:31.960
you have some worthwhile causes and we
are happy to be able to do that

38
00:02:32.039 --> 00:02:38.199
and happy that all of you are
there too. So thanks. I know

39
00:02:38.240 --> 00:02:39.680
people don't love to hear ads,
but know when you hear our ads that

40
00:02:39.719 --> 00:02:44.280
they are going for a good cause. And our lovely Patreon members too,

41
00:02:44.319 --> 00:02:47.439
your money is going to a good
cause too, So yeah, snack,

42
00:02:47.759 --> 00:02:52.719
yes please you can see what you
picked out for me, and that's one

43
00:02:52.719 --> 00:02:54.120
of my favorites. Yeah. Well, I figured it was fall and it

44
00:02:54.159 --> 00:02:57.439
just feels like this feels like a
fall thing. So I made a quick

45
00:02:57.439 --> 00:03:00.680
trip out to the Grand Traverse Pie
Company, which is a little establishment.

46
00:03:00.719 --> 00:03:05.039
I think it's a Michigan I mean, it's obviously it's based in Traverse City.

47
00:03:05.479 --> 00:03:07.680
It's definitely I think there might be
a couple somewhere else. Yeah,

48
00:03:08.080 --> 00:03:12.840
maybe Ohio or Kentucky. Well,
they're really good. They have really delicious

49
00:03:13.199 --> 00:03:15.599
treats. Like they have good food
too, but they're like their pie and

50
00:03:15.639 --> 00:03:20.240
their other treats are just really yummy. I don't think I'm going out on

51
00:03:20.280 --> 00:03:23.360
a limb saying it's probably the best
pie you're ever going to have. Yeah,

52
00:03:23.479 --> 00:03:27.280
I think that's And you can order
it if you go to Grand Travers

53
00:03:27.280 --> 00:03:30.439
Pike Company. I'm not sure what
their website is, but you can google

54
00:03:30.439 --> 00:03:34.080
it. It's really good pie,
and you can you can't order it,

55
00:03:34.120 --> 00:03:37.759
and they will ship it to you. You usually get one for Thanksgiving because

56
00:03:37.919 --> 00:03:38.840
you can make a pie of it. I mean, really, their pie

57
00:03:38.879 --> 00:03:44.240
is I think pretty much perfect.
You can get crumble or a pastry topping.

58
00:03:44.439 --> 00:03:47.319
But you got me a pumpkin a
pumpkin bar, which I know you

59
00:03:47.360 --> 00:03:52.360
love. And I got myself a
slice of blueberry crumble pie, which is

60
00:03:52.400 --> 00:03:57.840
really Yeah, and you and I
have not been eating sugar like for a

61
00:03:57.840 --> 00:04:01.840
little while here. We've been trying
to speak of that. Can you can

62
00:04:01.879 --> 00:04:04.960
you tell our friends what you what? You You cheated on us, all

63
00:04:05.000 --> 00:04:09.520
of us, not just me.
You cheated on the whole podcast. A

64
00:04:09.520 --> 00:04:12.000
couple of weeks ago, you came
to me and said, we're getting ready

65
00:04:12.039 --> 00:04:15.520
to go on vacations. In another
week from the day we're recording this.

66
00:04:15.599 --> 00:04:17.560
And you came to me and said, how about we don't eat sugar until

67
00:04:17.600 --> 00:04:20.160
we go on vacation. And I
said okay, and we shook hand to

68
00:04:20.439 --> 00:04:25.879
ourselves and I cheated once you cheated. The deal was that we shook hands,

69
00:04:25.920 --> 00:04:28.759
and I said, if you if
you need, you work really hard,

70
00:04:28.879 --> 00:04:30.720
and you have a stressful job,
and you work really hard, and

71
00:04:30.759 --> 00:04:33.839
I understand some days you just need
a square of chocolate. And the deal

72
00:04:34.040 --> 00:04:38.040
was, I said, if you
feel like you really need some chocolate,

73
00:04:39.160 --> 00:04:43.160
come to me, rich come to
me, and did you know? I

74
00:04:43.199 --> 00:04:46.959
did? And it was like it
was it was like an FBI in terrogation,

75
00:04:46.120 --> 00:04:50.720
but it was like did you cheat? And you were like no,

76
00:04:51.079 --> 00:04:55.959
And because I'm a mother, I
could tell you're a lie. Yeah,

77
00:04:56.439 --> 00:04:59.600
it was a spontaneous thing. I
had those chocolates that I brought back from

78
00:04:59.639 --> 00:05:01.240
France and I was going to throw
them out because I was like, oh,

79
00:05:01.600 --> 00:05:04.480
we're not a box of French chocolates. I was, and I was

80
00:05:04.480 --> 00:05:06.319
like, I can't throw them out, so I just ate the rest of

81
00:05:06.319 --> 00:05:14.600
them, the rest of all.
Now you told me you have you are

82
00:05:14.639 --> 00:05:19.759
a bad man. I know I
have a weak spot for sugar, So

83
00:05:19.800 --> 00:05:25.240
how many we were left in the
box? I know, I don't want

84
00:05:25.279 --> 00:05:27.879
to say we all have it.
I think we all have like a little

85
00:05:27.920 --> 00:05:30.839
secret eating life. I think that's
normal, is it? Well? I

86
00:05:30.879 --> 00:05:34.279
don't know. All right, Well, what I was gonna say is we

87
00:05:34.319 --> 00:05:38.160
haven't eaten sugar in a while.
You haven't eaten sugar in a long time,

88
00:05:38.240 --> 00:05:40.879
so this is going to taste really
good. I think I did have

89
00:05:40.959 --> 00:05:46.639
milk DUTs popcorn, But what asked
you if you wanted some hmm, Okay,

90
00:05:46.959 --> 00:05:48.360
we were watching a movie. We're
actually a scary movie, and we

91
00:05:49.160 --> 00:05:54.439
milkuts and popcorn cheater too. No, it wasn't cheating because I said,

92
00:05:54.480 --> 00:06:00.680
you want people way deeper into our
relationship and eating habits, and they need

93
00:06:00.720 --> 00:06:11.199
to know. So all right,
we'll be right back. Imagine how good

94
00:06:11.199 --> 00:06:13.720
that would have been if you wouldn't
have cheated on the on the sugar bet,

95
00:06:13.879 --> 00:06:15.759
I don't think it would have been
any better. It was really really

96
00:06:15.839 --> 00:06:18.680
good. Well mine was very good
too, Thank you, Thank you very

97
00:06:18.759 --> 00:06:23.199
much forgetting that. And Rich has
if you've been listening for a while,

98
00:06:23.399 --> 00:06:26.800
you probably Rich doesn't like cream cheese
at all, So I never get to

99
00:06:26.839 --> 00:06:29.600
make a cream cheese dessert. So
if we go to a restaurant or whatever

100
00:06:29.600 --> 00:06:31.319
and there's an opportunity to get something
with cream cheese, I'm like, yep,

101
00:06:31.759 --> 00:06:34.319
I'll get that. So the Pumpkin
bar it has like cream cheese frosting,

102
00:06:34.399 --> 00:06:40.759
right, yes, yeah, Well
my blueberry pie that crumble topping so

103
00:06:40.879 --> 00:06:43.600
good. Sorry, all right,
tell us what we're here for today.

104
00:06:44.240 --> 00:06:47.639
All right, we're gonna hear the
story of Joshua Ford and Martha Crutchley.

105
00:06:48.439 --> 00:06:54.360
Memorial Day weekend twenty twenty two,
Joshua Ford and his girlfriend Martha Crutchley,

106
00:06:54.439 --> 00:06:58.360
better known as Genie, decided to
head to Ocean City, Maryland, for

107
00:06:58.399 --> 00:07:01.040
the long weekend. Ocean City I
didn't really know much about it, but

108
00:07:01.040 --> 00:07:05.160
it's a very popular resort town.
It's on this really narrow strip of land,

109
00:07:05.240 --> 00:07:10.319
like a barrier island, with the
Atlantic Ocean on one side, and

110
00:07:10.360 --> 00:07:14.040
then there's a water like a couple
of bays on the other side. It's

111
00:07:14.079 --> 00:07:16.800
like a ten mile strip of land
and it's lined with beaches, a boardwalk,

112
00:07:16.879 --> 00:07:20.959
carnival rides, condos and resorts,
and a lot more cool stuff to

113
00:07:21.000 --> 00:07:24.240
do. I've heard of it,
but I know, it's supposed to be

114
00:07:24.279 --> 00:07:26.879
a really fun place to go,
but I've never been there. It looks

115
00:07:26.879 --> 00:07:29.759
like it looks like it might be
kind of one of those places like during

116
00:07:29.839 --> 00:07:32.000
spring break weekend you would want to
stay as far away as possible, but

117
00:07:32.199 --> 00:07:36.079
other weekends it seems like it'd be
a lot of fun. Joshua and Jeanie

118
00:07:36.079 --> 00:07:40.959
they made the three hour drive from
their home in Fairfax, Virginia, looking

119
00:07:41.000 --> 00:07:44.279
forward to a fun weekend of partying, hanging out at the beach, and

120
00:07:44.480 --> 00:07:48.040
enjoying some great seafood. Unfortunately for
them, on their first night in Ocean

121
00:07:48.040 --> 00:07:51.680
City, they had a fatal encounter
with a married couple, Bija and Erica

122
00:07:51.720 --> 00:07:57.600
Siffrett, who are, to me
among the most evil, monstrous couples I've

123
00:07:57.600 --> 00:08:00.720
ever read about. To me,
there like boy, that's sayings because we've

124
00:08:00.759 --> 00:08:05.240
covered some monstrous people. Yeah,
they're on like a power with Paul Bernardo

125
00:08:05.319 --> 00:08:09.079
and Carla Homolka that you can marbie
killers. Yeah, I think they're just

126
00:08:09.120 --> 00:08:13.600
they're horrible, horrible people, so
great be prepared for that. Unfortunately,

127
00:08:13.600 --> 00:08:18.920
in this story, the victims have
largely been overlooked and the focus has been

128
00:08:18.959 --> 00:08:22.600
completely on Erica and bj. So
I wasn't able to find a lot of

129
00:08:22.600 --> 00:08:26.959
information about the victims, but here's
what I do know about Joshua Ford and

130
00:08:26.079 --> 00:08:31.200
Genie Crutchley. Joshua was thirty two
at the time that this case takes place.

131
00:08:31.399 --> 00:08:37.120
He was described by family members as
intelligent, full of life, always

132
00:08:37.159 --> 00:08:41.440
ready for the next adventure, and
someone who could do anything. He grew

133
00:08:41.480 --> 00:08:45.159
up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa,
but moved to Boston after high school.

134
00:08:45.720 --> 00:08:48.360
He served eight years in the Army, married his high school sweetheart, had

135
00:08:48.399 --> 00:08:52.600
a son, Zachary, who was
eight at the time that our case takes

136
00:08:52.600 --> 00:08:56.000
place. He and his wife divorced, but they remained friendly and his world

137
00:08:56.039 --> 00:09:01.080
revolved around his son. He worked
as a mortgage broker, and he met

138
00:09:01.120 --> 00:09:05.399
Jeanie in nineteen ninety nine at a
Christmas party in Boston. Martha or Janie

139
00:09:05.559 --> 00:09:09.759
Crutchley was fifty one years old in
two thousand and two. She was an

140
00:09:09.799 --> 00:09:15.279
executive accountant at a at an insurance
firm in Virginia and had also been married

141
00:09:15.279 --> 00:09:18.320
once before. She was on a
business trip to Boston when she met Joshua

142
00:09:18.360 --> 00:09:22.960
at the Christmas party. Although she
was nineteen years older than him, the

143
00:09:22.000 --> 00:09:26.879
two hit it off immediately, they
started dating long distance, and eventually Joshua

144
00:09:26.960 --> 00:09:31.559
moved to Virginia to live with Genie
in April of two thousand and one.

145
00:09:31.440 --> 00:09:35.919
So in two thousand and two,
a twenty year age gap between a man

146
00:09:35.960 --> 00:09:39.200
and a woman, with a woman
being older, Yes, that's very kind

147
00:09:39.240 --> 00:09:41.039
of significant. Yeah, it wasn't
as common then, yeah, for sure.

148
00:09:41.080 --> 00:09:45.600
But they seemed like they were super
happy couple. The only other thing

149
00:09:45.639 --> 00:09:48.360
I really know about Genie is that
she was very punctual. In fact,

150
00:09:48.399 --> 00:09:52.720
that's why Joshua and Jeanie were reported
missing when they were because Jeanie had a

151
00:09:52.759 --> 00:09:58.440
staff meeting scheduled for ten am Tuesday
morning after Memorial Day weekend, and she

152
00:09:58.440 --> 00:10:01.519
didn't show up for it. Her
friend and employee was alarmed because in the

153
00:10:01.600 --> 00:10:05.000
five years that they had worked together, Genie had never missed that meeting,

154
00:10:05.080 --> 00:10:09.360
She'd never even been late to it, and so her colleague, who knew

155
00:10:09.440 --> 00:10:13.039
that Genie and Joshua had gone to
Ocean City that weekend, ended up contacting

156
00:10:13.080 --> 00:10:18.399
the police, which subsequently started the
search for the missing couple. In a

157
00:10:18.399 --> 00:10:24.080
sad coincidence, tragedy had struck Joshua's
family less than a year before he and

158
00:10:24.159 --> 00:10:28.759
Jeanie's fateful trip to Ocean City.
In August of two thousand and one,

159
00:10:28.919 --> 00:10:31.120
Joshua's twenty three year old niece,
Kelly, the daughter of his brother,

160
00:10:31.679 --> 00:10:37.879
went missing after leaving a rehab center
in Massachusetts. Her headless body was found

161
00:10:37.960 --> 00:10:41.000
over two months later, buried in
a shallow grave on a Cape Cod beach,

162
00:10:41.200 --> 00:10:46.240
the victim of an apparent serial killer. Really yeah, her murder was

163
00:10:46.279 --> 00:10:50.840
still unsolved at the time that Joshua
and Genie disappeared, which actually led the

164
00:10:50.840 --> 00:10:54.639
police initially to wonder whether there was
some connection, like maybe Joshua had something

165
00:10:54.639 --> 00:10:58.960
to do with his niece's disappearance,
maybe he was responsible for, you know,

166
00:11:00.120 --> 00:11:03.279
he and Genie disappearing or something.
But in the end it turned out

167
00:11:03.279 --> 00:11:07.879
it was just a horrible coincidence.
They did eventually the killer of Joshua's niece.

168
00:11:09.799 --> 00:11:15.440
They believe it was this man named
Eugene McCollum. He was arrested for

169
00:11:16.080 --> 00:11:20.480
killing two other women in a very
similar type fashion. I don't know that

170
00:11:20.519 --> 00:11:24.279
he ever got convicted of Joshua's nieces
killing, but it sounds like it was

171
00:11:24.320 --> 00:11:30.559
the same area, kind of the
same circumstances around the death and things like

172
00:11:30.639 --> 00:11:33.159
that, So I think they did
eventually catch that person. Wow, that's

173
00:11:33.159 --> 00:11:37.960
horrible, it really is. Yeah, so many families are impacted by multiple

174
00:11:37.960 --> 00:11:43.879
tragedies like that in it. I
know, it's very sad and very strange

175
00:11:43.879 --> 00:11:48.840
how that seems to happen. Another
early possibility that investigators considered was whether maybe

176
00:11:48.879 --> 00:11:54.559
there was some conflict between the couple
between Joshua and Genie, maybe it resulted

177
00:11:54.600 --> 00:11:58.000
in a murder, suicide or something
along those lines. But when they spoke

178
00:11:58.039 --> 00:12:01.600
with friends and relatives of the couple, everyone said that they were very much

179
00:12:01.639 --> 00:12:05.159
in love and devoted to one another, and so they really didn't think that

180
00:12:05.159 --> 00:12:11.240
that was an issue. It was
Thursday, May thirtieth before investigators got the

181
00:12:11.240 --> 00:12:16.080
break that led them to Erica and
Bj Siffrett. So, looking at their

182
00:12:16.120 --> 00:12:20.440
backgrounds, Erica and Bj would seem
like a really unlikely couple to be involved

183
00:12:20.440 --> 00:12:24.000
in a brutal and pointless murder.
Erica Grace was an only child, born

184
00:12:24.039 --> 00:12:28.240
in nineteen seventy eight and growing up
in an upper class home with parents who

185
00:12:28.279 --> 00:12:33.240
adored her. Her dad, Mitch, had his own business as a contractor,

186
00:12:33.320 --> 00:12:35.159
while her mom, Cookie was a
stay at home mom. I love

187
00:12:35.200 --> 00:12:37.480
that name. Cook. I don't
know if that's her real name or not,

188
00:12:37.519 --> 00:12:41.799
but change my name, but he
should. Erica grew up in a

189
00:12:41.840 --> 00:12:46.720
small town in Pennsylvania, about two
hours east of Pittsburgh. At some point

190
00:12:46.759 --> 00:12:50.600
she showed a talent for basketball,
and her dad did everything he could to

191
00:12:50.720 --> 00:12:54.720
nurture her interest in the sport.
He even built a house with an indoor

192
00:12:54.759 --> 00:13:00.320
basketball court. He hired a private
coach to work with her, and Mitch

193
00:13:00.399 --> 00:13:05.799
himself coached Eric's Erica's basketball team.
She was a talented point guard. Her

194
00:13:05.919 --> 00:13:09.519
high school coach said quote, I
believe she was one of the best three

195
00:13:09.519 --> 00:13:11.559
point shooters in the country. The
only thing that kept her from going to

196
00:13:11.600 --> 00:13:16.559
a Division I school was her size. Erica was small, but she was

197
00:13:16.600 --> 00:13:20.360
able to get a partial basketball scholarship
to attend the University of Mary Washington in

198
00:13:20.399 --> 00:13:26.360
Fredericksburg, Virginia. She got excellent
grades both in high school and college.

199
00:13:26.480 --> 00:13:30.200
She wasn't super social. She had
some boyfriends during high school, but nothing

200
00:13:30.240 --> 00:13:35.120
serious. She didn't really drink or
party too much. She seemed very serious

201
00:13:35.200 --> 00:13:37.440
and levelheaded, always trying to do
the right thing and live up to her

202
00:13:37.480 --> 00:13:43.519
parents' expectations. Maybe the only warning
signs early on was that she was very

203
00:13:43.519 --> 00:13:46.360
hard on herself and maybe felt a
lot of pressure to be perfect at everything.

204
00:13:48.679 --> 00:13:52.320
Benjamin Siffritt, known by everyone as
BJA, was born in nineteen seventy

205
00:13:52.320 --> 00:13:58.039
seven, about three months before Erica, and spent time growing up in Iowa,

206
00:13:58.360 --> 00:14:01.360
Minnesota, and Houston, Tewchexis,
moving around because of his dad's job.

207
00:14:03.159 --> 00:14:05.120
He was the oldest of two children, and like Erica, he was

208
00:14:05.159 --> 00:14:11.279
an overachiever and also an athlete.
His sport was swimming. During high school,

209
00:14:11.320 --> 00:14:15.799
he worked various jobs as a lifeguard, swimming instructor, grocery store clerk,

210
00:14:15.919 --> 00:14:18.240
and at one point he worked for
a locksmith, where he became highly

211
00:14:18.279 --> 00:14:24.120
skilled at picking locks. M After
high school, he decided he wanted to

212
00:14:24.200 --> 00:14:28.480
serve in the military. He got
high scores on his recruiting test and qualified

213
00:14:28.480 --> 00:14:33.480
to train as a Navy seal.
After doing his basic training near Chicago,

214
00:14:33.600 --> 00:14:37.360
he was sent to Coronado, California
for the seal training. So the seal

215
00:14:37.480 --> 00:14:41.159
qualification training program. You've probably heard
a little bit about this, but when

216
00:14:41.159 --> 00:14:43.759
he said he was a swimmer,
yeah, that's probably a really beneficial if

217
00:14:43.799 --> 00:14:46.679
you want to go be a Navy
seal. Yeah, for sure. It's

218
00:14:46.799 --> 00:14:52.799
an intensive program. It's a twenty
six week training program considered to be one

219
00:14:52.840 --> 00:14:58.159
of the most rigorous and demanding training
programs in the world. It's intensely demanding

220
00:14:58.200 --> 00:15:01.120
both physically and mentally, withou a
high risk of injury and a high dropout

221
00:15:01.200 --> 00:15:07.000
rate. It's designed to build discipline, focus, and mental and physical toughness.

222
00:15:07.759 --> 00:15:11.039
Out of the one hundred and sixty
candidates enrolled in Bjay's training class,

223
00:15:11.080 --> 00:15:16.120
only eighteen graduated. Holy moly,
I know that it was huge, but

224
00:15:16.159 --> 00:15:20.679
that's that's enormous. Yeah. And
not only that, but BJA was named

225
00:15:20.879 --> 00:15:24.519
the honor man of his class,
basically meaning that he finished the training at

226
00:15:24.519 --> 00:15:28.399
the top of his class. He
was known for his discipline and his toughness.

227
00:15:30.039 --> 00:15:33.519
Some of his fellow seals said that
BJ could spend all night drinking at

228
00:15:33.559 --> 00:15:35.840
the bar, get back to the
base at three am, sleep for two

229
00:15:35.919 --> 00:15:39.000
hours, then get up and run
ten miles as part of his training,

230
00:15:39.440 --> 00:15:43.000
and still finish ahead of everyone else
in the class. I think Navy seals

231
00:15:43.039 --> 00:15:46.879
are made of different stuff than I
am. For sure. Yeah. Same.

232
00:15:48.919 --> 00:15:52.279
So BJ graduated from his seal training
in August of ninety seven. And

233
00:15:52.320 --> 00:15:58.240
then he shipped to Virginia and then
in nineteen ninety eight he did another twenty

234
00:15:58.279 --> 00:16:03.039
six week intensive training CORPS in North
Carolina. This one was the Special Operations

235
00:16:03.120 --> 00:16:08.399
Combat medic Course, which provides training
in managing trauma patients on the battlefield.

236
00:16:10.279 --> 00:16:12.720
As part of his training, he
had to serve with an EMT ambulance unit

237
00:16:12.840 --> 00:16:17.399
in New York City, so he
saw a lot of trauma. You know.

238
00:16:17.679 --> 00:16:21.960
It was another just intense training session
where he was you know, put

239
00:16:22.000 --> 00:16:26.039
through the put through the paces.
Three years into his military service, BJ

240
00:16:26.240 --> 00:16:30.000
seemed to be excelling at everything he
did. It looked like he was going

241
00:16:30.039 --> 00:16:33.440
to make a career out of it. But then he met Erica and everything

242
00:16:33.559 --> 00:16:38.120
changed so so far. To me, like, when I read the backgrounds

243
00:16:38.120 --> 00:16:42.000
of BJ and Erica, they seem
like kind of all American kids that had

244
00:16:42.039 --> 00:16:48.159
it all right. They grew up
in very compatible both very high achievers,

245
00:16:48.279 --> 00:16:51.120
yep, both very smart. They
both came from good homes. They were

246
00:16:51.120 --> 00:16:55.720
both talented athletically. We'll talk about
what they did, but I think one

247
00:16:55.759 --> 00:16:59.399
of the most interesting aspects of this
case is how people like that can turn

248
00:16:59.440 --> 00:17:03.319
out so so horrible when they have
like every advantage in life. I don't

249
00:17:03.359 --> 00:17:06.640
know, what do you how do
you think that happens to people? I

250
00:17:06.720 --> 00:17:11.160
just it just boggles my mind.
Something that's the nugget that we have tried

251
00:17:11.160 --> 00:17:12.920
to unwrap, and a lot of
these cases that we've talked about, like

252
00:17:14.240 --> 00:17:18.079
and I think about it all the
time, like what transpires and it goes

253
00:17:18.079 --> 00:17:22.839
back to nature versus nurture, And
it just makes you wonder, Yeah,

254
00:17:22.880 --> 00:17:26.960
like why our kids aren't murderers?
And yeah, I mean, it really

255
00:17:26.039 --> 00:17:32.319
just seems it's just such a strange
thing. So Erica and bj met at

256
00:17:32.319 --> 00:17:34.519
a bar in the spring of nineteen
ninety nine. They were introduced by a

257
00:17:34.519 --> 00:17:38.119
friend of a friend. They talked, but nothing came of it until they

258
00:17:38.200 --> 00:17:42.359
ran into each other again in July
of nineteen ninety nine at a Navy seal

259
00:17:42.440 --> 00:17:47.119
party. By this, I have
to google their picture. Okay, you

260
00:17:47.160 --> 00:17:52.279
are googling and she's That was like
the versing that I saw. They look

261
00:17:52.359 --> 00:17:56.559
like a nice couple. He looks
a little like Zach Brath maybe, uh

262
00:17:56.119 --> 00:17:59.559
are I would see her eyes like
a little she looks a little dead in

263
00:17:59.599 --> 00:18:02.319
the eyes. Yeah, that could
that could very well be. And she

264
00:18:02.440 --> 00:18:06.039
was very tanned she was a little
bit obsessive about tanning, which I'll talk

265
00:18:06.039 --> 00:18:08.319
about in a bit. They look
like an uh and I'll they do kind

266
00:18:08.359 --> 00:18:15.480
of American couple kind of. Yeah, So Erica did start showing signs of

267
00:18:15.519 --> 00:18:22.000
some serious obsessive compulsive disorder and also
a serious inability to handle rejection. She

268
00:18:22.079 --> 00:18:26.559
had a boyfriend prior to meeting BJ, and apparently he ended up dumping her

269
00:18:26.559 --> 00:18:32.920
because she was both obsessive and possessive
of him. She couldn't accept the breakup

270
00:18:32.960 --> 00:18:36.599
though, and when he dumped her, she began ramming her forehead into a

271
00:18:36.599 --> 00:18:40.640
brick wall outside of the bar where
they had been, until she started bleeding

272
00:18:40.640 --> 00:18:44.799
profusely and the police actually had to
be called to help her, Like calm

273
00:18:44.839 --> 00:18:48.559
down. Things like that just shreaked
me out. I see someone doing something

274
00:18:48.599 --> 00:18:52.359
like that, I know, it's
really disturbing. There's a lot of things

275
00:18:52.400 --> 00:18:55.880
about Erica. I think she had
some serious, you know, emotional problems.

276
00:18:56.039 --> 00:19:00.519
Undiagnosed. No, I think she
was actually diagnosed. Talk about that

277
00:19:00.559 --> 00:19:03.039
a little bit, but yeah,
I think she definitely had issues. Let

278
00:19:03.039 --> 00:19:07.119
me just talk about how it's really
hard to date when you're that young too,

279
00:19:07.519 --> 00:19:11.839
Like a lot of things happen when
you're you know, eighteen to probably

280
00:19:11.880 --> 00:19:18.839
twenty two, that you're just not
emotionally stable enough to handle the serious relationship.

281
00:19:18.960 --> 00:19:25.759
Yeah, I think that's fair personal
experience of same. Same So when

282
00:19:25.759 --> 00:19:30.200
she met BJ, he initially wasn't
interested because he was focused on his military

283
00:19:30.240 --> 00:19:33.079
career. And the same scene actually
played out again where Erica started banging her

284
00:19:33.079 --> 00:19:37.680
head against the wall until she was
bleeding, and the police were called again

285
00:19:37.720 --> 00:19:41.000
and they even I think they even
thought that BJ might have been beating her,

286
00:19:41.039 --> 00:19:44.880
but then they realized that that wasn't
the case, that she was actually

287
00:19:44.960 --> 00:19:48.920
doing this to herself. And I'm
not sure if BJ was like attracted by

288
00:19:48.920 --> 00:19:52.799
this behavior or what, but the
two ended up getting serious almost immediately.

289
00:19:52.599 --> 00:19:56.039
In fact, they flew to Las
Vegas and they got married only about three

290
00:19:56.079 --> 00:20:00.960
weeks after that. So long had
they been dating by then? Three weeks?

291
00:20:02.039 --> 00:20:03.640
Oh okay, oh okay, yeah, literally three weeks, Like they

292
00:20:03.680 --> 00:20:07.039
met once and then they didn't see
each other again, but then they met

293
00:20:07.039 --> 00:20:10.880
again and started dating, and then
three weeks later they were married in August

294
00:20:10.880 --> 00:20:15.240
of nineteen ninety nine. Not a
great idea, no, not at all.

295
00:20:15.279 --> 00:20:18.319
In between Bjay's Navy seal duties.
The couple partied it up during their

296
00:20:18.319 --> 00:20:22.599
first year of marriage. Erica later
said that they did cocaine and ecstasy five

297
00:20:22.720 --> 00:20:27.079
days a week. People were surprised
by Erica's choice and a husband, as

298
00:20:27.119 --> 00:20:33.119
she hadn't previously been into kind of
rugged type guys, But she was obsessed

299
00:20:33.160 --> 00:20:37.200
with Bj to the point where people
thought she was losing her mind. Already

300
00:20:37.200 --> 00:20:41.880
a small person, she lost weight, and she just seemed like stressed and

301
00:20:41.960 --> 00:20:45.559
tired all the time. She couldn't
stand to be away from Bj, which

302
00:20:45.599 --> 00:20:49.000
was a problem because being in the
Navy, he frequently got deployed to different

303
00:20:49.039 --> 00:20:53.880
locations. She would often have panic
attacks when he was gone. Once he

304
00:20:53.920 --> 00:20:57.880
got sent to Alaska for a three
week stint, she couldn't take it,

305
00:20:57.960 --> 00:21:02.559
and so she hopped on a flight
to Alaska. He snuck her into his

306
00:21:02.680 --> 00:21:04.480
room, which was a big no
no wow, and he got caught,

307
00:21:04.480 --> 00:21:10.480
which earned him a reprimand. At
some point, BJ decided that he needed

308
00:21:10.480 --> 00:21:12.519
to get out of his military service
so that he didn't have to be away

309
00:21:12.559 --> 00:21:17.839
from Erica. He came up with
a plan to basically break the rules and

310
00:21:17.920 --> 00:21:22.119
disobey orders until he got kicked out. At one point he just left the

311
00:21:22.160 --> 00:21:25.880
base when he wasn't supposed to,
essentially going a wall. When he was

312
00:21:25.880 --> 00:21:29.599
confronted about it later, he yelled
fuck you to his superior officer, which

313
00:21:29.640 --> 00:21:33.160
I'm pretty sure is a bad thing
to do. The bad behavior continued,

314
00:21:33.200 --> 00:21:37.039
and he ended up getting court martialed. He got convicted of two charges of

315
00:21:37.079 --> 00:21:41.799
going a wall, three charges of
insubordination, one charge of drunken or reckless

316
00:21:41.880 --> 00:21:48.240
driving, and one charge of wearing
unauthorized insignia. He went to I don't

317
00:21:48.279 --> 00:21:52.720
know the story behind that one.
You're not supposed to wear unauthorized insignia,

318
00:21:53.480 --> 00:21:57.599
like insignia that shows what your rank
is in the military, and so if

319
00:21:57.640 --> 00:22:02.160
you wear something that makes it look
like you're a higher rank than you are.

320
00:22:03.279 --> 00:22:04.599
Think he was wearing under armor or
something and they were like, oh,

321
00:22:04.599 --> 00:22:10.000
you can't wear that logo. Was
wearing a Nike shirt. So BJ

322
00:22:10.160 --> 00:22:12.759
went to military jail for ninety days
and he got kicked out of the service

323
00:22:14.079 --> 00:22:18.759
with a bad conduct discharge. Oh
wow's truly like just horrible, and like,

324
00:22:18.960 --> 00:22:22.440
I mean, obviously the downhill slide
of this couple started, you know,

325
00:22:22.559 --> 00:22:25.839
so that's their peak. Yeah,
yeah, exactly. Well, I

326
00:22:25.839 --> 00:22:27.480
mean their peak of goodness, right, Yeah, yeah, for sure,

327
00:22:29.000 --> 00:22:32.279
getting kicked out of the military like
that, it's just it's just horrible because

328
00:22:32.279 --> 00:22:34.759
you lose like your benefits, you
lose any pay that you would have gotten

329
00:22:34.799 --> 00:22:40.200
after that. So it's just really
a bad idea, the whole decision.

330
00:22:40.319 --> 00:22:44.160
Yeah. But now that the two
were free to be together all the time,

331
00:22:44.400 --> 00:22:48.200
Erica talked to her mom and dad
into putting up the money so that

332
00:22:48.240 --> 00:22:52.400
she and BJ could start their own
business, a scrap booking store in the

333
00:22:52.440 --> 00:22:56.440
mall in Altoona, Pennsylvania, not
far from Erica's hometown. Remember when scrap

334
00:22:56.440 --> 00:23:00.480
booking was all the rage. Oh, I sure do still have a box

335
00:23:00.519 --> 00:23:04.119
full of crap that I've never really
done much with it. Yes, Well,

336
00:23:04.160 --> 00:23:07.680
apparently Erica was super into scrapbooking,
and I think this was probably right

337
00:23:07.720 --> 00:23:11.680
around when scrap booking was at its
peak, right, and there were stores

338
00:23:11.720 --> 00:23:17.720
everywhere that sold scrap bookings. Yeah, it was a little cold dish a

339
00:23:17.720 --> 00:23:22.119
little bit. Yeah. The store
was called Memory Lane, with Lane spelled

340
00:23:22.279 --> 00:23:26.240
Lai n E, which was a
play on Erica's middle name, Elane and

341
00:23:26.319 --> 00:23:30.200
her nickname, which was Laney.
Over the next couple of years, of

342
00:23:30.240 --> 00:23:33.680
marriage, Erica and bj developed some
what I would think of as strange kind

343
00:23:33.680 --> 00:23:40.759
of hobbies, collections, and maybe
obsessions that got increasingly dark. Erica bought

344
00:23:40.759 --> 00:23:44.920
a gun at Bjay's suggestion, a
Smith and Wesson three point fifty seven magnum,

345
00:23:44.960 --> 00:23:48.279
which she carried with her everywhere,
either in her purse or in a

346
00:23:48.319 --> 00:23:52.960
holster on her ankle or waist.
Erica became fanatical about jewelry and diamonds,

347
00:23:53.000 --> 00:23:59.319
which she kept in her coach handbag. She also became obsessed with collecting Hooter's

348
00:23:59.400 --> 00:24:03.640
memorabilia, which is very strange,
but she had somewhere between one hundred and

349
00:24:03.680 --> 00:24:10.599
two hundred articles of Hooters branded clothing. Yes, she loved She loved the

350
00:24:10.640 --> 00:24:17.319
Hooters stuff. I mean, who
doesn't. Oh, I refused to ever,

351
00:24:18.200 --> 00:24:21.960
I've never been in a Hooters.
No, I've been in a couple

352
00:24:21.920 --> 00:24:26.359
of times, have you. Yeah, we have good wings. If you

353
00:24:26.359 --> 00:24:30.720
could see the look on his face
right now, Well, my sister was

354
00:24:30.720 --> 00:24:33.759
a big Hooters fan, and I
have I have had their wings, and

355
00:24:33.799 --> 00:24:37.920
I don't think they're any better than
any other wings store. I'm just gonna

356
00:24:37.920 --> 00:24:41.400
put that out there right. So, Erica was also obsessed with tanning.

357
00:24:41.440 --> 00:24:45.319
As you noted when you saw her
picture, she would go to the tanning

358
00:24:45.319 --> 00:24:48.440
salon almost daily. In some of
the pictures I've seen of Erica, I

359
00:24:48.480 --> 00:24:52.599
mean, she's she looks kind of
like an umpa lumpa Like she just looks

360
00:24:52.640 --> 00:24:56.519
ridiculous. I'm not going to say
she looked ridiculous, but that was literally

361
00:24:56.559 --> 00:25:00.000
the first thing I noticed is the
difference in their skin tones. Yeah,

362
00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:02.319
which, I mean, the difference
in our skin tones is pretty striking.

363
00:25:02.319 --> 00:25:04.519
But it's just I'll show you.
I'll show you a different picture later that'll

364
00:25:04.519 --> 00:25:08.759
make you laugh. It just it's
so she just looks like she had tannarexic.

365
00:25:10.079 --> 00:25:15.960
Maybe maybe The couple also kept snakes
and crocodiles. The crocodiles were named

366
00:25:15.039 --> 00:25:22.079
Clarence and Alabama, after characters in
Erica's favorite movie, True Romance. They

367
00:25:22.079 --> 00:25:26.359
had pythons named Bonnie and Clyde,
a cobra that they named Hitler, and

368
00:25:26.400 --> 00:25:33.000
another snake that they named HIV.
Do they all wear like little hooter shirts?

369
00:25:34.799 --> 00:25:38.839
Who pet crocodile? I don't know. Two pet crocodiles too. I

370
00:25:38.880 --> 00:25:41.799
don't know how big they were or
anything like that. But did they have

371
00:25:41.799 --> 00:25:45.880
a swamp in their backyard. I
really don't know much more about that,

372
00:25:45.960 --> 00:25:49.440
but it is a very strange kind
of pet to keep. I see some

373
00:25:49.480 --> 00:25:56.160
red flags, do you, and
naming their snakes Hitler and HIV, which

374
00:25:56.200 --> 00:26:00.480
is just bizarre, but I guess
BJ he really admired Hitler, and I

375
00:26:00.480 --> 00:26:06.880
think Erica did as well. BJ
actually even had a large swastika tattooed on

376
00:26:06.920 --> 00:26:11.759
his chest, so what a guy. Erica started taking Xanax and valium for

377
00:26:11.799 --> 00:26:15.440
her anxiety and her panic attacks.
Like I mentioned, I think it was

378
00:26:15.519 --> 00:26:19.839
diagnosed. She went to a doctor, she got on medications, but soon

379
00:26:19.880 --> 00:26:25.799
she became hooked on them. She
started snorting xanax regularly because the pills didn't

380
00:26:25.799 --> 00:26:29.559
work fast enough. At one point, she and BJ took a trip to

381
00:26:29.799 --> 00:26:33.119
South America and they smuggled a large
quantity of Xanax and valium back home.

382
00:26:34.519 --> 00:26:41.400
And then, yeah, they brought
back a huge amount of pills and smuggled

383
00:26:41.400 --> 00:26:45.079
them in. So they're living I
don't remember the movie True Romance vividly,

384
00:26:45.359 --> 00:26:48.480
but they're kind of living that.
Yeah, that life. Yeah, I

385
00:26:48.519 --> 00:26:52.240
think the fact that their favorite movie
was True Romance they named it their you

386
00:26:52.279 --> 00:26:55.599
know, two of their snakes Bonnie
and Clyde, you know, they had

387
00:26:55.599 --> 00:26:59.200
They seem to have this vision of
themselves as this sort of outlaw couple who

388
00:26:59.200 --> 00:27:02.799
were, you know, just breaking
the law and doing whatever they wanted to

389
00:27:02.799 --> 00:27:07.960
do. And it gets even worse
because then there were the burglaries. BJ

390
00:27:07.079 --> 00:27:12.799
and Erica started getting thrills from burglarizing
stores. BJ would use his lock picking

391
00:27:12.839 --> 00:27:18.519
skills to break into places and the
two would steal whatever they could. Hooters

392
00:27:18.599 --> 00:27:22.240
was one of their favorite places to
burglarize so that Erica could add to her

393
00:27:22.279 --> 00:27:26.799
collection. They even kept ski masks
and gloves in the car at all times,

394
00:27:26.880 --> 00:27:30.359
just to be ready in case the
opportunity would arise. The burglaries became

395
00:27:30.440 --> 00:27:33.920
kind of a fetish, with Bja
apparently getting a sexual thrill from it.

396
00:27:34.759 --> 00:27:40.319
They would sell many of the goods
that they stole on eBay, sometimes netting

397
00:27:40.400 --> 00:27:44.880
twenty five hundred dollars or more a
week. Holy, Holy Holy, So

398
00:27:44.920 --> 00:27:48.359
they were adrenaline junkies. They didn't
necessarily need the money. I'm I don't

399
00:27:48.359 --> 00:27:51.559
think so. I mean, I
think they could have always gotten money from

400
00:27:51.720 --> 00:27:55.000
Erica's dad if they needed it.
So yeah, I don't think they needed

401
00:27:55.000 --> 00:27:59.079
the money. I think it was
just a thrill, while BJ and Erica

402
00:27:59.079 --> 00:28:03.079
were both increasingly becoming horrible people.
BJ in particular, could be very cruel.

403
00:28:03.839 --> 00:28:07.720
According to Erica, At one point
he told her that they should have

404
00:28:07.799 --> 00:28:11.319
kids. She was pleasantly surprised because
he had previously been opposed to the idea.

405
00:28:11.880 --> 00:28:15.920
She got pregnant quickly, but then
one night in her third month,

406
00:28:15.960 --> 00:28:18.359
he came home drunk with some of
his buddies and told her he didn't want

407
00:28:18.440 --> 00:28:22.720
kids, and he could. She
could either go take care of it,

408
00:28:22.240 --> 00:28:25.599
or he could go get a coat
hanger and take care of it right then

409
00:28:25.759 --> 00:28:29.759
for her, so she actually went. The next day, he drove her

410
00:28:29.759 --> 00:28:33.759
to the clinic she got an abortion. He apparently later told her that he

411
00:28:33.880 --> 00:28:36.920
never wanted a kid, He just
wanted to see how far Erica would be

412
00:28:36.920 --> 00:28:41.279
willing to go for him. Oh
that's just that's I know. Well,

413
00:28:41.400 --> 00:28:45.519
it gets worse too again. And
this is according to Erica, who might

414
00:28:45.599 --> 00:28:49.799
not always be the most reliable person. But BJ suggested at one point after

415
00:28:49.839 --> 00:28:53.839
that happen, that they have a
baby, take out a million dollar life

416
00:28:53.839 --> 00:28:56.880
insurance policy on the baby, and
then BJ would kill it so that they

417
00:28:56.880 --> 00:29:03.279
could collect the insurance. What a
guy. Huh, I'm speechless. That's

418
00:29:04.079 --> 00:29:08.880
horrible. Yeah, all right,
serious, I don't know. And again,

419
00:29:08.920 --> 00:29:11.240
this was, you know, something
that Erica said. As you'll see

420
00:29:11.279 --> 00:29:15.759
later, Erica and BJ kind of
will turn against each other at some point.

421
00:29:15.880 --> 00:29:18.119
So it may be that she was
saying that, you know, just

422
00:29:18.160 --> 00:29:22.599
to paint a bad picture of him. But either way, he's a horrible

423
00:29:22.640 --> 00:29:26.920
person. Yes, all right,
let's take a quick break. We'll be

424
00:29:26.079 --> 00:29:37.480
right back. All right. We
left off talking about how BJ and Erica

425
00:29:37.480 --> 00:29:41.319
were becoming horrible, horrible people as
time went on, and that brings us

426
00:29:41.400 --> 00:29:45.920
up to Saturday, May twenty fifth, two thousand and two. So Joshua

427
00:29:45.960 --> 00:29:51.480
and Jeanie the victims in this case. After they got settled into the condo

428
00:29:51.559 --> 00:29:55.119
that they were renting in Ocean City, which was a place called the Atlantis,

429
00:29:55.720 --> 00:29:59.079
they went to a sports bar called
the Green Turtle for some food and

430
00:29:59.160 --> 00:30:03.119
drinks and to watch the Celtics play
in Game three of the Conference Finals.

431
00:30:03.039 --> 00:30:07.039
After the game, they went back
to the condo, where Joshua called his

432
00:30:07.119 --> 00:30:11.559
brother Mark while Jeanie was getting ready
to go out for the evening. Joshua

433
00:30:11.559 --> 00:30:15.039
and his brother were both big Celtics
fans, and they were excited because the

434
00:30:15.039 --> 00:30:18.480
Celtics had not only won the game, but it was the biggest comeback in

435
00:30:18.680 --> 00:30:22.240
NBA playoff history at that time.
It was a brief call, though,

436
00:30:22.480 --> 00:30:26.319
since Mark was beat after finishing up
a twelve hour shift at his work.

437
00:30:26.160 --> 00:30:30.720
Once Jeanie was ready to go,
the pair headed out to catch the bus

438
00:30:30.759 --> 00:30:34.000
that transported people up and down the
Ocean City Strip. They were planning on

439
00:30:34.039 --> 00:30:37.200
doing some drinking, so better to
leave the car at the condo and take

440
00:30:37.240 --> 00:30:41.839
the bus. Meanwhile, Erica and
bj Siffret, who were both twenty four

441
00:30:41.920 --> 00:30:47.279
years old by this time, had
driven to Ocean City that afternoon from their

442
00:30:47.319 --> 00:30:52.039
home in Altoona, Pennsylvania, close
to a six hour drive. They stopped

443
00:30:52.039 --> 00:30:55.559
about halfway to pick up a twelve
pack of bud Light, which they started

444
00:30:55.599 --> 00:31:00.559
drinking on the way. Erica also
popped a couple of Xanas when they got

445
00:31:00.599 --> 00:31:04.920
to the Ocean mixture Xanax with yeah
for Sure. Right when they got to

446
00:31:04.960 --> 00:31:10.359
Ocean City, they checked into the
penthouse suite at the Rainbow Condominium, which

447
00:31:10.519 --> 00:31:14.640
they had booked for the next week. Erica's dad's firm had done some of

448
00:31:14.680 --> 00:31:18.279
the construction work on the condo,
and was friends with the owner, so

449
00:31:18.319 --> 00:31:22.359
he was able to book them the
penthouse suite on the eleventh floor whenever they

450
00:31:22.359 --> 00:31:27.039
wanted. They unpacked, Erica snorted
some more Xanax and then she told BJ

451
00:31:27.200 --> 00:31:30.359
she wanted to go to Hooters,
where they had some wings and a couple

452
00:31:30.359 --> 00:31:33.960
of pictures of beer. Pictures of
beer, a couple of them. Yeah,

453
00:31:34.640 --> 00:31:38.759
Erica is like, she's tiny,
right, Yeah, she's tiny.

454
00:31:40.400 --> 00:31:42.680
I think she was more into the
Xanax than the drinking. I think BJ

455
00:31:42.920 --> 00:31:45.839
was maybe more the drinker of the
two. But yeah, they like to

456
00:31:45.880 --> 00:31:48.799
party it up. Actually, I
was gonna say, when I was working

457
00:31:48.839 --> 00:31:52.000
on this case, I had the
song Life in the fast Lane from the

458
00:31:52.039 --> 00:31:55.960
Eagles in my head all the time, because it just it just seems like

459
00:31:55.960 --> 00:32:00.400
they were like living life in the
fast Lane. At Hooters, they asked

460
00:32:00.440 --> 00:32:04.440
the waitress where the hottest nightclub was
in Ocean City, and she told them

461
00:32:04.799 --> 00:32:10.359
Secrets was the place to be.
Secrets spelled Sea crets, clever play on

462
00:32:10.440 --> 00:32:15.119
words. So they drove back to
the Rainbow and then, already being a

463
00:32:15.160 --> 00:32:19.400
bit wasted by this time, decided
to hop on the bus to head to

464
00:32:19.440 --> 00:32:23.880
Secrets. So the bus is where
BJ and Erica met Joshua and Genie.

465
00:32:24.039 --> 00:32:28.839
BJ didn't have exact change, which
the bus driver said was a requirement,

466
00:32:28.960 --> 00:32:31.720
and Joshua, being a nice guy, offered to pay BJ and Erica's fare.

467
00:32:32.720 --> 00:32:37.240
The couple sat near each other,
striking up a conversation, and BJ

468
00:32:37.400 --> 00:32:39.920
promised to buy Joshua and Genie a
drink when they got to Secrets as a

469
00:32:40.079 --> 00:32:45.279
thanks for paying their fare. They
had to wait in line for about an

470
00:32:45.279 --> 00:32:49.599
hour to get into Secrets, during
which time Erica ducked around the corner to

471
00:32:49.640 --> 00:32:53.000
snort some more Xanax. Goodness,
Yeah, she loved her x Annax.

472
00:32:54.240 --> 00:32:59.000
Once they got in, the couples
partied it up together along with a third

473
00:32:59.039 --> 00:33:02.359
couple, with Erica ordering vodka shots
for everyone to keep the party going.

474
00:33:04.279 --> 00:33:07.160
When it got near to closing time, Erica and BJA invited Joshua and Genie

475
00:33:07.240 --> 00:33:12.240
back to their penthouse suite, where
they had a hot tub. Joshua mentioned

476
00:33:12.240 --> 00:33:15.039
that he had some really good pot, which peaud Bjay's interests, so it

477
00:33:15.119 --> 00:33:20.880
was decided they would swing by Joshua
and Janie's condo to pick up swimsuits and

478
00:33:20.920 --> 00:33:23.640
pot, and then head back to
Erica and Bjay's luxury suite to keep the

479
00:33:23.640 --> 00:33:29.720
party going. The story of what
happened next is not one hundred percent known.

480
00:33:30.160 --> 00:33:32.799
Joshua and Jeanie didn't live to tell
the story. Erica's account of what

481
00:33:32.920 --> 00:33:37.319
happened would evolve over time, and
Bjay's account of what happened, which we

482
00:33:37.359 --> 00:33:42.400
wouldn't get to hear until a year
later, was very different from Erica's.

483
00:33:43.240 --> 00:33:45.119
So I'm going to share what I
think is the most likely story of what

484
00:33:45.240 --> 00:33:51.359
happened, and then we'll talk about
Erica's and Bjay's stories later on. The

485
00:33:51.400 --> 00:33:53.359
two couples ended up back at the
penthouse suite. By this time it was

486
00:33:53.400 --> 00:33:59.400
around two thirty AM. Joshua and
BJ sat down and smoked some pot while

487
00:33:59.559 --> 00:34:02.359
Erica took Genie upstairs to the main
bathroom where the hot tub was, so

488
00:34:02.400 --> 00:34:07.920
that she could change into her swimsuit. After they got back downstairs, Erica

489
00:34:07.960 --> 00:34:12.400
said something about her coach purse,
which had her expensive diamonds, cash,

490
00:34:12.519 --> 00:34:16.079
credit cards, and pills being missing
with her OCD. This is the type

491
00:34:16.079 --> 00:34:21.280
of thing that made Erica's anxiety rise
to the point of panic. The two

492
00:34:21.320 --> 00:34:24.840
couples started looking for her purse,
and at some point BJ and Erica started

493
00:34:24.880 --> 00:34:30.199
insinuating that Joshua and Genie must have
stolen it. Erica actually called nine one

494
00:34:30.320 --> 00:34:34.840
one at three oh one am,
and here is a brief clip from that.

495
00:34:34.920 --> 00:34:42.000
Cally, Yes, I have an
emergency at my apartment, sort of

496
00:34:42.039 --> 00:34:45.679
emergen city her. There are people
in my house who I don't know,

497
00:34:46.039 --> 00:34:51.599
and my purse is suddenly missing in
a fight. I'm gonna have robberies here.

498
00:34:52.480 --> 00:34:55.440
She sounds a little messed up.
Yeah, well, she sounds super

499
00:34:55.519 --> 00:35:00.079
calm, like you know, she
sounds intoxicated. Yeah, yeah, she

500
00:35:00.159 --> 00:35:02.840
definitely sounds wasted. The call didn't
go on much longer than that. Erica

501
00:35:02.840 --> 00:35:07.079
actually hung up before the operator was
able to get any details, and no

502
00:35:07.280 --> 00:35:12.440
unit ended up being dispatched. I'm
assuming that's because they didn't have an exact

503
00:35:12.480 --> 00:35:15.400
location or a room number where the
call came from. But I'm not sure

504
00:35:15.400 --> 00:35:17.280
why they didn't send someone out,
because usually you would think after a nine

505
00:35:17.360 --> 00:35:22.159
one one call, somebody would get
sent out. Erica later said she hung

506
00:35:22.239 --> 00:35:28.239
up because josh Joshua came up the
stairs, but the police later theorized that

507
00:35:28.760 --> 00:35:32.599
Joshua and Genie were already dead when
Erica made that call. Their theory was

508
00:35:32.639 --> 00:35:37.000
that she made the call so that
she and BJ would have a cover story

509
00:35:37.159 --> 00:35:40.280
in case any of their neighbors had
heard gunshots and called nine one one themselves.

510
00:35:42.760 --> 00:35:46.239
Either before or after that nine one
one call, BJ most likely grabbed

511
00:35:46.320 --> 00:35:51.559
Erica's gun and started waving it around
in a threatening way at Joshua and Genie,

512
00:35:51.960 --> 00:35:55.000
demanding that they tell him what happened
to their stuff. Bja ordered them

513
00:35:55.000 --> 00:36:00.159
to take off their clothes, which
they did, and Erica started looking through

514
00:36:00.199 --> 00:36:05.000
their clothes to see if her stuff
was there, which it wasn't. BJ

515
00:36:05.199 --> 00:36:07.559
told Joshua and Jeanie to go into
the bathroom, but before he had a

516
00:36:07.639 --> 00:36:12.559
chance to follow them, they slammed
the door shut and locked it again.

517
00:36:12.639 --> 00:36:15.679
Exactly what happened next is not completely
clear, but it seems that Bja shot

518
00:36:15.800 --> 00:36:20.480
through the door and wounded Joshua,
and then he kicked the door in and

519
00:36:20.559 --> 00:36:23.519
shot Joshua again in the head,
killing him, and then he shot Jeanie,

520
00:36:23.559 --> 00:36:28.760
who was cowering on the floor under
the counter. Erica would later claim

521
00:36:28.760 --> 00:36:31.239
that she had gone downstairs to get
away from what was happening, but during

522
00:36:31.280 --> 00:36:37.840
the investigation, the police noted that
Erica's fingerprints were actually found on the outside

523
00:36:37.880 --> 00:36:42.199
of the bathroom window. They theorized
that she had gone out on the balcony

524
00:36:42.320 --> 00:36:45.840
and then leaned over to look into
the window so that she could tell Beja

525
00:36:45.960 --> 00:36:50.119
where to shoot through the door.
Wait, I'm having a hard time visualizing

526
00:36:50.159 --> 00:36:52.679
that they had a balcony. Yeah, there's a balcony. I think the

527
00:36:52.719 --> 00:36:55.800
balcony was right next to the bathroom
window, so you could have leaned over

528
00:36:55.920 --> 00:36:59.679
to look into the back and the
falcony, so that makes more sense.

529
00:37:00.480 --> 00:37:04.519
It's also believed that Erica stabbed Jeanie
with a knife that she carried with her

530
00:37:04.800 --> 00:37:07.639
goodness, and it's not clear if
Jeanie was already dead at this point or

531
00:37:07.679 --> 00:37:13.880
not when Erica stabbed her. Erica
then went to a convenience store to buy

532
00:37:13.920 --> 00:37:19.639
garbage bags while bj started the gruesome
job of dismembering Joshua's and Jeanie's bodies in

533
00:37:19.679 --> 00:37:22.840
the bathroom at the condo. He
cut off their heads, their arms,

534
00:37:22.960 --> 00:37:28.800
and their legs, and so they
they hadn't planned this, It just happened.

535
00:37:29.000 --> 00:37:30.599
It seems like it just happened.
Yeah, so they're just using the

536
00:37:30.679 --> 00:37:34.760
knives that I'm guessing were at the
condo. No, they had knives.

537
00:37:34.760 --> 00:37:37.519
They carried knives with them. They
were kind of like hunting knives. I'm

538
00:37:37.559 --> 00:37:40.039
not sure exactly what kind of knives
they were, but yeah, they must

539
00:37:40.039 --> 00:37:45.119
have been fairly big knives. They
carried guns and knives with them almost all

540
00:37:45.159 --> 00:37:49.079
the time. Multiple guns. Well, BJ had a gun, Erica had

541
00:37:49.079 --> 00:37:51.639
a gun, and they had another
gun that they kept in the car.

542
00:37:51.920 --> 00:37:54.679
So holy, yeah, yeah,
they were. They were armed and ready

543
00:37:54.800 --> 00:38:00.400
for whatever. So Erica's purse was
just like at the nightclub, I'm guessing,

544
00:38:00.480 --> 00:38:05.440
and they no, it was there. It was under the bed apparently

545
00:38:06.159 --> 00:38:07.480
with everything in it. Yeah,
with everything in it. Yeah, there

546
00:38:07.519 --> 00:38:12.239
was there was no truth this And
as you'll see later, I think that

547
00:38:12.320 --> 00:38:15.000
this was like a game that Erica
and BJ played like. I think they

548
00:38:15.559 --> 00:38:20.840
got off on accusing this couple of
stealing something when they knew very well that

549
00:38:20.960 --> 00:38:24.119
nothing was stolen. They played it
more than once or just they're going to

550
00:38:24.159 --> 00:38:30.960
play it again in a few days. Yeah. When BJ was dismembering the

551
00:38:30.440 --> 00:38:36.320
victim's bodies, Erica later claimed that
he got sexually excited during this process,

552
00:38:36.400 --> 00:38:39.800
saying that it had excited him more
than anything ever had before, and also

553
00:38:39.880 --> 00:38:43.840
that he suggested that they cook and
eat some of the flesh. Oh my

554
00:38:43.880 --> 00:38:46.960
god, that's disgusting. I should
have given you a trigger warding before this.

555
00:38:47.039 --> 00:38:52.599
I apologize. Erica says she told
him no to that request. At

556
00:38:52.599 --> 00:38:55.320
the same time, she said that
she was sickened by the ordeal and stayed

557
00:38:55.320 --> 00:39:00.360
away as much as possible while BJ
went about the work. But again,

558
00:39:00.400 --> 00:39:04.559
we don't know for sure exactly what's
true and what isn't. BJ wrapped the

559
00:39:04.599 --> 00:39:07.360
body parts up and brought them down
to their jeep in some storage containers.

560
00:39:08.000 --> 00:39:13.079
By this time it was about six
am. Erica says that she passed out

561
00:39:13.119 --> 00:39:15.440
in the jeep, having been awake
and drinking and doing drugs for almost twenty

562
00:39:15.480 --> 00:39:22.000
four hours. While Bja drove north
about an hour into Delaware. He put

563
00:39:22.039 --> 00:39:25.400
the body parts into two different dumpsters
behind a supermarket. Having worked at a

564
00:39:25.400 --> 00:39:30.639
grocery store during high school, he
knew that the dumpsters at larger supermarket chains

565
00:39:30.679 --> 00:39:34.719
were emptied at least two or three
times a week. When they got back,

566
00:39:35.159 --> 00:39:37.320
BJ slept for a few hours,
got up and smoked some of the

567
00:39:37.360 --> 00:39:42.159
pot that Joshua had brought over,
and then started to work cleaning the bathroom,

568
00:39:42.199 --> 00:39:45.239
which was basically covered in blood.
He went to the hardware store and

569
00:39:45.239 --> 00:39:50.679
bought cleaning supplies, working on cleaning
the scene while Erica laid out on the

570
00:39:50.679 --> 00:39:53.480
beach to keep her tan going.
Oh my God. On Monday, they

571
00:39:53.480 --> 00:39:58.320
went to home depot to buy a
new bathroom door and some paint to replace

572
00:39:58.360 --> 00:40:01.400
the door that BJ had shot through
and kicked in the kando Is it a

573
00:40:01.920 --> 00:40:07.039
do people live there or is it
more of a timeshare kind of situation.

574
00:40:07.119 --> 00:40:09.280
I think it's more of a timeshare, Like it's a resort town Ocean city,

575
00:40:09.360 --> 00:40:13.880
so I'm assuming it's a rental place
or a timeshare type of place.

576
00:40:14.000 --> 00:40:17.159
It sounds like the penthouse sweet they
were in, sounds like it was really

577
00:40:17.239 --> 00:40:22.199
nice. It was actually two stories. The bathroom and the hot tub were

578
00:40:22.280 --> 00:40:24.480
up on the second story of the
penthouse suite and it was like on the

579
00:40:24.519 --> 00:40:29.360
top story of the of the unit, like the eleventh floor. And they

580
00:40:29.400 --> 00:40:32.679
had to purchase a new bathroom door
because they were gunshots through the right and

581
00:40:32.719 --> 00:40:37.559
he had kicked it in, So
it was like basically you know, destroyed.

582
00:40:38.199 --> 00:40:42.880
Yeah, So BJ and Erica they
kept some souvenirs from the kills.

583
00:40:42.960 --> 00:40:45.880
They kept Joshua and Genie's IDs,
at least one of the bullets that was

584
00:40:46.000 --> 00:40:50.920
used in the killings, which BJ
dug out from the victims when he dismembered

585
00:40:50.960 --> 00:40:55.760
them, and a dragon ring that
Joshua had been wearing. Over the next

586
00:40:55.760 --> 00:41:00.039
few days, BJ and Erica resumed
their vacation as if nothing had happened.

587
00:41:00.079 --> 00:41:04.480
They were having the time of their
lives, living it up. Erica,

588
00:41:04.559 --> 00:41:07.480
the scrapbooking queen, took lots of
pictures to document everything. Did she take

589
00:41:07.519 --> 00:41:14.039
pictures of the victims, Not that
I know of. It's possible that she

590
00:41:14.119 --> 00:41:16.039
did, but I was not able
to find anything out about that for sure.

591
00:41:17.639 --> 00:41:22.280
On Wednesday, they went back to
the Secrets nightclub and they made a

592
00:41:22.320 --> 00:41:25.239
new friend, a guy by the
name of Todd Wright. Todd was pretty

593
00:41:25.320 --> 00:41:30.239
drunk, as was Erica, and
they must have been getting pretty obnoxious because

594
00:41:30.280 --> 00:41:35.679
a bouncer asked them to leave sometime
before midnight. Erica got belligerent. She

595
00:41:35.760 --> 00:41:38.719
took her gun out of her purse
and she started threatening the bouncer. The

596
00:41:38.719 --> 00:41:43.320
bouncer was about to call the police, but then BJ got Erica calm down

597
00:41:43.360 --> 00:41:47.119
and they left voluntarily with their new
friend Todd. As they headed back to

598
00:41:47.280 --> 00:41:52.000
BJ and Erica's condo. Todd called
a friend of his, a woman named

599
00:41:52.119 --> 00:41:57.320
Melissa Ceiling, who lived about thirty
minutes away in Delaware. He said Melissa

600
00:41:57.320 --> 00:42:00.840
should come down and join them at
another bar. She could tell that Todd

601
00:42:00.920 --> 00:42:04.480
was super drunk, and also she
was leaving for a vacation to Hawaii in

602
00:42:04.559 --> 00:42:07.320
less than two days, and so
she said no thanks, but Todd kept

603
00:42:07.320 --> 00:42:12.880
calling her until she finally agreed.
She made the drive down and then called

604
00:42:12.880 --> 00:42:15.039
to see where they should meet.
Todd said that they had gotten a flat

605
00:42:15.079 --> 00:42:19.440
tire and they were too drunk to
change it, so Melissa met up with

606
00:42:19.480 --> 00:42:23.079
them. BJ had apparently driven over
a curb and his lip was bloody from

607
00:42:23.159 --> 00:42:28.280
hitting the steering wheel. Melissa helped
them change the flat tire, and then

608
00:42:28.440 --> 00:42:31.079
they went to a bar called Fishtails
for a drink a little bit after midnight.

609
00:42:31.719 --> 00:42:37.800
This just sounds like bananas, Like
they're all just gross and drunk and

610
00:42:37.880 --> 00:42:40.559
disoriented and had no business being on
the road. Yeah, for sure.

611
00:42:40.559 --> 00:42:45.079
And Melissa, like, I can
just totally empathize with her, Like she

612
00:42:45.159 --> 00:42:47.239
gets this call from her friend who's
just she can tell is really drunk,

613
00:42:47.280 --> 00:42:52.000
and I she sho because she felt
like she needed to make sure her friend

614
00:42:52.000 --> 00:42:55.639
got home safely. Might have been
I think she went because he was very

615
00:42:55.719 --> 00:42:59.119
persistent. But yeah, I think
at the end of the day she went

616
00:42:59.119 --> 00:43:01.760
there and everybody was just wasted,
and she was trying to keep some you

617
00:43:01.800 --> 00:43:06.480
know, keep some order. On
the evening Todd when they got were at

618
00:43:06.519 --> 00:43:10.039
the Fishtails bar, Todd was like
really sloppy drunk. He spilled his drink

619
00:43:10.079 --> 00:43:14.639
and then he drank Melissa's drink.
After a short time, she was like,

620
00:43:14.679 --> 00:43:16.840
okay, time to go. She
was going to give Todd a ride,

621
00:43:16.880 --> 00:43:22.000
and she suggested that Erica and bj
call a taxi, but Erica begged

622
00:43:22.000 --> 00:43:23.440
her to give them a ride back, or at least follow them back,

623
00:43:23.480 --> 00:43:28.480
since it was only five miles.
Things got weirder when they got back to

624
00:43:28.519 --> 00:43:32.360
the condo. Erica showed Melissa her
pet cobras. She talked about snorting some

625
00:43:32.519 --> 00:43:37.159
xanax, and she invited Melissa to
jump in the hot tub with her to

626
00:43:37.280 --> 00:43:42.920
quote drive these boys crazy. So
she brought her cobras with her. Yeah,

627
00:43:42.960 --> 00:43:46.519
she had the two cobras with her
for the week. She couldn't bear

628
00:43:46.599 --> 00:43:52.159
to be apart from them a boy. At some point, events started playing

629
00:43:52.159 --> 00:43:55.199
out very similarly to the way that
they had with Joshua and Jeanie four nights

630
00:43:55.199 --> 00:44:00.559
earlier. Erica claimed that her purse
was missing started to get threatening, pulling

631
00:44:00.599 --> 00:44:06.360
his gun out. Melissa started panicking, seeing the door that had been kicked

632
00:44:06.360 --> 00:44:08.440
in with the bullet holes in it, which was still sitting there waiting to

633
00:44:08.440 --> 00:44:13.559
be replaced with the new door that
they had bought. BJ said to her,

634
00:44:14.199 --> 00:44:16.159
if you're ripping us off, We've
had other people try ripping us off.

635
00:44:16.199 --> 00:44:20.199
If you've ripped us off as other
people who were here, I'll do

636
00:44:20.239 --> 00:44:22.199
the same damn thing to you that
I did to them. These people were

637
00:44:22.239 --> 00:44:25.400
bad people. I'm ridding the earth
of bad people. They came into my

638
00:44:25.559 --> 00:44:30.320
place and ripped me off. No
more will they do that This time,

639
00:44:30.400 --> 00:44:35.920
though, instead of escalating to further
violence, things somehow seemed to calm down.

640
00:44:36.760 --> 00:44:39.519
Seeing that Melissa was nervous around the
gun, DJ actually took apart both

641
00:44:39.559 --> 00:44:45.079
his and Erica's gone to show her
how they worked. Erica snorted some xanax

642
00:44:45.119 --> 00:44:47.599
and she sat on BJ's lap.
BJ said we need to go have some

643
00:44:47.760 --> 00:44:52.440
sex, which Melissa took as a
good time to leave. I'm really hoping

644
00:44:52.440 --> 00:44:58.000
that Melissa and Todd get the heck
out of there. Yes, so Melissa

645
00:44:58.000 --> 00:45:00.039
actually did leave at that point.
I'm not sure where to Odd exactly was,

646
00:45:00.079 --> 00:45:04.320
but she left without him. But
then he called her a few minutes

647
00:45:04.320 --> 00:45:07.159
after she left and was like,
hey, where you left me behind?

648
00:45:07.159 --> 00:45:09.960
Can you come pick me up?
It was around three am by this time,

649
00:45:10.199 --> 00:45:13.920
and so Melissa said, okay,
but there's no way that I'm going

650
00:45:13.960 --> 00:45:16.000
back up in that condo, so
you need to meet me out front.

651
00:45:16.480 --> 00:45:21.199
So she drove back. He met
her out front, and Melissa drove him

652
00:45:21.199 --> 00:45:22.960
home, and then she left for
her trip to Hawaii a day and a

653
00:45:22.960 --> 00:45:27.960
half later, trying to her best
to forget about the whole evening. And

654
00:45:28.000 --> 00:45:30.360
I think she had no idea at
that point how much she and Todd literally

655
00:45:30.639 --> 00:45:36.559
dodged a bullet. Oh boy,
I'm glad they got out safely. Yeah,

656
00:45:36.599 --> 00:45:40.880
exactly. So this is a good
point to take a break and end

657
00:45:40.960 --> 00:45:44.840
part one of this case. We'll
pick it up in part two. Well,

658
00:45:44.880 --> 00:45:46.880
thank you for all the horribleness.
Yeah, it really is horrible,

659
00:45:46.920 --> 00:45:55.719
isn't it. Today being our potiversary, we talked about this a little bit

660
00:45:55.719 --> 00:46:00.199
before. One of the most shocking
things and doing the podcast, for ye

661
00:46:00.360 --> 00:46:02.639
is the amount of people that go
missing in our country every year, and

662
00:46:02.679 --> 00:46:07.039
we want to start highlighting some of
those people in cases and get more attention

663
00:46:07.280 --> 00:46:12.760
to some of the cases that don't
get as much attention. I do have

664
00:46:12.800 --> 00:46:15.760
a case I'm going to tell you
about, but I wanted to just maybe

665
00:46:15.760 --> 00:46:20.079
spend a couple of minutes talking about
some of the statistics around missing persons because

666
00:46:20.079 --> 00:46:22.519
of this kind of shocking I think. So these are from twenty twenty two,

667
00:46:22.599 --> 00:46:28.079
but over five hundred and forty six
thousand people we're reported missing in the

668
00:46:28.199 --> 00:46:32.000
US in twenty twenty two. That's
huge, I know, it really is.

669
00:46:32.760 --> 00:46:37.679
Around four four hundred unidentified bodies are
recovered each year in the UA.

670
00:46:37.840 --> 00:46:43.519
How many four four hundred? And
if you look at it by state in

671
00:46:43.519 --> 00:46:46.559
the United States, what state do
you think has the most per capita?

672
00:46:47.760 --> 00:46:53.360
I have no idea Florida. Strangely
enough, Alaska has like way way more

673
00:46:53.519 --> 00:46:58.559
missing person's cases per capita than any
other state, like more than double.

674
00:46:59.480 --> 00:47:04.400
What do you add tribute that to. I think they're I think it's because

675
00:47:04.400 --> 00:47:07.000
it's just a big area with a
lot of wilderness and people get lost or

676
00:47:07.159 --> 00:47:10.800
people go there to get away.
But well, are the people in Alaska

677
00:47:10.840 --> 00:47:15.199
that go missing or indigenous largely?
Right? Yes, and I think that

678
00:47:15.280 --> 00:47:20.280
is a big reason for it.
I think that Indigenous people are much more

679
00:47:20.880 --> 00:47:25.360
likely proportionally to go missing or to
experience violence or things like that Indigenous women.

680
00:47:25.679 --> 00:47:29.840
Yeah, right, And then I
also pulled some stats about children.

681
00:47:30.079 --> 00:47:34.119
So an estimated twenty three hundred children
go missing every day in the US.

682
00:47:35.239 --> 00:47:39.960
The National Incidents Studies of Missing,
Abducted, Runaway and Thrown Away Children program

683
00:47:40.000 --> 00:47:45.039
classifies missing kids into five categories,
so be nine reasons, which is basically

684
00:47:45.079 --> 00:47:51.159
just a misunderstanding, ran away or
thrown away. Thrown away means when a

685
00:47:51.239 --> 00:47:55.599
parent or other household adult tells a
child to leave the house without giving arranging

686
00:47:55.639 --> 00:48:04.679
for alternative care, lost or injured, family abduction, and then stranger abduction

687
00:48:04.920 --> 00:48:08.960
is the fifth category. So those
were not in any specific order. I

688
00:48:08.960 --> 00:48:15.800
would think custodial issues are probably the
primary reason that children go missing. Yeah,

689
00:48:15.800 --> 00:48:21.239
family abductions or custodial issues account for
about two hundred thousand a year of

690
00:48:21.280 --> 00:48:23.880
missing children, so that's a huge
number. Runaways is actually the biggest,

691
00:48:23.920 --> 00:48:30.719
one point five million in nineteen ninety
nine, so again runaway or thrown away.

692
00:48:30.079 --> 00:48:34.639
Which is a strange with a lot
of missing statistics is people go missing

693
00:48:34.920 --> 00:48:40.000
and then they are found and then
so the statistics are skewed. Not all

694
00:48:40.000 --> 00:48:45.880
the people that go missing are missing
forever. It's really hard to get accurate

695
00:48:45.960 --> 00:48:49.039
statistics. Yeah, it really is. There's a lot of sites that track

696
00:48:49.119 --> 00:48:52.400
this kind of thing, but it's
it is difficult. Yeah. And then

697
00:48:52.440 --> 00:48:55.320
the other statistic I wanted to talk
about is minority missing person. So we

698
00:48:55.360 --> 00:49:04.320
talked about indigenous people. But so
African American, Asian and Indian account for

699
00:49:05.079 --> 00:49:09.280
about forty three percent of missing persons, which is way more proportionally than they

700
00:49:09.480 --> 00:49:14.599
make up of the population. So
twelve to thirteen percent of the population is

701
00:49:14.599 --> 00:49:19.719
black, and yet African Americans make
up almost forty percent of children reported missing.

702
00:49:21.039 --> 00:49:23.960
And as we know, there's a
big disparity in media coverage of missing

703
00:49:23.960 --> 00:49:29.599
people who are minorities versus those who
are white for a number of different reasons.

704
00:49:29.599 --> 00:49:32.800
But that's definitely something that needs to
change, all right. So the

705
00:49:32.840 --> 00:49:37.400
case that I wanted to highlight today
is a woman named Kennedy Walton. She

706
00:49:37.599 --> 00:49:43.480
is twenty six years old, lives
in Saint Louis, Missouri. On March

707
00:49:43.639 --> 00:49:47.000
third, twenty twenty two, she
was with her mom in Belleville, Illinois,

708
00:49:47.039 --> 00:49:52.519
which is about thirty minutes from Saint
Louis. She was in town with

709
00:49:52.559 --> 00:49:58.400
her mom because she was Her mom
was having surgery, and so Kennedy returned

710
00:49:58.400 --> 00:50:01.719
home to help care for her young
her sisters. Her aunt picked her up

711
00:50:01.760 --> 00:50:07.000
on the third around noon because Kennedy's
car wasn't working, and then she left

712
00:50:07.039 --> 00:50:12.199
her mom's home at ten thirty pm
to go meet some friends. She was

713
00:50:12.199 --> 00:50:16.679
supposed to return later. She drove
her mom's white Chevy Tahoe and she went

714
00:50:16.760 --> 00:50:22.119
to a bar called the show Mes
Bar and Grill in Saint Charles, Missouri.

715
00:50:22.800 --> 00:50:27.480
She and her friends were at the
bar celebrating a friend's birthday, along

716
00:50:27.519 --> 00:50:34.159
with several other people. Her mom
texted Kennedy around midnight, and Kennedy responded

717
00:50:34.199 --> 00:50:37.719
and told her she would be on
her way home in a minute, and

718
00:50:37.719 --> 00:50:42.280
when her mom texted her again at
two am, she didn't respond. Her

719
00:50:42.360 --> 00:50:46.639
roommate. Kennedy's roommate saw her at
the bar at one am, and then

720
00:50:46.800 --> 00:50:53.039
security camera footage showed that she left
the bar at one ten am. The

721
00:50:53.119 --> 00:50:57.519
report from The security cam footage said
she gets up from her seat at the

722
00:50:57.519 --> 00:51:01.320
bar, She exited the business and
talked to what appears to be the white

723
00:51:01.440 --> 00:51:07.159
Chevy Tahoe parked in the front of
the parking lot. It also notes that

724
00:51:07.239 --> 00:51:12.079
she did not seem to be followed
by any other vehicle. A friend had

725
00:51:12.119 --> 00:51:15.480
notified detectives that Kennedy had abruptly left
the bar and that they found her in

726
00:51:15.559 --> 00:51:21.199
the car crying. She allegedly told
her friend that she would be fine,

727
00:51:21.239 --> 00:51:23.559
and then soon after the same friend
was in their vehicle on the road and

728
00:51:23.599 --> 00:51:29.079
pulled up next to Kennedy. However, Kennedy sped away, which caused concern

729
00:51:29.199 --> 00:51:32.840
with her friend. The friend then
went to Kennedy's home, not her mom's

730
00:51:32.880 --> 00:51:37.800
home, but where Kennedy lived,
and she saw Kennedy there, but she

731
00:51:37.840 --> 00:51:40.719
only got there in time to see
Kennedy driving away, and that was reportedly

732
00:51:40.760 --> 00:51:45.000
the last time that anyone saw her
or had contact with her. So she

733
00:51:45.159 --> 00:51:49.400
left the bar and then she went
to her yeah, where she lived,

734
00:51:49.440 --> 00:51:53.000
and then she left yep, and
she was alone, I think so yeah.

735
00:51:53.400 --> 00:51:58.440
She never returned to her mother's house. The next day, her cell

736
00:51:58.480 --> 00:52:02.719
phone was turned off at around noon, and then almost a week later,

737
00:52:02.760 --> 00:52:07.239
on March tenth of twenty twenty two, they found the Chevy Tahoe, which

738
00:52:07.400 --> 00:52:13.039
belonged to her mother, but they
found it abandoned only two blocks from Kennedy's

739
00:52:13.039 --> 00:52:16.000
house. So where she again,
where she lived? And it was strange

740
00:52:16.000 --> 00:52:21.559
because it wasn't there. I think, you know, they did a search

741
00:52:21.599 --> 00:52:24.639
immediately after she went missing, the
car wasn't there, but then it turned

742
00:52:24.719 --> 00:52:29.480
up like a week later, and
a neighbor said that she watched a man

743
00:52:29.639 --> 00:52:32.960
park it and get out of the
car. Oh, so that's about all

744
00:52:34.000 --> 00:52:37.119
we know. So again, she's
been missing for almost a year and a

745
00:52:37.159 --> 00:52:42.559
half now. So Kennedy, just
as far as description goes, she is

746
00:52:43.400 --> 00:52:47.280
black, somewhere between five ten and
five eleven, weighs between two hundred and

747
00:52:47.320 --> 00:52:52.519
sixty and two hundred and seventy pounds. If anyone has any information, you

748
00:52:52.519 --> 00:52:57.119
should contact the Belleville Police Department.
So her cell phone, do you think

749
00:52:57.119 --> 00:53:00.559
it ran out of battery or was
it turned off? I don't think there's

750
00:53:00.559 --> 00:53:05.159
any way to know that cell phone
ping data well, I think the ping

751
00:53:05.239 --> 00:53:09.320
data showed that it was turned off
at noon the day after she disappeared,

752
00:53:09.320 --> 00:53:12.760
But I don't know if they know
what you know, if it was turned

753
00:53:12.800 --> 00:53:19.400
off or if it ran out of
battery and the car's data, the Tahoe's

754
00:53:19.440 --> 00:53:22.599
data, we don't know, like
where it went. No, I don't

755
00:53:22.599 --> 00:53:25.960
information. I haven't seen any information
on that. Okay, well, we'll

756
00:53:25.960 --> 00:53:30.239
post a picture of Kennedy on social
media and hope that she is found.

757
00:53:30.239 --> 00:53:35.920
But yeah, if anybody does have
information, the Belleville, Illinois Police Department

758
00:53:36.159 --> 00:53:38.800
are the people to call. Well. I hope she's found safely, thoughts

759
00:53:38.840 --> 00:53:43.800
to her family. A lot of
people think if someone goes missing, you

760
00:53:43.840 --> 00:53:45.960
have to wait forty eight hours,
and I think it's different in different areas

761
00:53:46.000 --> 00:53:51.480
and according to the age of the
person that goes missing, but it's worth

762
00:53:51.480 --> 00:54:01.280
the shot to call your police department. I hope everyone's having a spooky October

763
00:54:01.679 --> 00:54:07.239
and enjoying the cozy season. Last
night we watched a movie. Do you

764
00:54:07.239 --> 00:54:08.599
want to talk about it a little
bit? Yeah, it was called No

765
00:54:08.679 --> 00:54:13.159
One Will Save You, and it
was it was a very interesting movie,

766
00:54:13.280 --> 00:54:15.199
was very different, Like I don't
I don't want to give any spoilers away,

767
00:54:15.360 --> 00:54:19.239
so I'm struggling a little bit to
talk about it. But it was

768
00:54:20.000 --> 00:54:23.639
kind of an alien invasion type of
thing. Well, say how you found

769
00:54:23.639 --> 00:54:29.599
the movie. I found the movie
because Stephen King, the great horror author,

770
00:54:30.159 --> 00:54:32.639
tweeted about it, saying how it
was really great, like really innovative

771
00:54:32.679 --> 00:54:36.119
movie. He compared it to some
episode of the Twilight Zone, which I

772
00:54:36.159 --> 00:54:39.239
didn't remember. But yeah, so
we thought, well Stephen, good enough

773
00:54:39.280 --> 00:54:44.119
for Stephen King, good enough for
us in spooky season, right, Yeah,

774
00:54:44.119 --> 00:54:49.880
it's different. I think I would
give it a six out of ten.

775
00:54:50.239 --> 00:54:53.079
What would you rate it? Probably
similar? Maybe maybe seven, six

776
00:54:53.199 --> 00:54:59.000
or seven. I mean it was
I admire them trying something really different and

777
00:54:59.159 --> 00:55:01.480
innovative. Well can we I don't
want to give it any spoilers either,

778
00:55:01.559 --> 00:55:05.320
but I think I think it's okay
to tell our listeners. There was no

779
00:55:05.400 --> 00:55:07.719
dialogue in the movie, pretty much
no dialogue. There was audio, but

780
00:55:07.760 --> 00:55:12.599
there was no dialogue. Yeah.
And it was definitely an artsier movie.

781
00:55:12.800 --> 00:55:17.119
Yep. So yeah, that sounds
intriguing to you. You are probably more

782
00:55:17.159 --> 00:55:21.480
tolerant of art movies than I am. I mean it was a horror movie

783
00:55:21.559 --> 00:55:22.719
for sure, Yeah, but it
was one of those movies that kind of

784
00:55:22.760 --> 00:55:27.400
leaves your your head scratching your head, like not sure. I know exactly

785
00:55:27.400 --> 00:55:30.119
what happened or how to explain what
happened. So and I don't want to

786
00:55:30.119 --> 00:55:31.320
say more than that, but yeah, if you like, if you don't

787
00:55:31.320 --> 00:55:37.000
mind movies that are ambiguous, that
you don't necessarily understand everything that happened or

788
00:55:37.039 --> 00:55:40.480
the meaning of it. It's pretty
much a solo performance for Caitlin Ever who

789
00:55:40.760 --> 00:55:45.960
twenty six years old, amazing young
actress. I mean she really she does

790
00:55:45.000 --> 00:55:49.880
a great job. Yeah, so
check it out. If that sounds interesting

791
00:55:50.000 --> 00:55:53.920
to you or not, well,
thanks everyone again for listening. We truly

792
00:55:53.960 --> 00:55:57.719
appreciate each and every one of you. It's been a great year. Thank

793
00:55:57.760 --> 00:56:00.480
you so much for hanging out with
us. Yeah, follow us on social

794
00:56:00.559 --> 00:56:05.360
media Instagram, Facebook, Twitter,
wherever you go for your social stuff,

795
00:56:05.719 --> 00:56:08.920
and consider Patreon because this is a
two parter and if you follow, if

796
00:56:08.960 --> 00:56:14.039
you are a Patreon, then you
get episode two immediately at patreon dot com.

797
00:56:14.039 --> 00:56:16.719
Slash Love Mary, Kill Until next
time, don't kill your wife,

798
00:56:16.880 --> 00:56:17.840
don't forget to flow us