Ep10 - Brianna Maitland
Jill: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to cocktails mocktails on crime. Where are your hosts? Jill
Gracia: [00:00:05] Gracia
Dave: [00:00:05] Dave
Don: [00:00:07] Don
Steve: [00:00:08] Steve.
Jill: [00:00:08] Good one. Daddy. I was waiting to see how long it was going to take you to figure that out.
Gracia: [00:00:14] You're going to make up a name there for a moment.
Jill: [00:00:18] So we're kind of doing a sort of a part two from last week, but before we get started with our crime of the week Gracia can you talk to us about what we're drinking
Gracia: [00:00:28] today? Yes, I was up at Parker's maple barn up in New Hampshire and they have like this great gift shop if anybody's ever been there. And there was a guy up there sampling his stuff that he makes out of his house.
So I bought all three cars, kind of girl I am. And he makes these like, uh, cocktail mixers. And the flavors of the season, because they do change by season. He said, so you can't always get all of these flavors. Um, I bought blue brand lavender, Blackberry, and Sage and strawberry rhubarb. The is a company called woodstove kitchen.
If you go to our Facebook, I did link his Facebook. So you can order from him there. He has like drinks of the month. We are having it with, uh, Tito's handmade vodka, and then it's a little sweet for me. So I add a little bit of soda water. Yeah.
Jill: [00:01:11] I'm I'm drinking the blueberry one and I think it's actually fantastic, but it was a little sweet.
I was glad we had the soda water to break it up. Steve, which one are you drinking?
Steve: [00:01:21] I really like it.
Don: [00:01:22] That's
Gracia: [00:01:23] fairly good. Dave, how were they as non alcoholic drinks?
Dave: [00:01:25] Yeah, they're good. Um, the, uh, I use the blueberry lavender. Um, I'll probably try the strawberry rhubarb at some point. Um, Blackberry and Sage might not be my thing.
I don't know.
Gracia: [00:01:38] Yeah.
Jill: [00:01:38] When I was initially like looking at the post, I was like, Oh, those sound odd, but actually they taste
Gracia: [00:01:44] good. And if you go to his Facebook or his Instagram, both of them, he has like recipes for making margaritas and mules and some really delicious cocktails out of these. And in the winter he does like mulled wine, those kinds of things.
So, yeah. And I like that. They're all
Jill: [00:01:59] natural to be
Gracia: [00:02:00] too important to us and in their glass containers. So, yeah.
Jill: [00:02:05] Cool. All right. So do you want to get started? Gracia what are we talking about this week?
Gracia: [00:02:10] This week? We're going to talk about Brianna Maitland. And the reason we're going to add her in is because when I was doing the Maura Murray case, I kept getting distracted by Brianna.
She kept coming up in multiple podcasts, multiple books. She comes up all over the place. So, and inherently like I do in these podcasts, I went to left field and researched her too much. So why not do a whole episode on her?
Don: [00:02:33] Absolutely. Imagine you knew a bright young lady, young adult really. That everyone, including you found engaging and just fun to be with.
Imagine you were her closest friend, a sibling, a parent, and in one seemingly dark moment, she was gone from your life. Imagine the void, emptiness and heartache and loss. Absolutely. Imagine years have gone by - 17 - with no answers. You long for finding her, or at least knowing what happened to her. Hoping somebody would connect the mysterious dots and see something everyone else had overlooked, maybe a podcast listener, Mike
Gracia: [00:03:23] so let's talk about the case. Brianna Maitland was born October 8th, 1986 in Burlington, Vermont. Her parents are Bruce and Kelly Maitland. She was raised along with her older brother on a family farm in East Franklin, Vermont. It's very close to the Canadian border, less than 900 people, small town. She was affectionately known as Bree or B and was well-liked well-rounded young lady who was a joy to be around her spontaneity and overall happiness, her results in her gravitating towards anybody around her.
Her favorite activities were jiu jitsu and being an avid reader.
Jill: [00:04:00] Oh, jujitsu. That's interesting.
Don: [00:04:02] Well, let me say something about that for a minute. I think a lot of people who look into, um, this young lady think that well, jiu jitsu, she had jiu jitsu for three years. That means she could take on anybody.
That's not true. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is a ground fighting art for the most part. It takes many years of training to use it for in real world self-defense, rape defense, things of that nature.
Gracia: [00:04:26] But I think it kind of shows her character. Those two things are very detailed orientated. Jiu jitsu is an art at the same time. And reading, those are kind of, kind of tells you who Brianna was on those two things.
Don: [00:04:37] Yes, absolutely.
Gracia: [00:04:39] Um, she's often described as being too trusting. She is a real go getter, but she's afraid of stepping on other people's toes at the same time. So it's kind of an interesting personality.
Don: [00:04:49] You know, her being too trusting really hurts to hear that. Hurts you to hear that.
Gracia: [00:04:54] Yeah. Um, so let's talk about her past before we get to what happened to her. So on her 17th birthday, Brianna decided she wants to move away from her parents' farm. She kind of had these like big city dreams. Like this place is too small for me. I got to go somewhere else. But when we say big city, we mean big city, Vermont, not BIG CITY big city.
Yeah. So she must have Montgomery, which is like, you know what I mean? Like a bigger city, but not necessarily a city. Um, but she's 17 and she's, you know, getting towards that age. So her parents are like, you know what? You have friends over there. She wants to go to a different school because she wants more opportunities.
So she moves in with her best friend. Her name is Jillian. So she at first goes to high school with Jillian for a while. And then she decides high school is not for me. I'm going to drop out, um, to talk about the area at the time. There is a huge wave of crack cocaine coming in through New York. And Brianna starts to feed into this.
She starts to feed into the party scene. She starts doing some drugs, but she is living on her own now. So she has to be able to pay for all of this on her own. So she gets two jobs. Okay. She drops out of school and becomes a dishwasher and a waitress. She is a dishwasher at the Black Lantern Inn, and she's a waitress at the breakfast place in St. Albans.
On Friday, March 19th, 2004. We're going to start the day before she goes away. Um, because she disappears sometime after midnight that night. So let's just talk about the 24 hours leading up to where Brianna goes. Okay. Yeah. So that morning she gets up past breakfast. She takes her GED exam. So she enrolled in the course, passed it with flying colors.
She's a smart girl. She just, school wasn't her thing.
Jill: [00:06:34] School isn't everybody's thing.
Gracia: [00:06:35] I agree with you. I think that we all know people in life that just
Don: [00:06:39] It was never mine.
Jill: [00:06:40] I know. Yeah, that's true. It's not, Jesse's either, you know.
Gracia: [00:06:44] It happens to the best of us. After completing her GED test, her mother takes her out for a celebratory lunch. Um, immediately she says, I think I passed. I did really great. Can't wait to go to college. I'm going to make something of myself. I'm sorry about what's been going on. She was in very good spirits after lunch. They figured let's go shopping, run some errands. So they start going around downtown St. Alban's and, I don't know what that looks like. If anybody's been to St. Albans, maybe you can help.
Jill: [00:07:13] I think we've only been as far North as Burlington.
Gracia: [00:07:16] I hear it's not too far from Jay's peak. So if anybody has skied there,
Jill: [00:07:20] maybe Jesse, but he's not here.
Dave: [00:07:24] The only time I've tried skiing, I almost broke my leg. You know, walking, I'm starting to get the hang of it.
Gracia: [00:07:33] That's already taken me how many years? So it's getting maybe a few more.
Jill: [00:07:36] I tried snow boarding once, but I couldn't even stand up. Like 45 minutes later, me and Kuryn I was like, fuck this Kuryn let's go get drinks.
Gracia: [00:07:45] I don't even know that I like, I like the skis because my feet are two separate. Like I think because you walk. Yeah. When I was snowboarding, I just couldn't keep the balance of just being locked into one thing.
Steve: [00:07:54] I tried that. My ass killed the whole day.
Jill: [00:07:59] My ass kills every day too. I was like,
Gracia: [00:08:02] where's the jokes from the corner over here about Steve's ass.
Steve: [00:08:07] It's a good ass.
Don: [00:08:09] He's married to my daughter and he thinks I got a good ass.
Dave: [00:08:21] He thinks you are an ass.
Jill: [00:08:30] Okay Gracia.
Gracia: [00:08:31] Okay. Back to shopping. So Brianna and her mom go for an afternoon shopping trip. They're running some errands while they're down there and they're waiting in line at one of the stores to check out. Kelly said that something caught Brianna's attention and she got a little weird and then just said, mom, I have to go outside.
Brianna goes outside, talks to somebody. Kelly doesn't know who it is, but she does talk to a male. Talks to the man. Kelly's completing her purchases, gets out to the parking lot to meet Brianna. Her daughter seems very unnerved, shaken, agitated, almost nervous. She tells her mother, I need to go home. I still have to work today and you could tell that something's off, but she doesn't want to push her because her quality time with her is, um, not as much as it used to be because she doesn't live in the home anymore, they live far apart. So she's like, you know what, I'm just going to stay in my lane. And if she wants to talk about it, she'll talk about it with me.
Kelly mentioned like, sh I didn't realize that this was the last time I was ever going to see my daughter. Oh yeah. And in hindsight, she like really eats herself up about this. I saw her in a couple of news articles about that moment where she just let it go saying to parents, like, as much as you want to let it go, and you want to preserve the relationship, it's important to just say to your kid, like, Hey, do you need me? Because what if that situation, he was the person who took her.
Jill: [00:09:50] It's a balancing act though. I mean, I'm sure I'd be like tearing myself up too if it was one of my kids, but you know, like, I dunno, Lani was talking about something with McKenzie last night at dinner and I was like, Lani, tell me about it and she was like I have "I have secrets. You know what I mean? Like, and so you don't want to invade their privacy either. Yeah.
Gracia: [00:10:10] That's where she was saying she was trying to play the safe side and like, but she said, what if that, like, even if she just said, Oh, who was that? Maybe she would have had some indication of who she was in her...
she eats herself a lot. Like the interview was pretty sad and it made me think as a mom, like, what would I done? Like, I would've done the same as her. I probably would've just let it go. She want to talk to me. She want to talk to me, but now look at all the regrets she has because of that. So know there's a balance balance there. I think, you know, anyways, so now
Don: [00:10:39] It's part of that pain. Yeah. As a parent, she's being very hard on herself.
Dave: [00:10:45] Yeah. Guilt is certainly one of the phases. And when you don't have a final answer on somebody, like you can never get through the phases of grieving. I mean, if it would be hard enough, you know, when it's your kid anyways to, but you, you don't even know like, You know, I mean, she's gonna wake up some mornings, probably like, is my daughter, maybe my daughter is still alive, you know?
I mean, you know, that's gotta be so awful for her.
Gracia: [00:11:15] The press even eats her up at some point because she let her daughter move out at 17. Right. Like she was like, what was I supposed to do? Like, lots of parents do this.
Steve: [00:11:24] 17.
Jill: [00:11:26] I moved out when I was 17 day after I graduated high school. I don't want to live with those crazy centers.
Don: [00:11:33] Actually. You did Jill. You moved right out.
We notice it right away. It got really quiet.
Gracia: [00:11:44] I just feel bad. When you see the interviews with the mom, you do feel definitely bad for her because she saw her the last day. Like, and her husband is out of town at the time. He's off at somewhere. I forget where they said he was, but she was the one that last had that moment. And she feels like she blew it.
Steve: [00:11:59] The what if game is like the hardest thing.
Jill: [00:12:02] Oh gosh. Yeah.
Gracia: [00:12:04] So she drops Brianna off back at her apartment. She sometime between three 30 and four writes a quick note to her roommate saying I'm headed to work. I'll stay tomorrow morning, goes to work. Shift is normal, no big deal. She's a dishwasher at this one.
So she's at the Black Lantern this night. She washes dishes till around 1130 leaves by midnight, just making sure that was right. She has a completely normal shift. She clocks out, she leaves the Black Lantern, but before she leaves the Black Lantern, all of her coworkers are going out for like food and drinks.
Cause we've all been there. And that's what you do after a restaurant night. And she's like, you know what? I have to open in the morning at the waitressing job. At four o'clock in the morning I serve breakfast. I can't go out. I gotta be there in a few hours. So she says no. And starts heading out.
This is where things go wrong. Less than a mile away from where she is, is where her car accident happens. So
Don: [00:13:02] how long would it take to drive a mile?
Dave: [00:13:05] Um, yeah, two minutes.
Gracia: [00:13:09] Well,
Jill: [00:13:09] it takes me less than 10 minutes to run a mile. So in a car, yeah, it should be just a couple minutes
Don: [00:13:16] because I think this is a key one, right? This is a key clue.
Gracia: [00:13:19] I think it is too. We're going to talk about that in a moment about our suspects, but Don brings up a very good point that like she's so close. The person had to follow her from work or had to be in that parking lot or had to be in the car. Just like you were talking before, you know, there had to be some kind of following here.
Um, so we'll talk about the day of the disappearance. Uh, Vermont state police received a report of abandoned car on a property known as the old Dutch barn barn. Old Dutch burn barn. That's like a tongue twister, old Dutch burn barn. Say it again, guys with times fast. This was in the town of Montgomery, Vermont, as we said, and I put a picture of this out on Facebook this week so that you guys could kind of see it in advance because that car that's the barn, it's an abandoned barn.
So it is boarded up. But the force that she hits it is something crazy. So she's driving a green, 1985 Oldsmobile Delta. You guys saw the car. It's like a bomber, right?
Don: [00:14:18] So powerful.
Jill: [00:14:18] I thought it was a Lincoln at first. It was like a huge ass car.
Gracia: [00:14:22] Remember the car that I drove in college, that my grandfather got me that big boat.
Like, it literally reminded me of that. And you, that thing could take a beating so it could hit that barn at a good force and nothing could be wrong with the car. Cause those cars were so solid
Don: [00:14:38] and it hit the barn the ass end.
Gracia: [00:14:40] Yeah. Like she backed into it. Yeah.
Don: [00:14:46] Or somebody did.
Dave: [00:14:49] Pretty hard to get a car in reverse, going fast, going that fast.
Don: [00:14:54] That car was up on his back wheels. When it was left,
Dave: [00:14:59] they were spinning out almost
Gracia: [00:15:01] So much so the rear bumper got stuck on the foundation of the home. So like it gets up there.
Steve: [00:15:06] Could it be like a struggle and someone hit a reverse and it went back?
Dave: [00:15:09] Possibly.
Gracia: [00:15:10] Well, there are no indications that it went off the road in any uncontrolled manner.
There's no skid marks, no nothing. So that's the part that the cops are like, did she just purposely like, you'd have to put it in reverse and just gun it to hit it the way you hit it. You know, she would've had to been going in a good force. Hmm. The responding trooper...
Sorry. I always laugh when the cops come into play cuz they always just do the interesting, most interesting things. He doesn't find anybody there. He walks around the car a couple of times, the doors of the vehicle unlocked, the keys are missing. The officer noted that there were several items inside the vehicle, including two unopened paychecks from the Black Lantern, but they're addressed to Brianna Maitland.
So he heads down to the Lantern to be like, Hey, does anybody know who Brown Maitland is? We just found her car. The establishment is closed. So he just decides it's a drunk driver and goes home
Don: [00:16:02] Goes on vacation.
Gracia: [00:16:04] Yeah, I'm all set. I'm on vacation. Fuck this girl.
Jill: [00:16:09] Well, they do have a right to take vacation.
Gracia: [00:16:14] So Brianna is not reported missing for a full day because she doesn't live at home with mom and dad. Her roommate is out. Remember, so that's why she deleted the note. So her roommate comes home, sees the note and says, wait a minute, she hasn't been home.
I'm going to call her mom and see if she decided to stay with her mom. She waits till Tuesday. Then Kelly says, Oh, wait a minute. She's not with us. She's not with you. Let's make some phone calls. So the two of them start calling everybody they know. They can't, nobody's seen him, her employers find out she didn't show up to work the next morning.
So there's all these little pieces that start like making the parents panic more and more and more. So then they call the cops, not the cops called them because
Steve: [00:16:54] So at this time they don't know about the accident.
Gracia: [00:16:56] No. And the car was registered to the mother. So I feel like that's the first thing a state trooper does, right?
Yeah. Checks the registration calls the owner and says, Hey, we found your car.
Jill: [00:17:07] Well, on the other hand, they make money with towing and storage. So if you never tell someone that their car's in storage, imagine the fees.
Gracia: [00:17:15] I mean, we're going a couple of days. Of course, once all of this comes into play, you know,
Jill: [00:17:19] And this is the nineties, right?
Gracia: [00:17:20] 2004.
Jill: [00:17:23] Oh, okay. So she would maybe have had a cell phone
Dave: [00:17:25] She might have, but you know, not everybody had a cell phone in '04 . Right. It was still kind of coming around and she's only 17 working as a dishwasher
Jill: [00:17:35] And she has to pay for it herself probably. Okay.
Dave: [00:17:37] So maybe not.
Don: [00:17:38] Like their idea of a cell tower in those days in that area was like a squirrel with a string tied to its ass.
Gracia: [00:17:44] Yeah. And you're talking about like 900 people in a, in a city that's not, yeah.
Dave: [00:17:48] Yeah. There's only like 700,000 people in the entire state of Vermont Like there are actually streets in this country that have larger populations than the state of Vermont. So.
Gracia: [00:18:00] Okay. And it's so close to Canada. Like years ago, I went to a Grateful Dead concert up there.
Be quiet on that everybody else. Um, and you can literally see the Canadian border from where the, like one of the fields
Dave: [00:18:12] You see the Canadian border at any Grateful Dead concert. I mean, it could be in Florida. Yeah.
Gracia: [00:18:20] If it's any consolation, Bob Dylan opened up. So I saw two greats in one day,
Don: [00:18:24] But you know, it's so poignant when the trains come down from Canada, they go canuck canuck canuck,
Jill: [00:18:32] Take it easy on little Craiggie
over there.
Gracia: [00:18:34] Yeah. We love Canada. It's just the middle of nowhere, right? Like where they are is the middle of nowhere. That's the point of this? We do love our Canadians. Um, so she's called everybody. Now.
She goes into the Vermont state police and says, my daughter's missing. Trooper is back from vacation and shows him a picture on his cell phone. Oh, is this your car? Hmm.
Dave: [00:18:55] Hmm.
Don: [00:18:57] You must be a detective.
Gracia: [00:19:02] This is literally what I feel like is the funniest part of it, where he was like, Oh, I'm back. Do you want to take a look at my phone?
Like, not like in my absence, one of my other people called you and we left messages, like, Hmm. Wanna look at my phone?
Steve: [00:19:13] Plus the phone...plus the phone is not the best quality picture. No, it's like two megabytes.
Jill: [00:19:23] Well, he had a cell phone though. That's good news.
Gracia: [00:19:25] Good news. Somebody does, right. It's probably like a government, a perk or something at that point.
They'd probably get like the old fashioned ones with the bags.
Yeah. We're just being funny now. Anyways, um, Kelly says that she is instantly revulsed. Feels like she's going to throw up, but she says that she almost goes like into denial, like, Oh, that's not my car. Like that picture is so crappy that can't be my car. Brianna would never leave a car in such a way. So now, before we continue with the case, cause now we're into the case, right?
We didn't, I mean, we don't even know what happened really, but there was some weird facts about this and Don and I both feel like this is a very interesting part. There are many witnesses that go by and don't call the cops,
Don: [00:20:10] Half the fucking town.
Dave: [00:20:12] How close is the barn to the road?
Don: [00:20:14] Everybody comes forward. Oh yeah. I saw it, I saw it
Gracia: [00:20:17] Right on the road. It's very close.
Craig: [00:20:19] Probably talking 20 or 30 feet,
Jill: [00:20:22] So wait a minute. So half the fucking town drives past the car, that's in a building, but nobody stops.
Don: [00:20:30] The lights are on in the car. The doors are open if you backed into a barn, but. It's Vermont
Gracia: [00:20:37] They all drive by like it's none of their business. Like this part, like blows me away.
The call comes in from a neighbor the next day, when she like, gets up to go for her walk and is like, Oh, look, there's a car in the barn. I'm going to make a phone call. But like afterwards, between like all of these times and there's friends who drive by an ex-boyfriend who drives by
Don: [00:21:00] Talk about that. This is a great boyfriend. I love this guy.
Gracia: [00:21:05] He literally pulls over, gets out of the car and says, huh, that looks like Brianna's car goes over to it. Turns off the lights closes the door and leaves
Steve: [00:21:17] Did he do anything else?
Gracia: [00:21:19] Well we don't know
Steve: [00:21:25] No, like contact someone like the parents or friends
Dave: [00:21:29] So he made sure that her battery didn't die although her car is lodged inside of a building and I'm like, Oh, you're going to..you're going to kill your battery doing that
Gracia: [00:21:47] That's what we're talking about, she hangs out with a lot of people who are doing drugs. So we have to kind of think about that, that like these aren't people that like, Hey, let's call the cops. They're not their best friends. Okay. All right. But,
Steve: [00:22:01] but, but I would, I would do all that, you know, go to a car if I knew it was hers.
All right. Take things. Check. Everything's fine. And then go contact somebody,
Gracia: [00:22:10] Right. Call 911 when you're home and safe
Steve: [00:22:13] But like try to contact her and try to get in touch with friends. And nobody knows then yeah. Call the cops.
Don: [00:22:21] Imagine that was Christina.
Dave: [00:22:23] Yeah. Well, with cons that do drugs so that you wouldn't call nine one one because you'd probably assume that it might be something in their car that they could get caught with.
So, yeah. Yeah. I was thinking
Gracia: [00:22:34] if he was on something he could have, like, he's a known drug user.
Jill: [00:22:37] Yeah, sure. But even if you're an okay, to be honest I've never been on crack cocaine. So I honestly don't know how I would react to a car in a building at that state, but I feel like I'd be like, what? This is different.
Don: [00:22:49] I wonder if it's real. Touch your car. No you're really there.
Gracia: [00:22:59] The only experience I have with crack is that Dee and her brother on It's Always Sunny, loves crack cocaine. They talk about it all the time. So anyway, that's only experience. So I get why he didn't call if he was on drugs. But I feel like you would go home and at least make a phone call or maybe like, have somebody else like, Hey, I just saw Brianna's car.
I'm worried. Even if it wasn't your ex, I would say something. If it was a random girl on the side of the highway, like this is definitely an accident. Something definitely happened. It's not like, Oh, that happens all the time. You know, it's not like a normal breakdown where cars on the side of the road.
Yeah. Yeah. So there's a few, her, some of her friends go by a few motorists, go by. No, nobody stops
Don: [00:23:42] Like I said, half the fucking town. Correct. There was a parade. OK I exaggerate.
Gracia: [00:23:50] One of her friends later says that she's she stopped, got out of the car, went over to it and found loose, change a bracelet and a water bottle on the ground.
Okay. But you still don't like, say anything. You're just going to tell me what you found. Did you keep it? Like, I don't even understand these people. Wow.
Jill: [00:24:07] And so, and since the cop didn't think anything of it, either, of a preserved crime, scene
Don: [00:24:14] You wanna murder somebody I know right
Jill: [00:24:17] where to go
Steve: [00:24:21] this is sounding like a Vermont thing and not really a.
Dave: [00:24:24] Yeah, it is. Yeah. Like they're always getting abducted by aliens. I need to get out of here. I'm in Vermont.
Gracia: [00:24:35] I dunno if you guys remember from the last episode, Tim and Lance were two of the podcasters I talked about, they spend like three or four episodes on Brianna trying to connect her to Maura. And one of the parts that they say about it, why they don't think they're connected is Vermont's just weird and what's going on there.
This is so different from what is going on in New Hampshire. How can you link these two? It's just two totally different worlds.
Because like he said the drugs were coming through there. The cops weren't paying attention to a lot of things. Like this is so different than New Hampshire, where she got in the accident. Like, and skidded on ice. Like at least there was a reason for her accident and you saw it like this one just looks like, what the hell?
How did she back into the house? Like this? It doesn't make any sense.
Don: [00:25:15] No skid marks. Nothing. It was just weird,
Gracia: [00:25:19] It is weird with no skid marks, like, think about how fast she had to go to get her tires up on that foundation.
Dave: [00:25:24] Or did the cop just not really look for skid marks because he was doing such a half-ass job planning for vacation.
Craig: [00:25:33] You see the way this car is into the barn and there's no way that she was driving along and accidentally went off the road.
Like clearly it was backed in
Jill: [00:25:41] clearly. Yeah. And imagine too, like you're a cop and you're like, there's a car in a barn. Well, but I have vacation. So ...
Dave: [00:25:49] He's getting out of Vermont You can't blame the guy Like, I've got to get out of here before I get abducted by aliens. And I don't give them the Cape. What the fuck?
Gracia: [00:26:00] What the fuck? I think you don't like, Hey, I'm going on vacation. Let me fill in somebody before let's like, get another cop on this. Then he comes back from vacation and just shows the photo. Like it's like, look at that
Steve: [00:26:12] Is that like information we're missing because he sounds really like
a dolt
Gracia: [00:26:19] That's Vermont. It's so funny. The other day I was talking to one of my friends and she's a, uh, definitely a blue lives matter type of person. And she's like, Oh, I was gonna listen to your podcast. I'm like, you probably shouldn't,
Jill: [00:26:29] uh, you know, the only thing worse than Vermont.
Fall River.
Don: [00:26:36] We're not going to have much of an audience
Gracia: [00:26:46] Last year, I went up to this section of Vermont and I hiked I'm doing a go North nine challenge where you hike all of the mountains that are like on the Canadian border. I've done eight out of the nine. My friend Jane is going with me. So two women, but still so fun. And we have one more to go
Steve: [00:27:01] Ha ha Jane
Gracia: [00:27:02] And there is
Jill: [00:27:04] Why is that funny?
Steve: [00:27:10] No, because if you guys,
if you guys go missing, you know, her name is Jane they're like, Oh, and so you don't know the person's name?
Well her name is Jane,
Gracia: [00:27:19] Like Jane Doe
Dave: [00:27:21] or like Mary Jane up in Vermont.
Don: [00:27:29] You weren't born there.
Gracia: [00:27:31] My point of this was the mountains. You've actually come down to the Canadian side. So there's border patrol all around the bar. And when you're up there, you do not get any cell service though. Like even when I'm on the mountain, I have to turn it to airplane, motor, it just drains and drains and drains.
Wow. So I think the fact that nobody called probably has something to do with that. However, they all have, they all have landlines when they get home. So I don't agree with that. Like, I can see it where they're like, Oh, we're a little out of touch up here. But you know, you have some way of communicating with the police.
Jill: [00:28:00] Theoretically,
Gracia: [00:28:03] Go there, like go to the police station.
Don: [00:28:05] Smoke signals. Of course it was night.
Jill: [00:28:10] Not when the entire town drove by the car.
Gracia: [00:28:18] At midnight, like throw that up. Is nobody asleep
Jill: [00:28:26] Judgment free,
Gracia: [00:28:26] judgment free zone here. Um, there is something that a lot of podcasts just bring up, so I'm gonna bring it up real quick. Brianna was in an altercation with another girl at a party three weeks before this happened. She is very active in the drug scene and she goes to these parties that are something we probably have no idea of because we don't do those kinds of things, but she is 17 and she's flirty and she has no boyfriend.
So she's at the party. And she flirts with this guy. Well, he has a girlfriend. She's there with her friends. They, they somehow confront her in the party. At that part. They didn't really talk about a lot, but she's confronted in the party enough that Brianna's like, I gotta get myself out of here. I'm by myself.
Yeah. She goes to the car of her. Ex-boyfriend don't know if it's the same ex boyfriend he's at the party. And she was like, Hey, can I go hang out in your truck til my friend gets here that he can drive me home. She goes out to the truck. These girls come out there and they beat her up severely. Like she, she gets a concussion.
Don: [00:29:25] Told you that jiu jitsu was amazing.
Gracia: [00:29:28] So she gets beat up, but she, and she doesn't fight back at all. And there's a lot of argument about why she doesn't, she doesn't know how she doesn't know how we think is that she's not prepared for that kind of fighting
Don: [00:29:39] Brazilian jiu jitus is not sitting in a car while somebody is punching you through an open window. They don't cover that in the first few lessons. But
Gracia: [00:29:48] yeah, if you see the photos of her and I'll grab one off online, but they, she files a report. It was a mess. Yeah. She got her.
Jill: [00:29:55] Did she consider rolling up the window?
Don: [00:29:58] Even blocking
Gracia: [00:30:00] Right. Moving to the other side of the fucking truck. Well, you probably had to crank it solid point there, but it's a truck.
So there's a bench seat, probably slide over, over slide over. So like, are they crawling in the window? How high off the ground is this truck? Like,
Steve: [00:30:19] let's not blame her.
Gracia: [00:30:21] No, I'm not blaming her, but, um
Don: [00:30:23] The point I'm trying to raise Steve is that, um, that, you know, I, in so many places, I saw that jiu jitsu thing as if somehow she had some secret power that nobody should have been able to overcome her.
No. And this is a case in point. Yeah.
Dave: [00:30:41] And you know, even if you're, even if you're a good fighter, if you're, if there's more than one opponent, you're in trouble, They outnumber you, you probably don't want to fight back if you. If they are popular at that party and you're not the worst thing you can do is actually go out and win because you might have six or seven people jumping on you at the same time. So, I mean, especially if you're dealing with drugs and maybe somebody has a gun or what
Gracia: [00:31:17] And a large portion of these people are from the New York drug scene.
So they're not even from the area they're coming through and they're moving the drugs to Canada.
Jill: [00:31:26] Well, and it might matter like why you're taking jujitsu lessons. Like, I mean, I've taken kickboxing lessons for weight loss, but good Lord. Like shouldn't throw any uppercuts. You know what I mean? Like, well,
Don: [00:31:38] Kickboxing is actually better for streetfighting than Brazilian jujitsu is in the beginning.
Take it from an old martial artists.
Dave: [00:31:47] Okay.
Steve: [00:31:49] What was that? A other one? That's good for stuff like this. Oh
Dave: [00:31:52] my
Don: [00:31:52] Krav Maga. This is something I recommend for women. Model mugging is something else I would recommend for, um, for women. Very realistic training. Yep. Puts you in the right mindset.
Gracia: [00:32:07] Good to know.
Okay. So she let's go back to her. She goes to the hospital, she gets treatment. She has two black eyes. Facial cuts, a concussion, a broken nose. Wow. The cops show up. Yeah. They beat the heck out of her.
Steve: [00:32:20] Was this just guys or also girls. Oh, just girls.
Jill: [00:32:24] Girls are vicious, man.
Gracia: [00:32:25] They are vicious. I worked in a female prison for a little bit crazy.
Um, she filed a criminal complaint that was still pending at the time of her disappearance. They ended up dropping it like three weeks after she disappears because her parents were like, she can't show up in any court appearance. We're just going to let this go. We're just hoping our daughter comes back.
We're not going to keep fighting it. Um, so we're going to stop with that part. Now we're going to go on to her car. Um, Don found a couple of cool facts, so there's like three facts I'm going to bring up that are kind of random, but they showed up in his research. So I think we should talk about them a little bit.
On March 30th. So that's about 21 days after all of this happened, the Oldsmobile was finally processed by the state crime lab. So now there's no signs of struggle or that she met with foul play. However, there is some DNA, uh, so they have proof. So whenever they do find a suspect, they have DNA.
They're holding it. They are trying to, but like different to Maura, they at least are releasing some of this stuff. Like the cops are saying, we have this, we have this, we have that.
Jill: [00:33:29] What is the DNA substance? Is it blood? Is it semen? Is it, it was fingernail.
Gracia: [00:33:35] I've actually believe it was something on her jeans or something.
There was other clothes in the car because she just got out of work. She changed her outfit. You know how we often ..Anybody who's worked in a restaurant knows you smell like
Jill: [00:33:44] Especially a dishwasher. You could be soaked too.
Gracia: [00:33:46] Yeah. Right
Don: [00:33:46] So later the investigators would come to believe that the accident had been stage from the evidence.
They looked at it in the car. So that was a big one. Yeah. These guys are great.
Gracia: [00:33:59] This
Don: [00:33:59] They had search search dogs. We're going to talk about that.
Gracia: [00:34:02] Go ahead. Yeah
Don: [00:34:04] They had search dogs combing the area
around the barn on foot. Not only the search dogs, but the cops on foot, but nothing of value was found.
Right. So they looked in the house and discovered drug dealer paraphernalia, according to the cops and a gun.
Gracia: [00:34:19] So that's the barn
Jill: [00:34:21] where the car is parked in sort of okay.
Don: [00:34:25] By the way she was on her way to Sheldon, right?
Gracia: [00:34:29] Yeah.
Don: [00:34:30] Okay, but she didn't make it obviously only one mile down Vermont, route 118.
Gracia: [00:34:36] It's interesting that they said they didn't find anything because all the friends took it like, right.
They didn't find anything out of the car because the friends grabbed their stuff.
Don: [00:34:47] Well, look, this change was, it was a
Gracia: [00:34:49] bracelet,
Don: [00:34:50] whatever.
Dave: [00:34:52] Yeah. I mean, it's almost impossible. There wouldn't be blood in the car. If you slammed into something going fast enough to actually put it inside, like there would be your head would slam the windshield.
I mean
something.
Yeah. I mean,
Steve: [00:35:09] Not if you're going
backwards though right,
Jill: [00:35:13] Yeah,
Dave: [00:35:13] The force would go
Steve: [00:35:15] You'd go backwards. You probably hit the steering wheel.
Don: [00:35:19] Okay. I was just looking at my notes about the DNA. Pardon me? Um, so the DNA. Causes the police to conclude that Brianna's disappearance was probably the result of something happening to her. Against her will. At the time of the disappearance Brianna had been taking medication for migraines, which have been left behind in the car, along with contact lenses. She left behind her makeup, driver's license, this indicated to investigators that she either intended to return to the vehicle at some point, or she hadn't abandoned it of will.
And yeah, they did submit DNA at that time to Codis. Hmm.
Gracia: [00:36:05] I think though, since they submit it, though, they're putting out more information than more Maura Murray. So I think that's a big difference in the two state police things, that this state police is actually saying. "Okay. We may have like boggled the beginning, but we are open sharing now with other states" because New York is involved. A lot of the suspects actually from New York,
Dave: [00:36:21] We need help. Does anyone know how read
Gracia: [00:36:23] right guys, we have some DNA, no idea what to do with it. We put it in a machine, let us know
Steve: [00:36:29] Our main guy's on vacation,
Gracia: [00:36:32] Show a picture of him with disney years or something on his phone.
And it's a burner. So, so weird
Don: [00:36:44] You save a lot of money when you don't have to buy a police cap, you just put like tinfoil over your head.
Gracia: [00:36:53] Oh,
Jill: [00:36:54] In Maura Murray too, though. They didn't find DNA, right.
Gracia: [00:36:58] That we know of. They're not saying anything. At least these cops are saying, Hey, we found it. The police won't release what they found in Maura's case.
everybody dressed up like their favorite DNA.
Dave: [00:37:15] How did they find her genes if they never found her body?
Gracia: [00:37:19] Cause she changed her clothes is what they think. After work she changed her clothes so the clothes she wore at work that night we're in the car.
Jill: [00:37:26] Did they ask anyone from the town if they found anything in the
Gracia: [00:37:33] that's the funny part. When you see that the friend stopped by and like took stuff from the scene, like, what else did they take? If these are known drug dealers, did they take the drugs out of the car? Yeah.
Dave: [00:37:42] Oh yeah. Cause you're going to protect your friend. So if there's any drugs there and you know, your friend does try, you're going to take them because you're thinking she's going to get in trouble for driving under the influence.
Jill: [00:37:52] Or if you want them.
Steve: [00:37:53] So along the lines of the whole clothes thing, you know, as Don mentioned, she was a mile away from work. When would you change your clothes
Gracia: [00:38:05] Before you leave yeah, we go in the bathroom and change because you're gross. Yeah. As a server and a bartender you get shit all over you
Don: [00:38:15] No. No,
Gracia: [00:38:16] I'm just saying, he's wondering why, like, when she did it, especially a dishwasher, think about it. She's getting wet and soaked all night long.
Steve: [00:38:25] And I'm just wondering when, like
Dave: [00:38:27] right before
Don: [00:38:28] she drives off or isn't it bathroom? That guy. Yeah,
Jill: [00:38:31] probably
Gracia: [00:38:31] my guess. She did it before she left work Yeah. Yeah. They just said her work clothes were in the car.
So maybe just cause I've been in the industry, I just assumed she punched out, went and changed her clothes and then told his friends, I can't come out tonight. I've got to work tomorrow and left.
Jill: [00:38:45] Yep. That's what I would do too.
Gracia: [00:38:46] Yeah. It sounds like something. I would have done
Steve: [00:38:47] How do the friends know her car was there?
Gracia: [00:38:52] They drive by just drove past after
Jill: [00:38:54] the party. Yeah. Did you see the picture? I can pull it up. Yeah. I mean, it's a pretty memorable car and like, you know
Gracia: [00:39:01] yeah. They drive by it. Some of them get out and walk over to hang out,
Jill: [00:39:05] turn the lights off. Close the doors.
Gracia: [00:39:08] They have a bonfire now.
Don: [00:39:10] We had an Oldsmobile 88. When you were a little girl.
Jill: [00:39:12] Yeah. Yup.
Don: [00:39:13] That's the one that went through the fence post
Jill: [00:39:16] Oh when you let Christina the four-year-old drive. That's right. Excellent. Babysitting
Gracia: [00:39:23] got learn someday. Right?
Steve: [00:39:25] Story never gets old.
Gracia: [00:39:29] Some of them are just classics. So we're going to talk about five different theories that, that we kind of have, um, throughout all the different investigations that we did. So Don helped me a lot in the research. So here or there, you guys see that we're going back and forth because I was doing Maura Murray and this at the same time, it was much easier to outsource this part of it using my resources wisely.
The strongest theory in the case, and I think this is a good theory is just that it's a drug related thing. Um, she definitely had some problems with these drug dealers. Uh, there's some stories that she didn't pay some of them that she owed some money. I can't assume crack is cheap.
And she's, she's a dishwasher and a breakfast lunch person, you know, they gotta feel like how much does she really make, she's gotta pay on rent. She's 17,
Jill: [00:40:20] but they don't find a body. Right. So is that like the drug dealers put her into like the sex trade or
Gracia: [00:40:26] this is where I think it's a combination of
Dave: [00:40:28] Well it ldoesn't sound like these cops are that diligent. Like they gonna probably hide the body in the police station.
Gracia: [00:40:41] I listened to a podcast from a guy up in Canada.
It's a good podcast from a guy up in Canada who is researching this case and he spent two years on it and he believes it's involved in the drug trade and he feels like it's in between three and 15 people involved. He feels that three of them were at the car that they were, they knew where Brianna worked.
If they had planned this out for at least a week coming. That she had. And that was who she saw at the store. The three of them followed her to this point, stage the car, took her and killed her somewhere else. That's what they feel. And that's this drug ring is from like the Bronx. And there were coming through there all the time and she owed them a lot of money.
So they did it just out of financial reasons is what he feels.
Don: [00:41:31] Hmm. You got to talk about the tips and the cops got there.
Gracia: [00:41:36] I was my next paragraph, but I love you taking that. Oh, it gives me a second to take a sip. Um, so one of these guys was Raymond Ryans. Do you want to talk about him a little? Okay. And the week following her disappearance, police receive a tip stating that Brianna was being held in a house in Berkshire known to be occupied by the drug dealer.
She was acquainted with Raymond Ryans and Nathan Charles Jackson. They're both of New York. They raided it, but they didn't raid it until April. So they waited those like 15 days. And this is where this guy feels they'd already got her out of there and killed her, but they brought her there for a while and she was there alive and they felt like they had to kill her.
There was no choice at this point. Uh, the house was raided. They uncovered cocaine, weed, drug paraphernalia, but no trace of Brianna, they do believe the house was recently cleaned. And at this time Ryan was only arrested on drug charges. And he's the major suspect.
Dave: [00:42:37] So the house was cleaned thoroughly.
So that's always a sign that like, especially when you're dealing with drug dealers, they're not like the most clean people on earth. Like every time you hear about like a murder scene, like one of the things is a killer will bleach everything. It's apparent something happened there.
Jill: [00:43:00] Can't you use like, luminol.
Dave: [00:43:02] Luminol can find blood
Gracia: [00:43:04] Yeah. Even if it's, was it a 2004 thing? Like when did they start using that?
Dave: [00:43:10] They definitely tried it in the OJ Simpson case. Um, so that was,
Gracia: [00:43:14] 90's yeah, that was the thing. But maybe Vermont didn't have it
Jill: [00:43:20] Vermont still doesn't have it.
Gracia: [00:43:22] There was a second theory.
We'll talk about the second one real quick. Cause then that kind of ends this theory, but we can talk more about this theory
Don: [00:43:28] in late 2004, Gracia, investigators received another tip this time from an anonymous female that implicated both Ryans and Jackson in Brianna's murder. The unknown woman stated that the pair had killed Briana the week after her disappearance, after Ryans and her argued over money she lent him to purchase cocaine. After she was killed the woman claims, this tipster, that Brianna's body was temporarily stored in the basement of another woman before being dismembered with a table saw - grizzly - and disposed of at a pig farm. How's that for sweetness, police had been unable to corroborate the validity of the statement, even though they have interviewed many, many pigs, you can strike that last one.
Gracia: [00:44:22] It's funny. Thanks for taking over on that. I don't know how that paragraph was killing me.
Jill: [00:44:26] Well, pigs will eat everything.
Steve: [00:44:29] So you're saying they interviewed the cops
Don: [00:44:45] don't get mud on my uniform.
Anyway
Gracia: [00:44:50] You can keep going. If you want to do the next theory and then I'll do the third.
Don: [00:44:55] Another theory of the case is that Brianna simply left of her own accord
Jill: [00:45:00] because she's being chased by drug dealers
Gracia: [00:45:03] once thrown away
Don: [00:45:05] and running away. According to friends of those who knew her, the young woman had mentioned plans of a short trip to the area.
That's not 17 years though. This period where their history of running away had led some to speculate she simply decided to move somewhere new and start over
Jill: [00:45:22] on foot?
Don: [00:45:22] However, yeah. However, police had been unable to uncover any evidence to indicate that she left voluntarily,
Dave: [00:45:31] especially if she's an addict she's eventually going to get caught with no money. So she's eventually going to come back to mom. I mean,
Jill: [00:45:39] but how does this thought process work? Oh, fuck. I just backed into a barn. Guess I'm moving, I'll leave the door open and
Don: [00:45:45] I'll leave my contact lenses.
Jill: [00:45:49] Exactly. I better walk home. Yeah like I don't think so,
Don: [00:45:51] I can't believe they even took that seriously. It is Vermont, by the way I'm never going to drive in Vermont.
Gracia: [00:45:57] Well, there's a podcaster the same podcaster from the Canada that talks about this one. Yeah. And he says that he believes that there are people in the town that were helping dispose of Brianna. So they were trying to throw a sleight in it. So they were saying she had a history of running away.
So that might be, they were purposely tipping them off on different things that this theory comes up because they were deflecting. Yeah.
Don: [00:46:21] That's what we'll bleed into third theory,
Jill: [00:46:23] Wait a minute, just one second. So the whole town who drove past the car and didn't think anything of it is now covering up for her.
Gracia: [00:46:31] Well, not the whole town. He believes they're anywhere from three to 15 people involved in this, the three that are like the drug dealers, but they're also people that are also involved in the drug trade from Vermont. So he calls them the locals in his podcast. Cause he, he actually knows names, but he doesn't say them because he's like afraid of evidence and this and that.
But he also says they were telling police these things just to like, uh, throw them off like, Oh, we knew Brianna. We used to party with her. She's always dreamed of running away. She's probably in Mexico.
Jill: [00:46:59] Hmm, it doesn't sound like you need to do a lot to throw these cops off though.
Dave: [00:47:05] Where's Mexico.
Don: [00:47:06] When they were using the police dogs. Dogs went one way and they went the other but the dog stops and says hey.
Gracia: [00:47:24] All right. So want to go with theory three and I'll do four?
Don: [00:47:27] Sure. A third theory is that Brianna was abducted by several people, which is you guys were just talking about this. Her parents have speculated this would have to be the case as a single person would not be able to subdue their daughter, given her martial arts training.
Well, they may think that
Gracia: [00:47:45] I agree with it, but not for that reason
Don: [00:47:49] I'm almost 70 years old. I spent, um, many, many years in the martial arts. I started when I was 10 years old. So I can tell you. That, that assumption, the parents made. It's a common one when you sign your kids up for martial arts, but it's not true.
Jill: [00:48:03] Well, she also sat still apparently in a truck and let people beat on her. So
Gracia: [00:48:07] Really, really beat on her. So I think part of this theory is good because the, the multiple is definitely probable. Like you could have planned it tricked her, you know, but for that reason, I don't think
Don: [00:48:21] They believe somebody may have spotted her, become obsessed and hit in the back seat.
Now, see, I believe somebody could have been in that back seat. Before attacking her, she drove home from the Black Lantern Inn.
I know, years ago I taught a rape defense class in Westboro, Massachusetts. Westboro YWCA and as part of that training and read a lot of the FBI data on what kinds of attacks and assaults against women. Very common for somebody to be hiding in the back seat of a car. So you always tell the students don't get in your car at night, look in the back seat, check first. Yeah. But you know, you're tired. You want to get home from work,
Gracia: [00:49:07] It's midnight. She's working two jobs.
Dave: [00:49:10] It's Vermont. It's not uncommon for find somebody like sleeping in your car randomly. It's like, he's just drunk.
Don: [00:49:19] You'd be surprised how many, um, people gotten in the front seat of a car, a woman got in the front, all of a sudden there's a belt around their neck and they're being strangled. I used to teach defense for that.
So, uh, yeah. It's uh, it was very common,
Gracia: [00:49:36] I think that's my most popular, like what I think happened.
Don: [00:49:41] Yeah and you've talked a lot about Maura Murray, so why don't we just lead in and let you talk about the fourth.
Gracia: [00:49:48] You got it. So we all know that Maura Murray disappeared in Haverhill New Hampshire.
That was about 90 miles from where we are. So it's about an hour and 45 minute ride. However, FBI agents have met with local authorities to discuss the possibility of the links between the two case, including the fact that they both had gone missing after a car accident, they both have their belongings left their belongings behind, and they're both so young, attractive and brown haired women.
However, it is eventually concluded that despite the similarities, the case was not likely connected. However, I'm not so sure because there are two sources that I found in Maura Murray that kind of lead me to say maybe. Sure. So maybe not probable, but this is how it maybe.
Don: [00:50:32] I started with not probable, but then I got to maybe
Gracia: [00:50:38] Okay. So in James Renner's book, theThe True Crime Addict, he puts Kathleen. If you remember, Kathleen was like the addict sister to Maura. Older but addict. Okay. She lived with a drug ring above she moved in there to Vermont. So now you've made some kind of connection. She, she gets out of rehab, meets this guy in rehab and is like, Oh, I love him. They move up
Jill: [00:51:04] That woman's a fucking loon. Like we watched that oxygen series after you talked about it. And she was like, her eyes were like all up, like Craig and I were like, well, how she's a loom?
Gracia: [00:51:15] So she moves up to that drug ring and hangs out and moves in with them, starts doing drugs.
Again, goes back to rehab. I mean, it's a vicious cycle with her, but she lives out there
Don: [00:51:26] I think there's a connection.
Gracia: [00:51:28] And also in that oxygen series, when you got towards like episode five and six, John Smith starts talking about a link, but he doesn't say it. Right. So his going to the A-frame, but let's tell everybody else about that.
So let's talk about the A-frame.
So John Smith is a private investigator that they get starts looking into the Maura Murray case. He is a former police officer. He thinks they're related. He started looking into the case when locals were talking about a story about two brothers, these brothers were involved in the drug scene and were also known to get in a lot of trouble.
There were rumors that they were involved in both murders, even to the point that one brother reached out to Fred ,Maura's father, and told them that he found a bloody knife in his brother's glove box. He believes the Maura's blood is on the knife. He gets this knife to Fred and Fred brings it to the police.
The police do not release if they can get DNA off the knife. So we have no idea. Don't give it to the police, get a private investigator to do that. Um, but then in 2006, John Smith, Tim and Lance, the other two podcasters go to this A-frame and that's where they pull, there's like a carpet and there's a wall in a closet that they're going to take the dogs, lead them right up the stairs to this upstairs closet inside this closet.
There's human blood. Well, there's blood. They don't know that it's human yet. And in this series, Maggie has the blood tested and she finds out that it is human. It's got two separate sets of DNA. They can't tell whether it's male or female on both, but something human was in that closet and bleeding
Don: [00:53:12] it's a sad thing. Yeah.
Gracia: [00:53:17] They can't capture the DNA. Well, then the show then shares it with the police. And the police say that they can't capture the DNA that is too degraded. And that the chain of custody can't be verified, which we all knew that chain of custody was like, not going to happen. However, just check it right.
Like against one of the family members and see if it even could be related. Like, I felt like the series lacked there, because you could at least say like they have this in common. They, you know, you can't definitively do it, but you could have tested against something.
Dave: [00:53:47] Yeah. You can see if people are related pretty easily.
Gracia: [00:53:50] Like, I know it's not admissible in court, but like you could give the parents a good
Jill: [00:53:54] That's the thing, have some compassion for these poor people with their missing daughter, you know?
Gracia: [00:53:58] And you watched the series, you saw how it kind of just like, was leading up to it. And I was like that literally felt like a balloon.
Don: [00:54:04] Do you know what Henry David Thoreau said about circumstantial evidence? He said sometimes it's so strong, like finding a trout, swimming in your milk. Anyway, I just wanted to share that with you
Gracia: [00:54:17] On Walden pond, Steve, you were going to say something
Steve: [00:54:25] It's passed
Don: [00:54:27] Google that and you will see, I didn't make it up
Dave: [00:54:35] so,
Gracia: [00:54:37] okay. Maybe I can jog your memory. And Steve, I felt like the show lacked there. Like that was the part that left me wanting more in that oxygen series was because they just dropped the DNA. And that was the real piece of information they had on anybody.
And it was like "Oh. Too old". They had characters when they did like an independent study. You saw the piece of paper, they showed it on this series saying there are two different kinds, have the match Moore's DNA to either one of these. Yeah. And they do the cops just say, Nope,
Don: [00:55:09] they had that trout right in their hand.
Steve: [00:55:11] And if they don't want to, you know, spend the time doing it, just send it to 23 and me
Gracia: [00:55:19] Amen.
Jill: [00:55:21] Well, that series too did something that, um, that I think a lot of people did. So it tries to draw the parallels between Maura Murray and Brianna. Right. But also it tried to like get Holly Perainen and Molly Bish in there too, which those, There's no way they're related to this.
Gracia: [00:55:43] And they're so far away, James Renner also brings Molly Bish and Holly Perainen. And there's no way. Not at all their ages are so different. It's different abductions. Like, are you just saying that new England's so small that we're all related? Like, I didn't even understand what they were doing
Steve: [00:55:57] Give me a list of all the girls that went missing
Gracia: [00:56:02] and, and a lot of people consider Western mass to be part of like, you know, other areas like, Oh, you're in Western mass, you're really a Massachusetts. I felt like that's what they were doing. They were, there's a looping them in with somebody
Dave: [00:56:13] we thought about putting it up on eBay
Gracia: [00:56:18] See who bids, I think Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, or New York who would bid.
Jill: [00:56:23] So I just feel like that hurts though. The validity of connections when you're like this could be related to, you know, something completely random.
Gracia: [00:56:32] It was too wild to throw them in there. That's why I say I liked that series, but there were a lot of things that I felt like, and the FBI guy being involved, he ruled out things way too fast.
I think like he was like, Oh, can't be that. I was like, w did you do an outside investigation on that? Can't be that like, and maybe they did behind the scenes and we just don't know. But
Craig: [00:56:51] Before you go on, I've got to interject with that Thoreau quote. Uh, the exact quote is, "some circumstantial evidence is very strong as when you find a trout in the milk" and what he was apparently referring to is, uh, back when he wrote this in 1850, some unscrupulous milk vendors would put water in the milk, uh, as a way to increase the volume. Yeah. So basically if you find a trout in the milk, you know that this guy's crooked.
Don: [00:57:20] See, and you doubt me
Gracia: [00:57:23] Well, it makes sense. Now, we have the little background?
Jill: [00:57:25] I don't think we doubted you. Yeah, it was this sort of like
Don: [00:57:28] Craig always checks everything. I said
Jill: [00:57:30] he checks everything, but you know, what he didn't do is check your iPad to see if it was gonna make any noise today
Gracia: [00:57:39] now we have one last person and it's going to be like a two second thing. So, and then we can talk about his iPad. The one last person, um, should be noted. It's just a theory and it cannot be entirely ruled out, rolled out. The final theory is that it was Israel Keyes. Again, he was in the area he's known to do different things.
The murder kit guy from the last one is also considered on this one, mostly because he lives in that area. He has places up in Vermont. He's killed people in Lake Champlain. So like, and then he went up to Alaska. So it could be him. I just wanted to mention him because I think we're going to do a whole episode on him.
So when we do, this is two cases that are also possibly linked to him. But since he's dead, we really don't know,
Jill: [00:58:28] I feel like you guys are missing David's theory, which I think makes a lot of sense. It's alien abduction
Gracia: [00:58:36] theory, number six
Jill: [00:58:38] Special element.
Don: [00:58:40] Now what kind of like illegal aliens?
I know Trump would be right there with you.
Dave: [00:58:46] He wanted to build a wall in the sky.
Don: [00:58:50] That's what? That space thing was,
Jill: [00:58:53] Space wars,
Dave: [00:58:56] George Washington, with his lightsaber,
Don: [00:59:01] the airports and the revolution. Oh no,
let's have a swig of bleach here.
Jill: [00:59:07] Keep going. That'll be our drink of the week.
Don: [00:59:11] Dedicate this Donald Trump. Take a swig of bleach.
Jill: [00:59:16] So what do you guys think is the most likely then?
What do you guys think? You have five theories
Gracia: [00:59:23] I think the drug with the multiple people, because it fits with a couple of those theories. Like they should combine them a little. I don't think it was related to Maura Murray.
Jill: [00:59:35] Okay. So you don't think there is a relation?
Gracia: [00:59:38] No, unless it is Israel Keyes and then they're all related.
You know what I mean?
Steve: [00:59:42] He's the serial killer too?
Don: [00:59:44] A very good one. He was
Steve: [00:59:46] cause you know, what the cops could have done is while they're getting the list of all the females who've been abducted or whatever, get the list of all the serial killers.
Gracia: [00:59:56] Right?
His professional job is bank robber.
Steve: [01:00:05] That's true
Gracia: [01:00:06] I feel like Israel, I can rule him out, but not, but everybody that rules him out, rules him out for the same reason. You don't just walk up and serial kill, but he does like, they're thinking that serial killers usually make plans
Don: [01:00:25] he went against the grain. So where you see a particular M.O. With a serial killer, he purposely changed. He altered each one
Gracia: [01:00:32] And say he went in there one night. Saw her. It only takes a second for him to be like "Hm, let me follow her home".
Jill: [01:00:37] Well, there are only so many people to kill in these areas.
Yeah, you have to be an opportunist.
Don: [01:00:41] So on December 2nd, 2012 keys died by suicide. While incarcerated at the Anchorage correctional complex. Worst case of suicide they ever did see, there were knives and shivssticking out.
Gracia: [01:00:56] He wanted to make sure he died. I didn't want to say too much about him in case we do a whole case, but he brutally killed himself.
Jill: [01:01:03] You think he stabbed himself and you don't?
Don: [01:01:07] No, I know he didn't stab himself, but I don't think he killed this young woman. I'm with everybody else. It is drugs, it is somebody in the back seat of the car, or very close to her following her. They didn't force her off the road.
She went off that road voluntarily. It's one mile away, five minute drive. Why the hell would you drive five minutes? Pull off the road in front of a dilapidated barn, turned around and reversed yourself.
Jill: [01:01:40] I mean, I agree. Yeah, but I just kind of wonder though, if you're like, so, I mean, again, I've never been a drug dealer, so I guess I don't understand the thought process, but why wouldn't you just fucking take the car?
Like, why would you leave it backed into a barn? Although that aside no one in Vermont cared that it was backed into a barn.
Don: [01:01:56] I don't think she left her car. I think they took her from that car.
Gracia: [01:02:01] Why did they stage it?
Jill: [01:02:05] Yeah.
Dave: [01:02:05] Then you have to get rid of the car because you don't want to get caught with the car.
Right.
Jill: [01:02:11] But why not? Like drop it off, like at a train station, you know what I mean? Or an airport or somewhere where the, this idea of a runaway makes more sense as opposed to backed into a barn.
Dave: [01:02:22] Because in most places, the police don't go on vacation. They find a crime scene. Like
Steve: [01:02:30] you guys. You guys were saying that she owed money too,
Gracia: [01:02:34] Well, she, he borrowed money from her and then they, so there was some money exchange is what we don't know. Definitely.
Dave: [01:02:41] And that's about
Don: [01:02:42] About that money angle. Um, and one that interests me basically said, if you owe drug dealers money and it's like, small-scale, they're probably not going to kill yet. Right.
Cause they want to want you to pay them that
But she
Gracia: [01:02:56] put up the money to pay for the cocaine from New York, I don't think this is a couple bucks. I think this is like a good amount.
Steve: [01:03:03] Would you say she put it up? So she gave money to somebody.
Gracia: [01:03:05] Right? And then he was supposed to pay her back and he didn't want to, Oh, this guy from the Bronx.
No, he owes her money. She had money. She gave it to drug dealer. A Ramon.
Jill: [01:03:17] So what are you trying to say dad?
Don: [01:03:20] That last part doesn't quite jive with me. So yeah. You owe me money
Gracia: [01:03:27] I'm the drug dealer, right? In this case, I'm Ramon.
Jill: [01:03:30] That doesn't make sense. Like, why would you kidnap and kill someone you owe money to?
Gracia: [01:03:34] In the beginning of this theory is that he didn't mean to kill her. He was just like taking her, like to say, like, to like bully her. And it turns into one. I don't think that this was the case I believe in, I don't, that's not what I believe.
And I believe she wasabducted, like back in the car. I think somebody was in there.
Don: [01:03:51] If she was involved with a drug gang, even on the periphery that she knew, some things you shouldn't have known, she was the woman who knew too much was beyond the money, but the money would probably was a part of it.
Gracia: [01:04:04] I think he just took her. I don't know, bully her or do whatever. Yeah. That's fun. I mean, I wonder ifin that theory like, I don't think this is true, but in that theory, that's what I'm hearing.
Dave: [01:04:15] Are we certain why she was assaulted in the night that she was at the party? I mean, we have the story that she was flirting with some guy,
Gracia: [01:04:24] that's what she told the cops in the cop report.
So like she went to the hospital and then filed the police report.
Don: [01:04:29] David raises a good point. That's why didn't she fight back? That's weird. I think, because I'm so afraid to fight back. You're a drug gang and
Dave: [01:04:39] she went to the police and there are some people you don't go to the police on either.
Jill: [01:04:45] Right. And that's a fucked up story. Right. So like you're too scared to fight back. So you take a brutal beating but then you go to the cops?
Don: [01:04:51] You know, we do recommend you look at the pictures of Brianna Maitland and after that assault I'll put them up. Picture's worth a thousand words.
Jill: [01:05:02] Well, what I was thinking is like, to me, it kind of makes sense. It's just, she was a beautiful girl, you know, maybe they took her and put her in the sex trade. I like heard somewhere that, um, those girls, the drug dealers, or whoever's doing that, they can basically put that girl out 30 times a day, you know, for whatever.
Maybe it's something like that, you know,
Gracia: [01:05:28] it could be because these guys are obviously players, they're doing international drug trade. Yeah. I mean, I think we're like not, these are not normal drug dealers. They're moving stuff from US up into Canada.
Don: [01:05:40] It is likely what you're saying about the drug dealers, however, Sex trade is something else.
Yeah. So I read a statistic the other day. Wish it captured in my brain, like the trout and the milk, but it was, um, so hundreds of thousands of people, the United States go missing each year. Yes. 90,000 are unaccounted for each year. And a lot of those 90,000 are young women and they are taken into the sex trade.
Gracia: [01:06:11] It's like the case we were talking about downstairs. Britney, Drexel. Yep. That's what they believe that she was taken into the sex trade
Craig: [01:06:18] The last year that I see, uh, just Googling says that in 2018, there were 612,846 missing persons. I don't know how many state missing, but that's. That's unbelievable.
Jill: [01:06:32] It's alarming. Yeah. And that's why, so, like, when we were talking about this last week with Maura Murray, that's why I'm like, why are we talking so much about Maura Murray? Like it's not as mysterious even as this particular case, but when so many people are vanishing, how are, how are we as a society getting hung up on a Maura Murray, as opposed to, you know, this girl or Holly Perainen
Don: [01:06:56] Oh, Jill, I I'm so appreciative of the fact that you brought us all into this.
Um, this gives more meaning to my life at this point, because I think of all these young women who speaks for them, their memories alive, right. That's why I'm here in my silly sort of way.
Gracia: [01:07:15] But I think that was in the Maura Murray case where they said one of the podcasters says the difference between a murder victim and a disappearance victim is so crazy. We care about a murder victim cause it's like, Oh, their life was cut short. We don't know about the disappearing. What happened? We just kind of let it go after a month or two
Dave: [01:07:33] To the parents that worse. There's no closure generally. Um, yeah. In the Skyler Neese case up until the point where the parents actually learned what happened, you know, they were being tormented and, you know, I don't think it gave them any closure to find out that, you know, their daughter's best friends murdered her.
But, um, you know, I mean just the not knowing had to be so much torture for them
Gracia: [01:07:57] can you imagine, like you're waiting every day for them to come back?
Jill: [01:08:00] Well, and you know, in a couple of weeks we're going to cover Holly Perainen and her parents are still hanging up flyers in grocery stores saying, have you seen my kid?
It's 20 years later still though, you know? And they're still looking. Yeah. Like that just breaks my heart. But these, but I agree with you, dad. I feel like these people, they need a voice. You know, we need to make sure people don't get forgotten.
Don: [01:08:23] And that's the importance of what you're doing with these podcasts.
Really? Yeah. It makes us more than worthwhile. Yeah.
Jill: [01:08:30] So coming in the next few weeks, um, we're going to be covering just a range of different stories. I, um, in a few weeks we'll be covering most likely I'll start with Holly . Um, cause I really want to tell that girl story and, um, also Vanessa Marcotte because that appeals to me as a runner and she was murdered while running in just a small town down the street.
And, um, also I find Aaron Hernandez really fascinating. So I'll probably going to try to cover that. Dave, what are you going to be looking into?
Dave: [01:08:59] I'm going to be per the request of Jessica Hunt, uh, covering the DC snipers. I also have been thinking about covering, um, Pamela Smart, uh, who was the famous teacher who manipulated two teenage boys and two or three teenage boys rather into, um, murdering her husband back in the late eighties.
And I've also thought of covering, which is slightly outside of the new England area, the case of Skylar Neese, which is a very awful, uh, story about a young girl who was killed by her class mates.
Jill: [01:09:38] Dad, who are you bringing up?
Don: [01:09:40] Looking at the, um, vampire panic that the Smithsonian Institute did feature articles on in new England, in the 19th century.
Um, also looking at, uh, Teresa Corley. Uh, just to let you know, Elise, we're listening to you. This is why I'm doing that. And the serial killer Israel Keyes and why he fascinates me.
Jill: [01:10:14] All right. And Steve, I think you've got an episode coming up soon.
Steve: [01:10:17] Yep. Uh, I'll be going to Vermont soon, but when I come back, I'll be doing a episode on a fresh new murder. That's that's been that just
Dave: [01:10:41] Oh, actually the plan here, Steve, we're supposed to cover the crime's not commit them.
Steve: [01:10:53] I've just read a book about method acting.
Dave: [01:10:56] I was always wonder like, when they did that whole, um, department of Homeland security thing and they wanted to know everybody's library books, like what kind of books does a terrorist actually take out like a dummy's guide to airlines. Yeah.
Steve: [01:11:12] But seriously. So, uh, I'm thinking of doing the marathon bombing.
I think that was really interesting and fascinating. Yeah. And many people were impacted, um, Okay. Both during it, as well as post when they tried the, uh, to try and catch those two guys.
Don: [01:11:28] So, and you know, that's coming again Steve something like that.
Jill: [01:11:31] I don't know if the bombing is coming again, but that case is going to Supreme court again.
So it was really fascinating.
Gracia: [01:11:36] I have one that I was going to look at Ruth McGurk. Okay. It is a customer request from Brenda.
Jill: [01:11:42] However, if any of our listeners have anything they'd like us to cover, we're always open to listener feedback.
So just shoot us an email DMS on Twitter or Facebook or Instagram. And we will definitely look at, and
Dave: [01:11:54] if you want Steve to take care of anybody,
Steve: [01:11:59] you can text me.
Don: [01:12:03] what is that military magazine? They put those ads in
Dave: [01:12:09] Steve knows
Jill: [01:12:13] Steve's from fall river
Dave: [01:12:17] by way of Vermont.
Jill: [01:12:20] Thank you for listening to us on this episode of cocktails, mocktails, and crime. Be sure to subscribe in your favorite app. So you don't miss an episode. You can also send us an email to cocktails, mocktails, and
Gracia: [01:12:32] or follow us on Facebook or Instagram at cocktails, mocktails, and crime
Dave: [01:12:36] or Twitter at cm crime one.
Steve: [01:12:38] See you
all next week.