What was Mom doing when you left on your road trip? She was somewhere else. She was somewhere else. How do you know she was somewhere else? Because Mom wasn't in the car with us. This is Rowan Jonathan Ali and Elizabeth Farrell's five year old daughter. Her innocent comment about a big adventure seemed meaningless at 1st until detectives realized it held the one clue they needed to uncover her mother's killer.
What started as a missing persons case spiraled into one of Louisiana's darkest homicide investigations, revealing a trail of lies, obsession, and a twisted family secret no one saw coming. It all began on the morning of April 23rd, 2016 when a fisherman in Whiskey Bay, Louisiana noticed something floating in the water and made this 911 call. 911 Where's your emergency?
Ma'am, I'm fishing in Whiskey Bay and I just find a dead body the West side of Whiskey Bay. OK, see where you are on my map? You're in Iberville Parish. OK, but you're actually fishing in the water. Right. Yes, ma'am, I'm by the body now. At first he thought it was debris, but as he got closer to it, his stomach twisted. It wasn't debris, it was the lifeless body of a woman. So that someone had a lot of rage and it just looked to me to be something personal. This was brutal.
To anybody do that, that's that's an animal. Little did he know, this chilling discovery was only the beginning. What lay beneath the surface of this mystery was far darker than the murky waters of Whiskey Bay. Within minutes of the 911 call, detectives from the Eberville Parish Sheriff's Office arrived at the scene. Their first priority was to recover the body from the water. That looked like spot. Right.
There, as the detectives carefully pulled her from the Bay, a disturbing detail emerged. The woman was completely unclothed. This meant that she hadn't ended up there by accident. Someone had thrown her from the Atchafalaya Basin bridge above. When I rolled about it, I could see her face and neck. It was unbelievably bruised, black, blue, Greek. And I knew that's uh oh, This is not a classical drowning. The body was dead before it hit the water.
It definitely indicated that she did not put herself in that body of water and we were looking at a homicide. She had been the victim of somebody else's devilish ways. Who was this woman and how did she end up there? What tragic chain of events LED her to this fate? With no personal belongings, no ID and no immediate clues at the scene, the detectives had no way of identifying her all.
We know is we found a new female with trauma to the neck, head and back, but I knew her fingers were good and I was hoping and praying she had a criminal record. If she had a criminal record, it was that good chance that she had been fingerprinted somewhere before or her DNA wouldn't take it. So they collected her fingerprints and DNA samples and sent them to the Louisiana State Police crime lab, hoping for a match. And luckily, they got one. So we got lucky.
It was late that night. I won't say it's about 11:00 that night. I think the Louisiana State Police crime lab called and said hey, we got an ID on her. Her name is Elizabeth Ann Perrell, looked her. Up on Facebook. And I will send you her name on Facebook, OK. And her shoulder tattoo. You can see it in one of the pictures. Michelle, you got a date of birth on the back.
Yes, May 31st of 1987, it's a huge sigh of relief when we get a fingerprint match for her because then we're really able to start our investigation. She can be from Texas. How had Elizabeth traveled over 300 miles from Humble, TX to that lonely stretch of Louisiana? Was it an innocent road trip that took a deadly turn, or had someone forcefully brought her there? That was the $1,000,000 question, and the answer would expose A sinister truth no one dared to imagine.
Affectionately known as Liz, Elizabeth had learned from an early age that life wasn't always kind. Raised without a father and by a mother battling a her childhood was far from happy, but she learned to navigate life's challenges with resilience and determination. When she was 18, Elizabeth lost her mother to severe kidney disease. With no family members around, she was completely on her own. Determined to survive, she found work as a server at a local restaurant.
It was there that she met Jonathan Alley, a charming and witty Co worker who quickly caught her attention. He was intelligent, he played guitar, he was just a very imaginative person. She told me she had a big crush on Jonathan and I could see why. Any time that they talked, she would just light up and it's just like, Oh my God, chess already. Jonathan was a hard. Worker he took her out to. Eat. He would give her flowers. Nobody's given her flowers
before. Jonathan was really appreciative of Liz. It looked absolutely adorable and wholesome. This might be a beautiful batch. Elizabeth had always been fascinated by supernatural things, especially vampires. She dreamt of opening a vampire themed bar on the legendary Bourbon Street in New Orleans. When she shared her ambitions with Jonathan, he quickly got on
board with the idea. So in February 2000, 1009, Elizabeth and Jonathan packed up their lives in Humble and set out for a fresh start in New Orleans. It wasn't going to be easy. Money was tight and the road ahead was uncertain. But for the first time in a long time, Elizabeth was happy. She was building a future with someone who believed in her. However, their New Orleans dream didn't last long. Just six months after their move, Elizabeth discovered she was pregnant.
As priority shifted, their dream of a vampire themed bar was put on hold. With limited options and little money, they made the difficult decision to return to Humble, where they moved in with Jonathan's grandmother, GAIL Ali. In August 2010, Elizabeth gave birth to a baby girl, whom they named Rowan. When Jonathan came out holding up the baby, he was just absolutely glowing. You've never seen someone happier. Was one of the highlights of my entire life. Liz just loved being a mother.
Having her family was everything. I think all of us want to be the parent that we didn't have. Three years later, their little family grew once again. In fall of 2014, their second daughter, Autumn, was born. From the outside, the Ali family looked picture perfect, a young couple with two beautiful daughters building a life together. But beneath the surface, cracks
were forming. The financial strain of raising two young children made it nearly impossible for Elizabeth and Jonathan to get ahead in terms of money. For the next three years, they remain trapped in the cramped confines of Gail's house. What was supposed to be a temporary arrangement slowly became permanent. Tensions began to rise, especially between Elizabeth and
GAIL. I know that there was strain because one of the last times I got to hang out with Liz, she spent time complaining about the way his grandmother was treating her. She didn't seem to want Liz there anyway. I could definitely tell you that Louis felt trapped. She lived with Jonathan, the babies and GAIL. GAIL had never truly liked Elizabeth, and over time, their tense relationship only grew
worse. To make matters even more difficult, her relationship with Jonathan had begun to crumble. The stress of money problems, crowded living conditions, and constant tension drove a wedge between them. Desperate for an escape, Elizabeth found one in the world of online gaming. When the girls were asleep and didn't need her, she would turn on her Xbox, slip on her headset, and lose herself in the virtual world.
As time went on, Elizabeth started spending more and more time connecting with the people she met online. She built friendships, confided in strangers, and even arranged to meet some of them in real life. But that life was cut short. Someone had brutally killed her, and the detectives were determined to find out who it
was. The remote, swampy area of Eberville Parish where Elizabeth's body was found, has a notorious reputation as a dumping ground for the dead, and Interstate 10, which passes directly through the area, is a major corridor for human trafficking since victims can be moved across state lines unnoticed. This chilling reality LED detectives to consider a disturbing possibility. Had Elizabeth fallen into the hands of traffickers. Just as they were exploring this
theory, a new lead emerged. I come to find out in the night pry but it was a three car accident within two to three miles from where she was located. We found out that one of them individuals who was involved in the crash has a background that dealt with crimes against women or prostitution. So that compounded what we were looking at because now we have this crash in this individual in
the same area of the body. Looking at that vehicle, it was obvious that blood transfer and blood was present. On the door parade, passenger side blood. So I'm thinking and you know, that's got to be her. That's going to be her blood. Had Elizabeth Farrell been in the car with him? Was it her blood? Had she been this man's victim? Determined to find the truth, detectives wasted no time. They obtained a search warrant for his vehicle, hoping it would hold the evidence they needed.
They collected DNA evidence from the scene, carefully swabbing the blood stains found in the vehicle. The samples were then sent off to the crime lab for further analysis. As they waited for the results, detectives turned their focus to finding Elizabeth's next of kin and delivering the news no family ever wants to hear. Scrolling through her Facebook profile, detectives found out that she worked at a popular HomeGoods store in Humboldt.
Wasting no time, they reached out to the store and spoke with an employee who supplied the detectives with Elizabeth's emergency contact details. It was a phone number and an address for her husband, Jonathan Alley. Detectives dialed Jonathan Alley's cell phone, but there was no answer. Next, they tried the number listed for the homeowner. This time, someone picked up. It was GAIL Alley, Jonathan's grandmother.
So I expressed my condolences. I told her that Elizabeth was murdered here in our parish in Louisiana. And I can't see her over the telephone, but I'm expecting a scream. I'm expecting a loud shout. Oh, my God, something like that. And she said, well, what's she doing in Louisiana? And she's like, well, she's always talked about going to Louisiana. And I'm like, that's strange. I would think she'd ask me well what happened, but she didn't sound real upset.
When detectives asked GAIL where she had been at the time of Elizabeth's murder, she had a quick answer. She claimed she had been in Groesbeck, Texas, attending an event with a significant other. They had been gone all weekend. It sounded solid, but detectives knew better than to take anyone at their word. They had to verify her alibi and find out more about her. In the meantime, the results of Elizabeth Farrell's autopsy also came back. Hey, Ronnie. They didn't finish autopsy.
Yet. Yeah, we finished autopsy. We're on the road heading back now. We have a cause of death. It's asphyxiation due to strangulation. No assault in the form of. But she did have some old bruising on her body, which could have been a sign of past physical assault. She also had some blunt force trauma to the head. They had a lot of blood on the scalp due to the trauma. Yeah, we believe so. To see that much blood on her skull and beneath her scalp, it was shocking even 4 seasoned
detectives. But what stood out even more was the method of the murder. Strangulation is an intimate crime. It's personal. It takes force and rage. Detectives concluded that this wasn't the work of a stranger in the dark. Elizabeth Farrell was killed by someone who knew her, someone who had been close to her, and most importantly, someone who had a reason to want her dead. The Coronas report placed Elizabeths time of death between 28 to 48 hours before her body
was discovered. That meant that she had been killed elsewhere and then dumped in the Bay. The detectives also received the DNA results from the blood found in the car on Atchafalaya Basin Bridge. Blood was cross referenced through DNA and it was determined that that blood did not match the DNA of Elizabeth Farrell. Absolutely not her blood. Nothing to do with that vehicle at all. Couldn't put her in that vehicle.
That blood was from one of the gentleman that was involved in the crash, so we knew for a fact that she was not a part of that crash. Or was there one of them cars? With one suspect ruled out, the detectives decided to take a closer look at Elizabeth's immediate family. So they tried Jonathan Alley's cell phone again. This time, he answered. I don't like doing death notification, but I've done numerous in my career. Mr. Ali, do you know what Elizabeth Farrell said?
That's the mother of my children. So, well, look, we have found her here in our parish in Louisiana. And I hate to tell you, but she is deceased. I think his words for me was where I say in Louisiana or what is she doing over there? And I'm like, that's why I'm calling you. He just didn't seem too upset about it. Not anything that I would expect, not a reaction to where he had broken down, but he was surprised about the situation.
Everyone reacts differently when they hear about the death of a loved one. But when detectives in Louisiana informed Jonathan Ali and his grandmother GAIL that Elizabeth was dead, something felt off. There were no urgent questions, no immediate panic, no desperate pleas for answers. Instead, their responses felt controlled, almost calculated. Like they were processing something they already knew.
It was enough to make the detective suspect one thing Jonathan and his grandmother knew more than they were letting on. That caught the investigator's attention. It did set up a red flag. That was a loose end that had to be followed up. Jonathan, my bookie probably become suspect #1. Jonathan was either rattled or he was lying, but over the phone it was impossible to tell. Detectives needed to question him face to face and observe his body language to uncover the
truth. So Detective Aubrey Saint Angelo was dispatched 250 miles away to Humble, TX to talk to Jonathan and other people who knew Elizabeth best. Family, friends, coworkers, anyone who could shed light on her final days. Detectives decided to start at Jonathan and Elizabeth's house. They wanted to see Jonathan's reaction, hear what he had to say say, and most importantly, find any clues that might explain how Elizabeth ended up dead in Whiskey Bar. But when they arrived, Jonathan
wasn't there. Only his grandmother, GAIL, was home. GAIL was a little taken back by the fact that homicide detectives were knocking on her door. She was very stonewallish and dry about describing Elizabeth to us. The vibe that I got was that they all tolerated each other in the house. They were just cohabitating, not real family oriented or anything like that. When we first talked to GAIL, we asked her where she was in the last three days. GAIL told us that she was at a
campground. We found the name of this place and I spoke to management over there and they said yes, she was there. So we didn't think that she had anything to do with Elizabeth's death. As the legal owner of the property, GAIL signed a voluntary consent to allow detectives to search the house and land. Detectives knew they had only one shot to search the house. If evidence was hidden inside, this was their last chance to find it.
Anything that could tie Jonathan to Elizabeth's death had to be uncovered now. There wouldn't be a second opportunity. You look for evidence, you look for disturbance, look for stuff that's been cleaned. I'm looking for anything that linked her to Louisiana. One last one, Nelson. Yes. Did you ask who these computers were? Far? Those are her work computers. That's my Dell laptop that died. Yes, ma'am. That both of them are trying to. Work she ever use any of them?
No, I did not get any indication that there was any signs of a struggle in the house. I didn't find any evidence of where Elizabeth cell phone was or where Elizabeths gaming device was or anything. Just as detectives were wrapping up their search, Jonathan came home. Detectives asked him if he'd be willing to come down to the Harris County Sheriff's Office to give a statement. Jonathan agreed. They decided to go in soft, keeping the conversation casual, and give Jonathan a chance to
tell his side of the story. The strategy was to let him talk and lock him into his statements because once his version of events was officially recorded, they could compare it to the evidence. If the details didn't add up and the inconsistencies started piling up, they would tighten the screws. Hey. Jonathan, can you be right, man? He's not in the lace. My first impression of Jonathan, he looked like he hadn't slept
in days. Nothing out of the ordinary from what someone who would lose a loved one should look like, but he appeared to be very disheveled. Right now, we're investigating a very serious event. OK? You know, we need to find out what's going on with the whole situation. Tell her what happened Thursday. She was upset with me because the phone bill was due and they were going to cut it off over the last few years, you know, she got one in her games and the
Internet's type of the phone. Without the Internet, there's no video game. What did she say to you? She said I needed to figure it out. When was the last time you saw her? Thursday For what? All you did Thursday. Thursday. Well, I got her the money she wanted, went to the smoke shop, came home about, I'm going to say about 3330, this one there. What did you do? Well, I kind of stood there for a minute, like, OK.
And I just went about my day. There was no hint of shock in Jonathan's voice, none of the concern or panic you would expect from someone whose partner had suddenly vanished without explanation. Instead, he was detached and calm. What else would you do Friday? Friday. I feel like that because I was cleaning out the room and sitting there going, Oh, well, this is where this is where I'm going to put the baby's crib.
Cleaning out what room? Her room, But you was cleaning it out, talking about where you was going to put the baby's crib because she left. I mean, she was just going for one day at that point. It's not the first time she's left before back the day before, the day before. I told her that I was the only reason she was there, that nobody wanted her there. Mm hmm. There was a lot of a lot of tension in the house.
Jonathan had already started moving her things out before anyone had even confirmed Elizabeth was dead. To detectives, that detail was chilling. It was almost like he knew she wasn't coming back long before anyone else did. Detectives found it strange that Jonathan didn't get angry when confronted about Elizabeth's death. There was no outrage, no defensiveness, not even a hint of an emotional reaction. This only deepened their suspicions.
So they took the next logical step and asked him to take a polygraph test. You'd be willing to take a polygraph test real quick? Sure. OK, I'm tight. We'll go get that guideline. Though all right, I haven't. Slept in about two days. I'm not taking a polygraph today. He could only do more harm than he could. Jonathan's refusal to take a polygraph test raised numerous red flags. Was he hiding something?
What was he afraid of? If he was truly innocent, taking the test would have helped clear his name and and given the detectives one last reason to doubt him. Instead, his refusal did the opposite. It made him the prime suspect in the murder of Elizabeth Farrell. Jonathan, however, continued to deny that he had anything to do with Elizabeth's death. The facts remain. I didn't do it. I didn't do this. Don't get it. I don't know. To find cracks in Jonathan's story, detectives knew they had
to verify his alibi. Jonathan had told them on the day Elizabeth vanished. He had left home to pawn an item and cash a check, hoping to scrape together enough money to pay the phone bill, and when he returned, Elizabeth was gone. Detectives followed the trail, verifying that Jonathan had indeed visited a pawn shop and cashed a check. So far, everything he told them checked out. But was that the whole story or was he just giving detectives enough truth to make the lies harder to spot?
As detectives continue to piece together the final day of Elizabeth's life, the devastating news began to spread. Friends and Co workers started to learn the shocking truth that Elizabeth had been murdered. The disbelief quickly turned to grief and then suspicion. A friend that I went to high school with asked me if I had heard, like, heard what? Liz is dead. They just found her and I broke down crying my eyes out for
about 2 1/2 hours. I felt like I just lost a part of me. You know she. Was my friend, she was my family. She accepted me and now she's gone. While Elizabeth's friends struggled to come to terms with her devastating loss, detectives stayed focused on their next move, which was to talk to her Co workers at the HomeGoods store. They hoped her Co workers could fill in the blanks about Elizabeth's final days and her relationship with Jonathan. What Elizabeth's Co workers
revealed shocked detectives. How did Jonathan treat her? Let's start that. Not very nice. I know of two occasions where he has hit her. How recent? The last one I think I heard was three or four months ago. She. Told you about this. She did. I saw the bruises when she came into work. Where were the bruises? On her face they were in the car driving jump 494 which is kind of like a dark 2 lane Rd. Not a lot of light, not a lot of cars.
And he was inebriated on something, I'm not sure if it was drugs or alcohol, and he was speeding with their child in the back seat yelling at her. And he had a cast on his arm and he backhanded her with the cast while driving. Elizabeth and Jonathan's marriage had become abusive, and Elizabeth had confided in her friends that she wanted to leave him. They were no longer intimate with each other and had started sleeping in separate rooms. Did they have an open relationship?
Like it was OK if she met other men and it was OK that she. Well, as far as she was concerned, the marriage was over. I think he wanted to hang on to her. I don't think he wanted to try. And I think in some ways he met in his mind he wanted to try and reconcile on some level. But after he hit her, she was done. I mean, he had, I mean, after he hit her with the cast specifically, she was, he was done. She very much wanted to leave Jonathan. She felt very stuck.
I know that she wanted to take Autumn, the youngest child, and move back to New Orleans within a year's time, I believe without Jonathan or Roman, the older child. Any idea why she wanted to take the older? Child. I I believe that she she wouldn't be financially stable to take care of both, but she know that they would take care. Of Rowan When Jonathan started using drugs and drinking excessively, everything changed.
The man who once seemed charming and easygoing became volatile, unpredictable and increasingly violent. He alternates between using alcohol and synthetic marijuana and. How do you know that? She's told us she's even found him from the synthetic marijuana on occasion, 11 occasion. She told me specifically she found him on the floor, you know, convulsing I guess, and she stopped it. Shannon Farris, Phyllis's best friend at work, proved to be an invaluable source of information
for the detectives. Actually, she had been meeting a few people on her online gaming. There was one from Oklahoma, one from Louisiana, and the most recent one was actually up in New Jersey. She pretty much met, she met the one from Oklahoma here in Houston, Humble. He didn't go to her house. They met. They were in a hotel and she did say they had one that Monday that they were together. It was a wonderful day. And yes, she was intimate with them because she was feeling
much relief at her. And then the one from New Jersey, she'd been talking on the phone a lot with him, Maria Lily. And at one point he actually, I don't know how he sent it to her without her husband finding out about. He actually sent her a Michael Kor watch. What about Louisiana meet? Any idea? I don't know who she met in Louisiana. As far as I know she met the guy in Louisiana. I don't know. The only one I know is she was just talking to him at this
point. The revelation that Elizabeth Farrell had recently met a mysterious man at a hotel, someone she had only ever talked to through her Xbox, raised a whole new set of questions for detectives. Had this secret meeting been a turning point? Did Jonathan find out about Elizabeth's meeting with this man and snap in a jealous rage? Given his history of drug use and angry outbursts, it was a real possibility. But there was another theory, one just as disturbing.
Could Elizabeth have been tricked by someone she met online? Someone who pretended to be friendly while gaming, only to hurt her once they met face to face. Meeting with individuals who you meet online in person is risky behavior. You don't know who the other individual is. And that could be a very dangerous thing. Gaming could be a very dangerous thing. And you know, you see it in the news every day. You know these predators. She's gaming.
She's only Internet people. She has no clue who they are. He could have been a serial killer from New York, could have been anybody. Detectives, we're now looking at 2 very different but equally troubling paths. Was Elizabeth killed by a jealous partner or targeted by a stranger hiding behind a screen? While digging into Elizabeth's online activity, detectives discovered that she had formed a relationship with a man named Jason Sweat.
The two had connected through online gaming, and their conversations eventually moved beyond just games. Things got personal and serious enough that Jason traveled across state lines to meet her in person. That immediately raised a red flag. Did Sweat have something to do with Elizabeth's death? Could he have been hiding something? For three days, Eberville Parish detectives searched for Jason Sweat, trying to track down the man.
But before they could find him, Jason beat them to it and called them first. They transferred him into my cell phone. He'd said that he heard about Elizabeth's body being found. I asked him what could you tell me about her and what was your relationship to her? What is your tie to Elizabeth? Well, I was very careful when I was talking to him. I can't give him too much information because if he's the suspect, I need to be able to use that information against him.
Mrs. Sweat told investigators that yes, he had a romantic relationship with her, started off gaming and he actually came into Humble, TX and they spent a night together in a hotel and had sexual relations. That was very interesting to say the least. Mr. Sweat identified that he had not spoken to Elizabeth in a few days. She had mentioned that her phone was going to be cut off and she wasn't sure when she was going to have service again. That was the last time he had heard.
From her. When detectives asked Jason where he was on the day Elizabeth was murdered, he claimed he was back home in Oklahoma, nearly 8 hours away and hundreds of miles from Whiskey Bay. But detectives quickly realized they couldn't tell if he was being truthful. If they wanted real answers, they couldn't rely on just his words. They needed to confirm his alibi.
Even though Jason was forthcoming about the information and wanting to help us with Elizabeth, we still had to find out if he was where he should have been through the timetable of Elizabeth's death. So we had to backtrack his information. We did phone records everything, you know, all GPS coordinates, and everything he told us was exactly the way he said it happened. Based on the time frame of Elizabeth Farrell's death, there was no way that Jason Sweat could have been involved.
He was in Oklahoma. With Jason Sweats alibi confirmed, detectives were able to rule him out as a suspect. That left them with one name that remained at the center of it all, Jonathan Alley. From what Elizabeth's friends had told detectives, it was clear that her marriage was falling apart. Elizabeth had already started seeing other people desperately looking for a way out. Maybe Jonathan found out about the affair and snapped. Fueled by jealousy and anger, he did the unthinkable.
Detectives couldn't ignore that possibility, so they revisited Jonathan Ali's interview from just two days earlier, looking for anything they might have missed. One comment stood out. When the detectives first interviewed Jonathan, they had asked him a crucial question. Have you ever been to Louisiana before? Yeah. When's the last time you met in Louisiana? Three years ago, Yeah. Not in recent, no. Detectives now needed to lock
him into that answer. If evidence showed that Jonathan had been anywhere near that area in the last few days, then it would directly implicate him in Elizabeth's murder. During his interrogation, Jonathan claimed the last time he saw Elizabeth was on April 21st, 2 days before her body was discovered in Whiskey Bay. According to him, she left the house that day without much explanation, leaving him alone to care for their two young daughters. But was that what really happened?
Detectives weren't so sure. The timeline felt too clean, too convenient. So the detectives made a bold and risky decision. They decided to talk to Elizabeth and Jonathans 5 year old daughter, Rowan. It was a delicate situation. Rowan was young, and the trauma of losing her mother was still fresh. But detectives believed she might be old enough to remember something important, something that could either back up Jonathan's story or tear it apart.
So they brought in a pediatric psychologist, someone trained to speak with children in a safe, gentle way. You could just sit right there. You like my room? Yes. Here in Harris County we have the Children's Assessment Center. It is a great resource with professionals who are highly trained in this field in speaking with children in very sensitive situations as this one. The psychologist began carefully easing Rowan into the conversation with questions about her parents relationship.
What was life like at home? How did Liz and Jonathan treat each other? Did they fight? Did they seem happy? Tell me more about your mommy, what you would see happening to mommy? They would just sometimes argue about a boyfriend that daddy thought it was fake. About a boyfriend that daddy thought was fake. What made Daddy think the
boyfriend was fake? Well you see, Daddy thinks thought that mommy always want to spend more time with her boyfriend named Brad and he thought he mommy never wanted to play to spend time with him. So tell me, like, what would Daddy do when he found out about Brad? Well, he would just fight with mommy. He would just. Fight with mommy, OK, Have you ever seen someone getting angry at mom? It was Dad who sometimes did that. Tell me everything he would do when he'd get angry.
I would hear you just play with your boyfriend all the time, so much that you never want to play with me. After a few gentle questions about her parents, the psychologist shifted gears and asked her about any recent trips she had taken with her dad. Have you ever been on any like long like road trip in a car? One time we were in the car for three hours. Who was with? You, dad, and we were in the cars and we were in the car for
three hours. And where was your sister when you were in that long 3 hour trip? Autumn was with me and I was with me and I was with her. I was sitting next to her in the back seat. OK. And what did you do in the car while you were in the car? What we did was we just drove around for three hours and he was joking that we were in the car for 8 hours. You're joking that you were in the car for 8 hours. OK. And tell me, could you see out the window when you were in the
car? What did you see when you were driving in the car while you were in the trip? A little while later when I was looking on about it was starting to get a little dark. Starting to get dark? It was starting to get. Dark Rowan told the pediatric psychologist that her father had put her and her little sister into a car and told them they were going on a big adventure. They left their home when it was still light outside. But as Rowan shared her story, one thing stood out.
She never mentioned her mother. The psychologist picked up on that immediately, so she asked her gently if her mom had come along on that trip. Well, what was mom doing when you left on your road trip? She was somewhere. Else she was somewhere else. How do you know she was somewhere else? Because Mom wasn't in the car with us. OK. Whenever you went on that trip, did anybody get anything out of the car or out of the back of the car?
I think dad got a few things out on the back of the car. Yeah, tell me, when you got things out of the back of the car, where were you? I was still still in my car seat. There's me an. Item was still. Our car seats. And where was the car parked at? At the middle of the road. At the middle of the road, OK. He didn't run over because Dad's very careful. So when he stopped in the middle of the road, did you see what he got out of the car?
No. No. What did he do with the thing he got out of the car? Well, I don't even, I didn't even see what he did with. It OK. Did you see like what it looked like? No, no. OK. And when he gets out of the car, was it lighter? Dark out? It was dark. It was dark, OK. While Rowan couldn't see exactly what was happening, detectives believed she had unknowingly witnessed a crucial moment.
Based on the timeline, her statements, and the location, they were fully convinced that Jonathan Alley had grown Elizabeth Farrell's body over the edge of the Atchafalaya Basin Bridge. A rotten bastard had the nerve to bring the five year old and a one year old child that's in the backseat and. And unbeknownst to them, their mother's dead in his room. They had no clue. To find out that he used his kids to transport Elizabeth,
it's, it's, it's inhumane. The detectives had now no doubt in their minds Jonathan Ali had killed Elizabeth and disposed of her body 250 miles from home. But they still needed solid proof that Jonathan was in Whiskey Bar the night Elizabeth's body was thrown off the bridge. Something concrete that would place him at that exact location at the exact time. We know that Elizabeth's body was found in Ebervo Parish, which is about four hours away
from where she lived. Law enforcement began canvassing videos and cameras in that area to see if there was any evidence that could help with the investigation. Jonathan's vehicle was identified as a small grey 2015 Nissan Versa. It had a small American flag attached to the rear window. It was a small detail, but it made the car stand out. Detectives now knew exactly what they were looking for, they just didn't know exactly when.
That meant combing through thousands of hours of surveillance footage from countless traffic and security cameras. We had an officer named Detective Jeremy Sanchez and he deals with a lot of our video surveillance and things like that. He'd come to work at 8:00 in the morning and he'd just watch video and without exaggerating, I think he probably went through 10,000 cars. After scanning the footage of nearly three days, Detective Sanchez finally found what he
was looking for. I heard him holler. I got that son of a bitch. Bingo. I got the car. He was able to see a sticker of American flag on the rear window. The license plate matches also it comes back to the address in Humble, TX, so that vehicle just didn't pop up on that camera without being driven there. That one American flag sticker
helped us put our case together. At 7:38, PMA traffic camera positioned at the Breaux Bridge Way station just outside of Whiskey Bay captured A crucial image. It showed Jonathan's Nissan Versa heading east along I-10 towards the remote swampy stretch where Elizabeth Farrell's body was later discovered. The time stamp placed his car in Louisiana during the exact time window. Detectives believed Elizabeth's
body was dumped. And then at 9:15 PM, just under 2 hours later, the same Nissan Versa was captured again, this time heading West back toward Texas. With the surveillance images and the statements from Rowan contradicting Jonathan's version of events, detectives finally had what they needed. There was now enough probable cause to move forward. On April 29, 2016, Jonathan Alley was taken into custody and formally charged with the murder of Elizabeth Farrell. The right to remain silent.
Anything you say. Can we schedule a law? You understand that? Yes. And ready to explain to you please. I see where you checked off here that you do not want to speak to us, OK? Not. Without having a lawyer. I understand. I understand what we'll do now. We'll just go ahead and book you on the affidavit or second degree murder. Yes Sir, the Long Road brother, the Long Rd.
A decision was made to prosecute Jonathan Ali in Harris County, Texas, where the investigation had begun and where Elizabeth had lived. Despite the mounting evidence against him, Jonathan continued to maintain his innocence. But then, just one week after his arrest, a new lead surfaced, and with it, the entire momentum of the case shifted.
On May 18th, 2016, the District Attorney's Office received a tip that an inmate in the Harris County Jail claimed to have information related to Jonathan's case. The inmate had been assigned to the same day room as him. According to the tip, Jonathan had slipped up behind bars and said more than he should have. If it was true, then this jailhouse conversation could be the final piece of the puzzle. Talking to him and asking me. Why are you there? He said. Yeah, I'll tell him.
He's real soft spoken, He's a real. Soft, calm, quiet. Kid. So he sits down and he takes from the top man. During a casual conversation with the inmate, Jonathan opened up about what really happened the day Elizabeth was killed. He shared details that had never been released to the public. He was very detailed and he like. It was a storyline to him. It's like this is how he.
Made it out to me. Jonathan told him that Elizabeth was in the shower, the kids were home and Jonathan had began looking in Elizabeth's phone and he found some messages that Elizabeth had been texting another guy. That the message was very explicit, raunchy he called it, and that those messages enraged Jonathan. Jonathan told the informant that when Elizabeth came out of the shower, he put her in a chokehold and he began to strangle her until she fell to the floor.
And she said I. Squeezed so tight. I squeezed and squeezed and squeezed until there was no more. And he thinks she's already killed her. OK, he said. Then this woman was she's trying to come back. She's got the road, he said. He runs over there and he takes his foot and he jumps up and he's stomping on her throat. He don't know if so he's stopping on her throat.
Try to kill her. The inmate's account of what Jonathan shared with him lined up almost perfectly with the autopsy findings, especially the detail about significant trauma to Elizabeth's upper body. That finding had never been released publicly. It wasn't something a random inmate could have guessed or overheard. It was information only the killer could have known. He said he had. Sex with his body after he
killed him. Oh my God, to anybody do that, that's that's an animal don't deserve to breathe. After learning that the inmate had told the detectives everything Jonathan Alley knew the walls were closing in. Faced with overwhelming evidence, a damning timeline, witness statements, and now a jailhouse confession, Jonathan agreed to a plea deal. He pleaded guilty to 2nd degree murder in the death of Elizabeth Farrell and was sentenced to 35
years in prison. Following Jonathan's conviction, full custody of the children was granted to their great grandmother, GAIL Ali.