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This is part two of the call we had on the 10-year anniversary of Shannon Gilbert's disappearance with attorney John Ray. The Long Island lawyer is well known for the years he spent representing the Gilbert family. and he's both revered and reviled for his ability to court the media and to do whatever he can to keep attention on the case. He's also a wealth of investigational and legal knowledge, especially when it comes to Shannon's story.
But please note, we suggest that you listen to our previous episodes, especially episodes one and two, so you have context for the topics that John and I discuss. We've talked a little bit about Shannon's first autopsy, the one that was done by Suffolk County. You also had another autopsy done through the family. What can you tell us about that second autopsy?
Well, here's what happened with the autopsy. I told you about the first autopsy and the indeterminate result, but the medical examiner's office was clearly under the authority of the police. The police were controlling. what they said and what they did. So it was, to my mind, a fairly biased autopsy that was done in Shannon. So what happened was that I had a very long struggle.
with the medical examiner's office to obtain Shannon's bones so we could independently test the bones and do an autopsy in turn. I won the struggle eventually. And we were able to get her remains. But I needed a place for it. So we were able to convince a very nice funeral parlor in Nassau County. to accept her remains and to allow us to do an autopsy at their premises. I also arranged, I found somebody that was willing to donate a gravesite for Shannon in Amityville. So we got the bones.
moved them to the funeral parlor. And an old friend of mine, Dr. Michael Bodden, is a world-famous medical examiner. He used to work at one point in Suffolk County 20 years ago. But he's become renowned, world-renowned in many, many famous medical examinations of high football cases. And Michael lives in New York City. I convinced Michael without expense.
to do the autopsy. Michael and I and his brother went to these funeral parlor and we did the autopsy together on Shannon's bones. So we first reassembled her body on the table. And once that happened, we were able to look more carefully at some of the evidence. One of the things that was of interest to both me and Dr. Bodden were the fact that her fingers were missing on one hand.
While that could be animals, it could also be, that is to say, animals taking the bone. It could also be somebody who removed those bones. Well, we couldn't tell. In any event, after we reassembled everything, the only thing that was of any significance... besides the fingers, was the highlight bone. We were able to examine the highlight bone. The interesting thing was that there were rough edges on the, certainly on one side more so than the other, of the two.
protruding bone it's a u-shaped bone in addition i noticed that in the base part of the bone there was a hole that went directly through that bone like a little, almost like was drilled or poked through or whatever. So when the medical examiner's office had the report that I told you about back in April or so 2012, that report said there was an...
indent in the boat. That was not quite active. It was a hole that went right through the boat. Michael couldn't determine what that meant, but it was there. In addition, however, what was significant to Dr. Bodden was that the roughage on the edges of the protrusions of the bone and with the horns missing from those edges indicates to him that this...
was consistent with a homicide, consistent with a strangle. Now, I went back and I studied the highly following situation and found studies that were done, medical studies, many of them, in the way back. along the way to the 19th century, wherein the vast majority, the overwhelming majority of women who were killed by homicide, by strangling, or who were hung at their higher bones.
broken in addition the bone is so small that if a small animal were eating on it it would be more likely than not that they take the bone and just leave it there and eat on just each end of it it's very tiny bone so When Dr. Biden saw that, he made a report which said that Shannon Gilbert's death was consistent with Thomas Dine, but he couldn't be certain of the actual cause of that.
When that came out, the police, of course, that hit a raw nerve, I suppose. And I received a call from the lieutenant who was in charge of the homicide investigation at that point. Still is Lieutenant Kevin Vira. He told me he was, that the police department wanted to work with me. And I said, fine. I have no likes to grind with the police department. I'm glad to have you.
They're the pros. They're the ones that know how to do this. I could help them in any way I could. I called him back twice, and he never returned the call. But in any event, that's what Bodden found. So it's not overwhelming. proof that she's murdered, but it certainly is pointing that direction. The interesting thing is that some of the other girls, we know at least one of them died by asphyxiation, which is not the same thing as strangling.
Asphyxiation is when you cut off the airways of somebody. You basically smother them. One girl apparently found one of the four who were found along Ocean Parkway who were also sex workers. One of them was found with underwear stuffed down her throat. So that's not quite the same as a strangulation. Now, one big question that's been prevalent in Shannon's case.
The whole time is the 911 call. We know that perhaps it was misdirected between the state police and Suffolk County because they were unsure of where she was and who had authority. But that aside... They've not released it. You've been fighting this for years now literally. Tell us about this call and what their reasoning is for not releasing it.
Especially being that it's not an open case. It's supposedly a closed case. It's not even a criminal case. Well, first of all, the 911 operator is a civilian. They don't work for the police department. So they direct calls. police department, fire department, wherever they're supposed to go. When Shannon called the 911 dial, she spoke to the operator there and indicated that she was somewhere near Jones Beach.
Jones Beach is a state enclave. It's a state park and not a county park. So when she said she was near Jones Beach, the operator apparently directed the call to the state police, not to the... Suffolk County Police. When that somehow got straightened out, we don't know how, then the Suffolk County Police responded. We don't know. One way or the other.
whether the state police responded anywhere at all. We do know that the Suffolk County Police sent at least one car, and if you believe canning, two cars, to Oak Beach as a result of that call. Now, in that call, it's a 21 minute or 23 minute, depending upon who you talk to, tape. In that call, Shannon says that they're trying to kill me for words to that effect.
But one of the key words is they. That's plural. And this other key word is kill. When a person calls 911 and says that she's about to be killed by other persons, and then she is found dead, you might think there's a connection. Anyway, Detective Vincent Steffen of the Suffolk County Police Department, who was one of the homicide detectives on the case originally and heard the tape, indicated in writing that...
Shannon said words to that effect. And he also indicated in writing to Newsday, as well as to me, that Shannon was at all time calm and not disturbed on the phone call. The medical examiner, Dr. Sims Child, who did the... The autopsy told us, me and the Gilbert family, just the opposite, that Shannon was agitated and that you could hear scuffling and there was anger. So one of them is not telling the truth.
Now, in addition, Joe Brewer testifying about the call, and there's Michael Pack testifying about the call. I've taken both of their testimonies, and I have it in transcript. Brewer claimed that China was... acting in a paranoid way would not leave his home and so he wanted her out and he called pat to assist him in removing shannon from his house now this is an odd thing in the first place because
If Shannon stayed there the extra hours, which she did, she'd want to be paid. And there wouldn't be any reason for her to not want to leave the house unless she was out of her mind or... She hadn't been paid. We do know that Burr claimed he came down the stairs from the second floor and Shannon was on the main floor standing behind the couch and making the 911 call. He claimed that he then...
fooled her by sneaking up around behind her and grabbing her around her neck with his arm and trying to drag her out. One might ask, why would he be in such a desire to get rid of her out of the house like that if He had been satisfied with his work with her and had paid her. On the other hand, if they had some kind of dispute and he wanted her out of the house, okay, but why would he grab her when he knew that?
She was on the phone with a 911 call. There's a certain desperation in Brewer's activities. What was the desperation to get her out of the house? In addition, if you add in that Shannon is indeed... speaking to a public agency, which she's never done before, saying they're trying to kill me. And at the same time, Brewer is reacting by trying to drag her out when he knows he's being taped. That is a very telling fact.
Something else is going on here that shouldn't have been. He claims then when Shannon suddenly bolted and just ran out of the house and she just ran down the street, he claims he then went up to his second floor, went out onto the balcony. and smoke the cigarette. That's kind of important. You'll see why, because the deck is facing west towards Jones Beach. Shannon is running east on the road. Just keep that in mind.
Now, Pac testified that Pac gets the call from Brewer to come in and help Brewer remove Shannon from the house. Pac goes in, he claims, he sees Shannon on the phone. He asks her, what is she doing? She doesn't respond, and he becomes disturbed by this. It's not clear whether he leaves before she runs out or whether he leaves first and then she runs out.
He finally sticks with the story that he left first, and then Shannon runs out. Well, that doesn't make any sense if he was trying to help. He showed up. Blue was grabbing her around his throat with his arm, and Pac merely just walks out and goes to his car. I guess it's possible. That claims he went back to his car and sat in his car in the driveway. Then he saw in the dark, Shannon bolting out of the door, running down the steps and falling.
tripping on the steps, falling down, getting up, and continuing to run. Runs past his car, takes a left-hand turn going east on the road, and heads down that road. Pack also testifies that he saw Brewer up on the second floor smoking his cigarette. So Pack essentially tries to get Brewer off the hook. Trouble is, when you take Pack's testimony, which I did, and confronted him with it.
And he was sitting in his car. His car was in a certain part of the driveway. You have to know that the driveway is on the side of the house. It would be physically impossible for Pat to see Brewer smoking.
a cigarette on the west side of the house. Even if you went around the deck to the back of the house, you wouldn't be able to see it. It sounds like he's making up a story to conform with Boo's story. Yeah, and I'm looking at... brewer's house right now online satellite view and you're right that that deck is on the west side and blocked for the most part from where pack would have been parked
And that whole he was smoking a cigarette and they were talking doesn't make a lot of sense. Right. In addition, if you run down the roadway that Shannon ran to Coletti's house, which is at the end of the roadway. and nearby to the gate of the York Beach community. It's not a substantial run, but it's long enough. I would say about a quarter mile is about accurate.
She would have to, in her slippers, run out the driveway, which took a little bit, and then make the left and jog down that street all the way to Coletti's house. If she didn't knock at other doors along the way, she ends up at Coletti's door. The tape definitely has Coletti's voice and her voice on it, according to the police knocking on Coletti's door. And you can hear her panting on the tape. And I haven't heard the tape, but that's what we're told by the medical examiner.
And you can hear her exchange with Coletti. Then it goes dead after that. Well, if that happens, we also have Coletti's testimony that she hid under the boat in his yard, which would be... to the south side, to the left, as you face the roadway from his front door. She hid under the boat. That takes time. Coletti's call takes time. And then she bolts out from under there.
So freeze frame that for a moment. All that time, why wasn't Pat following her? He claims he followed her right away. He couldn't have because the time frames did not make any sense with that testimony. Then Pat claims he followed her right away and drove slowly down the road. Even if he drove slowly down the road, not a very big road. He had been there in Deccan where she was with Coletti. Something else happened in that timeline.
According to Pac, Pac sees Shannon run in front of his car. According to Coletti, she ran in front of his lights. But Coletti has her going into another marsh near his house there. which makes no sense whatsoever. Pack does not have authority in that portion. It's possible that Coletti made that part up because he wanted to make the story consistent with Hackett's story.
and the standard story that she went into the marsh herself by hacktops. There's really no independent evidence of her going into another marsh. In any event, it would have been almost impossible to get into that marsh I went there. So where did she really go and when? We know she would have run after the Coletti call, for sure. But where? And why didn't Pack see her? Was Pack purposely trying not to see her?
These are very important questions. Have you ever heard about the woman who woke up in a cold sweat like she just had a nightmare, but she knew what she saw while she was sleeping was more than just a bad dream? Or the violinist who disappeared from the orchestra pit in front of thousands of people in the audience? What about when a mark left behind at a crime scene led investigators to wonder if there were devil-worshiping cultists prowling their rural neighborhood?
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on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. Prime members can listen early and ad-free on the Amazon Music app. Hi, I'm Karina Bemisdurfer, host of Morning Cup of Murder, your daily true crime podcast. Yes, you heard me right. Daily true crime. Every day, Morning Cup of Murder tells you a straightforward, short-form story about murder, true crime, cold cases, disappearances. serial killers, cults, and more. And I do that all in under 15 minutes.
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Is there precedence? Do they ever release 911 calls? Or is this a special incident where they just don't want to release Shannon's? What can you say about that? Well, it's a little complicated, if that's okay. Here's what happened. The police... typically don't like to release any evidence in a pending criminal investigation. And in this case, there was no criminal investigation of Shannon because the police presumed that she died of natural causes.
and they did not investigate it as a homicide. Start with that thought. But regardless, I made a FOIL request, a Freedom of Information Law request. Get the 911 text. This is a standard method by which one acquires 911 tapes. So I made the request. The police, through the county's lawyer, resisted the request and said I shouldn't be entitled to these tapes.
Because by a FOIL request, where there's confidential information, I should be denied. That went to a judge with a former Suffolk County police officer. And he took, well, about... over here to decide a motion that ought to have been decided in 60 days by law. When he finally made the decision, he brought us into chambers. I sat with his legal assistant in chambers and the county attorney.
County attorney announced that a decision had recently been made, which I was aware of, in the appellate division, which is the binding court, that in a criminal investigation, which also involved a civil... In that case, it was a car accident, but it was a criminal investigation as well. The police have to give up the 911 case to the civil attorney for his case. The appellate division decided that.
only days before our meeting about the FOIL request. So the assistant to the judge said, look, if that's the case, Mr. Ray... We're probably going to deny this foil request if you make a subpoena and subpoena the records. If you subpoena them, the police have to give them up because of this new ruling. So I said, that's okay. I'll go with that.
That day, actually, I went back from the meeting and I subpoenaed the record. And that is to say I subpoenaed the tapes. Okay. So now the county attorney for the police department. resisted they came in and they tried to quash they made a motion to quash my subpoena meaning to stop my subpoena so that case ended up getting bound from judge to judge and then mary gilbert
murdered by Sarah. So my plaintiff in the case, represented by Mary, my client was the estate of Shannon Gilbert, and Mary was the administrator for Shannon's estate. So now that she's dead, we had to stop freeze frame. the case until we could get a new administrator assigned as the estate's representative. And I had to get an estate form for Shannon Gilbert. So I did that right away.
Then once I had that, I could then fight the quashing of the subpoena. So that took a lot of time as well. So then we finally got the case assigned to Justice Berland, and he had to decide. I argued that the police, they weren't conducting a homicide investigation, so they can't say that it was some kind of material that they had that they had to keep secret. And given the new decision from the appellate division by law...
I'm entitled to those tapes. And the police came back with a very curious argument. They said, through their detective sergeant, Pat Portella. He said that they were conducting an active homicide investigation. This was directly contrary to what they had publicly announced and had said time and time again that it was not a homicide investigation. Now they said it's fine.
And they said that because of that, they needed to keep the tapes as part of an active, ongoing homicide investigation. And they said that the tapes were created for... the homicide investigation. Well, the tape couldn't have been created for the homicide investigation because they were taped that were made before she was dead. They made that claim anyway, and Judge Burrell had picked it up and said,
No good. He ordered them to give me the tapes. So what did they do? They appealed that. And when they appealed that, it pulled a real slick trick to delay the whole legal proceedings. But aside from that... The law says that if the government agency or body appeals, anything that the lower court decided, the trial court decided, is automatically put on a state, given an injunction, in other words.
And they don't have to obey the order until the appeal is done. They knew that. So they again stalled the time. They appealed it. And that appeal is pending as we speak. I submitted those papers. a year ago, last October. And that case has been pending ever since. So we're waiting now for the appellate division, which marked it ready for a decision in January of this year.
We were expecting the decision any day. Then the COVID situation happened, so it may be delaying it more. But right now, we're the winner. We have the right to get those tapes, and they're fighting it as long as they fight it. They don't have to give it to us until they lose on the appeal. So what are the theories as to why they won't give it to us? Well, logically, it's because they lost them. They're gone.
I heard that from one source. Or because they've doctored the tape already and they don't want that to be revealed. Or because there's something on the tape they don't want to be or the public here. could be very damaging, very bad. Or they're big-headed and they're just stubborn and they don't like that I'm demanding this and they don't want to give them up. And it's just all about irrational pride.
There can't be any other reason. I know some police departments get very prideful with this sort of stuff where they just fight any requests, but there just does not seem to be a good reason. for them to deny this and now especially given that they've released evidence in the form of two initials wh or hm depending on which way you put the initials that were on a belt
found at the scene of one of the crimes. So if they're willing to release evidence because as their new chief of police announced, they want to show a spirit of cooperation with the public. Why would they release the tapes to the public? These are civilian tapes. Are there any solid connections that you've seen between Shannon and some of the various persons of interest?
Like Burke, like Abyssit, a connected, wealthy business owner out in East Long Island who committed suicide like the day after Shannon was found. Can you talk a little bit about that between some of the various POIs, persons of interest, and Shannon? Visit became an issue on the internet when his suicide took place.
He is a wholesale landscaper. This nursery is a big wholesale landscaper on Long Island, possibly the biggest one. So he's a multimillionaire. When his suicide took place, the internet wires went crazy. saying that he was the killer. Why? Because four of those girls were found covered with burlap. Burlap is a landscaper's thing. So everybody said, aha. It was so crazy.
that the police decided to hold a press conference to deny that Lissett was the killer. And in fact, Detective Sergeant Pat Foitella told my investigator... who volunteered to help me, Bill Mahoney, that he would give up his house if it turned out that Bissett was going to kill him. It's an interesting statement. Well, I have a threat. First, I have a witness who says that...
Bishop was one of Shannon's clients, and that she would go to Amagansis to serve him, where his home is. So you have that connection. But you have another connection, and it's very interesting because it comes through my transcripts. This is a wholesaler. He is not a retailer. His business is huge. So he doesn't go and plant trees for people in the retail business. That's what he sells.
trees for is for the other contractors to go and do that. So, okay. So, so visit is this wholesale nursery guy, right? And visit actually personally service. Avistano's home and planted the trees on Avistano's property. Avistano lives next door to Brennan. Avistano's son died of an overdose of heroin and his son is connected as best friends with Charlie Hackett, Peter Hackett's son, and Justin Canning, Thomas Canning's son. So Bissett would go personally.
of all the places on Long Island, all the North Shore states and everything you can think of, and if one place he ends up doing retail work, that average man of town. How do we know that? Thomas Canning, in his testimony that I took on oath in his deposition, testified that Thomas Canning is a landscaper, and he made his money by being the landscaper of Oaks Beach.
where he would work. He would do his work in Oak Beach. He testified that he was very angry at Bissett because Bissett went and took away his retail business by going personally into... Avastano's property and having these trees planted. So what is Bissett doing in Oak Beach? Of all places, what a coincidence, or is there something more? And it's not just in Oak Beach.
But he's servicing the little clique that sticks together with Hackett in this whole case, not the whole Oak Beach community. Yeah. And for those who don't know Oak Beach or Long Island. as well as you do and i've learned quite a bit it's not a huge place but it's a big place with millions of people literally
And Oak Beach, a lot of people who live in Long Island don't even know about Oak Beach. Yeah. And for those connections, it's pretty interesting. Yeah. Oak Beach is not Manhattan. It's not the Gold Coast. It's a tucked away little tiny community. And the Oak Beach Homeowners Association is a carving out from Oak Beach property. It has its own separate little community.
It only consists of about 60-some-odd houses. That's it. And it's a private community. So of all places on Long Island, for business to be doing retail service, he ends up servicing. The friends of Peter Hackett and the person who lives next door to Barbara Brennan, that's bizarre. He's doing that. He's in Oak Beach for a reason. He's connected to Oak Beach. Now, that could all be a coincidence, but what a coincidence.
In addition, Bissett had a very bad reputation for very loose women and having them in his limousine. And he would go to a bar in Route 110 with his girls that he would take. And I forgot the name of it now. It'll come to me. But he would go to this bar, the regular at this bar. This bar on the top level has a regular bar. On the bottom level.
is where all the action takes place, and there are sex workers down there and whatever else went on down there illegally. Burke, Chief of Police Burke, would break with that bar and be downstairs as well. Bissett and Burke appeared to have been connected. I have a witness who's a credible guy and a former politician, still is a politician, I believe, who told me that he was out.
on a boat, on Bissett's boat, with Bissett and Burke and others, and real party stuff is going on. Something called the Wet and Wild Girls, cocaine freely being distributed. So Bissett. and Burke appear to be connected. That's pretty key. Yeah. And this boat, according to this witness, would be floating off the coast right by Oak Beach. Let's touch on... The Leanne aspect again, because she has those ties to Burke, which also tie into Oak Beach proper. The other side, the non-gated side. Right.
Tell us just a little bit more about that and these parties she went to and who was involved as far as she testified to. Leanne has said that she went to two parties in 2011. after Shannon had already been found until. And these parties took place at one house that was not in the Oak Beach Association, but it was in Oak Beach proper. And she was able to identify the house.
The House that she identified belonged to a well-known Democratic Party politician, was a leader of many campaigns for the Democratic Party.
She claimed that cocaine was freely flowing at this party and that Burke was at this party or this party. The first time she was there with a friend who brought her, Burke approached her and they... became involved with each other she had sex with him in the bathroom there and i think the first time was oral sex but i can't remember then she went back to a second party there
And Burke was there again. And he had intercourse with her and then threw money at her and referred to her as a slaughter of war or something like that. And he was angry. He had an attitude and he left him there. She claims that he was rough and that he choked her almost with his privates. So that's what she says. clearly identified them. I like Leanne. Leanne's my client. She's a very intelligent, extremely intelligent person.
So you have to decide whether you want to believe that or not believe that. I believe it. I mean, she's willing to say it. She said it publicly. I don't know what it means because that puts Burke in the airy, but after that, but it's during the investigation.
of the Gilbert case, that he would have been there. And as chief police, he would have been there. With Shannon's case, we know kind of what... the scpd did and didn't do and one thing they didn't do is get her laptop or her phones or her contacts but you were able to secure those from her family what have you come across in those that is worth noting well
I have Shannon's notebook and I have, I think, eight or so different cell phones and her computer. And what's odd about that is that the police allowed Mary to have those things. without asking for them. They'd never ask for them. You would think that it might be important to find out who Shannon's customers were. Wouldn't that be a fundamental part of an investigation? They never asked for any of that.
Their customers could certainly have had their names and phone numbers because it was electronic devices. So the first thing they thought is that the police never requested any of that. And they know that I have them. In fact... Portela showed up at my office one day on a very strange mission. I met him until then, and he came with an FBI agent. And at that time, I told him.
that I had this equipment. If they wanted to cooperate with me and look at it, they'd be welcome to. They never asked Mark. But the notebook of Shannon had names and phone numbers, and there was one Suffolk County phone number in there. was connected to somebody out there we've talked about burke a little bit anything about the pious case that you could tell us there's some shady happenings that went on with that back in the day when burke was what 14 or 15 14 years
I followed the case pretty intensely back in the day when it occurred. And every day in Newsday, which was the source then, I would read. But that's as much as I knew. up until then, but I had become a lawyer in 1983, so I think this case was still going on right at the beginning there of my career. Spoda was the prosecuting attorney for that case, and Burke...
was his key witness. So some boy, a little boy named Pius, was bicycling home apparently from school through a woods, and he was confronted by a bunch of other kids. because supposedly he was going to rat them out because he knew that they had stolen a bicycle. And so they killed him. They threw him off his bike and shoved rocks down his throat and killed him.
The key witness against them at the grand jury was James Burke. Now, Burke was part of the gang. I don't know if he actually was present at the moment of the killing or not. I don't know. Nonetheless... He came under the wing of Tom Spoda and he became a police officer in Suffolk County. Now, Spoda left the district attorney's office and became the...
Very powerful lawyer for the police union and the detectives union. One of his partners was James O'Rourke, who is the lawyer now, or Peter Hackett in my case. According to... what you hear encouraged the promotion of Burke up in the ranks of the police department. And so Burke went on to become eventually the chief of police while Spoda was the district attorney of Suffolk County.
That's their connection. It's a long history between them. The interesting part about that history, though, is that Burke gets busted twice down in rank because he's caught with... having a relationship with an escort named Loretta Rickenbacker, and she ends up driving his car and having his gun that he left in his car.
I got to meet Lerita. Lerita and I connected, and Burke had a daughter with her. She says that what happened was she was walking on Albany Avenue, Amityville, Winebatch area, which is... a very infamous street where a lot of drug deals go down. Burke was a detective in that area. When he saw her, he was attracted to her by the way she was dressed, and they hooked up, and they had a relationship.
That relationship continued for several years. While that relationship went on, he had a house in Juan Croncoma, and there he would hook up with Lurita, they would have their trysts, and they would smoke crack. He was a crackhead. So... Then Burke, also doing that thing for the crime, has another girl who is a white woman who's living with him named Heather Malone.
That's HM that matches the belt also, by the way, which I pass on to the police department as well. Heather Malone, according to her ex-husband and according to... An independent source I have, a witness who came forward to me by sheer coincidence, she was a madam running a ring of escorts out of a beeper from Burt's home in St. James. And I corroborated that because I talked to her husband and he insists that this is all true. Everybody knows who he is. He's been on TV and so on.
During the divorce that this man had, he hired a private investigator to trap Burke on his adultery. And the private investigator followed Burke, and she also tracked the... the beeper. She happens to be my private investigator that I used for years. But she affirmed that all this was true. She personally followed Burke. And at one point, when he was with Malone,
He was dressed in girls' clothing. And in addition, this other source, who I can't reveal his name, came to me through another case I had. And he was involved in the police department. And he confirmed that he was also having an affair with Heather Malone. And she was running the swing out of Burke's house, and he would have Trist with her in a house in Ronkonkoma.
where she tried to recruit him in to be one of the escorts because she ran male and female escorts. And all of this was run out of Berksholm for 10 years while he was climbing the ranks of the police department. And we talked to Guy Malone and we have him set for season two, but it's nice that you have that connection and can back up what his investigator found. The highly anticipated second season of the hit podcast Proof is finally here.
Proof is an investigative true crime podcast co-hosted by Susan Simpson of Undisclosed and Jacinda Davis of Evil Lives Here. Proof made headlines for its first season in 2022 after proving the innocence of two Georgia men serving life sentences for murdering their friend Brian Bolling when they were just 17 years old. 25 years later, on December 8, 2022, both men were finally freed based on evidence unearthed by proof.
In the second season of Proof, Murder at the Warehouse, Susan and Jacinda are on the case again, this time traveling the streets of Menteca, California, to uncover who really murdered 18-year-old Rene Ramos. On June 5, 2000, Ramos' body was...
found buried under a pile of debris inside the shell of a new Home Depot building. Despite tips hinting at alternate suspects, tips that were ignored until now, Renee's boyfriend, 18-year-old skater Jake Silva, and Tai Lopez, the 33-year-old uncle of one of Jake's close friends, were arrested and convicted of her murder.
Fans of true crime and investigative series won't want to miss this riveting new season. Follow the case as Susan and Jacinda uncover long-overlooked evidence about what really happened to Renee by listening to Proof, Murder at the Warehouse, wherever you get your podcasts. Imagine unlocking a version of yourself that's unstoppable, where mental barriers no longer hold you back. Listen to Mentally Stronger with me, Amy Morin, therapist and international best-selling author.
here to guide you on a journey to reaching your greatest potential. Every Monday, I bring you into conversations with some of the most fascinating minds. Experts, authors, entrepreneurs, athletes, and musicians. They don't just share stories. They reveal the mental strategies that propelled them to the top. But here's the real magic. At the end of each episode, I break down their wisdom into practical therapist-approved advice.
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Subscribe to Mentally Stronger with therapist Amy Morin, available wherever you love to listen to podcasts. Step into the hidden corridors of the past with Hometown History. where every episode uncovers the untold stories and secrets nestled in the streets and alleys of our own backyards. We bring history to life.
revealing the extraordinary and the ordinary from local legends to forgotten tales that shape the communities we know today. Tune in to hometown history and embark on a journey through time, right from where you are. And then just touching on Mary's daughter who killed her mother, killed Mary. When is that appeal going to happen? Well, it's dragged out a long time because I've just been swamped with other work.
When I got over my coronavirus situation, I began to finish that appeal. And it's sitting here at my desk as we speak. thousands of pages of evidence and transcripts. And I finish reading them, I finish making the notes on them, and I'm ready to write the brief. So that should get in. As soon as they reopen the appellate division, I'll have it in there. Sure.
For what it's worth, I just want to thank you for taking on that case and trying to help her because I remember when we talked to you after the first decision came down and she was found guilty. just how disappointed you were because clearly she has some mental health issues and they didn't really want to address that or really listen to that. The judge was a good judge, but he wouldn't stand up and say, okay, I'm throwing this.
Burn it down, it's ridiculous. And the jurors were just so far off. When you sit here, as I have now, with the time to read all the transcripts, the trial transcripts, the case is overwhelming that this girl... didn't know what she you know she was doing she's in jail two years before the murder and she's not using drugs at this point right she's too young and she's flipping out because of shannon's death
She was close with Shannon. And with all the troubles at home and all the terrible life that she had at home, she goes into a mental hospital in 2014. where she's telling everyone that her mother is a demon, her sister Stevie is a demon, that she's going to kill them both, that she has to kill the demon. She wrote songs for Eminem, lyrics for Eminem she believed in.
That Eminem loved her enormously. In other words, she's completely insane in preparing to kill her family. She even says her son is possessed by a demon. And she's going to kill the demon. So... They give her drugs to calm her down, and it does. And then she goes out. And they don't do anything to protect the kids or to marry anybody else. And sure enough, she's back in. So many times you can't count.
She put back in the mental hospital, dosed with drugs, you know, to get her basically back normal. But she's hearing all these demonic voices. The demonic voices are saying to her, team, team, team. And so, so, like that, she's hearing these voices. And they're telling her to do this. Now, Stevie testifies at the trial under my cross-examination. that in 2014, she suggests that Sarah is possessed by the devil and needs to be exercised. Her mother, Mary, tells the doctor...
that Shannon is possessed by a dude. And that's in the record. Okay? So they know she's completely around the bend two years before she commits this act. And they do nothing.
And instead, she then comes out for a while and she kills the dog, their family dog, little pet puppy. Drowns the puppy because she sees Eminem enter the puppy. And Eminem dissed her by not thanking her at the... awards show for music and so she murders the dog in front of her six-year-old son and then the same day goes to walmart buys a knife and brings her son into the forest
and tells him he better not tell anybody about what happened. And they catch her before she kills her son. Oh, boy. And she's back in jail saying she's going to kill Mary. She's going to kill Sheree. Sheree is a god. She says she's a god, Sarah's a god, and all this other bizarre stuff. And all the while, threatening to make these murders, they let her out in June.
Tell her, oh, she needs to come in and take her meds. But they never follow up to make sure she does. And a month later, while she's not on any drugs, she kills her mother. She slaughters her mother. Terrible. Terrible murder. 227 stabbed wounds. Smashes her head with a fire extinguisher. Tries to shoot fire extinguisher foam into her mouth and then tries to cut off her head. And then cuts off her bone.
Because the demons have power if she doesn't cut off her clothes. And she does this while she takes breaks while she's killing the mother because she keeps seeing the mother come alive again. eyes open and the mouth shut talking. And this jury finds that she's perfectly okay to understand the good difference between good and evil. It's absurd. And did she go to any lengths to try to cover up?
The crime, because that's usually an indication where they point to she knew what she was doing. She did nothing to cover up the crime. But the forensic psychiatrist, who's never testified in the case before, and... conducted a five-minute test and testifies that she hid. That was a sign of fleeing from the crime. The truth is that she not only...
butchers the mother in the way she did, but she sits on top of her, so her underwear is soaked in blood. She takes off her jeans, leaves the jeans on the floor, goes into the bathtub and sits in the bathtub. When the police come, she gets out of the bathtub and opens the door and greets them to let them in. That's not fleeing from the crime. This is what I'm up against.
Is there anything that we need to talk about with the Scalise family? They come up here and there and they've got opinions and theories. Yeah, I know. I love the Scalises. They're great people. They perceive that Hackett's the killer. They have evidence for that effect. There's bizarre other things that happened that Mrs. Scolese was aware of. Did you talk to them about that story with that Mrs. Conti's party when the detective showed up?
They told us about that. I can't remember all the details. Yeah, it was a Christmas party and two detectives who were missing persons detectives were investigating Shannon's disappearance. And they happened to knock on the door. They were doing door to door. And they knocked on the door of Mrs. Conte during the Christmas party. At the party was Mrs. Hackett and Mrs. Conte, of course, and several other women.
from the community. And at the party, this woman brought one of these psychics. And the psychic allegedly didn't have any knowledge of the case or of anything else. But that might not be true because it was already public. I don't know. But in the event, the psychic comes and they're all in the kitchen. And the psychic starts telling whoever's asking with the detectives standing there that she's having a vision that a guy with a...
limp or one leg, I forget which, with bad teeth on one side of his face, which Hackett had. She envisioned taking a needle and pushing it through the neck of a woman and killing her. Mrs. Hackett. Flips out and starts yelling. That's a description of my husband. She ran into the room next door and made a call to her husband. And the detectives left. So Bill puts a lot of credit in psychics. I don't.
If that happened, that happened. I don't know. Whether she knew about it or not, whether it happened or not, it's just another bizarre Oak Beach legend. If you had to venture a guess... Who do you think Lisk is? Well, I think that Lisk is more than one person. And I think that Lisk is potentially it's a group of people.
who either were involved directly or know the person involved and are covering up for him or her. There's an equal possibility that there's at least one woman involved. And I don't ascribe to any... certain theory because right now I still have theories which are not evidence and I have evidence that's not conclusive. I go by the rule, evidence.
evidence always evidence and influence is important because influence leads you down a trail to see where the evidence takes you but it still relies not upon influence The truth relies ultimately and depends upon evidence. There's not yet in my hand enough evidence to point the finger at certain people as to the whole. Number of people were killed. But the evidence did point enough to say that Hackett is involved in the death of Shannon Gilbert. You talked about season one a little bit.
Is there anything that we missed as you have listened to season one that we could have highlighted? We did our best, of course. You guys are great. You guys are great on it. I'm telling you, you really were. It was the most impressive of all the shows. You know, you guys are top notch.
And I appreciate the praise. We appreciate the praise. As you know, we've worked hard on it. And John Ray, I want to thank you so much for your time. And especially as you're still recovering from the coronavirus and i am so glad you're on the mend that's nice chris thanks man well listen have a good day get better stay safe and i'll be in touch all right chris bye now bye
We'd like to thank John Ray for taking the time to talk to us, especially as he's recovering from the coronavirus. And we're grateful for you, the listener, for joining us on this special episode. To help others find the podcast, We'd appreciate you taking a couple of minutes to rate, review, and to tell a friend or two. Stay subscribed and you'll receive more bonus content while we work to get Season 2 out.
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