6. Observations

Murder on Songbird Road is a production of iHeart Podcasts. Previously on Murder on Songbird Road.

She found out she was pregnant in jail.

It was rough, the best possible blessing at the worst possible time.

Yes, exactly, two million dollar bond and we went in for a reduction and Judge Green denied it. So we tried again when she was around eight months pregnant, and he denied it again. There were no presumptions of innocence while we were awaiting child.

There was none of that.

None of it, especially it would seem when it came to Beverly's labor and delivery.

Malon Reynolds tells me that the judge ordered Thomas would be taken as soon as the umbilical cord was cut.

I wanted to scream at that moment. I said, no one told me this.

I'm Lauren Bright Pacheco, and this is Murder on Songbird Road. Jade Beasley's murder left the blended family she was a part of splintered with grief, anger, and confusion. That ripple effect has reverberated throughout the extended family of her father, Mike Beasley. But Bob and I were very hopeful the family would eventually respond to our ongoing offers to sit down for an interview.

I am Jade's great aunt. I am the sister of her grandmother, Sheila.

That's Brenda, the sister of Sheila Beasley, who is Mike's mother and Jade's paternal grandmother.

My name is Bailey, and Jade's father, Michael is my first cousin.

And that's Bailey, the niece of Brenda. Sheila. Bailey and Brenda work together to craft the victim impact statement that Brenda delivered in court while addressing Julia Beverly before her sentencing. For both Bob and me, it was incredibly important to connect with them.

I'm so grateful that y'all have allowed us to speak to you. I want to know every side of this tragedy, and I'm half blind if I don't have these conversations with you too, so I'm sure I'm sharing for Lauren as well.

I am so appreciative that you've agreed to speak with us.

I'm very grateful that y'all are willing to do this and kind enough to do this. But I can imagine how difficult it is to rehash this stuff.

I noticed both of you ladies are wearing pink intentional.

This is Jay's favorite color. It's Jay's color. She just absolutely loved pink, and it is the color we have chosen for the foundation for Jake. Marie Beasley Speak Live founding that spreads kindness in the community and helps children express themselves. She expressed herself in her own unique way, hence the Speak Life Foundation. She loved music, she loved the arts, and she didn't get an opportunity to grow and learn, so we are hoping to carry that on for Jade.

Wearing pink became a symbol of solidarity with the Justice for Jade movement, particularly during the lead up to and throughout Beverly's trial. We'll explore the significance of this color, especially its presence from the courtroom bench in future episodes. Beyond wearing pink, both women share not only a familial resemblance to Jade, but a profound grief over her tragic murder.

It's just it's never something you would think to experience.

I know for me, I'll never forget when I found out and getting that phone call and how quickly it changes your lives.

I know that this is a difficult topic for both of you. If you could just tell me a little bit about Jade and Bailey, I'll let you go first.

I would say.

The first thing I have to say about her was that she was very eccentric and individualistic in the best way, even for a child. If you look at pictures, you know, you'll notice there may be a one pattern and a headband and a completely different pattern and a shirt. She loved to play with her own style and dress herself and be expressive in that way.

Jade was very kind.

She loved all of her siblings and all of her cousins very deeply.

Brenda, I think i'll let you go ahead.

From my perspective, Jade was just as sassy as she was sweet. She was very kind. She loved animals. She'd loved butterflies. She would come visit me, either at the lake, then we would go boating, or her favorite place was to go to the beach, to Orange Beach and golf shores, and she would just love to get up and walk on the beach and look at the tiniest little shell or creature.

She just loved life period.

She was always kind, no matter if somebody was mean to her.

She was kind, that was just her nature.

We are all used to reading awful stories in the headlines and hearing them on the radio and television, But could anything have prepared you, guys for experiencing this within your family.

Absolutely not never, Never that happens to other families.

I was in shock and disbelief. Something you can't wrap your head around. It's just it's something you can never prepare for, and it's something you would never expect to happen to your family, or do you or do your loved one.

It's hard for somebody to say that Jade's dead or that this person died. It's they're gone, and it's what do you mean they're gone? Are they missing?

Gone?

You know what is gone?

I just first wanted to say, I'm I can't even imagine the loss that your entire family has experienced and will always experience. I can't even imagine it what that feels like unless you're in it. You just can't, Like, I could try to contemplate what it might be like, but I could never know what you guys have experienced. This is so valuable to us to hear from you, guys, to learn about who Jade was as a human being, who she was to you guys, what she meant to you,

I felt strongly that Jade needed to have representation because I'm sure you guys could go on with or without us, And I get it. The biological mother and her father they want at this point no part of a podcast because they just specifically they can't even think about it anymore.

It's just too overwhelming.

A quick note that dynamic would eventually change. We are deeply grateful for the ongoing conversations we've had with Jade's family and are continually impressed by their openness and willingness to engage. When we first spoke with Bailey and her aunt Brenda, it was August of twenty twenty four. By then, they had spent nearly four years processing the murder and everything that had unfolded since, including Julia Beverly's arrest, trial, and ultimate conviction.

When you first heard that it was Julie, was there part of your mind that was like, no way, or was there part of your mind where you're like that totally makes sense for me.

I think I was somewhere in the middle.

I would say it was more of shock there because it's somebody so close, somebody that had been around the family, obviously, that had children with Michael.

There is a.

Shot there in that aspect, I would say. At the same time, though, when I did hear that, it kind of makes your brain start working backwards and thinking of the times when she was so withdrawn from everybody else around her, and that makes you start thinking, did she have an issue that she didn't say, Was it suppressing these emotions? Were you enjoying being around everybody or were you not?

Happen pretty quickly after the murder five days later, and at the time they had no confession, no murder weapon, no DNA evidence. But the thing that Bob and I have spoken about multiple times is that there's always a motive. There's a motive that unless you're dealing with somebody like a serial killer, where it's just irrational or driven by

The limited times that the family came here collectively together, Jade and I had had conversations, and so my perspective of jealousy was Jade was the princess. She was her daddy's little girl. She was from a different marriage. She was loved dearly by both sides of her family. Her biological mother, her biological father. They got along very well. It was a textbook seven day on, seven day off,

That duality stuck out to both Bob and myself immediately because we'd not heard any examples of conflict or abuse between Beverly and her stepdaughter. I know that Julie did come down with Mike and the kids twice, not mistaken to visit you in Alabama. Looking back, did you observe anything about that dynamic that sticks out?

But I didn't really talk that much to her. And then when she came with the family in any family event, Julie never interacted with the family. She was very withdrawn and she would withdraw herself from family situations.

So yes, over.

Seven and a half years, I guess they were together. The family came to Alabama at least four times a year, but not Michael and Julie and that family. Jade would come, but she maintain So I mean, anything that I say is clearly from my limited perspective with her and from my conversations like I said, with Jade, and I do know that Jay did not feel totally inclusive in the Michael Julie pod, but she would not speak about things that would make other people look better feel bad at all.

Why do you want to go so bad?

The other kids are here, there's nobody home, you know, And she says, well, I want to see my dad because I have my sister's birthday party to go to this week, so I.

Want to see my dad before I go.

And that's how she she says, not just because I'm not going to be able to be with him that week, because there was a lot going on and she wanted to see her dad that eden.

It is of note that by all accounts, the before the murder, Jade asked to come back to Songbird Road and Julia Beverly willingly volunteered to stay home with her that night while Mike went out back to Bailey.

Brenda mentioned with being with John, you know, we are a big family. We are a pretty loud family. On our side, there's a whole bunch of us. There's a lot of kids. When you get everybody together, it is

Kitchen and there's this chair that sits.

If you're looking at the fireplace and the TV to the left of it, and Julie was sitting in that chair, and when everybody else around her is engaged in opening gifts and talking, she's very quiet, very reserved, and kind of just sitting there and observing. And that is just something that stuck with me from that one interaction.

What immediately struck Bob and me was the specific critique Julia's family had of Mike was his quiet and somewhat introverted demeanor at their family gatherings. Back to Brenda and Bailey.

I am awarees you all are that in court the state did not go for a motive. Jennifer never presented a motive or at least directly stated one that she thought.

Jennifer is Special Prosecutor Jennifer Mudge, who tried the case against Julia Beverly.

My personal opinion is that sometimes people snap, and that is what.

I believe happened in this case.

As Brenda said, you know, Jade was from a previous marriage. She was the only child in their immediate family from a different marriage, and that is where we believe the jealousy came in and where we believe she.

Said murder on Songbird Road. We'll return after the break here again is murder on Songbird Road.

I'm always trying to go through the psychology of it. But in terms of Julie's version of what she claims happened, when did you guys hear that, like how soon after they say okay, Julie's the suspect. Was that right away? Where you heard this story? Or is it a trial or is the prosecutor? Let you know, we had.

Heard bits and pieces prior to the trial that she had left the house, somebody was there or somebody ran out. We of course had heard some pieces of it, but we actually heart the full version.

At the trial.

We followed the information of which, by the way, was Julie's statement as to where she went. And from my perspective on jumping straight to it being Julie, I had already told my sister and unlessened the shut the social media off, shut the noise up. Let's find the facts first, And I said, you will hear the facts, so you follow the facts here Julie's story and verify.

So I trust, but verify.

And when the evidence was presented at the trial is exactly when I made my mind up, because I've followed the evidence. She told her story, she placed herself as having her own cell phone with her, and they follow the cell phone data. She told them she went to Hawks. I never knew they dug up a dump, a garbage dump and found what they found until the trial.

But in all fairness, what they found had nothing to do with the case.

The coordinates were exactly where the dumpster had been and exactly what they had dumped in.

There was two dumpsters she went to.

So anyway, wait, wait, tell me.

Explain that to us, because that's not something that we've come up.

Yeah, we did not hear that. Like, the only thing that we've heard was that she had stopped in the Hawks. Her story was that she had made her way all the way down to Carbondell to go to Walmart. Right, so we have that lie that's in place. And now when this video from Hawks.

Surfaces, a quick aside after Julie remembered making the stock, Renee actually called in the Hucks tip before the video surfaced.

And so she says, okay, well, I'm at the light. My gaslight pops on, I pull into the Hawks. I'm going to get gas. I realize I don't have my cards. So then that's when we see the thing which to me sounds like it was a rather small package, like and this is the stuff that I look at critically. I wasn't at the trial, you guys, especially you Brenda, because I'm assuming Billy, as you said, you were trying to deal with your college life. You know, probably didn't attend.

He did not miss the so.

Like so.

But I have not heard anything about a second dumpster at all.

Around the back of Hucks as a dumpster. So there was something dumped here and then pulled to the I believe I could be mispeaken, but there's a dumpster at.

The back that I had heard.

Something was put in, and there was the dumpster here, and the only place I could have heard that was at the try.

I only have that video of look at her throwing away.

Yeah, see where she drove, Which direction she drove first, because to the backside of HUWKS as another dumpster, and then she threw something in that package and there's an additional dumpster.

Anyway, Remember this understanding or misunderstanding of what was discarded at Hucks and that dumpster and what was discovered at the landfill. It is crucial and will be clarified in the court transcripts which we would soon possess back to Brenda.

I could be misspeaking, but honestly, the dumpster not even that's I just had never seen so much law enforcement come through garbage like that in my whole life. I never knew they would even do that. I didn't even realize they had the core in some new trash that they did.

I would say for me with that, and during the trial, you know, we know it was in a landfill, so it was not tested for DNA. In my opinion, no matter what, it would have been contaminated, and clearly that's

Could, or this or that, and it was.

All negative to how there wasn't a thorough investigation, or this was not done or that was not done.

And for me.

Personally, and what I took from that moment during the trial was.

The was thorough.

Again digging through the landfill for anything they could possibly infer could be linked to the murder could also be seen as desperation, not dedication back to Bailey.

And they did try to do everything that they could do throughout this case.

And I think that's.

Spoken to in other ways as well, when they're going through blood evidence and they're talking about all the different people that worked.

On this case and how many hours went into it.

We've lived this for almost four years at this point, obviously December fifth will be four years, and.

Going throughout the past.

Four years and attending pre trials and that week of jury trial, and I where I sit today, I am confident that Julie Beverley is guilty of this crime.

So I have two hundred percent convinced Julie is guilty.

I will go to my grave thank you that.

But on the other side, I believe in right and I believe in forgiveness, and if somebody missed something and somebody can show me the proof, I will be the first one in line to say I am so sorry.

I would, I would and forgive.

Me for thinking what I've thought or and I just took the only evidence that I have been presented with.

I am in the same Jesus, Brenda that if something were to change in the case and she was to be proven innocent or not guilty, we will apologize to her. I can't say we would have a relationship with her necessarily. I think everybody's a little too far gone for that being realistic. But you know, we would apologize if that

The willingness of Jade Beasley's family to extend grace and remain open minded even to the slightest possibility that the investigation might have been flawed, speaks volumes about their integrity and character, which aligns deeply with the Christian principles they referenced. During our conversation, Bailey, you did mention that you're religious, and I know Brenda that you are as well, and that you worked on that victim impact statement together. One

The family has a I know that a.

Family member owns a pagan store in Salem or whatever, but they believe in witchery or witchcraft. I view that as an occult. There ain't no good witch. There's not a good witch in mind, although I did like the witch growing up. But I would just say that, you know, in the mother Renee, I mean, we hear rumors of all this, okay, but out of the mouths of babes. I will tell you that her own daughter said, I don't like witches. I don't like witches. I don't want

Go to church.

That pagan relative of Julie's Brenda is referencing is actually her cousin, Nicki. Nicki owns a metaphysical shop in Salem, Massachusetts with her mother, Michelle Renee's sister. Their shop gained attention on social media more than a full year before the trial even began, when Mike Beasley's new girlfriend, Brooke, shared a screenshot from the website of the Salem shop Nicki and her mother own, showing several ceremonial daggers for sale, with the caption quote, I know I've got a few

Unquote.

Here's Beverly's cousin, Nicki.

She is the person who decided to go on to our store website, take the picture out and share that picture. I think is one incredibly in boord A.

Something doesn't stay right with me on that.

This was especially striking to Nicki, as Brooks post would increasingly reveal she was raising Julia Beverly's three youngest children as her own.

It's just it was a little too too weird that she just wants to be involved in the drama. She posts that Fisher from our site 'uring this time to rehashing all these emotions and things that happened.

Your primary goal should.

Be there and you should be there for your partner, rather than boeing online and making such tasteless hope. Because of the way that she was marked in trying to make that insinuation just to stir the pot.

It's disgusting and it's imperienced me that somebody like that is a key role in both his life. I don't know what's worriesome.

At the time this episode was recorded, I'd made multiple unsuccessful attempts to connect with Brooke dating back to February of twenty twenty four. She finally responded in January of twenty twenty five, declining comment. But the link to witchcraft also surfaced during the trial when Nikki testified as a character witness on Julie's behalf. Special Prosecutor Jennifer or Mudge made a point of bringing up the topic in her cross examination.

She started focusing on my spiritual faith in my line of employment, which I don't understand how has anything to do with the trial. Me and my mom run a witchcraft shop in Salem, Massachusetts. We are both practicing Pagans, and that was the main focus on my line of questioning from her was just the way to try to immediately, I guess, shed a negative light on me.

Like I said, the community is very Christian, very very religious, and a little hate these words, but a little dumb.

To other religions or spiritualities that.

Are not Christian They have the painted picture of what they think witchcraft is and paganisms, and it seems like they've watched a lot of Disney movies or regimeny grim fairy tale. I mean, if they did any sort of research into.

The city where we are, they put a witch on everything.

It's on the side of the police car, it's on their badges, it's everywhere.

It's been turned into an entire fame of the city. So it's really kind of normal here for us.

It was a just kind of odd that that was level focus with me.

The vilification of pagans and witchcraft and the sensationalizing of Salem, Massachusetts isn't overly odd to this woman though.

My name is Tricia Pione. I'm the project director for New England Hidden Histories at the Congregational Library and Archive in Boston, and I have a PhD in Early American history and I specialize in the history of witchcraft in New England.

If you could just give me an idea in terms of historical, social, political, religious context, what the environment was at the onset of the Salem witch trials.

Sure, so, in general, Massachusetts was in a real period of turmoil in sixteen ninety two, they were in the middle of war, they had overthrown their governor. So when the crisis started, they did not have a legal system that was functioning or a political system that was functioning, and that meant that during the first few months of the crisis, accusations were spreading quickly. They were able to issue arrest warrants and put people in jail, but they

Now. I know that there were witch hunts in other areas, particularly in New England, and you know obviously throughout Europe at the time as well, but in terms of the scope of it in Salem, how many people are we actually talking about in terms of being accused and actually being executed.

So in Salem, about two hundred people are accused of witchcraft, fifty people about fifty people actually can and said that they had practiced witchcraft, they had signed a covenant with the devil, and then nineteen people were convicted and executed, and then there were several other people who died in jail during the trials.

Five people died in jail, and one man.

Giles Corey, was pressed to death not as a sentence, not as an execution, but as part of a fascinating old timey legal system in which because he didn't enter a plea, they tried to force his plea of guilty or not guilty out of.

Him by stacking rocks on.

Yeah, it's so horrible.

And though, yeah, you know, it is.

Interesting because you said the number of people who confessed, is it safe to say that these were coerced confessions?

Yeah, I think what we know now about false confessions, I think is really interesting to consider how that might have played out in Salem today. It would be illegal to torture someone to get a confession. It's technically illegal to do that, but there are all sorts of version that can happen, and actually torture to produce a confession was also illegal under law at the time in sixteen ninety two, but their idea of torture and version.

Was different from ours.

So we do have some evidence that some people were beaten and things that we would consider to be physical torture as well as mental torture, and then confessed.

I tracked doctor Pone down after being struck by a quote she'd given. You said, the seventeenth century is a lot different than today, but people are essentially the same. It tells us what could happen in a community where someone is hated and seen as a target for frustration and anger.

Yeah, I still think that's true. I agree with myself, but it is. It's very difficult to understand the past. I think it might actually be impossible for us to ever truly know or understand why people did the things they did. I think that's a tough question, and so because of that, people often prefer a very simple explanation for Salem. They'll often blame teenage girls, and they'll often try to create these heroes or these villains in the story. But it's not that easy. I think all that we

For those not familiar, Cotton Mather was a somewhat controversial purit enclergyman and author in colonial New England who wrote extensively on theological, historical, and scientific subjects.

Cotton either talked about witchcraft as a conspiracy, and I think sometimes today still like people would rather believe in a conspiracy than try to actually solve issues or make changes in.

Terms of Salem, Massachusetts. However, there have been profound changes in terms of the way in which witchcraft and the Salem witch Trials are framed.

Since the late nineteenth century, Salem has started to dip their toe into using this history as a way to promote tourism.

When did that start? Because you know, Salem, Massachusetts is to witchcraft and witch hunts what colonial Williamsburg is to colonization.

Yep.

Yeah, So I think really the efforts kicked off starting in the nineteen seventies to make it really a big business. And that's had a little bit to do with Salem constantly being portrayed in movies. There's movies from the nineteen thirties that talk about sit the Salem witch Trials. But by the nineteen seventies in the early eighties is when the first museums start to open up in Salem dedicated

Really.

Since the eighties, maybe the late seventies too, people who practice modern witchcraft, whether they're wickan or pagan or some other form of modern witchcraft, have been drawn to Salem and have set up there.

Nineteen ninety two was probably a watershed.

Year for Salem in terms of this because that's the year it was the three hundred anniversary of the witch Trials. A lot of historians were unpublishing books, new books, new histories of what happened, so changing our understanding of what happened. That's the year that they dedicated Witch Trials Memorial Park

Murder on Songbird Road will continue after this. Now back to Murder on Songbird Road. Curious I made the road trip to Salem to visit the Covens Cottage. The shop, Nikki shares with her mother, Michelle, who is Renee high Tower's younger sister.

Hi, how are you nice to meet you?

Oh my gosh, she looked like your sister. Sorry for my freezing Cohn.

Michelle shares a strong resemblance to her older sister Renee, though a bit more fair in terms of her coloring and clothing, but their voices and intonations are similar.

This is beautiful.

What a magical shop? No unintended in person, The family owned shop resembles the sort of English apothecary you'd imagine spotting in a scene from Bridgerton or Harry Potter. Dried flowers, organic herbs, and artisanal trinkets adorn the walls and ceilings, creating an enchanting atmosphere.

Oh it's awesome, listen to you too. I don't know what anyone use.

According to the store's website, they offer a range of Norse, Germanic, Celtic and nature based traditions, with items handcrafted by the owners, local artisans and practitioners. Selections include all natural teas, oils, balms, soaps and salves in addition to themed gifts, de core, and books, the shop exudes a magical vibe that's more whimsical, fairy like charm than ominous. I was going to teach you when we first met. I was going to say, so, are you a good witch or a bad witch?

You must get that all the time sometimes. Yeah.

I think the best way to respond to that is, witches are people. So it's just like you have good people and bad people. It's not black magic, white magic. That kind of thing is just magic. Whatever the person decides to do with it is that person. Under those guidelines, I would be a good witch.

I suppose.

The shop is nestled on Essex Street, a historic retail stretch in downtown Salem. If you've never visited the small Massachusetts city, as Nikki described, it's thoroughly steeped in witchcraft themed tourism. It's no exaggeration to say you'd be hard pressed to cast a stone without hitting a broomstick or a pointy black hat. That said, you'd also be hard pressed to find anything overly touristy or cheesy in this shop. That's a choice. According to Michelle, we.

Always wanted to own a shop with my daughter.

So our ideal would be to be a nice, peaceful store and help you each person that comes in.

But in October it can be really chaotic. It's it's I mean, it's beautiful.

There's there's something.

This is our brand of witchcraft.

Yeah, but it's very earthy, very kind of organic feeling. It has absolutely a magical feel to it, but in a very artisan way. And it has a timelessness to it. You feel like you've walked back in time when you walk it.

Yeah, it's like walking into another world, is how people describe it.

And it's very very much feels like a celebration of nature.

Which is what basically what paganism is. That's my side. If people read a book, they.

Would see it has nothing to do with worshiping the devil and all that. It's very much nature based and agricultural based.

As for the association of witchcraft and Salem being used against her niece Julia Beverly and in relay to Jade Beasley's murder, Michelle believes it comes with the territory.

Literally, we moved to southern Illinois when I was eleven. My husband is born and raised in southern Illinois, and then We lived there until two thousand and nine, so our kids went to school.

There, grew up there. So yeah, we have known the whole area.

For someone who hasn't been there or not familiar with the area, how would you categorize it in terms of just the overall mindset of the community. Is it liberal? Is it conservative?

Political wise? Tends to lean more conservative. It is very much a Bible belt area when it comes to religion. I think they're very closed minded, extremely closed minded, and that is.

Part of why we moved away.

I'm a practicing which I have been since I was sixteen, and it's misunderstood by a lot of people. Not just people in that area, but a lot of people in that area. Won't say all, but a lot of them are unwilling to educate themselves otherwise they are set.

In their ways.

You know, it's Satanic, even though the whole concept of Satan is a Christian belief. It's not pagan in any way, So that guy belongs to them.

Not us.

Religious debate aside, Michelle's emotions became authentically overwhelming for her when the topic turned to Jade. How do you describe your emotion and where does it come from? What is the feeling that you have about all of this.

Uh? Yeah, I would say it's.

Absolute horror and sympathy for Jade.

I was not.

I wasn't super close to Jade because of the distance we live, but she's an eleven year old girl.

And that is absolutely horrible.

During the trial, Michelle stayed back in Salem to watch Nicki's three children while her daughter traveled to testify on behalf of her cousin, Julia Beverley's character. They didn't realize their efforts would backfire and be used against Beverly.

It all hinged on the shop that we own, where the shop is, what kind of shop it is.

I don't know how a shop.

In Salem, Massachusetts has anything to do with a trial in southern Illinois that Nicki is not a part of other than being a character witness. Our shop and her profession, her occupation has nothing to do with that. But they seem to harp on that, and that struck Nicki as very odd.

But she knew what was going on. What do you think was going on?

I think that they were trying to another swaying of opinions. They're trying to make people believe that Julie is associated with witchcraft in some way, but their idea of what witchcraft is. The people down there associate witchcraft with something evil, So they're trying to associate evil with Julie.

And negate Nikki's character reference because she's a witch. And then when you hear witchcraft murdered eleven year.

Old, right, well, she had to have done it because she's an evil witch. I mean, I think that was their goal there. She's been raised in this. Look, her cousin is a witch. They own a shop and sale on that kind of thing. They don't realize that on a grander scale, this isn't a big thing to people. It's another religion. It's protected in.

The absence of actual evidence.

It's in you and.

Could have been used to railroad a potentially innocent woman.

Right, which a lot of people seem to be okay with.

On the next murder on Songbird Road, access to the dispatch records from the day of the murder raises new questions.

It's important if we can find out if, in fact, they had sent officers out to that area based on the other fall saying dude just ran through my backyard and all black.

As does another description of an alleged intruder given to authorities.

Well it struck me is this description of whoever called in.

They were looking for a person in a dark hoodie and dark ants.

And Julia Beverly lands on the radar of a formidable activist. Jason Flom Bob, Bob, Jason, Nice to meet you. Man. Murder on Songbird Road is a production of iHeart Podcasts. Our executive producers are Taylor Chackoine and Lauren Bright Pacheco. Research writing and hosting by Lauren Bright Pacheco. Investigative reporting by Bob Matta and Lauren Bright Pacheco. Editing, sound design and original music by Evan Tyre and Taylor Chaqoine. Additional