Thinking Sideways: Sabrina Aisenberg disappearance - podcast episode cover

Thinking Sideways: Sabrina Aisenberg disappearance

Oct 13, 20161 hr 28 min
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Episode description

In November 1997, 5-month-old Sabrina Aisenberg was taken from her crib in the dead of night and has not been seen since. Her parents believe that she's still alive somewhere, the police however are convinced that the parents were involved in her disappearance. What really happened to baby Sabrina?

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Transcript

Speaker 1

Thinking Sideways is not supported by overweight animals trying to climb onto furniture. Instead, it's supported by the generous donations of our listeners on Patreon. Visit patreon dot com slash thinking sideways to learn more and thanks Thinking Sideways. I don't know. You never know stories of things we simply don't know the answer too. Hi there, and welcome to another episode of Thinking Sideways. I'm Joe, joined us always by Devin and Steve, and we're here this week to

talk about another unsolved mystery. Indeed, yeah, yeah, this is a obviously one that's not been unsolved. It's almost twenty years old. Um, it's about the disappearance of Sabrina Eisenberg. Before you go any further, I'd like to give a big shout out to Claressa who suggested this mystery. Thanks Clarissa, and also probably a little a little warning. This involves a kidnapping impossible, god knows what a five months old girl. So if you're sensitive to that kind of thing, then

you know, you a trigger. For folks, you might want to skip it, but you know, but we get on the other hand, we're not sensitive at all, so we're gonna go ahead and talk about it. So, Sabrina Eisenberg was a five month actually not quite five months old baby when she was one night, taken from her crib by a person or persons unknown, and she hasn't been

seen since. Her parents believe she's still alive somewhere and that she was stolen for sale to a childless couple or maybe stolen by some baby crazy crazy person, which does happen to people just because they want a kid. But a lot of other people think she's dead. So let's get into our mystery, which begins in Veldrico, Florida, which is a suburb of Tampa. It's to the east of Tampa. Steve and Marline Eisenberg had three kids, William who was eight, Monica four, and Sabrina, who was just

short of five months old. As I said, and they also had a dog named Brownie. It was very lazy about a job. Yeah, I saw her, and I've seen the dogs brown brown Yeah, so that was that was Brownie. So Marlene was woking up the morning of November by noise coming out of the living room. She said her fish tank filter was apparently making a lot of noise.

So she got up and walked out to check it, and she was fiddling with it, and she suddenly noticed that she could see in their laundry room to the open door, and from there, through there she could see the door that led to the garage, and that door was open, and the garage was open. The garage door was open too, So she suddenly sussed out that it looked like maybe they had left their garage door opened.

But then the door between the garage and the house had been left up unlocked, and somebody had all the doors were open, yeah, and then somebody had entered the house. Have you guys, you guys have seen the footage of the house. Yeah, it is. It is a straight line from their hallway through those doors and out the garage. You can see right out. So she suddenly realized that, hey, it looks like somebody made have walked into the house some summing sometime in the dark of night. That kind

of freaked her out, yeah, understandably. She she ran to Sabrina's bedroom and checked her crib and sure enough it was empty. And now to clarify, Sabrina's bedroom was at the first bedroom. It was one of the first rooms that you would have come to from the garage and the laundry room. Yeah so, but it was the first It was the first bedroom that you would come to. I went to the impression it was the first bedroom.

I've never actually seen who a map of who slept in which room, but I have to presume I agree with Joey. Yeah, so she wouldn't have had whoever it came in and stole Sabrina wouldn't have had to go by everybody's bedroom. Well, you know, if you're stealthy and nothing, people just sound asleep. It's not that I'm just trying to like lay the foundation mentally out. Marlene says she screamed, which woke Steve up. Steve comes out of the bedroom.

He also sees the baby is gone. Marlene gets on the horn calls one at six forty two am, and I guess he was a little incoherent. Um, but I have surprisingly yeah, I've not been able to find much of that the the actual call on the internet. A few snippets here and there they found on TV news

programs included small snippets, and that's all I found. Um. Eventually, she hands the phone to Steve and she got another line to call her mother and then I'm on One operator asked Steve, among other things, if he searched the house for Sabrina, and Steve admitted that he hadn't, so he told William to go search the house. That's the

eight year old son, that is he, that is the son. Yeah, And of course William did not find Sabrina anywhere, and I'm sure that the house was thoroughly searched again after the police got there too. You know, the thing with Steve is a barely being a Steve, I can interpret him. Yeah, but no, the thing is he has he has a different way of phrasing, his setting his and and putting things. And I think that's one of the things that has not served him well because when the operator asked him,

have you searched the house? He says, he says no, and then you can hear him talking to him, he says, search the house. I think it's something like turnover every pillow in case she got out of her crib, which

there is no possible way she could have done. And people are like, why would you say that it really is, except I get it because I know people who just they just voice do this even though I know it can't possibly have happened, but maybe maybe, you know, maybe he was a little exasperated with a nine on one operator. You know, maybe maybe I got as Burger should be

honest with you. Here's something I will say is that you know, somebody who's raised two children, right, and this is his third, he's probably in kind of a panic. And it's totally reasonable, reasonable to believe that. I mean, within a couple of months of five months, kids are escaping from their crib, no problem, and so it's totally reasonable to assume that he was like, well, maybe she figured it out. I don't know, maybe she figured out.

Maybe he's remembering his other kids were total escape artists. And I mean, it's just, yeah, he's he's just he's And by the way, I don't I don't want to sound like I was bashing when I said he sounds like he has aspergers. He's just he's very mechanical in the way that he's talks and he acts. He's very light on the emotional side. And that's why it sounded

so weird. But you're right, he could have thought it that way, or he could have thought there's no freaking way, But I'm just gonna do this to satisfy this woman on the phone. Should get the damn cops here. Yeah, yeah, that's that might have been it. But yeah, I think by that time they already had cops on the way anyhow. Yeah,

they were they were sure they were rude. Yeah. Uh. After his his call and he went next door because his neighbor, Scott Middleton, was a former Tampa police officer, and so he thought, for some reason or another at midletoid maybe should come over and look at the crime scene or for help, or maybe you just don't get good advice, remember whatever. And Medison said there was something

odd about the Eisenberg's. He said, I quote, there was absolutely no emotion with Steve and marleyn like nothing had happened. They weren't broken up, no tears being shed unquote. So obviously he thought there was something hinky going on here. I feel like that's contrary and other things I've seen, but okay, yeah, yeah, well yeah, but I do think that Steve, even even on their TV appearance to day of, he was pretty pretty emotionless. But that you know, again,

you know, people react in different ways. Thank you, and frankly, you know, you're not required to show an a particular emotion or not. It's not you know, it's not as if grief requires a specific response. There is no specified

response to panic and greek. I know. Also they've come under some fire, which I think we're going to talk about in a little bit that they like, you know, in months after, like we're seen smiling and people are like, obviously they killed Actually that happened the day of the day of Yeah, yeah, totally, yeah, sorry, my timelines are a little off, but yeah, I don't know if people. People do have their own strange reactions. There's there's an

amazing amount of pressure for these people. And I don't mean public pressure. I just mean emotional pressure. And I think that they react in a way that most people don't. But I don't think that that's indicative of guilt. But I I'm already getting head I apologize. Yeah, yeah, I mean it could it could mean, it could go either way. Really, yeah, it may be guilty of sin and maybe not. We'll find out, alright. So so they go they go talk

to the neighbor Middleton. Yeah, and so there this whole thing, the the emotion thing, and everything was kind of the beginning of their troubles that they had with the law. When the kind of Shaff's deputy started showing up, the press was right behind them. They started searching the neighborhood along with the house, and they started questioning Stephen marleying. Uh. And in cases like this, of course, usually the parents of the culprits sadly, yeah yeah, and so naturally the cops,

you know, we're suspicious from the very beginning. One thing that struck the cops about the about their home was just how chaotic and messy it was, which to them signified maybe it neglect. And I'm not so sure. I mean, my house is kind of messy too. So, and you don't have two children that are under the age of ten and a child that is only five months old. You also didn't just ask an eight year old to literally turn over every single it might have been amazingly efficient.

Eight year old usually are pretty good at tearing things a part, Yeah, well, young William probably actually had a good time. Yeah yeah. And another the problem the investigator has had with this these two is that Marlene told the first chair of Stepantes who ride on the scene, that she had been woken up by the fish tank. Remember I mentioned that noisy filter, which if you ever had a fish tank filter that was going south there freaking yeah, I've never had a fish tank, but I'll

take your word for it. I'll get you one. Yeah, okay, thank you. And then but then a few hours later she told another investor get if she'd been woken up by the television, which apparently had some sort of wake up function. Oh, I've had those. Yeah. Yeah, And so that obviously raised a red flag for the police, but you know, there wasn't enough to run him downtown quite yet.

They did suggest that they go on television and plead for Sabrina's kidnappers to return her, and they did videotape something that aired I think that afternoon or evening, and I've seen that I've seen that tape of Yeah, yeah, hey, guys, have any opinions on the tape? What do you want to talk about that later in theories so we can talk about it now. Yeah, what were your thoughts, Stevin? Well,

I don't don't. I feel like we should a little bit describe it, right, Okay, So it is all of the news cameras are outside of the house, and a cop walks out and there's a police car backed into the drive unmarked police car backed into the driveway, and the cop walks over the driver's side and gets in rather stone face doesn't doesn't seem to have a whole lot of emotion, and Steve and Marlene follow behind, and they split so that one goes to one side and

one goes to the other for the passengers door. And just as they're starting to split, they both simultaneously break into a rather large smile. Yeah, that's that's the whole scene, and then get into the car at each other, at each other and possibly somebody else, because you know, the situation that's going on. Yeah, and so I mean, actually that was the background of the situation. What happened they

say happened proceeding the smile, I guess, well. I think he was saying that that one of the detectives cracked a joke or something like that, which is kind of under I mean, yeah, the guy cuts a joke, it breaks a joke. It's kind of understandable in a situation like that, which is nothing but stress, because that's but

that's not there's the other. There's more than one time where they were on camera with the smile, and you were talking about the other the other one, right, the other one where they went on TV that I haven't seen anything to plead for the kidnapper or whoever it was taken Sabena to to bring back and gotta and and Steve is sitting there just stone faced the whole time, as he typically is. Yeah, as he usually kind of is,

and she is being kind of tearful. To me, there was something about her grief that seemed a little off. Susan Shepherd is that is that what you're referencing now? Okay, now, not Susan Shepherd. Susan Shepherd was the woman who three years prior had made a claim that someone had stolen car with their children. I thought that was Susan Smith or Susan Smith, thank you. I always do that. I don't know why I always want to call her Shepherd. But she's the one who then was eventually discovered to

have killed her children herself. Yeah, and that that probably colored a lot of people's thinking in this case. Well, if you watched the two videos side by side, they're very similar. It's scary. I mean, it's just grief. Again, it's grief, but if they're very similar. Yeah, and and Marlene's Marlene's acting I didn't think was really up to She didn't strike me as entirely convincing. Oh and there's another thing that happened on the on the first day,

the morning of thinking. The police of course didn't really think it was a kidnapper at all, but you know, it could have been possibly, So they asked permission to put a tap on there from their home phone in case the kidnapp called in with ransom demands. Um, and so before so we've actually were sticking with the original time when we jumped ahead with the bouncing around the timeline of that day. These are all things that happened

on the David. This is the request to put the tap on the phone happened earlier in the day before. I think that even they left the house and there was a little smile that was on like almost right away. Uh. And Steve did get their permission to do that, but he knew there was a tap on the phone. Yeah, either that or he gave him permission and promptly forgot about it. I don't know, but he knew there was

a tap on the phone. And another thing that struck the cops as odd was that the Issenberg's had left their garage door opened overnight, although apparently it's a mistake they had made before court. Apparently, Yeah, they were is for leaving their doors open. Yeah, and they also had kids. Yeah, and they left. Yeah, they left the door from the garage to the house unlocked, which seems like he would love. I would. I would if I lived there, I would. Even if I didn't close the garage door, I would.

I would lock that door. But yeah, kids, kids coming in out of places. That's why years ago, and like what I understand to have been a relatively safe suburb, pretty quiet suburb of Tampa. You know, maybe it wasn't that big of a deal. Yeah, but growing up, we all, like we had doors that were left unlocked, not at night usually, but but you know, I mean it was it was a lucky break for the intruder anyway, that's one way to look at it. Certainly the way the

cops saw it. The intruders somehow made his way into the house and found Seberina and got away without waking anybody up, although that would probably wouldn't be that hard. One thing that I don't see mentioned in your stuff. Here is the fact that people believe that she was taken and not waking up because of the fact that her blanket was gone. It's her what is the crib blanket?

Is that what it's called? Yeah, And because it's leave that she was wrapped up in that to keep her warm and swaddled and quiet, and so she had so she probably didn't wake up. But even if she had woken up, you know, the parents might not have woken up right away. Yeah, I am contrary to my belief. Apparently babies don't instantly wake up in a scream, so it's entirely possible. Well, even when they do, sometimes it

takes a while if you build up. Yeah. Well, or if you you know, have been listening to a baby cry at night, if you're you know, sleep training them. For instance, five months is about when people start sleep training babies. That one they just you let them cry

it out. Yeah, you know, they wake up and they cry, let him cry for son, Yeah, you'll let him go, yeah, and usually they'll that's how they learned how to sell, soothe and put themselves back to sleep at some point, So, I mean they may have just been used to it, although you would assume that you could tell that it was moving. Maybe not that baby is throwing her voice.

It's the weirdest thing. Yeah, I know. Further and further away, by the way, I want to I want to point out something that I find very funny in a lot of those spots where you see the story listed is everybody says, Sabrina and her crip blanket are missing, and yet nobody has put out an APB on that crib blanket. Nobody is looking for the crib and her. It just made out. It's such a funny way when it's written. Yeah that, Yeah, the blanket is written, and they would

like it back. Yeah, even if you want to keep the baby, we want the blanket back. We might have pictures of the blanket. Yeah, we missed that blanket, uh, preferably with the baby in it. Yeah. Probably. But of course it's the odd thing that that really was raised. Yet another big flag as the dog didn't bark. Yeah, not a big flag to me. Yeah, well, it depends

on who you talk to. And the family said that that Brownie was a real quiet dog and then barket people ever, But then again, their neighbor Scott Middleton, remember him the next cop. He said that Brownie barked all the time and barked at everybody. The thing is is that I watched a piece of footage where the camera crew just walked in the house and Brownie just like, Hi, how you doing? How you doing? You get pat me? You know, typical dumbhouse dogs behavior. Not a peep came out.

So it could be, Um, we'll talk about in theories too, maybe the kidnapper was somebody that Brownie knew. Yeah yeah, I mean told the strangers one thing, Brownie who did it? Y? Yeah it was the X cop who did it? Dog? Yeah? Yeah, I like the ex cop theory. Yeah. Um, so the Eisenberg's I should I should have mentioned some other physical evidence to By the way, I forgot about this. There was there was a kind of a footprint, a handprint

similar partial handprint was over. There was there was some fingerprints. They had a slide back door and then they had some fingerprints on it, and then the crib itself. There was there was one stray blonde hair, and everybody in the family had dark hair, although that could be explained maybe if they just had a visitor with blonde hair to come by visit the baby. But they had that, and then there was apparently a footprint on what's that that little ruffled thing that goes around the base of

the crib, that blanket thinking when hangs down crib skirt. Okay, that sounds good enough. Yeah, there was a footprint on that, although it's hard to see, I get a footprint on that, Okay, you know, okay, but yeah, that was that was a physical evidence. That's weird. Yeah, that's weird. That's why why they would like come in through the front, through the garage and then exit through the slider in the back, and then apparently sent ducks followed the scent out to

the back fence. So maybe somebody came into the front. You would think they come in from the front and then exit by the front. But maybe maybe if it was a sort of a team effort, you know, maybe somebody took Sabrina, carried her out to the back fence and handed her over the fence. That doesn't make any sense, Joe, Well, climbing over a fence with a baby, that makes it doesn't make any sense, less sense that that's an instant way to wake up a baby. Used to jostle them

over a fence. Yeah, but I also don't was the skirt like hanging down on the ground. Maybe maybe it kind of partially detached and it was sort of laying on the ground probably the only way that I could imagine a footprint getting on there. Yeah, that's that's that kind of struck me as funny too. But anyway, it

was an evidence that they could ever usefully use. None of it was um And you know it's another piece of evidence which again doesn't really give us much, is that that's one of the next door neighbors was out walking his dog about one am and the dog barked and then he heard the sound of a baby crying in the woods off behind their houses. Yeah, red herring right there. I'm going to call that. Yeah, yeah, I think so. So it was just it was probably somebody

with us just blame the baby app on their iPhone. Yeah, but no, I mean, you know, there's there's other people who have babies, So it's not well, it doesn't really glad, it doesn't really tell say anything. Used was as far as solving our mystery here there, so but that's it. I just didn't want to leave out all those little coaching details. Oh, well, you see him battered around enough.

Back to our investigation, the Eisenbergs were cooperative and they both took light detector tests and that I think that very day. Uh, Stephen Marlane claimed the tests were inconclusive, which happens quite often anyway, fairly regularly. Yeah, the polygraphs are not a percent, but the Sheriff's department leaked information that some of Marline's answers were deceptives. That's about it.

That's the name. Other than that, you know they've been there have been subsequent lye detector tests that you know. The Sheriff's department won't release the results. But the Eisenberg's claimed they passed, but the Shriff's department is not saying anything. Apparently they were a day were in an unincorporated part of the captain in part of the county that didn't have its own police force as the Sheriff's. By the way, if you're wondering this anyway, Steve's brother, as it happens,

his name was Dave. He's a lawyer, and he advised them to get a lawyer. From the start. They waited two days before they hired one, a guy named Barry Cohen, and you'll find him on the internet all over the internet. Oh yeah, they never appear without Barry Cohen. Oh yeah. And he's one of those guys too, and he's uh, you know, good at publicizing himself a little bit. I think, Well, all of the videos that I found that one of any substance about this case, we're on his YouTube channel. Yeah,

so that tells you something. Yeah yeah, yeah, but he's got some useful videos out there. If you do do a Google on Barry co and Eisenberg and then just mine his YouTube's channel, Yeah, you'll find all kinds of good stuff out there. On the advice of Barry co and the eisenberg stopped cooperating with the investigation. And one of the things that that the Eisenberg's has said all along is that the police never did anything but look for a body and try to pin the crime on

Stephen Marlane. Yeah, and they think that the Eisenberg's think that the police never really seriously considered the possibility that somebody stole Sabrina. And that's one of the agrievances against him. I gotta tell you that, I think I know why that is. Yeah, why if you ever look at early news footage or later foot news footage. This we're gonna look back at the case. It's always divers in ponds and guys going in the roadside ditches, because that's what

makes footage, not cops walking through yards. Yeah, now they were. They were going around like looking at going door to door and searching yards. And as you said, there were these all these rows of divers going into these ponds side by side, so they could totally cover and cover the bottom of the pond. You gotta think of the size of a baby. They're rather small. In five months, it's going to be a little kid. It would be easy for one person swimming around in a murky environment

to miss. Yeah, so they did do a massive search. Um, the police search, I understand, encompassed about a five mile radius around the house and and that's everything. And plus Steve was a local real estate agent. I don't know if I've mentioned that. Yeah, I'm sorry that that's what he was doing for a living at the time. And apparently he had just recently taken part in the sale of the house. And I heard that the police went

to that place and dug up the entire yard. Well, that's that would lead you to believe that they were there. They were pretty sure you would killed your child. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I would be pissed if that was the house tonight. I know, I know that. You know, they probably just slapped a little warrant on him and just said, you know, hey, if you don't need to thank us now, you're you're pretty just really escaped the whole thing. You've started the process for you unturned. Yeah.

But but contrary to what the Isenbergs said, the police did do more than look for a body, and they followed upon thousands of leads, which were mostly sightings of Sabrina, which all turned out to be fault. But the case was getting Yeah, I was getting national attention, and her picture was all over the place, and you know, his face at babies tend to not be distinctive, and they tend to all look alike. Yeah, and so I'm not surprised that lots of people saw Sabrina. I mean, Sabrina,

what what was you unique about her? She had big, dark eyes and dark and kind of a mop of dark hair. Yeah, so she was that was distinctive about her. So but still, I'm sure in America at that time, there were still plenty of babies and thousands of babies who looked generally like that. Yeah. And it's also not so hard that to, you know, kind of cover a baby up. Right, Nobody is going to be like, oh,

why do you have your baby all wrapped up like that? Right, it's not that hard to excuse me, excuse me, ma'am. Let me see your baby's face. Yeah, you could diet, you can, you can bleach your hair, I mean, little hats are fine. Yeah, or she looks like a baby. I don't know, there's nothing big and distinct about her. Yeah. But the most famous sitting was, of course, Puloma Unknown. Yeah. I don't know if you guys want to talk about

Paloma Unknown. The basics, which real real quick basics. Uh, she's kind of a little mystery in her on her own. She was apparently brought across the West Mexico border by an unnamed teenager who gave her to a woman named Molly Garza, who didn't know what to do with her, so she gave her to a nurse that she knew, and the nurse gave Paloma Unknown to her sister, who lived in Pontiac Illinois, where I don't know if she might still live there today. Nobody knows who she is

or where she's from. The mother. The mother just handed the kid over to Molly, and there's no birth certificate. They can be tracked out. Yeah, not at all. But she kind of I'm sure you've seen pictures of her. She kind of looks like Sabrina. I wouldn't say identical, but she kind of looks like her, about the same age and everything. And so eventually somebody put two and two together and they suggested they run a DNA test, and the DNA test came back negative, so Paloma is

still unknown. So this is a good point to bring something up about the Eisenbergs, which is either their lawyer is a good publicist or they've got somebody else working with them, because it's about this time that they went on the Horaldo Show. They went on all and every time, well like they went on around this time, and they because apparently the process of identifying this child wasn't going as fast as they wanted it, and they used their publicity as a tool to speed that process up, which

it worked. But they've done this several times for several possible leads, and so that's another thing that I know is kind of a black eye on their their innocence because of the fact that people like, why do you keep doing that? And then never mind that it's years later and they're on TV and they're just stone faced.

But I don't know who's telling them to do who is telling them to do these things, But it doesn't seem like it was a good idea, staying out of the public eye as much as possible personally, as most parents of missing children do. Yeah, And the other another thing that that somebody set up a fund for like you know, find Sabrina or whatever. And apparently I heard a story that they had used some of the funds from that to retire some credit card debt. Have you

not heard that story? Vaguely? Remember that I seen a few news articles, and I'm gonna I'm gonna stress that right here that I've seen it in a few places. But this is suppressed, So I don't know that it's absolutely true. It might not be. Well, you know, the stupid thing about that is that maybe it's possible that that is debt that they incur searching for their daughters and pay for their card now it's it's very true. Yeah, and so that is that's a possibility. So okay, so Paloma, no,

not Sabrina. It turns out not to be so disappointment. So so did I mentioned the police were kind of convinced that Stephen Marline were had murdered her or done something school they were involved something sulled. But yeah, yeah, yeah, but they still couldn't find a look at evidence, and so well, I actually I shouldn't say that they couldn't find much in the way of evidence. Yeah, nothing, nothing

that you could hang them with. About two months after Sabrino disappeared, a federal grand jury was convened to look into the case, and the Eisenbergs were summoned, but on the advice of Council that's Barry Cohen, they refused and they pled the Fifth Amendment for our foreign listeners. And you probably know this anyway, but the Fifth Amendment to the U. S Constitution guarantees your right not to be

forced to testify against yourself. So when you plead the Fifth, essentially you're saying you're refusing to testify because if you did testify, you would incriminate yourself. You might Yeah, you might incriminate yourself. Yeah, it's not would, it's might, Yeah, exactly, and so that's your right. And but it's not. It

doesn't look good. It's bad optics. Yeah, but you know, I mean actually, but seriously, you know, I think any good defense layer would tell his clients in their position, since the police were really Jones and form, I think any good defense to Yeah, I would totally tell him. I was waiting because that's exactly where I was going to go. Is it if they have brought a case against them like this, they are obviously digging for something? Oh? Absolutely so yeah, so that's why. So yeah, I say,

I'm not holding that against them at all. But to some people, once again, bad optics. Yeah, a police frustrated their investigation, got a warrant and because they couldn't prove anything otherwise, let's do something else. Yeah, there was there was even some there was some questionable behavior in the evidence they used to get their warrants that you know, all, I guess their hearts win the right place. And so they planted bugs in their kitchen and bedroom in their house. Yeah.

They listening on them for almost three months from seven am to midnight every day and I heard they recorded as many as twenty six hundred separate conversations, uh in three months in a house with two adults and two children. That that sounds like a small number. Yeah, well, I mean, you know, you never know. Probably a lot of them were like you know, in the rooms other than the kitchen, in the bedroom or out in the yard or god

knows where. Yeah, I've heard a lot of stuff about these. Yeah. Yeah, we'll talk about this. This is not a shining moment for the police, is not apparently the something in their execution kind of that kind of it was kind of a big fail. But we'll talk about that later, not too much, but soon. Yeah, they're trying to they're trying to build their case. So in May, this is why the year and a half later they weren't doing so

well financially. I guess the police were still yeah, yeah, and they I guess the police were still busily trying to transcribe those tapes, because obviously the tapes were like late ninety seven and early and so here it is like kind of early in the mid nine they still haven't. It just seems like a really low freaking priority to transcribe those tapes. If you did three months worth of tapes and then it takes you a year, and however a year to go through them, well, you know, I'm

not sure. You know, I'm not sure what the legal process here too is putting together in indictment and everything that you make it very valid take it back. Yeah, but I would I would say transcribing three months worth of tapes would take you a while. It takes a

really long time. Yeah. Well, but especially again because of the quality of but I'm guessing that a lot of it was dead air time, so you listen to listen to it at two time speed when you okay, well, it's you know, she always takes the kids to school at eight thirty and then she's gone till nine fifteen when she shows back up with her Starbucks zip ahead. There are such things as voice activated microphones too, so that's that's one way around that. If they use that,

that would that would make more sense. Yeah, okay, yeah, so I don't know, or they could use a you know, like situation where they have a have a screen like the one right over here that's in our sound recording system, where they can just like look at the tape and just sort of see where the waves pick up and just okay, zip to that part and listen. Yeah, but we we we all know how fallible that it was. Also, and they didn't have whizzy stuff like this, Okay, So

so they recorded a bunch of conversation. Yes, yeah, And and of course, and as I said, the Eisenbergs, we're not doing well financially, and so they sold the house in val Rico and moved to Bethesta, Maryland, which was where actually the childhood home was, and his parents still owned the house. And so since they were having a

hard time financially, that his parents let them stay there. Yeah. Meantime, of course, as I said, the police and the FBI, because that I mentioned that the kidnapping was suspected, that the FBI at least touches base on every potential abduction. Is that correct, Yeah, because that's a federal crime. Yeah, I think that happened after Littlenbirg kidnappens. Yeah, I think you're right, And so yeah, it doesn't Yeah, of course

the FBI is involved. Yeah, yeah, and so so yeah, the FBI, and I think that some other police agencies also, but they're putting together their case. Man obviously they had a pretty good idea what had happened to Sabrina. There have been some sculptugg areas said earlier. So four months after the move to Bethesda, the FBI pays Marley in a call. One day they gave her a friendly knock on the front door with a battering ram, came came busting into the house, and they arrested her. By the way,

I think, I think it was a little excessive. Yeah, you know, I I showed it from sending to the SWAT team to that house a bit much. Yeah. Yeah, that's ridiculous, especially a house with a couple of kids, and you know, I don't know if the kids were home at the time or not, but still, you know, it just seems kind of outrageous to they showed up at after she got back with her Starbucks. Yeah, yeah, but the battering ram dudes, really, I mean, right, I

get to buy a new door. Yeah, across town wherever Steve was, I guess he was working. They were arresting him, and they were charged with obstructing the investigation lying to the police. They were not charged with murder. You know, we were talking about the fact that the family was having financial troubles. Here's a reason why the cops are showing up at his job constantly, and his employers like, I don't really want the cops around my place business

all the time. Oh look, the the SWAT team rolled into the real estate office and hauled your way in cuffs. Yeah. Well, I mean think about the whole incident where they dug up that guy's yard. Yeah, what's that going to do up your business? Yeahs his commission on that sale. Yeah, I don't know if you did or not, but I'm sure that scared a lot of people away. Yeah. Yeah,

so so they hauled him away. Yeah, and and plus just all the bad publicity anyway, I'm sure would would be pretty tough on you as a real estate agent, you know. Yeah yeah, yeah, buy a house for me. The cops come dig up your yard? Yeah, what a sales? Yeah yeah. They had a bail hearing, and a federal prosecutor at that here and told the judge that she had heard Steve on tape saying quote, I wish I

hadn't harmed her. It was the cocaine quote. And yeah this This quote also appears in the indictment, which says it happened in on January nine. Hadn't harmed her? Do people speak like that? Yeah? Yeah, I wish I hadn't harmed her. Uh. The indictment also quotes Marlene Is saying Deceber twenty third, quote the baby is dead and married.

It was found dead because you did it. The baby is dead, no matter what you say, you just did it, unquote, and Steve reportedly replied, quote, honey, there was nothing I could do about it. We need to discuss the way we can beat the charge. I would never break the family packed in our story. Even if the police were to whold be down. We will do what we have to do unquote. Uh. The the indictment has a few other incriminating conversations. I won't recite them all just now.

There's no reason to you. But it was pretty damning evidence. And you gotta wonder why the Ice Verse were being charged with lying in obstruction rather than murder. I gotta wonder. I feel like the next bid might have something to do with that. It's a gateway charge. Yeah, just like the cocaine. Yeah. Yeah. So things were looking kind of dark for the Issenberg's at this point, but then when

they finally got their day in court. The prosecution's case kind of fell apart because when the tapes were actually played in court and the incriminating statements that were in the indictment, well, they couldn't actually be heard on the tapes. Did it sound like turn me on, dead man? It was? It was a housemaid of of masking tape and cardboard. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Reportedly the judge, I think his name was Piso, I can't remember his first name, reportedly said of the prosecutors,

is this all you've got? Unquote yeah yeah. Reporter for the St. Petersburg Time who was there described the tapes as quote sounding like chicken squawking with a hurricane playing in the background. That's pretty impressive, you know. Somebody somebody was saying that it was very unclear if it wasn't

the television. Well that was one of the things that I think they did really wrong, right, is that they didn't have any way You have seen the wire, right, so you know that like at least in the wire videotape as well, well you at least have to like prove that that person was on the phone at that time, right, So the police having no way of corroborating. If these are conversations that are being haven't had in real life.

It's the radio, it's kids, it's you know, neighbors, it's people breaking into the house for all they know having these conversations. They have no way to know any of

the stuff. They just have these recordings. On top of that, it was all gibberish anyway, And could you imagine if it was something along the if the kids were playing a game that was something along the lines of like Grand Theft Auto, which is nothing but gunfire and screaming and swearing and people die and all kinds of dialogue like yeah, and then it's yeah, this is just ass and I yeah, So it was kind of a waste

of time. The judge, of course, drew out the case. Yeah, and I heard that the two prosecutors you brought the is the court were demoted afterwards. That's all. Yeah. I I don't understand why they weren't fired in this barred, because bringing false evidence in front of a judge is pretty serious prosecutorial abuse. I feel like these guys, maybe we're under pressure to to make something happen, and it may have been a bit of confirmation bias. That's the

only phrase. It's the only way I can think of describe where you've got to hear something and then you start hearing something and you convince yourself that it's something to ferry. We thought we literally just talked about this not too long ago, and the Paul is dead. Yeah. I mean anytime we talk about when somebody says, you know, you put a video up and you subtitle it, suddenly you're like, oh, yeah, that totally says that, or I

can kind of hear that. But that's I think that I don't want to like totally say these guys were trying to frame the Azenberg's, but they may have been very misguided in their attempts. Well, the thing about it is, it's maybe what they were accounting. I was like, you're talking about we have these transcripts which are going to be entered into evidence and the jury we'll be looking at them, and they'll be listening to the tapes too.

But if they're reading and listening to the tape at the same time, just a second, yeah, I guess it kind of sounds like that they're saying that maybe Okay, sure, good, what's the what's the saying it's like, um, when you live in the monkey house, you like, stop smelling the poop, right, I mean, if you're in if you're in that for so long. So I think that it's it's totally possible that that was what was happening to the police. You know. At some point people are like, I don't know, did

they Yeah? They probably did. I don't know. Well what evidence do we have when we have those tapes and you hear those two you know, and they just kept going back and forth and suddenly they weren't smelling the poop anymore. Yeah, they're probably were right. It's a situation where I can't remeber who it was we it's a friend of ours made the statement where these prosecutors were in a situation using analogy as similar to yours, which is they were in a situation where they had to

turn chicken poop into chicken salad. Yeah, yeah, that's about it. Well, they never succeeded. Their case was thrown out. As I said, the ad the Eisenberg sued and one I'm not going to get into all that stuff, but yeah, for years it did. It did finally ended in October two thousand four when their appeal to the Supreme Court was rejected

by the Supreme Court. But they did one they're they're the thing they're appealing is that their they did win, that they won, but they want some stantial amount of money for layer of legal fees. And then that was cut in two by the appeals court. And then they appealed to Supreme Court, which rejected basically declined to hear

their case. Well, and I think part of the reason that if I remember reading it, correct me if I'm wrong here, Joe, wasn't it They declined the case because it would set a precedent where anybody could sue the prosecutor's office basically sue them for doing their job, which opened them up to a whole another bag of tricks

that they shouldn't be worried about. I'm not sure if that was the same one, but the I think the Supreme Court, I don't think the and commented on Oh see, I I remember, I remember maybe it was somebody else. I think it was. I think it was a different lawsuit. They I think they wanted to actually sue or have the prosecution like prosecuted themselves, but there was prosecutorial immunity that maybe I just it was like it was one of those things like, well, yeah, if you it's suddenly

it's a snake chasing its own tail. Yeah. So but anyway, that's not that relevant to mystery anyway. So yeah, we're not gonna bother anymore with that. There was not a lot of movement after that in the case, no reports that I know, let's be honest, there wasn't a whole lot of movement in the case for Sabrina after about the first three days. Yeah, not really. Well, I mean there was there was some movement in the sense of getting sightings, you know, reports of studio. That doesn't really

that doesn't really move things along. It's not useful. So yeah, this thing that sort of became a cold case almost immediately. Um there was a report or not sually I gain us In July two eight, there was a report the Tampa Bay Times. I assume you guys saw that. Yeah. Yeah, so a guy named Dennis Byron, who was at Joel House snitch he said his cellmates, got over back and

confessed to taking part in Sabrina's demise. All Rebec said that he had made call to the Eisenberg home by an unnamed third party to retrieve a small boat that had a dead baby in it. Yeah, he said that he chopped the body up and used the parts to it's a little tacky here, but to bake crab traps, which he then dropped into Old Tampa Bay to the western town. You can see it on maps. U and

I checked. Apparently the crabbing is pretty good in the bay, not so much in late November, but you know, there are a lot of crabs in that bay. I gotta say it would take a very particular kind of person to be able to commit that chop up a dead baby. Yes, to be able to do that, I mean to do it regardless of what you are doing with the remains afterwards. Like this guy, if he could do that, I would imagine that he was the coldest s ob in the planet and should have been in trouble for a lot

of other things. Because it wasn't. It wasn't trouble. He was in jail right, but much more heine his crimes. He obviously had no qualms about that kind of stuff, like it's just that's that's that's surpasses dexter level to me. Yeah, it kind of is. I have you know, for all we know, the guy was probably lying. I've always had a problem with jail house snitches. But yeah, yeah, and if you're on the jerry, don't trust the jail house snitch.

Take it with a grain of salt. Well, that's because the prosecutors love to use them and abuse them much so. Although in this case, the police had wired up a Sony Walkman as a listening device and give it to Byron to take it. But all Walkman's were listening devices. Good point, but to listen to the other direction recording device, so they had recorded a back statements. But on the other hand, the Isenberg said that they had never owned a boat, and I couldn't find any confirmation one way

or the other. But you gotta assume that the police pulled out all the stops to find out if they ever owned a boat, right, And there's ways to do that, by the way, I mean, yes, the neighbors that they have a boat parked in their driveway. And also you go down, you've got to register your boat and putting numbers on it and stuff, so you know, you can you can go see if they registered their boat. And so there's there's ways to find out if they had

a boat, right, so for what? Okay, listen, I'm gonna make it very clear here that I am on the side of the family in this story. This is one of the ones where I just I can't jump both sides for the most part, But in this part there is a whole bunch of ways. You're gonna buy a boat from a guy, but you don't have an actual contract with the guy. Instead, you say, listen, you hold the note, you and I know it's on a handshake deal. I'm gonna pay for it over time. We're gonna keep

it at at the dock. You you keep the paperwork, so then it's never in their name. But people do that with with collateral all the time. But Overback said that he actually retreated it from their home. It was it was parked at their home and they had the band, Sabrina's body was already in it. I misread it because when I read his stuff, I swore that he retrieved the boat from where it was docked. I thought it. I didn't. I didn't take it as I didn't remember

being in their drive. What was over Back in jail for, you know, I can't remember now. It was not actually it wasn't something hideously hamous it was. I don't think it was from murder or anything like that. I just gotta wonder if, like, I know, this is like really messed up, but I kind of wonder if he was trying to like bulk up his cred you know that. Don't mess with me. I did this thing. I'm so hardly you don't want to come at me in jail. I'm not like I'm not to be trifled with. This

is a thing I did. Yeah, it could be that, it could be that. It could be the Byron actually, like you know, put the walkman into a pillow and said, hey, dude, let's have some fun with the prosecutors here. That thing is a bug. So hey, why don't you why don't you confess to something incredible lurid you know, you know, And that's actually that now that you say that, that's

a great way to get in with somebody. We're going to pretend incriminate you for something that we know cannot be true because we're making it up as we go. So then suddenly you're on board. You're you're your player in the game. So for the guy who's recording it,

it gets him some some credit. Yeah, so yeah, And I gotta say the other thing about Jaila how snitches, is that if you're ever in jail for murder, I mean, if you have to have ever put you in jail and you're suspected and some guy sits down next to you and says, hey, what's you in for? Yeah, you gotta say murder, and he says, really what you do? And you gotta say, Well, this guy was pissing me off.

So I chloroformed, and I tied him up with budget chords and when it came to I changed them up and lowered him slowly into a vat of hydrochloric ass. And let's let him take that back to the prosecutors, you know, ahead, Yeah, yeah, well I put I put him in a well, I lowered a bucket with lotion in it, and I said it puts Yeah, no, actually accustomed build a really huge tribute. And okay, oh yeah,

let's get back to let's story here. That's been as of right now, it's been almost twenty years since the Rena vanished and not a single trace ever has been found, I mean nothing. So I know that we're about to get into the theory section. But I think we'd be a little miss if we don't talk about a little bit of some of the footage that is of the parents when they go on TV, because Stephen Martley talk about like Larry King, well, Larry King or Araldo and

stuff like that. I mean, this is one of those weird cases where I felt like I got as much formation from news reporting actual videos as I did from the written stuff, where normally I I avoid the videos. But the Heraldo segment was pretty good. You know what. That reaffirmed for me why I hate Nancy Grace because that broad is a giant liar. Oh she's horrible, But that's not my point. My point is people talk about how heartless these people are, how just cold they are.

Their their daughter was stolen, according to what they say. I get that, we can't just say that's what happened, but their their child is gone. They are beaten up by the media, they were beaten up by the police, they were beaten up by the prosecutor's office, and they are on TV a good jillion times. Do you not think that after a while it just becomes a mechanical thing you have to do. Well. Yeah, and of course

time passes to yes. Obviously, this is you're not a blubbering mess for the next fifty years when words are uttered. Even if you don't get get over it, you learn how to cope, how to respond to it. It's like Steve, you know, people talk about him being so cold and mechanical, but he was in real estate and Joe, you and I asked you this earlier, so you I don't remember what it was he did for a living before or

after the whole real estate thing. Yeah, I forgot. It was some sort of delivering installing stuff and I can't computer stuff. I mean, he seems like a very technical guy, and he seems like he just has a very, very deliberate way about him. He's very emotionless by nature. And I don't mean that as a as a slur, just the way he reacts. And yet at the same time I watched that guy freak out on TV. I mean, he got very remember one you were talking about, Yeah,

and it's like, well, how do you call them not emotional? Well, yeah, of course he's not crying over the fact that his daughter has gone six or nine months later, because he's cried himself out, but he still has emotion, he still loses it, but people don't want to attribute that to actual feelings. It just it feels really weird to me the way that this case has just been so it's polarized. Well, it's not just this case, right, it's any time that

kids disappear parents. There's such a spotlight put on their parents to react exactly the right way, right, and if they don't react exactly how everybody thinks they should write, they should be teary, but not like in an fake, weird, dramatic way, and they should be like very stoic the

entire time and never smile. And they can't just be too stern about it, right, but they and they can't because they also can't come off as though like they were maybe like distant and abuse so while the child was there, and like it's just like, oh my god, Like these people are human beings going through a thing, and like we're putting the spotlight on them. Of course they're not going to like stack up, of course they're not.

Nobody does and probably you know, when you go out in public, you know you behave a little differently than you do in private. Yeah, and most of us don't want to be seen crying on national TV. Well, I mean there's also the question of like what, you know, what kind of household did Steve grow up in? Was it okay for guys to cry? Right? Or was he meant to be holding it in? Was that right? You know,

just hold it in? And like the way that he expressed his emotion again, is that anger outburst and that like he thought, I can't cry, I'm a man, right. It's something as simple as like, you know, maybe you don't mind if your neighbor sees you cry, but you really don't want your father seeing you cry, right, you know, and you know your dad's gonna see you on TV, right, so you're gonna hold it in. Right? So anyway, enough

enough about this speculation about him Ocean. Well, yeah, we're right, I mean, and just just again to read for everybody you know this, this is something that happens two parents, no matter what their age of their children are. I mean, there's um I think I've talked about the book before,

The People Who Eat Darkness. That book the girl was I think she was twenty or twenty two when she disappeared in the same kind of speculation about the family's reactions that we just talked about here were thrust upon the parents of a twenty sem odd year old woman. So it's it's universal. It's despicable, but it's universal. It's like it's like the dango ate my baby chick, you know. The And then years go by and she's the most hated woman in Australia and then they finally find her

babies with skeletal remains. For it wasn't the remains, but it was I think it was the blanket. They found the blanket in a dingo down. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so it looks like she was telling ge haters, how do you feel about yourself? Now? Justified? Come on, let's let's be justified and talk about theories. Yeah yeah, all right, let's get into our theories. Okay, yeah, I divided theories in the two subsets. Yeah you did you. I've been trained by the best. So first is Stephen Marline are

telling the truth? Uh, and the second set is they're lying? Can I in a referse section? There's weird. I just noticed something weird in your note is that you've abbreviated these people so they become but only when they're like bad. It really It really threw me. It was like, what this isn't this is a theory. I didn't know that asking them is lying. I didn't know that either. I didn't know it was possible. Oh okay, let's start out.

So the parents knew nothing. They truly knew nothing. So the theories under that would be Sabrina was abducted and murdered by a random killer that's extremely abnormally a baby of that age. Well, it just seems unlikely to me that somebody would just be going down the street and the cold to sack by the way that I mention it was a cold to sack, Yeah, and and happy to see an open garage door and just say, hey, I'll walk over there and see if that I can.

The door to the house is unlocked, and hey, guess what it is. Maybe I'll go see if I can abduct a child and you don't take them out in the woods and murder of them. Yeah, that's that's yeah. And the one thing that another theory that's been put out there by people, that there's a whole devil worshiping cult thing, yeah, satanic panic, yes, yeah. And so I'm finding all that whole thing just not satanic panic wasn't a real thing, not really, So that's this, know, this

theory doesn't exist, okay theory. Okay, abduction for sale, and of course there's also just abduction by somebody who's baby crazy. So I guess that comes to a whole like, you know, three theories there. Um, Yeah, we need to explain when when you say baby crazy, Joe, you mean there are there's a condition for folks and craziest wrong term use. But it's just that people, the people who really want a child but for whatever reason can't have one, yes,

and therefore resort to stealing someone else's child. Yeah, this is not not unknown. But so let's let's do the abduction the baby crazy one first. That that would mean somebody really really wanted a child and they stopped. They stopped the family for god knows how long, and you know,

no more than five months. Yeah, obviously, but they stocked him for a while, probably because they had to get an idea of you know, where they lived and everything, and sort of get an idea of you know, hey, they leave the garage store open, Hey we can go jimmy the lock and hey that night we locked out. They didn't even lock the lock, you know. And and we went in there and found the baby and took it, and and and Sabrina was a cute kid. She was

a cute little baby, you know. So I'm gonna go on record say I hate this theory, but it actually it actually explains something to a degree, which is, let's say that said people who are in need of a baby, whether for emotional reasons or financial reasons, happened to live on the other side of the fence, walk around, they see the door is open, that person walks in, opens the baby there. Don't open the baby out there, pretty creepy. The door is open, and they take the baby, thank

you for correcting that. And then they walk to the back fence where their accomplice who is in the house is at the fence and hand the baby over the fence, and then they go back out the front door, thus eliminating the need to walk around the block with a potentially crying baby or you know where you might be seen.

On the other hand, however, uh, it seems like the police search was fairly extensive, and like they probably would have like just at least casually searched people's houses like but but that doesn't mean that the people who wanted the baby and we're staying at that house were the people who lived in that house. It could be my wife and I want a baby and I'm staying with my aunt and uncle for an extended stay, let's say

two weeks, and I realized they have it. And the the day before I'm supposed to leave, I'm out on a walk and I realized it, and I'm like, holy crap, honey, They've left the door open. Like we can totally we can have a raising Arizona moment, at which point, you know, we just leave in the night and leave a note that say we had to go, and then we show up months later it's like, well, we didn't want to tell anybody, but she was actually pregnant. Ha, Like it's

it's a total raising Arizona situation. There are some issues with this, though, There are. I mean, that would have been that would have been interesting, and it would have been really coincidental that the people right behind them wanted a baby real bad. Well, that's why I'm saying it's somebody that isn't the neighbors, so that they're gone. Yeah, but more than that, right, I mean, so Okay, so say that somebody did abduct this baby and then chose

to raise it on their own. But we live in America, and um, like you need things like a birth certificate or like a Social Security number or card. I mean you can get a replacement card, right, We've discovered that, but you need your number YEA, And yeah, you can get a replacement birth certificate, but you need some proof of you know, you saying you are who you are, and there's just a lot of stuff you need. It's hard.

It would be hard to explain because like say you're adopted by this family and you go out and you actually get a birth certificate for somebody was born about the same time, but who died. You know that that's it's harder to do these days, you can still do that. But the problem is is in you got to figure out a way to explain the fact that you've got this kid. So you're we're all, we're all making a giant mistake here. Know that everybody has a child in

a hospital. It is entirely possible that somebody could file the paperwork and say I had my child at home. I didn't have a midwife with me. It just happened, and we've got our baby. People do that. It's not it's not common, but it's not unheard of that home bursts happened and they are unattended, and it is very difficult to get the proper paperwork after the fact. But if this child is like six months old, you can flub that. You can fudge it and say, you know that,

you can make up some stuff. And by the time that you've filed your paperwork and they come around eventually the child is months older than that, they may not ever figure it out. It's entirely possible. Is it plausible. I don't think so, but it is possible if you were smart, you're planned it. Well, that's one of the things you could do is you could file the paperwork like you was like three months old, and you knew what she looked like. She has dark hair, dark eyes,

and about X number of pounds. Yeah, yeah, and then you know, and then by the time by the time they finally come around and have a look at her, you know she's a couple of months older. But and you don't even consider that she's Sabrina because I mean, you put you found your paperwork like two months before kidnapping. You know, she so she looks uncomfortably like Sabrina, but you know I can't be You file the paperwork way back when. Yeah, that's meditation. And of course you have

also dyed her hair like blonde. Well, and that's the sort of thing you would have to do, right, because they think to make the assumption babies progress in a very predictable way, especially in that first year of life. And so to say like, wow, they wouldn't notice a couple of months, it's like they probably would though. Uh, you know everything I know about social workers and people who are in that profession and the workload. I'm not

knocking them, but their workloads. I'm not talking about social workers that I'm talking about doctors, like you take her for her baby wellness check up six months and she's actually like eight months. They're going to know. So if what Joe says they would have premeditated, that would make it a lot more believable. But that would have to have been really premeditated, and it would have had to

been local, Yeah, very much so. But or some incredible incredible professionals, you know, like you guys that are like guys that are like international crime like level kind of thing that we're hired by rich people. Oh so it's it's it's it's baby impossible like that. Yeah, but I guess at that point it's kind of like, if they are baby impossible level, right, why are you not just kidnapping babies from other countries and then shipping them over

here as like they're adopted. Sadly, it turns out that is much easier and affordable. Yeah, that I don't know, But I don't know. Yeah, Okay, Well, so much for that that whole theory. Abduction by baby crazy, abduction for sale. I think that's a similar thing. I think it's unlikely. They're all unlikely. So let's let's to our next set of theories. Well, it's actually that's that's the one I like though, the most. Which one is that? The abduction for keeping O, That's the one I want, that's in

like in your emotional that's what I want. This girl is This is girl is at this point, if this is true, she is old right now, eighteen, So I really want this to be some eighteen year old girl whose biggest concern is should she or should she not date Bobby Johnson? Yeah, better than somebody who's dead and then rotting in a grave somewhere. Right, you know, something terrible has happened too soon. That's what I'm just gonna keep saying. Just thinking, Bobby Johnson, you realize you have

one of our listens might actually be Sabrina. So if you're eighteen, Sabrina, of course you're not called Sabrina. Check yours. That might be coincidental. Yeah, yeah, but yeah, okay. Subset theory number two, yeah, which is the parents did know something. Uh, it does does kind of look like they maybe knew something. I left one little detail out from the story of that first day. Remember what I said, The police put a tap on the Eisenberg's phone, Yeah, just in case

the kid never called. One of the first calls that came in that morning was from Steve's brother, Dave, who I mentioned earlier, who was a lawyer, and who called him up and told him he should be careful what he said to the police and it should lawyer up and cetera. Yeah, And then when they were talking and the police were listening to this conversation, they heard a beat which was call waiting. Somebody was calling in, And surprisingly Steve didn't take the call yeah, And eventually the

caller rang off. You know what that sounds like, Yeah, yeah, I've hung up tone yeah, yeah, yeah, And Steven Dave kept talking and then another call came in, and once again Steve blew the call off that he was really concerned about her having been kidnapped. Apparently, yeah, apparently he didn't. He didn't believe for a second that she had been kidnapped. UM, I have to ask a question, which is, have you never seen what happens to anybody that's in the media spotlight.

Everybody and their mom calls them from news agencies to talk. So it could very well have been that he was. They were getting good jillions of Hi, this is so and so from ABC News Channel seven, want to talk about missing child? Can we talk with you? No go away? Hi? This is so and so from CBS News Channel six. Can we talk to you? No go await? Like but I get that. But still, but any car, any call could have been the kick off and the kid never

number one number two. I again, I'm making assumptions here. I have to assume that the police let the media know, Hey, guys, don't be calling in. I'm not gonna agree with that. The media is that crap all the time, But but seriously they I mean, I could see what the police would say, Hey, we have to keep that lineup, and in case their kid never calls it, we have to keep it open. I don't think. I don't think news agencies call people. I think they'd show up on their doorstep.

You know what the first string does. The third string doesn't like the radio station. They don't have a guy to send down there. But my other thing to think about, and and again I realize I'm defending these people when I say these things, and it's not to defend them, it's just that I see other reasons. But the other thing is, I don't know if you've ever had this, but I know people who don't understand how to use

call waiting. So it may have been and that he never understood how to use this this goll dang call thing it comes through. I can't believe he's quite that dumb. But I have no perfectly intelligent people who look at their phone and go, what what are these other three buttons for? That don't have numbers? Or the picture of a red or green phone on him? Was what it was? You got to be you hit the receiver button and you clicked over the other line. Though even on a

cordless phone, it was probably possible. But the thing about there's no button on a cordless phone, there's a hang up and there's an answer and a disconnect button. Which one would you hit? There? There is a way. And I don't know if he was cos I'm being a jerk about this, but making a point. I think realistically

people at that time. I just think realistically in the end. Right, if even if you don't know how to use call waiting, right, the first time you hear that thing going, you go, oh crap, Dave, I'm sorry, somebody's ringing the other line. I gotta go yeah, exactly right. You don't stay on the phone or you say, hey, Mr Police officer, Sir, I was just on the phone with my brother Dave, and I heard call waiting ringing. I didn't know how to switch over. What do I do? You bring it up?

If you actually think that a kidnapper is calling for ransom, you bring it up and you hang up the phone. Even if you can't figure out how to duck over to that other line, well, let me let me tell you something else. Completely logical with Now you gotta you gotta understand something else too. Steve was a real estate agent. Do you understand how key the phone is to a real estate agent? I do, but I don't know how good of a real estate agent he was. Well, I mean,

look at the house they were living in. It was a nice house. I think I can tell this whole thing happened is business one down to toil. He was probably doing pretty well. I thought huge started in the real estate busy at that point. I think he had been in it for a while and I had no idea how long he was selling cass but apparently maybe he had only just started. But he was just doing it really well because the market was really hot right at that part. Because I remember that is that was

that's a bubble. I mean the bubble was still going on that you know, it was like that was kind of the beginning. Any idiot will serve. But I think, sorry, go ahead, but I get a guy. I've got to tell you, I've dealt with many, many real estate agents, and they live and die by their phones. Yeah they do. I just think we've had Nauseams discussed Steve's downfall of phones.

So yeah, I don't have to use the phone. But anyway, this is this, okay, among other things, this is one of the things that right right for the start told the police that the parents knew something, at least something. That doesn't mean that they murdered Sabrina, but they knew something. And I think I suspect they did know something. So let's go go through our theories here, which is that Stephen Marley and killed Sabrina. I don't think that either

one of them is this intentional or unintentional. I think most likely, you know, unintentional because it's not totally out of the realm of possibility. But I've seen pictures, have you guys, these guys have seen pictures in the videos. Yeah, yeah, and and and you know, they're smiling and they're happy, you know, and and they're very happy with them. Yeah, and and and so they didn't look to me like they were hating on Sabrina to want to kill her. Yeah.

So I'm thinking that if they did kill her, it was accidental. It might have been it might have involved some sort of negligence which maybe would have looked kind of bad, and maybe, you know, maybe them want to like, you know, keep it quiet. I don't know. Let's see, what what can I think of? You know, I ran over the baby with the car the driveway or something like that, that kind of thing that that would that

would be blatant negligence to try to hide. Yes, So that's one of the one of the things I'm thinking is or thinking of one of those baby shaking incidents, you know, where people don't mean to but they shake the baby and the baby's neck breaks and the baby dies and all that stuff which got its terrible thinking. Actually still effing happens. Yes, it does happen, I mean, And so it could have been something like that. So you could have done that. Yeah, No, I don't don't

like it. You don't like it. No, I never like it. You don't you don't like it? Okay, next up. So the next theory is is that Stephen Marline sold her. They crunched the numbers and they decided they couldn't afford to have three children after all, and so they found themselves a wealthy buyer and and pedalder. This has got a lot of problems too, of course, the first of

which is it's relatively easy to adopt your child out. Yeah, and so it would be a little greedy be to be like, you know, asking for money on top of that, Actually, yeah, yeah you could do it. You could definitely. She was a cute little kid. And also white children are much more into man. There's then say black and brown children. Hate to say it, but it's true. It's true people

often times. I mean I have I have a family member who they have been waiting to adopt a child for five years now because they will only take a white boy with no mental handicaps that is an infant, because they want it to look like it's there's yeah, that makes sense. Like it's like I have a lot of good luck with that guys, and a lot of personal problems with that notwithstanding, But I know that's the thing. A lot of people will pay will solve their problems. Yeah,

I mean they will not have a child. Well they will, I mean, if they're willing to pay eventually. Yeah, but I don't I guess it seems weird that it would have been yeah, five five months, right, I mean they knew from nine months prior, yeah, you know, and then to wait the additional five months and then after five months finally be like oh yeah, okay, but you would, yeah, you would think that that at that point it would have been so attached. But you bond with that baby,

you yeah, you do, but you never know. I mean, maybe she was a really crappy baby. I mean, I know, I know you're joking when you say that, but but I mean it's yes, I can see how they might have decided that they had made that they could not sustain a family of three children. You know, they couldn't afford it, so they were gonna was gonna use the word offload, but that's not the right right where to use. They need to give her to another family, and they

would like to be compensated for doing so. But again, that is so easy to do. And from the things that I've read about that girl would have been snapped up in a heartbeat and they would have been really well compensated. So this doesn't make a lick of sense to me. Well, it's kind of hard to shop your baby around without leaving sort of a trail, Like, yeah, that's so, that's that's the reason. I don't know. Yeah,

there's there's no such dot com for a reason. But there's also like, like this is a really big deal to make out of it. I know that this may sound like insane, right, but a private deal between like two people. I'm sure you get some lawyers involved, but there's there's no need for this like national attention, this national accusation of you know, oh my god, my baby

was stolen. If you have given your baby away and you've been compensated for it, like yeah, that's all I personally like not to be judge or whatever, like I think that's weird, but but I mean, people do it and then like, but why go that extra mile of calling the cops, because I would say, because that sours the deal. Well, you know, it's just like what it does make your best These people have adopted a baby

which was is now hot. That does that. But on the other hand, you've got this five month old baby you told all your friends know about, a family knows about it, everybody knows about it, and you gotta say, I gotta tell them, hey, we just decided we couldn't afford it, so we gave her up for adoption. You're probably sort of sort of you know, you know, like sort of elite over that part about how you got paid money for it. But that's a huge I mean

that would be I mean, that would be something. I mean, can you imagine what your parents would say if you had a five month old baby and you want to them and said, hey, I got rid of the baby. Yeah, totally, no, I totally I understand that concept. But also like, this is a lot of attention to draw to that. Yeah,

I know, it's it's a big sacrifice to make. And the thing is, I'm sure that you guys have heard the same snippets of the calls I have where Steve was on the call and Marlene is in the background on the phone with her mom. She is losing her mind. She is not rational, She is very wound up. If you have just sold your child, that is not what you would be like to Again, I understand I sound like I'm on their side and it's not intentional, but she sounds so effing sincere to me that I'm just like,

there's I don't see how that's really I think. I think our last theory is the best of the theories, um which we think we should get onto. You want to hear that, well, I don't, but we should talk about it anyway. Yeah, now, okay, Yeah, the sold theory is I don't know not that great. But my last theory is that one of Sabrina's siblings killed her on accident, right, I mean or not? Who knows? You know, this thing

is not as unusual as you think. I did to quit Google, and here's some of the headlines that I found. So is this uh infanticide? That the phrase? That? Is that the correct phrase? There? Now? Now it's something else when you when you kill your sibling. I can't remember the exact word silicide. I did well side. I think that's a side. You're right? Uh, I actually did this good job? And really that creached me up. I gotta

call your brother. Yeah. I actually the search string that I used was how often her baby is killed by siblings? And here here's some of the headlights that came back at me. These are all recent stories. Uh see you from Chicago. I don't no excuse me no, this is Florida. Two weeks old killed by six year old brother. Mother charged. Next one from the UK. Boy twelve stab baby brother to death from Rochester, New York police say six year old boy killed three year old brother Houston todd This

is the most gruesome with the bunch. Toddler dies after older siblings put her enough and turned it on. I really disturbed that Joe screen printed a Google search and that's what I recently heard the oven story. Yeah, that's pretty gruesome. It is, and it was I believe it was something like they just they wanted to keep the kid warm. It was chilly, and they didn't know how to keep her warm, so they were like, get in the oven. But their kids and they didn't get it.

And the implications their parents left them alone, like the six year old was in charge of the two like younger ones like what are you doing? You know? I don't know. I don't I personally would not underestimate the molevlens of children, no, but they don't understand the permanence. Was also wouldn't underestimate the silliness. And I used the word silliness because that's the way children's brains work is

everything is silly. I once lit a string on fire, thinking that it was like the fuse I watched in the cartoon. It was gonna go and run down to the thing that was blow it, and instead the fire ran up and burned my hand. And I couldn't understand why that happened. But that's that's the basic brain function. That's something every kid has to learn, is that, like the stuff that goes on in cartoons and stuff, doesn't really work that way in real life. But we see

it all the time. They see I still see that cramp all the time, and so I get it. And here's the thing about about kids, And because I've heard it. Besides these cases I just mentioned, I've heard of other cases to siblings murdering the newborn baby because well, here comes the newborn baby and suddenly, you know, I'm not the center of attention, I'm not star anymore, and suddenly

everybody's queuing over the baby. That provokes resentment, and sometimes not not often, but sometimes it provokes, you know, some sort of murderous thing, and the kids don't realize that maybe this is an irrevocable thing, like you said, yeah,

and you know, they just don't realize that. Yeah. And and of course there's also the cartoon violence aspect of it too, which is like you know, Tom and Jerry exactly, because you see that when you're a little kid, and you see that stuff in the cartoons, and the mouse claws a cat and chaos a cat. But then the cat's back and a whole and safe and fine and sound looking for revenge and you know, moments later, and

or even worse. There's I remember the Tom and Jerry cartoons where they would club the cat or the mouse and they would get their wings. They go up to heaven and they'd run around and then they would just slap back down in their body, which means, hey, you can come back. It's totally okay, come back, come back. Yeah, you know, so you know, the kids could have it could have been motivated by you know, really resentment, jealousy,

which or just complete total accidental misunderstanding. It could have been. Yeah, but that would be It could have been an accident too. I mean it could have been it could have been like well, it could have been a sort of combined accident, like like again cautious, cautious a kid with a with a brick, thinking like, hey, it's a cartoons thing, you know, it's like and it goes bunk, and even thinking something even less malicious, right like um, so you know eight

year old William creeps into the Brina's. By the way, we're not we're not blaming the child, No, no, no, I don't blame any of them. We're just right. I'm just saying. So, like he creeps in and she looks like she might be cold, so he puts like an extra blanket over her and covers her face. Right, she's five months old, get out totally suffocates. Right, that's not like,

that's not even a little malicious. Right, It's just an error of judgment because he's eight, right, and so like something like that can also happen where it's just suddenly. But that to me would be if you walked in and there was a blanket over the baby's face and the baby is now dead. I could easily see somebody saying it sid's sudden infant death syndrome, like it's it's not. It would be a stretch for the parents go oh, William, did you do this? Oh? Well this and so now

we've had a dispose of you. Just say, William, just don't say anything. The doctor is going to come of her, mommy and daddy. You're gonna cry and talk and do you know what I'm saying here, I don't want to I don't want to flush the whole thing national thought when the last time you had a month against me. I'm just saying once the last time you had a five month old baby, and then to like undertenn I've never had a five month old babies. Like, there are

some things that happened that you just don't. I think that if there if it was a case like that, there were no signs of violence, they would have just called the ambulance. And yeah, I mean I would think that too, But you know, I just I just a kid doing something on accident is not insane. I don't hear. But I think that there had to be some physical signs on the baby, which is one of the problems

because there's all this you guys have seen this. There's all these this enhanced or adjusted imagery stuff that shows images of Sabrina days before her disappearance was what looks like marks on her. And that is just so it is so bad because that that could be anything, that could be bad lighting, because somebody is now adjusting the photo to call out you know, marks and whatnot. It's

like remember the the YouTube star. Yes, the dispute was like two months ago from when we're recording, two or three months ago, and everybody was like taking stills of her and then running filters on it and suddenly she had all these marks on her body. Is like, well, it's just different lighting that you ran through something and it showed up different. That doesn't matter. Yeah, but it's it's the same thing. It's like people say, well, she

obviously was bruised and using her she wasn't. Now I'm going to get off by soapar Yeah. I think I have defended these parents enough. No, no, I think I think they can't help it. I think that maybe what they were doing was something as understandable is not wanting to destroy and before one of the children's lives because something horrible happen, and maybe the kid wasn't terrible human being. And I got I gotta say, you know, I've never I mean, I've never followed up one of these stories.

But for eight For let's say, a six year old or an eight year old who doesn't mean to cause the permanent harm of taking the life of their other sibling, I mean, they have to go through counseling and stuff like that, But it's not as if they are labeled a sibling killer and then followed for the rest of their life. Now, no, no, it's not not like that. But it's just I think that they maybe felt like if say, I think they're all give him the chair. No, no,

of course not. I mean you can't if you can't really say that an eight year old or a four year old can even form criminal intent. I mean you really can't say that. So obviously they're not going to haul them away. I actually I think eight is like when they start, and that would be that it would be like, you know, William would have been the one

when they start and implement to her and physically. But then they and they have to like, you know, prove that it was you know, premeditated and like understood what he did. And that's when they start being able to do that. But I mean, I don't think it was intentional. But I also but I also don't know that as a parent, I would trust that system right now. I would want to keep it quiet. I think, Yeah, okay, do you guys have any more theories? Yeah? Without yeah,

without taking this any farther. I mean, I really feel like we've taken all of the tread off of this pretty much. Yeah, pretty much. But yeah, so I mean the parents, I think knew something. I don't know if you guys are still believed that I think they knew something. Their motives of might not might not have been entirely entirely heinous. You know, maybe they were, maybe they would maybe they totally murder, but not necessarily. I think it was alien abduction. That it's a good one too. Yeah.

I still think that she's worried about if she's day Bobby Johnson. But that's just me because Bobby Johnson, that kid needs a haircut, So of course she should be worried about dating that guy. Okay, there's Bobby Johnson, that boy, terrible, terrible boy. Okay, it's time for a little housekeeping here. Well, you probably wonder if we have a website. Well, we do find it. It took a while, but yeah, I know, finally,

but it's called Thinking Sideways podcast dot com. You can find us, of course, on Itune, you can stream us to billions of websites, and of course it's Google play uh in all these places. If you can subscribe, give us a rating, give us a review, a really nice review that we like those better. Uh. Facebook, we have a group plus a page, and we're on Twitter. We're Thinking Sideways without the g letus. I've read it Thinking Sideways, uh, and you'll find that I've read it on read it

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it's awesome. I mean, if you're not recontributing, try we'll try to do something out there, like you know, have a blog of your own. Don't talk about unsolved mysteries, but have a blog and I want to talk about don't steal our thunout. Yeah, you know, contribute to the

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We're done with this mystery and until next week it's um chow by

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