The Disappearance of Andreen McDonald: A Larger Context

From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A production of iHeartRadio.

Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my name is Noah.

They call me Bed. We are joined as always with our super producer Andrew Triforce Howard. Most importantly, you are here. That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. Guys, we've talked about it before, but you know how social media has created a weird double life for people.

Yeah, yeah, it's sick out as something we have to contend with. It's hard, especially for younger folks who are just seeing idealized versions of everybody they know and you know, kind of forcing them to compare themselves. But it's honestly not exclusive to young people. I fight with it myself, as I'm sure you guys do from time to time.

The weirdest thing for me is that people will create triple and quadruple and quintuple lives with varying social media and other apps where they're interacting with people online as varying personas with different names, different looks, different lifestyles. It's fascinating.

And don't get us started on online dating or do because we have an episode coming out about that. It is very much a conspiracy. Appreciate that that note too about the as a Whitman said, we are vast. We contain multitudes that can't be more literally true online and even without the social media thing. Some lives look perfect on paper, just like some laws look perfect on paper.

Absolutely, I mean to quote Biggie once again, I think this came up recently. More money, more problems. I mean, it's cliche, because it's absolutely true. People get to a place where they just kind of want more and more and more, and then with that comes more and more concessions and more and more kind of issues that they have to contend with. It maybe didn't even know existed.

And past a certain threshold of financial success, it does not positively affect your emotional success. We could call it. There was a great study I remember seeing a Ted talk but not the name of the paper, which proved at the time that over a certain US dollar per year threshold, money did not necessarily make you happier. It makes you happier up to a point.

I think it's seventy, ok, is what I had heard.

Yeah, yeah, are somewhere around seventy, maybe a little north. We'd have to check back with inflation. And really quickly I realized that I didn't quote that big a thing on this podcast. It was on Ridiculous History where we had an episode on the nation of Bhutan and their happiness based economy.

Uh so they kind of have all this stuff figured out, but again not perfect.

Yeah, that was a good one. Everybody go to Bhuta because we certainly can't out afford to do so ourselves.

Well, because the money thing doesn't change, well, I guess it does affect like who you hang out with, who you end up being able to meet, right and then sure access, but it doesn't. The weird thing is that, along with having multiple versions of ourselves on you know, the Internet, there are multiple versions of ourselves that have existed over time. If you think about stuff used to be into when you were you know a younger person. Of course, people used to know then, people used to date,

But even some of those things stick around, even if they're not front and center.

Yes, yes, the multi generational consequences of every version of you. And let's also keep in mind one thing I appreciate about that point is that the version of you that interacts with other people currently may not be the version of you that you think you are, because they're really talking to their opinion about you that has largely been determined by their own thing going on.

Yeah.

There, it's the kind of projecting on you.

The filters and projections thing that we've been talking about over several episodes. Now this keeps coming up, just that we project a lot of what we see in here onto everything else.

I mean, classic human Right, you hear something you say, well, what is how is that about me? Right? Thea the old joke about the narcissist that says, hey, I learned what a narcissist is, and I'm trying to figure out how that applies to me.

And let me man explain that to you.

I think in some way it's less about narcissism and more about remember how we talk about when you remember something,

Well, and oftentimes too, when you see like maybe unhappy marriages or relationships that deteriorate, it's because one or the other have realized that they have given up some of that past part of themselves and they are now kind of pining for that time and their life, and some people go to great lengths to get that back, whether it be having an affair with an old lover from that era or whatever. That is. The there's a big draw to wanting to turn back the clock, like be young again.

Excellent excellent segue, Noel. In tonight's episode, we're exploring a tragic tale that true crime enthusiast may have heard of before, but we'll find some extra twist along the way, and that's what we're setting up tonight's question, what happened to Andrene McDonald? Here are the facts, all right, for anybody who's unaware. Who was Andrene McDonald.

Andrew McDonald was born on September twenty third of nineteen eighty nine and Port Antonio, Jamaica, Andrene and Nicole McDonald. She was the second of three daughters.

And Jamaica, port Antonio, technically Norwich District, Portland. Their life there was tough growing up. The father later left for England after serving in the Armed Forces. Lives in England. Now. Something of about the life that they lived in childhood forged great determination amid the siblings. They believed what we call the American dream. Hard work and discipline can make

Yeah, cybersecurity, not what we used to call cyber yeah yeah, but yeah, but internet activities, monitoring and securing them.

Yeah, early days for that kind of stuff, right, I mean, in terms of like that being a specialty.

It's definitely forward facing for the Air Force at that point. And you know, they have all kinds of toys to play with. She and her husband spoiler, they hit it off, they got married, that happened, they moved to Florida, and then, you know, for anybody who has grown up in a military family, or has had a partner who's in the military, or if you yourself have served, you know that for a great deal of your career, you kind of have to go where they tell you to go. So they

They moved to the very partially named Canyon Golf and Wilderness Oak area of North Bay Are Texas or County rather in San Antonio, Texas. Guys, what is going on in the Canyon Golf and Wilderness Oak area? Everything?

I see a lot of internal O rhymes O sounds fascinants.

By the way, if you see it on paper. Speaking of things on paper, they are bear is spelled like bexar.

So bx aar. And thanks to our fellow conspiracy realist from Texas who wrote into us multiple times many years ago to U kind fully correct us on that one to clarify. We get it. Sometimes there's an X and you just don't mention it. Oh, that's gonna have a weird level to it later tonight.

Isn't a little strange.

I don't know.

It's just odd to me that they moved from Port Antonio, Jamaica to San Antonio.

Texas, and that they're named Andrene and Andre.

Yeah, that actually struck me a little lot as well. Guys. I mean, there's nothing to it, but it's still those kind of synchronicities you can't help but notice them.

It's such a power couple thing too, you know, because these folks do become a power couple in San Antonio. Andreing goes on to earn a business administration degree in finance from University of Texas, San Antonio, and you can find interviews with her from local press, from local community initiatives.

She seems like a tough cookie. She says, for me to get a job, one has to be available. Someone has to create a job. But she said, basically she decided to create a job for herself at the young age of twenty two. Talk about feeling like the stuff on paper is making you feel like you're behind the eight ball.

Right right, Yeah, She knew that a college degree does not necessarily guarantee a career. Shout out to all her fellow English majors. So, like you said, Noel, twenty two years old, A lot of people in twenty two are farting around, flitting back and forth between, you know, trying to find their true north. Not so with McDonald. She founds a place called Starlight Homes, a community, a assisted living facilitator, right close with real estate, close with recommending care.

Yeah, And in that same article you can read about how she would often travel back to Jamaica, where she grew up, to do things like speak at graduations, you know, to hang out with family and friends for specific business stuff. So she was constantly I just think it's important to mention her she was constantly going back and forth from Jamaica to San Antonio, Texas.

Yeah, she regularly returned to Jamaica for a lot of philanthropic endeavors. She was also in many ways a one woman army for her business, which she technically owned a partnership with her husband. But let's remember being a US Air Force major, it's a pretty time consuming job. So she was running operations, human resources, she was running marketing.

And it's interesting too to think that this you know, fortune was made with what would seem like a pretty benevolent and charitable business model, you know. I mean, if you look up Starlight Holmes, it's basically ready made homes, kind of geared towards the elderly, maybe with some subsidies of some kind. I don't know exactly the deal, but it would seem like it is meant to be a positive resource, you know, folks that are entering the ends of their lives.

It was really interesting if you look at the two locations that they had on the map, they were just kind of it looked like houses where they would have people living in the house, the houses in the care would be given to them. And it literally started with like one person, and then there are over twenty people that she was taking care of with you know, or I guess they the couple the company was taking care of between these two homes.

And a lot of this was informed by her mother's career as a CNA certified nursing assistant and perhaps more powerfully informed by watching how her in laws took care of Andre's McDonald's grandmother. She had had to have her left leg amputated due to an accident. And so Andrena is looking at this and thinking, to your point, Noel, how can I help people right? What is a good business?

Still don't feel horrible, but now I've been trying to gym a little bit more. But I do understand that like that drive to you know, have that control and that agency over your body. It seems very like in keeping and in step with her overall drive.

Oh yeah, man, oh yeah. And we know we're talking about this established routine five thirty ish am at the gym, to the point where if she was going to miss a day, she would call them and let them know, Like, if you're a regular at the waffle house, the staff is going to miss you. I've got waffle house on my mind. Sorry, guys, just get plunch.

They're very kind of waffle house. They definitely remember you and say hello. So this established this routine that she had and a sort of predictability to her movements. So Ardie McDonald was last seen alive about seven pm on February twenty eighth, when she along with her husband and then seven year old daughter, We're seen heading home.

Says twenty nineteen. And the next day, March first, twenty nineteen, she has reported missing, no passport activity, no cell phone, nothing unusual on the credit cards. So what happened? Here's where it gets crazy. Unfortunately, as any true crime aficionado in the audience Tonight knows, the disappearance of Andrew McDonald has been solved. It's a tale of absolute brutality and heartbreak, and you can hear massively exploitative versions of it in

Yea, I saw an article the other day about how that's a thing in general.

With politics and politics.

And I felt kind of awful that it had never occurred to me in that exact way. But to answer your question, and yes, I think that is maybe a bigger problem even than just exploitative reporting and true crime. But for sure, that's a thing.

It is a little weird. I think it is hard sometimes to do storytelling when you've got a husband and wife not to use their first names and not include their last name every time you say their names. So I don't know, I think it might be a storytelling thing, at least in this like with forty eight Hours in particular.

Well in this case, I would agree, just from a writing perspective, you've got two people with the same last name, so it's difficult, such like if you were talking about Hillary and William Clinton, you would at some point have to just go by first name. But what I'm talking about in the Exploitati version really is the emotional manipulation or even the diminishing to the larger point, you're raising all the diminishing of women's work by saying Hillary instead

Yeah, And I'm sorry to keep bringing this up, but I think it's just app the way you run up the beginning been on paper, you know, it would seem cut and dry, like we know what happened, but there's just so much more to it than what's on paper, much like the true lives of people hiding behind their glossy you know Instagram accounts.

Yeah, and you can follow our instagrams. They're the opposite of glossy, you know, and they're matt Finish. Yes, there, Matte Finish. If you if we go back to the day of the reported disappearance, you can see a lot of you can see a lot of contemporaneous reporting from regional news affiliates and local media because again, this is a prominent figure in society, and one of the things that stands out, you know, a lot of this reporting is the sheer concern of the community, the amount of

I hope you're good. Yeah, But then you have those other friends that like, you know, maybe we'll call every single Friday at the exact same time and to the point where maybe you know everyone's different, but that friend not calling yes will be a big old red flag, even if you're not like the worrying type.

And so here we arrive at one of the myths that we've addressed in the past about reporting a missing person. You do not have to wait twenty four hours. It does not depend upon the person's age, their socioeconomic status, does not matter where you saw them last as a matter of fact, that twenty four hour window is probably the best time to start searching for someone. And so the local law enforcement, the sheriff and the deputies at Bear County are called in. They go to the couple's home.

Yeah, and this is on the day she disappeared, on March first, twenty nineteen. So the friends and everybody that were concerned actually went and got Andrine's mom, Maureen Smith, and brought her to the house. And that's when they called the police. That's when the Sheriff's office shows up and they start doing a walk through the house with Andre not being present currently.

Right he is, he is not on the scene. All in all, they end up executing two search warrants. Without getting too far in the details. Both of these warrants were warranted during their investigations in Andrene's car. And you know how marriages people are sharing cars and stuff. They uncover a shovel and acts work gloves, and gasoline to

The conveyor belt, yes, yes, the cave belt.

Yeah yeah. Yeah. So it's a fun game to play if you're ever waiting in line, kind of imagining the stuff people buy as clues to their lives. Right, what's an interesting eclectic mix of stuff?

Yeah, I mean if the guy in front of you by a bunch of work gloves, heavy duty rope, and a bag of lime and a shovel, you might wrinkle your nose at that a little bit.

Right, But that's exactly what he did. He bought all of those things in one go, and he had a messy There's a receipt that you can find and a handwritten note about like things I need to get from either Low's or home depot.

And it's murder stuff, yeah.

Including a hand axe and a big old axe. And you're just like m.

I already had the hammer.

Yeah, and you need big bags also with all of this stuff, hefty bags.

Now, tell me about your burn barrels.

Yeah, yeah, Well the burn barrel is really important because what they found on that first day on March first, So this is what we're talking about here, and finding this stuff is just it's like a couple of days later when they find this stuff. I think it's March second when they find this. But on that first day when the sheriff's office shows up, they and the family and the sheriff's office find blood and hair on like

Like if you were cleaning your yard and you burned track, like burned leaves. But stuff in there is not leaves.

No, yeah, exactly. There was clothing. There was a zipper that the mother identified as being a zipper from one of Andrene's blouses.

This does not look no, it doesn't. There were also cleaning supplies recently purchased. The point about buying those items all at once is that if they are purchased separately over time, these are all innocuous. Sometimes you need gloves, sometimes you need an axe or some gas. But buying them all at once is we'll see what happens to the receipt look altogether, there's a damning context, and so authorities begin to believe that this is not someone skipping town,

Yeah, Well, they usually would take their person id and you know, important things. If she did leave, the only thing she took was her cell phone, and she didn't let her mother, her husband, or her daughter or any of her friends or family know where she was going, which, you know, if you think about somebody like Andrina, at least the way she's portrayed, like in that magazine we mentioned where she was written up all the people around here.

And yeah, it just seems, well, she's buttoned up if she was, you know, like if if she was gonna go like that, she would have taken some key items. If she was leaving her husband, you know, there are definite signs for that she would I mean, unless that is to say, though, unless there was some significant abuse and she truly just had to drop everything and leave in the night. There are scenarios where that absolutely absolutely because there's horrible domestic situations, agreed.

And that's a great point. We also know the previous patterns of behavior which are not necessarily predicted to be fair. But we know that when she was returning to Jamaica, which was by far her main destination homeway from home, she let people know both in Texas and in Jamaica where she was going to be a when, because that

The stuff that he bought the day after, right right the day after your wife goes missing, and when you get when you are talking to the sheriff's office, you're weird and cagey about it and just like, yeah, I don't know, she's not here, and then made up a story about her being in the hospital. I don't know.

Even before that, the authorities started to believe something was very up and they were like, we got to look at this. Andre mcdonnald guy and Bear County Sheriff's Office deputies had already detained him that Saturday for what they called mental evaluation.

By well, yeah, of course, because he went to a gun store there he was under investigation. Well yeah, they pick him up for an evaluation because because earlier in the day, on March second, that's when he's on surveillance camera at Low's buying all of that stuff we talked about. Right then at two pm, he's under a surveillance an undercover officer is watching his house basically, and they watch him drive to a local gun store and purchase a

And leaves his ID behind.

Yeah, he's just who does that? That's bizarre?

Andre McDonald, Well, something is going on with this guy where clearly something's wrong, right, and he's also a pretty high level military officer.

So which, by the way, I was just gonna ask you, guys, does that give you more way more leeway when it comes to purchasing a firearm as a citizen, Like it doesn't supersede the waiting periods or anything like that. Right, you don't have like any special treatment because you're a ranking military person.

Shouldn't. You can get as signed weaponry, but that's from you and buying.

Something I didn't think. So I was just wondering, but it would seem that he didn't have to. I don't know what the laws are there, but he did. There was no waiting period for he got spooked. It was

No spoilers. Eventually under question, I don't know how much we want to get into the step by step with this, but eventually he admits, Okay, my wife and I had an argument. We visited our tax dude, basically the person who prepares our taxes. We were arguing over our business, which would both own.

I left.

I left during the argument. I run away during arguments, that kind of guy. And I went and got some gas and just cool off, get some space, clear my head. I have no idea where my wife could be, he eventually told the police after you know, saying what was it? She was in the hospital floated the idea that she might be out of town.

Well, yeah, it's weird. That hospital thing brings me out to you guys. And that's part of this whole thing, because it was on that first day, right when she was missing and he was at work. He had taken his daughter to school or you know, taken her to wherever she was going early in the morning, then went to work. When he got home, the sheriff's office was already there, you know, basically with the rest of his family looking for his wife. And he was like, oh,

What That's another example of.

So the mom calls a hospital and the hospital is like, no, that is not No, your daughter is not here that is a whole different person with the last name McDonald. And then immediately after that he has for an attorney he doesn't want to talk about it anymore.

Woof.

And we know that this kind of behavior increasingly added up to a picture that does not look good for either member of this couple, particularly Andrew McDonald. Now they are thinking less in terms of disappearance and more in

With all the learning that was going on, Why the hell didn't he burn it? He just tore it up and then they pieced it back together. That's so sloppy and bizarre.

Well, it is, really, it is really weird because it's on March second when they find that stuff in his trunk, right, it's on March second when the search warrant occurs, and that's when he buys the gun, and he gets picked

And he initially admitted to buying these cleaning supplies. He's being led away by deputies. He reportedly kept his statement very short. He said, I love my daughter, I love my family. That's it. He denied any involvement with his wife's disappearance. He got released on bond. Meanwhile, all the while the search Frandrine McDonald continued.

And we're back, guys. This stuff is so damning, Like every piece of evidence that has come up, it's borderline makes you think was someone setting this guy up? Like how could somebody be this stupid and and committing this kind of crime. And I'm not suggesting that, but it's just good lord.

It's very hot dog story. Yeah, I think you should leave. Uh huh yeah.

Well, well, to my mind analyzing it, you know, from this high up, in this far away in time, it does seem like there was a lot of panic happening here and that it wasn't fully planned out. It was Oh crap, what do I do now? Oh crap, Well, I I guess I gotta buy these things. Oh crap, I guess I need a gun because if it goes bad.

Or whatever, be meditated the cover up, it might have happened in a big old blow up, knock down, drag out fight.

And that's not according to what he eventually says in any either trial or anything. That's just what I'm well, actually does kind of line up with what he's.

Saying he does. Yeah, it's pretty apparent. I think that this was not This was not a plan decades in the making, you know what I mean. This was not a pre medicate, premeditated execution or operation. But we do know, if we go back to this twenty nineteen era, we do know that the Sheriff of Bear County grows increasingly certain that Andre McDonald has for some reason murdered his wife.

Yeah, that is kind of odd that there would be that much of a backlog that you can't even get, you know, to a trial unless they were doing some kind of investigation still and they had to wait for that to conclude before they could take him to trial.

Just seems so open and shut, you know. I mean, but again, we're not, you know, the ones prosecuting cases like this, So perhaps there is something to what you're.

Saying that, Well, if you've got a body that's that decomposed and you don't have proof, like, how do you convince a jury that he is definitely the guy that killed his wife? Right?

Because technically all the physical evidence we've talked about would be deemed circumstantial, all of that stuff that he.

Bought, right exactly, Yeah, it doesn't prove anything in it, and any defense attorney could probably throw that stuff away. So what you needed is, I'm assuming a DA would say we need to find something that's really going to make this.

Stick Dnair confession. I mean, a defense might not be able to sway the jury against the conviction. There there's a lot more context to it, I think, but the possibilities there and yeah, DA would be much more happy with evidence that was conclusive rather than circumstantial. I mean, the prosecution establishes McDonald has a history of domestic violence,

So, on the sixth day of the murder trial, nearly four years after Andrea's death, Andre McDonald detailed his version of events. This included the sharing of text messages that were retrieved from his phone showing that she had likely been having an affair.

Or he believed she was. Allegations of infidel that's right, she was still The big point of contention between the couple and at this juncture was that we mentioned Andrew McDonald grew up in Jamaica and had previous boyfriends. Andre McDonald was intensely concerned about Andrene being in contact with one of her ex boyfriends, a businessman named Aubin au b Yn Hall, who was also from Port Antonio, Jamaica.

That, and that's when the text chain was happening. That's when Andrene says, quote, if you bring up Auben again, I will divorce you myself. And then he responds, I don't care if you get a divorce. You brought Auben into our life, right.

And one of the some of the high octing gas on the fire here is that Andrine had gotten tattoos recently. One was the initial A stylistically tattooed on her on her hand and that cool little part between the thumb and the pointer finger, and then a date tattooed on her wrist. Audre is good at the internet, so he does the digging, you know, the obsessive partner digging, and he finds that the guy he considers his romantic rival, Aubin, has the same tattoo.

Right here on like on his throat, the big A. And it's the exact same it's.

The same style. It's like a twist in a noir, you know. I mean, it's the moment that you realize what's happening. It all comes into full focus. And this guy was clearly a very jealous man. He'd already made ultimatums about the stuff, and yeah, it was well.

Also in a court of law that would still be circumstantially. You can't get mad at people for tattoos. But if you're a partner and you're already worried about something, just imagine if the love of your life you getting a tiff with them and then you see, oh, they've got your tattoos. Oh they got oh matching tatty makes it sound even dirtier.

Oh yeah, because it's not just one tattoo, it's multiple tattoos. And if if you can just put yourself in that position, not to like take sides in any of this stuff, but just imagine being the partner in that. You can be grumpy, that's what I'm not grumpy. You would be betrayed and feel horrible that you would feel. It would be like a different it would be like a type of death.

It's level, it's true.

But so her second tattoo that she gets and her husband doesn't know this at the time, she gets it on her wrist fourteen three seventy six, and Andrea was unsure what it was. Turns out it's the other dude's birthday, so the fourteenth of March nineteen seventy six.

Yeah, she's pretty messy too, to be honest.

And I like that we're unanimously nined on this point because this is not victim blaming. This is understanding the perspective of another person, I knowing that is still circumstantial in the court of law. I think it's fair to say that anybody in a committed relationship already with problems would be over a very bad moon about this kind of activity, for sure.

Exactly. It's just really important to note that finding out about this extramarital affair or whatever was going on there, which was at least according to several of Andrean's friends confirmed. Yeah, but it didn't happen just before she was killed, right.

Just before the disappearance. Yeah it was it was years. Yeah, yeah, it was quite a while before. But this did upset the balance of the marriage. Andre was convinced his wife was cut holding him with her earlier boyfriend, and she threatened divorce, you know, unless she promised to do the following, cut off contact with this guy, even when and if she travels back to Port Antonio, cover up all those tattoos that she gets and promises never ever to travel

Business as well, it would seem yeah, that's what he said.

It's not great. It wouldn't be great if that were actually the fact. But I don't know how much of that is. You know, was established. I guess through discovery during the trial that was like, yes, this is definitely happening. Here is the business. She was using these funds to do whatever we don't have all those facts. We have we have what was reported from most of the transcripts from the trial right about a lot of that stuff, but it's not in full.

And we don't have Andrea McDonald's testimony.

Exactly right, So we don't know fully what was happening. This is this guy's opinion. There is stuff from there. The tax who was it? It was their tax preparer that they were using together, right, right, then ended up coming up with a lot of that stuff. But theoretically, what would that what could that mean? You guys, if she's got a secondary.

Business, she's working our way towards escape.

Like divorce or or breaking the yeah, the thing into like theoretically.

Having her own thing.

That's where Yeah, that's that's where they talk about the phrase that she would have used or maybe this is you know, people quote each other or misquote and misconstrue each other all the time in arguments. So we we can read a few tea leaves in some of Audrey McDonald's court statements at the trial. He says, quote, she became extremely angry at the thought of us splitting the business, by which I think they mean taking that first business and splitting it in Twain.

Issues the starlight homes Yeah.

And he says, she charges into the room to confront me. She comes right up in my face. At that moment, she spat her spits, he says, in my face. So at that point I grabbed her, and I think we had a clash of heads, and I think it opened up a cut somewhere on her face. And the rest of his testimony is frankly quite disturbing because he is describing in his mind accidentally killing someone but definitely meaning

She is significantly taller than him and looks well, you don't see a lot of him on Instagram, you know, being super strong. But her Instagram is still up and you can still find it, and she she was strong as well. I can imagine him being intimidated at least, but worried that she's gonna kill him or I don't know, I.

Yeah, no, it's cuily. It doesn't matter in the context of things. But like, we can't we weren't in the room. We can't. We can't even really speculate on the ferocity you know, of an exchange.

Like this, Right, we only given that the only witness is someone largely nonverbal. Right, The only non involved witness there physically the child.

Just to remind me that she was on the spectrum like to an extreme degree.

Yes, yeah, and we're hearing. We're hearing someone choosing to confess to a murder and then choosing the way in which they confess it. Now, was Andrening in great shape? Absolutely power lifter. Does hype matter that much in a fight only if you're fighting with boxing rules or something that can strange your activity. But that is what he said. He said that he was frightened and he did not He meant to hit her to protect himself, but he didn't mean to enter life.

It would seem to that wouldn't be surprised if he was coached to set the scene in this fashion.

Oh that's a great point, Noel, because he did have a defense team, and he lawyered up very quickly when the sheriffs initially contacted him. So he tells the court he puts their daughter back to bed, and after you know, he calms the kid down and puts her to bed.

He returns only to find right that has happened.

Now instead of calling nine, one.

Dumps her body in a field.

Yeah, Christ take her, takes her clothing and burns it. And also I would assume you guys told me. I would assume this is at the point where he also captures the phone, right.

At least imagine.

So yeah, So with all this, I mean, it's very hard for us to hear an argument that this is circumstantial, because it's legal to buy all all those items at one point or another. It's also legal to buy a gun and leave it in the store, or to go to a store not by a gun.

Yeah, I get I get caught up on this sometimes, guys. I'm interested to hear your thoughts, like, you know, yes, those things create this like seemingly sure a sense of what happened, and yet they are considered circumstantial. I'm just wondering what that being considered circumstantial and it admissible or whatever for direct you know, conviction. What protects does that offer us from that being misused? Because this just seems like an example where it should be a slam dunk

Yeah, let us know what you think fill a conspiracy realist, I believe that's a great question. I mean, you could see, we know in the past circumstantial evidence has led to wrongful convictions. Right, A kid who maybe buys a cell phone from someone who's fencing cell phone, so that cell phone was from a murder victim.

Sure, but why didn't this circumstantial evidence on its own? It seemed like it required the confession.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I mean it goes back to the burden of proof, right, What is beyond a reasonable doubt, what is a reasonable out? The jury Eventually, based on this discourse, they find McDonald guilty not a first degree murder to the earlier point, but of manslaughter. And like you're saying, it's primarily due to his testimony in court, Yeah.

And we should have mention there too. According to some of the jurors after the fact, they were split down the middle six and six for manslaughter or murder, and nobody thought he was innocent, nobody thought he was self defense. They were just like, no, this dude killed his wife, but do we charge him with murder or manslaughter because of the situation surrounding, you know, whatever was happening and the moment of panic and all that other stuff like how much do we how much do we weigh that?

Yeah, there's also another ten gentile twist here. A few days, I think, like two days forty eight hours before the trial, he texts family members and talks about this, but kind of like getting his story straight to them via text, in what some called a move to make sure he could steer the conversation towards manslaughter rather than murder. Either way, he is sentenced. He gets twenty years in prison, where

Yeah, And after all that, a custody battle kind of rages, because of course there was the most heartbreaking part of this story to me anyway, the child there who might have witnessed not only ongoing potentially domestic abuse and you know, disturbances between the parents who had seemed perpetrated by by mister McDonald, but also potentially was a witness to her mother's murder.

Yeah. Yeah, And with this, with this custody battle, eventually, you know, Andrew McDonald's mother wins the case.

As civil at this point, right.

Yeah, Well, they're trying to figure out, you know, where's the safest home for the kid. So then yes. In twenty twenty three, Andrew McDonald's family wins a pretty significant civil that's also wrongful death case for two hundred and ten million US dollars and damages against Andre McDonald.

I had that kind of money, No.

Not that we know of. And in August of this year, as we record August of twenty twenty four, his most recent appeal was just denied. So it seems for now he will continue to serve the time. But this there's a stranger profile here, you guys, because it's portrayed as a crime of passion, no premeditation other than post fact

What the heck? Yeah, that's a twist, I mean, but it was also been to your point, especially here in the Dog. Perhaps it is an indication of that continuum of generational trauma and violence that we talk about a lot on the show.

I'm wondering, I'm wondering. We know the father, Everton McDonald, known as Beachy Stout to his friends and his co defendant Oscar Barnes were later found guilty in Jamaica's Supreme Court for at least the death of Tanya McDonald. You can find a piece on this in the Jamaica Observer and a couple of other local papers. Apparently he had tried to pay a guy named Denvelen Bubbla Minote three million dollars to kill his wife or Beachy stout hat, and he gave him exact instructions. He said, stab her

That's there is this cay getting three million bucks.

That's another question, right.

I'm sorry. I do feel like we're ending with a few open questions, yes, which is fine.

And folks, I love the point you made. Know about bringing up more questions. There are things we can't answer. But we can't answer one question right now. Why are we bringing up this case long after it's been solved, long after this innocent child has been saved. Well's primarily because we see a disturbing trend in violence against women. You know, and in these cycles of abuse, did the son learn from the father and feel physical violence was appropriate.

Well, it's a big deal her in Andrea's life too, because according to her co workers, according to some of her good friends, she was in an abusive relationship and she was she would come in with scratches on her face that her friends would take note of and ask her about, and she would, you know, she would even say to them, ohs Andre, you know it's Andre, But I don't know, Like how when there's something like that, how do we effectively have stuff in place so that

It's just so difficult, though, because oftentimes there's that Stockholm syndrome of it all, where they know they don't want to be loud about her, they feel compelled to defend the abuser. And that's the real complex part of it. And it also involves a lot of psychological abuse. And coercion and just having people breaking people down to make them feel as though they need you.

You know. Normalization and erosion of boundaries can sent the one thing and then driving tonimalize your horrific behavior toward others. Yeah, I agree with these points. Domestic violence cannot simply be legislated away. It's a multi, multi generational pattern. It comes from many different sources. There are resources available to help folks, and that's why we're looking at this story today. Please please, please be safe. Thank you so much for tuning in.

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