AUDIO EXTRA: Unsolved Mysteries Part 1 & 2

Hi, Crime Junkies, and happy Crime Junkie Thursday. I love this new little summer thing we have going. I hope you do, too. Well, today, let me give you the spiel just one more time. Mondays are Crime Junkie days, but for the rest of the summer, we wanted to celebrate five years of the Crime Junkie fan club by celebrating you, our fans.

And I'm Britt, and personally, I am incredibly offended that you are not also the host of Unsolved Mysteries on Netflix. You are right here. You don't have time, but you could make time.

Listen, I can't tell you how many times I told Netflix, I have a trench coat, like if that's what you're waiting for.

Exactly, exactly.

It's not like they found someone better. There was no host. So that's actually part of what I want to talk about. We want to give you guys the Unsolved Mysteries recap, Crime Junkie style. You're watching it.

So, to be fair, I was way more of America's Most Wanted person than an Unsolved Mysteries person. So I was going in a little bit, maybe less biased than someone like a diehard like you.

Okay.

But the lack of a narrator was super jarring for me.

Okay, right?

And like, obviously no one could ever hold up to the late, great Robert Stack.

No, I mean, they tried to replace him. It did not work. So they had to bring him back. Right.

But like, there's still like no one kind of like telling the spooky story, which is half of the like, I hate to say fun, but like half of the allure, maybe, of the episode, is someone kind of like leaving you on those like cliffhangers. And maybe it's also like a little bit of like millennial bias. I miss the commercial breaks where you're like, oh, I didn't even think about that. And then, like your local grocer is like, hey, we have bananas on sale this week. Like I kind of miss, like the nostalgia factor of having like a solid commercial break.

So I actually kind of agree with you. Like, I mean, I grew up on Unsolved Mysteries, so I have that like appreciation and miss the nostalgia of it. But I definitely was in America's Most Wanted Girl. I've said it a thousand times. John Walsh was my boyfriend.

Well, and like, and again, like coming back to what you said, like. I appreciate hearing the stories of people involved or people close to the case, or, you know, the victim's family and friends. I appreciate them maybe having like a louder voice or a more prominent voice in the episode. That was amazing. And that was something that maybe we didn't get as much of in, like the old school one.

But it's a double-edged sword, right? Exactly. We don't get that because we have one case per episode, whereas part of what I missed about Unsolved Mysteries is they could take a case that no one else could cover because there wasn't an hour of content. So they would do like three cases per episode. And I think that's what made it so great.

a lot of cases, were the only ones talking about it.

Exactly. Because, again, they were like, OK, we just need to fill 10 minutes of content, not an entire, like 40 minutes of content with each story.

The episodes were almost told in like a vignette style. So you have multiple stories within one, you know, 43 minute television episode. Was there a lot to go off of? No. But that's why Unsolved Mysteries could cover it, like you said.

Yeah. So I'm a little bit... Concerned, isn't even the right word. I am... Well, maybe it is.

Yeah.

And again, for the 11 out of 10, how much I loved it, I want to talk about the episodes and all the things that I loved, about them and theories. So we split up the episodes. I'm going to do one through three. You're going to do four through six. Let's dive in.

So episode two, on to episode two.

So in episode two, which was titled 13 Minutes, we learn about a woman named Patrice who went missing. And again, we've all seen it, but I'll just give you like a short recap, and then we can kind of talk about the things that stood out to us. So Patrice drops her son off at school, goes to work, she works at a hair salon and literally in a 13 minute window, hence the name of the episode, she goes straight up missing.

Which, right off the bat, blew my mind.

Yeah, I mean, we talk about this a lot. I feel like it's more common than we even believe where, like these things happen in almost these unbelievable windows of time.

Impossible. Yeah. Yeah.

So when police get there, once they realize she's missing, something's amiss, they realize that money had been taken from the register, but not from her purse, which did have cash in it. But the purse was actually rifled through. And this is something that I got stuck on for a long time. Like, if you're there to steal the money, steal all the money. No?

Right. Like it's a robbery for a reason.

But is it? And that's the big thing is what was the motive for this crime? And that's something that, to this day, I don't think the public really has an answer to. One of the things that I thought was super interesting is, you know, they make a big deal in the episode about where her car was parked. So normally she like backed in, she was right on the side of the building.

Yeah. Or even like the purse in general, like credit cards, cash, whatever is in there. Like, why not just like, throw it over your shoulder and take it along? Yeah.

And that is to me like what makes this look like a staged robbery. Because again, I'll just take everything out of the cash register and all I need are the keys. And that's what this person leaves with. So she's missing. And do you want to talk about Rob?

I mean, where. to start, honestly?

I mean, we should start by saying this dude probably should have passed on doing the documentary because even though police have openly said like he has an alibi, it seems to check out.

So sketch.

We're looking at other possibilities. Yeah. He looked so bad. And there were like a couple of quotes of his that I literally like had to rewind and write down because I was just so like taken aback by them. Like, there's one time when, you know, they're talking about her being missing and people are like, you know, they didn't have a great relationship.

stuff, and, you know, don't get me started about like loading the dishwasher.

It's like you and Justin are still fighting about that.

We don't fight about it. We just cannot be in the kitchen when the other one is doing it. That's it.

That's like because you've learned that if you do it together, it drives a division in your relationship.

I mean, basically, there's probably like a point in like Rob's section, but like we fight about dumb things all the time. Yeah.

But here's the thing is like when I ask you about you and Justin fighting, you had something immediately that came to your mind. One of the other things that stood out to me is when Pistol is also talking about how, you know, his mom was talking about divorce a couple of weeks before she went missing, and these issues again and again, it's posed to Rob. all of this and he's like, this is new information. I never knew she was interested in divorce, which might be true. Like if someone is looking to leave someone, you don't necessarily like give them a heads up.

Oh, no, honey. I remember every issue. Yeah.

And you know, you remember everything always. But in any relationship, especially like when someone were to go missing, like I would just think back to every fight I had with Eric and be like that. It didn't matter. Like why are we even wasting our time? To me, it seems like something you would kind of fester on and you would at least remember again, we could not get over the dishwasher.

But it was like a thing that's like been in our relationship for, you know, eight years or whatever.

And so this is something that starts to come out in the documentary is this division, this disgruntled relationship between Pistol and Rob. And I? at first, you know, when you start, I'm thinking that Rob's going to like defend himself and he just is straight up like basically no, like. I hated that kid. He was awful.

And like it kind of reminds me of like when kids go missing and like the parents never move away. Like you, never. like you always want to be that home base for the person that you love who went missing. You know, like, yeah, you don't change your phone number. You don't change your cell phone number.

And I'm sure if you were to like pose that to him, he would say, well, she could just knock on the door like I'd be right there, whatever, which I listen. You can. I'm just. I'm just trying to like play devil's advocate. But I under no circumstances understand that happening within 24 hours.

And it's incredibly too soon in my unprofessional opinion.

Well, and it's a home that you share with her son, your stepson. And like the amount of like cruelty I feel like I could feel when Rob was talking about this, and he was just like, listen, like it's good riddance, like someone else can take care of him. Basically, like I didn't want to have to be looking over my shoulder and worrying about this kid, too. I had enough going on. Don't you think he had enough going on?

No one has contact with her.

No one has contact with her. Rob and Pistol have like almost no contact with each other. Pistol goes to live with his biological dad. But eventually, after a few years, Patrice's remains are located in a wooded area not too far from where she was abducted. It's kind of interesting.

I mean, but that's the only thing. I don't know. Yeah.

Neither do I. And again, was it like a personal thing that someone wanted to take it? Was it a money thing? Was it, again, to try and throw off the scent of something in a robbery? It was weird.

I've said everything I can say. I'm not going to say anything else. Like believe me or don't. Yeah.

Like put up or shut up kind of thing.

That's all I have to say, I think.

Yeah. So for anyone listening who hasn't seen it, or maybe it was days ago and you can't remember. So Rob's last farewell is he asked the person who worked at the funeral home to take all of Patrice's bones and lay them out and like, basically reassemble her so that he could come and say goodbye. And what he says is, quote, reassemble her, lay her out for me. And when they do that, they like give him a moment alone and he picks up her skull and, just like, carries it around with him for a while.

he says, which is like the, honestly, one of the wildest things of this episode, because he flat out says it.

Oh, is it the wildest thing? Because? Well, first of all, before I go to the next bananas thing he did, is he had a line at the end of that where he says, you know, he kisses her goodbye. He puts her skull back with her body and he says, quote, that's the last time I saw Patrice anywhere near intact, end quote. I rewound this twice.

Like, what does it mean? Why is he saying it? Why is he saying it out loud, to like on a mic? Like? there are so many questions.

Intact? When did you ever see her not intact? Like that's? that's my question. And again, we don't know how she died.

The last time I saw her intact. Did I see her? Did you see her un-intact later?

So he has her cremated. He gets her home and then he says that he sleeps with her ashes like she was his teddy bear.

It just makes my stomach turn a little bit.

Again, I don't know what it's like to lose a spouse. I don't know the kind of grieving. But, like you, just walked around with her skull. Now you've got like a build-a-bear of ashes.

That's a phrase.

Yeah. One that I never thought I'd have to say. Yeah.

I mean, there's just so many questions as like his reasoning, even for some of these things, even again, coming back to defend him, even if he had nothing to do with anything. This is all.

Well, we said this all the time. Right. I mean, police are saying he has an alibi. Like we're really not looking at him anymore. I don't feel like I heard the words like we totally cleared him.

And on top of that, like you, coming back to another thing that we say a lot, too, like you never know how you're going to respond to the loss of someone close to you if and when that happens.

Yeah. And here was something I found interesting, though, because, again, he says he's sleeping with these ashes like a teddy bear. But when the producers ask to actually like see them, granted, it's been years. I'm sure he doesn't sleep with them anymore. But he, like, has to go to his hall closet and is like, oh, she should be in here and is like digging around.

ages, whatever.

Yeah. But he pulls out this box. from within the box. It looks more like it was made out of plastic or what, or something. It's black.

Which is wild in the moment. Yeah.

Because I'm like, OK, so you've been, you've had these for years and years and years, and not that you need to look at them. But for someone who carried around the skull and was sleeping with them, I find that very surprising.

You would kind of expect it to be, you know, like on an urn, on a shelf, on a mantle, somewhere displayed.

Not at the bottom of the closet floor. And that's what's so upsetting to me is because he clearly, you know, whatever he did with them before, however, he treasured them before. Now they're sitting on the floor in his hall closet. And Pistol has said like he won't like share them with him. He's never been able to see his mom's remains.

And I yeah, it's kind of like a spiteful thing for him.

It's so bizarre. It is so bizarre. But again, police have said he has an alibi that seems almost irrefutable to break. He had a receipt, right, like a timestamp receipt from getting gas and then some kind of like automated thing at his work when he like comes in and out. Now, the thing I don't know that I tried to look up but couldn't find is, is he on camera?

I feel like. that's why we're recording this episode today and not four days ago. Yeah.

But I can't. I don't know. I mean, I honestly would like anyone in her life, because one of the witnesses said no one said they saw a man matching Rob's description. to be completely clear. They see like a long haired, one person says it's a man, one person says it's a woman, but it actually matches Patrice's description.

In like a completely different area and setting. Well, yeah.

I just don't, I can't think of a scenario that, that makes a lot of sense. Like, I think some people had brought up like, oh, maybe she was in a hurry or maybe she was coming back. And I'm like, I don't think there's a scenario where Patrice was driving. Do you?

No, I don't think so either. It just seems completely unlikely for that to be the scenario. But I mean, there's, there's going to be a theme in like every single episode we cover, but like there's so many unanswered questions. It's hard to say yes or no. either way, you know?

Yeah. So I don't know. Again, unsolved mysteries. We don't know why her car was parked there. We don't know who was in the blue car, if the blue car is relevant.

Neither did I.

And I did not see this coming. Based on the title of the episode, I literally was expecting like some kind of crazy, bloody massacre of an entire family.

Yeah. And like, I don't do well with those sorts of like spooky things. So I was like bracing myself hardcore.

Yeah. So we like open in this cute little French town. By the way, mad hard to take notes when also reading subtitles.

Like for like Midwesterners, maybe like, kind of like a Michigan basement, but even a little bit different because it's under a porch instead of the building.

Yeah. Like, I mean, I would have to crawl on my hands and knees, I think, to like go under there. Like nobody, even if you were short, it's not like you can just stand up and walk and go in. But they find all five people and the dogs like wrapped in trash bags and buried in the ground. But as they're uncovering all of these bodies, guess whose body isn't there?

So many times, like, over and over again. And it's, I understand, like situations are dire, but God, why kill your family because of it? I cannot get past it.

And it's all like with these family annihilators, it's all like the psychology of it, right? Like it's they, part of them thinks that they're saving their family, this shame or something, or it could really be. I mean, I think it's different for each person. Some people think that they're saving family shame. Some people it's all about their own shame and they don't want their...

Yeah.

Like, okay. I don't have to answer to my family because my family isn't here anymore.

Right.

One thing that I had a hard time picking up from the documentary is I really couldn't tell where his friends like stood on the matter. Because at the beginning of the episode, I feel like they spent a lot of time being like, I knew him. He couldn't have done this. He had a bad back. There's no, physically, there's no way he could have like gone under that, what we're calling a Michigan basement and buried them.

But then they kind of waffle a bit. Yeah.

But like, but yeah. And then towards the end of the episode, like in a, you can tell it's a separate interview. They're like, this is, I just can't believe it. This is so hard to believe. So they almost have come to the realization that, listen, this is real.

I mean, in my opinion, it almost has to be. And I think we talked about this even in, you know, Robert Fisher, like you said, a really good example is like, you. don't just do this without knowing your next, like three steps.

Yeah. And I, you know, they said it, I think in the episode, and I think it's something we've talked about too. And we did a little research on family annihilators is that often family annihilators will take their own life as well. Or, like in the case of Robert Fisher, like he went on the run, but he was like really trying to hide. It literally felt like this guy was leaving breadcrumbs, almost like, I want you to know where I'm going, but, but he wasn't found.

Like, was he acting alone? And, and like to answer this Reddit user's question, I just had to move my 34 pound daughter from the floor to her bed in a span of three feet, at the age of 31..

Mm. hmm.

Very difficult. Well, yeah.

I mean, and again, you have four almost adult sized teenagers and some in their twenties.

and you aren't, I mean, not that I'm spry by any mean, but you have a back injury, like impossible.

Yeah. And so to have it all done in one night seems a little bit improbable to do alone, but I also found in this same article, so again, this is on Reddit, take it with a grain of salt. Apparently there are a few users that have been, quote, discussing alleged sightings of the deceased family members after the dates that they were believed to have been killed.

What?

Yeah. So I'm going to continue to read. So quote, one person who claims to have found a French blog posted by Xavier's family speculates. up to nine people saw Ange, the wife, alive after the date. police said that she was killed.

So. Okay. Yeah.

So I don't know what any of that means and I can't verify a French blog. So again, Reddit, grain of salt. But was this some sort of like, I don't even know what they're implying. Some sort of like family suicide pact or like, or maybe the mom helped them or him? or again, I don't know what this means.

Yeah. It just seems not only unlikely, but impossible.

In the same Newsweek article that I had, I found it super interesting because they had said that, specifically, the bullets were found inside their bodies, meaning that they didn't like leave, but there was an exit wound. So what that is suggesting is that the bullets would have had to, like, exit their skulls, but like hit something and bounce back in. So in this article, they theorized, well, what if they were killed in a bathtub? and that would explain like the no blood, it would explain the exit wounds, but the bullets still being inside of them, but what? it doesn't explain to me, and I guess we don't know the levels of sleeping pills in their system, but it doesn't explain like this, isn't, you didn't just kill like one person, or even two, like little kids.

There's. no, I just, well, and again, like coming back to the fact that this is like a crawl space, Michigan basement situation, the bathtub would have at least been on the main floor above that, if not, you know, a second floor. I don't remember the outlay of the building, but like, again, like you said, one at a time in the bathtub, bang, take them down at least one flight of stairs, in theory, to this crawl space and then do it all over again with no one stopping you.

And well, even if you like, even if you made it like, again, there was a silencer, I guess, but even if you like, kill them in the tub, cleaned up the blood, moved them out, moved the next person in the tub, like it's still, I mean, you can do, and like no blood trail,

like if you shoot them in the tub, yes, like the majority of the blood is going to end up in the tub that you can rinse and clean out, but like you have to move them then.

But yeah, you'd almost have to wait for them to like bleed out in there.

Exactly.

It doesn't make any sense.

Is it like more communication or more connection, or more like information?

Well, I'm saying like, not even that, no, just like the carnage is totally toned down. So, whereas they might totally like bludgeon, their wife or their daughters, or even younger sons, like the amount of damage to the body, specifically to the face, you will see, will be far, far less because they see that first born son as like an image of them. And so, when I heard this whole thing, I kind of wondered if he sent Thomas like off to university because he like was trying to spare him. But then, like, after everything was done, he realized he couldn't. Or even it was just like the one that he was dreading the most, or he like never wanted Thomas to wake up.

He was kind of putting it off. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So, so crazy. You know, he's still on like France's, like most wanted men list. No one has seen him. No one knows where he could be.

OK, so episode four is the death of Alonzo Brooks. And basically on April 4th of 2004,, Alonzo goes to this farm party with some friends, about 50 miles away from his home in Garner, Kansas. And like as a farm kid, like, I totally get exactly what kind of party this was. It was in this abandoned house in this tiny town called Lachine, Kansas. And he was one of the older guys there.

And that's like the thing that stood out to me. the most is I was like crime junkie life rule. There's a reason. this is a rule. Like you come together.

Right. And I think we talk about this a little bit in some other episodes, but you know, that's kind of like, at least to me, like a girl code, like you do not let your friend walk home by yourself. You do not let your friend walk to her car by yourself. And I feel like it's getting more prevalent now across the board between like genders and stuff. But like in 2004,, like especially in Kansas, in the middle of the Midwest, like they're in the middle of nowhere and guys are tough guys, like they don't need someone to make sure they're going to get home.

And that's the person you're saying. that's the perception, that's the perception.

Yeah. Like, as someone who grew up in a similar area, a little bit younger, but with the same sort of like attitude of people, like I totally get that, like. it would be very surprising if, like one of the guys I grew up with would be like, are you going to text me when you get home to another guy? Like? that would never happen in this timeframe, in this area, in this mindset.

She's sassy. I like her.

Oh, she was. She's like my favorite person. 100%. So law enforcement, like, goes out, they search for him. They bring out, you know, tracking dogs and helicopters.

No, not happening. No, no.

Like I can. You've seen me. I can barely make it through an airport sometimes. So all that happened again, like at the beginning of April, it was like April 4th, 2004.. And this entire time, his family is like, you know, can we help?

I feel like I'm out of my element. Like, clearly, this is not my expertise. I don't. I've never conducted a search. I've never found anyone.

100 percent. And obviously, an autopsy is performed and the ME can't really determine a clear cause of death. There's no, you know, penetrating injuries based on not only the body, but he was also completely closed. So like? there's no like rips or tears.

Well, yeah, but is his hyoid bone intact?

Well, and that's the thing, like the ME said, that there were no broken bones. So I would assume that that would be included in that. Yeah. Yeah. But the decomposition of his body is severe enough to not really be able to determine if there was, like, you know, like bruise marks on his neck or anything like that.

So. So then we have to kind of assume that he was kept somewhere else, which would make sense. Like if law enforcement did the search, they said, if someone knew, OK, they're going to be coming in and searching. So let's make sure there's nothing for them to find. And what we've seen, I mean, this is not the first time I've seen this, where a body is found in an exact place someone has searched because the perpetrator knows, like, hey, they kind of already like check this area off the map.

Right. And I brought up that he was one of the only people of color at the party, because there have been some rumors that maybe a white girl at the party had flirted with Alonzo and he flirted back. And some of the guys at the party, you know, didn't like that, took him out, jumped him and and actually killed him. And a lot of members of the Brooks family believe that Alonzo was the victim of a hate crime. And even some of them have stated that while at the party he had been called derogatory terms and had even been told, quote, he wouldn't make it out alive.

End quote. Which, again, maybe this was hard for people to believe a few years ago, but in the climate that we're living in now, to me, this isn't hard to believe at all. I mean, exactly. Literally here in our own state, in Bloomington. I don't know if you have read about this, Britt, but I have.

And then it didn't happen 16 years ago. You know, if it's happening today, we have to believe and have to know that it was happening 16 years ago, 25 years ago, 40 years ago, 400 years ago. As of March 2019,, his case was officially closed by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation with a statement that there was no evidence that Alonzo was a victim of a crime and there was no reason to continue the investigation.

Which is bananas, because, like, if you're saying he's not a victim of a crime, then you need to have like a logical explanation for how he died. And then tell me, tell me how he died. Tell me how he wound up there. If there was no foul play, it's not fair to just say, man, we don't think so. We're going to close it, because we just have this like feeling.

Right. And as far as I could see, his death certificate still says his cause and manner of death are both undetermined. So if they're undetermined, you can't rule anything out, you know. And but the thing is, the FBI is currently offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone involved with Alonzo's death and have officially federally reopened it. Thank God.

jam. Yeah, I'm all about it, though.

Yeah. So I watched it. I watched it a couple of times. It's interesting, but I'm just not. I'm just like such a skeptic about these things.

I don't think it's real about it.

I don't know. So this is going to be quick, because, again, like, I'm not a huge fan, or even like convinced about a lot of things when it comes to UFOs.

I didn't realize you were not a believer.

I mean, I will say, like in the past couple of months, I have become more accepting of the theories. So this happened back on September 1st, 1969, in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, and like not just in one area, like across the entire county, multiple people had potential interactions with UFOs. The episode goes through like a handful of people, by a handful. I mean, like a lot that I like had to race to write down. You know, some of them are driving and there's like a huge flash of light, and then it's gone.

What I thought was so interesting is of these accounts, it seems like a lot of them involved kids, because, if I'm remembering correctly, and granted, I didn't take notes because this was one of yours, but I watched it twice. If I'm remembering correctly, they mentioned something about kids, like multiple kids being on the ship. And I know that some adults had some kind of interactions or at least saw something, but it seemed like it was very. whatever had happened, was very focused on kids. And like, if you could bend your mind for a minute and pretend you think aliens are real, like what is it about kids that they're like going for?

them? I mean, that's kind of like. my only explanation is like or like. maybe they know.

that their minds are more malleable at that age and, like they, that's what they want.

That's like, yeah, maybe they're more receptive on top of the fact that, like if they were to experience this and tell someone who would believe them.

What are your thoughts on? So, again, I want to believe it's real. I kind of believe it's real. What are your thoughts on it being the whole town in on a conspiracy theory? Because one of the things that to me is bananas is that, like everyone in 69, just kind of assumed no one would believe them.

Well, here's the thing. It's actually been like acknowledged as a historical event in this city since. And one of the children, one of the boys who is said to have experienced this phenomenon, like even raised money with other people in the area to erect a monument commemorating the event. It's since been torn down and he's like petitioning the city to like re-erect it. But it's still technically on the books as like something that happened in this city as of right now.

That's what I'm saying. It reminded me of like a little Stephen King town.

Exactly. And like. one person even said, like, if you usually got roast beef and got a chicken sandwich the next day, like people would talk about it. Like. it was very, very small and everyone was connected.

Oh, I'm so on board. Like I either need a big conspiracy and this whole tiny town is in on it to like, make their town some kind of like tourist stop or whatever. But honestly, what I really want to be real is I want this to be real. And I'm I'm so down to believe they got abducted. I just I'm unwilling to believe that we are the only life form out there we had earlier this year.

I was going to say, the only reason I'm giving this, like 14 grains of salt instead of one, is because of what, like the Department of Defense, put out with videos.

I can't believe you, trust them of all people. And like they, are the biggest liars.

I know, but like this was a reenactment and that was supposed footage like I will give them like and like. maybe maybe it was just a distraction from coronavirus. I don't know. But like someone higher up than a couple of people in Massachusetts said, this happened. And I don't know, it's just a little bit more confirmation that, like it could be possible.

Aliens are totally real. We can move on to the next one. They're real.

OK, so the last episode that Netflix released is the disappearance of Lena Chapin.

This one was crazy.

Yeah. So it kind of starts out with, you know, her sister stopping by Lena and her boyfriend's house, asking where Lena is. And her boyfriend's like, oh, like. she ran off with someone else. And they're in Florida now.

Yeah, it was so funny at the beginning of the series when her daughter was explaining, you know, she liked to go for men. I can't remember what the first thing she said, or or the ones that have brothers. And I was like, that's oddly specific.

And then she was like, and then she married a brother and then his brother.

Yeah, I'm like, oh, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.

Yeah. And, you know, Albert was like this really laid back, dad.

So laid back, in fact, that he couldn't even put away his boob for the for the interview with Unsolved Mysteries.

I'm sorry. I love Albert.

I loved him, too. He seemed like the sweetest. The girls loved him.

But like, he, like reminded me of my papa.

Like, I would be lying if I said to you that the entire time I was like, God, Albert, just button your shirt, button your shirt.

So Sandy leaves Albert for his brother, Gary. And Gary is a different kind of stepdad. He's kind of more of a drill sergeant. He's more structured. He's.

Gary probably buttoned his shirt.

But he like had the girls on like chore schedules and made sure that they were, like, you know, kind of progressively like improving their life through like different experiences, if you will. And he would also be kind to them in the way that, like, if you complete your chores, we can go get ice cream. Like, there is like a reward for your hard work. And I appreciate that. Honestly, seems pretty legit.

there. Yeah, he's like been like wiped from his own property, basically.

Yeah. Like, there's none of his stuff, none of his clothes, nothing. But there is a checkbook that belongs to this, Chris guy. And he actually moved into the house, like days later. And law enforcement, you know, asked Sandy to take a polygraph.

That was the thing that stood out to me the most.

And like, of course, that means there's a body to find.

Exactly. But of course, what we end up learning like later in in the series or in this episode is like. she can only be that bold and brazen because she knows there will never be anything found.

What is happening. Exactly. And, you know, the police interview the kids and everyone is just kind of like, I don't, I don't know. Except for Lena, she gets really defensive, and, you know, she even told her sisters like not to talk about things, not to say anything. But one of her sisters, Brandy, remembers that when they got home from school that day that Gary first went missing, their mom was like, hey, you know, I think I think the cat had kittens out in the field.

Like, it's not. And Albert, I think Albert has to realize what a scary person that her mother is. A hundred percent. And who knows? I mean, again, as the series goes on, we learned that this woman would honestly have no qualms with like taking out one of her kids if she felt like they were getting in the way.

And Lena was only, you know, 13 when Gary went missing. And immediately after, Sandy, Laurie is up and actually gets Lena to retract her statement. But, you know, she eventually tells her sister Brandy everything about how Sandy killed Gary. And Brandy even brought it up to Sandy and was like, hey, what's going on? And Sandy and Chris, her new husband, you know, take Brandy out in the middle of the field and threaten her life because of, you know, what she quote, unquote, claims to know.

about this. For me, this was one of the most, like, gut-wrenching points in any of the episodes that I saw, when Brandy is literally talking about how her mother, her own mother, who she earlier told stories about her, putting her to bed every night and being there every day, is driving her out to a field where, presumably, her boyfriend is going to shoot her daughter. I mean, I mean, when she talks about getting in the car and, just like, the only thing I could think to do is just to hold on to her because he can't kill us.

Because being close to her was the only thing that would save my life. And it wasn't immediate. She even says, like, I clung to my mother for minutes before she said, don't shoot her.

I have no idea, like, how Brandy went on. Like, because again, they go home together and she knows from then on her mom is willing to kill her. Like, how do you not walk on eggshells? How do you live in that environment and grow up normal, whatever normal is? I just want to, like, reach out and hug Brandy.

As if that wasn't, like, as jarring and as evident as we could find for the potential guilt of Sandy. At one point in time, another one of Lena's sisters, Robin, was posting missing persons flyers around town.

Yes.

And it was later found out that Sandy, their mother, was paying a younger sister, like it was, five dollars a poster to take them down.

I couldn't.

What kind of mother?

What's so interesting is I, I felt like I knew nothing about this case coming in, but something about that resonated with me. So I don't know if I heard that in another story or if I had heard this story in passing at another time. But I think that is so bananas and so outlandish. Like, also, if she's missing and you did something, if you got rid of her in a way.

Wouldn't you want to just keep the missing posters out there? so people are looking for, quote. unquote, her when you know where she is already?

And even if she doesn't know where she is, like, it also it's just a bad look all around. Like, what is the missing person's posters have to do? The only way a missing person poster works is if the person is actually walking around and someone's going to spot them. If that's not the case with Lena, why?

What's the point of taking them down?

Other than like, other than like a power move, right?

Right. So there was eventually a civil suit heard in the wrongful death of Gary against Sandy and Chris. But the taped confession that Lena gave wasn't admissible at all. And the sisters, as well as law enforcement, truly believe that Lena was aware of what happened to Gary and had maybe even helped. Sandy.

Which is so bananas.

I mean, it is as someone who has worked in and around family law. It's not crazy, but in this case, it seems completely outlandish. Sandy and Chris were found guilty of wrongful death in civil court in order to pay seven million dollars to Gary's daughters. But there have never been any charges in the disappearance of Lena. And, based on the documentary, Lena's sisters seem to be completely estranged from their mother and continue to seek answers and justice or anything on the disappearance of their sister.

Yeah, this is one of those crazy cases that I think that I pray that Unsolved Mysteries brings a ton of attention to, because I just can't believe that the case stands where it does. It seems like there's so much, it seems like it's so clear. It's one of those cases where, like we have a recording of somebody who's saying exactly what happened, but like, because of, you know, legal loopholes, we're not allowed to use it. It's just all so unfortunate. And I hope that this case really does get the attention it deserves, because I again, I don't think I had any clue about this case before Unsolved Mysteries.

And something that was at the end of every episode, which I'm sure you noticed, Ashley, was. if anyone has any information on any of these cases, they usually post something specific to the case. But you can also go to Unsolved.com and submit your information there.

And hopefully we'll be back with more review stuff, if you guys like it, when the next episodes drop. And we'll see you then.

Right. Yes.

Yeah. Constantly making new content. But that doesn't mean we don't want to give you what you asked for, even though it came out a while ago. We're back with the second installment of Unsolved Mysteries. And honestly, I needed a minute to break these down, because the ones that I have.

Oh, wow.

Yeah. So let's dive in and break down the last six episodes of the new installment of Unsolved Mysteries.

Right. Like you.

Yeah, I'll never be part time. So Christmas rolls around and it's a normal Christmas. Like everyone says, he's happy. Like the family has a great time together. They all come together, even though he travels a lot for work.

Like he's working the entire time and we can see that.

Right. And a lot of the emails he was sending was actually to his wife, because they were fighting. This got left out of the Netflix documentary. But I don't think it's necessarily, you know, I don't think she did something to him, which might be why they left it out. But they were fighting about him, like leaving their family time and going into work.

Yeah. He like completely interrupted their like staycation.

Right. So he's like emailing her to try and make up for all of this or whatever, try and make things better, smooth things over. So we know he makes it to D.C. But the thing is, instead of staying downtown, like he said he was going to, we know that by 730 he is actually in Delaware, where they have a second home. So his wife's in New York.

So, as you know, I have a million questions, but do we think that he was maybe lying about the break in because he had lost his phone at some point?

Maybe. so. I think everyone wants to say yes, like like he knew he left his phone. if he was the one that did the smoke bombs, which even his wife and a lot of people think that it was him. Once he realized he lost his phone, he was like staging this whole thing.

So he said he'd lost his briefcase, security badge, key fob and phone. The phone is found across the street, but none of the other items are found at all.

Yeah. And he has, like, again, a really high up job in security. And his firm works with, like, the DOJ, you know, National Defense.

Like, these are important things to have not only on your person, but like make sure they don't get into anybody else's hands.

Yeah. So we don't know a lot about what else happens that day. Again, we don't have him with his phone to track him. But we do know that by 6 p.m. he walks into this local pharmacy by his home.

So then why ask the pharmacist for a ride?

That's a great question. Now, the documentary on Netflix says that he did find someone in the pharmacy to give him a ride. And they actually show some security footage of him, like walking out with what looks like a younger man. I searched high and low.

Of course you did.

To figure out who he left it, because I think that person holds so much of the answers, right? Because the thing about this case that everyone points out is, even at the pharmacy, even though, like, you know, he's missing his phone, some weird stuff's going on. When he's at the pharmacy, he's walking normal. The guy he talks to says he's talking normal. He's coherent.

There's no like erratic behavior or anything that would cause anybody any sort of concern.

Yeah, but then, 40 minutes later, after he's done with this ride with this stranger, he shows up in a parking garage on their surveillance footage, like completely disheveled. He's holding one of his shoes. He has no winter coat, which he didn't have before, but it's like freezing and snowing outside.

And he's not wearing one of his shoes. Yeah, holding one of his shoes.

And what I read is that one of the shoes is like broken. So what on earth happened in that 40 minutes?

Between point A and point B, right?

Yes. So he's like going around in the parking garage looking for his car is what it is that he he needed to get right. And the people, the attendants, are asking him like, well, where's your parking ticket? Because he couldn't find his car. And that's when he tells the attendant, well, my briefcase was stolen.

So he's just like mixed up.

Yeah, but it's worth noting, though, because at first I heard that and I'm like, oh, this is like super bizarre. But everyone on the documentary, like everyone in his family, said that it was actually super normal for this to happen. He was terrible with directions, and he was actually known for like going to work in his car and coming home in a cab because he forgot where he parked.

So I feel like that's very me. So I I'm like sympathizing.

Yeah. So, even though it's weird that, you know, the shoe stuff's going on and, you know, he doesn't have his coat.

But the actual interaction and situation of, like him, being in like the completely different garage, is not out of the realm of possibility.

Yeah, I don't think that necessarily is a sign that he like had some kind of mental break. But it is worth noting that something they talk about over and over in the documentary is that Jack was diagnosed as bipolar. He'd been on medication for a long time. Usually, his wife said he was pretty good about taking his medication. When she saw him, she didn't feel like he was on, you know, the brink of anything.

Well, and you kind of wonder, like, I never, ever want to blame a victim's family, obviously. But like, could the stress of like him having to go into work and upsetting his wife trigger something?

No, and I don't think that's blaming them. But I think that's just how we all react to different stressors.

Yeah, like he had that, like we know that he's coming off this really relaxing holiday. And then this surprise work thing possibly happened and he has to disrupt that. And it's a change of his routine. It's a change of his plans. He's upset his wife.

Right. So I think it's totally possible that he was in some kind of state. But if it was as simple as that, this wouldn't be an Unsolved Mysteries episode. So from the parking garage, he disappears for a little bit and then he reappears in this building in downtown Wilmington, where he was trying to go. So he got there somehow.

It was like, I'm going to go.

Yeah. No, but no. Yeah. Knowing he was there earlier in the day makes it seem even more deliberate. Like it wasn't just.

Go back almost.

Right. So he goes to this downtown building. And in the Netflix documentary, they tell you he kind of like roams around. He probably slept in there. But there's more information in The Washington Post.

But we know he has money, or at least had money, because he told the pharmacist.

Well, and here's the thing. He ends up being found later with his money. So, you know, he still had his money. So he spends like literally overnight in this building, in like the basement tunnels of this building. At some point, he trades his suit jacket for a black hoodie.

Like. there's no motive for a mobbing or robbing if he has all this stuff still on him.

It does not make sense. And when they look at his body, they rule it a homicide by blunt force trauma. And of course, you know, a lot of people are asking, well, you know, if he's in the landfill, maybe he was in the truck from the dumpster and he could have gotten all these bruises that way.

Which was my initial thought. Like, maybe it's just like, you know, he was in the dumpster and got put into a compactor or something and then went to the landfill. Like, maybe these are posthumous, but ruling it as a homicide means that they aren't.

Right. Everyone like, concludes there is. I'm like, this is something that people argue about. Right. Like, I think we've seen that in cases before where you got one side saying one thing, one side saying another, multiple autopsies.

Right. And with his injuries, like, was he unconscious and someone thought that he was dead or close to death? And dumped him there? or, like you said, like, did he crawl in there by himself? It's so strange.

Yeah. Now it gets stranger because when they find his body, police learn who he is. And of course, they call the police where he lives in Delaware to say, hey, you know, we have a homicide. And they live in your town. And they say, super strange that you're calling us.

The second home in Delaware.

Yeah. So his neighbor had like come over, and this is when, you know, Jack's like roaming around. So this is all happening kind of at the same time. Neighbor walks by and sees that his windows open and they're all like friendly. So he wants to like go in and let him know.

Or was it him in the state of not control?

You know, I think him having bipolar feels like the easy cop out for this. You know, anything we can't explain, we just point to that. But it doesn't add up for me.

Yeah, there's still a lot of things that just don't quite align with it enough for it to be like the end. all be all. Yeah.

I mean, I think that he was definitely in that home on the 28th, because everyone, even his wife, believes that he's the one that set the smoke bombs off. He did not want those people building the house. They were in this big legal dispute. He had even purchased, like black clothes and a ski mask. Like right before they found a receipt for it.

And if he was like, how did he get into the dumpster again? Like, even that is a great point. Yeah. Someone would have had to put him in there, or he wasn't dead yet. And he crawled there to die or for safety.

It's just, there's something missing.

It's another question. Like every time you come up with a solution, every time you think of like, oh, I bet it was something like this. Five more questions pop up.

Yeah, this is one of those cases where nothing fits 100 percent. I feel like we have a lot of unsolved cases that we talk about, but in most of them, I can say, like this scenario, like everything fits. We can't prove it, but it makes sense. In this case, I can't think of a single scenario that explains everything that we have and that we've seen. I don't know how you solve a case like this with evidence that we have.

Yeah, yeah. It's almost like, especially in this case of all these episodes, in my opinion, it's like we have a puzzle in front of us, but the pieces are from different puzzles.

Yeah, exactly.

So, like you could make three different puzzles with this, but you don't know which one you're working on. And so all the pieces are in play.

So, yeah, this one literally had me pulling out my hair. It's going to keep me up at night. Oh, Unsolved Mysteries.

I literally cannot comprehend this, because it makes zero sense to me, like in any capacity, like, OK, maybe some shady place on the wrong side of town.

OK, but I feel like shady places are like want their money up front more than anyone.

But like, OK, maybe skip the ID there, whatever. But like a high end place, you're spending a decent amount of cash on it. You're going to want some collateral. You're going to want the person's name, at least a down payment, maybe not the full thing. Like, you know, like you check in, they're like, we're going to put a deposit on here, just in case you break something or whatever, but nothing.

Yeah, this isn't like 1924, where it's like a handshake and a man's word. Like 1995..

but it had her prints on it, which doesn't matter anyway. Like that's confusing.

It is. It had her prints on it. So what do you do with that? There are some clothes in there, but they're only like shirts and jackets. There are basically like nothing for the bottom half.

Like. they were like ripped out, right?

They were like cut out.

Yeah. Yeah.

More than anything, when you really look closely at the body itself, that's where things start to get really strange, because the way the gun was positioned. So if you're thinking about holding a gun, your pointer finger is usually like on the trigger, even if you were to hold it to yourself. But the way that she was holding it was her thumb on the trigger. And so, basically, all the experts were saying that with the recoil, it would have like flown out of her hand almost when the trigger was pulled.

Yeah. So I'm actually like imagining this, and with like my eyes closed and my hand up right now, like the recoil would almost cause you to throw the gun.

Yeah. But it's found like sitting on her lap, like she's holding it the way that they think she potentially could have shot herself, with the thumb still on the trigger on her stomach. And more than anything else, there's no blood on her hands. There is blood spatter all over this room. There isn't a single bruise.

It can't.

Yeah, it doesn't happen. The other thing that they made note of was that she had this briefcase, and the only thing in the briefcase were like all of these bullets. So if you're coming to this place with the intention of taking your own life, you don't need a suitcase full of bullets to do that.

All right. You pack one.

Yeah. It doesn't make sense. Now, I want to say they do everything they can to ID this woman, but I don't think that that's true. They do run her fingerprints even through Interpol, thinking maybe she's a spy because of the cut out tags or whatever. They try and track down her family by going to the address that she gave when she registered for the motel room.

Well, and I assume they tracked down her name. Did it go anywhere? Oh, no, of course not. So it was a fake.

Yeah. Fake name. She even, like, spelled it differently when she would sign it. So I don't even know what to make of that. But that's super strange.

So, even if there was a Lewis, his name likely wasn't Lewis.

No way. And this is the other thing they didn't do, or at least there's no answers on the Internet of what came of it. They didn't seem to get any kind of answer from the hotel of why they did not make her show ID or give any form of payment. I don't know how this is still a mystery this many years later. Like, who checked her in?

I would say, I guess my question is, like, was it that hotel's protocol to do this? And they just didn't one time? Like, again, like you said, there's no answers. This is Unsolved Mysteries. We understand that.

So anyone can just walk in and say, like, I'll take that room, pay you later.

Yeah, it doesn't make any sense, especially for, again, a high end place where you're wanting your guests to be comfortable and secure, and confident in your ability to take care of them.

Now, here's something that I found that was not in the documentary that I think is uber important. So there is this guy. Obviously, they talked to apparently not the hotel people, but they talked to the people who were like on her floor at least. And there was this guy who was in the room right across from hers. And no one knows a lot about this guy.

So how did they know?

Right. Well, it's how did they know? But who is the they? So did the hotel staff really tell him that? And then again, they didn't take the ID.

And as he's talking to police, he's just like, well, the last time I was at the hotel, this is what they told me. Yeah. Realizing it would kind of put him on one side or the other of things.

Yeah. He's making up a story about this death that maybe he knows about for different reasons and saying that someone told him, but not knowing that his story doesn't add up. Now, looking at what records I could find, his hotel room was right across from hers. Now, one thing they brought up in the documentary was that if there was someone else in her room, they would have only had 15 minutes to get out of there before security came back up and went in. If his room was across the hall, say he was in her room, I think it'd be really easy to quickly get back there.

Yeah. I mean, you and I have had hotel rooms across the hall from each other. It's like 15 seconds tops.

Right. And here's the thing. I lean a little more towards this man knowing more, rather than the hotel staff, because there's one other thing. She ordered room service the day before she died.

Oh, and it wasn't like touched, right?

Well, no. So her stomach contents showed undigested food, which means that she had to have died shortly after eating this meal, not a full day later. So here's the problem, too. And maybe not. Maybe I go back to thinking someone at the hotel is involved, because how are we supposed to believe the security guard story?

How is there a gunshot 15 minutes before she's found?

Right. Now, there is something that could explain it. There was actually a second shot. Apparently someone had shot like through the pillow, through the mattress, and like flip the pillow over. So whether she did that or someone else did that, it was done before she was shot.

It could be whenever. Right.

Yeah. But then did they. they make the noise and make like do the shot so that people would find her, because people weren't finding her fast enough. The guy had already checked out at that point. I literally am spinning in circles.

Like she picked it up while she was walking by or something.

Well, but not her, because her fingerprints weren't on it. There was an unknown fingerprint on it that they still to this day have never been able to identify. And there was also, apparently, an extra comforter in her room, which I assume is not.

protocol for the hotel.

No. But here's my question. This is where I'm like the most. like basic things, I feel I could have solved this case, or at least like helped solve this case earlier. Here's a question.

Yeah. Or like. was there any sort of request from that room number for an extra comforter? Because, like, you know, like there's a pull out bed, you want an extra comforter, whatever. You would have to ask for that or extra towels or whatever.

Yeah. It's just so messy. And again, all of this that I found about the undigested food, I think that's what I spiraled on the most. And this guy that maybe knew about her murder beforehand, to me, everything points to her being murdered and being murdered a full day before she was found. What that means, I have no idea.

Like, yeah, for sure.

Let's figure out who she is already.

OK, Ashley, this one, I honestly just can't understand the premise of how it starts. It's I can't. It's called episode, is called Death Row, Fugitive. So basically, this guy, Lester Eubanks, he's 22 years old when he really, truly, viciously murders a 14 year old girl. If you guys want to watch episode, it's great.

Isn't that the most terrifying?